Welcome To Josh's Blog O' Thoughts: Compact Fluorescent

Are you curious about how your use of home energy is affecting the environment? Ever wonder how you stack up next to the average American household? Well, ask no more! The EPA's website has some really great tools to help you figure this all out.

Let's first start with electricity. It's something we all use every single day. Chances are that your home is using some amount of electricity every single second. Even when you have all the obvious users (light bulbs, air conditioning, computers, TVs) turned off, your house is still using electricity. Many electronics devices use a small amount of electricity to run a clock or retain settings in memory. Many things that use a transformer (that would be the big clunky box you plug into the outlet that you use for charging batteries, running speakers, etc) are constantly using electricity regardless of whether or not the device is on. That said, it's obvious that electricity is MAJOR part of our home's energy use.

Since your home is using so much electricity, wouldn't it be great to know what the source of that electricity was? Does it mostly come from dirty, coal-burning plants, cleaner, nuclear power, or maybe even a renewable source such as wind or hydroelectricity. Since electricity is distributed to users via a grid system, your electricity does not come for a single source or even a single generating company. All power sources in a region are connected to the grid and combine to provide power to all areas of that region. Luckily for us, the EPA offers a web page to determine your sources for electricity. Simply, enter your zip code, select your electric company, and you will be given a graph detailing the sources of your electricity and the emission rates generated by your mix of sources.

Here is the break down for my area:


As you can see in the graph, my region (east-central Iowa) gets roughly 75% of our electricity from coal plants, 16% from nuclear, 7% from renewable sources, and the rest from other. As you can see by comparing to the green bars, my area's use of coal is higher than the national average and we are lower than average in natural gas usage. The other source types are all pretty close. I have to say that it does disappoint me a bit to see that my region is higher than average in use of dirty coal. I was hoping for a higher than average nuclear use since there is a nuclear plant very close to my city.

Looking further down the page, you can see how your particular sources of electricity rank as far as emission rates. Compared to the national average, my area has higher emission rates. This is likely due to the higher than average coal use. Again, this is disappointing for me to see.

Now that you know the emission rates for your electrical sources, you can actually use the EPA's page to calculate your personal emissions based on your sources and your usage. Just click the My Emissions link below the sources graphs. On this page, you can either enter your usage for the last 12 months, or you can enter a monthly average. Entering the last 12 months will be more accurate if you have the data available. Since I moved into a brand new house a couple months ago, I don't have a year's worth of data to use, so I will use an average of the last few months' usage.

Taking my last three utility bills, my average usage is about 1500kWh per month (the lowest being 859kWh). The EPA page says that the default for residential usage is about 900kWh per month, so it looks like I'm higher than average. However, my numbers are skewed by not having enough data and having a VERY cold Winter and Spring. I also have to remember that due having a ground source heat pump (geothermal heating/cooling), our house is ALL electric. We have no gas service so any emissions related to electricity will be all our home uses. Additionally, a geothermal system will gain some efficiency over time, so the fact that it was a brand new system during one of the harshest winters our area has had. At any rate, 1500kWh per month is about the best number I have to use right now.

After plugging in your usage number(s), hit the submit button to see your personal emission rate:


You can see that my electricity usage generates about 35,591 pounds of CO2 (carbon dioxide) per year. So now you have the amount of carbon dioxide (and to a lesser extent nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide), but what does it all mean?

We can use a third EPA web page to calculate carbon dioxide equivalencies to see how our emissions compare to other things. At the top of this page, Option 1 allows you can enter your electricity usage for the year in kWh, but doing so will use the national average electricity source mix for your emissions. Since we already calculated our source mix and our personal emissions, we can go to Option 2 and put in our actual carbon emissions from the previous page (make sure you change the unit to POUNDS not TONS!). You don't need to enter the nitrogen oxide or sulfur dioxide in the converter because are no fields for them in the conversion calculator (nitrous oxide is NOT the same as nitrogen oxide). After clicking the Calculate Equivalencies button, you will see how your emissions relate to other things.

Here's my full list of equivalencies:


It shows that my emissions come to a total of 16.1 metric tons. My electricity emissions are equivalent to the electricity-related emissions of 2.1 average homes. The means that either my electricity is dirtier than average (which it is due the coal) and/or I use more electricity than average (which I did). However, if we compare TOTAL energy usage of a home (electricity, gas, oil), I am equivalent to only 1.4 average homes. This number is lower because electricity-related emissions are my only emissions whereas the average home will also have emissions from natural gas/heating oil. That makes me feel a little better. The part that really disturbs me, is that it would take 414 tree seedlings grown for 10 years, or 3.7 acres of pine forest to offset the amount of carbon that my home is generating.

To get your total carbon output, also run the conversion for your therms of natural gas usage (if applicable), and gallons of gasoline usage using Option 1 at the top of the form. Get the total Carbon Dioxide of each of those and add them to your electric total to know your total emissions for a year. My 400 gallons of gas per year (approximately) adds an additional 3.5 metric tons of carbon, so my total carbon emissions are 19.6 metric tons for a year.

This is very interesting information. Hopefully, as I get more accurate usage information, my emissions will go down. We've already taken many steps to be energy efficient while building our home. Efficient windows and doors, thick insulation, Energy Star appliances, CFL bulbs, geothermal heating and cooling, etc. I plan to check on this again after I have more data and will post updated numbers.

If you can't reduce your usage, you also can buy carbon offsets which help energy companies get more renewable energy into the grid. Or you can do some offsetting yourself by planting trees and other plants. I currently have about 8.5 acres of grasses and about 0.5 acres of trees. If anyone can find a website that will tell me how much carbon grasses will absorb, that'd be great!

Anyone else willing to post their numbers? Leave a comment! Let's see who has the lowest carbon emissions!

In relation to my last post about the current state of Compact Fluorescent (CFL) bulbs, I thought I'd share this article.

In the new energy conservation bill that has been passed by Congress, is a plan to completely phase out incandescent light bulbs from the market by 2014. The policy will really go into effect in 2012 and it's likely that some manufacturers may drop their incandescent lines sooner than that.

The whole reason is ENERGY. CFLs and other emerging technologies such as Light Emitting Diodes (LED) are much more efficient. CFLs use roughly 20-25% the electricity that an equivalent incandescent uses.

I cover all the other benefits and reasons to purchase CFLs since I just did that in a previous post, but I did want to make sure that my readers are aware that the light bulb as we know it is going the way of the dinosaur.

Recently, I had to purchase all the light bulbs for our new house. Let me start by saying that you never really realize just how many light bulbs a house uses until you have to go buy all of them at once.

Since I was buying a bunch of bulbs, I thought it would be wise to try to stay "green" and get Compact Fluorescent (CFL) bulbs wherever possible. CFLs use roughly 75% less electricity than an equivalent incandescent (standard) bulb. So if they use less electricity and make your electric bill lower, why doesn't everyone have all CFLs in their houses? Comparatively, the technology is still new. Here's some things I have noticed about CFL technology that some people may perceive as a reason not to switch to them. Most are issues from when the technology was brand new, and have been taken care of by the manufacturers already. Others are just perceived problems.

1. CFLs Are More Expensive

Generally speaking, CFL bulbs will be a higher initial investment cost. However, many electric companies will provide cash-back rebates for buying the Energy Star CFLs. When I bought my bulbs, they were on sale and there was the electric company rebate ($2/bulb). I got some standard mini-twist bulbs for about $1/bulb and some BR30 reflector bulbs for about $3/bulb. This is very close to incandescent prices.

Additionally, these bulbs will pay for themselves in electricity savings. Check out this post to see how to calculate your savings for a single bulb. Using this formula, you can calculate that a 15 watt CFL can save you about $7.21 per year per bulb compared to an equivalent 65 watt incandescent (based on 4hrs of usage per day and $0.10 per kilowatt-hour). You can see that the savings can start to add up.

Besides electricity savings, CFLs have a longer life span. At my current home, I had a light fixture that was burning out standard bulbs every couple months. I put a CFL in there and it's been 4 years without burning out.

It is important to point out, however, that not ALL CFLs will be reasonably priced. For example, dimmable CFLs are still a very new technology. I needed six BR30 reflectors for a set of dimmed, recessed lights. The dimmable CFLs were about $11/bulb compared with $2/for the incandescent. I opted not to spend $66 on those bulbs at this time, but will check again for lower prices as the technology progresses.

So, overall, most CFLs are going to be reasonably priced and nearly all will be cost effective in the long run.

2. CFLs Come In Ugly Shapes -or- CFLs Don't Come In The Shapes I Need

It's true that the first CFLs on the market were the mini-twist style bulbs, and these bulbs are not the most aesthetic choice. However, these bulbs are great for fixtures with covers.

For fixtures with exposed bulbs, you may not want to see the twist of a CFL. Luckily, CFL manufacturers have identified this and have begun creating bulbs with covers in many of the standard shapes: Type A, Reflector/Flood, Vanity Globe, and even Candelabra.

With these shapes, you can fit most of your lighting needs. However, some of them, the candelabra bulbs for example, are still bigger and/or give off less light than an incandescent, so they may not be right for all your fixtures.

3. CFLs Produce Ugly Light

Again, the earliest CFLs produced mostly white light similar to fluorescent tube lighting in office buildings. While this is great for task lighting, it doesn't really give you a warm feeling for your house. Again, it should be noted that manufacturers have taken this into account and have begun producing bulbs with different color temperatures. The higher the color temperature in Kelvins, the whiter/bluer/cooler the light. A regular incandescent bulb will have a color temperature of around 2700K and produces light with a "yellowish" hue. A "cool white" bulb will most likely be closer to 3000K and a "daylight" bulb will be upwards of 5000K. You should be able to find the color temperature listed on the bulbs so you can choose one with the light you prefer.

Another thing to note, however, is the Color Rendering Index (CRI) given to each bulb. The CRI is a number 0-100 that describes how accurately the bulb renders color off of other objects. A bulb with a CRI of 100 will cause objects lighted by the bulb to show their true colors while a CRI of 65 will not produce truly accurate colors. I have noticed that most CFLs seem to be in the 80-90 CRI range while incandescent can be in the high 90's. This will most likely get even better for CFLs as the technology comes along.

4. The Mercury In CFLs Is Dangerous

It's true that most CFLs contain some amount of mercury, a chemical which has been shown to cause problems when in contact with the human body. Despite the fact that manufacturers are working to reformulate their products to use less or no mercury, people still hear about this in the media and just to the conclusion that CFLs are bad. It is important to note that most of the mercury dumped into the environment is emitted in air pollution from coal burning power plants. Air emissions are likely more dangerous than a contained break of a CFL bulb. In addition, the amount of mercury in a CFL is so low that is actually lower than the amount of mercury that would be spewed by a coal power plant using an incandescent bulb (remember CFLs use less energy).


Summary

So most concerns about CFL technology have been taken care of by the manufacturers and others are in the process of being fixed. As the technology matures it will only get better, but I think we are currently at a point where the cost of entry vs the benefit makes sense to start using them.

Buy CFLs:

Lately, there's been a lot of talk (especially in the political arena) about energy consumption and Global Warming. Most of this, however, has been aimed at making it less enticing for businesses to pollute or to produce inefficient products. What really needs to happen, is that the American people need to start thinking differently about energy use.

Most people think about the cost of gas because they can easily see the cost vs output, but people do not think as much about other energy uses such as home lighting. This is because you get a monthly electric bill that simply lumps together all the electric use of your house. With a car, you know all the gas is used by your car. On the electric bill, it's easy to look at it and think that a large part of the bill is due to things you "need" like a refrigerator or air conditioning.

While an air conditioner can constitute a large part of your electric bill in peak summer months, it's worth noting that people often overlook the effect of household lighting. Lighting can be a very large part of your monthly bill, especially in the dark winter months.

As I drive around looking at new houses, I notice that some of the more popular trends these days include more outdoor lighting (soffit lights, accent lights, spot lights, etc). Most don't really serve any purpose other than to highlight the house. If people thought about how much it cost to actually run these lights, they may reconsider having them.

The old rule of turning a light off when you leave a room still applies. The fewer lights on in your house, the more electricity and money you will save.

I remember being in grade school and being taught the motto that was going to help us save the environment: "Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle", collectively known as the 3R's. Sounded really good at the time. If we could do all three of these things, we could stop a lot of pollution. Now, 20 years later, how have we done at meeting the 3R's?

Recycle

At the time that the 3R's were being preached to us in school, educators were heavily touting the benefits of recycling. In my estimation, I would say that recycling got more "air time" than either of the other two R's. This is not necessarily a bad thing. It brought community awareness to the recycling movement and look where recycling is now! Most cities have curb-side recycling pick up that doesn't need to be sorted and will accept most major forms of recyclables. Granted, recycling still needs some improvements in many areas. I'd like to see better recycling opportunities for Styrofoam, batteries, electronics, and compact fluorescent light bulbs. That being said, I'd say that recycling is the R that has advanced the most in the past 20 years.

Reduce

In the last 5 years or so, Reduce is probably the R that has gotten the most media coverage. With threats of diminishing fuel supplies and spikes in energy costs, everything these days seems to be related to reducing our usage of these materials. Recent topics include Hybrid cars, compact fluorescent light bulbs, geothermal heating/cooling, solar power, and wind power. Politicians are jumping on the media bandwagon and touting their plans to reduce dependencies on oil and other fossil fuels. I imagine that within the next 15 years, we will see the same kind of revolution we saw with recycling. Energy efficient devices will become common place.

Reuse

The R that I think has gotten the least attention and improvement is Reuse. In fact, there is even a case to be made that we have gone in the wrong direction here. If you look at TV commercials these days, you see what appears to be more commercial for disposable, non-reusable products. There's disposable cameras, razors, toilet cleaners, plates, flatware, and food containers (i.e. Gladware). I wonder if we now think that since people recycle, it's more acceptable to use disposable products. Or have we just become too lazy to bother cleaning and reusing some of this stuff. It's obvious to me that we have a long way to go in the area of reuse.

Overall, I think we've come a long way on recycling, gotten a good start on reducing, and have yet to really focus on reusing. Maybe this is just a natural progression. Perhaps recycling was focused on first, because there was low-hanging fruit that was easy to accomplish. The increased exposure of reduction was possibly expedited due to fears of rising prices, shortages, and global warming. If this trend continues, we should see focus switch to reuse in the next couple decades. This could be spurred by massive over crowding in landfills or similar problems. However, at this point, my guess is that the American people can only handle advances in one R at a time.

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).

Well I finally got a chance to watch An Inconvenient Truth. Sure, it was a little bit depressing thinking about all the bad we've done to the planet, but I have to say that it was a very well done documentary. I did find some of the parts with Gore speaking in the background, during the nature shots, to be pretty sappy. I almost would have preferred it if they would have just filmed his presentation. That was the real interesting part of the movie.

As you can tell by my previous blog entries, I am definitely FOR trying to help the environment and stop global warming. So for me, this DVD merely reaffirmed my belief that this is something we need to do. I hope for others that haven't yet cared, or who choose to be in denial about global warming, that this movie will change their minds.

There is VERY strong supporting evidence that shows that humans are a cause in the recent global warming trend. This evidence is displayed beautifully during An Inconvenient Truth. So why do some people still say that global warming is debatable? Simply because affirming that it is fact and that we are at least partially a cause is inconvenient for them. Is it more convenient to throw things away or to recycle? Throw away, but the most convenient option is not usually the best option.

It's unfortunate that this is viewed as just another political issue for Democrats and Republicans to fight over. This should not be political at all. This affects EVERYONE on the planet. This is not a political issue for me, so don't get the impression that I'm trying to trick you into some liberal conspiracy. In fact, I often have views that are "Republican". But I also have views considered to be "Democrat". Anyone who can't take the best of both worlds is a little delusional (I won’t name names).

We all need to do our part to help preserve what we have. If not for yourself, do it for you kids or grandkids. Start with simple things:

Watch An Inconvenient Truth. Doesn't matter who you are or you political affiliation. Watch it and learn about what is happening.

Recycle!! Lots of things are VERY easy to recycle. If you aren't recycling at all, you should start.

Switch to CFLs. CFLs are a great way to save energy use in your home’s lighting.

Use Energy Star Appliances. They reduce your energy consumption.

Make Noise About the Problem. Inform your family members of the issues. Don't force them to make the same choices as you, just bring to their attention the situation.

If we all do a little bit, it can help a great deal.

Wal-Mart's Switch and Save Initiative - Learn about Wal-Mart's CFL products and their benefits.

18 Seconds by Yahoo! - Find your state's rank in CFL usage.

EnergyStar - Learn about CFLs and the proper way to dispose of them.

EPA Factsheet (PDF) - Learn about the mercury content in CFL bulbs.

GE's CFL Designs - See the different shapes and sizes that can be produced by GE's CFL product line.

Yes it's true. Compact flourescent bulbs do contain a certain amount of mercury. Mercury is a neurotoxin which is especially harmful to children and fetuses. The people in charge have done a good job of warning us about the dangers of mercury, but, unfortunately, we've gone too far. Now, the mere mention of the word mercury makes people totally afraid of a product.

The design of a CFL bulb requires that there be some mercury present. Some bulbs contain more than others. As long as the mercury is contained in the bulb, there are no concerns. If you are exposed to a broken bulb, the amount of mercury in the bulb should not be a concern. The recent media 'alarm' about CFL mercury is related to higher concentrations that could develop in landfills if hundreds of thousands of these bulbs are disposed of improperly.

Granted, there isn't a great way to recycle these bulbs… yet. Recycling for them does exist, but it is not prevalent. The EPA is doing its part to get a CFL recycling infrastructure setup. They are urging major retailers like Wal-Mart to answer the call.

(As a side note, if Wal-Mart does setup CFL recycling, it'll be just one more reason why I love Wal-Mart).

What the media is NOT telling us is that using CFL bulbs, despite their mercury content, actually REDUCES the amount of mercury in the environment. The largest contributor of mercury to the environment is coal-burning power plants. Therefore, over the life of the bulb, an energy efficient CFL will contribute LESS mercury than a standard incandescent bulb.

If that's not enough reason to switch to CFLs, how about these:

- The EPA urges that we use CFLs.
- CFLs last 10 times longer than incandescent.
- CFLs produce 70% less heat.
- CFLs use 66% less energy than incandescent.
- One CFL will save you up to $30 over the life of the bulb.
- CFLs are being fitted to nearly all types of light fixtures, so it is likely that one exists to fit your needs.

And finally...

- If every home in a America changed just 1 light bulb to CFL, we would save the energy equivalent to lighting 2.5 million houses for one year. It would also lower emissions by an amount equivalent to 800,000 automobiles.

Those sound like pretty convincing arguments to me.