So, as some of you know, I have been on another environmental thing lately. I do these fairly regularly, usually when I am reading or have just finished a book about the environment, but since I since I try not to foist my views on too many people, you may not know that (although part of me wants to change that, since I think it is important that people begin having conversations about these things). The nice part about a blog is that if you are reading this, I assume it is voluntary.
Anyway, so I have been researching ways to make a home more energy efficient and found some great resources. Basically, to summarize the findings, heating and cooling are you home's biggest energy users, first air conditioners and heaters and then hot water heaters and refrigerators, all of which can be more efficient. Also, most large appliances use much more energy over their lifetimes than they cost to make, so it is usually better for the environment and cheaper to get a more efficient model, even though it might be more expensive initially. Some of the easiest changes are changing your light bulbs to CFL, if you haven't already, and washing your clothes in cold water (heating the water uses 95% of the electricity of a washer). There is some pretty easy math that you can do to figure all of this out, and the best site is here http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/. . This site actually explains in detail everything I might want to say on the subject and he has some other cool guides as well about bike safety, buying a house, finding cheap airline tickets, vegetarianism, etc. I would definitely check it out. Especially if you live in Hawaii where electricity is twice as much as everywhere else., and so all of these changes will be that much more worth it financially.
Also, although the electricity use of a given appliance is listed on the appliance, that is the maximum amount that appliance would ever draw, so while it can be nice for comparative purposes, it won't tell you how much electricity you are actually using. There are several ways to do that, but the easiest is get an electric meter that you plug into the wall and then plug your appliance into, which you can buy here. There is one for $16, plus $5 shipping. I bought one and had it sent to my mom's house so you can play with it there, do the math, see if it is worth it upgrade your appliances.
There is a lot more I could say about this, but just go read check out the website. Also, possibly more than any of these changes would be to get a good bike and ride it instead of driving whenever possible. Oh, and I am thinking about becoming vegetarian. (The only hard thing about doing it here is that you can't get complex carbohydrates like brown rice or whole wheat.)
2 comments:
so about light bulbs. We're slowly transitioning to CFLs because electricity costs about 30cents/kwh here in American Samoa. The light is a little funky but I can deal with that if it means I can save money with them. I was reading an article about the challenge to create a CFL with a warmer hue and a few companies think they'll be able to produce some in the next couple of years. That's good. And they're also getting cheaper. Also good.
So what do you think about light bulb lifespan? All these bulbs say they'll last for so many thousands of hours. But they never do. Lights are burning out all the time. Is that from turning them on and off so many times. Do the CFLs have that same problem. If so, do you end up spending more on replacements than they return in electricity savings?
And back to Moby Dick. I feel like an expert on whale oil lamps now after reading about trying whale blubber, chapter after chapter. But I feel good that we're not using whale oil for our lighting anymore.
CFL's are supposed to last a lot longer as well, so between the energy saved, especially at 30 cents a kwh, (that's about 3 times the average US rate), as well as that they last way longer, they should save you a lot of money. They sometimes give over-optimistic light output guesses, so I would go a little bit higher. ie we bought some 11 watt lights that they said would be equivalent of 60 watts, but they were more like 40, so our house was kind of dark. So, I would go with 20 watt bulbs CFL's or so (they actually give about 3x the output, not 4x). They have a range of colors, so you should be able to find something you like ok. The new flourescents are different from the old tube style, give off a much nicer light, and don't flicker. Turning lights on and off has no appreciable impact on their lifespan, nor is there any appreciable extra surge of electricity to turn it. If you're not using it, turn it off, basically. With electricity that expensive, all of these changes are that much more cost effective. Definitely check out that guys website.
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