UCR: Sustainable or Unsustainable?

This will be the first in a what will probably be a long series of posts about UC Riverside and whether or not their practices/infrastructure/policies are sustainable.

UCR certainly puts a good face forward, advertising their recent efforts toward sustainability, which is great!  But I come across so many wasteful things on campus that it's hard to consider the university sustainable ... yet.  Literally, in every building I step into and in every way I interact with the campus, there is serious waste.  I guess it could just be a coincidence that only the buildings I walk into are wasteful, but obviously that's not the case.  I suspect it's systemic, and the faculty need to speak up to get things changed (and to secure funding to help that along).  We also need real metrics for improvement, and to be held accountable to those metrics.

But let me first start on a positive note.  As you know, California has been going through an epic drought the last four years, and everybody realized how bad it really was when we came out of the spring without much rain.  Well, over a year ago, I tried to find obvious locations on campus that waste a lot of water for turf grass that isn't used... and there's a LOT of it.  Well, the most egregious case, the most asinine example, was a very large plot of grass on the west edge of campus that was used by nobody and, in fact, nobody could even see it!

I estimated that this lawn has an area of about 60,000 sq. ft (about 1.4 acres), and uses about 3 million gallons of water per year, or about 0.4% of all of UCR's water use.  All one has to do is turn off a valve and you can instantly save the water use of about ~50 households, and with no harm to anybody.

Well, this morning I realized I needed to call out the university and make sure they do something about this.  I rode my bike to that side of campus to check it out and look what I saw!

Dead grass!  They killed it!  Well done UCR!  That's 3 million gallons of potable water saved every year.  Thanks!

Net Energy: 3 Year Update

I just finished my third year with solar panels on my roof. I'm happy to report that everything is great, I'm helping the environment and I don't have to do anything at all.  That's not entirely true, I wash the panels about three times/year but it takes less than 20 minutes each time (and less than 20 gallons of water).  So one hour of work per year to cancel out all of the CO2 emission from my house. That's pretty good.

So here's the tally of electrical energy produced compared to electrical energy consumed.

Year	Energy Produced (kWh)	Energy Consumed (kWh)
2012-2013	3915	3613
2013-2014	4027	3157
2014-2015	3937	3483

So, it looks like my average production is about 3960 kWh/year with only a few percent change per year (the first year would probably have been higher if not of a palm tree that was taken down) and my average consumption is 3418 kWh/year.  

I should say that my energy consumption this year was affected by one major event.  I could not use my (natural gas) heater during much of the winter because some skunks tore through the ducts under my house.  So I used an electric space heater during half of January and February. I think my electrical energy consumption was bumped up by about 200 kWh because of this. If we subtract the 200 kWh, the consumption is pretty close in line with the previous year, though not quite as low.  But that's ok.  A lot has happened this year.  We just had a baby, so for 8 of the last twelve months, somebody has been home all day every day, we've been lighting more rooms, running baby monitors, cooking/cleaning more, etc. And we've been running the A/C a bit more than normal.

And still, it looks like a typical year produces about 4.0 MWh and we will consume 3.3 MWh, leaving 0.7 MWh to spare.  That's enough energy to drive an electric car about 2000 miles each year on our excess (and we've already bagged ~5000 miles of excess energy in the bank).

4% of the home cost, 10% of the roof area.

There are no longer any hurdles preventing the wide adoption of solar power.  Why?  Because of these two facts.

1.  Cost:  The panels on my home are 4% of the value of the home.  4% and you never have to pay an electricity bill again.  It's a no-brainer.  It's especially a no-brainer to install solar when constructing the home, as it's even cheaper then.

2. Area:  The panels on my home cover about 10% of the area of the roof and they provide more than enough energy.  Even if your appliances aren't as efficient, or if you live in less sunny areas, you should still be able to power your home with panels covering only a fraction of your home.

So here's how to do it.

First:  Change your mindset/habits just a bit to significantly reduce your energy use.  Wear a sweater in the winter, and shorts in the summer.  This way, you don't have to heat your home quite as much in the winter or cool your home as much in the summer.  In moderate climates, this causes a dramatic decrease in energy use (most days you won't need to do either).  This costs zero dollars and zero time.

Second:  Make your home more efficient.  Identify the worst problems (single pane windows with aluminum frames, for example) and get them fixed.  Switch out your old lights for LEDs - they're very efficient and you'll never have to worry about a burned-out bulb again. Make sure attic insulation is sufficient and seal up any drafts in the home.  And any time you buy a new appliance (refrigerator, air conditioner, etc.) make sure it's very efficient.  It will pay off in the long run.  This costs a moderate amount of money.

Final Step:  If you've done the two steps above, you won't need as many solar panels, so that will save you a LOT of money.  Now go get panels.  Get estimates from several vendors, and consider both purchasing or leasing the system.  If you're leasing, this may not cost you any money at all.  So it's a pretty obvious thing to do.  

Now make some phone calls.

New Name, New Emphasis

Hi all.  I've decided to expand the scope of the blog. It used to be about making my home more sustainable, but now I'd like to include other topics of interest to me: broader sustainability issues, science (maybe even my science), and public policy.  

So I've also changed the name of the blog from Life Ecologized (since it's not just about home sustainability) to Tiny Blue Galaxies.  My research is primarily focused on very small galaxies in the distant universe, which often appear as tiny, faint and blue in visible images.  

So stay tuned, hopefully the post frequency will increase a lot.