A report issued last week compared 63 well-known companies for the efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, with some surprising results. Apple’s bad rating surprised me, for example. Few companies seem to be taking it seriously, though there are commendable and already well-known efforts from companies like WalMart.
Companies were scored based upon their performance in five areas: board of director oversight; management execution; public disclosure; emissions accounting; and strategic planning and performance. The detailed criteria are quite complicated, and the authors warn against comparing scores of companies in different sectors. Winners and losers in some of the sectors studied are as follows (all scores being out of 100):
· IBM with 79 vs. Apple with 28
· Tesco with 78 vs. CVS with 12
· Intel with 72 vs. Texas Instruments with 28
· Nike with 71 vs. Abercrombie and Fitch with 0
· Johnson and Johnson with 71 vs. Roche with 49
· WalMart with 69 vs. Bed Bath & Beyond with 10
· Coca-Cola with 65 vs. Anheuser Busch with 38
· L’Oreal with 54 vs. Estee lauder with 24
· Marriott with 53 vs. Las Vegas Sands with 7
· Starbucks with 52 vs. Burger King with 6
The report was commissioned by Ceres from RiskMetrics Group. For more information click here where you can also download the full 316-page report.
Showing posts with label individual action. Show all posts
Showing posts with label individual action. Show all posts
Monday, December 15, 2008
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Disappointing Tesla Roadster
I was invited to California this week to test drive a Tesla electric roadster on a closed course. A short course was marked out with cones at a small general aviation airport, and drivers got to try the car out one at a time, each driver getting five runs.
Early cars had two forward speeds, perhaps to reduce noise at speed, but they had clutch problems so now there is just one forward gear. (Electric motors give maximum torque from 0 rpm, so neither a clutch nor multiple gears are necessary.) With no gear box, there was nothing to do but hang on and steer. And of course accelerate and brake.
Acceleration was impressive, all the more so because it required no skill and was accompanied by almost no noise. The brakes were strong but the ABS seemed to allow enough slippage to induce violent squeals from the tires and for me to wonder whether it was actually functioning. While on the subject of brakes, Tesla claim that the car has regenerative braking but it really doesn’t, at least not as normally understood. When you lift off, there is some engine braking effect, as the motor functions as a generator, but there is no attempt to capture energy from actual braking. I did not consciously test how great the engine breaking effect was, but it did not seem any more than a normal car to me, suggesting that one would probably have to be very gentle on the brakes to get the advertised range of 240 miles out of the batteries. Which is not the way one normally drives a sports car.
Unlike the ABS, the traction control is very obtrusive, and unfortunately the track layout made this shortcoming very obvious. It incorporated a long 180-degree bend during which the car would understeer violently. At least, the Tesla engineer blamed this behavior on the traction control, which in theory can be switched off though we were not allowed to do so for this test. I suspect there might be more to it than that. In any case, it defeats the object of traction control if you have to switch it off to make the car safe.
These shortcomings may be less obvious in daily use, though this is not the sort of car in which one is likely to be doing a lot of motorway cruising. The car has more or less zero luggage space, so can be regarded only as a toy or maybe a commuter car. Given its price ($109,000) and heritage (it is built by Lotus on a stretched Elise chassis) one would hope that it would be fun to drive, but from my short test I think a Honda Fit might be more enjoyable. Everyone I met from Tesla was friendly and appeared knowledgeable, and I wish them well, but somehow I feel that the company at its core doesn’t quite get it. Not that there is anything about the car which could not be fixed, especially if they could involve Lotus in developing out the flaws.
Early cars had two forward speeds, perhaps to reduce noise at speed, but they had clutch problems so now there is just one forward gear. (Electric motors give maximum torque from 0 rpm, so neither a clutch nor multiple gears are necessary.) With no gear box, there was nothing to do but hang on and steer. And of course accelerate and brake.
Acceleration was impressive, all the more so because it required no skill and was accompanied by almost no noise. The brakes were strong but the ABS seemed to allow enough slippage to induce violent squeals from the tires and for me to wonder whether it was actually functioning. While on the subject of brakes, Tesla claim that the car has regenerative braking but it really doesn’t, at least not as normally understood. When you lift off, there is some engine braking effect, as the motor functions as a generator, but there is no attempt to capture energy from actual braking. I did not consciously test how great the engine breaking effect was, but it did not seem any more than a normal car to me, suggesting that one would probably have to be very gentle on the brakes to get the advertised range of 240 miles out of the batteries. Which is not the way one normally drives a sports car.
Unlike the ABS, the traction control is very obtrusive, and unfortunately the track layout made this shortcoming very obvious. It incorporated a long 180-degree bend during which the car would understeer violently. At least, the Tesla engineer blamed this behavior on the traction control, which in theory can be switched off though we were not allowed to do so for this test. I suspect there might be more to it than that. In any case, it defeats the object of traction control if you have to switch it off to make the car safe.
These shortcomings may be less obvious in daily use, though this is not the sort of car in which one is likely to be doing a lot of motorway cruising. The car has more or less zero luggage space, so can be regarded only as a toy or maybe a commuter car. Given its price ($109,000) and heritage (it is built by Lotus on a stretched Elise chassis) one would hope that it would be fun to drive, but from my short test I think a Honda Fit might be more enjoyable. Everyone I met from Tesla was friendly and appeared knowledgeable, and I wish them well, but somehow I feel that the company at its core doesn’t quite get it. Not that there is anything about the car which could not be fixed, especially if they could involve Lotus in developing out the flaws.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
TightWatt Pool Pump Controller
I told myself I would post regularly from London during my summer sojourn there, but you know what they say about good intentions. I am now back in Houston and am glad to report no damage from the hurricane. None except for the pool, that is. I am not sure about the exact order of events, but the large amount of tree debris in the pool combined with the lack of electricity for a couple of days triggered a visit from the pool guy. He could not get the TightWatt pool controller (see my blog in February) to work and bypassed it. I emailed the manufacturers, Allen Concepts, and was given instructions to “reboot” it by switching off the power and removing the battery. This worked a treat, but the pump itself was still not working properly so the pool guy came out again, after which I found the TightWatt was not working again. This time the reboot did not work, but Steve Allen of Allen Concepts offered to replace the unit. So I just wanted to publicly commend the company for its customer service.
The product itself worked faultlessly for about a year prior to the hurricane and credit it with saving me in the region of $900 per year. (Say a reduction in usage of 4 hours per day on a 4kW motor, at 16 cents per kWH.) Check it out at www.tightwatt.com, and btw I do not have any affiliation with the company other than as a satisfied customer.
The product itself worked faultlessly for about a year prior to the hurricane and credit it with saving me in the region of $900 per year. (Say a reduction in usage of 4 hours per day on a 4kW motor, at 16 cents per kWH.) Check it out at www.tightwatt.com, and btw I do not have any affiliation with the company other than as a satisfied customer.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Suburban Slums?
In February and again in April I posted about the threat to the future of the suburbs caused by higher energy costs, so I felt vindicated by an article in Thursday’s NYT business section taking the same view. (“Fuel Prices Shift Math for Life in Far Suburbs”) According to Moody’s, real estate prices in the suburbs are declining faster than in city centers. The article quotes urban land use expert Christopher B. Leinberger, writing in The Atlantic Monthly that “many low-density suburbs and McMansion subdivisions, including some that are lovely and affluent today, may become what inner cities became in the 1960s and ’70s — slums characterized by poverty, crime and decay.”
With oil recently hitting a new high, and with carbon taxation or trading almost certain within the next few years, I see every likelihood that the trend in fuel prices will continue upwards (though of course there may be temporary dips) unless and until we actually start using a lot less of it.
Meanwhile I am 3 weeks into life in central London, where the population density is such that I can reach almost anything I want on foot and where an abundance of public transport makes the occasional longer journey a breeze. I realize not everyone can live here, but most cities in Europe offer good public transport and America is going to have to follow. According to the NYT article, the average suburban household in America already spends over $3000 a year on gasoline; as this increases the incentive to move inward will increase and the value of the suburban property will decrease.
My message as before is to get out of the suburbs while the getting’s relatively good.
With oil recently hitting a new high, and with carbon taxation or trading almost certain within the next few years, I see every likelihood that the trend in fuel prices will continue upwards (though of course there may be temporary dips) unless and until we actually start using a lot less of it.
Meanwhile I am 3 weeks into life in central London, where the population density is such that I can reach almost anything I want on foot and where an abundance of public transport makes the occasional longer journey a breeze. I realize not everyone can live here, but most cities in Europe offer good public transport and America is going to have to follow. According to the NYT article, the average suburban household in America already spends over $3000 a year on gasoline; as this increases the incentive to move inward will increase and the value of the suburban property will decrease.
My message as before is to get out of the suburbs while the getting’s relatively good.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Pressure Sensing Valve Caps
A few months ago I bought my wife a set of pressure-indicating valve caps from TerraPass. These contain a red LED which flashes when the pressure in the tire is more than 4 pounds below the correct pressure, which is preset the first time you attach them to the valve. I bought them primarily because my wife had suffered two flat tires in a short period. Both times the tire was destroyed and she was convinced she had driven a significant distance with them partially deflated. She says she cannot tell whether they are inflated properly or not, and indeed it is impossible to detect under-inflation visually until it is quite extreme. Modern tires have much firmer sidewalls than the cross-ply tires of old, so the pressure has to get down to about 10 pounds per square inch or less before under-inflation is obvious. This is exacerbated in the case of my wife’s Subaru Legend GT Wagon by its low profile (45 series) tires.
Driving with under-inflated tires is dangerous, and – more important at least in the context of this blog -- even a relatively small loss in pressure increases fuel consumption. Fortunately we have not yet had cause to see the new valve caps in action, though I did test one of them by deliberately deflating the tires. They have the potential to pay for themselves quite quickly in saved gasoline.
Driving with under-inflated tires is dangerous, and – more important at least in the context of this blog -- even a relatively small loss in pressure increases fuel consumption. Fortunately we have not yet had cause to see the new valve caps in action, though I did test one of them by deliberately deflating the tires. They have the potential to pay for themselves quite quickly in saved gasoline.
Monday, May 19, 2008
Double Pane Window Update
Just a quick note about the first few weeks with the new windows mentioned last month. The latest electricity bill is 40% less than the average for the same month in the previous 3 years. There is obviously a lot of variability between years due to different weather etc. but I think this is very promising, especially as the bill includes only about 3 weeks with the new windows.
I also think the house is more comfortable; a bigger temperature gradient across the window means smaller temperature gradients inside the house, so the whole house is closer to the temperature at the thermostat.
I also think the house is more comfortable; a bigger temperature gradient across the window means smaller temperature gradients inside the house, so the whole house is closer to the temperature at the thermostat.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Future of the suburbs.
A couple of months ago, on February 16th, I suggested moving to the city as a way to reduce one’s carbon footprint and cost of living. Clearly, we cannot all do that at once, but I suggested that it might be prudent to move sooner rather than later for purely economic reasons. Now it seems it might be too late. NPR and others reported recently that house prices in the suburbs have decreased considerably more than in city centers, where prices are actually still rising in some places. (See http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89803663 for this report and links to earlier related reports.)
It is interesting to me that this is all happening without any government action on climate change, just because of the price of gasoline. (Indeed, the cost of the externality of greenhouse gas emissions, and hence of any likely carbon tax or cap-and-trade system, is only a few cents per gallon, paling into insignificance compared to recent increases in gasoline prices.) With Saudi cancelling plans to expand its output, and Russia and Nigeria both announcing that their supply has peaked (at least in the short run) there seems every likelihood that the price of oil will continue to climb. Meanwhile, a recent study by Rice University indicated that gasoline prices are at a low point in comparison with crude oil prices, so I think we have seen the end of cheap gasoline until such time as we don’t need it any more.
I suspect that prices in the suburbs may never recover (in real terms) from their recent falls. An article in the Atlantic (http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200803/subprime/3) even suggests that today’s suburbs may become the slums of 2025, though that seems unlikely to me. If people are moving into the city because suburban life is unsustainable (read “too expensive”) it is hard to imagine that the poor will be able to afford the cost of heating/cooling large family houses or of commuting. I suppose single family houses might get divided into apartments and convenience stores, and maybe occupied by those who don’t need to commute because they don’t have jobs. I think it is more likely that they will continue to be occupied by the relatively well-off, but that the price of houses will decline further and further to compensate their occupants for the high costs of maintaining that life style. Or maybe we will all have hydrogen cars using hydrogen from clean sources, and the suburbs will come back.
It is interesting to me that this is all happening without any government action on climate change, just because of the price of gasoline. (Indeed, the cost of the externality of greenhouse gas emissions, and hence of any likely carbon tax or cap-and-trade system, is only a few cents per gallon, paling into insignificance compared to recent increases in gasoline prices.) With Saudi cancelling plans to expand its output, and Russia and Nigeria both announcing that their supply has peaked (at least in the short run) there seems every likelihood that the price of oil will continue to climb. Meanwhile, a recent study by Rice University indicated that gasoline prices are at a low point in comparison with crude oil prices, so I think we have seen the end of cheap gasoline until such time as we don’t need it any more.
I suspect that prices in the suburbs may never recover (in real terms) from their recent falls. An article in the Atlantic (http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200803/subprime/3) even suggests that today’s suburbs may become the slums of 2025, though that seems unlikely to me. If people are moving into the city because suburban life is unsustainable (read “too expensive”) it is hard to imagine that the poor will be able to afford the cost of heating/cooling large family houses or of commuting. I suppose single family houses might get divided into apartments and convenience stores, and maybe occupied by those who don’t need to commute because they don’t have jobs. I think it is more likely that they will continue to be occupied by the relatively well-off, but that the price of houses will decline further and further to compensate their occupants for the high costs of maintaining that life style. Or maybe we will all have hydrogen cars using hydrogen from clean sources, and the suburbs will come back.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Double Pane Windows
As I write this the builders are finishing up the installation of our new double-pane windows. After much research I went with PowerPane3 from Home Craftsman. These windows are slightly less efficient than the same company’s SuperPowerPane product at filtering radiated heat (Solar Heat Gain Coefficient of .2 instead of .18) but transmit more visible light (45% compared to 28%; they are virtually indistinguishable from regular glass) and are slightly more efficient at insulation (U-value of .31 against .32). I will be monitoring the energy bills carefully and will report back.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
SmartStrip Saga
As previously posted, my experience with SmartStrips has been mixed. The one controlling my entertainment system seems now to be working reliably, except that there is a delay of about 30 seconds between when I switch off the controlling device (the tuner/amp) and when it shuts down the other devices. (I don't know why this is but it is not important. Maybe the tuner/amp goes thourgh some power-down procedure.)
The other SmartStrip still refuses to respond to switching the printer on and off. As noted before, the printer draws 13 watts even when off, so that would hardly be satisfactory anyway. I ended up replacing the wall socket with one with a switch and a light to indicate when it is on. The wall socket happened to be about waist height, so this just allows me to switch everything on and off without crawling under the desk to get to the power strip.
The other SmartStrip still refuses to respond to switching the printer on and off. As noted before, the printer draws 13 watts even when off, so that would hardly be satisfactory anyway. I ended up replacing the wall socket with one with a switch and a light to indicate when it is on. The wall socket happened to be about waist height, so this just allows me to switch everything on and off without crawling under the desk to get to the power strip.
Saturday, March 8, 2008
Kill-a-Watt, SmartStrip, etc.
[Sunday, March 9th. After I posted this last night, I switched off the printer and again the SmartStrip failed to switch the other stuff off, as a reslt of which I have made substantial revisions to the posting.]
I bought a Kill-a-Watt power monitor, among other things to help me work out why the HP printer did not seem to reliably switch the SmartStrip (see last Saturday’s posting). The Kill-a-Watt fits between the outlet and whatever device is plugged into it, allowing one to measure the power used by that device. Unlike the Cent-a-Meter described last week, which measures total household usage and is very useful in its own right, this is not influenced by extraneous factors going on in the house like the refrigerator cycling on and off.
I found that the printer is quite consistent: it uses 7 watts when plugged in but switched off, and after going as high as 37 watts during its power-up sequence it settles at 13 watts when switched on. This seems not to be a large enough difference to make the SmartStrip work reliably. I adjusted it as carefully as I could, and at first it seemed to work, but as noted above it later failed to switch the SmartStrip off. I also wonder why the printer draws any power when switched off; that 7 watts costs $10 a year. Maybe time for a new printer.
I also tried using the DSL controller, which draws only 8 watts when on, as the controlling device. This turned out to be inadequate to switch the SmartStrip on, even when the sensitivity was turned up to he maximum.
I had similar trouble with the entertainment systems being switched by the tuner/amp when this was done using the remote. The unit draws 24 watts when working and 14 when on standby, and again the SmartStrip does not seem to be sensitive enough to detect the difference. If I switch off using the switch on the unit instead of using the remote it works fine, so I guess I will be doing that in future. (Saving that standby power is worth $20 a year, so I should be doing that anyway.)
The Kill-a-Watt is quite expensive at $45.95 (from http://www.smarthomeusa.com/) but it has a number of other features. Most useful, in addition to measuring the rate of power usage in watts, it can be used to integrate that over time to measure kilowatt hours used over a measured time interval. This is perfect for monitoring things like refrigerators which cycle on and off. It can also be used to switch between active power and apparent power readings, and can also display the power factor. These are rather esoteric measures which take account of phase differences between the voltage and current, and I doubt many users will understand or care about them. Other features include monitoring voltage, current, and frequency, and again I am not sure what use these would be put to.
To test the kilowatt hour capability, I turned my attention to our ancient refrigerator and found that it used 0.16 kWh in 2 hours, so averaging about 80 watts. This does not sound much, but it is on 24/7 so over a year this is about 700 kWh. At my price of 16 cents this is $112 a year. According to the energy star site, a typical modern top-freezer 18 cubic feet energy star rated refrigerator consumes about 400 kWh per year, so replacing our old model could save about $50 a year and pay for itself in 9 years. That may not sound like a great return, but what bank is gong to give you 11 percent? And that assumes energy prices do not go up in those 9 years. Bottom line is that old fridge will soon be history.
Finally, I used the Kill-a-Watt to test some chargers. It seems almost a cliché to say one should unplug chargers when not in use, but I found this not to be worthwhile. I tried two Dell computer chargers. Both registered 0 watts when the not plugged into the laptop. When plugged into a fully charged laptop, they registered 1 and 2 watts respectively. I also tried two mobile phone chargers and found that both registered 0 watts when not charging a phone. I also tried an electric toothbrush charger and a cordless phone charger and found that these registered 0 or 1 watt even when they were charging. I therefore think one should not lose sleep over chargers.
I bought a Kill-a-Watt power monitor, among other things to help me work out why the HP printer did not seem to reliably switch the SmartStrip (see last Saturday’s posting). The Kill-a-Watt fits between the outlet and whatever device is plugged into it, allowing one to measure the power used by that device. Unlike the Cent-a-Meter described last week, which measures total household usage and is very useful in its own right, this is not influenced by extraneous factors going on in the house like the refrigerator cycling on and off.
I found that the printer is quite consistent: it uses 7 watts when plugged in but switched off, and after going as high as 37 watts during its power-up sequence it settles at 13 watts when switched on. This seems not to be a large enough difference to make the SmartStrip work reliably. I adjusted it as carefully as I could, and at first it seemed to work, but as noted above it later failed to switch the SmartStrip off. I also wonder why the printer draws any power when switched off; that 7 watts costs $10 a year. Maybe time for a new printer.
I also tried using the DSL controller, which draws only 8 watts when on, as the controlling device. This turned out to be inadequate to switch the SmartStrip on, even when the sensitivity was turned up to he maximum.
I had similar trouble with the entertainment systems being switched by the tuner/amp when this was done using the remote. The unit draws 24 watts when working and 14 when on standby, and again the SmartStrip does not seem to be sensitive enough to detect the difference. If I switch off using the switch on the unit instead of using the remote it works fine, so I guess I will be doing that in future. (Saving that standby power is worth $20 a year, so I should be doing that anyway.)
The Kill-a-Watt is quite expensive at $45.95 (from http://www.smarthomeusa.com/) but it has a number of other features. Most useful, in addition to measuring the rate of power usage in watts, it can be used to integrate that over time to measure kilowatt hours used over a measured time interval. This is perfect for monitoring things like refrigerators which cycle on and off. It can also be used to switch between active power and apparent power readings, and can also display the power factor. These are rather esoteric measures which take account of phase differences between the voltage and current, and I doubt many users will understand or care about them. Other features include monitoring voltage, current, and frequency, and again I am not sure what use these would be put to.
To test the kilowatt hour capability, I turned my attention to our ancient refrigerator and found that it used 0.16 kWh in 2 hours, so averaging about 80 watts. This does not sound much, but it is on 24/7 so over a year this is about 700 kWh. At my price of 16 cents this is $112 a year. According to the energy star site, a typical modern top-freezer 18 cubic feet energy star rated refrigerator consumes about 400 kWh per year, so replacing our old model could save about $50 a year and pay for itself in 9 years. That may not sound like a great return, but what bank is gong to give you 11 percent? And that assumes energy prices do not go up in those 9 years. Bottom line is that old fridge will soon be history.
Finally, I used the Kill-a-Watt to test some chargers. It seems almost a cliché to say one should unplug chargers when not in use, but I found this not to be worthwhile. I tried two Dell computer chargers. Both registered 0 watts when the not plugged into the laptop. When plugged into a fully charged laptop, they registered 1 and 2 watts respectively. I also tried two mobile phone chargers and found that both registered 0 watts when not charging a phone. I also tried an electric toothbrush charger and a cordless phone charger and found that these registered 0 or 1 watt even when they were charging. I therefore think one should not lose sleep over chargers.
Friday, March 7, 2008
New Gadgets at Energy Technology Venture Capital Conference
This conference, organized by the Houston Technology Center, took place yesterday and today. I did not register for the conference because I could not make the first day and today was just a half day, but I was invited to lunch today and to see the exhibits. The lunchtime keynote speaker was John Hofmeister, President of Shell Oil. I had heard him give the keynote at another conference last week, and it was essentially the same speech though it seemed more polished this time. (He gave it at least one more time in between also.) It wasn't what most climate change activists would want to hear, but at least he was unequivocal in saying that we needed a cap-and-trade system. He said it was time to stop arguing about whether climate change was real and get on with doing something about it.
More interesting to me were some of the exhibits, which I hope to cover in more detail at a later date. Here are three that caught my attention.
A Company called EnerPlus (www.pulstarplug.com) has a new kind of spark plug which utilizes a capacitor to greatly increase the size of the spark, resulting in more complete combustion and a claimed improvement of 6% in economy and up to 12% in power output.
A company called Adaptive-AC allows each room in your house to be controlled by a programmable intelligent thermostat built into the air conditioning outlet. The thermostat adjusts the temperature by opening and closing flaps so as to regulate the air flow, thereby balancing the temperature over the house. (Or not balancing it, if for example you don’t want A/C in the living room when you are asleep in bed.) The unit is powered by a small generator driven from the air flow, and stored in an ultracapacitor for when the A/C is off, so there are no batteries. The product is not in volume production yet. (For technology junkies, the protypes were made with a 3-D printer, which is the first application of this technology I have come across.)
A company called DBLive (www.dblive.com) controls sprinkler systems by using the weather forecast to generate soil moisture forecast by location, this information being transmitted along with a local FM radio signal. This product is not in production yet, but will soon be undergoing trial in the Houston area.
More interesting to me were some of the exhibits, which I hope to cover in more detail at a later date. Here are three that caught my attention.
A Company called EnerPlus (www.pulstarplug.com) has a new kind of spark plug which utilizes a capacitor to greatly increase the size of the spark, resulting in more complete combustion and a claimed improvement of 6% in economy and up to 12% in power output.
A company called Adaptive-AC allows each room in your house to be controlled by a programmable intelligent thermostat built into the air conditioning outlet. The thermostat adjusts the temperature by opening and closing flaps so as to regulate the air flow, thereby balancing the temperature over the house. (Or not balancing it, if for example you don’t want A/C in the living room when you are asleep in bed.) The unit is powered by a small generator driven from the air flow, and stored in an ultracapacitor for when the A/C is off, so there are no batteries. The product is not in volume production yet. (For technology junkies, the protypes were made with a 3-D printer, which is the first application of this technology I have come across.)
A company called DBLive (www.dblive.com) controls sprinkler systems by using the weather forecast to generate soil moisture forecast by location, this information being transmitted along with a local FM radio signal. This product is not in production yet, but will soon be undergoing trial in the Houston area.
Saturday, March 1, 2008
My Experience with a Smart Power Strip
[Amended March 2nd. It seems the sensitivity problem with the printer, mentioned towards the end of this post, is still an issue. I will investigate further and report back, probably next Saturday.]
I recently tried out a SmartStrip surge protector from Colman Cable Inc. It is a combined power strip and surge protector intended to save electricity by automatically switching off peripheral equipment when one controlling device is switched off. It seems rugged and well made. The model I bought cost $43.95 from SmartHomeUSA.com (there is a smaller model for $30.95) and has a total of 10 outlets: one for the control device, 6 for controlled devices, and 3 which are always live (unless you switch the power strip off). It has a lighted switch, a light to indicate whether the controlled devices are on and another to indicate that surge protection is working properly. Finally, there is a screw to control its sensitivity.
So, how useful was this in practice? Firstly one has to find a suitable application, and I had two in mind. One was entertainment. In one room I have a TV, satellite receiver, CD player, DVD player, and a tuner/amp used for the sound for everything except the DVD (because I ran out of amplifier inputs and rarely use DVD). All these devices are on standby. I also added a cordless phone charger to the mix, thinking that I listen to the radio enough to keep the phone charged and in any case there is another phone in the house. One hears a lot about not leaving things on standby and not leaving chargers plugged in when not in use, but I was not sure how much electricity was involved. Using the Cent-a-Meter described last Saturday I was unable to measure any difference very reliably – of course there could be other things going on in the house, and I might try again later with a monitor specific to the outlet – but it would seem that all these 6 devices used about 0.1 kW between them. This might not sound much, but at 16 cents per kWh it adds up to about $120 per year if left on when not needed 20 hours a day, which would pay for the SmartStrip in a few months.
I chose the tuner/amp as the control device, for two reasons: firstly, it mostly needs to be on when anything else is in use; and secondly, if it has been switched off (not on standby) it powers up with tuner on. I also found that I could not switch the satellite receiver completely off because when power returns it goes through lengthy signal acquisition process. So, this needs to be plugged into one of the permanently on outlets and the overall saving may therefore be less than 0.1 kW. Incidentally, I found that two of the devices – the tuner/amp and the satellite seem to use more power on standby than when on. I consistently measured a 0.03 kW difference on each. The TV is the only one which had a significant increase in power usage – about .15 kW – when on rather than on standby.
Now for the other case. In another room, I have a computer, external hard drive, printer, DSL internet connection, and wireless network controller. Between them they use about 0.3 kW when on. (Note that this is a case of equipment which in the past we have tended to leave on rather than just on standby. I have a computer in another room, which gets access to the internet though the network.) The internet and wireless network use transformers, and it seems these are not suitable for the controller. Likewise the computer, partly because it may not be needed when the network is and partly because it is a laptop with a charger so power consumption does not correlate well with whether it is on. So, I chose the printer as the controller. I found it quite hard to adjust the sensitivity to cope with the quite small power usage of the printer, but it now seems to be working and based upon the same assumption as above I project savings of about $350 per year.
I started out thinking the benefits would be minor, but overall savings of $470 per year on a total bill of $3000 is not to be sneezed at. Second only to the pool pump controller discussed in an earlier blog, which I estimate to be saving about $900 per year.
I recently tried out a SmartStrip surge protector from Colman Cable Inc. It is a combined power strip and surge protector intended to save electricity by automatically switching off peripheral equipment when one controlling device is switched off. It seems rugged and well made. The model I bought cost $43.95 from SmartHomeUSA.com (there is a smaller model for $30.95) and has a total of 10 outlets: one for the control device, 6 for controlled devices, and 3 which are always live (unless you switch the power strip off). It has a lighted switch, a light to indicate whether the controlled devices are on and another to indicate that surge protection is working properly. Finally, there is a screw to control its sensitivity.
So, how useful was this in practice? Firstly one has to find a suitable application, and I had two in mind. One was entertainment. In one room I have a TV, satellite receiver, CD player, DVD player, and a tuner/amp used for the sound for everything except the DVD (because I ran out of amplifier inputs and rarely use DVD). All these devices are on standby. I also added a cordless phone charger to the mix, thinking that I listen to the radio enough to keep the phone charged and in any case there is another phone in the house. One hears a lot about not leaving things on standby and not leaving chargers plugged in when not in use, but I was not sure how much electricity was involved. Using the Cent-a-Meter described last Saturday I was unable to measure any difference very reliably – of course there could be other things going on in the house, and I might try again later with a monitor specific to the outlet – but it would seem that all these 6 devices used about 0.1 kW between them. This might not sound much, but at 16 cents per kWh it adds up to about $120 per year if left on when not needed 20 hours a day, which would pay for the SmartStrip in a few months.
I chose the tuner/amp as the control device, for two reasons: firstly, it mostly needs to be on when anything else is in use; and secondly, if it has been switched off (not on standby) it powers up with tuner on. I also found that I could not switch the satellite receiver completely off because when power returns it goes through lengthy signal acquisition process. So, this needs to be plugged into one of the permanently on outlets and the overall saving may therefore be less than 0.1 kW. Incidentally, I found that two of the devices – the tuner/amp and the satellite seem to use more power on standby than when on. I consistently measured a 0.03 kW difference on each. The TV is the only one which had a significant increase in power usage – about .15 kW – when on rather than on standby.
Now for the other case. In another room, I have a computer, external hard drive, printer, DSL internet connection, and wireless network controller. Between them they use about 0.3 kW when on. (Note that this is a case of equipment which in the past we have tended to leave on rather than just on standby. I have a computer in another room, which gets access to the internet though the network.) The internet and wireless network use transformers, and it seems these are not suitable for the controller. Likewise the computer, partly because it may not be needed when the network is and partly because it is a laptop with a charger so power consumption does not correlate well with whether it is on. So, I chose the printer as the controller. I found it quite hard to adjust the sensitivity to cope with the quite small power usage of the printer, but it now seems to be working and based upon the same assumption as above I project savings of about $350 per year.
I started out thinking the benefits would be minor, but overall savings of $470 per year on a total bill of $3000 is not to be sneezed at. Second only to the pool pump controller discussed in an earlier blog, which I estimate to be saving about $900 per year.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Behavioral Economics
Dan Areily’s new book “Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions” seems to be getting a lot of press lately, having been reviewed in newspapers and Dan having been interviewed on NPR. It is the subject of a review, written by Elizabeth Kolbert, in this week’s New Yorker. Ms. Kolbert is the author of “Field Notes from a Catastrophe,” an anecdotal book about climate change (which I recommend by the way), but she does not link the two issues in the review.
Dan Areily’s book is a popular one on the subject of Behavioral Economics, which studies what people actually do when faced with economic choices rather than what Adam Smith thought they should do. It turns out that we are not very rational, and that calls into question the validity of a lot of classical economics. The invisible hand might be blind also, and maybe a bit tipsy. I got to thinking what this might mean for carbon pricing. (I should perhaps add here that I have yet to read the book, so this thinking might be premature.)
As discussed last week, a “sensible” price for carbon emissions is probably in the $10 to $50 range per metric ton, which translates into 10 to 50 cents on a gallon of gas or 1 to 5 cents per kilowatt hour on the electricity bill. This extra cost is meant to provide: the power company with an incentive to develop alternative energy sources; industry to find less energy-intensive ways of making products, and indeed entirely new products which use less energy; and consumers to demand and buy products which use less energy and to otherwise alter their life styles to use less energy. Furthermore, if classical economics holds sway and we all behave rationally, it is meant to cut emissions in a way that does least damage to our standard of living. But will it work?
We can probably rely upon industry to do its bit. At least we should hope that well-run corporations make their decisions on a rational basis. Fortunately their rationale includes their desire to look good, so if anything they are probably going to put more emphasis on going green than would be warranted by a strict calculation of the cost. Right now there is no cost, but companies are already beginning to behave as if a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade system were in place. This is partly because a lot of their decisions have long-term consequences, but also because of the public relations benefits.
As an example of this, I read somewhere that over half the coal fired power stations that were planned in 2000 have since been cancelled. Carbon Moratorium Now (www.cmn.org) reports that 59 such stations were cancelled in 2007 alone, while here in Texas (where we have more wind power generation on line than any other state), 8 of the 11 coal-fired stations planned by TXU were recently cancelled as a condition of its prospective new owners.
But what about us consumers? Here are a couple of statistics:
Yet:
It is hard to think that we will change our habits because of a 10 cent increase in the price of gas, especially as this is dwarfed by recent increases due to normal demand and supply issues. But we are changing our habits. Prius outsold Explorer last year, and I saw my first Smart ForTwo in Houston last week. I was gratified to see two hybrids in the paddock of a vintage car race meeting at the weekend, showing that even us petrol-heads are concerned. (This was a casual observation; I was not looking for hybrids, let alone counting them. I just happened to notice the inconspicuous badges on these Hondas.)
I doubt that it is the possibility of another 10 or even 50 cents on a gallon of gas that is motivating people though. For now, I think the irrational motivations – by which I mean motivation not based on pure self interest – is working in favor of conservation rather than against it. Let’s keep it that way!
But if consumers don’t do our bit, industry will take up the slack in a cap-and-trade system. The solution will be a little less than optimal, measured in strictly economic terms, but one could argue that if we are happy with our choices then by definition they were the best.
Dan Areily’s book is a popular one on the subject of Behavioral Economics, which studies what people actually do when faced with economic choices rather than what Adam Smith thought they should do. It turns out that we are not very rational, and that calls into question the validity of a lot of classical economics. The invisible hand might be blind also, and maybe a bit tipsy. I got to thinking what this might mean for carbon pricing. (I should perhaps add here that I have yet to read the book, so this thinking might be premature.)
As discussed last week, a “sensible” price for carbon emissions is probably in the $10 to $50 range per metric ton, which translates into 10 to 50 cents on a gallon of gas or 1 to 5 cents per kilowatt hour on the electricity bill. This extra cost is meant to provide: the power company with an incentive to develop alternative energy sources; industry to find less energy-intensive ways of making products, and indeed entirely new products which use less energy; and consumers to demand and buy products which use less energy and to otherwise alter their life styles to use less energy. Furthermore, if classical economics holds sway and we all behave rationally, it is meant to cut emissions in a way that does least damage to our standard of living. But will it work?
We can probably rely upon industry to do its bit. At least we should hope that well-run corporations make their decisions on a rational basis. Fortunately their rationale includes their desire to look good, so if anything they are probably going to put more emphasis on going green than would be warranted by a strict calculation of the cost. Right now there is no cost, but companies are already beginning to behave as if a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade system were in place. This is partly because a lot of their decisions have long-term consequences, but also because of the public relations benefits.
As an example of this, I read somewhere that over half the coal fired power stations that were planned in 2000 have since been cancelled. Carbon Moratorium Now (www.cmn.org) reports that 59 such stations were cancelled in 2007 alone, while here in Texas (where we have more wind power generation on line than any other state), 8 of the 11 coal-fired stations planned by TXU were recently cancelled as a condition of its prospective new owners.
But what about us consumers? Here are a couple of statistics:
74% of Americans believe high gasoline prices are a "serious" or "somewhat serious" problem. (Source: Quinnipiac University Poll. June 5-11,
2007), and
81% of Americans believe gasoline prices are "unreasonable." (Source: CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll. May 4-6,
2007.)
Yet:
64% of Americans would be willing to pay higher gasoline/fuels taxes to support development of alternative energy sources. (Source: CBS News/New York Times Poll. Apr. 20-24, 2007.)
It is hard to think that we will change our habits because of a 10 cent increase in the price of gas, especially as this is dwarfed by recent increases due to normal demand and supply issues. But we are changing our habits. Prius outsold Explorer last year, and I saw my first Smart ForTwo in Houston last week. I was gratified to see two hybrids in the paddock of a vintage car race meeting at the weekend, showing that even us petrol-heads are concerned. (This was a casual observation; I was not looking for hybrids, let alone counting them. I just happened to notice the inconspicuous badges on these Hondas.)
I doubt that it is the possibility of another 10 or even 50 cents on a gallon of gas that is motivating people though. For now, I think the irrational motivations – by which I mean motivation not based on pure self interest – is working in favor of conservation rather than against it. Let’s keep it that way!
But if consumers don’t do our bit, industry will take up the slack in a cap-and-trade system. The solution will be a little less than optimal, measured in strictly economic terms, but one could argue that if we are happy with our choices then by definition they were the best.
Saturday, February 23, 2008
A Few Home Electricity Saving Ideas
Saturdays I like to talk about things each of us can do individually to reduce our GHG emissions. Last week I told you to move house, but if you have not done that, here are a couple of little things I have done. All my electricity is supposed to be green, from Green Mountain Energy, so these things are not directly saving GHG. But the less renewable energy I use the more capacity there is for others. And I save money.
The first gadget does not in itself save energy. It is the Cent-a-meter, and it monitors your electricity usage. It is very easy to install, with a couple of loops around the wires entering your electricity meter. A small transmitter transmits the usage to a battery-powered monitor in the house. This allows you to see how many kilowatts are being consumed on an almost real-time basis. Mine is currently (no pun intended) showing that I am using 1.28 kW. You can switch things on and off to see the effects, and change your habits accordingly, and maybe pinpoint an old appliance which needs replacing. I found I was spending about $50 per month powering electronic equipment on charge or on standby. I will be trying a smart power strip soon.
I was also concerned about the charger for a new cordless phone I had just bought, because I could see no easy way to avoid having it on all the time. (I could maybe use a smart power strip controlled by a table lamp, but I am not sure how many hours per day the phone needs to be charging.) Cent-a-meter told me it used 0.02 kW, so at 16 cents a kWh cost about $2.30 a month. This is less than 1% of my bill so I decided not to worry about it, at least until I have addressed bigger issues.
Cent-a-meter is an Australian product but marketed in the US. It can also show power consumption as cost per hour or tons of GHG per year, instead of kW. It updates either every 12 seconds or every minute in battery-saving mode. I used the 12-second mode only while experimenting with different appliances etc. See http://www.centameter.com.au/ or http://www.centameter.us/ for more details. There are other products which fulfill the same need but which I have not tried. For example, PowerCost monitor seems to do the same as Cent-a-meter, while Kill-a-Watt allows individual electrical appliances to be monitored. (The Kill-a-Watt would probably get a more reliable reading for the phone, because you cannot rely on everything else in the house staying constant.)
The second gadget is for pool owners, and I credit it with a good deal of the savings I have made (see below). It is called a TightWatt, and it replaces the old-fashioned mechanical time control on the pool pump. As we all know, the pump does not need to run so much in the winter as the summer, but how many people go out and move those little peg things on the dial every month?
This does it automatically, so that the pump comes on for less than an hour in depth of winter and gradually increases to about 8 hours. (These are just my settings, in Houston. It is all programmable.) We are in our winter now, and the pump comes on only briefly. The pool is sparkling clear, and I also save on chlorine. See http://www.tightwatt.com/. I bought only the single-speed single-pump version, by the way. I have a pool sweep on an old-fashioned timer set to run only for less than an hour, synchronized with main pump in mid-winter.
Pools are very inefficient, and there are other things one can do. The main problem is that they try to force far too much water through far too narrow pipes. One solution is to use larger-bore pipes, and this is being done more now on new pools, but this is not really economical to retrofit. Somewhat easier to retrofit is a half-speed pump. These need to be run for twice as long, but there is still a saving since viscous losses go up more than linearly with speed. I heard about these just weeks after replacing my pump with a conventional one, so I have not made the switch yet.
My electricity bills are running about 25% down on what they were a couple of years ago, even though I have retired during that time and now spend every day at home instead of going to the office. The savings are greater in the winter, so I put a lot of that down to the TightWatt. I have also replaced almost all the bulbs in the house with CFLs. I am still very pro-CFL in spite of safety concerns aired in a previous posting.
My sole experience with an LED was bad though. From BBE, it was meant to be equivalent of a 60W bulb. It is in a closet and I often put it on when I get up before dawn. However, once there is any other light – from the dawn or a light in the room – it is impossible to know whether it was on, with the result that it often got left on all day. Which defeats the purpose and the $30 LED is consigned to the trash. (Well, actually it is in a closet; I am a hoarder!)
The first gadget does not in itself save energy. It is the Cent-a-meter, and it monitors your electricity usage. It is very easy to install, with a couple of loops around the wires entering your electricity meter. A small transmitter transmits the usage to a battery-powered monitor in the house. This allows you to see how many kilowatts are being consumed on an almost real-time basis. Mine is currently (no pun intended) showing that I am using 1.28 kW. You can switch things on and off to see the effects, and change your habits accordingly, and maybe pinpoint an old appliance which needs replacing. I found I was spending about $50 per month powering electronic equipment on charge or on standby. I will be trying a smart power strip soon.
I was also concerned about the charger for a new cordless phone I had just bought, because I could see no easy way to avoid having it on all the time. (I could maybe use a smart power strip controlled by a table lamp, but I am not sure how many hours per day the phone needs to be charging.) Cent-a-meter told me it used 0.02 kW, so at 16 cents a kWh cost about $2.30 a month. This is less than 1% of my bill so I decided not to worry about it, at least until I have addressed bigger issues.
Cent-a-meter is an Australian product but marketed in the US. It can also show power consumption as cost per hour or tons of GHG per year, instead of kW. It updates either every 12 seconds or every minute in battery-saving mode. I used the 12-second mode only while experimenting with different appliances etc. See http://www.centameter.com.au/ or http://www.centameter.us/ for more details. There are other products which fulfill the same need but which I have not tried. For example, PowerCost monitor seems to do the same as Cent-a-meter, while Kill-a-Watt allows individual electrical appliances to be monitored. (The Kill-a-Watt would probably get a more reliable reading for the phone, because you cannot rely on everything else in the house staying constant.)
The second gadget is for pool owners, and I credit it with a good deal of the savings I have made (see below). It is called a TightWatt, and it replaces the old-fashioned mechanical time control on the pool pump. As we all know, the pump does not need to run so much in the winter as the summer, but how many people go out and move those little peg things on the dial every month?
This does it automatically, so that the pump comes on for less than an hour in depth of winter and gradually increases to about 8 hours. (These are just my settings, in Houston. It is all programmable.) We are in our winter now, and the pump comes on only briefly. The pool is sparkling clear, and I also save on chlorine. See http://www.tightwatt.com/. I bought only the single-speed single-pump version, by the way. I have a pool sweep on an old-fashioned timer set to run only for less than an hour, synchronized with main pump in mid-winter.
Pools are very inefficient, and there are other things one can do. The main problem is that they try to force far too much water through far too narrow pipes. One solution is to use larger-bore pipes, and this is being done more now on new pools, but this is not really economical to retrofit. Somewhat easier to retrofit is a half-speed pump. These need to be run for twice as long, but there is still a saving since viscous losses go up more than linearly with speed. I heard about these just weeks after replacing my pump with a conventional one, so I have not made the switch yet.
My electricity bills are running about 25% down on what they were a couple of years ago, even though I have retired during that time and now spend every day at home instead of going to the office. The savings are greater in the winter, so I put a lot of that down to the TightWatt. I have also replaced almost all the bulbs in the house with CFLs. I am still very pro-CFL in spite of safety concerns aired in a previous posting.
My sole experience with an LED was bad though. From BBE, it was meant to be equivalent of a 60W bulb. It is in a closet and I often put it on when I get up before dawn. However, once there is any other light – from the dawn or a light in the room – it is impossible to know whether it was on, with the result that it often got left on all day. Which defeats the purpose and the $30 LED is consigned to the trash. (Well, actually it is in a closet; I am a hoarder!)
Monday, February 18, 2008
Climate Change and Wine
Quality wine depends upon a lot of factors but not least the climate, indeed the best wines depend upon the microclimate on particular hillsides. So it is not surprising that wine growers are concerned about climate change. They held a conference in Barcelona last week, and I will get to that later, before ending with a note on a report about wine’s carbon footprint. But first a couple of anecdotes:
- It was reported last year that Louis Roederer and other top champagne houses are considering purchasing land in England because Champagne may become too warm. It is rumored that some Champagne houses have already bought in Kent and Sussex in southern England.
- The drought in Australia has been so bad that Australian wine makers do not have enough grapes to satisfy demand. For example, Lindemans is sourcing wine from Chile and South Africa.
The conference began on Friday when Bernard Seguin, head of climate studies at France's INRA agricultural research institute, told delegates that the consequences of global warming are already being felt, adding “Harvests are already coming 10 days earlier than before in almost all wine-growing regions."
"Wine and wine-producing will change in a way that will depend on how we confront global warming,” said Seguin. "If the temperature rises two or three degrees (centigrade), we could manage to see Bordeaux remain as Bordeaux, Rioja as Rioja, Burgundy as Burgundy. But if it goes up five or six degrees, we must face up to huge problems, and the changes will be hard."
Comments from two other attendees quoted by APF:
- "The types of wines will change in almost all regions," said Vicente Sotes, a professor at the Polytechnic University.
- "The French will have problems," especially in the Bordeaux region, said Pancho Campos, the president of the Wine Academy of Spain, who organized the Barcelona conference. “German producers on the banks of the Rhine will be the least at risk,” he said.
- The French "Grand Crus" could be further threatened by the "New World" wines of Australia, California, Chile, Argentina, South Africa and New Zealand, who would have the best climatic conditions. "The countries in the southern hemisphere are next to a greater mass of water, and it is sea currents which maintain the temperature at its level," said Campos.
This is all very speculative in my opinion, because we do not really know how the global rise in temperature will affect individual climates around the world. All we can say for sure is that the wine map of the world will change. Some areas may get better, some worse, while others may adapt their techniques and the varieties they grow. We may see Cabernet and Merlot growing in Burgundy instead of Pinot, though of course this would require changing French wine law.
On a related topic, wine lovers also worry about their carbon footprint. A recent report, “Red, White and “Green”: The Cost of Carbon In the Global Wine Trade” by Tyler Colman and Pablo Paster, studies this. A lot of the carbon footprint is due to transport, so the main findings include:
- Better to drink out of cardboard rather than glass.
- If you must have glass, a larger bottle is better because the ratio of glass to wine is less.
- In the US, if you live to the West of a line that runs down the middle of Ohio and then curves around to split Texas in two, so that Houston (where I live) and the rest of the gulf coast are to the east of it, it is better to drink California wines while to the east it is better to drink French.
Frankly, as a wine lover I find it hard to imagine many people selecting their wines on the basis of these rules, but I am very grateful to be on the French side of the line! And thank god Dr. Vino does not suggest drinking Texan wines.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Carbon Footprint of Suburban vs. City Life
Last Saturday I discussed one very easy thing we could do individually to reduce our carbon footprint, namely to eat less meat. Here is something a bit more disruptive: move to the city. That may sound drastic, but it could also be a smart economic choice.
The 3 top things about real estate are said to be 'location, location, and location,' yet Americans buy houses in the middle of nowhere. Often the price of the structure (a depreciating asset) is actually greater than that of the land. (As Gertrude Stein said, “There’s no there there.” though in truth I have to admit she was referring to the city of Oakland.) This makes no sense as an investment, and in my view has a lot to do with the mortgage crisis. Increasingly Americans pay for larger and larger suburban homes with little intrinsic value and commute dozens of miles to work, but I think this trend is set to reverse. The attraction of the suburbs will decrease – and hence the folly of buying there will become more obvious -- as the cost of energy goes up and as retiring baby-boomers seek homes with less yard to look after and closer to amenities and public transport.
Of course it won’t help much for you to move if someone else takes your place, but if it leads to lower house prices it might at least slow down new development. My advice however is to get out while the going’s good.
City-dwelling is much more energy-efficient that suburban or rural dwelling for many reasons: homes are smaller; apartments insulate each other from heat and cold; transport of goods to stores is more efficient; amenities like schools, hospitals, and stores are closer to home. In some cities a car is unnecessary, most errands being possible by public transport or even on foot. (From my London apartment I can visit bars and restaurants and buy anything from a bottle of milk to a business suit within five minutes walk, while for longer trips the tube station is about 100 yards away.)
There was an article in last Sunday’s New York Times about people struggling to be green in the suburbs. Buying things like wind turbines. Why not just move to the city? The article points out that the average size of an American home almost doubled between 1970 and 2005, while the average commute went up from 8.9 miles in 1983 to 12.1 in 2001. The article also says the average American's carbon footprint is over 3 times that of a resident of New York City. But you don’t have to live in a million dollar Manhattan efficiency to improve your carbon footprint. The NYT article quotes a study done in Atlanta, which found that even moving from a neighborhood with 2 to 4 dwellings per acre to one with 6 to 8 saved about 10%, just because people need to drive less to get to stores etc. Finally, the same study showed that residential energy use for a single family detached home was about 70% more than for a multifamily unit.
Still like your sprawling ranch, or maybe can’t get out because of negative equity? In coming weeks I will talk about what you can do to make wherever you live more efficient, starting next Saturday with a couple of gadgets that have helped me reduce my electricity consumption by 25% over the past year or so. Plus an update on my sole LED lamp, which is now consigned to the scrap heap.
The 3 top things about real estate are said to be 'location, location, and location,' yet Americans buy houses in the middle of nowhere. Often the price of the structure (a depreciating asset) is actually greater than that of the land. (As Gertrude Stein said, “There’s no there there.” though in truth I have to admit she was referring to the city of Oakland.) This makes no sense as an investment, and in my view has a lot to do with the mortgage crisis. Increasingly Americans pay for larger and larger suburban homes with little intrinsic value and commute dozens of miles to work, but I think this trend is set to reverse. The attraction of the suburbs will decrease – and hence the folly of buying there will become more obvious -- as the cost of energy goes up and as retiring baby-boomers seek homes with less yard to look after and closer to amenities and public transport.
Of course it won’t help much for you to move if someone else takes your place, but if it leads to lower house prices it might at least slow down new development. My advice however is to get out while the going’s good.
City-dwelling is much more energy-efficient that suburban or rural dwelling for many reasons: homes are smaller; apartments insulate each other from heat and cold; transport of goods to stores is more efficient; amenities like schools, hospitals, and stores are closer to home. In some cities a car is unnecessary, most errands being possible by public transport or even on foot. (From my London apartment I can visit bars and restaurants and buy anything from a bottle of milk to a business suit within five minutes walk, while for longer trips the tube station is about 100 yards away.)
There was an article in last Sunday’s New York Times about people struggling to be green in the suburbs. Buying things like wind turbines. Why not just move to the city? The article points out that the average size of an American home almost doubled between 1970 and 2005, while the average commute went up from 8.9 miles in 1983 to 12.1 in 2001. The article also says the average American's carbon footprint is over 3 times that of a resident of New York City. But you don’t have to live in a million dollar Manhattan efficiency to improve your carbon footprint. The NYT article quotes a study done in Atlanta, which found that even moving from a neighborhood with 2 to 4 dwellings per acre to one with 6 to 8 saved about 10%, just because people need to drive less to get to stores etc. Finally, the same study showed that residential energy use for a single family detached home was about 70% more than for a multifamily unit.
Still like your sprawling ranch, or maybe can’t get out because of negative equity? In coming weeks I will talk about what you can do to make wherever you live more efficient, starting next Saturday with a couple of gadgets that have helped me reduce my electricity consumption by 25% over the past year or so. Plus an update on my sole LED lamp, which is now consigned to the scrap heap.
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Beef about Climate Change
Here is something we can all do; eat less meat. Here is why.
Anthropogenic global warming skeptics are fond of pointing out that a lot of greenhouse gas emissions come from animals (in the form of methane) and suggest that this “natural” effect is not anthropogenic. But a lot of the animals involved are livestock for human consumption. An interesting article in the New York Times on January 27th points out that Americans alone eat nearly 10 billion animals a year. Worldwide we ate about 284 million tons in 2007, up about 300% from 1961, and this is expected to increase double by 2050.
My vegan sister has often told me how inefficient it is to eat meat, but I had not realized the extent of the problem. The NYT article has some interesting statistics:
· 6 ounces of beef produces 16 times the greenhouse gases as a vegetarian meal with the same number of calories.
· If each of us in the US were to cut our meat consumption by just 20% it would be equivalent to everyone switching from a Camry to a Prius.
· Producing 2.2 pounds of beef uses as much energy as burning a 100 watt bulb for nearly 20 days. (Not sure why they chose 2.2 pounds; maybe converted from a kilo. We eat about 4 pounds of meat, poultry, and fish each week.)
Then there is the problem of deforestation in places like Brazil to make room for cattle. 30% of the earth’s ice-free land is involved in livestock production.
For the full NYT article see http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/weekinreview/27bittman.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=meat+guzzler&st=nyt&oref=slogin.
Eating less meat need not be a hardship. Indeed it will make us healthier. I like my meat but it does not need to be the biggest thing on my plate. I’d rather have it in meals like stew or curry or in a meat sauce with pasta, where a pound of meat probably is good for about 6 meals. On the rare occasion that I have a steak I have the smallest filet (without bacon wrap) which is usually 6 ounces and more than enough. I reckon I eat about 60% of the national average; two Camry-to-Prius swaps, which makes me feel a bit better about my RX/7.
Anthropogenic global warming skeptics are fond of pointing out that a lot of greenhouse gas emissions come from animals (in the form of methane) and suggest that this “natural” effect is not anthropogenic. But a lot of the animals involved are livestock for human consumption. An interesting article in the New York Times on January 27th points out that Americans alone eat nearly 10 billion animals a year. Worldwide we ate about 284 million tons in 2007, up about 300% from 1961, and this is expected to increase double by 2050.
My vegan sister has often told me how inefficient it is to eat meat, but I had not realized the extent of the problem. The NYT article has some interesting statistics:
· 6 ounces of beef produces 16 times the greenhouse gases as a vegetarian meal with the same number of calories.
· If each of us in the US were to cut our meat consumption by just 20% it would be equivalent to everyone switching from a Camry to a Prius.
· Producing 2.2 pounds of beef uses as much energy as burning a 100 watt bulb for nearly 20 days. (Not sure why they chose 2.2 pounds; maybe converted from a kilo. We eat about 4 pounds of meat, poultry, and fish each week.)
Then there is the problem of deforestation in places like Brazil to make room for cattle. 30% of the earth’s ice-free land is involved in livestock production.
For the full NYT article see http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/weekinreview/27bittman.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=meat+guzzler&st=nyt&oref=slogin.
Eating less meat need not be a hardship. Indeed it will make us healthier. I like my meat but it does not need to be the biggest thing on my plate. I’d rather have it in meals like stew or curry or in a meat sauce with pasta, where a pound of meat probably is good for about 6 meals. On the rare occasion that I have a steak I have the smallest filet (without bacon wrap) which is usually 6 ounces and more than enough. I reckon I eat about 60% of the national average; two Camry-to-Prius swaps, which makes me feel a bit better about my RX/7.
Saturday, February 2, 2008
CFL Experiences
[I am modifying the first paragraph of this post on 2/17/08 to say "up to 70" rather than "about 70" lumens per watt, to reflect the fact that 70 LPW is at the top end of the range of CFL performance. Also see this report on two tests of CFLs, which also confirms my personal experience of the amount of variation between CFLs, drop-off in brightness ovefr time, and failure rates. www.rightlight6.org/english/proceedings/Session_8/International_Lamp_Testing_Programs/s08-3p030granda.pdf]
Like some political debate, conventional incandescent light bulbs produce more heat than light. In fact, only about 2% of the energy they use is emitted as light, which is why lighting is seen as “low hanging fruit” for energy conservation and why the US and other governments have legislated to phase these bulbs out. (Actually, the legislation does not ban incandescent bulbs explicitly, but mandates a minimum efficiency of about 20 lumens per watt. Current incandescents typically produce less than 15, while compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) easily beat the proposed standard at up to 70 lumens per watt.) There are other alternatives, and in a later posting I hope to discuss the physics behind them, but today I am going to report my own experiences using CFLs and hope to get feedback. (In fact, I plan to concentrate my Saturday postings on the practical aspects of what individuals can do to reduce climate change.)
When I set out to write this, I had envisioned a rant about how bad CFLs were, but when I looked around the house I was surprised how many such bulbs I have and how unobtrusive most of them are. I did not count the bulbs, but I did count 10 different types from 5 brands. So, not all CFLs are created equal. There are however a few general points. Firstly, some people do not like the color of the light. It tends to be slightly bluer, though this “color temperature” varies from bulb to bulb. It is more like natural daylight, and I actually prefer it. Secondly, while they are meant to come on instantly, there is often a noticeable delay and/or a longer warm-up period during which they are relatively dim. Finally, some helicals are larger than conventional bulbs, and don't always fit into table lamps.
Most of the bulbs in the house come from Bright Effects, which I think belongs to Lowes. One is a regular 15W bulb (LBP16AM2) which is fine. Most are large 18W floodlights (LBP18R402) in can fixtures, and have also operated flawlessly so far (getting on for a year). However, I bought four smaller 15W floods (LPB15R30M2) which were mounted in more confining fixtures and which failed within 3 to 6 months. Lowes refused to replace them or refund the money, saying that they do not refund on light bubs. I think they need to rethink this policy for CFLs.
I have heard of other people with similar problems, and the problem may be that the bulbs do not work well when confined in can fixtures. Even CFLs produce quite a bit of heat, and the problem may be that the electronic ballast gets fried.
I also have four GreenLite dimmable floodlights, also mounted in can fixtures. So far none have failed, but one is temperamental. Sometimes it comes on for a second and goes off again and I have to “reboot” – switch off and wait a few seconds, or maybe play with the dimmer switch. I don’t dim them often, but I have found that they flicker when dimmed low. They are also among the worst for taking time to get up to full brightness.
Another interesting bulb is a 3-way bulb from Sylvania -- 12/19/29 watts which is equivalent to about 50/85/130 for an incandescent – and I have no complaints. I also have a dozen 9 watt Sylvania decorative globes in the bathroom which have worked flawlessly, with negligible delay in startup and close to full brightness immediately. I have one 19 watt helical Sylvania, however, which has a definite delay (maybe half a second of so) and also seems dimmer now than it was when I first installed it.
I also have a couple of GE helicals – 10W and 26W – which have been very satisfactory.
Finally, I have a 15W Lightwiz helical which was still in its box. I tried it out yesterday and it seemed to work well, but I have not tested it over time.
(I also have one very expensive LED light, which is very blue and so dim that if there is any other ambient light it is hard to see whether it is on or off without looking directly into it!)
All in all I think it is well worth making the switch to CFL, at least if you live in a hot climate; I live in Houston where we use A/C most of the year so producing less heat gives a double benefit and in my case it has contributed to a 25% drop in my electricity bills. (There is no real advantage at times when you are heating the space anyway, especially if heating with electricity.) The biggest problem seems to be failure of the ballast when confined in a can fixture, but some cans seem to provide more space than others. I should perhaps add the obvious fact that this is all highly unscientific and anecdotal. I welcome comments from others on their experiences with CFLs.
Like some political debate, conventional incandescent light bulbs produce more heat than light. In fact, only about 2% of the energy they use is emitted as light, which is why lighting is seen as “low hanging fruit” for energy conservation and why the US and other governments have legislated to phase these bulbs out. (Actually, the legislation does not ban incandescent bulbs explicitly, but mandates a minimum efficiency of about 20 lumens per watt. Current incandescents typically produce less than 15, while compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) easily beat the proposed standard at up to 70 lumens per watt.) There are other alternatives, and in a later posting I hope to discuss the physics behind them, but today I am going to report my own experiences using CFLs and hope to get feedback. (In fact, I plan to concentrate my Saturday postings on the practical aspects of what individuals can do to reduce climate change.)
When I set out to write this, I had envisioned a rant about how bad CFLs were, but when I looked around the house I was surprised how many such bulbs I have and how unobtrusive most of them are. I did not count the bulbs, but I did count 10 different types from 5 brands. So, not all CFLs are created equal. There are however a few general points. Firstly, some people do not like the color of the light. It tends to be slightly bluer, though this “color temperature” varies from bulb to bulb. It is more like natural daylight, and I actually prefer it. Secondly, while they are meant to come on instantly, there is often a noticeable delay and/or a longer warm-up period during which they are relatively dim. Finally, some helicals are larger than conventional bulbs, and don't always fit into table lamps.
Most of the bulbs in the house come from Bright Effects, which I think belongs to Lowes. One is a regular 15W bulb (LBP16AM2) which is fine. Most are large 18W floodlights (LBP18R402) in can fixtures, and have also operated flawlessly so far (getting on for a year). However, I bought four smaller 15W floods (LPB15R30M2) which were mounted in more confining fixtures and which failed within 3 to 6 months. Lowes refused to replace them or refund the money, saying that they do not refund on light bubs. I think they need to rethink this policy for CFLs.
I have heard of other people with similar problems, and the problem may be that the bulbs do not work well when confined in can fixtures. Even CFLs produce quite a bit of heat, and the problem may be that the electronic ballast gets fried.
I also have four GreenLite dimmable floodlights, also mounted in can fixtures. So far none have failed, but one is temperamental. Sometimes it comes on for a second and goes off again and I have to “reboot” – switch off and wait a few seconds, or maybe play with the dimmer switch. I don’t dim them often, but I have found that they flicker when dimmed low. They are also among the worst for taking time to get up to full brightness.
Another interesting bulb is a 3-way bulb from Sylvania -- 12/19/29 watts which is equivalent to about 50/85/130 for an incandescent – and I have no complaints. I also have a dozen 9 watt Sylvania decorative globes in the bathroom which have worked flawlessly, with negligible delay in startup and close to full brightness immediately. I have one 19 watt helical Sylvania, however, which has a definite delay (maybe half a second of so) and also seems dimmer now than it was when I first installed it.
I also have a couple of GE helicals – 10W and 26W – which have been very satisfactory.
Finally, I have a 15W Lightwiz helical which was still in its box. I tried it out yesterday and it seemed to work well, but I have not tested it over time.
(I also have one very expensive LED light, which is very blue and so dim that if there is any other ambient light it is hard to see whether it is on or off without looking directly into it!)
All in all I think it is well worth making the switch to CFL, at least if you live in a hot climate; I live in Houston where we use A/C most of the year so producing less heat gives a double benefit and in my case it has contributed to a 25% drop in my electricity bills. (There is no real advantage at times when you are heating the space anyway, especially if heating with electricity.) The biggest problem seems to be failure of the ballast when confined in a can fixture, but some cans seem to provide more space than others. I should perhaps add the obvious fact that this is all highly unscientific and anecdotal. I welcome comments from others on their experiences with CFLs.
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