Welcome To Josh's Blog O' Thoughts: August 2007

Back in November I purchased a Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT (a.k.a. Canon EOS 350D). It came with a Canon 18-55mm zoom lens which is a great all purpose lens. Gives me great wide angle shots and provides a little bit of zoom for most normal indoor shots. I also purchased a Sigma 70-300mm super zoom lens. While it's definitely hard to keep a steady hand at that zoom, I have been really happy with some of the resulting pictures.

Here is a picture I took of a full moon. I used a tripod and a long exposure for this shot. Being my first moon picture, I was quite pleased with the result.


This is a picture of a goldfinch that was sitting on my mailbox post one day. I was lucky enough that he didn't fly away as I ran in to get my camera. I shot this one without a tripod, but used a high shutter speed and took bursts of photos. Even though some were motion blurred (due to my unsteady hand), I also had several good ones.

I thought I'd share a link to a site that I've found particularly useful for a while now. The author goes by Mr. Electricity and the site can be found at http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/.

Mr. Electricity used to take questions from readers, but has discontinued this option. However, this site still has tons of great information on how electricity is used in your home, how you can reduce your usage, and ultimately how you can save on your electric bill.

Electric usage is very simple when you look at the math. Watts = Volts x Amps. Volts and amps are listed on most electrical devices. You can then calculate the wattage for that particular device. Electric companies charge you by the kilowatt-hour (kWh) which is the number of kilowatts of electricity used on an hourly basis. So if you have a 1,000 watt device running for 1 hour, you just racked up 1 kWh. Or if you leave a 60 watt light bulb on for 2 hours, you’ve used 0.12 kWh. If you multiply that by your electric rate (displayed on your bill), you will be able to calculate the actual cost to run that device for that amount of time. I have used this site to help calculate my usage increase in December due to Christmas lights.

The site also goes into several electricity myths such as leaving the AC on all day is more efficient than leaving it off and then turning it on when you get home. It is conventional wisdom that this is true. People believe that it is more efficient to keep a house cooled to 75 degrees all day than it is to let it heat up and then cool it to 75 all in one shot. As Mr. Electricity explains, this is false because the house can only get so hot. If you leave your AC off, the house will reach a peak temperature. If you cool all day, the A/C will continually bring the temperature down, the house will reheat, and the AC will have to cool again. So, his point is that cooling the house to 75 degrees once is more efficient than doing it many times during the day.

Finally, another of my favorite sections of this site is the chart that gives you an approximate value on the electric usage of common household devices. Not surprisingly, anything that heats or cools (electric heat, oven, clothes dryer, central air) are high on the list. But you may be surprised to find out that your little coffee maker is using more electricity than your refrigerator. Or you might be surprised that: Running your AC 12 hours a day for three weeks uses more energy than leaving the refrigerator door open 24 hours a day for a whole year.

Have fun learning about electricity usage, and hopefully finding some ways to help reduce your own usage (and your bills).

This just goes to show you how much prices are based on speculation and worry. Over the past few years we have seen oil and gas prices skyrocket from hurricane activity in the Gulf of Mexico. Hurricane Katrina is a prime example. Now with Hurricane Dean going through the area, oil and gas prices have fallen. Once news broke that Dean would miss U.S. oil operations in the gulf and on the gulf coast, oil prices began to fall.

It's almost as if the price was just waiting for news one way or the other. If Dean were going to affect U.S. oil operations, then worry would probably drive prices to new highs. However, the price level is breathing a sigh of relief that this is not going to happen.

It's almost funny to watch how the price responds so drastically to news like this. In the aftermath of Katrina, I didn't notice any gas stations running dry in my area. I guess there WAS enough supply left to fuel the country. However, you wouldn't have guessed it by the price levels. Price levels should be determined by SUPPLY and DEMAND. After Katrina, I've heard that demand actually decreased because people thought they'd do their part to help conserve our "low supply". So if demand decreased and price skyrocketed, supply must have taken a HUGE nosedive, right? But if that were true, wouldn't we have seen lines at gas stations, or stations that were running out of gas? I don't remember seeing any of this. It appears that the price levels of oil and gas are based more on fear than actual economics.

A while back I griped about the lack of free market competition in the medical industry. Well, it occurred to me the other day that this goes ever further than I originally posted about.

Not only do doctors like to recommend and perform procedures without giving us the option to "shop around", but they often get paid for not doing anything at all? Have you ever gone to the doctor with a problem that the doctor did not resolve? You still had to pay full price for your visit/procedure/operation didn't you? How about you've gone to the doctor with an ailment and they couldn't even diagnose it? Or they keep telling you what they think it is, but they must be wrong because the cures for those things aren't working?

I think perhaps it's time that doctors started offering satisfaction guarantees. If they can't fix you or figure out what's wrong with you, you shouldn't have to pay full price. Maybe a discounted rate would be available. Even the cheapest discount stores offer some sort of satisfaction guarantee (even if it is just a return policy).

One of the big political issues for the next election appears to be the rising costs of health care for normal Americans. Well, perhaps if we start running the medical industry as a business where we are the customers and the "customer is always right", perhaps costs would go down. Perhaps doctors would realize they no longer have the right to charge us for incomplete solutions. They'd probably work a little harder to resolve our issues in a timely manner because it would mean happy customers. Now, the incentive just doesn't seem to be there.

A new trend is rising amongst energy conscience people. These people have devised a way to help fuel their existing automobiles with used cooking oils. There are several companies, such as GreaseCar, that sell conversion kits allowing you to retrofit your existing vehicle with a vegetable oil fuel supplement system. These generally will only work on older diesel engines. After installation, the engine then becomes a diesel-oil hybrid. The diesel is used to start the engine and bring it up to temperature. Once the engine is at an appropriate temperature, the vegetable oil can be used power the engine. This type of engine will burn cleaner than a straight gasoline engine, and gives us a way to reuse cooking oil that would otherwise have to be disposed of.

It honestly does not sound that difficult to do if you use one of these conversion kits. But it does involve quite a bit of work in obtaining the used cooking oil and filtering it so that it is usable. Then there is the fact that you need a diesel engine to begin with. Finally, this type of engine is actually meeting some legal opposition due to the fact that people that the people are not paying fuel taxes that are used to maintain the system of road that they drive on.

So if you want to try to be greener, have a diesel engine, and some time to spare, check out these conversion kits.

If any of my readers have done this to their vehicle, please leave a comment to let us know how hard it was to install, maintain, etc.

Anyone who is building a house or considering an upgrade to their current windows, should take a look EfficientWindows.com. This site lists a lot of information about what types of windows are available, and which windows will work best for your location and budget. Information on the different types of frames, glass, and gas fills can be found.

If you have an old house with aluminum frame, single paned windows, you could be wasting a TON of energy.

Vinyl window frames are much more efficient. Vinyl as a material does not conduct heat like aluminum does. Additionally, vinyl window frames are generally hollow (aside from the necessary structure to make the frame stable), which produces pockets of air. The pockets of air actually do a better job of buffering heat transfer than a solid frame would.

Another thing to consider is your glass. Old windows were a single pane, which didn't put very much space between the outside and inside air. Most modern windows will generally be at least double pane (two pieces of glass separated by gas). The gas between the panes can act as an insulator as well. One of the common gasses used is Argon.

One last big thing to look into is LoE glass. LoE glass has a transparent metal coating on one side of each pane of glass (assuming a dual pane window). This coating helps reduce the transmission of heat through the window, thus making the glass more efficient in both the winter and the summer.

Those are just some of the basics of finding an energy efficient window. There is tons of other information at the website. Remember to look for high R-values, low U-values, and the Energy Star label.

Now that this blog has been up for a few months, I've decided it's time to take a look at the most popular articles I've posted. Then we can see what really interests people. So, here are the top five articles so far:

1. Is This Hunting or Fishing - Covers the Asian Carp invasive species of fish that is taking over American waterways. Includes a link to a video of people bow hunting these fish as they jump out of the water.

2. What? Worms Are Bad For The Ground? - Most worms found in North American soils are not-native, invasive species which can wreak havoc on forested areas.

3. Are The Sun's Rays Weaker? - Conjecture about CO2 in the air "blocking" some of the burn-causing rays from the sun. Definitely read the comments here, as one of my readers made some very informative posts about the subject (and about how this conjecture is bunk).

4. Chris Dodd Called Me - The second post in my adventures with the Chris Dodd For President campaign. The first first post, Chris Dodd Might As Well Give Up, came in at number 7 on this list, but is mentioned here because the second post makes more sense after reading the first.

5. Hypermiling Isn't As Great As It Sounds - After first learning what hypermiling is, I posted this article about some of the dangers of taking hypermiling too far.

Well there's your top five for now. In another few months, I'll probably post a new list.

Just a quick update on the house building project.

Since I last posted that we had accepted the bid pricing, a lot has happened.

- We had the closing on our construction loan. Now our contractor will be ready to turn in receipts for reimbursement. This was really the final step before we could really get started.

- The next step was to stake out the house and have the hole for the basement dug. We were expecting to see a very large hole, but were surprised that it was only about five feet deep at the deepest point. The back side is a walk-out basement so we were expecting zero depth there. But we need to add some fill dirt in front of the house to level out the yard a little bit. That's the reason for the "shallow" hole.



- Next, the spread footings were formed and poured. For those who don't know, the footings are poured below the frost line and are what the basement walls and internal load-bearing walls will be built on.



- Basement walls were then formed and poured. The walk-out side will all be stick-built (i.e. framed out of wood) so there wasn't much wall there.



- Then the waste pipe was laid which will lead to the septic system. Also, the lines for the geothermal heating and cooling unit were brought into the basement. These all need to be in before the basement floor is poured.



Now, the basement, garage, and all trenches are being back-filled with soil and sand. Soon, the basement floor will be poured, so things are progressing well. Tonight we have a meeting at the building center to pick out all our windows and other things. These need to be picked out so that the framers can start framing in the next couple weeks.

Will report more when I have it.

This is actually kind of gross, so if you are easily queasy or are a member of PETA, you might not like this.

There is a fish farming company in Honduras that has become completely self sufficient in regards to its energy needs. Basically, after the fish are gutted and filleted, they take the remains (guts, heads, etc), grind it up, cook it up, and turn it into bio-diesel. They use this to power their entire operation (electricity, vehicles, etc). It's a little gross sounding, but at least they are doing something with the waste.

Although, I don't necessarily feel that bio-fuels are the end-all answer to our energy problems (due to the stresses it puts on the food industry, etc.), it is at least nice to see a company transforming their waste into a useable product.

This reminds me of the very end of the movie Back To The Future. When Doc Brown comes back from his initial visit to the future, he no longer has to fuel his flux capacitor with plutonium, but instead he uses standard bio-waste (banana peels, egg shells, and beer). Maybe this is the way we are headed.

I was recently sent a link to part of a Martin Bashir documentary about Global Warming. While the documentary doesn't try to disprove that Global Warming is happening (as some other "investigative" reporters claim), it does raise questions about the causes of Global Warming.

The overall message of his documentary is that carbon dioxide (CO2) is not the primary contributor to Global Warming. In An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore uses ice core samples dating back thousands of years to show that there is, in fact, a correlation between temperature and the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. He doesn't give the level of correlation, but even an amateur can spot that the graph lines are mostly aligned.

In Freakonomics, the authors explain the difference between correlation and causation. Just because two things are correlated (they move together) doesn't mean that one is the cause of the other or vice-versa. Obviously, the movie is implying that the CO2 is the cause of Global Warming, but it can't be proved just from the data shown in the movie.

Martin Bashir's report, however, claims that the CO2-Temperature correlation is simply that, just a correlation. His documentary claims there is no causation there. He may or may not be right. This documentary claims that the true cause of Global Warming is an increase in activity on the Sun. The explanation is as follows. The Earth is normally bombarded by cosmic rays which combine with rising water vapor to form clouds. With the Sun's activity currently in a heightened state, the Solar Wind is "blowing" away many of the cosmic rays. This leads to less cloud coverage and higher temperatures.

The data presented in the YouTube clip show a negative correlation between cosmic rays and temperature (when cosmic rays go down, temps go up), and a positive correlation between sun activity and temperatures. This all sounds very reasonable, but unfortunately, I don't think it gets us any closer to a proven cause than Al Gore's CO2 stance. They both have correlations, but we haven't necessarily proven causality.

Either way, you can't argue that reducing our CO2 emissions is a bad thing. Even if it has very little effect on Global Warming, reducing emissions means that we are driving more efficient standards, and thus will be promoting cleaner living all around. Additionally, it will reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, of which price will become a deterrent as extraction becomes more difficult.

So, don't watch this Martin Bashir documentary and think "CO2 isn't causing Global Warming, so I can continue on doing whatever I please without being responsible." Regardless of who is right about the cause of Global Warming, we still need to try to be more energy efficient.