10 positive things to do for the environment

Oh, you mean short sighted like burn all the fossil fuel now and f*** future generations? OK, got ya.

 

Sorry, ignorant Aussie here.

What is the difference between a heated mattress pad and an electric blanket?
I have a DeLonghi padded electric blanket with remote control and timer, is that what a heated mattress pad is?

 

Mattress pad goes under the bottom sheet and attaches to the mattress. An advantage is that you needn't have a (relatively bulky) electric blanket on top of you. Also good for restless sleepers who may toss off the bedclothes at night. Same concept as an electric blanket, just under rather than over the sleeper. Here's a picture:

Costco - Plush Velour Electric Heated Mattress Pads

 

When the option is available most householders can get the biggest bang for their buck by contracting with their electric utility for 100% non-fossil electricity. In the US, where on average about 50% of electricity comes from coal, a household that uses 10,000 kW-hours per year would reduce its fossil CO2 emissions by about 5,000 lbs per year by switching to non-fossil power. That's as much CO2 as is created by burning 250 gallons of gasoline, enough to drive a Prius 12,000 miles.

 

I'll ditto that, with some reservations.

I think it's more beneficial than you suggest, with a US average of about 1.35 lbs C02/KWH nationally, per page 1 of this somewhat old DOE doc:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/page/co2_report/co2emiss.pdf

But I have a deeper issue.

I did that with Virginia Power, when they offered the option (they no longer offer it to residential customers). I bought my electricity from a wind farm in PA.

And yet, I wondered about the true additionality of that. I understand the contract issues -- that my money flows through my utility to (in my case, a wind farm in PA), I purchase the electricity that PA wind farm puts onto the grid, and even though my electrons are not green, the economic effect is the same as if I had a direct line to that provider.

So I was definitely supporting wind power and definitely helping them to be profitable by paying a premium rate for their output. Probably, I should just stop thinking right there.

But if I didn't pay a premium rate for their power (or, more accurately, if nobody like me paid a premium rate for their power), would they stop selling it and/or would they not have been able to get in the business in the first place and/or would that prevent them from opening their next turbine. (That is, would that have any effect on current and future production of wind power.) That's the additionality test.

That's really what matters, and that's impossible to say for sure. Unlike solar cells, where, unless there's an absolute, permanent shortage of cells, you know that your decision to install them results in substitution of renewable for fossil-fuel energy, .... it just seems somewhat fuzzier to me when you're paying a premium to some remote supplier.

On the other hand, that's impossible to say for virtually all mass-produced products.

When all was said and done, I convinced myself that it probably had additionality. At least that's what I want to believe, in some long-run (industry profitability) sense. But I still have these nagging doubts.

I'd much rather buy green power from somebody who is willing to produce that professionally and sell it to me, than to produce it myself. But I no longer have the option in Virginia.

 

Hmm. Similarly, if we had not bought Priuses would some one else have done?

Perhaps the very best return-on-investment for the individual is to buy paper, envelopes, and stamps, and write to their representatives in support of a fossil carbon tax or cap-and-trade system to hasten the transition to non-fossil power.

 

Yeah, I maybe over-thinking this one.

 

Dear Icarus

1. Don't be a hypocrite. You love to post the ridiculous "consensus position" poll for climate scientists, but you get upset when someone posts a poll showing something against your ideaological views.

2. Is it more inane than arguing that adding heat (energy) to water makes it form ice? Or more inane than advocating the death of 700,000 people to help the environment?

3. That is a completely incorrect use of "beg the question." You should read this: Beg The Question // Get it right.

Thank you, have a good day.
RP1

 

Quite true. But what is happening is people seeing/buying/comparing LED bulbs these days... and using the rated wattage of the LED to determine or explain how bright it is. So they assume that a 5W LED will be five times as bright as a 1W LED. And this most certainly does not need to be the case. In this situation, the wattage has ZERO to do with brightness, and only shows how much energy is dissipated in the device. Actually it only shows what the device is capable of, and has nothing to do with how hard it is driven... or how bright it is. NOTHING. So if I tell you that I have a 60W LED array, it means absolutely nothing. Not how hard it is driven. Not how much energy it takes to run it, and not how bright it is. It only tells us the rating of those LEDs. A 60W LED array could be as dim as a night light, or 10X brighter than a 60W incandescent bulb. THAT's my big issue, and the main reason I want to get away from using Wattage when describing bulbs. But yes.. and uphill battle for sure. Much like switching to the metric system!

They also come up to full brightness (effectively) immediately in (effectively) any temperature.

 

Just because some ancient British King had twelve fingers and toes, why should humanity continue to suffer such a bizarre system of measurement? Metric is easy because it's so logical. Water boils at 100, freezes at 0, and one cubic centimetre of it has a mass of one gram. The rest of it is simply adding or taking away zeros. Don't convert, just throw the old system out.

So, lumens, is it? Brilliant.

 

Please stop spreading this nonsense. I love being told about science by someone who thought if you add heat to water it turns into ice.

http://www.theclimateconspiracy.com/files/images/2010/01/Screen-shot-2010-01-17-at-6.31.10-PM-Jan-17.png

 

Heh, Mr. Radiologist is clearly doing research for his latest book and blog posts. You know - by trolling the internet forums, because that's where all good information comes from.

Ignore the troll - he is clearly aiming only to stir things up (and not in a productive way).

 

That is odd, in Australia an electric blanket goes under the bottom sheet over the mattress.
Who in their right mind would put the heated blanket over themselves when heat rises?

 

By paying a premium for your electricity to come from a wind farm you make it more profitable so more wind farms will be built.

If you didn't buy a Prius then 1 less Prius would have been made because there would have been less demand for Prius. If you instead bought an Escolade then 1 more Escolate would have been built to meet demand.

 

I think your "payback" calcs are off by a factor of 10 or so for the CFLs and LEDs take even longer because they're so expensive, but otherwise agree.