GreenGeezer

Smart Meters Help Even Older Homes Save Energy

Image Credit: www.carboncommentary.com

A story in today's New York Times highlights the gains made in energy savings in the UK through the increasing use of Smart Meters.   Smart Meters provide real-time information on energy use so that homeowners can immediately see the effect of appliances, light bulbs, and computers on their energy usage and, their bills.   It has been shown that such feedback (as any Prius owner will tell you) changes behavior, especially as the cost of energy rises. 

In the UK, where creaking old homes vastly outnumber sleek new "green" homes (as they do in most cities of the world), Smart Meters are fostering such energy-saving behaviors as:

• Installing highly efficient windows
• Insulating under roofs
• Installing solar water heaters
• Using incandescent light bulbs little and replacing most or all bulbs with compact fluorescents
• Giving up using an electric teekettle, a notorious energy hog

Britain's Low Carbon Trust  has been a major force in making the city of Brighton and its neighbor Hove, traditional and ancient towns, into prototypes for the new green village.  The trust is sponsoring home tours  so energy-saving Brighton homeowners can share how they have transformed their older homes.

In the U.S., Smart Metering has been tried in several locations, including Chicago and the state of California. By all accounts, they are a raving success. Duke Energy Indiana  plans to install 800,000 Smart Meters starting this year.  According to Energy Design, Strategy and News:

"Some 50 million old meters in the United States are likely to be replaced by advanced meters by 2010 at a cost of about $18 billion, according to a recent analysis by Deutsche Bank. Worldwide, only 6% of electricity, 8% of gas, and 4% of water meters are even automated, according to Texas Instruments Inc, which sells a variety of chips for meters. In fact, in the electric industry alone, 500 million meters worldwide could be replaced over the next 10 years, resulting in semiconductor sales of at least $7.5 billion.."

Okay, so let's get on with it.

Nature Mill Indoor Composter

If you're like me, you're tired of throwing food down the garbage disposal.  (In our current location we don't have a backyard.)  So I have been watching the development of indoor composters like the Nature Mill.  Check it out and watch the video.  It will compost food scraps in about two weeks; you pull out a tray at the bottom and there it is.   Uses 10 watts per month at a cost of about 50 cents.

Folding Greenhouse Saves Space for Urban Gardeners

This folding greenhouse by Daniel Schipper , a Dutch designer is a creative solution for space-challenged urban gardeners.  Via Treehugger.  The Dutch are so creative about energy and water management and making do with small spaces: think windmills and canals.

National Hanging Out Day Celebrates the Clothesline

TreeHugger has the scoop on National Hanging Out Day, and the many new kinds of clotheslines that are being developed to lure people back to hanging their clothes outside.  There's Nature's Dryer, which looks like a tree. And there's Cord-O-Clip, a more high-tech solution.  Find them all at the Clothesline Shop.

I myself grew up with the classic Tee-Post, shown here.

Arzu Rugs Connect Mothers Worldwide

I went to the Global Activism Expo last night at the Broadway Armory (boy that's a long trip on the Red Line) and was happy to see that the Arzu Rugs  people were there.  Arzu Rugs fulfill all the requirements of a "green" product, in that they are not only 100% naturally-dyed and impact the environment minimally, but they are produced in a socially responsible way.  In fact, the mission of the company is to provide income for women in Afghanistan who produce the rugs using ancient methods.  The rugs are beautiful and of the highest quality.  Arzu uses the company to address the very harsh conditions of Afghan women, including education:

"Arzu’s social contract requires that women attend education classes that cover literacy, basic numeracy and units on health, hygiene, nutrition and human rights. In 2006 we began offering similar courses to men. Arzu partners with other NGOs (non-governmental organizations) to provide these services, such as Shuhada Organization in Bamyan and VUSAF (Verein zur Unterstützung von Schulen in Afghanistan) in Andkhoi.

In 2006, Arzu offered its first scholarship for a girl to continue her education beyond the Afghan equivalent of high school."

Small House Society Folded into Resources for Life

I decided to take a look at what the Small House Society was up to, and noticed they have done a very nice re-design of their website, while reorganizing themselves under the umbrella of Resources for Life.   This is all well and good, but I miss the Small House Society name, and wonder if they are going to give it as much attention as its popularity demands.

BuyGreen Website Good Source for Green Products for Home and Office

BuyGreen.com  looks like a great sourcing website for green products.  How green are they?

 "At BuyGreen, we are dedicated to developing a sustainable business.  In every aspect of our operations, from product shipment to office supplies, we look to reduce waste, conserve energy, and minimize use of resources.  After reducing our carbon footprint as much as possible through these efforts, we purchase carbon offsets to reach our goal of a zero waste footprint.  We are approved by Co-Op America, give 1% of our sales back to environmental causes through One Percent for the Planet, and support various environmental and social causes closer to home."

Living Green or Kidding Ourselves? Sprawl is Not Green

Sometimes we get so excited about the benefits of green building that we fail to keep the pressure on to improve public transportation, and that's a problem.  We can't meet the carbon challenge unless we do, says a leading Chicago architect.

Today in Chicago Life, a supplement to the New York Times, Architect Joe Valerio points out that location trumps green materials in green building.   He uses as an example Prairie Crossing, which bills itself as a "conservation community" and does all the new urbanism things right, yet because it's so far from the city, where most of its residents work, it fails to significantly lower carbon emissions.  He uses a hypothetical family, the Smiths, to illustrate:

"The hypothetical Smiths are hypothetically green. They have made progress towards a green future.  Where a normal suburban household consumes 240 million BTUs (MBTUS) of energy per year to maintain the house and for transportation, the Smiths have likely reduced this number to 164 MBTUs."  But the "disquieting myth" is that the Smiths are still using roughly half of their energy for transportation.   If the normal suburban house, even a not especially green one, is built in a city, Valerio points out, the transportation portion drops to 28 MBTUs and brings the total energy use to 143 MBTUs." -- Joe Valerio, p. 26, Chicago Life, supplement to the April 6 Chicago Tribune.

Valerio continues:

• If you build a green house in the city, MBTUs drop to 89 MBTUs
• Rent or buy in a multi-family "green" urban building, MBTUs drop to 62, or 25 percent of the typical suburban household's energy use

This is a very helpful analysis, and I'm grateful to Mr. Valerio.

Picky Neighbors Oppose Vast Manure Pond

The above is a photo taken June 2002 in SE Manitoba (Hog Alley) after heavy rainfall. It represents a saturated manure field draining into Rouseau River. Source at this link.

Sunday's Chicago Tribune featured an article about a proposed giant factory farm that will produce milk.  The article was a typical example of journalism by a writer who has not done homework on the damage that these farms do to the cows and the environment.   Thus we get this vapid headline:  "Plan for the state's largest dairy irks neighbors but could help the economy."  Always, always, when something is inherently bad, we hear that it "will help the economy", though the number of jobs the dairy would create was not shared in the article, and the harm that it would do the local area was brushed off as follows:

"[Neighbors] worry about stench from vast manure ponds, potential groundwater pollution and the prospect of even larger dairies blotting the tranquil countryside."

Oh those silly neighbors. To present mega-stench and vast manure ponds as trivial concerns nearly makes my head explode. Here is an excerpt from the editorial written by one of the affected neighbors that followed the next day:

"..People residing in its vicinity will have to live with the constant, choking stench of its football field-sized manure lagoons, as well as risk contamination of their water supply from potential lagoon breaches and manure run-off. Additionally, large-scale, industrialized farms, such as the proposed A.J. Bos facility, pollute surrounding air and adversely affect property values.

Furthermore, given the apparent lack of U.S.D.A. oversight, as we have seen from the Humane Society of the United States' recent expose of Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Co., industrialized animal farms are repositories for appalling animal cruelty. Construction of the facility proposed by A.J. Bos will undoubtedly establish new ground for abuse of downer cows spent dairy cows too sick or injured to stand. Even if we fooled ourselves into thinking that there would be no incidence of downer abuse at A.J. Bos' facility, there would still be the reality that a 11,000-head dairy factory would involve cruel, intensive confinement of cattle."

Let's hope the neighbors prevail.

New Blog Celebrates the Joys of Owning Chickens

Over the weekend we were down in Daleville, Indiana, my home town, to celebrate the 80th birthday of the mom of my dear friend Glenda.  While there we heard many entertaining stories about the joy and frustration of owning chickens.    You can enjoy them too at Fly the Coop.