pointing out the obvious

I was convinced to try ZipCar over AutoShare (at least initially) by way of a promotion that eliminated the application fees and gave me a small credit to try out the service. While I still feel as though I’m a better fit for AutoShare because it’s Canadian and has existed in the city for a while, I’m itching to give any car sharing service a spin.

So, I applied to ZipCar on Tuesday, picked up my ZipCard on Thursday and am waiting for the insurance approval step. The website suggests a typical approval takes 2-3 days, and it’s Friday, day 3.5.

I feel like a kid in a candy store. I just can’t deal with this.

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.

Oddly enough, most cars that are considered green are diesel. Why? Because the ‘green’ factor of a car generally focuses on two factors, it’s CO2 emissions / km driven, and fuel efficiency.

Unfortunately, we are only comparing the green factor at the consumer end of the transaction. It would be prudent to compare all factors when determining which cars are the most eco-friendly. These unconsidered factors include:

• all emissions, not just CO2
• gas vs diesel refining costs
• battery disposal

Soot. This is the biggest non-CO2 emission as a result of burning diesel. Although diesel outputs less CO2 per km driven in general, it outputs MUCH more soot (up to 10x) because emissions standards are not yet as strict as that of gasoline burning engines. This should change by 2009 when diesel engines must meet the same output requirements as that of gasoline, but for now, the soot output can be brutal.

Refining costs. Did you know it takes 25% more oil to generate diesel than it does to generate gasoline? While diesel is generally thought of as more fuel efficient per litre by approximately 33%, this savings is simply pushed up the chain. 33% more mileage comes from 25% more oil, thus in reality diesel is approximately 8% more efficient when we consider it in terms of oil, not cost per litre. Weird huh?

Battery disposal. What happens to the batteries when their lifespan is over? It turns out that Toyota uses batteries that are recyclable, include a phone number and a $200 ‘bounty’ on each of their batteries to encourage returning them to recycling facilities. I’m not sure how other auto manufacturers handle the battery disposal, but Toyota seems to have a great solution here.

So, although this doesn’t cover everything and doesn’t provide all of the answers, it does bring a few other factors into play when deciding to go for a green car.

And yes, this is part of my ‘pre-green car purchase’ research. The prius is the #1 pick so far, as I drove one for a week in los angeles on business. Interesting car, but please.. turn the LCD off to prevent crashes! It’s very distracting!

All good shows get canceled their first year, this is how it works. But replacing a decent, well shot drama like “The Black Donnellys” with yet another lame reality show “The Real Wedding Crashers” is embarrassing. Who watches this stuff?

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 took the leap a few months back and discontinued my account with Toronto Hydro and signed up for Bullfrog Power. Bullfrog is a green electricity provider in the GTA, who sources their electricity from low-impact sources including wind and water.

While I have yet to receive my first bill, the difference in cost should be around $40/bill, which works out to be about a 33% increase. Not so bad considering the net effect - no nuclear, no fossil fuels, much less CO2, and a whole sheet of little bullfrog stickers for my water bottle. awesome.

Now here’s where I come clean - my involvement in most of these social/environmental initiatives are directly attributed to my spouse - think Bill and Belinda (minus all the money and ideas). There, I said it.

You can also thank my friend Juan at global-culture.org for encouraging this.

I received a copy of the ‘early morning manic’ album as an xmas gift last year, and can’t stop listening to it. Paul is probably one of the nicest guys I know, and has an incredible musical talent. If you get a chance, check out some of the music on his myspace page.

As you can tell from my last.fm music profile, I’m a fan of a wide variety of music. What I love about Paul’s music is the feeling you get through his raw acoustic guitar, a good example of this for me is “i don’t dream“. While not profiled on his page, he’s also an incredible piano player and has a great short piano track over a funky bass groove that works amazingly well. Overall, even if I didn’t grab brunch with him every so often, I’d pickup a copy of “early morning manic” if it were for sale. It’s one of those albums you are always looking for, but can never find.

Best of luck buddy. You’re awesome.

If anyone out there is having issues with comment spam, the akismet comment spam plug-in for wordpress is amazingly effective. 27 for 27 so far over the last 24hrs - apparently pharmacheaps.com is on a marketing rampage.

Update - 141 for 141. Awesome.

Amazon has recommendations, LibraryThing has the LibrarySuggester and other sites have other variations of this, but they are never quite right. Why is that? Do we not find the recommendations credible?

Amazon makes recommendations based on the book you are viewing, so if you like Harry Potter, you might also like what others who bought Harry Potter purchased. However, just because I purchased something doesn’t necessarily mean I liked it. LibraryThing makes recommendations based on a single book, which has the same limitation as Amazon. For members, LibraryThing also makes recommendations on all the books in your profile, matching them up against others with similar libraries - I assume your book ratings are taken into consideration. Surely this is as good as it gets?

Or do we need to go one step further and ‘decode’ a book the way that Pandora decodes music? Unfortunately, we all know how hit or miss Pandora recommendations can be. Along with Last.fm, Pandora’s recommendations are probably the best I’ve seen, but they still aren’t perfect. Maybe it’s easier to decode a book than it is to decode music?

I feel as though we can do better.