Living Like Ed (21 page)

People say, “Oh, these rechargeable batteries, they’re toxic!”

What is a Duracell? An Energizer? A Rayovac? These have toxic elements, too. You can’t throw those in the trash. But people feel very free to throw those little Coppertops away. You
can’t
throw them away. They’re toxic. You’re supposed to dispose of them properly. And see how quickly you fill up a shoe box with batteries if you’re not buying rechargeable.

Beyond that, you have options that require no batteries at all. As we’ve known for many, many years, you can store power in a capacitor. I have these flashlights that I sell on my website. You shake them up. It’s the Faraday principle: A magnet passes through the coil, and electrons are generated. But where are those electrons stored? In a battery? No, not in this device. They’re stored in a capacitor. And so you turn on the light—which is not a lightbulb; it’s an LED, a light-emitting diode—and you have wonderful light whenever you need it. And it’s stored not in a battery, which will wear out over time, but in a capacitor, which has a far, far longer life expectancy. So it’s a much better choice for something you’d need in an emergency—like a flashlight—and for so many other reasons. It’s another very good way to go.

So Many Ways to Recycle

So now we’ve come up with dozens—if not hundreds—of things that you can recycle. Glass jars and their lids. Cardboard boxes. Laundry detergent bottles. Eyeglasses. Newspapers. Aluminum cans. Toys. Even a tattered old throw rug. And we’ve come up with dozens more recycled products that you can buy. Things you’d buy anyway, without even having to choose recycled products—things like cans of soda and bottles of juice, like a newspaper. And then there are all those things you can specifically seek out that are made using postconsumer waste, such as recycled office paper and file folders and toilet paper and outdoor furniture.

All of these recycling efforts provide benefits on so many levels. They reduce the amount of stuff going into landfills. They reduce the need to use up new natural resources. And they reduce the amount of
energy
spent mining those resources—often in distant locales—and the amount of energy spent transporting those resources to the United States to be made into whatever it is we think we need.

So now let’s take a look at energy from a different angle. Let’s look at ways to create energy in an environmentally friendly manner, as well as ways to reduce your need for energy from outside sources.

4

ENERGY

SUN, WIND, COAL, WATER—WHERE DOES YOUR ELECTRICITY COME FROM?

Most people get the electricity for their home—or their business—from their local utility company. They pay the going rate, and they use what they need. They may take steps to reduce their energy use, like implementing some of the techniques I covered in Chapter 1, “Home.” But people typically don’t even know they have a choice when it comes to
how
their electricity is produced and
by whom.

Well, I’m here to tell you: You
do
have a choice. Actually, you have a lot of choices. You can produce your own electricity, as I do using solar panels and a wind turbine mounted on the roof of my home. You can even sell some of the excess electricity you produce back to your local utility company.

But what if you don’t own your home? What if you’re on a tight budget? Or what if you live in a restrictive community that has rules against things like solar panels on your roof? Well, there are other options. For instance, you can still buy electricity from your local utility company, but you can choose to participate in a green power program. And if your local electric company doesn’t have such a program, you may be able to switch to another provider that does.

And even beyond all that—whether you do all of the above or none of the above—you can take steps to offset any carbon dioxide emissions produced by the electricity you do use.

And that brings us to the heart of the matter. Every source of electricity has consequences; it affects the environment. It’s just that some sources of electricity are more environmentally friendly—actually a lot more environmentally friendly—than others.

How Electricity Is Produced

Let’s start by looking at all the different ways electricity is produced. The most common is by burning things to create heat, which in turn creates steam. That steam is then used to turn a big turbine, and that generates electricity.

A lot of different materials are burned to create electricity, including

•
coal (still the primary way utility companies create power in the United States)

•
crude oil

•
natural gas

•
garbage

•
biomass (which is typically waste from the manufacturing of paper and pulp products)

•
methane—the gas that’s emitted from landfills

There are also ways to produce electricity using steam that don’t involve burning things. For instance, you can create nuclear reactions, or you can use the heat from the earth to create
geothermal
power.

How much electricity does your home use? I use 1,200 kilowatt-hours a month.

There are also steam-free ways to generate electricity, among them:

•
Hydroelectric power. In this case, the force of falling or flowing water turns a turbine.

•
Wind power. You can literally harness the wind to create power using windmills—or, more precisely, wind turbines.

•
Solar power. The energy of the sun can also be harnessed to create power. Big solar electric power plants either use the heat of the sun to produce steam, which then turns a turbine or some other kind of generator, or they use photovoltaic (PV) cells to convert solar energy directly into electricity.

So these are the primary ways utility companies all across the United States create the electricity that powers your home and your workplace and your city.

Renewable vs. Green

Now, some of these sources of electricity are considered
renewable,
meaning they don’t require the use of limited natural resources. Renewable resources are generally considered inexhaustible.

Certainly no one would argue that waste, or trash, is in scarce supply. We obviously make plenty of it in this country. It’s definitely a renewable resource.

But, just as certainly, you can see that
renewable energy
is not the same as
green energy.
Yes, waste is considered renewable, but burning waste is certainly not an environmentally friendly way to make power. You’re just taking all that often very toxic material and releasing it into the atmosphere. I’m highly opposed to incinerators as a means either of dealing with trash or making power.

Different Region, Different Choices

The mix as to which power sources are used to generate electricity varies from region to region. Here’s how it breaks down where I live. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) generates 47 percent of its power from coal, 29 percent from natural gas, 9 percent from nuclear, 7 percent from large hydroelectric power plants, and 8 percent from renew-able power.

On average, the entire state of California produces

•
41.5 percent of its power from natural gas

•
19.0 percent from hydro

•
15.7 percent of its power from coal

•
12.9 percent from nuclear

•
10.9 percent from renewable resources

That’s in dramatic contrast to states such as

•
Indiana, Kentucky, North Dakota, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming, all of which still generate more than 90 percent of their electricity by burning coal

•
The District of Columbia, which generates 100 percent of its electricity by burning crude oil

•
Rhode Island, which generates 98.9 percent of its electricity by burning natural gas

Creating Carbon Dioxide

In most cases, when you generate power at a power plant, you put out carbon dioxide, or CO2. These emissions come out of the power plant’s smoke-stacks as a result of the combustion process—from burning coal or crude oil or natural gas. Power plants also produce sulfur dioxide, oxides of nitrogen, and mercury emissions, but carbon dioxide is the thing people focus on most because it’s considered a primary cause of global warming.

Obviously, the
way
your utility company generates power has a profound effect on how much CO2 it emits. According to the EPA, for each megawatt-hour of electricity that a utility company produces, it creates

•
2,988 pounds of CO2 by burning municipal solid waste

•
2,249 pounds of CO2 by burning coal

•
1,672 pounds of CO2 by burning oil

•
1,135 pounds of CO2 by burning natural gas

•
0 pounds of CO2 by using water to create hydroelectric power

•
0 pounds of CO2 by using wind

•
0 pounds of CO2 by using solar power

•
0 pounds of CO2 by using nuclear power

On a state-by-state level, Texas leads the way in CO2 emissions from power generation, putting out more than 280 million
tons
of carbon dioxide each year. It’s no surprise that Texas generates most of its power by burning coal and natural gas.

After Texas comes Florida, which produces 145 million tons of CO2 emissions from power generation annually, thanks to an emphasis on burning coal, crude oil, and natural gas. Then comes Indiana, at 133 million tons, with coal used to create 94.7 percent of the state’s power.

California is way down the list, producing only 67 million tons of CO2 emissions a year—if you can use the word
only.

Vermont gets the cleanest ranking in terms of CO2. It produces just shy of 19,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions from power generation. That’s because most of the power generated in Vermont is nuclear—70.5 percent—and another 21.7 percent is hydroelectric. Only 0.4 percent of all the power generated in that state comes from the burning of fossil fuels, and then we’re talking oil and gas—not coal. So it’s a really clean state in terms of CO2 emissions, though nuclear power certainly has its drawbacks, which we’ll get into later.

The Grid

Now, how does electricity get from a power plant to your home or workplace? The utility company sends that electricity out over a network of transmission and distribution lines, better known as
the grid.

Transmission lines
are those large, high-voltage power lines you see, usually supported by tall metal towers. They move electricity from the power plant to a local substation.

From the substation—or from a transformer—the power then travels over smaller, lower-voltage
distribution lines.
These are the power lines you see overhead along city streets, supported by what we usually think of as
telephone
poles. If you don’t see those lines overhead, your city probably has its distribution lines underground.

The Price of Electricity

Once you get your electricity, of course you have to pay for it. For home use, electricity is measured in kilowatt-hours. Your electric meter tracks the number of kilowatt-hours you use, then the utility company charges you a price per kilowatt-hour.

We’ve seen a rapid rise in the price of electricity over the last few years. The curve has started to go up and up and up, and now we’re starting to see a real spike. And over time, I think the price of electricity is only going to continue going up.

The price you’ll actually pay for electricity varies pretty dramatically by state and by city. In a place like Los Angeles, the LADWP charges 7¢ a kilowatt-hour. Overall, the rate for California averages 12.36¢ per kilowatt-hour.

Hawaii has the highest rate in the nation, averaging 19.05¢ per kilowatt-hour. Electricity is very expensive there because you have to bring in a lot of the fuel from off the islands.

If you go to a place like Idaho, where they’ve got hydroelectric plants from the 1930s that have well since been paid off, they’re charging an average of 4.75¢ a kilowatt-hour. It’s the cheapest in the country.

Capital investments to build new power plants impact electricity prices, too. And prices can also fluctuate on a seasonal basis, going up in the summertime, for instance, when demand and usage are much higher.

High Peak, Low Peak, and Off-Peak