What's the most ecologically daft thing you have ever done?

On our last night in Bruges, I found myself using a hair dryer to dry a teddy. 1.2 kW of energy pointed at a toy. Probably the nadir of my attempts at eco-living.

My excuse is: we had 10 hours of travelling with small child the next day and he decided to chuck teddy in the bath. The thought of risking a sleepness night for all of us if teddy wasn't safely in bed with the boy was too terrifying to contemplate. Didn't stop me feeling pretty stupid all said and done.

So what have you done recently that's made you stop and think "What the hell am I doing?".

What if the lights go out?

I was just stepping into the shower this morning when the water went cold. The lights had gone off too. I dried off the cold splash of water that had hit me before I could jump out and went and checked the fuse box. Everything was OK there, so we had a power cut.

I got dressed and went up to the newsagents - he was using two battery powered camping lights and a calculator to run the shop, and was worried about his perishable foodstuffs. The pedestrian crossing was out of order too. A symphony of burglar alarms rang out across the neighbourhood.

When I got back we lit the stove with a match to boil the kettle and had cereal rather than toast. My partner and I fought a battle over who was blocking whose light from the window in order to read the paper. It was eerily quiet with no fish tank pump or fridge humming in the background.

After breakfast I found I had about an hour of battery left on my laptop, but no broadband, so I checked my e-mail on my mobile phone. My work choice boiled down to what didn't require much access to the net as the clock was ticking on my battery reserves on both.

Ninety minutes after the cut started it ended, then we had half an hour of power followed by a further ten minute cut. Since then it has been fine and I'm still sighing big sighs of relief.

Now hundreds of millions of people across the world have no access to electricity at all, and many more suffer regular power cuts. 90 minutes without power is nothing on the grand scale of things, but everything changed or came to a halt while it lasted. Our luxuries, basic needs (food, warmth), communication systems, security systems and traffic control systems have all become incredibly dependent on a stable supply of electricity.

So what happens if the lights do go out? Will we descend into Mad Max-style post-apocalyptic anarchy or rebuild small self-sufficient communities and live in eco-harmony singing around the campfire? And do we want to go there?

Where are the energy protestors?

Has anyone noticed the price of road fuel? In 2000 the price was much lower than it is now and the country was brought to a near standstill by a coalition of farmers and truckers. Yet similar protests in December failed to garner more than a handful of protesters around the country.

This weekend, the papers were predicting a 15% hike in domestic gas and electricity. This will pitch many thousands into fuel poverty (where more than 10% of the household's income is spent on energy bills) and will make for an uncomfortable winter for many.

It is natural to attack the energy industry for this and the Government has started talks with them to try and reduce these prices. Of course the only long term solution is to reduce the amount of energy we need through better insulation, getting used to wearing a jumper rather than superheating our homes, and more efficient vehicles. For some reason the connection between costs and consumption (cost = consumption x price, duh) doesn't seem to catch the notice of the press.

Ban the bag? Catch a Grip!

The humble carrier bag has had a bad time of it recently. From Gordon Brown's first big green speech to 'Dragon' Peter Jones to the good folk of Modbury, the message has gone out loud and clear "Save the Planet! Ban the bag!".

Unfortunately the facts undermine this totemic issue - plastic bags probably make up a measely 0.1% of our carbon footprint (less if you're as rich as Mr Jones and spend your life jetting around the world). What's in them is far more important - our grocery shopping accounts for between 20% and 33% of our footprint, depending on how you count it. Other huge chunks are taken up by heating our homes, our personal transport and cooling our offices.

I've got nothing against trying to reduce the number of single use plastic bags, but it is completely missing the point if the public starts to believe that's all there is to saving the world. Ditto switching off your phone chargers - worth doing, but a piddling amount of energy in the grand scheme of things.

I know I've said it before, but I think it's worth saying again. If you want to make a difference you need to:

• Buy local & organic food from local shops, or better still, grow your own.
  
• Insulate your house
  
• Use a bicycle for short journeys
  
• Try to holiday at near to home
  
• Buy energy efficient equipment (eg lightbulbs and appliances)
• Switch stuff off when you're not using it

As you can see above, it's not that hard, yet we're continually bombarded with misleading information. No wonder it is taking a long time to change the public's behaviour. Harrumph etc...

DTI stops home renewables grants

Despite Gordon Broon's extra £6m for the Low Carbon Building Programme following unprecedented demand for its home renewables grants, the DTI has suddenly suspended the scheme for some months. Apparently someone (I'd guess his initials are GB) has spotted that £5m has been allocated, but not many systems have actually been installed, according to the Guardian.

Apparently the DTI mandarins are looking at how to improve the allocation system - I would suggest the problems lie in the planning laws instead. These are due to be revamped in Oct to make getting permission easier. Here's hoping...

Work Greener Part 1

I mentioned before that, according to Chris Goodall's book, 10% of our carbon footprint arises from our workplace. Well, in an exclusive extract from my forthcoming e-book, The Green Business Bible, here's my top ten tips for reducing the carbon footprint of your office:

Top Ten Tips for Offices

1. Run a ‘switch it off’ campaign. Rebut energy myths like “it is more efficient to leave lights on than switch them on and off”;

2. Provide feedback to your staff on energy consumption. Switch it off campaigns work best with real data to back up the message;

3. Purchase Energy Star Compliant office equipment;

4. Upgrade all lighting to the most energy efficient available;

5. Downgrade the level of lighting in non-critical areas. Most corridors are much brighter than they need to be;

6. Install automatic lighting controls, particularly for windowless rooms;

7. Set heating controls to the optimum temperature and make sure they remain there;

8. Make sure your heating tracks the temperature outside in the Spring and Autumn. If staff start opening the windows to ventilate rooms, then energy is being wasted;

9. Install a tea urn rather than individual kettles;

10. Laptop batteries will discharge if you leave them plugged into the wall, whether or not the plug is switched on – unplug them to save the charge.

Soggy Log Blog

This log maker was one of the Xmas presents I mentioned back at the end of December. The fact that I'm blogging about it in March tells its own story.

The idea is soak newspapers overnight, squish them into blocks and, when they're dry, burn them as fuel. The 'when they're dry' part of that statement is critical - the instructions say put them on newspaper to dry and change the paper daily for a week. This seemed a bit of a faff, so I put them under cover outside where the wind would get around them and left them. And waited. And waited. Seven weeks later they seemed dry. But they didn't burn well at all - rather they turned straight to ash in the heat of the fire.

OK, so I didn't follow the instructions fully, but I can't see the newspaper having made that much difference. I'm not impressed, but I'll give it one more go (and do it properly) before I consign it to the 'Green Graveyard'.

In the meantime if anyone else has had more joy with one of these, please post your tips in the comments.

Renewables Cash Dash Goes Crazy

If you want to install some renewables at home, then the UK Govt offers a subsidy via the Low Carbon Buildings Programme. The programme is quite restrictive as you have to meet strict efficiency requirements first, and then you can only get certain products installed by approved installers.

The money is doled out monthly on a first-come-first-served basis. This is causing a mad dash for the cash - in January the money had all gone by the 12th, in February it ran out by noon on the first day, and this month it took just 75 minutes for the allocation to go.

This scramble to get the grants shows just how popular microrenewables have become, but it is frustrating for the large numbers of people who were depending on the grant when they were costing their own scheme.

When I got my solar panel I was aware of the pressures and didn't bother applying, preferring to take the hit rather than go through the paperwork when there wasn't much chance of success. The decision is yours...

A (mini CFL) Spotlight on Lighting Innovation

I've blogged before on different types of compact fluorescent bulb. Well I finally got my hands on some of these little 7W beauties (left and illuminated in the centre) made by Megaman which replace 40W mini-spots (right). That's less than 18% of the energy if you don't leave them on longer "'cos they're efficient".

What is really amazing (OK, if you're sad like me) is how far the technology has progressed. Only a couple of years ago, compact fluorescents were huge, ugly and ungainly because of the size of the 'ballast' required to light the bulb in the first place. Now the ballast can be squeezed elegantly into the slender neck of the bulb and these smaller bulbs can be replaced like for like.

If only someone could come up with a dim-able energy efficient bulb...

Watts The Matter?

Labels matter.

Since energy labels were put on white goods, the market share of 'A-rated' white goods rose from 0% in 1996/97 to 74% in 2005/06. It is clear that the punters want the best rating and the manufacturers see it as a selling point. It's a pity we don't have them on all electrical items as it is a nightmare trying to get sensible information out of retailers or manufacturers. Try asking in your local Curry's which HD Ready mega-TV is the most energy efficient and you'll get a blank (or blanker) look.

Fortunately, the SUST-IT website can help you choose between different products on the grounds of their energy consumption (hat-tip to The Green Guy for that one). You'll see that the variations can be quite pronounced - some of the rules of thumb I had went right out of the window.

On a slightly different, but related, note, I've been standing back a little from the debate on the usefulness of the B&Q roof-mounted wind turbine. Apart from whether or not it will pull the gable end off your house, the main point of contention has been how much energy you can actually get out of it. Various estimates have ranged from 10-25% of the claimed 1000 units per year, but the Centre for Alternative Technology's Slate Magazine claims the actual figure is as low as 5%, or enough to run a one bar electric fire for 50 hours. Apparently the problem is not the turbine itself, but the close proximity of a pitched roof, which is the last thing you need for a nice clean air flow. Solar Photovoltaic panels will give you more energy, won't wreck your house and won't give your neighbours so much to tut about.

LED there be light!

There's been a lot of hype about the next generation of lighting using white Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) as they're much more efficient than tungsten bulbs and a lot less toxic than fluorescent bulbs.


I got a Cyba-Lite LED/Xenon torch (right) last summer. You use the LEDs for walking around, but if you lose your car keys, you can switch to the powerful Xenon bulb for more oomph. The batteries will last over nine hours on the former, but only one and a half on the latter.

Then Santa got me this great solar-powered LED bike light (left) from The Natural Collection. I was going to wait to see how well the charging works in practice before reviewing this product, but as the light works for 15 hours from a peak charge and it gets plenty of daylight to trickle charge the batteries during the day, I'd be waiting a long time... During the summer, you can use it as a torch or just as a solar charger for two AA or AAA batteries.

While both of these uses are small beer in terms of energy use (and avoiding toxic waste batteries), the really exciting development is domestic LED bulbs. I haven't tried them out yet, but I understand they're still for decorative lighting as they can't match those 50W halogen spotlights just yet...

Green Home Improvement - Energy

It's been a revolutionary eco-living week chez Kane this week (hence the lack of posts). We've had a new condensing boiler put in along with a solar hot water panel on the roof. The condensing boiler is about 97% efficient compared with the 80% efficiency of the knackered old 80's combi we found when we moved in, which will save a lot of gas and carbon dioxide in itself.

To comply with building regulations, we had to have thermostatic valves installed on most of our radiators. These use a gas filled piston to open and close the radiator valve depending on the room temperature. We've found this has really helped level out the heat in the house and cut draughts.

Most solar hot water systems use a twin coil hot water tank which is heated by a conventional boiler and the solar panel in parallel using a coil each.

We didn't have space for this type of tank and wanted to keep 'hot water on demand', so we went for the alpha boiler system. This has its own tank heated by the panel (the picture shows it without its polystyrene cover). If the water in the tank is above 60°C the water feeds the taps directly. If it is below 60°C, it feeds into the boiler for a top up - using a lot less gas. This arrangement means we never heat water with gas that we don't use as we would inevitably do with a hot water tank system.

The standard rule of thumb is that a well-positioned panel will provide 70% of the hot water for an average household. Frankly our panel is not well positioned as we're in a valley so we don't get much sun in the winter and our chimney shades the panel from the south west. So at the minute it's not doing an awful lot - raising the water temperature by about 3-5°C, but in couple of weeks it will be getting direct sunlight and we'll be able to see what it can do. This seasonality will lengthen the payback and reduce the carbon savings, but we put it in as much for the statement as anything else.

Sadly, we've been wandering about for the last couple of days getting envious of houses with unshaded south facing roofs bathed in lovely winter sun...