Daily Decisions: I can see clearly now

Throughout 2013, Adding Light will take a look at practical decisions that everyone can take to contribute to making our communities more ecologically and economically resilient. Everything in this Daily Decisions comes from experience or research applied directly by our family or people we know directly.

When my oldest was in sixth grade, she did a science project (and in our family, when we say a child did something, they did it) comparing incandescent light bulbs, compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs, and light-emitting diodes (LED) in terms of energy to produce the light, amount of light, and ability to read by the light.  She and her partners read a book by the light of each bulb, used a Kill-a-Watt to measure the electricity, and used a light meter to measure the light...(ok, so dad had to help in getting some of the supplies.  When it was all said and done, they came to a pretty interesting conclusion:  the compact fluorescent light worked best all around.  The incandescent light definitely had the easiest light to read by, and the LED used the least energy by far.  The bulb is no good if you cannot read using it, and the amount of energy wasted by the incandescent creates problems for others in terms of the emissions and pollution.  CFL bulbs provided high enough quality light to see by, but used about one-third the energy of incandescent bulbs (and only a little more than twice as much as the LED).  To make an immediate, and significant difference in energy usage without greatly sacrificing quality of light, we decided to make the switch to CFL bulbs for the house.

At the time (2006), luckily Home Depot had started to carry CFL bulbs in all the shapes and sizes that a house would need: flood lights, lamp-style, decorative.  Homeowners have the choice of waiting until bulbs burn out to replace them, or they can make a wholesale replacement.  The benefit of the first option comes in a more spread out cost of purchasing the bulbs; the benefit of the second comes in immediate and significant energy savings.  Neither way is wrong.  We chose wholesale replacement for all but four fixtures in the house.

The light quality changed slighting in the house, most notably when first starting the lamps, and for fixtures attached to dimming light switches.  Fluorescent bulbs for home use will usually have a warm-up period, and newer bulbs have become better acclimated to dimming switches.  For our purposes, we got used to the warm-up, and the bulbs would hum when the dimming switch was not at full power, which only required us to adjust the switch.  All in all, it was a small sacrifice for the environmental benefit.  That benefit was significant.  We lowered the peak electricity usage in our house by about twenty percent (20%), and our monthly cost by about twenty-five percent (25%).  In the time since that replacement, we have only had three out of about thirty bulbs burn out, and all three burnt out this past year (this summer will be seven years since the replacement).  CFL have lived up to their billing, delivering quality light at a significantly reduced energy usage and significantly improved environmental performance.

A description of this decision must include a couple of words of caution about the installation, care, and disposal of CFL bulbs.  These bulbs do contain mercury, which if the bulb breaks will cause a hazard for those near the bulb - a hazard similar to when we all used mercury thermometers to take our temperature.  The situation does have risks, but not unmanageable.  The EPA has a straightforward description of what to do in case of a break, and like any of our energy consuming systems, taking extra care will keep your family out of trouble.  I should note that the concern about mercury has merit, and should not be taken lightly, however it should also be extrapolated.  Much of the electricity production in the country, and especially the Midwest, comes from the burning of coal.  That burning releases mercury into the atmosphere where it can be breathed, end up in the waterways, and end up in plant life.  Those who live closest to these plants run risks of exposure in everyday life than those of us who use CFL do as long as we take care.  The second concern from CFL has to do with the ultraviolet (UV) light that comes from them.  Normally, a coating on the bulb protects us from the UV radiation, but in the "corkscrew" shaping, the coating may become chipped and open pathways for the UV radiation to escape.  It is important to make sure that bulbs are not place in situations where a person may be within three feet of the bulb.  In addition, bulbs can now be purchased with a "double casing" with a more standard surface shape to help protect.  The exposure is no greater than the risk of going outside without sunscreen (and significantly lower unless you spend multiple hours sitting next to a completely uncovered CFL), and is also easily managed.

Daily Decisions: How did I get here?

Throughout 2013, Adding Light will take a look at practical decisions that everyone can take to contribute to making our communities more ecologically and economically resilient. Everything in this Daily Decisions comes from experience or research applied directly by our family or people we know directly.

Tonight, I took a tap class for the first time in almost a decade, and it felt great.  Although there is a "feed your soul" sort of personal quality of life moment associated with doing this, my decision today had to do with how to get to the class.  Let's look at my three main options for this kind of commute and see how the balance of quality of life compared with the economic and ecological impact.

Starting point:  my house on the Southside of Chicago
Ending point:  the Fine Arts Building on Michigan Avenue
Event time:  6:00 p.m. to 7:15 p.m.

Option 1:  Drive
Departure time = 5:10 p.m. (25 minute drive + 5 minutes parking and walking to car)
Return time = 7:45 p.m. (20 minute drive + 10 minutes leaving, walking and retrieving car)
Total miles travelled = about 30 miles
Cost per mile = $0.35-0.45 (in my 2001 Toyota Prius)
Parking = $5.00 - $18.00 (street vs. garage)
Total cost of trip = $15.50 - $31.50
Gasoline used = 0.78 gallons (the Prius gets about 38 mpg in winter)
CO2 emissions = approximately 7 kg (8.92 kg/gallon per EPA)
Activities in transit = listening to music, sports radio, or news

Option 2: CTA (103rd St bus to the 95th Red Line Station; transfer to Red Line to Jackson)
Departure time = 4:25 p.m. (10 min. wait + 10 min. bus + 5 min. wait + 45 min. train + 5 min. walk)
Return time = 8:35 p.m. (same travel + 5 minute leaving event)
Total miles travelled = about 30 miles (9 by bus, 21 by heavy rail)
Total cost of trip = $5.00 ($2.50 each way including transfer)
CO2 emissions = approximately 4 kg (using values from Figures 2 and 3 in this DOT document)
Activities in transit = reading online magazines, texting friends and family, doing crosswords, reading

Option 3: Metra (Rock Island Line to LaSalle Street Station)
Departure time = 4:20 p.m. (10 min. walk + 30 min. train + 5 min. walk...last train for event was 4:30)
Return time = 8:20 p.m. (10 min. leaving/walk + 20 min. wait + 30 min. train + 5 min. walk)
Total miles travelled = about 30 miles (almost all by commuter rail)
Total cost of trip = $7.65 ($3.825 each way)
CO2 emissions = 7.8 kg (using values from the Appendix of this DOT document)

Given the options above, I chose Option 3.  I did not choose it because it was the most environmentally friendly way to travel, nor because it was the least expensive.  I chose it because it combined the cost effectiveness with the reliability.  On Option 2, those times heavily depend on the frequency of operation and could vary significantly, especially on the return trip.  For Option 1, traffic could have held me up, but in general, I would spend less time in transit, but at a significant cost.  It should be noted that the environmental performance of my single-occupancy vehicle travel is heavily influenced by the car I would have chosen to drive.  If I had driven a mini-van or SUV getting less than half of the gas milage, I would have had more than twice the environmental impact and slightly greater cost.  All in all, there is no perfect solution to the question right now.  If we can shift vehicle travel to all electric vehicles, that still does not improve the cost of parking or owning a vehicle.  Lastly, the per passenger mile data that feeds into this analysis comes from current ridership, which is under capacity.  Performance would be improved greatly if more people used the service.

This analysis can be done (and in the future I will revisit it) for many different types of trips.  What makes sense for one type of travel (in this case, short duration event travel), may not make sense for others.

Daily Decisions: What you don't know, can't help you

Throughout 2013, Adding Light will take a look at practical decisions that everyone can take to contribute to making our communities more ecologically and economically resilient. Everything in this Daily Decisions comes from experience or research applied directly by our family or people we know directly.

Imagine running a business where you had to meet payroll, pay invoices, receive payments, but you could not see your bank account until fifteen days after the end of the month....already half way through a month before you can see what you did last month. No businessperson would tolerate that kind of information lag on their cash flow.

Now imagine that your doctor has told you to lower your blood pressure through diet and exercise, but you can only check it every thirty days. Or that you have been told to lose weight, but you can only check it once a month to see if you are meeting your goals. Each of these, and many other examples, are almost impossible without much more regular information. Yet, every month, most Americans only see what they are using for energy once a month, and well after they have used the energy, rendering the information useless to manage their energy flow.

Enter the digital meter. Instead of a spinning disk, or rotating dials, the meter records the information digitally, providing instant access at the device. Additionally, it logs the instantaneous usage readings so that you can look back and see not only how much of a resource you used at any one time, but exactly when you used it. Information like this is crucial when trying to find waste in resource usage. If you know that you used a certain amount of water over the course of the month, that may not tip you off that you have a problem. If you see that half of your water usage occurred between midnight and six in the morning, that would be useful information. Lastly, depending on your agreement with the utility, you may have access to the information within a day of your usage, and may be able to receive notices that you have used more energy on a given day than you wanted.

That final concept starts to cross over into the realm of what has been termed "smart meters". A digital recording device that can be read by a van driving down the street does not constitute a smart meter. That designation requires instant communication between the meter and the utility, and to some extent, some way for the utility to communicate back to the user - either through the meter or some other interface. Smart meters report power quality or service issues to the utility without the customer having to be around. They also have the capacity to help the customer turn off unneeded equipment during high-price, high-consumption times of day. In addition, these smart meters sit on a network of smart devices that monitor stability and usage in the distribution of the resource.

For right now, as a consumer, you should call your utility and ask for them to install a digital recording meter on your property. Most will do it for free, or will roll the cost into your bill. If they tell you this option is not available, ask to talk to someone in their meter department about the options available. As a last resort, if you get no response, or they have not yet begun that type of program, contact your local elected official and enlist them into the discussion. Smart resource management starts with good information, and ends with more money in the pockets of consumers. To any elected official who knows what they are doing, that means more money to spend at local businesses and improve the local economy.

Daily Decisions: The poop on diapers

Throughout 2013, Adding Light will take a look at practical decisions that everyone can take to contribute to making our communities more ecologically and economically resilient. Everything in this Daily Decisions comes from experience or research applied directly by our family or people we know directly.

Your love for a child is never tested so much as when you have to change a diaper...especially a particularly fragrant one. For those with a concern for the environment, that action poses another challenge: what to do with all the waste? We went back and forth on several thoughts and options when our daughter was born. On one hand, we needed something practical, and on the other, we needed something that would reduce the amount of waste going to landfill. We think we found something that balances the two well: flushable insert diapers with washable shells.

My parents used cloth diaper delivery service. As a one-hundred percent re-usable option, they make a ton of sense. The drawbacks: they require a regular delivery/pickup service and they required pins to keep the diaper in place that did not always work. From a practical point of view, these type of diapers leaked regularly, and from an environmental point of view, the transportation energy and emissions added to the environmental consequence. The flushable insert diapers provided the best of the cloth diapers - the reusability - while using the standard waste removal system associated with human waste.

The process is straightforward. The cloth shell has a rubber liner that snaps in and holds the flushable insert. When the diaper needs changing because of urine only, the insert absorbs all the waste, and one simply has to replace the insert with a dry one and flush the insert. The flushing does require a two step process, as a wet insert resembles a panty liner on steroids. The outer skin of the insert is a standard woven paper material, and the fibrous biodegradable material inside resembles lemonade sorbet mixed with cotton balls. When flushing, one has to open the "skin" and dump the innards, then flush the woven material like paper. For solid waste, the process is similar except that the solid waste must get dumped first, and because of the way the diaper fits, a particularly soft solid waste can run over into the rubber lining. We regularly carried spare of both the rubber lining and the cloth shell and rarely had enough trouble in one day to use all our stock. The rubber shells wash easily in a sink and air dry quickly. The cloth shells machine wash and dry easily, and after several washings the eye-and-hook latches remain strong. All-in-all, these diapers provided the best solution.

A couple of words of warning before using them. First, make sure your pipes are strong and large enough. Standard, modern plumbing can handle the flushable inserts. In old houses, however, the pipes may be too small for the woven material. The innards have a consistency much more liquid-like than solid waste, so they pose no problem, but the woven material of the flushable insert is as long as a standard diaper, and when opened to dump the inner material, forms a long piece of fabric that requires a reasonably sized pipe to convey. If you have old pipes, you can continue to flush in inner material, and dispose of the woven skin either in your regular trash, or you can shred it and dispose of it in a compost heap. (According to the manufacturer, you can also dispose of the rest of the diaper...including the waste...in standard compost heaps, but we did not attempt that, so we cannot confirm.) Also, if you are going to attempt this route, I would recommend that you purchase the flushable wipes to go with it. That way you can dispose of everything in the same way and not have to reserve some parts for the landfill and some for the sewer. Lastly, when disposing of the woven material, wait until you have flushed the toilet and the whirlpool has pulled the solid waste in. This reduces the chance that the toilet itself will back up.

We still had to use some standard, disposable diapers for when the grandparents would watch our daughter, or when she would go to a daycare facility that could not handle the style of diaper we chose. All things considered, I estimate that we reduced the landfill waste by about 50% over using disposable diapers for all, and that if we were to use them again for another child, we could possibly get to 75% without much more work.

Daily Decisions: O Christmas Tree

Throughout 2013, Adding Light will take a look at practical decisions that everyone can take to contribute to making our communities more ecologically and economically resilient. Everything in this Daily Decisions comes from experience or research applied directly by our family or people we know directly.

This decision has a decidedly regional slant to it, but the concept can extend to anywhere. Each year, many communities purchase real trees for use in decorating homes at Christmastime...and ours is no exception. I know that other, more sustainable options exist, but one of the environmental luxuries we allow ourselves is the smell of real pine tree in the traditional shape. Later in the year, I will review the purchasing of the tree, and have some lessons learned. For today, I want to discuss the "disposal" of the tree...or really, the repurposing of it.

One of the long-term programs in the city of Chicago has allowed residents to bring their tree to one of several local parks at which the City will grind up the tree into mulch. Residents can then come back for the free mulch to use in their landscaping.

This concept can be further scaled to a block or quadrant of a community that might not be in direct proximity to the centralized location by either renting a chipper from an equipment rental company, or contracting for a Saturday morning with a local landscaper. Although it would not be "free" (or in the case of the City doing the work...included in property or sales taxes), it would eliminate the need to transport the tree over long distance, and would provide for a single trip to "dispose" of the tree and receive the mulch. With the neighbors all sharing the cost of about $300 per day, a block of 20 houses can get the work done at about $15 per family.

Some areas are lucky to have pickup services that include lawn waste, and some may pickup the tree as part of that service. If your community does not already have such a service, you should look into advocating for your city or municipality to do so. As an example, San Francisco has one of the premier waste management programs that includes recyclables, yard waste/compostables and landfill material. They reach citywide recycling rates of over 75%, with a three can system where residents pay only for the landfill material pickup.

Whatever method you choose, do not just throw your tree to the curb to be placed in a landfill. It takes just a bit more work on your part, and many times little to no more money, to allow that natural material to work its way back into the earth.

Daily Decision: Keeping it real-time

Throughout 2013, Adding Light will take a look at practical decisions that everyone can take to contribute to making our communities more ecologically and economically resilient. Everything in this Daily Decisions comes from experience or research applied directly by our family or people we know directly.

Much has been made in recent months about municipal aggregation and the reduced cost of electricity that can come from it. I have talked on other occasions how this "savings" comes from more political machinations and market manipulation than from truly reducing the cost of electricity. That said, from the point of view of the customer, even a couple of months of reduced pricing can help make ends meet. I will talk later in the year about ways that we can help put more capital in our communities through smarter energy decisions, but one way that we can see real savings in our monthly electricity bills - and set ourselves up to reduce usage and lower our costs further in the future - is to move to real time pricing.

In the Chicago area, ComEd has a program called RTP where customers get both a prediction of what the hourly cost of electricity will be the next day, and text notification when any half-hour price exceeds a pre-set limit that the customer chooses. Over the span of June through December of this year, we have paid an average of $0.043 for the supply portion of the bill per unit of electricity used (kilowatt hours - kWh) compared with $0.082 per kWh under the typical utility billing. This nets us a savings of about 25-30% per month (since supply only makes up about half of the total cost of electricity). The other benefit is the control we get over our cost. We can plan to use electricity-consuming appliances during times when prices are lower, and increase our savings as we get better and better and timing our usage.

The greatest advantage to customers from this pricing plan is that we pay regular attention to our electricity usage. In the first six months, we have reduced our electricity usage by 13% over the same six month period of the previous year. The month to month reduction has not been consistent, so we will continue to work to get better. However, having a meter that shows our real-time usage, and good information available online on a day-to-day basis gives us a much better ability to make changes rather than waiting to find out 15 days after the end of the month what we did the month previous. With everything going on in our lives, trying to figure out what we did 40 days ago to cause an increase in usage is almost impossible. Looking back to the day before and remembering that we left something on, or ran an appliance during a high-cost time, is much easier. We can then correct the next day and reduce our cost in that month.