I went ahead and purchased a new, 2011 Nissan LEAF exactly one week ago and so far we have driven the car about 311 miles for roughly $5 worth of electricity. I'll describe a few impressions, some tweeks I have already made to the car (to improve its range and personalize it a bit I replaced most of the lights that were not already LED lights with aftermarket LED lights, realistically giving me an extra mile or two of range when driving at night with headlights on... also tinted windows to help the car stay cooler in the summer and reduce need for AC), and what seems to be different about driving an electric car, for me... but first, a little more background.
My last post described test driving the car late last year and ended with a promise to post about the Ecotality charger. I'll add photos about that soon, promise. Let's pick up from where I left off... By the time 2011 started, i was anxious for news on when I might get to pick up my LEAF... February was first estimate, but that quickly got pushed back to April. Then... tragedy struck Japan on a monumental scale. Obviously, this forced a change to many things and while making efforts to help relieve the suffering in Japan, I finalized my resolve to purchase a LEAF - it would help Japan's economy, and the world's economy, to recover (ever so slightly I know).
June, I get word that my LEAF will be ready by late June/early July and I set up an appointment to get the 240 volt Ecotality Blink charger installed in my garage about three weeks before my LEAF arrives. Cost of charger (to me) = $0 Why? because I agreed to participate in the largest ever electric vehicle data gathering "experiment" undertaken. So to Dept. of Energy paid approximately $1,000 for my charger to be installed and until 12/31/12, I share data about my charging habits with the DOE. Now I am helping lead the effort to get more of these chargers installed around the area so drivers of electric vehicles have more places to charge up. The same grant from the Dept. of Energy will subsidize the installation of thousands of charging stations across the country, meant to be the establishment of a necessary toe hold for EV charging infrastructure. Some might question whether their tax dollars should be going to something like this... but how is this domestic project that provides jobs to American manufactures and electricians (among others), that is the first step toward lessening our dependence on oil, that helps us keep up with the huge global push for the development of electrified 4 wheel transportation, not a good investment of tax payer money? Assuredly, it is a better application of funds than a fighter plane this grant could otherwise (help) pay for, or a couple of tanks, we use to fight wars to protect our access to oil. Granted, this project won't get us off oil any time soon, but we have to start somewhere and this is the most serious effort we have put forth to date.
The car... the Nissan LEAF, other than some very odd looks and design elements that are all about aerodynamics and less about style (I think of a catfish from the front, and a bat from the rear), is a pretty ordinary looking 4 door hatchback from the outside. But look closer and you see a whole lot of difference. I already mentioned the incredible amount of data and technology that accumulates and displays it inside this car (most cars others might compare the LEAF too don't have this kind of technology in them, not without choosing the highest end/most expensive trims and option packages anyway, which by the way would make those cars more or less equal in price to the LEAF after factoring in its discount... or MORE expensive if you are comparing the LEAF to the highest end Toyota Prius). What's different? The way the car feels is the most dramatic difference for me. But it isn't actually dramatic, the difference in feeling, it is rather profoundly subtle. On the freeway at speed, you'd hardly know the difference between driving in the LEAF and say a Honda Civic. But notice... no hum and vibration from a combustion engine... just the whine of what sounds like a far off jet engine just spooling up as you cruise at lower speeds. And when you are, just cruising around the neighborhood... that is when you can really feel the differences in the car, how quiet it is inside, how the instant you press on the accelerator, the car just responds (no RPM's to consider, just instant, effortless power). And more than this... no gas. Maybe it is just me, but I hear the exhaust notes of the gas powered cars around me more now, I even tend to smell the exhaust a little more, because I know, whether I am thinking of it or not, that I am getting from point a to point b without burning gasoline.
First day I drove the car to work, a coworker says "rev it up!" and I think, you simply can't do that. This is the other profound difference... sit down in the car, turn it on with push of start button, and then you wait for the car to idle... but it doesn't. You remember, it's an electric car, it DOESN'T idle, ever. You put it in gear, you expect a transmission "thunk", it doesn't happen (just an electronic switching sound). The car just starts to glide forward when you put it in gear (or back, depending) and you keep on waiting for that combustion engine to vibrate and hum, but it just never does. And this makes you very happy, indeed.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Test Driving The Nissan Leaf
Today I test drove the Nissan Leaf, and I can honestly say I am completely excited about this car. Let me tell you some reasons why you should be excited about it too:
1. Despite its awkward, cartoonish looks, driving it feels like you are driving a pretty powerful, very refined car (think Acura TSX, Lexus IS 250, or a Cadillac CTS) not because of the trim or the leather seats mind you, but because the car has the torque/acceleration, smooth ride, cornering (lower speed), and interior silence of these types of cars AND zero emissions and a far smaller carbon footprint than any of them to boot (so it feels good to drive it because you know you aren't polluting the air/land/sea like gas powered cars do, funding big oil or the social problems our thirst for petroleum creates - well, you're funding it at only a small fraction of what any petrol powered car on the road does). If you can power the Leaf with renewable energy like I will (living in Seattle area, most of our power comes from hydro... but I one upped and have the 4kw solar array as you probably know), you're looking at what is arguably the greenest, mass produced car ever made.
2. The car is a gadget geek's dream - a dashboard overflowing with data all presented in a well structured, fast, responsive, tactile environment is like nothing else on the road really... and it even has LED headlights, a world's first in a mass produced car (though no LED's for the brights, turn signals or fog lamps... but aftermarket can take care of most of those (maybe not the brights), customizable start up (boot up) sounds, a solar panel (on the SL model) and a track ball-like gear selector.
3. It's whisper quiet... yeah, the people talking and the road noise from the nearby freeway are loud, but trust me, the car makes almost no noise when it is driving under 30 miles an hour (then tire noise and some wind noise would be slightly noticeable... about as much as on any other car in its price range). Note, for safety's sake, there is an audible, low pitched whine that warns people of the cars approach (it can be turned off, but is always on by default).
4. The whole 100 mile "limited" range thing, "range anxiety"... generally speaking, just get over it. Sure, if you commute more than 80-90 miles day, or if you don't have a garage/carport, or a space you could conveniently charge up at work or home, the car is probably not the car for you. But even if you are one of these people, you should still be excited about the car because it is just the beginning of a profound change. Within as little as 5 years or so, the range for electric cars in this price range will double or more, there will potentially be options to pull into a service station and swap batteries in under 5 minutes or charge your batteries to at least 80 percent in 30 minutes or less (note this is already possible in some area and within 18 months all major urban areas along the I-5 corridor should have these kinds of chargers installed). And anyone that can actually afford to buy the Leaf now (its a $25,000+ car after the federal tax rebate) probably can afford to buy/keep a second car more suited to long road trips of more than 160-180 miles in day. You can always rent a car if not, when you need to drive longer distances (in fact Nissan might offer a program for Leaf buyers specifically). So range is an issue, but isn't one that most people need to worry much about.
5. Maybe you think hydrogen cars are a better solution... well, never mind all of their issues for a minute, you should still be excited about this and other battery electric vehicles (BEV). There are two types of hydrogen cars being experimented with right now... fuel cell type (see Honda FCX) and those that can burn hydrogen (see BMW 7 series). Those that burn hydrogen aren't getting much attention (as evidenced by the lack of car makers and models using this approach - see only about 100 in existence for BMW 7 series), but those that use hydrogen fuel cells are actually electric cars that use fuel cells in place of batteries. Thus, the advancement of battery electric cars stands to advance the development of hydrogen fuel celled cars - proving concepts and materials from electronics to new infrastructure for "fueling" our cars.
Stay tuned for more... I hope to finalize the purchase of my first electric car before the end of the year (receiving it sometime early next year). I already have been approved for a free, in-home level 2 charger from Ecotality, and I will post about that whole process next time... :0)
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
So how much power do solar panels in the Seattle, WA area generate?
Since people sometimes ask me (or question me) about just how much solar power can be made in a "rainy" place like Seattle, I have decided to post a year's worth of data regarding the output of my panels. But first, notice the images above - they are average "normal" solar radiation levels from a variety of months for the Pacific Northwest (you can see that we get a lot of solar radiation in the warmer months, not so much in the colder months; in fact Seattle gets roughly the same amount of solar radiation as Houston, TX because we have two more hours of sunshine during the warmest time of the year, and only an hour or so less during the colder months).
The output I am sharing is from a 2.7 kilowatt array - my current array is now approximately 4.0 kilowatts after I expanded earlier this month (the additional panels came online on 8/5/10), and figures below represent the readings generated by my inverter and reported to Solar Oregon (the cooperative I sell my renewable energy production to - at 1 cent per kilowatt hour - for resale to power companies and individual customers that wish to subsidize the deployment of additional renewable energy installations). Also note the difference in my estimated output for August 2010 compared to August 2009:
August 2010 (2.7 kw system upgraded to 4.0 on 8/5) - 455 kwh
July 2010 - 335 kwh
June 2010 - 277 kwh
May 2010 - 290 kwh
April 2010 - 219 kwh
March 2010 - 199 kwh
February 2010 - 101 kwh
January 2010 - 45 kwh
December 2009 - 58 kwh
November 2009 - 54 kwh
October 2009 - 122 kwh
September 2009 - 242 kwh
August 2009 - 290 kwh
This period was a little bit unusual, I think, in that we had much sunnier weather in the colder parts of the year (when there are fewer hours of sunlight) and less sunny weather during the warmer parts of the year (when there is more), at least compared to average. In any case, you can see that my 12 month production of electricity adds up to 2,687 kwh of electricity. I will re-post next year's data with a full year of 4.0 kilowatt output.
How much is that worth, carbon offset wise? There are free online carbon calculators you can use to figure out how much carbon the output displaces, but this varies entirely on region (Seattle area gets the vast majority most of its power from renewable sources like hydro, wind, biomass, solar, and such). Using the average figures for the USA though (which is MUCH more coal dependent than anywhere in the state of Washington), my 2,687 kwh for one year of solar energy production results in 1,452 kilograms (3,194.4 pounds) of carbon staying out of the air. Given that my solar panels should be generating electricity for at least 30 years, that adds up to around 45,000 kilograms (about 99,000 pounds) for 30 years worth of production (add 30 - 50% or so to this since the estimated lifespan of the panels is 40 - 50 years). And note, this is comparing electricity used to power a home; if this electricity is used to power a vehicle that would otherwise be burning gas or diesel, the actual carbon reductions should be much higher (I don't have any estimates, sorry).
how much is all that power worth, cash wise? Given that my power company pays me for every kilowatt hour I push back to the grid, and I don't have to pay the power company for all the power I make and use myself, I am looking at well over $10,000 worth of electricity generated by the panels assuming power costs and average of 12 cents per kilowatt hour over the next 3o years (which is a very conservative figure - I would estimate it would cost more like 15 - 20 cents, on average, over that time frame... also note I am using the last 12 months as my figure for calculating, now that I upgraded my system, my actual output should be about 50% higher... so I could say $15,000+).
Anyway, I also receive subsidies from the state of Washington for producing solar power (equal to about $350 - $550 a year) and a small amount ($65 - $75 a year) from selling production credit to Solar Oregon. So there you go... a break down of just how much money my solar panels generate (in case you wanted to know, I estimate a 10 - 12 year ROI, given current incentives in Washington state). What else would you like to know?
Electric Cars and Solar Panels - woo hoo!
I wish I was a little less busy and a little more in the habit of posting. C'est la vie / what can you do? With the sound of Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious blaring out of the speakers, I should be more inspired though. So let's try this...
Have you been following the news about the new "electric car invasion"? I have, obsessively. I am number four thousand something in line for a Nissan Leaf sometime late this year or early next year, the Chevy Volt should be rolling around streets in some parts of the country by the end of November (at least), Tesla is supposedly hard at work on a sexy new Model S (approximately half the price of the roadster) for 2012, Ford is bringing out an electric utility van (Transport) sometime in 2010, and an electric version of the Ford Focus for 2012 model year, Toyota is playing it safe and rehashing its Prius with a meager 14 mile battery only variant for sometime in the near future (2011?), Porshe is putting together a variety of monstrously powerful hybrid sports cars (that get good gas mileage), Fisker is perpetually just a few seasons away from bringing out their Karma, Coda has some Chinese electric cars just about ready to sell here (someday soon), Aptera's three wheeled car is another car made in San Diego county, CA, and just about every major car maker has something in the works for the next couple of years (even Honda, notoriously critical of electrics as part of the solution for ending our addition to oil, recently said it would make a plug-in electric car of some sort by 2012).
If you crave an alternative to filling you car with gas (or diesel), you won't have long to wait. Even if you can't afford one of these new electric cars, unless something goes horribly wrong, or falls terribly flat, within about 5 - 10 years cars that can be powered by electricity at least part of the time should be within a couple thousand dollars of the cheapest gasoline cars. But what about all the electricity these cars will consume, and how about those big huge batteries... won't these just create new problems?
Of course they will, but I believe these problems are FAR easier to solve than those presented by our continued use of petroleum as our primary fuel for transportation.
I recently installed an additional 1.4 kilowatts of solar panels on my roof (bringing my total maximum output to just over 4 kilowatts of power, or about 3,700 kilowatt hours of electricity per year given my home's location, roof orientation, and typical weather patterns around the Seattle area). As I mentioned I am in line to get an all electric Nissan Leaf sometime in the next 9 months or so. The Leaf has a 24 KwH battery (meaning it holds that much electricity), which is just a little less than 100% of the total output of my 4.0 kw solar array on a sunny summer day - about 25-26 KwH. The estimated distance a Nissan Leaf can travel on one kilowatt of electricity varies drastically, but we can safely say it could go between 4 and 7 miles per kilowatt hour. That means my solar panels can power the leaf for between 14,800 to 25,900 miles of driving per year - more than I will ever drive my electric car, most likely (by the way, in case you are wondering, the ROI on using solar panels to power an electric car is at least 40% faster than using solar panels to power your home, given current gas and electric prices in the Seattle area, according to my estimates). Why do I mention this?
Probably the biggest problem associated with us switching to electric cars is our antiquated electricity grid. It is terribly inefficient, bleeding much of the power we generate into the ether. But, the closer the means of production is to the building, or car, consuming the electricity, the less of that electricity gets lost to transmission. This is why localized power generation should be a primary component of our effort to transform our aging grid - they are simply much more efficient. So, problem (almost) solved - if most people who buy electric cars also buy (or subsidize) solar, wind or other localized power production, there won't be much of an increase in demand for electricity to power these cars. And even if they don't install a few kilowatts of solar or wind on their property or subsidize the cost of installation of it elsewhere in their region (through "green power programs" offered by most major utilities), the current capacity of our power production network could handle the power demands of millions of electrically powered plug in cars (for comparison, one electric car would draw roughly the same amount of power as 4 or 5 plasma TV sets, when charging).
But what about the battery issue? Won't all those batteries mean lots of environmental destruction by mining of lithium and cobalt, etc.? Well, yes... but compared to the damages wrought by drilling for oil (see Gulf of Mexico, Exxon Valdez, Oil spills after first Gulf War, any number of oil spills in Africa, Asia, South America, North America, most of the oceans, etc), refining, transporting, and cleaning up the air, sea, and land after burning it... the use of batteries is much cleaner and much more sustainable than using oil. For starters, the lithium ion batteries that will power the coming generation of electric cars will be useful as power storage for each car for at least 10 years, probably more like 12 - 15. After the batteries reach the end of their useful life as storage for the cars, they can be reused in stationary power systems as back up or supplemental power sources when power usage exceeds standard output, regionally. And if these batteries are not used in this fashion, lithium ion batteries can be recycled much as lead acid car batteries are now (in fact they may be even easier to recycle).
The bottom line is that battery powered cars will not solve all our problems, nor will they (alone) get us off our oil addiction. Likely, we need additional alternatives as well - sustainably made biofuels and eventually hydrogen (which, when used in fuel cells, could essentially be designed to slot directly into the battery storage compartments on today's electric cars - since hydrogen fuel cells powered cars are electric cars that have a fuel cell to generate electricity rather than a battery array to store electricity from the grid). But battery electric cars will get us moving toward a greener tomorrow, and along with investments in better, more efficient mass transportation, better resources for bicycling, and other less carbon intensive forms of travel, they will be a key part of our transition away from oil.
But what do you think?
Have you been following the news about the new "electric car invasion"? I have, obsessively. I am number four thousand something in line for a Nissan Leaf sometime late this year or early next year, the Chevy Volt should be rolling around streets in some parts of the country by the end of November (at least), Tesla is supposedly hard at work on a sexy new Model S (approximately half the price of the roadster) for 2012, Ford is bringing out an electric utility van (Transport) sometime in 2010, and an electric version of the Ford Focus for 2012 model year, Toyota is playing it safe and rehashing its Prius with a meager 14 mile battery only variant for sometime in the near future (2011?), Porshe is putting together a variety of monstrously powerful hybrid sports cars (that get good gas mileage), Fisker is perpetually just a few seasons away from bringing out their Karma, Coda has some Chinese electric cars just about ready to sell here (someday soon), Aptera's three wheeled car is another car made in San Diego county, CA, and just about every major car maker has something in the works for the next couple of years (even Honda, notoriously critical of electrics as part of the solution for ending our addition to oil, recently said it would make a plug-in electric car of some sort by 2012).
If you crave an alternative to filling you car with gas (or diesel), you won't have long to wait. Even if you can't afford one of these new electric cars, unless something goes horribly wrong, or falls terribly flat, within about 5 - 10 years cars that can be powered by electricity at least part of the time should be within a couple thousand dollars of the cheapest gasoline cars. But what about all the electricity these cars will consume, and how about those big huge batteries... won't these just create new problems?
Of course they will, but I believe these problems are FAR easier to solve than those presented by our continued use of petroleum as our primary fuel for transportation.
I recently installed an additional 1.4 kilowatts of solar panels on my roof (bringing my total maximum output to just over 4 kilowatts of power, or about 3,700 kilowatt hours of electricity per year given my home's location, roof orientation, and typical weather patterns around the Seattle area). As I mentioned I am in line to get an all electric Nissan Leaf sometime in the next 9 months or so. The Leaf has a 24 KwH battery (meaning it holds that much electricity), which is just a little less than 100% of the total output of my 4.0 kw solar array on a sunny summer day - about 25-26 KwH. The estimated distance a Nissan Leaf can travel on one kilowatt of electricity varies drastically, but we can safely say it could go between 4 and 7 miles per kilowatt hour. That means my solar panels can power the leaf for between 14,800 to 25,900 miles of driving per year - more than I will ever drive my electric car, most likely (by the way, in case you are wondering, the ROI on using solar panels to power an electric car is at least 40% faster than using solar panels to power your home, given current gas and electric prices in the Seattle area, according to my estimates). Why do I mention this?
Probably the biggest problem associated with us switching to electric cars is our antiquated electricity grid. It is terribly inefficient, bleeding much of the power we generate into the ether. But, the closer the means of production is to the building, or car, consuming the electricity, the less of that electricity gets lost to transmission. This is why localized power generation should be a primary component of our effort to transform our aging grid - they are simply much more efficient. So, problem (almost) solved - if most people who buy electric cars also buy (or subsidize) solar, wind or other localized power production, there won't be much of an increase in demand for electricity to power these cars. And even if they don't install a few kilowatts of solar or wind on their property or subsidize the cost of installation of it elsewhere in their region (through "green power programs" offered by most major utilities), the current capacity of our power production network could handle the power demands of millions of electrically powered plug in cars (for comparison, one electric car would draw roughly the same amount of power as 4 or 5 plasma TV sets, when charging).
But what about the battery issue? Won't all those batteries mean lots of environmental destruction by mining of lithium and cobalt, etc.? Well, yes... but compared to the damages wrought by drilling for oil (see Gulf of Mexico, Exxon Valdez, Oil spills after first Gulf War, any number of oil spills in Africa, Asia, South America, North America, most of the oceans, etc), refining, transporting, and cleaning up the air, sea, and land after burning it... the use of batteries is much cleaner and much more sustainable than using oil. For starters, the lithium ion batteries that will power the coming generation of electric cars will be useful as power storage for each car for at least 10 years, probably more like 12 - 15. After the batteries reach the end of their useful life as storage for the cars, they can be reused in stationary power systems as back up or supplemental power sources when power usage exceeds standard output, regionally. And if these batteries are not used in this fashion, lithium ion batteries can be recycled much as lead acid car batteries are now (in fact they may be even easier to recycle).
The bottom line is that battery powered cars will not solve all our problems, nor will they (alone) get us off our oil addiction. Likely, we need additional alternatives as well - sustainably made biofuels and eventually hydrogen (which, when used in fuel cells, could essentially be designed to slot directly into the battery storage compartments on today's electric cars - since hydrogen fuel cells powered cars are electric cars that have a fuel cell to generate electricity rather than a battery array to store electricity from the grid). But battery electric cars will get us moving toward a greener tomorrow, and along with investments in better, more efficient mass transportation, better resources for bicycling, and other less carbon intensive forms of travel, they will be a key part of our transition away from oil.
But what do you think?
Sunday, December 14, 2008
The Hamburger Amendment
While reading over my previous posts, and scolding myself for not being better about keeping up with my blog, I'm watching some stupid commercial on TV about getting people from third world countries to taste a Whopper vs. a Big Mac to see if the "Whopper Virgins" can actually tell us which tastes better. It reminds me that the hardest thing to face when it comes to being greener is changing culture or habits. People generally aren't eager to make a lot of major changes all at once. People get used to the way things are and change can be annoying, difficult, threatening, even scary. But the Whopper commercial should remind us of how toxic our culture can actually be; we just shouldn't be trying to convert millions, no billions, of other people to our diet of Whoppers and or Big Macs (not to mention flying and driving all over the world to make one commercial). It's just wrong.
But why is it wrong tinhart? Well, some may say it is cultural empiricism, others may say it is spreading an unhealthy way of eating to people who may have an intrinsically healthier diet (by virtue of their eating more simply, more sustainably than Americans tend to eat). The latter of those two would likely be, in my eyes, the bigger version of wrongness here. Let me be honest, I don't think there is anything wrong with hamburgers, or eating meat, or fast food restaurants. Burger King was my favorite fast food restaurant (and Taco Bell) when I was about 8 years old. I don't advocate a ban on all fast food or meat eating. But the fact is, our planetary ecosystems would collapse rapidly if everyone started eating the way we do. We simply can't support enough cows to make burgers for 6.5 billion people.
Somewhere in the U.S. Constitution there must be a clause about our god given right to eat hamburgers... or at least that is what I think after watching the Burger King 'documentary' about their taste test world tour. Seriously people, you don't have to stop eating meat or fast food, but we can't eat nearly as much as we do. If America wanted to solve both its green house gas emission problems, some of its health care problems, and address a number of other issues (not solve per se), we should reduce our consumption of meat, red meat in particular, by about 50 - 75%, immediately. If we drastically reduced the number of cows we eat, and reduced the amount of meat we eat in general, it would probably have a bigger environmental impact than if every passenger car in the U.S. were instantly turned into a hybrid (I have no specific research to back this up mind you, just years of reading about the environmental impacts of the beef industry). It would result in a healthier diet, and an increased level of general health in this country (relieving strain on the health care industry) and so on.
So if you want to make a small dent in the problem, put down the burger (or at least make it a turkey burger, or better yet, a veggie burger). Save the red meat for special occasions (if you must), or at least not more than once a week. Eat nothing but plants at least a couple times a week, more if you dare. When you do eat meat, favor the other types, especially poultry or perhaps venison should you be a hunter. It is a lot better for you.
Anyway, I know this is all kind of sanctimonious to some people, (some who I call my friends). People don't like change, and people don't generally like to be told what to do, or what is right or wrong. I have clearly indicated that I think the WAY we, as Americans, eat so much red meat and so much fast food is problematic, because it is not sustainable. If we don't revise the way we do things to be more sustainable, we'll perish... maybe not tomorrow, maybe not in 100 years. But eventually, either we will change or we will cease to be. Americans have a resolute faith in their own direct control over the world we live in, that our destiny is in our hands... and I think that is very true (not the only truth mind you, but I believe it is very much true). However, we aren't alone. Even if the rest of the world does not prevent us from stepping down from our perch at the top of the food chain, the planet/mother nature will eventually do this. We either start changing now, while we can have a relatively easy/painless time of change, or we can wait until it gets really bad, very difficult, and much much more horrible a situation. I say, if we really do believe our destiny is in our own hands... we have no time to waste. Make change happen, now. Make things better by doing it yourself first.
But why is it wrong tinhart? Well, some may say it is cultural empiricism, others may say it is spreading an unhealthy way of eating to people who may have an intrinsically healthier diet (by virtue of their eating more simply, more sustainably than Americans tend to eat). The latter of those two would likely be, in my eyes, the bigger version of wrongness here. Let me be honest, I don't think there is anything wrong with hamburgers, or eating meat, or fast food restaurants. Burger King was my favorite fast food restaurant (and Taco Bell) when I was about 8 years old. I don't advocate a ban on all fast food or meat eating. But the fact is, our planetary ecosystems would collapse rapidly if everyone started eating the way we do. We simply can't support enough cows to make burgers for 6.5 billion people.
Somewhere in the U.S. Constitution there must be a clause about our god given right to eat hamburgers... or at least that is what I think after watching the Burger King 'documentary' about their taste test world tour. Seriously people, you don't have to stop eating meat or fast food, but we can't eat nearly as much as we do. If America wanted to solve both its green house gas emission problems, some of its health care problems, and address a number of other issues (not solve per se), we should reduce our consumption of meat, red meat in particular, by about 50 - 75%, immediately. If we drastically reduced the number of cows we eat, and reduced the amount of meat we eat in general, it would probably have a bigger environmental impact than if every passenger car in the U.S. were instantly turned into a hybrid (I have no specific research to back this up mind you, just years of reading about the environmental impacts of the beef industry). It would result in a healthier diet, and an increased level of general health in this country (relieving strain on the health care industry) and so on.
So if you want to make a small dent in the problem, put down the burger (or at least make it a turkey burger, or better yet, a veggie burger). Save the red meat for special occasions (if you must), or at least not more than once a week. Eat nothing but plants at least a couple times a week, more if you dare. When you do eat meat, favor the other types, especially poultry or perhaps venison should you be a hunter. It is a lot better for you.
Anyway, I know this is all kind of sanctimonious to some people, (some who I call my friends). People don't like change, and people don't generally like to be told what to do, or what is right or wrong. I have clearly indicated that I think the WAY we, as Americans, eat so much red meat and so much fast food is problematic, because it is not sustainable. If we don't revise the way we do things to be more sustainable, we'll perish... maybe not tomorrow, maybe not in 100 years. But eventually, either we will change or we will cease to be. Americans have a resolute faith in their own direct control over the world we live in, that our destiny is in our hands... and I think that is very true (not the only truth mind you, but I believe it is very much true). However, we aren't alone. Even if the rest of the world does not prevent us from stepping down from our perch at the top of the food chain, the planet/mother nature will eventually do this. We either start changing now, while we can have a relatively easy/painless time of change, or we can wait until it gets really bad, very difficult, and much much more horrible a situation. I say, if we really do believe our destiny is in our own hands... we have no time to waste. Make change happen, now. Make things better by doing it yourself first.
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Water
Been a bit too busy to post lately, but have been thinking about this a lot lately. Here in the Pacific Northwest, we have plenty of water (usually) and sadly this means we are often less concerned about how much of it we use. I have lived all over the country, and overseas, and in some of those places it was much harder to take water for granted. When I was a teenager in Southern California for example, we went so far as to build a gray water irrigation system to water our gardens and other plants (essentially by hooking up the drain from the bathtub to a 55 gallon drum and then connecting a hose/spigot to the drum).
Here in Seattle, with all our glorious rainfall, rain barrels make a lot of sense for keeping the garden, potted plants, or grass watered in the summer. They don't cost too much either (a few summers of use should recoup the cost), but I got to thinking... what about people who live in apartments or condos, what about people who don't have yards that need watering, what about something even cheaper and easier that could save at least several hundred gallons of water every year? There must be something suited to this market, something small and compact, sleek, or technologically sophisticated. Oh, but there is... and its called a bucket! I prefer the 2 - 3 gallon type for indoor use, the 5 gallon type for outdoor. But how can these really help you save hundreds of gallons of water each year?
1. catch rainwater to water your potted plants when the sun is out (add a couple drops of bleach if warm weather sets in to kill mosquitoes).
2. better yet, put one in your shower or bathtub to catch the cold water as your shower heats up. Some people have on-demand hot water or just faster delivery of hot water to their showers, but it takes a full 45 - 60 seconds for my shower to warm up. During that time I can catch 1 - 2 gallons of water every time I take a shower. In the summer, that is enough to water a lot of potted plants. During the rainy months (when they don't need to be watered) it can be used to flush the toilet.
Ew! I know, kind of gross and or inconvenient, but hey, it works just fine. Instead of that water just going down the shower drain, I can flush the yellow stuff away a few times every day without using any extra water (since I am using water that would have gone down the drain in the shower). All I have to do is pour a gallon or so into the bowl and that's it, wallah, a fresh bowl (no need to pull the handle or do anything else). And if you're thinking to yourself... that's fine tin, but I just pee in the shower anyway... (ahem). Sure, while that's all well and good, I assume you might have to pee again later, and so... why not do both? I figure one 2 -3 gallon bucket will save me at least 300 gallons of water a year. The five gallon buckets I use to catch rainwater will save me maybe a hundred more (I have 5 of these, catching rainwater in the spring and during the few rain showers we have up here in the summer... but after late September, there isn't much use for them until May).
But what else can we do with water, especially the free stuff that falls from the sky? I've long felt that we should be collecting it, using it, to do things like generate some power and or other useful purpose. A friend (he knows who he is) has mentioned micro hydro installations in people's homes, catching rainwater from gutters to make small amounts of electricity. I am thinking why not catch it at the sewer level, where all the rainwater flows together from a neighborhood? We could be generating several hundred kWh of electricity in the sewers of any neighborhood in the greater Seattle area every month from October to April. We wouldn't have to worry about chopping up salmon either! :o)
It isn't that hard to find small ways to make differences. It isn't hard to make better use of things we take for granted or simply don't notice. And in the case of the bucket, it's even cheaper to be greener than!
-tinhart
Here in Seattle, with all our glorious rainfall, rain barrels make a lot of sense for keeping the garden, potted plants, or grass watered in the summer. They don't cost too much either (a few summers of use should recoup the cost), but I got to thinking... what about people who live in apartments or condos, what about people who don't have yards that need watering, what about something even cheaper and easier that could save at least several hundred gallons of water every year? There must be something suited to this market, something small and compact, sleek, or technologically sophisticated. Oh, but there is... and its called a bucket! I prefer the 2 - 3 gallon type for indoor use, the 5 gallon type for outdoor. But how can these really help you save hundreds of gallons of water each year?
1. catch rainwater to water your potted plants when the sun is out (add a couple drops of bleach if warm weather sets in to kill mosquitoes).
2. better yet, put one in your shower or bathtub to catch the cold water as your shower heats up. Some people have on-demand hot water or just faster delivery of hot water to their showers, but it takes a full 45 - 60 seconds for my shower to warm up. During that time I can catch 1 - 2 gallons of water every time I take a shower. In the summer, that is enough to water a lot of potted plants. During the rainy months (when they don't need to be watered) it can be used to flush the toilet.
Ew! I know, kind of gross and or inconvenient, but hey, it works just fine. Instead of that water just going down the shower drain, I can flush the yellow stuff away a few times every day without using any extra water (since I am using water that would have gone down the drain in the shower). All I have to do is pour a gallon or so into the bowl and that's it, wallah, a fresh bowl (no need to pull the handle or do anything else). And if you're thinking to yourself... that's fine tin, but I just pee in the shower anyway... (ahem). Sure, while that's all well and good, I assume you might have to pee again later, and so... why not do both? I figure one 2 -3 gallon bucket will save me at least 300 gallons of water a year. The five gallon buckets I use to catch rainwater will save me maybe a hundred more (I have 5 of these, catching rainwater in the spring and during the few rain showers we have up here in the summer... but after late September, there isn't much use for them until May).
But what else can we do with water, especially the free stuff that falls from the sky? I've long felt that we should be collecting it, using it, to do things like generate some power and or other useful purpose. A friend (he knows who he is) has mentioned micro hydro installations in people's homes, catching rainwater from gutters to make small amounts of electricity. I am thinking why not catch it at the sewer level, where all the rainwater flows together from a neighborhood? We could be generating several hundred kWh of electricity in the sewers of any neighborhood in the greater Seattle area every month from October to April. We wouldn't have to worry about chopping up salmon either! :o)
It isn't that hard to find small ways to make differences. It isn't hard to make better use of things we take for granted or simply don't notice. And in the case of the bucket, it's even cheaper to be greener than!
-tinhart
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Transportation
So... going places, going green. From about the spring of 2006 to the spring of 2007, I ran a Ford f-250 turbo diesel and a VW TDI Jetta on home "brewed" veggie diesel (made mostly of free, used vegetable oil I collected from neighborhood restaurants). Why did I stop you ask? Well, that's complex, but basically a few reasons:
1. my VW kept needing repairs on a WEEKLY basis... no, not engine repairs (though I did have one glow plug relay go out, but unrelated to fuel use), but electrical. I am not a mechanic or an electrician (unfortunately), so after burning up thousands of dollars in repairs over three months, I sold the thing. My old Ford diesel is just, well, old and has also been needing lots of repairs... some of which may have been related to my next problem
2. I got very annoyed with restaurants dumping water into the oil I collected, even after I supplied them with equipment to avoid this
3. I moved to a home where I no longer had the space to make my veggie diesel
4. I got too darn busy to make it anymore (it easily took 5 - 10 hours a week to collect, clean, mix, filter, pump, etc the diesel... I needed a co-op!).
I learned a lot during this whole process though, namely that diesel engine vehicles can run perfectly on free/cheap fuel - vegetable oil... that there are better ways to go about doing that than the way I did and it if I did it over I would either convert my vehicles to run on straight vegetable oil (I was mixing in about 10 - 15% diesel and some other diesel additives to condition the veggie oil first), or I would collaborate with a community of people to either make our own bio-diesel with commercially available kits or buy in bulk from places like Dr. Dan's. For now, I just buy bio-diesel or bio diesel blend (B20) from one of the gas stations in the Bellevue area where I work.
But all of this costs a lot of money, or know how, or just plain guts (scary thought to put bio-diesel in your vehicle if/when doing so voids your warranty). What would be some easier ways to make your daily ride greener than it is today? Well, for starters... say you drive a gasoline powered car. EVERY gasoline powered car can run on a blend of 10% ethanol... currently most ethanol produced today is made from corn, unfortunately, which usually means it is overall as much or more polluting than gasoline is (when you factor in all the energy that goes into making the ethanol from corn). See these links for some more info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel
(general info about ethanol production and more links)
http://www.igreens.org.uk/ethanol_from_corn_.htm
(criticisms on how ethanol has typically been produced in the U.S.)
http://www.springerlink.com/content/r1552355771656v0/
(some information about energy outputs from different plants for ethanol and biodiesel)
But the bottom line about ethanol is there are truly sustainable ways to make it; check out an article in Wired magazine about one Vinod Khosla's approach (one of the co-founders of Sun Microsystems):
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.10/ethanol_pr.html
* We could utilize every part of the corn plant in the process, we could power the production facilities with methane produced from farm animals that eat the waste cellulose fiber (all of this is from article on Khosla's efforts).
* We could make the ethanol out of grass or algae or any sort of cellulose, preferably types we don't eat.
* We could optimize our engines (increase compression, etc) to run further on ethanol - currently, those flex-fuel vehicles you may have heard about... can run on up to 85% ethanol, but they get worse fuel economy on E85 than when running on lower mixes of ethanol or gasoline... because the engines are not optimized for ethanol.
To do that, gasoline/ethanol engines would have to be built more like diesel engines (higher compression and heavier/sturdier engine blocks). So, there are lots of ways we could be handling this better and cellulosic ethanol seems to be a mass production reality waiting in the wings... and in the meantime, increased demand should speed its development/circulation. So, find out where the blended ethanol gas stations in your neighborhood are and find out if they sell E10 (which ANY gas powered car will run on) or E85, fuel up with that stuff to cut down your carbon emissions a little. Note, since the MTBE gasoline additive was discontinued, ethanol is typically being used in most part of the country now during the colder months to oxygenate our fuel. Which means you are likely using it already, at least part of the year... but why not use it year round?
If you want to get more ethanol powered locomotion, see if you can't get your car converted to run on E85 (This article makes it seem relatively easy, but then... maybe it is more complicated than it sounds; I'm not a mechanic, and NEVER do anything like this without doing adequate research first and or asking a qualified shop to do the work for you). Hop online, do some research.
Of course, there are all the really easy things like:
* drive less
* ride a bike
* take the bus/train/alpaca/mule train
* walk
* drive a motorcycle/scooter instead of a car
* move closer to work/school
* inflate your tires properly
* get oil and filter changes at regularly scheduled intervals
* drive less aggressively
* coast whenever safe to do so
* turn off your engine if you are sitting still in a traffic jam for more than a minute (all newer fuel injected cars, unlike cars more than 15 - 20 years old, or so, do NOT use more gas by turning them on/off... they waste gas by idling though)
* use your engine to slow down/break as much as possible (down shifting)
* carpool
* combine errands
* drive stick rather than auto (if you can)
* don't haul around extra weight when you don't need to
* buy the most fuel efficient vehicle that suits your needs
and so on... the boring stuff basically (but smart never the less). But I want to share/hear about better ways to get ourselves around that go beyond the simple things, I want to hear about/share some unorthodox approaches.
Anybody else got any ideas? Me... I'm waiting for electric (think Tesla motors, but for the common people... wish I could afford a $109,000 car now though), and or plug-in hybrid cars... and if plug in hybrid, hopefully capable of running on ethanol, bio-diesel, or compressed natural gas (GM says the Volt will run on ethanol, in some versions perhaps, and has an optional solar panel roof to extend range! Do some searching). Hydrogen is too far out for now, though it does seem like a nearly perfect solution (as long as they are generating that hydrogen in a green way... like through solar powered electrical process). Time for bed... and greener dreams. :o)
1. my VW kept needing repairs on a WEEKLY basis... no, not engine repairs (though I did have one glow plug relay go out, but unrelated to fuel use), but electrical. I am not a mechanic or an electrician (unfortunately), so after burning up thousands of dollars in repairs over three months, I sold the thing. My old Ford diesel is just, well, old and has also been needing lots of repairs... some of which may have been related to my next problem
2. I got very annoyed with restaurants dumping water into the oil I collected, even after I supplied them with equipment to avoid this
3. I moved to a home where I no longer had the space to make my veggie diesel
4. I got too darn busy to make it anymore (it easily took 5 - 10 hours a week to collect, clean, mix, filter, pump, etc the diesel... I needed a co-op!).
I learned a lot during this whole process though, namely that diesel engine vehicles can run perfectly on free/cheap fuel - vegetable oil... that there are better ways to go about doing that than the way I did and it if I did it over I would either convert my vehicles to run on straight vegetable oil (I was mixing in about 10 - 15% diesel and some other diesel additives to condition the veggie oil first), or I would collaborate with a community of people to either make our own bio-diesel with commercially available kits or buy in bulk from places like Dr. Dan's. For now, I just buy bio-diesel or bio diesel blend (B20) from one of the gas stations in the Bellevue area where I work.
But all of this costs a lot of money, or know how, or just plain guts (scary thought to put bio-diesel in your vehicle if/when doing so voids your warranty). What would be some easier ways to make your daily ride greener than it is today? Well, for starters... say you drive a gasoline powered car. EVERY gasoline powered car can run on a blend of 10% ethanol... currently most ethanol produced today is made from corn, unfortunately, which usually means it is overall as much or more polluting than gasoline is (when you factor in all the energy that goes into making the ethanol from corn). See these links for some more info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel
(general info about ethanol production and more links)
http://www.igreens.org.uk/ethanol_from_corn_.htm
(criticisms on how ethanol has typically been produced in the U.S.)
http://www.springerlink.com/content/r1552355771656v0/
(some information about energy outputs from different plants for ethanol and biodiesel)
But the bottom line about ethanol is there are truly sustainable ways to make it; check out an article in Wired magazine about one Vinod Khosla's approach (one of the co-founders of Sun Microsystems):
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.10/ethanol_pr.html
* We could utilize every part of the corn plant in the process, we could power the production facilities with methane produced from farm animals that eat the waste cellulose fiber (all of this is from article on Khosla's efforts).
* We could make the ethanol out of grass or algae or any sort of cellulose, preferably types we don't eat.
* We could optimize our engines (increase compression, etc) to run further on ethanol - currently, those flex-fuel vehicles you may have heard about... can run on up to 85% ethanol, but they get worse fuel economy on E85 than when running on lower mixes of ethanol or gasoline... because the engines are not optimized for ethanol.
To do that, gasoline/ethanol engines would have to be built more like diesel engines (higher compression and heavier/sturdier engine blocks). So, there are lots of ways we could be handling this better and cellulosic ethanol seems to be a mass production reality waiting in the wings... and in the meantime, increased demand should speed its development/circulation. So, find out where the blended ethanol gas stations in your neighborhood are and find out if they sell E10 (which ANY gas powered car will run on) or E85, fuel up with that stuff to cut down your carbon emissions a little. Note, since the MTBE gasoline additive was discontinued, ethanol is typically being used in most part of the country now during the colder months to oxygenate our fuel. Which means you are likely using it already, at least part of the year... but why not use it year round?
If you want to get more ethanol powered locomotion, see if you can't get your car converted to run on E85 (This article makes it seem relatively easy, but then... maybe it is more complicated than it sounds; I'm not a mechanic, and NEVER do anything like this without doing adequate research first and or asking a qualified shop to do the work for you). Hop online, do some research.
Of course, there are all the really easy things like:
* drive less
* ride a bike
* take the bus/train/alpaca/mule train
* walk
* drive a motorcycle/scooter instead of a car
* move closer to work/school
* inflate your tires properly
* get oil and filter changes at regularly scheduled intervals
* drive less aggressively
* coast whenever safe to do so
* turn off your engine if you are sitting still in a traffic jam for more than a minute (all newer fuel injected cars, unlike cars more than 15 - 20 years old, or so, do NOT use more gas by turning them on/off... they waste gas by idling though)
* use your engine to slow down/break as much as possible (down shifting)
* carpool
* combine errands
* drive stick rather than auto (if you can)
* don't haul around extra weight when you don't need to
* buy the most fuel efficient vehicle that suits your needs
and so on... the boring stuff basically (but smart never the less). But I want to share/hear about better ways to get ourselves around that go beyond the simple things, I want to hear about/share some unorthodox approaches.
Anybody else got any ideas? Me... I'm waiting for electric (think Tesla motors, but for the common people... wish I could afford a $109,000 car now though), and or plug-in hybrid cars... and if plug in hybrid, hopefully capable of running on ethanol, bio-diesel, or compressed natural gas (GM says the Volt will run on ethanol, in some versions perhaps, and has an optional solar panel roof to extend range! Do some searching). Hydrogen is too far out for now, though it does seem like a nearly perfect solution (as long as they are generating that hydrogen in a green way... like through solar powered electrical process). Time for bed... and greener dreams. :o)
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