Bright lines

Our energy and environmental challenges are complex to the point of being daunting, and sometimes that makes people give up and not take small, readily available steps to reduce their energy consumption, CO2 emissions, and budgets.

So let me try to boil this down to a few simple “bright line” questions I can ask the kind of people who I suspect make up at least 95% of my readership:

• If your local utility offers you the option of “100% green” electricity, have you signed up for it? My wife and I do this here in Rochester, and it costs us less than one cent more per kilowatt hour, less than $50 per year. According to the US Dept. of Energy, the CO2 emissions from the electricity consumed by the residential sector are more than 2.5 times the emissions from other in-home energy consumption. In other words, where it’s available, this is a completely painless way for the average US consumer to eliminate a big chunk of his or her CO2 emissions.
• If you routinely drive a car, do you employ any hypermiling techniques? I’m not talking about the stupid and dangerous stuff, like drafting behind 18-wheelers on the highway, but the safe, easy techniques, like accelerating less aggressively, coasting up to stops (when surrounding traffic allows), not speeding, properly inflating your tires, not hauling around a lot dead weight in the trunk, etc. The savings from doing just those things will increase the MPG the average driver sees by 20 to 30%–it’s like getting a free hybrid.
• Have you replaced every light bulb you can in your residence with a CFL or LED bulb? This one is so simple, such a no brainer, that I hate to mention it on this site, yet I know for a fact that a lot of people who are “concerned about the environment” don’t take even this minimal step. (Yes, my friends and neighbors, I’m lookin’ at you.) Is it really that hard to pick up a blister pack of 6 or 8 CFL bulbs at Lowe’s or Home Depot or Sam’s Club or wherever and screw them in?
• Have you put your “electricity vampires” on a switched outlet (or done something similar) so they’re not sucking electrons when not in use? If you haven’t, why are you intentionally consuming electricity and paying money for precisely zero benefit?
• Do you minimize your miles driven? Bundle errands together, take more efficient routes, avoid congestion, do as many errands online as possible, etc.
• Have you put an insulating jacket on your water heater and insulated your exposed hot water pipes? This is about as simple as do-it-yourself steps gets. If you can wield a pair of scissors and roll of duct tape without injuring yourself, you can do this. When I did this in our house, the water at our faucets got noticeably hotter. (No surprise–the copper pipe running from your water heater to your faucet is nothing more than one long, stretched out automotive radiator that transports heat from the hot liquid inside to the cooler surrounding air.) We were able to turn down the thermostat on our water heater with no change in convenience or comfort, but with constant savings in natural gas consumption.
• Have you up bumped your thermostat down a couple of degrees in the winter, and up a couple in the summer (if you have air conditioning)?
• Do you use zone heating? My wife and I do this and it makes a huge difference in our heating bill. We put an electric space heater, one of the silent oil-filled models, in our bedroom, and then turn the house temp down to 60F for winter nights. Why pay to heat an entire house when you’re sleeping in one room all night? During a normal work day we’re both in our home offices, so we leave the house at 60F and use small heaters in our offices. We consume a little more (100% green) electricity, but we burn much less natural gas, saving CO2 and money. We only turn up the house temp when we emerge from our offices around dinner time, and even then we only bring it up to about 66F.
• If you have central air conditioning, do you use zone cooling and make maximal use of fans? Just like zone heating above, you can use under-$100 (US) room air conditioners and fans to stay very comfortable even on warm, muggy nights (and yes, we do get those even up here in Rochester), and cut way back on your use of the central unit. Why pay to cool an entire house when you’re sleeping in one room all night?
• Do you recycle as much of your waste (i.e. that portion you haven’t found a way to avoid) as possible?
• Do you wash as much of your clothing in cold water as possible? A large portion of the energy for doing laundry is spent heating the water. Eliminate that step and you considerably lighten the impact of this necessary chore.
• Do you wash dishes in a dishwasher or by hand? The dishwasher is actually more efficient, particularly if you only run it with a full load and you don’t use the power-sucking quick dry settings.

Yes, there are many more things you can and should do in addition to the above, but these are the easy, free-to-cheap, “bright line” items. These are the ones that separate those who like to talk green the same way they indulge in current fashion or watch the latest hot TV show, and those who are taking at least the minimal steps to being more mindful, responsible consumers.

So, how’d you do? Which side of the bright line are you on?