Earth Notes: Saving The Planet @Home

Want to do your bit at home to save the planet, and make your effort worthwhile?

This site is all about practical things that I have done or thought about to make my own life (and that of my family) a little lower-carbon without wearing a hair-shirt... Note that the average European probably has to cut their carbon-footprint by 80% to stand a chance of averting the worst of climate change.

Things That I've Done

I've done a lot of things, some of which I hope have crunched my carbon footprint, and I've thought about some more things that I'd like to do, but most of all I've had quite a lot of fun learning. Maybe it's my engineering mindset, but I've made a hobby out of conservation and meter watching, and had fun out of 'tuning' my life a little.

See a full list of articles at the end of this page, but here's some things to start with:

• made my home study/office carbon-neutral
• cut our electricity consumption and added microgeneration to the point where we are net exporters to the grid
• weatherproofed/weatherised our home amongst our other conservation measures such as upgrading to energy-efficient appliances
• dramatically cut the energy used by my Internet servers to the point where the primary server runs off solar power some of the time
• build a little off-grid solar system that provides lighting and mobile phone charging and power for my Internet server
• toyed with wind power and found that it doesn't really work for most of us urbanites
• built a compost heap or three as well as installing lots of solar microgeneration...

Things That You Can Do

Effective changes that can be made at home are based on lowering energy/resource demand:

• Lighting: low-energy light bulbs (eg CFL / compact fluorescent and LED preferably at 60 lumens per Watt (60lm/W) efficiency or better). If rewiring, then look at 12V light circuits connecting to PV/battery systems, eg BrightLightSolar's kits and upwards.
• High-efficiency white goods (eg fridges) and other electrical goods at home and at work; look at energy consumption in use, eg per wash or while on, and in 'standby' mode if you won't be turning them off at the wall.
• For cooking: investigate CO₂ savings with induction cookers and microwave ovens.
• Clothes washing: alternate ideas with drying (eg on a line), and low-temperature (30°C/40°C) washing and do full loads. Also, simple changes in habits and textiles (wool is brilliant compared to cotton for whole-life costing as well as washing/drying/ironing). Re-use fashions!
• Low water-use toilets, showers.
• Insulation and thermal mass (over-cladding buildings).
• Close curtains at dusk to retain heat (and on hot sunny days to keep the sun/heat out).
• Turn down your heating thermostat 1°C for up to 10% saving; 18°C to 21°C is about tops.
• Don't have your hot water thermostat set higher than 60°C/140°F.
• Don't leave gadgets and appliances on standby/charging, turn them off (maybe with a smart power-strip or trailing adaptor) or unplug them; you might trim as much as 30% off your electricity bill.
• Check your mains electricity use at home with tools such as the Kill-a-Watt meter and those from Energy Optimizers Direct, or just read the meter daily or weekly. Gas too.
• Minimise the electricity you use at times of peak grid load (eg 4pm to 9pm in the autumn/winter in the UK) since more carbon-intensive and expensive fuels may be burnt in 'peaking' plants, and the grid is under most strain too. Intensity at peak time circa 2009 is probably ~0.6kgCO2/kWh, as much as 50% over typical levels.
• Reduce, re-use, recycle.

Every kWh of electricity saved avoids production of ~0.43kg of CO₂ in the UK.

News

Sources and Links

• NewScientist climate change reports.
• Videos: the excellent and light-hearted YouTube video on global warming "How It All Ends", the "We can fix it Together" call to action, and Adam Hart-Davis talking about the Masai.
• Amongst other things the sust-it site ranks electrical goods such as TVs and fridges by energy consumption in sensible ways, which is a very valuable service.
• The Energy Saving Trust: low-carbon buildings programme, generate your own energy. Members of the European Energy Network.
• The BBC's 'Energy' microsite.
• There are various smart power-strips available to make it easy to turn off things properly and avoid bending down too often, or delving behind the sofa, such as from oneclick.
• A real-life case study: Alternative Technology At Home.
• A low-impact home in Wales that uses solar PV, and a Low Impact blog.
• The fantastic FreeCycle for giving useful things a good home, as an alternative to charity shops or landfill.
• Without Hot Air (free) book by David MacKay; real crunchy numbers and a TreeHugger summary.
• The Zerocarbonista blog by Dale Vince of Ecotricity, the very good and sometimes tongue-in-cheek TreeHugger.com blog/news site, the ForceField DIY alternative power generation board, BusinessGreen, Renewable Energy World (was Renewable Energy Access), the Cleantech Blog, the BBC's Green Room, the Green Thoughts blog, Green Energy News, Energy Central, the BBC's Bloom guides, Home Power magazine.