pointing out the obvious

In a previous post discussing carbon neutral, Peter raised a valid question about the replacement of old technology with new technology, knowing that new technology will have a lesser net effect on the environment (and your wallet).

To describe this through an example:  A new, environmentally efficient, low water consuming laundry machine requires a huge amount of raw materials to build and ship to your home prior to saving you water and energy.  However, using the old washer uses twice as much water, and twice as much power.  So, the question is, when does it make sense to replace an older appliance with a newer one.

In other words, when does….

cost of running the technology + cost of removing old technology
EQUAL
cost of running new technology + cost of producing new technology
????

Where cost is the environmental cost.

Of course, this is next to impossible to determine.  Why?  Probably because the economy wants you to continue purchasing - it keeps them in business.  The same way 3 years from now, a new and improved laundry machine will be introduced, which everyone MUST have.  Thus the cycle continues.

Of course, I’m quite guilty of this myself, but I’m trying hard to consider this when making unnecessary purchases - like cameras.

It’s been on my mind lately.

The arguments for consuming local food make a certain amount of sense - if it’s local, it didn’t require as much burnt fuel to get to my local grocery store. You can define your own ‘local’ boundary, but I’ve been trying to stick with ‘Ontario’ over the last little while to see how it might affect my diet. It seems as though it wouldn’t affect me much. I generally don’t eat as many fresh vegetables in the winter because they are expensive (i.e. imported from South America) anyways.

So, local/regional food makes sense. Can we apply it to all consumables? Should I use the same rules for beer and wine?
Beer, wine and other short lifespan items make sense. They are consumed quickly, so all the pollution generated during shipping is for 1 hour of use. It would make sense to acquire these items locally, because there is no lifespan or number of uses to spread the pollution out over (think depreciation).

There are many local and international breweries producing beer in the area that I can think of off the top of my head - Mill St, Amsterdam, Steamwhistle, Molson…

We are also spoiled with wineries in the niagara region.  For some reason, the VQA or LCBO don’t carry many of the higher end wines.  However, you can visit the wineries and pickup a case - (i hear) it’s a beautiful area out there.  I’m guilty of not visiting.
For items with longer lifespans, like a table, or clothing (for some), the pollution from shipping can be spread out over the lifespan of the item. So if the table lasts 15 years, or the shirt lasts 5, the pollution can be spread out a bit. While it still makes sense to reduce pollution as much as possible, if you use something for a longer period of time (i.e. less new things you buy) we have less purchases, thus less pollution, less waste, etc.

I’m still going to think about this, but I might shift my wine and beer selections too.

I got my first bullfrog bill a few weeks ago, and can now properly compare the charges. To compare apples with apples, I found a recent Toronto Hyrdo bill with EXACTLY the same kWh’s used. Here are the details…

Bullfrog Power: 873kWh’s used in the current bill, with the mystery adjustment (adjusted loss factor) the overall usage is 905.825kWh’s. The total bill is $152.96.

Toronto Hydro: 873kWh’s used, with the adjusted loss factor the overall usage is 905.825kWh’s. The total bill? $123.32.

Remember, much of your hyrdo bill is made up of delivery and administration charges, so let me identify these charges. The Bullfrog admin charges are $62.25. The Toronto Hydro admin charges are $66.21. I’m assuming bullfrog passes the admin charges back to Toronto Hydro to pay for poles and maintenance, so why would bullfrog’s be cheaper? Weird.

Anyways, this leaves us with $49.03 in actual electricity charges for Toronto Hydro, and $82.05 in electricity charges for Bullfrog Power. The power is clearly more expensive, but I don’t see it in my overall bill because the other charges make up half the bill.

So, the power costs 67% more with bullfrog. However, because almost half the bill is made up of infrastructure charges, the actual bill is only 24% more. Not bad eh? A 24% increase (~$29 dollars) in my electricity bill for green power. Awesome. Totally worth it, and completely affordable. Who would miss $29 dollars over a 2-3 month period?

What I love about my bill is that it details the pollutants I pumped into the atmosphere as a result of the power I used. It reminds me that although it’s green power, there is always a price. Cool.

While contemplating a green car recently, it struck me that I am doing exactly what auto makers want me to do - purchase a new car. I want to support green cars, and show that there is interest in producing more sustainable vehicles, however, I also want to curb the consumerism, which is just as much a problem as non-sustainable products.

A comment left by Aleem Kanji got me thinking more about consumerism and how it affects my life. The comment was a little misleading, but it brought thoughts of consumerism front and centre in this discussion. Somehow, I’ve reached a point in my life where purchasing things gives me this small rush of happiness, and I’m not sure how I got here. Case in point - I purchased an Airport Express last week because I thought I needed it. After opening the box, setting it up and playing with it for a few hours, I haven’t touched it. I need to break the connection between purchasing things and gratification, it’s a vicious circle that isn’t helping my bank account or the values that I’m carving out.

With this in mind, I took a different angle to the green car research - car coops. The idea behind car sharing is simple - there is a pool of cars that the car sharing company has at your disposal any time of day or night. Of course the ’share’ part of this idea means this same set of cars is also available to anyone else subscribing to the service, but ultimately, it means there are less cars sitting in driveways, thus less cars produced, and a smaller overall ecological footprint for all of us.

I struggled with the idea for a little while, trying to determine the difference between an auto share and car rental company. The main differences of an auto share are hourly rates, included insurance, included gas, and local availability. The two auto shares that I’ve seen in Toronto are AutoShare and ZipCar. Both offer very similar cars, which are mostly low impact vehicles, a few hybrids and a few vans, both have decent pricing, and both have cars parked in areas close to my house. There is a great article comparing AutoShare with ZipCar written by Torontoist - if you’re serious about the service, you should give it a read.

I’m still in the ‘thinking’ stage of the game, but I’m thinking this might be a great overall solution. I can always try it out for a few months, see how it works, and comment from there.

Is electric heating better for the environment than gas heating? I’m thinking electricity is better, but I’m open to discussion. Here’s why I think it’s better…

• Gas is a non-renewable fossil fuel right now. Electricity is not, provided it’s generated by low-impact means.

• Both have a delivery infrastructure within the city, so they are relatively equal in that respect.

• Unless there is a pipe from here to Alberta, gas is shipped here by something that burns fossil fuels. Electricity is generated locally.

• I believe electricity is a more efficient method of heating water than natural gas is, so it makes sense to have an electric hot water heater, specifically a tankless hot water heater, which are more efficient than the tank type, and provide unlimited hot water.

• At the moment, gas is a more efficient (or at least cheaper) method of heating air than electricity is, according to this source (pdf).

So, if I wanted to heat water in my house using electricity, I can invest in a tankless hot water heater, which is becoming more reasonably priced each year. I looked into one a few years back when Home Depot first started carrying them, and it was a little pricey ($1500 or so), but it’s getting better. I will have to re-investigate.

If I wanted to heat my house with electricity, it would reduce CO2 emissions by 30% (compared to gas using conventional hydro), but cost me twice as much. Unfortunately, that money tree I planted in the backyard has yet to bloom, so this might not be an option (yet).

Awesome.

I wish I could read german, but somehow, I don’t think it would make me feel any better.

The concept, provided by Enwave, is to draw cool water from the bottom of lake Ontario, use it to provide ‘cooling power’ to their office tower cooling system, then push that water into our regular water supply (i.e. for drinking). Interesting idea, that reduces the use of air conditioner electricity in the summer, but what effect does taking the cold water (from a depth of 85m) have on the lake itself?

It would be interesting to know whether the pollution generated and electricity used by air conditioner is more problematic than the overall effect of drawing colder water - thus warming - lake ontario.

One of the interesting points is that this system effectively reuses the existing water we draw from lake ontario for our drinking water - it is just drawn from a different depth. So what effect does the change in depth have? The enwave site doesn’t seem to answer this, and it was the first question on my mind. I understand that it reduces air conditioner use and all the bad things about that, but how does this system effect the lake?

It’s akin to the fluorescent vs incandescent bulb discussion. Although fluorescent bulbs contain a small amount of mercury (bad), because it lasts longer and uses less energy, the overall reduction in mercury pollution generated by a powerplant is more significant. So, it’s a net win.. still bad, but better. If you are truely concerned, you can bring used CFLs (compact fluorescent lightbulbs) to a recycling plant where they harvest and reuse the mercury.

Good times.