Driving to save money and gas

This morning I was driving back from my morning swim and I hit a red light. When it turned green, I did what I usually do - I gradually pulled away from the light until I finally hit the speed limit (45) when I was about 1/2 mile from the light. The person behind me responded typically - he sped up, pulled around me, and then pulled in front of me, prevented from further movement by the person in front of him. I'm always amazed at this. Perhaps they don't trust that I will eventually hit the 45 mph if I don't make a jack-rabbit start. I sometimes watch to see just where these people end up, and it is usually not much further than me. So what gives? What's the big hurry?

I can understand if this behavior comes predominately from teenagers, but that doesn't appear to be the case. I have a theory about this: I don't think people have any idea that what they are doing is costing them money, and that if they drove a bit differently they would save both money and fuel. I have a car (Prius) with a display screen that shows me in real time what my mileage is. It is shown below. Because my car was parked when I took this picture (always recommended), you can't see that the bar graph on the right varies between 0 and 100, depending on what my current mpg ratio is is. When I started driving this car, I learned that if I took my foot off the pedal and glided a bit my mileage would improve. I also found that paying attention to how I started and stopped at lights helped. Yesterday my mileage read at about 53 mpg.



So here's the idea for the day: How about just taking your time at lights? If you are approaching a red light, take your foot off the pedal and glide in. Accelerate slowly when leaving a light. You don't need to own a hybrid car to see mileage improvement. Remember, this is saving money and it's saving gas. I keep thinking about the millions of barrels of oil that are spilling into the Gulf right now, in part because our lifestyles require it. None of us know what to do about it. I say let's focus on what we can do. If something as simple as slower starts and stops from traffic lights can improve mileage, require less gasoline/oil, AND save money...well, seems like a slam dunk to me.

Insights into DTE Energy's Green Current Program

The Winter 2009 edition of "From the Ground Up" the official publication of the Ecology Center of Ann Arbor, contained an article by Brigit Macomber about Detroit Edison's Green Currents program. The program is supposed to offer residential and business electric customers in Southeast Michigan, for an additional cost on their electric bill, the opportunity to choose that all or part of their electricity be produced from renewable resources.

In reality, 85% of the premiums are being spent on marketing and administration and the remaining 15% is used to buy "renewable energy certificates" which states that green energy was produced somewhere at a certain point in time.

Now it seems that the program is not generating enough money to cover the cost of the marketing so DTE is requesting that the Michigan Public Service Commission force all DTE customers to pay for the Green Currents program. To read an on-line article on this topic go to: GreenCurrents or GreenWash? or to send a message to the Michigan Public Service commission: Take Action.

18-Year Mystery Solved

It's an adventure living with someone who is a) an engineer, and b) determined to make our home as energy efficient as humanly possible. The past couple of weeks the adventure has revolved around the shower. Tom has been turning down the heat on the hot water tank to save energy, and for the most part it has been a great idea. Our shower, however, has been cooler than I like, and so Tom has been tweaking the temp ever so slightly to determine the exact threshold that will satisfy my need for a warm shower and keep the dial turned low. Last week, after 4 days of goosebumps, I had a conversation with him, specifically asking him to run this experiment next summer. But once on a mission, he is hard to deter.

As the conversation progressed, I could see that Tom was puzzling over the fact that the shower temp seemed cooler than any other faucet/shower in the rest of the house. Of course, I said - it has always been this way. How long, he wondered? Why, since we owned the house - 18 years, I said. Apparently I had never communicated this fact to him, and since he never uses hot water in the sinks, he never knew this. I had assumed that this is just one of the mysteries of our house, one of those vague little things you never question, and just accept.

So Tom made a quick call and found out that shower heads, when installed, are set at a cool temperature to prevent scalding. When we turn our shower on, we are getting a mix of hot water from the tank and cold water to cool the water down. And, of course, we turn up the hot water in the tank to get it warm enough. Seems crazy.

So Tom adjusted the thermostatic mixing valve in our shower (5 minutes) and went downstairs to turn down the hot water tank. Success! Now we're not overheating our water, but have enough for a warm shower on a cold winter day.

And it only took 18 years.

Kill-A-Watt

Our Tuesday group has been studying energy for a while now. We first looked at worldwide energy use, then carbon, then light bulbs, and now we are settled on energy in the home. Our goal: a 10% reduction in our energy bills (gas and electric) by next year at this time. First, we looked at how energy use is distributed in our homes, and we examined our gas and electric bills. We started with the chart above, from Energy Star.


Now we're trying to figure out how much energy we use in the various appliances in our homes, such as our refrigerators, computers, washing machines, etc. Our group has 2 Kill-A-Watts, above, which we are passing around and using all around our homes. You plug it into your wall socket, plug your device in, and it will tell you how many watts the device is using. The results can be surprising, as you can see in this video.

Bulbs

Recently it came to our attention that the newer compact fluorescent bulbs were perhaps more trouble than they were worth, given the fact that they contain mercury and could pose a hazard if they broke in your home (mercury is a toxic substance). Helen did a little research on this, and found that they contain only a tiny fraction of the amount of mercury found in an old-fashioned thermometer. That was good news. In a bit of serendipity, Tom received an e-mail from his favorite bulb supplier, 1000 Bulbs, and they were promoting a new Neolite Compact Fluorescent that has the smallest amounts of mercury available (1 mil. vs. 5 mls.). This is very encouraging. These bulbs still have to be recycled, not in your recycling bin, but they need to be taken to SOCCRA and disposed of as hazardous waste.