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How Are You Conserving Energy?
ThosLives asks: "With oil again pushing historic nominal prices and all sorts of articles on alternative power, what are people doing practically to reduce their energy consumption? It's fairly clear that conservation is an overlooked solution to the 'energy crisis'. Has anyone come up with really nifty ways to cut their energy consumption without sacrificing their technical lifestyle? What methods work best for you? At what point (price of gasoline, electricity, etc) will you start to change your behavior?"
"Take me, for example. I'm looking to cut much of my consumption, including moving closer to work to cut my commute, possibly putting a throttle restrictor plate in my car, buying fluorescent lights, and even trying to build a small wind/solar generator. I love technology, and I'd love to see how it can be used to reduce demands for power rather than just being able to make more power more cheaply (conservation arguably being the better side of the energy coin). I'm even interested in how folks conserve other things too - I'm always amazed at how many plastic (or paper) bags the grocer insists on giving me every week and how much waste society generates in the form of packaging."
Some people might argue that 20 minutes is too far to walk when I can drive it in 5 and parking is free at my office.
But the way I see it is that programming does not provide my body with the excercise it needs. Fresh air and a brisk walk in the morning helps wake me up.
I also walk to pick up small things like milk, bread, or a bottle of wine.
Oh yeah and shooting assholes who enforce CC&Rs or other restrictions on clothes lines.
-73, de n1ywb
www.n1ywb.com
Not an easy thing to do, and not everyone can do it, but one thing that really surprises me about Tucson, and this is true for many cities, I think, is how incredibly inappropriate the building materials are that people use. Most of the houses in Tucson are made of wood, with minimal insulation and huge black roofs to collect maximal solar energy during the long summers. Many houses are cooled with swamp coolers, which typically go through 100 gallons of water a day, even though this is a desert climate. Many people have lawns, which of course have to be watered daily throughout most of the year.
When we moved to Tucson, we knew we weren't going to buy a wood house, because wood is simply a lousy material for this climate. Back in the days before massive cookie-cutter developments, houses in Tucson were made of 12-18" thick adobe or 6-8" burnt adobe/slump block masonry. This material is good for the climate, because it has a lot of thermal mass. This means that if you get the thickness right, the outside temperature at night will be coming through the walls during the day, and the outside temperature during the day will be coming through the walls at night. So if you open the windows at night, and close them during the day, you can be fairly comfortable even in the heat of summer, without using any heating at all, and in the winter you might want to put on a sweater, but you'll basically be warm enough, again without any heating.
However, it turns out that buying a house built this way nowadays is quite expensive, unless you buy an older house, and older houses have the problem that most of them have wood floors, meaning that you're very vulnerable to termites.
We were very fortunate to find a builder who is working on renewable-energy housing right in downtown Tucson - our house is made of concrete masonry, but is insulated on the outside, so rather than depending on the diurnal cycle, it is isolated from the outside temperature swings. The thermal mass of the all-masonry construction and the 10" thick concrete floor mean that once you get it to a certain temperature, it tends to want to stay there. So it's quite cheap to keep cool, even in the dead of summer.
On top of this, there's a solar hot water heater and 1500WDC solar panel on the roof, so that although we still draw energy from the grid, we draw a lot less of it, and our air conditioning can run mostly off the solar panel during the day, when energy is in most demand. To back up the solar hot water heater we have an electric instant-hot-water heater from Seisco that works really well - the hot water out of the tap has a really consistent temperature with no pulsing.
That's really our big way of saving energy. We'd like to have a hybrid car, because unfortunately we aren't quite able to go cold turkey on automotive transportation, but for now we're making do with our Honda Civic, which gets pretty good milage.
As for computers, unfortunately I think the best solution is to always buy newer ones, but it costs energy to make them, so this isn't perfect. Newer computers do seem to use less energy as long as you're not pushing them to extreme clock speeds. Probably using just a laptop would help, but for work it's really handy to have a faster disk and processor.
I don't think you're a bad person for leaving using all that electricity.
I think you're a bad person for not thinking there is anything wrong with it.
Pretty Pictures!
Buy a programmable thermostat. I have mine programmed to turn off when I leave for work and turn on shortly before you come home. That way you save energy and still have a warm house when you get home. In addition, I turn the heat off when I go to bed and it comes back on just before the time you get up in the morning. According to gas company, I have used 25% less natural gas than I did last year (it was installed in the summer) and it is colder this winter than last.
My first house was like this. Built in the early 50's, 1,000 sq ft. I added insulation under the attic floorboards, and the house had brand new HVAC system and electronic timer thermostat. With all that, a $200 heating bill in winter was average. I thought that was normal: it gets *cold* in Minnesota.
Then we moved to a house built in the mid 80's. Twice the sq. footage, plenty of big windows, old HVAC... and the highest heating bill in 2 years is $80! In summer, the cost of A/C is barely noticeable. It's insane how much difference insulation everywhere and good sealing makes.
Of course I do have an 18 mpg SUV to make up for it
FYI, in modern cars, using engine breaking on the downhills can will use less gas than putting it in neutral. The inertia of the car moving keeps the cylinders turning with minimal fuel. Of course, this might not be helpful if you're just going to have to go back uphill.. but if there's a stop sign or light at the bottom of the hill, its probably worth it.
-molo
Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.