# How to fight climate change... for reals.



## woodgeek (Jul 21, 2022)

I am one of the 'techno-optimists' around here about the climate (and other things).  I used to be a 'doomer' about Peak Oil from 2005-2010, and then I got better.  

I am a fan of blogger (and former tech VC rich dude) Noah Smith.  He is also a techno-optimist and understands economics and thinks economics generally trumps politics. Since its the slow season, I thought I'd post his latest for your consideration:









						How we will fight climate change
					

And how we will not fight climate change




					noahpinion.substack.com
				




He generally likes the idea of a big, politically popular movement to do something urgently about climate change, but admits reality... efforts to rally the troops to that cause have failed.

While my politics are probably a bit left of Noah's I am ok admitting when things aren't working, and pragmatic that we need to get everyone on board.

One of my bugaboos is 'alarmism' which shades into 'conventional journalism' which shades into 'clickbait'.  I think there are actually very few things in the world that should make the average American (in good health) PANIC, or even feel queasy. And I think the various climate movements HAVE been more alarmist that necessary or ideal.  And that has lead to more 'doomerism' among young people than positive change.  And I'd guess that that doomerism is MORE harmful to our society (in the long term) than any positive change caused by that alarmism.

Anyhoo, the post: he says that we all just need to do the things that we can, for our particular situation, that can reduce carbon emissions.  He is not asking us to do without, turn down the stat and put on a sweater, or sell the truck.  He is asking all of us to figure out how to live the life we want WITH the best climate friendly tech we can find and afford.  Whether that is attic insulation, installing a heat pump or induction stove, putting panels on the old roof, or buying a F150 Lightning EV.

And if enough of us do that, learning curves in tech and clean energy, and its virtuous cycle will in the end 'save us'.  Or at least, that's the best we can do, and it's been working so far.

And I thought that would resonate around here.

Your thoughts?


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## vinny11950 (Jul 21, 2022)

I want to be positive about the situation but I don't see much hope in avoiding the some pretty bad outcomes.  On the practical side, being prepared is also being green.  For me that means keeping my house all electric, installing a electric hybrid water heater, a heat pump, new windows and insulation, and hopefully (one day) solar panels.  Also driving my very fuel efficient 2007 Corolla.  I am lucky enough to be able to do most of these things myself.  However, the next few decades are going to be rough, with a lot of outcomes out of my control.  You can already see the effects of climate change working their way up the wealth ladder, with the poorer countries not having enough wheat and fuel for their basic needs. You can think this will not happen to me (you), but big shifts like this happen all the time in history.


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## woodgeek (Jul 21, 2022)

Regarding bad outcomes.

As disasters get worse, fewer people die:  https://www.vox.com/23150467/natural-disaster-climate-change-early-warning-hurricane-wildfire

Not to be Pollyanna, but housing codes and building practices matter.  My quite sturdy PA house would be a deadtrap for a Hurricane in Florida, would cave in with the snowloads in Vermont, or fall over from the Earthquakes in CA.

Climate change is a problem for the built environment.  Case in point: Folks in the western EU and UK have domestic AC installation (central OR window units) rates in the mid single digits... 3-5% !!  And very wide use of (and attachment to) hydronic systems for heat, so no ducting for AC.

Kinda like the cooler parts of New England 10-20 years ago.

The global poor are sitting ducks, but the solution is to make them less poor asap, I think.  Then they can tackle their own building stock.


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## Dan Freeman (Jul 21, 2022)

I don't think we are as ready to move to green energy as quickly as the present administration is trying, but I certainly think we need to keep moving in that direction and do everything we can as individuals, local communities and a nation, in addition to improving emissions from the fossil fuels we do use. What I find particularly disturbing are countries like China and India that are building coal plants head over heels, and not really caring about the emissions. It has to be a global effort, not just an effort of a few.


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## woodgeek (Jul 21, 2022)

vinny11950 said:


> I want to be positive about the situation but I don't see much hope in avoiding the some pretty bad outcomes.  On the practical side, being prepared is also being green.  For me that means keeping my house all electric, installing a electric hybrid water heater, a heat pump, new windows and insulation, and hopefully (one day) solar panels.  Also driving my very fuel efficient 2007 Corolla.  I am lucky enough to be able to do most of these things myself.  However, the next few decades are going to be rough, with a lot of outcomes out of my control.  You can already see the effects of climate change working their way up the wealth ladder, with the poorer countries not having enough wheat and fuel for their basic needs. You can think this will not happen to me (you), but big shifts like this happen all the time in history.



I am actually worried about the outcomes not being bad enough to motivate people.  I was hiking on the NJ shore with my kid yesterday, and we saw a toad, and she was enchanted.  When I was kid, we had toads like that all over our suburban yard... I could've gone and found one in 5 minutes.  She has to go to a park to see one.

The creeping degradation of our natural environment is horrifying.  We elders can see the change in the climate AND the huge decrease in animals, plants and insects since our childhood.  But the young people growing up now don't know what they are missing, until it disappears further when they are 50 to 60 years old.

I am not Pollyanna about extinction and habitat loss.  But most folks are clueless about how it is happening, bc it is happening too slowly.

I guess I think the future climate 'curve' will be shaped by innovation and tech adoption and capitalism, with small tweaks due to politics.  And the Sunrise movement will do little to change things.  I give money to the Nature Conservancy instead for preserving habitats, despite its flaws.


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## woodgeek (Jul 21, 2022)

Dan Freeman said:


> I don't think we are as ready to move to green energy as quickly as the present administration is trying, but I certainly think we need to keep moving in that direction and do everything we can as individuals, local communities and a nation, in addition to improving emissions from the fossil fuels we do use. What I find particularly disturbing are countries like China and India that are building coal plants head over heels, and not really caring about the emissions. It has to be a global effort, not just an effort of a few.


China and India are interesting and different cases.

The point of the article is that the author expects people to go green only when they can afford it and/or it gets cheaper/better than fossils.   In China, their growth happened BEFORE green tech got cheap.  In India, their growth is still in the future.

People in both countries poll as having much higher rates of climate change belief and concern than in the US.  Which is near the bottom with Yemen, Russia and Saudi Arabia.

China is (IMO) is currently in a recession (and cooking the numbers) and an epic housing/financial crisis that it will struggle with for the next few years, and then their collapsing demographics will keep them economically about where they are today at best.  The surge in CO2 2000-2010 is largely an effect of China's rapid development during that period.  When they were growing and rich, their pledges to be greener seemed possible... with their economic issues and poor governance, I am skeptical they will do the best thing for the climate.

India will shortly be more populous in China, with a younger population, and the possibility of blowing its own China-sized Carbon Bubble.  But they haven't super-sized their energy infrastructure yet (still having very low per capita energy use and CO2 emissions).  In the end, this is race between making green tech cheap enough for Indians to adopt it BEFORE they get rich enough to demand more energy.  Our tech choices TODAY might have more effect in reducing future emissions in India than direct emission reductions in the US.


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## EbS-P (Jul 21, 2022)

So I committed to heat with wood 4 years ago,  keep the r this stat at 80 whenever it’s over 90 out, committed to hanging laundry out more than a year ago.  And was fortunate to get an EV this year.  Been air sealing and plan to add 500-1000$ of insulation to my attic soon.  

These actions I’m guessing put me in top 98% of the population in terms of taking actions that I could.  Here is my rub.  The only thing that has saved my money todate is the hanging laundry.   I’m pessimistic and reading the article didn’t help.  I agree political movement is unlikely.  My Father in law, for the first time in 15 years just told me burin oil is American.   Followed by it’s going to cost me a 3-4000$ This winter. Followed by blaming the current administration.  I’m pretty certain there are more people like him in the US than are like me.  

It’s not a problem for those that will leave this world in the next10- 20 years.  If enough people did the right thing we wouldn’t need speed limits I think Americans are generally selfish.  It’s baked into the American dream of doing better than your parents.  

I’ve made the commitments do as many things as I can but so far I’m not seeing many other people make similar commitments.  The conversation I had yesterday ended in Heatpumps are to expensive and power is going up and our HOA does not allow clothes lines.   So I am going to take the position that organized action is still necessary. Maybe we need to refocus at the local/hyper local level but if we keep what we do to ourselves and don’t see much improvement I’m afraid that even the most committed like my self will become discouraged and just throw the laundry in the dryer

Evan


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## EbS-P (Jul 21, 2022)

Final thought I really feel like we have place most moral authority in the hands of large corporations and we are relying on them to make the best decisions for us


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## peakbagger (Jul 21, 2022)

Pretty simple, if you are in US vote for the politicians that believes that global warming exists rather than the ones who are in denial or outright opposition. I am not normally a political person but its real obvious that US climate change is being held hostage by political action or lack thereof. Sure as individuals we can be clean and green but recent supreme court decisions have shown that its going to tough to even keep the greenhouse gas improvements we have let alone set and meet new goals.


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## woodgeek (Jul 21, 2022)

Huh, maybe I read that article a little differently.  New technology follows an adoption curve.

--It starts out expensive and not so reliable, and only a few 'weird' early adopters (or hobbyists) try it.  Often wealthy people.

--As more people adopt the new tech, more units get sold, and those units get better engineered and much cheaper.

The 'learning curve' usually dictates that the cost falls like a power-law of the cumulative production volume, falling some %-age in cost for every doubling of cumulative production.  This continues usually until it bottoms out at some small multiple of the cost of raw materials and embodied energy in the tech.  Think solar falling from $100/W, to $10W to $1/W over the last few decades.

--Falling prices lead to exponential growth of sales the new tech (before adoption reaches 20-30%).  And the math of the learning curve means exponentially increasing adoption leads to exponentially falling prices for the new tech.

This process has been demonstrated in dozens of different technologies, including washing machines and cars a century ago.

What is the point?  You don't NEED to convince EVERYONE to adopt a new tech.  You just need to convince enough of the population to drive down the cost of the technology to the rock bottom.  Then the 'late adopters' will still get it due to the obvious utility, the lack of other choices in the marketplace, or govt regulation.  That is, everyone has a cheap HDTV, even though they used to be much more expensive.  Now it is almost impossible to buy a SD TV.  For hidden appliance like water heaters... govt regulations re minimum efficiency or bans of obsolete systems are helpful... and get passed so long as the 'new tech' has lower total cost of ownership than the tech being phased out.

So, we are in the awkward growth stage in green tech. Consider EVs. All the eco-warrior early adopeters (raises hand) got their battery EVs like 5-10 years ago.  And now we have just passed 5% of new vehicle sales being EV/BEVs in the US.  So NOW is when 20-30% of people being willing to take a chance on EVs due to wanting to do something for the climate (or bc of high gas prices) will get us over the hump.  If 50% of the people out there are EV haters and claim they will never buy an EV... doesn't matter at all, LOL.  In 10 years when EV sales are approaching 50% of new vehicles they will look like oddballs and cranks, and rethink their position.

So this is why polling about climate change DOES mean something, bc it indicates a base of (non-early) adopters that will help make green tech cheap, effective and ubiquitous.  And in many ways the US is bringing up the rear... with lower adoption of renewable energy and EVs than other advanced countries... just like its polls showing lower concern for climate change.

But other countries can still pay down the learning curve and we will still go green eventually. The German solar energy revolution was a bust technically and politically, but helped make solar cheap for Green Room members here.  Danker!

Example: in bad old China, EV adoption is about 2 years ahead of the US.  It passed 5% in mid 2020, and is now close to 20% of new vehicles sold.  This is good news, since turning over a fleet of vehicles takes 10-20 years.  Many chinese people are still buying their first cars, and their EV adoption (driven with govt incentives) may prevent them from building a huge fleet like the US's 250 Million legacy ICE cars, that will be burning gasoline until 2040.

And before you worry about all those chinese EVs rolling on coal power... I looked up CO2/kWh numbers for China.  And got 550 g/kWh and falling.   As expected due to the coal plants, this is about 50% higher than the US current number of about 360 g/kWh (which is also falling).

Since 1 gallon of gasoline produces about 25 lbs of CO2, that would correspond to 20 kWh of chinese electricity or 31 kWh of US electricity.  Assuming one gets 3 miles/kWh, this corresponds to a chinese EV being at least 60 mpg today and a US EV being 93 mpg equivalent in terms of CO2.  And both figures are conservative and getting better rapidly with time due to more green power penetration.

So there you go.  Regarding CO2, electrical power and light vehicles have similar total emissions.  China build its grid before clean tech, and has been lagging making it green, but is ahead of the curve on EV adoption.  The US built its car fleet AND grid before clean tech, and is now greening its grid fast (due to, ahem, cheap fracked nat gas), and bringing up the rear on EV adoption.

Score:  China, 1 point out of 2.  US, 1 point out of 2.  Western Europe: 2 points out of 2.


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## woodgeek (Jul 21, 2022)

EbS-P said:


> Final thought I really feel like we have place most moral authority in the hands of large corporations and we are relying on them to make the best decisions for us



I agree with this sentiment.  I tell my kids is that _capitalism_ is not a political system, it is simply a procedure for determining the best prices for things.  It doesn't really say what we SHOULD be doing with our money, re morality and equality and fairness.  It just assigns a fair price to Good A relative to Good B. 

You could have the most moral govt system of deploying and redistributing resources, but if its prices were badly wrong, it would fail.

Conversely, you could have the bestest prices for all good and services, and if your system for deploying and redistributing that stuff were immoral, the result would again be human tragedy.

I happen to think that pretty much everyone agrees that the extremes—completely unregulated capitalism, and complete central planning (and pricing) of resources—are bad.  And most of the systems in place globally are using some version of capitalism to set prices and some version of govt planning and taxation to deploy and redistribute resources morally.

Regarding this thread: The original post IS saying that the 'automatic' processes of innovation and engineering and deployment inherent in corporatized capitalism will achieve a great MORAL end: rapidly rolling out green tech at the scale required to prevent total climate catastrophe.  With a little help from well intentioned consumers.

Think about that for a minute.  The collective greed of a bunch of capital owners may just 'save the planet.' (scare quotes bc I don't think the situation warrants such hyperbole).  This will be sequel to corporate capitalism's other great achievements: modernity, wealth, medicines, etc.

Ofc, I am still a liberal and think that someone needs to keep an eye on those guys, build a legal system to protect us (and them) from cheating/corruption, some science informed public policy to point these capital owners in the right direction, and some reasonable regulations to prevent natural monopolies and 'tragedy of the commons'.  

That is, the govt need to be the moral decision maker, while the corporations do all the heavy lifting.  Duh.


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## EbS-P (Jul 21, 2022)

woodgeek said:


> I agree with this sentiment.  I tell my kids is that _capitalism_ is not a political system, it is simply a procedure for determining the best prices for things.  It doesn't really say what we SHOULD be doing with our money, re morality and equality and fairness.  It just assigns a fair price to Good A relative to Good B.
> 
> You could have the most moral govt system of deploying and redistributing resources, but if its prices were badly wrong, it would fail.
> 
> ...


At the end of the day it’s the same system that allowed companies dumped tons of PFAS compound in to rivers that are the sources a drinking water for millions.  Without regulations enforcement and punishment, greed can and often does run unchecked.  

Am I get the ideas that we should all do what we can.  BUT I want to buy all my electricity from renewables.  Can’t we have a monopoly power company in NC.  They are going to court to make rate payers pay for coal ash cleanup.  My hands are tied. They only think can do is hang out laundry   I’ll keep on keeping on but it would be nice to see the the renewable powered light at the end of the tunnel.  

I really think environmental activism could be focused at a local level with great effect.  Economies of scale are sized to more favorable and at the individual level.  

Just Doing what I can do and calling it a day still leaves a lot on the table.   I’m Not doom and gloom capitalism has spoken and it sees the writing on the wall hence no new refining capacity and very limited new production capacity as of late.  

The green new deal was not branded well.  It never had a shot.  

The more I think about the article the more I think it presents a dangerous path.  If you don’t lobby at all levels of   Government you will be left behind.  We must keep playing the game.  Loosing still affects change.  Not playing gives power to others.  

At the end of the day there are not enough people doing their part.  Or are there?  How do we persuade them?    Carbon tax?


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## Poindexter (Jul 21, 2022)

I do agree we are on the cusp of green energy becoming so affordable it is economically competitive.

When I went away to college (1980s) I had a 200 watt receiver and two speakers with 15" woofers.  Then I saw the floor plan and measurements of my dorm room.  I sold the entire audio system and bought one Sony Walkman - that was a battery hog.  Now portable audio is cheap as chips, but good luck shaking the rafters with it.

In my own case, if I stay in this house I am putting in AC and I intend to run it on solar.  Or offset its consumption with solar panels.

I did read most of the article but my eyes glazed over a couple times.   One thing I notice, in general, is westerners are self centered -what is best for me- but there a few cultures still around where the focus within the individual is -what is best for my family now and in the future?  
Making green energy affordable is key to adoption in the west, I agree with the author on that point.

I did start an ethanol fuel business in 2006.  I had a part time job and got busy.  I never made or sold a drop of ethanol, but it was sure fun blowing through $20k cash in about six months.  At the end of the day, Americans consume too much.  Too much food, too much liquor, too much energy.  There is no good reason to drive a 4000# vehicle 3 miles one way to buy a pepsi hoping that cute girl will be behind the register again.  You should have asked for her phone number the first time.

I was looking at building an alcohol powered moped with some boxes on the side to bring home three bags of groceries, and working back through the BTUs and my process to figure out how many acres of corn, and it just isn't a thing.  

Refined oil has a crap ton of BTUs in it, and all you got to do is pump it out of the ground and get it to a refinery.  With solar you don't even have to work that hard once it is installed.


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## begreen (Jul 22, 2022)

Agreed. The green energy boom is not without issues and dodges the primary issue of consumption by wealthy nations. A major shift in tech also means a lot of building and resource extraction. The cheapest solution is to consume less, but that rubs the extractive capitalist model the wrong way so we sit at a stalemate. A major issue for western culture is that when things cost less, they consume more. It's like a person switching to diet Oreos, and then eating twice as many because they only have 10 calories. And so, cement consumption, a major CO2 emitter, has doubled in the past several years. This is in spite of most nations signing a pledge in 2015 that they were going to reduce emissions.  Instead, they steadily go up. So now we have made our bed and are baking in it.


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## Poindexter (Jul 23, 2022)

begreen said:


> It's like a person switching to diet Oreos, and then eating twice as many because they only have 10 calories.


 Exactly.  I want AC, but I don't want the electric bill to go with it.  I am going to at least look into solar seriously as a thing I can buy and keep rather than just have a higher electric bill.


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## begreen (Jul 23, 2022)

Poindexter said:


> Exactly.  I want AC, but I don't want the electric bill to go with it.  I am going to at least look into solar seriously as a thing I can buy and keep rather than just have a higher electric bill.


I made these decisions as I could afford them. Heatpump replaced the propane FA furnace in 2006 along with new windows, sealing, and insulating the crawlspace, big stove in 2009, solar added in 2011 and 2015.


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## begreen (Jul 24, 2022)




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## Highbeam (Jul 25, 2022)

begreen said:


> It's like a person switching to diet Oreos, and then eating twice as many because they only have 10 calories.


Or, eating 50% less standard oreos  and the oreo factory having to charge twice as much per oreo to pay the bills.


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## begreen (Jul 25, 2022)

Highbeam said:


> Or, eating 50% less standard oreos  and the oreo factory having to charge twice as much per oreo to pay the bills.


That's the opposite problem, like when PSE hustled everyone to conserve energy and tried off-peak billing. Instead of rewarding the customers, they billed them. After that they just say, give me more money. Right now they want to raise their rates again just to continue on without real investments in renewable infrastructure. Oh, and to "increase PSE's authorized return on equity from 9.4% to 9.9%."


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## begreen (Jul 30, 2022)

A good analogy for where we are at, and the difficulty of reversing course, might be big ship crashes. They often occur due to errors in judgment that set up a situation that becomes too late to correct due to the momentum of a ship traveling at 10 or 20 knots. They don't slow down quickly. 


One of the reasons why we have arrived at our current state is disinformation. The effects of which have gained their own momentum and now are extraordinarily hard to correct in spite of years of evidence. 
"Just last month, even with record heat in London, raging wildfires in Alaska, and historic flooding in Australia, Yellowstone, and now Kentucky, the Science and Environmental Policy Project, a pro-fossil fuel think tank, said all the scientists had it wrong."








						Climate disinformation leaves lasting mark as world heats
					

In 1998, as nations around the world agreed to cut carbon emissions through the Kyoto Protocol, America's fossil fuel companies plotted their response, including an aggressive strategy to inject doubt into the public debate.




					apnews.com
				




So here we are, we have set the ship called climate on a course that is extraordinarily hard to correct due to the enormous momentum of the planet's systems. The odds of a technology fix or fixes slowing down or stopping this momentum are slim to none due to the scale of what has been set in place over the past 200 yrs. and dramatically accelerated in the past decades.


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## EatenByLimestone (Jul 31, 2022)

One of the easiest things we can do is work on insulation.  Itll keep the house cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter, using less energy.   Its not as sexy as a heat pump, but $2000 will only buy a small DIY system.   Itll  pay for a shirt load of cellulose blown into a house.   Thatll lower energy consumption,  help with fireproofing a structure, air sealing, probably improve health of occupants, etc.


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## woodgeek (Aug 8, 2022)

Welp, that didn't take long.  LOL.

Noah has a post on the Inflation Reduction Act:









						The Inflation Reduction Act: Bidenomics 2.0
					

The new economic paradigm gets a rapid reboot




					noahpinion.substack.com
				




Short version: he likes it.  He thinks it is the 'abundance-progress' policy focus he wants.



> At the end of the day there are not enough people doing their part. Or are there? How do we persuade them? Carbon tax?


Evan, they are going to offer folks (and companies) _tax rebates_.  And they will rebates on _cheaper_ green tech.



> Agreed. The green energy boom is not without issues and dodges the primary issue of consumption by wealthy nations. A major shift in tech also means a lot of building and resource extraction. The cheapest solution is to consume less, but that rubs the extractive capitalist model the wrong way so we sit at a stalemate. A major issue for western culture is that when things cost less, they consume more. It's like a person switching to diet Oreos, and then eating twice as many because they only have 10 calories. And so, cement consumption, a major CO2 emitter, has doubled in the past several years. This is in spite of most nations signing a pledge in 2015 that they were going to reduce emissions. Instead, they steadily go up. So now we have made our bed and are baking in it.


Begreen, the point of the OP article is that no one is willing to reduce consumption (certainly to the pre-industrial required to solve a climate problem).  Instead, the engineers will roll up their sleeves and try to get us an infrastructure system that is dramatically more efficient, lower emission and sustainable than the one we have now.  I am lucky to teach a bunch of excellent young engineers, and they KNOW that this is their cause.  They are ready to get out there.

Also global CO2 emission numbers (from all sources) have been revised... and are flat for the last decade, not increasing.

I will note that my spasm of home electrification, insulation and energy improvements happened during the first Obama admin, and I got plenty of money back on my Fed taxes.  And my state put in matching for the same projects.  More important, there were a LOT of contractors and companies that popped up to do that sort of work, and they got skilled at it.

I think one of the best things about this money is that the contractors will figure out how to tap into it.  They will train folks to do the work (including Matt and Evan's insulation and airsealing) cheaply and effectively.  When energy gets cheap, those guys all switch to doing high-end kitchen remodels. This money over the next decade will move the needle on the quality of the tech, the cost of the tech, and build out a bunch of installers familiar with the tech.

I am just hoping that I can get a cheap drop in replacement ASHP with HSPF = 12 (rather than my current 8) when my current unit quits.  The units exist today (Carrier Infinity) but are super spendy.   That guy would drop my current winter heating bills >40% and nearly eliminate calls from backup strips.


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## EbS-P (Aug 8, 2022)

I have a feeling we won’t see any state incentives in NC any time soon.  The federal ones will help.  Our university is probably 2 decades behind the early adopters of green infrastructure improvements but coming around.  

I’m with you on the HSPF of 12.   Last research I did on package units it was 8 and had been there for a decade.  I decided yesterday that I want to take my single zone to 3 zones.  And replace all the duct work.  
No cheap way!   I could get 2 zones with a single mini split.  Two minis or a dual head unit I could get three but probably would be really oversized on my original heatpump for summer as it would effectively be cooling 1100 sq ft.  I’ll finish air sealing and get some insulation up soon.    

Happy to see the bill’s passage.  It definitely surprised me.


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## Ashful (Aug 8, 2022)

begreen said:


> One of the reasons why we have arrived at our current state is disinformation.


Agreed, but even more than disinformation, I think there are very high population densities in areas that have not yet been strongly affected by climate change.  Droughts, wildfires, infrastructure-collapsing heat and cold waves... these are all things that we in the northeast see on the news, but haven't experienced in any way similar to those in California, Texas, or even midwest.  It's very easy from here to say, "sucks to be them", and then forget about it.

The effects of the sinking mid-Atlantic shore coastline may be the first that the folks in our adjacent states see, on any scale similar to the effects that have already awakened some sense of urgency in other parts of the world.  Stronger hurricanes don't help, but with their most frequent and expensive damage happening south of the largest population densities, again most have the luxury of only feeling them thru empathy.

Among the many smart things woodgeek said at the top of this thread, the link between personal (or company) finance and climate change will be the driver of any real change.  This country has always, and always will, voted with their wallet.


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## stoveliker (Aug 8, 2022)

I'm not sure I agree that the high-population density areas don't feel the consequences of climate change. In fact, it is the coastal parts of the country that are generally most densely populated, and they suffer most from the (rain of) hurricanes. Even if the wind weakens 100 miles inland, the moisture deposition there is increasing as far as I understood (consistent with the larger moisture content of warmer air and the resulting larger hurricanes). 
See also the very wet summer in MA last year. NYC flooding last year (due to thunderstorms). Of course these examples are instances, and instances don't make climate, but are examples of climate.

In any case, I agree that the wallet is what matters. The problem I see is that the most densely populated areas are also the most expensive ones. I.e. folks living there already did not vote with their wallet (and legs), which (speculation that would need research to back it up) suggests that those suffering consequences may be more amenable to pressure to pay more rather than walking away, and the wallet incentive is a bit broken there.


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## Ashful (Aug 8, 2022)

stoveliker said:


> I'm not sure I agree that the high-population density areas don't feel the consequences of climate change. In fact, it is the coastal parts of the country that are generally most densely populated, and they suffer most from the (rain of) hurricanes.


You missed some of the key words in what I had written, in jumping to your disagreement.  Yes, of course everyone in a coastal state is affected by rain, and folks on TV continue to argue whether or not it's actually increasing, or related to climate change.

But the reality is that the degree or level of impact on those in the densely-populated northeast, even mid-Atlantic, is not so nearly severe as those living in areas seeing far more acute effects of drought, wildfires, and other effects much more easily and directly linked to climate change.  This could be said about the majority of our population, outside of a few select states or regions.  This was being offered as a partial answer to begreen's musing about how we got this ship onto this (perhaps) un-avoidable collision course.

But we agree on the end result.  Until people see financial impact, or benefit to change course, we will stay on the present one.  Hey, a beached cruise ship is still a cruise ship.


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## stoveliker (Aug 8, 2022)

It is easy to not see the severity of changes when they are far way. 
The number and severity of hurricanes are one of THE most directly linked changes due to climate change.


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## begreen (Aug 8, 2022)

Ashful said:


> Among the many smart things woodgeek said at the top of this thread, the link between personal (or company) finance and climate change will be the driver of any real change.  This country has always, and always will, voted with their wallet.


The wallet that is being guarded belongs to primarily one sector of the economy which makes this point somewhat moot.  In this case, the environmental and societal costs have been vigorously denied and obscured by extensive and extended disinformation campaigns. Lobbyists have bought power and votes. This is unlike most businesses that work on an extended budget plan that includes worse-case scenarios. The only wallet they are concerned about is their corporate wallets. As long as they are able to sow the seeds of doubt, decline continues.

Deferred maintenance can be very expensive. The cost of these delays and procrastination to nations and humanity will be catastrophic.


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## begreen (Aug 8, 2022)

Case in point. What happens when climate change cuts off the food supply, jobs, and eventually survival? This reality is currently evolving in northern Italy where its most important river, the Po,  is drying up this year. This is the area that grows risotto rice, which is the staple of the region. The mighty Po river is flowing at a volume of 1/10th normal. There is little water for agriculture. Because there is so little flow, saltwater now intrudes miles inland. This has destroyed estuary clamming which is another staple of the region. Saltwater intrusion is contaminating most of the wells in the region too. That contamination won't go away, even if next year is wetter. Spain and Portugal are in emergency situations too. The costs are huge.








						EU countries restrict drinking water access – DW – 07/07/2022
					

Severe droughts and scarce rain have forced water restrictions in southern European countries. Climate change is making itself felt across the continent.




					www.dw.com
				




One does not need a crystal ball to see where this is heading. Glacier systems around the world are shrinking. These glaciers supply the headwaters of many major river systems that humanity relies upon. When the water is no longer flowing, all that has been built upon for centuries ceases. It's a sobering thought. The same is happening with Mt. Kilimanjaro which feeds 7 major rivers, most are drying up. Imagine when the mother of all water sources, the Himalayas, dries up.


			https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aav7266
		


In the US, the impact of shrinking snowpacks and glaciers is also being felt directly in the Southwest as rivers run dry. And saltwater intrusion is becoming a major issue for LA County and also the Sacramento River delta area. Meanwhile, the Rio Grande has run dry. Tick tock...








						Big Shock in Big Bend
					

No one alive has seen the Rio Grande as it looks today. A dry, cracking riverbed now snakes through Big Bend National Park.




					www.texasobserver.org


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## Ashful (Aug 8, 2022)

stoveliker said:


> It is easy to not see the severity of changes when they are far way.
> The number and severity of hurricanes are one of THE most directly linked changes due to climate change.


You seem to be arguing with me, while simultaneously agreeing.  

Case in point:  how much did the number and severity of hurricanes affect your budget in Long Island in NY, this year?  Here, near Philadelphia, I don't see any direct measurable difference.  In fact, our most costly year was a full decade ago, Sandy.

I don't think the folks in California will say the same, and that was the point.


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## stoveliker (Aug 8, 2022)

That does not warrant a response.
You know very well that the randomness and the resulting distribution can't be measured with "this year"

Also, you demonstrate an absence of knowledge, as the hurricane season for this year is only about to ramp up. So the answer is: we'll see in the next few months.

My point is that your dismissal of coastal impact of climate change for the visible (and indeed related and severe) impact of wildfires is incorrect. Hurricanes have been more and more strong the last few years, on average (see distribution, statistics). We've been at the high end of the hurricane numbers for a few years now.

Other than that, yes, my home owners insurance does have a "if hurricane, you have a 20% deductible" rider (that was instated after Sandy). That is something I have actively saved for. In fact, that has been a point this year and last two, given that the home has nearly doubled in market price. Given that the deductible is a percentage, this has indeed actively and significantly affected my finances while saving to fill this gap. This is of course related to changing home prices more than changing climate, but they are related because climate->hurricanes->deductible percentage.


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## begreen (Aug 8, 2022)

On the east coast, Florida will feel the wallet pinch the most, at least in the short term. That said, when one looks at the population density living within 10 miles of the east coast, the cost impact is quite apparent just from sea rise, let alone storm-related costs. 








						Sea-Level Rise in Miami-Dade Could Cost $3.2 Billion by 2040
					

Florida residents currently stand to bear the largest cost burden for sea-level rise and climate adaptation. Twenty-three Florida counties face costs of more than $1 billion for seawall expenses, according to the Center for Climate Integrity.




					www.miaminewtimes.com
				



The cost of sea level rise is just one factor. Flooding from severe storms is expected to be 10 times higher by 2050. 








						2022 Sea Level Rise Technical Report
					

This Sea Level Rise Technical Report provides the most up-to-date sea level rise projections available for all U.S. states and territories; decision makers will look to it for information. This multi-agency effort, representing the first update since 2017, offers projections out to the year 2150...



					oceanservice.noaa.gov


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## ABMax24 (Aug 8, 2022)

Take Lake Mead as an example, it is nearly impossible to get a handful of states together to agree on water cuts to preserve some safe level of water in the lake to ensure survival in future years. A threat that is very immediate, and visible to the populations in that area. No wonder there is so little movement on climate change.

I feel like the rest of the world is fighting real problems in the 2020's, and the US is still stuck in the 50's arguing laws from the 1800's.


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## begreen (Aug 8, 2022)

ABMax24 said:


> Take Lake Mead as an example, it is nearly impossible to get a handful of states together to agree on water cuts to preserve some safe level of water in the lake to ensure survival in future years.



Good example. Two of the nation's largest reservoirs are drying up. There are some things that should not be tied to the wallet and profit. Survival is one of them.








						As the climate dries the American west faces power and water shortages, experts warn
					

Two of the largest reservoirs in America, which provide water and electricity to millions, are in danger of reaching ‘dead pool status.’ A result of the climate crisis and overconsumption of water, experts say.




					www.unep.org


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## semipro (Aug 8, 2022)

Despite the assurance of most people, I still feel that some don't truly care about their progeny, especially those more than one generation out.
Whether global climate change, national debt, squandering of finite resources (e.g. fresh water), etc. many of those living seem content to let future generations deal with the excesses of today.
I'm also struck by how seldom population growth enters this type of conversation as a root cause of problems. .    Although population growth rates may have slowed, the U.S. population, for example, is still growing.


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## stoveliker (Aug 8, 2022)

That ^^


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## EbS-P (Aug 8, 2022)

I considered switching my party affiliation to the Green Party. For all of 45 seconds.   While at my core I think a two party system devalues compromise and more parties force collective governance, I feel I have more power in influence local politics by being part of a mainstream party and choosing, via primary elections, who runs in the general elections.   ie my voter power index is almost assured to be zero if I vote a Green Party ticket that has realistically zero chance to be elected.  

Where during the off cycle primary elections for local offices my voter power is maximized due to low turnout. And local elections aren’t gerrymandered.


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## begreen (Aug 8, 2022)

semipro said:


> Despite the assurance of most people, I still feel that some don't truly care about their progeny, especially those more than one generation out.
> Whether global climate change, national debt, squandering of finite resources (e.g. fresh water), etc. many of those living seem content to let future generations deal with the excesses of today.
> I'm also struck by how seldom population growth enters this type of conversation as a root cause of problems. .    Although population growth rates may have slowed, the U.S. population, for example, is still growing.


Agreed. An outcome of an increasing population tied at the hip to an extractive economic system is an incredible species decline. 
"We are currently living through a mass species extinction event, the largest known. The speed with which mass extinction has onset appears to be the result of human activity. Scientists estimate that we are losing *10,000 times* more species per year than the normal rate."








						Fact Sheet: Global Species Decline - Earth Day
					

The world is facing a mass extinction of species.  All species of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, arthropods (insects and arachnids), fish, crustaceans, corals and other cnidarians, and plants have declined, in many cases, severely. Human civilization has had a negative impact on most...




					www.earthday.org


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## stoveliker (Aug 8, 2022)

In the end this is tied to the Growth foundation of our (most) economy(s): only when there is growth (in either consumption or number of people, preferably both according to current approaches) "are we happy".
It's almost a "sin" to say otherwise, especially in this country, but growth cannot be sustainable in the long term. Not growth in number of people nor growth in consumption (of resources). 

There are very extreme alternative lines of thought, but  change starts with the recognition that something is problematic.


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## Ashful (Aug 8, 2022)

ABMax24 said:


> Take Lake Mead as an example, it is nearly impossible to get a handful of states together to agree on water cuts to preserve some safe level of water in the lake to ensure survival in future years. A threat that is very immediate, and visible to the populations in that area. No wonder there is so little movement on climate change.
> 
> I feel like the rest of the world is fighting real problems in the 2020's, and the US is still stuck in the 50's arguing laws from the 1800's.


Exactly the point I was trying to make, whether everyone got it, or not.  And it's not necessarily ROW vs. USA.  This country is so large and diverse that there's the same division happening within our own borders.


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## Poindexter (Aug 8, 2022)

I do not have 'the answer.'  I do think we are in an era of human accelerated climate change.  I am concerned for the planet we are leaving behind for my grand and great grand children.

One thing my wife is doing is saving every single plastic utensil that gets delivered to our table or house and reusing it to failure.  A drop in the bucket perhaps, and a major pain in my neck, but the bucket was filled with drops in the first place.

Besides good air sealing, good insulation and getting the lion's share of my home heating needs in a carbon neutral platform, I am constrained by needing some kind of vehicle to get to my job so I can keep the money pump running and pay all the bills.  

I have considered loading some hand tools up in my truck, driving up into the Brooks Range until I run out of gas, walking on in to someplace empty and homesteading.  The reality is far removed from the pipe dream.  I have no desire to relocate to the lower 48 anywhere west of the Mississippi because of ongoing and worsening water issues.

I am trying to be especially prudent about single use items, things that do not or will not last.


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## Ashful (Aug 9, 2022)

Poindexter said:


> I do not have 'the answer.'  I do think we are in an era of human accelerated climate change.  I am concerned for the planet we are leaving behind for my grand and great grand children.
> 
> One thing my wife is doing is saving every single plastic utensil that gets delivered to our table or house and reusing it to failure.


... and then there's the bodily absorption of microplastics.  



Poindexter said:


> I am trying to be especially prudent about single use items, things that do not or will not last.


Single use is a big problem, a la Keurig or so much of the medical and food industries.  But on the residential front, product packaging is a major gripe of mine.  I have three 96-gallon trash cans, and while we only fill a small percentage of one with trash and a second with recycling in any normal week, all three aren't enough for one day's trash each time my kids have a birthday or Christmas.  The amount of completely unnecessary packaging wrapped around nearly every item we purchase is simply obscene.  Honestly, why do we allow a 6 cubic inch Barbie to even go onto a store shelf, with 2 cubic feet of non-recyclable laminated paper on plastic packaging wrapped around it?  Couldn't these things come in a simple recyclable polyethylene tube with cardboard end caps, and be just as presentable to any 6 year old?

This packaging problem is so ubiquitous across the landscape of so many product types, that one cannot easily "vote with their wallet", and simply purchase options with more sensible packaging.  And maybe it's not as much a global problem as a personal problem, but it happens to be the place where I feel most defeated, as other areas where I'm falling short are at least more by my own choice.


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## EbS-P (Aug 9, 2022)

I’m done complaining.  Time to get off the couch and do something.  Add one or two climate save if actions a month.  For me this month it’s cloth diapers.  Used them for the first two kids.  Then hit the easy button for for two.    Going to the attic now to find them before it gets hot.


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## thecoalman (Aug 9, 2022)

Ashful said:


> The effects of the sinking mid-Atlantic shore coastline....



I know what you meant but since it is possible for land to sink(or rise) you should probably stick to sea rise. What is interesting is if you go and look at the raw data, There is station at The Battery in  NY that is good reference because it's on relatively stable geography and has one the oldest sets of measurements.






Even more interesting is this graph, note that this can easily be misinterpreted. It doesn't show the actual sea rise but the rates at different intervals. For example from 1925 to 1975 the rate at which the sea was rising was slightly higher rate than 1970 to the present.






There is a lot of cool graphs on that site to explore but keep in mind they do not account for land movement. There is areas you can find with significant rates either way but that is only because the land is rising or dropping at significant rate.






						Sea Level Trends - NOAA Tides & Currents
					

Sea Levels Online, a map of sea level rise and fall, trends, and anomalies



					tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov
				




As far as the topic at hand we can all do out part and minor changes can have significant impacts. Insulating for example is not only helpful to reduce emissions but it's almost always cost effective. If you want to get people onboard you need to do things that are sensible. Simple example is I defrost things in the fridge and I do it to conserver energy. Individually it's not much but if everyone did it....


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## semipro (Aug 9, 2022)

It's interesting (and scary) the factors that contribute to sea level rise and eroding coastlines. 
I used to believe it was primarily due to a combination of things including:

ice melt
land subsidence from aquifer pumping (WRT the U.S. eastern seaboard)
changes in the Atlantic circulation
Only recently did I learn from someone at NOAA that it's now primarily attributed to thermal expansion of seawater.


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## Ashful (Aug 9, 2022)

thecoalman said:


> I know what you meant but since it is possible for land to sink(or rise) you should probably stick to sea rise.


Great post, and thanks for posting that data.  I've perused some of those same graphs in the past

But I did choose my words carefully.  Some places are suffering from sea rise (Venice?), but the NJ coastline is a bit different.  As I understand it (not a geologist), NJ and adjacent coastline is suffering more from sinking relative to adjacent land, than from sea rise itself.   It has been sinking for millions of years, but always previously replenished with sediment brought up the coast by global sea currents.  Unfortunately, with rising temperatures, those currents are stalling, and the replenishment is no longer sufficient to keep up with the tectonic sinking of that portion of the coast.

As I read it, the actual sea rise is just the icing on the cake, to the NJ shore.  Certainly not helping matters, but only a small part of a more complex problem.


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## semipro (Aug 9, 2022)

semipro said:


> Only recently did I learn from someone at NOAA that it's now primarily attributed to thermal expansion of seawater.


Link I meant to post above: 





						Climate Change: Global Sea Level
					

Sea level has risen 8-9 inches since 1880, and the rate is accelerating thanks to glacier and ice sheet melt.




					www.climate.gov


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## SpaceBus (Aug 9, 2022)

Dan Freeman said:


> I don't think we are as ready to move to green energy as quickly as the present administration is trying, but I certainly think we need to keep moving in that direction and do everything we can as individuals, local communities and a nation, in addition to improving emissions from the fossil fuels we do use. What I find particularly disturbing are countries like China and India that are building coal plants head over heels, and not really caring about the emissions. It has to be a global effort, not just an effort of a few.


I would say the administration is not moving fast enough. I'm finishing up a college course on climate change right now, it has been quite sobering. China has actually done a lot to reduce emissions, and much of their emissions are due to being the manufacturing center for the world. If you distributed all of the factories, steel mills, etc. across the glob according to who buys the products, it really changes the picture. Most Chinese citizens don't buy what they produce.


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## SpaceBus (Aug 9, 2022)

EbS-P said:


> At the end of the day it’s the same system that allowed companies dumped tons of PFAS compound in to rivers that are the sources a drinking water for millions.  Without regulations enforcement and punishment, greed can and often does run unchecked.
> 
> Am I get the ideas that we should all do what we can.  BUT I want to buy all my electricity from renewables.  Can’t we have a monopoly power company in NC.  They are going to court to make rate payers pay for coal ash cleanup.  My hands are tied. They only think can do is hang out laundry   I’ll keep on keeping on but it would be nice to see the the renewable powered light at the end of the tunnel.
> 
> ...



There really needs to be a revolution against these massive corporations, like Dupont and Standard/Exxon, who just needlessly polluted so much of the planet. The TEL debacle is responsible for unfathomable environmental and public health disasters. They should be the ones responsible for funding the environmental cleanup/repair, not taxpayers. Due to capitalism we all basically have had no choice, and still mostly don't, about how we carry out our lives. Generations before me decided we needed to build cars and burn fossil fuels. This really goes back to Antiquity,  but obviously the last 100 or so years have seen absurd CO2 and methane emissions. I didn't ask to come to a world where I'm forced to burn fossil fuels to do pretty much anything, but the corporations have been steering us in this direction in the name of profit. 
Capitalism will always be beholden to profit and significant change will be very slow in a capitalist economy.


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## stoveliker (Aug 9, 2022)

true, but that is also in part because consumers don't (want to) think about alternatives. They gobble up what is offered. 
Market push vs market pull.
And the latter is why the OP is contemplating pulling in another way as a consumer. That is to be applauded. 

We can't change the economic situation/structure (in a timeframe quick enough to resolve the climate issue, if that is at all possible), but we can make personal choices that contribute to such a change, however slow it will be globally.


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## Poindexter (Aug 9, 2022)

I am confident that at least once upon a time, part of what is going on in the mid-Atlantic states was thought to be the land sinking.  The idea was the ice sheets during the last ice age were very heavy, but ended more or less at Long Island Sound, so the land just south of there was upthrust by the weight up north, and now with the weight removed the mid Atlantic states are sinking back towards their normal.

This was a current idea (lips moving) 24 years ago and may or may not fit with current data anymore.  I haven't kept up with that one.

I do agree with Ashful about single use packaging.  We are doing 'better' at my house than we have done in the past.  Rather than buy another freezer we have started canning, primarily because there is no ongoing maintenance cost for canned goods, and canning jars are reusable.

I do 'wish' or 'notice' that commercially canned items like olives or beans or capers could be packaged in jars reusable at the home level or recycled, but the jars they are currently in can only be recycled.  Salsa.  Anything that pops when you open the jar was commerically canned, though typically at pressure higher (and time shorter) than safely attainable with a home pressure canner.  But those darn jars could be reused in a home canner if lids were available.   BRB

I have a couple commercial jars in my fridge right now  that could take standard canning lids, but the threads won't accept regular mason jar bands.


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## SpaceBus (Aug 9, 2022)

Highbeam said:


> Or, eating 50% less standard oreos  and the oreo factory having to charge twice as much per oreo to pay the bills.


Sounds like a bad business model for the consumer. 


Ashful said:


> Agreed, but even more than disinformation, I think there are very high population densities in areas that have not yet been strongly affected by climate change.  Droughts, wildfires, infrastructure-collapsing heat and cold waves... these are all things that we in the northeast see on the news, but haven't experienced in any way similar to those in California, Texas, or even midwest.  It's very easy from here to say, "sucks to be them", and then forget about it.
> 
> The effects of the sinking mid-Atlantic shore coastline may be the first that the folks in our adjacent states see, on any scale similar to the effects that have already awakened some sense of urgency in other parts of the world.  Stronger hurricanes don't help, but with their most frequent and expensive damage happening south of the largest population densities, again most have the luxury of only feeling them thru empathy.
> 
> Among the many smart things woodgeek said at the top of this thread, the link between personal (or company) finance and climate change will be the driver of any real change.  This country has always, and always will, voted with their wallet.


You bring up a good point, North America has been largely insulated from a lot of climate change due to geography and time. Humans just haven't been destroying the ecosystems for agriculture or metallurgy quite as long as the "Old World" or "Far East". Latin America is even more insulated by having smaller populations and more wilderness. People living in the Midwest would be a notable exception, evidenced by the "dust bow". The whole continent has more or less been in a drought since at least the 60's, at least compared to historical precipitation data. As native ecosystems are destroyed for human habitation and agriculture the water goes with it.  Early settlers believed "rain follows the plow" and ripped up all of the deep rooted native grasses of the Midwest, which had been cultivated by native peoples pursuing buffalo. Since the Midwest didn't get much rain to start with, the natives used controlled burns to keep the trees from taking over the savannah, the native grasses were the only thing holding moisture in the soil. After a few generations conditions in the Midwest were just right to bring out the Dust Bowl, and the rest is history. Grasslands take hold when there is not enough consistent sunlight or rainfall to support trees, but on the other side of the same coin forests can bring rain once established. 
I'm rambling a bit, but hopefully the point made it.


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## SpaceBus (Aug 9, 2022)

stoveliker said:


> true, but that is also in part because consumers don't (want to) think about alternatives. They gobble up what is offered.
> Market push vs market pull.
> And the latter is why the OP is contemplating pulling in another way as a consumer. That is to be applauded.
> 
> We can't change the economic situation/structure (in a timeframe quick enough to resolve the climate issue, if that is at all possible), but we can make personal choices that contribute to such a change, however slow it will be globally.


So the reason I brought up Standard specifically is because they used their considerable wealth to corner the entire market for energy during the industrial revolution. They made sure the only options for lighting or transportation relied on oil. This is how pretty much all the big corporations operate. We have the illusion of choice and a free market, but in reality corporations lobby the government and no form of control really works. Even when Dupont was sued due to their role in C8 production and dispersal, but nothing really came about. These corporations are both above the law, and influencing the law to stay that way. Consumers don't get any real choice, there are no corporations making market decisions that benefit consumers, and we are given no options. The market for transportation looks full of choice and consumer direction, but everything is based on the early cars that followed the oil boom. There are no actual environmentally friendly transportation options unless you use livestock and own enough land to feed them year round. I cannot go out as a consumer and purchase transportation that doe not rely on fossil fuels. Furthermore my existence as a consumer is almost entirely dictated by fossil fuels. They are the structure upon which our entire culture is based.


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## EatenByLimestone (Aug 9, 2022)

SpaceBus said:


> I would say the administration is not moving fast enough. I'm finishing up a college course on climate change right now, it has been quite sobering. China has actually done a lot to reduce emissions, and much of their emissions are due to being the manufacturing center for the world. If you distributed all of the factories, steel mills, etc. across the glob according to who buys the products, it really changes the picture. Most Chinese citizens don't buy what they produce.


They can’t buy what they produce.   There aren’t enough of them in the accumulation phase of life.   The 1 child policy sunk them.   China is going to change greatly in the next few years.   It’s not going to be pretty.


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## begreen (Aug 9, 2022)

SpaceBus said:


> So the reason I brought up Standard specifically is because they used their considerable wealth to corner the entire market for energy during the industrial revolution. They made sure the only options for lighting or transportation relied on oil. This is how pretty much all the big corporations operate.



Case in point. Seattle and Tacoma were linked with an exceptional transportation system before WWI. Each city also had extensive streetcar networks that provided good transport around the city and between them, there was the Interurban. This worked well and affordably. Then GM and the oil companies conspired to replace the electric-driven trolley systems with buses. They started a well-organized and extensive smear campaign against the trolleys, calling them unsafe, slow, limited, and antiquated. Eventually, and probably with some payoffs, they convinced city leaders to replace the trolleys with buses. That was a big mistake because what they gave up was not only a good working system that could have been updated as technology improved, but they also gave up the extensive right of ways that the systems owned. The technology is kind of irrelevant, but the right of way is precious. It's very hard to recover and very expensive, as we now find out when we start putting back in these systems.


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## begreen (Aug 9, 2022)

Another fossil fuel-related gambit is plastics, the stuff most single-use packaging is made from. Of the 9 billion tons of fossil fuel plastic produced since the 1950s, only 9% percent has been recycled, studies have shown. The rest has been buried in landfills, burned, or has polluted land and waterways. The chemical structure of fossil fuel plastic means it can never fully disintegrate and instead breaks down into smaller and smaller particles. We are burying our planet in plastics and no place on earth is now plastics-free. It is in the water we drink and the food we eat, with the consequences unknown.


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## stoveliker (Aug 9, 2022)

SpaceBus said:


> So the reason I brought up Standard specifically is because they used their considerable wealth to corner the entire market for energy during the industrial revolution. They made sure the only options for lighting or transportation relied on oil. This is how pretty much all the big corporations operate. We have the illusion of choice and a free market, but in reality corporations lobby the government and no form of control really works. Even when Dupont was sued due to their role in C8 production and dispersal, but nothing really came about. These corporations are both above the law, and influencing the law to stay that way. Consumers don't get any real choice, there are no corporations making market decisions that benefit consumers, and we are given no options. The market for transportation looks full of choice and consumer direction, but everything is based on the early cars that followed the oil boom. There are no actual environmentally friendly transportation options unless you use livestock and own enough land to feed them year round. I cannot go out as a consumer and purchase transportation that doe not rely on fossil fuels. Furthermore my existence as a consumer is almost entirely dictated by fossil fuels. They are the structure upon which our entire culture is based.



Sure. But I'm not saying that the existing actors should provide alternative choices. Musk is an example (I dislike the guy, and would not buy a Tesla, even if they drive fantastically, but he did come up with an alternative). There are other examples. With enough noise, it gets known that (some) people want something different, and some of those people will even have the skills to develop that different thing.

As such, making personal choices in the right direction is not only helping now, it is also a signalling as to what places in the market are ripe for development of new alternatives.

Yes, conventional actors (mfgs) are doing their best to make alternatives irrelevant. (Plastic industry is a big example of that.) But that does not mean we should give up.


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## thecoalman (Aug 9, 2022)

Poindexter said:


> I do agree with Ashful about single use packaging.



I work in a small retail store, we carry Trek and Stihl.  When people ask me what I do I tell them I cut up boxes and throw them away because that is what it sometimes feels like. This is a  small store and we could probably fill a pickup truck every other day with tightly packed carboard. The amount of waste before you even buy that product is incredible. The bikes are the worst because of their size and most of the space is empty unless it's packaging material, it can take more time to unpack and deal with packaging material than to put the bike together.

Not sure what the solution is because they need to protect the product.



> I have a couple commercial jars in my fridge right now that could take standard canning lids, but the threads won't accept regular mason jar bands.



If they were all caning jars you would probably end up with just as many of them going into the trash down the road. Glass is a good material to reuse, not so much for recycling. You can easily end up expending more energy recycling it than simply making new ones.


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## SpaceBus (Aug 9, 2022)

begreen said:


> Case in point. Seattle and Tacoma were linked with an exceptional transportation system before WWI. Each city also had extensive streetcar networks that provided good transport around the city and between them, there was the Interurban. This worked well and affordably. Then GM and the oil companies conspired to replace the electric-driven trolley systems with buses. They started a well-organized and extensive smear campaign against the trolleys, calling them unsafe, slow, limited, and antiquated. Eventually, and probably with some payoffs, they convinced city leaders to replace the trolleys with buses. That was a big mistake because what they gave up was not only a good working system that could have been updated as technology improved, but they also gave up the extensive right of ways that the systems owned. The technology is kind of irrelevant, but the right of way is precious. It's very hard to recover and very expensive, as we now find out when we start putting back in these systems.


WWI is also when Standard Oil convinced the US government/military to adopt liquid fuels, although it's not like burning coal for steam was any better. The smear campaign against public transport wasn't isolated to the PNW, as I'm sur you know, it was carried out across the country. To own a car was to be American. 

Pretty much all GHG can really be traced back to agriculture in some way. Many people in my climate change course agree that "The Anthropocene Epoch" should start when humans began altering ecosystems for agricultural purposes, thereby starting desertification and many of the current effects of climate change.


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## Ashful (Aug 9, 2022)

thecoalman said:


> The amount of waste before you even buy that product is incredible... Not sure what the solution is because they need to protect the product.


I was working in Germany back in the late 1990's, when they passed the controversial legislation demanding that all manufacturers take back and recycle a very large percentage (90 - 95%?) of all product and packaging they produce.  It was controversial, because of the fear of exactly how much this would cost manufacturers operating in Germany.

I've been back briefly a few times since, but never to live and work, where I'd get any great information on how the program is working out for them.  Obviously, their economy hasn't collapsed, if anything they're the shining star of the EU economy.  I wonder if the program is continuing to work for them, or if it was eventually canceled or had the teeth modified out of it.  Anyone here know?

In principle, I like the idea.  But without uniform federal backing, no state could support such a program, lest it cost them their manufacturing business.


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## SpaceBus (Aug 9, 2022)

Ashful said:


> I was working in Germany back in the late 1990's, when they passed the controversial legislation demanding that all manufacturers take back and recycle a very large percentage (90 - 95%?) of all product and packaging they produce.  It was controversial, because of the fear of exactly how much this would cost manufacturers operating in Germany.
> 
> I've been back briefly a few times since, but never to live and work, where I'd get any great information on how the program is working out for them.  Obviously, their economy hasn't collapsed, if anything they're the shining star of the EU economy.  I wonder if the program is continuing to work for them, or if it was eventually canceled or had the teeth modified out of it.  Anyone here know?
> 
> In principle, I like the idea.  But without uniform federal backing, no state could support such a program, lest it cost them their manufacturing business.


When I was there in march 2012 cases of beer were sold in large plastic racks that required a deposit. You got the deposit back when you returned the rack and bottles, or it went towards the next case(s). I didn't eat out much and when I did it was up on the mountain snowboarding. The slopes/amenities had sorted recycling bins everywhere. I can't remember any other direct examples. I do remember plastic bottles still being available for soft drinks, water, etc.


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## begreen (Aug 9, 2022)

Ashful said:


> I was working in Germany back in the late 1990's, when they passed the controversial legislation demanding that all manufacturers take back and recycle a very large percentage (90 - 95%?) of all product and packaging they produce.  It was controversial, because of the fear of exactly how much this would cost manufacturers operating in Germany.
> 
> I've been back briefly a few times since, but never to live and work, where I'd get any great information on how the program is working out for them.  Obviously, their economy hasn't collapsed, if anything they're the shining star of the EU economy.  I wonder if the program is continuing to work for them, or if it was eventually canceled or had the teeth modified out of it.  Anyone here know?
> 
> In principle, I like the idea.  But without uniform federal backing, no state could support such a program, lest it cost them their manufacturing business.


Germany's progress is amazing. In the 1970s, Germany had around 50,000 landfills. Now, in a country of 83 million inhabitants, there are less than 300 and they are accessed by permit only. Most of their rules and standards now apply to the whole EU. They continue to refine and make progress. Norway recycles soda bottle plastic up to 50 times now. Their systems are setup to make recycled plastic more valuable than new plastic made from fossil fuel. They make it easy to recycle and reward recyclers. There are hundreds of examples where the EU and Germany are leagues ahead of the US in addressing waste. They have done this without destroying their economies. We could learn a lot from them if the political will was there.


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## Ashful (Aug 10, 2022)

Not to make it a thread about Germany, but with regard to following such aggressive (by our standards) policies, the German's are what we'd call "rule followers".  If you ask the typical German why you can't jay walk, or pass a car using the right lane (versus the left) on an expressway, they'll almost certainly say, "you just can't," or "it's not allowed."

It's in our history (blame Prohibition or unreasonable speed limits, if you want) to have stupid laws, and then for average citizens to sensibly ignore those laws, which breeds a culture of "rule breakers".  Spend enough time making friends in Germany, and you'll see this is one of the things for which our American culture is known.  Not all bad... Italy is far worse.   

In any case, I think it's all related.  Getting more sensible laws passed, specifically with regard to recycling, is maybe less than half the battle.  Getting both citizens and corporations to follow those laws, in our present culture, could be the bigger hurdle.


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## begreen (Aug 11, 2022)

Putting the onus on the citizens (and taxpayers) is not the solution. A big difference is that the EU has put the burden for recycling mostly on the producers. They have a strong incentive to make it easier for the consumer to recycle because the producers are held responsible for what they create. This is slowly starting to take root here with the first producer responsibility laws on the books in 4 states now.


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## Poindexter (Aug 12, 2022)

Happen to have some free time this evening.  Have reviewed for stuff we can do.

1. carbon neutral wood heat.  One thing we all have in common .
2. Clothesline for drying clothes.  We did this seasonally on the farm when I was a kid and I honestly miss smelling the apple orchard on my bed linens.
3. Electric vehicles.  Two things I do know are bigger burners, like power plants, are more strictly regulated on emissions than homeowners.  So if we got to burn say 50 tons of coal per hour, better to do it one big plant with commercial level emissions controls.  The other side of the coin is electrical losses in transmission lines can be pretty significant.  I am not equipped to know how much carbon we are emitting to cover transmission losses but I do think it should be discussed.
4. Adoption curve of new tech leading to economic viabiltiy.
5. Solar panels.  I suspect they should end up being carbon negative, that is more more electricity out life cycle than pollution caused in manufacturing, something to look at this winter with my feet up.
6. Insulation and air sealing.  Thank you @vinny11950 .
7. Voting.  Adoption curve again.  I have been registered either independent or libertarian for, gosh, 30 years at least.  I think this is the same as adopting the technology curve again.  If you keep voting for the same SOBs, that is what you will have to choose from next time around.  On the one hand we all want our vote to count, but if people are voting for the greens or the whites instead of just choosing between the reds and the blues the white and green parties (I just made up white.  If it is a thing like the official party of the KKK please accept my apologies in advance) - anyroad when the greens and the whites are getting some votes they are going to get bigger and more sophisticated.
8. reuse single use items.  When I order takeout, I ask for no utensils and often get single use flatware anyway.  
9. Packaging.  This is huge.  I asked the hospital I work for if I could get some cardboard boxes when one of the kids was moving out.  I got 14 - more than one dozen- boxes 18x18x18 inches with 1.5" styrofoam insulation on 6 sides and stacks of Stay-Kold packs in every box.  Along with all the other boxes, it was one day's receipts of incoming pharmaceuticals for one pretty small hospital.  It boggles my mind to think of how many of those stay-cold packs show up on the dock at a big place like Duke or UCLA or the Cleveland Clinic every day.  They go in the trash as soon as the drugs are in a refrigerator, at least up here.
10. Cloth diapers
11. plastics in general
12. (my paraphrase) shareholder greed.  If you got a 401k, you too could be part of the problem...

I would be delighted to hear about 12 more things I could actually do, or think about doing, to 'do my bit.'

*My wife has three stainless steel straws to use in her water bottle collection so she isn't going though disposable straws daily anymore. 
*We are trying to buy locally grown food.  Part of the price of an avocado at Kroger is the diesel fuel required to ship it.  Pine nuts from China, more oil for shipping.  Mediterranean sea salt is usually good enough to pay shipping on.  Whole nutmeg and allspice from the Caribbean I will pay shipping on.  I do occasionally splurge on live Maine lobster, like every five years or so, but based on the price those suckers fly first class in the seats that get free unlimited champagne.
* choose things that last.  The wife and I are both in ICE Toyotas that should last the rest of our lives.  I am done buying flat pack 'furniture' that is mostly air bubbles surrounded by glue with enough sawdust in the mix for the mfr to print "real wood" on the box, with a picture of woodgrain printed on a plastic sheet as the outer laminated layer.  I am done being stylish with clothes.  I miss my flip phone.  Shoes that will last 10 years are worth the purchase price to me.  I have rather more than three pair of made in USA cowboy boots at least 15 years old, but I have never gotten more than a year out of any pair of Nikes I have ever owned.

So there is three.  Y'all got nine more?


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## EbS-P (Aug 12, 2022)

Poindexter said:


> Happen to have some free time this evening.  Have reviewed for stuff we can do.
> 
> 1. carbon neutral wood heat.  One thing we all have in common .
> 2. Clothesline for drying clothes.  We did this seasonally on the farm when I was a kid and I honestly miss smelling the apple orchard on my bed linens.
> ...


Good points. 
As for number 12 I’m sure there are some “green” mutual funds one could buy.  I’m going to look into that for my Roth contribution this year.


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## woodgeek (Aug 12, 2022)

@Poindexter, that is an excellent list.  Some quick info I found...

#3: No need to guess.

Typically, utilities account for how much carbon they emit at the point of generation (by tracking their annual fuel usage) and the also track the amount of kWh they sell at the customer meters.  By estimating the CO2 emissions for each of the fuels they have burned, and dividing this by the number of kWh sold, they arrive at a useful figure of merit, the *gCO2/kWh*.  This (nominally) includes transmission losses, bc the kWh are measured at the customer meter as energy.

I poked around to look for your numbers and found this pdf:  https://static1.squarespace.com/sta...missions_Intensity_Railbelt_2009-2018+(1).pdf

It details the (estimated) gCO2/kWh for the different utilities in AL.  The (energy averaged) value is about 10% higher than the US average, about 526 gCO2/kWh in 2018, and trending downwards slowly (like the lower 48).  Your utility may be higher or lower.

If you assumed a typical EV in your climate managed 3 mi/kWh (conservative), then driving 100 miles would use 33.3 kWh, and emit 33.3*526 = 17,515gCO2 or *17.5 kg CO2*.  

Burning 1 gallon of gasoline emits *8.9 kg of CO2*.  This is almost 20 lbs (!) much more mass than the gasoline in the first place, bc it is reacting with a large mass of air sucked up by the engine.   This does NOT account for the energy required to extract or refine or transport the gasoline.  

I found this article that estimates emissions from oil extraction: https://www.chalmers.se/en/departments/see/news/Pages/Crude-oil-carbon-footprint.aspx

It suggests oil extraction contributes 15 -40% of the total CO2 footprint of oil use.  If we pick a low figure, like 20%, then we should multiply the above figure by 1/0.8 = 1.25.  This get us to 8.9*1.25 = *11 kg CO2* per gallon of gasoline

So, that means, an ICE car would need to burn 17.5/11 = 1.6 gallons to go 100 miles in order to have the same emissions as an EV charged in AL, getting 3 mi/kWh.  100/1.6 = 62.5 mpg equivalent on a CO2 basis.

If you got a more typical 3.5 mi/kWh, the figure would become 3.5/3 = 73 mpg equivalent.

(FYI, these figures jibe with figures of 80+ mpg for EVs in the lower 48 computed by the National Academy of Science study in 2018.   That study added in manufacturing emissions, and did a more thorough analysis of life-cycle emissions. Since AL is 10% higher gCO2/kWh, we could've just guessed 0.9*80 = 72 mpg equivalent)

Ofc, you have to decide if your use cases for an EV are acceptable, and if the car you would be replacing has a (true, seasonal) mpg worse than 60-70 mpg.


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## woodgeek (Aug 12, 2022)

#5: Solar panel net energy/carbon offset:

This has been well studied.  Decades ago the figures were a bit sketchy (so sometimes folks quote very old studies to make solar look bad).  As you know, solar has gotten a lot cheaper.  One way that was accomplished was by reducing the Si metal required per area (or Watt). This reduced the energy required to make a Watt of PV by a similar amount.

Current vintage PV in a US-average (I assume lower 48) solar resource with no shading generates as much energy as required to make the panel in about 18 mos.  I would assume that the CO2 payback time would be roughly similar (since I assume the process heat and energy to refine the Si would be mostly nat gas and electric, not coal).

This figure depends on your solar resource.  This link: https://www.turbinegenerator.org/solar/alaska/fairbanks/
suggest that your solar output for a fixed tilt PV array would be *1200 hours* * output(kW) per year.

If accurate (your local PV installers would know/estimate it for you), this is about 2/3rd of the Southern California figure and 85-90% of the figure for the NorthEast US.  Not bad at all.  I guess its sunny in the summer.

So, given the lower resource, you could probably guess that a PV system would deliver more energy in *2-2.5 years* on your roof than required to build it in the first place.

-------------------------------------------------

Combined with my prior post, this means that after 2.5 years, your PV electricity would be essentially zero CO2, and if used to charge an EV would zero out the fuel contribution to the vehicle emissions.  Since manufacturing contributes about 30% of the total lifecycle emissions of an car, this would take the (life cycle adjusted) figure for emissions per mile down by 70%.  So the emissions of the EV (even in the pessimistic 60 mpg case) to 60/0.3 = roughly 200 mpg equivalent.

IOW, a PV array charging an EV in your location would have a CO2/mile less than 20% of a 40 mpg car, in a full lifecyle analysis.


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## Ashful (Aug 12, 2022)

Very interesting list, Poindexter.  I'll leave the ever-brilliant woodgeek to comment on most of them, but I do have to take issue with re-usable diapers.  We tried them on our first child for a hot minute, and quickly discovered why they've become so rare.  I'd change that item to better recycling or construction of disposable diapers, if you want to have ANY hope of it ever gaining traction.

Got a kick out of woodgeek's benchmark 60-70 mpg.  I'm thrilled when any of my present vehicles break 15 mpg.  Here's to hoping full-size high-horsepower EV's are a bit more reasonably priced, when I'm due to replace the next in the current fleet.  I'm not driving a compact turd, and I'm also not spending $100k+ (2020 dollars) to reduce my carbon output, the parameters are set.


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## peakbagger (Aug 12, 2022)

Solar Hot Water - Check
PV- Check (no net purchases of power for 10 years, my first grid tied array is 20 years old)
Wood boiler (no fossil for five years) - Check
Minisplit - Check 
House energy use on the low end of conventional construction - Check
Plug in Hybrid - Check 
Hybrid charged from Solar - Check

Most of my recreation is local non motorized and if its 50 miles round trip Its "free"to get there  using my plug in hybrid and surplus solar. The last time I did a plane trip for recreation is about 15 years ago. 

It didnt happen overnight, I nibbled away at it over 30  years, did my own installs, used surplus PV panels for 2 of my arrays, took advantage of a utility program to do an energy retrofit on my house. I would like to go with low temp emitters to replace my slant fin but the payback is decades. Same for my wood boiler, its not very efficient but if I dont burn wood, I will just be leaving it in the woodlot from timberstand improvement. 

I do have "toys" but they only eat fuel when I use them which is not that often.


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## EatenByLimestone (Aug 12, 2022)

Here’s one…. 

Drive a couple mph slower.   It’ll save a good amount of gas.   Or electricity of you drive electric


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## Ashful (Aug 12, 2022)

EatenByLimestone said:


> Drive a couple mph slower.   It’ll save a good amount of gas.   Or electricity of you drive electric


True, but I think it'd be easier to convince people to turn their thermostat down a few degrees in winter, than to actually affect any long-term self-imposed change in one's driving habits.  Put otherwise, folks who buy 500 hp cars are rarely spending that extra money with the intent of driving like your grandmother.


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## EatenByLimestone (Aug 12, 2022)

When gas was $5/gal people were doing it.


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## peakbagger (Aug 12, 2022)

I saw an article that the current drop in gas prices is predominantly being driven by folks driving less. It takes a couple of weeks of expensive fill ups to realize that maybe it makes sense not to drive as much. One my weekly trips to Mass, its noticable that the traffic has slowed down a bit. Still some speedster weaving in and out of traffic but far fewer. I try to run a bit slower but there is trade off, in heavy traffic the safest speed is what the other cars are driving. Trying to drive slower than the pack leads to cars and truck on the back bumper trying to push the slower car faster.


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## begreen (Aug 12, 2022)

Poindexter said:


> Happen to have some free time this evening.  Have reviewed for stuff we can do.
> 
> 1. carbon neutral wood heat.  One thing we all have in common .
> 2. Clothesline for drying clothes.  We did this seasonally on the farm when I was a kid and I honestly miss smelling the apple orchard on my bed linens.
> ...


Buy local. Pass on the French wine and get something from the US, preferably made in the state. Pass on buying strawberries out of season, etc.
Recycle responsibly. Find out where your recycling goes and choose the most responsible path. (Hint, choose another if connected to a landfill company)
Make clothing last and don't shop for the latest fashions. Buy natural fiber clothes, they are much more recyclable when worn out.
Drive less, walk and bike more. Use public transit when available
Travel less and shorter distances.
Live in a smaller space to reduce energy needs.
Give up the manor lawn
Live simpler.


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## begreen (Aug 12, 2022)

Ashful said:


> True, but I think it'd be easier to convince people to turn their thermostat down a few degrees in winter, than to actually affect any long-term self-imposed change in one's driving habits.  Put otherwise, folks who buy 500 hp cars are rarely spending that extra money with the intent of driving like your grandmother.


With gas way over $5 a gallon the drop in speed was immediately noticeable locally, especially for trucks.


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## stoveliker (Aug 12, 2022)

begreen said:


> Buy local. Pass on the French wine and get something from the US, preferably made in the state. Pass on buying strawberries out of season, etc.
> Recycle responsibly. Find out where your recycling goes and choose the most responsible path. (Hint, choose another if connected to a landfill company)
> Make clothing last and don't shop for the latest fashions. Buy natural fiber clothes, they are much more recyclable when worn out.
> Drive less, walk and bike more. Use public transit when available
> Live simpler.


Actually, for West coast people the "no French wine" is valid. For east coast people the opposite is true:









						The carbon footprint of wine in National Geographic - Dr Vino's wine blog
					

National Geographic has produced an excellent graphic in the May issue about wine’s carbon footprint (unfortunately, no link is yet available but the magazine is arriving in mailboxes and newsstands now). Pablo Paster and I provided the numbers for them based on our joint research on the...



					www.drvino.com
				




Courtesy of the trucking habit of the US (as opposed to river barges that are not easily going W-E here, or rail, that has been neglected).

Wine from your own state wins though, most likely. I'm not enamored by NY wines though (yet?).


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## begreen (Aug 12, 2022)

That appears to be a flawed study. A lot of truck containers travel by rail across the country instead of all the way by truck. This was not accounted for according to the authors. There are also several decent east coast wines that should have been accounted for. And the Bordeaux region trucks a lot of wine to port. How is that accounted for?
(also note that this article is 13 yrs old.)


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## stoveliker (Aug 12, 2022)

The latter part (Bordeaux transport) is accounted for in the paper.
This is the original paper:





						Red, white and 'green': the cost of carbon in the global wine trade
					

Downloadable!  Climate change is altering a wide range of human activities, including wine making. While wine may appear to be one of the most natural alcoholic beverages, it is not without carbon inputs and emissions, which contribute to the very change in climate that is altering both wine and...




					ideas.repec.org
				



I do agree that I see no evidence that they took into account the distribution of transportation mechanisms in this country, which they should have. (I still doubt that the fraction of rail transport is significant from coast to coast. In particular considering the need to avoid overheating the wine, as noted in that paper. I believe the latter (cooling) is easier with a truck - though very energy intensive.)

They did a few case studies, it appears to me, rather than a study involving accurate percentages of transportation mechanisms.
Nevertheless, the blanket conclusion "US wine is better on the CO2 balance than French wine" is not correct imo.


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## woodgeek (Aug 12, 2022)

I'm making a switch today that might be relevant.... FOOD.

I've been reducing my meat consumption for years, and modified many of my favorite recipes to work well with Impossible Burger.  This makes most of them (ovo-lacto) vegetarian.  My kids are veggies, and so I have also been buying some (very nice) fake chicken nuggets for them we eat sometimes.  This reduced the climate impacts of meat production in my diet.

That said, Impossible is also high fat (coconut, to be precise) and I still eat a LOT of dairy, so this diet not necessarily any healthier, and the dairy still has a large climate impact....

The problem: I think straight veganism is not super healthy AND restrictive AND a PITA when going to restaurants or dinners at friends houses.  And ovo-lacto vegetarianism (which I am getting close to) is not that better for you if you are heavy on the ovo and lacto.

The plan (inspired by a radio interview I heard with Bittman):

*Step 1:* Bittman called it  *Vegan before 6PM*.  That is, breakfast and lunch (and any snacks before 6PM) are full VEGAN.  After 6, you can eat what you want.  I think part of the idea is that vegan substitution 'leaks' into your after 6 eating a lot of the time too.

This is not too hard for me, bc those meals are pretty easy.  I just need to find a good non dairy milk for my cereal/oatmeal breakfast, and to put in my coffee/decaf.  And alter my lunches a little to make them full vegan.

*Step 2:* After 6PM, when eating by myself, I will eat ovo-lacto vegetarian OR vegan.  So I can make the meals I have been enjoying for the last few years that are richer and more flavorful.  But not eating those leftovers for lunch will make my diet healthier.

*Step 3:* Eating out with other people or invited to their homes after 6 PM, I can eat meat.  Whatever they are cooking.  Kinda like how I drink alcohol socially, but not when home alone, or before 6PM.

I figure you all think this sounds nutso, but I'm really excited to try it.  I think it combines the best features of all these meals.  Most of my meals will be vegan.  I will have a non-vegan meal every day (if I want).  Sweets and desserts (non-vegan) will be limited to after dinner, not midday snacks.  And when I go to a (dinner) restaurant or a party I have complete freedom.

I think the result will be healthier for me and the climate, since my dairy will go way down.

I'll let you know how it goes.


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## begreen (Aug 12, 2022)

We eat locally raised chicken, once a week and regionally caught fish once a week. The rest is vegetarian. Eggs come from down the street. Cheese, however, has traveled. That may be our big carbon sink, especially the imported stuff. Fortunately, there are some good cheesemakers in the PacNW, so the imported stuff is not a common item in comparison, but we do like a good feta and parmesano/romano.


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## tlc1976 (Aug 12, 2022)

begreen said:


> With gas way over $5 a gallon the drop in speed was immediately noticeable locally, especially for trucks.


I haven’t seen it here. Even at over $5 a gallon there’s more tourist traffic here than ever. Everyone complains but nobody does anything about it.

Big difference to when gas went way up in the late 2000s. Tourism went way down. Campgrounds were practically empty. Some weekends I was the only one there. People were driving easy or not at all. Others were pulling old Geo Metros and VWs out of fields and selling them for thousands.


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## begreen (Aug 12, 2022)

The tourists are usually the slowest drivers here, gawking at the views. And so many people are out on the highways camping that traffic is often traveling at 10-20mph below the speed limit. I don't even try to go out on hikes or camping on the weekends. Judging by the license plates, most seem to be in-state.


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## Poindexter (Aug 12, 2022)

With great reluctance I will suggest keeping a couple or three chickens.  We raised so many chickens on the farm when I was a kid that I pretty well never (hardly ever) eat chicken anymore - however -   chickens can turn kitchen scraps into eggs.  You can compost that stuff to keep it out of the waste stream, or you can know what the next chicken in your stew pot ate for the entire life cycle while it was laying eggs for you.   Or you can grind up your vegetable peels to feed the bacteria at the water treatment plant.

If you got enough acreage and enough kids and therefore enough vegetable peelings you could think about one pig and two chickens.  Both pigs and chickens are very social creatures, I don't recommend getting just one and have to deal with it being lonely.

I wonder if anyone has found a successful way for inner city residents to get their potato peels onto a compost heap.


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## EbS-P (Aug 13, 2022)

Ashful said:


> True, but I think it'd be easier to convince people to turn their thermostat down a few degrees in winter, than to actually affect any long-term self-imposed change in one's driving habits.  Put otherwise, folks who buy 500 hp cars are rarely spending that extra money with the intent of driving like your grandmother.


And I think that is where taxes and legislation come into play.  In general, individual choices could be much much greener.  I’m not advocating limiting choices, but maybe taxing them.  I think we should should pass a fossil fuel tax.  Maybe just a national sales tax on everything but food.  1/4 of one percent?

Like we established, the wallet is the driving factor for change.   I’m sure there is a point where the desire for speed and power becomes to costly for an individual.


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## EbS-P (Aug 13, 2022)

Poindexter said:


> With great reluctance I will suggest keeping a couple or three chickens.  We raised so many chickens on the farm when I was a kid that I pretty well never (hardly ever) eat chicken anymore - however -   chickens can turn kitchen scraps into eggs.  You can compost that stuff to keep it out of the waste stream, or you can know what the next chicken in your stew pot ate for the entire life cycle while it was laying eggs for you.   Or you can grind up your vegetable peels to feed the bacteria at the water treatment plant.
> 
> If you got enough acreage and enough kids and therefore enough vegetable peelings you could think about one pig and two chickens.  Both pigs and chickens are very social creatures, I don't recommend getting just one and have to deal with it being lonely.
> 
> I wonder if anyone has found a successful way for inner city residents to get their potato peels onto compost?


Countertop composter 500$
Lomi | Electric Kitchen Composter | Turn Waste to Compost with a Single Button by Pela Earth https://a.co/d/gEjtGWk

Vermont has a state law banning food waste from the  trash.


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## begreen (Aug 13, 2022)

EbS-P said:


> Vermont has a state law banning food waste from the trash.


Seattle does too. There is a separate collection bin for yard and food waste. Locally I met a woman who loves composting. She lived in NYC for decades and composted there too. Bokashi composting or a worm bin pail is a solution for apartments.


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## woodgeek (Aug 13, 2022)

begreen said:


> Seattle does too. There is a separate collection bin for yard and food waste. Locally I met a woman who loves composting. She lived in NYC for decades and composted there too. Bokashi composting or a worm bin pail is a solution for apartments.


The New Yawkers I know like to compost bc for many years it was illegal to have garbage disposals in NYC.  Don't know if that is still true.


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## peakbagger (Aug 13, 2022)

begreen said:


> Seattle does too. There is a separate collection bin for yard and food waste. Locally I met a woman who loves composting. She lived in NYC for decades and composted there too. Bokashi composting or a worm bin pail is a solution for apartments.


VT sends all its trash to one landfill owned by Casella up in Newport VT, the landfill leaks into a large fresh water marsh that runs into fresh water lake that is partially in the US and partially in Canada. Leachate collected from the landfill goes to the Newport VT waterwater treatment facility which is fairly primitive small community system, primary to settle out the solids and secondary to clean up BOD. It doesnt really touch contaminants. There is plume of contaminants entering the lake from the treatment plant discharge which happens to be on the outlet of the fresh water marsh. The Canadians are very upset about the contaminants going in the lake but they cant do much. 

VT passed a law to exclude compostables from the waste stream. There was a firm that tried municipal composting but their waste stream was contaminated with pesticides laden organics and caused all sorts of issues until they went out of business. A new firm arose and started to get serious and divert the compostable wastefrom the Casella landfill. Casella bought them. VT is not a shining example at this point.


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## stoveliker (Aug 13, 2022)

What a shame, knowing the leaching of pollutants and not fixing the problem at its cause.


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## EbS-P (Aug 14, 2022)

Today we started cloth diapers. 

Told my wife she could pick a new girl print.  She picked a two cover starter set for 100$ Definitely not a money saving venture.  

And I started a compost bucket.  Will figure out a bin later this week. 

So there are my August and probably September green commitments.  

October maybe a wood fired hot tub.


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## begreen (Aug 14, 2022)

We were fortunate to have a good baby diaper service in Seattle with our boys. That was worth every penny.


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## EbS-P (Aug 14, 2022)

begreen said:


> We were fortunate to have a good baby diaper service in Seattle with our boys. That was worth every penny.


Now I need an elastic replacement service.  Couldn’t remember when we stopped with cloth.  It was some time around the age of two for  the third boy.  All the elastic being washed (but never tumbled dried) once or twice a week for probably close to seven years and there’s no stretch left.   Grandma and her sewing machine to the rescue again.  The stuffed animal hospital calls will will have to wait line after the diapers.


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## Ashful (Aug 15, 2022)

begreen said:


> With gas way over $5 a gallon the drop in speed was immediately noticeable locally, especially for trucks.


On the commercial side of things, yes... I'd believe it.  But for passenger cars, all I noticed was people driving less, not slower.  In fact, if anything, the reduced road congestion seemed to allow traffic to flow more quickly than any other time in recent memory.


----------



## Ashful (Aug 15, 2022)

EbS-P said:


> I’m not advocating limiting choices, but maybe taxing them.  I think we should should pass a fossil fuel tax.


You and I think alike, at least in this regard.  Choices should not be limited, but pay to play is fair.  

However, we already have pretty substantial federal and state taxes on every gallon of fossil fuels, nearly $0.80/gallon in my state.  That doesn't sound like a lot in the face of $5/gallon gasoline, but remember it was in the $2's prior to 2021. 

At the same time, we have tax rebates for those buying EVs, which is arguably an effective tax penalty on those not buying EVs.  Seems like we are already where you propose we go.


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## semipro (Aug 15, 2022)

Ashful said:


> On the commercial side of things, yes... I'd believe it.  But for passenger cars, all I noticed was people driving less, not slower.  In fact, if anything, the reduced road congestion seemed to allow traffic to flow more quickly than any other time in recent memory.


You're right - average vehicle speeds did increase during COVID-19 when fewer vehicles were on the road.  I got the info straight from the state DOTs.


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## peakbagger (Aug 15, 2022)

I agree when the roads were empty, a lot of the highways were racetracks. I didnt see the slowdown until the volume and gas prices went backup. It will be interesting to see if the speed creeps up as the gas prices drift down. I still see plenty of 3/4 and 1 tons hauling 10,000# trailers loaded with ATVs from Mass driving up to my town in Northern NH every weekend.  My house is just off the top of 500 foot hill on the main highway. Its got a runway truck ramp on the downhill side. I will pull my plug in EV into the slow lane at the base of the hill and go the speed limit and watch the fully loaded ATV trucks floor it up the passing lane to 10 to 15 over the speed limit. They must be able to see the gas gauge moving as they head up that hill


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## Ashful (Aug 15, 2022)

I think you'd have to be a very uniquely and especially frugal individual, to have a level of self-control sufficient to change your driving habits for more than a few minutes, based on gas prices.

Driving less?  Easy.

But driving slower?  I just don't believe it's a phenomenon affecting the masses.


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## semipro (Aug 15, 2022)

Ashful said:


> I think you'd have to be a very uniquely and especially frugal individual, to have a level of self-control sufficient to change your driving habits for more than a few minutes, based on gas prices.
> 
> Driving less?  Easy.
> 
> But driving slower?  I just don't believe it's a phenomenon affecting the masses.


Funny -  Since I've started to drive an EV with at best an 80-mile range I've become painfully aware of the relationship between vehicle speed, the non-linear losses associated with wind resistance, and impacts on energy consumption.  
It's really frustrating to have a car that wants to go faster than I'm willing to as a driver.  
I guess the converse might even be more frustrating though.


----------



## EbS-P (Aug 15, 2022)

Ashful said:


> I think you'd have to be a very uniquely and especially frugal individual, to have a level of self-control sufficient to change your driving habits for more than a few minutes, based on gas prices.
> 
> Driving less?  Easy.
> 
> But driving slower?  I just don't believe it's a phenomenon affecting the masses.


When the colonial pipeline shut down I was able to change how I drive and went from 15 mpg to 18.5 around town.   When most of the gas stations are closed and the lines are blocks long at the ones with gas you change how you drive.  

After Katrina when gas went up. I didn’t use 2nd or 4th gear. 

And my bleeding heart Environmentalists views have been transformed by almost every mom driving a full sized and SUV and dad  in his 3/4 ton truck (Upper middle class southerners….. still haven’t quite figured them all out) I’d be fine with doubling the gas tax as long as it went to good use and not the NC DOT.


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## Ashful (Aug 15, 2022)

EbS-P said:


> When the colonial pipeline shut down I was able to change how I drive and went from 15 mpg to 18.5 around town.   When most of the gas stations are closed and the lines are blocks long at the ones with gas you change how you drive.
> 
> After Katrina when gas went up. I didn’t use 2nd or 4th gear.


... but then you eventually went back to driving as you normally do?  That was my point.



semipro said:


> ...non-linear losses associated with wind resistance, and impacts on energy consumption.


Not a mech.E, but I've taken more Newtonian physics than the average Joe.  To my recollection, wind resistance is a friction loss, the force being linear with velocity.  Since work = energy is simply force times displacement, I'd propose the losses due to wind resistance are likely linear, not non-linear.  Maybe there's some secondary effect I'm missing, but whether it's wind resistance, rolling resistance, or any other factor that comes to mind, they're all linear WRT velocity.

What would be non-linear is acceleration.  Acceleration alone is why my wife and I can get 31 mpg and 17 mpg gallon (respectively) in the same vehicle, despite having nearly the same final/highway velocity.


semipro said:


> It's really frustrating to have a car that wants to go faster than I'm willing to as a driver.


Story of my life, I've always owned cars faster than I'm willing to drive them, I think the current sedan is rated near 200 mph.  But I'd say the more frustrating thing is being stuck behind a minivan (or worse... a Prius) on a nice windy and desolate country road.

But this is all getting mighty far from woodgeek's point(s), with which I agree.  If I can remember them correctly, or at least my own take-away:

1.  Climate change solutions must be in alignment with a net (or apparent) cost savings for those voting/deciding on them.
2.  Technology is our most likely path to these solutions.


----------



## begreen (Aug 15, 2022)

semipro said:


> Funny -  Since I've started to drive an EV with at best an 80-mile range I've become painfully aware of the relationship between vehicle speed, the non-linear losses associated with wind resistance, and impacts on energy consumption.
> It's really frustrating to have a car that wants to go faster than I'm willing to as a driver.
> I guess the converse might even be more frustrating though.


I learned this when driving RVs and campers. The effect of wind resistance on a big front vehicle is immediately noticeable between 60mph and 70mph. Cruise control became my friend for maintaining a steady reasonable speed. If I am on vacation, why rush to get there 15-30 minutes earlier?


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## SpaceBus (Aug 15, 2022)

As a human who has ridden a motorcycle with zero wind protection at high speeds, wind resistance is NOT linear. All naked bikes regardless of seating position have extreme buffeting and drag when you get up to 70 MPH, it's twice as bad at 80 and just keeps getting worse. Even a small wind deflector on the headlight changed the drag significantly, but the drastic difference in wind resistance as speed increases is still there, just not felt by the rider as you progressively add more and larger fairing. You can do this with a poorly designed convertible and get a similar effect.


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## peakbagger (Aug 15, 2022)

See this https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/wind-load-d_1775.html Air resistance varies with square of speed but the multiplier starts out real small so it does not matter much at low speeds but once the square get big it goes up quick.
I wish that calculator was in MPH


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## stoveliker (Aug 15, 2022)

Ashful said:


> Not a mech.E, but I've taken more Newtonian physics than the average Joe.  To my recollection, wind resistance is a friction loss, the force being linear with velocity.  Since work = energy is simply force times displacement, I'd propose the losses due to wind resistance are likely linear, not non-linear.  Maybe there's some secondary effect I'm missing, but whether it's wind resistance, rolling resistance, or any other factor that comes to mind, they're all linear WRT velocity.


Air drag is quadratic in speed.


			Air friction with quadratic velocity dependence
		

I forgot why, but I suspect it's due to turbulence. (Or at least, flow dynamics, as I'm not sure if perfectly laminar flow would lead to a linear drag in the range of speed where laminarity (?) can be maintained.)

Edit: indeed, for a Reynolds number <<1 one can use a linear air drag. That's the laminar regime. That is not happening when you drive a car.
My gut was right.








						Linear or Quadratic Air Resistance
					

I'm trying to model a rocket's position with air resistance as a factor.  The rocket is fairly low-powered (Estes A8-3, 9.7N of thrust for 0.7 seconds), and I estimate it won't be going faster than...




					physics.stackexchange.com


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## EbS-P (Aug 15, 2022)

Ashful said:


> ... but then you eventually went back to driving as you normally do?  That was my point.
> 
> 
> Not a mech.E, but I've taken more Newtonian physics than the average Joe.  To my recollection, wind resistance is a friction loss, the force being linear with velocity.  Since work = energy is simply force times displacement, I'd propose the losses due to wind resistance are likely linear, not non-linear.  Maybe there's some secondary effect I'm missing, but whether it's wind resistance, rolling resistance, or any other factor that comes to mind, they're all linear WRT velocity.
> ...


Drag force is V^2.  Power is force times velocity.  Maybe someone who teaches this for a living can put that together (winking at my self)   

Oh Ok that means power requirements at constant speed go as V^3.    

Now here’s the automotive part. One might assume fuel consumption is linear with power, but I don’t think that’s quite right as HP depends on torque and RPM.   Making more torque takes more fuel and the rpm is directly related to speed.


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## ABMax24 (Aug 15, 2022)

Determining engine efficiency really requires a BSFC (brake specific fuel consumption map), that is developing in a lab with the engine on a dyno.

Better efficiency analysis though is part of the reason newer vehicles are coming with 10 speed or CVT transmissions. It makes it much easier for the ecm to find the perfect RPM for best fuel efficiency at any given load.


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## stoveliker (Aug 15, 2022)

Yes, we recently bought a new-to-us (2018) vehicle after the newest vehicle we ever had was a 2010 car.
Unfortunately still ICE (it's the "big" vehicle we have; the smaller one that I drive will be at some point replaced by a plug-in vehicle).
However, I was surprised that it had an 8-speed (auto) transmission. 8 speeds. You can see that immediatly at the RPMs during driving. My 5+R stick shift runs much higher.


----------



## peakbagger (Aug 15, 2022)

I wonder what the break point there is between CVTs and conventional transmissions? Effectively a CVT is a transmission with an infinite set of speeds. It may be that a CVT is a friction device while modern automatics mechanical lock up at upper speeds so on larger drivetrains the overall efficiency is higher with gears.   

My Unimog is an 8 speed manual but I normally only use the upper 5 gears unless off roading or pulling stumps I need 4th gear for reverse as the reverse is locked out in 5th to 8th but I do have the lower 4 speeds for reverse.


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## Ashful (Aug 15, 2022)

stoveliker said:


> Air drag is quadratic in speed.
> 
> 
> Air friction with quadratic velocity dependence
> ...


Thank you, I stand corrected.  Although I have to admit, I can't remember why.



EbS-P said:


> Maybe someone who teaches this for a living can put that together (winking at my self)


You're a physics teacher?  No fair!


----------



## Poindexter (Aug 15, 2022)

Ashful said:


> But this is all getting mighty far from woodgeek's point(s), with which I agree.  If I can remember them correctly, or at least my own take-away:
> 
> 1.  Climate change solutions must be in alignment with a net (or apparent) cost savings for those voting/deciding on them.
> 2.  Technology is our most likely path to these solutions.


I went through the thread just a couple days ago and pulled out the 12 things we had come up with so far that we as individuals could do to slow climate change.  Post 65, it is on page three for me.  Those 12 are the ideas we had come up with so far - with the side branches pruned out.


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## SpaceBus (Aug 15, 2022)

peakbagger said:


> I wonder what the break point there is between CVTs and conventional transmissions? Effectively a CVT is a transmission with an infinite set of speeds. It may be that a CVT is a friction device while modern automatics mechanical lock up at upper speeds so on larger drivetrains the overall efficiency is higher with gears.
> 
> My Unimog is an 8 speed manual but I normally only use the upper 5 gears unless off roading or pulling stumps I need 4th gear for reverse as the reverse is locked out in 5th to 8th but I do have the lower 4 speeds for reverse.


CVTs were banned in F1 since they could effectively keep the engine at peak power at any speed. I think the materials needed to make a CVT handle normal driving in anything larger than a midsize sedan keep them from being placed in trucks. Which is theoretically where they would be the most effective when combined with the proper final drive. Most people also hate driving them because it feels like a lawnmower. I've driven the Nissa Juke Nismo RS with the CVT and it was not that fun. When I wanted a "downshift" it felt like an eternity for the transmission/ECU to select the correct ratio.


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## EbS-P (Aug 15, 2022)

Ashful said:


> ... but then you eventually went back to driving as you normally do?  That was my point.
> 
> 
> Not a mech.E, but I've taken more Newtonian physics than the average Joe.  To my recollection, wind resistance is a friction loss, the force being linear with velocity.  Since work = energy is simply force times displacement, I'd propose the losses due to wind resistance are likely linear, not non-linear.  Maybe there's some secondary effect I'm missing, but whether it's wind resistance, rolling resistance, or any other factor that comes to mind, they're all linear WRT velocity.
> ...


I’m going to challenge point one.  Someone must pay for for the R and D for the tech and initial products that won’t appeal to most based on their negative, subpar or extremely long ROI.   The path to a widely adopted and finically acceptable product must start with money with little promise of return.
The Tesla model is going to be thrown around a lot I feel but I’m hesitant to suggest that as viable route for other products.  Name another product where you can operate  for more than a decade without ANY competition?

We have choose the outcome and at the same time decide what cost we are willing to bear to achieve that outcome.  

 I would gladly pay an extra 20% maybe even 30 % to buy 100% renewable electricity.


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## EbS-P (Aug 15, 2022)

SpaceBus said:


> CVTs were banned in F1 since they could effectively keep the engine at peak power at any speed. I think the materials needed to make a CVT handle normal driving in anything larger than a midsize sedan keep them from being placed in trucks. Which is theoretically where they would be the most effective when combined with the proper final drive. Most people also hate driving them because it feels like a lawnmower. I've driven the Nissa Juke Nismo RS with the CVT and it was not that fun. When I wanted a "downshift" it felt like an eternity for the transmission/ECU to select the correct ratio.


They are not sporty, they are made to be efficient. Ford Maverick hybrid looks to have a CVT.  My guess is the reliability of a 9 or 10 speed auto makes up for any efficiency gain of the CVT.   These are made to get the mileage numbers on EPA tests.  That’s what they are tuned for. CVT or automatic.   They need something that they can keep the motor running in the Atkins cycle peak efficiency.  This is not a peak power cycle. 

I do find it interesting/odd Ford would use one in the hybrid maverick.  Would make it feel more like an EV. And honestly the whole waiting for a downshift, aver driving an EV, just seems like weird now,


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## begreen (Aug 15, 2022)

EbS-P said:


> Name another product where you can operate for more than a decade without ANY competition?


Nissan Leaf & Ford Focus Electric were out a decade ago and on the market when Tesla only had a very pricey and rare sports car for sale.


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## woodgeek (Aug 15, 2022)

Ashful said:


> Thank you, I stand corrected.  Although I have to admit, I can't remember why.
> 
> 
> You're a physics teacher?  No fair!



There are two terms. One source of the resistance force is viscous friction (viscous drag) and it is linear in velocity.  The other is due to the pressure difference between the front and the back (form drag).  And that one is quadratic (approximately) bc the air in front has less time to get out of the way and picks up more energy at higher velocity.

In the car case, the second term dominates.  The prefactor is the frontal area times a shape dependent constant, c_D.









						Drag coefficient - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org


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## ABMax24 (Aug 15, 2022)

CVT's are also used in the performance world; snowmobiles, atv's, SxS, and UTVs use them extensively. They offer a high performing, light weight, and cost effective "transmission" for these machines. That being said they all operate at higher rpm to lower the effective torque on the belt and limit slippage. Both my SxS and Snowmobile operate in excess of 8,000 rpm and suffer a loss of efficiency as a result, along with decreased service life of the belts.

Torque handling capability is the limiting factor in all CVT's, and is the reason they are not found in anything larger than cars and small SUV's. IMO transmission technology has come a long way, and 10 speed transmissions with low viscosity fluid would still be my preferred option in a vehicle.

My first vehicle was a '98 F150, V6, RWD 5 speed manual, about the most efficient pickup you could get for that time. On a good day I was getting 13 L/100km. Now a 2022 GM 1/2 ton with a 3.0 L Diesel, 4wd, 10 speed auto, all the bells and whistles, gets 8 L/100km. A number that beats most mid-sized SUV's and even some small ones. Obviously more improvement is needed, but this is still nothing to scoff at, and a 1/3 reduction in fuel consumption for a similar truck is quite impressive in my books.


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## JRHAWK9 (Aug 16, 2022)

Back in '02 I removed the catalytic converters from my Firehawk.  This resulted in much less CO2 coming out of my tailpipe and seeing CO2 is a greenhouse gas I feel I did something positive to limit the production of green houses gasses from that car.     


























						7.1: Catalytic Converters
					

A catalytic converter is a device used to reduce the emissions from an internal combustion engine (used in most modern day automobiles and vehicles). Not enough oxygen is available to oxidize the …




					chem.libretexts.org


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## SpaceBus (Aug 16, 2022)

EbS-P said:


> They are not sporty, they are made to be efficient. Ford Maverick hybrid looks to have a CVT.  My guess is the reliability of a 9 or 10 speed auto makes up for any efficiency gain of the CVT.   These are made to get the mileage numbers on EPA tests.  That’s what they are tuned for. CVT or automatic.   They need something that they can keep the motor running in the Atkins cycle peak efficiency.  This is not a peak power cycle.
> 
> I do find it interesting/odd Ford would use one in the hybrid maverick.  Would make it feel more like an EV. And honestly the whole waiting for a downshift, aver driving an EV, just seems like weird now,



You can tune a CVT for anything, but yes, in production cars they are normally tuned for fuel efficiency. CVT's are probably the "best" transmission option for most drivers. If they really did drive more like an electric car they would find more widespread adoption, but since peak power is rarely at peak efficiency RPM, they don't drive like EVs. If you wish to accelerate when the trans is in a peak efficiency ratio range, then it takes some time to "skip" down to the ratio range that gives best acceleration. I think a CVT that could handle the torque from an electric motor would probably be the best option for an EV rather than a planetary gear. An EV with a planetary gear makes peak torque at essential "one" RPM, but you can only do that at a stop. With a CVT you could get into the lower RPM range of the electric motor when you want, assuming the CVT has enough "range". The biggest downside is the CVT has a high level of parasitic losses due to the large surface area of the drive belts. Some of the efficiency gains negated by losses.


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## SpaceBus (Aug 16, 2022)

ABMax24 said:


> CVT's are also used in the performance world; snowmobiles, atv's, SxS, and UTVs use them extensively. They offer a high performing, light weight, and cost effective "transmission" for these machines. That being said they all operate at higher rpm to lower the effective torque on the belt and limit slippage. Both my SxS and Snowmobile operate in excess of 8,000 rpm and suffer a loss of efficiency as a result, along with decreased service life of the belts.
> 
> Torque handling capability is the limiting factor in all CVT's, and is the reason they are not found in anything larger than cars and small SUV's. IMO transmission technology has come a long way, and 10 speed transmissions with low viscosity fluid would still be my preferred option in a vehicle.
> 
> My first vehicle was a '98 F150, V6, RWD 5 speed manual, about the most efficient pickup you could get for that time. On a good day I was getting 13 L/100km. Now a 2022 GM 1/2 ton with a 3.0 L Diesel, 4wd, 10 speed auto, all the bells and whistles, gets 8 L/100km. A number that beats most mid-sized SUV's and even some small ones. Obviously more improvement is needed, but this is still nothing to scoff at, and a 1/3 reduction in fuel consumption for a similar truck is quite impressive in my books.


I haven't driven any of the new 10 speed trucks yet, but I did love the 8 speed auto in a BMW 335i m-sport I drove. It wasn't a dual clutch, like found in the M3 proper, but it was lightning fast. Always in the right gear and we averaged 35 MPG highway on a road trip in a car that could run 13 sec quarter mile off the lot. Normally I'm a die hard manual transmission guy, but these new ZF designed torque converter autos and DCT's are great. They give you the right gear pretty much all the time, even in auto mode. 
If I did my conversions right your truck is getting about 30 MPG, which is madness! My '06 six speed cummins dually is averaging 26 on rural roads. It's our farm truck, so I only use when picking up animal feed, gravel, etc., but I wouldn't mind another 20% better fuel economy. I would probably drive it a lot more. I'm hoping some PHEV diesel trucks come on the market which best leverage the strengths of both drive systems. The diesel is going to make more torque at freeway speeds than the electric motors and could probably keep a fairly heavy truck at speed *and* charge the batteries for low speed usage. Could also do away with loud J brakes and just have less noise in general at lower speeds.


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## ABMax24 (Aug 16, 2022)

SpaceBus said:


> I haven't driven any of the new 10 speed trucks yet, but I did love the 8 speed auto in a BMW 335i m-sport I drove. It wasn't a dual clutch, like found in the M3 proper, but it was lightning fast. Always in the right gear and we averaged 35 MPG highway on a road trip in a car that could run 13 sec quarter mile off the lot. Normally I'm a die hard manual transmission guy, but these new ZF designed torque converter autos and DCT's are great. They give you the right gear pretty much all the time, even in auto mode.
> If I did my conversions right your truck is getting about 30 MPG, which is madness! My '06 six speed cummins dually is averaging 26 on rural roads. It's our farm truck, so I only use when picking up animal feed, gravel, etc., but I wouldn't mind another 20% better fuel economy. I would probably drive it a lot more. I'm hoping some PHEV diesel trucks come on the market which best leverage the strengths of both drive systems. The diesel is going to make more torque at freeway speeds than the electric motors and could probably keep a fairly heavy truck at speed *and* charge the batteries for low speed usage. Could also do away with loud J brakes and just have less noise in general at lower speeds.



I don't own an inline 6 3.0 diesel. But 2 family members and a former coworker do.

We have an '18 Colorado with the 2.8 inline 4 diesel. Which even being a smaller truck gets almost the same fuel mileage as the 3.0. I think our Colorado wins at higher speed though due to lower aerodynamic drag. On a calm day, on a a flat road, I've done as good as 7.5l/100km at 125km/h (78mph). This truck will do 6l/100km if we keep the speed below 85km/h.


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## Riverbanks (Aug 16, 2022)

I saw a post about Mediterranean Sea salt, anyone try sea love sea salt? It's from n.c., I saw it on PBS "startup"


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## peakbagger (Aug 16, 2022)

My Rav 4 Prime has a CVT and is the second fastest Toyota they sell in the US.  I think total HP Gas and electric is 325 total.


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## Ashful (Aug 16, 2022)

peakbagger said:


> My Rav 4 Prime... is the second fastest Toyota they sell in the US.


lol... not far from citing the second hairiest bald guy, or second darkest albino.  

Toyota has made some nice cars over the years (GR Supra, GT86, 2000GT), but the fact that a RAV4 is their current second fastest is perfect evidence of how far they've strayed from that goal.


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## peakbagger (Aug 16, 2022)

5.5 seconds 0 to 60 is not that shabby for a normally aspirated  car.

My GMC Syclone was 5.1 seconds and was turbo intercooled and ran premium.


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## Ashful (Aug 16, 2022)

peakbagger said:


> 5.5 seconds 0 to 60 is not that shabby for a normally aspirated  car.


Yeah, it's not.  I was just having some fun with you.   

My naturally-aspirated full-size sedan has you beat by 20% on 0 - 60, but likely gets worse than half the mileage.


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## semipro (Aug 16, 2022)

peakbagger said:


> My Rav 4 Prime has a CVT and is the second fastest Toyota they sell in the US.  I think total HP Gas and electric is 325 total.


...and damned hard to find at a dealer.  We looked.  Some used 2021s are becoming available but at new 2022 prices.


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## woodgeek (Aug 16, 2022)

peakbagger said:


> 5.5 seconds 0 to 60 is not that shabby for a normally aspirated  car.



I feel better about my Bolt now, which everyone seems to think is a joke.  With good tires, it can do 0-60 in 6.3 seconds.  Its probably faster 0-30 and 0-40 than the Rav4 Prime.


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## JRHAWK9 (Aug 16, 2022)

My '21 Crosstrek is a CVT.  Gets way better fuel economy than the manual 6 speed does.


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## EbS-P (Aug 16, 2022)

Ashful said:


> lol... not far from citing the second hairiest bald guy, or second darkest albino.
> 
> Toyota has made some nice cars over the years (GR Supra, GT86, 2000GT), but the fact that a RAV4 is their current second fastest is perfect evidence of how far they've strayed from that goal.


Now Toyota can’t even keep wheels on!


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## peakbagger (Aug 17, 2022)

the BEZ is a rebadged Subaru Solterra so this one is on Subaru


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## Ashful (Aug 17, 2022)

woodgeek said:


> I feel better about my Bolt now, which everyone seems to think is a joke.  With good tires, it can do 0-60 in 6.3 seconds.  Its probably faster 0-30 and 0-40 than the Rav4 Prime.


The ultra-torquey 0-30 mph range makes EV's more fun than go-carts, for the hours and hours of around-town driving so many of us do.  I'm still amazed every time I hop into a Tesla, even the "lowly" Model 3 (dual motor AWD), at how snappy they are at in-town speeds.


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## semipro (Aug 17, 2022)

woodgeek said:


> I feel better about my Bolt now, which everyone seems to think is a joke.  With good tires, it can do 0-60 in 6.3 seconds.  Its probably faster 0-30 and 0-40 than the Rav4 Prime.


I don't know about 0-30 or 0-40 but the Prime does 0-60 in 5.4 sec.  -- one of the reasons I want one.








						Tested: 2021 Toyota RAV4 Prime Is Quicker Than Supra 2.0
					

Toyota's plug-in RAV4 has 302 hp, can tow 2500 pounds, and will beat a four-cylinder Supra in a few acceleration tests.




					www.caranddriver.com


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## stoveliker (Aug 17, 2022)

And here we go, we have a fair solution to personal transport, but we still find ways to waste the (smaller) amount of fossil fuel resources (see grid mix) it still requires, by racing with unnecessary acceleration.


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## SpaceBus (Aug 17, 2022)

The Rav4 Prime is decidedly a capable vehicle. I could see ourselves owning one some day, but both of our vehicles probably have at least another decade of life left in them. Especially my truck if I keep up on the rust.


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## Ashful (Aug 17, 2022)

stoveliker said:


> And here we go, we have a fair solution to personal transport, but we still find ways to waste the (smaller) amount of fossil fuel resources (see grid mix) it still requires, by racing with unnecessary acceleration.


I think I made that point back in post #98!  Even those pretending to be green, still choose a car with quicker acceleration and poorer fuel economy, over the same vehicle body with the lesser but more economic engine.

I’ll take woodgeeks original premise one step farther.  It’s not just that technology will save us, but that we need technology to save us, from ourselves!


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## peakbagger (Aug 17, 2022)

Having owned the blatantly overpowered GMC Syclone for a few years until the northern roads and GMCs crappy corrosion design started to win out, I can state that except for rare conditions the Prime has far more immediate power on tap. It does have traction control tuned pretty tight so no major smoke shows but put it in Sport mode (shock, steering and throttle response tightened up) and Hybrid mode (ICE running) and it has instant power, no turbo lag and far less derate due to ambient temps. Even the ECO EV mode still has power but there is a bit of lag until the ICE starts up. Turbos especially ones grafted to an existing engine tend to have turbo lag due to length of the intake track. The Syclone actually had an water cooler intracoooler versus an intercooler so the tract was a bit shorter but it still was noticeable and had to be planned for on passes. The Prime has instant power, go for a pass and the power is there right now and lots of it. Passing is rarely an issue. 

That is the nice thing about modern electric powertrains is that they can be tuned for both economy and acceleration (obviously not at the same time). With a hybrid if someone gets a bit enthusiastic, the just have to buy it bit more gas with full electric they just have to be aware of shorter range. 

All that and I see 40MPG on gas at a GPS recorded 70 MPH (Speedo is bit optimistic and reads 73).  Knock on wood after 12 years with econoboxes, the Prime would be hard to beat for my use. I need AWD as I still have 4 months of winter and even though I have the "stripper" SE version it has still got all the goodies I want and some I could live without like a sunroof. (SE Primes without sunroofs are very very rare, but are about $2K less ). My guess is anyone with an ICE SUV could switch to a Prime and with the exception of plugging it in would not know the difference. Since I have excess PV generation and net metering the first 50 miles (in summer) is "free" In the deep of winter its more like 28 miles. Sad to say, IMO, Toyota sold the Prime as a loss leader and I have no doubt they lose money on everyone, theyare built on a low volume line in Japan and shipped to US. I do not know if they will shift production to North America to reduce costs and increase production.  I could see it being retooled with the new solid state battery once its goes commercial but the claim is they will use them in hybrids first, most likely the new Tacoma.


----------



## stoveliker (Aug 17, 2022)

Ashful said:


> I think I made that point back in post #98!  Even those pretending to be green, still choose a car with quicker acceleration and poorer fuel economy, over the same vehicle body with the lesser but more economic engine.
> 
> I’ll take woodgeeks original premise one step farther.  It’s not just that technology will save us, but that we need technology to save us, from ourselves!



Not me. I drive 40-41 mpg in a small stick shift ICE car that's now 10 yrs old. And yes, I've gotten doors etc. from the orange club in that thing. Creativity goes a long way to preventing hauling needless steel.

I do understand the AWD needs of some.

But, are you advocating for speed limiters ("technology to save us from ourselves")?? 18 wheelers have them in NL. And I'm not sure it's a really good idea. Acceleration limiters would even be more unsafe imo.


----------



## sneefy (Aug 17, 2022)

peakbagger said:


> the BEZ is a rebadged Subaru Solterra so this one is on Subaru


It's the other way around. The Solterra is a rebadged bZ4x. It was a co-developed venture, but the bulk of the engineering was done by Toyota.


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## sneefy (Aug 17, 2022)

woodgeek said:


> I feel better about my Bolt now, which everyone seems to think is a joke.


Having been a passenger in the rear seat of a Bolt, it certainly felt like one. It was less comfortable than a wooden pew and had about as much cushioning. 

That and the fact that GM was forced to tell some owners to park 50 feet away from, well, _anything_ due to spontaneous fires didn't exactly help people take the car seriously. 

But, hey, you can say it's just like a Ferrari!


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## woodgeek (Aug 17, 2022)

sneefy said:


> Having been a passenger in the rear seat of a Bolt, it certainly felt like one. It was less comfortable than a wooden pew and had about as much cushioning.
> 
> That and the fact that GM was forced to tell some owners to park 50 feet away from, well, _anything_ due to spontaneous fires didn't exactly help people take the car seriously.
> 
> But, hey, you can say it's just like a Ferrari!


The '17-'20 MY Bolts did have sucky seats.  I know, I owned one, tore down the seats and added more foam. 
And I totaled that one before it could spontaneously combust, a win!

The folks with the recalls had to live with 80% of stated range for 12-18 mos, and then got a brand new battery for their trouble, along with a roughy $6k jump in their car's resale.  Or so they tell me.

I'll keep going vroom-vroom in my '22 Bolt with the roomy back seats.  You can do you.


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## Ashful (Aug 17, 2022)

stoveliker said:


> But, are you advocating for speed limiters ("technology to save us from ourselves")?? 18 wheelers have them in NL. And I'm not sure it's a really good idea. Acceleration limiters would even be more unsafe imo.


Oh heavens no... are you new here?   I'm simply pointing out that telling people to drive slower is going to be almost as successful as our failed experiment in Prohibition.

If you want to reduce the impact of personal transportation, the path to success would appear to be through better technology, whether that be in the form of BEV's, PHEV's, or any other solution allowing one to approximate their current driving expectations at lesser impact.


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## stoveliker (Aug 17, 2022)

I was just trolling you.


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## EbS-P (Aug 17, 2022)

woodgeek said:


> The '17-'20 MY Bolts did have sucky seats.  I know, I owned one, tore down the seats and added more foam.
> And I totaled that one before it could spontaneously combust, a win!
> 
> The folks with the recalls had to live with 80% of stated range for 12-18 mos, and then got a brand new battery for their trouble, along with a roughy $6k jump in their car's resale.  Or so they tell me.
> ...


It’s kinda a shame that’s it’s going away soon.  It’s priced very well. Like GM is probably loosing money well.  I still don’t get that decision.  

It’s definitely at the top of my NOT a Tesla and  less than 6 seats list. (Which really is the list I would actually be buying from).


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## woodgeek (Aug 17, 2022)

EbS-P said:


> It’s kinda a shame that’s it’s going away soon.  It’s priced very well. Like GM is probably loosing money well.  I still don’t get that decision.
> 
> It’s definitely at the top of my NOT a Tesla and  less than 6 seats list. (Which really is the list I would actually be buying from).


GM did recently ink a new deal with LG Chem for more new battery than its previous purchases to date (which is >150,000 Bolts). AFAIK they have not set a date for ending Bolt production, and the Ultium Equinox will take a couple years to get up to production.  

Since refreshes usually come every 5-6 years at Chevy, they could make them to 21+5 = 2026.

The IRA may hasten its demise... since it will not get a rebate with its LG battery, and the US battery plants all make Ultium I think.


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## Poindexter (Aug 18, 2022)

American vehicles is a hard thing.  When my 2004 GTO was new it was a beast, and I wanted a beast, gosh almost 20 years ago.  It was so good  I had less than 200 miles on it when I decided to sell off ALL of my first gen Small Block Chevy parts; blocks, heads, cranks, all of it.  I could (in west Texas) set the cruise on that thing in the second overdrive and observe 28 mpg while the mile markers were flipping by at 120 (+) mph.

I have slowed down rather considerable in the intervening decades.  What I want now is a vehicle that will last and last and last, and meet my needs while doing it.  Just because a Tacoma works for me doesn't mean it is the best vehicle for anyone else.  The Tundra is easily a better all around truck.  On the other hand not everyone needs Otto cycle with some cubic inches and associated torque to pull a boat off a muddy riverbank multiple times per year.  I like that on Nokian Hakkapeliitta my truck can more or less climb ice encrusted tree trunks, but that doesn't matter to anyone in Florida or Hawaii.

At the end of the day, for Americans, torque is fun.  Coming off the line from a standing start, the Prius was making more or less infinite toque at rest, but by the time that car and mine finished crossing the intersection with the traffic light I could walk that thing like an Amish cart with an old horse in front of the Toyota emblem.

I am struggling to think of an unmodified factory original car that could beat my goat off the line in 05 or 06.  The Corvette, Ferrari and Lamborghini of course, Aston Martin; but none of mustangs, BMW and Lexus and etcetera rated even turning my traction control off.

On the one hand I kinda miss handing out abject humiliation to all and sundry, but on the other hand I have moved on and have higher priorities now.  As my older daughter is inclined to say, "Nice truck, sorry about your Richard."


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## Brian26 (Aug 18, 2022)

JRHAWK9 said:


> My '21 Crosstrek is a CVT.  Gets way better fuel economy than the manual 6 speed does.


My wife has a 2019 Impreza that has the same exact engine and CVT as the Crosstrek.  I am always amazed with its awd it can still deliver 38 mpg.

This is a dyno test from a stock 2019 crosstrek. The poster said the torque curve basically peaks and is flat at 2600 rpms all the way to redline.

The torque is the top blue chart and red is hp. Notice its basically delivering its max torque through almost its entire normal driving rpm engine range . No doubt the CVT is playing a huge part in that.


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## semipro (Aug 18, 2022)

WRT GHG reduction:
Anyone have thoughts, or better yet, data, on whether it's better to shop locally or buy online and have stuff delivered? I wonder this every time I hear the UPS truck making its daily rounds through our area. 
It seems obvious that buying locally produced things should result in less GHG production.  I'm really thinking about those things that aren't produced locally.  E.g., what we've bought lately, mower parts, kayaking accessories, kitchen gadgets, clothing, etc.
We typically run into town at least once a week from our somewhat rural location to shop and I keep thinking that we should buck up, have some discipline, plan ahead, and have stuff delivered.


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## stoveliker (Aug 18, 2022)

If you go to town anyway, it's better to get the stuff you need then, there, than have it delivered - according to what I read someplace. I think this was in the first Covid lockdown that these discussions came up as deliveries of all kinds were way up.

Yes, you make a bit more stops in town, but your vehicle is better for GHG than the UPS truck that makes a lot of stops.

If you drive to town for that one thing, I think delivery would have been better - depending on how far away from town you live...

Meaning that I plan my shopping trips - the more things are combined into one trip, the better it is for GHG. Regardless of the debate, this is the best thing to do imo.
(And it's also better for my sanity;  I don't live out in the country, sadly, but stores and all their hustle just are not my thing.)


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## JRHAWK9 (Aug 18, 2022)

Brian26 said:


> My wife has a 2019 Impreza that has the same exact engine and CVT as the Crosstrek.  I am always amazed with its awd it can still deliver 38 mpg.
> 
> This is a dyno test from a stock 2019 crosstrek. The poster said the torque curve basically peaks and is flat at 2600 rpms all the way to redline.
> 
> ...



I have the 2.5L though.  '21 was the first year they offered it in the Limited and Sport trims in the Crosstreks.  I have the Limited.

Yeah, CVT's definitely have their advantages.  Like you pointed out, keeping the rpm's in the sweet spot is a HUGE advantage for both power and fuel economy.

This is the first auto I have bought in a long time.  My HS car is an auto (which I still have), but all my cars since 1997 have been manuals.  If the manual version of the Crosstrek would have been rated for better mileage than the CVT, I would have bought a manual.  I could not ignore the huge discrepancy in fuel mileage between the two though.


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## tlc1976 (Aug 18, 2022)

I prefer to buy things in person. That way I know what I’m getting. I can pick among the better inventory, or better tell if something is quality or cheap junk. Unless it’s some unusual situation like medical related, or have to get a part to finish a repair job that has to be done now…. I always wait on trips and do many things in one trip. I don’t like spending time in stores or driving around town. I’ll often buy a month’s worth of food at once.

As far as getting things shipped, I usually just have them sent to my work, where there is already a truck there daily. Porch pirates aren’t much concern out in the sticks, but I’d rather not have a package wet or buried in snow or blown away by the wind. Also the USPS is a crapshoot, I get other peoples mail often so they probably get mine too. Had a couple packages delivered to someone else’s house, one person was honest and brought it over, the other not so much.

Torque, I like it. It’s been said that the 3.1 MPFI engine (which I have in 2 cars) from 0-30 is faster than a Cadillac 4.9 V8 of the same era. I can believe it. And I still get 30-35 mpg with my 89 Celebrity with 305k on it. That’s my local summer runner. 9 miles to work, 2 stop signs and no traffic lights. For winter and towing I have my 96 Cherokee 4.0 5 speed which has good torque too. I need that out here, just to get in and out of my driveway sometimes, and with my road being one of the last ones plowed.

I also did a bunch of insulating in my attics this spring. I’m seeing a big difference of heat travel over the summer, so hopefully the same reduction in heat travel will apply this winter.

Other things I do, I don’t have AC. Just use shades and fans and the layout of the property to my advantage. Don’t do anything to the lawn except mow around the house every 2 weeks and the big part out front once a month. Do only full loads of laundry. Save up recyclables in recyclable pellet bags and take them in when I get enough to fill the back of the Jeep. Food waste goes out to the woods for the critters. Don’t have much actual trash. I keep and use my old things as long as they work. Had my Celebrity for 19 years. Still use my Schwinn bike I got new in 1988. I not only like my vintage stuff, but getting things from people who are done with it keeps it out of the landfill too. All my clothes and many other things come from resales.


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## Ashful (Aug 18, 2022)

I'm not sure what this thread is even about, anymore.  Seems to me woodgeek has some pretty lofty ideas, and the rest of us are lost in the weeds of debating ICE's of various vintage and design.  My hands aren't completely clean, either.

For what it's worth, call me a techno-optimist... and I'm not sure the collapsing population growth is a bad thing.  Anyone familiar with the history of 1350's Europe might agree, at least on some points.


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## woodgeek (Aug 18, 2022)

Ashful said:


> I'm not sure what this thread is even about, anymore.  Seems to me woodgeek has some pretty lofty ideas, and the rest of us are lost in the weeds of debating ICE's of various vintage and design.  My hands aren't completely clean, either.
> 
> For what it's worth, call me a techno-optimist... and I'm not sure the collapsing population growth is a bad thing.  Anyone familiar with the history of 1350's Europe might agree, at least on some points.



Not a problem... we are on topic.  My OP was just arguing that climate change will be solved by everyone doing their own thing, using the best tech that they can find, and trying to save money at the same time.

It all feeds the Big Green Vortex!


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## SpaceBus (Aug 18, 2022)

I think in general, and from my research, that keeping a "legacy" vehicle on the road has a lesser carbon footprint than buying a new EV. This obviously doesn't count if your legacy ICE vehicle is on the way out anyway, or if you can't find an equivalent EV (trucks, vans, etc.). My Cummins has been consuming oil lately, so I'm thinking it will be due for a rebuild next winter. Even spending $10k + to rebuild the entire long block and keeping the truck on the road should still have less carbon emissions than buying a new truck since there isn't an EV that can do the same job. As much as I'd like an F150 Lightning, it would cost 4-5 times what I'll spend rebuilding my current truck and not do the job I need it to do. A new diesel would just be out of the question as well.


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## EbS-P (Aug 18, 2022)

semipro said:


> WRT GHG reduction:
> Anyone have thoughts, or better yet, data, on whether it's better to shop locally or buy online and have stuff delivered? I wonder this every time I hear the UPS truck making its daily rounds through our area.
> It seems obvious that buying locally produced things should result in less GHG production.  I'm really thinking about those things that aren't produced locally.  E.g., what we've bought lately, mower parts, kayaking accessories, kitchen gadgets, clothing, etc.
> We typically run into town at least once a week from our somewhat rural location to shop and I keep thinking that we should buck up, have some discipline, plan ahead, and have stuff delivered.


I have not seen data.  My guess is the fewer stops the delivery truck makes the less GHG emissions but is  it going down your street every day.  (It is for me) Soooo is one stop less better than you going out once a week? Probably.

All retailers are getting deliveries. Unless it’s made local I’m not sure there is much savings other than boxes and tape. Which would add up.

Getting all your orders delivered together would be a good thing.

And I guess it depends on what your vehicle is and how far it is.


SpaceBus said:


> I think in general, and from my research, that keeping a "legacy" vehicle on the road has a lesser carbon footprint than buying a new EV. This obviously doesn't count if your legacy ICE vehicle is on the way out anyway, or if you can't find an equivalent EV (trucks, vans, etc.). My Cummins has been consuming oil lately, so I'm thinking it will be due for a rebuild next winter. Even spending $10k + to rebuild the entire long block and keeping the truck on the road should still have less carbon emissions than buying a new truck since there isn't an EV that can do the same job. As much as I'd like an F150 Lightning, it would cost 4-5 times what I'll spend rebuilding my current truck and not do the job I need it to do. A new diesel would just be out of the question as well.


it’s all mileage dependent. Lower miles per year makes sense to keep the old ones running.  Nothing lasts forever.  10k plus fuel and oil and filters  for 10 more years adds up.  Definitely not to a new truck.


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## Ashful (Aug 18, 2022)

Ashful said:


> I'm not sure what this thread is even about, anymore.  Seems to me woodgeek has some pretty lofty ideas, and the rest of us are lost in the weeds of debating ICE's of various vintage and design.  My hands aren't completely clean, either.
> 
> For what it's worth, call me a techno-optimist... and I'm not sure the collapsing population growth is a bad thing.  Anyone familiar with the history of 1350's Europe might agree, at least on some points.


Any particular reason that several of my recent posts have been edited?  I didn't write this.


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## begreen (Aug 18, 2022)

Ashful said:


> Any particular reason that several of my recent posts have been edited?  I didn't write this.


Catching up on this thread. I have been away for a few days. I see no sign of edit history. Start a PM with webfish if there is tampering with your posting.


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## begreen (Aug 18, 2022)

SpaceBus said:


> I think in general, and from my research, that keeping a "legacy" vehicle on the road has a lesser carbon footprint than buying a new EV. This obviously doesn't count if your legacy ICE vehicle is on the way out anyway, or if you can't find an equivalent EV (trucks, vans, etc.). My Cummins has been consuming oil lately, so I'm thinking it will be due for a rebuild next winter. Even spending $10k + to rebuild the entire long block and keeping the truck on the road should still have less carbon emissions than buying a new truck since there isn't an EV that can do the same job. As much as I'd like an F150 Lightning, it would cost 4-5 times what I'll spend rebuilding my current truck and not do the job I need it to do. A new diesel would just be out of the question as well.


This seems to assume that the legacy vehicle is heading to the junkyard. If is it sold and continues for another N miles then its carbon footprint (an oil industry coined phrase) remains the same, no?


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## SpaceBus (Aug 19, 2022)

EbS-P said:


> I have not seen data.  My guess is the fewer stops the delivery truck makes the less GHG emissions but is  it going down your street every day.  (It is for me) Soooo is one stop less better than you going out once a week? Probably.
> 
> All retailers are getting deliveries. Unless it’s made local I’m not sure there is much savings other than boxes and tape. Which would add up.
> 
> ...



I doubt I go more than 5,000 miles a year in my truck, probably the same or less for the car. As much as I just want an EV, it just doesn't make any sense for us in the near future.


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## SpaceBus (Aug 19, 2022)

begreen said:


> This seems to assume that the legacy vehicle is heading to the junkyard. If is it sold and continues for another N miles then its carbon footprint (an oil industry coined phrase) remains the same, no?


Good point, but many legacy vehicles do go to the junkyard or auctioned at wholesale. If everyone could keep a vehicle for 20+ years that would definitely bring down the carbon footprint for everyone. Of course many people don't do that and just trade their vehicles in once they are paid off. I didn't know the oil industry coined the term "carbon footprint", but I did know they have been pushing "climate change" vs "global warming", despite both things basically meaning the same thing.


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## EbS-P (Aug 19, 2022)

SpaceBus said:


> I think in general, and from my research, that keeping a "legacy" vehicle on the road has a lesser carbon footprint than buying a new EV. This obviously doesn't count if your legacy ICE vehicle is on the way out anyway, or if you can't find an equivalent EV (trucks, vans, etc.). My Cummins has been consuming oil lately, so I'm thinking it will be due for a rebuild next winter. Even spending $10k + to rebuild the entire long block and keeping the truck on the road should still have less carbon emissions than buying a new truck since there isn't an EV that can do the same job. As much as I'd like an F150 Lightning, it would cost 4-5 times what I'll spend rebuilding my current truck and not do the job I need it to do. A new diesel would just be out of the question as well.


Here is good video doing the math.  One might think that everything would scale to tucks as well.


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## ABMax24 (Aug 19, 2022)

SpaceBus said:


> Good point, but many legacy vehicles do go to the junkyard or auctioned at wholesale. If everyone could keep a vehicle for 20+ years that would definitely bring down the carbon footprint for everyone. Of course many people don't do that and just trade their vehicles in once they are paid off.



I know it's becoming a lot more common to keep old vehicles. It's been 15 years since particulate filters were introduced on diesel pickups, and there is still a huge demand for '07 and earlier models due to the simplicity and much lower cost of repairs. I know I'm in this boat too, this year I've spent less in parts on an 8 year old truck than a single payment would be on a new one. So for now my money will go to RockAuto and Fedex instead of a payment.

Which I think brings up an interesting point, there is going to be a group of people that are going to deliberately continue driving ICE vehicles as long as possible instead of switching to EV. In Canada that is being addressed through a carbon tax with a yearly increase that makes ICE vehicle prohibitively expensive to drive, but so far I haven't seen anything similar in the US.


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## EbS-P (Aug 19, 2022)

ABMax24 said:


> I know it's becoming a lot more common to keep old vehicles. It's been 15 years since particulate filters were introduced on diesel pickups, and there is still a huge demand for '07 and earlier models due to the simplicity and much lower cost of repairs. I know I'm in this boat too, this year I've spent less in parts on an 8 year old truck than a single payment would be on a new one. So for now my money will go to RockAuto and Fedex instead of a payment.
> 
> Which I think brings up an interesting point, there is going to be a group of people that are going to deliberately continue driving ICE vehicles as long as possible instead of switching to EV. In Canada that is being addressed through a carbon tax with a yearly increase that makes ICE vehicle prohibitively expensive to drive, but so far I haven't seen anything similar in the US.


No chance of carbon tax here in the US.  Best we could do is maybe up the fed and state gas tax but I don’t see that ever happening.  

We really need a some consumption tax at some level.  The new climate bill has taken steps to incentivize greener tech at many levels but….. there is no stick.   We will let the free market do the beating and with the current projections for natural gas prices this coming winter I bet we will get some bruises.


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## ABMax24 (Aug 19, 2022)

EbS-P said:


> No chance of carbon tax here in the US. Best we could do is maybe up the fed and state gas tax but I don’t see that ever happening.



I think at some point other western nations are going to force that hand, there's only so long that citizens of other nations are going to continue to take cuts to their energy use without directing anger at the US for not also following suit.



EbS-P said:


> We will let the free market do the beating and with the current projections for natural gas prices this coming winter I bet we will get some bruises.



I've got the opposite problem, gas here right now is $2/MMbtu, US benchmark this morning is $9.10/MMbtu. Our gas is landlocked by pipelines that are already at capacity.


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## Ashful (Aug 19, 2022)

begreen said:


> Catching up on this thread. I have been away for a few days. I see no sign of edit history. Start a PM with webfish if there is tampering with your posting.


Well, both my post and my subsequent quote of it, were switched back to the original text this morning.  Same with another post in another thread, which I had called out last night, which I suppose could have been taken as more offensive than the above.  Just one of the mod's having fun?

Welcome back, anyway!


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## sneefy (Aug 19, 2022)

EbS-P said:


> No chance of carbon tax here in the US.



How much would you like to bet on that?


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## EbS-P (Aug 19, 2022)

sneefy said:


> How much would you like to bet on that?


I think it’s a very safe bet that no action will be taken in the next 2 years.  I don’t see any substantial changes coming in the senate that would make it likely in the next 4.   EPA powers have been reduced and I don’t see the US caving to any foreign influence soon.  

200$ on no carbon tax in the US in 2 years and 100$ in 4. 50$ on no tax on the next decade.  (I almost said my next raise but it’s cap at 7.5% annually and I just paid $3.20 for a dozen eggs so I will probably need all of it for my grocery bill). 

States may very well lead the way here.  

We  will have to replace lost gas tax revenue.  Registration fees on EVs seem like the current solution but in NC that equals 7000 miles driven at 20 mpg.


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## woodgeek (Aug 19, 2022)

ABMax24 said:


> Which I think brings up an interesting point, there is going to be a group of people that are going to deliberately continue driving ICE vehicles as long as possible instead of switching to EV. In Canada that is being addressed through a carbon tax with a yearly increase that makes ICE vehicle prohibitively expensive to drive, but so far I haven't seen anything similar in the US.



When bought my house in '05, it still had a slammer coal stove insert that was installed around 1980.  Totally legal.  I could have (and still could) drive a ways west in a pickup, and buy a load of nut coal, and heat my house with that all winter.  Totally legal.  There are plenty of folks in my area (and on this board) who would do just that.

Not a problem, bc the numbers aren't there.  Same for collectible cars.

For folks clinging to older model ICE cars past 2040... they will be taken care of by two things... (1) RUST and (2) The scorn of their children and neighbors.  Neither one ever sleeps.  

And the point of this thread is that Total Cost of Ownership will eventually tilt in favor of EVs, across vehicle categories.

The stragglers after all that goes down... will not be a problem.


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## stoveliker (Aug 19, 2022)

In some countries in Europe they will implement a "mile tax" rather than a gas tax. Using the yearly inspection (I presume) to look at mileage. This is with the recognition that gas tax will go down but road use will not, when ICE -> EV is happening.


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## sneefy (Aug 19, 2022)

EbS-P said:


> 200$ on no carbon tax in the US in 2 years and 100$ in 4. 50$ on no tax on the next decade.



'No chance' has an expiration, I see, lol. 

No bet on 2 or 4 years. Next decade, I'll take that bet with low confidence.


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## woodgeek (Aug 19, 2022)

sneefy said:


> How much would you like to bet on that?



I'll take that bet.  Who is proposing any such thing?  Maybe you didn't read the OP post by (conservative) economist blogger Noah Smith, where he reported that the most progressive elements of the Climate Action team is ROUTED and scattering due to their complete failure as a political movement.  Poor Greta, she seemed like a nice kid.  And that post (and this thread) is about how they are irrelevant anyway, bc we are going to solve climate change with cheap abundant renewable energy and cheap green tech.

The last serious player I heard touting the merits of a Carbon Tax in the US was Exxon-Mobil doing that 10 years ago!  They had clearly concluded that so long as the US focussed on carbon taxes, then climate action would remain fringey and unpopular, and they could certainly get their paid pols to then keep the price per ton CO2 low enough to keep Exxon in business forever.

Have to say, back then a lot of progressive people on the Left, when they saw who they were sharing the 'Carbon Tax' bed with... they shut up real quick.  

That is not to say that there aren't a ton of folks crowing about Carbon Taxes... on the Right.  Trying to scare folks with hypothetical future energy bills with hefty surcharges set by none other than Bernie Sanders and AOC!  Who will laugh at you while you are shivering in the dark.

Want a different bet?  Let's go count how many times AOC and Bernie are mentioned on the Fox News website in a week, versus on the 'liberal' NYTimes website.  Which do you think will be higher?  Why?


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## EbS-P (Aug 19, 2022)

woodgeek said:


> I'll take that bet.  Who is proposing any such thing?  Maybe you didn't read the OP post by (conservative) economist blogger Noah Smith, where he reported that the most progressive elements of the Climate Action team is ROUTED and scattering due to their complete failure as a political movement.  Poor Greta, she seemed like a nice kid.  And that post (and this thread) is about how they are irrelevant anyway, bc we are going to solve climate change with cheap abundant renewable energy and cheap green tech.
> 
> The last serious player I heard touting the merits of a Carbon Tax in the US was Exxon-Mobil doing that 10 years ago!  They had clearly concluded that so long as the US focussed on carbon taxes, then climate action would remain fringey and unpopular, and they could certainly get their paid pols to then keep the price per ton CO2 low enough to keep Exxon in business forever.
> 
> ...


It’s much easier to be against something than come up with a plan to advocate for.  

What I think has a better chance of passing is required all budgeting to include costs of climate change.  For a given period. FEMA can’t be the finical backstop forever.


----------



## ABMax24 (Aug 19, 2022)

woodgeek said:


> When bought my house in '05, it still had a slammer coal stove insert that was installed around 1980.  Totally legal.  I could have (and still could) drive a ways west in a pickup, and buy a load of nut coal, and heat my house with that all winter.  Totally legal.  There are plenty of folks in my area (and on this board) who would do just that.
> 
> Not a problem, bc the numbers aren't there.  Same for collectible cars.
> 
> ...



2040 is 18 years away, there will still be a sizable number of ICE vehicles built today on the road then. As EV's become more popular it is likely that ICE vehicles loose value in comparison, which will lead lower income persons to purchase them and keep the on the road.

Point #2 really needs to stop. I am so tired of the public and private shaming that has become the norm in society, I'm sure everyone has seen examples of this with Covid, and has left many families divided. People don't change attitudes when they are repeatedly scorn for "bad behaviour" many times they simply quit talking to those people. If you can't talk to someone as an equal, with intellectual conversation then scorn isn't going to work either.


----------



## sneefy (Aug 19, 2022)

woodgeek said:


> I'll take that bet.  Who is proposing any such thing?  Maybe you didn't read the OP post by (conservative) economist blogger Noah Smith, where he reported that the most progressive elements of the Climate Action team is ROUTED and scattering due to their complete failure as a political movement.  Poor Greta, she seemed like a nice kid.  And that post (and this thread) is about how they are irrelevant anyway, bc we are going to solve climate change with cheap abundant renewable energy and cheap green tech.
> 
> The last serious player I heard touting the merits of a Carbon Tax in the US was Exxon-Mobil doing that 10 years ago!  They had clearly concluded that so long as the US focussed on carbon taxes, then climate action would remain fringey and unpopular, and they could certainly get their paid pols to then keep the price per ton CO2 low enough to keep Exxon in business forever.
> 
> ...



Cool the vitriol, there, sport.  You seem to like to point fingers. You also seem to be assuming where I fall on the political spectrum, yes? Is this just because I badmouthed your Bolt? 🙄

This is why I don't discuss politics with zealots.

Who's proposing it? Really? That's either an unserious or intellectually dishonest question.






						LMGTFY - Let Me Google That For You
					

For all those people who find it more convenient to bother you with their question rather than to Google it for themselves.




					lmgtfy.app


----------



## sneefy (Aug 19, 2022)

ABMax24 said:


> Point #2 really needs to stop. I am so tired of the public and private shaming that has become the norm in society, I'm sure everyone has seen examples of this with Covid, and has left many families divided. People don't change attitudes when they are repeatedly scorn for "bad behaviour" many times they simply quit talking to those people. If you can't talk to someone as an equal, with intellectual conversation then scorn isn't going to work either.



This. Nothing divides people more than forcing their opinions and beliefs on the other person. It only serves to push the ends of the spectrum of belief further apart.


----------



## Ashful (Aug 19, 2022)

ABMax24 said:


> Point #2 really needs to stop.


Which was point #2?  I thought woodgeek's post was a pretty good summary of recent history, followed by a commentary on the deception present in "news for entertainment," which many others have already previously noted in other threads.  No political bias required, to observe this, and nothing offensive detected.


----------



## DuaeGuttae (Aug 19, 2022)

Ashful said:


> Which was point #2?  I thought woodgeek's post was a pretty good summary of recent history, followed by a commentary on the deception present in "news for entertainment," which many others have already previously noted in other threads.  No political bias required, to observe this, and nothing offensive detected.


It was in an earlier post about what will end ICE cars: 1) Rust, 2)Scorn.  I think the comment wasn’t referring to the post actually quoted, so it got confusing.  (I will say that I will never scorn my 85-year-old mother for continuing to drive her 1986 Toyota Camry, even though she could afford an EV.  She drives less than 2,000 miles a year because she has always made sure not to make unnecessary trips “to town.”  I was proud of her the other day for completing her annual oil change herself.)

On a side note, Ashful, I have no idea about what you were seeing misquoted on your threads, but I’ve never seen any different text from what is there now.  I’ve been sick in bed this week and looked at this thread a number of times.  After you noted the correction, I went back to see what you really said, and I still see what it said before.  That’s very strange.

@Poindexter came up with a nice list of personal contributions, and that discussion was much more up my alley than cars (even though I’m a very happy driver of a 2017 LEAF, purchased used).  My addition to that list is that one can easily make a number of foods that come in a lot of wasteful packaging and use a lot less packaging to do so.  Yogurt was the first to come to mind, but I can add in mayonnaise, salad dressings, and sauces.   Yogurt is the most obvious, though, because it is so frequently sold in single-serve containers.


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## sneefy (Aug 19, 2022)

Ashful said:


> Which was point #2?  I thought woodgeek's post was a pretty good summary of recent history, followed by a commentary on the deception present in "news for entertainment," which many others have already previously noted in other threads.  No political bias required, to observe this, and nothing offensive detected.



This, referred to as 'point 2', is what needs to stop:



woodgeek said:


> For folks clinging to older model ICE cars past 2040... they will be taken care of by two things...  (2) The scorn of their children and neighbors.



I believe ABMax24's point is that scorn and shaming (implied to be a approved method by woodgeek, and I believe demonstrated by some of his posts in this thread) as a method of affecting change is too prevalent in society at large. It only furthers division and anger, both on the part of the person inflicting and the person receiving. 

To the person doing the shaming shaming, it encourages in their mind the view that the target group or individual is simply less. Not deserving of rational conversation, consideration. or even dignity. They are 'othered'.

For the recipient, well, that's exactly what they receive.


----------



## Ashful (Aug 19, 2022)

I'm impressed.  I'll be happy if I'm able to still do my own oil changes at 85.

I guess I should've taken the time to copy/paste the altered posts to notepad.  I quoted them, not really expecting them to be changed back, and also not remembering the exact wording of what I had originally written, which has since been restored.  Weird, maybe webfish was trying to clean up something he saw going in an offensive direction, no big deal.  It would be nice if a mod PM'd you when doing this, just so folks are aware, but I wasn't losin sleep over it.


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## Riverbanks (Aug 19, 2022)

85 year young mom changed her own oil?God bless that woman


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## sneefy (Aug 19, 2022)

Riverbanks said:


> 85 year young mom changed her own oil?God bless that woman


Seriously. Good for her!


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## Ashful (Aug 19, 2022)

sneefy said:


> This, referred to as 'point 2', is what needs to stop:
> 
> For the recipient, well, that's exactly what they receive.


That bothers you?  You need thicker skin, my friend.

... and that comes from one more likely to receive than to deliver scorn.  My present fleet of vehicles all average under 15 mpg.


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## woodgeek (Aug 19, 2022)

Fair enough...  I wasn't proposing that they be stoned or put in stocks in the public square, or shamed on social media.

I agree that shaming (and stoning) are bad things.  If I'm allowed to say 'bad' without making people upset.  

I guess I should've said that people are social animals, and tend towards conformity.  Its a powerful draw.  I could heat my home with coal and save $500/year (and accept a certain amount of labor in exchange, less than wood).  But I just don't want to.  Do I think me doing so would hurt the climate (or anyone else)?  Naw.  So maybe its just conformity speaking.

When everyone is buying EVs in 2040, they are cheaper than ICE cars, both new and used, it will take a rather unusual non-conformist to stick to ICE.  And they will be negligible for the climate, and are free (in my opinion) to fly their freak flag however they want.


----------



## sneefy (Aug 19, 2022)

Ashful said:


> That bothers you?  You need thicker skin, my friend.



It does, as a matter of fact. Primarily because I used to be someone who casually and callously levied such scorn against others. 

Then I grew up and realized that everyone deserves to be treated with kindness and dignity. Even those I disagree with and those that hold views and beliefs different than mine. 

I don't mind so much when I receive it because I do have fairly thick skin. But over the years I have intentionally softened it so I may better understand how to _properly_ treat people. 

Treating others with scorn and shame comes from a place of arrogance, insecurity, and weakness. The strongest, humblest people I have known have usually been the kindest. 

Do I fail? Every day. But It's important enough to make the daily effort.


----------



## woodgeek (Aug 19, 2022)

sneefy said:


> Cool the vitriol, there, sport.  You seem to like to point fingers. You also seem to be assuming where I fall on the political spectrum, yes? Is this just because I badmouthed your Bolt? 🙄
> 
> This is why I don't discuss politics with zealots.
> 
> Who's proposing it? Really? That's either an unserious or intellectually dishonest question.


Thanks for googling that for me!

I saw a bunch of links to proposals from 2021 from various progressive democrats, like AOC and Bernie and Co that had been rolled into Biden's original BBB bill.  Proposals that went down in flames, (and, um, public scorn) last year.  Which prompted the OP post and topic of this thread, that such an approach is politically DEAD.  And is likely to stay that way, for good reason: it is both politically unpopular AND unnecessary.

Didn't think I was showing you any vitriol or pointed any fingers.  Must've missed that.  I was pointing out that the only people I see talking about Carbon Taxes now (or the dead bill from last year) are on the Right.  I suppose I should add clueless progressives on the Left to my list.

If I don't know what you think... perhaps you could be a little more clear with what you are posting.  You are enigmatic.

You don't have to like my Bolt.  Its ok. I like it enough for both of us.  You do you.


----------



## sneefy (Aug 19, 2022)

woodgeek said:


> You are enigmatic.



Even to myself, lol.


----------



## woodgeek (Aug 19, 2022)

sneefy said:


> This. Nothing divides people more than forcing their opinions and beliefs on the other person. It only serves to push the ends of the spectrum of belief further apart.


I don't think its that simple....

Here's a video, that distinguishes between beliefs and identities, and how people often mix up the two...


We are, among other things, collections of beliefs, some true, some untrue.   I think that these beliefs get bundled together, often by other people with an agenda (like pushing one political party, or selling clicks) into identities.

Never saw the point about arguing whether a given fact was true or untrue...  do some science, a calculation, or simply go to a reliable source of info (Wikipedia is good in a pinch, the National Academy of Science is ok too).

People DO fight about identities.  My identity is based on my values, not what facts I currently believe are true (and make posts about).


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## stoveliker (Aug 19, 2022)

I've read this with interest. I'm guilty of all of the above, but (at least) I try to not be. 

I think "scorn" is a bit too strong a word for what was intended. More like peer pressure.
As an example, I enjoy this bumber sticker - but is it scorn?







There is scorn, but there is also commentary on behavior, with a critical undertone, and, if done well, an educational component as well. I see the above bumper sticker (touching on a different subject) in that vein. I surmise that once EVs become 75% majority of vehicles, similar type "commentary" could ensue. 

Not all people are susceptible to rational, fact-based explanations of points of view. (Don't we know that, in these last two years...) Sometimes a poking, eye-winking, critical commentary that also points the way to a better solution works well.

This peer pressure is similar to the fact that while a lot of people litter, fewer dare do so in plain public sight. Yes, there are those who do, but there are more who litter trying to not be seen. (I think.)

Anyway, my $0.02


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## peakbagger (Aug 19, 2022)

Given the current political situation, I expect I will see opposition to the elimination of ICE vehicles out of general misinformation.


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## sneefy (Aug 19, 2022)

woodgeek said:


> I don't think its that simple....
> We are, among other things, collections of beliefs, some true, some untrue.   I think that these beliefs get bundled together, often by other people with an agenda (like pushing one political party, or selling clicks) into identities.
> People DO fight about identities.  My identity is based on my values, not what facts I currently believe are true (and make posts about).


Absolutely. We are an amalgam of what we believe. Our beliefs come from. experience, teachings, introspection (hopefully), discussion about topics of importance, education, etc. etc. etc. Everything in one's life makes its way into one's character and collection of beliefs. 

Which is why attacks on one's beliefs are taken so personally. It's an attack on who the individual is, to varying degrees. 

Especially with fundamental beliefs. Religion, politics (also a religion to many), climate change (has become a religion to many), cause du jour (religion du jour) etc. etc. I emphasize the religion point because we are hardwired to worship and venerate something. Some choose faith, some choose the earth, some choose a cause, some choose themselves... This veneration adds weight and even greater importance to those fundamental beliefs. Making the denigration that much more cutting. e.g. Greta Thundberg scolding 'How dare you!'

To your point about facts: Facts are (unfortunately) secondary. This is why politics is 99% othering and spewing filth these days in flagrant disregard of fact. 'Us vs Them' is a recipe for the downfall of society. It's of course worse with beliefs that are unprovable. Callously disregarding, denigrating, attacking beliefs at that fundamental level is destructive to relationships and society. Writing others off, baselessly accusing them of being something they are not in sweeping terms is easy and  categorizes them as something contemptible or of no value. The enemy. 

The current state of politics and the increasing shallowness of society just pours gasoline on the blaze.


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## sneefy (Aug 19, 2022)

stoveliker said:


> I think "scorn" is a bit too strong a word for what was intended. More like peer pressure.
> As an example, I enjoy this bumber sticker - but is it scorn?
> 
> View attachment 298060
> ...



Quite. Scorn, finger wagging, maybe at best. This is perhaps the other side of the coin or another facet of the die. People that refuse to be held accountable and take even mild bumper stickers like the above as a personal attack. 

To your point about rationality: ROFLMAO! It seems all but dead. Nobody wants to have difficult conversations. Nobody wants to improve themselves. Nobody likes to hear that could be a better person. Nobody has time or desire for introspection and character building.


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## semipro (Aug 19, 2022)

peakbagger said:


> Given the current political situation, I expect I will see opposition to the elimination of ICE vehicles out of general misinformation.


This reminds me of when the Bush administration moved towards the elimination of incandescent light bulbs and the opposition and hoarding that ensued. 
I find it funny now that there are boxes and boxes of the things available for almost nothing at my local ReStore.


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## stoveliker (Aug 19, 2022)

semipro said:


> This reminds me of when the Bush administration moved towards the elimination of incandescent light bulbs and the opposition and hoarding that ensued.
> I find it funny now that there are boxes and boxes of the things available for almost nothing at my local ReStore.


At least that's positive; despite the intial gut reaction of "hell no", people are in fact coming around after seeing what the better alternative can be like. There's hope.


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## sneefy (Aug 19, 2022)

semipro said:


> This reminds me of when the Bush administration moved towards the elimination of incandescent light bulbs and the opposition and hoarding that ensued.
> I find it funny now that there are boxes and boxes of the things available for almost nothing at my local ReStore.


To be fair, that's mostly because the fluorescents of the time sucked so it was perceived as 'You simple and ignorant peasants must now use this inferior and more expensive product.'

LEDs are (now) soooo much better.

Which brings up a good point. For any tech intended to replace existing tech, the user experience must be worth it or it simply won't catch on. Be it in terms of cost or use or a combination, it has to be perceived as better otherwise there will be pushback, sometimes massively.

No, the force of government is not the right answer, in my opinion.


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## Riverbanks (Aug 19, 2022)

We still have all the old stuff here, probably 75% of the shelves at the local hardware store, no led for flood, spot or bathroom vanity lighting, I have to travel to upgrade, and the worst part is, no disposal allowed for fluorescent bulbs at the transfer station, but I can buy them


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## begreen (Aug 19, 2022)

SpaceBus said:


> I didn't know the oil industry coined the term "carbon footprint", but I did know they have been pushing "climate change" vs "global warming", despite both things basically meaning the same thing.


Here's some background on that topic








						Surprise! The Term ‘Carbon Footprint’ Was Coined by Big Oil to Blame You for Climate Change
					

'Carbon footprint' is a marketing term created by a PR firm on BP's payroll! It doesn't matter! Collective action for new policies are the only way.




					interestingengineering.com


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## woodgeek (Aug 19, 2022)

sneefy said:


> To be fair, that's mostly because the fluorescents of the time sucked so it was perceived as 'You simple and ignorant peasants must now use this inferior and more expensive product.'
> 
> LEDs are (now) soooo much better.
> 
> ...



The devil is in the details there @sneefy.









						Phase-out of incandescent light bulbs - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org
				




The 'ban' on incandescents in late 2007 scheduled the phase out for 4 years into the future in 2012.  The LED bulbs that we know and love were developed DURING that interval.  And they were partially developed (and scaled) because of the (not yet happened) ban.  When the development did not go as fast as planned, the phase out was extended to 2015 and beyond.  The phase out, when it happened, started with lower wattages (which were more readily replaced) before the higher wattage bulbs were phased out.



> 'You simple and ignorant peasants must now use this inferior and more expensive product.'



Who ever said that?   This was not the case of some sneering govt bureaucrats (or Al Gore)  deciding in 2007 to ban incandescents in 2008, forcing us all to switch to inferior and more expensive products.  It was a case of a well-designed, engineering-informed public and industrial policy driving a technology enabled transition over the course of 8+ years, giving time for the technology to mature, scale and get cheap due to learning curves.

Without the phaseout... the whole transition would've happened, but would've taken much longer.  New tech doesn't improve and get cheaper magically by itself.  It takes major investment (by folks that are worried about getting their money back) and learning curves from actually trying to scale production.  Did the govt engineer the bulbs?  Nope.  Did they fund the R&D to make them happen?  Nope.  They just provided a regulatory environment where private investment would make it happen

Ofc, we are all now enjoying cheap, durable, LED bulbs with much lower Total Cost of Ownership, and saving energy and CO2.

Are LEDs inferior?  Of course they are.  They have poorer color rendering index (CRI).  Folks that care about that?  They spend a little extra to get high CRI bulbs.

Similarly, if/when ICE vehicles are banned (which I doubt in the US), EVs will be widely available, a good/popular substitute and much cheaper on a TCO basis.


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## Ashful (Aug 19, 2022)

Good post, woodgeek.  BUT, I'd like to debate this line:


woodgeek said:


> we are all now enjoying cheap, durable, LED bulbs


Sorry to pick apart your sentence, but my experience has been counter to this, more dramatically and consistently than I'd have ever predicted.

One example that comes to mind is my three lamp posts, each of which was populated with three 25W candelabra base tall bent tip bulbs.  Always worked fine with incandescents, but since they're on several hours every night, I figured they'd be a good candidate for replacement with LED.

I bought what appeared to be a quality product at the local Lowes, and after learning you can't run all LED's in a lamp post in winter (they frost up badly due to lack of heat), I settled on putting one incandescent with two LED bulbs in each of the three lamp posts.  This put enough heat into the lamp to keep it from frosting on cold winter nights, and I figured I'd be changing the incandescent once every year or three, but the LED's would last forever.  Unfortunately, here's what happened:


After less than 6 months, half the LED's were dead.  Zero incandescent failures.  I replaced each blown LED with an incandescent bulb.
After 12 months, ALL the LED bulbs had died.  I replaced the remainder with incandescents.
Now, I believe 3 years since the experiment began, I'm just having to replace the first few incandescent bulbs.
The usage case may not have been ideal for LED's, although a PVC lamp post with a heavy brass topper that gets buffeted around in the wind all winter sure seemed to be an ideal situation for favoring anything other than a tungsten filament rattling about in a vacuum bulb.

I have a few LED bulbs in this house, attics and the garage, and likewise have found them to not last any longer than an incandescent.  The case for spending several times more, for a bulb that both looks worth and has equal to lesser real-world lifespan, doesn't seem to be there... yet.

And yes, I do understand the LED is likely fine, it's other passive components within the bulb circuitry almost certainly failing before the LED.  But the end result is the same, it's a dead bulb assembly, headed for the landfill.


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## Poindexter (Aug 20, 2022)

Ok.  Serious question about ICE, I bet some of you know this one already.

I saw an "image" on facebook and I don't know, I am asking, can this be true.

The point of the image was a modern one ton full size pickup truck could be driven on an insane road trip, something like Prudhoe Bay to Las Vegas, and have the same total emissions as a 2 cycle leaf blower run at full throttle for 20 minutes.

Is this an exaggeration?  I know ICE automotive technology has come an insanely long way in the last 40 years or so.  Asking for a friend that has 2 cycle ICE on his boat.


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## peakbagger (Aug 20, 2022)

This seems to line up with your graphic. I havent vetted it. https://www.sdearthtimes.com/et0897/et0897s2.html

As stated, most of the oil injected into two stroke does not burn, it just goes out the exhaust. Go to any marina and there is a sheen of oil on the water although modern large two strokes have variable oil injection Modern 4 stroke ICE engines on vehicles practically do not burn oil, what oil that did make it to the exhaust would be dealt by the catalyst. they put out so little carbon monoxide that suicide by parking in a closed garage with the engine running no longer works very well.

Thus the move to swap to 4 strokes on small engines and preferably electric. The two stroke situation is particularly noticable with snowmobiles, I think the exhaust from a boat motor condenses the oil particles quickly in the water forming a sheen on the water while oil particles from a snowmachine tend to form a vapor cloud of oil that saturates anyone and anything nearby.


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## woodgeek (Aug 20, 2022)

Poindexter said:


> Ok.  Serious question about ICE, I bet some of you know this one already.
> 
> I saw an "image" on facebook and I don't know, I am asking, can this be true.
> 
> ...



Sounds legit to me.  I have heard that lawn and landscaping equipment in California emits more (non-CO2) pollutants than all the passenger cars.

Almost like that equipment has not been subject to the same emission regulations as road vehicles for several decades.  A Loophole.

ICE engine emissions are bad.

--Unburned alkanes are not that toxic.  Most will oxidize in the atmosphere.
--Benzene is a potent carcinogen.  The rate of cancers in the 20th century is 2-3X higher than the pre-industrial rate.  The continuous dose of Benzene (ramped up after 1930 due to ICE vehicles) is thought to be a major contributor (cancer rates are measurably higher in people that live near/downwind of gas stations).  The amount of Benzene in gasoline has been reduced by more than a factor of 10 over the last three decades for this reason. It has not been lowered further due to protests from Oil companies.  Cancer rates are plateauing.  Hmmm.
--Leaded gas shaved a few IQ points off a generation of people (including your truly).  Now phased out.
--NOx (brown smog) interacts directly with the cardiovascular system as a signaling molecule.  Scientists in the 70s noticed spikes in heart attacks and strokes coincident with bad air quality days.  A very easy to observe correlation... that led to the Clean Air Act.   More efficient ICE engines could be engineered, by using different materials and higher temperatures, and different air/fuel ratios... but they would produce more NOx, and so are not sold.  Diesels (have higher temps) make more NOx, leading to the Dieselgate scandal (and an earlier truck scam at Mack).
--PM2.5 nanoparticles from Diesel are considered v dangerous.  The rapid combustion in a Diesel engine is incomplete, so these particles are not just clean 'soot' as often supposed, but infused with a witch's brew of heavier and highly reactive incomplete combustion products.  I have seen studies that show that the particles can be adsorbed by the olfactory receptors and trafficked directly to the brain.  Many researchers believe this process causes chronic injury to the hippocampus, leading to Alzheimers and is responsible for the surge in same over the last few decades.  PM2.5 regs were rolled out, and the Alzheimers 'surge' has leveled out and started to show signs of falling.

The big three... Cancer, Cardiovascular and Alzheimers... ICE emissions are implicated strongly in all three!

So yeah, ICE emission regulations have been doing a complex cost-benefit-technology dance driven by medical insights for the last 50+ years.   A well documented story that nobody knows... while everyone is convinced they are getting cancer due to unmeasurable pesticide residues in their food or the nuke plant 20 miles away.  While living in a house with measurable benzene vapor concentrations!

And ofc, the CO2 IS the long-term problem.  So leaving that out from an emission story is misleading.  I have heard the same stats cited as evidence that cars are not that bad for global warming!


----------



## Ashful (Aug 20, 2022)

Yep, I've been calling out OPE for years, most recently:






						BEV & PHEV financials
					

Searching the forum, it looks like it's been 2 years since there was a thread purely dedicated to the financial justification of BEV's and/or PHEV's.  Surely, a lot has changed, not the least of which is fuel prices.  So let's have it, a pure cost comparison, all emotion and politics aside...




					www.hearth.com
				









						Oil Prices Now
					

Hi Jan, my concern is that these high fuel prices will hurt the working poor the hardest.  When you are spending50% of what you make  to get to work it will create a very serious situation; prices going up, take home pay going down.  I agree. I might be in a fortunate situation as I work from...




					www.hearth.com
				




In that second linked post, I did some quick back-of-the-envelope math, and reasoned that we probably use close to 1% of our national gasoline consumption in residential OPE.  This includes both homeowner grade junk and commercial OPE, but leaves out farm equipment.  There's plenty of reason for error in my quick math, maybe even 2x or 3x... but likely not 10x.

I think there's a lot of room to improve the emissions of ICE ride-on and walk-behind OPE, and even (to a lesser degree) ICE hand-held OPE.  The ride-on and walk-behind may transition to BEV first, a few are already there.  But the hand-held BE's have been heavy under-performers, at least for pro and pro-sumer.  

As much as I hate stinking of 2-stroke after using hand-held OPE, the idea of adding even ounces of weight to a hand-held machine (or giving up 0.1 hp) for the sake of emissions, is unappealing to me.  In my ideal world, they'd focus on the ride-on equipment (eg. zero turn mowers & compact utility tractors) first, follow that with walk-behinds (snowblowers, mowers, large leaf blowers, rototillers, pressure washers), and leave my hand-held equipment alone


----------



## EbS-P (Aug 20, 2022)

stoveliker said:


> I've read this with interest. I'm guilty of all of the above, but (at least) I try to not be.
> 
> I think "scorn" is a bit too strong a word for what was intended. More like peer pressure.
> As an example, I enjoy this bumber sticker - but is it scorn?
> ...


Good points.  Peer pressure is fine.  Light hearted inconsequential public shaming  I’m fine with.    It’s when your believes have been shown (it’s science dude) to have had or have a high probability of harming society or specific parts of society that my scornful feeling arise.  Im decent and generally keep these to my self but Given repeated or long enough interactions my scorn becomes apparent. 

We can approach these situations if we all earnestly want to learn.  And that probably means putting some mutual trust in an expert.  We really can not teach ourselves everything from just our own observations.  But personally I’m past the point of entering that space of trying to teach/learn from someone who I don’t see any evidence of reciprocal interaction.  

Case in point.  Got a real glare the other day from a VW suv driver (probably 60 years old) while in the Tesla.  Just smiled and turned back to the traffic  signal.  It was perplexing… untill he drove past and his most prominent bumper sticker read. FU*EV (there were others).


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## woodgeek (Aug 20, 2022)

Ashful said:


> As much as I hate stinking of 2-stroke after using hand-held OPE, the idea of adding even ounces of weight to a hand-held machine (or giving up 0.1 hp) for the sake of emissions, is unappealing to me.  In my ideal world, they'd focus on the ride-on equipment (eg. zero turn mowers & compact utility tractors) first, follow that with walk-behinds (snowblowers, mowers, large leaf blowers, rototillers, pressure washers), and leave my hand-held equipment alone



From my POV, this lawn equipment is a small factor for CO2/climate emissions, so I really don't much care.  And that small factor is going to get nearly covered by BEV riding and walk behind equipment, that will spin  off the tech from EV cars, by and by.

Re two-strokes... it is not clear to me that the unburned lubricating oil that gets aerosolized is particularly toxic.  I haven't seen anything tbh.  I could see that being bad in a marine environment, of course.


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## woodgeek (Aug 20, 2022)

Ashful said:


> Good post, woodgeek.  BUT, I'd like to debate this line:
> 
> Sorry to pick apart your sentence, but my experience has been counter to this, more dramatically and consistently than I'd have ever predicted.
> 
> ...


Probably need a separate thread... but there is a quality issue.  Its a bit of a crap-shoot.  Even 'name' bulbs can fail in a short time.  I have had the best luck, honestly, with cheapie, no name Chinese filament bulbs.  That is what I have all over my house now.

Don't get the outdoor fixture frosting up... I and all my neighbors have LED outdoor fixtures, and I don't see that problem.  I would ofc recommend LED filament bulbs (they do seem more reliable to me), but I know you are particular with aesthetics.  Perhaps a frosted filament?


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## woodgeek (Aug 20, 2022)

For the record, I was thinking of the face my teens make at me when I am being 'cringey'  when I typed the word 'scorn'.


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## stoveliker (Aug 20, 2022)

My LED light at the front door, on a dusk to dawn sensor (so on each night for at least 8 hours, I think) has lasted me now 4 years. Including in howling winter storms that run right past it (as in the storm door being blown out of my wife's hands) at 15 F.

Mine is a frosted glass bulb (no fancy "Edison" filaments visible). GE, 800 lumens, 8.5 W. Currently $7.48 on Amazon.

I do think in this case buying online is a good idea, as you can see buyer's feedback regarding varying quality.


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## Poindexter (Aug 20, 2022)

On the lightbulb thing the wife and I reluctantly upgraded the whole house to CFL many years ago.   I stocked up on GE 'reveal' series incandescents for my workshop area.

We got around to listing the house (it didn't sell that time around) but the realtor was insistent that we replace all the CFL and upgrade to LED.  We got packs and packs of LED bulbs from Costco.  The outdoor ones only last about two years for me, the indoors ones I haven't had to replace one yet, probably about five years now.

I don't know if I ran them long enough to save any money buying the CFLs, but they were miserable to be around.

EDIT: January 2017 the wife and I bought 827 kwh, Jan 2022 we bought 840 kwh.  I would have to do some digging to see why it was a wash.  I am a firm believer in LED lighting, especially among products that actually list the color temperature on the package.  It could be we ran the head bolt heaters for outdoor vehicles more in 22, might have been one but probably not two kids home in Jan 17.  I know there were no kids home in Jan 22.  We could have been on LED already in 2017.  I did see a blip in the electric bill when we went to CFL, but nothing really noticeable financially when we switched to LED.


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## stoveliker (Aug 20, 2022)

Lighting is only a tiny fraction of the electricity you use, in particular when heating (washer, drier, water, dishwasher etc) are involved.


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## begreen (Aug 20, 2022)

stoveliker said:


> Lighting is only a tiny fraction of the electricity you use, in particular when heating (washer, drier, water, dishwasher etc) are involved.


That depends on the home, the extent of lighting, owner habits, and the hours they are on. In some homes, a lot of lights are on for 12+ hrs a day in the winter. If it's a big home with lots of rooms and maybe lots of recessed can lights, this can add up, especially if people forget to turn off lights. Note that this does not include outdoor lighting which can add another 10-20 lights, some of high wattage, running dawn to dusk.


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## stoveliker (Aug 20, 2022)

That is it not my experience, again with heating (cooking, fridge, freezer, fancy espresso machine), and being conscientious with lighting (see earlier thread about timed switches), it doesn't make a significant dent.
Most cfls run between 15 and 40 W. So say 30 W. LED is often near 10 W.
So 1/3 of something that was not large to start with, in the 10-15 kWh I use per day (before the minisplit).

Btw, consistent with the nearly similar experience of our friend in Fairbanks.

The best way to check and avoid the influence of fluctuations, you'd have to plot the monthly usage two years before and two years after the switch to LED and see if there is a step down in usage.


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## EbS-P (Aug 21, 2022)

Let’s keep this side track rolling.  4 loads of dirty diapers washed to save the planet!   Hung out to dry too.  And the 4 and six year old were told they can wear them to bed instead of a 40 cent pull-up  and match their sister.   One is  excited one wasn’t so much.   one size diapers 4 weeks to 4 years.


Poindexter said:


> On the lightbulb thing the wife and I reluctantly upgraded the whole house to CFL many years ago.   I stocked up on GE 'reveal' series incandescents for my workshop area.
> 
> We got around to listing the house (it didn't sell that time around) but the realtor was insistent that we replace all the CFL and upgrade to LED.  We got packs and packs of LED bulbs from Costco.  The outdoor ones only last about two years for me, the indoors ones I haven't had to replace one yet, probably about five years now.
> 
> ...


the big efficiency jump happened when one switched to cfl. 40-60 W to 14 or 15. LEDs are what 11W and no toxic mercury vapor.


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## Poindexter (Aug 21, 2022)

I don't have a clear handle on how much of our electricity use is for lighting, refrigeration, laundry and dishwashing.  Cooking.

In summer months we draw 12-14 kwh per day average, which seems to be well below average among my colleagues.  The main things we do are only run full loads in the laundry machines and dishwasher, and when a freezer is getting low we'll park a couple water jugs in it to keep the freezers near full. 

One variable is the head bolt heaters for the vehicles we park outside.  Two vehicles, each draws about 1000w to warm up the battery, the engine oil and whichever pair of cylinders are nearest the special bolt with a wire coming out the top.  I have those on timers, even at -40dF 2-3 hours plugged in and powered up is enough for a stress free engine start.

The really big variable at my house is how many kids are home.  The only effective way I know of to teach kids about utility usage is to get them into an apartment where they have to pay their own utilities.  Nothing else I have thought to try has made a hill of beans worth of difference.


stoveliker said:


> Lighting is only a tiny fraction of the electricity you use, in particular when heating (washer, drier, water, dishwasher etc) are involved.



The only electricity involved in heating my house is the convection deck fan on my wood stove, the ignitor in my oil burning furnace, the circuitry for the thermostats and the pump that moves hot water around in my baseboards.  I do agree many many people do use electricity for heating or back up heating and it is a big chunk of the electric bill for many many people, but I probably spend more on lighting.  There is also a pump that circulates water between my DHW holding tank and the hot water heating loop in my boiler, and more control circuitry on that.

There is a heating element in my clothes dryer and my dishwasher and all the elements in my electric cook stove, and the BTUs are inside my envelope; but I don't count those functions in my heating.  I mean a little maybe.  I don't do much baking in the summer because it does heat the house up.

I guess I do agree that making hot water inside the dishwasher is relatively high electric consumption compared to the water pump in the dishwasher, same for the drum motor versus heating element in the clothes dryer.  In that sense, yes, I probably do use a fair amount of electricity to make "heat" but compared to the energy it takes to heat the house those are fairly trivial loads in my world.

I suspect refrigeration should be included as well.  They are just small heatpumps, yes?  Drawing electricity, turning a compressor, and pumping heat out of the insulated box and releasing that heat into my insulation envelope as well, correct?  Perhaps more efficiently than a resistive heating element, but still using electricity to move rather than generate heat.  

I am going to have to stew on this for a few days.  This is one reason LED lights are so efficient, correct?  They don't waste a lot of consumed electrons as heat.  I am going to have to figure out what my least efficient appliance is.


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## Poindexter (Aug 21, 2022)

@EbS-P , we were mostly running 75 and 100 watt incandescent when we switched to CFLs.


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## EbS-P (Aug 21, 2022)

Poindexter said:


> I don't have a clear handle on how much of our electricity use is for lighting, refrigeration, laundry and dishwashing.  Cooking.
> 
> In summer months we draw 12-14 kwh per day average, which seems to be well below average among my colleagues.  The main things we do are only run full loads in the laundry machines and dishwasher, and when a freezer is getting low we'll park a couple water jugs in it to keep the freezers near full.
> 
> ...


I’m not too concerned with tracking every watt we consume.  The monitors that allow that cost about a months worth of electricity.  I already know how to lower my consumption the the monitor just provides some real time feedback.  I do like to check my daily usage.  But with a an EV that might or might not get plugged in and a day that might drive 10 miles or 50 it’s not really giving me teens worthy data.  

No of the big CFLs would fit in any of my lights.  House from the 60s had exactly 4 light fixtures for the entire house that were original to the 60s. (I guess they loved their lamps but every bedroom had a ceiling fan).  The kitchen had 3 new lights.  Hated how dark the house was.    Love my flat panel skylight LEDs.


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## SpaceBus (Aug 21, 2022)

Most of our electricity is used heating water and doing laundry. My partner draws at least one bath and takes one shower a day, usually filling the tub two or three times. She also likes to use hot water when doing the laundry, but I always use cold when I'm doing it. One of our dogs is 22 years old and can't hold her bladder that long anymore (Chihuahua-rat terrier mix), so we have a lot of "chucks" on our sofa and have to clean up a lot of small urine messes. This means we run a load or two of laundry every day. I noticed a huge spike in the bill ($50-100) when the chihuahua started losing her bladder control. This is a long way to say that most of our usage is centered around cleaning. I do have an older (2010) plasma TV (42" I think) and surround sound that are on most of the day for music and news. We try to keep the lights off during the day and everything is LED, but our old dog can't see very well, so sometimes the lights are on more than we need them to be. I also leave on our only exterior light over night sometimes, but I think that is overall negligible.


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## stoveliker (Aug 21, 2022)

Poindexter said:


> I don't have a clear handle on how much of our electricity use is for lighting, refrigeration, laundry and dishwashing.  Cooking.
> 
> In summer months we draw 12-14 kwh per day average, which seems to be well below average among my colleagues.  The main things we do are only run full loads in the laundry machines and dishwasher, and when a freezer is getting low we'll park a couple water jugs in it to keep the freezers near full.
> 
> ...



Yes, I meant all the heating in appliances. It adds up.


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## peakbagger (Aug 21, 2022)

The term for small loads are either phantom loads or vampire loads. Those 24/7 loads that are always on are real killers in the long run. Off grid folks used to install outlets with switched and sometimes neon indicators to remind them to turn off phantom loads. I have light in my bulkhead "doghouse" that I use to store wood in the winter. The switch is in the basement side of the door. It happens quite often that i shut the door but leave the light on. I put an indicator type switch that has a small red light on it when the light in the bulkhead was left on and it usually reminds me to turn it off. 

There is device called a Kill A Watt power meter for plug in 120 volt loads that works well for chasing plug in phamtoms. The new switchign power supplies do not have much standby loads but the old fashioned cube type plug in power supplies usually eat 3 to 5 watts, 24/7 365 days a year. 

Cable modems and satellite modems (DIrect TV) are notorious for burning up a lot of power. They need to be plugged in 24/7 so the mothership can talk to them on rare occasions. Sometimes if they are unplugged they may take long to boot or require reinitialization. 

If someone is comfortable with working in electrical panels and there is room in panel, there are everal home energy monitoring solutions that use clampon type sensors to read the power in electrical circuits. They usually talk to a computer application. They are great for looking at long term usage. 

Other electrical energy wasters are water leaks. If on a pumped system, leaks in the house or in the well piping can be a mystery source of power use. The only way to catch the piping leaks is with anenergy monitor which will show frequent spikes when the pump needs to cycle to repressurize the system. The other expensive leak is on the hot water as the source of hot water has to cycle on and off. While on hot water, many electric hot water heaters do not have heat traps or heat loops on the outlet piping. If the pipes go vertical upwards from the tank, the hot water in the tank will rise up the pipe and give off heat to the basement. That may make the hot water a bit quicker to the sink but it heating the basement. 

BTW, I am old school and I turn the lights off when I am not in the room. many folks do not.


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## begreen (Aug 21, 2022)

peakbagger said:


> BTW, I am old school and I turn the lights off when I am not in the room. many folks do not.


I have noted this more with the advent of low energy consumption LED lighting. It's like the diet Oreo symptom. "Oh, it's only 10 calories so now I can eat lots more without feeling guilty."

Another power hog can be old refrigeration. The old units may have been reliable, but there is a notable improvement in the insulation and efficiency in many modern refrigerators.


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## woodgeek (Aug 21, 2022)

I turn off the lights while I am IN the room.


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## stoveliker (Aug 21, 2022)

woodgeek said:


> I turn off the lights while I am IN the room.


No Alexa to do it when you're outside the room? ;-)
(Me neither)


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## stoveliker (Aug 21, 2022)

I'm not so sure about the phantom loads anymore. I have a bunch of wifi plugs that are programmable and measure energy usage. So my audio/tv equipment etc shuts off at night. (Good reminder to go to sleep, but it sucks when it switches when the movie isn't done yet....). That is all my equipment with the exception of my wifi (tv is hardwired).
All that uses 16 W when idling. That equates to 140 kWh per year if on full time.

A wifi extender switches off at night (it's in our bedroom for better signal in the backyard, but I don't need it at night in my bedroom). It uses 3 W. 26 kWh per year if always on.

I have my cellphone charger on one too. This is the prototypical example of a phantom load, according to everyone. It uses 1 W when idling.  Less than 9 kWh per year if always on.

So 175 kWh per year if I would not switch it off overnight. Of the 5625 kWh I used in total last year (is total solar production minus what was added to my kWh credit bank) that's 3%. And that should then be cut in half (at least) because I need them at least half the day.

I find that negligible. These are (at least for me) NOT power burners I should be concerned about when looking at the total picture.

Is it waste? Yes. And therefore I switch them off when not needing them. This earth was not made to sustain waste.

I think if we all do this, we can make a tiny difference. (Cue the debate about production costs of wifi plugs etc. True. But I didn't know this before I bought them. And I use them to switch a few lights when we're traveling.)

But it's not a significant fraction of my power usage by any means.


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## EbS-P (Aug 21, 2022)

Every 100w of 24/7 phantom load represents about .5-.7% of my usage.   Bigger fish fry IMO.  

I’m thinking about season large sun shades.  I got a 10 X 20 for 38$.  If I put it up to shade the sun off my 2 west ish side of the the house with two windows I bed it would make a decent deference June-august.


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## stoveliker (Aug 21, 2022)

yes, sun shades on (the out-!) sides where you have multiple hours of sun on windows will make a large difference. 
If these are the "window-hugging"-type (i.e. vertical rather than the type that booms out slightly below horizontal angles), then make sure that convection is possible behind the shades - it can get warm there, and to decrease the heat load on the windows it's best if that warm air can convect away.

This will make a huge difference. We did so in TN on the West side.


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## EbS-P (Aug 21, 2022)

stoveliker said:


> yes, sun shades on (the out-!) sides where you have multiple hours of sun on windows will make a large difference.
> If these are the "window-hugging"-type (i.e. vertical rather than the type that booms out slightly below horizontal angles), then make sure that convection is possible behind the shades - it can get warm there, and to decrease the heat load on the windows it's best if that warm air can convect away.
> 
> This will make a huge difference. We did so in TN on the West side.


I need to decrease the heat load on the masonry too.  It get over 120


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## Poindexter (Aug 21, 2022)

Is there a reputable website we can look up average or typical consumption of especially electricity either nation wide or by smaller chunks?  I wouldn't mind seeing some data for say average annual electric consumption in Finland or Colombia or etcetera either.

With 2 responsible adults in 1200sqft of house I think we are doing pretty darned good drawing 500-700 watts continuous average.  I know the dishwasher is the oldest appliance in the home by at least 5 years, but at this point I might as well run it until it breaks and then look for an efficient reliable new replacement at that time.


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## stoveliker (Aug 21, 2022)

EbS-P said:


> I need to decrease the heat load on the masonry too.  It get over 120



No eves (?) ... When the sun gets lower and the eves don't work anymore, the
 load should be less?


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## stoveliker (Aug 21, 2022)

@Poindexter 
600 W 24/365 equals 5.2 MWh.
Seems I'm not doing too shabby at 5.6 MWh working at home, and having (tv and gaming) a 10 and a 12 year old ..

So that's one comparison


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## Poindexter (Aug 21, 2022)

Hmmnph.  I guess we are all waiting for woodgeek to spill.

In the meantime, if this is a reputable datasource: 

https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=97&t=3 

Then both stoveliker and I are doing pretty good on our electricity use as Americans, but still using a lot more electricity than the global average on the few (possibly sketchy) websites I looked at.


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## begreen (Aug 21, 2022)

Poindexter said:


> Hmmnph.  I guess we are all waiting for woodgeek to spill.
> 
> In the meantime, if this is a reputable datasource:
> 
> ...


You and stoveliker are doing ok.  Compare our consumption of almost anything to a poor third-world nation and it is grossly out of proportion. We are gluttons.


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## stoveliker (Aug 21, 2022)

A lot depends on e.g. cooking (electric for me, the inefficient kind), but most folks in e.g. The Netherlands cook on natural gas.

Similar for water heating.

Global averages, even for developed country, depends a lot on historical decisions.

Less-developed countries is a whole nother story.


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## begreen (Aug 21, 2022)

Yes, a lot of the third world cooks on wood or dung fires. One light bulb in the house can be a luxury.


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## Poindexter (Aug 21, 2022)

I went ahead and totaled mine up.  For the year ending 07-06-22 we bought 7,038 kwh, average about 19.5 kwh per day.  In the four warmest months with no heating of the insulation envelope or head bolt heaters on the vehicles we bought 1794 kwh which would put us at ~5400 kwh for the year/ 11.75 kwh per day "if there was no winter in Alaska."

We did have two kids home for two weeks each Christmas 21.  We had one daughter here for the month of June 22.  I can see both of those events on the electric (and the water) bill but it was worth it to have them home.

I don't think I am going to find any dramatic electricity savings without installing solar or moving to either a smaller house or somewhere south of here.  But I am curious.


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## Ashful (Aug 21, 2022)

Geez... I think I have five or six wifi extenders (4 MoCA + 1 cat5 + 1 wifi/wifi), and never even thought of switching one off.  Seems like it'd cause more headaches, with so much other connected hardware relying on them.



stoveliker said:


> Lighting is only a tiny fraction of the electricity you use, in particular when heating (washer, drier, water, dishwasher etc) are involved.


Interesting point, stoveliker.  I wanted to see if you were right on that, at least for my own case, so I did some quick figuring below.

I'm like woodgeek, I seem to only turn lights off all day and night, the rest of the family takes care of turning them all on.  As I look around the first floor of the house now, at the various lights, both in legitimate use and inadvertently left on by a busy wife and absent-minded kids, I see 3.9 kW of lighting burning away.  Let's just pretend that my wife hasn't also left several lights on in the master bath, changing room, guest suite (she almost certainly has), and just focus on the 3945 watts I can see.

If left on 3-4 hours per night in summer, and 7-8 hours per night in winter, that's roughly 7835 kWh per year.  Eyeballing PECO's crappy graph on household usage, it looks like I'm at maybe a hair under 2400 kWh/mo, so maybe 28,000 kWh per year.  This means that more than 25% of my usage is lighting, even before we consider the huge hit each December for Christmas lights.

I guess that could still be called a small fraction, but not an insignificant one.


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## Poindexter (Aug 21, 2022)

Ashful said:


> I seem to only turn lights off all day and night, the rest of the family takes care of turning them all on.


That is sure enough Dad talk right there.


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## stoveliker (Aug 22, 2022)

Ashful said:


> Geez... I think I have five or six wifi extenders (4 MoCA + 1 cat5 + 1 wifi/wifi), and never even thought of switching one off.  Seems like it'd cause more headaches, with so much other connected hardware relying on them.
> 
> 
> Interesting point, stoveliker.  I wanted to see if you were right on that, at least for my own case, so I did some quick figuring below.
> ...



It's only one wifi extender, and my phone works fine without in my bedroom, so why have it on. It's automatically programmed to switch off. The main wifi access point will always be on, and can serve the whole home. The extender is meant for outside coverage. So no headaches here.

You, sir, are having a different home than I have. One zillion square foot, a million rooms, and probably inconsistent daylight coming in, many rooms and partitions etc. I have what used to be a basement+1200 sqft ranch, on which they added a 576 sqft (half) second story.  The one fridge and one freezer will necessarily be less of the total than in my home. The big baseloads (one big audio/tv system, kitchen stuff, etc.) are baseline, while lighting scales with home size. So.

My attitude is the same as yours though. I keep switching those d*mn lights off. 
My family is still overseas, at this point. I've been in the living room with one 7 W LED on (after my outside fire died out and I went in).
My fridge is purring away though. The washer did too earlier.


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## EbS-P (Aug 22, 2022)

stoveliker said:


> No eves (?) ... When the sun gets lower and the eves don't work anymore, the
> load should be less?


More or less west exposure on  the gable end.   I had to take out a big tree that was starting to uproot which used to shade this part of the house.  

It’s the later afternoon evening sun and that really bakes this side of the house.


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## EbS-P (Aug 22, 2022)

Poindexter said:


> Hmmnph.  I guess we are all waiting for woodgeek to spill.
> 
> In the meantime, if this is a reputable datasource:
> 
> ...


I was sitting at about 800 kWh per month before the BEV.   Now my 12 month average is 925 kWh last month  my average comparable house was 1800!


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## peakbagger (Aug 22, 2022)

A definite downside to optimizing for solar gain for PV arrays and wintertime building heat gain is higher day time structure temps. Landscaping with hardwood trees works remarkably well for heat gain as leaves are there during the summer and gone in the winter but not very good for solar. Proper overhang design can help but they need to be designed correctly and can be hard to architecturally integrate in many home designs. I will be playing around with them on my next house design. I have wall mounted solar array that shades an angle bay window and I do know that it really cut down on summertime heat gain in my living room.


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## EbS-P (Aug 22, 2022)

Poindexter said:


> Is there a reputable website we can look up average or typical consumption of especially electricity either nation wide or by smaller chunks?  I wouldn't mind seeing some data for say average annual electric consumption in Finland or Colombia or etcetera either.
> 
> With 2 responsible adults in 1200sqft of house I think we are doing pretty darned good drawing 500-700 watts continuous average.  I know the dishwasher is the oldest appliance in the home by at least 5 years, but at this point I might as well run it until it breaks and then look for an efficient reliable new replacement at that time.


Here is a state list.  https://www.eia.gov/electricity/sales_revenue_price/pdf/table5_a.pdf


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## Ashful (Aug 22, 2022)

peakbagger said:


> Landscaping with hardwood trees works remarkably well for heat gain as leaves are there during the summer and gone in the winter but not very good for solar.


You've probably caught that I'm into old houses, and when I was growing up, several family members of my grandparents' generation were still living in houses on farms continuously occupied by my family for several generations.  One thing I had noticed from this experience is that older houses took much better advantage of orienting the structure (and support structures), as well as landscaping, for natural heating and cooling advantages.

Often, you'll find old photos with deciduous trees planted on the southern and western sides of a home, with evergreens planted on the north and east sides.  The deciduous trees of course provide maximum southern and western shade in summer, while allowing it thru in winter.  The evergreens block our nasty northeasterly winds all winter. 

More interesting, is the few remaining very old houses, built before there were roads, when there was no road to cause any bias which direction you faced the house or barn.  Every single one I can remember has had the barn planted due north of the house, offering a similar wind break to the house, as the barn is nearly always larger than the house.


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## peakbagger (Aug 22, 2022)

My house is not oriented to the street, its facing south with my garage to the east of the house set back so that its front door is roughly aligned with the back of the house. In my cold climate the morning sun keeps my driveway clear from snow an ice. To the west is a big softwood stand that shelters the house from the prevailing west/northwest winds.  I have removed several hardwoods to the south of my house to improve solar gain but the trade off is an increase is summer cooling. I have plenty of PV to handle that.


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## Ashful (Aug 22, 2022)

Good points.  I should have said "most".  There are still definitely folks who pay attention to this stuff, despite most builders just pointing the house toward the street.


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## Sawset (Aug 22, 2022)

When I was researching building our house here, I recall something that some architects use.  When drawing a house plan on a lot, set a 30-60-90 triangle on an east west orientation, then put the house footprint rotated at 30deg CW.   The result is, all 4 sides receive sunlight.  If the south exposure has overhanging eaves, then those windows receive no sunlight in the summer, yet full sunlight in the winter.  The west exposure sunlight occurs very late in the day, and has minimal effect on solar insolation.  Most hot summer days here only one 5kbtu window air will cool the place.  We have 27 windows - 15 face south, 6 face west.


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## stoveliker (Aug 22, 2022)

Ashful said:


> Good points.  I should have said "most".  There are still definitely folks who pay attention to this stuff, despite most builders just pointing the house toward the street.


Or this is just random chance; after all the options are not that many (N-E-S-W).


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## peakbagger (Aug 22, 2022)

I took a Passive house course a few months ago and building orientation is very important as the only source of heat for a Passive house is sunlight in the windows. The trick is to maximize the winter sun and minimize summer sun. Note the combination of extremely tight construction and superinsulation means that the heating and cooling loads are already very low. After reviewing the extra cost and hassle of going with fully certified passive home, I decided that any future house would be zero net energy that uses active solar to offset added energy loads


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## stoveliker (Aug 22, 2022)

I added a bay window on the (completely window-less) South wall  of the living room.
I opted for (triple pane - was not that much more than double pane, so why not, and) the coating that takes advantage of the angle dependent reflection of IR light. When the sun is high in the sky in summer, IR gets reflected. When the sun is low, it gets through.

And I can tell you that it really works, judging by the temperature of the horizontal plane at the bottom of the bay window. 

However, this is good for South facing windows, not for West facing ones, as when the sun sets, the IR would get through.


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## woodgeek (Aug 22, 2022)

stoveliker said:


> Or this is just random chance; after all the options are not that many (N-E-S-W).



My 1960 house was the first by a new/young builder.  He clearly bought a very nice floor plan from an architect, so it has nice/wow design features.   (and he cut a bunch of newby corners that I am still dealing with 62 years later).

Notably, the house is clearly designed (overhangs, indoor planters, large windows versus small windows) to face SOUTH, but it actually faces North-west.


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## Ashful (Aug 22, 2022)

stoveliker said:


> Or this is just random chance; after all the options are not that many (N-E-S-W).


I don't buy that.  There are 360 degrees in a circle, 400 gradians for you architectural types.  Moreover, nearly all of our roads in eastern PA are set roughly 45 degrees off the compass. meaning most houses built facing a road are actually NE, NW, SE, SW.

But I'm mostly speaking of those houses built before there were roads, the construction of which actually lead to the creation of roads.  These are the ones where I see more emphasis on its direction relative to the seasonal solar advantage.


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## begreen (Aug 22, 2022)

Poindexter said:


> I went ahead and totaled mine up.  For the year ending 07-06-22 we bought 7,038 kwh, average about 19.5 kwh per day.  In the four warmest months with no heating of the insulation envelope or head bolt heaters on the vehicles we bought 1794 kwh which would put us at ~5400 kwh for the year/ 11.75 kwh per day "if there was no winter in Alaska."
> 
> We did have two kids home for two weeks each Christmas 21.  We had one daughter here for the month of June 22.  I can see both of those events on the electric (and the water) bill but it was worth it to have them home.
> 
> I don't think I am going to find any dramatic electricity savings without installing solar or moving to either a smaller house or somewhere south of here.  But I am curious.


Our bill in summer is just the base fee due to solar, but in winter it goes up a lot. We have clothes drying, hw heating (of colder incoming water), a lot more lighting, and the heat pump.  All in addition to charging the car.


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## begreen (Aug 22, 2022)

woodgeek said:


> My 1960 house was the first by a new/young builder.  He clearly bought a very nice floor plan from an architect, so it has nice/wow design features.   (and he cut a bunch of newby corners that I am still dealing with 62 years later).
> 
> Notably, the house is clearly designed (overhangs, indoor planters, large windows versus small windows) to face SOUTH, but it actually faces North-west.


That's not uncommon. Since the advent of electric lighting and central heating, a lot of common sense and frugality has disappeared from residential architecture. The ubiquitous cathedral ceiling (my home is a temple) is an example. Our 1924 house has huge windows facing north to take advantage of the (now overgrown) view.  I am sure these were retrofitted from the original more common sense farmhouse windows. Double bay windows on the east side were added around 1990, furthering heat loss, but at least the house now has some standard insulation.


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## stoveliker (Aug 22, 2022)

Ashful said:


> I don't buy that.  There are 360 degrees in a circle, 400 gradians for you architectural types.  Moreover, nearly all of our roads in eastern PA are set roughly 45 degrees off the compass. meaning most houses built facing a road are actually NE, NW, SE, SW.
> 
> But I'm mostly speaking of those houses built before there were roads, the construction of which actually lead to the creation of roads.  These are the ones where I see more emphasis on its direction relative to the seasonal solar advantage.


I was referring to the quoted sentence, which was not about older homes. All I was saying is that a few (modern) homes properly oriented could simply be chance. Phase space is not that large.


begreen said:


> Our bill in summer is just the base fee due to solar, but in winter it goes up a lot. We have clothes drying, hw heating (of colder incoming water), a lot more lighting, and the heat pump.  All in addition to charging the car.


That's why it makes more sense to note total yearly kWh usage. Billing is too dependent on local solar regulations. (My bill is the connection fee all year round - as no kWh bank reset date for many years to come.)


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## EbS-P (Aug 22, 2022)

begreen said:


> That's not uncommon. Since the advent of electric lighting and central heating, a lot of common sense and frugality has disappeared from residential architecture. The ubiquitous cathedral ceiling (my home is a temple) is an example.


And we have had pretty cheap electricity and gas and oil.   For the last part of the 20th century when a LOT of the housing stock was built.   If we all had to pay Alaskan or Hawaiian rates we Might build differently. We are probably will all see a rate increase soon.


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## tlc1976 (Aug 22, 2022)

Mine was built in the mid 80s, by a guy and wife and sons as a retirement house. He did just about everything very well. Including location in with the deciduous trees to the south and east, and pines to the north and west and lining the driveway. Large eaves to block the higher sun in the summer. The trees block a lot of wind which helps with heating and snow blowing too. It has full house wrap, good Andersen windows of the time, and the concrete basement helps cool in the summer and doesn’t freeze pipes in the winter. Only thing lacking is insulation upstairs which is only R19 (current code is R49) but I don’t know what code was back then. I really beefed it up last spring, curious how it will do this winter. He put separate circuits to almost everything too which is nice. All the wires neatly grouped and routed around the breaker box.

He was very meticulous, he kept a light blue “baby book” with everything he did including property layout, permits, foundation and framing and construction details, manuals of everything, even a 3 page bill of material for the recently replaced well. He started from nothing and put his heart and soul into this place. When you’re given something like that as a starting point, it gives the desire to follow suit.


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## peakbagger (Aug 22, 2022)

tlc1976 said:


> Mine was built in the mid 80s, by a guy and wife and sons as a retirement house. He did just about everything very well. Including location in with the deciduous trees to the south and east, and pines to the north and west and lining the driveway. Large eaves to block the higher sun in the summer. The trees block a lot of wind which helps with heating and snow blowing too. It has full house wrap, good Andersen windows of the time, and the concrete basement helps cool in the summer and doesn’t freeze pipes in the winter. Only thing lacking is insulation upstairs which is only R19 (current code is R49) but I don’t know what code was back then. I really beefed it up last spring, curious how it will do this winter. He put separate circuits to almost everything too which is nice. All the wires neatly grouped and routed around the breaker box.
> 
> He was very meticulous, he kept a light blue “baby book” with everything he did including property layout, permits, foundation and framing and construction details, manuals of everything, even a 3 page bill of material for the recently replaced well. He started from nothing and put his heart and soul into this place. When you’re given something like that as a starting point, it gives the desire to follow suit.


The problem with building a "forever home" is with rare exceptions the initial builder only gets limited use of the structure.  Most retirements homes are only occupied by the original owner for 10 to 15 years. Things change. If someone does have kids, its pretty rare that they are living nearby and want the place so it goes on the open market that really does not price in the hidden features that the owner went to so much trouble to install. "Bury your best work" is engineering phrase I ran into over my career but almost everything I built to last "forever" got torn down not that long after I built it. (I do have an elevated railrroad trestle that is still standing but it just that the scrappers havent moved in on it yet).

Its a quandary I am going through currently, I am planning a retirement home that will sink a lot of money into things that are the "right" thing to do but its all stuff that will take years to payoff. Maybe some future buyer will appreciate it but in my experience that type of work does not sell a house. I may be far better to do a deep energy upgrade on my current home and stay where I am at and save the money.


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## Poindexter (Aug 22, 2022)

peakbagger said:


> The problem with building a "forever home" is with rare exceptions the initial builder only gets limited use of the structure.  Most retirements homes are only occupied by the original owner for 10 to 15 years. Things change. If someone does have kids, its pretty rare that they are living nearby and want the place so it goes on the open market that really does not price in the hidden features that the owner went to so much trouble to install. "Bury your best work" is engineering phrase I ran into over my career but almost everything I built to last "forever" got torn down not that long after I built it. (I do have an elevated railrroad trestle that is still standing but it just that the scrappers havent moved in on it yet).
> 
> Its a quandary I am going through currently, I am planning a retirement home that will sink a lot of money into things that are the "right" thing to do but its all stuff that will take years to payoff. Maybe some future buyer will appreciate it but in my experience that type of work does not sell a house. I may be far better to do a deep energy upgrade on my current home and stay where I am at and save the money.


I had a thread started in I think the DIY section about retirement homes that didn't get much traction.

The big four for the retiree are:
1. access to the bedroom
2. access to the bathroom
3. useful access to the kitchen
4. means of egress from the building

Most bathrooms I see are far to small for a wheelchair user.  Turning circle for an ambulatory adult is the space they are standing in.  For a wheelchair with foot pegs in use often up over 5 feet.  Minimum for an accessible kitchen is room to open the fridge from a wheelchair, and least expensively a small table, perhaps 2x4 feet top, wheelchair can fit under, MWO and toaster oven or coffee maker on top.  Water, got to be able to fill a glass of water.

The other consideration is how far do you want to go?  Do you want to move into Shady Acres when a cane won't suffice anymore and you need a walker, or will manual/ powered wheelchair be the breakpoint?

For manual wheelchair floor framing I would prefer 2x8 joists on 16" center with double layer 3/4 TG plywood.  Single layer (not TG) 3/4 ply on 2x10 on 24" centers just doesn't do it for me as framing under a wheelchair user.

The powered wheelchairs are quite heavy, often ~400#, and a live point load.

My current pipe dream is to get a spacious bathroom, a useful bedroom, kitchen dining and living room on one level, with 2 egress ramps sloped 1:12 as part of new construction, and then put two beds and another bath upstairs so it would list as a 3-2 when ready for sale.  From there it just depends on the lot.  If the lot can easily accommodate a poured slab, making a floor stiff enough for a powered wheelchair would be relatively inexpensive while you are pouring a slab anyway.

I have not yet ever seen 'ADA compliant lower level' in a house for sale listing, but we do have one apartment complex in town where every unit is ADA compliant and they mention it in all of their advertising.


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## begreen (Aug 22, 2022)

FWIW, no one in my family, including extended family, needed a wheelchair until a few years before death. At that point, they needed someone to do most of the work for them. They were not safe to be in a kitchen. 
We are getting well off the topic now, especially for geriatric accommodations. Maybe this thread has run its course.


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## tlc1976 (Aug 22, 2022)

peakbagger said:


> The problem with building a "forever home" is with rare exceptions the initial builder only gets limited use of the structure.  Most retirements homes are only occupied by the original owner for 10 to 15 years. Things change. If someone does have kids, its pretty rare that they are living nearby and want the place so it goes on the open market that really does not price in the hidden features that the owner went to so much trouble to install. "Bury your best work" is engineering phrase I ran into over my career but almost everything I built to last "forever" got torn down not that long after I built it. (I do have an elevated railrroad trestle that is still standing but it just that the scrappers havent moved in on it yet).
> 
> Its a quandary I am going through currently, I am planning a retirement home that will sink a lot of money into things that are the "right" thing to do but its all stuff that will take years to payoff. Maybe some future buyer will appreciate it but in my experience that type of work does not sell a house. I may be far better to do a deep energy upgrade on my current home and stay where I am at and save the money.


Luckily he made it almost 30 years, his wife just over 20, they both passed here. One of the sons took it over for most of a year and decided to sell, it was tough. There’s been an affordable housing shortage around here for decades so no problem selling, but he wanted it to go a full time family who would appreciate it. Not just another flipper or snowbird or landlord. I love the 80s vibe, I don’t like the modern trends. It’s everything I wanted and hopefully I have a lot more years left to enjoy it. I won’t be going anywhere unless something happens to me. And if anything does, my daughter will likely appreciate it, if not change it or sell it. I’ve seen old HGTV shows where houses are a hard sell, but around here people will buy anything to get their foot in the door. Long before 2020.

I hope you can do the things you want to your house. While you can, and have time to appreciate it. Don’t put off what makes you happy for fear it won’t appeal to whoever takes over while you’re gone. But with all your posts I read, it sounds like a deep energy upgrade will make your future years happy too.

Edit: yes we wandered, a few posts as I was writing this.


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## tlc1976 (Aug 22, 2022)

I got a box of CFLs free from the electric company about 10 years ago. I’m finally on my last few. Comparable output is 13 watts CFL instead of 9 LED, so I’m just leaving them till they burn out. Everything else I swapped for LED since they’re finally cheap enough to be worth it. Lights don’t make a dent in my bill, except the barn when I’m working out there all day. Those are still CFL, but again it would take years of constant use to break even with an LED conversion, so they stay till they burn out.

About a year ago I did swap my 175 watt barn light for a 35 watt LED and removed the ballast, after it quit. That made a few dollars difference in my bill. Same with my 80s kitchen fluorescent box light, converted to LED.

Earlier this year when I got a new UPS, I went through the house checking loads. Turned out a rarely used set of computer speakers had a 120W transformer running full time. Unplug. Saved a little more. I will leave my c band satellite box plugged in, it costs about $5 a month on or off, but replacing it would be expensive or difficult.

No big ticket items to remove. Just a dollar here and there, adds up. Here’s how my usage has gone down. 2018 to now. Dehumidifier in the basement makes usage go up with temperature on average.


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## Poindexter (Aug 22, 2022)

I will prune again, as I have the time again this evening. 

In post 65 this thread I harvested these 12 ideas as things we had come up with we could do as individuals to flight/delay climate change.

1. carbon neutral wood heat. One thing we all have in common .
2. Clothesline for drying clothes. We did this seasonally on the farm when I was a kid and I honestly miss smelling the apple orchard on my bed linens.
3. Electric vehicles. Two things I do know are bigger burners, like power plants, are more strictly regulated on emissions than homeowners. So if we got to burn say 50 tons of coal per hour, better to do it one big plant with commercial level emissions controls. The other side of the coin is electrical losses in transmission lines can be pretty significant. I am not equipped to know how much carbon we are emitting to cover transmission losses but I do think it should be discussed.
4. Adoption curve of new tech leading to economic viabiltiy.
5. Solar panels. I suspect they should end up being carbon negative, that is more more electricity out life cycle than pollution caused in manufacturing, something to look at this winter with my feet up.
6. Insulation and air sealing. Thank you @vinny11950 .
7. Voting. Adoption curve again. I have been registered either independent or libertarian for, gosh, 30 years at least. I think this is the same as adopting the technology curve again. If you keep voting for the same SOBs, that is what you will have to choose from next time around. On the one hand we all want our vote to count, but if people are voting for the greens or the whites instead of just choosing between the reds and the blues the white and green parties (I just made up white. If it is a thing like the official party of the KKK please accept my apologies in advance) - anyroad when the greens and the whites are getting some votes they are going to get bigger and more sophisticated.
8. reuse single use items. When I order takeout, I ask for no utensils and often get single use flatware anyway.
9. Packaging. This is huge. I asked the hospital I work for if I could get some cardboard boxes when one of the kids was moving out. I got 14 - more than one dozen- boxes 18x18x18 inches with 1.5" styrofoam insulation on 6 sides and stacks of Stay-Kold packs in every box. Along with all the other boxes, it was one day's receipts of incoming pharmaceuticals for one pretty small hospital. It boggles my mind to think of how many of those stay-cold packs show up on the dock at a big place like Duke or UCLA or the Cleveland Clinic every day. They go in the trash as soon as the drugs are in a refrigerator, at least up here.
10. Cloth diapers
11. plastics in general
12. (my paraphrase) shareholder greed. If you got a 401k, you too could be part of the problem...

So since then, the intervening almost 200 posts, the new ideas I see are quite a few new ideas.  I shall paraphrase a little bit, and try to self limit commentary.

13. reusable drinking straws.
14. local food and more vegetables.  This came up a few different ways.  I can say in my clinical experience Americans eat too much meat for optimal health, and Med sea salt does have to be shipped from the Med.
15. make purchases that last
16. recyclable diapers, a step up from disposables without the maintenance of cloth diapers.
17. modern minisplit heat pump technology
18. drive slower and drive less - we spent quite a few pages beating that to death
19. down size the house/ make passive the house.  @begreen I think there is still some room for discussion in this area.  If my house burns down I will rebuild it smaller and more efficient.  But if I sell it and build/buy something smaller and more efficient someone else will be in the house I own now living in it.
20. Grow more vegetables and less lawn on your lot.
21. Live simply
22. recycle kitchen waste with livestock or composting
23. local versus online shopping
24. as appendage to cars we did talk about 2 cycle small engines and battery operated OPE
25. incandescent versus CFL versus LED lightbulbs segued to 
26. total electrical consumption, common household electrical loads and cuurent USA averages by state.


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## Poindexter (Aug 22, 2022)

We are perhaps slowing down having gotten the low hanging fruit in the early days.

One the other hand cars are central to American culture and we simply don't have the existing infrastructure to use mass transport in much of the country without massive investment.  I think that was worth 3-4 pages of discussion just for everyone to feel heard.

The housing thing really does bug me.  My house is efficient as I can make it with $100 here, $1000 there.  The next steps for the building I currently own would be to fasten inches of rigid foam to the exterior, get a house wrap on the outside of that, then new siding.  There is $20k easy.  Then I could install solar panels and modern minisplits for summertime AC and minimal assistance with my heating loads in the fringes of shoulder season, another $20k easily.  From there I could rip out perhaps 10-20% of the existing drywall to install a reasonable HRV system, probably another $20k.

I am very interested in adding AC for my hotter and hotter summers, but I would never actually see those $60k again as all the houses in the neighborhood appraise +/- 300k.  Financially I would be better off dropping $15k on  a kitchen upgrade to maximize my resale value.  The new owner would have a house as efficient as Poindexter could make it while remaining married to his darling wife, but the next owner is not likely to drop that kind of coin either, so the house will continue to suck watts and emit carbon like a well maintained 1980 build.  Until it falls inevitably back towards disrepair.  If I had $45k cash to play with after upgrading the kitchen a 1969 Corvette would be very tempting.

My home is of zero architectural merit.  Perhaps negative architectural merit.  It is a shoe box with a gable roof, with much of the workmanship of the sort that causes me to raise one eyebrow when said workmanship is exposed.  If I could afford to burn it down, dig out the footings and start over without an insurance check I would strongly consider it; it is a nice enough lot in a very nice middle class neighborhood.  But I can't afford to do that.  So the house is going to be occupied for some time to come whether I live in it or not.


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## DBoon (Aug 23, 2022)

11 pages in and I am still waiting for the suggestion to "simply buy less" or "buy used". 

Having moved many times when younger, I appreciate how material things add up over time. I try to think a long time before buying something, and I make few spur-of-the-moment purchases (unless they are consumables, e.g., food). Most small purchases are with cash, which makes me think twice as much about whether I really need that "thing" or whether I would rather spend my cash on something else. 

And when I finally buy something I really, really need, I will buy as high a quality as I can find. I want to get high satisfaction out of using it, and I don't want it to break a year (or less) after I buy it. High quality items (e.g., good gardening tools) are probably not available (mostly) at my local hardware store, require some research to find, and cost 3-4x more money, but I buy them once and keep broken garbage out of the landfill.


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## semipro (Aug 23, 2022)

DBoon said:


> 11 pages in and I am still waiting for the suggestion to "simply buy less" or "buy used".
> 
> Having moved many times when younger, I appreciate how material things add up over time. I try to think a long time before buying something, and I make few spur-of-the-moment purchases (unless they are consumables, e.g., food). Most small purchases are with cash, which makes me think twice as much about whether I really need that "thing" or whether I would rather spend my cash on something else.
> 
> And when I finally buy something I really, really need, I will buy as high a quality as I can find. I want to get high satisfaction out of using it, and I don't want it to break a year (or less) after I buy it. High quality items (e.g., good gardening tools) are probably not available (mostly) at my local hardware store, require some research to find, and cost 3-4x more money, but I buy them once and keep broken garbage out of the landfill.


I'd add to this "repair rather than replace", assuming, of course, that repair makes sense.


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## woodgeek (Aug 23, 2022)

@Poindexter nice summary list.

But I have a bugaboo.  This thread is about climate, and climate is mostly about CO2, less about CH4 and a little about HCFCs.  And not about drinking straws or microplastics or oil/NOx from @Ashful 's beloved string trimmer.

It IS about how individual action (such as we around here have been taking for YEARS) does add up, and rub off on our neighbors/family, and is part of the Green Vortex curve that will ultimately abate climate change (or which is currently the best shot to do so).

The recent IRA bill in the US is NOT going to build a bunch of CO2 scrubbers for the atmosphere... its going to accelerate what we are all doing, speeding up the Green Vortex.

My bugaboo is that the popular media encourages us all to do 'little things' that will 'add up to a lot'.  And I think that is often counterproductive. Recycling as it is done in the US probably doesn't save communities money, and probably doesn't benefit the climate.  If it does, the effect is miniscule.  It may be a good idea for other reasons... but not the climate.  Journalists tell people to put masking tape over the cracks in their windows in winter (or to caulk the window shut), promising possibly huge energy savings, and don't tell people there is probably a 3-10 sq ft air leak in their attic framing that can be fixed for <$100.

I went to a lecture by Jane Goodall 20 years ago, in a lovely outdoor garden in Pasadena CA.  And she gave a stirring speech about the natural world and how climate change was bad.  To a bunch of tech-savvy, high income, high consumption people.  And afterwards, people had one question for Jane 'What can we DO to avert climate change?'.  And Jane was unprepared for the question.  Her answer was 'Um, if you aren't recycling, start.  IF you are recycling, keep doing it.'   Opportunity blown!  FACEPALM.

If you care about the climate, (if you have 263 posts you probably do, or are very bored) then you should just sit down and compute your CARBON FOOTPRINT.  There are many sites that do this, with ACTUAL MATH.  Here's one:






						carbonfootprint.com - Carbon Footprint Calculator
					

Use the World’s most popular online carbon footprint calculator, and it's FREE. Calculate your carbon emissions from Buildings, Cars, Flights and other sources.



					www.carbonfootprint.com
				




Your carbon footprint is mostly:
1) Your residential energy use.  Not just kWh electricity (which might greener than you think), but all that invisible fossil fuel going up the stack to keep you warm.
2) Your ride.  Its easy.  How many miles?  And at what mpg?  Equals gallons.  20lbs CO2 per gallon.
3) Your diet.  Beef and dairy are very heavy CO2/CH4 emitters.  Fish and eggs are the lowest animal protein sources.  Plant based foods are all a lot lower.
4) Your vacation.  Flying emits less carbon per mile than driving a Prius with one person in it.  Close to 100 mpg equivalent per person.  Like two people in a Prius.  So the issue is How Many Miles?  Do you need to vacation 2000 miles from home, or can you find a nice beach/cabin 200 miles from home?  Can you take a train longer distances?
5) Your work travel.  See #4.
6) Stuff.  Buy less stuff.

Everything else is crumbs.  After you compute your carbon footprint, and see the breakdown... then decide what you can do.

And I will also say that I am very unconvinced about the importance of eating locally re climate impacts:





						The facts about food miles | BBC Good Food
					

Could knowing where your food comes from help you shop more sustainably? Here, we explain the concept of food miles and the journey food takes from origin to your plate.



					www.bbcgoodfood.com
				



Should I eat a tomato in the winter that rode a train from Florida, or grown in a heated greenhouse in New Jersey?  The NJ one might taste better, but the Florida one will have lower total emissions.


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## woodgeek (Aug 23, 2022)

A decade ago, at a rented beach house, I got into a long conversation with my SIL, an affluent SAHM who was concerned about the environment.  She had engaged in a LOT of motivated reasoning about how the little changes she was making (including, naturally, scrupulous recycling) had a BIG impact, and how some other things (like flying across the country or to Europe for vacation, 1-2X per year) probably didn't matter very much.  While we were talking, she was getting kinda riled up with me.

In the end, I said... 'its math.  Are you going to argue with math?'  She said 'No.'  She went and did the Footprint calculator, and the next day sat down with me, chagrined. 

But informed.


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## SpaceBus (Aug 23, 2022)

Ashful said:


> Good points.  I should have said "most".  There are still definitely folks who pay attention to this stuff, despite most builders just pointing the house toward the street.


Is that true? I'm pretty sure most sub divisions and neighborhoods are very well planned with n-s and e-w roads, thereby making the houses oriented to the cardinal directions, for the most part.


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## EbS-P (Aug 23, 2022)

woodgeek said:


> @Poindexter nice summary list.
> 
> But I have a bugaboo.  This thread is about climate, and climate is mostly about CO2, less about CH4 and a little about HCFCs.  And not about drinking straws or microplastics or oil/NOx from @Ashful 's beloved string trimmer.
> 
> ...


this!  House, transportation, food.  There’s still plenty of that fruit hanging within reach on the neighborhood scale and larger. 

I heat with wood and have an EV.  Working on better food choices.


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## SpaceBus (Aug 23, 2022)

DBoon said:


> 11 pages in and I am still waiting for the suggestion to "simply buy less" or "buy used".
> 
> Having moved many times when younger, I appreciate how material things add up over time. I try to think a long time before buying something, and I make few spur-of-the-moment purchases (unless they are consumables, e.g., food). Most small purchases are with cash, which makes me think twice as much about whether I really need that "thing" or whether I would rather spend my cash on something else.
> 
> And when I finally buy something I really, really need, I will buy as high a quality as I can find. I want to get high satisfaction out of using it, and I don't want it to break a year (or less) after I buy it. High quality items (e.g., good gardening tools) are probably not available (mostly) at my local hardware store, require some research to find, and cost 3-4x more money, but I buy them once and keep broken garbage out of the landfill.


I have actually said something a long these lines a few times. Specifically in regards to cars, but it applies to everything. I love watching old episodes of "The Price is Right" on youtube from the 70's and seeing that appliances cost the same today, which is nuts! Those old appliances may not have been as efficient, but they were much more durable. I would be interested to see the difference in carbon consumption when comparing a 50's-70's refrigerator, water heater, etc. compared to buying modern disposable appliances that are replaced within ten years. Does buying multiple high efficiency appliances over the course of one's life have a higher carbon cost than buying one "vintage" or "antique" appliance and running it for 50+ years? I suspect it is appliance specific, but in some cases the carbon use will be less using the older stuff. 
Shopping for used goods isn't the same as it used to be in regards to domestic goods. Used cars can be very dicey, and generally speaking newer cars are more reliable and longer lasting than old cars. The downside is that the average new car transaction price has just kept going higher and higher. As I mentioned earlier refrigerators are much cheaper now than they used to be, but now they are also less reliable. Cookware is another good example. We bought a new set of pots and pans when we bought our house in 2018 and even with only using the appropriate utensils the coating is still coming off. The "not teflon" coating started wearing within just one year of purchasing the set. Now we only use the coated cookware for boiling water/pasta and I cook in cast iron. Not only is the cast iron really cheap, but it gets better with use and unless I leave it submerged for an unreasonably long time I won't have to buy replacements. 

You are totally right that simply consuming less will be a direct reduction in carbon.


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## stoveliker (Aug 23, 2022)

SpaceBus said:


> I have actually said something a long these lines a few times. Specifically in regards to cars,


Oh man, you're telling @Ashful to simply buy less IN REGARDS TO CARS?
I am curious what response you're going to get about that from Mr. Muscle Car. 
(all in joking manner, no offense meant)


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## woodgeek (Aug 23, 2022)

An example I came up with this AM walking the dog...

As part of my 'vegan before 6PM' diet I am switching to, I shopped around for plant milks that I actually liked (never having had a good one at others homes).  I found a pea-based 'Not Milk', at my local grocery, which is a drop in replacement for Homogenized Whole milk.  Flavor is nearly indistinguishable, similar nutritional profile (w no cholesterol), tastes the same in my coffee and on my cereal, and I can bake with it.  WIN.

I estimate that I (living mostly alone) use 3-4 liters of whole milk per week (the stuff that goes on my morning cereal mostly goes down the drain, tsk).

This link: 








						Dairy vs. plant-based milk: what are the environmental impacts?
					

A growing number of people are interested in switching to plant-based alternatives to dairy. But are they better for the environment, and which is best?




					ourworldindata.org
				




suggests that the carbon footprint difference between dairy and soy milk is >2kg CO2e per liter.

So, my switching to pea milk is netting me >6 kg CO2e per week, or >300 kg CO2e per year.

That is equivalent to offsetting:
-- at least 800 kWh per year of electricity emissions.
-- me driving my Bolt 2500 miles per year
-- me driving a 30 mpg ICE car 1000 miles per year (if I owned an ICE car).
-- me flying about 3000 miles per year in a jet aircraft !!

All bc I picked up one carton on the shelf in my grocer, versus a different carton a couple yards away.

And my serum cholesterol will probably go down too.


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## Ashful (Aug 23, 2022)

woodgeek said:


> If you care about the climate, (if you have 263 posts you probably do, or are very bored) then you should just sit down and compute your CARBON FOOTPRINT.  There are many sites that do this, with ACTUAL MATH.  Here's one:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Is there a category for married by filing individually?     I may joke about driving cars with horrendous mpg, but I drive so few miles that I'm filling a vehicle's tank less than once per month.  Driving a Prius wouldn't change my yearly usage more than a few dozen gallons, for all that self-imposed misery.

But when considering the whole household, things come out quite "un-clean", as evidenced by the electric bill and 4 - 6 Amazon trucks in our driveway every day.



SpaceBus said:


> Is that true? I'm pretty sure most sub divisions and neighborhoods are very well planned with n-s and e-w roads, thereby making the houses oriented to the cardinal directions, for the most part.


Not here.  Not at all.  First off, you'd be hard-pressed to find a N-S or E-W road in eastern PA, they nearly all run SE-NW or NE-SW, 45-degrees to the cardinal points on the compass.  Second, nearly every development built in this area since the 1980's is built on a "U" or a big circle tee'd into the main road with a connector road, such that every house in the development faces the "U" or circle road, at a different orientation to the compass.

About the only thing you can say for them is that most are large houses on small lots, probably most often averaging 10,000 sq.ft. per acre of land (eg. 2000 sq.ft. on 0.2 ac., or 5000 sq.ft. on 0.5 ac.).  In this way, the houses are packed so closely alongside one another that they shield each other from the elements.  They also have notoriously few side windows, since who really wants to look out their window at neighbor's house 20 - 40 feet away, which likely helps to keep heat loss a bit lower.

It's amusing that one of the things I repeatedly heard from young families shopping the few houses being sold by retirees or empty-nesters in our neighborhood. was a complaint tor concern over the larger lots on which these houses are built (2 - 10 acres each).  It appears those ubiquitous neighborhoods of high-density McMansions have become so much the norm around here, that seeing a house with a respectable yard or woods around it is inconceivable to the average millennial.


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## SpaceBus (Aug 23, 2022)

woodgeek said:


> An example I came up with this AM walking the dog...
> 
> As part of my 'vegan before 6PM' diet I am switching to, I shopped around for plant milks that I actually liked (never having had a good one at others homes).  I found a pea-based 'Not Milk', at my local grocery, which is a drop in replacement for Homogenized Whole milk.  Flavor is nearly indistinguishable, similar nutritional profile (w no cholesterol), tastes the same in my coffee and on my cereal, and I can bake with it.  WIN.
> 
> ...


Wow, I'm really surprised by the water usage for the almonds given all the bad press they get. The charts don't tell the whole story, because the water used on almonds in California has a much larger impact on local water supplies than the locally grazed cows where I live. However, like you said, this is a carbon focused thread.


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## woodgeek (Aug 23, 2022)

SpaceBus said:


> Wow, I'm really surprised by the water usage for the almonds given all the bad press they get. The charts don't tell the whole story, because the water used on almonds in California has a much larger impact on local water supplies than the locally grazed cows where I live. However, like you said, this is a carbon focused thread.


Yeah, my dairy milk to pea milk swap also reduces agricultural freshwater demand by 2000 liters per week, = 2 tons or water, or 600 gallons per week.  This is almost twice my current domestic usage!

PA has plenty of water (and groundwater), but certainly a bigger issue in other states.


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## Ashful (Aug 23, 2022)

woodgeek said:


> Yeah, my dairy milk to pea milk swap also reduces agricultural freshwater demand by 2000 liters per week, = 2 tons or water, or 600 gallons per week.  This is almost twice my current domestic usage!
> 
> PA has plenty of water (and groundwater), but certainly a bigger issue in other states.


I drink local milk.  From cows.  No water issues here.

"Pea milk"?  Sheesh.  Just shoot me, when it comes to that.


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## SpaceBus (Aug 23, 2022)

Ashful said:


> I drink local milk.  From cows.  No water issues here.
> 
> "Pea milk"?  Sheesh.  Just shoot me, when it comes to that.


I tried some, it's actually quite good. Similar "plant milks" were more popular than actual dairy before refrigeration and pasteurization. The only way to keep dairy from spoiling for most of human history was to make it into some kind of solid. You can dry out peas, peanuts, almonds, etc. and keep them for years and make the "milk" on demand. No need to buy the cow! 
I do agree that if you exclusively use grass fed dairy produced in your county (or similar sized area) it should be pretty negligible in regard to water use. Concentrated animal feedlot operations (CAFO), otherwise known as "factory farms" are another story and massive users of water. Even a herd of grass fed cattle, for meat or dairy, can drink a lot of water, especially when compared to more "traditional" dairy animals like sheep or goats. With the rise of trains and refrigeration cattle become much more profitable and human reliance on sheep and goat dairy has dramatically shifted.


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## woodgeek (Aug 23, 2022)

Ashful said:


> I drink local milk.  From cows.  No water issues here.
> 
> "Pea milk"?  Sheesh.  Just shoot me, when it comes to that.



I have a dream... I am working in my yard with my lithium powered string trimmer, and working up a sweat.  I go inside and pour a a tall glass of pea milk, and gulp it down in my kitchen, while standing in the high-CRI light of chinese LED filament bulbs.  Ahhhh.....

@Ashful WAKES UP SCREAMING, in a cold sweat.


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## begreen (Aug 23, 2022)

The list can be summed up with Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Rethink. I like buy less, grow and buy local too.

One helpful step is to cut down or eliminate commercial content coming into one's eyes and ears. We have not watched commercial content in over two decades and even before that the standing house rule was that commercials get muted. (The mute button was the most worn on the remote). We also cut back dramatically on magazine subscriptions and try to support commercial free ventures. Stopping the endless flow of marketing helps reset the mind.



Poindexter said:


> 16. recyclable diapers, a step up from disposables without the maintenance of cloth diapers.


Where are these recycled? In our county, they are definitely not, regardless of what the mfg. wants to sell them as. This is mostly greenwashing from what I can tell. Compost facilities typically are not set up to deal with human waste.








						Are Diapers Biodegradable? Here Are the Most Sustainable Diaper Options
					

Are diapers biodegradable? Here's your guide to keeping diaper time eco-friendly.




					www.greenmatters.com


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## woodgeek (Aug 23, 2022)

Yeah, water (for me in PA) is not a big deal.

I was curious about land use, bc I DO care about that too... and the units in the figure I found didn't make sense.  So I looked up the original paper, here:



			https://r.jordan.im/download/environmentalism/poore2018.pdf
		


It says the units is m^2*year, not m^2.  That makes sense, not how many liters of milk can some farm area make period, but in a year?

And the answer is a liter of soy milk (my proxy for pea milk) takes 0.7 m^2*years of farmland to produce.  A liter of dairy milk takes 8.9 m^2*years.

Bottom line, is that my swapping 3 liters per week, is 150 liters per year.  150 liter/year * 8 m^2 * year = 1200 m^2 of farmland that is available for another use, or to be returned to natural habitat. 

That works out to *0.3 ACRES *of productive land, previously wholly dedicated just to whitening my (decaf) coffee, wet my breakfast cereal, and largely go down the drain!!

Wow.


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## begreen (Aug 23, 2022)

When one looks at dairy farming's environmental impact, it's not trivial.  As they forage, they eliminate many native species of plants and the habitat they support. This is highly disruptive to the local ecology. Sheep farming is even worse. But this is true of most human activity. We don't factor environmental impact into GDP in spite of the ever-increasing costs of these disruptions.


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## tlc1976 (Aug 23, 2022)

I’ve mostly gone to a plant based diet, because it really helps my digestive issues. Mostly got rid of sugar, meat, bread, and dairy, and things with high sodium. Lots of plant based options out there and some are pretty good. I particularly like the Morning Star veggie burgers and link sausages, and the Arctic Zero ice cream. I also eat a lot of oatmeal. I eat a lot of the canned vegetables that have no sodium added. I prefer the canned food because I can stock up, minimizing trips to the store, and it won’t go bad, plus the steel cans are recyclable so it doesn’t add to my trash. I usually just drink water, but if I want something different it’s either a Powerade zero or a sugar free drink mix packet. I also lost some weight and now wear the same pants size as I did in high school.


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## stoveliker (Aug 23, 2022)

I find the morning star veggie burgers to be *very* salty, though.


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## peakbagger (Aug 23, 2022)

I actually like the Morning Star burgers. Not sure of the current balance but for a period the soy solids were effectively a waste product of soybean oil production. Kellogg owns Morning Star and they are going to splitting the company into three brands as the soybean side is far more profitable than the cereal side.

I will take a Morning Star burger over the new Beyond Meat burgers. The BM burgers are very greasy to me. I really could not tell the difference with the Burger King versions. I pile on the toppings on burgers, so the actual patty is not the primary taste. Due to the e coli scares, commercial burgers are overcooked anyhow so the patties all tend to taste overcooked. What beef I buy is from the local farmers market, raised local and grass fed.  The number of actual beef cuts I buy per year are not many. Mostly a chicken person.


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## stoveliker (Aug 23, 2022)

Morning Star Garden veggie burgers have 300 mg of sodium per burger. The ones called chicken patties have 320 mg per patty.

It's a lot. 
But we eat this brand often - have cut our meat consumption with 2/3 or so. No vegetarians, but at least decreased our footprint there.


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## Highbeam (Aug 23, 2022)

SpaceBus said:


> Is that true? I'm pretty sure most sub divisions and neighborhoods are very well planned with n-s and e-w roads, thereby making the houses oriented to the cardinal directions, for the most part.



I plat lots of land into lots and absolutely zero effort is placed in orienting the roads n/s or e/w. It's all about maximizing lot count and minimizing utility length.


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## peakbagger (Aug 23, 2022)

Avoid HOAs, they typically want to enforce uniformity and many have major restrictions on solar or even minimizing grass to save water.


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## stoveliker (Aug 23, 2022)

I'm all for minimizing grass. Either let it grow (in places w/o HOA) into a wildflower meadow, or put ground cover plants and bushes etc. down. Much more insects, birds, and water and CO2 capture capacity than the  home-owners shaved monoculture that people call grass.
(Once the kids are not playing on the, ahem, by now yellow field anymore, it's gone. Big garden and stuff actually growing then.)


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## begreen (Aug 23, 2022)

We have not eaten beef in over 50 years. Lunch today was a tomato & swiss sandwich. Homemade whole wheat bread (flour from WA state), tomato, lettuce, cucumber and onion slices from the garden, homemade mayo, and Swiss cheese from Oregon. Delicious.


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## stoveliker (Aug 23, 2022)

Swiss cheese from Oregon... Blasphemy.


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## Poindexter (Aug 23, 2022)

If my wife and I each take half credit for the house, my carbon footprint for the year ending 07-01-2022 was 8.72 metric tons.  

Clearly the best thing I have done was put in the wood stove and drop annual oil consumption from 1400-1500 gallons annually down to now 800-1000 gallons annually.  This year the oil thermostats are going even lower, probably about 55dF to keep the pipes from freezing,  and the wood stove will be raging.

If I had the garage space it would make sense to buy a small EV for seasonal summertime use if minimizing my carbon footprint was my only life goal.

I am going to miss my two cycle string trimmer, but I also want to do my bit to leave a habitable planet for my grandkids and your grandkids.


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## tlc1976 (Aug 23, 2022)

stoveliker said:


> Morning Star Garden veggie burgers have 300 mg of sodium per burger. The ones called chicken patties have 320 mg per patty.
> 
> It's a lot.
> But we eat this brand often - have cut our meat consumption with 2/3 or so. No vegetarians, but at least decreased our footprint there.


In a way it’s a lot. But 1 or 2 and not much other sodium for the day is pretty reasonable for me, considering a small can of soup is around 2000 mg of sodium even before adding crackers. I can’t do that anymore, I get sick from some kind of sodium shock. Same thing with a bag of salty snacks.



peakbagger said:


> Avoid HOAs, they typically want to enforce uniformity and many have major restrictions on solar or even minimizing grass to save water.



Yes for sure. My old HOA would fine you $100 if your grass got over 6” tall. Required much more mowing than necessary. Here I mow on the tallest setting and let it go 2 weeks around the house and a month for the large front area. Or longer if I wish. Just like to keep the ticks down. The old HOA also banned clotheslines and TV antennas and a bunch of other things. My satellite dish was kinda grandfathered in since it was there when I moved in, but they still always whined about it. I took it with me before selling the house and use it at my current house every day. Free TV with no internet required. I was too poor to even attempt solar but I doubt that was allowed either. Too bad because I had an A frame with the 33 ft x 20 ft roof/wall facing south.


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## Ashful (Aug 24, 2022)

LOL... the prior HOA in my neighborhood prevented the building of any home with less than 3 garage bays, and any lot subdivision under 6 acres.  I think there was a minimum square footage requirement (5000 ft2?) as well, haven't looked at it in a long time and it's now defunct, but the goal was to not allow the construction of anything that would lessen the value of other homes in the neighborhood.

As to mowing, I've been converting more and more of my property from lawn back into wooded space, as large lawns are wasteful, expensive, time-consuming, and really not necessary.  An acre or two around the house for the kids to play and the dog to poop, with visibility from the road if you want it, is really all you need.  More un-kept woods between houses just means a bit more privacy when the leaves come down in winter.

Are 2-stroke string trimmers really that bad?  I'd guess the average residential usage of string trimmers amounts to less than 20 minutes per week, although I have no data to back that up.  But my initial point on them was that string trimmers and chainsaws are the one place where you could make a legitimate argument that gasoline will remain superior to battery, as power/weight ratio is so critical on these two implements.

Do note also that, while there are EV zero-turn mowers on the market today, they still have some major issues to resolve.  The two most critical are:  1) weight, and 2) cost.


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## SpaceBus (Aug 24, 2022)

I know the thread has gone a bit into the weeds, but a great thread nonetheless for seeing what people are *actually* doing in the real world in regards to reducing carbon.


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## Ashful (Aug 24, 2022)

SpaceBus said:


> I know the thread has gone a bit into the weeds, but a great thread nonetheless for seeing what people are *actually* doing in the real world in regards to reducing carbon.


It was 95F outside, with a heat index around 105F, when @woodgeek penned the op.  Hard to talk about stoves or wood burning, when it’s that stinking hot outside.


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## SpaceBus (Aug 24, 2022)

So two stroke engines are kind of a weird one. They don't emit a ton of carbon, but what they do emit is pretty harmful for human health. An easy comparison since there aren't any current two stroke on road vehicles would be the now defunct Mazda RX-8 with Wankel (oil is added to the intake charge like a two stroke) engine to the 3.5 n/a V6 F150. The Mazda only displaces 1.3l (depending on how you measure), but emits roughly 430 grams of carbon per mile, but a 2018 3.5 (n/a) 2018 F150 is about 442 g/mile of carbon while making considerably more HP, torque, and better fuel economy. While the two strokes "on paper" look great in an emissions light, they also make a lot of air pollution that affects human health, but not so much the average global temperature. The only reason the carbon emissions are so low is due to the tiny size of most of these engines. Even assuming that a two stroke makes about 100% more power/displacement than a four stroke engine if you scaled one up, especially without any emissions controls, the smog and CO2 would be significantly worse than a equivalent output four stroke, probably worse than even a four stroke making more power. The rotary engine is actually cleaner than most piston two strokes due to the very high exhaust gas temperature (EGT) similar to that of diesel engines. NOx becomes a problem at these high exhaust temps, but that's what SCR and DPF are for, and Mazda actually had a pretty slick cat on those RX8's to make them emissions legal.


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## EbS-P (Aug 24, 2022)

woodgeek said:


> Yeah, water (for me in PA) is not a big deal.
> 
> I was curious about land use, bc I DO care about that too... and the units in the figure I found didn't make sense.  So I looked up the original paper, here:
> 
> ...


How much water and carbon do you save if you make your own??? One would guess the peas are grown in the same location but if you could get localish not from CA Central Valley or other far away places,  you would save a lot in transportation costs. 









						Homemade Pea Milk - SO VEGAN
					

Yes, homemade pea milk. How times have changed. And yes, our version doesn't split in tea! Result.




					www.wearesovegan.com


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## SpaceBus (Aug 24, 2022)

EbS-P said:


> How much water and carbon do you save if you make your own??? One would guess the peas are grown in the same location but if you could get localish not from CA Central Valley or other far away places,  you would save a lot in transportation costs.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I've made peanut "milk" and it was pretty good and very easy to make. I bet pea "milk" is probably just as easy. Peas are also easy to grow, so could even do it all at home.


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## Ctwoodtick (Aug 24, 2022)

stoveliker said:


> I'm all for minimizing grass. Either let it grow (in places w/o HOA) into a wildflower meadow, or put ground cover plants and bushes etc. down. Much more insects, birds, and water and CO2 capture capacity than the  home-owners shaved monoculture that people call grass.
> (Once the kids are not playing on the, ahem, by now yellow field anymore, it's gone. Big garden and stuff actually growing then.)


I agree I’m with this in the case that people go the traditional “lawn care” route. If done properly, you can have some terrific grass by going organic or mostly organic. Top dressing the grass, aerating, dethatching go a long way. Doing this will also make the lawn more drought resistant, using much less water due to better health of the grass. I’m not a lawn expert, but know someone who does this. Very little watering inspite of our Bad drought.
   That said,  This probably is only feasible on smaller lawns.


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## woodgeek (Aug 24, 2022)

I've made my own fresh almond milk.

Really simple, I followed this great instructional video:


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## stoveliker (Aug 24, 2022)

Ctwoodtick said:


> I agree I’m with this in the case that people go the traditional “lawn care” route. If done properly, you can have some terrific grass by going organic or mostly organic. Top dressing the grass, aerating, dethatching go a long way. Doing this will also make the lawn more drought resistant, using much less water due to better health of the grass. I’m not a lawn expert, but know someone who does this. Very little watering inspite of our Bad drought.
> That said,  This probably is only feasible on smaller lawns.


I don't water my lawn. Period. Yes, it's yellow now, but I am not comfortable watering grass with a resource that is of crucial importance for humans own wellbeing.


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## begreen (Aug 24, 2022)

Poindexter said:


> 7. Voting. Adoption curve again. I have been registered either independent or libertarian for, gosh, 30 years at least. I think this is the same as adopting the technology curve again. If you keep voting for the same SOBs, that is what you will have to choose from next time around. On the one hand we all want our vote to count, but if people are voting for the greens or the whites instead of just choosing between the reds and the blues the white and green parties (I just made up white. If it is a thing like the official party of the KKK please accept my apologies in advance) - anyroad when the greens and the whites are getting some votes they are going to get bigger and more sophisticated.


The accrued list is great. These are all steps we as individuals and families can take. But it's going to take more than individual actions. Of this list, #7 is the most important. We need serious change. The fossils millionaire club in DC is not going to achieve this. Vote for getting the money out of our political system.  We are not going to turn around climate change without a sea change in legislatures across the country. So vote, like your lives and children's lives depend on it. They do.


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## Riverbanks (Aug 24, 2022)

It's still a good thread, I have been reading all along, it has and will benefit me and how my life affects others. Great God, I'm going to try alternative milk! A bit out of my comfort zone. Do they sell in half pints? Lol


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## Riverbanks (Aug 24, 2022)

I just did some reading online, the alternative "milks" are fine, but, what happens to the cheese industry?


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## tlc1976 (Aug 24, 2022)

stoveliker said:


> I don't water my lawn. Period. Yes, it's yellow now, but I am not comfortable watering grass with a resource that is of crucial importance for humans own wellbeing.


Same here. I mow with a mulching conversion and that’s it. I don’t water, fertilize, insecticize, aerate, weedwack, leafblow, bag, etc. It is what it is. Aside from a manual weed whip for remaining tall grass around the steps. I mow over the leaves and they end up in the soil. If it goes brown it will come back. Only year it went brown was 2018.


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## begreen (Aug 24, 2022)

Our lawn goes dormant every summer for 2 months, then greens up in Sept. or Oct. depending on when the rains start.


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## Riverbanks (Aug 24, 2022)

How does my 2 stroke weed eater compare to a jet airplane, what I have is worse?


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## woodgeek (Aug 24, 2022)

Riverbanks said:


> I just did some reading online, the alternative "milks" are fine, but, what happens to the cheese industry?



Americans have been drinking less and less milk since 1974, but more than compensating it with cheese and other dairy.  We eat more milkfat than ever.

Poor vegan cheese is IMO a big issue.  I have been shopping around for cheeses to use as ingredients (i.e. parm, cheddar, etc).

As for just 'eating fancy cheese' that will be a rare treat for me after 6PM.


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## Riverbanks (Aug 24, 2022)

I did not see a good reviewed cheese when searching, that's why I mentioned it, every action has a reaction, ah shoot, I love cheese


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## Riverbanks (Aug 24, 2022)

Here's another part, check out Vermont natural coatings, best wood finish for certain projects, made from whey


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## EbS-P (Aug 24, 2022)

Riverbanks said:


> I just did some reading online, the alternative "milks" are fine, but, what happens to the cheese industry?


Government will keep propping it up when prices crash.  Buying excess production and store it.  It’s a cycle I’m not sure we have the will to break.  
Milk yesterday was  $1.65 a gallon for 2% here eggs  $3.30 a dozen. Milk is the only thing that’s gone down the past few months


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## Poindexter (Aug 25, 2022)

I am not sure how "bad" 2 cycle string trimmers are.  I bought a fairly nice (consumer level) one several years ago, but it has been down for two summers now and I can do without.  I have enough tied up in carb adjustment parts and new fuel system parts that I could have just bought a new one, and I am ticked off about that.  I just hate to send this thing to the dump, it is less than 7 years old, but it is also not economical to repair.

For the money I spent the fool thing ought to be repairable, but has proven to not be.  Likewise I can't really only trim around my raspberries and serviceberries  and honeyberries with just a string trimmer, the last couple inches of lawn need to be hand pruned so I don't kill off my fruit bearers.

Last summer I didn't trim anything.  This year I have hand trimmed a couple times.  The idea of buying a corded electric unit and having to deploy and recover my existing 100' extension cord repeatedly is more or less without luster.

I do agree with @Ashful that some OPE, especially the handheld stuff, will remain oil powered for the foreseeable future.  I can't see parking a largish EV in the forest and then running a heavy and expensive extension cord to drop trees.  I like to park my truck far enough away that the truck is not at risk if the tree falls in an unintended direction.  Big EV plus very expensive cord plus new saw, not economical for me.

On my lot, 8-10k sqft, a gas trimmer is handy because I can just walk around and put the trimmer away.  Mine is just large enough that running a corded electric trimmer is possible, but trimming by hand is more or less a time wash compared to deploying and moving and moving and recovering the 100' cord.  

The one thing I will do different on our next property is raise my cordwood kilns up high enough off the ground that I can get my 4 cycle lawnmower deck under the edges and not have to trim them.

With a lot not much bigger than mine a corded electric string trimmer is just not time efficient.   I do need to keep the plants down near my firewood stacks so the cordwood is dry enough to burn in time, but I am not otherwise convinced that trimming is really a necessary thing to do.


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## Poindexter (Aug 25, 2022)

woodgeek said:


> Americans have been drinking less and less milk since 1974, but more than compensating it with cheese and other dairy.  We eat more milkfat than ever.
> 
> Poor vegan cheese is IMO a big issue.  I have been shopping around for cheeses to use as ingredients (i.e. parm, cheddar, etc).
> 
> As for just 'eating fancy cheese' that will be a rare treat for me after 6PM.


One of my children is lactose intolerant in a noisy way that easily passes through closed doors.  I have personally tried more or less all of the  lactose free cheeses currently on the market, and they all suck.  A few of them are ok as slices or chunks straight out of the fridge as a snack, but once you get to melting them, game over.

I did try a vegan diet for 30 days, mostly out of curiosity, I think in or near 2007.  Fake foods are fake, I don't see any point in wasting time on them.  When you crave bacon, just have some real bacon; because none of the substitutes will ever measure up.  For sushi I was cutting up extra firm tofu into fingers, get some sprouts on there, wrap that with a strip of nori and go bananas with the soy and wasabi.

I am likewise willing to make an exception for burger patties.  We make burger out of everything, beef, elk, deer, antelope, why not black or soy beans.  Praise Jesus beer is a vegan food item, I don't know of anybody with two neurons flapping in the breeze to make one spare synapse arguing that yeasts are animals.  The strict vegans I know that don't use honey or eat eggs or wear leather shoes uniformly drink beer.

At the end of the 30 days I looked at the leftovers in my fridge and the best recipe I could think of was tofu fingers sauteed in freshly rendered bacon fat.  Those were delicious; and the bacon was good also.  I am still prone to ordering tofu as the protein in my curry or Pad Thai.

I have never been satisfied with fake foods.  If you are craving cheese or bacon, my advice is to have a little bit of the real stuff and then go back to tofu and twigs.

The thing about both cheese and bacon, partly, is the dietary fat.  If you are craving bacon every Saturday and just can't do without, consider wild caught Alaskan salmon as a regular part of your diet.  Salmon, especially reds (sockeye) and King (king), have abundant fat.  Avocado is another, though avocado require a great deal of water and grow mostly in drought stricken California.

Friends do not let friends eat farm raised salmon.  That is some gross BS.  Just look at a filet of wild caught and a filet of farm raised side by side.  If you canna tell the difference you are signed up to date some extremely ugly women because you likely can't distinguish between a kilt and a woman's skirt either.

You might also consider sodium.  If moving to a vegan diet is upstetting you, look at what your daily sodium intake is before and after the switch.  While I consider both to be "gimme" vegetables, both french fries and potato chips can provide abundant sodium that might be missing from your new improved intake.


----------



## Poindexter (Aug 25, 2022)

In case anyone is wondering here, and I am quite a ways off topic, pink salmon is good cat food, chum salmon is good dog food, and silver salmon are for people in lumberjack outfits with no actual chainsaw  output on their flannel shirts. Silvers are not bad fish, but I certainly do not seek them and would never bother to can them.  If I could afford to buy belly meat of king and not deal with the rest of each filet I would do that with kings.  Since I have to deal with the entire fish, red/sockeye is where it is at.

To get back on topic, the wife and I are talking (again) about selling the big (5 bedroom) house walking distance to  an excellent elementary school to a family that needs such a thing, and the carbon footprint that goes with; so we can buy a smaller place (smaller carbon footprint) that meets our needs with no kids at home.


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## woodgeek (Aug 25, 2022)

Poindexter said:


> I am not sure how "bad" 2 cycle string trimmers are.  I bought a fairly nice (consumer level) one several years ago, but it has been down for two summers now and I can do without.  I have enough tied up in carb adjustment parts and new fuel system parts that I could have just bought a new one, and I am ticked off about that.  I just hate to send this thing to the dump, it is less than 7 years old, but it is also not economical to repair.
> 
> For the money I spent the fool thing ought to be repairable, but has proven to not be.  Likewise I can't really only trim around my raspberries and serviceberries  and honeyberries with just a string trimmer, the last couple inches of lawn need to be hand pruned so I don't kill off my fruit bearers.
> 
> ...


I used a corded trimmer for many years.... or rather used it very rarely.

I got a Black and Decker Lithium trimmer a few years ago, its quite light, and it has never run out of juice on me. My jobs might be 20 minutes run time.  A battery would last 30-40 mins I think.  If I had a bigger task, I would just get a second battery to swap in.  There are cheap, high capacity Chinese ones on amazon.    Two batteries would certainly last 60 minutes if not longer.


----------



## woodgeek (Aug 25, 2022)

Poindexter said:


> One of my children is lactose intolerant in a noisy way that easily passes through closed doors.  I have personally tried more or less all of the  lactose free cheeses currently on the market, and they all suck.  A few of them are ok as slices or chunks straight out of the fridge as a snack, but once you get to melting them, game over.
> 
> I did try a vegan diet for 30 days, mostly out of curiosity, I think in or near 2007.  Fake foods are fake, I don't see any point in wasting time on them.  When you crave bacon, just have some real bacon; because none of the substitutes will ever measure up.  For sushi I was cutting up extra firm tofu into fingers, get some sprouts on there, wrap that with a strip of nori and go bananas with the soy and wasabi.
> 
> ...


We think very alike on these issues.  In my 20s, I described myself as a 'vegetarian who eats bacon'.  

For me, the 'vegan before 6' concept works because it means that I can still have non-vegan food 'when I want' for dinner.  The time restriction means that such foods are naturally restricted, so I can't 'slide' back to eating them all the time.  It also matters to me that I don't want to be restricted when visiting friends homes for dinner, or going out to dinner at a restaurant, neither of which happens often enough to be a big part of my diet.

I personally find the 'fake foods' in my grocery store (like all the morningstar stuff) kinda gross or unsatisfying.  

But fake food shave come a LONG way since 2007.  This has enabled me to find some products that ARE good substitutes.  As I have said before, I think Impossible burger is head and shoulders above similar products, as a nearly drop in replacement for ground beef.  It cooks slightly differently, but if I tweak my recipes, I can usually make a finished product (e.g. meatballs, bolognese) that when served to friends they cannot distinguish it from beef.  Good enough for me, I can still eat a nice burger or steak when at a friends house or in a restaurant.  Similarly, this week I find the Whole Not Milk to be an essentially perfect drop in for whole milk in my diet (reviews suggest that some people's taste buds disagree).

That said, I think I found a decent fake parmesan this week (I really like parmesan as a garnish), but fake cheddar, motz or fake bacon... NOPE.

For the record, there is a vegan restaurant in NYC that specializes in fancy fake food.  Their double bacon cheeseburger is amazing, and completely vegan.  No idea how they do that.

I also hear you on the salmon.  I have a friend who grew up in Seattle, and he struggled to find good salmon out east here.  For years he would excitedly order the salmon dish in fancy restaurants, and then be unable to stomach what came out.  I too have made a rule to never order salmon in a restaurant, bc while I (a yankee) can find the result edible, it has never been particularly enjoyable.

When my friend visits, we hit the fish monger and get some wild King salmon and grill it for a treat.


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## SpaceBus (Aug 25, 2022)

Riverbanks said:


> I just did some reading online, the alternative "milks" are fine, but, what happens to the cheese industry?


There is so much cheese being stored underground it will take decades to run out. 

1.4 billion tons are being stored in Missouri. 


I really like the Daiya brand faux mozzarella cheese. Since it's mostly made from cashews it works great for making home made basil pesto. Not sure if it's "green" or healthy, but I like it. I'm the "noisy" kind of lactose intolerant. It doesn't cause me to have anaphylactic shock or anything, but you know... These days I just have cheese on sandwiches, on top of a dish, etc, and don't eat too much at a time, and definitely not late at night!


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## stoveliker (Aug 25, 2022)

I do wonder whether the common knowledge that processed food is bad for you would also apply to fake foods (that are by definition processed).

Anyone with more knowledge than me here?


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## Ashful (Aug 25, 2022)

begreen said:


> Our lawn goes dormant every summer for 2 months, then greens up in Sept. or Oct. depending on when the rains start.


^This.  And unlike @tic1976, I do fertilize, pesticize, aerate, overseed, and pretty much follow a schedule as regimented as any golf course.  If you don't have a single weed in your yard, you enjoy the pleasure of not mowing for most of July and part of August, at least in this part of the country.  While neighbors are outside mowing and choking on dust in the heat and drought of July, just to mow weeds while the grass is dormant, I just sit back and watch.


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## begreen (Aug 25, 2022)

All of which unfortunately have high carbon footprints. Turning at least part into a meadow would provide a more restorative habitat. 





						Turn Your Lawn into a Meadow
					

Turn your lawn into a carbon-capturing meadow that's good the the climate, beautiful, and low maintenance.




					www.greenamerica.org


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## begreen (Aug 25, 2022)

Poindexter said:


> On my lot, 8-10k sqft, a gas trimmer is handy because I can just walk around and put the trimmer away. Mine is just large enough that running a corded electric trimmer is possible, but trimming by hand is more or less a time wash compared to deploying and moving and moving and recovering the 100' cord.


There are good cordless units that can easily handle this task.


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## Riverbanks (Aug 25, 2022)

I just read a article about the new hydrogen powered train in Germany, the Coradia ilint, sweet


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## Ashful (Aug 25, 2022)

Poindexter said:


> I bought a fairly nice (consumer level) one several years ago, but it has been down for two summers now... For the money I spent the fool thing ought to be repairable, but has proven to not be.


Capitalism at work.  For decades, residential consumers have favored low up-front cost over repairability.  Manufacturers have little choice but to respond to this demand.

I pretty much assume any non-pro OPE bought since 1990 is throw-away, which is why I pretty much only buy pro-grade stuff, to the point of favoring old used pro grade (eg. my Stihl 036 PRO and 064 AV) over new consumer or farm grade.  Most pro stuff is still repairable, because again... manufacturers responding to customer demand.



begreen said:


> All of which unfortunately have high carbon footprints. Turning at least part into a meadow would provide a more restorative habitat.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I'm coming to realize that.  But I'm not sure meadow is a realistic solution, as we all know the only way to really practically ensure a weed-free lawn is to ensure all neighboring lawns are also void of said weeds.  Meadow on part of the property only increases pressure for abatement on the lawn that's remaining.

I've been converting more and more lawn to un-kept wooded space, instead.  Planted over 100 trees 2013 - 2020, and many dozens of shrubs and ground cover, to make more than an acre of bedded gardens.  This temporarily increases my need for mulch, but as each area fills in and matures, I eventually let it go wild, only having to really deal with the front 10 feet or so of the perimeter.  It has since become occupied by pheasant (rare, for this area, anymore), turkeys, thousands of smaller birds and bats, as well as fox, skunk, and squirrels.  These areas are maybe only 40-50 feet deep x 200-300 foot wide "hedgerows" at the property lines, but they do reduce the need for lawn care.


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## Riverbanks (Aug 25, 2022)

Just a side note for the dead weed eater, for the last 20 years on most 2 stroke engines there is a spark arrestor in the exhaust, a screen, clean that, usually takes a needle to do so, I've fixed many a dead one doing so


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## peakbagger (Aug 25, 2022)

I have been mowing my "lawn" for 30 years, I do not fertilize or water and just mow the weeds. It looks like a lawn from a distance.  It also does not need mowing very often.


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## Riverbanks (Aug 25, 2022)

Two years ago, I needed help. The lawn maintenance industry came to my rescue. Chickweed was taking over,so some 2-4,d was needed, hopefully cured


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## stoveliker (Aug 25, 2022)

Ashful said:


> ^This.  And unlike @tic1976, I do fertilize, pesticize, aerate, overseed, and pretty much follow a schedule as regimented as any golf course.  If you don't have a single weed in your yard, you enjoy the pleasure of not mowing for most of July and part of August, at least in this part of the country.  While neighbors are outside mowing and choking on dust in the heat and drought of July, just to mow weeds while the grass is dormant, I just sit back and watch.


huh, I don't need to mow (my weeds) at the height of summer. Yes there's grass, but there's more weeds.

But in the drought and heat here of the last month or so I don't have to mow either. And even if I have to mow once per 6 weeks, that's negligibly more than no mowing at all.

In TN the (non-treated) lawn was dormant too in summer (though I have mowed in 104 F at 100% humidity... walk-behind on a steep hill. Frequent breaks were needed...)

Bottomline, it's generally green (though now it's nicely yellow...), I can walk on it, the kids can play ball on it, chipmunks like it better (raccoons too because of the grubs...), baby rabbits (slightly bigger than the chipmunks) come out and feed at dusk.
I enjoy seeing robins dig out worms, I enjoy seeing grey catbirds hunt the little white butterflies and moths, I like seeing the Northern Flicker eat the ants in the lawn.  I enjoy seeing the neighbors' bees on the clover (now if he would only pay me back with some honey - I miss my dad's honey, but I can't import it here...).

I do not like that the deer eat all my hostas at the end of the summer. But whadda ya do. No fence going up in the front yard.

All that might happen in a manicured lawn. But it'll be much less, and possibly bad for the health of the animals.

I note that my woodshed gives similar enjoyment: many bugs go in and out of the sun-heated front. It is in essence one big insect hotel (google that).
The baseball catching net in front of it is the jump-off point for the cat birds who sit there, pick off an insect, and go back.


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## tlc1976 (Aug 25, 2022)

peakbagger said:


> I have been mowing my "lawn" for 30 years, I do not fertilize or water and just mow the weeds. It looks like a lawn from a distance.  It also does not need mowing very often.


Same here. That’s how I was raised and what I’ve always done. I always considered the weeds as part of the lawn. It’s all green. It’s home to grasshoppers, bees, birds, rabbits, deer. Lots of wolf spiders which tends to keep the mosquitoes down.




As far as lactose free cheese, this stuff by Go Veggie I think is very good. Similar to Velveeta, melts extremely well. Not a true vegan cheese as it does contain milk products, but not lactose. But it would be nice to find a true plant based cheese that melts well.


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## Ashful (Aug 25, 2022)

tlc1976 said:


> Same here. That’s how I was raised and what I’ve always done. I always considered the weeds as part of the lawn. It’s all green. It’s home to grasshoppers, bees, birds, rabbits, deer. Lots of wolf spiders which tends to keep the mosquitoes down.


Had a large grasshopper in the house last night, believe it or not.  Managed to catch him in a 1 gallon zip-lok freezer bag, and set him free in a garden outback, hopefully un-harmed.  Those bastards are LOUD, when they're in your living room!

We have plenty of grasshoppers, bees, birds... and frankly too many rabbits and deer.  When you could hunt deer from your kitchen window with a frying pan, or when you've caught a deer standing literally atop your dog (more than once!), you have too many deer.  Lawn care doesn't seem to phase them.


tlc1976 said:


> ... this stuff by Go Veggie I think is very good. Similar to Velveeta...


Velveeta ain't cheese.  I'm not sure it's even "food", beyond the legal definition!

Try to think of cheese like beer or cigars.  It's not exactly health food, and you don't exactly need it.  So, if you are going to indulge, it'd better be the best you can afford, or not at all.  I think it'd be tough to make a really good 3-years' aged Gouda, or even a proper Fontina, from vegetable matter.  We aren't eating American cheese or Velveeta, in this house.

That said, if there are any easily-sourced options, approximating some better specialty cheeses, I'd be interested in trying them.  I'm not exactly an environmental nihilist, I'm just not as eager to compromise, for negligible individual benefit.


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## stoveliker (Aug 25, 2022)

Ashful said:


> Had a large grasshopper in the house last night, believe it or not.  Managed to catch him in a 1 gallon zip-lok freezer bag, and set him free in a garden outback, hopefully un-harmed.  Those bastards are LOUD, when they're in your living room!
> 
> We have plenty of grasshoppers, bees, birds... and frankly too many rabbits and deer.  When you could hunt deer from your kitchen window with a frying pan, or when you've caught a deer standing literally atop your dog (more than once!), you have too many deer.  Lawn care doesn't seem to phase them.



That may be. There will be more (bugs, and thus the rest) without chemicals, and residual chemicals going up the food chain is avoided.
Things are admittedly different though for rural versus less rural more suburban yards.
Glad to see though that your tame wolf learns how to deal with the wild! 



Ashful said:


> Velveeta ain't cheese.  I'm not sure it's even "food", beyond the legal definition!
> 
> Try to think of cheese like beer or cigars.  It's not exactly health food, and you don't exactly need it.  So, if you are going to indulge, it'd better be the best you can afford, or not at all.  I think it'd be tough to make a really good 3-years' aged Gouda, or even a proper Fontina, from vegetable matter.  We aren't eating American cheese or Velveeta, in this house.


Amen. Now if you could also pronounce Gouda correctly, you'd get a Dutch equivalent of a green card 
Since you don't mind spending on cheese:




__





						Koop Kaas in de Webshop - Old Amsterdam Cheese Store Amsterdam
					

In onze Webshop kan je kaas kopen. We verkopen verschillende beroemde kazen. Je kan ook genieten van al onze kazen in de winkel.




					oldamsterdamcheesestore.com
				




BTW, Dutch cheese is rarely older than 8 months of aging. Even a cheese like Old Amsterdam (breaks like Parmigiano (NOT Parmesan!), and has some crystallized salt spots in it) is only 8 months aged.


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## tlc1976 (Aug 25, 2022)

Hmmm I guess it’s just what you’re used to. Actually to me, Kraft and Velveeta were the high end. Mostly we got funny off brands, generic black and white box, or government cheese.  Specialty cheese didn’t exist in my little town of 400 even if we could afford it. Maybe that’s why I prefer the flavor of cheap plain foods and off brands.


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## Ashful (Aug 26, 2022)

I was poking fun, but I understand.  Just like preferring your home-town pizza, no matter how good (or bad) it was.   

I grew up on generic / store-brand American cheese, which today tastes more like wax than cheese, my parents couldn't afford the Kraft singles we so-wanted as kids.  Velveeta was a rare treat, too.  But tastes can change as you age, especially accelerated by travel to different cultures as an adult, and being exposed to new things previously denied to a cash-poor family from Philadelphia.


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## moresnow (Aug 27, 2022)

woodgeek said:


> I got a Black and Decker Lithium trimmer a few years ago, its quite light, and it has never run out of juice on me.


I did the same. 2 years ago. At my father's recommendation.  Same fella who doesn't know what end of a screwdriver to use. Also bought the 20v hedge trimmer (godsend) and blower (ok). For being homeowner grade, they are amazing.
No more POS carby equipped Stihl 2smoker that requires a shoulder strap and premix. Done. Period.
 I laugh every time I grab the BD.
  Actually made another convert yesterday. A buddy with rental homes took a trip around my house with my BD trimmer and hedge trimmer. Put them down and said jump in. Off we went to MYnards to get him both!


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## Ashful (Aug 27, 2022)

moresnow said:


> I did the same... No more POS carby equipped Stihl 2smoker that requires a shoulder strap and premix. Done. Period.


 My neighbor has a B&D lithium trimmer. He needs to borrow my "POS" Stihl KMA 130 R at least once per year, to do trimming thru the woods, that his B&D just won't handle.  He also usually runs out of battery before his work is done, esp. now that he has a few years on it, and his lawn probably only occupies 3 of his 7 acres.

I also note every landscaper's trailer in this area still has a small fleet of Stihl or Echo 2-stroke trimmers hanging on them, never B&D 20V battery powered units, their livelihood literally depends on carrying the most capable and reliable option.

The B&D battery stuff has a place, they're likely great on smaller residential lots.  But I wouldn't go calling Stihl pro-grade string trimmers "POS carby 2smokers".


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## EbS-P (Aug 27, 2022)

For the average lot size I think two B&D batteries would be fine. They are cheap get 4.  And then add all the other B&D tools you think you might need for small projects.  I like the saws-all and impact driver.  



			https://www.storagecafe.com/blog/lot-size-home-size-in-top-20-biggest-us-cities/amp/


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## moresnow (Aug 27, 2022)

Ashful said:


> My neighbor has a B&D lithium trimmer. He needs to borrow my "POS" Stihl KMA 130 R at least once per year, to do trimming thru the woods, that his B&D just won't handle.  He also usually runs out of battery before his work is done, esp. now that he has a few years on it, and his lawn probably only occupies 3 of his 7 acres.
> 
> I also note every landscaper's trailer in this area still has a small fleet of Stihl or Echo 2-stroke trimmers hanging on them, never B&D 20V battery powered units, their livelihood literally depends on carrying the most capable and reliable option.
> 
> The B&D battery stuff has a place, they're likely great on smaller residential lots.  But I wouldn't go calling Stihl pro-grade string trimmers "POS carby 2smokers".


I have 3 rural acres of excellent Iowa black dirt that define great weed/grass production. One acre is timber. My woods/timber get a JD tractor and brush hog . The BD is used as a homeowner unit. It easily runs around the house, garage, wife's pretty flowers, well pit, septic lids, random fencing, mailbox post, deck, driveway entrance and rather extensive rows of stacked firewood. Can't complain. I agree completely that it is far from a commercial grade design. It feels, and is, a tinker toy in comparison.   

Just to add. I have been a dyed in the wool 2 stroke feller who had a private little garage for years taking care of/building 2 stroke toys and equipment among friends and acquaintances. God I still love the smell of 2 stroke in the morning. 
Mostly when its below freezing and I jump on a twin piped, big bored 2 cyl sled that can carry the skis across the yard leaving a nice roost behind.


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## woodgeek (Aug 27, 2022)

My yard is smaller, but contain about 0.1 acres  of PA kudzu... 7 species of invasive vines vying for supremacy.

I got the 40V B&D lithium kit.  The problem is B&D charge too much for the OEM batteries.  Ashful's neighbor needs to get bigger cheap batteries from Amazon and call it done.  And when they don't last long enough anymore... get a new one.  Mine have been in (light) service for 6-7 years now with no obv degradation.  But I am careful to keep them charged, and not to discharge them to empty...both important for service life.

Agree with above that the trimmer is great, the hedge trimmer is awesome, the (um) chainsaw is OK and the blower is good for sweeping the front steps (not moving fall leaves).


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## Ashful (Aug 27, 2022)

For the record, I think he has two batteries, but usually just hangs it up when the one he started with dies.  I think that when he’s 350 feet from the house, and the battery dies toward the end of a hot Saturday afternoon spent on yard work, he’s just too tired or frustrated to retrieve the spare and head back to where he left off.  I’ll admit that I do the same, if mine runs out of string part way thru the week’s trimming, on a hot day.


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## stoveliker (Aug 27, 2022)

I think that if you live on 10 acres,  gasoline equipment makes sense. The majority of folks live on 0.5 acre lots of less or so. And electric equipment is perfectly fine for that.

The question is who uses more gasoline: the smaller segment on a lot of land or the larger segment on small lots. I don't know. Every little bit helps though.


And front steps should be swept, with a broom (without plastic bristles...). No need to use energy other than the sandwich you had earlier...


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## EbS-P (Aug 27, 2022)

stoveliker said:


> I think that if you live on 10 acres,  gasoline equipment makes sense. The majority of folks live on 0.5 acre lots of less or so. And electric equipment is perfectly fine for that.
> 
> The question is who uses more gasoline: the smaller segment on a lot of land or the larger segment on small lots. I don't know. Every little bit helps though.
> 
> ...


Average lot size is even smaller than .5 acres.  Closer to 1/4


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## woodgeek (Aug 27, 2022)

stoveliker said:


> And front steps should be swept, with a broom (without plastic bristles...). No need to use energy other than the sandwich you had earlier...



Human muscle power has a higher carbon footprint than my lithium tool, on a joule by joule basis.  But I guess my diet change may have altered that math recently...


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## stoveliker (Aug 27, 2022)

Don't eat at Taco Bell 😋


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## begreen (Aug 28, 2022)

Ashful said:


> My neighbor has a B&D lithium trimmer. He needs to borrow my "POS" Stihl KMA 130 R at least once per year, to do trimming thru the woods, that his B&D just won't handle.  He also usually runs out of battery before his work is done, esp. now that he has a few years on it, and his lawn probably only occupies 3 of his 7 acres.
> 
> I also note every landscaper's trailer in this area still has a small fleet of Stihl or Echo 2-stroke trimmers hanging on them, never B&D 20V battery powered units, their livelihood literally depends on carrying the most capable and reliable option.
> 
> The B&D battery stuff has a place, they're likely great on smaller residential lots.  But I wouldn't go calling Stihl pro-grade string trimmers "POS carby 2smokers".


Those B&D units are the Velveeta of the yard tool world. There are a lot better battery-powered units, including some from Stihl.


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## SpaceBus (Aug 28, 2022)

begreen said:


> Those B&D units are the Velveeta of the yard tool world. There are a lot better battery-powered units, including some from Stihl.


My family kept a corded B&D trimmer for a decade, and it was acceptable. Certainly not something I'd want to use on something larger than a small subdivision lot. I used it well beyond what it was designed for as a teenager and it just kept on going. I've never used a cordless trimmer, but I bet the Dewalt model is competent. I'm hopefully done buying small gas tools. My next chainsaw will probably be the Dewalt 60v saw and I'll even replace the 395xp mill saw with an electric powerhead when I have a shop for the mill to live in (Logosol offers multiple electric powerhead options). I find a sharp chain to be more important than power, and electric motors make loads of torque anyway, something small gas motors struggle with. I'm hoping for subsidies/rebates/incentives for trading in diesel tractors for electric tractors in the future. A 35hp diesel tractor generates ninety tons of carbon over a fifteen year lifespan assuming it is used 400 hours per year. That's just an estimate and dependent on RPM rather than hours alone. Over the same operating conditions an equivalent eTractor would generate ten tons if charged from the grid and just one ton if charged by on site solar. The tech is still in its infancy, but will hopefully be mature in the next few years.


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## DBoon (Aug 28, 2022)

I have the Ego string trimmer and it is a beast. 








						Power+ 15" POWERLOAD™ String Trimmer with telescopic aluminum shaft
					

The 15" Telescopic String Trimmer with POWERLOAD™ Technology quickly fits your height for ultimate comfort. Replacing your string line is as easy as feeding the line into the head and pressing a button!




					egopowerplus.com
				




My first cordless yard tool was a B&D with NiMh batteries and it was not functional - batteries didn't last very long, and then died, and they took 8 hours to charge. I am sure the B&D with better Li Ion batteries is far better than that model, but I am sure that it doesn't hold a candle to the Ego.


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## begreen (Sep 1, 2022)

The difference between the pro tools and the low-end homeowner tools is large. B&D makes ok tools for occasional usage, but give me a pro tool for something I need to use frequently and hard. Since I sold my Stihl, I rented a Dewalt battery chainsaw recently. It was ok for the little job I had to do, but I wouldn't be cutting anything much thicker than 6" with it.


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## SpaceBus (Sep 2, 2022)

begreen said:


> The difference between the pro tools and the low-end homeowner tools is large. B&D makes ok tools for occasional usage, but give me a pro tool for something I need to use frequently and hard. Since I sold my Stihl, I rented a Dewalt battery chainsaw recently. It was ok for the little job I had to do, but I wouldn't be cutting anything much thicker than 6" with it.


20v or 60v Dewalt saw? I would like to get the 60v for cutting small trees (less than 10") and handling rough cut lumber.


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## Ashful (Sep 2, 2022)

DBoon said:


> I have the Ego string trimmer and it is a beast.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I have a family member who's all-in on the battery thing.  In addition to being one of the first buyers of the Tesla Model 3 dual motor, he has a garage full of Ego toys.  His zero turn mower, walk-behind mower, and snowblower are all Ego, with interchangeable battery packs.  He loves them, although he honestly hasn't had many chances to use the snow blower, and really give it a proper test.

I tried the zero turn once, and while not quite as fast and big as my gasser, I could definitely see the appeal.  It's not silent, there's no way three 18" blades spinning under a deck ever will be, but it was way less noisy than my v-twin-driven counterpart.  Less moving parts and belts, too, as each mower spindle is direct-drive.  When driving it, all you smell is grass, no exhaust.

Funny story, we traded cars once, a few years back.  I drove his Tesla Model 3 dual motor, and he drove my SRT 392 Charger.  I really enjoyed the Tesla, especially the ultra-snappy 0 - 30 mph performance, and it wasn't even a Performance edition.  His feedback on my car was "absolutely terrifying."


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## stoveliker (Sep 2, 2022)

I have a corded B&D 18" saw. (Get all my wood delivered in my driveway.)
I've used it now for two years (including the getting ahead filling of the shed, though that was partially already bucked).

It works perfectly for 30-35" trees as long as you keep the chain sharp.

Yes, the Stihl is a bit faster, but the three seconds difference cutting through an 18" log don't matter. And it's faster starting anyway.


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## Ashful (Sep 2, 2022)

stoveliker said:


> Yes, the Stihl is a bit faster, but the three seconds difference cutting through an 18" log don't matter. And it's faster starting anyway.


You didn’t have a very good Stihl, if it was only “a bit” faster!    

MS 660 in 30” wood vs anything made by B&D, ever… no contest.  There’s more than three seconds separating these two.


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## sneefy (Sep 2, 2022)

Ashful said:


> You didn’t have a very good Stihl, if it was only “a bit” faster!
> 
> MS 660 in 30” wood vs anything made by B&D, ever… no contest.  There’s more than three seconds separating these two.


I'm sure that's a beast. I make do with a poor MS290, lol.


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## stoveliker (Sep 2, 2022)

Ashful said:


> You didn’t have a very good Stihl, if it was only “a bit” faster!
> 
> MS 660 in 30” wood vs anything made by B&D, ever… no contest.  There’s more than three seconds separating these two.


It's a MS290 (of a friend) that I sometimes use.


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## SpaceBus (Sep 2, 2022)

Ashful said:


> You didn’t have a very good Stihl, if it was only “a bit” faster!
> 
> MS 660 in 30” wood vs anything made by B&D, ever… no contest.  There’s more than three seconds separating these two.


MS660 is also a 90cc saw, hardly comparable to what the average chainsaw user owns.


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## Ashful (Sep 2, 2022)

SpaceBus said:


> MS660 is also a 90cc saw, hardly comparable to what the average chainsaw user owns.


Never said it was.  Almost as irrelevant as how many "average" woodburners hang out on a forum dedicated to woodburning.  Neither of us are average!


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## SpaceBus (Sep 2, 2022)

Ashful said:


> Never said it was.  Almost as irrelevant as how many "average" woodburners hang out on a forum dedicated to woodburning.  Neither of us are average!


But aren't we talking about how regular people can affect climate change?


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## jeanw (Dec 7, 2022)

its called social credit scores.. look up" communitariusm" not sure I spelled it correctly... All "for the Greater good". Right ... good for the elite  that is...but not us useless eaters also us serfs or peasants They them those will control us masses with rationing of food etc. 
     those who think electric vehicles are the way to go have their heads up their behinds.   Where do the crazies think this electic for charging EV  is coming from or where going to  get new batteries.?
 or dispose of older ones. Ciyde Lewis talked about 3 miles radius communities.like in the 50s  etc         .When us oldsters lived within walking distance of schools and neigborhood stores;;;; long before Malls etc and the urban or suburban sprawl. But all might work if 90% of population perishes. or thru FEAR..... but I dont dwell on such. can't find many folks who care
 also Man is doing lots of bad stuff to our planet like cutting down lots of trees esp the Rain Forest. , use of endless plastics'''  Yeah yall know why.  we all could do better esp in the way we consume and esp What we Eat. Cant believe the mainstream media etc. we mankind have been lied to for centuries
 I'll jump off my Soap box now, Blessings to all


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## bholler (Dec 7, 2022)

jeanw said:


> its called social credit scores.. look up" communitariusm" not sure I spelled it correctly... All "for the Greater good". Right ... good for the elite  that is...but not us useless eaters also us serfs or peasants They them those will control us masses with rationing of food etc.
> those who think electric vehicles are the way to go have their heads up their behinds.   Where do the crazies think this electic for charging EV  is coming from or where going to  get new batteries.?
> or dispose of older ones. Ciyde Lewis talked about 3 miles radius communities.like in the 50s  etc         .When us oldsters lived within walking distance of schools and neigborhood stores;;;; long before Malls etc and the urban or suburban sprawl. But all might work if 90% of population perishes. or thru FEAR..... but I dont dwell on such. can't find many folks who care
> also Man is doing lots of bad stuff to our planet like cutting down lots of trees esp the Rain Forest. , use of endless plastics'''  Yeah yall know why.  we all could do better esp in the way we consume and esp What we Eat. Cant believe the mainstream media etc. we mankind have been lied to for centuries
> I'll jump off my Soap box now, Blessings to all


Ok yes currently allot of our power still comes from fossil fuels but that percentage is quickly dropping.  And coal. Is very quickly being replaced by natural gas for the part that is still natural gas.   But regardless electric vehicles use the power much more efficiently than ice vehicles.

As far as the batteries go yes they need to be produced.  But they are recycled not disposed of.  

I completely agree we absolutely are not ready to replace ICE vehicles with EVs at this point.  But I really don't understand the resistance to working on getting there by anyone but oil companies.


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## woodgeek (Dec 7, 2022)

bholler said:


> *I completely agree we absolutely are not ready to replace ICE vehicles with EVs at this point*.  But I really don't understand the resistance to working on getting there by anyone but oil companies.



And yet the Chinese (largest car market in the world) and the Europeans (third largest car market in the world) have started doing just that.  The Chinese are at 40% EVs for new car sales, and the Europeans are at 20%.  While the US lags (perhaps due to is low oil prices, and being a major oil producer) we are at 6% on new car sales.

And this is not a case of some 'crazies' or silly politicians forcing EVs down everyone's throats.  Nearly every global car makers has looked at the tech (EV vs ICE) and decided that ICE will not compete in the future with EV, and are switching as fast as they can.

What do we know that they don't know?


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## bholler (Dec 7, 2022)

woodgeek said:


> And yet the Chinese (largest car market in the world) and the Europeans (third largest car market in the world) have started doing just that.  The Chinese are at 40% EVs for new car sales, and the Europeans are at 20%.  While the US lags (perhaps due to is low oil prices, and being a major oil producer) we are at 6% on new car sales.
> 
> And this is not a case of some 'crazies' or silly politicians forcing EVs down everyone's throats.  Nearly every global car makers has looked at the tech (EV vs ICE) and decided that ICE will not compete in the future with EV, and are switching as fast as they can.
> 
> What do we know that they don't know?


Oh don't get me wrong many people could easily make the switch at this point here with no problems at all .  But for me I am mainly driving commercial vehicles and we simply don't have options in that area yet.   I really don't think it will take very long until we do they just aren't here yet.  But our personal vehicles we certainly could and may when it's time to replace my wife's vehicle


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## EbS-P (Dec 7, 2022)

bholler said:


> Oh don't get me wrong many people could easily make the switch at this point here with no problems at all .  But for me I am mainly driving commercial vehicles and we simply don't have options in that area yet.   I really don't think it will take very long until we do they just aren't here yet.  But our personal vehicles we certainly could and may when it's time to replace my wife's vehicle


Would you have electric capacity at home/shop to charge your work vehicles as well as personal ones?


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## bholler (Dec 7, 2022)

EbS-P said:


> Would you have electric capacity at home/shop to charge your work vehicles as well as personal ones?


Yes easily.   I just updated to 440 3 phase in the shop.  So lots of power.  The house could easily handle a single charger.  They were running 3 phase past us for a new hog barn and offered to hook me up for $1500 and without the normal commercial minimum charge.  So why not.


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## EbS-P (Dec 7, 2022)

jeanw said:


> its called social credit scores.. look up" communitariusm" not sure I spelled it correctly... All "for the Greater good". Right ... good for the elite  that is...but not us useless eaters also us serfs or peasants They them those will control us masses with rationing of food etc.
> those who think electric vehicles are the way to go have their heads up their behinds.   Where do the crazies think this electic for charging EV  is coming from or where going to  get new batteries.?
> or dispose of older ones. Ciyde Lewis talked about 3 miles radius communities.like in the 50s  etc         .When us oldsters lived within walking distance of schools and neigborhood stores;;;; long before Malls etc and the urban or suburban sprawl. But all might work if 90% of population perishes. or thru FEAR..... but I dont dwell on such. can't find many folks who care
> also Man is doing lots of bad stuff to our planet like cutting down lots of trees esp the Rain Forest. , use of endless plastics'''  Yeah yall know why.  we all could do better esp in the way we consume and esp What we Eat. Cant believe the mainstream media etc. we mankind have been lied to for centuries
> I'll jump off my Soap box now, Blessings to all











						You're Being Lied to About Electric Cars
					

Sorry, that meme you just retweeted isn't correct.




					www.motortrend.com


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## Ashful (Dec 7, 2022)

From my perspective, there is one legitimate concern with our electric future, EV's being but one part of that.  Home and office heating being another major component.

That concern is related to the national security and reliability of our power utilities.  Everyone is talking about our aging "grid", which is good, but the delivery system is only half the equation, and the oft-discussed weather and aging-related failures are only half the concern.

Our generation plants and substations are also terribly vulnerable to both failure and sabotage, this week's substation shooting in NC being just one of many major recent examples of the problem.  Last year's record-breaking outages in Texas's rare sub-freezing weather is another.

If we are going to rely on electric power delivery for our vehicle and home heating fuel needs, it simply must be more reliable than what we have today.  Although this is not my area of work or study, due to family connections and my profession, I'm a fly on the wall in many conversations regarding electric utility generation and distribution management.  I can tell you that all the media hype about grid capacity is not our biggest concern, it is reliability, so that you don't find yourself a dead EV and cold home when a weather or national emergency strikes mid-winter.


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## kennyp2339 (Dec 7, 2022)

Ashful said:


> I'm a fly on the wall in many conversations regarding electric utility generation and distribution management. I can tell you that all the media hype about grid capacity is not our biggest concern, it is reliability, so that you don't find yourself a dead EV and cold home when a weather or national emergency strikes mid-winter.


One of the largest problems utilities face in densely populated areas is a sub-par transmission system, our current system is archaic in terms of actual ties and system voltages multiple small generation units, without getting in to far into the rabbit hole, technology is advancing and many companies are now testing large scale battery storage units, more or less storage in the megawatt size range, this helps the bigger picture of solar and wind storage since right now the strategy is to just offset local fossil generation directly (using power generation plants batteries), but we're missing a key piece which is large generation (for when the "green" energy is offline) and a transmission system capable of being intertied within itself to transfer power from one area to another with the correct phasing so all area's can seamlessly bleed into each other without interruption (bumps), the idea would be to have the ability to shift battery storage power to area's that need the peak demand bump via transmission lines, but still be able to maintain our systems "a" phase at 60hertz wave length and match that same hertz 200miles away daisy chained together.


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## peakbagger (Dec 8, 2022)

From what little I see on the news the damaged substation is a medium outdoor distribution voltage switchyard. It may have a 133 kilovolt(KV) feed with possibly some intermediate voltage circuits (64 or 28 KV) and then local distribution (13.8KV). For a comparison, the voltage in the power lines in a typical street are 13.8KV. High voltage needs lots of clearance space around conductors as it really would prefer jumping to ground than staying cooped up in a cable. That is why switchyards take up a lot of space. There is also the potential for a lot of current going through cables and that creates heat that needs to be gotten rid of. Its also easier to maintain clearances to live equipment (If needed) outdoors. The gear could be indoors and is in some rare circumstances, but the cost is orders of magnitude higher than outdoor gear and the rate payers pay for it. 

Most utilities are regulated utilities, that have to answer to state regulatory bodies to justify their transmission costs. They get a guaranteed profit on every dime they spend, so their investors may be all in spending billions but the ratepayers who have to fund it may not like or be able to pay substantially higher electric bills every month of the year every year for what is a very rare occurrence.  Far better to manage that risk and keep the rates low. Sure, someone could be at each substation 24/7 bored out of their skull, but that would not stop "bubba" from doing target practice from several hundred feet off. Even if the guard sees it happening is he/she going to be equipped with armor and weapons to deal with "bubba"?  Odds are they will not, so all the guard is going to do is maybe collect evidence, but the utility will know in milliseconds that the plant is tripped, long before the guard wakes up. 

There definitely will be an investigation of how the utility responded to this deliberate act of sabotage and my guess is at least part of it will go back to supply chain. Up until Covid the way to drive costs of any system was to go"just in time". Why keep a warehouse full of spares locally which costs money when they can be bought from a big central warehouse that is serving multiple utilities?. So the utility pares back on local spares. What has happened since Covid (and even before) is the number of firms actually making specialized switchgear is shrinking and a lot of it is offshore as labor and materials is cheaper. These offshore firms are also dependent on their suppliers and Covid is not necessarily over in those countries so the entire chain is stretch thin. Now add in various large hurricanes in the US like Ian, In many cases the utilities are having to start from close to scratch rebuilding hundreds of switchyards like the one in NC.  Throw  in Puerto Rico (a US territory) losing its grid almost yearly of late. There really is not enough supply chain worldwide to support these disasters, so it comes down to whomever yells loudest with enough political power gets the gear. What normally happens is the utility has some gear locked away for critical spares but only for routine occurrences and they try to "borrow" gear from other utilities but with what is going on with the weather utilities are far more reluctant to lend gear as if they get caught with their pants down after lending gear out that is needed locally, someone gets fired (or retired if they are high enough in management. 

I have experienced supply chain issues on a recent small, combined heat power project, things that we used to be able to get off the shelf or in weeks are now booked out in months or years. We needed a small station transformer much smaller than what was at that substation to supply 460 volt power to the equipment in the station needed to run the turbine and associated equipment, This was a nothing special transformer used all over the place to supply large businesses and institutions. The contractor had estimated pre covid a new one with a 3 month delivery. The project was delayed and by the time they ordered it, the delivery was 18 months. We needed one quicker, so we ended up buying a used transformer that was "rebuilt". Typically, with a small transformer like this, a rebuild is test a used transformer to see if its good or not, drain the oil, replace a few seals, fill it up with oil and give it a paint job. At best the guarantee is 60 days and the cost was 20% higher than new. They probably bought it from a scrapper for scrap value but they could get it to us quicker. We also had issues getting some switchgear and had to rent some to get the plant running until the intended equipment showed up 6 months late. 

It doesn't take a lot of schooling or training to knock out a power substation. Somewhat like breaking and egg, the breaking is the easy part, the tough part is putting it back together. Someone could and probably has written a basic set of instructions on how to do so and its probably out on the web. I used "bubba" earlier, that has a southern connotation, but we got "bubbas" up north. A couple of bubbas one day were out hunting and didnt get their deer so they decided to do some target practice at these big insulators on a power line up in the woods along the NH VT border. They hit one and took out a 1000 MW DC line from Canada to the US. It took 3 days to fix it and the economic cost was in excess of 50 million. The authorities did eventually arrest them but beyond a short stay in jail and some public defenders time, they couldnt get money out of turnip so the ratepayers pay higher bills.   

On the other hand, us "resilient" folks out in the sticks drag out the generator they bought for $500 after Y2K (1/1/2000) and use it run the house while we sit in front of the woodstove/wood boiler/pellet stove. Or in the case of someone with solar panels and newer technology that accepts a home battery, they barely see a flicker. In my case, I need to flip a couple of  switches and run off my solar trailer which is backed up by a diesel and will form a microgrid with my other grid tied solar arrays. I produce surplus power most of the year so I would charge my hybrid off the system when the sun was generating more than I was using.  If I wanted to automate it, I could so I would not need to flip those switches. There was the town in Florida that was directly in the path of Ian that barely saw a blip in their power systems because they built a city wide solar microgrid with battery storage similar to my house system on much larger scale, it can be done as long as someone is willing to pay extra compared to regular power service. Bubba in the trailer park will probably chose far lower rates and hope the power does not go out and then rely on a tenuous social safety net to keep the alive. Note the substation is now back on line, standard resiliency recomendations is that someone should have a minimum of three days of survival gear ready to go in case of major storm or unexpected disaster so they would have been set. Sure the news likes to hype everything to get eyeballs but people have to figure out that at some point and probably more often these days they may be out on their own.

I have put in six combined heat and power plants in the last 8 years, two for hospitals and four for large industrial plants, they are all microgrids that can run independently from the grid as long as they have fuel. All six of them can flip a switch and run independent of the power grid. Five run on natural gas, the last one on gas, oil or to a limited amount, propane. They could easily add solar arrays and batteries for storage. Five are so called bumpless transfer plants, when the grid goes away the lights do not turn off. On the last one they have to wait five minutes and flip a switch to run off the grid and then shut down for five minutes when they go back on the grid. The hospitals did it for combination of energy savings and resiliency for a long term grid outage, one of the industrial plants could care less about efficiency but needed reliable power in an area with crappy power quality and the other three really just wanted the energy efficiency.  We delivered that to all six. At one plant that is fed by a long power line run through the woods, a large piece of equipment shut down one night after a storm, they called in the electrical superintendent as the equipment would not start up. He came in and it took him awhile to figure out that the power line feeding the plant had been taken down by a tree a couple of hours earlier and that were running off grid and no one knew it. The big piece of equipment was wired to turn off in that case as they can run for half day without it and trying to get it to restart would be real hard on the generator. They now have set of lights on the wall of the control room to tell them if the grid drops out (even though its pretty obvious on the control screen).


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## EbS-P (Dec 8, 2022)

We have been hearing infrastructure needs improvements for a long time.  Yes people will be caught in prepared.  Yes there will be losses, lives a property.  I believe it is is the governments responsibility to take care of those who are unprepared irrespective the reason they find themselves in that situation.  


peakbagger said:


> From what little I see on the news the damaged substation is a medium outdoor distribution voltage switchyard. It may have a 133 kilovolt(KV) feed with possibly some intermediate voltage circuits (64 or 28 KV) and then local distribution (13.8KV). For a comparison, the voltage in the power lines in a typical street are 13.8KV. High voltage needs lots of clearance space around conductors as it really would prefer jumping to ground than staying cooped up in a cable. That is why switchyards take up a lot of space. There is also the potential for a lot of current going through cables and that creates heat that needs to be gotten rid of. Its also easier to maintain clearances to live equipment (If needed) outdoors. The gear could be indoors and is in some rare circumstances, but the cost is orders of magnitude higher than outdoor gear and the rate payers pay for it.
> 
> Most utilities are regulated utilities, that have to answer to state regulatory bodies to justify their transmission costs. They get a guaranteed profit on every dime they spend, so their investors may be all in spending billions but the ratepayers who have to fund it may not like or be able to pay substantially higher electric bills every month of the year every year for what is a very rare occurrence.  Far better to manage that risk and keep the rates low. Sure, someone could be at each substation 24/7 bored out of their skull, but that would not stop "bubba" from doing target practice from several hundred feet off. Even if the guard sees it happening is he/she going to be equipped with armor and weapons to deal with "bubba"?  Odds are they will not, so all the guard is going to do is maybe collect evidence, but the utility will know in milliseconds that the plant is tripped, long before the guard wakes up.
> 
> ...


They were 230kV switch/transformer yards.  I’m impressed they got it back online in the time they did.  

I don’t see how one could harden these yards to small arms fire.  Best you could do is visually obscure line of sight   

For those with means vehicle to house/grid and or house battery backup will be the new automatic backup generators.  The tech is here.


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## Ashful (Dec 8, 2022)

EbS-P said:


> I don’t see how one could harden these yards to small arms fire.  Best you could do is visually obscure line of sight


Those of a certain age will remember Columbine in 1999 as the first of a now-long string of school shootings and other mass shootings in our national news.  There had actually been many school shootings prior to this, but coverage of this event makes it the one that really put the idea into the modern national consciousness.  I also think you'd have to be kidding yourself to not believe that media coverage of this and similar events does not promote and lead to more copy-cat incidents, to the point where I believe the news media has a lot of culpability in the accelerated proliferation of these events, while they profit off of them.

Unfortunately, I believe that the coverage of this substation incident could similarly cause more such copy-cat incidents.  We will know soon enough if this event, which few could have even imagined someone doing previously, becomes a new part of our regular news.


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