Conspicuous Consumption: A Noisy Refrigerator Cooling for No One

The part of me that has always wanted to fight for our collective future has long been puzzled at how rare that impulse is. The destructive impact of climate change is increasing with each passing year, and yet energy conservation is rarely mentioned these days. There's some talk of solar panels and wind generators being put somewhere someday, but to stop pouring CO2 into the atmosphere, we must also collectively consume far less energy. It's been so drilled into us that we must feed the economy by consuming that it seems unnatural if not heretical to consciously consume less. 

The motivation to consume less, at least in me, and despite all the indoctrination, comes from an understanding that machines are both our friends and our worst enemies. They serve in many wonderful ways, and yet their dependence on future-killing energy makes them at the same time our enemy. 

This scene inside the Princeton Public Library tells one story of why we are losing the battle for the future. The cafe has been closed for nearly two years, and yet the display refrigerator unit on the right, the "Grab and Go", is still running. Has it been left on for two years, despite being empty? A library employee made it sound like it actually has. 

This may be the same noisy display refrigerator that used to make it hard to hear whatever wonderful speaker had drawn an overflow audience to the Community Room. Its downsides--noise and energy consumption--made it problematic when the cafe was open. To see it running when the place is closed just deepens the sense of mourning for a world that seems not to know how to collectively fight for a collective future.

One refrigerator makes little difference in the world, and yet a battle is won through countless small acts by countless people who understand that they are part of a larger effort. 

BTW: Any unplugged refrigerator needs to have its doors left partially open, to allow air to circulate. 

Renewable Energy for Princeton -- Real Electrons and Abstract RECs

After researching the Princeton Community Renewable Energy (PCRE) program that takes effect on May 6, I can say with some assurance what it will not do.

• It will not affect PSEG's profitability, since PSEG does not generate electricity. Instead, it makes money from providing the wires and other infrastructure needed to deliver electricity supplied by someone else. Each customer is free to choose a supplier. In this case, Princeton is choosing our supplier for us, unless we opt out.
• It will not change the source of the electricity that comes into our houses. The electrons that power your appliances and light bulbs are largely produced from fossil fuel and nuclear plants, and will continue to be. If any of the electrons you're using are renewable, it's probably because one of your neighbors has solar panels that are feeding solar energy electrons into the grid.

What Princeton's PCRE energy program will do is require the chosen energy supplier to buy Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) for 50% of the electricity participating customers buy. Understanding what that actually means is not easy. The concept is abstract, and its benefits vary. RECs are defined by Sustainable Princeton as "the industry-standard means to assign a financial value to the environmental benefits of clean energy production." Requiring the supplier to buy them will "support the development of renewable energy generation," and "accelerate the installation of renewable energy infrastructure faster than would otherwise happen."

Princeton has hired a consultant to answer people's questions about the program. When I sent a question to the help desk (PCRE-ingo@gabelassociates.com), I was told that "purchase of RECs does not change the amount of renewable energy being produced in real-time." Rather, the program will "create the incentive for more renewable energy to be built in the future." (fuller quote further down)

In other words, Princeton is not buying renewable energy. Instead, it is encouraging the building of renewable energy in our region and elsewhere in the country. A government article entitled "The Role of Renewable Energy Certificates in Developing New Renewable Energy Projects" states that "the importance of RECs in building new projects varies."

When I tried to give input on Princeton's sustainability plan, I approached the problem of renewable energy from a physical perspective. Renewable energy falls on Princeton in the form of sunlight. We can capture that energy with solar panels, trees, and by capturing solar energy through our windows in the winter. To physically reduce our town’s greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050, we need to utilize that solar energy. The approach instead seems to focus on encouraging others to produce the energy elsewhere, through RECs. Though this is laudable, it's not the same as actually reducing our own greenhouse gas emissions.

There's a lot of misinformation out there. Michael Moore's recent movie, "The Planet of the Humans," is a shockingly skewed polemic, but buried within its willful distortions are a good point or two. Renewable energy is not perfect. Giant wind generators and fields of solar panels are industrial installations that can radically alter the landscape. They are a great improvement over fossil fuels, but if built in quantity, their impact on ecosystems can be substantial. 

These realities suggest that Princeton would best reduce its greenhouse gas emissions from electricity use primarily by minimizing consumption through efficiency and good energy management at home, and maximizing its own production, mostly through rooftop solar. Rooftop solar does not disrupt habitat, and in fact provides shade that can keep a building cooler in the summer. Encouraging production elsewhere through buying RECs is beneficial to some extent, and I'd encourage residents to participate, but it is less certain in its overall impact. 

Even on cloudy days, electrons from your neighbor's rooftop solar array are pouring into the wires outside of your home. Some of those electrons then enter your home and power your furnace, A/C, refrigerator, etc. Those solar panels will keep producing renewable energy for many decades. You can get them installed for free, essentially by leasing your roof for energy production for 20 years, or you can buy a system that will pay for itself in around seven years, after which all the energy produced is gravy. That, for me, is real. 

Addenda:

Average home electrical use in New Jersey: 700 kWh per month. How does your management of your home energy use compare?

A fuller quote from the town's consultant:

The PCRE program requires that the program supplier purchase and retire an additional amount of RECs above and beyond that required for compliance with the State’s RPS. By requiring the purchase and retirement of additional RECs – taking those additional RECs out of circulation - this mechanism takes additional supply of RECs out of circulation, thereby creating the need for additional RECs to be created in the future to satisfy future requirements, and providing the financial incentive for development of future renewable energy projects. Thus, purchase of RECs does not change the amount of renewable energy being produced in real-time; rather than taking renewable energy away from other customers as you postulate, a program such as this will actually create the incentive for more renewable energy to be built in the future.

Followup questions I asked the consultant, with no response as yet:

• I think what you're saying is that if Princeton and other entities enter into contracts that require an energy company to buy and retire more SRECs than are currently available, then the company is obligated to purchase those SRECs at some point in the future when they become available. But the contract has a fixed end point. Who will enforce the company's obligation to buy and retire any SRECs not purchased during the duration of the contract?
• The links below suggest that there's some question as to how much SRECs encourage the development of renewable energy projects, and also say that the SREC program will be ending in NJ. Does the ending of the program affect Princeton's contract?

This link suggests that the role of SRECs in encouraging the development of new renewable energy projects seems to depend.

This link states that SRECs in NJ have been trading for around $230 each.

But this link seems to say that SRECs are ending and will be replaced with something that pays a steady $150.

For energy geeks, the ACTUAL fuel mix (for Princeton, in real time?) can be seen here.

Burning Wood from Europe in Princeton

There are really only two sources of ethical energy in Princeton for powering our homes and vehicles, and both of them come from the sun that shines on our town. That solar energy can be collected by solar panels, or by plants, whether they be trees that store the energy in their wood, or crops that power people and livestock. Though solar panels are about 20 times more efficient than trees at capturing useable energy, the wood is still potentially useful for powering a portion of our lives. Alas, most of the harvest from Princeton's urban forest is ground up and carted away for composting outside of town, powering only the decomposers that quickly send much of the captured carbon back into the atmosphere. Might there be ways that wood could help Princeton trim its dependence on fracked natural gas, whose environmental downsides are becoming harder to ignore?

While Princeton is largely spurning its own harvest of wood, the local supermarket is selling firewood from Europe.

The label says the wood comes from an "Eco Forest," though it's hard to see what's eco about shipping firewood all the way across the Atlantic.

Another brand appears to come from Maryland, which is closer by. But all of these woods are kiln-dried, which likely means heating the wood with fossil fuels to kill any pests or diseases that might otherwise hitchhike in the wood.

There is some local firewood available, mostly through arborists like Wells Tree Service. Then there are people like me, who scavenge and split firewood left on the curb. Our woodstove is a treasured component of our winter heating. It's radiant heat is superior in comfort to the forced air heat of our furnace. It burns much more cleanly and efficiently than a fireplace, and could heat the whole house with its wonderful radiance. On a cold night, when the wood stove is going and the gas furnace has thankfully gone silent, we can feel for those hours what it would be like to liberate ourselves from dependence on fossil fuels. It's a nice feeling that can't be accessed by using wood imported from Europe.

How to Easily Reduce Water Use

If you go to the American Water website and log into your account, you'll find under the tab "usage" a link called "usage overview". Click on that and it takes you to a graph like the one below. Click on the "Neighborhood Average Usage" box in the upper right and a green line will appear that compares your water consumption to the local average.

Below is what ours looks like. We use about 2000 gallons per month, which is less than a sixth of the local average. How do we manage this? We're empty nesters for one, but it's mostly a matter of valuing water, and understanding that every time you turn on the tap, you're consuming elaborately treated water that was pumped 20 miles uphill to Princeton, and that every bit of the water that goes down the drain then has to be elaborately and expensively treated at the Stonybrook wastewater treatment plant on River Road. That understanding makes us less cavalier about water use. Some easy strategies for reducing consumption are listed below the graph.

MEANS OF USING LESS WATER

• Resilient native landscaping, and mulch to prevent the soil from drying out
• Get in the habit of turning the water off when washing hands, brushing teeth, i.e. don't let water run straight from faucet to drain. 
• Shorter showers, or even "Navy" showers (turn water off while lathering up)
• low flow toilets (people liked to make fun of them, but they flush better than the inefficient older style); lots of good brands. Ours are American Standards available at the local hardware.
• Get in the habit of using cold water for most tasks, rather than waiting for the hot water to arrive at the faucet. 
• Front load washing machines use a minimum of water
• See below for way to minimize water use when washing dishes.

SAVE ADDITIONAL MONEY

• I once learned that your annual sewer bill is calculated based on your water usage in the winter (likely Jan-March), since they want to charge you only for water that goes down the sewer, not the water you use in summer to irrigate your yard. Therefore, winter is an especially good time to hone your water conservation habits, since it will save you money on your sewer bill year-round. 
• Adjust your water heater (somewhere in your basement) so that it only heats the water slightly beyond the hottest water you need. Many water heaters are needlessly overheating water, which is not only wasteful and expensive, but also leads to lots of fiddling with faucet handles to mix in just the right amount of cold water. Ideally (though no use of fossil fuels is ideal), you should be able to turn the hot water on for a shower--no cold at all--and be comfortable.
• A novel approach to hand-washing dishes: One doesn't need standing water in the sink. Moisten the dishes while stacking them in the sink, to soften the dirt. That way, nature does most of the work. Put some dish soap on a sponge, then with the water turned off, wash some dishes and set them on the counter. Turn water on to rinse that batch, using the rinse water to further moisten the unwashed dishes in the sink. Then turn the water off and wash some more. This way, no time is wasted turning the water on and off to rinse each separate dish. Sounds elaborate, but quickly becomes second nature, and avoids having water running directly from faucet to drain--the ultimate in pointless consumption. Also, try using only cold water. Water that isn't hot enough to kill germs just makes them stronger. Hot water may be needed if there's grease, but otherwise is not essential. Best time to start the habit of using cold water is in the summer, but the habit once established can often continue through the winter.

After the Ice Storm

Most people have an argument with the weather. It should be more this and less that. The audacity of water in whatever form to precipitate upon us precipitates in turn as much complaint as taxes and the deluge of leaves in fall. My argument is instead with houses, which go into a feint the moment an ice storm comes along, but I have to admit,

freezing rain is a lousy tree trimmer. There are no two ways about it. This is shoddy work. I'm no expert, but you don't trim a town's trees by applying weight to every branch in town to cull the weak from the strong, and just let it all fall helter skelter. I did appreciate, though, that the branch that fell on our car was dropped in such a way as to do no visible damage. There are many stories like this after a storm, of branches or whole trees falling in an uncanny way as to do no damage.

The upshot for our neighborhood was an unexpectedly modest two hours without power, and an unusually peaceful Harrison Street. Despite the major repair job underway at the intersection of Harrison and Hamilton Ave, life seemed normal enough by evening to set out by foot across town for a talk on "Legendary Locals of Princeton" at the Historic Society of Princeton's annual meeting. The premise of the walk was that most any tree branch that was going to fall had already fallen. The bartender at the Nassau Club asked how my trip there in a car had gone. He was surprised to hear I had walked. I had worn my dressiest pair of hiking boots, and actually found it very pleasant to walk the length of Nassau Street when there were so few cars out. I ran into friends I hadn't seen in years, and got to appreciate the (mostly) well-cleared sidewalks and the fresh wintry air. None of this seemed worth telling the bartender, who was probably expecting some cathartic complaints about parking.

Our Mayor Lempert introduced the speaker, using the opportunity to inform us that Princeton got hit harder by the storm than most other NJ towns. Winds were in store overnight, and another storm Sunday. In an example of community collaboration, one of the soccer associations was supplying lights for the street repair crews. The speaker and author, Richard D. Smith, credited the Lenni Lenape's trails as much as the university in positioning Princeton to become a "legendary locale". Indian trails tended to run along ridges, which in this case later grew into Nassau Street and the Lincoln Highway. The Lenape village was apparently down along the Stonybrook in that rich bottomland near where the society's Updike Farm and future home base is located. In a couple years, they plan to complete the move from the university-owned Bainbridge House out to the farmstead, which they envision as becoming a Princeton Historical Center with enough room to put Einstein's furniture on display.

The legendary locals turned out to be a refreshing mix, with the standard greats like Einstein, Robeson, and Woodrow Wilson mingling with notable merchants, Olive McKee (John McPhee's high school english teacher), and a couple of the guys whose names I didn't catch, who over the years have been highly visible riding their electric carts around town.

It's the guys chugging around town on electric vehicles that I take my inspiration from, in that I see their mode of transportation as being part of the solution to the tendency of houses to feint. One of the historical society's staff had lost power at 8am, prompting her family to move in with friends for the duration. This shouldn't need to happen, and there needs to be a better option than investing in a generator that will rarely be used.

When I was college aged, my argument with houses was that they were too square, too boxey. Given that in the intervening years they have steadfastly refused to lose their boxiness, I have shifted my concern to how they get energy. Houses essentially make no sense whether they're getting energy or not. When the grid is up, it feeds houses the kind of energy that is destabilizing the climate. When the grid is down, houses are helpless to feed themselves. Either the future or the present suffers. What a lousy choice we're given. When the power goes out in our house, I want to have a low-energy mode it can go into, in which the frig, furnace and internet continue functioning, fed by dual purpose batteries that can drive the electric car day to day and the house during power outages. At those times, the house would automatically shut itself off from the grid, so that none of the electricity would head out to the street where lines are being repaired. A few solar panels would offer some energy to recharge the batteries or to replace some of the grid energy. My research staff--that would be a neighbor and myself--are exploring these sorts of plug and play options.

Walking home from the talk, I saw a bicyclist pedaling up the hill on Linden Lane. On the night following a freezing rain, few, including me, would think to ride their bikes, yet there he was, well dressed, getting where he needed to go, apparently unaware that this wintry world is a terribly harsh and dangerous place. When I was a kid, I'd ride my bike to school in the snow, impressed by the imprint my bicycle tires made in the snow and mud. No need for big machines. Tread was my power. One winter, a freezing rain coated the whole landscape with ice. It was the one and only time I was able to skate to school. That was the best, especially skating downhill.

I arrived home to find the dog needed a walk, and so we headed out while the workmen continued their work down the street. The latest form of precipitation was not coming from the sky, but instead took the form of ice cubes that a feint breeze was causing to fall in earnest from the ice-coated trees. They made shimmering sounds on the pavement when a tree released many shards at a time, but felt cold and mischievous when one fell down the back of my neck. Leo was not going to settle for a perfunctory walk. When I headed left to circle around the block, he stayed behind at the curb, resolute, looking hard at me like a major league pitcher shaking off a signal from the catcher. Why settle for a fastball when he was game for a slider all the way down Clearview. Not that he was going to find much of interest. Snow in a dog's world must be like giving an Etch a Sketch a good shake. All past communications are erased. He was undeterred, however, and immediately set about beginning anew what seems like a meaningful correspondence with the neighborhood canine penpals.

The new layer of ice fragments landing on the snow glistened in the street light. If it were all broken crystal, it would be a great tragedy. But nature creates crystalline beauty, then dismantles it with complete nonchalance, ever restless to make something new, sure of her bottomless talent to combine and recombine, never making anything quite the same way twice.

Flame Logic in a Wood Stove

While visiting friends out of town, I got a fine tour of the inner workings and intrinsic logic and beauty of a woodstove. Not everyone can have a wood stove, but its pleasures and dependability raise the question: What else are we missing? How else could we gain some freedom from the fossil fuel energy the grid feeds us, and in the process realize a new level of comfort, dependability and peace of mind.

Our home in Princeton came with a 1978 Vermont Castings Vigilant wood stove, which still does a good job, putting out lots of heat and burning cleanly enough that no smoke comes out of the chimney. But newer stoves have more efficient designs, delivering air to the combustion chamber in more sophisticated, strategic ways. Since pollution is caused by uncombusted gases, a well-designed and well-tended wood stove turns those gases into heat before they can become pollution.

Pleasures a Furnace Can't Provide
It begins with the sheer pleasure of having an active, radiant hearth in the living room, of sitting with family in the evening, talking of the day and basking in its warmth and glow. Our older stove, by contrast, lacks the glass front and so provides warmth but no glow.

Then there's the more technical aspects, which also have an aesthetic dimension. There's pleasure, for instance, in tending a fire and getting it to burn as cleanly as possible, particularly if one lives in a neighborhood with lots of houses around. The fire in this photo is burning the actual wood, my friend tells me. You can see that the flame is close to the wood itself.

If he gets the fire hot enough, then turns off all the air into the fire except what comes out of small holes at the top of the chamber, the fire burns not the wood but the gases cooked out of it by the high temperature. You can see that the flames appear to be suspended in air rather than rising from the wood itself.

A closeup of those rows of airholes show an effect more like a gas stove, with jets of flame seeming to shoot out of the airholes themselves. The more thorough the combustion, the fewer pollutants head up the chimney.

The stove is part metal, part soapstone. Water in the teapot humidifies the air, and the flat top works for cooking soup.

Its slim profile owes to it not having a catalytic element inside, which requires more room in the back of the stove to protect the catalytic element from direct contact with flames. Though a catalyst can help combust gases that might otherwise go up the flu, it's possible to meet EPA standards without it.

Vital Ingredient: T.L.C.
No matter how good the design, though, burning wood cleanly depends on the owner supplying dry, well-cured wood and making sure the fire's getting enough air. EPA can set standards for design, but it's tender loving care that determines whether the stove performs up to those standards.

Benefits of Integrating Grid and Off-the-Grid
Being a country-city person, a nature enthusiast who plays urban jazz, I like the idea of a fusion lifestyle, finding ways for the town's grid and the country's off-the-grid elements to complement each other.

Particularly during a power outage, one of which we just had this morning in New Jersey, a wood stove brings a sense of empowerment and peace of mind, providing a backup for the furnace and the cooking range. What is taking longer to figure out is how to develop a similar complement to the electric power grid. For some, that means buying a generator, either gasoline or natural gas. Not having a basement flooding issue or other critical energy needs, I'm looking for a system that would help meet ongoing energy needs, not just during energy outages. That will likely be some combination of a few solar panels and an electric vehicle with batteries that could be used both for short trips and powering the house in low-energy mode during power outages. The ongoing improvements in batteries, "plug and play" solar panels, and electric vehicle technology show promise for putting such a system together.

Note: A maker of soapstone stoves won the Wood Stove Decathlon, which took place on the National Mall this past November. The winning stove was chosen based on "efficiency, cleanliness, consumer appeal and price."

Woodstoves--Making Heat and Making Sense

A wood stove is at its best on a snowy afternoon. In winter's chill, it attracts all heat-seeking souls with its radiance. Quietly, with no moving parts, it warms daughter and our canine version of Leo the Lion, thaws out chilled feet and a frozen watering can for the chickens, all the while heating water to humidify the air and somehow broadcasting its beneficence to the far reaches of the house. It would cook dinner if anyone thought to ask.

But just beyond the woodstove's island of sanity, life is not making as much sense. The man's socks, for instance, don't actually match, nor do the seven other socks he found in the drawer.

During the housewide search that ensued, the man managed to find only two matching socks, which perhaps due to one's accidental trip through the dryer had lost their parity and felt a little funny on the feet.

Outside, the ducks are in a similar quandary. Winter has done something strange to their favorite pond. Their feet too are ill-equiped, lacking ice skates.

Once one has experienced the radiance and simplicity of a woodstove, it's hard to understand why the modern world largely turned its back on radiance, in favor of complicated machinery that at least in our house exhales tepid, often too-dry air through a labyrinth of heating ducts, warming all but satisfying none. (Sealing and insulating the ducts one of these days will surely improve the situation.)

Drive an ELF, Bikemobile of the Future

Have you been wondering when and if the future will ever come? The future here referred to is the one where we aren't forced to choose between driving climate changing cars or riding bikes in a downpour.

Well, meet the ELF, which is basically a bike with a roof, cargo space, electric assist and rearview mirrors. It weighs in at 150 pounds, has two wheels in the front,

one wheel in the back.

It seats one,

carries cargo,

and goes fifteen miles on a battery charge.

The battery can be charged two ways: by the built in solar panel, which takes about seven hours,

or by taking the battery inside and plugging it in. I'm particularly interested in whether the battery, or batteries, rechargeable by solar panels, could be used to run the house in low-energy mode during a power outage. That way, the same purchase that provides energy when the grid is down would also have ongoing use for transportation.

One of the more interesting aspects of this carcycle, or bikeamobile, is that it's made not in Detroit, or Japan, or China,

but in Durham, North Carolina. That's where I heard about it during a recent visit, and was offered a test ride. This particular unit is owned by the president of a nonprofit watershed association I founded while living down there back in the 90s. Jerry Seinfeld is an enthusiastic supporter of the technology.

Top speed is around 25mph, and you can add additional batteries for longer trips. Whether it's classified as a bicycle or something else depends on where you live. In Durham, at least, it's considered a bicycle and no license is required. Much more info at organictransit.com. One of the articles written about it can be found here. The founder, Rob Cotter, offers us his vision in a TedX presentation.

Insulating Heat Ducts in the Basement

This is a story about making a little heat go a long way. In most houses, heat has to go a long way to get to this or that room. A wood stove simply radiates the heat outward, and lets the excited molecules spread the warmth up the staircase and around corners. But the typical forced air furnace has to push the air itself, through a labyrinthine set of pipes, facing the same circulatory issues of a giant octopus.

Much of the heat a furnace produces gets lost in transit, as the long metal ducts shed their warmth into the basement where it doesn't do much good. My basement is an all too good example of that, with bare ducts and leaky single pane windows.

So when my friend Dorothy was told that she needed a bigger furnace to get more heat to chronically cold rooms in her house, she fortunately asked around and got some good advice on a different approach.

Instead of spending lots of money on a bigger furnace, why not insulate the ducts so the heat from the little-furnace-that-could can make it all the way to the upstairs bedrooms? It goes against the bigger-is-better and replace-rather-than-repair mantras that so often dictate decisions, but it worked like a charm. Rooms that were chronically cool are now comfortably warm.

Imagining that duct insulation would have a MichelinMan bulkiness, I was impressed to see that the covering is very compact.

And the workmanship is impressive, with insulation neatly taped and tight under and around the brackets,

and the water heater carefully insulated as well.

Leakage can cause even more heat loss from air ducts, and here it looks like the solution is to tightly wrap the joints with tape. These may be return ducts that were a lower priority for insulation. (Note: Check comment section below for details on materials and the logic of not insulating return ducts.)

Combined with the clotheslines stretched along the ceiling as a way to avoid using the energy-gulping clothes dryer, this is one very together, money saving, energy saving basement.

Energy Panel Discussion Tonight

Practical ways to save energy and money: 7pm tonight at the Princeton Public Library. Looks like a good lineup.

1. Attend a Panel discussion on Home Energy Savings: OCTOBER 29, 7:00 p.m. at Princeton Public Library in the Community Room titled: "Get EnergySmart: Practical Ways for Princetonians to Save Energy and Money," Speakers include: Edward T. Borer Jr., Energy Plant Manager, Princeton University; Heidi Fichtenbaum, LEED Accredited Architect, Farewell Architects LLC.; Scott Fischer, Founder, Ciel Power LLC; Sandra Torres, Director of Outreach, Tri-State Light and Energy Inc., and Rees Keck, Founder, Potential Energies. This event is free and open to the public.

2. Sign Up for a $49 Home Energy Assessment: Sustainable Princeton negotiated for $49 energy assessments (half price) for local residents. Our goal is to have 100 residents sign up for energy assessments over the next year. Our Energy committee vetted a number of possible energy providers and chose Ciel Power LLC, which has successfuly worked in both Woodbridge and Highland Park to lower energy consumption in those towns. All sorts of energy rebates are available if you choose to make fixes to your home based on the assessment. Go to Cielpower.com to sign up (Princeton residents get a $50 discount from the stated price of $99), or to learn more.

Three (Four) Kinds of Energy

There are at least three kinds of energy in this photo on Nassau Street. One is the gasoline for sale in the background, the second is the firewood, and a third is something called "embedded energy", which can be found in the solid oak chest of drawers and the 1994 Ford pickup.

There are also three kinds of scavenging going on. Two are obvious and above ground: the firewood and the abandoned vintage furniture. The third is both universal and hidden. Civilization as we currently know it is based on a massive scavenger operation, digging up energy and minerals from underground.

Each of these kinds of energy and scavenging have global consequences.

Gasoline
I always thought of gas stations as just another town business, but seen from the perspective of the planet, they are part of a climate change industry, the impact of which, in addition to the highly convenient aspect of getting us where we need to go, is to liberate carbon from its underground storage.

Some would say that burning gas has the same climate consequences as burning wood, but that's not the case. They both release carbon dioxide, but the carbon in each is different. The energy for sale at the gas station is from ancient underground deposits of oil. By the time it gets into the truck's gas tank, a lot of energy has already been burned. There's the exploration, the extraction, the transport to a refinery, the refining, and the transport to the gas station.

Gasoline contains strings of carbon left over from ancient life. You could say there's solar energy stored in the bonds between the carbon atoms, but the last time that carbon saw the light of day, the climate and life on earth were very different. Ancient life extracted carbon from the air, then died and settled into the watery ooze. Gravity, pressure, and time all contributed to transforming that ancient life into massive underground storage of carbon in fossil fuel. All that extracting of carbon from the atmosphere over hundreds of millions of years cooled and tempered the climate. To exhume these graveyards of ancient life is to undo the climate in which civilization has flourished up to now.

The carbon in the gasoline is still contained, still locked up in chains. In fact, because it's been contained and underground for millions of years, its carbon is different from the above ground carbon that has been getting exposed to radiation from the sun. This difference, found in the relative percentage of carbon isotopes, can be measured, which is how we know that enough ancient carbon has already been pumped into the atmosphere to increase the carbon dioxide level by 40%.

It's the truck engine that performs the carbon's liberation, using fire to break the chains and release the wonderful burst of energy that propelled my heavy truck magically up Linden Lane with nothing more than a nudge to the gas pedal. While I'm enjoying such ease, the backside of the truck is quietly sending the ghosts of life and climate-past back up into the atmosphere.

That's why I use those machines as little as possible, and that's why the wood is in the back of the truck.

Wood

The second kind of energy is the firewood. It was a custom in Princeton Borough, when street trees needed to be removed, to leave the wood at the curb, conveniently cut to size, for homeowners to scavenge. That custom apparently lives on, at least occasionally, post-consolidation. For those of us with wood stoves, this free heat provides a way to limit how often the furnace kicks on.

Now, doesn't burning wood also release carbon into the atmosphere? It does, but that carbon was already part of the above-ground system, part of the present era's climate. The trees pulled it out of the atmosphere, stored it for 50 or 60 years, and the wood stove returns it. This is a cycling of carbon, not a linear movement of carbon from deep underground storage up into the atmosphere.

The alternative to burning the wood is to have it chipped up and trucked out of town for composting. A useful product is created, but that highly mechanized process, which includes mechanical mixing and remixing during the composting process, uses more gasoline, and the wood's carbon still gets released back into the atmosphere through the "slow burn" of decomposition. Though there's some air pollution associated with burning wood, the highly mechanized composting alternative also pollutes, and a well-tended wood stove is far cleaner than a fireplace. To collect firewood in the neighborhood, then, actually reduces climate change by reducing the fuel used to truck and compost the wood outside of town.

The wood, then, could be called "today's energy", as opposed to the ancient energy from underground, and it is "local energy", gathered nearby as opposed to whatever distant locale the gasoline comes from. It is also energy that didn't require industrializing some landscape, in stark contrast to oil drilling and fracking.

Harvesting the wood from a tree also allows a chance to celebrate the tree's life, to participate in a transformation from sadness to joy. Princeton has been losing a lot of red oaks and pin oaks to a disease called bacterial leaf scorch. To ram the remains into a giant chipper and haul it all out of town, there to mix anonymously with all the others, is to give short shrift to this tree's long life of giving shade, beauty and habitat to a Princeton thoroughfare. Splitting up the segments for firewood, the massive trunk laying there on the curb, is to experience something of what Eskimos must have felt, harvesting the life-sustaining blubber of a beached whale. The rich texture and color of the grain reveals itself with each new split--too beautiful for firewood, but no one is there to turn it into furniture. The back of the pickup truck fills with the promise of a future celebration of the tree's life, in the beauty of the flames and the radiant warmth on a winter evening.

Embedded energy
Embedded energy, the third type in the first photo, is the energy that went into making things. For the pickup truck, there was the energy to build it, to mine the iron ore, manufacture and transport all the parts, plus the miles the employees drove to work, the heating and cooling of the factory, on and on. The chest of drawers also took energy to build, and to consign it to the landfill would be to lose the product of all that energy.

As with the firewood, there is an aesthetic aspect to this rescue of crafted wood: the beauty of the grain, the authenticity of solid wood, and the pleasure of rescuing something from premature demise. The same impulse is central to the artistic process, which fashions beauty out of experience and the materials at hand.


Repair Energy
The truck and oak chest, though, require a fourth kind of energy to survive. That would be the energy to repair--a very special kind of human energy that comes partly from the metabolism of food and partly from the mysteries of the heart and mind. We all have it, but it can remain dormant for days, months, or with some projects, years, stifled by the abundance of new products, or a lack of time, parts, focus, ability or confidence. It involves courage to take on entropy, which seeks to unravel all things.

That is the world as seen from the back of a pickup truck parked on Nassau Street.

Solar Energy Without Panels

Afternoon sunlight brightens and warms a living room. Life, and civilization's prospects, would be so much better if the nation had long ago made passive solar the customary design for homes. Instead, abundant free heat glances uselessly off the siding. Such a waste, but we make the best of what we have, which is a nice bank of windows facing south and west, where solar energy can stream in during the afternoon, reducing the need for the furnace to kick in. Screens are stored in the basement so the windows will allow in as much warmth and light as possible.

As with most environmental problems, cheap fossil energy from the Underground is the culprit, having long made the harvesting of free energy streaming down upon us from the sun a low priority. By increasing our dependence on fuels from the Underground, artificially low prices make us actually spend more on fuel in the long term than if high fuel prices had motivated us to find alternatives.

Body heat, which I recently read is equal to 100 watts, is another source of solar energy, captured by plants, released as energy in the body, and then held close by wool, Thinsulate, fleece, down--whatever works. Without the distorting effect of cheap fossil energy, many homes would be doing very well with little more than these two forms of solar harvest.

To better distinguish between ancient solar energy and today's, here's a relevant quote from a Climate QandA section of my frugaline.org site:

"Since fossil fuels are made from ancient life that was buried 100s of millions of years ago, some will say that they are simply another form of solar energy. But the burial of those hydrocarbons over millions of years played an important role in creating the temperate climate in which we evolved and have thrived."

Giving to the Future

My daughter saw this shadow play on the Princeton Shopping Center sign. The present, like the lettering, is not alone, but has the shadow of past and future play upon it. In this giving season, I am learning to appreciate the gifts the past has bestowed upon us, and to give to the future I wish for. A simple way is to shop in the local stores one wishes to have around for a long time to come. The 3/50 Project promotes the concept of spending $50 every month in three of the locally  owned businesses you'd miss if they disappeared. The holiday season deepens the meaning and satisfaction of doing this.

Last night, feeling an early fatigue, I lay down and turned on the radio, upon which Dickens' A Christmas Carol happened to be getting a reading. Confronted with the sight of his own grave, by the Spirit of Christmas Future, Scrooge cries out, "I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach."

Over this past year, when portents of the future have spoken so loudly to the way we live in the present, it can be satisfying to find more ways, usually involving no money at all, to give to the future we wish for.

At my house, in this present era awash in deceptively cheap energy, we keep our home lights soft and low, enough to do what we need to do, with some lamps that have some beauty to them.

I used to think I was being stingy when I turned off a light in a room no one was using. Light is associated with life and good cheer. But now I see that pause to flick a switch, that selective powering down, as an act of generosity, a gift to those who will follow us on this planet. "Here," my gesture says, "You can have this light, this energy. I don't need it." There's pleasure in being able to give something as beautiful as light and energy, and connecting in some imagined way with generations future.

Leaving the electric clothes dryer idle in the basement is an even greater gift to energy users future. When it's on, it consumes even more than a central air conditioner. We busy an idle
guest room instead, letting air and time do what they do so well, using mostly racks found free for the taking at the local curbside kmart. It requires a few more minutes and manipulations than simply tossing them all in the dryer, but that's the giving part--a peaceful, meditative activity--and the fabric is said to last longer, too.

"Assure me," Scrooge says, hands shaking,"that I yet may change these shadows you have shown me, by an altered life!'' The giving season speaks to all days to come.

Quotes taken from the literature.org website.

Philadelphia on the Environmental Forefront?

I've been hearing some good things about Philadelphia's environmental initiatives lately. Reportedly, Philadelphia used to have a very inconvenient curbside recycling service. It was every other week, with shifting schedules that didn't coincide with trash pickup. The recycling rate was down around 7%, or some such.

But all this has changed. Recycling curbside pickup is now weekly, on the same day as trash pickup, and residents can throw all recyclables in one container, rather than sorting by type. The program is called "All Together Now!", with a snappy website to go along with it (http://64.78.36.115/res_main.asp). The website includes a recycling game in which you race the clock while clicking and dragging various items to a recycling or trash bin on the screen. I recommend playing it with the sound (an obnoxious siren) turned off.

In any case, compare the convenience of the Philadelphia system to that of Princeton, where recycling is every other week, and collection is still dual stream. Though Princeton just signed a contract to continue with the current system for another year and a half, it will be worth researching options in the future.

I've also heard that Philadelphia's energy company has recently completed installing smart meters citywide. Smart meters are frequently mentioned as a top priority if we are to dramatically reduce our energy use. In New Jersey, PSE&G installed a few demos here and there, but has reportedly abandoned any large scale conversion. Instead, the utility is said to be investing heavily in wind energy off the coast.

Solar Retrofit For A Garage

It seems such a shame to have all that wonderful solar energy glancing off the sides of the house all winter. If all homes had passive solar designs, we'd be well on our way to solving our share of the global warming crisis.

But they're not, so what to do? I cleaned the windows on the south and west sides, and took off the screens, to be as welcoming to the sun as our windows allow. A small gesture, but it's surprising how much heat comes in on a sunny day.

One spot that offered greater possibilities was the garage, which, incredible as it may sound, used to be used for storing cars. Because it's located under living space, a cold garage will make for a cooler floor in the rooms above. It didn't help that the garage door allowed outside air in freely around its edges.

What followed was a long period of cogitation intermingled with what I like to call strategic procrastination. The vague plan gained more momentum and clarity when a friend gave me some old aluminum storm windows. Then, as the sun conveniently began dipping low in the sky to flood the garage with light, some 2X3s got purchased and eventually cut to size, screwed together, and finally fitted with my friend's storm windows. Below is the end result. It cost next to nothing, and can easily be removed during the summer.

Note the leaf pile, meant to deter incoming cars.

Central A/C Uses Energy Even in Winter

The energy "vampires" in your house, those appliances that draw electrical power even when turned off, include your central air conditioner. There's a small heating unit in the compressor that keeps the crankcase oil warm. I checked with someone at Redding, and was told that there is no need to have this function turned on during those months when the A/C is not in use.

To prevent this energy loss, simply trip the circuit breaker that's dedicated to the A/C, so that it is off through fall, winter and spring. Push the circuit breaker again as hot weather approaches, to allow it to warm up again before use. Saves about $10/year.

Here is some info from a neighbor with more expertise than I:
"Yes, it is true that there is a "sump" heater that keeps the freon oil warm. I actually flipped off both my compressor breakers last week at home for that very reason. Just be sure to turn it back on a day or so before you actually want to run the air conditioner so you don't push oil through the lines."

I discovered this by using a T.E.D. whole house energy monitor, which tells me how much energy the house is using at any moment. The trick is to try turning everything off in the house. If some energy is still being used, then try turning off one circuit breaker at a time to see where the mysterious energy drain is coming from. This led to the discovery of the A/C's vampire nature, confirmed by a call to the A/C repairman.

Article On Energy Meters in Today's Packet

The Princeton Packet published an article today about the Kill a Watt energy meters that are now available for checkout at the public library. The meters were donated by the Princeton Environmental Commission. Before making them available to patrons, library staff used one to find ways to save thousands of dollars in annual energy costs. The article can be accessed online at http://www.packetonline.com/articles/2008/07/15/the_princeton_packet/news/doc487bdee245e73637553299.txt

For those seeking more info on energy use of various home appliances, scroll down to the 10/21/07 post on this website, or click on "energy" on the right of this page, to see a mix of posts focused on energy conservation.

Minimizing A/C Use

In the summer heat, there are many ways a house conspires to make itself even hotter. Here are some ways to cut back on the house's heat production and reduce the need for the A/C. Most of these are minor, but their effect can add up, and they include savings of their own. I claim no expertise, only some experience and a willingness to experiment.

• Lower the temperature of your water heater (see 1/13/08 post) to a temperature that, when you turn on the hot water for a shower, there isn't any need to dilute it with water from the cold tap. This simplifies showering as well as reduces the work your water heater needs to do.
• Turn off the heating element in your refrigerator that heats the door (supposedly to reduce condensation on the door). If your frig has one, the button should be inside near the back, where the light bulb is.
  
• Use as low-wattage a light bulb in the frig as you can, or take out the light bulb altogether. Our older frig had an incandescent bulb inside that gets searing hot during prolonged open door meditations on what to eat. This is a perfect spot for a LED light, which would not emit much heat, but they aren't available as far as I can tell.
• Minimize the use of incandescent and halogen light bulbs, which get very hot. Many of these can be replaced with fluorescents (see 1/2/08 post) without sacrificing the quality of light.
  
• When boiling water for tea, boil only as much water as you need, so that less heating is needed and unused hot water doesn't sit on the stove, heating the room. Or heat the water in a microwave with the bag inside. (Hope microwaving isn't insulting to tea afficionados.)
  
• We usually associate attic insulation with keeping heat in during the winter, but attics can turn into cauldrons in the summer, and abundant insulation helps keep that heat from seeping into living spaces.
• What does your yard's topography have to do with energy bills? Basement dehumidifiers use 600 watts when running, and often run the majority of the time in the summer. If the ground is sloping towards your house, rain is more likely to seep in next to your foundation and add humidity to the basement, causing the dehumidifier to run longer. Within four to six feet of the foundation, the ground should slope away. My house inspector told me it's okay to pile dirt against bricks, but not against wood siding.
  
• Whole house fans: Very helpful, but ours is overpowered, which means it overwhelms the vents in the attic. The resultant high pressure actually pushes attic air down into 2nd story rooms. Not good, so having attic ventilation and fan power balanced is important. One thing that has worked well is to have a window fan that runs overnight, progressively cooling the house. Closing up in the morning as the day starts to heat up keeps the cool air inside.
• I can't explain why, but we wash our dishes by hand. Maybe a bit of hand labor is relaxing; maybe the older dishwasher's noise and slowness is bothersome; maybe it's stubborn habit. It's been reported that handwashing can be more wasteful than using a newer model dishwasher, but so much depends on style. My wife uses the Niagra Falls method, in which hot water streams out of the faucet constantly until she's done. I use cold water in bursts, soaking the dishes first to soften the dirt and minimize the work. No outbreaks of the plague have been reported due to my cold water method. Even if a little more water is used in handwashing, bypassing a dishwasher saves a lot of energy and heat production.
  
• Air dry clothes.
  

Biking in the Mist

One of my moments of environmental awakening came as I found myself driving my car four blocks to a town meeting on sustainability. The irony of the situation struck two blocks into the drive. Why was I using a car to transport myself four blocks to a meeting whose main purpose is to figure out how we can become less dependent on fossil fuels? As it happened, I was running late, and there was a light mist that could turn into rain--two factors that make me instinctively grab the car keys. I immediately parked the car and walked the rest of the way. To my surprise, the precipitation did not penetrate my clothes.

Since then, I have gradually expanded my tolerance for biking in mist, or drizzle, or even sometimes rain. This morning, for instance, a misty moisty morning, I taxied my daughter to school on the trailer bike, and found the mist to be even enjoyable. Another time, when the mist turned to rain while heading home, we experienced an unexpected euphoria. There can be a certain laboriousness to riding a bike, but it can also bring a sense of awakening, of being more alive.

Global Warming and the Silent Scream

I'm always amazed at those who study climate change. How congenial and patient they are as they tell us of the catastrophic direction we are taking the earth. They are messengers who, like most messengers through history, are being roundly ignored by most of humanity. They must go home at night, after yet another long day of throwing compelling data at the global wall of indifference, and scream into the dark.

The Scream is a famous painting by Edvard Munch. I think of it now, and learn from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scream) that its inspiration came one evening when the sky suddenly turned blood red, and he "sensed an infinite scream passing through nature." "The person in the foreground may be the artist himself, not screaming but protecting himself or itself from the scream of Nature."

That is the scream that some of us hear right now, as humanity goes about its business of slurping and shoveling fossil carbon out of the ground and spewing it from tailpipes and chimneys. How fitting that, as industrialization gained speed in the late 1800s, the source of Munch's scream was the sky, whose disturbing color may have been caused by the eruption of Krakatoa a half a world away.

Munch wrote that he was walking with two friends at the time, and that they "walked on", apparently unaffected by the scene whose visual power left Munch physically stricken. And so today we are left to ask, why do so few see and react to the emergency we face? Why do so few of us hear the scream?