Skip to main content

teaspoon energy

Search This Blog

Your "little bit" doesn't count

Get link
Facebook
X
Pinterest
Email
Other Apps

This article was first published in 11 Okanagan papers, including Penticton Western, owned by Black Press Media, on March 2, 2020

Your "little bit" doesn't count

Get link
Facebook
X
Pinterest
Email
Other Apps

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts

Personal carbon emissions by the numbers

This article was first published in Castanet Mar 19, 2024 Are you interested in reducing your personal carbon footprint? Have you wondered exactly how much recycling reduces global warming? In 2020 a meta-analysis paper was published by Diana Ivanova and coauthors that reviewed studies covering a range of personal consumption options. The researchers started with a dataset of 6990 studies from all over the world and used machine learning to winnow this down to the most relevant 53 studies. This meta analysis is great for two reasons: it gives a reliable average and it shows the uncertainty. The data from this study is publicly available and I focused on two baskets, one with transportation choices and a second which includes common household actions like recycling. Let’s look first at transportation options. The amount of CO₂e saved is measured in tonnes per person per year -- living car-free saves 2.1 tonnes CO₂e per person per year (the average Canadian footprint is 15.2 tonnes C...

Increased prices nullifying the advantage of rebates

This article was first published in Castanet Mar 5, 2024 It sounded like a great idea. Women need menstrual products once a month. These products are not discretionary, they are necessary, so why should people in the United Kingdom be forced to pay the VAT tax? Following this reasoning the “tampon tax” was repealed in 2021, lifting a 5% tax. However, the results were unexpected and disappointing -- retailers responded by raising prices and consumers only experienced a savings of 1%. The same thing is happening in the sustainability space. There’s a particularly distorted interaction between the auto industry quotas and government rebates. In the US California (and eleven other states) set up a Zero Emission Vehicle Program, which requires automakers to sell an increasing percentage of electric vehicles (EVs). The US also has state and federal incentives -- $1,000 to $7,500 in state incentives and $7,500 in federal tax credits. Automakers find it more expensive to build electric ve...

Dams vs. solar electric

This article was first published 08/05/2020 in The Penticton Western and nine other Black Press Okanagan papers. British Columbia is a great place to drive an electric vehicle. Why? Most of our electricity comes from hydroelectric dams (but not most of our energy , see “Don’t get too smug about B.C.’s hydroelectric” ). But dams, once the go-to source of low carbon electricity, are problematic from an environmental perspective. We know that dams cause extensive ecological damage to the flora and fauna overrun by the reservoir. Dams also produce more methane and CO2 than was previously suspected. Rotting materials, deep underwater without access to oxygen, break down. This produces large amounts of methane and CO2. The methane is 30 times more powerful a greenhouse gas than CO2. Reservoirs created by dams trap rotting material deep underwater, producing methane, a greenhouse gas 30 times as powerful as CO2 This “carbon cost” is much higher than emission from natural lakes or ma...

Powered by Blogger