CFL Eye

I know they’re supposed to save energy, give the planet a break, lower my carbon Sasquatch print.

BUT.

I have to wonder if eventually my optical response to available light will not eventually taper off towards the output of these squiggly-q bulbs. I try to burn the ones a step higher than the standard wattage rating of the light fixture (75w equivalent vs. 60w equivalent) but they still don’t seem as bright.

The answer is sunlight, at least in the daytime. I may need to have the SolaTube installer come over. That will also give me a chance to evict the crawlspace tenants (birds, squirrel) and put up some galvanized steel under the siding near the roof.

Yes, we should have already knocked that stuff out.

Earth: AQMP

Air Quality Management Planet

In 1990 I worked for South Coast Air Quality Management District in El Monte, CA. The way you manage the air is to assign values to certain kinds of pollutants and then assign businesses that produce those pollutants annual allocations for a certain fee. Then people who produce less of a substance can sell credits to people who produce more than their allocation. People who refuse to pay can be fined and shut down. So depending on how much money you have you can buy enough credits to pollute as much as you want. Now I am oversimplifying here but air quality management for the planet is going to work in much the same way. It’s just like the tags for extra bags of garbage that won’t fit into the can. I am not looking forward to this carbon tax. But since they haven’t managed to get me with the toll roads I guess this is how I’ll have to pay.

We won’t because we lack leadership

People who suggest one-child policies and that the human race should die so the planet can be saved should lead by example starting with the most famous.

Savings on one light fixture

This is the light with the standard 40W bulbs which burn so hot they melted the white tubes. That’s 200W every time that light switch is flipped.

This is the light with the new 9W CFL bulbs. That’s a little less than 1/5th the energy being used.

The Ultimate Green Light

Well maybe not ultimate, but close.

I have one of these push-light gizmos that I got at one of the home warehouse stores. It uses 4 AA batteries. I just put a set of rechargeable batteries in it. Then I looked at the light and realized it has an incandescent flashlight bulb in it. So I looked up the bulb type and found an LED replacement for it. I have it mounted in the hall closet. It doesn’t get used much. Usually if we are looking for something in that closet we’ll turn it on. Once I get the new bulb we could be looking at several years on a single charge. I don’t know how long it would burn constantly…probably several days. I may test that out as well. I may put one up in the bathroom like that. It’s a bit pricey on the front end but the bulb could run for 10 years with maybe 3 recharges for the batteries in that time. So a $6 with an $18 replacement bulb and $12 batteries comes to $36 in hardware. Then maybe $3 in electricity. That works out to $3.90 a year. $39 + $36 = $75, which works out to $7.50 annually. If I have to change regular batteries once a year I end up paying at least $5. So $1.10 in cash savings, then looking at not buying and throwing away (recycling) 40 batteries over the same 10yr period. I’m not sure what the exact figures would be. Let’s say a single AA alkaline battery thrown away adds $1 in waste to the environment. My $5 pack of batteries is now a $9 pack. The $6 light costs $90 to run over 10 years. I understand that many may view only the dollar amounts and say the difference is negligible. Well part of that has to do with the current cost of LEDs. Once we get the price down to $5 or $6 a bulb more people will be interested in converting their battery powered lights and the savings to the environment will compound many-times over.

Bulb replacements cont.

We tend to leave the bulb in the rangehood on quite a bit. Sometimes deliberately. Sometimes we forget about it. There was a 60w bulb up there. I bought one of the Philips CFL bulbs with the glass housing and replaced it. That drops the power usage down to 13w. Plus the bulb that was up there was coated in grease and dust. Ick. I think there is an incandescent bulb in the fixture over the bathroom sink. I had some problems with that fixture and I think I may have switched the CFL out on one side. I will have to check. I will probably replace both sides at the same time. The only other problem I have is with the chandelier hanging lamp thing over the kitchen table. Those bulbs burn so hot they have melted part of the housing. I am going to look into LEDs for that. If they’re 25w that’s 125w that can be cut down to about 30w with LEDs. Maybe more. I wish there were an LED replacement for those gas filled tube lights. There is one in the kitchen and we have two in the garage. Although we don’t use it much the garage door opener has a couple of bulbs in it that could get switched out for something with lower wattage.

Green Bags: Help for the budget and the environment

I tend to only buy vegetables to cook the same day or with in 3-4 days. I don’t just buy them without a specific time to prepare them in mind. This is a habit I have fallen into for the last few years. Back in the 1990s I was constantly spending money on fruits and vegetables and then getting distracted and not having time to do anything with them and finally tossing them out. I know the smell of vegetables that are starting to get a bit old I didn’t know that was due to a specific gas. I also wasn’t aware that there was a way to combat the effects of ethylene on our food. By using a Green Bag we can extend the shelf-life of fruits and vegetables hopefully long enough to get around to preparing and eating them. It’s worth buying Green Bags just to preserve the life of bananas alone. I’m not a big fan of green bananas but they’re also not very tasty on the other end when they’re bursting out of their skins. Throwing away food doesn’t help anyone. I wish they made the refrigerators so they would wick away the ethylene instead of just making things cold. The bags help retard the development of molds and fungi on food. You’ll be able to keep foods separate and not have flavors and odors commingling in the “crisper” drawer. Go to greenbags.com and watch the video explaining how they work. You can use them to keep freshly cut flowers in case you don’t have time to put them up immediately. Heck, in ancient times they could have used them to preserve the offerings. There are tales of priests getting a bit loopy from constant exposure to ethylene gas. Now when you see a sale on something that tends to be pricy you can buy it, put it away and then prepare it later when you have time and it’s back at full price in the store. They’ll pay for themselves within a couple of grocery store trips since you won’t need to replace things as often.

Just a stopgap, but more energy efficient than before

The ceiling light fixture in my bedroom takes two bulbs up to 60W. I just replaced those with GE energy smart 75 twisted tube bulbs. These are 20W bulbs but give off the light of 75W. I find that if I only get the ones that are supposed to give off 60W they are not as bright. So I put 60W rated ones in the ceiling fan that only use 13W to replace the 40W ones. Then the lamp I keep over the washer had a 60W bulb in it. I replaced that one with a 13W one. So that was 7 light bulbs which were burning a total of 340W. Now they are only burning 105W. That will save some energy while I dig around on the internet to find LED bulbs to replace these. Is LED bulb technology at a state of the art that is too advanced for the general public? I am trying to avoid it but I am afraid I am going to have to learn all the insect intricacies of light bulbs just so that I will know what to buy for my house. Crazy.

Wood Preserving

I’ve driven in every part of the south of this country and I have seen wood poles in the ground with lines strung across every state. On trips as a kid I tried counting poles and watching the lines go from pole to pole. Hey I was an only child and there has to be some amusement in life. That was in the 1970s and back then I didn’t really think about how the wood was treated and preserved. Most telephone poles back then looked like they had been coated with tar. I’m glad to know that wood products are now treated with substances that have a minimal impact on our ecology. The Pacific Wood Preserving Companies are that kind of producer. With five companies around the western United States they are able to give their customers high quality wood products preserved with EPA registered materials. When you go to their site you’ll see a link at the top with the Material Safety Data Sheets as well as product information sheets. You’ll learn about their history, the products they make, the chemical preservatives that go into them and how they can benefit you in landscaping as well as utilities and agriculture. You may be considering buying used railroad ties to use in landscaping. Before you do that you should have a look at pacificwood dot com click the literature link for information about Landscape Ties. They have links to some of the latest news stories about the wood preservation industry as well as a FAQ page divided by preservative. If you’re only thinking, check them out first. If you have already started looking check them out now.

Busrail

Our bus company, Capital Metro is going to be running a daily rail service sometime this year, I think. they’ve already purchased the cars and have them at a station. The other stations are still under construction. I didn’t vote for this because given my hours I can never make use of it unless they go to a 24hr schedule. It would be nice to drive to the park and ride and board the train and get dropped off within walking distance of work but since the service stops at 11pm or something like that, it isn’t an option. I mean I’d love to pay them a few dollars a week and have them save me hundreds a year in fuel costs. Hopefully the money will start rolling in and they’ll see the wisdom of posting some security and running the trains all night. Machines that sit idle are costing you money. The airlines understand that. Hopefully CapMetro will get it too.