My Daily Impact, October 27 - 31, 2011

This is the 32nd posting in this blog.

We have had mixed weather the last few days. There have been some sunny times, some windy times, and some rainy times. Some days like today have been a little bit of each. The rain and clouds really did a number on my solar energy production lately, and I am glad that I have grid power to use when this happens. I have used 5 KWh of grid energy over the last five days, and three of those were on Friday night and Saturday morning. I am still on track to beat my last years' October energy use if all goes well. It is my goal to constantly improve from one year to the next, and for the last two years, that has been the case every month. I must admit that it gets harder every year because the low-hanging fruit of easy energy savings has been picked.

I have been driving the Honda scooter much more lately. I put about 120 miles on it last week. That is only about 1.1 gallons of gas, but I like to use less if possible. I also drove the van to a party in Altamonte Springs with my friend Kenny. This 40 mile trip was respondible for about 36 pounds of CO2, and the Honda made about 22 pounds. I also car pooled with my friend Michael to Christmas for a group hike at the wetlands park there. That trip in his jeep probably made about 50 pounds of CO2.

The emissions from those three tailpipes are not the only things that made impacts this week. My food intake did some damage too. On Thursday evening, we went to O'boy's Bar-B-Que, and I had the pulled pork dinner. There was probably over a pound of the stuff on my plate, and I ate every bit. Sometimes, I just lack discipline! At least the food was served on reusable dished with real utensils. Only the 2 napkins went into the trash.

 Friday night, I had a roast beef sub from subway. It was not a huge amount of meat, but there was the was paper wrapper, the napkin, and the plastic bag. Saturday was the Halloween party. There was a foam plate, a plastic cup, 2 napkins, and plastic utensils. I held back on any protest of this waste because my friends were gracious enough to invite me to an awesome party.

Last night, seven of us went to Pollo Tropical for dinner. The chicken and side items were all good, but the trash was ridiculous. Foam plates, plastic containers, plastic utensils, and plastic cups all over that table which all went into the trash. It is a shame that good, inexpensive food comes at such a cost to our environment.

Today, I sit here writing this blog entry at Panera Bread. So far, I have poured myself two cups of coffer, and used four sugar packets and a plastic knife. The real knives had not come back from the dishwasher, and a plastic one was already on my plate before I could stop it. I will rinse it off, wipe it down, and put it into my computer bag for a second use later.

I want to share my inspirations for writing this blog. I have previously mentioned my friends at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage who live the most sustainable lives of anyone I know. Click here to go to their website. They are not just trying to save our planet, but they also are some very nice people. I also have to credit a book titled "No Impact Man" by Colin Beavan. This is an interesting and humorous account of a New York City man who tries to make the smallest footprint possible. He also takes his wife and child along for the ride. This book taught me a lot about how the choices I make can influence the footprint I make.

I recommend taking this book for a read. I really recommend the audio book because the author's enthusiasm really comes through.

My Daily Impact, October 20 - 26, 2011

This is the 31st posting to this blog.

I did it again. I let a week go by between postings. This is not nescesarily a bad thing, but small things that I do on a daily basis slip through the cracks. There are the paper towels in the wash rooms, the broken plastic utensils, the napkins, the sugar packets, the meat, and all of the frozen food that I find so convenient.

Let's start with frozen food. I use frozen, concentrated orange juice, and drink a glass full every morning. I eat frozen veggies about 4 times per week, and I ate frozen fish three times over the past week. All of this food must be transported and stored frozen, and this uses a lot of electricity and fuel. I do not know what the difference is in transporting frozen over dry or canned goods is, but I know that there is a difference. At least the frozen OJ reduces the transport of cold water in regular OJ, and it reduces the packaging as well.

I have mentioned meat before in this blog. Besides the fact that the cow, pig, lamb, or chicken must die, there is the feeding, grazing land ( hopefully ), and the poop. There is also the cold storage energy, and all of this adds up to a lot of impact. One of the most environmentally friendly things to do is to become a vegitarian. I attempt to be at least a part-time vegitarian, but I still have that carnivore side. Meat intake this past week involved some of those bacon-wrapped fillets, which I served at a small dinner party, two Wendy's singles, 6 slices of Ikea bacon, that frozen fish, and small ammounts of chicken from Sweet Tomatoes' salad and soup bar.

There have been some improvements lately. I went to Clemmon's produce, and bought some locally-grown oranges and tomatoes. They clearly label all of their produce with the place of origin. I would really like Publix to do the same thing. I know that Publix does label some things, but it would be nice to highlight local produce.

Power use from the grid continues to be low this month. There were several overcast days until the 21st when I had to use more from the power company than usual. Since then, the only grid use was to cook, and to do two loads of laundry. I was able to line dry most of the wash, and therefore only used 9 KWh for the whole week. Just using the dryer for those two loads would have accounted for most of those nine.

I started construction of my next solar project yesterday. The mad scientist is back at work, and details with pictures will follow on new postings. Until then, be as green as possible!

My Daily Impact for the week of October 11 - 19, 2011

This is the 30th posting to this blog.

Well, I did it again, I let this blog go for a week. I have been busy, but really not that busy. I will start by saying that there were a lot of daily impacts of mine that will go unsaid. There are the sugar packets, the napkins, the bananas, the meat, the Ikea bacon, and probably many more. I do my best every day to keep these small things to an absolute minimum.

I do keep good records of my electricity and gasoline use, and I will report that now. The week's total power use for my house was 30 KWh. This total actually includes eight days of power, and 16 miles in the truck. Two of those days the meter sat still ( no grid power use ). There was some cloud cover on a few of those days, and I had to plug the fridge back into the grid. Why do I bother watching my power use? Well, beside caring for the planet, my last power bill was $ 35.00.

Most of my travel was with the electric scooter, but there were several trips on the Honda as well. The Honda trips added up to about 60 miles for about 10 pounds of CO2. Yesterday and today, I drove the van. The 51 mile total is responsible for about 40 pounds of CO2.

There were two things that I did this week which helped lower my impact on the planet. I had the starter fopr the van repaired at a local shop. This not only saved me $ 20.00 over a rebuilt one, it keeps the local economy going, saves the transportation of a starter from who-knows-where and back, and keeps the high-quality original equipment starter motor in my van. It is too bad that the local repair shops for electronics struggle because of our disposable society.

Along the lines of electonic repair, I was able to successfully repair a portable DVD player which was malfunctioning. The removal of a stray piece of plastic, and a little solder did the trick. I must admit that it took me about 2 1/2 hours to get this done, but it kept that little player working.

I have been doing pretty well staying away from red meat. I have eaten some chicken and fish, but have mostly been eating veggies. There is always that free Ikea bacon, but it is free, and it tastes so good!

I attended the #occupy Orlando rally on Saturday. It was encouraging to see people speaking out to try to improve things in this country. I think that the best thing for me to do is to buy from local businesses when ever possible. I am lucky that Publix is a local business, but I will need to make sure that more food which I buy from them is actually locally grown.

A scene from Occupy Orlando. ( I'm in the green on the left )

My Daily Impact, October 8, 9, and 10, 2011

This is the 29th posting to this blog.

Saturday, October 8th was a day full of rain. There was not much sun on Friday, and there was little wind either. I had to shut off the solar power because the batteries were very low. I also had to use 1 KWh of power to heat the water to a temperature comfortable enough for a nice shower. I have become quite reliant on nice sunny Florida weather.

I stayed home all day, watched the boob tube, and did some small things around the house. I rarely spend all day at home, and I got a little stir crazy!

Total grid power use for the house was 4 KWh. Not too bad considering the lack of sun.

Sunday, October 9th brought some relief from the constant rain of the day before, but there was little sun. I kept the solar feed to the house turned off to give the batteries some much-needed charge. I did manage to get out in the late afternoon to my Thai Chi group, but I took the van. I had not filled it with gas from my return from DC, and I did not want to leave it empty for any longer. I also went to pick up my friend Kenny because he was stranded at his house because he could not drive. He had problems with his teeth, and was on pain medication. Kenny has given me rides more times than I can count, and it was my turn to return the favor.

The traffic lights were not kind to me on Sunday, and the 31 miles driven probably meant about 33 pounds of CO2 put into the atmosphere. There is also a problem with the starter on the van. It has been acting up for a while. It often only clicks when the key is turned, and requires several turns of the key before the starter engages. The problem with this is that the repeated clicking resets the computer, and the van does not run as efficiently as it could. Repair of the starter is now on my to-do list.

Total grid power use for the house was 3 KWh. This figure probably represents the power generated by my system of solar panels on a sunny day.

This is where the solar panels and wind generator store power.
I am waiting for better battery technology, but this works for now.

Monday, October 10th was a fairly sunny day. I decided to give the batteries more opportunity to charge, and used grid power only. I did some work on the sliding door for my guest bathroom, and mostly stayed around the house. I did go to the library and to Publix in the evening, and used the e-scooter for this trip. Because the solar was resting, there was probably about 300 watt-hours of grid power used for this trip. This is quite a bargain for 10 miles.

I have neglected to mention my impact due to food for the last few days. There was one breakfast at Ikea with the two strips of bacon, there was a good day on Saturday when I consumed no meat, and there was a good day on Sunday when I ate at Jason's salad bar for dinner. Monday was a frozen chicken dinner. Each day there were bananas, frozen OJ, and several snacks of cereal bars and yogurt. Any packaging from these snacks went into the garbage. Yogurt comes in a type of plastic which Orange County does not recycle. I wonder why this is?

Total grid power use for the house on Monday was 4 KWh. It was almost too hot to sleep with no A/C, but a fan managed to do the trick.

My Daily Impact, October 6 and 7, 2011

This is the 28th posting to this blog.

Thursday, October 6th was a slower day than Wednesday. I hung up the sliding doors, and one worked perfectly. The other one needed a different hole drilled for the roller, but ended up just fine. I am pleased with the results, and will add a third door to the second bathroom.

Food wise, I did well until dinner with friends. I had a BBQ beef sandwich with greens and sweet potatoes. The guy at Cecil's really piled on the beef, and that made the major impact for the day. Travel to dinner was with the e-scooter, and that was charged mostly with solar power. About 200 watt-hours was from our meeting house.

The grid power was off at the house for a ZERO KWh day. Yippee!

Friday, October 7th meant a trip to Home Depot in the truck. This was for the new bathroom door. I ate at Ikea on the way there, so bacon was ingested. I did not do too much work with the new door, and went out on the Honda to meet friends. The 24 mile round trip put out about 4 pounds of CO2. Dinner was one of those bacon-wrapped fillets and the remainder of that broccoli from Target. The other impact came from charging the truck for the 15 miles run for the week. That was 8 KWh. The truck is much less efficient when it sits without charging for a while. Batteries leak power quite a bit unfortunately

Total grid power for the house was 1 KWh, and the truck's 8 makes a total of 9. The presence of rain and overcast skies forced me to use grid power for the fridge. I am lucky that there was still enough solar hot water for a nice shower. I do not know if that will be true if the rain sticks around too long..

My Daily Impact, October 5, 2011

This is the 27th posting to my blog.

Wednesday was a very productive day. I met my friend Michael for breakfast at Ikea, and had the usual eggs, potatoes, and bacon. Maybe I should pass on the bacon to make less of an impact, but it tastes so good!

From Ikea, I went to Home Depot to get a few things to finish installing the sliding doors. One of the things I got was primer. I should have purchased latex primer, but got oil-based instead. It has been a long time since I used oill-based paint, and it is nasty. It does go on thick, and covers well, but I had to toss the brush when I was through. Nasty stuff. I am also not sure what kinds of gasses come from that stuff, but at one point I felt a little high. A little fresh air, and it passed though.

I worked all afternoon on the doors and painting, and wanted a quick dinner. I had a coupon for buy one, get one free chicken sandwiches at Burger King, and I wolfed both of them down. Not much of a ballanced meal, but it was good.

I charged the e-scooter using grid power, and used power tools and lights all afternoon. The result was 1 KWh of grid power for the day.

Daily Impact October 4, 2011

This is the 26th posting to this blog.

Tuesday was a beautiful day here in Orlando. It was cool and sunny, and the solar panels made lots of power. The windmill sat idle, but the winds will return. I was able to stay off-grid for most of the day until I tried to run the table saw. My little inverter would not have it, and shut down. Lucky for me, it was just a matter of reseting the inverter, and juice flows once again.

I was using the table saw to cut some wood for the installation of the sliding doors for the house. One is installed, and it works very well. There were several new raw materials used in the process, and each has its impact. The doors probably made the most of that impact. They are hollow core wood doors 36 inches wide. I wonder how much CO2 the manufacture and shipping of the two doors produced. There is also the hardware. Two aluminum tracks, and the steel nuts and bolts to hold everything together.

I only know that I owe for the 6 mile round trip in the truck ( I did not charge it yet ), and the power to run the table saw, and cook my dinner. Dinner was again a fillet and broccoli.

On the plus side, total grid power use was again only 1 KWh. Gotta just love that!

My Daily Impact, October 3, 2011

This is post number 25 to this blog.

My impact on our planet for Monday was mixed. I was able to go through the day using no gas or oil, and I rode the e-scooter with mostly solar power. I did charge it for about 75 minutes at the meeting house last night; that was about 200 watt-hours of grid electricity.

My food intake was where I probably did some damage. I went to Ikea for free breakfast, and had those two strips of bacon and that coffee. I had a banana and some snacks during the day, and there was some wrapping which went into the trash. Dinner was one of those bacon-wrapped fillets from Aldi and some broccoli. I do not know the origin of broccoli from Target, but it is probably not too close.

The grid power was mostly off in the house except for cooking dinner and washing sheets. These two activities used only 1 KWh of grid power. I just love fall in Florida; I hope to have only used about 225 KWh for this past month, and hope to be less than 70 for next month. That will be my goal.

My Daily Impact, October 2, 2011

Daily Impacts: September 29, 30, October 1, and October 2

This is the 24th posting to my blog.

I have neglected this blog again. I guess that I have been busy. I will just do a dialy summary for the past few days.

Thursday, September 29, 2011:

I rode the Honda about 25 miles for about 4 or 5 pounds of CO2.
I got a Styrofoam to-go box from Il Piscatore for my left-over Stromboli.
The house used 10 KWh of grid power.

Friday, September 30, 2011:

I rode the Honda about 25 more miles for 4 or 5 pounds more of CO2
I rode with three friends to dinner. The part which was out-of-the-way for me was about 3 miles for 6 pounds of CO2.
The house used 6 KWh of grid power; I was able to open the windows at night.

Saturday, October 1, 2011:

This is the day that the weather turned cool. It happened on October first last year too! It is what we Floridians wait for all summer: that first cold front!

I turned off the grid power at the meter beforew I left the house at 7 AM. This is one of my favorite things to do! I rode the e-scooter downtown to meet friends for our weekly walk, and went to breakfast. I did have coffee and eggs with sausage; so there were the transportation issues and the meat issue. I also used some sugar packets and two stir sticks. I charged the scooter in a parking garage for about 200 watt-hours of grid power.

When I returned home, I charged the scooter from the solar and wind system I have at my house. There had been a steady wind from the northwest, and the generator was making juice. It was also very sunny; so the solar panels were juicing as well. It was a good day to be making renewable energy.

Getting ready to make some electricity!

That evening, I met Kenny for dinner at Sweet Tomatoes. I rode with him for about 6 miles for about 5 pounds of CO2. I also charged the scooter for about 300 watt-hours of grid power. Dinner was mostly vegie, but there was some chicken in one of the salads, and some meat in one of the soups. I do eat out a lot, and that helps keep the grid power use at home down. When I am off-grid, I can not cook or do laundry; that requires me to hook back up by flipping a breaker or two.

Total grid power use for the house on Saturday was ZERO!  Grid power use from other sourses was about 500 watt-hours ( 1/2 KWh ).

Sunday, October 2, 2011:

I rode the e-scooter to Aldi for some milk and groceries. There is no plug accessable there, so all scooter power was from the wind and sun. My brother Mike and his wife JUne stopped by on their way home to Miami. We had a nice visit, and went for some lunch at Checkers. The ride there and back was about 5 miles for about 4 pounds of CO2. The food had paper packaging which went into the trash, and there was meat involved. Sometimes, it is hard to be green.

Later that afternoon, I changed the oil in the van. I will take the used oil to be recycled, and the new synthetic oil should be good for five or six thousand miles. The old filter went into the trash once I got most of that nasty old oil out of it. Should I have kept it, and disposed of it in a diferent way? How? Well, at least I did not have to run the van's engine at all. I had put the van on the ranps when I returned from DC, and rolled it back down with gravity.

The evening brought a trip on the e-scooter to my Thai Chi group downtown. After our meeting, we went for Cajun food at the little restaurant near the Center. We all walked there, and saved any travel impacts by doing that. The food was served in Styrofoam bowls, and the drinks in Styrofaom cups. I will bring my own water next time we eat there. I used about 300 watt-hours of the Center's power to charge the scooter.

Grid power use for the house was again ZERO! I just love fall in Florida.