My Carbon Footprint for 2013

This is the 45th post to this blog.

I have just completed the calculations for my carbon footprint for 2013. I now have a second person living in my home, so the numbers will not be directly comparable for the electricity use for the last several years. I am glad that the power use only went up by 32 percent.

I also did not use air travel at all this past year. That saved almost 1/2 ton from 2012. I did take a long road trip with Astro (my awesome dog) in the Celica. This added almost 9200 miles to my total for the year, but I do not know how I could be more efficient traveling with my dog.

There are only two small unknowns for this year. I used some propane for my camp stove, and I lit two campfires during my trip.

Here are my 2013 carbon calculations:
I used 1.22 lb/KWh for my house per Cotap.org, and I used 19.4 lb/gal for gas in my vehicles per the US Energy Information Administration.

My house:
3554 KWh = 4336 lb (this is an increase of 32% from 2012)

The 1997 Voyager van:
1252 mi, 58.33 gal (21.46 MPG) = 1131 lb (this is a decrease of 23% from 2012)

The 2000 Toyota Celica:
13731 mi, 362.3 gal (37.9 MPG) = 7028 lb (this is an increase of 62% from 2012)

The 2007 Honda Elite scooter:
4687 mi, 48.81 gal (96.0 MPG) = 947 lb (this is an increase of 90% from 2012)

The total:
13,442 pounds or 6.72 tons CO2.... an increase of 23% from 2012

I drove a lot in 2013, and this really increased my impact. My goal is to use my bike and public transportation much more in 2014.

My Carbon Footprint for 2012

This is the 44th post to this blog.

I just did the calculations for my carbon footprint in 2012. There is good news, and there is bad news.

The good news is that my electricity use fell from 3039 KWh in 2011 to 2690 KWh in 2012. This number denotes an 11.5 percent decrease even though I had overnight guests through AirBNB for about 100 total days.

There is more good news. I only drove the van 1522 miles in 2012, and even though the average MPG dropped to 20.9, the overall footprint was smaller. I also purchased a 2000 Toyota Celica from my friend Rick. Even though it is a sporty car, it gets great mileage (see the calculations below). I sold the electric S-10 truck, and I hope the purchaser gets good use from it.

The bad news was posted in my 43rd posting. It was the air travel to Costa Rica. The flight was responsible for almost 1/2 ton of CO2. I also rented a car, and drove it 1059 km, but the car did very well on fuel, so that was not too much of an impact. I also rode the ferry to the Nicoya Peninsula with the car, and I do not know how to calculate that impact, so that will be an unknown.

Here are the final Carbon calculations:

My house:
2690 KWh @ 1.22 pounds/KWh (Cotap.org) = 3282 lb

The 1997 Voyager van
1522 mi, 71.73 gal (20.94 MPG) @ 19.4 pounds/gallon (US Energy Information Administration) = 1392 lb

The 2000 Celica
8473 mi, 230.79 gal (36.71 MPG) @ 19.4 lb/gal = 4478 lb

The 2004 Honda Elite scooter
3724 mi, 35.7 gal (101.4 MPG) @ 19.4 lb/gal = 499 lb

The rental car 2012 Toyota Yaris
1059 km (658 mi), 60.45 liters (15.97 gal) 41.2 MPG..... 15.97 @ 19.4 lb/gal = 310 lb

The flight from Orlando (MCO) to San Jose (SJO)
1266 total miles @ .7425 lb/air-mile (Carbonfund.org) = 940 lb

The grand total = 10890 pounds or 5.45 tons CO2

I am proud of this small number, but would like to improve it for 2013.