DAY 99_SUMMARY: HEATING + COOLING

21 November, 2010
Heating costs proved to be by-far the largest energy user in my house.  Although my house has natural gas-heated radiators, by converting Therms to kWh, I could compare the energy used for space heating to the energy used for all other electric uses.  Space heating requires an average of 704 kWh/week, whereas my fridge uses 3.8 (previously 11.6) kWh/week and I use about 1.6 kWh/week (previously 12.6)  for all lights.  Water heating came in as the second highest energy user at 11.2 kWh to heat only 15 gallons per day (41.5 kWh/week before the project). 

This presents a big challenge because unlike many of the other electrical uses which can be minimized or even eliminated, space heating in a climate like Minneapolis is a necessity.  When I discovered what a huge energy user space heating is, (and that it couldn't possibly fit in my 3 kWh/day budget) I couldn't help feeling like all of the rest of the electricity savings I had been changing had been somewhat in vain.  While there are sustainable solutions to this problem, they, unfortunately, aren't ones which can be easily retrofitted to homes.  Passive solar houses are a great solution and proven to work in northern climates, capturing the heat from the sun in thermally massive elements in the house and slowly venting the heat into the living space.  However, in dense metropolitan areas this is a challenge as not all homes have access to solar exposure. 

So many of the changes I made during this project got more difficult as the weather turned colder, local foods disappearing, harder to get around by bike..., but space heating may be one of the biggest challenges for designers in cold climates as fossil fuel energy becomes increasing scarce and expensive. 

DAY 98_ SUMMARY: WASTE

November 20, 2010

I feel that trash may be one of the easier ways to make big impacts with small (but consistent) changes to our lifestyles.  In my experiment, I managed to; eliminate organic waste with worm composting, dramatically reduce food packaging waste by buying in bulk, and focused on reducing ALL waste, not just waste which cannot be recycled.

Starting a compost bin was quite an adventure having never grown up composting and being totally unfamiliar with it.  I started composting without worms.  I built a bin made of two rubber tubs which stack inside of each other.  One is slightly shorter than the other and has holes drilled into it so any liquids drain into the lower bin to reduce sludge buildup.  However, after a few weeks of 'composting' I had attracted a lot of bugs in my bin and the food was molding and rotting.  Consulting with a friend who is a composting veteran, I realized that it is easier to start with some organic matter (dirt) already in the bin and that ventilation is crucial without worms.  By this point, my bin was full of maggots (yeah gross) and we decided it was best to start over and do it the right way.  My friend brought me some worms from his bin and I started with a little dirt, food scraps, my new worms, and some damp newspaper for bedding.  Once I had enough accumulated compost I could stop adding newspaper and the worms have done the rest of the work for me for 4 months now.  Some of the common misperceptions about composting are:

Common Misperception #1- It doesn't matter if you compost because organics will just decompose in the landfill. 

I thought this for a long time until I learned that decomposition can only happen in environments with oxygen.  Since landfills are so tightly packed with matter, they become anaerobic environments, turning any organic matter into sludge at best (or simply not decomposing at all).  Because of this, that banana peel you are throwing away might as well be a milk jug because it isn't going anywhere. 

Common Misperception #2- Compost will accumulate and I have no where to put it!

Worm composting is somewhat magical, in that the worms seem to moderate their population to eat as much waste as you throw in the bin.  More food=more worms, less food=less worms, and after 4 months, my compost is at the same level it was at month 1.  The compost becomes a dense, nutrient-rich mixture which is perfect organic fertilizer for indoor plants or to use in a backyard garden in the spring.  However, accumulation has proven not to be a problem. 

The second big change to reduce waste is getting in the habit of buying in bulk.  Luckily, I live 2 blocks away from one of the most awesome coops in Minneapolis-The Wedge, where there is a huge focus on stocking local bulk foods.  For over 3 months I was able to buy only local food and make no packaging waste by; buying milk in reusable containers, bringing my own egg trays, and using mason jars to fill up with bulk foods, spices and oils.  The only exception was cheese (which in the future could be packaged with compostable wrap).  I found local breweries within biking distance which sold refillable growlers for beer or only bought drinks on tap, no bottles.  I changed eating habits and learned to cook with what I could find in bulk when options get more limited.  In the process, I learned to cook from scratch many recipes which I would normally just have bought pre-made: tortillas, fresh rolled pasta, crackers, bread, pasta sauces, pesto, scones...the list goes on.  I eliminated countless preservatives and food additives from my diet which normally come in package foods. According to one of the managers of the Wedge, most of the food in bulk is much fresher than packaged foods as it is allowed to bypass a few steps of the shipping and storage process.  Lastly, I saved money.  Anytime you are buying any pre-packaged food you are also buying the container.  A link to a blog post on this is found here: http://100dayswithoutoil.blogspot.com/2010/10/day-71your-also-buying-container.html

Lastly, I focused on reducing ALL waste, not just waste which cannot be composted or recycled.  Although recycling is certainly better than simply throwing items into a landfill, there is still a significant amount of energy involved with transporting this waste.  Recycling trucks (as well as garbage trucks) get around 3.2 miles per gallon, so a trip to even a nearby recycling center contributes significant carbon emissions and fossil fuel depletion.  The better option is to find ways to eliminate this waste in the first place, only using what you absolutely cannot avoid.  While there are not yet many alternative options for household items, food packaging has come a long way and ends up being the majority of our packaging waste anyway.

I collected all waste for the project and ended up with a box of glass bottles and another box of paper products, milk pull tabs, caps for jars and bottles, twist-ties and some plastic packaging.  I ended up with half a paper bag full of material which could not be recycled, and about 3 paper bags full of recycled material. 

100 days of trash

twist-ties from greens, milk sealers, assorted caps and a few plastic tubs

recyclable paper products and carboard packaging

bag of actual trash, which cannot be recycled, mostly plastic packaging

glass bottles, sunflower oil

In the end, while I have not figured out how to eliminate ALL waste, a major dent has been put in this impact by adopting different food-buying habits and feeding my worms!

NO IMPACT WEEK DAY 1

Hello Everyone,

I promise I'll finish writing the last 3 posts of my blog ASAP, however, in the mean time check out what I'm blogging for 'No Impact Week'.  Yes! Magazine has asked me to participate in Colin Beaven's (of No Impact Man movie) week-long experiment in living with less impact.  I think it will be an interesting way to revisit my project after a month of living back in the real world, and hopefully permanently get back into some habits that I've lost touch with. 

Here is a link to the first blog post, Day 1-Consumption:
http://www.yesmagazine.org/planet/molly-blogs-on-no-impact-week

Molly

DAY 97_SUMMARY: ELECTRICITY

19 November 2010

In a post cheap oil world we will be at a loss for many forms of energy we currently depend on, primarily transportation fuels.  However, electricity in the form of renewable energy will still be plentiful, it is just a matter of capturing it.  Being in a city, wind energy isn't a first choice option In one of my first posts I calculated how much solar energy could be captured utilizing my entire roof.  I disregarded cost of the panels in this scenario assuming that without oil or coal electricity, people would be more willing to maximize their systems regardless of cost.  However, I choose a middle-of-the-road panel efficiency of 8 watts/sq ft (I've seen up to 16w/sq ft).  Dividing the total solar roof array by 6 people I came up with a personal electricity budget of 6.82 kWh per person per day.  This number seemed pretty high, however, and would actually cover our current electricity use according to our bills.  Because of this and to take into account less efficient panels which are more reasonably priced currently I cut this number in half to come up with an electric budget of 3.4 kWh per day. 

Similarly to my water calculations, I then measured all of my daily electricity use with a Kill-A-Watt Meter to come up with metrics. 

I found that I use about 6.7 kWh per day.  Unlike water use, however, the small-wattage devices such as light bulbs really add up because they tend to be the ones which are on for the most hours of the day.   Regardless, it is still interesting to experiment with alternative ways of accomplishing tasks without electricity.  Before the project I calculated that I typically have about 6-7 light bulbs on at any given time the hours that it is dark outside.  I reduced this use to making sure I only had two light bulbs on at a time.  One of the things I tried to supplement this light was making my own candles-out of soy wax because regular wax is a petroleum product.  I used only candles for light for a few weeks but found that I needed at least one light bulb on for reading. 

I researched how much energy was involved with various methods of cooking: toaster oven , electric oven, stove burner and microwave.  I found that microwaving is about equal to the energy use of an electric stove top burner.  An electric oven is about twice this energy.  On Day 24 I blogged about the rise of electric use in homes throughout the last 50 years.  With more and more appliances using electricity instead of manually operating, the small uses end up added up to a lot. 

I eliminated some uses of electricity entirely including; hair dryers, use of the oven, cut light bulb use 75%.  I began using a mini fridge instead of the large one and saved 2/3rds of the energy for refrigeration.  There were added uses of electricity during the project as well.  I started using a high-intensity fluorescent grow light to grow food indoors and had to make up for this use with my other electricity savings. 

Below is a chart of before and after electricity use:

Lastly, I explored the use of solar power by visiting the PassiveHaus in the Woods as well as volunteering with the Minnesota Renewable Energy Society at their state fair exhibits.  I tried out my own application of solar power on a small scale by building a solar-powered stereo which mounts on my bike.  These experiences gave me an understanding of the potential of solar power, but also how far we have to go to meet our current energy needs. 

DAY 96_SUMMARY: WATER

18 November 2010

Water proved to be one of the easier tasks to accomplish during the project.  With my water budget at 15 gallons a day (calculated from average rainfall amounts and divided into # of residents in my house), I was able to stay within this water range fairly easily for the ffirst two months of the 100 days (August 15-Oct 15). 

By tracking all water use and measuring the flow rates of all water fixtures I was able to identify what daily uses were big water users and target those for saving water.  I calculated that before the project I used 54.4 gallons of water a day, and there were three primary suspects for this water over-use: showering (20 gallons), laundry (6 gallons) and toilet flushing (10 gallons).  All of the other uses (except dish washing) of water were under 1 gallon per day which didn't leave much room for changing habits.  Therefore, by focusing on how to decrease my water use for showering, laundry and toilet flushing alone I could significantly decrease my water use.

For showering, I took 1 gallon bucket showers.  I used a bucket and sponge standing in the bath tub and found that this was more than enough water to wash up every morning without washing my hair.  With pretty dry hair I could pretty easily get away with only washing it once a week, so Sunday's became the big 'wash day'.  Once a week I would heat 5 gallons of water using a solar camp bag and take a longer bucket shower to wash my hair.  I realized when changing my showering habits that taking a long morning shower was more of a ritual than serving a real important purpose.  Rinsing off with significantly less water did the trick just as well and saved 95% of the water. 

I changed my laundry habits from using 42 gallons/load in the washing machine to only about 12 in a 5 gallon bucket hand washing.  Hand washing allowed me to use about 1/2 the detergent I normally use as well.  My method was to fill the 5 gallon bucket with clothes and detergent, let it soak and then use my feet to stomp it.  I was surprised to see how dirty the water got even when my clothes didn't seem that dirty.  After the water was pretty dirty I would dump and refill the bucket with 2-3 gallons of water and squeeze and shake the clothes by hand to get the rest of the detergent out.  Lastly, I rinsed with another 3 gallons of water and hung clothes to dry in the bathtub.  Less convenient than throwing clothes in the washing machine? yes. But it was sort of a stress reliever and satisfying to actually see my clothes getting clean and knowing it was only using my energy. 

Lastly, toilet flushing uses 2.6 gallons of water per flush.  I cut this use by a gallon by putting a milk carton filed with water in my tank to lower the water level for each flush.  I estimated that before the project I flush about 5 times a day.  To cut down I fell back on an old saying, "If its yellow, let it mellow..." which went over fairly well with my roommates (they are doing it now too).  These changes reduced my toilet flushing water from 10 gallons down to only 3.2 (two flushes per day). 

However, as the weather changed, so did my priorities concerning water use.  While it was easy to shower with 1 gallon of water in warmer weather, I found myself spending the whole day cold after a cold morning rinsing.  I changed my showering habits to taking 3 minute showers twice a week.  I installed a cheap flow shut-off valve on the shower head which allowed me to turn off the water when I wasn't rinsing (and not have to run water again to get the right temperature back).  I also found that in cooler weather as I began preserving foods with less fresh produce available, I needed less water to rinse vegetables. 

DAY 95_SUMMARY: TRANSPORTATION

17 November 2010

45% (19.15 gallons) of every barrel of oil (42 gallons) is gasoline.  This means that the petroleum created to run our cars is by far the largest single use in each barrel extracted from the earth.  While transportation isn't the biggest total energy user in our daily lives, it IS the biggest petroleum user. 

While I biked quite a bit before this project started, it makes a big difference to be riding every time you want to get around.  Without using cars and buses as back up transportation for cold or wet days, bicycle commuting takes on an entirely different face.  I think a lot harder about whether I really NEED to go somewhere, ended up staying home many days that I didn't have classes instead of going somewhere to work.  I started to modify my schedule so that I could ride around with other bikers and didn't have to bike alone (especially at night).  Unlike driving, the routes taken depend on the weather and the time of day.  While bike paths in Minneapolis are best during the day and during rush hours, well-lit main streets were a better option for late night rides home (even with traffic).  As soon as it gets snowy and icy, I had to factor in another 10 minutes of riding time.  Bicycle commuting changed the way I dressed.  While it is easy to bring a change of clothes, I was often only going somewhere for a few hours and it didn't seem worth it to carry.  Consequently, I pretty much wore the same few things for at least 2 months once the temperature started cooling off. 

Workout? Kind of.  There is so much starting and stopping that it isn't really much of a workout compared to the 30 minutes I would have spent on a treadmill.  Yes, obviously its better than sitting in a car and still is nice to get out and be outside for an hour or two a day.  I felt much more connected to the changing of seasons and it was really nice to watch the sun rise every morning while biking down the greenway. 

My conclusion: Biking is absolutely the best way to get around while the weather is good (or even decent).  For those brave and bad ass enough to keep going as the temp drops under 20 and the ground is covered in ice (as 1/3 of Minneapolis bikers do), I admire you, but would rather get on a bus December through mid March. 

Below is a graphic of the miles I biked each day for 100 days:  There starts to become a pretty clear pattern at the end of project when it starts getting colder I only bike to campus and back on days that I need to, whereas in the beginning of the project I was much more willing to run errands and take longer trips around the city. 

I biked a total of 1,150 miles in 100 days.  An average of 82 miles per week and 11.7 miles per day. 

My car gets 34 miles per gallons.  This means that if I would have driven this 1,150 miles I would have used 33.82 gallons of gasoline (about 3 trips to the gas station for me).  I didn't travel as much as I would have had I been driving.  Just to estimate what I may have used. I used to fill up my tank about every 3 weeks, so 4.6 fill ups of 12 gallons of gas would have been 56 gallons of gasoline.

DAY 94_SUMMARY: FOOD

16 November 2010

For the last few posts I would like to think back and summarize how my life has changed during this project and what I have learned...

I'll begin with what was both the most difficult part of this project, and the most enjoyable- food. 

Looking back, having started the project in the middle of August it should have been REALLY easy to find local foods.  The middle of August in Minnesota is just about the peak of local food production, almost all vegetables can be found locally grown.  However, despite this plentiful bounty of local produce it was really difficult to get a handle on what things I could prepare with it using other ingredients (cheese, flour, oils, dairy....).  It took a while to seek out and find local milk, local flours in bulk, local butter in a compostable wrapping.  I compromised on the cheese, because although there are many local cheeses available they are all wrapped in plastic.  This became the only item I bought in packaging. 

After the first few weeks of the project I had figured out where to get most of the ingredients I needed for cooking locally and without packaging.  Many of the things I had a habit of cooking with however; olive oil, rice, avocados, soy sauce and many spices were no longer available.  I had to learn to cook many dishes that normally I wouldn't have prepared for myself.  Potatoes with mixed vegetables became a staple.  I learned to cook all bread products from scratch- loaves of bread each week, muffins, tortillas, crackers.  Made a lot of homemade pasta sauces and tried pizzas of all different kinds.  Below is a summary of many of the foods I made out of local ingredients during 100 days:

I had the idea to begin growing my own food indoors to have a food source after the growing season started to die down.  On day 1 of the project I planted a variety of of vegetables: tomatoes, bell peppers, cucumber, beans, onions, greens, and herbs to see what would grow with the available artificial light I had.  Having never grown a vegetable in my life I learned about gardening by watching my little sprouts slowly start to become recognizable vegetables.  I made plenty of mistakes growing the first few batches of seedlings and the grow table has gone through a few evolutions of goals.  My first idea was to have a variety of vegetables and keep whatever grew the best (not knowing if anything would have enough light to fruit).  After accidentally scalding the majority of my first seedlings (I left the plastic seed flat cover on too long), I began to reevaluated what kinds of plants would be most practical to my situation.  Because most vegetables are able to be stored (whether dried, frozen or canned), I decided to focus on growing what couldn't be stored very well-greens.  I started to grow a lot of microgreens which grow quickly and can be harvested after only about a month.  This was going fairly well until I was infested with aphids. My continuing battle with aphids was one I didn't know I was going to have to have with indoor plants.  While it was easy to pick the aphids off of most of the single plants, they were almost impossible to get rid of on the densely planted microgreens.  I ended up having to get rid of a lot of the greens and went back to focusing on growing some vegetables. 

Around day 85 I got my first flowers on vegetables and realized that without insects and wind to pollinate plants I would have to play the role that nature usually does.  After 90 days I finally have my first fruiting plants with a little bell pepper growing!  This is really exciting because I was starting to doubt that any vegetables would have enough light to produce fruit. 

My new plan for the grow table is to make a habit of planting a few new vegetables every month, so I can have a continuous supply of at least some fresh produce.  Below is a timeline of the grow table over 100 days:

click to enlarge

Lastly, it was interesting to explore restaurants that advertised themselves as local food focused.  I found that there were many exceptions to their 'localness'.  While 'local' dishes are offered year-round, they are only truly local when the food is in season.  Many restaurants I ate at didn't offer many ( or any) local wine/beer, and all used olive oil instead of sunflower oil. 

I learned to can, dehydrate and blanch vegetables for preservation, and tested how long I could store potatoes, onions and garlic.  I ate only preserved foods for the last month and found that it would be really difficult to eat nothing 'fresh' for the 8 months of the year that fresh local produce is not available.