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.

Spring

First flower of the new year!

A new type of furniture polish

I knew that title would grab you. I mean, who doesn't want to read about furniture polish? Anyway, I do have a new idea that will allow you to reuse a product, keep you healthy, and save you money. What's not to like?

The bottle shown above is from a Bobbi Brown product that I use. I recently ran out of the product and was wondering what I could do with it. The bottle is actually quite nice - very heavy, solidly constructed - and I thought it was a shame to put it in the recycling bin. At about the same time, I was reading Home Safe Home by Debra Lynn Dadd, and she had many recipes for homemade cleaning products. One, for furniture polish, consisted of 2 parts olive oil and 1 part lemon juice. So I mixed it up and put it in the bottle. It worked quite well, and you don't need much to clean a few rooms. Regular furniture polish contains a surprising number of toxins, so I consider this a win-win-win.

Think about it next time you're throwing a nice container in your garbage or recycling bin - set it aside and see if you can find another use for it.

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.

The 5-Minute Shower

Mike McCarty is great. Even when he is on vacation he is looking for something that will help our group. So when he recently returned from a trip to Chicago, he brought back an idea from the Shedd Aquarium - the 5-minute shower timer. Apparently they give them to you for free, and he wondered if we would like some. And we all enthusiastically said yes! Well, that's not quite true - some in our group are a little protective of their somewhat longer showers, and remained diplomatically silent, but in the end we all agreed to try them. That's taking it for the team!

At last week's Tuesday meeting Mike brought a bag of probably 25 of these timers. Each of us took one and decided we'd talk about how they work next week. They affix to your glass shower door, as shown in our bathroom, above, or to your shower wall. I tried ours out the first day and proudly timed in at 4 minutes. I actually stared at the thing for the final minute, watching the last few crystals make their way downward, wasting all kinds of water and defeating the purpose, I suppose. I always knew I took a pretty short shower (probably due to the fact that while growing up I was competing for bathroom space with 2 sisters), and I'm sure this is why I had no problem trying it out in the first place. But lest you think I am a world-class brownie, I can divulge here and now that I do NOT shut off the water when I brush my teeth - I'm more of a brush-brush-spit-rinse, repeat, repeat, repeat person. Sorry.

So for those of you who tried your timers once and then hid it in the linen closet....I understand. But, Mike, we thank you.

Item of the Week

Right now our group is looking at No Waste. A few years ago this area was called 'Recycling,' but we have learned that recycling is really the last resort after reducing and reusing items. Much of our recycled material has been heading overseas at a huge energy cost, and now it appears that the value of our recycled material is sliding downward, causing much it if to remain unprocessed (and here). So recycling is not the final solution. Darn.

So we have to begin thinking about the first 2 items in our recycling mantra: reduce and reuse. A couple of weeks ago I challenged our Tuesday group to pull items from our recycling bins and every week we'll brainstorm different uses for these items. So today we start with the humble Early Gray 100-oz tin can. I buy these with some regularity because we have Earl Gray tea drinkers attending our weekly meetings. Normally these go into our recycling bin, but this particular tin was plucked out yesterday for our group meeting.

One thing I will say for our group -- we have imagination. So here are some things we recommend: fill it with sewing notions; keep seed envelopes inside it; good for loose herbs; use for gifts (especially chocolates); give it to your local kindergarten teacher (they are always collecting this stuff); store small amounts of beans, grains, etc; take it to Teavana and they will fill it with their own tea; and finally, put it up on freecycle. I can testify that people will pick up ANYTHING from your house if it is free. Trust me.

So there you have creativity at work. I'll keep an Item of the Week page up on the site for all of you who one day will reach into your garbage or recycling bins and wonder, 'Now, what could I do with this?'. We're here to help. Remember, small is big.

Natural cleaning

Last week when I cleaned I noticed that I have, bit by bit, reduced the number of cleaning products I'm using. I don't think I set out to do this - maybe I'm getting lazy and don't want to cart that caddy around the house with me. In any case, here's how it looked last week.

I started in the kitchen. I keep rags to clean with (you can buy a dozen or so, packaged up like washcloths at Target for about $5), and I pulled out 2. I got one wet (just water) and wiped everything down, followed by the dry cloth. That worked fine. ''[Please note that in case the Department of Health and Human Services finds this post, I do keep rinsing the cloth!]'' Next I took the cloths to the living room and family room. I wiped down the glass surfaces with the wet cloth, once again followed by the dry cloth, and used the now slightly damp dry cloth for all of the wood. So no more Pledge or windex-type products. I did use some of Denny Voss'
Naturally Clean floor cleaner on the floors because I really like it, but I do use just water on occasion.

Upstairs in the bathrooms I am using a concoction developed by Tom while I was down and out with a bad back (leave it to him to develop a new cleaner for me!). I mix white vinegar with a drop or two of dish soap and a little water (no exact measurements needed) and found this worked quite well for all of my surfaces, and in particular my shower doors and mirror. When I'm done cleaning I dump the remainder on the floor of my shower and wipe it down.

Now, I still use a toilet bowl cleaner (Naturally Clean again), and the one toxic cleaner I still feel the need to hang on to is Soft Scrub (for sinks). But compared with the number of products I used to use, I'm way down.

Have I scared you away from my house? I hope not! But give some thought to the products you're using, and experiment a little. You may find you need less than you think.