DAY 82_PLANTS GO TO SLEEP

4 November 2010

One of the things I really love about having the grow table in my living room is watching the plants go to sleep when the grow light turns off for the night.  The sun is going down here at 5:00 now and the grow light is on until 7, so it is the last light the plants see every night.  Almost immediately after it turns off, the green bush been plant I started 2 weeks ago (which is HUGE by the way) starts going to sleep.  No longer needing to hold its leaves up to capture light, it bends them down like it is folding its arms and curling up for sleep.  When I get up in the morning it it has spread it's leaves up ready to catch the light of the next day :)

pm

am

DAY 81_COMPARISON OF MODES OF TRANSPORTATION

3 November 2010

While earlier I looked at how the energy efficiency of driving a car compares to bike commuting, it is interesting to look at all forms of transportation and their efficiency.

We all hear about how much fuel it takes to fly, but is it really that bad compared to driving a truck/SUV or a regular car?  A Boeing 747 travels at 560 miles per hour and uses 3,200 US gallons of fuel per hour.  This is 5.7 gallons per mile, or 0.18 miles per gallon. 
(Tennekes, Henk. The Simple Science of Flight: From Insects to Jumbo Jets, MIT Press, 2009 http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/chapters/0262513137chap1.pdf)
Converting into gallons per mile allows us to then compare the 'passanger gallons per mile', which is a more fair comparison for transport modes that carry more than one person.  A 747 can seat up to 400 people, I used 350 in my comparison. 

A fully loaded subcompact car with 40 miles per gallon (good gas mileage) gets 0.025 gallons per mile (inverse of mpg).  With four people in the car it gets 0.006 gallons per passenger mile, however, it is more rare that people are driving with 4 people, with only two the gallons per passenger mile comes in at 0.012.  The plane with 350 people gets 0.016 gallons per passenger mile.  Pretty close.  So it depends on how many people your family is trucking out to Florida, but if you are comparing just driving vs flying, flying is actually a more efficient use of energy. 

As for buses, according to this article http://www.coloradodot.info/programs/commuterchoices/documents/trandir_transit.pdf a typical Transit Bus is 40' and can hold 42 passengers.  Miles per gallon for a conventional diesel bus is 5.1 mpg and 9.3 for a hybrid electric bus  ("Performance and Fuel Economy Comparitive Analysis of Conventional, Hybrid, and Fuel Cell Heavy-Duty Transit Buses" By V. Dawood and A. Emadi, Grainger Power Electron. & Motor Drives Lab., Illinois Inst. of Technol., Chicago, IL, USA ).  With around 40 passengers the conventional bus gets a gallons per passenger mile of 0.0049, and 0.0026 for a hybrid bus.  So the conventional bus is
5.1 times more energy efficient than driving your car alone, and the hybrid bus is 9.6 times more efficient.

As for those people driving personal light pickup trucks and SUVs, these vehicles are over twice as inefficient than ANOTHER OTHER MODE OF TRANSPORTATION OUT THERE  gallons/passenger mile count is 0.055, 2.2 times worse than a subcompact car and 11.2 times less energy efficient than riding on a conventional bus. 

As for biking and walking, they have no competition.  As mentioned in my previous post, biking (calculating human calorie energy expended) is equivalent to 759,493.7 miles per gallon and walking (burning 100 calories an hour) is equivalent to 314,782.17 miles per gallon.  Biking is 19,230.8 times more efficient than driving your subcompact car and walking is 7,886.4 times more efficient.  Walking burns about 60 more calories per hour than biking making it less 'energy efficinet', but as my roommate pointed out looking at these numbers, when it comes to your own energy, suddenly energy expenditure looks like a good thing.  After all, its renewable :) Eat a sandwich. 

The following graphs show the sequence of information translated from the 'Transportation Energy Data Book' put out by the US Department of Energy, Issue 29). 

DAY 80_THE PETROLEUM THAT WE EAT

2 November 2010


Yeah, eat.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention has found 212 environmental chemicals in people's blood or urine. While many of these are the result of breathing chemicals and rubbing them into our skin, some are actually intentionally eaten. 


Aspirin
One of the most widely used medications in the world, the main ingredient in aspirin is a petroleum-based synthetic ingredient called acetylsalicyclic acid. 
Lipstick
Some experts say that a woman can ingest up to four pounds of lipstick over the course of a lifetime.  Petrochemicals are very prevalent in cosmetics. Examples include lip gloss, which is commonly made from petroleum oil, and nail polish, which contains petroleum-derived solvents such as toluene. Many cosmetics on the market contain harmful phthalates. The Environmental Working Group’s interactive website lists cosmetics by brand name and the hazardous ingredients contained in them. Visit it at www.ewg.org/cosmetics.
"One of the greatest risks from using cosmetic and personal care products comes from the daily exposure to carcinogenic chemicals and cancer precursors.  Among the most widely used carcinogens are the coal-tar colors, listed on labels as FD&C and D&C colors.  Although the FDA maintains that the risk to humans is minimal, the World Health Organization considers every coal-tar color a probable carcinogen" ("Toxic Cosmetics: If Looks could Kill" by Bonnie Jenkins - Advanced Natural Medicine Bulletin)


Chewing gum
While people have been chewing on resin from Mastic trees and a sap from a sapodilla tree to freshen their breathe since the ancient Greeks, for reasons of economy and quality many modern chewing gums use petroleum-based polymers instead of chicle. In other words, chewing gum users today are chewing a flavoured, synthetic rubber that is non biodegradable. (http://www.chewinggumbin.com/)
from the Vegetarian Resource Group
Most chewing gums innocuously list "gum base" as one of their ingredients, masking the fact that petroleum, lanolin, glycerin, polyethylene, polyvinyl acetate, petroleum wax, stearic acid, and latex (a possible allergen) may be among the components.


Vitamins/pills
Triacetin is a petroleum based chemical used as a plasticizer for thin-film coating on the surface of many pills.

Artificial Flavors/Colors

To give just one example:

Yellow 5 (tartrazine)(E number E102 or C.I. 19140)

Description:

-a synthetic lemon yellow azo dye used as a food coloring

Uses:

Food:-commonly found in: confectionery, cotton candy, soft drinks (Mountain Dew), energy drinks instant puddings, flavored corn chips (Doritos, Nachos, etc), cereals (corn flakes, muesli, etc.), cake mixes, pastries, custard powder, soups (particularly instant or “cube” soups), sauces, some rices (like paella, risotto, etc.), powdered drink mixes, sports drinks, ice cream, ice pops, candy, Peeps marshmallow treats, chewing gum, marzipan, jam, jelly, gelatins, marmalade, mustard, horseradish, yogurt, noodles such as Kraft Dinner, pickles and other pickled products, certain brands of fruit squash, fruit cordial, potato chips, Biscuits, and many convenience foods together with glycerin, lemon and honey products

Non-food products: soaps, cosmetics, shampoos, moisturizers, crayons, hand sanitizer and stamp dyes

Medications: vitamins, antacids, medicinal capsules

Alternatives: annatto, malt color or betacarotene

Mineral Oil-
A by-product of the distillation of petroleum.  Taken orally as a lubricative laxative to ease constipation.  Banned in Europe for the risk of absorption into internal tissues.  Mineral Oil is used in the food industry, particularly for candy to produce a glossy effect and to keep candy pieces from sticking to each other (swedish fish).  It is commonly as a preservative on cutting boards, salad bowls and utensils because it prevents water absorption.  It is also added to canned foods to preserve them in place of vegetable oil.  "Mineral oils" have been demonstrated in human tissues. While no demonstrable pathological consequences have occurred from the presence of such oils in human tissues resulting from ingestion, its storage is considered to be undesirable and exposure to mineral oils should be kept to a minimum." (http://www.inchem.org/documents/jecfa/jecmono/v10je08.htm)


Toothpaste/Toothbrushes
Many toothpastes include ingredients made from petroleum, such as artificial colors and mineral oil. Baking soda or natural toothpaste is a better choice.
Pthalates are a particular group of petrochemicals that are known to have endocrine disrupting properties. Pthalates are used to make rigid plastics soft and pliable and are also commonly added to cosmetics. Pthalates are linked to elevated rates of endocrine disruption and are possibly carcinogenic. A Centers for Disease Control report found alarming rates of pthalates in urine and blood samples. Some common pthalates and the items in which they are used include: Di-ethyl phthalate (DEP): Toothbrushes, auto parts, tools, toys, food packaging, insecticides, mosquito repellents, aspirin, and volatile components of cosmetics – perfumes, nail polishes, and hair sprays


Plastic Wrapped food — An advertisement for the American Plastic Council calls plastic “an important part of your healthy diet,” noting, “ you could think of them as the sixth basic food group.” Yum! How true this is when you take into account the fact that plastics tend to migrate into food, especially meats, cheeses, and other fatty foods. More migration occurs if food is heated or microwaved in plastic containers. The safest bet is to avoid food sold or stored in plastic, especially plastic wraps, PVC, and polystyrene foam. Source: http://www.mindfully.org/.


Breast Milk
If breast milk from American women were bottled and sold commercially, it would be banned by the US Food and Drug Administration because it is contaminated with more than 100 industrial chemicals, including dioxins and pesticides. Despite the presence of toxic chemicals in human milk, breast feeding is a highly desirable practice. Breast feeding gives an infant immunity against gastrointestinal diseases and respiratory infections; it may also offer protection against food allergies. Furthermore, the alternatives (prepared formulas) are even less healthy. Source: Rachel’s Hazardous Waste News #193.


Meat and Dairy Products
Chemicals from the petroleum manufacturing process enter our bodies through the foods we eat, especially meat and dairy products. Chemicals such as pesticides and antibiotics tend to accumulate in milk and in animal flesh. Another way in which we ingest petrochemicals and dioxins is less obvious: The manufacture and incineration of PVC (polyvinylchloride, #3) creates and disperses dioxins into the air and water. From there, they enter the food chain and accumulate in the fatty tissues of animals.


some information found at: http://www.ecologycenter.org/erc/petroleum/body.html

DAY 79_SPACE HEATING ENERGY

1 November, 2010

Well the heat has been officially kicked on by landlord gods.  And, while I have been excited to once again live in a habitable environment, I have also been dreading this moment.  Space heating uses a LOT of energy, and while I wasn't sure until now how much exactly that was, I had a feeling that I might be in for some trouble.  We don't pay for our heating bill (luckily) but I was able to request the natural gas bills for the last year from my landlord.

The facts are these:

This statement reflects all natural gas use for our entire house; water heating and hydronic radiant heating (we have an electric stove so no gas included).  My house is a duplex with equal floor areas of 1,490 sf each, so dividing by 2 gives a rough total for our level.  As you can see, the gas is measured in 'therms' and there is a big difference in the winter months from the use in the summer.  In the warmer months, the only gas use is water heating, so this gives an accurate picture of how much energy is used to heat water- an average of 34 therms per month for the whole house, so 17 therms for our floor . While I need to include all of the floor area 1,490 sf in my 'energy budget' because I occupy most of this space, I can divide by three for the water heating portion and assume that I use an average of 5.6 therms per month.

By converting therms into kWh, I can compare space heating energy to the other quantities of energy that I am using.....moment of truth:

So our house heats for 6 months out of the year and uses an average of 2,818.37 kWh during these months.  January is the coldest month and uses 4,806.36 kWh.  This means that on an average heating day we use 93.95 kWh EACH DAY.  Water heating is year-round, and using average data from the 6 months of only water heating, the house uses 498.21 kWh each month.  This means my personal use is one-third of that at 124.55 kWh each month, or 16.6 kWh each day. 

Remembering back to my earlier graphs of energy use for various things, I've added space heating, water heating and the amount of energy it takes to clean water (1.8 watts/gallon according to a report- "Energy Use At Wisconsin's Drinking Water Faciltiies" Energy Center of Wisconsin (July 2003). 

click to enlarge

As you can see, space heating trumps all other energy use (of the energy users I have identified so far).  Water cleaning is shortly after.  Space heating every week is 7.5 times the energy required for transportation.  704 kWh are required for average heating throughout the winter, which is 93.95 kWh each day.  My energy budget is 12 kWh per day (the amount of energy we can capture on our roof divided by 2 apartments).  Clearly, the energy required for heating requires a much different strategy.  Like....not living in Minnesota? 

Ok, without jumping to conclusions, there more efficient ways of heating spaces.  Passive solar homes come to mind, where heat from the sun is absorbed and trapped inside building materials with sufficient thermal mass.  Super-insulated homes such as the Passive House (http://www.passivehouseinthewoods.com/) also have the opporunitity to greater reduce heating energy by reducing the amount of heat lost through wall systems. 

My first reaction to these numbers was to feel like nothing I have been doing up to this point has really made any difference.  In comparison to how much energy is required simply to heat my space, all of the other energy users COMBINED don't even add up to half.  However, there are other major energy users which are not yet represented on my graph.  The amount of energy required to eat food from all over the country and world versus eating locally is a big one that I havn't pinned down yet.  

My advisor mentioned a while back that many people on raw or vegan diets who want to eat local foods year round have relocated to places where this kind of lifestyle can be accomodated (like california where things GROW).  I would speculate that in a post-cheap oil world, we may find ourselves in a position where we are re-evaluating where we have chosen to live- and the price we will pay both economically and energy-wise to accomodate living here.

DAY 78_WATER IN A POST OIL WORLD

31 October 2010

I got a start on figuring out exactly how much petroleum depletion will affect water use and availability today reading Yes! Magazine's issue 54 "Water Solutions Issue".   Sandra Postel makes a good point in the article "Will There be Enough?" that will there is quite a bit of attention on fossil fuel depletion, water waste and contamination is a far more pressing problem:

"In answer to the climate crisis, the economy will need to move away from fossil fuels toward solar, wind and other non-carbon energy sources.  But there is no transitioning away from water.  Water has no substitutes. And unlike oil and coal, water is much more than  a commodity: It is the basis of life."

Also in the issue, they state that the average American household of four uses 400 gallons of water per day.  This isn't hard to believe once you start running the numbers on individual water uses each day.  For example, a household in Phoenix with a backyard pool loses 50 gallons a day to evaporation alone (if the pool is left uncovered as most are).  A single load of laundry is 40 gallons, and each family member's shower is around 20 gallons each morning.  A simple exercise of tracking water use throughout a day has gone a long way for my understanding of water use, and could make a big difference in watershed-wide water use and waste if more people understand how much water they are using for what. 

Domestic water use however, is only one slice of the pie of water use in the nation.  Minnesota uses 1,404 Billion Gallons of water each year.  Of this only 15% (217 billion gallons) is domestic water use.  The biggest user is power generation, at 60% of water use. "About 90 percent of US electricity comes from thermoelectric power: turning water into steam by burning coal, natural gas, or oil, or using the heat from nuclear reations."  A lot of water is required for the production of electricity, both in steam generation and for use in cooling machinery to prevent overheating. 

from http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/waters/watermgmt_section/appropriations/wateruse.html

Ironically, not only is water needed to produce electricity, energy is also needed to transport the water from place to place.  1.6 kWh is needed to transport one cubic meter of water from the Colorado River to Southern California.  That equals 6 watts per gallon.  "the energy required to provide drinking water to a typical southern California home can rank third behind that required to run the air conditioner and refrigerator. An even more energy intensive method of 'producing water' is desalination.  To convert salt water to drinkable water takes 2 kWh per cubic meter or 7.6 watts/gallon.  While this might not seem like much, with 400 gallons used a day, at 6 watts per gallon that is a total of 2,400 watts or 2.4 kWh per day just for water transport. 

This all makes collecting water right where it is delivered to you via rainfall much more appealing.  Why not take advantage of the 'free' distribution processes of nature?  Collecting water on your roof is not only very clean (if filtered for sediments) but also uses NO energy to transport. 

While the 6 watt number is for southern California for the sake of comparison while I dig for Minnesota-specific numbers I would be using a total of 324 watts of energy every day to provide the 54 gallons/day I was using before this project.  During the project (if I were actually collecting the 15 gallons average rainfall from my roof) I am using no energy, and only 27% of the water. 

Even more shocking is the statistics outlined in Hoakstra and Chapagin’s article "Water footprints of nations, 2006".  "One cup of coffee requires for instance 1401 gallons of water in average, one hamburger 24,001 and one cotton T-shirt 20,001".  The 400 gallons of water used in an average household each day could be saved by skipping out on ONE quarter-pound hamburger. The following table of water use for various products is from Hoekstra and Chapagain’s article, found online here: http://www.waterfootprint. org/Reports/Hoakstra_ and_Chapagain _2006.pdf

Table 2 Global average virtualwater content of some selected products, per unit of product
Product Virtual water content (litres)

1 glass of beer (250 ml)                         75
1 glass of milk (200 ml)                           200
1 cup of coffee (125 ml)                          140
1 cup of tea (250 ml)                               35
1 slice of bread (30 g)                             40
1 slice of bread (30 g) with cheese(10 g) 90
1 potato (100 g)                                      25
1 apple (100 g)                                        70
1 cotton T-shirt (250 g)                            2000
1 sheet of A4-paper (80 g/m2)                10
1 glass of wine (125 ml)                           120
1 glass of apple juice (200 ml)                  190
1 glass of orange juice (200 ml)               170
1 egg (40 g)                                            135
1 hamburger (150 g)                               2400
1 tomato (70 g)                                         13
1 orange (100 g)                                      50
1 pair of shoes (bovine leather)   8000
1 microchip (2 g)                                    32

DAY 77_COMMUTING MAP

30 October 2010

Bike commuting is an event.  Unlike getting on only a few roads (or a freeway), biking to campus every day is about a 18 step process, full of exciting and varied experiences, not all of them good, not all of them bad, I'd like to describe some of the first 45 minutes of my day with these annotated maps....

AM MAP (click to enlarge):

am route

My morning bike ride starts in the dark these days.  Leaving at 7:30 am I have to turn bike lights on and (later in the ride) am battling the early-morning sun in my eyes.  I am able to take bike paths most of the way with only a few obstacles.  The hardest part is the climb up to the St. Paul campus.  Two big hills stand in my way (Cleveland Ave and a short hill on the St. Paul campus) see map.  After the Greenway I can take surface streets to connect to a transit way between the campuses.  This road only allows bike and buses. Although lots of people agree this is a good combination, I consistently totally freak out anytime a giant accordion bus passes me on this road.  Yeah, they see me, but lets face it, if they didn't -just once- there are no second chances.  After 8 miles, my ride in the morning ends at a water tower.  Top of the world, no easy task getting there.

PM MAP:

pm route

On the way home I get to reap the  benefits of climbing hills and can coast a good 1/4 mile at the beginning of the ride.  Riding home is always easier because I have biking buddies.  My friend Amber has a tradition of singing me a new song every ride and I always have people to ride back to Uptown with at the end of the day.  The colder it gets, the more people band together to find a common time to bike home together, for some reason this makes a cold, dark ride home SOOO much easier.  With darkness comes choices as well.  The greenway bike path isn't a very safe option for riding after dark, known for hassling and crime and not very well lit.  We usually choose to ride down Franklin avenue, a busy, but well lit street.  Definitely not a great option during rush hours because the roads are full of potholes and you need room to maneuver. 

Its getting cold enough that I don't even break a sweat after biking for 8 miles to school anymore.  Rumor has it it might snow next weekend, time will tell but finger's crossed for another 2 weeks without ice.  Pray for me.

DAY 76_BLANCHING THE VEGGIES

29 October 2010

The next step in my food preservation efforts was to blanch and freeze the bell and hot peppers.  I have frozen peppers before, but never blanched them first.  Again-the National Center on Home Food Preservation at www.uga.edu/nchfp is a great resource.  According to the Center, "Blanching (scalding vegetables in boiling water or steam for a short time) is a must for almost all vegetables to be frozen.  It stops enzyme actions which can cause loss of flavor, color and texture."  Blanching can also clean vegetables so they preserve longer, helps to slow the loss of vitamins, and makes them easier to pack (slightly softer). 

The website has a list of recommended blanching times, for bell peppers it was 2 minutes (when sliced into 1/2" wide slices).  Blanching is easier than canning:

step 1_clean all veggies and cut to the size you want

step 2_boil water according to the amount of veggies going in. Use one gallon of water per pound of vegetables (this is easy to determine if you look at your grocery store receipt to see how many pounds you bought.  I had about four pounds so I did four batches in a 1 gallon pot. 

step 3_put all veggies in the boiling water.  A good way to do this is to use a wire mesh basket and lower it into the water, this way you can quickly get all the veggies out when the time is up and put them in the ice bath.  When you put veggies into the water the water should return to a boil within 1 minute (or you don't have enough water)

step 4_start counting the blanching time as soon as the water returns to a boil.  "Blanching time is crucial and varies with the vegetable and size.  Under blanching stimulates the activity of enzymes and is worse than no blanching.  Over blanching causes loss of flavor, color, vitamins and minerals." (NCHFP website) list of blanching times here: http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/how/freeze/blanching.html

step 5_when blanching is done, quickly transfer veggies into an ice bath to stop the cooking. 

step 6_lay veggies out on a towel to get the water out, this help them not stick together when frozen

step 7_put in jars, let sit for a few minutes and drain water.  Leave at least 1/2" of head space (room between veggies and top of jar)

step 8_fruits and vegetables which are frozen can last 8-12 months at 0 degrees F

As for my other foods:

Potatoes:
I am storing my potatoes in a cool, dark corner of my closet.  They should be put in a place that gets very little light and is well ventilated.  Potatoes can be stored for 4 weeks in these conditions, if I were to store them longer they would need to be in kept at lower than 50 degrees F.

Onions and Apples:
Supposed to last for at least 2 weeks if kept dry and away from the sun.  I am storing the apples in my fridge and the onions in a box in the cupboard.  The trick with these guys is they aren't supposed to be stored together or they will expedite rotting.  I'm hoping they last me four weeks...we'll see

A great resource for vegetable storing is here:
http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/how/store/wisc_vegetables.pdf

however, it is somewhat contradictory to other sources, such as this one (which include many packaged food storage times:
 http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/how/store/ksu_cupboard.pdf