Unsought Input

In the past we’ve talked about some things that you can do to make your house more energy efficient. Some things are easy, like putting in Compact Florescent light bulbs, while others are on their way in the near future, like your own personal wind turbine.

There’s only so much you can do at home, though, and many of us live in large, air-conditioned office buildings. How could a glass-covered skyscraper possibly use less power for cooling in the summer? If you live in Toronto, it’s easy - just tie into the Deep Lake Water Cooling System.

The system, by Enwave, draws water from Lake Ontario, deep below the surface where it’s always a chilly 4 degrees Celsius. The water runs through huge heat exchangers before making its way into the city’s normal water supply. A separate cooling loop transports water chilled by the incoming lake water to various buildings in the financial district where it is used in the air conditioning system. Here’s a diagram of the system at work.

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I’m always on the lookout for ways to make my house more energy-efficient. I’m also always buying things online and having them shipped to my house. This leads to a problem - a bevy of boxes, and a plethora of packing peanuts.

Boxes can be broken down, folded up, and recycled. What to do about the packing peanuts? Could I kill two birds with one stone, and use them as fill to insulate my attic?

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I’m a big fan of wind power. No, it’s not a magical solution to all energy problems. Wind turbines are a worthwhile component of a cleaner, more efficient energy grid.

As large-scale wind turbines become more popular, cost is going down and efficiency is going up. As far as I can tell, the main argument against the big windmills is that they despoil the landscape. It turns out they don’t really kill that many birds.

After seeing a few in action in Mackinaw, Michigan and on a trip to New York, I’m not sure what all the fuss is about. They’re actually pretty graceful – the new ones are so large that they don’t need to spin like a propeller to generate a lot of power.

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Are you one of those people who cares about things like energy efficiency and global warming, but you don’t go around hugging trees? If so, you’re in a tough spot – other than opting for a reasonably-sized car, there are very few things you can do to personally make an impact.

Add compact fluorescent (CF) light bulbs to the list of ways you can make the world a better place. Fast Company recently had a great article about how if every household in the United States replaced just one regular bulb with a CF bulb, we’d save enough power to run a city of 1.5 million people. Slashdot followed with some great commentary.

There are two really big problems that make it hard to be an environmentalist right now:

• Associating yourself with knee-jerk, pseudo-scientific “environmentalistsâ€? who believe in healing crystals and other claptrap, and
• Finding things you can actually do that don’t do more harm than good or require a huge, expensive sacrifice.

This is the real deal. I’ve been using CF bulbs since I got my own place a few years ago. They plug right in like regular light bulbs, most of the time you can’t tell the difference, and the prices have gone down too. They’re available at all the major retailers, and your power company has probably been recommending them in that literature they send along in your bill. But surprisingly few people seem to be using them. (more…)