LED lighting 1.0

In the throes of completing the final project for my Renewable Energy Technology class, I can't help but share a tasty little tidbit. Here's what I've learned about how a high power LED light bulb stacks up against current mainstream light bulb technologies:

A couple of things to keep in mind with this chart:

• Luminous efficacy for an LED bulb is higher than that of a CFL bulb. Believable. But luminous efficacy of an LED bulb at 150 lumens per Watt? Maybe in the lab, but not yet on the shelf at Home Depot.
• Incandescent bulbs and LED bulbs contain no mercury. The 'mercury released' figures assume that the electricity powering the bulb was generated through the burning of coal (a reasonable assumption for Alberta, but not necessarily for other jurisdictions).

More to come on LED's.

Where does all the juice go?

As part of a Renewable Energy Technology course through the University of Calgary, I was fortunate to be assigned the task of completing an in-home energy audit. I picked up a cool little digital energy meter from Canadian Tire and went to town.

My most noteworthy findings...

• The light fixture in our bathroom with the two 150 Watt halogen bulbs is responsible for more than 8% of our monthly electricity consumption.
• My 12 year-old JVC stereo system (not one, but two cassette players) steadily consumes 20 Watts of electricity... when it's off!
• Reminding my pregnant wife that the ceiling fan in the bathroom draws 45 Watts does not help to start her day on a positive note.

Here's the full breakdown of where the juice goes in our condo. If a fancy pie chart like this doesn't land me a good grade on my assignment, I don't know what will.

Environmental Karma

This was the year when I swore off Tim Horton's Roll Up the Rim to Win contest. I sacrificed my 1 in 9 chance of winning a prize to save a shwack of non-recyclable wax-coated paper cups from being buried in a landfill for eternity. The truth is, the only fun I get out of this contest is feigning a temper tantrum when I inevitably don't win.

On the two occasions when someone brought me a disposable cup (much to my chagrin) of Tim Horton's coffee, I won a free cup of coffee. Both times (much to my delight). Then, when I fell off the wagon and bought a cup for myself, I lost. But get this: In separating out the garbage in the paper recycling bin in the office lunch room, I pulled out a misplaced Tim Horton's cup that didn't have the rim rolled up. So I rolled it. And I won.

So, on a year when I committed to not playing a silly environmentally unfriendly contest, I essentially won three times in three tries.

I can't explain it. Must be some weird kind of environmental karma.

Refrigerator Efficiency

I read an article in a recent issue of the National Geographic Green Guide that suggested that I might save a shwack of cash by cleaning the condenser coils behind my refrigerator. As I hadn't (nor had my wife) done this since moving in to our condo four years ago, I figured it was overdue.

Back of the fridge before...

...and after.

Condenser fan before...

...and after.


The article suggested that this (combined with a couple of other tips) could save me $50 a year. Strangely enough, my utility bill arrived two days later and, for completely unrelated reasons, it showed a 12% decrease from the previous month.

Harbinger of good things to come?

The Bottom Line on Office Organic Waste

For almost two years, it was a covert operation. I quietly spirited away used coffee grounds from our office coffee machine and uploaded them to the compost bin at my condo complex. Then, a little over a year ago "the envirogods" (a.k.a. me) introduced an organic waste pail in the lunch room. After a careful marketing and education campaign, the pail now fills almost weekly. And the coffee grounds keep coming. And it all gets diverted from landfill.

How much waste diversion are we talking here? I weighed a batch this week before dumping it in the composter: the total over four days was 2.963 kg, or 0.741 kg/day. Assuming 250 work days in a year, that's 185 kg of organic waste not hitting the landfill annually.

The bottom line?
(a) Taking garbage home from the office makes me, arguably, more of an envirodork than an envirogod.
(b) Being careful with my waste at home (population=2) is a good start. Introducing responsible waste management at the office (population=75) is progress. Today, the office. Tomorrow, THE WORLD!

Global Warming Debate

I generally don't expend much energy debating global warming and climate change. I watched Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, and it scared me. I watch as extreme weather events kill thousands of people all over the world. I worry that polar ice caps are melting at such a rate that we could be in for a nasty climate shift that will make Hurricane Katrina look like a light drizzle.

Still, I don't spend much time debating because that's not my thing. I consider myself more of an educator. Accordingly, here's a really neat video my Aunt Betty sent me that makes a pretty compelling argument in favour of taking drastic measures to mitigate the effects of global warming. Right or wrong, the implications of the decisions we make today are serious enough that issues like this warrant some discussion. Perhaps this video will generate some of that.

Oh, a quick FYI: there are no polar bears in the video (I just really liked the symbolism in this photo).

Global Warming Protest

I couldn't resist this pic sent to me by my EnviroStar sister-in-law. S.O.S.: Save Our Snowmen.

The down-low on make-up

So here's a question for you... If you go out of your way to eat organic because you're nervous about the long-term health effects of food-borne chemicals, shouldn't you also be nervous about what you put on your skin? I recently stumbled upon an Environmental Working Group resource called the Skin Deep Cosmetic Safety Database, which rates the safety of a dazzling array of personal care products. Perhaps not unexpectedly, there's a whole shwack of potentially dangerous chemicals that we spread all over our bodies every day.

You may also want to check out Ask Umbra's short video, Wake Up to Your Make-up, that claims to "reveal the ugly truths about conventional makeup, and show you how to put on a happy face."

I got a ticket? For IDLING?!?

What better way to educate (or edu-shock) someone into rethinking their choice to leave their vehicle's engine running, than to leave an Idling Infraction ticket on their windshield? The tagline is great: Idling gets you nowhere.

A full PDF of the ticket is available at the Natural Resources Canada website.

USB = U Should Bike

A quick mathematical comparison illustrating that using my bike to run errands today (in this case, to pick up movie tickets and buy a USB cable) was faster and cheaper than going to the gym for a workout followed by using the car to run errands.

Bottom line is, by electing to take my bike, I saved myself 37 minutes and kept $5.28 in my pocket, never mind the fact that I burned no fossil fuels, and caused no air pollution. Win. WIN. WIN!

Wasps building in ma composter

"Wasps building in ma composter" was the subject line of a recent e-mail message from my brother. The words, "Whaddaya think?" followed.

Pests of all kinds, flying and otherwise, tend to avoid a well-tended compost pile for a few good reasons. First of all, 50 to 60 degrees Celsius in a properly functioning composter is simply too hot for man or beast. Secondly, a human visiting every few days with a pitchfork to completely obliterate the pest's habitat doesn't exactly contribute to comfortable living conditions. And third, well-tended piles generally don't have a food source easily accessible on the surface -- it's normally buried under a layer of soil, grass clippings, or leaves.

Properly maintaining the pile is the key to prevention. For some good info on pest-proofing your compost pin -- check out this link to the City of Toronto website.

The Dirty Dozen

In reading an article about prioritizing purchases of organic produce, I learned that different fruits and vegetables have different levels of chemical uptake from pesticides and herbicides. A dietician friend corroborated the story and introduced me to the term, "The Dirty Dozen," which refers to the 12 nastiest fruits and vegetables. Bottom line is, if you want to start reducing your exposure to potentially harmful food-borne chemicals, buy organic when choosing from the dirty dozen list. Or heck, if you can afford it, buy organic food exclusively.

The dirty dozen list follows. Click here for a full list of 43 fruits and vegetables and their respective pesticide loads.

1. Peaches


2. Apples


3. Sweet Bell Peppers


4. Celery


5. Nectarines


6. Strawberries


7. Cherries


8. Lettuce


9. Grapes - Imported


10. Pears


11. Spinach


12. Potatoes

Why I'm lucky to be cancer-free at 36

Top three reasons:

1. Years of inhaling second-hand smoke from my dad's cigarettes;
2. Two summers in the 1990's spent amidst toxic inks and solvents at a sign-printing shop;
3. Countless Saturdays when, as a kid, I hovered over the burn barrel in my parents' backyard, dutifully making sure every last fragment of trash had completely combusted and inhaling god-only-knows how many different carcinogens.

More about burning garbage in your backyard (and why it's a really, really bad idea): http://grist.org/advice/ask/2007/01/08/burning/.

The Long-Awaited Compost Leaderboard

A funny thing has been developing in my family over the past couple of years: a good-natured pissing match over whose backyard composter is registering the highest temperatures. High temperatures in a composter normally indicate heightened microbial activity, which equates to efficient aerobic decomposition of organic matter. Organic matter in a composter is stuff that might otherwise have been sealed in a landfill site only to kick off methane that wrecks the planet (methane is 20 times more volatile as a greenhouse gas than CO2).

The Compost Temp Leaderboard:

2008-Oct-05 Jeff(PB) ambient=18C, compost=71C, diff=53C
2010-06-06 Jeff ambient=18C, compost=39C, diff=11C
 

2009-Jun-18 Bill(PB) ambient=18C, compost=69C, diff=51C
2010-May-26 Bill ambient=3C, compost=68C, diff=65C

2009-Aug-04 Rod&Laurie (PB) ambient=10C, compost=49C, diff=39C
2007-Aug-26 Rod&Laurie ambient=11C, compost=41C, diff=30C

2009-Jun-07 John (PB) ambient=16C, compost=42C, diff=26C
2010-May-24 John ambient=26C, compost=31C, diff=5C


Got an update for the board? Drop me a note and I'll post it. In this contest, everybody wins.

Shopping around for carbon offsets

What are carbon offsets? Umbra Fisk describes them like this:

"Wouldn't it be great if you could calculate how much carbon you emit, and somehow remove that carbon from the atmosphere? You can't, but you can offset (maybe a better term would be compensate for) your carbon emissions by supporting projects that will reduce overall global carbon emissions. For example, you can give money to an organization building windmills, and the organization in turn guarantees that the wind power generated with your funds will replace your equivalent carbon emissions. You use an emissions calculator provided by the company, and the company has a set fee per ton of "offset" carbon."
(Umbra's full article: http://www.grist.org/advice/ask/2007/10/15/index.html).

I recently received a CleanAirPass (one particular carbon offset brand) as a gift. Theoretically, the little sticker inside my windshield means that I have sufficient carbon credits to render our family vehicle 'Carbon Neutral' for one year. Neat idea, but I haven't yet wrapped my head around the exact benefit to the planet. More thinking required on this.

Regardless, it appears to be worthwhile to do some shopping around when considering carbon offsets. Some organizations are better established than others, and it's important to find an organization with a philosophy you can live with. To help you shop, (further from Umbra's article):

"The Voluntary Carbon Offsets Information Portal, of the Tufts Climate Initiative and the Stockholm Environment Institute, is a nice clear compilation of basic information about carbon offsets, their purpose, and when to consider using them. They describe the criteria by which you should judge any company selling offsets, and evaluate and recommend 13 specific companies. Take what you've read in Gristmill and read the VCOIP information, and you may be able to make an offset shopping decision about which you feel solid."

For an additional rating of carbon offset companies (complete with a whole crapload of methodology), check out Clean Air-Cool Planet's Consumer's Guide to Retail Carbon Offset Providers.

If you really want to make a difference, choose not to own a car at all. But if you're not quite ready to do that and, like me, you need to find a way to mitigate the eco-guilt that comes with owning a car, perhaps carbon neutralizing yourself is the way to go.

833km per tank. Whatever.

A recent Nissan ad campaign claims that the 2008 model of their subcompact can travel 833km on a single tank of gas. Jealous that my car (which I thought was pretty gosh-darned fuel efficient) doesn't even come close to that, I did a little bit of research to assure the comparison of apples to apples.

The EPA and the US Department of Energy run a Web site called fueleconomy.gov, where you can actually compare multiple vehicles side-by-side. I'm trusting that the EPA is a little more impartial than individual manufacturers are. Check it out.

Oh, and for the record, a Toyota Matrix uses 4-6% less fuel than a Nissan Versa. Mwa-ha-ha-haaa! I win.

P.V.C. = B.A.D.

What better way to kick off my first-ever EnviroBlog than to share some info I read recently about polyvinyl chloride (PVC), a type of plastic commonly known as "vinyl". Although it's among the most common plastics going, turns out it's really, really nasty stuff. In short, it's a good idea to avoid it...

• Because its manufacture, use, and disposal involve dioxin, phthalates, lead, and other nasties that can cause cancer, endocrine disruption, endometriosis, birth defects, respiratory problems, and immune system damage.


• Because the full range of its effects on human health hasn't been fully determined.


• Because there are alternatives, including other types of plastic, that are not nearly as damaging to the environment and to our health.

The full article by Umbra Fisk (from whom I stole the above info) can be found here. Give it a read. Good information about some pretty bad stuff.