Posted by admin
Sat, 29 Dec 2007 17:03:00 GMT
Being energy efficient is increasingly creeping into offices too.
ITworld cites that flat panel displays consume 67-75 % less energy than old bulky CRT monitors. I assume that nobody is really buying CRTs anymore, so it's perhaps more interesting question how to further save energy in using flat displays. For example, will screen savers actually save energy? The Green computing guide by University of Colorado reminds that "if screen saver images appear on your monitor for more than 5 minutes, you are wasting energy". So adjust your screens to go to sleep after 20 min of inactivity.
Posted in Office | no comments | no trackbacks
Posted by admin
Sat, 29 Dec 2007 17:01:00 GMT
Greenpeace has today published a report about energy efficiency of new Finnish houses (in Finnish, sorry). They claim that with construction that use latest low energy techniques can reduce energy consumption to one third.
With the increasing price of energy in any form, this sounds like a very attractive proposal!
My own house is warmed with night electricity. It heats a large pot of water during the night with cheaper electricity, and then releases it slowly during the day. While this makes sense money-wise, it will still consume as much or maybe more energy than direct heating with electricity. I need to start considering changing the heating system to something that makes more sense both for costs and for environment.
Posted in Home | no comments | no trackbacks
Posted by admin
Sat, 29 Dec 2007 17:00:00 GMT
Learned from my colleagues in London: there's a taxi service called climatecars that aims to make taxi services as environmentally friendly as possible. They use hybrid cars for low emissions, and also offset the carbon. At the same time, they try not to sacrifice any of the standards of taxi ride, like comfort, punctuality, security,
They also have a service for bicyclists who want to get a ride back home after a day gone too long.
Posted in Transport | Tags car | no comments | no trackbacks
Posted by admin
Sat, 29 Dec 2007 16:57:00 GMT
Ok, now that this blog has been mentioned first time outside (thanks Esinetarinoita!), maybe it would be good to clarify a bit the nature of this.
I'm not much a green myself. More or less, I just suffer from bad conscience of not doing anything. So partly starting the blog is an internal process of trying to get some action by talking about it first a lot. Maybe something then happens too...
I'm also convinced that very few people will be volunteering to sacrifice their living standards just for being ecological. In general, I trust in political decision making and large scale steering to make any significant changes e.g. to counter-act climate change. So, if there are no strong external forces, people will go on consuming as they have been doing so far.
Therefore, I don't want to start making myself or others feel really bad about buying something nice for themselves. On the contrary, I'd rather feel happy about my decisions so that I like the products and services that I get, but at the same time make the best available purchase decisions that are also the most environmentally friendly.
So, in brief, go ahead and buy a car, but before doing that, pay attention to the emission values and consider that as one criteria when selecting the make and model. I plan to do that, too.
PS. If you know people interested in helping out in developing this site, please let me know. I'm seriously lacking skills in web services, Rails, graphic design, etc...
PS2. Why Ekoneko? Neko is a cat in Japanese. And it sort of rhymes. And the domain name was available!
Posted in Misc | no comments | no trackbacks
Posted by admin
Sat, 29 Dec 2007 16:43:00 GMT
Update: Grist has provided pictures of a line-up of CLFs.
Grist, a nice site that I just added to the sidebar, has made a hands-on comparison report on some of the CFLs (Compact Fluorescent Bulbs) on the US market. I like the informal style of it! The author ends up recommending soft-white bulb from Philips ($3.88).
Motiva, the Finnish site, calculates that if you change five ordinary 60W light bulbs to 11W CFLs, and you use them 2 hours a day, it will save 175 kWh electricity (they say it's about 20€ per year). The CLF's last also 6-15 times longer than ordinary ones. So it's 5 times less electricity and at least 6 times lifespan.
I'm just checking some Finnish web sites, and the quotes for 11W CLFs are in the range of 10€ each, and ordinary 60W is about 1€. If you need to replace ordinary ones 6 times while one CLF, you need to pay 6€ for the same amount of light. You will save 4€ per CLF bulb in electricity per year, and it should last many years with the 2hrs a day average. So eventually it will be cheaper, but not very obviously so.
So financially, changing the bulbs doesn't really make much of a difference. However, I think the best motivator for me is the convenience. Some of the bulbs in our home are quite difficult to change. Need to get ladders out, get a screw driver, open up lamp shades etc. If I can spare of doing this only once in 6 years rather than every year, I'm sold!
The only trouble with CLFs is that they need to be recycled properly. Can't throw them in trash can.
PS. If you know cheap places to buy CLFs, please let me know.
Posted in Home | Tags CLF, light bulb | no comments | no trackbacks
Posted by admin
Sat, 29 Dec 2007 16:27:00 GMT
I'd like to find databases of emission values for different cars.
UK
US
Canada
Finland
- Ekoake, by Autorekisterikeskus
Posted in Transport | Tags car, CO2 emissions | no comments
Posted by admin
Sat, 29 Dec 2007 16:17:00 GMT
Two days ago, I managed to destroy *all contents* of my blog. Oh, the pain!
I'm now on the way of recovering the data. I will likely be able to write again the articles, but the comments are lost forever. Sorry for whoever commented.
This is a good example of what happens when non-techie starts running his own web server. Not a very good idea. I try to be more careful in the future.
Posted in Misc | no comments
