Climate for Action: Save Big on Your Heating Emissions by Thinking Change
Posted on February 16th, 2009 - 3:00 PMAbout the Author: Michelle Gugger graduated from Rutgers University in 2008. She is currently spending a year of service at EPA’s Region 3 Office in Philadelphia, PA as an AmeriCorps VISTA
In Philadelphia, it can get pretty cold in the winter. Tomorrow’s temperature is going to be a high of 18 degrees. On days like these it’s hard to think about being energy efficient. If you’re like me, you probably want to get out of the cold as soon as possible and into a heavily heated place. Fortunately, there are things we can do to keep nice and warm and energy efficient at the same time. Here are a few easy things that you can do at home:
- Inform your parents that lowering your thermostat by 2 degrees can save 2,000 pounds of greenhouse gas emissions a year from entering our environment.
- Also inform your parents that lowering your thermostat while no one is home or at night can save their energy bill an average of $180 a year — in addition to big greenhouse gas savings.
- Put an end to wasteful heating. Some examples of wasteful heating include leaving your windows/doors open in the winter or putting furniture in front of radiators which prevents heat from circulating.
- Use nature to keep your home warmer by leaving your blinds open during the day and shutting them at night.
At home, heating is the second largest contributor of greenhouse gases according to the EPA. But, you would be surprised with the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that you could save by doing a few simple things! If you want to find out just how much, calculate your emissions before and after you make the changes. When you’re done, I’d love to hear about the positive changes that you could make.
Tags: Climate for Action, emissions, thermostats
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Question of the Week
February 18th, 2009 at 1:02 am
With the passage of the stimulus package, I have a suggestion for
solving several of America’s energy problems at once. My suggestion is that the US Government embark on a campaign of producing ethanol from sugarcane, rather than corn. This is full tested. In the 1970’s, in response to the oil embargo, Brazil undertook a campaign to produce its own fuel from sugarcane. It is now energy independent and not dependent on foreign sources of fossil fuel.
The benefits are:
1. It’s a clean-burning fuel (its by-product is water) and powers
motor vehicles (the principal CO2 contributor to global warming)
2. It can be domestically produced and provide US jobs. Florida and Puerto Rico are optimum locations to grow sugarcane. Imports of sugarcane from neighboring Caribbean islands - Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, and even Cuba- would provide additional supplies. This would give these poor countries a cash crop, reducing poverty in this region.
3. It would help the US auto industry. Car makers would have a new product - “flexible-fuel” cars that run on either gasoline or ethanol. In Brazil, GM, Ford, Honda and others have been selling flex-fuel cars for more than 3 decades. (See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_Brazil) It would be a new opportunity for US automakers.
4. Sugar cane ethanol has an energy balance 7 times greater than ethanol produced from corn. (See “The Global Dynamics of Biofuels” Woodrow Wilson Center
http://www.wilsoncenter.org/topics/pubs/Brazil_SR_e3.pdf).
5. The Bush Administration placed a 54 cent/gal. tariff on imports
of ethanol. This tariff priced corn derived ethanol on par with sugar
cane imports. (See Congressional Research Service 2008 Report
“Ethanol Imports and the Caribbean Basin Initiative”
http://ncseonline.org/NLE/CRSreports/08Apr/RS21930.pdf) Utilizing
sugar cane to produce fuel allows corn prices to return to normal
levels and American food prices to return to affordable levels (for
those corn dependent products, from bread to beef)
6. The fibrous residue remaining after sugarcane stalks are crushed is called “bagasse.” In Brazil the bagasse is burned for electric power production. A secondary use is cogeneration. (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagasse).
7. The US Government could encourage energy producers to establish factories in Puerto Rico or Florida. Or, if the US Government itself embarks on this effort, the Government could derive revenues from sales of the product. This novel approach allows government to raise money without taxes.
8. With the economies of China and India based on manufacturing,
worldwide competition for fossil fuels will push prices higher.
Domestic production of ethanol will help the US avoid the inevitable
rise in gasoline prices.
Bill Sharp
Glenmont, New York
[Reply]
Michelle reply on February 23, 2009 10:49 am:
Thank you for sharing these resources and ideas. This is very interesting information for the many of us looking for the best source of alternative energy.
[Reply]
February 18th, 2009 at 4:28 pm
Great Suggestion! Leaving window-shades open during the day is an efficient way to keep our homes warm on sunny winter days. We do it all the time at our house… its completely free, and it really works!!
[Reply]
Loreal Crumbley reply on February 20, 2009 11:47 am:
I also acted on Michelle’s suggestion…After I read her article, I started leaving my window-shades open during the day. It has definitely kept my home warmer! I agree this totally works!
[Reply]
Michelle reply on February 23, 2009 10:51 am:
It’s great that you both got to try this out - it’s a really easy way to heat up the home.
[Reply]
February 19th, 2009 at 5:35 am
Something really needs to be done in regards to climate change. Hopefully this global economic downturn will encourage people to reduce carbon emissions - cutting costs and saving the environment. Solar energy panels are getting cheaper and more accessible.
[Reply]
Michelle reply on February 23, 2009 10:58 am:
Yeah there are so many ways in which reducing resource use can save us money at home. If people are making such changes during our economic downturn – hopefully they will see the environmental differences that they are all making and stick with them.
[Reply]
February 23rd, 2009 at 12:30 am
Thanks for the suggestions on how to be energy efficient during the winter, I’ll be sure to implement them in my own apartment.
However, I was particularly interested in a comment made by William Sharp. I agree that in many ways sugar is a unique source of energy, but it is by no means environmentally friendly. Sugar cane production effects the environment in several ways: destruction of habitat to make way for large plantations, intensive use of water for irrigation, heavy use of agricultural chemicals, polluted wastewater (high levels of nitrogen) for the sugar production process, and air pollution from burning. In fact, in my home state of Hawaii, among the largest polluters are sugar cane plantations. Just FYI!
[Reply]
Michelle reply on February 23, 2009 11:01 am:
Thank you Kayla for your update on this.
[Reply]
February 23rd, 2009 at 6:43 pm
Fellow People,
I will make my goal by making my town, the greenest place to live, by putting recycle bins around the town and encouraging stores owners to put recycle bins inside their store. Also same goes to Weight room, pools, and schools. I can’t make people recycle so I put flyer telling how much energy can be save by recycling an item, and also to conserve water and use cold water to wash most of their clothes and turn off their lights when not in use, and also by switching old light bulbs to CFL’s. By doing all this, it’s a start to make my town the greenest place to live!
Glenn Lopez
Gainesville, VA
[Reply]
Michelle reply on February 24, 2009 2:47 pm:
That’s a great goal! I see so many places that do not have recycling bins around - awesome that you want to make these changes for your town.
[Reply]