Entries Tagged '90% Reduction' ↓

[This was originally posted July 18, 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.]

There are some great
warning signs out there. Starting Point: Electricity

• American average: 11,000 kilowatt hours/household/year
• 90% reduction goal: 1,100 kwh/household/year

This was an easy calculation – I just got out our old utility bills and added up the kilowatt hours we used from July 2006 – June 2007.

• Use during the last 12 months: 7,201 kilowatt hours, or 65% of the average American household

The Problem
I’m pretty sure this is our highest consumption category. We have an electric oven, central air conditioning, and a fair amount of electronics (Shaun is a computer programmer). We usually set the air conditioning to 80°F and switch to open windows at night when it gets cool, but our condo bakes in the sun – we have high windows and vaulted ceilings, which means no attic or upper floor to act as a secondary barrier to heat accumulation. Electric bicycles will also add a bit to our load from now on. I don’t think we’ll be able to reduce our actual consumption in this category by very much – being originally from Alaska, air conditioning is life.

The (Partial) Solution
Instead of immediately trying to drastically cut our actual electricity usage, I signed up for Xcel Energy’s Windsource program to use wind power rather than electricity generated by fossil fuels. It will only cost an extra $6.27 or so per month, and the 90% Project rules consider wind energy to be 1/4 as emission-producing as other forms of electricity. The US Dept of Energy has a list of similar projects throughout the US. (Please leave a comment if you switch to renewable power!)

If we had used wind power last year, we would have produced only 16% of the emissions of the average American. And all without changing our habits one bit.

[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.

[This was originally posted July 7, 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.]

Greetings from yet another Sundrops blogger. Erin did such a good job calculating our business’s footprint, I thought it would be a good idea to see where we stand personally. Since Hig and Erin are hiking 4,000 miles through the wilderness for the next 9 months, their footprint is probably pretty small. Shaun and I have decided to calculate our own footprint in the spirit of the (rather poorly named) Riot For Austerity 90% Emissions Reduction Project started by Miranda and Sharon.



The United States has the highest CO2 per capita* According to the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research: In order to reduce global CO2 by the necessary 60% by 2050 Americans would have to reduce emissions by 90% on average to do our part. Americans are due for such a large cut-back because we use so much more energy than everyone else, see the figure at the left. It is argued by some that even 90% isn’t enough.

The first step is to figure out where we stand relative to the average American. I’ll let you know what we find out.

*Graph taken from here.