Commuting is a tough one when you have 2 working parents and have to drop kids off somewhere, but I am about to go back to working from home Fridays. And I looked up the CENTRO routes and it turns out a bus goes by our house in the morning and evening, so I may try that to get into work (although it looks like it will take 45 min instead of 20, which kinda sucks). So that is gonna be my attempt at reducing my driving.
Printing I already minimize, I guess I can try to minimize other's printing by commiting to a clandestine operation to constantly remove paper from and otherwise disable the printers. Since I am the person everyone asks to fix the printers (when they are "broken" and out of paper) that may work.
That leaves energy usage. I am not allowed to touch the thermostat anymore so heating and cooling I have no control over. Electricity usage I do. There is a lot of discussion out there about how much electricity appliances use when supposedly off (termed "vampire power" by someone very very clever). After reading articles like this one and this one I decided to get a power meter and measure for myself. To test it I plugged it into our DVD player and left it on for 2 weeks, it used 2 kWh, which is 6 watts, pretty close to the article's value. My computer at work, which has all kinds of crap plugged in with it such as a battery backup, speakers, external HD, many USB devices, 2 monitors, etc, uses quite a bit. 290 watts on startup, 230 while running. I typically leave everything on when I leave. So to reduce this I moved all work appliances over to a power strip I can switch off (excpet for the computer and battery system, which have to stay on for overnite simulations), and I got the power usage down to 115 watts when I am not here. This cuts my off-hours usage from 30 kWh to about 15. It looks like that DOE article is pretty dead-on. Turning off those extra appliances saves about 780 kWh over year, or about 700# of CO2 from our local gas co-generation facilities, which is the equivalent of 1000 miles of driving for us. Or 25 trips to the office and back.
That is quite surprising to me. That is a bigger effect than I was expecting.
We've been doing a bit of research lately on power consumption in advance of installing a PV system. Lessons learned - taken in context, it's amazing how much electricity everything around the house uses. It's also amazing how little some things use.
ReplyDeleteIf we want to be sustainable, what is the happy number below which we can live for ever and ever without worrying about the consequences?
On a side note, we have a quote now for a PV system that will generate about 2,000 usable watt hours per day. That's 2 kwH/day of electricity. This system costs $5,000. Optimally, it generates less than 25 cents worth of electricity per day at today's prices. WHen the warranty expires in 20 years, it will have generated half of it's value in usable electricity. What do you think - useful?
What do you suppose is the minimum amount of electricity that you could get by on in a day?
18 kWh, but half of that is for hot water. The furnace also uses quite a bit, in the winter. The balance is the appliances, well, and lighting. Electronics is only about 4%.
ReplyDeleteI would say current PV technology is not useful. Efficiency, longevity and manufacturing processes need improvement. I think solar water heaters are currently the best solar collectors.
A friend works at National Geographic in DC and every third Friday or so the entire operation is closed for a "Green Friday." Somehow this helps save the planet. Perhaps you should look into that?
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed metroing to work because, even though the commute took a little while, it was free time for reading. Though, I never had adorable little people waiting at home for me. That's a tough one. I vote that you plant a few trees to off-set your gas emissions and then don't worry about it.
I quiet enjoy the image of you as a printer nazi...
Follow up question - What do you suppose is the true cost of 18 kwh/day of sustainable power? How do we begin to calculate such a thing?
ReplyDeleteEfficiency and economics are all relative. PV doesn't make sense economically at $0.07 per kilowatt hour for coal electricity. A lot of sustainability conversations are built on false economic premises though and take the status quo WAY too much for granted.
I have problems with conservation and efficiency efforts because I don't think that they will ever be effective if they are not forced by economic circumstances, and if that ever becomes the case, I guess that today's PV systems might look like a real bargain.
Excellent points. I very much believe that we are not paying the true cost of energy. Or agriculture. Or health care...
ReplyDeleteI was happy to see gas hit almost $4/gallon, because this is the only way to enforce conservation. It forced a lot of changes in society, perhaps too much too quickly. Similarly, many people in cold climates are turning to wood for heat, and as we discussed this may not be sustainable unless practices are changed.
So what is the true cost of 18 kWh/d of electricity? I would say, off the top of my head, $18. Politically impossible. I think our best hope is for a carbon credit system.
Politically impossible indeed. The only way to get there is to take politics out of it. Carbon credits pretty much amount to a tax and regulation/capping of productivity. I am against that. I have yet to see a fairly applied tax that doesn't infringe on property rights or individual liberty, the carbon credits are no different. On one hand, we want to extract money from producers, while continuing to cap or subsidize consumption? Boo! Any time the government gets involved, bad things happen. I would rather see a true free market de-regulation and have the government step away completely. That's the only scenario that I see that has us paying true and un-molested energy prices.
ReplyDeleteDe-regulation has such a negative connotation for a lot of reasons, one of which is that the deregulation in question is usually for selective rules and not complete, there is usually some corruption in the regulations concerning de-regulation. Also, people are accustomed to having the god given right to cheap and plentiful energy which has been artificially provided through rate caps, etc. For some reason, people think that the logical outcome of de-regulation should be lower prices for the consumers, which is neither desirable or feasible when their electric rates have been capped for the past 10 years by a PSC. People think competition will automatically drive down prices? Puh-lease. Doesn't work so well when feedstock and fuel costs keep rising for everyone and putting pressure on the utilities.
While we were in DC, deregulation resulted in average Maryland energy prices rising very significantly, something like 70% or more. The governor didn't get re-elected because of that (in part - also he had weird hair that scared people and ate babies). BG&E had rates frozen from the early 90s (oil at 5 bucks a barrel) until 2007 or so when they switched over to market rates. Oops. Suprise!
Complete de-regulation is the only option that I think will have a chance in hell of being actually effective, but it will never be implemented, because it will hurt, we'll cling to an unsustainable dream as long as possible, until the shit hits the fan and we have no choice but to let go. It'll hurt a lot more at that point. We'll tax/limit/regulate our productivity the whole way down to no real effect, since those taxes will still be used to subsidize the unsustainable dream.
I liked gas at 4 bucks per gallon, that's the free market revolting against the hegemony and trying to assert itself. 4 dollar gas killed our economy. Wait until next year's price spike to 7 dollar gas and see what that does. If the market forces had more influence, we may have been able to have a more gradual acclimation, more moderation and no "Great Recession".
"I would rather see a true free market de-regulation and have the government step away completely. That's the only scenario that I see that has us paying true and un-molested energy prices."
ReplyDeleteHow does that account for the externalities of carbon emissions - climate change, smog - and the resulting health and environmental effects? I'll put my power plant in the poor neighborhood where land is cheap, pump out some bad chemicals and make the kids without insurance get sick.
How do you include the cost of my emissions in the price of my product? If my company goes under before all the affects of my emissions are realized, is everyone just out of luck? Too bad, so sad?
The fact is that we do not have what I consider to be a real free market.
ReplyDeleteWe do have power plants in poor neighborhoods. Why is that? Often times, rich folk under the current non-free system can exert more influence on governmental/zoning regulations. Is pollution a problem? Does it hurt people? I'd say that government intervention via a bloated system of tort laws and regulations and an inaccessible justice system that is skewed in favor of money interests is what is keeping the pollution around, not the lack of taxes on pollution that we are going to be generating anyways. If there is evidence that pollution is causing harm, and if people can sue the pants off of people who pollute, there is a much stronger market incentive to not do so anymore than would be provided by a correctable tax system that is filled with loopholes. Sounds preferable to me. The buck needs to stop with what the affected people will tolerate. If people are being put upon and are unwilling to take action to stop it, then too bad, so sad. If government intervention in any way presents a hindrance to their ability to take said action, that is very bad, very sad.
Rather than more inequitable and ineffective taxes, we should work instead to restore freedom and equality - something the country was once known for.
I think complete deregulation leads to a wide open capitalist economy. I would call such an animal an extreme, and point to stalinist communism as the other end of the extreme. I think we can thank pirates/monopolies/robber barrons/CEOs for a lesson in why we need to avoid a totally free market economy, and seek a middle ground between the extremes.
ReplyDeleteI have been battling this position myself. I used to be a libertarian as well, and say that all I need from the gov't is roads and infrastructure. And I think the founders of the America probably felt that way too and started out that way. I have come to realize thats a pipe dream, just like marxism. We need environmental, agricultural, energy, health care, smoking, eating, media, and apparently banking regulations for our society to be healthy. So sad, yes.
So sad. I can't accept as morally correct any action which ask one person to live or work for another, under threat of violence. (I clearly do tolerate it though.)
ReplyDeleteDemocracy will kill your dreams every time.
We need roads, infrastructure, and a means for maintaining social order based upon philosophies that either protect an individual's liberty and holds freedom and opportunity in highest regard, or favors the advancement of societal goals over individual freedom. I'd choose the former. I see too much possibility for corruption and inequality with any other option. But, we've corrupted this idea anyways. The problem seems to be that the 2 philosophies are mutually exclusive. A little of one corrupts the other. Perhaps this is a perpetual conflict. Maybe the best option is a benevolent despot.
Our founders had a really tough job when they set out to form a basic framework for a society that simultaneously derived it's power from and was responsive to the people, yet also protected an individual's personal liberties and freedom. They tried to form a respectful republic with limited power, but they corrupted it with democracy. Thomas Jefferson had a great quote about the evil of democracy that involved 51% of the population oppressing the other.
I highly recommend a review of the Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers. They are most enlightening and simultaneously frustrating. It is easy to see what has become of the fears of the founding fathers - those were some damned smart folks.