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Occasionally, in our quest to become more environmentally conscious, it seems that we have seen and considered it all. Recycling in the home, using compact fluorescent light bulbs, Energy Star appliances, checking our window insulation, and perhaps even buying a hybrid vehicle are pretty common options for a person these days. So here I am to present you with another option that you may not have considered: the electric bicycle.
“Aren’t some of us a little old for a scooter?”, you may be thinking. However, I am not talking about a scooter and I’m definitely not talking about a motorcycle. I am talking about your old childhood friend, the bicycle, and adding a few accessories: an electric motor, battery pack, and controller. The controller regulates the battery and motor, and together they provide assistance in pedaling the bicycle. The end result is an easier bicycling experience.
Now this isn’t for everyone, but it may work for more people than you think. There are many people who ride bicycles for recreational purposes, and some of whom use a bicycle to commute to work. I used to be one of those people. I lived about three miles from work and when the weather was decent, I would pack up my business clothes in a backpack and bike to work. After awhile, I stopped doing this, even though it was great exercise and definitely environmentally friendly. My main issue was that I had a hard time gauging my energy levels. Some days were tougher than others. I might have to bring a laptop home, and all the accessories with it. Add all that to the end of a tiring day at work, when all you want is dinner… well, you can see how a person’s motivation might lag. Couple that with the consistent need to shower at the work gym (and not all of us have this option) and then change into our business attire, let’s just say it takes real commitment to commute via bicycle.
An electric bicycle can help mitigate some of these issues because the job of the motor is to make your pedaling easier. Easier pedaling lets you extend the range that you are willing to commute, make it into work with less sweat (possibly eliminating the need for a shower), and assists you with any additional business equipment you might be hauling. Its still more environmentally friendly than taking your car into work because you can re-charge the battery pack. An electric bicycle also sidesteps one of the issues that potential scooter owners can face, which is licensing. In some states, scooters require a special license or even have to be registered as motorcycles. Generally, electric bicycles still fall into the same legal category as a standard bicycle.
So if you are interested in an electric bicycle, there are several manufacturers available or you can purchase an electric motor kit and convert the bicycle you own. Here are some links that you may find helpful:
- NYCEWheels: A New York based store that specializes in electric bicycles and scooters, these people have put together a great web page with articles, reviews, and products to browse through.
- Optibike: A Colorado based company that makes some of the sportiest (and pricey!) electric bicycles I’ve seen. (note* All their bicycles go faster than 20 mph which may negate their legal classification as standard bicycles.
- Wikipedia – Electric Bike Laws: Just what it sounds like.
So if this a solution you are considering, don’t forget to check for any possible tax credits or commuter credits you may qualify for through the government or your workplace.
This past February, the Greener Gadgets conference took place in New York City. The conference is produced by the Consumer Electronics Association and is meant to highlight the latest innovations and issues in green technology. I’ve never been to the conference but I do enjoy reading about one part which is the Greener Gadgets Design Competition. This year, there were eighteen finalists, whose entries ranged from kinetic chargers to smart grid-like home management devices. The winner of the competition was decided during the conference on February 25th by a panel of judges and a live audience.
This year’s winner was the AUG/Living Goods Program, a mobile application designed to encourage purchase of local goods by providing immediate information about the producer of the goods to the consumer. The application relies on the maintenance of a product database whose entries would be looked up by the bar code. Information that would be stored are items such as: distance that the product has traveled, whether the item is in season, and producer profiles. The designers’ goal is to reward local producers by empowering consumers with the information they need to make informed buying decisions.
There were several other entries which garnered attention:
- Roller Gen: a kinetic charger which converts the energy generated by riding a bicycle to charge a battery, which can then be used to charge your cell phone.
- Corky: a wireless mouse that charges up from the movement of the mouse itself!
- Automan 500 subwoofer: a home A/V subwoofer made from recycled tires, designed to look like a stylish ottoman.
- BioCharger180 & Fair Energy Clock: These are two device chargers that save energy by stopping the charging activity at a preset time.
There are several innovative entries that are fun to read about, so I encourage anyone to head over to the Greener Gadgets site to check them out.
After my previous post on waste-water heat reclamation, I’ve been a little more conscious of all the energy that I’m losing down the drain. So today, while taking a shower, I put the stopper in the drain. My reasoning was that I could heat my toes a little before letting the water go. Much to my surprise, the amount of water that I used in the shower was almost the same amount that I might have used while taking a bath. I could have sworn that taking a shower was more the more eco-friendly option, but it just goes to show that mindfulness is key when you are trying to save. So now seems like an appropriate time to review some tips and gadgets to help conserve water in the shower:
1. Install a low-flow shower head. This means the shower head will pass 2.5 gallons per minute (gpm) or less. Some models will go as low as 1 or 1.5 gpm.
- Companies like Evolve make a line of low-flow shower heads, ranging from handheld to rain to standard styles. Their ShowerStart heads actually cut off water flow once the water temperature reaches 95 degrees, so that you don’t waste water while waiting outside for the water to heat up. Once you get in the shower, just flip a valve to restore water flow.
- Install a cut-off valve. This will allow you to take a “navy shower” by controlling the flow of water without adjusting the temperature. Once wet, you reduce water and lather up, turning the flow back up to rinse off.
2. Reduce the amount of time spent showering. A complete shower can take place in 5 minutes (or less), but any reduction in time will save you water and money:
- At $111, the Shower Manager seems pricey but it does have some features worth noting such as: limited access to timer controls, options for time limit settings, reduction of water flow once time limit expires, 5-minute delay after water shut-off before resuming normal flow. The goal is to train people to take shorter showers by removing incentives, such as water pressure.
- For those of us with more self-control (or cooperative families), a simple kitchen timer would suffice. Timers made specifically for the shower range from products like the Niagara Shower Coach, a basic 5-minute sand timer which you can attach with a suction cup, to the Efergy Shower Time, a digital timer that also calculates water usage.
3. And of course, you can always turn down the temperature of your water heater.
Please note, I don’t work for any of the companies or manufacturers of any of these products. I have posted the links to give you a better idea of what options are available. So good luck and happy hunting!
The 2010 Vancouver Olympics will be starting soon on February 12th, and though the Olympic Cauldron hasn’t yet been lit, there are still a lot of interesting things going on! This year’s Olympic organizers appear to have put a great deal of thought into improving the sustainability of the event. From partnering with indigenous peoples to attempting to neutralize the Olympic carbon footprint, organizers have made numerous efforts to green up which you can read about on their Sustainability web page.
One aspect of the operations that I find fascinating, has been the work done to reuse otherwise wasted heat energy. Several of the sporting arenas and the Olympic village are setup with heat reclamation systems. For example, at Riley-Hillcrest-Nat Bailey Stadium Parks the waste heat generated by the curling rink refrigeration plant will be used to heat pool water and space at the nearby aquatics center.
Now several of you may be wondering what good this information does the average person. Not many of us have the budget of a Host Olympic City to spend on sustainability projects. It turns out that it is quite possible to reclaim wasted water heat in the home. Here are a few facts from the U.S. Department of Energy’s website on Drain Water Heat Recovery:
- Between 80-90% of the energy used to heat water in the home, goes down the drain with the water.
- Drain water heat recovery systems can capture that energy and use it to pre-heat cold water before it goes to your water heater or other appliance.
- Heat recovery systems cost between $300 – $500, not including installation but will pay off between 2.5 – 7 years pending use.
So how do these heat recovery systems work? The core concept is simple and relies on heat exchange. Using a shower as an example, a heat recovery system could work as such:
- Heated water from the hot water tank gets sent up a pipe to the shower.
- As the person showers, the still hot waste water goes down the drain pipe.
- Normally cold water would be piped into the water heater to replenish the hot water supply. However, in a heat recovery system, the inbound cold water is sent through a pipe that makes multiple curls around the drainage pipe along the way.
- The heat of the outbound shower water is transferred to the incoming cold water. Usually these sections of the system are made with copper pipe to assist in the heat transfer.
- After going through the heat transfer, the inbound water has been pre-warmed before entering the water heater. This action reduces the amount of energy it will take the water heater to perform its job.
The system I’ve just described is basic and is only useful when doing something that uses hot and cold water at the same time. However, more advanced systems allow the capability to store the recovered heat for later use. It is an exciting idea for improving energy efficiency that has yet to become popular in the United States, though it appears to be doing quite well in Canada. So if you are considering some home renovations to improve efficiency or making changes to your plumbing, ask your contractor if they can perform this kind of work.
And next month, as you are happily watching the Olympics, just keep in mind that there’s a lot of green going on behind the scenes.
I’d like to apologize for the lack of updates as I’m afraid I took the holiday vacation to heart and it took reading some of the latest gadgetry news from CES to get me back in the game. As you may have noticed from the previous posting, the 2010 International Consumer Electronics Show took place from January 7th to the 10th.
There appears to have been some interesting stuff at CES this year, including the Pocket Radar (which is a lot like it sounds) and the Eye-Fi, a wireless SD card for use with digital cameras. On the environmentally conscious front were two prominent products: the Picowatt and the Airnergy.
- The Picowatt won its manufacturer, Tenrehte Technologies, an award for “Best of CES” this year. Tenrehte was founded in 2009 and specializes in Wi-Fi enabled platforms. The Picowatt is a Wi-Fi enabled Smart Plug that allows home owners to monitor and manage the electricity use of devices connected to the plug. The device information is accessible via webpage or a Facebook app which will display current and historical electrical usage, as well as allow the user to control power to the device. The Picowatt is stated to be available to consumers in April for $79. Your can read our previous post on SmartGrids for more information about Smart energy management.
- The Airnergy is the latest effort in the arena of “free energy” battery rechargers, such as kinetic chargers and solar powered chargers. In this case, the Airnergy draws its power from Wi-Fi signals and charges devices through a USB port. This product raises some interesting questions in terms of how much and how quickly the Airnergy can build up charge from Wi-Fi signals since the amount will vary based on proximity to the wireless source, and how is this going to impact the free Wi-Fi offered by eateries and tea houses? The product is made by RCA and is expected to be available this year for $40.
That’s just a little news from the 2010 CES. Coming up next month is the Greener Gadgets Conference on February 25th!
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