90% Reduction: Gasoline

[This was originally posted July 14, 2007 on my Sundrop Jewelry blog. I will be starting a series of updates soon, and figured the original posts should be available here too.]

The 90% Emission Reduction Project divides personal emissions into 7 categories: gasoline, electricity, other heating and cooking energy (natural gas, wood or oil), garbage, water, consumer goods, and food. I have the impression that we are doing fairly well in a few categories, but not too great in a couple. We’ll see how it looks as I gather the actual numbers for our current usage.

Personal monthly spending on gasoline Starting Point: Gasoline

• American average: 500 gallons/person/year
• Goal for our 2 person household: 100 gallons/year

We don’t keep track of the number of gallons purchased or miles driven, but we do keep pretty good track of our finances. We spent $600.47 on gas from July 2006 – June 2007. I used a chart of historical gas prices in Colorado to estimate the gas price on each day we purchased gas, and divided the price/gallon by the amount we paid in order to find the number of gallons we purchased each time. Based on this estimate of gallons purchased in the last year, we used roughly 228 gallons. We also take public transit fairly regularly: about 1.5 18-mile round trip rides per week. The 90% Project rules calculate gasoline for public transit at 100 miles/gallon. That’s an additional 14 gallons.

• Our consumption in the last 12 months: 242 gallons of gasoline, or 24% of the average American

Based on this calculation, we are already doing pretty well in this category. As Shaun has blogged, we are trying to go carless by getting electric bikes. We just recently got me a bike (pawn shops are great!) and assembled the eBike kit – this required a couple 90-mile car trips to 21 Wheels in Boulder to buy the kit and trade in a faulty part. 90-mile car trips are not so good for reducing our emissions, but now we’re finally able to use both of our bikes.

We’ve started to get routines established (last night we discovered that I absolutely require a headlight: my night vision is abysmal) and have begun trying to sell our car – soon we will walk, bike, or take public transit everywhere. Obviously, using electric bikes that require charging will make our electricity usage increase, but I’ll talk about that next time.