How Green are you?

[LCHIEN]

Well I thought that included diesel.
Our primary family car is a 2004 Golf TDI.
60 MPH on long trips. 45-50 in the city.

Aside from a hybrid we couldn't get any better.
Actually better than some hybrids.

I do make up for some with my old '85 chev PU.

Ah, Diesel, I forgot about that. I guess I sorta meant fossil fuels, not gasoline alone.
I'd be surprised to find someone in the poll driving an all-electric car, solar-powered, coal or nuclear vehicle, even a fuel cell or hydrogen powered vehicle.

That's what happens when you make up a poll in 5 minutes without any forethought. It kinda just happened. Interesting responses, though.

[crokett]

Ah. And here I'd always thought you were a modern-day David Crokett. (Seriously.)

Nope. But interestingly the username doesn't come from that, it comes from Miami Vice and an old nickname from one of my best friends.

[mater]

Well I am 25% green.

[Hellrazor]

hrmmm, good question..

I switched all our paper towels at work to a green certified product. Thats about $5,000 of paper towels. One major cleaning product was also switched to that is green certified. That makes about 25-30% of what I ordered a certified green product.

The toilet paper was a recycled product too, but I am not sure if it was green certified or not.

Do I pass the green test?

[bigsteel15]

Why more for green?

My question has always been why the heck I should pay more for "green" electricity.
IMHO hydro power is pretty green, although obviously not as green as wind.
I understand the initial cost of setting up wind turbines needs to be covered but I suspect a wind farm wouldn't cost much more than a new gas turbine plant of equal output.
Understand this is coming from a guy who pays for deregulated coal fired power.
The local suppliers want to lock us in at $11/KW these days. OUCH!!

[maxparot]

OK can you top this?

Hmm I gave you all the info on my solar exploits but didn't even think about the windows I installed last year.

Vinyl framed, double paned, Argon filled, Low E. Besides saving energy they made my house so much quieter.

I have Solar screens on all my windows.

I have also converted my homes outdoor lighting from halogen to Florex.

Wherever I can I use compact florescent bulbs to replace incandescent bulbs indoors.

My shop lighting is all florescent.

I have a hot water circulating pump added onto my solar equipped domestic hot water system.

I have a set back thermastat on my home's heating/cooling system.

The watering system for my home's landscaping is on a multi zone timer set to run early mornings before sunrise.

I'm on a time of use plan with the electric provider and run major appliances on off-peak hours whenever posible.

My pool's pump is a high efficency model and it is in a well ventilated equipment shed to keep it in the shade, dry and from getting too hot.

Both my home and shop are equipped with a evaporative coolers and the shop and all living spaces are equipped with ceiling fans.

I have a thermal controlled electric attic vent fan. Soon to be changed over to solar powered.

My shop's AC unit is an energystar rated unit.

I pulled out the old water hog toilet bowl for a water saver.

I also drive a Toyota Tacoma light pickup w/ a 2.4 liter, 4cylinder engine that gets well over 25mpg on the hwy when not carrying a load.

The air filter on my truck is a washable high efficency K&N air filter (better mileage and less trash)

Ok now that I think about it I'm a good green consumer.

[dick541]

Well I drive a Prius and travel over 500 miles every week and am using less then 10 gallons to do it. I would NOT use any ethenal type fuel because of cost and the loss in milage. I think it is the wrong way to go to conserve oil.

dick541

[DaveS]

Over the last year, I have been replacing all of my "most used" light bulbs with compact flourescent bulbs. If you haven't tried them in a while, you should - they have come a long way in recent years.

Even though they will save a lot of electricity, it will take a lonnnnng time to see a payback.

[scorrpio]

Funny how a lot of green choices are done not really out of desire to be green.

Paying attention to fuel efficiencies due to fuel costs.

Mass transportation to work cause driving to the City and parking there is a major pain in the A$$.

Recycling cause there will be a huge fine if you don't.

Installing ultra-high efficiency appliances (just put in a $3200 boiler that has up to 98% AFUE) again due to fuel costs and because they are so compact, nice looking and really drive up the house value.

Far as voting for green parties? Gotta be kidding me. Call me a cynic but there is no politician who cares about nature more than about his career. 99.999% of 'green' candidates running for office would side over to 'screw the planet' party in an eyeblink if they thought their chances to get elected were better there.

[MilDoc]

I've always found it interesting that other countries can build nuclear plants much cheaper than the US and don't seem to have problems (Russia excluded). Why can't we adopt their policies and build more?

But then I live in Texas, the state that pumps millions of tons of mercury into the environment from coal-fired plants, and where TXU wants to build 11 more coal-fired plants and our Govener has "fast-tracked" their approval.

[Thalermade]

Ah, Diesel, I forgot about that. I guess I sorta meant fossil fuels, not gasoline alone.
I'd be surprised to find someone in the poll driving an all-electric car, solar-powered, coal or nuclear vehicle, even a fuel cell or hydrogen powered vehicle.

That's what happens when you make up a poll in 5 minutes without any forethought. It kinda just happened. Interesting responses, though.

What about the diesel folks who converted to cooking oil?

http://www.greasecar.com/

Looks pretty good. Read about a local guy who said it has been well worth the money spent.

[cbrown]

Far as voting for green parties? Gotta be kidding me. Call me a cynic but there is no politician who cares about nature more than about his career. 99.999% of 'green' candidates running for office would side over to 'screw the planet' party in an eyeblink if they thought their chances to get elected were better there.

Funny how there are more people in the poll who vote for "green" candidates than actually bother to use public transportation. . . .

[Stick]

Kind of an interesting poll. The problem is that out in the country there are no options like are available in cities. Like, we have no garbage collection, recycling facilities, mass transit (or even public transit for that matter). Yet we garden and compost, put our cattle manure and crop wastes back into the soil, have septic fields that generate no waste, burn wood for heat, pump our own water from our own wells, drink water from the ground instead of plastic bottles, what electricity we do use comes from hydro, About the only thing we do use is fuel and oils. We do have oil and antifreeze recycling dropoff where we live.

Vehicles, that's a different thing. LOML has a minivan that gets better than 25mpg. Me, I parked my pickup because I simply cannot afford to keep it on the road, with its modern EFI, expensive parts and lousy mileage. So, I am driving a 30 year old grain truck that gets better mileage than the pickup, and will go easily half a million miles between engine overhauls and will easily last me the rest of my life. Tires on it last longer than most small vehicles do. So do brakes. Insurance is cheaper. Let's see......an in-frame $8,000 every half million miles vs two $35,000 pickups in that time, or even $20,000 cars. Lets say I only keep it another million miles. That's four less pickups going to the crushers or rusting away, probably 20 sets of tires less, etc etc. AND.....it only cost me $5,000 in the first place. Total cost other than fuel maybe 25,000 over a million miles vs at least 100,000 to $150,000. Am I being green? No, not really. Am I being wasteful? No, not at all. I don't start it unless it's going to run for at least 2 hours. I plan my trips to town so as to get all my needed supplies etc in one trip rather than running in every day or more often. I work 450 miles from home. My fuel consumption is measured in gallons per hour. Speed makes very little difference, other than if I were to exceed the speed limit, I could run in top gear at the same engine RPM but be on the road for less time, thus actually using less fuel. Joe Blow in his little car uses more fuel the faster he goes. What's really funny is LOML puts more miles on and goes through more gas in her little van that gets great mileage than I go through in diesel! But, the guy in a city that makes one trip to work, one trip for groceries, one trip to the BORG, one trip to take the kids to soccer, one trip to a restaurant etc etc is WASTING more fuel than I'm burning! Who's really green?

[LCHIEN]

This has been kind of an interesting poll. A lot of responses - 178 at the moment although I've been watching and the percentages haven't really changed much since around 40-50 people which means the numbers are now what they are.

My observations - only 16% of us drive vehicles with gas milage in excess of 30 mpg. More than 1/3 of us drive cars with less than 20 mpg ( I shudder to wonder how many are under 15 mpg). We have got a long way to go there! Gonna take 5 more years of $3+ per gallon gas and if it continues to drop as it is now we're are going to be sorry next time the prices go up and find we've gone and purchased even more gas guzzlers in the model year end clearances of 2006 when gas hit $2...

Almost none of us use any alternate fuels (those who indcated so took diesel to be a alternate fuel) but I was looking for non-fossil fuels like Bio fuels, solar powered vehicles, etc.

Not many of us carpool or take public transporation.

A surprising (to me) 70% of us recycle aluminum and plastic even though only 50% have separate pickups for these.

[Stick]

Gonna take 5 more years of $3+ per gallon gas and if it continues to drop as it is now we're are going to be sorry next time the prices go up and find we've gone and purchased even more gas guzzlers in the model year end clearances of 2006 when gas hit $2...

Makes me laugh. Gas has been $1/liter or more here for about 5 years now. That equates to around $3.50 a US gallon. I paid 0.939/liter for diesel on the way to work, and that was the cheapest since this time last year. $650 to fill the truck. (but I only have to fill it every 2000 miles or so) No one's driving habits have changed, nor have people flocked out to buy more economical vehicles. Spending tens of thousands to save hundreds just doesn't make sense. At trade-in time it makes sense to get something more economical unless you have a specific need for a certain type of vehicle though. What really amazes me though is that people are whining and complaining about the price of gas, yet they're still driving faster than has been legal in 30 years. Guys pulling 10,000 pound campers at 85mph and then complaining about the price of fuel. Sheesh! What's the rush! The average vehicle's fuel consumption goes way down if you just slow down to speed limit or a bit less. Remember the double nickel? yeah it was frustrating, but it worked.