Energy Efficiency

This one took a little bit more brain power to think about a sufficient amount of tasks to on to become more energy efficient. The only things I could think of were unplugging appliances not in use, switching to compact energy efficient fluorescent light bulbs, clothes lining, avoiding heating/cooling, and solar paneling. Ok so solar paneling was definitely not in the cards but it's not a bad idea (with the exception of the e-waste factor...). At first I thought this was a short list of changes I could make and didn't expect them too make THAT much of a difference since it seemed all too simple. Boy was I wrong. It's true when they say that even the little changes make can make difference.

I'll admit it, I was never one to run around the house unplugging appliances not in use and I would constantly leave my cellphone charger plugged into the wall. I didn't realize that energy was still being used regardless of there being any appliances turned on or my cellphone being plugged in. Upon doing research on energy efficiency, my eyes were opened to the reality of the situation. Standby power, also called vampire power, refers to the electric power consumed by electronic devices while they're switched off or in standby mode. The most common electricity vampire is probably the power adapter since it has no off option. Although the wasted energy of individual devices may not be very much, the sum of the energy wasted among all households appliances can become quite significant.

Alan Meier, a staff scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) in Berkeley, noted that many household appliances are never fully switched off, but spend most of the time in a standby mode. His 2000 study showed that standby power accounted for around 10% of household power-consumption. By unplugging appliances not in use you can not only defeat the electricity vampire but also save money on your electricity bill as well. Although we do not pay for utilities at our house, our landlord has made a remark about the both the water and electric bill being on the decline this quarter. All thanks to the energy efficiency tips we've been following, I'm sure!

Fun fact I found on the energy star site:

“If every American home replaced just one light with an ENERGY STAR light, we would save enough energy to light more than 3 million homes for a year, about $700 million in annual energy costs, and prevent 9 billion pounds of greenhouse gas emissions per year, equivalent to the emissions of about 800,000 cars.”

Switching to from regular light bulbs to CFLs make can actually make a huge difference and they're also really affordable (4 for $1 at Costco). Naturally, we all took a trip to our local Costco and changed around 10 light bulbs in our house and now the lighting in our house is more energy efficient. Yep, it was that easy.

According to the EPA, in a home where electricity supplies all of the energy requirements, the average energy consumption is as follows:

Air conditioner and heater = 50%

Water heater = 20%

Lighting and small appliances = 10%

Refrigerator = 8%

Other = 5%

Ovens and stoves = 4%

Clothes dryer = 3%

Air conditioning and heating accounts for 50% of consumption, that is huge! I had no idea. While we don't have cooling in our house, we do have the advantage of an electric fire place. Although electric fireplaces do not produce combustion emissions at the source, the electricity to power them comes from a power plant that, in the US, is likely to be either a coal-burning or natural gas powered plant. Cutting back on heating alone can save a great deal of energy. The weather's hasn't been the most favorable but it's not something proper insulation and a lot of bundling can't fix!

Composting

For our first task we took on toward a more sustainable household is COMPOSTING!

Composting is nature's own way of recycling. It is the process whereby organic wastes, including food, paper and yard wastes decompose naturally resulting in rich minerals often usedas a soil conditioner or fertilizer. Composting is a simple and easy way to reduce the volume of garbage sent to unnecessarily to landfills and give back to the soils that created the organic material in the firstplace. Amazing, right?

There are numerous ways to compost whether you have a backyard or not.

Composting bins are utilized when spare land is not available, some sort of barrel, box or bin should work just fine or there are also commercial bins available.

Binless composting, on the other hand means that you will build a compost pile in a convenient spot on the ground or in a semi-contained area.

Good composting is all about providing the proper environmental conditions for microbial life.

Here's are the main components to take into consideration:

1. Oxygen: Thoroughly break up or mix in any ingredients that might mat down and exclude air or turn the pile to get air into it.

2. Water: Ideally, your pile should be as moist as a wrung-out sponge, to fit the needs of compost microbes.

3. Insulation: For a pile to get hot and stay hot for a long period of time, the typical minimum size for the pile is one cubic meter.

4. Food:

• Greens: Dry and dead plant materials such as straw, dry brown weeds, autumn leaves, and wood chips or sawdust.

• Browns: Fruit and vegetable scraps, green leaves, coffee grounds and tea bags, etc

This is how we collect our compost scraps!

And here's a video in case you're still feeling a little hazy about composting:

Once upon a time...

The sun is out, the birds are chirping, and the flowers are blooming. Yeah, it's that time of year. This can only mean one thing for the four girls on Storey St, enjoying the small pleasures that Santa Cruz has to offer. It's seems as though we find it increasingly more difficult to sit in a lecture hall for 3+ hours. But, we can't complain much when we take in the scenic ocean view while dodging families of deer roaming the campus on the walk through the vast forest on the way to our next class. In the midst of our heavy academic schedules, 3 of us have managed to find the time for a class that comes as a breath of fresh air. The class is called Living Sustainably which is a student run class put on by the Education for Sustainable Living Program (ESLP), it offers students an opportunity to learn about and apply sustainable living methods to the university campus and the city of Santa Cruz.

Before we dove head first into the program with ideas of tackling administrative rules and reforming the entire system, we decided to take a step back and start at the beginning. To preach and advocate sustainable living means that we need to live and practice greener lives. So here is our mission: conserve water, conserve energy, save money, eat local and vegetarian, decrease our waste and overall carbon footprint.

But don't let us have all the fun! Follow along and we can make the change together.