New Energy Watch

Bust Your Energy Burglars

Those little red and green and blue lights that glow in the dark after you’ve thrown the switches on the way to bed? Those are the signs of electricity burglars working while you’re asleep or away. They’re on the TV, the computer, the printer, the microwave, the DVD player, the stereo – you name it. They show that an appliance is in stand-by or “sleep” mode, not fully on, but not fully off, either. Some of these burglars steal a lot of electricity, anywhere from 2 to 20 watts, day in, day out, year in, year out. For instance, an older TV “standing by” in an unused room at 6 watts would run about 1 kilowatt hour every week, or 52 kilowatt-hours a year, just sitting there.

Standby power levels recommended by the government’s EnergyStar program range from 1 to 3 watts, but when you have a dozen such recommended burglars in the house, it can still add up to real waste and money. Appliances whose electronic clocks are vital to their function need to be left on, but others should be plugged into power strips with switches that fully break the circuit when you turn it off.  If you have a computer, monitor, printer, and scanner all plugged into a single power strip, you can manage them all at once.

 

Lose the Plastic Bags -- Seriously

They’re called “urban tumbleweed.” When they’re in trees along the highway, they’re “ghosts.” But plastic bags aren’t cute. Statistics about their use are staggering – something like 500 billion per year worldwide, 380 billion in the U.S. alone. Only a tiny fraction are recycled; meanwhile many millions are let loose in the world. They’re used for a matter of minutes, and they take decades to break down in the environment, poisoning, tangling, and choking birds and sealife as they go. This is not news to anyone. The trick is to remember to take reusable bags with you when you shop, to politely refuse plastic bags at stores, and to recover plastic bags you find out loose in the world.

For more on the havoc these little monsters wreak, visit noplasticbags.blogspot.com.

~ Doug Logan, New Energy Watch

Limits to Growth and an old ARCO Ad

In 1972, the Club of Rome published Limits to Growth, a book that gave a tremendous boost to the environmental movement that had taken root in the '60s. It also shocked the business and political worlds, and caused an uproar in the scientific community with its computer modeling, its discussion of exponential versus geometric trends, and its positive and negative “feedback loops.”

Some of the assumptions of the computer modeling were mushy, some of the conclusions of the scientists were wrong (or at least not properly hedged), and some of the notions in the book have been either misunderstood or misstated by critics. But the basic structure of the computer model (called World3) and the premises of the book are as valuable today as they were 35 years ago: If we don’t curb our population, our industrial growth, our pollution, our demand for food production, and our assault on natural resources, we will reach a point where Earth can no longer support us. Well before then, the planet will cease to be a decent place to live.

This is all by way of posting an ad from  the January 1978 issue of National Geographic. The ad is from ARCO (Atlantic Richfield) which is now owned by BP. The text says this:

Last night we got the bad news. I had this class assignment to monitor my family’s use of energy at home for a week. We got an F.

Tuesday night my brother watched the same two-hour movie on his TV set that we were watching in the living room. Not too smart. Thursday Mom ran an entire dishwashing cycle for three cups, two plates, a knife, and three little spoons. That’s a lot of electricity and hot water down the drain.

Dad drives twenty eight miles back and forth to work. Alone. When two men he works with live right nearby. They could carpool and save about a thousand gallons of gas a year. And me. I’m guilty too. I went out and left the radio blaring in my room all Saturday morning. Dummy. So last night at the dinner table we all agreed to do everything we could to conserve energy. Faster showers. Lower thermostats. Fuller cars. It’s a fact that this country’s using up energy faster than we produce it. I read where we may run out of oil – forever – in 30 years. Pretty scary. Unless every person in every house on every block does his part, the future looks pretty dim.

I’m getting more and more concerned about the future. Because that’s where I’m going to be.

What have we learned in 30 years, now with the putridly huge SUVs on the road, the MacMansions, the frantic habits of consumption, the corporate sleaze to cook the books to fake the worth to feed the greed, the mugging of the land, the straining of the sea, and the perfect plastic packaging?

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

~ Doug Logan, New Energy Watch
 

 

Conservation: You Can't Buy It. You Have to Do It.

A friend is a development officer for an East Coast college. "I find myself immersed in green issues here on campus," he says. "Surprisingly, there's minimal appetite among the student body for sustainability issues, and apparently even less among the administration. I aim to rectify that, but I'm definitely cutting against the grain in my efforts."

It's a bit surprising that an academic institution is yawning about sustainability issues these days, but it does seem to reflect the general population. There's a lot of talk and froth and bloviation on green topics; there are people starting companies left and right to capitalize on the froth; and there are myriad non-profit groups sustaining themselves nicely on earnest donations -- but when you get right down to it, there's little more than a thin fringe of people who are actively doing things to reduce their own energy use and impact. Only when the economics become absolutely obvious and compelling will people budge. Few budge because it's the right thing to do.

Also, there's a tendency to think it's enough to buy one's way to green-ness, for instance by getting a hybrid car. That's a wonderful thing, and it does help, but it doesn't help nearly as much as not driving it. Conservation trumps technology every time, but it's not sexy and it smacks of self-sacrifice. Sure, conservation can involve some minor privations and discomfort, but really -- why not turn the lights off in an uninhabited room? Why not adjust the temperature in the house to save energy when you're not home? Why let tons of water flow down the drain without using it? This kind of laziness and waste is really baffling and disappointing. How can we have gotten so oblivious so fast?

~ Doug Logan, New Energy Watch

Farmers' Markets -- Down Home Downtown

According to a New York Times article, there are about 90 farmers' markets across Connecticut, and a burgeoning of these markets all over the region and the country. In case you haven't been to one, the idea is simple: Farmers from around the locale or the region gather in pre-arranged places like fields or parking lots or town squares to sell their produce directly to the consumer. In Connecticut, quite a few of the farmers' markets are organized by a great outfit called CitySeed.

These photos were taken this summer at the market off Wooster Street in New Haven, where we usually shop for local produce and bread on Saturday mornings. We go for the food, and because we like the people. A case in point: The day these pictures were taken, someone dropped a glass bottle of farm-made chocolate milk on the sidewalk. Big bang. Within a few seconds there were a half-dozen passers-by stooped over to pick up the shards.

It's a great move to buy as much food as you can from a farmers' market. Here are four top reasons:

• The food is fresh and, more often than not, organically grown. It tastes better that the stuff that's wrapped in plastic at the supermarket.
• It hasn't been transported hundreds of miles by trucks burning fossil fuel.
• It supports local farmers.
• It supports the wise use of land and open spaces.

People who live in four-season climates often think that farmers' markets disappear after the pumpkins of Halloween are carved. Not so. You can still buy local apples, potatoes, turnips, winter squash, and other foods well into late fall. See this Crop Calendar from the Connecticut Department of Agriculture for a quick guide to what's growing when.

To find a farmers' market near you, check the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Farmers' Market Map.

Other good links to visit:

• www.localharvest.org
• www.sustainabletable.org
• www.truecostoffood.org
• www.foodsecurity.org

~ Doug Logan, New Energy Watch

Drying Clothes Outdoors. Nice.

We recently set up a clothesline again to dry the laundry. The components in our system are 150 feet of clothesline, a couple of spreaders, and some clothespins. Instead of the large aluminum or plastic gin pulleys normally used with "long-distance" lines, we substituted a couple of old Harken blocks with ball bearings from our trove of sailing gear. In that spirit we also use a rolling hitch to tighten the system. But there are ready-made line-tighteners that work fine, too.

An electric clothes dryer typically uses about 5000 watts. If you run the dryer for, say, three hours a week, that's 15 kilowatt-hours. Where we live, 15 kWh costs about $3.30. Multiplied by 52 weeks, it's over $170 a year just to dry the clothes. Better to do it for free and have the clothes fresher.

Of course, there are plenty of variations on the theme. You can dry on a shorter, multiple-line system, or an umbrella-style frame. You can dry indoors on a retractable line or rack. Et cetera. Here's a link to The Clothesline Shop. They seem to have just about anything you might need.

~ Doug Logan, New Energy Watch

A Bottle for All Seasons

San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsome recently followed his ban of plastic grocery bags with a ban on plastic-bottled water. No city funds can be spent on it, and no bottled water can be sold on city-owned property. City residents who sign an online pledge not to buy plastic-bottled water at stores can get a free stainless steel container from the city. Great move. Of course, Newsome has the support of a generally conscientious city. Elsewhere, it’s not always so easy. If you read outside the environmental choir loft, you'll always find people outraged about the interference of local governments and school boards in the public right to be provided at all times with the full free-market smorgasbord of consumer products, including the wasteful, cruddy, and unhealthy. Next, they may fear, San Francisco will levy a tax on cars sold inside city limits that don’t achieve a certain MPG. Then the city might enforce, say, litter laws with the same vigor seen in northern Virginia when it comes to speeders. Well, this is what laws are all about. If enough people and representatives vote for them, they get passed. The San Francisco ban on heinous, wasteful, idiotic plastics is both practical and symbolic, and it will cause no real discomfort.

Keep reusable bags in your car and take them into stores when you shop. Just get in the habit. If you forget, choose a paper bag, or maybe just carry the items out in your bare hands. If you run a store, how about banning plastic bags yourself? Just offer paper.

As for plastic water bottles, here’s part of what Newsome said in Newsweek:

Newsome: The transportation and distribution, developing the plastic for the water bottles, the cost of the water, has a huge environmental and economic impact. As a consequence of the prolific growth in bottled waters, we in the city feel we have a responsibility to address its cost and its environmental impact. We are looking to eliminate completely all of bottled water consumption supported by city money but also to begin an educational campaign to convey the real cost of bottled water, transported half way around the world. We are looking at a marketing campaign showing bottled water compared to a barrel of oil, that shows it takes far more energy to transport the water than the oil.

Newsweek: Representatives from the bottled-water industry say it’s unfair to single out their product. Thousands of food and beverage items come in plastic packaging, they point out—and consumers like having a healthy choice of water, instead of buying drinks containing sugar and calories.

Newsome: Yes, but the difference between bottled water and Diet Coke is that you can’t get Diet Coke from the tap. It’s not like any other bottled liquids. These people are making huge amounts of money selling God’s natural resources. Sorry, we’re not going to be part of it. Our water in San Francisco comes from the Hetch Hetchy [reservoir] and is some of the most pristine water on the planet. Our water is arguably cleaner than a vast majority of the bottled water sold as "pure."

Most of us in this country can get good drinking water from the tap. Those whose water is marginal can filter it, and those who absolutely have to buy it, can at least buy it in large, refillable containers. Newsweek also touched on another part of the problem -- the hundreds of brands of  soft drinks, “sport” drinks, and juices sold in plastic bottles. No, you can’t get a Diet Coke or Pepsi out of the tap, so it becomes the responsibility of Coke and Pepsi to find less damaging ways to package their products, maybe someday in biodegradable plastic substitutes like those made by Novamont  and Metabolix. Large-scale use of these materials by the soda giants would have a huge positive impact.

Better in the long run, though, is the one-person-one-bottle model. Find a reusable container that you like, and keep it by your side. Stainless steel, plastic, Styrofoam, whatever. Sure, you still might have to buy something in a disposable cup or bottle once in a while, but think what would happen if millions of people cut their disposable container purchases by, say, 80 percent.

Shown here is an assortment of drink powders surrounding a Rubbermaid "chug-mug" with a 20-oz. (600 ml.) capacity. Some of these flavors are pretty good (no worse than Coke or Pepsi or Gatorade or any of the various things we swill all the time; in fact Propel is basically powdered Gatorade), but more to the point, the waste-per-drink is limited to a tiny foil packet.

~ Doug Logan, New Energy Watch

What the Tide Brought In

Bagged a beauty out on the marsh early today on the way out to see the ospreys -- a big empty orange two-gallon Tide jug. It would have taken that little monster 450 years or so to disappear. Now it's a handy container with a sort of spout. Pity the missus doesn't seem to want it as a centerpiece.

~ Doug Logan, New Energy Watch

Butts, Bags, Bottles, and Balloons

It takes 450 years for a plastic bottle to decompose in the environment. Where we live, these things litter the streets, overflow public trash cans, and clog the storm drains. When it rains, they get flushed out the drains to Long Island Sound, along with all manner of other plastic litter. Same thing when the wind blows -- someone’s lazy about stuffing a plastic shopping bag into a garbage can and pretty soon the bag is sailing out over the water.

Listed below are a bunch of items commonly found in the world’s waterways and oceans. The list comes from the Pocket Guide to Marine Debris, a booklet originally published back in 1993 by The Ocean Conservancy and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.  The top two debris items collected worldwide from 1996 to 2000 were cigarette butts (6,373,283), and food bags and wrappers (3,053,561).

In Long Island Sound these days, bags and butts are accompanied big-time by plastic bottles and balloons, particularly the hateful shiny Mylar kind. When we go out in the boat, we don’t fish for fish, we fish for trash. The  Mylar balloons are a good challenge, because they skim along the surface. We net ‘em or harpoon ‘em with a boathook.

Time it takes garbage to decompose in the environment:

• Glass bottles ~ 1 million years
• Monofilament fishing line ~ 600 years
• Plastic beverage bottles ~ 450 years
• Disposable diapers ~ 450 years
• Aluminum can ~ 80-200 years
• Foam plastic buoy ~ 80 years
• Rubber boot sole ~ 50-80 years
• Foamed plastic cup – 50 years
• Tin can ~ 50 years
• Leather ~ 50 years
• Nylon fabric ~ 30-40 years
• Plastic film canister 20-30 years
• Plastic bag ~ 10-20 years
• Cigarette filter ~ 1-5 years
• Wool sock ~ 1-3 years
• Plywood ~ 1-3 years
• Waxed milk carton ~ 3 months
• Apple core ~ 2 months
• Newspaper ~ 6 weeks
• Orange or banana peel ~ 2-5 weeks
• Paper towel ~ 2-4 weeks

The other day we were coming down the Branford River and saw a white plastic shopping bag floating in the middle of the channel. We swung by and my daughter scooped it up in a net. Inside were two good-looking harbor bluefish. Someone had caught them, put them in the bag, and then lost the bag overboard. A shame, inside and out. We returned the fish to the river for the gulls and crabs to eat, and put the bag in the big trash barrel we keep in the boat for our catches.

There are plenty of good non-profit, volunteer organizations that try their best to monitor and maintain the country’s waterways and coastlines. In our area, one of the best is soundkeeper.org. If you look at their links page, you can probably find a like-minded group to support in your area. But the most important thing we can all do is just stop and pick up the trash when we see it, especially when it collects in storm drain grates.

~ Doug Logan, New Energy Watch

Get With Pepsi. Rack Up Some RECs

A couple of years ago we signed up for the Connecticut Clean Energy Options program, which allows customers to "buy" up to 100 percent of their electricity from clean energy sources (in our case mostly from wind farms in the mid-Atlantic region). We're not actually getting our power directly from the wind generators; we get it from our provider, Connecticut Light & Power, through the regular electrical grid. However, the clean energy we pay for through CL&P directly offsets energy that would have been generated by traditional sources like oil, coal, and nuclear power. There's a small monthly surcharge for customers who opt in for this program. (In a logical policy world, a policy world with guts and brains, there would be a small incentive break instead.) Still, for the average customer the surcharge amounts to about $4.00 per month for a 50-percent involvement, and $8.00 if you choose 100 percent, which we chose. We haven't noticed much of a difference in our bills, maybe because we've become so careful with electricity that we've negated the $8.00 surcharge.

This program in Connecticut is part of the larger world of RECs, short for Renewable Energy Credits or Renewable Energy Certificates, depending on who's in charge of acronyms. Here's the Wikipedia explanation of RECs.

All this is by way of mentioning PepsiCo's recent purchase of 1.1 billion kilowatt-hours of RECs per year for the next three years. The news is a month old, but deserves constant replay, because this is the kind of big-player move that will save America. The purchase is equivalent to all the grid-supplied electricity used by Pepsi's US operations -- enough electricity to power 90,000 average homes. Here's the press release from the U.S. DOE's Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy website.

Wouldn't it be outstanding if all the country's major corporations followed suit, and inspired all the medium-sized companies, and then the small companies, to go for RECs? That would give the renewable movement huge momentum, and put a good-sized dent in OPEC.

If you own a business, or have the ear of the people who run the place where you work, push for RECs. For more information, visit the EPA's Green Power Partnership. If you check the partnership list on that site, you can see you'll be in great company. The 735 partners currently listed there account for 9 billion kilowatt-hours of green energy per year.

If you're already familiar with the concept of RECs, you may be wondering who certifies and monitors the organizations who are applying for and selling RECs. Good question. It appears that the Green-e Program, administered by the national non-profit Center for Resource Solutions, is the trusted broker both for Connecticut Clean Energy Options and the PepsiCo commitment.

~ Doug Logan, New Energy Watch