I will finish up my long-promised concluding post in the recent series on ethanol and oil imports. I have been traveling for ten days, and inadvertently left all of my graphics for that post on another computer. I am back home now, and will try to tidy it up and post it in the next few days.

On the long plane ride back to Hawaii, I read Power of the People: America’s New Electricity Choices. I picked this book up at the 2009 Solar Tour – Pikes Peak Region, which I visited on my trip to Colorado. My new job has me getting more involved in the electricity sector, and I thought this would be a book that would help push me up the learning curve. A short description of the book:

America is as addicted to electricity as it is to oil. Our electricity usage increases every year, yet we still use the same transmission grid that was constructed in the middle of the last century. The grid is stretched to the limit, creating the potential of future black-outs like the one that brought the Northeast to its knees in 2003. Meanwhile, some of our most abundant and affordable generating fuels have become major culprits in global warming.

Power of the People explores in a nontechnical, conversational way some of the clean, green, 21st-century technologies that are available and how and why we should plug them into our national grid. This important essay explores our failure as a country to adopt these “no regrets” technologies and policies as swiftly as the rest of the world, and why it matters for the future of every American.

The author, Carol Sue Tombari, works for the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL). Despite trying, I can’t find out what her exact position or qualifications are. Here biography says:

Carol Sue Tombari has specialized in energy and environmental policy and programs for more than 25 years. She directed the State of Texas’s energy efficiency and renewable energy programs, served as natural resources advisor to the lieutenant governor, and helped found the National Association of State Energy Officials.

In addition, she was appointed to federal advisory posts by two Federal Secretaries of Energy, chairing a Congressional advisory committee on the subject of renewable energy joint ventures and serving on the U.S. Department of Energy’s (USDOE) State Energy Advisory Board. Tombari is employed at the USDOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory, where she works on local and rural economic development. Ultimately, it is her love for the next generation that continues to drive her work to protect the future of our planet and the lives of those yet to come.

While I found myself learning more about the sector, many things she said left me puzzled. For instance, she claimed that the U.S. uses more energy per GDP than anyone else in the world. This is exactly the opposite of Jeff Rubin’s claim in Why Your World Is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller. Rubin claimed that countries like China use a lot more energy per GDP, which was the basis of his argument that carbon tariffs could work in favor of countries like the U.S., who are more energy efficient at producing GDP. In fact, if you look at the EIA data on energy usage per dollar of GDP, you can see that the U.S. is on the low end of the scale. According to the EIA data, China, compared to the U.S., uses about four times the amount of energy per dollar of GDP. (Thanks to reader Clee for that reference).

The book is pretty anti-nuclear, and makes the claim that renewables are “considerably more affordable” than nuclear power. She seems to rely on Amory Lovins and Tom Friedman for these sorts of claims. The book is pretty realistic about coal, however, concluding that we will be relying on coal for a good many years. She did claim, though, that there have been no major technological innovations in coal-fired central station power plants since the 1950’s. I don’t consider that accurate, as Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) seems like a dramatic improvement in the efficiency of the usage of coal for power production. Several of these IGCC plants will be coming online in the U.S. over the next decade, and a number have already been built in China. (You can see some of the plants that have been completed or are in progress around the world here).

There were some things I found annoying about the book. For instance, it had no graphs. However, on a number of occasions the author said “picture a graph in which the Y axis represents one variable, and the X axis another variable.” Why not just show a graph? Or if for some reason you are limited to no graphics, find another way to make the point.

There were some calculations that just didn’t make sense to me. For instance, she once calculated the required size of a PV system to run a household in Phoenix “if PV cells were 100% efficient.” Why not just do the actual calculation with typical PV efficiencies? She also commented that NREL had done a calculation in which they concluded that “100 square miles that constitute the Nevada Test Site” covered in PV arrays could meet the needs of the entire U.S. (without addressing storage). I did a similar calculation in which I tentatively came up with an area of about 100 miles by 100 miles. So I wonder if she didn’t mean that the NREL calculation concluded that a 100 mile square (10,000 square miles) would suffice.

She also spent a good deal of time talking about how a terrorist could bring down the transportation system or the electrical grid. I don’t think those are the kinds of ideas we want to plant in people’s heads.

One thing that isn’t clear to me is just how utilities benefit from efficiency improvements of their customers. She spent some time discussing various utility programs to improve the efficiency of the end user so they don’t have to construct new power plants. But utilities make their money selling electricity, don’t they? If customers improve efficiency, they just means they are selling less electricity to that customer. But there is apparently something to this model that I don’t fully understand, because I know that utilities are always pushing for – and even subsidizing – these sorts of programs. In Hawaii, the utility will pay for part of a solar hot water installation. So how do they benefit? Perhaps the utilities are compensated by various governments for pushing these efficiency programs. Otherwise, it seems that as consumers become more efficient, the utilities would have to charge more money for the electricity.

One other thing that was discussed – but that has always puzzled me – is the economic multiplier theory. She gave one example about how the benefits of a local Midwestern project ended up contributing three times the income generation to the local economy. Now I can see how a multiplier should work in theory. Pay a guy $100 in salary, and then he pays his taxes and turns around and spends that $100 in the local economy. That merchant then pays his taxes and spends some of it in the local economy, such that the initial $100 supports more than $100 in taxes and spending. In practice, it seems like if it really worked that way, we would subsidize everything. Why would we want to get any autos from Japan? Subsidize U.S. consumers for 50% of the cost of a domestic car, and then let the local multiplier give back 3-4 times that amount to the local community. But in reality, I don’t quite think it works out that way.

In summary, while it seems like I found a lot to nit-pick in the book, I did find a lot of useful information in there. Even the things I found puzzling caused me to think and to do additional research, which was helpful. The author spends a lot of time laying out the present situation with respect to electricity, and talking about the changes that need to happen. The author is peak oil aware, citing Matt Simmons and Tom Whipple (among others) with respect to a projected future energy crunch. I think the anti-nuclear stance was misguided, and I think she overestimates the ability of renewables to fill in for growing demand and the phase-out of older coal-fired power plants. In my view, it is hard to imagine how we are going to get by without building more nukes in the next few decades.

Baltimore Gas and Electric Company (BGE) today announced it has filed with the Maryland Public Service Commission (PSC) a comprehensive and advanced Smart Grid initiative, including the planned installation of 2 million residential and commercial smart meters, that could potentially save BGE electric and gas customers in excess of $2.6 billion over the life of the project. In an extensive pilot program that began in 2008, smart meters and a new pricing plan proved that customers can reduce peak electricity usage by about a third and enjoy significant savings. BGE is seeking prompt action by the Maryland PSC and federal approval of stimulus dollars to position the utility to move to the next phase of this potential smart grid investment.

“This landmark proposal is one of the most ambitious of its kind nationwide,” said Kenneth DeFontes, president and CEO of BGE. “Our Smart Grid initiative includes a host of transformational programs and energy management tools that have the potential to make a meaningful difference in the lives of our customers and the communities we serve in Maryland. This potential capital investment would improve system reliability and, most importantly, help customers conserve energy and lower their energy bills.

“The successful pilot programs we’ve instituted to date demonstrate that customers can make meaningful changes in how they consume energy in response to appropriate education, price signals, information about usage, and economic incentives,” DeFontes said. “Following the successful rollout of BGE’s PeakRewards and energy efficiency programs, investment in Smart Grid is the next major step in our journey to reducing peak demand and long-term energy costs.”

The first phase of BGE’s Smart Grid proposal would be the installation of 2 million advanced, or “smart,” electric and gas meters, operating through a robust utility-to-customer, two-way communications network, which forms the foundation for an automated, digital intelligent grid. The utility is also planning to roll out a new Smart Energy Pricing (SEP) program as its standard rate schedule, which would pay customers rebates for reducing power consumption during peak periods. In the pilot of advanced metering technology and Smart Energy Pricing, participating residential customers reduced their consumption during peak periods by 26 percent to 37 percent, saved more than $100 on average and gave the program a 93 percent satisfaction rating.

BGE’s ability to rapidly and most cost-effectively carry out the Smart Grid initiative depends upon PSC approval and cost recovery in a timeframe that would allow the utility to qualify for a competitive Department of Energy (DOE) grant of up to $200 million to partially fund the initiative. BGE anticipates filing its DOE grant application in early August 2009, and it is anticipated that DOE would begin announcing grant awards in October 2009. The utility estimates initial deployment and operating costs of nearly $500 million over five years, and expects that over the project’s lifecycle customer savings will exceed costs by a ratio of more than 3 to 1.

Under the cost recovery mechanism proposed by BGE, the monthly customer surcharge would be 38 cents per month for electric-only customers and 44 cents per month for gas-only customers in the first year of implementation, and the customer cost would increase slightly over time as benefits also ramp up. Over the life of the program, the monthly surcharge would average approximately $1.24 and $1.52, respectively, for residential electric and gas customers, and would be reduced based on the award of a DOE grant. Customer savings from reduced energy and operating costs will be several times greater than the amount of the surcharge.

“The program we’ve developed is essential to addressing the long-term energy and environmental objectives of the EmPOWER Maryland Energy Efficiency and Conservation Act of 2008, which calls for a statewide reduction of 15 percent in per capita electricity usage and peak demand by 2015,” said DeFontes. “Smart Grid is the foundation from which we can build a more efficient and sustainable energy network in Maryland. It enables large-scale penetration of renewable energy sources and allows us to begin the testing and research necessary to support next-generation transportation innovations, such as plug-in hybrid electric vehicles.”

“We believe our Smart Grid initiative is tremendously beneficial to our customers and the state of Maryland, and we’re eager to move to the next phase of this Smart Grid investment proposal with Maryland as our partner,” said DeFontes. “We will seek an expeditious review and approval by the Maryland PSC so we can begin providing our customers with the savings, reliability, service quality and environmental benefits as soon as possible.”

More Electricity News

I arrived in one piece in Hawaii a few days ago, and have been settling in. It is still hard to believe I am here, and I plan to elaborate a bit on why I am here in the near future.

In the interim – and because I haven’t posted anything new in a few days – I thought I would call attention to a story in the New York Times from a couple of days ago:

Energy Efficiency: Fact or Fiction?

You have to be registered to read it (although the Tehran Times has reprinted the first page of the article) but I will paraphrase/excerpt it. The article covers a number of facts and myths around energy efficiency:

COMPUTERS AND ELECTRONICS

1. Screen savers save energy

FICTION — With screen savers, electricity is still pumping to keep your computer and monitor running. In fact, screen savers may even use more energy than a basic blank screen.

2. Your computer stops using energy when in sleep mode

FICTION — Computers still use energy when in sleep mode, but about 70% less.

3. You waste more energy restarting a computer repeatedly than letting it run all day

FICTION — Even though a small surge of energy is required to start up a computer, this amount is less than the energy consumed when a computer runs for long periods of time.

MAJOR APPLIANCES

4. No energy is used after you turn appliances and electronics off

FICTION — Many appliances still draw a small amount of electricity when turned off. Solve this by plugging into a power strip that you can turn off.

5. It’s more efficient to keep your refrigerator full than half full

FACT — The larger the mass of cold items in a refrigerator or freezer, the less work is required to maintain the appliance’s chilly temperature. (Of course the more work it then takes to get the appliance to its chilly temperature).

6. Hand-washing dishes is more energy efficient than a dishwasher

FICTION — Dish washing by hand actually consumes more water and energy. People typically leave the hot water running, using up to 14 gallons of water on average. GE Appliances’ Paul Riley says to get the most out of an energy-efficient dishwasher, make sure it is fully loaded with food scraped off the plates.

7. Wash clothing with hot water for a truly effective wash.

FICTION — Heating the water for laundry makes up about 90 percent of the energy used in a conventional top-load washer. Using warm and cold water can be just as effective and can slash your energy use in half or more.

CARS AND FUEL

8. It’s better to fill your gas tank halfway because a full tank adds weight and is therefore less fuel efficient

FACT — The lighter your car, the better the fuel economy.

9. If you live in a warm climate, buy a light-colored car.

FACT — The lighter colors reflect the heat, whereas dark vehicles absorb heat and require more air conditioning to cool down.

AROUND THE HOUSE

10. If you live in a warm climate, paint your house a light color

FICTION — A light-colored roof helps dial back the temperature in a home’s attic by reflecting sunlight, but insulation is the key factor when it comes to energy savings. To really cool down your house, focus on proper insulation and plant foliage to block the sun’s rays.

11. Shut the door and vents in unused rooms

FACT — This works only if you close the doors and vents in multiple rooms.

12. Leave the heating or cooling system on all day. If you shut it down when you’re away, the system needs a surge of energy to reach the desired temperature.

FICTION — Switching the thermostat off when you go to sleep or leave for the day will boost energy savings. It will take more energy to bring your house back to the set temperature, but less energy is used during the down times. You can also realize substantial savings by changing the temperature settings. It is estimated that you will realize a 2 percent savings on your energy bill for every degree you cut back.

As I often do on a Saturday morning, I was up early reading through energy headlines. I happened across this story on eSolar:

Bill Gross’s Solar Breakthrough

“We are producing the lowest cost solar electrons in the history of the world,” Bill Gross is telling me. “Nobody’s ever done it. Nobody’s close.”

“We have a cost-effective, no-subsidy solar power solution and it’s for sale, anywhere around the world,” he says.

The article was intriguing, and inevitably led me back to eSolar’s website to get a better idea of whether the claims appear to have merit. There, I watched the slide show on the technology, and caught this bit: A single unit generates 46 MW of clean electricity on a footprint of 160 acres.

While this doesn’t help me figure out whether they can deliver on the hype, it does enable me to update a couple of essays that I have written before:

A Solar Thought Experiment

Replacing Gasoline with Solar Power

In the first, I made an attempt to calculate the area that would be required to equal the entire installed electric capacity of the U.S. – using only solar power. (Yes, I understand that this number falls to zero at night). The numbers quoted above from eSolar – combined with the latest data on installed electrical generating capacity – enabled me to update that calculation.

Per the EIA, total installed electrical generating capacity in the U.S. is approximately 1 million megawatts. If we scale up eSolar’s claim of a required footprint of 160 acres to produce 46 MW of electricity, then it would require 5,435 square miles of eSolar technology to equal current U.S. electrical capacity. This is a square of 73.7 miles by 73.7 miles. This is greater than the 2,531 square miles calculated in the previous essay, but that essay only considered the area for solar panels. The present calculation encompasses the footprint of the plant.

Looking back at the gasoline calculation, I came up with 1,300 square miles required in my previous essay to replace the energy gasoline provides. Using the current eSolar numbers changes that number to 2,413 square miles, or a square of 49 miles on each side.

Of course all of the normal caveats apply as spelled out in the previous essays. The key point is not to read these sorts of thought experiments too literally. I tend to do them to get my head around the scale of certain problems. Complaints of “the cost is too great” or “the power is intermittent” – addressed by caveats in the previous essays – completely miss the point of the essay. It is sort of like trying to figure out how much biomass would be required to power the world. If the calculation is 10 times the current annual output of biomass, then that’s not going to work. If it is 1/100th the current annual output of biomass, then that might work (again, pending lots of other things working out).

In this case, I find this eSolar thought experiment encouraging insofar as the required land area isn’t a clear knockout.

In case you missed the story yesterday in the Economist:

How long till the lights go out?

North Sea gas has served Britain well, but supply peaked in 1999. Since then the flow has fallen by half; by 2015 it will have dropped by two-thirds. By 2015 four of Britain’s ten nuclear stations will have shut and no new ones could be ready for years after that. As for coal, it is fiendishly dirty: Britain will be breaking just about every green promise it has ever made if it is using anything like as much as it does today. Renewable energy sources will help, but even if the wind and waves can be harnessed (and Britain has plenty of both), these on-off forces cannot easily replace more predictable gas, nuclear and coal power. There will be a shortfall—perhaps of as much as 20GW—which, if nothing radical is done, will have to be met from imported gas. A large chunk of it may come from Vladimir Putin’s deeply unreliable and corrupt Russia.

Many of Britain’s neighbours may find this rather amusing. Britain, the only big west European country that could have joined the oil producers’ club OPEC, the country that used to lecture the world about energy liberalisation, is heading towards South African-style power cuts, with homes and factories plunged intermittently into third-world darkness.

For more background on Britain’s situation, see also The looming electricity crunch.

I thought about these issues a lot when I lived in Scotland. Britain is clearly facing a crisis, and how they address it will be instructive to those of us who are concerned about energy shortages. I always said that Britain will ultimately conclude that they have to have a lot of new nuclear power, but it looks like that recognition won’t come in time to help them. So what’s the answer? They start ramping coal back up – breaking those green promises – or they start to suffer power outages. What do you think they will do? As I have said before, when the power starts to go out, environmental concerns will fly out the window. Sure, people like the idea of not burning coal. But will they give up power 6 hours a day to achieve that? I don’t think too many of them will.

Of course there is still natural gas from Russia, and I think they are going to have to roll the dice in the short term and hope Russia doesn’t hold them hostage. Longer term, LNG terminals would seem to make sense to me, but they don’t seem to be a part of the discussion here.

Ultimately, I think Britain will behave as the rest of the world will behave when faced with energy crunches. They will find that renewables can’t step up and fill the gap, and so they will roll out conservation measures and make do with whatever it takes to avoid crippling power outages: No matter if it takes coal, natural gas, or the blubber from baby seals. This is how I expect the world to respond when renewable dreams meet the reality of power shortages.

Clothesline in use

A beautiful sunny weekend gave me the perfect opportunity to kick off the clothesline season for the year.  As I’ve previously written, our highest electricity usage happens on the weekends, which is when I do all the laundry. On a nice, sunny day I can easily dry two loads of laundry on the line per day.  Over a weekend, this reduces my dryer usage by 66%. This is great from an energy use reduction standpoint.  Plus, the clothes smell great.

Asparagus bed, May 2009

My biggest gardening disappointment so far this year has been the asparagus bed. Last fall, I put a lot of work into prepping the asparagus bed for a spring planting. When the asparagus crowns arrived, I planted all 25 of them exactly as directed.  And then I began the wait.  About a month ago, the first shoot appeared. And then I waited some more.  Out of the 25 crowns, I’ve counted eight little wimpy asparagus shoots so far.  I’ve heard asparagus can be difficult to establish, and my experience so far is proving this to be true.

Spinach in greenhouse, bolted

 This is a much more minor disappointment, but I’ve learned it is not a good idea to do a second spring spinach planting in the greenhouse.  As you can see, the greenhouse spinach has already bolted, which means the temperature is signalling it to go to seed. I’m going to need to harvest all of this today.  Guess we’re having spinach with dinner tonight!

Canoe peas, sparse germination

Another disappointment this year, the planting of Canoe peas.  In the foreground, you can see that the Canoe peas did not germinate consistently.  I’d say that only 20% of the seeds I first planted actually germinated.  I did a second planting a few weeks later and had a few more germinate, but the plants are not nearly as dense as I would like. Certainly not as dense as the Oregon Sugar Pods that you can see in the row behind.  I won’t be including the Canoes in my planting plan for next year.

Golden Bantam corn

Switching gears, here you can see my little corn patch.  I planted the corn in the leftover tops of the bins I used to make self-watering containers.  These containers are sitting on top of a lasagna planting area that I’m building up over time. When I’m finished growing the corn, I’ll simply remove the tops of the bins and the soil will become part of the layers of materials I am using to build a large new planting area.  I’ve never grown corn before, so we’ll just have to see how it goes.

 I hope everyone has been enjoying the spring so far this year!

Today I received this letter from Ben Harrison in Provo, Utah:

I don’t know if the current economic problems have hit your school
yet, but last night my children mentioned that at school they have to
keep half the lights turned off now because they can’t afford the
electric bill. Good grief.

I thought this was very interesting because I was just commenting to my husband that I thought our school could save electricity with spring coming if we turned off some of the electric space heaters (we have no central heat in our school).

How many other schools out there are trying to save money by such methods?  Of course in American classrooms they have FAR more lights on than we do in other countries.

Eileen

December electricity and gas usage

Our December utility bill (covering mid November to mid December) shows our best energy reduction results so far. Our daily average K HW usage for electricity was down 17%.  Our daily average THRM usage for natural gas was down 34%.  There are two primary reasons for the latter in particular: 1.  The average daily temperature was 5 degrees warmer compared to last year, meaning the furnace didn’t have to work as hard, and 2. We’ve been really good at keeping our thermostat set to 68 degrees.

Greenhouse lettuce in December

Out in the greenhouse, temperatures have dropped significantly.  While it typically stays 10 – 15 degrees warmer inside than outside (sometimes requiring a small propane heater), that’s not saying a lot when the low temperate of the day is 8 degrees.  A few days ago we moved our lime tree inside the house because it isn’t exactly a plant that can handle sub-20 degree temperatures.  Today I did the same for the lemon tree.  Pretty much everything in the greenhouse that was growing (pepper plant, pea pods, broccoli and cabbage plants) is now kaput, except for the lettuce.  A few weeks ago, I put a floating row cover over the lettuce bed. When I pulled it back today to see how the lettuce has weathered the cold, definitely sub-freezing temperatures, I was pleasantly surprised that it looks fine. 

The other interesting challenge of such cold weather is taking care of the chickens and goats. And the biggest challenge by far is how quickly their water freezes over.  Giving the goats access to water requires boiling water and a hammer.  We bang through the layer of ice and then pour in boiling water.  Of course, this needs to be repeated later in the day.  We’ve also started taking the chicken water into the garage at night so that it doesn’t completely freeze. We take it back out in the morning when we let them out of their coop.  Later in the day, we have to go back out with boiling water and thaw it out again.  Luckily, the weather doesn’t seem to be bothering the chickens too much.  When I researched chicken breeds, I specifically looked for cold-hardy birds that would lay well in the winter.  They appear to be doing both.  We are consistently getting 2 – 3 eggs from them even on cold days.

Stay warm!

Sandy

October electricity (top) and gas (bottom) usage

At the mid-point each month, I look forward to getting our energy bill to see if any of our energy-saving measures are starting to pay off.  So far, I’ve only seen small improvements.  This month, however, the improvements are noticeable.  I’ve received feedback from readers who are much more knowledgeable in energy use reduction than I am that looking at month-over-month changes is not nearly as telling as looking at year-over-year changes, since usage patterns vary considerably based on seasonal factors.  Looking year over year, our electricity usage is down by 15% and our gas usage is down by 45%.  Since our furnace is by far our biggest user of natural gas, I credit reprogramming our thermostat and keeping the temperature at 68% as being the reason behind the improvements.  I do think we can squeeze out a bit more efficiency by continuing to optimize the thermostat programming, primarily with trying to move the “away” temperature down more to see if we can do so without causing any problems.  In spite of these improvements, it is clear we have a long way to go in improving our electricity usage.  Our current usage, 920 KWHs a month is still pretty high considering that we are actively working to bring this down.  Although a bit dated, here’s some really useful data about KWH usage, based on geographical region.

RIP Blondie

In other news, I am sad to report that we’ve lost a chicken.  A few mornings ago I realized that there were only five chickens in the coop/run.  I looked all around but didn’t see the sixth chicken.  We’ve been letting them free range a bit during the day and I think the chicken jumped over the fence and couldn’t get back in.  When I closed them into their coop that night, I think I closed one chicken out of the coop.  We found a pile of feathers in our yard, so we know for sure it is gone.  The lost chicken was one of our Buff Orpingtons, the one we named Blondie.  So RIP Blondie. I hope you went quickly.

In final chicken news, no eggs yet.  The chickens are getting mild threats of heading to the stew pot if they don’t produce soon.  These are empty threats, but it sure would be great to start getting some eggs from them.

Sandy

Rain barrels, sort of hooked up

Summer in Seattle is short and can end abruptly.  In the last week, we’ve gone from days in the 80s to barely hitting 60, with lots of rain to boot. The change in weather has impact on many aspects of our greener living plans.

First, the positive.  It sure is easy for us to collect and store rain water. As you can see in the photo, we’re diverting the rain water off our greenhouse roof into our rain barrel.  With just one day of rain, the first barrel is pretty full. We’ve ordered an additional six rain barrels, which will bring the total to 10.  It won’t be hard to fill them all up.  As you can also see in the photo, the barrels are not yet connected.  This is one of the many items on our fall to do list.

With the onset of rain, our outdoor clothesline is out of commission.  During the warmer weather, we had been doing a great job of using the clothesline.  I’d say we dried about 50% of our laundry on the line each week since putting the line up. This percentage will likely come down with the end of summer, though I did buy an indoor clothes rack from Ikea.  I can’t do as much on the rack as I did on the line, but maybe I’ll be able to do two out of six loads on the rack. We’ve also been doing many more cold wash cycles, to reduce usage of our hot water heater.  Laundry day has historically been our worst electricity usage day of the week, and our efforts have helped us smooth out our usage spikes, but we haven’t made much significant progress in bringing the overall electricity numbers down.  As you can see here, we have a slight year over year drop, but with all the changes we’ve been making in how we use electricity, I had been hoping to see more.  The only thing that makes me not feel terrible about our slow progress last month is that we spent half of the month home on vacation, which means we had a whole lot more days in the house than during a typical month, and we always use more electricity when we are home.

September electricity bill

With the colder weather, we recently turned the furnace back on.  For me, 62 degrees in the house is just too cold.  We’ve programmed the thermostat to be 68 degrees when we are home, 60 degrees when we are away, and 62 when we are asleep.  We’ll play around with the numbers and schedule to see if we can reasonably bring furnace usage down a bit more.  So far, I’ve resisted turning the thermometer up to 72 and have found that the more time I spend outside gardening, the more 68 feels nice and cozy when I come back indoors.

Even though the weather has changed, I’m continuing on with my fall gardening.  I replanted, in the rain today, the first of the three lettuce boxes I have in rotation.  I cut and come again harvested the first box for nearly two months and recently found that the latest batch of lettuce was starting to have a bitter taste.  I’m definitely becoming spoiled when it comes to having perfect lettuce.  I pulled out the old lettuce, threw it in the chicken coop, and then replanted with an heirloom lettuce cutting mix. The second of the three lettuce boxes is ready for harvesting, so the timing for the replant was just about right on.

Chocolate zucchini bread

And finally, colder weather allows for more indoor projects, like baking.  Like many other gardeners this time of year, I have too many zucchini.  I only have two plants, but even two plants produces more than we can deal with.  Next year, I will only plant one zucchini plant.  I did find a good chocolate zucchini bread recipe.  If you’ve got some extra zucchini on hand, give this one a try. Chocolate makes everything better . . .

Sandy

August electricity usage

Between the middle of July and the middle of August, we installed a few dozen new compact fluorescent bulbs in our house. We’ve been more diligent than ever about turning off lights.  As the middle of the month approached, I was getting excited about seeing our energy bill because I thought we’d see a nice noticeable dip in our electricity usage.  Then the bill arrived.  And here you see it. For our July bill, we used 880 KWH (kilowatt hours), for August it was up to 1040 KWH. That’s an 18% increase. Why, oh, why???

Thinking about the differences between the two months, I can only think of two things. First, we spent a few days during the July billing cycle out of town, so usage was very low on those days. Second, for a week during the August billing cycle, our greenhouse was being built. This required the use of equipment that drew electricity, primarily an air compressor and various saws. Aside from these two differences, our usage patterns were pretty much the same or better in August — except we installed all those compact fluorescent bulbs, which should have helped. Since we’ve also started using the clothesline, I am hoping we see better results in our next bill.  We might also buy a Kill A Watt product to be able to measure the usage of our various appliances.  And I have to say a real-time home electricity monitoring system is starting to look tempting as well.

On a positive note, our greenhouse was finished on Monday.  I’m going to take and post pictures this weekend.  Also, we’re going to build the chicken coop on Monday.  So, even though our electricity reduction program isn’t going as well as planned, we’re making real progress on the suburban homesteading front.

Sandy

Do full loads of laundry and set the rinse cycle to “cold.”

Clothesline in action

While we may be looking a bit countrified, a bit Ma and Pa Kettle in this photo, it actually shows that we’ve made some real progress. If you look past the dormant lawn/weeds that have turned into exposed dirt thanks to the regrading needed for the greenhouse, if you look past the broken, ”decorative” windmill, and if you look past the pile of construction debris, you’ll see that we now have a real, working clothesline and that it is actually in use. In fact, I used it to dry three of our five loads of laundry this weekend. Hopefully, this will bring down our weekend energy spikes. With such warm weather, the clothes dried very quickly.  And I’ve found that I can get rid of that crunchy clothesline feeling if I throw them in the dryer for five minutes for fluffing. The nice, dried-outside smell remained.

Weather in our area can be quite changeable.  In fact, after our hot weather today, we had a light rain this evening.  This got me thinking about how we could get the benefit of a clothesline even after the weather turns wet again.  UrbanClotheslines.com has some interesting indoor hanging racks that I’ve looked at, but we don’t have a lot of space in our laundry room.  And I don’t really like the idea of setting up a drying rack in our everyday living space, so a big inside-the-house drying rack system isn’t my first choice.  Thinking about different options, it occurred to me that the greenhouse could also be a good place to put a drying rack.  The greenhouse is covered, so no rain, and it is hot (and will be warm even during winter months).  There will be good air circulation from the fan system. And it’s big — certainly big enough for a drying rack, maybe something like this from Ikea (note: Ikea has a number of different drying rack options and they are all less expensive than what you would find on UrbanClotheslines). Once the weather turns wet, I’ll give this a try.  Again, even if I dry just a few loads a week this way, it will help bring our electricity usage down.

Speaking of our electricity usage, I received our latest utility bill.  We actually used a bit more electricity in the last month than we did the previous month — this, after installing about a gazillion new compact fluorescent bulbs.  I was really surprised our usage went up and will be using the tools on the Puget Sound Energy site this week to figure out what happened.  I do have a theory related to the greenhouse build and all the power tools that were drawing electricity . . . .

More on the greenhouse soon. It’s really truly 95% done and should, crossing our fingers, be complete early this week.

Sandy

As alluded to previously, one of the things we’re doing is trying to increase efficiency given the existing infrastructure of the house.  To wit:  we’re replacing the majority of incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs.  Now, personally, I’ve never been a big fan of fluorescent technology – I’m one of those people who can hear the buzzing of the ballast and can sometimes see the cycling/flickering that was inherent in the older generation.  In addition, there’s something comforting about a good incandescent bulb – it’s warm and welcoming like a fire in the fireplace or a vacuum tube amplifier.  However, incandescent bulbs are extremely wasteful (approximately 90 percent of the electricity consumed a bog-standard incandescent light bulb is emitted as heat instead of light) and – let’s face it – based upon 19th century technology (as is the internal combustion engine – a topic that will be explored another time).

As mentioned, my past experience with fluorescent light bulbs has been poor to say the least.  Fortunately, or unfortunately, compact fluorescent bulbs have a very long light span, which means it is entirely possible to have some older-generation light bulbs that really don’t look so great and make enough extraneous noise to cause the voices to begin clamoring in your head (or is that just me?).  Either way, Sandy and I went to the hardware store last Sunday with the intention (in part) to buy some new compact fluorescent (CF) bulbs.  To my delight, I found that someone in the light-bulb business got a clue about designing a usable CF bulb.  Instead of the weak, pallid-jaundiced light of the first generation bulbs, you can now choose from a variety of color temperatures (unfortunately, they don’t list the temperature in Kelvins – symbol = K). 

Thankfully, for me and anyone who happens to stumble across this blog, there’s always Wikipedia.

Different color temperatures for CF bulbs

To your left is a photo (thanks, Wikimedia Commons) of several varieties of CF bulbs.  As you can see, there is a vast range of color-temperatures available for CF.  The color breakdown is as follows:

- Warm / Soft White ≤ 3000 K

- White / Bright White = 3500 K

- Cool White = 4000 K

- Daylight ≥ 5000 K

Your old-school first-generation CF bulbs were closest to what is called ‘Warm white’ or ‘Soft white’ and you didn’t have a choice with regard to color temperature.  Boo.  Hiss.  That’s why they were so dim and murky looking when compared to incandescent bulbs. 

Simply moving up the temperature scale from 3000 Kelvin to 3500 or 4000 Kelvin makes a huge difference.  While not as ‘warm’ as traditional incandescent bulbs, it’s not as evocative of a mental institution / hospital morgue as the low-Kelvin CF bulbs were.  This is, as Martha Stuart would say, is a good thing.

Merrily, I bought a bunch of 100W equivalent (ratings are equivalent to incandescent since that’s what most folks understand – the lumen output is equivalent to an 100W bulb) and 60W equivalent bulbs and brought them home.  I decided to go with 100W bulbs in the light fixtures in the kids’ rooms and 60W bulbs in the various table lamps.  Bad choice.  The funny thing – even to this day – about CF bulbs is that since they are ballast-based, you don’t get the full output immediately upon switching on the lights – it usually takes a minute or so for the light to warm up and give you 100% of the available lumens. 

When I tested the lights, they looked pretty good.  However, later that evening when we were putting away laundry we turned on the lights in the kids’ rooms and stepped out for a second (to put clothes away in our room).  When we returned, both kids’ rooms were lit up like a movie set.  Clearly a pair of 100W bright-white bulbs were too much for the room.

And that brings me to the caveats about CF bulbs:

1. They’re expensive.  Sure, they’re supposed to last a long time – much longer than standard incandescent bulbs (excluding the Centennial Light), but they still cost about 5-7x more.
2. They contain mercury.  This means don’t drop ‘em.  It also means that you need to dispose of them correctly.
3. Sometimes you just can’t replace a bulb with a CF – we found that in our son’s room – we couldn’t use a 12V double-pin CF replacement for a halogen mini-bulb because it would flicker – probably due to an out-of-spec step-down transformer in the fixture.
4. They behave slightly differently than incandescent bulbs.  I advise buying a couple of different rated bulbs with different color temperatures and try them around the house.  Save your receipt and when you decide on what bulbs go where (make a list!), take the ones you don’t want back – I know, I know, it is borderline dishonest, but what the hardware store doesn’t know won’t hurt them.  Especially if it is one of the big-box stores like Home Depot or Lowes that drives local hardware stores out of business.

When everything is said and done, you can reduce your household lighting-related energy consumption by a substantial margin simply by switching to CF bulbs.  If you are worried about wasting the incandescent bulbs you’ll be replacing, take heart – you can always carefully store them and save them for a couple of years and then sell them on Craigslist or eBay when they are no longer available due to upcoming government bans.

By "tracitodd" at http://www.flickr.com/photos/kyshuttergirl/

I have to say, the Puget Sound Energy site is quite good.  I’m able to get way more information about my electricity and gas usage than I ever knew I could.  If you look at your bill details online, you can break your usage into a variety of charts (daily, monthly, electricity, gas, etc.) using the “Energy Use Analyzer” tool which can be found on the bill statement page.

When I looked our our daily electricity chart, a clear pattern emerged.  Monday through Friday were the low usage days.  This makes sense since we typically are not home during the day during the week.  I also noticed very large spikes on one day of each weekend, usually on Sundays.  I knew instantly what it was: laundry. The New York Times concurs.

Derek does all the dishes.  I do all the laundry.  And I usually do all this laundry in one day, typically taking six loads.  I know that is a lot.  With four people in our household, we average more than a load per week.  There are a few reasons for this.  First, my soon to be five-year-old daughter changes her clothes throughout the day.  I’m never quite sure what is clean and what is dirty so I tend to throw everything that has touched her floor into the dirty pile.  Second, I wash everything that has been worn at all during the week.  From a hallway conversation I had at work, I realized different people have different rules for what actually needs to be washed.  My rule defaults to everything that has been pulled off a hangar — this is probably excessive.

Laundry is a triple whammy of electricity usage: 1.  The washer, 2. The dryer, and 3. The hot water heater.  We have two things that do help, a better-than average efficiency for our hot water heater and an Energy Star washer and dryer set. We also, a few years ago, purchased the Fisher & Paykel washer and dryer set. The washer uses only 24% of the electricity of a traditional washer and the spin cycle pulls out more water, making drying cycles shorter.

So here’s what we’re going to do to bring laundry electricity usage down:

1. Teach my young daughter not to change so many times during the day. Wish me luck on this one.
2. I will be more judicious about what I actually put through the laundry.  If something (all undergarments and socks vehemently excluded from this) appears lightly worn (things like sweaters, light jackets, etc.), I’ll hang them up instead of rewashing them.
3. To make the hot water heater work less hard, I will do more cold and warm/cold washes.
4. We are going to set up a clothesline.  I bought the supplies today and we’re going to set this up next weekend. My goal is to dry three loads a week on the line (during warm/dry days). If you are interested in a clothesline, you’ll be amazed by the options you’ll see at Urban Clothes Lines. Of course, you can find simple lines at your local hardware store.

Happy laundry.

Sandy

Electricty Sources for PSE

Living in the Pacific Northwest, we do benefit from hydroelectric power, which makes up 45% of the mix. Coal generated electricity I do know is not good, contributed to the green house gas problem when the coal is burned to create the electricity. Natural gas burns cleaner, but I’m still not sure how this rates in terms of environmental impact.

So here’s where I get to deciding to voluntarily pay more. I joined the Puget Sound Energy Green Energy Program. Joining the program will cost us and additional $0.0125 per KWH. For our electric bill last month, that ads on about $11 more dollars. PSE will buy blocks of power from green sources to introduce into the overall power mix, effectively increasing the percentage of green power in the overall power supply. In my mind, this does a few things: 1. It demonstrates to PSE that there is more demand for green energy, and 2. It increases my bill, giving me an incentive to use less energy. Here is what this buys:

Green-e Cerfication Profile

Oh, as an added bonus I found out that the average American family uses 900 KWH per month.  Our 880, our lowest usage of the year, is just under this.  When you average our numbers out, we’re certainly above average, something we are working to change.

Sandy

When we first moved into this house, aside from the scary-ass grey shag carpet and the popcorn on the ceiling, we noticed that (a) there wasn’t a whole heck of a lot of insulation in the crawl spaces (attic & underfloor) and (b) the cool-man 1977-vintage aluminum windows pretty much had, without exception, blown their seals. As a result, air infiltration was problematic at best, vicious at worst. Since then, we’ve

There is a lot more to do, but we need to start small, simple and cheap before we tackle the large projects:

• Improving efficiency by adding insulation
• Adding cellular shades in the kitchen & family room
• Replacing remaining incandescent lights with CFLs as they die
• Teaching the kids to turn off lights when they leave a room
• Installing a clothesline
• Turning down the thermostat (this will be a hard one for Sandy – she dislikes the cold)

Once we’ve done all this work, we’ll have a better baseline and can move on to calculating our energy needs.  I’m hoping we can tackle the solar water heater before the end of the year so we can take advantage of the $2,000 tax credit from the Federal Government which expires on December 31, 2008, but it’ll be a few years before we indulge in PV panels.  Maybe by then they’ll be cheaper and more efficient (and hopefully the next president and congress will re-up the tax credits.

Excelsior!

-Derek

I automate all my payments.  Everything flows into and out of my accounts digitally, automatically, and that means aside from seeing the amounts when I review my spending, I usually do not see the details behind the payments for my bills.  This goes for my utility bills as well.  As I start this challenge, I actually do not know how much energy my family uses. I know generally how much I spend per month, but not what this translates into in terms of actual energy consumption. So, here is my electric bill.  I’ll hold off on gas usage for the time being, because I have a lot of questions about natural gas and think it would make a good topic to explore in the next few weeks.

Now I have some basic knowledge.  In June, we used 880 KWH.  This was down from 960 KWH the previous June.  We made two changes to how we use electricity in the last year: 1.  We changed all our bulbs to compact fluorescent bulbs, and 2. We replaced our water heater, which was previously gas.  Logically, you think we would be using more electricity. Could the compact fluorescent bulbs have that much impact?  I have no idea.  Is 880 KWH good or bad? Again, no idea. So this is my next step, to really understand our typical energy usage and how it is being used.

Sandy

What’s eating away at your cash reserves without your knowledge?

The Bite

No, we’re not talkin’ couch cushions. A phantom load is the energy that’s sapped by appliances when they’re plugged in, but not on. Plug your devices into power strips that you switch off each night to achieve energy symbiosis.

The Benefits

·         Less bank account-leeching. 40% of the electricity used to power home electronics is consumed while they’re turned off.

·         Less parasitic exploitation of the earth’s resources. If we averted phantom loads in all U.S. homes, we could shut down 17 power plants.

·         It’s easier than contracting malaria. Power strips with surge protectors make it easy to “unplug” many appliances at once.

Personally Speaking

All of our offices use power strips, and we love clicking the off switch at night since it means that happy hour is right around the corner.

Wanna Try?

·         Smart Strip Power Strip – smarty-pants device that senses when electronics are off, then “unplugs” them; also has space for “always on” appliances such as clocks and the fridge ($40).

·         Belkin SurgeMaster – has nine outlets, three phone-line inputs, and safety covers for the kids ($29).

·         Intermatic Appliance Timer – a timer that turns off lamps and electronics; use it when you’re outta town ($5).

·         Kill-a-Watt – find out how much energy various appliances are using ($24).

• Keep cool – in the summer, close your drapes during the day to save on cooling costs
• Keep warm – in the winter, open your drapes to let the sun in and save on heating costs
• Turn off the lights – when going to a meeting, lunch, or leaving for the day remember to turn off your office lights 
• Computer monitors – at the end of the day and at lunch remember to turn off your monitor
  • At 10 cents per kilowatt-hour, turning off one 25-watt flat monitor during down time only saves $1.38 per month, BUT eliminates 225 pounds of CO2 (green house emissions) by burning 135 fewer pounds of coal each year.

Have questions about your Green Team gift? Here’s a quick reference for everything CFL. CFL Fact Sheet

How much land would it take for solar power to satisfy the electricity demands of the U.S.? I made some attempts to calculate this before, but a recent story may enable me to calculate some more reliable numbers if the solar is provided via solar thermal power:

Solar Power Heats Up: Another Plant Planned for Southwest

Two bits caught my eye:

Abengoa Solar, a subsidiary of a similarly named technology company based in Seville, Spain, and Arizona Public Service on Thursday announced plans to build a 280-megawatt solar thermal power plant about 70 miles southwest of Phoenix.

So we know the planned capacity of the solar thermal plant. In case you are unfamiliar with solar thermal:

Solano will use parabolic mirrors to follow the sun across the sky and concentrate its energy, heating a fluid to 700 degrees Fahrenheit, and using the fluid to make steam that will spin turbines to generate electricity. The plant will use an unspecified heat storage technology so the plant can continue generating electricity for six hours after sunset.

So, how much area to produce 280-megawatts?

The project will bring economic benefits, too. During three years of construction, it will employ 1,500 workers at the 1,900-acre site near Gila Bend. After completion, 80 permanent employees will work at Solano.

OK, let me say before running through this calculation that I have no idea how it is going to turn out. And if someone spots an error in math or logic, please bring it to my attention. I am going to scale this up to produce all current U.S. electricity demands.

Peak U.S. demand, according to the EIA, is almost 800,000 megawatts. Actual available capacity is 900,000 megawatts. So let’s make our solar capacity equal to today’s total installed electrical generating capacity.

Assuming the entire 1,900 acres is needed for the plant (maybe not a good assumption, but all I have), then this breaks down to (280 megawatts)/(1,900 acres), or 0.147 megawatts per acre. This of course includes all of the land associated with support functions, and it may include area for future expansions. So the calculation may be conservative.

The second assumption is that the areas in which will put our solar plants will be as productive as this one in Arizona. That is not a conservative assumption, and will somewhat offset the previous conservative calculations.

Then to get 900,000 megawatts is going to take (900,000 megawatts)/(0.147 megawatts per acre), or 6.1 million acres. How large of an area is this? I don’t know. I have to get out my calculator.

My calculator indicates that 6.1 million acres is an area of 9,531 square miles, which is equivalent to a square of just under 100 miles by 100 miles (which would be 10,000 square miles). That’s a large area, to be sure. But the possibility is there.

A couple of caveats. First, this calculation does not make a provision for a mass migration to electric transport. That would clearly require (a lot) more power. On the other hand, we already have a lot of installed electrical capacity in the form of hydroelectric (78,000 megawatts), other renewables (24,000 megawatts), and nuclear power (100,000 megawatts). This lessens the power requirement from solar.

How does this compare with my previous calculation for solar PV? I don’t know. Let me check.

OK, I checked. Not too bad. In A Solar Thought Experiment, I had assumed a slightly lower power requirement and only included the actual area of the solar cells. I came up with an area of about 50 miles by 50 miles of PV panel surface area. So it was in the ballpark. The 100 by 100 mile number is probably more realistic (and is for solar thermal – a different animal), given the need for the real estate for supporting infrastructure.

Other conclusions from the previous essay remain the same. For solar PV, there are around 100 million houses in the U.S., so there is quite a bit of surface area readily available, right where the power is needed. Your results will obviously vary depending on whether you live in Maine or Nevada. The cost is still a staggering $6 trillion. However, to put that number in perspective, at $100/bbl, the U.S. would spend $6 trillion on oil in less than 8 years.

What is the limiting factor? Are there particular components that are critical, but not available in large enough quantities to make this work? Possibly, but I don’t know what those might be. I actually believe that this could be our Manhattan Project, and it could be done. But it doesn’t even have to offset all of our current electrical capacity. We just need to start chipping away, and substituting solar in place of fossil fuels and new capacity that is needed.

Can we afford it? The key question to me is, “Can we afford not to try?”