My Daily Impact, November 16-24, 2011

This is post number 37.

Happy Thanksgiving. It has been over a week again since posting. I am sitting at a McDonnalds having coffee and writing this. I had to convince the guy at the counter to serve my coffee in my cup instead of using one of their disposable ones. He was nice enough to comply; he will not be assimilated yet!

I drove my van down here with the Honda scooter inside. Astro did not have quite as much room to wander around, but he did not seem to mind. The temperature was cool enough to use only the windows, and the gas mileage seems to be good. I will have to wait until I fill the tank before I know for sure.

I took a long ride on the scooter last night. I wanted to park in South Miami, and walk around for a while. There was no parking available, and even if there was, there was no two-wheeled vehicle parking. I will make sure that I just did not see any before I write a letter to city hall. The same was true of Coconut Grove. I would be happy to pay a reasonable rate to park my scooter; four or five can fit in a regular parking space, so the price should be about one-third or one-quarter of regular car rates.

I have had mixed results with my quest to stop eating so much meat. There is still that Ikea bacon, and my friend Kenny and I went to Golden Coral for the buffet. I had about a half of pound of Steak, some chicken and some fish. I did do well on other days by having veggie curry at the Thai restaurant, and salad at Sweet Tomatoes.

The amount of garbage which I generate continues to be small. There were only two small plastic grocery bags in the can for the past week. Most of that was yogurt cups, snack wrappers, and other packaging from my food. I try to limit the purchase of over=packaged food, but I do not buy enough fresh stuff to do that yet. Maybe I can start a garden co-op with my neighbors. It can't hurt to try.

Grid power use is very low this month, and I hope to keep the total below 60 kilowatt-hours. I still owe the truck a good, full charge. I drove to Ikea with my neighbor, Peggy on Tuesday. At least I kept her from using her truck and her gas. I need to find the truck a new owner. I do not use it enough to keep the batteries in good working condition. It really likes to be driven and charged daily.

There are 20 batteries to try to keep fresh. It seems that the older that they get, the easier it is for them to loose charge when sitting. I may need to drive it a couple of days in a row to refresh them.

Each battery weighs about 75 pounds. That means about 1500 pounds of extra weight to push around. There is some savings from a lighter motor and no gas tank, but it still will not win any races!

My Daily Impact, November 12-15 2011

This is the 36th posting to this blog.

Things are going along in a nice green way. The van remains parked in the carport, and the truck in the garage. It has been all Honda with the nice cool, dry weather. I did finally repair the front tire on the e-scooter, and drove it to Panera today where I write this entry. I like to have some coffee, and watch the various people come through here while I write; it is much more interesting than sitting at home.

I have done better with my food lately too. There was some bacon at Ikea yesterday, and half of a chicken from Publix on Sunday night (the other half is for tonight), but other than that no meat. We went to the Siam Garden Restaurant on Friday night, and I had a nice red curry with tofu and veggies. It was yummy, and the tofu absorbed the delicious sauce nicely. Saturday was cheese pizza, and last night was a veggie plate at Cecil's Bar B Q. There are a lot of good vegetarian choices available, and I am trying to take advantage of them.

Power production from my solar and wind system has not been what I would hope it would be. I have been plugging the fridge into the grid at night because of lack of power. The batteries in my system are getting a bit older, and I will be testing each one today to see if there is a problem there. There is also some additional shade from the oak tree in the front yard. I had trimmed it way back about two years ago in an effort to save it, and it is doing very well. The added growth now present shades my solar panels for about 2 hours during the day. I may re-locate the panels to a more sun-drenched part of the roof, but that will be quite the project. The panels produce DC power, and the power must travel through large (6 gauge) wire to reach the batteries. If I move the panels, I will have to move the batteries to keep the wires short.

The big box on the roof which makes hot air seems to be doing fine. The temperature sensor in it often reads over 140 degrees even if there is not too much sun. It has been too warm to run the fan to heat the living room, and the internal temperatures in the box have been over 160 degrees. Maybe I can rig it to heat up my dinner!

This is where the cool air comes from the back of the box to be heated

There will be plenty of time to see how effective this box is over the coming few months. I will keep this blog posted with the results.

Grid power use for the past few days has been low. Since the meter was read, there have been six days. The number of KWh for those six days totals 7. This number includes two wash loads with one of those loads going into the dryer for about 20 minutes. I am trying to beat the records set last month and last April with a total number of kilowatt-hours under 60. So far, I am well on track to do this. As these records keep getting broken, it gets harder to improve from month to month and year to year. I am considering adding about 400 watts to my solar generating capacity, but this will cost some money. I will need two panels each costing $ 430.00, and I will need a second charge controller which is about $ 200.00. Should my quest for employment be successful, those improvements will be coming soon. Wish me luck!

My Daily Impact, November 10 and 11 2011

This is the 35th posting to this blog.

There has been some good news this week; the power bill came! Those two thoughts usually do not go well together, but for me, they did. The total cost for my grid power last month was $ 18.48. That is the lowest bill I have ever had for power in that house, and I have lived there for 25 years! This bill also indicates a total KWh use of 73 for the month which equals my usage for April, and both reflect the lowest monthly totals ever. I am really happy with this result. Can I beat it this next month?

I also have good news about my latest mad scientist project. The outdoor temperature this morning was just below 50 degrees with a strong breeze. By 8:30 AM, the temperature inside the solar space heater box was over 120 degrees. I switched on the fan, and got a nice flow of hot air into my living room. Success! The total cost of the system was about $95.00. This cost includes the 50 feet of drain hose left over from the first incarnation of this device. To be able to heat the living room of my house for the cost of running a 60 watt fan is awesome. The success of this device relies on a good sunny day, so I will have to keep track of how many days it can really be used.

In my other efforts to reduce my impact, I have mixed results. It seems that meat always comes onto my plate. It sneaks on there somehow. Today, I went to a CFHLA luncheon (the local lodging association), and there was a big chunk of pot roast on the plate. It did not stay there too long, and is now working its way through my body. Last night, I went to Chipotle with a friend, and again had beef. Ikea also put some bacon on my breakfast plate, and it went away as well. The up side of all this is that I have some job leads to work on, and that I will do.

The Honda at rest. It averages 110 MPG!

Transportation has been all Honda this week. I have not yet fixed the tire on the electric scooter, and I may not ride it too much when I do. As I mentioned before, the side of the road is a nasty, dirty, sharp-object-filled place. The e-scooter's lack of speed requires me to ride there, and that makes for flat tires. The Honda can reach speeds of 50 MPH, and that means that I can ride it in the much clearer traffic lanes. I have logged about 7000 miles on the two Honda scooters without a tire problem (knock wood); I have repaired tires on my various e-scooters and bikes many times with much less mileage to show for it. A "real" electric scooter would be the answer, but they are really expensive now. Maybe that will be my next mad scientist endeavor!

The E-scooter: too slow for the center of the lane.

Daily Impact November 8 and 9, 2011

This is the 34th posting to this blog.

I have mixed results to share about my impacts on the planet these past two days. Food continues to be one of the largest problems for me. Last night, I ate at Wendy's. I had a coupon for a free single with the purchase of a fries and a drink. In addition to the beef in the burger, there was all of that paper packaging. There is also the transportation of all of that stuff from Wendy's warehouses. I also had those two bacon slices at Ikea, but at least there was no paper involved (I washed my hands after breakfast, and used the awesome jet dryer).

Monday evening, I had dinner at home. I had packaged bar-b-q chicken and frozen veggies. Both of these have packaging and transportation issues which come with them. Today (Wednesday), I had cereal at home, and now I sit at Panera with my coffee writing this. I had to ask specifically for a "real" knife, but the napkin was already on the plate under my bagel. I understand the convenience and hygiene of using a napkin (not to mention the manners), but if I am careful, there is really no need for a napkin most of the time.

My latest "mad scientist" project went through its redesign yesterday. I removed the 60 feet of black hose from inside of the heat box, and replaced it with a sheet of galvanized metal. I had the metal in my garage from the dismantling of a big box years ago, and it finally got its chance to be of use again. I painted the metal black (after etching it with vinegar, a very important step), and mounted it inside the box about 2 inches from the back. Air flows into the box behind the metal sheet, runs down to the bottom corners of the box, runs along the hot area between the metal and the glass, and exits the box at the top through one of those black hoses. This design meant that the box had to be air-tight, and that the metal plate had to isolate the cool and hot portions of the back and front of the box.

The result of the redesign is significantly improved air flow. With the squirrel-cage fan that I bought at Skycraft pulling air from the hot side, there is a strong flow of hot air coming from my creation. Now I just need to mount this fan in a nice box, add a speed controller, and wait for a cold day for the real test. This heater only will work if the sun is shining, so we shall see how often it becomes useful. 

My Daily Impact, November 1-7 2011

This is the 33rd posting to this blog.

Well it has been a busy week. There have been good things happening, and a couple of bad events as well. November 1st was a day of mixed weather. There was some sun, some wind, and some clouds. The clouds really make for low power production because my solar panels produce much more electricity than the wind generator.

The main event of the day was taking the e-scooter over to Target to get some dog food. I got almost there when I heard a clicking sound coming from the front wheel. The front tire found a roofing nail. The tires of my various two-wheeled vehicles seem to find a lot of junk on the side of the road. It is the side of the road that is really the problem; it is full of sharp crap! Well, after inspecting the tire at Target, I determined that it would probably make it home OK if I left the nail in the tire. I went inside, and bought Astro some food.

When I got back to the scooter with the 44 pound bag of Dog Chow, the scooter tire still had plenty of air, and was not hissing at all. That lasted about half way home, and the tire went flat. A flat tire on a scooter or motorcycle is no fun. The bike feels like it is riding on ice mixed with mud; it gets really squirley. I walked the scooter to a parking lot for a condominium, and parked it. I had to stash the dog food, or carry it the mile plus home. I decided to knock on a door to see if some kind soul would help me.

The first door I knocked on was answered with a gracious " come on in ". The man continued with " Hello, I am Bill Traenor ". Bill is a very friendly, older gentleman, and he agreed to let me store the dog food in his condo while I walked home to get the truck. Meeting him completely negated any bad feelings I had about the flat tire. I feel honored to have met him, and talked with him.

The scooter, the ramp, and the 44 pounds of dog food made it home.

Wednesday, November 2nd was a nice enough day; it was windy and not quite as cloudy. I washed my sheets, and dried them on the line. They dried quickly with the strong breeze and the sunshine. I was also able to get my latest mad scientist project ready for the installation on Thursday.

Thursday, November 3rd was the big day on the roof. My friend Dean cam by, and after breakfast at Ikea, we got to work. I had procured two sliding glass doors a while back, and now it was time to put one to use. I also had purchased some 4" plastic hose a while back, and the two would meet for my big project. The idea is to heat the black hose inside of a wood box with the sun that shines through the sliding glass door on top. Installation went very well, and the box gets really hot when the sun shines on it.

There is one problem. If you look at the picture, you may be able to tell that the hose runs back and forth across the box in one continuous circuit. This makes plenty of heat, but that 60 feet plus of 4" hose is very restrictive to any air being pushed through it. The fan can only manage a slight current through the pipes, and the warm air blows out with the speed of an exhale. OOPS! I have a plan for fixing this, and I will report on the results when they are available. Sometimes a mad scientist has to go back to the drawing board.

The rest of the week went well enough, and grid power use was a mere 8 KWh, with one of those going into the truck. The van sat still in its parking spot in my carport, and the Honda got quite a bit of use. I approximate that there was about 22 pounds of CO2 produced from the week's riding.

Progress Energy probably read my meter today, and there should be a nice result for the month's power use. The total should be 70 KWh total, and this would be my second lowest usage for a month since April. I will update that on the next posting.