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<comments>
  <row Id="35" PostId="1" Score="4" Text="The real question is if it would be more efficient than just harvest the farmland. I also think grasshoppers can be quite aggressive with food consumption when in big numbers. They would be hard to keep under control. I think getting to chose when to plant and when to harvest, like with crop, has a great advantage over grasshoppers.&#xA;Counterpoint is that grasshoppers can eat everything and only a few crops are efficient to produce." CreationDate="2013-01-29T21:33:48.647" UserId="62" />
  <row Id="616" PostId="1" Score="1" Text="@StevenRoose But for animal protein sources, are grasshoppers mure sustainable than pigs or cattle for example? ;-)" CreationDate="2013-02-11T09:13:47.817" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="2187" PostId="1" Score="1" Text="[Link to somewhat related answer](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/a/900/486), extolling the virtues of insects for food." CreationDate="2013-08-11T21:56:10.710" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="37" PostId="2" Score="0" Text="What is the difference between this and &quot;hunting&quot;?" CreationDate="2013-01-29T21:34:22.063" UserId="27" />
  <row Id="2129" PostId="4" Score="1" Text="From what I know staying dry isn't the issue - thatch in the UK typically lasts 25 years and only leaks if there's a big hole in it. I expect that the most sustainable material is one you can get locally that would otherwise be burned otherwise discarded. If it's used in some way you're a competing user and the question is the marginal cost of supply and what other use you're displacing." CreationDate="2013-07-30T01:09:13.000" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="7" PostId="5" Score="1" Text="What is the typical temperature ranges from season to season? Geothermal refrigeration might be an interesting topic for you to research - though perhaps hereto irrelevant. My experience there is little to none." CreationDate="2013-01-29T20:44:21.107" UserId="44" />
  <row Id="8927" PostId="5" Score="0" Text="Winter weather varies depending on climate. Last winter the roses were blooming all winter long here in South Georgia. We were lucky if it dropped below freezing at night." CreationDate="2017-10-17T00:17:45.757" UserId="4951" />
  <row Id="213" PostId="6" Score="4" Text="Are your neighbours' concerns to be taken seriously? What arguments are they based on?&#xA;Have they found out that the water source (aquifer) is not being replenished?" CreationDate="2013-01-31T18:01:48.410" UserId="60" />
  <row Id="43" PostId="7" Score="0" Text="That is an interesting question. You could maybe install a big carbon filter can and a small fan on your compost's air outlet." CreationDate="2013-01-29T21:46:49.230" UserId="41" />
  <row Id="84" PostId="7" Score="2" Text="Why do you want to start composting? What are you going to do with the (excessive) compost?" CreationDate="2013-01-30T09:24:57.707" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="939" PostId="7" Score="1" Text="@THelper I was thinking of donating it to a nearby city garden area.  In any case, I want to reduce my waste stream by composting what I can.  I'd rather discard compost somewhere outside than send more into the waste stream for a land fill." CreationDate="2013-03-02T01:20:42.743" UserId="20" />
  <row Id="7742" PostId="7" Score="2" Text="There's a lot of drop-off stations in the city for compost." CreationDate="2016-11-28T05:09:53.087" UserId="4024" />
  <row Id="15401" PostId="7" Score="0" Text="When putting larger amounts of composted material somewhere else, you might want to check if that's allowed. I'm not familiar with the local law in your city, but you might have to clean you compost of pathogens first." CreationDate="2022-01-01T07:46:25.373" UserId="13592" />
  <row Id="15402" PostId="7" Score="0" Text="**Just a side note for starters**: Don't get caught up in &quot;I want to/have to compost everything&quot;-thinking. Given a very restricted amount of space, you might not be able to compost everything without more effort than you can bear. Keep in mind: Even composting only 20% of you waste is better than 0%." CreationDate="2022-01-01T07:48:51.103" UserId="13592" />
  <row Id="2237" PostId="8" Score="0" Text="a side note: I succesfully cleaned a clogged drain with Miso paste, after non-organic solutions failed." CreationDate="2013-08-20T15:28:03.730" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="49" PostId="9" Score="0" Text="Not sure how this is related to &quot;living without depleting natural resources&quot;..." CreationDate="2013-01-29T22:26:13.130" UserId="69" />
  <row Id="56" PostId="9" Score="2" Text="@BryanH Leaving soil as unusable means leaving depleted the natural resource of fertile soil." CreationDate="2013-01-29T23:20:31.883" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="60" PostId="9" Score="2" Text="You can tell I'm tired - I was rather confused for a moment about what all those printed circuit boards were doing in your garden..." CreationDate="2013-01-29T23:30:05.313" UserId="52" />
  <row Id="77" PostId="9" Score="1" Text="Please can those who've voted to close, and everyone else interested in the discussion of site scope, come over to [meta to discuss](http://meta.sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/9/48)?" CreationDate="2013-01-30T07:35:28.307" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="11859" PostId="9" Score="1" Text="@berry120 I thought the same and I still don't understand what else does the abbreviation mean." CreationDate="2019-11-20T12:28:04.197" UserId="8149" />
  <row Id="11861" PostId="9" Score="0" Text="It means &quot;Polychlorinated biphenyl&quot;.  It was used as a non-flamable electric insulating oil, but it turns out its extremely toxic.  It also doesn't breakdown in the soil, at all.  There was a Westinghouse plant near where I live that used to manufacture capacitors.  They dumped the stuff into the sewer system.  We have multiple superfund sites heavily contaminated with it around the city.  People also used to scrap the capacitors, and would just dump the PCBs inside on the ground when they were pulling them apart.  It's hard to find land not contaminated to at least some degree in my city." CreationDate="2019-11-20T13:38:35.147" UserId="21" />
  <row Id="617" PostId="10" Score="0" Text="@Chad Should he rephrase the question as &quot;Is driving hybrid cars (e.g. Prius) more sustainable than a conventional car?&quot; to make in on topic? Surely environmentalism has a big overlap with sustainable living." CreationDate="2013-02-11T12:39:35.357" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="996" PostId="10" Score="0" Text="I've owned my Toyota Camry Hybrid since late 2007, and the only battery problem was one month ago, when my kid left an interior light on and it sat for 2 days and drained out.  Haven't had a problem since the jumpstart." CreationDate="2013-03-12T23:25:11.090" UserId="274" />
  <row Id="2740" PostId="10" Score="0" Text="@WilliamKF Great question.  I think about this all the time.  My gut tells me hybrids and electrics are more sustainable but not nearly as much as we think.  Another variable in factoring the comparison would be the energy source that charges the car in the case of plug ins.  Is it being charged by gas, nuclear, or coal plant?  All have their draw backs.  An electric car being charged by 1st world made solar panels would be the most sustainable in my opinion." CreationDate="2014-01-16T17:42:01.523" UserId="794" />
  <row Id="50" PostId="11" Score="0" Text="Are the chips and cookies produced by a mega-corp like Frito Lay (nee PepsiCo) or by a local bakery?" CreationDate="2013-01-29T22:29:43.000" UserId="69" />
  <row Id="66" PostId="11" Score="0" Text="They are assorted, some are from mega-corps, others are from speciality companies using organic ingredients but not local bakeries." CreationDate="2013-01-30T01:30:47.493" UserId="20" />
  <row Id="212" PostId="11" Score="0" Text="Not an answer to the question you asked, but you'd probably have more impact by (a) using durable plates/cups/utensils instead of disposable (even compostables use energy to manufacture), and/or (b) looking for suppliers that can provide &quot;unpackaged&quot; food (e.g. local bakeries) or packaged in something durable/reusable. Unless your employer is at the same scale as the mega-corps, it will probably be hard to get their attention in a meaningful way. But if you're spending $millions/year, telling your account mgr that you're shopping for compostable packaging should do the trick." CreationDate="2013-01-31T18:01:37.880" UserId="66" />
  <row Id="1" PostId="13" Score="1" Text="Just opening a window once a week to circulate some air can be quite efficient. Personally I would not like to live in a house with bad circulation of fresh air." CreationDate="2013-01-29T20:33:38.833" UserId="10" />
  <row Id="46" PostId="13" Score="0" Text="I quess old furniture should have emitted most of the poisonous gasses already. Also you could use non mass produced furniture that you can be sure that it's safe." CreationDate="2013-01-29T21:56:29.613" UserId="41" />
  <row Id="94" PostId="13" Score="3" Text="@jkj just because something isn't mass produced doesn't mean it doesn't contain any harmful chemicals." CreationDate="2013-01-30T10:26:28.150" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="20" PostId="16" Score="1" Text="As a rule, Stack Exchanges don't do shopping recommendations, and with several good reasons. Can we take this over to meta? What we do and don't allow in the private beta, will set the tone for the site's future." CreationDate="2013-01-29T21:08:44.737" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="34" PostId="16" Score="5" Text="The question isn't asking for a particular place to shop for spawn, but rather whether there are any spawn that can be commercially purchased, and the name of the spawn.  That's not a shopping question.  That's like saying &quot;Are there LED monitors available on the market yet?&quot;" CreationDate="2013-01-29T21:33:26.837" UserId="21" />
  <row Id="118" PostId="16" Score="1" Text="@DanielBingham Agreed, I don't think this is off topic as a shopping question. There's definitely some overlap with the gardening site, but that's for another discussion!" CreationDate="2013-01-30T14:38:34.967" UserId="52" />
  <row Id="1584" PostId="16" Score="1" Text="@DanielBingham this never got an answer, and it's too old to migrate to gardening now. Do you want to copy &amp; paste this, and [this](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/167/48) and [this](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/168/48), into new questions over on gardening.SE?" CreationDate="2013-05-18T14:42:51.493" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="1602" PostId="16" Score="2" Text="Not really, they belong here. They are questions about permaculture. Which is to say, sustainably growing food using mutualistic polycultures modeled after a forest's ecology.  They won't get answers on Gardening either.  This is where they belong.  If they aren't getting answers here there are two reasons:  no one really knows yet (very possible with these questions) or we haven't attracted enough experts.  I think, in the case of this question, both are true." CreationDate="2013-05-20T18:44:06.583" UserId="21" />
  <row Id="1607" PostId="16" Score="1" Text="Also, I will note that two of the three linked questions were closed back when we were over zealously closing permaculture questions and have never been reopened.  Which could be the reason the lacking answers ;)" CreationDate="2013-05-20T19:06:53.320" UserId="21" />
  <row Id="2926" PostId="16" Score="1" Text="I agree this question belongs here.  As a meta comment:  Sources are sufficiently difficult to find in permaculture, that I consider most source questions as good candidates." CreationDate="2014-02-15T20:15:09.570" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="16388" PostId="17" Score="0" Text="All three are also very much doable if you get marooned on a tropical island. You can get salt if you evaporate sea water in an open container, you can sun-dry it, and if you have a fire (useful to boil water, too), smoking can even make it fairly delicious." CreationDate="2023-06-20T19:44:39.633" UserId="15010" />
  <row Id="42" PostId="18" Score="0" Text="What climate? How many people?" CreationDate="2013-01-29T21:44:26.077" UserId="27" />
  <row Id="121" PostId="18" Score="0" Text="One house hold (updated the question)&#xA;climate... my current situation is Western Europe, so plenty of water. The question assumes there is water. It would be nice though if the answer could be independent of location/climate." CreationDate="2013-01-30T14:56:24.087" UserId="25" />
  <row Id="134" PostId="18" Score="0" Text="Climate affects a) how much rain might be available, b) distribution of that rain throughout the year, and c) amount of drinking water you will need. It's hard to give a useful answer without a more specific question." CreationDate="2013-01-30T18:20:13.800" UserId="27" />
  <row Id="188" PostId="18" Score="0" Text="I was looking for a more generic answer to the question, not my specific situation, so the answer is useful for everyone." CreationDate="2013-01-31T08:09:10.567" UserId="25" />
  <row Id="276" PostId="18" Score="0" Text="Ah, just read that I should not ask generic questions but specific. I'll continue my question with that in mind." CreationDate="2013-02-01T19:06:19.333" UserId="25" />
  <row Id="3191" PostId="18" Score="0" Text="If you have to purify or treat the water, it might be more sustainable to use water from the local  water authority for consumption and use your own water for uses that  don't require treatment (laundry, irrigation, etc). Water treatment at a large scale is likely more sustainable than many people  doing it on a small scale." CreationDate="2014-04-09T18:22:56.473" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="3193" PostId="18" Score="0" Text="One of the concerns was that the local water authority might not always be there to provide the water. This question may be more a in the category of 'prepping'..." CreationDate="2014-04-09T21:01:58.313" UserId="25" />
  <row Id="263" PostId="19" Score="0" Text="The wiki article you link specifically mentions a &quot;LEED for Homes&quot; category. The requirements may not be impossible to meet without a LEED focused architect, though with the range and scope of requirements, it would probably be your best bet. Finding an architect with LEED experience would probably be best accomplished by meeting with available architects and asking them up front about the possibility of LEED certification." CreationDate="2013-02-01T15:06:22.803" UserId="86" />
  <row Id="628" PostId="21" Score="3" Text="On the other hand, a Dutch documentary claims that [a vegetarian in a Hummer lives more sustainably than a meat-eater in a Prius](http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meat_the_Truth) (I'll put that one on Skeptics SE some day ;)." CreationDate="2013-02-11T16:46:22.297" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="1261" PostId="21" Score="0" Text="@gerrit, I address this issue a bit [in an answer about meat composting](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/a/805/486).  Claims like this generally depend a lot on little details, but based on first-order effects, that statement may indeed be true." CreationDate="2013-04-21T22:27:56.487" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="2741" PostId="21" Score="0" Text="@gettit Interesting, I'd imagine that if you had a vegan hummer driver (VHD) and a meat eating prius driver (MPD) and they both drove the same amount of miles, the VHD would be more sustainable until a certain amount of mileage was reached." CreationDate="2014-01-16T17:48:59.180" UserId="794" />
  <row Id="2742" PostId="21" Score="0" Text="@gettit The reason I say this is b/c producing meat and dairy animals releases methane gas into the atmosphere and methane is exponentially more potent green house gas than carbon monoxide.  Therefore the drivers would have to put a great number of miles on their cars for the MPD to become more sustainable than the VHD." CreationDate="2014-01-16T18:09:56.423" UserId="794" />
  <row Id="21" PostId="23" Score="1" Text="What do you mean by &quot;without chemicals&quot;? (Water's a chemical) In what way is the greenfly spray you've seen, unsustainable? If you can edit these details into your question, we'll be able to provide better answers." CreationDate="2013-01-29T21:12:35.683" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="4017" PostId="23" Score="0" Text="This would be a good question for Gardening &amp; Landscaping stack." CreationDate="2015-01-30T13:38:53.037" UserId="1701" />
  <row Id="8" PostId="24" Score="3" Text="Is water purification through evaporation and recollection significant enough to add to your answer? Suggestion." CreationDate="2013-01-29T20:49:29.520" UserId="44" />
  <row Id="48" PostId="24" Score="0" Text="If you live in a Fracking area, I'd consider groundwater to be [Unfit for Human Consumption](http://www.houstonpress.com/2012-04-26/news/texas-epa-fracking-well-water/)." CreationDate="2013-01-29T22:11:57.527" UserId="69" />
  <row Id="120" PostId="24" Score="0" Text="water purification through evaporation and recollection might do the trick, but the amount of energy required makes it less desirable. A multi staged trajectory, with filtering and sterilization seems to be easier to sustain and need less resources." CreationDate="2013-01-30T14:51:07.937" UserId="25" />
  <row Id="2804" PostId="24" Score="0" Text="Rain water: what roof do you have, how clean is it? Sheet metal roofs may contaminate the rainwater with heavy metals, this has to be checked individually (as it depends strongly on the rainwater in question). Villagers on mediterreanea islands adopted the habit of throwing stones at an cat or other small animal on a roof (where they collect the water), you may have to do likewise." CreationDate="2014-01-30T08:55:46.887" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="5392" PostId="24" Score="0" Text="&quot;as long as you don't live in a chemically polluted environment&quot; which happens to be &quot;my current situation is Western Europe&quot;." CreationDate="2016-01-29T13:17:28.207" UserId="1078" />
  <row Id="4" PostId="26" Score="4" Text="A hamster wheel." CreationDate="2013-01-29T20:41:39.323" UserId="40" />
  <row Id="11" PostId="26" Score="10" Text="@Flimzy that would require me feeding the hamster and probably isn't efficient from a cost/benefit perspective" CreationDate="2013-01-29T20:57:19.490" UserId="42" />
  <row Id="41" PostId="26" Score="2" Text="Generating electricity effectively is hard. Maybe just produce different kind of energy? Make a window farm and let plants extract energy from the sun. They are more efficient." CreationDate="2013-01-29T21:42:04.427" UserId="41" />
  <row Id="73" PostId="26" Score="12" Text="Your first step should be to reduce energy consumption. Call it &quot;generating 'negawatts'&quot;. Each dollar spent there will have a bigger impact than money spent on power generation." CreationDate="2013-01-30T05:29:35.230" UserId="27" />
  <row Id="78" PostId="26" Score="0" Text="Do you require generating electricity or is heat the option too? Have you considered a heat pump (air-&gt;air or air-&gt;water)? It would fit even very restricted areas." CreationDate="2013-01-30T07:45:32.357" UserId="60" />
  <row Id="82" PostId="26" Score="0" Text="@PeterIvan Heat is an option, too. My main focus is electricity, but most energy sources I'm finding can even be converted to electricity it seems." CreationDate="2013-01-30T08:48:07.450" UserId="42" />
  <row Id="83" PostId="26" Score="1" Text="@EhevuTov: if you conducted some research already, you should expand your question to improve it." CreationDate="2013-01-30T08:54:08.910" UserId="60" />
  <row Id="1712" PostId="26" Score="0" Text="did you find the response to your question? Maybe you can share some of your findings!?" CreationDate="2013-06-02T09:14:25.710" UserId="234" />
  <row Id="1717" PostId="26" Score="1" Text="@user503413 I'm currently experimenting with vertical axis wind turbines outside of my windows, solar panels on my blinds and neodymium magnets. None are producing enough power for modern living right now, but can power small electric devices. I'll post my findings when I have time and complete." CreationDate="2013-06-02T19:13:06.543" UserId="42" />
  <row Id="1718" PostId="26" Score="1" Text="@EhevuTov great, looking forward to that!" CreationDate="2013-06-02T19:42:50.763" UserId="234" />
  <row Id="9502" PostId="26" Score="0" Text="@EhevuTov, Re &quot;feeding&quot;; are you sure that's not cost effective? Feeds are cheap compared to electricity in many timespaces." CreationDate="2018-04-07T05:48:21.410" UserId="5613" />
  <row Id="17" PostId="28" Score="2" Text="Although be careful that the mouse didn't die because it was poisoned!" CreationDate="2013-01-29T21:02:56.087" UserId="20" />
  <row Id="6740" PostId="28" Score="0" Text="I do not think this is a good idea. This will make the compost pile stink unnecessarily." CreationDate="2016-04-14T15:29:23.087" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="2696" PostId="29" Score="0" Text="This isn't an answer.  I've no experience with tower systems, and you've probably discovered from your own research that the solanaceous/nightshade/ cucurbit family will do well on trellis if you can support the fruit.  I'd be interested to know what you've learned since you asked this question." CreationDate="2014-01-11T19:09:32.003" UserId="794" />
  <row Id="3893" PostId="29" Score="6" Text="YOu need to clarify your question.  Detail, or provide references to the 'hanging tower approach'" CreationDate="2014-12-08T04:11:42.993" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="5039" PostId="29" Score="0" Text="I agree, I don't think people will know what hanging towers are.  Why would you start with a technology before the produce.  It would seem to me, you would have something you want to grow, and then figure out what would be the best way to grow it. It's sort of like asking what is the best stuff to haul in a 4-axle eight wheel dump truck...  Unless you inherited it, or bought a property with a 'hanging tower' on it..." CreationDate="2015-11-25T17:42:54.910" UserId="2802" />
  <row Id="5212" PostId="29" Score="3" Text="Does anyone else get shivers from the words 'Texas hanging towers'?" CreationDate="2015-12-23T00:55:03.903" UserId="2661" />
  <row Id="24" PostId="31" Score="0" Text="This does seem like a shopping recommendation question, and in general, Stack Exchanges don't do those. Let's discuss on meta." CreationDate="2013-01-29T21:18:35.297" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="156" PostId="31" Score="1" Text="A shopping recommendation?" CreationDate="2013-01-30T21:54:53.623" UserId="45" />
  <row Id="22" PostId="32" Score="1" Text="This does seem overly broad at the moment - I don't think a single answer could cover all possible medicines." CreationDate="2013-01-29T21:17:27.280" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="40" PostId="32" Score="2" Text="@EnergyNumbers is correct. Also, some sewage goes to a septic drain field, while other wastewater goes to the open ocean, etc." CreationDate="2013-01-29T21:41:36.200" UserId="27" />
  <row Id="65" PostId="33" Score="5" Text="Install wood floors, and use rugs that you can take outside and beat clean..." CreationDate="2013-01-30T00:57:25.147" UserId="66" />
  <row Id="223" PostId="33" Score="0" Text="Traditional Steam cleaning can use some pretty nasty chemicals that then have to be either removed from the water before reuse, or more often just get released into the sewer/water-table.  Not saying that chem dry is actually better just that I doubt its much worse." CreationDate="2013-01-31T22:23:43.460" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="9" PostId="34" Score="1" Text="And you specifically mean in the wilderness?" CreationDate="2013-01-29T20:53:03.663" UserId="44" />
  <row Id="10" PostId="34" Score="0" Text="Well, it could be as well used to reduce energy usage by suburbia house." CreationDate="2013-01-29T20:56:44.420" UserId="5" />
  <row Id="44" PostId="34" Score="0" Text="Surviving temporarily or building a house there?" CreationDate="2013-01-29T21:53:32.097" UserId="41" />
  <row Id="45" PostId="34" Score="2" Text="Cave, rockshelter, or a building helps keep warmth from a fire better than open space, but it's bad for the house/cave/rockshelter. I used to help rangers protect rockshelters and their natural inhabitants (bats and like) from those who used fire efficiently :-) However, situation in a house and open area is completely different, other strategies would be the best. A cave or a partially demolished house are something in between, closer to open area." CreationDate="2013-01-29T21:55:22.300" UserId="58" />
  <row Id="107" PostId="34" Score="4" Text="Grow your own thick layers of fat and fur ;)" CreationDate="2013-01-30T13:27:32.417" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="360" PostId="34" Score="0" Text="If you're asking about the wilderness, try http://outdoors.stackexchange.com/" CreationDate="2013-02-04T03:00:32.253" UserId="27" />
  <row Id="25" PostId="36" Score="2" Text="Can you give more details on your fireplace? Is it an open fire, or not? Does it have a type approval (e.g. in the UK, DEFRA-approval) And ideally a photo - it will at least give us something to start on." CreationDate="2013-01-29T21:20:23.187" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="128" PostId="36" Score="1" Text="@EnergyNumbers: Question updated some... I'll try to include a photo when I return from my vacation. I don't know anything about a &quot;type approval.&quot;" CreationDate="2013-01-30T17:09:13.077" UserId="40" />
  <row Id="10135" PostId="36" Score="3" Text="Fireplaces ought to be banned. They're [extremely polluting](https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/feb/22/wood-diesel-indoor-stoves-cities-pollution) and biomass burning in general is [very deadly indeed](https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/2014JD021861)." CreationDate="2018-09-07T16:58:25.823" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="26" PostId="37" Score="1" Text="How much unshaded south-facing roof space do you have, in square metres?" CreationDate="2013-01-29T21:21:27.880" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="969" PostId="37" Score="1" Text="As an aside, note that theoretically large thin film panels *could* be much cheaper than panels  based on thick film modules (the materials are more abundant and thus cheaper in bulk) but the current production is small enough that thick film has a significant advantage in *economics of scale*. I worked in the laser scribing industry a few years ago and the aim then was to get panels under $1 per watt output." CreationDate="2013-03-06T14:03:32.553" UserId="164" />
  <row Id="2114" PostId="38" Score="3" Text="In Germany, the paper bags for organic waste have signs that bones and fish rests doesn't belong there. I don't know if they have reason for it and if I should ignore it, but with this rule, bones actually belongs nowhere... maybe I should eat them? ;)" CreationDate="2013-07-25T19:11:19.480" UserId="5" />
  <row Id="4938" PostId="44" Score="1" Text="Actually one thing that you don't want to add to your compost. And that's tomatoes. It really halts the process, and it's most easily measures if you capture and measure the output of biogas (a direct and prime bipoduct output of composting)" CreationDate="2015-11-05T17:13:11.367" UserId="2155" />
  <row Id="7051" PostId="44" Score="1" Text="Luckily chickens and worms will both eat tomatoes." CreationDate="2016-06-08T03:54:25.147" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="339" PostId="45" Score="0" Text="As an alternative source of fuel, I recently saw an episode of 'Invention USA' where a man had modified a wood splitter to use as a leaf compacter, creating a log to burn, while retaining the splitting functions. I believe they set him up with DR Power Equipment to negotiate a manufacturing deal. This may allow the OP to clean the yard and provide fuel for the fire at the same time." CreationDate="2013-02-03T14:09:25.567" UserId="86" />
  <row Id="1260" PostId="45" Score="4" Text="**Wood** can be a renewable, but the way almost all wood is harvested, *in practice*, is not sustainable.  The wood people tend to use is *what's available*, and hasn't been selected for its overall efficiency as a fuel." CreationDate="2013-04-21T22:19:42.477" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="10132" PostId="45" Score="2" Text="From an environmental point of view, it's hard to do worse than burning wood.  See [this Guardian article](https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/feb/22/wood-diesel-indoor-stoves-cities-pollution).  Burning wood [kills 250,000 people per year](http://joannenova.com.au/2014/08/biomass-burning-kills-250000-people-a-year/)." CreationDate="2018-09-07T16:54:10.993" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="10161" PostId="45" Score="2" Text="Re to yesterdays comment: you may be able to do less bad depending on the type of fireplace." CreationDate="2018-09-08T21:02:45.260" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="33" PostId="46" Score="4" Text="Do you have an example of such a chart, for us wind power newbies?" CreationDate="2013-01-29T21:32:04.577" UserId="27" />
  <row Id="39" PostId="46" Score="1" Text="For example http://code.google.com/p/meteo2008/ and http://www.cape-vision.com/wayg/ka1ior/ka1ior-wx-sta.htm" CreationDate="2013-01-29T21:36:38.297" UserId="41" />
  <row Id="36" PostId="47" Score="0" Text="Where are you? Location will make a difference to the answer" CreationDate="2013-01-29T21:33:54.000" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="38" PostId="47" Score="2" Text="The question says worldwide. I'm interested in whatever number. Of course the bigger the country they are about the more interesting they become.&#xA;US numbers would be good. European numbers just so." CreationDate="2013-01-29T21:35:03.520" UserId="62" />
  <row Id="155" PostId="48" Score="0" Text="I read that too much heat can sterilize the compost pile (i.e. kill all the good bacteria) and may allow bad bacteria to occupy your compost, which may result in disease, especially if you plan to use the compost on your vegetables." CreationDate="2013-01-30T21:52:04.597" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="179" PostId="48" Score="2" Text="Right, it can. That is why it is important to turn/mix your compost as much as possible. Sometimes as much as once a day." CreationDate="2013-01-31T06:04:00.770" UserId="131" />
  <row Id="185" PostId="48" Score="10" Text="@user1205935: It's impossible for a compost pile to sterilize itself. If it gets too hot, the heat-producing bacteria population would shrink, to find equilibrium. Also, remember that the perimeter of the pile will never be as hot as the center, providing a refuge for other non-thermophillic bacteria until the center cools down." CreationDate="2013-01-31T06:44:35.283" UserId="27" />
  <row Id="186" PostId="48" Score="3" Text="@GabrielFair: The need to turn compost is not absolute, especially if you're not in a hurry to produce finished compost. See http://humanurehandbook.com/downloads/Chapter_3.pdf on page 48." CreationDate="2013-01-31T06:55:15.860" UserId="27" />
  <row Id="2697" PostId="48" Score="2" Text="While adding meat to an intensively managed compost pile may work it isn't a good idea for many of the reasons listed, especially if your pile isn't intensively managed. If you can't feed the meat scraps to a pet or finish them yourself maybe you should start a worm bin... as an aside consuming meat especially factory farmed meat is not very sustainable." CreationDate="2014-01-12T04:51:59.403" UserId="794" />
  <row Id="3915" PostId="48" Score="2" Text="FWIW I composted by literally throwing vegetable waste in an 18&quot; plant pot. Never turned it. Once it was full after ~6mos, 6&quot; of excellent compost at the bottom. Turning's not a requirement." CreationDate="2014-12-15T22:26:27.950" UserId="1899" />
  <row Id="4937" PostId="48" Score="1" Text="I never turned my compost heaps, however I also had them on three year rotations. Everything from a year went into the same heap, next year goes into another heap and then the following year starts a third heap. The following year, heap 4 is the new one while heap 1 is being integrated into the gardens as mulch. The outsides never compost but that's good brown leaves that help hold it all together and make it mulchy rather than just compost sitting on top of the soil." CreationDate="2015-11-05T17:10:15.280" UserId="2155" />
  <row Id="824" PostId="52" Score="0" Text="Good design practices can make an efficient wood burning stove look like a fireplace.  Those units are good to use.  The fireplace built into your house, however, is probably a whole lot of work for a net negative effect on energy use." CreationDate="2013-02-21T16:29:55.930" UserId="212" />
  <row Id="10133" PostId="52" Score="0" Text="Can you link some on the high thermal mass stoves? Typical wood burning is [worse than a diesel truck](https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/feb/22/wood-diesel-indoor-stoves-cities-pollution) and [kills 250,000 people per year](https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/2014JD021861). Do high thermal mass stoves mitigate those problems?" CreationDate="2018-09-07T16:56:06.387" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="10144" PostId="52" Score="0" Text="For example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masonry_heater https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_oven and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_mass_heater (note Kenneth mentioned rocket mass heaters in his answer)" CreationDate="2018-09-07T18:22:13.237" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="1259" PostId="53" Score="2" Text="... or the rats know not to come out when you're around ;)" CreationDate="2013-04-21T22:11:47.423" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1376" PostId="53" Score="0" Text="Hehe, could be :D I haven't seen any dropping either. Perhaps we have the cleanliest rodents here in Denmark ;)" CreationDate="2013-05-02T19:42:34.220" UserId="30" />
  <row Id="7053" PostId="53" Score="0" Text="Rats, foxes, badgers - all kinds of animals you maybe do not want near your children or your bare feet. If you want to see the creatures in your garden, check it out quietly at 2 am, or get one of those wild-life cameras." CreationDate="2016-06-09T10:58:02.210" UserId="1567" />
  <row Id="8932" PostId="53" Score="1" Text="A joke would seem more appropriate in a comment than in an answer which otherwise provides no (or barely any) useful information." CreationDate="2017-10-19T09:50:10.973" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="1377" PostId="54" Score="1" Text="Found a related question on skeptics SE: http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/q/8365/13674" CreationDate="2013-05-02T23:13:50.003" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3005" PostId="55" Score="0" Text="Greenware isn't compostable in your home compost pile. As with most compostable plastic, it can only be composted in industrial composting facilities (see also remark at bottom of [this webpage](http://www.fabri-kal.com/product/greenware-cold-drink-cups/) or [this question](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/2594/99))" CreationDate="2014-02-28T08:37:18.547" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="5394" PostId="57" Score="0" Text="&quot;In the United States, the average water consumption rate is about 1 quart per day.&quot; what's the source of this data. It's 1 quart per day per one human?" CreationDate="2016-01-29T13:28:39.337" UserId="1078" />
  <row Id="122" PostId="59" Score="0" Text="Right, why not just use a cup that you can keep for a lifetime?" CreationDate="2013-01-30T14:58:17.590" UserId="115" />
  <row Id="11823" PostId="59" Score="2" Text="If this is PLA we are talking about, it's more like hundred years. It is compostable, but under well controlled conditions. The main advantage is that it's not from fossil materials, which means it does not contribute directly to mining more carbon from the earth." CreationDate="2019-11-18T16:03:31.853" UserId="8149" />
  <row Id="47" PostId="60" Score="2" Text="Well, you affirmed that my light-turning habits are well suited for ordinary lightbulbs and probably for LEDs too, but my students' dormitory has fluorescent lamps everywhere and replacing them with LEDs is not an option. That's why I was asking about the fluorescent lamps, and I can't see answer for it in your post." CreationDate="2013-01-29T22:10:29.257" UserId="58" />
  <row Id="51" PostId="60" Score="0" Text="Try clicking the link. The answer is there." CreationDate="2013-01-29T22:32:52.353" UserId="69" />
  <row Id="52" PostId="60" Score="0" Text="The link proved that energy cost is marginal, which is just one (the easier and the less important, from my point of view) part of the answer. About the harder part - to determine the effect of turning on/off on longevity and compare and recalculate it to electricity consumption - your link just proved that the impact of turning on/off on the longevity of the bulb is important. Since CFLs contains mercury and other dangerous materials and the cost to recycle or destroy them ecologically is significant, this part of the question is the more important. However, +1 for the first part." CreationDate="2013-01-29T22:57:59.863" UserId="58" />
  <row Id="53" PostId="60" Score="0" Text="Updated answer. Hope that helps." CreationDate="2013-01-29T23:03:05.007" UserId="69" />
  <row Id="54" PostId="60" Score="0" Text="I have already read it in the link. But as the commentators there remarked, they don't say when did different bulbs break, just that most didn't survive. I'd be glad if you found answer for this subquestion, but still it wouldn't be enough to accept the answer. Mythbusters can help on a vague level, but it's not hard, scientific data. Thanks for your link, but I need something with better backup." CreationDate="2013-01-29T23:11:27.527" UserId="58" />
  <row Id="58" PostId="60" Score="2" Text="If you're looking for hard, scientific data, you might check the [Journal of Electrical Engineering](http://www.jee.ro/). Have you heard of any formal studies on this topic?" CreationDate="2013-01-29T23:25:23.823" UserId="69" />
  <row Id="191" PostId="60" Score="0" Text="The link on CFLs and LEDs didn't help much - they said they regularly turned the light on and off, but not with which frequency. Given approximate number of on/off turns a day (or in total) they (or some similar experimenters) had and cost of the mercury disposal/recyclation, I would consider accepting the answer - from these data, I'd be able to calculate approximate cost per on/off turn myself. Well, the data doesn't have to be scientific, just the Mythbusters' way seems too oversimplificating for me." CreationDate="2013-01-31T11:19:08.740" UserId="58" />
  <row Id="2178" PostId="60" Score="0" Text="@Pavel You mention &quot;fluorescent lights&quot; in the dorms (which may not be the same as CFL's), so any longevity studies or experiments on CFL's may have little bearing on standard long tube fluorescents since, although they may operate similarly to CFL's, they are not identical. (and there are variants of fluorescent tubes like preheat-start, instant-start, quick-start, etc that can lead to differences in lifetime under repeated cycles)" CreationDate="2013-08-06T23:45:21.920" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="2385" PostId="60" Score="0" Text="Well, I've changed my mind. Accepted." CreationDate="2013-10-30T09:11:49.067" UserId="58" />
  <row Id="7625" PostId="61" Score="3" Text="Mold represents a serious health hazard.  Mold in closets is indicative of an improperly maintained building.  Don't clean it.  Move." CreationDate="2016-10-31T21:56:11.083" UserId="2727" />
  <row Id="2116" PostId="63" Score="0" Text="The formula should probably also account for expected amount of precipitation and duration of dry spells." CreationDate="2013-07-26T03:48:21.307" UserId="645" />
  <row Id="7585" PostId="64" Score="1" Text="I've got worms (_vermi_-compost) in my balcony and it works just fine. I put them in paint cans for 20 liters, It's a good size for temperature and handability. It's advisable to have more than one can so that you can throw the whole bucket's content from one to another to air the compost. Also, it's a good idea to have worms under a ceiling for shade. I have it were the kitchen has a slight terrace so I can keep it outdoors at a medium hight (not in the middle of the balcony´s floor) and take it down for all movements and feedings. Actualy when well done **the odor is good: like fresh soil**." CreationDate="2016-10-17T20:33:33.413" UserId="3314" />
  <row Id="63" PostId="65" Score="1" Text="I've read studies suggesting that there are bacteria and/or fungi that might be able to break PCBs down into an inert and harmless form in the soil.  Here's an example: http://www.pacifichydrogeologic.com/23%20Pilot%20Scale%20Mycoremediation%20of%20PCB%20Contaminated%20Soil%20Abstract.pdf  In the past I'd stumbled across smaller scale studies that might be replicated under less controlled conditions." CreationDate="2013-01-29T23:50:45.843" UserId="21" />
  <row Id="359" PostId="65" Score="0" Text="It would be really cool if your local government paid for your property to have its soil remediated." CreationDate="2013-02-04T02:05:56.533" UserId="131" />
  <row Id="892" PostId="70" Score="2" Text="A bit of constructive criticism: one sentence paragraphs are wrong, particularly in this case. Your post has two main ideas, and given the length they could be and should be described in two paragraphs. First and second could be merged into one (especially, since “for example” is continuation of the previous statement — it is semantically wrong to separate the two), and the rest into another. Writer should think of their text as a whole as well as paying attention to the individual bricks that are sentences." CreationDate="2013-02-26T04:49:10.277" UserId="227" />
  <row Id="893" PostId="70" Score="0" Text="Ideas: 1) biodegradable anti-fungals: [list of examples]; 2) mold prevention: [list of measures]." CreationDate="2013-02-26T04:50:34.720" UserId="227" />
  <row Id="895" PostId="70" Score="1" Text="Thanks for the style advice. Can I recommend [Language Log](http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/)? I think you'll enjoy it." CreationDate="2013-02-26T12:45:59.150" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="4825" PostId="71" Score="0" Text="integrated toilet and basin, is it just a cold feed or is it hot and cold ?" CreationDate="2015-09-30T18:50:32.027" UserDisplayName="user2626" />
  <row Id="4831" PostId="71" Score="0" Text="@kenny It is supplied from the faucet you have connected to the toilet, so you would need to plumb in the hot water (or a mix) if that's what you want." CreationDate="2015-10-06T16:32:55.843" UserId="69" />
  <row Id="69" PostId="72" Score="1" Text="I do not see how an integrated design would in itself save any water at all. As you mention, it is always possible to feed the toilet reservoir with waste water from the sink, if the water savings are your goal." CreationDate="2013-01-30T02:35:19.160" UserId="86" />
  <row Id="144" PostId="72" Score="0" Text="Thanks for the thoughtful response! I updated the question vis-a-vis the construction costs: the room can (will) be _really_ small; adding a separate sink would require enlarging the room accordingly. The &quot;annoying factor&quot; is definitely a concern, at least until I get used to it." CreationDate="2013-01-30T19:28:50.513" UserId="69" />
  <row Id="2147" PostId="72" Score="3" Text="Thanks to [Elizabeth](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/users/707/elizabeth) for this: &quot;there is a product called &quot;[SinkPositive](http://www.sinkpositive.com/)&quot; that allows you to convert a conventional toilet into a toilet-sink combo. The product replaces your existing tank lid and takes about 5 minutes to install.&quot;" CreationDate="2013-08-02T08:04:36.200" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="62" PostId="73" Score="0" Text="I have seen rocket mass heaters, and they're pretty cool, but 1) they require a lot of developed expertise, creating test stoves repeatedly while you refine your design, and 2) they require careful tending while in operation. Woodstoves are well-understood, easy to find, and easy to operate safely, so I want to start there." CreationDate="2013-01-29T23:42:51.443" UserId="27" />
  <row Id="3566" PostId="73" Score="0" Text="Don't trust the Internet designs of &quot;rocket mass heaters&quot;.  They don't meet any building code, anywhere. They aren't designed by professionals. They can kill you. Carbon monoxide from poorly design wood stoves kills about 1 million people a year." CreationDate="2014-08-16T13:40:31.547" UserId="1614" />
  <row Id="10138" PostId="73" Score="0" Text="If you care about sustainability, **never use a wood burning stove**.  The air quality is atrocious, [worse than a diesel engine](https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/feb/22/wood-diesel-indoor-stoves-cities-pollution), and responsible for [250,000 deaths per year](https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/2014JD021861).  Avoid at all costs, and any reasonable authority will outlaw them in urban areas." CreationDate="2018-09-07T17:04:17.217" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="74" PostId="74" Score="0" Text="And how that home canning can be done?" CreationDate="2013-01-30T06:35:04.350" UserId="5" />
  <row Id="105" PostId="74" Score="0" Text="With jars and a pressure canner; it's a fairly common practice, but I'll add more detail to the answer." CreationDate="2013-01-30T12:46:29.510" UserId="66" />
  <row Id="164" PostId="74" Score="0" Text="It can be combined with smoking, salting and drying, isn't it? Anyway, +1." CreationDate="2013-01-30T23:12:00.887" UserId="58" />
  <row Id="318" PostId="74" Score="0" Text="I like the &quot;on the hoof&quot; option this is thinking outside the box" CreationDate="2013-02-02T14:48:37.080" UserId="153" />
  <row Id="338" PostId="74" Score="0" Text="Growing up we canned many foods. We never had a pressure canner, simply putting the prepared jars in a large vat of boiling water (usually held ~6-10 jars), and placed a lid on the vat while continuing to boil the vat on the stove. I do not recall the timing, but the jars were ready when the 'button' in the lid popped down. Then just remove those jars for cooling, and put the next one in. The last time I participated was years ago, so my details may be rusty, but my grandfather still cans food every season the same way." CreationDate="2013-02-03T13:56:27.610" UserId="86" />
  <row Id="349" PostId="74" Score="0" Text="Many foods can be safely canned in a simple boiling water canner (tomatoes, pickles, fruits, etc), but meat must be processed according to a proven recipe in a pressure canner in order to achieve the temperatures required to kill organisms that will spoil the food." CreationDate="2013-02-03T18:12:49.787" UserId="66" />
  <row Id="838" PostId="74" Score="3" Text="Water bath canning meat is a good way to get dead.  Humor aside, smoking rarely is effective for so long as a year.  Canning, salting, and drying can be.  A year is pushing it for dried meat, though, unless additional preservative steps are taken." CreationDate="2013-02-21T20:32:16.203" UserId="212" />
  <row Id="7503" PostId="74" Score="0" Text="Very nice sharing these are very usefull because we are today sacrified to much of the butiful animals." CreationDate="2016-09-13T07:26:19.813" UserDisplayName="user3773" />
  <row Id="72" PostId="75" Score="0" Text="Not directly an answer to your question, but my favorite resource on greywater is Art Ludwig's _Create an Oasis with Greywater_. http://www.amazon.com/New-Create-Oasis-Greywater-Choosing/dp/0964343398" CreationDate="2013-01-30T05:27:36.897" UserId="27" />
  <row Id="99" PostId="76" Score="1" Text="No real answer, but: look if you can do an NPK analysis of the liqui yourself somehow." CreationDate="2013-01-30T10:54:04.700" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="218" PostId="76" Score="0" Text="NPK, in my understanding, is the three elements that plants need the most of, but it isn't going to address nutritional deficiencies of other elements/compounds that may arise over long term harvesting. It would still be of interest, but would by no means give a solid understanding of what's in vermiliquid." CreationDate="2013-01-31T21:36:14.547" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="75" PostId="77" Score="1" Text="No, from a physics perspective, thermal mass is not exactly equal to mass." CreationDate="2013-01-30T06:59:03.277" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="76" PostId="77" Score="2" Text="thermal mass = mass x thermal capayity." CreationDate="2013-01-30T07:30:38.510" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="219" PostId="77" Score="0" Text="@EnergyNumbers, thanks, I learned something new today! I've provided a brief correction to my answer and referred to yours for more detail." CreationDate="2013-01-31T21:45:30.380" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="70" PostId="78" Score="2" Text="While a bucket might be a simple way to achieve the goal, as you point out there are numerous limitations. Perhaps a better way would be to plumb the facility so that grey water is stored, rather than discarded. The toilet could then be plumbed to fill from the grey water tank, with an alternate path to draw potable water if the grey tank is empty. This would allow using rain catchment and all grey water drains to feed the water hungry toilets; as well as significantly reducing septic load, to only black water waste." CreationDate="2013-01-30T02:45:04.193" UserId="86" />
  <row Id="71" PostId="78" Score="0" Text="@Jay: I had plumbing in mind when I asked the question, but this is a useful answer for the simple approach. In the end, I need something that does not have the limitations you mention." CreationDate="2013-01-30T03:30:22.547" UserId="66" />
  <row Id="221" PostId="79" Score="2" Text="I agree on supporting *community solar* projects, but I think your answer is not fitting to the question." CreationDate="2013-01-31T22:10:48.783" UserId="103" />
  <row Id="1565" PostId="79" Score="1" Text="You can also look if there are any community wind projects in your area. I'm the proud shareholder of a big wind turbine myself." CreationDate="2013-05-17T11:02:18.120" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="135" PostId="80" Score="1" Text="Great physics lesson. Got any suggestions of high specific-heat materials that would be a good choice here? Cheap, non-toxic, etc." CreationDate="2013-01-30T18:21:49.007" UserId="27" />
  <row Id="274" PostId="80" Score="0" Text="@JayBazuzi well, water is cheap, non-toxic and has an extremely high specific heat. I've updated my answer with alternatives too." CreationDate="2013-02-01T18:49:10.990" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="357" PostId="80" Score="0" Text="Paraffin is great for storing heat, read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraffin_wax#Properties" CreationDate="2013-02-03T20:41:03.007" UserId="60" />
  <row Id="79" PostId="81" Score="4" Text="Perhaps if you could write a little more about why going to the shop and buying some &quot;is not a long-term solution&quot;, we can better work out what **is* a long-term solution" CreationDate="2013-01-30T07:48:33.630" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="80" PostId="81" Score="2" Text="Yeast can be frozen - at least I did it and used successfully afterwards. But you have to buy it first. To make bread without continuing buying yeast I think you can keep some of the dough containing yeast as a starter for the next bread. I will take longer and you'll need to put more effort than buying new yeast. Is this the kind of solution you were looking for?" CreationDate="2013-01-30T08:14:49.330" UserId="23" />
  <row Id="355" PostId="81" Score="1" Text="I think this also really depends on what you want to use the yeast for. The type of yeast used in winemaking is very different from yeasts used for beer, which is different from bread yeast." CreationDate="2013-02-03T19:58:02.930" UserId="142" />
  <row Id="356" PostId="81" Score="1" Text="Also, for bread, you can get a brick of SAF instant yeast that you can keep in the freezer. If you don't bake terribly often you'll find it lasts almost forever, and you don't have to worry about feeding it like a sourdough starter." CreationDate="2013-02-03T19:58:57.497" UserId="142" />
  <row Id="903" PostId="82" Score="2" Text="funny question to any Indian as it was never really a problem for us" CreationDate="2013-02-27T09:06:31.803" UserId="302" />
  <row Id="2512" PostId="82" Score="4" Text="You can certainly buy toilet paper made from recycled paper." CreationDate="2013-11-28T10:21:26.247" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="3973" PostId="82" Score="1" Text="Well, you have some articles online such as: [&quot;What Was Used Before Toilet Paper?&quot;](http://scotduke.com/2010/10/14/what-was-used-before-toilet-paper/)." CreationDate="2013-01-30T08:08:32.487" UserId="51" />
  <row Id="6823" PostId="82" Score="1" Text="Which solutions work with composting toilets is also important, I think. The water ones require either an anaerobic (pit or septic tank) system or a sewage connection." CreationDate="2016-05-02T08:03:52.177" UserId="1255" />
  <row Id="6849" PostId="82" Score="1" Text="Different answer to the underlying issue: we bought a composting toilet, so instead of 5-10 litres a day for flushing, we use none. And the toilet paper partly offsets the dry matter we need to add to keep the compost process going, and it all then becomes compost for our garden. Toilet paper is obviously not as good as the sugar cane mulch we use, but it's not so much worse that it makes a big difference IMO. We do use FSC certified, mostly recycled, toilet paper." CreationDate="2016-05-04T04:30:59.760" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="95" PostId="84" Score="1" Text="With 'green roof' do you mean a roof with vegetation, or just an ordinary roof built with sustainable materials?" CreationDate="2013-01-30T10:28:00.660" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="111" PostId="84" Score="0" Text="Intending a roof with vegetation planted directly on it." CreationDate="2013-01-30T13:42:19.480" UserId="28" />
  <row Id="1056" PostId="87" Score="0" Text="Out of curiosity, how feasible is such an 80% cut, presumably without economic collapse?" CreationDate="2013-03-24T12:48:49.917" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="1060" PostId="87" Score="2" Text="Technically and economically pretty straightforward. It's only the politics that's difficult." CreationDate="2013-03-24T13:21:18.983" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="7813" PostId="87" Score="0" Text="+1 for mentioning the difference in time scales... limiting CO2 emissions is the most effective method for fighting climate change as it's most persistent. Methane emissions will sort themselves out eventually - they are definitely a short-term concern, but long term it's better to address CO2." CreationDate="2016-12-12T20:50:43.947" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="146" PostId="90" Score="1" Text="+1 for the clean-the-toilet-bowl requirement and reference. From what I've read, the sink stops working when the float rises above a certain level, necessitating a flush." CreationDate="2013-01-30T19:34:38.707" UserId="69" />
  <row Id="11818" PostId="90" Score="0" Text="Why don't the tanks just have an overflow hole that goes straight to the toilet? Seems dead obvious and simple to implement. Normal tanks also have an overflow afaik." CreationDate="2019-11-18T15:08:59.593" UserId="8149" />
  <row Id="2872" PostId="93" Score="0" Text="I am sure that the railroad is 1000 times more efficient, just because of air resistance. I have bycicled a little and I know that moving one after another allows you to move 2x faster (tandem bicycle). That is, you do not loose any energy when travel after somebody in front of you, who pushes the air away. Since the train is 100 times longer than the plain, it is as much as efficient. But, you need to mantain the road. If fully loaded train departs every 10 minutes the road cost is almost 0. However, if empty trains travels once per day, the road maintanence is huge. Take the train." CreationDate="2014-02-08T00:24:07.407" UserId="476" />
  <row Id="2881" PostId="93" Score="0" Text="@Val Just to play the devil's advocate for fun: there's less air resistance at cruising altitude ;).  Amtrak claims only a 30% larger carbon footprint than cars or flights, I find that surprising..." CreationDate="2014-02-08T14:06:38.130" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="2882" PostId="93" Score="0" Text="The resistance is square of speed - it is crazy for the airliner at 900 km/h. Hardly the slight reduction in air density seriously compensates it. We can eliminate the air resistance completely with the vacuum-tonnel trains. Regarding the Amtrak, how do you account the road utilization (do you see my argument)? There is something wrong since http://withouthotair.com/c20/page_128.shtml reveals that train is 1000% - 2000% more efficient." CreationDate="2014-02-08T16:29:33.300" UserId="476" />
  <row Id="2887" PostId="93" Score="0" Text="@Val Thanks for the air resistance correction.  In any case ascending is very energy-intensive.  I don't know about the Amtrak calculation, I just know this is what Amtrak claims in their advertising.  Likely it gets worse because the occupancy of a typical airplane is (much) higher (per volume) than of the long-distance Amtrak trains." CreationDate="2014-02-08T23:43:36.773" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="2889" PostId="93" Score="0" Text="But ascending allows you to travel the second half of path &quot;free of charge&quot;: you simply gain forward energy from descending. The occupancy of the vehicles is what I am telling you about. We must consider the transport lines completly loaded. Such comparison would allow us to move in the right direction. Otherwise, we get the destruction of the city: people buy cars, this unloads the busses and trollies. The empty busses become more expensive and departure more ralely. This further detracts people from the public transport. People build suburbs instead where public transport is total absurd." CreationDate="2014-02-09T14:38:11.350" UserId="476" />
  <row Id="3818" PostId="93" Score="0" Text="Actually, I mean that Amtrak claims a 30% *smaller* footprint, not larger.  30% larger efficiency." CreationDate="2014-11-10T22:20:07.413" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="86" PostId="95" Score="0" Text="Given the plethora of crankonomics sites on the web that spread all sorts of nonsense about the nature of money, I rather fear that this question will quickly be non-constructive. If an Economics Stack Exchange gets revived, it might be a good question there, and there would at least be more macro-economists on hand." CreationDate="2013-01-30T09:37:48.137" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="89" PostId="95" Score="1" Text="@EnergyNumbers JAK has been running an interest-free bank for decades, so I think it's demonstrably not nonsense; but that would indeed be an economics question. My question is explicitly about the sustainability aspect. As for whether or not it is on-topic, see [this meta discussion](http://meta.sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/10/106)." CreationDate="2013-01-30T09:43:39.260" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="90" PostId="95" Score="1" Text="Oh, interest-free banking is also sustainable, don't get me wrong: what's nonsense is this idea that interest requires perpetual exponential economic growth." CreationDate="2013-01-30T09:44:48.847" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="171" PostId="95" Score="0" Text="This is an important topic, but this question is far, far to broad to produce a useful answer in the Stack Exchange format." CreationDate="2013-01-31T01:02:52.407" UserId="27" />
  <row Id="836" PostId="95" Score="0" Text="@EnergyNumbers, interest on the issuance of currency requires perpetual economic growth.  Your right, the charging of interest on direct lending does not.  It's fractional reserve lending that dictates a money supply grow exponentially in the absence of a total monopoly on lending.  Good point EnergyNumbers!" CreationDate="2013-02-21T20:18:41.927" UserId="212" />
  <row Id="3051" PostId="95" Score="0" Text="As a note, interest as a concept may be sustainable even if an economic order dependent on interest is not.  One should not confuse the two." CreationDate="2014-03-09T08:23:24.693" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="119" PostId="96" Score="3" Text="One thing I always think, but never see mentioned in global warming discussions, is something we learn in grade school. Humans intake Oxygen and exhale Carbon Dioxide, and plants reverse the process. Sure, many of our machines are producing CO2 as well, which has contributed to the massive accumulation in the atmosphere. However, humans have removed a very significant portion of the planets natural vegetation, resulting in far lower processing of CO2-&gt;O2 than in the past. I think that global warming could be counteracted by aggressively replenishing the forests." CreationDate="2013-01-30T14:49:04.783" UserId="86" />
  <row Id="1263" PostId="96" Score="2" Text="It's important to note, though, that *clouds* have a complicated relationship to warming, in that they can either hold in heat, or reflect it back into space.  The net effect depends on the kind of cloud, and altitude, basically.  It's also important to note that water vapor is less of a concern because of a natural self-equilibrating effect.  More water in the atmosphere will rain out back to us, and dryer air will increase the rate of evaporation, moistening the air again.  CO2 and CH4 don't have quite the same natural balance point." CreationDate="2013-04-21T23:59:27.963" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1264" PostId="96" Score="0" Text="@Prymaldark, that's partially true.  The problem is that the same core reason why we produce so much CO2 / CH4 is the same reason we **can't** easily replenish forests.  There are too many people, using too much space (not just what they live on, but the space for roads, work spaces and farmland to keep a person alive).  Then, there's non-GHG pollution (e.g. acid rain) that affects plant growth.  Some say, if it warms, trees near the equator may die, but will be replaced by trees near the poles.  But, as life hasn't flourished near the poles recently, that soil isn't rich, as trees need." CreationDate="2013-04-22T00:08:45.073" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="11817" PostId="96" Score="0" Text="@Prymaldark I am not sure that plants would help much. All in all, they have zero net effect - once they die, the carbon re-enters the atmosphere. The problem is all the carbon we brought up from the depths of earth. To counter that, you'd need to bury all the dead plants really deep, to get back at the values of carbon that we had few hundreds years ago." CreationDate="2019-11-18T15:06:39.950" UserId="8149" />
  <row Id="97" PostId="97" Score="9" Text="_For this purpose, most toilets in India have a (fairly high-power) shower head installed next to them._ Where in India did you go? A huge chunk of the population doesn't have any sanitary facilities, and most homes don't have a bidet or a &quot;shower-head&quot; in the toilet. Most use a mug and wash their hands later." CreationDate="2013-01-30T10:37:32.197" UserId="83" />
  <row Id="154" PostId="97" Score="0" Text="@elssar Of course you are right. I was in Karnataka and by &quot;most&quot; I mean public toilets I used in train stations, hotels, restaurants, etc. It must be very different in the many private houses or huts, most of which probably don't even have a toilet." CreationDate="2013-01-30T21:44:06.347" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="2511" PostId="97" Score="0" Text="The hose-by-the-toilet method is common in large parts of the Middle East as well. Whether it is more sustainable, though, would depend on the abundance of water in the region." CreationDate="2013-11-28T10:20:11.523" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="3048" PostId="97" Score="0" Text="In Indonesia, you have something similar." CreationDate="2014-03-09T08:17:56.970" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="6822" PostId="97" Score="3" Text="The &quot;bucket of water by the toilet&quot; is possibly more common, IME. Since we have a washbasin in our toilet I use that a lot of the time. Less than a litre of water vs three sheets of toilet paper, though, I'm not sure which is better. If we had the &quot;washbasin in lid of cistern&quot; thing that might work, but it would wash faeces into the cistern which isn't good." CreationDate="2016-05-02T08:00:58.007" UserId="1255" />
  <row Id="85" PostId="98" Score="0" Text="No, it does not mean that more money is accounted for than actually exist: money circulates.  When you spend it, it doesn't cease to exist - it circulates. Money doesn't get used up, by being used." CreationDate="2013-01-30T09:33:55.477" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="87" PostId="98" Score="0" Text="@EnergyNumbers Yes, but imagine a world where no money exists. I, the central bank, then decide to issue money. You wish to get money from me. I give you $100, but tell you that in a year you have to pay me $120. Where will you get the extra $20 (in a world where only you have money)? From me, directly or indirectly, through someone else I gave money to... I am not talking about interest that normal banks charge, I am talking about the interest central banks charge on their issued money. I'll add that (FWIW)." CreationDate="2013-01-30T09:40:25.397" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="88" PostId="98" Score="0" Text="Money and value are different things. There are lots of things that have value, that are exchangeable for money. For example, time. So, to take your example, I could work for the Central Bank for an hour. It pays me $20 for my time. And now I can pay the interest.  As you correctly identify in your first paragraph of your answer, money is just the measure of the value of assets, it's not the only asset." CreationDate="2013-01-30T09:42:52.277" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="91" PostId="98" Score="1" Text="@EnergyNumbers Yes, but the central bank doesn't issue new money to pay you. For the few expenses, like paying staff, it receives money from someone else's interest and pays you. There is no new money introduced into the system. Which is why more money is accounted for ($120) than exists ($100)." CreationDate="2013-01-30T09:47:54.990" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="92" PostId="98" Score="0" Text="But my example didn't require prices rising, did it?  It just needed an hour of my work.  Similarly, it could have needed me to sell the bank one of my possessions. Or for the bank to cancel the debt. In short, there were lots of ways to pay off the debt, without inflation." CreationDate="2013-01-30T09:51:02.947" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="93" PostId="98" Score="0" Text="@EnergyNumbers I guess debt cancellation is a way to regulate inflation. But it is also the only way (right?). I'll edit my answer a little. Thanks for the input." CreationDate="2013-01-30T10:01:26.563" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="98" PostId="98" Score="0" Text="If money gets created but not destroyed, it's either unrelated to value or unsustainable, or am I misunderstanding something?" CreationDate="2013-01-30T10:37:45.007" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="148" PostId="98" Score="1" Text="Money gets created. For a growing economy more money is necessary. (Else, saving money would make your money worth more.) Money gets destroyed through debt cancellation, but I cannot estimate how much debt is being cancelled. As long as the economy is regulated to correspond to economic growth, the system is sustainable. In any case, money is only related to value because we choose to give it value. (By accepting $2 for a gallon milk.) But it is not related to value intrinsically..." CreationDate="2013-01-30T21:04:02.823" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="933" PostId="98" Score="0" Text="&quot;But my example didn't require prices rising, did it? It just needed an hour of my work. Similarly, it could have needed me to sell the bank one of my possessions. Or for the bank to cancel the debt. In short, there were lots of ways to pay off the debt, without inflation.&quot;  Actually, yes, your answer did require inflation." CreationDate="2013-03-01T16:09:47.097" UserId="212" />
  <row Id="1057" PostId="98" Score="0" Text="I don't know that you can differentiate between money that is accounted for and money that exists.  They are both just measures of debt-power whether they are in a bank's computer or in bills in your wallet." CreationDate="2013-03-24T12:50:23.157" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="2184" PostId="101" Score="0" Text="So, just to summarize, where you live, the corn-based plastics are *theoretically* biodegradable, but because of the process used, wind up being burned instead?" CreationDate="2013-08-08T20:35:19.640" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="2185" PostId="101" Score="0" Text="@Nate correct. Even the compostable plastics ([as opposed to biodegradable plastics](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodegradable_plastic#Controversy)) are burned." CreationDate="2013-08-08T21:11:31.803" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="13146" PostId="101" Score="0" Text="So, if the leftovers from the first round of composting were left for the next round of composting wouldn’t more of it degrade? After all, we filter out rocks. Could the leftovers be left to function for drainage and soil structure along with the rocks?" CreationDate="2020-12-05T20:25:31.623" UserId="9161" />
  <row Id="13147" PostId="101" Score="0" Text="@Bonnie if you leave the compostable plastics I'm sure more would degrade, but AFAIK most waste processing facilities just remove (and incinerate) the plastics because 1. it's hard to distinguish between compostable plastic and non-compostable plastic and 2. the amount of compostable plastic is not large enough to make an effort and change way waste processing is set up.&#xA;There is little point in using the plastics in your backyard, because there they do not decompose." CreationDate="2020-12-06T12:15:33.373" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="108" PostId="103" Score="1" Text="Are you filtering the water (even through a coarse filter) before it goes into the barrel? Does the barrel have a cover? Is it opaque? Are you collecting off a roof -- what kind?" CreationDate="2013-01-30T13:30:22.553" UserId="66" />
  <row Id="152" PostId="103" Score="0" Text="@bstpierre - I am currently not filtering. The downpipe comes off a balcony covering which is opaque plastic which is quite clean (no build-up). The barrel is sealed." CreationDate="2013-01-30T21:38:47.270" UserId="110" />
  <row Id="181" PostId="104" Score="0" Text="Currently the world is tasked with the challenge of decoupling economic growth with environmental degradation.  This will require everyone's help and ingenuity to solve this problem." CreationDate="2013-01-31T06:07:31.310" UserId="131" />
  <row Id="189" PostId="104" Score="0" Text="@GabrielFair If possible at all." CreationDate="2013-01-31T08:37:57.403" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="290" PostId="104" Score="2" Text="This is a great discussion question... but discussion questions do not fit well with the SE Format.  Not to mention I suspect you would need a book to even come close to answering this." CreationDate="2013-02-01T22:25:05.597" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="2752" PostId="104" Score="0" Text="In a nut shell Yes" CreationDate="2014-01-17T23:54:54.970" UserId="794" />
  <row Id="103" PostId="105" Score="0" Text="What happens with the waste in your garden recycle bin?" CreationDate="2013-01-30T12:20:02.900" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="153" PostId="105" Score="0" Text="@THelper - It goes to one of those reclaimation places where they turn it into mountains of compost. They have the space and time to wait for these to break down. I only have a 60L compost bin and limited space to start a slow composting heap." CreationDate="2013-01-30T21:40:12.653" UserId="110" />
  <row Id="102" PostId="108" Score="3" Text="I would suggest changing 'Energy' to 'Fuel' in the Type and Quantity categories of your list, then adding another entry: Energy required to process and deliver the Fuel. Another thing to consider is: How much energy went into the production and upkeep of the vehicle system itself? Such as the train and rails; plane, airports, control towers; automobile and roadways; etc. As you point out, there are far to many variables to be able to accurately calculate the &quot;complete answer taking everything into account&quot;." CreationDate="2013-01-30T12:03:18.130" UserId="86" />
  <row Id="177" PostId="108" Score="0" Text="When considering energy, don't forget to consider the electrofacility type - carbon reactors producing most CO2, water energy means destroying immense areas of landscape, usually mountain forests, while nuclear reactors have only moderate impact (water warming) when handled correctly and not in extreme-danger zone such as Fokushima (often earthquakes and tsunamis)" CreationDate="2013-01-31T05:43:37.870" UserId="5" />
  <row Id="280" PostId="108" Score="1" Text="You write: &quot;There is nothing like an universe database on carbon footprints or similar&quot; - but there are things just like that. That's exactly what LCA databases are." CreationDate="2013-02-01T19:23:41.153" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="2191" PostId="108" Score="1" Text="EnergyNumbers: LCA database are *like* a universal database of carbon footprints, but they are not that. The questioner explicitly wants a very specific answer, and there's no reasonable way for such a thing to exist (exactly how many people will be on the train, what mix of electricity sources will be in use at that moment, etc)." CreationDate="2013-08-11T22:52:23.810" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2873" PostId="108" Score="0" Text="@Prymaldark, Why should we consider the production and maintanence cost of the road but not its utilization? Do you count the cost of building a railroad per trip? Your trip actually changes that balance. You may decided that building the railroad is too costly and prefer the plain whereas actually even 3% loaded railroad can be more energy-efficient than plain. And, if you choose to travel by train you reduce the railroad footprint. Why not to account this?" CreationDate="2014-02-08T00:31:33.370" UserId="476" />
  <row Id="104" PostId="109" Score="3" Text="Since there is no uniform definition, this question is impossible to answer." CreationDate="2013-01-30T12:22:04.537" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="106" PostId="110" Score="2" Text="Be careful though, building an igloo is not easy. See Outdoors SE [here](http://outdoors.stackexchange.com/q/646/566) and [here](http://outdoors.stackexchange.com/q/1966/566)." CreationDate="2013-01-30T13:26:35.087" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="110" PostId="110" Score="0" Text="While it may not be easy, it will warm you. First, while building it, the physical activity will help to warm you. Second, after it is built, it will have the insulating benefits as described. The request to survive a winter with minimal fire in subarctic or high mountain regions immediately made me think of an igloo." CreationDate="2013-01-30T13:32:55.827" UserId="86" />
  <row Id="3358" PostId="110" Score="1" Text="IME an igloo is *not* hard. But experience does make subsequent igloos better. One issue not addressed in this answer is the effect the variability of the climate has on the igloo. In subarctic conditions it can last a whole season. In more temperate locales you have to do repairs every day and move to a new igloo every week or so." CreationDate="2014-06-03T09:35:36.860" UserId="1325" />
  <row Id="1183" PostId="111" Score="2" Text="What part of greenhouse growing has such a large carbon footprint?" CreationDate="2013-04-09T20:12:04.870" UserId="28" />
  <row Id="1184" PostId="111" Score="0" Text="@Laizer I forgot one important aspect in my answer; I was talking about vegetables that are grown in greenhouses out of season (in the winter) so the large CO2 footprint comes from heating and lighting. In the summer endive and green beans can be grown without a greenhouse. I will edit my answer" CreationDate="2013-04-10T06:14:33.110" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="5221" PostId="111" Score="0" Text="@THelper - Are you serious? Ocean Tankers and truck transportation creates a huge impact. Local foods avoid that whole thing" CreationDate="2015-12-27T07:32:06.893" UserId="2891" />
  <row Id="5222" PostId="111" Score="0" Text="@AlexS Transportation of food by aircraft creates an even bigger impact. However if you look at the entire production chain of food, that usually costs much more resources and energy than transportation. But don't take my word for it, read the article I linked too, or [the 'Criticism' section of the Wikipedia article on Food miles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_miles#Criticism)" CreationDate="2015-12-27T09:39:17.457" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="129" PostId="112" Score="0" Text="Just to confirm — Pine needles are actually quite commonly used as mulch in certain parts of the country." CreationDate="2013-01-30T17:14:35.330" UserId="117" />
  <row Id="130" PostId="112" Score="0" Text="Which country? I'm in the US, OP is in Australia. Here, pine needles are indeed a common mulch material." CreationDate="2013-01-30T17:29:27.470" UserId="66" />
  <row Id="131" PostId="112" Score="2" Text="The US, but I would note that chemicals some varieties of pine needles can actually *inhibit* the growth of other plants underneath it; something you may want, but not *always.* The Australian variety, for example — http://www.nps.gov/plants/alien/fact/caeq1.htm." CreationDate="2013-01-30T17:36:03.930" UserId="117" />
  <row Id="166" PostId="112" Score="1" Text="Yeah, some pine trees are actually allelopathic. So you want to be careful where you use them for mulch.  That said, blueberries seem to love certain varieties of pine needle/bark/wood mulch." CreationDate="2013-01-30T23:54:21.513" UserId="21" />
  <row Id="1303" PostId="112" Score="0" Text="One thing I have found about allelopathy about evergreens is that the brown needs seem to suck the nitrogen out of the soil and decay very slowly (I am guessing a very high C:N ratio).  This seems to be one of the big mechanisms of allelopathy at least as I have seen it.  Of course my experience is only with a few specific varieties (Pondarosa pine, sitka spruce, etc), but the mechanism is quite obvious." CreationDate="2013-04-25T14:40:46.037" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="123" PostId="116" Score="1" Text="This is how we do it.  We even leave the storm windows off one window on each side of the house so that we can do that and get a cross-breeze.  (Though I wonder about the value of the insulation loss due to that practice...)" CreationDate="2013-01-30T15:04:26.610" UserId="115" />
  <row Id="427" PostId="116" Score="1" Text="That btw is very house-specific.  We did that *once* with our house in Chelan and it took three days for the place to feel warm again!  The problem of course was cold air pooling in the basement and crawlspaces...." CreationDate="2013-02-06T04:15:14.290" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="1238" PostId="116" Score="7" Text="That air exchange is a huge waste of energy, as all the heated air leaves the home and all the new air needs to be re-heated. Gas companies probably recommend it in your area because it increases the amount of gas you have to buy from them. An HRV is far superior." CreationDate="2013-04-18T20:56:20.257" UserId="462" />
  <row Id="5362" PostId="116" Score="1" Text="The problem is when you leave in area when there is NO fresh air outside (air pollution)." CreationDate="2016-01-26T13:32:08.587" UserId="1078" />
  <row Id="8715" PostId="116" Score="0" Text="&quot;This is the usual recommendation of gas companies&quot; **yeah, I bet it is!** @EnergyNumbers ' answer is the one to go for." CreationDate="2017-08-09T10:18:08.213" UserId="2617" />
  <row Id="15495" PostId="116" Score="0" Text="@EvanJohnson Yes, HRV is superior. However not everyone can use it, for example if you rent an apartment in a building you do not own. IIRC, the reason for quickly replacing a lot of air is that the walls and other solid things hold much more heat than the air does. If you exchanged the air slowly (e.g., by slightly opening one window), you would lose more heat in total per amount of fresh air." CreationDate="2022-01-10T21:44:39.583" UserId="13650" />
  <row Id="117" PostId="117" Score="1" Text="Related question: [What is optimal “light management” with common compact fluorescent lamps?](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/54/58). From comparison with its answer, I guess the energy save with and without counting bulb longevity decrease would be much different." CreationDate="2013-01-30T14:30:47.487" UserId="58" />
  <row Id="262" PostId="117" Score="1" Text="You should be able to test this with a good multimeter." CreationDate="2013-02-01T14:56:16.583" UserId="86" />
  <row Id="194" PostId="118" Score="0" Text="Nice idea. This is how most organic and fair trade labels work, but setting something up like this is not for the average consumer." CreationDate="2013-01-31T12:25:44.367" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="2558" PostId="119" Score="0" Text="Unfortunately every seed has its own preferred planting method. For example chamomile and pine seeds need light to start growing, so you should just scatter them on top of the soil.&#xA;It is worth visiting a gardening shop and read the instructions on the bags of the desired seeds. But you can also eat some seeds if you don't want to plant them. Eating apple, pear, grape, lemon, mandarin seeds is very healthy, and said to be a cancer preventing habit." CreationDate="2013-01-30T14:28:05.783" UserId="98" />
  <row Id="7586" PostId="125" Score="0" Text="great document!!!!" CreationDate="2016-10-18T11:38:06.970" UserId="3314" />
  <row Id="11750" PostId="125" Score="0" Text="There's something to consider though - swarms of fruit flies - if you do this inside. They are really hard to get rid of." CreationDate="2019-11-15T13:57:18.677" UserId="8149" />
  <row Id="11884" PostId="125" Score="0" Text="Huh, that's interesting. I did it for a couple years and never had a problem." CreationDate="2019-11-21T19:54:22.053" UserId="115" />
  <row Id="127" PostId="126" Score="2" Text="This *might* be on topic to debunk notable claims related to sustainable living (I'm not sure)... but *honestly*, the folks over at **[Skeptics SE](http://skeptics.stackexchange.com)** are better suited to dig into the meat behind these claims. They'll want some cited sources though. They wont engage in the wild conjecture this type of hearsay this is likely to attract." CreationDate="2013-01-30T16:56:32.263" UserId="117" />
  <row Id="132" PostId="126" Score="1" Text="@RobertCartaino: Indeed; the conjucture without references makes this a difficult question to answer; it would be better if it focused on how the relative impacts are measured." CreationDate="2013-01-30T17:38:28.377" UserId="71" />
  <row Id="133" PostId="126" Score="0" Text="I've revised the question, see if you feel it is better now?" CreationDate="2013-01-30T18:10:26.153" UserId="20" />
  <row Id="139" PostId="126" Score="0" Text="It's to be on Skeptics.SE. However, it doesn't seem reliable, since 10 persons may sit in bus maybe in night hours, but in peek hours it's from 50 to 150" CreationDate="2013-01-30T18:49:43.433" UserId="5" />
  <row Id="163" PostId="126" Score="0" Text="@lechlukasz: it depends on area. In US, where most people prefer cars, the average could be ten people. In India, average is probably bigger than the capacity of standing people for which the bus was designed!" CreationDate="2013-01-30T23:04:26.050" UserId="58" />
  <row Id="124" PostId="133" Score="4" Text="Your premise isn't entirely true, it depends on the used display. See also [this question](http://superuser.com/q/135445/85235) or [this question](http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/q/4373)" CreationDate="2013-01-30T15:26:15.223" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="182" PostId="133" Score="2" Text="Are there better ways of designing a website to save electricity? Yes, and no. Some websites use a JQuery script to black the screen after inactivity, not because having the pixels black save on LCD power, (They don't, LCD uses same energy across any color) but because of an effort to reduce the load on the GPU that is maintaining the status of the background page." CreationDate="2013-01-31T06:11:34.827" UserId="131" />
  <row Id="162" PostId="137" Score="0" Text="I think this question is too broad - I'd be very surprised if it was than &quot;one to fifty years, depending on exact device type&quot;. General answer is &quot;use it as long as you can&quot;, but I'm afraid we can't be much more concrete without specification of device category (or we can be more concrete, but there could be ten answers for different kinds of electronics, which is not what we want)." CreationDate="2013-01-30T22:57:37.233" UserId="58" />
  <row Id="172" PostId="137" Score="1" Text="How do you think you would &quot;break even&quot;? How could a smart phone, regardless of whether it functions or not, ever &quot;repay&quot; the energy that was used to produce and distribute it (and its packaging, etc.)?" CreationDate="2013-01-31T01:08:43.450" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="195" PostId="137" Score="0" Text="Perhaps the question is too broad, I will attempt some clarification. 'Break even' is admittedly vague. What I mean is, how long should a consumer use these devices, such that the ensuing demand and production of them is more or less sustainable? More specifically, is there any literature, research or metrics on understanding this?" CreationDate="2013-01-31T12:53:22.043" UserId="67" />
  <row Id="125" PostId="138" Score="0" Text="What type of stain(s)?" CreationDate="2013-01-30T16:54:20.363" UserId="126" />
  <row Id="126" PostId="138" Score="0" Text="@chrisFrisina Choclate ice cream" CreationDate="2013-01-30T16:55:20.237" UserId="49" />
  <row Id="227" PostId="138" Score="0" Text="Coffee stain removal would also be good to know! :-D" CreationDate="2013-02-01T00:47:37.060" UserId="142" />
  <row Id="3053" PostId="140" Score="0" Text="I don't think there's no 'minimum time' for the reason you state - that the devices don't produce energy. The reason there's no 'minimum time' is because there's no sense of the environmental impact of device production &amp; therefore no corresponding ethical sense of how long the device should be used before being recycled. The implication is that short disposal and repurchase of the items exacerbates the environmental and carbon footprint of the devices' production. The problem is not just waste management, the problem is also environmental impact. The article in the question covers this well." CreationDate="2014-03-09T15:24:25.293" UserId="67" />
  <row Id="192" PostId="141" Score="7" Text="+1 for trying hard on sustainable alternatives. Are you living alone?" CreationDate="2013-01-31T11:27:45.323" UserId="103" />
  <row Id="225" PostId="141" Score="7" Text="@donschoe Thanks. And yep, and living by myself makes it easier. The brief time I have roomed with other people, the other folk saw it as another wash rag. Eyes tend to glaze over it and not look at it too hard. I hang it with my clothes -- I have also reduced my entire wardrobe to three sets of wool base layers (plus pants and jackets), the kind you can wash quickly by hand and leave it hanging somewhere to dry in about four or five hours. That reduces a lot of laundry too. The bigger thing is relief from not having so much clutter." CreationDate="2013-01-31T23:30:20.777" UserId="14" />
  <row Id="145" PostId="151" Score="0" Text="D'oh, I just noticed *Impact of various travelling options* is your question, too :p" CreationDate="2013-01-30T19:33:31.973" UserId="103" />
  <row Id="147" PostId="151" Score="0" Text="Just for fun, my &quot;ecological footprint&quot; is 8.51 hectares :)" CreationDate="2013-01-30T19:44:27.733" UserId="103" />
  <row Id="4446" PostId="151" Score="0" Text="I appreciated the answer from donSchoe with PDF &quot;How big is my ecological footprint?&quot; My suggestion is to practice the three R's. Reduce_Reuse_Recycle. The most important of these is the first R...Reduce. By reducing ones need (not suggested a reduced life)for something or reuse it. You are also avoiding the cost of recycling and the carbon footprint recycling has." CreationDate="2015-06-05T05:45:43.983" UserId="2272" />
  <row Id="324" PostId="154" Score="1" Text="Do you need a special container for Bokashi? I looked into it and seemed like you had to shell out a ton of money for a Bokashi system, and it requires a lot of start-up effort before you can use it for kitchen scraps." CreationDate="2013-02-02T19:38:27.977" UserId="142" />
  <row Id="377" PostId="154" Score="1" Text="no, I've always just used a food grade plastic bucket. I'm sure you can spend a bunch of cash on something, but you don't need to. I order my bokashi from http://www.sobokashi.com and it's pretty cheap." CreationDate="2013-02-04T15:52:47.497" UserId="29" />
  <row Id="150" PostId="155" Score="5" Text="Hi and welcome. At the very least you should specify *where* you want to install solar panels. It's such a huge difference if you want to install them in Germany, the U.S. or South Africa..." CreationDate="2013-01-30T21:28:06.913" UserId="103" />
  <row Id="381" PostId="155" Score="4" Text="It's OK for this question to be location-agnostic - the laws of physics and economics are pretty consistent worldwide. Prices and government incentives will be local, perhaps too specialized for this site." CreationDate="2013-02-04T17:30:44.860" UserId="27" />
  <row Id="691" PostId="155" Score="0" Text="Unless you want to use it for winter power in Alaska..." CreationDate="2013-02-14T14:32:03.013" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="202" PostId="156" Score="0" Text="There's a similar question about [aphid control on roses](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/23/99)." CreationDate="2013-01-31T14:22:36.430" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="173" PostId="158" Score="0" Text="See also: http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/7/is-it-feasible-to-compost-in-an-apartment-in-a-city-like-new-york" CreationDate="2013-01-31T01:09:54.530" UserId="27" />
  <row Id="159" PostId="160" Score="0" Text="The answer might depend on scale: what kind and how many animals do you have? Or: how much hay would you use?" CreationDate="2013-01-30T22:34:29.077" UserId="66" />
  <row Id="161" PostId="160" Score="0" Text="@bstpierre - Should have mentioned. I am talking about a suburban block. We are on 700+m2 I have a pair of breeding rabbits (up to 15 rabbits at any one time), a duck enclosure and a chicken coop. I also need this for mulch as our summers are hot." CreationDate="2013-01-30T22:54:10.650" UserId="110" />
  <row Id="174" PostId="160" Score="3" Text="You might consider rewording your title and question to clarify: is it more important for you to avoid the &quot;store-bought&quot; part or do you feel that hay is not sustainable?  Do you care whether an alternative can be grown on-site vs. buying it locally from a farmer?" CreationDate="2013-01-31T01:51:47.810" UserId="87" />
  <row Id="160" PostId="165" Score="1" Text="My municipality website says that it is *recycled into energy* by the burning that heats the town..." CreationDate="2013-01-30T22:54:09.447" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="15400" PostId="165" Score="0" Text="The definition of &quot;recycle&quot; or &quot;recover&quot; plays a major role. Depending on the disposal process, burnt food waste might also go back into the cycle: CO2 and N go into the air and gets absorbed by plants, ..." CreationDate="2022-01-01T07:41:55.960" UserId="13592" />
  <row Id="515" PostId="166" Score="0" Text="I'm going to go with the tea tree Dr. Bronners." CreationDate="2013-02-07T22:15:42.063" UserId="29" />
  <row Id="170" PostId="167" Score="1" Text="Might wanna flesh this out a bit... For starters, how is this not just a gardening question? Beyond that, what variety of apple are you considering, what rootstock, what location are you planting in...?" CreationDate="2013-01-31T00:36:29.330" UserId="4" />
  <row Id="205" PostId="167" Score="0" Text="@Shog9 Permaculture regularly deals with inoculating plants with symbiotic fungus.  Conventional gardeners often aren't even aware of the possibility, in my experience.  As for the rest, you're right, it needs more fleshing out.  I was more trying out a class of question." CreationDate="2013-01-31T16:43:54.370" UserId="21" />
  <row Id="206" PostId="167" Score="0" Text="There are going to be a ton of Permaculture questions here that, on first glance, could belong on gardening.  But there aren't all that many Permaculturists on Gardening judging by how empty that tag is.  They are more likely to get the answers they are looking for here.  It's kind of like DBA.se vs ServerFault.SE or AskUbuntu vs UnixLinux.  It's a question of where they are going to get a more detailed and specific answer of the sort they are looking for." CreationDate="2013-01-31T16:46:08.317" UserId="21" />
  <row Id="207" PostId="167" Score="0" Text="Meta discussion: http://meta.sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/37/how-do-we-handle-permaculture-questions-with-respect-to-gardening-se" CreationDate="2013-01-31T16:47:37.067" UserId="21" />
  <row Id="209" PostId="167" Score="2" Text="&quot;conventional gardeners&quot; covers a pretty vast range of practices and experiences. I would be rather careful of lumping anything moderately novel in with &quot;sustainability&quot;; disease resistant cultivars are also somewhat less well-known, but their use is hardly limited to sustainable agriculture." CreationDate="2013-01-31T16:49:09.860" UserId="4" />
  <row Id="833" PostId="167" Score="3" Text="This is definitely NOT a gardening question!" CreationDate="2013-02-21T19:43:10.240" UserId="212" />
  <row Id="2111" PostId="167" Score="0" Text="Mycellium Running: How mushrooms can help save the world by Paul Stamets is a must read for the sustainability minded." CreationDate="2013-07-24T18:12:32.120" UserId="610" />
  <row Id="176" PostId="168" Score="0" Text="Belongs on Gardening.SE." CreationDate="2013-01-31T03:59:37.913" UserId="27" />
  <row Id="208" PostId="168" Score="0" Text="Meta discussion: http://meta.sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/37/how-do-we-handle-permaculture-questions-with-respect-to-gardening-se" CreationDate="2013-01-31T16:48:29.890" UserId="21" />
  <row Id="167" PostId="169" Score="1" Text="Not sure permaculture's really the right tag for this... gardening?  Not really... water management?" CreationDate="2013-01-30T23:56:21.887" UserId="21" />
  <row Id="168" PostId="169" Score="1" Text="I agree. If this is permaculture, then everything on this site probably is..." CreationDate="2013-01-31T00:15:30.387" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="169" PostId="169" Score="0" Text="Do you have any flowing water flowing through your property?" CreationDate="2013-01-31T00:30:09.793" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="210" PostId="169" Score="0" Text="Only when it rains.  I'm one the side of a pretty steep hill with about a half acre.  When it rains, the whole thing more or less turns into a slow flowing stream." CreationDate="2013-01-31T16:53:57.253" UserId="21" />
  <row Id="247" PostId="169" Score="0" Text="In that case you'll have enough water to keep your pond from drying out, I'd say. Also look up &quot;[swales](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swale_(landform))&quot; as a way to keep the water on your property and put it to good use." CreationDate="2013-02-01T11:20:08.000" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="272" PostId="169" Score="0" Text="Oh, I'm planning on Swales. And raised hugelkulture beds.  The whole 9 yards. The issue is that the rain is pretty seasonal (southern Indiana).  And the soil is clay.  Holes in the ground don't hold water that long with out some sort of sealing." CreationDate="2013-02-01T18:02:03.363" UserId="21" />
  <row Id="382" PostId="169" Score="0" Text="Also, I'm hoping to create a Blueberry and Pine polyculture.  I know from experience in the north east that both like water edges.  I'm wondering if it's possible -- given the right cultivars -- to replicate that environment here in Indiana.  It may not be, but we'll see." CreationDate="2013-02-04T21:22:09.553" UserId="21" />
  <row Id="200" PostId="170" Score="0" Text="Pure compacting will only work in non-freezing climates in my opinion. Frozen water will un-compact any porous material (soil)." CreationDate="2013-01-31T13:57:03.257" UserId="60" />
  <row Id="201" PostId="170" Score="4" Text="FWIW, Holzer is at +1000m elevation in Austria -- he is definitely getting freezing temperatures. I saw 39°F mentioned as his average annual temperature..." CreationDate="2013-01-31T14:19:20.393" UserId="66" />
  <row Id="383" PostId="170" Score="0" Text="Funny thing about this site, it's going to take me a while to try that out so I can accept the answer.  :/" CreationDate="2013-02-04T21:23:06.860" UserId="21" />
  <row Id="396" PostId="170" Score="2" Text="I'd love to hear about how it goes!" CreationDate="2013-02-05T02:26:56.197" UserId="66" />
  <row Id="488" PostId="170" Score="0" Text="@bstpierre I'll definitely let you know!  Also, thanks for the great answer :)" CreationDate="2013-02-06T20:48:11.460" UserId="21" />
  <row Id="178" PostId="172" Score="2" Text="AFAIK electronic industry is the greatest toxinator for oceans, so good question" CreationDate="2013-01-31T05:44:58.523" UserId="5" />
  <row Id="197" PostId="172" Score="0" Text="@lechlukasz Exactly! I understand it's much more than making a hamburger, but this info is hard to come by." CreationDate="2013-01-31T13:19:56.353" UserId="89" />
  <row Id="180" PostId="174" Score="1" Text="I have been putting meat in my compost for years. I have seen a small rat, once. But the heap is near a big forest, so I feel that I am helping the struggling raptor community." CreationDate="2013-01-31T06:05:39.830" UserId="131" />
  <row Id="183" PostId="174" Score="2" Text="it may depend on where you are.  here in Jakarta, both rats and cats could be a significant nuissance." CreationDate="2013-01-31T06:12:56.667" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="204" PostId="175" Score="7" Text="Can you clarify the scope for this question? Do you want to cool yourself off in a given setting? Do you want to make changes to the house to keep it cooler? The answers are vastly different." CreationDate="2013-01-31T16:21:13.783" UserId="136" />
  <row Id="1414" PostId="178" Score="1" Text="Using airflow (from outside) is a tricky issue.  The body can cool via convection, by transferring heat from you to the surrounding air **if that air is colder than body temperature**.  If the room temperature is colder than 98.6F, but the outside temperature is warmer than room temperature, then there's mixed benefit to opening windows.  You may increase air speed, which helps convection, but also increase temp. which hurts.  If outside air temp is above 98.6F, then absolutely, keep your windows closed and covered (e.g. with curtains)." CreationDate="2013-05-03T21:24:57.020" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1430" PostId="178" Score="0" Text="Of course temperature is only one factor.  Air flow and humidity are much larger factors as the temperature climbs since evaporation is a major source of heat loss from the body too.  this is a big part of the reason why fans at 80 degrees F make such a big difference." CreationDate="2013-05-05T07:50:35.607" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="1492" PostId="178" Score="0" Text="Fans are a separate issue, and not what I was responding to.  Fans are a great way to (electrically) increase cooling, because they can generate high airspeeds, and aside from relatively small generation of heat in their motors, they are not adding heat to the house, just moving air around.  Opening windows is *totally* different, because opening windows generates very low indoor airspeeds, and at the same time, it's warming the house.  Also, [radiation matters, too](http://www.healthlinkbc.ca/kb/content/special/tw9037.html), and net radiation goes with something like temp to the 4th power." CreationDate="2013-05-08T01:59:59.207" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="196" PostId="182" Score="1" Text="+1 Good answer! I agree, it's too complicated and there is not enough data available." CreationDate="2013-01-31T13:01:42.070" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="199" PostId="182" Score="1" Text="This was my general feeling, but since I am not an expert in this matter, I was hoping there would be some info out there I didn't know about." CreationDate="2013-01-31T13:32:47.547" UserId="89" />
  <row Id="6874" PostId="182" Score="0" Text="It is indeed *very* complicated. Example: The Fairphone manufacturers are very open about their supply chains. In their blogs you can see how many steps just one material (the tin in the solder) takes from one manufacturer to the other, across the globe." CreationDate="2016-05-06T15:25:13.677" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="211" PostId="187" Score="1" Text="I like your answer more than mine! :)" CreationDate="2013-01-31T17:51:58.790" UserId="28" />
  <row Id="6754" PostId="188" Score="2" Text="And (depending on day/night temperatures) throw everything wide open during the night. During the occasional heat wave in my country (The Netherlands) night-time temperatures still differ enough to let outside air bring the internal house temperature down (*all* materials inside cool down). When the outside starts heating up again, close the shutters." CreationDate="2016-04-18T08:35:16.277" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="279" PostId="189" Score="1" Text="This question is impossibly broad." CreationDate="2013-02-01T19:17:36.767" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="284" PostId="189" Score="0" Text="I believe there are at least a couple of more specific questions here that may work fine if asked singly (e.g. are some plastic more sustainable - perhaps amend to 'recyclable' - than others? and what plastic to use for a specific project)." CreationDate="2013-02-01T20:32:42.940" UserId="67" />
  <row Id="839" PostId="189" Score="0" Text="I agree.  You should break this into several smaller questions." CreationDate="2013-02-21T21:16:50.380" UserId="212" />
  <row Id="3333" PostId="191" Score="1" Text="I'm not sure that *every* use of plastic is contrary to the idea of sustainability. See Ecobricks:  http://www.ecobricks.org/" CreationDate="2014-05-29T14:26:06.163" UserId="1091" />
  <row Id="3334" PostId="191" Score="0" Text="Ecobricks is a nice initiative, but it's not in any way approaching the major problems caused by plastics in big scale." CreationDate="2014-05-29T14:51:34.667" UserId="103" />
  <row Id="3335" PostId="191" Score="0" Text="Small scale is better than nothing. If nobody took on small scale projects like this, the big scale would be a lot bigger. I think in terms of sustainability, dismissing small projects as useless will make it easier for people to think it's difficult/impossible/unrealistic to get involved and make any sort of difference." CreationDate="2014-05-29T14:55:47.890" UserId="1091" />
  <row Id="3343" PostId="191" Score="0" Text="I also disagree. Plastics are incredibly durable and if this is exploited in the right context, I believe they can be integrated very well into a sustainable lifestyle." CreationDate="2014-05-30T20:56:23.680" UserId="453" />
  <row Id="1258" PostId="192" Score="1" Text="The 5.7% recycle rate is a bit misleading, because if a person is inclined to even ask a question such as this one, they're almost certainly recycling more than that.  I also haven't bought a trash bag in years, and get many, many uses out of paint brushes, specifically because I have *some* LDPE bags to reuse (I *usually* bring reusable bags)." CreationDate="2013-04-21T12:02:56.417" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="4635" PostId="192" Score="0" Text="@Nate: you are right, people do not seem to consider trash disposal. I don't BUY trash bags either, I use the little plastic grocery bags for that. It seems incredibly silly when people are proud of not using plastic bags to bring the food in, when they then PAY FOR and USE plastic bags to throw the trash away! Don't they see that it is a complete system? Gosh. The only good answer is to produce very minimal trash, recycle what you can and compost food waste." CreationDate="2015-07-29T00:20:20.983" UserDisplayName="user2423" />
  <row Id="224" PostId="193" Score="2" Text="Please be specific about what you hope to accomplish by changing litters, as &quot;sustainable&quot; is ambiguous." CreationDate="2013-01-31T22:33:06.233" UserId="27" />
  <row Id="282" PostId="193" Score="0" Text="I updated my question to be more specific" CreationDate="2013-02-01T20:08:39.087" UserId="91" />
  <row Id="11864" PostId="193" Score="0" Text="Declawing cats is a horrible practice. Declaw yourself!" CreationDate="2019-11-20T14:29:16.073" UserId="8149" />
  <row Id="214" PostId="195" Score="3" Text="I totally read the title here as &quot;how can I get rid of the fleas I keep as pets?&quot;" CreationDate="2013-01-31T18:48:18.860" UserId="4" />
  <row Id="215" PostId="195" Score="1" Text="Ha, no that's is not what is meant at all.  It try not to keep fleas as pets.  I have updated the title, hopefully it is clearer." CreationDate="2013-01-31T18:53:24.670" UserId="91" />
  <row Id="261" PostId="195" Score="0" Text="My mom was just telling me recently about an aunt adding a bit of garlic to the pet food occasionally as flea prevention. I do not have the specifics, but she said that it is working well for them." CreationDate="2013-02-01T14:50:56.960" UserId="86" />
  <row Id="277" PostId="195" Score="0" Text="Why do you consider Frontline unsustainable? Is it just the expense?" CreationDate="2013-02-01T19:13:29.613" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="281" PostId="195" Score="0" Text="The expense is part of it.  However, there has to be something safer and more readily available around the house that can be just as effective." CreationDate="2013-02-01T20:03:32.660" UserId="91" />
  <row Id="387" PostId="195" Score="0" Text="Yeah, I haven't found any effective method yet other than Frontline or equivalents.  Which I'm really not fond of.  At all.  But then again, getting bitten by fleas also sucks.  If I find a good solution I'll be sure to share it. @EnergyNumbers It's not just that it's expensive, it's a pretty unfriendly pesticide and poison.  I'm not fond of putting it on my dog or having it in my environment." CreationDate="2013-02-04T21:41:14.197" UserId="21" />
  <row Id="388" PostId="195" Score="0" Text="Here's the main ingredient of Frontline: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fipronil &#xA;&#xA;It's a wide spectrum insecticide that is also highly toxic to many other animal classes.  It is one of the pesticides implicated in colony collapse disorder in Bees.  I hate using it.  But the alternative is to be assaulted by fleas, which isn't sustainable either.  Right now I'm just hoping that the relatively low dose I apply to my animal doesn't find its way into the wider environment and actively looking for an alternative." CreationDate="2013-02-04T21:45:55.130" UserId="21" />
  <row Id="399" PostId="195" Score="0" Text="@DanielBingham thanks; Linger - would you like to add that info into the question?  It's very useful context" CreationDate="2013-02-05T06:34:38.073" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="404" PostId="195" Score="0" Text="@EnergyNumbers, What info? Are you talking about what Daniel Bingham wrote?  Anyway, feel free to edit the question to make it better." CreationDate="2013-02-05T13:38:09.000" UserId="91" />
  <row Id="405" PostId="195" Score="0" Text="@Linger - yes, if what Daniel Bingham wrote is also **your** own concern re the sustainability of Frontline. I didn't know if it was or not, so I thought it best to leave it to you to edit in, if you consider it appropriate." CreationDate="2013-02-05T13:45:23.610" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="216" PostId="196" Score="1" Text="Some related material might be found here — [How can I seal a pond without using a plastic pond liner?](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/169/117)" CreationDate="2013-01-31T19:24:12.167" UserId="117" />
  <row Id="220" PostId="197" Score="2" Text="You may find good answers on http://diy.stackexchange.com/" CreationDate="2013-01-31T21:49:31.167" UserId="27" />
  <row Id="222" PostId="197" Score="1" Text="Tell us more about your situation. Different parts of the world build things differently!" CreationDate="2013-01-31T22:11:37.610" UserId="27" />
  <row Id="2626" PostId="198" Score="0" Text="A pretty normal approach to a pump is a small windmill attached to an archimedes screw- you'll see them all over the canals in the Netherlands. You can use gravity return through wood planks (wood does ok with moving water for a while, calm water can be very hard on it without proper maintenance)." CreationDate="2013-12-26T18:59:00.310" UserId="885" />
  <row Id="226" PostId="203" Score="3" Text="I'm not clear on why composting is the very last choice. Barring any possibility of reuse or recycling, burning seems like the exact *opposite* of sustainability." CreationDate="2013-02-01T00:20:06.143" UserId="117" />
  <row Id="236" PostId="203" Score="2" Text="@RobertCartaino: Depending on what's *on* the paper, composting might be a bad idea due to the possibility of heavy metals in the inks. In that case, though, I wouldn't want to burn it either." CreationDate="2013-02-01T03:03:40.710" UserId="66" />
  <row Id="2400" PostId="203" Score="1" Text="Also, from a sustainability point of view, there's a big fundamental difference between burning something like wood-pulp paper (the carbon dumped into the air is the same carbon that the tree pulled out of the air in order to make that wood) and burning oil or coal (the carbon dumped into the air is carbon that was pulled out of underground, natural, and millennia-stable sequestration)" CreationDate="2013-11-03T01:55:23.550" UserId="870" />
  <row Id="2433" PostId="203" Score="0" Text="Especially if it can be burnt in a waste-to-energy plant... :-)" CreationDate="2013-11-09T15:55:13.730" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="242" PostId="204" Score="0" Text="You mentioned your earlier attempts at vermicomposting failed, why exactly did they fail? And do you want to do composting with or without worms this time?" CreationDate="2013-02-01T10:15:50.187" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="243" PostId="204" Score="0" Text="@donschoe, I checked out that question before posting mine. It doesn't address the questions that I'm asking here." CreationDate="2013-02-01T11:05:44.430" UserId="142" />
  <row Id="244" PostId="204" Score="0" Text="@THelper, that's kind of a long answer. My worms always died. I really don't want to try that again, and I'm worried that worms will die when it goes down to 0F like it seems to routinely do here in the winter. (If I can manage to keep them alive in the first place, which I don't believe I can.)" CreationDate="2013-02-01T11:06:42.493" UserId="142" />
  <row Id="325" PostId="204" Score="0" Text="I edited the title of my question. I'm not asking if it's feasible to compost on my balcony - I know that it is, and I know what method of composting that I want to use (i.e. not worms and not Bokashi). I am asking how do I get started. This is not at all addressed in the other question." CreationDate="2013-02-02T19:42:46.687" UserId="142" />
  <row Id="326" PostId="204" Score="0" Text="And the answers to the other question don't help you at all?" CreationDate="2013-02-02T21:06:51.060" UserId="71" />
  <row Id="327" PostId="204" Score="0" Text="@MartijnPieters, they don't address any of the questions in my post." CreationDate="2013-02-02T23:08:48.000" UserId="142" />
  <row Id="334" PostId="204" Score="0" Text="I think there are 9 or 10 questions in the body as it stands, so it seems to me that it's not yet ready to be reopened." CreationDate="2013-02-03T08:20:04.503" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="371" PostId="204" Score="1" Text="Go ahead and write each question up as a separate entry on the site." CreationDate="2013-02-04T05:26:50.397" UserId="27" />
  <row Id="238" PostId="206" Score="0" Text="@bstpierre: It lists several options. #5 is the link to read free online. I could link to that directly, but since Joe Jenkins sends people through that PDF, out of respect for him, I linked there, too." CreationDate="2013-02-01T04:07:41.247" UserId="27" />
  <row Id="249" PostId="206" Score="0" Text="this is what I get for not reading all the way to the end... thanks for pointing that out." CreationDate="2013-02-01T12:49:24.550" UserId="66" />
  <row Id="3426" PostId="207" Score="1" Text="Since with a sourdough culture you're trying to capture yeasts in the air, it's much easier to capture benevolent yeasts in an environment with fresh air. All our fermented foods taste much, much better since we moved to the countryside. In a big city, receiving a good starter culture is much more likely to be successful." CreationDate="2014-07-01T00:10:36.660" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="3517" PostId="207" Score="0" Text="There was a series of talks on the radio here recently by a sourdough artisan baker in Auckland, NZ. They go through the process of baking sourdough, and should be available for free for quite some time, so here's the link: http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/thiswayup/collections/sourdough/sourdough-part-1" CreationDate="2014-08-02T08:48:33.300" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="228" PostId="208" Score="2" Text="How many people are you washing for? It matters a lot!" CreationDate="2013-02-01T00:54:04.043" UserId="27" />
  <row Id="229" PostId="208" Score="0" Text="6 to 8 persons..." CreationDate="2013-02-01T00:56:15.400" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="235" PostId="208" Score="0" Text="What kinds of clothes take *days* to dry? Is it very humid where you are? Even on humid days in the summer, it only takes half a day or so for clothes to dry for me." CreationDate="2013-02-01T03:00:08.860" UserId="66" />
  <row Id="245" PostId="208" Score="0" Text="@bstpierre I just figured, that if you don't use a spinning cycle, the soaking wet clothes won't dry in a few hours, even if you put them on warm stones, like they do in India. (With machine-washed clothes, in the summer it takes around 6-8 hours to dry, but only in a breeze with some sun exposure...)" CreationDate="2013-02-01T11:09:02.547" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="251" PostId="208" Score="2" Text="@user1205935: Makes sense. Laying clothes on rockswould make a big difference. I hang them up on a clothesline in the sun. Even without the spin cycle, using a bit of rope to hang up the laundry would cut drying time significantly versus rocks." CreationDate="2013-02-01T12:52:23.997" UserId="66" />
  <row Id="323" PostId="208" Score="1" Text="Do you know about pedal-powered washing machines?" CreationDate="2013-02-02T19:01:02.583" UserId="144" />
  <row Id="329" PostId="208" Score="0" Text="@Benjamin I have seen a prototype in action in a video before, but no place to buy nor how to construct one yourself..." CreationDate="2013-02-03T01:24:17.233" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="232" PostId="209" Score="0" Text="Thanks. Nice video. I was thinking it would probably be even more fun to make it a rowing machine, which would make for good full-body exercise as well... =)" CreationDate="2013-02-01T01:45:28.873" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="234" PostId="209" Score="3" Text="+1 As a sustainability bonus to washing clothes less frequently, your clothes will tend to last longer." CreationDate="2013-02-01T02:58:52.763" UserId="66" />
  <row Id="231" PostId="210" Score="0" Text="Note that I'm looking for something cheap that the average DIYer would be willing to use." CreationDate="2013-02-01T01:23:09.537" UserId="27" />
  <row Id="233" PostId="210" Score="1" Text="Do you specifically mean groundwater contamination? Are you looking for coliform bacteria, nitrates, or something else? I can detect leaching from my manure pile by the fact that the field just downhill from the pile is more lush and green than in areas not near the pile..." CreationDate="2013-02-01T02:37:24.053" UserId="66" />
  <row Id="239" PostId="210" Score="0" Text="@bstpierre: I don't really know what I should be worried about. I have seen instructions on how to properly manage the compost pile, but not how to measure whether it's working properly." CreationDate="2013-02-01T04:10:14.613" UserId="27" />
  <row Id="248" PostId="210" Score="0" Text="Unless you're doing some really heavy-duty composting, or managing manure from a large number of animals (more than just what you'd find on the homestead) your household/homestead compost isn't really much of a threat." CreationDate="2013-02-01T12:48:26.237" UserId="66" />
  <row Id="4636" PostId="213" Score="1" Text="Re: #5 disposable plastic bags are ideal for disposing of cat litter. (The other options, not so much.) Unless you produce NO trash, you can't get away from some kind of trash bag, so use the disposable grocery bags for that." CreationDate="2015-07-29T00:23:54.887" UserDisplayName="user2423" />
  <row Id="11812" PostId="213" Score="0" Text="I use essentially all plastic bags for taking out the thrash. So they get reused. The paper bags are useless for that, and as I forget to take them with me, they just pile up. Paper bags are the only option in most supermarkets now." CreationDate="2019-11-18T14:22:28.803" UserId="8149" />
  <row Id="13526" PostId="213" Score="0" Text="All canvas bags are not created equal, cotton likely being worse than hemp. The idea that they're heirlooms is lovely but not true in practice. They get misplaced, dirty, or torn. How many reuses do people really get?&#xA;&#xA;Reusable plastic bags are, I think, the worst. The don't get reused and they combine the worst aspects of paper (transportation cost) and disposable (pollution)." CreationDate="2021-03-24T17:48:20.657" UserId="9487" />
  <row Id="260" PostId="216" Score="1" Text="Talk to people who seem to be doing anything related to sustainable living and sooner or later you will meet someone who shares your ideas." CreationDate="2013-02-01T13:34:49.113" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="246" PostId="218" Score="3" Text="Paper is mostly made of wood pulp which is produced from CO2, water, oxygen, minerals and energy via photosynthesis. Burning disassembles those substances back into their basic forms and releases the energy. From this point of view, burning the paper is sustainable. The *discrepancy is the time needed to grow the wood* needed to produce paper *and the time needed to reverse it back*." CreationDate="2013-02-01T11:09:35.440" UserId="60" />
  <row Id="252" PostId="218" Score="4" Text="Organic material if burned does not increase the amount of greenhouse gases in the lithosphere and atmosphere," CreationDate="2013-02-01T12:53:31.847" UserId="65" />
  <row Id="273" PostId="218" Score="3" Text="I'd tend to agree that burning paper solely for disposal is a waste of resources, but what about for things like a fireplace, i.e. in cases where one would otherwise be burning wood? How does paper stack up as an alternative there? (Is it inefficient because it doesn't burn long enough?)" CreationDate="2013-02-01T18:24:14.957" UserId="57" />
  <row Id="288" PostId="218" Score="3" Text="@Yumecosmos: I'm preparing to produce &amp; burn paper briquettes in my fireplace instead of wood. But I have no experience with it, that's why this question." CreationDate="2013-02-01T21:28:04.967" UserId="60" />
  <row Id="296" PostId="218" Score="1" Text="@PeterIvan +1 because I'm also curious!" CreationDate="2013-02-01T23:09:36.590" UserId="57" />
  <row Id="1426" PostId="218" Score="2" Text="@PeterIvan, your point is valid in the most abstract sense, but not in the specific case of the world we live in today.  Tree growth is not *rate limited* by CO2 right now - if that were the case, we'd be seeing a rapid rise in tree growth as CO2 levels have risen to ~400ppm.  So, adding a bit more of it to the air will not help grow a new tree.  But, it will add a little more to the infrared blanket that's &quot;warming&quot; the earth.  What you'd rather do is recycle it, reducing the need to cut down a new tree, or sequester it in the ground. +1 to Don." CreationDate="2013-05-05T03:33:18.660" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1429" PostId="218" Score="0" Text="@Nate, indeed, that's the point." CreationDate="2013-05-05T07:00:01.527" UserId="103" />
  <row Id="253" PostId="223" Score="3" Text="better/smarter clothing is the easiest first step." CreationDate="2013-02-01T12:54:16.180" UserId="65" />
  <row Id="264" PostId="223" Score="8" Text="On the positive side, apartments should be more efficient than villas from a heating perspective." CreationDate="2013-02-01T16:13:26.453" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="269" PostId="223" Score="5" Text="@gerrit: Yes, and more efficient with land use. And it's easier to share other resources, like a garden, bicycles, car, swimming pool, exercise equipment, roads. The mailman doesn't drive as many miles. You're already in great shape!" CreationDate="2013-02-01T17:15:25.917" UserId="27" />
  <row Id="275" PostId="223" Score="9" Text="I think this is impossibly broad - people do write whole books about this. Can you break it down into individual elements, or ask a question about what are the worst energy losses (given your particular building type and climate zone)" CreationDate="2013-02-01T19:03:40.633" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="386" PostId="223" Score="2" Text="While this is a useful list to have on hand, I don't think this makes for a good question.  As @EnergyNumbers said, it's extremely broad.  There are at least a dozen questions encompassed here that could have whole answer treatments of their own.  This is a list survey question." CreationDate="2013-02-04T21:38:42.627" UserId="21" />
  <row Id="2537" PostId="223" Score="0" Text="When it's cold, sometimes in an apartment you can depend more on the heat of your neighbors, so long as you don't have any drafts and are weather-proofed from the outside. That would mean the walls between each apartment must be smaller and allow the heat - but in some places, it's possible." CreationDate="2013-12-04T01:19:12.043" UserId="945" />
  <row Id="445" PostId="224" Score="0" Text="finally got around to find the source on the psychotrophiles from cold lakes ..." CreationDate="2013-02-06T10:30:31.863" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="536" PostId="224" Score="0" Text="also this could be a question for the biology SE" CreationDate="2013-02-08T14:59:29.840" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="10821" PostId="224" Score="0" Text="Is the purpose to just dispose of waste, or to generate fuel. If waste, then can you use an aerobic bug instead?  If fuel, can you insulate the tank and/or use some of the fuel to heat it?" CreationDate="2019-03-21T21:59:04.910" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="250" PostId="225" Score="3" Text="_Are there health hazards associated to this activity?_ --&gt;Inhalation of toxic fumes comes to mind. Other than that, you're probably golden." CreationDate="2013-02-01T12:52:10.647" UserId="83" />
  <row Id="254" PostId="225" Score="1" Text="@elssar: is it true of all plastics? Are fumes systematically present during melting?" CreationDate="2013-02-01T13:02:36.547" UserId="144" />
  <row Id="255" PostId="225" Score="0" Text="I think so, yes. All plastics will produce some toxic fumes when melted/burned, some more than others. But googling around, it seems that it isn't as bad as I first thought." CreationDate="2013-02-01T13:11:49.283" UserId="83" />
  <row Id="258" PostId="225" Score="1" Text="[This idea](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGGabrorRS8) of converting plastic into oil is also quite cool. If you're going to use oil anyway, you might as well use it and get rid of a big pile of plastic at the same time..." CreationDate="2013-02-01T13:28:30.763" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="3496" PostId="225" Score="0" Text="[This may be what you are looking for. Its not melting and remolding so much as joining &amp; fusing. Its called &quot;Plastic Welding&quot;.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvV9a3lEe2g)" CreationDate="2013-07-19T05:45:11.560" UserId="682" />
  <row Id="4444" PostId="225" Score="0" Text="Wow this would be neat to do if all hazards were removed. One thing that I do to with some plastics, you can reuse or repurpose them for another function in life. For example the slats http://i.stack.imgur.com/uX9vV.jpg of a miniblind can be made into markers for the garden. With some thought many things are reusable and are sure to reduce one carbon foot print. See my plant name tag in the photo." CreationDate="2015-06-05T06:01:54.827" UserId="2272" />
  <row Id="4445" PostId="225" Score="0" Text="@JimBo as this is a question &amp; answer site, rather than a discussion forum, answers really do need to address the exact question asked. In this case I've converted your answer to a comment. This is likely to happen to several of your other answers as well. Please do check that you're answering the question as asked, rather than discussing the question or another answer." CreationDate="2015-06-05T06:42:33.713" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="268" PostId="226" Score="1" Text="What is the resistance to composting?" CreationDate="2013-02-01T17:13:13.247" UserId="27" />
  <row Id="286" PostId="226" Score="0" Text="From what I gather: 1. people do not see enough value in compost in an urban setting, 2. in South Asia, handling food remains is associated negatively with religious impurity." CreationDate="2013-02-01T20:48:47.663" UserId="144" />
  <row Id="300" PostId="226" Score="0" Text="Who grows the food? Would they haul away food scraps as a service?" CreationDate="2013-02-02T02:02:20.117" UserId="27" />
  <row Id="302" PostId="226" Score="1" Text="@JayBazuzi: it seems our discussion is going off topic (looking at social issues, rather than technical). You can mail me at jesuisbenjamin at gmail dot com. I'll tell you more." CreationDate="2013-02-02T06:40:58.163" UserId="144" />
  <row Id="705" PostId="226" Score="1" Text="@JayBazuzi, I think we all could benefit from this discussion in a chat. I am curious, for one." CreationDate="2013-02-14T18:31:34.123" UserId="227" />
  <row Id="256" PostId="227" Score="0" Text="Thanks. Do you know anything about converting organic waste into fish-food (ex. catfish)?" CreationDate="2013-02-01T13:16:23.380" UserId="144" />
  <row Id="257" PostId="227" Score="1" Text="Sorry, I've never dealt with fish. That would make a good question on its own." CreationDate="2013-02-01T13:17:49.000" UserId="66" />
  <row Id="15403" PostId="227" Score="0" Text="`Biogas digester` link is down." CreationDate="2022-01-01T08:31:17.530" UserId="13592" />
  <row Id="266" PostId="228" Score="2" Text="As a side note.  You can put a compost pipe in the middle of your grow beds.  A 6&quot; pipe for example perforated at the end that is submerged in the grow bed.  Worms will go into the pipe during flood cycles and break down the organic waste.  Then during drain cycles they will go into the substrate of the grow bed and continue spreading their goodness.  The power of worms in AP is awesome!" CreationDate="2013-02-01T16:34:12.523" UserId="45" />
  <row Id="319" PostId="228" Score="0" Text="@AndrewSiemer This would be a great answer" CreationDate="2013-02-02T14:59:39.497" UserId="153" />
  <row Id="13710" PostId="228" Score="0" Text="Could we use vegetable compost to feed fishes If so how much quantity have to be given to 1ht Thank you" CreationDate="2021-07-08T08:03:13.427" UserId="9923" />
  <row Id="2073" PostId="229" Score="4" Text="Are the fumes only toxic for health? I &quot;thought&quot; they were very polluting as well." CreationDate="2013-07-20T14:37:06.543" UserId="264" />
  <row Id="2867" PostId="229" Score="2" Text="This also does not address whether All types of plastics can be melted safely or what kinds of plastics are worth melting." CreationDate="2014-02-07T23:21:21.987" UserId="1104" />
  <row Id="265" PostId="232" Score="3" Text="At my home, temperature-controlled air escapes **into** the apartment, because common areas are at a higher temperature than I keep mine, and despite living in a climate with temperatures dropping below -20°C, I often have my radiatior switched off. Interesting point about the humidifier, I never considered those might actually save energy." CreationDate="2013-02-01T16:15:28.493" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="270" PostId="232" Score="0" Text="&quot;vampire energy&quot; may be a wash, if you're already using electric heat." CreationDate="2013-02-01T17:16:35.527" UserId="27" />
  <row Id="271" PostId="232" Score="6" Text="Humidifier may be a bad choice, if you live in a marine climate or other naturally humid area. Also, if you get condensation on your windows, you'll likely get black mold. Manage your humidity carefully." CreationDate="2013-02-01T17:18:43.210" UserId="27" />
  <row Id="1425" PostId="232" Score="0" Text="Assuming the question is asking about Chicago, IL, USA, the advice about curtains may be incorrect, or incomplete.  Sunlight coming in through glass windows is the original &quot;greenhouse effect&quot;.  Chicago needs heat during more than half the year, so keeping curtains closed during the day is wasting &quot;free&quot; heat.  Curtains should be closed at night for insulation, where there's no sun to soak up.  Your advice is good during the summer, though." CreationDate="2013-05-05T01:30:31.750" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="2031" PostId="232" Score="4" Text="Increasing the refrigerator temperature could be a false economy if the higher temperature means that food spoils more quickly, leading to more wasted food." CreationDate="2013-07-12T22:56:22.387" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="2040" PostId="232" Score="2" Text="I'll add low-flow aerators on top on the showerhead (for your faucets). In the kitchen, I recommend a 1.5 GPM swivel-type aerator, with a pause lever if you have one knob for cold and one for hot, that way you can stop the flow when it's dialed just-right and you'll do it more often.&#xA;In the bathroom, a 1.0 GPM needle-spray one is usually a great application.&#xA;Also, the draft guard for the door is good, but you should focus more on windows and pipe penetrations on the outside wall. One easy piece: remove your A/C in the winter. And in the summer, put some weatherstripping between the two sashes." CreationDate="2013-07-14T22:17:04.150" UserId="671" />
  <row Id="8082" PostId="232" Score="1" Text="Washing your clothes with cold water only might not get them compeltely clean. I woul recommend to clean them at least once in a period with boiled water" CreationDate="2017-01-23T00:38:04.973" UserId="840" />
  <row Id="15806" PostId="233" Score="1" Text="Apologies for not selecting your answer for nearly 10 years." CreationDate="2022-05-27T12:43:11.883" UserId="144" />
  <row Id="1058" PostId="240" Score="0" Text="&quot;It's also a fallacy to assume that ongoing economic growth requires depletion of finite resources.&quot;  Could you please explain this?  Since economic activity requires energy, I would expect that, long-run, ongoing economic growth would require increasing amounts of energy.  (There are certain thermodynamic limits, like the amount of energy required to boil water for cooking for example).  Is there an infinite amount of energy available or do we count that?" CreationDate="2013-03-24T12:54:00.140" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="2749" PostId="240" Score="0" Text="@EnergyNumbers I wish to offer further consideration of 1st your point: &quot;our&quot; (every country's) economy absolutely *does* need growth.  Were it not to grow (or at least attempt to), I would scarcely recognize it as *our* economy.  I do not think this is a merely rhetorical issue.  Whether or not it *should* is the point that you raise.  However, the OP specifically cites a rationale for assuming increasing resource requirements, so I would be interested to see any specific citations you could offer for the idea that economic growth does not require depletion of resources." CreationDate="2014-01-17T11:53:15.630" UserId="975" />
  <row Id="362" PostId="241" Score="1" Text="image courtesy of http://www.renewableenergyadvisor.co.uk/knowledge-base/mvhr" CreationDate="2013-02-04T03:20:41.390" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="292" PostId="242" Score="0" Text="I would assume it takes even more energy to grow a tree from the compost and convert that into paper again. Maybe that means recycling is better. I don't have any numbers, though." CreationDate="2013-02-01T22:28:09.560" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="293" PostId="242" Score="13" Text="If the bags are the heavier variety, you can probably get a couple of uses out of them -- better than either composting or recycling." CreationDate="2013-02-01T22:41:56.433" UserId="66" />
  <row Id="312" PostId="242" Score="0" Text="The question to ask here, imo, is what do you get out of composting paper?" CreationDate="2013-02-02T13:01:17.847" UserId="83" />
  <row Id="313" PostId="242" Score="0" Text="Interesting. It seems there is more beneficial to compost paper than I thought." CreationDate="2013-02-02T13:06:20.887" UserId="83" />
  <row Id="316" PostId="242" Score="8" Text="Probably the better option is to remember to bring your own bag to the market and eliminate the need for the paper bag altogether." CreationDate="2013-02-02T14:04:29.010" UserId="152" />
  <row Id="8356" PostId="242" Score="0" Text="What about a partially dyed paper bag like a McDonald's take out bag? (Aside from the fact that McDonald's is a food sustainability nightmare...) In case anyone hasn't seen one of these bags, they are about 25% dyed by surface area." CreationDate="2017-03-26T03:20:28.200" UserId="4405" />
  <row Id="8357" PostId="242" Score="0" Text="@AlexCoe if you'd like to ask about the effect of dyes on paper recycling, or on composting, please do [ask that as a new question](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/ask) in its own right" CreationDate="2017-03-26T08:46:44.217" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="314" PostId="246" Score="3" Text="My take on this is that it's more sustainable to reduce. Use glass mason jars to get peanut butter at a co-op or bulk food store, and reuse the jar over and over again. Then you're not buying a new jar every time you want peanut butter." CreationDate="2013-02-02T13:20:20.877" UserId="142" />
  <row Id="12800" PostId="246" Score="0" Text="The city you live in matters a lot here.  If your cities water supply is mainly rainwater then wash all you want, but if it's aquifer then don't (and probably move elsewhere if you can, Americas aquifers are drying up at an alarming rate and you don't want to be caught out)." CreationDate="2020-08-24T23:00:27.413" UserId="5479" />
  <row Id="303" PostId="247" Score="5" Text="Make your own deodorant ;) No kidding, there is a supposedly [great recipe](http://thehumbledhomemaker.com/2012/10/natural-homemade-deodorant-recipe.html) using coconut oil and baking soda as base and any essential oil for fragrance. Works better than most commercial deodorants, which is not hard to believe." CreationDate="2013-02-02T08:32:27.300" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="304" PostId="248" Score="3" Text="I find myself very sceptical that *Sansevieria trifasciata* converts CO2 into O2 at night. Perhaps a question for biology.SE" CreationDate="2013-02-02T08:48:46.717" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="367" PostId="248" Score="10" Text="ok, [I checked on Biology.SE](http://biology.stackexchange.com/q/7016/925) - *Sansevieria trifasciata* is one of 6% of plant species that absorb CO2 at night; but the conversion to O2 is done during the day: photosynthesis requires light." CreationDate="2013-02-04T05:19:51.027" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="438" PostId="249" Score="5" Text="In Germany I know that the city is quite happy for you to use potable water for dishing, even more than necessary. The water gets &quot;recycled&quot; in the treatment plant anyway, but the German people have become so efficient at saving water that the sewage pipes get clogged and the city has to do what the people don't: flush the pipes with great amounts of (potable) water. In a city like that, more important than using too much water is polluting that water with chemicals, which are harder or impossible to treat. That is to say, don't try to wash and recycle paint buckets..." CreationDate="2013-02-06T08:40:06.980" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="517" PostId="249" Score="0" Text="Thanks for pointing out the presupposition that I would use potable water -- I changed the title to reflect the day-to-day dilemma. I'll start thinking about what we could do to use non-potable water in these cases." CreationDate="2013-02-07T22:32:43.277" UserId="146" />
  <row Id="610" PostId="250" Score="0" Text="See answers to the [same question on gardening.SE](http://gardening.stackexchange.com/q/5753/51)." CreationDate="2013-02-11T02:52:51.730" UserId="66" />
  <row Id="305" PostId="251" Score="1" Text="The reason there's a minimum length for answers, is to avoid very short answers that give virtually no useful information: particularly when it's an answer that just links to information elsewhere. We're trying to build a body of awesome content **right here**, not links to content elsewhere, which could change or vanish over time." CreationDate="2013-02-02T08:51:00.723" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="308" PostId="251" Score="0" Text="I apologize for that, my bad." CreationDate="2013-02-02T10:00:31.617" UserId="23" />
  <row Id="315" PostId="252" Score="2" Text="I didn't think this as a shopping question, I have read an article about the impact server farms have on the environment and was wondering what the alternatives were. What can someone do to efficiently host a website and have a minimal impact on the environment? Should I host it on my computer and produce my own energy?That's not very easy, and is it the only alternative?Maybe someone has a better idea, that's why I asked." CreationDate="2013-02-02T13:31:01.507" UserId="23" />
  <row Id="385" PostId="252" Score="1" Text="Yeah, this might be a candidate for closing.  Alternately the answer is very simple and you gave it yourself in the question: host it yourself, generate your power.  But that doesn't work for a large traffic website or where you don't have the money to spend on a large bandwidth connection.  But the only other option is to point to providers with a reputation for environmental awareness. But that puts us in the position of trying to sort out green-washing from actual sustainable companies, which is difficult and makes this basically a shopping question." CreationDate="2013-02-04T21:33:35.767" UserId="21" />
  <row Id="8051" PostId="252" Score="0" Text="@DanielBingham I take is more as &quot;what should I look for, and how do I tell greenwash from green?&quot; rather than &quot;please maintain a list of green hosts&quot;." CreationDate="2017-01-17T22:48:43.787" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="331" PostId="253" Score="3" Text="This solution seems to imply polluting the water with the soap or detergent. If you do have a choice, I would advise against it. Biodegradable detergents are better but it is still preferable not to throw them directly into the water. Rather, one should dispose of them in a hole in the ground far from any water." CreationDate="2013-02-03T07:06:44.643" UserId="155" />
  <row Id="332" PostId="253" Score="2" Text="The solution from photo is without any detergents." CreationDate="2013-02-03T07:40:18.920" UserId="5" />
  <row Id="375" PostId="253" Score="1" Text="Yes, the choice of people forced by poor economy is not necessarily a more sustainable one." CreationDate="2013-02-04T13:08:13.810" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="322" PostId="261" Score="2" Text="wow!!! this forum is so amazing! I feel so much better to have these questions answered...I dont think I know anyone around who'd imagine ....thanks a ton for your answer...Based on your link I will try to find out and update what Ive done...." CreationDate="2013-02-02T17:56:03.377" UserId="147" />
  <row Id="335" PostId="261" Score="1" Text="@Vikram: Don't forget to mark an answer as accepted; it acts as an extra thank you. :-)" CreationDate="2013-02-03T10:50:32.483" UserId="71" />
  <row Id="379" PostId="261" Score="0" Text="@Martijn done :)" CreationDate="2013-02-04T16:28:56.330" UserId="147" />
  <row Id="11492" PostId="261" Score="0" Text="Be careful with baking soda.  It is alkaline and seems to (sometimes after a delay of months) cause serious skin reactions in many people.  I use a 50-50 (by volume) mix of coconut oil and cornstarch (with some essential oils) which works for me.  If you start to get sore from a baking soda deodorant, stop using it immediately!" CreationDate="2019-09-25T08:48:02.383" UserId="1445" />
  <row Id="2033" PostId="262" Score="1" Text="Don't forget to include personal transport - each gallon of gas contains 34KWh of energy. So if you can conserve 10 gallons of gas a month by using alternative transport, you may be saving more energy than your entire apartment's electrical consumption." CreationDate="2013-07-12T23:01:24.797" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="2037" PostId="262" Score="0" Text="@Johnny, that's true, but is also quite clearly outside the scope of this question.  We have other questions on the site about saving energy in transportation, but this one asked about energy saving opportunities in the apartment." CreationDate="2013-07-13T08:13:48.653" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="9821" PostId="262" Score="0" Text="Danubian. This is a good answer - you are absolutely right than energy efficiency is not just about buying new stuff. I am not sure how relevant the first part about water efficiency is to the question. Self-restraint and being conscious of the impact of things we take for granted is important.That does not mean that to be environmentally conscious you have to reject modern life and the joys that scientific progress has made altogether." CreationDate="2018-06-18T16:00:13.607" UserId="5361" />
  <row Id="6917" PostId="263" Score="1" Text="+1 I also put my paper (mostly corrugated cardboard though) on my veggie beds to suppress weeds and help keep moisture in. They do tend to compost *in situ* given enough time :-)" CreationDate="2016-05-17T17:11:13.790" UserId="3401" />
  <row Id="372" PostId="265" Score="2" Text="The answer below is great, and I also saw this link which has some insight: http://www.compostguy.com/winter-composting/" CreationDate="2013-02-04T09:03:28.050" UserId="142" />
  <row Id="373" PostId="265" Score="1" Text="Here's another good resource: http://earth911.com/news/2010/12/06/guide-to-composting-in-the-winter/" CreationDate="2013-02-04T09:04:36.800" UserId="142" />
  <row Id="328" PostId="267" Score="0" Text="I don't think that there is really a maximum size.  I do wonder about how small a stove can be and still be effective." CreationDate="2013-02-03T00:38:12.170" UserId="153" />
  <row Id="361" PostId="267" Score="0" Text="Have you looked at [Rocket Mass Heaters][http://www.amazon.com/Rocket-Mass-Heaters-Superefficient-Woodstoves/dp/0966373839] by Ianto Evans, et. al.? It's a good place to start." CreationDate="2013-02-04T03:03:46.783" UserId="27" />
  <row Id="363" PostId="267" Score="0" Text="Thanks @JayBazuzi, no I haven't, though it sounds like an interesting read. I'm really looking to do something much simpler just to cook with outdoors, so it might be overkill to start there. Note also the link is broken for me (but the title and author are enough to find it)." CreationDate="2013-02-04T03:57:33.280" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="365" PostId="267" Score="0" Text="Grr, writing MarkDown in comments is a pain - no preview, and if you make a mistake you can only edit in a short time. Sorry 'bout that." CreationDate="2013-02-04T04:42:44.873" UserId="27" />
  <row Id="366" PostId="267" Score="0" Text="Small outdoor rocket cookstoves are much simpler than indoor heating stoves with high thermal mass. Whew!" CreationDate="2013-02-04T04:43:23.613" UserId="27" />
  <row Id="3652" PostId="267" Score="0" Text="Common practice at SE is to ask only one question at a time. Your question contains four !!" CreationDate="2014-09-09T20:46:04.113" UserId="1688" />
  <row Id="351" PostId="268" Score="1" Text="This question would be on-topic over at [gardening.SE](http://gardening.stackexchange.com/)." CreationDate="2013-02-03T18:21:02.953" UserId="66" />
  <row Id="504" PostId="268" Score="0" Text="I think it's relevant on sustainability" CreationDate="2013-02-07T09:23:14.243" UserId="156" />
  <row Id="333" PostId="271" Score="4" Text="I think you're going to have to narrow this down **a lot** for it to be answerable: people write whole books about this question as it is currently phrased." CreationDate="2013-02-03T07:41:59.447" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="341" PostId="271" Score="0" Text="Thanks. As someone who's new to the SE model, is it more appropriate to edit the original question or submit a modified version as a new question?" CreationDate="2013-02-03T15:35:29.530" UserId="33" />
  <row Id="343" PostId="271" Score="0" Text="Try editing this one. If it gets buried by downvotes and close votes, then submit as a new question. If you want, come over to chat to try to knock the question into shape. It might take a little time, but we'll get there." CreationDate="2013-02-03T16:00:36.453" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="344" PostId="271" Score="1" Text="&quot;people write whole books about this question&quot; - it's the life's work of many people!" CreationDate="2013-02-03T17:58:33.250" UserId="27" />
  <row Id="345" PostId="271" Score="1" Text="It's an interesting question, but broad questions like this can only be discussed, not *answered,* per se. As such, these type of talking-points and discussion questions are better asked in a discussion forum or chat room. It's just not well-suited to *this* type of Q&amp;A site." CreationDate="2013-02-03T18:00:28.190" UserId="117" />
  <row Id="347" PostId="271" Score="0" Text="Hokay. I feel like there are metrics that would allow a solid quantitative answer, but I take your point. Another etiquette question: is it appropriate to delete the question or leave it here closed?" CreationDate="2013-02-03T18:04:26.913" UserId="33" />
  <row Id="1592" PostId="271" Score="0" Text="@AlexanderTD I saw your last comment only now. If you add the text '@&lt;username&gt;' to a post that person gets a notification about your comment (just like I did at the start of this comment). As to your question on deleting or leaving it closed; it doesn't matter. There are no answers to this question so you can delete it yourself if you want, or just leave it for now in case you do decide to edit and reopen it." CreationDate="2013-05-19T12:44:13.407" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="336" PostId="275" Score="0" Text="I think there might be in theory depending on the kind of heat loss: radiative or convective, but I think in practice it doesn't matter. Not sure." CreationDate="2013-02-03T12:38:15.213" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="340" PostId="275" Score="2" Text="Concerning the aspect of insulation *materials* in the narrow sense: They just induce a &quot;temperature gap&quot;, it doesn't matter which side is the hot and which is the cold one. But this covers only the conductive part of heat transport." CreationDate="2013-02-03T15:34:08.563" UserId="116" />
  <row Id="342" PostId="275" Score="1" Text="I think @EnergyNumber's is just perfect.&#xA;The interesting part is the different transport mechanisms involved when it's either too cold or too hot inside." CreationDate="2013-02-03T15:40:37.457" UserId="116" />
  <row Id="7752" PostId="275" Score="0" Text="Related: http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/5662/48" CreationDate="2016-11-29T06:38:51.770" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="346" PostId="281" Score="0" Text="Any answer to this question is going to be a guess (with the information given), and can only apply locally as prices and availability of materials vary." CreationDate="2013-02-03T18:03:18.590" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="348" PostId="281" Score="0" Text="The most economically sensible option will always be to externalize your costs, which is why need a sustainability movement in the first place!" CreationDate="2013-02-03T18:11:27.473" UserId="27" />
  <row Id="352" PostId="281" Score="0" Text="That might work for me, but externalizing costs isn't a society-wide solution - so the question remains as to whether it's a good idea for individuals to pursue this sort of upgrade." CreationDate="2013-02-03T18:22:36.827" UserId="33" />
  <row Id="353" PostId="281" Score="1" Text="take the temperature of the water in the waste pipe (or put the plug in while you shower, then take its temperature) - I think you might be surprised by how low it is" CreationDate="2013-02-03T18:48:06.740" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="354" PostId="281" Score="1" Text="@HighlyIrregular while you're right that an answer that only addressed the specifics would be too localised, a good answer should address the conceptual issues - the components of the economic and physics calculations - and would therefore be useful to anyone asking a similar question, whatever their bathing habits. So this question is not too localised: but some answers could be." CreationDate="2013-02-03T18:54:36.570" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="2091" PostId="281" Score="0" Text="Along the lines of EnergyNumbers' comment, your drain plumbing really is a heat exchanger already. It's just not exchanging heat *directly* into new hot water. But, it's heating your home, via the drain pipes. If you have a good bit of piping between your shower, and the point drainwater leaves the house, you may already be reclaiming most of the heat. Besides, plumbing generally goes downward, so, that increases the effect of warming what's below you, which will passively leak heat back up into your living space.  Of course, &quot;efficiency&quot; here depends on how often waste heat is useful/desired." CreationDate="2013-07-22T10:40:31.570" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="370" PostId="282" Score="1" Text="Do you know a gardener? Have you considered a P-patch?" CreationDate="2013-02-04T05:25:46.560" UserId="27" />
  <row Id="530" PostId="283" Score="2" Text="This would heat all the incoming water? Because you may also want to have cold water from the tap." CreationDate="2013-02-08T11:14:17.400" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="531" PostId="283" Score="1" Text="@mart: Thanks for an idea, 1.) see my update.  &#xA;2.) Even without splitting the incoming water before the system it would be bearable. This system heats water only if the draining/leaving water is warm. If you use use mostly cold water, you get the same temperature. But if there is somebody taking a shower, then all the water (cold too) would be warmer. So it depends on how cold tap water you require and when." CreationDate="2013-02-08T11:39:45.293" UserId="60" />
  <row Id="533" PostId="283" Score="2" Text="I'm surprised there is no discussion of the embodied energy of that much copper.  Regardless of cost, how long does it take the energy saved from hot water to equal the energy needed to produce the copper?" CreationDate="2013-02-08T13:08:51.960" UserId="87" />
  <row Id="583" PostId="283" Score="0" Text="If you mean your question seriously, post it via http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/ask. It might be constructive." CreationDate="2013-02-08T22:50:36.087" UserId="60" />
  <row Id="2305" PostId="283" Score="2" Text="@half-integerfan perhaps aluminum could replace copper, but you loose about 40% conductivity according to Wikipedia. Then a clever design would be required to mantain a high efficiency. Also consider that the device can stay in place for 10s of years." CreationDate="2013-09-23T10:15:19.133" UserId="278" />
  <row Id="11850" PostId="283" Score="0" Text="This device will put a cap on your hot water flow. This may be a problem if you have tankless heater." CreationDate="2019-11-19T15:26:58.137" UserId="8149" />
  <row Id="358" PostId="284" Score="3" Text="+1 for Make soap! That would turn it into something useful, and can use up a sizable volume." CreationDate="2013-02-03T21:25:51.740" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="368" PostId="284" Score="2" Text="Instead of mixing in to compost, mix the ash directly in to soil where you are growing things. It is rich in potassium (&quot;potash&quot;, right?), so it makes a good soil amendment." CreationDate="2013-02-04T05:23:48.430" UserId="27" />
  <row Id="369" PostId="284" Score="8" Text="If you mix ash and water (which many of these items suggest), you are making lye. It's such a powerful base that it can be dangerous." CreationDate="2013-02-04T05:24:43.503" UserId="27" />
  <row Id="11760" PostId="284" Score="0" Text="I strongly advise against making lye soap at home. If you do, do not use it on humans but maybe to wash dishes or clothes or floors." CreationDate="2019-11-15T15:24:03.760" UserId="8149" />
  <row Id="762" PostId="287" Score="0" Text="Do you have any resources on different embers/ashes of paper? I attribute the trouble with residue chimney tar more to lower temperature of fire than to burning paper itself." CreationDate="2013-02-17T21:17:46.387" UserId="60" />
  <row Id="1157" PostId="287" Score="1" Text="maybe it would be a good idea to gather the technical challenges of cleanly burning paper in a separate question." CreationDate="2013-04-03T09:36:41.450" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="8557" PostId="287" Score="1" Text="Paper, depending on how it is sourced, may be contaminated with plastic tape and plastic coatings too, which I understand when burned may produce air pollution containing dangerous compounds such as dioxin." CreationDate="2017-05-31T01:17:48.250" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="3653" PostId="289" Score="0" Text="This design is based purely for cooking. The double air in-let will allow for easy supply of wood, without blocking the air flow. The cooking stove blocks the air release of the hot air, thus creating a more intense heat. I don't think it reaches the same efficiency levels as the Rocket Stove does." CreationDate="2014-09-09T20:59:49.577" UserId="1688" />
  <row Id="10291" PostId="289" Score="0" Text="The diagram shows a L tube feed which is confusing if you're calling it a J shaped chimney.  The U shape you talk about is called the J tube feed." CreationDate="2018-10-17T06:52:27.397" UserId="5517" />
  <row Id="390" PostId="291" Score="1" Text="+1 I like the broken freezer idea. You have to be careful not to break it's walls while manipulating the content." CreationDate="2013-02-04T22:23:38.747" UserId="60" />
  <row Id="384" PostId="293" Score="0" Text="We throw everything into our compost.  Even the waxy coated stuff.  It does all break down (eventually, the waxy stuff takes longer).  I do worry about what harmful chemicals we might be introducing in the inks or the waxes." CreationDate="2013-02-04T21:25:46.893" UserId="21" />
  <row Id="398" PostId="293" Score="3" Text="Sawdust is good. Find an arborist, sawmill, or woodworker in your area. They'll give it away for free. Be careful with planar shavings, they take forever to break down." CreationDate="2013-02-05T06:18:59.177" UserId="27" />
  <row Id="406" PostId="293" Score="1" Text="@DanielBingham: you might be interested in two questions related to composting &quot;waxy coated stuff&quot;: [&quot;Cereal boxes for mulch?&quot;](http://gardening.stackexchange.com/questions/1060/cereal-boxes-for-mulch/1066#1066) and [&quot;Can these non-food items be composted?&quot;](http://gardening.stackexchange.com/questions/3490/can-these-non-food-items-be-composted/3495#3495) relating to" CreationDate="2013-02-05T14:02:25.567" UserId="66" />
  <row Id="426" PostId="293" Score="2" Text="Just to note, glossy paper usually has more harmful inks than newsprint (which usually has soy-based ink)." CreationDate="2013-02-06T04:13:08.787" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="459" PostId="293" Score="1" Text="@JayBazuzi Indeed sawdust will make a good brown. Just make sure it isn't from chemically treated wood and mix it good with greens because otherwise it tends to clog up and compact." CreationDate="2013-02-06T14:08:21.430" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="402" PostId="294" Score="0" Text="I think that the biggest advantage of posting on gardening SE is that you're much more likely to get several good answers. And there's nothing in the question that ties it in uniquely to sustainability." CreationDate="2013-02-05T06:53:52.323" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="378" PostId="295" Score="2" Text="But the material also wouldn't decompose, right? So starting to save organic material (rather than throwing it away) might make sense, just without any expectation that it will do much until things warm up." CreationDate="2013-02-04T15:57:13.133" UserId="33" />
  <row Id="393" PostId="295" Score="0" Text="Can you define medium-sized?" CreationDate="2013-02-05T02:11:46.310" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="458" PostId="295" Score="0" Text="@HighlyIrregular 350-400 liters" CreationDate="2013-02-06T14:00:52.850" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="412" PostId="296" Score="0" Text="Interesting... but wouldn't this approach mean a high quantity of nitrates and other organic compounds getting into the water? I realise 'some' is good, but getting the balance right with the fish and other plants might be tricky - any thoughts?" CreationDate="2013-02-05T18:26:50.680" UserId="159" />
  <row Id="683" PostId="297" Score="2" Text="-1 as I think the solar irradiance data seems to outdated. You should get better results when using something like PVGIS." CreationDate="2013-02-14T10:21:52.550" UserId="199" />
  <row Id="15597" PostId="297" Score="0" Text="According to a 2017 paper @bmu, looking at an actual 2GW solar installation, the NASA-SSE (2002) prediction was within 4.74% of the recorded value, whereas PVGIS-CMSAF (2007) was within 4.26%, so very little improvement. Now if any of the public tools had access to better datasets, this could go down to 2.66%, 1.10% or even 0.35%, but these don't appear to be an option with the tools you suggested in [your answer](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/a/466/164)." CreationDate="2022-02-14T09:49:16.173" UserId="164" />
  <row Id="9869" PostId="298" Score="0" Text="The calculator has moved here: https://pvwatts.nrel.gov/" CreationDate="2018-06-25T19:11:40.970" UserId="5835" />
  <row Id="391" PostId="302" Score="2" Text="This might be more appropriate in gardening.SE. I see there's already some [info there on blueberries](http://gardening.stackexchange.com/q/2323/715), though possibly not (yet) what you're looking for." CreationDate="2013-02-04T23:28:38.087" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="392" PostId="302" Score="1" Text="We're having a discussion in meta (http://meta.sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/3/where-do-we-draw-the-line-between-sustainable-living-and-gardening) about the question of the line between Gardening and Sustainability.  Feel free to throw in your 2 cents!" CreationDate="2013-02-04T23:56:30.200" UserId="21" />
  <row Id="401" PostId="302" Score="0" Text="I think that the biggest advantage of posting on gardening SE is that you're much more likely to get several good answers. And there's nothing in the question that ties it in uniquely to sustainability." CreationDate="2013-02-05T06:52:29.083" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="407" PostId="302" Score="0" Text="@EnergyNumbers Other than it being a question about Permaculture methods?  Permaculture is sustainable agriculture.  That's what makes it sustainability." CreationDate="2013-02-05T14:58:36.940" UserId="21" />
  <row Id="409" PostId="302" Score="0" Text="But it is not *uniquely* about sustainability." CreationDate="2013-02-05T16:27:54.490" UserId="71" />
  <row Id="410" PostId="302" Score="0" Text="What would make it *uniquely* about sustainability?  If I put the word &quot;sustainable&quot; in there?  That seems to be our benchmark at the moment.  There are several mushroom growing questions that should have been closed as gardening.  They aren't about sustainability any more than this question is.  But they used the buzzword and were left open." CreationDate="2013-02-05T17:45:01.910" UserId="21" />
  <row Id="411" PostId="302" Score="0" Text="Actually, most of the questions here that are about lifestyle changes are not uniquely about sustainability.  Questions about energy usage are about reducing your power bill.  That should be a personal finance question (but for the use of the word)." CreationDate="2013-02-05T17:47:08.180" UserId="21" />
  <row Id="415" PostId="302" Score="0" Text="The question isn't about any solution. It's with sustainability in mind if you want to give (not any but) good answer." CreationDate="2013-02-05T21:03:23.770" UserId="60" />
  <row Id="423" PostId="302" Score="1" Text="Here's my $0.02 on why excluding permaculture unless magic words are included in the post (compare my two asparagus posts) is a bad idea.  At it's basis, permaculture is explicitly about sustainability.  It isn't just gardening, it's sustainable gardening with a minimum of physical inputs (labor or materials), stressing re-use and recycling across the board on all levels.  Additionally permaculture, in my mind, trains the mind about sustainability (output of one system being the input of the next) in a way that nothing else does." CreationDate="2013-02-06T00:57:17.500" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="424" PostId="302" Score="1" Text="Just to follow up that last bit, one of the reasons I am a significant advocate of urban permaculture is that it offers this sort of training.  While it may not feed the cities, it provides sustainability training for families and communities of a sort that is both indispensible and irreplaceable." CreationDate="2013-02-06T00:58:22.613" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="433" PostId="302" Score="2" Text="@EnergyNumbers, I have a very hard time imaginging guilding questions of this sort to get a larger number of good answers on a gardening forum than a sustainability forum.  The sort of thinking required to get there is much more the sort that comes up in sustainability discussions than typical gardening." CreationDate="2013-02-06T06:42:12.213" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="397" PostId="305" Score="0" Text="I have access to horse manure (from a nearby paddock), though probably wouldn't get enough to get it to heat up while composting. Would that be likely to matter?" CreationDate="2013-02-05T05:02:22.197" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="400" PostId="305" Score="2" Text="I think the big issue with it not heating up while composting is just that it might take longer to compost to the point where the fungus might thrive.  Manure tends to have significant anti-fungal activity (and is used in folk medicine to treat fungal infections in many parts of the world, no I am not joking)." CreationDate="2013-02-05T06:51:09.923" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="3941" PostId="306" Score="1" Text="Advective losses trump conductive. This means focus on gaps and ignore insulation. Spray foam and foam strips are cheap. DIY." CreationDate="2014-12-27T11:45:26.490" UserId="1928" />
  <row Id="403" PostId="307" Score="0" Text="That's always a good arrangement. I've had this arrangement with numerous landlords and was rarely turned down when requesting something new." CreationDate="2013-02-05T12:22:45.043" UserId="152" />
  <row Id="862" PostId="307" Score="0" Text="Either this or offer to pay for it all yourself are the only options that are likely to fly.  In the SF geography the economic payoff for better insulation is near zero.  However, in SF social climate it may make his property slightly more marketable.  Tell him if there's another Enron he can advertise great insulation to get higher rent." CreationDate="2013-02-22T19:28:42.440" UserId="212" />
  <row Id="414" PostId="308" Score="4" Text="I'm not a fan of #1, unless the landlord is truly neglectful of his tenants and/or the property.  At least not as a first try.  You also forgot the other obvious option in a capitalist society: Move to an apartment with better insulation (probably after telling the current landlord that you will move if he isn't willing to install insulation there)." CreationDate="2013-02-05T20:27:18.947" UserId="40" />
  <row Id="420" PostId="308" Score="0" Text="Moving is not always possible if you are on a lease or in a competitive rental market." CreationDate="2013-02-06T00:10:30.200" UserId="165" />
  <row Id="863" PostId="308" Score="1" Text="#1 would probably work in SF.  For readers in fly over country, be advised such a tactic will probably get you ostracised and later thrown out of the apartment as soon as the lease expires.  Don't be surprised if you get turned down on a lot of rental applications in town.  Many Real Estate Investment Associations keep &quot;problem tenant&quot; lists.  Tactic #1 will certainly get your name on it." CreationDate="2013-02-22T19:32:54.447" UserId="212" />
  <row Id="1062" PostId="308" Score="1" Text="One real problem with #1 thought is that regulation has energy costs.  The city has to hire people for enforcement, permit processing, etc. and these people use energy in their work, use energy to get from home to work, etc.  A highly regulated society requires a lot of cheap energy to function (why Rome managed via pillaging and we do ok with fossil fuels).  I am not sure it is sustainable.  Agreed on the other options though." CreationDate="2013-03-25T05:20:08.117" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="8581" PostId="308" Score="0" Text="#1 Licensing is a bad idea as it will increase the cost of the unit.  The landlord has to pay to get licensed. Then he has to pay to bring the unit into conformance with the requirements outlined in his license. That all costs money. He will recoup this money by charging the tenant more money. Insulation is not free.  Want cheap rent get a place without insulation." CreationDate="2017-06-06T16:41:58.080" UserId="3047" />
  <row Id="534" PostId="311" Score="3" Text="Note that this depends entirely on whether you keep your spaces warmer or colder than your neighbors.  If you are conservation minded it is likely that you keep it colder than your neighbors, so you would have a net gain of heat.  To first order, if you have neighbors both above and below, you will gain from below an equal amount to what you lose to the above, if all thermostats are set the same." CreationDate="2013-02-08T13:23:54.633" UserId="87" />
  <row Id="461" PostId="312" Score="0" Text="That's a fascinating paper, thanks. I believe that there may be significant party cavities, so this could be worth investigating." CreationDate="2013-02-06T14:12:25.213" UserId="164" />
  <row Id="464" PostId="312" Score="0" Text="Anecdotal; but one year when the people living in the apartment above mine kept their living areas ~10F hotter than I prefer mine was generally several degrees hotter than what I normally expected during the periods of the year when I was able to regulate it by how far I had the windows open/how fast I had fans running.  Given the general cheapness of the buildings construction I doubt there's any insulation in my ceiling/their floor." CreationDate="2013-02-06T15:01:02.277" UserId="193" />
  <row Id="422" PostId="313" Score="1" Text="My knowledge of current recycling scenarios in the US is relatively abridged but I believe it used to be the case that lots would be inspected, unwashed, and too dirty lots would be discarded.  I agree that washing done at home is the entire issue, and we'd do better to have it centrally done.  Whether or not that's the case may depend on the recycling program." CreationDate="2013-02-06T00:51:40.130" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="8839" PostId="313" Score="1" Text="I have seen recycling fora mention rinsing containers is better because it keeps pests and odors away, while they are stored at home before disposing them. I find it's applicable to me, a small town ( in India),where there are no daily collection mechanisms. I have to store for months before I can find a way to responsibly dispose or make crafts to reuse them. Even otherwise, some advise it's better to collect similar waste of a bigger quantity, that means home storage. But, I have also wondered while rinsing whether the water is costlier, so I (should) use minimal water for a quick rinse." CreationDate="2017-09-18T07:13:58.520" UserId="2734" />
  <row Id="413" PostId="314" Score="2" Text="what's a stacked AP system? Any chance of a diagram? Just to give those of us with no idea, what the question is about. I know that you know; and I know that anyone who could answer it would know; but this is a public Q&amp;A, and it will make for interesting reading for those, like me, who can't tell a stacked AP from a double bassoon." CreationDate="2013-02-05T20:17:23.270" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="430" PostId="314" Score="0" Text="I assume stacked AP = Stacked Aquaponics?" CreationDate="2013-02-06T05:47:07.970" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="8716" PostId="316" Score="0" Text="&quot;You've already got most of the energy savings that you're going to get, from the double-glazing&quot;. 2G varies wildly in performance, [from Uw=3.1 to Uw=1.7](https://www.pilkington.com/~/media/Pilkington/Site%20Content/UK/Reference/TableofDefaultUValues.ashx) (both values approximate) which means if you go from low performance 2G to high performance you can half the energy loss. So I'm not sure I agree with that. Of course, best to replace with 3G if you're going to do it." CreationDate="2017-08-09T10:22:44.220" UserId="2617" />
  <row Id="8717" PostId="319" Score="0" Text="&quot;but a generic solution or set of solutions for the millions of homes that share the significant features with mine&quot; The world's governments would love such a solution; sadly there is none. All retrofit has to be done on a house by house basis (if it's to be done properly and not be at risk from future defect)." CreationDate="2017-08-09T10:37:05.220" UserId="2617" />
  <row Id="10141" PostId="319" Score="0" Text="Note that biomass is not sustainable at all, the particulate matter is atrocious, [worse than a diesel engine](https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/feb/22/wood-diesel-indoor-stoves-cities-pollution) and causing [250,000 casualties per year](https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/2014JD021861)." CreationDate="2018-09-07T17:14:50.457" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="10143" PostId="319" Score="0" Text="A conventional wood stove is a pretty big polluter.  There are other kinds of wood stoves, though, some of which use considerably less fuel and produce considerably less pollution (which go pretty well together since most pollution from wood burning is just wasted fuel)." CreationDate="2018-09-07T18:18:01.763" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="10147" PostId="319" Score="0" Text="@EnergyNumbers No acceptable answer in five and a half years?  Perhaps it's time to either lock the question or update/re-work it so that it can be answered?" CreationDate="2018-09-08T06:24:55.420" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="432" PostId="320" Score="2" Text="Questions of this type are typical at [Gardening.SE.](http://gardening.stackexchange.com)" CreationDate="2013-02-06T06:27:04.110" UserId="108" />
  <row Id="421" PostId="323" Score="0" Text="When I was in middle school I did a science fair project on vinegar's effect on pigmentation in various vegetables.  I was actually interested in following up on the color changes in red cabbage, but I found something else.  Vinegar seems to reduce the color of &quot;green&quot; juices of veggies (I don't know whether it's chlorophyll or something else that it neutralizes).  Usually the result is more orange." CreationDate="2013-02-06T00:47:45.987" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="417" PostId="326" Score="2" Text="You forgot reuse - plastic bottles can be reused, in fact, a lot of the bottles I use in my house are old cold drink bottles" CreationDate="2013-02-05T23:19:59.320" UserId="83" />
  <row Id="419" PostId="326" Score="1" Text="Are you asking strictly about buying drinks as products in a store?" CreationDate="2013-02-05T23:49:10.773" UserId="27" />
  <row Id="2165" PostId="326" Score="3" Text="The extra weight and breakage in transit of glass needs to be included. A plastic or aluminium container for 500ml of water weighs 10-20 grams, while an equivalent glass bottle weighs about 300g (via Alibaba). Also, same question here: http://articles.philly.com/2012-07-23/news/32805629_1_pet-bottles-plastic-bottles-glass-bottles" CreationDate="2013-08-05T04:53:35.413" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2166" PostId="326" Score="2" Text="A lot depends on where manufacturing happens - a glass bottle made in China, shipped to Italy, filled with wine then shipped to New York is going to lose out hugely to a paper-and-aluminium cask made in China+USA, filled in California and shipped to New York." CreationDate="2013-08-05T04:57:53.613" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3170" PostId="326" Score="0" Text="@Mσᶎ and Jay: I guess I limited my question to the choice I have to make if I see the exact same drink, same volume, but in three different containers in a shop: what should I choose if I want to make the most sustainable choice considering (1) availability of raw material, (2) enviro. cost of first production, (3) enviro. cost of recycling the material, (4) pollution if released in enviro. and  (5) enviro. cost of transport, assuming that all sites involved (production, bottling, sale and recycling) are the same (and fairly local) for the 3 streams, and that I use the container only once. :)" CreationDate="2014-04-02T05:57:19.520" UserId="80" />
  <row Id="4150" PostId="326" Score="0" Text="I would like to know how the case is for TetraPaks. They can be recycled to some extend." CreationDate="2015-02-23T22:15:36.763" UserId="1319" />
  <row Id="15238" PostId="329" Score="0" Text="Nice. How big is your compost pile? I have a worm bin that's 60cm across (15&quot;) and it used to have a coconut hair mat to serve the same purpose. But it got disgustingly slimy. Never thought of using straw." CreationDate="2021-11-11T17:50:28.870" UserId="13189" />
  <row Id="2193" PostId="332" Score="3" Text="At least you can use wood shavings for mulch. I put twigs, branches, and small solid wood carpentry waste through a wood chipper and spread it around the hedge at the back of the house." CreationDate="2013-08-13T16:36:49.617" UserId="227" />
  <row Id="2155" PostId="333" Score="6" Text="Your intuition served you well! [From this source](http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/the_green_lantern/2008/03/wear_green_drink_greenly.html), the energy to create a new soda can is about twice that of a glass bottle, so 2 * 0.05 is still less energy than 1 * 0.70. Aluminum cans are more sustainable from a pure energy standpoint. See [Chris's answer](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/a/334/486) and my comment below it for another derivation of this figure." CreationDate="2013-08-03T21:43:08.347" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="2167" PostId="333" Score="1" Text="Number of re-use cycles for glass bottles is much higher though, so even allowing for reuse energy I think glass would be lower. Not enough to matter, but lower :)" CreationDate="2013-08-05T04:59:17.387" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2173" PostId="333" Score="1" Text="@Ӎσᶎ Can you cite a reference to support your claim on use cycles for glass greatly exceeding aluminum?" CreationDate="2013-08-05T22:21:17.390" UserId="20" />
  <row Id="2174" PostId="333" Score="1" Text="WilliamKF: no, because I can't find a reference to commercial reuse of aluminium containers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reuse_of_bottles, for example, only talks about glass bottles being designed for reuse. http://www.banthebottle.net/articles/battle-of-the-reusable-bottles-plastic-vs-aluminum-vs-stainless-steel/ suggests that reusable aluminium bottles are problematic. Stainless steel is the other main food-grade reusable container (beer kegs, for example), but seems to be rarely used at a consumer level." CreationDate="2013-08-05T23:09:01.053" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2175" PostId="333" Score="0" Text="if you mean recycle cycles, I suspect but don't know that glass, steel and aluminium are all effectively infinite, but stainless steel might be harder to recycle rather than downcycle because of the precise alloying requirements. Aluminium food containers are probably less fussy about alloying (speculation on my part) allowing easier recycling." CreationDate="2013-08-05T23:11:25.060" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2176" PostId="333" Score="0" Text="@WilliamKF, if I understand the comment, I'm pretty sure Ӎσᶎ is just claiming that glass bottles can be reused, whereas aluminum cans are pretty much **only** recycled.  Al cans dent easily, and since recycling only consumes 5% of the energy that making new cans costs, it just makes sense to recycle.  I believe both materials recycle almost indefinitely without loss of material performance.  Glass, however, does require some sorting." CreationDate="2013-08-06T08:29:16.430" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="2538" PostId="333" Score="0" Text="I would personally pick glass over aluminum because glass can be shattered and mixed back into the Earth, but aluminum cans on the other hand need to be processed." CreationDate="2013-12-04T01:22:06.633" UserId="945" />
  <row Id="5305" PostId="333" Score="0" Text="The link is broken, [this](http://homeguides.sfgate.com/energy-recycle-glass-bottles-vs-aluminum-cans-vs-plastic-79276.html) seems to be the new location (or a copy of the original)." CreationDate="2016-01-13T13:50:10.007" UserId="2821" />
  <row Id="6719" PostId="333" Score="0" Text="IDK, I turn a plastic bottle into a [spoon](http://www.foodandwine.com/fwx/secrets/how-turn-plastic-bottle-spoon).  I can break the glass bottle and make a [spear](http://web.prm.ox.ac.uk/weapons/index.php/tour-by-region/oceania/oceania/arms-and-armour-oceania-219).  I can use the can to cut myself while trying to re-purpose it - but I can cook in it. Arguably the glass would weigh more and take the most space (thick walls).  The plastic bottle could crunch up and return to shape better than the can... I guess it all depends." CreationDate="2016-04-07T14:02:14.677" UserId="37" />
  <row Id="2153" PostId="334" Score="3" Text="The equations you show aren't really valid.  The units are all messed up.  The correct equation is `Q = mc(T1-T0)`, but to be consistent, you'd need `T1-T0` in K, not F.  Specific heat is in units of J per G per degree K.  However, since you've made the same mistake in both places, the ratio of the energy to melt down the glass vs. aluminum bottle (~8:1) is about right." CreationDate="2013-08-03T21:28:33.350" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="6720" PostId="334" Score="0" Text="Breaking the glass into bits and cutting up the can would help get you up to temp quicker.  Your calculation is just for the melting part.  Therefore, you need more energy to get the volume up to the temps." CreationDate="2016-04-07T14:13:16.087" UserId="37" />
  <row Id="446" PostId="335" Score="6" Text="Where in the world are you? The answer might depend." CreationDate="2013-02-06T10:44:24.123" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="8404" PostId="336" Score="0" Text="Is this still a valid answer?" CreationDate="2017-04-07T12:46:02.290" UserId="3015" />
  <row Id="8408" PostId="336" Score="0" Text="The provided links are broken, but [this CatalogChoice filter](https://www.catalogchoice.org/?c=sanjose/mailstop/shield) and [DMA’s Mail Preference Service sign-up page](https://dmachoice.thedma.org/MPS/mps_consumer_description.php) seem to work." CreationDate="2017-04-09T05:23:44.353" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="12256" PostId="336" Score="1" Text="@user805981 I went through this process myself and updated this answer to reflect what worked (so far) for me." CreationDate="2020-02-03T14:54:03.043" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="425" PostId="337" Score="19" Text="In Germany most glass bottles are reused (not remanufactured) by law, to which there are some exceptions. Even some thick-walled plastic bottles (mainly mineral water) are re**used**. Other plastic bottles have a 25 cents &quot;refund&quot;, which makes sure that they are recycled properly. In Japan nothing gets reused and little recycled. I guess a good answer must take into account: Do you have to assume that your whole packaging gets remanufactured rather than just reused?" CreationDate="2013-02-06T03:04:26.297" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="505" PostId="337" Score="1" Text="I spent three years living in Germany (I'm from the UK) and there, recycling is done properly. Every nation would benefit from copying their laws and psychology in this regard. One thing to worry about though is the risk of fraud: importing bottles from countries without a levy so as to claim the levy refund." CreationDate="2013-02-07T10:03:26.330" UserId="206" />
  <row Id="938" PostId="337" Score="0" Text="@Nicholas, I did that in US: hauled recycling across the state lines to collect cash refund. Given the amount of work and time, it was not worth it, but if on the way, it is possible to offset some of the fuel costs." CreationDate="2013-03-02T00:13:55.947" UserId="227" />
  <row Id="428" PostId="339" Score="0" Text="Or tea tree based solutions..." CreationDate="2013-02-06T04:58:00.693" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="431" PostId="342" Score="0" Text="I was considering this, as well as rabbits, guinea pigs, and/or goats." CreationDate="2013-02-06T06:10:08.860" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="467" PostId="342" Score="0" Text="@ChrisTravers - Goats are hooved animals which often makes them prohibited in Urban areas." CreationDate="2013-02-06T16:23:26.287" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="471" PostId="342" Score="4" Text="What about expanding your answer? It's too 'dietetic'." CreationDate="2013-02-06T17:08:22.980" UserId="60" />
  <row Id="480" PostId="342" Score="1" Text="How is this a sustainable choice?" CreationDate="2013-02-06T19:01:25.690" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="484" PostId="342" Score="0" Text="@chad What about Poultry is unsustainable?" CreationDate="2013-02-06T19:48:49.953" UserId="21" />
  <row Id="486" PostId="342" Score="2" Text="@DanielBingham - I never said it wasnt... but from the answer I am not sure how it is either." CreationDate="2013-02-06T20:18:33.830" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="1801" PostId="342" Score="0" Text="@DanielBingham, basically, poultry uses significantly more energy (which translates into greenhouse gas), land, and water than a vegetarian diet.  It's not as bad as red meats, but still not sustainable.  The way most fruits and vegetables are grown today isn't sustainable either, but meat and poultry are even worse.  While doing it yourself can avoid some problems (e.g. chemicals), that usually ends up being **less** efficient than Big Ag does it.  I posted more [on your blog here](http://www.theroadgoeson.com/?p=717#disqus_thread).  Would be happy to debate, there or via a question here." CreationDate="2013-06-12T08:23:16.060" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1812" PostId="342" Score="0" Text="I don't buy the argument that it uses more resources to raise meat than vegetables, because the argument is based on measuring the value of meat only in calories.  That's like saying you can measure the energy it took to make an ornate origami paper crane by just burning it." CreationDate="2013-06-12T16:39:49.820" UserId="21" />
  <row Id="1816" PostId="342" Score="0" Text="You can buy it or not. The numbers are the numbers. I  actually agree that measuring only on calories is imperfect, and it actually skews the comparison **in favor of meats** to do so.  People don't eat until they have enough calories.  Most people eat until they feel *full*.  Meats have more calories per unit volume than fruit/veg, which contributes to people actually overeating.  So, not only is producing one calorie of meat less efficient (energy/water/land), we also wind up producing excess calories as a result.  If you have specific needs (e.g. iron deficiency), we have vitamins for that." CreationDate="2013-06-12T20:26:47.070" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1818" PostId="342" Score="0" Text="Regarding your origami comment, no that's wrong, too.  The comparisons measure the energy (and land and water) **inputs**, and then the usable food calorie **outputs**.  It's not just attempting to measure the energy to produce based on the food energy we get out.  If that were true, then every food would &quot;cost&quot; 1 calorie per calorie." CreationDate="2013-06-12T20:40:09.793" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="434" PostId="343" Score="3" Text="How about using LED lights?" CreationDate="2013-02-06T06:52:32.773" UserId="83" />
  <row Id="449" PostId="343" Score="1" Text="Related question: [What is optimal “light management” with common compact fluorescent lamps?](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/54/58). Answers for each question partially (though not completely) answer the other question." CreationDate="2013-02-06T12:02:52.250" UserId="58" />
  <row Id="6741" PostId="343" Score="1" Text="This is SO 2013 :-)  Three years later, and I'm wondering what to do with the half-dozen perfectly good CFLs that I took out of my frequently-used fixtures, so that I could replace them with LEDs.  Probably put them in a shoebox in the garage, next to the box of perfectly good incandescents..." CreationDate="2016-04-14T22:07:52.913" UserId="1937" />
  <row Id="12643" PostId="343" Score="0" Text="Incandescent light bulbs are more environmentally friendly, for some of the reasons you mentioned and more. Don't forget that *you* are part of the environment, too." CreationDate="2020-05-26T18:58:50.807" UserId="8736" />
  <row Id="8409" PostId="344" Score="1" Text="In my experience self-employed people like painters, chimney sweeps and windows washers do not respect a No/No and No/Yes sticker. Also you need to fill out a special form to stop receiving your local phonebook and yellow pages directory (Gouden Gids)" CreationDate="2017-04-09T05:42:22.343" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="12257" PostId="344" Score="0" Text="My experience of 'No Junk Mail' stickers in Australia is mixed - some respect them, some ignore them, and I once watched in dismay as a deliverer dumped a stack of undelivered ones in the local creek. A lot of them are paid a commission based on what they have left at the end of the day/week, so they just don't care about the wider ramifications. As far as the company is concerned, so long as they think they're getting delivered correctly they will continue to print them, so from a sustainability point of view it's a lot better to opt-out entirely rather than rely on 'No junk mail' stickers" CreationDate="2020-02-04T05:21:48.430" UserId="8232" />
  <row Id="436" PostId="345" Score="1" Text="could you provide a source for the numbers?" CreationDate="2013-02-06T08:38:15.470" UserId="83" />
  <row Id="437" PostId="345" Score="0" Text="In your calculation then, it is only about numbers, right?  No consideration given to toxicity of mercury vapor?" CreationDate="2013-02-06T08:39:36.343" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="440" PostId="345" Score="0" Text="@ChrisTravers Yes, it's definitely about the numbers: it's pretty hard to measure and compare things without numbers. Lots of implicit consideration given to mercury: remember, coal power stations emit mercury too. I'll extend the answer when I get time, including sources, but for now, this answer covers the major issues." CreationDate="2013-02-06T08:53:01.733" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="455" PostId="345" Score="0" Text="If the mercury consideration is assuming coal power, then what about if you live in places that get all their electricity from hydro?  At that point there is really no real consideration of heavy metal pollution then, right?" CreationDate="2013-02-06T13:08:46.433" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="457" PostId="345" Score="0" Text="@elssar - The numbers in this article aren't from [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminous_efficacy#Examples_2) but the Wikipedia article does provide citations for most of the numbers there." CreationDate="2013-02-06T13:51:27.770" UserId="164" />
  <row Id="463" PostId="345" Score="1" Text="@ChrisTravers There is indirectly.  In the US power companies are required to take all the renewable power that its providers put into the grid; which means that the hydropower power you're not using because you replaced your incandescent bulbs with CFL/LED lights will reduce the amount of coal/gas burned to provide other people with power, so you're still taking the same amount of fossil fuel power as if you were buying power from a company that burned it directly." CreationDate="2013-02-06T14:54:15.050" UserId="193" />
  <row Id="469" PostId="345" Score="0" Text="@MarkBooth - SE answers are intended to be complete.  Users should not have to go to a secondary site to find sources to corroborate information provided here.  When the sources exists and are appropriate they should be included in the answer" CreationDate="2013-02-06T16:52:12.083" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="472" PostId="345" Score="1" Text="@Chad - Agreed, but failing to properly reference quoted *facts* is, in many cases, worse than not providing those *facts* in the first place. That is why I used a *comment* to suggest a source which *did* include references. This all goes to the [back it up](http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/09/good-subjective-bad-subjective/) principal, which is almost as important as the completeness principal." CreationDate="2013-02-06T17:11:04.193" UserId="164" />
  <row Id="481" PostId="346" Score="2" Text="What does it take to get into aquaponics?  A few good references would improve this answer" CreationDate="2013-02-06T19:03:01.503" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="494" PostId="346" Score="1" Text="Found a reference: have a look at Travis Hughey's [barrel ponics](http://barrel-ponics.com/) (free PDF available on the link)." CreationDate="2013-02-06T23:09:57.483" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="444" PostId="348" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Can you provide a bit more information? What exactly do you mean with &quot;energy-saving windows&quot;?" CreationDate="2013-02-06T10:10:01.600" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="448" PostId="348" Score="0" Text="@THelper: Typical modern PVC profile framed windows with dual glass, [like this](http://www.diytrade.com/china/pd/4840119/pvc_profiles_for_windows_and_doors.html) or [this](http://zctrading.en.made-in-china.com/productimage/TqLJmjwPOlkE-2f0j00RvLaTFwPJlkE/China-PVC-Windows.html) - normal modern windows, as opposed to &quot;antique&quot; wooden-framed, or single glass." CreationDate="2013-02-06T11:48:46.187" UserId="188" />
  <row Id="454" PostId="348" Score="2" Text="short answer: no, they're more valuable as double-glazed sealed units, than as a bodged-together solar thermal thing. Maybe a greenhouse (glasshouse)?" CreationDate="2013-02-06T12:16:12.097" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="453" PostId="349" Score="1" Text="This is quite a mature market, so copying whatever the commercial products do is probably your best bet." CreationDate="2013-02-06T12:15:36.560" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="679" PostId="349" Score="2" Text="Are you sure you should use water as the medium? No freezing all the year?" CreationDate="2013-02-14T07:59:08.423" UserId="60" />
  <row Id="680" PostId="349" Score="0" Text="@PeterIvan: The purpose is utility hot water, for bathing, washing etc. working in parallel with electric tank water heater, so definitely water. On hot days the water would run hotter than what the heater hysteresis level, saving electricity. During unexpected frost water heated by the heater would slowly circulate through the panel keeping it from freezing. Normally, we'd just empty the panel for winter." CreationDate="2013-02-14T08:28:44.667" UserId="188" />
  <row Id="702" PostId="349" Score="3" Text="I'd strongly discourage such the scenario, it's just opposite of sustainable. During night you're going to lose more heat into atmosphere than you collect during the day. And the cost of electricity spent to heat the outside air is just wasting." CreationDate="2013-02-14T16:27:44.067" UserId="60" />
  <row Id="3044" PostId="349" Score="0" Text="@PeterIvan: I can stop the circulation for the night (save for situations of unexpected frost)." CreationDate="2014-03-08T03:11:33.660" UserId="188" />
  <row Id="3171" PostId="349" Score="0" Text="@SF: Surely you can do this, but you'll gradually iterate to some kind of controller with temperature probe(s) and some comparing-switching logic. This is exactly what the basic commercial products do - it's that simple." CreationDate="2014-04-02T06:17:33.657" UserId="60" />
  <row Id="468" PostId="352" Score="0" Text="Are you no longer living in the same place where you successfully grew it outdoors?" CreationDate="2013-02-06T16:35:58.693" UserId="21" />
  <row Id="500" PostId="352" Score="0" Text="Daniel:  For the moment I am but I am looking at moving back to the states at some point and this is a question I figure I would want to have answer before I get back." CreationDate="2013-02-07T01:41:10.500" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="503" PostId="352" Score="0" Text="@bstpierre, can you please post that as an answer?" CreationDate="2013-02-07T05:54:53.410" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="514" PostId="353" Score="0" Text="+1! Good places to start. Suppose though, I don't have a basement? (I live near the top floor of the building)." CreationDate="2013-02-07T21:31:56.053" UserId="14" />
  <row Id="519" PostId="353" Score="0" Text="The reason why a basement might be preferred is you get fewer temperature fluctuations.  In an apartment, any closet will probably do." CreationDate="2013-02-08T00:55:36.467" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="3036" PostId="355" Score="0" Text="Diatomaceous earth works great!" CreationDate="2013-02-07T05:02:08.720" UserId="29" />
  <row Id="746" PostId="357" Score="2" Text="&quot;grow enough that the deer can eat their fill&quot; - wouldn't their population grow to match?" CreationDate="2013-02-16T22:37:06.650" UserId="27" />
  <row Id="748" PostId="357" Score="2" Text="I think the most permaculture solution would be &quot;eat the deer&quot;." CreationDate="2013-02-16T22:38:59.240" UserId="27" />
  <row Id="10765" PostId="358" Score="0" Text="I've made a few custom insulated doors. I just measured one of them with small infrared tool. Ambient outside temp 10*. Inside door 15.2-15.5, outside 9.6-10 (North facing). Compared to old multipane single glazed Sheltered South East facing door inside 11.8-12.2 outside 11.6 same door timber stiles read 13 inside 11.4 outside. 8 year old Pilkington Insulight Gas filled Double glazed unit South facing 15.2 inside 9.6-10 outside. (all +/- a few tenths)&#xA;If nothing else that very crude / basic test shows me that my North facing custom Oak door with celotex fitted internally, is as good as the Sou" CreationDate="2019-03-06T11:45:31.063" UserId="6429" />
  <row Id="473" PostId="360" Score="0" Text="This is almost... but not quite... a shopping question.  I, too, would love a resource like that.  But all I can come up with would be e-commerce stuff, which makes me think this is more shopping.  Maybe a book?" CreationDate="2013-02-06T17:12:17.777" UserId="21" />
  <row Id="477" PostId="360" Score="1" Text="I'm hoping for a book or some sort of non-shopping online resource that talks about materials, their costs and pluses/minuses." CreationDate="2013-02-06T17:31:41.367" UserId="29" />
  <row Id="479" PostId="360" Score="3" Text="Maybe editing the the question so that it's more asking about the pros and cons of various materials?  Heck you might not even need another resource, someone might be able to give you a comprehensive comparison in an answer here." CreationDate="2013-02-06T17:33:52.160" UserId="21" />
  <row Id="840" PostId="360" Score="0" Text="To get a list of options your better off visiting the library than posting to SE.  After getting info from more generalized sources come back and ask more specific question(s)." CreationDate="2013-02-21T21:20:23.510" UserId="212" />
  <row Id="1575" PostId="361" Score="2" Text="Raising ducks may seem like a *natural* solution, but it's a horribly unsustainable way to solve the tiny problem of garden slugs.  You have to feed animals to keep them alive, and you don't get anywhere near the food out that you put in.  As a *gardening* solution, this is fine.  Not as a sustainability solution, though." CreationDate="2013-05-17T21:31:12.243" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1605" PostId="361" Score="0" Text="...Where did the comment thread go?" CreationDate="2013-05-20T19:00:52.270" UserId="21" />
  <row Id="1606" PostId="361" Score="0" Text="I was just in the midst of explaining exactly how this is the sustainable solution and the perspective you have to take to make it so, and the thread disappeared..." CreationDate="2013-05-20T19:01:40.273" UserId="21" />
  <row Id="1609" PostId="361" Score="0" Text="http://www.motherearthnews.com/homesteading-and-livestock/natural-pest-control-ducks.aspx?PageId=1#axzz2TrVv7eNu&#xA;&#xA;http://www.ecolandscaping.org/08/pests-pest-management/ducks-as-effective-and-entertaining-pest-control/" CreationDate="2013-05-20T19:19:00.940" UserId="21" />
  <row Id="1610" PostId="361" Score="0" Text="Note in the second article the mistake the author made was not keeping an eye on the ducks loose in the garden.  Proper care is to let them completely loose in the off season, keep them paddocked most of the time in the on-season and let them in only for short periods under supervision (so you can keep them from causing too much havock)." CreationDate="2013-05-20T19:25:57.113" UserId="21" />
  <row Id="2427" PostId="361" Score="1" Text="Chickens like slugs a lot and produce eggs as well as meat, and are fairly acceptable in urban areas. But if you don't eat many eggs, or meat, that can be a problem. Especially since you should keep at least two, preferably at least three chickens because they're social animals." CreationDate="2013-11-09T04:54:58.620" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="675" PostId="363" Score="1" Text="I would expect that this would depend on the soil.  Could you expand your question by describing the sort of soil you have?  For example some soil will have more clay and less sand, others the opposite...." CreationDate="2013-02-14T01:35:17.020" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="495" PostId="364" Score="0" Text="I take it you're talking about dust generated on an ongoing basis by rubbing/bumping the walls after construction is complete?" CreationDate="2013-02-06T23:20:25.077" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="497" PostId="364" Score="0" Text="Yes.  It brushes off pretty readily ;)" CreationDate="2013-02-06T23:31:40.697" UserId="21" />
  <row Id="496" PostId="365" Score="3" Text="I don't think this is particularly answerable; surely it will heavily depend on the design of the house in question." CreationDate="2013-02-06T23:22:27.013" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="844" PostId="365" Score="1" Text="Perpendicular ventilation usually results in greater airflow." CreationDate="2013-02-21T22:11:40.627" UserId="212" />
  <row Id="485" PostId="368" Score="0" Text="With respect to dog fence... you don't know my dog o.O  Bloody beast is Houdini. He's a velociraptor in disguise.  About the only thing he hasn't figured out how to do yet is open doors, and it's only a matter of time.  But great answer!  And yeah, there's going to be a lot of duplicated information between the SEs.  I suggested a feature in Meta that would help, but I dunno how receptive the SE folks are gonna be to it.  It must have come up before by now and since it's not a feature yet I can't imagine it's something they want to implement. Still.. worth throwing out there." CreationDate="2013-02-06T19:55:15.167" UserId="21" />
  <row Id="489" PostId="370" Score="0" Text="The following sites may contain the answer you are looking for: [**Potable Rainwater, Filtration and Purification**](http://www.harvesth2o.com/filtration_purification.shtml) and [**How to Install an Eco-Friendly Water Filter System**](http://www.ehow.com/how_2363145_install-ecofriendly-water-filter-system.html)" CreationDate="2013-02-06T21:10:00.143" UserId="91" />
  <row Id="490" PostId="370" Score="0" Text="I think your second link is close to what I am looking for but I think it leaves out some important parts.  The first link seems not to be sustainable." CreationDate="2013-02-06T21:30:03.523" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="6524" PostId="370" Score="0" Text="Please [edit] your question and describe how your house is constructed and what your neighbourhood looks like. The available options depend very much on this. It makes quite a difference if you live in a row of  houses in a city or in a standalone building in the countryside." CreationDate="2016-02-29T14:28:06.347" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="491" PostId="372" Score="1" Text="If someone could give suggestions on plants that may work in a wide rage of climates that would be helpful as I have the same question but live in the Northern US were it gets well below freezing in the winter and up to 100F in the summer." CreationDate="2013-02-06T21:41:16.433" UserId="162" />
  <row Id="513" PostId="372" Score="1" Text="tarpaulin? ...." CreationDate="2013-02-07T20:54:26.710" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="3329" PostId="375" Score="5" Text="Also, the biggest cost to benefit ratio device you can add is a `First Flush Diverter` these, as the name implies, will divert the first few liters/gallons of water from your roof AWAY from your water supply. The theory is that those few gallons will wash away the dirt that accumulated on your roof between rains." CreationDate="2014-05-26T15:22:49.100" UserId="1462" />
  <row Id="915" PostId="377" Score="0" Text="No, it is not an annual, it is an evergreen shrub/vine.  Some cultivars can form an actual shrub.  The one we're dealing with forms a very thick ground cover unless it has something to climb on, in which case it vines.  And I think, but am not sure, that it might do some of its growing during winter (&quot;winter creeper&quot;).  In that way it could grab new turf while other species were dormant.  It really is very aggressive." CreationDate="2013-02-28T13:20:21.207" UserId="21" />
  <row Id="704" PostId="380" Score="0" Text="I guess moving parts = not maintenance-free, and electric motors are quite power-hungry. I heard about something like ion pumps... low power, low throughput, no moving parts, no clue about the rest." CreationDate="2013-02-14T18:02:21.460" UserId="188" />
  <row Id="761" PostId="380" Score="0" Text="@SF. Do you mean ion pump as a low tech? You won't lose with today's standard commercial products." CreationDate="2013-02-17T19:46:11.210" UserId="60" />
  <row Id="805" PostId="380" Score="0" Text="@Peter: From what I heard they are essentially extremely simple devices. Sure there are fancy materials and high voltages involved..." CreationDate="2013-02-20T15:18:29.787" UserId="188" />
  <row Id="974" PostId="380" Score="1" Text="That is true, an ionic pump has no moving parts, but must ionize the water.  Ionizing has a sterilizing effect, which is good, but also tends to promote corrosion of plumbing components.  The electrical components needed to step up to the extremely high voltages tend to waste a lot of energy as heat.  You're also going to have a very hard time generating enough force to overcome more than a few inches of head without expending FAR more energy than you save from solar water heating.  Chris is right, a cheap commercial pump will serve you better." CreationDate="2013-03-07T15:52:44.037" UserId="212" />
  <row Id="747" PostId="381" Score="1" Text="+1 for looking more deeply in to the ecosystem." CreationDate="2013-02-16T22:38:30.987" UserId="27" />
  <row Id="1240" PostId="381" Score="1" Text="Cougars have been re-introduced into our area for precisely this reason." CreationDate="2013-04-19T01:23:23.990" UserId="180" />
  <row Id="518" PostId="394" Score="0" Text="What does your family like to eat? Do you want the greenhouse to be the only source of food for the family?" CreationDate="2013-02-07T23:33:29.910" UserId="23" />
  <row Id="520" PostId="394" Score="0" Text="@0ana I've amended the question." CreationDate="2013-02-08T01:06:51.933" UserId="29" />
  <row Id="522" PostId="394" Score="3" Text="@thatmiddleway: where do you live, what's your climate like during the different seasons of the year?" CreationDate="2013-02-08T02:26:03.707" UserId="66" />
  <row Id="727" PostId="394" Score="1" Text="A [very thoughtful discussion](http://www.permies.com/t/11778/food-choices/Feasibility-food-reliance#post_text_107464) about calories-per-area with respect to self-sufficiency, and [an article that suggests self-sufficiency is not a desirable goal](http://www.patternliteracy.com/107-the-myth-of-self-reliance)." CreationDate="2013-02-16T04:54:50.710" UserId="66" />
  <row Id="523" PostId="397" Score="0" Text="Is that info graphic assuming mixed-use landscaping (like a food forest) or monocropping?" CreationDate="2013-02-08T02:37:09.273" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="524" PostId="397" Score="4" Text="That infographic is silly -- you can't &quot;live off the land&quot; and allocate just 200 square feet for pigs or 65 square feet for chickens. Where's their food going to come from? And saying that potatoes require more land than other vegetables? That's crazy talk, potatoes are one of the higher calories-per-square foot things that you can grow in a conventional garden." CreationDate="2013-02-08T02:41:31.973" UserId="66" />
  <row Id="525" PostId="397" Score="1" Text="@ChrisTravers I'm really not sure.  I think it's using averages and making some pretty serious assumptions to get general ball parks.  I've seen it crop up a few places.  I mean, just the assumption of calorie requirements are... well, very generalized assumptions.  But it's not a bad guess-work guideline, and it's a sort of fun infographic.  I would imagine that you could probably cram a lot more calories than this infographic would suggest into 2 acres using Forest Gardening methods." CreationDate="2013-02-08T03:45:37.787" UserId="21" />
  <row Id="526" PostId="397" Score="0" Text="@bstpierre  Yeah, it makes some assumptions.  Actually, the pig space assumption isn't bad.  That's about the amount of space one of my buddies gives his pigs on his 3 acre lot.  He feeds them compost and cast off he gets from in town though.  Maybe the infographic is assuming some of the grain will go to the pigs (since they allocate enough veggies for a 2300 calorie vegetarian diet, apparently)." CreationDate="2013-02-08T03:49:07.023" UserId="21" />
  <row Id="538" PostId="400" Score="1" Text="Nope, NOx and N2O are very different things, and should never be confused." CreationDate="2013-02-08T16:02:46.947" UserId="33" />
  <row Id="527" PostId="402" Score="4" Text="Just a brief comment, I would highly recommend learning to make sauerkraut from scratch if trying to preserve vegetables through the winter in a sustainable way.  Home-made sauerkraut really bears very little resemblance to what you get in the store." CreationDate="2013-02-08T05:50:02.707" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="528" PostId="403" Score="0" Text="I have had the computer re-programmed... and my Jetta runs on diesel, not gasoline; but all points still valid." CreationDate="2013-02-08T08:18:21.137" UserId="40" />
  <row Id="532" PostId="403" Score="0" Text="@Flimzy - Well you might be able to covert it to bio-diesel which would reduce the unsustainable aspects of it. Especially if you use waste products for your bio-diesel production." CreationDate="2013-02-08T12:35:34.757" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="543" PostId="403" Score="1" Text="No conversion necessary. I use biodiesel whenever I have it available--which isn't all the time. And yes, the BD I use is made from recycled vegoil." CreationDate="2013-02-08T17:58:26.147" UserId="40" />
  <row Id="545" PostId="403" Score="0" Text="@Flimzy - I do not understand all of the differences but it is my understanding that biodiesel does not have the emissions issues that petroleum based diesel has.  I do not know that the EGR will do anything beneficial while you burn biodiesel" CreationDate="2013-02-08T18:04:40.500" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="1924" PostId="403" Score="0" Text="@Chad, biodiesel has lower emissions of most pollutants compared with diesel, but it does have [worse NOx emissions, which is what the EGR is designed to combat](http://www.biodieselmagazine.com/articles/426/knocking-out-nox).  Also, I strongly disagree with your statement about recyclability.  Cars are both [mostly recyclable, and mostly recycled](http://www.popsci.com/cars/article/2009-05/recyclable-cars).  And, as Flimzy said, a 2003 TDI Jetta is perhaps the best suited car on the market for biodiesel ... no conversions needed." CreationDate="2013-06-29T22:55:42.213" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1936" PostId="403" Score="1" Text="@Nate and Chad: I've tided up the comment thread, as some comments were left hanging after one was deleted. Please don't use comments for discussion. As you've got some interesting points about recycling / recyclability, and emissions, please turn those into new questions, or discuss over in [chat]. Thank you" CreationDate="2013-07-01T02:27:11.940" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="1937" PostId="403" Score="0" Text="@EnergyNumbers, agreed, but comments **are** meant for identifying problems in the post, and justifying downvotes, which I did.  The comments of mine that you removed identified a problem that *still* exists in Chad's post - that he's confusing NOx and N2O.  I'm also highly wary of his claim about [CO emissions.](http://www.jjmie.hu.edu.jo/files/v3n4/9.pdf)" CreationDate="2013-07-01T03:07:33.880" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1938" PostId="403" Score="1" Text="@Nate - I read your comment as specifically referring to one of Chad's comments. I take your point re NOx/N2O. If you wish, please do add your own answer, which would give plenty of opportunity to clear up misconceptions: it looks like you've got lots of well-referenced things to say, and it would be a shame to see all that just buried in comments, when it could be much more prominent as an answer." CreationDate="2013-07-01T06:55:19.153" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="2168" PostId="403" Score="0" Text="@Nate and Chad: removed your discussion. Please use [chat](http://chat.stackexchange.com/) for extended discussions" CreationDate="2013-08-05T09:46:00.640" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="529" PostId="405" Score="2" Text="Where are the ventilation holes?  Top only or sides too?  How many holes?  How big are they or how far apart?" CreationDate="2013-02-08T09:17:57.693" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="590" PostId="405" Score="0" Text="Side holes.  Four sets of slits all around the barrel. Reasonably wide - wide enough for a fruitfly, and maybe a housefly." CreationDate="2013-02-09T20:38:19.320" UserId="28" />
  <row Id="584" PostId="406" Score="0" Text="What about growing duckweed in there? I heard that it helps purify water." CreationDate="2013-02-08T23:12:25.037" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="586" PostId="406" Score="0" Text="If you have the light in there to grow duckweed, I suspect you have enough UV light not to worry about pathogens so much...." CreationDate="2013-02-09T02:16:10.893" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="812" PostId="406" Score="0" Text="That's downright dangerous suspicion." CreationDate="2013-02-20T22:33:15.140" UserId="212" />
  <row Id="2907" PostId="407" Score="0" Text="What can you say about ants?" CreationDate="2014-02-13T14:15:10.200" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="2908" PostId="407" Score="0" Text="@Earthliŋ [Here](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/a/642/99) you can find my answer on the ['Ants and Compost' question](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/635/99)" CreationDate="2014-02-13T14:22:19.423" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="2909" PostId="407" Score="0" Text="Thanks that's very helpful. I had upvoted that answer already, it seems, but forgot the content." CreationDate="2014-02-13T15:20:19.230" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="539" PostId="408" Score="0" Text="You could recycle the plastic bags" CreationDate="2013-02-08T16:44:06.850" UserId="83" />
  <row Id="540" PostId="408" Score="4" Text="@elssar - The three R's of sustainability are Reduce, Reuse &amp; Recycle. Reduce what you use, reuse what you can, recycle what you can't reuse. Eliminating the need for plastic bags is *far* more sustainable than recycling them." CreationDate="2013-02-08T16:54:31.570" UserId="164" />
  <row Id="541" PostId="408" Score="0" Text="Far more sustainable compared to what? Like your question says, the savings in petrol on an individual trip to the supermarket is cancelled out by eliminating the use of plastic bags. So recycling or reusing the plastic would tip the balance in favor of getting groceries delivered." CreationDate="2013-02-08T16:58:44.870" UserId="83" />
  <row Id="542" PostId="408" Score="0" Text="@elssar - I didn't say they would cancel out, I said I didn't know which would be more or less sustainable - hence asking the question! It may be that delivery+recycle would have a lower overall environmental impact, or it may be better to collect and never have used the plastic in the first place. Recycling should always be the last resort after you have already failed to reduce or reuse." CreationDate="2013-02-08T17:42:38.337" UserId="164" />
  <row Id="566" PostId="408" Score="2" Text="Are you *only* going to the supermarket when you buy groceries, or are you &quot;batching&quot; your errands in a way that would negate the benefits of not traveling to the grocery?   There are two grocery stores on my way home from work, so delivery makes no sense for my situation." CreationDate="2013-02-08T19:25:28.307" UserId="209" />
  <row Id="1563" PostId="408" Score="1" Text="@baka, that's an **excellent** point (and advice).  However, remember that the grocery delivery truck doesn't only drive to your house.  It's going to be &quot;batching&quot;, too.  In the end, it takes a bit of a complicated calculation to sort out, with lots of variables that are different for every shopper." CreationDate="2013-05-17T08:44:57.130" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="2132" PostId="408" Score="1" Text="Bicycle, if needed with a trailer, or a freight bicycle.  Oh, and I reuse paper bags." CreationDate="2013-07-30T18:22:00.740" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="622" PostId="409" Score="0" Text="I created a [meta question](http://meta.sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/70/environmentalism-vs-sustainability) About environmental questions versus sustainability questions here." CreationDate="2013-02-11T15:36:26.407" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="646" PostId="409" Score="1" Text="See this related question [Which is more sustainable: aluminium can, plastic bottle or glass bottle?](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/326/20) wherein some hard numbers on energy are given in the answers." CreationDate="2013-02-12T21:11:19.640" UserId="20" />
  <row Id="537" PostId="410" Score="0" Text="If someone would create a biodiesel tag and add it to my post, that would be cool." CreationDate="2013-02-08T15:57:10.530" UserId="215" />
  <row Id="548" PostId="410" Score="0" Text="With rare exception, I believe any used vehicle will be more sustainable than any new vehicle. But I haven't seen any studies to directly address this." CreationDate="2013-02-08T18:10:20.150" UserId="40" />
  <row Id="572" PostId="410" Score="2" Text="I think you've got a stranded half-sentence at the end of your first paragraph." CreationDate="2013-02-08T20:07:28.280" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="581" PostId="410" Score="0" Text="Edited my post.  I did not mean to say I was looking at a new hybrid." CreationDate="2013-02-08T21:38:56.410" UserId="215" />
  <row Id="589" PostId="410" Score="0" Text="And this newer but used hybrid: is it a fossil-fuel / electric hybrid, or a biofuel / electric hybrid, or something else?" CreationDate="2013-02-09T08:58:20.680" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="591" PostId="410" Score="2" Text="I find it difficult to see how [Flimzy's](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/a/417/164) answer can be good enough to be accepted, when it provides opinions rather than referenced facts. At least [EnergyNumbers'](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/a/424/164) provided some links to support his/her assertions!" CreationDate="2013-02-09T21:01:18.253" UserId="164" />
  <row Id="592" PostId="410" Score="0" Text="Rather than trying to answer this myself, I will point you at the [excellent skeptics answer](http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/a/468/2772) which is more comprehensive than I could be." CreationDate="2013-02-09T21:02:30.733" UserId="164" />
  <row Id="1268" PostId="410" Score="0" Text="It would help to clarify what *older biodiesel vehicle* means.  Is it a 2000 TDI Golf that gets 50 mpg on the highway, or a 25 mpg 1980s-vintage Mercedes?  Obviously, the same goes for used Prius vs. used Highlander Hybrid." CreationDate="2013-04-22T07:06:12.727" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="578" PostId="411" Score="0" Text="Sounds roughly similar to this: http://www.handprintpress.com/ovens/bring-in-the-mud/" CreationDate="2013-02-08T20:34:19.473" UserId="27" />
  <row Id="813" PostId="413" Score="0" Text="corrected the omition.  Thanks, bstpiere.  I looked up that document to find the number, then forgot to put it in." CreationDate="2013-02-20T22:36:20.363" UserId="212" />
  <row Id="544" PostId="414" Score="0" Text="Why the downvote?" CreationDate="2013-02-08T18:04:20.417" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="551" PostId="414" Score="1" Text="It was not me who down voted, but neither I understand your question. Could you explain it a bit more, please?" CreationDate="2013-02-08T18:24:57.270" UserId="98" />
  <row Id="553" PostId="414" Score="0" Text="This question probably belongs on skeptics more than sustainable life." CreationDate="2013-02-08T19:02:20.577" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="559" PostId="414" Score="6" Text="How do you define &quot;pollution&quot;?  In my living room, grass clippings are pollution.  Grass clippings are sustainable (at least in some contexts)." CreationDate="2013-02-08T19:16:18.953" UserId="40" />
  <row Id="565" PostId="414" Score="0" Text="To flimzy's point charcoal plowed into a field is incredibly sustainable but is also pollution." CreationDate="2013-02-08T19:23:09.100" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="585" PostId="414" Score="0" Text="@SzilágyiDonát I rephrased, hopefully it is a bit more clear now." CreationDate="2013-02-08T23:24:27.197" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="626" PostId="414" Score="0" Text="The title and the question asked at the end are in conflict." CreationDate="2013-02-11T15:50:27.253" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="627" PostId="414" Score="3" Text="@Chad, &quot;more on skeptics more than sustainable life&quot;, I don't have a notable claim. Also, I'm not sure if I agree that the question at the end is in conflict with the title (I admit that they are not identical)." CreationDate="2013-02-11T15:55:05.187" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="8876" PostId="414" Score="0" Text="@Chad: The question at the end seems to me to be intended to suggest one possible relationship between pollution and sustainability." CreationDate="2017-10-04T10:33:32.737" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="546" PostId="415" Score="0" Text="This does at first read sound like quackery - please could you point at some supporting evidence?" CreationDate="2013-02-08T18:09:51.870" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="550" PostId="415" Score="0" Text="Well, ok it might be a placebo effect... I modify my answer..." CreationDate="2013-02-08T18:18:30.437" UserId="98" />
  <row Id="608" PostId="415" Score="0" Text="I have heard of ultra-sonic insect repellents, but this is the first I heard of electromagnetic ant repellents. Though don't think I could find either in any market in my city." CreationDate="2013-02-10T16:22:03.813" UserId="83" />
  <row Id="609" PostId="415" Score="0" Text="Here is a link: http://www.extertronic.com/insects-repellents-exterminators/anteater-control-eliminate.asp?product=control-eliminar-hormigas" CreationDate="2013-02-10T17:14:54.640" UserId="98" />
  <row Id="972" PostId="415" Score="1" Text="Did I read the instructions on the web site to place the electromagnetic devices as close as possible to an *anteater?*  Sounds a bit suspicious to me." CreationDate="2013-03-07T14:11:40.210" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="1176" PostId="415" Score="0" Text="To quote: &quot;It will have to place the devices as nearby as possible of the anteater.&quot;" CreationDate="2013-04-08T10:28:44.613" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="556" PostId="417" Score="0" Text="This depends on the batteries used.  To get an apples to apples comparison you will need 3 batteries for the life of the vehicle to compare to the average life of an ICE.  Some of the batteries in use are pretty horrible in terms of sustainability." CreationDate="2013-02-08T19:11:21.283" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="557" PostId="417" Score="0" Text="@Chad: You're talking about all-electric I take it?  It's an issue I haven't investigated much, as I haven't been in the market for a new vehicle for the last several years, and last time I was, an all-electric wasn't really an option." CreationDate="2013-02-08T19:12:54.757" UserId="40" />
  <row Id="560" PostId="417" Score="0" Text="The hybrids have battery packs as well, just not as large as the all electric.  They go bad at about the same rate as the electric." CreationDate="2013-02-08T19:17:11.673" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="561" PostId="417" Score="0" Text="@Chad: Indeed... this would be why I included the manufacturing and disposal footprints of batteries in the list of negatives for a Hybrid. IMO, a hybrid is the worst of both worlds (batteries and internal combustion). Whether all-electric trumps all-IC, though... I don't know." CreationDate="2013-02-08T19:18:30.167" UserId="40" />
  <row Id="562" PostId="417" Score="2" Text="A goat drawn cart is the way to go.  The ultimate in sustainablity :)" CreationDate="2013-02-08T19:19:45.077" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="579" PostId="417" Score="0" Text="@Flimzy: I totally agree with you on manufacturing issues which is why I am not looking to buy a new diesel or hybrid vehicle.  I am interested in looking at the sustainability of a vehicle strictly run on biodiesel v/s a hybrid vehicle.  It sounds like you propose that a diesel vehicle make a lot more sense than a new hybrid, but what about a used one?" CreationDate="2013-02-08T21:35:30.660" UserId="215" />
  <row Id="580" PostId="417" Score="0" Text="-doh!  Just saw your prioritized list for what it is...  Thank you." CreationDate="2013-02-08T21:37:07.710" UserId="215" />
  <row Id="582" PostId="417" Score="1" Text="@Noel: If you can find a used hybrid that gets better fuel economy than a used diesel, the hybrid *may* win. But you can probably find a more fuel-efficient diesel than hybrid, which will make the diesel the clear winner (and more fun to drive, to boot!)," CreationDate="2013-02-08T21:40:38.817" UserId="40" />
  <row Id="1026" PostId="417" Score="0" Text="&quot;a new car never makes sense&quot;... You're supporting purchasers of new vehicles by purchasing a used one. By this logic, if you can't get a used model of the most sustainable new model available, you can have a positive influence on the overall vehicle market by purchasing a new model. This will encourage manufacturers to continue in that strategic direction. Moral of the story: you're not living in a vacuum; your purchases affect others' purchases." CreationDate="2013-03-18T21:32:16.400" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="1270" PostId="417" Score="1" Text="Some nice information on biodiesel (I drove a TDI for 5 years on bio).  But, way too much unsubstantiated guessing to be a good SE answer.  Unfortunately, biking around isn't really a good environmental solution either, unless you're in a dense, high-traffic city.  Here, the human body becomes the engine, and it's also inefficient.  You have to fuel it with food (and it's hard to do so without using energy-rich meat).  A unit of food energy requires many multiples of that in inputs.  And, bikes on roads without bike lines slow down the cars around them, making the cars less efficient." CreationDate="2013-04-22T07:20:13.080" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1271" PostId="417" Score="0" Text="Also, your numbers for soy biodiesel energy ratio are *way* off.  I actually wrote a biodiesel smartphone app that had to calculate such things.  I [posted a rough summary of the math here](http://www.enscand.com/biodiesel-buddy/carbon.html).  You now get about 5 units of biodiesel energy out, with 1 unit of fossil fuel input, for USA farmed soy as the feedstock." CreationDate="2013-04-22T07:25:47.560" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1290" PostId="417" Score="0" Text="@Nate: I'm willing to adjust my answer, but where did you get the 5 units figure? I don't see that discussed in your link." CreationDate="2013-04-23T02:12:27.740" UserId="40" />
  <row Id="1346" PostId="417" Score="0" Text="@Flimzy, I did show it in my link, but there were a lot of other links to wade through.  The original source was a [2011 study by the US dept. of agriculture](http://www.usda.gov/oce/reports/energy/EnergyLifeCycleSoybeanBiodieseI6-11.pdf).  It's in the first paragraph." CreationDate="2013-05-01T02:11:05.297" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1364" PostId="417" Score="0" Text="@HighlyIrregular: It's true, if everybody bought used vehicles, we'd have a problem. This goes to show that driving is simply unsustainable. But until the demand for used vehicles surpasses the supply, I think it's safe to buy used vehicles." CreationDate="2013-05-01T18:30:44.320" UserId="40" />
  <row Id="1365" PostId="417" Score="0" Text="@Nate: Thanks, answer updated.  If you're aware of any sources that don't come from the USDA, I'd also be eager to add those links as well.  My own search found nothing, and my Real Job calls." CreationDate="2013-05-01T18:48:14.073" UserId="40" />
  <row Id="564" PostId="418" Score="0" Text="Mmm, good point about things like toxic byproducts." CreationDate="2013-02-08T19:22:34.763" UserId="214" />
  <row Id="8877" PostId="419" Score="0" Text="I cannot agree that _No_ is a ‘safe answer in general’, if safe means correct; as you yourself remark later, the rate at which the environment can neutralise pollution is what counts. But if all you mean is that it is more likely to be sustainable if you avoid pollution, then it is okay as a maxim." CreationDate="2017-10-04T10:37:14.260" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="554" PostId="420" Score="0" Text="Thanks Alexander, I was hoping that there would be an answer which included a more general case and those links look like excellent resources." CreationDate="2013-02-08T19:06:14.147" UserId="164" />
  <row Id="555" PostId="420" Score="0" Text="A lot of reusable bags these days (at least, free ones given to us) are polyester I believe. I wonder how those compare with cotton... personally, I'd be surprised if we got much more than 100 uses out of a cotton bag before it wore out." CreationDate="2013-02-08T19:09:47.290" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="567" PostId="420" Score="0" Text="The polyester ones are much lower impact in terms of GWP - you'll see the green space on the chart above kick in at 10 or below." CreationDate="2013-02-08T19:40:18.600" UserId="33" />
  <row Id="2123" PostId="420" Score="0" Text="+1. If you built a spreadsheet to do this, posting a link to it online would make this good answer even better." CreationDate="2013-07-28T04:56:43.377" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="558" PostId="422" Score="7" Text="What type of climate do you live in? Answers will vary if you live in the tropics vs desert." CreationDate="2013-02-08T19:14:27.793" UserId="152" />
  <row Id="563" PostId="422" Score="7" Text="And what do you want the siding to do? Is it structural, aesthetic, weatherproofing, insulating? What restrictions do you want on its maintenance regime?" CreationDate="2013-02-08T19:20:40.667" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="910" PostId="422" Score="0" Text="And why are you replacing the siding?  Is living with what you have worth looking at as a comparison for sustainability?" CreationDate="2013-02-28T04:28:51.237" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="922" PostId="422" Score="0" Text="@ChrisTravers we currently have asbestos siding. I definitely think it needs to be replaced, it's a health concern." CreationDate="2013-02-28T21:51:15.153" UserId="29" />
  <row Id="570" PostId="424" Score="1" Text="Energy consumption is far from the only factor when considering environmental impact or sustainability." CreationDate="2013-02-08T20:02:09.263" UserId="40" />
  <row Id="571" PostId="424" Score="1" Text="I've included GHG emissions (first paragraph) and materials recycling (second paragraph) too" CreationDate="2013-02-08T20:04:54.227" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="574" PostId="424" Score="0" Text="Comparing a Prius to a Hummer is rather irrelevant (despite the plethora other problems with that article) when answering a question about a hybrid sedan which gets a presumed 50-60mpg, versus a diesel sedan which gets a presumed 50-60pmg." CreationDate="2013-02-08T20:12:06.593" UserId="40" />
  <row Id="577" PostId="424" Score="1" Text="When a hybrid gets substantially better fuel economy than a straight IC vehicle, the additional costs may, possibly (I'm still doubtful) be overcome. But when a hybrid drivetrain provides little or no improvement, I think it becomes pretty obvious that adding toxic batteries to the mix does not gain anything. -- Unless your claim is that manufacturing or maintenance of diesel engines sufficiently more damaging than the batteries. But none of your sources seem to make this claim" CreationDate="2013-02-08T20:32:27.153" UserId="40" />
  <row Id="1269" PostId="424" Score="0" Text="Just curious if there are hybrid diesel cars available (in the UK).  There's basically none in the US (tragic).  Hybrid-diesel buses here, though." CreationDate="2013-04-22T07:09:12.350" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1285" PostId="424" Score="1" Text="@Flimzy, you don't seem to understand how a hybrid works.  First, when a hybrid allows an electric motor to drive the car, it **is** using a fundamentally more efficient drivetrain.  Electric motors are categorically more efficient than ICEs, and their transmissions.  Secondly, the bigger gains from current hybrids come from the fact that *some* of the kinetic energy you create, by burning gasoline, can be *recovered* via regenerative braking.  A car without regenerative brakes must waste all its kinetic energy as it slows down (as brake heat and noise)." CreationDate="2013-04-22T21:38:44.543" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1291" PostId="424" Score="0" Text="@Nate: I understand perfectly well how a hybrid works. I think you mistunderstood my comment. &quot;When a hybrid drivetrain provides little or no improvement [when compared to a diesel]&quot; is how that should be read." CreationDate="2013-04-23T02:21:13.180" UserId="40" />
  <row Id="1344" PostId="424" Score="0" Text="@Flimzy, maybe I'm arguing with your use of the phrase *&quot;little or no&quot;*.  Does keeping your tires inflated, or driving down the freeway without open windows, have *little or no* impact?  I would say, &quot;no, it has an impact&quot;.  Similarly, hybrids do have an efficiency gain over diesels, although it's in the single-digit percentage range.  I don't think that qualifies as &quot;little or no&quot;.  Remember, mpg numbers aren't valid measures of *efficiency*.  Diesel has more energy and carbon emissions per gallon.  When you run a diesel off bio, the fuel also has less energy content per gallon than diesel." CreationDate="2013-05-01T02:09:08.837" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1345" PostId="424" Score="1" Text="@Flimzy, by the way, I'm **not** disagreeing with your *conclusion* that a used diesel running biodiesel is *better* than a hybrid using gasoline.  I think bio is better.  I just didn't agree with the implicit statement that a bio-fueled diesel car gets about the same (effective) fuel economy.  The reason bio's better is that even though it spews CO2, the CO2 it produces was mostly already in the air, which is not the case for a gasonline hybrid.  As I mentioned elsewhere, [I ran some rough numbers here](http://enscand.com/biodiesel-buddy/carbon.html)" CreationDate="2013-05-01T02:09:39.807" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="821" PostId="425" Score="5" Text="It's a bogus question, really.  The refining process for one is the refining process for the other.  If your question is about economy then petro-diesel is WAY ahead of gasoline.  Since the energy expenditure and off-gassing is a function of the volume of oil refined, and nearly triple the volume of diesel is produced per unit volume of oil compared with gasoline, and diesel has a higher energy density than gasoline, diesel is far more economical a fuel." CreationDate="2013-02-21T15:22:03.150" UserId="212" />
  <row Id="587" PostId="426" Score="0" Text="Keep in mind that uv light can be used to reduce pathogens, so if you have barrel with lots of UV access (think transparent plastic), you probably get at least partial water treatment too.  In fact in some countries, water is treated by putting it in old water bottles and setting it in the sun for a while." CreationDate="2013-02-09T02:19:20.620" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="811" PostId="426" Score="0" Text="What your referring to Chris is called the SODIS method.  While true, naturally incident UV can be used to treat water, such treatment isn't suitable in the circumstances the OP described." CreationDate="2013-02-20T22:30:17.387" UserId="212" />
  <row Id="588" PostId="427" Score="0" Text="Are you hoping to live alone in the house, or with a family?" CreationDate="2013-02-09T07:07:23.550" UserId="27" />
  <row Id="673" PostId="428" Score="0" Text="+1 - a solar collector would make the biggest and long lasting bang for the buck." CreationDate="2013-02-13T22:39:19.340" UserId="60" />
  <row Id="859" PostId="428" Score="0" Text="We don't have much unshaded south-facing surface - there isn't any decent solar radiation to be harvested" CreationDate="2013-02-22T18:42:48.797" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="600" PostId="429" Score="2" Text="The fact is that gasoline and diesel come from different components of the crude oil.  Once you are refining crude oil, the question is what you do with the components, not which components you decide to keep.  Now, if the question is whether breaking apart hydrocarbons to make shorter chains is less sustainable than not doing so, I would answer that it is (and diesel might become more preferred if we use oil than gas would be for that reason) but that I think goes beyond mere refining." CreationDate="2013-02-10T05:07:49.103" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="865" PostId="432" Score="0" Text="@Mat Banik, when it comes to construction never underestimate the value of touching it with your own hands and seeing it with your own eyes.  Regarding earth housing you can do a lot more research at the library than you can online.  But whatever you do, get onto construction sites and tour earth houses!" CreationDate="2013-02-22T20:04:51.910" UserId="212" />
  <row Id="599" PostId="434" Score="2" Text="This sounds like two separate questions to me" CreationDate="2013-02-10T02:51:33.480" UserId="40" />
  <row Id="607" PostId="434" Score="0" Text="@Flimzy, it's one question, because I said *and*." CreationDate="2013-02-10T14:56:44.227" UserId="142" />
  <row Id="625" PostId="434" Score="0" Text="I created a [meta question](http://meta.sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/70/environmentalism-vs-sustainability) About environmental questions versus sustainability questions here." CreationDate="2013-02-11T15:41:02.333" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="630" PostId="434" Score="1" Text="@lemontwist: That's a silly thing to say." CreationDate="2013-02-11T19:49:01.187" UserId="40" />
  <row Id="631" PostId="434" Score="1" Text="@lemontwist: Eliminating packaging and eliminating toxic chemicals are two separate issues (unless you're talking about toxic chemicals in packaging), and they often have nothing to do with each other. Thus two questions." CreationDate="2013-02-11T19:49:49.843" UserId="40" />
  <row Id="635" PostId="434" Score="0" Text="@Flimzy, many times you'll find that by reducing packaging you're going to be using products that also reduce toxic chemicals. See my answer. Many of these items can be purchased in bulk and are from natural sources. It wouldn't make much sense for me to split this into 2 questions and 2 answers." CreationDate="2013-02-11T22:19:09.310" UserId="142" />
  <row Id="636" PostId="434" Score="1" Text="@lemontwist: I disagree. It would make a lot of sense to split into two questions and two answers.  It's okay if some questions and answers have someoverlap." CreationDate="2013-02-11T22:27:46.773" UserId="40" />
  <row Id="637" PostId="434" Score="0" Text="@Flimzy, then we will have to agree to disagree. :)" CreationDate="2013-02-11T23:38:46.170" UserId="142" />
  <row Id="605" PostId="437" Score="1" Text="It's a bit of a broad and general question, and probably unanswerable in its current form, but I've provided one example of a regulatory regime where it is favourable, with links to all the regulatory detail" CreationDate="2013-02-10T11:01:14.843" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="618" PostId="437" Score="1" Text="It is broad, and not amenable to one correct answer.  Even so - those of us fighting to change legislation in unfavorable areas could really benefit from having this info to point to." CreationDate="2013-02-11T13:08:45.667" UserId="28" />
  <row Id="619" PostId="437" Score="0" Text="Yes, I guessed that you were looking for some exemplary legislation to use as part of a campaign for change.  And I guess you may be interested in countries where a lot of buildings have greywater recycling - I don't know where to find statistics, but that might make a good question in its own right: you could look at where the highest greywayer recycling rates are, and then look at the regulatory regime there." CreationDate="2013-02-11T13:17:58.080" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="621" PostId="437" Score="1" Text="A fine idea!  I'll ask..." CreationDate="2013-02-11T15:19:01.953" UserId="28" />
  <row Id="620" PostId="439" Score="0" Text="This is about environmentalism more than sustainability.  The question is really interesting but as phrased I do not think it belongs here." CreationDate="2013-02-11T15:11:45.057" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="624" PostId="439" Score="0" Text="I created a [meta question](http://meta.sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/70/environmentalism-vs-sustainability) About environmental questions versus sustainability questions here." CreationDate="2013-02-11T15:40:42.380" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="611" PostId="441" Score="0" Text="Non toxic to people and pets. And something that wouldn't cause problems if accidentally ingested, seeing as I would be using it in the kitchen." CreationDate="2013-02-11T03:09:29.793" UserId="83" />
  <row Id="612" PostId="441" Score="0" Text="Seems safe enough, though the _&quot;May damage fertility. May damage the unborn child.&quot;_ warning is a little concerning. But I reckon I won't use enough of it to cause any problems." CreationDate="2013-02-11T03:13:48.450" UserId="83" />
  <row Id="614" PostId="441" Score="3" Text="It was the &quot;go-to&quot; pest control for my grand dad and I have about 40 perfectly normal cousins :)" CreationDate="2013-02-11T03:21:11.360" UserId="228" />
  <row Id="1175" PostId="442" Score="0" Text="Looks to me like the bulk of their electricity is from hydroelectric (12 out of 15TWh), not geothermal." CreationDate="2013-04-08T09:54:42.740" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="623" PostId="444" Score="0" Text="I created a [meta question](http://meta.sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/70/environmentalism-vs-sustainability) About environmental questions versus sustainability questions here." CreationDate="2013-02-11T15:40:20.350" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="629" PostId="444" Score="1" Text="I'm considering questions that deal with the legal structures that allow for sustainable practices to be on topic." CreationDate="2013-02-11T19:41:16.787" UserId="28" />
  <row Id="632" PostId="444" Score="0" Text="While this intersects with sustainability it is more of an environmentalism question at this scale.  And maybe these questions are on topic which is why I asked the meta." CreationDate="2013-02-11T19:54:22.820" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="729" PostId="444" Score="0" Text="I voted to close because this type of question lends itself to answers that quickly become out of date." CreationDate="2013-02-16T12:19:40.237" UserId="66" />
  <row Id="639" PostId="446" Score="0" Text="How many plants do you keep in your apartment?" CreationDate="2013-02-12T03:17:57.680" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="640" PostId="446" Score="0" Text="@user1205935, right now not a whole lot but I plan to do a decent amount of container gardening on my balcony once it gets warmer." CreationDate="2013-02-12T03:40:02.713" UserId="142" />
  <row Id="638" PostId="448" Score="2" Text="The Japanese love taking baths, so their solution to this problem is: Wash your body thoroughly &amp; rinse before entering the bathtub (with little water); then use the same bathwater for everyone; then cover it to keep it warm until the morning; then have the washing machine draw its water from the bathtub. If you do several loads, choose fresh water only for the rinse cycle. Fantastic system, which I have used with up to 8 people (including little ones). But you have to wash yourself really well for this to work. This also works in an apartment, btw." CreationDate="2013-02-12T03:15:05.343" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="725" PostId="448" Score="1" Text="It's important to be careful about the soap (eg. laudry soap) if the grey water from a bath or a laudry is to be used for plants watering. Biodegradable soap is much preferred in all cases [and can often be bought in bulk, thus helping reducing soap packaging!])" CreationDate="2013-02-16T04:52:06.000" UserId="18" />
  <row Id="643" PostId="449" Score="3" Text="Consider posting this on cooking stack exchange. There are a bunch of posts over there about sealing options during canning. I would not recommend using any kind of used lid except for those meant specifically to be reused, such as tattler lids or wreck jars. It's not worth the risk of contamination." CreationDate="2013-02-12T15:32:09.790" UserId="142" />
  <row Id="650" PostId="449" Score="2" Text="@lemontwist, focusing on waste minimisation/maximum reuse isn't really on-topic there. I'd expect it to be answered with  &quot;just use new lids each time&quot;." CreationDate="2013-02-13T00:42:18.317" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="659" PostId="449" Score="1" Text="Well... you aren't going to get answers like &quot;you can reuse lids&quot; and &quot;you can't reuse jars&quot; which are, quite frankly, incorrect. I would answer your question but I have no idea how available reusable solutions (Tattlers or Weck jars) are in New Zealand. There are a lot of international users on cooking SE, so you might get an answer there. I'd ask about reusable lid availability in NZ, and not necessarily about minimizing waste. It's just 2 ways to ask the same question." CreationDate="2013-02-13T11:06:35.363" UserId="142" />
  <row Id="665" PostId="449" Score="0" Text="FWIW, I've had problems getting reliable seals on the Tattlers. It's a nice idea, but if I have to process twice, or keep ⅓ of the product in the fridge and eat them soon because they didn't seal, then it's not terribly useful." CreationDate="2013-02-13T15:04:29.427" UserId="66" />
  <row Id="666" PostId="449" Score="0" Text="@bstpierre, I've been using them for a few years wi no problems. They do have extra instructions for getting a seal, like keeping the ring 1/4 turn loose during processing and tightening immediately after removal. They also don't audibly pop and can take longer than Ball lids to seal. Overnight they always do. Never had one fail me yet." CreationDate="2013-02-13T15:11:51.203" UserId="142" />
  <row Id="2103" PostId="449" Score="0" Text="At least in the 1970's mason jars were common in NZ and some of the ones I've used dated back a long way. I've seen new lids for sale in Australia in the last 10 years (sorry I can't be more specific but I don't use them any more)." CreationDate="2013-07-24T00:48:01.870" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="763" PostId="450" Score="0" Text="**&lt;comments removed&gt;** Comments are to ask for clarification or to make specific suggestions to add to and improve the post. Please do not turn comments into discussion forums and chat rooms. Thanks." CreationDate="2013-02-17T21:56:52.343" UserId="117" />
  <row Id="647" PostId="451" Score="1" Text="It's really not the jars that are the issue, they are reusable until (if) they break. It's the lids/seals, of which the conventional Ball jars must be replaced each time. There are Weck jars and Tattler lids that deal with these issues. I would post an answer but I don't know how available either one is in New Zealand." CreationDate="2013-02-12T23:08:05.503" UserId="142" />
  <row Id="648" PostId="451" Score="0" Text="@lemontwist They must officially be replaced each time. But in practice most jars that I have reused (without buying a new lid) seal fine. (I presume an airtight seal, which pops when the vacuum breaks, is sufficient for knowing that the jar did seal a second, third time.)" CreationDate="2013-02-12T23:28:08.507" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="649" PostId="451" Score="0" Text="Are you talking about Ball jars? The jars themselves can be reused over and over, as can the rings. The lids cannot be reused. http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/12391/ball-canning-jars-use-them-over-and-over" CreationDate="2013-02-13T00:01:10.483" UserId="142" />
  <row Id="661" PostId="451" Score="0" Text="I don't know what a Ball jar is. I did check the Ball website, but can't tell from that, whether the lid is reusable or not. The question did not ask specifically about Ball jars though." CreationDate="2013-02-13T11:45:56.350" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="667" PostId="451" Score="0" Text="Ball jars are just a brand of mason jars that are most commonly available in the US. You can also find some under the brand Kerr, although they are both owned by the same company. It is a special glass that can handle the heat of processing. Many jams you can buy at farmers markets are probably Ball or Kerr jars. In the grocery store, probably not. In that case finding a lid that fits will probably be tricky but not impossible, and its unlikely they will be of the reusable variety." CreationDate="2013-02-13T15:16:44.193" UserId="142" />
  <row Id="645" PostId="452" Score="0" Text="[This answer to a meta question](http://meta.sustainability.stackexchange.com/a/73/48) sets out my rationale for a series of questions to identify the relationships between particular topics, and sustainability." CreationDate="2013-02-12T20:49:30.270" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="651" PostId="454" Score="0" Text="+1 just for the curiosity factor. This is something I have heard for the first time... Project heat back into space. And you are considering this sustainable because it would revert global warming, at least, eh... partially?" CreationDate="2013-02-13T03:00:50.123" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="652" PostId="454" Score="0" Text="It helps a little. The linked article has some figures." CreationDate="2013-02-13T04:05:57.970" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="1253" PostId="454" Score="2" Text="Actually, I'd say that it helps *a lot*. It's only a little because not many people do it yet.  Go out on a sunny day, and put your hand on black asphalt, and see how much heat a black surface absorbs.  Many roofs are dark colors.  Composite roofs get very hot (I've worked on them plenty), which is both bad for the warming problem, and degrades the materials (causing the roof to need replacing).  US Energy Secretary Steven Chu, PhD., has [specifically identified this](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Chu) as a high value-per-unit-cost remedy." CreationDate="2013-04-21T10:40:35.610" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="653" PostId="455" Score="0" Text="You need to provide some more details" CreationDate="2013-02-13T06:38:58.650" UserId="83" />
  <row Id="654" PostId="455" Score="1" Text="The best one can do is probably to become a homeless person, sleep under a cardboard box and eat food leftovers from public bins. Perhaps you should rephrase your question a bit :-)" CreationDate="2013-02-13T08:27:41.937" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="656" PostId="455" Score="1" Text="@THelper, I disagree. Maybe my answer will change your mind?" CreationDate="2013-02-13T09:49:07.420" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="657" PostId="455" Score="4" Text="This is probably unanswerable as currently posed. Can you find a reformulation of it that would give an opportunity for a definitive, objective answer? People do write whole books to answer the question as it currently stands." CreationDate="2013-02-13T10:11:30.843" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="662" PostId="455" Score="1" Text="Frankly speaking, unless one has a significant influence on other peoples' behaviour, the top thing one can do is to stop living." CreationDate="2013-02-13T13:19:42.097" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="663" PostId="455" Score="1" Text="@gerrit, I was thinking the same thing, but since the OP said 'sustainable **life**'" CreationDate="2013-02-13T14:39:34.917" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="664" PostId="455" Score="2" Text="from the [FAQ](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/faq#dontask) *You should only ask practical, answerable questions based on actual problems that you face* - This question is not constructive.  It is asking for list of people opinions, that does not make a good question on SE.  I suggest you focus on a specific area of your life you wish to make more sustainable, and ask a specific question about that.  If you find you have many questions ask them all.  Just make sure the questions are practical and are asking for facts instead of opinions." CreationDate="2013-02-13T14:45:20.030" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="726" PostId="455" Score="0" Text="@Chad - How would you recommend that I change this question so that I can have the appropriate answer? I could potentially ask something to the effect of. Which practice is more sustainable...A or B? I could ask this of many pairings and eventually get the answer to my original question. This also brings up the question...how do people define sustainability...or how do you measure one sustainable practice vs another..." CreationDate="2013-02-16T04:52:17.110" UserId="92" />
  <row Id="3118" PostId="455" Score="0" Text="Hopefully a [a good carbon footprint calculator](http://www.nature.org/greenliving/carboncalculator/) will give you some perspective on the issue.  Apologies in advance: I'm not sure if this is US-specific or worldwide." CreationDate="2014-03-20T15:29:35.507" UserId="975" />
  <row Id="685" PostId="456" Score="1" Text="I've worked on machines for laser scribing [CdTe](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadmium_telluride) solar panels and reading the [MSDS](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Material_safety_data_sheet) was very [scary](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadmium_telluride#Toxicity), especially since our lasers were blasting it from the surface of the glass! As it is, I can't believe anyone would have thought the use of CdTe in solar panels would be sustainable, given the rarity of *tellurium* ." CreationDate="2013-02-14T11:29:06.517" UserId="164" />
  <row Id="1114" PostId="456" Score="2" Text="You are going to have to pin down your criteria for &quot;Most environmentally friendly&quot;&#xA;&#xA;*  Cost to make.  (Expense ultimatly ties back to other economic activity which all has an impact)&#xA;*  Environmental Impact to make.&#xA;*  EI to dispose of&#xA;*  Service life (Suppose they were cheap, non-toxic, but lasted only a year?)&#xA;*  EI on land.  (Suppose they were cheap, non-toxic, but were only 5% efficient -- 3 times as much land needed.)" CreationDate="2013-03-30T12:39:20.483" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="1746" PostId="456" Score="1" Text="@MarkBooth Look on the bright side of rare elements: their high cost encourages recycling and the development of tech that doesn't use them." CreationDate="2013-06-06T20:38:22.803" UserId="462" />
  <row Id="9673" PostId="456" Score="0" Text="Not exactly an answer to your question, but the [Solar Scorecard](http://www.solarscorecard.com/2016-17/scorecard-2016-17.php) compares solar cell manufacturers and includes an analysis of &quot;module toxicity and materials.&quot;" CreationDate="2018-05-08T16:11:13.793" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="655" PostId="457" Score="0" Text="[This answer to a meta question](http://meta.sustainability.stackexchange.com/a/73/48) sets out my rationale for a series of questions to identify the relationships between particular topics, and sustainability." CreationDate="2013-02-13T09:15:42.293" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="660" PostId="458" Score="0" Text="You make some goods points and I agree that they will make a good contribution to sustainability. However, there are other, more extreme possibilities (like don't ever travel, give up your home, etc.) that have more impact." CreationDate="2013-02-13T11:43:14.250" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3115" PostId="458" Score="0" Text="@THelper Respectfully: this answer balances out costs and benefits (the very nature of sustainability), while your comment examines only costs.  I doubt my bus to work would be cancelled if I didn't show up at the stop.  ;-)" CreationDate="2014-03-20T15:00:45.933" UserId="975" />
  <row Id="3116" PostId="458" Score="0" Text="@JackRyan I do think Highly Irregular wrote a good answer, the problem is with the question. The point I was trying to make is that there is no such thing as a universal applicable top 5 of most sustainable practices." CreationDate="2014-03-20T15:08:26.920" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3119" PostId="458" Score="0" Text="@THelper I actually think the question is quite answerable. [Where does the research show that &quot;we&quot; personally spend energy (bottom right chart, page 1)?](http://css.snre.umich.edu/css_doc/CSS08-08.pdf) Basically buildings and transportation. If you consider your HVAC system, your hot water system, and your vehicle, you've just accounted for a &quot;huge&quot; percentage of your personal carbon footprint (assuming that any 1 individual has a negligible impact on &quot;industrial&quot; and &quot;commercial&quot;)." CreationDate="2014-03-20T15:31:33.310" UserId="975" />
  <row Id="3120" PostId="458" Score="0" Text="@JackRyan With some rewriting this question can be made into something that would be acceptable and answerable, but not as it is. Perhaps you want to try it in a new question? If you do, be careful not to make the question too broad." CreationDate="2014-03-20T15:55:39.083" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="681" PostId="460" Score="0" Text="Yes: some sources can't be depleted (direct solar), some sources regrow relativly quick (wood), some very slowly (fossils)" CreationDate="2013-02-14T09:15:45.673" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="696" PostId="460" Score="0" Text="this seems like such a no-brainer to me. I'll think of something!" CreationDate="2013-02-14T15:23:04.043" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="923" PostId="460" Score="0" Text="but even with direct solar, energy efficiency matters because there are tradeoffs regarding what you can do with something like land and the energy itself is finite, so the more energy efficent you are, the more options you have." CreationDate="2013-03-01T04:12:53.217" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="955" PostId="460" Score="0" Text="Furthermore, it still takes resources (and a lot of energy) to build solar panels or even to grow a forest. Regardless of your energy source, there is _always_ an impact from using energy." CreationDate="2013-03-03T22:21:56.980" UserId="317" />
  <row Id="670" PostId="462" Score="3" Text="Why is this more sustainable than just buying it at Walmart(or any other retail chain)" CreationDate="2013-02-13T15:47:11.147" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="671" PostId="462" Score="1" Text="Also, &quot;learn how to make yourself&quot; is not as helpful as a resource on how to make something or what XY product needs in it in order to work." CreationDate="2013-02-13T17:04:03.940" UserId="142" />
  <row Id="686" PostId="464" Score="0" Text="I'd prefer a slow sustained flow, and skipping any controllers, sensors etc. As low-tech as possible. I'd choose convectional circulation if I wasn't afraid of boiling or freezing." CreationDate="2013-02-14T11:30:11.540" UserId="188" />
  <row Id="1916" PostId="464" Score="1" Text="What do you mean &quot;and water is not to go.&quot;?" CreationDate="2013-06-29T05:53:25.987" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="1990" PostId="464" Score="0" Text="@HighlyIrregular: I edited the answer to clarify that water would boil out and that's why it's not usable." CreationDate="2013-07-07T19:19:11.107" UserId="60" />
  <row Id="682" PostId="465" Score="0" Text="williw and poplar are the two species that come to mind for a moderate climate." CreationDate="2013-02-14T10:15:04.530" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="688" PostId="465" Score="0" Text="@Mark: Electric chainsaw to cut them down and chop them up; it's close enough to the house that transport will be fully manual, wheelbarrow or such. Uprooting old stumps may require renting a backhoe once every few years if they don't decompose fast enough." CreationDate="2013-02-14T11:46:37.283" UserId="188" />
  <row Id="693" PostId="465" Score="1" Text="@Mark: I would if I saw how your question and my answer is relevant to my original question. Sure it's a valid concern overall but it doesn't affect the numbers. It's the same *n* m^3 from a 20-year pine cut down with motor chainsaw and brought by truck, as from one cut down with an axe, cut with hand-saw and carried on my back." CreationDate="2013-02-14T14:45:34.337" UserId="188" />
  <row Id="10136" PostId="465" Score="0" Text="I hope you are nowhere near any population, for [burning wood is extremely polluting](https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/feb/22/wood-diesel-indoor-stoves-cities-pollution) and [kills 250,000 people per year](https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/2014JD021861)." CreationDate="2018-09-07T16:59:34.533" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="692" PostId="467" Score="0" Text="So, which 5-10 different species would you recommend for optimal growth+energy density rate?" CreationDate="2013-02-14T14:38:21.020" UserId="188" />
  <row Id="703" PostId="467" Score="1" Text="I don't know what grows best in your soils and/or in Central European climate. That's a good question to ask your local forester, the person you buy your wood from currently, or other local firewood growers. Or observe what is growing wild around you." CreationDate="2013-02-14T16:33:58.533" UserId="66" />
  <row Id="866" PostId="467" Score="3" Text="I know the vote system is supposed to accomplish this, but I just had to say, GOOD POST!" CreationDate="2013-02-22T20:25:56.820" UserId="212" />
  <row Id="695" PostId="468" Score="3" Text="Do these studies include comparison to pollution of producing these &quot;sustainable&quot; solutions, transporting them, marketing, maintaining work environment for their manufacturers and salespeople, and their suppliers? Does it factor in the oxygen produced by the trees while they grow before I cut them down? (my rough bet is the amount of oxygen produced and CO2 removed from atmosphere that way outweighs the amount of pollution emitted by burning the wood by far.)" CreationDate="2013-02-14T14:52:21.570" UserId="188" />
  <row Id="698" PostId="468" Score="1" Text="Oxygen emitted and CO2 removal are not directly comparable to particulate and gaseous pollution.  They are different things and are completely independent.  One cannot &quot;outweigh&quot; the other.  Transporting and marketing costs are equivalent enough for fireplaces and passive cooling to not affect sustainability.  Other costs such as maintenance tend to favour the passive heating option.  Lastly, with passive heating you can still plant the trees and just *not cut them down and burn them*." CreationDate="2013-02-14T15:39:24.143" UserId="177" />
  <row Id="701" PostId="468" Score="0" Text="I think you have a somehow too hi-tech image for how my fireplace looks like. And passive heating using solar energy would require something better than 4-5 days of poor sunlight a month during winter, with temperatures sometimes dropping to -25C at times. I did my maths for solar heating of the house. It's good for fall and spring but not for winter. (and considering how ridiculously overtaxed &quot;cleaner&quot; sources of energy like gas and electricity are, in this case ecology must yield to economy.)" CreationDate="2013-02-14T16:05:46.513" UserId="188" />
  <row Id="2156" PostId="468" Score="3" Text="@SF. We all have *economy* to worry about, but this is a sustainability site, so Ladadadada's advice is excellent.  You are right, that harvesting your own firewood is great in one sense.  For climate change, it's a great solution, because all the CO2 your fireplace produces was already in the air (minus chainsaw energy, etc.).  But, as this answer said, from a particulate standpoint, wood fireplaces **are absolutely horrible**.  It may work for one cabin in the woods, but if any significant % of the population did this, air quality would be terrible, so it's hard to call it *sustainable*." CreationDate="2013-08-04T03:00:39.480" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="2164" PostId="468" Score="2" Text="SF: then you could also halve your fuel consumption by getting a decent wood-burning stove. An open fireplace is great for returning heat to the environment but not much else. A modern double-burning stove is more efficient as well as less polluting." CreationDate="2013-08-05T00:15:40.947" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="10137" PostId="468" Score="0" Text="This is a great answer.  See also [this Guardian article](https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/feb/22/wood-diesel-indoor-stoves-cities-pollution)." CreationDate="2018-09-07T17:01:14.557" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="699" PostId="469" Score="1" Text="The question is not about what is the more important factor with sustainability but rather how energy efficiency relates to sustainability. This does not answer that question" CreationDate="2013-02-14T15:40:08.010" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="700" PostId="469" Score="0" Text="Greater energy efficiency causes the population to be larger when it hits the limit which causes a larger crash... which means that greater energy efficiency is less sustainable in that scenario.  It answers the second question in the question.  I didn't talk about any factor being more important than another.  I don't know where you got that from." CreationDate="2013-02-14T15:47:23.693" UserId="177" />
  <row Id="11826" PostId="471" Score="0" Text="Why are weeds in a compost a problem at all?" CreationDate="2019-11-18T16:26:04.207" UserId="8149" />
  <row Id="706" PostId="473" Score="1" Text="there are some seeds that have evolved to survive intense heat especially wildfires." CreationDate="2013-02-14T22:26:41.003" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="707" PostId="473" Score="1" Text="Are those the kind of seeds that you tend to find in your compost pile?" CreationDate="2013-02-14T23:37:05.117" UserId="66" />
  <row Id="710" PostId="473" Score="4" Text="you would be surprised where weeds pop up.  Thats why they are called weeds instead of unplanned foliage" CreationDate="2013-02-15T04:16:25.850" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="738" PostId="473" Score="0" Text="I would also think it could be issue with high-desert/alpine flora where wildfires are common, and the controlled variety is even welcome in forest management." CreationDate="2013-02-16T17:30:26.750" UserId="227" />
  <row Id="713" PostId="475" Score="1" Text="Not all manure is high is pathogens" CreationDate="2013-02-15T14:46:51.067" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="932" PostId="478" Score="0" Text="What are the “natural causes” of which pathogens die? It is sort of ambiguous, because one can consider “other micro-organisms” as a natural cause." CreationDate="2013-03-01T15:31:45.173" UserId="227" />
  <row Id="936" PostId="478" Score="1" Text="Extremes of temperature (especially by pasteurization), availability of water, untenable environmental PH, and just plain waiting to long for a new host to sustain the reproductive cycle." CreationDate="2013-03-01T17:16:08.273" UserId="212" />
  <row Id="2256" PostId="478" Score="2" Text="@THelper: The problem are not only pathogens (as infectious living microorganisms) but also toxins - particularly mycotoxins. It seems that some mycotoxins can be difficult to decompose. By quick itnernet search I have found this abstract of an article [Stability of mycotoxins during food processing](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17804104)." CreationDate="2013-08-26T16:38:55.607" UserId="642" />
  <row Id="2259" PostId="478" Score="0" Text="@pabouk Mycotoxins are toxins produced by fungi and [fungi are also pathogens](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pathogen#Fungal). I'm not sure how the article you are referring to is relevant here. The mycotoxins in processed food most likely come from fungi on the ingredients and the article describes that not all mycotoxins are destroyed during food processing. This doesn't seem to have any direct link to fungi in compost." CreationDate="2013-08-27T11:04:51.777" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="2260" PostId="478" Score="1" Text="@THelper: The article is relevant to the problem I am referring to: **stability of mycotoxins**. Since I have found only texts related to food I linked at least the abstract above which reminds us that because not all mycotoxins are destroyed during food processing **it is also highly probable that not all mycotoxins are destroyed in compost**." CreationDate="2013-08-27T13:16:29.587" UserId="642" />
  <row Id="724" PostId="479" Score="0" Text="Why would mining bentonite be unstustainable.  It is a stable compound that does not create hazardous waste.  You will be using a very finite amount for a very specific purpose.  It is not like you need to do the mining it is a by product of mining several other ore that are already mined.  Everyone needed to remove an oil stain a week and maybe even a day I doubt we would run out of it." CreationDate="2013-02-16T04:35:32.460" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="728" PostId="479" Score="0" Text="@Chad, my understanding is that because it's used for cat litter, there is already an enormous demand for it. It can only be used once, and won't re-accumulate within any reasonable period, which makes it unsustainable by definition, no matter what the size of the reserves." CreationDate="2013-02-16T10:06:22.730" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="730" PostId="479" Score="1" Text="I think you underestimate the reserves of this.  The only thing that is unsustainable about this process would be the oil, but that is already there you are just putting it into a medium that is actually going to improve the oils reclamation rate, and prevent it from contaminating runoff.  This would be more sustainable than just leaving the stain for sure.  And definitely better than any chemical cleaning agent I know of." CreationDate="2013-02-16T13:29:15.410" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="9709" PostId="479" Score="0" Text="I'm going to make a joke response: Sell your car get rid of the driveway, bike to work and turn the driveway into a garden. This really may be the most sustainable answer TBH. LOL." CreationDate="2018-05-16T14:44:01.870" UserId="4922" />
  <row Id="768" PostId="484" Score="0" Text="For the record I may have had Dengue a year or so ago. It was not fun." CreationDate="2013-02-18T15:10:53.550" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="769" PostId="484" Score="0" Text="I'm sorry to hear that. A friend of mine also had Dengue. Whatever you do, don't get Dengue." CreationDate="2013-02-18T15:24:43.693" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="770" PostId="484" Score="0" Text="It's not unheard of for people to get it even 3-4 times.  Of course subsequent times are riskier, but the standard advice is worth committing to memory:  stay hydrated, use medicines to bring down the fever if you must, and watch for signs of low blood pressure or bleeding.  Apparently hemorragic fever risk goes way up with dehydration." CreationDate="2013-02-18T15:26:23.207" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="772" PostId="484" Score="0" Text="Thanks for the pointers. I am living on Dengue grounds now. You are supposed to be resistant to the particular strain of Dengue if you had it once, though, and to all strains for a short period of time. I'm curious to know if that's true, although not curious enough to try find out first hand..." CreationDate="2013-02-18T15:33:46.510" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="773" PostId="484" Score="0" Text="The problem is that all strains of Dengue are now found everywhere any strain is :-P  BTW, it was one of the two sickest times of my life.  Not fun." CreationDate="2013-02-18T15:49:16.063" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="732" PostId="485" Score="0" Text="I haven't seen any indication of activity in the kitchen or around food btw.  These have solely been found in showers, and areas near showers, except for the random case where we catch them coming in the doors." CreationDate="2013-02-16T14:53:38.750" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="751" PostId="485" Score="2" Text="(As far as the kitchen goes, it may be in part that there are insect-eating lizards which live in the kitchen....)" CreationDate="2013-02-17T01:50:26.637" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="3293" PostId="485" Score="0" Text="An alternative to a good hygiene: a very bad one. When I came back from my holiday, a ant nest had set up in my flat and all roaches(german type) where gone" CreationDate="2014-05-13T06:52:28.450" UserId="1421" />
  <row Id="745" PostId="486" Score="0" Text="This topic is already very well covered on the internet. Try http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy-efficient_driving" CreationDate="2013-02-16T22:35:41.253" UserId="27" />
  <row Id="1787" PostId="486" Score="0" Text="It should be noted that implicit in this question is that this is for internal combustion engine vehicles.  The answer does change a little bit in an electric car, for multiple reasons." CreationDate="2013-06-11T22:45:12.047" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1871" PostId="486" Score="0" Text="You could get a [bike](http://bicycles.stackexchange.com/?as=1)." CreationDate="2013-06-20T13:33:18.480" UserId="108" />
  <row Id="9989" PostId="486" Score="0" Text="Not mentioned among the answers, but what I am curious about myself is: is there anything we can do by altering the car to make it more fuel efficient? Anything I can ask the garage owner to do, for example?" CreationDate="2018-07-30T07:50:12.450" UserId="5895" />
  <row Id="735" PostId="487" Score="3" Text="Why not just use a library? They have books, newspapers and magazines." CreationDate="2013-02-16T16:36:17.510" UserId="142" />
  <row Id="736" PostId="487" Score="3" Text="Yeah, that's good, if you have a library near you. I should have added &quot;assuming you don't have a library within 50km&quot;. I buy books almost exclusively used though." CreationDate="2013-02-16T16:45:12.640" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="1998" PostId="487" Score="0" Text="Doe this assumes you are going to BUY a laptop/tablet/whatever to read books? Because if we are using this Q&amp;A we all have computers we can read on, and most people have or will buy tablets for other uses, so I believe since you have one of those, the case for books gets pretty weak." CreationDate="2013-07-08T19:14:45.143" UserId="89" />
  <row Id="742" PostId="488" Score="4" Text="Driving with the windows open creates drag. It varies with speed &amp; vehicle, but on the highway you're usually better off using the A/C than opening windows." CreationDate="2013-02-16T22:30:26.690" UserId="27" />
  <row Id="743" PostId="488" Score="2" Text="The term &quot;defensive driving&quot; already means &quot;drive to avoid accidents&quot;; let's not add new meanings." CreationDate="2013-02-16T22:32:04.720" UserId="27" />
  <row Id="744" PostId="488" Score="4" Text="Driving slowly has two negative consequences: it pisses off other people (creating a field of negative energy or whatever) and motivates them to drive more aggressively (consuming more fuel, offsetting your usage). Obviously, if you're the only one on the road, it's no big deal." CreationDate="2013-02-16T22:33:12.257" UserId="27" />
  <row Id="750" PostId="488" Score="0" Text="Re: defensive driving. I guess I extended the usual meaning of &quot;driving to avoid accidents&quot;. But also for driving without brakes, one needs to look ahead anticipate the movements of others... Any better name, then? Re: driving slowly. I meant of course, &quot;don't drive faster than everybody else, if not necessary&quot; rather than &quot;drive slower than everybody else&quot;..." CreationDate="2013-02-16T23:46:52.070" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="780" PostId="488" Score="1" Text="@Jay - hypermilers and folks like the Institute of Advanced Motorists do use Defensive Driving to include anticipatory and aware driving" CreationDate="2013-02-19T09:56:13.933" UserId="253" />
  <row Id="789" PostId="488" Score="3" Text="@JayBazuzi - There is a [question about this over at skeptics](http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/q/5661) sadly the best evidence I could find was from [mythbusters](http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/a/5723) which suggested that for **their vehicle** *&quot;Going less than 50mph it is more efficient to leave your windows down, but going greater than 50mph it is more efficient to use your A/C.&quot;*" CreationDate="2013-02-19T15:10:20.360" UserId="164" />
  <row Id="799" PostId="488" Score="1" Text="Driving faster **does not** necessarily mean that you are going to use more fuel. I challenge anyone to get on motorway, and go 10 mph, and then report what kind of mileage they would get." CreationDate="2013-02-19T23:31:58.423" UserId="227" />
  <row Id="800" PostId="488" Score="1" Text="Or try driving at 0 mph and report your mileage... I was thinking of the people who drive 150 mph on the German highway. Surely you agree that this way of driving uses more fuel." CreationDate="2013-02-20T00:13:09.820" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="806" PostId="488" Score="2" Text="Re: air-conditioning: This [Slate article](http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/the_green_lantern/2010/08/natures_air_conditioner.html) references a 2004 study by the Society of Automotive Engineers and concludes this rule of thumb: in city streets keep the windows down (and A/C off), on highways keep the windows up, and use A/C if desired." CreationDate="2013-02-20T17:22:43.420" UserId="67" />
  <row Id="1786" PostId="488" Score="3" Text="@theUg, theoretically, driving faster *would* necessarily mean that you use more fuel, as wind drag goes with the airspeed squared (EVs do behave this way).  However, internal combustion engines have a specific property that they have a significant efficiency peak, at a certain rotational speed (rpm).  Automakers have designed transmissions such that the engine's peak efficiency will occur at a groundspeed that's somewhere in the middle of a normal range.  Therefore, the net effect is that efficiency is bad at very low speeds, gets a bit better at medium speeds, and falls again at high speeds." CreationDate="2013-06-11T22:38:40.420" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1810" PostId="488" Score="1" Text="@Nate, that is what I implied. I simply took an issue with an irresponsible statement. Theoretically, indeed, the vehicle with only a final drive (no gearbox), and flat power curve (such as direct electric drive) would experience more drag with increase of velocity. However, as you’ve said, ICE are endowed with complex and uneven combination of power delivery and torque across the RPM band, and that is why effective use of gears provides higher benefit while the effects of drag are negligible in comparison. Hence, my statement stands, at least as it pertains to the vast majority of vehicles." CreationDate="2013-06-12T14:51:00.457" UserId="227" />
  <row Id="1823" PostId="488" Score="2" Text="Regarding winter driving: as far as I know the heating is provided by the engine cooling system, therefore doesn't consume more energy than just the fan." CreationDate="2013-06-12T22:11:10.520" UserId="278" />
  <row Id="11656" PostId="488" Score="0" Text="@clabacchio: that's true only as long as long as you do not use more heat than is excessive heat that otherwise need to be get rid of by the cooling. Even in mild German winters we easily have conditions where this is not the case with modern fuel saving combustion engines. Quite some cars actually have an additional *heater* (which burns fuel) that kicks in to avoid the motor getting cold / warming only slowly due to heating being turned on." CreationDate="2019-11-04T15:49:08.527" UserId="3722" />
  <row Id="11676" PostId="488" Score="0" Text="@cbeleitessupportsMonica well I'm used to a mild climate, and my car is not provided with Webasto or similar, so I didn't think about that possibility :) I just get cold air out of the outlets when the car is cold" CreationDate="2019-11-06T08:35:54.947" UserId="278" />
  <row Id="11692" PostId="488" Score="0" Text="@clabacchio: If turning on the heater has the effect that the engine takes longer to reach working temp or even goes permanently below normal working temperature, you'll have worse fuel economy (the cars I'm familiar with will always provide heating according to water temperature - i.e. they don't shut off the heating for motor/water temp below warm working conditions). (I'd also call my climate mild - but we do reach such conditions)" CreationDate="2019-11-07T13:21:14.947" UserId="3722" />
  <row Id="739" PostId="489" Score="4" Text="Reuse first, then recycle. This doesn't only hold true for Ziploc bags..." CreationDate="2013-02-16T17:50:24.897" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="740" PostId="489" Score="1" Text="I usually wash them by putting them flat on the bottom of the sink and then inserting my hand flat and with a sponge, so that the bag doesn't wrinkle as much. For drying I turn them inside out and stick them on a bottle/glass whatever other drying dishes I have. Once the (now turned-out) inside is dry, you can store them as usual (leave the zip open)." CreationDate="2013-02-16T17:54:46.253" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="741" PostId="489" Score="1" Text="Try to replace them with something else, and reuse the ones you have until they fall apart. I haven't used ziplock bags in over 5 years and haven't missed them." CreationDate="2013-02-16T18:35:31.370" UserId="142" />
  <row Id="794" PostId="489" Score="0" Text="@lemontwist with what would you replace freezer bags and the specially perforated produce bags?" CreationDate="2013-02-19T19:02:05.813" UserId="169" />
  <row Id="803" PostId="489" Score="0" Text="@glenviewjeff, I don't use produce bags at all, and I don't freeze in plastic." CreationDate="2013-02-20T03:18:18.670" UserId="142" />
  <row Id="807" PostId="489" Score="0" Text="@lemontwist so what do you use for freezing?  I do freeze a fair amount in freezer-safe glass Ball jars, but they only work for certain items." CreationDate="2013-02-20T19:40:06.043" UserId="169" />
  <row Id="815" PostId="489" Score="0" Text="I freeze in Ball jars... pretty much everything I freeze works in that kind of container. I have a few old plastic freezer containers kicking around that I can use for things that aren't liquid. I don't eat meat, so that's probably a big thing that helps, and I can't think of anything that I would need to freeze in a bag that couldn't go in a container or a jar." CreationDate="2013-02-20T23:07:04.657" UserId="142" />
  <row Id="2680" PostId="489" Score="0" Text="Back before the days of ziplock bags, people used [Freezer Paper](http://www.rootsimple.com/2013/02/freezing-meat-without-plastic/) to freeze goods. I think modern freezer paper has a thin plastic coating, so it may not be a whole lot better than plastic bags, but I think the old-style paper was wax coated." CreationDate="2014-01-09T02:06:42.767" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="1813" PostId="490" Score="0" Text="+1 for the helpful driving info and the bicycle fuel efficiency data. (I've got a 53 MPB sticker on my bike.)" CreationDate="2013-06-12T16:43:11.557" UserId="462" />
  <row Id="1098" PostId="493" Score="1" Text="[**This site**](http://www.endscarbonoffsets.com/) provides a list of carbon offset providers, and lets you filter them based on various criteria. There are also 4 Australian organisations mentioned [**here**](http://www.choice.com.au/reviews-and-tests/household/energy-and-water/saving-energy/carbon-offsets.aspx)." CreationDate="2013-02-18T00:21:04.497" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="8607" PostId="493" Score="0" Text="Replacing coal with methane gases that are bound to leak into the atmosphere in the coming centuries." CreationDate="2017-06-24T15:29:52.110" UserId="1177" />
  <row Id="752" PostId="494" Score="1" Text="Not what you're asking for, but the traditional way to deal with this is to slaughter as you go, 1 at a time, as needed." CreationDate="2013-02-17T06:09:10.390" UserId="27" />
  <row Id="756" PostId="494" Score="0" Text="Yeah, &quot;on the hoof&quot; was what I mentioned in my answer to the linked question. We could head in this direction, but slaughtering chickens in the cold of winter isn't ideal." CreationDate="2013-02-17T12:41:38.187" UserId="66" />
  <row Id="779" PostId="494" Score="0" Text="Is it absolutely necessary that they be whole (i.e. you want to roast them)?  Chicken pieces will pack into reusable square containers quite nicely with little to no captured air in the container.  Obviously this requires quite a bit of extra butchery at slaughter time." CreationDate="2013-02-19T08:41:28.830" UserId="177" />
  <row Id="786" PostId="494" Score="0" Text="It's not *absolutely* necessary, but given that we do batch-processing (as opposed to as-needed like Jay Bazuzi suggests) the extra labor involved in parting is undesirable." CreationDate="2013-02-19T13:15:12.213" UserId="66" />
  <row Id="759" PostId="495" Score="0" Text="Use [syngas](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/a/74/66) -- &quot;runs on dead cats&quot; ;)" CreationDate="2013-02-17T12:52:59.803" UserId="66" />
  <row Id="754" PostId="496" Score="0" Text="As an aside, one thing they used to do in the Middle Ages to preserve chicken was  to boil it into broth and then use the broth to make beer (along with malt of course!).  This sounded really sketchy to me until I came across commercially avaialble beer made with oysters so evidently the use of brewing with animal products has continued to this day." CreationDate="2013-02-17T06:33:06.650" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="757" PostId="496" Score="0" Text="We have pretty good luck without a vacuum machine. They aren't necessarily &quot;perfect&quot;, but basically any type of braised dish hides any freezer burn." CreationDate="2013-02-17T12:49:48.540" UserId="66" />
  <row Id="758" PostId="496" Score="0" Text="` any type of braised dish hides any freezer burn...` 100% agreed with that." CreationDate="2013-02-17T12:51:09.473" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="2138" PostId="498" Score="1" Text="A vehicle that gets 6 mpg is rarely going to be more ecological than creating a brand new truck.  Of course, there are edge cases, but since this question didn't identify such a case, this is likely to be bad advice **vastly** more than it's good advice.  (part of the reason why this isn't good advice is that [cars are recycled reasonably well](http://www.popsci.com/cars/article/2009-05/recyclable-cars))" CreationDate="2013-07-31T23:13:04.240" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="2145" PostId="498" Score="0" Text="@Nate Even if we count the cost of recycling and producing the said new car? More generally (so less specific to this question) we are pushed to planned obsolescence, ads everywhere for so said green cars where it would so often be more ecological to avoid using car and/or not buying a new one. Fixing or finding all kind of objects a second life is **almost always** better than recycling for numerous reasons. I could be wrong on this specific case but I can't affirm anything precisely so I don't know. Thanks a lot for your comment though." CreationDate="2013-08-02T05:41:05.997" UserId="264" />
  <row Id="2146" PostId="498" Score="0" Text="I agree that avoiding a car altogether can be great, but that's not what the question is asking.  Buying a new vehicle to get a modest (5mpg or less) increase in efficiency is also probably not a good idea, given that new cars cost about 4 years worth of fuel to produce.  But, when the vehicle in question gets only 6mpg, that vehicle needs to be taken off the road in the majority of cases.  Recycling the old truck &quot;costs&quot; less (in energy) than producing virgin materials, so recycling is still good.  I hear you on &quot;planned obsolescence&quot;, but this truck is pushing 40 years old." CreationDate="2013-08-02T06:26:45.550" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="3038" PostId="498" Score="0" Text="I think this may depend a lot on whether the user has a need for a large heavy truck. Upgrading a 6mpg truck to a modern 10-15mpg truck may not be worthwhile, depending on the annual mileage. But if they are using it as an everyday car, then it's definitely worth getting rid of it and changing to something that does 40mpg!" CreationDate="2014-03-07T09:28:15.377" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="764" PostId="501" Score="0" Text="Thanks, this is helpful. Yes, maple is probably pinnacle. Much of this area was open fields within the last 100 years. Progression as I understand it tends to be white pine -&gt; hemlock/beech -&gt; beech/maple. Beech tend to be shorter lived because of beech bark disease -- much of my harvesting has been beech that are dead/dying from it." CreationDate="2013-02-18T04:20:33.363" UserId="66" />
  <row Id="766" PostId="502" Score="1" Text="Interesting, thank you. Like you say, books are more difficult, because you don't know how long they will last, how many times they will be reread, etc. What about newspapers? Nobody reads old newspapers again. They just get recycled into new newspapers... But then, the recycling/printing process seems to be not quite as refined as the process necessary for books." CreationDate="2013-02-18T12:28:42.023" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="767" PostId="502" Score="1" Text="I wonder if that is one reason why printed newspapers are struggling so much." CreationDate="2013-02-18T14:39:20.613" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="774" PostId="502" Score="0" Text="You raise valid points, but in case of academic print I want to elaborate. First of, academic literature by definition is of limited audience, thus you do not get much win in the economy of scale. The articles must peer-reviewed, hence additional logistical costs prior to publication. Then it has to be bundled together with other articles in a journal, and then people would have to acquire the journal to get to one article, much like people buy albums to get one particular pop single." CreationDate="2013-02-19T03:31:48.470" UserId="227" />
  <row Id="775" PostId="502" Score="0" Text="The journal has to be distributed to subscribers and libraries. If one person checks out one copy of the journal, then this article, as well as all the other articles in that journal, become unavailable to others, who are losing in productivity waiting on you. Yourself, you are limited by the time allowed for check out, and if you have to come back to any which work, you have to go (read: drive) back to the library, provided it was not checked out by someone else." CreationDate="2013-02-19T03:35:32.893" UserId="227" />
  <row Id="776" PostId="502" Score="0" Text="Whereas digital publication allows for virtually unlimited distribution of knowledge amongst all interested parties, without costs of printing, shipping, and storage. This knowledge can be accessed at any time, and re-used any time. Granted, myself I prefer paper to screen any day, especially for leisurely reading, but for research, the ease of digital is certainly appealing. And, on related matter, I do not spend on overpriced textbooks, either (How much exactly did classical mechanics changed in the past couple years?). I reuse, by buying used, employ library reserve, or “borrow” digitally." CreationDate="2013-02-19T03:42:27.710" UserId="227" />
  <row Id="778" PostId="502" Score="0" Text="@theUg, there is a huge difference in this regard though between a journal and a monograph.  Typically research students looking for journal articles are only going to pull one or two articles from a journal.  Monographs are more likely to be read straight through.  To the extent that monographs end up being replaced by electronic journals, I don't think this is a good thing either from a sustainability or a knowledge transmission perspective." CreationDate="2013-02-19T08:02:14.363" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="771" PostId="503" Score="0" Text="This seems rather vague and woolly to me at the moment. There might be a good specific question in here, but I can't quite put my finger on what it is." CreationDate="2013-02-18T15:30:58.093" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="781" PostId="503" Score="0" Text="I'm starting to see that my job here is to test the boundaries - bring in questions of law, culture, etc.  I think it's critical to keep our eyes on the full scope of the challenge that a commitment to sustainability calls us to.  I'll do my best to keep it productive." CreationDate="2013-02-19T10:33:45.783" UserId="28" />
  <row Id="785" PostId="503" Score="0" Text="Keep posting, Laizer! It's the job of all of us contributing to the beta to find the boundaries of a well-functioning site." CreationDate="2013-02-19T11:08:34.967" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="782" PostId="504" Score="0" Text="Thank you for the answer - some good pieces to chew on here." CreationDate="2013-02-19T10:35:30.010" UserId="28" />
  <row Id="777" PostId="505" Score="0" Text="but then what about dedicated e-book-readers vs reading a book on your laptop?  These things get really complex and it isn't clear what sort of assumptions to use in comparing." CreationDate="2013-02-19T03:51:42.657" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="783" PostId="505" Score="1" Text="Chris - the comparison between ebooks and laptops is actually a much easier one. Modern ebooks only use power when changing pages (eInk pixels remain as on or off until you change them) so their efficiency is dramatically greater. Charging is at 5 or 6 watts, as opposed to 60-100 watts, battery life can be a month or so as opposed to 4-6 hours." CreationDate="2013-02-19T10:38:09.873" UserId="253" />
  <row Id="784" PostId="505" Score="0" Text="&quot;we aren't exactly comparing things that can be compared&quot;: We can read the same newspaper or book on two different media. My question isn't &quot;what is the difference between paper and a screen?&quot;. I'm asking, when I have a choice to read a particular book on a screen or on paper, how sustainable are my choices? I could even print the book onto recycled paper and then turn off the computer. Is that a better choice? I don't know, but I think in principle the question is answerable, if only partly at the moment." CreationDate="2013-02-19T11:02:40.597" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="1788" PostId="506" Score="0" Text="I agree with almost everything, except the part about using the engine to brake.  I think that's terrible advice in almost all situations (the exception being a very long downhill grade, where you have reason to believe that your brakes will overheat).  The brakes were designed to stop your car.  The engine and transmission were not.  The brake pads, and even rotors, are designed to be replaced easily, at modest cost.  Transmission ... not so much.  Stressing the transmission in reverse also activates mechanical stress in the opposite direction, which can have nonlinear fatigue implications." CreationDate="2013-06-11T22:59:10.710" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1807" PostId="506" Score="0" Text="@Nate, read the link provided about engine braking. The engine does not experience any additional stress compared to when it is under acceleration (if anything, the opposite, as there is no combustion in a modern FI motor). As for transmission, numerous patents pertaining to commercial driving stress the importance of engine braking over regular braking, and that is in the industry where heavily loaded gargantuan vehicles go on for over a million kilometres without a major overhaul." CreationDate="2013-06-12T14:36:49.887" UserId="227" />
  <row Id="1808" PostId="506" Score="0" Text="As obsessed those people with reliability and maintenance cost, I am sure they would worry about transmission wear if it was the major factor in engine braking." CreationDate="2013-06-12T14:37:29.013" UserId="227" />
  <row Id="1809" PostId="506" Score="0" Text="By the way, when driving properly and using regular brakes to slow down, one still has to do it in gear, and down-shift along the way, thus, effectively, combining regular and engine braking anyway. Simply disengaging transmission from 60 km/h, with, say, manual gearbox, and using brakes alone is not advised due to wear and safety concerns (the vehicle should be in proper gear at higher speeds in case acceleration in avoidance manoeuvre is required. Automatic transmissions give you a little choice, but to engine brake when using regular brakes." CreationDate="2013-06-12T14:42:09.043" UserId="227" />
  <row Id="1832" PostId="506" Score="0" Text="The *link* about engine braking is another post by you.  Patents are descriptions of ideas, not peer-reviewed reporting of experimental results.  A patent's role is to carve out intellectual property.  An idea expressed in a patent need not be valid.  Commercial trucking is a completely different scenario from that which the OP asked about.  Commercial trucks are usually fleet vehicles, that are maintained.  The cost of transmission maintenance can be spread over lots of miles.  A new transmission for the OP is likely a prohibitive cost." CreationDate="2013-06-15T09:54:55.433" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1834" PostId="506" Score="0" Text="Also, the rationale behind engine braking on downhill grades (which I already mentioned an exception for) for trucks is entirely based on safety, not efficiency (maintenance cost, or fuel). Trucks going downhill are an even bigger safety risk for brake failure, so that totally makes sense. Again, totally different regime than that posed in the question." CreationDate="2013-06-15T10:24:51.690" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1835" PostId="506" Score="0" Text="Looking back at the question again, I notice that her car is an automatic, so I agree that you don't really have a choice how much engine braking is done.  I was responding to your answer, which sounded to be providing more *general* advice (applicable to stick drivers).  I certainly don't know many drivers of automatics who try to shift to neutral when decelerating." CreationDate="2013-06-15T10:46:13.953" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="790" PostId="507" Score="1" Text="What do you mean, it hasn’t been mentioned yet? I did. ;)" CreationDate="2013-02-19T15:23:33.880" UserId="227" />
  <row Id="791" PostId="507" Score="1" Text="DWB takes it a fair bit further than just the coasting, which is what I assumed you were referring to..." CreationDate="2013-02-19T15:48:59.490" UserId="253" />
  <row Id="796" PostId="507" Score="0" Text="I did not specify it directly, but here is the quote: “Proper deceleration is important, because fast braking (even if one “drives defensively” well under speed limit) does nothing but converting kinetic energy into waste heat, whereas there are more efficient ways to slow down.” I know, I wrote a lot of stuff. :)" CreationDate="2013-02-19T20:01:13.147" UserId="227" />
  <row Id="801" PostId="507" Score="0" Text="&quot;What do you mean, it hasn’t been mentioned yet? I did.&quot; So did I (under &quot;Defensive driving&quot;)... =)" CreationDate="2013-02-20T00:40:15.367" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="787" PostId="509" Score="4" Text="Just as a side note, I would expect that if you use a water or vinegar-based stain you'd want to let the wood dry for maybe a day or so between application of the stain and of the linseed oil." CreationDate="2013-02-19T13:41:58.500" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="792" PostId="509" Score="3" Text="It's worth mentioning the safety aspect of using linseed oil. A pile of rags with linseed oil on can spontaneously combust, thanks to the linseed oil reacting with oxygen and producing heat that (when the pile of rags is big enough to work as effective insulation) can build up to the point of combustion." CreationDate="2013-02-19T18:12:42.153" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="849" PostId="509" Score="0" Text="+1 for the safety tip! The exact thing has happened to me!" CreationDate="2013-02-22T02:00:38.117" UserId="281" />
  <row Id="802" PostId="513" Score="1" Text="I appreciate the detailed (and funny) answer, but I was really looking to understand what the environmental effects are of throwing them in the landfill (the &quot;why&quot;), as opposed to subjective advice about what I should do with them." CreationDate="2013-02-20T02:37:00.317" UserId="169" />
  <row Id="798" PostId="514" Score="4" Text="Some photovoltaic systems also run water past the panels, which not only collects extra energy as heat but also would potentially increases the efficiency of the photovoltaic cells by cooling them. More info in [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photovoltaic_thermal_hybrid_solar_collector). Are you sure you're not looking at a reference to those?" CreationDate="2013-02-19T23:18:17.417" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="3315" PostId="514" Score="2" Text="PV panels can have 20 or 25 year underwritten warranties. NO water weight on roof etc, NO plumbing, pipes joining lagging liquids thermosyphons or lack thereof. With proper design, efficiency of energy use in water heater can be close to 100% . Electricity can be swung between heating and other uses instantaneously as desired. Any grid replaced kWh is worth the cost of power from the grid at the moment of use. Overall the system can be very competitive with thermal solar in some cases." CreationDate="2014-05-22T07:14:01.693" UserId="318" />
  <row Id="818" PostId="515" Score="1" Text="+1 for hybrid photovoltaics." CreationDate="2013-02-21T07:38:12.330" UserId="60" />
  <row Id="3071" PostId="515" Score="0" Text="Suspect this practice has a lot to do with economic incentives." CreationDate="2014-03-11T15:53:15.013" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="817" PostId="516" Score="0" Text="Overproduction of a small PV system (my case) is considered as an energy for network loses by the distribution company. So generally it's not used directly, but as a support to run the system. Still, it's some kind of useful usage." CreationDate="2013-02-21T07:36:35.793" UserId="60" />
  <row Id="877" PostId="516" Score="0" Text="I have heard this in the early stages of a utility's experience with small generation.  I believe that most give up this practice as they gain more experience with net metering and the number of customer-suppliers goes up.  If the energy is being dumped then the economics will be different than the actual generation saved at the power plant." CreationDate="2013-02-24T20:34:46.970" UserId="87" />
  <row Id="16412" PostId="516" Score="0" Text="*In a modern grid-tied solar PV system, you can bank electrical energy credits across many months, effectively generating power in July for use in January*  — if only!  Storage is **expensive**." CreationDate="2023-07-12T08:16:36.580" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="808" PostId="520" Score="2" Text="Chad, Are you citing a notable claim that NG *is* more sustainable than  petroleum-based products? If you can clarify what information you are asking about, folks will likely be better able to help you. Otherwise, this starts to look like a thinly-veiled rant posing as an actual question. Just trying to help make this more constructive. Thanks." CreationDate="2013-02-20T19:40:29.457" UserId="117" />
  <row Id="809" PostId="520" Score="0" Text="@RobertCartaino - I assure you I am not trying to rant.  I do try to make sustainable decisions, but I want to understand why some things are more sustainable than others.  This is one that makes me wonder if it is actually more sustainable or just a marketing term." CreationDate="2013-02-20T20:06:53.220" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="810" PostId="520" Score="0" Text="Chad, I wasn't accusing you as such, but when I read your question, my first thought went to *&quot;who the heck is claiming that?&quot;* Answering that would improve the question and solicit better answers than simply saying *&quot;It isn't. period.&quot;*" CreationDate="2013-02-20T20:22:43.470" UserId="117" />
  <row Id="814" PostId="520" Score="1" Text="It's more sustainable because the supply is so much more vast.  In terms of energy yield, the world has several tens of times as much NG as gasoline (as could be refined).  The US in particular has over 100x as much domestic supply." CreationDate="2013-02-20T22:46:51.757" UserId="212" />
  <row Id="816" PostId="521" Score="0" Text="Can you provide more info? The reservoir probably will be placed in the attic and filled to given level using the standard WC mechanism." CreationDate="2013-02-20T23:53:04.027" UserId="188" />
  <row Id="820" PostId="521" Score="1" Text="Of course! Links and a little more info added. Thermosiphon systems are widely used. In the west prosperity has just allowed us ignorance. Here's a typical Israeli roof top: http://www.sunnergy.cn/uploadfile/newfile/01.jpg  As you can see in this picture from a hilltop in Tel-Aviv such systems are common there:  http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_B51On_cmJmM/SNUT6-TK4HI/AAAAAAAAAIw/eWQvUba_25A/s400/solar-hot-water-heater-israel.jpg" CreationDate="2013-02-21T14:40:06.883" UserId="212" />
  <row Id="973" PostId="521" Score="0" Text="A cheap sprinkler timer can be used to stop reverse flow, and corresponding heat loss, but is a no-no in sub-freezing temperatures (an occasional night at &gt;25'F is ok), because the reverse flow is actually what keeps the collector from freezing during those circumstances.  Thermo-siphon works well both open loop and closed." CreationDate="2013-03-07T15:45:41.147" UserId="212" />
  <row Id="858" PostId="527" Score="0" Text="Some foods store better than others.  Get used to eating foods in-season.  Storing less makes storing easier." CreationDate="2013-02-22T18:32:47.497" UserId="212" />
  <row Id="891" PostId="529" Score="0" Text="It’s still being flared off. Although worldwide averages for flaring is around 2%, in certain areas it is way above that, such as new North Dakota oil fields, where the legislation is lacking, and companies flare off some 20%—30% because “gas is not as profitable”." CreationDate="2013-02-26T04:07:30.873" UserId="227" />
  <row Id="819" PostId="532" Score="1" Text="re &quot;better for environment&quot; - there are a set of questions on the main site tagged [tag:defining-sustainability] to help thrash out these very issues - please do join in with questions and answers there." CreationDate="2013-02-21T13:18:50.323" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="823" PostId="533" Score="1" Text="Controlling the humidity has a significant effect on both bacteria replication and spore germination (correct term?) as well.  Yeoman farmers have stored root vegetables in boxes of sand or straw for centuries.  It works by reducing temperature and humidity fluctuation.  A good book on root cellaring will tell you the right humidity level for foods you want to store." CreationDate="2013-02-21T16:26:00.503" UserId="212" />
  <row Id="847" PostId="533" Score="2" Text="Humidity is important regarding root vegetables for a large number of other reasons too.  Keep in mind these are living organisms and so the goal is to keep them alive and dormant.  Temperature and humidity changes can cause issues there in terms of dehydration and some roots and rhyzomes will die with too much or too little humidity or at the wrong temperatures (ginger comes to mind as requiring relatively high temperatures and humidity)." CreationDate="2013-02-22T01:02:45.173" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="850" PostId="533" Score="0" Text="Thanks Chris, anything you might do differently? I have fresh foods in the garage which is 30-40 degrees and frozen meat and other stuff in a large cooler in the snow. I actually discovered some tampering with the cooler, it was flipped over  and there were animal tracks. I think I am not going to store food in the snow anymore because a larger animal (i.e. bear) would destroy my operation. I guess I would still save some energy but can't go as far as unplugging the refrigerator." CreationDate="2013-02-22T02:16:21.523" UserId="282" />
  <row Id="851" PostId="533" Score="0" Text="The traditional method is to use cool storage (think 40-60F) combined with lactic fermentation as much as possible.  This means, in essence, choosing foods seasonally and preserving for the winter, living with (rather than against) the seasonal cycles.  If there are cooler parts of your house, homemade sauerkraut is wonderful stuff, and it is very different from anything you can buy at the store.  Additionally it requires very little time and energy (of any sort!) to make.  With your garage, I would store winter squash.  TBC" CreationDate="2013-02-22T02:42:01.170" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="852" PostId="533" Score="1" Text="The big thing though is that living without freezing and refridgeration means living very differently than if one has these.  You aren't going to have fresh veggies in the winter, for example but instead will eat fermented ones.  If I were trying to eliminate one of these, I would do so by adopting at least in part a lifestyle which didn't need them." CreationDate="2013-02-22T02:43:43.117" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="870" PostId="533" Score="0" Text="btw, regarding animals, an unkindness of ravens is likely to be just as much of a threat to your project outside as a bear would be. I have heard stories of ravens not only getting into coolers but picking them up and discarding them elsewhere.  They are very crafty and their ingenuity is not to be underestimated." CreationDate="2013-02-23T04:01:15.357" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="885" PostId="533" Score="1" Text="Regarding the storage of food at varying levels of humidity/temperature: I received a whole suitcase of persimmons once. I didn't have space to store them all in the fridge, so some of them went into a cardboard box onto the balcony, where the box was exposed to sunlight every day. I was astonished to find that the persimmons in the box outside actually kept much longer than the ones in the fridge. So, depending on the food stuff, varying temperature may not be as much a problem as one might think..." CreationDate="2013-02-25T15:29:28.600" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="832" PostId="534" Score="1" Text="Ahh, that's where I take it 1/2-way apart in a garage and leave it there for 20 years? :-)" CreationDate="2013-02-21T17:47:59.553" UserId="27" />
  <row Id="864" PostId="534" Score="1" Text="Yeah!  By then the metals will probably be considered precious." CreationDate="2013-02-22T19:36:18.377" UserId="212" />
  <row Id="871" PostId="534" Score="1" Text="So it's sustainable and socially good.  I like it." CreationDate="2013-02-23T05:51:50.183" UserId="289" />
  <row Id="1793" PostId="534" Score="0" Text="I did something like this as a mechanical engineering student in college, but there was no **sale**.  A motorcycle was donated, and students took it apart, put it back together, and repeated the cycle." CreationDate="2013-06-12T03:35:43.673" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="861" PostId="536" Score="3" Text="This question is too broad.  Several books could be written in response, and indeed have.  &quot;Root Zone System&quot; is techno-babble for &quot;leech field&quot;.  Can you revise your question, Pavel, to ask if a root zone system is applicable given specific constraints?" CreationDate="2013-02-22T19:07:22.503" UserId="212" />
  <row Id="835" PostId="542" Score="0" Text="Thanks! Would you mind elaborating on you point about air circulation? Does this have to do with the choice of bedding?" CreationDate="2013-02-21T19:56:02.730" UserId="281" />
  <row Id="860" PostId="542" Score="3" Text="I once kept my worm bin in the cabinet under my sink.  Standing at the sink to do dishes you would often get a whiff of something &quot;off&quot;.  I moved it to the open pantry floor and never smelled it again.  When writing that I was thinking about concentration of noxious gases.  But now that you mention it, keeping a sufficient aeration of the the &quot;mix&quot; will prevent some nasties in the first place." CreationDate="2013-02-22T18:45:51.883" UserId="212" />
  <row Id="899" PostId="542" Score="0" Text="We recently moved our worm bin out of the kitchen and into the laundry room.  I hadn't thought of using cups of vinegar inside the bin itself.  Good idea" CreationDate="2013-02-26T16:56:17.960" UserId="215" />
  <row Id="900" PostId="542" Score="2" Text="A nice 3&quot; hole drilled in the top of opposing sides and covered with a scap of nylon underhose does great to increase air circulation, but minimize reduction in bedding moisture." CreationDate="2013-02-26T17:24:07.860" UserId="212" />
  <row Id="843" PostId="546" Score="0" Text="Even if there is no waste from the firing process there is still quite a bit of hazardous waste that results from the the mining of coal.  Not to mention there have been a large number of coal slurry dam failures that have literally destroyed ecosystems of the watershed basins they are near." CreationDate="2013-02-21T22:11:36.673" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="845" PostId="546" Score="2" Text="There's not enough info in the sources linked to make a determination.  I wasn't able to find other sources that describe the chemical process or the nature of the byproduct beyond that contains all the CO2.  Since we're talking about exothermic reaction theres no reason to presume CO2 actually remains.  Who knows what use the byproduct may have, or the external cost of the non-coal inputs." CreationDate="2013-02-21T22:22:07.437" UserId="212" />
  <row Id="846" PostId="546" Score="1" Text="I disagree that's there's no mention of waste. The article states the process &quot;chemically converts coal to heat while capturing 99 percent of the carbon dioxide produced in the reaction&quot;. CO2 is a waste product. The fact that it's captured will make it easier to pump it under the ground though (which I don't necessarily condone)." CreationDate="2013-02-22T00:17:29.850" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="854" PostId="546" Score="2" Text="@HighlyIrregular - I think the OP is asking about other waste like solid remains(ash) and impurities in the coal that are not consumed by the process.  Is the CO2 converted into carbonates or others stable solid, or is it just contained in a natural form?" CreationDate="2013-02-22T15:08:47.507" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="869" PostId="546" Score="0" Text="@Chad, you're probably correct, but actually CO2 disposal may remain the biggest problem of all, so overlooking it would be a mistake." CreationDate="2013-02-23T03:08:23.610" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="10902" PostId="550" Score="0" Text="+1 for *replace the gas boiler with an electric.* In a home heated via radiator this is *the* solution. The millions of homes in US (and, I presume, elsewhere) with natural gas furnaces are a much more complicated question." CreationDate="2019-04-11T14:32:50.180" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="848" PostId="551" Score="0" Text="I agree that with the way I phrased the question, it is a good idea to point out that fruit flies are purely an annoyance. +1! I'll try your suggestion and will accept if it helped!" CreationDate="2013-02-22T01:56:22.507" UserId="281" />
  <row Id="984" PostId="551" Score="0" Text="&quot;the flies aren't an inherent problem&quot; - yes, the fly maggots help break down the food, too!" CreationDate="2013-03-10T03:51:39.820" UserId="27" />
  <row Id="11845" PostId="551" Score="0" Text="@JayBazuzi They also fall into beverages that we drink and generally pester us in our home. I prefer that the wingless worms do the job of breaking up the food." CreationDate="2019-11-19T14:25:04.710" UserId="8149" />
  <row Id="15803" PostId="551" Score="0" Text="I have found spent BBQ coals work even better as a source of carbon. They are claimed to even add much needed potassium unless dozed with excessive amounts of water." CreationDate="2022-05-25T07:50:53.620" UserId="108" />
  <row Id="853" PostId="554" Score="0" Text="Sure... when the climate allows I turn my thermostat off. Not gonna happen these days when it's steadily below freezing. I have a couple of months before it warms up enough to consider turning the heat off." CreationDate="2013-02-22T11:53:21.540" UserId="142" />
  <row Id="1158" PostId="554" Score="2" Text="Sleeping at -5C is actually quite pleasant and refreshing. Just use 3-4 blankets." CreationDate="2013-04-03T10:04:14.643" UserId="108" />
  <row Id="958" PostId="555" Score="0" Text="On a slightly different note, there are now biodegradable plastic pots on the market made from potatoe starch. They are a bit more expensive (about 9 eurocents per pot) than the traditional plastic ones but expectations are that many professionals will start using them and that prices will drop. I'm not sure if they are already available for consumers." CreationDate="2013-03-04T08:53:55.747" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="16167" PostId="555" Score="0" Text="Cornstarch is an attractive food source for insects like cockroaches and silverfish. This may not be an improvement if these buckets are to be used for keeping food in" CreationDate="2022-12-08T05:36:15.810" UserId="14520" />
  <row Id="7395" PostId="556" Score="0" Text="This is a good option but you have two issues. firstly; you must consider the storage of the water after it is filtered because without chemicals like chlorine it can become infected with bacteria. And secondly; depending on the filter, reverse osmosis can strip water of all it's minerals making it TOO clean - so you would need to add backthe salts and minerals that are essential to life. Too much pure water (I mean PURE - would result in the breakdown of the nervous system if vital salts are not replaced." CreationDate="2016-08-12T20:56:57.607" UserId="2870" />
  <row Id="856" PostId="557" Score="1" Text="I like the &quot;low oxygen&quot; idea.  That would be a kind of marine zen garden." CreationDate="2013-02-22T18:19:58.473" UserId="212" />
  <row Id="855" PostId="560" Score="0" Text="This is really comprehensive. Thanks. I was curious, too, though perhaps didn't explicitly ask about, whether this new technique made disposing of the waste any easier. It seems they got the easy part of &quot;clean coal&quot; down (sequestering waste), but not the more difficult problem of disposal." CreationDate="2013-02-22T15:26:35.780" UserId="288" />
  <row Id="868" PostId="564" Score="1" Text="Do you mean hock burn or &quot;mud scabs&quot;? [Wikipedia says](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hock_burns) &quot;These marks are where the ammonia from the waste of other birds has burned through the skin of the leg, leaving a mark.&quot; If you move them to fresh pasture daily, there would be no ammonia to burn through their skin. I have seen these chicken tractors being recommended permaculture practice, so I think any question about it belongs on this site. I am just not sure what exactly your question is..." CreationDate="2013-02-23T00:44:53.057" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="872" PostId="564" Score="0" Text="This question leaves too little space to answer. Should be reformulated." CreationDate="2013-02-23T20:55:36.630" UserId="60" />
  <row Id="879" PostId="564" Score="0" Text="@user1205935 I had not considered the possibility that some other condition could have been mistaken for (or misrepresented as) hock burn.  Thanks for pointing that out." CreationDate="2013-02-24T22:17:49.647" UserDisplayName="user290" />
  <row Id="880" PostId="564" Score="0" Text="@KenStailey I just read the link you provided..." CreationDate="2013-02-24T23:40:36.343" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="881" PostId="564" Score="0" Text="@peter-ivan can you explain what it is about this question that you find limiting?" CreationDate="2013-02-24T23:44:07.793" UserDisplayName="user290" />
  <row Id="883" PostId="564" Score="0" Text="This is a yes-no-question, not very constructive (not very much to be said this way). I'd try something like What ways are to be taken to reduce the chance of hock burn?" CreationDate="2013-02-25T07:05:30.273" UserId="60" />
  <row Id="887" PostId="564" Score="1" Text="The question is closed-ended which means the only appropriate answers look something like the one @StuntGirl posted which is of limited utility." CreationDate="2013-02-25T21:13:41.523" UserId="212" />
  <row Id="907" PostId="564" Score="0" Text="Yesterday I thought of a way to re-write this but this morning I can't remember.  If it comes back to me I'll jot a note in my phone next time." CreationDate="2013-02-27T12:30:32.027" UserDisplayName="user290" />
  <row Id="873" PostId="565" Score="1" Text="It would improve your answer if you could cite some sources that back up your claim of oil consumption, And what levels of consumption would be sustainable?" CreationDate="2013-02-23T23:15:25.970" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="874" PostId="566" Score="5" Text="This answer needs backing up to be useful, with a reference, or at least a personal experience. Otherwise, you could just be guessing!" CreationDate="2013-02-24T07:52:32.103" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="884" PostId="566" Score="0" Text="How is it helpful, what should we look for in a tractor, are the other alternatives that are equally effective?" CreationDate="2013-02-25T15:23:44.517" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="875" PostId="567" Score="2" Text="[Mulching](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulch) is something different. I'd recommend rewording the title to something like &quot;Will a miniature septic tank decompose dog waste?&quot;" CreationDate="2013-02-24T07:57:53.290" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="882" PostId="567" Score="0" Text="Good call. I expanded the question slightly to include mulching a potential question." CreationDate="2013-02-25T04:11:49.970" UserId="292" />
  <row Id="888" PostId="568" Score="0" Text="Are there any straightforward ways to reduce your heating load? Insulation, caulk, windows, etc. Any improvement there reduces the severity of your question." CreationDate="2013-02-25T22:12:36.443" UserId="27" />
  <row Id="889" PostId="568" Score="0" Text="@jayBazuzi I'm mainly looking at appliances at this point (HW heater and Clothes Dryer)." CreationDate="2013-02-26T00:16:23.327" UserId="292" />
  <row Id="878" PostId="569" Score="0" Text="That's actually a very good point, the heat from the refrigerator helps and retrieving my food leaks the heat. I go outside through my garage so it's not like I'm opening the door to the direct elements every time but still important to note." CreationDate="2013-02-24T20:58:47.183" UserId="282" />
  <row Id="908" PostId="570" Score="0" Text="+1 on the solar thermal. Even if used only as a preheater along side a conventional water heater it will decrease the reliance on utilities to provide water heating and decrease your utility bill as well. Next to central AC/heating water heating is one of the largest consumers of energy in a household." CreationDate="2013-02-27T17:42:31.270" UserId="303" />
  <row Id="1884" PostId="570" Score="0" Text="I also live in Washington State, USA, and that's almost certainly what the OP was referring to.  We're the only US state that identifies that way, to differentiate ourselves from Washington, D.C., our nation's capital." CreationDate="2013-06-22T09:35:39.220" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="11819" PostId="570" Score="0" Text="Important advantage of heatpump is that if engineered well, it works in both direction - AC in summer, heating in winter." CreationDate="2019-11-18T15:36:44.997" UserId="8149" />
  <row Id="886" PostId="571" Score="1" Text="Well, we have the human part figured out (we have a septic system). Trying to find a viable solution for the pet problem. Not sure if there are major pros/cons between pet mulching or a pet septic system." CreationDate="2013-02-25T16:17:49.863" UserId="292" />
  <row Id="890" PostId="572" Score="0" Text="I've heard the main problem with dog poop is the pathogens in it. Not good for wildlife. I don't know how true that is. He mainly poops on the lawn, though, so we have to pick it up. Flinging it into the woods is one option, but the kids love exploring the woods, too, so less dog poop floating around, the better, IMHO. We also live in the PNW so the poop rarely has a chance to dry out...in other words, it's always 'prime shoe ruining' consistency." CreationDate="2013-02-26T00:18:53.307" UserId="292" />
  <row Id="894" PostId="572" Score="0" Text="@DA, Going to add a reply to the pathogens issue as a top-level reply.  Short version: in any significant space, you can safely toss the poop into the woodlands and off your lawn if you need to." CreationDate="2013-02-26T10:27:42.477" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="897" PostId="572" Score="0" Text="Well, I worry that it won't be safe from my kids shoes...as they love running through the wooded areas on the property. :)" CreationDate="2013-02-26T16:35:46.860" UserId="292" />
  <row Id="896" PostId="573" Score="0" Text="I'm not necessarily looking to get the poop back into the garden...rather just trying to contain it. If it can mulch, great, and maybe we'd use that for landcaping (but not the garden). I guess I'm trying to find that 'somewhere where it won't cause as much of a problem' solution and figured maybe that place could be the septic/mulch spot." CreationDate="2013-02-26T16:35:01.777" UserId="292" />
  <row Id="902" PostId="573" Score="0" Text="Somewhere could just be &quot;off the lawn.&quot;" CreationDate="2013-02-27T00:08:43.983" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="898" PostId="575" Score="0" Text="I have seen that one and it seems to get mixed reviews...but it might be something I give a shot. The main challenge appears to be that one needs a 4' deep hole." CreationDate="2013-02-26T16:56:13.503" UserId="292" />
  <row Id="901" PostId="576" Score="0" Text="We do raise chickens for eggs, but cannot do dairy goats due to time constraints.  Is that what you meant by 'giving you food in-process'?  It is our goal to go the dairy goat route eventually." CreationDate="2013-02-26T21:24:20.827" UserId="215" />
  <row Id="916" PostId="576" Score="0" Text="What is a 'CSA'?" CreationDate="2013-02-28T14:56:54.290" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="917" PostId="576" Score="1" Text="I thank you for this post I had never heard of a CSA but found out they are a great resource to link with local growers and others providing good food in sustainable ways." CreationDate="2013-02-28T15:25:35.750" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="934" PostId="576" Score="0" Text="Yes, non-meat animal foods (eggs, dairy) are exactly what I meant, Noel." CreationDate="2013-03-01T16:41:55.620" UserId="212" />
  <row Id="953" PostId="576" Score="3" Text="@gerrit, a 'CSA' stands for Community Supported Agriculture and it is a method of farming/commerce where the community takes on a shared risk for crop production.  People pay up front for what they will get from the growing season." CreationDate="2013-03-03T21:29:32.283" UserId="215" />
  <row Id="904" PostId="577" Score="2" Text="That is a big sprawly question. The energy-density question is probably best asked on [chemistry.se], and bear in mind that it's not just J/kg: there will also be a question of compressibility and J/l. Can you narrow this one down to a single use? As I think you recognise, as far as sustainability is concerned, the simple answer to the question &quot;propane or butane?&quot; is &quot;neither&quot;." CreationDate="2013-02-27T09:10:26.720" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="905" PostId="577" Score="0" Text="@EnergyNumbers, I noted unsustainability in the question (first paragraph). Also, it was propane v. butane v. other (possibly less unsustainable) alternatives of which I would be interested to find out. I do see how this question came out to big, and still struggling with it." CreationDate="2013-02-27T09:14:15.963" UserId="227" />
  <row Id="906" PostId="577" Score="0" Text="Maybe pick just one application to start with. We already have [a question on cooking](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/a/525/48). Maybe synthetic generation of liquid/gas hydrocarbons makes a good standalone question, and would address part of what you're interested in?" CreationDate="2013-02-27T09:18:21.823" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="909" PostId="577" Score="0" Text="Note also you [may have trouble](http://www.escouts.org.uk/forum/threads/13616-Keeping-butane-burning-during-winter-camps) burning butane in cold conditions." CreationDate="2013-02-27T21:41:33.617" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="918" PostId="577" Score="0" Text="This question is not really at all about sustainability.  I Agree with EnergyNumbers this is probably a better question for Chemistry SE" CreationDate="2013-02-28T15:42:26.110" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="919" PostId="577" Score="0" Text="@Chad, it’s about sustainability in a practical sense. So long we are using petroleum, it would be unsustainable _not_ to use its gaseous byproducts. And at that we ought to be as efficient, as possible. In the long run, we need solutions for this application in form of biogasses, capturing husbandry emissions, and so forth." CreationDate="2013-02-28T16:20:37.150" UserId="227" />
  <row Id="976" PostId="577" Score="2" Text="You really need to break this up into questions that can be answered directly.  What you are asking for here is a discussion of environmental impact.  That's outside SE's Q&amp;A format." CreationDate="2013-03-07T16:25:21.970" UserId="212" />
  <row Id="977" PostId="577" Score="0" Text="@OCDtech, I already started to work on it (see about [disposable bottles](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/581/227)), it’s just not that easy." CreationDate="2013-03-07T16:27:28.093" UserId="227" />
  <row Id="2143" PostId="579" Score="0" Text="Good answer (I already did upvote), but let's not muddle the definition of the term *sustainability* any more than it already is.  &quot;Sustainability&quot; is what you address in your final paragraph.  Your second paragraph is about &quot;self-sufficiency&quot;, and is very often a poor sustainability choice." CreationDate="2013-08-02T04:46:04.950" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="914" PostId="581" Score="0" Text="scuba-diving equipment comes to mind - lots of refillable gas tanks of various sizes. I've no idea if any of them are suitable for flammable gases. They're generally either steel or aluminium, IIRC" CreationDate="2013-02-28T08:20:02.017" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="980" PostId="581" Score="0" Text="flammable gases use other conventions for screw connections, to avoid accidents (so you can't easily accidentially form an explosive, pressurized mixture). This firm separation in standarts should be kept up! Also assume that there are numerous safety issues that don't come to mind at once." CreationDate="2013-03-08T10:35:52.937" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="920" PostId="584" Score="0" Text="Related, but not quite a duplicate: [Cooking with gas or electricity](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/522/48)" CreationDate="2013-02-28T17:58:42.867" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="3832" PostId="584" Score="2" Text="What about solar ovens?" CreationDate="2014-11-20T14:40:49.913" UserId="1780" />
  <row Id="921" PostId="585" Score="1" Text="Where do lump charcoal ceramic grills fall in here?" CreationDate="2013-02-28T19:00:25.663" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="926" PostId="585" Score="0" Text="I use Lump wood charcoal which is supposed to be better than the pressed briquets.. I know I like the taste better." CreationDate="2013-03-01T14:13:41.750" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="935" PostId="585" Score="0" Text="If we wanted to parse words I think biofuel would be a more apropos descriptor for charcoal, but in this case generalizing to 'biomass' or 'biofuels' makes little difference." CreationDate="2013-03-01T17:08:53.147" UserId="212" />
  <row Id="3835" PostId="585" Score="1" Text="{Aside} I think that these coffee makers are made from cast aluminium generally rather than steel." CreationDate="2014-11-21T09:45:08.827" UserId="1799" />
  <row Id="3836" PostId="585" Score="0" Text="@Graham good point - updated accordingly" CreationDate="2014-11-21T11:34:09.893" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="2841" PostId="586" Score="0" Text="Tainer stipulates that by &quot;sustainability&quot; he means your (american) lifestle where you need to drive hundred of miles every day. Get rid of the car (as Soviet cities did), you can possibly fit the ecological foot print and renewables. But you are right that if energy is not consumed by you, it is consumed by sombody else in the competitive market economy. We need our culture to punish those who spend energy on enternaintment (e.g. having a car and living in suburb or or excessive lightening). For instance, it is unfair that americans burn oil while Sweden has high taxes for carbon." CreationDate="2014-02-05T19:47:59.263" UserId="476" />
  <row Id="3145" PostId="588" Score="1" Text="+1 Actually your comment *although not directly related to sustainability. . .* overlooks an important aspect of sustainability. Since bulk-produced anything has a longer supply chain and longer manufacturing throughput time, it necessarily required more energy input! [There is a huge](http://www.epa.gov/lean/environment/) but very difficult relationship to quantify here." CreationDate="2014-03-25T20:01:49.480" UserId="975" />
  <row Id="925" PostId="589" Score="1" Text="So would it be fair to say that sustainability-wise, Walmart is good because it saves us from farmer's markets and local bakeries?" CreationDate="2013-03-01T12:28:28.327" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="927" PostId="589" Score="0" Text="There is a down side to globalization though.  One instance would be Corn in Mexico.  The poor in Mexico can no longer afford corn that has been a staple in their meager diet(not to be confused with the US version of meager, this means barely surviving many times).  The farmers are making far more selling the corn to ADM for dollars than selling it to local poor for pennies.  This is happening with grains, and raw sugar across the world now." CreationDate="2013-03-01T14:22:13.150" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="928" PostId="589" Score="0" Text="@ChrisTravers, no, I didn't say anything about any particular business. And with there being unpriced externalities and unenforced regulation in the market, any for-profit company, including Walmart, is likely to incorporate unsustainability." CreationDate="2013-03-01T14:37:44.337" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="929" PostId="589" Score="0" Text="@Chad I agree. I'm not sure how much of that's a sustainability question, but it's certainly a social equity / market failure issue." CreationDate="2013-03-01T14:39:04.010" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="931" PostId="589" Score="1" Text="@EnergyNumbers, but why not?  I mean if you are in a big city, suppose a farmer is taking his produce to the farmer's market in a pickup truck, driving 3 hours each way.  Suppose he sells half of it, and drives back.  Isnt that exactly what you are talking about?  And similarly shouldn't we be able to suggest at least thermodynamically we have more options to make a huge bread factory energy efficient than a local artisan baker's kitchen, right?  Why doesn't the same reasoning apply?" CreationDate="2013-03-01T15:01:54.607" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="937" PostId="589" Score="0" Text="@EnergyNumbers - Is sustainability not concerned with the survival of humans?" CreationDate="2013-03-01T21:08:18.587" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="3144" PostId="589" Score="0" Text="Your comment *it requires much lower inputs to grow fruit in the tropics and ship it to Iceland, that to grow fruit in Iceland* describes the very nature of sustainability: what is the cost we assume (pollution) for shipping tropical fruit to Iceland compared to the benefit derived?  100 years ago I'm guessing people in colder climates (such as mine) found a way to make do without tropical fruit.  Simply saying that one option is better than the other assumes that the fruit was *needed* in the first place." CreationDate="2014-03-25T19:57:05.290" UserId="975" />
  <row Id="10295" PostId="589" Score="0" Text="@EnergyNumbers this answer raises great points I see often in discussing global scale sustainability. Much of your assessment judges by level &amp; efficiency of inputs. Couldn't it be that more inputs, or less efficient inputs, are still more sustainable if those inputs are used in a way which sustains the system itself? I have in mind specifically 'eco-agriculture', which uses nutrient cycles to minimize the need for external inputs. While N is used less efficiently and perhaps more is needed, it's in a self-contained healthy system as opposed to industrial precision ag's mining &amp; shipping" CreationDate="2018-10-17T23:01:41.813" UserId="2942" />
  <row Id="930" PostId="590" Score="0" Text="Good question. Wikipedia says the symbol just means &quot;recyclable plastic&quot;, which doesn't help at all in mapping it to the [recycling codes](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recycling_codes) we're used to seeing in Europe." CreationDate="2013-03-01T15:01:17.697" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="940" PostId="591" Score="0" Text="+1 for the Excellent info, thanks!" CreationDate="2013-03-02T01:22:11.683" UserId="20" />
  <row Id="2294" PostId="591" Score="1" Text="I especially like the part where residents in multi-unit buildings can work with the city to set up a compost recovery program for their building." CreationDate="2013-09-11T16:10:03.673" UserId="310" />
  <row Id="15438" PostId="592" Score="0" Text="Just curious about the picture -- is that a pickle, sausage, and peas? Would this be a &quot;standard&quot; meal in the Soviet Union?" CreationDate="2022-01-03T19:56:07.823" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15442" PostId="592" Score="0" Text="@LShaver: I had similar thoughts about the plate of food in the picture. My other thought was, &quot;were are the potatoes&quot; or other form of carbohydrate? Given the stories I heard ages ago of the unavailability of items &amp; long queues for whatever was available in the Soviet Union I think it might have been a case of eat what's available. If pickles, sausage &amp; peas are all that was available, I suppose it was either that or nothing. Apparently fermented foods formed a significant part of the Soviet diet." CreationDate="2022-01-04T00:25:28.413" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="15450" PostId="592" Score="1" Text="@LShaver: I figured out why there were no potatoes on the plate .... they went to the vodka making factory. :)" CreationDate="2022-01-04T15:14:55.940" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="941" PostId="593" Score="4" Text="Just a note on sterilization.  Most home brewers reuse bottles.  When I was getting started I used to dumpster dive for beer bottles to reuse.  Sterilization is not a problem, and while I used to use chemical sterilization, I have moved to water/heat which works just as well once one gets used to safety/thermal shock issues.  Sterilization is the easiest part of the process, actually." CreationDate="2013-03-02T12:30:13.790" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="942" PostId="593" Score="1" Text="@ChrisTravers, I don't know if you’re aware of it, but I’ve heard that [beugel bottle](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Grolsch.jpg) by Grolsch is popular amongst brewers, cause it comes with nice locking cap. I had even seen replacement silicone washers on Amazon." CreationDate="2013-03-02T16:13:22.263" UserId="227" />
  <row Id="944" PostId="593" Score="0" Text="Good to know that German Coke is not vegan in case I ever travel there!" CreationDate="2013-03-02T16:37:38.403" UserId="142" />
  <row Id="946" PostId="593" Score="0" Text="@theUg, yes they are.  And the stopper is ceremic.  I have seen other similar bottles with plastic stoppers which require chemical sterilization (since the plastic will melt in the oven).  Those washers can be  re-used until they start to crack though, and then replaced." CreationDate="2013-03-03T00:49:52.537" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="949" PostId="593" Score="0" Text="@ChrisTravers, can you not pry the stopper of to clean it separately from the bottle? _Edit:_ I actually have one laying around. It is possible, but tough without tools." CreationDate="2013-03-03T04:19:04.343" UserId="227" />
  <row Id="950" PostId="593" Score="0" Text="Yeah but at that point it's just simpler to put the whole thing in a bleach bath. :-P" CreationDate="2013-03-03T05:24:44.240" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="943" PostId="594" Score="0" Text="The soda bottles sold by Latino stores in US (old-school Coke and Pepsi, bottled south of the border) often look pretty worn as well, so I assume they reuse them. Import/export would make re-use a lot harder, though." CreationDate="2013-03-02T16:17:08.547" UserId="227" />
  <row Id="945" PostId="594" Score="3" Text="I like how you say &quot;at least all the businesses think&quot;, because I always hate it when people blame the lack of environmentally friendly policies and businesses practices in the US on consumers, when in fact we have little say over how products are marketed and sold to us." CreationDate="2013-03-02T16:38:25.343" UserId="142" />
  <row Id="947" PostId="594" Score="4" Text="@lemontwist, I used to work at a fruit stand run by a local orchard when I was in high school.  Not all the fruit we sold was picture perfect.  What made the difference though, I think, was that I could guide people through options.  I had a reputation for being able to sell rotten peaches (I couldn't, but I could sell peaches that needed to be eaten that day or else they would be rotten simply by looking for customers who wanted fruit to eat right then)." CreationDate="2013-03-03T00:52:38.183" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="948" PostId="594" Score="0" Text="I wonder how to recruit local micro-brews to start their own standardisation and collection program. I bet, if it would be economically viable, it would be an important first step, and, as an added bonus, it could actually be a selling point." CreationDate="2013-03-03T04:17:39.867" UserId="227" />
  <row Id="951" PostId="594" Score="0" Text="You still have to deal with the bottle return problem and the three tier distribution system, which legally bans microbreweries from selling to retailers directly, really gets in the way there.  This is a US-specific problem though, and there's no reason that microbreweries couldn't get enough support for a state or two to experiment with allowing limited circumvention of the system." CreationDate="2013-03-03T05:26:18.283" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="985" PostId="594" Score="1" Text="@ChrisTravers, the 3 tier system may be an advantage when it comes to re-use. A middle tier that makes a selling point of collecting and returning containers would be more efficient than manufacturers each setting up their own system. Obviously, the middle tier would need buy-in from both the other tiers though, which might take some work." CreationDate="2013-03-11T02:34:05.510" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="4471" PostId="594" Score="0" Text="@chris Travers,@Highly Irregular, The 3 tier system you reference, was used in the 1970's. It seems that  Container deposit legislation became the problem for manufactures,while legislators seek to gain consumer favor here in the US. However, it would benefit the environment by fewer containers pitched out of car windows if a deposit system  was re instated over recycling." CreationDate="2015-06-10T07:49:32.063" UserId="2272" />
  <row Id="952" PostId="598" Score="1" Text="But if the energy source is sustainable, i.e. not being depleted, then it will last forever, and energy efficiency is not needed any longer. No?" CreationDate="2013-03-03T21:13:45.483" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="954" PostId="598" Score="0" Text="@user1205935 that would be true _if_ we had an infinitely sustainable energy source. The reality is that we don't, and likely never will; therefore, the primary benefit of energy efficiency with regard to sustainability is decreasing the use of unsustainable resources." CreationDate="2013-03-03T22:20:54.410" UserId="317" />
  <row Id="956" PostId="598" Score="1" Text="@nhinkle What about sunlight? If you dry your fruits in the sunlight, is there any reason to be particularly energy efficient about the amount of sunlight you use to dry 1kg of fruit?" CreationDate="2013-03-03T22:56:08.543" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="957" PostId="598" Score="0" Text="@user1205935 no, of course not. But can you show me any examples of a comparable situation on a large scale?" CreationDate="2013-03-03T23:17:46.937" UserId="317" />
  <row Id="960" PostId="603" Score="0" Text="The [air well condenser](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_well_%28condenser%29) would seem to be the most efficient, as it needs no energy input other than environmental heat and cooling" CreationDate="2013-03-05T06:56:19.627" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="961" PostId="603" Score="0" Text="Yeah I've seen this. Air well constructions though are huge and yield merely few litters a day. Event though there is no running energy, the space and embodied energy would be high." CreationDate="2013-03-05T07:23:47.307" UserId="144" />
  <row Id="962" PostId="603" Score="0" Text="The most exciting model I have seen so far is Air Drop: http://www.gizmag.com/airdrop-wins-james-dyson-award/20471/" CreationDate="2013-03-05T07:24:13.407" UserId="144" />
  <row Id="965" PostId="603" Score="1" Text="@EnergyNumbers - see my answer which uses your excellent reference as a significant part of its source material." CreationDate="2013-03-06T00:56:02.050" UserId="318" />
  <row Id="963" PostId="604" Score="0" Text="do you mean conventional watering with a watering can or with a sprinkler?" CreationDate="2013-03-05T09:27:58.873" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="964" PostId="604" Score="0" Text="@ChrisTravers: I mean with a watering can, but comparison with a sprinkler may also be interesting." CreationDate="2013-03-05T12:51:18.087" UserId="144" />
  <row Id="1363" PostId="605" Score="0" Text="I take about 1-2 weeks to fill a trash bin that size, but I'm not exactly a &quot;normal&quot; person. I wouldn't be too surprised if you're close to the average for the USA. No clue about Australia." CreationDate="2013-05-01T15:59:33.673" UserId="462" />
  <row Id="1007" PostId="606" Score="0" Text="thank you for your great post! I've never thought about this and you showed great research." CreationDate="2013-03-14T11:07:29.847" UserId="353" />
  <row Id="982" PostId="607" Score="0" Text="I would add that because drip irrigation is usually automated, you can especially avoid some of the conditions that lead to water loss. For example, you can set the system to water early in the morning when it is cooler, which will limit water loss, and you don't even have to get out of bed by then, depending on your setup!" CreationDate="2013-03-09T17:19:43.250" UserId="329" />
  <row Id="975" PostId="608" Score="1" Text="Vinegar is excellent.  If your floor has a permeable finish (oil, varnish) use 10% vinegar solution and understand EVERY cleaner containing water in any amount will raise the grain of the wood.  If the finish is impermeable (lacquer, epoxy) use a 30% vinegar solution to dissolve the build-up a lot faster." CreationDate="2013-03-07T16:17:17.097" UserId="212" />
  <row Id="971" PostId="609" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Please note that we try to avoid discussions on the site and are mainly interested in objective answers. For discussions please visit the [chat room](http://chat.stackexchange.com/) or if the discussion is about the working of this site you can go to [Meta Sustainable Living](http://meta.sustainability.stackexchange.com/)" CreationDate="2013-03-07T12:12:00.070" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="978" PostId="609" Score="0" Text="I guess my reaction to this is that this is a well understood design issue for which there are well understood solutions ;-).  Let's flesh out any agreement/disagreement over chat.  Please join me at http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/7809/permaculture" CreationDate="2013-03-08T00:23:29.427" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="981" PostId="609" Score="0" Text="@THelper:  The defining sustainability series is, as I understand the [meta discussion](http://meta.sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/70/environmentalism-vs-sustainability) allow a little more discussion than we would normally.  These are intended to be authoritative &quot;answers&quot; to questions on sustainability, but are also intended to help get the community on the same page regarding scope of the site." CreationDate="2013-03-09T00:26:55.230" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="989" PostId="609" Score="0" Text="ah right okay! sorry I was not aware this question was part of a defining sustainability series. But thanks for the heads up! I'll hang out in the chat room then ;)" CreationDate="2013-03-11T19:33:14.867" UserId="325" />
  <row Id="1282" PostId="612" Score="5" Text="The [EPA](http://www.epa.gov/osw/conserve/materials/battery.htm) reports that 96% of lead-acid batteries in the United States are recycled at the end of their useful lives. I suspect that hybrid/EV batteries have an even higher recycling rate because of the type of customers using them, their value as a source of materials, and the demand for lower-priced &quot;refurbished&quot; batteries in hybrids and EVs. So the landfill isn't the issue, and EVs win on emissions because they can be powered with &quot;clean&quot; electricity or at least by combustion at a centralized, easier to filter source." CreationDate="2013-04-22T15:02:16.760" UserId="462" />
  <row Id="3551" PostId="612" Score="5" Text="&quot;as we think they are&quot; is not well defined." CreationDate="2014-08-14T08:50:29.277" UserId="963" />
  <row Id="11758" PostId="612" Score="0" Text="I'm not sure why would lead-acic cells end up in landfill. In my country, they buy them out and recycle them. That is, you are paid money if you bring old car or UPS bateries to the trash yard." CreationDate="2019-11-15T15:10:07.230" UserId="8149" />
  <row Id="15260" PostId="612" Score="0" Text="This question is quite strange: &quot;Given the fact that...&quot; quotes wrong facts. An EV battery does NOT have an average lifetime of 3 years and the battery does not end up at a landfill. This looks like disguised fossil fuel propaganda. See https://www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-how-electric-vehicles-help-to-tackle-climate-change" CreationDate="2021-11-17T11:41:10.283" UserId="13421" />
  <row Id="1252" PostId="613" Score="1" Text="*&quot;...well-to-wheel would be the efficiency you were after, and then it would be very sensitive to how your electricity would be generated&quot;*.  It's true that the total energy efficiency and GHG impact of an EV depend highly on the original energy source.  But, it's important to note (as I do in my answer), that no matter what the source, an EV is more efficient than a gas ICE, on an apples-to-apples basis.  It's only a matter of *how much* more efficient it is." CreationDate="2013-04-21T10:12:20.297" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="6641" PostId="613" Score="2" Text="I've been a cycling and public transportation advocate for at least 10 years now, and I've come to a rather obvious conclusion: Hell will freeze over before you get Americans out of their cars and onto bikes. Everyone has their excuses, but the fact is that humans are inherently lazy and always choose the path of least resistance. As does most of nature, truly.  Add to this fact that our entire society has been built around cars, and it becomes apparent that this isn't the solution." CreationDate="2016-03-23T17:36:24.007" UserId="1692" />
  <row Id="10988" PostId="613" Score="0" Text="`Even if the extra electricity is provided by coal, an electric vehicle is so much more efficient than a fossil car, that there will be carbon savings: electric cars are typically 80-90% efficient, compared to about 20% for a fossil car. So even with a coal plant at 33% efficiency, there's still a carbon saving from the electric.` **This is a complete fallacy.** An engine works exactly like a plant, except the energy extracted from the coal or fuel is directly used mecanically and not turned into electricity. **The inneficiencies of a plant or an engine are exactly the same.**" CreationDate="2019-05-07T08:11:39.677" UserId="2431" />
  <row Id="10989" PostId="613" Score="0" Text="`Note that pretty much all electric cars benefit from regenerative braking, and very few fossil-cars do.` *This* however is the key point of why electric or hybrid vehicles are more efficient. Theoretically all the energy spent accelerating can be recovered when braking, all the energy spent climbing can be regenerated when going downhill. Energy is spent only for losses, which is an incredible improvement  as opposed to dissipating heat in the brakes." CreationDate="2019-05-07T08:17:55.143" UserId="2431" />
  <row Id="994" PostId="617" Score="0" Text="I'll echo your benchmark: our family of four fills about one 30L bin per week.  To the original poster: look at what is in your bin to figure out what you need to change - is it food scraps or is it packaging from a heavy purchasing habit?  Or is it packaging from prepared food?" CreationDate="2013-03-12T20:09:08.917" UserId="87" />
  <row Id="995" PostId="617" Score="0" Text="I should say that our usage is well below average: enough to get a newspaper article written about our family a few years ago." CreationDate="2013-03-12T20:10:02.377" UserId="87" />
  <row Id="1042" PostId="620" Score="0" Text="I second the Eneloops. They had been working great for me, and they nice to look at. :D" CreationDate="2013-03-22T15:47:54.697" UserId="227" />
  <row Id="1200" PostId="621" Score="1" Text="The costs of going a quite long distance to the retailer once (for the purchase of a product) may be negligible over the product's lifetime." CreationDate="2013-04-14T11:21:17.067" UserId="453" />
  <row Id="988" PostId="622" Score="1" Text="I think you are right. I just found [this article](http://1800recycling.com/2011/03/myths-facts-biodegradable-recycle-plastics/) which says that biodegradable just means it will degrade quicker than traditional plastic but may still contain toxic materials. [Biodegradable doesn't mean it is compostable](http://earthcycle.com/blog/2010/02/05/compostable-vs-biodegradable-–-what’s-the-difference/)." CreationDate="2013-03-11T14:01:56.970" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3039" PostId="622" Score="0" Text="Also 'compostable' doesn't mean the plastic will turn into compost in your home compost pile or worm bin. For that the plastic should be 'home compostable' (more info [here](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/2594/99))." CreationDate="2014-03-07T09:35:42.167" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="10863" PostId="622" Score="0" Text="Wondering if there is any current scientific information on ability of worms to safely consume compostable bags? The bags I refer to are BPI Certified as Composable (not same thing as biodegradable) and have absolutely no petrochemical ingredients- 100% Non-GMO corn starch. I would assume that corn starch is safe for worms to eat, am I right? The bags can compost fairly quickly in my commercial compost facility, however they more often are windblown out of the windrow and become an eyesore and a chore." CreationDate="2019-04-03T13:08:28.367" UserId="6501" />
  <row Id="983" PostId="625" Score="0" Text="The &quot;efficiency&quot; you're talking about is somewhat misleading: it's efficient only if you ignore the externalized costs. For example, the true cost of transporting meat from New Zealand to Toronto is far higher than the sticker price." CreationDate="2013-03-10T03:50:40.647" UserId="27" />
  <row Id="1650" PostId="625" Score="1" Text="I think he's separating production efficiency from distribution efficiency. I think he's asking about how to make sure the losses in production efficiency from shifting to urban food production don't outweigh the improvements in distribution efficiency. I suspect the answer might not be what you want to hear when it comes to supplying Toronto with fruit and vegetables in January and February." CreationDate="2013-05-24T19:43:14.967" UserId="462" />
  <row Id="3307" PostId="626" Score="1" Text="My version of this trap is easier to make: roll a piece of paper to make a cone with a very small hole at the tip. Find a tall narrow glass and, holding the cone so it doesn't unroll, put it in the glass. The tip should not touch the bottom. Narrow or widen the cone until it will fit. Staple or tape so the cone stays that size. Put fruit juice, wine, or a piece of fruit and some water in the glass, then drop in the cone. Regularly take the apparatus outside, remove the cone to release the flies, then put the cone back and replace the trap." CreationDate="2014-05-20T16:14:51.580" UserId="1053" />
  <row Id="8768" PostId="628" Score="2" Text="Thanks for your input, Lorna. Your answer might benefit from outlining the main information contained in the article you linked." CreationDate="2017-08-20T07:06:49.290" UserId="80" />
  <row Id="3381" PostId="629" Score="0" Text="The lack of discussion of this now may relate to the lack of glass bottles in use now - plastic ones have replaced them in so many places..." CreationDate="2014-06-08T06:37:52.510" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="986" PostId="632" Score="0" Text="Great answer! Are there any particularly outstanding websites you could link to that you've learned this stuff from? Chur" CreationDate="2013-03-11T02:38:54.117" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="990" PostId="632" Score="0" Text="@HighlyIrregular - I'll add some links as I think of them, but the above came 'out of my head' from a long lifetime of input from many sources. I'm involved with electronic development with a recent focus on portable solar powered equipment, so battery technology and capabilities is of major interest. I've added a link the the (excellent) Battery University site and to Eveready's very useful technical selector guide - that sort of information is far more useful than the &quot;consumer&quot; oriented pages which often don't really tell you much, alas." CreationDate="2013-03-12T00:49:27.257" UserId="318" />
  <row Id="993" PostId="632" Score="0" Text="Thanks for the links.  Good info on the enloop batteries there." CreationDate="2013-03-12T17:40:50.330" UserId="212" />
  <row Id="987" PostId="633" Score="1" Text="maybe inappropriate because of list type answer or even googled trivially - but I think it makes sense to have an answer to point to, so it's worth ab non-appropriateness." CreationDate="2013-03-11T10:57:12.230" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="4763" PostId="633" Score="0" Text="(A wild guess) Read the [Fairphone](http://www.fairphone.com) blogs and see what they use." CreationDate="2015-09-13T17:53:09.003" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="8294" PostId="633" Score="1" Text="@JanDoggen Why is the LCA software Fairphone uses relevant here? BTW they used [openLCA (free) and the Ecoinvent database (not free)](https://www.fairphone.com/en/2014/06/20/next-step-in-life-cycle-assessment-inventory-analysis/)." CreationDate="2017-03-08T13:58:12.013" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="991" PostId="634" Score="4" Text="None of those things freshen air. They all add extra contaminants. Can you tell us a bit more about what the problem is that you're trying to solve, to help us understand, for example, why [proper ventilation](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/a/241/48) isn't the answer to your question?" CreationDate="2013-03-12T08:25:18.503" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="992" PostId="634" Score="1" Text="&quot;Air fresheners&quot; is a common colloquialism for products that are used to removed or mask unpleasant odors. I don't think he meant better air exchange... although that would likely work." CreationDate="2013-03-12T14:02:31.183" UserId="117" />
  <row Id="997" PostId="634" Score="2" Text="Open the car/house window?" CreationDate="2013-03-12T23:52:01.677" UserId="215" />
  <row Id="999" PostId="635" Score="0" Text="Do you know what kind of ants they are? Personally, I'd be worried about Argentinean fire ants (which apparently form a super-colony, have a nasty bite, and will even find their way into your fridge), but less worried about most other varieties I'd find locally (but other countries have nastier ants than NZ)." CreationDate="2013-03-13T08:25:58.450" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="1005" PostId="637" Score="0" Text="Re Your claim that &quot; ... Using energy as it is produced will always have lower impact on the world around you than attempting to store it and retrieve it later. ...&quot; -&gt; That would work against the use of solar energy for lighting in developing country applications (which happens to be one of my 'specialist subjects').(Google my name plus the word BOGO.)  In this role photovoltaic panels and batteries (which require energy and resources to produce and which produce recycleables) are vastly superior replacements for hydrocarbon powered lighting (usually kerosene or candles)." CreationDate="2013-03-13T21:40:35.567" UserId="318" />
  <row Id="1012" PostId="637" Score="0" Text="You are interpreting that my comment out of scope by presuming information not tendered. That storage of energy will have greater impact than direct use is a fundamental design principle of all engineered systems. As it is impossible to maintain a homogenous system state therefore conversion loss must exceed the embodied energy of the storage medium. See The Second Law of Thermodynamics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_(statistical_thermodynamics)" CreationDate="2013-03-15T16:56:07.253" UserId="212" />
  <row Id="1000" PostId="639" Score="0" Text="Base is the part of the bulb that screws into the socket.  I guess (second research effort) the proper term is Candelabra (E12).  I will change the question to reflect it." CreationDate="2013-03-13T14:05:42.943" UserId="274" />
  <row Id="1001" PostId="639" Score="1" Text="The folks over at [Home Improvement SE](http://diy.stackexchange.com/) might be better equipped to answer your question!" CreationDate="2013-03-13T20:17:22.703" UserId="117" />
  <row Id="1002" PostId="639" Score="0" Text="I thought about it, but felt that was more contractor/fix-it and this was more &quot;I replaced all my lighting with LED&quot;, but I'll ask if you're OK with the duplicate (of course you are, being a moderator and all...)" CreationDate="2013-03-13T20:21:14.000" UserId="274" />
  <row Id="1003" PostId="639" Score="2" Text="DIY welcomes questions of this type — http://diy.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/led. Cross-posting is generally discouraged, so you may want to wait a bit to see what *this* community comes up with before trying again." CreationDate="2013-03-13T20:26:18.380" UserId="117" />
  <row Id="1004" PostId="639" Score="0" Text="Well, I posted to DIY after I responded to you, so... whoops?  The first commenter said they don't welcome &quot;shop for me&quot; questions.  I didn't think this was one; I reiterated that this is a request for &quot;proof of life&quot;. At the moment, I CAN'T shop for it because I can't find any, so for now I just want to know whether this sort of thing exists." CreationDate="2013-03-13T21:13:53.743" UserId="274" />
  <row Id="1008" PostId="639" Score="1" Text="Yeah, that's not really the purpose of the &quot;no shopping recommendations&quot; guidance. *sigh* — http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/11/qa-is-hard-lets-go-shopping/" CreationDate="2013-03-14T16:33:32.840" UserId="117" />
  <row Id="1009" PostId="639" Score="0" Text="Argh, and they closed my question. Hooray for help.  I'm going to re-edit it because someone in the comments seemed to be useful." CreationDate="2013-03-14T16:40:10.623" UserId="274" />
  <row Id="1644" PostId="639" Score="0" Text="Of note, I reworded the DIY post appropriately and they left it open." CreationDate="2013-05-23T15:00:27.510" UserId="274" />
  <row Id="4945" PostId="639" Score="0" Text="Five hundred lumen is, at best, a 45 watt incandescent equivalent. The 800 lumen &quot;standard&quot; is also low, as a name brand 60 watt incandescent bulb will produce 850 lumen and sometimes more. J" CreationDate="2015-11-06T02:24:26.700" UserDisplayName="user2749" />
  <row Id="1006" PostId="641" Score="0" Text="I ended up going with a partial variant of this, namely with sachets of coffee grounds.    The fragrance is not overpowering and it seems to work pretty well." CreationDate="2013-03-14T04:36:27.983" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="1336" PostId="643" Score="0" Text="+1. But I'm interested in your statement: cardboard and laminated paper are useless when recycling. I have not heard about it. Any reason/explanation behind the statement ?" CreationDate="2013-04-30T22:18:59.940" UserId="135" />
  <row Id="1357" PostId="643" Score="0" Text="@StephaneRolland - The laminate makes a chemical binding with the paper that makes it impractical to separate the plastic laminate from the paper. I have heard of places that shred it to really fine power and use it as filler but most of your laminated paper that goes to the recycling plant ends up at a landfill somewhere.  I also updated the answer to make it clear I was talking about laminated cardboard." CreationDate="2013-05-01T12:40:09.193" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="2736" PostId="644" Score="1" Text="I'm not sure this is necessarily true: please see my answer." CreationDate="2014-01-16T13:33:28.157" UserId="975" />
  <row Id="13721" PostId="644" Score="0" Text="Re 'Why it costs money': Luckily, in all sorts of domains, there is super much research freely available, despite it equally having taken a lot of effort, and everyone is happy about it. So I'd be careful by using 'it takes a lot of time' to justify that LCA is mostly restricted to pricey products, given much LCA research is funded by public money." CreationDate="2021-07-19T13:38:07.027" UserId="9945" />
  <row Id="13722" PostId="644" Score="0" Text="openLCA for example bundles a lot of free LCA databases, see my answer below." CreationDate="2021-07-19T13:38:26.143" UserId="9945" />
  <row Id="9774" PostId="649" Score="3" Text="This strikes me as odd. You buy meat and worry about the wrapping? That is like driving a pickup truck to the store to buy some bio degradable napkins." CreationDate="2018-06-03T17:24:58.327" UserId="4695" />
  <row Id="9776" PostId="649" Score="0" Text="@MartinMaat Fair point. Maybe someday sustainable meat will become normal though." CreationDate="2018-06-04T09:54:11.103" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="9900" PostId="649" Score="2" Text="Special plastic containers for freezing do not become brittle and break. I have some I've been using for decades and they are still ok." CreationDate="2018-07-04T14:18:15.690" UserId="1567" />
  <row Id="9960" PostId="649" Score="2" Text="Speaking as an ex vegetarian; my partner and I eat lamb, always pasture raised. We want to reduce our plastic consumption by buying it directly from farmers and doing our own butchering. This is both less expensive and less wasteful because we can use the whole animal. Freezer storage is necessary in this case and I don’t want to use freezer plastic bags anymore. I love the idea of leather. Bees wrap was problematic because it’s really hard to wash meat off properly without hot water, which ruins the beeswax coating." CreationDate="2018-07-23T21:33:04.360" UserId="5883" />
  <row Id="11192" PostId="649" Score="1" Text="I don't see anything odd in this question. Responsibly hunted game meat can be sustainable even in the very long run, as long as the level of permitted hunting is controlled so that the population doesn't go extinct." CreationDate="2019-07-09T15:52:07.610" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="11559" PostId="649" Score="0" Text="@juhist Depends on whether we are talking about sustainable living in a way that takes into consideration global climate change or not. If not, then you are correct - certain meat is fine. Otherwise - producing meat takes generally around 10 times more resources (including greenhouse gas footprint) than plants. Different species vary, with chicken being better and cow, sheep, horse especially bad. Eating bugs is the most sustainable solution to continue an omnivore lifestyle." CreationDate="2019-10-08T12:59:42.997" UserId="8040" />
  <row Id="7494" PostId="650" Score="0" Text="What is the CO2 sequestration mechanism? What's the balance between the carbon emitted when it's burned, and how much it can sequester? Is the heat from the burning organic matter used, or just wasted?" CreationDate="2016-09-08T18:45:13.623" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7495" PostId="650" Score="1" Text="@LShaver Good questions. Perhaps you can post it as a new question here on the site?" CreationDate="2016-09-09T06:58:35.910" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7504" PostId="650" Score="0" Text="@LShaver I found a related (but sadly unanswered) question: [Is biochar actually a viable way of carbon sequestration?](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/5372/99) I haven't read the linked report, but perhaps it provides some answers?" CreationDate="2016-09-13T10:00:16.950" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7510" PostId="650" Score="0" Text="@LShaver the principle is that biochar is basically just carbon, in a form which isn't available to the usual species that decompose organic matter to CO2.  Although some CO2 is emitted when it's made, if this is done in a similar way to traditional charcoal burning (i.e. with no external fuel source, just its own heat of partial combustion), *any* carbon returned to the soil in the form of biochar is sequestered.  Actually more of a questions would be *are the reaction products used?*.  There are many assumptions in this simple picture, which are still being tested." CreationDate="2016-09-14T14:56:14.377" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="1011" PostId="651" Score="0" Text="Wow.  I did not expect an answer here and had moved to DIY based on the moderator's recommendation.  This is exactly what I would have liked to see as an answer.  Of note, the DIY recommendation was (1) close the question because it's asking for a sales recommendation and (2) purchase a candelabra to medium base adapter for a few bucks.  That saves expense of having someone actually MODIFY the bulb.  Thank you again for your answer." CreationDate="2013-03-15T14:33:28.787" UserId="274" />
  <row Id="1013" PostId="651" Score="0" Text="Of additional note, the DIY answer also referred to the directional aspect, since these would be installed sideways." CreationDate="2013-03-15T18:34:09.233" UserId="274" />
  <row Id="1015" PostId="651" Score="0" Text="@JoshDM If installed sideways then yiu may get substantial losses in available output. My custom solution may in that case be more attractive - you could us the adapters you mention as a starting point." CreationDate="2013-03-16T01:58:44.517" UserId="318" />
  <row Id="1016" PostId="651" Score="0" Text="I'm limited by the direction of the bases in the fan in which I'm installing." CreationDate="2013-03-16T02:39:53.813" UserId="274" />
  <row Id="1020" PostId="651" Score="0" Text="@JoshDM  What I meant was that if you plug an LED bulb into an off the shelf adapter then it may point &quot;sideways&quot; relative to where you want. BUT if someone was prepared to 'hack' bulbs and bases it should be &quot;easy enough&quot; [tm] to turn the LED at 90 degrees (or other angle) to base so it points optimally. LED lifetime should mean you only do this every 10+ years." CreationDate="2013-03-17T17:23:06.287" UserId="318" />
  <row Id="7029" PostId="651" Score="0" Text="Great post.  One specific thing on CRI which somewhat touches on the points you made - in a bathroom, especially one where a lady is applying makeup, DEFINITELY go 90+ CRI; you aren't going to make your dinner appointment if she comes out of the bathroom, looks in her hand held mirror and notices that the red lipstick she's wearing is actually purple!" CreationDate="2016-06-02T01:06:37.797" UserId="3446" />
  <row Id="7032" PostId="651" Score="0" Text="@DaveMarkle Good point :-)" CreationDate="2016-06-02T04:19:45.170" UserId="318" />
  <row Id="15800" PostId="652" Score="0" Text="You might also be able to find plastic containers at a thrift store / second-hand store / charity shop." CreationDate="2022-05-24T21:23:45.977" UserId="938" />
  <row Id="15801" PostId="652" Score="0" Text="However, it may be safest not to store fatty foods (such as most meats) in plastic containers.  [(Source.)](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/feb/18/are-plastic-containers-safe-to-use-food-experts)  Reusable glass food containers with air-tight lids may be a better choice, as long as they're freezer-safe and won't shatter in the freezer." CreationDate="2022-05-24T21:26:22.543" UserId="938" />
  <row Id="1014" PostId="653" Score="2" Text="Cellophane is not waterproof.  In fact one of the properties it has is `its permeability to moisture makes cellophane the perfect product for this application as cigars must be allowed to &quot;breathe&quot; while in storage` - While often meat market/deli plastic wrap is called &quot;Cell-o-fane&quot;(brand) it is in fact usually plastic wrap." CreationDate="2013-03-15T18:43:33.043" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="1033" PostId="653" Score="3" Text="And what about this: “the polluting effects of carbon disulfide and other by-products of the process used to make viscose…”?" CreationDate="2013-03-20T22:46:12.607" UserId="227" />
  <row Id="1032" PostId="656" Score="1" Text="I bet shells from hard-boiled eggs would not have the bacteria issue." CreationDate="2013-03-20T22:29:26.897" UserId="227" />
  <row Id="2180" PostId="656" Score="0" Text="+1 for *&quot;...I can't justify heating up the whole oven just for eggshells...&quot;*." CreationDate="2013-08-07T05:10:44.003" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1017" PostId="657" Score="6" Text="Where would the heat go if not into the house?" CreationDate="2013-03-16T17:10:21.223" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="1018" PostId="657" Score="1" Text="@gerrit, the heat would go right up to the ceiling, where you won't feel it (unless you have a second storey)" CreationDate="2013-03-16T20:50:17.400" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="1051" PostId="657" Score="2" Text="If you're concerned about carbon monoxide, I assume you're talking about a natural gas/propane type oven, not an electric one?" CreationDate="2013-03-22T21:44:57.257" UserId="40" />
  <row Id="5005" PostId="657" Score="0" Text="I don't see the issue here. If you open the door, the remaining heat will enter the room quickly. If you leave the oven door shut, the remaining heat will enter the room slowly. It the same amount of Joules in both cases." CreationDate="2015-11-18T12:00:22.777" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="5006" PostId="657" Score="0" Text="And about the heat going to the ceiling: that's true for every heat source." CreationDate="2015-11-18T12:01:18.160" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="5020" PostId="657" Score="0" Text="I know from experience that you will feel sick from carbon monoxide poisoning. I'm heating my home up..due to furnace problems and my headaches and face and tongue ARE numb and when I open the door for air I feel much better.I'm getting out of this house.I need some electric heaters !!!" CreationDate="2015-11-18T01:35:29.087" UserDisplayName="user2781" />
  <row Id="1024" PostId="658" Score="0" Text="Great resource!" CreationDate="2013-03-18T18:40:05.160" UserId="21" />
  <row Id="1294" PostId="659" Score="1" Text="Thanks for the answer! The convection thing was mainly what I was worried about, that all the warm air would go up to the ceiling. Not trying to use the oven as a &quot;primary&quot; heat source, just trying to get as much heat out of it as possible if I'm going to be using it anyway. But from the sound of it maybe it would be better to leave the door closed and rely on radiation. (But it's getting to be summer here now, so I guess the issue is moot til next year...)" CreationDate="2013-04-24T19:28:31.223" UserId="57" />
  <row Id="3894" PostId="659" Score="1" Text="This is all good information, but I'm not certain it directly addresses the question of leaving the oven open after heating.  In this case the oven' heat has bee produced no matter what, so the question is more about how best to utilize it's heat.  I can infer that the answer would be to keep it shut, as a slow steady 'heat source' is more likely to provide efficient heating then a fast burst of higher heat.  A simple addition to this answer to address that would make it even higher quality." CreationDate="2014-12-08T14:49:40.857" UserId="927" />
  <row Id="10609" PostId="659" Score="0" Text="I don't pretend to know the answer here. I was on the side of the slow trickle idea because it would otherwise all go up to the ceiling, but the air that's heated comes from somewhere, e.g. mostly around knee height, which is the colder air, so the air it's heating is actually the colder air. And you don't want the heat to go back into the wall. Not all heat is equal - heating space that's not used (e.g. the outside wall space) doesn't heat the house in the same way, so it's better out (of the oven) than in. But I'm just guessing..." CreationDate="2019-01-11T00:26:59.493" UserId="6287" />
  <row Id="1019" PostId="660" Score="0" Text="Welcome to sustainability.SE! Note that unless it's a plug-in (to recharge the batteries) hybrid, the batteries are charged up by burning fuel in the engine, so when you're running the car just off the battery you're actually using charge that will need to be replaced later by burning fuel." CreationDate="2013-03-17T07:00:03.863" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="1023" PostId="660" Score="1" Text="@HighlyIrregular, don't you get charge from the brakes, also?  I thought that was one of the reasons why in-town driving yields better mileage." CreationDate="2013-03-18T15:54:39.423" UserId="215" />
  <row Id="1025" PostId="660" Score="0" Text="@Noel, yes, but energy recovery from braking is only a fraction of what is lost to power the car. Much of the energy powering a car is lost to friction from the tyres and air resistance (which increases at higher speed, which would explain why town driving is more efficient). http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/atv.shtml" CreationDate="2013-03-18T21:26:27.110" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="1272" PostId="660" Score="0" Text="@HighlyIrregular, if by *&quot;a fraction&quot;*, you mean something less than 1.0, then of course you're right.  But, it's not a small fraction.  Regenerative braking is **the** reason that hybrids get better fuel economy (about 25-30%) than the same model without the hybrid package.  All cars lose energy from tires and wind drag, not just hybrids.  Hybrids are more efficient because at low speeds (city driving), that's when you're using the brakes, and regenerating (recovering) energy.  At 60 mph, you're not using the brakes much, and thus, you get no fuel economy boost vs. a non-hybrid." CreationDate="2013-04-22T07:31:37.450" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1280" PostId="660" Score="0" Text="@Nate, that's a fair point about fractions! [Here's some real data](http://theeestory.ning.com/forum/topics/regenerative-braking-efficiency?commentId=6495062%3AComment%3A32559) claiming about 80kWh was saved over a period where 240kWh was used. It's not clear whether the 80kWh saved was included in the 240kWh as additional power consumed or not though. Looks like you are correct that it's significant." CreationDate="2013-04-22T09:17:35.567" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="1283" PostId="660" Score="0" Text="@HighlyIrregular, I also have the benefit of owning an electric car (LEAF).  It has a dash display that in real-time (more than 1Hz refresh, low latency) shows you how much energy the motor is using, and how much the brakes are regenerating.  And if you drive smoothly (not stopping abruptly), your energy economy actually goes up a lot as traffic gets slower.  This would partially be the case for gasoline/diesels, too, except that an internal combustion engine is not equally efficient at all speeds.  Thus, automakers have chosen to tune them to be most efficient at 30-50 mph." CreationDate="2013-04-22T21:16:16.760" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1286" PostId="660" Score="0" Text="@Nate, if you put all that info into an answer, it would probably be quite a good one!" CreationDate="2013-04-22T22:15:30.707" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="1031" PostId="661" Score="3" Text="I am not sure about steam, but in general, naturally using cooking (and other) heat can only help. I’m on the tight budget right now and saving money where I can, so there were couple of nights in the last few days where the temperature dipped below freezing, but I had not have to turn on the heat in the house, and got away with the sweater, heated blanked, and cooking, doing dishes or laundry later in the night to use that heat, and it helped pretty well, I think. It also helps that I am sandwiched on the middle floor of the apartment building, so I let other suckers heating my home. :D" CreationDate="2013-03-20T22:26:26.350" UserId="227" />
  <row Id="3895" PostId="661" Score="0" Text="whenever you convert any substance from liquid to gas you 'lose' heat, as it takes a certain energy to convert between phases.  for every gram of water converted to steam 540 cal of energy is consumed.  That water will eventually escape the house as water vapor, and thus you lost 540 cal of energy per gram in the boiling.  It wouldn't make it colder, but it would limit the amount of heating gained to make it inefficient." CreationDate="2014-12-08T14:55:00.913" UserId="927" />
  <row Id="1305" PostId="662" Score="2" Text="could you add a source for the aggregation of plastic in the worms?" CreationDate="2013-04-25T20:44:27.477" UserId="143" />
  <row Id="1030" PostId="663" Score="0" Text="I ask specifically about small portable containers. I am aware of standardized medium- to large-sized containers. What I am concerned about is cutting down on disposable bottles and replacing them with reusable ones (alumunium or composite for light weight), even if “refilled by authorized personnel”." CreationDate="2013-03-20T18:53:28.720" UserId="227" />
  <row Id="1036" PostId="663" Score="0" Text="Now I understand your question better. Not that I have an answer for that." CreationDate="2013-03-21T08:33:48.250" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="1034" PostId="664" Score="0" Text="Added to answer: &#xA;**Bicycle electronics site:**  Here is an [***excellent*** site with mini projects relating to bicycle electronics including bicycle alternator circuits**](http://www.pilom.com/BicycleElectronics/BicycleElectronics.htm)" CreationDate="2013-03-21T05:02:50.583" UserId="318" />
  <row Id="1035" PostId="664" Score="1" Text="Inquiring minds (one anyway) want to know: Is &quot;gaijintendo&quot; relate to being a foreigner living in Japan or a comment on sexuality? :-) (or none of these ...)" CreationDate="2013-03-21T05:05:01.767" UserId="318" />
  <row Id="1148" PostId="664" Score="1" Text="@RussellMcMahon I started using the name when I moved to Japan in 2003, as for any other connotations, that never occurred to me until maybe 5 years later when I first heard it said out loud. It doesn't offend me in the least, as I don't demand people 'get' the name in the least. (I was going for Foreigner and Cherub sounds)" CreationDate="2013-04-02T14:51:44.043" UserId="371" />
  <row Id="1154" PostId="664" Score="0" Text="The 'Foreigner in Japan' was what my mind saw first. It was probably only when I wondered about how many people would get it that I wondered if I was being too clever. Apparently not :-)." CreationDate="2013-04-02T17:59:49.933" UserId="318" />
  <row Id="1155" PostId="664" Score="0" Text="I hope the hub dyno playing has been profitable. NB!!! Never pull the older ones apart without the necessary special tool. Older ones use Samarium Cobalt magnets (pre Neodymiumj) and they must have a &quot;keeper&quot; at all times to maintain their magnetism. If pulled out of a hub without being drawn into a &quot;keeper&quot; they die. Or, so I'm told - I've never seen this done. I did see hub dynos many many decades ago (Sturmey Archer?)( but they were never dismantled." CreationDate="2013-04-02T18:04:22.893" UserId="318" />
  <row Id="3931" PostId="664" Score="0" Text="How did it work out?" CreationDate="2014-12-22T16:40:34.057" UserId="318" />
  <row Id="10701" PostId="666" Score="2" Text="Cars with auto start-stop will always have upgraded batteries (often marketed as 'start-stop' batteries) and a more powerful starter motor, often 'tandem solenoid' versions which cope better in the scenario where the engine has started to shut down but is still spinning, and the driver wishes to accelerate again." CreationDate="2019-02-13T21:37:16.553" UserId="3960" />
  <row Id="1027" PostId="667" Score="0" Text="That is a fantastic answer - I should get a chance to do this some weekend this month, I may need clarification on some points. I will put any points of reference or specifications back here in due course." CreationDate="2013-03-20T10:39:41.810" UserId="371" />
  <row Id="1028" PostId="667" Score="0" Text="A simple bridge rectifier and a battery that suits what I said is all you need to start to play.  A lower voltage battery will load the dynamo down more. It will get less energy (as less volts) but will start to charge at lower wind speed." CreationDate="2013-03-20T11:05:10.943" UserId="318" />
  <row Id="1038" PostId="670" Score="0" Text="But using the starter depletes the battery, which then must be recharged, which puts more load on the engine.  How does that fit into the equation?" CreationDate="2013-03-21T21:51:28.860" UserId="40" />
  <row Id="1039" PostId="670" Score="0" Text="@Flimzy, I do not have a hard numbers for you, and I am not a mechanical engineer to know the arcane details, but my general engineering knowledge (as I am still an engineer, just different kind) allows me to presume that the effect (economic and environmental) would be negligible considering the immediate savings, and over time (as outlined)." CreationDate="2013-03-22T00:17:44.523" UserId="227" />
  <row Id="1040" PostId="670" Score="2" Text="@Flimzy, Average [ICE efficiency outlays](http://www.consumerenergycenter.org/transportation/consumer_tips/vehicle_energy_losses.html) put maximum of 2 to 3 % for all accessory power take-off (including AC, electrical and electronics), which is order of magnitude less than friction and heat losses inside the motor itself. Never mind that when car idles it goes nowhere fast, so it wastes 100% of all energy input." CreationDate="2013-03-22T00:22:58.740" UserId="227" />
  <row Id="1044" PostId="670" Score="1" Text="1) The starter is not included in the 2-3% for acceories, in the link you provided. 2) &quot;It wastes 100% of all energy input&quot; isn't accurate, at minimum, by considering the energy required to re-start the motor (and the loss associated with generating and storing that electric energy). It's also not true if running other accessories that depend directly on the engine (A/C seems the obvious example). And any accessories that can run off of the alternator rather than battery will benefit by an idle engine versus a stopped engine, due to efficiency lost in storing and retrieving electric energy." CreationDate="2013-03-22T21:13:17.253" UserId="40" />
  <row Id="1046" PostId="670" Score="1" Text="A simple experiment to disprove this (nearly) unqualified answer: In your drive way, start your car's engine, then immediately stop it. Repeat. Eventually, your battery will be drained, and you will be unable to start your car. The point: Starting your car DOES use energy, and you MUST run the engine a minimum amount of time to re-generate that energy. Due to efficiency loss in friction in the starter, electrical storage/retrieval, etc, there *is* a duration for which it is more efficient to let your car idle than to restart it." CreationDate="2013-03-22T21:23:40.143" UserId="40" />
  <row Id="1047" PostId="670" Score="3" Text="Your answer provides a figure of 10-15 seconds, and maybe that's right (although it sure seems low to me).  Can you provide a source for this figure?" CreationDate="2013-03-22T21:24:08.117" UserId="40" />
  <row Id="1050" PostId="670" Score="1" Text="[This article](http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/the_green_lantern/2008/05/is_an_idle_car_the_devils_workshop.html) provides (mostly--some key links are broken) referenced sources and supports your 10-15 second claim; although it also seems to ignore the fuel consumed to re-charge the battery after a restart." CreationDate="2013-03-22T21:41:30.900" UserId="40" />
  <row Id="1053" PostId="670" Score="2" Text="@Flimzy, of course it takes energy to re-start and regenerate the battery. But it also more efficient to do it while car does useful work (that is, moving)." CreationDate="2013-03-23T02:28:29.343" UserId="227" />
  <row Id="2281" PostId="670" Score="3" Text="@Flimzy While the &quot;100%&quot; figure is easy to disprove, the conditions required to do so are far from typical driving conditions. [This answer on the Physics SE site](http://physics.stackexchange.com/a/75572) provides some helpful numbers. Based on some quick searches, it looks like the alternator for the example vehicle can push out up to 70A at the voltage required, so I will estimate (conservatively) that it takes 3-4x the time required to restart to replace the energy lost. That works out to about 9-12 seconds of engine-on time, so it might be a concern in stop-and-go traffic." CreationDate="2013-09-03T20:09:25.460" UserId="462" />
  <row Id="2282" PostId="670" Score="0" Text="@Flimzy From experience, I can tell you that the Honda Civic hybrid's auto-stop feature does deplete the hybrid batteries over time in stop-and-go conditions. I can easily imagine repeated manual shutoff-restart cycles depleting the battery in busy urban traffic conditions. The hybrid's battery management features prevent this from happening with the auto-stop mode, but doing it manually would circumvent those precautions." CreationDate="2013-09-03T20:18:58.733" UserId="462" />
  <row Id="2352" PostId="670" Score="0" Text="What if it's cold outside (-30°C)?  It may get cold very quickly inside the car, and if the engine cools down too much, it might not even start anymore.  Starting an engine at -30°C is also much, much worse than at higher temperatures." CreationDate="2013-10-11T09:42:53.870" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="2355" PostId="670" Score="0" Text="@gerrit, don’t be ludicrous. Nobody said you have to, and if you need to stay warm, you stay warm. As for starting in cold weather, once the engine warmed up, it shall not cool down for awhile. I cannot give specific number for any specific engine at that temperature, but if the motor can stay warm for hours in normal conditions, I am sure that couple minutes at -30°C is not going to kill it. So even if you live in Alska, Yukon, or Kamchatka, you can turn your engine during quick jaunt to the shop. By the way, you are still required to turn off the motor while filling up at the petrol station." CreationDate="2013-10-11T15:38:13.600" UserId="227" />
  <row Id="4759" PostId="670" Score="0" Text="Another concern I have is that the average wait at a traffic light will be longer, due to the fact that the car cannot immediately take off. All cars behind yours will therefore use more fuel than necessary. Of course hybrids that can drive full electric don't have this issue." CreationDate="2015-09-11T11:51:03.230" UserId="2570" />
  <row Id="11575" PostId="670" Score="0" Text="&quot;even half of that saved and multiplied by the number of all the cars in the world would amount to significant impact.&quot; -&gt; this is a wrong concept in my opinion. While summing the savings for more people inevitably brings a bigger number, that number looks big only because you still compare in your mind with your experiences, that are related to you, a single person. Is 100 L/year (quite a big overstimate) a lot compared to your overall impact? it's about 400 kWh, which pales with your yearly fuel+heating+electricity consumption. S&amp;S helps just because reduces pollution near the crossings" CreationDate="2019-10-09T11:50:48.997" UserId="3653" />
  <row Id="1037" PostId="671" Score="0" Text="This is indeed a great answer sir!" CreationDate="2013-03-21T15:15:49.297" UserId="45" />
  <row Id="6921" PostId="671" Score="0" Text="Please note that the Question is talking about an Aquaponics system, not Hydroponics. The entire water system needs to completely recirculate at least once an hour due to fish/oxygen needs. Your pump will be a very large one or a multi staged set up." CreationDate="2016-05-19T14:11:21.950" UserDisplayName="user3406" />
  <row Id="6923" PostId="671" Score="0" Text="@Johann Please see my update. Does that better match the need? Could aeration and somewhat reduced fluid flow meet the overall need at lower power levels?" CreationDate="2016-05-20T01:56:28.623" UserId="318" />
  <row Id="6924" PostId="671" Score="0" Text="@AndrewSiemer This is a 3 year old question of yours that I've updated my answer to. The changes were due to the suggestion that my assumed flow rate was too low by about a factor of 5. You may wish to check the answer if still of interest. Did you do anything like this? What pump power used?" CreationDate="2016-05-20T01:58:38.103" UserId="318" />
  <row Id="8733" PostId="671" Score="0" Text="Part of the circulation requirements is to ensure that the particulate matter that fish introduce into the system needs to run through various media types for extraction (either in the media itself or via swirl filter or similar).  Aeration is another topic which can be done in so many ways.  Bubblers, surface disruption, surface area (like a lake surface), etc." CreationDate="2017-08-09T23:20:58.960" UserId="45" />
  <row Id="1251" PostId="672" Score="0" Text="I don't know how large cucumber plants are, but hops plants are indeed vines which I've only seen about 3 metres tall." CreationDate="2013-04-21T04:47:34.317" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="1049" PostId="673" Score="2" Text="Why don't you compost??" CreationDate="2013-03-22T21:35:39.777" UserId="40" />
  <row Id="1064" PostId="673" Score="0" Text="We don't have any place to compost. I live in an apartment. I guess I can try to find a scraps collection service. In NYC, the farmer's markets always had someone collecting compostables." CreationDate="2013-03-25T05:47:45.833" UserId="92" />
  <row Id="1065" PostId="673" Score="0" Text="For small quantities of compostable materials, you could feed them to house plants.... There are probably a ton of other good ideas for apartment dwellers wishing to compost as well, but that should be a separate question." CreationDate="2013-03-25T05:53:16.310" UserId="40" />
  <row Id="1085" PostId="673" Score="2" Text="Can I suggest changing the question to &quot;What is the most sustainable way to handle food waste in an apartment with no outdoor storage?&quot;  I think that would be a better question." CreationDate="2013-03-27T17:03:08.827" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="1052" PostId="678" Score="0" Text="Good call on contacting the manufacturer their web site says of my hat: `Woollen fabric may be dry cleaned, hand washed or washed at a wool cycle of washing machine. It should not be tumble dried.`" CreationDate="2013-03-23T00:38:49.517" UserId="40" />
  <row Id="1055" PostId="682" Score="0" Text="On the surplus bit, wouldn't buying 100% renewable energy plans tend to decrease the surplus of those certificates and thus at least create at least the possibility of market pressure?" CreationDate="2013-03-24T12:46:38.080" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="1059" PostId="682" Score="1" Text="(Good explanation, btw)" CreationDate="2013-03-24T12:55:16.723" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="1061" PostId="682" Score="1" Text="Thanks. Yes, if the surplus goes, there's market pressure. I put in the bit about expectations of future surplus for that reason and others." CreationDate="2013-03-24T13:49:19.003" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="1071" PostId="683" Score="0" Text="See added. Better ? If not you are going to find your own rationale :-). The statement is something of a simplification." CreationDate="2013-03-25T13:14:13.857" UserId="318" />
  <row Id="1063" PostId="684" Score="1" Text="I can keep guinea pigs, but not eat them! Maybe I'm a prude, but reading #3 gave me the chills. :)" CreationDate="2013-03-25T05:46:38.657" UserId="92" />
  <row Id="1086" PostId="684" Score="4" Text="Time to start feeding my Guinea pigs ribeyes and lobster:)" CreationDate="2013-03-27T17:08:56.393" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="1656" PostId="684" Score="0" Text="You mean 7 pallets to make a **2** bin compost system?" CreationDate="2013-05-25T09:39:42.933" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1662" PostId="684" Score="2" Text="No, I don't.  I don't generally put a front panel on a bin.  If the first bin gets too full, I extend the side walls forward, and still leave it without a front.  Having no fronts decreases the hassle of dropping of a wheelbarrow of new stuff in it." CreationDate="2013-05-26T12:56:09.450" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="9852" PostId="686" Score="0" Text="Nice answer, but the wood group is notably missing cedar shake. I think this is easier to &quot;mill&quot; than cedar clapboard, but does also add demand for a relatively rare tree." CreationDate="2018-06-23T16:22:06.783" UserId="1123" />
  <row Id="9854" PostId="686" Score="1" Text="Added shakes. @SmilinBrian" CreationDate="2018-06-24T13:15:20.387" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="1069" PostId="690" Score="1" Text="I am looking at trying to model questions like, &quot;Under what circumstances does it save energy to require that landlords get permits verifying that they have sufficient installation in order to rent?  In what cases does this cost more energy than it saves?&quot;  Obviously if the insulation present is good enough the compliance costs will outweigh savings.  The question is at what point is there savings?  This would have to include *all* energy spent by, in this example, both the landlord on compliance and the city on permitting and inspection as well as indirect costs like costs of living." CreationDate="2013-03-25T11:05:14.997" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="1070" PostId="690" Score="0" Text="I understand - it's just that the costs are small, whether in enforcement, or in the embodied energy of insulation materials. So there'd only be no not energy savings if there were no gross energy savings." CreationDate="2013-03-25T13:08:20.433" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="1078" PostId="691" Score="1" Text="Maybe I will have a change of heart and we can grill up some guinea pig on a family camping trip together. Wink Wink. :)" CreationDate="2013-03-27T03:20:19.390" UserId="92" />
  <row Id="1073" PostId="692" Score="1" Text="The following energy cost comparison is &quot;out of my head&quot; and no doubt much better figures exist BUT it looks at a glance that $100/tonne is fatally high and even $33/tonne is costly compared to Carbon &quot;worth&quot;. IF these results are anything like correct then Carbon capture needs to be even cheaper to be commercially viable under present mindsets.|| 1 tonne CO2 ~~~= 250 kg C. At say 4 kWh energy delivered / kg C and say $0.20 / kWh That's 250 x 4 x 0.2 = $200 of energy from burning C to make 1 tonne of CO2. SO $100/tonne ~+ 50% of energy value !!!. $33/tonne = ~= 15% of energy value. :-( E&amp;OE!!!" CreationDate="2013-03-25T23:14:47.960" UserId="318" />
  <row Id="1075" PostId="692" Score="0" Text="@RussellMcMahon no, those results aren't correct. Too long to discuss here, and I'm not sure it can be boiled down to a suitable question here, but catch me over in [chat] and we can try to knock a question into shape." CreationDate="2013-03-26T10:24:44.297" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="1082" PostId="693" Score="1" Text="Hello there,  and welcome. Thanks for your answer. Would you like to elaborate a little more? A fuller answer will help all our interested readers." CreationDate="2013-03-27T09:53:18.533" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="1083" PostId="694" Score="0" Text="Why would mining from seawater be more sustainable than mining from subterranean land-based sources?" CreationDate="2013-03-27T12:41:31.923" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="1092" PostId="694" Score="1" Text="@gerrit, my thought was that it would be much faster to naturally replenish, but perhaps that's not the case. I don't think this was a particularly well-worded question, but at least it might lead to a better one being asked :-)" CreationDate="2013-03-28T07:40:33.840" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="1751" PostId="694" Score="0" Text="Sea water's mineral content comes from erosion of the land and seafloor and volcanic and hydrothermal activity. These processes aren't going to stop any time soon, but neither will the natural processes that remove minerals from sea water, such as calcite precipitation by corals and shellfish. Industrial-scale mineral extraction would probably throw the ocean ecosystem for a loop, at least near the extraction facilities." CreationDate="2013-06-07T15:30:27.310" UserId="462" />
  <row Id="1074" PostId="695" Score="0" Text="Thanks for the answer! I consider mining and extraction from the water itself to be completely different, from a sustainability perspective. Also, you're absolutely correct (and realistic, currently) about the energy usage being a problem, but it is possible to produce renewable energy." CreationDate="2013-03-26T07:18:37.123" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="1077" PostId="697" Score="1" Text="It may be more sustainable than mining land based deposits if it replenishes more quickly through natural processes. Whether or not that's happening, I don't know." CreationDate="2013-03-27T02:46:36.817" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="1094" PostId="703" Score="0" Text="Thanks for this.  I hadn't considered the forestry or agriculture, but what I'm interested in is how these would stack up against some of the prices per ton in the question." CreationDate="2013-03-28T09:37:20.430" UserId="404" />
  <row Id="1107" PostId="703" Score="0" Text="Reforestation costs vary considerably.  The trees themselves are dirt cheap.  Planting them costs far more than the trees.  Ball park figure for tree planting per survivor is around 2-3 bucks.  According to http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=2&amp;cad=rja&amp;ved=0CDwQFjAB&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.siestaproject.eu%2FEt2050_Library%2Fdocs%2Ftech%2Fenvironment%2FCarbon_Sequestration_Forests.pdf&amp;ei=aqVVUbjLDcaGtAaWvIDwBA&amp;usg=AFQjCNF6Apq_8qnGwYV4u8Lu3db0SBn1JQ&amp;sig2=ZT1MlM38Qo5q6l95ju-z8A" CreationDate="2013-03-29T14:32:00.787" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="1109" PostId="703" Score="1" Text="I love your answer part but the first two paragraphs are off topic for the question.  Feel free to ask a question of how would a carbon tax reduce carbon emmission if you like.  I know I would love to see it." CreationDate="2013-03-29T18:48:03.250" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="1113" PostId="703" Score="1" Text="Fine.  I strayed from the question.  So shoot me.  However, the added tidbit puts the costs in context with the price of electrical power.  E.g. Something that costs $7/ton will raise the price of power by 3 c/kWh" CreationDate="2013-03-30T12:33:06.600" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="1134" PostId="703" Score="0" Text="@SherwoodBotsford - Your straying from the question takes a great answer and defaces it.  Like I said if you removed that part I suspect you will find this answer highly upvoted." CreationDate="2013-04-01T20:28:21.527" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="1099" PostId="704" Score="0" Text="You have too many questions in one.  I think you need to focus your question on one problem and get a good quality answer.  You can ask several questions if you need to." CreationDate="2013-03-28T19:58:41.190" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="1101" PostId="704" Score="0" Text="@Chad Maybe i'm misunderstanding the Beta then.  I'm trying to seed questions to form the basis of the site's discussion.  I've answered questions also, and intend to answer my own questions as well if no one else does.  I don't think the questions I've asked can be combined into one, but do think they are a good fit for this site.  LMK if you disagree." CreationDate="2013-03-28T20:23:20.427" UserId="404" />
  <row Id="1102" PostId="704" Score="0" Text="_ I agree that the questions are on topic, and I am not suggesting merging them all into one.  Instead I am suggesting that you break this one question into 3 or 4 other questions that are each focused an aspect of this question." CreationDate="2013-03-28T20:32:35.650" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="1103" PostId="704" Score="0" Text="@Chad Ooh i see. I agree and got rid if the vegan question, but think that breaking this question up more might make it too specific for this phase of the platform - you really can't give a good answer for the first two questions without explaining the caveats from the next 4 questions, even though they could be questions on their own." CreationDate="2013-03-29T03:51:26.197" UserId="404" />
  <row Id="1105" PostId="704" Score="1" Text="The first 2 are you are referring to are not questions so much as the statistics you would like to see.  The next 4 questions were the ones I was thinking you would break up and ask individually." CreationDate="2013-03-29T13:32:41.443" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="1749" PostId="705" Score="0" Text="As a short summary of The Economist debate, the votes sided **against** carbon offsetting 55% - 45%.  I'd probably have to agree, in that carbon offset trading sounds like a terrible idea to me, albeit probably for different reasons than the average The Economist reader." CreationDate="2013-06-07T08:44:14.373" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="10249" PostId="705" Score="0" Text="That Economist link is dead; could not find anything in The Wayback Machine either." CreationDate="2018-10-05T15:35:31.663" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="1136" PostId="706" Score="0" Text="My answer to [your prior question on essentially the same subject](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/694/where-can-i-find-a-comprehensive-list-of-products-that-can-be-produced-without-m) contained information and links sufficient to address this version of the question.  | Essentially, there are only 4 materials in seawater that can be retireved worthwhiley due to energy considerations, and there are 2 other maybes. All the rest are so very dilute that getting them out costs far more that they are worth. See refs for reolenishment rates." CreationDate="2013-04-02T03:32:45.660" UserId="318" />
  <row Id="1135" PostId="707" Score="2" Text="While it is a work of fiction, Kim Stanley Robinson's trilogy + &quot;Red Mars&quot;, &quot;Green Mars&quot;, Blue Mars&quot; contains many ideas in the ability to build a world starting with small seed input. He use nuclear, solar, thermal and more on a grand scale. A very worthwhile read from many perspectives." CreationDate="2013-04-02T02:49:02.190" UserId="318" />
  <row Id="1111" PostId="708" Score="1" Text="Hi there: please can you add some description about the project here, so that this answer can have a life independently of the links? Our goal is to build an awesome body of content right here: not just links to content elsewhere." CreationDate="2013-03-30T10:42:19.410" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="1112" PostId="708" Score="0" Text="Looks to good to be true.  Besides describing the project, the answer would benefit enormously if there was a summary of independent reviews as to their feasibility." CreationDate="2013-03-30T12:22:53.420" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="1119" PostId="708" Score="1" Text="Very interesting project, but it sounds far-fetched, bordering on impossible. 50% of the world's electricity? There's a lot more than just silicon in solar panels, and it doesn't make economic or environmental sense to try to produce 50% of our electricity in such a relatively small area once you consider the energy loss in moving the electricity - even if you did find a way to use superconductors." CreationDate="2013-03-31T01:00:23.637" UserId="317" />
  <row Id="1167" PostId="708" Score="0" Text="Thanks everyone for expanding on my link; I had heard of the concept of a solar breeder project about a decade ago, so was able to find the SSB project in Google quickly. I was just about to go on holiday when I posted it so couldn't provide more detail, but I figured it would help get things started!&#xA;The project sounds pretty optimistic, but maybe they're onto something big? Let's hope." CreationDate="2013-04-05T07:21:59.147" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="1118" PostId="709" Score="0" Text="Superb answer, thanks - more comprehensive than I was expecting!" CreationDate="2013-03-31T00:26:00.440" UserId="375" />
  <row Id="1350" PostId="710" Score="1" Text="I like this answer, but it would really help to have some sources to back up the reasoning. :)" CreationDate="2013-05-01T07:53:24.307" UserId="502" />
  <row Id="1534" PostId="710" Score="1" Text="I realize that you're from Alberta, and that alters the equation a bit (but, this is a site for the general public, and most people don't live at your latitude).  The statement about range fed red meat being better than vegetarianism for GHG is incorrect (maybe, unless you completely ignore land use change).  Transportation, although important, is not the primary energy (or GHG) cost in making food.  [See Carnegie Mellon study](http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es702969f), or many other available sources drawing the same conclusion." CreationDate="2013-05-14T01:34:34.577" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="10021" PostId="710" Score="0" Text="Clearly biased answer. Eating beef is terrible in terms of GHG production (methane)." CreationDate="2018-08-08T10:07:46.907" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="1123" PostId="712" Score="0" Text="At the moment, this reads like an invitation to discussion. But this is a Q&amp;A site, not a discussion forum. Please can you edit the question to make it more specific and objectively answerable?" CreationDate="2013-03-31T19:32:19.043" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="1127" PostId="712" Score="1" Text="I think this could be reworded along the lines of &quot;will oil run out&quot; (objectively answerable) and &quot;if oil runs out, what will we use instead&quot; (also objectively answerable, at least to some extent)." CreationDate="2013-04-01T00:57:26.147" UserId="317" />
  <row Id="1131" PostId="712" Score="0" Text="This is a large, ubiquitous topic that is something that can be discussed and debated... but not really *aswered*, per se; at least in the context of this type of Q&amp;A format. These type of talking-point and debate questions are better asked in a discussion forum or chat room. It's an interesting question, but it's just not well-suited to this type of Q&amp;A format." CreationDate="2013-04-01T15:55:16.160" UserId="117" />
  <row Id="1139" PostId="712" Score="0" Text="Being closed is just a phase to give you chance to edit the question into something that **is** suitable for the site. If you want help, add a comment here, or ask a question over on [meta]." CreationDate="2013-04-02T06:56:50.410" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="1166" PostId="712" Score="0" Text="Thanks guys, yeah I realize the way I worded the question lends it to being quite broad. Basically, I guess I wanted to ask whether oil would run out within our life time. I guess another question would be along the lines of &quot;What can we try to do in order to prepare for reducing the impact of no longer having oil.&quot; but that may just have to be another post..." CreationDate="2013-04-04T21:27:51.837" UserId="421" />
  <row Id="1182" PostId="712" Score="0" Text="@CesarDV would you mind if I made some substantial edits to your question to make it fit more with the Stack Exchange format? I think you're getting at some important topics here, and as you can probably tell from my answer, it's a subject area I'm passionate about. I'm [quite experienced](http://stackexchange.com/users/78840) with Stack Exchange and I could probably edit it to be more suitable to this format, without losing the original intention of your question. Let me know - I don't want to go barging into your post of course!" CreationDate="2013-04-09T03:13:24.403" UserId="317" />
  <row Id="1248" PostId="712" Score="0" Text="@nhinkle Well you more than answered my question! But sure, go nuts... I't actually be good learning for me... to learn to pose better questions, etc." CreationDate="2013-04-20T03:51:07.400" UserId="421" />
  <row Id="2565" PostId="712" Score="0" Text="We will NEVER run out of oil, the price will go up so much that most people will not be able to afort much before it runs out." CreationDate="2013-12-10T16:48:40.393" UserId="963" />
  <row Id="1349" PostId="713" Score="0" Text="Wonderful use of sources!" CreationDate="2013-05-01T07:52:51.507" UserId="502" />
  <row Id="1401" PostId="713" Score="1" Text="I've seen a lot of studies on this issue, and carbon footprint calculators, and I have to say that this Brighter Planet report is easily the most meat-friendly of any data I've seen.  Red meat **only** being twice the GHG cost of fruits and veg (even on a per calorie basis) seems a bit low.  Perhaps that's due to an omission of land-use change effects." CreationDate="2013-05-03T10:30:10.507" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="10020" PostId="713" Score="0" Text="&quot;no mention of emissions associated with deforestation from clearing land for pasture&quot;, and probably none for the deforestation related to the Amazonian soy produced to feed livestock, either." CreationDate="2018-08-08T10:01:21.770" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="1417" PostId="714" Score="0" Text="I find this title: **Why we're not going to run out of oil (soon).** a bit contradictory with this statement: *that would put us right about at 30 years before current reserves run out*.  That sounds *soon* to me.  Certainly, I agree with your point that we will find (an unknown amount) of additional reserves.  But, our population will also increase, and the developing world will start driving more cars and eating more meat.  So, I'd still debate the applicability of the word &quot;soon&quot; here." CreationDate="2013-05-03T22:18:03.213" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1422" PostId="714" Score="0" Text="And I would flatly refute this statement as false: *&quot;often use more fossil fuels in the production process than they save. &quot;*.  Even ethanol made from US corn, arguably the worst biofuel, has an energy ratio that's better than 1.0.  [Source](http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/aer-agricultural-economic-report/aer721.aspx#.UYTOIIIyHQw) and [source](http://www.usda.gov/oce/reports/energy/EnergyLifeCycleSoybeanBiodieseI6-11.pdf) and [older source (page 2)](http://www.iea.org/techno/essentials2.pdf)." CreationDate="2013-05-04T09:15:32.073" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1120" PostId="715" Score="0" Text="*It is not possible to simultaneously have too much hydrocarbons, and too little*, but of course it is.  We can significantly change climate *and* have prices for fossil fuels rise dramatically due to limited availability.  The two are not mutually exclusive." CreationDate="2013-03-31T12:22:51.113" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="1121" PostId="715" Score="0" Text="While we &quot;have&quot; those technologies, I would argue that most if not all are not economical and are questionably practical on a large scale. I think they'll get there eventually, but they aren't there yet." CreationDate="2013-03-31T18:08:12.633" UserId="317" />
  <row Id="1418" PostId="715" Score="0" Text="@EnergyNumbers, while I agree with the spirit of your point about there being too many, not too few fossil fuels left, I find the peak oil argument useful in the following way.  There's a segment of the population who just can't be convinced that climate change is real, or a problem.  However, it's a bit easier to convince most of them that oil is indeed finite.  My response to them commonly is &quot;if we know that getting off oil has to happen eventually, let's do it sooner rather than waiting until true scarcity forces our hand.  At that point, US$4/gallon gasoline will seem like a gift.&quot;" CreationDate="2013-05-03T22:23:44.070" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1419" PostId="715" Score="0" Text="@Nate - I do take your point. The problems with using peak oil to persuade deniers is: (1) deniers have already recused themselves from reasoned discussion; and (2) if the only problem were a hydrocarbon shortage, then fracking, enhanced oil recovery, and coal-to-liquids would be good things, rather than the disastrous things we know them to be." CreationDate="2013-05-04T07:48:42.360" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="1133" PostId="718" Score="0" Text="It is going to depend on how your kids live.  If they live in an unsustainable manner then adding 2 more to the mix is going to make it more unsustainable.  If they live in a sustainable manner that has the ability to support 2 more individuals then you would be more sustainable by moving in with them.  FWIW it is becoming more common for multigenerational families in the US mostly attributed to the economy but several of my friends have helped their parents out who could not have actually retired with out the moving in with them." CreationDate="2013-04-01T20:26:08.270" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="1137" PostId="719" Score="0" Text="You say, &quot;There are substantial energy savings from increasing the number of members per household. However there are diminishing returns to adding another member to the house.&quot; but looking at the chart, it is true that each additional individual uses even less energy than living alone, so if it is a choice between a 4 person plus a two person and a combined 6 person household, it is 197.1 MBTu vs 113.6, or a 42% savings, right?" CreationDate="2013-04-02T04:10:53.420" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="1138" PostId="719" Score="0" Text="Yes you are correct.  I meant it is a diminishing return in the sense that a six person house is not going to save a lot more energy than a five person house in terms of per capita energy consumption, but the point you bring up is more important." CreationDate="2013-04-02T04:20:28.237" UserId="404" />
  <row Id="1150" PostId="720" Score="0" Text="I've tidied up my comments and let's [continue this discussion in chat](http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/8174/discussion-between-energynumbers-and-russell-mcmahon)" CreationDate="2013-04-02T15:53:10.247" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="1151" PostId="720" Score="0" Text="And mine too, it seems. The UNESCO report looked very good, but as with all such you need to be careful how you use their data. Divide the EROI's in the higher figure tables by 3.1 to get actual energy at site figure - they are including a 1/3.1 = 29% mean grid efficiency figure which is legitimate for some comparisons but not for raw performance questions. At a quick skim-read it was not obvious what they use for $/Wmp which is utterly pivotal. If they are using the raw PV cell cost ex factory the 6 or so EROI figure looks about right compared to my figures." CreationDate="2013-04-02T16:58:01.020" UserId="318" />
  <row Id="1152" PostId="720" Score="0" Text="@EnergyNumbers ... *IF* this is what they do then If you use a  finished &amp; installed panel cost of about $1/Wmp installed you are getting down towards lifetime breakeven - which, of course sounds wrong. BUT it is a sad fact that  almost all the Chinese polycrystalline manufacturers have gone out of business and the monocrystalline makers are ALL heavily subsidised. The Chinese PV industry is bankrupt without government support. (This from Chinese sources, insider US buyers and many public sources.) THEN you need US FITs and more to make PV break even. For off grid use its a buyers paradise." CreationDate="2013-04-02T17:02:10.227" UserId="318" />
  <row Id="1153" PostId="720" Score="0" Text="I think you've misunderstood the purpose of comments - they are not for chat. Chat is for chat - [join me there](http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/8174/discussion-between-energynumbers-and-russell-mcmahon)." CreationDate="2013-04-02T17:18:21.117" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="1161" PostId="720" Score="0" Text="@EnergyNumbers - thanks, but I've had enough impolite input already.  But, thanks for the useful links. | Misunderstood ... . Maybe not. See my profile." CreationDate="2013-04-04T13:57:00.810" UserId="318" />
  <row Id="1168" PostId="720" Score="0" Text="@RussellMcMahon, you seem to make a solid argument about the real costs of energy; it will be interesting to see what energy costs in a post-oil society. To make this into a more readable answer though, I'd suggest summarising it at the top in a single paragraph. If you have a look around SE, the most highly voted answers are easy on the eyes!" CreationDate="2013-04-05T07:50:42.403" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="1169" PostId="720" Score="0" Text="I think that you will have a much easier time on Stack exchange if you try not to be offended by down-votes, they happen, and unless your answer really isn't useful you are likely to get more reputation from sympathy up-votes than you lose from down-votes. Certainly you would get at least one more up-vote if you were to tidy up (delete) the rant at the top of your answer and would almost certainly get more up-votes if you improve the structure and presentation of your answer. At the moment the large blocks of text are quite daunting, so consider the addition of some headings to divide it up." CreationDate="2013-04-05T10:01:07.060" UserId="164" />
  <row Id="1170" PostId="720" Score="0" Text="@MarkBooth - Thanks for the advice. Genuinely appreciated that you put the effort into commenting. [Overall I have about 70k rep on S.E. sites so a few lost here and there is genuinely not the point - it's the message it gives to others who are trying to learn. My main aim is to be useful and I when I see downvotes on something which took some effort and which IS genuinely useful even if not it's annoying.  I do wonder what sort of person seeks to mislead others in this way." CreationDate="2013-04-05T11:30:07.617" UserId="318" />
  <row Id="1173" PostId="720" Score="0" Text="@HighlyIrregular - Thanks. Every time I try to march to the drum that other people hear I seem to trip over my shoe laces :-). I find it 'easier' to provide what seems useful with as much attention to formating as can be sensibly managed along the way, rather than leaning towards prettiness at the cost of content. Pretty does happen sometimes :-). People seem happy enough overall long term (see my profile). Occasionally some mutual arm waving and perhaps some raised voices happen. Largely not though :-). [People evidently think that answers like this are pretty enough](http://goo.gl/q70zX)" CreationDate="2013-04-06T06:30:42.387" UserId="318" />
  <row Id="1162" PostId="721" Score="0" Text="If people are excited by those EROEI figures they would be advised to read the cited report concerned. Start by dividing by about 3.2 to compare apples with apples (or Joules with Joules) (the report explains why). Then try to establish which PV cost is being used . Is it the FOB factory silicon wafer cost of the installed maintained long term cost. I do not know and was unable to be certain based on the report. I keep my eye on solar prices with an eye to direct importing from China. So far its very doubtful that its worth doing compared to grid electricty if $ alone are the motivator." CreationDate="2013-04-04T14:07:23.640" UserId="318" />
  <row Id="1163" PostId="721" Score="0" Text="@RussellMcMahon there is no reason to divide by 3.2: you may have misunderstood the report. The factor of 3.2 is to get from electricity in the grid, to the primary energy consumption in coal. What we are interested in is the **delivery of electricity**: so it's coal that gets a penalty of having ~30% efficiency from heat to delivered electricity." CreationDate="2013-04-04T18:39:21.637" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="1156" PostId="722" Score="1" Text="maybe this question is interesting: http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/246/is-it-sustainable-or-necessary-to-use-potable-water-to-wash-waste-before-recycli?rq=1" CreationDate="2013-04-03T07:12:00.240" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="1165" PostId="725" Score="8" Text="Growing a fruit does not make it unsustainable.  Chances are that fruit is at least biodegradable and usable in compost." CreationDate="2013-04-04T20:39:25.393" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="1196" PostId="725" Score="5" Text="Cashew juice is a delicacy, so the fruit is being used." CreationDate="2013-04-12T00:11:30.330" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="4451" PostId="725" Score="3" Text="One thing to keep in mind is where the commercial nut is actually grown and water use. It takes one gallon of water to produce one almond in California (where 60% of the world's almonds are grown), so I'm looking for an alternative to that diet-friendly nut." CreationDate="2015-06-07T21:22:35.123" UserDisplayName="user2289" />
  <row Id="4509" PostId="725" Score="2" Text="Even if human ignore the fruit, something will eat it. If we follow your logic, we have to cut down all the forest because tons of fruits grow there without being eaten by humans" CreationDate="2015-06-23T19:44:38.033" UserId="1421" />
  <row Id="4524" PostId="725" Score="0" Text="@user2289 Assuming  grown organically, and the water isn't getting polluted, that &quot;one gallon of water&quot; will be 100% recycled. So from a long-term sustainable point of view, water required per nut is not an issue. (Of course, I imagine your comment was also that California is currently in a drought, and burning fossil fuels to import water, etc. But apparently an ounce of red meat uses 106 gallons, compared to 23 for an ounce of almonds, and with the same protein %. ) (See http://uk.businessinsider.com/real-villain-in-the-california-drought-isnt-almonds--its-red-meat-2015-4?r=US)" CreationDate="2015-06-25T20:47:20.943" UserId="961" />
  <row Id="5338" PostId="726" Score="3" Text="For Almonds you said 1,500 to 3,000 shelled pounds. What about the figures for the other nuts - are they also shelled or unshelled?" CreationDate="2016-01-20T14:01:16.110" UserId="439" />
  <row Id="9711" PostId="726" Score="0" Text="Do you think you could respond to the question in @user439’s comment?" CreationDate="2018-05-17T09:24:29.857" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="12673" PostId="726" Score="0" Text="Marked down as you could not be bothered to respond to @user439 :(" CreationDate="2020-06-11T11:18:29.180" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="3223" PostId="729" Score="0" Text="Having the same trouble figuring out what to do with old shoes (not athletic, in most cases). Leather hiking boots the soles have broken/come off of in chunks, Simple shoes (I miss them!) that are mostly holes, dance sneakers of which the soles have disintegrated, moldy old flip-flops. Nothing wearable. Thanks for the Nike tip!" CreationDate="2014-04-17T18:33:32.360" UserDisplayName="user1363" />
  <row Id="6526" PostId="729" Score="0" Text="Where are you located?" CreationDate="2016-02-29T14:32:52.253" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="16499" PostId="729" Score="0" Text="Some brands take their shoes back: https://www.rerun.allbirds.com/tradein" CreationDate="2023-10-06T02:23:16.210" UserId="15262" />
  <row Id="3177" PostId="730" Score="1" Text="The thing I would like to know is what is the effect on vehicle drag depending on how far the window/s is/are open?&#xA;Surely a window wound down completely creates significantly more drag than a window down 1cm or even 5cm.&#xA;Most sites simply talk about &quot;windows down&quot; without stating how far they were open.&#xA;Does anyone know of any research that looks at opening windows at speed vs aircon, when windows are open only 1-2 inches?" CreationDate="2014-04-06T11:42:31.567" UserDisplayName="user1322" />
  <row Id="1178" PostId="732" Score="9" Text="Thanks for this, but it's not quite what I was looking for.  My shoes are not nearly in condition to make something as elegant as this.  Also, I'm not sure something like this would be sustainable in my case.  In order for it to be sustainable, it's got to displace some eneregy or resource use that I, or someone else, would have otherwise demanded.  If there was a nursery that took my shoes, created something beautiful like this and sold that instead of some plastic pot, then there would be a more compelling case for sustainability.  If you know of anything along these lines, do let me know!" CreationDate="2013-04-08T16:44:01.037" UserId="404" />
  <row Id="1179" PostId="732" Score="0" Text="I hear you.  We'll leave it up here anyway - maybe it will give someone searching along the same topic an idea or two." CreationDate="2013-04-08T18:00:49.640" UserId="28" />
  <row Id="1205" PostId="734" Score="2" Text="I am uncertian how this relates to sustainability.  I would think that the use of the bottles as a liquid container would be more sustainable than using them as a boat that is likely to become pollution and litter should it break up in the water." CreationDate="2013-04-15T19:48:54.513" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="1207" PostId="734" Score="0" Text="@Chad: you misunderstood me. I'm talking about reusing the bottles after using them as a liquid container for one, two, three, ten times or so, or if I can't reuse the bottles as a liquid container. I already addressed this issue in the first paragraph of my question." CreationDate="2013-04-16T09:16:48.290" UserId="58" />
  <row Id="3273" PostId="734" Score="0" Text="Are there more images with instructions as to how this craft was made?" CreationDate="2014-05-08T17:33:38.280" UserDisplayName="user1418" />
  <row Id="3276" PostId="734" Score="0" Text="@MWBrown: I haven't done it myself yet (lack of time), the image in my question is just randomly grabbed from net. However, if my friends (who like such ideas much more than I) will build something like this and some pictures and/or instructions will get online, I'll send a link. The instructions shouldn't be hard to find, and I think no one will complaint if you add a comment with links to few of the best ones. Or even edit my post to add them. I don't feel like looking for the really good ones between the manuals I found online when I asked the question." CreationDate="2014-05-09T10:59:32.727" UserId="58" />
  <row Id="1755" PostId="736" Score="1" Text="I have to disagree with the first (1.) - the greenhouse effect can certainly heat up a car in the sun, even on a cold day, but once the car is moving, *convective* cooling is huge.  You shouldn't need the windows open at all to cool the car, especially if the vents are set to **Fresh** air, not **Recirculate**.  Regarding (3.), yes, that's how it works, but not because the fan uses much electrical energy.  It's because you're increasing the Air Exchange Ratio, and forcing a new mass of warm air to be cooled more often.  If the vents are on **Recirculate**, then this issue goes away ..." CreationDate="2013-06-08T02:31:27.980" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1757" PostId="736" Score="1" Text="... but then, [inside air quality actually can suffer](http://www.arb.ca.gov/research/seminars/fruin2/fruin.pdf) and be less healthy for occupants.  Regarding the last point, it's true that medium settings (on older cars with internal combustion engines) do add heat to cooling.  However, in an ICE, the heat is almost free, as it's waste from the engine.  So, it's closer to correct to say that you don't save energy by keeping a *cool* vs. *cold* setting.  On newer cars, though, they have thermostats and temperature setpoints, and can switch the compressor off.  So, medium does save energy." CreationDate="2013-06-08T02:43:17.417" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1180" PostId="740" Score="6" Text="I find the lid of the box is often clean, so I rip that off and recycle it at least... it's a good question though; how much contamination is ok?" CreationDate="2013-04-08T21:52:21.573" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="1186" PostId="740" Score="1" Text="Unfortunately, as much as we want to maximize our recycling, if a batch of recycled paper is contaminated then the whole batch will have to be discarded.  So in this case it is better to be conservative when in doubt." CreationDate="2013-04-10T23:09:16.113" UserId="87" />
  <row Id="3178" PostId="742" Score="0" Text="Good answer, although sadly it does largely come to &quot;it depends&quot; ;-) It also depends a lot, I suspect, on the age of the car and the control system for the a/c. Some basic systems have an &quot;A/C&quot; button which, when pressed, has the compressor running pretty much full-time. In contrast, a modern &quot;climate-control&quot; type system will usually only run the compressor as much as necessary to maintain the set temperature (sometimes one must activate an &quot;ECO&quot; mode for this)." CreationDate="2014-04-07T09:15:06.597" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="1185" PostId="743" Score="0" Text="This worked so well, I didn't have the chance to try anything else.  I had some Ronson multi-lube sitting around, and a small amount of it took off the glue no problem.  The question is - what is this stuff??  Nothing on the label says anything.  Are these oils petroleum derivatives?" CreationDate="2013-04-10T10:54:07.367" UserId="28" />
  <row Id="10035" PostId="744" Score="0" Text="Related: [How can we all together clean up the vast plastic carpets in our oceans?](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/6502/3379)" CreationDate="2018-08-14T19:05:38.263" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="1188" PostId="748" Score="9" Text="It's a shame they don't provide a definition for what counts as soiled. Small amounts of contamination might be ok." CreationDate="2013-04-11T07:54:12.817" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="1323" PostId="748" Score="5" Text="In Boise, Idaho, US they used to prohibit food-contaminated cardboard (and still sort of do), but recently, on the official Facebook page of single-stream recycling program [they stated](https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=10150579499451210&amp;id=99912051209) that pizza boxes can be recycled, so long the food residue is scraped off (greasy spots are supposedly fine). So, who knows. Maybe technology improved?" CreationDate="2013-04-30T06:02:56.163" UserId="227" />
  <row Id="11752" PostId="748" Score="1" Text="I elected to throwing the bottom to trash and the top to paper container." CreationDate="2019-11-15T14:02:55.473" UserId="8149" />
  <row Id="2598" PostId="751" Score="0" Text="This is not an answer, but I'm not sure I'd trust &quot;heard in the news&quot; on dangers or effectiveness of flame retardants. In particular, even if there is a potential hazard from them, I'd bet quite a lot that the overall risk of having flame retardant is less than the overall risk of not having it! If you can cite a specific article that concerns you, this might be something you might like to ask about over on skeptics.stackexchange.com" CreationDate="2013-12-14T10:05:48.363" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="2599" PostId="751" Score="0" Text="Also, that consumer report does not demonstrate that some sofas are made *now* without flame retardants. I don't know about the situation in the US, but in .uk flame retardants were only required relatively recently, so couches bought in 1985 would lack them and those in 2010 would all have them." CreationDate="2013-12-14T10:08:18.017" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="2601" PostId="751" Score="0" Text="@Flyto the Consumer Reports article is in fact about the dangers and ineffectiveness of chemical flame retardants on sofas." CreationDate="2013-12-14T20:08:58.143" UserId="169" />
  <row Id="3299" PostId="752" Score="0" Text="Not only legal, but an excellent way to irritate the hell out of your neighbors." CreationDate="2014-05-14T20:34:08.357" UserId="1434" />
  <row Id="1966" PostId="754" Score="0" Text="I generally agree with your answer, but you have to be careful about trying to &quot;push heat out&quot;.  Trust me, you won't be creating vacuum in your house.  When you let air out an upper window, outside air may be drawn in elsewhere to keep pressure mostly constant.  If that outside air is hotter than the air on the upper floor, then you're not really cooling the house.  This same effect is why most fireplaces don't warm houses very well; hot air leaving the chimney draws in cold air from outside." CreationDate="2013-07-03T23:37:13.100" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1187" PostId="755" Score="0" Text="My interrest is to reuse plastic bottles, raft is just the nicest thing to do with them. We have couple of similar barrels in our garden, but they are used for gathering rainwater from roofs, and after they become useless for it, they will be useless for a raft too." CreationDate="2013-04-11T07:07:14.310" UserId="58" />
  <row Id="3294" PostId="755" Score="0" Text="One use of plastic bottle I had no time to test is as a filter for rain water.&#xA;Fill one with sand and the next one with active carbon (You'll find it at the pharmacy). Seal with some cloth." CreationDate="2014-05-13T07:10:54.970" UserId="1421" />
  <row Id="6729" PostId="756" Score="2" Text="You don't have to **buy** a lot of that, though. Our current urban chickens live in a house made mostly of scrounged materials (we bought the screws) and eat our kitchen and garden scraps (as well as bought food). Their water bowls are plastic takeaway containers." CreationDate="2016-04-13T01:20:40.337" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2099" PostId="757" Score="2" Text="Local reuse is almost always better than transport for recycling. The exception being things like reusing high embodied energy materials (like aluminium or titanium) as filler where it's replacing low embodied energy material (usually rock or timber)." CreationDate="2013-07-24T00:11:39.120" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="1189" PostId="758" Score="0" Text="questions to ask: what should the binding agent in the wood pulp be? Also: what's the sustainability angle?" CreationDate="2013-04-11T09:19:58.310" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="1191" PostId="758" Score="0" Text="Thanks @MarkBooth. I've altered it a little to avoid the word &quot;filament&quot; as some types of 3D printing don't use filament (eg they might use a tank of foam or something else)" CreationDate="2013-04-11T10:17:02.247" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="1192" PostId="758" Score="0" Text="@HighlyIrregular - Excellent, thanks, that question title is much better." CreationDate="2013-04-11T10:35:55.397" UserId="164" />
  <row Id="1194" PostId="760" Score="0" Text="How exactly is this related to sustainability?" CreationDate="2013-04-11T21:21:41.867" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="1195" PostId="760" Score="0" Text="@THelper, that's a good question; part of sustainability involves preserving ecosystems, and some species of frogs are at risk of extinction due to habitat loss. I don't even know what difference they make to an ecosystem, hence the question. It's probably as much ontopic in gardening.SE as here, the way I've phrased it." CreationDate="2013-04-11T22:59:53.627" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="1197" PostId="760" Score="0" Text="I would suggest broadening this generally to include yard and household impacts and adding the magic words of &quot;sustainability&quot; so there is no doubt." CreationDate="2013-04-12T10:40:33.413" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="1201" PostId="762" Score="0" Text="My understanding is that 3d printers melt the plastic while extruding, and it will solidify soon after beeing extruded. I don'T see how to do that with glues." CreationDate="2013-04-15T08:50:41.303" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="1206" PostId="762" Score="0" Text="@mart Please see addition to my answer." CreationDate="2013-04-15T22:51:31.060" UserId="318" />
  <row Id="1210" PostId="763" Score="2" Text="According to an article I read (and a Google search mostly backs up the article), frogs also eat slugs. So if anyone has a problem with slugs attacking your flowers and vegetables, then having some frogs could help." CreationDate="2013-04-16T18:56:04.193" UserId="450" />
  <row Id="4470" PostId="763" Score="0" Text="What varitiy plantings: @Chris Travers, are needed to attract the additional polinators? My goal is native perenial for a temporate zone." CreationDate="2015-06-10T06:56:00.203" UserId="2272" />
  <row Id="1202" PostId="765" Score="1" Text="Why don't you believe they are biodegradable?" CreationDate="2013-04-15T11:18:41.890" UserId="62" />
  <row Id="1203" PostId="765" Score="1" Text="Well, I suppose I believe that they breakdown somewhat and perhaps disintegrate to the point where they are no longer recognizable as bags. I'm just not sure that the plastic waste bags that are labeled as biodegradable break down to the point where it helps the environment. I've been seeing a lot of studies mentioned in the news that discuss this topic, although I'm definitely no expert." CreationDate="2013-04-15T17:09:07.583" UserId="463" />
  <row Id="1328" PostId="768" Score="3" Text="If you down vote, please leave a comment that I can address." CreationDate="2013-04-30T17:58:18.347" UserId="404" />
  <row Id="1204" PostId="769" Score="0" Text="I like this idea! I'm going to keep an eye out for a bucket that would work for this." CreationDate="2013-04-15T17:09:45.163" UserId="463" />
  <row Id="1296" PostId="769" Score="0" Text="In Belgium, every major food store sells yogurt in such little buckets. I have an abundance of them and gave them for several interesting uses. I even drink hot chocolate out one of them :)" CreationDate="2013-04-24T22:26:25.437" UserId="62" />
  <row Id="1486" PostId="770" Score="1" Text="If you expand the list of manufacturers recycling shoes or make this a community wiki for others to do that, I think this is the best answer.  @nate's answer is good, but there is always the chance that the donated shoes end up in a land fill.  If you wear your shoes to the max (reduce), without chance of re-use, then recycling them seems the best bet." CreationDate="2013-05-07T18:49:50.417" UserId="404" />
  <row Id="1509" PostId="770" Score="0" Text="I've done some more searching, and it seems Nike is the only company that takes shoes for recycling. Some parts of worn-out shoes may be reusable or recyclable in other ways if you separate them yourself, but I can't find any mention of other shoe recycling programs on the internet." CreationDate="2013-05-08T17:11:02.887" UserId="462" />
  <row Id="1548" PostId="770" Score="1" Text="I doubt it's a coincidence that the shoe company that is based near Portland, OR (where recycling is popular and very well-developed) is the one that has found a way to make money by recycling old shoes. Every organization is influenced by its surroundings, and Nike's headquarters (and many of the people they hire to work there) happen to be in an area where sustainability is considered important." CreationDate="2013-05-15T15:56:49.877" UserId="462" />
  <row Id="2161" PostId="770" Score="0" Text="@EricH., the wearing shoes to the max is definitely an issue. I am just about to retire my tennis shoes, that I used for tennis, and casual walking/light running. When they started to tear up after two years of nearly every-day use, I started to use them for dirty work, and now they are so torn up, and let in so much dirt and water, they’re too bad even for work. Still, I am considering keeping them for very dirty work, like concrete, tar, or painting. By the time I am done with them, any African child would be better off with a roll of duct-tape on their feet." CreationDate="2013-08-04T16:16:01.810" UserId="227" />
  <row Id="2162" PostId="770" Score="0" Text="@EricH., and at that stage it is hard to find a shoe material recycler in many uncool and unhip states recycling-wise, such as Idaho." CreationDate="2013-08-04T16:17:11.927" UserId="227" />
  <row Id="8183" PostId="770" Score="0" Text="Sadly Nike's reuse-a-shoe program seems to be discontinued." CreationDate="2017-02-16T08:49:33.867" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="10013" PostId="771" Score="0" Text="I agree with [half-integer fan]. My girl friend knitted several shopping bags of different sizes with large holes on them. Works perfect!" CreationDate="2014-02-07T21:31:19.633" UserId="277" />
  <row Id="1208" PostId="772" Score="0" Text="If you read the article more carefully, it explains that the flame retardants are not actually required, but &quot;[The law] doesn't require flame retardants to be used, but to meet the standard, many manufacturers added them to foam...That law, known as Technical Bulletin 117, requires polyurethane foam in upholstered furniture and children's products to withstand a small, open flame for 12 seconds. It is the only such rule in the country.&quot;" CreationDate="2013-04-16T15:29:13.733" UserId="169" />
  <row Id="1209" PostId="772" Score="0" Text="Yes. You're right. Edited the answer to cover that and so can you!" CreationDate="2013-04-16T17:18:51.397" UserId="472" />
  <row Id="3034" PostId="772" Score="0" Text="using natural retardants close to doubles the cost of a regular couch. So that is the problem here - we have no guarantees that manufacturers will not continue to add this crap - the new label will only show the couch may have chemical fire retardants or natural ones - it won't tell you which it is -" CreationDate="2013-12-14T01:46:25.283" UserDisplayName="user977" />
  <row Id="1211" PostId="773" Score="1" Text="Presuming you don't want to use sea water just at the beach, do you have the necessary infrastructure to build a pump? Also, for what do you need the water, other than in the kitchen and in the bathroom? Would it be possible to reduce the amount of water that every household uses? Are there periods, where the river carries more water than at other times?" CreationDate="2013-04-17T04:35:58.747" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="1213" PostId="773" Score="0" Text="@user1205935 yes people are demanding water .. and also reduce the use of water" CreationDate="2013-04-17T05:07:48.707" UserId="471" />
  <row Id="1214" PostId="773" Score="2" Text="Demanding drinking water? I think it is quite difficult to produce drinking water from sea water. Salt is usually taken in through food and water is expected to be salt-free. You can certainly bathe in hot sea water and then rinse your body with fresh water. But to get rid of the salt content, you have to distil the water, which uses a lot of energy, especially when you are in need of large quantities." CreationDate="2013-04-17T05:13:18.290" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="1215" PostId="773" Score="0" Text="for drinking water here people use pump which is also have percentage of salt.." CreationDate="2013-04-17T05:15:31.710" UserId="471" />
  <row Id="1216" PostId="773" Score="1" Text="Do you live in a place with a lot of sun?" CreationDate="2013-04-17T05:20:19.700" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="1217" PostId="773" Score="2" Text="Have a look at [solar stills](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_still#Seawater_still)." CreationDate="2013-04-17T05:23:38.573" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="1218" PostId="773" Score="0" Text="@user1205935 yeah thats a good idea" CreationDate="2013-04-17T05:37:28.087" UserId="471" />
  <row Id="1212" PostId="776" Score="0" Text="There are (1) slow sand filter and (2) duckweed." CreationDate="2013-04-17T04:37:03.003" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="1547" PostId="776" Score="0" Text="It may help you [grey water treatment](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49otYP9nnkQ)" CreationDate="2013-04-17T13:12:35.347" UserId="471" />
  <row Id="1224" PostId="777" Score="0" Text="Thank you. I am more interested in environmental impacts anyway :)" CreationDate="2013-04-17T08:57:59.290" UserId="453" />
  <row Id="1383" PostId="777" Score="0" Text="@ZachDwiel, Did you submit your post in mid-sentence?  It looks like your last comment didn't get finished.  Good information so far, though :)" CreationDate="2013-05-03T03:24:27.083" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1406" PostId="777" Score="0" Text="Thanks, didn't notice that and don't remember what I was saying there so I just removed it" CreationDate="2013-05-03T12:24:24.690" UserId="180" />
  <row Id="1223" PostId="778" Score="0" Text="+1 nice answer!" CreationDate="2013-04-17T08:34:14.623" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="1254" PostId="778" Score="0" Text="Another (structural) benefit of metal roofs is that they're actually less heavy than most other alternatives, which can be good for the house underneath them." CreationDate="2013-04-21T10:44:29.020" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="4909" PostId="779" Score="0" Text="The Global Ecovillage Network also maintain an ecovillage database including details of whether projects are seeking new members etc. See http://gen.ecovillage.org/en/projects/34/all or http://gen.ecovillage.org/en/projects/map for details." CreationDate="2015-10-29T10:39:03.677" UserId="872" />
  <row Id="12196" PostId="780" Score="0" Text="Global warming potential is calculated over a certain time period, so the different lifetimes are already taken into account.  This means you *can* compare them." CreationDate="2020-01-21T15:20:47.157" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="1220" PostId="781" Score="1" Text="You are welcome. I would be glad if you'd consider posting your experience &amp; problems you have along the way again here as a new question." CreationDate="2013-04-17T05:59:34.347" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="1221" PostId="781" Score="2" Text="yeah its nice community where i can share the problems and with good response" CreationDate="2013-04-17T06:03:03.490" UserId="471" />
  <row Id="1222" PostId="781" Score="0" Text="But it's still very young. Anyone who comes across a real-life problem, chooses to post it here and is then willing to test the answers s/he gets here would be a very valuable addition to this site." CreationDate="2013-04-17T06:07:05.380" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="1225" PostId="784" Score="0" Text="The German term is &quot;Grauwasser&quot;. http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=grey%20water%2C%20gray%20water%2C%20greywater%2C%20graywater%2C%20Grauwasser&amp;cmpt=q" CreationDate="2013-04-17T15:41:21.517" UserId="453" />
  <row Id="1241" PostId="784" Score="0" Text="@boo2060 Thank you for the translation! I've included the German term 'grauwasser' and French 'eaux grises' in the calculations." CreationDate="2013-04-19T07:25:20.240" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="1255" PostId="785" Score="1" Text="Metal roofs do come in white, or a very light colored silver color that's almost white, and has great *albedo*." CreationDate="2013-04-21T10:45:53.497" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1232" PostId="786" Score="8" Text="Carbon dioxide probably isn't a pollutant to worry about at a local level, though it's certainly still a good question from a global perspective. At a local level, blocking of sulfur dioxide, nitrous oxide, soot, or other common unhealthy pollutants is probably more relevant. Perhaps you could split this into 2 separate questions?" CreationDate="2013-04-18T08:14:41.777" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="1265" PostId="788" Score="3" Text="The different lists could be for different regions, as you hinted upon. For instance, tropical list could be just for respective areal, but it also could mean the best absorbing plant species on the planet. However, the first list could be more useful in temperate climes." CreationDate="2013-04-22T00:10:36.927" UserId="227" />
  <row Id="2658" PostId="788" Score="0" Text="I noticed the second list you posted is for totally different regions than the first. The first is more Temperate and the second is Tropical. Now, as far as I'm concerned that raises another question, which types are more efficient in absorbing CO2?" CreationDate="2014-01-04T02:03:33.607" UserId="315" />
  <row Id="5129" PostId="788" Score="2" Text="A couple of points: (1) More important than how much CO2 a tree can absorb, is how much the species can absorb per area of land. A less efficient tree might be better if you can squeeze more of them into the same area. (2) Even if the CO2 is released again when the tree dies, it's still beneficial as long as the tree is re-planted. The important thing is how many trees exist at any given moment (and thus act as a carbon store)." CreationDate="2015-12-12T16:20:37.903" UserId="2869" />
  <row Id="1236" PostId="789" Score="0" Text="yeah thats the main criteria to think" CreationDate="2013-04-18T10:25:29.647" UserId="471" />
  <row Id="1257" PostId="789" Score="4" Text="One person's actions aren't going to put more than a symbolic dent into a worldwide problem, but one person's pollution didn't contribute more than a token amount **to** the problem in the first place.  So, that's not really the right standard to hold an alternative to." CreationDate="2013-04-21T10:53:42.363" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1266" PostId="789" Score="4" Text="That kind of thinking exampled in the second paragraph prevents people to contributing anything. Why do micro-transactions are popular these days? Because they are easy for the consumer, yet they add up for the provider. Who’s to say carbon-offset micro-transactions do not add up as well?" CreationDate="2013-04-22T00:14:12.023" UserId="227" />
  <row Id="3766" PostId="789" Score="0" Text="Some poplars grow huge fast. Redwoods grow huge, but don't plant them near houses or sidewalks (yes, you can buy redwoods)." CreationDate="2014-10-21T03:07:30.780" UserId="1773" />
  <row Id="5130" PostId="791" Score="3" Text="This is not an answer to the question." CreationDate="2015-12-12T16:21:37.720" UserId="2869" />
  <row Id="1256" PostId="792" Score="2" Text="Bamboos come to mind (fast-growing and harder)." CreationDate="2013-04-21T10:50:07.923" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1262" PostId="798" Score="1" Text="[See here for a related answer about meat composting](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/a/805/486).  Basically, if you're asking on `sustainability.stackexchange.com`, you're kind of asking the wrong questions.  The sustainable (but unpleasant) answer involves not cooking more food than you use, and quite frankly, not having a dog, either." CreationDate="2013-04-21T23:12:12.803" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1276" PostId="798" Score="1" Text="And meat composting is fitted for the sustainability stackexchange?&#xA;Well, actually I always cook more than we eat. But if you cook for other people it's so difficult to know how much they will eat on which day. Then you use the left overs the next day. You are right I promise to always avoid any type of cooked food waste!" CreationDate="2013-04-22T07:52:26.477" UserId="484" />
  <row Id="1278" PostId="798" Score="0" Text="Yeah, there's nothing bad with leftovers.  I meant, averaged over time, you don't want to prepare more than you can eat.  It's certainly fine to do all your cooking on one day, and feast on leftovers all week :)" CreationDate="2013-04-22T08:11:50.103" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1319" PostId="798" Score="1" Text="@Nate Why is having a dog not sustainable? The dog might perform necessary functions on a farm and be vegetarian. When he dies of old age, he will be biodegradable, too." CreationDate="2013-04-29T05:14:47.780" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="1320" PostId="798" Score="0" Text="@user1205935 But read some articles about illnesses that might occur when dogs lack proteins and vitamins. Some vegetables and other human food are even poisonous for dogs. Each bird has its own feeding pattern, depending upon their digestive system, isn't it? An interesting discussion topic!" CreationDate="2013-04-29T08:40:13.010" UserId="484" />
  <row Id="1348" PostId="798" Score="0" Text="@user1205935, you're certainly right that a vegetarian dog is vastly **more** sustainable than a meat-eating dog, for the reasons I outline in the first link I posted.  That said, **most** dogs are not vegetarians, and **most** dogs do not perform useful functions that actually save their owners energy.  I was painting with a broad brush, but as it pertains to the typical dog-as-pet scenario, it's absolutely true.  Owning a big dog has just as large of a negative environmental impact as owning a big SUV." CreationDate="2013-05-01T02:16:57.713" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1243" PostId="800" Score="0" Text="If I understand well, you make a sheet on the groundsurface, instead of making a pile for those wastes?" CreationDate="2013-04-19T14:36:08.337" UserId="484" />
  <row Id="1244" PostId="800" Score="0" Text="The sheet is a mixture of leaves, stemms, and sometimes newspaper and cardboard.  The other waste goes underneat the sheet mulch and on top of the soil." CreationDate="2013-04-19T14:42:14.760" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="1245" PostId="800" Score="0" Text="Doesn't that take a lot of space in your garden?" CreationDate="2013-04-19T15:35:19.730" UserId="484" />
  <row Id="1246" PostId="800" Score="1" Text="Yes, but everything is composted in place directly around the plants, so it is space that wouldn't otherwise be used.  I also compost in place in flower pots around the plants there too." CreationDate="2013-04-19T16:39:32.393" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="1249" PostId="801" Score="0" Text="yeah nice way to reuse" CreationDate="2013-04-20T07:35:39.853" UserId="471" />
  <row Id="3552" PostId="803" Score="0" Text="It depends on how the car is used, for example our cars do so few miles that the best option is to drive old cars.    But for someone that drives 30 miles to work each day I would agree with you." CreationDate="2014-08-14T08:53:40.940" UserId="963" />
  <row Id="3562" PostId="803" Score="0" Text="My 11-year-old Prius's batteries were replaced about 4 years in, due to a short. They've been going strong since then with no complications." CreationDate="2014-08-15T22:36:19.480" UserId="69" />
  <row Id="3619" PostId="803" Score="1" Text="We cannot avoid the oil and gas usage because a lot of derived products are coming from them (plastic, soap, etc). So, whereas a pure-electric car would be a lot more efficient than a traditional engine, we should ask ourselves WHERE to pick all the Lithium (for instance) necessary to create billions of batteries. From this viewpoint, I'd seriously reconsider the &quot;eco-friend-ness&quot; of the electric car." CreationDate="2014-08-30T15:32:15.380" UserId="1674" />
  <row Id="8631" PostId="803" Score="0" Text="Though you make a good case that _whether it’s more environmentally friendly than … internal combustion … does not_ depend on how the electricity is generated, I would still emphasise that _how environmentally friendly it is_ does depend on that." CreationDate="2017-07-04T21:31:09.717" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="1409" PostId="805" Score="14" Text="@Nate Your advice on fat and gristle is good, but it is buried inside a pile of criticism for people who have meat that is going to waste--that's why I don't like your answer. You did not directly answer the question, but instead chose to devote most of your response to criticism of meat consumption and food waste, which both deserve separate questions. Your answer about meat in backyard compost piles is good, but I had to wade through 34 lines of your diatribe to get to them. Cut to the chase, then link to other info about meat at the end if you feel it's important." CreationDate="2013-05-03T14:52:26.307" UserId="462" />
  <row Id="1412" PostId="805" Score="4" Text="@EvanJohnson, there's a reason for that.  The issue of (a) whether eating meat at all is sustainable is roughly an order of magnitude more important than (b) making sure you consume all the meat you prepare, which is an order of magnitude more important than (c) what you do with the scraps that you really can't eat.  As a result, it's entirely appropriate for me to dedicate more words to the more important factors, and a 34:1 ratio sounds just about right.  I did *&quot;cut to the chase&quot;*.  The **second sentence I wrote (in bold)** was my answer, and everything after that was support for that." CreationDate="2013-05-03T20:58:43.467" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1413" PostId="805" Score="2" Text="@EvanJohnson, especially in the context of the highest-voted answer to this question offering **zero** support from any references/sources, and completely ignoring the number 1 and 2 sustainability issues with meat composting (1: meat eating is unsustainable, and 2: not consuming all your meat is, too), I find your latest critique of my answer rather poorly applied." CreationDate="2013-05-03T21:05:26.030" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1423" PostId="805" Score="1" Text="Please people, comments are not for long discussions so   I've removed all but the last 3 comments. If you'd like to continue this discussion either move things to chat or start a new question on [meta](http://meta.sustainability.stackexchange.com)." CreationDate="2013-05-04T13:40:21.180" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="2223" PostId="805" Score="3" Text="I would have liked to have read those comments.  Such a flaw in the SE model." CreationDate="2013-08-19T05:09:59.557" UserId="653" />
  <row Id="2228" PostId="805" Score="0" Text="@Randy, I agree.  SE treats comments as second-class citizens, but comments often contain lots of useful information.  If you're that interested, you can email me (see my user page), and I'll send you a rundown, as objectively as I can." CreationDate="2013-08-19T09:12:34.697" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="2229" PostId="805" Score="2" Text="I'm just trying to figure out why this answer has been downvoted so much. I guess it could be better served on a different question, but its certainly useful regarding this question and the points are worthy of consideration. Its a shame such knowledge is discouraged from being presented due to dogmatic adherence to predetermined format. This is clearly the essence of sustainability." CreationDate="2013-08-19T10:37:34.803" UserId="653" />
  <row Id="2230" PostId="805" Score="0" Text="Oh, I do have a question concering the nutritional density of meat vs vegetation, the answer may play a role in how sustainable crop-farming is compared to animal-farming. Where can we carry on this discussion?  Email? Or chat?" CreationDate="2013-08-19T10:42:21.760" UserId="653" />
  <row Id="2238" PostId="805" Score="1" Text="@Randy, email me if you just want a history of comments on this answer.  On the meat/veg issue, have you seen [this question](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/a/713/486)?  There are certainly analyses that compare based on sheer weight, and also per calorie.  Veg wins on either count, but by less if you count per calorie.  Per calorie is better, but actually still not ideal.  Meat is actually too dense, in the sense that people don't have dynamic calorimeters.  We stop eating when we feel full, not when we have enough calories.  Energy rich meats, I believe, actually promote overeating." CreationDate="2013-08-22T08:11:16.083" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="2242" PostId="805" Score="0" Text="Per weight and per calorie are both no good. I need analysis per nutrient density profile. How much of each would you have to eat to satisfy the usda's recommended Ca, Mg, K, P, Fe, Zn and Vit, A, B, E, K and protein? I left out carbs, sugar, fat, vit C on purpose as those are too commonly found. In terms of those nutrients, fruit is an absolute waste of time as its exceedingly low in nutrients while high in sugars, vit C. Grains (whole), nuts, and meat are exceedingly high in nutrients while veggies fall in the middle somewhere." CreationDate="2013-08-22T14:01:42.827" UserId="653" />
  <row Id="2698" PostId="805" Score="1" Text="@Randy the nutrition content of the food may not be relevant since it is not equally absorbed from different sources. Meat is an ideal source of protein however our bodies don't store protein. We can store fat and carbs but not protein... so we burden or bodies to eliminate the extreme excesses of protein we consume everyday without absorbing it." CreationDate="2014-01-12T05:02:56.360" UserId="794" />
  <row Id="3916" PostId="805" Score="3" Text="You lost me when you said the person asking is a bad person for asking." CreationDate="2014-12-15T22:59:03.733" UserId="1899" />
  <row Id="3955" PostId="805" Score="5" Text="There are plenty of reasons to ask about composting meat while still not supporting factory farmed meat.&#xA;&#xA; 1. You have a deceased animal to get rid of. I've put dead birds, etc. in my compost heap for example.&#xA;&#xA; 2. You eat sustainable meat - ie, you shoot rabbits and eat that. People have different understandings of what sustainable meat production is, so this really is a separate question. &#xA;&#xA; 3. You raise your own chickens for eggs, which means you will have some roosters to consume at the very least (as well as the hens when they reach the end of their life)." CreationDate="2015-01-08T03:50:34.930" UserId="438" />
  <row Id="1293" PostId="807" Score="4" Text="Please include the main pieces of advice from the website into your post in case it goes offline." CreationDate="2013-04-23T21:50:57.643" UserId="453" />
  <row Id="4914" PostId="809" Score="2" Text="Hi, could you back up your claim that Surimi is made from fish bones? I read the Wikipedia pages in English and in German, and they both state that Surimi is made exclusively from fish meat and no bones. Also this producer (a random example) http://www.alaskaseafood.org/surimi/about_surimi.html states that his Surimi is made from boneless fillets." CreationDate="2015-11-03T14:04:31.297" UserId="2738" />
  <row Id="1295" PostId="810" Score="0" Text="I use a wax based lube on my bicycle, and there are some wax lubes for [motorcycle chains](http://www.webbikeworld.com/t2/motorcycle-chain-lube/castrol-chain-wax/) too. Some bicyclists lube their chain with [hot wax](http://www.instructables.com/id/Lubricating-a-Bicycle-Chain-using-Paraffin/) but I don't know how well this would work with a motorcycle chain. Since the wax likely has a petroleum origin, I'm not sure if it is significantly better for the environment than small amounts of oil." CreationDate="2013-04-24T19:32:51.940" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="1297" PostId="810" Score="0" Text="@Johnny, I know there are biodegradable bicycle lubricants (I have one such chain cleaner), so I am sure synthetic waxes are available too. The difference is that most modern motorcycle chains are a [sealed O-ring type](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O-ring_chain) (the bushings are protected, but it still needs to be cleaned and lubricated on the outside, between plates), which has different requirements to chemical exposure unlike the all-metal plain old bicycle chain (such as the [case with cleaning may be](http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=345397))" CreationDate="2013-04-25T03:15:39.223" UserId="227" />
  <row Id="1298" PostId="810" Score="0" Text="For that reason, by the way, it might be not advisable to use thick greases. I know back in the day it was used, but now it just attracts dirt (although there are wax-based chain sprays, as you had pointed out, I have one as well, but they leave thin film after drying, not clumps of grease everywhere)." CreationDate="2013-04-25T03:20:03.053" UserId="227" />
  <row Id="1299" PostId="811" Score="0" Text="As I answered to a comment on my question, the bicycle advice may not always apply, as the modern motorcycle chains are the sealed O-ring type, thus any harsh chemicals may destroy the rubber O-rings sealing the bushings. So, it’s something to consider. Also, washing with solvents and acetone doesn’t seem pollution-free as well (hmm, I sense a question in the near future). As for outboards, I think it applies more to 2-strokes. I’m confident that my newer 4 HP Tohatsu/Mercury 4-stroke is fairly clean (as clean as carburetted exhaust can be)." CreationDate="2013-04-25T06:08:09.677" UserId="227" />
  <row Id="8262" PostId="811" Score="0" Text="@theUg - Check the updated answer below on usage in an infinite gear bicycle" CreationDate="2017-03-03T10:35:36.860" UserId="2891" />
  <row Id="1300" PostId="812" Score="0" Text="I have some doubts whether allelopathy is a topic that fits well on this site but I'm curious to what other people think. Nevertheless I think it is an interesting question so I'm going to answer it anyway." CreationDate="2013-04-25T10:18:26.350" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="1301" PostId="812" Score="0" Text="The overall question is whether I need to worry about allelopathy when composting in place.  If it was planting together I'd ask on gardening." CreationDate="2013-04-25T10:19:34.847" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="1302" PostId="813" Score="0" Text="I'll let someone else do the research, but Sodium Laurel Sulphate may be a possibility (ie everyday shampoo)." CreationDate="2013-04-25T11:25:20.907" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="1308" PostId="813" Score="1" Text="If you buy in bulk, the citrus cleaners are a lot less expensive. Amazon sells a 5 gallon (20 liter) bucket of Orange 88 Citrus Degreaser for $45. Still over twice as expensive as kerosene, but at a half liter per chain cleaning that's only around $1 per cleaning." CreationDate="2013-04-26T01:14:07.780" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="1304" PostId="816" Score="0" Text="Sorry, I have to disagree with Zach's conclusion: http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/a/818/117" CreationDate="2013-04-25T20:44:19.857" UserId="117" />
  <row Id="1307" PostId="816" Score="0" Text="I started to leave a comment to say that I support Zach's conclusion, but ran out of room so I made it into an answer." CreationDate="2013-04-25T22:47:07.423" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="1306" PostId="818" Score="5" Text="+1 for mentioning steaming, which is really the only way to prepare broccoli." CreationDate="2013-04-25T21:47:41.303" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="1309" PostId="821" Score="3" Text="It's even more complicated. For example, more time on studies means better education and (at least in theory) more opportunities to learn sustainable ways of life. I would expect a book, not an ordinary answer to thogourhly map this problematics - and without considering tens or even hunderds of factors, you won't be able to tell whether pluses or minuses prevail. I would guess it's a mixed blessing which may lead both to better or worse sustainability depending on the way how the additional years of education are spend." CreationDate="2013-04-26T07:48:19.627" UserId="58" />
  <row Id="1312" PostId="821" Score="0" Text="Hmmm and the plusses and minuses may be different in nature as much as different in quantity, meaning they may not win.....  That's a good point.  Any suggestions for narrowing this?" CreationDate="2013-04-26T14:06:30.297" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="1313" PostId="821" Score="0" Text="Being in education doesn't necessarily mean that you live unsustainably, although your focus on books may take away your focus on sustainable living and cause you to opt for more convenient, unsustainable options, because as of this moment they are more readily available. But then, this can be said not only about education, but about work in general. Surely a longer working day is less sustainable. As it stands, I don't think this is a very good question." CreationDate="2013-04-26T20:44:03.903" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="1315" PostId="821" Score="0" Text="@user1205935 certainly we need people in education but I dont think that is what I am getting at.  The question is whether gradual increases in the amount of education required (which we know affect everything from birth rate to retirement options) are significant problems sustainability-wise.  This isn't about working in education so much as when to start one's economic and family life." CreationDate="2013-04-27T02:15:25.067" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="1316" PostId="821" Score="0" Text="@user1205935 suggestions on clarifying/improving this would be welcome." CreationDate="2013-04-27T02:15:59.773" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="1317" PostId="821" Score="0" Text="I just think that &quot;gradual increases in the amount of education required&quot; is part of a bigger picture, in which people work longer in more specialized areas (for which they need more education). Who grows their own herbs on their porch nowadays? I am thinking it would be less and less people, because they don't have time. You could also say that &quot;More education means more people commuting to school, which means greater use of fossil fuels. Therefore education is unsustainable.&quot;, which is hardly the big picture. Unfortunately, these comments are not enough to discuss the issue at length." CreationDate="2013-04-27T02:48:41.753" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="1318" PostId="821" Score="1" Text="@user1205935 it is a part of a bigger picture, as was the independent retirement question I posted earlier.  And like the independent retirement question it gets to the question of sustainable family structure.  If independent retirement is less sustainable than retiring with the kids generally...  Additionally it isn't a question about education per se, so much as it is a question about a trend of specialization.  Is there a real complexity cost that translates into a resources cost?  I am guessing that there is but it is hard to say." CreationDate="2013-04-28T02:16:04.477" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="1394" PostId="821" Score="0" Text="I am going to suggest we close this as non-constructive (I would prefer not to delete it because I think Nate's answer is worth keeping).  I will however post a different view to my blog and post a link here.  Apologies since this seems to be less conducive to existing studies, facts, and figures than I had hoped!" CreationDate="2013-05-03T09:16:52.383" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="1395" PostId="821" Score="0" Text="@user1205935, I have voted to close as non-constructive.  Feel free to make that so if you'd like :-)" CreationDate="2013-05-03T09:17:47.903" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="8463" PostId="823" Score="1" Text="First tip means more travelling (possibly more fossil fuel use), and more packaging waste (packaging grows with cca ^2, packaging volume with ^3). But it does help with less food waste." CreationDate="2017-04-28T13:19:55.653" UserId="3514" />
  <row Id="4553" PostId="824" Score="0" Text="I've mulched with straw, and I have a terrible slug problem on my strawberries.  I assume the grass would eventually do the same?" CreationDate="2015-06-30T19:03:42.147" UserId="607" />
  <row Id="10508" PostId="825" Score="0" Text="Having since started a family: this doesn't work in those conditions." CreationDate="2018-12-07T10:17:36.823" UserId="502" />
  <row Id="1360" PostId="827" Score="2" Text="+1 for the stock bag in the freezer" CreationDate="2013-05-01T14:14:09.177" UserId="502" />
  <row Id="1321" PostId="829" Score="1" Text="I've heard from quite some people that start their transatlantic journey on sailing boats from Gran Canaria (usually going to the Caribbean), somewhat in the range of 100 - 200 people / year. One of them stated that this is easier than going by cargo vessels as those require insurance documents for taking passengers or workers." CreationDate="2013-04-29T11:16:33.707" UserId="453" />
  <row Id="1322" PostId="830" Score="1" Text="I would also note that some places which offer freighter travel also offer specific sailing crossings between the Caribbean and Gibraltar, so I wouldn't rule sailing ships out!" CreationDate="2013-04-30T05:27:44.040" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="4726" PostId="831" Score="0" Text="Worth watching: [What happens to your flip flops when you lose them in the sea?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7HymSjBDAE)" CreationDate="2015-08-28T11:49:31.870" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="1327" PostId="832" Score="2" Text="If you use methane reclamation then beef becomes a high energy output option  Much of the energy required to produce the beef ends up as lost potential energy in methane gas." CreationDate="2013-04-30T17:55:55.007" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="12423" PostId="832" Score="0" Text="Are you interested in total primary energy (including sunshine) or are you more interested in use of electricity and fossil fuels?" CreationDate="2020-03-02T15:57:09.613" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="1359" PostId="836" Score="0" Text="I have re-phrased the question according your wording, so as to reflect the way of questionning any means of living/needing/consuming... Indeed the point you focus on is even more general." CreationDate="2013-05-01T13:42:20.817" UserId="135" />
  <row Id="1338" PostId="837" Score="8" Text="I suspect this depends on where you live.  The answer should vary a lot between Las Vegas, USA and Bergen, Norway." CreationDate="2013-04-30T23:49:19.730" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="1366" PostId="837" Score="0" Text="Don't forget to account for the energy used to heat the water - Dishwashers (at least, in the USA) are connected to the hot water supply." CreationDate="2013-05-01T21:39:10.950" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="1340" PostId="838" Score="1" Text="Tis just about sums up everything I've learned on the subject.  Brighter Planet did a [report](http://attachments.brighterplanet.com/press_items/local_copies/52/original/carbon_foodprint_wp.pdf) on the subject - it does a similar analysis that breaks emissions down per calorie and the profile is similar, with red meat performing the worst, fish in between and poultry the best.  I've answered a similar question on [vegetarianism](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/a/713/404) that also explains the impact of farm to plate transportation (less important than type of food)." CreationDate="2013-05-01T01:46:43.210" UserId="404" />
  <row Id="1353" PostId="838" Score="0" Text="Do you have information on the context of the study? Geographic area, number of analysed systems, which years? I got the impression that there may be huge fluctuations between individual food processing chains." CreationDate="2013-05-01T10:57:49.950" UserId="453" />
  <row Id="1407" PostId="838" Score="0" Text="Interesting that cheese is 7x worse than milk." CreationDate="2013-05-03T12:29:36.977" UserId="180" />
  <row Id="1411" PostId="838" Score="0" Text="@Zach: One pound of cheese requires 10 pounds of milk: http://www.thekitchn.com/how-much-milk-makes-one-pound-131332  Plus, the milk in the chart is 2% milk, so about half the fat has been removed (and presumably used for other purposes), so that may reduce the carbon impact of the remaining milk." CreationDate="2013-05-03T20:26:34.563" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="1525" PostId="838" Score="1" Text="This chart would make more sense if it would feature dry matter content and not only raw mass." CreationDate="2013-05-13T14:50:22.077" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="2189" PostId="838" Score="0" Text="Keep in mind that this chart shows data for **farmed** salmon.  Wild salmon are likely to be different (as are many other types of fish)." CreationDate="2013-08-11T22:12:31.153" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1354" PostId="842" Score="1" Text="it depends on your usage" CreationDate="2013-05-01T12:03:33.397" UserId="471" />
  <row Id="1387" PostId="842" Score="0" Text="How do you do the dishes now? How are you heating your water?" CreationDate="2013-05-03T07:55:07.697" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="2871" PostId="842" Score="0" Text="I can only repeat my answer in http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/a/2422/476. The washing machine is a waste of water and energy (I am not even concerning the resources needed to produce these machines). Regarding the water, the stupid machine not only wastes but also contaminates the water (so that sewage is toxic and cannot be used even for watering the plants)." CreationDate="2014-02-08T00:10:21.890" UserId="476" />
  <row Id="4430" PostId="842" Score="0" Text="From my experience I would say no. Most people &quot;pre-wash&quot; their dishes before putting them in a dishwasher. I would find more sustainable ways to hand-wash if you want to figure ways to save water in the long run." CreationDate="2013-05-02T23:20:20.587" UserId="521" />
  <row Id="4432" PostId="842" Score="0" Text="Also, there are many dishwashers that kick ass at washing dishes without rinsing." CreationDate="2014-02-07T23:30:45.863" UserId="1104" />
  <row Id="1371" PostId="843" Score="1" Text="What you've written is correct, and this would make a useful comment as it stands. It could be made into a very good answer, if you added specifics, examples or references about the conditions under which the best solution might switch between saving water and saving energy." CreationDate="2013-05-02T18:15:14.463" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="1384" PostId="843" Score="0" Text="@EnergyNumbers thanks man i edited my level best" CreationDate="2013-05-03T03:31:53.080" UserId="471" />
  <row Id="5142" PostId="844" Score="1" Text="Enviromesh? Might be an answer to many issues, not only insects ;)" CreationDate="2015-12-14T12:48:21.203" UserId="986" />
  <row Id="5356" PostId="844" Score="0" Text="This question would gain a lot if you could specify which plants and insects." CreationDate="2016-01-25T12:08:37.970" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="1457" PostId="847" Score="2" Text="Or for the deer to reduce the human population by eating them so they can reclaim some more of their former territory. But that seems less likely." CreationDate="2013-05-06T23:51:36.760" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="1367" PostId="848" Score="3" Text="Do you have a source for your statement about dishwashers not saving energy?  Because, based on what I've found, I would disagree." CreationDate="2013-05-02T12:11:36.837" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1372" PostId="848" Score="2" Text="While this may be correct if you wash in cold water and are careful to minimize water use, modern high-efficiency dishwashers are much more water and energy efficient than hand-washing with hot water (the standard practice in the USA). The energy efficiency comes mainly from water efficiency when washing with hot water, but that is important because almost everyone uses hot water to wash dishes." CreationDate="2013-05-02T18:15:49.640" UserId="462" />
  <row Id="1381" PostId="848" Score="0" Text="At least where I am, I never run hot water all the time.  Of course having only small hot water heaters in the showers only helps....." CreationDate="2013-05-03T03:10:39.157" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="1704" PostId="848" Score="0" Text="You don't have to wash manually with hot water, only because most Amis do that. It's a difference. Using washing machine, you have no option." CreationDate="2013-06-01T11:34:38.723" UserId="5" />
  <row Id="2799" PostId="848" Score="0" Text="Is it usual in the US to wash in hot *running* water? I usually have a tub of hot water, just wide enough for a plate and perhaps 150mm deep." CreationDate="2014-01-29T09:13:47.050" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="2800" PostId="848" Score="0" Text="My immediate family, now spread out over a few households runs the water the whole time. I have known some people who use your method, but from personal experience I would say most people run water the whole time. Especially when they have single basin sinks. Is there a good way to use your method if you have a single basin sink?  I have a double basin sink and put the dish drainer in the second basin to conserve counter space. I do however use a dishwasher for most dishes." CreationDate="2014-01-29T16:34:34.453" UserId="1104" />
  <row Id="2794" PostId="850" Score="2" Text="While it's true that humans are not efficient at turning food energy into work, I think that in today's society, most people tend to take in too many calories, and some even pay money and use expensive machines and electricity to burn off those calories. So expending more human energy to wash dishes is probably a net positive for sustainability (and physical fitness)." CreationDate="2014-01-29T02:09:27.400" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="6843" PostId="850" Score="0" Text="@Johnny, what you are advocating is &quot;spending&quot; more calories because we're taking in too many. That's the wrong way to approach sustainability. The sustainable answer is to eat the right amount. Physical fitness is a topic for another site, and beyond the scope of this question." CreationDate="2016-05-04T03:57:45.767" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="8758" PostId="850" Score="0" Text="Great answer, but even though the question focuses on water usage, the extensive answer should probably at least mention that we should keep in mind that the dishwasher's construction, repairs, recycling and disposal do require materials, energy and water, and the machine occupies a significant amount of space in your home. Furthermore, the time you save not washing dishes might also end up being used (at least in part) cleaning, troubleshooting, repairing and disposing of the dishwasher." CreationDate="2017-08-17T06:32:57.070" UserId="80" />
  <row Id="1368" PostId="851" Score="1" Text="Costs for not being effective are expressed in economic terms while &quot;sustainability concerns&quot; for transport are expressed in environmental terms. There is no common basis for comparison." CreationDate="2013-05-02T14:23:48.467" UserId="453" />
  <row Id="1369" PostId="851" Score="2" Text="This question seems too broad as too many factors are involved and essential variables are left being undeclared (mode of transport, distance)." CreationDate="2013-05-02T14:39:35.710" UserId="453" />
  <row Id="1370" PostId="851" Score="3" Text="@boo2060 I take your points, but there are studies on this very question, so I'll leave it for now, and let the community decide" CreationDate="2013-05-02T18:07:01.327" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="15341" PostId="851" Score="0" Text="Related: [Is working from home a more sustainable choice?](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/9989/3379)" CreationDate="2021-12-14T01:27:48.363" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10712" PostId="852" Score="0" Text="Make the window bigger." CreationDate="2019-02-19T15:57:46.130" UserId="1486" />
  <row Id="1379" PostId="853" Score="0" Text="But working at home, how much of the hardware can be used for other things and merely repurposed?  I think that has to fit into the equation too." CreationDate="2013-05-03T02:59:56.563" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="1402" PostId="853" Score="0" Text="Sure, and a lot more things that need to be defined. And are we talking about carbon footprint, waster consumption, energy demand ..?" CreationDate="2013-05-03T11:00:04.317" UserId="453" />
  <row Id="1373" PostId="855" Score="1" Text="&quot;Though if that were an option, a skylight might be an easier option.&quot; Or just a bigger window..." CreationDate="2013-05-02T19:06:28.483" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="1374" PostId="855" Score="1" Text="He's not getting much reflected light from the dark red brick building across the way, if he has the option to put in a skylight or light tunnel to the roof where he can capture direct sunlight, that will give him far more light than a bigger window. And cutting a hole in the ceiling/roof is generally a lot easier than widening a window in an exterior wall of a multi-unit building." CreationDate="2013-05-02T19:09:54.093" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="1375" PostId="855" Score="0" Text="Sure. I just understood the question to be about increasing light without making new windows, skylights and other major changes in the building. But I like your suggestion anyway =)" CreationDate="2013-05-02T19:17:09.977" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="1380" PostId="856" Score="0" Text="This is sort of what I am getting at with positive and negative impacts though, when you say, &quot; In those countries where higher education is a realistic option (as posed in your question), humans consume even more resources.&quot;  That seems to suggest that increases in education *increase* resource consumption of kids making fewer kids a requirement.  Is that correct (that the issue is less &quot;equivalency&quot; but &quot;interdependency&quot;)?" CreationDate="2013-05-03T03:09:47.340" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="1382" PostId="856" Score="0" Text="One other requests for clarification:  &quot;First of all, you can't make informed choices without education...&quot;  Would you say that we make better sustainability decisions than than the uneducated rice farmer in Kampuchea?  If we taught the rice farmer modern science, would this improve the sustainability of the farming practices?" CreationDate="2013-05-03T03:16:18.727" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="1389" PostId="856" Score="0" Text="@ChrisTravers, to your first comment.  This is one area where it's difficult to separate correlation from causation.  Is more education *causing* more resource consumption?  Or is more resource consumption fueling economic growth (unsustainably, of course), which allows us to be in a position to attain higher levels of education?  If you look at history, I believe the unsustainable resource consumption came first.  The industrial revolution ushered in massive burning of oil and coal, while the average worker was still quite poorly educated.  I believe fewer kids is a requirement either way ..." CreationDate="2013-05-03T08:53:45.240" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1390" PostId="856" Score="0" Text="... as the sustainable living habits of early humans simply do not scale to 7 billion people at all.  Certainly not politically, given that we've already tasted modern life.  I would agree that we **don't** make better sustainability decisions than the poor rice farmer.  This is the Laffer Curve analogy I was positing.  I think, relative to the rice farmer, initial increases in education lead to less sustainability.  I think (hope!) that there reaches a point, however, where **more** education starts heading in the direction of more sustainable living again.  I say this partially because I ..." CreationDate="2013-05-03T08:57:34.447" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1391" PostId="856" Score="0" Text="... think that we were actually pretty close to a tipping point.  In the US, for example, prior to the financial crisis, public consensus was building that climate change was real, and a problem.  Economic issues pushed public opinion in the direction of denialism, and as the US is the world's largest economy, that's had a big effect on stalling progress.  However, I don't think we're so far off that another 10 years couldn't reverse the trend.  Lots of climate disasters might do it, but I think a better understanding of science would help, too.  I simply see too much thinking here along ..." CreationDate="2013-05-03T09:01:33.263" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1392" PostId="856" Score="0" Text="... the lines of &quot;CO2 is natural, so it must be ok&quot;, or &quot;the earth has warmed before, so what's the problem&quot;, or &quot;isn't the ice sheet growing around the south pole&quot;?  All these objections are really easily dismissed with a basic understanding of science.  Anyway, *science* is only one part of education.  I certainly believe in the value of the other parts, too.  But, as it relates to sustainability, I think it's crucial.  Certainly, just my opinion, though." CreationDate="2013-05-03T09:04:05.417" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1393" PostId="856" Score="0" Text="I am noticing a couple things which make me think maybe this question should be closed as non-constructive.  The big thing is that it seems that any possible answer here is probably based on unprovable assumptions, hopes, and beliefs.  And one of the huge issues with &quot;the earth has warmed before&quot; (regarding, say, the medieval warming period) is that the climate data that is available is simply inadequate to say that it did (or not!).  It's not like we had global scientific satellites measuring the climate a thousand years ago." CreationDate="2013-05-03T09:15:07.970" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="1396" PostId="856" Score="0" Text="@ChrisTravers, not true.  Satellite measurements are just *one* way to measure temperature.  That's what the field of *paleoclimatology* is all about: using things like ice cores (which contain ancient air samples), sea fossils and coral, or tree rings (living and fossilized) to deduce climate data.  Anyway, I agree that it's hard to discuss this particular question (education &amp; sustainability) in typical Q+A style.  This requires some good social science research to support well, and without it, all we can do is try to make mostly theoretical arguments." CreationDate="2013-05-03T09:25:51.837" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1397" PostId="856" Score="0" Text="The problem though is that with paleoclimatology, you have a bunch of multi-factor measurements which may mean all kinds of things.  For example tree rings might grow better because it is warmer, there is more water, or a bunch of other factors.  Additionally even there our data is remarkably sparse compared to what we have in the last 60 years." CreationDate="2013-05-03T09:28:20.837" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="1398" PostId="856" Score="0" Text="This is evidenced by the fact that up until the global warming debate, there was a perpetual debate over whether the medieval warming period was global or more localized to Europe.  That debate has largely moved to one between medieval historians and climatologists over the extent of ice in the North Atlantic, particularly regarding off the North of Scandinavia, Greenland, and Iceland." CreationDate="2013-05-03T09:34:30.080" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="1399" PostId="856" Score="0" Text="@ChrisTravers, **science** is about multi-factor measurements.  Climate scientists deal with this every day, and use techniques to handle it.  For example, one field that I have to use in my work is that of *data fusion*.  Taking multiple sensor inputs, which each *individually* may represent poor, or noisy data, and combine them together using statistics to get a result that's much **more** precise than the inputs.  That's a result that's completely counterintuitive to someone without a fairly advanced math background.  Then, again, there's the point of us having *multiple* lines of data ..." CreationDate="2013-05-03T09:56:51.650" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1400" PostId="856" Score="0" Text="... from independent sources.  When you can look at ice core data **and** tree data from multiple sites **and** sea fossil data, and they tell you the same thing, then you can say that &quot;yes, there was warming, and not simply increased rainfall&quot;.  Anyway, I don't think this is helping anyone but you or I at this point.  I'd suggest you checkout a site like http://www.skepticalscience.com/, as it has good layman's descriptions of why common skeptical issues like these are no longer given heavy consideration in the climate science community." CreationDate="2013-05-03T10:02:01.740" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1461" PostId="856" Score="0" Text="I have a couple really busy weeks work-wise so my time to respond is relatively short.  Note I am coming at this as someone who has done a lot of early history studies.  One of the things you find there is that we have *very* detailed knowledge of the climate some parts of the globe going back a long ways and this knowledge comes from a wide number of sources, many of which are only available within the domains of archaeology.  We are talking about things like pollen residue in archaeological finds and the like...." CreationDate="2013-05-07T06:34:08.620" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="1462" PostId="856" Score="0" Text=".... So within Europe, Iceland, and Greenland, for example we have tremendously detailed knowledge from archaeologically interesting periods of time and much less knowledge in other times but the Middle Ages are a time we know a lot about from both textual and archaeological records.  We know for example that malaria was endemic to England from 10th century medical manuscripts, and we know that the North Atlantic (and the regions of the Arctic bordering on the North Atlantic) were relatively free of ice during the Medieval Warming Period...." CreationDate="2013-05-07T06:36:47.650" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="1463" PostId="856" Score="0" Text="... The problem that happens is that most of the time I have seen climatologists talk about the Middle Ages in Europe, they tend to say things we know from the archaeology and written sources aren't really accurate.  This is because they are looking at a subset of the data historians and archaeologists have collected, and so it's sort of like John Franklin failing to ask the Eskimos for help.  This isn't really surprising.  Models are simplifications so we shouldn't really expect computer models of climate to match the historic record.  But that also calls into question other things." CreationDate="2013-05-07T06:41:28.433" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="1464" PostId="856" Score="0" Text="Just to note, I have spent quite a bit of time looking into the question of how climate variation lead to the rise and fall of the Norse Greenland colonies.  I haven't found any archaeological sources which have used tree rings for climate variation analysis within that domain.  Tree rings are used for dating purposes, but pollen residue in datable objects is what I have seen used most often.  The big problem of course is you can't do that outside an archaeological dig because you have to be able to date the pollen." CreationDate="2013-05-07T06:48:19.087" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="1465" PostId="856" Score="0" Text="None of this is to say that the earth isn't warming or that humans aren't causing that (I think such a hypothesis is &quot;more likely than not&quot; but not to the level of &quot;beyond reasonable doubt&quot;).  It is however to say one can't just trust climate scientists and their computer models.  If they can't model the past based on areas we know a lot about, why should we unconditionally trust their methods generally?  No, I think the strongest evidence for AGW is just the short period of time we've had satellite's in orbit monitoring weather, but evidence &lt; proof." CreationDate="2013-05-07T07:00:40.343" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="1493" PostId="856" Score="0" Text="Tree rings are also used as a proxy for temperature data, because tree growth increases with temperature, or at least it did until recently (increase in temperature is often driven by an increase in solar radiation, but now is clearly not).  Seach on [dentroclimatalogy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dendroclimatology).  Nobody serious is claiming we should blindly accept the scientific consensus.  The most recent IPCC report, considered the general documentation of that consensus, puts confidence levels at about 90%.  Scientists should largely disregard historians ... history is not science ..." CreationDate="2013-05-08T02:12:58.667" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1494" PostId="856" Score="0" Text="*Historians* subject us to all manners of religious and political nonsense.  To draw equivalence between the work of historians with that of scientists is flat-out absurd." CreationDate="2013-05-08T02:14:26.623" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1495" PostId="856" Score="0" Text="I'd also suggest that if you think you've found instances where *&quot;what we know&quot;* (based on historians' accounts) contradicts climate science results, you post a specific question about that, on the Skeptics, or Geosciences Stack Exchange sites, where they can be adequately addressed." CreationDate="2013-05-08T04:00:25.673" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1386" PostId="858" Score="4" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! How exactly do you know that dishwashers will not save any type of energy? It will be true in your case, living off the grid, but what if you consider other situations?" CreationDate="2013-05-03T07:53:58.117" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="1403" PostId="858" Score="0" Text="The answer will depend on every load you put into the dish washer and brand/capacity. Only way to know for sure is to measure the water the dishwasher uses for a wash, and compare it to the amount of water you put in your sink.&#xA;&#xA;And yes, the main concern for us is the energy used to heat the water. But this is the same for anyone with a solar hot water system. In general, dishwashers use cold water then heat it using electricity, but if you have an instantaneous gas or solar heated water, then washing in the sink will cost less heating the water." CreationDate="2013-05-03T11:16:09.127" UserId="522" />
  <row Id="1404" PostId="858" Score="0" Text="But when you normally do the dishes by hand with water heated by electricity, a dish washer might be more efficient (depending on the amount of water you heat and use)." CreationDate="2013-05-03T11:46:02.110" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="1405" PostId="858" Score="2" Text="I agree, but if you still have an electric hot water heater, then you should change it to at least gas if you cant change it to solar. Best option is solar with instantaneous gas with digital temperature adjustment for boost." CreationDate="2013-05-03T12:19:37.590" UserId="522" />
  <row Id="1416" PostId="858" Score="4" Text="This is incorrect (see my answer for support).  Additionally, many dishwashers now let you choose whether to accept hot water from the hot water supply (which *could* certainly be provided by a solar heater), or **also** add extra heat at the dishwasher itself.  Similarly, whether or not to provide heat to dry the dishes is commonly an option.  I use a dishwasher, but do not select **Water Heat** and do select **No Heat Dry**.  Also, natural gas water heat is not better, if you have the option to buy renewable electricity.  I have an electric water heater, and buy 100% renewable electricity." CreationDate="2013-05-03T22:10:32.003" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1385" PostId="859" Score="3" Text="People throughout the history (their digestion system) were used to the untreated water (which was not spoiled by today's pollutants). Even today there are countries where people drink naturally supplied water because of necessity. If you're not used to this, it could cause serious problems. But there could be some ways how to &quot;naturalise&quot; your digestion though." CreationDate="2013-05-03T06:27:52.947" UserId="60" />
  <row Id="1408" PostId="859" Score="3" Text="@JasonPascoe - I think that suggesting that people should just drink untreated rainwater as a blanket statement is dangerous.  In my situation I have a tar based roof, in an area with quite a bit of heavy industry.  Not to mention the poisons that my neighbors and area spray to kill insects and weeds that end up in the rain barrel.  So while in theory I agree the ability to do that safely ended with the industrial revolution." CreationDate="2013-05-03T12:55:35.417" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="1410" PostId="859" Score="3" Text="As I said above &quot;My only advice would be to consider your location. If you live near a volcano or industrial areas spewing our pollutants into the air, then reverse osmosis is probably the safest solution.&quot; I live in the country with the nearest industry 100kms away and my roof is made from colorbond, which is like a waterproof coated steel." CreationDate="2013-05-03T15:11:42.120" UserId="522" />
  <row Id="7280" PostId="859" Score="1" Text="By definition most people live in heavily populated areas, which is where the pollution is. People have been lucky to live 50 years until very recently, the problems they faced were very different to mine." CreationDate="2016-07-25T06:44:15.797" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="6916" PostId="860" Score="1" Text="+1 I like your more systemic solution. Not only catching laundry water, but all &quot;grey&quot; water from basins, showers, baths, dishwashers, etc. It helps if your house is designed from the start (or can be modified afterwards) to have all the outgoing plumbing to empty into a single tank, or sump, from where it can be pumped higher for reuse. A simple DIY sand+activated carbon filter may be able to reduce scum&amp;dirt a lot, e.g. for toilet use, but apparently plants are happy with the extra nitrogen compounds in the soapy water." CreationDate="2016-05-17T14:57:21.697" UserId="3401" />
  <row Id="6920" PostId="860" Score="2" Text="I also have a fat trap in-line before it gets to the below ground tank so that fat and floating solids can by removed automatically before entering the grey water tank. The laundry outlets also have an external lint trap to catch anything from the washing machine and laundry trough." CreationDate="2016-05-19T06:37:29.770" UserId="522" />
  <row Id="1420" PostId="863" Score="1" Text="Please can you edit this so that it more explicitly answers the question? At the moment, this is a lot of discursive points around the issue; and although I can see you've put a lot of effort into it, it does not really answer the question. Note that the OP has explicitly asked for &quot;references to relatively large studies&quot;" CreationDate="2013-05-04T08:04:44.737" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="1424" PostId="863" Score="1" Text="@EnergyNumbers - First line: &quot;This does not attempt to provide a formula but comments on factors involved.&quot; // Hopefully it  widens mental filters that may otherwise give the impression that questions like this work well with formulaic approaches. There will be  broad groups with a one-formula-describes-many solution, but many others where there  won't. My input may assist in improving questioner perception. Or not. // If useful, then leave it for the downvoters who don't know the meaning of the word &quot;useful&quot;. If it so offends popular taste as to be unuseful by all means burn, bash and bury." CreationDate="2013-05-04T14:15:35.193" UserId="318" />
  <row Id="3659" PostId="864" Score="0" Text="+1, for reduce -&gt; reuse -&gt; recycle. I use my shoos almost to the end of their life (my wife does not like it), but I do this just for sustainability reasons, never  thought to stop early and donate them, good idea thanks ;)" CreationDate="2014-09-11T08:54:47.600" UserId="235" />
  <row Id="3996" PostId="864" Score="3" Text="I don't think that's stopping early and donate is rational. I think it won't even solve anything but it will make the problem even worst, especially if those shoes (and cloth) are given to third world countries which did not reach environmental awareness. You shoes will just end up in a river somewhere in Malawi and will also kill the few local business they have. How could any business compete with free stuff given from aboard? Generosity is nice, but doing things without thinking of the impact could create dramatic consequences." CreationDate="2015-01-23T16:19:47.367" UserId="1736" />
  <row Id="8184" PostId="864" Score="0" Text="The recycledrunners.com links seems to be broken." CreationDate="2017-02-16T08:53:11.710" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="1434" PostId="865" Score="1" Text="You can measure exact amount of water in some dish and then pour it to  the kettle. Most kettles have some minimum amount, but big cups are usually slightly bigger this volume limit. This takes some extra time, but eliminates the energy loss of boiling extra water." CreationDate="2013-05-05T20:08:31.907" UserId="58" />
  <row Id="1438" PostId="865" Score="0" Text="Are you talking about a kettle on a stove, or a dedicated electric kettle that plugs in directly?  Anyway, I think there's already a good answer [at treehugger.com here](http://www.treehugger.com/clean-technology/ask-pablo-electric-kettle-stove-or-microwave-oven.html) and [another by a UCSD physics prof here](http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/05/burning-desire-for-efficiency/) (adjusted for upstream power station efficiency, too, which might not be a variable for you)." CreationDate="2013-05-06T12:07:09.853" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1431" PostId="866" Score="1" Text="Do you have a reference for the heat losses in water boilers? The outsides are typically cool, so insulation must be good." CreationDate="2013-05-05T17:01:46.123" UserId="318" />
  <row Id="1432" PostId="866" Score="0" Text="My one does not lost a noticeable amount of heat (e.g. -5°C) between refills (about every other day). From this I would deduce energy loss is less than 3% per day." CreationDate="2013-05-05T17:30:39.317" UserId="526" />
  <row Id="1433" PostId="866" Score="3" Text="The device pictured on the Electric Water Boiler wikipedia page you linked to keeps the water at a constant temperature by using electricity throughout the day. I think something like an [electric water kettle](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kettle#Electric_kettles) would be more efficient if you only heat as much water as you need." CreationDate="2013-05-05T18:53:57.987" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="1435" PostId="866" Score="0" Text="@Johnny I was actually thinking of the Electric Water Boiler (not electric water kettle); but you're right, it uses electricity throughout the day (I for some reason thought that it only uses electricity to reboil).&#xA;However, whether Electric Water Boiler is less or more efficient compared to the plain kettle is not obvious and depends on the specific usage profile. Plain kettle filled with a cup of water will probably dissipate significant amount of heat into the air." CreationDate="2013-05-05T20:18:35.850" UserId="526" />
  <row Id="1436" PostId="867" Score="2" Text="There's a lot of questions here that each could have a pretty sizeable answer... they would really be best asked as separate questions." CreationDate="2013-05-06T08:57:52.247" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="1442" PostId="867" Score="0" Text="I felt that if I separated heating and insulation, people would comment the opposite, that there is no way to talk about one without the other. But if it's a consensus that the question is too broad, I'll separate it." CreationDate="2013-05-06T13:41:29.990" UserId="89" />
  <row Id="1451" PostId="867" Score="1" Text="Insulation shouldn't make much difference in the most sustainable form of heat. Adding insulation definitely adds to sustainability of the home by reducing the energy needed to heat the home, but doesn't really have much effect on heat source (unless the house is so small and well insulated that body heat alone can heat it, but then you'd probably call it a &quot;sleeping bag&quot; rather than a home :-) )" CreationDate="2013-05-06T19:22:20.943" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="1460" PostId="867" Score="1" Text="@Johnny - what you're written is true; and so is the converse: in a really well-insulated home, sustainability of the heating supply doesn't make much difference to the overall total. There are indeed properties that can be heated by incidental gains alone - they're called [&quot;passive houses&quot;, or more commonly, &quot;passivhausen&quot;](http://www.independent.co.uk/money/spend-save/passivhaus-the-home-that-can-cut-your-heating-bills-by-90-8554721.html)" CreationDate="2013-05-07T05:51:37.987" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="10140" PostId="867" Score="0" Text="@EnergyNumbers They wouldn't be called &quot;passivhausen&quot; in any language.  German plural would be &quot;Passivhäuser&quot;." CreationDate="2018-09-07T17:12:33.053" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="1437" PostId="868" Score="0" Text="Nice little home experiment with a scientific structure! What meter do you use to measure the energy use?" CreationDate="2013-05-06T11:10:18.290" UserId="453" />
  <row Id="1439" PostId="868" Score="0" Text="You did mention it, but the microwave is heating the cup you'll ultimately be drinking the tea in.  A quick little [calculation here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=447245) estimates the heat capacity of the mug to be about half that of the water.  Boiling water in the microwave will give you a very hot mug.  Pouring hot water from another appliance into a cold mug won't make for an apples-to-apples comparison.  Still, I agree with the conclusion (electric kettle &gt; microwave).  And +1 for the choice of mugs :)" CreationDate="2013-05-06T12:19:07.960" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1448" PostId="868" Score="0" Text="@boo2060, I'm in NZ, and we don't have kill-a-watt meters available locally. I managed to get something similar from a local hardware store a few years ago. The label on the back says &quot;Type: EMA-1 CS07442V&quot; and it's manufactured by Cixi Yidong Electronic Co Ltd." CreationDate="2013-05-06T18:51:27.917" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="1440" PostId="869" Score="0" Text="Are you considering yourself, in a vacuum?  Or yourself, in the context of a planet that might already have too many people?" CreationDate="2013-05-06T12:30:11.267" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1441" PostId="869" Score="2" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! I think your question is impossible to answer because we don't know what will happen in the next 40 years. For example, will there be a breakthrough in the development of sustainable energy sources? Also, we would need to know in which country you are planning to raise your children and what lifestyle are they going to lead. The best you can do probably is trying to determine your **current** ecological footprint by using a [calculator](http://myfootprint.org) or checking [this question](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/91/99)" CreationDate="2013-05-06T13:03:49.200" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="1445" PostId="869" Score="1" Text="@THelper - I am skeptical of the validity of that tool.  I changed my income to a lower amount and it lowered my foot print by half.  This points to a tool designed to get disposable money from people rather than actually calculating the actual foot print" CreationDate="2013-05-06T17:42:12.190" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="1449" PostId="869" Score="2" Text="I would say that long as the world is not suffering from underpopulation, then the sustainable number of children to give birth to is zero. It's hard to predict the future 40 years from now, but past population trends are not pointing to a population too low to sustain society or ensure survival of the human race." CreationDate="2013-05-06T19:16:08.750" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="1508" PostId="869" Score="0" Text="Even in this world it is possible to live sustainably. If the child chooses to live sustainably, then it will have no negative effect on the Earth." CreationDate="2013-05-08T13:55:16.610" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="1443" PostId="871" Score="7" Text="This question could be improved by specifying what waste heat you have available (temp, power, how often/what times) to guesstimate what might be worthwhile." CreationDate="2013-05-06T15:40:20.063" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="1515" PostId="871" Score="1" Text="Saying &quot;here or here&quot; seems inaccurate to me. Can you summarize the referenced articles to have this question complete?" CreationDate="2013-05-10T22:00:51.733" UserId="60" />
  <row Id="1444" PostId="873" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! What are your considerations? Most sustainable, most cost-effective, easiest to install?" CreationDate="2013-05-06T17:23:18.577" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="1446" PostId="873" Score="0" Text="I think the topmost concern is cost-effective for now. Thank you!" CreationDate="2013-05-06T18:22:11.837" UserId="234" />
  <row Id="1517" PostId="873" Score="0" Text="Do you have a grid connection? Do you plan to heat the shelter in winter too?" CreationDate="2013-05-13T06:57:33.847" UserId="60" />
  <row Id="1518" PostId="873" Score="0" Text="The grid connection is to expensive, this is one of the main reasons I consider alternative sources. Heating is not of concern for now - it has a wood fired stove." CreationDate="2013-05-13T07:26:03.073" UserId="234" />
  <row Id="1466" PostId="874" Score="0" Text="The Vortex tube takes mechanical energy (pressure) as input, and produces the most expensive form of heat - coldness. That's the opposite of heat recovery. Coll device, though." CreationDate="2013-05-07T07:41:58.667" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="1467" PostId="874" Score="0" Text="@mart: True. But another way of seeing this is that it removes the cold part at the expense of pressure, leaving you with the hot part. Pressure is easy enough to create; water's pretty heavy so you could just use its own weight in some sort of vertical shaft, or build something around the fact that pressures in regular water taps are already in the order of ~10 bars." CreationDate="2013-05-07T08:18:43.403" UserId="530" />
  <row Id="1469" PostId="874" Score="0" Text="I don't believe 20% at &quot;a few degrees&quot; - a CArnot efficiency of 20% would equate a Temp diff between 0°C and 68°C - more than a few degrees. Mind that that's the limit case for any heat engine, stirling engines often fare worse because of dead spaces, insufficient heat storage within and other engineering difficulties." CreationDate="2013-05-07T08:19:13.477" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="1471" PostId="874" Score="0" Text="Still no heat recovery. Creating pressure almost always involves expending (high grade) mechanical work. the 20-50 bar pressure at the inlet for water, mentioned in the wiki article translate to 200-500m height!" CreationDate="2013-05-07T08:22:41.320" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="1472" PostId="874" Score="0" Text="And using the work done by the water works to pump the water and maintain pressure to drive a refridgerator hardly seems sustainable? BTW, where does the claim com from that the vortex tube is particular efficient? I've seen nothing of the sort in the linked literature." CreationDate="2013-05-07T08:23:58.747" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="1474" PostId="874" Score="0" Text="I think there's a misconception on your side re. what the vortex tube does. I'll see if I can bang up a good question for the physics SE." CreationDate="2013-05-07T08:29:22.927" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="1476" PostId="874" Score="0" Text="@mart: You are absolutely right, and I do not know how I can have seen 20% efficient engines. I'll remove that statement." CreationDate="2013-05-07T08:43:52.120" UserId="530" />
  <row Id="1478" PostId="874" Score="0" Text="@mart: the claim that a vortex tube is efficient stems from the fact that you need not insert any external energy for it to work *provided* you already have a pressurized waste product. The objective here is to regain at least *some* heat that would otherwise be lost in the sewer, by (slightly) modifying existing household systems. I'm not saying you should build a 500m tall tower, I'm saying you *could* use any pressure that's already there to try and improve the efficiency of the heat engine." CreationDate="2013-05-07T08:50:37.650" UserId="530" />
  <row Id="1479" PostId="874" Score="0" Text="If you have a pressurized waste product (excess compressor air), build a turbine." CreationDate="2013-05-07T08:53:17.963" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="1480" PostId="874" Score="0" Text="@mart: I'd rather not; with the exception of high-end (and completely unaffordable) models, turbines tend to be noisy, complicated, maintenance-hungry devices (yes, also the Tesla ones). I'd rather sacrifice some efficiency in favor of a no-moving-parts solution. I have to *sleep* next to it, mind you!" CreationDate="2013-05-07T08:56:49.487" UserId="530" />
  <row Id="1481" PostId="874" Score="0" Text="Any way, talking about using waste pressure is completely off the question." CreationDate="2013-05-07T09:14:35.333" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="3310" PostId="874" Score="0" Text="About the vortex tube. It means that if I collect rain water at the second floor, I can get hot and cold water for free at floor level, right? Gravity providing the pressure." CreationDate="2014-05-21T12:06:11.753" UserId="1421" />
  <row Id="3326" PostId="874" Score="0" Text="see this physics SE question and answers for more on Vortex tubes: http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/63626/how-can-i-understand-a-vortex-tube-and-its-efficiency" CreationDate="2014-05-26T10:45:53.203" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="1447" PostId="876" Score="0" Text="Edits to streamline my prose very much welcomed!" CreationDate="2013-05-06T18:39:46.100" UserId="502" />
  <row Id="1454" PostId="876" Score="1" Text="Please do be careful keeping your house that cool: it can create problems with condensation and mould." CreationDate="2013-05-06T19:29:39.740" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="1455" PostId="876" Score="0" Text="How does keeping a house a few degrees cooler than &quot;room temperature&quot; lead to condensation and mold? Especially in a cold climate where the air will typically be quite dry. I've kept a house that's unoccupied during the week at 13C with no apparent ill effects." CreationDate="2013-05-06T20:08:21.193" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="1546" PostId="876" Score="1" Text="@Johnny yes, unoccupied should be lower risk, because the internal humidity comes from activities while the house is **occupied**: breathing, washing, cooking." CreationDate="2013-05-15T06:51:43.417" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="1450" PostId="878" Score="4" Text="While this is all true, appliances that you would use regardless of heat generation provide &quot;free&quot; heat because you're already buying the electricity for a purpose other than heat." CreationDate="2013-05-06T19:20:03.997" UserId="462" />
  <row Id="1452" PostId="878" Score="1" Text="Ahh yes, this is true - I was thinking more of the case of someone saying &quot;Well, I don't need to turn off the computer when I'm done with it because it's heating my house&quot;" CreationDate="2013-05-06T19:23:48.510" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="1453" PostId="878" Score="0" Text="For that case, I fully agree with your answer." CreationDate="2013-05-06T19:28:52.323" UserId="462" />
  <row Id="13791" PostId="878" Score="0" Text="@Johnny in fact, if you are running an electric resistive heater, you may as well let it mine cryptocurrency (other than bitcoin)" CreationDate="2021-07-28T10:36:27.257" UserId="9252" />
  <row Id="1569" PostId="880" Score="0" Text="Weeds and &quot;rough&quot; spots of native plants will help provide a year long environment for natural predators, a &quot;sterile&quot; cultivation is much more prone to plagues in my experience." CreationDate="2013-05-17T13:08:31.413" UserId="519" />
  <row Id="1456" PostId="881" Score="1" Text="Why do you want real-world longevity tests (or at least statistical studies to back up longevity claims),for each light source but you (seemingly) pulled 5 hours/winter &amp; 2 hours/summer usage out of thin air? Wouldn't it be better to use an average annual figure ? Most LED lightbulb replacements seem to have a published lifetime of around 25,000 - 50,000 hours, have you seen some that promise 2 million hour lifetime?" CreationDate="2013-05-06T23:36:41.973" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="1458" PostId="881" Score="0" Text="@Johnny: Obviously, exact usage depends on latitude; these numbers are indeed just a random use case for my particular latitude. However, this is still how I want to set up my study, because the timings for the replacements will be different, it's easier to bring noise and outliers into the equation (we all forget to turn off the light once in a while), it's easier to model differences in wear due to the different load cycles, etc. But I guess it's mostly because I come from the simulation world, where theory and lab results *never* equal results found in practical applications :)" CreationDate="2013-05-07T05:33:03.007" UserId="530" />
  <row Id="1459" PostId="881" Score="0" Text="@Johnny: As far as the lifetimes; googling around a bit will show that most modern LED bulbs have lifetimes well in excess of 100.000 hours (in other words, 11.4 years of continuous operation). If you look up the numbers for individual LEDs, the numbers easily exceed 1 million hours. Granted, this is for low-power, unpackaged LEDs without any AC conversion circuitry involved, but I do expect the developments in the lighting industry to catch up with these numbers in the next 5 years." CreationDate="2013-05-07T05:41:20.087" UserId="530" />
  <row Id="1468" PostId="881" Score="1" Text="This would be better broken into quite a number of separate questions that are reasonably answerable, such as &quot;What is the energy it takes to create a single bulb&quot;. You'll probably get more upvotes doing it that way too! ;-)" CreationDate="2013-05-07T08:18:46.233" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="1470" PostId="881" Score="0" Text="I remember reading about longevity testing of CDs, and the technique charted how the lifetime reduced as the storage temperature increased. A lower temperature lifetime estimate was then extrapolated from the results." CreationDate="2013-05-07T08:20:36.537" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="1473" PostId="881" Score="1" Text="@HighlyIrregular: indeed; I would like to see some form of validation of such extrapolation methods. I realize it's virtually impossible given the extremely long lifetimes of LEDs to do the *actual* experiment, but I've never seen really good experiments showing that the extrapolations actually have  some merit..." CreationDate="2013-05-07T08:28:51.493" UserId="530" />
  <row Id="1475" PostId="881" Score="0" Text="@HighlyIrregular: Regarding the nature of the question; I don't really care (yet) about rep, I'm just curious :) In any case, I think you're right that I should probably split it up, at the very least to speed up getting answers. I propose leaving this question open but convert it to a community wiki, putting in links to all the subquestions related to it. In the end, when all the answers are in and the graph is generated,  this question will then serve as a nice overview, and will be a nice showcase of the capabilities of this site. What do you say? :)" CreationDate="2013-05-07T08:33:05.153" UserId="530" />
  <row Id="1477" PostId="881" Score="0" Text="Sounds like a great idea to me, @RodyOldenhuis!" CreationDate="2013-05-07T08:49:42.213" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="1484" PostId="881" Score="0" Text="@Rody, Can you point me to some of these 100,000+ hour LED replacement bulbs? The ones I've seen from OSRAM/Sylvania, GE, Phillips, etc advertise 15K - 50K hours. I'm having trouble finding datasheets that give projected lifetimes for bright white LED's. Heat is the enemy of LEDs, so the brighter they are (thus the hotter they are in operation), the shorter the lifetime." CreationDate="2013-05-07T15:24:41.047" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="1986" PostId="881" Score="0" Text="I would not go for “state of the art models of each kind”. This way you’d have to factor in marketing costs, and I doubt typical usage includes premium-priced products like this. Poor people cannot afford them, middle class is often thrifty, and opulently wealthy do not buy their own bulbs. :)" CreationDate="2013-07-07T14:28:17.877" UserId="227" />
  <row Id="1988" PostId="881" Score="0" Text="@theUg: well, I *did* say &quot;money&quot; (meaning any monetary involvement anywhere along the way) is not to be considered :)" CreationDate="2013-07-07T18:18:15.273" UserId="530" />
  <row Id="2410" PostId="881" Score="0" Text="Related question: http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/18272/does-the-phase-out-of-incandescent-light-bulbs-measurably-reduce-overall-electri" CreationDate="2013-11-05T13:12:05.437" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="1528" PostId="882" Score="3" Text="This may help answerers: [The Alliance for Sustainable Building Products](http://www.asbp.org.uk/)" CreationDate="2013-05-13T18:58:20.910" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="6477" PostId="882" Score="0" Text="A few people cited wool as an insulator. Sounds good. But don't moths eat wool? M" CreationDate="2016-02-17T16:38:31.177" UserDisplayName="user3077" />
  <row Id="2349" PostId="883" Score="0" Text="If your goal is to compare different types, you could just ignore the steps that are (or could be) (nearly) identical in all four: Packaging, transportation from factory to retailer, ..." CreationDate="2013-10-09T15:43:08.633" UserId="834" />
  <row Id="2363" PostId="883" Score="0" Text="Different types of lightbulbs have different lifespans, which means that if your boundaries are based on how long you will need a light in a certain location, with longer-life bulbs packaging, transportation, etc. will be a comparatively lower impact. Those factors are not the same for different bulbs when measured from that perspective." CreationDate="2013-10-14T16:14:17.827" UserId="664" />
  <row Id="5105" PostId="883" Score="0" Text="There is some relevant info in the answers to [this question](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/4468/what-to-do-with-old-unused-incandescent-light-bulbs)" CreationDate="2015-12-09T08:14:50.947" UserId="1445" />
  <row Id="16480" PostId="883" Score="0" Text="I think another question is the recyclability of say an incandescent lamp, halogen etc. Coupled with production energies. LED recyclability and production energy. I think you will fund a huge spike in emissions for new technologies with virtually zero recyclability. Then factor in cost in man hours to purchase fuel needed, food etc. and environmental impacts...it gets ugly and not in the way we want it all to be." CreationDate="2023-05-10T22:54:37.297" UserId="14922" />
  <row Id="1501" PostId="886" Score="0" Text="Huh.  That's pretty simple.  No heating/cooling benefits?" CreationDate="2013-05-08T07:43:32.957" UserId="28" />
  <row Id="1505" PostId="886" Score="2" Text="In most forms of construction that these are used in, the glass bottles are actually causing more heat/cool loss than there would be without them.  It is possible to fill the bottles with water or other dark liquid in order for them to [store heat](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bottle_wall#Heat_sink), but this is actually rare and risky.  Also, the walls that these glass bottles are normally in already have  a large thermal mass, so sacrificing insulation for even more thermal mass is not a beneficial trade-off." CreationDate="2013-05-08T13:14:07.260" UserId="180" />
  <row Id="1506" PostId="886" Score="0" Text="Also, glass bottles are almost always listed in the artistic/sculpting/light section of books/articles." CreationDate="2013-05-08T13:15:42.953" UserId="180" />
  <row Id="3121" PostId="887" Score="3" Text="I'd like to add a comment related to answer about CFL and LED having similar life-cycle energy. This may be true, but given the fact that when we talk about sustainability we should think about pollution too, In this case LED bulbs would be preferable as their disposal do not contribute as much with harmful chemicals as the CFL bulbs do." CreationDate="2014-03-20T16:12:18.073" UserId="1267" />
  <row Id="8210" PostId="887" Score="0" Text="It also depends on region. The DOE did not factor in the A/C cost to remove the additional heat generated by CFL infrared and convection losses for hot climates. The loss has double impact there. For colder climates, the loss of the bulb heats the house and therefore reduces the heating costs so a filament bulb as close to the humans as possible may make the most sense for sustainability." CreationDate="2017-02-21T10:38:41.907" UserId="4084" />
  <row Id="1496" PostId="890" Score="0" Text="Can you clarify whether you're asking about a smart **thermostat**, or a full-house smart electricity **meter**?" CreationDate="2013-05-08T06:08:51.963" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1499" PostId="890" Score="0" Text="I originally meant thermostat.  That was a typo referring to the Nest labs thermostat as a 'meter' ;).  However, i changed the question to include both technologies.  I'm just looking for the best tool to analyze home energy use." CreationDate="2013-05-08T06:35:11.543" UserId="404" />
  <row Id="1502" PostId="890" Score="3" Text="I suspect this will be better separated into one question about smart thermostats, and a separate question about smart meters / (physical/virtual) in-home energy-use displays, as they will have very different, barely overlapping answers." CreationDate="2013-05-08T07:55:09.233" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="1507" PostId="890" Score="0" Text="I agree, there are two totally different questions." CreationDate="2013-05-08T13:16:47.520" UserId="180" />
  <row Id="1513" PostId="890" Score="1" Text="Given that you already have an answer relating to the smart meter question here, please could you remove the references to smart thermostats, heating, insulation, and post those in a new question?" CreationDate="2013-05-09T14:51:47.010" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="2043" PostId="890" Score="0" Text="Since this hasn't really been stated, i've got to say that a smart thermostat, like the Nest, won't provide you with how to reduce further your energy usage. But what it will do is to reduce your energy usage without you really noticing it, which is great by itself, and potentially improve comfort since it learns your habits and tastes. I think that would be a smart move, especially if you are worried about the evangelization part." CreationDate="2013-07-14T22:29:22.980" UserId="671" />
  <row Id="1487" PostId="891" Score="0" Text="That's super impressive if it's accurate.  So it looks like PlotWatt breaks things down a few steps further to dryer, refrigeration, EV, HVAC and other.  For individual plug loads, you still have to get those individual plug meters.  Any plans to get any more granular?  Do you have mobile apps?  And how do you know if a thermostat is compatible with PlotWatt?" CreationDate="2013-05-07T22:03:33.427" UserId="404" />
  <row Id="1489" PostId="891" Score="0" Text="One thing to note, is that I saw mention of &quot;smart meter&quot; in the body of the question, not noticing the title of the post, which is &quot;smart thermostat.&quot;  My answer is only applicable to smart meters, not smart thermostats.  If you really meant smart thermostat, I can delete my answer." CreationDate="2013-05-08T01:35:40.103" UserId="180" />
  <row Id="1490" PostId="891" Score="0" Text="We have plans to be more granular, but not down to tiny loads because this tiny are by definition not large opportunities for energy savings.  Where we are planning on going is to failure detection and alarms.  For example: your refrigerator needs cleaning, your HVAC unit is cycling too frequently, you might want to have someone come check it out, or we noticed your fishtank heater started running non-stop last night, is the thermostat bad? (this has actually happened and we actually did save the fish's lives!) - we already do this for Commercial customers, just not residential users yet." CreationDate="2013-05-08T01:42:21.850" UserId="180" />
  <row Id="1491" PostId="891" Score="0" Text="PlotWatt supported smart meters include Ted 5000, Wattvision, Current Cost, Blueline and eGauge." CreationDate="2013-05-08T01:44:33.813" UserId="180" />
  <row Id="1498" PostId="891" Score="0" Text="I did mean smart thermostat, however, I'd leave your answer up.  I might actually change the question to include smart metering technologies as well." CreationDate="2013-05-08T06:29:27.320" UserId="404" />
  <row Id="1530" PostId="892" Score="4" Text="You didn't wasted food but doesn't using a freezer plus a microwave often instead of using normally a fridge consumed more energy? Plus, microwave isn't always good for heating food. So, now it's just a matter of knowing what is the best or the less worse. Does wasting food is more problematic (or costly) than using more electricity? etc" CreationDate="2013-05-13T19:43:33.407" UserId="264" />
  <row Id="1538" PostId="892" Score="1" Text="@JeromeJ: Yes, there are pros and cons. There may be situations where this is a good method, and situations where other methods are much better." CreationDate="2013-05-14T09:02:49.233" UserId="534" />
  <row Id="1510" PostId="897" Score="0" Text="What about the various foams (other than styrofoam)? They do involve some harmful chemicals, but the spray foams in particular are very useful for filling in small gaps." CreationDate="2013-05-08T17:14:22.320" UserId="462" />
  <row Id="2629" PostId="897" Score="1" Text="+1 for considering wider sustainability as well as insulating properties." CreationDate="2013-12-29T18:14:25.673" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="2630" PostId="898" Score="1" Text="Suggestion for improvement: Explain what R-value is? :-)" CreationDate="2013-12-29T18:14:47.177" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="3385" PostId="898" Score="0" Text="In the US, [there are specific *energy star* recommendations for R-ratings by zone](http://www.energystar.gov/?c=home_sealing.hm_improvement_insulation_table). However, what is not clear is why wouldn't someone just install R-60 on every surface? My understanding is that too much insulation, without good ventilation, leads to mold and moisture problems." CreationDate="2014-06-10T02:17:16.517" UserId="1446" />
  <row Id="6483" PostId="898" Score="0" Text="@Clayton The energy saved by going to R60 is much less than the cost of doing it.   Consider:  In my 10,000 degree day climate 100ft2 of wall uses 1 Mbtu/yr. R20 brings that to 50Kbtu. R60=&gt;17KBTU.  So makeing 18&quot; thick walls instead of 6&quot; saves you only 33Kbtu/year for a 100 sqft of wall." CreationDate="2016-02-18T14:42:31.673" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="1549" PostId="899" Score="0" Text="That's interesting. I guess it makes sense, though, as the air gaps between shell shards would work just like any other air gaps. And if you're already harvesting the mussels, it makes sense to go ahead and use their shells." CreationDate="2013-05-15T16:15:56.897" UserId="462" />
  <row Id="2925" PostId="899" Score="0" Text="Very cool idea.  In general a lot of what is sustainable, or low net impact is to use what is available locally." CreationDate="2014-02-15T17:01:06.280" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="1514" PostId="900" Score="1" Text="Thank you but this is not really the answer I'm looking for. It does not mention fish and does not refer to environmental impacts, just the efficiency of feed conversion." CreationDate="2013-05-10T10:24:16.397" UserId="453" />
  <row Id="1524" PostId="900" Score="0" Text="what feed? cattle can digest fiber (as can chicken, I think), pigs can not. Not sure about locusts - ask biology SE. Fiber is more abundant than starch or fat. I think the comparison makes no sense." CreationDate="2013-05-13T14:48:56.353" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="2188" PostId="900" Score="0" Text="@mart, of course, using feed weights is a rough *proxy* for energy consumption, but there certainly is a correlation.  On average, more food does require more energy to produce.  Locusts certainly do eat fiber." CreationDate="2013-08-11T22:00:08.263" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="2186" PostId="901" Score="0" Text="Is there any overview-like read about animal faeces, their pathogens, and composting?" CreationDate="2013-08-09T14:52:23.193" UserId="227" />
  <row Id="1533" PostId="905" Score="3" Text="I think this question is too general and subjective... Probably a topic for [meta](meta.sustainability.com)" CreationDate="2013-05-14T01:15:51.860" UserId="404" />
  <row Id="1539" PostId="905" Score="0" Text="Maybe – but if &quot;sustainability&quot; is really a measure of the energy usage of a system, then it's something more like math. I'd like to know who's doing the math." CreationDate="2013-05-14T12:34:00.010" UserId="35" />
  <row Id="1542" PostId="905" Score="0" Text="Yeah of course it involves math to either measure energy usage (as you suggest), but not jsut that.  it also includes water consumption, land use chamge, etc.  There are different groups of people &quot;doing the math&quot; for each of these in different contexts.  It's too general to give a meaningful answer.  I suppose you could re-work the question to your comment under Chris Tavers answer - is there an internaional organization recoginized as the authority on measuring sustainability?   That answerr would simply be no.  There are many authorities and standards within the realm of sustainability." CreationDate="2013-05-14T15:07:21.777" UserId="404" />
  <row Id="1543" PostId="905" Score="0" Text="Formulate your comment as an answer, maybe with a few more details about the authorities and standards, and I'll give it the green check." CreationDate="2013-05-14T16:57:57.220" UserId="35" />
  <row Id="2072" PostId="905" Score="0" Text="Lots of good suggestions about how to define (by modeling or what-so-ever) sustainability in the Designing Earth Anew Together ebook. https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B4P-3bK_y8v2Qkp5SE9qRzJQQmM/edit?pli=1 Basically, it says that we mostly all have different ideas about what is actually sustainability and that this is what makes it so hard to reach and that we should use modeling to help clearly unifying our ideas about it." CreationDate="2013-07-20T14:30:05.767" UserId="264" />
  <row Id="1519" PostId="906" Score="1" Text="&quot;something uses more energy than it gives some back&quot; - if we would just find a single system were this is not the case :)" CreationDate="2013-05-13T10:33:52.607" UserId="453" />
  <row Id="1527" PostId="906" Score="0" Text="@boo2060 There is no absolute system like that but there are some that are relatives. For instance, the energy coming out of the sun isn't absolutely sustainable, it will burn out in [a lot of years], but, for us, it's so many lifetimes that we consider it, from our point of view, like something from which we can almost take this energy freely. We can't consume more sun that we receive (and it's already a huge amount), we can't empty its energy supply faster." CreationDate="2013-05-13T15:23:06.387" UserId="264" />
  <row Id="1541" PostId="906" Score="0" Text="It's certainly true that the sustainability of one thing is related to larger systems, and it's a good point to remember; but how about in the specific? I really do want to know more about measuring individual cases." CreationDate="2013-05-14T12:44:08.020" UserId="35" />
  <row Id="1545" PostId="906" Score="0" Text="@meetar Then you have to refer to each of these specific cases, don't you? I mean, sustainability covers so much topics that some are very different from each others (like electricity consumption, re-usability, etc). It's a bit of our job (here on this sub SE) to come together with what we know, everyone brings his little (or big) contribution. That said, I'm aware that, this is only one answer (maybe the easiest?) and it's sure good to ask this question and trying to answering it together too!" CreationDate="2013-05-15T01:52:58.533" UserId="264" />
  <row Id="15982" PostId="907" Score="0" Text="We use [Disposable Nappy Liners](https://www.bamboolik.eu/en/popolini-disposable-nappy-liners-cellulose/) (&quot;Windelvlies&quot; in German) in our daugther's cloth diapers. They can be disposed with the poo. Commonly, they can also be washed many times (if there is only pee in them, we wash them; if there is poo in them, we dispose them). Thus, the cloth diapers need no pre-washing. Additionally, we use wool pants instead of plastic pants as &quot;outside layer&quot;. The wool pants are hand-washed in a lanolin-water mixture every half a year (or similar) which makes them water-repellant. =&gt; plastic free." CreationDate="2022-09-01T22:00:13.107" UserId="3641" />
  <row Id="15983" PostId="907" Score="0" Text="Similar as Zach_Dwiel wrote below we do &quot;Abhalten&quot; (in German). I think it is denoted as &quot;Elimination communication&quot; in English. It is common in many parts of the world. Procter &amp; Gamble (Pampers) and similar companies invest a lot of money in China in order to convince Chinese families that it is a bad idea to do this (instead families should use disposable diapers which is &quot;much better&quot; ;-) )." CreationDate="2022-09-01T22:08:19.007" UserId="3641" />
  <row Id="1540" PostId="908" Score="0" Text="I appreciate that even physics is based on non-falsifiable assumptions, and (as with physics) I'm happy to take some fundamentals as given for sake of argument, but I do think it's important to know what the rules are, and who's setting them. Is there a Système International of sustainability?" CreationDate="2013-05-14T12:38:19.497" UserId="35" />
  <row Id="1544" PostId="908" Score="1" Text="I would be concerned that if someone was setting such rules internationally that they would be captured by corporations who make unsustainable products." CreationDate="2013-05-15T00:38:20.803" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="1535" PostId="909" Score="0" Text="Related: [14 competing standards? Ridiculous, we need one universal one](http://xkcd.com/927/)" CreationDate="2013-05-14T05:34:33.890" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="1537" PostId="909" Score="0" Text="@EnergyNumbers: ghehe :)" CreationDate="2013-05-14T08:56:01.353" UserId="530" />
  <row Id="1520" PostId="910" Score="0" Text="+1: I know I will run into a lot of resistance when starting &quot;the one true label&quot;, for exactly the reasons you mentioned. Yet I think it is a necessity; for example, the label &quot;organic&quot; is clearly steering consumers in the right direction, even though organic cheese is a completely different thing from organic potatoes. The &quot;one true label&quot; will not do away with any existing labels, it will &quot;simply&quot; be a sort of averaging scheme for multiple labels that each consider a single, different aspect." CreationDate="2013-05-13T12:50:08.337" UserId="530" />
  <row Id="1521" PostId="910" Score="0" Text="Thanks for the steps though. Do you have references for all this?" CreationDate="2013-05-13T13:06:03.043" UserId="530" />
  <row Id="1522" PostId="910" Score="1" Text="@RodyOldenhuis I welcome and admire your efforts! I've based my answer on the information I read in a book on information transparency as a way to force manufacturers to improve their products (can't remember the exact title right now, but will add it when I remember), as well as on information I read about a Dutch initiative called [Rankabrand](http://rankabrand.org). Rankabrand searches the websites and year reports of companies to find information on labour conditions, environmental practices and climate change initiatives. I'll try and see if I can get more detailed references later." CreationDate="2013-05-13T13:29:52.387" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3592" PostId="910" Score="0" Text="The title of the book I mentioned in my comment above is ['Ecological Intelligence: The Hidden Impacts of What We Buy' by Daniel Goleman](http://www.amazon.com/Ecological-Intelligence-Hidden-Impacts-What/dp/0385527837)" CreationDate="2014-08-26T11:01:17.383" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="1526" PostId="912" Score="0" Text="+1: agreed on teaching them to use the potty and do away with diapers altogether! We indeed tried that, and honestly I believe it would have worked. But a few pretty bad things and quite many life-changing events happened in our lives the past year and a half, and of course all very badly timed when it came to teaching the kids to use the potty. We simply could not find the energy to clean up all the accidents for long stretches of time, so we opted for diapers. Reusable and/or compostable ones to try and keep things sustainable, but...well, here we are." CreationDate="2013-05-13T14:59:30.140" UserId="530" />
  <row Id="1529" PostId="912" Score="3" Text="Yeah, I think one of the unique things about sustainability is that it really encompasses all of life and reductionist views necessarily limit how sustainable your solutions will be.  The context is extremely important." CreationDate="2013-05-13T19:02:05.927" UserId="180" />
  <row Id="1531" PostId="912" Score="0" Text="My wife has been trying to get our son to be &quot;nappy free&quot; since he was just a few months old. It has worked pretty well with regarding to pooing: he uses unmistakable body language to indicate he needs to poo. However, he still pees at any time without warning, regardless of what he is or isn't wearing. Eventually, my wife realised that trousers are easier to wash and dry than washable diapers, so he tends to wear trousers without diapers while in the house, and diapers only when travelling somewhere. Being nappy free most of the time has definitely improved his walking ability." CreationDate="2013-05-13T20:25:24.053" UserId="450" />
  <row Id="1532" PostId="912" Score="0" Text="That's a really good idea just letting em pee in their pants since you've got to take the pants off to get to the diaper anyway.  Also, shes been naked a lot more now that it is getting warmer out, which definitely helps" CreationDate="2013-05-14T00:38:34.280" UserId="180" />
  <row Id="1655" PostId="916" Score="0" Text="Wow.  You guys do have cheap natural gas.  I pay about 10c per kWh and $10/GJ for gas, but from a cost standpoint, that still doesn't make electric heat competitive :)" CreationDate="2013-05-25T09:26:28.733" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1554" PostId="919" Score="0" Text="i think natural way to ripen fruits is to let it be naturally :)" CreationDate="2013-05-16T12:48:23.013" UserId="506" />
  <row Id="1555" PostId="919" Score="0" Text="yeah that's the best way but as i am human of today's world i want all the things faster as i can :)" CreationDate="2013-05-16T12:53:14.100" UserId="471" />
  <row Id="1556" PostId="919" Score="0" Text="that's true today's man wants everything faster... but he/she could control over only artificial things better... if it is possible for fruits to increase or decrease its growth, cant we try for human beings?? :)" CreationDate="2013-05-16T12:57:18.533" UserId="506" />
  <row Id="1557" PostId="919" Score="2" Text="@BaSha I've converted your answer to a comment because you didn't really answer the OPs question." CreationDate="2013-05-17T05:28:01.133" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="1564" PostId="919" Score="1" Text="@BaSha, I just read in the latest issue of Organic NZ magazine that tree-ripened pears are of far lower quality than those picked earlier and ripened elsewhere (I think it implied ripening in a home situation? eg the fruitbowl), so it appears the most natural way isn't always the best (from an enjoyment perspective at least)." CreationDate="2013-05-17T09:52:27.710" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="1566" PostId="921" Score="1" Text="@YadavChetan: I always thought it was the other way around; apples give off ethylene, thus ripening a wide variety of fruits when placed close to them (including bananas). I also thought that tomatoes can be used for the same purpose...we need a few more references here :)" CreationDate="2013-05-17T12:43:06.293" UserId="530" />
  <row Id="1567" PostId="921" Score="0" Text="@RodyOldenhuis i even heard that onion is good for ripping fruits" CreationDate="2013-05-17T12:55:33.150" UserId="471" />
  <row Id="1568" PostId="921" Score="0" Text="@RodyOldenhuis I think you can use several types of fruit. The main criteria is that they are ripe and/or bruised. I suspect that bananas work best, but I don't have any evidence for this." CreationDate="2013-05-17T12:59:06.497" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="2263" PostId="921" Score="0" Text="Ethylene is actually the chemical used by most fruit sellers to ripen fruit. The only difference is that they get it out of a tank rather than using overripe fruit. We would have had to import an awful lot of bananas to ripen the tonnes of kiwifruit we ripened this way every year. The reason, BTW, is that fruit keeps better unripened and can be brought out of storage when required." CreationDate="2013-08-29T04:48:56.920" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="1558" PostId="922" Score="1" Text="Do you have any references for the 30 mpg/passenger?" CreationDate="2013-05-17T05:31:36.553" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="1559" PostId="922" Score="1" Text="I calculated it once on my own and came up with 30. This Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_aircraft says that a modern airliner gets 75 miles/gallon/passenger, which is a lot better than the number I came up with." CreationDate="2013-05-17T06:23:47.567" UserId="547" />
  <row Id="1562" PostId="922" Score="0" Text="Here's [some fairly thorough data](http://www.transportenvironment.org/sites/default/files//docs/Publications/2005pubs/2005-12_nlr_aviation_fuel_efficiency.pdf), although as an aviation only study, they don't express anything in units like `mpg`.  But, in general, it's highly dependent on how full the plane, or car are.  Commercial planes are consistently fairly full these days, so in general, I agree that driving a gas/diesel car only wins (over land) with multiple passengers." CreationDate="2013-05-17T08:27:11.760" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1578" PostId="922" Score="0" Text="It's hard to travel transatlantic by compact car.  But I've heard the statistic that it's similar to sitting alone in a car before." CreationDate="2013-05-18T04:27:35.033" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="1579" PostId="922" Score="2" Text="Is eating food on a ship worse than eating food off a ship?" CreationDate="2013-05-18T04:39:07.910" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="1587" PostId="922" Score="3" Text="@gerrit Probably slightly as is uses fuel to take it along and refrigeration is likely to be not so environmentally friendly compared to land. I believe the impact is very negligible though." CreationDate="2013-05-18T22:28:14.607" UserId="453" />
  <row Id="2732" PostId="922" Score="0" Text="I wouldn't be surprised if the economics of scale of refrigerating food on a ship outweigh the need to refrigerate it for longer on a ship - if indeed it is even refrigerated for longer, if one considers the whole supply chain rather than just post-supermarket." CreationDate="2014-01-16T08:16:26.343" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="3437" PostId="922" Score="1" Text="As far as the food situation goes, it depends on the purpose of the trip. If you're on vacation, the purpose is to kill time and enjoy yourself. You would have spent the same time and eaten the same food either way, so you wouldn't count the food against the carbon budget unless there was some reason why food onboard a ship had a higher footprint than food at the vacation spot.  However, if the purpose of the trip is to get from point A to point B, then the extra time it takes to go by ship *does* count against the carbon footprint." CreationDate="2014-07-04T01:41:28.610" UserId="547" />
  <row Id="6876" PostId="922" Score="0" Text="This answer is hardly relevent. The person asking will eat anyway and that food has to be transported anyway. So the difference is the energy required to transport the food with him/her on the boat, versus the energy required to transport it to his/her house." CreationDate="2016-05-07T11:58:52.687" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="1560" PostId="923" Score="0" Text="I remember hearing from a friend about 20yrs ago that McDonalds in Auckland just emptied their recycling bins into the trash as standard procedure. A few years later, they stopped providing separate bins, and they still don't." CreationDate="2013-05-17T08:08:35.163" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="1561" PostId="923" Score="0" Text="@HighlyIrregular, right.  That's what I'm worried about.  Just looking at those Starbucks bins (which, again, are mostly the fault of the customers), I don't see how they *could* actually recycle them.  But, of course, that's just my personal experience (and maybe, yours, too!)" CreationDate="2013-05-17T08:12:34.497" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="4093" PostId="923" Score="0" Text="I'm pretty sure that Starbucks doesn't even bother to try to recycle their recycling because of these badly contaminated streams. They only do it for appearances." CreationDate="2015-02-12T22:42:27.977" UserId="1692" />
  <row Id="6755" PostId="923" Score="0" Text="I concur with the comments above: it is common for either a company to knowingly decide it is easier to merge everything after users have been separating rubbish (providing recycling bins for their image only), or for employees to merge everything in the same general rubbish bin because they don't care and/or want to make it easier for themselves.&#xA;I have witnessed that in two places I have worked at: a café that contracted a waste company (the Sita employee told me everything goes into the same truck), and a university where many of the contracted cleaning staff did not care about recycling." CreationDate="2016-04-18T14:20:49.523" UserId="80" />
  <row Id="10422" PostId="923" Score="0" Text="As what the above is saying, many people in my apartment complex contaminate the stream to a horrid degree. People try to recycle soiled paper towels, pizza boxes with pizza slices/crusts/chicken wings/grease inside, MDF furniture, old rags, plastic bags, lots of packing materials, and the list just goes on. I contacted the firm that is contracted to handle the recycling and never received a comment as to if they actually recycle or just dump to a landfill. My work (government) has some recycle bins but I still take my stuff home as they only do metal and plastic and I'm skeptical." CreationDate="2018-11-21T11:46:04.917" UserId="5998" />
  <row Id="1570" PostId="924" Score="0" Text="The only thing I worry about is that a company that wants to promote a *green* image may be willing to put out the bins for consumers (the cost of the bin itself being quite small), simply to appear to be recycle-friendly.  Plus, I could imagine that if a store **didn't** put out recycling bins, some eco-conscious customers would actually complain ... even though it may be hard for the store to actually do any recycling, because customers are contaminating the bins.  That's what I fear, but again, I don't have much more than anecdotal evidence to support my fear :(" CreationDate="2013-05-17T18:35:52.220" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1571" PostId="924" Score="0" Text="In many US cities, the recycling infrastructure is developed enough that this isn't a huge issue. In such places, businesses that care about their image would rather just spend the money to recycle than risk the kind of outrage they would see if the public found out the recycling bins were a lie. Some businesses, particularly small ones, might still lie, but usually the ones that can't afford to recycle aren't willing to drop money on the bins, either. And in areas that lack good recycling infrastructure, the public is often all too happy to just use the trash bin." CreationDate="2013-05-17T18:48:40.010" UserId="462" />
  <row Id="1572" PostId="924" Score="0" Text="I think you're most likely to see &quot;fake&quot; recycling bins in places where recycling is inconvenient, expensive, or simply a new concept, but where bins have been provided for free by a third party or where there are bins but employees and managers haven't bought in to the idea of separating trash and recyclables." CreationDate="2013-05-17T18:52:39.947" UserId="462" />
  <row Id="1573" PostId="924" Score="0" Text="I just want to make sure you're clear on my question, though.  I'm not particularly worried about businesses who put out recycling bins, and then simply fail to recycle for cost, *or no good reason*.  I'm worried about businesses who want to recycle, and put bins out for customers (not the large bins behind the store ... I'm talking about in-store containers, which are cheap), but then wind up emptying the contents of the bins in the trash.  Not because recycling is expensive, but because the customers contaminated the bins, and the employees don't have the time to separate the trash." CreationDate="2013-05-17T21:08:08.707" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1577" PostId="924" Score="0" Text="Right, and I think I addressed that in my answer. If the recycling bin's contents are contaminated beyond a certain % (by either mass or volume, I'm unsure which), they won't be recycled even if they are sent to the recycling facility. Below the threshold level of contamination, the contents of the bin will be recycled." CreationDate="2013-05-17T22:43:34.477" UserId="462" />
  <row Id="1628" PostId="924" Score="1" Text="This answer would benefit greatly from some sources to back up your claims." CreationDate="2013-05-22T19:38:56.803" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="1629" PostId="924" Score="0" Text="My original source was memory of an e-mail sent out by my college while I was a student asking students not to put food or liquids in the recycling bins because the recycling company would reject excessively contaminated loads at the school's expense. Unfortunately my copy of that e-mail disappeared with my student e-mail account, but I've done some research an am updating the answer with relevant sources." CreationDate="2013-05-22T20:54:35.217" UserId="462" />
  <row Id="1632" PostId="924" Score="0" Text="Evan, I do appreciate your updates, but again, I'm not so much asking about whether businesses are actually using their **contracted** recycling services.  A consumer has no quick way to determine whether or not the store has a recycling **contract**.  All they see is the small recycle bin in the store, and those are not expensive for the store.  The question is more about whether the stores are actually recycling what customers put into the bins, or if they simply dump it in their trash (because of contamination).  It is possible that stores continue to put out public bins just for good PR." CreationDate="2013-05-22T22:52:48.353" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1643" PostId="924" Score="0" Text="I've already responded to that: When the contents are contaminated, they end up in the landfill regardless of what the business does. The definition of &quot;excessively contaminated&quot; varies with different materials and processing facilities, but as long as no one is tossing half-full cups and bottles in the recycling bin it probably isn't a big deal. As for businesses lying, I think it's unlikely because in most places recycling is either both popular and easy/inexpensive or both expensive and not popular enough to make the lies worthwhile." CreationDate="2013-05-23T14:53:57.350" UserId="462" />
  <row Id="10423" PostId="924" Score="0" Text="I feel most &quot;eco-conscious&quot; consumers would dump their recyclables in the trash and go say sorry to a tree. When discussing recycling, people will stare me dead in the eye and say &quot;I try to recycle&quot; as they throw a plastic yogurt cup in the garbage. Recycling is a guilt-conscious thing to a lot of people but ultimately they don't care as long as they think they are sometimes doing good. It doesn't matter unless you do it 100% RIGHT and consistently, else you're only slowing down the impact of material waste and pollution. It will catch up one day." CreationDate="2018-11-21T11:50:26.063" UserId="5998" />
  <row Id="1574" PostId="925" Score="6" Text="Become a monk, or a nun.  I'm pretty sure that at least in the US, monasteries and convents don't have to pay property tax.  I personally find the lack of coding expertise among the clergy to be appalling low, anyway, so you'd be killing two birds with one stone :)" CreationDate="2013-05-17T21:16:58.627" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1582" PostId="925" Score="0" Text="Hi SlightlyCyborg, and welcome. At the moment, it's rather hard to see how this relates to sustainability directly, so your question is on hold (denoted by the &quot;[closed]&quot; in the title): no new answers can be added while it's in this state. If you can edit the question to make it directly related to sustainability, then please add a comment here starting with &quot;@EnergyNumbers&quot;, and I'll help in reopening it once it's good to go." CreationDate="2013-05-18T13:02:25.127" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="1651" PostId="925" Score="1" Text="Squats could be a reasonable solution to you, hippie and open-source have compatible interfaces, one can say... It's a serious answer, if someone is not sure" CreationDate="2013-05-24T21:17:54.677" UserId="5" />
  <row Id="1580" PostId="928" Score="2" Text="This is a too broad question. But as one of the main problems for emissions is transportation, mind your own transport habits but most of all be an intelligent consumer (because things we buy might have crossed already two times the entire world)..." CreationDate="2013-05-18T08:47:25.187" UserId="484" />
  <row Id="1588" PostId="928" Score="1" Text="The question has been edited. It originally asked 'do you worry about global warming' and I answered no. I think we should stick to practical detailed questions about sustainability." CreationDate="2013-05-19T02:23:55.023" UserId="111" />
  <row Id="1600" PostId="928" Score="0" Text="This is a very broad topic. The question can't be *&quot;answered&quot;*, per se. It can only compile, discuss, and debate the vast options available. Your question sums up the the entire subject space of this site. This site works better with specific problems you encounter in your day to day activities. These type of talking-point and debate questions are better asked in a discussion forum or chat room. It's an interesting question; it's just not well-suited to *this* type of Q&amp;A site. See http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/about. Sorry about the confusion." CreationDate="2013-05-20T13:51:19.970" UserId="117" />
  <row Id="1626" PostId="928" Score="0" Text="BaSha - on the positive side, your question can be separated into lots of specific, individual, smaller ones, that would be very suitable for this site, and I'd strongly encourage you to do so. Just take one small bite out of the problem, and post that as another question." CreationDate="2013-05-22T11:55:53.987" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="1586" PostId="930" Score="2" Text="+1 *&quot;...our own personal emissions are very small in the scheme of things.&quot;*  Of course, the problem in the first place was caused by many, many individuals making relatively small harmful decisions, all of which summed to produce a very large problem.  So, it works both ways.  I find lots of people paralyzed, based on the assumption that they alone must solve a noticeable part of the global problem, or else they're wasting their time.  I think a reasonable goal is to remedy *your* contribution to the problem (and maybe that of your dependents, if you have any)." CreationDate="2013-05-18T21:38:37.937" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1630" PostId="931" Score="1" Text="This certainly isn't an answer, but I remember a few years ago, Boeing was under considerable pressure because supply constraints in raw aluminum were preventing them from keeping up with demand.  And, Boeing only delivers a few **hundred** airplanes a year.  Wind turbines aren't primarily aluminum, but they are large machines, somewhat like commercial airliners.  So, I could envision some issues as production ramps up.  However, with your time horizon of 2030, I don't see anything that couldn't adjust to demand over such a long time period (so long as demand stays strong)." CreationDate="2013-05-22T20:58:02.103" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1779" PostId="931" Score="2" Text="This may mainly be a short term issue, but I do [discuss some supply side issues in this answer on LEDs](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/a/1011/486).  Turbine generators compete for some of the same &quot;rare earth&quot; materials, so some of the information in my **Short Term Supply Constraints** section may be a useful starting point in answering this question." CreationDate="2013-06-11T01:25:06.720" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="2324" PostId="931" Score="0" Text="This is speculative, and so not really an answer, but one possible candidate is a shortage of service technicians. Should be possible to ramp up recruitment and training in that timescale, though..." CreationDate="2013-09-28T09:40:35.947" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="1590" PostId="932" Score="1" Text="There is a multiplier that gets applied to aircraft emissions: do your calculations include that?" CreationDate="2013-05-19T10:18:15.503" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="1591" PostId="932" Score="0" Text="The CO2 emissions are sheer numbers per one kg of fuel combusted. What is this multiplier about and to which emission is it assigned?" CreationDate="2013-05-19T12:26:29.650" UserId="453" />
  <row Id="1593" PostId="932" Score="3" Text="It's a factor to account for the peculiar nature of aviation emissions: water vapour, NOx and CO2 at altitude. See for example [Transport impacts on atmosphere and climate: Aviation](http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosenv.2009.06.005), Lee et al 2010. There is a range of numbers used for the multiplier in the literature: 2-5, IIRC. This might be worth a question in it's own right" CreationDate="2013-05-19T12:44:52.070" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="1594" PostId="932" Score="0" Text="No, this is not taken into account and at the moment I'm not willing to dive into that :) .. there are so many more factors to be considered for a thorough answer and I clearly lack the knowledge (and the time) to assess most of those. I hope my answer will still be perceived as an attempt to answer the question." CreationDate="2013-05-19T13:54:59.343" UserId="453" />
  <row Id="16509" PostId="932" Score="0" Text="Seeing this very very late... you could cross the Atlantic in a 10m sailing vessel, although you'd choose your route and your weather carefully - but you couldn't do it under engine. Most yachts of this size do not carry enough fuel for the crossing. Sailing boats gotta sail :-)" CreationDate="2023-10-17T11:21:30.770" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="1595" PostId="934" Score="1" Text="I agree that the health side of the question isn't really on-topic here. There is a [Nutrition proposal in Area 51](http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/44550/nutrition) where it would fit nicely, but you won't be able to ask until it starts up as a site." CreationDate="2013-05-20T04:43:50.297" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="1596" PostId="934" Score="1" Text="@HighlyIrregular Though… thinking back…  isn't trying to stay healthy could be considered as trying to live sustainably? Aha, I know why I first thought it wasn't but I guess it could kinda be." CreationDate="2013-05-20T06:16:30.537" UserId="264" />
  <row Id="1598" PostId="934" Score="1" Text="If asked properly the nutritional aspect may be suitable for biology.SE." CreationDate="2013-05-20T10:07:04.527" UserId="453" />
  <row Id="4393" PostId="934" Score="0" Text="@HighlyIrregular Sadly closed. Health beta seems to be the next most promising place now: http://health.stackexchange.com/q/1017/543" CreationDate="2015-05-19T19:26:17.197" UserId="264" />
  <row Id="1597" PostId="935" Score="1" Text="I have requested more information about this data source .. if I get them I'll update the question." CreationDate="2013-05-20T10:04:28.597" UserId="453" />
  <row Id="1599" PostId="935" Score="2" Text="Perhaps you could try and persuade the author of the study to come here and answer the question himself?" CreationDate="2013-05-20T10:49:24.633" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3460" PostId="935" Score="1" Text="The link to the pdf no longer works." CreationDate="2014-07-15T20:06:13.267" UserId="1091" />
  <row Id="4394" PostId="935" Score="0" Text="@tM Damn… And I can't find it on archive.org or such… Maybe on my old computer when I can put my hand on it again. Thanks for reporting it!" CreationDate="2015-05-19T19:33:22.423" UserId="264" />
  <row Id="8258" PostId="935" Score="0" Text="I suspect it's this: http://palmoilis.mpob.gov.my/publications/POD/pod51-erich.pdf @Stockfisch posted it as an answer to a similar question, and it covers what he describes." CreationDate="2017-03-02T02:00:18.273" UserId="4324" />
  <row Id="1648" PostId="936" Score="0" Text="Don't take this the wrong way, but recent studies have shown that the electricity used to grow cannabis in my state (Washington, USA) is approximately 1% of **all** the electricity we use.  Not all of that is for lighting, but a lot is.  If you can find a way to use natural light, that's the best solution." CreationDate="2013-05-24T03:42:44.907" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1622" PostId="945" Score="2" Text="What if I **reuse** (the word I used in the question) the plastic bottle, rather than merely recycling it?" CreationDate="2013-05-22T06:59:12.223" UserId="179" />
  <row Id="1623" PostId="945" Score="2" Text="My family has several stainless steel bottles. [This brand](http://www.ecotanka.com/ecotanka-home/) offers replacement lids, which is fantastic. Bottles we bought 2 years ago are still going strong, being used about twice a week. To help the lids last longer, I recommend buying a type that doesn't require/encourage pulling open with your teeth (it damages the plastic over time)." CreationDate="2013-05-22T09:15:04.520" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="1624" PostId="945" Score="3" Text="+1 for pointing out the importance of assumptions that commonly influence the conclusions drawn from such studies" CreationDate="2013-05-22T09:25:55.603" UserId="453" />
  <row Id="1625" PostId="945" Score="3" Text="@AndrewGrimm, this is probably more of a health issue than a sustainability one (although I guess maybe your own health is simply a more narrowly-defined sustainability issue!) ... but, check out [this link I included in my answer](http://greenliving.nationalgeographic.com/plastic-drink-bottles-safe-reuse-drinking-water-3110.html).  It addresses some problems with **reusing** plastic bottles, as opposed to disposing of them (including recycling).  You're certainly right, though, that reusing the bottles improves the sustainability of the plastic bottle." CreationDate="2013-05-22T09:39:40.753" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1627" PostId="945" Score="1" Text="To strengthen the point in your quote from the NY Times: I think for someone concerned about sustainability 500 uses is a pretty low estimate for a steel bottle. And the caps that you have to remove for each drink don't wear out easily, either. 6 years of use and abuse haven't put mine out of commission." CreationDate="2013-05-22T15:27:21.667" UserId="462" />
  <row Id="1743" PostId="945" Score="0" Text="My 2 year old stainless steel thermos bottle is still going strong after nearly daily rides to work on my bike. The cap is plastic, but shows no sign of wearing out after over 500 uses. I wore out at least one reusable plastic bike bottle over the same period after the plastic cracked near the threads." CreationDate="2013-06-06T18:03:25.443" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="2008" PostId="945" Score="0" Text="@Johnny I've had similar experiences with reusable bottles. The plastic ones don't seem to withstand regular use or being dropped on concrete nearly as well as steel." CreationDate="2013-07-09T22:50:38.007" UserId="462" />
  <row Id="3680" PostId="945" Score="0" Text="With regards to the EcoTanka water bottles, does anyone know if those replaceable lids will fit on a Kleen Kanteen water bottle?" CreationDate="2014-09-19T15:27:25.140" UserId="1704" />
  <row Id="1631" PostId="946" Score="0" Text="That's mighty encouraging to see!  Thanks for the source link." CreationDate="2013-05-22T22:14:12.987" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1658" PostId="948" Score="2" Text="I've heard that orange peel is often HEAVILY sprayed with pestisides and should not be eaten. Pesticides might also contribute to peel not composting." CreationDate="2013-05-25T23:49:21.260" UserId="41" />
  <row Id="1664" PostId="948" Score="0" Text="@jkj: Yes, in my country (Slovakia) shops there are warnings attached to all citrus shelves about the pesticides. Maybe not all the batches are treated this way, but - how do you know? I've read washing them in warm water or even boiling for 30 minutes reduces the amount of chemicals. But is this more sustainable than throwing them away? I'd like not-chemically-treated oranges the most." CreationDate="2013-05-27T08:28:46.683" UserId="60" />
  <row Id="1641" PostId="949" Score="1" Text="Isn't the peel of oranges usually treated with chemicals to protect the growing plant? Then it may have to be cleaned before .. or does boiling do it?" CreationDate="2013-05-23T08:35:52.520" UserId="453" />
  <row Id="1642" PostId="949" Score="1" Text="@boo2060 Well, best are organic oranges (or rather, untreated oranges, never mind the label). I think ordinary oranges are in fact waxed, so it would be best to wash them with soap. Soap is easily digested, so you'd be better eating a little soap (which shouldn't happen anyway, if you rinse them) than eat this wax." CreationDate="2013-05-23T10:59:54.643" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="1831" PostId="949" Score="0" Text="#33 - cook cinnamon rolls. http://www.buzzfeed.com/peggy/camping-hacks-that-are-borderline-genius" CreationDate="2013-06-13T21:31:43.830" UserId="462" />
  <row Id="1634" PostId="951" Score="1" Text="You eat orange peel straight with the orange!?" CreationDate="2013-05-23T04:01:41.153" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="1636" PostId="951" Score="0" Text="Yes why waste it?" CreationDate="2013-05-23T06:07:26.807" UserId="261" />
  <row Id="1637" PostId="951" Score="0" Text="I'm afraid that if I start eating its peel, my orange addiction will be over soon, bitter as it is. But if some people like it, its perfect!" CreationDate="2013-05-23T06:28:29.297" UserId="484" />
  <row Id="1639" PostId="953" Score="0" Text="Great answer, thanks. Out of interest, are you aware of any reason why wood could be considered too dry?" CreationDate="2013-05-23T08:29:25.723" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="1653" PostId="953" Score="2" Text="I don't think wood could be considered too dry. It will burn faster and cleaner, but if you have good control of the airflow, you should be able to control at what rate it burns. Also, depending on the climate, the wood always has some moisture content anyway and any measures to keep it below humidity (like drying it in the oven) would certainly lower the overall sustainability factor. Also, very dry wood can ignite outside of the stove, when it is stored too close to the stove, but the preventative measure of choice would be a safer storage place, not greener wood." CreationDate="2013-05-25T05:23:34.423" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="2885" PostId="953" Score="1" Text="The problem of having wood stored for too long isn't that it is &quot;too dry&quot; but that some of the burnable oils evaporate, leaving less energy in the log." CreationDate="2014-02-08T21:08:09.913" UserId="1154" />
  <row Id="4507" PostId="953" Score="0" Text="@HighlyIrregular Just for the sake of argument. If you dry too well your wood then cram it it some container, the dry wood will absorb water, expand and destroy your valuable container. It also can happen that you want to limit the heat of your fire (to avoid some chemical to occur) and adding water inside is an efficient way to do so" CreationDate="2015-06-23T19:08:24.460" UserId="1421" />
  <row Id="1652" PostId="954" Score="1" Text="That 1300 gallon number sounds a little optimistic and would rely heavily on where you live. In my area, we get practically no rain in the summer when I'd need water, and we get lots of rain in the winter when I don't really need the water, so a 55 gallon rain barrel would save me roughly 55 gallons of water." CreationDate="2013-05-25T00:47:37.950" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="1677" PostId="954" Score="0" Text="You may find the [Virginia Rainwater Harvesting Manual](http://www.dcr.virginia.gov/laws_and_regulations/documents/stmrainharv.pdf) useful.  Much of it deals with household use of collected water rather than for gardening, but it should give you some insight into the regulations and options." CreationDate="2013-05-28T20:04:21.033" UserId="455" />
  <row Id="2002" PostId="954" Score="1" Text="How much rain do you get, and when? There's a big difference between &quot;it rains about twice as much every month in the winter&quot; and &quot;it only rains for a month in the autumn, the rest of the year is dry&quot; in terms of water storage requirements." CreationDate="2013-07-09T01:46:34.763" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2052" PostId="954" Score="0" Text="Answers the secondary question &quot;Can a garden-variety rain barrel supply an adequate amount of water for 12' x 8' of raised garden beds?&quot;: http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/20/570" CreationDate="2013-07-17T15:25:58.157" UserId="570" />
  <row Id="1657" PostId="955" Score="1" Text="Hello there, and welcome. I think I can see what you're asking here. Can I just check with you that I've got it right. I think you're asking whether social websites make a net contribution to sustainability: does their contribution to social cohesion, outweigh the cost of the resources used to build and maintain those sites and the infrastructure that goes with them? Is that right? (and I don't know where you live, but maybe there are natural resources there, they just haven't been tapped yet)" CreationDate="2013-05-25T21:16:49.817" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="1661" PostId="955" Score="0" Text="Dear @EnergyNumbers, My question same as your's prediction. Basically I am from Punjab, India &amp; You are right about the natural resources haven't tapped here right now but I wonder about their role &amp; placement in future. Where one thing I feel that this social sites bring us together without any purpose so I confused Is this the better way to come &amp; bring together for some betterment &amp; meaningful towards the society. As I Think this Stackoverflow Q&amp;A sites is good way to come together with some common purpose.! Please correct me if my understanding is wrong about social sites.   Thankyou." CreationDate="2013-05-26T06:30:08.197" UserId="571" />
  <row Id="1663" PostId="955" Score="2" Text="It only depends on us and the use we make out of them. That's mainly only a tool and, as such, it almost always depends on us, about what we decide to use it for and the way we use it." CreationDate="2013-05-27T00:04:48.087" UserId="264" />
  <row Id="1669" PostId="955" Score="0" Text="@JeromeJ Thankyou for suggestion &amp; You are right it's depends upon us. But Personally I feel One thing when we have no work to do &amp; in free state then we are gonna more towards social sites(not say as always). But Is this be a fact..?" CreationDate="2013-05-27T16:19:42.413" UserId="571" />
  <row Id="1659" PostId="956" Score="3" Text="Do you have any constraints at home?  Limited yard space?  Apartment/condo?  Do you have plants / beds where you can spread the compost after it's finished?  What kind of soil do you have (clay, rich)?" CreationDate="2013-05-26T02:20:29.230" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="2576" PostId="956" Score="0" Text="If the city is driving a truck by your house regularly to pick up organic waste from your neighbors, then it's probably most efficient to let them pick up yours too since adding your compost to the truck and to their compost facility requires very little additional resources. If you're driving it to the city compost center or they are going out of their way to pick up your compost, then it's not as clear - especially if you'd have to replace the use of compost in your garden with store-bought compost or other supplies." CreationDate="2013-12-11T01:15:07.290" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="1985" PostId="957" Score="0" Text="While the well is an okay option, you still tapping into the community resource. If you live on the hill or a mountain side, you’d have to dig really deep well." CreationDate="2013-07-07T13:32:59.883" UserId="227" />
  <row Id="1989" PostId="957" Score="1" Text="@theUg I don't see it as a community resource. In rural Finland practically every household used to have a well around a hundred years ago. People didn't live close enough to each other for anything else to be practical." CreationDate="2013-07-07T19:03:42.927" UserId="41" />
  <row Id="1991" PostId="957" Score="1" Text="In the wet boreal forestland — maybe. Closer to the equator (even in temperate climates) water is increasingly becoming a scarce resource. And I have to reiterate, what if you live on the mountain slope?" CreationDate="2013-07-07T23:11:47.937" UserId="227" />
  <row Id="2584" PostId="959" Score="1" Text="I think it's worth a note that many cities already employ the vehicles to collect/distribute.  So while the vehicles may not be globally optimal adding your own load to an existing system is a minimal cost." CreationDate="2013-12-11T21:33:37.273" UserId="885" />
  <row Id="2587" PostId="961" Score="0" Text="the website is disabled" CreationDate="2013-12-12T08:50:00.337" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="2617" PostId="961" Score="0" Text="@mart I still get to the pdf. Can you check again?" CreationDate="2013-12-20T00:32:49.667" UserId="453" />
  <row Id="1665" PostId="964" Score="2" Text="Are you interested in (post-)industrial societies such as US / W.Europe; BRIC / BASIC; or the developing world? Global figures would hide the effect of industrialisation in China / India." CreationDate="2013-05-27T10:45:19.017" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="1666" PostId="964" Score="0" Text="Good point - I'm actually interested in the UK - but any individual country would be of interest..." CreationDate="2013-05-27T12:28:32.513" UserId="502" />
  <row Id="1670" PostId="964" Score="0" Text="I'm a little unclear on your wording.  Are you interested in things like pots, pans, and cars, or just *disposable* items?  It seems a bit arbitrary to only be interested in one kind of metal use, but maybe you're trying to simply **narrow** the question for the Q+A format ... maybe a separate question about metal use in longer-life items is coming?" CreationDate="2013-05-27T21:57:58.887" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1671" PostId="964" Score="2" Text="Would an average annual nation-wide metal consumption per person be the kind of figure you're looking for? There are probably accessible figures on those things." CreationDate="2013-05-27T23:42:56.253" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="1702" PostId="964" Score="1" Text="You ask about 'metal' generally, or a particular metal, for example aluminium, iron, gold?" CreationDate="2013-06-01T10:49:30.607" UserId="5" />
  <row Id="2504" PostId="964" Score="0" Text="I'd suggest you narrow this- metals are a very broad category.  If you're thinking just disposable items maybe tin and aluminum would be a good place to start?" CreationDate="2013-11-27T21:20:03.723" UserId="885" />
  <row Id="2505" PostId="964" Score="0" Text="For a single common metal, steel, there are a lot of statistics:  http://www.worldsteel.org/dms/internetDocumentList/bookshop/WSIF_2012/document/World%20Steel%20in%20Figures%202012.pdf  but you'd have to account for population growth and uses in emerging economies." CreationDate="2013-11-27T21:22:06.277" UserId="885" />
  <row Id="1673" PostId="965" Score="0" Text="They are probably fruit flies. Have you tried Hedgeballs?" CreationDate="2013-05-28T16:45:11.493" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="1674" PostId="965" Score="0" Text="Some time ago we had fruit flies, but they were thicker, had bigger eyes and also seemed a little bit larger. Those even do not show any interest for fruits. I don't know a lot about fruit flies, so I might be wrong." CreationDate="2013-05-28T17:05:59.740" UserId="484" />
  <row Id="1675" PostId="965" Score="0" Text="@Chad I had a look on that Hedge balls. I had never heard about it and it might be a solution! I'll have a look at an organic shop because otherwise I have no idea where to get them." CreationDate="2013-05-28T17:17:49.410" UserId="484" />
  <row Id="1678" PostId="965" Score="0" Text="They might be [Fungus Gnat?](http://www.entomology.umn.edu/cues/inter/inmine/Fliesf.html)" CreationDate="2013-05-28T20:34:18.360" UserId="484" />
  <row Id="1692" PostId="965" Score="1" Text="To take a step back, killing flying insects (with anything) isn't really sustainable.  If they're not spreading disease (which would impact the standard human-centric definition of *sustainability*), then let them be.  They're food for birds.  Birds also eat berries and spread seeds, and are extremely valuable.  Etc., etc.  You're certainly free to kill them if you like, but I just don't want you to think that finding a non-toxic solution is actually sustainable.  Sorry to be a buzzkill." CreationDate="2013-05-31T09:24:13.360" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1693" PostId="965" Score="1" Text="You're so right! I adore insects, and I'm always very welcoming to my insect friends and spiders are like my pets.. But there is a limit when they start to make big families on a place where I have to work and concentrate. I told them to go out, but they don't listen to me! The only solution left is a genocide! I'm sorry." CreationDate="2013-05-31T11:02:48.350" UserId="484" />
  <row Id="1983" PostId="965" Score="0" Text="@Silke I'm not entirely sure but I think the Dutch name is varenrouwmug of [paddenstoelmug](http://www.natuurenwetenschap.be/content/Publicaties/paddenstoelmug.htm)" CreationDate="2013-07-07T12:05:34.257" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="1672" PostId="967" Score="1" Text="I found when I stopped driving with the AC on here in Jakarta, I started getting about 20-30% better fuel consumption." CreationDate="2013-05-28T14:55:49.823" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="1679" PostId="967" Score="5" Text="I think that trying to save fuel **is** worth considering. This site is about using natural resources without depleting them. Fossil fuels will be depleted some time, because we keep using them, they are a limited resource and they don't regenerate as fast as we use them. Still, considering alternative fuels (e.g. ethanol), it makes sense to figure out how to use as little as possible. The point of view you take in your answer is precisely the point of view that does not fit well with this site. But, please do stick around and make additions. Just don't be surprised if you receive down votes." CreationDate="2013-05-28T21:40:56.007" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="3184" PostId="967" Score="0" Text="Even if it only loses 2-3mpg (which is probably reasonable for a modern climate-control system) that's up to a 5-10% impact on consumption, depending on the car. Seems significant to me. Of course other factors such as driving style can have greater effects, but there's no reason that one can't improve both." CreationDate="2014-04-08T07:56:57.623" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="1697" PostId="968" Score="0" Text="Are you interested in a sustainable way to make a _glaze_?" CreationDate="2013-06-01T04:26:45.750" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="1700" PostId="968" Score="0" Text="@Earthling I edited the question a bit. I'm looking for the pre-Columbian way of decorating, which -if I understand well- didn't use glaze. I searched on the internet about glaze but cannot find specifically which materials are used. Maybe, if it only uses natural materials and can be made by hand, it might be a very good solution." CreationDate="2013-06-01T07:42:45.400" UserId="484" />
  <row Id="1705" PostId="968" Score="1" Text="As far as I understand it, glazes are produced with industrially produced minerals, but glazes have been around for a long, long time and can be made from things you find in your backyard (for specific colours, you might need to go a little further). Obviously, you can just fire your pottery painted with ash/clay/soil, and part of this will melt into your cup/vase/... Sustainability-wise I see no reason to prefer one over the other. To waterproof your pottery, you would need some type of glaze (which basically gives you a layer of glass)." CreationDate="2013-06-01T13:52:16.083" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="1680" PostId="970" Score="4" Text="Thanks for the confirmation that they are gnats! And thanks for the recommendations. Now I have two problems. One: I have no terrace or anything to put my plants outside. Two: Bleach is very aggressive and I guess it might be not ideal for the environment?" CreationDate="2013-05-30T04:27:53.477" UserId="484" />
  <row Id="1681" PostId="972" Score="1" Text="Are you asking if it is sustainable to raise animals to be buried as fertilizers?" CreationDate="2013-05-30T15:32:50.370" UserId="453" />
  <row Id="1682" PostId="972" Score="7" Text="That would be mildly disturbing. I think for starters, we could focus on burying animals, which died a natural death and were not raised simply as fertilizer." CreationDate="2013-05-30T16:10:37.190" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="1687" PostId="972" Score="12" Text="The burial part sounds sustainable to me.  Take off that polyester doggie sweater, and little Fido is biodegradable.  Your other options are consuming a bunch of fossil fuels to cremate him, the utterly bizarre custom of putting the corpse in a box underground in a cemetery, where it can't be of any use to plants, or the even more bizarre solution of animal taxidermy." CreationDate="2013-05-30T21:07:24.917" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1694" PostId="972" Score="3" Text="If the dead animal is a pet, it might have got some medications or even euthanasia. The effect of this on vegetables or groundwater quality also has to be considered!" CreationDate="2013-05-31T15:47:03.137" UserId="484" />
  <row Id="1695" PostId="972" Score="0" Text="@Silke yes you are right" CreationDate="2013-05-31T16:07:02.257" UserId="471" />
  <row Id="5091" PostId="972" Score="0" Text="&quot;But after after some years the tree started bearing more fruit than before&quot; does not prove anything. There are many more factors involved. It does not make your question invalid, but it does not count as a 'pro' argument." CreationDate="2015-12-07T07:40:51.677" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="5196" PostId="972" Score="0" Text="I have always heard that the native americans would put a carp in the ground and plant corn on top of it. After reading some of the other comments it made me think about it some more and I realized this would be similar to planting in your compost bin. The result is, a dead plant. Is it sustainable to put the animal in the ground, more than likely. Is it a good idea to grow plants in it, probably not." CreationDate="2015-12-18T23:37:32.270" UserId="1851" />
  <row Id="7047" PostId="972" Score="0" Text="Where I buried my dog 6 months ago has now got alot of green plants growing from just around where the dog I laying it is very strange as there is not one other blade of grass growing on this earth?" CreationDate="2016-06-06T10:08:45.223" UserDisplayName="user3459" />
  <row Id="7048" PostId="972" Score="0" Text="I buried my dog in my plant garden (not vegetable) and not for fertilizer. 9 years later all plants around the plot turned black and died. The dog died of lyme disease." CreationDate="2015-06-25T19:10:11.340" UserDisplayName="user2343" />
  <row Id="7049" PostId="972" Score="0" Text="I buried my loved lab, then planted a bush on top of the grave. I thought my dog would fertilize the bush. The bush has been dying ever since. Its been over ten years now." CreationDate="2015-12-07T06:34:32.207" UserDisplayName="user2842" />
  <row Id="1683" PostId="974" Score="0" Text="how much power you consume per day?" CreationDate="2013-05-30T18:02:32.620" UserId="471" />
  <row Id="1684" PostId="974" Score="0" Text="It's on the low side - probably 20 KwH per day.  600 a month." CreationDate="2013-05-30T18:05:46.363" UserId="28" />
  <row Id="1685" PostId="974" Score="3" Text="Where in the world are you? And are you connected to the electricity grid? Do you want self-sufficiency on average over the year (i.e. grid exports are at least as big as grid imports), or every day of the year?" CreationDate="2013-05-30T19:35:26.320" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="1706" PostId="974" Score="0" Text="Located in Israel, and looking to detach from the grid completely." CreationDate="2013-06-01T17:53:59.383" UserId="28" />
  <row Id="4933" PostId="974" Score="0" Text="Also useful - http://euanmearns.com/how-much-battery-storage-does-a-solar-pv-system-need/" CreationDate="2015-11-05T07:50:23.170" UserId="28" />
  <row Id="1686" PostId="975" Score="5" Text="10 **peak** hours of sun in a month? That's incredibly low. Have you mistakenly compared daily production with monthly demand? But then, 10 **peak** hours of sun in a day would be way too high: somewhere in the range 3-6 is much more likely." CreationDate="2013-05-30T19:38:59.027" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="1688" PostId="975" Score="0" Text="The only issue with this setup (and it won't be an issue for everyone) is that it doesn't allow the solar panels to power the house if the grid connection fails due to safety concerns for maintenance workers. It is possible to use a setup similar to the wiring for an emergency generator, but that usually involves the addition of expensive batteries." CreationDate="2013-05-30T21:18:44.400" UserId="462" />
  <row Id="1689" PostId="975" Score="0" Text="@EnergyNumbers i just given the example let me modify it" CreationDate="2013-05-31T05:20:16.227" UserId="471" />
  <row Id="1690" PostId="975" Score="0" Text="You're still comparing **daily** sun with **monthly** demand. And tracking mounts are by no means a systems basic: most PV systems don't have them, because they're simply not worth the additional maintenance." CreationDate="2013-05-31T07:52:42.483" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="1691" PostId="975" Score="0" Text="@EnergyNumbers thanks for finding fault , oh i got it i just misunderstand i modified it, is that ok now?" CreationDate="2013-05-31T07:56:52.253" UserId="471" />
  <row Id="1707" PostId="975" Score="0" Text="This helps with the generation aspect - what about the storage aspect?" CreationDate="2013-06-01T18:03:32.877" UserId="28" />
  <row Id="1711" PostId="975" Score="0" Text="Very good answer.  Regarding the schematic that you posted - where does the battery go in this picture?  Can I just eliminate the line to the utility meter &amp; grid?" CreationDate="2013-06-02T06:40:51.593" UserId="28" />
  <row Id="1715" PostId="975" Score="0" Text="for that you should concern the solar panel service that make you understand better :)" CreationDate="2013-06-02T10:05:24.967" UserId="471" />
  <row Id="1776" PostId="975" Score="0" Text="@Laizer Yes, you can eliminate the grid connection, but in that case you will need enough storage to power your home during cloudy weather. Even with batteries you may still run out of electricity during long periods without good sunlight." CreationDate="2013-06-10T21:46:54.153" UserId="462" />
  <row Id="2086" PostId="975" Score="0" Text="The batteries connect to the inverter, if it's hybrid solar inverter. The another option is to add a battery charger (with batteries connected to it) in between PV and inverter." CreationDate="2013-07-22T07:56:12.403" UserId="60" />
  <row Id="3122" PostId="975" Score="0" Text="TKS so muvh...supremely useful info" CreationDate="2014-03-21T04:46:45.093" UserDisplayName="user1271" />
  <row Id="1709" PostId="977" Score="1" Text="Are you **only** concerned with &quot;insulation&quot;, *per se*, or are you also concerned with general ways to keep a house cool in a very hot climate?" CreationDate="2013-06-01T22:02:44.610" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1710" PostId="977" Score="0" Text="@Nate: Yes off course." CreationDate="2013-06-02T06:13:24.777" UserId="584" />
  <row Id="1696" PostId="979" Score="0" Text="Yes you are right but i means crush placed on the roof without cement, as a raw small stones." CreationDate="2013-05-31T19:06:12.373" UserId="584" />
  <row Id="1698" PostId="979" Score="0" Text="@user986789 can you explain more?" CreationDate="2013-06-01T04:41:57.640" UserId="471" />
  <row Id="1701" PostId="980" Score="0" Text="now i got it :)" CreationDate="2013-06-01T09:49:22.853" UserId="471" />
  <row Id="1748" PostId="980" Score="2" Text="In addition to what you said, it's also there to prevent the black tarpaper layer underneath from getting too hot. That's a longevity factor, but it also helps keep the building from absorbing too much heat, which increases cooling bills during warmer months. Although this isn't **why** they do it, anything that increases the *albedo* of a black roof is going to have a very beneficial effect with respect to climate change, which is fundamentally a sustainability issue." CreationDate="2013-06-07T08:33:46.383" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1703" PostId="983" Score="0" Text="yeah nice way.." CreationDate="2013-06-01T11:09:14.123" UserId="471" />
  <row Id="1796" PostId="983" Score="4" Text="That anaerobic decomposition creates substances like `botulinum toxin` doesn't convince me by itself that burying animals is unsustainable.  For one, the question gave no information about proximity to a water supply.  In general, both rock/soil and plants tend to be really good at filtering out many toxins, so it's not clear to me that a few buried animals are going to pose any noticeable health risk.  Remember, that leaving carcasses out in the open can also create pathogens, but in that case, they're not buried.  I may be wrong about this, but it would be nice to see supporting evidence." CreationDate="2013-06-12T04:17:40.507" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1763" PostId="984" Score="0" Text="Lech Thanks for your proposal. This is to be one of our Desire that These 3R approach can be implemented. But the issue arise how that can be implemented? I Think there is two parts Body &amp; Self(I) in every Human Being But need of each of part are different &amp; Basic Desire of each human is live a life with continuous happiness  Where problem occur when we want to fulfill the need of self like feelings (Respect) on the basis of things like big cars, branded cloths, beautiful house etc." CreationDate="2013-06-09T11:15:17.390" UserId="571" />
  <row Id="1713" PostId="986" Score="1" Text="Wool insulation [is available in New Zealand](http://www.greensheep.co.nz/), probably from several different manufacturers. I don't know much more though, so have made this a comment." CreationDate="2013-06-02T09:51:42.163" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="1714" PostId="986" Score="0" Text="This is another one that falls into the category of &quot;all-natural isn't necessarily very sustainable&quot;.  There simply aren't enough sheep to produce enough wool to insulate our **homes**.  Even if you happen to live in an area with a high ratio of sheep to humans, that's not scalable in any way, and if you limit your question to highly localized environments, doing almost **anything** can be considered &quot;sustainable&quot;." CreationDate="2013-06-02T10:02:55.127" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1716" PostId="986" Score="2" Text="@Nate , thank you for your response...currently the farmers are burning the wool because nobody wants to do anything better with it. I think insulating a house is far better than that ;)." CreationDate="2013-06-02T13:54:49.227" UserId="234" />
  <row Id="1904" PostId="986" Score="1" Text="@user503413, you're right, that burning it (which you didn't put in your question) is a waste.  That said, the amount of wool needed to insulate a home is enormous.  There's no possibility that such a scheme would ever scale to more than a tiny fraction of homes.  As such, it's not really sustainable.  Unfortunately, a great many on this site seem to confuse *&quot;all natural&quot;* with sustainable, which I think is a shame.  If your question was about producing insulated **jackets** with excess wool, I would feel differently, as that solution does scale." CreationDate="2013-06-25T20:42:26.243" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1982" PostId="987" Score="0" Text="Someone has invented [&quot;Spray-On&quot; Photovoltaic Windows](http://www.technologyreview.com/view/428366/spray-on-photovoltaic-windows/). No word on the drawbacks, but [this article](http://homeguides.sfgate.com/pros-cons-solar-film-home-windows-79595.html) describes some pros and cons (of solar film for home windows)." CreationDate="2013-07-07T11:56:02.620" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="2566" PostId="988" Score="0" Text="PV windows can be great in office blocks as they are a form of curtain walling, so can reduce the amount of other walling that is needed.     Having windows all round an office letting in a reduce amount of light can also control issues with glare on monitors etc.&#xA;I agree that they are not a good option for homes, for the reasons you have given." CreationDate="2013-12-10T17:16:27.407" UserId="963" />
  <row Id="1720" PostId="989" Score="0" Text="thank you for your input. Maybe you can name a couple of the commercial producers. I would highly it and it would help a lot on the completeness of the question/ answer" CreationDate="2013-06-03T07:16:21.537" UserId="234" />
  <row Id="1866" PostId="989" Score="0" Text="BIPV for windows really is fundamentally different for commercial buildings, though, which often have a very high percentage of their walls made of glass.  In that situation, you have plenty of natural light, and as you said, you may want to reduce cooling costs.  This question was about a house, which generally has relatively small windows.  In that domain, I'd agree with EnergyNumbers that there's almost no upsides, as you're absorbing useful light, and orienting your solar film at a suboptimal tilt angle (0 degrees)." CreationDate="2013-06-19T09:08:52.063" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1726" PostId="990" Score="0" Text="its not only for me .. i want to suggest some other way to wrap it in cheap" CreationDate="2013-06-03T18:04:21.437" UserId="471" />
  <row Id="1727" PostId="990" Score="2" Text="I think this is the wrong place to ask that.  The newspaper is already a waste product being repurposed.  It is likely the most sustainable and handy option.  Even if there is a cheaper option it is not likely to be handy to the vendor." CreationDate="2013-06-03T18:06:44.647" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="1728" PostId="990" Score="0" Text="thats i want to know my friend" CreationDate="2013-06-03T18:07:45.057" UserId="471" />
  <row Id="1729" PostId="990" Score="0" Text="i know newspaper are waste but they can use in such a way so that not harmful to health" CreationDate="2013-06-03T18:08:32.590" UserId="471" />
  <row Id="1730" PostId="990" Score="0" Text="@YadavChetan What's your main question? Do you want to know if using newspaper is sustainable (perhaps from a person's health point of view?) or are you mainly interested in cheap alternatives for newspaper?" CreationDate="2013-06-03T20:01:32.840" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="1731" PostId="990" Score="1" Text="I understood the question to be about alternatives for newspaper, because food wrapped in old newspapers may be bad for health, so I edited the question. I think any other question would need to be closed as being non-constructive." CreationDate="2013-06-03T20:35:54.010" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="1723" PostId="991" Score="1" Text="thank you for the comprehensive answer. Maybe you can share your thoughts regarding the best insulation product!?" CreationDate="2013-06-03T10:09:34.157" UserId="234" />
  <row Id="1724" PostId="991" Score="0" Text="You're welcome. See my follow-on question here: [How do the criteria for 'best' building insulation change depending on context?](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/992/48)" CreationDate="2013-06-03T10:56:35.987" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="1733" PostId="993" Score="0" Text="you are right ..." CreationDate="2013-06-04T08:20:48.637" UserId="471" />
  <row Id="1732" PostId="996" Score="2" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Is water from dew ponds and air wells always safe to drink or is filtering still needed?" CreationDate="2013-06-04T06:05:44.927" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="1734" PostId="997" Score="0" Text="yeah thats the nice way to use the newspaper" CreationDate="2013-06-04T08:58:43.513" UserId="471" />
  <row Id="1735" PostId="997" Score="0" Text="Using the blank sheet sounds like a good way to prevent health risks from re-used newspapers." CreationDate="2013-06-04T14:58:26.013" UserId="462" />
  <row Id="1744" PostId="997" Score="1" Text="I'm not so sure that this really addresses the risk from ink contamination -- porosity goes both ways, the grease soaks through to the inked newspaper, and components of the ink can soak back through the other direction to your food. It may reduce contact with the ink, but not eliminate it. If the ink is believed to be harmful, then I don't see this as being an effective way to eliminate the risk." CreationDate="2013-06-06T18:15:52.900" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="1745" PostId="997" Score="0" Text="@Johnny, unless you leave it wrapped for many hours, the flow of oils will be pretty much in one direction. I've never seen evidence that the ink from the newspaper has bled back into the white newsprint, let alone into the food." CreationDate="2013-06-06T19:38:16.753" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="1738" PostId="1000" Score="1" Text="We have a similar problem in New Zealand, except the cause is that glass is so cheap to purchase new that nobody can justify recycling it. I believe the latest solution is to crush it and use it as road aggregate, which seems like a big waste to me." CreationDate="2013-06-05T10:02:25.400" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="1740" PostId="1000" Score="1" Text="Using it as road aggregate reduces the amount of gravel you need to mine, but I wonder if there's enough benefit in that to justify the cost of purchasing and operating a glass crusher." CreationDate="2013-06-05T17:20:17.430" UserId="462" />
  <row Id="5363" PostId="1000" Score="0" Text="I am facing a similar situation in my rural city. We are lucky and have one of the best glass art bachelor degree programs in the state so I have a group that could use the glass as practice glass for students. However, the glass needs to be cleaned of contaminates first - that is my obsticle. I would encourage looking into the art field, and not just colleges but high schools and their sculpture departments. Right now our glass is crushed and used in the landfill for the paths to the various cells but I would love to see a better use." CreationDate="2016-01-26T02:58:15.243" UserDisplayName="user3008" />
  <row Id="5406" PostId="1000" Score="0" Text="I have tried flash heating cullet and the rapid cooling, once the heat source (LP torch) is removed, causes the molten surface to fracture. Somehow the cooling process needs to be more gradual, aka annealing or tempering. Haven't figured that out yet..." CreationDate="2016-01-30T16:44:47.700" UserId="3027" />
  <row Id="1737" PostId="1002" Score="0" Text="The last sentence isn't necessarily true: there are too many heat pumps out there operating with a SPF of 2.5 or worse." CreationDate="2013-06-05T06:31:56.380" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="1739" PostId="1002" Score="0" Text="Did some rough math and added clarification. Thanks!" CreationDate="2013-06-05T14:40:35.843" UserId="462" />
  <row Id="2448" PostId="1002" Score="0" Text="My understanding is that the performance of heat pumps plummets in very cold conditions such as those described. I wonder if a conventional heating system might be better, but combined with active ventilation and heat exchange (yes, this does then mix with the insulation question!)" CreationDate="2013-11-13T10:10:14.150" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="1741" PostId="1004" Score="3" Text="All I know about straw bale homes is that for the first few years the straw keeps fermenting, which has the function of both warming the house and keep out carcinogenic moulds (not mice, though!). I expect this effect would be different when using pressed cardboard. The fire safety regulations and building code are quite strict for straw bale homes already, so I'd imagine that many ideas copy over to cardboard bale homes." CreationDate="2013-06-05T21:48:56.423" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="1747" PostId="1004" Score="0" Text="While we're talking about cardboard, have you heard about the [cardboard cathedral](http://cardboardcathedral.org.nz/)? Serious!" CreationDate="2013-06-07T08:24:14.887" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="1750" PostId="1005" Score="0" Text="Great answer! I especially like the EPA spreadsheet." CreationDate="2013-06-07T10:45:36.890" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="1752" PostId="1005" Score="0" Text="@THelper, yes, we engineers are usually lovers of spreadsheets :)" CreationDate="2013-06-07T20:56:43.613" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1742" PostId="1006" Score="2" Text="Fun fact: dark-colored web pages with white font are actually better for reducing energy consumption in computer monitors :)" CreationDate="2013-06-06T08:31:12.563" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1805" PostId="1006" Score="2" Text="@Nate: that used to be true for all monitors, when we used CRTs. With LCDs, only those which support &quot;dynamic dimming&quot; (a minority) will actually benefit from the dark image. The others just blast the light like for a white image and then block it with the crystal matrix. They actually [consume more energy displaying a dark image](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=fact-or-fiction-black-is)." CreationDate="2013-06-12T10:41:30.417" UserId="611" />
  <row Id="1906" PostId="1006" Score="0" Text="@AndréParamés, the article you link to is from 2007. First of all, a quote from that article states *&quot;All of the scientific test data we have come across shows a slight saving on black LCD screens&quot;*. That doesn't really support the article's, or your, conclusion. The article also states that it's not just dynamic dimming, but also LED backlit LCDs or AMOLEDs, that use less power with black screens. Also, [from this 2010 article](http://www.dailytech.com/LED+Backlit+LCDs+Overtaking+CCFL+in+All+Markets/article17516.htm), LED backlit screens should already have taken over most of the market." CreationDate="2013-06-25T21:09:59.603" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="9007" PostId="1006" Score="1" Text="@Nate: This has been asked twice on Sceptic Stack Exchange: https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/4373/does-a-webpage-with-a-black-background-save-energy and (as a duplicate) https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/24087/is-there-any-proof-that-blackle-com-conserves-energy ." CreationDate="2017-11-15T12:08:03.420" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="1753" PostId="1011" Score="1" Text="This is a good answer, and your points about rare earth supplies, recycling, and the long term are excellent. However, I would still like some information not just on LEDs vs other lamps but also on LED A vs LED B if it is available." CreationDate="2013-06-07T23:10:25.160" UserId="462" />
  <row Id="1754" PostId="1011" Score="2" Text="Understood.  It's a great question, I just wanted to address *part* of it, by saying that I do think &quot;standard LEDs&quot; have sustainability benefits.  I'll see if I can dig up some more, but hopefully someone else can also chime in and answer your concern more directly." CreationDate="2013-06-07T23:16:03.367" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1760" PostId="1011" Score="0" Text="I completely agree." CreationDate="2013-06-08T19:00:15.503" UserId="462" />
  <row Id="9990" PostId="1011" Score="0" Text="It's really the blue LED's that need the rare and/or poisonous metals. The red and green LEDS (and hence: the yellow ones) are not as bad. Maybe there are situaties where we could choose to have yellow light instead of white light. Or indeed: green light." CreationDate="2018-07-30T08:11:33.550" UserId="5895" />
  <row Id="1758" PostId="1012" Score="2" Text="A single chip to build a refrigerator? Are you sure you're not better off buying some energy-efficient refrigerator and adding some solar panels to your roof? Why do you need a portable fridge? How portable really is a fridge anyway?" CreationDate="2013-06-08T17:07:07.510" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="1759" PostId="1012" Score="0" Text="Absolutely sure. A tiny refrigerator, like the commercial ones which can cool a small drink can. Sure it's only for studying purposes. Once I can make it, I guess there will no problem to extend it, right? Example: &#xA;http://dx.com/p/usb-mini-cooling-fridge-7340" CreationDate="2013-06-08T18:18:22.407" UserId="601" />
  <row Id="1761" PostId="1012" Score="3" Text="See [What's needed to set up a personal solar power system?](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/974/48) and [Estimating the cost of solar panels and return time?](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/155/48). Once you've digested those, please update your question with something more specific, to enable us to get you the awesomest answer possible." CreationDate="2013-06-08T21:11:12.530" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="2190" PostId="1012" Score="0" Text="To answer the question we'd need to know the exact part you have, and the exact panels." CreationDate="2013-08-11T22:39:27.997" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2192" PostId="1012" Score="0" Text="To clarify: you say you have a 5V peltier chip, but you link to a 13V one. If you have the chip out of one of those little USB can-coolers obviously it'll use less power (probably the 500mA USB limit @ 5V = 2.5W). Please edit to make it clear what you have. A part number off the cooler would be ideal." CreationDate="2013-08-12T23:31:02.357" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2597" PostId="1013" Score="3" Text="You're not going to like this as an &quot;answer&quot;, but the best investment is conservation... Insulation, high-efficiency lighting, etc. It generally requires much less energy to produce a simple product like insulation than to produce some exotic energy-conversion device, and the ROI is quite high. Even a fancy LED lighting system with automated controls requires less energy to produce than would be required to produce the generating capacity necessary to power it. Think of it as the difference between paying off your debt and stashing money in a savings account. Paying off the debt reduces the am" CreationDate="2013-11-23T10:04:47.383" UserId="917" />
  <row Id="2695" PostId="1013" Score="4" Text="While Dave is correct it doesn't answer the question &quot;which SOLAR technology has the highest EROEI.&quot; Dave is answering a very relevant question, &quot;What is the best energy investment?&quot;" CreationDate="2014-01-11T19:02:44.253" UserId="794" />
  <row Id="2817" PostId="1013" Score="0" Text="I'm going to suggest biomass, specifically waste biomass, unless you want to explicitly rule it out as being another indirect option. Similarly, second hand PV is likely to come out on top since the cost of acquisition is likely to be very low (and there's a lot of unused/need repair PV systems around)." CreationDate="2014-01-31T11:51:50.253" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2818" PostId="1013" Score="0" Text="The other caveat with EROEI is that if that's your only measure fission will often do very well indeed, since the problems with that are energy &quot;leakage&quot; rather than energy investment. Although you probably again count fission as indirect solar, since the power isn't coming from our current sun." CreationDate="2014-01-31T11:55:44.133" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2969" PostId="1013" Score="0" Text="Any answer to this will be very much a 'as of last Tuesday, the answer was...&quot; as the technology is in rapid flux.  In addition, I know of no sources that give an really accurate energy cost of much of anything.  You can get approximations for bulk things like concrete or aluminium, but as soon as things have more than one part, you have issues with transportation, assembly, and so on.  It's not clear to me that it's possible to get better than price as a measure, particularly since different PV production uses similar processes." CreationDate="2014-02-21T01:59:05.220" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="2999" PostId="1013" Score="0" Text="Can I recommend editing the question from solar-electric to photo-voltaic, since solar-steam and biomass-based electrical powerplants would certainly be solar-electric?  It seems to me like you are asking for very specifically photovoltaic solutions, not more general solar energy -&gt; electricity solutions." CreationDate="2014-02-27T05:44:39.047" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="3000" PostId="1013" Score="0" Text="@ChrisTravers the question as worded explicitly includes solar-steam and explicitly excludes biomass, so I didn't think there was any ambiguity there. I'll have another think about how I can make it clearer." CreationDate="2014-02-27T07:31:45.670" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="3037" PostId="1013" Score="0" Text="It will be very hard to bean drying washing outside, instead of using an electric dyer.   This &quot;generates&quot; power = to the power that the electric dyer would have used." CreationDate="2014-03-07T09:24:05.183" UserId="963" />
  <row Id="3202" PostId="1013" Score="0" Text="I can't answer the question, but PV EROEI is around 2.45 depending on the amount of sun. http://energyskeptic.com/2013/tilting-at-windmills-spains-solar-pv/" CreationDate="2014-04-11T18:29:22.710" UserId="1342" />
  <row Id="3203" PostId="1013" Score="0" Text="@Pier unfortunately, that's not a reliable site. There are reasons why things like that don't pass peer review. One give-away is this bit - &quot;Economic expenses (not shown) were converted to GWh/year energy equivalents&quot;, which is a nonsense method we've covered on this site previously. Another is the author's repeated confusion between units of power and of energy." CreationDate="2014-04-11T20:04:39.787" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="3214" PostId="1013" Score="0" Text="I know the author of the study which is mentioned in that website and I find him quite reliable. There are many mentions of Pedro Prieto's study in [many websites](http://www.todaysengineer.org/2013/Jun/book-review.asp), and you can [buy it from Amazon](http://www.amazon.com/Spains-Photovoltaic-Revolution-Investment-SpringerBriefs-ebook/dp/B00F5UDLI8/ref=la_B00E68WHN0_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1397498739&amp;sr=1-1)." CreationDate="2014-04-14T18:07:42.813" UserId="1342" />
  <row Id="3215" PostId="1013" Score="0" Text="@Pier that's nice, but the money -&gt; GWh/y conversion is still junk science." CreationDate="2014-04-14T18:11:31.743" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="3216" PostId="1013" Score="0" Text="My technical knowledge of the matter is not great. Please pass me a link where you argue why it's junk science, and I will try to get an answer from the author of the study." CreationDate="2014-04-14T18:20:36.327" UserId="1342" />
  <row Id="3217" PostId="1013" Score="0" Text="@Pier please do put it into a question, and ask away on this site; in time you'll get several answers, not just mine. If you want help in formulating the question, I'm over in [chat] often enough." CreationDate="2014-04-14T18:37:34.583" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="3218" PostId="1013" Score="0" Text="I'm not an expert, but if you are, you should read the study before dismissing it. If you take a look at the [previous link I posted](http://www.todaysengineer.org/2013/Jun/book-review.asp) they say &quot;Part IV (of the study) includes a detailed explanation of EROI methodology and how in some cases monetary units are converted to energy units in order to estimate missing energy data.&quot; So the junk science you are suggesting was only used where there was no other data. Considering the author owns a 1MW solar plant he is well aware on the techniques of calculating Solar EROEI." CreationDate="2014-04-14T19:44:15.187" UserId="1342" />
  <row Id="7004" PostId="1013" Score="0" Text="@Pier: saying &quot;you can buy the study...&quot; and &quot;you should read it before I'll accept any critique of it&quot;... maybe you should ask your friend the author to send EnergyNumbers a copy rather than trying to make a sale?" CreationDate="2016-05-27T10:08:28.670" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="7007" PostId="1013" Score="0" Text="@Mσᶎ 1) The author is not my friend 2) I only suggested to buy the study IF EnergyNumbers wanted to refute it properly" CreationDate="2016-05-27T14:40:45.340" UserId="1342" />
  <row Id="7008" PostId="1013" Score="0" Text="@Pier no need to - it's not a peer-reviewed article, so doesn't need refuting. If the author wants to be taken seriously, they'll publish their work in a serious journal after proper peer review. Until then, they're just another unsubstantiated opinion." CreationDate="2016-05-27T16:12:34.130" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="1765" PostId="1015" Score="0" Text="Hello there Hdhams, and welcome back. Questions like this tend not to work very well on Q&amp;A sites such as this, because, as it's phrased at the moment, there isn't a single definitive answer: it could only be answered by a big list. On the other hand, in their early days, many sites do seem to allow these big-list questions, with the content then getting fed into tag wikis. See the [related meta discussion](http://meta.sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/126/48)" CreationDate="2013-06-09T12:49:28.953" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="1766" PostId="1015" Score="0" Text="@EnergyNumbers Maybe we should make a resources page on meta with websites/books/etc. that can be used as a reference. (E.g. list solar panel calculation sites under &quot;solar power&quot;, etc.)" CreationDate="2013-06-09T16:18:54.983" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="1767" PostId="1015" Score="0" Text="@Earthling I guess the most suitable place is in the tag-wikis. The problem is that tag wikis tend to have a very low profile." CreationDate="2013-06-09T17:02:57.203" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="1768" PostId="1015" Score="0" Text="@EnergyNumbers But there are many tag-wikis which won't have or even need resources, so finding resources/references is harder than when all are in one meta-question (which we can link to in the FAQ). Since separate answers are linkable as well, pointing to resources on a specific topic is reasonably easy as well... The areas with the most useful resources can be voted to the top, for someone who is just looking for something to read about an arbitrary topic." CreationDate="2013-06-09T20:39:32.337" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="1769" PostId="1015" Score="0" Text="This isn't a *meta* question.  It's not about the logistics of running an eco Q+A site.  It's about sustainability documentaries.  People who want sustainability answers shouldn't have to go to meta sites.  If you look at most of the Stack Exchange sites, meta participation is really, really low (a few power users *recycling* the same opinions).  I think suppressing this kind of question is a major failing of the SE sites.  I constantly hear *&quot;this kind of question tends not to be a good fit ...&quot;*, with no support other than that assertion being repeated.  I think this is a **great** question." CreationDate="2013-06-09T21:58:28.150" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1770" PostId="1015" Score="0" Text="@Nate Well, we can certainly try and see how it goes. What we (i.e. I) don't want are questions like &quot;I want to watch a movie on sustainability, any suggestions?&quot; pouring in. A community wiki question (meta or main, one would have to see which is more suitable) would be able to collect all resources, which I personally would find more useful, but opinions may vary. In any case, the question is still open, i.e. we're all waiting for good answers to show up here." CreationDate="2013-06-09T23:06:40.793" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="1773" PostId="1015" Score="0" Text="I like survival series since they deal with the problems how to deal with the materials taken directly from nature." CreationDate="2013-06-10T16:43:59.430" UserId="5" />
  <row Id="1777" PostId="1015" Score="1" Text="@Earthling I'm willing to allow this question and see how it goes, but I do think we should change it to a community wiki question." CreationDate="2013-06-10T21:57:00.053" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="1778" PostId="1015" Score="0" Text="@Earthling, honestly, I don't think questions *pouring in* are even close to an issue at this point.  This site has very modest traffic.  Once somebody asks a question **once**, then I have no problems with future, identical questions being closed as *duplicates*.  That helps consolidate similar answers in one place.  My objection is to closing questions like this, which is what typically happens on SE sites.  I personally think the lack of **one** unambiguous answer should be irrelevant when assessing the usefulness of a question." CreationDate="2013-06-10T23:34:13.730" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1771" PostId="1016" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Proving links only is not recommended because when the link breaks that part of your answer becomes worthless. Could you please add a short summary of the info at each link and why you think they are important for the OP?" CreationDate="2013-06-10T05:45:27.037" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="1772" PostId="1016" Score="1" Text="This might become a good option in the future, but right now I see two major problems: (1) 2/3 of it have to be processed as concrete, which is not very sustainable at present, yet unlike concrete it isn't load-bearing, and (2) it costs **US$19/cubic foot**. So insulating the walls of a 400 sq ft &quot;house&quot; would require about $12,000 worth of materials. That's more than 24 times the cost of fiberglass with a comparable R-value for the same walls." CreationDate="2013-06-10T15:17:34.843" UserId="462" />
  <row Id="1780" PostId="1017" Score="0" Text="I think your requirements of *boils water* and *can't produce second degree burns* are at odds with each other.  That said, some designs certainly do have risks that other designs don't and this difference should be incorporated into any answer." CreationDate="2013-06-11T07:35:57.857" UserId="177" />
  <row Id="1781" PostId="1017" Score="0" Text="@Ladadadada The guy burnt his hand putting the pot on the cooker... So just a couple of seconds. I can't imagine what would have happened, if he got his eyes anywhere near." CreationDate="2013-06-11T10:55:16.753" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="7063" PostId="1018" Score="0" Text="Location, location, location. Many factors are involved: traffic intensity, average rain and wind, angle of the panels, height above the ground,  nearby industry,.... Do you have a specific location in mind?" CreationDate="2016-06-17T14:27:08.817" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="1822" PostId="1019" Score="0" Text="The anecdotal evidence I've heard here in Montana, USA seems to confirm this." CreationDate="2013-06-12T21:52:08.250" UserId="462" />
  <row Id="4179" PostId="1019" Score="0" Text="To add another anecdote: I just visited a roof mounted PV system (&gt;50 kW) with a very small roof pitch/slope of say 10°. The operator claimed to clean the modules each year in the springtime as the agricultural workings on the farm foul them significantly. Story 2: I am the &quot;caretaker&quot; of another PV system (18 kW) roof mounted, about 30° slope and we do not clean them on a regular basis as we do not see a significant drop in output power (so far), operational time 'bout five years now." CreationDate="2015-03-05T00:23:43.707" UserId="2072" />
  <row Id="2023" PostId="1024" Score="1" Text="This isn't really a proper answer: one situation where trackers make a lot of sense is where labour cost is low and panel cost is high. In the much of global south the &quot;cheap&quot; panels we talk about are a years cash income or more, while a simple stand made from local materials is cheap. Having the person who operates the panel (and sells, say, cellphone charging) periodically re-orient it to track the sun makes perfect sense. For larger installations having a twice-yearly adjustment between summer aspect and winter aspect can help eke out a few extra joules." CreationDate="2013-07-11T00:09:56.527" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="1827" PostId="1025" Score="0" Text="Thankyou.. for your suggestion regards the name of the  documentaries videos. You make a attempt of well detailed long list. Now Its my responsibility to see, check it out &amp; Its definately worthily to share with others in identification of problem &amp; their solution. So I give my final feedback to you after see all this. Once again Thanks for your suggestion's." CreationDate="2013-06-13T17:16:12.000" UserId="571" />
  <row Id="1782" PostId="1028" Score="4" Text="A bit of background was discussed here: [&quot;What is the most sustainable way to handle food waste…throwing food scraps into garbage or down my sink's garbage disposal?&quot;](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/a/674/117). It doesn't cite a study like you requested here, but it's a lighter treatment of the topic being discussed." CreationDate="2013-06-11T15:49:51.363" UserId="117" />
  <row Id="1794" PostId="1029" Score="0" Text="@nate - you seem to be a fellow fan of documentaries. Let me know if you think there are any that don't pertain to sustainability. I steered clear of financial, Michael Moore and War doc's although they could easily be associated with a sustainable world.  Left off Thrive but was unsure what message it leaves with, optimistic but..." CreationDate="2013-06-12T03:36:38.137" UserId="610" />
  <row Id="1795" PostId="1029" Score="0" Text="I haven't seen all of yours, but of the ones I have, I personally think they all relate.  I'm of the opinion that unsustainable financial systems **are a sustainability issue**, especially if a reasonable argument can be made that such systems inherently lead to excessive consumption.  [However, not everyone on the site agrees with me](http://meta.sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/10/is-sustainable-economy-on-topic)." CreationDate="2013-06-12T03:59:15.587" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1829" PostId="1029" Score="0" Text="@CharlieBrown Thanks for your suggestions- its to be a very long list. Its take long time to see all of these. But its always worthily. There is another request Can you suggest any one or two names from this list which you are see &amp; their impact feel about your on life &amp; also being helpful in the  approach under solution's regards the happy &amp; prosperous life to achieve." CreationDate="2013-06-13T17:40:52.980" UserId="571" />
  <row Id="1953" PostId="1029" Score="0" Text="@Hdhams each film tackles a pressing issue facing the health of our planet. Each documentary is hyperlinked to IMDB which offers a summary, review &amp; viewer rating (sometimes w/a trailer) to help one decide which may be most interesting &amp;/or important. In the U.S. fracking is an immediate threat to our lands and water supply.  It is growing at an alarming rate so Gasland to me is important. The Eleventh Hour addresses a host of environmental concerns plaguing our planet. Both Yes Men I personally enjoy but maybe not everyone's favorite. This is What Democracy Looks Like gets me fired up!" CreationDate="2013-07-03T08:57:57.223" UserId="610" />
  <row Id="1973" PostId="1029" Score="0" Text="Thank you...for your post to link the details like summary, reviews &amp; viewer rating. Recently I get the Gasland Documentary &amp; some of another from my friend which your's suggested but not to be seen yet. So now curiosity to knowing what inside these videos is build up in me.. &amp; I think Democracy not to be fired us! the understanding of peoples who are in Democracy that's fired up!! Thanks." CreationDate="2013-07-05T06:15:55.603" UserId="571" />
  <row Id="2681" PostId="1031" Score="1" Text="I wish more sellers/manufacturers would support a program like [Amazon Frustration Free](http://www.amazon.com/b/?&amp;node=5521637011) packaging. Not only does it make the goods easier to open, but the packaging is last wasteful and recyclable." CreationDate="2014-01-09T02:09:34.510" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="1783" PostId="1032" Score="0" Text="+1.  that's a nice trick.  i do the refill thing, and sometimes make a mess.  big money savings, though!" CreationDate="2013-06-11T20:38:06.663" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1785" PostId="1032" Score="1" Text="no problem.  there's plenty of us anal-retentive software developers on the site that edit as we read :)" CreationDate="2013-06-11T21:01:23.773" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1814" PostId="1034" Score="2" Text="My apologies for my error &amp; thank all for help in correcting. Here are two links of describing what I had intended to state in the question &amp; subsequent comments: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es050759g (see abstract) and http://tinyurl.com/n3lepse" CreationDate="2013-06-12T19:18:19.023" UserId="610" />
  <row Id="1825" PostId="1034" Score="0" Text="@CharlieBrown, perhaps you could append this to the question: &quot;Also, are there any sustainable and safe flame retardants I could look out for when making future purchases?&quot; although I have my doubts that one really even needs flame retardant at all if one is careful with electric blankets and smoke alarms, and doesn't smoke." CreationDate="2013-06-13T07:54:57.603" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="1838" PostId="1034" Score="0" Text="Yes, that's a really good edit, thank you!" CreationDate="2013-06-16T10:53:55.760" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="1802" PostId="1035" Score="0" Text="Also, it looks to be similar to asbestos, in that if PBDE is in place, and it's sealed, the best option is to keep it there and keep it sealed: the risk appears to be only when it leaks out from damage" CreationDate="2013-06-12T08:54:27.527" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="1806" PostId="1035" Score="0" Text="@EnergyNumbers I've heard that PBDE particles are also released by heat (televisions) and normal usage (couches and mattrasses) but I haven't been able to find any scientific backup for this." CreationDate="2013-06-12T12:29:34.687" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3586" PostId="1035" Score="0" Text="Indeed, certain types of brominated flame retardants (the commercial PentaBDE and OctaBDE products) were discontinued voluntarily by the major global producers in 2004.&#xA;You can find more information on brominated flame retardants on the website of the Bromine Science and Environmental Forum [http://www.bsef.com](http://www.bsef.com). There is also a [video on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqd1gZDNzcI) giving a basic overview of what brominated flame retardants are, how they are used and why they are important. Robert Campbell, Chairman of BSEF" CreationDate="2014-08-21T08:41:52.640" UserDisplayName="user1649" />
  <row Id="1841" PostId="1036" Score="0" Text="this seems like a tough one to get an answer for, as this is really still cutting edge R&amp;D.  would be great to see work, though." CreationDate="2013-06-16T23:58:18.047" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1844" PostId="1036" Score="1" Text="see below - are we talking seaweed cultivation in the sea, or pond/closed bioreactor on land?" CreationDate="2013-06-17T09:33:58.570" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="1845" PostId="1036" Score="0" Text="@mart done - it's at sea" CreationDate="2013-06-17T09:40:50.553" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="1900" PostId="1036" Score="0" Text="Related: [From the Sea to the Pump: Is Kelp a Viable Biofuel?](http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2013/06/from-the-beach-to-the-pump-is-kelp-a-viable-biofuel?cmpid=BioNL-Tuesday-June25-2013)" CreationDate="2013-06-25T06:48:41.147" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="1915" PostId="1036" Score="2" Text="I notice you didn't ask about things from an environmental perspective. I think it is worth a mention. You only asked if it was possible, but not sustainable." CreationDate="2013-06-27T02:13:39.160" UserId="110" />
  <row Id="1842" PostId="1039" Score="2" Text="I think the question assumes this cultivation would occur in the oceans, where water is freely available.  Note the part of the question that says *&quot;... relative to land-based biomass&quot;*.  The article you link to is pure nonsense.  It uses the tired argument that because corn-based ethanol is a bad idea, all biofuels are.  Corn-based ethanol is a side-effect of US corn subsidies.  It's probably the worst biofuel.  There are many other biofuels in mass-production that already return **significantly** more energy out than what gets put in (by humans)." CreationDate="2013-06-17T08:22:25.543" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1843" PostId="1039" Score="0" Text="The article you link to seems rather populistic and only discusses negative points. I agree that using algae to produce biomass or biofuel has downsides, but there are also good points especially when you compare it to energy from oil and coal. I think [this article](http://www.triplepundit.com/2012/04/algae-based-biofuel-pros-cons/) is much better as it has a more balanced view of the pros and cons." CreationDate="2013-06-17T09:01:52.493" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="1846" PostId="1039" Score="0" Text="My answer assumed production on land." CreationDate="2013-06-17T09:46:03.203" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="1847" PostId="1042" Score="2" Text="If you are an expert on this topic, then I find it surprising that it contains no useful information other than &quot;buy this product&quot;, which without declaring your affiliation to the linked website/company is nothing more than spam. Please revise your post to contain relevant information and declare your affiliation with the product/website you link to. Thank you." CreationDate="2013-06-18T01:02:49.480" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="1848" PostId="1042" Score="1" Text="To Earthling; if you went to my website about sea plants solutions then you would have seen a picture of me ; my background as a seaweed/macroalgae cultivator and the info you are seeking.  I decided not to add all that into my first post because I thought I'd be redundant when anyone could go there and read about it.  But for you; I have no problem doing that if that is what you need. I AM the person; Tim Visi that created that website and that IS me in that website.  And YES; I AM an expert in growing all sorts of species of macroalgae and YES; is the answer." CreationDate="2013-06-18T02:22:02.580" UserId="623" />
  <row Id="1849" PostId="1042" Score="0" Text="I am not use to such a small edit section that I just went through but what I wanted to say is that; it CAN be done and it can be done by the system I spent 8 plus years of research &amp; commercial applications.  Read up about the research the Japanese did back during 2002-2007 with NEDO &amp; Yokohama Electric company I believe; they found that if you took one metric ton of seaweed; you can collect enough kiloliters of methane from using it in an AD system; to supply electricity to 20 households. In 2009 they started to build the 1st power plant in the world to operate off seaweed." CreationDate="2013-06-18T02:31:46.567" UserId="623" />
  <row Id="1850" PostId="1042" Score="0" Text="Another thing; the system I created takes &quot;dirty water&quot;-eutrophic water and cleans it by nutrient stripping it while increasing dissolved oxygen; hence cleaning the water from effluent and watersheds. I have been trying to get funding for this but all I get are corporations; with corporation attitudes and corporation work ethics-which is an oxymoron because corporations are only interested in the bottom line and MY interests are completely different. I don't believe in how they work...I'm not going to sell out because I have seen from 1st hand accounts what corp; like to do to the environment." CreationDate="2013-06-18T02:39:19.410" UserId="623" />
  <row Id="1851" PostId="1042" Score="1" Text="Many thanks for your additions. As I understand it, the idea of the stackexchange network is to create good content *on this site*. We do get a fair amount of spam, which doesn't look much different from your post here (&quot;I got exactly what you're looking for, check out my website&quot;), whence my comment. There are details in your comments which can't be found on your website; these type of comments make your post so much more valuable to the readers." CreationDate="2013-06-18T03:27:46.737" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="1852" PostId="1042" Score="0" Text="To earthling; ok; I understand why you said what you said; it just irked me that someone thought I was spam...I'm not use to that.  I would like to add to this post and that it is; my system is a new sustainable farming technique  I have been at this for 11 yrs; it can be utilized either on land or on the water on top of a barge. I have been able to attain 35% growth rates per day and even higher.  The energy input is very low compared to microalgae.  VERY Important-1 tank can clean 1.3-million gallons of eutrophic water/yr; while growing $90,000 worth of organic certified sea vegetables." CreationDate="2013-06-18T03:46:11.887" UserId="623" />
  <row Id="1853" PostId="1042" Score="1" Text="@Seaweedguru Welcome to Sustainable Living and thank you for sharing this interesting information. Could you please add the relevant parts in your comments to your original answer (just use the edit button below it)? This way readers don't have to go through all the comments." CreationDate="2013-06-18T07:25:12.223" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="1854" PostId="1042" Score="2" Text="I think to answer the question &quot;is it possible ...&quot; It would be best to showcase one good example and explain why it's not a one-off project." CreationDate="2013-06-18T08:59:28.160" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="3049" PostId="1044" Score="1" Text="V. thapsis is one of the alternative remedies I find effective in controlling my asthma btw.  Obviously one would use different leaves for medicine than the other sorts of uses one can think of (toilet paper, lamp wicks,etc)" CreationDate="2014-03-09T08:19:07.023" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="10145" PostId="1045" Score="0" Text="Do some reading on rocket mass heaters.  They're not the wood stoves you're familiar with, nor the wood stoves discussed in the article you reference." CreationDate="2018-09-07T18:23:12.843" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="10148" PostId="1045" Score="0" Text="Agreed — it's all about the design.  Ancient, open fireplaces are terrible.  Old heaters with a single burn stage are generally poor.  Modern heaters with multiple burn stages are quite good.  Mass heaters are awesome." CreationDate="2018-09-08T07:47:01.073" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="10162" PostId="1045" Score="1" Text="@Jean-PaulCalderone Thank you, you're right.  I have deleted my comment." CreationDate="2018-09-08T21:04:20.390" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="11759" PostId="1045" Score="0" Text="You would be surprised how efficient modern chimneys got, as well as modern fireplaces. Natural gas heating also has a chimney." CreationDate="2019-11-15T15:16:49.020" UserId="8149" />
  <row Id="5093" PostId="1047" Score="0" Text="This does not seem to answer the question, which is about an open hearth rather than a wood stove." CreationDate="2015-12-08T00:06:18.590" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="1872" PostId="1049" Score="3" Text="At 0.104 US$/kWh, 13W CFLs would need to cost more than $50/bulb for $1/bulb incandescent lamps to be less expensive over long periods of time. At those prices and an average of 3 hours of use per day, the CFL is still $1/year cheaper. I did assume that advertised life expectancies were correct, but I think we all know standard 13W CFLs don't cost anywhere near $50 in the USA." CreationDate="2013-06-20T14:37:35.647" UserId="462" />
  <row Id="1873" PostId="1049" Score="1" Text="Even in Montana, the heating benefits of incandescent bulbs are minimal at best, especially if they are mounted in ceiling fixtures. In that configuration, incandescent bulbs probably provide less heat than dedicated electric heaters because the hot air near the bulbs stays near the ceiling and the heat is lost through the top of the home." CreationDate="2013-06-20T14:48:36.973" UserId="462" />
  <row Id="1874" PostId="1049" Score="2" Text="[This article](http://news.consumerreports.org/home/2012/07/save-energy-by-replacing-your-lightbulbs-and-keeping-them-clean.html) from Consumer Reports indicates that incandescent bulbs dim over time, just like fluorescent and LED lamps." CreationDate="2013-06-20T14:49:54.807" UserId="462" />
  <row Id="1875" PostId="1049" Score="1" Text="You also didn't really answer the question." CreationDate="2013-06-20T14:50:59.687" UserId="462" />
  <row Id="1878" PostId="1049" Score="0" Text="I think I have now." CreationDate="2013-06-20T21:21:42.683" UserId="303" />
  <row Id="1879" PostId="1049" Score="1" Text="From the IEEE article you linked to: &quot;Playing with the default assumptions given in the sheet, we reduced the CFL’s lifetime by 60 percent to account for frequent switching, doubled the initial price to make up for dead bulbs, deleted the assumed labor costs for changing bulbs, and increased the CFL’s wattage to give us a bit more light. The compact fluorescent won.&quot;" CreationDate="2013-06-20T22:20:15.677" UserId="462" />
  <row Id="1880" PostId="1049" Score="1" Text="That article also mentions that dimmers and recessed fixtures can reduce CFL lifespans. The question seems to be looking for information on how to avoid prematurely killing CFLs, so information on cycling effects and proper installation (see IEEE article's comments on dimmers and recessed fixtures) would be helpful in an answer. The CFL vs incandescent &quot;debate&quot; is not, especially considering how questionable the Paul Wheaton article is as a source." CreationDate="2013-06-20T22:30:56.273" UserId="462" />
  <row Id="1881" PostId="1049" Score="1" Text="@KennethCochran, *&quot;If something requires large subsidies to hide its true cost it's hard to call it sustainable.&quot;* Economics are an independent issue.  We can argue about which subsidies are any good (if any), but there is no **net** effect.  The cost to a taxpayer, for example, is income to he/she who receives the subsidy.  We can't &quot;run out of money&quot; because we heavily use subsidies.  We can, however, run out of fossil fuels, or clean air/water, if we make *environmentally* unsustainable choices.  There is a net effect there.  I'd also point out that externalities are a form of subsidy, too." CreationDate="2013-06-20T22:43:31.877" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="2150" PostId="1049" Score="0" Text="I would like to give this an upvote because I think the table of multipliers is perfect for this question, but I have to downvote simply for the Paul Wheaton material.  From his site:  *&quot;There is also some concern about whether CFLs cause cancer.&quot;*  I'm sorry.  Wheaton is a quack." CreationDate="2013-08-03T03:38:58.923" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="2172" PostId="1049" Score="0" Text="[1960](http://archderm.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=526482), [1978](http://www.pnas.org/content/75/4/1830.short), [1982](http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(82)90270-7), [1990](http://carcin.oxfordjournals.org/content/11/12/2171.short) and [2005](http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/content/65/23/11174.short) studies supporting his claim. If you are going to criticize an answer at least do so based on it's content and not preconceived notions. Wheaton is a respected software developer and his anecdotal evidence is supported by the more rigorous studies I cited." CreationDate="2013-08-05T21:18:18.547" UserId="303" />
  <row Id="1870" PostId="1051" Score="0" Text="yeah i will follow this" CreationDate="2013-06-20T09:06:30.983" UserId="471" />
  <row Id="1877" PostId="1051" Score="1" Text="As much as I love the idea of adopting a cat from a local shelter(because that is the responsible thing to do) a cat is actually going to prolong the problem because the cat will basically cull the weakest of the rats leaving more food available for the stronger which will just reproduce resulting in stronger generations in the future.  Unless you kill them all or all of the females at least this is not going to have the expected results" CreationDate="2013-06-20T18:03:40.660" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="1883" PostId="1051" Score="0" Text="@Chad You may be right. I guess it will depend on the number of rats in the first place and on how long they already live in your house. I suspect that the longer the rats are present, the less likely they are too flee elsewhere when you get a cat." CreationDate="2013-06-21T07:35:54.423" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="2207" PostId="1051" Score="0" Text="[Caveats](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/30/science/that-cuddly-kitty-of-yours-is-a-killer.html?_r=0) for the `Get a cat.` option." CreationDate="2013-08-17T17:11:24.477" UserId="322" />
  <row Id="1902" PostId="1053" Score="2" Text="They really are not.  You just have to buy them in bulk.  most of the unbleached products are sold at commercial/industrial scale rather than for home use.  Costco and Sams both sell unbleached paper towels and napkins cheaper than their more refined counterparts." CreationDate="2013-06-25T14:20:04.137" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="1920" PostId="1053" Score="2" Text="@Chad I do not disagree with you. Costco and Sams both sell office, event and janitorial type products which you describe in better terms as &quot;commercial/industrial scale&quot;.  This does not address the retail shoppers experience rather these are bought wholesale and sold in a similar fashion." CreationDate="2013-06-29T20:25:04.270" UserId="610" />
  <row Id="1898" PostId="1054" Score="1" Text="An interesting link on [why you should care about monitoring](http://www.jameskeirstead.ca/documents/Keirstead2007b.pdf), in addition to the obvious answer that you want to know if your system is broken or not." CreationDate="2013-06-23T23:05:45.440" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1893" PostId="1055" Score="0" Text="@EnergyNumbers Thanks. I was just drawing that conclusion by the comments below.  I did not draw a clear enough parallel between the paper industry and the Energy industry. Not sure if time will allow me to edit until tomorrow, in that case I'll just delete? btw besides being poorly written do you understand my point?" CreationDate="2013-06-22T19:51:56.913" UserId="610" />
  <row Id="1896" PostId="1055" Score="0" Text="No, please don't delete it: just remove all the energy stuff. And then add something to directly address the economics of unbleached paper products. You should be able to edit your own posts any time." CreationDate="2013-06-22T21:17:34.823" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="1919" PostId="1055" Score="0" Text="@EnergyNumbers for better or for worse I've rewritten my answer maintaining the big picture aspect of it while attempting to do so without the long analogy to solar policy. (I replaced it with possibly a longer answer that attempts to address the paper industry in a more direct manner lol). I'm not a PhD in economics (thank goodness) but I'm hoping it is more clear?  I'm posting as is - do to time constraints its a work in progress.  So please anyone critique away. I know my strength is not to translate my thoughts to paper under a time crunch.  I'm happy to add links to back up lists, etc." CreationDate="2013-06-29T20:01:26.057" UserId="610" />
  <row Id="1948" PostId="1055" Score="1" Text="Holy wall of text... I suggest you reformat your answer to break it up a little so that it is a bit easier to read." CreationDate="2013-07-02T13:13:29.463" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="1952" PostId="1055" Score="0" Text="@Chad lol - I know, isn't there a saying about a good writer being someone who can formulate the story(or answer) in few words? *I did admit to needing to edit it in above comment, 3rd time I hope is a charm Thanks." CreationDate="2013-07-03T08:22:17.927" UserId="610" />
  <row Id="1956" PostId="1055" Score="1" Text="I added some line breaks for you... and found that you make quite a few assertions of fact but do not provide an evidence to back them up.  I think it could be further improved with some quality links that would back up your claims." CreationDate="2013-07-03T13:18:29.880" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="1958" PostId="1055" Score="0" Text="@Chad I appreciate your edit &amp; Energy#s approval as well (looks easier on the eyes). I was going to try to make it more concise because it is daunting to read (as well as edit). Good feedback &amp; although I am unclear as to the areas of 'assertions of fact' you had in mind, I will get the ones I think you mean. If you other areas in mind please let me know. Hyperlinks for brevity sake;-) Thank you!" CreationDate="2013-07-03T19:54:51.570" UserId="610" />
  <row Id="1959" PostId="1055" Score="1" Text="For example 'In the last half of the century their profit margins have fallen considerably due to factors such as reduced viable resources and the public awareness due to investigative' This kind of claim goes better when supported by reference." CreationDate="2013-07-03T19:59:18.057" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="1960" PostId="1055" Score="1" Text="FWIW I Think if you remove the editorializing it would also lend credibility to the post.  Answers should be about the facts.  This answer appears to be more about your editorializing at first look.  That turns many people off from reading the rest of it to find any substance." CreationDate="2013-07-03T20:01:00.593" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="1964" PostId="1055" Score="0" Text="@Chad I appreciate your insight &amp; can see your point especially for those SE readers from all over the world who may not be as familiar with the history of Pacific NW and clear-cutting of the last great stand of Redwoods.  I can't claim to as much about land grabs in say Australia or Russia. I must be more aware of my answers because I may be drawing off of non-fiction historical works I don't have at my fingertips. I will look at rephrasing/omitting some of the bias sounding facts that may sound opinionated. There are topics such as sustainability that don't always have fit in a box answers." CreationDate="2013-07-03T23:23:03.120" UserId="610" />
  <row Id="1965" PostId="1055" Score="0" Text="@Chad because it can be quite a hot button in the political arena such as fracking and Keystone XL pipeline. To truly get at the root of certain questions one may need to look at from a different perspective to grasp why things are or aren't. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe this is the wrong arena, maybe I should just focus on more direct answers to the question whether they fully answer the question or not - LOL. Maybe I have to watch my ramblings.. btw I saw you were from Peoria, I'm also an IL native. Have you read Devil in the White City by Erik Larson? (Great NF telling of Chicago in 1890s)" CreationDate="2013-07-03T23:32:22.593" UserId="610" />
  <row Id="1971" PostId="1055" Score="1" Text="@CharlieBrown - Here is the thing if the facts are true they do not need a champion.  They will stand out like a sore thumb.  If you present your facts and allow them to make their own case with out injecting your opinion into the facts it reads more credibly.  You can present your conclusions at the end.  But when you inject your bias into your presentation of the facts people pick up on the faults of the bias and miss the important facts." CreationDate="2013-07-04T23:01:39.223" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="1979" PostId="1055" Score="1" Text="@CharlieBrown, so to **summarize** your answer, are you saying this: *&quot;basically, companies like 7th Gen making unbleached paper must charge more, despite bleach costing money, because they **also** incur other costs for being a responsible business&quot;*?  If so, you might add a **&quot;tl;dr&quot;** at the top saying that, and keep the rest as a supporting narrative." CreationDate="2013-07-06T09:00:18.340" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="2013" PostId="1055" Score="0" Text="@Nate I am unfamiliar with &quot;tl;dr&quot; but I imagine I agree with you - this board is always full of great suggestions. I've changed much of the body above that part, per Chad's great suggestion - trying to take out point of view or emotion. Yes, to &quot;also incur costs&quot; but not to be lost is the reasoning for incurred cost: our present model that puts no value on nature is the major cause.  For us to become sustainable our economic model must change. (i.e. so corp's don't have incentive to leave toxic Superfund sites behind.)" CreationDate="2013-07-10T05:12:34.233" UserId="610" />
  <row Id="2025" PostId="1055" Score="0" Text="@CharlieBrown, `tl;dr` is just *&quot;too long, didn't read&quot;*.  It's basically just a short summary of your post, at the top.  If people then want explanation of that, they read the rest of your post.  But, the punch line comes first." CreationDate="2013-07-11T01:26:32.683" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1885" PostId="1056" Score="1" Text="white paper feels cleaner?  That is &quot;conditioned&quot; and subjective statement.  You've grown-up &quot;conditioned&quot; to believe so maybe subconsciously.  That is like saying a bright white cotton t-shirt feels cleaner than natural tones.  Cotton is the most heavily pesticide laden crop and then to bleach it bright white that is hardly the case. That is a learned behavior. They used to tell (somewhere they surely still do) black children were filthier for having dark skin." CreationDate="2013-06-22T16:32:12.920" UserId="610" />
  <row Id="1886" PostId="1056" Score="1" Text="Chlorine bleach (sodium hypocholorite is a severe irritant that interferes w/normal development of fetus or child. It causes sever skin and eye irritation and chemical burns. Inhalation causes coughing, chest pain, emphysema, chronic and acute bronchitis. It damages liver, kidneys, blood, heart and immune and respiratory systems. If that feels cleaner to you, I prefer to avoid bleach and if I get it I make sure it is oxygen bleach an alternative to chlorine.  Unbleached means no bleach was used." CreationDate="2013-06-22T16:39:17.777" UserId="610" />
  <row Id="1887" PostId="1056" Score="2" Text="@CharlieBrown I didn't mean to say white paper feels cleaner *to me*, I'm just aware that commercials are designed to make one believe that white=clean. Obviously **adding** whatever is never going to make anything cleaner." CreationDate="2013-06-22T16:44:27.340" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="1888" PostId="1056" Score="0" Text="@CharlieBrown I think that unbleached recycled paper just means that no extra bleach has been used in the recycling process. If the fibres had never been exposed to bleach, unbleached recycled paper would be a lot darker." CreationDate="2013-06-22T16:47:50.397" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="1889" PostId="1056" Score="1" Text="So in short, is the answer economies of scale? Because where there's a supply and very little demand, that drives prices **down**, all other things being equal. So it can't just be because demand is low; there must be something else going on." CreationDate="2013-06-22T18:03:35.963" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="1891" PostId="1056" Score="0" Text="@EnergyNumbers I'm sure 100 years ago they sold bleached paper more expensive than unbleached. Now unbleached is &quot;special&quot; in that it is not the norm, just like organic food. The label alone suggests something good, so naturally it should cost more (just that it shouldn't). The production process definitely is easier without the extra step of adding bleach." CreationDate="2013-06-22T18:27:52.010" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="1892" PostId="1056" Score="0" Text="@Earthling I'm not sure if you read my answer but I believe that this is precisely the point I was attempting to make using my solar analogy. There are larger powers at play than simple logic. It is after all, much more economic to grow organic food than to genetically alter/splice genes in a lab, so that they can handle more pesticides/herbicides (which creates a myriad of problems such as superweeds, fallow earth, toxicity) all of which costs a LOT more money for farmers who if not for subsidies would be through. btw, I know non-bleached paper towels sell well at least where I am." CreationDate="2013-06-22T19:44:30.930" UserId="610" />
  <row Id="1894" PostId="1056" Score="0" Text="@Earthling as I've come to realize my answer is rather poorly constructed. I did not do a very good job in making my point. You very well may have read my answer &amp; thought wtf. I was afraid I came off condescending in my 1st sentence above." CreationDate="2013-06-22T20:07:02.440" UserId="610" />
  <row Id="1895" PostId="1056" Score="0" Text="@CharlieBrown In fact I read your answer and upvoted it, simply because I thought you made some important points, although I didn't exactly like the exposition... I don't think it needs to be deleted, but it would help everyone if you would decide to spend some more time to make your point at the same time as addressing the question (which is about paper)." CreationDate="2013-06-22T21:08:38.383" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="9322" PostId="1056" Score="0" Text="More expensive because it is harder to sell?  That is not how supply and demand works.  If there is not sufficient demand you must reduce the price to sell more product." CreationDate="2018-03-05T07:49:35.683" UserId="2914" />
  <row Id="1899" PostId="1061" Score="1" Text="This would be easier to answer if a particular application was specified (e.g. cars, trucks, trains, etc.)." CreationDate="2013-06-25T05:09:06.677" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1903" PostId="1061" Score="0" Text="Where/how is the electricity being produced? What fuel for the combustion engine (gasoline/petrol, diesel, hydrogen, bio-diesel, ethanol, etc.)? As Nate asked, what is the engine being used for? What is your definition of versatile?" CreationDate="2013-06-25T15:53:37.327" UserId="490" />
  <row Id="2024" PostId="1061" Score="1" Text="Note that better for the economy is often directly the opposite of the other factors - an engine that uses more inputs, takes more labour to operate and needs to be replaced more often benefits the economy much more immediately than the converse. This is a common efficiency trap (especially if pollution costs can be externalised)" CreationDate="2013-07-11T00:12:15.350" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="13351" PostId="1061" Score="0" Text="I don't think this question makes sense. Engines and Motors are different things. Motors convert electricity (a pre-prepared, highly processed form of energy) into motion, while Engines extract energy from raw materials and convert that into motion.&#xA;&#xA;An electric motor is most likely getting its electricity from some form of engine (either locally, or from a power plant)." CreationDate="2021-01-18T22:07:59.860" UserId="4343" />
  <row Id="15698" PostId="1061" Score="0" Text="the electric car is not an electric car it is a car with a replaced engine, an electric motor in place of an internal com. engine a real electric car would have 5 small motors, one on each wheel and one for the computers, no need for brakes, driveshaft etc. Anyone out there who is an engineer and understands how electric power works and reverse polarity will get what I am talking about." CreationDate="2022-04-14T19:29:06.300" UserId="13900" />
  <row Id="6934" PostId="1065" Score="2" Text="I am currently fighting my own war against leafcutters. I have tried using Tanglefoot around the tree (see video). I found this video on you tube and it looks promising. I have a vacation house in Costa Rica that i visit 5-6 times a year. I really hope it works, but won't know till April if it stays on. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dLyJJxbEV8" CreationDate="2014-02-15T21:38:27.563" UserDisplayName="user1184" />
  <row Id="6935" PostId="1065" Score="1" Text="@Heather Welcome to Sustainable Living! Please do tell us in April if it worked or not." CreationDate="2014-02-15T22:07:01.830" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="1901" PostId="1066" Score="1" Text="How do your solutions relate to *sustainability*?" CreationDate="2013-06-25T10:28:29.533" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="5370" PostId="1071" Score="0" Text="Didn't you confuse aquaponics with hydroponics?" CreationDate="2016-01-27T13:38:34.193" UserId="1078" />
  <row Id="5401" PostId="1071" Score="0" Text="@MarianPaździoch I do confuse as well. We seem to believe that auqua and hydro are names for water in Greek and Latin after dominating delusion in our society." CreationDate="2016-01-29T17:39:44.047" UserId="3016" />
  <row Id="5371" PostId="1073" Score="0" Text="&quot;in hot and cold climates the water that enters the tube is at the temperature you specify but can be drastically different once it reaches the other end some 50-100' away&quot; is this really an issue? most of the time you have to artificially control light/temperature of growing room anyway." CreationDate="2016-01-27T16:25:08.887" UserId="1078" />
  <row Id="6659" PostId="1073" Score="0" Text="Not in a growing room in this case." CreationDate="2016-03-30T14:18:40.923" UserId="45" />
  <row Id="1921" PostId="1075" Score="1" Text="When buying bleach (Chlorox, other brand or generic) it is important to buy oxygen bleach an alternative to chlorine usually sodium percarbonate (mixture of hydrogen peroxide &amp; washing soda). A mixture of 75% sodium percarbonate offers maximum cleaning power &amp; avoid artificial fragrances or dyes (these contain methylene chloride - a suspected carcinogen &amp; neurotoxin found in air fresherners).  Chlorine bleach is sodium hypochlorite both of the aforementioned cause the human body damage in many ways." CreationDate="2013-06-29T20:39:25.530" UserId="610" />
  <row Id="2022" PostId="1076" Score="2" Text="The extra land cost of a tracker is also a factor for most people. Roof-mounted tracking systems are rare, largely because the extra difficulty of maintenance access makes them unviable. So they get ground mounted. One tiny offsetting advantage of a tracker is that you can grow sun-sensitive veges underneath one, and they'll benefit from the partial/intermittent shading." CreationDate="2013-07-11T00:03:24.770" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="9366" PostId="1076" Score="0" Text="If a given homeowner is generally technically capable &amp; often home, maintenance for single-axis trackers can be dealt with easily: the primary reason solar installers and integrators have avoided trackers has been that the most common ***failure** modes* result in the tracker canting sideways to one or the other arc endstops, meaning that array then runs at **worst** efficacy through most of the diurnal cycle until repaired.&lt;br/&gt;&#xA;*If* the owner is observant, has the skills, and repairs the given tracker immediately, typical gains are ~ 20%; this is why more panels is a better bet for the $$." CreationDate="2018-03-13T14:51:41.927" UserId="5478" />
  <row Id="9370" PostId="1076" Score="0" Text="What about a twice yearly adjustment of racks to maximize for winter and then summer?" CreationDate="2018-03-14T00:09:11.540" UserId="5517" />
  <row Id="1923" PostId="1078" Score="0" Text="What is the motivation behind the question?  Are you interested in the long-term possibility of replacing a significant number of roads with rails, or the *marginal* efficiency of driving one more truck with special wheels on **existing** tracks?" CreationDate="2013-06-29T22:48:54.507" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1926" PostId="1078" Score="0" Text="@Nate, I guess I'm wondering why Google (or someone) isn't trying to develop car-sized automated on rails when it's likely to be so much easier than, for example, trying to develop an automated car that drives on roads (like Google is doing in California)." CreationDate="2013-06-30T05:00:58.237" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="1930" PostId="1078" Score="0" Text="My understanding is that their autonomous car project is aiming to facilitate technology that will allow *normal* cars on *normal* roads to drive without user intervention ... which would save massive amounts of fuel, reduce traffic, and reduce accidents, if it's done correctly.  And, also artificial intelligence is cool, and Google probably sees it as good publicity.  Sadly, trains are not perceived as being cool, or &quot;high-tech&quot; in the US :(" CreationDate="2013-06-30T05:58:06.290" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1947" PostId="1078" Score="1" Text="@Nate - I think it is more that cars are much more convenient than trains that run late on limited schedules and are often no station is in short walking distance of our destination.  It is not a coolness factor." CreationDate="2013-07-02T13:07:25.107" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="1917" PostId="1079" Score="1" Text="I'm sure you're correct that measuring the flow rate would provide a result, but to measure the flow rate I'd need to mess around with the plumbing of the system. This is something I definitely don't want to do; it would end in an expensive plumbing bill probably!" CreationDate="2013-06-29T06:41:57.017" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="1918" PostId="1079" Score="0" Text="It's the only sensible way to do it, and it really needn't be expensive. More details later." CreationDate="2013-06-29T06:52:14.953" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="1922" PostId="1079" Score="0" Text="Do you have an idea of how expensive these devices are?  I don't see prices on any of the websites that sell them (which usually means they're expensive)." CreationDate="2013-06-29T22:44:06.497" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="2095" PostId="1079" Score="0" Text="You don't need a flow detector at all. Just measure the time when water pump is on - it's certainly a constant speed. There should be a wire controlling the pump (or the switching relay) you can connect to. Then multiply the time with the speed (measured, estimated, or taken from the manual of the pump)." CreationDate="2013-07-23T08:02:28.237" UserId="60" />
  <row Id="2182" PostId="1079" Score="1" Text="heating pumps are usually centrifugal pumps, flow rate is dependent on pressure differential in the pipe after the pump (which is in turn dependent on flow ...), to do as Peter Ivan said you'd need to measure the pressure before and after the pump and match that to the pump curve that is hopefully supplied with the manual. I strongly suggest a flowmeter." CreationDate="2013-08-07T09:04:43.097" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="1927" PostId="1080" Score="0" Text="I hadn't thought of metering the fridge's usage and subtracting it; that's a great idea!" CreationDate="2013-06-30T05:08:16.407" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="1928" PostId="1080" Score="1" Text="Nate, it would worthwhile posting your instructions for measuring energy usage of a shower as a separate question and answer; it doesn't appear to be anywhere on the site yet!" CreationDate="2013-06-30T05:13:54.617" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="1929" PostId="1080" Score="0" Text="@HighlyIrregular, yeah I think measuring the shower by itself will probably be the most accurate measurement, as flow rate is easier to measure than with other water-consuming appliances." CreationDate="2013-06-30T05:52:36.637" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="2543" PostId="1081" Score="2" Text="As far as efficiency it's worth noting that energy production from power plants (coal may be only 33%), and energy transfer and/or storage is not 100% efficiency, so the total efficiency of fuel to power is lower than that of just electricity &gt; motor &gt; work.  But you're right- electric generation has potential to improve that much more than combustion." CreationDate="2013-12-04T10:20:05.157" UserId="885" />
  <row Id="4012" PostId="1081" Score="0" Text="ICEs have no more than 22% efficiency. Read more about the [Otto Cycle](http://web.mit.edu/16.unified/www/FALL/thermodynamics/notes/node26.html) (bear in mind they discuss the _Ideal_ cycle)" CreationDate="2015-01-30T01:40:53.793" UserId="69" />
  <row Id="1939" PostId="1082" Score="1" Text="can you include a picture/schematic that shows the bends you are mentioning?" CreationDate="2013-07-01T08:38:46.527" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="1940" PostId="1082" Score="0" Text="Also, when skimming the pics. in the rich soil article, I did not see any way to add secondary air. Are you sure this is a well thought design and are you sure the issue you mention is actually adressed?" CreationDate="2013-07-01T08:48:15.287" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="4976" PostId="1083" Score="0" Text="I have a Nissan Leaf because it is the most cost effective option for me. EVs have an economic advantage no matter the country. If Saudi Arabia started using EVs and burned oil at the power plant, it would allow them to sell more oil on the global market, meaning they still make more economic sense. Only the Leaf has had battery degredation due to tempature extremes, that is due to the lack of a thermal management system. It is also worth noting that most noise above 15-20MPH is from the tires (in new cars, anyway). In the parking lot, an EV might be quite, but people are always walking there." CreationDate="2015-11-16T02:42:42.280" UserDisplayName="user2433" />
  <row Id="3391" PostId="1084" Score="0" Text="Given the current UK generation mix, wouldn't a switch from gas to electric storage heating increase the heating's carbon footprint, and probably its cost?" CreationDate="2014-06-13T10:36:15.367" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="3394" PostId="1084" Score="0" Text="@SimonW . Good question, and the answer is too short to post as a comment: please do post it as a question in its own right." CreationDate="2014-06-13T19:37:22.700" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="3409" PostId="1084" Score="0" Text="done :-) 123456" CreationDate="2014-06-21T07:35:17.427" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="1942" PostId="1085" Score="0" Text="Welcome, and thanks for this. Do you have a secondary source - perhaps one that specifically addresses the question of steel-on-rail vs rubber-on-road friction? I've found that MacKay's book is unreliable in many places." CreationDate="2013-07-02T03:18:37.053" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="1949" PostId="1085" Score="1" Text="According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_resistance#Rolling_resistance_coefficient, the railroad wheels have a coefficient of rolling resistance of 0.0010 to 0.0024; while car tires on concrete get 0.010 to 0.015. The resistive force is proportional to this coefficient, and various websites list rolling resistance as about 5% of the energy loss in on-road vehicles, so by my calculations, this aspect of running a truck on rails rather than on the road might save you 4-5%." CreationDate="2013-07-02T15:00:31.570" UserId="645" />
  <row Id="1950" PostId="1085" Score="0" Text="Good stuff - could you add that to the answer - you should be able to edit it straight in" CreationDate="2013-07-02T20:20:48.887" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="1946" PostId="1086" Score="0" Text="Thanks Paul - I'll add in more info here if I get it from that phonecall" CreationDate="2013-07-02T11:41:00.603" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="2417" PostId="1086" Score="1" Text="Delighted to see somebody from Ecotricity on here!" CreationDate="2013-11-06T13:50:32.097" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="2029" PostId="1087" Score="0" Text="Just adding some info to what JB said, Rocket Mass heaters raise the combustion temperature higher than a regular fireplace causing greater separation of volatile compounds (more fuel actually burns).  Additionally, most increase the air/fuel ratio lean of stoichiometric significantly reducing particulate condensation.  The result is a, &quot;rocket mass heater will produce a tiny fraction of the buildup of a conventional woodstove&quot;." CreationDate="2013-07-12T17:10:38.430" UserId="212" />
  <row Id="1945" PostId="1088" Score="1" Text="While this is borderline OK on Chem (borderline because it's not really asking anything conceptual in chemistry terms), I'll migrate this to [sustainability.se] as it seems to be a better platform for this question." CreationDate="2013-07-02T03:47:45.787" UserId="132" />
  <row Id="1968" PostId="1088" Score="0" Text="Note to self or others answering: see Jacobson on urban dome effect for CO2" CreationDate="2013-07-04T09:19:19.233" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="1969" PostId="1088" Score="0" Text="@EnergyNumbers, the small amount of research I've done seems to show that the most comprehensive (free) collection of data that addresses this question (at least the CO2 part) is found at co2science.org, run by the Drs Idso.  While they publish lots of conclusions about CO2 levels, and climate change, that I find bogus, it's not clear to me that the **data** on their site, most of which was collected by other scientists, is invalid, or has been massaged in any way.  But, I'm not in academia either.  Do you have an opinion on this?" CreationDate="2013-07-04T21:50:44.487" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1976" PostId="1088" Score="1" Text="@Nate IMO: Not a reliable source, and not a trustworthy conveyer of data; if it's referenced, then go to the original source. If it's not, then ignore it. So either way, no need to cite cranks." CreationDate="2013-07-05T11:08:16.373" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="2044" PostId="1088" Score="0" Text="http://acrobotic.com/smart-citizen might be worth watching, it's an attempt to get this data in an open-source way. Cheap compared to the alternatives, and the dataset should start being useful by the end of the year." CreationDate="2013-07-14T22:42:10.587" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="1951" PostId="1091" Score="2" Text="I believe this would be on-topic at gardening.stackexchange.com but probably here also..." CreationDate="2013-07-03T07:11:25.153" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="1954" PostId="1091" Score="0" Text="Wow you're sure they are foxes? I don't doubt you but they are notoriously crafty and seldom seen.  Interested to see answers because I'm curious as to why they choose your sparsely planted beds (for bedding?)." CreationDate="2013-07-03T09:17:52.877" UserId="610" />
  <row Id="1957" PostId="1091" Score="0" Text="I am fairly sure about the fox diagnosis. There is a fox family just a couple doors down, the holes were too big for cats, and I saw foxes nearby on one of the mornings I discovered damage. This is also a gardening question. On the sustainable side, I would prefer not to have to buy anything." CreationDate="2013-07-03T14:07:15.087" UserId="645" />
  <row Id="1961" PostId="1091" Score="2" Text="Foxes are really good at locating and finding small rodents like ground squirrels, moles, and the like.  I would suspect that if the foxes are digging in your garden they are going after them.  I recommend the documentary on gopher eradication &quot;Caddyshack&quot;...  I know the methods there are not terribly sustainable but its really funny.  Seriously though get the gophers out of your garden the foxes will probably leave too." CreationDate="2013-07-03T20:06:33.517" UserDisplayName="user141" />
  <row Id="2027" PostId="1091" Score="0" Text="I would love to have foxes and deer in my garden, instead of ants and slugs." CreationDate="2013-07-11T10:30:36.340" UserId="206" />
  <row Id="1967" PostId="1093" Score="4" Text="In general we discourage answers that are predominantly links to other resources. Such links are useful; and we're also trying to build a body of content here. So for this answer to fit within the site's scope, it needs some information from the link's destination that directly addresses the question, [providing context for links](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/help/how-to-answer)." CreationDate="2013-07-04T06:50:48.683" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="2409" PostId="1093" Score="0" Text="I've just done some searching on that database, and unfortunately it doesn't appear to have any entries for any lighting technologies." CreationDate="2013-11-05T11:47:04.007" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="2035" PostId="1094" Score="0" Text="Thank you so much! Would it be OK if I leave the answer open so that other people can post other gasses, besides the ones mentioned?" CreationDate="2013-07-13T06:16:11.177" UserId="648" />
  <row Id="2036" PostId="1094" Score="0" Text="@stackOverFlew, yes, absolutely.  I planned on coming back tomorrow and expanding on my answer as well.  I have some more sources that address your answer more directly than what I've already written.  But, certainly, feel free to wait until you get a more complete answer before accepting." CreationDate="2013-07-13T08:08:31.140" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="1974" PostId="1095" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living? With &quot;best way to filter&quot;, are you asking which solution is the most sustainable, the most cost-effective, or the most effective in filtering (will provide the clearest water)?" CreationDate="2013-07-05T07:35:33.833" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="1975" PostId="1095" Score="0" Text="Well for the moment I am pretty sure that the &quot;recycling company&quot; in dumping that &quot;paint&quot; water somewhere... If I had solid or semi-dry residues it would be easier to recycle in appropriate trash. Trying to find the most effective way to have a fairly clear water, in the DIY way. The filtering does not have to be fast. I could run the filtering at night time. Also are sand-based filter effective for water with paint (to make the water clearer) ? &#xA;While using sand-based filter, anyone tried it with very dirty water ? How often the sand has to be changed. Would coil be a better alternative ?" CreationDate="2013-07-05T08:13:40.557" UserId="649" />
  <row Id="1980" PostId="1095" Score="0" Text="I don't quite understand the motivation for filtering the water. Why do you want it to be clear, but don't care whether it's close to potable? Do you just not trust your recycling company? Do you actually need the water, or do you just want to reduce the size of your waste to some dry bits of paint? Is there no way to evaporate the water instead?" CreationDate="2013-07-07T02:30:42.547" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="1987" PostId="1095" Score="0" Text="When the water looks clear, there is no need to change that often the water for the paint booth, therefore cheaper (no need to be potable). Filtering, Evaporation, I am here to get some point of views, but I think evaporation of 2 cubic meter of water needs lots of power gas/electric. Basic filtering with few drums and sand could be easier. Having dry bits of paint is also easier to recycle." CreationDate="2013-07-07T15:12:14.893" UserId="649" />
  <row Id="2003" PostId="1095" Score="1" Text="There is a way of evaporating without power, but it'll take some space (and sun) and some up-front investment. A simple, single-layer solar still can distil around 6 litres/day. More intricate designs are much better." CreationDate="2013-07-09T02:41:01.037" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="2105" PostId="1095" Score="0" Text="Thanks so much for coming back and reporting your results - that's really important. Of course, I'm a bit sad that my idea didn't work but at least now we know :) I prefer the open systems just because it's easier to see what is going on, but you may find that you have to change the sand more often. Either way, have you thought about back-flushing them to prolong the life of the sand? If you can, obviously, the top one is best because you only need one pump (or you could run two pumps in parallel so if one fails you still get some filtration." CreationDate="2013-07-24T04:29:00.863" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2108" PostId="1095" Score="0" Text="Yeah but stop one si fairly slow. So the pump has to stop sometimes... Your solution would have been the best one, just scraping off the sludge, unfortunately, does not work in my case :/" CreationDate="2013-07-24T08:21:27.247" UserId="649" />
  <row Id="6635" PostId="1095" Score="0" Text="How about keeping the water absolutely still (non-moving) in some container (for a longer period of time)? I do this with turpentine residu in which paint brushes (non-water based paint) have been cleaned. After leaving them for 1-2 months all residue has sunk to the bottom of container 1 and I pour the (very lightly colored) turpentine into container 2 for re-use. No filtering required." CreationDate="2016-03-23T11:27:17.317" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="1977" PostId="1096" Score="0" Text="pointer for potential answerers: The Swiss WIR is probably the oldest, and most likely to have been studied." CreationDate="2013-07-05T16:29:54.310" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="1978" PostId="1096" Score="4" Text="This isn't an **answer** to the question, but it is important to note that minimizing *food miles* isn't always the best sustainability choice, when picking your foods.  [Source](http://psufoodscience.typepad.com/psu_food_science/files/es702969f.pdf).  It would be, of course, if all else was held equal, but all else normally isn't." CreationDate="2013-07-05T21:51:05.783" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="2010" PostId="1096" Score="1" Text="I'm not sure why you think the fact that the WIR is national and B2B means that it is not really of interest to sustainable living: businesses would seem to be a pretty inevitable part of sustainability, except for those deepest greens who look forward to a return to neanderthal cave life." CreationDate="2013-07-09T23:29:46.180" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="2016" PostId="1096" Score="0" Text="@Nicholas I am sorry, I was told that the post was not good enough.  But here are the links - http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800912004259&#xA;http://www.3s.uea.ac.uk/sites/default/files/3S%20WP%202012-10%20Seyfang%20Longhurst_0.pdf&#xA;http://www.guardian.co.uk/sustainable-business/can-local-currencies-advance-global-sustainability" CreationDate="2013-07-10T07:35:15.977" UserDisplayName="user655" />
  <row Id="2017" PostId="1096" Score="0" Text="@Nicholas and to be complete the links you mentioned yourself were http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=related:i-BLHjuf7SsJ:scholar.google.com/&amp;hl=en&amp;as_sdt=0,5 http://www.citeulike.org/group/15407 and http://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=3165361189371502731&amp;as_sdt=2005&amp;sciodt=0,5&amp;hl=en" CreationDate="2013-07-10T08:07:19.823" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="2019" PostId="1096" Score="1" Text="@user655 I think your answer (that you've deleted yourself) was okay. EnergyNumbers merely offered some advice to make it more valuable (in case the links go dead)." CreationDate="2013-07-10T11:45:14.567" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="2061" PostId="1096" Score="0" Text="This is not an alternative currency but a reward incentive system to shop at locally owned and operated businesses [Go Local Sonoma County](http://sonomacounty.golocal.coop/) which helps the community in many ways. I learned from this program that if you buy gas at &quot;Carl's Gas&quot; a locally owned and operated gas station your tax dollars stay in the county vs. if you get gas at Exxon, Shell, BP, etc." CreationDate="2013-07-18T15:08:25.790" UserId="610" />
  <row Id="2062" PostId="1096" Score="1" Text="@CharlieBrown Carl likely pays for his oil to be shipped from arabia anyway - some leakage is inevitable, but if Carl bought it from Fred the Fracker's backyard well, then we'd be making progress!" CreationDate="2013-07-18T15:26:50.337" UserId="206" />
  <row Id="2063" PostId="1096" Score="2" Text="@Nicholas I'm afraid Carl gets his fuel from Chevron or some other huge operation.  However, tax $s stay in the community rather than who knows where. That was 1 surprising thing I learned. It rewards people to use local over multinational corporations so they have incentive to buy their latte at the 'coffee hut' rather than Starbucks, etc.! (this may very well have similar tax advantages as well)." CreationDate="2013-07-18T15:34:40.933" UserId="610" />
  <row Id="2064" PostId="1096" Score="0" Text="@Nicholas It's an interesting question. I just read an article on alternative tangible currencies &amp; it makes sense from what I had read. I don't know if such currencies exist in the States." CreationDate="2013-07-18T15:41:07.647" UserId="610" />
  <row Id="2068" PostId="1096" Score="1" Text="@CharlieBrown http://www.complementarycurrency.org/ccDatabase/les_public.html click &quot;North America&quot; on the left" CreationDate="2013-07-19T07:45:46.270" UserId="206" />
  <row Id="3449" PostId="1096" Score="0" Text="Btw. if the goal would only be driving down the food-miles and localizing the economy it might be easier to just enable some policies or for people to use the normal money but pay special attention what they buy with it and where they invest it." CreationDate="2014-07-09T19:19:35.130" UserId="1496" />
  <row Id="1993" PostId="1113" Score="0" Text="I know usually people use charcoal since it has much more &quot;filtering&quot; capacity due to its nano-holes, which catches easily various molecules. Since I am not interested in a bacteria-free water or even removing chimicals (recycling company will do it), do I still need charcoal or regular coal would do ?&#xA;&#xA;I am planning to conduct an experiment this week. With proper measurements, I will be able to share my results with you." CreationDate="2013-07-08T07:39:40.967" UserId="649" />
  <row Id="1994" PostId="1113" Score="0" Text="You probably need charcoal, maybe try both?" CreationDate="2013-07-08T07:48:18.757" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="1995" PostId="1114" Score="1" Text="Note for answerers: there have been a series of PhD students at Cambridge University studying lifting ink off paper, so that the paper can be reused (Tom Counsell and others - have a look in Google Scholar for papers by Tom, and papers that cite his papers)" CreationDate="2013-07-08T12:40:53.483" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="2000" PostId="1115" Score="1" Text="I thought most modern inks were soy-based and not so toxic as those used a few decades ago. Do you have any reliable information or links you can share on that? I'd be interested in learning more. Thanks!" CreationDate="2013-07-08T22:30:43.187" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="2001" PostId="1115" Score="0" Text="Most? Not sure if there are any numbers, but I guess since the OP is considering recycling paper he printed himself, it'd be enough to find out what his ink/toner manufacturer uses..." CreationDate="2013-07-08T23:26:51.173" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="2006" PostId="1115" Score="2" Text="Before recycling used paper, it may be helpful to reuse it for folded-paper airflow-dependent anti-gravity devices. These simple creations increase your sustainability primarily by relieving stress and are often referred to as &quot;paper airplanes&quot; ;)" CreationDate="2013-07-09T21:47:12.777" UserId="462" />
  <row Id="2007" PostId="1115" Score="2" Text="On a more serious note, [this fact sheet](http://www.pneac.org/sheets/litho/inks.cfm) from the Printers' National Environmental Assistance Center indicates that while soy inks are generally more recycling-friendly than petroleum-based inks, they still often contain petroleum products and other potentially harmful chemicals. Interestingly enough, a few decades ago soy inks were actually very popular due to the oil crisis of the 1970s but lost that popularity for various practical and economic reasons." CreationDate="2013-07-09T21:54:02.633" UserId="462" />
  <row Id="2018" PostId="1116" Score="0" Text="It sounds good to me. I tryed this afternoon with a 5 gallons tank. I had some mesh wire and two layer of clothes. The &quot;dirty water&quot; went right through it, its very liquid. Tomorrow I ll try with more layer, sand, and activated carbon. I will update my first question with the results." CreationDate="2013-07-10T09:23:54.547" UserId="649" />
  <row Id="2020" PostId="1116" Score="0" Text="Thanks for letting us know how you are going. It sounds as though your paint contains very fine particles, so you might need it to move very slowly though the filter, and it will probably take a long time to settle out. I wonder if keeping everything slow and using horizontal layers of filter material, with the inlet at the bottom might work better. Difficult to test on a small scale - maybe get a 20 litre square container with a tap outlet at the bottom, cut the top off and use that for the test?" CreationDate="2013-07-10T21:44:13.003" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2021" PostId="1116" Score="0" Text="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filtration suggests that removing fine material really needs a sand filter, and you'll end up disposing of the sand... so that approach means you end up with more waste rather than less." CreationDate="2013-07-10T21:45:13.380" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2026" PostId="1116" Score="1" Text="Moz&gt; Sure i ll have to dispose the sand. But if I can clean 2 cubic meter of water with less than 2000kg of sand, I am already getting money ;) &#xA;And if I can reuse the sand for another filtering after, I am saving even more money and making much less disposal (just more concentrated)." CreationDate="2013-07-11T02:38:15.373" UserId="649" />
  <row Id="2059" PostId="1119" Score="4" Text="I totally agree with your answer. Plus pens that are refillable are often metal rather than plastic and write better.  If &quot;conventional models&quot; means the largest selling pens i.e. disposables like Bic or Papermate I think that a biodegradable pen does help over these. Having done quite a few beach cleanups the predominant trash that washes up are plastics - LOTS of straws and plastic pens. The green pens aren't 100% sustainable but biodegradable would help in saving lives of aquatic species that ingest the plastic. FYI don't leave the &quot;green&quot; pen in a hot car." CreationDate="2013-07-18T14:51:17.927" UserId="610" />
  <row Id="2028" PostId="1120" Score="3" Text="If you add the 'gardening' tag to your question then it will automatically appear in the Gardening SE chat room and perhaps you'll get some answers from the people there as well." CreationDate="2013-07-12T07:34:28.557" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="2034" PostId="1122" Score="0" Text="My old apartment had central hot-water radiators controlled by a valve at the radiator, so no chance of installing a new thermostat. My current apartment lease specifically prohibits any electrical changes to the apartment, so swapping out a thermostat could put me in violation of my lease." CreationDate="2013-07-12T23:05:38.503" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="2038" PostId="1122" Score="0" Text="@Benjamin, Turning off your heat is a nice thought, but you understand that such a strategy works in an apartment because you have other tenants' apartments on all sides that you are drawing heat from?  Essentially, you are increasing their heating/cooling energy consumption, to save your own.  If this was simply about saving money, that would be a valid (albeit selfish) strategy.  In the spirit of sustainability, however, it's mostly a cheap trick." CreationDate="2013-07-13T08:17:57.300" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="2042" PostId="1122" Score="0" Text="Nate, you are right that the heat exchange surfaces that are walls between apartments, floors and ceiling help do that. But what Benjamin is mostly saying is to properly operate shades and curtains, which is by itself a great idea.&#xA;About the thermostat replacement, I wouldn't call that &quot;electrical work&quot; since you won't be messing with what behind the gypsum, just swapping the Tsats. That is especially true if your Tstat is on 24V." CreationDate="2013-07-14T22:19:33.270" UserId="671" />
  <row Id="2051" PostId="1122" Score="0" Text="@JulienMarrec, I wasn't responding to what Benjamin was *mostly* saying.  I was responding to his suggestion to turn the heat/AC off.  The does **not** work (in Colorado, with temps below freezing) because he properly manages his windows (although that can help).  It works primarily because he's leeching heat from his neighboors, whose heating bills he's increasing by contributing nothing to the cause of keeping the building warm." CreationDate="2013-07-17T11:08:37.847" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="2560" PostId="1122" Score="0" Text="@Nate: This has been a while - yes I agree with you that what I was suggesting could be taking advantage of neightbors, but not always.  In certain cases (like my old apartment where the exterior conduction is several times greater than to other apartments) your point isn't always valid - and I had done energy models in the past to prove it and played at home with an IR camera.  I'm not arguing with you, because most often you're right, but in certain cases the proper management of solar loads (and being OK with temperatures down to 60 or less) and other things can really offset most heating." CreationDate="2013-12-09T03:52:21.370" UserId="56" />
  <row Id="2030" PostId="1123" Score="1" Text="Could you elaborate on the situations shown in your Google search? The more information the better (within reason, of course)." CreationDate="2013-07-12T20:35:44.787" UserId="462" />
  <row Id="2032" PostId="1123" Score="0" Text="The examples are listed in the article I linked to. A google search of &quot;crushed glass construction&quot; would reveal newer examples of emerging practices. The main ones being to use as bedding in place of sand, aggregate in place of sand, and in plaster for decorative shine. The advantages of glass mentioned are that it is durable, strong, easy to place, and easy to compact." CreationDate="2013-07-12T22:57:41.143" UserId="664" />
  <row Id="2041" PostId="1123" Score="0" Text="So reuse rather than recycling. Which is generally better, even though it's not what was asked. Too many people have it backwards in theirs heads - they think recycling is best, then reuse. The three R's - reduce, reuse, recycle... in that order." CreationDate="2013-07-14T22:18:57.880" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2045" PostId="1123" Score="1" Text="I've edited the title to clarify that reasonably large-scale reuse or recycling are acceptable answers." CreationDate="2013-07-15T15:36:12.203" UserId="462" />
  <row Id="2046" PostId="1123" Score="0" Text="@RachelWilliams Right. Any information on economic advantages? Many rural areas are already resistant to change, especially if that change increases costs." CreationDate="2013-07-15T15:39:48.640" UserId="462" />
  <row Id="2039" PostId="1124" Score="1" Text="I had found the blog post you linked to before, which is why I decided to post here. Leaf cutter ants can't really be poisoned, because they only eat home-grown fungus (and they cut the leaves to feed the fungus). Ordinary pest control is pretty effective, as it makes the fungus disintegrate. I sprayed about 10 ants and the colony seems to have died. I feel a little guilty and would like to find an alternative solution. The book &quot;Amaranth to Zai Holes&quot; is available as PDF online and does look interesting, but does not contain a single sentence about ants..." CreationDate="2013-07-14T01:43:46.730" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="2050" PostId="1126" Score="2" Text="+1.  Probably not what the question's asker was looking for, but if you're interested in being energy efficient for environmental reasons (as opposed to simply saving yourself money), then it's just as important to help others save energy.  That's the whole point of this site, right? :)" CreationDate="2013-07-17T11:02:27.457" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="2047" PostId="1128" Score="2" Text="Perhaps it will be too theoretical for you, but I just read that my alma mater is going to start a [free online course on Solar Energy on EdX.org](https://www.edx.org/course/delft-university-technology/et3034tux/solar-energy/770). The course description says *You will learn about the advantages, limitations and challenges of different solar cell technologies.... show you how to design a complete solar system for any particular application*. The course starts september 16th and anyone (with basic understanding of physics and mathematics) can follow it online." CreationDate="2013-07-17T07:52:18.383" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="2048" PostId="1128" Score="1" Text="@THelper, thanks for the link. That course is on photovoltaic technology, whereas this question is asking about specifically about thermal solar technology. Maybe though in a few years I'll be able to afford some PV panels at which point the course information will be of interest!" CreationDate="2013-07-17T08:51:35.340" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="2049" PostId="1128" Score="0" Text="great question." CreationDate="2013-07-17T09:08:44.423" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="2058" PostId="1129" Score="1" Text="I had little knowledge of rain gardens, so thanks for the informative question (&amp; links). I know there are a lot larger rain barrels than 55 gallon. For instance in Bellingham, WA it is common to see 150 gallon attractive form fitting rain barrels resembling a shed on at least 2 corners of a house. I've linked [Bellingham's Guide to Rain Barrels.pdf](http://www.lakewhatcomarchive.whatcomcounty.org/documents/rain-barrell-maintenance-safety.pdf) as it has a number of great linked resources on the last page. Harvest h2o is great &amp; those below it may be more applicable to areas outside of WA." CreationDate="2013-07-18T14:18:16.240" UserId="610" />
  <row Id="3322" PostId="1129" Score="0" Text="The &quot;Stealth Pond&quot; is a interesting idea, but I can't find any further information about how to actually construct one. Anyone have any tips?" CreationDate="2014-05-23T20:24:23.810" UserDisplayName="user1459" />
  <row Id="3323" PostId="1129" Score="2" Text="@Elyce Hello, and welcome to the site. Would you like to post your question on Stealth Ponds as a question in its own right? The &quot;Ask Question&quot; button is in the top-right. As we're a Q&amp;A site rather than a forum, follow-on questions get posted as new questions, rather than being posted under existing questions." CreationDate="2014-05-24T08:15:21.073" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="2053" PostId="1130" Score="2" Text="The TL:DR version: stormwater barrels should be kept empty, garden barrels should be kept full. We found that when we put in tanks there was the psychological hurdle to jump from &quot;save our precious rainwater for the garden&quot; before we could actually use it that way. We'd ingrained the habits of conserving it." CreationDate="2013-07-18T01:02:15.013" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2054" PostId="1130" Score="0" Text="One thing they could mandate would be a (say) 10mm drain opening for every X amount of storage, so during rain events while the tank is filling it's also slowly draining. That would spread the storm surge as required, and be pretty easy to check." CreationDate="2013-07-18T01:03:10.000" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2055" PostId="1130" Score="1" Text="Thanks @Ӎσᶎ, hope you don't mind that I've used your words!" CreationDate="2013-07-18T01:14:34.493" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="4056" PostId="1130" Score="0" Text="@HighlyIrregular what's the difference between rainwater and storm water?" CreationDate="2015-02-07T17:45:06.900" UserId="279" />
  <row Id="4058" PostId="1130" Score="1" Text="@Danger14 storm water commonly refers to water running off the ground after rain, usually going down a drain. In this case, if you want to reduce the load on the drains during a heavy rain event, you want to prevent water going down the drain until after the load on the system has reduced. It makes sense to refer to water intended to go down the drain as storm water." CreationDate="2015-02-08T03:28:13.643" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="3330" PostId="1131" Score="0" Text="I would argue that local storm water storage that slowly drains into nearby gardens is a much natural solution than sending it through long networks of expensive pipes. With your comment on geoengineering, this should mean you're more strongly opposed to municipal storm water management than you are to barrels or other local solutions. &#xA;&#xA;A local system which drains into the ground would help with maintaining aquifers and keeping municipal costs down." CreationDate="2014-05-26T22:03:21.673" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="2902" PostId="1132" Score="2" Text="Is this true for all types of plastic? Are you able to provide a link to some more information about this? Thanks!" CreationDate="2014-02-12T03:39:34.243" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="11751" PostId="1132" Score="0" Text="@HighlyIrregular It certainly depends on the plastic, but for example fumes from ABS are highly iritating to eyes etc. This, I know from experience with 3D printing." CreationDate="2019-11-15T13:59:46.497" UserId="8149" />
  <row Id="12262" PostId="1132" Score="0" Text="Why are those impurities in plastics in the first place then? or on the other hand, what use is the plastic after these impurities have been released?" CreationDate="2020-02-04T20:05:22.717" UserId="8409" />
  <row Id="2067" PostId="1134" Score="1" Text="+1, and thanks for this. Please can you add a little more about what the advantages are of the rain-garden or the plunge pool, over rain-barrels." CreationDate="2013-07-19T07:08:31.860" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="2070" PostId="1134" Score="1" Text="Where to start...Storage capacity, Polyculture ecosystem, teaching/training tool,nutrient accumulator. Verses factory made water storage tanks that may or may not ever be used in any kind of gardening/landscaping, may or may not become a stagnant pool of mosquito larvae, And even with moderate rainfall the number of barrels needed (6-8 per small home) approches serious eyesore levels. If pools &amp; rain gardens on contour is too far a leap for &quot;The Decider&quot; to make you may consider building a &quot;Stealth Pond&quot; instead. [link](http://www.permies.com/t/24290/ponds/Stealth-ponds)" CreationDate="2013-07-19T08:12:46.480" UserId="682" />
  <row Id="2071" PostId="1134" Score="2" Text="Great stuff Philip - I'll copy &amp; paste that comment into your answer (and you'll be able to do the same yourself) - comments are transitory, so we try to get all the solid info into answers, rather than comments." CreationDate="2013-07-19T08:28:44.353" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="2084" PostId="1136" Score="1" Text="I like the pepper idea. You'd get spicy tomatoes!" CreationDate="2013-07-22T02:22:56.013" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2074" PostId="1137" Score="8" Text="*&quot;constant insertion time&quot;*?  You are *such* a programmer :)" CreationDate="2013-07-21T06:02:17.297" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="2098" PostId="1137" Score="1" Text="The IKEA item you link to has holes you can pull bags through. Is that not random-access enough? It is better than [my initial thought](http://www.amazon.com/Gemline-68299-Organic-Bag-Recycler/dp/B002GEYZZY/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1374609201&amp;sr=8-2&amp;keywords=plastic+bag+holder+cloth)." CreationDate="2013-07-23T19:54:11.793" UserId="645" />
  <row Id="2107" PostId="1137" Score="0" Text="@ElaineHale: I currently have exactly that one and I'm  unsatisfied with it. You have to use significant force to pull the bag through the hole and need to be lucky not to damage bag while doing this." CreationDate="2013-07-24T05:42:53.053" UserId="685" />
  <row Id="2113" PostId="1137" Score="1" Text="This question is borderline on-topic here, but since a majority of people here seem to like it we are going to allow it." CreationDate="2013-07-25T13:45:06.630" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="2119" PostId="1137" Score="1" Text="Truly random access is going to be difficult. Is pseudo-random access OK?" CreationDate="2013-07-26T19:47:00.250" UserId="462" />
  <row Id="2121" PostId="1137" Score="0" Text="@EvanJohnson: What do you mean by _truly random_? I understand [random access](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_access) as an ability to take any bag in equal time :)" CreationDate="2013-07-26T23:03:21.443" UserId="685" />
  <row Id="2127" PostId="1137" Score="0" Text="@user1234567 I was thinking of the mathematical sense, so that wear on the bags would be distributed nearly evenly over long periods of time. Constant time access to arbitrary bags will tend to either use lots of space or have holes big enough that some bags may fall out or be pulled out by friction when you take a different bag." CreationDate="2013-07-29T14:46:33.943" UserId="462" />
  <row Id="2128" PostId="1137" Score="1" Text="@user1234567 You could always just make the holes bigger on the IKEA item. It's polypropylene so you should be able to smooth out any rough edges with a flame or other heat source." CreationDate="2013-07-29T14:48:47.703" UserId="462" />
  <row Id="2082" PostId="1138" Score="0" Text="Also, killing the squirrels only really makes sense if you then eat them. Or have chickens that you can feed them to. Otherwise you're left with a lot of meat that you have to compost." CreationDate="2013-07-22T02:21:38.837" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2085" PostId="1138" Score="0" Text="@Ӎσᶎ, I agree, although I think I addressed that in the post.  I suppose I did leave open the possibility of letting the birds eat the carcasses.  Depending on where you live, and what kinds of wildlife you have, you might or might not be helping out a species that we want to help feed.  I did post an answer elsewhere (that got heavily panned) where I did say that if you're composting meat, something's wrong ... find a way to use it first." CreationDate="2013-07-22T02:28:07.630" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="2093" PostId="1138" Score="0" Text="A very interesting well thought out answer! Do you follow your own advice? :-)" CreationDate="2013-07-23T01:13:49.960" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="2094" PostId="1138" Score="0" Text="@HighlyIrregular, yes, indeed.  Although I like to garden, I plant mostly non-edible plants in my yard and buy mostly organic fruit and veg at the store.   We do have some fruit trees, but they were there when we bought the house, and are mostly low-maintenance now." CreationDate="2013-07-23T01:18:16.773" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="2157" PostId="1138" Score="0" Text="This illustrates &quot;outside of the box&quot; ideas which are impressive.  Personally, I'm only interested in gardening because I can control the fertility of the ground and I can plant the more healthy varieties of food.  If not for that, I would let those who can grow more efficiently supply my food while I do something to more efficiently earn the money needed for food purchase.  Now, how do I keep coons from climbing my fence and reaching through my cages to eat my tomatoes? :)" CreationDate="2013-08-04T03:57:48.563" UserId="653" />
  <row Id="2158" PostId="1138" Score="0" Text="@Randy, yeah, certainly, there are good non-sustainability reasons to garden.  It's good, dirty fun!  I would agree, that racoons fall into the same category as squirrels - artificially high population where humans have chased away their predators.  So, I also don't feel bad about trying to deprive them of food - unfortunately, they made off with more than half of my awesome pluots this year, and now I'm ready to rumble!" CreationDate="2013-08-04T04:28:26.547" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="2159" PostId="1138" Score="0" Text="What preys on a raccoon?  Other than you and I? :)  Coons are larger than cats, at least as smart as dogs (probably smarter), and can climb trees quite easily. I would think rabies kills more coons than anything else. I suppose that means you're right in that humans are trying very much to chase that predator away. Don't feel bad about the pluots, the deer got ALL my grapes and the bar of Irish Spring hanging nearby didn't slow them down one bit. I wonder if the urine from male domestic cats would have any effect?" CreationDate="2013-08-04T04:44:56.367" UserId="653" />
  <row Id="2160" PostId="1138" Score="0" Text="@Randy, where I live (Pacific NW of USA), mountain lions would have hunted racoons, long ago.  We've pretty much chased them away, at least in urban areas.  Racoons are now fat and happy.  Well, fat and ornery." CreationDate="2013-08-04T08:10:49.523" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="2474" PostId="1141" Score="0" Text="It works well as a 'filter' plant for an aquarium, it doesn't need extra fertilizer, uneaten fish food/fish waste seems to be enough, but probably not for rapid growth if you needed it for some purpose." CreationDate="2013-11-22T19:04:36.977" UserId="885" />
  <row Id="2092" PostId="1143" Score="4" Text="i think we'd need some agreement on what constitutes &quot;greener&quot;.  as in many sustainability issues, you may be trading one aspect of *green* for another." CreationDate="2013-07-22T19:56:08.527" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="2100" PostId="1144" Score="2" Text="I don't know much about roof gardens, but I wonder if this may not be easily answerable without more detail. Perhaps a good answer could try to provide the questions that need to be asked of someone wanting a roof garden in order to determine the best solution?" CreationDate="2013-07-24T00:20:39.260" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="2101" PostId="1144" Score="3" Text="The first bit of information that seems necessary is the type of building you want to put the garden on, and how much weight per square metre it can support? Is it flat or sloped (what angle)? What climate do you have, and how readily available is water?" CreationDate="2013-07-24T00:23:06.320" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="2110" PostId="1144" Score="1" Text="Denmark is known for it's beautiful 'roof gardens' or earthen covered roofs with a ground cover such as grass if this is what you are implying but to take advice from an experienced Dane would only be wise if the environment was similar as their experience would be quite different than in arid parts of Mexico. As Highly Irregular states climate &amp; weather factors, sunlight, rainfall, etc. are important factors. Chicago is a leader in garden roofs (on tall buildings) so scale as well as contour are important as well in refining your question." CreationDate="2013-07-24T17:39:54.217" UserId="610" />
  <row Id="2106" PostId="1145" Score="0" Text="Thank you for you answer. You can remove your comment by clicking on the X behind your comment's post date. This way there is no duplication anymore." CreationDate="2013-07-24T05:19:31.037" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3360" PostId="1146" Score="2" Text="I don't think using the ground bark of a tropical tree is very sustainable. Besides, it's expensive. Try using talcum powder." CreationDate="2014-06-03T09:42:16.587" UserId="1325" />
  <row Id="2120" PostId="1150" Score="0" Text="where do your duckweed get nitrate?" CreationDate="2013-07-26T20:32:27.850" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="2115" PostId="1151" Score="5" Text="I share your concern.  We have so many choices for tea at my stores that I simply choose to **only** buy bags without staples, and with paper, not plastic, wrapping.  Good question, though." CreationDate="2013-07-25T19:43:26.563" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="2118" PostId="1151" Score="2" Text="Is it really a problem to compost the staple as well? Is is a small bit of steel, which will take a while (a couple of decades, maybe) to rust and decompose, but the iron oxide given off doesn't sound very harmful. A staple-size bit of iron is much less of a problem than stones. That said, I usually buy loose tea and use a pot with a built-in sieve." CreationDate="2013-07-26T05:53:34.787" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="2122" PostId="1151" Score="1" Text="@Earthling, I would guess that it's not a big problem.  The bigger reason I tend to avoid it is if you use the compost yourself (vs. sending it to a large city facility).  I like to garden without gloves, and don't like the thought of running my hands through sharp, rusty metal objects.  From a pollution or waste standpoint, I agree that it seems like a small impact." CreationDate="2013-07-28T00:54:57.933" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="2125" PostId="1153" Score="2" Text="Can you describe how this relates to &quot;sustainability&quot;?  For example, is barley somehow a more sustainable fodder than something else commonly used?" CreationDate="2013-07-28T20:44:27.627" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="2126" PostId="1153" Score="0" Text="Fodder is a considerably more sustainable way of feeding your live stock than traditional &quot;field of hay&quot; style farming.  You are able to plant a tray of nearly any grain and have a flake of fodder in about 7 days." CreationDate="2013-07-28T23:59:47.790" UserId="45" />
  <row Id="2130" PostId="1153" Score="1" Text="Ok, but you're not claiming fodder to be more sustainable **because** it sprouts in 7 days, right?  The grain you had to start with takes a lot longer than that, with high energy, land, and water inputs to grow it.  I haven't seen any studies comparing the energy efficiency (or other sustainability criteria) of fodder vs. hay, so I'm somewhat skeptical of this claim.  Concerning your question, [have you read this blog?](http://pacapride.wordpress.com/2012/04/05/from-seed-to-feed-in-8-days-barley-fodder-sprouting-trials/)  This guy claims 8 days, although I'm not vouching for those results." CreationDate="2013-07-30T04:52:03.500" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="2133" PostId="1153" Score="0" Text="Yes I interact with David Capocci frequently on the fodder group on FB!  I am also growing fodder in 10x20 trays and get the same results as he claims every morning.  It is wonderful.  However, this questions was more around the seed prep prior to putting them out to trays.  There are a few people that soak their seeds, then keep the seeds in buckets/cups for the next couple of days to induce the sprouting process...then go to trays." CreationDate="2013-07-31T02:35:54.140" UserId="45" />
  <row Id="2135" PostId="1153" Score="0" Text="Thanks for the clarification.  I added some of your last comment into the question, to make sure others don't misread the question as I did." CreationDate="2013-07-31T21:01:49.643" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="2117" PostId="1154" Score="9" Text="But most ink is oil-based. Some level of oil must be acceptable." CreationDate="2013-07-26T04:35:18.233" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="2163" PostId="1155" Score="6" Text="And I'll go ahead and spell out the other benefits of loose leaf tea:&#xA;- overall packaging efficiency&#xA;- avoids staples and food-grade polypropylene altogether&#xA;- all other things equal, cheaper on a per serving basis&#xA;&#xA;Excellent answer, Highly Irregular." CreationDate="2013-08-04T18:57:46.670" UserId="674" />
  <row Id="2206" PostId="1155" Score="0" Text="At each step of the manufacturing process, undesirable flavors can be introduced or desirable ones removed. Great write-up and conclusion." CreationDate="2013-08-17T15:07:41.417" UserId="322" />
  <row Id="7554" PostId="1155" Score="1" Text="buying herbal &quot;tea&quot; infusions as loose leaf can be hard to impossible, unfortunately. The pure ones are usually doable, peppermint, chamomile etc, but I like the fruity ones too and those... DIY is very hard. So I have jars of some where I can find them, and teabags for the rest. Also, you need a really, really fine infuser for chamomile, the stamens are tiny." CreationDate="2016-10-05T23:24:13.947" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2169" PostId="1157" Score="0" Text="Thank you.  Granted, I'll wait till the price goes down from $19.99/bulb (plus shipping)." CreationDate="2013-08-05T18:47:50.600" UserId="274" />
  <row Id="5061" PostId="1157" Score="0" Text="$12.99/bulb (plus shipping)" CreationDate="2015-12-01T17:41:08.620" UserId="274" />
  <row Id="2151" PostId="1158" Score="0" Text="Can you clarify **which** other uses?  Watering the garden?  Washing clothes?  Toilet?" CreationDate="2013-08-03T03:53:29.230" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="2245" PostId="1158" Score="1" Text="Inner temperature is very important - do you know it? In what climate are you? What's the depth where the tanks are located? Is there any chance of light shedding inside?" CreationDate="2013-08-23T06:45:05.673" UserId="60" />
  <row Id="2284" PostId="1158" Score="0" Text="@PeterIvan this tank is underground not possible to shed sun light and here temprature is near about 25' to 35' .." CreationDate="2013-09-05T07:29:08.597" UserId="471" />
  <row Id="2286" PostId="1158" Score="2" Text="If the temperature is above 25°C, then you are in a serious risk of growing [legionella](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legionella#Source_control). The water is not used for drinking, but still it's very different from a mild-climate-located tank whose temperature wouldn't rise above 15°C throughout the year. My primary concern in your situation would be protecting people from harm (sustainability shouldn't cease life) by some water treatment. The secondary aim would be doing it in a sustainable way." CreationDate="2013-09-05T11:06:14.000" UserId="60" />
  <row Id="8795" PostId="1158" Score="1" Text="Yadav, if you answer a question in comments, please also [edit] that into your question. It should contain all relevant information; comments can disappear." CreationDate="2017-08-27T19:07:21.367" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="2177" PostId="1160" Score="0" Text="Since the permanent press cycle generally uses a slower spin for drying the clothes, it doesn't extract as much water from the clothes as the fast spin of the other cycles. This makes the dryer use more energy in drying the clothes. I suspect (but don't have any proof) that the extra energy used by the dryer would more than make up for any energy saved in the wash cycle. Perhaps less wear and tear on the clothes because of the gentler cycle  (meaning the clothes last longer before needing replaced) would help make up for the extra energy use." CreationDate="2013-08-06T23:03:00.603" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="2179" PostId="1160" Score="4" Text="Johnny: only if they're using a dryer. Which, if they're concerned about energy use, they will not be. LA should be warm enough that that is an option. My habit is to use either the fast wash setting or to max the spin speed and drop the wash temperature on one of the other settings." CreationDate="2013-08-07T03:29:08.357" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2183" PostId="1162" Score="1" Text=".... &quot;without specialised equipment&quot; - I read it to late. Oh well." CreationDate="2013-08-07T09:14:08.967" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="2196" PostId="1168" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! How would buying smaller plants reduce the amount of contaminants? Personally, I suspect that the older a plant is, the more neonicotinoids from the soil are broken down, so that would mean the exact opposite of what you are saying." CreationDate="2013-08-14T08:39:29.450" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="2199" PostId="1168" Score="1" Text="@THelper, my guess is that jojobeelady's rationale is that smaller plants come from the nursery in smaller pots, which have less soil.  Therefore, less pesticide.  You might be right about plants breaking down the pesticides in the soil over time, but the problem is that, in a nursery, plants don't stay in the same pots forever.  As plants get older (without being sold yet), they'll be moved into bigger pots, at which point, I'm guessing they add more of the same type of potting soil.  So, more pesticide." CreationDate="2013-08-15T01:07:38.850" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="2200" PostId="1168" Score="1" Text="@THelper, also [this link](http://www.xerces.org/neonicotinoids-and-bees/) suggests two things: (1) plants may **not** be sufficiently breaking down the chemical over time, and (2) the bees are ingesting the chemical not directly through the soil, but through the plants' pollen and nectar.  So, the contaminants are being moved from the soil, into the plant, and to the bees.  If that's true, then I think the advice to buy smaller plants is excellent.  In addition, that's good general advice, as small plants adapt better to new locations than more mature plants." CreationDate="2013-08-15T01:27:23.810" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="2198" PostId="1171" Score="0" Text="I think this is great advice, and the question did mention &quot;clothes&quot; ... I would add the caveat that I've seen many sources claim that hot water is beneficial when you're washing things like bed sheets or towels, that are more likely to have mites, mold or mildew." CreationDate="2013-08-14T23:29:43.390" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="2202" PostId="1171" Score="1" Text="@Nate I've been using cold water for those, too, with acceptable results (at least by my standards). I think allowing towels to dry properly is the best defense against mildew. Mites probably do require hot water." CreationDate="2013-08-15T14:21:57.747" UserId="462" />
  <row Id="2203" PostId="1171" Score="0" Text="Just to clarify, you mean that between **uses** of your bath towels, you should allow them to dry out, so as to impede mildew growth?  That's what I do, by rotating towels." CreationDate="2013-08-15T20:04:27.593" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="2204" PostId="1171" Score="0" Text="@Nate Yes, that's exactly what I mean." CreationDate="2013-08-16T21:32:52.383" UserId="462" />
  <row Id="2345" PostId="1171" Score="0" Text="@Nate if you are allergic to (feces of) dust mites you need to wash bed sheets at at least 55 degrees, because dust mites will survive lower temperatures. Alternatively you can put your bed sheets in a freezer, but they need to remain there for 2 to 3 days to actually kill the mites." CreationDate="2013-10-04T08:56:07.430" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="2346" PostId="1171" Score="1" Text="@THelper Another alternative is to hang your sheets out to dry in the sun. In most places this will be enough to kill dust mites and other bugs. In Japan, washing machines can only wash with cold water, but every apartment, even if only 10m², will have a place to hang clothes outside in the sun." CreationDate="2013-10-04T09:15:19.530" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="2213" PostId="1172" Score="1" Text="On the small scale, there are a lot of earth-linked or geolinked heat pumps around - they're common in Canada and Australia at least (I knew watching Holmes on Homes would come in handy one day :) Buried pipe cooling is also common, the Romans used it. But &quot;Hot Dry Rock&quot; or HDR geothermal is new, because drilling holes 4-5km deep is new and expensive. And we know so little that there's a good change the hole will not work for some reason. So that bit is still experimental (again, Oz and other countries are experimenting)" CreationDate="2013-08-18T22:09:22.203" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2241" PostId="1172" Score="1" Text="Are you interested in only **deep** (HDR = Hot Dry Rock) geothermal, or in **any** geothermal?" CreationDate="2013-08-22T11:20:36.327" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="2208" PostId="1173" Score="1" Text="It is new, but it's not about people being too conservative. It is still very expensive and if you make a drill in wrong place, the money are drowned. So it needs some time, before the technology becomes more reliable and cheaper." CreationDate="2013-08-17T19:16:57.107" UserId="5" />
  <row Id="2209" PostId="1173" Score="0" Text="@ŁukaszLech, actually, in the US, it absolutely **is** about people being conservative (or libertarian).  [A number of studies have shown](http://www.livescience.com/29195-conservatives-energy-efficient-bulbs.html) that Americans with conservative ideology actually are more resistant to various choices if they know those choices are environmentally superior.  If you're referring to *initial* cost of building new plants, yes, that is a factor for virtually **all** energy types.  My quote above addresses that.  But, per MWh produced, geothermal is already cost-competitive ... today." CreationDate="2013-08-17T21:58:12.127" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="2210" PostId="1173" Score="0" Text="There some interesting work done on the topic in the UK: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_power_in_the_United_Kingdom" CreationDate="2013-08-18T10:14:13.677" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="2212" PostId="1173" Score="0" Text="It's not new. Iceland gets 25% of its electricity and much of its heating this way and has done for a long time. New Zealand has a couple of small geothermal power stations (700MW) that were old technology when they were built in the 1960's. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_power_in_New_Zealand and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_power_in_Iceland" CreationDate="2013-08-18T22:05:38.583" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2215" PostId="1173" Score="0" Text="@Ӎσᶎ, ok, what's your point?  I already answered that the technology is already being deployed.  In the context of (1) the small market share of geothermal, and (2) the rapidly increasing market share, most people would still consider that to fall into the category of &quot;new&quot;, relative to other energy sources.  Iceland is also a special case, in that it's a volcanic hotbed.  This makes geothermal energy much easier to extract, and doesn't really have much to do with the OP's question, as posed." CreationDate="2013-08-18T22:15:21.023" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="2218" PostId="1173" Score="0" Text="@Ӎσᶎ, I didn't differentiate, because the question clearly identified deep geothermal, not shallow (which I did reference in passing in my P.S.).  My cost tables address your contention on cost: it's bogus.  If you disagree, I suggest you post an answer yourself, backed up with data.  Drilling is **always** expensive, for any technology.  Oil and gas have the same exploration/drilling risks.  Those costs are included in the cost table I listed." CreationDate="2013-08-18T22:35:23.513" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="2219" PostId="1173" Score="1" Text="Regarding your nit about the US, the question simply asked why nobody was doing this.  It did not identify a region.  Therefore, it's sufficient to address it simply by pointing out **one** example (which does happen to be the world's largest economy), where geothermal is being deployed, and growing rapidly." CreationDate="2013-08-18T22:40:42.883" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="2220" PostId="1173" Score="0" Text="let us [continue this discussion in chat](http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/10193/discussion-between--and-nate)" CreationDate="2013-08-18T22:49:46.813" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2211" PostId="1174" Score="0" Text="see [this answer on EVs](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/a/803/486).  yes, EVs are more efficient, even if all the electricity comes from coal.  if any electricity comes from renewables, EVs are even better.  no contest." CreationDate="2013-08-18T19:38:08.107" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="2225" PostId="1174" Score="8" Text="I think this is pretty much a duplicate of [Are electric cars as environmentally friendly as we think they are?](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/612/48) - the answers there answer your question here" CreationDate="2013-08-19T06:28:29.017" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="2483" PostId="1174" Score="0" Text="Whenever you centralize a resource you increase efficiency, as long as too much isn't lost in transfer. There are some other issues (battery production) which you might not find such optimism, though." CreationDate="2013-11-26T20:06:42.903" UserId="885" />
  <row Id="7872" PostId="1174" Score="0" Text="I think the questions are different - this one addresses simple efficiency comparisons, while the other includes factors such as pollution, LCA, etc. The answers don't necessarily reflect the difference, though." CreationDate="2016-12-21T19:04:20.077" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="2221" PostId="1175" Score="0" Text="(1) Your cost numbers are in $ per KW (of capacity?).  I fail to see how that's a more useful number than distributing it over KWh produced, as my data are.  (2) From your report: *&quot;for HSA in Australia, there is only a limited database ... with only two known wells having been drilled&quot;*.  You bust my chops for having a US-centric answer, and then provide data from a country 1/15th the size, with 2 data points to back up one of your numbers?  Seriously.  -1 right back at you." CreationDate="2013-08-18T22:55:57.307" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="2222" PostId="1175" Score="0" Text="Nate, I'm sorry, I didn't realise you were so sensitive or I would never have spoken up. But FWIW, if you have commercial costings per GJ released to the grid, I'd love to see them - I spent some time looking and could not find those numbers." CreationDate="2013-08-18T23:04:26.950" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2226" PostId="1175" Score="0" Text="The EIA numbers I show *are* per GJ.  They're not purely *historical* because that number isn't as relevant to a decision about which plants to build **today** as the estimates for per GJ costs, *going forward*.  As I said, (deep) geothermal is still new (as you sometimes seem to disagree with, and sometimes agree with) so historical data are not enough.  Are you simply contesting the validity of the EIA estimates?  The BREE estimates are better?  Because they produce results from 2 data points?  Because they apply to the only continent (Oz) with no plate boundaries, but strong coastal wind?" CreationDate="2013-08-19T08:58:11.860" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="2227" PostId="1175" Score="0" Text="If you really want the historical number, calculate it yourself.  You can use your two-data-point $/kW capacity figures, and apply some capacity factors to get the actual cost per kWh produced over time.  Oh wait.  You didn't do that, because then you'd have to use something like 25% (historical) for wind and 90% for geothermal, which almost completely wipes out your supposed cost difference." CreationDate="2013-08-19T08:59:04.160" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="2232" PostId="1175" Score="0" Text="I can't calculate $/GJ delivered using any figures that I've seen, because I haven't been able to find anyone  delivering deep geothermal to the grid. None of your links are to such a plant. And your EIA numbers are for all geothermal, and they don't seem to break out the deep plant (in Nevada?) from everything else. We already know that shallow geothermal can be cheap, that's why Iceland (etc) use it." CreationDate="2013-08-19T22:03:20.973" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2239" PostId="1175" Score="0" Text="Maybe you're using a different definition of &quot;deep&quot; than I am, but I would consider anything deeper than about 1000 ft to be relevant to this question.  The EIA model data is based on 125 sites (not including an &quot;additional&quot; EGS companion site for each) with depths of 1,000 to 33,000 feet, and temperatures above 110C.  The **very first link** in my answer, the plant that I buy electricity from (Raft River, Idaho) is an existing plant.  [From this source](https://pangea.stanford.edu/ERE/pdf/IGAstandard/SGW/2011/ayling2.pdf), *&quot;The field contains 9 deep geothermal wells (&gt;1500m depth).&quot;*" CreationDate="2013-08-22T09:10:04.167" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="2240" PostId="1175" Score="0" Text="And, your rationale is that you couldn't find the data, so you'd just compare Wind and Geothermal on a per MW basis, completely glossing over the fact that one produces intermittently, and the other is a *baseload* technology?" CreationDate="2013-08-22T09:14:07.627" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="2243" PostId="1175" Score="0" Text="Nate, 1500m is not &quot;4-5km&quot; as the question asked, and 1000ft is nowhere near. You can go that deep with a single-truck water well rig. The EIA data doesn't distinguish between less than 2km and more than 2km in an accessible way - I'd have to redo their calculations. You keep saying that drilling 5km is just like drilling 500m as though repetition will make it true. Given that it's the whole basis of me saying you haven't answered the original question, I can only wonder whether there's a fundamental barrier to understanding between us." CreationDate="2013-08-22T22:37:12.167" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2231" PostId="1177" Score="2" Text="What makes you think you can't compost them? It would interest me even more what you would consider compostable." CreationDate="2013-08-19T17:13:31.793" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="2233" PostId="1177" Score="5" Text="Another option is cutting them in half and sticking them in a worm farm" CreationDate="2013-08-20T02:12:17.880" UserId="110" />
  <row Id="2234" PostId="1177" Score="1" Text="@Earthling: Immature apples are often very hard and they look like they will need very long time to decompose. More mature apples can also contain a lot of water which is not probably good for compost. Regarding the rotten apples - I am not sure if the mould could not infect the compost and then the plants on which the compost is being used." CreationDate="2013-08-20T07:33:56.540" UserId="642" />
  <row Id="2251" PostId="1177" Score="1" Text="@pabouk, I had the same concern about mould: [Are mouldy kitchen scraps okay to compost?](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/472/are-mouldy-kitchen-scraps-okay-to-compost)" CreationDate="2013-08-26T05:08:01.590" UserId="227" />
  <row Id="2264" PostId="1177" Score="3" Text="Breaking them up will definitely help them compost faster. On farms it's common to run a flail mower over fallen (or dumped) fruit for this reason. That also makes fermentation much less of an issue (birds and animals eat them and get drunk, hurting themselves or others)" CreationDate="2013-08-29T04:52:54.453" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="16035" PostId="1178" Score="0" Text="If the composting bin is a wormery, then too many apples will be too acidic or too alcoholic and will probably kill the worms." CreationDate="2022-10-14T09:02:01.210" UserId="13189" />
  <row Id="2244" PostId="1181" Score="4" Text="How big do you need it to be?  Is any volume sufficient?" CreationDate="2013-08-23T05:17:52.757" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="2246" PostId="1181" Score="0" Text="@Nate I would like it to be big enough for a 4 person house." CreationDate="2013-08-24T12:31:37.390" UserId="746" />
  <row Id="2247" PostId="1181" Score="1" Text="I have a store-bought rotating drum, sized about 100L I think, and I find that it's very heavy to turn even when not particularly full. The stickier the material, the further around it needs to be turned before the material turns over, and the heavier it feels. My conclusion was that it wasn't money well spent, and it certainly wouldn't be adequate for all your composting needs. Some kind of gearing would probably be necessary for anything larger." CreationDate="2013-08-25T08:32:18.367" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="2254" PostId="1181" Score="0" Text=".. you mean a bearing? as for gearing, a long lever that can be aplied at different angels should be enough, no?" CreationDate="2013-08-26T14:14:51.597" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="2261" PostId="1181" Score="0" Text="watching:&#xA;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEQKPOT0sSY" CreationDate="2013-08-27T14:33:52.510" UserId="746" />
  <row Id="2248" PostId="1182" Score="3" Text="Perhaps these link will help you: [Rosemary Knits](http://rosemaryknits.blogspot.nl/2008/08/my-new-wheel.html) made a spinning wheel from a bicycle wheel and some pieces of wood, [Glacialwanderer.com](http://www.glacialwanderer.com/hobbyrobotics/?p=79) describes 4 different attempts to creating an electric spinning wheel." CreationDate="2013-08-25T11:05:31.043" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="2249" PostId="1182" Score="0" Text="Are you sure dog hair is long enough and curly enough to spin into yarn? The individual hairs need to interlock and thus be long and preferably a little wavy at least. Straight hairs that are no longer than 10cm are spinnable, but the resulting yarn will just pull apart." CreationDate="2013-08-25T12:39:33.230" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="2250" PostId="1182" Score="1" Text="I'm positive it can be spun, He's an arctic wolf phenotype so he has a thick fuzzy undercoat that gets to be about 6-7 inches long." CreationDate="2013-08-25T13:49:47.347" UserId="749" />
  <row Id="2344" PostId="1182" Score="1" Text="A Navajo spinner is awesome! It won't un-spin like a drop drop spindle." CreationDate="2013-09-26T16:44:35.933" UserDisplayName="user808" />
  <row Id="2253" PostId="1183" Score="3" Text="Thanks for this. We're trying to build a great body of content here, rather than just a collection of links to other places. So for this to be an answer it will need to summarise what's on the link, so that someone can get the key information without clicking on the link." CreationDate="2013-08-26T09:56:00.610" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="2258" PostId="1183" Score="0" Text="I think directions on building an entire spinning wheel are a bit extensive. I appreciate that You're trying to build a body of content, however given the question, directions without pictures is a ridiculous idea.  Answers that link to references and point someone in the right direction are good content and does teach. I apologise for the &quot;collection of links,&quot; but it is the appropriate response to the question." CreationDate="2013-08-26T23:06:45.593" UserId="749" />
  <row Id="2265" PostId="1183" Score="3" Text="You can include pictures if needed." CreationDate="2013-08-30T10:21:38.730" UserId="60" />
  <row Id="8237" PostId="1183" Score="0" Text="The provided link is now broken, but I suspect [this link](http://www.interweave.com/wp-content/uploads/5661.Dodec-Spinning-Wheel-Brochure.pdf) leads to the same document" CreationDate="2017-02-23T14:59:12.783" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="2262" PostId="1185" Score="1" Text="I'd be interested to know also about these corn starch fibres, which apparently are similar to polyester." CreationDate="2013-08-28T00:47:46.747" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="2306" PostId="1185" Score="0" Text="The Wikipedia article on bamboo textiles has some description of the different methods of manufacture, which change the answers to your questions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo_textiles" CreationDate="2013-09-23T22:59:14.353" UserId="664" />
  <row Id="2255" PostId="1187" Score="0" Text="The question may be borderline on topic here, someone once claimed that environmental engineering questions should be on topic here too - Let's see it as a testing baloon how far from everyday life, and into engineering we want to go here." CreationDate="2013-08-26T14:33:25.710" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="2257" PostId="1187" Score="2" Text="I'm voting for on-topic.  Let's see if anyone can help with an answer." CreationDate="2013-08-26T20:43:10.103" UserId="28" />
  <row Id="2268" PostId="1190" Score="1" Text="Energy in spring in wind-up clock is enough for about a day. Mechanical clocks with battery of the same size function for years. So spring is about 1000 times less effective as battery as energy source. I don't think it's an alternative. As for air compression, I wouldn't want to use something that can explode and kill me..." CreationDate="2013-08-31T15:09:14.540" UserId="5" />
  <row Id="2269" PostId="1190" Score="0" Text="Along the same lines, there are [buildings that help cool themselves on hot days by making ice at night](http://money.cnn.com/2013/07/30/news/companies/new-york-ice-cooling/index.html), and then letting it melt during the day.  This is mostly about shifting the time when you **use** the electricity off the peak when daytime heat causes you to use the cooling.  Of course, you can do that with batteries, too.  My electric car charges at night, even though I drive it during the day." CreationDate="2013-08-31T22:56:50.070" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="2270" PostId="1190" Score="3" Text="@ŁukaszLech, are you also saying you don't want to use gasoline? It is explosive too. Compressed air is already used as a power source for vehicles, especially in places that need to avoid heat/sparks. More info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compressed_air_car" CreationDate="2013-09-01T22:22:46.630" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="2272" PostId="1190" Score="1" Text="Added How Stuff Works Link." CreationDate="2013-09-02T01:36:39.133" UserId="144" />
  <row Id="2273" PostId="1190" Score="0" Text="@HighlyIrregular I've never heard of gasoline powered clock or camera" CreationDate="2013-09-02T07:34:43.077" UserId="5" />
  <row Id="2274" PostId="1190" Score="3" Text="@ŁukaszLech, you obviously don't live in the USA, where we [can find a way to make *anything* gas-powered!](http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/26/energystar-program-certifies-gasoline-powered-alarm-other-ima/)." CreationDate="2013-09-02T08:18:03.643" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="2283" PostId="1190" Score="0" Text="@Nate Nice link, but unfortunately for the USA's national pride it's a fake product. [The gas-powered blender](http://www.google.com/#q=gas-powered+blender), however, is REAL!" CreationDate="2013-09-04T20:09:54.107" UserId="462" />
  <row Id="2275" PostId="1193" Score="1" Text="+1 for the answer, and for forcing me to learn what a &quot;*white good*&quot; is :)" CreationDate="2013-09-02T08:19:35.837" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="2276" PostId="1194" Score="0" Text="I am interested in the last part about air-powered (or perhaps water powered?) generators. Is there much energy loss from energy production to storage of energy as compressed air to conversion of energy as electricity? Can we say compression of air or water is more sustainable versus battery? Is such a compressor something you can easily install in a household shed? What are nuisance and safety concerns?" CreationDate="2013-09-03T01:28:06.770" UserId="144" />
  <row Id="2277" PostId="1194" Score="0" Text="Also I am thinking of compressing water because rather than air, because compressed water is useful in a household too: it could be connected to taps wherever needed, thus killing two birds with one stone. Or am I fantasising here?" CreationDate="2013-09-03T01:30:08.670" UserId="144" />
  <row Id="2278" PostId="1194" Score="0" Text="you can't compress water, you could compress an air cushion over a water reservoir to pressurize the water - but I would not do that for tap water for health reasons, also I don't see a point." CreationDate="2013-09-03T06:22:39.813" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="2279" PostId="1194" Score="0" Text="I honestly dont know the round trip efficiency of a system as described, but would estimate something like 50-60% . Safety: Needs proper research, but there should be lots of experience since compressed air is often used in industry. Biggest issue I see is the combination of compressed air and fire." CreationDate="2013-09-03T06:29:23.077" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="2280" PostId="1194" Score="0" Text="@mart Actually, the &quot;compressed air cushion&quot; technique is used for potable water. Typically there is some sort of diaphragm separating the air and water to prevent contamination. This type of system is sometimes used to ensure sufficient water pressure for household plumbing, but I haven't heard of it being used to store energy for conversion back to electricity." CreationDate="2013-09-03T14:51:00.987" UserId="462" />
  <row Id="2285" PostId="1195" Score="1" Text="All sorts of factors can affect how a road might be best maintained. It's not just what the surface is made of, but also what lies underneath that matters. Also, what kind of vehicles typically use the road (how heavy)?" CreationDate="2013-09-05T09:14:22.860" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="2287" PostId="1196" Score="9" Text="If shutting off the engine at traffic lights actually caused this problem, please provide evidence. Otherwise it could just as easily have been a faulty part or lack of maintenance." CreationDate="2013-09-05T15:27:33.040" UserId="462" />
  <row Id="2288" PostId="1196" Score="4" Text="It would also be valuable to describe what kind (make/model/year) of car this was (and maybe the battery age, too).  Anecdotal evidence is difficult to go off of, especially if the anecdote is incomplete.  It may also depend on your driving habits.  If you're only in stop and go city traffic, and the car never gets a chance to recharge at high rpms on the highway, I could see that being harder on the battery." CreationDate="2013-09-06T04:36:49.110" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="2290" PostId="1196" Score="2" Text="Yea, Anecdotally, I do it all the time, on my moto, and in my cars. Done it for years — nothing broke so far. Certainly, not in three months." CreationDate="2013-09-06T15:42:08.720" UserId="227" />
  <row Id="2289" PostId="1198" Score="1" Text="I find this caveat hugely troubling, at least in the context of &quot;natural gas&quot; even being touted as better than coal or oil.  [Mention at Environmental Defense Fund website](http://www.edf.org/methaneleakage)." CreationDate="2013-09-06T04:57:23.650" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="2307" PostId="1198" Score="0" Text="Thanks for the detailed answer, I'll look into the linked documents. I work in the field and I'm aware of the challenges of purification. One additional headache with the use as Vehicle fuel (opposed to gas to grid) is that you have a constant supply and a very varyign demand, so you need lots of storage at high pressures (expensive!) plus compression is energy intensive so you have an interesting juggling act at the best of times. I'll think about how I can improve my question." CreationDate="2013-09-24T07:19:10.167" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="2308" PostId="1198" Score="0" Text="Oh, and re. your caveat: with all purification processes except amine scrubbing you get a certain percentage (1-5%) of the input methane in the CO2 rich off-gas. Depending on where you are you will have to burn it (difficult, low CH4, requires RTO) or may be allowed to simply vent it." CreationDate="2013-09-24T07:22:15.670" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="12421" PostId="1199" Score="0" Text="I'm not quite sure how this question relates to sustainability; would you mind adding a bit of context to the question? Right now it reads more like a physics homework question. Is your aim here to provide people with a general ballpark cost of how much it costs to consume all the stored hot water in a household hot water tank?" CreationDate="2020-03-02T15:52:47.353" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="12449" PostId="1199" Score="1" Text="@Nic I've edited the question. Generally when we run the hot tap, we don't know how much water we've used, but we do know when the cylinder has been emptied when people spend too much time in the shower. It's useful to know the energy use and cost of doing that, and it makes a good comparison with other usage too." CreationDate="2020-03-04T22:14:59.883" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="2337" PostId="1200" Score="3" Text="Just a comment, increase of 1 Kelvin is perfectly equal to 1 degree Celsius, so it's possible to use degrees Celsius in this calculation with the same result." CreationDate="2013-10-02T07:24:20.470" UserId="679" />
  <row Id="8196" PostId="1200" Score="0" Text="It's not just the efficiency of the heater but also the insulation of the tank that needs to be considered. This is harder to calculate as it depends on temperature differential between the tank and it's surroundings as well as the time taken. The process is more efficient using a more powerful heater as it takes less time. Which is why the EU trying to limit the power of kettles is utterly stupid..." CreationDate="2017-02-18T09:07:18.280" UserId="4264" />
  <row Id="2372" PostId="1203" Score="0" Text="I have seen farms piling immature apples in shallow pits in well drained areas. Adding some dry dirt and sawdust would help with the excess moisture." CreationDate="2013-10-20T20:47:01.837" UserId="282" />
  <row Id="2297" PostId="1206" Score="0" Text="Can you link to the paper, or give us some more information about the **scope** of the analysis?  I can envision this simply being a finance question, having nothing to do with sustainability, really.  Or, it could grow to encompass all sorts of factors, and 2nd-order effects." CreationDate="2013-09-13T01:36:29.150" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="2299" PostId="1206" Score="0" Text="payback period is hard to calculate, and there's a lot more factors than time value of money. I'd be slightly concerned that the paper misses more of them if they missed something this obvious. Is this pre-pub so you can't link to it?" CreationDate="2013-09-18T05:43:42.537" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2298" PostId="1207" Score="1" Text="IME the non-cash benefits often dominate, and specifically the one you left out - comfort. Living in a house that's more comfortable is much more pleasant than people who don't often appreciate. This is especially the case with insulation - there's a range of temperatures that are not comfortable, but not really uncomfortable enough to justify heating/cooling. Those times tend to shrink dramatically in a decently designed or renovated building." CreationDate="2013-09-18T05:42:14.953" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="8511" PostId="1208" Score="0" Text="During time I have found another helpful use: Getting rid of lice. See for example: https://medlicker.com/1190-olive-oil-for-head-lice" CreationDate="2017-05-16T07:19:31.857" UserId="642" />
  <row Id="11862" PostId="1208" Score="0" Text="Wait. Using used cooking oil to treat lice? That's horrendous. Used cooking oil lava lamp also sounds terrifying." CreationDate="2019-11-20T13:49:11.163" UserId="8149" />
  <row Id="11872" PostId="1208" Score="0" Text="@TomášZato _Using used cooking oil to treat lice? That's horrendous._ ??? Using a vegetable oil with addition of essential oils is one of the most common types of treatment of lice alternative to commercial insecticides which are potentially hazardous and causing lice resistance. Some studies show good efficiency of the vegetable oil with essential oils method." CreationDate="2019-11-21T08:48:15.190" UserId="642" />
  <row Id="11873" PostId="1208" Score="0" Text="Maybe, but not used oil. Used oil is full of food pieces and stinks like hell." CreationDate="2019-11-21T09:33:38.793" UserId="8149" />
  <row Id="2296" PostId="1210" Score="4" Text="If it was me, covering the surface with a thin layer of soil (to reduce flies &amp; smell) and leaving it for 6+ months would be a very desirable option, as it wouldn't be pleasant to tip out anywhere. You could bury it, but the smell while you do it will be awful." CreationDate="2013-09-12T22:13:44.460" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="2462" PostId="1216" Score="0" Text="Can you elaborate why you say it will only be &quot;slightly lower energy usage&quot;? It would seem that the amount of surface area for a whole house vs. one room would be quite a difference, and even more if the room is an interior one.  Assuming a 45 degree average external temperature, lowering house temperature from 70 to 65 should decrease heat loss by 20%." CreationDate="2013-11-19T15:14:56.797" UserId="87" />
  <row Id="2466" PostId="1216" Score="0" Text="Heating only one room could make a huge difference. Also, consider that if the heating is only needed for a relatively short period then a radiative heater pointing at a person will be far more effective at helping that person feel warm than a whole-house system that has to warm all of the air in the building." CreationDate="2013-11-19T22:04:24.363" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="2309" PostId="1217" Score="0" Text="That's great advice. The house is newer construction and 6&quot; framing with good insulation. most windows are pretty good. I should have also added one more piece to the puzzle: the house has a radiant slab from an on-demand propane water heater. The floor is a pretty good heat sink." CreationDate="2013-09-24T13:19:43.870" UserId="778" />
  <row Id="2310" PostId="1220" Score="0" Text="I guess the same holds for &quot;corn starch fibres&quot;?" CreationDate="2013-09-25T09:50:07.383" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="2311" PostId="1220" Score="0" Text="The corn-based fibers are produced using metal compounds as catalysts, but the process seems gentler and the final product appears to be quite a bit friendlier than bamboo rayon. I've only read [the Wikipedia article](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polylactic_acid), but it's the same stuff used for biodegradable forks and cups. It isn't perfect, but it apparently degrades safely within the human body when used for temporary medical implants." CreationDate="2013-09-25T16:08:28.617" UserId="462" />
  <row Id="2371" PostId="1221" Score="2" Text="Just to save other people the search: http://www.wikihow.com/Spin-with-a-Drop-Spindle It's basically a weight with a hook - attach your thread, spin the weight, feed in more fibre at the top and let the weight fall." CreationDate="2013-10-18T00:54:23.747" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2327" PostId="1223" Score="0" Text="look for Banky Turbine, they are efficient and comparativly easy to build." CreationDate="2013-10-01T08:58:31.717" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="2335" PostId="1223" Score="0" Text="http://www.vortexhydroenergy.com/ - saw this from university of michigan - seems legit - thoughts?" CreationDate="2013-10-01T21:18:42.433" UserId="804" />
  <row Id="2350" PostId="1223" Score="4" Text="Once you come up with a set of components you can ask specific design questions on Electronics SE." CreationDate="2013-10-10T07:08:53.133" UserId="679" />
  <row Id="2315" PostId="1224" Score="1" Text="I thought the asker was talking about one of these: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_wheel" CreationDate="2013-09-26T11:06:39.767" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="2316" PostId="1224" Score="0" Text="@HighlyIrregular You're not alone. But the vortex solution seems more elegant and efficient." CreationDate="2013-09-26T14:37:41.797" UserId="462" />
  <row Id="2317" PostId="1224" Score="0" Text="@HighlyIrregular The water wheel has been around for much longer than the &quot;start of the industrial revolution&quot; (see the Wikipedia page you linked to)." CreationDate="2013-09-26T15:01:55.733" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="2320" PostId="1224" Score="0" Text="@Earthling vortex thing looks really cool - i know water wheels were around for much longer than the industrial revolution - just wasn't used to generate electricity -" CreationDate="2013-09-26T18:56:53.870" UserId="804" />
  <row Id="2326" PostId="1224" Score="1" Text="Do you have any sources that do a side-by side comparision with otheer turbine builds?" CreationDate="2013-10-01T08:57:33.010" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="2328" PostId="1224" Score="0" Text="Also, fo fish there is an established technology with a small &quot;stairwell&quot;, this is only relevant if all of the flow is used anyway." CreationDate="2013-10-01T08:59:42.990" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="2333" PostId="1224" Score="0" Text="@mart I don't have any such sources, unfortunately; I'm not even sure they exist. What I remember from my own calculations, though, is that the efficiency is practically identical to the &quot;traditional&quot; method. The idea is that the vortex forms naturally and the efficiency in the turbine is compensated essentially by the force from the rotation of the earth." CreationDate="2013-10-01T10:06:28.137" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="2325" PostId="1227" Score="2" Text="One option is to bring your old clothes to a H&amp;M store. According to their [site](http://about.hm.com/AboutSection/en/About/Sustainability/Commitments/Reduce-Reuse-Recycle/Garment-Collecting.html):  &quot;_Textiles that are no longer suitable to wear are converted into other products, such as cleaning cloths. Textiles that can’t be reused get a new chance as textile fibres, or are used to manufacture products such as damping and insulating materials for the auto industry._&quot; I'm not sure if H&amp;M collects old clothes in all countries and stores." CreationDate="2013-09-28T11:09:35.957" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="2321" PostId="1228" Score="0" Text="The textile 'recycling' are the companies that are selling good clothing, not the used one. I don't know what they are doing with used clothing..." CreationDate="2013-09-27T04:51:00.947" UserId="5" />
  <row Id="2322" PostId="1228" Score="0" Text="They recycle good clothing by selling it to local second-hand stores and less good clothing to markets in other parts of the world. Used and unwearable clothing is sorted by fibres and processed either into cleaning cloths for industry or the fibres are &quot;processed further&quot; (whatever that means, presumably something like insulating material). I guess you have to choose whether you think that supporting industry by freely providing your used socks is sustainable or not." CreationDate="2013-09-27T09:19:14.440" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="2323" PostId="1228" Score="1" Text="@Earthling If that industry would otherwise be consuming additional natural resources to produce and sell similar products, it's probably better to just give them the old socks. If recycling didn't support industry by generating profits, companies in our profit-driven economy would not make it their business to recycle waste." CreationDate="2013-09-27T17:05:27.217" UserId="462" />
  <row Id="6587" PostId="1230" Score="0" Text="Not just treadmills. Pretty much any DC motor will generate DC electricity if you make it turn. Try this by hooking up a hobby DC motor to a multimeter, and then do what you can to turn the motor. Turn it with another motor if you like, but whatever. I first tried this experiment when I was about 10." CreationDate="2016-03-17T21:23:06.097" UserId="1692" />
  <row Id="2331" PostId="1231" Score="1" Text="I'm not saying that you're wrong, but **how** do you know that the printer won't allow refilled cartridges?  Is it just that the cartridges it comes with don't have any kind of refill holes/ports?  I don't think my printer's cartridges are officially refillable, but with a small drill bit, a syringe, a hot glue gun, and some bottles of ink (bought on eBay), I've refilled my ink many, many times with the original cartridges." CreationDate="2013-10-01T09:14:33.167" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="2334" PostId="1231" Score="0" Text="The thing is that the printer has memory of the cartridges that have been used. The printer displays the approximate level of ink in the cartridge, once they are empty, the printer doesn't allow you to print with theme, even if you refill theme. I've found several tutorials to reset the cartridges, but none of the tricks has worked for me, that is why I have to buy new cartridges every time. I've read that this is the new system HP uses in its printers to avoid the use of refilled cartridges, a practice not eco-friendly at all." CreationDate="2013-10-01T15:52:55.557" UserId="814" />
  <row Id="2338" PostId="1231" Score="0" Text="Ouch.  That's evil of HP :(" CreationDate="2013-10-02T08:48:29.777" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="2329" PostId="1234" Score="0" Text="Do you have any other constraints?  Usually, engines are tuned to produce a good balance between fuel economy and power, for the customers the car company hopes to attract.  However, there also will be considerations given to laws that regulate the vehicle's emissions.  If you are willing to break those laws, or live somewhere that doesn't have such laws, maybe fuel economy and power are your **only** two variables.  But, normally, you need to obey emissions controls, and with very few exceptions, I'd say that's a good idea for people interested in sustainability." CreationDate="2013-10-01T09:06:50.267" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="2330" PostId="1234" Score="0" Text="Also, you probably know this already, but for *your specific engine*, I would also ask around at [the TDIClub forums](http://forums.tdiclub.com/).  Not everyone there cares about sustainability, but there's enough TDI owners who do care about fuel economy, for one reason or another, that you might find some good experience." CreationDate="2013-10-01T09:08:47.950" UserId="486" />
  <row Id="2336" PostId="1234" Score="1" Text="@Nate: The default car production balance is not bad, but it's a general default for this car/make. By tuning this (one) engine you can improve the performance and economy. Yes, my idea is to keep the existing emission limits (I have the emission check every other year) and I even expect to lower the emissions. Nice link too." CreationDate="2013-10-01T22:47:37.760" UserId="60" />
  <row Id="2339" PostId="1236" Score="2" Text="That looks a bit... 1980's internet. The last build page has a &quot;bead valve&quot; in it (http://nxtwave.tripod.com/gaiatech/pulser/builder.htm) which is a moving part :) Sorry, I look for tells like that when inventions that haven't caught on are promoted. It does seem simple enough to build, so if you've got the water flow I'd be tempted to build a little one and compare it to the claimed performance of a commercial ram pump (since those have precise performance numbers available there's no need to buy one to check them, IMO anyway)." CreationDate="2013-10-02T10:32:44.453" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2340" PostId="1236" Score="0" Text="FWIW, I'm a member of www.ata.org.au and have seen quite a lot of &quot;amazing inventions&quot; that mysteriously haven't caught on... and turn out to underperform or otherwise suck. So I'm a bit skeptical." CreationDate="2013-10-02T10:34:06.053" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2382" PostId="1236" Score="1" Text="Efficiency will be low when implemented as usually described. Air entrainment energy can be as high as the head energy of the water flowing down from the source reservoir. If air was carried down in eg sealed bottles this could approach 100%. When carried as bubbles in air you can expect a smaller % of total available energy is used toi carry air and probably much lower. The bubble pump driven by the air could carry water in bottles carried up by air in bottles :-) with losses caused by tube friction . You will be able to look up bubble pumps  - efficiencies of about 50% theoretical and &quot;low&quot;" CreationDate="2013-10-29T00:05:46.487" UserId="318" />
  <row Id="2383" PostId="1236" Score="1" Text="... in usual practice. [**Excellent Bubble Pump analysis thesis here**](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.148.9137&amp;rep=rep1&amp;type=pdf). Note that effiency as energy% is lacking in this and other thesis cited by THelper. [**Useful bubble pump paper**](http://forms.gradsch.psu.edu/diversity/mcnair/mcnair_jrnl2011/files/Zhang.pdf), [**BP in an absorption fridge**](http://www.doiserbia.nb.rs/img/doi/0354-9836/2012%20OnLine-First/0354-98361200016M.pdf), [**BP analysis**](http://www-old.me.gatech.edu/energy/andy_phd/four.htm)" CreationDate="2013-10-29T00:29:40.587" UserId="318" />
  <row Id="2375" PostId="1237" Score="0" Text="cool thanks will look into these. My father and I are not hydro anything - we are trying to find a vacation house to buy near a waterfall/river that we can use to power the house." CreationDate="2013-10-21T13:36:50.893" UserId="804" />
  <row Id="12245" PostId="1237" Score="1" Text="There's a community hydro project in Oxford near where I live using a screw; in order to get permission they had to install a fish ladder next to it so the design is evidently not completely fish-friendly." CreationDate="2020-01-29T13:50:09.693" UserId="1445" />
  <row Id="2347" PostId="1241" Score="4" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Although eating can be seen as a form of recycling, your question is much more about biology than it is about sustainability. Perhaps somebody here knows something about goats, but I think you'll have a better chance of getting a good answer at [Biology SE](http://biology.stackexchange.com/)?" CreationDate="2013-10-06T17:37:25.247" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="2351" PostId="1241" Score="0" Text="or possibly even the skeptics SE?" CreationDate="2013-10-11T08:02:47.680" UserId="610" />
  <row Id="2361" PostId="1241" Score="0" Text="I would be surprised as I've seen a goat grab a lit cigarette out of a guys hand and eat it 'cherry' first. It seems to me goats have iron stomachs." CreationDate="2013-10-14T03:34:25.547" UserId="610" />
  <row Id="2365" PostId="1241" Score="2" Text="I think it's a legit question about sustainability because keeping livestock is an important part of sourcing ones own food and that's a sustainable thing to do." CreationDate="2013-10-16T02:16:22.650" UserId="771" />
  <row Id="9171" PostId="1241" Score="0" Text="My friend requested all of his acquaintances deposit their christmas trees in his goat pen. The goats stripped them to trunk and twigs. They lived a long time." CreationDate="2018-01-09T17:05:51.697" UserId="1701" />
  <row Id="9756" PostId="1241" Score="0" Text="I find this very interesting! Particularly as I want to plant a windbreak for our milk goats's pasture on our property and initially considered pine trees for it. But my neighbours who are cattle farmers had a lot of abortions in their herd that grazed in a camp that had a pine tree windbreak, ultimately they cut down the whole pine tree windbreak. I just figured that with goats and cattle both being ruminants, the similarity between the two species is too close for my comfort, and abandoned the idea of using pine trees. I have now planted a line of mulberry trees that the goats seem to enjoy" CreationDate="2018-05-29T13:39:51.923" UserId="5742" />
  <row Id="2368" PostId="1243" Score="0" Text="Brilliant. That's exactly what I wanted. Thanks!" CreationDate="2013-10-17T05:28:48.190" UserId="827" />
  <row Id="2373" PostId="1248" Score="1" Text="What kind of `destruction of ecology` do you mean? Building plantations or pure harvesting does the harm?" CreationDate="2013-10-21T06:07:56.313" UserId="60" />
  <row Id="2407" PostId="1248" Score="0" Text="removal of natural habitat for plants,animals, fungi etc" CreationDate="2013-11-05T07:32:26.207" UserId="519" />
  <row Id="3264" PostId="1248" Score="0" Text="With palm oil, a lot of it depends on where it comes from. According to Wikipedia, African palm oil is mostly produced by small-time farmers and is generally more sustainable than the stuff from Malaysia or Indonesia (though they are working on it.) Another thing to think about, although it might not be totally on-topic: there are concerns about unfair wages, unsafe work environments, and child labor in the harvest of both kinds of oil even when they are &quot;sustainable&quot; in the environmental sense." CreationDate="2014-05-02T14:35:25.877" UserId="57" />
  <row Id="10406" PostId="1248" Score="1" Text="I grew up surrounded by coconut trees in my native state of Kerala. The trees had been there before my parents were born, and are still there to this day.  Every year in summer there would be a mountain of coconuts in our backyard. Coconut trees also don't need tending and grow naturally in some places, look at the map of kerala, it's blanketed in coconut trees. The falling palms are also dried and used as firewood, and the  tree pits are used for garbage (free fertilizer), and the long leaves are used to weave fences and other things. To me it seems a much more eco-friendly option" CreationDate="2018-11-12T09:22:28.507" UserId="6145" />
  <row Id="8001" PostId="1250" Score="3" Text="&quot;Up to more than 60 years&quot; literally includes every value from 0 to infinity. [This source](https://www.reference.com/science/life-cycle-coconut-tree-580819cec6ff3539) gives a range of 60-80 years. Also, the Ecos link is now broken." CreationDate="2017-01-10T16:53:24.430" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8008" PostId="1250" Score="0" Text="Thanks for your comment. I fixed the broken links and added the source you found to my answer." CreationDate="2017-01-11T09:25:01.777" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="2452" PostId="1253" Score="1" Text="Can you clarify what you mean by &quot;if I stop the car&quot; and &quot;if I kept it running&quot;, since most start-stop systems are not under the direct control of the driver?  There is often indirect control based on turning off the environmental controls, whether the clutch is in or out, etc.  But, to first order you can assume that the system has been designed to choose the best times to stop and that it has been engineered for an easier restart than a traditional engine." CreationDate="2013-11-15T19:56:47.587" UserId="87" />
  <row Id="2455" PostId="1253" Score="0" Text="@half-integerfan In our car, the start-stop system is (more or less) under our control. The system stops the engine if the car is not moving, the gear lever is in neutral and I release the clutch, but only if the engine's temperature is warm enough (and possibly some other conditions such as battery charge level). When I move the clutch down again, the engine restarts and is running within 1 second. However, restarting does cost energy from the battery so activating the engine again after I've stopped it only briefly is probably not the most efficient choice." CreationDate="2013-11-16T18:39:33.967" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3704" PostId="1253" Score="0" Text="I don't know of the Fabia Greenline is exactly the same, but my Citigo Greentech also has a dashboard switch to disable the stop-start. So choosing to keep the engine running even without just keeping your foot on the clutch is under the direct control of the driver. Wondering when to disable it in stop-start traffic was why I found this question in a search...." CreationDate="2014-09-30T08:11:58.407" UserId="854" />
  <row Id="3705" PostId="1253" Score="0" Text="The fuel consumed isn't the only consideration: &#xA;http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/stop-start-long-term-impact-your-car-s-engine (Mazda have a system that supposed uses no extra fuel compared with idling for even a very short time - http://home.bt.com/lifestyle/motoring/motoringfeatures/the-truth-about-stopstart-engines-11363870847326 http://www.mazda.com/csr/environment/special_features/2009_02_01.html )" CreationDate="2014-09-30T08:20:28.590" UserId="854" />
  <row Id="2353" PostId="1255" Score="2" Text="The bunny in the movie certainly is nonsense, but (small) LEDs do require little energy, so that's one option for which you can use your half-drained batteries." CreationDate="2013-10-11T10:45:15.480" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="2354" PostId="1255" Score="3" Text="@THelper: Great, except producing those LEDs is not at all clean, so if I don't need them in the first place I wouldn't use them just to make use of batteries." CreationDate="2013-10-11T10:56:12.090" UserId="679" />
  <row Id="2359" PostId="1255" Score="2" Text="@sharptooth good point but lets use a headlamp for instance that runs on AA battteries and has a halogen bulb. The batteries may not have the life to power it. Instead of disposing of them you could use them to power your LED headlamp. I think this was THelper's point." CreationDate="2013-10-12T22:29:07.803" UserId="610" />
  <row Id="2360" PostId="1255" Score="2" Text="you can also get rechargers that work on single-use batteries. They are limited but if you have the batteries it's worth a look. I found I only got 4-5 cycles out of the batteries (still better than one, though), but since the mostly-discharged batteries were free buying the charger paid off. You might find the same." CreationDate="2013-10-13T23:56:46.983" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2362" PostId="1255" Score="0" Text="@CharlieBrown: I'd then use an LED headlamp at all times - it would have much better runtime." CreationDate="2013-10-14T09:12:47.493" UserId="679" />
  <row Id="2364" PostId="1255" Score="0" Text="I think you missed the point of the Duracell commercial - they weren't suggesting that you should build an LED light sculpture to use your old batteries, they are advertising the Duracell &quot;Powercheck&quot; feature on batteries that lets you see how much power is remaining in the battery before you discard it, so they *did* build a battery management system that can help prevent people from discarding batteries prematurely. Though it's debatable whether or not the environmental cost of the powercheck strips on billions of batteries is worth saving some partially discharged batteries from the trash." CreationDate="2013-10-15T23:57:35.283" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="2366" PostId="1255" Score="0" Text="@Johnny: Well, I think you missed my point. Yes, Powercheck will tell you your battery is almost dead but a wall clock or another low power device will still be happy to use it." CreationDate="2013-10-16T06:38:35.503" UserId="679" />
  <row Id="2367" PostId="1255" Score="0" Text="You said the Duracell project was wasteful because they used LED's and wire without mentioning the Powercheck at all, so your point was not clear. I'm not sure what else the battery industry can do to prevent waste if providing the consumer with a quick check to tell the difference between a &quot;dead&quot; and &quot;almost dead&quot; battery isn't sufficient. Disposable batteries are a wasteful convenience anyway - low discharge NiMH cells could be used in place of disposables for most applications, so the best way to prevent discarding &quot;almost dead&quot; batteries would be to not use disposables in the first place." CreationDate="2013-10-16T17:06:58.850" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="2369" PostId="1256" Score="2" Text="The problem with your &quot;other solutions&quot; is that you either need to feed the DC-DC converter independently out of each cell, or put a pile of them in series. With cells in series current will continue to get pushed through them after they are completely discharged. That's inefficient and can cause cells to leak. So the reason you don't see such devices is that they're hard to build, expensive because you need a lot of DC-DC converters and so are not worthwhile." CreationDate="2013-10-18T00:44:04.250" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2370" PostId="1256" Score="0" Text="Interestingly, DC-DC converters will run off very low voltages - http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/LTC3108EGN-1%23PBF/LTC3108EGN-1%23PBF-ND/2297101 goes to 20mV (but is limited to 50mV or spikes of 500mV). I suspect you could find one that will accept anything up to 2V, which would work nicely. You'd still have very low power available, but for LEDs it should work. And only $3.50 each in quantities of 100 (external components also required)." CreationDate="2013-10-18T00:47:02.400" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2376" PostId="1256" Score="0" Text="@Ӎσᶎ: Thank you for the good point! I have added the information about problems of discharging batteries connected in series into the reply. The link to the DC-DC converter is useful too. Maybe I should include it into the reply too :)" CreationDate="2013-10-22T03:08:14.320" UserId="642" />
  <row Id="2501" PostId="1261" Score="0" Text="Silk or wool are both good - they do still use wool for suits here in the tropics.&#xA;Yes, no polyester please :-)" CreationDate="2013-11-27T14:25:36.907" UserId="827" />
  <row Id="2374" PostId="1262" Score="5" Text="Here's [a good link](http://compost.css.cornell.edu/OnFarmHandbook/apa.taba1.html) to get you started. I will try to write a full answer later, when I have more time." CreationDate="2013-10-21T09:05:44.780" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="2453" PostId="1263" Score="0" Text="The Prius is a hybrid vehicle. While it certainly does automatically stop and start its engine, its efficiency characteristics will be different to the auto stop/start systems that are fitted to conventional petrol/diesel cars." CreationDate="2013-11-16T10:43:03.910" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="2454" PostId="1263" Score="0" Text="I basically said that. &quot;this sort of on/off is more efficient than manual on/off&quot;. The engine is much smaller in prius so turning it on and off is more efficient" CreationDate="2013-11-16T18:36:48.870" UserId="282" />
  <row Id="2397" PostId="1264" Score="2" Text="*&quot; For her to try it out, it will have to produce the same effect as using foil.&quot;*   What are the &quot;effects&quot; that she is currently getting by using foil to wrap them in individually?" CreationDate="2013-10-31T15:38:36.520" UserId="624" />
  <row Id="2380" PostId="1267" Score="1" Text="**Clean and hygienic for what use?** We're only guessing, and I'm afraid the answer you solicited is really dangerous for some applications while perfectly safe for others (especially if you don't carefully parse the ifs, ands, or buts). Sure, water your plants... but drinking it might kill you. I hope the users finding this online understand that nuance." CreationDate="2013-10-28T17:01:50.037" UserId="117" />
  <row Id="2381" PostId="1267" Score="0" Text="@RobertCartaino thanks for the clarification. Opps! Never for drinking at all. :)" CreationDate="2013-10-28T17:30:28.070" UserId="641" />
  <row Id="2379" PostId="1268" Score="0" Text="Good answer, just to stress the big IF: from my experience **the coils are almost never clean, the air filters are dusted and it takes very long to capture the water**. That's why the A/C waste water isn't clean nor hygienic." CreationDate="2013-10-28T09:25:14.047" UserId="60" />
  <row Id="2612" PostId="1268" Score="0" Text="Wouldn't it also depend upon the AC's coils? If the coils contained lead or some other hazardous material (maybe as a coating?) then it would not be safe to drink." CreationDate="2013-12-18T16:40:57.703" UserId="69" />
  <row Id="2378" PostId="1270" Score="0" Text="I ended using something very similar. Categorized bags by size and strength (big&amp;large, medium, tiny) and used old textile bags as containers. I also tried to use the folding method from the video I linked to in my question and I must admit - once you get used to it, it's surprisingly fast." CreationDate="2013-10-24T14:01:34.240" UserId="685" />
  <row Id="2384" PostId="1272" Score="5" Text="Unless everyone is cooking like a maniac, I think 2kg/day/apartment is too high an estimate. (Ask yourself, how much do potato peels of 1 kg weigh?) You could also only ask for raw food scraps, i.e. no cooked meat sauce with pasta etc., which should be more manageable in terms of pest control (esp. rats, but also pidgeons, dogs, foxes, etc.). Then I think that under 500g is a more reasonable estimate." CreationDate="2013-10-30T08:55:55.140" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="8518" PostId="1272" Score="1" Text="@Earthliŋ, this is Brazil. Lifestyle is different here. People cook at home more, with more fresh products, and eat a lot of fruits. Think mangoes, watermelons, papayas and bananas at every corner. Have you seen the size of those ? 2kgs/day/apartment is what I personally got for a family of 3." CreationDate="2017-05-20T23:22:34.093" UserId="868" />
  <row Id="2390" PostId="1273" Score="0" Text="I actually thought one bin per story would ease everyone's task and remove from people a reason not to participate. But the price goes up, currently about 25 USD per apartment. They will frown and possibly reject the option. I'd like to have a cheaper alternative to offer then, that's why I'm still looking at a centralized solution." CreationDate="2013-10-30T11:28:15.130" UserId="868" />
  <row Id="2391" PostId="1274" Score="0" Text="That's very neat, but we don't have those ready-to-by here in Brazil, and I don't trust myself to be able to adapt a conventional bin." CreationDate="2013-10-30T12:14:46.807" UserId="868" />
  <row Id="2393" PostId="1274" Score="2" Text="If you don't want to pay very much, and you don't want to build them yourself, it's going to be a real struggle to get something that doesn't look awful." CreationDate="2013-10-30T20:16:17.023" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2396" PostId="1274" Score="0" Text="Perhaps others in your building could aid with constructing one? Could help avoid the high per apartment cost you're afraid of and also turn into a fun, productive community event." CreationDate="2013-10-31T03:24:40.903" UserId="674" />
  <row Id="2399" PostId="1274" Score="0" Text="I tried suggesting the do-it-ourselves option on something else, but no such community spirit here, unfortunately." CreationDate="2013-11-01T20:35:00.950" UserId="868" />
  <row Id="2386" PostId="1275" Score="0" Text="Please don't hesitate to ask for clarification if the answer is too technical!" CreationDate="2013-10-30T10:40:42.400" UserId="453" />
  <row Id="2387" PostId="1275" Score="0" Text="Excellent answer. Have not read the pdf you've referenced yet, does it go into detail on the land use difference between PO and CN ? that's quite a difference." CreationDate="2013-10-30T10:46:07.413" UserId="519" />
  <row Id="2388" PostId="1275" Score="0" Text="@Sdry Unfortunately it doesn't. There is a remark that palm oil yields are very high per hectare (I added it to the answer) but thats it." CreationDate="2013-10-30T11:03:13.783" UserId="453" />
  <row Id="2389" PostId="1275" Score="2" Text="Very interesting presentation! Two things I'd like to note: on page 13 it says that the coconut data is &quot;from Malaysia&quot; which is one of the largest palm oil producers in the world, so I am a bit worried that this data is biased. Also, if I understand it correctly, biodiversity and pesticides are not taken into acount and biodiversity where palm oil scores very badly.&#xA;Other than that, great info!" CreationDate="2013-10-30T11:23:48.450" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="2392" PostId="1275" Score="0" Text="@THelper Absolutely right. Both, palm oil and coconut oil originate from Malaysia. And biodiversity loss is not taken into account (as far as I know there is no advanced methodology to combine with life cycle assessments yet besides some half meaningful indicators like &quot;species lost per year&quot;). Maybe I should point that out in the answer but you covered that point thoroughly." CreationDate="2013-10-30T12:34:44.260" UserId="453" />
  <row Id="8498" PostId="1275" Score="0" Text="If you look down to the bottom of that .pdf you'll notice in the fine print that if the tonnes of co2/h emitted by the conversion of peat rainforest to plantation is counted, it literally puts palm oil off the chart. Your choice ought to depend on where you live. Here in rural Canada, I'm convinced if you care about carbon more than cholesterol the answer is butter." CreationDate="2013-11-03T16:12:31.323" UserId="873" />
  <row Id="2394" PostId="1276" Score="0" Text="They're controlled by the local council just like any other building permit. I think you need to expand your question and be more explicit about what you're asking. I guess that there are there are over 10,000 bodies that issue building permits (560 in Australia alone) and many of them can't be put into the categories you list." CreationDate="2013-10-30T21:28:23.330" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2395" PostId="1276" Score="0" Text="Good point.  For now, my focus is on the United States." CreationDate="2013-10-30T22:00:50.537" UserId="749" />
  <row Id="2404" PostId="1277" Score="3" Text="In one sense it seems straightforward - that there's less material being used to produce an equivalent product. However, if one is being rigorous one probably ought to ask the manufacturer if they have done a study of the energy involved in manufacture." CreationDate="2013-11-04T12:15:07.667" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="2406" PostId="1277" Score="0" Text="@SimonWaldman: Yes, less material sounds reasonable, but what if they add plutonium to achieve the same thickness?" CreationDate="2013-11-05T07:26:41.117" UserId="679" />
  <row Id="2408" PostId="1277" Score="1" Text="Well, yes. I think the only way to investigate this would be to ask the manufacturer. The saving in material is 12.5%, and they are only claiming a 10% &quot;smaller environmental load&quot;, whatever that may mean. So perhaps this reflects the findings of a study that they might be willing to share?" CreationDate="2013-11-05T11:35:25.557" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="2621" PostId="1277" Score="1" Text="[This paper manufacturer](http://www.catalystpaper.com/products/environmental-footprint) claims that lighter paper requires less raw materials and costs less energy for production and shipping. They also [published a sheet](http://www.catalystpaper.com/sites/default/files/whats_in_your_paper.pdf) listing how much resources they use to produce it. The only problem is, there is no sheet for thicker paper to compare this to." CreationDate="2013-12-23T09:30:00.177" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="2398" PostId="1279" Score="1" Text="No doubt we would eventually end up with dead pets and used toilet paper (;" CreationDate="2013-11-01T20:33:21.930" UserId="868" />
  <row Id="2426" PostId="1280" Score="3" Text="1st time I see this table with references ! Well done, this should be on wikipedia." CreationDate="2013-11-08T13:51:15.693" UserId="888" />
  <row Id="2402" PostId="1281" Score="1" Text="I've never heard of an algae lamp! Can you provide a link to some more details about one, such as one for sale somewhere?" CreationDate="2013-11-04T02:17:45.780" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="2403" PostId="1281" Score="1" Text="@HighlyIrregular I don't think algae lamps are for sale yet, but [here is some info](http://blog.ted.com/2013/10/02/a-streetlamp-powered-by-algae/)" CreationDate="2013-11-04T09:31:32.653" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="2412" PostId="1282" Score="1" Text="The short answer is by proper management of the grid, which is very situational. For a country like NZ with 70% hydro, the answer is &quot;just feed it in&quot;, because hydro reacts so fast that it doesn't matter (as a first approximation, anyway). For a nuclear or coal heavy grid that responds much more slowly, proper management is much more complex. And note that not all countries *have* a grid, Australia for example has two or three that cover about 50% of the land area (but 98% of the population)" CreationDate="2013-11-05T22:40:44.877" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2503" PostId="1282" Score="1" Text="You might want to check out [Beyond Zero Emissions](http://bze.org.au/zero-carbon-australia/stationary-energy-plan) - an Australian organisation that's been working on a plan for 100% renewable in 10 years" CreationDate="2013-11-27T14:02:01.237" UserId="827" />
  <row Id="2405" PostId="1286" Score="0" Text="I have read about algae lamp and how it works but I cannot contact with the one who publish it. this the website although he put his email but he doesn't respond http://www.miket.co.uk/images/Latro.pdf" CreationDate="2013-11-04T20:09:46.380" UserId="869" />
  <row Id="2422" PostId="1286" Score="0" Text="@fransisco On page 4 of the Latro pdf you are referring to it says: &quot;*Latro is a **speculative** product responding to this future market.*&quot;&#xA;So the lamp has never been built! The pdf merely describes ideas about how such a lamp should work in the future." CreationDate="2013-11-06T15:24:18.837" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="2411" PostId="1288" Score="0" Text="demand shifting is actually quite old by electricity grid standards - ripple control systems were used in New Zealand in the 1950's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Load_management#New_Zealand so it's &quot;in it's infancy&quot; is only true in the USA. See that wikipedia article for another example of &quot;invented in the USA in 1971, in use elsewhere since 1950&quot;." CreationDate="2013-11-05T22:37:09.223" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2413" PostId="1288" Score="0" Text="@Ӎσᶎ Thanks - I didn't realise that NZ had such a sophisticated system. I'm not aware of such anywhere else in the world (and neither is that wiki page!). I've edited the answer to include a link to the wiki page, and to mention that the situation does vary by country, but I would argue that even the system that you mention is crude compared to the interactive approach that I've described." CreationDate="2013-11-06T08:11:14.270" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="2414" PostId="1288" Score="0" Text="yes, fully interactive, remote control stuff is new. But in prior to 1990 some NZ retailers used a peak demand reduction system where they notified large users on peak days and gave (significant) discounts if demand was reduced then. That trial was cancelled and replaced with a peak demand charge (see http://ir.canterbury.ac.nz/bitstream/10092/6419/1/tromop_thesis.pdf page 32) which meant it was cheaper to reduce overall demand than use on-site generation on peak days." CreationDate="2013-11-06T09:55:37.453" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2415" PostId="1288" Score="0" Text="I believe Brazil and Norway have used similar schemes but can't find online references, sorry. I suspect my lack of Portuguese and Norweigan is the problem. My broader point is that the ideas are old, but new technology makes it easier to do now." CreationDate="2013-11-06T09:58:10.187" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2416" PostId="1288" Score="0" Text="@Ӎσᶎ hmm, that's a fair general point. I don't especially want to get into the specifics of frequency response vs radio control vs smart metering, etc - since this isn't a question specifically about demand response techniques - but I've reworded to indicate that it is already out there." CreationDate="2013-11-06T13:49:03.073" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="2421" PostId="1288" Score="0" Text="@Ӎσᶎ, Simon, yes, frequency response is a good point, and a lot more specific than this question. If either of you would like to post a question about balancing at the scale of quarter-cycle to a few seconds in a grid with lots of exogenously-variable renewables, please do. It's a very interesting area." CreationDate="2013-11-06T14:36:48.643" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="2423" PostId="1288" Score="0" Text="@EnergyNumbers hee, that wasn't even the type of frequency response I meant! I was referring to having domestic appliances that automatically switch off if the mains frequency drops below a set level, as a primitive form of demand response... The other form would also be relevant to this question, I guess, but... yeah, not wanting to be overly technical." CreationDate="2013-11-06T17:29:09.143" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="2434" PostId="1288" Score="0" Text="@Ӎσᶎ, Simon, I've linked [to this comment thread over on chat](http://chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/12106961#12106961) - perhaps we can continue this, there?" CreationDate="2013-11-10T17:27:51.170" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="2419" PostId="1294" Score="1" Text="I think there is a good underlying question here, but it is not clear to me exactly what is being asked." CreationDate="2013-11-06T13:56:27.083" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="2420" PostId="1294" Score="0" Text="A related question about recycling plastics can be found [here](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/225/99)" CreationDate="2013-11-06T14:08:54.090" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="2418" PostId="1297" Score="3" Text="+1, burning plastic in more or less clean fashion is a challenge - certainly not doable in backyard." CreationDate="2013-11-06T13:51:37.893" UserId="679" />
  <row Id="2428" PostId="1300" Score="0" Text="Note that in some countries hedgehogs are a pest species and should be poisoned rather than fed (New Zealand, Australia for example). Not sure what their status is in the USA." CreationDate="2013-11-09T04:55:41.907" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2424" PostId="1302" Score="0" Text="This is a great answer, I would like to tick both replies received as answers, but can only select one. (I think). Your phrase &quot;.. a garden that sustains ..&quot;, really brought it home to me. I am 3 years in, and have had &quot;crop-up's&quot; (onion, leeks, spinache, potatoes, parsley, marigolds), which felt like free-food. ;-) tks" CreationDate="2013-11-08T12:36:45.360" UserId="888" />
  <row Id="9329" PostId="1302" Score="0" Text="By Morrison, do you mean Bill Mollison?" CreationDate="2018-03-07T23:42:05.407" UserId="1548" />
  <row Id="9330" PostId="1302" Score="1" Text="@JoséAndias I'm usually good with names, including spelling. Not sure how this happened... Thanks" CreationDate="2018-03-08T07:01:59.203" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="2425" PostId="1303" Score="0" Text="You answer is just as useful as the other. My 1st year managed beets and couple of carrots in no-till, 2nd year was disastrous, so feel back to a small dug area. So I am mixing but also feel so uncertain whether my methods are working. I find it is easier to have plants in areas, but I do try and mix plants together (inter-cropping/multi-cropping), have achieved successional harvest in same area (two vege types) this 3rd year. And yes I've decided to have 1/6 plot for potatoes-root crops rotated similar to Fukuoka's rice-barley mix. tks :-)" CreationDate="2013-11-08T12:49:13.427" UserId="888" />
  <row Id="2445" PostId="1305" Score="1" Text="There's a better IMO Grand Designs episode where a couple of design students used a CNC router to cut plywood sheets, assemble them into boxes, and built a house out of those. It's all very 3D-CAD based but seemed to work. Unfortunately their website is a flash abomination (http://www.facit-homes.com/) but the idea seems sound." CreationDate="2013-11-12T21:29:51.310" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2446" PostId="1305" Score="0" Text="The big problem with underground houses is the hole. Holes are expensive and the fill has to go somewhere." CreationDate="2013-11-12T21:30:37.470" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2514" PostId="1306" Score="3" Text="In bed, a modern, safety-certified [electric underblanket](http://enwp.org/Electric_blanket) or [hot water bottle](http://enwp.org/Hot_water_bottle) would be more efficient, and might also be safer." CreationDate="2013-12-02T05:15:53.807" UserId="938" />
  <row Id="2478" PostId="1307" Score="2" Text="Sorry, but harvesting cement (which is the base for concrete) has the same environmental impact as harvesting coal. So it's **not** &quot;very friendly!&quot;." CreationDate="2013-11-24T16:02:00.497" UserId="921" />
  <row Id="2432" PostId="1308" Score="0" Text="Thanks - so a fan heater (with a thermostat) is probably going to be better at maintaining a steady temperature in a well-insulated room, but a radiative heater aimed at your body will warm you more quickly. That makes a lot of sense." CreationDate="2013-11-09T15:53:06.403" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="2438" PostId="1308" Score="2" Text="@SimonWaldman - Probably the best for a steady temperature is an oil filled radiator. A thermostatically controlled fan heater will alternate between be either on or off, say 1 minute on then 5 minutes off. The switching of the radiator heating elements may be similar, but the heat output would be more consistent due to the thermal mass of the oil." CreationDate="2013-11-11T00:23:50.353" UserId="164" />
  <row Id="8413" PostId="1309" Score="0" Text="I only own one heater, and it is oil filled. Its mission in life is to keep my children's nursery warm while not lighting it on fire. The oil filled radiator is, in my opinion, best to simulate having a different thermostat setting in one room of the house. I keep my house at 65 F in the winter, but the baby's room at 72 F. As an added bonus, my kids can touch it without burning themselves." CreationDate="2017-04-10T15:12:31.977" UserId="3955" />
  <row Id="2435" PostId="2310" Score="1" Text="Making an electric radiator black would make [no difference difference](http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/a/15473/2772). Also, while safety is a concern, a well built fan heater would trip it's [thermal fuse](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_fuse) long before it caught fire, even if its normal [bimetal cutout](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_heater#Safety) has failed." CreationDate="2013-11-10T22:59:20.027" UserId="164" />
  <row Id="2436" PostId="2310" Score="1" Text="@MarkBooth it appears you're correct about black paint not helping, as long as the external surface isn't shiny metal: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_radiation#Surface_effects though it appears it's a common misconception! They got it wrong here too: http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/questions/question/3136/ I've updated my answer." CreationDate="2013-11-10T23:21:24.743" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="2437" PostId="2310" Score="0" Text="As for the thermal cutout/fuse, I wouldn't like to rely on it personally!" CreationDate="2013-11-10T23:22:51.113" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="2440" PostId="2310" Score="0" Text="My experience has been that thermal cut-outs are often over-sensitive and likely to fail open, rather than not working or failing closed. Anecdata, admittedly." CreationDate="2013-11-11T01:48:22.703" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2441" PostId="2310" Score="1" Text="I'm also inclined to use insulation rather than heating, preferring a DIY box-bed over heating the whole bedroom, for example. But in a bathroom... my solution was to move to Australia :)" CreationDate="2013-11-11T01:49:40.130" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2442" PostId="2311" Score="0" Text="I'm guessing that if they are recyclable at all, it's as metal rather than as card (the card would be burnt off and the metal recovered). But I don't actually know that." CreationDate="2013-11-11T06:12:31.730" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="2443" PostId="2311" Score="0" Text="This material can be theoretically recycled using similar techniques as [Tetra Pak](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetra_Pak#Recycling)." CreationDate="2013-11-11T08:25:17.347" UserId="642" />
  <row Id="2444" PostId="2311" Score="0" Text="@SimonWaldman, the foil layer is so thin that I doubt that anyone would bother recovering it." CreationDate="2013-11-11T20:00:22.140" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="2451" PostId="2313" Score="3" Text="This covers it pretty well, but I would add: determine whether the roof is the best place for your panels.  If for whatever reason you might end up with a pole or ground mount then there would be no dependency on the condition of the roof." CreationDate="2013-11-15T19:43:28.563" UserId="87" />
  <row Id="2473" PostId="2315" Score="0" Text="&quot;More&quot; effective would depend on the context, you may consider just plastic on a sunny window during the day.    Also try and find a tightly woven blanket." CreationDate="2013-11-22T07:42:02.813" UserId="885" />
  <row Id="2450" PostId="2316" Score="0" Text="I've done this, and notably when it snowed I got ice forming on the inside of the window - there was just enough air movement through the blankets that condensation formed and froze. But very slowly, and a weekly opening of the window during the day as enough to stop mold problems." CreationDate="2013-11-15T06:38:14.610" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2456" PostId="2317" Score="1" Text="The amount of material in these things is so tiny that I suspect the answer is &quot;just throw it away&quot;. But I'd be interested to hear from anybody with evidence to the contrary." CreationDate="2013-11-16T22:37:32.370" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="2457" PostId="2318" Score="0" Text="Thanks for those numbers! My car usually idles at 0.4 or 0.5 liter/hour (at least that what it says in the display when I'm standing still), so that would be 0.13 gallon/hour. But since I can restart within 1 second (and not 3 secs as assumed in the calculation), the wasted gasoline should be much less than 1/4000 gallon&#xA;If I take a rough estimate of 1/(4000*3) wasted gallons then the break-even point would be somewhere between 2-3 seconds." CreationDate="2013-11-18T12:28:40.523" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="2458" PostId="2318" Score="0" Text="That seems about right.  The Prius only idles when the engine is cold so it is the equivalent of a &quot;high idle&quot; - there is no &quot;low idle&quot; as it just shuts off.  So I can believe that you achieve 1/8 gal/hr for low idle.  Note that the number given is just the gasoline to replace the battery energy - there is also the initial charge in the engine itself, but I would expect that to be optimized in a start-stop engine, and as you say it cranks for much less time, so I think all these factors are still within the rough estimates we are making here." CreationDate="2013-11-18T14:15:11.140" UserId="87" />
  <row Id="2459" PostId="2319" Score="2" Text="Like you I couldn't find anything more detailed than a state-by-state breakdown. It would be useful if you gave the links you have to date so people don't waste time looking at things you have already exhausted. For instance, http://www.environment.gov.au/node/22261 and http://www.water.gov.au/WaterUse/AustralianBureauofStatisticswateraccounts/index.aspx?Menu=Level1_4_1" CreationDate="2013-11-18T21:12:38.510" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2460" PostId="2319" Score="0" Text="Fair point.  However, I hadn't kept any real notes on the subject as I was not seeing anything that even came close to helping.  I will update the question as I continue working.  Thank you!" CreationDate="2013-11-18T22:20:19.580" UserId="907" />
  <row Id="2461" PostId="2320" Score="1" Text="Not having to wear a sweater has nothing to do with sustainability." CreationDate="2013-11-19T12:02:26.927" UserId="679" />
  <row Id="2463" PostId="2320" Score="1" Text="But he didn't just stop wearing sweaters, he stopped wearing sweaters while also reducing his energy usage. If someone reduces their energy consumption through the use of targeted space heaters, isn't increasing his sustainability regardless of whether or not they wear sweaters? Energy savings increases sustainability and if more people are willing to reduce energy consumption through the use of space heaters than through wearing heavy clothes indoors, the space heaters may save more energy than the technically more sustainable sweaters." CreationDate="2013-11-19T21:20:28.787" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="2470" PostId="2320" Score="0" Text="@Johnny: I don't actually believe into what that comment says - it sounds like a heater ad." CreationDate="2013-11-20T11:55:50.230" UserId="679" />
  <row Id="2471" PostId="2320" Score="0" Text="I can believe it -- while living 2 winters in a rental house with drafty windows and an inefficient and expensive to operate 1940's era gravity furnace, an infrared heater made our living room usable. Even after shrink wrapping the windows to reduce drafts, the furnace could barely maintain 60 degrees in the living room on cold winter days." CreationDate="2013-11-20T16:05:55.217" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="2467" PostId="2323" Score="0" Text="Thanks. I'm a bit concern about fungal growth inside the bin. I've already seen a few mushroom heads popping up." CreationDate="2013-11-20T00:44:40.907" UserId="893" />
  <row Id="2468" PostId="2323" Score="1" Text="@Raiyan. Mushrooms are no problem for worms and may even speed up the decomposition process. To prevent mushrooms from starting to grow you can stir up the top layer in your bin every once in a while." CreationDate="2013-11-20T09:28:52.353" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="2472" PostId="2324" Score="0" Text="I am leaving the question open as I am still hoping for a more direct set of data (and, if possible, from the US).  But this is the most useful stuff I have gotten so far, and I'll see what I can do with the appendices.  Thanks!" CreationDate="2013-11-21T18:55:29.363" UserId="907" />
  <row Id="15070" PostId="2325" Score="0" Text="Nice answer .. another thing to consider, perhaps, is the efficiency at delivering &quot;comfort&quot;, which might not be the same as heat. Central heating is good at maintaing a uniform level of heat. Having lots of radiative heaters spread around the house will create islands of heat where needed, but may result in uncomfortable thermal gradients. I'm thinking of using the central heating + wood stove to keep the general temperature around 16 deg C, and then thermal lamps for an extra few degrees where needed." CreationDate="2021-10-01T21:01:08.607" UserId="8013" />
  <row Id="2513" PostId="2328" Score="0" Text="Thanks for the link, but I cannot access any of those articles!  Alas..." CreationDate="2013-11-30T06:23:05.537" UserId="907" />
  <row Id="2522" PostId="2328" Score="0" Text="You may try from your local library or university networks- they will usually have an academic subscription service." CreationDate="2013-12-02T16:40:08.203" UserId="885" />
  <row Id="2475" PostId="2329" Score="2" Text="While this information could be useful could you please include some details? (when it was done, authors, results...)" CreationDate="2013-11-23T11:06:01.263" UserId="642" />
  <row Id="2477" PostId="2330" Score="2" Text="downvoted because this answer is not helpful - the OP may be aware of all these factors but was looking for data.  And your point 6 is outside the scope of the question." CreationDate="2013-11-24T14:03:50.550" UserId="87" />
  <row Id="7937" PostId="2330" Score="0" Text="@half-integerfan, none of the other answers include numeric data either. Only the comments do. Why pick on this one author? ... Regarding (6), it is absolutely in scope. We are not starting from horse and buggy days. People already have cars and might buy a Tesla to save energy before the previous car is at end of product life, which is likely to be counterproductive. Perhaps (6) should be removed from the list and put in a paragraph. I'll agree there. Items 1-5 are important factors to include in any unbiased analysis. ... Are you sure Dave's answer is inferior to the others? I don't see it." CreationDate="2017-01-01T06:55:58.863" UserId="4084" />
  <row Id="2479" PostId="2333" Score="0" Text="I've never seen a pilot light; how accessible is it? Could you blow out the flame and stick a balloon over it perhaps? Could you heat a small container of water over it?" CreationDate="2013-11-25T02:19:59.493" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="2480" PostId="2333" Score="1" Text="One workaround would be to assume that pilot lights are similar, and have somebody with a metered supply do the measurement. I don't know how valid that assumption is, though." CreationDate="2013-11-25T08:18:18.927" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="2481" PostId="2333" Score="1" Text="Can you weigh the gas container?" CreationDate="2013-11-25T09:39:23.530" UserId="679" />
  <row Id="2482" PostId="2333" Score="0" Text="was thinking about wieghing the container, too - difficulty could be that the gas use of the pilot is low compared to the total mass, and thus is hard to measure. Maybe try it when the container is almost empty." CreationDate="2013-11-25T10:02:03.420" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="2509" PostId="2333" Score="0" Text="I did locate the installer's manual; it has no info on flow rate but does specify 11-14 water column inches of pressure, which converts to .4-.5 psi." CreationDate="2013-11-28T01:32:25.863" UserId="87" />
  <row Id="2508" PostId="2335" Score="0" Text="5-12 therms per month converts to 5.5-13 gal of propane per month, or 145-350 kWh/mo.  That is a lot!  It is the equivalent of 200-480W continuous usage.  Assuming my device is in this range, I will start shutting off the pilot whenever it will not need to be used.  It is true that the waste heat goes into the house, but it is still going right up the wall to the ceiling so it may not be a very useful heat." CreationDate="2013-11-28T01:30:47.730" UserId="87" />
  <row Id="2523" PostId="2335" Score="0" Text="Indeed that may be best!  Although for hot water heaters (assuming they are designed correctly) the pilot can serve to keep the water at temperature, so it isn't strictly wasted. For the stove you could consider replacing it with an ignition system." CreationDate="2013-12-02T16:51:46.607" UserId="885" />
  <row Id="2484" PostId="2336" Score="0" Text="Could you please describe the heating system being used? I understand that it is some kind of a [central heating](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_heating). Is it based on hot water circulation through radiators? There is a single thermostat in a certain room and simple (static) valves on individual radiators?" CreationDate="2013-11-27T08:45:01.870" UserId="642" />
  <row Id="2485" PostId="2336" Score="0" Text="If you are going to cover your vent, be safe and don't use a blanket (or any other material that may burn). Better use metal or foil." CreationDate="2013-11-27T09:43:14.687" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="2486" PostId="2336" Score="2" Text="Covering the vent is probably viable, but I fear that this is a primarily a getting-along-with-housemates problem rather than a technical one: You want to convince them to turn the heating down. Is the issue just overnight? If so, you could buy them warmer duvets for Christmas... ;-)" CreationDate="2013-11-27T10:01:59.000" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="2960" PostId="2337" Score="0" Text="Bathroom:  Get a small fan, and try getting people to turn the fan on to exchange air with the rest of the house instead of opening the window.  This also requires people learning to leave the bathroom door open when not in use." CreationDate="2014-02-18T13:59:55.747" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="2487" PostId="2339" Score="1" Text="If humans caused 1.5 ppt in 200 years, that means they averaged 7.5 ppm per year for those 200 years (1.5/1000/200), which is 2.8 times higher than the observed data point for 2012. So I'm not sure what you're looking at is comparable exactly -- it would appear that the 1.5ppt found by looking at C13/C12 is not the whole story." CreationDate="2013-11-25T21:37:45.827" UserDisplayName="tpg2114" />
  <row Id="2488" PostId="2339" Score="1" Text="@WetSavannaAnimalakaRodVance My point was that the average indicates an increase 3 times larger than that observed. Since the output is *clearly* not constant with time and exploded recently just as you say, there's no way we're talking about the same things/considering all the factors." CreationDate="2013-11-26T02:43:06.523" UserDisplayName="tpg2114" />
  <row Id="2489" PostId="2339" Score="2" Text="The quote above does not say anything about the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.  It refers to a ***shift in the relative amounts*** of two stable isotopes of carbon in that carbon dioxide." CreationDate="2013-11-26T03:02:44.423" UserDisplayName="User58220" />
  <row Id="2490" PostId="2339" Score="0" Text="@User58220 That's the beginning point for a full answer to the OP's question then. You're spot on." CreationDate="2013-11-26T06:34:24.527" UserDisplayName="WetSavannaAnimal aka Rod Vance" />
  <row Id="2491" PostId="2339" Score="0" Text="@tpg2114 you're absolutely right - I think User38220 is onto what's wrong, though." CreationDate="2013-11-26T06:41:40.500" UserDisplayName="WetSavannaAnimal aka Rod Vance" />
  <row Id="2497" PostId="2341" Score="1" Text="Models are not measurements... but are usually based on another indicators and some on a science and/or fiction. As original question went specifically to measurement.. there is just an estimation." CreationDate="2013-11-26T11:33:27.960" UserDisplayName="Dee" />
  <row Id="2498" PostId="2341" Score="1" Text="@Dee as I said it is likely impossible to tell which gigaton of CO2 came from where.  We have to depend on models of sources/sinks and test them against the measurements of the whole system.  Trends like C-13/C-12 ratios and C-14 dropping are clues to the origin of the CO2 increases." CreationDate="2013-11-26T19:30:54.147" UserDisplayName="user6972" />
  <row Id="2499" PostId="2341" Score="0" Text="@user6972, thanks a lot for the thorough answer! It sheds a light on the paper I cited in the question. I have updated the question (see the last paragraph). Do you know the answer to that? You wrote, resp. cited &quot;We know that this increase is anthropogenic&quot;, but does this mean 100% of the increase, more than 50% or less than 50%?" CreationDate="2013-11-26T20:21:20.507" UserDisplayName="Ondřej Čertík" />
  <row Id="2500" PostId="2341" Score="1" Text="@OndřejČertík You could easily argue that the increase is 100% anthropogenic based on historical data showing the system was close to equilibrium prior to the industrial age of increased greenhouse gases and resulting warmer temperatures." CreationDate="2013-11-27T03:13:25.617" UserDisplayName="user6972" />
  <row Id="2506" PostId="2341" Score="0" Text="@user6972 Disagree.  The world was at 'equilibrium' but does naturally warm and cool (ice ages, etc) over time, the equilibrium never lasts.  However there is no evidence of a warming period in anywhere near the time span we're currently experiencing." CreationDate="2013-11-27T21:27:43.440" UserId="885" />
  <row Id="2507" PostId="2341" Score="0" Text="@Meep What do you disagree with?  It seems you agree.  We are talking about the equilibrium point between carbon sinks and sources prior to the industrial age." CreationDate="2013-11-28T00:14:15.007" UserId="931" />
  <row Id="2524" PostId="2341" Score="0" Text="I mean to say the world is never exactly at equilibrium- all living systems are constantly in flux. However the natural world at any time appears to be balanced as the changes are slow (measured over thousands of years) but eventually result in drastic shifts, such as the ice ages. Humans have thrown it off much more than nature though, the changes are familiar but are now measured in years instead of thousands of years.   ex: http://www.jamestown-ri.info/Temperature_swings_11000_yrs.jpg" CreationDate="2013-12-02T16:58:59.463" UserId="885" />
  <row Id="2525" PostId="2341" Score="0" Text="@Meep you keep referring to temperature, but the question and my answer center around CO2. The relationship between temperature and CO2 is complex.  In fact some think if emissions stopped today we would still continue the warming trend http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/11/131124200552.htm" CreationDate="2013-12-02T17:57:31.940" UserId="931" />
  <row Id="2526" PostId="2341" Score="0" Text="Oh, I see, sorry.  CO2 also varries quite a lot  (check the recent Vostok records http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/graphics/vostok.co2.gif ).  You're right the relationship is complex but CO2 and temperature are definitely connected, and both do vary.  Mostly I find the distinction of natural equilibrium important since so many opponents of global warming are currently citing natural trends as evidence against man-made climate change." CreationDate="2013-12-02T19:11:00.693" UserId="885" />
  <row Id="7754" PostId="2345" Score="0" Text="Only to get it right, females are the only human being who have old clothes they can use for wiping?" CreationDate="2016-11-29T19:08:36.637" UserId="840" />
  <row Id="9503" PostId="2345" Score="0" Text="@user933, Re &quot;tops&quot;; meaning?" CreationDate="2018-04-07T07:06:28.367" UserId="5613" />
  <row Id="10376" PostId="2346" Score="1" Text="Heard that too. But to me it seems this was used for non-sewered, septic tank type toilets in rural areas (here, rural Germany, 1950s). Makes sense, as toilet paper is made to quickly break down in contact with water, while newspaper will keep its structure much longer and clog the pipe." CreationDate="2018-11-07T01:37:21.180" UserId="2134" />
  <row Id="2711" PostId="2348" Score="2" Text="Even if you were drinking this water bugs and algae would probably be lower on the list of concerns.  I imagine the water that comes through the municipal pipes is probably in worse shape.  Why not add a series of filters in line to where the water comes into the house.  A prefilter for the large stuff, a finer filter for the small stuff then a UV filter to kill anything that might have gotten through those?  This way you can clean out the tank every few years without worrying too much about what's going on in there in the meantime." CreationDate="2014-01-13T05:25:11.633" UserId="794" />
  <row Id="2515" PostId="2350" Score="2" Text="Is this an **air**-source heat pump, or some other source (ground, water)? I think from your question it must be air-source, but wanted to check first." CreationDate="2013-12-02T06:23:18.840" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="2516" PostId="2350" Score="1" Text="Yes, it is air-source, otherwise as you and Flyto point out there would not be a large source temperature difference from day to night." CreationDate="2013-12-02T13:58:17.607" UserId="87" />
  <row Id="2517" PostId="2351" Score="0" Text="I was being intentionally sloppy with my wording when I only referred to the outside temperature and not the difference, but +1 for pointing out the limits this puts on raising the inside temperature." CreationDate="2013-12-02T14:01:25.853" UserId="87" />
  <row Id="2518" PostId="2351" Score="0" Text="Luckily, I do have an energy monitor with channels for the HVAC system so I can attempt to measure a difference.  The difficulty, as you say, will be determining equivalent days.  It also occurs to me that  even if this scheme only breaks even on energy use there is a benefit to having more comfortable temperatures for more of the day.  I am still hoping someone will be able to answer with actual heat pump COP curves." CreationDate="2013-12-02T14:05:29.303" UserId="87" />
  <row Id="2519" PostId="2351" Score="0" Text="You'd need both the COP curves and a (perhaps back-of-envelope) calculation of heat loss for your house. But yes, if somebody can come up with figures I'd be interested!" CreationDate="2013-12-02T14:48:21.310" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="2527" PostId="2351" Score="0" Text="Well with the energy monitor I should be able to determine the heat replacement rate (actually just how long the heat runs, I'll still need COP to convert to actual heat loss).  Insolation is difficult to control for but I could crunch the numbers for the overnight hours if I find an accurate temperature profile." CreationDate="2013-12-03T02:47:26.727" UserId="87" />
  <row Id="2530" PostId="2351" Score="0" Text="Oh, good point :-)" CreationDate="2013-12-03T07:57:06.433" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="2520" PostId="2352" Score="0" Text="wow that was what I was looking for !, is the tap really required? and have you personally used such bokashi bins?" CreationDate="2013-12-02T15:46:29.153" UserId="936" />
  <row Id="2521" PostId="2352" Score="0" Text="also if I use a small bin for experimentation purpose like those small paint cans than how long should I wait for the fermentation process?" CreationDate="2013-12-02T15:58:18.180" UserId="936" />
  <row Id="2541" PostId="2352" Score="0" Text="@Alicompost My personal experience with Bokashi is limited (I am more into [tag:vermicomposting] myself) but I know other people who are doing this succesfully for quite some time now. A tap is not necessary, but draining liquid is so drill some holes and add a water container at the bottom and make sure it is airtight. The fermentation process always takes about 2 to 3 weeks (stage1) and then another 2-4 weeks with compost (stage2) to fully decompose. This is the same for small batches. In larger batches you just add more EM." CreationDate="2013-12-04T07:45:51.150" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="2532" PostId="2354" Score="0" Text="Thanks, that's interesting about the mate production, though I'm not sure how that compares to coffee and tea. Mostly I'm curious about the lifecycle numbers, as they can often be deceiving." CreationDate="2013-12-03T16:26:34.943" UserId="404" />
  <row Id="2534" PostId="2354" Score="0" Text="Fair enough- sorry I don't have any numbers, just what I've seen.  Coffee is roasted, and tea is baked, typically.  Although I don't imagine that process is the main impact compared to water use." CreationDate="2013-12-03T22:37:36.223" UserId="885" />
  <row Id="2544" PostId="2354" Score="3" Text="FYI - coffee, in particular, can vary a lot in water usage according to what kind of process is used to remove the coffee cherry's pulp from the bean (seed.) Dry processing uses very little, fully washed uses a significant amount.  So be sure to take this variation into consideration as well when deciding which constitutes a &quot;greener&quot; product." CreationDate="2013-12-04T23:35:31.713" UserId="624" />
  <row Id="2546" PostId="2354" Score="0" Text="Thanks, I was just thinking in terms of irrigation and not in water use for processing." CreationDate="2013-12-06T01:04:57.700" UserId="885" />
  <row Id="2528" PostId="2355" Score="1" Text="Is the house fully insulated, even in the attic?  Storm windows and such too?  Do you air condition in the summer?" CreationDate="2013-12-03T03:31:05.130" UserId="885" />
  <row Id="2529" PostId="2355" Score="2" Text="The basic problem is that most of the things that save money apply to whoever pays the energy bills, which is usually not the landlord. If she does them, the only way to get a return is to increase your rent. Which might be fine for you, but if you move out (and she has to plan for that), can she find a new tenant at the same rent?" CreationDate="2013-12-03T06:17:50.327" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2535" PostId="2355" Score="0" Text="In regards to your edit:  If she lives in the house she qualifies for a % tax break, depending on the % of the house that qualifies as her space vs. rental space. (Duplex she would get 50% break.)" CreationDate="2013-12-03T22:40:02.747" UserId="885" />
  <row Id="2545" PostId="2355" Score="0" Text="What's the power source of heating? Gas/electricity/wood?" CreationDate="2013-12-05T07:14:46.870" UserId="60" />
  <row Id="2539" PostId="2357" Score="1" Text="And you totally ignored the need to produce and then recycle the batteries both of which produces a great deal of crap. Btw burning gas to produce electricity emits very little pollution." CreationDate="2013-12-04T06:39:47.473" UserId="679" />
  <row Id="2540" PostId="2357" Score="4" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Thank you for your answer but could you please elaborate and address more of the issues raised in the question? As it stands your answer doesn't contribute much." CreationDate="2013-12-04T07:33:19.753" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="2536" PostId="2358" Score="0" Text="He said he is in Maryland, it's on the East Coast of the US." CreationDate="2013-12-03T22:42:13.537" UserId="885" />
  <row Id="2542" PostId="2358" Score="0" Text="@Meep oops, so he did!" CreationDate="2013-12-04T09:20:49.240" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="2549" PostId="2361" Score="0" Text="Thanks: that's very helpful. I've updated your question with the extra information you've provided." CreationDate="2013-12-06T11:02:09.720" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="2551" PostId="2361" Score="0" Text="any update to the question are welcomed but the theme should remain the same." CreationDate="2013-12-06T14:08:48.707" UserId="954" />
  <row Id="2552" PostId="2361" Score="0" Text="Do you have an old pelton that you want to put to a new use? What's the background of the question?" CreationDate="2013-12-06T14:16:18.047" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="2554" PostId="2361" Score="0" Text="No, that's not the reason. I have a project on this." CreationDate="2013-12-06T14:34:34.673" UserId="954" />
  <row Id="2559" PostId="2361" Score="0" Text="You would be better off lifting the turbine so you can have the outlet higher up." CreationDate="2013-12-08T05:25:36.687" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2553" PostId="2362" Score="0" Text="right...me too have similar intuition but could we manage to have that with some additional design arrangements." CreationDate="2013-12-06T14:33:27.573" UserId="954" />
  <row Id="2555" PostId="2362" Score="0" Text="but if you redesign it to the point where it works better than &quot;paddles that throw water&quot;, you will probably have done more work than would be required to build a proper pump." CreationDate="2013-12-06T21:42:11.870" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2556" PostId="2362" Score="0" Text="I'd say the first design rearrangement (that you probably thought of too) would be to ensure that the flow to the pump is from both sides of impeller." CreationDate="2013-12-06T21:51:45.297" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="2557" PostId="2362" Score="0" Text="But maybe you try to understand (maybe ask in an engieering forum, or even phone KSB and talk to their sales engineer) why the typical way to do it is &quot;pump as turbine&quot; and not the other way round." CreationDate="2013-12-06T21:54:05.773" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="2563" PostId="2363" Score="0" Text="thanks for the much dedicated answer, being a new user I couldn't give you +1 for this....But It would be great even if the turbine generates less power when performing as pump and turbine, because in the case I'm dealing with, we can't generate power with mono function of turbine. I'm just urging to suggest the means by which we could do both the functions at the same time or periodically. And for that matter, perhaps development of centrifugal forces could work..." CreationDate="2013-12-09T11:37:46.743" UserId="954" />
  <row Id="2564" PostId="2363" Score="0" Text="Rather than reduce the efficiency of the turbine by using some of its energy as a pump, why not just take some of its mechanical energy (or electrical if you're driving a generator) to run a proper pump?" CreationDate="2013-12-09T23:14:06.353" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="2561" PostId="2365" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! I've improved your post because it was rather hard to read with all the typos and abbreviations. Please check if I didn't accidentally changed the meaning of a sentence.&#xA;Also, it would be interesting to hear about your results once you've done the calculations on your own panel." CreationDate="2013-12-09T08:51:35.713" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="2568" PostId="2367" Score="0" Text="You could possibly make a kettle-cosy for it, but that would probably void the warranty. Also, your local council or polytech may have a meter you can borrow or use, especially since the device you want to test is portable. And I fear that your question is too specific for this site." CreationDate="2013-12-10T21:03:38.263" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2570" PostId="2367" Score="0" Text="It’s going back anyway as the poor design of the top makes it very hard for my wife to open the lid to fill it up.  (As they are mostly used in the USA, I image the power usage is not considered an issue.)" CreationDate="2013-12-10T21:30:56.473" UserId="963" />
  <row Id="2571" PostId="2367" Score="0" Text="I have seen smaller (3-5 litre) versions of the big tea urns that commercial places use, and those are metal so could easily be properly insulated. [36 quid for 8 litres](http://www.hygienesuppliesdirect.com/sub/tea_urns) from a quick search for &quot;small tea urn&quot;. And 8 litres means you could probably fill it once a day and she wouldn't have to worry. But I wonder if you would be better off with an &quot;instant hot water&quot; setup. Albeit those have to be plumbed in, but they seem to work better." CreationDate="2013-12-10T21:38:28.250" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2572" PostId="2367" Score="0" Text="For insulation, there's a wide range of products for insulating hot water pipes etc that will work. 10 quid will get you a roll of foil+bubblewrap that's rated for 100°C or more. Total cost less than what you probably paid for the Airpot :) Although it will not be as pretty... if you know a knitter maybe get a cosy made to go over the top of it." CreationDate="2013-12-10T21:44:45.760" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2573" PostId="2367" Score="1" Text="If you edited the question to be &quot;my wife is disabled and would like a continuous source of boiling water for hot drinks&quot; or something, I could make these comments an answer and other people could chime in. That way you might get something more imaginative than my &quot;duct tape and knitting&quot; solution." CreationDate="2013-12-10T21:46:11.343" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2574" PostId="2367" Score="0" Text="@Ӎσᶎ  Tea urns don't work as you can't put a tea pot on the working service and control the hot water from well away from the &quot;danger zone&quot;." CreationDate="2013-12-10T22:56:50.307" UserId="963" />
  <row Id="2575" PostId="2367" Score="1" Text="If you'd like to ask a question about that or edit this question that would be good. I'm going to flag the question as not useful since you've returned the item you're asking about." CreationDate="2013-12-10T23:52:23.950" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2577" PostId="2367" Score="0" Text="@IanRingrose - I'm not sure why you think most airpots are made for use in the USA when they are quite rare here. Most of the ones I've seen in the USA have been in the homes of Asian families. The model you mentioned seems to only be readily available in the UK. We have a vacuum insulated Zojirushi CV-DSC40 that works quite well and seems to be efficient since it stays cool on the outside. Zojirushi (a Japanese brand) makes great stuff, we have their rice cooker too." CreationDate="2013-12-11T01:33:55.063" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="2578" PostId="2367" Score="3" Text="@Ӎσᶎ - I wouldn't add extra insulation to one of these devices since the wiring and electronics tucked into the unit may rely on heat escaping to stay cool -- if a lot of heat escapes from the unit, anything wrapped  under the insulation may rise to the temperature of the water." CreationDate="2013-12-11T01:36:33.250" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="2579" PostId="2367" Score="2" Text="I'll wait for more community input before taking any action, but at the moment, this question looks like it could use some work if it's to remain here: it could be more general, and thus be more useful to a wider range of readers. I appreciate that the OPs immediate question has changed, now that the specific item isgoing to be returned, but the general question behind it, of **efficient** heating of potable water for someone with impaired grip or lifting, is a good one." CreationDate="2013-12-11T01:48:13.077" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="2600" PostId="2367" Score="0" Text="[**Exploded components diagram here**](http://www.nisbets.co.uk/asset/en/media/exploded%20diagram%20k711.pdf) - not obviously insulated at all. I'd personally be comfortable trying a towel wrap around to see how it improves results (works for slow cookers). YMMV." CreationDate="2013-12-14T10:50:17.613" UserId="318" />
  <row Id="2580" PostId="2368" Score="2" Text="Solar thermal systems I've met have a built-in protection against Legionnaires disease. They monitor the tank temperature and if it hasn't reached certain limit during a certain period (a week), they command the not-solar-heater (gas or electricity) to heat the whole tank to kill the bacteria." CreationDate="2013-12-11T07:29:42.203" UserId="60" />
  <row Id="2567" PostId="2370" Score="0" Text="Nice answer, but &quot;sit for a few years&quot;!?" CreationDate="2013-12-10T20:49:56.387" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="2569" PostId="2370" Score="0" Text="I find I have a lot of “inputs” at the end of the summer from clearing the bedding plants, and use most compost when planting in the spring.   So unless it can be composted over the winter, it might as well take over a year.  As I have the space, I am lazy about trying to make compost fast." CreationDate="2013-12-10T21:27:00.770" UserId="963" />
  <row Id="2582" PostId="2372" Score="0" Text="Thanks EnergyNumbers, I've had a look around on google but can't find anything on &quot;challenges&quot;.  Anything you or anyone else could come up would be great." CreationDate="2013-12-11T16:58:21.673" UserId="967" />
  <row Id="2583" PostId="2372" Score="0" Text="In case it's of any help: http://www.eirgrid.com/renewables/;                                          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_energy" CreationDate="2013-12-11T17:06:10.560" UserId="967" />
  <row Id="2586" PostId="2373" Score="0" Text="I agree, using an energy meter may be the simplest solution. Here in The Netherlands many hardware shops sell energy meters for 10-20 euros (about 13.8-27.6 US dollars). One particular device which costs 10 euros has even been tested by a consumers union to be almost as accurate as a professional power meter of 250 euros." CreationDate="2013-12-12T08:20:56.880" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="2592" PostId="2373" Score="0" Text="I do not understand the idea why smaller amount of material holding heat makes electrical resistance heating and heat keeping less effective. --- Normally it should be the contrary -- smaller amount of heat (smaller amount of heated material) -&gt; less heat to dissipate. -- It could be more efficient if you need to store the energy (in the form of heat) for example if the energy is cheaper (either economically or ecologically) at certain time periods." CreationDate="2013-12-13T09:10:32.563" UserId="642" />
  <row Id="2594" PostId="2373" Score="0" Text="Mass definitely affects heat keeping.  I'm not sure what effect it has on electrical resistance." CreationDate="2013-12-13T15:31:17.343" UserId="624" />
  <row Id="2585" PostId="2374" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living and thank you for your answer. Am I right in assuming that the mines were flooded to heat the water and that this heat is reused when the mines are drained?" CreationDate="2013-12-12T08:11:29.637" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="2588" PostId="2374" Score="2" Text="@THelper Without presuming to know what virtualxtc has in mind, the proposals I've seen use mines just to get the vertical height difference and sufficient volume of lower reservoir: so the energy storage comes from the drop from surface to mine level: it's a pumped hydro storage proposal, rather than a geothermal one." CreationDate="2013-12-12T09:51:34.640" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="2591" PostId="2374" Score="0" Text="EnergyNumbers is correct, it was done with older style mountain mines.  These days, they just cut the top of the mountain right off." CreationDate="2013-12-13T08:29:10.780" UserId="970" />
  <row Id="2589" PostId="2375" Score="1" Text="God bless you sir! : ]  Thanks so much for your response and your time EnergyNumbers, you really helped me out there appreciate it." CreationDate="2013-12-12T18:49:59.857" UserId="967" />
  <row Id="2595" PostId="2376" Score="0" Text="does the baby-care tag make sense" CreationDate="2013-12-13T17:52:51.503" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="2602" PostId="2376" Score="2" Text="it also depends a lot on where your energy and water come from. If you're using tank water with a solar/wind setup then you're a long way ahead of most of us, but if you're (worst case) using oil-powered desalinated water with coal-powered electricity then the tissues are the least of your sustainability worries. Unfortunately those factors are key to knowing which is better." CreationDate="2013-12-15T23:54:21.313" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2603" PostId="2376" Score="0" Text="Specifically, if you're using sustainably harvested water and renewable electricity (100% &quot;green&quot; power can be bought in many places) then I'm guessing the cloth option is better. Ideally you'd line dry them, but with renewable electricity there's a counter-argument that by using more of it you're helping increase demand..." CreationDate="2013-12-15T23:56:25.383" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2623" PostId="2376" Score="1" Text="Disposable diapers are just as sustainable as reusable ones? That does not make sense to me. There are landfill and disposal issues to contend with for disposable diapers." CreationDate="2013-12-23T19:13:52.940" UserId="315" />
  <row Id="2693" PostId="2376" Score="0" Text="Another factor to consider would be the effort that goes into producing the tissues, transporting the tissues, the fertilizers and pesticides that may be used on the trees, who produces the tissues (what company) and what do they do with their wealth.  For example the Kochs might (might I don't know just inventing an example)  fund anti climate change propaganda." CreationDate="2014-01-11T05:55:31.700" UserId="794" />
  <row Id="15475" PostId="2376" Score="0" Text="Please, where does &quot;disposable vs. reusable diapers… come up even&quot; come from? How is it not obvious that disposables won the battle purely on grounds of convenience?" CreationDate="2022-01-08T22:18:57.030" UserId="13643" />
  <row Id="2604" PostId="2378" Score="0" Text="What kind of lamp is it?" CreationDate="2013-12-17T20:03:23.767" UserId="624" />
  <row Id="2605" PostId="2378" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! I'm not sure I understand your first question, but perhaps something like [this](http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/zg-1-led-lighting-system-the-first-reusable-light-bulb) is what you are looking for?  As for you second question (which is off-topic here BTW!), you might want to try http://diy.stackexchange.com" CreationDate="2013-12-17T21:30:41.797" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="2606" PostId="2378" Score="2" Text="It would be worth trying the replacement bulb in a different light to ensure you're testing with a working bulb." CreationDate="2013-12-17T21:41:23.110" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="2608" PostId="2378" Score="1" Text="Generally yes, I see repairing as a form of reuse/reduction, but this question is still rather off-topic.&#xA;It seems your practice with electricity is limited. It's ok to learn first, but someone skilled should oversee you while doing so. Please be warned about electricity's powerful nature - it can serve, but it can kill you too. Browsing the internet or asking somebody after an electric shock might be too late:)" CreationDate="2013-12-18T07:44:48.157" UserId="60" />
  <row Id="2609" PostId="2378" Score="2" Text="I've removed your second question because list questions are off-topic. We will try to make a list of great DIY sites on the [diy-tag info page](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/tags/diy/info) of this site, for future reference. Please update your remaining question and make clear what exactly you mean with &quot;make my lamp re-usable&quot;" CreationDate="2013-12-18T08:50:01.860" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="2607" PostId="2379" Score="3" Text="The 700W consumption power indicates how fast can the device heat the water up. It does not say anything about the actual power consumption of keeping the water hot." CreationDate="2013-12-17T22:42:38.800" UserId="642" />
  <row Id="2620" PostId="2383" Score="2" Text="We have had a fresh tree for several years and this year there were very few bugs compared to prior years. I had been wondering about whether it had been sprayed. &#xA;&#xA;Presumably toxicity will depend on the spray(s) used, how recently it was done, and what the weather was like since it was sprayed." CreationDate="2013-12-23T00:36:55.643" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="3181" PostId="2383" Score="0" Text="It isn't just the people being affected, what about insects such as bees." CreationDate="2014-04-07T20:53:21.320" UserDisplayName="user1329" />
  <row Id="2627" PostId="2392" Score="3" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Thank you for your elaborate answer. I do think that your answer would be more valuable to the community here if you shortened it a bit and focused mainly on the pros of using PVs over a solar thermal system to heat water." CreationDate="2013-12-28T10:08:03.233" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3876" PostId="2392" Score="0" Text="There is some useful information in there +1. And thank you for the funniest answer I have read on Stack Exchange!" CreationDate="2014-12-03T07:49:33.283" UserId="1872" />
  <row Id="11391" PostId="2392" Score="0" Text="How has this solution been holding up these past 6 years?" CreationDate="2019-08-31T13:12:53.523" UserId="1921" />
  <row Id="2628" PostId="2393" Score="1" Text="I suspect the main variable is approval time. The gas hub at James Price Point in Western Australia is ten years in to an approval process that seems likely to be abandoned. But in China, say, I suspect the whole thing could be done in a couple of years." CreationDate="2013-12-28T22:00:44.237" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2682" PostId="2393" Score="1" Text="I suspect the reality is that nobody has yet built a single-purpose port of this scale from scratch, and so all that we have to go on is the claims and plans of sites such as the one you link." CreationDate="2014-01-09T10:29:02.050" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="2683" PostId="2393" Score="0" Text="@EnergyNumbers Why this question? And why for a new port specifically? As Flyto also suggests, I suspect that in most countries the facilities of existing ports are used to build an offshore windfarm." CreationDate="2014-01-09T11:10:17.273" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="2684" PostId="2393" Score="0" Text="@THelper good question: I'm looking at how quickly the entire supply chain could expand, in one country, and globally. Port capacity seems to be the part of the supply chain with the slowest response time." CreationDate="2014-01-09T12:43:55.847" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="2685" PostId="2393" Score="0" Text="@Flyto - since there's apparently nothing unusual about this type of port, any large construction firm in the area will be able to make a good estimation of how long it will take -- otherwise, they'd never be able to put together a bid for the construction." CreationDate="2014-01-09T21:57:44.763" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="2927" PostId="2393" Score="0" Text="Why does it need special facilities?  Any port with a set up for large industrial material handling would be able to handle windmill parts.  Indeed for off shore parts, I would expect that the manufacturer would load or even build in place on special purpose barges that would take the fabricated turbine directly to it's foundation/anchors." CreationDate="2014-02-15T20:26:00.687" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="4565" PostId="2393" Score="0" Text="It also depends on where such a facility is to be build &amp; what regulatory approvals need to adhered to, such a environmental impact statements, project management plans, consultations with government authorities and the public." CreationDate="2015-07-08T03:12:20.027" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="2631" PostId="2397" Score="0" Text="A bit long answer. They key point is that we can take the garbage and use the renewable energy to restore it into the original useful resources. Use Occam razor to reduce the footprint! :)" CreationDate="2013-12-30T13:17:54.367" UserId="476" />
  <row Id="2634" PostId="2397" Score="0" Text="@Val: I think that's short, simple, and wrong. The point is that in the general case we *can't* take the toxic waste and use renewable energy to return it to a harmless state. People have tried bombarding plutonium with everything from alpha particles to fast neutrons and all they get is more radioactivity than they started with. Even where we can the energy cost is often ridiculous (melting asbestos, for example)" CreationDate="2013-12-30T21:19:45.140" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2636" PostId="2397" Score="0" Text="Ok, there are two levels of answer. In many cases we can reverse the process spending some (i.e. a lot of) energy. But, some processes are not reversible with our level of technology at all. This way we have partitioned non-renewable into resources into artificially renewable and truly non-renewable. That is, what we know as `non-renewable actually means not naturally renewable` and truly nonrenewable, which is still unresolved problem even theoretically. We do not know what to do with technologically irreversible. Yet, I could not understand why toxicity is messed here." CreationDate="2013-12-30T21:43:46.090" UserId="476" />
  <row Id="2637" PostId="2397" Score="0" Text="do you mean missed? I assume they skip it because &quot;ecological footprint&quot; is supposed to be a newspaper headline, not a proper analysis. They skip over all the tricky stuff, from the people killed in the process (how many kilogrammes of CO2 in a human death?) to the non-renewable not-even-in-theory resources." CreationDate="2013-12-30T22:27:01.570" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2638" PostId="2397" Score="0" Text="Ok, you say that toxic garbage is a catalizer of secondary destructions, more resource -&gt; garbage translations, not accounted in the footprint computation, which accounts only the toxins as waste produced but not the waste produced by the toxins. That is why considering the capacity of waste to produce more waste. This is a great point, I see now. You rock! But this aspect is not related with irreversibility, right? We can recover the toxins into useful goods, as any other waste, cannot we? We can even restore absolutely non-renewable plutonium for power production, for instance." CreationDate="2013-12-31T03:09:28.720" UserId="476" />
  <row Id="2639" PostId="2397" Score="0" Text="@Val: sometimes. The problem with plutonium is that when you work with it you generate secondary radioactive materials that have no use at all - slightly too radioactive to be safe concrete, for example. Sure, within 10,000 years it'll be completely safe... look at the market for second hand nuclear reactors to get an example of the problem (most of them get &quot;given&quot; to the taxpayer to deal with, as another hidden subsidy to that industry)." CreationDate="2013-12-31T03:22:32.420" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2640" PostId="2397" Score="0" Text="I think that all materials turn into radioactive ones, once they contact with anything radioactive. This is simply because you cannot wash you container after it contacted with radiation. Some contamination will remain and containers are buried altogether with residuals. I do not think that we have a special problem with plutonium. Furthermore, Bill Gates wants to use it for power generation. So, I do not understand the problem." CreationDate="2013-12-31T04:11:22.420" UserId="476" />
  <row Id="2641" PostId="2397" Score="0" Text="I think you should do some reading, then. The basic problem is the ever-growing pile of radioactive waste that no-one can get rid of. And as we keep seeing, no-one can effectively contain it either. The fact that scientists can date things by the start of nuclear weapons use based entirely on the radioactivity in every living thing they've found should, I think, bother people much more than it does." CreationDate="2013-12-31T07:26:32.633" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2642" PostId="2397" Score="0" Text="Ok, this is a serious thing. But I still do not see why to single the plutonium out." CreationDate="2013-12-31T14:52:46.393" UserId="476" />
  <row Id="2643" PostId="2397" Score="0" Text="It's an example, chosen because it's remarkable in many ways. The same applies to any of the transuranics. Much as we used iron and aluminium as examples above. I could just as easily have said &quot;enriched uranium&quot; or &quot;americanium&quot;, but plutonium is probably better known and it's especially nasty." CreationDate="2013-12-31T21:37:15.130" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2647" PostId="2397" Score="0" Text="@Val and Ӎσᶎ. Your discussion is getting rather lenghty and comments are not really intended for discussions. If you want to continue it, please do so in [chat](http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/7310/sustainable-living)" CreationDate="2014-01-02T09:20:07.280" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="2649" PostId="2398" Score="0" Text="This doesn't address the question, and even if you do fill your house you don't make insulation invalid." CreationDate="2014-01-02T17:24:31.130" UserId="885" />
  <row Id="2652" PostId="2398" Score="0" Text="@Meep I do not understand what does it mean &quot;fill your house&quot;. It is good if more people will live right with you. Yet, the neighbours behind the wall is certainly the best insulation since they have the same temperature (you do not want pinguins as the neighbours), which means that you do not need the thermal isolation neither at the roof, nor under the floor, nor at left nor at right of your room. I have pointed you at material that can cover at least 80% of your perimeter, 100% heat-proof and costs absolutely nothing. It does not answer only because you ask for insulation from the others." CreationDate="2014-01-03T00:09:22.297" UserId="476" />
  <row Id="2666" PostId="2398" Score="3" Text="@Val, please, be patient with us. I've learned from your answers that you promote living in &quot;multifloor block of flats&quot;, but not everybody here can move from their current living. That's why there are and will be questions regarding other types of accommodation and we (as a community) try to answer them. You could rather [ask your question](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/ask) to promote your idea separately. (I personally lived in a communist block of flats for almost half of my life and I wouldn't like to move back)." CreationDate="2014-01-07T08:34:44.850" UserId="60" />
  <row Id="2729" PostId="2398" Score="0" Text="@Val I agree with most of what you say and I'd like to see you stick around.  Your technique needs improvement.  If you want to change minds don't turn them off to what you have to say before you try.  Please don't take offence, if you really want to change minds and in turn mother earth make some minor tweaks. I don't say this to be rude I just don't want some mod to shut you up." CreationDate="2014-01-14T04:57:47.607" UserId="794" />
  <row Id="2762" PostId="2398" Score="1" Text="This answer makes a valid point - that blocks of flats are inherently more heat-efficient than detached houses, due to the reduction in the surface area : volume ratio (and so probably due to smaller living spaces per person). Blocks of flats can also be more efficient in some other ways. However, that isn't helpful to somebody looking to insulate their existing house, and the answer seems to come with a major &quot;chip on the shoulder&quot;. Val, please stick around, it sounds like you have a good contribution to make, but please don't insult people you know nothing about at the start of your answers!" CreationDate="2014-01-21T10:58:43.553" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="2632" PostId="2400" Score="1" Text="[&quot;The biggest tuna fishery in terms of volume is skipjack - the tuna most likely to end up in cans. While skipjack is not yet overfished, if fishing continues at current rates it won't be able to sustain itself.&quot;](http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/oceans/tuna), but ... it's Greenpeace" CreationDate="2013-12-30T20:56:28.860" UserId="1015" />
  <row Id="2633" PostId="2400" Score="0" Text="[&quot;Overfishing causes Pacific bluefin tuna numbers to drop 96%&quot;](http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/jan/09/overfishing-pacific-bluefin-tuna)&#xA;The sushi's loved one" CreationDate="2013-12-30T20:56:51.127" UserId="1015" />
  <row Id="2694" PostId="2400" Score="1" Text="I don't eat tuna for a variety of reasons but the one that might mean the most to you would be that the ocean has become man's cess pool, pollution, oil, radiation etc and these toxins accumulate in the animals at the top of the food chain... just like DDT accumulated in eagles.  None for me thanks." CreationDate="2014-01-11T18:52:17.533" UserId="794" />
  <row Id="2716" PostId="2400" Score="1" Text="@hortstu By developing your reasoning I can conclude that you eat only organic food, am I right :p? Well, most people eat Mc Donald's and this question is prayer for them to avoid tuna." CreationDate="2014-01-13T12:57:44.033" UserId="1015" />
  <row Id="2723" PostId="2400" Score="1" Text="Well maybe a few more of the McDonalds eaters will not feed it to their kids b/c of the reason I provided.  If it's just one child that doesn't get fed that crap than it was worth my time commenting.  As to organics and local, I eat them as much as I can afford and find.  However your reasoning doesn't apply because more toxins accumulate in organisms higher up the food chain and plants are near the bottom of the food chain so in most case they don't have a fraction of the crap you'd find in tuna." CreationDate="2014-01-13T16:40:34.680" UserId="794" />
  <row Id="2724" PostId="2400" Score="1" Text="@hortstu So do you trust the chicken and the pig fed with antibiotics and growth hormones?" CreationDate="2014-01-13T17:35:17.920" UserId="1015" />
  <row Id="2726" PostId="2400" Score="1" Text="absolutely not, but I don't have to, my family and I are vegan for many reasons including the ones mentioned." CreationDate="2014-01-13T20:58:20.277" UserId="794" />
  <row Id="2727" PostId="2400" Score="1" Text="@hortstu I changed the title name for clarity: it is not because we're vegan, but because it is endangered species. Besides, this site is about &quot;Sustainable Living&quot;, not about healthy food." CreationDate="2014-01-13T21:08:35.513" UserId="1015" />
  <row Id="2728" PostId="2400" Score="2" Text="The fact that Tuna is an endangered species is another great reason not to eat it...  I wasn't giving &quot;being vegan&quot; as the reason to not eat tuna but my reason for not eating CAFO animals. The reason I'm vegan is for sustainability and to avoid cruelty, I'm not being sustainable because I want to be vegan, so I do think it applies... Anyway of you want people to avoid tuna shouldn't you give them all the good (for the sake of this forum) sustainability reasons not to? There are people that would kill and eat tuna if it was one of the last two on earth." CreationDate="2014-01-14T04:50:56.003" UserId="794" />
  <row Id="2646" PostId="2402" Score="5" Text="Yes, waste sorting is a good solution so more materials can be recycled properly, but I don't think that was the OPs question." CreationDate="2014-01-02T09:11:00.447" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="2678" PostId="2402" Score="0" Text="@THelper Thank you for the reminder. I know that sustainability is a euphemism. It exists only to present the inefficeincy of sales-improving wasteful independent and self-relient countryside lifestyles in the cities. This particularly means a dump in the apartment, despite the dense city allows for efficient resource sharing. We all know that. But there is a wiser alternative: struggle for the efficient public services. The self-relience may destroy the efficient sharing-based infrastructure. I understand why you want to silence the alternative we have in Tallinn city but I cannot silence it." CreationDate="2014-01-08T09:39:33.867" UserId="476" />
  <row Id="9824" PostId="2402" Score="0" Text="It's too bad that the cost of renting is so much higher than owning/having a mortgage." CreationDate="2018-06-19T14:53:59.570" UserId="4922" />
  <row Id="2645" PostId="2406" Score="5" Text="Not an answer, but something you might be interested in is [Phonebloks](https://phonebloks.com/en/goals). The goal of this online community is to build a phone that consists entirely of small modules that can be replaced easily (if something breaks down or if you want to upgrade parts). Currently Motorola is building a prototype." CreationDate="2014-01-02T09:03:14.293" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="2650" PostId="2407" Score="0" Text="Thank you! great answer. With this info I'm also encourage to test multiple types of panels even diy. Now with this I'm only will be worry about $$ and create a matrix for my decision :)" CreationDate="2014-01-02T19:26:08.493" UserId="651" />
  <row Id="2648" PostId="2408" Score="1" Text="I think the English language equivalent is here: http://www.fishonline.org/ratings. The trouble is that you can't find what subspicies they use in pizza or sandwiches, maybe the main food source for tuna, I'll try to look more closely to the cans." CreationDate="2014-01-02T16:56:31.123" UserId="1015" />
  <row Id="2653" PostId="2408" Score="0" Text="It has been my experience that in all pizzas and most sandwiches they use cheap tuna that falls in the orange or red category. This may be different where you live, but just ask in a restaurant or shop before you order." CreationDate="2014-01-03T08:35:22.653" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="2654" PostId="2408" Score="0" Text="So you are suggesting to avoid eating it all together." CreationDate="2014-01-03T14:11:59.390" UserId="1015" />
  <row Id="2655" PostId="2408" Score="0" Text="Yes, as a rule I don't eat tuna unless the seller says it's MSC certified" CreationDate="2014-01-03T14:24:47.707" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="2657" PostId="2408" Score="2" Text="So the MSC label seems to be an easy to follow rule and a final answer like &quot;Don't eat tuna but only in the cans with the MSC label, avoid pizzas or sandwiches that cannot provide such information&quot; is ok with you? Forgive me for trying to find a short simple answer, but it must be easy enough to follow for people not so interested in the matter." CreationDate="2014-01-03T18:27:03.030" UserId="1015" />
  <row Id="2660" PostId="2408" Score="0" Text="@Liviu Yes, I think that's a good and short rule to follow." CreationDate="2014-01-04T08:13:06.173" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="2661" PostId="2408" Score="0" Text="Thank you, if nothing happens in the next few days, my intention is to accept your answer, but also to add the short answer. Or maybe you could add it yourself, which way fits you better." CreationDate="2014-01-04T13:23:52.380" UserId="1015" />
  <row Id="2674" PostId="2408" Score="1" Text="I studied the tuna cans in some supermarket : no MSC certification, only 2 (from about 25 products) had a mention about the species: white and albacore." CreationDate="2014-01-07T20:10:20.183" UserId="1015" />
  <row Id="2675" PostId="2408" Score="0" Text="@Liviu Here in the Netherlands the first brand (called Princes) with MSC-certified canned tuna appeared on the supermarket shelves about 2 years ago. Only recently a second brand (named  John-West) joined. I noticed you live in France so perhaps [this article](http://www.atuna.com/index.php/2-uncategorised/394-carrefour-expands-its-commitment-to-msc-sustainable-fish) is helpful?" CreationDate="2014-01-07T21:19:23.327" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="2718" PostId="2408" Score="0" Text="It is very sad that there's no common EU policy, it's even worst ... where I came from (I'm not French). At least I'm almost vegetarian and I avoid tuna for a month, but unfortunately it is very at hand to eat it (sandwiches, pizzas), especially in the lunch breaks, even for those not eating meat, in general." CreationDate="2014-01-13T13:07:34.677" UserId="1015" />
  <row Id="2770" PostId="2408" Score="0" Text="This is the same in German from Greenpeace: http://www.greenpeace.de/themen/meere/fischerei/" CreationDate="2014-01-23T23:51:51.637" UserId="330" />
  <row Id="2651" PostId="2409" Score="3" Text="Um, in the question I have stated that it is a *broken* laptop" CreationDate="2014-01-02T20:28:18.813" UserDisplayName="user1017" />
  <row Id="3286" PostId="2409" Score="1" Text="Even if it is broken, it is quite unlikely that all of those parts are broken." CreationDate="2014-05-12T13:26:02.017" UserId="803" />
  <row Id="2656" PostId="2410" Score="3" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Could you elaborate on this? Do you also know if it can absorb a lot of CO2, relatively speaking?" CreationDate="2014-01-03T16:10:15.680" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3731" PostId="2410" Score="1" Text="Hi Sarah. That isn't actually the question that was asked. Do you have information not on how well it tolerates pollution, but whether (and how well) it *reduces* it?" CreationDate="2014-10-08T11:39:14.237" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="14858" PostId="2413" Score="0" Text="We prefer to use lightly woven undyed cloth." CreationDate="2014-01-21T00:46:46.530" UserId="1090" />
  <row Id="9139" PostId="2414" Score="0" Text="Composting the oil-soaked paper towels will be more complicated, yes?" CreationDate="2017-12-19T16:13:02.463" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15010" PostId="2414" Score="0" Text="@LShaver small amounts of oil compost without problems, so it's fine for occasional use, but rather less so if this is a daily habit.  Even then, dripping off as much as possible for reuse, before using paper to soak up the last bits will help" CreationDate="2021-09-06T09:47:31.983" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="2665" PostId="2415" Score="2" Text="Can you add more information into your answer? It's a good direction." CreationDate="2014-01-07T08:05:47.770" UserId="60" />
  <row Id="3021" PostId="2418" Score="1" Text="To be fair, you do not provide good evidence to the contrary a as well. ;)" CreationDate="2014-03-04T14:15:20.513" UserId="227" />
  <row Id="2670" PostId="2422" Score="1" Text="The part about 'you should live in a block of flats' is completely irrelevant here. There are always more extreme ways to reduce your footprint (e.g. become a homeless person and sleep under a bridge), but that is not the point here." CreationDate="2014-01-07T14:33:47.350" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="2671" PostId="2422" Score="0" Text="@THelper The point is that you can reduce the consumption orders of magnitude and fit into the ecological footprint without any sacrifice in comfort and sleep in your bed at optimal temperatures. The people, who struggle for every miserable improvement must know about it." CreationDate="2014-01-07T16:20:05.170" UserId="476" />
  <row Id="2672" PostId="2422" Score="0" Text="@THelper In the second part, I have argued against using dishwashers. This means &quot;to live under the bridge&quot;, in your terms - nothing different from what I argued in the first part. So, differentiating between the first and second part of my answer makes no sense!" CreationDate="2014-01-07T17:06:25.127" UserId="476" />
  <row Id="3229" PostId="2422" Score="0" Text="Arguing against using dishwashers in a question about using dishwashers is fine, though by community rules, possibly slightly off topic in this instance - I think it's still a helpful contribution. Telling people to change where they live is offtopic, and I'd argue not constructive. That kind of suggestion has its place, but telling everyone to jump to the extreme immediately tends to put people off of sustainability. Each solution needs to come in its own time and when a person is ready." CreationDate="2014-04-18T18:06:35.957" UserId="64" />
  <row Id="3233" PostId="2422" Score="0" Text="@Nick. Fixing unsustainable lifestyles is certainly offtopic. I know that. I know that the whole purpose of the `sustainability topic` is to create the visibility of sustainability and defeat the real sustainability. Thanks for reminding me that. Also, suburbs increases the consumption orders of magnitude, drives the industry and only those who waste a lot and produce loads of garbage are rich and, thus, can do anything positive to the environment. I always keep that in mind." CreationDate="2014-04-19T12:17:14.960" UserId="476" />
  <row Id="3236" PostId="2422" Score="1" Text="@Val, please don't get snarky. I'm not trying to prevent you from having a positive impact - I mostly agree with you on what real sustainability requires. When I refer to offtopic, I'm referring to the Q/A format of this site. If someone doesn't ask for help to the extent you're trying to provide it, then your suggestions won't be heard, and I think worse, will come off as nonconstructive. There are venues for those additional suggestions, but I don't think a question as specific as this one is one of them." CreationDate="2014-04-20T15:46:36.760" UserId="64" />
  <row Id="2686" PostId="2425" Score="1" Text="Related questions should also interested the folks at [Aviation.SE]." CreationDate="2014-01-10T09:29:38.980" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="4828" PostId="2425" Score="0" Text="Comparison should be based on overland movement as this is the intent for the airships. They would offload shipping containers from ships and possibly before they even enter port." CreationDate="2015-10-02T16:27:45.553" UserDisplayName="user2633" />
  <row Id="2688" PostId="2426" Score="0" Text="(sorry for the length, I got interested in the answer)" CreationDate="2014-01-10T10:03:23.707" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2689" PostId="2426" Score="1" Text="Don't apologise!  This is the level of detail I appreciate" CreationDate="2014-01-10T10:06:44.693" UserDisplayName="user1017" />
  <row Id="2690" PostId="2426" Score="0" Text="I completely agree with Ӎσᶎ that blimps/zeppelins aren't sustainable, but there are potential ways to make them more sustainable. 1. Use hydrogen instead of helium (but it's unlikely that people will try this again, remember the [Hindenburg disaster](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindenburg_disaster)). 2. Use helium-tight containers, [they do exist](http://heliosairships.blogspot.nl/2012/01/sir-andre-geim-creates-true-helium-leak.html) but AFAIK have not been tested on a real airship yet. 3. Perhaps in the future [harvest helium from outer space](http://space.stackexchange.com/q/29/1412)." CreationDate="2014-01-10T10:40:28.963" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="2691" PostId="2426" Score="1" Text="+1 especially for considering helium supply - not many people think of this as a depletable resource!" CreationDate="2014-01-10T10:45:38.883" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="2751" PostId="2426" Score="0" Text="@THelper Perhaps hydrogen for cargo is seen as more acceptable than hydrogen for passengers" CreationDate="2014-01-17T22:35:44.980" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="2753" PostId="2426" Score="0" Text="@gerrit I suspect part of the reason for not using hydrogen is that pretty much everything is porous to hydrogen and while it's readily available it's expensive. The &quot;hydrogen explosion&quot; problem has in many ways been answered by the gasoline explosion problem... we have established that we are capable of getting the risk down to a level we're willing to tolerate." CreationDate="2014-01-18T00:04:58.107" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2699" PostId="2429" Score="0" Text="Good question, and I agree, this question can be answered in a non-opinionated manner.  I have also started towards a vegetarian diet, cutting about 90% of the met I used to have out of my diet.  Health wise I am finding I am better off." CreationDate="2014-01-12T07:50:25.900" UserDisplayName="user1017" />
  <row Id="2700" PostId="2429" Score="0" Text="Since you want research and I don’t have it handy I'll just point out that it's a well known fact that the world's factory farmed animals contribute more to pollution/ climate change than all the fossil fuel burning vehicles on the planet.  Going vegan is one of the most sustainable differences you can make for the planet and if done right one of the healthiest things you can do for yourself." CreationDate="2014-01-12T19:44:48.323" UserId="794" />
  <row Id="2701" PostId="2429" Score="1" Text="@hortstu, is it a well-known fact? I'd be grateful if you linked it to us if you find the source. IPCC might have it somewhere in their report, I guess. The pitfall here is that some studies look at **agriculture**, which is not limited to livestock only, and thus doesn't answer our question." CreationDate="2014-01-12T22:32:49.573" UserId="1058" />
  <row Id="2702" PostId="2429" Score="0" Text="@Amaterasu, yes, there's not only environmental aspect, but there's also health aspect and ethical treatment of animals. The question is about the environment and global issues only, but you're right, there're other aspects too." CreationDate="2014-01-12T22:41:31.710" UserId="1058" />
  <row Id="2703" PostId="2429" Score="1" Text="I paraphrased the question to specify that I'm looking for a balanced answer, and the potential **negatives** of such a global change should be also mentioned (I also added the antibiotics bit for our readers as additional background information)." CreationDate="2014-01-12T22:50:44.910" UserId="1058" />
  <row Id="2710" PostId="2429" Score="0" Text="@Herman CAFOs contribute directly to global warming by releasing vast amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere - more than the entire global transportation industry.  (I found this here with a quick search.) http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/03/12/factory-farms-affect-global-climate.aspx   The author doesn't site his sources but there is contact info and I imagine he would share them with you." CreationDate="2014-01-13T05:12:46.187" UserId="794" />
  <row Id="2712" PostId="2429" Score="1" Text="@hortstu, I actually found the very same statement in another article, and they referenced [this publication](http://www.fao.org/docrep/010/a0701e/a0701e00.HTM) by some body in the United Nations. It seem like a good read on our subject." CreationDate="2014-01-13T05:40:30.287" UserId="1058" />
  <row Id="2715" PostId="2429" Score="0" Text="See also those questions on [Skeptics.SE]: [1](http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/q/6838/5337), [2](http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/q/1509/5337), [3](http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/q/6998/5337)." CreationDate="2014-01-13T11:58:28.977" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="4344" PostId="2429" Score="2" Text="Worth considering that not all livestock farming is the same - e.g. hill-farmed sheep in the UK use land that is unsuitable for crop growing.  I have read research (though there is conflicting research) suggesting that grazed upland pasture sequesters more CO2 than if the same land was left to climax vegetation, so some lamb is actually carbon-neutral.  Beef fed on soya from slash-and-burned rainforest would be a different story!  Can't lay my hands on sources at the moment - will answer if I can." CreationDate="2015-04-29T11:44:36.680" UserId="1445" />
  <row Id="2704" PostId="2430" Score="0" Text="Thanks a lot for the data, it contributes to the topic big time. I still need to think whether my question is answered fully though. A question for you: when Marlow et al. (2009) mentioned &quot;2.5 times more primary energy&quot;, did he refer to the solar energy, and if so, why is it only 2.5 times, whereas the food chain studies claim that ~90% of the energy is lost at each link. Secondly, as I mentioned before, citing numbers for **agriculture** doesn't really tell me anything about the impact of a vegetarian diet." CreationDate="2014-01-12T23:42:18.263" UserId="1058" />
  <row Id="2705" PostId="2430" Score="0" Text="No worries, I would imagine more complete answers will be forthcoming.  In regards to your question, I think what Marlow et al were referring to was that the 'primary energy' is the energy supplied." CreationDate="2014-01-12T23:47:11.260" UserDisplayName="user1017" />
  <row Id="2706" PostId="2430" Score="0" Text="Another bit of information from the Marlow et al paper is&#xA;`A positive return of 2–3 nutrient calories per calorie of primary energy input is characteristic for most cereal grains and legumes. Most fruit and vegetables return ≈0.5 calories, and animal products return ≈0.01–0.05 calories. The energy inputs for animal products may be 2.5–5.0 times greater than for plant products`" CreationDate="2014-01-12T23:47:35.670" UserDisplayName="user1017" />
  <row Id="2707" PostId="2430" Score="0" Text="Thanks, but... it all makes perfect sense, until he says that meat's calorie efficiency is 2.5-5.0 times lower. If plants give 3 calories per calorie of primary energy, and meat gives 0.05 calories, it's like 60 times, no? Even if it's fruit with 0.5 calories, it's still at least 10 times more than meat, which is close to the common estimate of 90% energy loss. And why it's called energy input in the last sentence while it seems like an output? I know that it's not your paper, just in case you understand it better." CreationDate="2014-01-13T04:00:18.320" UserId="1058" />
  <row Id="2708" PostId="2430" Score="0" Text="@Herman true, the paper is not written the best - my understanding is that the energy input required for meat based agriculture is 2.5 to 5 times greater and the output is the 60 times greater that you identified." CreationDate="2014-01-13T04:03:42.800" UserDisplayName="user1017" />
  <row Id="9563" PostId="2430" Score="0" Text="Can you update this answer to account for the proportion of land which is suitable for crop production for direct human consumption vs proportion of land which is suitable for pasture/grazing/fodder only?  A direct comparison cannot be made between animal efficiency and plant efficiency if the animal is making use of resources that _cannot_ be used to produce food for direct human consumption." CreationDate="2018-04-20T01:40:37.307" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="9564" PostId="2430" Score="0" Text="Also, http://www.pnas.org/content/114/48/E10301 includes some interesting findings regarding the nutritional and environmental consequences of converting US agriculture to an animal-free system." CreationDate="2018-04-20T01:41:52.543" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="2719" PostId="2432" Score="2" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Do you mean this person is only living of rice or beans, or are the rice/beans just part of this person's diet (along with food from other sources)?" CreationDate="2014-01-13T14:30:03.840" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="5323" PostId="2432" Score="0" Text="@THelper Just part, indeed. I used rice and bean because they take the bigger space. Although, wondering now, one might want wheat too." CreationDate="2016-01-16T11:23:26.250" UserId="1063" />
  <row Id="2720" PostId="2433" Score="1" Text="I'd love to see the calculations behind that figure." CreationDate="2014-01-13T14:41:27.230" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="2721" PostId="2433" Score="0" Text="@gerrit Me, too. In the lecture he spoke of people having achieved this &quot;extreme gardening&quot;. He also said that it takes a few years to get a garden into shape to yield as much as this per m²." CreationDate="2014-01-13T14:44:43.297" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="2722" PostId="2433" Score="0" Text="And is this garden sustainable?" CreationDate="2014-01-13T14:51:30.373" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="2725" PostId="2433" Score="2" Text="@gerrit, permaculture by definition is intended to be sustainable permanently." CreationDate="2014-01-13T19:41:53.970" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="2750" PostId="2434" Score="2" Text="Only 20x20 meters? That's seems incredible. You would really be starving I guess, but could survive. But you need also wood, some fruits and some place to live :-)" CreationDate="2014-01-17T13:40:46.743" UserId="591" />
  <row Id="2764" PostId="2434" Score="1" Text="Agreed! I've read two articles which talked about people working on Jeavons' farm who were living for a year off of 4,000 sf. In both cases, the authors mentioned that the person looked healthy but very, very thin. In the plans he includes in his books, Jeavons does include some fruit trees and fruit plants, but it is true that you would need extra space for wood and other materials if you are trying for sustainability beyond just food. Also, I've read of people who have tried his methods elsewhere have said they could not get the yields he does and needed more space." CreationDate="2014-01-21T17:20:18.613" UserId="1065" />
  <row Id="2765" PostId="2434" Score="1" Text="Just wanted to add - Jeavons is farming in Willits, CA. I understand that by California standards the land and climate are considered poor for farming, but compared to the climate those of us in the center of the country work with, he's got a long growing season going for him!" CreationDate="2014-01-21T17:23:11.913" UserId="1065" />
  <row Id="2767" PostId="2434" Score="0" Text="Thank you for your response michelle! It is interesting to know what's possible and what others were able to do." CreationDate="2014-01-22T11:40:18.917" UserId="591" />
  <row Id="11811" PostId="2434" Score="0" Text="This however does not take storage space in account, since you need to put all that food somewhere for the winter. I'd say *if* you manage to produce all that food, it might be better to sell the excess to local people and buy what you need in winter." CreationDate="2019-11-18T14:16:58.237" UserId="8149" />
  <row Id="2730" PostId="2437" Score="2" Text="Interesting. It looks like the Seachoice guide is less strict than the Viswijzer, but it could also have something to do with the date it was created. Last update of de Seachoice guide is april 2012, that of the Viswijzer is spring 2013. BTW, the Seachoice guide says that canned Albacore is ok **if it is from Canada or the US Pacific**" CreationDate="2014-01-15T08:27:57.537" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="2731" PostId="2438" Score="0" Text="Thank you, however, what I am refering to is a totally broken laptop, been checked and cannot be repaired." CreationDate="2014-01-15T20:23:17.890" UserDisplayName="user1017" />
  <row Id="2733" PostId="2439" Score="4" Text="I like that you take a different view on this, but I also think that energy efficiency can be rather misleading (or at least intransparent) when it comes to sustainability and/or emissions. The energy used by freighter ships usually comes from low-quality bunkerfuel, which is the worst kind of fuel if you look at CO2, sulfur and microparticle emissions." CreationDate="2014-01-16T08:47:31.567" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="2734" PostId="2439" Score="0" Text="@THelper that's very true, and the same is true of most (not all) passenger liners (although sulphur is improving with regulation). I'll edit to make it clearer that this answer *only* considers energy, and that there are other relevant factors." CreationDate="2014-01-16T09:14:11.603" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="16508" PostId="2439" Score="0" Text="There is a trend to LNG ships, but [there are doubts if this is actually better](https://www.freightwaves.com/news/thousands-of-ships-could-use-lng-as-fuel-is-that-a-good-thing) — it's complicated." CreationDate="2023-10-17T06:45:04.197" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="2735" PostId="2440" Score="2" Text="You have to be very careful with that book: the author is very skillful at arranging the underlying assumptions to give the numbers he wants. These aren't necessarily the numbers that best reflect reality." CreationDate="2014-01-16T12:07:14.613" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="2738" PostId="2440" Score="0" Text="@JackRyan oh, I don't have the time to go through the whole book, and this problem is endemic in it. So this is just a quick caveat: some of this book's significant assumptions are invalid, and so the numbers should be used with extreme caution." CreationDate="2014-01-16T15:13:30.610" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="2739" PostId="2440" Score="1" Text="@EnergyNumbers hmmm, well I think style of answer adds a significant amount of value and context- any chance you could provide a similar list but one whose assumptions you think are more appropriate?" CreationDate="2014-01-16T16:00:29.353" UserId="975" />
  <row Id="3793" PostId="2440" Score="0" Text="The first two lines (Cycling: 2 kWh per passenger km, Walking: 4 kWh per passenger km) are totally wrong, and don't even match basic reality checks: the cycling figure is out by a factor of about 30. So how accurate are the other figures?" CreationDate="2014-10-30T00:09:00.943" UserId="1325" />
  <row Id="3797" PostId="2440" Score="0" Text="@andy256 hmm, I take your point about the first two. Note that these numbers are from me reading off the y-axis of the graph in the link; it may be that the points have been moved slightly for legibility, since their correct positions would probably have been right on top of the x-axis. As to the accuracy of the others: Most likely low accuracy, but useful in a ballpark sense. The book that they come from is all about approximate-but-useful estimates." CreationDate="2014-10-31T13:50:20.557" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="15608" PostId="2440" Score="0" Text="My EV (2015 Nissan Leaf) has a 24kWh battery and goes 100+km. About 20kWh/100km. 5 when full!" CreationDate="2022-02-28T14:48:28.250" UserId="13790" />
  <row Id="4534" PostId="2441" Score="0" Text="EIO-LCA is indeed fast and cheap and avoids cut-off rules but this comes at a huge cost. Major disadvantages of EIO-LCA are that data is often rather old because IO tables take many years to compile (the most recent [EIO-LCA data](http://www.eiolca.net/cgi-bin/dft/use.pl) currently is from 2002), many different data sources are used which leads to methodological inconsistencies and large uncertainties, only the production stage of products and services are considered, and imports are left out.&#xA;Therefor EIO-LCA is best used for quick-scans of gradle-to-gate products or macro-level LCAs only." CreationDate="2015-06-26T21:04:05.787" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="2757" PostId="2442" Score="3" Text="You make a good point with &quot;the question will... depend on whether... one chooses to consume meat and dairy.&quot;  It will indeed.  A vegan diet would have the smallest footprint.  Then a diet including eggs and chicken, then beef and pork.  The larger the animals the more resources required to produce meat.  Alternatively you could probably stock an irrigation pond and have fish for a small increase in the foot print.  As to dairy goats would be more efficient source of nutrition than cattle." CreationDate="2014-01-21T05:05:10.593" UserId="794" />
  <row Id="2961" PostId="2442" Score="0" Text="Great point! Jeavon's sticks to a vegan diet for exactly this reason." CreationDate="2014-02-18T18:22:23.840" UserId="1065" />
  <row Id="3224" PostId="2442" Score="0" Text="To compare with other answers I've calculated how much 5 acres for a family of 6 is in m2 per person. It's 3372 m2 (if I've done my calculations right)." CreationDate="2014-04-18T07:37:28.050" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="2743" PostId="2445" Score="2" Text="can you clarify whether you mean environmentally, financially, or some other &quot;viable&quot;? Obviously it's technically viable, so I assume that's not your question. But do you mean &quot;will I save money&quot; or &quot;will I reduce my environmental impact&quot;?" CreationDate="2014-01-17T03:37:44.070" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2745" PostId="2445" Score="0" Text="@Ӎσᶎ - To try and restate the points above in a different way: - Is the system noisy? - Is the cost of installing inverter etc. so expensive that is prohibitive (e.g. 10+ years to payback the system)? - Do the batteries work reliably, such that if I can generate all the electricity I need is there a product that works as it should with minimal oversight / maintenance?" CreationDate="2014-01-17T04:39:41.187" UserId="110" />
  <row Id="2747" PostId="2445" Score="0" Text="Inverter noise is very subjective, typically they have a fan which is similar to the ones found in computers, so if computer fans bother you so will the inverter. On the other hand, you can put the inverter in a location where the noise won't reach you (in the garage, for example)." CreationDate="2014-01-17T04:57:15.877" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2748" PostId="2445" Score="0" Text="again, do you mean money cost or environmental cost? You seem to mean money cost?" CreationDate="2014-01-17T05:01:58.113" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2768" PostId="2446" Score="0" Text="For us, because we were able to leap on the Australian buy back scheme, we get paid by the government for power we generate (at a rate of 66c p/kwh) whether we use it or not. So, our 2.2kw system currently pays us (in credit and cash) roughly $450 per quarter. I'm not sure this will be as viable after 2017 when the contract ends but we'll see." CreationDate="2014-01-22T23:41:28.363" UserId="1098" />
  <row Id="2769" PostId="2446" Score="0" Text="@Christian those schemes have mostly gone now, and Queensland has even tried to make PV owners pay extra connection charges. You're very lucky to have got that deal." CreationDate="2014-01-23T00:07:17.883" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2771" PostId="2446" Score="0" Text="yeah we were super lucky. I think we would have done it eventually anyway, but just jumped on it when it came up. This country's approach to PV is medieval." CreationDate="2014-01-24T01:02:02.567" UserId="1098" />
  <row Id="2772" PostId="2446" Score="0" Text="Utility companies are starting to charge grid-tied solar homes here in the US, too.  Their premise is folks are using the infrastructure and if they don't pay monthly fees to do so, then they are &quot;parasites&quot; on the system.   Doesn't make a lot of sense to me since they are producing energy and feeding it back into the system, but...  *shrug*" CreationDate="2014-01-24T15:31:15.967" UserId="624" />
  <row Id="2774" PostId="2446" Score="0" Text="Those costs are exactly the thing that makes going off-grid more financially viable though, especially if they apply even to people not feeding the grid (and if not, talk about cutting off the power company's nose to spite it's face. At least in Oz home PV reduce the size of the peak and thus the size and cost of the grid)." CreationDate="2014-01-24T21:20:24.477" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2754" PostId="2452" Score="4" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living and thank you for your answering. Your answer doesn't seem to provide any new information besides that already given in the question. Do you know how harmful R-12 is compared to R-134a? Or if currently other types of CFCs are used as well (and if so which ones)?" CreationDate="2014-01-19T11:40:43.213" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="2923" PostId="2455" Score="1" Text="Can you support his with some information about cost?  Given the processing involved, I suspect it would make the building unaffordable." CreationDate="2014-02-15T16:57:15.637" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="2805" PostId="2456" Score="0" Text="When you read the wiki article, you see there'S many industrial application. I seriuosly doubt that the uses you mention are major drivers (though I don'T have figures on this)." CreationDate="2014-01-30T09:35:20.850" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="2763" PostId="2458" Score="2" Text="Great answer, thank you. You mention there are alternatives, what are they/how did you find this out?" CreationDate="2014-01-21T16:30:09.930" UserId="1091" />
  <row Id="2766" PostId="2458" Score="1" Text="@tM-- you're welcome, and the alternatives are found in the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries link (second link)." CreationDate="2014-01-21T19:32:08.267" UserDisplayName="user1017" />
  <row Id="2808" PostId="2460" Score="0" Text="What do you mean by &quot;sustainable&quot;?" CreationDate="2014-01-30T23:37:46.607" UserId="961" />
  <row Id="2810" PostId="2460" Score="0" Text="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainability" CreationDate="2014-01-31T05:53:11.353" UserDisplayName="user1017" />
  <row Id="2811" PostId="2460" Score="0" Text="&quot;Sustainability is a multi-faceted concept...&quot;. Which facet are you interested in (when looking at waste collection in isolation)? Waste collection is an expense for each Tokyo ward." CreationDate="2014-01-31T08:37:10.917" UserId="961" />
  <row Id="2813" PostId="2460" Score="0" Text="where are you from, @DarrenCook? Sounds like you have had experience where this practice occurs.  What I am interested is the sustainable balance between the economics (as you mention) and the benefit for the environment." CreationDate="2014-01-31T08:46:25.520" UserDisplayName="user1017" />
  <row Id="2780" PostId="2461" Score="8" Text="I highly suggest buying a Kill-a-Watt ( http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_nr_n_0?rh=n%3A228013%2Ck%3Akill+a+watt&amp;keywords=kill+a+watt&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1390614859&amp;rnid=2941120011 ) type device which measure how much energy is used on an outlet. Test each appliance, and see which one is really sucking energy in your home and requires unplugging." CreationDate="2014-01-25T01:55:49.657" UserId="842" />
  <row Id="2778" PostId="2462" Score="0" Text="The points about &quot;soft&quot; switches (small-travel push bottons, normally) is good, and also if it has any display it's going to use power. Our washing machine uses ~10W/12VA when &quot;off&quot;, but our microwave uses 5W/50VA. The latter is especially bad when running off PV/inverter because it has to put out the full 50VA, on grid electricity you'll usually only pay for the 5W." CreationDate="2014-01-24T22:58:21.967" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2782" PostId="2462" Score="1" Text="@Ӎσᶎ youch - that's a horrendous power factor!" CreationDate="2014-01-25T08:47:41.713" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="2783" PostId="2462" Score="0" Text="I'm almost tempted to open it up just to see how they manage to get it that bad. Scary thing is that my cheap plug-in power meter pretty much agrees with the scope and proper meter, which is almost unheard of (the cheap ones are usually +/- 2mA, or 5W at 240V)." CreationDate="2014-01-25T09:07:30.323" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3127" PostId="2462" Score="0" Text="Great post... Anything that doesn't really have complex circuits will not use that much electricity (if any) when plugged in." CreationDate="2014-03-23T16:23:15.830" UserId="315" />
  <row Id="3369" PostId="2463" Score="0" Text="Not straight answer the question but lotta information about batteries in general are here:&#xA;https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/battery-technologies" CreationDate="2014-01-24T22:53:18.563" UserId="1078" />
  <row Id="10416" PostId="2463" Score="0" Text="https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/phone-plugged-overnight/ a great article" CreationDate="2018-11-19T02:52:52.680" UserId="1104" />
  <row Id="2773" PostId="2464" Score="1" Text="This is very good info as far as extending the lifespan of the battery goes. But the second part of the question is in regards to reducing the amount of energy spent going through this charge discharge cycle. EG Should I aim to increase the lifespan of the battery or aim to spend as little time on the charger as possible? Or is there a middle path that addresses both? Where does sustainability meet on the issue of preserving the battery vs using as little energy as possible?" CreationDate="2014-01-24T20:35:14.507" UserId="1104" />
  <row Id="2775" PostId="2464" Score="1" Text="You can throttle your CPU, lower your display brightness and remove the battery and just run on the charger. I think this is the way to use as little energy as possible. The obvious energy saver is to turn off your laptop and just not use it whenever you can. That said, a laptop charger usually uses up to 60W, which before energy saving light bulbs would be the same energy a small bathroom light uses. If you really want to save energy, the laptop is not the place to start. Rather, fridge, hot water, stove, air conditioning, washing machine, etc. use way more in comparison." CreationDate="2014-01-24T21:27:54.483" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="2776" PostId="2464" Score="2" Text="Once the battery is unusable, there is also the issue of recycling the battery, so I think that increasing battery lifespan is always a step towards sustainability." CreationDate="2014-01-24T21:29:12.253" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="2777" PostId="2464" Score="2" Text="Some links would make this an excellent answer." CreationDate="2014-01-24T22:55:47.077" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2779" PostId="2464" Score="0" Text="@Ӎσᶎ This is what I remember from reading several blog posts, computer magazines, laptop manufacturer's battery care advice, etc. I don't have a good link, but I'm sure that most pages linked on a web search of &quot;battery care&quot; or the like will give very similar advice." CreationDate="2014-01-24T23:09:31.733" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="2815" PostId="2482" Score="2" Text="Note that the cheap meters are usually only accurate to the nearest 5W, and frequently even less if the power factor is poor. Unfortunately poor power factor is common with the &quot;off&quot; state of appliances. I've seen 1W/1.2VA devices read 10W or 12W on a cheap power meter, and also 10W/25VA read 5W. The ATA in Australia (www.ata.org.au) tested a few of them and concluded that for loads under 20W the meters are effectively useless. They bought a much more expensive one to rent out to members, but it's ~$200 so you'll never make that money back buying it by yourself." CreationDate="2014-01-31T11:32:00.170" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2819" PostId="2482" Score="0" Text="Interesting. And I'm guessing it's not like for scale, they don't give you a &quot;precision factor&quot; on the box? (e.g. for a scale, &quot;5kg X 1g&quot;, maximum 5kg, and precision of 1g)" CreationDate="2014-01-31T15:58:43.823" UserId="842" />
  <row Id="2823" PostId="2482" Score="1" Text="That's right. If you're really lucky it will have a specifications page in the manual that says &quot;current 10A/0.1%&quot; or something, but it's up to you to work out that that means 10A to 0.1% = +/-10mA, or +/- 25W for a 240V device. The one I have has a 4 page &quot;manual&quot; that barely covers the device name and the button descriptions." CreationDate="2014-01-31T22:02:26.963" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2790" PostId="2485" Score="0" Text="I think it depends on the food and how it is being produced.  Is the food meat or vegetable?  If it's meat you've got to deliver the feed which costs fuel and food.  Is the crop grown organically in a sustainable way or is it more likely heavily dosed with pesticides and fertilizers which are all fossil fuel dependant and need to be trucked to wherever.  Is it irrigated?  How is the water pumped?  How is the crop harvested?  How far does the crop have to be delivered?  When it gets there is it put into an animal which is then trucked to slaughter and the meat driven somewhere else?" CreationDate="2014-01-28T21:38:24.337" UserId="794" />
  <row Id="2883" PostId="2485" Score="0" Text="Hi Val, just to clarify, because there seem to be a few combined questions here. Are you asking for verification of the 10 oil calories for 1 food calorie? Or the 1 oil calorie for 10 food calories? Or the relative energy inputs for food vs biomass?" CreationDate="2014-02-08T19:40:38.797" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="2886" PostId="2485" Score="1" Text="It seems that in order to post an acceptable answer to your question above, which mostly involves math, I need to research the figures given in your question, confirm their validity and prepare a list of cites for the same.  I honestly don't have the time nor the inclination to do this, so I am withdrawing my answer." CreationDate="2014-02-08T21:40:24.160" UserId="624" />
  <row Id="2787" PostId="2486" Score="4" Text="There is probably a good question about switch-mode power supplies and power factor - I suggest that you ask it :-) I agree about &quot;does this get warm&quot; to a degree, but it's not reliable. A small plastic object that gets warm is probably using more energy than a small plastic object that doesn't get warm, but you can't compare that something much bigger or of a different material. A warm plastic adapter is probably using a few hundred milliwatts at most, while my cool-to-the-touch computer on standby uses up to 15W (measured)." CreationDate="2014-01-28T17:02:51.810" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="2788" PostId="2486" Score="6" Text="+1 I totally agree with **sharing** the measuring device with your friends/neighbors. It's a wonderful teaching tool." CreationDate="2014-01-28T17:45:07.950" UserId="842" />
  <row Id="2816" PostId="2486" Score="1" Text="Or better, find a local group that has one - many councils in Australia have them for loan/rental to residents, and there are likely hobbyist groups that do too (or have members who will lend you one). For &quot;what does this device do&quot; you only need the meter for 20 seconds per device, where those things are normally designed to log usage over long periods." CreationDate="2014-01-31T11:34:30.200" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2789" PostId="2487" Score="5" Text="Can you point me to some more information about this? Thanks!" CreationDate="2014-01-28T21:35:38.290" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="2791" PostId="2487" Score="5" Text="Hi Roger, and welcome to Stackexchange. This sounds interesting, but for it to be a good answer it'll need some more detail, and ideally a source for the information. If you want, you can edit your answer to include this using the &quot;edit&quot; option just below your text." CreationDate="2014-01-28T22:55:41.817" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="6589" PostId="2487" Score="0" Text="I found some information about wood being too dry: http://www.woodheat.org/firewood-too-dry.html" CreationDate="2016-03-18T10:05:36.347" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="2798" PostId="2489" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! In what respect is handwashing more efficient? Time, money, energy usage? How do you know this? Also, I don't think rinsing before putting dishes in the dishwasher is necessary. I usually remove food left overs with a spoon and then place the dishes in the washer." CreationDate="2014-01-29T07:55:11.750" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="2820" PostId="2490" Score="0" Text="Quick comment as prelude to me researching and writing a proper answer: methane release during degradation is probably the biggest problem. Not specific to halophytes, though: applies to fossil fuels, biomass and waste-management generally." CreationDate="2014-01-31T16:11:56.137" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="2824" PostId="2490" Score="0" Text="IF the methane is released as a part of processing the matter into fuel, then couldn't the methane be captured and used as a fuel itself?" CreationDate="2014-01-31T22:56:37.060" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="2806" PostId="2491" Score="3" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Could you explain this a bit more? What exactly do you mean with a double jack thermosiphon system?" CreationDate="2014-01-30T15:47:58.723" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="2809" PostId="2493" Score="2" Text="Hello there, welcome to the site, and thanks for opening up here with a well-written and helpful answer. I've taken the liberty of editing out the signature on your post, as (as you can see), your signature is added automatically to the bottom-right corner of your post anyway. So questions and answers here don't need greetings or sign-offs." CreationDate="2014-01-31T03:13:10.670" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="2814" PostId="2493" Score="3" Text="Interesting idea. A couple of terms I'm not sure of, that may be regional things - what is Mis Dig? And what is &quot;no-see-em&quot;? Thanks :-)" CreationDate="2014-01-31T09:43:40.530" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="3436" PostId="2493" Score="0" Text="This is an interesting approach. For clarity, &quot;[MISS DIG](http://www.missdig.net/index.php/about-miss-dig/faq) is Michigan's statewide one-call notification system that was developed in order to provide excavators and the general public the ability to inform multiple owners of underground facilities of excavation with a single call.&quot;  And no-see-em's are [biting midges](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceratopogonidae), very small and annoying bugs." CreationDate="2014-07-03T18:41:06.370" UserId="1123" />
  <row Id="2821" PostId="2496" Score="1" Text="Would hearing about a part of central Queensland's efforts be relevant to your research?" CreationDate="2014-01-31T21:03:52.663" UserDisplayName="user1017" />
  <row Id="2822" PostId="2496" Score="0" Text="Sure, but I am hoping for a way to compare many different regions efforts." CreationDate="2014-01-31T21:11:20.680" UserId="1104" />
  <row Id="2825" PostId="2496" Score="0" Text="ah okay, no worries" CreationDate="2014-02-01T07:13:09.077" UserDisplayName="user1017" />
  <row Id="2829" PostId="2499" Score="6" Text="For anybody else who is mystified like me: 60F = 15.5C; 0F = -18C; 38F = 3.3C" CreationDate="2014-02-03T16:24:26.987" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="2854" PostId="2499" Score="0" Text="It looks like an IHEATER is a fairly high powered heater, which probably has a higher fire risk than central heating. If there's any risk you'll fall asleep (through fatigue or alcohol), or temporarily leave the heater on while unattended, then please ensure you have a correctly installed and tested smoke alarm in any room you're operating the heater in! In fact, when it comes to consuming too much alcohol, a smoke alarm may not even wake you, so best not to use it at all in that case..." CreationDate="2014-02-07T04:00:13.430" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="2855" PostId="2499" Score="1" Text="Does your central heating simply use an electric element, or is a heat pump (air conditioning) system?" CreationDate="2014-02-07T04:01:45.093" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="4634" PostId="2499" Score="1" Text="@HighlyIrregular: If you didn't know this - **Aux / Emergency Heat mode** is pure electric heat. It comes on automatically when it is too cold for the heat pump to operate, or you switch it on if the system fails. This is very common throughout the USA, and cuts in to the value of heat pump systems dramatically. You are better off with natural gas (where available - cities) or propane (expensive and shipped by truck, but way cheaper than... Electric). **The Aux / Emergency heat issue is a MAJOR part of the OPs question.**" CreationDate="2015-07-29T00:10:27.197" UserDisplayName="user2423" />
  <row Id="2837" PostId="2500" Score="0" Text="I'm sorry, I am renting a patio home and I am on Kentucky Utilities. It is all electric. However, my meter turns very fast when the water heater is turned on and also just as fast when my unit kicks into Aux/emergency heat. I keep it at a low heat too. Never above 66, right now i've got it set to 60. I only use one room in my place and wondered if it would save me money to buy an iheater, for the room i use and keep it at a certain temp like 66. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!!" CreationDate="2014-02-04T21:52:26.040" UserId="1136" />
  <row Id="2840" PostId="2500" Score="2" Text="I think the best advice that I can give, given the information available, is &quot;probably&quot;! Infrared heaters are quite cheap, so I'd buy one and test it :-) Do remember that you'll want some background level of heating in the rest of the house to prevent things from freezing." CreationDate="2014-02-05T09:32:44.850" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="2845" PostId="2500" Score="0" Text="I've got one arriving this monday. Thanks!! My place is new, well, 3 and 1/2 yrs old and I'm not surrounded any other units so I'm not insulated by another buildings like in a regular town home.which is good but down for the insulation heat problem but ill try that infrared heater and do you know how cold it has to get in a home for pipes to burst? it normal never gets under like 56 even when the heat is off.i know that's a dumb ques. but i don't know how pipes work in a newer home.thanks so much...." CreationDate="2014-02-06T10:33:03.593" UserId="1136" />
  <row Id="2830" PostId="2501" Score="2" Text="There are [reusable k-cups](http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine/2013/03/k-cup-alternatives-will-save-you-money/index.htm) but they are (obviously) less convenient than regular k-cups since you still have to fill them (and clean them afterwards)" CreationDate="2014-02-03T20:43:33.993" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="2831" PostId="2501" Score="1" Text="Keurig says that it takes 60 seconds to brew a K-Cup coffee, the Clever Dripper says it takes 4 minutes and stirring twice (after 90 seconds and 4 minutes) to brew a coffee. It doesn't sound more convenient than just using a french press (plus it uses a paper filter which has to be recycled or composted, while the typical french press does not). The [Aeropress](http://aerobie.com/products/aeropress.htm) claims to brew coffee in about 20 seconds (it too uses a paper filter, but it's much smaller than traditional  coffee filters)." CreationDate="2014-02-03T20:53:06.317" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="2832" PostId="2501" Score="0" Text="Indeed I forgot to mention the time difference. You could make the French press just as complicated if you read certain recipes. It is FAR easier to clean a clever than a French press which requires a sink. The difference is that I can do all of this at my desk without a sink. In any case I am trying to show that are alternatives that are quite convenient. Aeropress sounds very nice too. There are also reusable filters available for each." CreationDate="2014-02-03T21:36:43.603" UserId="1104" />
  <row Id="2833" PostId="2501" Score="0" Text="Also, many people do not like French press because of the sediment. Any of these methods is a good alternative to k-kups if you love great coffee and don’t mind the extra steps." CreationDate="2014-02-03T21:46:40.003" UserId="1104" />
  <row Id="7461" PostId="2501" Score="1" Text="You *can*, but you have to do it yourself, rather than dumping them. If you pop the top off you can extra (most of) the coffee grounds and compost them, then the plastic or metal container is no worse than any other mixed-materials item. Meaning that it's probably still &quot;recycleable in theory&quot; - your best bet is an all-plastic pod made of a recycleable plastic. If you must drink coffee, pods are still one of the most awful ways to do that. Coffee itself is problematic from a sustainability perspective." CreationDate="2016-08-28T23:12:38.803" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2838" PostId="2503" Score="0" Text="Looks like I am not watering enough. I do have a layer of newspaper on top to keep the moisture in, but this is pretty much dry (although the soil is quite damp). I was worried that having too much water would make it a soggy stench. I tried watering it once when I first started and noticed most of the water went straight through and thought I would end up with mostly water in the bottom container?" CreationDate="2014-02-05T00:19:32.233" UserId="110" />
  <row Id="2839" PostId="2503" Score="1" Text="The water that comes out should be dark brown and there should also be a small amount of sediment. There should be a time delay between watering and flow at the bottom, usually hours rather than seconds. Too much sediment means you're over-watering, as does slime or rotting smells. Mould and bad smells can also come from too much food being added too quickly." CreationDate="2014-02-05T00:28:27.077" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2959" PostId="2505" Score="2" Text="There is a thriving market in used turbines.  Are not lots of turbines being taken down early due to the process of licensing?  I.e.:  You have a good site.  You have the infra-structure in place, so you take down the 1 MW machine and put up a 3 MW machine, as being a better ROI." CreationDate="2014-02-18T13:28:45.797" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="2843" PostId="2508" Score="1" Text="Does this answer apply world-wide, or are those logos particular for certain parts of the world?" CreationDate="2014-02-06T09:42:52.383" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="2844" PostId="2508" Score="4" Text="AFAIK there is no logo that is used world-wide, but in Europe I most often see the first 2 biodegradable logos I've posted. I think the used logo often depends on the (imagination of) bag's manufacturer." CreationDate="2014-02-06T09:49:37.047" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="2846" PostId="2508" Score="2" Text="I remember several years ago going to a fast food chain and getting my take out in a biodegradable bag. The employees were very enthusiastic about explaining that the bags would break down on their own within a year. There was never an answer when I pointed out that I had several of the biodegradable bags in a drawer in my desk for over a year, and none looked any worse for the wear. The chain has since started using paper... It's always good to be realistic about the biodegradability of these bags!" CreationDate="2014-02-06T15:21:58.923" UserId="1065" />
  <row Id="3192" PostId="2508" Score="0" Text="Compostable plastics degrade quickly, for example, [within 35 days](http://www.jeffries.com.au/about-us/news/article/compostable-bags)." CreationDate="2014-04-09T19:02:45.340" UserId="69" />
  <row Id="3196" PostId="2508" Score="1" Text="@BryanH Only if you put them on a compost heap that has generated a lot of heat or if it is '**home** compostable' plastics (see also [this post and answer](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/2594/99)). In all other cases compostable plastics degrade very slowly." CreationDate="2014-04-10T07:06:30.273" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4878" PostId="2508" Score="0" Text="I can definitely tell some biodegradable bags degrade quite efficiently. ...after having to repack some sweaters packed in them, moth-sprayed and left sitting in the wardrobe for a couple years, as the bags would come apart at smallest tug." CreationDate="2015-10-20T10:19:52.500" UserId="188" />
  <row Id="4879" PostId="2508" Score="0" Text="@SF 'a couple of years' doesn't sound very efficient. BTW, degradation like this can happen even to non-biodegrable plastic bags (but mostly if they have been exposed to sunlight)." CreationDate="2015-10-20T11:31:14.483" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4883" PostId="2508" Score="0" Text="@THelper: The &quot;reusable&quot; pastic bags didn't require replacing though. It's often the matter of conditions - plastic reacts poorly to freezing, becoming brittle, so bags exposed to frost will degrade much faster - but that was indoors, so the degradation definitely progressed faster than in non-biodegradable ones." CreationDate="2015-10-20T12:18:39.420" UserId="188" />
  <row Id="2858" PostId="2510" Score="0" Text="Note to self: add http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096014810900055X" CreationDate="2014-02-07T12:03:19.660" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="2848" PostId="2511" Score="0" Text="It does not stick around if you recycle it as any other plastic package. Should I choose the disposable when we have the package recycling system installed (it must be installed in place of disposable [censored])? This also applies to the case when plastic is made of renewables. What is the point of pursuing degradable if we sort and recycle the garbage?" CreationDate="2014-02-06T20:36:38.557" UserId="476" />
  <row Id="2857" PostId="2511" Score="0" Text="I see your edit but fail to see how does disposable/biodegradable meshes with the RRR." CreationDate="2014-02-07T11:25:47.783" UserId="476" />
  <row Id="2874" PostId="2511" Score="0" Text="A disposable, biodegradable object is the &quot;recycle&quot; R in the three R's, so it's at the bottom of the list of things to do. It's better to not use the object in the first place (reduce), or to use one that you or someone else already has (reuse) rather than get a brand new one and throw it away (recycle)." CreationDate="2014-02-08T00:47:55.497" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2875" PostId="2511" Score="0" Text="I was sure that recycle means that you take plastic bag and produce another plastic product out of it. Thanks for thelling me that this is wrong impression. From now on, I will know that recycling stands for trowing things away. We take oil and compost it. That is recycling. I see a big green cycle here. Thanks." CreationDate="2014-02-08T00:58:58.060" UserId="476" />
  <row Id="2876" PostId="2511" Score="0" Text="Val: often, yes, but taking food-grade plastic and turning it into a park bench or playground ground cover that would otherwise be made of wood is pretty marginal in my book." CreationDate="2014-02-08T01:01:44.010" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2853" PostId="2513" Score="1" Text="It would be helpful if you would provide substantiation for  your figures. And to remove the content that is irrelevant - this is a question about EROEI." CreationDate="2014-02-07T03:37:15.843" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="2856" PostId="2513" Score="3" Text="If I understand correctly, you are the author of the Russian LiveJournal post that the OP has linked? If so, it's great to see you coming here to engage. However, as EnergyNumbers has said, you would do well to remove the parts of your answer that are not about EROEI (e.g. the parts about financial costs), and if your answer is to get upvoted you will need to provide citations or substantiation of the figures that you quote." CreationDate="2014-02-07T07:49:42.047" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="2861" PostId="2513" Score="0" Text="I've moved your other comments into this answer. Please just edit this post, rather than trying to create a discussion by posting fragments in new answers. We're a Q&amp;A site, not a discussion forum, so things work differently here to LiveJournal." CreationDate="2014-02-07T20:09:53.653" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="2892" PostId="2513" Score="1" Text="&quot;it is still unproven that crude oil is fossil fuel...&quot;  Errr, what?" CreationDate="2014-02-10T12:43:34.630" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="2904" PostId="2513" Score="0" Text="Yep. Crude oil contains too much C14 to be millions of years old fossil product. Also there are at least two other theories of oil genesis one of wich was first proposed by Mendeleev. Long before fossil theory." CreationDate="2014-02-12T10:19:22.840" UserId="1148" />
  <row Id="2924" PostId="2515" Score="0" Text="I think you mean polyurethane or polystyrene.  However plastic in general requires an interesting definition of sustainable, as it is almost universally produced from oil.  The blowing of PU foam is extremely toxic.  PS is much less harmful, but only achieves about 2/3 of the insulation value." CreationDate="2014-02-15T16:59:56.493" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="2880" PostId="2516" Score="2" Text="if you want a discussion/list, I suggest making this community wiki. Otherwise I'm going to vote to close because the question is inappropriate." CreationDate="2014-02-08T11:27:25.387" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="5417" PostId="2516" Score="0" Text="We use plastic folding crates, specially made for this. They fold flat so you can always have one handy. We have about half a dozen, and they get used for all sorts of purposes. If you can't get them or don't want one, re-use stout cardboard boxes." CreationDate="2016-02-02T11:36:46.843" UserId="1567" />
  <row Id="2868" PostId="2518" Score="1" Text="I Mostly use reusable bags. But I do sometimes like to forget them so that I have a healthy supply of plastic grocery bags for use in my trash bins. I realise that this is not an ideal solution any suggestions?" CreationDate="2014-02-07T23:26:02.707" UserId="1104" />
  <row Id="3062" PostId="2518" Score="1" Text="@Enjabain: Find another source for plastic bags. For example some supermarkets collect bags for recycling, some workplaces have a drawer full of plastic bags that people have brought in." CreationDate="2014-03-10T07:40:28.110" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3206" PostId="2521" Score="0" Text="I live in San Francisco, California and we have a full ban on plastic bags. This definitely stops the use of plastic bags even in the big grocery stores: http://www.sfenvironment.org/article/prevent-waste/checkout-bag-ordinance Several cities have implemented this in California that I'm aware of." CreationDate="2014-04-12T18:35:09.037" UserId="329" />
  <row Id="3888" PostId="2524" Score="0" Text="I am surprised neem oil hasn't been mentioned in the answers so far: I haven't given myself too much deliberate exposure to swarms of mosquitos yet, but a. it is well-known to be a powerful repellant against several classes of insects including mosquitos and b. I can tell you for (non horse or marsh) flies, it WORKS. There are two varieties of neem, the one here is the one native to India - it is thus perfect for the tropics and in fact can only grow in climates closer to the equator like where you are. Try pure neem (seed) oil, on the skin, and see if you can tolerate its strong, nutty smell." CreationDate="2014-12-05T04:34:55.463" UserDisplayName="user487" />
  <row Id="2888" PostId="2526" Score="0" Text="It is interesting that all researches report two results, one of them is 20 times better than the second." CreationDate="2014-02-09T14:28:31.317" UserId="476" />
  <row Id="2891" PostId="2526" Score="1" Text="@Val, I've taken the **extremes** of each study: for each study, I've shown the highest and lowest value (and excluded negative values). These studies between them list many many results." CreationDate="2014-02-09T18:25:05.563" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="2900" PostId="2526" Score="0" Text="Is cumbustion engine efficiency (of 20% whereas 80% are lost as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_combustion_engine#Energy_efficiency says), included into the figures?" CreationDate="2014-02-11T08:27:40.307" UserId="476" />
  <row Id="2901" PostId="2526" Score="1" Text="@Val - no, because biofuels can be used for purposes with various efficiencies: so these are what's called **well-to-pump** figures (even though no well is involved, and no pump need be either)" CreationDate="2014-02-11T08:39:28.533" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="2890" PostId="2527" Score="2" Text="Hello there steve Joe, and welcome. Could you write a little more about this recycling? We're trying to build awesome content here, not just links to content elsewhere." CreationDate="2014-02-09T18:19:59.710" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="3175" PostId="2527" Score="1" Text="Also I'm highly dubious about the recycling - sure it's doable to take apart every capsule by hand, but if you want to spend that much time for a cup of coffee, you don't by a machine like this. Do they take back their cups and recycle them themselves?" CreationDate="2014-04-03T08:43:28.333" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="2893" PostId="2530" Score="0" Text="Don't forget to weigh, against your ethical objections to Japan, any ethical objections that you may have against your own country! (which I'm guessing from the use of imperial units is the US). FWIW, there is talk of future Priuses being assembled in the US (http://www.treehugger.com/cars/fourth-generation-toyota-prius-hybrid-be-made-us.html), but also talk that it may not happen (http://www.autonews.com/article/20130610/OEM01/306109991/made-in-america-prius-fades-into-the-future)" CreationDate="2014-02-10T12:48:56.933" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="2895" PostId="2530" Score="0" Text="I have no ethical objections to the people of Japan, I feel sorry for their situation.  I have no ethical objections to the people of my own country.  Which you guessed correctly.  I may be in the market for a small hybrid in a few years but currently that's too small for the family." CreationDate="2014-02-10T18:14:19.610" UserId="794" />
  <row Id="2898" PostId="2530" Score="0" Text="The only right ethics is sustainability. If your ethics is in conflict with sustainability, it is not ethical. Furthermore, it is buying cars and individual homes in the city what kills our planet. Fishing is not. Japaneese did bad thing building a power plant at the sea shore, where it never must be done and dispose the radioactive waters into the ocean. But, this is greedy capitalism and they needed energy to sustain the unsustainable car-oriented infrastrucutre, which kills our planet. W.Rees: [the hybrids is a fraud, it is not green](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugv0OY6LyuE&amp;t=328)." CreationDate="2014-02-10T20:38:29.720" UserId="476" />
  <row Id="2899" PostId="2530" Score="0" Text="@Val I agree with a lot of what you say but I'm not moving my family to a city for a variety of reasons.  There are many aspects of our cities that are unsustainable or less sustainable than suburbs or rural areas.  Yes cars are horrible but consuming meat pollutes more.  So both are bad.  We're vegan, we walk and use bicycles every chance we get, and I'm always looking for ways to reduce or eliminate the negative impact I may have on other beings.  I got an error when I clicked on your link.  It said try again later.  I will.  Thanks for the input." CreationDate="2014-02-11T06:02:38.167" UserId="794" />
  <row Id="2905" PostId="2530" Score="1" Text="Have you considered clean diesel? If your budget can stretch to a Japanese hybrid (but I assume not an American hybrid like a Ford?), a VW clean diesel vehicle would probably fit. I read an article not too long ago which analyzed gas, hybrid and clean diesel vehicles, and came to the conclusion that the greenest option was a gently used clean diesel car. I wish I could find the article - it sounds like exactly what you are looking for. It took into consideration fuel usage, manufacturing practices and materials, etc." CreationDate="2014-02-12T16:50:40.447" UserId="1065" />
  <row Id="2906" PostId="2530" Score="0" Text="@michelle that does seem to take into account a lot of the things I'm thinking of.  If you find it please post it here!" CreationDate="2014-02-13T05:26:48.720" UserId="794" />
  <row Id="2896" PostId="2531" Score="2" Text="Great answer. I'm not going to pick it yet because I'm hoping for more input.  The boycott against Japanese products is, in my opinion, being done to encourage the Japanese people to speak out against the dolphin slaughter.  Toyota may not be directly involved in either industry but the govt and the people gain from the exports.  By putting economic pressure on them, the hope is, the people will push for change... and this boycott does have many other participants." CreationDate="2014-02-10T18:29:12.300" UserId="794" />
  <row Id="2945" PostId="2531" Score="0" Text="I'm accepting the answer since no one else wants to chime in.  I hope that doesn't deter anyone from throwing in their 2 cents." CreationDate="2014-02-17T07:08:46.767" UserId="794" />
  <row Id="12261" PostId="2532" Score="0" Text="What about melting plastic anaerobically to avoid burning?" CreationDate="2020-02-04T20:04:09.023" UserId="8409" />
  <row Id="2903" PostId="2534" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Very interesting article you link to, but why would it 'take a few years'? The article suggest that you can just let a few pigs loose in the pond and it will be sealed very quickly (perhaps in one or two days?)." CreationDate="2014-02-12T07:52:13.783" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4364" PostId="2534" Score="0" Text="I didn't get the sense that the article was talking about the process only taking two days. The author didn't mention a timeframe, but the two anecdotes quoted in the article mentioned 2 year and 3 year time frames. in any case, summarizing pertinent information from the article here would make this a better answer, links tend to disappear over time." CreationDate="2015-05-06T18:48:01.540" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="2914" PostId="2535" Score="1" Text="The only moderately-efficient solution I can think of is for the &quot;solar panel&quot; to be a plant, which is then harvested and burned as fuel to drive a steam-powered generator." CreationDate="2014-02-14T04:04:14.553" UserId="1176" />
  <row Id="2916" PostId="2535" Score="0" Text="Do you consider ethanol, etc. made from plants a &quot;fossil fuel&quot;? (Some answers seem to be assuming no hydrocarbons are available.)" CreationDate="2014-02-14T04:23:02.280" UserId="961" />
  <row Id="2913" PostId="2536" Score="0" Text="This answer can be reformulated in a much shorter and rather non-helpful form: anything can be done when there's abundant base-line energy supply. Probably not what's OP is asking though." CreationDate="2014-02-14T03:17:19.390" UserId="1175" />
  <row Id="2952" PostId="2538" Score="0" Text="I'm curious about your comment about locally grown food not lasting as long. This has not been my experience, but a few things come to mind - first could it be the varieties local farmers are growing (varieties chosen for flavor over long shelf life)? Could it be the way you are storing them once you get home (do you wrap them in plastic, like the grocery store veggies are wrapped, for example)? Maybe there are ways to solve that problem." CreationDate="2014-02-17T15:02:14.837" UserId="1065" />
  <row Id="2953" PostId="2538" Score="0" Text="I guess I was talking more about organic meat which lacks the preservatives etc. But some non-organic/local vegetables are packaged air tight with nitrogen so that they don’t react with oxygen and last longer." CreationDate="2014-02-17T22:18:14.493" UserId="1104" />
  <row Id="2911" PostId="2540" Score="0" Text="Current technology requires pure silicon which is then doped with tiny amounts of carefully selected impurities. The crystal structure is also important. 3D printing that would have to happen at the atomic level &quot;74 atoms of silicon, then an atom of gallium, 26 atoms of silicon, an atom of tellurium....&quot; and likely have to be done in a vacuum to stop immediate oxidisation and even an inert gas would probably cause enough Brownian motion to be a problem. A much more likely approach is the organic PV systems that can be painted on." CreationDate="2014-02-14T01:01:19.700" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2912" PostId="2540" Score="0" Text="Actually, given that level of 3D printing, you'd probably also have [Maxwell's demon](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell's_demon) tech, so you could probably use sand and old computers as the inputs." CreationDate="2014-02-14T01:10:17.930" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2915" PostId="2540" Score="0" Text="@Ӎσᶎ Thanks: your comments, together, would be great as an answer. (I found http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1112845619/solar-energy-from-painted-on-organic-photovoltaics-051413/ but do you have a better reference for organic PV that can be painted on?)" CreationDate="2014-02-14T04:16:47.560" UserId="961" />
  <row Id="2917" PostId="2540" Score="0" Text="As far as I know they're very much a theoretical thing where people have sort of got the parts working in the lab. There's not yet an actual &quot;paint on panel&quot; anywhere, even in a lab. The big challenge is making them amorphous enough to paint on, rather than needing exact microstructures." CreationDate="2014-02-14T04:51:27.533" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2918" PostId="2543" Score="0" Text="Combustion would contribute to smog." CreationDate="2014-02-14T11:10:24.210" UserId="1177" />
  <row Id="2919" PostId="2543" Score="0" Text="no necessarily. Look up smog." CreationDate="2014-02-14T11:16:45.570" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="2946" PostId="2546" Score="0" Text="1) the straw filter is an aerobic treatment? can you provide a link? 2) don't you meant to put hte mechanical filtering steps before the straw column? 3) How about a flat pond with no dense vegtation, so UV from sunlight can disinfect the water?" CreationDate="2014-02-17T08:47:15.370" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="2955" PostId="2546" Score="0" Text="1. Can't find the specific link right now.  The straw mostly acts as a large area surface for bacteria to grow on, as well as a source of nutrients not in the greywater.  2. Mechanical separation is necesary before the pump.  I will make that change.  3.  UV sterilization is only effective if the pond is shallow enough for UV to reach the bottom.  My understanding is UV doesn't penetrate very far.  This would give you a high surface/volume ratio which in turn would mean high evaporation losses." CreationDate="2014-02-18T00:00:35.803" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="2958" PostId="2546" Score="0" Text="3. I don't find the link right now, but I read some time ago that contructed wetlands often use a flat pond as a last stage for that exact reasons." CreationDate="2014-02-18T08:22:30.857" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="9127" PostId="2546" Score="0" Text="I don't have any answers, just questions. Can you supply a drawing or a schematic of your design? That would be most helpful.&#xA;We are experiencing a rather severe drought her in the western cape of South Africa and every drop of water is becoming rather precious." CreationDate="2017-12-17T21:37:07.797" UserId="5241" />
  <row Id="2940" PostId="2547" Score="2" Text="6. Compost everything you can't eat and can't feed your pets" CreationDate="2014-02-16T22:05:32.363" UserId="794" />
  <row Id="2941" PostId="2547" Score="2" Text="7. Buy whole foods that aren't wrapped up in large amounts of packaging to reduce waste even further" CreationDate="2014-02-16T22:06:15.630" UserId="794" />
  <row Id="2942" PostId="2547" Score="2" Text="8.  Change your diet.  I know you don't want to hear it, but a family going vegan is a bigger deal in terms of pollution than giving up fossil fuel burning." CreationDate="2014-02-16T22:07:25.590" UserId="794" />
  <row Id="2954" PostId="2547" Score="0" Text="@hortstu all good points, but I specified non-dietary so that this question would be relevant to Vegans and Factory Farm meat eaters alike." CreationDate="2014-02-17T22:20:02.327" UserId="1104" />
  <row Id="2956" PostId="2547" Score="1" Text="@Enjabain  Understood but if they hear/read it enough it might make a couple more vegetarians/ vegans.  Every one makes a difference in someone's life, and if ethics/cruelty reasons doesn't change someone's mind maybe environmental,or political reasons will." CreationDate="2014-02-18T05:07:58.693" UserId="794" />
  <row Id="2972" PostId="2547" Score="0" Text="The everything soup is actually remarkably a good idea, but it takes some practice to make work.  I totally second that.  Also keep odds and ends of vegetables (esp. onions, but not the skins) and make broth out of them." CreationDate="2014-02-21T15:21:33.013" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="2930" PostId="2549" Score="0" Text="I totally like the heat pump idea. But I still don't think oil is necessary. If we generate heat by combustion, we can use sterling-engine to power heat pump and bypass the oil and electricity stage." CreationDate="2014-02-16T01:33:34.730" UserId="1177" />
  <row Id="2931" PostId="2549" Score="0" Text="yes, but the practicalities of growing algae, drying it and moving it around mean that it's unlikely to happen on a large scale. And on a small scale, most co-gen units have quite specific fuel requirements. It could be done, definitely, but I fear the cost would be high. You might go through a number of co-gen burners before you find one that will work with algae, for example." CreationDate="2014-02-16T01:38:02.530" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2929" PostId="2550" Score="1" Text="That's two different things - a sustainable policy is one that the company can keep for more than one quarterly reporting cycle. Even &quot;sustainability policies&quot; in the green sense are often ambiguous at best, like Raytheon's &quot;green war&quot; efforts." CreationDate="2014-02-16T01:27:02.273" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="6622" PostId="2561" Score="0" Text="You can also get metal roofing with insulation, which may help with cost (you're getting two products in one). In Australia we can get EPS and PIR foam with steel each side in thickness up to ridiculous (300mm OTS, more by special order)" CreationDate="2016-03-21T22:29:23.653" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2962" PostId="2563" Score="0" Text="How is your water billed?" CreationDate="2014-02-19T08:40:13.707" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="2963" PostId="2563" Score="0" Text="also, can you provide some links at what you have looked at already? Do you happen to be or know a passionate electronics hacker?" CreationDate="2014-02-19T08:41:37.323" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="2964" PostId="2563" Score="0" Text="@mart - the HOA pays the bill and it's rolled up into the monthly HOA fee. I added a link to an industrial product. I'm a mildly competent electronics hacker - if someone said that all I need to do is measure the flow noise with a transducer, I could do that. If someone said I needed to create an ultrasonic pulse and measure the Doppler shift of the  echo, that might be a little harder (but maybe not impossible, DSP's are easy to find these days, and maybe something like a Raspberry Pi has enough processing power to do it without a separate DSP)." CreationDate="2014-02-19T16:23:39.707" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="2970" PostId="2568" Score="0" Text="Thanks for the thoughts. Re: the advantage of on-site, items that are only needed to make the panel strong enough to transport, or easier to install, are no longer needed. Thus saving fuel (and raw material)." CreationDate="2014-02-21T02:35:19.220" UserId="961" />
  <row Id="2971" PostId="2568" Score="0" Text="BTW, do you have any reference for the longevity issue with paint-on-PV? (I would've thought wiring it up would be the big issue, but then I don't really understand how it works :-)" CreationDate="2014-02-21T02:37:26.963" UserId="961" />
  <row Id="12947" PostId="2568" Score="0" Text="@DarrenCook Because a solar panel is deployed in the open, subject to large thermal changes, hail, etc, the strength requirement comes at the point of use.  Shipping is fairly trivial:  Shipping a large install: Pre packaged containers each with the support frame, the panels and the first tier of wiring.  Panels would be in something on the order of cubic meter crates, with slots for the panels to ride vertically, much like window glass is shipped.  Each crate would do one rack.  Now it's an outdoor fork lift.  One crate of rack, one crate of panels.  Next rack foundation." CreationDate="2020-10-03T03:02:47.273" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="6627" PostId="2571" Score="0" Text="If you have a source of waste heat, delivering that to the tank would help.  Either diverting a water-cooling loop from water-cooled kit (like some compressors), or ducting the exhaust air (if not too humid) from air-cooled kit" CreationDate="2016-03-22T09:09:08.283" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="2978" PostId="2574" Score="3" Text="PVC, a common material for guttering, is not an environmentally friendly material, if I understand correctly, though this is clearly disputed by the industry that makes it (http://www.pvc.org/en/p/sustainability). Perhaps some other materials used for guttering are ok though?" CreationDate="2014-02-24T02:38:07.310" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="2983" PostId="2574" Score="2" Text="Perhaps edit in to ask about risks as well? If there's a dry season or any fire risk this could be problematic. The danger in accessing the guttering could be high, and the risk of the plants growing into or onto the roof would need careful management." CreationDate="2014-02-26T02:54:38.110" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3109" PostId="2574" Score="0" Text="I don't know how your friend's roof looks like. Depending on its shape, it may be possible to consider looking into turning it into a [green roof](http://www.greenroofguide.co.uk/). The guttering in itself is extremely small, I doubt that it would have much impact by itself. A 'sustainable' thing to do is to store the water that runs off from the roof and use it for gardening/low quality water purposes." CreationDate="2014-03-18T21:21:19.283" UserId="1251" />
  <row Id="3382" PostId="2574" Score="0" Text="The gutter is there to remove the water from the roof so it doesn't flow into the ceiling. Deliberately keeping the water in the gutter, will increase the risk for water flowing into the ceiling space, collapsing the ceilings.&#xA;&#xA;It is better to capture the water from the downpipes into IBCs and then use the IBC as a hydroponic container." CreationDate="2014-06-09T12:30:00.953" UserId="522" />
  <row Id="3173" PostId="2575" Score="0" Text="More info also [in this cooking question](http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/30498/is-it-ok-to-store-open-cans-in-the-fridge)" CreationDate="2014-04-03T07:16:27.970" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="2975" PostId="2576" Score="0" Text="there was a questions here about pv concentrators (that I don't find right now, maybe someone else can help) but hte gist of the answer was the pv concentration does not make a whole lot of sense." CreationDate="2014-02-22T20:23:59.773" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="2976" PostId="2576" Score="0" Text="From a bit of searching it seems that the major disadvantage is that there's not been any research done, so you'll need to start by doing primary research. With planar fresnel lenses there's a lot of experience and they're readily available." CreationDate="2014-02-22T23:06:48.807" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="2979" PostId="2576" Score="0" Text="For anyone interested, this company uses Fresnel lenses for photovoltaics, though it's likely they aren't cylindrical: http://www.soitec.com/en/technologies/concentrix/" CreationDate="2014-02-24T04:22:40.707" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="2980" PostId="2576" Score="0" Text="I am planing on doing extensive research on this and I want to know if something has already been done on this field. I don't want to spend my time researching something that has already been done. From what I am reading here it seems that there hasn't been much done on PVC's using Fresnel lenses. If anybody has some info that could help please share with me. Thanks for your thoughts and time." CreationDate="2014-02-24T14:35:35.447" UserId="1205" />
  <row Id="2985" PostId="2578" Score="0" Text="Yes, I meant metal cans (the thing about calling &quot;Canning&quot; when using metal jars is really confusing for me, too). It is a good to know the health risks, which I ignored completely. I will try to get my hands on glass jars though, because I use microwave-safe plastic to store and reheat. Thanks!" CreationDate="2014-02-26T06:11:07.340" UserId="1203" />
  <row Id="2981" PostId="2581" Score="0" Text="Come on people, children are the future. Teach them! Haha" CreationDate="2014-02-24T20:27:26.933" UserId="1211" />
  <row Id="2982" PostId="2581" Score="1" Text="Are you interested in solar thermal (eg for heating water), or photovoltaics (ie solar electricity), or both?" CreationDate="2014-02-25T01:36:23.077" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="2990" PostId="2581" Score="1" Text="What age of children? What knowledge can we assume they have already?" CreationDate="2014-02-26T11:46:40.657" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="2998" PostId="2581" Score="0" Text="I'll get more information now. I'm not sure what kind of solar it is." CreationDate="2014-02-27T01:01:28.407" UserId="1211" />
  <row Id="3002" PostId="2581" Score="0" Text="@DTDev the resources in the answer below are more or less general in terms of age group" CreationDate="2014-02-27T17:14:35.953" UserDisplayName="user1017" />
  <row Id="3003" PostId="2581" Score="0" Text="Yes. I think that is the best answer." CreationDate="2014-02-27T19:25:12.553" UserId="1211" />
  <row Id="3004" PostId="2581" Score="0" Text="&quot;Both(*kinds of solar*) would be great if that is possible.  Also the ages of the group are kids in 6th through 12th grade.&quot;" CreationDate="2014-02-27T19:25:46.587" UserId="1211" />
  <row Id="3010" PostId="2583" Score="1" Text="How is your &quot;outside-the-box&quot; thinking going to help you fix the smog problem?" CreationDate="2014-03-01T12:49:51.233" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="2987" PostId="2585" Score="1" Text="Hi Kate, welcome to Sustainability.SE. Perhaps it's me being ignorant, but I don't know what CSA is. Could you consider editing your answer to explain it? THanks :-)" CreationDate="2014-02-26T10:46:36.697" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="2992" PostId="2585" Score="0" Text="@Flyto sure. Since it appeared without explanation in an earlier answer on this question, I assumed it was in general use here." CreationDate="2014-02-26T14:00:13.923" UserId="1053" />
  <row Id="2993" PostId="2585" Score="0" Text="Sorry - my fault. They are quite common where I live, and sometimes I forget that it isn't a common acronym everywhere!" CreationDate="2014-02-26T14:48:47.863" UserId="1065" />
  <row Id="2991" PostId="2586" Score="0" Text="Good point - I've added detail to the question." CreationDate="2014-02-26T12:05:30.020" UserId="1210" />
  <row Id="2994" PostId="2588" Score="0" Text="What are the night-time external temperatures, say at midnight, 3am, 5am?" CreationDate="2014-02-26T20:37:54.400" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="2995" PostId="2588" Score="2" Text="The manufacture of the units probably has a substantial impact on the sustainability too; 3 separate units is likely to have a higher environmental impact for manufacture." CreationDate="2014-02-26T21:08:11.600" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="2997" PostId="2588" Score="0" Text="and will you have to run all the units all the time, or will you be running each one intermittently based on temperature and room usage?" CreationDate="2014-02-26T22:33:49.850" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3027" PostId="2588" Score="0" Text="@EnergyNumbers The temperature doesn't drop much at night, at most around 5 degrees C." CreationDate="2014-03-05T20:42:55.623" UserId="89" />
  <row Id="3028" PostId="2588" Score="0" Text="@Ӎσᶎ Individual units would be used as needed, but there are not that many rooms in my particular case, just 3: two bedrooms and one big living room with a kitchen." CreationDate="2014-03-05T20:43:46.333" UserId="89" />
  <row Id="3029" PostId="2588" Score="0" Text="I asked the question &quot;broadly&quot; because I read that since central air would dry the air more than a single unit, it would have to work less to achieve a lower &quot;feels like&quot; temperature." CreationDate="2014-03-05T20:44:22.007" UserId="89" />
  <row Id="3001" PostId="2590" Score="0" Text="Re the second paragraph: I'm not wishing to tell the answerer what to do or not to do, but for others, bear in mind that if coasting down hills with the engine off your braking will be severely impaired after the first use. Also, don't even think about this if you have power steering!!!" CreationDate="2014-02-27T08:59:12.140" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="3020" PostId="2590" Score="5" Text="Modern fuel-injected cars shut off fuel delivery in over-run conditions (when RPM is high relative to idle, and throttle is released), so if you are going down hill with no throttle and with gear engaged, you would actually not use any petrol." CreationDate="2014-03-04T14:12:49.487" UserId="227" />
  <row Id="3030" PostId="2591" Score="0" Text="Bigger units sometimes have variable-output cooling units, but that's an extra-cost option and they usually have a significant drop in efficiency as output drops. But I haven't run that comparison recently." CreationDate="2014-03-05T21:01:54.190" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3006" PostId="2592" Score="0" Text="Thanks for that reminder. It's probably a safe bet that the roof and the single-glazing are the major factors, but certainly following that up with a camera check makes much sense." CreationDate="2014-02-28T09:16:17.743" UserId="1210" />
  <row Id="3007" PostId="2593" Score="0" Text="Great overview.  In this case, with the top floor being *in* the roof the usual trivial case of adding a think layer of insulation to the loft is not quite that easy. Insulating floors is something I need to learn more about." CreationDate="2014-02-28T09:19:23.333" UserId="1210" />
  <row Id="3008" PostId="2593" Score="0" Text="@Cheeseminer edited to include a bit about attic rooms" CreationDate="2014-02-28T10:17:43.903" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="3013" PostId="2593" Score="0" Text="+Accept, for being the most comprehensive answer after a week, and for &quot;All things being equal start at the top&quot; - Many thanks." CreationDate="2014-03-03T13:05:13.027" UserId="1210" />
  <row Id="3014" PostId="2597" Score="0" Text="I really like this idea!" CreationDate="2014-03-03T18:08:55.167" UserId="1211" />
  <row Id="3015" PostId="2597" Score="0" Text="I know the solar shower already exists. I may just attempt to make a black plastic/rubber bag with a thermometer on the inside with the thermometer display on the outside. We can move it to the shade or into the sun to show the difference. I like the idea because the water(higher latent heat than the air around it) ends up saving the energy of the sun like it was a battery. Awesome example, especially if we use mirrors/colors/foil to change the input of sun." CreationDate="2014-03-03T18:21:22.790" UserId="1211" />
  <row Id="3016" PostId="2597" Score="0" Text="Also, of course wash their hands with it so they can feel the warm water." CreationDate="2014-03-03T18:22:11.197" UserId="1211" />
  <row Id="3018" PostId="2597" Score="1" Text="Good idea, the concept of having something store energy isn't as intuitive to everyone without a comparison between &quot;batteries&quot;. Time to start researching some liquids with high latent heat haha to do the opposite end of the spectrum, compared to air. To add to the Second part, for the same reason it would stay hotter longer, it will take longer to heat up. The air will reach ambient temperature before water will." CreationDate="2014-03-03T19:22:29.147" UserId="1211" />
  <row Id="3009" PostId="2598" Score="1" Text="Hi user1224, welcome to Sustainability.SE! I think this is a good answer, but I've suggested an edit to the formatting to make it more readable." CreationDate="2014-03-01T08:11:49.383" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="4190" PostId="2598" Score="0" Text="It's still east to west in the southern hemisphere." CreationDate="2015-03-06T22:13:24.213" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="4191" PostId="2598" Score="0" Text="Another disadvantage is taht a PV cell gets less efficient as the temperature goes up." CreationDate="2015-03-06T22:14:20.207" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="4192" PostId="2598" Score="0" Text="The price of PV is getting so cheap, that concentrators are getting pointless.  A concentrator has to intercept at least the same square footage as the unconcentrated PV cell.  And PV cells are getting to prices under a dollar a watt.  Figure a 20% efficient cell, that's $200/square meter for the PV.  Can you make a concentrator for $200/square meter that will work year after year with essentially zero maintenance?" CreationDate="2015-03-06T22:17:14.343" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="3011" PostId="2599" Score="1" Text="Thanks.  I suspect that Zodia is in the scent-masking category.  There's a popular belief that it drives away mosquitos but that is easily shown to be false.  I am going to look into wormwood etc." CreationDate="2014-03-02T01:34:05.783" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="3017" PostId="2601" Score="5" Text="What do you mean by 'most important'?  In terms of human health?, long term toxicity? etc" CreationDate="2014-03-03T19:17:07.550" UserDisplayName="user1017" />
  <row Id="3019" PostId="2602" Score="3" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! The link you've posted does look interesting, but just the link doesn't really answer the OPs question. Would it be possible to compile an answer?" CreationDate="2014-03-03T19:54:47.083" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3023" PostId="2604" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! I'm not sure I understand what you are asking. You want to charge your electric car with the energy that you've generated with a solar panel?" CreationDate="2014-03-05T13:24:50.170" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3024" PostId="2604" Score="1" Text="It is a great problem these days that during sunny times of the day, the generated energy is bigger than the one which is actually needed in electric grids, so there is an energetic overload, which cannot easily be compensated by the grid as &quot;battery&quot;- and saving-technology is not advanced enough yet. Therefore, I was thinking about combining it with a &quot;flexible battery&quot; in the form of an electric car. So, to answer your question: yes!" CreationDate="2014-03-05T13:27:17.653" UserId="1233" />
  <row Id="3025" PostId="2604" Score="1" Text="Thanks for the clarification. Perhaps you could rephrase your question title to something like this: &quot;How efficient is it to use an electric car as storage for the energetic overload generated by solar panels during sun hours?&quot;" CreationDate="2014-03-05T13:32:51.613" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3026" PostId="2604" Score="0" Text="Very good point. No reputation, yet. Otherwise, +1 for you ;)" CreationDate="2014-03-05T13:34:12.807" UserId="1233" />
  <row Id="3031" PostId="2604" Score="0" Text="One problem with using an electric car to store residential solar power is that the  car is typically not home during  the peak solar generating period. There have been some [proposals](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_energy_storage#Electric_vehicles) to let utilities use power from plugged in electric vehicles on a large scale to help smooth demand." CreationDate="2014-03-06T01:21:34.860" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="3032" PostId="2604" Score="0" Text="@Johnny: Thanks! But this is only a challenge because of &quot;consumer&quot;-behavior and not a technical issue. Therefore, in principle the storage capacities of electric cars could be/are sufficient and feasible?" CreationDate="2014-03-06T09:09:34.870" UserId="1233" />
  <row Id="3040" PostId="2604" Score="0" Text="@T-Saurus: the technical issue is getting the surplus electricity from the panels on your house roof to your car in the work carpark. If you do that using the grid you're better off without storage - just charge the car when it's cheap." CreationDate="2014-03-07T10:53:35.703" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3033" PostId="2605" Score="0" Text="Another usage scenario is storage in the car battery for use in the car - just use the PV to charge the car battery. A night shift worker, for example, could do that. But that's stretching the question perhaps more than the OP intended. It is the most efficient use, though, since it eliminates the grid loss while leaving all other losses unchanged (you're going to lose the battery round-trip losses regardless of the power source, in other words)." CreationDate="2014-03-06T22:27:16.370" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3035" PostId="2605" Score="0" Text="One reason cars don't allow this is that it would require a high-capacity output from the battery to the house. Which is dangerous - 10kW can kill you indirectly, by (say) exploding molten copper in your face if you pull the plug out, or just starting a fire." CreationDate="2014-03-06T22:31:14.633" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3046" PostId="2605" Score="0" Text="@Ӎσᶎ - That doesn't seem like a problem, the Tesla already has a 10KW charger that's safe for consumers to use (as well as a 120KW &quot;supercharger&quot; at their charge stations). There doesn't seem to be much difference between 10KW going from the house to the car, or 10KW from the car to the house." CreationDate="2014-03-09T01:32:50.907" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="3050" PostId="2605" Score="0" Text="@Johnny, I'm not saying it's impossible. Having a charger that only starts charging after the connection is made is easier than building in a high current DC circuit breaker. It adds complexity and expense so it's likely to be something that is only added on demand, pushing the price up further. (Also, kW not KW. KW is Kelvin-Watt)." CreationDate="2014-03-09T08:22:07.193" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3052" PostId="2605" Score="0" Text="This seems like a non sequiter. As Johnny says, 10kW is equally dangerous whichever way it is flowing (which I suggest is &quot;not very, given well designed connectors and other equipment&quot;). If smart charging systems can be included, then I'm sure smart discharging systems can be as well. I don't think this question is exactly in the realm of home modifications." CreationDate="2014-03-09T09:47:41.760" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="3041" PostId="2606" Score="0" Text="considering that this forum I presume is about 'sustainability' relating to maintaining life on earth then I think you might have missed the point. However I think you may have also hit the nail on the head." CreationDate="2014-03-07T11:28:04.790" UserId="1096" />
  <row Id="4890" PostId="2607" Score="0" Text="The reason that compostable plastic isn't recycled? 1) When mixed with other compostible materials it's hard to distinguish from 'real' plastics, so it's picked out and handled like ordinary plastics. This may change when we start using more compostable plastics. 2) I'm not aware of large volume compostable plastic waste streams that can be handled separately." CreationDate="2015-10-26T11:12:09.607" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="3042" PostId="2610" Score="0" Text="Thank you for your answer. You've listed several things that 'are possible' and you mentioned landfills, but I'm not interested in both. I would like to know how a state-of-the-art large industrial composting facility that handles compostable plastic actually processes the plastic, preferably with sources/references" CreationDate="2014-03-07T13:36:24.220" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="5054" PostId="2610" Score="0" Text="Also you are incorrect when you say that &quot;*they can be processed in the same way as the rest of the garbage stream they are mixed in with*&quot;. You can't recycle compostable plastics with traditional plastics, because it will lower the quality of the traditional plastic. Also, where I live industrial composting facilities filter out and incinerate compostable plastics because they take too long to fully decompose." CreationDate="2015-11-28T09:43:10.840" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3045" PostId="2612" Score="4" Text="You should return compost on the fields, where food is grown. Buring biogarbage into the river you destroy both the river and deplete the soil that provides your food. Do not buy the disposable bags. The only 3 green rules are &quot;Reduce, Reuse, Recycle&quot;. Disposing piles of bags in the river does not match any of them." CreationDate="2014-03-08T10:33:34.623" UserId="476" />
  <row Id="3047" PostId="2612" Score="0" Text="If everyone through their dog waste in the river what do you think would happen to that ecosystem?  To the people that used that river? To the animals that rely on it and live in it?  There may be worse things in that river than a little bit of dog poop but that doesn't make it any better." CreationDate="2014-03-09T05:02:09.480" UserId="794" />
  <row Id="3055" PostId="2612" Score="0" Text="@Val How do I return my compost to the fields where food is grown?  Why should I not buy disposable bags?" CreationDate="2014-03-09T21:36:53.163" UserId="1013" />
  <row Id="3056" PostId="2612" Score="1" Text="@hortstu I don't know what would happen to the ecosystem if everyone threw their dog waste into the river.  That is why I'm asking the question.  That is the purpose of this site, to help people understand their impact and make more informed decisions.  Why is your reaction to this question so condescending?" CreationDate="2014-03-09T21:47:49.107" UserId="1013" />
  <row Id="3061" PostId="2612" Score="0" Text="You can build up an anaerobic digester for organic waste, it is good idea, you also can generate gas from it." CreationDate="2014-03-10T01:33:32.847" UserDisplayName="user1243" />
  <row Id="3066" PostId="2612" Score="0" Text="@drs http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/7/is-it-feasible-to-compost-in-an-apartment-in-a-city-like-new-york/2402#2402" CreationDate="2014-03-11T13:01:08.320" UserId="476" />
  <row Id="3043" PostId="2613" Score="3" Text="vermicompost = worm farm, for anyone who's not familiar with the term." CreationDate="2014-03-08T01:51:45.127" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3057" PostId="2613" Score="0" Text="Dogs don't poop in rivers, but they poop near rivers.  Furthermore, fish, water fowl, and river mammals do poop in rivers.  Do dog droppings have unique parasites or chemicals that the river ecosystem can't handle?  Does dog manure not decompose well underwater?" CreationDate="2014-03-09T22:01:23.693" UserId="1013" />
  <row Id="3067" PostId="2613" Score="1" Text="Drs, it is a question of balance. The creatures that poop in rivers are also living and eating there. They are part of a closed cycle. The dog is not subsisting off of the river, so the nutrients in the poo that she would leave behind would be additive, which is not a good thing for a balanced ecosystem. Where I live, the local rivers and lakes are an algae bloom disaster because of dairy farm manure runoff. Granted, one dog's waste would not have the same effect." CreationDate="2014-03-11T13:02:23.533" UserId="1065" />
  <row Id="3058" PostId="2616" Score="0" Text="I thought it was natural for organic waste (food and mammal droppings) to decompose in soil.  If so, why would it be considered a contaminate if it's thrown in a river first and then leached into the soil?" CreationDate="2014-03-09T22:06:26.713" UserId="1013" />
  <row Id="3060" PostId="2616" Score="3" Text="@drs, adding too many nutrients to rivers causes unwanted changes to ecosystems, affecting fisheries and biodiversity, and leads to bad smells and various other negative effects. Some more details here: http://www.cep.unep.org/pubs/Techreports/tr43en/Impacts%20of%20Organic.htm" CreationDate="2014-03-10T00:30:48.797" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="3054" PostId="2617" Score="1" Text="Good question, +1. Please can you give a little more information about your system? Is it a condensing boiler? What's the fuel (oil, gas, biomass)? Do you have thermostatic radiator valves? A central thermostat in the hallway?" CreationDate="2014-03-09T17:08:23.113" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="3064" PostId="2617" Score="0" Text="I have added more information about the system." CreationDate="2014-03-10T21:36:22.227" UserId="1116" />
  <row Id="3059" PostId="2618" Score="0" Text="Code? Do you mean cold?" CreationDate="2014-03-10T00:19:04.297" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="3068" PostId="2619" Score="1" Text="I'm wondering about freezing the waste, which others have mentioned. If I have a freezer that I will be using energy to keep cold running already and I am making sure that the scraps are cool before adding them to the freezer, how much extra energy could it possibly take to store them in the freezer? Now, if you're adding extra freezer capacity to make room, I understand that would be bad, but if you are not - would the energy use not be negligible?" CreationDate="2014-03-11T13:05:54.940" UserId="1065" />
  <row Id="3069" PostId="2619" Score="0" Text="@michelle, _stand, that energy consumption is not a strong argument, but relevant to SL. Additional consumption is little, but not zero. Reason, why I used it was to prevent other arguments, that it is not enough hygienic to store waste in the fridge, and best solution to that is to get married... but if you wonder, here is it." CreationDate="2014-03-11T13:32:17.687" UserId="929" />
  <row Id="3073" PostId="2619" Score="1" Text="Also not understanding the non-hygienic part of the answer. He said he is storing kitchen waste in the freezer, so I assume he means food scraps. I store vegetable trimmings, old bones, cheese rinds, etc., in the freezer to use for soup broth without issue - not sure how storing kitchen waste would be any worse..." CreationDate="2014-03-11T18:52:48.697" UserId="1065" />
  <row Id="3063" PostId="2620" Score="0" Text="I don't know if I agree that freezing my waste costs serious energy in the winter time.  The energy that the freezer uses to cool the waste is converted to heat, which gets distributed throughout the room and helps keep the apartment warm.  The only waste energy is a) the heat that remains stored on the components of the freezer and b) the difference in energy of producing heat via electricity vs. the apartment heater (natural gas in my case).  I imagine the latter is the greater source of waste, but I would still expect it to be negligible." CreationDate="2014-03-10T17:22:45.513" UserId="1013" />
  <row Id="3070" PostId="2620" Score="0" Text="Electricity is higher value than gas, and I assumed that also freeze your waste in summer. That may be a separate question." CreationDate="2014-03-11T14:46:40.407" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="3195" PostId="2620" Score="1" Text="Assuming the freezer runs year round, keeping your freezer full uses less energy than keeping it partially empty.  When you open an empty freezer, assuming it isn't a chest freezer the cold air pours out and you close the door and the freezer has to start all over again.  If you have solids in the freezer they'll hold their temp and the freezer might not have to kick on every time you open it." CreationDate="2014-04-10T03:51:00.657" UserId="794" />
  <row Id="3072" PostId="2622" Score="2" Text="Hello there, and welcome. Thanks for this answer. It might be worth emphasising that this solution is specific to places such as Britain where grid exports aren't metered, so there's no economic value to them." CreationDate="2014-03-11T16:15:14.100" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="3259" PostId="2624" Score="0" Text="-1 Respectfully: this answer seems to address the *efficiency* of the vehicle's fuel consumption rather than the *sustainability* of the auto industry. Q: What if *everybody* bought a new car every 11 years? A: The auto industry would require many tons of materials and junk yards would be filling up with 11-year-old cars. I don't think there's any indication that such consumptive consumer behavior is sustainable, regardless of how many miles the user drives his '03 Honda." CreationDate="2014-04-30T11:39:36.430" UserId="975" />
  <row Id="3080" PostId="2625" Score="0" Text="What type and scale of windmill, and in what environment? Those are the key questions, and it's not clear whether you're interested in 10m blades atop a 50m tower in a rural setting, or just the little 200W &quot;domestic&quot; units you see flapping uselessly on urban houses." CreationDate="2014-03-13T00:04:10.243" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3082" PostId="2625" Score="1" Text="I suggest changing the title  to &quot;economical&quot; or &quot;profitable&quot; rather than sustainable since that's an uncommon use of &quot;sustainable&quot;" CreationDate="2014-03-13T07:57:57.767" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3086" PostId="2625" Score="0" Text="Actually I meant sustainable. I was using economical as an analogy." CreationDate="2014-03-14T17:56:00.497" UserId="111" />
  <row Id="3087" PostId="2625" Score="0" Text="you've significantly changed your question without really clarifying that you mean by &quot;sustainability&quot;. You've now shifted to cover the 2% of the population that lives in rural areas, for example. Effectively you've asked a second, related question that has a significantly different answer. I'm going to let someone else have a go." CreationDate="2014-03-15T04:14:44.857" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3089" PostId="2625" Score="0" Text="FWIW, we can't have a 90% rural population without killing of most of the population we currently have, so rural wind turbines and home wind turbines are unrelated questions as far as society-level sustainability goes." CreationDate="2014-03-15T04:26:18.787" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3146" PostId="2625" Score="0" Text="Anyone mind if I roll back the edit or re-edit the original question in?" CreationDate="2014-03-25T21:07:54.420" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3221" PostId="2625" Score="0" Text="@Duncan you've got a couple of good answers, based on a shared reading of the first version of your question, which seemed to the answerers to be asking about the economics. Your edit means that the question no longer matches the answers, which is a bit awkward. How would you feel about reverting this question so that it's explicitly about the economics, thus matching the existing answers, and then posting an additional question explicitly about the sustainability of small-scale (aka micro) wind?" CreationDate="2014-04-16T07:47:20.463" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="3074" PostId="2626" Score="3" Text="Alternative: drink tap water (possibly filtered if you live in an area where it's heavily chlorinated)" CreationDate="2014-03-12T13:23:48.770" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="3075" PostId="2626" Score="0" Text="@gerrit No doubt. I use a reusable bottle with filtered tap water too. However, bottled water is still a very common alternative for people outdoors. I don't know, maybe they don't like carrying a bottle???" CreationDate="2014-03-12T14:14:47.690" UserId="277" />
  <row Id="3079" PostId="2626" Score="0" Text="Might be helpful to first ask whether (plastic) bottles or various types of cartons are more sustainable." CreationDate="2014-03-13T00:01:40.547" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3081" PostId="2626" Score="1" Text="How does exposure to sunlight negatively affect bottled water in a way that won't affect carton water?" CreationDate="2014-03-13T07:54:03.590" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3084" PostId="2626" Score="0" Text="Still thinking about a good answer to that question. I guess the plastic bottle is transparent and lets heating by radiation from direct sun light in addition to the convection from the skin of the bottle? Anybody with a better knowledge on this might chip in to clear this for us maybe..." CreationDate="2014-03-13T19:16:32.957" UserId="277" />
  <row Id="3092" PostId="2626" Score="0" Text="@Ӎσᶎ Depends on your environment: on sunlight + plastic, see [SODIS](http://www.sodis.ch/index_EN). Has made a difference in a community I'm familiar with." CreationDate="2014-03-16T20:32:58.670" UserId="1258" />
  <row Id="3142" PostId="2626" Score="0" Text="&quot;Disadvantages of HDPE as a packaging material include its low resistance to UV light and&#xA;gas permeability. New technologies, such as barrier coatings and multi-layer materials, are&#xA;being introduced to improve these characteristics.&quot; [Link1](http://www.plastics.org.nz/documents/ronz-hdpe-fact-sheet.pdf). On the other hand this does not seem to be problem for PET, which most of the plastic bottles are made from. [Link2](http://www.ilsi.org/europe/publications/r2000pac_mat1.pdf)" CreationDate="2014-03-25T15:54:34.063" UserId="277" />
  <row Id="3143" PostId="2626" Score="0" Text="It seems like the answer to this question is more complicated than I thought. One thing seems to hold true though, that is to flow these there Rs in the given order to maximize the sustainability:   1.Reduce, 2.Reuse and 3.Recycle." CreationDate="2014-03-25T15:59:46.917" UserId="277" />
  <row Id="3076" PostId="2627" Score="2" Text="Hello there, and welcome. It's a little unclear to me what you're asking at the moment. Are you asking about sustainability in the business sense: that is, something that can continue in business without going bankrupt? Or about proven business models for enterprises working in the field of sustainability? I'm trying to unpick whether you're asking about micro-economics, or corporate culture, or corporate incentivisation, or something else." CreationDate="2014-03-12T17:35:27.813" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="3077" PostId="2627" Score="0" Text="My guess at the intent of the question is &quot;Are there any business models compatible with true sustainability&quot;. But IMBW :-)" CreationDate="2014-03-12T21:29:26.913" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="3078" PostId="2627" Score="0" Text="Another interpretation is asking about sustainable in terms of providing a living wage and reasonable quality of life for everyone involved." CreationDate="2014-03-13T00:00:21.277" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="4908" PostId="2627" Score="0" Text="Given the OP is concerned about participants getting along without a formal structure, another interpretation of the question is that the OP is asking about the most suitable business/legal structure (e.g. strata title) and/or governance model (e.g. Sociocracy)." CreationDate="2015-10-29T10:32:48.163" UserId="872" />
  <row Id="3083" PostId="2629" Score="0" Text="You could try some lettuce :)" CreationDate="2014-03-13T19:03:55.737" UserId="651" />
  <row Id="3085" PostId="2631" Score="1" Text="&quot;First we may agree that sustainability...&quot; If you read other answers on this site, in practice we don't agree. For example, to [this person](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/2625/at-what-point-are-home-windmills-sustainable) sustainable means profitable." CreationDate="2014-03-13T20:07:22.117" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3090" PostId="2632" Score="0" Text="I suspect that separating out the economics of argon production from other industrial gases is impossible. Argon is part of the bundle of gases that come out of a cryogenic separator, and the process as a whole is run for profit. Since the argon is sold, it's part of the reason for the whole process. The reports on market share I've found are all paywalled." CreationDate="2014-03-15T04:33:37.953" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="11865" PostId="2635" Score="0" Text="If the produce is hydrogen and hydrocarbon fuels, why not just use old boring electrolysis coupled with solar panels?" CreationDate="2019-11-20T14:41:07.807" UserId="8149" />
  <row Id="3091" PostId="2637" Score="0" Text="My local recycling agency accepts waxed paper milk cartons for recycling, and they also accept them as compostable. (I don't know if they actually do recycle them, or if they just divert them to compost)." CreationDate="2014-03-16T20:29:24.940" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="3096" PostId="2637" Score="0" Text="My bad.  I will go back and correct.  Milk cartons are recycleable.  And they aren't waxed, but instead it's a film of plastic." CreationDate="2014-03-17T21:49:46.447" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="3105" PostId="2637" Score="0" Text="As a matter of fact, you can still buy 'bag' milk, at least here in Switzerland: http://www.migipedia.ch/de/lebensmittel/milchprodukte-und-eier/molkereiprodukte/bio-vollmilch-past-beutel/1l" CreationDate="2014-03-18T08:11:19.893" UserId="803" />
  <row Id="3100" PostId="2639" Score="0" Text="Titanium dioxide is even used as a food colouring, so the toxicity must be pretty low..." CreationDate="2014-03-18T02:35:31.260" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="9701" PostId="2640" Score="0" Text="You say diatoms are still turning to diatomite – if you can say how fast that is happening and how much disruption harvesting causes you should be able to derive a sustainable rate of consumption." CreationDate="2018-05-16T11:19:04.007" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="9712" PostId="2640" Score="0" Text="Geological processes are slow.  How much is recycled vs how much is fossilized is beyond me.  That some beds are hundreds of meters thick, and that value at the mine is ~10 c/lb and the market 200 million, then if that 200 mil is just to the miners it's 2 billion pounds.  Typical rock/mineral density is around 2.5 times that of water so we're talking about 1 million cubic meters.  A square kilometer, 100 meters deep is 100 million cubic meters.  Worrying about the sustainability of DE is a distraction from more important issues." CreationDate="2018-05-17T13:47:02.203" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="3094" PostId="2644" Score="0" Text="And you apply the the fluid clay before baking? Once I was happy to have found black clay, but after heating up the clay, it becomes reddish again (as organic matter, which was making the clay black, disappeared)." CreationDate="2014-03-17T21:10:04.887" UserId="484" />
  <row Id="3095" PostId="2644" Score="0" Text="yes I think we indeed applied the clay before the baking. A redish clay on white works realy well." CreationDate="2014-03-17T21:46:44.730" UserId="1077" />
  <row Id="3097" PostId="2645" Score="0" Text="Looking at the website more closely, there is a product &quot;Spaceloft&quot; which says it's for insulating buildings and apparel. http://www.buyaerogel.com/product/spaceloft/&#xA;&#xA;Good answer though, thanks" CreationDate="2014-03-17T22:54:22.990" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="3098" PostId="2645" Score="0" Text="I love the way they use both metric and imperial units. 5mm thick give R2.8 for $2.30 a square foot, compared to R1.3 foil+bubblewrap for $0.40/square foot here in Oz. Three layers of that is half the price of the aerogel (but 15mm thick) and it's not dusty or fragile. Or a layer of that plus a layer of &quot;earthwool&quot; R2 for a total of $0.70/sq foot and ~50mm thick. Obviously the aerogel is a specialist product. (oh, and the conversion is ~12x for R values IIRC, so our R2.8 is your R50-ish, probably)." CreationDate="2014-03-17T23:18:20.147" UserId="1255" />
  <row Id="3099" PostId="2645" Score="0" Text="It seems rather odd to say that &quot;There are no existing products&quot; given the question contains a link to one of several places that sells these products. And it's also incorrect to say that &quot;Many parts of homes don't have significant thickness limitations&quot;: in some parts of the world, and in very many cities, they do." CreationDate="2014-03-18T01:33:44.340" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="3103" PostId="2645" Score="0" Text="@EnergyNumbers I'm really only familiar with building codes in Australia and New Zealand, where to meet code walls will normally have a 75-100mm cavity in the centre and there are multiple products available that can meet the insulation requirements in that space. Unfortunately I don't have a link to hand, but even the cheap &quot;earthwool&quot; above will give the usual R4 in a 100mm cavity." CreationDate="2014-03-18T03:09:14.713" UserId="1255" />
  <row Id="3107" PostId="2645" Score="2" Text="@Ⴖuі worth remembering that in many parts of the world with older buildings, solid walls are common - so the thicker the insulation, the smaller the room when you've finished! Good answer though, thanks." CreationDate="2014-03-18T13:34:41.143" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="3101" PostId="2646" Score="1" Text="Welcome to the site, Tony! Sustainability itself is an idea, and my experience with this site is that an evidence-based approach works best for evaluating sustainability. You're absolutely correct that marketing is used, and I find it can often push ideas that aren't based on sound evidence.&#xA;&#xA;Discovering and evaluating (through criticism, questioning, discussion, and voting) sustainable practices is what I see the purpose of this site as being. I don't use any additional evaluation tools myself, but perhaps others do?" CreationDate="2014-03-18T02:45:22.427" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="3110" PostId="2646" Score="1" Text="This is very broad and seems to be encouraging a discussion. If it was just &quot;define sustainable&quot; it would make a useful community wiki." CreationDate="2014-03-19T00:10:29.047" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="8036" PostId="2646" Score="1" Text="Defining sustainability *without reverting to [] other people's ideas?* seems a bit strange to me. Sustainability and definitions both are not one-person issues - they live in language, in discourse, and hence in our society." CreationDate="2017-01-16T09:04:54.550" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="3158" PostId="2650" Score="0" Text="Thanks very much for your considered response. It is true that a full LCA is difficult. That's why I would like to see other methods that can identify innovative opportunities." CreationDate="2014-03-28T06:46:09.967" UserId="1259" />
  <row Id="7247" PostId="2658" Score="0" Text="Using artificial lighting with a solar cell is not perpetual motion. Perpetual motion means that once to start it, it does not stop. An artificial light source has a life span and so does a solar cell. If both the LED and the cell stop producing, it can not be perpetual motion." CreationDate="2015-11-29T22:00:37.177" UserDisplayName="user2815" />
  <row Id="9202" PostId="2658" Score="2" Text="Yes, you can use LEDs and solar panels to generate electricity, but it's a waste of energy because you will only generate a fraction of the energy you use to power the LEDs. You cannot magically generate new energy out of 'thin air'." CreationDate="2018-01-22T20:01:45.217" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="12439" PostId="2658" Score="2" Text="I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it is about perpetual motion machines." CreationDate="2020-03-03T18:33:58.877" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12441" PostId="2658" Score="0" Text="I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it is non-sensical question" CreationDate="2020-03-04T00:33:53.613" UserId="92" />
  <row Id="3126" PostId="2660" Score="11" Text="I think perpetual motion machines deserve flippancy." CreationDate="2014-03-22T09:14:10.687" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="6557" PostId="2660" Score="2" Text="You wouldn't believe how many customers have asked me the same question and how many times I've had to explain this. Some of them have told me that they were going to try it anyway. When it doesn't work, instead of saying &quot;Oh, you were right,&quot; they say &quot;hmm, I must have done something wrong. It will work next time.&quot;" CreationDate="2016-03-10T15:22:36.267" UserId="3068" />
  <row Id="7238" PostId="2660" Score="0" Text="In the same vein, I've had a few conversations where people simply wouldn't accept that putting windmills on top of cars/trains/buses doesn't give you more energy than you put in." CreationDate="2016-07-19T00:43:59.623" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7243" PostId="2660" Score="0" Text="Note that &quot;indoor farms&quot; suffer from exactly this problem. Except that instead of 15% efficient solar panels they use 5% efficient plants, then throw away half what they grow." CreationDate="2016-07-19T03:17:11.830" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3128" PostId="2661" Score="1" Text="Hi, welcome to the site! This could be a good answer for a different question... but only part 1) seems to relate to what was asked? ;-)" CreationDate="2014-03-24T10:30:45.670" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="3157" PostId="2676" Score="0" Text="Bamboo is a noxious weed in some places it's been introduced to (New Zealand, for example). Mind you, so is radiata pine. Planting more of either is environmentally unwise, but probably not as bad as traditional cement." CreationDate="2014-03-27T23:43:04.070" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="8934" PostId="2677" Score="0" Text="It might be worthwhile to compare the carbon footprint of [ancient Roman concrete](http://news.berkeley.edu/2013/06/04/roman-concrete/) vs. modern concrete." CreationDate="2017-10-20T19:02:07.540" UserId="4972" />
  <row Id="3153" PostId="2678" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! There are better solutions than just opening the windows (see also this related, but slightly different question [What is an energy efficient way to get fresh air indoors during winter?](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/114/99))" CreationDate="2014-03-27T15:39:20.170" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3154" PostId="2678" Score="2" Text="Right; my question relates to homes that do not have a ventilation system." CreationDate="2014-03-27T15:48:08.723" UserId="1298" />
  <row Id="3156" PostId="2679" Score="0" Text="but with a high rate the time between noticing and closing is still going to result in a lot of extra heat loss." CreationDate="2014-03-27T23:42:05.337" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3159" PostId="2679" Score="1" Text="@Mσᶎ There will be a lot of extra air change, but not much heat loss, as there won't be time for heat to transfer from the fabric's thermal mass and heating system into the incoming air before it leaves again." CreationDate="2014-03-28T09:04:36.013" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="3155" PostId="2680" Score="0" Text="This appears to be a pure [gardening](http://gardening.stackexchange.com/) question" CreationDate="2014-03-27T23:40:29.300" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3160" PostId="2680" Score="0" Text="My first thought would be root rot.  However without pictures of your setup, it is hard to say. Can you supply images?" CreationDate="2014-03-28T09:33:09.183" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="3172" PostId="2680" Score="0" Text="This question appears to be off-topic because it is not directly related to sustainability (more info in [this meta post on the boundaries between Gardening SE and this site](http://meta.sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/3/where-do-we-draw-the-line-between-sustainable-living-and-gardening))" CreationDate="2014-04-02T12:42:18.370" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3587" PostId="2680" Score="0" Text="@THelper why wasn't the question migrated?" CreationDate="2014-08-25T01:25:16.777" UserId="1495" />
  <row Id="3588" PostId="2680" Score="0" Text="@J.Musser Not sure. I think I asked the Gardening mods if they wanted it and then forgot about this question." CreationDate="2014-08-25T06:34:07.673" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3161" PostId="2682" Score="3" Text="Hi robysottini, and welcome. Please can you clarify how your question is about sustainability? You can edit the quesiton by using the &quot;edit&quot; link underneath it." CreationDate="2014-03-28T13:15:09.483" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="3169" PostId="2682" Score="0" Text="This question appears to be off-topic because it is not directly related to sustainability." CreationDate="2014-04-02T04:58:17.427" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3200" PostId="2682" Score="0" Text="Why not?  The question is about (dangerous, imo) practices to keep cooking techniques more sustainable--using replaceable fuels instead of fossil fuels.  Identifying bad fuels to use for cooking is totally on topic." CreationDate="2014-04-10T17:28:29.943" UserId="1238" />
  <row Id="3168" PostId="2683" Score="4" Text="It seems there are [no (official) battery recycling programs in Argentina](http://www.dw.de/buenos-aires-struggles-with-its-recycling-system/a-16104113), but it looks like [steps are being taken to fix this](http://www.complianceandrisks.com/argentina-proposes-national-law-on-the-management-of-waste-batteries-and-accumulators/). Perhaps you could speed things up by starting a petition that you want such a program in your local community?" CreationDate="2014-03-31T09:27:03.313" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3404" PostId="2683" Score="0" Text="I asked an argentinien colleague. He keeps them in a box and wants to know the answer too." CreationDate="2014-06-19T11:23:21.780" UserId="1496" />
  <row Id="4188" PostId="2683" Score="0" Text="@THelper Why don't you post your comment as an answer?" CreationDate="2015-03-06T13:39:34.187" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="4189" PostId="2683" Score="0" Text="@Earthliŋ because I was hoping someone would prove me wrong and provide an answer that there actually is a recycling program. Also I am not sure about the best alternative. Shipping to a country where they can be recycled? Trying to recycle yourself? Burying the batteries (as was proposed in [this question](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/2995/99))?" CreationDate="2015-03-06T13:48:52.710" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3167" PostId="2684" Score="0" Text="Got it - it makes sense now!" CreationDate="2014-03-31T07:22:31.700" UserId="1300" />
  <row Id="10695" PostId="2693" Score="0" Text="This seems like best answer" CreationDate="2019-02-11T07:15:32.860" UserId="279" />
  <row Id="3174" PostId="2696" Score="0" Text="It's not recyclable but [Canterbury Coffee](http://www.environmentalleader.com/2013/07/30/canterbury-coffee-develops-92-biodegradable-single-serve-pod/) (no affiliation) is selling a cup that is made of PLA plastic that will break down in industrial composting facilities. Only the filter isn't biodegradable yet." CreationDate="2014-04-03T08:28:10.167" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="6774" PostId="2702" Score="0" Text="+1 for upcycling idea. You could make them into an ornament of some type!" CreationDate="2016-04-25T09:01:32.163" UserId="1138" />
  <row Id="3188" PostId="2710" Score="0" Text="+1 for the marmalade. I'd also give +heaps for the limoncello, but we have but one vote." CreationDate="2014-04-09T01:43:01.053" UserId="1325" />
  <row Id="3183" PostId="2712" Score="2" Text="Seems like a reasonable question, but it's not immediately obvious that it's about sustainability. Can I suggest emphasising that side of the question rather than the food safety angle?" CreationDate="2014-04-08T07:54:05.727" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="3186" PostId="2712" Score="2" Text="@Flyto, if it's not safe, or there are toxic byproducts, then it's not particularly sustainable in my view. Understanding this is probably the first step in looking at other aspects of the lifecycle of the material, such as whether it can be recycled, whether any particularly toxic ingredients or byproducts can be safely contained and neutralised." CreationDate="2014-04-08T21:07:56.587" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="3187" PostId="2713" Score="1" Text="The article doesn't give any reasons why that might be the case. However, one potential reason might be if the species typically canned were less-overfished than species typically eaten fresh." CreationDate="2014-04-08T22:06:34.520" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="3204" PostId="2713" Score="0" Text="Sustainable in which context? Species and fish population well being or energy demand during production? Both? Are we to compare the same fish, canned and fresh?" CreationDate="2014-04-11T23:57:18.710" UserId="453" />
  <row Id="3207" PostId="2713" Score="0" Text="I guess both, to be fair it is kind of a broad question - @Stockfisch your answer is great, thank you for putting your time into it." CreationDate="2014-04-12T20:19:40.163" UserId="1091" />
  <row Id="3189" PostId="2714" Score="0" Text="This is going to depend on what exactly you want, and other factors such as what your guttering is like, how far you want the barrel to be from your guttering, whether you are willing to use a plastic barrel, and probably more. Do you want a tap on it? What kind of pressure will it need (it will be higher pressure if you put it on a platform)?" CreationDate="2014-04-09T04:36:57.220" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="3190" PostId="2714" Score="0" Text="What type of materials do you have on hand that you are considering using? We could make all sorts of suggestions, but if they aren't materials you could easily get, our lists won't help. At the most basic level, you'll need a container to catch the rain, a spigot or some other way to get the water out of the barrel, and a connection between your downspout and the barrel that can handle moving excess water away from the house when the barrel is full." CreationDate="2014-04-09T12:28:50.710" UserId="1065" />
  <row Id="3194" PostId="2714" Score="0" Text="The really big question, IMO is: owning or renting the property? That significantly affects what you can do and how much you want to spend." CreationDate="2014-04-10T00:12:09.797" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3205" PostId="2721" Score="1" Text="I have also been keen to &quot;punish&quot; myself in a similar fashion..." CreationDate="2014-04-12T18:32:47.223" UserId="329" />
  <row Id="3201" PostId="2722" Score="1" Text="why would the canned fish be less healthy?" CreationDate="2014-04-10T20:36:42.570" UserId="1053" />
  <row Id="3208" PostId="2728" Score="2" Text="That's really going to be opinion based I think. The mostly US-base cohousing email list discusses this from time to time, but IIRC the consensus seems to be that the factual stuff (ie, can you afford it) plus a &quot;come and hang out with us&quot; period works better than questionnaires." CreationDate="2014-04-13T08:48:22.297" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3209" PostId="2728" Score="0" Text="This search, for example: http://lists.cohousing.org/mailman/search.cgi?query=new%20member;list=cohousing-l;list_case=Cohousing-L;whence=0  Note that a lot more effort is put into finding good people than in weeding them out. Best done by having a pool of people hanging round who'd like to move in." CreationDate="2014-04-13T08:57:53.183" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3211" PostId="2728" Score="1" Text="It might be better to ask &quot;how do IC's find new members&quot;, because the current question assumes that all ICs use the techniques listed and asks how effective those few options are. Not everyone does it that way." CreationDate="2014-04-13T22:46:00.590" UserId="1255" />
  <row Id="3242" PostId="2728" Score="0" Text="This juxtaposition of several questions must be split apart to really shine. Member attraction stems from advertising and is little related to detection/identification techniques which are still quite different from the actual exercise of force to expel the undesirable elements." CreationDate="2014-04-23T07:32:44.953" UserId="1378" />
  <row Id="11892" PostId="2730" Score="0" Text="Organic farming also uses pesticides, and their toxicity is not necessary lower than that of those used in conventional farming. It's probably best to thoroughly wash food before cooking and giving the scraps to worms." CreationDate="2019-11-22T12:13:05.457" UserId="8149" />
  <row Id="11893" PostId="2730" Score="0" Text="Yes, organic food may also contain pesticides but the levels are generally lower compared to non-organic food (see also https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/6/6/3552). This is even more so in Europe where regulations regarding pesticide usage are much stricter for organic food than in the US." CreationDate="2019-11-22T12:28:13.110" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3222" PostId="2733" Score="3" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Do you have any references for your claim that it takes 5-8 miles to recharge the energy you lost when starting?" CreationDate="2014-04-16T19:39:37.297" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="10435" PostId="2733" Score="0" Text="Having to drive _x_ km to recharge does not necessarily cancel out savings; one can only conclude that if one has the figures. In the daytime without air-conditioning I suspect that the electricity consumption is minimal." CreationDate="2018-11-21T20:33:11.010" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="3228" PostId="2737" Score="1" Text="Someone downvoted the answer about switching, but this is a behavior I've never seen in any of the natural dish soaps I've used (about a half dozen brands - maybe more). Have you tried any other brands?" CreationDate="2014-04-18T17:58:57.257" UserId="64" />
  <row Id="3234" PostId="2737" Score="0" Text="@Nick I did try one other brand but I don't remember what it was. I put the BioVert (purchased in a bulk container) into the bottle it used to be in and removed the label." CreationDate="2014-04-19T20:37:41.893" UserId="1091" />
  <row Id="3237" PostId="2737" Score="2" Text="I don't have any suggestions that get at your actual question, but I'd say that whenever you finish with the BioVert, try another brand to see if you get the same results. Maybe in the meantime, someone familiar with that product will come through and answer this." CreationDate="2014-04-20T15:48:35.173" UserId="64" />
  <row Id="3225" PostId="2739" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Nice answer, but two things in your answer aren't very clear to me. 1) a person needs 1.5 hectare at the primary level, but I don't see that information on the wiki-page you link to. Do you have a better reference? 2) What's the difference between the cotton and timber you mention at both the primary and secondary level of production?" CreationDate="2014-04-18T07:46:58.820" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3226" PostId="2739" Score="0" Text="Thanks @THelper.&#xA;1) The 1.5 hectare figure is derived from the Wikipedia reference: &quot;In 2007, the average biologically productive area per person worldwide was approximately 1.8 global hectares (gha) per capita. ... The WWF claims that the human footprint has exceeded the biocapacity (the available supply of natural resources) of the planet by 20%.&quot;. Arguably the two facts are not precisely connected. &#xA;2) The raw cotton and timber is primary production, the finished garments and furniture is secondary production." CreationDate="2014-04-18T10:40:23.990" UserId="1325" />
  <row Id="3243" PostId="2739" Score="0" Text="I think one of the main points of an ecovillage is to have a very small ecological footprint, so I'd say that 1.5 hectares per person is a very pessimistic figure. In [this question](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/2432/99) the estimates are 372m2 (0.09 acre) for food only and 3372m2 (0.8 acre) for primary level support. (I'm ignoring the 50m2 for food only in one of the answers because I don't think that figure is very realistic)." CreationDate="2014-04-23T07:39:50.820" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3244" PostId="2739" Score="0" Text="@THelper Yes, that figure is pessimistic. It depends on how self-sufficient we want the village to be, versus how much trade it carries out." CreationDate="2014-04-23T08:21:13.653" UserId="1325" />
  <row Id="3227" PostId="2740" Score="5" Text="Hi phuntsho, Welcome to Sustainability.SE. Thanks for your answer, but downvoted it because it does not appear to answer the question. This is a Q&amp;A site rather than a discussion forum,so we do like answers to specifically address what is asked." CreationDate="2014-04-18T14:08:29.293" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="3239" PostId="2748" Score="3" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Good answer! There is however one thing I disagree with and that is the leachate. Many people believe that leachate is a wonderful fertilizer. It can be, but the problem is that leachate can also be full of toxins so a word of warning there. More info [here](http://www.naturesfootprint.com/leachate-vs-worm-compost-tea)" CreationDate="2014-04-22T11:59:44.660" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3240" PostId="2748" Score="0" Text="Hey there. Thanks for the welcome! It's a fair point though I would add that many composts created with &quot;toxic&quot; ingredients would suffer from much the same issue depending upon what the toxin is and if it can be broken down via the composting process. For example if you throw plant matter that has been used in bioremediation of heavy metal concentrations on your pile, your compost is going to have high amounts of the heavy metal. All this means is that Worm farms and their leachate suffer the same limitations that composting does, plus a little bit extra." CreationDate="2014-04-22T14:04:49.483" UserId="1375" />
  <row Id="3241" PostId="2748" Score="0" Text="Of course everything can be polluted with toxins, but the reason I'm mentioning leachate is because a few years ago most people thought it was a great fertilizer, whereas nowadays more and more people are warning against it. Leachate might be a much bigger risk than (vermi)compost." CreationDate="2014-04-23T07:22:22.813" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3245" PostId="2748" Score="2" Text="I've never heard the issues with leachate. Could you share sources?" CreationDate="2014-04-23T13:20:28.847" UserId="1065" />
  <row Id="3252" PostId="2748" Score="1" Text="@Michelle, [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermicompost#As_fertilizer) or [this page](http://www.wormfarmingrevealed.com/leachate-vs-worm-tea.html) and [this page](http://www.naturesfootprint.com/leachate-vs-worm-compost-tea) all explain it nicely" CreationDate="2014-04-29T07:21:58.430" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3246" PostId="2750" Score="1" Text="Just as a side note: you are actually likely to increase biodiversity by selective logging by creating empty patches where new life can settle." CreationDate="2014-04-25T13:22:20.337" UserId="453" />
  <row Id="10142" PostId="2750" Score="0" Text="**Do not burn wood for space heating** if you care about sustainability.  The particulate matter is atrocious, [worse than a diesel engine](https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/feb/22/wood-diesel-indoor-stoves-cities-pollution) and [killing 250,000 people per year](https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/2014JD021861)." CreationDate="2018-09-07T17:22:31.090" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="3248" PostId="2752" Score="1" Text="In addition, I made a wire support for the wick to hold it straight up in the middle of the container, since the oil (or bacon grease in my case) won't stay solid during burning." CreationDate="2014-04-28T14:36:41.060" UserId="1182" />
  <row Id="3258" PostId="2757" Score="6" Text="I recommend the [Humanure Handbook, 3rd edition](http://humanurehandbook.com/). It has example designs and goes over all the salient details of designing your own system in significant detail. Hope that helps!" CreationDate="2014-04-30T07:18:27.187" UserId="1375" />
  <row Id="3251" PostId="2759" Score="0" Text="but this won't give you Reverse-osmosis quality water." CreationDate="2014-04-29T02:57:40.470" UserId="1390" />
  <row Id="3253" PostId="2759" Score="0" Text="I asked my friend, and he said that to make an reverse osmosis system, is to use sand, pulverized coal, gravel and a pipe (I searched the correct terms. :P). Put the pipe below the gravel. The pipe must go to an container with a germicidal uv lamp (I dunno the correct term for this lamp) than put a pipe with spigot, to get the clean water." CreationDate="2014-04-29T11:29:20.927" UserId="1396" />
  <row Id="3254" PostId="2759" Score="0" Text="Is there any video available online..." CreationDate="2014-04-29T12:42:07.897" UserId="1390" />
  <row Id="3255" PostId="2759" Score="0" Text="After a little search I found a pdf. https://www.dropbox.com/s/wmzi63w68xhna9o/DIY.pdf" CreationDate="2014-04-29T13:01:58.623" UserId="1396" />
  <row Id="3260" PostId="2759" Score="1" Text="My concern with this is I doubt it will remove all of the chemical residue.  A lot depends on what you are putting into the water to make it &quot;grey.&quot;" CreationDate="2014-04-30T16:36:22.547" UserId="624" />
  <row Id="3262" PostId="2760" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! I like your question, but you are basically asking for a (potentially endless) list of things. So there isn't one definitive good answer we can give. Therefor list-questions are often closed on all SE sites. It's best to try to refine your question or alternatively if people agree we can turn this question into a community-wiki question." CreationDate="2014-05-01T08:22:51.150" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3263" PostId="2760" Score="0" Text="Yes, i see the issue, in fact i wouldnt know which answer to accept... actually i couldnt really imagine any use and now i am surprised to see  different suggestions!" CreationDate="2014-05-01T20:30:34.307" UserId="1308" />
  <row Id="3261" PostId="2762" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Are you affiliated to iFill Cup by any chance, or just a happy user? This site requires that people disclose any affiliation about products they promote, otherwise posts may be deleted as spam." CreationDate="2014-05-01T07:41:04.247" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8714" PostId="2768" Score="0" Text="Citation required. This sounds like a bad idea; it would lead to energy loss due to a lack of heat exchanger. PIV is _normally_ (not always) just done in retrofit situations where it's not always expedient to implement MVHR." CreationDate="2017-08-09T10:16:23.820" UserId="2617" />
  <row Id="9128" PostId="2768" Score="0" Text="Unlikely, in Sweden there is an energy requirement on new houses between 50-95kWh/m2 depends on the latitude. Without HRV as complement to a heat pump of some sort, meeting this requiremet will be unlikely. Exhaust Air Heat Pumps are very popular in newly built houses." CreationDate="2017-12-18T19:05:22.280" UserId="5246" />
  <row Id="3267" PostId="2769" Score="0" Text="Is there a hot-water tank, or is it a combi boiler?" CreationDate="2014-05-05T11:58:17.003" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="3268" PostId="2769" Score="0" Text="This is probably a silly question, but is the bathroom towelrail heated with hot water, or is it electric?" CreationDate="2014-05-05T12:04:05.550" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="3269" PostId="2769" Score="0" Text="@EnergyNumbers I don't see a tank anywhere so I'm guessing it's a combi." CreationDate="2014-05-05T12:24:52.220" UserId="1408" />
  <row Id="3270" PostId="2769" Score="0" Text="@SimonW not silly at all, because there's no heated towel rail, just a radiator! :) Apologies if I wasn't clear." CreationDate="2014-05-05T12:25:45.053" UserId="1408" />
  <row Id="3271" PostId="2771" Score="0" Text="Much appreciated." CreationDate="2014-05-08T08:07:52.140" UserId="1408" />
  <row Id="3274" PostId="2775" Score="4" Text="Welcome to SE.Sustainability. We are looking for answers that provide a resource for the future, rather than rhetorical discussion. Check out [How To Answer](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/help/how-to-answer)." CreationDate="2014-05-09T03:04:47.610" UserId="1325" />
  <row Id="3577" PostId="2775" Score="0" Text="If your idea is to comment (agree or disagree) on a previous answer, you should do that in the comment area of that answer instead of creating a new &quot;answer&quot; that does not address the question." CreationDate="2014-08-19T21:29:48.570" UserId="89" />
  <row Id="3287" PostId="2777" Score="0" Text="I have finally inspected this answer in detail and it is much closer to what I expected than the answer I accepted previously (so +1 and accepted). That the design is different is no problem, the raft on my picture is just a random illustration." CreationDate="2014-05-12T15:15:29.743" UserId="58" />
  <row Id="3277" PostId="2778" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! I suspect not a lot of people understand French here. Could you summarize the contents of the page you are linking to? This way your answer will remain valuable even if the link breaks." CreationDate="2014-05-10T17:14:55.063" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3283" PostId="2778" Score="0" Text="done. &#xA;In fact I was lazy so I found something in english." CreationDate="2014-05-12T09:44:03.833" UserId="1421" />
  <row Id="3284" PostId="2778" Score="2" Text="Thanks for the English link. It would still be helpful if you'd summarize in your own words the contents of the linked pages. This is good in case the links break, but also because our goal is to build a qualitative good set of Q&amp;A right here on this site. Links should be provided for more detail or background information only." CreationDate="2014-05-12T10:34:13.463" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3281" PostId="2779" Score="2" Text="No way to really tell without seeing the fridge, but every single fridge I handled came with the advice to let it stand upright for up to a day after tilting it so the coolant can gather in the lower part. So, I'd guess is would not work lying horizontally." CreationDate="2014-05-12T06:55:31.050" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="3278" PostId="2781" Score="7" Text="You want to build a mosquito trap in a swamp in order to reduce the number of mosquitos in a nearby guesthouse? I don't know how big the swamp is and how far away it is from the guesthouse but my guess is that the effect will be minimal (i.e. not noticeable)." CreationDate="2014-05-10T17:20:33.457" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3288" PostId="2781" Score="1" Text="Not particularly sustainable perhaps, but interesting and maybe even cost-effective, eventually: shoot them down with lasers http://phys.org/news185463943.html :-)" CreationDate="2014-05-12T22:34:36.430" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="3292" PostId="2781" Score="0" Text="LOL! I can imagine that on my island: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQDy-5IQvuU&#xA;Too bad we have no electricity" CreationDate="2014-05-13T06:24:43.020" UserId="1421" />
  <row Id="3280" PostId="2783" Score="4" Text="The water you refer to is condensed from the air by the cold surfaces of the freezer box." CreationDate="2014-05-12T05:08:44.530" UserId="1325" />
  <row Id="3279" PostId="2784" Score="1" Text="To substitute for sugar, I would add to the list: anything sweet, such as honey or fruit. The yeast will happily consume the sugars and release CO2." CreationDate="2014-05-12T03:22:03.313" UserId="1325" />
  <row Id="3290" PostId="2784" Score="0" Text="I don't know if cleaning the swamp is realistic, but it is the way those traps intend to work.&#xA;Killing 5% of female mosquitoes going by is not going to make a difference in your home, but after 30 days, it would in the swamp. Would it take 5 traps or 5000 is yet unknown. I assume that &quot;cleaning&quot; 100m around the hut is enough but I have no idea how far an Anopheles mosquito(malaria bearer) can fly." CreationDate="2014-05-13T06:10:18.583" UserId="1421" />
  <row Id="3282" PostId="2785" Score="0" Text="Thank you for the suggestions. &#xA;The government help is not realistic there, but connecting the pools looks like a great idea.&#xA;&#xA;To give you an idea here is the location on google map&#xA;https://www.google.com/maps/@2.2740494,97.2773068,2001m/data=!3m1!1e3" CreationDate="2014-05-12T08:41:17.887" UserId="1421" />
  <row Id="3285" PostId="2785" Score="1" Text="Thanks for the reference. Do you know, or can you find out what fish or other predators could be present?" CreationDate="2014-05-12T11:53:38.397" UserId="1325" />
  <row Id="3289" PostId="2785" Score="0" Text="I need to go back on site before. Not before one month.&#xA;&#xA;I'd rather prepare much in advance. It's not the kind of place where you want to realize you forgot your matches.&#xA;Factoid: in Sumatra, matches don't burn as they don't bother seasoning the wood.&#xA;&#xA;As the island is small (2km at most), fresh-water fishes would certainly be tiny and unknown to lay people.&#xA;&#xA;I expect to find fireflies and frogs. I guess Seawater crocodile are no help." CreationDate="2014-05-13T05:56:56.773" UserId="1421" />
  <row Id="3291" PostId="2785" Score="0" Text="Correction: I don't remember hearing frogs there. Cats, snakes and monitor lizards are probably at cause. Or local toads are silent." CreationDate="2014-05-13T06:16:55.153" UserId="1421" />
  <row Id="3296" PostId="2788" Score="0" Text="re your first point: this is why Solyndra went out of business. Their technology was cylindrical mirrors to concentrate light hitting the solar cells. The cost of cells came down enough that this was no longer worth the effort." CreationDate="2014-05-14T17:15:10.857" UserId="547" />
  <row Id="3297" PostId="2788" Score="1" Text="The same answer reused in two forums - a model of sustainability!" CreationDate="2014-05-14T22:26:48.370" UserId="1325" />
  <row Id="11875" PostId="2790" Score="1" Text="However the area needed for solar panels is a concern. The land could be instead used for farming or forests if we had fewer more efficient panels, instead of many less efficient ones." CreationDate="2019-11-21T15:26:00.107" UserId="8149" />
  <row Id="3301" PostId="2794" Score="1" Text="Hello there, and welcome. I've amended your question a little, so that it's a good fit to our site. Because we do Q&amp;A, rather than being a discussion forum, we've found questions about looking for features in a potential new purchase can fit into the format here; but asking for shopping recommendations doesn't work so well, because there they're much harder to answer objectively, and because answers can go out of date so quickly." CreationDate="2014-05-15T13:38:59.970" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="9647" PostId="2794" Score="0" Text="After some private discussion among moderators, we decided to close this question here on Sustainability.SE. Questions about handicrafts may be on topic over at [Arts &amp; Crafts](https://crafts.stackexchange.com/), which was launched some time after this question was posted." CreationDate="2018-05-04T09:01:29.563" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="3302" PostId="2795" Score="0" Text="Just to let you know I've updated the question a bit, so that it fits in with the Q&amp;A format here. I think your answer is still a good fit to the question in its reworded form; bit I did want to give you a heads-up to the change, in case you wanted to review the reworded question, and to give you the chance to edit your answer if you want." CreationDate="2014-05-15T13:41:03.503" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="3305" PostId="2797" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Are you affiliated to Marcal or just a happy user? This site requires you to mention any affiliation." CreationDate="2014-05-20T05:47:09.247" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3304" PostId="2798" Score="2" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Are you sure the diatomaceous earth won't have a negative effect on the worms?" CreationDate="2014-05-20T05:40:06.270" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3309" PostId="2798" Score="0" Text="This site seems to have proof that it's ok: http://thewormexpert.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&amp;t=359" CreationDate="2014-05-21T10:36:32.593" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="3306" PostId="2799" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! I noticed you link to a commercial site. Are you affiliated to the brand in question? The rules of this site require you to disclose any affiliation." CreationDate="2014-05-20T15:01:04.937" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3308" PostId="2800" Score="2" Text="Please could you make it into a complete answer? At least add some more information about what it is, how it converts heat to electricity?" CreationDate="2014-05-21T05:10:58.803" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="11849" PostId="2800" Score="0" Text="Thermoelectric modules have ridiculously low efficiency. Waste heat is usually in the levels where thermoelectric modules would provide no useful power." CreationDate="2019-11-19T15:20:19.307" UserId="8149" />
  <row Id="3316" PostId="2801" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Could you please explain how this question is related to sustainability? As it is, it looks like it would fit better on [Biology.SE](http://biology.stackexchange.com)" CreationDate="2014-05-22T07:23:23.377" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3317" PostId="2801" Score="0" Text="@THelper It **is** a better fit for Biology.SE. I saw a lot of mosquito questions here and thought this will be the right community to ask, and it was, I got excellent answers." CreationDate="2014-05-22T07:33:16.783" UserId="1378" />
  <row Id="3312" PostId="2802" Score="0" Text="+1 for the frogs!" CreationDate="2014-05-22T01:01:33.187" UserId="1325" />
  <row Id="3313" PostId="2803" Score="1" Text="Note: Dragonfly larvae are properly called [naiads](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonfly#Life_cycle)." CreationDate="2014-05-22T03:08:01.060" UserId="1325" />
  <row Id="3314" PostId="2803" Score="0" Text="The pond can become almost dry during hot summers, so any kind of fish are not sustainable. There is a (audibly) vigorous frog population in the next, bigger pond and there are a lot of frogs in my garden, so they are sustainable." CreationDate="2014-05-22T05:46:17.253" UserId="1378" />
  <row Id="3415" PostId="2804" Score="0" Text="In Australia, AFAIK we have butcher's paper, and the plastic-backed paper delicatessens use to pack their meat products. Traditional butchers paper, as used by butchers, comes in A1 sheets and is plain white paper. It may be bleached, but has no coatings." CreationDate="2014-06-24T23:49:15.150" UserId="1325" />
  <row Id="3318" PostId="2805" Score="1" Text="Thanks Russell... I'll look forward to what you add later!" CreationDate="2014-05-22T21:25:08.607" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="3319" PostId="2806" Score="0" Text="If it involves electric appliances, solar powered is very unsustainable. If you consider that wind is also solar-powered and a purely mechanical fountain can be designed, that would avoid big unsustainable industry up front." CreationDate="2014-05-23T10:16:45.607" UserId="1378" />
  <row Id="3325" PostId="2807" Score="1" Text="CAn you describe your (potential) application in more detail? Do you have a methane source, what is it? Why do you want to create propane, storage?" CreationDate="2014-05-26T09:57:48.470" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="3331" PostId="2807" Score="1" Text="The [Motunui synthetic petrol plant](https://www.ipenz.org.nz/heritage/itemdetail.cfm?itemid=68) in NZ had a high-level goal of methane to petrol, but it was complex and expensive. On a farm you may be better off fermenting simple alcohols and burning those, rather than working with alkanes." CreationDate="2014-05-26T23:10:09.150" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3328" PostId="2811" Score="3" Text="If we assume your 750W is what you need, your next step is to size a water-air Heat exchanger within the constraints you have. Google &quot;sizing air coolers&quot; for relevant literature." CreationDate="2014-05-26T11:02:42.253" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="3332" PostId="2813" Score="4" Text="Good question. Do you know how the wood was treated (which kind of chemicals)? The brand name and year it was bought or produced may provide a clue." CreationDate="2014-05-28T07:43:26.847" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3927" PostId="2813" Score="0" Text="Related question on Gardening SE: [Do chemicals leach from the sides of raised beds?](http://gardening.stackexchange.com/q/3677/1916)" CreationDate="2014-12-21T11:57:18.887" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3336" PostId="2815" Score="2" Text="Just to be clear, because you zoomed straight into efficiency, charging something in the car does cause the car to use more gasoline than it otherwise would?" CreationDate="2014-05-29T21:46:16.120" UserId="1053" />
  <row Id="3337" PostId="2815" Score="0" Text="also, the 25%-30% efficiency of the car includes the transmission and axles and things, right? which wouldn't affect the amount of power going to the alternator?" CreationDate="2014-05-29T21:48:57.960" UserId="1053" />
  <row Id="3338" PostId="2815" Score="3" Text="@KateGregory: yes, charging causes the car to use more power. Unless it's idling, but in that case the efficiency is already zero (no distance/some energy=0). The transmission losses in the car are broadly similar to the conversion losses to electricity and then into chemical energy in your battery. Broadly meaning &quot;between 5% and 50% losses&quot; (there are lots of variables)" CreationDate="2014-05-29T23:11:02.293" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3339" PostId="2815" Score="2" Text="@KateGregory, Moz is correct. Using more electricity in your car means a higher physical resistance experienced by the engine when it tries to turn the core of the alternator. ie it's harder to turn the alternator when more electricity is being drawn from it, and thus more fuel is used to keep the vehicle at the same speed, unless idling." CreationDate="2014-05-29T23:29:06.443" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="3341" PostId="2815" Score="0" Text="It's probably worth mentioning that when the car is idling, or otherwise little is being demanded of the engine, the engine is likely to be very inefficient (calculate efficiency in a way that doesn't depend on forward motion ;-)). Therefore, adding extra load when idling may make little difference to fuel consumption, making it &quot;free&quot; electricity. So perhaps charging a phone on a stop-start journey in city traffic might be better than at home. But, as noted, it's really not worth worrying about much..." CreationDate="2014-05-30T10:08:09.867" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="3342" PostId="2815" Score="0" Text="As far as I understand, the battery is also charged, when for example you roll downhill, in-gear, without stepping on the accelerator. In this case, energy that would otherwise be used to wear out your brakes gets used to generate electricity for free. It might actually a good idea to charge your phone with this energy. (This depends on you having to drive along hilly terrain, with reasonably long downhill stretches.)" CreationDate="2014-05-30T14:19:02.890" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="3344" PostId="2815" Score="0" Text="@Earthliŋ, if the engine is running, my understanding is that some fuel is still being used, even when you don't press down the accelerator pedal, similar to when the car is idling. If the engine isn't running, then there's probably other reasons why it's not a good idea to drive the car downhill in gear." CreationDate="2014-05-30T23:28:01.980" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="3345" PostId="2815" Score="1" Text="@HighlyIrregular Well, even if the engine isn't running, driving downhill in gear will jump-start the engine. The reason there is always some consumption is that, even in idling, the engine needs fuel to keep the engine turning at around 900 r/min. When the car is driving downhill in gear, you don't need any fuel to maintain 900 r/min. Hence, you don't use any fuel. The &quot;instantaneous consumption&quot; displayed in newer &quot;board computers&quot; should confirm this." CreationDate="2014-05-31T00:52:47.707" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="3346" PostId="2815" Score="1" Text="@Earthliŋ, looks like you're correct where there's a smart engine computer to figure it out, which is likely true in most modern cars. http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=226400 With older engines, I understand fuel flows when the ignition is on and the engine is turning, even if running downhill. Perhaps a good test is to idle your car downhill in 1st gear with the engine on, and the engine off, and compare speeds." CreationDate="2014-05-31T09:01:23.327" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="3347" PostId="2816" Score="7" Text="I'm curious about &quot;Clearly, by not using preventative antibiotics, the dairy animals are at increased risk&quot;. That's not been my experience, but my experience is very limited. AFAIK the USA is the only country that allows non-medical use of antibiotics in farming (in Australia a vet is required to prescribe them individually for each sick cow, for example). So I'd like to see evidence to justify &quot;clearly&quot;." CreationDate="2014-06-02T09:33:45.253" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3348" PostId="2816" Score="0" Text="@Mσᶎ Great point! And this was much of the reason I wished to post the question: to bring to light any risks (or lack thereof).  I am interested in entering into dairy goats, but I took for 'fact' the bias that appears in at least some of the US literature for *beginners*." CreationDate="2014-06-02T11:06:14.337" UserId="1446" />
  <row Id="3349" PostId="2816" Score="2" Text="I think that against any (proven) risk to the individual animal, one would need to find a way to estimate the long-term increased risk to the population of that animal from antibiotic resistance...... I don't envy anybody trying to work out the methodology for that though!" CreationDate="2014-06-02T12:39:17.867" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="3350" PostId="2816" Score="1" Text="@SimonW I agree. My personal bias is pro-organic. From what I can read, however, is that there are additional costs (especially long-term) in being able to say that I have an *organic process*. This will probably lead into a second question about the necessity of complying with 'certifying organizations' and official livestock registries/associations if I'm not seeking competition or a commercial business." CreationDate="2014-06-02T16:31:39.437" UserId="1446" />
  <row Id="3351" PostId="2816" Score="0" Text="That being said, a potential answer to this question doesn't have to solve or even create a formal financial calculus justifying organic process versus US-industrial practice. I think the potential answer just needs to provide a list of associated risks (or adverse economic liabilities, realized or potential). I don't want to encounter something that an experienced dairy-goat farmer would have realized/known without at least being aware of the possibility myself." CreationDate="2014-06-02T16:37:13.530" UserId="1446" />
  <row Id="3370" PostId="2816" Score="2" Text="It's my understanding that the savings for being non organic don't come from healthier animals, but from being able to put more of them into a limited space with some reduction of the illnesses and misery that could be expected to result from that. If you're constrained by how many animals you can care for or how much milk you want (rather than by land or barn size) you shouldn't need to pre-medicate against diseases of crowding." CreationDate="2014-06-04T11:08:27.250" UserId="1053" />
  <row Id="3375" PostId="2816" Score="1" Text="Can you clarify whether you mean certified organic, or just &quot;like organic but without certification&quot; because you seem to be talking about milk for your own use. Most of the yield loss is compared to non-organic intensive dairying, so if you're not doing that I suspect you won't see much of the loss whether you're organic or not." CreationDate="2014-06-06T05:03:27.193" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3379" PostId="2816" Score="0" Text="@Mσᶎ I mean: organic in all processes so that products qualify for USDA Organic certification, whether or not certification is pursued." CreationDate="2014-06-06T16:47:07.873" UserId="1446" />
  <row Id="3380" PostId="2816" Score="0" Text="Your question seems to focus on health. Is it what you mean or do you want a list of al possible drawback of organic breeding?" CreationDate="2014-06-07T07:15:39.427" UserId="1421" />
  <row Id="3366" PostId="2817" Score="0" Text="Excellent answer!  Thanks for taking the time to respond." CreationDate="2014-06-03T22:30:45.757" UserId="1456" />
  <row Id="3367" PostId="2817" Score="0" Text="@MercuryPlus you're welcome! Please mark my answer as accepted if it meets your expectations." CreationDate="2014-06-03T23:06:07.410" UserId="1446" />
  <row Id="3353" PostId="2818" Score="2" Text="Alpacas work as well as llamas, and both also supply wool. Goat wool and dog fur are low quality (and you can only skin the dog once). So secondary products might perhaps be worth considering." CreationDate="2014-06-03T03:58:53.030" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3364" PostId="2818" Score="1" Text="@Mσᶎ I think that Alpacas is a suggestion worthy enough to be its own answer." CreationDate="2014-06-03T12:09:55.283" UserId="1446" />
  <row Id="3374" PostId="2818" Score="1" Text="@Madlozoz do post answers as answers: comments are really just for seeking clarification on questions and answers, rather than for suggesting answers." CreationDate="2014-06-05T19:15:00.153" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="3423" PostId="2818" Score="1" Text="A human often works well. The gunman sub-species especially so, but can be randomly dangerous and har t socialise. Usually needs own food supply." CreationDate="2014-06-28T18:21:52.957" UserId="318" />
  <row Id="3354" PostId="2819" Score="3" Text="Donkey attacks are no fun. For that matter, guard geese might be a worthwhile addition as well." CreationDate="2014-06-03T03:59:30.337" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3362" PostId="2819" Score="0" Text="I honestly don't know: but would geese repel either coyote or wolves? I've seen geese thump a human before though." CreationDate="2014-06-03T10:41:03.597" UserId="1446" />
  <row Id="3363" PostId="2819" Score="1" Text="@Kate I'm going to wait a few days to encourage more answers before accepting. Thanks for your input!" CreationDate="2014-06-03T10:49:52.117" UserId="1446" />
  <row Id="3365" PostId="2819" Score="0" Text="@Clayton geese won't deter large predators, no, but they would be a tasty addition to the flock." CreationDate="2014-06-03T21:57:43.983" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3372" PostId="2819" Score="0" Text="&quot;A dog isn't going to do that&quot;. In fact, The great pyrenee was used as beast of burden." CreationDate="2014-06-04T17:52:26.370" UserId="1421" />
  <row Id="3377" PostId="2833" Score="2" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Great question. To get you started, you might want to read [this question and answers](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/37/99)" CreationDate="2014-06-06T12:37:53.013" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3378" PostId="2833" Score="0" Text="@THelper thanks for this. Yes I'd come across gaisma before I posted the question, the trouble is I wouldn't quite know how to interpret that data and come up with a monetary value. That I now realise there are different types of panel just adds to the fun ;-)" CreationDate="2014-06-06T12:42:02.483" UserId="1479" />
  <row Id="3422" PostId="2833" Score="0" Text="http://www.gaisma.com - insolation data and much more. Brilliant." CreationDate="2014-06-28T18:17:34.003" UserId="318" />
  <row Id="3633" PostId="2833" Score="1" Text="Congrats on your new PV system :-)" CreationDate="2014-09-07T08:05:38.220" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="3636" PostId="2833" Score="1" Text="Thanks @SimonW. In the interests of helping other people who might have the same question, I've added my own answer to the question in which I share my experiences." CreationDate="2014-09-07T09:17:59.297" UserId="1479" />
  <row Id="4000" PostId="2839" Score="1" Text="Anaerobic digestion would be another route. Provides biogasand fertilizer, but requires (with lifestock remains) a reliable pasteurization/heat treatment. probably out of reach for small scale husbandry. If AD is still relevant for your question, I can maybe elaborate as an additional answer." CreationDate="2015-01-26T10:32:53.947" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="4001" PostId="2839" Score="0" Text="@mart Yes please, it certainly deserves a more thorough look - and I know little about it." CreationDate="2015-01-26T10:55:32.297" UserId="1446" />
  <row Id="3383" PostId="2841" Score="1" Text="You're missing one vital piece of information for calculating: How much does (e.g. 1 meter of) hose cost?" CreationDate="2014-06-09T18:08:29.833" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="3384" PostId="2841" Score="0" Text="I'm not sure that's relevant. I can get 50 or 75-foot hoses for as little as $20, though I'd be more likely to buy a $30 one. But I don't think this means that three patches, spending about the same on patch kits (once) as a hose (each time) is the optimal, since I can reuse the patch kits indefinitely. And even if a hose and a patch kit cost the same for some reason, I would patch at least once because throwing out a whole hose is a big waste." CreationDate="2014-06-09T18:13:31.030" UserId="1053" />
  <row Id="3388" PostId="2841" Score="1" Text="A surprisingly interesting question." CreationDate="2014-06-12T05:15:30.613" UserId="1325" />
  <row Id="11715" PostId="2841" Score="0" Text="Where I am, bites (as in animal chewing, and I'd put the animal called lawn-mower into this category as well) is a rare occurence compared to holes being caused by a) hose getting brittle from sun exposure, b) from being moved when cold and brittle c) having sharp turns. While a bite will affect the hose only locally, a) and b) and to a lesser extent also c) will affect large sections of the hose. In my experience, by hole #5 the whole thing is usually brittle, so time to replace." CreationDate="2019-11-12T20:42:42.507" UserId="3722" />
  <row Id="3387" PostId="2846" Score="3" Text="&quot;less waste is always more sustainable than more waste...&quot; All waste is not equal. Some types of waste are more hazardous, or more expensive to dispose of, or even use materials that are more scarce. Otherwise, great answer! :-)" CreationDate="2014-06-12T04:18:53.093" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="3386" PostId="2847" Score="0" Text="this is true if I make the decision one connector at a time. But what about comparing, over say 20 holes timeframe, new hose every 5 holes, every 10 holes, never. Does never still win?" CreationDate="2014-06-11T22:20:38.080" UserId="1053" />
  <row Id="3389" PostId="2847" Score="2" Text="Same still applies, even for your first hose.  For your next hose you already have a drawer full of connectors so those are effectively free!" CreationDate="2014-06-12T08:46:25.327" UserId="1445" />
  <row Id="3390" PostId="2847" Score="0" Text="I ran some numbers and this isn't so. If one hose equals ten patch kits, then up to 10 holes &quot;never&quot; is best. But after 30 holes, &quot;never&quot; loses to &quot;after 15 holes&quot; and after 100 holes &quot;after 25 holes&quot; is the winner. The trick is predicting the number of holes before your heirs give away your hose and patch collection :-)" CreationDate="2014-06-12T19:39:49.227" UserId="1053" />
  <row Id="3397" PostId="2849" Score="0" Text="I'm amused that you had to use an image because tables are not allowed... at this scale preformatted text would be worse." CreationDate="2014-06-15T01:17:19.197" UserId="1255" />
  <row Id="3393" PostId="2850" Score="1" Text="Thanks very much, the site in particular is exactly the kind of resource I was looking for. I think you're right in that the next step will be to speak to a fitting company to get some firmer numbers (and installation costs), but a couple of hours reading through the EST site has at least put me in a position where an installer isn't going tobe able to bamboozle me into a bad deal." CreationDate="2014-06-13T17:52:10.800" UserId="1479" />
  <row Id="3395" PostId="2852" Score="2" Text="It will vary by building, by local climate, by hot water consumption, and most importantly by current setpoint temperature. I'll try to find time to write up a proper answer." CreationDate="2014-06-14T15:40:40.017" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="3396" PostId="2852" Score="4" Text="imagine a building where it is always 20C outside. If you keep your thermostat at 21 and I talk you into lowering to 20, you will save a lot more than 7%! OTOH if it's -40, I doubt the savings are so much." CreationDate="2014-06-14T18:07:12.727" UserId="1053" />
  <row Id="3398" PostId="2856" Score="2" Text="Isn't that a contradiction? What you are looking for is something that leaves more nutrients in the soil than before, even though you extract nutrients via the vegetable that you are presumably going to eat. So where would those nutrients come from?" CreationDate="2014-06-18T10:14:18.040" UserId="803" />
  <row Id="3399" PostId="2856" Score="3" Text="legumes (Beans, lentils) fix nitrogen in the soil, when you leave parts of the plant to rot you also add carbon to the soil. But I'm no gardener. Not sure wether anything can be done about other nutrients." CreationDate="2014-06-18T11:10:56.663" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="3400" PostId="2856" Score="0" Text="@drat Note. I didn't say a plant which leaves more nutrients than it takes out. I said a plant which improves the level of organic matter (humus) in the soil it is grown in, once the plant is composted and added back to the soil." CreationDate="2014-06-18T19:48:41.310" UserId="1495" />
  <row Id="3401" PostId="2856" Score="0" Text="@mart I like the idea of legumes. see updated version of the question for better topic clarification." CreationDate="2014-06-18T19:52:57.650" UserId="1495" />
  <row Id="3425" PostId="2856" Score="0" Text="No, improving the soil organic matter (OM) content is not a contradiction as OM is not directly taken up by crops. OM rather decomposes (the speed will mainly depend on soil moisture, temperature and OM input). If the input during the crop growth period (non harvested plant parts left in the field, ploughed under or so) exceeds the amount of OM broken down you can improve soil quality in that aspect." CreationDate="2014-06-29T12:23:19.987" UserId="1077" />
  <row Id="3438" PostId="2859" Score="1" Text="Please note that list questions where you ask for a potentially never-ending list of possible answers isn't allowed on all SE sites. Could you please rephrase your question?" CreationDate="2014-07-05T11:05:22.343" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3403" PostId="2860" Score="0" Text="Thanks for this very detailed and deep answer. I admit I had not thought about the losses in efficiency enough. I also did not think about trade tariffs but more about suggesting to consumers to buy local products and as a necessary prerequisite a compulsory label on products stating the exact origin(s) (where most of the work was done). That way consumers could decide to buy the presumably more expensive local stuff and reduce their ecological footprint very efficiently. That's what I thought, but since shipping is actually so cheap and doesn't have such a big impact on pollution.." CreationDate="2014-06-19T08:07:15.370" UserId="1496" />
  <row Id="3406" PostId="2860" Score="1" Text="@Trilarion there are definitely some ecological efficiency gains to be made by localisation, but it's more complex than just &quot;less transport = good&quot;. There are tradeoffs, and for things that can be made/grown locally they do often resolve in that direction." CreationDate="2014-06-20T01:22:40.823" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3405" PostId="2861" Score="0" Text="I actually do use cover crops and green manures when the veggies are out. My question is supposed to be asking 'which vegetable plants I can grow are the most efficient at building biomass in the soil'. Not necessarily adding nitrogen either, although that would be a nice side." CreationDate="2014-06-20T01:03:58.510" UserId="1495" />
  <row Id="3411" PostId="2861" Score="0" Text="In that case, legumes, corn, sunflower and grains would all add mass. Whether you'd want to include sunflower and grains as veggies, I do not know." CreationDate="2014-06-22T04:58:01.243" UserId="1065" />
  <row Id="3414" PostId="2861" Score="0" Text="I was looking for a more scientific answer, in regard to a list of which are best, by how much they add to the soil. Perhaps in lbs per acre, or similar." CreationDate="2014-06-24T22:37:56.687" UserId="1495" />
  <row Id="3435" PostId="2861" Score="1" Text="The answer will strongly depend on the region where you are located. A way forward would be to lookup productivity values for different crops in your region and then estimate what fraction would be harvested. If the harvested fraction is low (as in beans for example) you have a good candidate crop for improving  the organic matter content of the soil." CreationDate="2014-07-03T17:53:48.983" UserId="1077" />
  <row Id="3407" PostId="2863" Score="0" Text="I would expect that *strongly* depends on how far you're moving.  One end of the UK to the other is not very far.  Moving to another continent is another story." CreationDate="2014-06-20T14:42:43.070" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="3408" PostId="2863" Score="0" Text="@gerrit Interesting point. My gut feeling that in terms of global impact, the large number of pan-UK moves far outweighs that of the small number of pan-continent ones; though choices and circumstances would be very different in these two case, I'd agree." CreationDate="2014-06-20T15:37:11.993" UserId="1210" />
  <row Id="3410" PostId="2863" Score="0" Text="A consideration is also changing formats. If you own, say, 50kg of books and sell those, replacing them with ebooks you save the cost of moving 50kg+packaging (assuming you already own a device that can read the books). Likewise anything else you currently own that you're thinking of getting rid of in the next year is best got rid of before you move, rather than moving it then selling/dumping it." CreationDate="2014-06-21T12:15:31.063" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3439" PostId="2863" Score="0" Text="Actually *how* you're moving is as relevant as how far. If you're air freighting precious reference books a couple of boxes could cost as much as a whole shipping container over water, environmentally speaking. Driving an overloaded car is not as good as using a trucking company, especially if you strap junk to the roof. And so on." CreationDate="2014-07-09T02:55:27.180" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3421" PostId="2865" Score="1" Text="That's the first mention of district heating I've seen on this site (doing a search, I see 2 other times you've mentioned it), which is a very interesting concept... this is a great answer!" CreationDate="2014-06-27T03:32:13.597" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="3434" PostId="2866" Score="0" Text="Excuse my tardy thanks for this contribution - I've been busy buying that house.. (and taking a carload every time we need to visit). There's a lot of good experience and guidance in there; much of which aligns well with our thinking. One thing I've noticed is that, commercially, volume costs more than weight.  Therefore larger lighter items are higher on my do-I-really-need-it list; but that goes counter to the energy cost of maximising the -density- of the remaining load." CreationDate="2014-07-03T14:55:15.103" UserId="1210" />
  <row Id="3413" PostId="2869" Score="0" Text="I think your question has been answered here [link](http://gardening.stackexchange.com/questions/3490/can-these-non-food-items-be-composted/3495#3495)" CreationDate="2014-04-29T06:47:48.670" UserDisplayName="ViSu" />
  <row Id="3419" PostId="2874" Score="0" Text="So far as I can see, the link that you provide doesn't dismiss the idea at all." CreationDate="2014-06-26T12:53:48.930" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="3420" PostId="2874" Score="0" Text="@SimonW I'm sorry, my mistake. I had another paper in mind. I'll update the question." CreationDate="2014-06-26T13:02:14.693" UserId="706" />
  <row Id="3424" PostId="2876" Score="2" Text="I think natural gas is almost entirely (&gt;90%) methane, isn't it, rather than principally propane and butane? Any thoughts on the relative GWP of propane vs butane, and their relative leakage rates?" CreationDate="2014-06-29T09:10:42.647" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="3427" PostId="2877" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! As you can read in the [theUg's answer](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/a/670/99) estimates are that turing your engine off becomes more efficient if you stop for more than 10 seconds. If you have references to other numbers, please share them." CreationDate="2014-07-01T06:13:48.083" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3428" PostId="2879" Score="1" Text="&quot;Extra humidity added&quot;? What do you mean? If the cooling water goes through a heat exchange, how does extra humidity get added to the indoor air?" CreationDate="2014-07-01T14:17:00.857" UserId="1462" />
  <row Id="3429" PostId="2879" Score="0" Text="@Aron it may be that Dionisio is referring to the increase in *relative* humidity that happens when air is cooled without being dehumidified (just a guess)." CreationDate="2014-07-02T09:48:11.017" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="3430" PostId="2879" Score="0" Text="-1 &quot;simply opening windows&quot; = free heating. The question clearly noted I was in the TROPICS. Also it should be noted that running a dedicated dehumidifier could still be energetically beneficial, especially if one were to run the it on solar power (using solar thermal to regenerate  desiccants). Assuming of course you meant that relative humidity increases (no extra humidity is added)." CreationDate="2014-07-02T10:34:35.297" UserId="1462" />
  <row Id="3431" PostId="2879" Score="0" Text="@Aron, I replied to your answer on a mobile device and was not able to read your question properly, including your location. Sorry for that." CreationDate="2014-07-03T04:59:59.737" UserId="1528" />
  <row Id="3432" PostId="2879" Score="0" Text="@EnergyNumbers, yes, I was talking about humidity." CreationDate="2014-07-03T05:01:25.717" UserId="1528" />
  <row Id="3433" PostId="2879" Score="0" Text="HVAC wise I only have standard residential air conditioners (with air based heat exchanges, so low efficiency). In actual fact @mart answered very well (if not completely) by directing me to &quot;sizing air coolers&quot;. I had forgotten that cooling a liquid with air is a similar problem to cooling air with a liquid." CreationDate="2014-07-03T05:48:19.420" UserId="1462" />
  <row Id="3447" PostId="2887" Score="0" Text="Assuming that a house will have to heat/cool itself for 50+ years in a climate that can vary from +/-35°C based on the season it seems to me that a lot more would be gained from curbing the heating and cooling over those years as opposed to saving some up from sustainability in the construction. I originally intended for this question to be more about the post-construction energy benefits of building skinny and tall. I will edit my question to reflect this." CreationDate="2014-07-09T13:32:20.110" UserId="1470" />
  <row Id="3450" PostId="2887" Score="1" Text="I think my answer is still &quot;No, it would not be more sustainable&quot;, but I'll update my answer properly when I get a chance, probably in a couple of days :-) I think multi-level dwellings can have many sustainability advantages, so the issue is the resources used in the extra level. I am re-thinking whether it would cost more energy to operate. Interesting." CreationDate="2014-07-10T02:19:08.633" UserId="1325" />
  <row Id="3440" PostId="2888" Score="1" Text="Have you considered solar? I know it is out of your ability to produce a sun. But a prefabricated one is available." CreationDate="2014-07-09T05:13:20.990" UserId="1462" />
  <row Id="3452" PostId="2888" Score="1" Text="Then trouble with &quot;gather wood&quot; is that it destroys popular camping areas." CreationDate="2014-07-11T23:05:02.440" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3454" PostId="2888" Score="2" Text="keep in mind that to cook on wood (as opposed to just enjoying the campfire) you must build a larger fire than you need and then let it burn down for as much as an hour until you have coals. You do not cook over flame, but over embers. Also, you will probably need to make 5-10 times the size of an ember pile than will actually provide heat to your pot. To cook with a stove fuel, you light the stove, cook on it, and turn it off again. So do not compare just btu for btu." CreationDate="2014-07-13T17:29:06.863" UserId="1053" />
  <row Id="9303" PostId="2888" Score="0" Text="@Móż there is plenty of would from fallen branches, especially after a windstorm.  I have never had difficulty gathering these.  At times, they are too soggy to be useful." CreationDate="2018-02-26T11:46:23.897" UserId="4574" />
  <row Id="3445" PostId="2889" Score="1" Text="I own a solar water heater. The thing is absolutely awesome during a hot summers day. However when it is overcasted it automagically turns on an electric heater element. Even so, there are savings/sustainability gains from a bog standard electric water heater. The electric heater is left off more days than it is on. Similarly, if you really were pasionate about sustainability, you could use solar on good days, and run a &quot;stored solar (biofuel)&quot; stove on bad days." CreationDate="2014-07-09T08:16:36.693" UserId="1462" />
  <row Id="3446" PostId="2889" Score="1" Text="This has been an inspiring suggestion and although there are issues to be dealt with, I think I'll look into it and see if when I can get round to it, use it as a (principal) method of sustainable food cooking. For this, I will mark your answer as the accepted one. Thank you. Now shall we clean up our banter (the earlier comments and first two sentences of your answer - I've deleted my initial comment and can delete this one too, and maybe you can put the useful info from above comment in the answer then delete it), and make it worthy of SE googable destination quality? :)" CreationDate="2014-07-09T10:42:21.027" UserDisplayName="user487" />
  <row Id="3442" PostId="2890" Score="3" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Could you please elaborate on your answer. Why should the OP use wool instead of other materials?" CreationDate="2014-07-09T07:46:53.443" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3448" PostId="2891" Score="0" Text="Disclaimer: I didn't read all these articles, just the abstracts." CreationDate="2014-07-09T17:40:31.543" UserId="1496" />
  <row Id="3453" PostId="2892" Score="0" Text="demand? The CSP trackers use the same hardware so I suspect there's both supply and expertise available. As well, I'm guessing that the cost of a large facility is less about the land and more about the cost of installing and maintaining whatever system they have. Since CSP have to use trackers, a company with CSP experience would find tracking PV business as usual." CreationDate="2014-07-13T00:20:47.717" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="5273" PostId="2892" Score="0" Text="From the 2nd graph you show, it looks highly unlikely that 2-axis tracking would be worth it over 1-axis." CreationDate="2016-01-05T15:30:21.303" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="5434" PostId="2892" Score="0" Text="The question is cost of land vs cost of silicon. If land is cheap compared to silicon it'll make sense to use expensive trackers on more land (and vice versa). Buying more efficient cells and getting most use out of them via trackers can pay off. Microconcentrators are also an option with trackers (although I don't think anyone uses them any more). Secondary land use may also be a consideration - with trackers you get more sun on the ground so cropping or grazing are more viable and in high-sun areas partial shading may help rather than hinder." CreationDate="2016-02-08T01:59:55.517" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3455" PostId="2894" Score="1" Text="Nice question - welcome to sustainability.SE!" CreationDate="2014-07-14T17:01:21.940" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="3456" PostId="2894" Score="5" Text="It's potable water that we're running out of, not water per se. Seawater is not actually very useful to us." CreationDate="2014-07-14T21:15:42.983" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="8484" PostId="2894" Score="0" Text="Most of the &lt;3% of freshwater found globally is locked in ice caps and aquifers. So a global water shortage is eminent if water resources management is poor." CreationDate="2017-05-03T07:10:26.940" UserId="3989" />
  <row Id="3457" PostId="2895" Score="1" Text="Just a suggestion to add to this - money is not the only limitation on desalinaton, but energy resources too. You've mentioned the energy required in terms of the cost of electricity, but for some nations (e.g. those who can't easily buy oil on the world market) such energy simply isn't available. Not to mention the worldwide implications from energy use if lots of people used desalination on a large scale. Energy and water tend to be quite closely linked (most methods of obtaining one require the other), and both are becoming increasingly scarce..." CreationDate="2014-07-15T09:07:54.430" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="3472" PostId="2895" Score="0" Text="Great answer. In the case of aquifers, can you explain why our waste water doesn't filter back into the aquifer and replenish the water we mined out?" CreationDate="2014-07-16T17:12:50.400" UserId="1065" />
  <row Id="3475" PostId="2895" Score="0" Text="@michelle that's not really relevant, and would be a better questions for geology.SE or geography.SE" CreationDate="2014-07-16T22:03:50.947" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3458" PostId="2896" Score="2" Text="Hello there, and welcome to the site. I think what you've written here is spot on. The thing is, it doesn't directly answer the question. And because we're a question &amp; answer site, rather than a discussion forum, answers really ought to directly tackle the question as asked. Would you like to edit your answer to add something that does that?" CreationDate="2014-07-15T11:13:53.417" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="3459" PostId="2897" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Asking which is more sustainable; an electric or steam oven is fine, but shopping recommendations are off-topic on this site." CreationDate="2014-07-15T17:23:16.337" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3462" PostId="2897" Score="1" Text="I (lazily) asked: what is a steam oven? Having Googled [steam oven](https://www.google.com.au/search?q=steam+oven), I can report to those who like me were ignorant that a steam oven cooks by electrically heating steam." CreationDate="2014-07-16T00:51:00.477" UserId="1325" />
  <row Id="3476" PostId="2897" Score="1" Text="depends on whether you care more about toxic materials, energy consumption, money or some combination of those and possibly other factors. How you use the oven will also have a major effect, and whether you can affect the way other people use the oven can have an even larger effect (at the extreme, people sometimes use their oven to heat the kitchen and a steam oven would work poorly for that)." CreationDate="2014-07-17T05:20:14.067" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3463" PostId="2898" Score="1" Text="it would also be worth comparing with methanol for local use. Engine conversion is harder, energy density is lower, but production is much easier. It's also more poisonous." CreationDate="2014-07-16T02:30:59.450" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3773" PostId="2898" Score="0" Text="Are you only interested in this from an [EROI](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_returned_on_energy_invested) point of view? Or should other negative effects that are generally associated with biofuels (e.g. deforestation, increased water usage and rising food prices) also be included in the answer?" CreationDate="2014-10-22T09:24:36.630" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3774" PostId="2898" Score="1" Text="Both. Both the EROI, and then that combining with other factors (that you mentioned) to give a final general metric, of general ecological sustainability; EROI I suppose being one of the main contributor metrics, since it has a big impact on how much a crop you have to plant in the first place. (for the same amount of energy return)" CreationDate="2014-10-22T09:42:49.897" UserDisplayName="user487" />
  <row Id="3464" PostId="2899" Score="1" Text="I hope my rather savage edit is ok, feel free to revert it. I chopped about half your question out because it was long and full of sub-sub-clauses (and parentheses)." CreationDate="2014-07-16T02:37:35.667" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3465" PostId="2899" Score="0" Text="Nah it was a good edit, thanks, much of it was apologising for bringing up a potentially problematic topic anyway, so thanks! I'll just grammatically improve one of the paragraphs though now, thanks!" CreationDate="2014-07-16T02:46:38.030" UserDisplayName="user487" />
  <row Id="3466" PostId="2899" Score="0" Text="It is a very broad question, and I suspect you'll look at my answer and say &quot;that's not what I wanted to know&quot;." CreationDate="2014-07-16T03:12:19.303" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3467" PostId="2899" Score="0" Text="Of course not, it was a helpful answer, and I appreciate your methodical reasoning and analysis! After all it is a kind of 'meta' question (albeit an important one) so I'm glad to start having it documented here. (without wanting it to be a discussion, mind you.)" CreationDate="2014-07-16T05:49:10.390" UserDisplayName="user487" />
  <row Id="3468" PostId="2900" Score="1" Text="Nice answer! But just one thing; a fair trade smartphone does exist (sort of). Check out the [FairPhone](http://www.fairphone.com) initiative who strive to create smartphones built with what they call 'conflict-free materials'. They released their first phone about a year ago. Although, in that phone not all materials are 100% conflict-free, that is the goal they are aiming for." CreationDate="2014-07-16T07:34:51.423" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3469" PostId="2900" Score="0" Text="@THelper I'd forgotten the fairphone, I recall reading about it and thinking &quot;hopefully they will eventually get there&quot;. Thanks for the reminder... They're also Europe-only right now, not that that would stop me re-shipping one if I really wanted it." CreationDate="2014-07-16T07:52:22.787" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3470" PostId="2901" Score="0" Text="are you sure that leather can be frozen without taking damage?" CreationDate="2014-07-16T10:36:23.680" UserId="803" />
  <row Id="3477" PostId="2901" Score="0" Text="That is a good point, and I will immediately admit, I have not actually tested it out directly yet. And furthermore, there's a difference between testing overnight, and testing it long-term over a period of several months or even years. Luckily, the solution to that appears to be applying natural beeswax or soy/palm wax (etc.) to protect the leather skin from drying out too much and cracking, and once I get round to testing myself I'll endeavour to try to remember to update my answer with my own findings here. I'll update my answer with this now, thanks!" CreationDate="2014-07-17T22:46:04.103" UserDisplayName="user487" />
  <row Id="3471" PostId="2904" Score="4" Text="Turn it over and write on the other side ;-)" CreationDate="2014-07-16T13:28:11.867" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="3473" PostId="2904" Score="1" Text="Well, is there a way to whiten it back at home?" CreationDate="2014-07-16T17:45:36.750" UserId="986" />
  <row Id="3474" PostId="2905" Score="0" Text="That's a great answer too. What I'm still kind of not hearing much though, is what I ask in the title - not whether, but *'how much'* does the former translate into the latter? I.e., what examples, or guidelines can be documented to show when and how the two *can be* correlated? It may require basic examples or tenets, but I feel it is important as the goal of the question is to try to equip oneself with working out when and where financial impacts do (but also don't), translate into ecological sustainability. Hmm." CreationDate="2014-07-16T21:29:58.270" UserDisplayName="user487" />
  <row Id="3490" PostId="2906" Score="1" Text="I will endeavour to try this out in the nearish future, as I bought a big amount of beeswax recently and likely have the cotton/hemp canvas/cloth necessary for it. Obviously, I'll report back here. Thanks!" CreationDate="2014-07-22T03:24:21.567" UserDisplayName="user487" />
  <row Id="3478" PostId="2907" Score="0" Text="Where do you live? Do your friends often get up in the middle of the night to vacuum?" CreationDate="2014-07-19T06:57:48.740" UserId="1462" />
  <row Id="3479" PostId="2907" Score="0" Text="I guess you're in Australia from your boinc site, but it would be useful to know if that's correct, and ideally which state you're in as that makes a difference." CreationDate="2014-07-19T12:02:46.463" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3480" PostId="2907" Score="0" Text="Yep, good detective work, I'm currently living in Sydney." CreationDate="2014-07-20T02:15:32.030" UserId="183" />
  <row Id="3481" PostId="2908" Score="0" Text="Wow, that's pretty neat although I can't find anything similar for Australia after a quick search.. The UK carbon content is &quot;green&quot; (relatively speaking, ahem) at night time, I suppose because wind &amp; hydro are still running and the higher-carbon generators are not used so much off-peak? Australia also has wind and there's the famous Snowy Mountains hydro scheme near Sydney.&#xA;&#xA;Interestingly, another site (http://www.realtimecarbon.org/) says that it's &quot;experimental only...designed to stimulate debate&quot;" CreationDate="2014-07-20T02:21:58.337" UserId="183" />
  <row Id="3482" PostId="2908" Score="2" Text="@eug wind, hydro, solar and nuclear. All of them have near-zero marginal cost (i.e. it costs the same to run them as not run them), so they tend to be used whenever they are available. From a quick search I haven't found anything similar for Aus - I guess it depends on the raw data being made available at sufficient temporal resolution. The best I could find for Aus was http://www.aemo.com.au/Electricity/Settlements/Carbon-Dioxide-Equivalent-Intensity-Index, which only gives daily data." CreationDate="2014-07-20T07:22:23.593" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="3485" PostId="2908" Score="0" Text="@SimonW good find. I looked but couldn't even find that. And Australia doesn't use nuclear so we can avoid questions about that. Although since we have uranium mines (in a world heritage area, no less!) we can't completely avoid the effects." CreationDate="2014-07-20T23:41:12.047" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3486" PostId="2908" Score="0" Text="@eug, I would doubt the &quot;greenness&quot; at any given moment is determined by the renewal generation, but rather because some types of fossil fuel generation are greener than others. Presumably, generation used during peak loads is less efficient." CreationDate="2014-07-21T04:05:08.553" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="3487" PostId="2908" Score="0" Text="@eug not necessarily - I don't know how the system in Australia works, in in the UK the cheapest sources are used first. Often efficiency translates into cheapness, but not always." CreationDate="2014-07-21T05:14:32.787" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="3491" PostId="2908" Score="0" Text="@SimonW I think it's the same in Australia - the issue at peak time is that the cheap &amp; efficient sources can't meet all that demand, so electricity has to come from the higher-cost generators." CreationDate="2014-07-22T12:40:27.553" UserId="183" />
  <row Id="3483" PostId="2909" Score="0" Text="Thanks for all that! Totally agree that the time of day strategy will have a significant impact only if thousands of people do it, hence the need to investigate it further. The other strategies you mentioned are probably even more effective but IMHO they're not so much better as complementary. Even with 100% green power one still creates demand on the fossil fuel sources as you write at the beginning and moving demand to less carbon-intensive periods will not reduce the amount of electricity bought from green generators." CreationDate="2014-07-20T10:10:30.863" UserId="183" />
  <row Id="3484" PostId="2909" Score="0" Text="I dunno about complementary so much as shifting demand has a small impact, but for the same effort you could reduce demand by at least that much. Most people only have a finite amount of energy to put into things like this, so it's a question of where best to focus that energy (I've seen a lot of &quot;good idea, just not very effective&quot; efforts). But you're right that moving demand away from peak times reduces the use of peaking generators that are all fossil fuelled (in Australia at least)." CreationDate="2014-07-20T23:37:56.163" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3488" PostId="2909" Score="0" Text="I don't know about electricity in Australia, but in other countries I've lived, electricity demand during peak hours meant coal powered generators being turn on for compensation (and water from hydropower being pumped back uphill during the night). Some sustainable sources of energy  (hydropower, windpower) prefer being used all-day evenly, so in a sense just using power during the day can make things worse from the sustainability point of view." CreationDate="2014-07-21T17:43:28.530" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="3489" PostId="2909" Score="1" Text="@Earthliŋ Australia's daily peak is 6-8pm at least during weekdays, and peaking plants are currently all fossil fuel. But we have large and increasing home PV generation so the OP's idea has some merit. But measuring demand is becoming harder because of the home PV's that often make only gross import and net usage values available to the network operator (ie, not including internal consumption)." CreationDate="2014-07-21T23:19:52.757" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="6911" PostId="2909" Score="0" Text="Also, we are seeing more, longer periods of [negative electricity prices](http://cleantechnica.com/2014/10/23/negative-electricity-prices-middle-of-day-south-australia-renewables/) due to coal plant inflexibility - the grid operator is actually [charging generators for taking their electricity](http://reneweconomy.com.au/2014/sa-renewables-help-deliver-negative-electricity-prices-middle-day-65391)." CreationDate="2016-05-17T01:23:50.383" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15754" PostId="2909" Score="0" Text="Usually the schemes to &quot;pay extra for renewable electricity&quot; are a BIG CON. In my area, I can purchase a wind or solar power plan, pay extra for it, and then use electricity during the night when it's calm. The fact that the plan was a wind or solar power plan didn't prevent me from using electricity at times when neither wind nor solar power is available." CreationDate="2022-05-06T16:44:46.893" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="3499" PostId="2910" Score="0" Text="In case of office paper, is the printer ink safe for the garden environment ?" CreationDate="2014-07-25T18:30:31.263" UserId="893" />
  <row Id="3492" PostId="2912" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Can you explain more about the 70%? Why is that the threshold?" CreationDate="2014-07-22T20:03:49.037" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4783" PostId="2912" Score="1" Text="Sorry for the rather late reply. As a rule of thumb, conventional production of electricity has an efficency of 0.3, i.e. from the primary energy, approx. 30% arrive as electricity on your plug at home. This is of course only on average. Your electic stove converts 100% of this electricity to heat, likewise the gas stove manages to get approx. 90% of heat to use when burning gas. So, calculating 3.333 units of primary energy are consumed per when heating 1 unit of energy electically. As a first approximation, if the electricity is produced only up to 30% from primary energy, you break even." CreationDate="2015-09-17T07:03:22.343" UserId="1581" />
  <row Id="4787" PostId="2912" Score="0" Text="Thanks for the explanation! Perhaps you can edit this extra information into your original answer? That would make it much more likely to attract upvotes." CreationDate="2015-09-17T18:12:03.847" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3520" PostId="2918" Score="0" Text="[Soylent Green](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_Green)?" CreationDate="2014-08-03T08:45:11.997" UserId="1325" />
  <row Id="3523" PostId="2918" Score="0" Text="Cremation is the opposite of sustainable: burning $200 worth of LP gas to reduce a body to ash and carbon dioxide." CreationDate="2014-08-06T01:12:44.690" UserId="1614" />
  <row Id="3537" PostId="2918" Score="2" Text="I think that it is very important that people be willing to donate their organs!  Just had to add that little tidbit." CreationDate="2014-08-11T17:30:52.760" UserId="746" />
  <row Id="5244" PostId="2918" Score="0" Text="@Jeff-InventorChromeOS Cremation uses around [300KWh](http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2005/oct/18/ethicalmoney.climatechange) of energy (gas+electricity_, In contrast, [USA per capita electrical use](http://energyalmanac.ca.gov/electricity/us_per_capita_electricity-2010.html) is around 1000KWh/month. 300KWh is the equivalent of around 10 gallons of propane -- around $40 worth at retail prices. Seems pretty inconsequential in comparison to removing one person entirely from the ecosystem." CreationDate="2015-12-30T08:25:23.013" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="3500" PostId="2921" Score="1" Text="I love the answer.  Sometimes people focus on hazards to the environment more so than benefits to the environment.  The last 3 options seem like they have potential to benefit the environment... contributing to the health of ecosystems." CreationDate="2014-07-28T12:48:29.183" UserId="746" />
  <row Id="3501" PostId="2921" Score="1" Text="@GavinPalmer Hard to say if they are beneficial. It probably depends on the person at hand and how many metals or other toxic substances are present in the body. One of the main reasons why the 2011 study I mentioned favors cryomation and resomation, is that those are the only ones where you can filter out toxic substances." CreationDate="2014-07-28T14:06:27.597" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4252" PostId="2921" Score="0" Text="Very comprehensive answer. But do you really expect toxic substances to be an issue for one corpse per tree (option 5)? Or dropping bodies in the sea compared to (say) Fukushima?" CreationDate="2015-03-31T21:24:49.780" UserId="2072" />
  <row Id="4253" PostId="2921" Score="1" Text="@Ghanima I’m just saying there has to be more research on this before you can say anything. The effect for 1 body may be negligible, but there are 7.2 billion people in the world who eventually all will die. Even if only 0.1% of that 7.2 billion gets a sea burial, that's still 7.2 million bodies and effects may build up." CreationDate="2015-04-01T07:20:23.953" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4326" PostId="2921" Score="1" Text="+1 for sky burial: you hand out your organs to those who need them, feed animals with your flesh and your loved ones can keep the bones!" CreationDate="2015-04-24T13:14:33.067" UserId="1876" />
  <row Id="3529" PostId="2925" Score="18" Text="I would just like to point out that **the greenest laptop you'll ever use is the one you already own**. Service your computer well, replace or upgrade components as needed, and install up-to-date software, and you'll save the earth from the chemical and energy wastes and pollution involved in creating your hardware. Obviously, complete upgrades are occasionally required, but I wanted to point out that buying a new &quot;green&quot; computer that you don't actually need isn't the &quot;green&quot; thing to do." CreationDate="2014-08-06T18:55:02.520" UserId="1594" />
  <row Id="3530" PostId="2925" Score="0" Text="Hey, I need a new loptop as my current one is near its expiry i feel." CreationDate="2014-08-07T06:52:50.197" UserId="1297" />
  <row Id="3531" PostId="2925" Score="2" Text="That's perfectly valid. I just wanted to post that bit of information. Sometimes people get a little over eager at the idea of going green and do more damage in the conversion than they would have if they just used what they already had." CreationDate="2014-08-07T11:10:39.283" UserId="1594" />
  <row Id="8956" PostId="2925" Score="0" Text="Hmm.. I guess, installing up-to-date software and using an old laptop are not exactly great bedfellows. Typing this from a 11 year old Compaq Presario V2000 that runs Windows XP, whose display card takes CPU to 100% to crash if I play 1080p videos, LoL. &#xA;Moreover, nowadays, good antivirus software seem to need their own computer inside a computer, LoL." CreationDate="2017-10-24T16:26:07.177" UserId="2734" />
  <row Id="13140" PostId="2925" Score="1" Text="Best option after just keeping the old one is to buy secondhand. Linux will keep old hardware running quite happily long after Windows has stopped supporting drivers and become to bloated to run." CreationDate="2020-12-02T19:19:52.283" UserId="1445" />
  <row Id="3503" PostId="2926" Score="9" Text="Do you have any references or links for that? On SO sites we prefer answers to be more than just unsupported opinion. For example, [Foxconn](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn_suicides) who assemble a lot of Apple products clearly fall into the &quot;terrible labour practices&quot; category." CreationDate="2014-07-29T22:08:52.020" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3789" PostId="2926" Score="1" Text="If you look at Apple on the [Rankabrand website](http://www.rankabrand.org/electronics/Apple) it does have the highest score of all large manufacturers. However, Apple still only gets 15 points out of 37. The main criticism is that there still is a lot of improvement possible when it comes to &quot;*transparency about recycling in its production and clearly increasing the life-cycle of products.*&quot; On the plus side &quot;*Apple is the electronics brand with the highest use of renewable energy (75%)*&quot;" CreationDate="2014-10-29T11:19:46.147" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3508" PostId="2927" Score="0" Text="Thanks for the links. I will have a look into them. Also, what do you think of iameco?" CreationDate="2014-07-30T08:49:14.827" UserId="1297" />
  <row Id="3509" PostId="2927" Score="0" Text="The iameco website looks great. Apparently they received [the first EU ecolabel for tablets](http://ec.europa.eu/environment/archives/ecolabel/news/archives/news_alert/sept2012.pdf). One drawback, I don't see any mention of social responsibility (labour conditions) anywhere." CreationDate="2014-07-30T09:26:33.007" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3524" PostId="2927" Score="0" Text="The Greenpeace and rankabrand reports seem to focus on whats discussed in the filings and PR, rather than what a company is actually doing. I wouldn't trust any company that claims its reduced GHG by &quot;85%&quot;.  That's a goal, not a reality." CreationDate="2014-08-06T01:26:26.340" UserId="1614" />
  <row Id="3526" PostId="2927" Score="0" Text="@Jeff-InventorChromeOS Rankabrand tries to [verify information from companies using external sources where possible](http://www.rankabrand.org/home/FAQ#FAQ13). It's probably not possible for an independent non-profit to check everything, but luckily nowadays incorrect information is often discovered and published by the media. If a company does supply false information it will be very bad publicity." CreationDate="2014-08-06T07:30:14.587" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3527" PostId="2927" Score="0" Text="Greenpeace mentions the following &quot;[Greenpeace International uses chemical testing of products, reports from industry observers, media reports and testing of consumer programs to check if company practice actually matches stated policy.](http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/climate-change/cool-it/Campaign-analysis/Guide-to-Greener-Electronics/FAQ/)&quot; in point 8 of their FAQ" CreationDate="2014-08-06T07:30:21.597" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8930" PostId="2927" Score="0" Text="For the rankings die-hards; you could also use the [EPEAT site](http://www.epeat.net) to find 'more-sustainable electronics' as they call it themselves, but personally I don't like the site because I always have a hard time finding the information I want there." CreationDate="2017-10-18T18:24:41.167" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3602" PostId="2928" Score="0" Text="There's about [1.5 billion cubic kilometres of water](http://water.usgs.gov/edu/earthhowmuch.html) on the planet. At 60 litres each, that's enough for 2.5 x10^16 people, or 25 million billion, roughly 5 million times as many people as exist today." CreationDate="2014-08-27T23:36:35.837" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3603" PostId="2928" Score="0" Text="Wow... So I guess I can stop feeling bad about drinking my 8 cups a day then." CreationDate="2014-08-28T00:32:07.370" UserId="405" />
  <row Id="13457" PostId="2928" Score="0" Text="@ScottGoodgame By drinking more, you're just urinating more, you won't gain weight or &quot;waste&quot; any more water globally." CreationDate="2021-02-17T08:07:43.460" UserId="2431" />
  <row Id="3511" PostId="2930" Score="1" Text="There are several websites where people offer stuff they no longer need for little or no money. For example [http://www.freecycle.org](https://www.freecycle.org/browse?noautodetect=1) seems to be big in the US and the UK." CreationDate="2014-07-31T13:15:03.453" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3512" PostId="2930" Score="1" Text="Be sure to check out the free section of Craigslist, or if you're in Canada, Kijiji as well. Lots of people have wood and even furniture to give away." CreationDate="2014-07-31T14:28:26.733" UserId="1091" />
  <row Id="3513" PostId="2930" Score="1" Text="Also check out building demolition sites as that's where you'll get free timber. Anything you have to buy will make it cheaper to buy Ikea reprocessed wood-like material already made into furniture." CreationDate="2014-07-31T23:16:16.483" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3515" PostId="2932" Score="1" Text="Excellent!  Now we just need to persuade our local council / recyling people to use this service rather than landfill the tapes - or even just add a note to their recycling websites that this facility exists for consumers." CreationDate="2014-08-01T10:25:17.277" UserId="1210" />
  <row Id="3519" PostId="2933" Score="0" Text="Please try to edit your answer to make it less conversational and more of a clear specific answer to the question, avoiding irrelevant detail that do not directly answer the question being asked." CreationDate="2014-08-03T00:39:15.707" UserId="20" />
  <row Id="3521" PostId="2934" Score="4" Text="Hello Natalie, and welcome to the site. What we're doing here is building an awesome body of questions and answers. While great answers may contain links to references, they really do need to stand alone and be self-contained too. Please can you edit your answer to include a summary of the relevant bits of the book that apply to the question as asked? It doesn't need to be an essay - just a dozen sentences or so that summarise the book's key arguments that directly apply to the question at the top of this page." CreationDate="2014-08-03T18:33:00.130" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="3522" PostId="2935" Score="0" Text="Thank you for your comments. Can you provide some links for such discussions at the EU parliament or for the studies concerning hormonal damage? I have used various brands, for example [this one](http://www.cmd-natur.de/teebaumoel-classic/), which lists (organically grown) Melaleuca Alternifolia Oil as ingredient." CreationDate="2014-08-05T16:50:50.947" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="3528" PostId="2935" Score="3" Text="Sure! You'll find the EU report for 2004 &#xA;http://ec.europa.eu/health/ph_risk/committees/04_sccp/docs/sccp_o_00c.pdf&#xA;for 2008 &#xA;http://ec.europa.eu/health/ph_risk/committees/04_sccp/docs/sccp_o_160.pdf &#xA;You can search for archives of the European Public Health commission's website  http://ec.europa.eu/health/ph_risk/committees/04_sccp/04_sccp_en.htm&#xA;This document mentions essential oils in general http://www.ifeat.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/EU-essential-oil-regulations-FP-Meschede.pdf&#xA;and a blog discusses it http://www.aromaconnection.org/2008/01/cropwatch-state.html" CreationDate="2014-08-06T18:17:45.837" UserId="1578" />
  <row Id="3532" PostId="2936" Score="0" Text="What is it that you are asking here? It seems that you are trying to answer the title question in your question text. It's fine if you want to answer your own question, but please do so in an answer, not in the question itself." CreationDate="2014-08-08T06:50:19.010" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3533" PostId="2936" Score="0" Text="Some detail about what you mean by &quot;sustainable&quot; would help, as the exact criteria will determine the answer (as is so often the case). I've been mulling this one for a day or so and still don't have an angle that would let me come up with an answer. The brutal one, of course, is that current evidence suggests that agriculture per se is not shown to be sustainable. Viz, any form old enough to be able to be seen as sustainable has been shown not to be. But again, define &quot;sustainable&quot;... does it mean &quot;can operate unchanged for 500 years&quot; or just &quot;for a human generation&quot;?" CreationDate="2014-08-08T11:42:46.457" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3525" PostId="2937" Score="4" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Can you provide more information on your claim that low-end hardware has less environmental impact? Any references for this?" CreationDate="2014-08-06T07:20:35.957" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3565" PostId="2940" Score="0" Text="I have actually found Zodia to work pretty well.  The catch is it doesn't repel mosquitos.  it only seems to keep them from biting, so if you brush yourself with the plant the mosquitos will land on you but won't bite.  Weird stuff...." CreationDate="2014-08-16T11:31:17.443" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="3570" PostId="2940" Score="0" Text="You apply it to your skin?  I haven't found many sources about Zodia other than a few blogs." CreationDate="2014-08-18T09:17:06.227" UserId="1614" />
  <row Id="3571" PostId="2940" Score="0" Text="Yeah.  I found out that's the way the people from Papua use it (brush the plant against your skin)." CreationDate="2014-08-18T09:45:03.897" UserId="130" />
  <row Id="3706" PostId="2943" Score="2" Text="The same question can also be found on [Chemistry SE](http://chemistry.stackexchange.com/q/15062) and [Electronics SE](http://electronics.stackexchange.com/q/124569). Please don't cross post on multiple sites. Instead choose the site which you think can answer it best. If nobody answers, then you can delete the question and ask it on another relevant site." CreationDate="2014-09-30T15:39:00.387" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3534" PostId="2944" Score="0" Text="Very good answer, especially the chart and the comment about economics. You forgot to mention wind as a form of mechanical stress, and UV light which reduces the elasticity of the encapsulant (making it easier for water or vapor to enter the system) made of EVA (ethyl vinyl acetate), which then at the same time may release acetic acid, which corrodes connections." CreationDate="2014-08-10T00:45:20.377" UserId="330" />
  <row Id="3535" PostId="2945" Score="3" Text="Recycling plastic-coated paper is hard because you'll need to separate the plastic from the paper. That's why most recycling programs don't accept it." CreationDate="2014-08-11T09:48:37.357" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3536" PostId="2945" Score="2" Text="I don't know much about recycling programs in the US, but according to [this presentation](http://ecocycle.org/files/pdfs/microplastics_in_compost_presentation.pdf) many US compost collection programs accept plastic-coated paper products, strangely enough!?. I'm not sure how they solve the problem of microplastics ending up in the compost (they probably don't!), so I think it would be best to either throw it in the general waste for now, or along with other plastics (if you have such a recycling scheme). Alternatively, you can also ask your local waste management facility for advice." CreationDate="2014-08-11T09:49:36.083" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3545" PostId="2946" Score="0" Text="Your 2nd to last sentence seems to imply you aren't concerned about insulation. What exactly is the purpose if not insulation? There's many fillers like wood, mud, bricks, gravel, sand, concrete. It all depends on what you are trying to do." CreationDate="2014-08-14T06:10:57.467" UserId="1614" />
  <row Id="3546" PostId="2946" Score="0" Text="@Jeff-InventorChromeOS I'm trying to close a small hole in my concrete floor. The hole is over a small inaccessible crawlspace. I've been told that the best way to fix it is to first preliminary close it by either nailing a piece of wood at the bottom of the hole (top of the crawlspace), or apply polyurethane foam. Once the wood or foam is in place I can pour cement over it. I was unsuccessful applying the wood because the available space is too small." CreationDate="2014-08-14T07:18:57.280" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3547" PostId="2946" Score="0" Text="I've a similar problem to that, actually. One area of my basement floor is failing but the crawlspace is too narrow to fix it from below. I'm probably going to get a contractor. If he suggests something, I'll post it." CreationDate="2014-08-14T07:30:09.417" UserId="1614" />
  <row Id="3540" PostId="2947" Score="2" Text="Possible duplicate of [Are electric cars as environmentally friendly as we think they are?](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/612/99)" CreationDate="2014-08-12T15:18:42.023" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3541" PostId="2947" Score="0" Text="@THelper you know, as I was writing my answer, I was sure I'd written something like this before. I agree that this is a duplicate." CreationDate="2014-08-13T07:58:08.127" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="3542" PostId="2947" Score="0" Text="@EnergyNumbers Ok, then I'll close this as a duplicate. I do think you've mentioned some interesting new information in your answer here (e.g. that electric vehicles tend to be lighter, I always thought they are heavier), so perhaps you can merge both answers somehow?" CreationDate="2014-08-13T08:37:12.933" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3538" PostId="2948" Score="1" Text="Awesome answer, makes sense. Just one followup: does PV = Photo Voltaic? i.e Solar Panels/energy?" CreationDate="2014-08-12T15:01:45.737" UserId="421" />
  <row Id="3539" PostId="2948" Score="0" Text="@unknownprotocol Yes." CreationDate="2014-08-12T15:13:40.010" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="3543" PostId="2949" Score="1" Text="What humidity? Cold air carries very little moisture." CreationDate="2014-08-14T02:44:45.830" UserId="1325" />
  <row Id="3549" PostId="2949" Score="2" Text="@andy256 perhaps the OP is referring to the condensation that occurs when air already within the room is cooled: the dew point of the existing air drops." CreationDate="2014-08-14T07:45:48.773" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="3553" PostId="2949" Score="0" Text="I should have asked the OP to clarify." CreationDate="2014-08-14T10:47:43.480" UserId="1325" />
  <row Id="3544" PostId="2950" Score="2" Text="Heated my apartment for several winters with just servers." CreationDate="2014-08-14T06:07:44.893" UserId="1614" />
  <row Id="3572" PostId="2950" Score="0" Text="@Jeff-InventorChromeOS that's a pretty good idea. Could you expand a bit on the setup and what kind of apartment/room you managed to heat?" CreationDate="2014-08-18T10:05:47.617" UserId="905" />
  <row Id="3573" PostId="2950" Score="1" Text="This was back in the mid-90s.  I was living in a 1 bedroom ground floor apartment.  I had 2 SGI 4d/20s and a low-end Windows box.  The combined energy concumption was easily 2000 Watts even when the machines were nearly idle.  Most of that is radiated as heat, so it was like running a 2000 Watt space heater continuously." CreationDate="2014-08-18T10:37:32.337" UserId="1614" />
  <row Id="3550" PostId="2951" Score="6" Text="I suspect one of the biggest gains from eating an optimal diet (whatever that is... there's so much conflicting info out there!) and getting optimal exercise would be that you'd enormously reduce the environmental cost of the healthcare industry." CreationDate="2014-08-14T07:50:27.243" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="3555" PostId="2951" Score="1" Text="@H I That's right, I know that for a fact already. Being healthier means less strain on the environment simply by not consuming as many (or any) pharmaceutical drugs, receiving complicated treatment, or surgery, meaning not only not consuming the resources put into and as a part of such treatment, but also less trips to the doctor/hospital as well. But I'm talking more specifically about *body energy* use, which I think is a highly interesting idea: energy sustainability, in relation to the environment. How can I put more of my body energy to use for sustainable energy consumption?" CreationDate="2014-08-14T23:12:00.173" UserDisplayName="user487" />
  <row Id="3556" PostId="2951" Score="0" Text="Rather than a &quot;smaller&quot; diet, a meat-free one is much less resource-intensive, but it's likely to be volumetrically larger. Similarly a healthy diet is likely to be more resource-intensive to process and transport because it's got less fat and sugar (= lower energy density). As well, if you eat healthy food you're likely to live longer and so consume more resources." CreationDate="2014-08-15T00:57:11.193" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3557" PostId="2951" Score="0" Text="@Mσᶎ Good thoughts and points, but I think that assessment is far too generalised. You assume all food has to be transported, but I actually grow my own food / am extremely close (within walking distance) of about 80% of the food I consume. I know health and sustainability do quite often come at odds with each other - but if you know that healthy diets and lifestyles will almost certainly result in less modern healthcare treatment (ok, that is a generalisation too), that is a massive factor you can't ignore either. In any case, it would be good to outline these here as per the question asks..." CreationDate="2014-08-15T01:56:33.503" UserDisplayName="user487" />
  <row Id="3558" PostId="2951" Score="3" Text="The trouble is that your question is extremely broad and general, so it's not answerable. Right at the start: are you trying to minimise your energy intake, or maximise the utility of your energy output?" CreationDate="2014-08-15T03:18:08.133" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3559" PostId="2951" Score="0" Text="'But what other ways can one use one's own body energy wisely [in the context I've given], and in general what principles / themes can one explore to put it into practice?'" CreationDate="2014-08-15T04:15:21.560" UserDisplayName="user487" />
  <row Id="3560" PostId="2951" Score="1" Text="From a reusing/saving energy perspective; the only thing that comes to mind is crawling together in bed or on the couch with your partners, kids or other housemates to keep warm in the winter so you need less energy for heating." CreationDate="2014-08-15T11:50:04.220" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3561" PostId="2951" Score="0" Text="As for energy expenditure, every activity that will reduce your ecological footprint will help. As Mσᶎ also pointed out, the longer you live the more resources you use. As the average Westerner has an [ecological footprint](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_ecological_footprint) larger than 1 earth, I'd say the best is to either do nothing and don't consume anything, or actively engage in bringing other people's eco-footprint down." CreationDate="2014-08-15T11:50:54.200" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3563" PostId="2951" Score="0" Text="@THelper: presumably mass murder (if done in an environmentally friendly way) would be best, then?" CreationDate="2014-08-16T01:37:24.960" UserId="1255" />
  <row Id="3564" PostId="2951" Score="0" Text="@Ⴖuі If you neglect all social aspects of sustainability and only focus on the environmental part, then you may be right. But such a lifestyle probably isn't sustainable ;-)" CreationDate="2014-08-16T06:33:17.320" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3567" PostId="2951" Score="0" Text="I think the anti-life conclusions in the comments above are very misguided. To assume that not being alive would be more environmentally sustainable than otherwise is to assume that your life would automatically involve destruction of the environment. Does it have to? What if you lived a natural herbivorous life that only re-planted what you consumed, and in fact, as an intelligent and caring creature with regards to these issues, managed to produce MORE in the environment than what you consumed? (I'm pretty sure that's all possible.)" CreationDate="2014-08-16T22:34:24.280" UserDisplayName="user487" />
  <row Id="3569" PostId="2951" Score="0" Text="My comment above was meant as a (bad) joke. Of course it is possible to lead a truely sustainable life. All I'm saying is that sadly enough this isn't easy to achieve and the average person doesn't lead a sustainable life. So if you are an average person you should spent your energy on improving this. Also, I still think your question is too broad to be answered here, but I hoping someone will prove me wrong and provide a good answer." CreationDate="2014-08-17T07:00:30.260" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8185" PostId="2953" Score="1" Text="The recycledrunners.com link is now broken." CreationDate="2017-02-16T08:53:44.007" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="10981" PostId="2954" Score="0" Text="When i was a student we made pancakes out of the leftovers: take whats left in the fridge, chop and slice, add to pancake batter. One thick pancake per person is a whole meal, add molasses and enjoy!" CreationDate="2019-05-05T14:41:23.580" UserId="5532" />
  <row Id="3574" PostId="2957" Score="0" Text="How much draft is there in your ceiling?" CreationDate="2014-08-19T12:48:29.940" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3575" PostId="2957" Score="0" Text="THelper : I'm concerned about the heat escaping through those holes into the attic" CreationDate="2014-08-19T12:56:20.877" UserId="1644" />
  <row Id="3576" PostId="2957" Score="0" Text="I understand, I'm just wondering how much of a problem this could be. In my house I didn't notice any draft whatsoever in the space above the downlights we have installed.&#xA;Also, halogen needs cooling too (in fact LED runs at cooler temperatures than halogen), so my first guess would be that the heat loss is similar." CreationDate="2014-08-19T14:16:49.423" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3580" PostId="2957" Score="0" Text="@THelper - don't know - I haven't been up to the roof to check. You're right that my halogen downlights aren't completely sealed either - there's more holes for LEDs though. But maybe the difference is negligible. Still, it would be interesting to know how much heat escapes from downlights in general and whether it's a concern - I can't seem to find any research about it." CreationDate="2014-08-19T23:44:08.657" UserId="1644" />
  <row Id="3581" PostId="2957" Score="0" Text="The exact numbers would very much depend on the local situation;  how big is the space above the downlights, how much insulation in your roof, which type of LED, etc. Also, I don't think it is much of a concern (but admittedly I'm not entirely sure)." CreationDate="2014-08-20T06:19:25.017" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3583" PostId="2957" Score="0" Text="@THelper LEDs indeed (need to) run at lower temperatures, which is partly why they are *more* in need of cooling :-) Incandescent lamps obviously have very hot filaments, but most of this heat is put out as IR in the beam. LEDs have cool beams, but a substantial proportion of that 5W is still being dissapated, from the fixture itself - and while incandescent lamps are designed to get hot, LEDs become less effective as their temperature rises." CreationDate="2014-08-21T12:41:09.990" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="3618" PostId="2958" Score="0" Text="I'd better say that an industry-limited (or -free) will help far more than this or that diet. However, that does not answer to the original question." CreationDate="2014-08-30T15:25:16.567" UserId="1674" />
  <row Id="3578" PostId="2959" Score="0" Text="What do those numbers refer to?" CreationDate="2014-08-19T22:52:42.030" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="3579" PostId="2959" Score="0" Text="@gerrit, The numbers correspond to what's inside the recycling symbol printed on the bag" CreationDate="2014-08-19T22:55:49.940" UserId="1013" />
  <row Id="11278" PostId="2959" Score="0" Text="Or avoid plastic bags all together.  We use cloth bags most of the time now." CreationDate="2019-08-06T04:02:40.240" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="3584" PostId="2962" Score="1" Text="Do bear in mind that observed average internal winter temperature, desired internal temperature, comfortable intenal temperature, and thermostat settings are four very different things. Cold British homes in 2010 means lots of things: poor-quality building stock, inadequately sized heating systems, a very cold winter, poverty, excess deaths, bad health from damp and mould, and so on." CreationDate="2014-08-21T20:56:36.967" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="4103" PostId="2962" Score="0" Text="By memory, it is about the same in Canada where on average the outside temperature is much lower. Houses and offices are warmed and chilled to a constant ideal, regardless of the outside temperature." CreationDate="2015-02-15T11:54:23.880" UserId="2029" />
  <row Id="12386" PostId="2965" Score="1" Text="Not “peddle power” but “pedal power”!" CreationDate="2020-02-26T11:27:46.333" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="3589" PostId="2968" Score="0" Text="I think this is effectively a duplicate of [this](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/1013/48) - an answer there, would answer the question here." CreationDate="2014-08-25T08:45:23.503" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="3590" PostId="2968" Score="1" Text="Annoying, can't mark it as a duplicate because there's no an answer (yet). Although this is a simpler question, a valid answer is &quot;yes&quot; :)" CreationDate="2014-08-26T06:07:47.270" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3591" PostId="2971" Score="3" Text="polystyrene is very flammable, and the smoke is very toxic. So yes, huge safety issues. To address gaps you might be better off with smaller pieces, or the opposite - reform it into big pieces that fill the cavities exactly." CreationDate="2014-08-26T06:08:50.997" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3598" PostId="2971" Score="2" Text="Also, it might not be legal to do this - many housing regulations specify flammability/fire resistance of materials used in ceiling cavities. And your insurance company might react badly to &quot;I piled flammable stuff in my attic and now my house has burned down&quot;." CreationDate="2014-08-27T01:51:03.193" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3594" PostId="2973" Score="1" Text="Related question, but not a duplicate (since the asker had outdoor space): http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/7/15" CreationDate="2014-08-26T21:12:45.757" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="3597" PostId="2973" Score="1" Text="A worm farm may work better, but is more dependent on a reliable flow of food waste/worm food. Small composting units tend to be very responsive to exactly what you put into them, where worms care less, but if you don't feed them they either escape or die." CreationDate="2014-08-27T01:40:07.927" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3605" PostId="2973" Score="1" Text="What are you going to do with the compost? When reading your question I also thought about vermicomposting, but if you want to use the compost for your indoor plants then vermicomposting is not really suitable because the resulting compost may still contain worm eggs. When you add the compost to your plants and the eggs hatch, then worms may start crawling out of your plants." CreationDate="2014-08-28T19:35:42.723" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3641" PostId="2973" Score="0" Text="Yes, you are right. My main use would be indoor plants." CreationDate="2014-09-08T02:19:41.573" UserId="245" />
  <row Id="3596" PostId="2974" Score="1" Text="This doesn't seem to answer the question at all, it's anecdata on the related &quot;how long does silicone last&quot; question. Can you please at least try to answer?" CreationDate="2014-08-27T01:36:08.447" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3764" PostId="2976" Score="0" Text="Actually wholesale prices for electricity can be 1/10 of the retail price or lower. Tiwai Point aluminium smelter [pays about 1/4 retail](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_Aluminium_Smelters#Electricity), for example." CreationDate="2014-10-21T01:46:35.167" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="4306" PostId="2976" Score="1" Text="For some actual numbers on this, see this question on Skeptics: http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/q/27394" CreationDate="2015-04-18T14:44:11.467" UserId="1053" />
  <row Id="6995" PostId="2976" Score="0" Text="Panels are generally not economically worthwhile without subsidy" CreationDate="2016-05-26T23:08:31.803" UserId="3423" />
  <row Id="7015" PostId="2976" Score="1" Text="@NeilTyson Generally is probably too general. In NZ (not vastly different to US) a case may be made for a sensible PV installation. IOt is possible to pay too much and get too little but paybacks inside system lifetime using proper rate of return calculations are possible." CreationDate="2016-05-29T08:17:22.487" UserId="318" />
  <row Id="3606" PostId="2979" Score="0" Text="How much leachate is produced doesn't depend on the type of worms, but on how much excessive water is in the bin. Please be warned that there is conflicting information on the internet about the usefulness of this liquid (a.k.a. leachate). Many people claim that leachate is a wonderful fertilizer. It can be, but the problem is that leachate can also be full of phytotoxins depending on how your composting process is going. More information also on [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermicompost#As_fertilizer) and [this article](http://www.naturesfootprint.com/leachate-vs-worm-compost-tea)" CreationDate="2014-08-28T19:58:43.117" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3707" PostId="2980" Score="0" Text="I guess you mean feral cats and not domesticated ones?" CreationDate="2014-09-30T15:46:29.370" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3708" PostId="2980" Score="0" Text="The distinction is a bit looser where I live, rural farms in the Colombian Andes." CreationDate="2014-09-30T17:24:15.470" UserId="1662" />
  <row Id="3599" PostId="2981" Score="0" Text="How would you do it?  I have a .22 rifle but they are so cute.  The veterinarian charges around 15 dollars to put a cat down.  Bury or compost the body?" CreationDate="2014-08-27T21:43:19.663" UserId="1662" />
  <row Id="3600" PostId="2981" Score="2" Text="Well, trap them and take them to a shelter, that way the possibility of finding a home is introduced and in worse cases the shelter may need to put them down (you won't have to), that way you won't be faced with doing the dirty-work." CreationDate="2014-08-27T21:48:11.047" UserId="315" />
  <row Id="3601" PostId="2981" Score="1" Text="A rural relative used to trap them and take them for a swim. While still in the cage. It was too dangerous to get let 10kg of angry feral cat out. Just saying." CreationDate="2014-08-27T23:21:29.927" UserId="1325" />
  <row Id="3604" PostId="2983" Score="2" Text="Bokashi composting indeed is odorless (as long as you keep the bin closed). When a Bokashi bin is full you keep it fermenting for about two weeks. However, after those two weeks the bin contents still smell and you should bury it  so it turns into good compost. It doesn't seem like the OP has a space (ideally a garden) to do this." CreationDate="2014-08-28T19:31:21.413" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4810" PostId="2984" Score="0" Text="There is an excellent website dedicated to conserving water. It's called [Save Water Slogans](http://savewaterslogans.com). http://savewaterslogans.com" CreationDate="2015-09-22T22:39:51.227" UserDisplayName="user2599" />
  <row Id="3607" PostId="2985" Score="1" Text="The worms you harvest from a backyard (depends on where you live, but often [Lumbricus terrestris](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lumbricus_terrestris)), usually aren't the same as the worms that are most commonly used in vermicomposting ([Eisenia fetida](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eisenia_fetida)). Common earthworms aren't as resilient and don't reprocreate as quickly as vermicomposting worms, so you basically end up doing 'regular' composting." CreationDate="2014-08-28T20:02:56.017" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3609" PostId="2985" Score="1" Text="Decomposing the organic material is not the singular responsibility of the earthworms. Without the inoculation of microbial organisms in the compost, the process will not proceed. Hence why the scraps should always be moist and certain optimum temperature must be maintained. The oxidation performed by the microbes will dissipate heat and the earthworms will migrate to and fro from the organic materials depending on the temperature." CreationDate="2014-08-28T21:25:28.920" UserId="1667" />
  <row Id="3610" PostId="2985" Score="1" Text="Not all worms found in the soil will do, hence the focus on the ones which cling to outdoor composts which are in contact with the soil. Again, with the inoculation of microbes and the breakdown of organic material to simpler compounds, the earthworms that can be used for vermicomposting will naturally cling towards the nutrient-rich compost when the heat dissipated from oxidation subsides to an optimal range." CreationDate="2014-08-28T21:29:06.427" UserId="1667" />
  <row Id="3611" PostId="2985" Score="1" Text="Both composts I was inspired from were kept in rooms at 17-19° C, no perceivable humidity and I noted that there was faintly any smell from the surrounding stored produce. There was odor in the immediate surrounding of the composts and I would attribute that to the decomposing material on the top and the fact that wood, both breathable and suitable for bacterial growth, was used for construction. I can assume, perhaps wrongly, given that organisms are constantly reproducing and dying off, in small, humid, warm and enclosed rooms the surroundings surfaces may be transformed to harbor more life." CreationDate="2014-08-28T22:06:13.977" UserId="1667" />
  <row Id="3615" PostId="2986" Score="1" Text="Doesn't everyone already wipe the water off? Otherwise you end up with damp towels which is gross." CreationDate="2014-08-28T23:07:02.997" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3616" PostId="2986" Score="3" Text="@Mσᶎ Everyone? Definitely not. I don't have the opportunity to shower with other people very often, but when I do (communal showers in a sports facility), I think people wiping off excess water before using the towel are still a minority." CreationDate="2014-08-28T23:52:08.167" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="3716" PostId="2986" Score="0" Text="I think hair length makes more of a difference in towel usage than water left on the body. I've found that a small (hand-towel sized) towel is more than sufficient to dry myself off (without any pre-wiping), but I have very short hair. My wife, who is smaller than me but with shoulder length hair, uses a full-size towel, and her towel is more damp than mine. Our climate is dry enough that towels dry completely within a few hours, so I don't think there'd be any advantage to pre-wiping." CreationDate="2014-10-03T18:45:55.037" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="3613" PostId="2987" Score="0" Text="Point 5 would immediately introduce considerable reduction in my apartment! Would it be possible to avoid the use of soaps altogether which require excessive use of water adequately  remove the soap deposits, given that I do not expect to significantly accumulate anything but what is released by my body on the surface of the skin. Is it possible to treat the water used for rinsing with the washcloth to maintain cleanliness, perhaps adding baking soda or vinegar and additionally emulsifying coconut oil as well, to save water which would otherwise be required for subsequent rinsing?" CreationDate="2014-08-28T22:23:01.617" UserId="1667" />
  <row Id="3614" PostId="2987" Score="1" Text="IME greywater that's very filthy soapy water from a sponge bath will be unusable for anything, and is better discarded. But if you're washing soap off in a shower that water is fine. Technically it's blackwater not greywater, but our garden was fine with it." CreationDate="2014-08-28T23:05:53.807" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3617" PostId="2987" Score="0" Text="@FilipDupanović you could try omitting soap, but monitor - if you smell bad or a yeast infection grows in a skin fold, you'll need soap to kill bacteria" CreationDate="2014-08-29T14:36:38.170" UserId="1053" />
  <row Id="4110" PostId="2988" Score="0" Text="Solar EROI also depends on location. For Germany, it's 3.9 according to [this page](http://energytransition.de/2014/09/renewables-ko-by-eroi/)." CreationDate="2015-02-16T11:15:31.940" UserId="1458" />
  <row Id="4111" PostId="2988" Score="0" Text="@CeesTimmerman Yes, EROI does depend on location, but also on your method of calculation (which processes/parts of construction and maintenance do you include or not).&#xA;The article you link to seems to refer to the same paper I mentioned in my answer. I didn't mention Germany so thank you for pointing this out, I will edit my answer and include it. On another note; one thing that is still unclear to me is how they derived the 3.9 (in figure 3) since that number cannot be found anywhere else in the paper." CreationDate="2015-02-16T11:41:37.763" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4112" PostId="2988" Score="0" Text="The 3.9 is the average between roof (4.0) and field (3.8) from table 3 of [the PDF in the 3rd paragraph](http://festkoerper-kernphysik.de/Weissbach_EROI_preprint.pdf)." CreationDate="2015-02-16T14:41:10.370" UserId="1458" />
  <row Id="4113" PostId="2988" Score="0" Text="@CeesTimmerman That's probably it, although just taking an average seems rather dubious to me." CreationDate="2015-02-16T14:58:52.313" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4114" PostId="2988" Score="1" Text="It's 2102 MJ (roof) vs 2172 MJ (field), so close enough to round like that." CreationDate="2015-02-16T15:41:22.447" UserId="1458" />
  <row Id="6976" PostId="2988" Score="0" Text="This answer is all vague statements with no primary source" CreationDate="2016-05-26T06:19:30.700" UserId="3423" />
  <row Id="6982" PostId="2988" Score="3" Text="@NeilTyson My main argument is that a definite answer is not possible because there is no single agreed-upon method of calculating EROI." CreationDate="2016-05-26T11:28:39.967" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="6984" PostId="2988" Score="0" Text="That isn't a primary source" CreationDate="2016-05-26T11:54:22.563" UserId="3423" />
  <row Id="6990" PostId="2988" Score="5" Text="@NeilTyson primary sources are a bad idea in this case, meta-analyses are much better for broad comparisons. Otherwise you end up saying &quot;this exact item has these values&quot; but have no way of knowing how unusual &quot;this exact item&quot; is, and how it compares to anything else. The measurements are likely to be non-comparable as well, since they'll probably be done in ways that are easy for the exact item. Much better to use standard measures and a comparative study with consistent criteria.That's if you actually want an answer, of course, rather than &quot;I'm just asking questions&quot; that never stop." CreationDate="2016-05-26T22:55:35.640" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="6993" PostId="2988" Score="0" Text="It would be nice to see a primary source rather than just claims. None of the meta analyses studies cite primary sources, they more or less pluck a number out of thin air" CreationDate="2016-05-26T23:05:13.897" UserId="3423" />
  <row Id="12713" PostId="2988" Score="0" Text="Can you explain what it means to &quot;buffer excess energy&quot;? Does this mean you ignore energy the panels produce at times when there's no demand on the grid?" CreationDate="2020-07-07T17:20:17.007" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12714" PostId="2988" Score="1" Text="@LShaver it means storing unused energy for later usage. So yes, if you don't buffer you can't include the produced energy in your EROI calculation for times when there is no need" CreationDate="2020-07-07T17:27:12.253" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3620" PostId="2990" Score="1" Text="Thanks! Do you have some references for any of this information? I'd be interested in learning more :-)" CreationDate="2014-08-30T21:35:36.167" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="3621" PostId="2991" Score="3" Text="Most of the treatments that have no side effects suffer the slight problem that they have no positive effects either - homeopathy being the cliche example. &quot;better than placebo&quot; is actually a real barrier that many treatments fail to clear, including an awful lot that work for many people. They work purely through the placebo effect, although interestingly many don't work as well as &quot;pure&quot; placebos. (&quot;new - pure placebo - no harmful additives!&quot;)" CreationDate="2014-09-02T09:42:52.517" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3622" PostId="2991" Score="0" Text="Also, &quot;close to nature&quot; is exactly what most people want to get away from. I'd rather die in hospital at 90 than starve to death at 50 when my teeth erode away, unnatural though false teeth are." CreationDate="2014-09-02T09:46:09.760" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3623" PostId="2991" Score="0" Text="Please define what makes a medicine (or anything else) &quot;natural&quot;." CreationDate="2014-09-02T09:47:57.837" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="3624" PostId="2991" Score="1" Text="I'm also not really sure what answer the asker is expecting - surely not a list of every known or alleged &quot;natural remedy&quot;?" CreationDate="2014-09-02T09:49:35.747" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="3625" PostId="2991" Score="1" Text="@SimonW that's exactly what they're asking (I quote): **What are all the examples of such treatments** It's a really bad question, unanswerable as well as unclear. But we have an answer, so it seems unreasonable to vote to close." CreationDate="2014-09-02T09:50:47.970" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3626" PostId="2991" Score="0" Text="Sorry,the question was a bit confusing, I have edited it." CreationDate="2014-09-02T16:43:48.687" UserId="836" />
  <row Id="3628" PostId="2991" Score="1" Text="&quot;There can be thousands of medicines in medicinal market which are not undergone proper testing.&quot; - citation needed. In which jurisdictions does this happen?" CreationDate="2014-09-02T18:25:11.093" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="3630" PostId="2991" Score="0" Text="[Marijuana](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_(drug)) is natural and very effective against chronic pains. But it does have side effects such as memory and cognition problems." CreationDate="2014-09-03T11:50:26.643" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3627" PostId="2992" Score="0" Text="A bit of confusion in the question, have edited it. And another thing to notice is that many modern medicines lack the long term testing criteria due to a number of negative factors such as competition for patents." CreationDate="2014-09-02T17:51:49.053" UserId="836" />
  <row Id="3629" PostId="2994" Score="0" Text="Perhaps you should be specific in your question that you're not asking for things that cure diseases, you just want alternatives to medicine." CreationDate="2014-09-02T22:46:20.883" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3642" PostId="2994" Score="1" Text="@Mσᶎ perhaps they should be specific in their question that they're here to make a point, not to seek answers to a question ;-)" CreationDate="2014-09-08T08:40:57.887" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="3631" PostId="2995" Score="5" Text="This question is somewhat hypothetical. For example, how exactly are you going to bury it? Do you assume this is always safe, or should possible answers take into account the possibility of leakage and polluting groundwater?" CreationDate="2014-09-04T09:38:07.653" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3632" PostId="2995" Score="0" Text="Thanks. I guess it can be difficult to tackle such important sustainability questions, with such successful scientific accuracy and method. I hope here we can develop something that helps enough in the middle. I'll specify such parameters in the question in a forthcoming edit :)." CreationDate="2014-09-04T20:08:13.093" UserDisplayName="user487" />
  <row Id="3634" PostId="2995" Score="2" Text="This is one of those times that we need to examine what &quot;sustainable&quot; means. I think you are mostly using it to mean &quot;less polluting&quot; - but for example, if you don't recycle it then the materials aren't available for future use, which is probably less sustainable. I suspect a clear answer will require more clarity as to what exact thing you want to optimise for." CreationDate="2014-09-07T08:08:17.050" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="3639" PostId="2995" Score="0" Text="Pollution (if not stopped in terms of making a contribution to it) results in unsustainability though, which is not just about material resources but large-scale and long-term ecological strain too. However you're right about the 'benefit' of re-using the extracted materials into the equation, so I'll add that in to make that clear, concluding that a weigh-up of these factors (including whether the usage of *other* resources by the factory just to extract and make available the ones from the battery reduce its benefit anyway), and others that haven't been stated yet!" CreationDate="2014-09-07T20:51:12.417" UserDisplayName="user487" />
  <row Id="3643" PostId="2995" Score="3" Text="No matter where the answers lead you, a small improvement of sustainability is using up the battery completely, say, through a project like [Vampire Flashlight](http://makezine.com/projects/vampire-flashlight/). Batteries too drained to run most common appliances still have quite a bit of power in them." CreationDate="2014-09-08T21:35:17.267" UserId="188" />
  <row Id="6487" PostId="2995" Score="0" Text="Metal mining/refining is *typically* much more energy intensive than metal recycling, even if your battery is fairly harmless (e.g. zinc-carbon)." CreationDate="2016-02-18T16:52:49.857" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="6496" PostId="2995" Score="0" Text="*THE* big issue with batteries, as you touched on, is the leaching out of dangerous metals. That is the main reason that they are recycled in many countries, even if extra money/energy has to be put into that." CreationDate="2016-02-21T19:44:09.463" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="4671" PostId="2996" Score="2" Text="As an update, the first FIT payment I received was approx £200, based on the first five months of operation (September thru February), so I'd maybe expect around £500 per year rebate. Everyone will be different, but that should give an idea, Bills also appear to be cheaper, but I have no numbers, but there are other factors coming into play here too (someone moved out)" CreationDate="2015-08-09T20:38:17.917" UserId="1479" />
  <row Id="3640" PostId="2997" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Thank you for sharing, but Nike reusing shoes has already been mentioned in [this answer](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/a/770/99)." CreationDate="2014-09-07T22:36:24.320" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3644" PostId="2999" Score="0" Text="It's not as simplistic as just calories - many hormones provide energy to the body (some of which, like serotonin, are simply provided from the unlimited source of the sun), and if you run out of calories you burn fat (and also even if you still have calories it doesn't mean you have the energy to burn the rest, again, often regulated by energy-giving or draining hormones) so it can't just be calorie input/output in the equations - but I have appreciated the thoughts, and have upvoted. Thanks" CreationDate="2014-09-09T00:59:05.413" UserDisplayName="user487" />
  <row Id="3658" PostId="2999" Score="3" Text="Hormones regulate energy usage in the body/cells; they aren't an actual energy source (and if they were, their intake would be counted at a calorie source). Additionally, hormones aren't provided by sunlight; some are generated in response to sunlight, but we don't meaningfully absorb any energy from sunlight beyond any warmth it provides. Although it's true that for any given day, it's much more complex than simple calories in/out,  all of the energy you expend is derived from calories you consumed and over the long term, calorie input and output must balance." CreationDate="2014-09-10T16:41:20.260" UserId="1686" />
  <row Id="12387" PostId="2999" Score="0" Text="“Huge” is an exaggeration, but “significant” would be perfectly reasonable, after all US consumption is way above sustainable, and a tenth of that is worth using well. And since they said “sometimes”, they may be referring to peak power, which is far higher. [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_power#Available_power) gives 80W basal rate, 150W for an average fit person for an hour, 400W for a top cyclist for an hour (1kW in short bursts): plenty for some lighting and a laptop, too little for cooking." CreationDate="2020-02-26T11:49:49.003" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="3645" PostId="3000" Score="0" Text="On point 1 you are so wrong it's laughable. Because of the number of layers in a tetrapak, huge amounts of energy are needed to separate the layers. It is even debatable if recycling terapaks is environmental friendly." CreationDate="2014-09-09T03:18:46.787" UserId="1462" />
  <row Id="3646" PostId="3000" Score="9" Text="@Aron There is no need to laugh about a perfectly good question!'" CreationDate="2014-09-09T05:39:15.097" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3648" PostId="3000" Score="0" Text="@THelper I agree its a perfectly good question. But it is unfortunate how bad tetrapaks can be for the environment...To be clear, I did not mean it as laughing at ignorance." CreationDate="2014-09-09T05:46:32.637" UserId="1462" />
  <row Id="3649" PostId="3000" Score="3" Text="There are two interesting posts on threehugger that mention several pros and cons of Tetra Paks, [here](http://www.treehugger.com/corporate-responsibility/in-what-world-can-you-call-tetra-pak-green.html) and [here](http://www.treehugger.com/green-architecture/in-defense-of-tetrapak.html). &#xA;The main con of Tetra Paks seems to be, as Aron already suggested, the difficulty and energy needed for recycling. The energy needed to create them is also high. The main pros are less energy for transportation and Tetra Pak is working on raising recycling awareness and increase the number of recycled items." CreationDate="2014-09-09T06:00:23.637" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="9184" PostId="3000" Score="0" Text="I've heard one reason for tomatoes in tetrapack vs cans is that cans have BPA lining and acidic foods may react with it, so tetrapacks are &quot;safer&quot;.  (I can't find a reliable link)&#xA;So the packaging switch you've observed may be more related to these concerns rather than recycling concerns" CreationDate="2018-01-13T11:08:55.980" UserId="2493" />
  <row Id="12607" PostId="3000" Score="2" Text="The impact of transport on the carbon footprint of our food isn't as big as you might think -- check out this great study from Our World in Data: [You want to reduce the carbon footprint of your food? Focus on what you eat, not whether your food is local](https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local)" CreationDate="2020-05-06T13:45:24.627" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="3657" PostId="3001" Score="0" Text="It's frustrating that this differs so much place to place. Cambridge was good, but Malvern (where we've moved to) is in the dark ages as regards recycling. Tapes? They don't even collect glass." CreationDate="2014-09-10T08:13:47.737" UserId="1210" />
  <row Id="3650" PostId="3002" Score="2" Text="Could it be that before, the liquid disappeared into the ground and/or ran down the slope without you noticing? And in the new place the water can't disappear into the ground that easily?" CreationDate="2014-09-09T08:44:18.860" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3656" PostId="3002" Score="0" Text="@THelper - Yes, it's possible. This explanation would mean everything is OK with composting process but I'm just not sure." CreationDate="2014-09-10T07:15:04.770" UserId="60" />
  <row Id="3651" PostId="3003" Score="1" Text="Do you mean wet-cell lead acid batteries?" CreationDate="2014-09-09T09:27:30.340" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="3655" PostId="3003" Score="1" Text="@HighlyIrregular - I updated the question to make more clear which batteries I meant (all kinds of button cell batteries)." CreationDate="2014-09-10T07:10:24.997" UserId="60" />
  <row Id="3667" PostId="3003" Score="0" Text="I can't speak specifically to batteries in Europe, but in the United States, we have had an issue where ewaste recycling became relatively profitable due to shipping the waste off to countries with less stringent worker and environmental protections for destruction and recycling. Usually these came in the form of free ewaste collection, rather than them paying you for dead batteries, but again, that's in the US." CreationDate="2014-09-13T00:27:20.470" UserId="64" />
  <row Id="3663" PostId="3004" Score="1" Text="Welcome to sustainability.SE! Perhaps you could provide a link or a little explanation for those of us not familiar with what a Rocket Stove is?" CreationDate="2014-09-12T07:31:31.297" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="3664" PostId="3004" Score="0" Text="Hi @SimonW, see this post http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/a/3005/1688" CreationDate="2014-09-12T07:38:59.300" UserId="1688" />
  <row Id="3666" PostId="3004" Score="0" Text="Great! Perhaps edit that link into the question?" CreationDate="2014-09-12T08:26:58.070" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="3820" PostId="3004" Score="1" Text="[This related question](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/3120/99) now has an answer which may also be helpful here." CreationDate="2014-11-12T08:50:23.767" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="10337" PostId="3005" Score="0" Text="The ratio of feed tube to heat riser should be about 1:3 or 1:4 ie. the heat riser is at least 3x the height of the feed tube.  Otherwise the feed tube acts as a competing riser." CreationDate="2018-10-29T23:59:08.057" UserId="5517" />
  <row Id="3654" PostId="3006" Score="2" Text="Even at 50% burning wood can be sustainable. The two are not really related, except that it usually becomes easier to do something sustainably if you do it more efficiently. The cliche &quot;cabin in the woods&quot; where the supply of sustainable timber far exceeds the need for timber, for example." CreationDate="2014-09-09T23:45:30.963" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3791" PostId="3007" Score="2" Text="If your living space is airtight and insulated enough, &quot;waste&quot; body heat can make a significant contribution to space heating - e.g. see [the passivhaus specs](http://www.passivhaustrust.org.uk/what_is_passivhaus.php)" CreationDate="2014-10-29T12:27:25.793" UserId="1445" />
  <row Id="3669" PostId="3009" Score="0" Text="Are you sure there's no respiration taking place in a compost heap? I though a lot of what happened was oxidation of carboniferous material producing carbon dioxide, water and some methane (mostly from anaerobic activity)? Sure, most of it was there to start with, but it would an interesting stat to know." CreationDate="2014-09-16T04:21:44.253" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3699" PostId="3009" Score="0" Text="@Mσᶎ you are right, my wording wasn't very accurate. I've revised it." CreationDate="2014-09-25T09:56:52.653" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3681" PostId="3010" Score="0" Text="I just had a pair of shoes wear out on me in a rather horrifying two months.  I know of a good shoe repair shop locally.  Would they be able to repair them so that they'd be like your Aldos and last a really long time?  Ten years would be fantastic.  (My shoes are New Balances, and I have pretty finicky feet, so I'd much prefer to repair my existing shoes than to try and find another brand that would work for me.)" CreationDate="2014-09-19T16:08:40.513" UserId="1704" />
  <row Id="3670" PostId="3017" Score="0" Text="Not qualified to answer, but it is a useful question. Most batteries that I assume you are asking about (AA, AAA, C, D, etc.) are so small that I would think the recycling process would be inefficient. That is, the ratio of casing material to battery content is relatively high and and the cases seem difficult to remove cleanly, resulting in poor recycling efficiency." CreationDate="2014-09-16T20:43:06.030" UserId="1123" />
  <row Id="3672" PostId="3020" Score="1" Text="No experience with this myself, but I did read several interesting articles on tumblers. '*[In general, our compost tumblers cycle a load in about half the time when compared to the bin.](http://eartheasy.com/blog/2012/08/compost-tumblers-vs-compost-bins-pros-cons/)*'. And '*[Compost tumblers tend to be summer workers. Unless they're very well insulated, cold weather prevents them from heating up fully.](http://www.growveg.com/growblogpost.aspx?id=266)*'" CreationDate="2014-09-17T10:20:59.897" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3673" PostId="3022" Score="2" Text="*Paint them bright colors and call them Art* :) I was thinking more calling them a Natural Gym and getting people to pay to turn them :). I think capacity/space is going to be the issue. We have a huge (by UK standards) garden so there ought to be space, but that just means even more source material to find composting space for.  Also cost is a preventative factor unless I follow the other Q and build one, err, several." CreationDate="2014-09-17T14:02:17.333" UserId="1210" />
  <row Id="3691" PostId="3022" Score="1" Text="If you have the space a pile or two is probably a better bet. Even if all you do is periodically shift the top 20cm onto the other bin, empty it, then shift everything from the full bin into the now-empty one, you are getting 90% of the benefit of a collection of rotary compost bins. The shift rotates the compost, and emptying ... gives you compost. I use scrap (untreated!) pallets to make bins, to give you an idea of a good size for a &quot;big compost bin&quot;." CreationDate="2014-09-24T06:21:56.613" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3692" PostId="3022" Score="0" Text="Pallet compost bins are common at Permablitzes.. http://www.permablitz.net/picasaphotos/?albumid=5927907019569929281&amp;photoid=5928906259853311218 and http://www.permablitz.net/picasaphotos/?albumid=5898215916177719825&amp;photoid=5898216672307565490 for example (totally not my fault, I swear)" CreationDate="2014-09-24T06:29:32.450" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3674" PostId="3023" Score="0" Text="Great and thorough answer." CreationDate="2014-09-17T19:21:55.390" UserId="1662" />
  <row Id="3679" PostId="3024" Score="0" Text="Does it really take two years to have firewood dried to reasonable levels?" CreationDate="2014-09-19T13:46:39.793" UserId="679" />
  <row Id="3683" PostId="3024" Score="0" Text="@Sharptooth: Yes.  Two years is a minimum in our climate.  (Very cold long winters, cool but dry summers.)  Much of the UK will see improvement for 3 or 4 years. ***  Drying time also depends on average distance to cut face -- smaller splits dry faster, and distance to the end of the chunk -- shorter chunks dry faster. -- and the species of wood.  Open grain woods dry faster.  As an example birch stored as unsplit chunks will rot before drying out." CreationDate="2014-09-19T18:50:47.860" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="7555" PostId="3024" Score="0" Text="You can buy cheap-but-unreliable wood moisture testers online for very little. They're useless for comparing very different timbers in very different places, but for the same sort of tree at different stages of drying in your shed they will be fine as long as you measure the same way (across the rings on the end, or along the side, choose only one method!) That will let you measure and decide when you're not seeing enough benefit from longer storage to be worth while." CreationDate="2016-10-05T23:31:10.487" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3675" PostId="3025" Score="1" Text="I found a reference [here](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/a/1115/108) that greasy paper definitely goes to the bio waste can." CreationDate="2014-09-18T07:18:51.133" UserId="108" />
  <row Id="3677" PostId="3025" Score="1" Text="Very closely related, with regards to paper/cardboard: http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/1149/when-recycling-paper-or-cardboard-what-level-of-contamination-with-food-oils" CreationDate="2014-09-19T09:18:22.953" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="3676" PostId="3026" Score="1" Text="Oh, I guess I have to scan the bins for a web site or a phone number and check with them." CreationDate="2014-09-18T07:51:48.777" UserId="108" />
  <row Id="3678" PostId="3028" Score="0" Text="I would expect anything, with sufficient food on it in order to rot, to have too much food over it and just throw it in the organic waste bin." CreationDate="2014-09-19T09:25:33.797" UserId="108" />
  <row Id="3684" PostId="3030" Score="0" Text="I've been using 2 types of bottles both for several years now without any problems; a 1 liter [Sigg](https://www.sigg.com/) bottle (aluminium, served me well while hiking in the mountains) and a 0.5 liter [Dopper](http://us.dopper.com/en/) (plastic but guaranteed BPA and toxin free). BTW, officially we don't allow shopping recommendations here (see more about this [here](http://meta.sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/5/shall-we-ban-shopping-questions)), but since it sometimes is a fine line if something is a shopping question or not, I'll wait and see if other users vote to close." CreationDate="2014-09-19T18:58:00.440" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3685" PostId="3030" Score="0" Text="THelper, have you dropped your Sigg bottle much while hiking?  It looks pretty well made from their website, but I've had issues with both plastic and aluminum bottles breaking on me." CreationDate="2014-09-19T19:06:05.620" UserId="1704" />
  <row Id="3686" PostId="3030" Score="0" Text="I dropped it a few times, but never very hard. It does have a few dents but other than that is still in great shape." CreationDate="2014-09-19T19:07:14.303" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3687" PostId="3030" Score="0" Text="Oh, I'm not concerned about dents here.  I had one bottle have the bottom metal part come apart which obviously rendered the water bottle useless.  Multiple other brands have had parts of the caps break in ways that make them harder to use.  I don't mind dents, just that kind of damage." CreationDate="2014-09-19T19:09:41.850" UserId="1704" />
  <row Id="3690" PostId="3030" Score="0" Text="I had a hyperactive classmate in high school, who was using a Sigg bottle. While everyone was trying to avoid dents on their Sigg bottle, he made a point of beating up his bottle as much as he could. He stayed down a year after I had seen him beat his bottle for a full three years. Unfortunately, I don't know what became of him or his Sigg bottle..." CreationDate="2014-09-20T23:04:32.567" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="3682" PostId="3032" Score="0" Text="Huh, I didn't even think about getting a thermos, that looks like it'd be a great solution to this issue I've been having.  I'll look into one of those Sigg bottles, I know their reputation and that they make good products, just wasn't aware that they had been around for that long.  As far as the Nalgene - even aside from the potential health issues that we aren't yet aware of, the water in it tastes pretty bad whenever the bottle gets warm, so I'm starting to like the bottle less for that reason alone, anyway." CreationDate="2014-09-19T18:22:41.550" UserId="1704" />
  <row Id="9260" PostId="3033" Score="0" Text="Recent trends among bottled water manufacturers have been to reduce the amount of plastic used (ostensibly reducing pollution), meaning less-durable bottles. Aside from increased chances of a rupture/leak, I'd also be concerned that the lighter weight plastic would more easily start leaching into the bottle." CreationDate="2018-02-10T17:26:32.637" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="3688" PostId="3034" Score="0" Text="To be precise the limonene cleaner isn't on their toxic household list, but on their 'Greenwashing' list. They say &quot;*That the oils are derived from citrus implies safety, but sprayed into the air, they can react with trace levels of ozone air pollution to form ultra-fine particles that penetrate deep into the lungs and formaldehyde, which the U.S. government classifies as a known human carcinogen. The California Air Resources Board advises people to limit the use of citrus- or pine oil-based cleaners on smoggy days to avoid exposure to particulates and formaldehyde.*&quot;" CreationDate="2014-09-20T11:07:57.897" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3689" PostId="3034" Score="0" Text="So limonene isn't &quot;green&quot;?" CreationDate="2014-09-20T19:02:25.297" UserId="1706" />
  <row Id="3696" PostId="3035" Score="0" Text="Related (but different) question: [Indoor composting with limited space](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/2973/99)" CreationDate="2014-09-24T15:07:44.830" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="12981" PostId="3036" Score="1" Text="and rats? Where I live, kitchen compost had to be kept in a rat-proof container. I imagine that a plant growing in compost would be at risk of being dug up by rats attempting to get at the interesting smells in the compost." CreationDate="2020-10-12T06:59:21.073" UserId="8013" />
  <row Id="3693" PostId="3038" Score="0" Text="Usually I can hear the glass break as I toss it in the [bin](http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/waste-disposal-bins-758163.jpg). I think most recyclables undergo grinding and then heat and other processes sort the ingredients." CreationDate="2014-09-24T10:43:10.157" UserId="108" />
  <row Id="3694" PostId="3041" Score="0" Text="The picture was just to get the idea. The bins are different, but all with the same size openings. It's quite demotivating, as one bin is for &quot;plastic, metal and paper&quot;, and 95% of my rubbish fits into this. Maybe they are not getting recycled at all. I should check somehow." CreationDate="2014-09-24T13:08:53.603" UserId="108" />
  <row Id="3695" PostId="3044" Score="2" Text="A problem with using vermicompost indoors is that you have to sift the compost very carefully, otherwise worm eggs end up in your indoor plants and worms may start to crawl out. Also be very careful to use leachate from a worm bin as it can be full of phytotoxins. More info on this also [here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermicompost#As_fertilizer)" CreationDate="2014-09-24T15:01:09.920" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3697" PostId="3044" Score="1" Text="Good points.  I hadn't thought of either of those point.  The reference mentioned the possibility, but neither the quatities produced, nor the recommended dilution. Check it out and write a better answer.  Given that the worms generally don't like light, what is the risk with eggs.  So you have a colony of worms in the fig tree pot.  I would expect them to briefly flourish, then starve." CreationDate="2014-09-24T15:35:13.190" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="3698" PostId="3044" Score="2" Text="What most likely will happen is that when the conditions become less favourable for the worms (not enough food, or not wet enough), the worms will crawl out of the pot when it's dark and then dry out and die on your floor. Not a big problem as you can pick up the dead worms easily and compost them, but it's not something most people like." CreationDate="2014-09-24T17:58:14.920" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3700" PostId="3050" Score="1" Text="I guess that spiders could be more effective. We leave enough of spider nets at home and a lot of flies are caught there. In addition spiders catch also other insects (non-flying too) besides flies. ------ Carnivorous plants could have an advantage that they could possibly actively attract flies by their smell." CreationDate="2014-09-26T19:39:00.550" UserId="642" />
  <row Id="3701" PostId="3050" Score="1" Text="I agree with pabouk as far as spiders, I leave spiders alone in my house and let them catch as many flies as they can.  I've found the most effective way to get rid of (a small amount, like one or two) flies is to trap them in a small room with a window you can open, open the window, and close the door to the rest of the house.  Eventually, they'll fly out on their own, unless there's something to eat in there." CreationDate="2014-09-27T04:51:55.513" UserId="1704" />
  <row Id="3714" PostId="3050" Score="1" Text="flyswatter is out of the question?" CreationDate="2014-10-02T18:46:32.493" UserId="1729" />
  <row Id="4142" PostId="3050" Score="0" Text="Use fly nets on the windows and you won't need to..." CreationDate="2015-02-20T12:11:13.240" UserId="1567" />
  <row Id="3702" PostId="3055" Score="0" Text="Thanks, that's a good suggestion.  Somehow, I don't know how, I seem to have a reverse Midas touch on water bottles, most of the ones I've bought or been given have broken one way or another.  My CamelBak is, alas, no exception to this, it still technically works, but the grip part of the bite valve that is used for opening it snapped off a while ago, making it pretty hard to use, unless I want to keep it in the open position all the time." CreationDate="2014-09-28T16:53:10.703" UserId="1704" />
  <row Id="3703" PostId="3055" Score="0" Text="(Was running out of space with my last comment)  Right now, I'm thinking of just buying a new cap for my Kleen Kanteen.  I have one with a cap similar to the one here: www.amazon.com/Klean-Kanteen-Stainless-Brushed-18-Ounce/dp/B0093IQT5A/ - and I am pretty sure that the part that I drink out of is the only part that leaks, not the seal between the bottle and the cap, so buying a new cap should in theory fix the problem.  Plus, I hate buying whole new bottles at this point, I've gone through enough that it's starting to feel wasteful." CreationDate="2014-09-28T16:56:35.463" UserId="1704" />
  <row Id="3709" PostId="3057" Score="0" Text="It would be possible to have the mature BSF-larvae to fall into the fish tank when they are on their way to find dry place to change to fly." CreationDate="2014-10-01T06:25:38.077" UserId="1685" />
  <row Id="3711" PostId="3058" Score="0" Text="Thanks for that. Not the answer I wanted to hear though, I feel bad to throw all this &quot;meat&quot; away." CreationDate="2014-10-02T12:01:44.343" UserId="1685" />
  <row Id="3712" PostId="3058" Score="0" Text="Well, they are doing the good work in your garden breaking down dead organic material. Why not raise worms to feed the tilapia?" CreationDate="2014-10-02T12:36:08.597" UserId="1701" />
  <row Id="3713" PostId="3058" Score="1" Text="the millipedes are actually doing such a good work that they manage to break down the seeds too... I will for sure have a look at the worms side." CreationDate="2014-10-02T12:39:06.913" UserId="1685" />
  <row Id="3710" PostId="3061" Score="0" Text="What units are you using? Since you're using pounds, I assume either feet or inches, but I'm not sure you could even get 5 pounds of worms onto 4x2x2 inches. But 4x2x2 feet seems quite large for that many worms." CreationDate="2014-10-01T21:36:16.723" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3715" PostId="3064" Score="7" Text="Due to the inaccuracy of the meters (typically .5%-1% of the peak power reading = 12W-24W for a 240V/10A meter) you'll get a much better result if you can access the common feed point for a number of monitors. In some offices this is easy as there are only a few wall mounted points and everything runs off extension cords. Others... you'd need to replug everything to get to there." CreationDate="2014-10-03T02:26:20.873" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3721" PostId="3067" Score="0" Text="Expense is definitely a problem, as I'm planning to market my design; Do you know of any other types of lightweight cells?" CreationDate="2014-10-06T03:34:58.507" UserId="1733" />
  <row Id="3718" PostId="3069" Score="2" Text="You want to reduce the amount of stuff you throw away. Bigger containers usually have relatively less packaging, so that's better sustainability-wise. But with food containers the question is will you finish all contents before it spoils." CreationDate="2014-10-04T19:24:09.710" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3737" PostId="3069" Score="0" Text="I make my own greek yogurt at home (it's very easy and delicious), and once it's ready: I use small glass yogurts pots to store it. You could do the same with a brand product, i.e. buy a large quantity and put them yourself in smaller reusable containers." CreationDate="2014-10-09T00:15:12.650" UserId="842" />
  <row Id="3722" PostId="3071" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! What do you consider to be minimal? Exactly how much power is consumed in stand-by mode?" CreationDate="2014-10-06T07:20:37.060" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3723" PostId="3071" Score="0" Text="That &quot;minimal amount of power&quot; is the typical 0.5 - 10 Wats mentioned in the Enigma's answer." CreationDate="2014-10-06T08:58:45.160" UserId="642" />
  <row Id="3741" PostId="3075" Score="1" Text="I've given some general thoughts in an answer, but if you can give any more specifics about your situation you might get more tightly focussed answers." CreationDate="2014-10-09T10:06:24.443" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="3749" PostId="3075" Score="0" Text="Related: http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/867/what-is-the-most-sustainable-heating-strategy-for-a-home?rq=1" CreationDate="2014-10-11T22:12:24.750" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="3765" PostId="3075" Score="0" Text="If you ever use space heaters, consider more efficient kinds, like reflective heaters." CreationDate="2014-10-21T03:00:57.823" UserId="1773" />
  <row Id="13194" PostId="3075" Score="0" Text="I am not allowed to comment, thus as an answer: One can also eat hot spicy noodle soup rich in chilli, for 50 cents each. Very effective!" CreationDate="2014-11-22T16:34:06.780" UserId="1581" />
  <row Id="3746" PostId="3077" Score="0" Text="I just edited the question to limit the scope to available commercial solutions. I visited the sunnyjohn site, but it does not seem to be a purchase-able. In addition, the operating principle seems to be massive storage to allow for long rest times (i.e., not mobile). Can you provide a link to a commercial product designed to use thermal energy directly via some sort of heat exchanger? Such a device is likely to be compatible with a wide range of heat sources, not just solar thermal." CreationDate="2014-10-11T12:52:46.547" UserId="1739" />
  <row Id="3738" PostId="3078" Score="3" Text="D. Wear a sweater&#xA;E. Only heat the rooms you are in" CreationDate="2014-10-09T07:23:22.133" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="13193" PostId="3078" Score="0" Text="@THelper have to be careful with E. I'd say &quot;prioritize heating the rooms you are in.&quot;" CreationDate="2020-12-24T19:29:39.050" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13195" PostId="3078" Score="1" Text="@LShaver I suppose you mean that [condensation may cause molds to develop in unheated rooms](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/3194/99)?" CreationDate="2020-12-25T09:57:21.877" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3740" PostId="3080" Score="0" Text="'*The easiest container to recycle is a plastic polyethylene milk jug.*', that may be true from an energy point of view, but glass can be cleaned and reused instead of recycled, and plastics are usually downcycled." CreationDate="2014-10-09T07:40:56.447" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3742" PostId="3081" Score="0" Text="great tips thank you. the problem of my home now is that it is using gas-water heating system, but this consumes a lot of gas and the actual walls are not very isolated agains external" CreationDate="2014-10-09T10:12:03.317" UserId="1746" />
  <row Id="3743" PostId="3081" Score="1" Text="@albanx I recommend editing this information into the question - you may get some more specific advice." CreationDate="2014-10-09T10:16:19.387" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="3750" PostId="3081" Score="0" Text="Overnight room temperature does matter. [There is an increased risk of respiratory disease](http://asthmafoundation.org.nz/your-health/living-with-asthma/healthy-homes/#Warm) when the temperature drops below 16 degrees C. Preventing health problems is generally less costly than treating them." CreationDate="2014-10-11T22:20:15.090" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="3753" PostId="3081" Score="1" Text="@HighlyIrregular hmm, that article doesn't specifically mention sleep - I read it as &quot;don't keep your house below 16C in general&quot;. [this study](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8022726?ordinalpos=1&amp;itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum) seems to suggest (at least from the abstract) that &lt;16C can hinder sleep, but that depends on what it considers &quot;normal&quot; pyjamas &amp; bedclothes. I'll edit something in, anyway." CreationDate="2014-10-12T09:16:48.507" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="3748" PostId="3084" Score="0" Text="10KWh/month isn't much! It wouldn't be sufficient for a reasonably normal lifestyle." CreationDate="2014-10-11T22:08:47.997" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="3751" PostId="3084" Score="3" Text="That is true, but the original poster didn't ask for power for daily living: &quot;My only obstacle is generating electricity to run the computer&quot;. She didn't say where she'll be located, so I used Fairbanks as a fairly extreme example since it gets only around 3 an d a half hours of daylight in the winter. Someplace a bit farther south like Anchorage would get around 5 and a half hours of daylight in the winter, so it would give her more power. Of course, she could add more solar panels to get more power." CreationDate="2014-10-11T23:33:38.660" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="3760" PostId="3084" Score="0" Text="someone told me solar is only good in non-snowy areas. I guess they were liars. Regardless, you've answered my question." CreationDate="2014-10-18T20:56:54.870" UserId="1751" />
  <row Id="3761" PostId="3084" Score="0" Text="@Julia - The solar panels in the linked to article are close to vertical to track the sun (as it's low in the horizon in the winter), so snow is less of an issue than you might think. The biggest problem for collecting solar energy in northern latitudes is lack of sunlight, especially in the winter when days are short. Ironically, in less northern areas where panels are closer to horizontal to maximize collected energy, snow can be more of an issue. So you still might find yourself sweeping snow off the solar panels." CreationDate="2014-10-19T04:00:53.450" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="3810" PostId="3084" Score="0" Text="Solar power is drastically advancing, if you read science news. It'll probably be a whole lot better in a few years." CreationDate="2014-11-07T22:13:41.150" UserId="1773" />
  <row Id="3811" PostId="3084" Score="0" Text="Also, solar panels are not all the same. Some of them are better than others." CreationDate="2014-11-07T22:15:35.297" UserId="1773" />
  <row Id="3752" PostId="3085" Score="2" Text="The main problem in many western countries is that cattle are fed things that humans could eat, or fodder crops for cattle are grown on land that could grow food for people. In countries like Australia and Brazil there's also a lot of land clearing and land degradation associated with &quot;grass fed&quot; cattle. So it's not just emissions and byproducts (New Zeland's &quot;rivers of shit&quot; are mostly from dairy farming)" CreationDate="2014-10-12T09:08:49.673" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="4898" PostId="3085" Score="0" Text="The answer is here in this great documentary . [Home](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqxENMKaeCU) It is one hour long." CreationDate="2015-10-28T06:00:39.177" UserId="836" />
  <row Id="3831" PostId="3086" Score="1" Text="The problem can also be balanced out by using methods of grazing that sequester carbon in the soil.  Examples:&#xA;http://soilcarboncoalition.org/holdridge and&#xA;http://www.grazingamazing.com/mob-grazing.html ." CreationDate="2014-11-14T21:57:26.143" UserId="1768" />
  <row Id="3747" PostId="3087" Score="0" Text="Note the double glazing will insulate from noise better than the single glazing that I assume you have at present - so you may find that once it is fitted, you no longer need the secondary glazing. However, you won't know that until it's installed, so it makes sense to plan on keeping it for now." CreationDate="2014-10-11T17:24:30.267" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="3762" PostId="3088" Score="0" Text="What is your research question? That will affect what you might ask. I suspect the public transport question doesn't give significant carbon variations, so I'd replace it with a different question. I recommend dropping Nigel Goddard an email about this - he may be interested, and I think he's very local to you." CreationDate="2014-10-19T17:32:40.713" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="3763" PostId="3088" Score="0" Text="I'd like to see if there is a correlation between basic human values (ideally using the 21 questions from European Social Study but maybe something cut down) and overall behaviour in the form of carbon emissions. i.e. a tendency to Schwartz universalism correlates with lower carbon emissions. I see what you mean about public transport. I was thinking just 3 question now: flight, days in a car, days eaten meat. Thanks for Nigel Goddard. I'll try and contact him." CreationDate="2014-10-20T19:22:42.097" UserId="1755" />
  <row Id="3769" PostId="3090" Score="0" Text="I'd add a 3rd major one to the list: loss of usable land to grazing. Lots of land that would be better for growing crops (or forrest) is lost to allow for beef grazing (Brazil's Rainforest being a major victim)." CreationDate="2014-10-22T03:03:39.940" UserId="292" />
  <row Id="3771" PostId="3090" Score="0" Text="@da isn't that part of my second point? Or am I missing something?" CreationDate="2014-10-22T06:19:07.447" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="3772" PostId="3090" Score="0" Text="It could be part of that. I just happen to think it's different enough that it's worth pointing out separately. I'd suggest point #2 refers more to 'growing animal feed (corn being popular). The issue there is we could feed more people with those crops than processing it through cattle. Another issue is clearing land to create grazing lands. The issue there is we're destroying the rain forrest. Whether those are the 'same issue' is a matter of semantics and opinion, I suppose." CreationDate="2014-10-22T06:26:22.037" UserId="292" />
  <row Id="3775" PostId="3090" Score="0" Text="@DA. hmm, I hadn't even considered corn-fed cattle (we don't have that here). You make a fair point about forest destruction. I suggest putting that into an answer, I'd certainly vote for it." CreationDate="2014-10-22T09:56:26.780" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="3754" PostId="3091" Score="4" Text="Hello there, and welcome. As we're a question &amp; answer site, rather than a discussion forum, this sort of open-ended invitation to discussion doesn't really work in this format. Please can you rephrase this into a specific question that would have an objective answer?" CreationDate="2014-10-13T13:56:15.207" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="3758" PostId="3091" Score="1" Text="no one has thought about this issue?? I've been hearing of the dawn of the paperless office for at least 30 years so far. Everyone knows paperless would be better, but everyone has an exception why procedure X requires paper ... and between all the people in the world, all of their procedure X candidates add up to all the procedures in the world." CreationDate="2014-10-16T17:25:10.097" UserId="1053" />
  <row Id="3755" PostId="3093" Score="1" Text="Incidentally, re my first point: I was once employed for an engineering company that had a &quot;paperless office&quot; system. My entire job was to print all incoming documents, wait for engineers to write comments on them, and scan the comments back in." CreationDate="2014-10-14T09:26:08.767" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="3756" PostId="3093" Score="0" Text="How would fear of losing electronic documents be irrational? That seems like a weird aside in an otherwise sensible answer." CreationDate="2014-10-15T01:55:58.057" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3757" PostId="3093" Score="0" Text="@Mσᶎ that fear is rational, but some would argue that in some circumstances, that that is more likely to happen because of electronic storage is not." CreationDate="2014-10-15T08:29:02.923" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="7278" PostId="3094" Score="0" Text="Can you please [edit] your post? That first link is not to a tutorial but to the Google spreadsheet calculator. And please [don't use URL shortened links](http://meta.stackexchange.com/a/113660/189029). A link to that TED talk would be nice too." CreationDate="2016-07-24T11:04:17.530" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="3759" PostId="3095" Score="2" Text="Here is an example of grazing being used intentionally to improve the land: [http://www.nature.org/ourinitiatives/regions/southamerica/argentina/howwework/sustainable-grazing-1.xml]" CreationDate="2014-10-16T21:59:10.450" UserId="1768" />
  <row Id="3829" PostId="3095" Score="0" Text="The nature.org link is dead." CreationDate="2014-11-13T16:31:17.290" UserId="1830" />
  <row Id="3830" PostId="3095" Score="1" Text="@200_success - Thanks for pointing that out.  Looks like a poorly copied link.  Should be: http://www.nature.org/ourinitiatives/regions/southamerica/argentina/howwework/sustainable-grazing-1.xml" CreationDate="2014-11-14T21:51:10.070" UserId="1768" />
  <row Id="3786" PostId="3099" Score="0" Text="I'm trying to understand what you're asking. Do you mean that you're buying vegetables that might have had pesticides used on them at some point in their life cycle, and you want to be confident that residues of these pesticides won't harm you when you eat them? Or are you the one growing the vegetables?" CreationDate="2014-10-28T14:51:19.627" UserId="1053" />
  <row Id="3796" PostId="3099" Score="0" Text="@KateGregory: The first case, buying vegetables." CreationDate="2014-10-30T17:49:27.753" UserId="836" />
  <row Id="3785" PostId="3100" Score="0" Text="Thank you for the answer, but I don't think this will work with vegetables. Different types of pesticides are used in various stages of growing vegetables. Consider the pesticides sprayed in the flowering stage, and those can not be removed by the suggested method. As you pointed,it will work with oil/wax based pesticides which are only used after maturing the fruits." CreationDate="2014-10-28T07:44:29.920" UserId="836" />
  <row Id="3801" PostId="3100" Score="2" Text="If you have vegetables sprayed with pesticides throughout their growth, how much do you expect to get rid of using extremely basic methods, such as soaking in salty water? Maybe you should add why you don't just buy organic foods in the first place, if you're worried about pesticides." CreationDate="2014-11-04T09:05:14.437" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="3783" PostId="3101" Score="1" Text="I think it would be a fun thing to calculate, though. The combination of radiative losses and capacitive losses is likely to be small for a whole house full of wiring (less than a watt), so the marginal effect of the extra 1-5cm in the switch would also be low. I'd be surprised if it was even a microwatt." CreationDate="2014-10-26T00:22:39.670" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3788" PostId="3105" Score="4" Text="Can you please add some references to backup these claims?" CreationDate="2014-10-29T07:55:34.187" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3794" PostId="3108" Score="1" Text="If answerers can address the more general question of when it's appropriate to try to repair plastic items rather than recycle &amp; replace, and how to do it, then the question could work here." CreationDate="2014-10-30T08:55:15.587" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="3795" PostId="3108" Score="0" Text="Ok then, thank you @EnergyNumbers. Hope to have answers on it." CreationDate="2014-10-30T12:35:41.783" UserId="1792" />
  <row Id="3798" PostId="3110" Score="4" Text="I know there are also stainlesss steel straws for sale, but I don't have any experience with them myself, so not sure how practical they are." CreationDate="2014-11-02T20:25:18.063" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3799" PostId="3110" Score="3" Text="@THelper very. I have one, but I rarely use it now because I don't need to. But the cost of a metal straw is very high compared to plastic ones, so you need to use it a lot to justify buying one." CreationDate="2014-11-03T05:02:22.003" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="4529" PostId="3110" Score="2" Text="I stumbled upon [this website](http://www.healwithfood.org/non-plastic/straws-healthy-alternatives.php) which lists the pros and cons of straws made from glass, steel and bamboo. &quot;*bamboo straws are porous and are therefore not as long-lasting as glass and stainless steel straws. However, if you take good care of them and always rinse them immediately after use, they can last quite a while. And, once they've seen their best days, you can toss them into the compost bin as these 100% natural straws are biodegradable.*&quot;" CreationDate="2015-06-26T06:52:39.833" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7297" PostId="3110" Score="0" Text="Maybe try reeds?" CreationDate="2016-07-28T08:47:09.497" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="7349" PostId="3110" Score="0" Text="fwiw you can wash a plastic straw in the same hot soapy water as the rest of your dishes, and leave it to dry. The thicker ones are better than the thin both for getting them clean and for drying faster, but in any event, one box of straws should be well more than a lifetime supply - just stop throwing them out." CreationDate="2016-08-02T17:23:00.800" UserId="1053" />
  <row Id="9917" PostId="3110" Score="1" Text="My kids have stainless steel straws.  they are fairly expensive, but you only need one.  Advantages are that they will go in the dishwasher, and children don't ruin them by chewing the ends (plastic straws suffer this fate quickly in my house).  Another alternative is pasta - buccatini makes a reasonable single-use biodegradable straw." CreationDate="2018-07-18T08:00:06.627" UserId="1445" />
  <row Id="11268" PostId="3111" Score="0" Text="[Bamboo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo) grows so much like a grass that it's even in the same [paceae](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poaceae) family. ;)" CreationDate="2019-08-03T07:28:15.050" UserId="5666" />
  <row Id="3800" PostId="3113" Score="8" Text="Do NOT use just any hollow stem plant without checking carefully.  Giant Hogweed is another hollow stem plant.  Juice causes chemical burns (poison ivy on steroids) on anything it touches.  Water Hemlock (what did in Socrates) is another bad one. Cows shuffle off this mortal coil with just a light snack.  Burdock is a skin irritant." CreationDate="2014-11-03T15:48:56.630" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="4510" PostId="3113" Score="2" Text="Lovage stems are my favorite for tomato juice." CreationDate="2015-06-24T02:35:07.477" UserId="2337" />
  <row Id="3802" PostId="3117" Score="0" Text="The OP mentioned she is in a wind-free valley, so how would wind turbines be useful?" CreationDate="2014-11-06T08:31:05.083" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3805" PostId="3118" Score="12" Text="Wipe them on your trousers :)" CreationDate="2014-11-06T20:48:03.013" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="3807" PostId="3118" Score="7" Text="I'm no expert on this, but if you google on &quot;[paper towel vs dryer sustainable](http://www.google.com/search?q=paper+towel+vs+dryer+sustainable)&quot; then you'll find all kinds of reports and articles and it seems most say surprisingly that the electric dryer is more sustainable; e.g. [this student research report](http://www.rit.edu/affiliate/nysp2i/sites/rit.edu.affiliate.nysp2i/files/12rdsc15_sustainable_hand_drying_nocvr.pdf)  &#xA;or [this treehugger article](http://www.treehugger.com/clean-technology/greener-dryer-better-lca-of-hand-dryers-vs-paper-towels.html)" CreationDate="2014-11-07T11:01:28.407" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3815" PostId="3118" Score="0" Text="as good as answer for me!" CreationDate="2014-11-09T09:38:23.963" UserId="1808" />
  <row Id="3817" PostId="3118" Score="2" Text="Shake 'em off and let physics do the rest of the work. What we *really* need to do is start an ad campaign to make slightly damp hands be perceived as more attractive." CreationDate="2014-11-10T21:33:21.543" UserId="1821" />
  <row Id="3821" PostId="3118" Score="2" Text="I can't find the reference now but I recall reading that, from a hygiene point of view, paper towels are preferred.  Not an environmental point per se, but it *is* why you're washing your hands in the first place." CreationDate="2014-11-12T09:42:44.760" UserId="1210" />
  <row Id="10129" PostId="3118" Score="0" Text="I am with Jason on this. 10 times shaking + the occasional trousers-wipe does the trick beautifully." CreationDate="2018-09-05T09:59:46.753" UserId="1233" />
  <row Id="12474" PostId="3118" Score="0" Text="If you don't like the idea of having damp trousers, do what my kids do and find someone else's trousers to dry them on (but not mine, I already have 2 kids wiping their hands on them)." CreationDate="2020-03-09T13:49:53.053" UserId="1445" />
  <row Id="3808" PostId="3119" Score="2" Text="This.... doesn't seem to really answer the question, so much as discuss pros and cons to both approaches. It's interesting, but a conclusion would be nice? :-)" CreationDate="2014-11-07T11:31:13.027" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="3809" PostId="3119" Score="2" Text="My initial answer was, 'I think it depends'. I was explaining why and how it depends, in some ways." CreationDate="2014-11-07T22:03:45.773" UserId="1773" />
  <row Id="3812" PostId="3119" Score="1" Text="Heh, fair enough!" CreationDate="2014-11-07T23:03:08.850" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="3814" PostId="3119" Score="1" Text="simple answer is I don't know. The building is fairly green (we collect rain water on the rood and use that for flushing the toilets) so I assume we're using towels from a sustainable source. Hand dryer is powered by mains electricity I think." CreationDate="2014-11-09T09:38:03.133" UserId="1808" />
  <row Id="3816" PostId="3119" Score="4" Text="+1 for 'I usually just dry my hands on my pants, personally.'" CreationDate="2014-11-10T20:42:37.157" UserId="1495" />
  <row Id="7778" PostId="3119" Score="0" Text="Some interesting points - I believe at the Centre for Alternative Technology in Wales, they switch to using paper towels at certain times of the year, as they add the used towels to all of their green garden/kitchen waste to improve the quality of their compost" CreationDate="2016-12-02T12:32:30.753" UserId="3960" />
  <row Id="3813" PostId="3120" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! A similar question has been asked [here](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/3004/99). Unfortunately there hasn't been a good answer for that question yet." CreationDate="2014-11-08T20:47:22.930" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3851" PostId="3120" Score="0" Text="Make sure you use the proper bricks/tiles. Standard rock and bricks have moisture that will turn to steam when heated and then explode, sometimes with the energy of a bullet. Not a nice picture!" CreationDate="2014-11-25T15:44:11.130" UserId="1851" />
  <row Id="3819" PostId="3122" Score="0" Text="There is a similar question but slightly different question: [Where can I recycle #81 composite materials?](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/2945/99)." CreationDate="2014-11-11T20:45:58.620" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3827" PostId="3128" Score="1" Text="Thanks THelper, I have updated my answer. Hope it will benefit all." CreationDate="2014-11-13T08:57:27.560" UserId="1828" />
  <row Id="3826" PostId="3129" Score="2" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Why do you think that chewing on it helps in determining whether you can compost it or not?" CreationDate="2014-11-13T08:18:00.637" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3828" PostId="3131" Score="0" Text="Possible duplicate of [Where can I recycle #81 composite materials?](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/2945/99), but sadly so far there are no good answers on that question. It probably depends on whether it is wax or plastic. Perhaps the restaurant in question, or your local recycling center has the answer?" CreationDate="2014-11-13T11:51:04.490" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3850" PostId="3131" Score="1" Text="Definitely a good question for the restaurant. If they are true proponents of recycling, they will know where and how." CreationDate="2014-11-25T15:40:35.793" UserId="1851" />
  <row Id="5430" PostId="3134" Score="1" Text="Looks like the Florist's chrysanthemum (Chrysanthemum morifolium) and Peace lily (Spathiphyllum 'Mauna Loa') performed best." CreationDate="2016-02-05T15:09:03.647" UserId="3047" />
  <row Id="4081" PostId="3139" Score="4" Text="Would be cool to include some older UN predictions in this (e.g. from the 80s or 90s) to see how they've panned out, and to compare the assumptions to the current projections." CreationDate="2015-02-12T00:32:04.560" UserId="2041" />
  <row Id="4641" PostId="3139" Score="0" Text="The two extreme projections say essentially nothing, and are probably impossible. If numbers keep increasing, things are not looking good. How can we make the green line actually happen?" CreationDate="2015-07-29T12:37:05.540" UserDisplayName="user2423" />
  <row Id="4646" PostId="3139" Score="0" Text="@naught101 I've been able to find data for 1994, 2000 and 2002 and added those to table 1" CreationDate="2015-07-30T12:44:26.793" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3834" PostId="3143" Score="0" Text="Am I right that the site you've edited in is a (partial) answer to your question? If so, perhaps you can post it as an answer?" CreationDate="2014-11-21T08:03:33.420" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3837" PostId="3143" Score="0" Text="@THelper Done. I'd hesitated doing so, hoping to get better answers but I can understand the reasoning for posting answers as answers." CreationDate="2014-11-21T19:05:28.920" UserId="1210" />
  <row Id="3833" PostId="3145" Score="1" Text="Wow.  Thanks.  The fact that you used &quot;SPI&quot;, an unexplained abbreviation, got me researching, and I found a lot of stuff there.  SPI = &quot;Society of the Plastics Industry&quot;  Apparently as of June 2013, there are 39 states which have adopted legislation regarding the use of these markings.  Unfortunately (as you've noted), the laws generally only affect bottles of 16 ounces or more and rigid containers of 8 ounces or more. ref: `http://www.plasticsindustry.org/AboutPlastics/content.cfm?ItemNumber=823&amp;navItemNumber=1125`" CreationDate="2014-11-20T17:08:09.293" UserId="1842" />
  <row Id="3840" PostId="3149" Score="1" Text="Hi, welcome to sustainability SE! I'd advise asking about energy used, rather than energy &quot;produced&quot;, as it may result in fewer ambiguities in how things are measured, and also avoid questions over how imports and exports are treated. You may also want to clarify whether you mean all energy use, or just electricity. And to answer your final question: No, the USA is definitely not #1 ;-)" CreationDate="2014-11-24T10:04:31.987" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="3841" PostId="3150" Score="0" Text="Hi there, and welcome. Do you know the publication this originally came from? Was it the IEA 2004 World Energy Outlook, or something else?" CreationDate="2014-11-24T10:27:24.543" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="3842" PostId="3151" Score="0" Text="Not sure how reliable the figures are but according to [wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_by_country#Installed_windpower_capacity_.28MW.29_2004-2013) China surpassed the US somewhere in 2009 and has been leading ever since." CreationDate="2014-11-24T13:26:28.463" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3899" PostId="3151" Score="0" Text="Per capita information is more interesting and relevant, in my opinion." CreationDate="2014-12-09T20:44:40.350" UserId="1883" />
  <row Id="3843" PostId="3153" Score="0" Text="Solar (heat) could also refer to a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_updraft_tower](thermal updraft tower) which uses the movement of hot air to spin a turbine." CreationDate="2014-11-24T15:59:11.303" UserId="193" />
  <row Id="3844" PostId="3153" Score="1" Text="@DanNeely I guess it could, but has anybody got far enough with building one to give any idea as to the cost of energy? I'll edit in something." CreationDate="2014-11-24T16:10:22.993" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="3845" PostId="3153" Score="0" Text="A few test towers have been build according to Wikipedia.  One that was operating at 200KW in 2008 was supposed to have been upgraded to 27.5MH by 2013.  Unfortunately it appears that the upgrade was cancelled when proximity to an airport resulted in height restrictions.  http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1487659/solar-chimneys-may-help-solve-chinas-energy-woes" CreationDate="2014-11-24T16:53:20.793" UserId="193" />
  <row Id="16034" PostId="3153" Score="0" Text="Are all currents used for hydropower turbines tidal? I'm not sure. The big ocean currents for instance like the Gulf Stream are not tidal, although I'm not sure any ocean currents have ever been exploited." CreationDate="2022-10-14T08:59:01.503" UserId="13189" />
  <row Id="16036" PostId="3153" Score="0" Text="@Adam at the time of writing this, eight years ago, no ocean currents had been exploited. To the best of my knowledge this is still the case." CreationDate="2022-10-14T22:44:30.060" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="3958" PostId="3156" Score="1" Text="lovely and balanced, +1" CreationDate="2015-01-08T10:24:58.907" UserId="1912" />
  <row Id="3846" PostId="3157" Score="3" Text="Hi Andrew, welcome to Sustainability.SE! Your answer seems to have been truncated. You can edit it using the &quot;edit&quot; link below the answer." CreationDate="2014-11-24T17:34:20.913" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="3854" PostId="3162" Score="3" Text="That's not so good if people end up composting or burning the recycled paper!" CreationDate="2014-11-25T23:37:05.387" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="5397" PostId="3164" Score="0" Text="where does this picture come from?" CreationDate="2016-01-29T15:25:40.547" UserId="1078" />
  <row Id="3855" PostId="3165" Score="1" Text="I appreciate your comments but I really don't think they answer the question, they just tell me to do something else. I would really like to get some input from someone with direct experience with Passive Solar Window Heaters." CreationDate="2014-11-26T22:43:14.473" UserId="1851" />
  <row Id="3857" PostId="3166" Score="0" Text="I've seen different reports of what resin code nr 8 means; [wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recycling_codes) says #8 means lead-acid battery. On [this forum](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=605819) it has been suggested that some manufacturers may just use it improperly, or that #8 is a general recycling symbol. However, the latter seems incorrect and is probably a misinterpretation of [this site](https://signsanddisplays.wordpress.com/2011/03/11/universal-plastic-recycling-symbols/) where the 8th logo happens to be a general recycling logo without a number." CreationDate="2014-11-28T09:33:19.103" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3859" PostId="3166" Score="0" Text="BTW, the picture supplied by the OP does say #8" CreationDate="2014-11-28T09:38:50.843" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3860" PostId="3166" Score="0" Text="According to wikipedia's list and Canada's list of recycling identifiers, there is no #8." CreationDate="2014-11-28T12:22:55.810" UserId="1852" />
  <row Id="3861" PostId="3166" Score="0" Text="The wikipedia link in your post clearly mentions &quot;#8 Lead -	Lead–acid battery&quot;." CreationDate="2014-11-28T12:56:27.937" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3865" PostId="3168" Score="0" Text="A major concern would be spills." CreationDate="2014-11-28T16:33:56.677" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="3866" PostId="3168" Score="2" Text="I don't think &quot;or&quot; is appropriate for those two possibilities. They aren't mutually exclusive." CreationDate="2014-11-28T21:12:33.760" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="3867" PostId="3168" Score="2" Text="To make this a specific answerable question, would it be a reasonable rephrasing to ask &quot;are there any independent environmental impact asseessments of the pipeline, and what did they highlight as the major risks?&quot; - is that what you're after? Or is it something else - perhaps about the trade-offs between politics, short-term economics, and natural capital?" CreationDate="2014-11-29T11:19:27.350" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="3868" PostId="3168" Score="0" Text="I'm more looking for a comparison of the economic benefits and the environmental impacts, and also if there would be relatively permanent damage." CreationDate="2014-11-29T15:38:07.807" UserId="1852" />
  <row Id="3869" PostId="3169" Score="2" Text="I've heard other (older) people mention something similar. However, I'm not sure whether it is really true or it's just that people remember things differently when they get older. Older people also tend to say that time goes faster with age...." CreationDate="2014-11-30T12:26:02.787" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3884" PostId="3169" Score="0" Text="I feel pollution has an indirect affect on food. First, less healthy animals and vegetables due to poor feed or soil results in lower quality product. Second, pollution affects how we taste and perceive food. If our taste buds are less sensitive due to our bodies exposed to more pollutants that reduce the enjoyment of food." CreationDate="2014-12-04T21:16:00.033" UserId="1729" />
  <row Id="3871" PostId="3170" Score="1" Text="I asked this question to many people and they couldn't answer. Thank you very much" CreationDate="2014-12-01T02:51:04.640" UserId="1865" />
  <row Id="3881" PostId="3170" Score="0" Text="Another subjective factor is that people really do attach more value to things that are more expensive.  If a food is more expensive (even relatively speaking when you are younger and have less disposable income), it's going to be perceived as better in some way." CreationDate="2014-12-04T18:06:48.983" UserId="1238" />
  <row Id="3940" PostId="3170" Score="0" Text="That was  a lovely subjective memory you just said about the peach, I was genuinely impressed! +1" CreationDate="2014-12-27T07:57:18.940" UserId="1912" />
  <row Id="12397" PostId="3170" Score="0" Text="There is greater water content in many industrially farmed fruit and vegetables because they are typically bread for weight and volume. The sugars in tomatoes inhibit size, so tomatoes are bread for less sugar, which results in less flavour. Tomatoes also stop adding sugars once they are picked. You can ripen a tomato on a window sill (as long as their gel sacks have developed), but it won't get any sweeter. So if they're shipping them farther, it'll get picked sooner. Less sugar so less taste." CreationDate="2020-02-26T20:21:44.413" UserId="6287" />
  <row Id="3873" PostId="3171" Score="0" Text="The problem is, what if custom hardware (like super efficient raspberry pi-like boards, again with Linux) ends up saving more energy over time than what the initial acquiring process in the case of a second hand laptop can save (Especially if it is more bare bones components that don't have as many plastics or rare earth elements as the laptop also)? And then maybe second hand board/parts for such an 'open-source' hardware solution, would be better than those two alternatives, itself? Combining the two ideas, so to speak?" CreationDate="2014-12-01T04:14:29.103" UserDisplayName="user487" />
  <row Id="3885" PostId="3171" Score="1" Text="Ok, I have no idea how much energy is involved in producing it-hardware.  &#xA;Yes, a Rasberry PI, with a 10&quot; screen uses very little energy, but it will also take a lot longer to check your mail.&#xA;Also, at your end, you can choose to use it with 	*green electricity*.  &#xA;Again, *new is seldom the answer*. The amount of plastic and rare earth in a second hand laptop doesn't really matter, after all you keep the toxins and plastic of the landfill by using it. Getting old single board computers is fine obviously, it they are fast enough." CreationDate="2014-12-04T21:59:43.037" UserId="1208" />
  <row Id="3886" PostId="3171" Score="0" Text="I realize now, that my answer might have been to pragmatic where you wanted a hypothetical one. Right?" CreationDate="2014-12-04T22:04:52.450" UserId="1208" />
  <row Id="3887" PostId="3171" Score="0" Text="Totally pragmatic :). I am looking to do exactly this some time in the future! Not only for sustainability though, but this question of course deals with only that part of the it. Speed does not matter so much, just ability as noted in the Q. This may be unpopular with some sustainability fanatics, but due to health also being a priority for me, as well as a philosophy about one's approach towards resource-hungry materials, I tend to believe it is best to simply not SUPPORT the CREATION of said materials in the first place (by not using, OR continuing to use them); to take a stand, so to speak" CreationDate="2014-12-05T04:16:15.843" UserDisplayName="user487" />
  <row Id="3889" PostId="3171" Score="0" Text="I guess I get your point. But just to stress this again:&#xA;If you want to save resources like rare earth elements, don't buy new hardware. A Rasberry Pi might use less, but still a lot more than nothing :) Make a difference by suggesting to other people to do the same or by supporting the few people who actually try to change their production." CreationDate="2014-12-05T23:47:40.357" UserId="1208" />
  <row Id="3882" PostId="3173" Score="1" Text="I see some conflicts with a home ideally facing south (northern hemisphere) for optimal solar power, but that also means the home may retain more heat throughout the day." CreationDate="2014-12-04T21:06:05.767" UserId="1729" />
  <row Id="3875" PostId="3174" Score="0" Text="i don't like the solution 1 cos  need sun light for  my house" CreationDate="2014-12-02T15:43:32.190" UserId="1865" />
  <row Id="3883" PostId="3174" Score="0" Text="Your new home answer made me think of this: Before refrigeration became widely available in Korea, some people would store 50 gallon clay containers three feet in the ground. It served the purpose of having a lower consistent temperature during summer, but also kept the food from freezing over during winter." CreationDate="2014-12-04T21:09:15.840" UserId="1729" />
  <row Id="10400" PostId="3176" Score="0" Text="Emissivity is a two-way street.  Being &quot;black&quot; in IR might means it is a good &quot;radiator&quot;, true, but that would also make it a good &quot;absorber&quot; — so they cancel each other out.  The reality is that high-tech &quot;cool paints&quot; that are factory-applied to metal sheeting only achieve solar reflectivity ratings around the 75% mark.  Thats expensive roofing made under ideal circumstances.  Specialist paint that's bought in a tin and slopped on with a brush would be lucky to reach 60%.  Regular white paint with UV stabilisers can get to 50%.  In most cases it only makes sense to use normal white paint." CreationDate="2018-11-10T03:23:12.180" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="10403" PostId="3176" Score="0" Text="@Tim Correct, but there is little far IR in solar radiation due to the greenhouse effect." CreationDate="2018-11-10T14:38:25.420" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="10404" PostId="3176" Score="1" Text="Err, no.  ~53% of all solar energy that reaches the ground is IR, ~42% is visible, and ~5% is UV." CreationDate="2018-11-10T14:59:07.223" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="3877" PostId="3177" Score="1" Text="Wikipedia has [several long lists of pipeline accidents](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pipeline_accidents_in_the_United_States)" CreationDate="2014-12-03T14:05:52.857" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3880" PostId="3177" Score="0" Text="More than I thought.  Most don't say how much was spilled. I've added your link to the answer." CreationDate="2014-12-04T14:29:07.260" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="3890" PostId="3177" Score="0" Text="The market exists. The last line &quot;Overall a large pipeline has far less impact than transporting that same oil by rail or truck.&quot; is the most immediate effect we need examine. As the oil is getting to market one way or the other. It might be that the pipeline is a better option than rail and truck in the long term." CreationDate="2014-12-06T18:02:01.030" UserId="1618" />
  <row Id="3891" PostId="3177" Score="0" Text="Trucking is far more expensive.  I'm not sure that the market would exist if the pipeline isn't built." CreationDate="2014-12-07T19:33:14.710" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="3892" PostId="3177" Score="1" Text="What is key is to make the owners and builders take responsibility.  The actual creation of the pipeline has comparable impact somewehre between making a gravel road, and making a power line.  The problem with pipelines is when they don't work.  Much like tankers when they fail, they do so in a spectacular manner.  Although generally land spills are easier to deal with.  Dilute oil with enough dirt, and some bacteria will eat it." CreationDate="2014-12-07T19:35:44.593" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="3878" PostId="3178" Score="3" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! I think the OP is looking for plants or substances that drive away mosquitos, not preditor animals. [This question](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/481/99) focuses more on other methods of mosquito control." CreationDate="2014-12-03T19:31:08.767" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3938" PostId="3182" Score="2" Text="Using my electricity bill as the average price for my usage (I have a day/night pay regime) I calculated that 1W powered on for a whole year costs me €1.3. I use that as the measuring stick to see if I should leave a device on or even replace it in case it needs to be on for long times." CreationDate="2014-12-24T10:06:44.070" UserId="1921" />
  <row Id="3934" PostId="3183" Score="0" Text="your answer misses several facts about wastewater treatment that are relevant, see my answer. I like the way of thinking from 2lbs grain to the energy content of sewage, though. I'll maybe check the numbers." CreationDate="2014-12-23T09:45:11.020" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="3896" PostId="3190" Score="3" Text="Since you're (presumably) going to sell your car to someone else, that needs to be factored in somehow - your old car might go to someone who drives less. I'm not sure an electric car will work for you -- 15 hours of driving in a week means at least 2 hours/day, or over 100 miles at highway speeds - most mainstream EV's (excluding the $80K Tesla) have a range around 80 - 100 miles, so unless you can charge while on the go, you may not have enough range in an EV." CreationDate="2014-12-08T16:54:14.140" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="3897" PostId="3190" Score="0" Text="Yes johnny, I misspoke.  I should have said hybrid, not pure electric.  I drive up to 6 hours a night on nights when I volunteer so range is an obvious concern. I Haven't gotten to the point of considering actual vehicles or their viability yet, I'm still trying to decide if I should even consider replacing the vehicle yet; and I'm leaning towards no :)" CreationDate="2014-12-08T19:52:17.750" UserId="927" />
  <row Id="9986" PostId="3190" Score="0" Text="What about taking it for a tune-up? This will be cheaper than a new car and can improve fuel efficiency, though it's hard to say by how much." CreationDate="2018-07-29T16:15:03.967" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="3898" PostId="3191" Score="0" Text="I don't know about other areas but our recycling center says it does not want printer paper. There is something in it they don't want. For paper products they only take cardboard and newspaper." CreationDate="2014-12-09T15:45:43.863" UserId="1851" />
  <row Id="3942" PostId="3191" Score="0" Text="Toronto very definitely takes printer paper." CreationDate="2014-12-27T20:45:37.193" UserId="1053" />
  <row Id="3900" PostId="3192" Score="0" Text="There are significant potential health risks with lowering a house to 16 degrees C - it's important to work through the psychrometry issues with such a heating regime." CreationDate="2014-12-09T21:47:18.097" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="3901" PostId="3192" Score="1" Text="Do you have any citations for that? Keep in mind that the idea is to keep the people in the house at a higher temperature, by specifically heating where they are, instead of the entire house." CreationDate="2014-12-09T23:44:30.247" UserId="1882" />
  <row Id="3902" PostId="3192" Score="0" Text="@EnergyNumbers just like Tom I'm curious about the potential health risks and psychrometry issues as well. In the winter, we hardly ever heat the bedrooms so these are always at much lower temperatures than the living room." CreationDate="2014-12-10T11:15:57.860" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3903" PostId="3192" Score="0" Text="@THelper, Tom, perhaps that is best posted as a question in its own right" CreationDate="2014-12-10T12:02:24.613" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="3905" PostId="3192" Score="0" Text="@EnergyNumbers Good idea! I've posted [a new question](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/3194/99)" CreationDate="2014-12-11T08:38:38.777" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3906" PostId="3194" Score="0" Text="Having been involved in the linked question, I'm curious about this too. My bedroom frequently drops well below 16C at night, while I'm asleep... but I suspect the risks that are indirect ones of having a house that is always cold, such as mould growing, rather than direct ones of low temperatures. Will be interested to see." CreationDate="2014-12-11T09:34:12.533" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="3910" PostId="3195" Score="0" Text="So if I understand you correctly, potential problems are respiratory problems caused by moulds and mites that can thrive due to condensation of warm moist air from warmer rooms flowing to colder rooms. So I guess this would only be a problem for houses that are relatively moist?" CreationDate="2014-12-12T08:17:22.987" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3911" PostId="3195" Score="1" Text="@THelper prettty much any building that has bathing, cooking and breathing going on in it can be sufficiently moist, unless air-exchange rates are huge." CreationDate="2014-12-12T09:10:53.623" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="12307" PostId="3195" Score="0" Text="To put this a slightly different way, large temperature *differences* (either between areas or at different times) significantly worsen condensation.  If your entire house is at a steady 16°C all of the time condensation will be much less of a problem than if you have a 20°C bathroom and a 16°C bedroom, or if your rooms swing between 20°C and 16°C faster than the air is changed.  Water will evaporate readily in the warm areas/times and condense readily in the cold areas/times." CreationDate="2020-02-12T10:46:01.383" UserId="1445" />
  <row Id="3908" PostId="3196" Score="0" Text="To assess the sustainability impact of both choices it's relevant to know where the new trees would come from. Would you be growing them yourselves, using what resources? Or would you buy them from a farmer who perhaps used lots of water and fertilizer to grow them? Basically, you want to know which (non-renewable) resources and approximately how many will be spent for either choice." CreationDate="2014-12-11T21:19:28.563" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3909" PostId="3196" Score="0" Text="Say something off the Internet, low cost w/o any details of production methods." CreationDate="2014-12-12T00:53:37.913" UserId="427" />
  <row Id="3913" PostId="3199" Score="0" Text="The original question which was migrated to Gardening StackExchange was about how to renovate and can be found via the link." CreationDate="2014-12-15T00:04:26.970" UserId="427" />
  <row Id="7530" PostId="3202" Score="0" Text="I suspect the actual formula would look like: CO2 produced = #recipients*(alpha + beta*attachmentsize). I'd love to find actual values for alpha and beta." CreationDate="2016-09-22T08:26:19.290" UserId="3802" />
  <row Id="12424" PostId="3202" Score="0" Text="The marginal footprint of a single email is highly variable, across several orders of magnitude. Is that what you're really looking for, or are you trying to establish whether email has a larger carbon footprint than letter-writing, perhaps on a per-capita basis?" CreationDate="2020-03-02T16:01:13.693" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="12465" PostId="3202" Score="1" Text="@Nic My goal was twofold; 1) make people aware that email has a carbon footprint and 2) get an estimate of how much email contributes to one's carbon footprint." CreationDate="2020-03-07T08:11:28.163" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3918" PostId="3203" Score="0" Text="Good link, especially if you drill through the main site http://www.ieabioenergy.com/ and the links on the newsletters.  That said, I'd be a touch suspicious that they are coming from a solely energy production perspective rather than a broader sustainability one. E.g. it could be that their _numbers_ could be used to argue for chopping down rainforests or other important ecologies, but I'd not consider that 'sustainable' in a wider sense. Neither, probably, would they, but it's not a factor in their evaluations as far as I can see." CreationDate="2014-12-17T11:00:51.923" UserId="1210" />
  <row Id="5368" PostId="3203" Score="0" Text="http://www.iea.org/techinitiatives/renewableenergy/bioenergy/ The content you are looking for does not exist, or has been moved." CreationDate="2016-01-27T12:26:06.597" UserId="1078" />
  <row Id="3920" PostId="3205" Score="1" Text="It'd be interesting to consider refrigeration costs. E.g. the extreme case: assume refrigeration is needed for the long rail journey, and none needed for the quicker and high-altitude air journey. Would air still always use more overall energy?" CreationDate="2014-12-18T21:03:22.870" UserId="961" />
  <row Id="3924" PostId="3205" Score="1" Text="@DarrenCook this is only an intuitive response, I haven't done the maths, but I'm pretty sure that the energy for refrigeration will be orders of magnitude less than that for movement." CreationDate="2014-12-19T10:39:12.997" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="3925" PostId="3205" Score="1" Text="@DarrenCook it's a really good question, and there must be a range of answers. After all, wrap food in a half-metre thickness of aerogel, and the cooling costs will be practically identical for one hour or ten days. Please do post a specific question about energy costs of refrigeration, and I'll see what I can find." CreationDate="2014-12-19T11:33:57.487" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="3921" PostId="3206" Score="1" Text="It definitely doesn't sound silly! I think one of the key safety considerations would be how to prevent them being highly flammable." CreationDate="2014-12-18T21:55:11.017" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="3922" PostId="3206" Score="1" Text="Doesn't sound silly to me. Not sure whether it's chemically plausible (different types of plastic, etc) and whether it'd be the best use of such materials - but seems like a good question. Welcome to Stackexchange :-)" CreationDate="2014-12-19T10:32:30.887" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="3930" PostId="3207" Score="0" Text="They've got a way to go - as long as materials keep developing. Not too long from now they expect to get to the point where they could bridge the straits of Gibraltar with a single span bridge (&quot;Intercontinental suspension bridge&quot; :-) ) and about then a space elevator becomes viable although somewhat stronger materials would be nicer. And we can look forwards to Kin Stanley Robinson's Red/Green/Blue Mars synthetic diamond elevator cable. Wow!. How that translates into WT diameter I know not,but it's &quot;bigger&quot;." CreationDate="2014-12-22T16:38:32.650" UserId="318" />
  <row Id="3932" PostId="3207" Score="0" Text="@RussellMcMahon thanks, that is extraordinary. I wonder if the differential wind speeds would be the limiter, then? Wind speeds vary considerably with height above ground, so the tip of the blade at the top would have very different forces on it to the tips of the blades at the bottom." CreationDate="2014-12-22T18:26:47.610" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="16408" PostId="3207" Score="0" Text="9 years later, and [we're at 236 metre](https://electrek.co/2023/01/03/worlds-most-powerful-wind-turbine-first-power/)." CreationDate="2023-07-11T08:55:48.950" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="3928" PostId="3210" Score="0" Text="Which one is more environmentally-friendly probably depends on whether or not you include manufacturing and disposal of your MacBook." CreationDate="2014-12-21T13:48:31.610" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3929" PostId="3210" Score="0" Text="I definitely included manufacture, as for disposal, good point, as I was thinking of disposal of the paper too. I think everything should be thought of (including the whole idea of trying to keep everything in your head as a third option), so yes, disposal of MacBook too." CreationDate="2014-12-21T20:32:18.993" UserDisplayName="user487" />
  <row Id="12466" PostId="3211" Score="0" Text="As at 7 March 2020, The [BBC](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200305-why-your-internet-habits-are-not-as-clean-as-you-think) are still quoting the same numbers." CreationDate="2020-03-07T12:10:07.070" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="12467" PostId="3211" Score="0" Text="@Fred, indeed. The same numbers keep turning up [in](https://carbonliteracy.com/the-carbon-cost-of-an-email/) [various](https://pollybarks.com/carbon-footprint-email/) [places](https://twosidesna.org/US/The-Carbon-Footprint-of-Email-is-quite-large/). I suspect no one redid that research. It's likely that the carbon footprint per email is lower now, but I think more emails are sent nowadays compared to 10 years ago, so the overall footprint of email may have gone up." CreationDate="2020-03-07T12:18:01.043" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7621" PostId="3212" Score="0" Text="The most energetic waves are also the most destructive, and often quoted mean values of annual wave resource mask seasonal variability. Coastlines near the equator may be preferable in this regard because of the more consistent resource. After all, the waves are free; it is the cost of the plant relative to the energy output that matters." CreationDate="2016-10-28T21:56:36.393" UserId="1116" />
  <row Id="3933" PostId="3213" Score="1" Text="I'm not sure that the wear on the computer could be considered minimal in comparison to a pencil. I think a cheap pencil or lead refill (for a mechanical pencil) can be purchased for as little as about 10 cents (and will last quite some time, with a good quality sharpener), whereas the cost of wear and tear for using a computer for 30 minutes may well exceed that." CreationDate="2014-12-23T09:25:25.403" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="3935" PostId="3213" Score="0" Text="Hm, might be true, edited answer." CreationDate="2014-12-23T12:16:29.547" UserId="1208" />
  <row Id="3936" PostId="3214" Score="0" Text="Why would anerobes produce less sludge?  If the aerobic sludge is mostly bacteria/organic matter then there almost certainly something that will eat it and convert the carbon to either methane or CO2.  But your answer is a good one. I give you a point." CreationDate="2014-12-23T18:11:51.590" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="3937" PostId="3214" Score="0" Text="aerobic digestion produces more energy for the bacteria, because the path (say) C6H12O6 + 6O2-&gt; 6CO2 + 6H2O releases more energy than C6H12O2 -&gt; 3CH4 + 3CO2 (because the enthalpy of CH4 is higher). So the bacteria can grow more and you get the sludge. Of course, you can take the sludge and digest it anaerobically (and this is done in many, many WWTPs) afterwards (still leaving you with an enormous vollume of sludge afterwards), but you get less energy than you would if you'd AD the raw sewage. On the other hand, the sewage sludge is easier to handle for most AD systems because it is  thicker" CreationDate="2014-12-23T20:43:50.920" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="3939" PostId="3217" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Are you affiliated with this product or just a happy consumer?" CreationDate="2014-12-27T07:09:03.070" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3943" PostId="3219" Score="0" Text="What are your energy requiements - is it all low-grade heat (below 80 degrees Celsius) that you need, or some high-grade heat and/or electricity as well? Is the design of the greenhouses set, or is there an option to trade off between heat requirements, and insulation levels?" CreationDate="2014-12-28T15:29:02.100" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="5205" PostId="3219" Score="0" Text="Centigrade or Fahrenheit? Please [edit]" CreationDate="2015-12-22T08:39:28.073" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="3951" PostId="3220" Score="0" Text="Thanks for the reply, the rocket stove looks really appealing from the little I have read. Also from the little I have read I see the are issues with commercial availability, insuring and permitting. I'm from nova Scotia, Canada and can't seem to find anything that suggests and type of certification. Thanks again" CreationDate="2015-01-05T16:14:01.690" UserId="1932" />
  <row Id="4087" PostId="3220" Score="0" Text="Why do you want more thermal mass? Do you use your basement (where the stove is) for anything? How does the heat from the oven get to where you want it warm now?" CreationDate="2015-02-12T16:44:42.817" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="4090" PostId="3220" Score="0" Text="In most jurisdictions a masonry stove, russian stove, rocket stove is considered a fireplace, and there are no applicable fire codes.  Go figure." CreationDate="2015-02-12T20:39:10.093" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="4076" PostId="3228" Score="0" Text="Many new energy efficient window-unit models use a slinger fan to splash the condensed water up on the hot condenser coils to improve efficiency (and to get rid of the water). If you drain this water away for other uses, you'll be reducing the energy efficiency of the unit and using even *more* electricity in purifying the water." CreationDate="2015-02-11T07:08:17.347" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="7099" PostId="3228" Score="0" Text="Related question: [Is the Air Conditioner water clean and hygienic if I want to collect and reuse the water?](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/1267/99) and [How to benefit from air-conditioning water](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/5234/99)" CreationDate="2016-06-30T07:06:23.410" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="13032" PostId="3228" Score="0" Text="I was thinking of this idea for a sailboat or a campervan. To keep from hauling around a lot of heavy water that takes up a lot of space, just make it from your air conditioner and keep cool at the same time. I have been searching the Internet for the last half of the day looking for answers, like distilling the water, ... no luck. It's like someone does not want you to find the answer." CreationDate="2020-10-27T22:44:25.687" UserId="9070" />
  <row Id="6914" PostId="3230" Score="0" Text="No, [Legionella](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legionella) has no link with molds, it's a bacterial issue." CreationDate="2016-05-17T08:34:25.410" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="13035" PostId="3230" Score="0" Text="&quot;Neither of these harm plants.&quot; - I'm not sure about this. Soap is basic so it'll make the soil more basic as well, which may be bad for plants. There may be other things in your toiletries that aren't good for plants, e.g. zinc pyrithione in your shampoo, silicones in your conditioner, synthetic fragrances in just about everything, etc. My understanding is that graywater is best used to flush toilets with." CreationDate="2020-10-28T21:19:48.760" UserId="2763" />
  <row Id="3947" PostId="3231" Score="0" Text="thanks for this, could you put a link where you got the biochar production costs from, please?" CreationDate="2015-01-04T12:23:51.027" UserId="1912" />
  <row Id="3948" PostId="3231" Score="0" Text="Done.  For more links google biochar wholesale prices" CreationDate="2015-01-04T14:33:33.277" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="4078" PostId="3234" Score="0" Text="what good is a kachelofen in the basement?" CreationDate="2015-02-11T15:12:54.367" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="4079" PostId="3234" Score="0" Text="I didn't suggest putting it in the basement.  I suggested beefing up the support underneath it.  You could put it in the basement.  Heat rises.  Put a few grates in the floor and the entire basement ceiling space becomes a plenum." CreationDate="2015-02-11T23:08:11.077" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="4086" PostId="3234" Score="0" Text="the whole point of a kachelofen is to have radiative, not convective heat transfer. But maybe we schoiul aks the OP what he wants to achieve." CreationDate="2015-02-12T16:43:49.487" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="4088" PostId="3234" Score="0" Text="Where did you get the idea I was suggesting  putting it in the basement?" CreationDate="2015-02-12T20:35:00.407" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="4089" PostId="3234" Score="0" Text="And you are not correct that the whole point is radiative heat.  The exterior surface of a large masonry stove is cool enough sit or sleep on.  Not a very good radiator.  The point is to have a short very intense non oxygen starved fire and use that to heat up a very large mass by a small amount.  The mass and thickness of the stove means that the surface remains warm for hours." CreationDate="2015-02-12T20:38:01.730" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="4091" PostId="3234" Score="0" Text="the OP wrote the stove is in the basement, not you." CreationDate="2015-02-12T20:56:26.550" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="4101" PostId="3234" Score="0" Text="My bad.  Sorry about that.  Figured that a comment to the OP would be on the original question.  Oops." CreationDate="2015-02-13T22:08:39.450" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="5207" PostId="3235" Score="1" Text="the link points to an empty page." CreationDate="2015-12-22T09:54:25.763" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="5257" PostId="3235" Score="0" Text="@mart I was also interested in the subject and as you said .. that domain name is dead. Here is a snapshot of it: https://web.archive.org/web/20150423042108/http://www.sunnyjohn.com/indexpages/shcs.htm" CreationDate="2016-01-02T17:51:09.993" UserId="2922" />
  <row Id="3949" PostId="3239" Score="1" Text="http://www.carbonrally.com/ is a website where it bundles challenges, but I think it's community is almost dead. I am also looking for something better" CreationDate="2015-01-04T22:17:16.050" UserId="1912" />
  <row Id="3950" PostId="3239" Score="0" Text="Where do you draw the line of a comparator/calculator being &quot;too simplistic&quot;? And what do you consider to be &quot;the best&quot;? What are your criteria?" CreationDate="2015-01-05T10:16:37.093" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3971" PostId="3239" Score="0" Text="@THelper Check out the calculators I mentioned. Difficult not to agree that the first is so disastrously dated that it could not be the &quot;best&quot; anything, that the second is so simplistic that it fits on half a page, and the third is hidden behind a paywall. Even among calculator widgets there should be something better." CreationDate="2015-01-10T13:24:29.073" UserId="1878" />
  <row Id="3972" PostId="3239" Score="0" Text="To clarify, what I am looking for (possibly waiting for) is a relatively simple presentation of figures, perhaps in graphical form, which makes clear what we all know here, and yet that many do not know due to greenwashing. Namely, that the greenest car is probably not electric, it is your existing one; the greenest home does not have solar panels; the greenest holiday involves no sustainable log cabins in the jungle; grass-fed organic beef might be tasty but is not a net positive for the planet; and that in each of these domains some deeds are much, much more important than others, and which." CreationDate="2015-01-10T13:42:43.633" UserId="1878" />
  <row Id="3980" PostId="3239" Score="1" Text="Two related questions: [How do I determine what my biggest personal impact on global warming is?](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/1003/99) and [When to buy new, when to keep the old?](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/523/99)" CreationDate="2015-01-14T09:27:42.430" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="12597" PostId="3244" Score="0" Text="Great answer. To add to this, the [Humanure Handbook](https://humanurehandbook.com/) has quite some depth regarding the process of composting. The author claims to add meat, dairy, beer, cooked foods, greasy foods, bones (crushed), bodies of dead animals, and (hence the title...) toilet contents to his compost pile, which handles it just fine. If you are interested in growing food but have little space, there are people doing **vermiponics** (hydroponics with vermicompost castings (the &quot;tea&quot; may have problems) instead of salts). Compare what people say, don't believe the first search result..." CreationDate="2020-05-02T18:21:16.107" UserId="3401" />
  <row Id="3952" PostId="3245" Score="2" Text="I found that buying less stuff and cleaning up my house and getting rid of things I hardly ever use, gives a feeling of lightheartedness. It not only cleans up your home, somehow it also clears your head." CreationDate="2015-01-07T08:30:02.610" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3963" PostId="3246" Score="1" Text="This has worked for me as well. It was minor, everyday eliminations and their slow refinement of my interests and requirements that eventually formed an all-encompassing attitude." CreationDate="2015-01-08T21:48:36.033" UserId="1667" />
  <row Id="3962" PostId="4249" Score="1" Text="Great examples! If you have a freezer, you can collect small edible scraps and decide what to do with them when they accumulate. You could possibly grind them and add them to recycle the nutrients and enrich the contents of milk/yogurt/kefir drinks, preserved bottled/canned food or veggie burgers." CreationDate="2015-01-08T20:34:19.787" UserId="1667" />
  <row Id="4065" PostId="4249" Score="0" Text="@FilipDupanović can you explain which scraps are edible?" CreationDate="2015-02-09T04:27:20.293" UserId="279" />
  <row Id="3956" PostId="4251" Score="1" Text="I don't know if it would have an better forum to ask this but i thought  that this one would be a good place since aeroponics i really sustainable especially on small scales and is the one with less impact on environment and an guide like that could inspire many people to do the same maybe to business maybe to feed themselves" CreationDate="2015-01-08T04:53:54.190" UserId="1956" />
  <row Id="3957" PostId="4251" Score="2" Text="Pricing is outside the scope of this site; it's intended to provide useful lasting information, and pricing changes relatively quickly. However, the rest of the question seems well worded, so best of luck for getting a good answer, and welcome to the site! :-)" CreationDate="2015-01-08T09:19:52.290" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="3959" PostId="4251" Score="1" Text="Hello, and welcome to Sustainability.SX! I tried to revise your question for easier reading. Please undo any changes you feel are inappropriate (by clicking &quot;edit&quot;)." CreationDate="2015-01-08T12:28:12.487" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="3960" PostId="4251" Score="0" Text="I think the question about applying sustainability principles to your business is quite separate from your aeroponics project. Maybe it would be better to ask it as a separate question." CreationDate="2015-01-08T12:30:11.110" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="3961" PostId="4251" Score="0" Text="Ok thanks guys i've edited the question the price i can search for myself" CreationDate="2015-01-08T12:43:39.333" UserId="1956" />
  <row Id="3964" PostId="4255" Score="0" Text="Yes but i feel i would make much more money with aeroponics won't I ? My productivity will be much more than traditional farming so much more money? I can do normal farming then go aeroponic later but i still want an closed environment for high productivity all year and disease control" CreationDate="2015-01-08T23:17:13.127" UserId="1956" />
  <row Id="3965" PostId="4255" Score="0" Text="@Freedom Have you visited organic farms (traditional farming) in Brazil? (As a matter of coincidence, friends of mine have an organic farm in Brazil.) Have you visited an aeroponic farm (anywhere)? That might give you some idea of what's possible..." CreationDate="2015-01-09T00:30:05.693" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="3966" PostId="4255" Score="0" Text="@Earrhlin No i never visited any farm and wow thats nice maybe your friend can agree to share intel with me ?" CreationDate="2015-01-09T04:43:14.083" UserId="1956" />
  <row Id="3969" PostId="4255" Score="0" Text="No, I think you will make *far* more money with conventional farming.  The additional expenses of aeroponics only make sense with an unfavourable climate AND expensive land." CreationDate="2015-01-10T02:12:34.063" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="3970" PostId="4256" Score="0" Text="Very interesting, thank you. Of course, I am aware that comparisons here are a minefield. For example, your example of Canadian grain production does not mention the scenario of returning the cleared land to boreal forest. The overview comparison I am looking for would have to skim over such alternative scenarios too, in the name of brevity and &quot;realism&quot;. But it would not miss the valuable points you make in general, notably about appliances and cars. And it would not fail to redress the most important misconceptions – for example that cities are dirty, or that planes are buses that fly." CreationDate="2015-01-10T13:15:22.800" UserId="1878" />
  <row Id="3974" PostId="4256" Score="0" Text="Returning cleared land to forest is a tough sell.  Someone owns that land, and has been making a living off of it.  Not without precedent, however.  Many farms in New England have been abandoned -- you can't compete with rock free flat land in the midwest. So these become hobby farms, places for someone and a couple horses, maple syrup bushes." CreationDate="2015-01-12T20:46:17.987" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="4127" PostId="4259" Score="0" Text="Please check the units. GW/week does not make any sense. Power is already energy per time unit. Do you mean GW * w or GJ/w? Either way, these are not conventional." CreationDate="2015-02-18T15:11:44.523" UserId="2029" />
  <row Id="4140" PostId="4259" Score="1" Text="The use is correct:  1 GW installed capacity per week.  e.g 4000 250 watt modules per week." CreationDate="2015-02-19T18:43:57.177" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="4144" PostId="4259" Score="0" Text="Thanks I understand now. On my first pass I had understood the sentence as in &quot;installed units are running at x GW/wk&quot;" CreationDate="2015-02-21T02:59:34.550" UserId="2029" />
  <row Id="6467" PostId="4261" Score="2" Text="there should be a website that lists expected obsolescence per product" CreationDate="2016-02-15T18:24:40.700" UserDisplayName="user3070" />
  <row Id="6839" PostId="4261" Score="0" Text="There is one, but it's in French. I asked if they were planning to make it multilingual." CreationDate="2016-05-03T14:23:43.700" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="6854" PostId="4261" Score="0" Text="I have had my panasonic cordless phone for 3 years. It has been losing battery power and cutting off, so I bought the special batteries for it. They are not helping! Phone is constantly saying 'charging' and will not last more than a few mins call before it cuts off. It has to be the base unit. Very annoying. Just because one can replace the batteries does not mean it is exempt from planned obsolescence. There is truly no way to know. Even with expensive coffee machines Ive had this." CreationDate="2016-04-24T14:48:54.120" UserDisplayName="user3329" />
  <row Id="10424" PostId="4261" Score="0" Text="If your goal is to simply reduce unnecessary waste, try to buy less-gimmicky items. Don't get a 1080p smart TV if you have a 1080p regular TV. Buy a Roku or something. Don't buy items with a lot of unnecessary tech/moving parts (many modern vehicles). Don't buy items with rapidly-evolving tech (unless you don't mind if it gets outdated). Don't buy the new iPhone because it has a fingerprint sensor on both sides or the camera's resolution is 13% bigger. A lot of products aren't designed to fail, but are planned on being replaced. I have a 2nd gen Echo dot and am resisting getting gen 3 because." CreationDate="2018-11-21T12:34:20.450" UserId="5998" />
  <row Id="12644" PostId="4261" Score="0" Text="Here's a big one: get rid of your mobile and use a landline exclusively. Quality and reliability is far superior, and huge reduction in carbon emissions, rare earth minerals consumption, slave labor, etc. etc." CreationDate="2020-05-26T19:00:00.743" UserId="8736" />
  <row Id="3976" PostId="4264" Score="0" Text="The first option; I would like to be a worker/supplier for that IT branch." CreationDate="2015-01-13T11:26:41.567" UserId="1912" />
  <row Id="3977" PostId="4264" Score="0" Text="I'm not sure such a list exists (I would also be interested in this list myself!) It's been my experience that most (smaller) NGOs have a rather small IT department and outsource much of their IT needs. Perhaps a good place to start is trying to find companies that make software for life-cycle analysis or traceability systems for organic or fair trade food?" CreationDate="2015-01-13T13:20:47.963" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3981" PostId="4264" Score="0" Text="I don't think such a list exists either.  But it depends what you mean by &quot;large&quot;.  I work for an NGO that has an in-house IT team of 20 (out of 350 UK staff), and the larger NGOs are big organisations by anyone's standards." CreationDate="2015-01-14T16:28:23.903" UserId="1445" />
  <row Id="4007" PostId="4264" Score="3" Text="You may find that it's not as rewarding as you suspect. I worked at a mid sized non-profit (500-1000 employees depending on whether or not you count volunteers as 'employees') focused on sustainability, and the job was pretty much like any other IT job, except a lot more focus on revenue and cost cutting since money was tight... the actual sustainability took a back seat to keeping the organization alive by bringing in revenue (donations, membership, etc). IT sustainability projects had to show that could pay for themselves financially and weren't done just because it was more sustainable." CreationDate="2015-01-28T02:47:17.603" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="4064" PostId="4264" Score="0" Text="@Johnny I agree. I've heard it makes more sense to simply stay at your current job if cushy then donate to support sustainability NGOs" CreationDate="2015-02-09T04:22:09.633" UserId="279" />
  <row Id="3978" PostId="4265" Score="1" Text="Are you sure focussing is helpful/economical?  Focussing will only help when the Sun is at one particular angle, whereas unfocussed arrays work for an entire hemisphere.  You'd need moving parts, and I doubt you want to go there." CreationDate="2015-01-13T16:44:57.593" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="11131" PostId="4265" Score="0" Text="You could avoid the moving parts and overconcentrating by placing the mirrors on a fixed position so they concentrate light when the sun is not at its peak." CreationDate="2019-06-09T11:20:45.040" UserId="6678" />
  <row Id="3979" PostId="4267" Score="2" Text="Nice answer! I guess when it comes to parts the first requirement is that the product can be opened at all (is not welded or something) As for books, I read somewhere that college education books often are reprinted with only minor changes so new students have to buy new editions." CreationDate="2015-01-14T09:02:55.720" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="3982" PostId="4267" Score="3" Text="Especially furniture from brands like IKEA have a low durability. You have to look for oak or other hardwood, indeed items that have been here for over a century will last another generation too. Or, make it yourself by using hardwood.&#xA;&#xA;Another aspect to look for is pricing. If it looks cheap, is cheap and feels cheap, it probably is cheap and won't last long." CreationDate="2015-01-16T09:25:03.120" UserId="1974" />
  <row Id="6473" PostId="4267" Score="2" Text="Documentation - look for how well a product is documented, do you find all the info to repair it?" CreationDate="2016-02-17T08:22:37.890" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="6499" PostId="4267" Score="0" Text="The price may also serve as indicator. Cheap products tend to be less fixable." CreationDate="2016-02-22T17:05:16.590" UserId="1581" />
  <row Id="6500" PostId="4267" Score="1" Text="For specific products there are reparability scores online: https://www.ifixit.com/smartphone_repairability" CreationDate="2016-02-22T17:09:51.430" UserId="1581" />
  <row Id="10277" PostId="4267" Score="0" Text="I would disagree about books - they are not designed to fail after a certain time, which is what the OP is asking. Plus I've got plenty of paperbacks that are 50+ years old..." CreationDate="2018-10-12T09:14:14.310" UserId="4155" />
  <row Id="4104" PostId="4269" Score="0" Text="In parallel to this, there is the opportunity to obliterate chemical and plastic waste by pyrolysis+combustion in the high temperature and long residency time found in cement production kilns. Is it relevant to the question?" CreationDate="2015-02-15T11:59:12.283" UserId="2029" />
  <row Id="5264" PostId="4269" Score="0" Text="I have no idea what technology these people are talking about specifically, but it may give you leads: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eofV6li8GPc" CreationDate="2016-01-04T10:35:51.713" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="3984" PostId="4270" Score="0" Text="It's not clear why you're saying the process is carbon-intensive even when the electricity is renewable. I know carbon is an ingredient in the steel itself (though not in the form of a greenhouse gas), so is it the process of getting the carbon into the iron that creates CO2 even when electricity is used for the heat? ie does a proportion of the carbon get burnt during the process?" CreationDate="2015-01-18T23:30:22.027" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="3986" PostId="4270" Score="0" Text="@HighlyIrregular thanks for the prompt - I had a bit of a rummage around, and have corrected and tightened up the question a bit." CreationDate="2015-01-19T01:08:22.410" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="3992" PostId="4270" Score="0" Text="AFAIK over here (GErmany) 90% of scrap iron gets recycled, so you can skip the oxidising step. To go that route, we'd need an economy that needs no *additional* iron ..." CreationDate="2015-01-20T21:55:40.580" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="6491" PostId="4270" Score="0" Text="Can arc furnaces be used for primary iron making?  I thought that the basic reaction to make iron was FeO + Coke =&gt; Fe + CO2  (Yes various forms of iron oxide)  Just getting it hot will not separate the oxygen from the iron." CreationDate="2016-02-19T15:17:14.620" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="7529" PostId="4270" Score="0" Text="Here is a nice report on this topic. If you have not seen it, I'd suggest flipping through: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/416667/Iron_and_Steel_Report.pdf" CreationDate="2016-09-22T05:35:13.970" UserId="3662" />
  <row Id="7749" PostId="4270" Score="0" Text="The problem is that iron ore is FeO or Fe2O3.  The usual way to remove the carbon is to remove it using a reaction with C.  Even if the heat comes from something else, there is no good alternative to C that I know of." CreationDate="2016-11-29T03:52:46.670" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="7900" PostId="4270" Score="0" Text="I think the question still needs a bit of work... what is the coke used for? if @SherwoodBotsford's comment is accurate I think it would be valuable to add this to the question." CreationDate="2016-12-29T04:00:51.277" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7911" PostId="4270" Score="0" Text="A couple of comments on the comments: (1) There are many renewable things that are not sustainable because not all renewal processes can be sustained indefinitely without prohibitive cost, (2) The primary gas produced by deoxidation of iron oxide is primarily CO not CO2, (3) the quantity produced is dwarfed by several orders of magnitude by internal combustion engines, and (4) to get an economy that needs &quot;no additional iron&quot;, one needs to arrest the growth of steel structure worldwide. That's simply not going to happen in this century." CreationDate="2016-12-31T01:53:25.863" UserId="4084" />
  <row Id="3985" PostId="4271" Score="2" Text="It's not just crop yields that need to be optimised. There also needs to be a sustainable system for retaining top soil and the nutrients within it. http://www.fewresources.org/soil-science-and-society-were-running-out-of-dirt.html" CreationDate="2015-01-18T23:37:09.537" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="3987" PostId="4271" Score="0" Text="Good question. My gut instinct is that fertiliser production will need to be maintained, but that the energy input into this can come from non-fossil sources. However, I claim no special expertise. It might be helpful to clarify precisely what is meant by &quot;organic farming&quot;,in terms of what fertilisers may and may not be used." CreationDate="2015-01-19T07:03:11.320" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="3989" PostId="4271" Score="0" Text="The last sentence could be a question of its own, given that nutrients in municipal wastewater are very dilute and often contaminated with heavy metals." CreationDate="2015-01-20T11:27:36.033" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="7309" PostId="4271" Score="0" Text="It is not clear in your question why you think using fossil fuels to make fertiliser is bad. Is it because it produces lots of CO2 ?" CreationDate="2016-07-29T20:57:30.367" UserId="3303" />
  <row Id="7313" PostId="4271" Score="0" Text="@NickCollier fossil fuel use isn't sustainable" CreationDate="2016-07-30T06:10:52.413" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="7316" PostId="4271" Score="0" Text="@EnergyNumbers Why is that bad though. Can't something be unsuitable without harm? Surly the ultimate goal is to not harm the planet. Do you think we have a moral duty to leave methane in the ground? I say why not use fossil fuels if it can be done with less impact to the environment than the alternatives." CreationDate="2016-07-30T07:22:56.230" UserId="3303" />
  <row Id="7318" PostId="4271" Score="0" Text="@NickCollier I wrote &quot;sustainable&quot; not &quot;suitable&quot;. Sustainability is what we discuss here. And while it's a lovely idea that we could use fossil fuels with less environmental impact than the alternatives, physics says otherwise. And that's a battle we can't win." CreationDate="2016-07-30T08:55:52.727" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="7320" PostId="4271" Score="0" Text="Unsuitable was a typo. I meant unsustainable. So If we use methane extracted from a small hole in the ground and process in a way that does not release pollution, is it worse using a biological product that is sustainable renewable, but has a bigger impacts on the land use? The big advantage of fossil fuels is that often the use very little land area impact. It is the CO2 that is their big problem, not their in unsustainability in terms of the fact that they are a finite resource." CreationDate="2016-07-30T09:09:45.327" UserId="3303" />
  <row Id="7321" PostId="4271" Score="0" Text="@NickCollier OK, so we agree that fossil fuel use is unsustainable, then?" CreationDate="2016-07-30T09:20:24.263" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="7323" PostId="4271" Score="0" Text="@EnergyNumbers  yes" CreationDate="2016-07-30T11:01:15.023" UserId="3303" />
  <row Id="7324" PostId="4271" Score="0" Text="Definitely not renewable, but is carbon capture fossil fuel use considered unsustainable?" CreationDate="2016-07-30T11:09:46.807" UserId="3303" />
  <row Id="7327" PostId="4271" Score="0" Text="It's not sustainable. Capturing the CO2 and burying it doesn't change that." CreationDate="2016-07-30T15:13:34.817" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="8793" PostId="4271" Score="0" Text="https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/a/6006/2891 - Check this - Self sustaining zero budget natural farming - the way forests grow" CreationDate="2017-08-26T15:49:25.930" UserId="2891" />
  <row Id="3988" PostId="4272" Score="0" Text="This doesn't address part of the question, though - if going an organic route, is there a way to maintain the yields that are available through artificial fertilisers?" CreationDate="2015-01-20T10:04:11.853" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="3990" PostId="4272" Score="0" Text="I think you can have the same crop yields and even more if you go organic only because artificial fertilizers create a vicious circle you should only use artificial fertilizers to fix the soil and then keep it healty and nutritive with organic material only buy a kit to test your soil and do so periodically so you know what you need add and to maximum crop yields soil is only one factor there are others as well like diseases and stress caused by too much hot or cold and so on..." CreationDate="2015-01-20T14:25:34.280" UserId="1956" />
  <row Id="3993" PostId="4273" Score="0" Text="note to self: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v485/n7397/full/nature11069.html could be more optimisitic and is more recent" CreationDate="2015-01-21T12:49:43.923" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="3999" PostId="4273" Score="2" Text="Hi Mart. Nice answer you are busy compiling. You may have noticed that MathJax isn't enabled on this site, so writing formula's doesn't work. You can use &lt;sub&gt; or &lt;sup&gt; tags instead, e.g. NH&lt;sub&gt;3&lt;/sub&gt; And as you can see it only works for questions and answers, not comments." CreationDate="2015-01-26T10:31:35.653" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7127" PostId="4273" Score="0" Text="note to self: meta study on yield gap: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308521X1100182X" CreationDate="2016-07-01T11:03:22.363" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="7128" PostId="4273" Score="1" Text="@THelper You can also use Unicode sub- and superscripts ₁₂₃₄ ¹²³⁴ (I actually can type them on my keyboard). And as you can see, these do work in comments, too =)" CreationDate="2016-07-01T11:14:35.220" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="3994" PostId="4274" Score="2" Text="Hello there Mark, and welcome to the site. Thanks for this. Could you add a bit more about papercrete's properties, and how it would be made from the large pressed carbdboard bales that the OP has?" CreationDate="2015-01-21T17:42:16.977" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="3995" PostId="4275" Score="4" Text="Welcome to the site and thanks for your contribution! If you provide some links to material that backs up your statements it, or explains details, it is really helpful to readers." CreationDate="2015-01-22T07:58:12.830" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="10047" PostId="4275" Score="0" Text="Yeah you sure can wash vegetables and cook rice with see water. But will it work well in a regular wash-machine?" CreationDate="2018-08-17T06:51:55.680" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="7776" PostId="4276" Score="1" Text="You don't think the CAFE standards in the US have lead to an improvement in vehicle emissions? What about the rapid growth in EV adoption? I recently saw projects that even without significant increases in petrol costs, or decreases in EV costs, adoption is predicted to hit over 20% by 2030." CreationDate="2016-12-02T01:19:01.583" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8032" PostId="4276" Score="0" Text="Where have you looked?  I would suggest looking at effects of zoning changes in cities, restricting vehicle access to urban cores, success/failure in HUD/car pooling, effect of subsdizing mass transit." CreationDate="2017-01-15T18:16:38.620" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="3997" PostId="4280" Score="1" Text="Hello and welcome to Sustainable Living! We've had a similar question on this site: [How can I get my landlord to install better insulation?](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/306/how-can-i-get-my-landlord-to-install-better-insulation/307) Maybe some of the answers there are relevant to your question as well. Please feel free to revise your question if there are still points not addressed in the answers." CreationDate="2015-01-24T01:03:41.997" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="3998" PostId="4280" Score="0" Text="Earthliŋ is right. As it is both questions are exactly the same. If you edit this question to ask for clarifications that are not discussed in the other question, we will re-open this question." CreationDate="2015-01-24T06:53:59.147" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4002" PostId="4281" Score="1" Text="You are contemplating building your own personal sewage treatment system, but without the professional treatment and testing that comes with a utility run wastewater plant. Treating waste water for eating/drinking sounds expensive and potentially dangerous if a flaw in your setup allows hazardous microbes into your drinking water. I'd focus on treating gray-water (bathwater, dishwater, laundry water, etc) for re-use either for additional gray-water usages or for flushing toilet, then using utility water for consumption (which is usually a very small part of typical household water usage)" CreationDate="2015-01-26T23:42:26.383" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="4003" PostId="4281" Score="0" Text="I was thinking on building the sewage treatment first and then test the water it generates and then i will know what i will need to treat to drinking/eating would that work? I don't think that sewage from home are that much toxic ? I mean why gray-water can't easily become potable?" CreationDate="2015-01-27T05:30:50.963" UserId="1956" />
  <row Id="4004" PostId="4281" Score="1" Text="You really need to do regular testing to ensure that your system is safe, you don't want to find out that a crack developed in a filter several days ago and it's been letting raw sewage seep into your water supply. Most household sewage is not particularly toxic (though drinking laundry or dishwasher soap can't be good for you), but even your own fecal bacteria can make you sick, even worse, if it's from a guest of unknown health, there are many serious diseases (like hepatitis) that spread through [fecal contamination](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fecal-oral_route)." CreationDate="2015-01-27T07:47:53.430" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="4105" PostId="4282" Score="4" Text="There is already more than enough food production to feed all 7 billions humans on earth. A big problem in parts of the world is not production but storage and distribution. Is the question about how many more people could we feed with the current infrastructure?" CreationDate="2015-02-15T12:04:58.560" UserId="2029" />
  <row Id="4106" PostId="4282" Score="0" Text="No, I wonder only if this number would be bigger if all people would be vegans." CreationDate="2015-02-15T12:42:07.453" UserId="1696" />
  <row Id="4107" PostId="4282" Score="0" Text="This is a very hard question to frame without many more assumptions. Where I am coming from is that in South East Asia where I live, meat (including seafood) is often dried for long term term storage and distribution. While the waste of beef production in the Americas is well known, there is also a chronic food waste problem in the world where an estimated 1/3 rot between the production and consumption. While the west would benefit from less meat, other areas would struggle." CreationDate="2015-02-15T13:21:19.393" UserId="2029" />
  <row Id="4116" PostId="4282" Score="0" Text="@Hurelu Thanks, Could you link me some reference/study about it?" CreationDate="2015-02-17T15:16:36.287" UserId="1696" />
  <row Id="6702" PostId="4282" Score="0" Text="My contribution: I know that a quantity of hay fed to rabbits will produce 8 times more meat than when the hay is fed to cattle." CreationDate="2016-04-05T05:39:16.383" UserId="3256" />
  <row Id="6704" PostId="4282" Score="0" Text="@ozhank That may be a result of different metabolism." CreationDate="2016-04-05T13:34:04.110" UserId="1696" />
  <row Id="7915" PostId="4282" Score="0" Text="Note that this is specifically limited to lot-fed livestock, so it excludes everything from grazed cattle to farmed fish. It's also obviously not about vegetarianism or veganism, or the environmental cost of livestock. So it's usefully specific. But that first link is so anti-factual that it's hard to read. To people who don't accept &quot;intelligent design&quot;, that plants are dead and other myths, the starting premises of the article are nonsense. But the question above is still good, I think." CreationDate="2016-12-31T07:32:09.027" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="4005" PostId="4283" Score="0" Text="I would add properly inflating tires to the list, I suppose, albeit it's a small win." CreationDate="2015-01-27T14:26:21.157" UserId="1912" />
  <row Id="4006" PostId="4283" Score="2" Text="I guess moving to electric vehicles might help here as well as for exhaust particulates, by doing away with clutches and reducing the amount of mechanical (rather than inductive / regenerative) braking. I'm speculating, though. Suspect that encouraging a gentle driving style might be important." CreationDate="2015-01-27T23:14:03.987" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="4008" PostId="4283" Score="1" Text="@SimonW EVs would help on brakes &amp; clutch; but if they weigh more, they might increase pollutants from tyres and road surface." CreationDate="2015-01-28T07:26:19.780" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="4009" PostId="4283" Score="0" Text="@SimonW and EnergyNumbers: this very issue is also discussed in [this question on Skeptics SE 'Do electric cars create more fine dust pollution than comparable petrol cars?'](http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/q/25280/13674)" CreationDate="2015-01-28T09:33:17.817" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4724" PostId="4283" Score="0" Text="Interesting read: [Measurement of non-exhaust particulate matter](https://www.google.nl/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=1&amp;cad=rja&amp;uact=8&amp;ved=0CCIQFjAAahUKEwjw7NWrgcnHAhUMchQKHb-7Crs&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fec.europa.eu%2Ftransport%2Froadsafety_library%2Fpublications%2Fparticulates_d8.pdf&amp;ei=huDeVfCRA4zkUb_3qtgL&amp;usg=AFQjCNHTvoCVKz4VolYOTewHy4VaoaUwBw&amp;sig2=a2BGx046Njsvwgu3rHP7Bw)  I found this [Googling for 'road surface particulates'](https://www.google.nl/search?q=road+surface+particulates) and this search returns many results that you may want to go through looking for answers." CreationDate="2015-08-27T10:07:43.707" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="4010" PostId="4285" Score="0" Text="Does rail traffic generate particulates too, from rail abrasion and from brakes?" CreationDate="2015-01-28T09:58:40.513" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="4011" PostId="4285" Score="0" Text="@EnergyNumbers, possibly; with braking, it depends on the brakes. Regenerative braking probably wouldn't though, and that would be a very suitable braking design for heavily utilised vehicles powered by electrified rails. In the long term, I suspect PRT systems may replace our existing roads.&#xA;&#xA;Particulates from rail abrasion would be fairly minimal I expect." CreationDate="2015-01-28T21:50:29.970" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="4723" PostId="4285" Score="0" Text="@EnergyNumbers steel wheels on steel rails eliminates the rubber and road surface particulates, even if everything  else is unchanged (which is unlikely, since most PRT systems are electric so also eliminate local particulates from combustion)" CreationDate="2015-08-27T04:28:03.863" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="4013" PostId="4287" Score="0" Text="For someone who is in the US, I suppose this does bring quite a bit of relevant information. I think some really heavy digging is needed for a complete answer to this" CreationDate="2015-01-30T06:32:25.683" UserId="1912" />
  <row Id="4014" PostId="4287" Score="0" Text="I am surprised there is only one IT firm in Germany, though." CreationDate="2015-01-30T06:33:16.293" UserId="1912" />
  <row Id="4015" PostId="4287" Score="0" Text="Companies have to contact B-Corp themselves to get assessed. I've only recently learned that this label exists myself so it may be that the label is not widely known in Germany yet." CreationDate="2015-01-30T08:40:09.160" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4016" PostId="4287" Score="1" Text="If you are specifically interested in German companies; there are 2 large German companies who's names pop up sometimes in the context of sustainability;&#xA;Siemens and Henkel. You can find them in this [top 100 list](http://www.corporateknights.com/reports/global-100/2015-global-100-results/) and in this [article](http://www.ibtimes.com/germany-has-more-leading-sustainable-companies-us-uk-japan-combined-1404942) for example. But I think the top100 list is a bit questionable. BTW SAP is a multi-national IT company who take sustainability very seriously." CreationDate="2015-01-30T09:03:41.170" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4021" PostId="4288" Score="0" Text="How far out of your way do you need to go to have it refilled? Bulk shipping is pretty energy efficient, if you have to travel a significant distance to have it filled versus picking up a 6 pack on your regular shopping trip, that may affect the sustainability." CreationDate="2015-02-03T02:08:49.710" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="4038" PostId="4288" Score="0" Text="Any travel would be by subway—--not sure how to factor public transport into a sustainability calculation. Even that wouldn't be more than 30 blocks, though." CreationDate="2015-02-03T16:45:42.833" UserId="1343" />
  <row Id="4181" PostId="4288" Score="0" Text="It would also help to know price difference in purchase of the growler (filled) as to similar quantity of beer in bottles/cans. Also difference in distance from purchasing areas as well as total trips required. Just some things, IMO, that might be important for overall impact." CreationDate="2015-03-05T22:06:59.243" UserId="1741" />
  <row Id="4183" PostId="4288" Score="0" Text="Here is a good Q&amp;A http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/326/which-is-more-sustainable-aluminium-can-plastic-bottle-or-glass-bottle, providing details relevant to the question." CreationDate="2015-03-05T22:14:03.633" UserId="1741" />
  <row Id="4018" PostId="4290" Score="0" Text="There would be a small reduction in installation effort when less panels need to be used." CreationDate="2015-02-01T19:42:12.120" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="4019" PostId="4290" Score="0" Text="@HighlyIrregular - Good point, though that should work to even out the costs of the options. As it is, all suppliers are quoting 12 panels regardless." CreationDate="2015-02-02T12:45:55.887" UserId="1210" />
  <row Id="4022" PostId="4290" Score="1" Text="Since you're generating 30% more energy with the more efficient panels, it could be a good deal for the future if the payback period is short -- after the payback period, the more efficient panels are generating 30% more power, which means you're earning a better payback from them." CreationDate="2015-02-03T02:20:27.143" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="4043" PostId="4290" Score="0" Text="Just an aside regarding the &quot;south-facing roof is small&quot;; I read recently that west-facing panels can sometimes make more sense, because we tend to use more energy in the late afternoon than in the middle of the day. (When you consider the feed-in tariff, and the dark winter months in the U.K., probably still best to go with South-facing, though.)" CreationDate="2015-02-05T22:17:08.103" UserId="961" />
  <row Id="4044" PostId="4290" Score="0" Text="@DarrenCook good point but unfortunately (or fortunately, as it's why we moved here) the Malvern Hills are *immediately* to our West! :-)" CreationDate="2015-02-06T13:33:17.757" UserId="1210" />
  <row Id="4020" PostId="4291" Score="0" Text="Warranty is a good point.  In this case the two quotations we have a essentially similar but we're now getting a third where the warranty may be substantially different." CreationDate="2015-02-02T12:48:41.153" UserId="1210" />
  <row Id="4045" PostId="4292" Score="0" Text="All good points but not exactly what I was asking. Incidentally, I'd considered 'C' as a way of expanding area but it's tricky as it's a historic building and wall mounting would be too intrusive." CreationDate="2015-02-06T13:36:53.243" UserId="1210" />
  <row Id="4026" PostId="4293" Score="2" Text="Thanks, though are you sure about this for *secondary* glazing as opposed to *double*? In my case I can't see a separation less than 1&quot; is physically possible, and most installations I've seen are more like double that.  Providing a link to a reference would be fantastic." CreationDate="2015-02-03T11:33:06.307" UserId="1210" />
  <row Id="4265" PostId="4293" Score="6" Text="I have to object. The explanation of fewer collisions of gas molecules sounds terribly wrong. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mean_free_path that the mean free path of molecules in air at ambient pressure is about 68 nm. So whether the distance of the windows is quarter an inch or two inches does not really matter wrt collisions of molecules and the respective heat transfer. The formation of convection cells could be an issue (as hinted by the OP) but I have no clue about that." CreationDate="2015-04-05T22:15:51.770" UserId="2072" />
  <row Id="4267" PostId="4293" Score="0" Text="I think that if one ignores the attempt at explaining molecular mechanisms, it's still fair to say that a wider gap results in less heat loss by conduction or by gas diffusion. (but wider is not always better, because convection cells can start up, as stated)" CreationDate="2015-04-06T09:08:47.133" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="4268" PostId="4293" Score="2" Text="@Cheeseminer secondary glazing benefits from the same effects as double glazing - it just tends to have a larger gap for practical reasons. I'm not sure whether there is an optimum gap for secondary glazing beyond &quot;as close as possible&quot;." CreationDate="2015-04-06T09:10:03.800" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="4363" PostId="4293" Score="2" Text="Some references would make this a better answer, as it stands now, it's just one person's opinion." CreationDate="2015-05-06T18:42:15.220" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="4365" PostId="4293" Score="1" Text="I agree, but I find that while I pick up trivia, I don't always remember the pointer to where I saw it.  Nor did I check out that reference.  That said, the largest separation I've heard of (again, no reference, sorry) is 5/8&quot; and the smallest 3/16&quot;  I figure that bad data is at least somewhat useful in that it may point someone in the right direction." CreationDate="2015-05-08T03:41:33.970" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="5133" PostId="4293" Score="0" Text="Has anyone actually computed this? I have yet to see a computation of minimum cell convection. It is possible that a 1/4 inch - 3/8 inch (sometimes 2 cm) is the widest that the manufacturers can get the glass before people stop buying them." CreationDate="2015-12-13T06:01:04.387" UserId="2872" />
  <row Id="4033" PostId="4295" Score="0" Text="Thanks for the input but the main reason i'm willing to do so much efforth is because i want to keep and preserve my lifestyle not live in a always shortage of water that's do not mean i won't economize of course but i'll do it thinking on increase my efficiency  (i.e preserve my lifestyle while using less resources) but that are good tips.." CreationDate="2015-02-03T14:50:45.217" UserId="1956" />
  <row Id="4034" PostId="4295" Score="0" Text="All of these, or most of them anyway, are things you will want to do to decrease the load on whatever system you have." CreationDate="2015-02-03T14:54:15.337" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="4036" PostId="4295" Score="0" Text="Yes i do have an quite big yard but the plants don't require constant irrigation they're fine just with the occasional rains , my house is quite big and the domestics use quite alot of water to wash my terrain so im thinking about bulding sinks connected to an tank too to reuse that water too i do have an jacuzzi and sauna too that i think that consumes alot of water too must do something to them too...and  a pool (28.000 liters) it is possible to turn the pool in a useful manner? Like a reservatory or something like that ( thats ideia is from my teens sounded crazy in the start but who knows)" CreationDate="2015-02-03T15:05:32.717" UserId="1956" />
  <row Id="4037" PostId="4295" Score="0" Text="My shower and ovens are electric and pool is heated by solar panels already...i live it Brazil and we are just running out of water because the government is stupid and was counting on never get to this point...and my cloths are washed on washing machines" CreationDate="2015-02-03T15:12:20.917" UserId="1956" />
  <row Id="4062" PostId="4295" Score="0" Text="@SherwoodBotsford +1 for *If you have teens in your house they will hate you.* made me laugh." CreationDate="2015-02-09T04:18:12.597" UserId="279" />
  <row Id="5398" PostId="4295" Score="0" Text="&quot; For the males, have a urinal that connects directly to waste line&quot; why male only?" CreationDate="2016-01-29T15:29:20.013" UserId="1078" />
  <row Id="5403" PostId="4295" Score="0" Text="A urinal is usually constructed in a way that is difficult for ladies to use." CreationDate="2016-01-29T23:03:51.553" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="4023" PostId="4296" Score="0" Text="wow, this is depressing" CreationDate="2015-02-03T06:44:54.847" UserId="1912" />
  <row Id="4024" PostId="4296" Score="0" Text="I'd say heat pumps for heating the home, by the way" CreationDate="2015-02-03T07:17:14.730" UserId="1912" />
  <row Id="4027" PostId="4296" Score="0" Text="The first paragraph is a reasonable, if terse, answer to the question. The rest of your &quot;answer&quot; does not address the question, but appears to be a short (yet sarcastic) tirade against decarbonisation and an advocation of a particular market-based approach. Electrification of heat and transport, combined with low-carbon means of electricity generation, are one possible answer to your &quot;questions&quot;." CreationDate="2015-02-03T11:50:41.810" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="4039" PostId="4298" Score="0" Text="It took me a while to figure out that you're talking about energy loss that would be avoided, while still consuming just as much, from different sources. Combined with the Wikipedia article linked in @Sherwood Botsford's answer, I would say I have understood the issue better. Thanks" CreationDate="2015-02-04T06:45:31.243" UserId="1912" />
  <row Id="4040" PostId="4298" Score="0" Text="Ah, that's what I thought you were asking. Were you asking something different? Anyway, I've added a bit of explanation in the introduction to my answer, to explain the basis of my answer." CreationDate="2015-02-04T07:11:21.833" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="4269" PostId="4298" Score="1" Text="Replacing fossil fuel with wind/solar is only a partial answer.  Solar is guaranteed to be non-productive for half the day.  This form of renewable is a non-starter until we have wide spread cheap forms of energy storage." CreationDate="2015-04-06T17:31:04.550" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="4273" PostId="4298" Score="0" Text="@SherwoodBotsford we now know PV is a serious contributor: over 150GW of PV capacity had been  grid-connected by 2014 around the world. And we've had widespread cheap energy storage for decades (hundreds of TWh of storage hydro, and orders of magnitude more in stored thermal energy), though this hasn't contributed much to the very rapid take-up of PV." CreationDate="2015-04-07T07:45:40.173" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="4041" PostId="4299" Score="1" Text="This is a great question. Reading [here](http://www.pwmi.jp/plastics-recycle20091119/waste_plastics/waste_plastics3.html), for example, it says that プラ mark plastics are to be recycled by law, but some of these plastics are unsuited for recycling. The recycling process (selection, washing, etc.) may actually be less environmentally friendly (compared to incineration, I guess). Whether the US has facilities capable of recycling プラ plastics, I don't know. In any case, the recycling process seems to be problematic already in Japan." CreationDate="2015-02-04T07:19:52.117" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="4042" PostId="4299" Score="1" Text="I'll post as a comment instead of an answer because I'm not entirely sure, but I think the mark just means 'plastic' without specifying what type. Since there is a law in Japan that all plastic containers and packaging have to be taken back or recycled by the manufacturer, it has become synonymous to recyclable plastic even though some plastics are incinerated in Japan. More info [here](http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2010/02/18/reference/logo-for-recyclables/#.VNHWcMmHPzY). If you don't know what type of plastic it is, you can't recycle it properly so I think the answer is no." CreationDate="2015-02-04T08:32:20.670" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4047" PostId="4300" Score="1" Text="Many budget airlines offer *only* economy seats, making it easy to check that aspect of things. Although that of course limits your route options." CreationDate="2015-02-06T17:20:56.377" UserId="40" />
  <row Id="4046" PostId="4301" Score="0" Text="1. That's not my question. 2. That's clearly *not* the least sustainable thing a human can do (wage war would be an obvious counter example)." CreationDate="2015-02-06T17:17:19.377" UserId="40" />
  <row Id="4048" PostId="4301" Score="0" Text="The way we're burning oil? The military use of oil is somewhere around 2% of society's use of oil. The only remotely sustainable use of oil is in plastics that can be reused several times before recycling. Burning it (or really, anything) in any process is basically completely counter to the concept of sustainability." CreationDate="2015-02-06T17:29:05.627" UserId="1692" />
  <row Id="4049" PostId="4301" Score="0" Text="Blatent destruction is less sustainable than combustion of fuel to produce work. Period. You bringing scale into it is a red herring." CreationDate="2015-02-06T17:41:11.127" UserId="40" />
  <row Id="4051" PostId="4301" Score="0" Text="`using any kind of oil for fuel is the single least sustainable thing that humans can do` is a patently false statement. That's all I'm saying. It's absolutely trivial, and barely requires imagination, to come up with counter examples. Most use of oil produces something, for an input/output ratio of &gt; 0. Anything that consumes resources without producing work (such as powering an amusement park ride--even if powered by solar panels) would be less sustainable (input/output ratio = 0). War, by definition, is destructive, therefore it has a negative input/output ratio (&lt; 0)." CreationDate="2015-02-06T17:54:06.447" UserId="40" />
  <row Id="4052" PostId="4301" Score="0" Text="War is, therefore, likely the single least sustainable activity in which humans can participate. And that was true before the discovery of coal or other fossil fuels." CreationDate="2015-02-06T17:54:59.737" UserId="40" />
  <row Id="4069" PostId="4302" Score="0" Text="Fair enough, though an assumption of the question is that large-scale change on the consumer side could effect change over the long term on production and distribution---i.e., growlers as a main distribution method would mean transporting kegs rather than bottles to fewer locations. I'm not sure I agree that top-down change through lobbying and governance would make a difference if consumption patterns weren't changing simultaneously." CreationDate="2015-02-09T13:30:12.023" UserId="1343" />
  <row Id="4092" PostId="4302" Score="0" Text="Not this way it couldn't. You're talking about such a tiny change that it may as well not be any change at all." CreationDate="2015-02-12T22:16:13.303" UserId="1692" />
  <row Id="4057" PostId="4305" Score="1" Text="Thanks for this, Peter. But with only one installation location in the world that I can see (Yavne), this combined CPV &amp; solar thermal plant doesn't seem to be representative of the 1GW of tracking PV capacity. Do you have any figures on the actual performance at Yavne? I'm interested to learn more." CreationDate="2015-02-07T19:40:56.137" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="4059" PostId="4306" Score="4" Text="In what ways do you consider wood to be eco-unfriendly? Knowing this will help us work out better substitutes." CreationDate="2015-02-08T06:37:11.963" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="4061" PostId="4306" Score="2" Text="Are you looking for something *more* biodegradable than wood? In what way is wood's biodegradability insufficient? In what ways is it unsafe for the environment?" CreationDate="2015-02-08T12:18:07.317" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="4070" PostId="4306" Score="2" Text="-1 (for now) for no definition of waht you actually want." CreationDate="2015-02-10T08:09:19.450" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="4098" PostId="4306" Score="0" Text="I'm reading it as &quot;We can't always use wood (for whatever reason). What else can we use that's acceptable from a sustainability perspective?&quot;" CreationDate="2015-02-13T11:20:41.017" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="4143" PostId="4306" Score="0" Text="What uses of wood are you trying to substitute?" CreationDate="2015-02-20T20:04:31.223" UserId="1618" />
  <row Id="9962" PostId="4306" Score="2" Text="Not all wood is from clear-cut rainforest.  Wood from well-managed local forests is probably better than most or all of the alternatives." CreationDate="2018-07-24T09:17:28.023" UserId="1445" />
  <row Id="4073" PostId="4310" Score="0" Text="Could you clairify the question?  Are you proposing solar PV for everything, with battery backup?  I very much doubt that would be beneficial for pool heating.  Others I would expect could depend on use patterns." CreationDate="2015-02-10T21:10:15.623" UserId="1937" />
  <row Id="4082" PostId="4311" Score="0" Text="Your 'issues people have' list is ... odd. I mean, they are correct, but really, the key problem people have with logging is habitat and biodiversity loss (of fauna *and* flora). Native forest clearing usually leads to replacing native forest with farmland or monocultural forests, which can't support anywhere near the biodiversity of a mature forest. The issues you list are completely secondary to that (especially the aesthetics). Of course, careful selective logging can avoid all of these problems to a large extent, but it's pretty rarely done..." CreationDate="2015-02-12T00:48:45.527" UserId="2041" />
  <row Id="4085" PostId="4311" Score="0" Text="Wildlife disruption is close enough to diversity loss.  I am basing my list on local logging practices: Patches of 40 to 200 acres are cut.  50 meter corridors left for streams.  Adjacent patch not cut until reforestation has created a closed crown.  Most structural wood in north America is grown either this way, or on plantations.  Yes, there is less diversity than an old growth forest.  My experience is with forests that don't have 'old growth'  The natural forest is a fire succession every 50-100 years." CreationDate="2015-02-12T16:10:19.017" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="4166" PostId="4311" Score="0" Text="I think it's a godd answer (to a question I don't understand at all), just one nitpick: none of your alternatives comes close to the tensile strength of wood  AFAIK, so you could see them as not a replacement but supplementary materials" CreationDate="2015-03-02T08:45:23.173" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="4168" PostId="4311" Score="0" Text="@Mart Good point. You are correct.  None of them are really suitable for roofs for that reason. I was looking the more general idea of alternatives to get the floor and walls up." CreationDate="2015-03-02T10:07:08.503" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="4071" PostId="4313" Score="0" Text="I live in Brazil , and you are forgetting that the energy input will be solar so i don't really care about wasting a few more energy as long i can keep and heat my things faster and using less water and less bills ,  and i use them quite alot" CreationDate="2015-02-10T15:21:28.593" UserId="1956" />
  <row Id="4072" PostId="4313" Score="0" Text="Hi. I understood from the question that only the pool was solar heated. Is it one of those roof top heaters with insulated tanks I saw quite often when I was there? The comment about electric heating still holds for Brazil where thermal power is less than 20%." CreationDate="2015-02-10T16:21:08.237" UserId="2029" />
  <row Id="4074" PostId="4313" Score="0" Text="I have read articles which suggest that heating with PV solar via a heat pump is now fairly close to solar water heat." CreationDate="2015-02-11T06:01:29.097" UserId="1937" />
  <row Id="4075" PostId="4313" Score="0" Text="@jamesqf it can be the case that PV+heat pump is roughly as efficient (in converting solar energy to usable heat), but that's only part of the story, and it does depend on a couple of crucial factors. It might be worth writing a new question on exactly this." CreationDate="2015-02-11T07:05:44.537" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="4077" PostId="4313" Score="0" Text="@EnergyNumbers Indeed, heat pump can be an interesting option but as you implied, it quickly get complicated. We would need the seasonal ambient temperatures and the desired heated water temperature to get an overall efficiency indication." CreationDate="2015-02-11T07:19:19.343" UserId="2029" />
  <row Id="4080" PostId="4315" Score="0" Text="I'm not sure if this question is most suited here, or on Biology.SE. Feel free to migrate it if the latter." CreationDate="2015-02-12T00:19:05.267" UserId="2041" />
  <row Id="4083" PostId="4315" Score="0" Text="When you say &quot;fastest growing... by amount of carbon stored&quot;... do you mean the plant that has the highest &quot;tonnes of Co2 removed from atmosphere per kg of plant per day&quot;? Or something else, such as amount of carbon per kg of grown plant. I can see a few ways that teh question could be read at the moment." CreationDate="2015-02-12T10:08:23.103" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="4084" PostId="4315" Score="1" Text="Related question: [Which tree consumes most carbon dioxide and poisonous gases?](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/786/99)" CreationDate="2015-02-12T11:57:51.047" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="13581" PostId="4315" Score="0" Text="How good is bamboo at capturing CO2 per unit time per area of land? In the right conditions I have always imagined it to be excellent but don't have any figures to compare. The harvested bamboo is also useful - for clothes, structure, fuel - I think." CreationDate="2021-05-05T21:39:31.010" UserId="9697" />
  <row Id="13732" PostId="4315" Score="0" Text="Bamboo. This stuff grows a meter per day." CreationDate="2021-06-06T16:10:35.587" UserId="9007" />
  <row Id="4163" PostId="4316" Score="1" Text="Out of curiosity, how do alloys give a performance increase? I always assumed it was all about the looks :-)" CreationDate="2015-02-26T10:08:17.180" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="4164" PostId="4316" Score="2" Text="@SimonW magnesium is light. According to Wikipedia, &quot;Lighter wheels can improve handling by reducing unsprung mass, allowing suspension to follow the terrain more closely and thus improve grip, however not all alloy wheels are lighter than their steel equivalents. Reduction in overall vehicle mass can also help to reduce fuel consumption.&quot; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alloy_wheel" CreationDate="2015-02-27T02:04:31.277" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="10304" PostId="4316" Score="0" Text="The lower weight of  &quot;mag&quot; ( normally aluminum) wheels only has any affect during acceleration ( or deceleration), so do not save fuel. They need less horse power during acceleration so are only an advantage during a drag race. There are two accelerations ; The rotational acceleration of the wheels and the linear acceleration of the vehicle." CreationDate="2018-10-22T00:52:42.507" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="11665" PostId="4316" Score="0" Text="This does not seem to me to be about sustainable living, just about your finances. If you do mean the __environmental__ purchase cost, then you should be making clear that the answers do not consider the environmental balance." CreationDate="2019-11-05T21:23:03.380" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="11684" PostId="4316" Score="0" Text="@PJTraill I disagree. I'm not interested in mag wheels for any reason other than sustainability, and yet I still asked the question this way. However, I do agree that unless the true environmental cost of products is reflected in the price (ie by there being a price on the carbon emissions etc from the manufacturing) then a decision based on market prices isn't going to be perfect." CreationDate="2019-11-06T20:26:26.637" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="4109" PostId="4318" Score="5" Text="You wouldn't get 2% better fuel economy by reducing weight by 2%. [This presentation](http://www.drivealuminum.org/research-resources/PDF/Research/2008/2008-Ricardo-Study.pdf) suggests that the savings would be closer to 1%, which makes the payback period worse." CreationDate="2015-02-16T04:32:50.277" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="4115" PostId="4318" Score="1" Text="It's messy.  On one hand, wind resistance is the major factor, and so wheel weight doesn't matter.  On the other hand, energy to accelerate will be linear with mass.  On the third hand, wheel weight is unsprung, and so the up and down motion also takes more energy.  I was unable to find actual weight comparisons, so I treated as a Back of the envelope problem to demonstrate that it was non-feasible." CreationDate="2015-02-17T14:02:29.633" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="11685" PostId="4318" Score="0" Text="@PJTraill Did you notice the part about embodied energy?" CreationDate="2019-11-06T20:31:38.113" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="11686" PostId="4318" Score="0" Text="@HighlyIrregular: It was not there when I commented (now deleted); thanks to Sherwood for adding it, which has improved the answer." CreationDate="2019-11-06T21:12:29.180" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="4100" PostId="4320" Score="1" Text="Can even work for beer: most of what I drink (I'm not a big beer drinker, though) comes from my neighbor whose hobby is home brewing.  Bottles last pretty much forever.  Though even the plastic 1-2 liter soft drink bottles I use for water when hiking &amp;c have lasted for years and years." CreationDate="2015-02-13T19:49:08.010" UserId="1937" />
  <row Id="4094" PostId="4322" Score="0" Text="Your post would be easier to read if it had uppercase in appropriate places. Do you have information you can link to, to support your assertions?" CreationDate="2015-02-13T04:58:43.423" UserId="1325" />
  <row Id="4095" PostId="4322" Score="0" Text="yes, sorry. typed this in phone, i'll edit it later." CreationDate="2015-02-13T05:00:38.337" UserId="2035" />
  <row Id="4096" PostId="4322" Score="0" Text="edited, @andy256" CreationDate="2015-02-13T07:39:19.430" UserId="2035" />
  <row Id="4108" PostId="4325" Score="0" Text="Thanks Mart and Sherwood. I think the rocket would be the way to go...I only I was better at debating, my partner gave me the no go." CreationDate="2015-02-15T22:18:39.977" UserId="1932" />
  <row Id="4135" PostId="4326" Score="3" Text="I have also really struggled with this (finding people nearby who are interested in sustainability).  Making a big lifesyle change is tough on your own!  The charity I work for is interested in this area though - I'll see if anyone is doing anything." CreationDate="2015-02-19T10:20:56.593" UserId="1445" />
  <row Id="4137" PostId="4326" Score="0" Text="where in the world are you?" CreationDate="2015-02-19T15:03:33.430" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="4139" PostId="4326" Score="0" Text="@Energy Numbers Romania" CreationDate="2015-02-19T18:22:37.180" UserId="1912" />
  <row Id="7505" PostId="4326" Score="0" Text="There are many lending/swapping websites, sometimes operating regionally (like Peerby). I'm not sure you would include those, and asking for listing them here would be off-topic (too broad)." CreationDate="2016-09-13T14:30:00.220" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="7550" PostId="4326" Score="0" Text="How close does it need to be? Put a notice in the local paper/in the newsagent/in school and organise meatspace meetings." CreationDate="2016-10-04T13:15:05.830" UserId="1567" />
  <row Id="4117" PostId="4327" Score="0" Text="This is amazing! But I have to question your rendering of the effect in terms of residential energy. The numbers you supply are energy USED, but it doesn't take into account the energy that goes into making *the things that are used but do not in themselves use energy*; if you're comparing the energy used in making things like bottles and cans, you'd have to incorporate the energy used in making all the other consumable goods, which would making the residential energy figures much higher.&#xA;&#xA;But that's just a quibble with the framing, everything else is super helpful! Thanks!" CreationDate="2015-02-17T15:25:44.547" UserId="1343" />
  <row Id="4118" PostId="4327" Score="0" Text="Yeah, I was just trying to put it into some context, you're right that it's not exactly fair to look at household electrical use in isolation, but still it helps show how significant the energy use it." CreationDate="2015-02-17T16:11:15.047" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="4126" PostId="4328" Score="0" Text="Related question: [Which tree consumes most carbon dioxide and poisonous gases?](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/786/99)" CreationDate="2015-02-18T14:37:28.767" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4138" PostId="4328" Score="1" Text="I suggest planting a variety of species adapted to your area.  Monocultures are not healthy.  Also consider having at least some fruit/nut trees, as people will be more likely to keep those around." CreationDate="2015-02-19T18:06:08.513" UserId="1937" />
  <row Id="4121" PostId="4330" Score="0" Text="In the long run, you either have a forest + furniture, or just a forest. Reducing CO2 means trapping it for good. A forest is an ephemeral state. It doesn't get infinitely big." CreationDate="2015-02-18T12:37:07.623" UserId="2029" />
  <row Id="4122" PostId="4330" Score="0" Text="If there is no use for the stored carbon it need to grow on itself until the low layers have no access to oxygen and turn to coal, oil or gas under a sealed rock layer. Making buildings and furniture is just so much easier..." CreationDate="2015-02-18T12:40:28.527" UserId="2029" />
  <row Id="4123" PostId="4330" Score="0" Text="the next 20 years are going to be crucial for what's going to happen as far as global warming is concerned, afaik. In 20 years, if there's no forest fire... the carbon will stay in the forest" CreationDate="2015-02-18T12:46:48.473" UserId="1912" />
  <row Id="4124" PostId="4330" Score="0" Text="CO2 is a stable molecule with near infinite atmospheric residency time. 20y is nothing. If it burns, it will." CreationDate="2015-02-18T12:52:56.047" UserId="2029" />
  <row Id="4125" PostId="4330" Score="1" Text="Put another way: if there is a choice between 200 years of growing usefull stuff versus 200 years of growing useless stuff. Which will lead to better carbon sequestration?" CreationDate="2015-02-18T12:57:28.197" UserId="2029" />
  <row Id="4128" PostId="4330" Score="0" Text="this is a great way of putting it! Who would keep 140 year old furniture, though? Anyway, I guess it just takes a bit of creativity to think of products that would keep for more time." CreationDate="2015-02-18T16:13:46.103" UserId="1912" />
  <row Id="4129" PostId="4330" Score="0" Text="@Sustainable Programmer: Priced antique furniture lately?  Or were you being sarcastic?" CreationDate="2015-02-18T19:59:31.207" UserId="1937" />
  <row Id="4130" PostId="4330" Score="0" Text="@Sustainable programmer. The peat bog reference was ironic and I have edited it out for clarity. It took nature millions of years to turn peat into undergroung hydrocarbons." CreationDate="2015-02-18T20:50:38.817" UserId="2029" />
  <row Id="4131" PostId="4330" Score="4" Text="Forests store carbon in more than just the (visible parts of) trees.  The underground root system is similar in size to what's above ground, and even if the tree is cut, stores carbon for many years.  Partially decayed leaves &amp; litter form a layer of duff that can be many feet deep, eventually turning to humus-rich soil.  All that represents a sizeable reservoir of sequestered carbon, even though it'd dynamic rather than static storage." CreationDate="2015-02-18T23:24:50.500" UserId="1937" />
  <row Id="4132" PostId="4330" Score="0" Text="@jamesqf Most furniture isn't of such quality. I think books might be the best storage as far as time is concerned. Thanks for all the useful info!" CreationDate="2015-02-19T00:59:55.213" UserId="1912" />
  <row Id="4133" PostId="4330" Score="0" Text="@sustainable programmer. Books! That is nice thought experiment. I wonder what is the mass of all books on earth versus all other wood. By the way, wood is still used in construction far more than for furniture and the typical life of a building is also longer than furniture." CreationDate="2015-02-19T01:15:03.270" UserId="2029" />
  <row Id="4134" PostId="4330" Score="0" Text="@jamesqf wouldn't the underground stored root network also expand in a forest that is exploited and/or pruned to encourage growth?" CreationDate="2015-02-19T01:19:05.547" UserId="2029" />
  <row Id="4141" PostId="4330" Score="0" Text="@Sustainable Programmer: You might be surprised (at least I am) at the sort of junk (that is, cheap &amp; tacky when new) that turns into valuable antiques with the passage of time." CreationDate="2015-02-19T21:14:33.750" UserId="1937" />
  <row Id="4145" PostId="4333" Score="0" Text="Related question: [How to recognize products with neonicotinoid pesticides in them?](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/911/99)" CreationDate="2015-02-23T11:24:43.097" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4171" PostId="4334" Score="0" Text="If concern for USER's bees is the only question, I would ask if neonic levels in pollen and nectar of flowers grown from such bulbs be high enough to be toxic to bees? Presence in the bulb might not mean toxicity in the mature flower. However if USER is concerned about bees in general, then not supporting producers who use such insecticides is warranted." CreationDate="2015-03-02T19:55:35.737" UserId="1701" />
  <row Id="4172" PostId="4334" Score="0" Text="@ThatIdiot Bees can cover a lot of ground, so chances are they will come into contact with neonics somewhere. If I were keeping bees I'd want to keep their exposure to pesticides as low as possible so the least you can do is to keep your own flowers pesticide free." CreationDate="2015-03-02T20:23:17.970" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4146" PostId="4335" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Could you please describe the link between your question and sustainability? Do you somehow want to use the heat as energy? Or do you want to save on aircon costs? Or are you worried that the heat will affect the lifespan of your roof?" CreationDate="2015-02-23T12:00:01.030" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4147" PostId="4335" Score="1" Text="@THelper primary reason is to save aircon costs. I've updated my question." CreationDate="2015-02-23T12:09:53.540" UserId="2066" />
  <row Id="4149" PostId="4335" Score="1" Text="Is the roof painted white currently?" CreationDate="2015-02-23T17:07:05.363" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="4151" PostId="4335" Score="0" Text="@EnergyNumbers  Yes, inside the home the roof is painted with white" CreationDate="2015-02-24T04:36:02.037" UserId="2066" />
  <row Id="4152" PostId="4335" Score="5" Text="I think EnergyNumbers means the outside of the roof. White objects reflect much more solar radiation than black objects, so a white roof will be much cooler than a darker colored one." CreationDate="2015-02-24T08:12:34.110" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4153" PostId="4335" Score="0" Text="@THelper just painting them white outside of the roof will help me or is there any thing more I can add so reduce heat?" CreationDate="2015-02-24T08:23:03.587" UserId="2066" />
  <row Id="4154" PostId="4335" Score="0" Text="There are a lot of things you can do. Perhaps it's best to first read [this related question](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/275/99) and its answers. After reading you can edit your question here and ask for more details." CreationDate="2015-02-24T08:49:55.880" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4155" PostId="4335" Score="0" Text="@THelper  Thanks, I've edited my question accordingly." CreationDate="2015-02-24T09:28:50.880" UserId="2066" />
  <row Id="8931" PostId="4335" Score="0" Text="When you say _emits too much of the heat_, I suppose you mean that it is emitted inwards, into the rooms of the building – that might have been worth stating explicitly. Also your sketched solution seems to presume not so much that “too much of the heat” that _is_ absorbed is emitted, but that too much heat is absorbed in the first place." CreationDate="2017-10-19T09:46:59.120" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="4148" PostId="4336" Score="2" Text="Sounds a bit like a [solar cooker](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cooker)?" CreationDate="2015-02-23T15:32:05.130" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4159" PostId="4336" Score="0" Text="Would be interested to see the response if a question like this was posted on physics.stackexchange.com . I see there is a similar one: http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/12096/solar-chamber-trapped-light but this other (less related) one was closed as being off topic: http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/133175/solar-stills-with-wine which does however indicate that http://engineering.stackexchange.com/ might be a better place to ask." CreationDate="2015-02-24T20:20:44.440" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="4157" PostId="4337" Score="0" Text="Why would they not allow rooftop solar panels?" CreationDate="2015-02-24T16:30:01.320" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="4158" PostId="4337" Score="1" Text="@gerrit because it's a master planned community and they want every house to look similar. Also Houston is the oil and gas capital of America so they discourage renewable energy in general." CreationDate="2015-02-24T16:32:09.923" UserId="279" />
  <row Id="4161" PostId="4337" Score="0" Text="@gerrit I just found out we can install rooftop solar panels but have to pay $25 to submit an application to HOA design committee." CreationDate="2015-02-25T07:02:19.557" UserId="279" />
  <row Id="4156" PostId="4338" Score="3" Text="I agree, also from an EROI perspective it doesn't make much sense to use the small chargers (see also [Do small portable solar chargers generate more energy than it costs to produce them?](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/120/99))" CreationDate="2015-02-24T15:16:16.907" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4160" PostId="4338" Score="0" Text="Luckily we pay $0.12 per kWh. Thanks for the clear explanation and calculations." CreationDate="2015-02-25T07:00:47.273" UserId="279" />
  <row Id="4165" PostId="4340" Score="1" Text="Welcome to the site, and thanks for the answer!" CreationDate="2015-02-27T09:07:28.367" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="7995" PostId="4341" Score="0" Text="You need to edit your question to make it appropriate for S.SE.  But really, it would probably be better over in the Gardening SE" CreationDate="2017-01-09T03:08:38.610" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="7996" PostId="4341" Score="1" Text="I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because belongs in gardening" CreationDate="2017-01-09T03:09:09.347" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="8007" PostId="4341" Score="2" Text="@SherwoodBotsford I agree that this question would fit better if it explained the link with sustainability, but aqua/hydroponics is a topic where Sustainability SE and Gardening SE overlap and we have several of those questions here." CreationDate="2017-01-11T08:43:54.280" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4254" PostId="4343" Score="2" Text="Could you explain how white roofs drive away clouds?" CreationDate="2015-04-02T23:16:17.637" UserId="1768" />
  <row Id="4256" PostId="4343" Score="5" Text="Yes, [here](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/4394/how-do-white-roofs-cause-global-warming/4395)." CreationDate="2015-04-03T00:43:50.410" UserId="2083" />
  <row Id="9757" PostId="4343" Score="2" Text="Solar panels do not reduce the amount of heat in the atmosphere. This is because all electricity will eventually end up as heat in any case." CreationDate="2018-05-29T18:20:52.300" UserId="3297" />
  <row Id="10872" PostId="4343" Score="0" Text="What if Tarpaulin is placed all over the concrete roof with elevation of 4 inches from all sides, making it a pool with 4 inches depth and then water is poured in? Overall weight of the water and evaporation rate is required to be calculated to make it more feasible." CreationDate="2019-04-07T13:37:20.247" UserId="6518" />
  <row Id="4167" PostId="4345" Score="3" Text="I question your assumption that branded or more expensive goods tend to last longer or are of higher quality. It may hold for certain types of goods or brands, but certainly not all. &#xA;I think the reverse is more often true; very cheap stuff is usually produced by 'cutting corners'; using low quality materials, bad labour conditions, dumping waste materials, etc." CreationDate="2015-03-02T09:50:22.213" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4169" PostId="4345" Score="0" Text="Limiting the question to just two options, 1) buy cheap and waste the rest of the money and 2) buy expensive brands and have no money left &quot;to do damage with&quot;, is a flawed premise. There are other options, e.g. spending larger amounts of money not on &quot;brands&quot; but on other quality products such as organic or fair traded goods (lets assume those are equally expensive) or just not wasting the leftover money on &quot;damage&quot; but invest those savings in a sustainable manner (such as reforestation or fair funding of third world projects or whatnot)." CreationDate="2015-03-02T19:45:41.697" UserId="2072" />
  <row Id="4170" PostId="4345" Score="0" Text="Why not buy expensive clothes made by artisans from renewable materials? Your either/or isn't clear." CreationDate="2015-03-02T19:48:29.630" UserId="1701" />
  <row Id="4173" PostId="4345" Score="0" Text="Do you not all at least agree that this is, in general, an interesting question? It is certainly one I have thought about a lot. Is it really impossible to answer? If not, how should the question be phrased? @Ghanima I fully understand that there are many variables. By simplifying them I am trying to make the question answerable. I agree with yours and That Idiot's solution, but do you not agree that most consumers are concerned firstly with the binary tradeoff between quantity and quality? Hence the binary question." CreationDate="2015-03-02T21:57:23.827" UserId="1878" />
  <row Id="4174" PostId="4345" Score="0" Text="Jorstek, I believe you're not the only one who spent some thought on it. I am forcing myself to stop thinking about &quot;the consumers&quot; choices as those tend to make me depressed on a regular basis (including the moments when I am the consumer). Also I don't jugde the question unanswerable but as of now I don't see how to extend my comment to a full fledged answer." CreationDate="2015-03-02T22:14:22.257" UserId="2072" />
  <row Id="4175" PostId="4345" Score="0" Text="Jortstek, I think your question is ok, but what makes it  difficult to answer is that your scope is rather broad. Perhaps it would be best to narrow it down to a small set of products (e.g. electronics)?" CreationDate="2015-03-03T10:10:25.357" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4176" PostId="4345" Score="1" Text="Re &quot;... have no money left to do damage with?&quot;:  One can always donate the non-spent money to the environmental charity of one's choice.  Or save it for retirement, or just a rainy day.  Seems as though you're stuck in the modern consumerist mindset, where everything you earn must be spent on consumer goods, even if those goods provide you with no real pleasure or utility.  And so we see people buying 'stuff' that's used at most a few times, then stuffed into closets, garages, and storage units." CreationDate="2015-03-03T20:15:21.817" UserId="1937" />
  <row Id="5216" PostId="4345" Score="0" Text="Please edit the title. It is not about luxury goods, it is about brand name products." CreationDate="2015-12-24T11:16:16.213" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="5217" PostId="4345" Score="0" Text="@JanDoggen No, it *is* about luxury goods. All products are branded, but some brands are higher-value, more desirable and more expensive, &quot;luxury&quot; being the shorthand for these. Slight clarification added to first paragraph." CreationDate="2015-12-24T12:38:45.627" UserId="1878" />
  <row Id="5292" PostId="4345" Score="0" Text="There's the middle road - not the cheapest (the tacky 10 Euro thingy) and not the most expensive (the 200 Euro thingy with logo, lights and beeps) but the 40 Euro thingy that does everything you need and lasts 10 years." CreationDate="2016-01-07T12:15:35.680" UserId="1567" />
  <row Id="6893" PostId="4346" Score="0" Text="Even if this won't reflect sunlight, I like this solution. We could also put earth directly on the roof to plant!" CreationDate="2016-05-12T09:18:07.953" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="9265" PostId="4346" Score="0" Text="Putting earth directly on the roof might not be a great idea. There are all kinds of problems from weight to moisture retention that could damage the structure." CreationDate="2018-02-13T15:18:27.073" UserId="1701" />
  <row Id="4177" PostId="4347" Score="0" Text="Thank you. I agree with this &quot;neither-nor&quot; response – and hence it is not really the answer to my question. My question is a pragmatic one, about second-best scenarios. Once you are *already in* the suburban mall or big-box hypermarket, is choosing high-value a proxy for reducing damage? I noted a couple of solid reasons that it might be. This situation applies to real-life people, at the beginning of their journey to sustainability. I am disappointed that people are seeing the question as some kind of apology for mindless consumerism." CreationDate="2015-03-04T20:27:38.307" UserId="1878" />
  <row Id="4178" PostId="4349" Score="1" Text="Seems reasonable that lifespan and performance do improve at least a bit with price. But I also mentioned 2 other issues: the nature of the economic activity generated by the marginal price increase; and the corporate accountability that comes with a brand-consumer &quot;relationship&quot;. And also the crucial variable of opportunity cost: what the same consumer would be expected to do with saved money. Thanks for the answer, I know that this is a tough question." CreationDate="2015-03-04T21:05:57.573" UserId="1878" />
  <row Id="5291" PostId="4349" Score="0" Text="For some of us Wranglers and Levis are expensive logo brands. And no, they don't last longer than well made brands at half the price. Just don't go for the 5 Euro jeans at the market." CreationDate="2016-01-07T12:11:18.057" UserId="1567" />
  <row Id="10139" PostId="4351" Score="0" Text="Wood is an extremely polluting source of heating, generating [more particulate matter than a diesel engine](https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/feb/22/wood-diesel-indoor-stoves-cities-pollution) and [responsible for 250,000 deaths per year](https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/2014JD021861).  Burning wood is most certainly not ecological." CreationDate="2018-09-07T17:10:49.667" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="4180" PostId="4352" Score="0" Text="Thanks for the interesting answer! Unfortunately, even though I'm no expert in wood, I'm still about 99% sure that the assumption &quot;The density is directly connected to the content of moisture.&quot; is incorrect. &#xA;&#xA;A few years back I had some firewood obtained from old hardwood power poles, and it was very clearly more dense than other wood; it was very dry, and for its size very very heavy, and boy did it burn well once it got going..." CreationDate="2015-03-05T09:36:28.487" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="4195" PostId="4352" Score="0" Text="Hi Highly Irregular, &#xA;as you can see in the link, their is a correlation of the content of moisture and the seasoned firewood.&lt;(http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/weigt-wood-d_821.html) &#xA;But their is of course one exception for the method I (and heureka: Archimedes ;) ) supposed: the wood must have a less specific weight (lass that 1 kg/l) than water has, so that it can swim." CreationDate="2015-03-07T13:40:56.683" UserId="2089" />
  <row Id="4201" PostId="4352" Score="0" Text="Looking at the data, I don't see any correlation that would be useful to the technique you're describing." CreationDate="2015-03-10T23:50:43.027" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="4497" PostId="4352" Score="2" Text="@Highly Irregular: Density is definitely connected to the tree species.  Mountain mahogany, for instance, will sink even after it has dried for years." CreationDate="2015-06-19T05:41:27.860" UserId="1937" />
  <row Id="8418" PostId="4353" Score="1" Text="In my experience (with some liquid soaps) you have to be careful to not immediately wash them off again (unused)." CreationDate="2017-04-14T12:06:46.453" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="8419" PostId="4353" Score="0" Text="I usually dilute it, about 10:1. This us strong enough soap for **most** of the time." CreationDate="2017-04-15T10:46:13.280" UserId="4458" />
  <row Id="4187" PostId="4356" Score="2" Text="Related question: [Can I recycle plastics at home by melting and molding?](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/225/99)" CreationDate="2015-03-06T08:50:42.543" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4197" PostId="4356" Score="1" Text="Why not just donate them to the Lion's Club (or similar local group) that will match them up with someone who needs glasses but cannot afford them?" CreationDate="2015-03-09T14:10:09.600" UserId="1701" />
  <row Id="4199" PostId="4356" Score="1" Text="Because I'm using the material for a sculpture that I'm creating for a eyewear manufacture company. They are also not in the shape of true lense, as they are perfectly circlular and haven't been cut into the lense shape yet." CreationDate="2015-03-09T20:10:39.223" UserId="2096" />
  <row Id="8407" PostId="4356" Score="1" Text="Derek,&#xA;I am curious as to what you find out. I am on the waste side of the optical industry. Optical labs make up for a large amount of landfill space because they don't have a use for their waste. If you can use this waste, which is the plastic ground away to make the lenses, please let me know. Labs pay more money to throw away their waste because they produce so much. They'd be happy to donate." CreationDate="2017-04-07T15:44:13.217" UserId="4440" />
  <row Id="8420" PostId="4356" Score="0" Text="Could you replace them with a different material, that has better characteristics for what you are trying to do?" CreationDate="2017-04-15T10:52:01.473" UserId="4458" />
  <row Id="4186" PostId="4357" Score="0" Text="I've asked the manufacturer what the plastic is but haven't heard back. Thanks for the information." CreationDate="2015-03-06T00:16:50.407" UserId="2096" />
  <row Id="4198" PostId="4357" Score="0" Text="I heard back from the manufacture. I put the kinds of plastic in the original post. Thanks again for your help." CreationDate="2015-03-09T19:43:49.293" UserId="2096" />
  <row Id="4203" PostId="4357" Score="0" Text="Hmm. I am sorry that I cannot help you any further. Aside maybe the question coulb be asked at Chemistry.SE to get better answers." CreationDate="2015-03-11T10:57:54.957" UserId="2072" />
  <row Id="4196" PostId="4358" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living. It's not clear what your question is; the title doesn't quite seem to match with the body of the question." CreationDate="2015-03-08T22:39:14.550" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="4200" PostId="4358" Score="1" Text="@SimonW I think the OP is asking if he/she can use the electric oven temporarily to heat up the front room and/or kitchen so the water pipes don't freeze." CreationDate="2015-03-10T21:33:27.483" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4193" PostId="4359" Score="2" Text="With the door open, the oven will likely never reach the thermostat's shutoff temperature, so he should definitely keep checking the room to turn the oven off when the temperature reaches his target level. Also, it should go without saying that this is only safe with an *electric* oven, this should never be attempted with a *gas* oven, because it may emit dangerous levels of carbon monoxide." CreationDate="2015-03-07T00:42:25.093" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="4249" PostId="4360" Score="0" Text="Taber number? I know the concept in relation to the wear resistance of laminated floorboards, but surely that is not what you mean." CreationDate="2015-03-30T11:51:49.597" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4250" PostId="4360" Score="3" Text="Taber number = emissivity at 300K divided by e  at visible wavelengths.  A perfect black body has a Taber number of 1.   Titanium dioxide, the white pigment has a taber number of about 1/16 -- it's essentially black in the IR.  TiO2 paint is used on astronmy domes.  It doesn't heat up from sunlight, and it cools off in infrared quickly.  Less heat shimmers.  A semi-transparent layer of gold on glass has a taber number in the teens.  It is fairly absorbent in visible, but shiny in the IR, so the object heats to almost double it's normal blackbody temperature under solar illumination." CreationDate="2015-03-31T13:57:51.727" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="4255" PostId="4360" Score="0" Text="I assume that methods 2 and 3 require a climate with low humidity in order to be most effective?" CreationDate="2015-04-02T23:17:35.723" UserId="1768" />
  <row Id="4257" PostId="4360" Score="0" Text="Low humidity helps, but it is effective in high humidity climates.  Consider:  The vapour pressure of water rises about 8% per degree C increase, so as soon as the water temp gets above the average air temp, it will start evaporating at a signfiicant rate.  It's hard to get a shallow open water basin much above ambient air temp.  While this is less effective at active cooling, at least it prevents the roof from getting as hot.  Also, it will cool some at night, and this will slow the heating during the day." CreationDate="2015-04-03T01:42:45.810" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="8642" PostId="4360" Score="0" Text="But check the static strength first! You don't want it to collapse." CreationDate="2017-07-10T12:40:12.820" UserId="1567" />
  <row Id="4224" PostId="4361" Score="1" Text="'old school' paints using some natural pigment and a natural glue, like egg white are still used today by artists. I assume you look for something that's not learning a (small) craft of its own, which the preparation of paints may well be." CreationDate="2015-03-23T14:52:39.137" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="11821" PostId="4366" Score="0" Text="Even if you're about to throw them out, because you have too many and won't reuse them, remember to pop all the bubbles for your enjoyment, giving them last moment to shine and be useful." CreationDate="2019-11-18T15:56:04.107" UserId="8149" />
  <row Id="15538" PostId="4366" Score="0" Text="In addition to the answers below, try to lobby companies you get them from (and politicians) to no longer use these.  There are limited cases where the bubble needs to be affixed to the paper, so creating ones that do not have the 2 sections affixed to each other would work in most cases and would allow people to recycle both components.  They also make 100% recyclable padded envelopes with no plastic content." CreationDate="2022-01-26T07:18:58.013" UserId="2727" />
  <row Id="4202" PostId="4367" Score="2" Text="Yeah, I suppose if you open them carefully, and then cover up old address labels, those could be reused - at least few times before they disintegrate." CreationDate="2015-03-11T00:16:27.877" UserId="2103" />
  <row Id="4223" PostId="4367" Score="2" Text="I re-use mine all the time. I keep them in a pile somewhere and every time I have to mail something, I use them. Just peel off the old stickers." CreationDate="2015-03-22T14:50:27.967" UserId="142" />
  <row Id="9901" PostId="4367" Score="1" Text="I have given up collecting them as they arrive far faster than I need them." CreationDate="2018-07-05T13:23:52.900" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="11820" PostId="4367" Score="0" Text="I worked in a small company, and we had a room called Packaging room. There, we would throw all packaging materials fro the stuff we received, and use them to pack the goods we were sending out. The company does not provide goods for the end user, so there was little concern about the &quot;aesthetic&quot; aspects." CreationDate="2019-11-18T15:55:13.227" UserId="8149" />
  <row Id="4204" PostId="4368" Score="3" Text="I like the intent of your question, but I think there is a problem with your reasoning. If you rule out an entire country or even part of a continent, you are also ruling out all small-scale clothing manufacturers in that country/continent that are producing clothes in an ethical way. I know there is clothing being produced in India and Nepal in a great and sustainable way (sustainable from a both a social and environmental viewpoint)" CreationDate="2015-03-12T10:02:49.563" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4210" PostId="4368" Score="0" Text="Unfortunately is not so simple, also in the other way...while in the EU the regulations are good, but there are still the illegals http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/29/us-italy-sweatshop-insight-idUSBRE9BS04D20131229" CreationDate="2015-03-12T19:37:52.487" UserId="1308" />
  <row Id="4209" PostId="4370" Score="1" Text="Note that even if there were a correlation shown, this wouldn't necessarily demonstrate causality. Both could have a common causal factor, though. For instance, I would expect wealthier societies to both have more trash bins and produce more waste per capita simply because they can afford to buy more trash bins and can afford to buy more stuff that produces waste." CreationDate="2015-03-12T14:13:52.537" UserId="2107" />
  <row Id="4211" PostId="4370" Score="1" Text="Less public rubbish bins probably also means more litter." CreationDate="2015-03-13T08:52:18.493" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="4234" PostId="4370" Score="1" Text="Would you expect a relationship? Why?" CreationDate="2015-03-25T11:54:57.730" UserId="1325" />
  <row Id="4212" PostId="4372" Score="0" Text="Thanks a lot for your exhaustive answer! :) &#xA;Would you consider buying these, or are them among those &quot;cheap and awful&quot; ones? http://www.amazon.co.uk/Candle-Bulbs-Incandescent-Equivalent-Lights/dp/B00KW1YCL0/ref=sr_1_15?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1426260080&amp;sr=8-15&amp;keywords=led+lamp+40W" CreationDate="2015-03-13T15:22:11.950" UserId="986" />
  <row Id="4213" PostId="4372" Score="0" Text="In case could you give me a suggestion? Thanks!" CreationDate="2015-03-13T15:26:08.307" UserId="986" />
  <row Id="4214" PostId="4372" Score="1" Text="I'm just going to repeat my advice to (a) go for a known brand, such as those I listed; and (b) Buy one and test before investing in a lot. I can't tell which ones are good from looking at a picture any more than you can." CreationDate="2015-03-13T15:28:37.960" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="4215" PostId="4372" Score="0" Text="Thanks, in principle so I can buy also something which says &quot;replacement for 60W&quot;, would that cause any problems?" CreationDate="2015-03-13T16:12:11.417" UserId="986" />
  <row Id="4216" PostId="4372" Score="0" Text="+1, but here (Italy) I found that the led lamps are &quot;borderline&quot; as overall economy. As Simon said, the purchasing price is compensated when the life of the lamp is greater (roughly) 5 years. Unfortunately, it's still too early to see how many lamps are worth. Also disagree on the branded lamps, which often last less than unknown parts." CreationDate="2015-03-14T11:55:43.080" UserId="1674" />
  <row Id="4217" PostId="4372" Score="2" Text="Buy ONLY known name brand LED lamps. IGNORE Mario! :-) - note that fake copies of known brands exist. | Keep the receipt and the box (flatten the box) and staple together and keep in your warranties folder (which of course you have one of). Write seller and invoice or other ref number on lamp base with finetip marker AND install date. [YES I do do all that :-) ]. | Genuine Panasonic are superb - watch for fakes. Philips/Lumileds &amp; Cree also are superb. Osram good, GE goodish, a few others. SOME unknown brands may be superb but most are not and some are utter garbage." CreationDate="2015-03-17T10:42:16.390" UserId="318" />
  <row Id="4218" PostId="4372" Score="2" Text="Ebay is so far too risky for LED lamps from unknown sellers. &#xA;FWIW - I have  been responsible for design and manufacturing of product using maybe 500,00+ LEDs (not mains powered). Advice given is based on an interesting learning experience :-)." CreationDate="2015-03-17T10:43:51.880" UserId="318" />
  <row Id="5386" PostId="4376" Score="0" Text="ok, your post is very informative but ... where is the answer?" CreationDate="2016-01-29T09:13:21.323" UserId="1078" />
  <row Id="5428" PostId="4376" Score="0" Text="@MarianPaździoch As stated, it's not a complete answer, and the answer will change over time (based on copper prices/reserves) and be location-dependent (risk of theft at least depends on location). Ultimately the reader will need to use the available information and apply it to their personal situation to get the best possible answer." CreationDate="2016-02-05T02:34:01.837" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="7031" PostId="4380" Score="0" Text="Coolers you can buy commercially in India, use a similar fundamental of Evaporating Water through Mesh (made of fibrous material; grass or non-natural) and use a Fan to direct Air flow from in-Vents to the Out blower." CreationDate="2016-06-02T04:17:24.893" UserId="2891" />
  <row Id="4225" PostId="4381" Score="0" Text="but there is ventilation which means humidity can't reach that equlibrium?" CreationDate="2015-03-25T10:36:42.867" UserId="936" />
  <row Id="4226" PostId="4381" Score="0" Text="If the air outside is hot, and you keep it out like you describe, then you no longer have ventilation. This might just apply for part of the day." CreationDate="2015-03-25T10:37:54.743" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="4227" PostId="4381" Score="0" Text="never thought of that!, but the room is facing another bigger room which has some supply of outside air and we assume that the bigger  room cools the air which supplies it to this smaller room" CreationDate="2015-03-25T10:40:43.377" UserId="936" />
  <row Id="4233" PostId="4381" Score="0" Text="I have made my question more specific , after realizing that there is actually not much ventilation." CreationDate="2015-03-25T10:47:00.873" UserId="936" />
  <row Id="4235" PostId="4381" Score="2" Text="@sustainablecoolingsolutions I've updated my answer. You could also keep in mind the possibility of burying a pipe and drawing air through it to use the ground temperature to cool air on the way in. The deeper the better; it would need to be fan-forced though, probably. Leaving the fan running overnight would help cool the ground for use during the day." CreationDate="2015-03-26T05:18:02.637" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="4284" PostId="4381" Score="0" Text="The room is  halfway through a big building" CreationDate="2015-04-08T08:03:16.470" UserId="936" />
  <row Id="12990" PostId="4382" Score="0" Text="It depends on who defines &quot;practical&quot;." CreationDate="2020-10-18T15:02:07.550" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="4236" PostId="4385" Score="0" Text="Using something described as *bang-gas* sounds somewhat unsafe!" CreationDate="2015-03-27T02:57:13.067" UserId="1325" />
  <row Id="4238" PostId="4385" Score="0" Text="@andy256 I've used it before in an older model car to increase gas mileage (which it only did by very little) but it's actually quite safe when used as it is produced. It's no more unsafe than say, propane." CreationDate="2015-03-27T13:35:52.103" UserId="2132" />
  <row Id="4242" PostId="4385" Score="0" Text="We need some more information on just how you propose to do this.  Are you planning on generating it (with PV, wind, etc) during the summer &amp; storing it for use in the winter?  In that case, you'll have to separate &amp; compress the hydrogen, or you'll have effectively created a rather large bomb.  You'll also get back less heat than went into the separation, whereas if you run a ground-source heat pump off PV/wind, you can get maybe 4-5 times as much heat." CreationDate="2015-03-27T18:57:47.100" UserId="1937" />
  <row Id="4246" PostId="4385" Score="0" Text="@jamesqf your statement &quot;maybe 4-5 time as much&quot; is exactly what I'm trying to define. I'm at a loss on how to properly calculate this though. My initial though was, does the oxyhydrogen burn hot enough to make it worth while, but how much energy is actually lost producing the gas versus energy lost using an electric space heater, say?" CreationDate="2015-03-28T13:48:20.597" UserId="2132" />
  <row Id="4248" PostId="4385" Score="0" Text="@agrothe: I think you have a lot of misconceptions.  For instance, what matters is not how hot the hydrogen/oxygen mixture burns, but the amount of heat produced.  For instance, an actylene cutting torch burns very hot, but doesn't produce nearly as much heat as the cooler flame of a furnace.  For heating from PV electricity, anything but a heat pump is a major loss.  See e.g.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_heat_pump" CreationDate="2015-03-28T21:54:11.220" UserId="1937" />
  <row Id="4322" PostId="4385" Score="0" Text="You could try my somewhat similar idea asked earlier at [Home Improvement](http://diy.stackexchange.com/questions/39076/would-connecting-the-downpipe-to-a-gas-boiler-inlet-save-energy). Could anyone (a moderator) transfer that question to this site? I guess it would be taken more seriously here." CreationDate="2015-04-23T21:24:55.570" UserId="2182" />
  <row Id="4237" PostId="4386" Score="0" Text="These are the same thoughts I had, but I have yet to see a quantitative comparison regarding oxyhyrodgen. That in itself might answer the question, but there is nothing quite like hard numbers to definitively answer a question." CreationDate="2015-03-27T13:34:31.750" UserId="2132" />
  <row Id="4239" PostId="4386" Score="0" Text="@agrothe you don't need a quantitative comparison. If you could go from electricity to O2+H2 to heat and end up with more energy than you started with, you would be breaking some fairly fundamental rules of physics. You will always be better off (or at least no worse off) just using the electricity for heat directly." CreationDate="2015-03-27T14:11:04.697" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="4240" PostId="4386" Score="0" Text="But is a baseboard heater more efficient then a furnace burning O2+H2? How much more efficient?" CreationDate="2015-03-27T16:48:07.153" UserId="2132" />
  <row Id="4241" PostId="4386" Score="0" Text="@agrothe I don't know what a baseboard heater is. But, it's unlikely to matter." CreationDate="2015-03-27T17:54:15.813" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="4244" PostId="4386" Score="0" Text="@SimonW I think the real question is whether oxyhydrogen is an efficient way of storing energy that is produced during the day (or summer) and used during the night (or winter). He doesn't just want to use &quot;the energy&quot; which may come from solar power at noon to heat his house at noon. Grid-wise, generating power sustainably during peak time is always good, but for a single household during winter, peak time may be between 5 and 9 at night, where there is no solar power." CreationDate="2015-03-28T02:55:12.807" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="4243" PostId="4387" Score="0" Text="&quot;A large underground thermal tank is one way to do it.&quot; Would that be storing heated water?" CreationDate="2015-03-28T02:49:12.120" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="4245" PostId="4387" Score="0" Text="Perhaps worth mentioning that since there's plenty of oxygen around anyway, he could just store the Hydrogen - which reduces the explosive potential and is a relatively mainstream solution, with off-the-shelf hardware." CreationDate="2015-03-28T07:34:52.820" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="4247" PostId="4387" Score="0" Text="I should update the question i guess, but this stuff should never be stored, always used on demand." CreationDate="2015-03-28T13:49:48.093" UserId="2132" />
  <row Id="7500" PostId="4388" Score="0" Text="mining cryptocurrency is almost the perfect example of an entirely wasteful activity. By definition, it is participating in a contest to see who can waste the most resources, and the output is the checksum of a spreadsheet, which by itself is not useful (but is much cheaper to compute than the mining process)." CreationDate="2016-09-10T22:51:01.493" UserId="1255" />
  <row Id="7501" PostId="4388" Score="0" Text="@Ⴖuі That's right. Money-wise it can pay off, but resource-wise it's a waste. I've put it last in the list now, behind the &quot;useful&quot; cryptocurrency mining like Gridcoin, which is also possible now." CreationDate="2016-09-11T23:55:07.647" UserId="2134" />
  <row Id="4345" PostId="4391" Score="0" Text="Related to that, a typical bicycle dynamo generates 6V and 3W of alternating current. Sure wouldn't power a 100W lightbulb, but it still can charge phones and power some decent LED flashlights, although not both at the same time. If your needs are purely emergency reaction, that could be sufficient for some uses :)" CreationDate="2015-04-29T13:41:52.597" UserId="2203" />
  <row Id="5187" PostId="4391" Score="0" Text="A 100W lightbulb is terrifyingly bright, though. If you used a more realistic 10W or 15W light you'd need much less pedalling." CreationDate="2015-12-17T02:02:47.380" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="9094" PostId="4391" Score="0" Text="Is this 100W light bulb we are talking about an old, inefficient incandescent light bulb or a new LED one? I would not call the former terrifyingly bright for, say, lighting a dining table, but the latter probably would be, though I have never seen such a strong one! (@Móż)" CreationDate="2017-12-13T12:11:19.513" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="6497" PostId="4392" Score="4" Text="charge rates are also limited - if you charged a cellphone for 15 minutes it would barely charge, but if you bypassed the charger and increased the charge rate the battery would probably explode." CreationDate="2016-02-22T04:15:30.007" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="14810" PostId="4392" Score="0" Text="@Móż  An intermediate larger battery (with higher charge rate) or supercapacitor would solve this." CreationDate="2021-07-30T03:25:33.140" UserId="12030" />
  <row Id="4260" PostId="4394" Score="1" Text="Not everything you hear is true.  Goes double for stuff you read on the internet.  As for example, the various attempts to create hysteria over replacing incandescent light bulbs with CFLs." CreationDate="2015-04-03T18:39:24.213" UserId="1937" />
  <row Id="4258" PostId="4395" Score="0" Text="Perhaps it's me, but I think the reasoning in the linked article is different from yours. You say that solar radiation is reflected back up by white roofs and then &quot;_absorbed by air gasses and black carbon soot._&quot; and that &quot;_Clouds reflect light just like a white roof does_&quot;. This seems to suggest that the air gasses, soot and clouds are absorbing more solar radiation and cause the heating up." CreationDate="2015-04-03T08:11:13.467" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4259" PostId="4395" Score="1" Text="In the article they say that white roofs &quot;_caused a net global warming, largely because they reduced cloudiness slightly_&quot; and that &quot;_the reduction in cloudiness allowed more sunlight to reach the surface_&quot;. So here the main cause is more solar radiation reaches the Earth surface. &#xA;Which reasoning is correct?" CreationDate="2015-04-03T08:11:32.740" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4261" PostId="4395" Score="3" Text="The real point of white roofs (or &quot;cool roofs&quot;, which need not be white) is not to reflect heat directly, but to reduce the heat absorbed by the building, and so the energy used for A/C.  Obviously the benefit differs, depending on whether you live in Phoenix or Minneapolis, where you'd get more net benefit from a dark roof heating in winter." CreationDate="2015-04-03T18:45:21.373" UserId="1937" />
  <row Id="4262" PostId="4395" Score="0" Text="THelper, there are many factors to consider. The paper considered other factors that neither I nor the article even mention, such as the relationship between clouds and snow. See section 7 starting on page 21. @jamessqf, very true. What's worse, A/C is far more efficient than heat, so a short winter can counteract any benefits of a white roof during a long summer." CreationDate="2015-04-03T19:51:35.497" UserId="2083" />
  <row Id="4263" PostId="4395" Score="0" Text="@Sophit: How exactly is A/C more efficient than heat?  Seems like it depends on the heat source, as (depending on where you live) heat a building through insolation, solar collectors, or a wood stove, while all practical A/C systems that I know of work on electricity.  (Other than mine, which consists of good insulation plus living where nighttime temps drop into the 50s even on the hottest days of summer.)" CreationDate="2015-04-03T21:32:21.443" UserId="1937" />
  <row Id="4270" PostId="4395" Score="2" Text="Could you provide a reference to the research.  Cloud physics, last I saw was still hard to simulate.  For a white roof to be a net warmer you would have to show that more cloud is created by a black roof than by a white roof.   Further you have to show that the type of cloud created is one that would contribute to cooling and not warming. Given that the current batch of GCMs have icecaps as a strong forcing agent (ice cap has high albedo -- cools the planet off) I remain skeptical." CreationDate="2015-04-06T17:38:04.420" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="4271" PostId="4395" Score="0" Text="Yes. The research link was in the article I linked above, but here it is [again](http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/Others/HeatIsland+WhiteRfs0911.pdf)." CreationDate="2015-04-06T18:00:50.620" UserId="2083" />
  <row Id="4272" PostId="4395" Score="0" Text="@jamesqf If a heater could heat a space one temperature unit for one unit of energy, then an A/C unit remove that unit of temperature for less than one unit of energy. This breaks down as you try to move heat from a very cold space into a very hot space, but I've been impressed by A/C even in absurdly hot climates. Regardless, the point is that white roofs are a particularly bad choice in colder climates where A/C works well, and potentially a reasonable (but not ideal) choice in hot climates where A/C works less well." CreationDate="2015-04-06T18:08:38.500" UserId="2083" />
  <row Id="4266" PostId="4396" Score="0" Text="This answer is incorrect. Reflecting visible light back into the atmosphere does not cause it to be &quot;trapped in the weather system&quot;." CreationDate="2015-04-06T09:04:37.143" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="4274" PostId="4399" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! I've placed your question on hold, because it is asking for product recommendations and answers to such questions tend to be rather subjective. Could you please edit your question and change it into something that can be answered more objectively? E.g. something like &quot;do biodegradable hair gels exist and if so which one is the most environmentally friendly?&quot;" CreationDate="2015-04-07T08:38:47.957" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4282" PostId="4399" Score="0" Text="BTW, a quick google on &quot;biodegradable hair gel&quot; revealed 2 products that claim to be biodegradable: [Aubrey Organics Mens Ginseng and Biotin Hair Gel](http://www.green-store.biz/shops/index.php?proddb=29&amp;pid=343) and [Head Organics - Extra Hold Hair gel](http://www.luckyvitamin.com/p-22043-head-organics-extra-hold-hair-gel-845-oz)" CreationDate="2015-04-08T06:57:39.783" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4276" PostId="4400" Score="0" Text="The hot rocks are kept warm by nuclear fission in the Earth's core." CreationDate="2015-04-07T10:08:52.187" UserId="1325" />
  <row Id="4281" PostId="4400" Score="1" Text="@andy256 It's not so much nuclear fission that heats up the earth's core as it is [nuclear decay of radioactive elements](http://phys.org/news62952904.html)." CreationDate="2015-04-08T03:08:23.807" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="4283" PostId="4400" Score="2" Text="@Johnny To most people what you  say is correct. Decay is a lot slower, and spontaneous. Fission is usually triggered by neutrons. Technically, decay is fission, but anyone except a physicist would say that was splitting ... er hairs :-)" CreationDate="2015-04-08T07:16:49.943" UserId="1325" />
  <row Id="4289" PostId="4400" Score="0" Text="&quot;Geothermal&quot; means the heat comes from below using heat energy derived from the sun (or some other star) a very long while ago. | If the heat energy extracted from the ground is due to solar insolation within the last year (and usually in the last days to weeks) then it is incorrect to term the heat source &quot;Geothermal&quot;." CreationDate="2015-04-11T11:44:55.287" UserId="318" />
  <row Id="4278" PostId="4401" Score="0" Text="What is the energy source for your central heating system?  Natural gas?  Electrical?  Something else?  Considering you are asking here, I assume you mean better from a sustainability point of view.  How is the electricity generated?" CreationDate="2015-04-07T17:23:34.917" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="4279" PostId="4401" Score="0" Text="@gerrit - electricity is from the grid so likely coal. Even if we got solar it is mainly used at night. The central heating uses gas I'm pretty sure but for the sake of simplicity and like for like comparison, might be best to assume that they both from the same source and are both electric." CreationDate="2015-04-07T17:40:17.653" UserId="1644" />
  <row Id="4291" PostId="4401" Score="0" Text="@dizzy - please stop changing your question. It makes my answer look stupid, which makes me look stupid." CreationDate="2015-04-13T18:49:01.110" UserId="2083" />
  <row Id="4292" PostId="4401" Score="2" Text="@sophit I don't see any history of changes to this question" CreationDate="2015-04-13T19:36:51.373" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="4280" PostId="4402" Score="2" Text="I would go much further than 'misunderstood'.  I think it is deliberately deceptive false advertising on the part of people trying to sell ground-source heat pumps as geothermal heating, and I wish the FTC or someone would take them to court over it." CreationDate="2015-04-07T19:13:15.460" UserId="1937" />
  <row Id="4293" PostId="4404" Score="0" Text="You can compress corrugated cardboard pretty easily when it's wet.  I've no idea if that leads to a practical way of treating waste for storage though." CreationDate="2015-04-14T13:22:36.950" UserId="1445" />
  <row Id="4286" PostId="4405" Score="1" Text="&quot;Ground temperature at this depth is not based on the sun, and that's the entire point.&quot; I am skeptical of this - I suspect that at the depths that most heat pumps use, most of the heat energy comes from above rather than below." CreationDate="2015-04-10T09:08:03.653" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="4287" PostId="4405" Score="0" Text="@Simon: Visit Toronto where the air sometimes hits -20C in the winter. Notice that their in-ground water pipes don't freeze. The heat isn't coming from above." CreationDate="2015-04-10T20:26:48.393" UserId="2083" />
  <row Id="4288" PostId="4406" Score="1" Text="@Dizzy specifically mentioned a heat pump. These are almost always mains electricity powered (although they do not have to be) and, very importantly, are usually 2 to 4 times more efficient in heat out per energy in that individual room heaters. This can skew the one versus many decision." CreationDate="2015-04-11T11:25:07.523" UserId="318" />
  <row Id="4290" PostId="4406" Score="0" Text="He changed the question after I answered it, which annoys me. It used to be about central gas vs an electric room heater, where the electricity was from coal power." CreationDate="2015-04-13T18:46:22.207" UserId="2083" />
  <row Id="4285" PostId="4407" Score="5" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Thank you for your answer, but could you please elaborate on this? Do you know what impact the mentioned substances have on climate change or ozone depletion?" CreationDate="2015-04-10T05:13:18.300" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4633" PostId="4408" Score="0" Text="Re: &quot;*An electric heater converts electrical energy to thermal energy with 100% efficiency.*&quot; I tried to explain this to someone, with the understanding that in this case 'efficient' is more like a swearword. Electric heat is in all cases 100% efficient at turning cash in to waste. If it keeps you from freezing, then it is a necessary expense. But there are ways to get **far more heat for the same amount of money.** The other thing to remember is that *every single watt of electricity becomes heat* in your building.  It doesn't matter what the electricity is doing. Efficiency is relative." CreationDate="2015-07-28T23:59:27.903" UserDisplayName="user2423" />
  <row Id="7553" PostId="4411" Score="3" Text="We find the chickens love them, so they go through the chickens and come out as nitrogen-rich biomass. Which doesn't answer the question, but it's worth noting that if you have chickens composting the peels is possibly a wasted opportunity. Citrus peel they won't eat, but jackfruit and durian they will (finally, a use for durian!)" CreationDate="2016-10-05T23:20:15.227" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="4296" PostId="4413" Score="1" Text="Well, one could make one using one's [solar glass furnace](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/4412/1325) :-)" CreationDate="2015-04-16T12:19:59.020" UserId="1325" />
  <row Id="4307" PostId="4413" Score="1" Text="Good ventilation is quite important and to me it looks like this idea could cause some suffocation. Be sure not to make the whole cabin airtight. There are also [heat recovery](http://shower-save.com/) systems you can install in the shower floor which have a great efficiency." CreationDate="2015-04-19T21:28:08.423" UserId="2182" />
  <row Id="4311" PostId="4413" Score="0" Text="Are you talking about an open top shower outside, or one inside a house?" CreationDate="2015-04-20T18:58:04.480" UserId="616" />
  <row Id="4312" PostId="4413" Score="0" Text="@Klendathu I'm talking about one inside a house. That's the the standard design in New Zealand, though I can't say whether it's done that way everywhere in the world." CreationDate="2015-04-20T21:23:33.630" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="4316" PostId="4413" Score="0" Text="You could use almost anything that was not damaged by moisture and was impervious to airflow. eg as an extreme example &quot;wire netting with plastic shopping bade fixed to it. Really. Almost any material will work - shower domes will be more pretty. I must try this - probably not with chicken mesh and bags though. I'm in AK." CreationDate="2015-04-21T09:51:21.390" UserId="318" />
  <row Id="5308" PostId="4413" Score="0" Text="Can you tell me must the cover for the top of the shower be dome shape will a flat cover work as good" CreationDate="2016-01-14T10:50:19.897" UserDisplayName="user2963" />
  <row Id="5320" PostId="4413" Score="0" Text="@paula, flat would be ok for my height, though it would work less well for very tall people I imagine." CreationDate="2016-01-15T21:49:07.940" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="4297" PostId="4414" Score="1" Text="Note also an additional danger, which is that (unlike open flame or a glassblowing furnace) you won't be able to see where the high temperature areas are, nor will anyone else who happens by." CreationDate="2015-04-16T17:54:01.293" UserId="1937" />
  <row Id="4298" PostId="4414" Score="0" Text="@james At 600°C the glass glows red, and at 900-1000°C it glows orange. Even when not glowing, you can *feel* the heat." CreationDate="2015-04-16T21:44:13.177" UserId="1325" />
  <row Id="4299" PostId="4414" Score="0" Text="Brilliant answer, thanks! What you describe sounds more complicated than your average enthusiast would attempt at home. I wonder if casting powdered or broken glass into moulds would be easier." CreationDate="2015-04-16T22:00:25.327" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="4300" PostId="4414" Score="0" Text="@jamesqf I would expect for equipment that one might build at home, the focal area of the reflector would be rather small, and very bright (at least, while still in the reflector). There are important safety precautions to take with solar reflectors to avoid burns from the light too, not just from the objects that are heated." CreationDate="2015-04-16T22:03:14.190" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="4301" PostId="4414" Score="0" Text="I don't have experience of moulding glass; in theory all we need is a mould that can stand the heat and is the shape we want, then control the heat so the glass anneals. You can remove the glass from the mould after it's cooled from yellow-orange to red, and do things like hammer it, cut it, bend it. To learn more try visiting a local artistic glass maker." CreationDate="2015-04-16T23:20:49.610" UserId="1325" />
  <row Id="4303" PostId="4414" Score="0" Text="@andy256: I wasn't thinking of the glass itself, but of the device sitting around when you aren't actually working the glass at that instant.  E.g. you take a piece out to let it cool, and while your back is turned, the neighbor's kid wanders up and starts playing..." CreationDate="2015-04-17T19:58:23.017" UserId="1937" />
  <row Id="4304" PostId="4414" Score="0" Text="How would you get the heat into the glass in the first place though? Last I checked glass was transparent in the visible spectrum, making absorption non ideal." CreationDate="2015-04-18T05:24:06.720" UserId="1462" />
  <row Id="4305" PostId="4414" Score="0" Text="@Aron By heating the crucible holding the glass." CreationDate="2015-04-18T06:06:39.907" UserId="1325" />
  <row Id="4302" PostId="4415" Score="3" Text="Thanks for this. Do you know if the banana peel is at first a Nitrogen absorber when it starts breaking down, only later releasing it again? I know this can be an issue with some organic materials that are slow composters." CreationDate="2015-04-17T09:50:33.737" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="11234" PostId="4418" Score="1" Text="I asked [this question on Meta](https://meta.stackexchange.com/q/331301/164138) to see if the Stack Exchange organization has any intentions to switch to a green hosting company." CreationDate="2019-07-24T12:50:15.693" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4308" PostId="4420" Score="3" Text="Welcome to [sustainability.se] @Eileen. Nice first answer. You should be able to add those links now :-)" CreationDate="2015-04-20T01:43:48.587" UserId="1325" />
  <row Id="4310" PostId="4423" Score="2" Text="I'm willing to bet that it's negligible compared to the footprint of the production of the electricity that they transmit. But, a valid question. Not sure whether you'd want to consider this, but you could argue that the carbon footprint of the generation of energy lost in transmission is part of this, and that will be much more significant than construction, maintenance etc" CreationDate="2015-04-20T12:25:09.603" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="4313" PostId="4423" Score="0" Text="@SimonW Yep definitely. I've updated my question a bit - essentially I'm trying to weigh up the scale efficiency of offsite electric production vs transmission efficiency of onsite production. So energy losses in transmission would count in my perspective." CreationDate="2015-04-20T23:09:57.630" UserId="2184" />
  <row Id="4315" PostId="4423" Score="1" Text="The whole of life cost of the transmission assets should also be considered, as pylons etc have a limited life span and eventually do need replacing." CreationDate="2015-04-21T09:10:44.373" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="4314" PostId="4425" Score="0" Text="Indeed there are a lot of factors, including distance travelled. Doesn't mean it's not worth understanding. Yep ideally one-time construction is needed, but that's definitely not the case. Overhead lines require frequent pruning of adjacent trees, and during a storm, (like the one I'm currently in!) power lines are often knocked down and require repair." CreationDate="2015-04-20T23:14:00.723" UserId="2184" />
  <row Id="4318" PostId="4427" Score="0" Text="The money tree is non-toxic to cats but can cause an upset stomach" CreationDate="2015-04-21T19:35:35.260" UserId="2188" />
  <row Id="4321" PostId="4429" Score="1" Text="Is toothpaste unsustainable in some way?" CreationDate="2015-04-23T14:25:31.907" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="4325" PostId="4429" Score="0" Text="Why not? A mix of chemicals in a plastic tube. Isn't it?" CreationDate="2015-04-24T07:50:56.810" UserId="836" />
  <row Id="4327" PostId="4429" Score="3" Text="Every paste is a mix of chemicals.  Are there specific chemicals you are worried about?  Or is it the tube itself?" CreationDate="2015-04-24T14:25:11.637" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="4328" PostId="4429" Score="0" Text="worried about both tube and  teeth...I don't believe in those toothpaste companies when they say it strengthens the teeth." CreationDate="2015-04-24T18:00:52.953" UserId="836" />
  <row Id="4324" PostId="4431" Score="1" Text="Welcome to [sustainability.se] @rocker. This is a very short post ... can you explain or summarize the what the link says? At present it's not answering the question, and would be better posted as a comment." CreationDate="2015-04-24T00:32:24.310" UserId="1325" />
  <row Id="4374" PostId="4432" Score="1" Text="As compared to cotton cloth, jute will be better material which holds water for a longer time and not allow algae" CreationDate="2015-05-09T06:57:32.473" UserDisplayName="user2232" />
  <row Id="4414" PostId="4432" Score="0" Text="good, is this already been used somewhere? from where you got this illustration?" CreationDate="2015-05-28T07:30:18.553" UserId="936" />
  <row Id="4419" PostId="4432" Score="0" Text="I got the idea when reading the title of your question. As far as I know it has not been tried. I drew the illustration myself. I might try something like it out myself this summer on a sloping roof (not a window). I have seen [cheap drip-irrigation systems](http://www.banggood.com/10m33Ft-Micro-Garden-Misting-Cooling-System-Atomization-Spray-Nozzle-p-948897.html), and I guess some jute bags will keep the water in place long enough to evaporate before dripping into the gutter. I don't think the cloth will hold long though due to mold or decomposition. It may bring relief in the hottest months." CreationDate="2015-05-28T19:06:48.010" UserId="2182" />
  <row Id="4429" PostId="4432" Score="0" Text="@LouisSomers Do let us know how it went!" CreationDate="2015-06-02T17:57:29.537" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="10692" PostId="4432" Score="1" Text="@Earthliŋ I finally did. But I used a white sheet instead of jute, and kept it wet by spraying it by hand every 20 minutes or so." CreationDate="2019-02-10T01:56:45.840" UserId="2182" />
  <row Id="4329" PostId="4433" Score="0" Text="&quot;Backing Soda&quot; .... this thing is not natural. Its a &quot;Sodium bicarbonate&quot; in scientific terms, which is a chemical compound." CreationDate="2015-04-25T05:07:45.110" UserId="2190" />
  <row Id="4330" PostId="4433" Score="0" Text="@aston According to [wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_bicarbonate#Mining) Sodium bicarbonate can also be naturally occuring (although it often is fabricated)." CreationDate="2015-04-25T06:35:24.993" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4331" PostId="4433" Score="0" Text="Well, according to the link you have provided, It says &quot;Naturally occurring deposits of nahcolite (NaHCO3) were found in the Eocene-age (55.8–33.9 Mya) Green River Formation, Piceance Basin in Colorado&quot;. It was in the way way back in the past....not now..." CreationDate="2015-04-25T08:32:00.853" UserId="2190" />
  <row Id="4332" PostId="4433" Score="0" Text="@aston The wikipedia text is not well written and can be interpreted in two ways, but to prove that it is being mined: http://www.naturalsoda.com/OurUniqueProcess.aspx" CreationDate="2015-04-25T13:47:48.540" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4333" PostId="4433" Score="0" Text="You are still not getting the point. According second link you have provided, its still needs some process not a natural thing.  &#xA;&#xA;&quot;Natural Soda recovers sodium bicarbonate using a process known as solution mining. This involves pumping hot water approximately 1900 feet underground to dissolve the underlying nahcolite beds and return the bicarb saturated water to the surface&quot;" CreationDate="2015-04-25T14:18:39.040" UserId="2190" />
  <row Id="4334" PostId="4433" Score="0" Text="@aston I guess we have a different opinion about what is 'natural'. In my book, adding hot water to something and then letting it dry doesn't make it non-natural." CreationDate="2015-04-25T15:16:06.117" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4335" PostId="4433" Score="2" Text="This illustrates the problem with the phrase “natural”.  There is no unambiguous way to define what is “natural” and what is not." CreationDate="2015-04-25T18:11:36.283" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="4336" PostId="4434" Score="0" Text="so what is the solution?" CreationDate="2015-04-25T18:14:45.393" UserId="936" />
  <row Id="4337" PostId="4434" Score="0" Text="ALso assume Mumbai, surat is not much of coastal" CreationDate="2015-04-25T18:15:43.270" UserId="936" />
  <row Id="4338" PostId="4434" Score="0" Text="One obvious solution is a traditional air conditioner, not an evaporative cooler. You didn't include your location in the question, you said just &quot;coastal city&quot;, so I picked a random city near the coast -- you can look up the weather in your own city to see how feasible it is for an evaporative cooler, but since you said it's a humid climate, it's unlikely to be very effective." CreationDate="2015-04-25T19:11:20.390" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="4341" PostId="4435" Score="0" Text="Besides local regulations there are all kinds of rules and guidelines you have to follow if you want to adhere to international standards (e.g. [ISO 14000 series](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_14000) or [IAIA guidelines and best practices](http://www.iaia.org/publications-resources/downloadable-publications.aspx))" CreationDate="2015-04-29T10:12:33.070" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4346" PostId="4435" Score="0" Text="are you reffering to the canals? If not, what type of project?" CreationDate="2015-04-29T14:03:28.677" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="4347" PostId="4435" Score="0" Text="No I am not referring to the canal (of Panama?) specifically, but rather to any type of project. I am personally particularly interested in EIA required for solar farms, which are not so common (esp. in Panama &amp; Guatemala). Any specific info for solar farm would be thus very much appreciated." CreationDate="2015-04-29T15:04:53.393" UserId="2202" />
  <row Id="4354" PostId="4436" Score="2" Text="Related: https://bicycles.stackexchange.com/questions/15594/; perhaps a duplicate: https://bicycles.stackexchange.com/questions/308/.&#xA;&#xA;FWIW, I ride to work nearly every day (6.5 miles RT) and don't shower even though they are available with moderate inconvenience, so it can be done." CreationDate="2015-05-02T20:36:12.893" UserId="2216" />
  <row Id="4340" PostId="4437" Score="0" Text="You can of course do a whole body wash with just a small cloth and a basin (saves a lot of water over a shower).  But that relies on you being comfortable standing around naked in the gents at work..." CreationDate="2015-04-29T09:50:31.740" UserId="1445" />
  <row Id="4342" PostId="4437" Score="0" Text="Yeah, that's the point. With the type of company I'm in, I don't think it would be appropriate to stand (even in the toilets) with the upper body naked. I was looking for a solution I could apply in a very small room (i.e. one toilet room), where I have less than 1sq meter to move. Possibly still an applicable solution though..." CreationDate="2015-04-29T11:24:33.350" UserId="2203" />
  <row Id="4339" PostId="4439" Score="1" Text="Brilliant answer! Thanks for making the effort to write it!" CreationDate="2015-04-29T08:46:36.570" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="4343" PostId="4439" Score="0" Text="I did not know that peak times can be so different between countries, thanks for the answer" CreationDate="2015-04-29T11:36:12.447" UserId="1912" />
  <row Id="4348" PostId="4440" Score="0" Text="I do agree with the argument that environmental assessment agencies who are hired to conduct a EIA have low chance to be biased, since they have to preserve good reputation.  &#xA;&#xA;It would thus be the same for peer reviewer: for EIAs which have been entirely carried out and reported by the project initiator, a peer review made by an external party would then guarrantee the objectivity of the EIA. &#xA;&#xA;What are you opinion about this last point?&#xA;&#xA;Has anybody already seen such a process and/or has any exemple ?" CreationDate="2015-04-29T15:36:32.747" UserId="2202" />
  <row Id="4368" PostId="4441" Score="1" Text="There is the question of when does it become second-hand enough to count? Suppose someone buys a new car every year, then sells it and buys another one, and so on, compared to someone who buys a new car and drives it for 20 years. If you buy a 20-year old car it's a lot more second-hand than one which has changed hands 4 times in 5 years." CreationDate="2015-05-08T11:44:33.587" UserId="1567" />
  <row Id="4369" PostId="4441" Score="1" Text="Anyway, new stuff lasts longer - if you buy a new x and it lasts 10 years, is it worse in any way than buying a 5 year-old x and using it for 5 years? Only if used x don't land on landfill before they have reached their 10 years. This implies that you are indeed being sustainable when you buy used stuff, but only if we assume it would otherwise go to landfill." CreationDate="2015-05-08T11:59:39.763" UserId="1567" />
  <row Id="4370" PostId="4441" Score="0" Text="Maybe the most useful thing to do is to keep your x, however old it is, or was when you bought it, repaired and maintained so it lasts long past its official die-by date. I read somewhere the Finns will despise anyone who buys a new car, for being too stupid to keep the old one running." CreationDate="2015-05-08T12:07:09.677" UserId="1567" />
  <row Id="4349" PostId="4444" Score="0" Text="Most StackExchange sites don't allow medical questions. We haven't discussed here whether or not we allow them on this site, so I've placed this question on hold for now, until we sort this out in [this discussion here on Meta Sustainability](http://meta.sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/238/99)." CreationDate="2015-04-29T21:22:06.587" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4351" PostId="4444" Score="1" Text="Bear in mind that the fundamental goal of industry is efficiency, which is a good thing. The key to making it sustainable is in paying attention to waste streams, energy use etc, which admittedly is commonly overlooked." CreationDate="2015-04-30T10:19:12.700" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="4352" PostId="4445" Score="0" Text="Thank you very much! I wasn't aware of this at all! I got introduced to the practice of using tea tree oil by my family. Interestingly never questioned this custom as being something so dangerous." CreationDate="2015-04-30T20:03:49.490" UserId="2187" />
  <row Id="9708" PostId="4447" Score="0" Text="I wanted to link this to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allocation_problem, but that does not exist while _Resource allocation problem_ redirects to _resource allocation_. I added a note to the [talk page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:resource_allocation). The _Life cycle analysis_ article also mentions the problem of allocating impact between processes with shared flows." CreationDate="2018-05-16T19:23:05.773" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="4353" PostId="4448" Score="4" Text="I think this has an answer here - let us know if that's the case, or not: http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/1013/48" CreationDate="2015-05-01T19:29:33.380" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="4405" PostId="4448" Score="0" Text="I have heard the same story years ago, but I doubt that it still applies today. The answer is likely to change over time while PE cells get better and fabrication methods get more efficient." CreationDate="2015-05-23T22:43:46.170" UserId="2182" />
  <row Id="4355" PostId="4449" Score="0" Text="I am confused; can you explain more?" CreationDate="2015-05-04T11:29:42.567" UserId="1325" />
  <row Id="4357" PostId="4450" Score="2" Text="Do you want to store it to reuse it as electricity, or would storing heat be ok too?" CreationDate="2015-05-04T16:40:13.703" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="16448" PostId="4450" Score="0" Text="If lithium batteries are a concern because of the potential for overheating and combustion, you might want to consider [vanadium redox flow batteries](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanadium_redox_battery). They are larger than comparable lithium batteries &amp; they do need maintenance, but they are safer &amp; they last longer. They are mainly used for larger projects, such a large buildings or neighborhoods." CreationDate="2023-07-27T10:49:39.637" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="4358" PostId="4451" Score="1" Text="Nice answer, but I think it would be better reformatted to focus separately (ie with 3 separate headings to keep it nice and clear) on options that 1. might be currently feasible for a home owner now, 2.  might be feasible in the future, and 3. that really only work on a larger scale." CreationDate="2015-05-05T02:33:37.350" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="4359" PostId="4452" Score="1" Text="For materials, do you mean something like table 2 and 3 in [this paper](http://www.researchgate.net/publication/222226993_Energy_performances_and_life_cycle_assessment_of_an_Italian_wind_farml)? (click on the view button on the right of the loaded page to see contents)" CreationDate="2015-05-05T11:26:13.997" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4360" PostId="4452" Score="0" Text="Related: energy out divided by energy in, for a wind turbine, is [asked and answered here](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/2505/48)" CreationDate="2015-05-05T12:00:06.620" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="4361" PostId="4452" Score="0" Text="@THelper I guess the tables in the paper you mention ( [pdf link without signup](http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Valerio_Lo_Brano/publication/222226993_Energy_performances_and_life_cycle_assessment_of_an_Italian_wind_farm/links/02e7e52bee1bf3a0a0000000.pdf) ) could be used to calculate the energy returned on materials invested." CreationDate="2015-05-05T12:05:15.287" UserId="2222" />
  <row Id="4362" PostId="4453" Score="0" Text="Wow thanks for the very extensive response. Nevertheless, as you say, real comparative studies on the use of construction materials for energy production seem hard to find." CreationDate="2015-05-06T09:06:07.060" UserId="2222" />
  <row Id="4366" PostId="4455" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! You are correct that trees store solar energy via photosynthesis, but the OP clearly mentions that he wants to store energy from solar panels in his question, so I'm afraid your answer doesn't really answer the question." CreationDate="2015-05-08T11:08:44.730" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4371" PostId="4455" Score="2" Text="Blast!  I guess I got caught up in reading the answers and forgot the OP.  Rather than delete this answer, I think I'll edit it to offer an alternative." CreationDate="2015-05-08T14:40:39.147" UserId="2228" />
  <row Id="15077" PostId="4455" Score="1" Text="Energy from biomass, done right, has some real advantages, but for many it will also have a giant disadvantage: land area. Most households in the developed world currently consume so much energy that (considering the inefficiencies of a woodgas generator) the idea only bears consideration if you have substantial unused land for a woodlot. Whereas what I have is my roof. :)  It would be risky to take agricultural land out of production to go towards this solution at a utility scale. Whereas cows don't mind wind turbines!" CreationDate="2021-10-06T18:44:20.020" UserId="283" />
  <row Id="16423" PostId="4455" Score="2" Text="A major problem is that to convert this stored energy back to electricity, you need to burn stuff.  Burning anything causes air pollution.  Also, most people can't wait 40 years before they've stored enough energy to heat their home, and if we burn things now _before_ growing trees back we'll add CO₂ that will take 40 years to be absorbed again.  We can't afford to have all that excess CO₂ linger in the atmosphere for 40 years.  Biomass burning is therefore not a suitable form of domestic heating or electricity consumption." CreationDate="2023-07-14T07:16:19.363" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="16421" PostId="4458" Score="1" Text="From what I've heard, in 2023 it's no longer true that thermal collectors are cheaper than photovoltaic + a modern air-to-water heat pump." CreationDate="2023-07-14T07:12:33.107" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="16456" PostId="4458" Score="0" Text="Thanks, yes. 8 Years has made quite a difference in solar PV prices. At this point it's definitely not a sure thing for thermal solar, despite the efficiency differences." CreationDate="2023-08-01T18:57:05.140" UserId="283" />
  <row Id="4378" PostId="4468" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! There is a related but slightly different question that only asks about recycling: [Are incandescent light bulbs recyclable?](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/2699/99). Perhaps some of the answers there will help you? Answers here should also focus on other options (e.g. reuse)" CreationDate="2015-05-11T07:22:49.510" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4404" PostId="4468" Score="1" Text="I don't know where you are from, but if you have cold winters you could consider using them in a low situated reading-light. Where I live, gas is going up in price, and electrical heaters are starting to compete again. I do the same with my desktop computer, in the winter it can keep my room a few degrees warmer while doing heavy computations. Of course those computations should be useful, not just to keep the room warm, likewise don't keep the light on just for the warmth :-)" CreationDate="2015-05-23T22:33:17.263" UserId="2182" />
  <row Id="7263" PostId="4468" Score="0" Text="Welp, I heard that incandescent light bulbs are tough to find and information is out that these 'energy saving' bulbs are environmentally hostile.  I've heard one should go buy any incandescent bulbs available.  Seriously, do more research before getting rid of your incandescent bulbs!" CreationDate="2016-07-22T06:34:45.723" UserId="3540" />
  <row Id="12642" PostId="4468" Score="0" Text="I am horrified this is even a question. You should sell them. There are people who will pay good money for them, since they are the most environmentally friendly lighting." CreationDate="2020-05-26T18:55:46.793" UserId="8736" />
  <row Id="4379" PostId="4475" Score="2" Text="You're absolutely right when it comes to the use of said thermal energy. Highly underrated in home use. Yet it will not run your TV or refrigerator ;)" CreationDate="2015-05-12T19:08:42.673" UserId="2072" />
  <row Id="4380" PostId="4475" Score="0" Text="@Ghanima True as stated. Not necessarily so though. Many things will not do what they are not intended or designed to do. A key problem is that electrical to thermal conversion usually uses a reservoir temperature near ambient so max possible reconversion to electrical is limited Carnot limit of (Thot-Tcold)/Thot all in degrees K. **IF** you are willing to use a very high storage temperature then high efficincy reconversion to electricity is possible. eg at 330C with a 30C ambient Carnot Z != 50%. At 630C it's 66%. At 930C !!! it's 75%. Real world efficincies approaching 50% are known." CreationDate="2015-05-13T02:38:23.047" UserId="318" />
  <row Id="16419" PostId="4475" Score="0" Text="In Germany there is a hydrogen storage system on the market (+fuel cell) for seasonal home electricity storage.  Prices start at &quot;only&quot; €85,000 for a small system since VAT has been reduced to 0%." CreationDate="2023-07-14T06:50:14.927" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="16420" PostId="4475" Score="0" Text="You could add that 36 tons of water takes 36 m³, so a 3 m × 3  m × 4 m reservoir would do it.  But doesn't bring one very far sadly." CreationDate="2023-07-14T07:01:10.163" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="4385" PostId="4479" Score="0" Text="Can you be more specific about the types of leaves you want to use?" CreationDate="2015-05-14T21:44:18.607" UserId="2187" />
  <row Id="4387" PostId="4479" Score="0" Text="@orschiro will get a picture up as soon as possible, its harder than you think to remember to bring the camera to the bathroom!" CreationDate="2015-05-15T14:32:32.050" UserId="1662" />
  <row Id="4388" PostId="4479" Score="0" Text="@THelper That sounds like a great answer!  Perhaps with a couple of recommendations of what I should throw in there - more sawdust?" CreationDate="2015-05-15T14:33:35.937" UserId="1662" />
  <row Id="4389" PostId="4479" Score="0" Text="I'm confused. You were asking about the toilet, now it's the bathroom. Are you using these leaves instead of a towel after a bath?" CreationDate="2015-05-17T08:28:44.690" UserId="1325" />
  <row Id="4390" PostId="4479" Score="0" Text="Sorry for the confusion, the toilet is in the 'bathroom', although I do use a towel and I am talking about the toilet.  It used to be a water toilet and we converted it, I guess as a prototype.  Any new dry toilet will be separated from the shower." CreationDate="2015-05-17T13:10:05.347" UserId="1662" />
  <row Id="7252" PostId="4480" Score="1" Text="“_Where the heat is useful, not wasted_” – would that not include any time you are heating your house with externally generated energy? (I.e. cold outside, not a _passivhaus_.) Would this then not be preferrable to putting them in landfill? If so, I suggest explicitly mentioning that and bumping it up your list." CreationDate="2016-07-19T20:20:12.110" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="10919" PostId="4480" Score="0" Text="@PJTraill : I think it depends on where that externally generated energy comes from. For example if you normally heat your home with natural gas, and your electricity comes mostly from coal plants (which generally produce more CO2 than natural gas), it might be better to minimize the amount of heating you get from electricity and use a little more gas instead." CreationDate="2019-04-18T14:24:50.380" UserId="2234" />
  <row Id="4391" PostId="4488" Score="4" Text="Maybe it would make more difference if we all went to bed at sunset!" CreationDate="2015-05-19T03:19:17.470" UserId="1325" />
  <row Id="4392" PostId="4488" Score="0" Text="Yeah, how many people these days get up long before sunrise?" CreationDate="2015-05-19T11:33:54.060" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="4395" PostId="4488" Score="0" Text="How many people would use significantly less lighting if they get up at sunrise? I don't get a lot of light in my home's north-facing windows, so I use the lights even when I get up well after sunrise. Not that lighting is a big consumer of electricity, my lights are mostly 11W LED's, so if have 5 lamps on for 4 hours a day to make up for getting up before sunrise, that's 20KWh/year, about .8% of my total household power usage." CreationDate="2015-05-19T20:14:31.310" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="4396" PostId="4488" Score="0" Text="Difficult to say as it so much depend on the activities an individual performs. Maybe we even experience a rebound effect of people getting up earlier but sleeping less and spending the time on consumption of energy and materials (food, goods, services)?" CreationDate="2015-05-20T09:10:28.843" UserId="2187" />
  <row Id="4399" PostId="4488" Score="0" Text="Also conside all the people who leave outdoor lights on all night, even though no one is using the lighted spaces.  E.g. landscape lighting, empty parking lots, 'security' lighting (which IMHO only makes sure your burglar can see where he's going), and so on." CreationDate="2015-05-20T18:37:37.500" UserId="1937" />
  <row Id="4420" PostId="4488" Score="1" Text="Much of renewable energy (hydropower, wind power) is generated without paying attention to the time of day, so sustainability-wise any Watt that you can use in the early morning so that you don't have to use it during peak time is a way to reduce the load on peak time electricity, which is often generated with fossil fuels. (This only applies to areas, where the electricity grid contains _some_ &quot;renewable electricity&quot;.)" CreationDate="2015-05-28T20:27:58.053" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="4397" PostId="4489" Score="1" Text="Assuming that the only way to make air travel carbon neutral is to capture carbon emitted by planes is, perhaps, a limited way of looking at it.&#xA;&#xA;I think it's important, in answers, to differentiate between the problems of increased travel mileage, and the specific problems of that being by air. Even by more efficient means, the energy requirements to travel intercontinental distances are high." CreationDate="2015-05-20T09:37:13.950" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="4398" PostId="4489" Score="0" Text="The simple way, at least just considering CO2 emissions from fuel, is to run the planes with biofuels.  This has been done on an experimental basis: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_biofuel" CreationDate="2015-05-20T18:34:54.537" UserId="1937" />
  <row Id="4408" PostId="4489" Score="0" Text="@jamesqf, Be careful with biofuels! At least the way it is done today it got really a bad eco-bilance (given the relatively photosynthetic low conversion ratio of plants, efficiency issues while conversion of biomass to liquid fuels and efforts necessary for fertilization). This is no rant against biomass just a warning to look very carefully at the whole scheme." CreationDate="2015-05-25T21:06:47.820" UserId="2072" />
  <row Id="13107" PostId="4490" Score="0" Text="The link in this question is broken.  Is there an updated URL available?" CreationDate="2020-11-13T10:37:05.363" UserId="2727" />
  <row Id="4409" PostId="4492" Score="1" Text="This depends on exactly what is meant by 'adding',  Yes, they produce CO2, but no more than would be produced by the material decaying in some other manner.  But the CO2 is not strictly added: rather, it's part of the long-term carbon cycle that all life depends on, so it keeps going around the CO2-&gt; oxygen/plant matter-&gt;animal/bacterial food-&gt;CO2 loop." CreationDate="2015-05-26T05:10:08.413" UserId="1937" />
  <row Id="4410" PostId="4492" Score="0" Text="Yes, relating to carbon/carbondioxide it's a null-sum game. Either way it will be generated and is part of the cycle just as you say. However during decay of organic waste also other gases are produces (such as methane and NOx) which are also greenhouse gases. Especially methane could be &quot;harvested&quot; if generated by closed fermentation plants, burned to CO2 (while using the energy). So in waste disposal it does matter whethe it's done &quot;open air&quot; or in closed systems. (I understand that the answer is rather short and could be improved though.)" CreationDate="2015-05-26T08:17:06.653" UserId="2072" />
  <row Id="4418" PostId="4495" Score="0" Text="I would say if any massive jump in processing power occurs the currency may drastically drop in value due to 'bit mining'.&#xA;http://www.bitcoinmining.com/" CreationDate="2015-05-28T18:06:11.800" UserId="2265" />
  <row Id="4411" PostId="4497" Score="0" Text="Bitcoin's not a ponzi scheme, though it has been accused as such numerous times. Have you read this? http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/a/37221/516" CreationDate="2015-05-26T23:17:54.863" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="4412" PostId="4497" Score="0" Text="@HighlyIrregular yes I have, thanks. David Schwartz is mistaken (well intentioned, I don't doubt, but mistaken), and I've extended my answer to explain why." CreationDate="2015-05-27T05:41:32.593" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="4547" PostId="4504" Score="2" Text="It also lowers the amount of plastic needet. Even if the final amount of waste is higher. ( Numbers may not be correct ). Lets assume we make a yoghurt pot. We can not make the pot very thin, due it will break easy. But if we wrap the pot with carton, it wont break. We might be able to reduce plastic by 30% by adding 70% (of weight) carton." CreationDate="2015-06-29T11:53:38.090" UserId="2350" />
  <row Id="4549" PostId="4504" Score="0" Text="Valid point but the problem of breakage does not apply to bread packaging." CreationDate="2015-06-29T15:54:07.983" UserId="2187" />
  <row Id="4550" PostId="4504" Score="3" Text="Dont underestimate how essential product presentation is. If you ever bought a flaggship smartphone like an iphone oder samsung s-series, you'd notice that about 80% of package is useless and only good for presentation." CreationDate="2015-06-29T16:53:27.880" UserId="2350" />
  <row Id="7960" PostId="4504" Score="0" Text="@Sempie I think your comment would qualify as an answer..." CreationDate="2017-01-03T21:02:55.867" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="4421" PostId="4505" Score="3" Text="Welcome to [sustainability.se] @JimBo. This is an international site - which nation do you refer to?" CreationDate="2015-06-01T06:21:56.187" UserId="1325" />
  <row Id="4422" PostId="4505" Score="2" Text="You can improve the question by adding a few key points where you think conventional farming techniques fail the consumers and producers." CreationDate="2015-06-01T07:51:43.750" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="9746" PostId="4505" Score="0" Text="Residing in the USA in temperate zone7b of Appalachian mountains. Conventional farming condones dead soil and less healthy consumers. The widespread use of chemicals cannot promote soil bio-diversity. Conventional wisdom if you dare, creates massive acres of nutrient deficient soil which kills off mycelium resulting in less nutrition for plant uptake resulting in unhealthy products and poorer health for the consumer not to mention the ecological aspects and impact on climate even within the farm." CreationDate="2018-05-27T02:53:41.743" UserId="2272" />
  <row Id="4428" PostId="4506" Score="0" Text="I couldn't find a confirming source, however, as far as I know biologically certified melones are not allowed to contain chemical additives." CreationDate="2015-06-02T07:15:34.390" UserId="2187" />
  <row Id="4435" PostId="4506" Score="1" Text="@orschiro I guess you mean [certified organic](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_certification). Some languages (German, Italian, French, Czech, etc.) use their equivalent of the English &quot;biological&quot; to refer to &quot;certified organic&quot;." CreationDate="2015-06-03T09:48:54.973" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="4668" PostId="4506" Score="5" Text="&quot;*Recently I heard*&quot; I think you should back that up with an actual claim **describing what substance they are colored with**. Without that information, how can anyone tell you how to detect 'it'? Also, your addition *it is very harmful* makes very little sense without that info. Anyone can say anything." CreationDate="2015-08-07T13:35:42.003" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="8556" PostId="4506" Score="1" Text="I agree with Jan Doggen. This question needs more information." CreationDate="2017-05-30T20:11:32.677" UserId="1701" />
  <row Id="4423" PostId="4507" Score="2" Text="Could you give some context on how this is about sustainable living, rather than politics?" CreationDate="2015-06-01T12:36:48.060" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="4424" PostId="4507" Score="0" Text="A large amount of edible food is wasted by households (representing an unsustainable lifestyle) that could potentially be diverted to food banks. I am interested in the potential of people served by surplus food." CreationDate="2015-06-01T14:07:20.270" UserId="2187" />
  <row Id="4437" PostId="4507" Score="3" Text="food banks are generally not set up to accept perishable items. This is a shame for the recipients, who don't get enough fresh unprocessed food as a result, and for the waste of all that perishable material." CreationDate="2015-06-03T18:37:18.117" UserId="1053" />
  <row Id="4441" PostId="4507" Score="0" Text="Yes, you're right under current legislation. My estimate would be a possible scenario." CreationDate="2015-06-04T12:04:33.153" UserId="2187" />
  <row Id="4436" PostId="4508" Score="1" Text="One thing to know about plastic recycling is that it's mostly a one-time thing. Steel, aluminum, glass etc can go round and round. Paper walks its way down a chain from fine paper to cardboard. Plastic gets one redo and then whatever it is made into typically can't be recycled. (Some exceptions, agreed, but mostly.)" CreationDate="2015-06-03T18:34:14.713" UserId="1053" />
  <row Id="4439" PostId="4508" Score="0" Text="@KateGregory Thank you for your comment! Do you have more information on this? For HDPE you may be right, but I know that PET can be recycled more than once. [Here](http://www.innocentdrinks.co.uk/us/being-sustainable/faqs#how-many-times-can-pet-be-recycled) a manufacturer mentions that it's possible to recycle PET at food grade quality up to 10 times (admittedly it doesn't say they do that). [This document](http://www.environment.gov.au/system/files/pages/9014ac31-f832-48bd-85b9-f02d8ef70fbe/files/pipa.pdf) mentions that PVC can be recycled 6 to 7 times." CreationDate="2015-06-03T19:31:03.823" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4440" PostId="4508" Score="3" Text="Well, just look at the list in your answer: carpet, clothing, fabric, rope etc - those can't be recycled. if 39% of PET goes to clothes and carpets, that's a one-way trip. And for PVC and HDPE none of the items you list there can be recycled. I've heard this meme many times and these lists really seem to back it up." CreationDate="2015-06-03T19:33:53.440" UserId="1053" />
  <row Id="4511" PostId="4509" Score="0" Text="This is the best answer IMHO.  Coppicing trees produces way more biomass in a given time than clear cutting.  +1 for the black locust as well." CreationDate="2015-06-24T02:38:53.167" UserId="2337" />
  <row Id="8952" PostId="4509" Score="1" Text="JimBo's suggestion of coppicing, especially black locust, is ideal. Usually 4-5 year cycle to recut the new growth. Also look up rocket mass heaters, an affordable DIY masonry heater that uses far less wood than a typical wood stove. Burns cleaner, stores the heat over many hours so you aren't trying to smoulder the burn overnight. You use anywhere from 1/4-1/10 the amount of wood. I recently built one at the Cob Cottage Company, and you can make one pretty quick for cheap." CreationDate="2017-10-21T06:53:10.887" UserId="4975" />
  <row Id="4433" PostId="4510" Score="0" Text="The supply chain being global is of great concern as far as who we are dependant on and the environmental impact of obtaining the supply. This is where the &quot;buy local&quot; comes into play. One would hope to support a local supply chain who contributed most to produce food with a  positive impact on environment along side with healthy beneifts for the muiltitudes. Mono culture proves a dependance on chemicals whose impact is more negative than positive.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeTZ2r8uW6M Lawmakers and appointed officails are problimatic." CreationDate="2015-06-03T04:55:41.270" UserId="2272" />
  <row Id="4434" PostId="4511" Score="0" Text="I appauled todays farmers for which many of my meals come from. Why not use no till methods,cover cropping and crop rotation to make those adjustments?   One of the farmers in the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeTZ2r8uW6M states that being a conventional farmer he knows what he is doing is wrong ,but thats the way the system works. I see his concerns &amp; hope he represents unheard farmers of like mind. This points the finger to regulation then. That is a voting topic. I'm glad to hear more use of manure based fertilizer. Pesticides have no selective pest and kill beneificails, too." CreationDate="2015-06-03T05:15:24.130" UserId="2272" />
  <row Id="4442" PostId="4516" Score="1" Text="I guess this only works after buying the water melon, although, if what you say works, it is one way to check whether a particular vendor sells artificially coloured melons. Why vinegar?" CreationDate="2015-06-04T17:54:40.417" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="4450" PostId="4516" Score="0" Text="We can't always take some vineger to market and check for it. But is there a way to check practically ?" CreationDate="2015-06-07T13:28:13.077" UserId="883" />
  <row Id="4546" PostId="4516" Score="0" Text="Let a tissue soak some vinegar, rub the melon with it." CreationDate="2015-06-29T11:44:37.183" UserId="2350" />
  <row Id="4449" PostId="4517" Score="0" Text="What do eggshells have to do with diatomaceous earth or slugs or both? Are you suggesting that eggshells can be used the same way diatomaceous earth is used against slugs?" CreationDate="2015-06-06T21:07:59.593" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="4452" PostId="4517" Score="0" Text="Snails and slugs hate anything that is sharp or rough, so they will slink away when they get to the shells. Other textures that work include coffee grounds, coarse sand, sheep’s wool (it’s scratchy!), and Diatomaceous" CreationDate="2015-06-08T04:33:10.610" UserId="2272" />
  <row Id="4455" PostId="4523" Score="0" Text="Thanks for the answer. I do have hourly DNI data and hourly demand data. What I meant by a cumulative load curve, is that the supply of all CSP plants has to match at the same time the load curves of different regions at different time zones. Say the combined supply of plants in California and Texas has to match -at the same time- the demand of California and Texas. Therefore if sun shines in California at 12:00 may benefit the demand peak in Texas at 14:00." CreationDate="2015-06-08T09:14:20.380" UserId="2291" />
  <row Id="4456" PostId="4523" Score="0" Text="The question is that I don't know if the supply of the plants in California and Texas has to be at the same time zone (say shifting the supply of Texas two hours less to be the same as the supply in California), and if it is also need to shift the demand in Texas two hours less to match the demand in California. Long story short, if to do this analysis, all hourly supply of DNI and hourly demand curves have to be at one time zone, say UTC-8 of California." CreationDate="2015-06-08T09:14:29.857" UserId="2291" />
  <row Id="4457" PostId="4523" Score="0" Text="@tom ah right, I thought you were referring to what are also called load-duration curves. I've added a couple of paragraphs at the end to talk about the time zones and other spatial issues." CreationDate="2015-06-08T10:42:01.543" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="4458" PostId="4523" Score="0" Text="Thanks EnergyNumbers. Regarding 'the first thing (after basic cleaning) to do is to convert the timestamps in all the data so that it's all for the same timezone (typically UTC)', should I do as I mentioned to convert all DNI data to the same time zone (say to California UTC-8, therefore subtracting 2 hours if the DNI are in Texas) and also all demand data to California UTC-8 (say subtracting 3 hours if the load curve is from Washington)? When you say 'Once all the data are in UTC' I guess you mean: Once all the data are in the same UTC. Right?" CreationDate="2015-06-08T11:22:58.310" UserId="2291" />
  <row Id="4459" PostId="4523" Score="0" Text="Then as you correctly pointed out, all this system would be handled via long distance HVDC lines." CreationDate="2015-06-08T11:23:03.607" UserId="2291" />
  <row Id="4460" PostId="4523" Score="0" Text="No, I did mean &quot;in UTC&quot;. UTC is also called UTC+00. Sorry for any ambiguity - I've edited to clarify." CreationDate="2015-06-08T12:02:25.253" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="4461" PostId="4523" Score="0" Text="Thanks EnergyNumbers for your very helpful reply. Correct me if I am wrong, but it wouldn't be the same to shift all DNI data and demand data to UTC+00, than to shift all DNI data and demand data (except the ones located in a time zone, say UTC-8) to that same time zone UTC-8? As what's important is to look how all supply matches all the demand in relation to each other, not need to be in relation to UTC+00... The same applies for a country like China with a single UTC for all the country: If we have all DNI data at UTC+8, then there is no need to shift everything to UTC+00, right?" CreationDate="2015-06-08T12:26:29.417" UserId="2291" />
  <row Id="4462" PostId="4523" Score="0" Text="If everything's in the same timezone, then it's simplest to keep it in that ... except dealing with daylight saving time can create problems. As soon as I'm doing things across timezones, I switch to UTC+00 as that keeps it all simple, and is most straightforward for any present or future collaborators, wherever they are in the world. And I live in a country that spends 5 months per year in UTC+00." CreationDate="2015-06-08T13:50:57.250" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="4463" PostId="4523" Score="0" Text="EnergyNumbers, thank you. Your contribution to this post has been very helpful, and all seems clear now. Hope this post serves for other users as a reference post on this topic." CreationDate="2015-06-08T14:03:38.730" UserId="2291" />
  <row Id="4464" PostId="4524" Score="1" Text="That's from 2009, and since then not only has deployment of very large HAWTs increased, so has the size of them. So all of those turned out to be wrong at the time." CreationDate="2015-06-08T19:26:15.550" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="4465" PostId="4524" Score="0" Text="Agreed - many problems are being addressed successfully. &#xA;It's difficult to predict the impact of new materials and technology, so it's no surprise that some aspects of the report are inaccurate, in hindsight.&#xA;&#xA;The graph on page 7 of the report shows the increases in uptake of 5MW+ turbines in 2009 and 2010, and that it was increasing at the &#xA;time. &#xA;&#xA;10MW versions are now available. Those turbines do, however, require specialists to maintain the (super-conductor) generators and the advanced cooling systems. That's not an insurmountable obstacle, but it is hazardous, expensive work." CreationDate="2015-06-08T21:47:47.637" UserId="2292" />
  <row Id="4467" PostId="4524" Score="0" Text="Are you sure 10MW are available now? Which supplier does them? I thought the Vestas 8MW was the current largest commercial turbine. And I thought all the superconductor trials had stalled, so I'm very interested to see more news on this - do you have a link?" CreationDate="2015-06-09T06:21:51.643" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="4469" PostId="4524" Score="0" Text="I stand corrected. I misread a few articles that said two 10MW turbines (Sea Titan built by AMSC and another by Sway) were now in existence, e.g.&#xA;&#xA;http://www.power-technology.com/features/featurethe-worlds-biggest-wind-turbines-4154395/&#xA;&#xA;I think Sway may now be bankrupt.&#xA;&#xA;10MW turbines are being contemplated by several manufacturers, and some modelling studies can be found on the net, but the projected date for them being commercially available is about 2020." CreationDate="2015-06-09T13:22:11.813" UserId="2292" />
  <row Id="4485" PostId="4526" Score="0" Text="Protip for cooking Italian pasta: if the cooking time is X minutes, you can turn off the gas at X/2 minutes. Make sure to cover with the lid to maintain the heat." CreationDate="2015-06-13T19:29:17.507" UserId="2301" />
  <row Id="4505" PostId="4526" Score="0" Text="The question really doesn't make a lot of sense, as cooking the same materials at different temperatures will give you different results.  E.g. you could slow-cook meat &amp; vegetables for a few hours and get a tasty stew, or stir-fry them at high temperature for a few minutes." CreationDate="2015-06-23T18:37:20.870" UserId="1937" />
  <row Id="4466" PostId="4527" Score="3" Text="From a gastrochemical point of view, in general reactions proceed twice as fast every Kelvin/Celsius increase in temperature. Including burning... The main reason for low temperature cooking is to allow the temperature to equalize in the food during the cooking process, so you achieve an even cook. Therefore the most efficient temperature to cook is as high as possible, whilst minimizing the thermal resistance (cut the food up)." CreationDate="2015-06-09T06:12:16.003" UserId="1462" />
  <row Id="4515" PostId="4527" Score="1" Text="@aron if I understand your comment correctly, you're saying that food will cook twice as fast at 191C as at 190C? I have trouble believing that." CreationDate="2015-06-25T10:13:53.010" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="4517" PostId="4527" Score="1" Text="@SimonW Crap... I meant 10K, so food cooks twice as fast at 200C as at 190C. Can't edit it now... Problems come from distribution of temperature and phase changes, which limit temperature." CreationDate="2015-06-25T10:22:11.967" UserId="1462" />
  <row Id="4519" PostId="4527" Score="0" Text="@Aron hah, right. That seems more plausible! (if still surprisingly sensitive to a layperson)" CreationDate="2015-06-25T11:18:22.887" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="4472" PostId="4530" Score="0" Text="I was thinking about it but I thought since I already have some other plants  in the room with not that much light and they are coping well." CreationDate="2015-06-10T12:03:49.367" UserId="2297" />
  <row Id="5056" PostId="4530" Score="0" Text="so I put it outside and indeed it was growing but it also dried out. It dried out after 3 month not after few weeks which is success. But didn't get to having the fruit. Not sure if putting it into direct sun is also not good." CreationDate="2015-11-30T13:54:44.113" UserId="2297" />
  <row Id="4473" PostId="4531" Score="0" Text="well, I have fish living in the fish tank so the PH is fine. Anyway I did test it and it was fine around 7. I have tropical fish indoor" CreationDate="2015-06-11T12:27:48.547" UserId="2297" />
  <row Id="4482" PostId="4532" Score="2" Text="@Aubrey I would list what steps you're currently doing to see how we can help you improve.  Need a baseline." CreationDate="2015-06-13T03:17:58.287" UserId="279" />
  <row Id="4484" PostId="4532" Score="0" Text="Ok, I can comment here (or edit the question, you tell me): I currently don't eat meat, but rarely fish, eggs. More often diary. I'm looking for an apartment with my girlfriend in the city center (northern Italy), so I'd be able to walk and ride a bike. I donated last year to http://treesforthefuture.org." CreationDate="2015-06-13T09:15:11.230" UserId="2301" />
  <row Id="4488" PostId="4532" Score="1" Text="WIthout having any numbers at hand, my assumption is that switching to a plant-based diet together with switching to public transport are among the highest reduction possibilities." CreationDate="2015-06-14T19:53:23.490" UserId="2187" />
  <row Id="4531" PostId="4532" Score="2" Text="It is a very good question because it finally addresses the root of evil. We waste so much because consume too much whereas mainstream doctrine teaches us the dogma that energy efficiency will solve the problem (i.e. our lifestyle is beyond consideration, it is not a culprit and can be preserved). It is stupid to optimize cars and households when you do not need ones in the first place." CreationDate="2015-06-26T13:03:45.463" UserId="476" />
  <row Id="4841" PostId="4532" Score="2" Text="A related, but slightly different question: [How do I determine what my biggest personal impact on global warming is?](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/1003/99)" CreationDate="2015-10-08T03:27:36.937" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4866" PostId="4532" Score="1" Text="Fish are animals, not plants, and they're made of meat. Worse, many of the fish commonly available are carnivores." CreationDate="2015-10-18T10:13:28.220" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="4960" PostId="4532" Score="1" Text="Don't have a child is an option that answers the title question, even if not the question body text." CreationDate="2015-11-12T03:02:51.460" UserId="1928" />
  <row Id="5072" PostId="4532" Score="0" Text="I suggest you edit the question to include your baseline." CreationDate="2015-12-03T15:48:46.547" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="5076" PostId="4532" Score="0" Text="@PJTraill what do you mean exactly?" CreationDate="2015-12-03T21:57:35.553" UserId="2301" />
  <row Id="5077" PostId="4532" Score="0" Text="I was reacting to your comment above starting “Ok, I can comment here (or edit the question, you tell me)” — it is easier for others interested in the same question if this sort of information is included in it (in a well-organised way) than if they have to look through the comments." CreationDate="2015-12-03T22:57:20.750" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="7251" PostId="4532" Score="0" Text="Adding this: https://www.ecosia.org/ If I can support tree planting while browsing the internet, even if it means using Bing, for me it's a go." CreationDate="2016-07-19T10:19:47.897" UserId="2301" />
  <row Id="11277" PostId="4534" Score="1" Text="There probably isn't really an answer to this question.  &quot;Grass&quot; and &quot;trees&quot; aren't two uniform, globally constant processes.  They're two very large branches of life that can exist under a wide range of conditions (including different human management systems)." CreationDate="2019-08-05T19:09:31.130" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="4481" PostId="4535" Score="2" Text="Also, my understanding is that applying nitrogen fertilisers to anything tends to accelerate growth and cause carbon to be lost from the soil. Such fertilisers are commonly applied to lawns, and to pasture." CreationDate="2015-06-12T23:10:14.503" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="4508" PostId="4537" Score="2" Text="In the case of nut, this argument is... nut&#xA;Only 1 container(30 tons) of cashew nut is 165 million freaking calories.  This is the ration of 1 man for 200 year. If you bring it from the other side of the world, it burns about 1 ton of fuel, which is obscene for any wares but cashew nuts" CreationDate="2015-06-23T19:41:34.227" UserId="1421" />
  <row Id="10465" PostId="4539" Score="2" Text="This question is old, but if you're still looking for an answer, it might be a better fit on [biology.SE](https://biology.stackexchange.com/). I'm voting to close in the meantime." CreationDate="2018-11-27T17:58:13.840" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8671" PostId="4540" Score="1" Text="you *can* be certain your electricity company uses renewables if you choose one that does (e.g. Good Energy in the UK).  And you *can* easily find out where your food comes from: at least in the UK supermarkets and large stores always label country (and frequently region) of origin, and you can *ask* in smaller stores and markets." CreationDate="2017-07-26T21:14:56.387" UserId="1445" />
  <row Id="4502" PostId="4542" Score="0" Text="^ This. However, since OP also mentioned &quot;drinking&quot;, be aware that an ion-exchanger will replace calcium with potassium. Negative effects from calcium in water are pretty much unknown whereas increased potassium supply is known to negatively affect blood pressure (and with present day foods, it's already very hard to only consume twice the daily allowance of potassium, most people consume 4-5 times as much). I'm not sure if (apart from reverse osmosis which is crazy expensive, or well, distillation) there exists a way of reducing calcium without adding potassion, though..." CreationDate="2015-06-23T11:20:58.930" UserId="2332" />
  <row Id="4503" PostId="4542" Score="1" Text="@Damon I've only ever seen sodium ion-exchangers. Potassium ion-exchangers may well exist too, but I'd have thought that sodium salts are much cheaper and more readily available than potassium salts." CreationDate="2015-06-23T13:06:08.767" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="4504" PostId="4542" Score="0" Text="My bad! I meant to say &quot;sodium&quot; (= natrium). I always get them alkali metals mixed up since they have grossly different and unintuitive in English (which isn't my native language)." CreationDate="2015-06-23T13:15:51.150" UserId="2332" />
  <row Id="4494" PostId="4543" Score="6" Text="Hello there, and welcome. For this answer to stick around, it will need a lot more than just a sentence and a link. Please can you summarise the reasoning behind what you're saying? Our goal here is to build a body of expert knowledge right here, not just a bunch of links to wisdom elsewhere on the net." CreationDate="2015-06-17T21:14:20.930" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="4495" PostId="4544" Score="1" Text="Give the age of these trees too, please." CreationDate="2015-06-18T08:37:44.150" UserId="188" />
  <row Id="4496" PostId="4545" Score="2" Text="Why do you want to know? Are you concerned about your health, the health of your pet spider, the planet, or simply your room-mate's trustworthiness?" CreationDate="2015-06-18T12:01:21.020" UserId="1053" />
  <row Id="4498" PostId="4545" Score="1" Text="Can't you just ask him or her!?" CreationDate="2015-06-19T08:45:31.053" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4545" PostId="4546" Score="0" Text="Sacrifice some bugs, to know if your roommate is a bug-killer *lol*" CreationDate="2015-06-29T11:42:19.683" UserId="2350" />
  <row Id="4864" PostId="4548" Score="0" Text="yo can keep trees in their childhood by cutting pieces every x years. This way a tree never dies. Forgot the name of this technic. Used for centuries in the UK. (but then we need to build everything of wood) . Eventually there will be a cycle, but also a vast amount of wood in use, which is in fact CO2 and some minerals" CreationDate="2015-10-17T23:14:22.647" UserId="2583" />
  <row Id="5132" PostId="4551" Score="2" Text="Your linked answer that you cannot use trees to capture CO2 is wrong. Every tree that you plant, that wouldn't have otherwise existed, creates a carbon store for the lifetime of that tree. Carbon that would otherwise be making up CO2 in the atmosphere for that same lifetime. You're confusing the issue with a straw man argument based around the fact that ultimately the tree will release the carbon it captured." CreationDate="2015-12-12T16:42:24.897" UserId="2869" />
  <row Id="5372" PostId="4551" Score="0" Text="The non-straw man argument says that tree exists forever or no carbon is not released when tree dies. That is so anti-realistic that it must be true. Furthermore, the question is built on this assumption and we should not evade from it. Evading is another form of manipulation, right?" CreationDate="2016-01-28T10:07:17.237" UserId="3016" />
  <row Id="4516" PostId="4552" Score="0" Text="How would you heat a thermally insulated pan? (answer may be &quot;induction hobs&quot;. Fair comment, in that case)" CreationDate="2015-06-25T10:16:55.660" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="4520" PostId="4552" Score="0" Text="@SimonW you can buy thermally insulated pans. Typically they are marketed as camping pans (for obvious reasons, it makes a big difference here). Usually they are neoprene insulation jackets that wrap the sides on the pan." CreationDate="2015-06-25T11:31:10.757" UserId="1462" />
  <row Id="4523" PostId="4552" Score="1" Text="@SimonW An object in our 3D-world has 6 surfaces: one to heat at the bottom and other 5 surfaces are used to leak the heat. I propose to insulate the cooling surfaces. There is not need to isolate from the heater. Thanks for more advanced proposal. It could push the efficiency to the limit!" CreationDate="2015-06-25T17:22:21.533" UserId="476" />
  <row Id="4506" PostId="4553" Score="2" Text="Perhaps issues of comfort &amp; washability play a part.  While I've never owned bamboo fabric, I know there are great differences between cotton, wool, silk, &amp; hemp (not to mention synthetics), which make them suitable for different applications.  Another reason might be supply &amp; demand: lots of producers of cotton fabric out there, so it's readily available in quantity at a low price." CreationDate="2015-06-23T18:42:03.040" UserId="1937" />
  <row Id="8410" PostId="4553" Score="0" Text="Some discussion, along similar lines to the best answer, here: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2008/aug/13/bamboo.fabric" CreationDate="2017-04-09T15:45:12.033" UserId="410" />
  <row Id="11182" PostId="4553" Score="0" Text="There is a great article on this at least from a kids perspective https://wrigglytoes.com.au/blog/bamboo/bamboo-vs-cotton-which-is-the-better-choice-for-kids-bedding" CreationDate="2019-07-06T20:18:17.077" UserId="6762" />
  <row Id="4528" PostId="4559" Score="2" Text="Arguably the first human use of renewable energy came with the discovery of how to light a fire, since wood is renewable." CreationDate="2015-06-25T17:57:54.677" UserId="1937" />
  <row Id="4530" PostId="4559" Score="1" Text="Fred's answer is very good, and complete. If though you want to read a bit more about the history of energy and cars, and understand *why* we are in this situation, please [read this](http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/06/how-tesla-will-change-your-life.html)." CreationDate="2015-06-26T09:17:22.490" UserId="2301" />
  <row Id="4551" PostId="4559" Score="1" Text="@Aubrey thank you aubrey, the link you provided is really useful. I am reading it now. Thanks fred for this answer." CreationDate="2015-06-30T06:22:19.090" UserId="2346" />
  <row Id="4539" PostId="4561" Score="1" Text="If you would add the math from my answer, I'd delete mine and would call youes &quot;perfect answer&quot; ;-)" CreationDate="2015-06-29T11:11:48.747" UserId="2350" />
  <row Id="4532" PostId="4562" Score="0" Text="Interesting answer! But wouldn't you get the same effect by washing yourself with a wash cloth and some (organic) soap?" CreationDate="2015-06-26T13:34:06.993" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4533" PostId="4562" Score="0" Text="Unless soap contains an anti bacterial agent it only lifts bacteria so it can be washed off with water." CreationDate="2015-06-26T13:53:52.707" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="4552" PostId="4562" Score="0" Text="what about lemon? I like its smell more than vinegar!" CreationDate="2015-06-30T16:06:44.223" UserId="1308" />
  <row Id="4537" PostId="4572" Score="0" Text="Nice post, but I wonder if the impact of a bidet (construction, delivery, installation) plus the extra water use, would really be lower than that of toilet paper." CreationDate="2015-06-28T11:15:55.633" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4563" PostId="4573" Score="0" Text="Hi Sempie, and welcome to sustainability.SE. &#xA;You're making a lot of assertions here without substantiation. Some people may disagree about peak oil. Some people may disagree that burning ethanol is the most likely (or best) alternative to burning fossil fuels. As you note, you're also making assumptions on future fuel use trends.&#xA;However, there is a good question in there - Something along the lines of &quot;If the world's cars were converted to ethanol, what area would be required to grow it, and how does this compare to available land&quot;. May I suggest revising the question along these lines?" CreationDate="2015-07-04T22:02:47.920" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="9143" PostId="4573" Score="0" Text="That is as saying we will run out of oxygen because there is no logical argument  to assume it not.  What is your  basis that fuel consumption will increase?   US consumption peaked in 2007.  A lot of bad assumptions here." CreationDate="2017-12-19T18:40:21.310" UserId="2914" />
  <row Id="4695" PostId="4574" Score="3" Text="Do you have any references for your cons? You mention 'low comfort' but the one bamboo t-shirt I own feels much softer than my cotton t-shirts. Also it's price was comparable to that of a cotton-shirt and both cotton and bamboo are renewable resources." CreationDate="2015-08-14T09:57:15.237" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="5202" PostId="4574" Score="1" Text="Bamboo, like every other plant, is susceptible to pests, especially when grown on a large scale. So, &quot;no herbicides needed&quot; may be more true for bamboo than for strawberries, say, but that doesn't mean that commercially grown bamboo is free from pesticides." CreationDate="2015-12-21T16:55:14.033" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="11467" PostId="4574" Score="0" Text="Totally disagree with the ‘rough’ con post. My bamboo socks are as soft as Cashmere wool and the wicking effect means my feet stay absolutely dry all day." CreationDate="2019-09-22T00:35:00.750" UserId="7974" />
  <row Id="4538" PostId="4575" Score="0" Text="Your answer is very interisting and informative, but sorry, you did not answered my question at all." CreationDate="2015-06-29T11:08:12.140" UserId="2350" />
  <row Id="4540" PostId="4575" Score="1" Text="@Sempie you ask &quot;are we running out of fuel?&quot;.  The fIrst sentence of my answer is &quot;No, we're not running out of fuel.&quot;  That's as direct an answer as is humanly possible." CreationDate="2015-06-29T11:12:05.867" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="4541" PostId="4575" Score="0" Text="This is just the title. &quot;But is there even enough space on earth to produce the ethanol that's needet?&quot; is the answer." CreationDate="2015-06-29T11:12:57.887" UserId="2350" />
  <row Id="4542" PostId="4575" Score="0" Text="And I've shown why that isn't relevant to your primary question of &quot;are we running out of fuel&quot;. If you want to ask solely about how much ethanol the world could sustainably provide, then please do ask a new question about that; in which case, peak oil is not really relevant; nor is the question &quot;are we running out of fuel?&quot; This site's design and operation is predicated on asking one question at once; that way, answerers are all trying to answer the same question." CreationDate="2015-06-29T11:18:07.493" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="4543" PostId="4575" Score="0" Text="Both &quot;are we running out fuel&quot; and &quot;how much biogenic ethanol could the world sustainably produce&quot; are good questions for this site; and they are distinct questions. I've edited to try to clarify why the ethanol question is something of a distraction to your headline question." CreationDate="2015-06-29T11:18:13.033" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="4544" PostId="4575" Score="1" Text="@Sempie thinking about it, I think you've got a *third* good question buried in there too, which is: &quot;is ethanol in an ICE the best (from an economic and sustainability perspective) substitute for oil derivatives in an ICE?&quot;" CreationDate="2015-06-29T11:30:00.460" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="4666" PostId="4577" Score="0" Text="NiMH is also on its return. You may want to investigate Li-Ion." CreationDate="2015-08-07T13:23:30.287" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="4555" PostId="4580" Score="1" Text="In the absence of any other differences between the panels, you're right that it doesn't make sense that 12 are more efficient than 10. But are there any other differences? For example, are both panels the same manufacturer? The same type of panel (polycrystalline, CdTe, monocrystalline, amorphous silicon)?" CreationDate="2015-07-01T18:45:22.410" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="4556" PostId="4580" Score="0" Text="Tks for your sound comments. We are comparing same brand but different models. Both Polycrystalline and efficiency 15.7%." CreationDate="2015-07-02T06:06:29.310" UserId="2356" />
  <row Id="4621" PostId="4580" Score="0" Text="Puzzling: Here are some factors which can matter but do not appear to here: &gt; 250W panels are usually 30V MPP  and 300W are usually 36V Voc. So 12 x 30V = 360V and 10 x 36V = 360V so essentially the same. &gt; Some inverters have a MPPT range which panels may fall outside but should not matter here. &gt; Higher V = less I = less I^2 losses but ... . IF area larger per Watt then temp may be lower which give more power but seems not so here. If anything - 12 will use more connectors and more cable so SLIGHTLY higher resistance so I^r losses higher. So - seems strange. ..." CreationDate="2015-07-23T14:05:43.690" UserId="318" />
  <row Id="4622" PostId="4580" Score="0" Text="... 12 does give you slightly better redundancy long term if one panel damaged or goes low output due to manufacturing problem etc. 12 has slightly less shading impact  for same shadow area as less % of cells are diode bypassed (*probably)." CreationDate="2015-07-23T14:05:52.677" UserId="318" />
  <row Id="4557" PostId="4583" Score="0" Text="Could be that the supplier may have a better deal with one model or another. Re shading, the less panels you use the less probability of shading so its in favour of the 10 panels. As they are connected in series with 1 inverter, a partial shading on 1 panel would influence the whole system. Ideally split with multiple inverters but cost would be more and I bet also overall efficiency would be compromised slightly too." CreationDate="2015-07-02T06:36:34.997" UserId="2356" />
  <row Id="4558" PostId="4583" Score="0" Text="Ah, is the proposal that either the ten or the twelve would all be in series?" CreationDate="2015-07-02T06:41:08.347" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="4559" PostId="4583" Score="0" Text="The datasheets for panels are:" CreationDate="2015-07-02T07:24:03.560" UserId="2356" />
  <row Id="4560" PostId="4583" Score="0" Text="The datasheets for panels are: [link](http://www.weamerisolar.eu/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/AS-6P-1956-992-50.pdf) and (250w) [link](http://www.weamerisolar.com/files_b/AS-6P30%201640-992-40.pdf) . Inverter is: [link](http://en.chint.com/product/detail?id=151) . A series configuration is to be used.  Inverter max input voltage is 500v. 300w panel open circuit voltage is 45.3 (sum 450v) and 250w 38v (sum  456). So within range and close." CreationDate="2015-07-02T07:36:21.727" UserId="2356" />
  <row Id="4561" PostId="4583" Score="0" Text="Then have another quote for same price claiming more units but warranty period is less. http://s-energy.designq.kr/download/SE-Datasheet_SN310P-10_3BB_72_2015_EN_V01.1.pdf using set of 10 S-energy panels of 310w each." CreationDate="2015-07-02T07:40:04.197" UserId="2356" />
  <row Id="4562" PostId="4583" Score="0" Text="Actually partial shading would favour the 10 panel setup." CreationDate="2015-07-02T16:59:43.213" UserId="1462" />
  <row Id="4564" PostId="4584" Score="0" Text="I don't have any data to back up my claims right now, so I'm writing this as a comment. 4 things to consider here: 1) Technology, LED or OLED is the most energy efficient, CRT is worst 2) Screen size, smaller tvs consume less power so don't be tempted to increase screen size when you buy new, 3) power usage in stand-by mode, and 4) number of televisions, why 3 tvs for 2 people? Conclusion: try to persuade your parents to buy just one  (O)LED tv, as small as possible yet still agreeable to them. This is bound to be much more energy efficient than 3 CRT tvs" CreationDate="2015-07-06T19:13:55.837" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4593" PostId="4587" Score="1" Text="For distances that you're willing to do by horse, I think a bicycle would be more sustainable. And will probably get you there faster -- even at a moderate trot, a horse is going to travel around 12mph, a speed that most commuters can maintain (excluding waits for traffic lights and long steep hills)." CreationDate="2015-07-13T23:50:43.337" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="10375" PostId="4587" Score="0" Text="@Johnny: Of course you need to factor in the eco-costs of road maintenance, which is pretty important for maintaining a decent speed on a bike." CreationDate="2018-11-06T17:20:20.950" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="4568" PostId="4588" Score="0" Text="The problem here is not the cars or horses, but commuting, and fundamentally the urbanism.  Collect too many of any species, including (or perhaps especially) humans, in too small a space and you create problems.  Keep a couple of horses in your pasture, letting them graze, and there's no problem at all.  You also don't need to feed oats, and in fact can cause health problems from too rich a diet." CreationDate="2015-07-10T18:14:38.847" UserId="1937" />
  <row Id="4570" PostId="4589" Score="0" Text="I doubt that the weight ratio is that good, trains are damn heavy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DBAG_Class_612 as a quite current example for suburban commuting train: 119 tons, 122+24 passengers, so more than 800 kg per passenger! If you carpool and dont use your 5000 lb Humvee to commute this could be beaten by cars. Obviously that ratio is bound to be much better for &quot;real&quot; metropolitan rapid transportation, take https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MF_01 same weight as above and capacity over 550 passengers. Ok, that's hard to beat other than by bicycle or rickshaw ;)" CreationDate="2015-07-10T21:53:43.460" UserId="2072" />
  <row Id="4571" PostId="4589" Score="0" Text="@Earthliŋ: Antelopes are not horses.  And from personal experience, while it's pretty doable to keep pace with a trotting horse, one at a canter or gallop will leave you in the dust." CreationDate="2015-07-10T22:01:55.080" UserId="1937" />
  <row Id="4572" PostId="4589" Score="0" Text="@jamesqf What I said was only intended to give a different perspective and wasn't intended to be taken too seriously. Of course antelopes, too, will leave you in the dust at a running speed of about 55 mph. My point was that humans aren't so bad long distance runners. In fact, over a marathon distance the better runners (2.5 hs) would just about tie with a horse and that's without the horse carrying anything. And if we're talking short distances, the most sustainable solution would be to walk or ride a bicycle anyway, no need for horses." CreationDate="2015-07-10T23:11:48.730" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="4573" PostId="4589" Score="0" Text="@Ghanima I'm not claiming trains are worth it for every area, but Tokyo subway trains have a (possible) ratio of 200 kg (less for newer trains) per passenger and trains are often full or otherwise overfull. (Maybe not between 10-12 in the morning.) That's hard to beat with a car, even before thinking about traffic lights etc." CreationDate="2015-07-10T23:34:08.623" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="4575" PostId="4589" Score="0" Text="Dear @Earthliŋ, in the end I came to the same conclusion, thus +1 ;)" CreationDate="2015-07-11T08:12:30.880" UserId="2072" />
  <row Id="4576" PostId="4589" Score="0" Text="@Earthliŋ: Yes and no.  You might compare Tevis Cup times http://www.teviscup.org/results/tevis-cup-winners with Western States 100 http://www.wser.org/records/  They're in a comparable range, but 1) the horse IS carrying rider &amp; tack; and 2) there are mandatory vet checks and cooldown periods for the horses, but not AFAIK for the humans.  As for sustainable, you still have to mine stuff for bikes, have tires &amp;c, and build paved roads.  Horses reproduce themselves, and tack can be made from natural materials." CreationDate="2015-07-11T17:23:07.793" UserId="1937" />
  <row Id="4611" PostId="4593" Score="0" Text="After more research, it looks like Daphnia provide a good food source for guppies (or other small feeder fish), and Algae such as Nannochloropsis are good for the Daphnia to eat. However this still leaves the question of what is a sustainable input for growing enough algae to feed this cycle." CreationDate="2015-07-17T19:47:39.090" UserId="2277" />
  <row Id="7871" PostId="4594" Score="0" Text="When comparing a space heater to a heat pump, is coefficient of performance a better metric than simple efficiency? 100% of the electricity used by a space heater results in heating, while the same is not true of a heat pump. But, the heat pump produces more heat with the same amount of electricity, because it takes the &quot;free&quot; exterior heat for some its input energy." CreationDate="2016-12-21T19:02:35.190" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9079" PostId="4594" Score="0" Text="getting a usefull result could be impossible. you would need to know the temperature of the air that is replacing the air going up the chimmeny.As this air ultimatly has to come from outside, outside temperature needs to be factored in. however this air circulation is lowering the moisture in the house which also has a bearing" CreationDate="2017-12-08T17:25:59.790" UserId="5213" />
  <row Id="10947" PostId="4594" Score="0" Text="The &quot;This stove&quot; link is broken." CreationDate="2019-04-27T05:59:02.273" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="10951" PostId="4594" Score="0" Text="@Tim I've fixed the link.... thanks for that, and thanks for your answer!" CreationDate="2019-04-28T10:52:17.603" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="10953" PostId="4594" Score="0" Text="@HighlyIrregular  No worries.  Just curious:  You haven't accepted an answer in the 4 years that this question has been up.  Are all of the answer missing _something in particular_ that you may be after?" CreationDate="2019-04-28T21:15:12.370" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="4873" PostId="4595" Score="0" Text="Your statement *For best public relations* is (apart from its cynicism) incorrect. You can't keep such behavior a secret, so it will become the worst public relation disaster regarding recycling. The public is not clueless. I suggest you edit it out." CreationDate="2015-10-19T11:30:32.737" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="4877" PostId="4595" Score="2" Text="@JanDoggen Aside from implementation details, it could be seen as a legitimate approach to satisfying a recycling-happy public while keeping expenses (and taxes) low. For example, my town has single-stream recycling, but I have no idea how much of what I put in my recycling bins gets diverted into a landfill. What if it's 70%, and nobody in the city or &quot;recycling&quot; company fesses up; how would I know?" CreationDate="2015-10-19T14:41:30.483" UserId="2371" />
  <row Id="9879" PostId="4595" Score="1" Text="it could make sense to tax the businesses that produce the most recyclables to offset cost, but this will just make them throw it in the trash.&#xA;Frankly if you taxed everyone according to the weight of their trash, it would be a simpler way to reduce waste, but it could lead to folk burning trash or dumping. This question is a pickle." CreationDate="2018-06-27T18:31:36.810" UserId="4922" />
  <row Id="9880" PostId="4595" Score="1" Text="this article may be of interest. http://www.mdpi.com/2079-9276/4/2/384/htm" CreationDate="2018-06-27T19:47:22.513" UserId="4922" />
  <row Id="9884" PostId="4595" Score="0" Text="@flummingbird Thanks. Another, more popular-oriented article: [The Recycling Game Is Rigged Against You](https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-06-27/plastic-recycling-is-a-problem-consumers-can-t-solve)." CreationDate="2018-06-29T19:30:13.727" UserId="2371" />
  <row Id="10284" PostId="4595" Score="0" Text="A [recent article in Scientific American](https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/community-support-for-recycling-pays-off/) describes research showing that making recycling free but charging residents per bin of rubbish increases recycling rates by 8% on average compared to municipalities where both types are charged the same." CreationDate="2018-10-15T21:13:58.163" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10285" PostId="4595" Score="0" Text="@LShaver Thanks, but I'm expect that just increases the amount of material put into recycling bins; it has nothing to do with how much of that material actually gets recycled in the end." CreationDate="2018-10-15T21:16:44.203" UserId="2371" />
  <row Id="10286" PostId="4595" Score="0" Text="The research article itself is behind a paywall but given comments in the article I read it seems like the researchers looked at that. Also, just saw that you are in Boston -- the research involved 245 municipalities in Massachusetts." CreationDate="2018-10-15T21:25:01.400" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="4579" PostId="4597" Score="0" Text="I don't understand what you're asking - please can you elaborate? Is it the same question as &quot;is computing sustainable&quot;?" CreationDate="2015-07-12T10:49:47.050" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="4580" PostId="4597" Score="0" Text="Hi @EnergyNumbers. I'm wondering if this new, disruptive technology will be &quot;good&quot;/&quot;bad&quot;/&quot;better&quot; for the environment than existing, centralized industries (for example, the banking industry). Is the question too broad? I fear I'm a bit confused :-/" CreationDate="2015-07-12T10:53:35.630" UserId="2301" />
  <row Id="4581" PostId="4597" Score="2" Text="No, I'm afraid that I still don't know what you're asking - is it similar to [this question](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/4495/48)? NB There's nothing inherently good or bad, or sustainable or unsustainable, about either centralisation or decentralisation." CreationDate="2015-07-12T11:08:51.573" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="4582" PostId="4597" Score="0" Text="Yes, it's very similar. I asked about blockchain as a technology because it seems it will be used not only for bitcoin." CreationDate="2015-07-12T12:10:37.287" UserId="2301" />
  <row Id="4589" PostId="4597" Score="3" Text="I think two concepts are being wrongly conflated here. As noted, things other than bitcoin could use blockchains. Suspect there are two underlying questions, both of which could maybe be technology-neutral: 1. Is distributed computing more or less sustainable than centralised computing? 2. Is a financial system based on cryptographic currencies more or less sustainable than a traditional one. Both of these questions would also benefit from a clear definition of what &quot;sustainable&quot; should be taken to mean." CreationDate="2015-07-13T07:08:42.080" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="4594" PostId="4597" Score="0" Text="@Aubrey, given SimonW's comment, and given the existing question about bitcoin, are you ok with editing this to &quot;Is distributed computing more or less sustainable than centralised computing?&quot; - does that capture what you're asking? And what sort of sustainability do you have in mind?" CreationDate="2015-07-14T06:43:39.753" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="4595" PostId="4597" Score="0" Text="Hello everyone, sorry for delay. Yes, I am comfortable changing the question, and I will do it. I will create other similar question when they came to mind: it's true what Simon says, that my question conflates different concepts. It's because I have vague idea about decentralisation and sustainability. In this case, though, I intend sustainable as &quot;consume less energy than&quot;. I'll try to explain when I edit the question." CreationDate="2015-07-14T08:49:48.687" UserId="2301" />
  <row Id="4583" PostId="4598" Score="3" Text="That's a very broad question, and people really do write whole books about this. We're not really set up to tackle big sprawling questions: we are here to tackle specific questions that can be answered in a few paragraphs." CreationDate="2015-07-12T16:04:45.393" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="4584" PostId="4598" Score="0" Text="I agree with that, could you please provide a tentative, short list of books or articles that cover the issue? I have spent quite a lot of time searching for them, but what I have found usually derails in conspiration theories, UFOs, ... :S&#xA;Thanks a lot for your answer!" CreationDate="2015-07-12T19:37:48.440" UserId="2379" />
  <row Id="4585" PostId="4598" Score="0" Text="I haven't read any of [Sian Berry's books](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Si%C3%A2n-Berry/e/B0034Q1VSM/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1436731004&amp;sr=1-2-ent), but she is an incisive thinker and a good communicator, so her books may well be a good read. I don't know where you are in the world, but many places have one or other kind of Green or Sustainability political movement which strives to do something different to the usual kind of politics." CreationDate="2015-07-12T20:01:45.837" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="4586" PostId="4598" Score="2" Text="The other thing is that you shouldn't let anyone else make you feel guilty about this stuff. Do it because you can, because you enjoy it, because you see a need and because you have skills that you can contribute. But not because you feel guilty. Find stuff you can get involved with at the local level with other people that makes an immediate difference to people's lives: Time Banks, Food Banks, Credit Unions, community clean-energy co-ops, there are many choices" CreationDate="2015-07-12T20:03:08.327" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="4587" PostId="4598" Score="0" Text="Thanks again, I'll have a look at these books. &#xA;Concerning your 2nd reply, I do not let others influence me -- the &quot;someone&quot; is an hypothetical one that I've used to state what I feel inside me, let's say it's the voice of my conscience..." CreationDate="2015-07-12T20:50:21.197" UserId="2379" />
  <row Id="4590" PostId="4598" Score="0" Text="You might consider trying to condense this question into 1-3 paragraphs." CreationDate="2015-07-13T07:10:52.980" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="7074" PostId="4598" Score="0" Text="A society is an intertwining of a lot of concerns. You would probably need to establish an alternative society - this would be a lifetime and constant labor. You may perhaps be interested in the story of the town Orania in South Africa, that was started in an abandoned town. They are of course very eco-oriented, but think lateral (different than the rest of the country mainstream) in a lot of areas: politics and social/class structure, labor, economy, building technology, etc. etc. http://www.orania.co.za/buitelander-oor-orania/ It's 25y old and still needs a lot of work." CreationDate="2016-06-20T11:51:24.773" UserId="3401" />
  <row Id="4588" PostId="4599" Score="4" Text="Might be useful for those considering installing a fireplace, but this definitely doesn't answer the question!" CreationDate="2015-07-13T01:20:05.230" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="4597" PostId="4599" Score="0" Text="Note also that any practical wood heating would not use a fireplace, but an efficient wood stove, or fireplace insert (for those of us who bought houses with decorative fireplaces already installed).  From personal experience, I can definitely state that a wood-burning fireplace insert does not cause significant heat loss, as the only times my furnace comes on is when I'm away for a day, or on cold nights when I don't want to get up to chuck in another log or two at 4 am." CreationDate="2015-07-14T21:20:12.673" UserId="1937" />
  <row Id="4600" PostId="4599" Score="1" Text="@jamesqf,   JUST having cold air coming down the chimney due to convection currents, will make any wood burning stove/inset cold.   This has been shown to be an issue in VERY well insulated homes in the UK." CreationDate="2015-07-15T16:35:03.670" UserId="963" />
  <row Id="4601" PostId="4599" Score="0" Text="@Ian Ringrose: I think I'll put my practical experience first.  Now it may be true that there is a bit of overall heat loss through the chimney that would make the house a bit colder when the stove is not burning, but if you heat with wood, there are very few such times.  Chimney losses would be part of overall stove efficiency numbers." CreationDate="2015-07-15T18:39:15.957" UserId="1937" />
  <row Id="9081" PostId="4601" Score="0" Text="You've ignored the fact that burning wood for heat requires managing exhaust.  You won't get the heating figures you calculate in real life because some amount of heat is lost up the chimney (whereas there is no exhaust at the point of heating for resistive electrical heating)." CreationDate="2017-12-09T00:25:53.287" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="9082" PostId="4601" Score="1" Text="Chimney losses are included in stove efficiency.  In fact, they're a major part of that efficiency." CreationDate="2017-12-09T03:12:24.673" UserId="1937" />
  <row Id="9083" PostId="4601" Score="0" Text="This may be what some folks claim but it's not really true.  There's no way to rate a stove for chimney losses because every home and chimney is unique.   The efficiency rating has something to do with the lab in which the stove is certified - optimal conditions that don't reflect anyone's actual home." CreationDate="2017-12-09T13:37:22.823" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="9084" PostId="4601" Score="0" Text="@Jean-Paul Calderone: Which, I assume, is part of the reason why wood stove efficiencies are given as a range." CreationDate="2017-12-10T04:50:12.920" UserId="1937" />
  <row Id="9097" PostId="4601" Score="0" Text="My understanding is that they are given as a range because that is the range required by EPA for certification.  If you get your stove certified, then you are in that range by definition.  Then you can skip the separate testing phase (with its extra expense) for determining your product's actual efficiency." CreationDate="2017-12-13T13:51:35.987" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="4647" PostId="4604" Score="0" Text="Please see my Answer below with the experiment of **painting the roof of a wagon white**. Incredibly helpful. Go for a car that is white, silver, beige, etc. OR, paint the roof if it is old." CreationDate="2015-07-30T12:44:58.050" UserDisplayName="user2423" />
  <row Id="4650" PostId="4604" Score="1" Text="@nocomprende it was white when I got it ;)" CreationDate="2015-07-30T14:28:31.720" UserId="927" />
  <row Id="4683" PostId="4604" Score="2" Text="Whatever the answers you get, don't forget two things: 1. (*Assuming your car is in the sun before driving*) Cool the car as far as possible before switching the airco on (all doors open two minutes before driving, all windows open when you start driving, one minute later the ventilation full on so that the motor compartment can get rid of the accumulated heat). And 2. Turn the AC off 10 minutes before you reach your destination." CreationDate="2015-08-11T10:34:19.353" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="4596" PostId="4605" Score="12" Text="Those grass plains probably have lots of stuff in them.  They are prairie ecosystems, and store lots of carbon in root mass &amp; soil humus.  There are probably good reasons why they don't have trees already, such as insufficient ground water, grazing, &amp;c, so dropping a few seeds is not going to do anything much.  After all, many tree seeds have mechanisms that enable them to spread for long distances." CreationDate="2015-07-14T18:12:13.110" UserId="1937" />
  <row Id="4598" PostId="4605" Score="0" Text="An interesting separate question would be if (and what kinds) of forest store more carbon than grasslands. Also if there's a biome that reliably sequesters carbon for a longer timespan." CreationDate="2015-07-15T12:33:33.143" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="4599" PostId="4606" Score="3" Text="Every compressor I've seen is either on or off, so it uses the same amount of energy regardless of your control in the vehicle.  Your temperature control handles the balance between the a/c coils and the heater core.  Also, be sure to set recirculation on so you are cooling the already cool air in the cabin, not pulling in hot air from outside." CreationDate="2015-07-15T16:25:45.803" UserId="2387" />
  <row Id="4602" PostId="4606" Score="1" Text="@rpmerf: You should add recirculation point as an answer." CreationDate="2015-07-16T06:24:30.213" UserId="2160" />
  <row Id="4632" PostId="4606" Score="0" Text="I think that the compressor cycles on and off based on the cooling load to some degree, at least my car does. The temp control formerly (not sure if it still does) only brought coolant from the engine in to the heater core to warn the air or alternately opened a louver to allow air through the heater core (because water always circulated in it), so when it is not cold the temp control is worse than useless." CreationDate="2015-07-28T23:21:45.473" UserDisplayName="user2423" />
  <row Id="12510" PostId="4607" Score="3" Text="I was reminded of this question not too long ago, and I agree with all the points EXCEPT #3. While this is the case for many plains, I think lots and lots of these plains are empty because of settlers who cleared them during the expansion of America in the 18th, 19th &amp; 20th centuries. I'm not saying this undoes the other issues, but, in some ways, it is an opportunity to revisit what is &quot;natural&quot;." CreationDate="2020-03-25T21:07:46.767" UserId="2385" />
  <row Id="4606" PostId="4610" Score="1" Text="Where I live there are two types of dates **use** before &amp; **best** before. The **use** before date is the date after which it could be dangerous to eat the food due to microbes &amp; the toxins they produce. The **best** before date is the date after which the food may not taste or look as nice as if it was newly packaged. If milk chocolate waits too long, the fat in it can separate out and form white patches throughout the chocolate. It can still be eat, it just doesn't look nice; hence chocolate usually has a best before date, not a use by date." CreationDate="2015-07-16T10:29:57.623" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="4638" PostId="4610" Score="0" Text="I can recommend this website: http://www.stilltasty.com/ (no affliation, just a happy user). It lists the approximate shelf life of thousands of products as well as the best method of storing it. Also [this document](http://www.foodstandards.gov.au/code/userguide/Documents/Guide%20to%20Standard%201.2.5%20-%20Date%20Marking%20of%20Food.doc) may be interesting as it describes the date marking system for foods in Australia and New Zealand" CreationDate="2015-07-29T10:45:04.603" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4609" PostId="4611" Score="1" Text="Thank you I will keep this in mind as I plan the continence of my rooftop garden. I will also check the items you mentioned (like weight) before I get started." CreationDate="2015-07-16T15:28:33.017" UserId="2388" />
  <row Id="4610" PostId="4611" Score="0" Text="Just as a practical matter, it would probably be easier to do containers on the roof, rather than try to cover a whole roof with soil." CreationDate="2015-07-17T18:08:36.890" UserId="1937" />
  <row Id="8273" PostId="4612" Score="0" Text="do you get upvotes for just posting links from wikipedia?" CreationDate="2017-03-06T11:27:35.370" UserId="4341" />
  <row Id="4612" PostId="4613" Score="0" Text="Although not rooftop exactly this is good to know, I will take a look into this. :)" CreationDate="2015-07-17T22:14:25.923" UserId="2388" />
  <row Id="4613" PostId="4613" Score="0" Text="Growing in gutters could easily be done on a rooftop if you were to build a frame to suspend the gutters off the roof by a foot or so.&#xA;&#xA;FYI the strawberries in gutters is a good practice because the berries are free hanging and thus won't succumb to mildew or insects." CreationDate="2015-07-17T22:23:58.740" UserId="2277" />
  <row Id="4614" PostId="4613" Score="0" Text="You have peaked my interest, if there are large temperature swings (-45c winters and +35c summers) will the gutter approach keep the strawberries though winter?" CreationDate="2015-07-17T22:28:30.827" UserId="2388" />
  <row Id="4615" PostId="4613" Score="2" Text="I highly doubt it. I would not even expect strawberries to survive planted in the soil normally, with -45C winters. The +35C summers shouldn't be an issue though. Whatever you plant, you'll likely want to cover it in the winter with clear plastic which will help to retain a little bit of thermal energy from the sun during the day." CreationDate="2015-07-17T22:31:59.593" UserId="2277" />
  <row Id="4617" PostId="4615" Score="2" Text="You are over thinking this. How you store your items in the fridge does not affect the efficiency of the fridge. The limitation in efficiency comes from the imperfect insulation in the fridge." CreationDate="2015-07-22T00:43:43.280" UserId="1462" />
  <row Id="4623" PostId="4620" Score="3" Text="Where in the world are you asking about? We have dealt the [the legalities in the US previously](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/539/48)" CreationDate="2015-07-26T03:40:24.190" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="4625" PostId="4622" Score="0" Text="This question seems to be a duplicate of this question: [How can I get my landlord to install better insulation?](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/306/99) Or do you have anything specific that makes your situation different (so the answers to the other question do not apply to you)?" CreationDate="2015-07-27T10:11:16.313" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="10237" PostId="4622" Score="0" Text="Move............." CreationDate="2018-10-03T00:00:02.007" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="4624" PostId="4623" Score="1" Text="Nice answer. Polyester insulation is nicer to handle than fibreglass, so would be more pleasant to remove and reinstall elsewhere. Wool insulation is also friendly to handle I understand, though it probably costs more (likely a problem in this case)." CreationDate="2015-07-27T03:52:24.697" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="4627" PostId="4623" Score="0" Text="If my tenant installed something in a non-livable space like an attic, I'd hire a contractor to remove and bill the tenant for removal -- wouldn't trust them to walk around the attic (where there is no floor) without putting a foot through the ceiling below (which could be a liability risk for me). If I discovered self-installed insulation,  I'd have it removed unless he could show that it meets code and doesn't have a vapor barrier that's going to lead to mold or moisture problems. But of course I already have adequate insulation." CreationDate="2015-07-27T20:46:21.290" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="4628" PostId="4623" Score="0" Text="@Johnny: Depending on laws in different jurisdictions, unless the rental contract specifies which parts of the building the tenant has access to, the owner cannot prevent a tenant from accessing or using the attic. If there is any damage the tenant has a legal obligation to pay for repairs. Also, tenants have rights and they have the right to prevent a contractor from entering the premises while they have a valid rental contract. Being a landlord or a tenant can sometimes be a legal can worms." CreationDate="2015-07-28T03:09:33.543" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="4631" PostId="4623" Score="0" Text="In my area, the tenant cannot prohibit access to the unit for repairs (assuming adequate notice is given prior to entry), and if the tenant installed their own installation in the attic, I'd immediately tear it out since improper insulation can be a fire hazard (some insulation is flammable, or it can cover up wires and light cans not designed to be covered leading to overheating (knob and tube wiring in particular must never be covered), etc), and can lead to long term mold and wood rot damage if not installed with appropriate vapor barriers. Refusal to allow maintenance can lead to eviction." CreationDate="2015-07-28T16:11:05.890" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="7774" PostId="4624" Score="1" Text="This question probably belongs over on electronics.SE, but I imagine it's too late to migrate at this point - voting to close." CreationDate="2016-12-01T19:10:56.937" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7775" PostId="4624" Score="0" Text="I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it belongs to Electronics.SE, but is too old to migrate." CreationDate="2016-12-01T22:36:42.297" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="4629" PostId="4625" Score="0" Text="Compost toilets?" CreationDate="2015-07-28T11:42:08.217" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="4630" PostId="4625" Score="0" Text="I agree with Earthliŋ. [Composting toilets](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composting_toilet) is the only thing that comes too mind. They do require some human effort though." CreationDate="2015-07-28T13:46:49.940" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4645" PostId="4626" Score="1" Text="**Re: painting the roof white** - the results are in! I put my hand on the white part: comfortably warm. Brown part one foot away: scorching, could not leave hand there! If one sq ft has about 100 Watts equivalent of inSOLation (not insulation) then I have reduced the heat load by one plug-in room heater - 1500 Watts. Probably cuts the total heat in to the car by HALF. **Wildly effective**. Too bad I could not use mirror finish, but I would blind truckers." CreationDate="2015-07-30T12:38:20.057" UserDisplayName="user2423" />
  <row Id="15917" PostId="4626" Score="0" Text="To add to these excellent suggestions, I have a windscreen protector with silver fabric on one side. It stretches all the way acrosss and has flaps you can trap in the doors to keep it in place, with elastic you can hook together inside to help. This thing is amazing, and was very cheap at the hardware store. Also very useful in winter." CreationDate="2022-08-01T12:37:44.207" UserId="1567" />
  <row Id="4662" PostId="4627" Score="0" Text="Disposable chopsticks are reportedly treated with chemicals and bleach during the manufacturing processes. That could be one factor to consider when you choose to use them." CreationDate="2015-08-06T17:40:13.073" UserId="2441" />
  <row Id="4669" PostId="4627" Score="0" Text="As I understand it, dishwashing soaps can be polluted or unhealthful as well. And shampoo, and cleaning products, carpet, fumes from cars, CO from a gas stove... So, in other words, the question is unsolvable, and we have to decide based on convenience and intuition. Like everything." CreationDate="2015-08-08T00:50:04.970" UserDisplayName="user2423" />
  <row Id="4639" PostId="4628" Score="1" Text="Thank you, this is pretty much what I figured. So taking reusable eating utensils to work is best. I know how to wash with little water and soap, although there is inherent waste in washing just a few things. I just recall reading about how in many parts of the world, the &quot;plate&quot; that food is served on is a banana leaf torn from a convenient nearby plant, and people eat with their hands (of suitably prepared food). Throw the leaf away, rinse your hands and you are done! Getting restaurants to use leaves might be tough. The real problem is &quot;*there's so many of us*&quot;. How do we solve that? War?" CreationDate="2015-07-29T11:37:55.383" UserDisplayName="user2423" />
  <row Id="4640" PostId="4628" Score="1" Text="I think the 'population problem' is an ethical dilemma with no easy solutions. The best solution I've read about is to improve female eduation and help developing countries become more developed (population growth in developed countries is generally stable, it's the developing countries that cause world population growth). However, people in developed countries do have a bigger environmental footprint. More information also [in this question](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/3138/99)" CreationDate="2015-07-29T11:51:18.160" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4644" PostId="4628" Score="1" Text="_&quot;The chopstick with the smallest environmental footprint is the one you reuse most (as long as you don't use loads of soap and water for cleaning)&quot;_ You'd have to use **a lot** of soap and water to justify throwing them away and using new ones." CreationDate="2015-07-29T18:45:19.260" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="4651" PostId="4628" Score="2" Text="@Earthliŋ You are right, the impact of the water and soap for cleaning is most likely small. I merely added that last sentence to show that if you want to make a fair comparison between reusable and disposable chopsticks, you need to take cleaning the reusable chopstick into account." CreationDate="2015-07-30T18:01:36.867" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4670" PostId="4628" Score="0" Text="Maybe restaurants could just pour food into our mouths from tubes, like refuelling a car? Probably a lot cheaper to produce and distribute food that way, and no utensils or cleaning at all. (The point is to say that there are infinitely many ways to improve a situation, which people will refuse for a multitude of reasons, including conditioning or simple laziness. Darn those *people* anyway.)" CreationDate="2015-08-08T00:54:00.837" UserDisplayName="user2423" />
  <row Id="4637" PostId="4631" Score="1" Text="Do you have any links to further explanations or research? What's you've posted is very light on detail." CreationDate="2015-07-29T08:39:57.087" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="5080" PostId="4631" Score="0" Text="This is silly.  Go to a conifer forest and then tell me that everything underneath is dead.  Bamboo 'forests' are pretty depauperate.  Besides, bamboo can't be grown everywhere.  But I'm not saying conifer will either. There is no best one. Oh - and I like bamboo!  I wish I could grow it here - you can but is struggles." CreationDate="2015-12-04T17:27:33.217" UserId="2802" />
  <row Id="4642" PostId="4632" Score="1" Text="Boiling and filtering bottled water after 2 years? Why?" CreationDate="2015-07-29T17:31:13.583" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="4643" PostId="4632" Score="1" Text="Filtering might not be needed. But if the location the water was bottled wasn't the cleanest of places, two years is a long time for growth. I am sure you can find newer articles. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/7763038/Bottled-water-contains-more-bacteria-than-tap-water.html" CreationDate="2015-07-29T17:37:21.893" UserId="2419" />
  <row Id="4658" PostId="4638" Score="3" Text="There are loads of power monitors on the market. Some should be installed on your main electricity meter and only show differences between total usage. Others you can just plug-in between the device and the socket in the wall to measure what that device uses. More info also in [this article on Treehugger](http://www.treehugger.com/clean-technology/the-power-monitor-top-tools-for-watching-your-home-energy-use.html) or check [this list of over 350 monitors on Amazon](http://www.amazon.co.uk/b?node=1938287031)" CreationDate="2015-08-04T12:41:59.157" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4665" PostId="4639" Score="1" Text="Make sure you buy one that is simple. They sometimes have all kinds of bells and whistles (e.g. like calculating the amount of money this will cost) that make them difficult to use. There is basically one measurement you need: average power consumption (maybe split over different tariff periods). Any subsequent calculations you can do on the back of en envelope." CreationDate="2015-08-07T13:21:19.780" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="4659" PostId="4645" Score="0" Text="It's intended for drinking after boiling, as tea or coffee. It should be OK; the room is clean and the microbes that might multiplicate in the water meanwhile should be killed by boiling the water. Good idea about cheap pre-heating - I can put my boiler next to my computer, which produces quite a lot of waste heat. I didn't think of water softeners/descalers yet; from your answer I get the impression that pre-heating water in combination with them should be the best choice." CreationDate="2015-08-06T08:26:12.683" UserId="58" />
  <row Id="4660" PostId="4645" Score="0" Text="To save energy, unless you intend using all the water once its boiled don't fill the kettle. Only place as much water as you intend using or the minimum amount the kettle requires for safe operation." CreationDate="2015-08-06T09:04:16.900" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="4661" PostId="4645" Score="1" Text="When you say &quot;descaler&quot; it sounds like a special pink (with white and blue letters) bottle of chemicals. I've always descaled with vinegar (as for example described [here](http://www.topcleaningsecrets.com/house/kitchen/how-to-clean-an-electric-kettle.html))." CreationDate="2015-08-06T09:57:20.800" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="4672" PostId="4649" Score="0" Text="Some good graphs there and from what I can tell, pretty much consistent with my own experience (although I'm still in my first yeat at time of writing)" CreationDate="2015-08-09T20:41:28.000" UserId="1479" />
  <row Id="4682" PostId="4649" Score="0" Text="Gald you liked the graphs and that you found the data consistent with your experience. Hopefully you'l be slightly better off eventually compared to the figures displayed as you would have gotten a better FiT deal (assuming your roof is south facing at 45 degree pitch). Keep us posted on how you get on!" CreationDate="2015-08-10T21:43:58.140" UserId="2450" />
  <row Id="4673" PostId="4651" Score="2" Text="If the panels store heat, that will lower their efficiency, (thus reducing the amount of electricity generate) not raise it." CreationDate="2015-08-10T06:12:21.057" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="4674" PostId="4653" Score="0" Text="Is hydrogen fuel produced more efficient than storing the excess energy in a battery?" CreationDate="2015-08-10T06:19:54.540" UserId="2458" />
  <row Id="4675" PostId="4653" Score="6" Text="That's a very good question: please do [post it as a new question](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/ask)." CreationDate="2015-08-10T06:31:13.717" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="4706" PostId="4653" Score="0" Text="@Air - I don't know which is more efficient, but you have to take into consideration that batteries are expensive, have a limited life, and don't scale well since doubling or tripling storage capacity can be expensive and take considerable space." CreationDate="2015-08-20T00:36:36.137" UserId="2509" />
  <row Id="4689" PostId="4656" Score="1" Text="What you forget is that it isn't the storage of compressed gas that is dangerous, but the storage of large amounts of energy. Give me the same energy in batteries and I can make the same huge ass 'splosion" CreationDate="2015-08-12T14:21:33.683" UserId="1462" />
  <row Id="4709" PostId="4656" Score="1" Text="@Aron with hydrogen there are two things though, the highly compressed gas is dangerous by itself even it it's inert; hydrogen is explosive and flammable so it's dangerous again. Also, recovering the energy used to compress the hydrogen is hard, but not doing so adds another inefficiency to the system. It's usually easier to store methane or methanol for longer periods, because they're bigger molecules which are easier to handle and don't leak as readily." CreationDate="2015-08-20T11:27:42.857" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="4711" PostId="4656" Score="1" Text="Burning lithium in LiPO batteries in itself is pretty dangerous. As is a the H2SO4 in lead acid batteries. What is your point?" CreationDate="2015-08-20T11:37:02.697" UserId="1462" />
  <row Id="4712" PostId="4656" Score="0" Text="And no. It is not hard to extract the potential energy in the compressed gas. It is ludicrously simple. There just isn't enough of it to justify the extra engine." CreationDate="2015-08-20T11:43:59.597" UserId="1462" />
  <row Id="4716" PostId="4656" Score="0" Text="Compressing any gas is a terribly inefficient process in itself. compressed air is probably the most expensive widely used way of transferring energy. that's the inefficiency I believe Moz is referring to, and regarding dangerous H2SO4, lead crystal batteries do not use a liquid electrolyte, making it safer than both hydrogen lead acid batteries as a means to store energy." CreationDate="2015-08-24T12:13:47.900" UserId="2468" />
  <row Id="4676" PostId="4657" Score="0" Text="I understand your answer for an 'off the grid' situation. Currently, doesn't excess power just spin the meter in reverse? In effect, just supplying it to those who need it, with no loss in trying to store it." CreationDate="2015-08-10T15:03:59.217" UserId="2469" />
  <row Id="4677" PostId="4657" Score="0" Text="I'm not real knowledgeable about it, but I would look into [Net Metering](https://www.greenmountainenergy.com/2014/03/go-solar-and-sell-power-to-your-utility/). That article seems recent, and has some good pointers on where to start learning. I think a large point is it depends on where you live, your particular electric company, country/state/county laws, etc." CreationDate="2015-08-10T15:22:58.090" UserId="2467" />
  <row Id="4678" PostId="4657" Score="1" Text="@Joe maybe it does, maybe you forcefully sell excess electricity to electric company, maybe you break your contract with that company. Depends where you live and on contracts/laws. But only thing what it does is pushing problem of uneeded power up (but there is **chance** that someone else needs it). And often its power with wrong phase, which is actually harmfull (warms up wires and does not do work). And because of these concerns, this causes GREAT problems in europe where north germany produce lot of wind power when it is not needed or at least where it is not needed." CreationDate="2015-08-10T15:37:03.753" UserId="2470" />
  <row Id="4679" PostId="4657" Score="0" Text="Yes - net metering is what I was referring to. @Alpedar - in many parts of the world, it's common, and regulated. And until there are so many customers doing it, it won't be a problem. Of course, if more than half of households did this, there would be too much excess power to consume. We're far from there right now." CreationDate="2015-08-10T15:41:23.823" UserId="2469" />
  <row Id="4680" PostId="4657" Score="0" Text="Yeah, the little I've looked says it depends greatly on your location/situation. Even if you are connected to the grid, some companies don't buy/sell. Some won't pay for more than it takes to bring you to a bill of zero. A zero bill could be enough for you - and simple enough - or you could look into other ways to use that energy. Or you could try to do like the examples I've seen and pull in some extra cash." CreationDate="2015-08-10T16:14:32.157" UserId="2467" />
  <row Id="4710" PostId="4657" Score="0" Text="Many grids require a permit before you can feed anything into them at all, and may require you to have zero net export if they allow you to connect. In Australia that's common for larger systems (over 10kW), and for smaller ones derisory feed-in tariffs are common (we get 5c/kWh but pay 28c/kWh)" CreationDate="2015-08-20T11:30:16.940" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="4686" PostId="4658" Score="1" Text="In areas with low humidity (&lt; 35% or so) yes, air blowing on you can be sufficient. But if you are driving to work, you might have more clothing on, and if it is humid, no amount of steam blowing on you will do much good, because you have to *sweat* (even unnoticeably) to avoid heat stroke. If you have the HVAC selector pointed at &quot;defrost / defog&quot; (windshield icon) then the A/C will be ON even if you didn't push an A/C button. If the air is mysteriously cool, that is not magic." CreationDate="2015-08-11T21:28:23.177" UserDisplayName="user2423" />
  <row Id="4705" PostId="4658" Score="0" Text="@nocomprende - It is definitely not magic :). I am just trying to say that we can do without turning AC ON, of course except for the humid conditions as you said. My car's MPG falls down by at least 2 MPG when the AC is kept on. I live in mid CA which is good about humidity (so far), so I don't always have to turn on the AC. Just the fan on coolest works fine." CreationDate="2015-08-19T17:11:13.357" UserId="2209" />
  <row Id="4685" PostId="4659" Score="3" Text="You're further ahead than I am, but I have found that becoming more sustainable (not always the same as more self-sufficient) often means sharing.  The people I know who are closest to a fully sustainable lifestyle live in communities with several families.  Spread the cost and resources for this kind of infrastructure over more people." CreationDate="2015-08-11T10:46:57.590" UserId="1445" />
  <row Id="4687" PostId="4659" Score="1" Text="Thanks both, I may of got my terms mixed up. My mind is mush at the minute due to having a poorly newborn keeping me up but appreciate the help anyway! &#xA;&#xA;We've been sharing the costs of various things through the family. The Livestock for example is shared through my neighbours which reduced costs and labour which works well. I think community has a lot to play in it. Maybe I should set up a club of some sorts?" CreationDate="2015-08-12T12:04:21.697" UserId="2477" />
  <row Id="4688" PostId="4660" Score="0" Text="Thanks so much for your insightful answer! A lot of what you're suggesting we have in place or have started networking enough to share experiences and help with like-minded people. &#xA;&#xA;I love the idea for the Polytunnel. I am a bit of a BBQ nut and love nothing more than smoking meat for 18 hours and my local community love it to as I am often asked to help at fete's and events. One thing that came from this is a BBQ sauce recipe my wife does that is loved by everyone so far and we've had requests to buy it already. Maybe bottling it with produce from the tunnel will help pay for other produce." CreationDate="2015-08-12T12:15:42.043" UserId="2477" />
  <row Id="4691" PostId="4660" Score="0" Text="This is a good idea!" CreationDate="2015-08-12T20:44:43.430" UserId="2479" />
  <row Id="4692" PostId="4660" Score="0" Text="I also forgot to mention two things above: educational and political commitments. I really think that local commitments into politic may also change the financial aspect of this lifestyle (don't know about your country, but in mine for example, state give money back when you're investing into sustainable or ecological goods). The involvement in education can also be profitable ( courses, information days , etc.). As you also have some animals, activities with children can also be interesting to develop..." CreationDate="2015-08-12T20:56:43.600" UserId="2479" />
  <row Id="4694" PostId="4660" Score="0" Text="That's a good point, we do have funding available for solar to be fitted to houses but only if you're the house owners. Doubt they'll put one on my outbuilding though." CreationDate="2015-08-14T09:10:13.750" UserId="2477" />
  <row Id="8497" PostId="4661" Score="1" Text="Only your first paragraph is relevant to the question, and in its current form 'just an opinion'. Can you back it up with references?" CreationDate="2017-05-10T11:40:21.093" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="4690" PostId="4662" Score="1" Text="Great question. In New Zealand, it's a similar situation where the greener electricity retailers charge more simply for the assurance that any new generation they build will be renewable. Given that they currently don't need to build any, it's likely just greenwashing; the extra money may just go straight to shareholders as profit." CreationDate="2015-08-12T18:31:15.463" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="4693" PostId="4662" Score="7" Text="Do [the answers here to a very similar question](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/679/48), answer yours?" CreationDate="2015-08-13T01:50:20.543" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="4700" PostId="4665" Score="3" Text="The first thing that comes to mind is to mow everything short, and then use a sod cutter. Seems like that might remove the top layer without disturbing sub-layers. And you'd just roll up the plastic with the weed roots.  Regarding the microscopic bits, I'd think bioremediation would be the best way. BUT you might need to know more about the plastic to know which bacteria to use." CreationDate="2015-08-17T16:03:14.873" UserId="1701" />
  <row Id="4708" PostId="4665" Score="1" Text="I've only ever done this manually, and without soil remediation. It was tedious, and we started by using a defoliant to kill the vegetation which you'll probably not want to do either. &quot;a few acres&quot; suggests more than a hectare (10,000 square metres). If you remove 5cm (2&quot;) of soil from 2 hectares that's 0.05m * 20,000 = 1,000 cubic metres (In imperial units, 28,000 bushels), about 3000 tonnes (100 truckloads).  Which is a lot of soil." CreationDate="2015-08-20T11:21:47.483" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="4721" PostId="4665" Score="1" Text="Are you sure it's really toxic for food growth? You don't say exactly what kind of plastic it is, which would affect that question. It sure sounds like a large-scale intervention with high environmental and financial costs would be needed. Maybe the ability to grow food organically or at all does not outweigh these costs." CreationDate="2015-08-25T02:59:03.300" UserId="2216" />
  <row Id="4696" PostId="4667" Score="0" Text="Thank you, your answer is very informative. I should have posted that that because of the angle my house is built at my windows are inaccessible without a ladder. I am curious about using an automated window system i'll take a look online to see if I can find something." CreationDate="2015-08-15T01:55:18.147" UserId="2388" />
  <row Id="4698" PostId="4668" Score="0" Text="That makes sense, I have limited room for new ducting however I can take a look at what may be available for my house. Edmonton is very dry so evaporative cooling is definitely worth study." CreationDate="2015-08-15T18:25:38.023" UserId="2388" />
  <row Id="4701" PostId="4670" Score="0" Text="Cool, thanks for the recommendations I will keep the suggestions in mind for upcoming renivations." CreationDate="2015-08-17T16:21:57.687" UserId="2388" />
  <row Id="4715" PostId="4671" Score="0" Text="[EWG's skindeep database](http://www.ewg.org/skindeep/) lists thousands of personal care products (mostly US I think) and shows potential health risks for their ingredients. It is however more focused on human health than the environment." CreationDate="2015-08-22T06:37:06.907" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4704" PostId="4672" Score="0" Text="For vegetables that have the tendency to 'dry out', experiment with paper, which will serve as a moisture buffer. I have good results with wrapping leafy vegetables in an ordinary newspaper. My mushroom vendor suggested storing the mushrooms in a sealed container with a paper tissue. A paper tissue on the bottom of a box of berries will reduce the speed with which they go bad. YMMV" CreationDate="2015-08-19T13:12:25.857" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="4816" PostId="4672" Score="1" Text="&quot;you can save power if you put large bottles of water in empty spaces in the fridge&quot; can you provide an authoritative reference for this? I thought this would simply mean less energy is require to recover from opening the door, because of increased thermal mass. However, overall energy use is higher because there is more mass to cool." CreationDate="2015-09-29T11:50:38.193" UserId="2617" />
  <row Id="4702" PostId="4673" Score="1" Text="Nice answer, but I'm missing [parabens](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraben) on your list that are suspected to have an endocrine disruptive function. &#xA;Also some more info about microplastics: they can be found in soaps, shampoos, toothpaste and various other personal care products that have a 'scrub' material. They often are listed on products under the name &quot;polyethylene&quot;. There is an app that lists products that contain microplastics but I'm not sure how complete the app is (more info [here](http://ecowatch.com/2014/01/09/plastic-in-facial-scrub-app-for-that/))" CreationDate="2015-08-18T08:20:47.543" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4703" PostId="4673" Score="0" Text="Thanks, I forgot about parabens.  I might also expand later about triclosan  and antibiotic resistance, unless anyone else brings it up first" CreationDate="2015-08-18T13:10:01.080" UserId="2493" />
  <row Id="4713" PostId="4675" Score="2" Text="Welcome to Sustainability! I admire your efforts, but I think as it is your question is rather broad and open-ended which makes it a poor fit for this website. We prefer questions that can be answered objectively. More info about this in our [Help Center](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/help/asking). Perhaps you can point out the weak points of your current design, so people can focus their answers on better solutions for that?" CreationDate="2015-08-21T06:23:58.430" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4714" PostId="4675" Score="1" Text="Related question: [How to make a fully reused/reusable plastic bottle raft?](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/734/99)" CreationDate="2015-08-21T06:24:40.480" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4746" PostId="4675" Score="0" Text="I don't know, but since a proper boat properly maintained is going to last for such a long time my feeling is that buying a proper boat either from sustainably sourced wood / recycled aluminium or second-hand might be the more sustainable choice." CreationDate="2015-09-08T09:07:06.733" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="4717" PostId="4678" Score="0" Text="by &quot;obdurate&quot; do you mean that it persists as a compound (ie does not break down chemically)?  I am unfamiliar with the word in terms of science and dictionaries define it in relation to people, meaning &quot;stubborn&quot;" CreationDate="2015-08-24T13:23:40.480" UserId="2493" />
  <row Id="4718" PostId="4678" Score="0" Text="One of the challenges is that we do not know who left this material out (and when), so we have no way of knowing whether it was pre-treated. The assumption is that it was not" CreationDate="2015-08-24T13:25:42.763" UserId="2493" />
  <row Id="4719" PostId="4678" Score="1" Text="@ElizabethEnviro: Yes. Geologists use the word for rocks or parts of rocks that persist while other rocks or parts of rocks weather or erode" CreationDate="2015-08-24T13:26:01.057" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="4720" PostId="4678" Score="0" Text="@ElizabethEnviro: I agree, best to assume it is untreated. PE sheets have been around for decade. During the late 1970s it was the latest thing as a means to control weeds. It was a spectacular failure. That type of PE was untreated. I'm assuming your PE sheets would be the same. Also, as far as I am aware, degradable PE bags first became available maybe 5  to 10 years ago." CreationDate="2015-08-24T13:29:42.793" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="4722" PostId="4682" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living and thank your for your answer. Can you please elaborate what you mean with &quot;they sort everything 400 hundred times&quot;? How would this help from a sustainability point of view?" CreationDate="2015-08-26T10:42:30.883" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4728" PostId="4683" Score="0" Text="Hair can be used in clay to strengthen it for use on walls or buildings. In &quot;Rivers and Tides: Andy Goldsworthy Working with Time&quot;, he uses clay with hair on a large wall covered in clay." CreationDate="2015-08-30T14:55:31.403" UserId="2178" />
  <row Id="4732" PostId="4683" Score="0" Text="Composting seems likely to work but you can easily try ssome and see how it goes). Advice [Here](http://www.gardeningknowhow.com/composting/ingredients/composting-hair.htm) and [Here](http://www.motherearthnews.com/organic-gardening/human-hair-fertilizer.aspx) and [Hair :-)](http://www.compostthis.co.uk/hair) and [Here](http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/1552282/using-hair-for-fertilizer) and [here + some other ideas](http://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=51018)" CreationDate="2015-09-03T09:03:33.893" UserId="318" />
  <row Id="15391" PostId="4683" Score="0" Text="[December 2021 item](https://www.bbc.com/news/av/science-environment-59755741) from the BBC. Hair from salons has been used in oil spill booms and as an ingredient in compost." CreationDate="2021-12-30T08:47:42.090" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="4730" PostId="4687" Score="2" Text="Welcome to Sustainability!  Just wondered - are you affiliated to ATRS?  If so please edit your answer to mention this ([see here](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/help/promotion) for guidelines)." CreationDate="2015-09-01T15:42:23.720" UserId="1445" />
  <row Id="4725" PostId="4688" Score="2" Text="I like your proactive approach! I will get in touch with the shop owner(s) and ask them what they think about fair trade." CreationDate="2015-08-28T10:08:23.807" UserId="2187" />
  <row Id="4727" PostId="4689" Score="0" Text="This is brilliant, thank you! Buying the cheaper bananas and donating the difference between the cheaper ones of the shop owner and the fairtrade ones. :)" CreationDate="2015-08-29T12:06:13.887" UserId="2187" />
  <row Id="4729" PostId="4690" Score="2" Text="Welcome to sustainability.SE. We prefer longer, self-contained answers and ideally links to back up claims. Could you possibly fill in more details about the energy balance and subsidies, ideally with links to your sources. As it is your answer is likely to be removed as too short to be useful." CreationDate="2015-09-01T03:38:22.837" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="6584" PostId="4691" Score="0" Text="i think you mean &quot;pots&quot; if they have dirt in them. &quot;vases&quot; hold water and cur flowers." CreationDate="2016-03-17T14:53:35.927" UserId="1053" />
  <row Id="6585" PostId="4691" Score="0" Text="Yes, @KateGregory, you're absolutely right. That's because in Portuguese we call them &quot;vasos&quot; :)" CreationDate="2016-03-17T15:25:56.143" UserId="2548" />
  <row Id="4733" PostId="4692" Score="0" Text="Actually, I use a lot of fresh water (from tap) too, great part of the recycling water just evaporates (what increases the problem of the salts you mention). But just as we can have excess of salt, we could also have deficit of some substance, not? Maybe I'll only know by trying? Thanks for the idea of the rain water! I'll try that too." CreationDate="2015-09-04T12:58:29.070" UserId="2548" />
  <row Id="4734" PostId="4692" Score="1" Text="In your link, &quot;House plants should be leached at least every 4 to 6 months. To leach plants, pour excess water on the soil and let it drain completely&quot; Maybe I can recycle the water as usual, and leach once in some months..." CreationDate="2015-09-04T13:02:10.113" UserId="2548" />
  <row Id="4741" PostId="4693" Score="3" Text="Should answers also consider cost of replacing and what will be done with old setups? Bare energy consumption comparaison would still be interesting by itself but might be considered as 'incomplete' from some points of view." CreationDate="2015-09-07T21:08:23.543" UserId="264" />
  <row Id="4742" PostId="4693" Score="0" Text="Well if you can sure,  do you mean the ecological cost or the economical cost ? If economy I don't think there much reason to care...is already known that is cheaper in the long run when compared to low efficiency and low life time lamp's.... You could assume that the old setups will be all recycled, many countries already have high recycling rates so it's make sense they would be recycled" CreationDate="2015-09-07T21:52:49.843" UserId="1956" />
  <row Id="4747" PostId="4693" Score="1" Text="In relative numbers not that much. To give you an estimate, I know that in the Netherlands approx 2% of total electricity generated is for lightning. And electricity generation is only 20-25% of our total energy consumption. That would make it approx 0.5% But in absolute numbers this could mean a few power plants less." CreationDate="2015-09-08T09:45:31.657" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="4751" PostId="4693" Score="0" Text="I guess that every % counts if we want to fight global warming. I guess in the future cities will change everything they can to more efficient tech" CreationDate="2015-09-09T02:17:39.243" UserId="1956" />
  <row Id="4758" PostId="4693" Score="0" Text="The answer to this for public lighting is much less straightforward than for domestic lighting, because most of it was not using incandescent lighting to start with. The benefits of LEDs compared to discharge lighting exist, but are more nuanced and less clear cut. Eg in strict efficacy terms, street lighting has produced fewer lumens per watt since moving away from the mid-20th century low pressure sodium lamps. I'm not going to attempt a quantitative answer, but if you were to change the question to a more exploratory one (eg &quot;would the US save...&quot;) I'd have a go out outlining the issues." CreationDate="2015-09-10T09:57:49.600" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="4737" PostId="4694" Score="1" Text="A similar question about avoiding planned obsolescence products in general can be found [here](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/4261/99)" CreationDate="2015-09-07T06:28:53.283" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4738" PostId="4694" Score="0" Text="I own a Android smartphone that's now more than 5 years old. It still works great, but one thing I'm starting to have trouble with is the amount of storage capacity. It seems apps are getting bigger all the time and I recently had to remove a few little used apps so I can keep running (and updating) my favorite ones." CreationDate="2015-09-07T06:41:26.580" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4739" PostId="4694" Score="0" Text="Worth checking forums like [XDA](http://forum.xda-developers.com/custom-roms) to see if a phone has a lot of developers interested in developing and maintaining custom ROMs.  Some phones -not always the high-end ones - do better than others, e.g. if they are particularly easy or fun for hackers to work with.  Having people who develop custom ROMs and port new versions of Android can really extend the life of a phone in terms of support for apps." CreationDate="2015-09-07T11:02:22.710" UserId="1445" />
  <row Id="4814" PostId="4694" Score="0" Text="I know a number of Apple users that report difficulties with their two generations old iPhones. Updates in operating systems such as iOS often don't work well or at all on older models. You may not be able to replace (or add) accessories such as cases, plugs, etc. Cell phone batteries are often difficult and costly to replace. Remeber to follow the maufacturers recommendations how to delete all personal data from a phone when selling, donating or &quot;trashing.&quot;" CreationDate="2015-09-27T18:36:20.247" UserId="2613" />
  <row Id="4744" PostId="4697" Score="0" Text="Historically, I understand people have chosen to irreversibly update the OS on some Apple devices and then found performance is very poor. May the updater beware! Not sure if it's still a problem; this was something I read about a year or more ago." CreationDate="2015-09-07T22:21:49.020" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="4748" PostId="4698" Score="1" Text="Google/Motorola launched '[Project Ara](http://www.projectara.com)' in 2013. This project was inspired by [the PhoneBloks concept](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonebloks) developed by Dutch designer Dave Hakkens. The basic idea is to create a mobile phone that is modular and customizable, with easy to replace/upgrade components thus reducing electronic waste. Originally, the first release was scheduled in January 2015, however this date has been pushed back and AFAIK there has not been a release yet." CreationDate="2015-09-08T09:47:32.093" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4749" PostId="4698" Score="0" Text="If the phones were known to be long lasting, I think the second hand market would value them more highly than other phones and make it more worthwhile to sell them instead of letting them gather dust when no longer used. This could mean there are more second hand ones available than other phones." CreationDate="2015-09-08T21:37:54.243" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="4750" PostId="4699" Score="1" Text="Part of sustainability is maintaining healthy and diverse ecosystems, and bats could well be part of that. Are you doing it to support a native species of bat, or at least for an ecosystem related reason? If yes, then I'd say the question is on topic here. What type of bat is it you're dealing with, as that may affect preferred living conditions?" CreationDate="2015-09-08T21:43:47.703" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="4753" PostId="4699" Score="0" Text="What's the terrain like - all flat, hilly, rocks? Please [edit], and maybe add a picture or two (you don't have enough rep yet to post a picture, but put it on an image sharing site and add the link to your question)." CreationDate="2015-09-09T13:12:19.627" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="4754" PostId="4700" Score="0" Text="I think this is the most accurate answer, but I would add some consideration for both how &quot;green&quot; the manufacturing process is (some brands are much better than others), and whether or not the manufacturer offers a recycling program to address the inevitable obsolescence. For example, the (Apple Recycling Program)[http://www.apple.com/recycling/]." CreationDate="2015-09-09T15:18:51.707" UserId="1123" />
  <row Id="4755" PostId="4700" Score="0" Text="Maybe, but it wasn't part of the question. :-)" CreationDate="2015-09-09T15:21:17.450" UserId="2155" />
  <row Id="4760" PostId="4708" Score="1" Text="Thanks for the answer! There's some great logic there. I do question the logic &quot;that the lighter wheels enabled the car to drive more in the high-RPM range&quot;; I would expect the opposite to be true. Perhaps it was mainly the wheel diameter that made the difference to fuel economy." CreationDate="2015-09-12T11:01:23.607" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="4766" PostId="4708" Score="1" Text="Well, as this test was done on a track and the goal was lap times (not lower fuel consumption), the lighter wheels meant that the car could accelerate slightly faster and probably reach a higher top speed, therefore the engine would run more in the high-RPM range." CreationDate="2015-09-14T07:53:10.577" UserId="2570" />
  <row Id="4767" PostId="4708" Score="1" Text="Oh, I guess I skimmed the article too fast. They did the fuel economy test during road rides, not on the track. Still though, the setup was meant for performance, not fuel economy. I can imagine especially the tires making the difference on the road, as the stock tires were optimized for fuel economy." CreationDate="2015-09-14T08:12:23.190" UserId="2570" />
  <row Id="11667" PostId="4708" Score="0" Text="Looking at the dates, the &quot;other answer&quot; is presumably that from Sherwood Botsford, but now there are two other answers it is not directly evident which you mean. You could specify whose you mean and add a link to if (from the &quot;share&quot; button)." CreationDate="2019-11-05T21:26:53.507" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="11668" PostId="4708" Score="0" Text="This answer seems only to consider the financial, not the environmental costs." CreationDate="2019-11-05T21:28:15.490" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="11681" PostId="4708" Score="0" Text="@PJTraill The question was about the financial cost. I guess you might argue that the question doesn't fit very well on sustainability..." CreationDate="2019-11-06T10:33:34.560" UserId="2570" />
  <row Id="4761" PostId="4709" Score="2" Text="I'm not making this an answer because I guess you already thought about buying energy efficient hardware and turning it off when not in use." CreationDate="2015-09-13T17:49:47.017" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="4762" PostId="4709" Score="3" Text="There probably are some [BOINC projects](https://boinc.berkeley.edu/projects.php) you can run, but that applies to any user, not just developers." CreationDate="2015-09-13T17:51:04.763" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="4774" PostId="4709" Score="1" Text="It sounds to me like you have completed all the learning parts of sustainability and now would like to get your hands dirty? I wish you were local or even in the same country because I come from the opposite end, doing all the hands on work trying to be self sustainable. It is not such a big thing in South Africa, any learning actually! Africans come from a background of someone always looking after you. I have property that I would love to teach sustainability on and am slowly achieving my goal. Good luck with whatever path you choose because it is an honorable direction." CreationDate="2015-09-16T07:31:31.490" UserId="2581" />
  <row Id="4775" PostId="4711" Score="0" Text="+1 A postgraduate research degree sounds like a good option. If the OP can't commit to full-time study in the UK, there are also distance learning programmes (e.g. [MSc in Environmental Management](http://www.open.ac.uk/postgraduate/qualifications/f65) at the Open University). For this particular course the fees are quite hefty though (up to £370 per month for a duration of 3 years), so this would probably only make sense if you have a well-paying job and still some spare time to study!" CreationDate="2015-09-16T12:18:31.370" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="4768" PostId="4712" Score="0" Text="I'm not sure if this question is a good fit on Sustainable Living.  If it isn't, it's welcome on [EarthScience.SE]." CreationDate="2015-09-14T09:02:43.383" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="4770" PostId="4713" Score="0" Text="Yes, the ZME Science photos are taken from the article (figures 1b and 5d respectively). You could even embed them in this answer if you wanted to." CreationDate="2015-09-14T09:41:25.223" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="4771" PostId="4713" Score="0" Text="@EnergyNumbers How did you get 'into' the article?" CreationDate="2015-09-14T09:59:38.790" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="4772" PostId="4713" Score="0" Text="Via (my employer's) subscription" CreationDate="2015-09-14T12:38:07.600" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="4776" PostId="4717" Score="1" Text="How were they taken up? Ball/burlap? and how long have they been in the ground at this point?" CreationDate="2015-09-16T14:42:07.150" UserId="1495" />
  <row Id="4777" PostId="4717" Score="0" Text="They were dug out with a tractor.  They were transplanted in April 2015." CreationDate="2015-09-16T15:15:53.900" UserId="2547" />
  <row Id="4778" PostId="4718" Score="0" Text="Would it make sense to cover they in burlap or something that would help protect them?" CreationDate="2015-09-16T15:17:00.380" UserId="2547" />
  <row Id="4779" PostId="4719" Score="0" Text="We had a drought during the summer months, so I watered them frequently and mulched them heavily with saw dust.  I also fertilized them in the early summer with fruit tree spikes." CreationDate="2015-09-16T15:50:51.200" UserId="2547" />
  <row Id="4780" PostId="4719" Score="0" Text="@Slinn Sounds good." CreationDate="2015-09-16T15:54:17.460" UserId="1495" />
  <row Id="4781" PostId="4720" Score="0" Text="In you end statement did you mean drain or filter the water to remove contaminants?" CreationDate="2015-09-17T02:10:36.150" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="4785" PostId="4720" Score="1" Text="You must drain a part of it. Filtering is not possible,because some compounds can have a high solubility, like all sodium compounds. Leaching will save you a drainflow.  Just try everything out and watch your plants carefully!!" CreationDate="2015-09-17T10:22:27.743" UserId="2583" />
  <row Id="6586" PostId="4721" Score="1" Text="Yes it does. They might be disposable in the end, but if you replace your shoes once a year for 10 years, that's 10 times as many shoes consumed as one pair of shoes that lasts 10 years. Reducing your consumption by 1000% is kind of a big deal." CreationDate="2016-03-17T15:53:46.257" UserId="1692" />
  <row Id="6594" PostId="4721" Score="0" Text="That is a big deal, so a very good start, but it is NOT sustainable. However, even sustainable energy is not completely sustainable, looking at the machines used for it:)" CreationDate="2016-03-18T21:39:18.090" UserId="2583" />
  <row Id="6614" PostId="4721" Score="0" Text="How do you define sustainable, anyway?" CreationDate="2016-03-21T16:40:34.523" UserId="1692" />
  <row Id="6650" PostId="4721" Score="0" Text="Capable of being continued with minimal long-term effect on the environment. Just googled for this:) My personal defenition is to reuse with the same quality without any environmental effects. So impossible to accomplish. So a more practical defenition is reuse at same quality. Often you see products being recycled to a less quality product untill not usefull anymore and ends up as real waste. This way we just extend the period of use and this is NOT sustainable. But lowering our environmental footprint, is a very good start though." CreationDate="2016-03-25T17:45:31.463" UserId="2583" />
  <row Id="4786" PostId="4726" Score="0" Text="Actually, intuition could have had the solution to the whole issue somewhat easier. We are looking at roughly 1l fossil fuel consumption per hour and burner. Ignoring all the differences between fuels, we expect to get the same emissions as from driving one liter's worth of distance." CreationDate="2015-09-08T07:37:54.780" UserDisplayName="Christoph" />
  <row Id="6476" PostId="4727" Score="0" Text="this answer fits also somehow to my answer, at least as a comment :) http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/5054/1078" CreationDate="2016-02-17T09:49:49.040" UserId="1078" />
  <row Id="4789" PostId="4728" Score="0" Text="What kind of quantity of water is involved, per day?" CreationDate="2015-09-18T20:42:36.673" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="4790" PostId="4728" Score="0" Text="120-200ml/day.  While I often drink more coffee, the extra rinse water/coffee grounds will make it to the garden outside.&#xA;&#xA;But I dislike going into the garden on a cold, wet, rainy morning before having coffee." CreationDate="2015-09-19T08:30:16.430" UserId="2589" />
  <row Id="4793" PostId="4728" Score="1" Text="Do you have a worm farm? You can give the worms the grounds and the water. Once the water filters through the farm you can put it on the garden/plants with the worm juice. Perfect!" CreationDate="2015-09-20T04:59:33.503" UserId="1098" />
  <row Id="4794" PostId="4728" Score="0" Text="I do not have a worm farm - more to the point, while I can slide a new (interesting/edible) houseplant round the wife, there's no chance I can get away with a worm farm." CreationDate="2015-09-20T07:14:54.217" UserId="2589" />
  <row Id="5095" PostId="4728" Score="0" Text="You don’t have to go into the garden much if you save up the grounds (e.g. in a small plastic sieve) until the opportunity presents itself." CreationDate="2015-12-08T00:35:46.267" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="4798" PostId="4729" Score="0" Text="It helps if you give an estimate of the expected day and night temperatures, and the material your house is built from (insulation?). Is it a stand alone house? Please [edit] and update your question." CreationDate="2015-09-21T11:08:52.017" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="4791" PostId="4731" Score="0" Text="Why would this question be a better fit here than on http://biology.stackexhange.com or http://pets.stackexchange.com? What's the link with sustainability?" CreationDate="2015-09-19T17:39:46.940" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4792" PostId="4731" Score="3" Text="Healthy chickens that produce quality eggs is a part of sustainable living.  I am asking the question because I a want to know if it's detrimental to the chickens health." CreationDate="2015-09-19T18:19:09.917" UserId="2547" />
  <row Id="4797" PostId="4731" Score="2" Text="What do the terriers have to do with the question?" CreationDate="2015-09-21T11:06:54.867" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="4800" PostId="4731" Score="0" Text="Jan no offense but does it really matter to you?  Can answer the question or not, because your comment isn't really helpful." CreationDate="2015-09-21T14:06:46.853" UserId="2547" />
  <row Id="4808" PostId="4731" Score="2" Text="If you are asking if it is stressful to the hens in the way it can be stressful to find yourself in need of a bathroom but without access to one, then I'd say no - chickens will lay all over the yard for a number of reasons. I worked at a school that had too many chickens for the boxes, and the kids would have to do a daily &quot;easter egg&quot; hunt to find all the eggs laid along the fence, under the picnic table, in a shoe, in the shed - you name it." CreationDate="2015-09-22T20:15:51.187" UserId="1701" />
  <row Id="5096" PostId="4731" Score="0" Text="Do you mean _two terriers who I assume would just eat them_ or perhaps _two terriers who would just as soon eat them_?" CreationDate="2015-12-08T01:47:54.280" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="5097" PostId="4731" Score="1" Text="I agree with @JanDoggen that your remark about the terriers is a bit confusing: do you mention them because you fear they add to the stress, or to explain why you go about things the way you do? As it stands, one doesn’t known if one ought to take account of them in the answer." CreationDate="2015-12-08T01:52:55.997" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="5103" PostId="4731" Score="0" Text="I just meant I can't let out of the run (to roam freely) because my terriers will rip them apart.  So they are confined to the run, where there are no nesting boxes.  Does that help?" CreationDate="2015-12-08T17:06:15.780" UserId="2547" />
  <row Id="4795" PostId="4732" Score="4" Text="This answer would be improved if it had references to support the claims made." CreationDate="2015-09-21T09:07:18.310" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="4812" PostId="4738" Score="0" Text="You can download songs from Spotify for off line use. The songs are available to you as long as you maintain your account. If your music is in cyberspace, anything can happen especially if the music provider ceases to be. I am not certain but I seem to recall reading that there were some issues with paid downloads from Apple which were deleted from their server. (Loyalties disagreement?)  I would guess and say that only music downloaded to a drive or the antiquated CD/DVD is the only assurance your music is safe and secure. Lack of  wifi/cell access--similar to chrome books---might be....." CreationDate="2015-09-27T18:19:20.950" UserId="2613" />
  <row Id="4813" PostId="4738" Score="0" Text="....the deciding factor. For example, people who commute on  &quot;the subway.&quot; In terms of quality, I am almost positive streamed version and downloaded version of the same track are in the same quality. Spotify does not stream in high res like Tidal does. That is a separate issue all together" CreationDate="2015-09-27T18:25:44.043" UserId="2613" />
  <row Id="4815" PostId="4738" Score="0" Text="Thank you for your perspective on sustainable use with respect to content accessibility. Do you have any information about the energy use of streaming?" CreationDate="2015-09-28T05:28:47.517" UserId="2187" />
  <row Id="4820" PostId="4738" Score="2" Text="You are welcome. The following site makes reference to the energy use of Spotify. : http://mic.com/articles/110690/7-things-you-didn-t-realize-are-happening-every-time-you-stream-a-song-on-spotify. A web search suggested quite a few people concerned with how hot their computers were running while streaming with the service. Spotify seemed to rapidly. drain the batteries of portable devices. The negative environmental impact of streaming services in general seems to be somewhat offset by the lowered. Need to manufacture vinyl, CD's, and all that associated with it such as............" CreationDate="2015-09-30T00:49:11.007" UserId="2613" />
  <row Id="4821" PostId="4738" Score="0" Text=".........transportation, fuel, physical plant, etc.  Sorry I do not have exact numbers for you.   Note: Several people reinstalled Spotify and claimed that it helped efficiency. Have no idea how many watts they saved" CreationDate="2015-09-30T00:49:47.940" UserId="2613" />
  <row Id="8063" PostId="4738" Score="0" Text="@JJLL your extensive comments probably constitute an answer..." CreationDate="2017-01-18T19:21:07.137" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="4817" PostId="4740" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Your facts are correct, but not cooking in the summer doesn't sound very practical. Perhaps the OP can go into hibernation in the summer? ;-)" CreationDate="2015-09-29T17:41:10.813" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4818" PostId="4740" Score="1" Text="Sure, agreed. I didn't mean that literally. I wanted to convey the principle succinctly. I edited the guideline to be less drastic." CreationDate="2015-09-29T17:49:25.380" UserId="2618" />
  <row Id="4819" PostId="4740" Score="0" Text="No problem, I get your point and it's a valid one. I'm just not sure if your idea is useful to the OP." CreationDate="2015-09-29T17:58:59.427" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="5075" PostId="4741" Score="0" Text="I was going to recommend powder sprayers, but you beat me to it. +1. You don't need to fill up the next, just spray some in so the wasps have to walk on it." CreationDate="2015-12-03T19:30:45.047" UserId="2155" />
  <row Id="4826" PostId="4743" Score="3" Text="Why do you think it wouldn't work and why do you think that would be more sustainable than just using the energy directly in a gas motor?" CreationDate="2015-09-30T20:17:14.307" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="4827" PostId="4743" Score="0" Text="@Earthliŋ I have elaborated more on the question. I think this would work very well and wouldn't require charging at home (not everyone has garage access)." CreationDate="2015-09-30T21:28:29.713" UserId="2625" />
  <row Id="13655" PostId="4743" Score="0" Text="Honda built those about 50 years ago." CreationDate="2021-06-07T15:23:36.630" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="4973" PostId="4745" Score="1" Text="You assume that batteries will result in poor labor conditions. You assume that batteries are bad, yet oil is FAR worse. Yes, producing an electric car takes SLIGHTLY more energy, but that is QUICKLY offset by use. Batteries are non-toxic, fully recyclable, and last hundreds of thousands of miles. Oil is burned up as, is toxic, and puts out a LOT of pollution. Battery technology is already here, the only issue is marketing. Look through this and watch the video: http://www.ucsusa.org/clean-vehicles/electric-vehicles#.VklBK8r67MU" CreationDate="2015-11-16T02:36:32.837" UserDisplayName="user2433" />
  <row Id="4974" PostId="4745" Score="1" Text="Electric vehicles are by FAR the cleanest and most cost effective vehicles. I am only able to own a Nissan Leaf only because it is the most cost effective option for me. They are NOT highly subsidized, as the myth goes, but oil IS. Military action, pollution, and economic damages add trillions to the cost of oil. Currently in the United States, electric cars can be leased for under 100 dollars a month in CARB areas. EVs are very competitive in costs. A new Leaf is comparable in price with an Accord, maybe 2k more, but after tax credits it is 5k LESS, and then you save thousands on fuel" CreationDate="2015-11-16T02:39:05.553" UserDisplayName="user2433" />
  <row Id="4975" PostId="4745" Score="1" Text="There are Teslas with half a million miles on the original batteries. Electric motors last virtually forever. EVs are better all around and are the future." CreationDate="2015-11-16T02:39:37.647" UserDisplayName="user2433" />
  <row Id="7829" PostId="4745" Score="0" Text="Electric vehicles are at a disadvantage in cold weather.  You don't have the waste heat off the ICE to heat the passenger space.  This can amount to several kW.  Batteries don't work well when cold.  This can be a problem in an unheated garage or street parking in northern climates." CreationDate="2016-12-15T18:06:21.300" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="4858" PostId="4750" Score="0" Text="how can you save 7.5 ton co2/year on car usage when it's 4.0/year according to the first section?" CreationDate="2015-10-14T18:20:44.653" UserId="2676" />
  <row Id="4863" PostId="4750" Score="0" Text="the first section told: 23t per household and top 3 causes is listed." CreationDate="2015-10-17T23:06:26.463" UserId="2583" />
  <row Id="4865" PostId="4750" Score="1" Text="@abalogh good question! It's probably because the average Dutch household drives much less than 180km to work every day. Similarly, the average Dutch household doesn't fly 24000 km (2nd measure). But I agree with you that the measures figures do seem a bit optimistic and it would be better if they were based on average use as well." CreationDate="2015-10-18T03:32:03.750" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="6639" PostId="4750" Score="0" Text="Even if you &quot;only&quot; saved 4 tonnes of CO2 by not driving a gas car to work, that's still at the top of the rest of the list. Especially when you change &quot;flying&quot; to the listed 1.4 tonnes from the first section." CreationDate="2016-03-23T16:34:22.673" UserId="1692" />
  <row Id="8666" PostId="4750" Score="0" Text="two answers don't reduce carbon footprint (pun intended)" CreationDate="2017-07-22T02:02:01.313" UserId="3314" />
  <row Id="11822" PostId="4750" Score="1" Text="I think flying is over represented in these lists. The plane has at least a hundred people in it, maybe more. So you need to divide it's footprint by that number." CreationDate="2019-11-18T15:58:51.740" UserId="8149" />
  <row Id="4832" PostId="4752" Score="1" Text="I think the general principle here is to gather data by using an energy meter. That's the only way to know for sure how much energy is used." CreationDate="2015-10-06T19:15:05.027" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4833" PostId="4752" Score="0" Text="@THelper knowing how fast a specific vehicle moves in practice by using a speedo doesn't mean it isn't useful to understand the principles of motion ;)" CreationDate="2015-10-07T02:33:37.573" UserId="1408" />
  <row Id="4834" PostId="4752" Score="0" Text="Well, does it do extra work? I suggest you sample both programs to see what the differences are, if any. It's hard to determine if you do not supply a specific make/model." CreationDate="2015-10-07T07:44:07.977" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="4836" PostId="4752" Score="0" Text="@iain I don't think you have the right analogy there. How efficient a specific vehicle runs in practice from A to B is best decided by looking at how many litres of petrol it _actually_ took." CreationDate="2015-10-07T12:48:36.503" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="4837" PostId="4752" Score="0" Text="@Earthliŋ well, the analogy is about the usefulness of knowing a specific vs a general things, but I take you point." CreationDate="2015-10-07T16:08:38.143" UserId="1408" />
  <row Id="4838" PostId="4752" Score="4" Text="From my recollection of Australia's Choice magazine (consumer reports equivalent) most washing machines are run half empty on the wrong wash cycle with far too much detergent, most of the time. So in practice anything you can do to reduce those errors will be a zero-cost fix. Viz, if you use less detergent, fill the washing machine with clothing, and use the correct cycle you benefit with no cost. Alternatively, half filling the machine and using the economy cycle is a compromise that will help (since most people buy machines for peak loads not normal ones). Also, wash clothes less often." CreationDate="2015-10-08T01:05:44.570" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="4840" PostId="4752" Score="0" Text="Note that the water use is also energy use - in the worst case you're running a desalination plant to get the water and that burns energy. Best case you're using rainwater from a header tank and the energy is purely embodied in the tank and pipe." CreationDate="2015-10-08T01:09:47.497" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="4842" PostId="4752" Score="0" Text="Many washing machines have an &quot;eco&quot; cycle, which often uses more electricity but less water, and takes longer. Maybe express mode is the opposite of this... Maybe not." CreationDate="2015-10-08T06:16:20.823" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="4844" PostId="4752" Score="0" Text="@Mσᶎ I'm not surprised. I ignore the detergent pack suggestions and put half of what they say to, my clothes always get clean. But then I'm more cynical than most! :)" CreationDate="2015-10-08T22:22:45.690" UserId="1408" />
  <row Id="4845" PostId="4753" Score="0" Text="Quantum mechanics" CreationDate="2015-10-09T23:39:23.920" UserId="1462" />
  <row Id="4850" PostId="4753" Score="0" Text="See: http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/167190/why-are-solar-panels-blue-rather-than-black-when-black-absorbs-more-light and http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/nl504349z" CreationDate="2015-10-14T01:55:45.637" UserId="2663" />
  <row Id="4843" PostId="4755" Score="0" Text="Thank you for taking the time to consider this and answer. If I'm able to get hold of a meter at some point then I'll come back and provide the specifics too! :)" CreationDate="2015-10-08T22:19:23.257" UserId="1408" />
  <row Id="4848" PostId="4760" Score="2" Text="Interesting, but not really related to the question." CreationDate="2015-10-11T20:01:01.543" UserId="519" />
  <row Id="6579" PostId="4760" Score="0" Text="Though it might be trivial to some, I included this as an illustration of a qualitative ecological impact that might not be commonly considered in typical quantitative calculations. An industry's impact on wildlife either through habitat destruction, endangering rare species or, in this case, the use/exploitation of animals might be weighted more heavily in some individual's considerations when determining how they decide to measure ecological impact of a consumer good. A vegan probably has a different notion of ecological impact than a meat eater." CreationDate="2016-03-15T04:27:20.393" UserId="1924" />
  <row Id="8496" PostId="4760" Score="0" Text="[Your answer is in another castle](http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/225370/your-answer-is-in-another-castle-when-is-an-answer-not-an-answer)" CreationDate="2017-05-10T11:37:10.097" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="8517" PostId="4760" Score="0" Text="Please include at least a summary of the contents at the page you link in your answer. This protects against broken, changed, or removed links." CreationDate="2017-05-20T14:52:30.887" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8526" PostId="4760" Score="0" Text="Per Jan's request I have added an explicit answer in this castle. The relevant contents from the article are summarized as &quot;macaques exploited to pick coconuts&quot; and the link to details is provided as supplementary edification and means for verification to the curious." CreationDate="2017-05-23T11:46:41.917" UserId="1924" />
  <row Id="4846" PostId="4761" Score="2" Text="Nice answer, but I'm not sure about the colored solar panels being less efficient. According to [this article](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/07/130722105549.htm) giving solar panels color doesn't affect their efficiency. However, the article contradicts itself by stating that not every color allows you to generate the same amount of electricity. I guess some colors don't affect efficiency and other do." CreationDate="2015-10-11T06:15:39.847" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4847" PostId="4761" Score="1" Text="... and not all panels are crystalline silicon: there's [non-negligible quantities of CdTe, amorphous silicon and CI(G)S](https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/en/downloads-englisch/pdf-files-englisch/photovoltaics-report-slides.pdf) (pdf, see p20)" CreationDate="2015-10-11T16:39:37.070" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="4849" PostId="4761" Score="1" Text="I edited to include the efficiency reference that warranted my statement and tried to expand the answer to include and differentiate other materials and panel creation processes." CreationDate="2015-10-13T20:47:29.177" UserId="1924" />
  <row Id="4852" PostId="4762" Score="0" Text="Aren't you comparing apples and oranges here, i.e. artificial light versus natural light? As anyone taking photographs can tell you the amount (intensity) of natural light dwarfs anything we can produce artificially. What you should be comparing is horizontally versus vertically grown produce under artificial lightning." CreationDate="2015-10-14T07:04:03.210" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="4853" PostId="4762" Score="0" Text="Coming close to the Sun's capacity (horizontal parity) is a poor choice of comparison. I'm trying to understand whether we can manufacture lighting requirements at sufficient efficiencies to make vertical farms viable. There's much discussion around *current* technology, but little of *future* (forthcoming) technology." CreationDate="2015-10-14T09:15:50.930" UserId="2663" />
  <row Id="4854" PostId="4762" Score="2" Text="@JanDoggen we can and sometimes do produce artificial light at intensities equal to, or greater than, natural light. It's just very expensive, both in lamp cost and electricity consumption." CreationDate="2015-10-14T10:58:55.457" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="4855" PostId="4762" Score="1" Text="I suggest you draw a box around a vertical farm with all inputs and outputs. Same for a sunlit farm. Then you tell us wich of those inputs and outputs you want parity for. The way it stands the question is not ansqwerable." CreationDate="2015-10-14T10:59:42.087" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="4856" PostId="4762" Score="1" Text="I think you're asking (slightly) the wrong question. I can't see that farming under artificial light is ever going to achieve equivalence to conventional agriculture in terms of energy use divided by yield, because sunlight is free. You'd need to introduce the other considerations that make vertical farming attractive in the first place - e.g. I'm guessing space limitations." CreationDate="2015-10-14T11:26:51.417" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="4857" PostId="4762" Score="0" Text="I suspect that the laser idea is a non-starter, at least for now, for two reasons: First that &quot;white&quot; lasers are actually a group of monochromatic sources designed to appear white to the human eye, but with an exceedingly spiky spectrum, so may not provide what chlorophyll wants. (but possibly a laser could be tuned to that instead). Secondly that I'm *very* skeptical about 400 lm/W; lasers are traditionally not very efficient at all, and 400lm/W is in the region of 60% efficiency, so I'd want evidence for that figure. But, I don't think that the use of lasers is vital to the question." CreationDate="2015-10-14T11:31:36.253" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="10608" PostId="4764" Score="0" Text="That's unbelievably cool! Well done." CreationDate="2019-01-11T00:17:39.507" UserId="6287" />
  <row Id="4859" PostId="4765" Score="0" Text="Migrated from Gardening &amp; Landscaping at someone's suggestion: http://gardening.stackexchange.com/questions/22129/what-is-the-largest-polyculture-farm?noredirect=1#comment25825_22129" CreationDate="2015-10-15T20:35:07.380" UserId="2679" />
  <row Id="4860" PostId="4765" Score="2" Text="For those interested, polyculture doesn't involve parrots. It's agriculture using multiple crops in the same space, in imitation of the diversity of natural ecosystems, and avoiding large stands of single crops, or monoculture. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyculture" CreationDate="2015-10-15T23:37:15.040" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="4861" PostId="4765" Score="1" Text="@HighlyIrregular Poly want a bio-diverse farm?" CreationDate="2015-10-16T02:16:28.527" UserId="2679" />
  <row Id="4885" PostId="4765" Score="0" Text="I think it depends on how you define farm, as much of the Americas was once polyculture farmland and North America in particular contained large stretches of non-differentiated polyarboriculture farms (viz, mixed-species tree crops). I've worked in horticultural areas were dual-cropping is common but no-one calls it polyculture because they consider themselves horticulturists who happen to have harvestable  fodder between the rows of useful plants. Normally clover or grass, but I've seen alfalfa. We grew watermelons occasionally, but they were never profitable." CreationDate="2015-10-21T21:32:33.170" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="8031" PostId="4765" Score="1" Text="I would suggest that the OP change the wording asking for examples of economically viable poly cultures.  Also:  How does polyculture differ from agroforestry, differ from wildcrafting, differ from permaculture, differ from covercropping." CreationDate="2017-01-15T18:13:53.160" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="4871" PostId="4767" Score="0" Text="Note that styrofoam *also* has trouble with hot food. I have had fried foods melting the container. The issue is more the actual (highest) temperature than the duration of the exposure (not with moisture, of course)." CreationDate="2015-10-19T11:22:56.593" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="4884" PostId="4767" Score="0" Text="@JanDoggen That is a good point. We haven't had an issue with melting in the past, so that is probably much less relevant than grease and/or liquid (gravy, tomato sauce, etc). Thanks!" CreationDate="2015-10-20T13:04:04.897" UserId="2682" />
  <row Id="9362" PostId="4767" Score="0" Text="Why not ask people to bring their own containers??" CreationDate="2018-03-12T23:49:39.467" UserId="5517" />
  <row Id="9657" PostId="4767" Score="0" Text="@GrahamChiu we expect 1000+ attendees over the course of the day, and most will not be personally invited and therefore we can't request that" CreationDate="2018-05-05T12:11:58.717" UserId="2682" />
  <row Id="4867" PostId="4770" Score="1" Text="what are you comparing to? A place where the municipality does the separating and still recycles and diverts, or a place where it just all goes in the landfill? Or incinerator? Or ocean? The costs/benefits only exist in comparison to something else." CreationDate="2015-10-18T17:48:43.770" UserId="1053" />
  <row Id="4868" PostId="4770" Score="0" Text="By &quot;garbage separation&quot; do you mean separating out recyclables? Or is it more than that, such as separating out green waste, used batteries, or something else?" CreationDate="2015-10-18T20:21:56.587" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="4869" PostId="4770" Score="0" Text="@Kate Gregory Actually I must admit I don't know. My original idea is whether there is a benefit of recycling vs not recycling (Thus that would be the comparison you are asking for). Yet I would have to ask the question why we would be separating the waste and then everything would still go to the same landfill. As such any example of how waste separation contributed in a positive way (e.g. cost reduction and efficiency), would be deemed as sufficient by me).&#xA;&#xA;Highly Irregular---&gt;Primarily recyclables (Glass, Paper, etc...)." CreationDate="2015-10-19T07:38:32.177" UserId="2687" />
  <row Id="4870" PostId="4770" Score="0" Text="Your question is very broad. I suggest you limit it to one specific fraction  and one specific country to make it answerable instead of theoretical." CreationDate="2015-10-19T11:21:07.767" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="4874" PostId="4770" Score="0" Text="While the point of broadness is true, all I would actually want is one example (empirical study optimally), where it is confirmed that waste separation of any kind is efficient." CreationDate="2015-10-19T11:39:50.223" UserId="2687" />
  <row Id="4880" PostId="4772" Score="1" Text="I cannot find much in the time I'm willing to spend on this, but it is the case that combustion has to happen at high enough temperatures to prevent pollution by half-burned or intermediate (gaseous) products. The [Wikipedia article on incineration](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incineration) states that not only air is injected, but *it is required to install backup auxiliary burners (often fueled by oil), which are fired into the boiler in case the heating value of the waste becomes too low to reach this temperature alone* ...." CreationDate="2015-10-20T11:44:53.837" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="4881" PostId="4772" Score="0" Text="... Link to [Waste Incineration Directive](http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX:32000L0076)" CreationDate="2015-10-20T11:47:13.640" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="4882" PostId="4772" Score="4" Text="&quot;What sorting steps are neccessary to arrive at a waste stream (Starting from household waste) that can be burnt without additional fuel?&quot; The obvious thing is to remove moisture. I know that when we started separating organic waste from the rest of the household waste in The Netherlands, there were complaints about the cladding of the incinerator ovens deteriorating too fast because of the much higher temperatures that were reached (sorry, could not find link), so I assume we have a self-sustaining burn since that time (apart from start-up)." CreationDate="2015-10-20T11:54:14.920" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="4875" PostId="4773" Score="0" Text="Would you have any study or examination of the case C you proposed. From an argumentative POV I find your essay conclusive." CreationDate="2015-10-19T11:42:44.417" UserId="2687" />
  <row Id="4876" PostId="4773" Score="0" Text="some numbers (and some more references) are in http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2012/ph240/micks2/ -- but you don't need a study to show that it's cheaper for me to sort my plastic bottles from my garbage (since I don't bill the city for that) than to build a place where paid city employees go through my unsorted garbage and sort it for me." CreationDate="2015-10-19T12:33:55.647" UserId="1053" />
  <row Id="4894" PostId="4777" Score="2" Text="Try another buck (just lend one from a colleague/friend). He's the common factor." CreationDate="2015-10-26T15:02:53.937" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="4891" PostId="4778" Score="0" Text="I wonder if we ever solve this - the requirements for &quot;compostable plastic&quot; contradict. We don't want it to start degrading during its 'usage' lifetime, yet we want it to break down quickly in the compost heap. Look e.g. at the water soluble 'plastics' used for packaging disk washer tablets: they become sticky when you leave them exposed to the (moisture in the) air." CreationDate="2015-10-26T11:17:44.183" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="4895" PostId="4780" Score="0" Text="In general locally sourced products have a smaller footprint due to lower transportation costs. However, for many products production costs are much bigger than transportation costs. This means that only looking at transportation distance can be misleading. For example, in [this report](http://researcharchive.lincoln.ac.nz/handle/10182/125) researchers found that several products produced in New Zealand and consumed in the UK have a lower impact than locally sourced equivalents. In short, to make a fair comparison you have to look at the full lifecycle of the products you are comparing." CreationDate="2015-10-27T15:57:12.673" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4896" PostId="4780" Score="2" Text="Another factor to consider is your ability to use the product before it goes bad after opening. Maybe not as relevant with oil as it would be with, say, canned tuna, it's still a factor to consider. Purchasing three 6 ounce cans of tuna can be better overall than one 18 ounce can if you end up discarding most of the big can due to spoilage. I call that the Costco Conundrum - do I really want to buy the 64 ounce ketchup bottle when it will take me 3 years to use that much?" CreationDate="2015-10-27T21:51:26.337" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="4899" PostId="4781" Score="0" Text="I see -- this seems like a rather precise algorithm. But also an impractical one. Btw, also it likely matters which transport is employed, and planes, trains, trucks and ships must be factored in." CreationDate="2015-10-28T06:56:50.623" UserId="2661" />
  <row Id="4916" PostId="4781" Score="0" Text="I keep thinking how to apply this in everyday life :-)" CreationDate="2015-11-03T23:40:19.200" UserId="2661" />
  <row Id="4917" PostId="4781" Score="1" Text="This is one of those situations where there isn't a quick easy answer. Some science &amp; mathematics is needed to help form a conclusion. Depending on how deeply you want to consider things, you could also consider where the packing for each product is made &amp; how it affects the region where it was made regarding energy usage for manufacture &amp; transportation and also how the waste from manufacture is dealt with. Generally, these sort of analyses are done by research bodies. You need to know a lot to make a truly informed decision." CreationDate="2015-11-04T01:31:14.247" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="4900" PostId="4783" Score="0" Text="It helps if you tell what make/model, what age, and what country you're in." CreationDate="2015-10-28T07:38:05.673" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="4904" PostId="4785" Score="3" Text="I suspect your question is very local. Where are you? Where I live electrical heating is very much encouraged and where I used to live the government will pay you to remove fossil burning heating and replace it with an electric heat pump. For that matter, I don't know of anywhere that subsidises electric cars. Australia is only just moving away from huge subsidies to fossil cars. If you are just talking about advertising... cars are advertised much more than heaters, regardless of type." CreationDate="2015-10-28T22:09:07.273" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="4905" PostId="4785" Score="3" Text="&quot;electrical cars actually are less efficient from an energy standpoint than when the energy of the fossil fuels are used in a direct way&quot; - no. Not unless your electricity comes from diesel generators." CreationDate="2015-10-28T22:16:01.097" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="4910" PostId="4785" Score="1" Text="@Mσᶎ One example of a semi-subsidy: electric cars are exempt from the London congestion charge." CreationDate="2015-10-29T10:56:16.990" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="4906" PostId="4786" Score="2" Text="I've lived in rural Ontario for 23 years, with electrical heat. In that time we've had tons of power failures, but only one where we had to use our fire and woodstove for heat - Jan 1st 1999. The house holds heat well. Places with iffier electricity tend not to have cold winters." CreationDate="2015-10-29T00:23:41.937" UserId="1053" />
  <row Id="4907" PostId="4786" Score="2" Text="Interesting. I keep reading about grid failures during winter storms in the US and have seen people say that's why electric heating needs a backup, or that they use fossil fuel for that reason." CreationDate="2015-10-29T00:54:16.503" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="5377" PostId="4788" Score="0" Text="Thanks for the answer! However, power plants also create their electricity by converting the heat into motion by means of a turbine, which is then converted to electricity, and then again converted to motion in the electric car. This seems to yield the same argument as you have against electric heating. Moreover, I guess that the filtering of the pollution also occurs less efficiently when heating your house?" CreationDate="2016-01-28T19:38:18.277" UserId="2719" />
  <row Id="4954" PostId="4791" Score="1" Text="They're discussing two different problems: resource use and toxic waste. How you balance those is very much a matter of opinion as there's no general comparison. In this case the microfibres are theoretically recoverable and could then be reused or recycles, but the resource cost of refining microfibres from seawater would be huge. We can't even do that for valuable stuff like gold." CreationDate="2015-11-07T06:29:01.390" UserId="1255" />
  <row Id="4912" PostId="4797" Score="5" Text="Hi Nicki and welcome. You don't need to put a sig or sign off at the end of each post here: as you can see, your name and a link to your profile appear under each of your posts anyway. So although other websites allow or even encourage it, here they're firmly discouraged. If you want to post a general comment (such as &quot;happy to answer any questions on bokashi&quot;), then your profile is the place for that. This is all because we're not a forum - we don't do back-and-forth discussion; just questions &amp; answers." CreationDate="2015-11-02T17:52:40.603" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="9338" PostId="4797" Score="0" Text="Bokashi is not composting.  It's pickling.  It still needs to be composted separately." CreationDate="2018-03-10T20:42:13.357" UserId="5517" />
  <row Id="4918" PostId="4800" Score="1" Text="I think you mean 40MPH?" CreationDate="2015-11-04T07:35:03.560" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="4919" PostId="4800" Score="1" Text="I don't get your question. What does this sentence *with 70% of the energy output from my idling car going to counteracting gravity on the hill and my overall efficiency being horrible* mean? Where does 70% come from? I also guess that here and in your next sentence &quot;efficiency&quot; does **not** mean fuel efficiency, but something like 'how fast you get to your destination'. Please [edit] your question, use strict definitions, and do not put guesses or estimates in (that's for answering, not for asking)." CreationDate="2015-11-04T07:44:00.153" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="4922" PostId="4800" Score="0" Text="@HighlyIrregular lol.  I wrote this after being side tracked while comparing cars for fuel efficiency.  Call it a Freudian slip, 40 MPG was an important price point in my calculation of more fuel efficient vehicles (a basis for my way-to-complicated-because-I'm-a-geek-and-like-game-theory math to get a rough average savings per extra MPG a vehicle had.  My fingers forgot I was discussing something different here :)" CreationDate="2015-11-04T14:15:43.473" UserId="927" />
  <row Id="4983" PostId="4800" Score="0" Text="Why not get an electric car? Then you get most of the energy back when you brake. It is FAR cleaner and a much better vehicle. It is also very cost effective." CreationDate="2015-11-16T18:08:49.743" UserDisplayName="user2433" />
  <row Id="4985" PostId="4800" Score="0" Text="@zagadka314 because I can do more then 6 hours of driving a night on occasions, more then 300 miles total with as little as 15 minute pit stop in the middle, and I don't think that an electric can handle that long a drive without stranding me." CreationDate="2015-11-16T21:36:35.447" UserId="927" />
  <row Id="4923" PostId="4801" Score="1" Text="While it's true that the same amount of potential energy is needed to get to the crest of the hill, a car traveling faster over the crest will have more kinetic energy that needs to be scrubbed off (and lost unless the car has some energy recovery mechanism like a hybrid). So the driver that maintains a steady 40mph speed until the crest of the hill then rides the brakes on the downhill will be using more fuel than the driver that takes his foot off the gas 500 ft before the crest and lets his car slow almost to a stop at the crest before picking up speed on the downhill." CreationDate="2015-11-04T21:12:52.637" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="4925" PostId="4801" Score="0" Text="@Johnny yes, that was the point of the question. I hadn't missed that." CreationDate="2015-11-04T21:21:40.793" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="4927" PostId="4801" Score="0" Text="Shouldn't an answer to the question have an actual answer to the question?" CreationDate="2015-11-04T21:25:41.703" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="4928" PostId="4801" Score="0" Text="@Johnny I had intended it to, but on re-reading it wasn't obvious. I've clarified." CreationDate="2015-11-04T21:27:55.857" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="4940" PostId="4801" Score="0" Text="Although it's true that energy needed to climb 100 ft is the same regardless of speed, maintaining the correct RPM is the most efficient conversion of fuel to energy." CreationDate="2015-11-05T17:25:58.383" UserId="2155" />
  <row Id="4924" PostId="4802" Score="1" Text="Do you have a reference for _adding a little extra speed can reduce the time spent having to fight gravity while going up the hill, and thus improve efficiency_? Especially in light of your comment about drag - by adding speed, you're fighting something that increases with the square of your speed. Certainly it stands to reason the if you want to maintain your speed this intuitively makes sense, but if you don't care about speed any only care about efficiency, is it really better to speed up before you go up the hill?" CreationDate="2015-11-04T21:19:35.147" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="4939" PostId="4802" Score="0" Text="Highly irregular isn't exactly correct, but he could be depending on circumstances, an engine is designed to produce the most horse power at an optimal rpm, when going uphill you want to maintain that optimal RPM, if you can do that in 5th gear, then great, if not then you need to drop to 4th or whatever is appropriate for that slope. If you lug your way up a hill you may save gasoline, but you are damaging your engine." CreationDate="2015-11-05T17:22:11.197" UserId="2155" />
  <row Id="4926" PostId="4804" Score="1" Text="You may be wrong about economy of scale - markets outside the US (which I assume is where you are) tend to value fuel economy and small size rather more, and so these vehicles may not be as rare as you think." CreationDate="2015-11-04T21:22:53.277" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="4929" PostId="4804" Score="0" Text="@SimonW interesting.  Yes I am from the US.  I find it amusing to know we prefer bigger cars.  Were living the stereotype, showing off big cars and screw the environment lol." CreationDate="2015-11-04T22:10:31.553" UserId="927" />
  <row Id="4930" PostId="4804" Score="1" Text="there are some rational reasons too. You tend to have new cities with big, wide, straight streets, so there's less incentive for small vehicles than if you're trying to park somewhere that was built for horses." CreationDate="2015-11-04T22:20:20.563" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="4931" PostId="4804" Score="1" Text="@SimonW That's not a rational _reason_, that's a rational _excuse_. Just because the streeets are wide doesn't mean the car needs to fill it." CreationDate="2015-11-05T00:06:38.450" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="4934" PostId="4804" Score="1" Text="As SimonW mentioned the market for small cars is much bigger in Europe than in the US. This not only has to do with the available space and larger distances in the US, but also with [the much lower US fuel prices and the many regulations and huge costs for importing foreign cars](http://www.autotrader.com/car-shopping/why-arent-some-popular-foreign-cars-sold-in-america-240424)." CreationDate="2015-11-05T09:24:08.990" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4935" PostId="4804" Score="0" Text="I happen to know about two small European cars that are sold in the US: [Fiat 500](http://www.fiatusa.com/en/500/) and the [Mini Cooper](http://www.miniusa.com/content/miniusa/en.html). Both have a real-life efficiency of around 31 MPG (in the ads it's always higher). This isn't very efficient compared to the [Citroen C1](http://www.citroen.co.uk/new-cars-and-vans/citroen-range/citroen-c1) for example with 40 MPG in real life, but is not sold in the US. If you live in California a hydrogen-fueled car may be an option, but they are expensive and there aren't many fueling stations." CreationDate="2015-11-05T09:30:30.690" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4936" PostId="4804" Score="0" Text="@THelper - A hydrogen fueled car may be an option for what? Is it any more fuel efficient than a typical gasoline powered car when the source of the hydrogen is factored in (most industrial hydrogen is reformed out of natural gas).  He may as well just get a natural gas powered car since there are many more natural gas filling stations than the [3 retail hydrogen stations](http://www.cafcp.org/stationmap) in all of California." CreationDate="2015-11-05T15:57:13.660" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="4947" PostId="4804" Score="0" Text="@Johnny I agree that environmental impact does depend on how the hydrogen is manufactured, but there are some very interesting developments in this area. For example hydrogen that is made using spare energy from renewables. And perhaps soon [hydrogen from seawater](http://cleantechnica.com/2015/01/02/new-machine-makes-sustainable-hydrogen-from-seawater/).&#xA;BTW, [this document](http://www.arb.ca.gov/msprog/zevprog/ab8/ab8_report_2015.pdf) does list more hydrogen stations (page 62-63), but I'm not sure they are all retail." CreationDate="2015-11-06T08:18:54.007" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4950" PostId="4804" Score="1" Text="@THelper - while there *may* be some future developments in producing hydrogen, why not just use those developments to create more clean electricity, which can use the existing grid for distribution instead of needing billions of dollars of new infrastructure (which comes at an environmental cost)? Is a hydrogen powered car significantly more efficient than a battery powered EV? Range is becoming less of a benefit  as EV's increase their range and can be fast-charged." CreationDate="2015-11-06T15:58:23.983" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="4956" PostId="4804" Score="0" Text="@Johnny Since we are sidetracking from the main question, I suggest we continue this discussion in [chat](http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/7310/sustainable-living)" CreationDate="2015-11-08T20:09:06.993" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4941" PostId="4807" Score="1" Text="I think the asker understood most of that, but was intending to ask how much they should allow themselves to naturally decelerate when reaching the crest." CreationDate="2015-11-05T17:39:19.123" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="4942" PostId="4807" Score="0" Text="As much as possible without having to hit the gas or be a nuisance to others." CreationDate="2015-11-05T17:42:08.143" UserId="2155" />
  <row Id="4944" PostId="4807" Score="0" Text="I think that bits of this that aren't irrelevant are wrong." CreationDate="2015-11-06T01:44:31.373" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="4946" PostId="4808" Score="0" Text="As far as I know Volkswagen only cheated on emissions, not on fuel-efficiency numbers." CreationDate="2015-11-06T07:59:03.043" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4948" PostId="4808" Score="0" Text="That depends on how happy you are about killing people, but I suspect you're right thinking that anyone who drives has made that decision already." CreationDate="2015-11-06T08:30:54.360" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="4951" PostId="4808" Score="0" Text="@thelper thank you for indirectly explaining that last comment morz made, because I had no clue why volkswagons don't count.  I assume there was some issue with their cheating some standards tests?" CreationDate="2015-11-06T16:42:39.230" UserId="927" />
  <row Id="4952" PostId="4808" Score="0" Text="@dsollen VW have cheated on the diesel emissions tests, but there are also now reports that they have probably also cheated on consumption tests for both diesel and petrol vehicles." CreationDate="2015-11-06T21:02:05.533" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="4949" PostId="4810" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living and thank you for your question. Please note that this website has a few rules for asking questions. For example, we don't allow 'shopping recommendation' questions because answers to such questions are very subjective and tend to be outdated soon. Also, all questions should have a link with sustainability. In your question this is not clear. For more information about asking questions please see our [Help Center](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/help/dont-ask)." CreationDate="2015-11-06T14:52:54.843" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4953" PostId="4810" Score="1" Text="@THelper I've reworded the question so that it should be on topic now. Let's reopen it." CreationDate="2015-11-06T22:13:35.037" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="4955" PostId="4810" Score="1" Text="@HighlyIrregular I've reopened the question. I think we can assume the OP is also interested in efficiency and/or small environmental impact of the heaters." CreationDate="2015-11-07T07:08:07.437" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="5141" PostId="4810" Score="1" Text="Possible duplicate of [Which type of portable electric heater is better?](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/1306/99)" CreationDate="2015-12-14T11:44:40.850" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4957" PostId="4811" Score="1" Text="Hi Ricky, welcome to sustainability.SE. I've downvoted your answer as it reads more like a polemic against cars than an answer to the question that was asked. Although the asker didn't say so originally, I'm pretty sure that they are going to buy a car anyway, and intended to ask how very small cars compare with others. Telling them &quot;don't buy a car&quot; is not helpful." CreationDate="2015-11-09T14:42:24.257" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="4958" PostId="4811" Score="0" Text="(also, &quot;jet airplanes are more efficient than cars&quot; is a statement whose veracity will vary somewhat depending on exactly what is being measured)" CreationDate="2015-11-09T14:43:37.497" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="5293" PostId="4811" Score="0" Text="Trains use fuel too,,and are hugely heavy. Electric trains get their energy from the power stations nearby, whatever they are burning near you. Trains only make sense if they are packed full of people." CreationDate="2016-01-07T12:20:08.967" UserId="1567" />
  <row Id="13508" PostId="4811" Score="0" Text="Take my downvote.  A:  You don't address the question.  B:  Your statement about trains while true (they don't use gasoline) is misleading (you imply they don't use energy).  One consideration for all alternate forms of transport is the time required.  If someone can drive for 30 mintues or spent 2 hours using the bus system, I know which choice most people will make." CreationDate="2021-03-10T22:08:34.803" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="13510" PostId="4811" Score="0" Text="@SherwoodBotsford: Taking your downvote. Six years later, huh." CreationDate="2021-03-11T03:36:38.927" UserId="2702" />
  <row Id="5032" PostId="4816" Score="0" Text="To add a comment to this thread, I have tried the above setup but did not get any big improvement that worth the hassle. This is because the overall string voltage is reduced which will counter balance in the Current-Voltage, power output." CreationDate="2015-11-23T07:54:24.697" UserId="2356" />
  <row Id="5033" PostId="4817" Score="0" Text="Sure makes sense." CreationDate="2015-11-23T07:54:46.133" UserId="2356" />
  <row Id="4961" PostId="4818" Score="1" Text="Make sure to refry some beans with it :-)" CreationDate="2015-11-12T08:35:28.350" UserId="2661" />
  <row Id="4979" PostId="4821" Score="2" Text="You haven't reference *any* of your sources. I think the core problem is that both sets of numbers are very soft. When you start with &quot;I assume this, give or take 50%&quot; and proceed to layer more assumptions like that on top, getting out the end only 40% different is sheer luck. Actual farmers who've been doing this for decades can't get the accuracy you seem to expect." CreationDate="2015-11-16T08:18:22.307" UserId="1255" />
  <row Id="4994" PostId="4821" Score="1" Text="Of the first three numbers one is an assumption (350 people), the other two need references (7500kJ x 365). You apparently require 3 significant figures (better than .5% accuracy), rounding off the length of a year to 365 gives you a starting error of -0.07%, about 1/10th of your total allowed error. So a reference saying &quot;both caclulations use a 365 day year&quot; would be useful. I think you'd best specify timezone/localtime as well, because half a day is another 2/10ths of your allowed error. You're asking someone to do a lot of work, but you haven't demonstrated that you'd appreciate the result" CreationDate="2015-11-18T06:13:44.983" UserId="1255" />
  <row Id="5004" PostId="4821" Score="2" Text="You should also be aware that you have long chains of calculations, with several parameters in between that have uncertainties (error bars). We know from numerical analysis that e.g. calculating X [+/- dX] times Y [+/- dY] gives us as XY [+/- dZ], where the error dZ derives from dX and dY, but I forgot the exact calculation (last time I did that is approx 30 years ago). So the more assumptions in your chain, the larger the uncertainty in the final outcome." CreationDate="2015-11-18T11:31:43.887" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="4971" PostId="4823" Score="0" Text="Thanks for the proportions for the candle mix. As mentioned I had tried to make crayons before using the lard and failed miserably. I think adding some beeswax would have helped." CreationDate="2015-11-15T16:10:42.520" UserId="2726" />
  <row Id="4972" PostId="4823" Score="0" Text="@RodneySewavaI.TajirMattar I only know crayons from 100% beeswax (Stockmar), adding lard will probably make them softer and 100% lard crayons are probably too soft. Still, candles don't need to be as hard as crayons, they just need to be hard enough to support the wick: think of gel candles, which work as candles but obviously gel crayons wouldn't work... So I think too much lard would probably make poor crayons (and beeswax also beats lard for smell)." CreationDate="2015-11-15T16:25:57.593" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="6502" PostId="4823" Score="1" Text="A variation on this: mix lard with syrup. In Holland we have a thick syrup called 'stroop', and this spread is an old-fashioned treat on bread (sandwiches). I do not remember the proportion." CreationDate="2016-02-24T11:32:14.330" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="4969" PostId="4827" Score="0" Text="Gaming is not very sustainable altogether, haha :-) However, I managed to run one (very) old RPG in Wine alright. Thanks for your answer. Can you pls explain you point about the ancient programming languages? I didn't quite follow the logic. Do you mean that whichever code is written in a modern and widely used language (and therefore maintainers don't have to learn a language just for that soft) is more sustainable?" CreationDate="2015-11-15T03:17:14.097" UserId="2661" />
  <row Id="4970" PostId="4827" Score="0" Text="Programming languages have evolved since the 1950s when the first ones were developed. Each language caters to a different need, but is never ideal, so new one keep developing and older ones stop being used. The logic expressed within code doesn't become irrelevant because of age. To maintain legacy code some programmers will still need to learn the old languages so the old code can still be used in its original language because of the large amount of code that exists. Not all if it will be able to be converted to new languages. If it could be converted, that would be better." CreationDate="2015-11-15T07:34:44.797" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="5063" PostId="4827" Score="1" Text="I feel like this question is asking the wrong question. It's like asking &quot;What is more sustainable? Driving in UK or US?&quot;" CreationDate="2015-12-02T05:12:54.960" UserId="1462" />
  <row Id="4987" PostId="4829" Score="0" Text="I remember reading a Scientific American article some years ago, but I no longer have the magazine. Maybe you can [search their site](https://www.google.nl/search?q=ethanol+site:sciam.com)" CreationDate="2015-11-17T07:56:17.320" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="4982" PostId="4830" Score="2" Text="&quot;This report was prepared by Life Cycle Associates, LLC for the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA).&quot; The RFA is the nation's largest ethanol lobby. From what I have seen, it looks very well done and even includes land-use change, but people are usually skeptical of sources from the industry itself, no matter how well substantiated the report is. Do you know of any other recent reports?" CreationDate="2015-11-16T13:44:34.537" UserDisplayName="user2433" />
  <row Id="4989" PostId="4830" Score="0" Text="@zagadka314 I added a second source, but it is based on older data (2010)" CreationDate="2015-11-17T17:57:09.747" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="4990" PostId="4830" Score="1" Text="I do like this source, it is very well done. I find it to be very reasonable. I also found a 2010 report by the EPA (over 1000 pages): http://www3.epa.gov/otaq/renewablefuels/420r10006.pdf" CreationDate="2015-11-18T01:19:55.273" UserDisplayName="user2433" />
  <row Id="4986" PostId="4832" Score="3" Text="Some context to your particular situation might (or might not) be useful... if you'd like to edit that into your question, you may get a more useful response." CreationDate="2015-11-17T06:40:08.210" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="4988" PostId="4832" Score="0" Text="related: http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/4400/48" CreationDate="2015-11-17T11:31:26.693" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="4997" PostId="4832" Score="0" Text="@EnergyNumbers I think i can understand some concepts about it, ty" CreationDate="2015-11-18T07:52:22.183" UserId="2786" />
  <row Id="4996" PostId="4833" Score="0" Text="I see. Ground-source heat pump is not exactly a form of Geothermal energy" CreationDate="2015-11-18T07:50:34.773" UserId="2786" />
  <row Id="4998" PostId="4833" Score="0" Text="Ground-source heat pump is not a form of geothermal energy at all." CreationDate="2015-11-18T07:55:35.627" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="4999" PostId="4833" Score="0" Text="So the geothermal heat pump refers to geothermal energy?" CreationDate="2015-11-18T08:05:10.907" UserId="2786" />
  <row Id="5000" PostId="4833" Score="0" Text="Can you give a specific example of a &quot;geothermal heat pump&quot;?" CreationDate="2015-11-18T08:06:22.993" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="5001" PostId="4833" Score="0" Text="I just read an article from here(http://energy.gov/energysaver/heat-pump-systems) in paragraph 4, it says that geothermal heat pump includes ground source heat pump and water source heat pump, is that true?" CreationDate="2015-11-18T08:16:12.727" UserId="2786" />
  <row Id="5002" PostId="4833" Score="1" Text="Oh, I see. That is weird." CreationDate="2015-11-18T08:17:10.203" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="5022" PostId="4838" Score="1" Text="But now you don't know if you have enough light. And all of your input numbers have uncertainties. Energy consumption per person. Available energy per tomato. How representative a tomato is of food generally (these people aren't going to live on tomatoes alone). Growth rates. Success rates. And so on." CreationDate="2015-11-19T09:39:40.487" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="5025" PostId="4840" Score="0" Text="A good test must certainly include transportation, housing, diet, purchase habbits, and your local energy system. I noticed many tests do not allow one to choose things like what their car runs on (I have an electric car)." CreationDate="2015-11-19T21:32:32.537" UserDisplayName="user2433" />
  <row Id="5028" PostId="4840" Score="2" Text="One would first need to spend hours putting accurate numbers into such a test. If you want an accurate answer you need accurate inputs, so it's not enough just to enter your daily food intake as total kilojoules consumed, one needs to specify the supplier of ones organic whole milk as well as the means by which it is transported." CreationDate="2015-11-21T20:06:39.670" UserId="1255" />
  <row Id="5071" PostId="4840" Score="1" Text="It seems to me that it might be more useful to have a spreadsheet (much as I distrust them) that one could download, with a lot of pre-loaded factors for uncertain factors (such as type of energy generation), which one can override by entering more specific data in other cells. Ideally the inputs should be on one sheet and the calculations on another, so one could download updated calculations without losing one’s inputs." CreationDate="2015-12-03T15:46:43.113" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="5304" PostId="4841" Score="0" Text="Agree. I had several pairs of bamboo socks I bought out of curiosity. they were soft and comfy but wore out much faster than all other kinds." CreationDate="2016-01-13T12:37:53.423" UserId="1567" />
  <row Id="5038" PostId="4847" Score="0" Text="&quot;Low&quot; hydro dams usually have a fall of 20m or more, and those are rare because not much power is available. Normal or &quot;high&quot; hydro dams are more likely 100m-1000m of fall. So it would need to be a tall house to even count as &quot;low head&quot; :) And you don't have even a small river running through the downpipes." CreationDate="2015-11-24T22:07:55.303" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="5065" PostId="4848" Score="2" Text="If you live in a climate that gets a meter of rain per year and you have a 100 m2 house, then the roof will collect about 100 m3 of water per year.  That's 100,000 kg.  15 m * 100,000 kg * 10nt/kg = 15 million joules.  Not quite half a kilowatt hour." CreationDate="2015-12-02T19:57:58.460" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="5035" PostId="4850" Score="0" Text="A related question: [What is the most efficient way to deal with electronic wastes?](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/1249/99)" CreationDate="2015-11-24T12:08:50.020" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="5102" PostId="4850" Score="0" Text="If you search on [Pinterest](https://www.pinterest.com/search/pins/?q=recycle%20cd&amp;rs=typed&amp;term_meta%5B%5D=recycle%7Ctyped&amp;term_meta%5B%5D=cd%7Ctyped) there are a myriad of possibilities, for example lamps and mirrors. I wouldn't put it in the microwave or in the oven, though." CreationDate="2015-12-08T13:39:55.213" UserId="2851" />
  <row Id="16513" PostId="4850" Score="0" Text="CDs do not have cyanide. However, some CD-R disks have cyanine which is cyan in color. Nothing to do with cyanide." CreationDate="2023-10-21T10:39:11.803" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="5036" PostId="4852" Score="1" Text="Could you provide the references you refer to? Why Truvia and not just plain old stevia or any other of the ingredients of Truvia?" CreationDate="2015-11-24T17:34:41.983" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="5037" PostId="4852" Score="1" Text="The study can be found [here](http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0098949), but a more accessible news article about it can be found [here](http://www.cbsnews.com/news/truvia-sweetener-is-toxic-to-fruit-flies-study-finds/). Since Truvia works as an insecticide, I am wondering if it is really safe for the worms. It seems there has been no research on the effects on other insects." CreationDate="2015-11-24T21:40:07.487" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="16359" PostId="4854" Score="0" Text="[The seasoning on cast iron is formed by fat polymerization, fat polymerization is maximized with a drying oil, and flaxseed oil is the only drying oil that’s edible.](https://sherylcanter.com/wordpress/2010/01/a-science-based-technique-for-seasoning-cast-iron/)" CreationDate="2023-04-14T09:53:25.940" UserId="13618" />
  <row Id="5041" PostId="4855" Score="2" Text="Are you interested in IN, the USA or anywhere? For example in NSW, straw bale is fairly widely accepted, even in some high-density urban areas. Also note that Earthships specifically are not socially or financially sustainable as they rely on huge amounts of labour, so to be affordable the labour has to be free. Thus they meet the &quot;sustainable materials&quot; test (loosely speaking, since they ignore the embodied energy and toxics on the basis that the tyres are recovered material) but not most other measures of sustainability." CreationDate="2015-11-26T03:49:42.033" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="5048" PostId="4855" Score="0" Text="Is that any more true of Earthships than of other techniques? I know that rammed earth is used in Africa, for example, and that doesn't seem to require any less labor than Earthships." CreationDate="2015-11-27T15:59:34.640" UserId="2261" />
  <row Id="5050" PostId="4855" Score="1" Text="The tyres seem to be an exceptionally labour-inefficient container for rammed earth. They amount to making rammed earth bricks in place, where a normal wall just has forms and you run up and down working on a 2-3m long section at a time, instead of a .5m section. Also, much of the pounding is to get the earth to actually fill the tyre, especially the bit where you're pounding the middle down in an effort to get the outside edges to go up. Normal forms are designed to be easy to fill. The difference is dramatic in practice, 3-4 people can build so much more wall in a week without the tyres." CreationDate="2015-11-27T20:49:25.000" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="5051" PostId="4855" Score="1" Text="That reminds me... I had forgotten [compressed earth blocks] (http://www.dirtcheapbuilder.com/Home_Building/Earth_Block_Construction.htm) as a building technique. That would have the advantages of Earth ships without the need for tires." CreationDate="2015-11-27T21:30:19.073" UserId="2261" />
  <row Id="5052" PostId="4855" Score="0" Text="Scott, we're still wondering what your question is." CreationDate="2015-11-27T21:36:01.517" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="5053" PostId="4855" Score="0" Text="Sorry, I thought I'd been clear. The question is, which sustainable building morbid are most suitable in contexts where constraints imposed by building codes have to be considered? I'm hoping that the answer is not &quot;none of them&quot;." CreationDate="2015-11-27T21:39:42.887" UserId="2261" />
  <row Id="5064" PostId="4855" Score="0" Text="@ScottDeerwester: Can you provide a location? Building codes vary heavily." CreationDate="2015-12-02T19:26:47.640" UserId="2826" />
  <row Id="5066" PostId="4855" Score="0" Text="I'm in Carroll County, Indiana, but if there's a more general answer, I'd be very interested in that as well." CreationDate="2015-12-02T23:46:09.477" UserId="2261" />
  <row Id="5055" PostId="4856" Score="0" Text="what made you think that the system doesn't flood or drain?" CreationDate="2015-11-30T13:52:42.790" UserId="2297" />
  <row Id="5060" PostId="4856" Score="0" Text="This is the part that made me think that:  &quot;The water circulates 15 min every hour. I'm not using siphon setup but water flow one. At the bottom I have a gravel to filter it and at the top I use clay pellets in which I seeded the seeds.  The white drain pipe goes up to where the clay pellets and the gravel meets.&quot;   &#xA;&#xA;To me, it sounds like he has a few inches of water up to the stand pipe at all times.  Then when the 15 minutes of pumping turns on, there is some flooding, which then drains back out.&#xA;&#xA;Did I understand incorrectly?" CreationDate="2015-12-01T17:16:58.247" UserId="2803" />
  <row Id="5049" PostId="4861" Score="2" Text="Kinetic energy is 'moving' energy.  You mean chemical energy (from gas), or electrical energy (from electricity)." CreationDate="2015-11-27T17:54:17.443" UserId="2802" />
  <row Id="5069" PostId="4861" Score="0" Text="@EricDeloak: edited the question, including your point" CreationDate="2015-12-03T15:14:45.543" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="5070" PostId="4861" Score="0" Text="Some points: if you boil 10 l in advance, you may sometimes bol too much. As answers indicate: heat losses are a problem; don’t use a kettle on a hot plate; make sure you boil the right amount. I have **marked the scale on our kettle** with the amounts needed for various pots and numbers of cups. If you keep the water standing all day, you may find it acquires an unpleasant taste. I am disappointed that none of the answers so far have given typical figures, so one can make a **quantitative** judgement." CreationDate="2015-12-03T15:18:41.053" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="5044" PostId="4862" Score="0" Text="So in other words... It make no much difference... so much for my energy saving scheme... *sigh*" CreationDate="2015-11-26T18:23:03.640" UserId="2807" />
  <row Id="5090" PostId="4863" Score="0" Text="Also, you might find that using hot water from a solar hot water system works even better, assuming you can afford one and have a roof you can install it on." CreationDate="2015-12-06T10:58:18.783" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="5375" PostId="4863" Score="0" Text="And heating with gas is generally more energy efficient than doing it electrically." CreationDate="2016-01-28T12:30:54.283" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="5378" PostId="4863" Score="0" Text="@JanDoggen can you explain that a bit more? Resistive electric heaters are normally close to 100% efficient while gas heaters lose heat up the flue." CreationDate="2016-01-28T20:05:05.633" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="5384" PostId="4863" Score="0" Text="You don't lose it at the heating point, but in the generation of the electricty." CreationDate="2016-01-29T08:25:41.060" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="5385" PostId="4863" Score="0" Text="@JanDoggen so somewhere between the solar PV array and the water heater? I think there are so many unknowns in your statement that the best you can say is that &quot;in different places one or the other is more efficient&quot;. Some parts of India have piped gas and coal power, others have bottled gas trucked great distances to compete with local wind farms. Those questions are very local." CreationDate="2016-01-29T08:35:23.347" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="10581" PostId="4869" Score="0" Text="Thanks Flyto, this should be the clearest answer I've found." CreationDate="2018-12-27T09:57:08.210" UserId="2786" />
  <row Id="5057" PostId="4870" Score="0" Text="Thanks. It would be very cool to have some figures -- maybe you know some? I think we all had this experience of reviving old machineth with the good *nix spirit. But I'm also wondering if there's a more or less objective measure. E.g., running some task and measuring power consumption. Or if anyone cared to look how long the same laptop lasts when Win and when a Linux is booted. Actually, I still have not taken Win down on a couple of dual boot laptops -- I should experiment before windows goes." CreationDate="2015-12-01T00:16:27.383" UserId="2661" />
  <row Id="5058" PostId="4870" Score="0" Text="And also, do you know anything specific about how to know which distros are more efficient than others? From a very impressionistic experience, Ubuntu (and even ALTLinux?) are heavier than Arch. But then it depends on the window manager and what not." CreationDate="2015-12-01T00:19:19.667" UserId="2661" />
  <row Id="5289" PostId="4870" Score="4" Text="I revived a 1998 HP Notebook with the Ubuntu-based  WattOS  (see distrowatch.com or directly www.planetwatt.com) for details. It claims to be an energy-efficient Linux distro. By the way, power consumption translates to battery endurance, should be easy to measure." CreationDate="2016-01-07T00:16:26.400" UserId="1581" />
  <row Id="5062" PostId="4871" Score="1" Text="What problem are you trying to solve? Heat generation or heat distribution?" CreationDate="2015-12-02T05:07:13.960" UserId="1462" />
  <row Id="5068" PostId="4874" Score="0" Text="You say microwave is very efficient: how does the energy to boil a 1 L pot in the microwave compare with that in a type 2 to 3 kW kettle? (Perhaps you could edit it into your answer.)" CreationDate="2015-12-03T15:07:55.330" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="5067" PostId="4876" Score="1" Text="I agree with Wout. Reducing or stopping entirely would be best. When I was in college I started drinking more and more coffee until I reached a point where I noticed I couldn't go without (or else I would get a headache). So I decided to cut down. Over a few months I gradually reduced my intake to 1 or 2 cups a day without any problems." CreationDate="2015-12-03T08:30:59.553" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="5073" PostId="4876" Score="1" Text="You won't go to the bathroom more often, coffee is a diuretic and makes you pee before you really should from a hydration standpoint. Once you are hydrates up again, you'll stop drinking more as much water." CreationDate="2015-12-03T18:21:21.977" UserId="2155" />
  <row Id="5074" PostId="4880" Score="0" Text="I think nutritional value is one of the key variables. If Xmilk has 20 nutrients but costs 2O gallons of water, and Ymilk has 30 nutrients but costs 20 gallons of water then Y milk is the most viable. This is an over simplification of course." CreationDate="2015-12-03T19:27:31.830" UserId="2155" />
  <row Id="5078" PostId="4880" Score="1" Text="For sustainability, location is often an important factor because transportation may have a big influence on the impact. Where do you live?" CreationDate="2015-12-04T07:58:10.873" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="5125" PostId="4880" Score="0" Text="While I agree nutrition has some influence over sustainability, I do not believe it to be the primary factor of sustainability. For example are we talking caloric nutrition, the amount of sugar, calcium, vitamins etc... (all of this will be of greater importance depending on whether one is aiming to lose weight, is diabetic etc... Nutrition is perhaps too subjective). I am from the Chicago area. However, my primary inquiry was the analysis of production (ie. effect on deforestation and other environmental influences)." CreationDate="2015-12-11T22:12:13.997" UserId="2733" />
  <row Id="5143" PostId="4880" Score="1" Text="Interesting question.  I can't give a good answer, but I suspect it will come down to the tricky process of balancing different kinds of environmental impact.  E.g. most almonds are grown in California, where they increase demands on already scarce water; while deforestation and clearing of fragile ecosystems is a problem for soya.  I guess the thing to do is go for whichever one you can find from a good supplier with traceability and high standards (e.g. look for organic, fair trade, companies with strict and independently audited environmental policies)." CreationDate="2015-12-14T14:14:50.330" UserId="1445" />
  <row Id="5144" PostId="4880" Score="0" Text="All good points. Are there any primary resources for tracing a company's overall responsibility? Too many companies tend to greenwash their products rather than being forthright about how they are produced." CreationDate="2015-12-14T14:16:55.287" UserId="2733" />
  <row Id="5156" PostId="4880" Score="0" Text="[Ethical Consumer](http://www.ethicalconsumer.org) is worth a look (detailed info only available to subscribers)." CreationDate="2015-12-15T13:50:18.230" UserId="1445" />
  <row Id="5079" PostId="4884" Score="2" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living and thank you for your answer! Do you know if this is something that has been investigated scientifically, that slow growing vegetables contain more nutrients I mean?" CreationDate="2015-12-04T13:48:47.500" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="5083" PostId="4885" Score="0" Text="Possums aren't native to New Zealand." CreationDate="2015-11-29T09:06:09.753" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="5084" PostId="4885" Score="0" Text="@HighlyIrregular They're still present as an introduced species." CreationDate="2015-11-29T09:46:03.340" UserDisplayName="jpatokal" />
  <row Id="5085" PostId="4885" Score="0" Text="@HighlyIrregular that's why they're trying to eliminate them!" CreationDate="2015-11-29T10:00:39.280" UserId="179" />
  <row Id="5086" PostId="4885" Score="0" Text="My point was that because they aren't native, they aren't living in their native habitats anywhere within NZ (this addresses part of the question)." CreationDate="2015-11-29T21:25:11.377" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="5087" PostId="4885" Score="1" Text="@Highly Irregular assuming the fur is from NZ (though I wouldn't have a problem with sugar glider possum fur from Tasmania either)." CreationDate="2015-11-29T21:32:29.050" UserId="179" />
  <row Id="5088" PostId="4885" Score="0" Text="Possum farming is illegal in NZ. All possum fur used comes from (or should) wild animals." CreationDate="2015-11-30T12:55:42.490" UserId="318" />
  <row Id="5089" PostId="4886" Score="2" Text="Can you provide evidence that possum farms exist? I couldn't find any." CreationDate="2015-12-06T04:16:30.640" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="5108" PostId="4888" Score="0" Text="There is a similar question on Home Improvement SE: [Do USB sockets draw power when not in use](http://diy.stackexchange.com/q/15732)" CreationDate="2015-12-10T08:24:05.640" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="5098" PostId="4891" Score="0" Text="Thanks for this, which is a useful start. Can you be any more concrete about the amount of water needed to dissipate enough heat?" CreationDate="2015-12-08T02:29:15.410" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="5099" PostId="4891" Score="2" Text="@PJTraill: That depends on how much power the kettle uses &amp; how much heat the heating element generates. It's why manufacturers place a minimum water level mark on kettles. To boil small amounts of water, for 1 or 2 cups, a travel kettle is an option; their capacity is usually no more than 500-600 mL." CreationDate="2015-12-08T02:37:33.903" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="5122" PostId="4891" Score="0" Text="@PJTraill yes, the amount specified by the manufacturer and indicated by the markings on the side." CreationDate="2015-12-11T21:22:30.163" UserId="1255" />
  <row Id="11876" PostId="4891" Score="0" Text="If you have gas stove, consider using that instead. Unless your electricity is from renewable sources, it is more efficient to generate heat from natural gas and not electricity." CreationDate="2019-11-21T15:27:40.160" UserId="8149" />
  <row Id="16501" PostId="4891" Score="0" Text="@TomášZato: But does the kettle not transfer heat to the water with lower losses? I always assumed quite a lot of heat from a gas cooker went into the air." CreationDate="2023-10-10T21:35:13.580" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="16500" PostId="4893" Score="0" Text="While that is a good point about the sensor, one could always avoid that problem by turning it off manually (as also suggested in Highly Irregular’s answer: https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/a/4892/2828)." CreationDate="2023-10-10T21:30:13.670" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="5100" PostId="4894" Score="0" Text="Thanks.  Currently, I use wall warts connected to switches (to use less energy), but it is quite a mess.  Also, I incur the cost of those switches, and the planet incurs the environmental and energy costs of producing those switches." CreationDate="2015-12-08T08:29:21.433" UserId="2727" />
  <row Id="5101" PostId="4894" Score="0" Text="@RockPaperLizard that's a good point.  The marginal materials cost of switched sockets at installation time will be tiny, I would *guess* that for typical efficiencies of modern switch-mode power supplies at idle you might use fewer resources not fitting the switch, especially if you unplug for long periods at idle and use good quality power supplies.  Without the ability to unplug the built-in adaptors remove this option (the only one we have is on the same circuit as the fridge)." CreationDate="2015-12-08T09:28:21.517" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="5123" PostId="4894" Score="0" Text="We use what's effectively a powered USB hub so we can charge multiple devices from a single power supply, as well as preferentially using the USB outlets on the computer for charging since the computer has to produce 5V anyway." CreationDate="2015-12-11T21:24:02.063" UserId="1255" />
  <row Id="5124" PostId="4894" Score="1" Text="@Ⴖuі, that might well help but given how variable efficiency can be both as a function of load and between makes/models it would take a lot of work to be sure what's most efficient. It wouldn't even translate well from one person's hardware to another's." CreationDate="2015-12-11T21:51:48.137" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="5107" PostId="4897" Score="0" Text="That is indeed the one I was thinking of!" CreationDate="2015-12-09T19:34:10.363" UserId="2826" />
  <row Id="9700" PostId="4898" Score="0" Text="35 tons may sound a colossal amount, but (if I have done my sums right) a daily recommendation of 100 μg (taken from the range you quote) comes to roughly 0.03 grams/year, so that 35 [tons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ton#Units_of_mass/weight) (if you mean 35 megagrams) would cover 100 million people – does that not sound reasonable?" CreationDate="2018-05-16T11:15:49.917" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="9715" PostId="4898" Score="0" Text="Using google's calculator - I think we are making enough for everyone 7.6 billion every year - low end of 2.5 : ((2.5* 365) micrograms * 7.6 billion) in tons = 7 tons -- high end of ((100* 365) micrograms * 7.6 billion) in tons == 305 tons. With like 2% of the world vegan &amp; taking supplements, I have no idea where all that extra goes to." CreationDate="2018-05-17T19:46:00.220" UserId="2858" />
  <row Id="16097" PostId="4898" Score="0" Text="According to some sources, 90% of all B12 is given to farm animals, which would explain the massive levels of production." CreationDate="2022-11-20T09:14:21.387" UserId="14503" />
  <row Id="5109" PostId="4899" Score="0" Text="That is a fantastic design and implementation!  The cost, however, is astronomically high.  Financially speaking, it might take decades for such a device to pay for itself.  Environmentally speaking, it might be a net gain both for new installations and where the existing receptacle could be reused in another location." CreationDate="2015-12-10T09:26:04.443" UserId="2727" />
  <row Id="5126" PostId="4899" Score="0" Text="On thinking about it more, it's not really a *fantastic* design and implementation.  When a USB cord is plugged into the outlet, it will still draw power, even when no device is connected to the USB cord.  Since outlets are commonly located behind desks, it would be normal to have one or more USB cord(s) plugged in at all times, even when no devices are attached." CreationDate="2015-12-11T22:14:30.903" UserId="2727" />
  <row Id="5128" PostId="4899" Score="1" Text="You've got a good point. It does seem like a good design on a first look but practically it would end up being worse due to the high initial cost. If you think about it,  there can't be a perfect solution for this problem. There will always be a small power leak. I wonder if there is a energy certification for these sockets." CreationDate="2015-12-12T04:52:49.540" UserId="2860" />
  <row Id="5110" PostId="4900" Score="1" Text="Don't compare apples and oranges. 'Pollution' as in cities is usually about nitrogen and sulphur compounds in the air. That is only loosely coupled to CO2 emissions (depending on the industrial activities)." CreationDate="2015-12-10T11:28:58.503" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="5120" PostId="4900" Score="0" Text="I can't remember the study, but there was some research done that indicates that poorer cities have such poor air quality principly due to cooking fuel. I.e. Wood or dung rather than gas or electric. It also showed that the people who cooked principly with theses fuels were in general less health than the rest of the population." CreationDate="2015-12-11T17:28:33.990" UserId="2155" />
  <row Id="11635" PostId="4900" Score="0" Text="@JanDoggen are you referring to NOx and SOx? This is how I usually see air-borne nitrogen- and sulfur-based compounds named in the literature." CreationDate="2019-10-31T14:48:21.107" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11638" PostId="4900" Score="0" Text="@LShaver Mainly yes. There's also ammonium (NH3/4+)" CreationDate="2019-10-31T17:56:35.947" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="5111" PostId="4901" Score="2" Text="[This news article](http://indianexpress.com/article/cities/delhi/the-most-polluted-city-in-the-world-delhi-suffers-from-a-toxic-blend-study/) confirms several of the points I made. It's a combination of population size, traffic, industry, geographical location, poor energy sources and unfavourable weather." CreationDate="2015-12-10T12:20:11.107" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="5118" PostId="4902" Score="1" Text="Thanks a ton! You cleared the air regarding air-pollution:)" CreationDate="2015-12-11T15:29:23.440" UserId="2861" />
  <row Id="5112" PostId="4903" Score="0" Text="The true master of knives shaves with a cut-throat razor. Such razors used to be passed on from generation to generation, so they are pretty sustainable, but require skill, both in use and in maintenance. I prefer cut-throat razors to multi-bladed razors (razor burn) and getting a close shave is also a matter of skill, but you have to invest more time." CreationDate="2015-12-10T23:29:45.700" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="5114" PostId="4903" Score="2" Text="FWIW I suspect that the production and disposal/recycling of the metals have a similar or perhaps even bigger environmental impact than the production and disposal of the plastic." CreationDate="2015-12-11T08:02:16.857" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="5115" PostId="4903" Score="0" Text="oh is it, dint know this angle, i thought we are better off with metals than with plastic." CreationDate="2015-12-11T11:16:04.360" UserId="2734" />
  <row Id="5119" PostId="4903" Score="1" Text="If you care for your razor heads, they'll stay sharp and last for months. You take care of them by rinsing well, tapping the water off and storing them so the air can move freely around them. I change my razor heads once per month or two when they start tugging more than cutting." CreationDate="2015-12-11T17:20:02.223" UserId="2155" />
  <row Id="5121" PostId="4903" Score="2" Text="@Earthliŋ yes, often from the user of a cut-throat razor to their male next of kin, or from the user's widow to his son." CreationDate="2015-12-11T21:20:58.513" UserId="1255" />
  <row Id="5116" PostId="4904" Score="1" Text="In [this article](http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/the_green_lantern/2010/12/trimming_your_carbon_footprint.html) they tried to answer the same question.&#xA;I disagree with some of the assumptions made in the article (lifespan of electric razor only 4 years, I have mine for about 20 years now), but it does show you what is involved in determining which is better.&#xA;BTW, the conclusion is that overall electric shaving is better (compared to disposable razors)." CreationDate="2015-12-11T11:34:48.823" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="5117" PostId="4905" Score="0" Text="I throw out only the blade with the Gillette Mach 3 as well, I mean the blade strip, not the handle thing. I use one with replaceable blades, but the blade has plastic too, thats my concern." CreationDate="2015-12-11T12:03:32.873" UserId="2734" />
  <row Id="5127" PostId="4905" Score="1" Text="@WhirlMind: Of course you don't throw out the handle! Anyway, see Ⴖuі's answer -- it's the same idea, only spelled out more explicitly." CreationDate="2015-12-11T23:32:20.123" UserId="2661" />
  <row Id="5192" PostId="4907" Score="0" Text="It is better to use natural alternative which help to avoid overhead of recycling. A related question(dup?) [natural alternatives of toothpaste](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/4429/what-are-the-natural-alternatives-for-toothpaste)" CreationDate="2015-12-18T12:25:34.707" UserId="836" />
  <row Id="5201" PostId="4907" Score="0" Text="I use it too and there are also different tastes you can choose from." CreationDate="2015-12-21T13:39:41.503" UserId="840" />
  <row Id="5211" PostId="4907" Score="1" Text="@SonofEarth I don't think this question is a duplicate. Something can be natural and not sustainable (e.g. water in the desert). Also something can be synthetic and still be sustainable (e.g. vitamins)." CreationDate="2015-12-22T14:40:54.993" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="15408" PostId="4907" Score="0" Text="I heard ancient people used salt for keeping their teeth clean." CreationDate="2022-01-01T09:33:04.663" UserId="13592" />
  <row Id="5209" PostId="4908" Score="1" Text="I can't find it now but I read an article about this probably about a year ago, which cited figures.  The conclusion they reached was that pot-grown trees are best, if you keep them for several years -- slightly more transport emissions per tree, fewer trees per house." CreationDate="2015-12-22T10:09:01.227" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="5136" PostId="4909" Score="1" Text="Thanks for the answer. Ideally I'm looking to quantify the various factors so we can calculate a carbon footprint for buying a christmas tree. On your last point, it's important to take into account the carbon that is stored during the lifetime of the tree. It's not an issue that the carbon is released during disposal - after all, that is the case for all trees in the wild. If a christmas tree is planted on land that wouldn't have otherwise had a carbon storing plant (or a less efficient one) then there is a carbon benefit while it is alive." CreationDate="2015-12-13T21:12:01.870" UserId="2869" />
  <row Id="5137" PostId="4909" Score="3" Text="@JBentley from what I've seen christmas tree farms are not net carbon stores, they either coppice, or they plough or burn before regrowing. Temporarily storing some carbon over a 2-5 year lifespan isn't useful in terms of carbon emissions, any more than many of a CCS schemes where the design life is under a century." CreationDate="2015-12-14T01:17:13.030" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="5135" PostId="4910" Score="1" Text="A great, totally different angle on the subject, I would have never thought of it myself. However, I was looking at factors within my control, as a lay user, the choices I can make (without upsetting many other choices like where I live or how the water gets pumped). &#xA;&#xA;For the fact, though, I live in an arid region, water gets pumped from distant rivers through government pumping stations or from lakes. There is also some pumping from borewells when groundwater is available." CreationDate="2015-12-13T16:13:51.467" UserId="2734" />
  <row Id="5145" PostId="4910" Score="1" Text="In that case you may be able to find out from the water company what the carbon footprint of the pumped water is, or you may be able to see the financial data from the agency or company/ government department.. What country are you in?" CreationDate="2015-12-14T15:13:04.280" UserId="2870" />
  <row Id="5134" PostId="4911" Score="1" Text="I keep aside all throwaway items with reusable material separately, and give away to the scrap dealer once in a few months. Between the two, metal and plastic, is it true that metal has a chance of recycling better than plastic ? Is plastic as reusable as steel/aluminium ? I was thinking of the decay time also as a consideration apart from carbon component." CreationDate="2015-12-13T09:46:15.630" UserId="2734" />
  <row Id="5146" PostId="4911" Score="2" Text="Correct - most plastics tend to degenerate each time they are processed. Whereas metals are more stable." CreationDate="2015-12-14T15:14:29.953" UserId="2870" />
  <row Id="14927" PostId="4911" Score="0" Text="The problem is with mixed materials. Separating out less than a gram of stainless steel from two or three types of plastic in a disposable razor is a lot of work expended for little return (this is why some countries burn plastic). The advantage of most safety razors when they finally fail is that they're generally steel and aluminium, which can be (and sometimes are, even today) separated by melting out the aluminium then collecting the steel from the bottom of the pot when there's enough for it to be worth while. Ideally you would separate them but... 99% of people don't." CreationDate="2021-08-23T00:25:12.490" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="5138" PostId="4915" Score="0" Text="With a strong level of technical ability, or some persistence, one could rig up a Raspberry Pi to do it... would cost a couple of hundred dollars for the parts I'd guess." CreationDate="2015-12-14T09:04:18.523" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="5139" PostId="4915" Score="1" Text="Why is a smarthphone app out of the question?" CreationDate="2015-12-14T09:23:19.653" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="5140" PostId="4915" Score="0" Text="The question appears to be asking for something web based and to rule out a thermometer on the outside of your house. If this is not intended, maybe adjust the wording." CreationDate="2015-12-14T10:16:04.863" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="5250" PostId="4915" Score="0" Text="How about running a script on your home computer (or something like a raspberry pi) that polls a weather forecasting service that offers an API (for example, [wunderground](http://www.wunderground.com/weather/api/d/pricing.html)), then you can extract current conditions for temperature humidity  as well as the day's forecast to decide if you want to open the window or not - use Slack's API to send notifications." CreationDate="2015-12-31T05:52:47.987" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="5147" PostId="4921" Score="0" Text="Closely related, almost a duplicate: http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/829/106" CreationDate="2015-12-15T11:20:02.660" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="5148" PostId="4921" Score="0" Text="You may want to read up on [Electric aircraft](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_aircraft)." CreationDate="2015-12-15T11:21:41.950" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="5149" PostId="4921" Score="2" Text="As it stands now, I find your question rather broad and subjective.  It would fit better if you focus your question on one objectively answerable aspect." CreationDate="2015-12-15T11:22:39.520" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="5150" PostId="4921" Score="0" Text="@gerrit: Hardly. The one you're linking is an inquiry about the state of things _now_. I'm curious about what we should be _doing_ to make the crossing sustainable. As you may have noticed, I've mentioned upgraded and modernized tall ships and airships." CreationDate="2015-12-15T11:26:56.210" UserId="2702" />
  <row Id="5151" PostId="4921" Score="0" Text="I do not consider it a duplicate.  Indeed, I'm asking about the present, you're asking about the future, we're both asking about the sustainability of transatlantic crossings, so I consider them quite closely related.  When the future is here, they will become duplicates ;-)" CreationDate="2015-12-15T11:27:49.403" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="5153" PostId="4921" Score="0" Text="@gerrit: I'll drink to that!" CreationDate="2015-12-15T11:31:50.340" UserId="2702" />
  <row Id="5158" PostId="4921" Score="0" Text="Show me any vehicle suitable for long distance (so not a bicycle) that *doesn't* use most of its energy to move the vehicle rather than the occupants.... with that said, there was a lot of talk some years ago about freight ships being partially or wholly wind-powered. It seems to have died down again - presumably fuel prices never rose quite enough to make it compelling on economic grounds - but the use of modern wind technology for sea transport seems plausible. &#xA;Persuading people that they don't need fast long-distance travel is another matter, of course." CreationDate="2015-12-15T17:34:06.147" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="5152" PostId="4922" Score="0" Text="Good answer, actually. I only find one serious fault with it: I don't remember any big protests when the Concordes were grounded. Folks that used to spend 3.5 hours in the air accepted the doubling of their travel time without so much as a peep. Necessity is a tough mistress." CreationDate="2015-12-15T11:31:07.800" UserId="2702" />
  <row Id="5154" PostId="4922" Score="0" Text="@Ricky Perhaps instant death is a more compelling necessity than climate change that is more of a problem for future generations far away than current generations in the rich areas of the world." CreationDate="2015-12-15T11:33:03.983" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="5155" PostId="4922" Score="1" Text="I can easy answer your question on the RTG. The answer is the same in every unit. RTGs have wonderful energy densities, how abysmal power densities. The USAF once tried to build a fission plane, and found the power density of a direct cycle nuclear (which is much more efficient than an RTG, since a nuclear reactor is also an RTG) jet much too low." CreationDate="2015-12-15T12:27:43.537" UserId="1462" />
  <row Id="5157" PostId="4922" Score="0" Text="@Ricky I don't think enough people every used Concorde to result in &quot;mass protests&quot; - the 3.5 hour crossing was only ever available to the very wealthy!" CreationDate="2015-12-15T17:31:05.443" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="5159" PostId="4922" Score="0" Text="@gerrit: There's a thought. However, the rich &quot;areas&quot; are populated by humans, and humans don't really differ from one another all that much, no matter how much or how little they make a year, nor how much land they do or do not own. It is amazing how quickly humans get accustomed to anything, good or bad. Climate change may even reverse itself if this keeps up: conventional sweet crude did peak about a decade ago, and the annual increase in the world's oil production is due to other, _far more expensive_ types of oil that are getting less economically viable by the minute." CreationDate="2015-12-16T03:13:57.283" UserId="2702" />
  <row Id="5160" PostId="4922" Score="0" Text="An aircraft powered by an RTG could fly far and long so long as the lift is provided by something else. Didn't I mention airships in my post?" CreationDate="2015-12-16T03:15:10.813" UserId="2702" />
  <row Id="5186" PostId="4924" Score="2" Text="[how much power can a bicycle generator produce](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/4391/how-much-power-can-a-bicycle-generator-produce) is directly relevant to this question" CreationDate="2015-12-16T20:25:09.660" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="5163" PostId="4925" Score="0" Text="@THelper: I'm all in favor of brevity where brevity is called for. I had to describe the problem before posing the question on the chance that the description might lead to some original replies. I did so in as few words as I could. Thoughtful answers usually come from people capable of reading more than fifty words at a time. I'm not looking to get a bunch of conspiracy theories for my pains." CreationDate="2015-12-16T08:47:19.077" UserId="2702" />
  <row Id="5168" PostId="4925" Score="3" Text="The actual question asked is about what politicians know. Only the politicians in question can answer that. Speculating somewhat, I suspect the reason that politicians don't talk about moving away from cars is that people like cars, and politicians like votes." CreationDate="2015-12-16T09:39:17.153" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="5179" PostId="4925" Score="5" Text="Several countries, including the UK, have very high fuel taxes. And they also have heavy private motor traffic, and the consequential problems - just at a smaller scale than the US. But what is your actual question? Because if it's &quot;do politicians know something that other people don't, that they're not telling?&quot;, then that's unanswerable." CreationDate="2015-12-16T14:31:06.040" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="5180" PostId="4925" Score="0" Text="@EnergyNumbers: The heavy private auto traffic would indicate that the taxes aren't high enough. Quadruple them, and then quadruple them again. As for your question, we can hypothesize, at least. Pessimistically: the present population growth rates are not sustainable no matter how you scramble it, so they're putting off the end of civilization as we know it for as long as they can. Optimistically, a new energy source, perfectly clean, is just around the corner. Realistically, they're looking at the possible scenarios and have no answers as yet." CreationDate="2015-12-16T14:37:17.007" UserId="2702" />
  <row Id="5181" PostId="4925" Score="0" Text="@SimonW: There's an awful lot of politicians out there, and some of them are enemies. _Somebody_ could _emphatically_ say _something_ that would then be televised - just to get the message out. As it is, everyone who thinks we have a problem - including the members of this site here - are automatically marginalized as paranoid doomsayers, and I wonder why that is. As for the voters: President Obama no longer has to worry about those, does he. Nor does former president Clinton. There are also the two Bushes and Carter. Ditto Mssrs. Blair and Sarkozy." CreationDate="2015-12-16T14:45:08.337" UserId="2702" />
  <row Id="5182" PostId="4925" Score="4" Text="OK. While the conversation has been somewhat interesting, I'm voting to close as... I dunno. Too broad? Unanswerable / subjective? About politics more than sustainability? Take your pick :-) There might be some good questions buried in here along the lines of &quot;what are the advantages or disadvantages of $specific_policy&quot;, or similar." CreationDate="2015-12-16T15:05:53.537" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="5183" PostId="4925" Score="0" Text="@SimonW: Look, sport, there are enough _mainstream_ dudes voting to close, shut down, browbeat, and otherwise oppress original thought and intellectual discourse. As a member of _this_ forum, do you really want to join your voice to theirs?" CreationDate="2015-12-16T15:30:55.373" UserId="2702" />
  <row Id="5184" PostId="4925" Score="0" Text="Finally, an upvote. What took you guys so long, I wonder." CreationDate="2015-12-16T15:31:38.067" UserId="2702" />
  <row Id="6642" PostId="4925" Score="1" Text="Actually, there is one country that does this. Singapore. They tax new cars at a rate of about 150%." CreationDate="2016-03-23T17:40:09.323" UserId="1692" />
  <row Id="5162" PostId="4926" Score="3" Text="Please don't [cross-post the same question](http://earthscience.stackexchange.com/q/7100/1109) on multiple sites. If you are not sure which site is best to ask a question, try one site first and if you don't get a satisfactory response in a few days then either ask a moderator to migrate the question, or delete the question and try it again on another relevant site." CreationDate="2015-12-16T08:20:31.237" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="5164" PostId="4928" Score="0" Text="Thank you for the super-informative and thoughtful answer. Two cavils, though (do please forgive me). One, an our or two of obligatory spirited pedaling every day gets people in shape pretty fast. But, no, the data you've provided shows clearly that the idea is not feasible. Two, my problem with  photovoltaic panels is they use rare or precious metals of which there is a limited amount on this planet, i.e. they're _not_ sustainable. A minor point: the floor footage is actually insufficient (in my opinion), but one doesn't have to have every single room in the house heated or ... [to be cont.]" CreationDate="2015-12-16T09:06:50.377" UserId="2702" />
  <row Id="5165" PostId="4928" Score="0" Text="...cooled around the clock. Portable heaters can be made more efficient. As for air conditioning _in the States_ (Australia may be different in this aspect), if you can't take the heat, you should move up north. People turn on their airconditioners as soon as it's above 80 degrees, which is ridiculous. ... Apart from all that, something tells me that if we could get rid forever of the private automobile, we might just be able to keep our city metro systems (I'm a city boy: I love my subway. And what would Paris be without its metro?!)" CreationDate="2015-12-16T09:11:57.043" UserId="2702" />
  <row Id="5166" PostId="4928" Score="4" Text="If you exclude rare metals from the pedal generator efficiency drops or costs rise dramatically. But remember that &quot;rare&quot; minerals are only comparatively rare and we're in no danger of running out of them, they just get h=more expensive. They're often dramatically better than the alternatives, to the point of &quot;10000kg of extra steel, or 1kg of rare metals&quot;, because (for example) if the generator is bigger because the magnets are weaker, the whole wind turbine tower has to be bigger." CreationDate="2015-12-16T09:15:24.703" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="5185" PostId="4928" Score="2" Text="Watching the video, 78 cyclists sprinting for an 8.4kW shower = a bit over 100W per cyclist. Although the generators they're using are dismal, the tire-on-drum costs them at least 10% by itself." CreationDate="2015-12-16T20:20:41.890" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="5231" PostId="4928" Score="1" Text="Actual _electrical use_ (versus _energy use_) can be much lower with gas heat/appliances. I don't take any extraordinary energy savings steps, but my 2 person apartment uses around 4KWh per person per month. Still not feasible for bicycle power, though." CreationDate="2015-12-29T02:03:30.367" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="5234" PostId="4928" Score="1" Text="@Mσᶎ -  Oh sorry, typo, I meant 4KWh/day, not month - 1/3rd the 12KWh/day USA average." CreationDate="2015-12-29T02:18:39.237" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="5235" PostId="4928" Score="1" Text="As I said 4kWh/day per person is quite achievable using an electric-only system in much of the world, so using that excluding heating is unremarkable... except perhaps by north american standards. My relatives in Canada have a ground source heat pump system that took them to about 5kWh/day average until their kids left home, at which point the same size house but half the people meant their consumption didn't change much so per person it doubled. Which ties back to my point about appropriate house size being key." CreationDate="2015-12-29T02:23:38.523" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="5169" PostId="4929" Score="1" Text="I don't think you mean hydrolise. Electrolysis, perhaps? (by the way, we do have a site dedicated to [chemistry.se])" CreationDate="2015-12-14T14:10:58.660" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="5170" PostId="4929" Score="0" Text="Thanks - the word is 'electrolise'.  (it is also possible I might be better served on another site - let's wait and see)" CreationDate="2015-12-14T14:35:52.973" UserDisplayName="Hugh Jones" />
  <row Id="5174" PostId="4930" Score="0" Text="I would agree with you; I would also add that there hasn't been an industry on earth more vigorously subsidized than the auto industry: a major component of their product, the roads, is manufactured for them at the taxpayer's expense; however, let me point out to you that people do lie to get ahead, and sometimes, albeit rarely, they get ahead by lying in order to do the right thing. What could possibly stop a governor, a senator, or even the current President (with no more election campaigns to run) from at least _mentioning_ the problem? It's just odd, you know." CreationDate="2015-12-16T11:51:32.867" UserId="2702" />
  <row Id="5175" PostId="4930" Score="0" Text="@Ricky Congestion charges, which is essentially what is needed, are occasionally mentioned.  Private toll roads do exist, but AFAIK not in residential streets.  Arguably we need a highly dynamic street-level pricing system which prices access to streets based on current demand.  If the last 2 km cost 20$ people may decide to park 2 km away and walk the rest.  It would require some more technology than we currently have, though." CreationDate="2015-12-16T11:54:42.553" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="5176" PostId="4930" Score="0" Text="The obsession of fairly reasonable people with cars stems, I'm afraid, from the past centuries' rags-to-riches idea that one is not truly an important person unless he or she owns a horse-and-buggy. It's just a silly fetish, a habit far easier to kick than smoking. The war on tobacco in the U.S. (and the rest of the world too, I believe) has been somewhat successful. It started when the majority of voters were smokers." CreationDate="2015-12-16T12:17:47.393" UserId="2702" />
  <row Id="5177" PostId="4930" Score="0" Text="@Ricky For urban areas, I don't disagree with you, although in North America, many cities are extremely poorly designed on the *assumption* that people have a car — those are essentially failed cities.  In rural and remote areas, a car might make the difference of travelling 3 hours or 3 days to get to a city (or if it exits, waiting for a bus that might go at most once a day, forcing one to spend the night in that city)." CreationDate="2015-12-16T12:20:02.967" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="5178" PostId="4930" Score="0" Text="Some of those failed cities can be redesigned. Paris was once, and is no worse for it. Unsustainable cities should contract or be allowed to fail. ... People choose to live in rural areas or urban areas. As for the holiday trip to the shopping district with the obligatory visit of the opera house: when there's a demand, supply isn't far behind. Trains, light rail, trolleybuses - there's always something. Rumor has it that with the exception of a forty-mile stretch in Upstate New York, one could get from Main to Michigan by streetcar until Robert Moses and GM came and ripped out the tracks." CreationDate="2015-12-16T13:18:43.220" UserId="2702" />
  <row Id="5210" PostId="4932" Score="4" Text="I always though that baking soda is a good ingredient for home-made toothpaste. I never heard of using only baking soda, so I googled it. FWIW I found [this interesting article](http://www.md-health.com/Brushing-Teeth-With-Baking-Soda.html). It discusses some pros and cons of using baking soda as a tooth paste." CreationDate="2015-12-22T14:39:17.303" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="5189" PostId="4936" Score="1" Text="I've voted to close the question since it appears to be a duplicate, but if the other question doesn't cover what you need, then please explain, and we can keep it open." CreationDate="2015-12-17T07:48:29.253" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="5190" PostId="4936" Score="0" Text="hmm my question is related to the site test before any installation take place, whereas that question is related to monitoring of PV system after installation. I don't think its really similar." CreationDate="2015-12-18T08:14:37.817" UserId="2883" />
  <row Id="5195" PostId="4936" Score="0" Text="Ok, we'll need to reword the question I think. The title especially makes it sound like the tools needed are for an existing installation. Are you able to describe the kind of problems you're looking to solve? eg how to choose the correct orientation and tilt for the panels, how to choose wiring or inverter specs perhaps" CreationDate="2015-12-18T20:58:08.427" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="5230" PostId="4936" Score="2" Text="The original title (_Detailed breakdown of Solar PV installation site test_) made it more clear that he wants to do a site survey, not test an existing installation." CreationDate="2015-12-29T01:58:51.687" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="7850" PostId="4936" Score="0" Text="There are a number of tools on-line that provide historical weather data to give an estimate of power output from a proposed PV installation. Is that the sort of thing you're looking for? If so, we'll need to know your location in order to recommend the best tool." CreationDate="2016-12-20T18:31:16.650" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="5208" PostId="4937" Score="3" Text="If you extract very much heat to heat water, you soon won't have a hot compost heap." CreationDate="2015-12-22T10:01:56.067" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="5276" PostId="4937" Score="1" Text="Please let us know your results if you try this." CreationDate="2016-01-05T19:26:49.850" UserId="1701" />
  <row Id="15409" PostId="4937" Score="0" Text="Couldn't you just pump air from the bottom of the pile and then skip turning?" CreationDate="2022-01-01T09:50:04.743" UserId="13592" />
  <row Id="5246" PostId="4940" Score="1" Text="Reuse literally means use again (and again).  Clean it and reuse it in your household.   What you place in bins is recycled." CreationDate="2015-12-30T09:19:01.817" UserId="2914" />
  <row Id="5258" PostId="4940" Score="0" Text="@Frisbee To what extent do you reuse your own plastic food packaging? I cannot come up with many use cases for it." CreationDate="2016-01-03T08:55:13.493" UserId="2187" />
  <row Id="5259" PostId="4940" Score="0" Text="Then you don't have a use case.  To what extent do you want to use the correct term?  What you put in the bin is recycle." CreationDate="2016-01-03T09:25:44.327" UserId="2914" />
  <row Id="5193" PostId="4941" Score="1" Text="This (partially?) excludes plastic food packaging being reused for food packaging, but that does not mean  the plastic could not be recycled for other purposes." CreationDate="2015-12-18T12:37:20.717" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="5194" PostId="4941" Score="2" Text="@JanDoggen Correct, most recycled plastic is indeed used for other purposes (see also [this question](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/4490/99)). But the way I understood the question is that the OP is hoping that a closed loop is possible when it comes to food packaging. I'll revise my answer to make my own interpretation of the question more clear." CreationDate="2015-12-18T12:49:54.140" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="5197" PostId="4942" Score="1" Text="The first process you describe essentially produces rayon, if I understand correctly. Some countries (the US at least) have rules preventing that being sold as &quot;bamboo&quot;, to help consumers differentiate." CreationDate="2015-12-19T01:55:59.357" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="5198" PostId="4945" Score="3" Text="This site is focussed on factual answers. So as you seem to expect, I'd like to see references regarding the effectiveness of the preparations you're recommending. Have they been independently tested, and if so can you link to the studies please?  &quot;most people tend to believe AMA &amp; Pharma lobby&quot; because those are the people who gave us the polio vaccine and antibiotics." CreationDate="2015-12-20T20:32:13.737" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="5199" PostId="4945" Score="0" Text="There are factual answers, the pharma lobby does not want people to use natural sustainable medicine. Turmeric has been known for thousands of years as a great healing item, off late curcumin has become popular. &#xA;PS: The post links to Vicco labs - You check with them for medical research. Also, those facts can be verified by going through 'Charak Samhita' &amp; 'Ashtang Hriydaya' &#xA;&#xA;I dont trust AMA and you may choose not to trust these sources. Its a valid answer, choice is yours who to trust. &#xA;&#xA;Just like the Anti GMO and Pro GMO sides.. You choose who to trust." CreationDate="2015-12-21T09:51:34.813" UserId="2891" />
  <row Id="5200" PostId="4945" Score="0" Text="PS: I dont see any of the other any of the other answers provide any references. Sustainable alternative living will not have corporate funded lobbies &amp; papers promoting them - There is no profit for Pharma lobbies." CreationDate="2015-12-21T09:53:36.203" UserId="2891" />
  <row Id="5206" PostId="4948" Score="3" Text="Patching asphalt does generally increase the roughness, which is particularly a problem on high speed roads (eg 100km/hr) as a rough road is less safe (and less comfortable, and more noisy)." CreationDate="2015-12-22T09:05:16.850" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="5214" PostId="4948" Score="1" Text="Compulsory watching: [Sand Wars](http://sand-wars.com/)." CreationDate="2015-12-23T09:31:55.193" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="5238" PostId="4948" Score="0" Text="You have very quickly marked an answer as the 'correct' one, although it only mentions two aspects of sustainability. It is usually better to wait longer. Maybe other people have more to add about energy and raw material use, CO2 emissions, leaching of chemicals, etc" CreationDate="2015-12-29T12:19:37.557" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="5247" PostId="4948" Score="0" Text="5% of CO2 emissions comes from concrete. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eofV6li8GPc" CreationDate="2015-12-30T12:00:14.403" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="5248" PostId="4948" Score="0" Text="@JanDoggen: I haven't marked anything as correct, not yet.  ... The guy in the video talks about concrete manufacturing in general: buildings, fences, underground passages, etc, not just pavement. ... I'm pretty sure that the production of asphalt has its share of CO2 emissions as well." CreationDate="2015-12-30T18:22:48.860" UserId="2702" />
  <row Id="10358" PostId="4948" Score="1" Text="I came here wondering the same thing... sadly the answers are incomplete. I am choosing between asphalt and concrete for a driveway soon and want to make the best choice." CreationDate="2018-11-02T02:34:43.543" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10364" PostId="4948" Score="0" Text="@LShaver: In a seismically stable area, I'd go with concrete every time." CreationDate="2018-11-02T21:49:16.537" UserId="2702" />
  <row Id="5213" PostId="4949" Score="0" Text="note to self: paragraph wether the earth mass in the system is sufficient heat storage, but difficulties of marryign HX to heat distro (temp const after HX but different power, min flow for transfer!)" CreationDate="2015-12-23T08:47:59.107" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="5260" PostId="4949" Score="0" Text="Much depends on how the pyrolysis is done.   At some point surplus gas from the system needs to have enough oxygen to react to completion." CreationDate="2016-01-04T00:45:02.083" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="5261" PostId="4949" Score="0" Text="Rocket stove start with a surplus of oxygen, and produce very little CO.  If you want biochar as a product then you burn the offgas with a surplus of oxygen, and use the heat to do the pyrolizing." CreationDate="2016-01-04T00:46:58.203" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="5262" PostId="4949" Score="0" Text="If saving some of the distillates is a goal, then have a more complicated burner. The distilates have to be extracted, then the non-condensing ones used to heat the retort.  This option is non-trivial." CreationDate="2016-01-04T00:54:05.387" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="5245" PostId="4952" Score="0" Text="Both can be refilled and recycled.   I think you will get more pages with toner before you have to recycle but that is just my guess." CreationDate="2015-12-30T09:02:20.120" UserId="2914" />
  <row Id="10899" PostId="4952" Score="0" Text="Consider also the &quot;ink tank&quot; printers.  It might be that the environmental impact of the ink/toner itself is negligible compared to the container they are packaged in." CreationDate="2019-04-11T07:53:35.820" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="11302" PostId="4952" Score="1" Text="I would be particularly interested in the impact of plastic toner compared to ink when printed pages are recycled/thrown away." CreationDate="2019-08-11T16:44:23.153" UserId="6853" />
  <row Id="5218" PostId="4953" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Please note that shopping recommendations are off-topic here, that's why I removed that sentence from your question. Your question how things scale, or how much you can run with the described setup are fine." CreationDate="2015-12-26T11:28:37.617" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="5228" PostId="4953" Score="2" Text="Your power use questions ... &quot;no&quot;. A heater is typically at least 1kW, so for 12 hours overnight that's 12kWh. a 12V 200AH battery stores 2400Wh = 2.4kWh, so 6 of those is also 12kWh. But that means you can't have any losses in your system, like from an inverter or batteries that are less than perfect. Unfortunately the usable discharge from a lead-acid battery is between 20% and 80% depending on how many cycles you want, deeper discharge meaning fewer cycles. 100% discharge means 1-5 cycles then replace the batteries." CreationDate="2015-12-28T20:43:49.610" UserId="1255" />
  <row Id="5236" PostId="4953" Score="1" Text="There are lots of [solar calculators](https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&amp;ion=1&amp;espv=2&amp;ie=UTF-8#q=solar%20calculator) online that can help you plan a system. Without  knowing what your projected load and usage patterns will be, no one can tell you if the system you've spec'ed out is adequate." CreationDate="2015-12-29T03:32:11.933" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="6743" PostId="4953" Score="1" Text="Calculations of power required, together with its variation during a work day/week/year, are **inputs** necessary to give meaningful advice. After that, tell us what area you have available for the panels, in which direction they are facing, what amount of sunshine you have during the year. Only when these two blocks of information are present you can start looking at what type and size of equipment you will need, and *after that*, what is available. It seems as if you are missing some steps and immediately jump to the last one ;-) That is why &quot;*I don't have a clue*&quot;." CreationDate="2016-04-16T13:25:27.267" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="6744" PostId="4953" Score="0" Text="So get to work ;-), edit the necessary information into the question, so people can help you further. You may even want to divide your research into several steps and ask specific questions about those." CreationDate="2016-04-16T13:27:29.060" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="5219" PostId="4954" Score="3" Text="This answer doesn't really seem to provide a good answer to your own question, so it may be downvoted or removed. I think it would be best if you edit this extra information into your question (just click on the 'edit' option below the question post)." CreationDate="2015-12-26T11:30:53.093" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="5237" PostId="4954" Score="3" Text="So you've gone from a $2500 system to a $25000 system? Is this even a real question? That's an awfully big jump in system cost with no justification for the system size... along with ongoing costs as batteries need replaced periodically. At peak power your panels will put out a total of 250A of current (@24V), so your inverters and charge controller seem way underspec'ed. If you're serious about building this system, find a local solar integrator that can help you size the system appropriately otherwise you may end up thrown a lot of money at something that won't give you the power you need." CreationDate="2015-12-29T03:39:40.670" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="5225" PostId="4957" Score="0" Text="Thank you for your answer. You addressed the economical side. Although that is somewhat interesting, my main question is how the **environmental impact** of toners compares to that of ink cartridges. Do you know anything about that? Also why would anything under $2000 with ink be 'a joke', but not a &lt;$300 laser printer?" CreationDate="2015-12-28T06:57:53.700" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="5226" PostId="4957" Score="0" Text="@THelper: All right, give me a minute to spell it out for you in the body of the answer, then." CreationDate="2015-12-28T07:09:49.577" UserId="2702" />
  <row Id="5241" PostId="4957" Score="0" Text="Thanks for your update! Based on your answer it seems likely that toners have a lower environmental impact than ink cartridges, but I do think that without investigating the full life cycle (production, use and disposal) of both toners and cartridges it remains difficult to give a final verdict." CreationDate="2015-12-30T05:46:14.960" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="5272" PostId="4957" Score="0" Text="And *if* you go for an inkjet, make sure to get one that can take refillable cartridges (most Epsons don't for example).  Older laser toner cartridges can be refilled with a kit as well." CreationDate="2016-01-05T15:28:17.267" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="6582" PostId="4957" Score="1" Text="How about the printers that don't take cartridges such as the Epson Ecotank?" CreationDate="2016-03-16T13:35:39.113" UserId="3068" />
  <row Id="10894" PostId="4957" Score="2" Text="I think the question is still, what are the effects of toner on the environment? What chemicals are in the toner and is it safe for the environment? I have used laser printers and they usually have some sort of &quot;waste toner container&quot; so there is toner that needs to be disposed of... any anwsers to these questions?" CreationDate="2019-04-10T02:14:06.397" UserId="6522" />
  <row Id="5227" PostId="4959" Score="0" Text="Seems like a lot of bin changes - a two person liftable 50kg bin would only hold around 50 liters of waste,  which wouldn't last long for a small village, and every bin change opens the risk of contamination, and requires &quot;proper safety equipment&quot; and subsequent sanitation or disposal of that equipment.  If the soil has suitable drainage and far enough from water supplies to prevent contamination, an old-fashioned pit latrine seems more sustainable since it requires no special tools to build and a new one can be built when the old one is too full of solid waste." CreationDate="2015-12-28T19:37:51.810" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="5239" PostId="4959" Score="0" Text="@Johnny the problem with the pit is that it takes years to break down into soil, and it doesn't kill some crucial pathogens. It's also a lot of work to dig a proper drainage channel for each pit (pits fill up), but if you don't you get pathogens flowing straight out of the pit onto the ground around the toilet and out onto the surrounding soil and watercourses. It can be done, but it's skilled work to build a good one and the &quot;good&quot; parts are not very intuitive (see: thousands of years of excrement-based diseases)" CreationDate="2015-12-30T00:03:34.000" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="5240" PostId="4959" Score="0" Text="It's not clear that keeping bins full of (liquid + solid) waste around for years is really better than digging a new pit periodically that only fills up with solid waste. Especially when replacing the bins means sending in people in expensive personal protective gear to swap out the bin, which puts them into close contact with the waste. A sufficiently large pit latrine can last a year or longer, so it's not like new ones need to be dug frequently, and they can be made with only basic tools." CreationDate="2015-12-30T00:15:04.500" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="5249" PostId="4963" Score="1" Text="As is the cat....." CreationDate="2015-12-30T19:13:17.370" UserId="2702" />
  <row Id="5252" PostId="4963" Score="0" Text="&quot;Alloys of polyethylene and recycled PET were the highlight of the annual SPE Global Plastics Environmental Conference (GPEC) in Detroit in February. In the last 18 months, three European processors have commercialized products made of these novel blends, which are said to be stiff, tough, easy to process, and inexpensive. These are believed to be the first commercial uses of PET/PE blends, though experiments with such combinations have been reported in the technical literature for decades.&quot;&#xA;&#xA;So, I suppose this goes into separate **PET/PE only** recycle bin?" CreationDate="2015-12-31T06:27:39.853" UserId="2915" />
  <row Id="5255" PostId="4967" Score="2" Text="Am I missing something here? If you want to measure power consumption you will have to attach it to the power line. For most appliances there is no way to do so. Given that, the easiest way is to plug in into the wall power socket. Which leaves you only with the question &quot;What power monitor can transmits its data wirelessly?&quot;. And I assume you mean over Wifi specifically? That is the most compatible wireless protocol nowadays." CreationDate="2016-01-02T16:03:39.577" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="5256" PostId="4967" Score="1" Text="Or are you thinking about something that measures by induction? In that case, what precision do you want? Because attaching it to *any* device and expecting reliable measurements seems impossible. Only if you wrapped it around the power cord you would have approximate equal dimensions (measuring distance) each time, but you have no way of knowing how much that cord is shielded." CreationDate="2016-01-02T16:08:12.790" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="5263" PostId="4970" Score="1" Text="I think this is a good answer that could be great if you edit in links to relevant sources." CreationDate="2016-01-04T08:17:17.877" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="5269" PostId="4972" Score="0" Text="Thank you for your detailed answer. In that case, is there a way to convert the insolation data (W/m²) of each minute to Wh/m²/day?" CreationDate="2016-01-05T00:57:37.997" UserId="2883" />
  <row Id="5270" PostId="4972" Score="2" Text="Yes there is - would you like to ask that as a separate question, so that others will find it and its answer, rather than leaving it buried in comments (comments can get deleted at any time, they're temporary and ephemeral)" CreationDate="2016-01-05T07:31:22.513" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="5271" PostId="4972" Score="0" Text="Alright I've asked, thanks for pointing that out." CreationDate="2016-01-05T13:01:03.390" UserId="2883" />
  <row Id="5265" PostId="4973" Score="2" Text="That's a lot of questions. You might want to split them up to get better answers and avoid this question from being closed as too broad. May I suggest one question on the most valuable materials in electronics, and one (or more) question(s) specifically about the cell phone chargers you are stripping." CreationDate="2016-01-04T15:09:13.940" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="5266" PostId="4973" Score="0" Text="BTW platinum and gold are the first that come to mind. Rare earth metals  (often found in computers and cell phones) probably also, but those are much more difficult to extract." CreationDate="2016-01-04T15:13:35.177" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="5267" PostId="4973" Score="0" Text="Yes, I definitely have lots of questions. Anyway, I suppose it's moderators' duty to split them up, or should it be myself editing this one while creating other separate questions on the other side?" CreationDate="2016-01-04T16:24:09.813" UserId="2915" />
  <row Id="5275" PostId="4973" Score="0" Text="It would be best if you edit and split up the questions yourself. I've placed the question on hold for now because you already have one answer which addresses the copper wires. That's also why I suggest you edit this question and make it about the things your are stripping so the answer is still appropriate." CreationDate="2016-01-05T16:19:32.203" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="5286" PostId="4973" Score="0" Text="We'll reopen this question once you've edited it." CreationDate="2016-01-06T08:09:14.543" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="5287" PostId="4973" Score="0" Text="No problem, give me some time, please." CreationDate="2016-01-06T11:05:20.220" UserId="2915" />
  <row Id="5288" PostId="4973" Score="0" Text="Sure, no worries." CreationDate="2016-01-06T11:06:44.653" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="5268" PostId="4974" Score="4" Text="I would also like to add that if we were doing a global geoengineering project we should consider that trees sequester different amounts of carbon throughout their life. A fully grown tree does not sequester nearly as much carbon as a growing tree. To maximize the carbon sequestration you would want to plant quick-growing trees, chop them down and bury them in landfills, then keep replanting.&#xA;&#xA;Of course, it would be better if we didn't dig up fossilized trees and put them in the atmosphere to begin with..." CreationDate="2016-01-04T19:24:40.927" UserId="2933" />
  <row Id="5274" PostId="4974" Score="1" Text="Interesting, but where do your figures on absolute and relative uptake come from?" CreationDate="2016-01-05T15:31:09.617" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="5277" PostId="4974" Score="0" Text="Thanks replying, I seek this information for 5 years already, but yesterday I googled the subject and spend a few hours, but only found the 20kg with FAO and 15MT per Ha, what could be correct. Extremely confusing and out of date figures are available on google and wiki." CreationDate="2016-01-05T22:41:21.827" UserId="2932" />
  <row Id="5278" PostId="4974" Score="0" Text="a few years ago I made an educational puzzle with carbon cycle and found the best figures with Stand-up Economics a UK stage performance on CC. May be science can help me further :-)" CreationDate="2016-01-05T22:45:42.527" UserId="2932" />
  <row Id="5279" PostId="4974" Score="0" Text="In fact I am talking about class tropical lumber harvested in 10 years and sold (in Africa about $20,-) for construction. The reason to grow for lumber is to avoid the clearing of old-grown forests" CreationDate="2016-01-05T22:51:58.807" UserId="2932" />
  <row Id="6918" PostId="4974" Score="0" Text="Have you looked up any scholarly articles on this topic? I recently saw a presentation based on [this report](https://www.manomet.org/sites/manomet.org/files/Manomet_Biomass_Report_Full_LoRez.pdf) which compares burning trees vs coal in terms of carbon emissions. They also did analysis on how much carbon a forest sequesters in 100 years after initial planting. Could be a good starting point." CreationDate="2016-05-17T21:13:05.347" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7528" PostId="4974" Score="0" Text="I would like to add another point. There has been a recent paper that claims that &quot;wrong&quot; type of trees in Europe are actually contributing to global warming. So, you will need the right kind of trees, distributed where they would add a net positive effect and then have to deal with growth cycles, etc. So it may not be as simple as planting and harvesting trees cyclically." CreationDate="2016-09-22T05:29:55.163" UserId="3662" />
  <row Id="7533" PostId="4974" Score="0" Text="Even if an average tree only absorbs half of the amount: 15kg CO2/ year only 20% increase in forest cover (our Foundation aims at doubling tree cover) will compensate all human emmisions.    The point is: why we hear rarely about this logical tree solution, but all kind of pseudo science to discredit it.......this is in whose interest?" CreationDate="2016-09-23T13:25:34.053" UserId="2932" />
  <row Id="5280" PostId="4975" Score="0" Text="most inverters do this for you, and many can export to sites like pvoutput.org so you can see your system and compare it to other systems (or you can go there now and see how systems near you perform)" CreationDate="2016-01-06T07:21:17.843" UserId="1255" />
  <row Id="6798" PostId="4975" Score="0" Text="&quot;I have access to live solar irradiance data (in W/m²) at each minute of the day in my location&quot; can you post where that data comes from and maybe even share link to api is there is one?" CreationDate="2016-04-26T18:07:18.660" UserId="1078" />
  <row Id="5290" PostId="4978" Score="2" Text="I'm sorry, I had to click on this because I thought, well, surely you feed it to a cat. But of course it is a reasonable question." CreationDate="2016-01-07T11:56:55.697" UserId="1567" />
  <row Id="5396" PostId="4982" Score="0" Text="There's another beneift to using incandescents in an attic over CFLs: Attics can get cold enough that CFLs don't start or take ages to get bright enough to use, and when your attic is cold you don't want to leave the hatch open any longer that absolutely necssary while you wait for the light to warm up. Of course, LEDs don't have this problem, but are expensive.  If your attic is infrequently used then the bulbs can go there to die. I reckon mine averages less than an hour of use per *month*; the payback period would be infinite in cash terms. Same for cold cellars, outbuildings etc." CreationDate="2016-01-29T15:06:04.647" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="10920" PostId="4982" Score="0" Text="The _forestfern.org_ article is about saving money, but this question is about saving the environment, so I think this is not really useful (though @ChrisH makes an interesting point about cold attics in the era of CFLs)." CreationDate="2019-04-19T14:57:39.557" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="5297" PostId="4984" Score="3" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! I'm not sure this is the most appropriate stackexchange website to ask this question. [Home Improvement](http://diy.stackexchange.com) may be a better choice. Or are you looking explicitly for a solution with low environmental impact?" CreationDate="2016-01-11T08:02:26.757" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="5301" PostId="4984" Score="0" Text="He used the tag &quot;energy-management&quot; so he is likely interested in a low impact solution.&#xA;&#xA;@zeshan Is there an attic and the paint is just being used to seal the concrete roof, or is the &quot;inner side&quot; of your roof the same as the ceiling?" CreationDate="2016-01-11T17:46:57.960" UserId="2871" />
  <row Id="5298" PostId="4985" Score="0" Text="Asking for a comparison of such a wide range of different materials may make this question too broad. Are you really interested in all types of fabrics, or are there any specific ones?" CreationDate="2016-01-11T14:00:48.840" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="5299" PostId="4985" Score="2" Text="Related but at the moment sadly still not properly answered questions: [Pros and cons of bamboo clothing compared to cotton?](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/4553/99) and [How bad are nylon and polyester clothing for the environment?](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/4791/99)." CreationDate="2016-01-11T14:01:19.373" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="5300" PostId="4985" Score="0" Text="@THelper Thanks for the suggestion, I edited the question." CreationDate="2016-01-11T15:15:10.337" UserId="986" />
  <row Id="5303" PostId="4986" Score="1" Text="Moss may cover up the moisture in the concrete, but it doesn't solve the problem. Molds may start to grow as well which can lead to health problems if it is growing inside your house (not sure if this is the case, the OP didn't specify). I think the OP may be better off finding out why the concrete is moist and fix that." CreationDate="2016-01-12T10:53:29.083" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="5309" PostId="4986" Score="0" Text="If molds are an issue grow lichen first before the moss. Lichens are a multi-species organism composed of a moss like plant and a fungi. The fungal aspect of the Lichen will compete against other fungi (like black mold). If mold is already present you may need to sterilize the concrete somehow (e.g. Bleach or Rubbing Alcohol)." CreationDate="2016-01-14T18:11:11.237" UserId="2871" />
  <row Id="5325" PostId="4987" Score="0" Text="I would be stunned if the plastic bags from household recycling get sorted, cleaned, then recycled. They're at best going to be incinerated, but in most places they'll go to landfill. The labour and water for cleaning would almost certainly outweigh any benefit from recycling." CreationDate="2016-01-16T22:51:59.080" UserId="1255" />
  <row Id="6580" PostId="4987" Score="0" Text="@Ⴖuі I'll stun you. This is indeed what usually happens when recycling plastics." CreationDate="2016-03-15T16:31:25.690" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="6604" PostId="4987" Score="1" Text="@JanDoggen in Australia the household recycling says &quot;no plastic bags&quot;, and in NZ when I briefly worked in a plastic factory they could only recycle clean, dry plastic and very rarely accepted plastic bags at all. So while that subset of plastics that are recycled might include some bags, my experience is the vast majority of bags are not recycled." CreationDate="2016-03-21T07:19:17.590" UserId="1255" />
  <row Id="6607" PostId="4987" Score="1" Text="@Ⴖuі Aha, so there's obviously very different techniques per country. Interesting. Here in The Netherlands we are even allowed to include metal and drink cartons in the plastic garbage; a new large separating unit just opened which can handle that. I guess price is a major determinant here: we don't have much landfill space and burning has always been expensive." CreationDate="2016-03-21T08:26:05.320" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="6623" PostId="4987" Score="0" Text="The real advantage of plastic bag collection in the supermarket is that they get only plastic bags, so the sorting process is much simpler - they remove any litter from the bin, that's all. Whereas bags in the normal waste stream have to be separated, collected and cleaned. It's probably worse now when we have multiple, incompatible types of plastics used for bags that look similar - the bioplastics that are designed to mimic fossil plastics in particular." CreationDate="2016-03-21T22:37:24.267" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="5348" PostId="4989" Score="0" Text="Related: http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/1118/are-eco-friendly-pens-and-pencils-actually-more-sustainable-than-the-conventio" CreationDate="2016-01-21T10:51:00.747" UserId="2868" />
  <row Id="5310" PostId="4994" Score="3" Text="My gut instinct is &quot;no&quot;. The difference in real-world efficacy between CFL and LED is relatively small, and LEDs are constantly improving. I'd wait for them to get through their lifetimes before replacing. When you do replace, whenever that is and whatever you replace with, make sure the CFLs go to a recycling facility to avoid the Mercury ending up in landfill." CreationDate="2016-01-15T07:40:21.123" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="5327" PostId="4994" Score="0" Text="Most articles I skimmed suggest that one should replace even good CFLs with LEDs under many circumstances. Since this is something I asked myself too recently, I'll try a detailed answer later." CreationDate="2016-01-18T08:12:41.017" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="5311" PostId="4995" Score="3" Text="But if he already *has* CFLs, the hazardous waste part (which is only a problem if no recycling facilities are available) is irrelevant. And re the heating thing, no! First off, direct electrical heating from the grid is the least efficient way to heat a home - if they have gas or oil (or heat pump) heating, this is much better. Secondly, even if heating is via electric heaters anyway, light bulbs will mostly heat a layer of air under the ceiling - or, in recessed down lights, heat the void *above* the ceiling. Make the lighting efficient, and use efficient heating too." CreationDate="2016-01-15T07:43:19.700" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="5312" PostId="4995" Score="1" Text="Sure use what you have first, that is always preferable. He *ALSO* has LED bulbs! The hazardous waste part is **not irrelevant** if you recycle CFLs. If you are purchasing bulbs then you are increasing demand for a product that has toxic materials and most of the public will throw in the trash! Nobody exists in isolation, everything is connected to everything else!" CreationDate="2016-01-15T19:06:30.907" UserId="2871" />
  <row Id="5313" PostId="4995" Score="0" Text="Incandescent Lightbulbs will NOT HEAT THE AIR. The heat produced is in radiant form, which means that it heats everything that the light touches. Radiant heat IS LIGHT in the infrared spectrum!" CreationDate="2016-01-15T19:08:28.980" UserId="2871" />
  <row Id="5314" PostId="4995" Score="0" Text="Well, some of it heats the air by conduction (and the resulting convection). Some is radiated, and it then mostly heats the ceiling :-P" CreationDate="2016-01-15T19:09:57.243" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="5315" PostId="4995" Score="0" Text="I have done the math on this before, looking at embodied energy, energy consumption, and material use. I will hunt that down and modify my answer to include the math. It boils down to, if you are heating your house use Incandecent, if you are not then use LED. And only use CFL if you already have them!" CreationDate="2016-01-15T19:10:08.397" UserId="2871" />
  <row Id="5316" PostId="4995" Score="0" Text="@SimonW: No, `ALL` of the heat produced is in Radiant form. A very small amount of that radiant heat will heat the glass part of the bulb which can heat air via convection (not conduction), but most of it will store heat in every object in your house!" CreationDate="2016-01-15T19:12:43.890" UserId="2871" />
  <row Id="5317" PostId="4995" Score="0" Text="Also, all of those objects that you store heat in then re-radiate via blackbody radiation. This is the same concept as a rocket mass heater but obviously much lower power." CreationDate="2016-01-15T19:14:55.070" UserId="2871" />
  <row Id="5318" PostId="4995" Score="0" Text="Also, even in households that are careful to recycle CFLs, occasionally one of them breaks **in the house**, thus exposing everyone living there to the Mercury." CreationDate="2016-01-15T19:17:27.407" UserId="2871" />
  <row Id="5319" PostId="4995" Score="0" Text="Heh. I'll grant you that using incandescents is less wasteful if your house needs heating. But I remain *very* sceptical that it's worth deliberately using them as a heat source, at least if your other sources of heat are anything other than resistive electrical heating." CreationDate="2016-01-15T19:57:01.533" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="5324" PostId="4995" Score="0" Text="@SimonW using fossil fuels for heat is the complete opposite of sustainable. A lot of people have no choice, but that doesn't make it sustainable." CreationDate="2016-01-16T22:50:14.020" UserId="1255" />
  <row Id="5326" PostId="4995" Score="0" Text="@Ⴖuі I never said that it was. using fossil fuels directly is a great deal better than using grid electricity in resistive heaters in many countries. But that would be the answer to a question about heating." CreationDate="2016-01-16T23:09:50.280" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="11217" PostId="4996" Score="0" Text="https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/fashion-clothing/campaign-clean-viscose information here should be added to the cons of viscose from bamboo" CreationDate="2019-07-17T05:49:13.887" UserId="3297" />
  <row Id="11219" PostId="4996" Score="0" Text="Since that is an issue of chemically modifying natural fibers, and using deceptive marketing, I would be hesitant to call that a con for bamboo. Definitely something that consumers should be aware of though. Thanks for bringing it to our attention." CreationDate="2019-07-18T06:48:17.963" UserId="2871" />
  <row Id="11220" PostId="4996" Score="0" Text="I did edit my answer where I mentioned viscose processing, to direct people to your comment." CreationDate="2019-07-18T06:55:04.407" UserId="2871" />
  <row Id="11225" PostId="4996" Score="0" Text="Thanks! Super helpful post though, as I have been hesitant to get bamboo clothing due to these issues as well as some concern whether the particles worn off during washing will biodegrade or not but it seems they will." CreationDate="2019-07-19T08:58:44.463" UserId="3297" />
  <row Id="5329" PostId="4999" Score="0" Text="Are any CFLs 100% mercury free? I couldn't find any with a brief [Google Search](https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&amp;ion=1&amp;espv=2&amp;ie=UTF-8#q=mercury+free+cfl). I've seen some sold  as &quot;low mercury CFLs&quot; (which seem to use 1mg of Hg instead of the typical 3 -5 mg of standard CFLs, but I haven't seen any that are completely 100% mercury free (afaik, the mercury vapor is an integral part of how fluorescent bulbs work). These low levels of mercury aren't as dangerous as many people think, but they still need to be disposed of property (and cleaned up properly after a break)." CreationDate="2016-01-19T00:40:50.093" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="5331" PostId="4999" Score="0" Text="That doesn't really answer my question - do you have a source to back up the claim that some CFL's contain no mercury?" CreationDate="2016-01-19T05:10:06.440" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="5332" PostId="4999" Score="0" Text="Edited answer to reflect your concern.  thanks for the correction about zero hg bulbs.  As mentioned above.  The best I can find is 1 mg/bulb, cited in Wikipedias article on CFL bulbs." CreationDate="2016-01-19T05:12:52.650" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="5335" PostId="4999" Score="0" Text="It sounds like you're making the point that the mercury level is so low that it doesn't matter, which is not the same as saying that some CFL's have no mercury at all." CreationDate="2016-01-19T23:12:33.077" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="5339" PostId="4999" Score="0" Text="hence the edit in my answer." CreationDate="2016-01-20T20:11:21.143" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="5340" PostId="4999" Score="0" Text="yet your answer still says _Not all of the CF bulbs have mercury_, which doesn't appear to be true, you've given no evidence that any CFL is mercury free. Unless you're equating low-mercury with no-mercury." CreationDate="2016-01-20T20:25:22.570" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="5341" PostId="4999" Score="0" Text="Try it now. See if it meets your criteria." CreationDate="2016-01-20T22:49:49.867" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="5328" PostId="5000" Score="1" Text="The first part of your answer is incorrect. Most recycling logos do not mean that a fee was paid. In many countries the only function of the RIC codes is to indicate the used material. I'm only aware of one logo that does mean that an environmental fee was paid and that is the German '[Grüne Punkt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Dot_(symbol))'" CreationDate="2016-01-18T15:31:59.127" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="5350" PostId="5001" Score="0" Text="I think the greatest benefit from LEDs are when you are on a power budget and need to keep your energy consumption down at all costs. I.e. For example off the grid applications." CreationDate="2016-01-21T18:48:36.650" UserId="2155" />
  <row Id="5351" PostId="5001" Score="0" Text="If you're so power constrained that a few watts makes a difference, you probably ought to look at low voltage DC lighting that you can power directly from your batteries so you don't have inverter losses in converting to 120VAC." CreationDate="2016-01-21T20:46:03.793" UserId="480" />
  <row Id="5336" PostId="5003" Score="1" Text="Could you elaborate on why this is more sustainable than other choices? My main cause of concern is the production of the ink used to refill them." CreationDate="2016-01-20T09:22:16.893" UserId="2868" />
  <row Id="5337" PostId="5003" Score="0" Text="@Adolfo: They don't make enough of it to even be part of the sustainable/unsustainable discourse. Billions upon billions of disposable pens are a strain on sustainability. Ink, not so much. Without ink, we might as well live in caves. You do want civilization to go on, don't you? The amount of food dye and laundry die they spend daily in your neck of the woods would keep every fountain pen on the planet filled for the next twenty years." CreationDate="2016-01-20T09:30:48.120" UserId="2702" />
  <row Id="5353" PostId="5005" Score="2" Text="This might be interesting: http://lifehacks.stackexchange.com/q/10767/10881" CreationDate="2016-01-24T07:24:30.467" UserId="2868" />
  <row Id="5342" PostId="5006" Score="0" Text="good to see you here ! How many litres of water would I need for my humidifier ?" CreationDate="2016-01-21T01:08:41.907" UserDisplayName="user2039" />
  <row Id="5343" PostId="5006" Score="0" Text="I also have bars on my windows and then meshes and then glass windows. Would you recommend I keep the glass windows closed or open during day and night ? The meshes cannot be opened." CreationDate="2016-01-21T01:20:06.800" UserDisplayName="user2039" />
  <row Id="5344" PostId="5006" Score="1" Text="@gansub: I've edited my answer to provide some info about plants &amp; ventilation. As I state, one of the dangers of increasing the humidity inside is there is an increased risk of developing mould inside the  building. One way to mitigate this is to provide adequate ventilation so there isn't too much moisture in the air. The bars &amp; mesh over the windows will not be a problem. Regarding having the window open or closed depends on the atmospheric conditions. If the air is dry, close the window, you don't want to lose moisture, &amp; if the air is humid open the window." CreationDate="2016-01-21T02:52:59.017" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="5345" PostId="5006" Score="0" Text="Regarding how much water you need; that's a difficult question to answer. It depends on evaporation rate &amp; how often you are prepared to replenish the water in the containers. Also, water in a larger area pan will have a greater rate of evaporation and a tall narrow container containing the same amount of water. All I can advise is to experiment. Start with no less than 2 L in a shallower larger area pan or pans." CreationDate="2016-01-21T02:59:59.657" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="5346" PostId="5006" Score="0" Text="so during summers and autumn and winters - keep the windows closed. During monsoon keep the windows open !" CreationDate="2016-01-21T03:08:52.527" UserDisplayName="user2039" />
  <row Id="5347" PostId="5006" Score="0" Text="@gansub: Yes, with the proviso that during the summer, winter &amp; autumn you open the window periodically for ventilation &amp; to prevent mould developing." CreationDate="2016-01-21T03:18:01.250" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="5349" PostId="5006" Score="0" Text="Add this: hang wet cloth somewhere (high surface area to air), this is what doctors often advise" CreationDate="2016-01-21T15:00:54.653" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="5352" PostId="5008" Score="1" Text="I will take the non electric humidifer from Amazon. The other two as Fred pointed out may a) produce mould b) keeping the bathroom open - UGH....psychologically it is natural to keep the bathroom door closed due to bacteria etc..." CreationDate="2016-01-23T12:24:56.647" UserDisplayName="user2039" />
  <row Id="5429" PostId="5008" Score="0" Text="Keeping the bathroom door shut increases the likelihood of bacteria since all of the moisture is concentrated in a small area i.e. the bathroom.  Opening the door reduces moisture concentration." CreationDate="2016-02-05T14:59:23.040" UserId="3047" />
  <row Id="5367" PostId="5010" Score="1" Text="You would do far better heating the air so you can split your shower into three stages: wet yourself, turn the water off to apply soap and shampoo, turn the water on to rinse off. If you're having 20 minute showers it may be better to buy a small indoor swimming pool (or Japanese Bath) and store hot water in that." CreationDate="2016-01-27T07:07:14.787" UserId="1255" />
  <row Id="5369" PostId="5010" Score="0" Text="I agree that for total energy savings and water conservation, staged showering would be the way to go. But unfortunately most people won't do this. Nowadays I'm in the same boat, though I did do just that when I served in the Peace Corps in the mountains of Bolivia with only frigid water coming from the tap." CreationDate="2016-01-27T12:34:23.633" UserId="1701" />
  <row Id="6574" PostId="5010" Score="1" Text="In the winter, close the drain (assuming you have a tub/shower, and let the hot water stay there until it reaches room temperature.  Also helps humidify the air in dry climates." CreationDate="2016-03-12T03:44:57.997" UserId="1937" />
  <row Id="6667" PostId="5012" Score="0" Text="Can you contact me on [*email removed by moderator, commenter was asked to provide it in his public profile information*] I'm applying to the same masters program. All qualified applications shall be accepted so, we can collaborate since there is no competition" CreationDate="2016-04-01T09:31:31.353" UserDisplayName="user3238" />
  <row Id="5355" PostId="5013" Score="0" Text="Thank you so much. This is quite helpful.&#xA;one more question, though Is there any similar articles I can look at to lead my way? This is the first time that I write such a thing and I want it to be in alignment with the accepted style." CreationDate="2016-01-25T10:14:17.330" UserId="3002" />
  <row Id="5357" PostId="5014" Score="0" Text="You are absolutely right, thank you. So is it expected that I might be using a certain style that it is not the usual one in this field? I mean I only know how to write in a geological paper form! would such a thing be acceptable?" CreationDate="2016-01-25T14:28:42.187" UserId="3002" />
  <row Id="5358" PostId="5014" Score="0" Text="@MahmoudAbdelrazik answer updated with an additional paragraph to address that" CreationDate="2016-01-25T14:35:31.270" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="5374" PostId="5015" Score="0" Text="The OP asks for *heating a confined space*. You translate that with *heating with steam*. Heating with steam will require more energy than 'ordinary' methods of (dry) warming a space since a) you increase the temperature to 100 C instead of the required temperature and b) you need to provide the 'surplus' energy for the transition from water to steam. Some of these losses will be 'regained' by the opposite processes when the steam condenses again, but it's always best to match the produced temperature with the required temperature as much as possible." CreationDate="2016-01-28T12:28:10.303" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="5376" PostId="5015" Score="0" Text="@JanDoggen These are great points. Can you elaborate or comment on user comfort. Would 100 degree dry air allow a user to be as comfortable using 85 degree shower water as 100 degree steam-filled air? Or would there be a difference. And how does that difference translate in terms of energy use?" CreationDate="2016-01-28T13:40:57.880" UserId="1701" />
  <row Id="5426" PostId="5015" Score="1" Text="Who has time to spend 20 minutes in the shower?  Is that an average or something from the marketing literature of a luxury shower firm? I suspect the latter." CreationDate="2016-02-04T16:54:57.753" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="5360" PostId="5018" Score="1" Text="Don't forget the 'incoming' pollution from e.g. upwind industry, airfields etc." CreationDate="2016-01-26T13:24:59.987" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="5379" PostId="5018" Score="1" Text="Reduce the population of the city.  This is accomplished automatically, if pollution levels are high enough and inward migration is stopped.  If you prefer a kinder, gentler approach, give people incentives to go live elsewhere, and to reduce their birth rates." CreationDate="2016-01-28T20:47:02.050" UserId="1937" />
  <row Id="5382" PostId="5018" Score="1" Text="You basically ask how can we pollute less without reducing the traffic. Why not just attack the traffic? The urban sprawl is the major pollution/resource depletion contributor. Dense city with public transport is 10x more energy/resorce, land and labour efficient. Why do you insist that you need to conserve resources while increasing the village lifestyle in the city?" CreationDate="2016-01-28T23:09:54.130" UserId="3016" />
  <row Id="7346" PostId="5018" Score="0" Text="The question is related to traffic. Hence, I post this as a comment. Heating can be an important contributor to urban air pollution (particularly in winter). The Athens and other Greek cities, the number of wood stoves (and people heating with it) considerably increased in the recent years, which led to a strong increase of particulate air pollution." CreationDate="2016-08-02T12:58:22.653" UserId="3641" />
  <row Id="7348" PostId="5018" Score="0" Text="It is important to distinguish air pollution by NOx and O3, on the one hand, and air pollution by PM2.5 and PM10 (particulate matter), on the other hand. Some measures reduce the emissions of one pollutant and increase emissions of another. Also reducing NO emissions (thus, reduced NOx) might yield enhanced O3 concentrations (because NO + O3 &lt;=&gt; NO2; NO + NO2 = NOx). Fuel-saving driving behavior reduces CO2 emissions but the combustion processes might be incomplete yielding enhanced PM and VOC emissions." CreationDate="2016-08-02T13:03:34.547" UserId="3641" />
  <row Id="5359" PostId="5019" Score="3" Text="What heating source do you use? Does it have an efficiency rating? The main uncertainty in the calculation is the amount of heat leaving through the chimney/exhaust." CreationDate="2016-01-26T13:23:34.270" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="5361" PostId="5019" Score="0" Text="Ah indeed, I didn't take it into account." CreationDate="2016-01-26T13:27:42.163" UserId="1078" />
  <row Id="5365" PostId="5019" Score="3" Text="What do you mean by the &quot;energy efficiency of the flat&quot;? That could mean various things. Another way to approach the same question: how would you use the information?" CreationDate="2016-01-26T18:40:43.797" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="5366" PostId="5019" Score="1" Text="To measure the overall thermal resistance (R rating) you'd need to know the temperature difference and also how much air was moving in and out. But as @EnergyNumbers says, what would you do with that information? StackExchange works better with concrete problems." CreationDate="2016-01-27T07:04:18.213" UserId="1255" />
  <row Id="7069" PostId="5019" Score="0" Text="Things with energy efficiency expressed as percentage are normally machines of some sort that use one type of energy and do some useful work, e.g. an electrical transformer or a winch. A flat isn't like that - it isn't built primarily to do physical work." CreationDate="2016-06-19T09:43:37.137" UserId="3504" />
  <row Id="12538" PostId="5019" Score="0" Text="You could do this with a [building performance simulation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Building_performance_simulation). If you are still interested in an answer to this question, I could post an answer walking you through the process -- but it is rather involved, since you need to build a 3D model of the space and estimate physical characteristics of the envelope." CreationDate="2020-04-07T21:42:10.997" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12542" PostId="5019" Score="0" Text="that would be great answer" CreationDate="2020-04-10T07:17:12.407" UserId="1078" />
  <row Id="5411" PostId="5020" Score="2" Text="Make sure public transport is cheaper than parking. Also make sure it runs for 24 hours and is clean and safe. Establish Park and Ride stations on every major road into the city." CreationDate="2016-02-01T09:52:09.843" UserId="1567" />
  <row Id="5413" PostId="5020" Score="1" Text="Enforce that burners in heating installations etc are up to spec." CreationDate="2016-02-01T16:12:52.353" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="6576" PostId="5020" Score="0" Text="Just please make sure your ban on wood is only in the city. :)" CreationDate="2016-03-13T00:07:25.487" UserId="3068" />
  <row Id="5380" PostId="5022" Score="1" Text="I think the underlying question is not so much about enforcement, but how to convince others to *want* to recycle" CreationDate="2016-01-28T21:31:07.953" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="5381" PostId="5022" Score="0" Text="@HighlyIrregular Bad guys need a whip." CreationDate="2016-01-28T23:05:44.793" UserId="3016" />
  <row Id="5390" PostId="5022" Score="0" Text="How can **you** enforce recycling? You can't, unless you are working in law enforcement but if that were the case you probably wouldn't be asking this question. You could report people who don't follow the rules to the authorities, but you are not going to make friends that way. Proper waste separation and collection can reduce processing costs dramatically which could lead to lower taxes and it will have a positive (or less negative) effect on the environment. Aren't your parents and colleagues sensitive to those arguments?" CreationDate="2016-01-29T11:37:28.723" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="5391" PostId="5022" Score="0" Text="@THelper Obviously, if people would be sensitive to that, I would not ask either. Estonians are wealthy enough not to care about garbage. This seems to contrast them with Norway and Germany population, where people are much poorer. Probably I can ring some bells on the officials and reach my surroundings with the officials, like [my hero did](https://www.google.ee/search?q=pavlik+morozov)." CreationDate="2016-01-29T12:55:40.883" UserId="3016" />
  <row Id="5393" PostId="5022" Score="0" Text="I'm not sure your argument is valid. According to [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_wage) the average income of people in Norway and Germany is higher than in Estonia. I suspect the difference in recycling attitude has more to do with the general concern about the environment in those countries, both by common people and politicians. For example, both Norway and Germany produce much more electricity from renewable sources than Estonia." CreationDate="2016-01-29T13:27:00.007" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="5402" PostId="5022" Score="0" Text="@ValentinTihomirov I believe I understand your position perfectly fine. I regret having spent time trying to help you understand one of the reasons you are not getting much traction here, and I've deleted my comment since it appears it's not useful to you. Good luck in your endeavors." CreationDate="2016-01-29T17:44:03.410" UserId="3020" />
  <row Id="5387" PostId="5023" Score="2" Text="I dispute your *I assume that most people replace their toothbrushes every 4-6 weeks*, but it's still a good question ;-)" CreationDate="2016-01-29T11:25:13.180" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="5389" PostId="5023" Score="1" Text="Dear @JanDoggen, thank you for your comment! I found [this](https://thecenterforpediatricdentistry.com/for-parents-and-patients/faqs/) source recommending to change a toothbrush every 4-6 weeks." CreationDate="2016-01-29T11:37:20.950" UserId="2187" />
  <row Id="5395" PostId="5023" Score="1" Text="@orschiro The source qualifies that statement with &quot;If you have gum disease&quot;." CreationDate="2016-01-29T14:57:11.400" UserId="3023" />
  <row Id="6452" PostId="5026" Score="0" Text="I love this answer! However, you failed to mention the added bonus of removing ones gums when employing that wire-bristled brush. :)" CreationDate="2016-02-14T22:11:48.390" UserId="3057" />
  <row Id="6453" PostId="5026" Score="0" Text="@KaiMaxfield true, without gums can't suffer from gum disease. There are a few drawbacks though..." CreationDate="2016-02-14T22:16:21.773" UserId="3020" />
  <row Id="6454" PostId="5026" Score="0" Text="Exactly what I was thinking!!!  ;^)" CreationDate="2016-02-14T22:22:29.697" UserId="3057" />
  <row Id="5404" PostId="5027" Score="2" Text="What kind of waste ends up in your garbage plastic bags and where does this waste go?" CreationDate="2016-01-29T23:15:18.977" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="5410" PostId="5027" Score="0" Text="We use special rubbish bags made of paper. They are tough, so they don't fall apart straightaway when wet." CreationDate="2016-02-01T09:32:55.460" UserId="1567" />
  <row Id="5412" PostId="5031" Score="1" Text="Not to be mean, but didn't you find anything in the [409000 Google search results for 'cost pulverizing glass'](https://www.google.nl/search?q=cost+pulverizing+glass)?" CreationDate="2016-02-01T14:54:30.800" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="5414" PostId="5035" Score="0" Text="From [my question at the area 51 proposal for Renewable Energy](http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/95034/renewable-energy/95178#95178)" CreationDate="2016-02-01T23:18:40.667" UserId="1513" />
  <row Id="5415" PostId="5035" Score="1" Text="Very closely related: http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/465/planting-trees-for-firewood-how-many?rq=1" CreationDate="2016-02-02T00:06:37.473" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="5424" PostId="5035" Score="0" Text="You might actually be better with coppice (e.g. [wikipedia: Short rotation coppice](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_rotation_coppice))." CreationDate="2016-02-04T16:43:25.803" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="5425" PostId="5036" Score="1" Text="That's impressive! There was a thread the other day on outdoors.SE about using [wax paper as a firelighter](http://outdoors.stackexchange.com/q/1733/2529) -- maybe you saw it." CreationDate="2016-02-04T16:47:29.507" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="6465" PostId="5036" Score="0" Text="Should we bring our waste to you? I would ask. But the key message `instead of asking how to kill our planet safely, stop killing it` is brilliant in the end. I would make it the slogan of the sustainability web site. Because you are right. All sustainability that we are talking everywhere is about how can we pretend that we save the environment, not addressing the core issue, which is also results from our major value to &quot;have a beautiful&quot; life, regardless environmental consequences." CreationDate="2016-02-15T11:08:43.807" UserId="3016" />
  <row Id="5432" PostId="5037" Score="0" Text="I would have thought that for the people choosing the system, the environmental impact would be a minor consideration at best, even then just bundled into a total cost of ownership. Up front cost and how much of it can easily be recouped from the residents will be the first consideration. Tradition will play a part." CreationDate="2016-02-07T21:39:45.370" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="5433" PostId="5037" Score="0" Text="It's quite possibly a combination of tradition, who owns and pays for things, and the cost of changing. If every other building does it one way, trying to do it the other way will likely be very hard. Environmentally friendly and effect need to be defined, too. Do you mean money cost (of building or operating), energy cost, toxic cost, speed of response, and so on. It's likely to be cheaper to both install and operate central cooling, but that gives residents little to no control over whether to use it or what temperature to live at (efficiency plummets if most people open windows to warm up)" CreationDate="2016-02-08T01:54:41.280" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="6466" PostId="5041" Score="1" Text="Stop planing the trees and migrate into vertical building. Dense infrastructure needs orders of magnitude less fuel (because of shorter distances and use of effective public transport, which transports people, not their vehicles). The trees will grow themselves in the abandoned suburbs." CreationDate="2016-02-15T11:24:27.320" UserId="3016" />
  <row Id="7347" PostId="5041" Score="1" Text="It considerably depends on the type of trees whether they actually improve the air quality in cities." CreationDate="2016-08-02T12:59:15.983" UserId="3641" />
  <row Id="5440" PostId="5042" Score="1" Text="Is there a particular location you're interested in - I think the answer might depend on the place and the size, whether it's a village in India, or the whole European Union." CreationDate="2016-02-10T06:49:15.103" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="5441" PostId="5042" Score="0" Text="@EnergyNumbers I'm specially interested in the European Union or Spain, but I don't care about the size." CreationDate="2016-02-10T08:07:04.673" UserId="2868" />
  <row Id="12140" PostId="5042" Score="0" Text="@A.A. although sustainable living should definitely be reinforced by all political powers, it should be above them all. Like some general obligation which has to be administered by any party on power. People tend to move away from certain political parties (for example in Central and Eastern Europe the left and extreme left parties talk a lot about environmental topics, but barely anyone would vote the extreme left party). If the topic gets isolated to only a few parties, then we risk having it on the losing side." CreationDate="2020-01-09T15:08:26.587" UserId="1529" />
  <row Id="10735" PostId="5043" Score="0" Text="Most of these, particularly 1,4,5,6,7&amp;12 are very negative - they penalise people who are forced to travel in the city but who often cannot afford to just go out and buy a new eco-car. Far better to reduce the need to travel in the first place." CreationDate="2019-02-25T10:41:57.920" UserId="4155" />
  <row Id="5431" PostId="5044" Score="1" Text="Are you referring to carbon dioxide, which is *assumed* to be at least largely equivalent to that absorbed in growing the wood  or are you referring to particulates/other compounds?" CreationDate="2016-02-07T12:16:09.590" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="5435" PostId="5044" Score="0" Text="No I; rather referring to PM2.5 and PM10 and other particle matters which are born if you burn ANYTHING, even natural gas (however it's minimised in case of natural gas)." CreationDate="2016-02-08T08:41:53.720" UserId="1078" />
  <row Id="5436" PostId="5044" Score="0" Text="In that case [erhaps you should edit &quot;particulate&quot; or similar into the Q. And perhaps mention scale as well: a pellet stove sufficient to heat one rural house with a forest downwind will be very different to a commercial-scale operation." CreationDate="2016-02-08T09:26:40.603" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="5450" PostId="5046" Score="1" Text="Some are also refillable, and the cans of refill gas are recyclable. Apart from prising off some of the metal there's little you can do, as the plastic is the wrong type for most recycling schemes." CreationDate="2016-02-14T09:29:17.483" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="6568" PostId="5046" Score="0" Text="Stop smoking..." CreationDate="2016-03-11T10:50:59.353" UserId="3153" />
  <row Id="6470" PostId="5047" Score="0" Text="Pellet plants are cheap.  Wood generally is a resource that is very transportation dependent.  If you are using wood for power plants even  20 miles is too far.  For oriented strand board, 150 km is the limit where the plant will buy it.  So it becomes a regional issue." CreationDate="2016-02-16T06:34:51.560" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="5442" PostId="5049" Score="2" Text="One prerequiste would be that the complete metering data is available to the end user in an easily viewable place in real time (as well as the aggregate data later) - and in a display that is well designed. This is seriously lacking in many implementations. If the user see his/her instantaneous use it is an incentive to play with it (try to reduce consumption)." CreationDate="2016-02-11T11:27:03.817" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="5443" PostId="5051" Score="0" Text="I wonder if working on smart meters solutions would be more impactful than just driving around in an electric taxi and putting a gasoline one out of business :) By the looks of it, smart meters look like a needed part of a 100% sustainable infrastructure..." CreationDate="2016-02-11T12:12:06.473" UserId="1912" />
  <row Id="5444" PostId="5051" Score="0" Text="@SustainableProgrammer yes, that's a pretty fair statement - maybe not absolutely essential, but a very significant enabler nevertheless" CreationDate="2016-02-11T12:29:13.180" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="5445" PostId="5051" Score="0" Text="Well, we could just invent supercapacitors or make a supergrid :D" CreationDate="2016-02-11T12:33:21.487" UserId="1912" />
  <row Id="5449" PostId="5053" Score="2" Text="Basically it will come down to: drive it less (and gently, especially when it comes to acceleration) , maintain it well, and don't carry unnecessary weight. I.e. the usual efficiency advice with an extra emphasis on maintenance." CreationDate="2016-02-14T09:27:09.403" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="5451" PostId="5054" Score="1" Text="how will it be delivered to you if you buy it online?" CreationDate="2016-02-14T17:15:57.807" UserId="1053" />
  <row Id="5452" PostId="5054" Score="0" Text="probably from some other city within my country by company like fedex" CreationDate="2016-02-14T19:05:23.923" UserId="1078" />
  <row Id="6458" PostId="5054" Score="1" Text="It's still being delivered, whether to his local shop or to him." CreationDate="2016-02-15T09:11:01.600" UserId="1567" />
  <row Id="6464" PostId="5054" Score="2" Text="Yes and that's why I started to wonder which is better if any..." CreationDate="2016-02-15T10:57:24.270" UserId="1078" />
  <row Id="6708" PostId="5054" Score="0" Text="Buying at the shop next door will help sustain your local economy." CreationDate="2016-04-05T23:33:32.543" UserId="2762" />
  <row Id="6712" PostId="5054" Score="0" Text="Yes @WBT this is good point BUT ... how do you know who is local and who is not? Owner of the shop can live anywhere, so does owner of shipping company, owner of local shop building and almost anybody involved in so called &quot;local shop&quot; :)." CreationDate="2016-04-06T07:54:48.600" UserId="1078" />
  <row Id="6714" PostId="5054" Score="1" Text="@MarianPaździoch But you know where the shop is, clearly.  And you have a reasonable guess that the employees who work there live within a reasonable range of the shop location, and the others who come through to service the store are physically present where they might spend money at other nearby establishments, etc. If it's not a big box/chain store but a one-off with active proprietor involvement, there's a reasonable chance the proprietor lives nearby as well. The probability of money spent there staying/recirculating in the local economy is higher than if you bought online (most stores)." CreationDate="2016-04-06T18:59:22.900" UserId="2762" />
  <row Id="6472" PostId="5055" Score="2" Text="Also, what might be more sustainable to a person living in the city passing forty-five different self-sufficient department stores in his everyday commute may differ entirely from what would be more sustainable and eco-friendly for others in more fortunate (i.e. rural) circumstances." CreationDate="2016-02-16T23:42:43.080" UserId="3057" />
  <row Id="6456" PostId="5056" Score="2" Text="I suggest you split this question in two. Wind turbines and solar panels are two totally different animals. While you are it, please 1) emphasize that you want the scrap value, not the construction value, 2) describe *exactly* what parts of the system you want estimates for (for wind e.g. the entire turbine or only the nacelle?), and maybe 3) do some homework instead of letting others gather *all* information for you: a full analysis is a lot of work, and you risk your question getting closed as 'too broad'" CreationDate="2016-02-15T08:54:54.900" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="6459" PostId="5056" Score="0" Text="What do you mean with 'the bulk of panel costs'? Why do you say 'blade' singular? You can also give a breakdown of the materials uses in the different parts (blades, mast, nacelle, ...) so that we have a start..." CreationDate="2016-02-15T09:26:59.297" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="6460" PostId="5056" Score="0" Text="I can delete the question if you prefer. I was hoping for someone with experience building turbines to answer. Thanks!" CreationDate="2016-02-15T09:27:54.460" UserId="3423" />
  <row Id="6461" PostId="5056" Score="0" Text="It *is* a valuable question, I'm trying to make it more to the point and understandable. But it is also very broad, so a lot of work to be done ;-) and you can be part of that." CreationDate="2016-02-15T09:30:25.767" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="6462" PostId="5056" Score="0" Text="https://www.wind-watch.org/faq-size.php In the GE 1.5-megawatt model, the nacelle alone weighs more than 56 tons, the blade assembly weighs more than 36 tons, and the tower itself weighs about 71 tons — a total weight of 164 tons. - We can look at whatever turbine you have the most experience with, they list a Vestas turbine too. I expect that carbon fiber would be the only major material cost." CreationDate="2016-02-15T09:31:16.660" UserId="3423" />
  <row Id="6463" PostId="5056" Score="0" Text="Related question: http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/4452/is-there-an-energy-returned-on-materials-invested-index-for-energy-sources" CreationDate="2016-02-15T09:56:14.120" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="6469" PostId="5057" Score="0" Text="The fiberglass could be significant too. If the 1.5mw's blades and nacelle come to about 90 tons of fiberglass at a dollar a lb, that's 180k right there." CreationDate="2016-02-16T05:31:02.440" UserId="3423" />
  <row Id="6471" PostId="5057" Score="5" Text="Except that fiberglass doesn't recycle effectively.  The ingrediants to make fiberglass are about a buck a pound, true, but I don't know any cheap way to take them apart. Methyl choloride is a solvent for the resin, but it's nasty stuff to work with, and unspinning the glass fibers and rolling them up for re-use?  If you don't reuse the glass as fiber, you may as well start over with broken bottles." CreationDate="2016-02-16T06:55:41.943" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="6474" PostId="5060" Score="0" Text="You should describe what is possible to be done, not just link an advertisement. Additionally, page you linked states: &quot;Future testing : But we have to independently test and verify our findings&quot;. So it is not even trustful." CreationDate="2016-02-17T09:27:16.763" UserId="929" />
  <row Id="6475" PostId="5060" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living and thank you for your answer! Hydrogen fuel additives look interesting at first glance, however I read on  [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_fuel_enhancement) that *claims made by proponents of hydrogen fuel enhancement are difficult to substantiate and always disputed.* Also installing such a system may be illegal depending on where you live" CreationDate="2016-02-17T09:48:08.187" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="6591" PostId="5060" Score="0" Text="Link to testing contains M$ Azure http 404 error." CreationDate="2016-03-18T15:03:13.113" UserId="929" />
  <row Id="6481" PostId="5064" Score="2" Text="It's going to depend on your definition of sustainable. Although the wooden pencil involves disposing of more material, it's a renewable, compostable material (the &quot;lead&quot; is clay+graphite and fine to add to soil) while the plastic is probably oil-derived. I have seen plant-based-plastic pen bodies but they're rare." CreationDate="2016-02-18T08:12:14.350" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="6485" PostId="5064" Score="2" Text="The automatic pencil &amp; the clutch pencil are basically the same thing; they're both made from metal &amp; plastic &amp; they use the same type of lead. The only difference between them is the mechanics for moving the lead. It's like comparing a car with and automatic gear box with one with a manual gear box. Your question comes down to &quot;what is more sustainable, a mechanical pencil made of plastic &amp; metal or a wooden pencil?&quot;" CreationDate="2016-02-18T15:17:41.123" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="6492" PostId="5064" Score="0" Text="@ChrisH I've never heard of, let alone seen a plant-based plastic pen/automatic pencil, that's a very interesting piece of information. I'd define 'sustainable' as 'which type of pencil should I use to have the least environmental impact' but any viewpoint of sustainability is welcome in an answer." CreationDate="2016-02-19T18:38:28.627" UserId="2553" />
  <row Id="6493" PostId="5064" Score="0" Text="@Lucky they were a bit of a gimmick in the early days of plant-based plastics. I haven't seen them for a while. 'Environmental impact' is hard to pin down. For example: how do you add energy use to water use? I *guess* that the wooden pencil will score the best." CreationDate="2016-02-19T18:57:32.200" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="6484" PostId="5065" Score="1" Text="I read [here](https://www.ams.usda.gov/sites/default/files/media/5%20Mulches%20incl%20biodegradable%20FINAL%20RGK%20V2.pdf) that plastic mulch/covering is allowed in the US but only if it is removed at the end of the growing season. Not sure where the OP is from though." CreationDate="2016-02-18T15:11:47.023" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="16591" PostId="5065" Score="0" Text="To remove the plastic that my previous owners left behind for the small crops that is in bad condition and it breaks up when touching, Would it help if I burn that area considering the plastic is only on top of the dirt but over grown by grass" CreationDate="2024-01-31T21:49:13.710" UserId="15480" />
  <row Id="6486" PostId="5067" Score="0" Text="You could apply similar arguments to small batteries (certainly the Cd in NiCd) as well." CreationDate="2016-02-18T16:50:56.533" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="6490" PostId="5067" Score="0" Text="I could.  But car batteries are a vastly larger threat:  Much of the lead is in soluble form, while the contents of smaller batteries is a paste; the strength of the case is small compared to the weight; Both cadmium and mercury in the reducing conditions of a landfill will tend to form CdS and HgS, which are both insoluble.  Well made landfills have a leachate collection system to prevent stuff from getting into the water table.  That said, our used batteries go into a jar until we have enough to take to the recycle centre." CreationDate="2016-02-19T15:12:47.273" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="6503" PostId="5070" Score="2" Text="I don't know much about sky lanterns, but I do know that decorative fireworks usually contains pieces of plastic, heavy metals for coloring (e.g. barium, strontium, antimony) and that setting them off produces particulates/smog and CO2 (see also [this answer on Quora](http://qr.ae/RUsl3D)). That's why I suspect that the environmental impact of a large rocket is worse than that of a sky lantern (provided the lantern doesn't cause massive fires), but I can't substantiate this." CreationDate="2016-02-24T12:25:07.970" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="6504" PostId="5070" Score="0" Text="@THelper you may well be right but plastic film litter (e.g. from sky lanterns) is a particularly damaging form of litter for wildlife, while the bulk components of fireworks are mostly biodegradable (cardboard, wood)." CreationDate="2016-02-24T21:27:46.443" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="6505" PostId="5070" Score="0" Text="@ChrisH Thanks for you comment. What I read from the links the OP provided is that sky lanterns are made from wax, paper and a metal frame. But if they also contain plastic then the difference between fireworks and sky lanterns may be smaller." CreationDate="2016-02-25T07:59:38.070" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="6506" PostId="5070" Score="1" Text="@THelper there have been moves to ban them in some areas because of the plastic litter. Perhaps the plastic sort have fallen out of favour, or the OP's article discusses a more traditional design." CreationDate="2016-02-25T08:06:19.010" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="6507" PostId="5070" Score="0" Text="Heavy metals and plastic are dramatically different forms of litter, though. The metals are actively poisonous, while the plastic is generally inert. There's also the difference in mass - sky lanterns seem to weigh about 100g each but the commercial fireworks often weigh more than 10kg (including the propellant for launching them). There's probably more heavy metal in the average large firework than there's mass in the sky lantern total. So while you can make a sustainably produced, biodegradeable sky lantern, you cannot do that with a coloured sky rocket, even if the propellant is sustainable" CreationDate="2016-02-26T01:43:26.393" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="6510" PostId="5070" Score="0" Text="Thanks for the answer and comments. I wasn't thinking of comparing one firework to one lantern, actually, but rather an entire display, for example, for a crowd of 10,000 spectators." CreationDate="2016-02-26T12:49:56.353" UserId="3085" />
  <row Id="6512" PostId="5070" Score="1" Text="@Mσᶎ I took the question to be about garden-scale fireworks -- not that I disagree with your comment.  The commercial ones lead to another question: Can a big display on a significant date displace enough private firework parties that it's less polluting?" CreationDate="2016-02-26T15:37:10.380" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="6514" PostId="5070" Score="1" Text="Fireworks will come back down fairly close to where they were launched. So you can monitor that area, and clean up litter afterwards. Whereas sky lanterns can travel 10 miles or more, you have no idea where they land, or if they have caused a fire somewhere else." CreationDate="2016-02-26T23:58:57.060" UserId="1173" />
  <row Id="6515" PostId="5070" Score="0" Text="@vclaw I've never seen anyone even try to clean up after fireworks, though, and from what I know of metal/soil remediation it would be a very energy-intensive process, as well as extremely disruptive. In that sense any number of natural material, biodegradeable lanterns beat even a single, small firework, since they will rot without human intervention where the firework requires someone to capture or recover all the smoke and sparks." CreationDate="2016-02-27T03:37:45.433" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="6501" PostId="5071" Score="2" Text="Good question! I've read mixed messages about this. [This website](http://grist.org/business-technology/whats-the-most-energy-efficient-way-to-charge-my-cellphone/) says that it makes little difference. [This SuperUser question](http://superuser.com/a/604404) says it's more efficient to use an (already running) computer. Something else to consider is that [charging via USB2 is slower than charging via a wall charger](http://android.stackexchange.com/q/5262/7574)" CreationDate="2016-02-24T09:09:30.103" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="6509" PostId="5071" Score="0" Text="@THelper Thanks for the links, I found the answer to that SU question very interesting." CreationDate="2016-02-26T09:35:36.130" UserId="2868" />
  <row Id="6513" PostId="5074" Score="0" Text="The larger power supplies aren't just for expansion, but for varying loads.  As you can see if you have a load monitor running on your system.  For instance, just sitting here browsing StackExchange, I'm running at 2% of CPU capacity, with fans off.  Doing some intensive number crunching will get all CPU cores to 100% &amp; spin up the fans.  If I do it on the desktop, it might well load up both power-hungry GPUs and their fans..." CreationDate="2016-02-26T19:27:14.280" UserId="1937" />
  <row Id="8503" PostId="5076" Score="1" Text="The hair wax I use lists as its main ingredients &quot;Aqua, Ceresin, Alcohol Denat., Petrolatum, Carnauba&quot; - i.e. water, alcohol, various waxes and mineral oil.  Water, beeswax and vegetable oil are the key ingredients in &quot;cold cream&quot; (google it) - a traditional moisturiser that can be made at home.  I have sometimes wondered if these recipes could be tweaked by increasing the amount of beeswax and reducing the water and oil (possibly also including alcohol e.g. in the form of vodka) to give something like an organic hair wax.  May be worth experimenting?" CreationDate="2017-05-10T17:13:23.180" UserId="1445" />
  <row Id="8513" PostId="5076" Score="0" Text="Philosophical question; is it &quot;organic&quot; to do anything with your hair other than just let it grow?" CreationDate="2017-05-17T11:06:35.890" UserId="1567" />
  <row Id="7035" PostId="5077" Score="1" Text="I am looking for organic natural materials &amp; receipes for Gel, Pomade, Mousse for hair styling, not shampoo. If there are some examples please point me to them." CreationDate="2016-06-02T04:52:33.923" UserId="2891" />
  <row Id="6522" PostId="5078" Score="0" Text="Thanks, that's a good start when deciding whether to go set off fireworks, sky lantern or just sit and watch TV!" CreationDate="2016-02-29T00:13:59.090" UserId="3085" />
  <row Id="6517" PostId="5080" Score="4" Text="Note that Internet search engines require large computing and data storage clusters, and one of the largest cost components of data centers is (electrical) power. Even without a special focus on sustainability, reducing power consumption is paramount for a profit-oriented search engine. So, a profit-oriented search engine may very well end up being sustainable without aiming for it. (There are of course other aspects to sustainability than just electrical energy.)" CreationDate="2016-02-27T13:22:01.790" UserId="3106" />
  <row Id="6519" PostId="5080" Score="0" Text="@JörgWMittag you have a valid point, but I'd say there is a drive for efficiency rather than sustainability. In fact, given that fossil fuel  electricity generation is still often cheaper to a business (but not necessarily to society) than solar (etc), the profit driven motive can prevent it from being sustainable." CreationDate="2016-02-27T21:38:23.293" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="6525" PostId="5080" Score="1" Text="*one or more sustainability aspects* is very broad. Are you solely interested in the consequences of their day-to-day operation, or are you also hinting at them tailoring/filtering the search results?" CreationDate="2016-02-29T14:31:36.817" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="6528" PostId="5080" Score="1" Text="@JanDoggen the first. And the extent to which their vision incorporates principles from sustainable development." CreationDate="2016-02-29T20:00:49.663" UserId="2187" />
  <row Id="6521" PostId="5083" Score="6" Text="There's also an associated energy cost in running the ad servers and transmitting all the data." CreationDate="2016-02-28T14:09:31.917" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="6523" PostId="5083" Score="2" Text="Not to mention a big difference between trying to convince people to buy something new, and advertising things like seed swaps and hand-tool sharpening." CreationDate="2016-02-29T08:18:27.537" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="6527" PostId="5083" Score="0" Text="Interesting thought. I haven't thought about using ads to promote second-hand products and goods &amp; services for self-sustained living." CreationDate="2016-02-29T16:47:51.793" UserId="2187" />
  <row Id="10857" PostId="5083" Score="0" Text="The irony is that this site is supported and offered for free thanks to online advertising (through the parent site stack overflow -- see [this blog post](https://stackoverflow.blog/2016/11/15/how-we-make-money-at-stack-overflow-2016-edition/) for an explanation)." CreationDate="2019-04-01T17:37:13.753" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="6533" PostId="5085" Score="2" Text="Yes, you're missing one thing: re-use the coffee bags. That list seems pretty well thought-out to me." CreationDate="2016-03-03T04:34:09.997" UserId="3057" />
  <row Id="6534" PostId="5085" Score="2" Text="And #1 is by far the most important criterion. Where does your coffee come from and under what circumstances was it produced?" CreationDate="2016-03-03T12:40:40.430" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="6536" PostId="5085" Score="0" Text="Also depends on how much ground coffee you use for each method." CreationDate="2016-03-03T12:51:04.700" UserId="1173" />
  <row Id="6746" PostId="5085" Score="0" Text="How about not drinking coffee, it is unnecessary, and is responsible for the destruction of rare tropical mountain forest." CreationDate="2016-04-17T08:12:39.970" UserId="3303" />
  <row Id="10441" PostId="5085" Score="0" Text="This sounds like the sort of issue where there is a serious danger of putting a lot of effort into minor reductions and missing the really important ones. To counter that, you could ask for figures showing how important the various aspects are. The current answers give no impact figures art all!" CreationDate="2018-11-22T23:01:25.830" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="10442" PostId="5085" Score="0" Text="To avoid heating too much, mark your kettle with the amounts you use most often, and/or measure the water into it from your cup/pot. See also [Should I worry about the minimum mark on our kettle?](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/4890/should-i-worry-about-the-minimum-mark-on-our-kettle) ." CreationDate="2018-11-22T23:03:08.407" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="6542" PostId="5090" Score="0" Text="Note that gas isn't sustainable in the long term as it's a fossil fuel (unless it's biogas and that's very rare), so if you're considering sustainability you need to decide whether long-term sustainability is more important to you than short term, or affordability or safety etc. Where gas wins is compared to other fossil fuels - it's often more efficient and less toxic than coal or oil, for example." CreationDate="2016-03-04T08:50:23.350" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="6543" PostId="5090" Score="0" Text="@Mσᶎ That is true but in most areas, the utility grid is currently less sustainable than either natural gas or propane. The grid gets a huge percentage of it's power from fossil fuels but it does so quite inefficiently. It is much less efficient to first turn fuel into electricity and then convert that electricity into heat, than to go straight from fuel to heat in a high efficient furnace." CreationDate="2016-03-04T15:15:01.350" UserId="3068" />
  <row Id="6545" PostId="5090" Score="1" Text="Depends where your grid is, and whether you can choose sustainable options. We buy 100% wind power, for example, and in Aotearoa you get 60% hydro by default (on average)." CreationDate="2016-03-05T06:17:37.323" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="6551" PostId="5090" Score="0" Text="Re your final note: It's rarely going to be better to use an electric heat pump than burning something on site. However, remember that not everywhere in the world has mains gas! (where I live there is no gas and oil by tanker - the other non-electric option - ends up costing about the same as electric heating)" CreationDate="2016-03-08T16:25:18.593" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="6558" PostId="5090" Score="0" Text="@Mσᶎ Thank-you for pointing that out. I have updated my answer because I hadn't thought of those of you who might be lucky enough to be on a sustainable grid." CreationDate="2016-03-10T17:25:12.693" UserId="3068" />
  <row Id="6559" PostId="5090" Score="0" Text="@SimonW Thanks for your comment. Around here, you can get a propane delivery no matter how far you live from a main. I didn't think about how many people don't have this convenience. I have updated my answer accordingly." CreationDate="2016-03-10T17:28:09.707" UserId="3068" />
  <row Id="6560" PostId="5090" Score="2" Text="also note that a heat pump can have efficiency over 100% since the heat is free from outside and not part of the calculation. Typically the energy spent to compress and expand the fluid is much less than the heat gained or lost by the house, resulting in &gt;100% efficiency." CreationDate="2016-03-10T19:57:20.327" UserId="1053" />
  <row Id="6561" PostId="5090" Score="0" Text="@KateGregory That is true if the air outside is relatively warm. It is all about the temperature differential. A heat pump will have one efficiency if the air inside is 10° warmer inside than outside. At a 20° differential, the efficiency is much lower. Here in the USA, most people want to keep it above 70°F so if the temperature is 30°F that is a 40°F differential. When you differentiel increases, not only does your need (demand) rise, but the efficiency drops substantially. This problem mostly disappears with ground source systems because the ground temperature is more constant." CreationDate="2016-03-10T20:16:27.233" UserId="3068" />
  <row Id="6562" PostId="5090" Score="0" Text="@KateGregory Then you need to calculate the efficiency at which that electricity was produced (unless it is supplied solely from renewables). At the end of the day, there are a lot of people that do benefit from heat pumps and it is their best option but it's just good to look at these factors first because they're not always better." CreationDate="2016-03-10T20:19:48.280" UserId="3068" />
  <row Id="6563" PostId="5090" Score="0" Text="@MaxfieldSolar i know about the cold thing. We had a heat pump, it was strictly spring and fall (I live in Ontario) and in the end we got rid of it. We use an electric furnace and the heat pump was only a supplement anyway. Just wanted to point out that a 95% efficient furnace is not the upper limit." CreationDate="2016-03-10T20:37:53.307" UserId="1053" />
  <row Id="6564" PostId="5090" Score="0" Text="On that note, the difference can go both ways - here in Australia our loads are mostly air conditioning, and while it's very rare to see 30K between inside and outside, 20K is common (20K is about 32F, IIRC), we get 40 degree days in many parts of the country (and the north gets seasons with those temperatures). Same problem with efficiency, but there's not a lot of choice. Ground sourcing is rare but becoming more common, even though with a lower water table it is harder to do. Note that the question is not &quot;in the continental USA&quot;, it's much, much more general." CreationDate="2016-03-11T01:34:57.243" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="6565" PostId="5090" Score="0" Text="@Mσᶎ Thank-you. Yes, I realize that the realm of my experience (a small portion of the USA) is only a small percentage. The clause containing &quot;in the continental USA&quot; is a weak attempt to humble myself and say &quot;Hey, I don't really know about where you are but here are a few factors to think about and see if they apply to your location.&quot; If you tell me something specific about your area, that helps me see the issue from a different angle and while it may or may not apply here, I like broadening my knowledge database. I like an opportunity to think outside my little box and see if it applies." CreationDate="2016-03-11T03:26:00.087" UserId="3068" />
  <row Id="10798" PostId="5090" Score="0" Text="When you mention it depends on &quot;the cost of electricity (vs gas)&quot;, I'm skeptical of what you're even talking about, as the cost has not much relation to the sustainability. The glaring thing you get wrong in this answer is that despite the great 95% efficiency of a NG furnace, that's just not very good. Heat pumps (even air source) are over 300% efficient, which means they compensate for even pretty bad electrical generation. We'd be better off burning the gas in a power plant and using the electricity for heat pumps even with all the losses." CreationDate="2019-03-14T17:02:25.480" UserId="6450" />
  <row Id="16431" PostId="5090" Score="0" Text="Note that *air source* can refer to air-to-air or to air-to-water heat pumps, which are very different in practice." CreationDate="2023-07-17T14:43:55.683" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="6537" PostId="5091" Score="1" Text="Also consider a moka pot. It appears similar to a percolator, but only boils the water once. It can make a more concentrated coffee, similar to espresso." CreationDate="2016-03-03T13:13:35.137" UserId="1173" />
  <row Id="6538" PostId="5091" Score="0" Text="@vclaw yes, I consider a moka pot essentially a stove top espresso machine. When you heat something on a stove a lot of the heat goes around it and get wasted just heating the air. I guess that if you were to find a moka pot made out of magnetic steel and use it on an induction plate then that would be a very good option. I use an espresso machine when I'm home and a moka pot when I'm camping." CreationDate="2016-03-03T13:47:54.490" UserId="3068" />
  <row Id="6550" PostId="5091" Score="1" Text="A drip machine uses a lot of energy to keep the pot hot.  There are drip machines with an insulated jug that use much less power. Or there are drip cones where you boil the water in a kettle.  We use one when camping, with a thermos jug." CreationDate="2016-03-08T15:07:11.437" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="6578" PostId="5091" Score="1" Text="For my french press use off-grid I always go with an insulated or double-wall model so that the coffee stays warm, too.  You could transfer it to an insulated container after brewing (to get the best taste, probably).  Grinding beans can be done by a hand powered burr grinder which discerning drinkers love or you can throw the beans in your handkerchief and smash them with a rock (cowboy style)." CreationDate="2016-03-14T20:51:57.930" UserId="1586" />
  <row Id="8601" PostId="5091" Score="0" Text="The downside of a French press is that it always seems to take a lot of water to properly clean; so I'm not so sure if it's that much better when all things are considered. This is also an issue with the insulated drip machines @ChrisH, maybe other models are better but mine gets a layer of caked coffee in the metal interior quite fast, which affects the taste and takes a lot of effort/scrubbing/hot water to clean." CreationDate="2017-06-21T17:51:20.820" UserId="399" />
  <row Id="8602" PostId="5091" Score="0" Text="@CarpetSmoker that may be true. I live in a wet country so tend to consider energy use as more important than water use. As for caked on coffee in a hot jug, I've found a quick rinse with a little water just after pouring the last cup helps a lot (also with the heated jugs)" CreationDate="2017-06-22T05:54:47.023" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="14957" PostId="5091" Score="0" Text="Cooling the room temperature coffee preparation down to fridge temperature takes a certain amount of energy, but probably not a lot." CreationDate="2021-08-29T11:22:02.110" UserId="2266" />
  <row Id="6539" PostId="5092" Score="1" Text="Never seen any of these. The only one that makes sense to me is 'ECF' which probably stands for [Elemental Chlorine-Free bleaching](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elemental_chlorine_free)." CreationDate="2016-03-03T14:45:22.370" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="6540" PostId="5092" Score="1" Text="Have you tried copy/pasting the individual symbols into [Google image search](https://images.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl)? And ISO 6706 you can [look up](http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/catalogue_tc/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumber=13146). Did you ask [Portfolio Ltd](http://www.greetingcardassociation.org.uk/members-directory/detail/553)?" CreationDate="2016-03-03T18:46:51.470" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="6541" PostId="5092" Score="0" Text="@JanDoggen I haven't image searched or contacted the company." CreationDate="2016-03-04T08:48:08.960" UserId="3088" />
  <row Id="9320" PostId="5093" Score="0" Text="The study speaks of five or more cups a day, I'm nowhere near that consumption, so I don't worry about that too much. Besides, the higher coffeine level (and its health benefits) may make up for it." CreationDate="2018-03-03T23:59:48.033" UserId="2851" />
  <row Id="10495" PostId="5093" Score="1" Text="The study (at the sciencedirect.com link) is also a study of the _substance_ **cafestol** rather than an _epidemiological_  study of the effects of brewing methods on overall health; as such it is of greater relevance to researchers than the public, though exactly the sort of study seized upon by journalists wanting to write another article about a magic ingredient, be it good or bad. This is not to say that it has no relevance, but should be interpreted with caution. _The varied format ... size and frequency of consumption make prediction of risk factors ... challenging ...._" CreationDate="2018-12-03T12:01:41.167" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="10498" PostId="5093" Score="1" Text="Rather than looking at just one study, here is a a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. &#xA;https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22713771&#xA;&quot;CONCLUSION:&#xA;The intake of coffee especially unfiltered coffee is contributed significantly to the increase in TC, LDL-C and TG, and the changes were related to the level of intake.&quot;" CreationDate="2018-12-04T19:27:43.527" UserId="2299" />
  <row Id="6544" PostId="5094" Score="0" Text="Thanks, this is the clearest figure on the topic I've seen so far!" CreationDate="2016-03-04T18:51:33.900" UserId="530" />
  <row Id="13123" PostId="5094" Score="0" Text="It would be nice to see an analysis that includes disposal costs in the life-cycle." CreationDate="2020-11-22T21:11:20.437" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="6546" PostId="5097" Score="1" Text="Cold brew is a good idea to try. But I've stored roasted coffee beans much longer than 2 weeks and they still tasted great. Caffeine pills and instant coffee require lots of processing = energy. Besides, where's the point in that?" CreationDate="2016-03-07T16:58:20.497" UserId="2851" />
  <row Id="6547" PostId="5097" Score="0" Text="I don't have any numbers to back it up, but the economies of scale you get with industrial operations for simple operations like creating heat &amp; pressure probably result in less energy usage per unit of product. This report backs up my intuition wrt instant coffee  http://www.fcgov.com/climatewise/pdf/coffee.pdf" CreationDate="2016-03-07T18:46:44.877" UserId="2858" />
  <row Id="6548" PostId="5098" Score="4" Text="Are you wanting to charge a battery for a vehicle with it? If not, then you might get a better answer if you explain what you're planning to use the battery for. This is especially important if you're wanting to fully drain the battery as I understand car batteries don't handle that well (it drastically shortens their useful life)." CreationDate="2016-03-08T08:38:46.180" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="6549" PostId="5098" Score="2" Text="That's two questions in one. I suggest you [edit] the last sentence out, also because it's very easy to search for yourself, e.g. http://www.goalzero.com/solarlife/2013/05/28/clearing-up-the-question-of-battery-capacity-in-electronics/" CreationDate="2016-03-08T10:44:36.580" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="6552" PostId="5099" Score="0" Text="Hi Max , thank you for brief explanation.&#xA;&#xA;My project basically is to power night light around my rooftop garden compound. &#xA;&#xA;And I have 2 used car batteries for this project.&#xA;I live in equator line and looking forward if the power can light the garden for 5 hours (evening to midnight)" CreationDate="2016-03-09T02:02:45.543" UserId="3142" />
  <row Id="6553" PostId="5099" Score="0" Text="@Pet That sounds like a fun project. I always say that if you have something that is free, go ahead and try it... you have nothing to lose. I don't know what kind of night lights you are using or how many but I would guess that it won't be too much power and the used batteries might work out great." CreationDate="2016-03-09T03:37:55.887" UserId="3068" />
  <row Id="6554" PostId="5100" Score="0" Text="Do you have experience with these salt water batteries? I've heard a lot (both good and bad) about them but I haven't actually seen them or talked to anybody who has used them." CreationDate="2016-03-09T03:40:54.087" UserId="3068" />
  <row Id="6555" PostId="5100" Score="0" Text="I have a friend that has been building solar energy systems for several years.  Even his father's yacht is solar.  He is switching to saltwater batteries when his current set fails.  He has been researching this for years.  That's all I have at the moment, but I could ask him for his research." CreationDate="2016-03-09T04:01:26.267" UserId="3080" />
  <row Id="16432" PostId="5107" Score="0" Text="You've described air-to-air heat pumps, but air-to-water heat pumps store the heat in a water tank.  This means you can use solar PV during the relatively warm daytime hours to run the heat pump, then use the hot water with radiators to heat your home during the night." CreationDate="2023-07-17T14:45:13.433" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="6569" PostId="5108" Score="1" Text="That wasn't the question." CreationDate="2016-03-11T12:24:34.197" UserId="1701" />
  <row Id="6570" PostId="5108" Score="0" Text="Perhaps not, but it is an answer. Rhetorical question - what is more important to most people, being comfortable or acting ecologically?" CreationDate="2016-03-11T14:50:04.623" UserId="3153" />
  <row Id="6571" PostId="5108" Score="1" Text="I actually asked this question in physics, but I thought I'd double down asking here since this group considers energy consumption regularly. As to your rhetorical question - I think the obvious answer is that being comfortable is far more important to far more people than acting ecologically. If it were otherwise the world would be a much nicer place." CreationDate="2016-03-11T15:45:06.650" UserId="1701" />
  <row Id="6581" PostId="5108" Score="0" Text="Some people like cold showers. I am one of them. I live in the High mountains and my water is well water, pumped by a solar pump and stored in a 7000 gallon tank about 2 feet under ground. Our water line runs about 5 feet underground for about 1500 feet to our house. When it is -18°F outside (-27°C) our water is very cold (some of our lines have even frozen at 5 feet underground). This is when I get the nicest, coldest showers. Some people call me crazy but I just like my showers that way." CreationDate="2016-03-16T13:17:45.380" UserId="3068" />
  <row Id="6577" PostId="5111" Score="0" Text="[This article in The Guardian](http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/mar/10/could-a-new-plastic-eating-bacteria-help-combat-this-pollution-scourge) agrees with most I've written, except that a chairman of the committee of PET Manufacturers in Europe is skeptical that PET recycling with the bacteria will be economically viable." CreationDate="2016-03-13T07:27:06.647" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="6597" PostId="5119" Score="0" Text="Are they drop toilets (otherwise known as pit toilets) or flushing toilets?" CreationDate="2016-03-19T14:21:34.977" UserId="3068" />
  <row Id="6598" PostId="5119" Score="1" Text="Flushing toilets, regular western style, but people tend to use a water-spraying device for the whole room sometimes to clean" CreationDate="2016-03-19T15:38:43.493" UserId="3173" />
  <row Id="6600" PostId="5119" Score="0" Text="The comment about lye was for drop toilets now that I know you have flush toilets I've deleted it. I know is a couple of oils you can drop into the toilet bowl before each use that work OK but I don't think that would work in your setting because each student should have to use it just before he used the toilet. Not only that but it would get pretty expensive at that scale." CreationDate="2016-03-19T16:47:37.447" UserId="3068" />
  <row Id="6601" PostId="5119" Score="0" Text="Difficult then... People here don't mind about the smell of chemicals apparently. How about natural Camphor? The synthetic one is directly next to the Naphthalene in the stores. You have an opinion about that?" CreationDate="2016-03-20T17:16:57.577" UserId="3173" />
  <row Id="6606" PostId="5119" Score="1" Text="Incense works quite well for me, also smoke is probably just as bad for you as naphthalene." CreationDate="2016-03-21T07:41:11.883" UserId="1255" />
  <row Id="6626" PostId="5119" Score="1" Text="@Ⴖuі I wouldn't mind - but can you recommend a incense which I can purchase on Java? And as the children are still pretty young how to make sure they won't touch it or get bad ideas?" CreationDate="2016-03-22T08:31:22.227" UserId="3173" />
  <row Id="6634" PostId="5119" Score="0" Text="Please [edit] your comment answers into your question text. That should have all the information. Comments may disappear." CreationDate="2016-03-23T11:19:58.470" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="8487" PostId="5119" Score="0" Text="Recently I smelled Tea Tree Oil in a public bathroom. What is your opinion on that? A valid alternative?" CreationDate="2017-05-04T15:41:56.957" UserId="3173" />
  <row Id="16486" PostId="5119" Score="0" Text="@Qohelet:  What's the ventilation situation in the bathroom?  Are there any windows?  Is there an exhaust fan?  Attach some pieces of toilet paper, or some thin strips of writing paper, to a broom handle.  Hold the broom handle way up near the exhaust fan.  Does the paper move randomly?  If so, the exhaust fan is probably still working." CreationDate="2023-08-28T08:58:41.207" UserId="938" />
  <row Id="16487" PostId="5119" Score="0" Text="I use diluted vinegar in a spray bottle for my compsting toilet, that seems to suppress the smell rather than going over the top of it. Tea tree oil is antibacterial so will either kill off some of the stink (flush toilet) or make it worse (pit toilet)" CreationDate="2023-08-30T03:48:00.273" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="6610" PostId="5125" Score="1" Text="Actually question is not about buying electrical crap with old batteries with no possibility for example to go with family to the vacation to sea coast (500+ km). Question is what can be done with the diesel car, so crushing is your option. :c) That emerges a question, why the greens were pushing it as ecological last decades? Thank you." CreationDate="2016-03-21T12:08:13.473" UserId="929" />
  <row Id="6611" PostId="5125" Score="1" Text="&quot;That emerges a question, why the greens were pushing it as ecological last decades?&quot; I think there are a few reasons for that. The most obvious reason is the high gas mileage that the VW TDI engine got. The second I think, was the promises that VW made about how they *could* make them clean (which was, um, a lie). The third had a lot to do with how diesel engines have been very popular in Europe in places where the price of gasoline is very high, but diesel was much lower to give commercial trucks a break and lower the price of goods. In other words, mostly politics." CreationDate="2016-03-21T16:11:05.440" UserId="1692" />
  <row Id="6612" PostId="5125" Score="0" Text="As for the family vacation to the sea coast, please refer to www.plugshare.com. You don't need to have enough battery to get there and back on one charge now, because there are lots of chargers on the ground. Last year, I took my family on a 575km trip through the rugged coast mountains of British Columbia, and honestly, the kids much prefer to not be strapped into the car for 6 hours straight. *They* don't see the frequent stops for charging as a bad thing." CreationDate="2016-03-21T16:27:27.440" UserId="1692" />
  <row Id="6615" PostId="5125" Score="0" Text="I'm from Europe, so no plugsahres here. But tell me please, how many &quot;frequent charges&quot; I can do going from Detroit... during the winter...  we are not yet there. Cars with batteries is nonsense now as batteries life cycle is not sustainable at all." CreationDate="2016-03-21T16:57:05.653" UserId="929" />
  <row Id="6617" PostId="5125" Score="0" Text="Did you try the link? I see thousands of chargers, quick or slow, in Europe." CreationDate="2016-03-21T20:29:26.613" UserId="1692" />
  <row Id="6628" PostId="5125" Score="0" Text="Not enough. U cant even drive from Prague to Karlsbad and back, as you will stay on the road with no power. Useless." CreationDate="2016-03-22T13:25:34.163" UserId="929" />
  <row Id="6629" PostId="5125" Score="0" Text="I've always found that people love to pick the one destination they *can't* reach when discussing an electric car's limited range and not-quite-perfect (yet) supporting infrastructure. But where could I go, if I brought my Leaf to Prague? Well, Dresden via Trmice, for one. With a little trip planning (with help from http://www.jurassictest.ch/GR/), I can even make Berlin and other points north. I can also make it to the quick charger in Plzeň with no problem, also Hradec Králové, Pardubice, and if you stop at any of the 3 chargers on the way to České Budějovice, you can make it there too." CreationDate="2016-03-22T21:40:47.733" UserId="1692" />
  <row Id="6630" PostId="5125" Score="0" Text="And that's not even counting the fact that there's 220v &quot;charging stations&quot; everywhere you can find an outdoor wall outlet in Europe. We only have 110v outlets, so the 220v level 2 chargers have to be specially installed, and are still a bit of a novelty." CreationDate="2016-03-22T21:44:22.017" UserId="1692" />
  <row Id="6632" PostId="5125" Score="0" Text="If it is my destination each weekend, it is a fact: it is useless and not sustainable at all, when talking about replacing batteries. End of story, stop chat. And fortunatelly I'm not from Russia. And do you know wery well known here &quot;out of order&quot; signs? :c)" CreationDate="2016-03-23T09:14:43.200" UserId="929" />
  <row Id="6647" PostId="5125" Score="0" Text="Dee and Ernie, it looks like this discussion is derailing. Comments are not meant for long discussions. For that we have [chat](http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/7310/sustainable-living). But please try to keep an open mind to each others point of view." CreationDate="2016-03-24T08:31:24.953" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="6648" PostId="5126" Score="0" Text="And there are many more unclear abbreviations in your text *which you should have edited out*. I have done that now." CreationDate="2016-03-24T12:16:50.857" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="6609" PostId="5128" Score="1" Text="Intrigued by your answer I googled to see if I could find some more information about toothpaste not being necessary. I found [this interesting PDF](http://dentalhygienehaven.com/wp-content/uploads/2008-3-18-Volume-1-Issue-31-Toothpaste-Truths.pdf) that explains things in a bit more detail." CreationDate="2016-03-21T08:42:18.210" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="6619" PostId="5128" Score="0" Text="Aloha THelper, good article!  It's good to know someone else figured this out and was willing to go on record with it.  The article touched on the third reason to use dentifrices that I didn't go into: special needs." CreationDate="2016-03-21T22:06:38.420" UserId="3186" />
  <row Id="6618" PostId="5130" Score="0" Text="If you want long term storage you'll probably need to line it somehow,depending on your soil type." CreationDate="2016-03-21T21:46:45.727" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="6621" PostId="5130" Score="2" Text="It depends on the weather you expect. If you're worried about a multi-year drought then several years of storage is a good idea. Also, if you get periodic major storms you will need to think very carefully about how to handle high inflow and outflow - it might even be necessary to have a liner than extends down the outside all round for time when the whole pond is overflowing. But if you get regular showers during droughts, even a few hundred litres might be enough (in Melbourne Australia during the &quot;millenium drought&quot; we never needed more than about 3kl to get 100l/day because of that)" CreationDate="2016-03-21T22:24:55.150" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="6616" PostId="5131" Score="0" Text="Thanks for the answer and welcome to Sustainability SE. Unfortunately they don't have a garden, but it's a good answer anyway :)" CreationDate="2016-03-21T18:06:10.103" UserId="2868" />
  <row Id="6640" PostId="5131" Score="0" Text="Do they have landscaping around the house? You would have to bury the paper under leaves or wood chips so it looks nice but it works well for this. It conserves water and provides weed control and shelter to earthworms." CreationDate="2016-03-23T17:35:03.977" UserId="3195" />
  <row Id="6624" PostId="5132" Score="2" Text="Hello and welcome to Sustainability.SE! Giving link-only answers is usually discouraged, because the link may die (the video may be removed). Can you give a short summary of its contents?" CreationDate="2016-03-22T08:15:39.893" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="6636" PostId="5134" Score="0" Text="Thanks Sherwood!  BTW my father in law Willie Johnston once taught with you at St. John's school.  I am sure he would be interested to hear what you are up to." CreationDate="2016-03-23T13:54:31.153" UserId="2337" />
  <row Id="6644" PostId="5134" Score="0" Text="Small world.  My email: sgbotsford at gmail.com" CreationDate="2016-03-24T02:27:24.987" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="6633" PostId="5135" Score="0" Text="As said: The problem aren't insects. The issue is we just need something to cover the smell itself. A fan is not really what they need here also..." CreationDate="2016-03-23T09:19:48.483" UserId="3173" />
  <row Id="6643" PostId="5135" Score="2" Text="And the answer wasn't insects.  It was the application of the insect technological solution to the problem.  I have edited the solution to try ot make this clearer.  As to fan:  If you bring up the air change to the normal levels of 8-12 changes per hour you won't have much of a smell." CreationDate="2016-03-24T02:22:04.403" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="6657" PostId="5142" Score="1" Text="Tarpaulins wear out much faster than paint, though. They're also not very nice to look and and make noise when it's windy." CreationDate="2016-03-30T02:46:04.107" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="10871" PostId="5142" Score="0" Text="@Móż what if Tarpaulin is placed all over the roof with elevation of 4 inches from all sides and then water is poured in?" CreationDate="2019-04-07T13:29:28.423" UserId="6518" />
  <row Id="6649" PostId="5143" Score="2" Text="+1. There's more information about composting mouldy foods in this related question: [Are mouldy kitchen scraps okay to compost?](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/472/99)" CreationDate="2016-03-25T07:30:05.430" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="6651" PostId="5143" Score="2" Text="I once ate pineapple out of a can that was due 10 years before. It was just fine." CreationDate="2016-03-26T09:52:01.320" UserId="1581" />
  <row Id="6656" PostId="5145" Score="0" Text="I'm guessing from &quot;In some countries, a threshold temperature different from the base temperature is used&quot; that it represents the [annual mean temperature in Europe](https://nelson.wisc.edu/sage/data-and-models/atlas/maps.php?datasetid=35&amp;includerelatedlinks=1&amp;dataset=35) and the reason &quot;some countries&quot; use other values is that 12 degrees isn't relevant to them. 12 degrees Celsius would be a horribly cold midwinter day in Sydney, for example, but a terrifyingly hot summer solstice at Scott Base." CreationDate="2016-03-30T02:40:22.297" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="6673" PostId="5145" Score="0" Text="@Moz not quite. A building's base temperature (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balance_point_temperature) depends on the physics of the building only. It's the outdoor temperature above which no heating is required." CreationDate="2016-04-01T18:41:02.337" UserId="706" />
  <row Id="6674" PostId="5145" Score="0" Text="what is your question, then? On the one hand that page makes no sense, because the heat generated by occupants is not &quot;building physics&quot;, but then they also assume that factor away in the definition. But on the other, you link to the definition and description then say &quot;how is this defined&quot;. I just find it amusing that a mechanism that is defined as independent of outside temperature relies on outside temperature. I also don't believe that it is actually independent, and that is why different base temperatures are used." CreationDate="2016-04-01T21:59:09.790" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="6675" PostId="5145" Score="0" Text="The simple specific case is heating climates vs cooling climates. Most of Europe was traditionally a heating climate, where the dominant energy input is heating (the outside is cooler). But most of the population live in cooling climates, so the European assumption, insofar as it is still valid in Europe, does not work. If your mean annual temperature is, say, 310K, you will likely want ventilation rather than enclosure, and it's unlikely that you will ever need heating. But without cooling, you will die." CreationDate="2016-04-01T22:05:20.603" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="6676" PostId="5145" Score="0" Text="Also, is there an equivalent &quot;temperature below which no cooling is required&quot;?" CreationDate="2016-04-01T22:06:07.230" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="6703" PostId="5145" Score="1" Text="@Moz my question is &quot;Why do these norms assume a base temperature of 12 degrees,&quot; when it is well known that the base temperature can widely vary from building to building." CreationDate="2016-04-05T10:57:29.677" UserId="706" />
  <row Id="6652" PostId="5146" Score="2" Text="Our local recycling facility recently started recycling tetra paks, but they don't recycle other paper/plastic, paper/aluminium or plastic/aluminium composites. They say this is because the materials are often 'melted' together which makes it impossible to separate properly. Tetra paks on the other hand are glued, so I guess the recyclability depends how the composites are bound together. BTW, I've heard mixed stories about how much of a Tetra pak is really recycled. Some say everything, some say only the paper layer and the rest gets recycled thermally (burned)." CreationDate="2016-03-29T07:43:25.043" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8571" PostId="5146" Score="0" Text="I think its more resource intensive to recycle the materials, rather than leave as it is, punch it to make pellets, then use that material to make other things: plastic lumber, park benches, and picnic tables - https://sustainablog.org/2015/05/recycling-juice-pouches-into-big-value/" CreationDate="2017-06-02T09:01:17.247" UserId="1729" />
  <row Id="10163" PostId="5146" Score="0" Text="As a side note, I just discovered they are very useful to reuse to go to the bulk store and buy loose ingredients. Brown paper bags are fine, but those coffee resealable bags a perfect for flours, grains a seeds because they won't open or pierce when transported. And their weight is negligible enough." CreationDate="2018-09-09T06:26:42.853" UserId="80" />
  <row Id="6653" PostId="5147" Score="0" Text="I've seen good results reported from an installation in Germany. But high upfront costs are very off-putting at least until the reliability is proven - repairs could get expensive. You also need the right seasonal variation - hot summers and cold winters - otherwise it offers little over ground source heat pumps." CreationDate="2016-03-29T20:07:57.110" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="6654" PostId="5147" Score="1" Text="It may be a matter of it not being widely known. If it's not known about it can't be discussed and be in the forefront of people's minds." CreationDate="2016-03-30T01:51:34.577" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="6655" PostId="5147" Score="0" Text="The energy payback period is likely to be quite high compared to ground source in most places - the target for STES is most likely places where simple ground source isn't feasible for some reason. That's even more relevant for most countries where building standards are so low that the easy wins (draught-proofing, insulation etc) are still available. Like, say, Australia, where I live." CreationDate="2016-03-30T02:36:38.280" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="6660" PostId="5147" Score="0" Text="It's my understanding that ground source (heat pumps) are more geographically restrained to climates with hot summers, and cold winters, because if you only extract heat, you may reduce the system's operating temperature and cause it to be less efficient. Living in a colder climate - I'm predominantly looking for a heating solution. So injecting summer-time heat gathered by evacuated heat pipes seems to make more sense, in terms of efficiency. But to acknowledge your point, yes.. It seems that STES is the solution to a geographically-limited problem." CreationDate="2016-03-30T14:21:23.143" UserId="3228" />
  <row Id="6658" PostId="5148" Score="0" Text="To clarify; you're suggesting that there's no market for STES because of a lack of public understanding, and the uncertainty of whole-life costs. Is this correct?" CreationDate="2016-03-30T14:09:35.340" UserId="3228" />
  <row Id="6661" PostId="5148" Score="1" Text="@Aaron the main reason that there's no market for STES is because fossil fuels provide vast amounts of storage already." CreationDate="2016-03-30T14:32:12.433" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="6724" PostId="5152" Score="0" Text="Curtains normally come with the rented house/apartment in Australia and NZ, but making your own decent ones is still a good idea. Cardboard pelmets also work and are very cheap (even if you have a &quot;no fasteners on the walls&quot; rule the top of the window frame is very rarely inspected :)" CreationDate="2016-04-08T03:48:27.383" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="6726" PostId="5152" Score="0" Text="@Mσᶎ, same here in the UK (at least for furnished lets) but they often let most of the light in as well as most of the heat out. And they're easy to swap and swap back." CreationDate="2016-04-08T05:49:18.487" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="16595" PostId="5153" Score="1" Text="I know this is old, but since this answer and my own were written, I've come across *chimney balloons* which help a lot with draughts if you have chimneys that aren't being used, and can be removed without a trace" CreationDate="2024-02-12T16:08:18.887" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="6662" PostId="5154" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! I'd strongly advice against adding (spoiled) food directly to plants because it leads to all kinds of unwanted effects (e.g. starts to smell, may attract rodents and insects, there's a good chance your plants won't like it). Burying it in the ground and/or composting seems a much better option." CreationDate="2016-03-31T09:11:19.607" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="6663" PostId="5156" Score="0" Text="Yes this will help, but you are not making **your home** more sustainable. You are making your lifestyle more sustainable." CreationDate="2016-03-31T09:14:50.687" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="6664" PostId="5156" Score="0" Text="Planting trees can be an issue for buried pipes." CreationDate="2016-03-31T14:01:37.647" UserId="2762" />
  <row Id="6665" PostId="5158" Score="2" Text="There are online calculators that allow you to put in your location, roof angle etc. and calculate how much power will be generated. You don't say where you are and they tend to be regional so I haven't found one for you. Unless you can get a tariff that credits you for electricity returned to the grid, you need to consider how much electricity you'll use when the sun is shining." CreationDate="2016-04-01T06:46:34.910" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="6670" PostId="5158" Score="1" Text="JZF can you provide your location? Local conditions and regulations will very much determine the cost-effectiveness" CreationDate="2016-04-01T13:38:24.413" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="6672" PostId="5158" Score="1" Text="Thanks @THelper . I am in Stockholm - Sweden (I know, it is not the best place to use PVs !)" CreationDate="2016-04-01T13:55:00.393" UserId="3234" />
  <row Id="6680" PostId="5158" Score="0" Text="Can we know your average power consumption? You should have the monthly use available on the bills, with luck even the daily power use. I'd like to calculate things for a more detailed advice. :)" CreationDate="2016-04-02T09:31:56.170" UserId="3239" />
  <row Id="6668" PostId="5162" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Nice first answer!" CreationDate="2016-04-01T12:03:42.310" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="6669" PostId="5163" Score="1" Text="[Net metering](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_metering) regulations vary widely from country to country, so without knowing the location of the OP you cannot say if he/she can sell any excess electricity back to the utility company" CreationDate="2016-04-01T13:35:53.740" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="6671" PostId="5163" Score="1" Text="@THelper Gosh dang it, I did not think of that. I'll be editing to add/cover that in the answer. :)" CreationDate="2016-04-01T13:41:13.243" UserId="3239" />
  <row Id="9479" PostId="5163" Score="0" Text="A fifth thing can happen: excess power will be used by electrical consumers that are turned on automatically and do useful work. Such ass a water heater. For how to do this, see [this question](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/6521)." CreationDate="2018-03-31T00:11:52.697" UserId="2134" />
  <row Id="6678" PostId="5164" Score="1" Text="Is this directly relating to sustainable living? How?" CreationDate="2016-04-02T09:01:28.447" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="6679" PostId="5164" Score="0" Text="Do you wish to raise chickens exclusively for the meat? or also for the eggs? a friend of mine raises chickens for the eggs and uses them for meat once they reach a certain age. Get the best of both worlds? Or you wish to just go for the meat, which means you'll butcher them at a much younger age." CreationDate="2016-04-02T09:26:18.480" UserId="3239" />
  <row Id="6682" PostId="5164" Score="0" Text="Yes, raising chickens for meat creates a sustainable food source - after the initial investment and if done properly." CreationDate="2016-04-02T11:40:45.410" UserId="37" />
  <row Id="6683" PostId="5164" Score="0" Text="Usually your have egg layers and meat chickens.  There are a few which serve both roles, I was trying to keep it simple." CreationDate="2016-04-02T11:42:36.960" UserId="37" />
  <row Id="6685" PostId="5164" Score="3" Text="The major cost is the ethical damage that comes from murdering animals. You can't avoid that. The environmental cost of feeding them also varies hugely depending on what they eat - you could feed them wagyu beef flown from Japan, for example, or you could let them scrounge loose grain on your organic wheat farm, as two more or less extreme ends of that spectrum." CreationDate="2016-04-02T20:53:03.250" UserId="1255" />
  <row Id="6709" PostId="5164" Score="0" Text="@Ⴖuі is this Sustainable Living or Ethics.SE?  I am sorry but millions of years ago our ancestors hunted, killed, and ate animals for food.  Today, it is very difficult to be sustainable and NOT have some sort of meat.  It really doesn't matter if you agree with me or not as this is off topic for Sustainable.SE.  Let's stick to on topic comments, please." CreationDate="2016-04-05T23:50:57.827" UserId="37" />
  <row Id="6710" PostId="5164" Score="0" Text="@SomeFreeMason the question was about cost, and killing animals is an ethical cost for many people. It's not a monetary cost, but money is not the only possible measure. You don't have to like that for it to be true, and on-topic for a discussion of costs." CreationDate="2016-04-06T07:07:26.237" UserId="1255" />
  <row Id="6715" PostId="5164" Score="0" Text="Hi @SomeFreeMason&#xA;Could you please edit your question and be more specific about the term &quot;cost&quot;? If your concern is exclusively financial, your question is likely to be off-topic." CreationDate="2016-04-07T03:24:23.447" UserId="80" />
  <row Id="6716" PostId="5164" Score="0" Text="Cost in regards to sustainability - which is financial.  No matter what you do, you have to buy stuff.  Completely sustainable with no bartering or purchasing isn't possible. Clearly cost isn't related to ethical cost." CreationDate="2016-04-07T03:30:11.247" UserId="37" />
  <row Id="6725" PostId="5164" Score="1" Text="@SomeFreeMason on the farm we bought very little feed, most of the financial cost was drugs for treating sick chickens. Things like worm tablets, sprays for mites and so on add up when the birds eat 90% scraps and whatever else they can scrounge. Bought feed was mostly treats, we'd buy a &quot;seed and nut&quot; loose chicken treat mix as well as growing sunflowers. Chickens love stuff like pumpkin seeds as well, but you often have to chop them because chickens are not big enough to crack them themselves. With a household of five we ate 3-4 birds a year and got more eggs than we could eat." CreationDate="2016-04-08T03:51:49.447" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="6728" PostId="5164" Score="0" Text="How many birds total did you keep at one time?  12?" CreationDate="2016-04-10T15:40:59.547" UserId="37" />
  <row Id="6905" PostId="5165" Score="0" Text="There is some good info on the Virginia DGIF site about [pond size](http://www.dgif.virginia.gov/fishing/pondmanagement/construction.asp) and [stocking fish](http://www.dgif.virginia.gov/fishing/pondmanagement/stocking.asp) which might help." CreationDate="2016-05-15T09:03:28.150" UserId="3397" />
  <row Id="6684" PostId="5166" Score="0" Text="If you search this site for [&quot;define sustainable&quot;](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/search?q=define+sustainable) you will find numerous comments to the effect that there is no commonly accepted definition, and a lot of variation. So your first step should be to use search engine(s) to see what definitions are out there, then use those to improve your question. At this stage it looks as though you haven't made any effort yourself. Right now the answer to your question is &quot;no&quot;, for example." CreationDate="2016-04-02T20:49:25.653" UserId="1255" />
  <row Id="6686" PostId="5166" Score="0" Text="Thanks for the comment.  I thought this question would be good for the site... I have an opinion myself but was looking for other, more agreed upon answers.  Sorry that you've taken my question the wrong way and made some poor assumptions." CreationDate="2016-04-03T00:17:30.880" UserId="37" />
  <row Id="6690" PostId="5168" Score="2" Text="Thanks for telling about your experience, I have a few good answers here but I am choosing yours because you take it a notch further by showing real courage :)" CreationDate="2016-04-03T09:04:43.423" UserId="80" />
  <row Id="6711" PostId="5169" Score="0" Text="Not mentioned below is the time value of money. It's often left out of naive cost-benefit analyses, but for long-lived products is crucial. In the short run changes in the price of oil probably matter more. Since with an electric car you pay a premium up front, then save over time, if the cost of money is high (high interest rates or inflation), that will increase the cost of the electric car compared to the fossil one. But right now with low interest rates, electric cars benefit accordingly." CreationDate="2016-04-06T07:47:47.410" UserId="1255" />
  <row Id="6687" PostId="5170" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Are you affiliated with the mentioned website? Posts that do not mention affiliation with recommended products or websites are sometimes marked as spam by other site users and may be deleted." CreationDate="2016-04-03T07:37:23.993" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="6880" PostId="5171" Score="4" Text="This is not an answer, this is rather a strange idea that you did not even try." CreationDate="2016-05-10T07:15:17.273" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="6688" PostId="5173" Score="2" Text="I had no idea there was actually a debate about this, but seeing some of the evidence that THelper shows, supporting that the ceramic cup needs about 350 uses to outcompete the disposable plastic cups in greenhouse gases emissions, it gives those new Keep Cups and co. (i.e. reusable durable plastic cups) a great wrap! I even saw one for sale today that was plant-based... Would be interesting to factor that other option in two." CreationDate="2016-04-03T08:52:00.313" UserId="80" />
  <row Id="6700" PostId="5173" Score="0" Text="As the other two answers demonstrate, it's a wash. Naturally, when it's a wash, you have to consider the psychological factor. Drinking from a plastic cup is in very poor taste, you shouldn't do it." CreationDate="2016-04-04T21:26:08.813" UserId="2702" />
  <row Id="6705" PostId="5173" Score="0" Text="@Ricky when you said &quot;it's a wash&quot; I assumed you were making a punny argument for reusability." CreationDate="2016-04-05T19:37:06.327" UserId="2762" />
  <row Id="6706" PostId="5173" Score="0" Text="@WBT: Kind of ..." CreationDate="2016-04-05T23:22:45.587" UserId="2702" />
  <row Id="6707" PostId="5173" Score="0" Text="Also if we're talking about energy expended and possible waste/environmental damage, the launching of missiles is enough to dwarf any differences between these two at an individual scale." CreationDate="2016-04-05T23:32:31.313" UserId="2762" />
  <row Id="6776" PostId="5173" Score="1" Text="It depends - if you need to use it just once or there is a high risk that cup can be easily broken (football match etc.), paper/plastic is the best, but if you need to keep it and drink from it everyday, the ceramic/glass is the best. Each of them is sustainable in different situations." CreationDate="2016-04-25T12:13:44.453" UserId="929" />
  <row Id="6689" PostId="5175" Score="0" Text="I wonder how many people use hot soapy water to each their mug every time they have a drink." CreationDate="2016-04-03T08:53:20.430" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="6691" PostId="5175" Score="1" Text="What about a reusable plastic mug then? [Image](http://www.promocatering.co.uk/images/products/c1023-08-plastic_mug-v1.jpg)" CreationDate="2016-04-03T14:04:13.873" UserId="3253" />
  <row Id="6692" PostId="5175" Score="0" Text="There are significant differences between paper and plastic or styrofoam disposable cups.  If the cups are recycled, the paper is likely to produce a greater percentage of reusable material than the plastic.  Otherwise, it will also biodegrade quicker as well and release fewer toxins.  There's some complications involving the bleach used in paper recycling to remove ink from the paper to be considered as well, but with a mostly-white paper cup, it's probably a net gain.  (Ceramic obviously still wins over any disposables.)" CreationDate="2016-04-03T18:07:45.300" UserId="3255" />
  <row Id="6693" PostId="5175" Score="2" Text="@DarrelHoffman Most paper cups have a thin polyethylene layer which makes it difficult to recycle (see also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_cup#Recycling). That's why there is little difference between the environmental impact of paper and plastic cups." CreationDate="2016-04-03T19:28:23.927" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="6694" PostId="5175" Score="0" Text="@ChrisH It probably depends on what you drink. Personally I put my tea mug in the dish washer about once or twice a week. But if I drink milk, fruit juice or coffee the mug goes in much more often." CreationDate="2016-04-03T19:34:21.620" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="6695" PostId="5175" Score="1" Text="@Alfro Difficult to say. I haven't seen any studies on this, but my bet would be that a reusable plastic mug has a comparable or perhaps even slightly lower environmental footprint than a ceramic mug, provided the plastic mug is properly recycled at the end of it's life." CreationDate="2016-04-03T19:35:58.083" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="6696" PostId="5175" Score="1" Text="@THelper, black coffee here, and no dishwasher at work. Mine gets a weekly wash whether or not it needs it." CreationDate="2016-04-03T21:13:30.067" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="6697" PostId="5175" Score="0" Text="@THelper - Right, sorry, I was thinking of paper vs. plastic in a general sense.  With cups, paper is pretty much just as bad due to the waterproofing layer.  Another possibility are aluminum bottles.  They're better insulators, and much more durable than ceramic.  And if you do eventually decide to retire it, metal is much easier to recycle than other materials.  Might not be good for something acidic like orange juice though." CreationDate="2016-04-04T13:18:28.180" UserId="3255" />
  <row Id="8195" PostId="5175" Score="2" Text="And why would you throw away a perfectly useful mug if it breaks? Break it further and use it in the bottom of a pot to keep a plant draining. Glue it and use it as a pencil cup or other holder. See if there are local landscapers who can use busted mugs as rip-rap." CreationDate="2017-02-17T18:06:46.293" UserId="4283" />
  <row Id="6878" PostId="5177" Score="0" Text="@ Jan Doggen, newspapers contain carbon and chemicals that trigger cancer. Even if underneath, it may be risky." CreationDate="2016-05-10T07:12:43.793" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="9151" PostId="5177" Score="0" Text="That is the way we do it at home. But think I will check out J. Chomels answer" CreationDate="2017-12-21T22:26:29.040" UserId="5003" />
  <row Id="6698" PostId="5180" Score="0" Text="What depth of soil do you have? Is it well watered? Is the soil fertile? Do you mulch it?" CreationDate="2016-04-04T19:45:46.760" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="6699" PostId="5180" Score="0" Text="What's wrong with plain old tomatoes? Sheesh." CreationDate="2016-04-04T21:24:30.037" UserId="2702" />
  <row Id="6701" PostId="5180" Score="0" Text="I already have some tomatoes, but they're in a greenhouse to survive the winter. The depth of the soil is around 0.5 meters and I collect rain water, so it is always well waterd. The soil is fertile and I have my own compost, to fertilize it." CreationDate="2016-04-05T05:41:51.177" UserId="3257" />
  <row Id="6713" PostId="5185" Score="0" Text="How do I get seeds from silverbeet or lettuce when I plant them?" CreationDate="2016-04-06T08:50:21.260" UserId="3257" />
  <row Id="6738" PostId="5185" Score="0" Text="I let them got to seed, they will shoot up a tall stalk that doesn't really look like flowers, but you will eventually get seed heads on it. If you just leave them the seeds go everywhere, which works fine in a larger garden, but once you're confident you have seeds set you can either tie a paper bag around them, or cut them off and dry them before shaking the seeds out. Lettuce seeds have dandelion-style fluffy bits so can be annoying to have in the garden." CreationDate="2016-04-14T07:04:52.623" UserId="1255" />
  <row Id="6718" PostId="5186" Score="1" Text="The answer would depend on many things, the length of time at 100% CPU, the make and model of the CPU, your current cost of electricity, etc" CreationDate="2016-04-07T03:42:03.363" UserId="37" />
  <row Id="6721" PostId="5186" Score="2" Text="If you're using strong encryption, the environmental cost depends primarily on whether or not someone is expending the energy to try &amp; crack it." CreationDate="2016-04-08T00:51:36.310" UserId="2762" />
  <row Id="6730" PostId="5188" Score="0" Text="How does the efficiency compare when you offload, though? If you're using HTTPS especially, the round-trip to an offsite decryption farm means that rather than &quot;local PGP decryption&quot; you do &quot;HTTPS encrypt-send-HTTPS decrypt-PGP decrypt-HTTPS encrypt-send-HTTPS decrypt&quot; which doesn't seem like a win. If you use a provider that receives and stores your email like Hushmail you leave out only the &quot;HTTPS encrypt-send-HTTPS decrypt&quot; steps, the rest is still there. So their PGP decryption would have to be extremely efficient to make it worth while." CreationDate="2016-04-13T01:25:53.280" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="6731" PostId="5188" Score="0" Text="You are over thinking this.  There isn't much difference" CreationDate="2016-04-13T01:35:06.947" UserId="37" />
  <row Id="6732" PostId="5188" Score="0" Text="&quot;Not much difference&quot; meaning it &quot;uses only twice as much&quot;, or since only ~1% of the energy is used for encryption even doubling it doesn't matter?" CreationDate="2016-04-13T03:10:21.490" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="6722" PostId="5190" Score="1" Text="In the specific case of the devices I work with, we pay by the byte for GPRS transmissions, including UDP packet headers, so we count bytes a lot. Using AES128 gives a 16 byte block size, meaning in theory we &quot;round up&quot; or pad by an average of 8 bytes on a packet. But a packet has 28 bytes header, then we add 8 bytes of non-encrypted data plus a minimum of one encrypted block. So encryption adds 28+8+8+8 (the last 8 being the extra padding, or 8/44ths of the total ~20%." CreationDate="2016-04-08T03:41:55.430" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="6723" PostId="5190" Score="1" Text="In practice we bit-pack when we get close to the boundary, and have a bunch of encrypted data that goes in every packet, so the padding is only 2-3 bytes. With sloppier systems you get much the same benefit by zipping and optimising, which places like Google do intensively. SE itself has published data on this. People do it to save bandwidth, but encrypting less data saves energy, the question is whether it saves more than the cost of optimisation/compression (which is almost certainly beneficial for do-once stuff like image optimisation)" CreationDate="2016-04-08T03:44:11.740" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="6733" PostId="5195" Score="0" Text="Thank you for the succint explanation, however I'm trying to footprint a single organization.  It seems to me the missing link, then, is a set of factors that tell me the required land use of different commodities (e.g. passenger miles in vehicles, tonnes of meat, kilowatt hours of coal powered electricity) so I can work out the organizational footprint from its inputs.  Are these published anywhere?  Or better yet, has anybody done the computation above with them so I can go straight from organizational inputs to footprint?" CreationDate="2016-04-13T07:20:26.563" UserId="3285" />
  <row Id="6734" PostId="5195" Score="0" Text="I know you can pay for this information - in fact I have access to it - but I'm interested in whether it's also available to people who haven't paid." CreationDate="2016-04-13T07:22:05.207" UserId="3285" />
  <row Id="6736" PostId="5195" Score="1" Text="@SideshowBob I've revised my answer and added a part about calculating primary inputs. Does this help?" CreationDate="2016-04-13T14:56:20.563" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="6737" PostId="5195" Score="0" Text="It does.  If these are the GFN national accounts you mean then they don't have usage data http://www.footprintnetwork.org/images/article_uploads/National_Footprint_Accounts_2012_Edition_Report.pdf   So it would seem the short answer is no; it would take effort to figure out usage data linking inputs to land types, and further effort to apply the EF methodology outlined above?" CreationDate="2016-04-13T15:37:32.170" UserId="3285" />
  <row Id="6739" PostId="5195" Score="1" Text="I don't think the report you link to contains all available national account information. I've read that GFN also publishes datasheets that link products with global hectares, but as I mentioned in my answer I can't verify this as I don't have access to that data." CreationDate="2016-04-14T11:28:22.240" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8635" PostId="5196" Score="0" Text="Hi Walrus! Did you find a solution to this interesting issue?" CreationDate="2017-07-06T06:10:44.967" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="8637" PostId="5196" Score="1" Text="sorry nope.  I think you basically have to use lye in order to get this behavior, but I haven't checked." CreationDate="2017-07-07T17:53:40.587" UserId="3288" />
  <row Id="6742" PostId="5198" Score="1" Text="There are many resources online answering your first question. The second will depend on how much land if any you are responsible for." CreationDate="2016-04-16T11:41:34.757" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="6747" PostId="5201" Score="0" Text="Do you have any references about underpowering LEDs?" CreationDate="2016-04-17T09:19:36.717" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="6751" PostId="5201" Score="5" Text="@Earthliŋ http://www.cree.com/~/media/Files/Cree/LED-Components-and-Modules/XLamp/Data-and-Binning/ds-CXB3590.pdf On page 10 you can see that the the power output graph flattens out with increasing input current. Basically it is diminishing returns at higher power. Also lower temperatures will make LEDs more efficient. This is true of all LEDs I think. LEDs are improving all the time, there is a lot of rivalry with the big brands to make the most efficient ones. The Cree CXB3590 and XP-L are the most efficient white LEDs available at the moment." CreationDate="2016-04-17T10:15:03.423" UserId="3303" />
  <row Id="6850" PostId="5201" Score="0" Text="But IME white LEDs also fade over time, so you're limited by the life of the phosphor at some point. I'd love to see someone work out the optimum power, but I suspect it would vary significantly between LEDs (even expressed as a % of rated power)." CreationDate="2016-05-04T04:32:53.690" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="6749" PostId="5202" Score="2" Text="Can you provide a reference for your claim that pig lard is healthier than most vegetable oils?" CreationDate="2016-04-17T09:52:38.053" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="6753" PostId="5204" Score="6" Text="The cost of running power lines may be a significant part of the overall cost. By which I mean that the cheap land is likely to be further from a connection than land which is economically viable to connect." CreationDate="2016-04-18T06:32:39.130" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="6797" PostId="5204" Score="0" Text="Sorry for OT but &quot;5 acres of land can be had for $5,000&quot;, seriously?" CreationDate="2016-04-26T17:59:23.363" UserId="1078" />
  <row Id="6805" PostId="5204" Score="0" Text="Here's one for $3500: https://www.redfin.com/CA/29-Palms/0-Nearest-Schooler-Rd-Rd-92277/home/101741538 and another for $5000: https://www.redfin.com/CA/Twentynine-Palms/South-92277/home/17268818.  There were a few priced between these two, but the pictures weren't very good." CreationDate="2016-04-27T17:06:21.113" UserId="2228" />
  <row Id="6851" PostId="5204" Score="3" Text="@ChrisH but with luck you can often get rural land under transmission lines cheaply, and with real luck you'd be able to find some near an existing feed point on such a line. Looking at national grid maps is useful for this - and often they choose to run grid lines where land is cheap too." CreationDate="2016-05-04T04:34:53.170" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="6756" PostId="5206" Score="0" Text="Given that crude oil is derived from ancient algal life forms, petrochemical based plastic could loosely be considered a bioplastic." CreationDate="2016-04-19T00:13:50.473" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="6763" PostId="5208" Score="1" Text="Countries *everywhere*? Are you indeed willing to relocate worldwide?" CreationDate="2016-04-20T13:43:31.420" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="6766" PostId="5208" Score="0" Text="@JanDoggen Yes, as long as the climate is not extreme and the country will allow me to live there, also criminality and general safety is a factor but any info on-topic about any country is welcomed." CreationDate="2016-04-20T21:07:35.817" UserId="3308" />
  <row Id="12502" PostId="5208" Score="0" Text="Beware that countries can change. It is not long since floods of people were re-locating from my country (the still United Kingdom) to Spain to take advantage of cheap property, relaxed planning regulations and low cost of living. Brexit ruined many peoples plans. Also, you need to be sure that you really will be independent, and not flying back &quot;home&quot; to Spain every year. Having a life split between two countries which don't have a convenient rail link is not going to be sustainable." CreationDate="2020-03-22T08:41:49.097" UserId="8013" />
  <row Id="6757" PostId="5209" Score="1" Text="There are also [degradable paper liners/bags](https://www.google.nl/search?q=degradable+composts+bin+liner&amp;ie=utf-8&amp;oe=utf-8&amp;gws_rd=cr&amp;ei=5eQVV4edIYb-aKGdhPgC#q=degradable+compost+bin+liner) that help reduce the problem." CreationDate="2016-04-19T07:57:50.260" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="6758" PostId="5209" Score="1" Text="Note that an outside bin attracts flies that lay their eggs in your trash. I had to clean mine regularly when I had one (maggots appeared in as short a period as one week). So make sure the lid closes well." CreationDate="2016-04-19T08:00:09.370" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="6759" PostId="5209" Score="0" Text="@JanDoggen, paper liners edited in (and fixed some daft typos while I was at it)" CreationDate="2016-04-19T09:10:35.830" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="6761" PostId="5209" Score="0" Text="Nice hint, I've never heard about those paper bags, they seem to be the solution. &#xA;The problem when living in an small apartment is that you usually don't have an extra sink, so I think I'll keep using the shower occasionally." CreationDate="2016-04-19T19:28:31.027" UserId="2605" />
  <row Id="6762" PostId="5209" Score="0" Text="@vaz I'd use the kitchen sink myself. But you could fill it with water, then a few minutes later tip down the toilet to save the shower drain." CreationDate="2016-04-19T19:46:55.260" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="6765" PostId="5212" Score="3" Text="Check out The Humanure Handbook: http://humanurehandbook.com/manual.html This uses sawdust for drying. Supposedly it doesn't smell, but you have to empty it every few days (depending on usage, of course)." CreationDate="2016-04-20T20:45:27.333" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="6936" PostId="5212" Score="0" Text="What's the climate at your place?" CreationDate="2016-05-23T08:31:17.093" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="6937" PostId="5212" Score="0" Text="Climate is between continental and oceanic (East France). Never too dry, never too cold." CreationDate="2016-05-23T08:34:45.967" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="12993" PostId="5212" Score="0" Text="The Warmer the climate you have the greater the efficacy of composting your waste. If you live in a cold climate its' better off with conventional septic/sewer systems." CreationDate="2020-10-18T02:33:16.030" UserId="9007" />
  <row Id="6771" PostId="5214" Score="0" Text="I understand that is better to emptying it more frequently, but since the compost container is some blocks from our building, I would prefer not going there more than once a week... just one question, probably a bit silly: if I keep the recipient uncovered, could that slow down anaerobic decomposition?" CreationDate="2016-04-22T19:04:29.400" UserId="2605" />
  <row Id="6769" PostId="5216" Score="3" Text="Exercise? Get a non-motor one and push it. Two things done at once." CreationDate="2016-04-22T18:10:07.593" UserId="1264" />
  <row Id="6772" PostId="5216" Score="0" Text="Or get an electric mower.  Also, don't fertilizer the lawn, or water it more than necessary - that just makes it grow faster.  Native grasses/turf alternatives are a possibility, but depend too much on climate to give advice." CreationDate="2016-04-22T22:48:41.950" UserId="1937" />
  <row Id="6945" PostId="5216" Score="0" Text="Where are you? You could maybe try Irish moss. Also, here are more ideas (I found this by googling &quot;lawn substitute&quot;): http://smsf-mastergardeners.ucanr.edu/Elkus/ground_cover/" CreationDate="2016-05-24T07:58:22.377" UserId="1773" />
  <row Id="16201" PostId="5216" Score="0" Text="I mow with electric plug in mower, super light, mows effortlessly, no oil, no gas. I only do it once every two weeks." CreationDate="2022-12-22T06:34:55.520" UserId="9007" />
  <row Id="6768" PostId="5217" Score="0" Text="I appreciate the suggestions, but the sustainability factor is really only an added bonus.  My prime concern is more that of how maintaining it would consume a large amount of my time and an unnecessary portion of my budget.  I have thought about some kind of a large garden, like I've seen on some tv channels in the past for homes in arid climates, but it seems like that would still require some significant amount of maintenance, probably an equivalent amount of time.  Additionally, I don't plan on living in an arid climate, more likely Montana to Wisconsin and surrounding areas." CreationDate="2016-04-21T21:56:26.593" UserId="3321" />
  <row Id="6770" PostId="5217" Score="0" Text="My suggestions were intended to apply to non-arid climates." CreationDate="2016-04-22T18:44:28.860" UserId="2762" />
  <row Id="6845" PostId="5218" Score="0" Text="This is what we did. When we bought a new house we immediately started digging up one area at a time and planting new things. We also had mulch delivered and dumped on a part of the lawn we wanted to kill (because 2m high mounds of freshly chipped wood kill lawn very effectively). Over time we expect to plant over all the lawn except the bit in and immediately each side of our bikeway (if we had a car it would be a driveway). Currently we alternate mulch mowing with &quot;mining&quot; the grass clippings into compost for the rest of the garden." CreationDate="2016-05-04T04:13:55.037" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="6846" PostId="5220" Score="0" Text="It would help if you put your location into your question or profile, as useful resources tend to be somewhat local. As one answer suggests Australian links but you are apparently in the US that would be handy to have up front." CreationDate="2016-05-04T04:17:07.113" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="6859" PostId="5220" Score="0" Text="@Mσᶎ good point.  Updated" CreationDate="2016-05-04T18:58:36.520" UserId="3296" />
  <row Id="11867" PostId="5221" Score="0" Text="On smaller areas, I had a great success first &quot;scraping&quot; the grass off surface, then losening the soil with a hoe or shovel. The grass went straight to the compost. Few remaining tougher weeds were removed manually until they gave up." CreationDate="2019-11-20T15:55:55.490" UserId="8149" />
  <row Id="6875" PostId="5223" Score="1" Text="Awesome answer, +1. I really enjoyed reading this - it makes me want to live for a while in a Bulgarian village!" CreationDate="2016-05-07T09:16:24.680" UserId="1138" />
  <row Id="6773" PostId="5224" Score="1" Text="Tracking systems are also much heavier and catch the wind more, so they're not ideal for roof mounting." CreationDate="2016-04-23T17:23:43.360" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="6799" PostId="5224" Score="0" Text="@Fred Thanks for the feedback (and sorry for the delay responding).  Upvoted because its good information even if it's not quite what I'm looking for.  While not explicitly stated, I did mention the desire to measure during the winter as well so I understand the need for an extended test and I'm also aware that the angle of the sun changes during different times of year.  I'll edit the OP to be a bit more specific." CreationDate="2016-04-27T03:26:11.260" UserId="3296" />
  <row Id="6792" PostId="5228" Score="0" Text="The discussion re silicon prices has been [moved to chat](http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/38891/discussion-between-energynumbers-and-mustang): further discussion here will be deleted. Please use [chat](http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/38891/discussion-between-energynumbers-and-mustang) for discussion" CreationDate="2016-04-26T06:56:12.713" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="9157" PostId="5228" Score="2" Text="I'd have to add a caveat to the very informed answer above. There is a difference between the solar silicon and the silica in the glass that is attached to the silicon. The answer given adds up both partial weight of the glass, which just happens to also be made of silica, and the silicon people typically refer to, which is a much smaller amount attached to the glass." CreationDate="2017-12-29T08:40:13.400" UserId="5269" />
  <row Id="6794" PostId="5231" Score="0" Text="Panel prices fell 60 percent since 2008 while silicon fell more than 20 times http://www.intermtnwindandsolar.com/solar-panel-costs-have-fallen-60-percent-since-2008/ https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fa/Polysilicon_prices_history_since_2004.svg/2000px-Polysilicon_prices_history_since_2004.svg.png, So it wasn't until after the late 2000s that solar was profitable." CreationDate="2016-04-26T16:00:37.217" UserId="3423" />
  <row Id="6796" PostId="5231" Score="0" Text="As for &quot;solar is viable as long as people are willing to pay for it&quot;, nobody would pay for  solar at 50 cents a watt. That would mean, if solar and similar renewables were to provide all energy- about 4tw in the US- it would cost more than all manufacturing production to sustain." CreationDate="2016-04-26T16:19:32.577" UserId="3423" />
  <row Id="6809" PostId="5231" Score="3" Text="@Mustang if you'd like to open a new specific question about the cost of renewable systems, or how to calculate energy demand (US energy demand is ~1.2 TW), please do so. If you want to work through a sample calculation of costs of energy using real numbers, then please do just ask in chat." CreationDate="2016-04-28T04:09:05.217" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="6800" PostId="5233" Score="3" Text="Interesting answer, but what exactly is an atomizer?" CreationDate="2016-04-27T06:21:11.523" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="6802" PostId="5234" Score="1" Text="How much water does an air-conditioner produce?" CreationDate="2016-04-27T12:17:48.900" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="6803" PostId="5234" Score="2" Text="Since it's probably not drinking water, you can look up uses/treatment of greywater. Your water should be a lot cleaner than greywater, so you should be able to use it for cleaning (floors, possibly even laundry)." CreationDate="2016-04-27T12:21:10.463" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="6804" PostId="5234" Score="2" Text="With very old air conditioners (and dehumdifiers) lead solder on the pipework was an issue, leading to recommendations to avoid using the condensate on food plants." CreationDate="2016-04-27T13:59:32.273" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="6913" PostId="5234" Score="0" Text="*some experiments such as (PH, TDS, EC)* Please [edit] your question and explain those terms." CreationDate="2016-05-17T08:32:15.987" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="6811" PostId="5241" Score="3" Text="Doesn't work with [dry toilet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry_toilet), though. More water use." CreationDate="2016-04-30T06:50:38.250" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="6816" PostId="5242" Score="5" Text="I think this questions belongs on Travel.SE, if you're really interested in finding a bakery in Madrid. If this is just a &quot;sample&quot; question, then I think it is too broad. Either way, I can't see how it can fit on this site." CreationDate="2016-04-30T15:52:18.963" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="6840" PostId="5242" Score="1" Text="I agree with @Earthliŋ when saying that of this is a sample question is too broad. But if you are interested in sustainable shops, bakeries, ... in Madrid I can write an answer with some useful resources." CreationDate="2016-05-03T20:05:58.933" UserId="2868" />
  <row Id="6868" PostId="5242" Score="0" Text="Very appreciated @A.A! What do you think, where is the potentially best place online to collect such information about sustainable alternatives?" CreationDate="2016-05-06T06:24:47.777" UserId="2187" />
  <row Id="6817" PostId="5243" Score="0" Text="I do not get it. Why would you heat more water than needed in the first place? E.g. making tea, why not just heat the amount of water required?" CreationDate="2016-05-01T20:29:59.087" UserId="2072" />
  <row Id="6818" PostId="5243" Score="6" Text="Welcome to the site! You raise some interesting points, but you seem to assume that I, as a reader, don't agree with you in the first place, which is largely incorrect. There are also far too many questions raised here to fit well with the clear Q&amp;A format for this site.  I suggest you separate this into independently answerable questions so that answers can be written more clearly and be more useful to everybody. I'm voting to close this in the meantime." CreationDate="2016-05-02T00:30:57.493" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="6820" PostId="5243" Score="1" Text="@HighlyIrregular I have only one question. Which questions have you counhted? I assume that you do not like it because nobody does. As summarized in Wikipedia, people do not differentiate between walls/lid conductivity and bottom conductivity. I am asking like an alien from another planet, who cannot understand what is happening." CreationDate="2016-05-02T06:35:31.397" UserId="3357" />
  <row Id="6821" PostId="5243" Score="5" Text="@LittleAlien &quot;why do you like the cookware not to be thermally isolated from the environment?&quot; being your one and only question? In that case,please delete some of the extraneous text as your long explanation is at best misworded (by assuming I disagree with you), rather than encouraging me to post the solutions I use to the problem you have identified. I have several, but since you have clearly identified me as not wanting or having those solutions in your question, why would waste time answering?" CreationDate="2016-05-02T07:58:51.790" UserId="1255" />
  <row Id="6825" PostId="5243" Score="1" Text="@LittleAlien I count 6 question marks, though some of them may have been rhetorical?" CreationDate="2016-05-02T09:05:33.853" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="6833" PostId="5243" Score="5" Text="Voting to close as 'opinion based'. This is a debate, not a question looking for a solution." CreationDate="2016-05-02T14:21:17.630" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="6844" PostId="5243" Score="0" Text="Two minutes in a search engine found [this interesting article on the topic](http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2014/07/cooking-pot-insulation-key-to-sustainable-cooking.html) which doesn't even mention the new thing I use - an induction cooker, which means it's quite safe to wrap the pot in towels or anything which saves significant energy even over just using the induction cooker. And of course the rice cookers and slow cookers that fill whole isles in shops that sell kitchen appliances. The latter makes your &quot;no-one other than LittleAlien likes them&quot; claim seem weak." CreationDate="2016-05-04T04:10:47.990" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="6855" PostId="5243" Score="1" Text="I think there's an objectively answerable question here, but I think it's more engineering than sustainability. And that's: *&quot;why are most pans made with sides and lid that are just as thermally conductive as the base? Wouldn't it be more efficient to have thermally insulating sides and lid?&quot;* - is that a fair summary?" CreationDate="2016-05-04T07:57:42.947" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="6858" PostId="5243" Score="0" Text="@EnergyNumbers That is a perfect summary but, as you see, we are looking at a wrong planet. In the planet that I posted the question on, the assumption, that most of the people are unaware/don't care about the heat leakage at the kitchen, was clearly dispelled by the Mσᶎ. As experienced citizen, he must be right and majority of voters join his position, as we see in the voting. So, I am sorry for researching your planet so inaccurately." CreationDate="2016-05-04T12:04:02.030" UserId="3357" />
  <row Id="6885" PostId="5245" Score="0" Text="Do you have any references for your claim that waste water from doing the dishes is a (sustainability) problem? AFAIK waste water treatment plants can handle this just fine." CreationDate="2016-05-11T10:34:29.420" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="6887" PostId="5245" Score="0" Text="I tell nothing about making the dishes. I tell about the washing them. I propose the ways that reduce the amount of water wasted and to reduce the amount of chemicals in them. Chemicals are bad in two ways: you waste resources to produce/transport them and they contaminate the sewage. Probably the chemicals are not as poisonous as heavy metals, for instance, but I am sure that the fact that you won't drink them means that they are certainly dangerous for the life. Chemicals are said to wash the fat and kill the microbes." CreationDate="2016-05-11T17:32:51.810" UserId="3357" />
  <row Id="6888" PostId="5245" Score="0" Text="This is what advertisement says. Advanced chemical companies care only about antiseptic effect they can demonstrate on TV and in real life. They do not care about the nature and there is every reason to think that things which kill the microbes also kill you and the life in the wild. Even if you do not have undeniable scientific evidence, you should still minimize the chemicals and water consumption. You should behave the ways that I have described." CreationDate="2016-05-11T17:34:47.890" UserId="3357" />
  <row Id="6889" PostId="5245" Score="0" Text="@THelper Moreover, you suggest that water pruification uses counterchemicals against kitchen/toilet washing chemicals. This probably improves something but, obviously, it is also wasteful. It costs something to produce your counterchemicals. Every action is wasteful. Therefore, we can use pure logic to conclude that the only right position is to reduce the number of both washing chemistry and its neutralizing reagents. Right?" CreationDate="2016-05-11T18:16:23.870" UserId="3357" />
  <row Id="6826" PostId="5246" Score="2" Text="This may be an appropriate question for posting on the Electrical Engineering Stack Exchange site http://electronics.stackexchange.com/" CreationDate="2016-05-02T09:11:07.837" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="6827" PostId="5246" Score="0" Text="Ah cheers, thanks for the heads up, this is my first post on here, scoping the community knowledge/support." CreationDate="2016-05-02T09:30:35.710" UserId="3364" />
  <row Id="7432" PostId="5246" Score="0" Text="I think this is appropriate for sustainable living. Also, there's a renewable energy SE in area 51, please follow that. :)" CreationDate="2016-08-24T23:23:34.340" UserId="3686" />
  <row Id="7433" PostId="5246" Score="0" Text="Also, you probably don't need another controller, check out my answer below." CreationDate="2016-08-24T23:26:36.880" UserId="3686" />
  <row Id="6838" PostId="5247" Score="0" Text="Thanks for the reply. Surely helps. Adding to it, Water Purifier with RO drain 70% of water for purification. This water can also be utilized if stored." CreationDate="2016-05-03T05:22:53.443" UserId="3300" />
  <row Id="6904" PostId="5247" Score="0" Text="If you leave in the country, or have a large space in your backyard or inside, you can also save much water by using dry toilets. http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/2757/how-to-construct-a-composting-toilet?lq=1" CreationDate="2016-05-14T15:44:01.997" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="6834" PostId="5248" Score="0" Text="Thanks for the info (+1).  Every solar link I click on at this stage gives me something new to consider.  Unfortunately, I can't find a system within 100mi (160km) of my location using PVoutput while spot checking any decent sized city.  I wish they had a better search tool.  Unfortunately the EnergyMatters link doesn't give ANY details as to what they base their calculations on so I can only assume they are based on ideal installations of the systems they sell (which may or may not be relevant here in the US)" CreationDate="2016-05-02T14:21:29.153" UserId="3296" />
  <row Id="6836" PostId="5248" Score="0" Text="As a followup, I realized you did not actually back up your initial statement in your answer.  More specifically, Why am I &quot;much better off using one of the solar calculators&quot;?  Is it simply because they are Good Enough?" CreationDate="2016-05-02T16:19:05.207" UserId="3296" />
  <row Id="6847" PostId="5248" Score="2" Text="For the USA http://pvwatts.nrel.gov/pvwatts.php seems likely to be somewhat impartial and has at least got a caveat on the end about variability. I suspect Ⴖuі means that compared to spending money and waiting for two or more years worth of data to build up, any online calculator is likely to give you a free answer that's 90% as good as what you will actually measure. You also have the problem of finding a sample solar cell that matches the array you will buy in two (or more) years time. Better to buy now and if you care a lot about performance, measure what you buy and look for better later." CreationDate="2016-05-04T04:18:54.027" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="6848" PostId="5248" Score="0" Text="From my vague, remote knowledge of the US market I get the impression that buying name brand systems is much more important in the US than in Oz and Aotearoa because your consumer laws are weaker. But even here I suggest (and bought) the better gear rather than risk cheap stuff failing. In my case LG panels (premium) and a Xantrex (mid-tier) inverter, installed and warrantied by an experienced, well regarded company. Inverters last 5-10 years, panels 20+ so I spent my money there." CreationDate="2016-05-04T04:24:54.480" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="6829" PostId="5250" Score="0" Text="I probably was to hasty with accepting the answer because I asked about more general picture, why such devices are not in common use. Particularly, Wikipedia still insists on some &quot;global conductivity&quot; of the cookware, which means that your pans will leak as long as they are heated up. This causes extra losses (probably additional 50% of your 50% savings). I mean that this design is insightful but imperfect. But, this is something at least. It gives some insights into what I asked." CreationDate="2016-05-02T10:10:52.327" UserId="3357" />
  <row Id="6830" PostId="5250" Score="3" Text="Asking why a good idea hasn't caught on can only be answered with speculation. Maybe it's not economical; maybe it's not fashionable; maybe it's not well-known enough. In any case, general questions like this are usually closed as &quot;too broad&quot;. You can find more info in the [help center](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/help/dont-ask). By the way, you can unaccept this answer by clicking the check mark again." CreationDate="2016-05-02T10:18:33.027" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="6837" PostId="5251" Score="0" Text="Interesting. Are the two panel arrays identical? And are the charge controllers?" CreationDate="2016-05-03T04:50:35.590" UserId="3364" />
  <row Id="6841" PostId="5251" Score="0" Text="No. Different panels and regulators. When I started with solar 16 years ago, purchased Plasmatronics PL60, which works with 12/24/48V and had many features, but will only control 60 amps which worked well with initial 12V setup of 4 125W 12V panels. As I could afford added more of same panels until 16 125W 12V panels wired as pairs to give 24V. I have now added 6 250W 24V panels and a different brand controller as separate system, but still charging common 1100 amp hour 24V battery bank. In new future want to add another 4 250W 24V panels to have max of 100amp on this newest controller." CreationDate="2016-05-03T21:49:29.563" UserId="3256" />
  <row Id="6842" PostId="5251" Score="0" Text="So in that case I'll need to get a new 24v inverter. Can you recommend one? It almost seems like it's worth skipping a 24v system and going straight to 48v, to save money in the long run because in the end this is what we're all aiming for right? What are your thoughts?" CreationDate="2016-05-04T02:58:22.543" UserId="3364" />
  <row Id="6856" PostId="5251" Score="0" Text="I have stayed with 24V as relatively easy to get LED lights, fridge/freezers/washers etc and other truck based devices to operate. I also have a 24V DC alternator for emergency battery charging. I would try buying one manufactured in your country, as likely to be able to get parts/repairs/warranty support, whereas imported ones can be difficult to get repaired (as I found out).  I started with 12/24V inverter for hourse, which I have rebuilt with all new capacitors: http://www.selectronic.com.au/inverter/se22.html. Also have a Selectronic WM1700 for the workshop" CreationDate="2016-05-04T08:41:51.973" UserId="3256" />
  <row Id="7436" PostId="5251" Score="0" Text="It would be useful to edit this answer to incorporate the additional details in the discussion underneath." CreationDate="2016-08-25T01:18:54.060" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12921" PostId="5252" Score="0" Text="Just noticed today there now is an English version of the website you mentioned: https://www.stopobsolescence.org" CreationDate="2020-09-21T07:29:39.043" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="6866" PostId="5254" Score="0" Text="The first link in that search gives you a [cup anemometer that puts out a standard 4-20mA signal](http://au.omega.com/pptst/WMS-20.html) that can be logged by a standard industrial data logger, meaning you can buy whatever duration you want. It's likely overkill for you, though (ie, expensive). The [second sells a kit](http://www.inspeed.com/wind_data_logging/Windware_Wind_Speed_Data_kit.asp) which is likely much cheaper, but requires a Windows PC to do the data logging." CreationDate="2016-05-06T00:38:48.297" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="6869" PostId="5254" Score="0" Text="The second link seems to me like quite good solution. And if you don't have Windows PC you can buy one that is compatible with this device second hand for under $50. You can also find the product on amazon and ebay. Thanks! If you write this as an answer I'll mark it as accepted." CreationDate="2016-05-06T10:28:10.003" UserId="3372" />
  <row Id="6864" PostId="5255" Score="1" Text="That's useful information but still as an enthusiast I want to log the data." CreationDate="2016-05-05T12:52:36.247" UserId="3372" />
  <row Id="6865" PostId="5255" Score="0" Text="Why not on a rooftop? If it was on a house on top of a windy hill, then surely it could be viable?" CreationDate="2016-05-05T22:00:09.503" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="6867" PostId="5255" Score="0" Text="@HighlyIrregular the air's too turbulent on the rooftop" CreationDate="2016-05-06T06:03:36.113" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="6870" PostId="5258" Score="2" Text="Thanks, but I was looking for solutions that exist now, not proposals that are unlikely to emerge in my lifetime." CreationDate="2016-05-06T12:38:46.387" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="6871" PostId="5258" Score="0" Text="They say that the tunnel is pretty practical and can be built right now. Moreover, you are likely to experience the peak oil in your lifetime and the tunnel will remain the only practical means of massive trans-atlantic travel. So, you better consider this opportunity if you are serious about it." CreationDate="2016-05-06T12:47:00.087" UserId="3357" />
  <row Id="6872" PostId="5258" Score="0" Text="Maybe it can be, or maybe not, but it isn't there right now and nobody is currently building or concretely planning to build it either.  Therefore, it's not the lowest impact transatlantic crossing *right now*.  If I'm proven wrong and it's getting built in the next 50 years, and if it is by then the lowest-impact transatlantic crossing (who knows how the alternatives develop), I will accept your answer ;-)" CreationDate="2016-05-06T12:51:05.633" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="6873" PostId="5258" Score="0" Text="Which technologies? Teleporation or traveling with 0 friction in the air?" CreationDate="2016-05-06T13:37:59.597" UserId="3357" />
  <row Id="6882" PostId="5259" Score="0" Text="See my updates based on some of the information you provided." CreationDate="2016-05-10T21:28:21.203" UserId="2228" />
  <row Id="6883" PostId="5259" Score="1" Text="The 3rd link looks like it should be https://www.solarelectricpower.org/media/426584/ES-Marktet-Snapshot-PV-Systems-Price-Report.pdf" CreationDate="2016-05-10T22:36:20.437" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="6886" PostId="5262" Score="0" Text="Some palm oil is used in processed foods &amp; snacks, such as lower quality chocolate" CreationDate="2016-05-11T14:59:52.073" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="6884" PostId="5263" Score="0" Text="Thank you, I am surprised. I suspected fuel would be higher because a car costumes a lot more energy than a human. But I guess that palm biodiesel is not as ubiquitous as palm oil in food and cosmetics. It would be interesting to see more recent data, because the share of biodiesel is increasing." CreationDate="2016-05-11T08:33:47.107" UserId="3303" />
  <row Id="6901" PostId="5264" Score="1" Text="Be careful when interpreting the numbers from your energy meter. Many consumer metering devices are rather inaccurate when it comes to measuring low power(&lt; 10 watts). Also be aware that different settings on a device may have a significant impact on electricity consumption (e.g. brightness levels on a TV)." CreationDate="2016-05-14T09:06:42.507" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="12854" PostId="5264" Score="0" Text="These are great answers, but I would like to see someone address what I see as a missing piece: The difference between what manufacturers or regulators estimate and what consumers actually experience! The experimental data from those groups is probably higher quality, but you never know if they missed something about how the product performs in the wild. Some kind of decentralized platform would be great to get at that, no?" CreationDate="2020-09-04T19:15:13.410" UserId="6870" />
  <row Id="8609" PostId="5266" Score="0" Text="There is now also [a kickstarter campaign](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/820419024/guppy-friend-washing-bag/description) for a microfilter bag that &quot;*captures almost all of the fibers released in the washing process*&quot;. Not sure how effective this really is" CreationDate="2017-06-25T10:45:48.323" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="9702" PostId="5266" Score="0" Text="Perhaps you could make this good answer better by prefixing it with a summary and adding your conclusions (if any) about what clothing is preferable and/or how these rank against other materials, though perhaps the question _[Sustainability of different fabrics](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/4985/sustainability-of-different-fabrics)_ is enough, unless you disagree with it." CreationDate="2018-05-16T12:15:13.173" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="11550" PostId="5266" Score="0" Text="Aftermarket filters for washing machines are also available - e.g. https://filtrol.net/filtrol-160/ again, I don't know how effective they are." CreationDate="2019-10-07T10:55:16.097" UserId="1445" />
  <row Id="6895" PostId="5268" Score="5" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! I'm not sure I understand your answer. You say composting is much better than recycling, but your main argument seems to be that recycling uses less energy. Could you elaborate what exactly makes composting better?" CreationDate="2016-05-13T07:09:30.440" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="6909" PostId="5269" Score="3" Text="What's your actual power requirement (maximum load, daily energy use), and how long do you need to run with little or no solar input (days)? Those are the three key numbers that drive everything else, and without them we can't help you much. Will you have a backup generator? Without it you'll need more panels and more batteries. The latter numbers depend on exactly where you are, so without that we can't help. [This question](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/5220/how-can-i-cheaply-evaluate-how-much-solar-energy-i-can-collect) has some suggestions on estimate solar yeild" CreationDate="2016-05-15T21:51:20.203" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="9676" PostId="5269" Score="0" Text="Motors typically have a higher startup current/watt requirement. Make sure that Inverter is able to provide a higher wattage for several seconds." CreationDate="2018-05-09T09:09:54.930" UserId="5699" />
  <row Id="6899" PostId="5271" Score="2" Text="High pressure is inherent to *reverse osmosis* systems, which account for most large-scale desalination. Electric pumps can easily active the pressures but there's often no electricity to spare on a boat, so you may need to look for a non-marine system if you want an electric system." CreationDate="2016-05-14T07:52:52.650" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="6902" PostId="5271" Score="0" Text="Perhaps you are looking for something like [this](http://www.treehugger.com/solar-technology/small-scale-solar-powered-water-desalination-system.html). Unfortunately it doesn't seem to be in production yet. There are other solar-powered systems (e.g. [this one](http://www.bluspr.com/solar_desalinators.html)) but I think most are rather big and expensive." CreationDate="2016-05-14T09:50:54.153" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="6907" PostId="5271" Score="3" Text="Power requirement for such devices greatly depends on the amount of water you want to produce, and also the technique used. Wikipedia describes various techniques and energy consumptions in KWh/m3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desalination ; RO looks to be the best if you don't have a cheap heat source around." CreationDate="2016-05-15T18:34:56.820" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="6912" PostId="5271" Score="1" Text="There are hand-pumped versions for small amounts of water, but they're hard work! Sometimes installed on yachts doing ocean crossings to give an emergency supply for a small crew." CreationDate="2016-05-17T05:39:39.243" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="6903" PostId="5272" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Nice first answer. I've added the links from your comment to your post." CreationDate="2016-05-14T14:46:11.747" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="6908" PostId="5272" Score="0" Text="In many countries a lot of appliances must have the energy star rating and expected consumption on them when they're sold. Which means that that information is usually available even if it's not required where you are - the Australian database site, for example)." CreationDate="2016-05-15T21:43:31.553" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="6910" PostId="5272" Score="0" Text="Thanks a lot for the great links! I also found https://energyuse.eu/ which is supposed to be for people to measure actual consumption and share some tips. Site does exactly what I'm after, but sadly does not seem to be very active." CreationDate="2016-05-16T09:25:42.367" UserId="3387" />
  <row Id="6906" PostId="5274" Score="1" Text="Hello and welcome! I don't quite understand what you did. Could you explain in a little more detail? Thank you." CreationDate="2016-05-15T13:50:21.210" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="6915" PostId="5275" Score="0" Text="This is without electricity?" CreationDate="2016-05-17T14:10:44.183" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="9504" PostId="5278" Score="0" Text="Re &quot;culturally aware&quot;; meaning?" CreationDate="2018-04-07T07:10:31.120" UserId="5613" />
  <row Id="9521" PostId="5278" Score="3" Text="@Pacerier : meaning that the place is an organisation focused on multi-cultural matters and therefore has bathrooms that take into account various cultural practices." CreationDate="2018-04-10T21:45:40.900" UserId="80" />
  <row Id="6919" PostId="5279" Score="1" Text="The question asks about *before* buying the melon. To taste it, you would have to buy it, I guess..." CreationDate="2016-05-19T00:49:26.703" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="6933" PostId="5283" Score="0" Text="If it is just some text left over on the board, trace it with a fresh white board marker, then wipe dry. This will even help when people accidentally used a permanent marker on your board." CreationDate="2016-05-22T14:54:54.413" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="6925" PostId="5285" Score="2" Text="Are you doing anything economically productive? That's quite an important part of the equation." CreationDate="2016-05-20T14:51:04.710" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="6926" PostId="5285" Score="1" Text="Yes, I am saving all of my money and investing it. I haven't done much yet, but I am toying around with bitcoints or commodities, but thats a didffent discussion" CreationDate="2016-05-20T15:32:49.423" UserId="3411" />
  <row Id="6930" PostId="5285" Score="2" Text="I think this fails one of the more common considerations for sustainability -ethics. Even if what you're doing is lawful, it's not something I expect the people you're taking from would regard as a good thing. The obvious way to find out is to ask, perhaps when you ask if you could also sleep in the office a few nights a week?" CreationDate="2016-05-22T05:03:04.990" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="6932" PostId="5285" Score="0" Text="@Mσᶎ I would agree, but only with the specific behaviour of seeking free samples with no intention to spend elsewhere in the store. Other than that, the ethics of use of an employers assets largely depending on the level of use they're comfortable with. For example, if they provide a free gym, then they would expect staff to shower there daily." CreationDate="2016-05-22T11:19:33.687" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="6943" PostId="5285" Score="0" Text="In don't get your point... at what moment are ethics being involved? If no one cares of their waste... the one who cares (for environment and wallet) is missing ethics!!?? there seems to be many confusions on -whats sustainable for who- nowadays" CreationDate="2016-05-24T03:58:39.160" UserId="3415" />
  <row Id="6927" PostId="5286" Score="1" Text="This answer assumes productivity is bonded to fiat currencies, nevertheless trading is more ancient than fiat currencies and traders were VERY productive indeed. I generally encourage not to boost misconceptions. Did -economic replenishment- existed before fiat currencies?" CreationDate="2016-05-20T21:47:43.223" UserId="3415" />
  <row Id="6928" PostId="5286" Score="0" Text="I also believe there's a misconception about the consumption cycle... if this guy is not entering the consumption cycle, then the consumption cycle is decreasing (just a bit, but does) based on the waste-harness actions of this hero. Consumption cycles depend upon masses of adopters, as well as politics, currencies, and many root problems of current humanity trying to become a civilization (Kardashev's scale). Under this point of view... Diversity and Tolerance could be seen as civilization drivers." CreationDate="2016-05-20T23:11:48.690" UserId="3415" />
  <row Id="6929" PostId="5286" Score="0" Text="@davidtaubmann but he explicitly is in &quot;the consumption cycle&quot;, it's just that he's getting other people to pay for what he consumes. The question is whether he produces anything, and in a capitalist society that most reasonably equates to &quot;earns money&quot;. I'm going to guess he's not more productive by any other measure that might count as sustainable, or he would have mentioned it." CreationDate="2016-05-22T05:00:56.307" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="6931" PostId="5286" Score="1" Text="I disagree. Societies can support a small group people who are not productive themselves. The only question is a society is willing to support them. I think that generally people are fine with supporting people who are mentally or physically disabled (e.g. elderly or people with Down-syndrome), and less so when it comes to people who are perfectly able to contribute economically but simply refuse to do so. However that doesn't mean it's not possible/sustainable." CreationDate="2016-05-22T06:39:35.310" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="6938" PostId="5286" Score="0" Text="@davidtaubmann the answer has nothing to do with currencies - it all applies equally in a barter economy." CreationDate="2016-05-23T10:30:36.467" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="6940" PostId="5286" Score="0" Text="I believe that the one that's living from waste doesn't needs at ANYTIME from ANYONE ANY kind of &quot;support&quot;, waste is from what plants and most of nature lives (excepting carnivores) and that's exactly is what controls balance between species... and more over... to be productive and contribute to society no one needs to create waste (search for the definition, pls)... it seems many people is really being brainwashed by debt-ego-capitalism... and @Cooler-Ranch definitely is being productive, he explained he's saving his money for other purposes, for me that's VERY clever and conscious." CreationDate="2016-05-24T03:35:47.200" UserId="3415" />
  <row Id="6941" PostId="5286" Score="0" Text="@EnergyNumbers if you research just a bit you'll find the differences between barter, trade and currencies based on fluctuation... basically it's NOT the same... the first two aren't really as useful for the interests spiral of banks (usurers) and free-markets without taxes... you can't easily sell over-aquired waste as is, but you can easily exchange it." CreationDate="2016-05-24T03:41:13.763" UserId="3415" />
  <row Id="6942" PostId="5290" Score="0" Text="I believe your point is important... they should always check out to be healthy and safe through his life journey of sports and recycling... that assures it to be sustainable at least for them, the environmental and the non-monetary world..." CreationDate="2016-05-24T03:54:55.517" UserId="3415" />
  <row Id="7010" PostId="5290" Score="0" Text="nevertheless... he's not the first one neither the last one to try to live such a complete live depending on recycling and making conscious use of unconscious waste... hopefully there would be more, there should even be a manifesto like the self-repair or some other manifestos..." CreationDate="2016-05-28T06:43:51.443" UserId="3415" />
  <row Id="7030" PostId="5291" Score="0" Text="Maybe you ought to post 1. Floor Plan + Elevation &amp; Ideally a 3D layout 2. Wind behavior at the location through the year.. or atleast location so someone can maybe use a tool to determine that." CreationDate="2016-06-02T04:12:42.090" UserId="2891" />
  <row Id="6939" PostId="5292" Score="5" Text="+1 Let us know how it's going (e.g. by updating this post)." CreationDate="2016-05-23T10:48:08.820" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="6944" PostId="5293" Score="1" Text="Leather is probably a bad idea. Even if it wasn't toxic (which you couldn't guarantee, tanning chemicals aren't nice) it would give a bad taste. It would also soften the impact as it's padded." CreationDate="2016-05-24T06:59:30.453" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="6946" PostId="5293" Score="0" Text="Why don't you use the tried and tested windmill (as a variation on 4)?" CreationDate="2016-05-24T12:00:59.953" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="7033" PostId="5293" Score="1" Text="Lot of villages in India and probably similar nations still use many of the ways you have listed. Google and you'll find. If you'd like I can post a specific detailed answer as well." CreationDate="2016-06-02T04:21:16.677" UserId="2891" />
  <row Id="7038" PostId="5293" Score="0" Text="I live in the city limits. So, I'm not allowed to have animals, except cats and dogs, and a rabbit, maybe. I guess a giant sled dog might be able to work a mill, but I don't know. I don't own land; so, building a windmill might have consequences. :) @AlexS I like the idea of the Indian methods, but I don't know of anywhere to get the tools in the USA, short of hiring a custom stone cutter. I discovered a better way to grind with my rock (using the blunt edge kind of like a rolling pin works a lot faster than using the flat part). Feel free to chat with me on chat here or on my forums. :)" CreationDate="2016-06-02T10:46:00.497" UserId="1773" />
  <row Id="7042" PostId="5293" Score="1" Text="The methods are not high tech so should be easy to replicate if one of them fits your constraints" CreationDate="2016-06-03T07:38:04.483" UserId="2891" />
  <row Id="7043" PostId="5293" Score="0" Text="@AlexS That's the idea." CreationDate="2016-06-03T22:17:37.713" UserId="1773" />
  <row Id="6948" PostId="5294" Score="0" Text="I should note that I'm already happy with the results of the hammering. It makes a satisfactorily fine flour in a satisfactory amount of time (at the very least, for the larger seeds). I don't mean for electricity to be something to be avoided, but it's not something I want to rely on (especially if I'm out in the wilderness, the power goes out, or something). Plus, I already have access to a WonderMill, but I'm not satisfied with how the flour makes me feel, notwithstanding it can grind 100lbs in an hour. Manually ground stuff feels more nutritious, and digests and tastes better, to me." CreationDate="2016-05-24T22:08:07.937" UserId="1773" />
  <row Id="6949" PostId="5294" Score="0" Text="You do make some good points, though. I don't mean to contradict you there. The other flat surface I was using was cement. I could always get an anvil (or make something portable out of cement), but that would be pretty tough to tote around. Finding big, flat, rocks in these parts wouldn't be the hardest thing in the world, though. I imagine some areas are very lacking in them, however." CreationDate="2016-05-24T22:13:49.690" UserId="1773" />
  <row Id="7019" PostId="5294" Score="0" Text="After experimentation, I found that cloth disrupts the action of the hammer too much to be effective, whether or not the cloth will wear out quickly and get in your food. Using a hammer directly on the seeds, however, is very effective at turning them into flour, but the seeds scatter and jump (higher than I first thought). So, a containment method would need to be invented to make this practical (but if invented, it could be very practical, especially for excruciatingly hard seeds like garbanzo beans, which a mortar and pestle will not grind at all." CreationDate="2016-05-31T13:09:43.373" UserId="1773" />
  <row Id="7020" PostId="5294" Score="0" Text="Grain grinders, and other non-hammer methods of grinding are outside the scope of the question, however. This question isn't about the most effective way to grind (nor is using a hammer implied to be the only way I want to make flour). But, the question is about making flour with a hammer nevertheless. Anyway, I accepted your answer because the idea of using cloth doesn't work very well, and you pretty much said that. I think a clamp-based crusher might be more effective and easier to use than a hammer-based one, though (but the idea is similar, except it replaces the pounding with pressure)." CreationDate="2016-05-31T13:11:00.297" UserId="1773" />
  <row Id="7021" PostId="5294" Score="0" Text="I mean, a very large clamp, based crusher (not a tiny one that would take a lot of muscle power to use)." CreationDate="2016-05-31T13:20:04.283" UserId="1773" />
  <row Id="6951" PostId="5296" Score="0" Text="The cloth will be beaten (not ground with rubbing). The problem is that when the seeds, such as chickpeas, break apart, they may break the cloth in the process due to their sharpness as they split into pieces. I guess maybe this calls for experimentation, since it's not necessarily obvious by thinking about it. I'm not looking for whether or not it will wear down the cloth so much as I'm looking for the longest lasting material for the purpose. It doesn't have to last forever per se. Some kind of containment bin might be better than a cloth. The seeds don't fly high, usually." CreationDate="2016-05-25T06:51:16.403" UserId="1773" />
  <row Id="6991" PostId="5296" Score="2" Text="Beating the cloth will wear it away. Like Ⴖuі says, you should consider that you will be eating the fragments of cloth that wear away, so you want the longest lasting non-toxic cloth. Non toxic is important." CreationDate="2016-05-26T22:58:21.537" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="6952" PostId="5297" Score="1" Text="&quot;Raw material costs are mainly energy costs&quot; is probably an excessive assumption - do you have a citation for that (specifically for silicon)? Where do your other assumptions come from (e.g. 20% capacity, industrial energy costs)?" CreationDate="2016-05-25T09:45:40.623" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="6953" PostId="5297" Score="0" Text="The other assumptions are based on what I've seen on this site. Feel free to refute them. Raw material costs reflecting energy costs is a widely used assumption eg http://www.wsj.com/articles/copper-prices-slide-on-oil-dip-1461581413" CreationDate="2016-05-25T10:12:25.383" UserId="3423" />
  <row Id="6954" PostId="5297" Score="0" Text="I would welcome other sources if they disprove my assumptions" CreationDate="2016-05-25T10:14:34.780" UserId="3423" />
  <row Id="6955" PostId="5297" Score="3" Text="Your figure of 8760 seems to be made up of 24hrs times 365 days. The sun doesn't shine 24hrs/day so I think you want something like 10 times 365. The effective number of hours will vary depending on the location, the weather, and whether the panel tracks the sun. Or was the 20% capacity supposed to cover that difference?" CreationDate="2016-05-25T10:48:05.787" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="6958" PostId="5297" Score="0" Text="@HighlyIrregular, that part of the calculation is correct - a capacity factor of 0.20 is reasonable in many parts of the world, and does account for day vs night as well as cloudy vs sunny." CreationDate="2016-05-25T22:04:16.813" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="6959" PostId="5297" Score="0" Text="I see two issues with your numbers. First, 20 is way too low - current estimates are 33 years [(source)](http://www.nrel.gov/analysis/tech_lcoe_re_cost_est.html). Second, what are your sources for $20/kg of Si and 100W/kg?" CreationDate="2016-05-25T22:29:05.347" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="6962" PostId="5297" Score="0" Text="The 33 years is the total lifespan without  considering degradation and is thus not a valid comparison" CreationDate="2016-05-25T22:59:58.783" UserId="3423" />
  <row Id="6964" PostId="5297" Score="0" Text="@NeilTyson, says who? Any solar PV system begins to degrade from day one. 33 is the &quot;lifespan,&quot; the length of time the system lasts until 20% degradation: [NREL, again](http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy12osti/51664.pdf)." CreationDate="2016-05-26T00:15:42.527" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="6966" PostId="5297" Score="0" Text="And, if you're just looking at the energy balance, why does degradation matter? Once it's installed there are no more ongoing costs, so even at 99% degradation the energy out still counts against what you put in." CreationDate="2016-05-26T00:21:51.000" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="6968" PostId="5297" Score="0" Text="I cant find where your source supports that claim. If you can't answer the question please do not respond" CreationDate="2016-05-26T01:06:56.567" UserId="3423" />
  <row Id="6970" PostId="5297" Score="0" Text="Your second comment doesn't make any sense" CreationDate="2016-05-26T02:35:46.147" UserId="3423" />
  <row Id="6986" PostId="5297" Score="4" Text="better duplicate (closed as dupe of same target, but has PV specific answer http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/2968/is-the-energy-used-to-manufacture-and-install-solar-panels-in-proper-balance-wit" CreationDate="2016-05-26T15:22:56.743" UserId="1053" />
  <row Id="7014" PostId="5297" Score="0" Text="Energy break-even point for new panels occurred about 2 years ago AFAIR. - using assumptions of whatever august professional body it was that did the calculations. BUT energy costs at source (mainly China) are lower than at point of use (mostly not China) so on a cost basis we are well past break even point. This is effectively exporting Chinese low cost energy.  This is as valid as buying cheap Chinese goods with low labour costs is effectively exporting Chinese low cost labour.." CreationDate="2016-05-29T08:15:38.797" UserId="318" />
  <row Id="7081" PostId="5297" Score="0" Text="Can you show your work and how you arrived at that conclusion?" CreationDate="2016-06-23T16:07:21.953" UserId="3423" />
  <row Id="7083" PostId="5297" Score="0" Text="As it stands you're just asserting baseless claims." CreationDate="2016-06-23T16:11:29.877" UserId="3423" />
  <row Id="6957" PostId="5298" Score="2" Text="While I'm personally pro solar, the argument that it's viable because lots of it has been installed doesn't really hold water, since government subsidies are in many cases the largest motivator for installing solar." CreationDate="2016-05-25T22:01:24.430" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="6963" PostId="5298" Score="0" Text="I am asking about energy costs not monetary costs. Monetary costs are only used in the absence of data for silicon manufacturing energy use" CreationDate="2016-05-25T23:01:21.627" UserId="3423" />
  <row Id="6974" PostId="5298" Score="0" Text="@NeilTyson Ah, ok, in that case it's a straight duplicate of an existing question. Thanks for clarifying." CreationDate="2016-05-26T05:26:56.723" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="6975" PostId="5298" Score="0" Text="No it is not. Please do not respond if you are unable to answer." CreationDate="2016-05-26T06:14:14.233" UserId="3423" />
  <row Id="6978" PostId="5298" Score="2" Text="@NeilTyson yes, it really does - the answer there completely answers your question here. Your question is whether there's more energy out than in. The other question completely answers that. Your calculations are based on incorrect assumptions, and comments have already pointed that out. If you want to have an open discussion about the numbers, please do so in [chat], not in comments." CreationDate="2016-05-26T08:07:38.913" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="6979" PostId="5298" Score="0" Text="The answers they give have vague methodology and have no primary source" CreationDate="2016-05-26T08:08:41.227" UserId="3423" />
  <row Id="6985" PostId="5298" Score="1" Text="@NeilTyson if you'd like to see better answers there, then please do consider putting a bounty on that question." CreationDate="2016-05-26T12:52:10.690" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="6987" PostId="5298" Score="0" Text="@NeilTyson, for one of your data you cite EIA which is not a primary source. You cite no sources for any of your other data." CreationDate="2016-05-26T18:11:34.927" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="6988" PostId="5298" Score="0" Text="As I said I welcome any sources that refute my claims" CreationDate="2016-05-26T20:38:56.673" UserId="3423" />
  <row Id="7009" PostId="5298" Score="2" Text="@LShaver The argument wasn't that solar is viable because there are lots of panels installed. Rather that lots of panels are installed because it's viable. (Implications are reversed.)" CreationDate="2016-05-28T05:51:53.397" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="6977" PostId="5299" Score="2" Text="Where are you located (region, height) and what is the climate over the year (temperature, humidity) - [edit] your question." CreationDate="2016-05-26T07:32:36.250" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="6999" PostId="5304" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! I've taken the liberty to revise your question a bit for better readability.&#xA;I'm not sure I fully understand your question. I think all education systems can promote sustainable development IF they give attention to it. Perhaps you mean which education system would be most effective?" CreationDate="2016-05-27T07:14:34.487" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7000" PostId="5304" Score="1" Text="@THelper  thanks! :) the question above is based on my understanding(which can be sometimes misleading),so this is the original question: We live in a world with many complex problems, both local and global. What kind of education and learning would help us address these challenges and create a sustainable world and a better life for all?" CreationDate="2016-05-27T07:19:16.033" UserId="3431" />
  <row Id="7016" PostId="5310" Score="0" Text="Do you mean lifelong learning?" CreationDate="2016-05-30T23:51:19.937" UserId="3431" />
  <row Id="7017" PostId="5310" Score="0" Text="I mean that school teaches you to optimize your (job) activities, learn how to simplify mathematical expression, optimize efficiency of physical processes, eliminate unnecessary prcesses. You optimize your production processes. You earn money for saving the nature. How do you spend the money? You spend them to kill the nature the way you like. You need to build the house and gasoline for you car. Yet suburbs is the root of evil. I was born in USSR where state payed people for developing efficient vertical public infrastructure. You design public system and spend money to buy a car!" CreationDate="2016-05-31T08:16:18.590" UserId="3357" />
  <row Id="7350" PostId="5311" Score="0" Text="It would be useful to include a brief description of eco-schools in your question. Also, you ask if eco-schools are *better*. Better than what? Perhaps a more meaningful question would be, how effective are eco-schools?" CreationDate="2016-08-03T06:12:09.213" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7018" PostId="5312" Score="0" Text="Some info here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_of_Sustainable_Economic_Welfare" CreationDate="2016-05-31T11:29:54.157" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="7904" PostId="5313" Score="0" Text="How does this relate to sustainability?" CreationDate="2016-12-29T20:21:24.253" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7957" PostId="5313" Score="0" Text="If one knows required replacement interval and factors in the time/effort/space needed to grow those replacements - one MIGHT make some judgement about which would be a more sustainable option." CreationDate="2017-01-03T18:12:49.880" UserId="1701" />
  <row Id="7028" PostId="5314" Score="0" Text="Read Jared Diamond's [Collapse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse:_How_Societies_Choose_to_Fail_or_Succeed) and the critiques (link in there) people have on it." CreationDate="2016-06-01T08:22:53.283" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="7351" PostId="5320" Score="0" Text="This doesn't seem related to the question." CreationDate="2016-08-03T06:12:21.980" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7037" PostId="5321" Score="0" Text="This *might* be a duplicate of http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/2943/48" CreationDate="2016-06-02T05:45:15.083" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="7039" PostId="5321" Score="1" Text="It should probably be *potential-induced degradation*, which would mean degradation induced by the potential difference (i.e. voltage) within the device. This is likely to be especially significant on unloaded panels, as the open circuit voltage is higher than any voltage at which power is supplied to a load." CreationDate="2016-06-02T16:28:47.793" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="7040" PostId="5321" Score="1" Text="You should give us a link and some context if you want more detail, but the question *might* be a better fit at electronics.se (or even physics.se)." CreationDate="2016-06-02T16:29:51.393" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="7164" PostId="5321" Score="0" Text="Giving us a few links to the &quot;too much detail&quot; explanations, and telling us your understanding of what it is would let us explain it in a way that you understand better. What don't you understand? What have you looked at, and what do you think it means so far? Right now you're likely to get yest another &quot;too much detail&quot; explanation, or else a &quot;way too simple&quot; explanation. Are you asking for the physical mechanisms at play? When you say &quot;too much detail&quot; do you mean the formulae for ion movement in crystalline solids, or do you mean they use terms like potential and electrostatic?" CreationDate="2016-07-08T08:12:00.050" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="7036" PostId="5323" Score="2" Text="Can you please edit your answer to address the question - which is best and why. Just giving a couple of examples with links to a shopping site doesn't really help the person asking the question (especially if they're not in the USA). That site also claims Sydney, Australia isn't a place..." CreationDate="2016-06-02T05:04:04.953" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="7044" PostId="5324" Score="0" Text="@theUg did you get a chance to check this answer?" CreationDate="2016-06-04T01:34:52.850" UserId="2891" />
  <row Id="7056" PostId="5324" Score="0" Text="This is incorrect.  There are not chain replacement kits to migrate to a belt driven design for motorcycles other than HD.  There are, however, kits to change from belt to chain.  The issue is clearance.  In 30+ years of being a motorcycle mechanic and enthusiast I have never seen a kit that can do what you claim.  If they are available, it's only for a couple of models." CreationDate="2016-06-11T00:02:32.183" UserId="1984" />
  <row Id="7057" PostId="5324" Score="0" Text="@Citizen I do not know what's available to shop in the automotive shops/ market as &quot;kits&quot; where you work as a mechanic. I do know engineering design people whose job is replacing old metal chain &amp; gear systems with new age high performance belt drive systems. I'm pointing out the technical alternative that exists, not offering a shopping product list. Maybe this only happens at OEM level &amp; not aftermarket for certain models, but the engg people I know do it for OEM &amp; aftermarket, for many industries, besides just automotive." CreationDate="2016-06-11T02:39:04.663" UserId="2891" />
  <row Id="8261" PostId="5324" Score="0" Text="@theUg - If this is not a more sustainable, less maintenance &amp; longer lasting option then I don't know what is" CreationDate="2017-03-03T10:33:49.593" UserId="2891" />
  <row Id="7041" PostId="5326" Score="3" Text="&quot;Main&quot; steps, &quot;first&quot; steps. Maybe this is too broad. Personally, I think just start anywhere, especially with something you're good at. This is probably going to make the largest impact. Ah, and don't try to make people do what you do. You're not alone—respect the lifestyle of your neighbors and don't give them a reason to think of you and other people trying to live sustainably as a nuisance." CreationDate="2016-06-02T17:04:44.313" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="7045" PostId="5331" Score="0" Text="So I've tried the following so far: 1. Curd/ Home made Yogurt - Good moisturizer etc, but Hair Fragments stick &amp; clump between 3 blades. 2. Tried semi warm milk yesterday - Doesnt stick to face as easy but shaving is fine - Again hair clumping between 3 blades - Less than yogurt but still had to clean them out _wont just wash out. &#xA;&#xA;Wouldnt the Oils in your Recipe aid this CLUMPING? or Alleviate/ Fix it?" CreationDate="2016-06-05T03:00:29.733" UserId="2891" />
  <row Id="12909" PostId="5331" Score="0" Text="I have been shaving with olive oil soap for years" CreationDate="2020-09-10T08:31:16.680" UserId="8963" />
  <row Id="14864" PostId="5334" Score="0" Text="Storing the paper towels also requires a fireproof storage container: oily rags are notorious for spontaneously combusting." CreationDate="2021-08-06T19:55:32.997" UserId="7993" />
  <row Id="15011" PostId="5334" Score="0" Text="@Mark that depends on the oil.  The spontaneously combusting oily rags are those soaked in linseed oil, which oxidises and polymerises rather quickly (that's what makes it a good wood treatment), releasing heat.  Common cooking oils don't behave like this, though I'd still use a glass or metal container with a closed lid, on a surface that's not easily damaged by spilt oil or heat.  Incidentally I've tried to get linseed oil soaked cotton rags to spontaneously ignite (well contained with concrete bricks or a metal bucket), and haven't succeeded" CreationDate="2021-09-06T09:51:38.593" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="7052" PostId="5339" Score="1" Text="With only a hazy idea of how they're made and how they degrade, I strongly suspect that any difference will be smaller than the difference in quantity used if you occasionally have to wash something a second time because you avoided the most suitable detergent." CreationDate="2016-06-08T21:33:56.480" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="7054" PostId="5341" Score="2" Text="I think you are right; the mantra is 'reduce, reuse, recycle' and it's in that order for a reason. Reduce is always the best option." CreationDate="2016-06-10T07:04:24.310" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7055" PostId="5341" Score="2" Text="Though the question is an interesting one, it's not a good fit for this site, as this site is best suited for actual problems rather than generalised discussions. Measuring energy used per person (dependent on age, health requirements and region) might be a good start to get some useful information on how to solve the problem of wasted resources." CreationDate="2016-06-10T09:30:23.830" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="7059" PostId="5346" Score="3" Text="Is the aircon filter clean? Air con units don't work well at all if the filter is clogged up. Also bear in mind that hot air rises and cold air sinks. Where is the air con? If it's on the ground floor, the cold air won't get to the top floor without being forced by a fan." CreationDate="2016-06-15T21:30:31.207" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="7070" PostId="5350" Score="0" Text="I'd be more concerned by the heat used in heating all that water, except in a desert area" CreationDate="2016-06-19T11:53:40.843" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="7383" PostId="5350" Score="0" Text="I'm in California, so that count as a desert area, right :). So drought and all, water has been on my mind, but yes, I'm also concerned about the energy used in the process." CreationDate="2016-08-10T05:20:26.407" UserId="3496" />
  <row Id="7753" PostId="5350" Score="0" Text="Please define *medium or large scale*. Why make your question vague if you can give numbers?" CreationDate="2016-11-29T08:44:57.633" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="8594" PostId="5353" Score="0" Text="Sorry but these arguments don't wash. Hemp is at least 4 times cheaper to produce and it's by products are saleable also. The clothing made from hemp are at least Twice as expensive in the finished product to 10 times more expensive. The reasons given do not make sense?" CreationDate="2017-06-16T22:10:11.367" UserId="4643" />
  <row Id="11014" PostId="5353" Score="0" Text="@user4643 In [this Dutch article](https://decorrespondent.nl/9484/de-henneprevolutie-is-ontketend-nu-moet-de-kledingindustrie-er-nog-aan/3820797437512-94909c90) they mention the exact same reasons as in the above answer: 1) hemp costs 2 - 5 times as much to produce as cotton because of the small scale of production 2)) it is not yet possible to process hemp fibers with machines into a something that is as soft and thin as cotton fibers (it can be done, but only if you process by hand). Consequently machine-processed hemp cannot be used in existing spinning and weaving machines." CreationDate="2019-05-13T09:42:55.700" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8684" PostId="5354" Score="6" Text="In Hong Kong in the 1950s seawater was introduced for flushing toilets. Now, 80% of toilets in Hong Kong flush with seawater." CreationDate="2017-08-01T16:20:14.830" UserId="4793" />
  <row Id="11001" PostId="5354" Score="5" Text="I guess this depends on the country. Here in Switzerland pure watter is common and salt water is rare." CreationDate="2019-05-08T09:33:05.617" UserId="2431" />
  <row Id="12823" PostId="5354" Score="0" Text="https://cen.acs.org/articles/93/web/2015/11/Flushing-Toilets-Seawater-Protect-Marine.html This article talks about an example where this is used!" CreationDate="2018-03-22T19:44:03.883" UserId="5555" />
  <row Id="13746" PostId="5354" Score="0" Text="Look at this: https://www.goodthingsguy.com/environment/salt-water-toilets-future/ A bacteria species was found which breaks down salt water sewage." CreationDate="2021-07-22T13:54:34.253" UserId="9960" />
  <row Id="7066" PostId="5356" Score="8" Text="Another relatively simple approach would be to recycle greywater (e.g. shower waste) for flushing. Rainwater is an option in some areas. The only places where salt water might be a good idea are those where desalination is necessary however efficient water use is (and where greywater can be used for watering crops)" CreationDate="2016-06-19T06:04:50.037" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="7071" PostId="5356" Score="2" Text="A friend did research (M.Sc. dissertation) on coastal houses with septic tank and french drain sewerage disposal (think more holiday cottages than coastal city). This involved taking and analyzing water samples at various points on land and in the sea. She found that wave action provided good oxygenation and adequate breakdown for safe limits. You be surprised how much microbiology there is in the sea (adapted to the environment) :-) Not a direct answer to your question, but might give some additional pointers re. this answer. (The dissertation was not in English and I can't find it online...)" CreationDate="2016-06-20T10:31:35.087" UserId="3401" />
  <row Id="7344" PostId="5357" Score="1" Text="Opening and closing the door of the fridge induces turbulence which might enhance the air exchange between fridge and the outside world. I am not sure how strong this effect is but it probably depends on the opening speed of the door and the size and shape of it. I read some estimation about this some time ago but I do not remember the result/conclusion." CreationDate="2016-08-02T12:41:19.713" UserId="3641" />
  <row Id="7072" PostId="5358" Score="0" Text="Agree, and you can ameliorate the effect by having as little air as possible in your fridge that can drop out. I do it by filling plastic bottles (from milk) with water and putting them in all the empty spaces. (They stay cold and don't drop out :-) ) When you come back from the store and need to store more food, simply take them out as needed, then put them back as the space gets emptied again. Other methods may involve crumpled newspaper (etc.) that just traps the air. Or compartments with doors - probably impractical for a fridge." CreationDate="2016-06-20T10:38:18.073" UserId="3401" />
  <row Id="7073" PostId="5358" Score="0" Text="Clarification on above comment: air-filled containers (or insulation material trapping air bubbles) of any description would work, and probably work **better** when removing and re-introducing - I just use water-filled ones to have more thermal mass, as we sometimes have long power outages, and the extra thermal mass helps to maintain cold - it also takes longer to cool down when taken from room temp and put back in fridge." CreationDate="2016-06-20T11:23:57.187" UserId="3401" />
  <row Id="7076" PostId="5358" Score="0" Text="@fr13d : I am not sure your water-bottle technique is beneficial in most cases, as it takes a significant amount of energy to bring the water temperature down to fridge temperature in the first place. The savings would have to outweight those, and I have no way to estimate that but it seems you would have to keep those bottles in for a long time before it is beneficial. You might also have to consider hindered air circulation in the fridge if you fill it up with bottles and paper." CreationDate="2016-06-21T22:14:12.097" UserId="80" />
  <row Id="7079" PostId="5358" Score="0" Text="@stragu, you might be right about the circulation, but I imagine since the bottles do not sit snug to the sides, this would still leave room for circulation. Regarding the water, do refer to the comment right above yours. Water-filled bottles have kept the fridge at a cooler temp for longer than without **during protracted outages - 6-24 hours**, so no guesswork there. For the OP the circumstances are a bit different, so I agree that water may not work as well." CreationDate="2016-06-22T09:05:24.837" UserId="3401" />
  <row Id="7345" PostId="5358" Score="1" Text="I am not sure whether the answer is correct (see my comment to the question). Opening the door fast and short might have an reverse effect. Open it slowly and leaving it open a bit longer might be a better alternative." CreationDate="2016-08-02T12:43:51.667" UserId="3641" />
  <row Id="7080" PostId="5360" Score="1" Text="To speed it up, In place of copper coil, you could use out-of-the-shelf solar water heater. Or DIY.... looks difficult: http://www.reuk.co.uk/DIY-Solar-Water-Heating.htm" CreationDate="2016-06-23T06:35:26.627" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="7088" PostId="5360" Score="1" Text="Yesterday it was very hot, so I decided to do an experiment. I partially-filled an air mattress with water in the tent (I have the tent already, just not the water mattress, etc.). The effect was that my back got cold on the mattress, while the rest of me remained too hot due to the hot air in the tent. Passive cooling must work in a house because it's insulated (and a person doesn't lie directly on the heatsink), but without this, it doesn't work. I guess what I'll have to do is put tubing all over the tent, but then that might become too complex, expensive, and difficult to transport." CreationDate="2016-06-28T16:16:30.293" UserId="3508" />
  <row Id="7093" PostId="5360" Score="0" Text="A solution for refreshing the hot hair could be to have it circulating somehow inside the cold water?" CreationDate="2016-06-29T06:57:45.270" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="7134" PostId="5360" Score="0" Text="arrrgghhh...for real?  Is this for long time living or just a vacation.  For real?  A basic mat...what you've got going will take a plywood board 4X8 to load into one's truck.  This is NOT camping.  Water filled mattresses are sort of passe, sweetie, died about 1980's.  Air is a luxury, not necessary for comfort in the wild or even the back yard.  Learning how to clear the ground, heck, learn how to find th best place to set up one's tent...are basic skills critical skills.  Water beds?  Heaters?  Go rent a room at a cheap motel.  Simple is far far better and will entice you to 'do it again'." CreationDate="2016-07-02T01:20:41.020" UserId="3540" />
  <row Id="7589" PostId="5360" Score="0" Text="First, that's a lot of water to be trucking to any site to fill a mattress. The issues I see (mind you I'm no expert) are that you'd be &quot;diluting&quot; the heat gains in your 5 gal coil/bucket by a factor of 5 when you put it into 20 gallons. So if you managed to get the coil water 30 degrees above ambient (100 degrees F in 70 ambient), your net gain would only be 6 degrees above ambient. Then as long as that water is cooler than body temperature, it will draw heat from you. Insulating yourself from the mattress would help slow that, but would also kind of eleminate the benefit of warm water too." CreationDate="2016-10-20T18:44:35.853" UserId="1701" />
  <row Id="7590" PostId="5360" Score="0" Text="Re: the amount of water required. Yes, this is not for primitive camping but rather my need to stay in a tent when visiting someone's house. However, some campsites might have a garden hose available that's not too far away. Re: heat dilution: the water will (hopefully) circulate via the thermal siphon effect." CreationDate="2016-10-20T18:53:12.220" UserId="3508" />
  <row Id="7075" PostId="5365" Score="0" Text="True and thanks. To be honest, my main concern is probably &quot;ease of harvest&quot; (pods with more and bigger seeds in them) :-) Less picking, less popping open. (Ahhh, the joys of doing everything small-scale by hand...)" CreationDate="2016-06-20T12:17:15.860" UserId="3401" />
  <row Id="7077" PostId="5366" Score="1" Text="I suspect this is largely unanswerable without doing a survey, though I suppose it's possible one may have been done already. I also wonder whether there are standards defined for this kind of thing, such as through ISO ( http://www.iso.org/iso/home.html )" CreationDate="2016-06-22T00:55:34.507" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="7078" PostId="5366" Score="0" Text="I think the method of calculation depends on local legislation, so it may differ per municipality or state. Just as an example; [this website of CalRecycle](http://www.calrecycle.ca.gov/lgcentral/goalmeasure/disposalrate/Graphs/EstDiversion.htm) (no affiliation) has some interesting information on 2 different calculation methods. One they used until 2007 and one they use now. The lack of standards make it possible to 'manipulate' the diversion rate (e.g. see [this article](https://discardstudies.com/2013/12/06/san-franciscos-famous-80-waste-diversion-rate-anatomy-of-an-exemplar/))" CreationDate="2016-06-22T07:18:25.297" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7086" PostId="5369" Score="7" Text="Two things caught my eye in this study. First, in the conclusion they state EROI is 0.82, and maybe +/-15%. But, their range and error calculations throughout the paper are absent and/or inconsistent. Second, in at least two places, they cite as their source their personal experience. I found a rather thorough critique of the paper [here](https://matter2energy.wordpress.com/2016/05/17/another-pv-eroei-debacle/). Finally, compared to Ferroni et al's meta-study of 28 papers, [this study](https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/rensus/v47y2015icp133-141.html) of 231 papers found an EROI value of 11-12." CreationDate="2016-06-28T09:56:50.540" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7089" PostId="5369" Score="0" Text="There's no point in you replying if you're just going to repeat the same methodological errors." CreationDate="2016-06-28T16:18:08.110" UserId="3423" />
  <row Id="7096" PostId="5369" Score="2" Text="@DJSims The study you quote included finance costs as part of the EROEI cost, which is unusual and probably excluded in the question above. Just dropping that element from the paper puts the return above 1. Alternatively, you could re-do the same analysis including finance-as-energy for other electrical generation systems, and I expect you'll find they all drop below 1 as well. Which suggests to me that the authors should revisit their decision to include purely financial aspects in an energy calculation." CreationDate="2016-06-30T01:20:27.297" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="7098" PostId="5369" Score="0" Text="Still making the same errors" CreationDate="2016-06-30T03:28:01.020" UserId="3423" />
  <row Id="7123" PostId="5369" Score="2" Text="@DJSims since you seem unable to explain the errors you mean in enough detail that other people can understand them, would it be reasonable to conclude that our error is in responding to you at all?" CreationDate="2016-07-01T01:12:24.020" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="7125" PostId="5369" Score="0" Text="It's not hard to understand. It requires road infrastructure to build things and you didnt include it" CreationDate="2016-07-01T01:30:57.747" UserId="3423" />
  <row Id="7994" PostId="5369" Score="0" Text="Another recent analysis of the Ferroni assessment highlights a number of concerns, including the age of the source data, and the fact that the calculations include energy storage as an input requirement, which is kind of silly: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421516301379" CreationDate="2017-01-09T00:43:43.853" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8078" PostId="5369" Score="1" Text="@LShaver A group of scientists wrote a response paper in which they identified &quot;*several critical methodological and calculation flaws in that paper*&quot;: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421516307066" CreationDate="2017-01-21T22:33:35.537" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8079" PostId="5369" Score="0" Text="@THelper that's the one I was trying to link! I access Science Direct through a proxy, and apparently in trying to get the public URL I got the wrong link." CreationDate="2017-01-21T23:10:36.393" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7084" PostId="5370" Score="1" Text="Related: [Lowest impact transatlantic crossing](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/829/lowest-impact-transatlantic-crossing)" CreationDate="2016-06-27T20:21:03.773" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="7133" PostId="5370" Score="2" Text="Comes down to choosing your battles.  There are far more serious situations we humans need to address rather than the best and least environmentallly harmful way to vacation.  Relax, vacationing will be rare to non existent.  Just wait until you see what the big boats do to the ocean, the planes...then compare to Fukishima, millions of ports/docks with all the poo poo, airplanes...geoengineering.  Homeowners who don't read the labels/lnformation nor have any idea was an MSDA sheet is...just wait until you learn where our SHIT goes.  Do you know?  Choose your battles, enjoy a vacation..." CreationDate="2016-07-02T01:01:04.420" UserId="3540" />
  <row Id="7384" PostId="5370" Score="1" Text="Possible duplicate of [Impact of various travelling options](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/93/impact-of-various-travelling-options)" CreationDate="2016-08-10T10:27:18.237" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7090" PostId="5372" Score="2" Text="The frequency and depth of tilling will also have a significant effect, especially as the depth of the subsequent analysis is fixed but not specified. Similarly particle size and invertebrate activity will affect the depth that the biochar reaches. There are plenty of counter examples (e.g. [terra preta](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_preta)) so it works in some soils, perhaps when combined with nutrients, but not in others. That's not really surprising." CreationDate="2016-06-28T16:22:50.787" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="7091" PostId="5372" Score="0" Text="I'm not sure if there's exactly one conter example (terra preta) and we don't know yet how to replicte it." CreationDate="2016-06-28T19:08:24.717" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="7092" PostId="5372" Score="0" Text="I've read articles suggesting viability, but don't have journal access on mobile (or the patience for a search). Besides you may well have seen them. I could only comment rather than answer as I only had a few ideas for things to look at" CreationDate="2016-06-28T19:45:55.790" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="7094" PostId="5372" Score="0" Text="It might be worth a note or possibly even a separate question on other possible benefits of biochar, since the material I've seen often finds the combined benefits to be worthwhile, without necessarily splitting out soil carbon from farm productivity. If you're adding carbon as biochar, then quickly taking it out as crop carbon there's still a benefit, it's just not appearing as added soil carbon (or necessarily as &quot;reduced carbon depletion&quot; if crop yields go up at the same time)." CreationDate="2016-06-30T00:49:31.637" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="7095" PostId="5372" Score="0" Text="Whether there's a net benefit from soil-plant-biochar-crop is where &quot;ask a different question&quot; comes in, I think. From what I can tell the answer is, as always, &quot;it depends&quot; :)" CreationDate="2016-06-30T00:51:08.627" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="7758" PostId="5372" Score="0" Text="This is the first I've heard that it may be unstable.  May be dependent on what else in in the soil.  However it's certainly worth a trial, as it seems to me to be the cheapest possible way to pull C out of the air.  A second issue is whether it has all the wonderful affects ascribed to it.  Be nice, but not necessary.  If it sits in the soil for a few hundred years it buys us enough time." CreationDate="2016-11-29T20:39:56.347" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="7990" PostId="5372" Score="0" Text="remember that soil itself stores carbon, so are you really asking whether biochar is a material that is useful in the big picture for carbon sequestration as compared to just building up soil?" CreationDate="2017-01-08T15:35:02.147" UserId="4159" />
  <row Id="8319" PostId="5372" Score="0" Text="Oil and Coal used to be fantastic carbon sinks." CreationDate="2017-03-13T19:28:27.127" UserId="1701" />
  <row Id="7129" PostId="5374" Score="0" Text="What kind of fencing do you have?  Where is your area, what zone USDA are you for plants?  Are you Urban, suburban or rural...or wilderness? What is the plant association of your area?  Check with cooperative extension services with you closest University.  Keeping the forest floor clean?  What do you mean?  NO VEGETATION?  You do realise that FORESTS take thousands of years to build and everything living is all connected?  To imagine making a forest in one's back yard is sorta kinda a high order to make.  Please let us know ALL details you are able to discern." CreationDate="2016-07-02T00:31:04.823" UserId="3540" />
  <row Id="7137" PostId="5374" Score="0" Text="1. thinking chicken wire 2. 4a 3. rural suburbs 5. catalog ordered rare plants 6. isn't that what animals are for? 6. as the forest grows up it will need stewards to keep the grass, and stuff we don't want down. 7. a food forest is where someone plants a lot of trees with the main purpose of providing food. 8. I do know that in a normal forest everything is connected, and over time these trees will interlock, but need space to grow first with things keeping it easily walked in." CreationDate="2016-07-02T02:09:49.440" UserId="3532" />
  <row Id="7138" PostId="5374" Score="0" Text="Why not a vegetable garden?  Far more effective and producing?  I have perennials as well as area for the annuals.  Waiting for trees to produce is mind boggling...well, how old are you?  Grins!  Space to grow with what you've told me your space is and your list is not ever going to produce food for you for 10 years.  Rare plants...is a huge task  even top gardeners would not do...for a reason.  Lots and lots of work and nothing except a wonderful forest grove to enjoy for your efforts.  Vegetable gardens are tough enough to learn to do effectively, you are biting off an awful lot to chew..." CreationDate="2016-07-02T18:47:23.993" UserId="3540" />
  <row Id="7140" PostId="5374" Score="0" Text="veggies are cheap." CreationDate="2016-07-02T18:57:17.430" UserId="3532" />
  <row Id="11046" PostId="5374" Score="0" Text="Some comments here assume too many things, like the OP being in the US, not having access to an existing forest etc. Also, the commenters need to research food forests. It's not about the trees producing food alone. Point missed. &#xA;The OP on the other hand, needs to provide more information. I can never see 'food forest' without thinking Geoff Lawton. Look him up, his courses and videos are a great place to start when you have something to start from." CreationDate="2019-05-23T11:32:53.723" UserId="6637" />
  <row Id="7124" PostId="5375" Score="1" Text="Can you possibly expand that answer a little, as I'm not sure what a CHT is in this context, or how using water could damage a tank, or for that matter how salt water has more cleaning enzymes in it. I don't doubt your answer, it just seems to be concise due to being mostly jargon." CreationDate="2016-07-01T01:14:57.563" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="7189" PostId="5376" Score="3" Text="I think this is too vague, and too broad, to be answered. You haven't said anything about the landscape you're in, the soil, climate, weather or surroundings. You're also asking for a design that would normally take a professional some time to put together, so you're more likely to to get pointers to example layouts than specific answers, if you supply the necessary information to allow specific answers." CreationDate="2016-07-10T23:10:56.153" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="7194" PostId="5376" Score="3" Text="Taken from a comment provided within an answer: &#xA;&quot;Please provide more information about your yard (size, orientation, topography and current use). Where are you located and when where you hoping the establish your system? What kind of design do you want, savannah style or tree lanes (potentially keyline patterned)?&quot;" CreationDate="2016-07-11T05:50:00.510" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="7101" PostId="5377" Score="0" Text="How about guinea pigs http://www.users.on.net/~arachne/guinea.html ?" CreationDate="2016-06-29T00:10:07.723" UserDisplayName="Graham Chiu" />
  <row Id="7102" PostId="5377" Score="0" Text="You have me convinced for the next question." CreationDate="2016-06-29T03:51:12.777" UserId="3532" />
  <row Id="11591" PostId="5377" Score="0" Text="I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it is an agriculture/livestock question." CreationDate="2019-10-15T06:13:01.850" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="7103" PostId="5378" Score="0" Text="Are you thinking I'm growing vegetables as well as trees? I would just use trees so that I need to worry less about my tree plants so I don't need to worry about my other plants." CreationDate="2016-06-27T23:04:54.650" UserId="3532" />
  <row Id="7104" PostId="5378" Score="0" Text="I can only go by what you've told us.  'Worry less about your trees'?  Guess I am very confused as to your goals." CreationDate="2016-06-27T23:13:27.433" UserDisplayName="stormy" />
  <row Id="7105" PostId="5378" Score="0" Text="When your trees, and bushes get about 5+ feet tall, you can worry less about how they're protected if you put the protection pipes around their base." CreationDate="2016-06-28T00:01:53.143" UserId="3532" />
  <row Id="7106" PostId="5378" Score="4" Text="Stormy's right: Chickens won't cut down grass, they will *rip it out, roots and all*. At least in some places, leaving patches of tall growth (usually something unwanted, in my experience) in upturned, bare dusty soil. And chickens would just *love* the sandy soil OP is dealing with." CreationDate="2016-06-28T04:42:28.100" UserDisplayName="Stephie" />
  <row Id="7107" PostId="5378" Score="1" Text="Chickens eats grass." CreationDate="2016-06-28T06:41:31.577" UserDisplayName="Giacomo Catenazzi" />
  <row Id="7108" PostId="5378" Score="1" Text="black thumb please explain how and why 5+ feet shrubs need protection with rubber pipe?  Do you do this to your trees?  We need to talk...and Giacomo...kitty kats eat grass as well...but to maintain a level for a lawn?  This is nuts." CreationDate="2016-06-28T06:46:52.183" UserDisplayName="stormy" />
  <row Id="7109" PostId="5378" Score="0" Text="if they're tall and skinny, they will need protection from the chickens." CreationDate="2016-06-28T17:08:49.427" UserId="3532" />
  <row Id="7110" PostId="5379" Score="0" Text="if you have enough of them in a confined space they become lawn mowers." CreationDate="2016-06-28T17:09:23.413" UserId="3532" />
  <row Id="7111" PostId="5379" Score="2" Text="@blackthumb: But you risk that they will destroy the lawn. (e.g. in winter where the grass is not enough)" CreationDate="2016-06-28T19:43:54.100" UserDisplayName="Giacomo Catenazzi" />
  <row Id="7113" PostId="5379" Score="2" Text="I'll correct that statement a bit to equal my observed reality. _if you have enough of them in a confined space, they will reduce the ground cover to dust._ That's pretty much been my experience with chicken runs. It's why we put chickens in &quot;chicken tractors&quot; out in the pasture so they can be moved before they eliminate the ground cover." CreationDate="2016-06-28T22:36:59.493" UserDisplayName="Fiasco Labs" />
  <row Id="7132" PostId="5379" Score="0" Text="a coder and others wanting a NATURAL way to reduce us human's responsibilities is just wrong.  Unbelievable.  Chickens give us a great food product, help with grubs...that is ENOUGH.  You keep adding job descriptions for these poor guys.  Where the heck did you hear we humans can make a FOREST in our backyard that is self sufficient?  We need to have more discussions.  What is your educational background?  If you don't have a basic handle on biology, botany you aren't going to get much benefit from answers.  You aren't going to like what you learn." CreationDate="2016-07-02T00:47:33.163" UserId="3540" />
  <row Id="7283" PostId="5380" Score="2" Text="Unless by &quot;mow&quot; you mean &quot;remove&quot; or &quot;destroy&quot; - chickens will fairly quickly kill any grass they have access to unless there is a great deal of it and you force them away from bits that are struggling due to too much chicken. You'd want the opposite of a chicken tractor, movable fences you can use to protect vulnerable parts. I actually do this just with a roll of chicken wire and tent pegs, but it's somewhat tedious and temporary. As a longer term solution just not letting the chickens on the lawn is better." CreationDate="2016-07-26T03:06:49.113" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="7115" PostId="5381" Score="1" Text="Are you talking about guinea pigs as sold in pet stores?" CreationDate="2016-06-29T06:20:17.553" UserDisplayName="Stephie" />
  <row Id="7116" PostId="5381" Score="1" Text="a) &quot;Wild / semi-feral&quot; guinea pigs don't make good pets, they aren't used to human interaction. b) The fur is rather coarse, nothing a tannery would be too interested in. c) They would make excellent snacks for many predators unless you can get the yard fenced in securely, including *from above*. d) They need to gnaw to keep their incisors short, endangering your trees. They'd gnaw on plastic, too, which would be harmful. e) I personally have difficulties to reconcile this idea with responsible animal husbandry, especially as I don't see any prior research from your side. But above all:" CreationDate="2016-06-29T06:41:04.517" UserDisplayName="Stephie" />
  <row Id="7117" PostId="5381" Score="0" Text="@Stephie i did research, and it's hard to find out there if there is any. people primarily talk about how to keep them to feed on the grass outside of the garden." CreationDate="2016-06-29T06:53:59.843" UserId="3532" />
  <row Id="7118" PostId="5381" Score="0" Text="@Stephie sustainable gardening is my goal: http://www.abc.net.au/gardening/stories/s3727551.htm" CreationDate="2016-06-29T07:07:05.100" UserId="3532" />
  <row Id="7119" PostId="5382" Score="0" Text="Are all of then the same way? Won't goats attack my food forest?" CreationDate="2016-06-29T16:43:08.823" UserId="3532" />
  <row Id="7120" PostId="5382" Score="0" Text="Guinea pigs are the domesticated version of cavies.  All the domesticated types are good pets but not tough animals.  Goats are tough but will eat anything.  Using animals to cut grass requires supervision and a tolerance for them not doing what you want." CreationDate="2016-06-29T16:46:53.837" UserDisplayName="kevinsky" />
  <row Id="7121" PostId="5382" Score="0" Text="You're providing snack food, they will eat it. Any unsupervised herbivore in a garden makes quick work of plants. Cows in the corn, goats in the parsnips, it was why we had stout fences between the pasture and the garden. And deer, bleh! If it's food for you or tops for root crops, it's up for grabs, especially if it's tastier than grass." CreationDate="2016-06-30T05:50:53.867" UserDisplayName="Fiasco Labs" />
  <row Id="7159" PostId="5382" Score="0" Text="It doesn't have to be tastier than grass, just different. Goats will eat washing off the line just to find out whether all the pretty coloured things taste different (I assume. I don't speak goat, but I've seen them nibble on every item they can reach, while standing on nice tasty grass)." CreationDate="2016-07-08T00:21:58.997" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="7122" PostId="5383" Score="2" Text="I think your assumption that &quot;*guinea pigs do well for maintaining a food forest floor*&quot; is incorrect, at least that is if I understood [this answer](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/a/5382/99) correctly. If you still want to ask this question, could you please edit it?" CreationDate="2016-06-30T08:09:25.933" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7130" PostId="5383" Score="0" Text="I agree with THelper.  Guinea pigs for meat and pets and doing all the work for you in your NATURAL habitat made by man?  A herd of guinea pigs, for slaughter and maintaining this au natural 'forest' is a major stretch. Tell us what you have, what you know and where you want to go.  Be prepared to be humbled...food forests are in my opinion pretty arrogant for humans to be doing.  A herd of guinea pigs?  Do you have wild rabbits?  Wild pigs?  Where ARE YOU?  how much acreage?" CreationDate="2016-07-02T00:36:16.230" UserId="3540" />
  <row Id="7136" PostId="5383" Score="0" Text="4 acres, and we have wild rabbits, and wild squirrels." CreationDate="2016-07-02T02:02:35.573" UserId="3532" />
  <row Id="7142" PostId="5383" Score="0" Text="Poor little piggies! What about raising worms or insects? Or mushrooms?" CreationDate="2016-07-04T06:25:59.617" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="7150" PostId="5383" Score="2" Text="I know that raising guinea pigs for meat is a common practice in Peru, so the literature might be more available in Spanish (the animal being commonly called &quot;cuy&quot;)." CreationDate="2016-07-05T21:38:31.073" UserId="80" />
  <row Id="7146" PostId="5384" Score="1" Text="[this paper](http://www.iva.de/sites/default/files/pdfs/studie_pflanzenschutz_in_deutschland_und_biodiversitaet_hffa_2016.pdf) (German) seems to look at yield gap at farm level but there are multiple issues, a yield gap of 20-50% is reported. Does not answer my question since methods are not clear." CreationDate="2016-07-04T14:00:00.190" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="7181" PostId="5384" Score="0" Text="Here is a study of the yields obtained in a 1000 m2 french farm (report in english). There is no comparison with conventional agriculture though, but it may provide some insight  http://www.fermedubec.com/inra/Permacultural%20Organic%20Market%20Gardening%20and%20Economic%20Performance_Final%20Report_Nov15_Bec%20Hellouin%20Farm_sylva_AgroParisTech.pdf" CreationDate="2016-07-10T16:21:12.710" UserId="2605" />
  <row Id="7135" PostId="5387" Score="0" Text="In about 30 years I'm hoping that the plants will still all be there, but naturalized with just cutting down what doesn't provide food." CreationDate="2016-07-02T02:00:35.767" UserId="3532" />
  <row Id="7147" PostId="5389" Score="0" Text="There are lots of different grades of polysilicon. What grade is your price chart for?" CreationDate="2016-07-04T18:00:24.077" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="7165" PostId="5389" Score="0" Text="@EnergyNumbers, I'm not sure - the chart was not provided with any source. For the purpose of the comparison with oil prices, an average price across grades, or the price of the most used grade, would be most useful." CreationDate="2016-07-08T08:36:28.390" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7170" PostId="5389" Score="0" Text="It's obviously 9n because that's solar grade." CreationDate="2016-07-08T19:54:40.890" UserId="3423" />
  <row Id="7141" PostId="5391" Score="0" Text="But everything just returned to the same level it was in 2004. Completely correlated ergodicity." CreationDate="2016-07-03T23:11:51.917" UserId="3423" />
  <row Id="7178" PostId="5394" Score="0" Text="Your graphs still show that solar and oil prices track perfectly" CreationDate="2016-07-10T03:00:45.507" UserId="3423" />
  <row Id="9772" PostId="5399" Score="0" Text="I'm really liking both answers, but I had to pick one unfortunately. I probably should have made this a community wiki!?" CreationDate="2018-06-01T01:49:44.973" UserId="80" />
  <row Id="7156" PostId="5402" Score="0" Text="So put a bat house over my chicken coop (2nd roof with a drain on the down side), and everything will be fine for them. Sounds perfect." CreationDate="2016-07-06T18:09:26.943" UserId="3532" />
  <row Id="7157" PostId="5402" Score="0" Text="@a coder  Hens can be extremely loud when they have just laid an egg.  Just as loud as a rooster.  I do not know if that would bother the sleeping bats..." CreationDate="2016-07-06T21:05:03.330" UserId="3080" />
  <row Id="7160" PostId="5402" Score="0" Text="@Daniel I suspect not, at least for some of them. We have both microbats and cockatoos down the Cooks River in Sydney. Cockatoos make hens seem quiet and retiring by comparison, but they don't seem to bother the bats. Or the macrobats, for that matter, although a colony of fruit bats makes a lot of noise themselves." CreationDate="2016-07-08T00:25:00.860" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="7265" PostId="5402" Score="0" Text="Huh.  Well, to address the ladybug issue, NOT A GOOD IDEA unless you love your neighbors.  Ladybugs are programmed to LEAVE the area they were born in or woke up in.  My goodness Coder, relying on other life forms to do your work for you is kinda weird.  There are some decent ideas out there on how to become part of the environment around you but chickens are for eggs...with the eating of other insects as kinda a plus, unless those insects are necessary to the cycle within your environment.  Bats are cool but to expect them to do work for you is just wrong...Noise?  Is that a concern?" CreationDate="2016-07-22T06:45:52.877" UserId="3540" />
  <row Id="7268" PostId="5402" Score="0" Text="@stormy  Of course I love my neighbors and I hope their gardens also flourish.  Ladybugs stay for several days or even a couple weeks, cleaning out a variety of bad things from your garden, laying eggs the whole time.  When their supply of food is gone, they leave.  The next generation of ladybugs does the same.  We have had a single application of ladybugs last for months.  And it costs next to nothing." CreationDate="2016-07-22T12:56:10.980" UserId="3080" />
  <row Id="7273" PostId="5402" Score="0" Text="From my education with Master Gardeners and their publications, lady bugs,once they wake up, they are geared to fly away.  I've not heard that they only move on once their food supplies (aphids...) have dried up.  You are saying you've actually released ladybugs and paid attention to what they were doing and they don't fly away until food gets scarce?  What do ladybug eggs and juveniles look like?  I have to be skeptical but I am very open to unlearning and relearning stuff if one can convince me...grins!!  This sounds interesting!!" CreationDate="2016-07-23T23:00:32.430" UserId="3540" />
  <row Id="7279" PostId="5402" Score="0" Text="I believe that chickens are used to prevent termites attacking houses in south east Asia. The houses are traditionally on stilts with chickens living under and around the house." CreationDate="2016-07-24T23:00:26.033" UserId="3303" />
  <row Id="7285" PostId="5402" Score="0" Text="@stormy My wife and I have been using ladybugs for years.  Yes, we monitor them each time we release.  We wait until the Sun goes down, take them out of the refrigerator, then distribute them around the bases of the plants.  Yes, a percentage of them leave the first day, but there are always a LOT left.  If the plants are shaded from morning to afternoon, receiving mostly evening light, they stay evening longer.  Yes, they dwindle over time.  But soon a batch of new ladybugs hatches and the cycle continues." CreationDate="2016-07-26T13:50:40.790" UserId="3080" />
  <row Id="7286" PostId="5402" Score="0" Text="Well huh, actually that makes more sense." CreationDate="2016-07-26T20:06:43.480" UserId="3540" />
  <row Id="7158" PostId="5404" Score="0" Text="This appears to be an example of the temperature curve, not potential-induced degradation. The temperature problem is instantaneous and temporary (for the most part), while PID is permanent." CreationDate="2016-07-08T00:19:05.680" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="7161" PostId="5404" Score="0" Text="@Móż I'm no expert on this but it's been my understanding that PID gets worse with high voltage, high humidity levels and high temperatures. Why do you think the problem isn't PID here?" CreationDate="2016-07-08T07:08:59.370" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7162" PostId="5404" Score="0" Text="@THelper I'd guess that because the cooling water enabled maximum power output, there was no permanent degradation. Maybe Daniel can clarify?" CreationDate="2016-07-08T07:59:45.687" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="7163" PostId="5404" Score="2" Text="To me, the issue with the answer is that if you were extremely charitable you could consider it to imply that perhaps temperature has something to do with PID, but it doesn't explain what PID is in simple terms, which is what the question seems to be asking for." CreationDate="2016-07-08T08:08:51.083" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="7167" PostId="5404" Score="0" Text="@Móż  The implication was that heat is an aspect of PID that can be controlled and the immediate indication of that thermal stress was a significant reduction in output.  In the example a cooling solution was created to insure the panels would not suffer even short-term high temperatures and there should never be any permanent damage." CreationDate="2016-07-08T18:12:04.380" UserId="3080" />
  <row Id="7274" PostId="5405" Score="0" Text="That's because those graphs are a different scale and you misrepresented the data" CreationDate="2016-07-24T05:22:25.793" UserId="3423" />
  <row Id="7275" PostId="5405" Score="0" Text="I noted that the scale is different and included the scale for oil on the right axis. How, specifically, did I misrepresent the data?" CreationDate="2016-07-24T08:24:42.307" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7277" PostId="5405" Score="0" Text="Because it refutes your own point yet you claimed it doesnt" CreationDate="2016-07-24T09:14:37.047" UserId="3423" />
  <row Id="7166" PostId="5406" Score="0" Text="Very interesting - nice find. I hadn't come across this terminology before, and it's nice to see it's a recognised term and a documented phenomenon." CreationDate="2016-07-08T10:16:00.210" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="7171" PostId="5407" Score="0" Text="Would you have batteries anywhere in the system? What type of loads are you trying to power?" CreationDate="2016-07-09T01:18:06.443" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7172" PostId="5407" Score="0" Text="If you don't get the answer you need here you could try posting to http://electronics.stackexchange.com/" CreationDate="2016-07-09T09:12:34.177" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="7173" PostId="5407" Score="0" Text="Hello LShaver! I don't need any batteries in my system, I'm trying to power a water pump at the end." CreationDate="2016-07-09T09:46:43.667" UserId="3557" />
  <row Id="7174" PostId="5407" Score="0" Text="@Zizo - OK, can you add this info to the question? Also, does the pump need to run continuously, or on demand, or x hours/day, or...?" CreationDate="2016-07-09T11:44:18.250" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7175" PostId="5407" Score="0" Text="I think the question on the VFD definitely belongs over at electronics.SE. Off the cuff, I'd say probably not, assuming it's a smallish pump." CreationDate="2016-07-09T16:01:23.590" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7199" PostId="5409" Score="1" Text="What is the result, if renewable prices are close to scrap value? Will upvote if you can provide some more detail or the consequences if such a case were true." CreationDate="2016-07-11T08:31:54.553" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7201" PostId="5409" Score="1" Text="It means that, if renewables keep getting cheaper, people will eventually buy them just to take apart and sell the material" CreationDate="2016-07-11T14:20:10.123" UserId="3423" />
  <row Id="7203" PostId="5409" Score="1" Text="OK, but there won't ever be a point where you could make a profit doing that... unless you're suggesting people would recycle panels before their time? I'm still not seeing the connection to sustainability." CreationDate="2016-07-11T16:06:17.357" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7204" PostId="5409" Score="1" Text="So renewables won't keep getting cheaper?" CreationDate="2016-07-11T18:27:52.793" UserId="3423" />
  <row Id="7209" PostId="5409" Score="1" Text="The raw material prices will go down as demand increases, manufacturing costs will go down as the industry matures and technology advances, and $/watt costs will go down as energy density increases (with technology improvements). But what you're talking about is the margin between raw material costs, and selling price. Unless people start working for free, this margin will never get small enough for someone to make a profit buying renewables and selling them for raw materials. Unless I'm mistaken, and there are examples of products where this occurs?" CreationDate="2016-07-12T00:08:41.973" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7211" PostId="5409" Score="1" Text="That's obviously  wrong. Material prices track oil prices." CreationDate="2016-07-12T01:13:28.280" UserId="3423" />
  <row Id="7212" PostId="5409" Score="1" Text="Either way, if renewables are getting cheaper, raw materials will be getting cheaper too. There will always be a margin between material cost and selling price. What you're saying is that someone could buy renewables, add value by doing labor to strip the materials, and then sell them for more than what they paid for the original? This seems unlikely, and unprecedented." CreationDate="2016-07-12T02:22:04.087" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7214" PostId="5409" Score="1" Text="Your first sentence is absurd. Renewables only decrease in price when oil prices decrease" CreationDate="2016-07-12T02:41:01.073" UserId="3423" />
  <row Id="7215" PostId="5409" Score="1" Text="I'm agreeing with you, for the sake of argument. The question remains: if you wanted to make money selling raw materials, why would you buy finished goods and strip them?" CreationDate="2016-07-12T02:43:27.503" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7216" PostId="5409" Score="0" Text="I wouldn't unless renewables prices fell" CreationDate="2016-07-12T02:44:32.820" UserId="3423" />
  <row Id="7217" PostId="5409" Score="1" Text="If the prices fell the margins would be smaller. Unless you're proposing that eventually renewables will be cheaper than the raw materials they're made of?" CreationDate="2016-07-12T02:49:32.690" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7218" PostId="5409" Score="1" Text="Your question is exactly what would happen" CreationDate="2016-07-12T02:50:54.927" UserId="3423" />
  <row Id="7219" PostId="5409" Score="1" Text="So if that's what you're really asking, that should be the question. I'd recommend starting a new one, the water here is a bit muddy." CreationDate="2016-07-12T02:55:34.397" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7186" PostId="5410" Score="1" Text="You could say that about any argument" CreationDate="2016-07-10T21:17:39.307" UserId="3423" />
  <row Id="7185" PostId="5411" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Interesting link you've posted. I'm surprised to read that organic yields match conventional yields." CreationDate="2016-07-10T19:22:10.843" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7187" PostId="5411" Score="1" Text="Thanks. The biggest difference was experienced in years of drought where organic, with higher organic matter levels and water holding capacities beat the conventional." CreationDate="2016-07-10T21:58:42.017" UserId="3568" />
  <row Id="7193" PostId="5413" Score="0" Text="I want to do a polyculture design where the bushes are next to each other ONLY if they need to be." CreationDate="2016-07-11T02:46:12.973" UserId="3532" />
  <row Id="7200" PostId="5413" Score="0" Text="Please provide more information as requested in the comments to your original question. Map and pictures would be very helpful. Thank you for the edit @EnergyNumbers" CreationDate="2016-07-11T13:40:31.307" UserId="3568" />
  <row Id="7206" PostId="5413" Score="0" Text="Summer time in MN the days can get hot, and nights get cold. The yard has sun going up on one side, and down on the other, but there's a stretch of land going east/west on the skinny side ." CreationDate="2016-07-11T18:31:19.880" UserId="3532" />
  <row Id="7207" PostId="5413" Score="0" Text="@acoder please provide some kind of map or outline or your property. I would happily help you, but need some more information." CreationDate="2016-07-11T18:58:59.517" UserId="3568" />
  <row Id="7208" PostId="5413" Score="0" Text="35 east/westX55 north/south" CreationDate="2016-07-11T19:00:05.183" UserId="3532" />
  <row Id="7202" PostId="5415" Score="0" Text="Do I understand your intention correctly if I say that the usual environmental costs of hotels (washing towels, bed linen, etc.; cleaning, throwing away barely used items/food) don't apply to your situation, since you basically intend to turn the hotel into a multi-apartment building?" CreationDate="2016-07-11T15:17:11.300" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="7210" PostId="5415" Score="0" Text="I imagine zoning would be the biggest obstacle - at least in the US. Hotels would be zoned differently than apartment buildings, and finding where they overlap could be a challenge. Also, what about kitchens?" CreationDate="2016-07-12T00:15:44.663" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7223" PostId="5415" Score="0" Text="Earthliŋ yes you interpreted that correctly. LShaver yes there are zoning difficulties it would have to be zoned as congregate housing in some places. also if someone could tell me how to reply to a comment directly I would appreciate it." CreationDate="2016-07-13T08:49:37.447" UserId="3573" />
  <row Id="7233" PostId="5415" Score="0" Text="You can ping a user by including `@username` in your comment. If you start your comment with `@username` and type the first letter of `username`, an auto-complete should also pop-up. I can't show you, because I'm commenting on your post (on your question), so you will be notified automatically." CreationDate="2016-07-16T19:38:34.210" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="7237" PostId="5415" Score="0" Text="Sounds like a housing cooperative..." CreationDate="2016-07-17T19:59:24.540" UserId="3152" />
  <row Id="7229" PostId="5416" Score="1" Text="It may be worth measuring the effectiveness of the traditional insulation to see how well it performs. If you have access to a building using it, you could essentially take the temperature of the ceiling near the middle of a hot day, and compare it with the temperature of the air. If most of the heat transfer in and out of buildings is coming from air flow and conduction through windows &amp; walls (the ceiling would be similar or cooler that the air), then there's little justification for adding polystyrene. If the ceiling is warmer though, then extra insulation would be justified." CreationDate="2016-07-13T21:52:54.127" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="7222" PostId="5417" Score="1" Text="Are you associated with that company in any way - you're required to declare if so." CreationDate="2016-07-13T00:07:33.707" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="7226" PostId="5417" Score="2" Text="No.  I have No connection, no association with that company.  I have used this product.  So I gave advice based on my personal experience." CreationDate="2016-07-13T09:56:05.587" UserId="3576" />
  <row Id="7227" PostId="5418" Score="0" Text="Moz,  Thanks. .   I be using Solar Panels. But they be covering about  500 sq feet, whereas my total roof area is  5,600 sq feet.  So I have to look for insulating the balance 5,100 sq feet of roof surface." CreationDate="2016-07-13T09:58:41.073" UserId="3576" />
  <row Id="7225" PostId="5419" Score="0" Text="I have not found a effective solution to the gas range in each unit but would be open to some ideas." CreationDate="2016-07-13T09:24:04.630" UserId="3573" />
  <row Id="7231" PostId="5420" Score="4" Text="Please note that questions asking for resources are often closed as &quot;too broad&quot; on most StackExchange websites because there usually isn't a single, objectively-best answer. There is always room for one more recommendation. However given [this recent discussion on meta](http://meta.sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/249/do-we-want-community-wiki-resources-posts) and the fact that your question scope is fairly narrow, we will not close this question. I do think that when there are a lot of answers, we'd better turn this into a community-wiki question." CreationDate="2016-07-15T06:58:08.507" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7245" PostId="5420" Score="1" Text="This should be community wiki, since the mods don't seem inclined to delete it as &quot;there is no single, correct answer&quot;. You're explicitly asking for a list of resources rather than an answer." CreationDate="2016-07-19T03:20:46.597" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="7256" PostId="5420" Score="2" Text="@Móż after rereading my own [meta post](http://meta.sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/249/do-we-want-community-wiki-resources-posts) and given the widened scope of this question, I've made this a community-wiki question." CreationDate="2016-07-20T07:03:44.400" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7258" PostId="5420" Score="0" Text="I disagree, this question is way too broad. I could dump dozens of links from my RSS reader which would all meet the requirements of the OP, and which would *only* cover the 'climate change' bullet point looked at from a scientific standpoint (i.e. excluding politics etc). With 160 million Google results on the term *sustainability* the possibilities are endless. If the OP limited the question to one subject only, maybe it's OK." CreationDate="2016-07-20T08:17:23.927" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="7259" PostId="5420" Score="0" Text="@JanDoggen, I also felt the question might be too broad... BUT, it seems to me like sustainability.SE would be well-served by a community wiki with a dozen or so good resources for news on sustainability. These would be curated links, rather than a dump from google, where searching for sustainability includes junk blogs and corporations &quot;green-washing&quot; their products. So, if you've got a dozen or so in your RSS feed... what are a few of your favorites?" CreationDate="2016-07-20T09:09:57.390" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7276" PostId="5420" Score="0" Text="I suggest we narrow done the scope of this question and try to make it less subjective (e.g. focus on objective news about sustainability research). You can always ask another (community-wiki) resource question if the need arises." CreationDate="2016-07-24T08:45:21.013" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7312" PostId="5420" Score="0" Text="Perhaps a better question would be asking about a scientific or academic journal focusing on research in the area of sustainability, whether regarding technology, sociology, economics, agriculture, or public policy. Should I edit this question, or add a new one?" CreationDate="2016-07-30T05:19:47.087" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7325" PostId="5420" Score="0" Text="@LShaver Normally I'd say create a new question because your proposed edit would make existing answers invalid. But since the only answer is written by me (and it's community wiki) you can go ahead and edit this question. I'll revise my answer after your edit." CreationDate="2016-07-30T13:53:06.800" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7234" PostId="5423" Score="4" Text="And the reason it works when it does is usually intellectual property laws - it's perfectly possible to make a compatible in cartridge without that limitation, but it's illegal to do so. Why do we have such blatantly anti-customer, anti-environment laws? Because the profit from buying the laws is greater than the cost of buying the law." CreationDate="2016-07-17T00:27:45.757" UserId="1255" />
  <row Id="7239" PostId="5424" Score="3" Text="You can use as many mirrors, lenses, etc as you like, but the fact that remains is that neither LEDs or photovoltaic panels are 100% efficient, so you will always lose energy." CreationDate="2016-07-19T00:50:19.910" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="7244" PostId="5424" Score="1" Text="Mirrors and lenses also lose energy, so more of them is worse unless you collect enough extra energy to compensate. Since your input is fixed, you should use as few collection aids as possible.." CreationDate="2016-07-19T03:18:26.237" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="12070" PostId="5424" Score="0" Text="*Energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transferred* - This is the first law of thermodynamics. Let's say you &quot;load up&quot; your LED with 100w of power. You build a solar panel capture system that perfectly captures all light from this LED (ignoring solar inefficiencies &amp; heat dissipation). The *maximum* power input that the solar panels capture would be... **100w**. You will never generate *more* than that initial 100w you fed in." CreationDate="2020-01-02T03:01:47.617" UserId="8232" />
  <row Id="7242" PostId="5425" Score="2" Text="First you would need to show that organic meat is actually better for the environment, which as you point out is an open question. It would be far better to simply charge meat producers for the actual cost of cleaning up their... bovine excrement... and other problems. That way if organic producers are better they will pay less. But mostly, people who want to eat meat will be doing so in an environmentally neutral way. Expect food riots if you do that, though. Also, you left out land degradation and deforestation." CreationDate="2016-07-19T03:14:50.940" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="7246" PostId="5425" Score="0" Text="Whether organic is better or not, increasing prices would reduce consumption, which would be better. Also, charging producers for clean-up costs is essentially a tax, since this cost would be passed on to consumers. As for land degradation and deforestation, these are of course significant issues, but organic farming per se wouldn't affect either one. Perhaps I've muddied the waters a bit by combining consumption reduction and organic agriculture in one question." CreationDate="2016-07-19T03:28:58.593" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7253" PostId="5425" Score="0" Text="@LShaver only if you consider anything that government does that increases costs a tax. But to most people regulations requiring business to, say, avoid killing people are not a tax, they're a cost of doing business. Even libertarians mostly concede that &quot;don't harm others without consent&quot; is a reasonable requirement." CreationDate="2016-07-20T02:42:01.050" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="7264" PostId="5425" Score="0" Text="No way, it is way too late for playing tax games.  The way the meat market is set up it makes money.  Good luck trying to change that by adding taxes.  And if something COSTS more us idiot people think it is worth more...and will pay the extra costs.  That is a fact about us humans.  Sorta like buying something that is heavier is 'more valuable' than something light." CreationDate="2016-07-22T06:38:11.143" UserId="3540" />
  <row Id="9412" PostId="5425" Score="1" Text="A singular approach in the form of tax may not be the complete answer. Other options to consider include effective marketing of alternative foodstuffs and non-beef meats; education about environmental impacts of meat (particularly beef) production; and Incentives for farmers to move away from beef to less impactive livestock." CreationDate="2018-03-18T04:45:51.540" UserId="5300" />
  <row Id="7260" PostId="5426" Score="0" Text="I can't see any mention of such natural fibres on the Litrax site... I did find a retailer that looked like it previously stocked such a yarn product, but it's no longer available. Perhaps they've changed their business to only produce synthetics? The &quot;Litrax-1&quot; fibre mentioned in the article is certainly not listed on the Litrax site amongst the other fibres." CreationDate="2016-07-20T09:53:36.030" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="7261" PostId="5426" Score="1" Text="The [Wikipedia article on Bamboo textile](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo_textile) mentions Litrax, but also a Chinese company called *Hebei Jigao Chemical Fiber Company*. Maybe you can [contact them](http://www.jghx.com/Templets/contacts.html) and ask for companies using their material." CreationDate="2016-07-20T18:56:24.183" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="7262" PostId="5426" Score="0" Text="Another company worth investigating could be [SwicoFil](http://www.swicofil.com/products/015bamboo.html). I found these two Googling specifically for [clothing from bamboo yarn](https://www.google.com/search?q=clothing+from+bamboo+yarn)" CreationDate="2016-07-20T18:57:25.673" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="7267" PostId="5427" Score="0" Text="Thanks for the thorough analysis, it seems you've put quite a bit of thought/research into this. Are there methods to either reduce meat consumption and/or reduce the environmental harm caused by the meat industry, that you think would be relatively effective?" CreationDate="2016-07-22T07:03:36.077" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9379" PostId="5427" Score="0" Text="Some results recently published related to the greenhouse gas (GHG) portions of this answer.  http://www.pnas.org/content/114/48/E10301 concludes &quot;removal of animals from the US agricultural system resulted in predictions of ... a decrease of 2.6 percentage units in US GHG emissions&quot;.  Doesn't really contradict the answer given here but it challenges the implication of the tangential comment &quot;... meat farming ... worse than not eating meat&quot;.  2.6% US GHG is not nothing, but it's far from 1.5-100x." CreationDate="2018-03-15T13:44:43.930" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="9419" PostId="5427" Score="0" Text="@Jean-PaulCalderone &quot;only&quot; 2.6% of US emissions is about 134,000 kilotons of CO2 -- equivalent to emissions of 27 million average world citizens. Nothing to sneeze at, by any means. [Source.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions)" CreationDate="2018-03-19T18:36:32.543" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9420" PostId="5427" Score="0" Text="Sure.  It doesn't come for free, though.  The study details various nutritional shortfalls that would come along with the elimination of animals.  Anyway, just wanted to point out that it's not a 50% improvement we're considering here.  Now *that* would be a big win." CreationDate="2018-03-19T18:45:34.393" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="7270" PostId="5428" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainability.SE! If you are new to Stack Exchange we recommend taking [the tour](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/tour) first to get familiar with how everything works." CreationDate="2016-07-23T17:24:27.810" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7271" PostId="5428" Score="2" Text="Welcome to sustainability.SE! This doesn't really answer the question, since it specifically asks about changes in technology to automatically shut engines off at traffic lights: your answer addresses only the second part of the question, in the case that drivers are manually shutting off their engines. Simple technologies, like the redlight countdown timers which are prevalent in India, can address this issue.." CreationDate="2016-07-23T17:40:27.787" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11560" PostId="5428" Score="1" Text="I have heard this before but I think it is around 0.5 seconds at worse, probably the same amount of time it would take to put the car in first gear and find the biting point...the amber light should allow for that :-)" CreationDate="2019-10-08T13:43:46.493" UserId="8041" />
  <row Id="14880" PostId="5428" Score="0" Text="Another way to address this with manually shutting off the engine (and one I use in filter lanes that don't have an advacne warning that the light will turn green) is to shut off only if you're not the first car in the queue.  The time it takes for the first car to get moving gives you time to restart" CreationDate="2021-08-11T09:48:03.237" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="7269" PostId="5429" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainability.SE! If you are new to Stack Exchange we recommend taking [the tour](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/tour) first to get familiar with how everything works." CreationDate="2016-07-23T17:23:40.810" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7272" PostId="5429" Score="3" Text="I have edited your question to explain some jargon you were using **and added units** to your numbers. But after that, it still does not really answer the question - you are just telling the OP what *not* to do based on one 'measurement'." CreationDate="2016-07-23T19:08:26.113" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="7281" PostId="5430" Score="1" Text="Welcome to sustainability.SE! Looks like you've got the information the question is asking for, but your answer could use a bit more detail: what breed do you use? How much space is enough space? What's the climate where you live? What type of grass do you have?" CreationDate="2016-07-25T08:37:10.450" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7284" PostId="5430" Score="0" Text="Prairie grass that I plan to put an orchard on, after terraforming it." CreationDate="2016-07-26T03:24:17.667" UserId="3532" />
  <row Id="7282" PostId="5431" Score="3" Text="*There was a study that someone referred to in a post about this very issue*  Please add a reference" CreationDate="2016-07-25T12:14:53.737" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="7294" PostId="5437" Score="3" Text="What is *minimally keep my chickens alive*? Are you talking about food, warmth, diseases ...? How are the coops constructed? What is the weather **actually**, instead of refering to a theoretical definition? This question has way too little information." CreationDate="2016-07-28T08:41:28.470" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="13131" PostId="5437" Score="0" Text="Somebody needs to feed the coyotes and foxes." CreationDate="2020-11-26T01:09:19.970" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="7295" PostId="5438" Score="2" Text="Like your other question, this one has too little information. What is the density of the chickens per area? Are they out all day?" CreationDate="2016-07-28T08:43:25.497" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="7299" PostId="5439" Score="0" Text="I want to employ chickens as my forest keepers, but need to know what cover crop will work for them well." CreationDate="2016-07-28T15:08:06.457" UserId="3532" />
  <row Id="7301" PostId="5439" Score="0" Text="I'm looking to do fairly permanent coops, because I believe 10,000 chickens on 100 acres supplementing their feed with fallen fruit would work well." CreationDate="2016-07-28T16:53:04.613" UserId="3532" />
  <row Id="7302" PostId="5439" Score="1" Text="10,000 chickens is a lot. You've already posted a bunch of questions, but maybe you want to asking about the scalability of permaculture or about a sustainable way to raise 10,000 chickens. Like Jan Doggen pointed out in the comments, please try to put as much information as possible (up to a reasonable level) into your question, to avoid the back and forth on the answers." CreationDate="2016-07-28T18:20:41.263" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="7303" PostId="5439" Score="0" Text="10,000 is a guestimate, I would ask a poultry partner who has free range experience what they would advise to keep the grass walkable in the orchard in order to keep it manageable, and break down the leaves before the annual culling." CreationDate="2016-07-29T02:07:15.270" UserId="3532" />
  <row Id="7328" PostId="5439" Score="1" Text="@acoder With 10,000 chickens on a mere 100 acres, your food forest floor will be bare soil.  I suggest you try 100 chickens on an acre, you'll see that nothing will be left.  Even 50 is probably too many.  It doesn't have as much to do with how much food is available from the trees, as it does their instinct to scratch at the ground for food or digging to dirt-bathe." CreationDate="2016-07-31T12:21:22.683" UserId="3080" />
  <row Id="7331" PostId="5439" Score="0" Text="So how many should I have run with about 10 acres of wetlands?" CreationDate="2016-07-31T23:20:30.303" UserId="3532" />
  <row Id="7333" PostId="5439" Score="1" Text="@acoder You need to research that.  My understanding is that wetland conditions are harmful to chickens, they can become quickly diseased.  Certainly, my own flock is quite miserable when it is continuously wet for even a few days.  While it is true that chickens love to play in water puddles...  Chickens really love to sun-bathe and chickens love to and need to dirt-bathe (fine, dry, powdery dirt)." CreationDate="2016-08-01T12:12:53.410" UserId="3080" />
  <row Id="7336" PostId="5439" Score="0" Text="Why do chickens get run through rice patties in china if it's harmful?" CreationDate="2016-08-01T14:49:59.547" UserId="3532" />
  <row Id="7337" PostId="5439" Score="0" Text="I don't know about China, but in Japan it's ducks that do the weeding of rice paddies. If you are on wet grounds, why not try ducks? They will be able to cope with wetlands much better, I think. There are even ducks that don't necessarily need a pond to be happy." CreationDate="2016-08-01T19:00:59.253" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="7304" PostId="5440" Score="2" Text="Do you have any more context on what exactly was meant by *1 litre of water per person*?  Without context, that's not a very meaningful statement." CreationDate="2016-07-29T09:50:23.207" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="7305" PostId="5440" Score="0" Text="@gerrit No. But I think that it meant only 1 litre of water will be available per person for daily use whereas the actual requirement is 3.7 litres for males and 2.7 for female." CreationDate="2016-07-29T10:03:30.760" UserId="3631" />
  <row Id="7306" PostId="5440" Score="2" Text="What is your source for those 3.7L / 2.7 L numbers?  Humans use *far* more water than that, considering the full chain into every product they use and consume." CreationDate="2016-07-29T10:11:31.693" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="7307" PostId="5440" Score="0" Text="@gerrit I guess that number is only for intake of water through drinking or food. The actual requirement is much more. I am just confused that why is there such scarcity of water if technology exists for using seawater." CreationDate="2016-07-29T10:48:08.667" UserId="3631" />
  <row Id="7308" PostId="5440" Score="3" Text="I fear this question will be very difficult to answer because neither of us knows exactly what was meant." CreationDate="2016-07-29T11:12:45.500" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="7311" PostId="5441" Score="1" Text="I haven't looked into it recently, but it seems last I heard, desalination at scale is very costly and energy intensive, and thus not sustainable. What technology for this are you thinking of?" CreationDate="2016-07-30T01:18:57.210" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7314" PostId="5441" Score="0" Text="Well, neither cost nor energy intensity say much useful about whether something is sustainable or not." CreationDate="2016-07-30T06:16:42.613" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="7315" PostId="5441" Score="0" Text="True. I guess my question is actually: has desalination gotten cheap enough to be preferred over rerouting rivers and depleting the water table?" CreationDate="2016-07-30T07:03:40.447" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7322" PostId="5441" Score="0" Text="In some parts of the world, yes; in others, no." CreationDate="2016-07-30T09:50:03.440" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="7329" PostId="5441" Score="0" Text="@EnergyNumbers If there is no global scarcity of water, then why the depletion of water table and drying up of rivers is a big issue?? And why is it said that water is becoming a non-renewable resource??" CreationDate="2016-07-31T15:23:59.267" UserId="3631" />
  <row Id="7330" PostId="5441" Score="1" Text="@Jasmeetsingh depletion of a water table is a local issue. A drying-up of a river might be global climate change or local changes. I don't know what it means to say that &quot;water is becoming a non-renewable resource&quot;. Maybe it needs more context; but on its own, it's incorrect." CreationDate="2016-07-31T16:27:41.740" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="7317" PostId="5442" Score="1" Text="Do you also do this with weeds that already developed seeds?" CreationDate="2016-07-30T08:38:04.207" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7319" PostId="5442" Score="0" Text="Not if there are difficult weeds to pull up. Easy to remove weeds can be beneficial though because they suppress tougher weeds, also they are a source of dead weeds which I said find useful." CreationDate="2016-07-30T08:58:12.637" UserId="3303" />
  <row Id="7343" PostId="5446" Score="2" Text="It considerably depends on the type of shoes (running shoes or everyday shoes) and whether it is planned to repair them. Two experiences I made: (a) After some detailed research I found a manufacturer of running shoes who offers to replace the sole when it is worn down (++). (b) One pair of eco-shoes I brought were worn down after ten month. I talked to a shoemaker about these shoes and he told me that the quality of the used material was low and that the shoe were not made for lasting longer than a year (--)." CreationDate="2016-08-02T12:33:22.343" UserId="3641" />
  <row Id="7332" PostId="5448" Score="0" Text="I'm thinking a hedge row of things like Elderberry would work well for this." CreationDate="2016-07-31T23:21:47.187" UserId="3532" />
  <row Id="7338" PostId="5450" Score="4" Text="Some of the older degradable types quickly degrade into small fragments, then take a long time to break down further. If disturbed they make a plastic dust. Essentially the large-scale plastic pollution was turned into microplastic pollution - worse than useless." CreationDate="2016-08-01T19:45:51.060" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="7352" PostId="5453" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Thanks for your answer. I guess you mean [this book](http://www.nfpa.org/codes-and-standards/all-codes-and-standards/list-of-codes-and-standards?mode=code&amp;code=54)?" CreationDate="2016-08-03T13:51:14.870" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7354" PostId="5454" Score="2" Text="As Jan also suggested a good start is to switch to a bank that invests primarily in the areas you find important. There is an independent organization called [FairFinanceGuide International](http://fairfinanceguide.org) that rates the sustainability, fairness and transparency of banks in several countries. They started with a rating guide in The Netherlands in 2009, but now also have ratings for banks in Belgium, Germany, France, Sweden, Indonesia, Japan and Brazil." CreationDate="2016-08-04T07:19:08.690" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7422" PostId="5455" Score="1" Text="Salt farms are being built in Hawaii to not only harvest the salt, but to use the freshwater evaporated for drip irrigating trees and plants. It is basically a glass topped box with glass with container of saltwater. The fresh water runs down the sloped glass to a collection trough thence into a pipe for use. The salt that eventually appears is collected and sold in specialty grocery shops." CreationDate="2016-08-24T03:18:54.757" UserId="3256" />
  <row Id="7353" PostId="5456" Score="0" Text="Thank you Jan! I will have a look at the investment options that my bank Triodos provides." CreationDate="2016-08-03T19:58:05.843" UserId="2187" />
  <row Id="7355" PostId="5456" Score="0" Text="Aha, you are also Dutch. Yes ASN or Triodos are the two to investigate. I bank at ASN. Check out the [Eerlijke-bankwijzer](http://eerlijkegeldwijzer.nl/bankwijzer/)" CreationDate="2016-08-04T07:30:21.793" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="7357" PostId="5456" Score="0" Text="@JanDoggen I suspect the OP is German because of the link to a German website in the profile." CreationDate="2016-08-04T09:25:46.747" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7360" PostId="5456" Score="0" Text="Thanks! Indeed I am German but have a legacy account at Triodos back from the days when I studied Sustainable Development at Utrecht University. I will read through the resources and then decide between Triodos and ASN." CreationDate="2016-08-04T16:50:12.220" UserId="2187" />
  <row Id="7364" PostId="5457" Score="0" Text="So basically you are looking for ways to divert more rainwater to the upper and lower reservoirs of a pumped storage hydropower facility?" CreationDate="2016-08-05T12:26:41.177" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7365" PostId="5457" Score="1" Text="Actually, that sounds like a large scale system - I was thinking smaller scale, such as on a farm or in a rural community, where you've already got rooftops doing most of the work catching rain." CreationDate="2016-08-05T12:31:47.473" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7372" PostId="5458" Score="3" Text="Maybe it's more convenient to let nature do the evaporation (over wide areas) and concentrate on the condensation part http://www.amusingplanet.com/2016/08/achille-knapens-air-well.html" CreationDate="2016-08-06T09:11:54.067" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="11843" PostId="5458" Score="0" Text="Why couldn't the solar &quot;still&quot; be on land? Water could be pumped through black tubing into glass containers, where the sun would heat it up." CreationDate="2019-11-19T14:02:25.977" UserId="8149" />
  <row Id="7371" PostId="5460" Score="0" Text="The good news, though, is that the 100m tall tower to hold the upper water tank will also work well to hold a 2-5MW wind turbine to power the pump! :)" CreationDate="2016-08-05T23:43:43.397" UserId="1255" />
  <row Id="7381" PostId="5460" Score="0" Text="Note that the 90% peak efficiency is of the turbine, not of the turbine+generator, so you would only get ~80% efficiency gravitation to electrical if the pipe, generator and invertor somehow managed a combined efficiency of 90%. Which is high." CreationDate="2016-08-09T00:06:50.907" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="7374" PostId="5461" Score="8" Text="It would help if you explained your magic numbers (4, 3412), use correct units, and [edit] your [wall of text](http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Wall_of_Text)." CreationDate="2016-08-06T19:46:02.223" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="7375" PostId="5462" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainability SE! I think only your 'alternative use' question is on-topic here. Whether it's safe probably fits better on Health SE and how to clean on Outdoors SE." CreationDate="2016-08-07T19:24:54.960" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7377" PostId="5462" Score="0" Text="According to [this article](http://www.treehugger.com/green-food/sigg-bottles-now-bpa-free-but-what-were-they-before.html#14705989834461) the golden linings are the old ones that contain traces of BPA. I know there are [cleaning tablets for SIGG bottles](https://sigg.com/bottle-accessories/bottle-clean-tablets-20pcs-bottle), but I'm not sure if they contain anything special." CreationDate="2016-08-07T19:53:54.623" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7378" PostId="5462" Score="1" Text="@THelper I rewrote the main question without deleting the original data, in case they can be useful for searches." CreationDate="2016-08-07T21:53:57.077" UserId="3653" />
  <row Id="7379" PostId="5464" Score="2" Text="I left some water on it for a day. The bad taste is definitely gone after cleaning with dish soap and vinegar. I taste something metallic now but I don't know if it's the feeling of the lips on the metal of the water itself. I will pour the water in a separate glass and compare with other water (stored for the same amount of time in a glass or plastic bottle) as you recommended to avoid bias. In fact, I think the SIGG bottle may be usable after all." CreationDate="2016-08-08T10:11:52.453" UserId="3653" />
  <row Id="7380" PostId="5464" Score="1" Text="@OlafM also consider the possibility that using the bottle after it's been stored unused for many days may bring out a flavour depending on materials used in the product. Even storing the bottle in location that has a particular smell may make a difference." CreationDate="2016-08-08T10:40:07.510" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="7382" PostId="5466" Score="0" Text="It's a long time since I looked into this, but some fuels could apparently dissolve (some of) the coating on water Siggs. My fuel Siggs are uncoated. Dissolved plastic might not be a good idea to burn, for the sake of your stove jet if nothing else." CreationDate="2016-08-09T11:53:32.427" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="7388" PostId="5467" Score="2" Text="Most people don't plan holidays on kilometres though, but on days or weeks. So the analysis should probably balance days travelling vs fun had in some way, rather than assuming someone would actually say &quot;should I walk from London to Cape Town, or drive, or fly?&quot; - in that case the extra food consumed while walking for a year dominates the cost compared to one day flying.  I know when I cycle tour the cycling is much of the point, for example, so &quot;fun had per day cycling&quot; is hugely higher than &quot;fun had per day on the train getting to somewhere interesting to cycle tour&quot;." CreationDate="2016-08-11T22:27:05.640" UserId="1255" />
  <row Id="7389" PostId="5467" Score="0" Text="@Ⴖuі That's one way to look at it. Another is to select a destination, determine which transportation methods can be used to get there, and then for each method make your own personal weighing between lowest environmental impact and most fun." CreationDate="2016-08-12T06:02:20.943" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7386" PostId="5470" Score="0" Text="This is not answering the 'alternatives' question and should be a comment." CreationDate="2016-08-11T06:35:28.587" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="7387" PostId="5470" Score="1" Text="@JanDoggen Partial answers to a question are generally not a problem. The only thing is that such answers usually get less upvotes." CreationDate="2016-08-11T07:02:58.537" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7492" PostId="5474" Score="1" Text="I recommend being careful with the method &quot;more expensive = more fuel used&quot;. In our current global market, there are many examples of mind-boggling inconsistencies where a more energy-intensive option will be less expensive. When choosing airfares for example, it is common to find a cheaper flight with one or two extra stops and close to double the distance a direct flight would travel. Another example is the eco-friendly vacation options that are way more expensive than the standard fuel-intensive option, because of scale and the extra work needed to offer an alternative." CreationDate="2016-09-07T00:24:51.470" UserId="80" />
  <row Id="7403" PostId="5476" Score="0" Text="Most hydro systems are at annual capacity and can't expand, so the hydro companies in particular will be trying to avoid having to build new power plants. There are also complex analyses around where the profit comes from - if they can shift demand from low-profit areas to high-profit areas, they make more out of selling the same amount of electricity." CreationDate="2016-08-17T03:07:47.903" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="7405" PostId="5477" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! I guess you are saying that you can preserve meat by canning it yourself. The last few lines of your post look a bit like a rant. You may want to remove that part to avoid down-votes." CreationDate="2016-08-17T07:36:38.727" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7406" PostId="5477" Score="0" Text="Hello and welcome. I edited your post. Please check if you approve of the changes, otherwise you can rollback to the previous version." CreationDate="2016-08-17T08:35:32.827" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="12543" PostId="5477" Score="0" Text="One if the better answers here... first hand experience is undervalued nowadays." CreationDate="2020-04-12T09:24:05.973" UserId="8616" />
  <row Id="15965" PostId="5477" Score="0" Text="This answer is factually incorrect and potentially dangerous. Boiling for 3 hours kills botulism bacteria but not botulism spores. In fact, Boiling will activate botulism spores into toxin-producing bacteria. As few as 6 individual bacteria can produce enough toxin to kill a person. If you only boil canned meat, you must assume it will produce toxin. You can't guarantee the person who consumes it years later will be knowledgeable enough to re-boil it." CreationDate="2022-08-18T22:15:00.123" UserId="14290" />
  <row Id="7399" PostId="5478" Score="0" Text="Great points :)" CreationDate="2016-08-16T18:52:57.367" UserId="3675" />
  <row Id="7416" PostId="5478" Score="0" Text="I would add, electric utilities are [natural monopolies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly): the largest and/or first supplier gets all the customers, permanently. As a result, there is little they can do to increase their customer base (people don't move in order to patronize a different utility), and rates are typically capped by policy makers." CreationDate="2016-08-23T15:28:28.997" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7418" PostId="5478" Score="0" Text="@LShaver That very much depends on the country you're in - not here in The Netherlangs e.g." CreationDate="2016-08-23T18:43:53.173" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="7419" PostId="5478" Score="0" Text="@JanDoggen, I assume you mean on the supply/generation side, correct? How is distribution handled - public, private, or some combination? In any case, that's likely to be a natural monopoly - unless there are multiple sets of wires running to each customer" CreationDate="2016-08-23T18:58:16.267" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7424" PostId="5478" Score="0" Text="@LShaver Network companies (which there are only a few, essentially regional monopolies) are by law required to give all producers/distributors access across one power line." CreationDate="2016-08-24T07:50:44.710" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="7417" PostId="5479" Score="1" Text="Your definition of &quot;worth&quot; and it's relationship to sustainability is unclear. If you are changing an ecosystem, isn't it likely to benefit some species and harm others?" CreationDate="2016-08-23T15:36:55.667" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7420" PostId="5479" Score="0" Text="Able to keep trees above the water table is worth more for me, but worth more to environmentalists means something else." CreationDate="2016-08-23T23:58:24.277" UserId="3532" />
  <row Id="7401" PostId="5480" Score="0" Text="I'm thinking about doing strips of higher land next to strips of &quot;streams&quot; to create a few breeding ponds for frogs, and other animals so that the wetland trees are able to stay above water, but the wetlands are still there. There's a lot of fresh water wetlands in MN." CreationDate="2016-08-16T22:27:23.963" UserId="3532" />
  <row Id="7402" PostId="5480" Score="0" Text="Apparently there has been an estimated net gain in freshwater wetlands in MN (http://files.dnr.state.mn.us/eco/wetlands/wstmp_trend_report_2006-2011.pdf) but as your attorney I recommend you consult the regulations (http://www.bwsr.state.mn.us/wetlands/publications/MNRegulations.pdf) before taking any action. In my area of NY, you can't do such things within 50-100' of a wetland boundary. YMMV." CreationDate="2016-08-17T00:09:16.360" UserId="1701" />
  <row Id="7404" PostId="5480" Score="0" Text="The area is also on a 104 acre area with a fairly steep natural hill." CreationDate="2016-08-17T05:52:50.677" UserId="3532" />
  <row Id="7407" PostId="5480" Score="0" Text="Is the area currently considered wetland? If not, you could create berms to create impoundments. But then there is the issue of where the water would come from. If it is a perennial stream or some kind of a seep, then you would be disrupting a natural wetland feature, which would be frowned upon." CreationDate="2016-08-17T12:10:46.113" UserId="1701" />
  <row Id="7421" PostId="5480" Score="0" Text="I believe it is DNR protected wetland." CreationDate="2016-08-23T23:59:42.873" UserId="3532" />
  <row Id="7409" PostId="5481" Score="0" Text="Without considering energy losses, even a tiny heat input would continue to increase the temperature over time until anything melted, so the answer isn't really complete without addressing that. Thanks though for the details that are there." CreationDate="2016-08-21T03:35:38.917" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="7410" PostId="5483" Score="5" Text="It looks like Lead Crystal is a company name for [lead-acid batteries](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead%E2%80%93acid_battery) (like car batteries). Also, what is the connection to sustainability?" CreationDate="2016-08-23T05:00:07.467" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="7411" PostId="5483" Score="1" Text="I'm trying to set up a solar powered house and I need some batteries... they are really expensive, so I'm doing a lot of research first." CreationDate="2016-08-23T05:24:39.007" UserId="3686" />
  <row Id="7455" PostId="5483" Score="1" Text="I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it's a question for chemistry.se or shopping.se" CreationDate="2016-08-28T01:37:34.763" UserId="1255" />
  <row Id="7460" PostId="5483" Score="0" Text="How is a question about off-grid power NOT part of sustainable living?" CreationDate="2016-08-28T20:55:51.967" UserId="3686" />
  <row Id="7462" PostId="5483" Score="0" Text="@Henry because it's not specific to sustainability (*everything* relates to sustainability in some way &quot;what is the half-life of a proton&quot;, for example, helps us understand the limits of sustainability) and it's likely to be better answered elsewhere." CreationDate="2016-08-28T23:15:18.940" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="7463" PostId="5483" Score="1" Text="Personally I think that asking whether a particular type of batteries are suited as storage for solar-power is on-topic here. But all the additional questions do make this questions rather broad." CreationDate="2016-08-29T06:08:10.957" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7955" PostId="5483" Score="2" Text="The use of a particular brand is off topic.  The use of a particular type is spot on topic.  But the question should be rewritten giving a thumbnail sketch of the types being considered, and showing some effort at research.  I'm voting to leave open, but the author needs to rework the quesiton." CreationDate="2017-01-03T14:33:52.953" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="7415" PostId="5484" Score="2" Text="Mmmm. I think this is off-topic here http://meta.sustainability.stackexchange.com/a/23/2451" CreationDate="2016-08-23T13:39:16.393" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="7426" PostId="5484" Score="2" Text="I don't think it is necessarily off-topic here. But the question is more about nutrition/health than sustainability. Maybe [Health.SE](http://health.stackexchange.com/) is a better site to ask this question." CreationDate="2016-08-24T07:52:00.070" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="7427" PostId="5486" Score="2" Text="BTW questions like these are better suited for [earthscience.se], *but not in this form*." CreationDate="2016-08-24T09:25:40.497" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="7428" PostId="5486" Score="1" Text="Or Skeptics SE, but also not in this form" CreationDate="2016-08-24T10:53:21.227" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7438" PostId="5489" Score="6" Text="I believe most washing machines have both a hot and cold water line. Regarding dishwashers, there's an interesting discussion over here: http://diy.stackexchange.com/questions/36674/what-would-happen-if-i-connected-a-dishwasher-to-a-hot-water-supply-line" CreationDate="2016-08-25T01:25:44.993" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7459" PostId="5489" Score="1" Text="We have a washing machine connected to a &quot;normal&quot; cold + hot mixing tap without problems for years. I (manually) switch it to hot water for the main washing cycle and then later on to cold for the rinsing. Of course, your energy efficiency is gone if you forget to switch back to cold - unless you have (solar) hot water in excess." CreationDate="2016-08-28T18:32:30.633" UserId="3722" />
  <row Id="7434" PostId="5491" Score="5" Text="This question probably belongs over on electronics.SE. Also, it would be helpful if you provide the specs of your batteries, and maybe a picture or two." CreationDate="2016-08-25T01:15:14.373" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7435" PostId="5491" Score="2" Text="I'm posting here because I'm living in an off-grid house with battery power storage. Batteries are one of the most expensive and problem prone aspects of off-grid power. Area 51 has a renewable energy SE, but it's not in beta yet." CreationDate="2016-08-25T01:18:22.590" UserId="3686" />
  <row Id="7451" PostId="5491" Score="0" Text="My own experience is limited, but from what I've read this may be sulfation - however this typically occurs on the negative terminal, not the positive: http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/sulfation_and_how_to_prevent_it" CreationDate="2016-08-26T18:57:54.210" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7972" PostId="5491" Score="0" Text="are you sure it's 2V, and not 12V? I also assume you mean Ah (amps x hour), not A/hr (amps per hour)." CreationDate="2017-01-06T16:32:06.943" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7973" PostId="5491" Score="2" Text="@LShaver many larger lead-acid systems have single cell batteries. It's generally more efficient to have fewer, larger cells where possible, but a 6-cell battery is unwieldy above a few hundred amp-hours. Building and maintaining a complex series-parallel setup is expensive, even when (or especially when) some of the series connections are hidden inside the batteries. How do you deal with a single cell failing in a 200kg, 12V battery?" CreationDate="2017-01-06T23:21:27.140" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="7976" PostId="5491" Score="0" Text="@Móż true -- I had assumed OP was referring to the total system, not just individual batteries, but this make sense." CreationDate="2017-01-07T00:30:18.573" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7981" PostId="5491" Score="1" Text="@LShaver - yes they are 2V cells. There are 24 of them making and 48V bank." CreationDate="2017-01-08T01:10:31.230" UserId="3686" />
  <row Id="8403" PostId="5491" Score="0" Text="I suspect that running in series allows individual cells to be overcharged( lets say 2.4V ) while other cells compensate by only being charged to less ( 1.6V ). If it is possible, try to measure voltage across individual batteries, and make sure the spec is never exceeded. Slight differences in manufacturing can lead to such issues, where one cell just loads faster then the other cells." CreationDate="2017-04-06T12:32:17.867" UserId="4436" />
  <row Id="7444" PostId="5493" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! There's a related question here: [Can you recycle single serve coffee pods like K-Cups?](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/2501/99), but your question is slightly different as you are proposing to use cups made entirely from aluminium (so with no plastic)" CreationDate="2016-08-25T12:39:02.433" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7452" PostId="5496" Score="3" Text="Many thousands of people have been working on this question for many decades, without any definite resolution. Do you perhaps have a much much smaller, more answerable question you'd like to start with instead?" CreationDate="2016-08-27T01:29:51.907" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="7464" PostId="5496" Score="0" Text="The first thing to do is to decrease energy consumption. This mean we have to have less *material* expectations. Good luck." CreationDate="2016-08-29T07:56:03.933" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="7453" PostId="5497" Score="1" Text="`Can someone help?` Do you want to ask a new question? Have you seen the other answers here?" CreationDate="2016-08-27T18:55:08.397" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="7458" PostId="5497" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Please note that this is a Q&amp;A website and not a discussion forum. If you are not sure what that means I recommend taking the [tour](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/tour) first. If you want to ask a new question you can do that [here](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/ask)" CreationDate="2016-08-28T11:35:39.083" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7465" PostId="5499" Score="1" Text="And the less organic (household) waste in your incinerator the better. It is wet, reducing the burn temperatures - and you want those as high as possible (more efficient burn). I remember waste incinerators having trouble with their cladding when we started removing organic waste from the stream, because the burn temperatures went up ;-)" CreationDate="2016-08-29T08:40:45.593" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="7652" PostId="5499" Score="0" Text="Are you comparing not sorting biowaste to owning a car?" CreationDate="2016-11-06T11:52:04.223" UserDisplayName="user3719" />
  <row Id="7653" PostId="5499" Score="0" Text="@user598527 No, I was giving an example how something has almost zero impact when a single person does it, but a very large impact when everyone does it." CreationDate="2016-11-06T12:02:18.370" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8562" PostId="5500" Score="0" Text="Infrared can't penetrate black plastic. So, there is no way to determine the plastic type based on how the laser beam interacts with the plastic." CreationDate="2017-06-02T05:15:12.363" UserId="1729" />
  <row Id="7468" PostId="5502" Score="2" Text="Recycling what? It makes quite a difference whether you want to recycle ink from paper, phosphorus from sewage, or gold from electronics - just too name a few. Voting to close as too broad." CreationDate="2016-08-30T12:33:25.230" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="7478" PostId="5502" Score="0" Text="@JanDoggen Initially, I was going to include large scale recycling approaches but I intentionally left it broad so that I can gather more information. From what I can see, It seems that there is no stand-alone field." CreationDate="2016-09-01T08:26:05.033" UserId="3727" />
  <row Id="13034" PostId="5502" Score="1" Text="Take a look at the companies Avantium and RenewCO2 and the discipline is the science of chemistry. Now there are also hundreds of similar companies." CreationDate="2020-10-28T12:53:39.057" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="13057" PostId="5502" Score="0" Text="I will definitely take a look, thanks!" CreationDate="2020-10-31T22:46:38.193" UserId="3727" />
  <row Id="7470" PostId="5503" Score="1" Text="A photo might help..." CreationDate="2016-08-30T20:45:54.447" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="7479" PostId="5504" Score="0" Text="Bio &amp; chemical engineering are the closest. Do you know any other fields outside engineering ? _grad and bachelor programs are preferable_" CreationDate="2016-09-01T08:31:12.063" UserId="3727" />
  <row Id="7476" PostId="5507" Score="1" Text="Did you have regular ants (those that also eat human food, like sugar, bread, etc.) or leafcutter ants (which don't care for human food)?" CreationDate="2016-08-31T22:25:48.360" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="7480" PostId="5507" Score="0" Text="Yes, it was regular ants, I guess it's the strong aroma they don't like, so maybe it also works on leafcutter-ants" CreationDate="2016-09-01T09:51:15.797" UserId="3734" />
  <row Id="7481" PostId="5507" Score="0" Text="That's unlikely. As far as I know leafcutter ants aren't sensitive to smell." CreationDate="2016-09-01T10:00:41.253" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="8570" PostId="5513" Score="0" Text="I bought a k-cup shell made out of gold and black plastic. I fill my ground coffee in there and make coffee. I empty the spent coffee ground (compost if you want), wash the inside with hot water, then dry it for re-use later. I rarely waste a disposable k-cup because of this. Coffee ends up being much cheaper (albeit more labor) than $0.50 disposable k-cup." CreationDate="2017-06-02T08:48:24.267" UserId="1729" />
  <row Id="7483" PostId="5515" Score="3" Text="No, that's not what the article says. The whole article is about how the evidence does **not** support the claim that more than 1 million people used food banks." CreationDate="2016-09-02T10:00:17.183" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="7484" PostId="5515" Score="1" Text="The linked article is interesting, but I agree with EnergyNumbers. In the article DEFRA is quoted: &quot;*It is impossible at present to give an accurate estimate of the numbers of people fed by food aid providers in the UK, in total or on a regular basis (monthly or annually).*&quot;" CreationDate="2016-09-02T11:25:50.960" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7487" PostId="5516" Score="1" Text="you write: &quot;just imagine the areas that will be required to accommodate these very large solar panel farms and wind turbine generators to satisfy all the increased demand&quot; - we don't need to imagine: [the calculations have been done, and the area is a tiny fraction of the available land and sea](http://energynumbers.info/100percent-renewables-would-occupy-little-land)" CreationDate="2016-09-03T13:07:08.447" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="7488" PostId="5516" Score="1" Text="This is not answering the question. It reads more like a comment &quot;But keep in mind that...&quot;" CreationDate="2016-09-03T13:41:42.097" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="7491" PostId="5517" Score="3" Text="Getting further away from &quot;Engineering&quot;, one could also include &quot;Social engineering&quot; — e.g. for new recycling policies and their adoption — and &quot;Urban planning&quot; for how and where the waste gets recycled." CreationDate="2016-09-06T07:27:33.937" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="8038" PostId="5517" Score="1" Text="@Earthliŋ +1 for the recycling policies part. Answer accepted, and hopefully there will be a combination of such fields in academia to serve Sustainability and Recycling systems." CreationDate="2017-01-16T17:50:17.843" UserId="3727" />
  <row Id="7490" PostId="5519" Score="0" Text="Related question: [What is BioChar and can I use it to improve my garden?](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/645/99)" CreationDate="2016-09-06T07:07:55.217" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7527" PostId="5520" Score="0" Text="I would make it without oxygen the whole time" CreationDate="2016-09-22T03:08:48.527" UserId="3532" />
  <row Id="7506" PostId="5528" Score="2" Text="Product-recommendations are off-topic on almost all StackExchange websites, including this one. This is because they are 'list'-questions and because they tend to become spam magnets. The only exception is if there are only 1 or 2 products that would qualify to the mentioned criteria." CreationDate="2016-09-14T12:34:29.923" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7549" PostId="5529" Score="0" Text="Is soapy laundry water good for fruit trees? I have always wondered." CreationDate="2016-10-04T13:13:16.860" UserId="1567" />
  <row Id="7512" PostId="5532" Score="0" Text="The figure sitting on the top of my head is &quot;around 65%&quot; round-trip efficiency. But don't put too much trust in this,it's a fallible memory!" CreationDate="2016-09-19T21:30:55.757" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="8414" PostId="5532" Score="0" Text="On a recent tour of the Dinorwic pumped storage scheme in North Wales the guide claimed 75% efficiency, and indeed that's what it claims on the Wikipedia page. It's biggest advantage, though, is the speed with which it can increase it's power output (0-1800MW in 16 seconds!)" CreationDate="2017-04-10T20:11:16.793" UserId="3960" />
  <row Id="7518" PostId="5533" Score="1" Text="I wonder if it differs by country?" CreationDate="2016-09-20T08:08:12.060" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="7520" PostId="5533" Score="1" Text="[A quick search led me to this page](http://corporate.mcdonalds.com/mcd/sustainability/signature_programs/coffee_story.html) where McDonald's claims that globally in 2015 37% of their coffee was from verified sustainable sources (UTZ, Rainforest Alliance, Fair Trade USA). They also say that in Europe all coffee (except decaf) is from sustainable sources, as well as all coffee in Brazil, Australia, New Zealand and all espresso in the US and Canada. You should however also consider the [McDonald's plastic cup versus a ceramic mug in a bar](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/5173/99)" CreationDate="2016-09-20T08:37:31.963" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11318" PostId="5533" Score="0" Text="Depending on the country, McDonalds coffee is actually just a private label of other brands. Also McD is franchise driven, so they're not always 100% the same store to store." CreationDate="2019-08-16T11:17:57.703" UserId="6863" />
  <row Id="7513" PostId="5534" Score="3" Text="Rather than just down voting, can you please explain why?" CreationDate="2016-09-20T03:19:43.597" UserId="3532" />
  <row Id="7516" PostId="5534" Score="0" Text="Downvoting is probably because the question doesn't show any research effort. It will also help if you explain why you think this question belongs here and not on [Biology SE](http://biology.stackexchange.com) or [Pets SE](http://pets.stackexchange.com)" CreationDate="2016-09-20T07:39:42.850" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7522" PostId="5534" Score="0" Text="sustainable farming is not pets nor biology." CreationDate="2016-09-20T16:50:24.800" UserId="3532" />
  <row Id="7523" PostId="5534" Score="8" Text="Yes, but you didn't say that that's your goal." CreationDate="2016-09-20T18:57:23.143" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7525" PostId="5534" Score="2" Text="Phone some duck farms in the neighbourhood? I think you'll have more results Googling for those than for your 'duck requirements'." CreationDate="2016-09-20T19:32:34.113" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="9730" PostId="5534" Score="0" Text="Any duck except Whistling and Black Bellied." CreationDate="2018-05-20T19:02:48.093" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="7515" PostId="5535" Score="1" Text="*only profit rules multinational firms* is not a very helpful generalization. You are also not answering the question." CreationDate="2016-09-20T07:29:54.123" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="7517" PostId="5535" Score="0" Text="@JanDoggen My edited answer says it: its not. I cannot say &quot;how much&quot; not it is, but theoretically speaking it can't be. What can be, is drink not coffee if you live so far away from producers, drink dried roots like e.g. the excellent dandelion's." CreationDate="2016-09-20T08:00:26.210" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="7519" PostId="5535" Score="3" Text="Even if sustainable things may often take more time to create, serving up such things quickly can still be possible." CreationDate="2016-09-20T08:10:19.517" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="7521" PostId="5535" Score="0" Text="@JanDoggen, you're quite right. I agree I'm a little sketching the things. But think about it: if we need 4-5 earth at the current rate we live, then we should decrease our rate, and fast-foods have no reason to be (sorry I can't go to chat room behind current proxy I use;))" CreationDate="2016-09-20T08:44:55.433" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="7535" PostId="5536" Score="2" Text="Cringely had an interesting article on this back in May: http://www.cringely.com/2016/05/06/15262/" CreationDate="2016-09-21T21:19:16.653" UserId="3799" />
  <row Id="8151" PostId="5536" Score="0" Text="You ask for a recent study - is there an older study? Looking at the author/institution or citations of the older study could lead to an updated version." CreationDate="2017-02-04T22:00:13.523" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7536" PostId="5537" Score="0" Text="Do you mean replacing the ink &quot;cartridge&quot;? Or are there pens where you can actually refill the ink itself?" CreationDate="2016-09-25T15:54:32.160" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7537" PostId="5537" Score="0" Text="Yes you have the ones with cartridges, but you can also buy rollerball pens that are refillable like fountain pens, so you can refill them with actual ink, but have not tried those yet. An example of this is the J Herbin refillable rollerball pen, but I think that might write a bit differently than a 'normal' ball point pen" CreationDate="2016-09-25T18:09:42.873" UserId="3792" />
  <row Id="7538" PostId="5543" Score="0" Text="It seems unlikely that either would make it to the top 100 of highest impact behaviour you have.  The effect of either is very, very small." CreationDate="2016-09-26T13:30:45.070" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="7539" PostId="5543" Score="2" Text="@gerrit, while that may be true, it's a very easy change to make - so if there's a measurable benefit to one method over the other, why not make the change? Stragu, perhaps it would be helpful to expand your question with pros/cons of each? I'd also add that the lighter is refilled with fossil fuels - unless there are biogas lighters?" CreationDate="2016-09-26T15:44:37.407" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7540" PostId="5543" Score="0" Text="Depends on the gas stove - does it need a flame, or can it light from a spark? What about a piezoelectric lighter, or a fire steel." CreationDate="2016-09-26T21:50:03.943" UserId="1173" />
  <row Id="8033" PostId="5544" Score="1" Text="While measuring the resource is an important step in siting a wind farm, we are no where close to utilizing a signficant fraction of the resource.  So, at present, the best bang for the buck is coming up with a cheap way to assess the wind resource at a given location.  At present the usual way requires putting up a mast up to the height of the potential tower, and instrumenting it for at least a year, then comparing that year to the wind history at  nearby weather station for a decade or two to see that the measured year was typical." CreationDate="2017-01-15T18:22:27.367" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="10612" PostId="5544" Score="0" Text="This site https://windexchange.energy.gov/ has &quot;resources to help communities weigh the benefits and impacts of wind energy.&quot;" CreationDate="2019-01-11T00:47:35.420" UserId="6287" />
  <row Id="7541" PostId="5546" Score="0" Text="From [this site](https://financere.nrel.gov/finance/content/p50-p90-exceedance-probabilities-demystified): *P90 denotes the level of annual wind-driven electricity generation that is forecasted to be exceeded 90% of the year.*" CreationDate="2016-09-28T12:18:08.793" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7542" PostId="5547" Score="0" Text="What does that mean though? 90% likely to produce *and exceed*? Or 90% likely to be *no greater than*. (And it's unclear from that as to *which* average P50 is? Mean, median, mode, or something else?)" CreationDate="2016-09-28T17:36:07.650" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="7543" PostId="5549" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! I'm no expert on this, but I've read on multiple occasions that all transformers consume a little bit of power when plugged into a wall socket, even if no device is connected." CreationDate="2016-09-28T19:18:54.743" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7545" PostId="5549" Score="1" Text="The transformer case is simply wrong. Please explain how people who measure those losses are wrong. You have an impedance connected across an AC supply, so it will conduct current. You can argue that it is a small current, but you have not done that, you have stated that it is zero. I think you need much more detail in that answer, and a justification for the zero answer (either show that Ohm's Law is wrong, or that the impedance of the transformer primary coil becomes infinite when there is no load on the secondary and that in that situation  there are no losses inside the transformer)." CreationDate="2016-09-29T00:59:50.197" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="7544" PostId="5550" Score="3" Text="Are you taking into account the recently revealed large-scale fraud in efficiency claims for diesel cars? As always with these things, the advertising is almost meaningless, what counts is your actual usage and what that costs. Literally, &quot;your mileage may vary&quot;." CreationDate="2016-09-29T00:54:46.220" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="7546" PostId="5552" Score="1" Text="Do you mean a regular flush toilet? Doesn't that either form a sediment trap (if the outlet is high) or was the solids out into the greywater (if the outlet is low)? Either way, putting toilet waste into a greywater system is risky." CreationDate="2016-09-30T05:54:28.123" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="7547" PostId="5552" Score="1" Text="Please [edit] your answer and do something about your [wall of text](http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Wall_of_Text)" CreationDate="2016-09-30T08:25:14.183" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="8979" PostId="5552" Score="0" Text="@Móż The outlet is at the lowest point but it's not an issue. Basically your flush water is filtering through a mass of compost and just the liquids are draining out the bottom. The outlet actually needs to be at the lowest point so that your compost doesn't remain wet." CreationDate="2017-11-01T13:38:08.217" UserId="3837" />
  <row Id="8980" PostId="5552" Score="0" Text="You send the liquids that have filtered through feces to a greywater system?  That is not greywater.  That is blackwater.  By definition." CreationDate="2017-11-01T16:47:09.987" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="8981" PostId="5552" Score="0" Text="@Jean-Paul Calderone Well, the point of this system is to take blackwater and turn it into greywater. And thats done by filtering it through compost. The feces that remain get composted very quickly and so the overall percentage of feces in there is probably less than a percent. Also, the feces are on top. So first the water goes through feces and then the compost." CreationDate="2017-11-01T18:16:17.583" UserId="3837" />
  <row Id="8990" PostId="5552" Score="0" Text="This can be done whole house. With a grease trap above the holding tank. Rice straw added. for a filter material. Pumped out once a year. Or more. Then put in the rice fields or garden area.  If used in the garden all vegetables must be steamed or cooked before ate. The grease from the grease trap is used at the candle factory. How my home in the Philippines is hooked up." CreationDate="2017-11-03T14:07:00.913" UserId="5003" />
  <row Id="7548" PostId="5554" Score="1" Text="I pick up cigarette lighters that smokers discard, because they often have lighter fluid left and generally work without it anyway - all you need is the spark-generating part. That reduces litter and is free :)" CreationDate="2016-10-02T00:30:08.213" UserId="1255" />
  <row Id="7552" PostId="5558" Score="1" Text="Ask the [Hungarian National Association of Mangalica Breeders](http://www.mangalicatenyesztok.hu/index-english.html) or [farmers keeping them](https://bealsfarmcharcuterie.com/pages/bealsfarm-mangalitzas)?" CreationDate="2016-10-05T14:21:41.943" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="7562" PostId="5559" Score="1" Text="I can't read the link you shared from https://www.google.nl/search?q=mangalica+pigs+husbandry+density+acre and some other stuff in hungarian." CreationDate="2016-10-07T05:11:57.513" UserId="3532" />
  <row Id="7563" PostId="5559" Score="0" Text="That is a Google search. What's the issue - it will present you search results in English. I don't read Hungarian either and I'm not willing to hold your hand." CreationDate="2016-10-07T07:22:36.120" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="7827" PostId="5561" Score="2" Text="For the benefit of this site, would you be willing to summarize these sites, e.g. stating the breed of duck and some reference temperature?" CreationDate="2016-12-14T21:25:03.227" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="7556" PostId="5562" Score="0" Text="On the typo, I think you're exactly right - right after the sentence I quoted, they describe taking an eight hour journey to drive around the field. However, I've got a bit of an issue with the 425GW number - dividing consumption by the hours in a year doesn't really give you the correct number for capacity." CreationDate="2016-10-06T14:17:32.603" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7559" PostId="5562" Score="0" Text="Yes, the math is correct, but not the method - I would argue you'd need to be able to match the peak demand (the 1,068 GW number I quoted), not the average demand. To make a fair comparison, the system should either match the peak demand, or the total consumption - not the averages. Perhaps this deserves its own question." CreationDate="2016-10-06T14:23:43.887" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7561" PostId="5562" Score="1" Text="@LShaver I've updated my answer to clarify things raised in comments. So thanks for those comments: they've helped me see where I needed to provide more explanation." CreationDate="2016-10-07T05:10:39.193" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="7565" PostId="5563" Score="4" Text="I doubt interplanetary travel will ever be feasible, but asides from that, it would open an even more difficult issue: how do you convince a sizable portion of humanity to get frozen for a few decades or centuries and leave mother earth for some other place, probably never to come back, and impose that choice on all their descendants? Migration across countries is already hard enough.." CreationDate="2016-10-08T08:46:17.660" UserId="2941" />
  <row Id="7566" PostId="5563" Score="1" Text="@ggll with current technology people can travel to Mars in [six to eight months](http://www.mars-one.com/faq/mission-to-mars/how-long-does-it-take-to-travel-to-mars)" CreationDate="2016-10-08T16:47:22.430" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7570" PostId="5563" Score="1" Text="@THelper I was referring to exoplanets that are already similar enough to Earth. Mars is kinda cold, dead, and too far from the sun. As for terraforming, I would have to ask how big a research and economic effort would it take - if possible at all - and what could we do on Earth if we invested the same resources here." CreationDate="2016-10-09T14:07:46.300" UserId="2941" />
  <row Id="10190" PostId="5563" Score="0" Text="@THelper An astronaut has not landing on mars.  No buying private citizens will be traveling there in 6-8 months." CreationDate="2018-09-22T23:51:40.220" UserId="2914" />
  <row Id="7572" PostId="5564" Score="0" Text="I accepted your answer, but I would love to see that supported by some references. Also, would anyone consider a form of legislative cap on number of children per couple to be ethical?" CreationDate="2016-10-10T21:29:03.947" UserId="80" />
  <row Id="7573" PostId="5564" Score="3" Text="Iran is a useful case study as they have been through cycles of different government incentives over the last 50-odd years, leading to crazy population changes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_planning_in_Iran has an outline. It's less authoritarian than the Chinese approach so might be more acceptable to white countries (and less brutal that the policies applied to brown countries by white ones, so more acceptable to the brown ones). Ethics of population control is a tricky question since it directly involves balancing individual freedom with group freedom and species survival." CreationDate="2016-10-10T21:30:38.587" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="7574" PostId="5564" Score="1" Text="@stragu So would I! But I'm answering from memory as a time-strapped layperson, I'm afraid. If anybody can suggest appropriate references I'll be very glad to edit them in." CreationDate="2016-10-10T21:33:30.443" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="7584" PostId="5564" Score="2" Text="Hans Rosling has given several interesting lectures on the topic. I can recommend [this Ted talk](https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen) where he shows that low child mortality has led to (more or less) stable population sizes in many countries. If you have more time I can recommend [this 1-hour documentary about Hans Rosling's work](https://www.gapminder.org/videos/dont-panic-the-facts-about-population/)" CreationDate="2016-10-16T14:25:25.767" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7567" PostId="5565" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! So basically you are saying, I you live in a condo just place some solar panels in your window? Any recommendations what type of panels?" CreationDate="2016-10-09T09:15:09.863" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7571" PostId="5567" Score="0" Text="PV estimates should be fairly accurate using a tool such as PVWatts. Run-of-river should be pretty straightforward with a few measurements and some historical rainfall data. I would imagine wind is the wild-card... What scale are you thinking?" CreationDate="2016-10-10T15:39:41.567" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7576" PostId="5567" Score="1" Text="For commercial scale stuff I suspect this may be tricky to find data on - since both the pre-development studies and the eventual performance data are likely to be confidential (though for big enough developments that connect directly to transmission, data may be available on their output)" CreationDate="2016-10-11T06:56:30.947" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="7577" PostId="5568" Score="1" Text="Why is this relevant? When in doubt, can't you just use any other type of fencing poles?" CreationDate="2016-10-12T13:45:36.107" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="7578" PostId="5568" Score="1" Text="black locust isn't treated with chemicals, and lasts forever." CreationDate="2016-10-13T06:44:39.817" UserId="3532" />
  <row Id="7579" PostId="5568" Score="1" Text="I think this is a good question. The question is whether sheep will chew at fence posts, and if they do, whether small quantities of dried black locust are still detrimental to the health of the sheep." CreationDate="2016-10-13T15:14:16.133" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="7580" PostId="5568" Score="0" Text="@acoder From your link: &quot;The black locust tree contains several toxic compounds found in the sprouts, leaves, bark, flowers, and seed pods including a glycoside (robitin) and phytotoxins (robin and phasin).&quot; The black locust wood isn't mentioned here, but I guess you are worried about the bark?" CreationDate="2016-10-13T15:17:30.717" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="7581" PostId="5568" Score="0" Text="I'm worried about the bark, and wood once it becomes a pole for pounding." CreationDate="2016-10-14T02:49:17.860" UserId="3532" />
  <row Id="7582" PostId="5568" Score="3" Text="All I know is that black locust poles have been used in fences and corrals for centuries. I've never heard of anyone having a problem with sheep nibbling on them. One would presume that this was done without incident or the practice would have been halted long ago." CreationDate="2016-10-14T12:31:25.303" UserId="1701" />
  <row Id="8034" PostId="5568" Score="1" Text="Trim off the frayed wood after the post is inserted.  Slope the top to the outside of the corral so that leachate isn't on nibbleable grass. I would suggest doing reserch on how poisonous it is, and whether sheep eat it willingly when there is other fodder available.  E.g. Cows find locoweed quite palatable.  They still go crazy.  Cows will not choose to eat water hemlock, but will grab the odd mouthful when eating grass around it.  For a cow the lethal dose is on the order of a kilogram.  Pincherry and has a precursor to cyanide in the leaves.  The deer will nibble, but not enough to kill." CreationDate="2017-01-15T18:28:09.730" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="7583" PostId="5570" Score="3" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Can you explain more why you think that McDonalds as a company is not very sustainable? Do you have any references to backup your claim?" CreationDate="2016-10-16T13:04:38.993" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7587" PostId="5572" Score="0" Text="Thanks. This is just the kind of answer I was looking for, at least for the heating aspect. Cooling, I seem to have discovered, is a whole different ball of wax." CreationDate="2016-10-18T22:21:22.200" UserId="3508" />
  <row Id="7591" PostId="5574" Score="0" Text="Regarding Denmark: Simply said, an excess energy goes to &quot;other grids&quot; (is exported) when it's more than 100%? So intermittent energy production from RE sources is too small in comparison to synchronous grid?" CreationDate="2016-10-21T11:06:09.760" UserId="3911" />
  <row Id="7592" PostId="5574" Score="1" Text="Yes, they export it. But Denmark is not a synchronous grid. It's two small parts of two very large synchronous grids. And on those grids, wind gets nowhere near 50%, let alone 100%" CreationDate="2016-10-21T11:08:12.167" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="7593" PostId="5574" Score="0" Text="Regarding England: They use traditional power dispatching techniques - people monitoring the power draw?" CreationDate="2016-10-21T11:13:04.490" UserId="3911" />
  <row Id="7595" PostId="5574" Score="1" Text="@stardust Britain's grid is balanced by a combination of automated systems and people in a control centre, dispatching mostly supply and some demand: by market prices and by direct instruction." CreationDate="2016-10-21T12:15:44.710" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="7596" PostId="5574" Score="0" Text="One small quibble... ramping coal generation up and down is rather costly, and typically done on time-scales of a few hours, while natural gas generation can be ramped up and down a few times an hour. Higher penetration of natural gas generation (due to lower prices and its lower carbon intensity) contributes to this and allows for higher integration of intermittent sources." CreationDate="2016-10-21T15:39:09.487" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7610" PostId="5574" Score="0" Text="@EnergyNumbers♦, could you please give a little explanation what Dong Energy actually did? How they managed to control frequency?" CreationDate="2016-10-27T11:21:45.577" UserId="3911" />
  <row Id="7612" PostId="5574" Score="2" Text="@stardust at the moment, that's all I've learnt, from people involved in the project. They may be controlling frequency by using variable-speed rotors, or by some fancy power electronics. I'll update this answer with a link once the report is published. And it might be worth posting a new question here asking how wind turbines can provide frequency-response  services, if we don't yet have a question on that." CreationDate="2016-10-27T12:29:23.793" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="7600" PostId="5577" Score="2" Text="For domestic use there are heat exchanger extractor fans (wall rather than window mount as far as I know). Assuming you heat your house for much of the year they might be worth a look." CreationDate="2016-10-24T16:25:58.867" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="7598" PostId="5579" Score="1" Text="You can't quantify errors; if you knew the error, you could simply correct it.  You can, however, quantify uncertanties." CreationDate="2016-10-24T13:10:11.387" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="7601" PostId="5579" Score="0" Text="For both PV and wind, the capacity factor per hour is predicted - how much of the primary energy source is available vs the maximum possible. So, this essentially includes both the magnitude and timing errors you describe." CreationDate="2016-10-24T19:31:01.180" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8084" PostId="5579" Score="0" Text="I just came across this article, which may help answer the question for wind power: http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy11osti/50814.pdf" CreationDate="2017-01-23T04:03:22.093" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9080" PostId="5579" Score="1" Text="You can quantify errors (quantify just means assign a quantity to; if you are measuring anything, you'll at least know _after_ what your error was).  You can also estimate the amount of error in an estimate with some probability if you have a data set to examine." CreationDate="2017-12-09T00:23:23.240" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="7700" PostId="5581" Score="4" Text="I feel that this confuses correlation and causation; just because two numbers are correlated doesn't mean one causes the other. I suspect that better economic conditions in general are the *cause* for both the reduced child mortality and lower population growth." CreationDate="2016-11-18T10:54:44.927" UserId="399" />
  <row Id="7701" PostId="5581" Score="1" Text="@Carpetsmoker The problem is that we know that things like economic conditions, health, education and child mortality are related, but we do not know how this works exactly. So it's very difficult to determine what is cause and effect. Although I may have reversed the order in which I introduce it in my post, I do mean that we need economic improvements to reduce population growth." CreationDate="2016-11-18T11:05:03.230" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7602" PostId="5582" Score="2" Text="It's never none; even renewable energy has an ecological footprint.  Solar panels might have been transported by diesel trucks and employees building them might be eating beef for supper." CreationDate="2016-10-26T16:02:31.547" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="7603" PostId="5582" Score="2" Text="Are you also interested in including your PC/home/city? Or just the CO2 emissions from when Google receives the query, until it pushes back a response? And, to @gerrit's point, are you interested in the incremental emissions (new CO2 for each search) or the lifecycle emissions (total CO2 of Google over its lifetime, divided by number of searches)?" CreationDate="2016-10-26T23:45:50.677" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7604" PostId="5582" Score="0" Text="[Blackle](http://www.blackle.com/) claims to save energy, [but likely doesn't](http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/q/4373/5337)." CreationDate="2016-10-27T01:04:08.653" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="7605" PostId="5582" Score="0" Text="@LShaver great remarks! I updated the question." CreationDate="2016-10-27T05:43:15.593" UserId="2187" />
  <row Id="7611" PostId="5582" Score="2" Text="One of the problems with accurately answering questions like this is that equipment must be energized irrespective of work it must do. Even if search engines were doing nothing, waiting for someone to ask a question the entire system from computers, servers, cable or satellite communications systems, etc. must consume energy &amp; be ready to do useful work. It's like combustion engine powered cars waiting at traffic lights - the engine must be using fuel, doing no useful work while the car the idle, so the car can move when the lights change color." CreationDate="2016-10-27T12:10:39.220" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="7613" PostId="5584" Score="0" Text="Do you know of any data comparing this to other services? Yahoo, Bing, etc?" CreationDate="2016-10-27T16:45:21.280" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7617" PostId="5584" Score="0" Text="@LShaver It's not exactly comparing carbon footprints, but the Rankabrand website has a section for [search engines](https://rankabrand.org/websites/category/Search) that compares exactly those 3. Also Greenpeace has written an interesting document called '[Clicking Clean](http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/clicking-clean-report/)' that describes the progress big Internet companies like Apple, Google, Facebook etc. are making to switch to 100% renewable energy." CreationDate="2016-10-28T07:06:23.403" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7614" PostId="5585" Score="1" Text="In addition to heat it's worth checking the insulation underneath (and on the other faces)." CreationDate="2016-10-27T18:37:23.203" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="7615" PostId="5585" Score="0" Text="BTW The *under upturned ceramic pots* is bogus. You don't gain anything from the pots." CreationDate="2016-10-27T20:25:09.240" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="7616" PostId="5585" Score="0" Text="@JanDoggen although without something above a candle to absorb and radiate heat, the hot air would just rise and accumulate at the ceiling where it doesn't help you feel warm... not sure how much heat a candle puts out, but putting something over it might help." CreationDate="2016-10-27T22:08:55.420" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="7618" PostId="5585" Score="0" Text="Can you create an air duct/pipe from one room to the other? It would have to be thoroughly isolated, of course." CreationDate="2016-10-28T07:18:19.280" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="7619" PostId="5585" Score="0" Text="Sorry, yes, I should have mentioned that while it is technically possible to duct air from one room to the other, it would make the house look like the Lunar Module in Apollo 13." CreationDate="2016-10-28T07:50:17.840" UserId="3937" />
  <row Id="7624" PostId="5585" Score="0" Text="Rather than air ducting, circulating water is used with some wood burning stoves,  either to heat a tank of water or to transfer heat to other rooms. You'd need a loop, and each pipe would be 15mm/0.5&quot; plus insulation." CreationDate="2016-10-31T07:44:44.383" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="7654" PostId="5585" Score="0" Text="It seems you are trying to do this without electric heaters, correct? You may want to edit the question and/or title to say you're trying to use existing heat sources to heat the room. Otherwise, this is just a duplicate of this question: http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/1306/which-type-of-portable-electric-heater-is-better" CreationDate="2016-11-06T16:07:45.650" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7658" PostId="5585" Score="0" Text="There are a number of &quot;Holmes on Homes&quot; TV episodes from Canada that deal with insulating rooms like this - specifically with how it is often done badly, and the risks of car exhaust getting drawn into the room above the garage. Their usual solution is spray-foam insulating the garage because that also seals everything." CreationDate="2016-11-07T02:56:55.637" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="7661" PostId="5585" Score="1" Text="Thanks for making the link with car exhaust. Luckily we haven't used the garage for this since the room above became a bedroom but it was planned for the future. Something else to bear in mind." CreationDate="2016-11-07T07:55:06.160" UserId="3937" />
  <row Id="7620" PostId="5586" Score="0" Text="What should the container be made of? I assume ceramic is a good option but obviously there is a risk of it breaking? Any other possibilities?" CreationDate="2016-10-28T08:37:09.610" UserId="3937" />
  <row Id="7692" PostId="5586" Score="0" Text="I want to point out that if the fire is hot enough to heat the extra room using this water &quot;heat battery&quot; while still heating the rest of the house, then the fire has been too hot (a.k.a. wasteful) during its operation. If you're so worried about efficiency, you may want a smaller fire in general." CreationDate="2016-11-15T17:58:02.743" UserId="1594" />
  <row Id="7694" PostId="5586" Score="1" Text="@Rich for something strong and long lasting, perhaps stainless steel is the way to go?" CreationDate="2016-11-16T08:54:55.647" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="7622" PostId="5589" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! A somewhat similar question was posted [here](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/4709/what-can-i-do-as-a-developer-for-the-environment) and perhaps the answers to [this question](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/2674/99) are also interesting for you. But more importantly, what aspect of sustainability do you find most interesting? Is it really smart grid, or perhaps something else?" CreationDate="2016-10-29T11:17:41.133" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7623" PostId="5589" Score="3" Text="Hello and welcome. I doubt that this question can be answered objectively. Key is really your interest! You state that you'd like to do a masters degree and that you're interested in high-tech fields related to sustainability. To me that sounds like two perfectly valid reasons to pursue that degree and join a job in sustainability after that. Notwithstanding it could be helpful to go for some courses outside CS with significance to sustainability (in a interdisciplinary perspective), e.g. ecology, environmental policies, systems engineering, or, or, or... to broaden your view." CreationDate="2016-10-30T08:52:04.860" UserId="2072" />
  <row Id="12601" PostId="5592" Score="2" Text="Any developer can try to make his software **require less resources**. It applies to every piece of software, whether it's mobile app, webpage, server process or a library." CreationDate="2020-05-03T11:43:17.737" UserId="6683" />
  <row Id="9302" PostId="5593" Score="0" Text="hemp would also replace trees as our primary paper pulp source.  Since used paper is recycled and not burned, it would be a very useful way of sequestering carbon.  Bamboo grows very fast especially in the first 2 years and is very useful for paper pulp, textiles, and building materials." CreationDate="2018-02-26T11:40:10.257" UserId="4574" />
  <row Id="7628" PostId="5594" Score="0" Text="Nice answer, but I'm wondering about scale here. There must be some minimum amount of leaves and other compostables within a particular range of the biogas plant to make it profitable. This amount would also depend on the size of the biodigester." CreationDate="2016-11-03T07:38:40.750" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7629" PostId="5594" Score="0" Text="@THelper the issue is that leaves are seasonal. They'd start to compost if you tried to store them. Over the course of a year they're a small proportion organic waste, but appear in a glut. Round here food waste goes to an anaerobic digester (along with sewage) but garden waste is composted aerobically, which is much cheaper to set up." CreationDate="2016-11-03T07:55:09.380" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="7626" PostId="5595" Score="3" Text="This question might be better suited the SE Earth Sciences." CreationDate="2016-11-03T01:56:55.933" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="7627" PostId="5595" Score="0" Text="@Grant_Nilsson: I'm assuming you're referring to liquid, vapour &amp; ice forms of water on, above &amp; below the surface of the Earth &amp; not water locked within crystals of minerals? That is, water that is capable of moving freely if required." CreationDate="2016-11-03T01:59:58.053" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="7630" PostId="5595" Score="0" Text="@Fred I'm inclined to agree with your first comment but I've answered it anyway at what I believe is a suitable level. If much more detail is required maybe migration would be in order" CreationDate="2016-11-03T08:02:25.897" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="7650" PostId="5599" Score="0" Text="My understanding is that while Beijing has some severe pollution events these tend to be fairly short (not that the norm is exactly clean). In Delhi the highest levels of pollution can be sustained for long periods." CreationDate="2016-11-05T15:18:23.057" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="7825" PostId="5599" Score="1" Text="A novel approach is outlined [here](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-38285567). Basically it proposes using jet engines to propel the pollution high into the atmosphere - although of course it would be better to reduce the emissions at source." CreationDate="2016-12-14T15:45:34.887" UserId="3960" />
  <row Id="7631" PostId="5600" Score="1" Text="Why don't they use wake-on-lan when they want to work on a computer remotely?" CreationDate="2016-11-03T11:35:10.170" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="7632" PostId="5600" Score="1" Text="@gerrit I have wondered the same thing myself." CreationDate="2016-11-03T12:22:52.717" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="7633" PostId="5600" Score="0" Text="[Here](http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/computers.html) they say *&quot;A typical desktop computer uses about 60 to 250 watts&quot;* even if the screen saver is running." CreationDate="2016-11-03T13:48:35.380" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7636" PostId="5600" Score="0" Text="@THelper: Turn off the display(s), then.  For my notebook in a docking station (connected to an external display, so the noteboox display is turned off), it's about 17 watts." CreationDate="2016-11-03T20:00:44.260" UserId="1937" />
  <row Id="7637" PostId="5600" Score="0" Text="@jamesqf I suspect the 60-250 Watts is excluding energy for displays because they also say &quot;*Add another 20-40 watts for an LCD monitor*&quot;. Your 17 watts fits well with another stat they mention &quot;*Most laptop computers use about 15-60 watts*&quot;" CreationDate="2016-11-03T20:24:44.983" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7698" PostId="5600" Score="4" Text="Sounds like your IT department should enter the 21st century. Mgmt may be interested to know that at the low end (17W) each PC costs an extra $10/year in electricity (assuming running the 16 hours outside of the work day for 365 days, at $0.10/kWh). Or, for the more realistic 170W, if there are 100 employees, that's $10,000." CreationDate="2016-11-17T14:24:33.633" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15078" PostId="5600" Score="0" Text="My computer (10900k and rtx3090) pulls about 235 watts while idle.." CreationDate="2021-10-08T08:53:58.923" UserId="13261" />
  <row Id="7638" PostId="5601" Score="2" Text="Nice question. To extend it a bit: Bikes need lubricants (partly containg persistent environmentally-converning substances) for their chain, which are emitted into the environment. Cars/buses also need lubricants for other parts. Walking/running causes abrasion of your shoe sole. Depending on your sole the abrased particles might be environmentally concerning (e.g. micro plastic particles). At the same time, tire wear also causes particulate air pollution in cities. Hulls of boats are commonly coated with anti-fouling agents, which are emitted during usage and cleaning acitivities." CreationDate="2016-11-02T12:59:17.543" UserId="3641" />
  <row Id="7639" PostId="5601" Score="0" Text="&quot;environmental friendly&quot; is a very broad term. Do we look into the emission of substances and objects into the environment that have a negative primary impact on human health? Do we have a regional focus (&quot;Who cares about pollution if it takes place 1000 km distant?&quot;) or a global focus? Do we look into emissions of green houses gases? It should be also questioned how the vehicles and are food are produced and transported. The mode of transport that leads to the death of most humans per year might be the most environmental friendly one because humans are the root of all bad ;-) ." CreationDate="2016-11-02T13:03:46.667" UserId="3641" />
  <row Id="7646" PostId="5601" Score="0" Text="btw, ONE mile walked, run, skipped, crawled is 100 calories spent.  (gees this is an average within narrow parameters). Primarily from fat stores as this gets one into that TRUE fat burning mode.  But each pound of fat is 4000 less maintenance fees or 3500 calories.  So, to enter into your equation calories/energy spent per mile, use 100 calories." CreationDate="2016-11-03T23:49:47.550" UserId="3540" />
  <row Id="7648" PostId="5601" Score="0" Text="We have several related questions on this site (e.g. [Impact of various travelling options](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/93/99) and [Sustainablity of Telecommuting](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/851/999)) but I AFAIK none that take the food consumed by people into account." CreationDate="2016-11-04T08:19:14.590" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7642" PostId="5602" Score="1" Text="Very interesting answer thanks! I'm surprised by how good the city center bus is!" CreationDate="2016-11-02T15:12:24.913" UserDisplayName="James" />
  <row Id="7643" PostId="5602" Score="1" Text="Very interesting indeed. However, according to the figure the one that is constant near 20 SyLC-CO2 is the city center bus not bicycle. Bicycle is less than 10 and has the smallest SyLC-CO2 even for the largest traffic demands." CreationDate="2016-11-02T22:01:51.003" UserId="277" />
  <row Id="7644" PostId="5602" Score="0" Text="@ZZZ There are actually two bicycle lines. Somewhat confusingly, the authors calculate bicycles with human calories and without. The solid black line at 20 is with human calories, the dotted line at 10 is not. Since the OP specifically mentions food energy spent walking, the line at 20 is more relevant to this question." CreationDate="2016-11-02T22:22:04.953" UserDisplayName="kingledion" />
  <row Id="7656" PostId="5602" Score="1" Text="How did they account for time, I wonder? Most people prefer to spend less than an hour each way commuting, so there are huge city-design issues with method choice. Viz, the graphs should look very different for commutes of 1km, 5km, 20km and 100km." CreationDate="2016-11-07T02:44:00.277" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="7657" PostId="5602" Score="1" Text="Also, sadly, the study assumes that the cost of building and maintaining roads is zero, but both bike lanes and rail tracks have an environmental cost. That actually makes cars worse (much worse), but seems to be a gaping flaw in the study." CreationDate="2016-11-07T02:45:22.160" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="12425" PostId="5602" Score="0" Text="The link is broken in this answer. Is [this](https://doi.org/10.2208/jscejipm.68.I_285) the same study? doi:10.2208/jscejipm.68.I_285" CreationDate="2020-03-02T16:12:22.437" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="12426" PostId="5602" Score="0" Text="@Nic Possibly, can't read Japanese though. This is it, but I can't find a free full text with a quick google search: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272211854_COMPARATIVE_ANALYSIS_OF_LIFE_CYCLE_CARBON_DIOXIDE_EMISSIONS_FROM_URBAN_PASSENGER_TRANSPORT_MODES" CreationDate="2020-03-02T17:43:50.717" UserId="3955" />
  <row Id="12430" PostId="5602" Score="0" Text="Bicycling is a fair bit more energy-efficient than walking, so I expect that, at least for longer distances, it'll have a better lifecycle cost." CreationDate="2020-03-03T03:30:54.633" UserId="7993" />
  <row Id="12432" PostId="5602" Score="0" Text="-1 for referring to ebikes as 'silly'. Using mine, I can do a hilly commute in normal work clothes without needing a shower afterwards, at the energy equivalent of 2000 mpg. That's not silly." CreationDate="2020-03-03T09:20:59.353" UserId="3851" />
  <row Id="12433" PostId="5602" Score="0" Text="I wonder what diet the authors assumed?  The differences between a vegan and carnivorous diet might be enough to make the bike beat LRT in any usage scenario." CreationDate="2020-03-03T10:44:35.233" UserId="1445" />
  <row Id="7645" PostId="5603" Score="0" Text="Discussing environmental issues could be somewhat depressing to many people because any time they are discussed they come with some level of criticism and suggestions for regulations. And some people don't like neither of those two. Just trying to lighten up a discussion on an environmental issue with my approach here, though I stand 100% behind the idea. Please don't shoot me down just for trying. :)" CreationDate="2016-11-02T21:44:43.687" UserId="277" />
  <row Id="8102" PostId="5603" Score="4" Text="But in cold weather, you would need more energy to keep warm. Also damage to your feet could cause injuries. So maybe more sustainable to wear some sort of clothes and shoes." CreationDate="2017-01-27T02:50:22.573" UserId="1173" />
  <row Id="7655" PostId="5605" Score="0" Text="Very Strange Canadian Documentary that makes the case for &quot;worse&quot;: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afs_A_Lz2w4" CreationDate="2016-11-06T17:44:13.043" UserId="3847" />
  <row Id="7647" PostId="5606" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Interesting idea. Do you know if this has been tried somewhere? And if so how effective it is?" CreationDate="2016-11-04T08:01:56.350" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7649" PostId="5609" Score="0" Text="If it also prevents wear on the transmission, it could save money on that too." CreationDate="2016-11-05T01:27:20.990" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="7678" PostId="5610" Score="1" Text="After edits to the question this answer no longer applies." CreationDate="2016-11-12T18:21:55.517" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="7659" PostId="5612" Score="3" Text="I am not entirely convinced that you're correct in any of your assumptions. My understanding is that much of what we see in South America is the after-effects of 90%+ of the population being wiped out by disease and conquest, so it's a bit like watching Mad Max to see how Australians live :) Likewise, slash and burn works fairly well on a small scale (copse level rather than broadacre landclearing. Woodchipping and composting might be better, but it's slow and needs heavy machinery. And a lot depends on the cycle time, how fast you want to regrow the forest." CreationDate="2016-11-07T03:00:08.910" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="7660" PostId="5612" Score="0" Text="One option: sell the timber, so it displaces use of other timber. That will reduce the total impact of your clearing." CreationDate="2016-11-07T03:01:12.287" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="7662" PostId="5612" Score="0" Text="I would think it depends on the type of crop you intend to plant as well. Some would need sunny, well-drained soil, others would require shade, etc." CreationDate="2016-11-07T16:51:01.143" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7663" PostId="5614" Score="1" Text="Out of curiosity... in the case of a wind farm, wouldn't it be simplest to use an algorithm similar to what's done for MPPT - move the rotational speed up or down a bit, and see if you get more power out? I imagine there are a number of interrelated variables to track, but once your algorithm can account for those, it seems like you could just employ a &quot;perturb and observe&quot; sort of power tracking." CreationDate="2016-11-07T23:31:44.993" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7664" PostId="5614" Score="0" Text="@LShaver that's a really good question! Please do post it as a new question!" CreationDate="2016-11-09T08:02:32.967" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="7666" PostId="5617" Score="0" Text="They actually carry very little energy. I've seen calculations and it's not worth it. Google should find some data for you" CreationDate="2016-11-09T17:55:24.710" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="7667" PostId="5617" Score="1" Text="Also what's the point of the heater and turning them back into drops?" CreationDate="2016-11-09T19:58:55.630" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="7669" PostId="5617" Score="2" Text="@ChrisH That sounds very much like him thinking about a perpetuum mobile" CreationDate="2016-11-10T12:32:07.540" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="7670" PostId="5617" Score="0" Text="@JanDoggen it does. And that's why I just commented rather than working on an answer before knowing" CreationDate="2016-11-10T12:51:50.137" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="7679" PostId="5617" Score="0" Text="I dunno, it's how the whole hydrological cycle works. You could use black surfaces to speed it up if you wanted to." CreationDate="2016-11-12T22:10:03.210" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="7668" PostId="5618" Score="0" Text="More accurately &quot;once they fall on high land and you collect a lot of them, the collection has a lot of energy&quot;. Hitting the ground doesn't add energy to the drop." CreationDate="2016-11-10T00:29:23.470" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="7724" PostId="5618" Score="0" Text="Comment only: Raindrops dissipate even more energy than one may expect when falling because they do not fall in the drop shapes that everyone shows in drawings but as wider and more flattened 'blobs' with greater frontal areas and so lower velocities." CreationDate="2016-11-24T12:38:05.413" UserId="318" />
  <row Id="7675" PostId="5620" Score="0" Text="This probably depends on the country and on the specific organisation that has certified them as organic.  Could you list both?" CreationDate="2016-11-11T10:45:50.833" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="7676" PostId="5620" Score="0" Text="Good point, @gerrit! I updated the question." CreationDate="2016-11-11T10:53:43.493" UserId="2187" />
  <row Id="7691" PostId="5622" Score="0" Text="Something [like this](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stormguard-11SR0666SQM-Secondary-Glazing-Insulation/dp/B00AL8L20I)?  Isn't that just plastic?" CreationDate="2016-11-15T14:53:49.980" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="7681" PostId="5623" Score="1" Text="*growing plants and saplings and nurturing them into trees* is not an answer to *short-term acute pollution incidents*" CreationDate="2016-11-13T15:08:18.823" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="7684" PostId="5624" Score="1" Text="In the winter, I wouldn't discount using a dehumidifier - the by-products are water (which you can use for flushing toilets and/or watering plants) and heat (which will off-set need to use other heating sources)." CreationDate="2016-11-14T16:53:04.940" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7693" PostId="5624" Score="0" Text="Weigh the costs of a humidifier vs property damage. An extra hundred bucks for electricity a year will be far more affordable than a thousand dollar renovation to get rid of molding drywall and water damage." CreationDate="2016-11-15T18:00:12.373" UserId="1594" />
  <row Id="7682" PostId="5625" Score="1" Text="That last thing (*removing cooking steam and shower steam with a fan) is what I would try first: you remove the moisture peak at the same time you generate heat - the period is limited - your (noticeable) heat loss is lowest. And a fan uses little power." CreationDate="2016-11-14T14:08:42.577" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="7683" PostId="5625" Score="0" Text="@JanDoggen IME that works well if adding/fixing an extractor fan is an option. I didn't want to assume that the OP could change the framework of the building (the houses I've come across with the worst humidity problems have all been rented).  Opening windows seems less effective than a fan, but my main reason for not suggesting that is that if you open the window when you leave the shower, you tend to forget to shut it again, thus letting all the heat out and freezing the next person to use it." CreationDate="2016-11-14T14:11:57.020" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="12336" PostId="5625" Score="0" Text="Good answer on relative vs. specific humidity, but the question also references condensation on windows, which is another issue: poor insulation leading to cold surfaces and condensation. The solution there is double glazing." CreationDate="2020-02-16T08:09:58.773" UserId="8013" />
  <row Id="7689" PostId="5626" Score="1" Text="Good answer! One addition; which pesticides and fertilizers are allowed for organic foods differs from country to country. For example Europe allows only a small list of naturally-occurring pesticides and fertilizers. The US is less strict and allows much more pesticides, including some synthetic ones." CreationDate="2016-11-15T09:08:47.850" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7690" PostId="5626" Score="0" Text="@THelper Thanks. I changed the wording slightly. You're also welcome to make further changes yourself!" CreationDate="2016-11-15T09:40:28.647" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="7686" PostId="5627" Score="0" Text="How will this not lose heat?!" CreationDate="2016-11-15T07:46:27.723" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="7687" PostId="5627" Score="2" Text="I think the idea is that only the air will lose heat, the actual building materials won't have time to give up their heat to the air. That's not to say I agree with the idea, but if you're going to be out long enough with the heating off that the house would cool down, it might be worth doing this just before you go out. @SimonW" CreationDate="2016-11-15T08:12:38.200" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="7688" PostId="5627" Score="0" Text="Ah, I see. Hmm." CreationDate="2016-11-15T08:19:28.450" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="7695" PostId="5628" Score="1" Text="Am I correct that the EIEO ratio is the ratio of two values: firstly the total energy input required to make the fuel (eg energy required to make fertilisers and fuel etc needed to grow a crop, harvest it, process it), and the second value being the energy obtained from using the fuel. &#xA;This would mean you're wasting your time if the ratio is less than 1." CreationDate="2016-11-16T22:03:26.430" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="7696" PostId="5628" Score="0" Text="It looks like this was a POC project, so even if there any EROI numbers available it doesn't mean anything at this stage. We'll have to wait until there is an EROI of a large-scale continuous production process for bio jetfuel. BTW more info also here: https://nararenewables.org/sustainable-biojet" CreationDate="2016-11-16T22:54:36.247" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7704" PostId="5628" Score="0" Text="@HighlyIrregular, that's correct. However, there can be other considerations - if solar or wind power is used to process biofuels, it can be considered a form of energy storage." CreationDate="2016-11-20T19:30:19.653" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7697" PostId="5629" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Nice first answer!" CreationDate="2016-11-17T07:45:20.517" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7792" PostId="5629" Score="1" Text="I second the suggestion for HRVs. My bathroom was absolutely plagued with mould when I moved into my current house, opening the window didn't help and just made the room freezing cold. Installing one of [these](http://www.envirovent.com/specifier/products/single-room-heat-recovery/heatsava/) has drastically reduced the humidity and keeps the room warm." CreationDate="2016-12-08T19:51:22.970" UserId="3960" />
  <row Id="8086" PostId="5629" Score="0" Text="Would second HRV - it is standard for new builds where I came from and ought to be included in building regulations for anywhere cold and/or damp. You can also get wall mounted units that do not require a ducting system, but of course they will only cover a limited area." CreationDate="2017-01-23T16:31:31.150" UserId="4199" />
  <row Id="7699" PostId="5634" Score="2" Text="This depends on your definition of &quot;sustainable&quot;. You talk about polluted groundwater, but this is perfectly &quot;sustainable&quot; in the sense that it can be sustained for long periods of time (potentially indefinite). It's perhaps not *desirable* to have more polluted groundwater than a certain level, but that is an entirely different question." CreationDate="2016-11-18T10:48:56.437" UserId="399" />
  <row Id="7702" PostId="5634" Score="0" Text="i don't think polluted groundwater can be considered &quot;sustainable&quot; in the context of environmentally friendly agriculture. too much slurry on the fields means that the groundwater is polluted and cannot be taken into the water supply." CreationDate="2016-11-18T15:48:32.117" UserId="3929" />
  <row Id="7703" PostId="5634" Score="1" Text="Your question doesn't mention &quot;environmental friendly agriculture&quot;, it merely mentions &quot;sustainability&quot;. And &quot;environmental friendly&quot; is also a very subjective term; even a single cow can be seen to harm the environment (it will produce waste, needs food, etc.), so we're still left with a very subjective judgement call here..." CreationDate="2016-11-18T16:28:05.223" UserId="399" />
  <row Id="7714" PostId="5634" Score="1" Text="This really desperately requires a definition of &quot;sustainable&quot;. Can you please provide one, or link to one, otherwise your question can't be answered. Note also that &quot;meat&quot; is a very broad term, covering everything from insects to whales, from krill to apex predators (and there are definitions of sustainable that would allow consumption of all of those). It might also be handy if you explicitly included or excluded human meat, and one easy path to a sustainable society is via self-consumption until we reach a sustainable human population." CreationDate="2016-11-22T21:12:15.373" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="7766" PostId="5634" Score="0" Text="Just an FYI, bovine eructation is significantly higher in methane than flatulence -- https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/dog-spies/well-that-stinks-reporters-blow-cow-farts-out-of-proportion" CreationDate="2016-11-30T21:33:19.007" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7706" PostId="5638" Score="5" Text="Shouldn't this go in Meta?" CreationDate="2016-11-20T22:56:36.133" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="7707" PostId="5638" Score="3" Text="I thought about that... but it seems there should be some definition of &quot;sustainable&quot; on the main site - even the tag I used here doesn't actually have any Q/As with definitions. I'll edit the question to make it less meta." CreationDate="2016-11-21T16:12:45.370" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7748" PostId="5638" Score="1" Text="I'm voting to leave open.  See what happens.  Make even take a crack at answering it.  It's certainly not off topic.  If it gets a good answer, it should be grist for the site definition." CreationDate="2016-11-29T03:27:31.697" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="7919" PostId="5638" Score="0" Text="@SherwoodBotsford, I'd love to read your proposal for an answer, if you have the time, and I'd very much appreciate some feedback/recommendations for the complete rewrite of my previously unpopular answer. I'm trying to work out something universal and was excited when LShaver raised the question." CreationDate="2016-12-31T19:20:03.393" UserId="4084" />
  <row Id="7920" PostId="5638" Score="0" Text="ok, @DouglasDaseeco I took a swing at it.  Tried to keep it simple." CreationDate="2016-12-31T19:50:14.167" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="7928" PostId="5638" Score="0" Text="@SherwoodBotsford, yours is relatively simple, but the thing I like the most about it is the good coverage of relevant issues. ... I was going for comprehensive but concise with my rewrite. Do you have an opinion of it?" CreationDate="2017-01-01T04:29:12.867" UserId="4084" />
  <row Id="7930" PostId="5638" Score="0" Text="@DouglasDaseeco -- My eyes start to cross halfway through.  Possibly consider a job write IPCC reports for the UN? &lt;grin&gt;  This trout needs clearer water." CreationDate="2017-01-01T04:37:33.830" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="7935" PostId="5638" Score="0" Text="@SherwoodBotsford, I shortened it as much as I dare. In screenwriting, experienced authors will try to remove words, lines, and even scenes. Once removal destroys the flow of the dialog or story, removal must cease. ... At this point, an old friend's proverb from my early days in research comes to mind: &quot;Embrace the complexity. Simplifying it doesn't make it go away.&quot;" CreationDate="2017-01-01T06:23:54.283" UserId="4084" />
  <row Id="7705" PostId="5639" Score="1" Text="I know from experience doing similar work for solar potential that NREL has a tremendous amount of data, which can be hard to find and sort out. I would recommend contacting the folks there to see if they can point you to the type of data you're seeking." CreationDate="2016-11-20T20:51:49.960" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7777" PostId="5639" Score="1" Text="Duplicate of [What are some good databases of wind speed and direction to use as training data for machine learning?](http://opendata.stackexchange.com/q/10152/13231)." CreationDate="2016-12-02T11:55:53.187" UserId="3641" />
  <row Id="7709" PostId="5641" Score="0" Text="Is salt really that bad? I mean introducing sand into an area that it isn't really natural is far more damaging I believe than a bit of salt that dissolves and leaches away with rainfall or melting of the ice." CreationDate="2016-11-22T05:07:18.177" UserId="315" />
  <row Id="7710" PostId="5641" Score="1" Text="Sand or grit won't clear ice, they'll just make it less slippery." CreationDate="2016-11-22T08:42:14.980" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="7711" PostId="5641" Score="0" Text="@Blue_Hat but where does it go when it leaches away? Unless it gets to the sea via the sewer system it will make watercourses/soil/ponds salty" CreationDate="2016-11-22T08:44:15.867" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="7712" PostId="5641" Score="4" Text="@Blue_Hat Salinisation is a *big issue* in many parts of the world. That includes road banks." CreationDate="2016-11-22T09:40:01.663" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="7713" PostId="5641" Score="0" Text="Frankly I don't care much for salt. It reduces the freezing point by maybe 2 C, so not much to gain. I just make sure to shovel it away ASAP, then use some sand. But that's not on the scale of roads, and only ocassionally." CreationDate="2016-11-22T09:43:16.763" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="7715" PostId="5641" Score="0" Text="In my limited experience you're almost always better off constructing or reconstructing the pathway or roadway to deal with snow and ice better. Roads you really want a big machine to scrape it, then apply sand or gravel. For pathways a smaller scraper works better, or metal mesh and a clear space underneath (you &quot;clear the path&quot; by clearing the space under it, then helping any remaining material on the path fall through). My experience is Antarctic rather than urban, though, where salt is irrelevant (as Jan says, two degrees isn't useful when you're 20 degrees below freezing)." CreationDate="2016-11-22T21:18:10.967" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="7720" PostId="5641" Score="0" Text="@Móż et al: so far I've been scraping a walkway and some steps with a metal shovel, and it works pretty well leaving only traces of snow behind but there is unavoidably some water. Thus, the surface still has some very slick spots. So I think a reasonable shoveling routine is a part of the solution, but I'm still looking if there's a good way to gain traction. Of course, a reasonable handrail is also part of the solution :p" CreationDate="2016-11-22T23:38:34.790" UserId="2942" />
  <row Id="7721" PostId="5641" Score="2" Text="@cr0 I think sand after scraping is the way to go. Or a scrubbing brush/firm broom - you want to expose the rock/concrete surface under the ice. Applying sand, then collecting it when the ice melts is an easier but still sustainable solution (I suspect that would be an entertaining design challenge, though). But, (clean/freshwater) sand is cheap most places, and you shouldn't need huge amounts. It's &quot;salt on the steak&quot; not &quot;icing on the cake&quot;." CreationDate="2016-11-23T01:25:20.230" UserId="1255" />
  <row Id="7716" PostId="5642" Score="4" Text="You need to be clear what &quot;less environmental impact&quot; means, I think. And note that bioplastics have as their source carbon from the air, while at least some fossil carbon going into plastics is likely to end up as new carbon in the air. That is the crucial difference." CreationDate="2016-11-22T21:20:46.077" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="7717" PostId="5643" Score="1" Text="With jet fuel, the only alternatives I'm aware of are biofuel (which is often worse than fossil fuel), and not flying. The latter is obviously both preferable and necessary." CreationDate="2016-11-22T21:22:19.893" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="7718" PostId="5643" Score="1" Text="Considering that conventional plastics use probably less than 1% of fossil fuels, I think they are a better alternative to bio-plastics. Destroying more rainforest to grew feedstock for bio-plastics is not a price worth paying in my opinion. If fossil fuel was to be restricted to anything apart from electricity generation and vehicle fuel (jet fuel allowed), then I think it would be well within the safe limit of the Paris Climate Agreement." CreationDate="2016-11-22T22:31:07.367" UserId="3303" />
  <row Id="7719" PostId="5643" Score="0" Text="@Móż There is promising work being done to make jet fuel from algae farming. Hopefully one day will out compete palm oil." CreationDate="2016-11-22T22:35:27.993" UserId="3303" />
  <row Id="15242" PostId="5644" Score="0" Text="These are great resources, thank you! I was hoping to find this info - was thinking of asking the question myself but you've covered it all here!" CreationDate="2021-11-13T14:24:10.920" UserId="13357" />
  <row Id="7722" PostId="5646" Score="0" Text="[This question about energy storage](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/5457/can-pumped-water-energy-storage-be-combined-with-rainwater-harvesting/5460#5460) goes into more detail on the amount of water/height required" CreationDate="2016-11-24T04:40:06.717" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="7918" PostId="5649" Score="0" Text="Yes, as with any rigorous analysis, one must clearly define the boundaries around what is being analyzed. Otherwise the results of the analysis may be cloudy (ambiguous) and lead to misunderstanding and misapplication." CreationDate="2016-12-31T19:17:44.247" UserId="4084" />
  <row Id="7723" PostId="5650" Score="1" Text="Tara Garnett also wrote this interesting report [What's a sustainable healthy diet?](http://www.fcrn.org.uk/sites/default/files/fcrn_what_is_a_sustainable_healthy_diet_final.pdf) The report doesn't provide any maximum amounts for meat, but just argues that a low or meat-free diet is better from a sustainability and health point of view." CreationDate="2016-11-24T09:56:54.077" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7726" PostId="5651" Score="1" Text="This is not in the scope of your question, but have you considered planting trees on the side corresponding to the hottest time of day?" CreationDate="2016-11-24T16:05:53.217" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="7740" PostId="5651" Score="0" Text="We are renting, which makes it trickier to do it because of (1) the owner having the last word and (2) the limited time we might spend here." CreationDate="2016-11-28T01:14:31.710" UserId="80" />
  <row Id="7725" PostId="5652" Score="1" Text="To add, during summer, throw everything wide open in the early morning to allow the air to cool the interior. Only when the sun starts gaining strength do you close the shades on the sunny side." CreationDate="2016-11-24T16:04:08.837" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="7731" PostId="5652" Score="1" Text="Depending on security and pest concerns, open windows at night (or in the evening if the temperature drops early enough) can make a huge difference (summer)." CreationDate="2016-11-26T19:07:20.557" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="7732" PostId="5652" Score="1" Text="White blinds will do a better job of reflecting incoming light than wood slats by roughly a factor of 2." CreationDate="2016-11-26T19:09:39.717" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="7733" PostId="5652" Score="0" Text="I know one person who bought panels of foil sided beaver board (very lightweight sawdust board) cut them to fit the window and in summer leaves those in place during the day.  They are light enough that moving them daily isn't a big deal.  Another person uses aluminum coated mylar (space blankets) as drape liners." CreationDate="2016-11-26T19:11:34.753" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="7727" PostId="5653" Score="2" Text="Define 'organic' - otherwise your question is unanswerable." CreationDate="2016-11-25T09:24:45.800" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="7728" PostId="5653" Score="0" Text="USDA certified organic as I'm working on natural pasture." CreationDate="2016-11-25T21:29:00.853" UserId="3532" />
  <row Id="7729" PostId="5653" Score="0" Text="In that case: did you look up the [requirements](http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/usda/usdahome?navid=organic-agriculture)?" CreationDate="2016-11-25T22:18:24.693" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="7730" PostId="5653" Score="0" Text="It's about preventing &quot;cattle&quot; rustling." CreationDate="2016-11-26T03:31:52.887" UserId="3532" />
  <row Id="7734" PostId="5653" Score="0" Text="I think a better question (outside of the USDA requirements) would be whether consumers might consider microchipped livestock as organic or not. Given the conflation of organic with GMO-free, it would be interesting how the pro-organic movement would think of microchipping." CreationDate="2016-11-27T04:55:21.293" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7736" PostId="5653" Score="1" Text="That would make the question opinion based." CreationDate="2016-11-27T07:16:52.970" UserId="3532" />
  <row Id="7735" PostId="5655" Score="1" Text="Thank you! Interestingly from my experience, often these small shops offer fruits and vegetables cheaper than the bigger supermarkets." CreationDate="2016-11-27T07:05:32.993" UserId="2187" />
  <row Id="7737" PostId="5655" Score="0" Text="This is interesting. My post is also from the point of view of the economy part. It doesn't have to be always cheaper on a bigger supermarket. But in the end this would be the only benefit of a bigger market because it can provide more for cheaper ( in common )" CreationDate="2016-11-27T13:01:14.737" UserId="840" />
  <row Id="7738" PostId="5656" Score="0" Text="What is your motivation for asking this question? What relationship do you imagine connects happiness to environmental footprint?" CreationDate="2016-11-27T19:45:37.690" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7739" PostId="5656" Score="1" Text="My assumption would be that people who have an inner satisfaction are less materialistic and thus consume less energy and materials." CreationDate="2016-11-27T21:25:24.317" UserId="2187" />
  <row Id="7741" PostId="5656" Score="2" Text="why would one be the consequence of the other and not the other way round? Also, which culture are you referring to?" CreationDate="2016-11-28T01:31:07.590" UserId="1685" />
  <row Id="7743" PostId="5656" Score="0" Text="Good point. This is opening an entire field of new questions. I will start to research this deeper. Thank you for the thoughts." CreationDate="2016-11-28T08:16:43.700" UserId="2187" />
  <row Id="10095" PostId="5656" Score="1" Text="The less satisfaction I have at work, the more I feel like forgetting environmental issues and buying stuff, expensive holidays, long flights away from &quot;here&quot;. I am very curious about this." CreationDate="2018-08-23T12:15:17.527" UserId="1912" />
  <row Id="10101" PostId="5656" Score="0" Text="The question should not be closed as 'opinion-based' because it very clearly asks about **evidence**. Maybe it cannot be answered yet, maybe it needs some edits to make it sharper, so at most it would be 'too broad'." CreationDate="2018-08-24T14:24:32.023" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="7744" PostId="5658" Score="1" Text="You contradict yourself when you write &quot;*a company like Mc Donald can never be sustainable*&quot; and &quot;*I don't say companies can never be sustainable*&quot;" CreationDate="2016-11-28T13:20:59.047" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7745" PostId="5658" Score="0" Text="Like I explained it afterwards, it's more about Mc Donalds and not about the fact that it can never change. We could change everything if we want, I am sure! :)" CreationDate="2016-11-28T13:23:09.503" UserId="840" />
  <row Id="7747" PostId="5662" Score="1" Text="Welcome to sustainability.SE! This has the makings of a great question for the site, but it needs a bit of editing. Have you taken the [site tour](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/tour)? I'd recommend cutting out the non-relevant bits (&quot;Found the site...&quot;, &quot;I had asked a question...&quot; etc) to bring the focus to the question and the relevant information. This will ensure that the answers will be as useful as possible, not just for you, but for others who may have similar questions." CreationDate="2016-11-28T20:49:59.133" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7840" PostId="5664" Score="1" Text="I disagree with your point about &quot;*Cost is a measure of crystalized sweat. Energy. Labour. Cheaper is better.*&quot; Low prices for shoes and clothing usually mean they were created in sweatshops, sometimes even with child labor. These manufacturers often don't follow environmental regulations and some are involved in illegal dumping of chemicals." CreationDate="2016-12-19T13:09:43.203" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7849" PostId="5664" Score="0" Text="May not be the best measure.  I think it's a usable measure within a culture.  Note too that Cost != Price." CreationDate="2016-12-20T18:10:34.587" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="7757" PostId="5667" Score="2" Text="Regarding washing machines I find your comment surprising. I have a fairly standard Bosch machine that we bought for on grid use and that has a single water inlet (cold). Thanks for your thoughts though." CreationDate="2016-11-29T20:32:14.603" UserId="3686" />
  <row Id="7762" PostId="5669" Score="0" Text="Thank you for the suggestions. Last question on Vapour Control Layer / Damp-proof membrane. Do I need one (I think so) and where do I lay it? In a normal floor insulation scheme with the objective to slow heat transfer from the room to the slab understand it would likely be the first thing to go down, separating the slab from everything else (and condensation forming on slab). In my case I’m trying achieve the reverse, to slow heat transfer from below via the slab to my room and floor. Should I put a DMP / VCL above the thermal insulation and below the chipboard and engineered wood floor?" CreationDate="2016-11-29T18:45:15.730" UserId="4025" />
  <row Id="7761" PostId="5673" Score="1" Text="We use the latter technique, despite having two inlets (in Australia), mostly because we only use the hot/warm water for the very first stage of the rise-and-hold cycle, and our machine doesn't officially support that behaviour (it's a great machine in terms of efficiency etc when we're using it, but that flaw and the 10W standby power are both annoying)" CreationDate="2016-11-30T02:33:00.657" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="7772" PostId="5675" Score="0" Text="An alternative may be a ventilation fan with heat recovery. I have an EnviroVent HeatSava in my bathroom and it works extremely well - it runs constantly on a low setting, increasing speed if it detects high humidity." CreationDate="2016-12-01T08:15:29.173" UserId="3960" />
  <row Id="7773" PostId="5678" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living and thank you for your answer! I'm glad you were able to confirm some of my suspicions which I wrote in [this comment](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/4299/can-plastic-with-only-the-japanese-recycling-symbol-be-recycled-in-the-us#comment4042_4299)" CreationDate="2016-12-01T17:51:49.747" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7890" PostId="5679" Score="1" Text="Perhaps sustainability should be defined in its relation to the biosphere (as Vladimir Vernadsky originally defined it). More specifically, it may best be defined in terms of risk to life. Since the toxification of the environment or the depletion of vital resources are the primary risks, it may be wise to define sustainability of human processes as functions of those risks. It is such an important concept, that I'd recommend redefining other related terms AFTER first obtaining a functional and quantifiable definition of sustainability." CreationDate="2016-12-25T23:21:12.380" UserId="4084" />
  <row Id="7917" PostId="5679" Score="0" Text="It is good you noted that the definition quoted is of sustainable development. The kinds of sustainability ratings we consider in the laboratory have much more to do with evaluating combinations of technologies and components. We call them, &quot;Biospheric Energy Acquisition Topologies.&quot; We have a tree of them: http://transeed.com/cc/biosphere/energy/biospheric.energy.acquisition.tree.png" CreationDate="2016-12-31T19:16:12.923" UserId="4084" />
  <row Id="7945" PostId="5679" Score="0" Text="I'd like to point out that the notion of sustainable development that is often put into practice by policymakers has been widely criticized (see for instance the work by french economist Serge Latouche). This is a natural consequence in growth-based economies that, even by investing more in green technology, increase their environmental impact progressively." CreationDate="2017-01-02T12:54:37.653" UserId="2605" />
  <row Id="7952" PostId="5679" Score="1" Text="The question wasn't looking for a definition of either &quot;sustainable development&quot; or &quot;sustainable living&quot;. The question is what does the adjective &quot;sustainable&quot; mean in a practical sense. What makes some activity or design one that will probably last for thousands of years without breaking something on earth that should be preserved? As the world population grows, this question grows in importance." CreationDate="2017-01-02T18:49:09.053" UserId="4084" />
  <row Id="7968" PostId="5679" Score="0" Text="@FauChristian I disagree. The exact question is *what is the standard definition for sustainable?* I chose to answer this by describing the standard definition of the noun 'sustainability', which has the same meaning as the adverb 'sustainable'" CreationDate="2017-01-05T10:43:08.520" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7779" PostId="5683" Score="0" Text="It certainly is possible to overuse geothermal energy, not because of limited existence of it, but because of limited access to it. &#xA;&#xA;Older geothermal plants also commonly extracted steam or water from below the ground without replacing it, which slowly lowered the pressure of the water and in some cases also caused surface subsidence.&#xA;&#xA;Newer plants pump water through hot rock to heat it, reducing the subsidence and pressure problems, but they also have a limit to how much heating can be gained from a given size of facility." CreationDate="2016-12-03T07:28:50.413" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="7780" PostId="5684" Score="0" Text="Still, I would argue that the difference between solar/wind/geothermal and the others is one of where and how they are used - the quantity itself isn't the issue. Do you have a source on the 10TW figure? Given the fact that most wind systems have about a 30% capacity factor, you'd need a tremendous amount to get to 10TW output at any given moment." CreationDate="2016-12-05T00:11:26.920" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7782" PostId="5685" Score="0" Text="Do you have sources on the solar power and geothermal data? &quot;A decade or so&quot; sounds too short to me - it'd be hard to recoup costs in that time frame. And on solar power, it seems this would be very dependent on where you put panels - installation on rooftops probably wouldn't affect global albedo much, since rooftops tend to be more darkly colored anyway." CreationDate="2016-12-05T00:16:28.833" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7804" PostId="5685" Score="0" Text="Sorry, can't find the source.  Rooftop installations won't  be enough..  You can cover single floor residents that way, but residential isn't a big part of the picture. In Canada http://www.statcan.gc.ca/tables-tableaux/sum-som/l01/cst01/envi41a-eng.htm claims around 23% for household use." CreationDate="2016-12-10T03:18:49.607" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="7818" PostId="5685" Score="0" Text="I was only giving rooftops as an example, to argue that the effect of solar PV on albedo would depend on where panels are installed. In some places they could lower albedo." CreationDate="2016-12-13T01:56:48.650" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7781" PostId="5686" Score="0" Text="Do you know the proper terminology to differentiate between ground-source heat systems (which work any where) and power plants which depend on geothermal activity?" CreationDate="2016-12-05T00:13:03.773" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7783" PostId="5687" Score="2" Text="Welcome to Sustainability.SE! Thanks for your answer, but this doesn't really add much to the topic. What causes the tilt in favor for EVs? What about concerns of sustainability?" CreationDate="2016-12-05T18:13:56.383" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7784" PostId="5689" Score="0" Text="Item 3 depends entirely on the electricity supplier you are dealing with." CreationDate="2016-12-06T23:48:30.510" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="14814" PostId="5689" Score="0" Text="One reason 3-phase is used for high power levels is that the electrical power transfer (given a balanced load) is continuous and even.  Single-phase alternators or motors will vary in torque at 120Hz as the voltage cycles 0V to +160V to 0 to -160V sixty times a second.  At some power level, that becomes a BIG problem.  When you are using (for example) multi-megawatt alternators at a hydroelectric dam, that would mean a LOT of vibration and metal fatigue.  https://www.quora.com/Why-does-a-single-phase-motor-vibrate-more-than-a-three-phase-motor" CreationDate="2021-07-30T03:48:01.683" UserId="12030" />
  <row Id="7788" PostId="5690" Score="0" Text="I will be producing potentially up to 25kW of electricity using very cheap fuel (vegetable oil and/or biodiesel) with a PTO driven generator designed for continuous operation. My conundrum is to find a use for the electricity generated in the most efficient manner. I have the option of generating either 3 phase or single phase primary power. Generated electricity will eventually need to be distributed to various structures on a 2 acre property. It would be easier for me to just go with single phase but I have to consider future equipment costs and determine distribution infrastructure costs." CreationDate="2016-12-07T17:06:35.147" UserId="4047" />
  <row Id="7790" PostId="5690" Score="0" Text="I asked whether the &quot;cheap fuel&quot; idea is really correct: http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/5692/is-using-vegetable-oil-for-electricity-generation-more-efficient-than-burning-wh Friends of mine who ran their van off food-waste vege oil found it hard to gen enough oil every week to make it work." CreationDate="2016-12-07T20:55:05.460" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="7857" PostId="5690" Score="0" Text="@Todd it's usually better to build what you need now, and expand it later. While you're learning about this stuff it's easy to make expensive mistakes. I suggest getting a small-ish single phase generator to power your house as it is now, and use that to learn about the noise and other pollution problems, as well as the difference between &quot;rated for continuous operation&quot; and &quot;capable of keeping the lights on indefinitely&quot;. Having a separate circuit and generator for the big loads will almost certainly work of cheaper in the long run" CreationDate="2016-12-21T02:19:31.953" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="7858" PostId="5690" Score="0" Text="most houses use 2-5kW as baseload, then another 5-10kW of peaking load (dryers, stoves, heaters), but usually that peaking load is at controllable times and it might be easier to have those on the &quot;big generator&quot; circuit that you start up for the 2-3 hours a day you actually need it." CreationDate="2016-12-21T02:21:49.563" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="7789" PostId="5691" Score="4" Text="Can you give a few more details about the system? type of panel, voltage/current/power ratings, battery chemistry and size, etc? It's possible this question may fit better over on electronics.SE" CreationDate="2016-12-07T20:39:41.370" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7812" PostId="5691" Score="1" Text="There's still not enough detail here, but I don't think your solution makes sense. The problem could have less to do with how much sunlight is available for charging batteries, and more to do with the batteries not having enough charge to last through long winter nights. I would try adding additional batteries before adding more solar panels." CreationDate="2016-12-12T20:43:13.573" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7797" PostId="5692" Score="0" Text="In some areas this waste oil is already all used up for commercial biofuel. Certainly in most UK cities there are multiple forms collecting it. Some suppliers are involved in the collection making it efficient and invisible." CreationDate="2016-12-09T07:42:04.020" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="7798" PostId="5692" Score="0" Text="I suspect the same is true in Sydney, Australia, based on the collection tanks and signage I see outside a few such places." CreationDate="2016-12-09T10:12:11.767" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="7832" PostId="5692" Score="1" Text="Purely from the standpoint of energy contained in the material you are right. But all kinds of practical issues come into play. For instance, it is physically easier to transport (pump) fluids than plants. And that fuel will have a much higher energy density than the rest of the plant, so you have to transport less mass and volume for equal amounts of energy. (I'm limiting myself to a comment here, because a quality answer would have to describe many more of those practical issues. Sherwood's diesel engine behavior is one)." CreationDate="2016-12-16T11:13:46.487" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="8336" PostId="5692" Score="0" Text="I'm curious about the cogen units running on pellets, can you provide a link? thx!" CreationDate="2017-03-21T08:28:12.713" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="7794" PostId="5693" Score="0" Text="@EnergyNumbers done - I'll ask only about Japan. I don't plan to create a separate question about Germany, but I'm happy for anyone else to do so." CreationDate="2016-12-08T21:41:27.250" UserId="179" />
  <row Id="7796" PostId="5693" Score="0" Text="Thanks for that. The short, flippant and entirely correct answer to the Japan question is that it will take decades for the full impact to reveal itself, as Japan's energy policy is in the process of being reshaped, and that will take 10-30 years to play out; but there is a short-term answer too, which I might get round to digging out shortly." CreationDate="2016-12-09T07:37:28.833" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="7806" PostId="5698" Score="0" Text="[One sustainable bank's view on the matter of sustainable banking in general](https://www.triodos.com/en/about-triodos-bank/what-we-do/our-expertise-overview/sustainable-banking/).  For a credit card it's a bit odd.  For regular loans a sustainable bank can decide not to issue credit for a land mine factory, with a credit card you can spend money on anything." CreationDate="2016-12-12T12:15:47.630" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="7807" PostId="5698" Score="5" Text="I don't think this question is answerable, at least not without more information. It could simply be greenwashing, it could be carbon-offsetting purchases, it could be the bank closely monitoring your finances to make sure they remain sustainable. It depends on the company that's offering it." CreationDate="2016-12-12T15:12:08.247" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7821" PostId="5698" Score="0" Text="It could be the company is run in a more sustainable way. ie using renewable energy for their offices and servers, and not sending out paper statements." CreationDate="2016-12-13T03:48:13.810" UserId="1173" />
  <row Id="7946" PostId="5698" Score="0" Text="As THelper said (but in different words): you read that quote somewhere. Please give us context. I would not be surprised if the card company using the phrase has a 'definition' somewhere (vague as it may be)." CreationDate="2017-01-02T15:26:34.267" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="7956" PostId="5698" Score="0" Text="I'm voting to close. I think the question could be worded better, and include more information." CreationDate="2017-01-03T16:40:51.893" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7963" PostId="5698" Score="0" Text="I updated my question to give some ideas of what I am looking for." CreationDate="2017-01-04T17:39:32.713" UserId="2187" />
  <row Id="7966" PostId="5698" Score="1" Text="I'm not sure your edit helped. My point is a that a sustainable credit card offered by bank A could be totally different from another sustainable credit card offered by bank B. There is no legal definition of 'sustainable', so any bank can do whatever they like." CreationDate="2017-01-05T08:42:08.417" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7967" PostId="5698" Score="0" Text="I see your point. Thus, there is no general answer we can give to this question. Maybe it is indeed best to close this question." CreationDate="2017-01-05T10:11:33.247" UserId="2187" />
  <row Id="7969" PostId="5698" Score="0" Text="I'm still thinking about a good way to rephrase your question. An option could be to mention one or two specific sustainable credit cards and ask how exactly they are sustainable or more green. But any answer will depend on the information that is supplied by the banks and such a rewrite will make the existing answer invalid." CreationDate="2017-01-05T13:04:29.987" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7816" PostId="5700" Score="1" Text="We are part of our environment, and our health is part of the health of our environment. Excluding our health from the question is like excluding lions from an ecology study of Africa, where they are an integral part of the ecosystem." CreationDate="2016-12-13T00:24:57.377" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="7846" PostId="5700" Score="0" Text="@HighlyIrregular, I made the question a bit more open-ended since it hadn't gotten any responses." CreationDate="2016-12-20T14:24:32.827" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7938" PostId="5700" Score="0" Text="[This seems like a good overview](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1046/j.0960-7412.2002.001607.x/full)" CreationDate="2017-01-02T02:55:16.820" UserId="399" />
  <row Id="7958" PostId="5700" Score="0" Text="@Carpetsmoker I'll take a look, but that is from 2003 -- quite a bit has happened since then." CreationDate="2017-01-03T19:58:06.217" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8186" PostId="5700" Score="0" Text="Your question first asks whether it *poses a threat*, then you ask for *concerns*. Since this is a hot topic, I suggest that you [edit] your question (again) and limit yourself to one of the two. Personally, I would favor the first phrase, so that we can limit ourselves to facts instead of the endless discussions that we see on so many websites. (Or maybe split into two questions that reference each other)" CreationDate="2017-02-16T11:17:39.213" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="8020" PostId="5702" Score="0" Text="On a 3 VDC system, you won't be able to lengthen the wires much before the voltage drops too low." CreationDate="2017-01-14T05:14:57.400" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8028" PostId="5702" Score="0" Text="@LShaver depends on the current - with a 1W panel (be generous, probably very generous) 3V means 333mA, losing about 0.0011V/m with 1mm^2 conductors (via http://www.voltagedropcalculator.com.au/index.php?fldlength=10&amp;fldcurrent=0.333&amp;fldvoltage=3&amp;fldcrosssection=1&amp;submit=Submit%21) Just because the panel comes with 0.02mm^2 wires doesn't mean you have to use the same wire for a longer run. Thicker wire is more robust, which you probably want for the longer run anyway." CreationDate="2017-01-14T23:12:39.683" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="8029" PostId="5702" Score="0" Text="@Móż good point. However I'm still suspicious that battery capacity is the issue here." CreationDate="2017-01-15T05:02:53.973" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8206" PostId="5702" Score="0" Text="Adding a parallel source does not increase the open circuit voltage, so it is unlikely to cause battery overcharge. Even the simplest charging circuits protect against it anyway." CreationDate="2017-02-21T08:04:50.187" UserId="4084" />
  <row Id="7839" PostId="5706" Score="0" Text="This reads like a very high level overview, rather than a specific answer. Could you explain more how a device to produce single phase power from three phase is more sustainable than a device to do the opposite? Ideally with specific reference to the scenario where the great majority of demand is single phase, as in most residential applications." CreationDate="2016-12-18T21:20:22.247" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="7856" PostId="5706" Score="1" Text="I meant that the leap from a very high level overview of what sustainability is to quite detailed discussion of motor types is odd, and nothing you've written actually helps the OP make practical decisions. I appreciate that you're trying to answer a practical question without practical experience, but I suggest this isn't the right question for that. In this case the OP is very much &quot;what search keywords do I use to find the device I want&quot; and you're all &quot;given an ideal heat engine coupled losslessly...&quot;. In your actual experience, are 3-&gt;1 phase converters cheaper than 1-&gt;3 phase?" CreationDate="2016-12-21T02:11:39.497" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="8071" PostId="5706" Score="0" Text="Typically, 3P power is run at a higher voltage for motor applications (277/480V in the US). Lighting which can run on a single phase of 277V power is readily available. Appliances, of course, typically require 120V, but this can still be supplied from a three phase service. So the transformer is for stepping down voltage, not converting 3P to single or split phase." CreationDate="2017-01-21T04:59:51.400" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7837" PostId="5707" Score="0" Text="In some places sewage sludge goes to an anaerobic digester. In that case it would definitely be worth using the disposal. But that's not very common." CreationDate="2016-12-18T14:46:39.460" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="7838" PostId="5707" Score="1" Text="Related: http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/1028/15" CreationDate="2016-12-18T20:48:47.913" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="7848" PostId="5707" Score="1" Text="Go for a pig. Cute, friendly, and at the end of the year, tasty." CreationDate="2016-12-20T15:11:53.747" UserId="1567" />
  <row Id="7852" PostId="5707" Score="0" Text="I guess it depends on how the sewage sludge and the general rubbish are processed in that catchment. Some places could discharge the sludge into waterways, others could digest, produce energy and compost. Some places could send rubbish to landfill (the case for Brisbane), others could incinerate it and produce electricity." CreationDate="2016-12-20T21:51:53.877" UserId="80" />
  <row Id="7845" PostId="5710" Score="0" Text="Recyclethis.co.uk has [a question about recycling household chimney soot](http://www.recyclethis.co.uk/20091023/how-can-i-reuse-or-recycle-soot). The answers (none of them with references) suggest many purposes, but *also* asks what fuel was used. You are also not supplying that information. There are many more sites with info if you google [soot recycle](https://www.google.nl/search?q=soot+recycle)" CreationDate="2016-12-20T14:18:43.620" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="10128" PostId="5712" Score="1" Text="I liked this answer, because it went beyond the scope of the question in a meaningful way, because the OP made clear that he wanted to use the more environmental option." CreationDate="2018-09-05T09:58:40.747" UserId="1233" />
  <row Id="7873" PostId="5713" Score="0" Text="This question is a bit off-topic - are you principally concerned with the cost, or is the sustainability of appliance use also a concern? Voting to close for now." CreationDate="2016-12-21T19:05:18.033" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10949" PostId="5716" Score="0" Text="Can you provide a source or two for your answers?" CreationDate="2019-04-27T15:35:56.347" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10952" PostId="5716" Score="0" Text="@LShaver I don't work in this industry any longer however I seem to remember that the calorific values quoted were an average from many credible sources." CreationDate="2019-04-28T15:27:44.997" UserId="4104" />
  <row Id="7878" PostId="5717" Score="2" Text="Can you be more specific on some solution(s)? This kind of answer is more like a reference, but has too little &quot;real&quot; content." CreationDate="2016-12-22T09:12:52.467" UserId="60" />
  <row Id="7913" PostId="5717" Score="2" Text="Food scraps are not what the 1972 Clean Water Act defined as sludge. The USC states: &quot;Sewage sludge means any solid, semi-solid, or liquid residue removed during the treatment of municipal waste water or domestic sewage.&quot; That's not what the question referenced. Fats in garbage disposals may wind up being sludge, but not necessarily so. Onion skins probably won't. Bacon fat may." CreationDate="2016-12-31T02:02:53.390" UserId="4084" />
  <row Id="7882" PostId="5720" Score="1" Text="Excellent question! Two other factors to consider might be whether fleece clothing can be recycled at the end of its life, and what upstream effects there may be - does use of recycled plastic for clothing mean that new plastic must be made for other products?" CreationDate="2016-12-22T23:56:37.850" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7883" PostId="5720" Score="1" Text="@LShaver I think the production of plastic is so cheap that it's rarely -- although it is improving -- recycled because it's simply not profitable. Taking away some plastic to make clothes is thus unlikely to have much of an effect on the production of new plastics, but it does take away some plastic that might otherwise end up as trash." CreationDate="2016-12-23T00:34:35.670" UserId="216" />
  <row Id="7884" PostId="5720" Score="1" Text="A big problem of fleece and other plastic-based clothing is that it releases thousands of tiny threads when it's washed in a washing machine. These micro-plastics are not filtered out of the waste water and end up in the environment. Sadly there has been little research how harmful the effects are, which makes it difficult to make a good assessment of the pros and cons. More information in [How bad are nylon and polyester clothing for the environment?](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/4791/99)" CreationDate="2016-12-23T08:14:56.123" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7886" PostId="5720" Score="0" Text="@THelper is right, but on the other hand fleece can often be washed gently and infrequently compared to cotton, reducing detergent pollution and energy consumption. This is because water-based dirt sits on the surface rather than soaking in to the fibres." CreationDate="2016-12-23T08:33:12.667" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="7887" PostId="5720" Score="2" Text="I'm not sure the uses are directly comparable. Fleece is for warm layers, and while I have had cotton jumpers they're not common. You couldn't make a T shirt or shirt out of fleece for warm conditions." CreationDate="2016-12-23T08:34:41.637" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="7949" PostId="5720" Score="0" Text="@ChrisH Fleece or rapid dry polyester -- same chemicals, different weaving." CreationDate="2017-01-02T18:38:07.277" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="7950" PostId="5720" Score="0" Text="@Ben The usual issue is sorting it into compatible piles.  Currently milk jugs (low density polyethylene) and pop bottles (PET) are easy to separate from the waste stream, and are well recycled. Products like styrene (mostly styrofoam) and foamed plastics in general, are hard to recycle due to their bulk." CreationDate="2017-01-02T18:41:07.463" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="7885" PostId="5721" Score="1" Text="Not an answer but I suggest using cardboard/paper from food packaging, and the brown paper that's increasingly used in place of bubble wrap for packing mail order goods." CreationDate="2016-12-23T08:30:58.690" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="7888" PostId="5721" Score="2" Text="There are different kinds of food packaging paper. These papers might be coated with water- and fat-repellent compounds (e.g. polyfluorinated ones)." CreationDate="2016-12-24T16:53:28.353" UserId="3641" />
  <row Id="15410" PostId="5721" Score="0" Text="You might want to state the location we're talking about. Depending on country/state/city there might be different laws as to what kind of paper and what kind of ink is allowed to be used." CreationDate="2022-01-01T10:49:55.913" UserId="13592" />
  <row Id="7892" PostId="5722" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Why black rubber mats? Wouldn't white ones be more effective? Also I have some doubts if rubber mats are really the most effective solution." CreationDate="2016-12-26T09:44:44.753" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7902" PostId="5723" Score="0" Text="So are you recommending that food scraps be sent down the drain, rather than thrown in the garbage?" CreationDate="2016-12-29T04:06:59.090" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7912" PostId="5723" Score="0" Text="@LShaver, no. I don't think I said or implied that. My main points were that one cannot give a blanket answer to the question, that changing food habits will impact the sustainability of scrap disposal more than any other household choice, and that what is good for the sustainability of the sewage system tends to also be good for the human body." CreationDate="2016-12-31T01:57:47.887" UserId="4084" />
  <row Id="7923" PostId="5723" Score="0" Text="I used to have Fatburgs in my own drain before I started thinking about the sustainability of my own family's health. I agree that there's a strong relationship between the causes of both types of clogs." CreationDate="2016-12-31T22:43:00.820" UserId="4084" />
  <row Id="7901" PostId="5724" Score="1" Text="This doesn't really answer the question... what specific values are used for X and Y? Where do they come from? Are they universal? Why wouldn't they vary from building to building and place to place?" CreationDate="2016-12-29T04:04:42.403" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7914" PostId="5724" Score="0" Text="@LShaver, to answer the question better one would probably have to read the ISO standards committee meeting minutes for whatever technical publication they used that contained X and Y. I could find not find the exact calculation anywhere, but the ISO standard itself indicated that they applied classic thermodynamics and attempted to minimize resource utilization across the spectrum of outdoor temperatures." CreationDate="2016-12-31T02:08:04.000" UserId="4084" />
  <row Id="7893" PostId="5726" Score="0" Text="This answer suggest that the carbon content of the steel is the issue. I don't think that is very important in relation to the amount of fuel used to make (melt) steel." CreationDate="2016-12-26T19:39:58.330" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="7899" PostId="5726" Score="0" Text="@JanDoggen the question itself is not clear on that..." CreationDate="2016-12-29T03:59:03.957" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7910" PostId="5726" Score="0" Text="@JanDoggen, my answer is specific to the question and only makes sense in its context. Had the question not used the term decarbonising and mentioned coke in the first sentence, I would not have structured my answer this way. It seemed important to give the questioner some background on the carbon proportions required by SAE standards. I don't think I indicated that carbon in steel anywhere in my answer. I implied the opposite. If you read a little between the lines it will become clear that the REMOVAL of carbon from the metal is what places carbon in the atmosphere in various forms." CreationDate="2016-12-31T01:37:58.283" UserId="4084" />
  <row Id="8002" PostId="5727" Score="1" Text="Based on the discussion [here](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/1248/palm-oil-vs-coconut-oil-which-has-the-smallest-ecological-impact), it seems the chief sustainability concern for palm oil is deforestation, which wouldn't be affected by organic farming practices, from my understanding. Would a Rainforest Alliance certification be more applicable in this case?" CreationDate="2017-01-10T16:56:20.750" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10228" PostId="5727" Score="0" Text="&quot;Before the Flood&quot; is a 2016 climate change NatGeo documentary with Leonardo DiCaprio that I watched a few days ago on Netflix.  About 46 minutes in it covers the issue of Indonesian rainforests being cleared to make way for Palm Oil plantations.  Just in case folks want a video summary of the issue." CreationDate="2018-10-02T11:16:37.057" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="7898" PostId="5728" Score="0" Text="It seems any answer to this question would apply to lots of paper products which include bits of tape - like any sort of mailing envelope, boxes, etc. It might be helpful to expand the context a bit." CreationDate="2016-12-29T03:55:09.767" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15245" PostId="5728" Score="0" Text="You can donate unwanted wrapping paper on BoxGiver" CreationDate="2021-11-12T20:05:04.397" UserId="13398" />
  <row Id="7896" PostId="5730" Score="0" Text="Do any of the answers here address this question? http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/1208/reusing-recycling-or-disposal-of-used-or-expired-cooking-oil" CreationDate="2016-12-29T03:43:27.123" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7903" PostId="5730" Score="0" Text="The question is similar, but the answers don't cover composting." CreationDate="2016-12-29T05:27:57.813" UserId="3847" />
  <row Id="14919" PostId="5731" Score="0" Text="I've never heard of using vegetable oil to feed birds, and this answer got me wondering if it's a good idea. Apparently it's fine! (Some people discourage feeding vegetable oil to birds, but [that might be baseless](https://h2g2.com/entry/A1054009).)" CreationDate="2021-08-22T02:26:24.360" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="7905" PostId="5736" Score="3" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! I appreciate your answer, but could you please add some punctuation because it's very hard to read right now." CreationDate="2016-12-30T07:12:54.090" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7947" PostId="5737" Score="2" Text="Another consideration, depending on the material, is microplastic pollution from the washing machine.  Researchers, looking at microbeads, have found that fibres are released into water bodies, likely through washing machines.  A quick search recommends against acrylic (https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/sep/27/washing-clothes-releases-water-polluting-fibres-study-finds) and polyester (http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es201811s via http://www.algalita.org/greening-laundry-day-avoid-polyester-fabrics/)" CreationDate="2017-01-02T17:51:11.840" UserId="2493" />
  <row Id="7953" PostId="5737" Score="0" Text="http://www.esm.ucsb.edu/research/2016Group_Projects/documents/PataPlastFinalReport.pdf at least has several errors where they conflate mass per meter and mass per fiber, which exagerates the issue by two orders of magnitude. The links you cite do not give relative numbers between fiber waste and either nanoparticle or macro particle waste. I have yet to see a report on harm.  This is getting concerned over a dripping faucet on the Titanic." CreationDate="2017-01-02T19:59:51.800" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="10828" PostId="5738" Score="0" Text="what about cardboards" CreationDate="2019-03-24T14:20:07.093" UserId="3532" />
  <row Id="8009" PostId="5739" Score="2" Text="Have you ever eaten grass? A lot of grazing land is that because nothing else will grow there." CreationDate="2017-01-11T10:07:15.270" UserId="1567" />
  <row Id="7927" PostId="5743" Score="0" Text="I really love what you said about metric usage, caveats, adjectives, and geologic (practically indefinite) time. I've spent some time thinking about the sound-bite journalism issue you mentioned. I've concluded that continuously challenging viewers, readers, and listeners to think beyond the thought-bite mentality and comprehend what sustainability must mean to be functional is necessary. It may be swimming against the stream, but then I'm a trout that values other trout and the whole trout calling. :)" CreationDate="2017-01-01T04:24:24.407" UserId="4084" />
  <row Id="7944" PostId="5748" Score="2" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Whether a food is eco-friendly may depend on where it is sourced. So if you are interested in getting a good answer for your particular situation you may want to add your location to your question." CreationDate="2017-01-02T09:52:10.570" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7974" PostId="5754" Score="0" Text="Is the question about cattle, pork, or animal products in general? The trouble is that the question requires two independent balancing acts, so any answer is possible. The price ratio for organic vs inorganic cattle products varies within an animal (milk vs rump steak, for example), and the environmental impact is a complex question all by itself. Also, just so you know, you can't get pork from cattle." CreationDate="2017-01-06T23:26:33.757" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="7975" PostId="5754" Score="0" Text="@Móż - would livestock be a better term to incorporate all animals raised for their meat? My suspicion is that, in general, any type of organic meat is less sustainable per dollar spent, but more sustainable per pound -- I'm wondering if there's any evidence of this." CreationDate="2017-01-07T00:24:18.403" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7977" PostId="5754" Score="0" Text="It depends whether you're interested in the economy of the society. Very few people will voluntarily engage in a &quot;anything you want but $5 a day&quot; diet, so the impact per dollar measure isn't meaningful outside economics. But impact per kilogramme or per kilojoule will also vary across both species and part of the animal. I think the question &quot;CO2 equivalent emissions per gram of animal protein&quot; would be easier to answer, but you possibly also want to consider nitrates into waterways as  another major form of pollution." CreationDate="2017-01-07T03:12:30.030" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="7979" PostId="5754" Score="0" Text="@Móż -- I clarified the question a bit. I'm less interested in the specific measures used, and more in looking at a different way of comparing organic to conventional farming. Is organic only better because it costs more, meaning consumers buy less?" CreationDate="2017-01-07T04:32:39.693" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7984" PostId="5760" Score="1" Text="I'm confused by your remark that *GMOs are not designed for extra food production*. What do you mean by that? The idea behind GMOs is to improve yields, for example by making them resistant to certain pesticides so competing weeds can be removed quickly, or by making crops more pest or drought-resistant." CreationDate="2017-01-08T13:21:23.907" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7987" PostId="5760" Score="0" Text="This gets into philosophies on agriculture and the causes of food availability.  If you look at the work of Vandana Shiva and others in the food resilience arena, the argument that GMOs increase yields overall falls apart, just as the same claim for the Green Revolution does.  GMOs are directly designed not for increased yield, but for pest resistance and chemical weedkiller resistance.  The claim is that these resistances will result in increased yields, and studies have confirmed this, just as increased yields resulted in the new plant varieties introduced as part of the Green Revolution." CreationDate="2017-01-08T14:21:00.870" UserId="4159" />
  <row Id="7988" PostId="5760" Score="0" Text="The problem is that the overall resilience of the food production system goes down, with soil fertility decreasing, among other factors.  The increasingly risky farming environment leads to social problems (e.g. suicides), declining soil fertility, and increasing dependence on external inputs derived from fossil fuels. This results in a system-wide decreasing yield-to-input ratio despite short-term study results of increased yield." CreationDate="2017-01-08T14:23:02.997" UserId="4159" />
  <row Id="7989" PostId="5760" Score="0" Text="Sorry, in the last sentence of my first comment I should have said &quot;short-term increased yields directly from the new plant varieties introduced as part of the Green Revolution&quot;.  I can't figure out how to edit that post." CreationDate="2017-01-08T14:29:37.860" UserId="4159" />
  <row Id="7991" PostId="5762" Score="1" Text="Your last few sentences answer the question (better than the others here, IMO), while the first paragraphs are useful advice, but don't really help someone who has already reduced scraps as much as possible. You may want to consider editing to highlight the last bit, or move it to the top." CreationDate="2017-01-08T23:57:06.373" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="7983" PostId="5767" Score="0" Text="I agree with most of what you've written, but I also think you are overlooking some of the disadvantages of organic livestock. For example recent research has shown that organic and free range chickens produce much more particulate matter than CAFO chickens." CreationDate="2017-01-08T12:38:17.400" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="7985" PostId="5767" Score="0" Text="THelper, can you provide a source for this?  I have not seen research indicating this, and I am wondering how this is being determined.  For example, CAFO chicken waste, if taken to the incinerator, will produce a huge amount of PM.  Also, much of the PM production is related to feed production and whether feed is &quot;oiled&quot; before distribution, not the degree of confinement.  The only indicator I can think of is comparing chickens in highly movement restricted conditions or who are up above the ground, to those that are only slightly less confined on the ground, allowing them to kick up dust." CreationDate="2017-01-08T14:04:50.137" UserId="4159" />
  <row Id="7986" PostId="5767" Score="0" Text="You can see a general research article on PM in agriculture here that does not indicate organic/inorganic as a factor specifically.   Arslan and Aybeck (2012) state &quot;Class of animal, animal activity levels, type of bedding material, cleanliness of the buildings, temperature, relative humidity, ventilation rate, stocking density, and feeding method are among the factors affecting the dust concentrations in animal production (Jager, 2005)&quot; http://www.intechopen.com/books/air-pollution-a-comprehensive-perspective/particulate-matter-exposure-in-agriculture" CreationDate="2017-01-08T14:07:22.800" UserId="4159" />
  <row Id="7998" PostId="5767" Score="0" Text="My source is [this article](http://nos.nl/artikel/2139028-scharrelkip-slecht-voor-gezondheid-omwonenden-door-fijnstof.html) from a Dutch news agency. It's in Dutch and sadly the [Google Translation](https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&amp;tl=en&amp;js=y&amp;prev=_t&amp;hl=en&amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;u=http%3A%2F%2Fnos.nl%2Fartikel%2F2139028-scharrelkip-slecht-voor-gezondheid-omwonenden-door-fijnstof.html&amp;edit-text=&amp;act=url) isn't great. The name of the researcher is Albert Winkel (so not Albert Shop) and where it says 'hens', you should read 'free-range chickens'" CreationDate="2017-01-09T08:12:28.610" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8005" PostId="5767" Score="0" Text="Well, if I could read the article I would take a critical look at their methods, and how they are drawing the boundary of the &quot;system&quot; of chicken-raising.  Are they including feed production, for example?  And all of the other scientific rigour questions.  Also keep in mind that one study does not definitively answer something, but is part of the buildup of evidence.  I am particularly critical of research results that reinforce the status quo and help those with the most power to influence research funding, such as big ag." CreationDate="2017-01-10T21:57:35.457" UserId="4159" />
  <row Id="7993" PostId="5769" Score="0" Text="Maybe if I combined this idea with those big rubberbands, the plates wouldn't slide off..." CreationDate="2017-01-09T00:42:53.290" UserId="4159" />
  <row Id="7999" PostId="5769" Score="1" Text="This does not answer the uses the OP asks an alternative for" CreationDate="2017-01-09T08:45:12.120" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="8000" PostId="5769" Score="1" Text="@JanDoggen I don't see how, as this is exactly what I do. I've been doing it for years, in fact. So can you explain how it doesn't work?" CreationDate="2017-01-10T04:53:47.803" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="8004" PostId="5771" Score="0" Text="Any idea where they found these?  How long have you used them for (trying to get an idea of their lifespan)?" CreationDate="2017-01-10T21:51:12.870" UserId="4159" />
  <row Id="8016" PostId="5771" Score="1" Text="eBay and amazon both have a variety. Google silicone pot lids. I think Laura got our set at Canadian Tire, or at a cooking store." CreationDate="2017-01-12T15:43:53.063" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="8066" PostId="5771" Score="0" Text="As to length of service:  Our set is now 2-3 years old.  The small one gets used nearly daily as a lid on the frozen veggie bowl." CreationDate="2017-01-18T21:23:51.133" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="8003" PostId="5775" Score="0" Text="Yes, I do the same.  Good point, but it doesn't really address the question being asked." CreationDate="2017-01-10T21:49:30.230" UserId="4159" />
  <row Id="8006" PostId="5781" Score="0" Text="What kind of organic armor are you talking about? There are certainly varieties of hemp with low levels of THC, the compound that makes people high. Not sure about that variety though." CreationDate="2017-01-11T08:41:34.887" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="8010" PostId="5781" Score="0" Text="can you specify what kind of animals you are concerned about? different species react to different compounds (think cats and catnip, which has no effect on humans)" CreationDate="2017-01-11T14:16:58.343" UserId="4159" />
  <row Id="8013" PostId="5781" Score="2" Text="Gabe Brown/Ray Archuletta talks a lot about how organic matter on the soil keeps the soil temperatures low, and calls that armor on the soil." CreationDate="2017-01-12T06:03:32.277" UserId="3532" />
  <row Id="8012" PostId="5784" Score="3" Text="With snow and  at high latitudes it's worth mounting the panels over-steeply rather than under if you can. You trade a little output in the peak summer months for easier snow-clearing and better output in the winter. The better solar calculators will show this." CreationDate="2017-01-11T23:21:53.753" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="8015" PostId="5784" Score="2" Text="My understanding is that electronics, and many materials, undergo am increased rate of deterioration with high temperatures. Longer than usual periods of high temps are likely to lead to a below average lifetime of the components affected. Nice answer though :-)" CreationDate="2017-01-12T08:53:49.317" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="8017" PostId="5786" Score="1" Text="A factor that will differ by location is whether or not each container is recyclable in your local area." CreationDate="2017-01-14T04:12:03.277" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="8019" PostId="5786" Score="0" Text="@HighlyIrregular good point - I added this info." CreationDate="2017-01-14T04:46:32.300" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8026" PostId="5786" Score="0" Text="@THelper, yes, that's what I meant, I updated the question. I'm also most interested in knowing, in general, which type of container is best." CreationDate="2017-01-14T15:27:38.600" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11096" PostId="5786" Score="0" Text="Milk products in a transparent container may develop &quot;off&quot; flavors more quickly than equivalent products in an opaque container: https://foodsafety.foodscience.cornell.edu/sites/foodsafety.foodscience.cornell.edu/files/shared/documents/CU-DFScience-Notes-Milk-Light-Induce-Defects-09-07.pdf" CreationDate="2019-05-30T17:36:02.660" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="11490" PostId="5786" Score="0" Text="I answered a similar question about cheese with &quot;forget about the packaging, just eat less cheese&quot;.  I suspect the same will apply here. https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/9496/paper-packaging-once-a-day-or-plastic-every-second-day dairy-free cream substitutes can be quite good (e.g. soya for pouring or coconut for whipping and cooking)" CreationDate="2019-09-25T08:41:14.347" UserId="1445" />
  <row Id="8021" PostId="5787" Score="1" Text="This assumes the existing batteries have enough capacity to last through the longer winter nights." CreationDate="2017-01-14T05:16:35.443" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8074" PostId="5787" Score="0" Text="I think OP first needs to find out if the problem is the batteries not charging fully, or not having enough capacity. If it's the latter, none of your suggestions will help." CreationDate="2017-01-21T06:12:24.727" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8027" PostId="5789" Score="0" Text="I couldn't find a picture that accurately represents the size of what I can buy, but all three containers are roughly the same size - would that affect your answer?" CreationDate="2017-01-14T22:24:16.803" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8030" PostId="5789" Score="0" Text="There is probably very little difference, so I'd go for the cream that tastes best ;-). But if I had to choose based on packaging I'd go for the most simple container, probably still the first one. If you are very sure the carton is really recycled and not thermally recycled (incinerated) which happens in many places, then I'd choose that one." CreationDate="2017-01-15T07:01:14.723" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8035" PostId="5794" Score="1" Text="Welcome to sustainability.SE! Have you had a chance to check out [the tour](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/tour)? While your commentary on the decision making process is valuable, perhaps you could take it a bit farther and provide some specific examples, or more detail on how exactly a systems-focused approach could answer the original question?" CreationDate="2017-01-16T03:24:43.430" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8037" PostId="5794" Score="1" Text="*My own question*? It seems like you have two accounts. You can [merge these](http://meta.stackexchange.com/search?q=merging+accounts)" CreationDate="2017-01-16T09:06:15.717" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="8039" PostId="5795" Score="0" Text="Welcome to sustainability.SE! Can you give a bit more context on RECS, and how they apply to server farms and sustainability? Also, can you provide links to the studies you reference, and maybe give a bit of detail on their contents?" CreationDate="2017-01-16T18:57:13.700" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8043" PostId="5795" Score="1" Text="This answer looks more like a comment on [AlexanderTD's answer](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/a/270/99)" CreationDate="2017-01-17T12:20:21.800" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8047" PostId="5795" Score="0" Text="You're correct. First time posting. Sorry about that." CreationDate="2017-01-17T19:02:38.233" UserId="4184" />
  <row Id="8049" PostId="5795" Score="0" Text="Since I think there's some good info here, that doesn't belong as an answer to this question, I created a [new question on RECs.](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/5802/3379)" CreationDate="2017-01-17T21:29:40.013" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8050" PostId="5795" Score="0" Text="The question doesn't mention the US, but this answer seems to assume that only the US needs to be considered. RECs are issued in many countries and AFAIK only US certificates are covered by what I assume is the US Environmental Protection Agency?" CreationDate="2017-01-17T22:43:54.007" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="8041" PostId="5796" Score="5" Text="Pair up similar socks and wear them. Nobody is checking. And if they do you have a good answer." CreationDate="2017-01-17T08:24:38.360" UserId="1567" />
  <row Id="8044" PostId="5796" Score="1" Text="Donate them to charity." CreationDate="2017-01-17T12:21:59.987" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8046" PostId="5796" Score="1" Text="+1 because that's an impressive accomplishment!" CreationDate="2017-01-17T19:02:09.263" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8052" PostId="5796" Score="3" Text="And in future, standardise your sock purchases. If you buy 10 pairs = 20 socks of a given type, you can lose 19 before you no longer have a pair." CreationDate="2017-01-17T22:50:29.707" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="8112" PostId="5796" Score="0" Text="Just wear them. No one will care, even if they notice." CreationDate="2017-01-29T12:07:14.223" UserId="253" />
  <row Id="8045" PostId="5800" Score="6" Text="The answer to your question (and also to your calculation) depends on how much heat you lose by storing alone, and how much cold water is being added. Thus you should really supply more information." CreationDate="2017-01-17T16:51:43.863" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="8048" PostId="5800" Score="3" Text="Can you give the context? How does this relate to sustainability?" CreationDate="2017-01-17T19:03:26.810" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8061" PostId="5801" Score="0" Text="While the question needs more detail, my intuition is that OP wants to know how much energy to raise the water from 5C to 70C once every 24 hours, vs maintaining the water at 70C, against an ambient temperature of 5C, over the 24hr period. The U value would still need to be known." CreationDate="2017-01-18T17:16:35.027" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8067" PostId="5801" Score="1" Text="@LShaver ah, good spot, I think you're right. I've amended my answer, and I think this answers it now." CreationDate="2017-01-19T09:00:06.100" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="8053" PostId="5803" Score="0" Text="Interesting. It sounds like the purpose of RECs is then to increase the fraction of the the total electric supply composed of renewables in a way that reduces transaction costs and allows each power producer to do what they do best, without sacrificing profit." CreationDate="2017-01-18T05:00:28.523" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8054" PostId="5803" Score="0" Text="pretty much, yes. I added the green power paragraph to link that to power consumer behaviour." CreationDate="2017-01-18T05:07:17.197" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="8055" PostId="5803" Score="0" Text="I tend to disagree with this answer, but that's primarily because RECs don't work well where I live (The Netherlands). Many energy suppliers here buy cheap RECs to sell their non-renewable electricity as green. The RECS are cheap because they are abundant and come from old Norwegian hydrodams that have been paid off years ago. The money spent is not invested in new renewable energy sources, so that's why it's not effective. I guess how effective RECs are depends very much on what a REC seller does with the money." CreationDate="2017-01-18T08:01:24.743" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8056" PostId="5803" Score="0" Text="@THelper they work well in Australia despite the best efforts of the politicians, which is kind of astonishing given what the same lot have done in other areas  (for example to refugees). But in NZ similar thing with offsets - the govt is not doing anything about emissions, instead they've legislated and negotiated to get dodgy offsets from former communist countries." CreationDate="2017-01-18T08:54:23.013" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="8057" PostId="5803" Score="0" Text="My comment came out wrong, sorry. I don't really disagree with your answer in that it can be effective in cases. It's just that experiences here are different. I'm not sure how effective RECs are generally speaking." CreationDate="2017-01-18T09:26:22.303" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8058" PostId="5803" Score="1" Text="I didn't think you were disagreeing. My impression, but I can't find a decent international comparison, is that they do work well when there are few renewables in the system. But for countries like NZ and Norway where the system is already effectively renewable, they don't have any useful effect and for countries that can export power like Norway can, they can poison systems in other countries." CreationDate="2017-01-18T09:29:12.203" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="8060" PostId="5803" Score="0" Text="@THelper, I think your comment here could be fleshed out into it's own answer - it would be valuable to see examples of countries where RECs don't accomplish their goal." CreationDate="2017-01-18T17:07:33.973" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8062" PostId="5804" Score="2" Text="Solar panels do not require [REEs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_earth_element), and while some wind turbine designs require neodymium (Nd), there are plenty of designs which don't. While on a surface level your assertion that no energy source is *truly* renewable is correct (see discussion [here](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/5683/3379)), the competition (fossil fuels and nuclear) is worse by several orders of magnitude." CreationDate="2017-01-18T19:00:14.160" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8064" PostId="5804" Score="0" Text="@LShaver do you have any proof for that 'worse by order of magnitude'?" CreationDate="2017-01-18T21:10:44.557" UserId="5" />
  <row Id="8065" PostId="5804" Score="2" Text="Comparing coal to wind, the difference in lifetime CO2-equivalent emissions is two orders of magnitude, per the IPCC ([via Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-cycle_greenhouse-gas_emissions_of_energy_sources)). While other effects (such as air pollution from combustion, land use changes from fuel mining, thermal contamination of lakes/rivers, etc) are not included here, I may have exaggerated a bit :)." CreationDate="2017-01-18T21:22:48.147" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8068" PostId="5804" Score="0" Text="@Lshaver CO2 emission is irrelevant, since it can be absorbed by plants, so technically it's not even a polution. You compare ants to elephants. Compare the real pollution, toxicity of used materials, extreme damage by resource acquisition (REE once again)." CreationDate="2017-01-19T17:54:48.663" UserId="5" />
  <row Id="8069" PostId="5804" Score="1" Text="@DanubianSailor but then you end up comparing the heavy metals emitted by coal plants to the rare earths used to make wind turbines, and that's a very hard comparison to agree on. Especially because you need lifetime estimates. And the short term effects of CO2 emissions are a very real problem, even though over the next few million years they possibly won't have much effect. Although even that is seeming unlikely, we're laying down a very distinct signature in the geological record right now." CreationDate="2017-01-19T21:07:17.813" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="8075" PostId="5808" Score="2" Text="A wood stove will burn hotter, resulting in more complete combustion and less emissions. Is this something you would consider? Typically the flame would not be visible, however." CreationDate="2017-01-21T14:31:21.883" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8076" PostId="5808" Score="0" Text="@LShaver, we are really only after the decorative aspect of the fireplace, so we are not really interested in a stove with invisible fire." CreationDate="2017-01-21T14:50:42.287" UserId="4194" />
  <row Id="8077" PostId="5808" Score="2" Text="Most stoves I've seen have glass doors so you can see the fire. These are more efficient than open fires and keep the indoor air cleaner. But there's a correlation between flames and soot - efficient clean burning doesn't flame very much." CreationDate="2017-01-21T19:11:00.057" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="8080" PostId="5808" Score="1" Text="No. Burning is by definition the production of carbon dioxide." CreationDate="2017-01-22T04:07:00.743" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="8085" PostId="5808" Score="2" Text="If it's just decorative then really the most ecological thing to do is not install a real fireplace: there'll be no chimney and related heat losses.." CreationDate="2017-01-23T08:42:34.803" UserId="4158" />
  <row Id="8093" PostId="5808" Score="4" Text="I agree with @stijn -- this question seems to boil down to &quot;I want to burn wood just to see flames. But I also don't want to harm the environment.&quot; I think you can't have it both ways -- either *use* the wood to heat your house, or don't even bother with a fireplace and get a &quot;fireplace&quot; screen-saver for your TV or something." CreationDate="2017-01-24T21:49:56.433" UserId="1123" />
  <row Id="8117" PostId="5809" Score="1" Text="We have one of these. We use it to heat the house in winter evenings, after we come home from work, because we leave the oil heating on low. A good one will heat the house in no time, and stays warm for hours even after the fire is out. Ours is a German design with built-in seating. The most important thing is to burn only wood in it. It burns away almost completely and you can put the ash in the garden. Also the wood comes from our garden or from neighbours when they cut down old trees, or waste from the local sawmill." CreationDate="2017-01-30T09:38:36.297" UserId="1567" />
  <row Id="8083" PostId="5810" Score="1" Text="Would you be interested in other potential uses, besides just feeding birds?" CreationDate="2017-01-23T03:12:41.370" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8116" PostId="5812" Score="0" Text="You can get smells and stains out by soaking in baking soda dissolved in water ." CreationDate="2017-01-30T09:33:22.343" UserId="1567" />
  <row Id="8089" PostId="5814" Score="1" Text="+ attracting insects would help feed birds in the location..." CreationDate="2017-01-24T09:00:35.653" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="8098" PostId="5817" Score="0" Text="I think this is in interesting question, which probably requires the input of an economist to answer completely. It definitely applies on this site, but might get better answers if migrated to [economics.SE](https://economics.stackexchange.com/)" CreationDate="2017-01-26T16:15:50.190" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8118" PostId="5819" Score="0" Text="I thought about this tuto (http://clementinelamandarine.com/2014/09/13/diy-coussin-de-meditation-en-chutes-de-tissus/) but it's in french.&#xA;In the same way, I saw a long time ago that you can do some children clothing by using patchwork but I can't find the tuto... (Wasn't interested)" CreationDate="2017-01-30T14:55:02.777" UserId="4207" />
  <row Id="8101" PostId="5821" Score="1" Text="I live in the middle of the France, continental climate (not as harsh as some other countries).&#xA;Somehow, we can't use our own electricities in France, we have to sell it to the companies and re-buy it... France. So that's not a things to do (alternatively, we can use solar panel without the companies to hot water).&#xA;There's a lot of wood here, I can't produce my own but there are local retailants. A lot of sun too (bit it's cold)." CreationDate="2017-01-26T18:14:46.423" UserId="4207" />
  <row Id="8114" PostId="5821" Score="1" Text="The electricity consumption is likely to be minimal, to drive fans or control electronics. But you can test it." CreationDate="2017-01-29T18:43:17.013" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="8119" PostId="5821" Score="0" Text="But what's more sustainable ? Pellet or entire wood ?" CreationDate="2017-01-30T15:01:27.650" UserId="4207" />
  <row Id="8126" PostId="5821" Score="1" Text="Related: http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/3143/sustainability-of-wood-pellet-sources-for-biomass-boiler and http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/5044/is-pellet-fuel-a-sustainable-energy-source-in-the-way-its-used-now" CreationDate="2017-02-02T10:47:24.913" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="8103" PostId="5822" Score="0" Text="I like the way you're thinking!" CreationDate="2017-01-27T07:37:46.963" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="8104" PostId="5825" Score="1" Text="Your information is out-of-date, nowadays it can. But maybe not all installations yet." CreationDate="2017-01-27T18:13:21.823" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="8106" PostId="5825" Score="3" Text="@JanDoggen that answer doesn't answer the main question here - since black plastic is harder to recycle, why is it used? I assume there's some functional or financial reason, which isn't discussed at that question. Perhaps a better way to phrase this question would be, &quot;Are there cheaper or better alternatives to black plastic which are easier to recycle?&quot;" CreationDate="2017-01-27T20:26:46.897" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8107" PostId="5825" Score="1" Text="If I can find a reference I'll post an answer, but I seem to remember (from our council's recycling update a while back) that black is what they do with recycled plastic that's got too much residual colour to do anything else" CreationDate="2017-01-28T08:47:35.560" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="8108" PostId="5826" Score="0" Text="Strangely enough, around here meat is rarely seen in anything other than clear/white trays (UK supermarkets) so this isn't a universal preference." CreationDate="2017-01-28T08:51:13.303" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="8110" PostId="5826" Score="1" Text="Packaged meat often has an absorbing pad below it." CreationDate="2017-01-28T16:16:23.453" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="8111" PostId="5826" Score="0" Text="U.K. Supermarkets I have seen all have red meat in black trays and poultry in white trays. Red meat also has an absorbent pad." CreationDate="2017-01-29T12:05:39.430" UserId="253" />
  <row Id="8122" PostId="5826" Score="0" Text="@Rory Funnily enough I found an exception - chicken breasts from sainsbury's are in a black tray. We don't eat very much red meat but most of what we do comes in a clear/white tray (sainsbury's again)" CreationDate="2017-01-31T07:47:23.870" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="8120" PostId="5828" Score="0" Text="Doesn't the rebound effect mostly apply at a personal level rather than a societal one? The Jevons Paradox can be societal, and makes it annoying to design schemes to increase sustainability. And that's partly personal (individual people do the things that cause the effect), but it's not necessarily the same people - if I have PV on my house exporting to the grid during really hot days, that reduces load on the grid and keeps power prices lower, so other people are likely to use more electricity on those days (via reduced price signalling)." CreationDate="2017-01-31T03:10:26.283" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="8121" PostId="5828" Score="2" Text="@Móż The rebound effect is often discussed from a personal level because that's the easiest to understand and analyze. Most scientists think it also occurs on a societal level (economic-wide), but there is disagreement how big the effect is at that level. [This article](http://www.rmi.org/TheReboundEffectAPerennialControversyRisesAgain) explains some of the controversy." CreationDate="2017-01-31T04:15:48.053" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8123" PostId="5828" Score="0" Text="@THelper Thank you for putting forward this concept's name. That &quot;rebound effect&quot; what I was looking for." CreationDate="2017-02-01T07:59:25.130" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="8125" PostId="5832" Score="0" Text="But what about the electricity used by a pellet stove?" CreationDate="2017-02-02T07:04:10.967" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8127" PostId="5832" Score="0" Text="You are not answering the pellet &lt;-&gt; wood question" CreationDate="2017-02-02T10:48:09.923" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="8139" PostId="5832" Score="0" Text="I would also consider transports." CreationDate="2017-02-03T15:31:02.923" UserId="4207" />
  <row Id="8128" PostId="5833" Score="3" Text="I'm not sure if it holds for all plastics, but generally yes melting plastics will produce toxic fumes. Related post: [Can I recycle plastics at home by melting and molding?](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/225/99)." CreationDate="2017-02-02T14:44:37.560" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8131" PostId="5833" Score="0" Text="I assume you mean &quot;in an inert atmosphere&quot; rather than &quot;in a vacuum&quot;?" CreationDate="2017-02-02T23:45:19.337" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="8137" PostId="5833" Score="1" Text="Can you [edit] your question to show that this has anything to do with sustainability? Otherwise it's just a chemistry or engineering question (and off-topic here)." CreationDate="2017-02-03T10:55:34.967" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="8181" PostId="5833" Score="3" Text="I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because its chemistry" CreationDate="2017-02-16T07:33:52.363" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="9906" PostId="5834" Score="1" Text="Your use of the term &quot;air conditioning&quot; seems to imply that it is _only_ used to cool homes.  Where I live reverse cycle air conditioners are used to both cool _and_ heat homes.  Unless you compensate for this your numbers are likely to be way off." CreationDate="2018-07-07T21:10:40.353" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="9907" PostId="5834" Score="0" Text="@Tim Air conditioners cools homes. Heat pumps heat homes. The equipment is basically the same, but the name varies with the function." CreationDate="2018-07-09T01:19:31.390" UserId="3955" />
  <row Id="9908" PostId="5834" Score="0" Text="Really the more north you go the more likely to be on gas?  TX is a net producer of natural gas and it is common.  Where are you going to put all these people?" CreationDate="2018-07-09T21:16:39.087" UserId="2914" />
  <row Id="8129" PostId="5835" Score="0" Text="This is really excellent information and some good strategies. Thank you." CreationDate="2017-02-02T19:23:50.130" UserId="3955" />
  <row Id="8135" PostId="5835" Score="2" Text="This is a great answer, but the &quot;biggest assumption&quot; in your penultimate paragraph is (IMO) too big.  Lighting demand will change over a similar seasonal pattern (what % of total -- I don't know) and cooking habits do change as well (e.g. roasts and stews in winter, salads and barbecues in summer)." CreationDate="2017-02-03T09:19:08.413" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="8143" PostId="5835" Score="0" Text="Even better.  You already had my vote but this makes a big difference" CreationDate="2017-02-03T16:21:06.427" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="8144" PostId="5835" Score="1" Text="@ChrisH Thanks for your help, both of you. With this new chart breaking down energy consumption by climate regions, the calculations became very easy. In short, my hypothesis was wrong. Comparing the Cold region to the Hot-Humid region, the cold region uses 68% more overall energy and 118% more energy for heating. However, since Natural Gas, Propane, and Fuel Oil are 2-3 times more efficient than electricity, the overall carbon impact in the Cold region is only 15% higher for heating and 7% overall. Still, its better for the Earth to live in Texas than Ohio. I guess. Thanks again for the help." CreationDate="2017-02-03T18:49:10.457" UserId="3955" />
  <row Id="8133" PostId="5836" Score="1" Text="Ah, that makes more sense now. In which case... yes: our local-to-work cafe/takeaway outlet will fill my container with hot chips. No discount, but I already get more than I can eat for the low price they charge so I'm happy." CreationDate="2017-02-03T01:12:44.970" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="8134" PostId="5836" Score="1" Text="One issue with allowing customers to supply their dishes is the potential for food contamination from the customers dishes. If the dishes haven't been cleaned properly, or pick up harmful bacteria from, say, the back seat of the car or the bus seat or floor &amp; the spoon used to put food into a dish then touches the seemingly clean, but contaminated dish &amp; gets placed into the food transferring the bugs resulting in a potential food poisoning issue." CreationDate="2017-02-03T07:15:59.790" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="8136" PostId="5836" Score="1" Text="@Móż what is this concept of &quot;more chips than I can eat&quot;? I don't understand" CreationDate="2017-02-03T09:28:02.277" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="8138" PostId="5836" Score="0" Text="@Fred how could this be resolved? Sanitizers for the serving spoons?" CreationDate="2017-02-03T15:21:12.947" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8145" PostId="5836" Score="2" Text="Maybe interesting for you to know that in some countries in Europe there are shops, so not restaurants, where you have to bring your own containers/bags/... to store the food bought. Wouldn't be surprised if this exists in the US as well actually as it seems just so logical to immediately put food in the container you'll use to store it at home anyway." CreationDate="2017-02-03T19:59:13.133" UserId="4158" />
  <row Id="8149" PostId="5836" Score="0" Text="@LShaver: The serving utensils would need to be thoroughly washed after each customer was served. Sanitizers might leave a residue on the utensil which could then give an unpleasant taste to the food." CreationDate="2017-02-04T07:27:29.303" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="8155" PostId="5840" Score="0" Text="I appreciate this question. But I wonder about the limits of &quot;re-use&quot; and what that idea implies. What can the plastic bag also be reused for? it also speaks to the feasibility (but not offset cost) of paper, which can reused for wrapping, mulching, arts and crafts, and other things besides bagging." CreationDate="2017-02-06T18:23:45.050" UserId="2375" />
  <row Id="8152" PostId="5843" Score="0" Text="Welcome to sustainability.SE! This question needs a bit more detail. Is this the only option you have for heat? Where is your electricity coming from? Do you know the make, model, or year of the oven? It's possible this question may be a better fit over at [DIY.SE](https://diy.stackexchange.com/) or [cooking.SE](https://cooking.stackexchange.com/)." CreationDate="2017-02-06T03:36:07.823" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8153" PostId="5843" Score="3" Text="Just to be clear with &quot;*door open*&quot; you mean the oven door open, right? Not the trailer door?" CreationDate="2017-02-06T07:52:31.103" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8156" PostId="5843" Score="1" Text="Can you see if [this question](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/657/85) answers your question?" CreationDate="2017-02-07T08:21:03.183" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="8165" PostId="5843" Score="0" Text="lso, boiling water during a long period may cause humidity/moisture problems by increasing the amount of water in the air (and use a lot of water in order to maintain the boiling)." CreationDate="2017-02-12T13:36:01.223" UserId="4207" />
  <row Id="8157" PostId="5845" Score="3" Text="#2 is the strongest point. #3 isn't quite right - efficiency of converting electricity to heat will be about the same, but an oven will do a poor job of mixing the heat with the air in the room, thus being less effective as a space heater." CreationDate="2017-02-07T16:39:26.990" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8158" PostId="5845" Score="0" Text="Fair point.  I'll edit.  *Edit* ...And done." CreationDate="2017-02-07T16:39:47.787" UserId="4252" />
  <row Id="8159" PostId="5846" Score="3" Text="It is difficult to quantify. The first (false) assumption needed to make such a comparison is that resources can be equally distributed. Many resources are geographically constrained and so cannot be transferred. What if sharing everything out equally doesn't give you enough to survive (perhaps not the case today, but maybe in the future)? Surely, the better question is to ask, &quot;what do I need?&quot; not &quot;how much can I have?&quot;." CreationDate="2017-02-10T22:57:34.007" UserId="4264" />
  <row Id="8161" PostId="5846" Score="0" Text="Thanks for commenting but no need for lecturing. I am interested in the numbers. If the result should be: &quot;there is less available than we need&quot; - all the better, all the more informing. I don't know which resources you are having in mind, that are geographically constrained, but I surely don't mind if they are left out of the calculation..." CreationDate="2017-02-12T01:45:25.693" UserId="4261" />
  <row Id="8162" PostId="5846" Score="0" Text="Are you interested in just humans getting an equal share or do human &amp; all other life forms on Earth get an equal share?" CreationDate="2017-02-12T07:19:09.303" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="8163" PostId="5846" Score="0" Text="In terms of geographical constraints: land suitable for cultivation, climate (water availability, temperature will also have a big impact) spring to mind. There will be others. What is the purpose of the calculation? Is this for your own use or are you trying to create a scholarly argument? If it's the latter, your argument won't hold much water if you arbitrarily ignore factors simply because they are difficult to quantify." CreationDate="2017-02-12T10:35:26.463" UserId="4264" />
  <row Id="8164" PostId="5846" Score="0" Text="As a starting point, I suggest you look at the datasets available from the [FAO](http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#home), this will give you an idea about the data is available (also look at the accompanying notes to the datasets, which describe the compromises they have to make). From there, I would define exactly what the scope of my argument is going to be: then define the parameters of the calculation. Finally, when presenting your argument, justify the choices that you have made." CreationDate="2017-02-12T10:43:16.767" UserId="4264" />
  <row Id="8166" PostId="5846" Score="3" Text="Possible duplicate of [How do I estimate my personal ecological footprint?](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/91/how-do-i-estimate-my-personal-ecological-footprint)" CreationDate="2017-02-12T17:19:15.307" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8170" PostId="5846" Score="1" Text="Dudes, please. I do not understand how this is a possible duplicate of the mentioned question. I edited to clarify this. To answer George's question: I am personally interested in this, and less for scholarly purposes. And @Fred: just humans to start with. Thx for interest to all." CreationDate="2017-02-14T12:52:33.680" UserId="4261" />
  <row Id="8171" PostId="5846" Score="0" Text="I think you need to clarify what you mean with &quot;everybody's ideal maximum ecological footprint&quot; because to me it still looks like you are asking about the world ecological footprint. There is no saying what is ideal here because production changes all the time, depending on weather, harvests and technological improvements. That's also why the ecological footprint of a country is not static (although on a world scale yearly differences more or less average out)." CreationDate="2017-02-14T16:04:56.377" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8172" PostId="5846" Score="0" Text="Ok. If this won't work, then I don't know any further. So the unit of ecological footprints is &quot;earths&quot;, the great and very educating message I get from it as a model is &quot;we are with our current habits of production and consumption etc. consuming resources equal to x.y earths, which means x.y times the amount of resources that there are available in total&quot;. So far. My question is: what is &quot;1 earth&quot; or &quot;total amount of resources there is&quot;. Originally I asked &quot;what is my equal share of 1 earth&quot;, but I will be happy to do the division by roughly 7 billion myself." CreationDate="2017-02-14T19:02:06.933" UserId="4261" />
  <row Id="8174" PostId="5846" Score="2" Text="I think I see where you're trying to go... at the result of the [Global Footprint Network's calculator](http://www.footprintnetwork.org/resources/footprint-calculator/) you get a figure which includes quantities of energy land, crop land, etc. You'd like to know the total amount of land on earth in each category. [This paper](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1470160X12002968) provides the background data and calculations for that footprint. When I get some time I'll dig in and summarize for an answer." CreationDate="2017-02-14T22:39:41.513" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8178" PostId="5846" Score="0" Text="You indeed are seeing, what I am aiming at. Thanks for the comment, looking forward to your prospective summary =)" CreationDate="2017-02-15T14:57:51.600" UserId="4261" />
  <row Id="8179" PostId="5846" Score="0" Text="After looking into this, it turns out the question is very broad. I think it could actually be four questions, one each for land, water, minerals, and energy. The other things you mention (heat, transportation, carbon emissions, food, and electronics) can be put in one of these four categories." CreationDate="2017-02-15T21:25:29.640" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15321" PostId="5849" Score="0" Text="But when the the water vapor is condensed again during the energy extraction process, that evaporating energy will be recovered, so it isn't lost either, right?" CreationDate="2021-12-08T10:45:42.987" UserId="13514" />
  <row Id="8173" PostId="5851" Score="0" Text="I appreciate your answer @mart, do you have any references? And do you have any energy budgets for these two types of approaches, even back-of-the-envelope? E.g. 1 kg food waste contains 2.5 MJ of energy (by burning) and 2 MJ is required to boil off the water so every 1kg of food can be turned into 0.5 MJ of heat. For biogas maybe the gas produced from 1 kg of food contains 0.7 MJ if all converted to heat, but can also be used in engines (at around 25% efficiency) to produce kinetic energy or electricity." CreationDate="2017-02-14T20:31:19.653" UserId="3297" />
  <row Id="8177" PostId="5851" Score="0" Text="I'll see what I find." CreationDate="2017-02-15T08:29:03.327" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="8421" PostId="5851" Score="0" Text="Were you able to find anything?" CreationDate="2017-04-15T11:42:13.670" UserId="3297" />
  <row Id="8481" PostId="5851" Score="0" Text="I became curious and did another round of Googling and came across this:  https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40518-014-0018-1 This analysis seems to suggest that incineration is just as efficient if not more efficient when looking at combined heat and power. I guess the only reason to have digesters then would be if one really wants to produce sustainable fuel for airplanes." CreationDate="2017-05-02T16:41:33.363" UserId="3297" />
  <row Id="8483" PostId="5851" Score="0" Text="thanks, I'll have a look - also reminder to self that I need to dig up more numbers for my answer ..." CreationDate="2017-05-03T06:55:21.960" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="8175" PostId="5852" Score="0" Text="Related: http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/1149/15" CreationDate="2017-02-15T07:00:35.173" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="8274" PostId="5852" Score="0" Text="Possible duplicate of [When recycling paper or cardboard, what level of contamination with (food) oils is ok?](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/1149/when-recycling-paper-or-cardboard-what-level-of-contamination-with-food-oils)" CreationDate="2017-03-06T17:40:56.767" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8278" PostId="5852" Score="0" Text="@LShaver Not a good duplicate. From what I understand contamination with oil/fat is really difficult (don't recycle your dripping pizza boxes), but other substances may be less of a problem. It does not help of course that the OP is unable to determine what the *generic black dirt* is." CreationDate="2017-03-06T19:51:34.553" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="8279" PostId="5852" Score="1" Text="Do you a better description of the dirt? Maybe a photo?" CreationDate="2017-03-06T19:52:10.360" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="8312" PostId="5852" Score="4" Text="Cardboard doesn't start with being 'of the highest possible quality' I doubt that cardboard is processed into food grade anything. Also the repulping process is pretty robust.  Look at what goes into wood the first round:  bark, dirt on the logs, rocks.  I wouldn't worry about ordinary quanities of dirt." CreationDate="2017-03-12T19:52:23.100" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="10856" PostId="5852" Score="0" Text="Voting to close as the answer to the linked question effectively answers this one as well." CreationDate="2019-04-01T17:29:35.100" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8180" PostId="5856" Score="0" Text="Nice answer! I was looking for that table, but couldn't find it. Good thing you did." CreationDate="2017-02-16T07:00:39.493" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8182" PostId="5856" Score="0" Text="BTW there is a small error in the table. The sum of all hectares and all global hectares should be the same. Both sum up to 1.81" CreationDate="2017-02-16T07:38:49.150" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8187" PostId="5856" Score="0" Text="@THelper thanks for catching that - I had meant to include a note. The back-up data from the National Footprints account is poorly cited and imprecise: I'm sure more precise numbers are out there, but I couldn't find them." CreationDate="2017-02-16T16:16:52.657" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8188" PostId="5856" Score="0" Text="I also think more recent and precise data exists, but it probably isn't free. The GFN sells EF data subscriptions." CreationDate="2017-02-16T16:34:56.210" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8189" PostId="5856" Score="0" Text="@THelper I did find somewhat better data in the Ecological Footprint Atlas I linked at the beginning, however the values for EQF they publish are less precise than what they used, since I didn't get the same values for gha based on the starting ha. I split the difference across all five categories to make the totals match." CreationDate="2017-02-16T17:19:15.637" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8190" PostId="5858" Score="4" Text="There's some irony in that much of the farmed land in developed countries was deforested long ago, yet we're happy to purchase produce from that. How recently must the land have been deforested to be considered deforested? There's no clear definition. 20 years down the track, the tree stumps will likely be all be gone, and memories of forest faded, and McDonald's etc will be happy to purchase produce from the land again... it seems a very poor temporary solution to a long term problem." CreationDate="2017-02-16T23:05:22.343" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="8191" PostId="5860" Score="0" Text="Explain us where country you're living, this looks like India?" CreationDate="2017-02-17T09:38:02.970" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="8192" PostId="5862" Score="0" Text="Welcome to sustainability.SE! Thanks for the question. Can you tell us where you're located and/or what units your gas is billed in (cubic feet, therms, BTUs, etc)?" CreationDate="2017-02-18T04:01:22.113" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8193" PostId="5862" Score="0" Text="I've updated that linked answer so that it works with gas or electric." CreationDate="2017-02-18T06:43:33.763" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="8197" PostId="5862" Score="0" Text="You only need to look up the caloric content of the gas you are using and divide the amount of energy calculated in that other question by it. I'm tempted to flag this as a 'duplicate of'." CreationDate="2017-02-18T16:57:57.600" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="8198" PostId="5863" Score="0" Text="Thanks. I've updated the question to emphasize that I'm looking for SI units, and to account for furnace inefficiency." CreationDate="2017-02-19T06:03:08.197" UserId="4284" />
  <row Id="8201" PostId="5863" Score="0" Text="@MaratC updated to include SI values." CreationDate="2017-02-19T19:21:41.920" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8202" PostId="5863" Score="0" Text="It's perhaps worth noting that in some places with mains gas (example: UK) it's actually billed in units of kWh." CreationDate="2017-02-20T09:19:24.110" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="8199" PostId="5864" Score="0" Text="I have heavily edited your text to leave in only the answer to the actual question (and to improve layout and language). You can revert the edit if you disagree." CreationDate="2017-02-19T10:40:05.157" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="8200" PostId="5865" Score="1" Text="That is a chemistry (and maybe engineering) question. Please delete it here and check if is on-topic for http://chemistry.stackexchange.com/" CreationDate="2017-02-19T15:33:15.303" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="8313" PostId="5865" Score="1" Text="I question why a cosmetic effect on the raw input stream has relevance to sustainability." CreationDate="2017-03-12T19:54:01.437" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="8203" PostId="5866" Score="1" Text="I've thought about doing something like this myself... two options come to mind: have both valves on one float arm, with the pressure on the main valve set lower (so both open at the same time, but most water will come from gray water side). Or, have the gray water spray on top of the main water float arm, holding that valve closed while pumping." CreationDate="2017-02-20T17:15:42.980" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8205" PostId="5866" Score="0" Text="You can use the grey water for yard watering, and go for a [Composting toilet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composting_toilet). This could save you a lot of plumbing :)" CreationDate="2017-02-21T07:21:08.437" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="8207" PostId="5866" Score="0" Text="Alas, I live in an area where the yard is watered regularly by the sky, automatically. :)" CreationDate="2017-02-21T09:40:53.100" UserId="4290" />
  <row Id="8209" PostId="5866" Score="0" Text="I like the idea of having the gray water spray close the main water valve. Only problem I can see is the water pressure from the mains would either be too high for the spray to keep the valve closed, or I'd have to reduce the mains water pressure so far down that it'll slow to a trickle... Still, worth experimenting." CreationDate="2017-02-21T10:31:13.153" UserId="4290" />
  <row Id="8208" PostId="5867" Score="0" Text="I'll have to look into local codes (not in the US) but you raise a lot of good points. I'm thinking of simplifying the design to use only rainwater. There's plenty of it available over here and this takes away the need of a lot of pumps. Also, the downstairs toilet is directly under a terraced roof - I'm thinking of letting the roof's drain go through a filter that fills up a holding tank directly above the toilet, and letting gravity fill the toilet's tank when necessary." CreationDate="2017-02-21T10:28:34.427" UserId="4290" />
  <row Id="8204" PostId="5868" Score="6" Text="Buying used furniture that is slotted for compost or burning is helpful to some super-small degree.  However, planting a tree would be a little more helpful.  Cutting energy usage is the best thing you can do to help... it's the energy and shipping industries that are most influential on global warming." CreationDate="2017-02-20T22:20:34.807" UserDisplayName="farrenthorpe" />
  <row Id="8211" PostId="5869" Score="0" Text="You consider to live in a horse lorry?  Are you a horse?  I'm confused.  Can you add a picture of what you are referring to?" CreationDate="2017-02-21T14:20:09.067" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="8214" PostId="5869" Score="0" Text="[These](https://www.google.nl/search?q=horse+lorry&amp;source=lnms&amp;tbm=isch) are *horse lorries*: transportation trucks/vans for horses. You obviously meant something else." CreationDate="2017-02-21T15:39:39.027" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="8215" PostId="5869" Score="0" Text="horse box / horse lorry" CreationDate="2017-02-21T15:47:16.203" UserId="4297" />
  <row Id="8216" PostId="5869" Score="1" Text="I'm asking because horse lorries can be easily converted (http://www.housetruck.co.uk)" CreationDate="2017-02-21T16:33:02.627" UserId="4297" />
  <row Id="8221" PostId="5869" Score="1" Text="Among folks who live in converted trucks, horse trucks are popular (at least I was told so a while back) because when you have horses in the back you tend to drive defensively - good for brakes etc. They may be cheap because you can't do much with them besides transporting horses. That said, this question appears to be about alternative living which overlaps but is not the same as sustainable living." CreationDate="2017-02-22T09:46:35.730" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="8222" PostId="5869" Score="0" Text="@mart: your right. This question is more about alternative living then sustainable living. I hope this is the right place to post the question." CreationDate="2017-02-22T13:37:58.473" UserId="4297" />
  <row Id="8223" PostId="5869" Score="0" Text="Personally I think that asking if living in a horse lorry reduces your environmental footprint is on-topic here, but asking why they are so cheap is not. I'm not sure but the latter may be covered by [Personal finance SE](http://money.stackexchange.com)" CreationDate="2017-02-22T13:54:06.843" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8224" PostId="5869" Score="0" Text="Can I move the question or do I have to re-ask it under `personal finance`?" CreationDate="2017-02-22T14:22:32.030" UserId="4297" />
  <row Id="8232" PostId="5869" Score="0" Text="@Sevenearths I've asked a moderator at Personal Finance if it's on-topic there. Awaiting a reply." CreationDate="2017-02-23T11:00:23.250" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8233" PostId="5869" Score="0" Text="@Sevenearths Unfortunately the Personal Finance moderator thinks your question &quot;would likely be closed as 'opinion'.&quot; I'm afraid you'll have to do some major editing or post a different related question." CreationDate="2017-02-23T12:44:49.997" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8239" PostId="5869" Score="0" Text="cool. Thanks for your help. I think I'll leave it as is. `Off Topic` *(sounds about right)* and inquire somewhere else" CreationDate="2017-02-23T16:36:58.157" UserId="4297" />
  <row Id="8240" PostId="5869" Score="0" Text="@THelper what about [Motor Vehicle Maintenance and Repair](https://mechanics.stackexchange.com/)?" CreationDate="2017-02-23T17:10:31.290" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8246" PostId="5869" Score="0" Text="@LShaver from my (limited) experience with that site I've gathered that questions there have to be about manufacturing, maintaining or repairing vehicles." CreationDate="2017-02-24T08:32:12.750" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8252" PostId="5869" Score="0" Text="I found out part of the reason. You have to get a category C1 license (&lt;7.5 tonne) or a category C license (over 7.5 tonne) and these can cost between £800-£1200 all in. + there is only a small percentage of the population that wants to (and can afford to) move their horse round the country." CreationDate="2017-02-27T16:04:29.230" UserId="4297" />
  <row Id="8212" PostId="5870" Score="0" Text="What about when compared to metal and plastic furniture?" CreationDate="2017-02-21T14:47:17.527" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8213" PostId="5870" Score="0" Text="@LShaver That's a new question and needs a far more complex life-cycle analysis. Not really doable with 'original research' - only answerable if someone has already done that and we can find a reference." CreationDate="2017-02-21T15:29:35.680" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="8217" PostId="5870" Score="2" Text="Good point, though I doubt the choice is rarely between *wooden table* and *eating off the floor*. And, even if only 30% of the wood ends up in the furniture, if this is preserved long-term it is better than 100% of the tree rotting on the ground (considering only CO2 emissions, not ecological impacts). So the question is, how much CO2 is emitted turning that 30% into furniture, and is it more than the wood stores?" CreationDate="2017-02-21T18:35:49.990" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8220" PostId="5870" Score="0" Text="I agree with what you've written, but I think your answer only holds if fewer or no trees are replanted. What if the tree is from a well-managed forest where trees are replanted? Or if the tree died of old age?" CreationDate="2017-02-22T08:09:25.227" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8255" PostId="5870" Score="0" Text="Why does that 70% have to go back into the atmosphere straight away? Surely, that depends on what is done with it? If you were to bury the sawdust it would take a very long time to release its carbon back into the atmosphere (and not all of it would be released back). You also have to consider other possible uses for those by-products - sawdust can be used for fuel (which granted does release the carbon back instantly) but potentially supplants the use of fossil fuels." CreationDate="2017-02-28T14:42:54.563" UserId="4264" />
  <row Id="8256" PostId="5870" Score="0" Text="I would also second @LShaver comment - it isn't a choice between wooden furniture and no furniture, it a choice between wood and other materials, in which case I would be surprised if wood did not massively surpass other materials in terms of sustainability." CreationDate="2017-02-28T14:42:58.027" UserId="4264" />
  <row Id="8218" PostId="5871" Score="2" Text="What is the tissue paper used for? What alternatives are you considering in your proposal?" CreationDate="2017-02-22T06:06:07.383" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8225" PostId="5871" Score="0" Text="@LShaver The tissue paper is used for wiping hands and face (Paper towels) to be precise. Most of the employees are very much lethargic in its usage, they are not going for hand dryers even though they are installed in every rest room. I was thinking to suggest limiting the supply of paper towels and force them to use hand dryer provided to them. Also i believe increasing the habit of using handkerchief made out of cloth will greatly help this cause :)  Thoughts please ?" CreationDate="2017-02-23T03:24:26.507" UserId="4301" />
  <row Id="8226" PostId="5871" Score="4" Text="I can't find the source, but I remember reading that a simple sticker on the paper towel dispenser saying &quot;these come from trees&quot; can reduce usage quite a bit." CreationDate="2017-02-23T03:31:16.923" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8227" PostId="5871" Score="3" Text="related: [Best way to dry hands?](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/3118/3379)" CreationDate="2017-02-23T03:33:05.030" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8245" PostId="5871" Score="1" Text="@LShaver Yes the stickers are already used in the dispensers, there was improvement but not significant. Thank you for the link got some useful insights which might help me improve my suggestion." CreationDate="2017-02-24T04:04:43.957" UserId="4301" />
  <row Id="8564" PostId="5871" Score="0" Text="I use paper towels to open doors with turn handles. This prevents spreading germs or catching germs from door handles. Lack of paper towels would need to, at least, necessitate tissue paper and a trash can at the point of exit to prevent infections. I'm open to no paper towels nor tissue, if the exit door can be pushed opened without using my hands (e.g. my back). Then I'd need the door to be see through somewhat to prevent anyone entering or exiting." CreationDate="2017-06-02T05:57:37.080" UserId="1729" />
  <row Id="8228" PostId="5872" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living and thank you for your answer! Are you affiliated to either of the mentioned web shops? If so, the rules of this website require you to mention this in your answer." CreationDate="2017-02-23T08:17:58.913" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8234" PostId="5872" Score="1" Text="That is a good rule.   No, I am not affiliated with any...i am a spinner researching this myself.  These are the most basic and economic wheels I have found." CreationDate="2017-02-23T14:19:34.500" UserId="4303" />
  <row Id="8235" PostId="5872" Score="0" Text="..aside from the Dodec, that was already mentioned." CreationDate="2017-02-23T14:26:04.653" UserId="4303" />
  <row Id="8236" PostId="5872" Score="1" Text="Thank you for responding to my comment and for the added links. Please be aware that answers that explain how do things in the answer itself usually get more upvotes. Links in answers tend to break which makes the answer obsolete and useless eventually." CreationDate="2017-02-23T14:57:20.827" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8238" PostId="5873" Score="0" Text="Some things that this answer doesn't consider are: ceramic mugs also use resources such as water &amp; detergent between uses, in addition to a towel to dry the mug after it has been washed. All this has an impact on the environment. If plastic cups are not recycled they end up occupying a land fill site or they get broken down into micro fragments which can end up in the ocean, which is another environmental impact." CreationDate="2017-02-23T16:14:04.167" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="8254" PostId="5874" Score="4" Text="This question is way too broad as it stands. If we consider edible uses, a good place to start is by making a list of what you would like to eat. It makes most sense to work backwards - what do you want or need and then go and find the plants that fit the bill. It is tempting to go through lists of useful plants and draw up a long list of things that seem interesting, but there's no point growing a weird and wonderful array of plants if you are not going to use them." CreationDate="2017-02-28T14:34:45.467" UserId="4264" />
  <row Id="8276" PostId="5874" Score="1" Text="I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it would be a better fit over on [gardening.SE](https://gardening.stackexchange.com/)" CreationDate="2017-03-06T18:41:45.917" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8241" PostId="5875" Score="1" Text="This question is very broad. Can you add some details, perhaps what type of plants you want, how much space you have, etc?" CreationDate="2017-02-23T17:11:38.487" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8244" PostId="5875" Score="0" Text="@LShaver The space inside is L 1,8 m × W 1,86 × H 1,73. The purpose is growing cooking greens (salad etc.) The thing that concerns me is the stuff I probably need" CreationDate="2017-02-23T17:54:07.207" UserId="4305" />
  <row Id="9156" PostId="5875" Score="0" Text="It might help If you identify a particular hydroponic system, ebb n flow, Nutrient flow technique, deep water culture, hempy...the list is long;" CreationDate="2017-12-28T07:41:22.560" UserId="5265" />
  <row Id="8247" PostId="5879" Score="0" Text="That's a good point on fixed vs usage charges... I wonder how this varies around the world? My utility recently changed their rate structure, such that my fixed costs are now about 80% of my bill." CreationDate="2017-02-24T15:19:06.377" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8248" PostId="5880" Score="0" Text="True, but if your bills are *regularly* high, you may think more about energy efficiency when looking at homes or purchasing appliances." CreationDate="2017-02-25T01:28:58.580" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8249" PostId="5880" Score="1" Text="Therefore in the EU we have labeling of electrical appliances: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_energy_label." CreationDate="2017-02-25T20:20:52.030" UserId="2821" />
  <row Id="8250" PostId="5882" Score="0" Text="What country do you live in? China? India most likely ? What is it with American way of life? They're now a small part of the world." CreationDate="2017-02-26T06:48:27.477" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="8251" PostId="5882" Score="0" Text="This does not answer the question." CreationDate="2017-02-26T11:14:36.123" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="8257" PostId="5883" Score="1" Text="Both the chart and the link reference the [Meat Eater's Guide (pdf)](http://static.ewg.org/reports/2011/meateaters/pdf/methodology_ewg_meat_eaters_guide_to_health_and_climate_2011.pdf) from the Environmental Working Group." CreationDate="2017-03-01T02:36:08.813" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8386" PostId="5884" Score="5" Text="The difference between cheese mass and milk mass is water. You get teh same nutriment from 1 kg of cheese as 10 kg of milk. Comparing 1kg of cheese to 1 kg of milk is like comparing apples and orange gatorade. Not the same thing at all." CreationDate="2017-03-31T21:02:10.927" UserId="3955" />
  <row Id="13528" PostId="5884" Score="0" Text="I wouldn't say that &quot;this will be small&quot;, as cheese still has on average over twice the CO2 cost per proteins compared to milk. While energy wise it's also not proportional." CreationDate="2021-03-25T23:04:35.423" UserId="9460" />
  <row Id="15980" PostId="5884" Score="0" Text="@sinekonata:  “this will be small” applies to the extra energy consumed by the cheesemaking process. I think perhaps that is clear to you, but you (like [aucuparia](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/users/1445/aucuparia)) give no figures to back up your claim (contradicting theirs)." CreationDate="2022-08-30T22:10:30.843" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="8260" PostId="5888" Score="2" Text="One thing you may want to consider when using water from a hot water heater for cooking or consumption purposes is that such heaters can accumulate metal within the water via leaching of the tank walls &amp; water evaporation concentrating metal within the water over time." CreationDate="2017-03-03T08:13:29.020" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="8275" PostId="5888" Score="0" Text="@Fred for a (relatively) new water heater, is this cause for concern? Wouldn't the metal be iron, aluminum, or copper, which is harmless in small concentrations?" CreationDate="2017-03-06T17:45:43.403" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8284" PostId="5888" Score="0" Text="It's just something to consider." CreationDate="2017-03-07T12:58:32.347" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="9788" PostId="5888" Score="0" Text="Related: https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/815/3379" CreationDate="2018-06-06T14:47:54.603" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8263" PostId="5889" Score="0" Text="Where are you located? In India Su-Kam makes a great inverter for this purpose ([link](http://www.su-kam.com/power-solution/solar-solutions/brainy-solar-hybrid-ups)), not sure if they sell it in other countries." CreationDate="2017-03-03T18:57:48.953" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8264" PostId="5889" Score="0" Text="It seems from the link that power priority is Solar, batteries then grid. It is different from my use case. I want to cycle battery as last resort." CreationDate="2017-03-03T19:45:23.620" UserId="4332" />
  <row Id="8265" PostId="5889" Score="1" Text="It is unclear on their site but I have used this product before on a project (though I am not affiliated with Su-Kam). When that battery is charged, loads will be powered by solar or grid, whichever is available." CreationDate="2017-03-03T20:24:12.577" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8670" PostId="5889" Score="0" Text="Where are you located? Standards and requirements will vary by country and state." CreationDate="2017-07-24T18:31:23.720" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8266" PostId="5891" Score="0" Text="I had to look up seacan... looks like a Canadian slang term for shipping container, from a brand name (like kleenex/tissue)? Also, why do you assume the farmer is a he?" CreationDate="2017-03-03T20:57:11.907" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8267" PostId="5891" Score="0" Text="Hmm.  Knew seacan was slang, but thought it was as universal as 'semi' for a road-tractor/trailer rig. As to farmer gender, while there are female farmers, locally the vast majority of farms near me are quite traditional:  HE does the farming, and works an outside job.  SHE runs the household, and has an outside job. Yah, during seeding and harvest everyone big enough to reach the pedals takes shifts on the equipment.  And everyone over the age of 6 has chores." CreationDate="2017-03-04T13:14:46.260" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="8269" PostId="5892" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainability.SE! I edited your question and title a bit to make it more clear. However, I'm concerned this may not be a good fit on this site, and may do better over on [Electronics.SE](https://electronics.stackexchange.com/). But, let's leave it for a bit and see if anyone here has some insight." CreationDate="2017-03-04T16:01:49.777" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8270" PostId="5892" Score="1" Text="My guess is that yes, that would be much too small. A belt would slip probably. This question may also be a good fit for http://engineering.stackexchange.com/ as they could likely suggest a solution..." CreationDate="2017-03-05T01:07:15.233" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="8271" PostId="5892" Score="2" Text="How is this question different from one [recently posted](http://engineering.stackexchange.com/questions/14045/how-to-calculate-hydropower-in-kw-without-water-head) on SE Engineering?" CreationDate="2017-03-05T02:07:30.130" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="8277" PostId="5892" Score="4" Text="I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it's a better fit on engineering.SE, where it has already been discussed: http://engineering.stackexchange.com/q/14045" CreationDate="2017-03-06T18:44:10.743" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8282" PostId="5894" Score="1" Text="Thank you very much for this answer, great piece of work. You have done great help for me as well to environment" CreationDate="2017-03-07T06:43:35.597" UserId="4301" />
  <row Id="8280" PostId="5895" Score="0" Text="Well……it seems that we can make art works using them. But can we solve the problem from the materials（I mean that whether we can add some special things into the plastic stick so as to make it &quot;compostable-plastic&quot;）？" CreationDate="2017-03-07T02:38:43.680" UserId="4325" />
  <row Id="8281" PostId="5895" Score="0" Text="@xqMogvKW certainly - but is your question what to do with pens you already have, or what pens should be used going forward to reduce environmental impact?" CreationDate="2017-03-07T03:00:13.460" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8287" PostId="5895" Score="2" Text="@xqMogvKW and LShaver. No, you can't add a substance to an ordinary piece of plastic to make it compostable. At best you may be able to degrade it (fall apart into tiny pieces of plastic)." CreationDate="2017-03-07T14:59:18.373" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8283" PostId="5896" Score="2" Text="One of the issues, particularly with coal, is that the composition of coal is not uniform across all deposits around the world, or within seams of a deposit. Each deposit (or seam) has is own distribution of impurities, such as sulfur &amp; ash. The types of coal are also varied, from brown coal (lignite) to anthracite. Consequently, each deposit will have its own pollution profile. The other thing, a power plant in the US may have one supplier of coal. A plant in China may have a number of sources from Indonesia, Australia &amp; elsewhere. Coal chemistry is highly varied." CreationDate="2017-03-07T12:51:03.707" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="8286" PostId="5896" Score="0" Text="The same goes for natural gas. We have our own gas bubble here in The Netherlands, but if we were to replace it with e.g. Russian gas we would have to adjust a lot of industrial/household appliances because of its different composition." CreationDate="2017-03-07T13:06:45.473" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="8288" PostId="5896" Score="0" Text="@Fred I had forgotten that point. A breakdown by type of coal, with average pollutant ranges, would also be very helpful." CreationDate="2017-03-07T16:19:17.270" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8289" PostId="5896" Score="0" Text="@JanDoggen are you sure? I know this is true at the source, but my understanding is that, since it's a gas, processing to achieve product uniformity is relatively cheap and easy." CreationDate="2017-03-07T16:23:11.873" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8290" PostId="5896" Score="1" Text="@LShaver You are correct, I was too quick. That's an easier way out." CreationDate="2017-03-07T18:52:27.250" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="8291" PostId="5896" Score="0" Text="There's an element of truth to the comment by @Jan_Doggen. I recall many years ago when I was looking for a domestic gas heater to purchase. A heater that used propane (bottled gas) was not recommended to be used for domestically reticulated natural gas (methane). As I recall, the configuration of the gas burners was different for each type of heater." CreationDate="2017-03-08T08:05:57.060" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="8292" PostId="5896" Score="0" Text="Another difficulty is that a new plant emits less pollutants than an old one, because burning fuel methods and filtering of output gases have improved. Calculating this for a single plant is relatively easy, but calculating an average means doing the calculation for lots of plants, especially if you're interested in world-wide averages." CreationDate="2017-03-08T08:15:40.377" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8293" PostId="5896" Score="0" Text="I would drop the requirement &quot;per kWh&quot; - then you'd have vast difference based on the age of plant and operational mode. Important Pollutants are NOx, dust, H2S, all of these can be filtered so you want to look at regulations stating how much they may emit in a given location." CreationDate="2017-03-08T13:45:56.123" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="8295" PostId="5896" Score="0" Text="@THelper would this depend more on the combustion technology, pollution controls on exhaust, or both? Presumably, a kg of coal has the same quantity of pollutant X once you burn it (assuming relatively complete combustion). The difference in old plant vs new plant is in how good a job they do taking X out of the exhaust gases." CreationDate="2017-03-08T16:54:57.850" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8296" PostId="5896" Score="0" Text="@mart an often repeated claim is that transitioning from coal to natural gas reduces air pollution... but what pollutants? and by how much? how is the potential reduction calculated? I assume it must be based on the type of info I am asking for, which is why I was surprised that I couldn't find it anywhere. Even (very) rough approximations would be _something_." CreationDate="2017-03-08T16:58:45.350" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8297" PostId="5896" Score="0" Text="@LShaver It depends on both combustion tech and filtering gases, but I don't know how much each contributes. I think I found an interesting article that may answer some of your questions. I'll draft up an answer soon." CreationDate="2017-03-09T08:11:57.000" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8318" PostId="5896" Score="0" Text="@THelper I look forward to reading it!" CreationDate="2017-03-13T17:06:03.637" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8285" PostId="5897" Score="0" Text="Please do not repeat answers, This is point 2 in the other answer." CreationDate="2017-03-07T13:03:35.740" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="8298" PostId="5898" Score="0" Text="I feel this would be better suited to the Electrical Engineering SE site http://electronics.stackexchange.com/, but perhaps it's worth seeing if you get an answer here anyway." CreationDate="2017-03-09T20:19:51.947" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="8299" PostId="5898" Score="0" Text="And this would seem to be impossibly broad. You're asking how to become a highly-skilled electrical and electronics engineer; that sounds like a six-year training programme. That's not something we can really handle on any Stack Exchange." CreationDate="2017-03-10T05:12:10.367" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="8300" PostId="5898" Score="0" Text="@EnergyNumbers Not really, in terms of electricity, I'm only asking of the knowledge required to combine different voltages and currents - no disrespect, but this should be [relatively straightforward](http://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/21882/mixing-multiple-power-sources). In terms of the electronics, there are only a fixed number of devices (AFAIK) - namely; invertors, phasor measusrement units and voltage regulators. This is the lay man's view (i.e. mine, from what I've gathered so far) - I would like the view of someone who's actually implemented such a system." CreationDate="2017-03-10T06:51:46.560" UserId="4353" />
  <row Id="8301" PostId="5898" Score="0" Text="Don't forget that you also need (or are required, if you have fire insurance) to build a *safe* installation. It is not *that* straightforward." CreationDate="2017-03-10T08:48:00.990" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="8302" PostId="5898" Score="0" Text="@JanDoggen: That (i.e. safety aspect) is taken as a given. What I want to do, is basically come up with the basics of a system that meets my goals and required functionality - and then get a professional electrical engineer (acting in the role of a consultant) to &quot;kick the tires&quot; and suggest improvements/modifications etc where needed" CreationDate="2017-03-10T11:18:01.013" UserId="4353" />
  <row Id="8305" PostId="5898" Score="0" Text="I'm voting to close as too broad. There are dozens of topics in this question... power conversion, power electronics, electrical safety, power system control, energy storage, wind/solar power siting, etc. I recommend picking one aspect of an off-grid power system to ask about first." CreationDate="2017-03-11T04:17:21.607" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8307" PostId="5898" Score="0" Text="@LShaver so many assumptions on your part .... The only thing I'm asking for information on (in case it wasn't clear), is power conversation (specifically: combining multiple power sources into a single constant voltage, constant current output)." CreationDate="2017-03-11T21:29:30.140" UserId="4353" />
  <row Id="8308" PostId="5898" Score="0" Text="OK, in that case, it sounds like you first would need to learn about inverters, micro-grid control, chargers, etc. Then once you've got that under your belt you could start to consider which of those individual components you wanted to build on your own." CreationDate="2017-03-11T23:05:09.273" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8314" PostId="5898" Score="0" Text="While the answers would be more engineering.SE the topic has sufficient interest to sustainability to allow to remain.  This is one that should be cross posted if such were possible." CreationDate="2017-03-12T19:55:26.060" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="8303" PostId="5899" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Thank your for your post, but please be aware that it is likely to get downvotes and may even be removed because it reads like an ad. Instead of linking to a commercial website can you please link to the Youtube video you mentioned?" CreationDate="2017-03-10T15:37:19.740" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8304" PostId="5899" Score="0" Text="It also does not answer the question" CreationDate="2017-03-10T16:45:59.493" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="8306" PostId="5899" Score="3" Text="I think this does answer the question, but agree it should be cleaned up to look like less of an ad. Downvoting for now until there's an improvement." CreationDate="2017-03-11T17:49:52.367" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8327" PostId="5901" Score="3" Text="This explains why dairy has a high carbon footprint, but not why cheese is higher than milk." CreationDate="2017-03-15T02:43:17.607" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8309" PostId="5902" Score="1" Text="In most urban settings wind turbines don't make sense due to lack of strong, sustained wind - see answers [here](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/43/3379). I'd suggest limiting your question to PV." CreationDate="2017-03-12T16:49:19.943" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8310" PostId="5902" Score="0" Text="What's PV? Thanks." CreationDate="2017-03-12T19:16:26.807" UserId="3664" />
  <row Id="8311" PostId="5902" Score="0" Text="PV is short for photovoltaic, as in solar photovoltaic for solar energy -- sorry to throw jargon at you!" CreationDate="2017-03-12T19:17:47.673" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8315" PostId="5902" Score="0" Text="Look into solar cookers. Make your own from an old satellite dish and some silver foil. If you google it you'll fine loads of good and practical ideas." CreationDate="2017-03-13T11:36:26.983" UserId="1567" />
  <row Id="8324" PostId="5902" Score="0" Text="Your question is a bit broad. You may want to ask multiple question, each addressing a particular topic or term you don't understand. I agree with LShaver that it's best to limit yourself to solar energy: you can consider [photovoltaic panels](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/photovoltaics), [solar thermal panels](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/solar-thermal) and maybe also [solar cookers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cooker) as RedSonja suggested." CreationDate="2017-03-14T10:07:00.277" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8331" PostId="5903" Score="1" Text="A pretty conclusive text can be found here: https://grist.org/sustainable-food/2011-08-08-is-your-cheese-killing-the-planet/. Goat and cow cheese are equally bad, sheep cheese is worse. As a rule of thumb, the lower the fat content, the less the climate impact. Which makes Harzer Cheese (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harzer) probably the least problematic (and least tasteful) cheese." CreationDate="2017-03-17T20:07:15.000" UserId="1581" />
  <row Id="8384" PostId="5903" Score="2" Text="@ChristianSchmidt That grist.org article is setting off my bullshit alarm. They claim that cheese is 'substantially worse' than milk because 10 lbs of milk makes 1 lb of cheese. However, milk is 89.3% water, [according to the USDA](http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/dairy-and-egg-products/71/2), so 10 lb of milk has the same environmental impact as 1 lb of cheese plus 9 lbs of carbon neutral water; both sources providing the same calories and protein. And, the heavier milk takes more energy to transport and refrigerate, and more space to store, so I think they actually have it backwards." CreationDate="2017-03-31T20:22:44.930" UserId="3955" />
  <row Id="15707" PostId="5903" Score="0" Text="The answers seem to assume that total greenhouse gas footprint (expressible as CO₂ equivalent) is intended, which seems very likely, but should ideally be stated in the question, I feel." CreationDate="2022-04-20T19:59:41.213" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="8317" PostId="5905" Score="0" Text="You make them sound so tasty! But I wonder, is this really possible for a decently sized garden? It seems like our human senses would have trouble finding all the larvae. Is there some sustainable treatment to prevent these tasty bugs?" CreationDate="2017-03-13T17:05:20.337" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8316" PostId="5908" Score="1" Text="Have you tried looking at your [browser history](http://www.wikihow.com/View-Browsing-History)? If you found it through Google you can also view your [Google search history](https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/54068?hl=en)" CreationDate="2017-03-13T16:45:59.690" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8326" PostId="5908" Score="0" Text="It turned up in the suggested videos on youtube while watching another video. And unfortunately I had my viewer history turned off on youtube. I did re-watch some recycling video's in the hopes it would turn up again, but no luck." CreationDate="2017-03-14T14:29:11.790" UserId="4361" />
  <row Id="8328" PostId="5908" Score="0" Text="If you were logged into your google account when on youtube, there should be a [history](https://www.youtube.com/feed/history) logged there too (independently of your browser and google search settings)." CreationDate="2017-03-15T02:45:13.287" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8329" PostId="5908" Score="0" Text="It was exactly the setting in my google account that was turned of. And I also don't find it in the browser history, maybe I watched it on the app of my phone or it was before the last time I cleared my browsing history." CreationDate="2017-03-15T12:57:34.837" UserId="4361" />
  <row Id="8757" PostId="5908" Score="1" Text="The uploader could have removed the video. Finding a video of the sort would certainly be useful to encourage similar practices. It is being discussed at my university." CreationDate="2017-08-17T06:20:54.860" UserId="80" />
  <row Id="8321" PostId="5911" Score="0" Text="+1 and thanks for the sharing the link, I hadn't come across it before. I'll take a look later on, and see if it is suitable for an answer." CreationDate="2017-03-13T23:43:37.583" UserId="4353" />
  <row Id="8322" PostId="5911" Score="0" Text="You may also want to check these: &#xA;Monolithic dome structures: http://www.monolithic.org/&#xA;&#xA;Affordable (and very smart building material) construction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBBSrdCYsvA&amp;t=2s&#xA;&#xA;Cool dome built in panels idea: http://www.i-domehouse.com/movie.html" CreationDate="2017-03-13T23:48:53.533" UserId="4358" />
  <row Id="8323" PostId="5912" Score="0" Text="Interesting video, but there is no mention of removing trash cans from offices to reduce waste, like the OP mentioned." CreationDate="2017-03-14T09:56:58.950" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8330" PostId="5912" Score="0" Text="Indeed, this is not the one I am looking for unfortunately." CreationDate="2017-03-15T12:58:16.927" UserId="4361" />
  <row Id="8332" PostId="5914" Score="0" Text="Typically, by &quot;getting to boiling&quot;, one doesn't mean boiling it all away, which is, I think, what you've calculated. It more commonly means raising it to 95-100 deg C, with a few grammes of steam produced." CreationDate="2017-03-18T16:43:37.347" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="8333" PostId="5914" Score="0" Text="@EnergyNumbers... oops. That's a good point. I corrected the answer." CreationDate="2017-03-19T21:29:36.323" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10923" PostId="5914" Score="0" Text="You might want to add the case: &quot;Stovetop with pot skirt: 460 kcal / 60% = 767 kcal&quot;.   It increases the thermal efficiency by a factor up to ~1.3, according to &quot;[An Investigation of Skirts](https://web.archive.org/web/20120516003944/http://www.bioenergylists.org/files/ETHOS%202010%20Skirt%20paper.pdf)&quot;. And in the final comparison, you might add the heat loss from the 1.5 l hot water cooling down in the pipes after using the tap. Stovetop does not look so bad after all!" CreationDate="2019-04-23T01:25:06.240" UserId="2134" />
  <row Id="10924" PostId="5914" Score="0" Text="@tanius interesting, but looks like that applies specifically to outdoor stoves?" CreationDate="2019-04-23T03:06:59.770" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10926" PostId="5914" Score="0" Text="In [the paper](https://web.archive.org/web/20120516003944/http://www.bioenergylists.org/files/ETHOS%202010%20Skirt%20paper.pdf) there is a list of effects of a pot skirt – most also apply to indoor stoves. Some don't, so the effect would be weaker indoors." CreationDate="2019-04-23T08:32:20.563" UserId="2134" />
  <row Id="8346" PostId="5915" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Can you please elaborate on your answer. As it is your answer doesn't provide anything over the answers we already have." CreationDate="2017-03-24T08:02:50.903" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8334" PostId="5916" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainability.SE! There's a similar question [here](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/10/3379), but not many good answers unfortunately. Also, you may want to edit your question to be about the &quot;what I really want to know&quot; bit, and include your idea of calculating footprint for the hybrid components as a way that might be done. I find the folks here often have better ideas of how to answer my questions than I do!" CreationDate="2017-03-20T04:27:36.690" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8335" PostId="5916" Score="0" Text="Thank you for the suggestions.  I had seen the discussion you link to and that it suggests looking at LCAs (which is a good idea), but I have not been able to find any of quality.  I figured I would focus instead on a single aspect of an LCA (just the carbon) to see if it would be a simpler piece that perhaps someone has info about." CreationDate="2017-03-21T00:03:46.883" UserId="4386" />
  <row Id="10845" PostId="5916" Score="0" Text="It is what you want it to be. For example; do you count the gasoline used by the people traveling to work at the manufacturing plant ?" CreationDate="2019-03-26T16:05:25.403" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="8337" PostId="5917" Score="1" Text="This is great... a few Q's: Do you know how prevalent combined cycle is vs standard natural gas combustion, because NOx emissions are on par with coal for the latter. Also, any idea what happened in 2010 to make SO2 drop off so much for all fuels? New tech, or new regulations?" CreationDate="2017-03-22T16:47:07.967" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8351" PostId="5917" Score="0" Text="The first article I linked to mentions that in 2012 the contribution of NG combined cycle plants had increased to 34% of the total gross load. Not sure how much it is now, but the EPA probably has that information somewhere. Coal dropped from 85% in 1997 to 59% in 2012.&#xA;Furthermore &quot;*The decreases in the NOx and SO2 emissions from [all] power plants are due in part to the implementation of emission controls, as enacted under various clean-air programs of the U.S. EPA.*&quot;" CreationDate="2017-03-24T09:41:17.993" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8376" PostId="5918" Score="0" Text="Thank you, @LShaver - it is helpful to have the different sources as I am not familiar with where to find which pieces of literature.  I now better recognize the value in your original advice re this question (in a comment on 3/20), though I find this answer helpful.  It's overly simplistic to expect a neat,tidy answer (e.g. &quot;a HEV becomes better than an ICE after driving 105,000 miles&quot;) because of the number of variables and range in estimates, but it's helpful to know that considering only carbon (and likely overestimating break-even), a HEV comes out ahead within a typical driving lifespan." CreationDate="2017-03-29T18:34:26.063" UserId="4386" />
  <row Id="8338" PostId="5919" Score="2" Text="Coincidentally I just read about this when I wrote (the bottom part of) [this answer](http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/a/5917/99). It may surprise you, but there seems to be no benefit because of the leaks in gas production systems. You can read more about it [in this paper](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/223974593_Greater_Focus_Needed_on_Methane_Leakage_From_Natural_Gas_Infrastructure)." CreationDate="2017-03-23T09:04:09.840" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="10525" PostId="5919" Score="0" Text="Related: [How is Natural Gas more sustainable as fuel than Gasoline?](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/520)" CreationDate="2018-12-13T15:55:17.157" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8339" PostId="5920" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainability.SE! I'm no expert, but I found [this paper](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/016788098390021X) from 1983 which offers a bit of insight. They find that conventional corn in Iowa requires 9.6 hours/hectare of labor, while organic methods require on average 15.5 hours/hectare, depending on the specific organic method." CreationDate="2017-03-23T16:07:56.360" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8340" PostId="5920" Score="0" Text="@LShaver is that 15.5hrs/hectare per day?" CreationDate="2017-03-23T20:52:52.047" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="8341" PostId="5920" Score="0" Text="@HighlyIrregular that is per cultivation, I believe. The paper covers large-scale farming using mechanized equipment." CreationDate="2017-03-23T21:03:57.557" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8342" PostId="5923" Score="0" Text="Unfortunately, MathJax doesn't work on this site, you'll have to change your m$^3$ to something ugly like m^3 or cu. m. Also, being nitpicky here, but I think you mean shifting from firewood to modern fuels, which includes both electricity and propane, natural gas, etc, which are better for cooking." CreationDate="2017-03-23T21:38:23.717" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8344" PostId="5923" Score="0" Text="@LShaver All that you say is true, thank you." CreationDate="2017-03-23T23:26:55.937" UserId="3955" />
  <row Id="8347" PostId="5923" Score="0" Text="Instead of MathJax you can use tags like m&lt;sup&gt;3&lt;/sup&gt; or CO&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt;, but as you can see that doesn't work in comments, only answers and questions. I'm often lazy and tend to type m3 or CO2 instead. People seem to understand that just fine." CreationDate="2017-03-24T08:12:26.030" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8348" PostId="5923" Score="0" Text="The units in the FAO yearbook say MT which usually refers to [metric tons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonne) = 1000 kilograms" CreationDate="2017-03-24T08:38:01.890" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8352" PostId="5923" Score="1" Text="@THelper I was just pre-emptively pointing out that if MT really is metric tons, then the FAO yearbook is low by 1000. If it is 'million tons' their numbers are high by a factor of 1000. My experience is that the FAO is godawful at getting units right." CreationDate="2017-03-24T12:05:52.643" UserId="3955" />
  <row Id="8353" PostId="5923" Score="1" Text="This is one hell of an answer ;) It resembles me of the blog.xkcd.com style. Search -&gt; appply math and common sense -&gt; resolve. Thanks!" CreationDate="2017-03-24T12:15:10.030" UserId="4395" />
  <row Id="8359" PostId="5928" Score="3" Text="This cannot be answered for just any foods. Can you edit you question and ask for **one specific kind of food**? It is still very broad then (almost requiring a full life cycle analysis including agricultural production, processing, transportation, energy sources), but maybe it is answerable then. It also helps if you *exclude* certain components from the comparison (e.g. energy source)." CreationDate="2017-03-26T19:10:14.327" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="8360" PostId="5928" Score="0" Text="@JanDoggen No, that would distract answerers, I think.  I don't understand how you can think that a full life cycle analysis would be useful to an answer in this or that case, so I'm reluctant to include an example food like that.  What would be different between different kinds of refrigerated foods of the same weight and volume in terms of shipping?" CreationDate="2017-03-26T19:13:36.273" UserId="4406" />
  <row Id="8361" PostId="5928" Score="0" Text="@JanDoggen I've actually already excluded agricultural production, processing, and energy sources, and limited the transportation to a single group (well, maybe more than one if I am misunderstanding transatlantic shipping)." CreationDate="2017-03-26T19:30:09.847" UserId="4406" />
  <row Id="8362" PostId="5928" Score="0" Text="You're comparing food quality (with the associated downstream effects) with environmental harm. I don't think you can get a clear answer to how one can outweigh the other. A single extra person getting cancer from low quality food would consider a high environmental cost justifiable to avoid that. I suggest you remove that comparison as part of the question." CreationDate="2017-03-26T19:43:36.697" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="8363" PostId="5928" Score="0" Text="@HighlyIrregular No, I'm comparing environmental harm with environmental harm.  Consider that [industries operating under a carbon tax](https://www.carbontax.org/where-carbon-is-taxed/), for example, are preferable to industries operating in ways that would not be financially viable were such a tax implemented.  However, the benefit of the company making the product not wantonly dumping toxins into wetlands and pumping CO2 into the sky while lying about it must be weighed against the cost of shipping the less-damaging-in-production goods over the ocean." CreationDate="2017-03-26T20:06:19.110" UserId="4406" />
  <row Id="8364" PostId="5928" Score="0" Text="Obviously, the damage done in production by a good will vary.  The question is not *if* a certain, or indeed any, good is worth shipping or worth not shipping, the question is how differentially bad things would need to be for the correct decision to be one way or the other. Like, in the equation &quot;Harm_America &gt;? Harm_Europe +Harm_Shipping&quot; what value of Harm_America-Harm_Europe leads Harm_America-Harm_Europe&gt;?Harm_Shipping to be true.  This question is solely dependent on Harm_Shipping." CreationDate="2017-03-26T20:11:25.670" UserId="4406" />
  <row Id="8365" PostId="5928" Score="0" Text="I think you could base the question on your second paragraph to make it clearer - what is the carbon footprint of shipping refrigerated food across the ocean? Then, separately, you could compare the carbon footprint of food production. The comment about different levels of food quality distracts from your main inquiry." CreationDate="2017-03-26T20:40:45.420" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8366" PostId="5928" Score="0" Text="@LShaver like so?" CreationDate="2017-03-26T20:47:18.340" UserId="4406" />
  <row Id="8379" PostId="5928" Score="0" Text="You can split this broad question to several more partial and specific questions to get more specific and well covered answers. Don't stop asking - ask more. Consider some criteria to split this topic (or ask about them)." CreationDate="2017-03-31T06:50:29.560" UserId="60" />
  <row Id="8385" PostId="5928" Score="0" Text="@PeterIvan what would you suggest I divide it by?  I could give specific towns if that would help, I suppose.  Should I give a couple test cases in the question?" CreationDate="2017-03-31T20:29:21.830" UserId="4406" />
  <row Id="8387" PostId="5928" Score="2" Text="The samples would definitely help to quantify at least some answers. There are too many variables in your question and it makes it too broad. Do you speak of &quot;personal&quot; import rates or do you import food as a business? How do you import goods (air, ship, inland transports etc.)? Do we idealise some cases (transportation discontinuities) or do you focus on getting very realistic figures? There are too many combinations here - just elaborate on your question more and ask more specific question(s)." CreationDate="2017-04-01T20:58:53.250" UserId="60" />
  <row Id="8389" PostId="5928" Score="0" Text="Energy costs depend on the used type of transport, the type of food and the locations between which the food is transported. IMO this all makes this question too broad." CreationDate="2017-04-03T10:27:21.690" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8391" PostId="5928" Score="0" Text="@THelper it sounds like I'm misunderstanding how transportation works.  I've asked http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/5939/how-does-transportation-cost-depend-on-food to understand better." CreationDate="2017-04-03T16:25:18.623" UserId="4406" />
  <row Id="8392" PostId="5928" Score="0" Text="@THelper I disagree with the close, just think a bit more refinement is necessary. Sounds like OP wants to know something like, &quot;What is the environmental impact of transportation by X for refrigerated foods?&quot; The actual distance doesn't matter - we could safely assume that impact scales with distance. Environmental impact of refrigeration and transportation are well studied - OP wants to know how these combine and scale for a specific quantity of food." CreationDate="2017-04-03T16:47:38.303" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8394" PostId="5928" Score="0" Text="@LShaver The question is most likely salvageable, but I do feel that the OP has to focus on a particular type of food and/or method of refrigeration to prevent this question from becoming too broad (see also my comment to the OPs follow-up question)." CreationDate="2017-04-03T19:39:54.053" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8395" PostId="5928" Score="0" Text="@LShaver If more refinement is necessary, closure is appropriate.  I'm glad you think it will be easy to fix and reopen, though :)" CreationDate="2017-04-03T20:41:52.530" UserId="4406" />
  <row Id="8367" PostId="5930" Score="1" Text="Could your question be restated, &quot;How is per capita energy consumption related to increasing per capita wealth?&quot;. This would be a bit clearer. Also, are you concerned more with wealth, or income?" CreationDate="2017-03-27T03:20:59.270" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8368" PostId="5930" Score="0" Text="@LShaver Thanks for the interesting remarks. I followed your advice in renaming the title. I feel like I'm equally interested in both, but let's perhaps stick to wealth for now, in the wordings ... since stackexchange unfortunately loves to put questions on hold or close them if too much information is in them ..." CreationDate="2017-03-27T04:28:54.387" UserId="4409" />
  <row Id="8370" PostId="5930" Score="0" Text="I don't know about wealth, but there is quite a bit of information about the relationship with income (at least for individual countries). For this you can look into [energy intensity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_intensity). There are also a number of reports that compare energy consumption with the [Human Development Index](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index), for example [this one](http://www.geni.org/globalenergy/issues/global/qualityoflife/HDI-and-electricity-consumption.pdf) or [this one](http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/gaye_amie.pdf)" CreationDate="2017-03-27T07:28:39.533" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8372" PostId="5931" Score="1" Text="At first blush, this sounds great - especially as someone living in the US, which is the highest per capita energy user in the world, and one of the wealthiest countries. But averages hide the massive disparities between rich and poor countries (and even within rich countries) - both in economic and energy terms. When I've got some time, I'll look into different perspectives and add an answer from another angle." CreationDate="2017-03-27T15:56:21.147" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8373" PostId="5931" Score="0" Text="@LShaver It doesn't do justice to Garretts work to reduce it to a single image, of course!  I believe your &quot;buts&quot; are addressed in some of his papers.  But the amount of content I can put in an answer is limited…" CreationDate="2017-03-27T15:57:27.143" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="8377" PostId="5931" Score="0" Text="@gerrit I'm looking indeed for numbers on a global scale, if available, but I had to perhaps communicate better that I am looking more for an intra-individual comparison, so to say, (with the factor of comparison being a disparity in wealth between those individuals), and how this disparity is correlated with energy consumption. Currently, your answer shows no information at all about the economic disparity. I understand it's really because my question was asked wrongly or too ambiguous. My apologies. Thanks for your interesting answer!" CreationDate="2017-03-30T03:38:45.783" UserId="4409" />
  <row Id="8380" PostId="5931" Score="0" Text="I read the first link, but didn't do a deeper dive. However, I'm interested in how Garrett is defining 'wealth.' In the first link, he says there is 2352 trillion dollars of collective global wealth. I don't understand how you can get to that number. World GDP is about $75 trillion, and a great deal of that is services or consumpables. How have we accumulated quadrillions of dollars of 'wealth'?" CreationDate="2017-03-31T19:23:19.070" UserId="3955" />
  <row Id="8381" PostId="5931" Score="0" Text="@kingledion I believe he has integrated the GDP over time but I really don't know the details and I could be totally wrong." CreationDate="2017-03-31T19:30:18.153" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="8382" PostId="5931" Score="0" Text="@gerrit If that is the case, I don't think that is a useful measure. Oil dug up 20 years ago and meals cooked in 1950 aren't making anyone wealthier today." CreationDate="2017-03-31T19:32:27.543" UserId="3955" />
  <row Id="8383" PostId="5931" Score="0" Text="@kingledion Then let me just say that I don't know how he defines it.  He's not an economist but he probably has read up on it at least somewhat." CreationDate="2017-03-31T19:33:22.013" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="8375" PostId="5933" Score="0" Text="Having sat in on a few lectures from air quality folks, the relationship is extremely complicated. Involves humidity, wind, temperature, precipitation, speed of vehicles, etc, etc. My understanding is that the best you can do is figure out averages (per 1000 vehicle miles over 1000 km2)." CreationDate="2017-03-29T16:13:14.883" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8378" PostId="5934" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Thank you for your answer. You say that efficiency will vary, but I was wondering what you think of the numbers mentioned on [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricity) &quot;*The round-trip energy efficiency of PSH varies between 70%–80%*&quot;" CreationDate="2017-03-30T06:55:25.657" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8400" PostId="5937" Score="2" Text="I've awarded a bounty to this answer because you did the work to compute the interesting numbers AND gave a good hint how relevant it actually is." CreationDate="2017-04-05T13:46:58.410" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="9187" PostId="5937" Score="3" Text="Interesting answer, and fully agree with your last comment. It is probably better to compare food on a diet level (the footprint of an assortment of foods supplying calories and all sorts of nutrients in a healthy range) rather than product-by-product. See e.g. https://www.wwf.org.uk/eatingfor2degrees, for research on dietary level." CreationDate="2018-01-16T13:57:56.813" UserId="5329" />
  <row Id="12111" PostId="5937" Score="0" Text="I estimated that canola (rapeseed) oil is &gt;= 0.1 kg CO2 per 1,000 calories. There 0.4 kg CO2 per kg of canola seed, and 44% of canola seed = oil, so that's 0.4 / 0.44 = 0.91 kg CO2 per kg canola oil, which has 8,824 calories, so that's at least 0.10 kg CO2 per 1,000 calories. Need to add transit! Sources: 44%: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canola_oil#Production_process, seed per CO2: https://research.canolacouncil.org/research-summaries-details/15/environmental-footprint-of-canola-and-canola-based-products, 8,824 calories from https://www.google.com/search?q=calories+in+1+kg+canola+oil%3F" CreationDate="2020-01-08T02:25:36.247" UserId="8307" />
  <row Id="12113" PostId="5937" Score="0" Text="@wardw123 Best of luck to you on your rapeseed based diet :)" CreationDate="2020-01-08T02:42:47.917" UserId="3955" />
  <row Id="12443" PostId="5937" Score="0" Text="Good answer.  Thinking about what *role* foods play in the diet, metrics like gCO2e per g protein or per g fat are also relevant (i.e. for each of the major macronutrients).  I don't suppose there would be many surprises: for a low-carbon diet get your carbs from grains and pulses; your protein from pulses, nuts and seeds; and your fats from nuts and seeds.  And eat lots of varied veg for micronutrients." CreationDate="2020-03-04T13:03:19.580" UserId="1445" />
  <row Id="12445" PostId="5937" Score="0" Text="@aucuparia That is if carbon is your only criterion for earth-healthy eating. I'd like to propose that many/most farms that do the varied veg parts are done in unsustainable ways; have you ever seen high-water-requiring asparagus grown in the deserts of Baja California, or lettuces growing under plastic sheeting in Virginia (where I am from)? There is some value to animals that eat forage crops (sudangrass, alfalfa, corn and soy byproducts) that can be rotated each year for better soil health, and require minimal pesticide inputs." CreationDate="2020-03-04T14:29:13.617" UserId="3955" />
  <row Id="15708" PostId="5937" Score="0" Text="The link given for the data (for low-fat milk + Vitamin A) threw up a weird error (which smelt reminiscent of the waving of dead chickens), which turned out to be transient after I had found the site in the Wayback Machine; peanut butter, for example was under https://web.archive.org/web/20180909183430/https://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/legumes-and-legume-products/4452/2 , among, no doubt, many other saves." CreationDate="2022-04-20T20:23:17.703" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="8416" PostId="5941" Score="0" Text="Yes I have downloaded this document. Although yield factors/national yields are not included, since I am calculating the impact of electricity geenration (the ecological footprint of production only), in this part of the calculation method used by the GFN, the national yield cancels out in the equation, leaving only the global yield as a variable - this is given tin the National Footprint Accounts dataset!&#xA;&#xA;Thank you for your reply, I believe my project is now do-able." CreationDate="2017-04-12T19:12:03.217" UserId="4433" />
  <row Id="8411" PostId="5947" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainability.SE! There's a lot of good insight on composting meat over here: http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/38/3379" CreationDate="2017-04-09T16:04:31.110" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8412" PostId="5947" Score="2" Text="Do you have a dog?" CreationDate="2017-04-10T15:06:18.270" UserId="3955" />
  <row Id="8452" PostId="5947" Score="2" Text="Possible duplicate of [Why shouldn't meat be placed in my compost pile?](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/38/why-shouldnt-meat-be-placed-in-my-compost-pile)" CreationDate="2017-04-27T06:21:05.927" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="8417" PostId="5948" Score="1" Text="Thank you for your answer, but I'm wondering how this relates to cotton. For example if you manufacture bamboo fibers with chemicals, is the total impact of the end-product worse, equal or still better than that of (chemically-treated) cotton?" CreationDate="2017-04-14T10:39:00.723" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8422" PostId="5949" Score="0" Text="The pipe length is mentioned in the last bullet point - 5m of 2cm pipe. I also doubt things like unheated areas/external walls make much difference over the few seconds it takes to fill a pot. But, that's a good point on home heating, especially since the water heater is in a locked utility closet! As for a solar water heater, I'd love to -- but it's not a possibility since I rent!" CreationDate="2017-04-16T04:36:03.120" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8450" PostId="5950" Score="0" Text="This question is extremely broad. Could you perhaps limit it to a specific type of food or type of packaging? Or, consider changing the question to something like, &quot;how can one compare the impact of packaging to farming techniques?&quot;" CreationDate="2017-04-26T21:02:58.460" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8474" PostId="5950" Score="1" Text="this seems a strange choice. The organic food I get from my csa has no package or travel footprint. The further food travels or the more it's been processed (chopped, peeled, cooked etc) the more packaging gets added. It seems like trying to minimize all these things: packaging, travel distance, processing, and use of pesticides/fungicides/herbicides etc is a better plan than trying to decide among them." CreationDate="2017-05-01T21:45:37.827" UserId="1053" />
  <row Id="8485" PostId="5950" Score="0" Text="@KateGregory I specifically have this spice shop near where I live where everything is loose weight but most is non-organic. I then have my organic shop where spice if packed in tiny metal and plastic, or glass and plastic containers probably at a ratio of 80% packaging, 20% spice by weight. There are a few other instances too when it comes to imported organic vegetables vs local non-organic ones where the local ones do not have packaging." CreationDate="2017-05-04T06:16:14.043" UserId="3297" />
  <row Id="11991" PostId="5950" Score="0" Text="Please edit your question instead of only answering in the comments" CreationDate="2019-12-09T16:26:19.493" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="11999" PostId="5950" Score="0" Text="I should note now after some time has passed that WWF has removed the calculator version my post referred to. I do not know if this means that my question should be removed as I have not seen other sources claim as large impact of packaging as the old WWF calculator." CreationDate="2019-12-12T06:39:09.680" UserId="3297" />
  <row Id="8423" PostId="5951" Score="0" Text="have you tried double-diapering? That was the usual overnight approach." CreationDate="2017-04-17T13:50:04.223" UserId="1053" />
  <row Id="8424" PostId="5951" Score="0" Text="What do you mean by double-diapering? I added an extra hemp insert for absorbency, if that's what you mean. Still didn't stop the leaks..." CreationDate="2017-04-17T19:52:13.760" UserId="3456" />
  <row Id="8425" PostId="5951" Score="0" Text="We used separate diapers and covers. At night, we put two diapers in the cover. But by age three it's a challenge, to be sure." CreationDate="2017-04-17T19:59:31.067" UserId="1053" />
  <row Id="8433" PostId="5951" Score="0" Text="I don't want to sound like I'm being mean, but the most sustainable thing for both the environment and your personal time would be to potty train your daughter. Again, I'm not trying to brag, but my wife and I are currently potty training our 16 month old. Its hard since she's so young, but we're making progress. You can do it." CreationDate="2017-04-20T17:51:23.480" UserId="3955" />
  <row Id="8434" PostId="5951" Score="1" Text="Trust me when I tell you she's simply not ready. Congratulations on your potty training prodigy, but I know my daughter and I know she's not there yet. This has been a process since she was about 18mo and I'm not going to bore the internet with the story. We're doing what's best for her." CreationDate="2017-04-21T01:34:39.740" UserId="3456" />
  <row Id="8614" PostId="5951" Score="1" Text="There are several diapers in production that (claim to) use renewable ressources and degrade biologically, in Germany you'd google &quot;Öko-Windeln&quot; - but not knowing where you live, I can't know if any are availabe." CreationDate="2017-06-26T12:37:49.377" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="8627" PostId="5951" Score="0" Text="We used doubled-up cloth nappies with a wool outer (Google &quot;wool soakers&quot;) which helps with leakage, but have eventually given up and use Naty disposables at night.  They seem to have pretty wide distribution." CreationDate="2017-07-04T10:29:26.360" UserId="1445" />
  <row Id="8953" PostId="5951" Score="1" Text="I remember we used eco-friendly diapers for a short while from a brand called [Naty](https://www.naty.com). They are FSC and biobased certified, so it may be slightly better than the more common brands. However it's been several years since we used them and I vaguely remember switching to a different brand  back then. Not sure why that was, probably because we weren't satisfied with them." CreationDate="2017-10-23T17:47:19.283" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="9440" PostId="5951" Score="0" Text="Can't you just put some incontinence pads under her?" CreationDate="2018-03-22T23:25:10.927" UserId="5517" />
  <row Id="10023" PostId="5951" Score="1" Text="Also interested in what your current cloth diapers are... Maybe switching brand/approach with cloth would work as well" CreationDate="2018-08-13T14:52:52.107" UserDisplayName="user4292" />
  <row Id="8446" PostId="5953" Score="0" Text="I understand that the ecological footprint goes far beyond carbon as this chart illustrates. While not measuring biodiversity directly, they measure the resources extraction from a wide range of habitats it seems: http://www.footprintnetwork.org/content/images/uploads/biodiversity_drivers_chart.pdf This text has more information on how the ecological footprint relates to biodiversity loss: http://www.footprintnetwork.org/biodiversity/" CreationDate="2017-04-25T20:19:39.100" UserId="3297" />
  <row Id="8472" PostId="5953" Score="0" Text="This article seems to suggest that it is better to choose packaging free, &quot;conventional&quot; food, than packaged, organic ones https://www.greenchoices.org/green-living/food-drink/packaging" CreationDate="2017-05-01T10:08:35.180" UserId="3297" />
  <row Id="8426" PostId="5954" Score="0" Text="*RC made flat roofs*? Please explain in your post." CreationDate="2017-04-18T11:18:54.437" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="8427" PostId="5954" Score="0" Text="I assume changing wall opening sizes is out of the question?" CreationDate="2017-04-18T11:20:11.007" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="8428" PostId="5954" Score="0" Text="&quot;RC made flat roofs? Please explain in your post.&quot;: Concrete roof (RC = reinforced concrete, and they are flat or horizontal roofs, not the inclined roofs that one see in places with a lot of rains. Hope it clarifies)" CreationDate="2017-04-18T11:29:36.893" UserId="4462" />
  <row Id="8429" PostId="5954" Score="0" Text="&quot;I assume changing wall opening sizes is out of the question? &quot;: It is defenitely an option (and obvious one). However, normally large buildings (residential towers) go through a re-painting cycle may be once in 10 years." CreationDate="2017-04-18T11:30:56.973" UserId="4462" />
  <row Id="8430" PostId="5955" Score="0" Text="*a cooler wall can and will emit radiative heat into warmer outdoor air* so energy gets transferred from the cooler wall into the warmer air? So the wall gets even cooler? Under what circumstances does this happen?" CreationDate="2017-04-20T08:05:21.943" UserId="4158" />
  <row Id="8431" PostId="5955" Score="1" Text="@stijn At the same time as net radiative heat transfer is going out of the wall into the environment, net convective heat transfer is going from the air back into the wall (assuming the air is hotter than the wall). At the temperatures of a normal day, the convective heat transfer would be expected to exceed the radiative, so net heat is still going into the house. However, you can't do much to stop the convective heat transfer (laws of entropy and all), but you can take action to increase radiative transfer, thus slowing net heat transfer into the house, thus reducing heat absorption." CreationDate="2017-04-20T11:42:42.127" UserId="3955" />
  <row Id="8439" PostId="5956" Score="0" Text="I have seen such buildings with vegetation on walls. The building in question is a tall one and may need some creepers to do that." CreationDate="2017-04-24T14:24:12.240" UserId="4462" />
  <row Id="15614" PostId="5956" Score="0" Text="Very useful idea. Only problem in my area is poisonous snakes, spiders and reptiles climbing on the wall" CreationDate="2022-03-05T11:49:46.063" UserId="13799" />
  <row Id="8436" PostId="5960" Score="0" Text="That fits with my crude rule-of-thumb that the price of a readily available commodity reflects it's relative energy cost. A new roller sleeve is a couple of quid, which buys about a third of a cubic metre of water (inc. sewerage cost) which is a lot of water.  That said, if switching between very different colours, I've found a new roller sleeve is worth the cost vs. needing extra coats of paint to cover marks from the residual old paint however much the roller is cleaned." CreationDate="2017-04-23T09:48:52.123" UserId="1210" />
  <row Id="9008" PostId="5961" Score="0" Text="A good way to clean a roller, assuming non-poisonous paint. Stand on lawn or field; use garden hose to squirt roller; the roller will now spin on its own and the paint gets distributed over a large area of lawn. This is very quick and very effective, also very messy." CreationDate="2017-11-15T13:49:07.997" UserId="1567" />
  <row Id="8437" PostId="5962" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Can you please add why you want to aerate the water? What do you intend to do with it? Keep fish?" CreationDate="2017-04-23T11:35:29.240" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8438" PostId="5962" Score="0" Text="Aerate, you mean helping oxygen to dissolve in the water? Or just remove unwanted algae?" CreationDate="2017-04-24T06:12:02.920" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="8442" PostId="5962" Score="0" Text="how deep is the pond? Goal of aeration, how much aeration do you need?" CreationDate="2017-04-25T06:31:20.783" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="8443" PostId="5962" Score="0" Text="And while you are busy improving your question, add a link that explains *polytunnel* and address the question raised under Fred's answer." CreationDate="2017-04-25T07:46:27.983" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="8445" PostId="5962" Score="0" Text="@Jan Doggen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polytunnel" CreationDate="2017-04-25T11:01:20.497" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8453" PostId="5962" Score="0" Text="How deep is it going to be. You might not need anything more than the wind passing through the tunnel." CreationDate="2017-04-27T15:41:46.420" UserId="1701" />
  <row Id="8459" PostId="5962" Score="0" Text="The main purpose of the aeration is to stop water stratification, to create a healthy habitat for indigenous wildlife  ." CreationDate="2017-04-28T10:02:51.973" UserId="4475" />
  <row Id="11033" PostId="5962" Score="0" Text="This is an indoor pool, inside the polytunnel?" CreationDate="2019-05-16T18:06:58.127" UserId="5532" />
  <row Id="8440" PostId="5963" Score="0" Text="How do you move the water through the cascade? That sound like it require a pump, which the OP did not want." CreationDate="2017-04-24T17:55:24.810" UserId="3955" />
  <row Id="8441" PostId="5963" Score="1" Text="@kingledion: difference in elevation. The OP didn't state whether the ground was flat of not" CreationDate="2017-04-25T04:00:11.460" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="8444" PostId="5963" Score="1" Text="I agree with Fred's answer. The best way to naturally provide aeration is to let water fall into the pond. If there are no suitable elevation differences,  a raised large rain barrel that slowly flows its contents into the pond could be an option." CreationDate="2017-04-25T11:00:06.837" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8467" PostId="5967" Score="0" Text="How much salt would be an issue? In my case, I would guess each 5 L pail I dump in the compost would have 5-10 grams of salt." CreationDate="2017-04-28T16:48:40.983" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8470" PostId="5967" Score="0" Text="It will depend on the concertation you 'll reach in the whole thing. If it's often washed out by rain or other green water, it should be ok. If it is the only water you add, I'd avoid it." CreationDate="2017-04-29T18:09:56.803" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="10273" PostId="5968" Score="0" Text="In the US I would search for 'washable incontinence pads'." CreationDate="2018-10-10T14:46:57.070" UserId="1513" />
  <row Id="8454" PostId="5971" Score="7" Text="It depends on what you include in &quot;cost.&quot; If the price of electricity from coal and gas plants included the costs of cleaning up pollution and carbon emissions, it would cost significantly more than power produced from solar panels." CreationDate="2017-04-27T16:06:18.907" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8455" PostId="5971" Score="0" Text="@LShaver, I share your enthusiasm for solar power. I was just surprised to find information at wiki concerning the high cost; I will include a link in my *question*." CreationDate="2017-04-27T16:08:38.090" UserId="4488" />
  <row Id="8471" PostId="5971" Score="0" Text="I noted in kingledion's answer that the O&amp;M portion from the chart he embedded is mislabeled - so O&amp;M is not, in fact, so much more expensive for solar." CreationDate="2017-04-30T20:24:00.443" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8473" PostId="5971" Score="0" Text="So the main component is &quot;levelized capital cost&quot;?  That makes sense. @LShaver" CreationDate="2017-05-01T11:48:14.377" UserId="4488" />
  <row Id="8457" PostId="5972" Score="0" Text="Thanks!  So &quot;O&amp;M&quot; is the initial capital investment?" CreationDate="2017-04-28T06:41:40.930" UserId="4488" />
  <row Id="8458" PostId="5972" Score="2" Text="@MikhailKatz no, O&amp;M is Operations &amp; Maintenance, not initial capital investment" CreationDate="2017-04-28T06:48:48.190" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="8461" PostId="5972" Score="1" Text="There's a mistake in that chart from IER. If you look at the [data tables](http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/studies/levelized-cost-of-new-generating-technologies/) on their site, it's clear that they swapped the legend entries for fixed O&amp;M and levelized capital cost." CreationDate="2017-04-28T12:50:17.267" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8466" PostId="5972" Score="0" Text="@LShaver That is a good catch." CreationDate="2017-04-28T16:23:31.347" UserId="3955" />
  <row Id="8488" PostId="5972" Score="1" Text="@kingledion -- any chance you can remove that graphic or put a note indicating that it's wrong? It's rather a glaring mistake." CreationDate="2017-05-05T23:38:43.797" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8456" PostId="5973" Score="3" Text="Organic farming basically feeds Africa, such as it is fed. I don't understand the argument that organic farming will feed the world better than GMO crops. Yields are much higher in Europe and North America with heavy mechanization and GMO crop usage. [GMO crops](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution) turned 500 million famine-prone Indians in the 1960s into over a billion not-famine-prone Indians. I feel like you need to provide some references for that 'common counter-argument' in the last paragraph." CreationDate="2017-04-28T02:16:14.103" UserId="3955" />
  <row Id="8465" PostId="5973" Score="1" Text="@kingledion I clarified a little - I'm not supporting either position, just explaining what they are. The references are what I'm looking for!" CreationDate="2017-04-28T15:51:51.757" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8476" PostId="5973" Score="0" Text="related questions: https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/4271/optimising-crop-yields-without-using-fossil-fuel-manufactured-fertiliser/ and https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/5384/reference-request-farm-level-multi-year-comparison-between-organic-and-conven" CreationDate="2017-05-02T07:17:24.290" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="8502" PostId="5973" Score="0" Text="Maybe you should leave labor and infrastructure out of your question, it is already broad enough. Infrastructure is not an issue because we already transport food all over the place now. Labor does not seem to be an issue because there is still a trend of people having to move out of primary production jobs (because of mechanisation)." CreationDate="2017-05-10T14:40:03.373" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="8535" PostId="5973" Score="1" Text="@kingledion - wrong, that is a limited incomplete perspective - short term  gain &amp; propaganda, for long term issues not visible on the surface" CreationDate="2017-05-29T10:51:33.727" UserId="2891" />
  <row Id="8547" PostId="5973" Score="0" Text="@LShaver - There is no winning the debate, because proganda &amp; power (media, politics, money) can easily overshadow facts &amp; truths. Just have to do your own research and make a judgement call." CreationDate="2017-05-30T07:36:38.957" UserId="2891" />
  <row Id="8468" PostId="5975" Score="2" Text="The links indicate that biodegradable bags aren't as biodegradable as advertised, and that even the best ones won't break down in a landfill. But none of this indicates they're _worse_ than traditional bags." CreationDate="2017-04-28T18:59:31.257" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8469" PostId="5975" Score="0" Text="That's right. I can't really find a x vs y comparison between the two. Both are bad, but which one is worse?" CreationDate="2017-04-28T19:05:55.033" UserId="4188" />
  <row Id="13137" PostId="5975" Score="0" Text="As another angle on the bioplastics debate: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.promfg.2016.12.027" CreationDate="2020-11-23T08:28:52.240" UserId="9132" />
  <row Id="8482" PostId="5976" Score="0" Text="Thank you very much! It's a great answer and research. Very helpful article." CreationDate="2017-05-02T19:46:31.447" UserId="4188" />
  <row Id="8477" PostId="5977" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Did you feed your worms anything else other than apples, coir and paper? And do you have an open or closed bin? If open, then it's perfectly normal that there are little to no worms at the top. Worms don't like light and will crawl deeper where it's dark. Also I'd wait a few days until the recently added food starts to rot a bit and then check if the worms are eating it." CreationDate="2017-05-02T09:24:22.700" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8478" PostId="5977" Score="0" Text="I've fed my worms various other things, a variety of table scraps that I confirmed the safety of before placing them in the bin. They seemed to eat those very quickly. I do eat a fair amount of apples, and they only had apples for about a week before this happened. The bin is closed, in fact it's a Worm Factory 360 bin, if that helps." CreationDate="2017-05-02T12:52:13.193" UserId="4504" />
  <row Id="8489" PostId="5983" Score="0" Text="Are you sure engineering refers to repair costs? I think that would be included in O&amp;M. Engineering probably refers to the fact that more design work is required for larger systems (particularly the grid integration aspects). Also, this doesn't address OP's original question as to how these prices compare to non-solar power." CreationDate="2017-05-08T00:37:56.643" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8490" PostId="5983" Score="0" Text="I specifically addressed the PV portion of the question the OP detailed in the body of his question: &quot;Why is O&amp;M (operations and maintenance) so high for solar, both photovoltaic and thermal?&quot;. Re: engineering - you're right. I will clarify." CreationDate="2017-05-08T01:20:07.713" UserId="404" />
  <row Id="8500" PostId="5984" Score="0" Text="As Fred suggested in the last question of his answer: can't you consult librarians or scientists in India?" CreationDate="2017-05-10T14:26:06.800" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="8506" PostId="5984" Score="2" Text="Are you trying to preserve the books - or the information contained therein? If the information, then you could consider digitizing them." CreationDate="2017-05-12T18:26:08.170" UserId="1701" />
  <row Id="8501" PostId="5985" Score="2" Text="This is probably very specific to the situation in your home. How about, as a start, rigging up something to measure the chimney temperature and the water temperature over a longer period? That would at least tell you what the temperature difference is. Plot that difference against time and plot your warm water requirements in there as well, and you will see if these overlap sufficiently to even begin thinking about implementing this. Sounds like a nice science project. You don't have school-going kids by any chance ;-)?" CreationDate="2017-05-10T14:31:24.913" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="8504" PostId="5985" Score="0" Text="Alas, I don't. But I'm a school-going kid at heart. I like your idea, I'm going to see if I get two raspberry pi's or something to collect the temperatures in both the chimney and the water intake over a couple of months or a year or so and see what the data tells me. Thanks!" CreationDate="2017-05-11T09:39:08.867" UserId="4290" />
  <row Id="8512" PostId="5985" Score="1" Text="The temperature of the water intake will be quite related to the outside temperature. But so is the chimney temperature, especially when the fireplace is not in use. To me it doesn't sound like you would be cooling the water this way, ever... (The chimney being inside your home and not being perfectly insulated, there will be heat loss to the chimney if the fireplace is not in use. I don't think your chimney will be lower than the water temperature. In extreme conditions, you'll want to use the chimney anyway, right?)" CreationDate="2017-05-16T16:37:37.283" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="8495" PostId="5986" Score="2" Text="You are not answering the question. Also, adding some references for your statements would help. For instance, you are comparing palm and sunflower on *deforested surfaces*, but sunflowers can be raised in many more climate areas then palm. This issue is not so simple that it can be answered with an opinion in two paragraphs. Especially not if that opinion is as blunt as *People are completely mistaken*." CreationDate="2017-05-10T11:33:07.423" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="8516" PostId="5986" Score="0" Text="I think this is an interesting perspective (including caloric content of food when considering ecological impact) but as @JanDoggen said, you need to include some references to support your viewpoint." CreationDate="2017-05-20T14:50:52.990" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8605" PostId="5986" Score="0" Text="@ Jan Doggen Well if you feel like howling with the wolves (or with the sheeps) that palm oil is bad I can't really do much. Yes I do not give references (which a few words search in google will provide). Yes my opinion is blunt because I am upset to see crowds ignorant of science repeat biased opinions like they were chasing witches. I will add reference. Regarding the answer to the OP's question it is there: coconut oil has greater impact on the Earth than palm, per unit (liter, m^3, etc.) oil produced." CreationDate="2017-06-23T01:33:51.500" UserId="4533" />
  <row Id="8499" PostId="5987" Score="0" Text="This does not address the specific question about insects and odours." CreationDate="2017-05-10T14:24:36.470" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="8505" PostId="5988" Score="1" Text="I believe OP is asking more about the software itself than the company (as in, &quot;all other things being equal, is Windows or Linux more sustainable to run?&quot;). But you raise a good point. One factor you don't mention is that Microsoft is a for-profit company developing closed-source, proprietary software. *nix is an ecosystem of open-source software developed by a mix of individuals, not-for-profits, and for-profit companies which adapt the code for their purposes on condition they release the source. So it's an apples to cucumbers comparison." CreationDate="2017-05-12T15:58:57.227" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8507" PostId="5988" Score="0" Text="Thanks, that's an interesting point indeed. But I completely agree with what @LShaver says in the comment." CreationDate="2017-05-13T12:39:51.063" UserId="2661" />
  <row Id="8509" PostId="5988" Score="0" Text="My point is that there are a million other factors that need to be considered when answering the question, &quot;Is Linux more sustainable than Windows?&quot; However, if you are looking strictly at power consumption of the OS, there is a lot of evidence showing Windows is more efficient than Ubuntu. Of course, a non-GUI Linux distribution is going to consume less power than a GUI version of Windows. If you are not looking strictly at power consumption (and OP is not), then there are a million other factors to consider in determining sustainability." CreationDate="2017-05-14T13:29:54.040" UserDisplayName="user4539" />
  <row Id="15342" PostId="5988" Score="0" Text="I mean, 'free' with comparable functionality is better than anything comparable that you need to pay for in my book." CreationDate="2021-12-14T03:24:38.617" UserId="315" />
  <row Id="8514" PostId="5995" Score="2" Text="If it is permitted, you could try insulating the south wall from the rest of the room by have heavy drapes along the entire length of the wall." CreationDate="2017-05-19T12:04:27.200" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="8534" PostId="5996" Score="0" Text="what you see and read on mainstream media is bought and controlled - When one hits the ground and meets farmers and co ops across US, Asia and 3rd world agrarian nations you get the reality of how GMO companies have caused farmer suicides." CreationDate="2017-05-29T10:49:50.457" UserId="2891" />
  <row Id="8536" PostId="5996" Score="0" Text="@AlexS, I agree the business model of GMO companies do not imply being altruist..." CreationDate="2017-05-29T11:47:45.347" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="8537" PostId="5996" Score="0" Text="Even if they are not, they are extremely predatory &amp; spin a very fine crony politician yarn - If there are people fine with GMO label it and let them eat it. Those who do not wish to, should not be deprived of that information. And the way they sway public opinion is with the &quot;feed the hungry world&quot; narrative that there is not enough food." CreationDate="2017-05-29T11:52:20.973" UserId="2891" />
  <row Id="8542" PostId="5996" Score="0" Text="Interesting perspective -- but how much work/money is involved in reducing the amount of waste in our system today? Isn't _some_ loss inherent in any farming system?" CreationDate="2017-05-29T13:31:15.767" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8515" PostId="5997" Score="0" Text="What about for the freezing winters?" CreationDate="2017-05-19T13:40:22.917" UserId="4504" />
  <row Id="8519" PostId="5997" Score="0" Text="@NeurologicalApex do the contrary. Offer your neighbors to host their server and Bitcoin miners. Use halogen lights. Buy an induction plate and cook extensively. Take hot showers. Invite as much people as possible as often as possible (easy if you cook good food ;)." CreationDate="2017-05-21T16:12:29.023" UserId="3798" />
  <row Id="8520" PostId="5997" Score="0" Text="@Sylvain, I would have suggested human warmth, and/or warm clothing... But was the question about it? Maybe a huge solar deflector attached in a good place on the facing building?" CreationDate="2017-05-21T16:53:23.887" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="8521" PostId="5998" Score="0" Text="on the other hand, this mean we have to find money to build towers, right? Might be a little expensive in some remote places of the world. I agree this is a solution for towns, though." CreationDate="2017-05-22T06:24:33.570" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="8524" PostId="5998" Score="2" Text="I think it depends on how you define yields -- per acre? or per unit input, including labor, fertilizer, infrastructure, and land?" CreationDate="2017-05-22T15:16:09.853" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8538" PostId="5998" Score="1" Text="Do you have any evidence to support your claim?" CreationDate="2017-05-29T11:53:51.903" UserId="3955" />
  <row Id="12670" PostId="5998" Score="0" Text="@kingledion physics" CreationDate="2020-06-10T12:03:24.220" UserId="4567" />
  <row Id="8522" PostId="5999" Score="1" Text="_efficient_ is not the issue--they are less productive, or have a lower capacity factor. Another concern is direction of solar panels, and shading, which depends on locality." CreationDate="2017-05-22T15:12:13.987" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8611" PostId="5999" Score="0" Text="You'll get plenty of relevant hits if you Google for &quot;Photovoltaic watts per square meter.&quot;" CreationDate="2017-06-25T18:44:49.457" UserId="4671" />
  <row Id="8523" PostId="6000" Score="0" Text="This covers all the major points but it would be useful to give some numbers. I think it's also useful to point out that the solar PV output will be greatest at midday, while AC demand is highest from 5-6pm, when people arrive home from work. Using a thermostat on a timer can solve this problem." CreationDate="2017-05-22T15:14:41.453" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8576" PostId="6001" Score="0" Text="Your body odor is influenced by what you eat. http://www.livestrong.com/article/155243-foods-to-eliminate-body-odor/" CreationDate="2017-06-03T13:29:51.900" UserId="3604" />
  <row Id="8525" PostId="6003" Score="0" Text="How do you define &quot;our habitat&quot;? The Earth, perhaps?" CreationDate="2017-05-23T11:42:30.203" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="8527" PostId="6003" Score="0" Text="Good question! I guess constrained to Earth is a good place to start." CreationDate="2017-05-24T00:21:38.493" UserId="4312" />
  <row Id="8528" PostId="6003" Score="2" Text="Do you mean something like the ecological footprint I described in [this answer](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/a/5853/99)?" CreationDate="2017-05-25T06:41:28.937" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8532" PostId="6003" Score="0" Text="Great answers/questions there. In this case, I'm looking for more than just the consumption of land area, which I understand that one to be. ie, one could have their designated area, but be leaching toxins into the water table, affecting all. Likewise, effecting positive impact to air quality benefits the whole. So after a net impact value, from which people can be measured to degrees under or over this." CreationDate="2017-05-26T23:31:06.227" UserId="4312" />
  <row Id="8533" PostId="6003" Score="1" Text="On page 91 of the [2010 Ecological Footprint Atlas (pdf)](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.660.8339&amp;rep=rep1&amp;type=pdf) they explicitly state &quot;some demands, such as [...] toxic release are excluded from the calculations.&quot; But, the [Chemical Footprint Project](http://www.chemicalfootprint.org/) could be a way to fill that gap." CreationDate="2017-05-28T15:20:25.327" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8530" PostId="6005" Score="2" Text="I think this depends on the city. However, it's likely that if one tries to educate people to be liberal with water use, in the long run we will probably end up using way too much water (probably also in the countryside). I think that flooding pipes with water if and where necessary is probably the better choice. (Also, the flooding water need not be drinking water quality.) I hope someone will write a more insightful answer, so I'll leave it as a comment for now." CreationDate="2017-05-26T00:40:13.323" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="8531" PostId="6005" Score="6" Text="This is the first I've heard of this practice. Do you have any references?" CreationDate="2017-05-26T03:03:51.583" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8558" PostId="6005" Score="1" Text="@LShaver Just to provide *some* reference, [here](https://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article128369660/Wasserspar-Irrsinn-laesst-Deutschlands-Staedte-stinken.html) is an article in German. Maybe using machine translation you can get the gist of it." CreationDate="2017-05-31T13:33:23.930" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="8615" PostId="6005" Score="0" Text="@LShaver (etc.) This is worth a read https://web.sbe.hw.ac.uk/staffprofiles/bdgsa/11th_International_Conference_on_Urban_Drainage_CD/ICUD08/pdfs/503.pdf" CreationDate="2017-06-26T12:41:45.973" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="8616" PostId="6005" Score="0" Text="Something like what you mention was a reason behind combining rainwater and foul water sewers in the past.  It didn't work as well as later systems (see the link in my previous comment).  The point of sewer flushing is that *a lot* of water goes down them *fast*.  You can't make a noticeable difference to that however much water you use -- your connection is too small." CreationDate="2017-06-26T12:56:46.610" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="8539" PostId="6006" Score="1" Text="Do you have any peer reviewed evidence for any of your claims? I do not believe most of what you are saying." CreationDate="2017-05-29T11:54:39.780" UserId="3955" />
  <row Id="8540" PostId="6006" Score="0" Text="@kingledion - I have linked you references ( will be adding more) - I am not here to convince or make you believe, but to provide starting point information to those who might be asking a similar question. &#xA;This will not get resolved in a debate between You and Me linking more evidence. The GMO and Non GMO sides both have enough &quot;evidence&quot; How true each are, is beyond SE. To believe or disbelieve, you have to spend hours &amp; years and form your own conclusion as I have. PS: All this is from 7/8 years of being connected in the space." CreationDate="2017-05-29T12:00:09.293" UserId="2891" />
  <row Id="8543" PostId="6006" Score="0" Text="I'm interested in what you've posted on the Bihari farmers -- particularly if there is additional research on what underlying mechanisms are responsible for the increased yields. The second part of your answer seems more focused on business practices. While I agree with you, it doesn't answer the question. Ethical GMO companies, and unethical organic farms, are both possible, and largely irrelevant to the question of whether organic farming can feed the world." CreationDate="2017-05-29T13:39:18.823" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8545" PostId="6006" Score="0" Text="@LShaver - If you want academic proof you're going the wrong way - These people are grassroutes warriors focussed on doing and teaching rather than cater to talkers. Some of them left corporate jobs and moved to the ground. &#xA;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHPqepxbl7U" CreationDate="2017-05-30T06:57:14.753" UserId="2891" />
  <row Id="8546" PostId="6006" Score="0" Text="@LShaver - All kinds of things exist, there may be unethical organic farms, but I don't see any GMO companies having good intentions - Please point any out to me to back your claims." CreationDate="2017-05-30T06:59:32.113" UserId="2891" />
  <row Id="8548" PostId="6006" Score="1" Text="Thank you for posting so many additional references. The reason that I would like peer-reviewed references, is that gives at least some indication that the content is correct. Anything can simply be posted to the internet. Also, on a more philosophical note, why are you posting this information if you are 'not here to convince you or make you believe?' A statement like that makes me think you are trying to sell me a scam or conspiracy theory or something. If you have good evidence, just post without comment. If you are not trying to convince me, why spend the time posting at all?" CreationDate="2017-05-30T13:40:48.797" UserId="3955" />
  <row Id="8549" PostId="6006" Score="0" Text="@kingledion - There are people who do not wish to change their opinion and already have their thoughts set in stone. It seemed like you were one of those. Even if you were, I posted it as a countering narrative for any others who were truly inquisitive for facts and happen to come across this question - They can decide for themselves which side they wish to believe. PS: The issue with online facts is they are limited truths. I always verify what I can with people on the ground. I never set in stone my stance/ opinion without extensive online &amp; offline evaluation, or I dont post at all" CreationDate="2017-05-30T13:54:05.993" UserId="2891" />
  <row Id="8550" PostId="6006" Score="0" Text="Here's examples of how I do not half ass anything if I'm not sure/ well researched on that  - https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/810/cleaner-alternatives-to-gear-and-chain-oils/5324#5324 | - https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/4907/are-there-any-more-sustainable-alternatives-to-conventional-commercial-toothpast/4945#4945" CreationDate="2017-05-30T13:58:30.707" UserId="2891" />
  <row Id="8551" PostId="6006" Score="0" Text="@AlexS I think you paint academics with a very broad brush. Are you familiar with [Vandana Shiva](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vandana_Shiva)? She is an Indian anti-GMO activist working within academia--I first heard of her when she spoke at University of Wisconsin-Madison, where I attend. There are many such folks, less famous than her, that I have encountered here as well. Some leave corporate jobs and move to the ground, as you suggest: others came from the ground, and split their time in &quot;ivory towers,&quot; so that their knowledge can reach a broader audience and inspire students." CreationDate="2017-05-30T15:24:32.990" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8552" PostId="6006" Score="0" Text="@AlexS as for ethical GMO companies, off the top of my head I know of two examples of researchers developing GMOs for positive purposes:  [golden rice](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_rice), and [GMO bacteria to detect landmines](https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/04/glowing-bacteria-detect-buried-landmines)." CreationDate="2017-05-30T15:29:53.213" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8554" PostId="6006" Score="0" Text="@LShaver - Do you see who owns them? Nothing those companies do is &quot;free&quot; or philanthrophic, just like Facebook." CreationDate="2017-05-30T15:59:46.227" UserId="2891" />
  <row Id="8555" PostId="6006" Score="0" Text="By focusing on a narrow problem (vitamin A deficiency), Shiva argued, golden rice proponents were obscuring the limited availability of diverse and nutritionally adequate food.[43] Other groups argued that a varied diet containing foods rich in beta carotene such as sweet potato, leaf vegetables and fruit would provide children with sufficient vitamin A.[44] Keith West of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health has stated that foodstuffs containing vitamin A are often unavailable, only available at certain seasons, or too expensive for poor families in underdeveloped countries.[8]" CreationDate="2017-05-30T16:01:58.473" UserId="2891" />
  <row Id="8553" PostId="6008" Score="0" Text="Good question! I'm interested to hear what people say. Something to consider is that natural detergents can be used, and the plate drying can be skipped: just open the door after the wash cycle, and let things air dry the old-fashioned way. The main considerations are then energy and water use." CreationDate="2017-05-30T15:34:48.517" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8560" PostId="6008" Score="3" Text="modern dishwashers are quite efficient re water usage - mine does a full load on just under 6L.  Much less than hand dishwashing.  So not necessarily &quot;large amounts of water&quot;.  This is going to come down to balancing energy and water usage on one hand against pollution, landfill, land use for forestry, etc on the other.  Very hard!" CreationDate="2017-06-01T10:58:46.813" UserId="1445" />
  <row Id="8572" PostId="6008" Score="2" Text="Very good question. A Netherland Institut (TNO) discussed this for cups (summary in german: https://www.br.de/radio/bayern1/inhalt/experten-tipps/umweltkommissar/umwelt-plastik-keramik-tasse-100.html): disposable vs. washable cups. They conclude that the disposable cups are in total 20% more efficient. An Austrian-Swiss study gave a similar result. However, this was for mobile use, where the weight for transport contributed to the overall balance. At home, washable cups are probably better. Since its a close call it depends really on the details, and a conclusive answer may not be possible." CreationDate="2017-06-02T09:09:36.580" UserId="1581" />
  <row Id="8574" PostId="6008" Score="1" Text="@ChristianSchmidt your comment could be very interesting as an answer to [this question about plastic cups versus ceramic mugs](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/5173/99)" CreationDate="2017-06-03T15:12:30.400" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8646" PostId="6008" Score="0" Text="Your question seems to ask to compare two things that are barely comparable: dishwasher vs paper plate. To be really accurate in our comparison, I assume we'd have to factor in the manufacturing and raw materials for the dishwasher, the ceramic plates and the detergent as well (and find an average life expectancy or number of loads for dishwashers). This might end up being quite an intricate calculation. There might be some pointers in [this answer](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/a/5174/80), which seems to show that polystyrene plates might be a better bet than paper plates (!)." CreationDate="2017-07-12T02:11:04.923" UserId="80" />
  <row Id="10767" PostId="6008" Score="0" Text="First, I've never seen a dishwasher that held 50 plates, not even a full size larger one. Second, I've also never seen a dishwasher that cleaned dishes that haven't been practically washed first. My son has a super duper new dishwasher and even it requires at least very good rinsing of dishes. Mine, an apartment size, because that is all that will fit in my kitchen, cost over $450, and this is the second one I've had to buy since remodeling my kitchen. It holds, at most 4 dinner plates (thin ones), possibly 12 cereal bowls (top and bottom), and if loaded with bowls may hold 4 glasses. The only" CreationDate="2019-03-08T15:32:35.727" UserId="6435" />
  <row Id="8559" PostId="6009" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainability.SE! Looks like your answer here is not actually an answer to a question, but a response to another answer. Please make sure your answer addresses the original question." CreationDate="2017-06-01T02:25:42.490" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8582" PostId="6009" Score="0" Text="@LShaver. Personally I think this post does provide an answer, albeit a negative one. I changed the order a bit so this is more clear." CreationDate="2017-06-08T07:43:21.117" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8561" PostId="6010" Score="0" Text="I haven't had a chance to browse the form for similar questions like I normally do before asking one, so if there is a similar one I'm sorry. Could you point me in the right direction?" CreationDate="2017-06-01T19:02:35.613" UserId="4504" />
  <row Id="8566" PostId="6010" Score="1" Text="I think the answers at this similar question will help you: [What has a lesser carbon footprint? Continue to drive my current car until it is no longer useful or to buy a new car?](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/2623/99)." CreationDate="2017-06-02T07:38:39.680" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="10472" PostId="6010" Score="1" Text="Depending on the distance you need to cover you could ride a bike or an E-bike." CreationDate="2018-11-28T14:04:37.860" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="10673" PostId="6010" Score="0" Text="Some additional pieces of data that will be needed to answer this question: Where do you live (so we can see what fuels supply electricity to the grid)? What car do you drive (to look up the exact fuel mileage)? What type of driving (mostly highway, mostly city, or a mix)? How much do you drive per year?" CreationDate="2019-01-30T17:08:43.997" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10721" PostId="6010" Score="0" Text="I see the Tesla 3 is a little over $ 50,000 ( out the door price) , so you need to decide for yourself if it &quot;worth it&quot;. I don't know the charging cost , but they may not be high as EV do not pay road taxes like other vehicles." CreationDate="2019-02-20T22:04:34.923" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="8573" PostId="6012" Score="0" Text="This is also done to storm water pipes to ensure the pipes don't get blocked when they are really needed, such as after or during major rainfall events. Also, the potable water supply pipes to houses can sometimes be flushed to remove sediment that can accumulate in them occasionally, particularly if the water supply system is inundated with turbid water especially after or during a drought when the water catchments have no grass of vegetation to prevent run-off water carrying away sediment from catchment walls." CreationDate="2017-06-03T12:28:08.383" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="8585" PostId="6012" Score="0" Text="My city does this on schedule throughout. They use an overpowered power washer that can cut root intrusion and the flow also pushes other blockages to a catcher at the next manhole." CreationDate="2017-06-14T18:17:53.700" UserId="3464" />
  <row Id="8563" PostId="6013" Score="1" Text="I'm not clear on what you're asking. Aren't you asking for opinions here? How does anyone know what the impact of recycling marine plastics into shoes will do? Are you asking what it will do for Adidas? Environment? Other shoe manufacturers?" CreationDate="2017-06-02T05:51:30.423" UserId="1729" />
  <row Id="8565" PostId="6013" Score="0" Text="@Sun I would like to know what is the environmental impact of these new products compared to the traditional version of the same products. Is the environmental impact of the production process the same for both products? Is it different?" CreationDate="2017-06-02T06:06:52.653" UserId="2868" />
  <row Id="8569" PostId="6013" Score="0" Text="This article may be helpful: https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/sustainable-fashion-blog/2014/oct/09/footwear-industry-shoes-trainers-japan-shinto-temples Not sure how you'd do a comparison since there isn't a non-recycled version of the shoe. https://www.dezeen.com/2015/07/08/adidas-parley-sports-shoe-alexander-taylor-recycled-ocean-plastic/  `Taylor constructed the Adidas x Parley shoes using the brand's existing footwear manufacturing process, but replaced the yarns with fibres made from waste plastic and fishing nets.`" CreationDate="2017-06-02T08:33:01.747" UserId="1729" />
  <row Id="8575" PostId="6016" Score="1" Text="You are missing the end-of-life impact (disposal) in your equation. Also to be fair you need to include impacts from manufacturing the plates." CreationDate="2017-06-03T15:19:44.693" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8577" PostId="6019" Score="1" Text="This is a little sideways from the point. Here OP asks about ways to store energy gathered during the day for the night. Besides, be careful with that kerosene!" CreationDate="2017-06-05T08:08:00.117" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="8580" PostId="6019" Score="0" Text="@user4612 / user4616 / user4617 please do not create a new account for every single answer or comment." CreationDate="2017-06-06T07:07:09.357" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8613" PostId="6020" Score="6" Text="This answer is based on a large, IMO unfounded assumption: That all environmental costs can be converted to money *at the same rate*.  If you look at industrial versus domestic energy (or water) costs in many places, you will see that this simply isn't true. The energy used in transport is also almost all fossil fuels with a little biofuel, while the dishwasher could run on anything from 100% coal to 100% solar" CreationDate="2017-06-26T12:37:07.173" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="12518" PostId="6020" Score="1" Text="Who gets along with nothing but plates?  What do you cook the food in?  Do you use plastic flatware?  &quot;Dishwasher vs paper plates&quot; is an incomplete comparison.  You need &quot;Dishwasher vs paper plates and some utensils and some pots with some washing system, maybe mechanical, maybe by-hand&quot;." CreationDate="2020-03-30T12:28:58.283" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="8586" PostId="6026" Score="2" Text="A colleague in India uses a biogas digester to produce cooking fuel for his family of three. They occasionally require supplemental propane, for instance when expecting company. He does not produce enough for heating, but in the climate where he lives there is no need for heating. I will see if he has collected any data on his production/usage." CreationDate="2017-06-14T21:19:45.843" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8587" PostId="6026" Score="0" Text="Do you really mean a temperature range from -25 to -15 °C? Or is it -25 to +15 °C? Also can you please add how much space needs to be heated?" CreationDate="2017-06-15T07:04:19.223" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8588" PostId="6026" Score="0" Text="-15. Let's say 1000 sqft single-story, well insulated house together with heat recovery ventilator." CreationDate="2017-06-15T13:25:47.333" UserId="1177" />
  <row Id="8589" PostId="6026" Score="0" Text="If anyone has done anything like that and has collected numbers, that'll be a solid starting point for a realistic estimation." CreationDate="2017-06-15T14:55:47.150" UserId="1177" />
  <row Id="8591" PostId="6026" Score="0" Text="You mean you want to heat during very cold winter. First calculate how much energy  you need." CreationDate="2017-06-16T06:29:23.903" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="8590" PostId="6027" Score="0" Text="Why do you need batteries when you only want the water to be pumped during the day? you could consider disconnect these to spare them for another usage." CreationDate="2017-06-16T06:26:13.707" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="8592" PostId="6027" Score="0" Text="@J.Chomel I assumed the solar water-pump will require a battery (even during the day), but if that's not the case, the only question I had left is whether the electric(solar) pump will be more prone to get damaged than the windmill if it is used during long periods of time. Thanks" CreationDate="2017-06-16T16:26:33.833" UserId="4640" />
  <row Id="9217" PostId="6027" Score="0" Text="You say that you want to &quot;extract water from an aquifer without stop during the day ... every day&quot;.  I'm puzzled by this.  Why would you want to ask a question about how to constantly extract water from an aquifer *on a sustainability forum*?  It strikes me that any activity requiring non-stop pumping of water from an aquifer is, by its very definition, _unsustainable_.  What are you actually trying to do?" CreationDate="2018-01-25T12:38:21.923" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="9225" PostId="6027" Score="0" Text="@Tim I get what you are saying.The point is not to do it every day of every month of the year but probably a continous week (or less days) from time to time. The problem is that during dry season the water supply is a big issue and it is needed to feed some farm animals (not in a industrial kind of way) and for domestic use. I live in the countryside of a tropical country. The non-stop part comes from my (possibly wrong) understanding that solar pumps don't pump as much water in the same timespam as others(discharge rate I think is called).The goal is not to deplenish one of our water sources." CreationDate="2018-01-26T16:50:41.407" UserId="4640" />
  <row Id="9658" PostId="6027" Score="1" Text="Regarding pumps, you're talking about a &quot;100% duty cycle&quot;.  If you get one that is rated for a lower duty cycle, you will probably ruin it.  If you get one rated for 100% duty cycle, it's probably okay (at least, that's what the rating is supposed to mean).  Solar panels &quot;run&quot; continuously anyway and have no moving parts.  They derate over time but there's no other use you're going to put them to that's any less demanding.  Batteries wear out but it's not clear you actually need or want any in this situation.  Just use all the power you generate as you generate it." CreationDate="2018-05-06T23:32:50.037" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="8596" PostId="6028" Score="2" Text="One should add that a lot of food waste and organic waste is produced outside private households." CreationDate="2017-06-17T18:49:57.200" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="9793" PostId="6028" Score="0" Text="Hello I know it's been a while, but do you have a source for your 0-30% of heat produced number?" CreationDate="2018-06-07T01:59:12.073" UserId="4351" />
  <row Id="9794" PostId="6028" Score="0" Text="I used to design biogas plants and found 20% to be fairly typical, smaller digeters will typically need more heat and there's some flexibility in process temepratures. but no source right now." CreationDate="2018-06-07T07:10:55.980" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="8604" PostId="6029" Score="0" Text="I suspect once a pingo has formed, it's too dangerous to do anything. And if it hasn't formed yet, then there is little point in trying to extract gas." CreationDate="2017-06-22T18:16:29.373" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8606" PostId="6029" Score="2" Text="This is an age of robots and unmanned vehicles and satellite remote sensing. If that gas is bound to leak within the next 50 years, it is better to extract it now to replace the coal and oil that would otherwise stay put for thousands of years." CreationDate="2017-06-24T15:01:40.880" UserId="1177" />
  <row Id="8633" PostId="6030" Score="0" Text="Where I come from RAM means radioactive materials. Definitely not safe for composting!" CreationDate="2017-07-05T18:33:14.363" UserId="3955" />
  <row Id="8600" PostId="6035" Score="1" Text="As others have said - there is a lot of work on flywheel storage, but I don't think anybody is planning to deploy them in domestic settings." CreationDate="2017-06-19T13:57:34.853" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="8622" PostId="6035" Score="1" Text="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flywheel_energy_storage     High power, short term, low capacity seem to be the main characteristics. For domestic applicartions you typically care more about capacity and the time you can keep the energy than about power." CreationDate="2017-07-02T08:25:27.783" UserId="4695" />
  <row Id="10747" PostId="6035" Score="2" Text="[Velkess](https://www.google.com/search?q=velkess) is a name that was going around a few years ago. The company was looking to raise about $50,000 to develop a residential flywheel energy storage system. Eventually, they send the money back because [the project didn't end up being viable](http://www.velkess.com/letter.html)." CreationDate="2019-02-27T21:04:43.027" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8597" PostId="6036" Score="0" Text="While this might be true for your use case, large scale biomass has noteworthy drawbacks, e.g. lack of biodiversity due to large monoculture farming along with fertilization and weed control (both based on an oil fueled industry) or ongoing deforestation. According to [this page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biomass#Environmental_damage) the EIA projected biomass to be less expensive than solar panels which I find quite astonishing given the low effiency of photosynthesis over photovoltaics (even taking the issue of storage into account)." CreationDate="2017-06-18T20:07:34.727" UserId="2072" />
  <row Id="8610" PostId="6039" Score="1" Text="Re specific energy:  For a stationary system, energy stored per unit volume probably is more relevant that energy stored per unit mass." CreationDate="2017-06-25T18:23:00.970" UserId="4671" />
  <row Id="12552" PostId="6041" Score="0" Text="This would be a very expensive hobby." CreationDate="2020-04-16T16:12:44.357" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="8618" PostId="6047" Score="1" Text="Related: https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/225/15" CreationDate="2017-06-28T11:18:23.613" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="8669" PostId="6049" Score="1" Text="Where is the school located, and where will the &quot;bricks&quot; be sent? The shipping impacts may be larger than the offset impacts of removing the garbage from the waste stream. Additionally, trash, bottles, and labor are widely available commodities -- it doesn't make much sense to ship them from one place to another." CreationDate="2017-07-24T18:30:33.083" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8621" PostId="6050" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Thank you for your answer, but using pigs and chickens has already been suggested in another answer. Also feeding scraps to farm animals may not be allowed (e.g. this is the case in the EU)" CreationDate="2017-06-30T07:07:33.903" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8623" PostId="6051" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! It's not energy storage, but perhaps it can be combined with your idea; a few years ago I read an article about the world's first 'blue' energy plant that generates electricity from mixing fresh with salt water: https://www.utwente.nl/en/news/!/2014/11/349878/first-blue-energy-power-plant-opened-ut-made-large-contribution" CreationDate="2017-07-02T10:11:42.617" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8632" PostId="6052" Score="0" Text="g is always 9.8 on the Earth's surface." CreationDate="2017-07-05T18:23:34.200" UserId="3955" />
  <row Id="8624" PostId="6053" Score="3" Text="Why are you interested if it is ethical? You seem to forget the much more important question *Is it effective*? Both depend on your goal(s), which you do not share with us." CreationDate="2017-07-02T18:33:06.207" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="8625" PostId="6053" Score="0" Text="One of the issues with using your containers is how does the store owner know your containers &amp; the containers of all the other customers who would like to have their containers used are totally germ free? How do you ensure that your containers are totally sterile when you hand them over to store owners? Why would store owners want to risk having their food products contaminated with germs from customers containers  which could then expose others to possible food poisoning? How is ethical is that?" CreationDate="2017-07-03T02:58:09.537" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="8626" PostId="6053" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Since your question is about ethics I'm not sure it's on topic here. What exactly is it you are trying to achieve?" CreationDate="2017-07-03T06:45:45.760" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8629" PostId="6053" Score="1" Text="Where are you (please add to the question)? Here in Germany and Holland supermarkets tend to have recycling bins for their customers to use." CreationDate="2017-07-04T20:52:16.957" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="8630" PostId="6053" Score="0" Text="Within what system of ethics do you want an answer? And why? I suggest you ask what the consequences would be and make your own ethical decision." CreationDate="2017-07-04T20:53:55.437" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="8641" PostId="6053" Score="0" Text="How is that sustainable? The packaging has still been used and needs to be disposed of. If you take it home you may well dispose of it more thoughtfully and sustainably than the shop." CreationDate="2017-07-10T12:11:58.277" UserId="1567" />
  <row Id="8713" PostId="6053" Score="0" Text="This is just silly.  I makes it to landfill no matter." CreationDate="2017-08-09T02:56:35.057" UserId="2914" />
  <row Id="8628" PostId="6055" Score="1" Text="Typically a higher voltage is preferable, but wiring will cost more. What's the layout? Is this all within/on one small building? Or spread around a bit? Any wiring going outdoors? Will you plug all your loads directly into the inverter, or use a distribution panel or breaker panel? This question might be a better fit at electronics.SE or DIY.se." CreationDate="2017-07-04T18:40:02.040" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8634" PostId="6055" Score="0" Text="Wiring will be actually be pretty simple as I don't intend to hardwire or install in the walls. Inverter will sit right next to the AC." CreationDate="2017-07-05T20:10:29.080" UserId="4688" />
  <row Id="8639" PostId="6056" Score="0" Text="Good point! I didn't think about the use of the desalination plant as a variable consumer. However, it doesn't have the possibilty to store energy, it can be just used for load shedding." CreationDate="2017-07-08T20:24:31.710" UserId="4693" />
  <row Id="8640" PostId="6058" Score="0" Text="It is true that the original salt content of the water is only raised by 20 %. However, a lot more than 50 million gallons of salt-enriched water are produced. I did the maths again and came to an amount of 5415.52 KWh that is too low for any reasonable operation." CreationDate="2017-07-08T20:45:03.320" UserId="4693" />
  <row Id="8636" PostId="6060" Score="0" Text="See also [Vegetarianism.SE] (and veganism) SE." CreationDate="2017-07-06T11:01:12.137" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="13608" PostId="6060" Score="0" Text="Are you specifically looking for a barrier method? If so the options appear to be rare and expensive. Natural Family Planning (NFP) is the obvious answer but it's difficult for some people. A vasectomy is the other obvious answer, but you need to be quite commited to a low-impact lifestyle for that (I am, I did, it's great)" CreationDate="2021-05-20T05:11:12.283" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15006" PostId="6060" Score="1" Text="@Móż a vasectomy won't work for someone who still wants to have kids at some point down the road, but isn't ready yet, right? Then again, those 100% committed to sustainable living shouldn't consider children at all, due to their environmental impact :)" CreationDate="2021-09-04T14:25:25.830" UserId="1778" />
  <row Id="15029" PostId="6060" Score="0" Text="@WhatHiFi I was asking what the requirements are other than &quot;like a condom, but ecofriendly&quot;, the OP doesn't actually even mention that they're for contraception." CreationDate="2021-09-09T04:40:36.693" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="8673" PostId="6063" Score="0" Text="As some answers have addressed, the lowest-cost solution would be to use DC appliances, which would eliminate the need for an inverter and increase system efficiency. But, if you already have AC appliances, this may not be an option." CreationDate="2017-07-28T15:02:26.880" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8647" PostId="6066" Score="0" Text="Dear downvoter, could you explain me why you downvoted?" CreationDate="2017-07-12T15:30:59.317" UserId="4728" />
  <row Id="8648" PostId="6066" Score="0" Text="It's hard to see how reduced PNG file size could make any measurable impact on sustainability." CreationDate="2017-07-12T22:06:50.773" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="8649" PostId="6066" Score="3" Text="@Earthliŋ that clearly wasn't obvious to the asker though! Do you think a more general question would be better such as &quot;Can website optimisation substantially reduce electricity use for web servers or users' computers?&quot;" CreationDate="2017-07-13T02:43:59.970" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="8651" PostId="6066" Score="0" Text="@HighlyIrregular I think that would be a better question. Of course this topic is always a difficult one. Is the time and effort spent to make something more &quot;sustainable&quot; really worth it? I guess in programming, this would correspond to the question of premature optimisation." CreationDate="2017-07-13T10:48:05.597" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="8650" PostId="6067" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! You say &quot;*...rendering without too much power usage*&quot;. Can you quantify your statements, or provide references to other work where this is explained? How would power consumption of transfer and rendering a .png image compare to transfer and rendering the same image in .jpg or .bmp?" CreationDate="2017-07-13T07:57:40.120" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8654" PostId="6067" Score="1" Text="@THelper, I hope my edit improves the answer.  The fact is that it's a very complex question and would require a lot of research and tests to provide a comprehensive answer.  If you can raise the funding, I could probably find a phd to do the work." CreationDate="2017-07-14T10:41:46.613" UserId="4729" />
  <row Id="8655" PostId="6067" Score="0" Text="Thanks for your edit. It helps a bit, but I was really hoping to see some power consumption numbers. Perhaps no one investigated this so far. One would probably first need to determine some sort of 'standardized' hardware situation to make a good comparison. This could be difficult given the large variety of hardware that's available." CreationDate="2017-07-14T14:04:06.803" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8652" PostId="6069" Score="1" Text="To start with, perhaps you can talk to your landlord and convince him to install double glazing? (see also [How can I get my landlord to install better insulation?](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/306/99))" CreationDate="2017-07-14T06:52:50.540" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8653" PostId="6069" Score="0" Text="Looks like a steel window frame as well? There's a heat leak..." CreationDate="2017-07-14T08:09:55.100" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="12394" PostId="6071" Score="0" Text="This is not an answer to the OP, but recent studies have shown health risks of talc. Sadly talc still works better than alternatives like corn starch. Not your question, but just fyi: https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/chemicals-product-safety/talc.html  https://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancer-causes/talcum-powder-and-cancer.html" CreationDate="2020-02-26T18:20:07.940" UserId="6287" />
  <row Id="8657" PostId="6073" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! It depends on the type of bulbs you want to replace and with what you plan to replace them with, but generally speaking yes replacing bulbs is a good idea if it improves efficiency quite a bit. In the figure in [this answer](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/a/5094/99) you can see that the life-cycle energy of CFL and LEDS is much lower than that of incandescent bulbs. LEDs win over CFLs when it comes to the use of toxic materials." CreationDate="2017-07-17T06:45:40.927" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8660" PostId="6073" Score="0" Text="Related: https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/4468/what-to-do-with-old-unused-incandescent-light-bulbs" CreationDate="2017-07-18T07:39:43.597" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="12192" PostId="6073" Score="0" Text="Here's an example calculation if every household in the US would install one CFL http://worrydream.com/TenBrighterIdeas/" CreationDate="2020-01-19T13:47:39.547" UserId="8208" />
  <row Id="8665" PostId="6080" Score="0" Text="This answer does not add much to the ones already given. Please don't repeat answers." CreationDate="2017-07-21T18:06:23.667" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="8662" PostId="6082" Score="0" Text="Will the battery leak if discharged that low and left for a month in the device?" CreationDate="2017-07-21T15:25:47.387" UserId="679" />
  <row Id="8672" PostId="6086" Score="1" Text="*I want to use solar energy for one appliance* You are not answering that question." CreationDate="2017-07-28T08:03:54.040" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="8679" PostId="6091" Score="1" Text="Do you have any evidence to support your claims?" CreationDate="2017-07-31T15:53:25.793" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8680" PostId="6091" Score="0" Text="What sort of evidence would you like?" CreationDate="2017-08-01T06:55:45.133" UserId="4786" />
  <row Id="8681" PostId="6091" Score="0" Text="Specifically, references regarding the properties of coconut oil you mention, and the toxicity of fluoride. Although I may suggest removing the latter -- fluoride isn't something most people would have around the house, and the debate over it's toxicity (and at what concentrations) is still on-going." CreationDate="2017-08-01T14:43:49.820" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8685" PostId="6091" Score="0" Text="There is no debate that it is toxic, the dentist will warn you not to swallow it if your swish some in your mouth while there, the only question is how much is very toxic." CreationDate="2017-08-03T07:27:04.390" UserId="4786" />
  <row Id="8766" PostId="6095" Score="0" Text="Can you indicate what conditions you want - temp range &amp; humidity, other factors?" CreationDate="2017-08-18T09:44:54.787" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="8770" PostId="6095" Score="0" Text="standard root cellar conditions." CreationDate="2017-08-20T22:33:25.753" UserId="1701" />
  <row Id="10041" PostId="6097" Score="1" Text="I use a similar strategy, however my old CFLs and incandescent bulbs are used for closets, hallways, the attic, and the basement -- places where I don't often use lights, so total energy usage on an annual basis is low." CreationDate="2018-08-16T00:02:35.843" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8692" PostId="6101" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! While I agree with what you are saying, I don't think you're answering the question. It is clear that LEDs are more efficient than incandescent lights and than (many) CFLs, but what if you also take the energy into account for manufacturing the LEDs? What makes answering difficult is that the OP didn't specify what kind of bulbs he has and with what he wants to replace them." CreationDate="2017-08-06T09:25:09.340" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8697" PostId="6102" Score="0" Text="Where should the energy you gather come from? Do you attach your device on top of a boat, so that wave movement make the wheel move back and forth?" CreationDate="2017-08-08T07:47:09.333" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="8700" PostId="6102" Score="0" Text="The mechanism is, hence the flywheel assembly, are in a counterbalance beam (engine) rocked using electromagnets 0.33amps per GPE renewal inside a closed loop. Single rotational direction is maintained by magnetic attachment along the upper transit (see Kinetic wheel yoyo or 'SMOT over unity' on YouTube for basic principle) The question is will a suitable EMF arrangement produce more than 0.33amps per transit from the rotational motion accrued from the mechanism's conversion of GPE to rotational energy?" CreationDate="2017-08-08T09:37:25.267" UserId="4800" />
  <row Id="8729" PostId="6102" Score="2" Text="Andy, have you considered the back-EMF which any electrical load on the output will apply to the &quot;generator?&quot; This will counter-act the kinetic energy of the rolling mass. With such a low incline it will not take much electrical load to slow the mass. Based on the laws of thermodynamics, we know in fact that the energy the mass produces must be less than the energy required to tip the beam and re-start the rolling motion. In a vacuum, and using finely tuned components, you could likely make this mechanism power itself and run a while, but not forever, and not with a surplus of energy." CreationDate="2017-08-09T15:12:00.143" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8730" PostId="6102" Score="1" Text="One point is unclear -- you say you need 0.33 amps to tilt the beam and re-start the mass rolling. This is a measure of current. How much energy is used -- that is, 0.33 amps at what voltage, over what time period?" CreationDate="2017-08-09T15:15:38.737" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8738" PostId="6102" Score="0" Text="At present I am looking at using 2 electromagnet solenoid Lift Holding, 12V DC, 0.33 amps, 50N.  2 activations are used per 'orbit' at 1 orbit per second.  See new picture synopsis for clearer explanation." CreationDate="2017-08-10T11:31:57.330" UserId="4800" />
  <row Id="8740" PostId="6102" Score="0" Text="LShaver, thank you for you input re: back EMF. That's the aspect I wish to reduce - though in ignorance I assume that the centripetal ability of the assembly, especially once momentum is accrued, will 'out weigh' the back EMF?!? Thanks again." CreationDate="2017-08-10T12:00:37.287" UserId="4800" />
  <row Id="8741" PostId="6102" Score="0" Text="Note also that I have fumbled with the inclusion of a commutator system set to bridge each coil set into the main circuit at Middle Dead Centre.  Accepting there may be loss of induction, to me it appears 'motor effect' may be gained??" CreationDate="2017-08-10T12:03:44.283" UserId="4800" />
  <row Id="9108" PostId="6102" Score="0" Text="Independent of whether this machine works or not: this question is not in scope of sustainability.SE. It is in the scope of Physics.SE or Engineering.SE." CreationDate="2017-12-16T12:48:16.987" UserId="3641" />
  <row Id="9123" PostId="6102" Score="0" Text="@daniel.neumann Personally I think it can be on-topic on Physics SE, Engineering SE and Sustainability SE, but I do agree that Physics or Engineering is a more likely choice for such a question. Let's see if the community will close this question." CreationDate="2017-12-17T12:27:23.307" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="12438" PostId="6102" Score="2" Text="I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it is about perpetual motion machines." CreationDate="2020-03-03T18:33:36.757" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8696" PostId="6103" Score="3" Text="How do you interpret his design as a perpetual motion machine? Frankly, I don't understand his description *at all*, and only assuming that I don't know enough about engineering kept me from flagging it as 'unclear'." CreationDate="2017-08-07T13:58:46.160" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="8699" PostId="6103" Score="1" Text="@JanDoggen AFAICT, he's using electricity to rock the beam, then trying to harvest the resultant kinetic energy to generate electricity" CreationDate="2017-08-08T08:00:14.430" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="8707" PostId="6103" Score="0" Text="Jan Doggen, it is possible to see the 'mechanical' principle on YouTube under 'SMOT over unity'.  Leaving aside the over unity reference it shows a ball bearing magnetically attached inside a closed loop and perpetuated by the guy's finger movement (manual work).  I've replaced the ball bearing with a flywheel assembly and the manual work with electromagnets and a pivot.  It costs 0.33 amps per repositioning of the beam to accrue high speed rotational energy.  This is what I am attempting to 'harvest'." CreationDate="2017-08-08T10:12:01.573" UserId="4800" />
  <row Id="8743" PostId="6103" Score="0" Text="As stated in the new 'picture synopsis' please be specific to the aspects of the concept.  I'm not interested in unrelated regurgitated knowledge which tries to justify someone's misunderstanding." CreationDate="2017-08-10T12:35:38.787" UserId="4800" />
  <row Id="8765" PostId="6104" Score="1" Text="I started to write an answer, but there is so many conflicting advice that I gave up. I suggest you [google all these yourself](https://www.google.nl/search?q=storing+nimh+batteries), and **follow links through to the actual recommendations from the manufacturers**. There are too many unreferenced opinions. (That goes for Jason's answer here as well, sorry). If you  come to an unambigious conclusion it may be worth self-answering your question here, with all these references." CreationDate="2017-08-18T07:45:19.170" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="8772" PostId="6105" Score="1" Text="Interesting answer. Could you provide a reference?" CreationDate="2017-08-21T21:36:33.970" UserId="3641" />
  <row Id="8706" PostId="6106" Score="0" Text="Gravity is a constant at 9.81N, the mechanism accumulates inertia.  Rolling 1.5Kg down an incline (and the flywheel assembly is continually made to roll downhill by rocking the beam) The losses incurred in the 'beam engine' are the pivot and (at start up) 1.5Kg.  This take 0.33amps." CreationDate="2017-08-08T10:02:25.920" UserId="4800" />
  <row Id="8709" PostId="6106" Score="1" Text="@Andy, You are correct, except you cannot collect more energy than what was used to bring the wheel up. We are just trying to help you save time and think of something better. A system like yours might be able to harvest energy if it has energy input, e.g. from see waves." CreationDate="2017-08-08T10:50:41.797" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="8711" PostId="6106" Score="0" Text="I don't believe you are fully conversant with the principle of the mechanism, so I've added a compilation of pictures to help you.  Norman Rockwell's picture would be rather amusing if only I hadn't come across such mechanisms that adhere to the conservation of energy, when I was so young and ignorant." CreationDate="2017-08-08T15:41:23.767" UserId="4800" />
  <row Id="8712" PostId="6106" Score="0" Text="@Andy, as long as the wheel is set to its original position with electricity generated from your system, it will require more electricity to get there than it can possibly generate when it goes down. Do we agree on this?" CreationDate="2017-08-08T17:55:52.700" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="8718" PostId="6106" Score="0" Text="No. Start up energy, as with most machines requires more input than say an internal combustion engine at cruising speed.  The proposed machine at working speed, 1600RPM, uses (now less than) 0.66amps per second per orbit." CreationDate="2017-08-09T12:29:00.783" UserId="4800" />
  <row Id="8719" PostId="6106" Score="0" Text="If only say, 3 coil sets were used (per orbit per second) then depending on the EMF arrangement employed it is highly unlikely that 1.5Kg will have resistance/s incurred that will stop the system from been periodically (GPE) renewed." CreationDate="2017-08-09T12:29:38.590" UserId="4800" />
  <row Id="8720" PostId="6106" Score="0" Text="An experiment was than a standstill BUT on a small diameter axle which produced a reasonably fast speed of rotational energy before the incline (0.4m long) ran out.  Neither the rotor (adorned with magnets) or the coils were calibrated to each other yet we got an output reading." CreationDate="2017-08-09T12:30:08.217" UserId="4800" />
  <row Id="8721" PostId="6106" Score="0" Text="The patented system is fully calibrated and geared and takes 5 complete orbits (10 e-magnet activations (3.3amps)) to reach 1600RPM. Coils cannot carry a current (or incur resistance/s) until the main circuit is switched on." CreationDate="2017-08-09T12:30:41.697" UserId="4800" />
  <row Id="8722" PostId="6106" Score="0" Text="Hence, my initial attempt to find someone with an open mind that can apply their knowledge, as opposed to those who simply store knowledge like a biological database." CreationDate="2017-08-09T12:31:38.490" UserId="4800" />
  <row Id="8723" PostId="6106" Score="0" Text="I require someone with electrical engineering skills to help identify the best (least resistant) EMF arrangement.  I assure you, the system works.  The question is how well will it work, and that's down to how much resistance the 1.5Kg @ 1m per second can negotiate." CreationDate="2017-08-09T12:32:05.157" UserId="4800" />
  <row Id="8724" PostId="6106" Score="0" Text="Apart from a 0.03660132 m (180' turn) upwards during the beam's repositioning, the 1.5Kg is constantly rolling downhill - and accelerating up to terminal velocity or held at a working speed by the regulation of supplementary inputs. ." CreationDate="2017-08-09T12:32:35.367" UserId="4800" />
  <row Id="8725" PostId="6106" Score="0" Text="Yes, I agree with what you say about what you are seeing... Though there are variations such as the energy to push a bowling ball 2mm and off a balcony will be massively less than the energy it imparts when it hits the ground!? If one did the pushing with an e-magnet then converted the impact of the ball at the ground into electricity and ran it back into the battery that powered the e-mag... ...the problem is getting the bowling ball back to the start again!  The mechanism I've openly disclosed on this sustainable oriented site does put the mass back to the start, and extremely efficiently" CreationDate="2017-08-09T12:32:43.207" UserId="4800" />
  <row Id="8726" PostId="6106" Score="0" Text="PS. How does one remove the irrelevant comments and pictures from their question page?" CreationDate="2017-08-09T12:40:13.173" UserId="4800" />
  <row Id="8727" PostId="6106" Score="0" Text="NOTE: ...the climb (and clearance/air gap variation) is 0.00366 m, just under 4mm ...and I'm aware of engineering quality and material considerations." CreationDate="2017-08-09T12:45:26.017" UserId="4800" />
  <row Id="8728" PostId="6106" Score="0" Text="@Andy, I am not able to explain what ***I think*** is wrong with your reasoning, because I don't speak English well enough, and my mechanical background is kind of far away... But if you are right, thank you, you saved humanity(However, the odd you did are small: ***my opinion*** is you mix potential energy and renewable energy in your system)!! Be thanked a thousand time. We'll never need to arm environment again with stupid carbon emissions." CreationDate="2017-08-09T13:11:40.987" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="8739" PostId="6106" Score="0" Text="J. Chomel, my apologies for any provocative text 'I' have entered - perhaps the brain haemorrhage I suffered has affected my social skills!? Though I can assure you I am a fully qualified Eco Designer specialising in Innovation and Eco Design and not an over enthusiastic garden shed amateur! Thanks for your input..." CreationDate="2017-08-10T11:38:37.323" UserId="4800" />
  <row Id="8737" PostId="6107" Score="0" Text="I think [my answer](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/a/6114/99) to your 'blister pack' question also answers this question because the biscuit wrapper you posted is also a combination of plastic and aluminium. Again there is a recycler that accepts biscuit wrappers (the Terracycle company I mentioned before even has [a special program for it in the UK](http://www.terracycle.co.uk/en-UK/brigades/22)), but there seem to be very few other recyclers, so the chance of one being near you is slim. Are you okay with closing this question as a duplicate of your other question?" CreationDate="2017-08-10T09:34:15.933" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8745" PostId="6107" Score="0" Text="Okay, voted to close the question. Didn't know they are of the same type." CreationDate="2017-08-10T15:59:58.773" UserId="2734" />
  <row Id="8769" PostId="6107" Score="3" Text="I'd say this could be a standalone question. In Australia, the RedCycle program recycles soft plastics, including the one depicted here, but does not include blister packs in their lists of accepted items." CreationDate="2017-08-20T07:09:40.450" UserId="80" />
  <row Id="9125" PostId="6111" Score="0" Text="How does the system control humidity?" CreationDate="2017-12-17T20:55:49.650" UserId="2914" />
  <row Id="8731" PostId="6112" Score="1" Text="A lot will depend on: 1) Where you live -- how cold does it get, and for how much of the year will you need to heat your home? 2) What type of candles are you considering? Some are made of petroleum products, others from natural sources (whose production may or may not be sustainable). In addition, shall we assume you've taken steps such as improving insulation, sealing cracks, wearing sweaters, etc?" CreationDate="2017-08-09T20:53:29.413" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8732" PostId="6112" Score="0" Text="@LShaver 1) Germany, max. -14 °C, heating period from October to April 2) basically the cheapest from the nearby candle factory, which are tealights (best price per kilogram of wax), undoubtedly they are petroleum based. I'm open for suggestions here, but bee wax is of course (currently?) much more expensive, which needs to be considered. 3) Tight wattle and daub house (basically wood and clay), no insulation, but a low room temperature like 15 °C, 18 °C in bath rooms, is totally fine." CreationDate="2017-08-09T21:11:51.733" UserId="4813" />
  <row Id="8734" PostId="6113" Score="1" Text="Thank you – so much for gas, but what about electricity, and the environmental footprint of candles in comparison to electricity/gas/oil? Soot is annoying without question, but is it also unhealthy?" CreationDate="2017-08-10T06:16:18.430" UserId="4813" />
  <row Id="8735" PostId="6113" Score="2" Text="@dessert Soot is definitely unhealthy. It is the #1 cause of respiratory problems in countries where people cook indoors on wood fires." CreationDate="2017-08-10T07:58:20.973" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="8736" PostId="6113" Score="2" Text="@dessert The difference of gas and electricity it at most a factor 3. You candles still lose.  So the only question left open is the ecological effects of production." CreationDate="2017-08-10T07:59:10.747" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="8753" PostId="6113" Score="1" Text="It's worth noting that allowing for adequate ventilation to avoid carbon monoxide problems decreases the efficiency of the heating. It's also worth noting that unflued gas heaters cause numerous problems so are best avoided. More details here: http://www.health.govt.nz/your-health/healthy-living/environmental-health/household-items-and-electronics/unflued-gas-heaters" CreationDate="2017-08-14T22:08:16.573" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="8746" PostId="6114" Score="0" Text="Thank you. Assuming that they are not recyclable in the locality, would it be meaningless to segregate them at home, better to let them join the landfill or wherever ? What benefits does segregation have for non-recyclable items or for items whose recycling is a far-fetched option locally ?" CreationDate="2017-08-10T21:10:39.013" UserId="2734" />
  <row Id="8747" PostId="6114" Score="1" Text="If there is no option for reuse or recycle, then there is indeed no point in segregating it. The only exception I can think of is if you expect it to be reusable or recyclable in your area in the near future and you're willing to store it yourself until that time comes." CreationDate="2017-08-11T06:40:53.797" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8748" PostId="6116" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! PCF = TCF + recycled content, so any product classified as PCF is also TCF. Or are you looking for TCF paper which isn't PCF?" CreationDate="2017-08-11T13:31:17.347" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8749" PostId="6116" Score="0" Text="@THelper Thanks for your answer. Can you give a source for the information? I wasn't aware of that fact. And yes, it's also good to know whether pure TCF exists." CreationDate="2017-08-11T13:42:37.707" UserId="4817" />
  <row Id="8751" PostId="6117" Score="0" Text="when you say &quot;properties&quot; do you mean mainly density and calorific values? I'm assuming you do in which case look at the following pdf from AEBIOM:&#xA;file:///C:/Users/luke_/Downloads/wood_fuels_handbook.pdf" CreationDate="2017-08-11T22:10:42.797" UserId="4104" />
  <row Id="8763" PostId="6117" Score="1" Text="@luke_mclachlan You cannot upload a pdf file in a comment. I recommend linking to the original source or upload it yourself to an external service." CreationDate="2017-08-18T07:17:19.940" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8847" PostId="6117" Score="0" Text="[The PDF is widely available](https://www.google.nl/search?q=wood_fuels_handbook.pdf)" CreationDate="2017-09-20T09:11:13.633" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="8848" PostId="6117" Score="0" Text="If you are considering to renovated your heating: Particularly old wood burning stoves lead to quite high emissions of particles and volatile organic compounds [(e.g. Johansson et al., 2004)](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1352231004004212). I remember from some conferences that pellet stoves burn their 'fuel' more efficiently than wood log stoves. However, I cannot find a reference for that ... . Maybe [Bølling et al., 2009](https://particleandfibretoxicology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1743-8977-6-29) gives some insights." CreationDate="2017-09-20T15:10:44.013" UserId="3641" />
  <row Id="8761" PostId="6121" Score="1" Text="If your goal is to be as energy efficient as possible, then it's best to turn it off (or hibernate if your OS supports that) AND unplugging it. If you keep a laptop plugged in it will try to recharge the battery every now and then." CreationDate="2017-08-17T08:27:06.710" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8806" PostId="6121" Score="0" Text="But if you unplug it, it will still (slowly) discharge the battery @THelper?" CreationDate="2017-09-03T03:33:40.027" UserId="399" />
  <row Id="8807" PostId="6121" Score="0" Text="@Carpetsmoker good point! Yes, it will discharge slowly but for Li-Ion batteries (the most common battery for laptops) it will be [very little](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery#Self-discharge) and [keeping a Li-Ion battery constantly at 100% will shorten its life](http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/charging_lithium_ion_batteries). It may be beneficial to leave it plugged it over night every once in a while, but that depends on your charger. In any case, sleep mode will cost more energy than shut down or hibernate (plugged in or not)." CreationDate="2017-09-03T11:40:40.997" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8755" PostId="6122" Score="6" Text="The article is for a desktop computer but the OP asks about a laptop. The core difference being that as long as the laptop is plugged in, it might charge the battery when it sees fit. And that charging uses extra energy compared with e.g. the battery having been removed. So there's actually 4 states to consider: the combinations of standby/shut down with plugged in/unplugged. That doesn't really change much about your answer, but it could make a difference. Which should be measured to know how much it matters." CreationDate="2017-08-16T18:46:55.127" UserId="4158" />
  <row Id="8781" PostId="6122" Score="0" Text="@stijn: Fair points, but what is also missing is the power consumed to restart the computer (and perhaps return it to the ‘steady state’): is that a significant element? Obviously it varies from one user to another, depending on how many programmes they keep running in steady state use of the computer." CreationDate="2017-08-23T13:07:09.237" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="8782" PostId="6122" Score="0" Text="@PJTraill I doubt that the couple of minutes (at max) it takes for starting up the computer is of any significance compared to all the hours it is powered on since the OP says the laptop is used all day long. But again: would have to be measured to make sure." CreationDate="2017-08-23T14:12:31.523" UserId="4158" />
  <row Id="8805" PostId="6122" Score="1" Text="You need to be careful with power meters for these sort of low-power devices as not all of them measure low-power devices accurately. Many popular ones are only guaranteed to be accurate with 5W or more." CreationDate="2017-09-03T03:32:58.873" UserId="399" />
  <row Id="8762" PostId="6123" Score="5" Text="Just answer the question please. There is no calculation about the open door in your answer. And [edit] out all your opinions and do something about the [wall of text](http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Wall_of_Text)" CreationDate="2017-08-17T11:35:48.133" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="8870" PostId="6124" Score="0" Text="The OP is UK based. None of the species listed are commonly available for firewood in the UK. The unit &quot;cord&quot; is not used in the UK. Therefore, the answer does NOT address the OP's question......" CreationDate="2017-10-03T22:03:42.597" UserId="4885" />
  <row Id="8871" PostId="6124" Score="0" Text="http://www.nativeforestry.co.uk/firewood.html lists ash, beech, and sycamore.  And I know from my Monty Python that Larch is a well known and respected tree in England.  I'd be happy to update the answer with more commonly available UK species, though, if anyone would like to suggest some." CreationDate="2017-10-03T23:10:59.473" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="8879" PostId="6124" Score="0" Text="Beech (in UK) is Fagus sylvatica, not Carpinus caroliniana. Ash (in UK) is Fraxinus excelsior not F. nigra. Sycamore (in UK) is Acer pseudoplatanus, not Platanus occidentalis. Larch (in UK) is typically Larix kaempferi (a non native) not Larix laricina. Cottonwood only grown as specimens and would not be generally available as firewood. Just because a common name is shared by plants on different continents, doesn't mean that they refer to the same species; that's the whole point of the binomial nomenclature ( two part latin'ish botanical name)" CreationDate="2017-10-04T19:51:44.353" UserId="4885" />
  <row Id="8771" PostId="6126" Score="1" Text="What is it you want to compost? Food leftovers?" CreationDate="2017-08-21T06:39:46.687" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8774" PostId="6126" Score="1" Text="@THelper yes - vegetable scraps mostly" CreationDate="2017-08-21T22:24:52.687" UserId="4170" />
  <row Id="8775" PostId="6126" Score="0" Text="I agree with J.Chomel's answer and recommend vermicomposting, unless a lot of your scraps are unsuitable to be processed by the worms. Then bokashi composting or a combination of bokashi and vermicomposting could be better. Both methods don't require turning or lots of space. Another thing to consider is what you'll do with the compost you produce." CreationDate="2017-08-22T06:47:07.560" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8776" PostId="6126" Score="0" Text="BTW there are several related questions that may help you: [How to aerate compost without turning?](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/322/99), [Is it feasible to compost in an apartment in a city like New York?](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/7/99) and [Indoor composting with limited space](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/2973/99)" CreationDate="2017-08-22T06:52:12.227" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8778" PostId="6127" Score="2" Text="I think that it should be mentioned that, especially for food leftovers that can get pretty soggy, aerating the compost is necessary for efficient aerobic decomposition. A pile of food leftovers left without bulky carbon-rich material and without turning risks creating an wet anaerobic layer at the bottom, that will produce a lot more CO2-equivalent by releasing extra methane (and it will probably smell bad)." CreationDate="2017-08-23T06:43:34.053" UserId="80" />
  <row Id="8783" PostId="6129" Score="3" Text="Cross posting is generally not permitted (see [Is cross-posting a question on multiple Stack Exchange sites permitted if the question is on-topic for each site?](https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/64068/is-cross-posting-a-question-on-multiple-stack-exchange-sites-permitted-if-the-qu)). [Here is the cross-post](https://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/65210/which-invasive-plants-can-grow-on-human-waste)." CreationDate="2017-08-24T02:09:35.667" UserId="3815" />
  <row Id="8784" PostId="6129" Score="3" Text="Why use an invasive plant? That's just asking for an ecological disaster to occur later on. It's always better to use plants native to a location. When you mention human waste, I'm assuming you mean waste produced by the human body. In which case, it's like any other animal fertilizer, but for some people with a significant &quot;yuck factor&quot;. Human waste is still used as a fertilizer on crops in parts of the world." CreationDate="2017-08-24T03:17:05.997" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="8785" PostId="6129" Score="0" Text="@Fred ecological disaster shouldn't happen, it will be on the isolated territory, I just hope for a plant that grows as aggressively as invasive species. I know that human waste is a fertilizer, but as far as I know most plants can't grow on soil oversaturated with fertilizer, so that is a part of a question" CreationDate="2017-08-24T03:48:11.693" UserId="4847" />
  <row Id="8786" PostId="6129" Score="1" Text="**Please do not raise invasive plants!** They by definition will become out of control and destroy surrounding ecosystems little by little or very quick. Maybe you just mean strong, robust, fast-growing plant?" CreationDate="2017-08-24T06:33:23.353" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="8787" PostId="6129" Score="1" Text="Your assumption that there can be no native plants growing as aggressively as certain invasive species is incorrect." CreationDate="2017-08-24T08:06:50.690" UserId="4158" />
  <row Id="8788" PostId="6129" Score="0" Text="@J. Chomel yes, you are right, I want a plant that could grow as robustly in these conditions of highly fertilized soil. I thought invasive to be the term, but apparently it also implies a non-native and harmful plant" CreationDate="2017-08-24T08:57:52.307" UserId="4847" />
  <row Id="8789" PostId="6129" Score="0" Text="I edited your OP accordingly. Do you want to  know this for a specific part of the world? Where? (edit your original post, because comments will get lost with time).," CreationDate="2017-08-24T09:14:41.473" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="8796" PostId="6129" Score="0" Text="A related answer, about which tree stores the most CO2: https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/a/788/3293" CreationDate="2017-08-28T08:15:39.350" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="8790" PostId="6130" Score="0" Text="As noted by one answer in https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/38122/is-flying-the-worst-choice-of-travelling-considering-the-greenhouse-effect-and/38179#38179 the article compares short range commuting (car, local train) and flying. This might not be a reasonable comparison." CreationDate="2017-08-25T09:26:43.527" UserId="3641" />
  <row Id="8791" PostId="6130" Score="0" Text="Another point to note: flying is faster than taking a train or a car when you travel long distances - e.g. &gt; 1000 km. If we would not have planes we would not travel as long distances as we do. Most people would not do long distance business and holiday trips if they had to travel a week by car, train or ship to there destination location. Thus, comparing emissions per person km might be miss-leading." CreationDate="2017-08-25T09:30:27.750" UserId="3641" />
  <row Id="8792" PostId="6131" Score="1" Text="The question you've asked is about energy, but the answer you've given is about emissions: this isn't really what we're looking for. Please edit one or the other so that they match" CreationDate="2017-08-26T12:49:03.233" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="8811" PostId="6131" Score="0" Text="As you've noted, this is a bit unfair, given that most of Sweden's electricity is from hydro and nuclear sources - it doesn't necessarily apply to many other places in the world." CreationDate="2017-09-04T08:24:15.457" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="8798" PostId="6134" Score="1" Text="The pump is irrelevant. Just calculate the potential energy stored in that amount lifted that high (m * g * h) (I'm not doing that in an answer because the non-metric quantities are too complicated for me). Note that you can never fully reclaim that energy, because of conversion losses." CreationDate="2017-08-30T07:59:09.170" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="8803" PostId="6134" Score="0" Text="Thanks. I finally worked through it. The theoretical energy value (68.9 w) is quite a bit more than it takes to power the pump (24 w). That leaves 44.9 w" CreationDate="2017-08-31T17:15:10.110" UserId="4856" />
  <row Id="8910" PostId="6134" Score="0" Text="Anthony, I'm not sure where/how you got 68.9, but w (I assume W) is Watts and is a rate of energy transfer (Joules/second) not a measure of energy itself (which Joules is).  As per LShaver's answer, the total stored energy is ~18.3kJ.  A 1W pump would draw (1*60*60*24=) 86.4kJ over 24h.  You have thus used 86.4kJ of electrical energy to store 18.3kJ of potential energy — making your pump (18.3/86.4=) 21% efficient.  As Jan says, you can never, ever, get more energy out of a system than you put into a system due to losses and the Law of Conservation of Energy." CreationDate="2017-10-11T10:06:48.110" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="8797" PostId="6135" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! We also value posts that answer the question partially." CreationDate="2017-08-30T07:22:44.000" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8854" PostId="6136" Score="0" Text="@Paparazzi - could you elaborate on that statement?" CreationDate="2017-09-26T12:21:07.703" UserId="1701" />
  <row Id="8799" PostId="6137" Score="0" Text="Well, all septic systems on the island are also &quot;in the aquifer.&quot; The alternative would be to &quot;discard&quot; the gray water through irrigation or some other disposal - and that definitely would negatively affect water quantity." CreationDate="2017-08-30T12:56:17.060" UserId="1701" />
  <row Id="8800" PostId="6137" Score="0" Text="@ThatIdiot: when you wrote &quot;water is returned directly to the source&quot;, in the 2nd paragraph, I read that as putting the grey water directly into the aquifer. If you're putting the grey water into septic tank &amp; there is no interaction between the seepage from the septic tank &amp; the aquifer you should be OK. But, if the septic tank is within the recharge zone for the aquifer then contamination problems could occur. Check how the aquifer normally get recharged." CreationDate="2017-08-30T16:06:04.827" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="8801" PostId="6137" Score="0" Text="&quot;If you're putting the grey water into septic tank &amp; there is no interaction between the seepage from the septic tank &amp; the aquifer you should be OK. But, if the septic tank is within the recharge zone for the aquifer then contamination problems could occur.&quot; - This is exactly what does happen in every house on the island - there is nothing but sand/clay between the well and septic. There are Health Department regulations specifying separations which ensure that there is no bacteriological contamination, but nitrates are a large problem." CreationDate="2017-08-30T18:00:57.400" UserId="1701" />
  <row Id="8802" PostId="6137" Score="0" Text="So my concern is with water quantity - not quality - since there is really nothing else to do with the gray water. What would you do, truck it away? It must go into the ground." CreationDate="2017-08-30T18:02:15.863" UserId="1701" />
  <row Id="8909" PostId="6138" Score="0" Text="54gal == 204.4L; 30' == 9.14m; Ep = 204.4*9.81*9.14 = 18,327J == 5.1Wh; 5.1/24 = 0.21W" CreationDate="2017-10-11T09:43:11.313" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="8804" PostId="6140" Score="1" Text="tip: if you use it as an alarm/watch you can put it on airplane mode to further increase its energy efficiency. Just remember to switch it on from time to time to synchronize the clock." CreationDate="2017-09-01T10:53:09.717" UserId="2605" />
  <row Id="11860" PostId="6140" Score="0" Text="@vaz None of the &quot;dumb&quot; phones I had had airplane mode. There was a trick where you could select nonexistent network to disconnect from network, but that was about it. Also, without network, the phones cannot synchronize their time." CreationDate="2019-11-20T12:36:59.003" UserId="8149" />
  <row Id="8808" PostId="6141" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! There are a few reuse tips on [wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altoids#Altoids_tins)" CreationDate="2017-09-03T11:50:42.107" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8809" PostId="6142" Score="1" Text="*alt them*? Is that a typo?" CreationDate="2017-09-03T17:53:41.693" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="8818" PostId="6145" Score="0" Text="Each home has its own well and its own septic system (with a few minor exceptions). There is no municipal water works for the vast majority of the inhabitants. There IS a push now to implement low nitrogen septic systems that actively manage water to effect biological N reduction, and those systems do, indeed, use electricity. But currently it is all small passive systems." CreationDate="2017-09-05T11:27:04.887" UserId="1701" />
  <row Id="8815" PostId="6146" Score="0" Text="Related: https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/2505/15" CreationDate="2017-09-05T04:38:10.030" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="8816" PostId="6146" Score="2" Text="Get around this? - You don't, not fully. But it's not as if there is no steel/coal/gas left, or that pollution and resource usage has to go down to absolute zero." CreationDate="2017-09-05T07:35:30.523" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="8817" PostId="6146" Score="3" Text="This is rather hard to answer unless you can [edit] in an explanation of what **you** mean by &quot;sustainable&quot; in this context. Do bear in mind that sustainability is a continuum, not a binary yes/no thing." CreationDate="2017-09-05T08:50:43.920" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="8819" PostId="6147" Score="0" Text="Do you know the chemical composition of the stone? I'm assuming _alum_ indicates it contains aluminum?" CreationDate="2017-09-05T19:15:07.990" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8820" PostId="6147" Score="1" Text="@LShaver https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alum &quot;An alum block sold as an astringent in pharmacies in India (where it is widely known as Fitkari (Hindi) or Phitkari (Urdu)&quot;" CreationDate="2017-09-05T20:40:15.213" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="8821" PostId="6147" Score="0" Text="It looks like you can't. From https://www.revolvy.com/topic/Alum: *When heated, they liquefy, and if the heating is continued, the water of crystallization is driven off, the salt froths and swells, and at last an amorphous powder remains*" CreationDate="2017-09-06T08:57:55.850" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="8824" PostId="6147" Score="0" Text="I don't think you can mould it, but one can relatively easily grow large single crystals of Alum (it is a popular childrens' science experiment).  Google &quot;growing Alum crystals&quot; for info.  I don't know how easy it would be to scale this process up however.  Another alternative may be to press powder/fine crystals together - though you would need some form of binder and would need to invest in machinery." CreationDate="2017-09-07T14:18:20.750" UserId="1445" />
  <row Id="8834" PostId="6158" Score="0" Text="I said I have hundreds of cans and I don't take hundreds of different kinds of medications. What would I do with hundreds of altoid cans full of pills. That's an idea for one altoid can, not hundreds." CreationDate="2017-09-16T19:18:20.817" UserId="4863" />
  <row Id="8844" PostId="6163" Score="1" Text="haven't tested / verified, but this sounds well-reasoned" CreationDate="2017-09-18T18:58:29.637" UserId="3288" />
  <row Id="8826" PostId="6164" Score="0" Text="What kind of floor do you have, and how much handyman work are you able to put in yourself?" CreationDate="2017-09-14T22:51:13.043" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="8933" PostId="6165" Score="0" Text="Capital costs are high, and long term reliability isn't great, especially in cold climates." CreationDate="2017-10-20T14:48:39.237" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="8825" PostId="6166" Score="2" Text="You raise good points, but I think this works better as a comment." CreationDate="2017-09-14T15:58:15.963" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8827" PostId="6167" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! How is this answering the question exactly? What kind of soap do you propose?" CreationDate="2017-09-15T08:23:30.987" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8828" PostId="6167" Score="0" Text="The type of soap is less important than the method of application. Most types of soap are suitable. I find that regular bath soap works well. Even home made lye and fat soaps work surprisingly well. A major feature of a well formed soap lather is that it doesn't readily clog your razor as it easily dissolves in warm water." CreationDate="2017-09-15T12:07:56.583" UserId="4885" />
  <row Id="8832" PostId="6167" Score="0" Text="@Conor - We know the method, we are talking about MATERIAL, not METHOD; MATERIAL &quot;soap&quot; / &quot;cream&quot; / &quot;foam&quot; alternatives that are natural and maybe even made from edible substances e.g. Coconut oil etc." CreationDate="2017-09-16T13:10:46.337" UserId="2891" />
  <row Id="8836" PostId="6167" Score="1" Text="@Alex Soap is made from fat (usually animal fat for hard soaps) and lye, both are extremely natural ingredients" CreationDate="2017-09-17T00:02:55.163" UserId="4885" />
  <row Id="8829" PostId="6169" Score="1" Text="Can you provide a link to the report? Any idea of this is being used commercially yet? What's the cost?" CreationDate="2017-09-15T15:13:14.260" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8830" PostId="6169" Score="0" Text="@LShaver: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0085289" CreationDate="2017-09-15T15:54:07.453" UserId="4885" />
  <row Id="8831" PostId="6169" Score="0" Text="@LShaver: Cost of the seaweed in the diet?  I buy it at about EUR400/t, and feed about 75g/day per animal about EUR0.07/day. I put out about 3.5Kg/day for 45 cows, on their silage. I only use in winter as that's the only time I feed them, the rest of the year they're out on grass." CreationDate="2017-09-15T15:57:35.577" UserId="4885" />
  <row Id="10356" PostId="6169" Score="0" Text="This answer is only about methane reduction for cattle. It does not answer the question about different animals." CreationDate="2018-10-31T13:11:31.180" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="10382" PostId="6169" Score="0" Text="As methane is a significant part of the carbon footprint of production, I believe the answer is valid. The feeding of seaweed products to ruminants, other than cattle, may prove to be highly effective in reducing the production of methane. Obviously, this has no relevance to the production of cheese using milk derived from non ruminant mammals!" CreationDate="2018-11-07T23:32:01.550" UserId="4885" />
  <row Id="12269" PostId="6169" Score="0" Text="Note the article and paper seem to refer to different things.  The paper is explicitly not about ruminants (mono gastric livestock (chicken, swine and fish)) but the article talks about cows.  Their digestive systems are very different." CreationDate="2020-02-06T10:03:00.370" UserId="6896" />
  <row Id="8846" PostId="6175" Score="0" Text="Oh, that's right. I just studied about it and it is surely a biodegradable option. However it seems a costly option!!!" CreationDate="2017-09-19T05:29:45.183" UserId="4708" />
  <row Id="9505" PostId="6175" Score="0" Text="Lamb intestines??? Are you sure this is safe?" CreationDate="2018-04-07T07:47:52.837" UserId="5613" />
  <row Id="9514" PostId="6175" Score="1" Text="Safe? Yes, in both senses. 1) a properly made and maintained lambskin condom will seal against semen. 2) It poses no threat to the wearer of the device." CreationDate="2018-04-09T16:08:05.837" UserId="4885" />
  <row Id="8849" PostId="6176" Score="0" Text="I'm guessing when the OP says &quot;flue&quot; he means &quot;flue liner&quot; rather than flue which I'd agree is essentially the same as chimney." CreationDate="2017-09-21T09:23:01.943" UserId="1210" />
  <row Id="8850" PostId="6177" Score="0" Text="Please confirm or explain: active balanced air exchange means that there are two blowers, one blowing air into and one blowing air out of the room where the mass heater will be installed? Hows the control strategy?" CreationDate="2017-09-21T09:35:52.467" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="8861" PostId="6182" Score="0" Text="How does your contribution differ based on other contributions?" CreationDate="2017-09-30T14:35:05.503" UserId="2914" />
  <row Id="8863" PostId="6182" Score="1" Text="@Paparazzi :  I didn't understand this question. Does it mean this? : &quot;Why should I decide what is good work depending on whether others are doing good work or not, I should continue to do the good work to care for the earth irrespective of others do it or not. &quot;&#xA;If you meant this, yes, that's a valid point. That's more of a moral responsibility to do the right thing. I was exploring if there are any other rational reasons. For example, if I have to convince others (say, in a school environ project), this question would arise." CreationDate="2017-10-02T11:05:34.057" UserId="2734" />
  <row Id="8885" PostId="6184" Score="0" Text="This could be a good answer if somebody could polish the English up a bit..." CreationDate="2017-10-06T12:46:25.660" UserId="1567" />
  <row Id="8855" PostId="6185" Score="1" Text="Do you have references to back this up? Please [edit] them in." CreationDate="2017-09-26T18:46:51.173" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="8857" PostId="6186" Score="0" Text="yes, self-awareness building is a great benefit of the exercise." CreationDate="2017-09-28T10:39:49.633" UserId="2734" />
  <row Id="15204" PostId="6186" Score="0" Text="Looking back over the last several years, this is exactly what has happened to me. As soon as I started keeping an eye on my household waste, I almost immediately changed my consumer habits and was producing much less of it." CreationDate="2021-11-07T17:48:29.153" UserId="1778" />
  <row Id="8858" PostId="6187" Score="0" Text="Didn't know about the differentiation between solid and liquid waste, 2:1 or 3:2 surely makes a more compelling reason than 97:3 . Yes, I am fascinated about 'buy less' too and about the &quot;Story of Stuff' video. We tend to think of questions like these, during the depressing &quot;what's the point&quot; moments we all have. :-) . I would want to mark this as an answer just for the ratios, let me see if there is a more compelling answer that comes along soon. Thank you." CreationDate="2017-09-28T10:44:57.750" UserId="2734" />
  <row Id="8860" PostId="6188" Score="6" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! I disagree with your last 2 sentences. Transportation distance is certainly part of a carbon footprint, but for [foods the larger part is usually production](http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es702969f) Perhaps you have any references to back up your claims?" CreationDate="2017-09-29T06:24:45.797" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="12305" PostId="6188" Score="0" Text="Another (easier to digest) presentation of farming vs transportation for various food products has just come out here https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local" CreationDate="2020-02-12T09:06:29.240" UserId="8454" />
  <row Id="8865" PostId="6192" Score="0" Text="Thanks. So let's say I purchased a 12v cooler, what else would I need to purchase? In other words, how would I search for the solar panel and the deep-cycle leisure battery on the web?" CreationDate="2017-10-03T13:58:25.677" UserId="3664" />
  <row Id="8866" PostId="6192" Score="0" Text="You should be able to get everything from a decent RV/caravan/motorhome supplier. You'll need the fridge, a battery, a solar panel, and a charge controller (the bit that enables the solar panels to charge the battery correctly without overcharging it). The battery needs to be big enough to run the fridge overnight (so kWh of the fridge * number of hours without sun + margin), and the solar panel big enough to fully charge the battery while also running the fridge (kW / number of hours of sun + kWh of the fridge)" CreationDate="2017-10-03T14:53:44.303" UserId="4155" />
  <row Id="8867" PostId="6192" Score="0" Text="oh, and wires to connect it all together!" CreationDate="2017-10-03T14:54:32.643" UserId="4155" />
  <row Id="8868" PostId="6192" Score="0" Text="of course, if your existing fridge is efficient enough, you could even get a charge controller with a built-in mains inverter, and plug your normal fridge into that - but fridges use a lot of power, especially at startup, so you'd need a hefty inverter and battery..." CreationDate="2017-10-03T14:58:46.793" UserId="4155" />
  <row Id="8869" PostId="6192" Score="0" Text="We're in an island, so there are no decent RV/caravan/motorhome suppliers. What website would you recommend? It'd be much better if you had links to the items." CreationDate="2017-10-03T17:09:12.640" UserId="3664" />
  <row Id="8873" PostId="6192" Score="0" Text="The problem is, I'm in the UK, so all the suppliers I know are European - wheras I'm assuming you're in the Caribbean/US, given the circumstances..." CreationDate="2017-10-04T08:25:38.067" UserId="4155" />
  <row Id="8874" PostId="6192" Score="0" Text="Here's an example: http://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/photovoltaic-solar-panels/7067924/ - and the link reminds me that similar systems are used in boats, so if you're on an island there may well be a chandlers (boat supplier) nearby?" CreationDate="2017-10-04T08:29:59.257" UserId="4155" />
  <row Id="8875" PostId="6192" Score="0" Text="@NickC: What about using your comments to improve your answer?" CreationDate="2017-10-04T10:30:53.957" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="8878" PostId="6192" Score="1" Text="@PJTraill Done!" CreationDate="2017-10-04T12:19:17.537" UserId="4155" />
  <row Id="8880" PostId="6197" Score="0" Text="Why does a cracked window work when a dedicated air supply vent doesn't?" CreationDate="2017-10-05T22:39:05.197" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="8881" PostId="6197" Score="0" Text="If you crack open a window, then combustion air is drawn from the room and into the RMH normally, pulling smoke with it as it goes.  If you don't crack the window the room turns into a low pressure zone. If you plumb in a external air pipe, then the connection point to the J-tube has to be further down the feeder tube — which means that air hits the side of the combustion area and smoke splits two ways — up the feeder tube and into your room, and along the burn chamber.  If you're not always pulling air down the feeder tube, it is inevitable that smoke will rise up it." CreationDate="2017-10-06T00:10:19.630" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="8883" PostId="6197" Score="0" Text="I added a couple of options to the bottom of the post.  Neither are acceptable (in my opinion) but are presented for your consideration nonetheless." CreationDate="2017-10-06T00:46:42.720" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="8887" PostId="6197" Score="0" Text="The naturalhomes.org link doesn't seem like the right one.  It's a page with general discussion about RMH and no obvious discussion of airflow issues. If it contains another idea for a solution, I can't spot it." CreationDate="2017-10-06T23:32:52.740" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="8888" PostId="6197" Score="1" Text="Don't worry about the text, look at the image.  It's a J-tube that's been modified for external air.  Instead of the airflow going into the side/bottom of the feeder tube, they have constructed a manifold/hood over the feeder tube.  The external air is not injected directly into the burn area — it is injected at the top of the feeder tube.  So it's an improvement, but it will still fail whenever you open the loading hatch and the wind is blowing against the wall with the external air vent on it (due to the venturi effect sucking smoke up the feeder)." CreationDate="2017-10-07T23:08:53.053" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="8884" PostId="6198" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Sure you can add fishing worms to your garden, but what is it you are trying to achieve? Why do you want to add fishing worms?" CreationDate="2017-10-06T07:53:15.463" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8925" PostId="6198" Score="0" Text="My goal with this is simply to improve the health of my garden and plants I live in Arizona and have a hard time finding worms. There isn't a place that sells worms or anything like that near me so I wonder if worm bait will work" CreationDate="2017-10-16T03:15:02.800" UserId="4938" />
  <row Id="11844" PostId="6200" Score="0" Text="Why not scoop the salt out and throw it back into ocean? Surely, if you distributed it in a sane manner, the salt would not have that of an impact." CreationDate="2019-11-19T14:03:49.107" UserId="8149" />
  <row Id="11857" PostId="6200" Score="0" Text="There are about 40-million people in California.  With per-capita consumption around 500L/day that means 800,000,000 litres of hypersaline waste per day.  A tanker truck holds less than 40,000L.  So in excess of 20,000 tanker truck trips would need to be made each day to get rid of the waste — one trip every 4.3 seconds.  The transport logistics/obstacles are mind-boggling.  That's why they build desalination plants next to the ocean and pump the salt right back — creating dead zones in the process." CreationDate="2019-11-20T11:33:21.167" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="11858" PostId="6200" Score="0" Text="Surely there are other sources of water than ocean. When I said scoop out, I was directly referring to the point that the &quot;holes&quot; would get full. Surely there are more efficient ways, just as you said." CreationDate="2019-11-20T11:45:35.183" UserId="8149" />
  <row Id="11874" PostId="6200" Score="0" Text="The OP questioned why a specific design (the pictured solar still loaded with sea water) wasn't a viable solution.  They did not ask how the pictured design could be improved to make it more viable.  Yes, changes can be made — new/different designs can be developed — that are better... but the OP didn't ask about such things." CreationDate="2019-11-21T12:39:29.850" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="12791" PostId="6200" Score="0" Text="Why wait til it solidifies? Every night just push the enriched brine back into the ocean and refill with fresh." CreationDate="2020-08-20T23:22:34.213" UserId="6925" />
  <row Id="12810" PostId="6200" Score="0" Text="In my very first comment I put forward the same 'solution' and consequent problem with said solution (marine dead zones)." CreationDate="2020-08-27T11:49:27.283" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="8914" PostId="6201" Score="0" Text="I have no experience with sheep, but any dog I've ever known will ALWAYS keep eating tasty things that make them sick. I will spare the details here. Are sheep/livestock smarter than dogs in this regard?" CreationDate="2017-10-11T16:20:46.780" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8915" PostId="6201" Score="0" Text="LShaver, flock/herd animals accumulate dietary wisdom collectively, and when you breed them the mothers pass the wisdom down to the offspring.  I'm sure that wolves and other multi-generational canine packs would do the same thing.  The poor pooch that you buy from a pet store or rescue hasn't had the opportunity to benefit from this, and since it's probably desexed, any wisdom it accumulates will die with it.  That would logically lead to serial solitary dogs making the same mistake over and over again.  Wisdom isn't the same as intelligence.  My dogs are smart, but my flocks are wise." CreationDate="2017-10-11T16:39:14.937" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="8916" PostId="6201" Score="0" Text="None of the dogs I've owned have kept eating things that make them sick.  One particularly thick mongrel took about three poisonings to realise that snail pellets were not food.  A strategy I've heard of, but not needed to use, is to overdose them.  If your dog ends up sick, and you know what caused it, when they are throwing up, not eating, and otherwise feeling miserable, put *more* of the offending 'food' in the kennel with them.  Supposedly they then associate the smell of the food with being sick and stop eating it.  Putting it in a basket would stop them from eating all of it." CreationDate="2017-10-11T16:55:45.127" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="8889" PostId="6202" Score="0" Text="Any sense on how production techniques may have changed, and which way that would shift results? Assuming the steady march of progress, I wouldn't be surprised if the reuse requirements stayed the same, while the impact of all bag types dropped." CreationDate="2017-10-08T17:31:32.690" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8897" PostId="6202" Score="0" Text="I'm not sure if and how it changed. I suspect the biggest changes have to do with using more recycled plastic and paper. I think recycled cotton is used rarely (at least that's the case where I live), so that would mean that the impact of the plastic and paper bags are relatively lower than now compared to the cotton bag." CreationDate="2017-10-10T09:14:31.667" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8957" PostId="6202" Score="1" Text="BUT if you do as I do and make the cotton (or any fabric) bag from old clothes then line 4 looks entirely different." CreationDate="2017-10-25T12:32:49.783" UserId="1567" />
  <row Id="9791" PostId="6202" Score="0" Text="According to [this article](https://earther.com/are-reusable-bags-really-better-for-the-planet-1826567287) including results from a recent Danish study, if you look beyond GWPs, the necessary re-uses balloon to 10- or 100-fold greater. Rather discouraging." CreationDate="2018-06-06T19:46:46.110" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12176" PostId="6203" Score="2" Text="I realize 2000 miles is a lot, but if you are really dedicated to making a statement regarding climate change, and if you really want to see your family, you could go and visit them by public transport (trains and buses). Perhaps when your family sees you making this big effort to reduce your emissions then they will understand how strongly you feel about it (and how much you still want to visit them regardless)." CreationDate="2020-01-15T08:29:36.690" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="12177" PostId="6203" Score="0" Text="I do that. I did a trip home by train several times but including the changes and necessary layovers it takes 3 days each way. Not exactly personally sustainable given limited vacation days." CreationDate="2020-01-15T10:01:41.330" UserId="4944" />
  <row Id="8890" PostId="6204" Score="7" Text="So basically you are saying, &quot;just ignore all your CO2 emissions, because they are minuscule compared to those of the other 7 billion people on Earth&quot;? If you use your argument to convince 250 or more people to travel by plane, then it doesn't hold anymore because additional flights may be scheduled." CreationDate="2017-10-09T09:28:50.170" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8891" PostId="6204" Score="1" Text="No THelper, that is not what I'm saying and I didn't suggest anything of the sort.  Further, this individual is not likely to go and round up another 265 individuals to make it worthwhile for the airline to add another flight on the same route.  You are constructing a strawman." CreationDate="2017-10-09T09:53:03.103" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="8892" PostId="6204" Score="0" Text="Two postscripts added to my answer a) to illustrate the scenario with real-world numbers and b) to address concerns about possibly encouraging more flights to be scheduled." CreationDate="2017-10-09T10:49:45.657" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="8893" PostId="6204" Score="1" Text="Thanks for the postscripts. I do wonder how easy/difficult it is to assess if a flight is almost full for the OP. [This answer on Travel SE](https://travel.stackexchange.com/a/9570) says there are some tools for this but they aren't great. On the other hand the answer is already 5 years old. BTW CO2 compensation schemes may also help a bit (but probably not as much as most schemes claim they do)." CreationDate="2017-10-09T11:34:39.803" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8894" PostId="6204" Score="1" Text="I don't know what country the OP is living in, or what airlines fly the route he would need, but Qantas (for example) allows you to select seats on flights using a map of the cabin.  Naturally, this reveals how many seats have already been sold on that flight.  You can do this prior to having to supply any personal details or payment information.  I strongly suspect many/most international carriers let you do the same... so it should be possible to wait until the last moment and then 'snipe' a seat on a flight that's not near capacity." CreationDate="2017-10-09T11:48:41.647" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="8895" PostId="6204" Score="1" Text="I must agree with @THelper: this logic sounds to me like how I might casually say &quot;it's only one/once!&quot; while tossing my garbage out the window, not cleaning up after my dog, burning a tire in my backyard, etc, etc. While your answer applies in the case of a person considering taking one flight in their life, OP is clearly concerned about the lifestyle choices related to habits of travel and visiting family." CreationDate="2017-10-09T14:58:36.227" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8896" PostId="6204" Score="0" Text="LShaver, the strategy/logic is not limited to a single use, and it's not making excuses for anything.  Straight-forward math shows how air travel can be nowhere near as evil as people (who don't/won't/can't do the math) may think it is — provided you use it in the right way.  You are more than welcome to do the sums yourself...  a calculator will clear away any doubt you may have." CreationDate="2017-10-09T15:10:29.773" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="8898" PostId="6204" Score="1" Text="The possibility of the flight being cancelled due to low sales also needs to be considered, as the seat you buy may be the one that stops the flight being cancelled. In that case, you could be considered responsible for a far higher amount of emissions, going by your reasoning..." CreationDate="2017-10-10T09:57:53.933" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="8899" PostId="6204" Score="0" Text="You also need to consider the incentives you give the airline. If you only pay enough for your ticket to cover 26L of fuel plus enough for a little admin and a modest (say 10%) profit, then you could justify a position saying you're only funding 26L of fuel. If you pay a ticket price that would fund 1000L of fuel, then you are probably just paying for your full share of the total flight's fuel use." CreationDate="2017-10-10T10:29:21.703" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="8903" PostId="6204" Score="0" Text="Many of those comments get to the heart of my problem. This is less about that specific flight and more about the lifestyle choices one decides to take and how to justify them to others who might not necessarily share the same values." CreationDate="2017-10-10T14:08:42.087" UserId="4944" />
  <row Id="8904" PostId="6204" Score="2" Text="Also, yes, the flight is going to depart anyway, with me or without me on board but this is about the principles and about living true to the kind of behaviour I think is necessary.&#xA;&#xA;If it was an emergency, a death of a relative etc, then it could be considered as a one-off. This is holiday we're talking about." CreationDate="2017-10-10T14:09:56.863" UserId="4944" />
  <row Id="8905" PostId="6204" Score="0" Text="KubaFYI, the whole point of my answer was a) to show that there is a specific way that you can use air travel which is better for the environment than driving, and b) to encourage people to think about what REALLY goes on rather than believe simplistic statistics that aren't always true. &quot;All air travel is bad&quot; is demonstrably wrong in a number of cases — adhering to a strict &quot;no fly&quot; principle is therefore unnecessary and doesn't have the environment-saving value that you seem to think it has.  Sustainable living and air travel are NOT mutually exclusive activities.  Math proves it." CreationDate="2017-10-11T01:09:13.867" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="8906" PostId="6204" Score="0" Text="Highly Irregular, it's almost unheard of for scheduled international flights to be cancelled due to passenger numbers.  Cargo, crews, and the plane itself, still need to get to from A -&gt; B because they are already booked to go from B -&gt; C -&gt; D -&gt; E... after that.  Domestic flights, however, are a different matter... Short (&lt;1600km) domestic flights are the real 'rotten apples' of the airline industry and the ones that people really should be avoiding if they want to reduce emissions.  Not taking such flights has a much, much, much greater probability of flight consolidation or cancellation." CreationDate="2017-10-11T01:42:01.550" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="8907" PostId="6204" Score="0" Text="Another postscript added to the answer to make it clear a) that the strategy described is only intended for long distance and/or international flights, and b) that there is still merit in avoiding short-distance domestic flights." CreationDate="2017-10-11T02:35:20.133" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="8917" PostId="6204" Score="0" Text="@Tim, Thanks for the explanation. Yes, I agree with you on that a strict &quot;no fly&quot; principle does not always make sense (in fact I am working on an article with that conclusion at the moment). I do realise that's not clear from my question. My problem is with unnecessary far travel in general, not only one by air." CreationDate="2017-10-12T19:20:55.893" UserId="4944" />
  <row Id="12191" PostId="6204" Score="0" Text="I understand Tim's argument like this: For the world, in general it makes little sense to invest your time and energy into minimizing your own carbon footprint. This can only be effective if you are an &quot;influencer&quot; who is copied by many people. If you are not, your best course of action is to help to change policies (e.g. taxation on flights)." CreationDate="2020-01-19T13:12:33.040" UserId="8208" />
  <row Id="12194" PostId="6204" Score="0" Text="@Omni  Err, I don't think I said, suggested or meant any of that.  This answer was simply pointing out that cold, hard, indisputable math shows that long distance/international air travel is not the bogeyman that it is made out to be, and that there's no environmental need to outright boycott it.  Individuals should reduce their carbon footprint in other ways — ways that are supported by math, rather than ideology." CreationDate="2020-01-19T23:32:32.450" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="12208" PostId="6204" Score="0" Text="Your whole post is about the various details how little impact the personal boycott of a single person has on the emission of an international flight. And you are totally right. Yet international aviation accounts for ~ 3% ([source](https://theconversation.com/climate-explained-how-much-does-flying-contribute-to-climate-change-127707)) of CO2 emissions but is only ever used by 10% of the world's population. So it's obviously something that cannot scale up to a large portion of the world population." CreationDate="2020-01-23T21:30:39.473" UserId="8208" />
  <row Id="12209" PostId="6204" Score="0" Text="Boycotting/banning everything that &quot;cannot scale up to a large portion of the world population&quot; is an interesting philosophy, and it would be a worthy topic to discuss, but discussions are not what the comment section is for.  Chat, perhaps?" CreationDate="2020-01-23T23:38:37.627" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="16473" PostId="6204" Score="0" Text="&quot;A flight from A -&gt; B will depart at the scheduled time regardless of how many passengers are on board&quot; -- but somehow, if everyone in the world suddenly decided not to fly, then pretty quickly those flights would cease as well. More generally, I would expect that reduction in flight demand would eventually lead to less flights. While I agree with you that the marginal impact of not boarding a plane is small and the moral responsibility is not direct, I think it is not enough to look at the marginal effect -- given that larger effects would follow if more people refused to fly." CreationDate="2023-08-14T12:52:06.640" UserId="9566" />
  <row Id="8900" PostId="6206" Score="0" Text="Related: https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/493/15" CreationDate="2017-10-10T10:30:50.863" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="8901" PostId="6206" Score="2" Text="I read an interesting article recently about how carbon offsets primarily help people in developing countries. Most schemes invest in those countries because there the cheapest measures with the biggest impact can be taken. This is a good thing in my opinion because the people in developing countries are also the ones who are affected the most by climate change." CreationDate="2017-10-10T12:29:56.143" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8902" PostId="6206" Score="0" Text="Not that same article I read, but an interesting one that makes more or less the same points: http://www.worldwatch.org/node/5134" CreationDate="2017-10-10T12:31:22.423" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8912" PostId="6208" Score="2" Text="This statement is wrong: *that you don't care about them as much as they care about you*. ***Being*** **with** them is not the only way to show you care. Moreover, taking care of the environment means also caring of your own family." CreationDate="2017-10-11T11:39:40.343" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="8913" PostId="6208" Score="0" Text="J, you should have read the note for folks feeling triggered.  If you come up with a method for measuring 'commitment to / caring about family' then one person out of every single family on Earth will be at the bottom of that list.  &quot;Don't care **as much** about family&quot; is not the same as &quot;Don't care about family&quot; — which is why I used the former instead of the latter.  It's absolutely true and totally undeniable.  Further, if all that's desired is for you to 'be there' then it is actually the only way that matters.  Conflating care for the environment with caring for family is a clear error." CreationDate="2017-10-11T15:51:44.417" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="10248" PostId="6208" Score="0" Text="Valid points, but based on several assumptions. The OP should check those." CreationDate="2018-10-05T15:25:53.007" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="16472" PostId="6208" Score="0" Text="&quot;Nothing is *preventing* you from visiting — you are making a *choice* not to visit&quot;: I fail to understand how many of the &quot;simply not possible&quot; proposed reasons are different from what OP is describing. Having a job that makes it harder for you to visit family, or other kinds of commitments, is also a lifestyle choice." CreationDate="2023-08-14T12:48:40.533" UserId="9566" />
  <row Id="8923" PostId="6210" Score="0" Text="The last link returns a 403 - Forbidden message. Perhaps it's only accessible by computers in the US?" CreationDate="2017-10-15T08:05:19.567" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8924" PostId="6210" Score="1" Text="@THelper Sorry about that link restriction. That is the Duluth News Tribune in Minnesota and it may be restricted to within the US. I have a friend in the UK to whom I have seen links from the BBC that he could not read. I thought it kind of strange that the BBC would have links that are restricted in the UK. Anyway I have added a link to the Great Lakes Worm Watch web site which has tons of info about worms as an invasive species." CreationDate="2017-10-15T16:11:13.400" UserId="4951" />
  <row Id="8918" PostId="6215" Score="0" Text="Thanks so much for the explanation. What do you mean by &quot;70% depth of discharge&quot;? Do you mean that running 5.5 hours will use 70% of the battery?" CreationDate="2017-10-13T21:34:44.207" UserId="3664" />
  <row Id="8919" PostId="6215" Score="0" Text="@rbhat, that's correct -- I clarified in the answer." CreationDate="2017-10-14T19:34:49.627" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8922" PostId="6215" Score="1" Text="Discharging a lead-acid battery past 50% will dramatically reduce its lifespan.  I recommend using 50% DoD instead of 70% for any calculations." CreationDate="2017-10-14T23:47:59.687" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="11457" PostId="6215" Score="0" Text="@rbhat if you feel this successfully answered your question I'd appreciate a click on &quot;accept answer&quot; right there under the voting arrows. Thanks!" CreationDate="2019-09-18T14:40:28.510" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11458" PostId="6215" Score="0" Text="Sorry about that." CreationDate="2019-09-18T18:16:49.577" UserId="3664" />
  <row Id="8921" PostId="6216" Score="2" Text="You can't charge a battery with a &quot;plug&quot;.  You need a battery charger.  What battery charger are you using?" CreationDate="2017-10-14T23:30:09.183" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="8920" PostId="6217" Score="0" Text="More info on this cooler is available here: https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/6214/how-long-will-a-12v-koolatron-compact-cooler-last-with-12ah-battery" CreationDate="2017-10-14T21:11:35.657" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="8926" PostId="6217" Score="0" Text="According to [the FAQ](https://www.koolatron.com/US/en/frequently-asked-questions), the manufacturer recommends pre-cooling anything you put in the cooler. This implies that it will cool them, but it may take a while." CreationDate="2017-10-16T21:30:07.460" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8928" PostId="6217" Score="3" Text="*We don't have electricity*?? That thing uses electricity." CreationDate="2017-10-18T07:38:11.073" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="8978" PostId="6217" Score="0" Text="How are you going to charge batteries?  Do you have solar?" CreationDate="2017-10-31T15:58:14.357" UserId="2914" />
  <row Id="9911" PostId="6217" Score="0" Text="It is essential that anything going in is cold; It does not cool, it keeps cool things cool." CreationDate="2018-07-12T01:05:09.733" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="8936" PostId="6223" Score="0" Text="Good answer. Thank you. What that 70 bins is meant in that Story of the Stuff video is : When we throw garbage, say, a milk container. To produce that milk container, the gases that were emitted, the industrial waste that was drained into the river, the mining that was done etc and the garbage that was produced in the factory to produce the container, is 70 times as much. That was the context for the mention, to exhort people to understand the extent of waste." CreationDate="2017-10-20T21:19:37.337" UserId="2734" />
  <row Id="8960" PostId="6224" Score="1" Text="Which kinds of bucks are those?" CreationDate="2017-10-26T16:25:11.397" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13503" PostId="6224" Score="0" Text="Canuck bucks.  Takes fewer 'Murcun bucks." CreationDate="2021-03-10T21:46:01.040" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="8938" PostId="6225" Score="1" Text="This is the beginning of an interesting answer to a _different_ question, I think." CreationDate="2017-10-21T00:55:23.043" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="8937" PostId="6228" Score="2" Text="My understanding is that pathogens in dog poop can become an issue in a home compost pile unless you can get it sufficiently hot. Other solutions I've heard of for dog poop are similar to composting toilets for human waste." CreationDate="2017-10-20T21:33:04.227" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8939" PostId="6228" Score="1" Text="Remove it to where?  It's perfectly safe in a pile in your yard.  The problems arise when you take it and spread it on, say, your lettuce patch." CreationDate="2017-10-21T00:58:34.630" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="8940" PostId="6228" Score="0" Text="Right, _to where_ is key, and I'll adjust the question accordingly. I have a range of different places I can use compost, and if certain compost is only good for tossing on grass lawn or in a forest that is still better than it going in municipal trash imo. I do have lettuce patches that could use compost, but they don't need to use the yard waste pile (I also have kitchen scrap vermiculture). I have other plants like trees which can use compost - is composted dog poop OK in there?" CreationDate="2017-10-21T01:46:19.880" UserId="2942" />
  <row Id="8942" PostId="6228" Score="1" Text="The US Department of Agriculture has [a leaflet on Composting Dog Waste](https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/nrcs142p2_035763.pdf) that can be very helpful if you want to start composting feces." CreationDate="2017-10-22T10:47:09.920" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8935" PostId="6229" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Could you provide an example from the site, so that your answer is more than just a link? And please indicate if you're associated with the site in any way." CreationDate="2017-10-20T20:58:43.713" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8941" PostId="6231" Score="1" Text="Nice answer! There is 1 small thing I'd like to see added for safety reasons. If the OPs goes for hot composting he should monitor heap temperatures regularly with a compost thermometer to make sure the heap remains hot enough to kill all pathogens. Without a thermometer it's difficult to check if you have the right conditions (63°C or 145°F for several days)." CreationDate="2017-10-22T10:41:53.937" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8955" PostId="6231" Score="1" Text="This is very long... any chance you could add a summary at the top, or some headings to break it up?" CreationDate="2017-10-23T20:44:45.157" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8943" PostId="6232" Score="0" Text="You assume 100% of energy received by plants as sunlight is stored as chemical energy in the wood. This is blatantly wrong. Imagine a single, 1000 years old oak with canopy diameter of 20 meters. Can it sustain heat in 1000 households for a year?" CreationDate="2017-10-22T20:36:50.983" UserId="188" />
  <row Id="8944" PostId="6232" Score="0" Text="SF, almost everything you said was wrong.  1) Incident radiation at 40⁰ latitude is ~640W/m2 and you get about 6 solar hours a day for a total of ~3.84kWh/m2/day.  The &quot;primary productivity&quot; value is ~0.0186 kWh/m2/day... which has been obtained by government fields tests and research... and implies that only ~0.48% of the energy received makes it to a useful form.  I'm not sure why you would think that 0.48 equals 100." CreationDate="2017-10-22T23:50:13.763" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="8945" PostId="6232" Score="0" Text="2) A mature tree with a 20m diameter canopy, once harvested, can easily produce enough firewood to provide an average 7.2kWh of heating per day (~2,628kWh per year).  Oak (since you mentioned it) has about 2,000kWh/m3 stacked.  So you'd need to harvest only 1.3m3 of oak to provide all of your heating.  That about a single, 16&quot; DBH tree.  You can be pretty sure a tree with a 20m diameter canopy will be more than 16&quot; DBH.  A lot more." CreationDate="2017-10-23T00:11:56.550" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="8947" PostId="6232" Score="0" Text="3)  Why did you invent the &quot;single tree needs to supply 1000 households for a year&quot; strawman?  I clearly stated in my answer that the 387m2 area only supplies the needs of a SINGLE household with a 7.2kWh/day average heating need.  Your original question said nothing about having to supply 1,000 households." CreationDate="2017-10-23T00:25:02.937" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="8949" PostId="6232" Score="0" Text="4) I have no idea why you are referring to a 1,000-year old tree.  Sustainable wood heat requires regular harvesting, so you wouldn't be cutting down old-growth forests, you'd be (re-)planting your own woodlot.  If, say, your trees reach harvestable age after 20 years, then that's when you harvest them (and subsequently replant them).  A 20-year rotation means your entire woodlot would need to be 20x the annual harvest area (387m2), so about 7740m2 (0.774Ha) in the above scenario." CreationDate="2017-10-23T00:35:44.427" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="8950" PostId="6232" Score="0" Text="SF, it would seem that your comment stemmed from two things:  1) somehow confusing &quot;gross incident energy&quot; with &quot;net primary productivity&quot;, and 2) thinking that I was suggesting the **same** 387m2 would be logged each and every year.  I have edited my answer to clarify both of these." CreationDate="2017-10-23T01:25:52.020" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="8984" PostId="6233" Score="1" Text="What about saving them for when you wash other stuff — then you use less water, and may have some washing up liquid in there too." CreationDate="2017-11-01T22:54:32.980" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="8988" PostId="6233" Score="0" Text="That's a very good point actually. Show that I never really considered them to be just another kind of container." CreationDate="2017-11-03T02:29:51.297" UserId="80" />
  <row Id="8996" PostId="6233" Score="0" Text="To wash more efficiently, turn inside out. Dry it inside out too." CreationDate="2017-11-08T12:05:00.287" UserId="1567" />
  <row Id="11694" PostId="6233" Score="0" Text="Are you using cold, warm, or hot water? This will make a substantial difference to the calculation." CreationDate="2019-11-08T00:52:25.453" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="11698" PostId="6233" Score="0" Text="As it is now part of our usual dishwashing process, I guess it is warm water I am using." CreationDate="2019-11-09T13:31:37.007" UserId="80" />
  <row Id="8958" PostId="6234" Score="2" Text="Apart from Sherwoods answer I think it's also worth looking at energy/material spent in making the water available, and in producing another bag. Both should be available, I guess. I don't have the time for an answer." CreationDate="2017-10-25T15:34:39.177" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="8959" PostId="6234" Score="1" Text="For things like water and plastic bags, the energy used in production typically makes up the largest portion of the cost (compared to raw materials) -- so the cost serves as a fair proxy when comparing the energy (and thus, emissions) used in production." CreationDate="2017-10-26T16:23:58.663" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8989" PostId="6234" Score="1" Text="Thanks for your answer, Sherwood. But how does it compare to the water used during the production (extraction, manufacture, transport) of a plastic bag?" CreationDate="2017-11-03T03:16:36.930" UserId="80" />
  <row Id="8961" PostId="6235" Score="0" Text="I think this is more an ecomomics question than an engineering one, since it is primarily about what decisions people will make." CreationDate="2017-10-27T20:52:46.103" UserId="96" />
  <row Id="8982" PostId="6236" Score="0" Text="I think it's also important to note that customer preference drives not only sales, but also policy and regulation -- since customers (in a democracy, at least) can also be voters." CreationDate="2017-11-01T19:25:10.943" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8964" PostId="6237" Score="0" Text="I doubt 'more income -&gt; more pollution' is as simple as that, or even correct. Especially because I've also seen the opposite being discussed more than once, e.g. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800997001778" CreationDate="2017-10-30T11:33:23.247" UserId="4158" />
  <row Id="8965" PostId="6237" Score="0" Text="I agree that other factors also have an effect, but I'm evening them up into the income. A great answer that was posted to me in Earth Sciences.SE showed that indeed the correlation between income and pollution is weak, but still boils down to the lifestyle (which may depend on the income)." CreationDate="2017-10-30T11:38:33.707" UserId="4988" />
  <row Id="8962" PostId="6239" Score="2" Text="What's the purpose of this device? How will it be used? Are you re-purposing some existing device?" CreationDate="2017-10-30T02:47:49.693" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8963" PostId="6239" Score="0" Text="*that requires omnidirectional to be directed downwards*?? It looks like something is omitted. Please [edit] your question." CreationDate="2017-10-30T10:50:17.427" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="8987" PostId="6239" Score="0" Text="The more fans and valves, the more air flow restrictions which cuts down on the amount of air that can be moved. This article, http://energycut.com.au/business/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Whirlybird-Specs.pdf which has a long load time, suggests that whirlybirds are no longer a good solution for roof cavity ventilation since electrically powered devices move more air and solar power is a good solution. A whirlybird uses the wind as the motive power to turn a set of fan blades so just reversing the blades would change the direction." CreationDate="2017-11-02T13:23:58.040" UserId="4951" />
  <row Id="8966" PostId="6240" Score="1" Text="Just because a residence is smaller doesn't mean it requires less heating. The effectiveness of insulation, if any, is a factor. Other factors are the efficiency &amp; effectiveness of the type of heating - electric, gas, wood, coal, oil, etc. Also, each energy type produces different amounts &amp; types of pollution. Coal, oil &amp; wood produce more pollution than gas - in terms of CO2 &amp; particulate matter released into the atmosphere. In terms of electric heating, France uses a lot nuclear energy. How do *you* want to consider nuclear waste as pollution?" CreationDate="2017-10-29T07:41:28.543" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="8967" PostId="6240" Score="0" Text="@Fred: It's incorrect that wood releases more CO2 into the atmosphere than other forms of heating.  The CO2 from burning wood was extracted from the atmosphere relatively recently, and would return to the atmosphere anyway when the tree dies and decays.  As long as you keep wood us less than natural growth, it's carbon neutral." CreationDate="2017-10-29T17:49:39.940" UserId="1937" />
  <row Id="8974" PostId="6240" Score="0" Text="This question is actually a duplicate of https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/6237/ but since this one has an answer I'll close the other one as duplicate" CreationDate="2017-10-30T15:13:46.697" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8969" PostId="6241" Score="0" Text="You're welcome Gabriel :-)  One thing I realize I failed to cover was wealth, trying to remove that from the equation.  Hard, though you could try to overlay the map versus an income breakdown map.  Then again, things typically cost more in the city, so comparing buying power rather than income would say more." CreationDate="2017-10-29T16:48:06.053" UserDisplayName="JeopardyTempest" />
  <row Id="8970" PostId="6241" Score="0" Text="Indeed this was missing, but the rest was so detailed that I think it was worth it. I think that the absolute income should be taken into account, since my theory is that people that want to have a more environmentally friendly lifestyle should move to the countyside without loss to their salaries. Your answer seems to disprove my theory, so I should improve it a bit." CreationDate="2017-10-29T16:51:45.390" UserId="4988" />
  <row Id="8971" PostId="6241" Score="0" Text="Certainly if you're prone to going to the city regularly, it seems to undermine any of the benefits." CreationDate="2017-10-30T01:03:41.037" UserDisplayName="JeopardyTempest" />
  <row Id="8972" PostId="6241" Score="0" Text="Is transportation the major source of pollution?" CreationDate="2017-10-30T08:45:02.640" UserId="4988" />
  <row Id="8973" PostId="6241" Score="0" Text="Looks like on the [CoolClimate maps](http://coolclimate.berkeley.edu/maps), it's generally the top one, except perhaps in very cold or hot areas (where housing seems to trend upwards, likely due to heating/cooling costs?)" CreationDate="2017-10-30T08:53:10.267" UserDisplayName="JeopardyTempest" />
  <row Id="8975" PostId="6241" Score="0" Text="I think this misses some important, but difficult to calculate, points.  For instance, a city has a lot of energy use that's not found in rural areas: street lights, traffic signals, power used to bring water from distant sources and treat sewage.  And traffic lights bring up the fact that a lot of (sub)urban travel time is spent sitting with the engine idling, waiting for the light to change or the freeway traffic to move..." CreationDate="2017-10-31T04:35:18.890" UserId="1937" />
  <row Id="8985" PostId="6242" Score="1" Text="Probably not something to mention on sustainability site, ... but, when it comes to lenses for spectacles, glass lenses are heavier than plastic lenses and depending on the type of lenses you need, they may be very heavy &amp; uncomfortable. Just something else to think about." CreationDate="2017-11-02T07:59:10.467" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="8986" PostId="6242" Score="0" Text="Right, I was advised about it. I don't mind choosing glass, for environ sake, if it's more sustainable,  even if it's heavier." CreationDate="2017-11-02T12:11:24.253" UserId="2734" />
  <row Id="8994" PostId="6242" Score="1" Text="I&quot;t's well known that Fiber lenses are more durable&quot;?  Really?  Every plastic lens I've owned (wearing glasses for 62 years now) is unusable inside a year from scratches.  Yeah, plastic doesn't shatter when you drop it.  But I've never broken a glass lens.  Modern tempering is pretty good." CreationDate="2017-11-07T16:43:54.653" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="8976" PostId="6243" Score="0" Text="I share your anecdotal account with my parents' who live in a small city. Both owned cars and drove them for their commute which was shy of 1 mile. My dad's car had 30000 miles after 10 years, and since I drove them on long trips I guess that I put some 20% of that mileage only on freeways on the sporadic trips. We did have a big house, but income was a little low, so we did not buy very expensive belongings (like furniture or electronics) which had to last long." CreationDate="2017-10-31T15:48:13.043" UserId="4988" />
  <row Id="8977" PostId="6243" Score="0" Text="However for a real answer I would expect a study on everyone's lives, not only individual ones. Your story adds a bit to understand the issue but does not reflect the whole social habits." CreationDate="2017-10-31T15:52:14.327" UserId="4988" />
  <row Id="8983" PostId="6246" Score="0" Text="Paper can only be recycled about 6-7 times because then the paper fibers get too short." CreationDate="2017-11-01T20:46:38.373" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="8992" PostId="6248" Score="0" Text="What size system are you planning on at first, and what would you like to scale to and add in the meantime?" CreationDate="2017-11-06T17:28:44.100" UserId="5010" />
  <row Id="8993" PostId="6248" Score="0" Text="I want to start with a 100W solar panel.  I then want to add on a wind turbine.  My ultimate goal is to continue to add more battery and generation till I can power my whole house.  Start small but end up big." CreationDate="2017-11-06T18:08:18.220" UserId="5008" />
  <row Id="8995" PostId="6255" Score="0" Text="This is the right answer, but takes a while to get there -- could likely be shortened, and a few headings/bullets would be helpful. Probably worth noting that wind turbines for a single home very rarely make economic sense." CreationDate="2017-11-08T11:50:19.753" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="8999" PostId="6255" Score="0" Text="Thank you for the detailed response.  I will follow your advice with the two controllers.  But now I have the same question with regards to two controllers powering the same battery pack?  Can two controllers feed the same battery pack and what should be taken into account.  I can create a new question for that." CreationDate="2017-11-08T15:15:06.287" UserId="5008" />
  <row Id="9000" PostId="6255" Score="0" Text="As LShaver said, wind turbines rarely make economic sense in a domestic context.  I'd suggest thoroughly and carefully investigating the wind energy potential for your site, and see if you can afford a large enough turbine to make it financially viable.  If not, then you can remove wind from consideration and your question becomes moot — you'll just be left with a straight-forward solar setup." CreationDate="2017-11-09T09:53:59.543" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="8997" PostId="6257" Score="0" Text="How would you measure this?  Do you want to consider the carbon footprint of the nation-state w/ its military force that is required to lend value to fiat currency?" CreationDate="2017-11-08T12:08:12.037" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="8998" PostId="6257" Score="2" Text="I suppose you would need to figure out the carbon footprint of the manufacture of the actual physical cash and then add to that the carbon footprint of its transportation and storage. Metal coins would seem to have a larger initial carbon footprint over paper money but then paper money tends to have other materials such as plastics embedded within it. Transportation would be a factor as large amounts of money are heavy." CreationDate="2017-11-08T13:29:08.793" UserId="4951" />
  <row Id="9006" PostId="6257" Score="0" Text="@Jean-PaulCalderone: I think it reasonable of the questioner to hope that answers will analyse such considerations and give reasons why one should or should not take them into account. There may then still be an element of opinion as to whether to do so, but an open-minded person should understand the problem better and be able to make a better decision." CreationDate="2017-11-15T11:48:55.900" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="9009" PostId="6257" Score="0" Text="Indeed, the understanding of the problem requires an analysis of how to measure or estimate it in a relevant manner." CreationDate="2017-11-16T09:14:17.393" UserId="5019" />
  <row Id="13589" PostId="6257" Score="0" Text="Unlike &quot;good old cash&quot;, If you are interested in looking at the extreme energy use just from mining Bitcoin, you may like to review this link from the University of Cambridge: https://cbeci.org/   -  I recently heard that the energy currently used to mine Bitcoin in a year exceeds the energy used by the entire nation of Sweden for the same period.  I haven't verified that claim, but the energy used by &quot;mining&quot; is clearly extreme." CreationDate="2021-05-14T08:16:25.333" UserId="2727" />
  <row Id="13596" PostId="6257" Score="0" Text="Worth noting that electronic transfers are now the dominant way that &quot;cash&quot; moves and it's not obvious that the question includes those. Also, by design BitCoin can't scale to match even physical cash. Other craptocurrencies have attempted to design around this, but the sheer scale of even just credit card transactions (millions of transactions per second, every second) makes that quite a daunting problem. Trying to match the volume of even just Chinese online transations let alone the global total is mindboggling, and likely no single authority is possible" CreationDate="2021-05-17T06:29:55.693" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="13598" PostId="6257" Score="0" Text="Can people writing answer *please* include references rather than just empty bloviations? I'm happy to upvote rather than downvote but right now there's too little factual information for me to be comfortable doing that." CreationDate="2021-05-17T06:35:51.020" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="9001" PostId="6259" Score="0" Text="MIT Technology Review, Aug 2009, [Lithium Battery Recycling Gets a Boost](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/414707/lithium-battery-recycling-gets-a-boost/) and Fortune, Aug 2016, [The Big Potential of Used Electric Car Batteries](http://fortune.com/2016/08/25/used-electric-car-batteries/). See also Design News, Jan 2017, [Should Retired EV Batteries Be Reused or Recycled?](https://www.designnews.com/materials/should-retired-ev-batteries-be-reused-or-recycled/69832620547224)." CreationDate="2017-11-10T05:15:03.570" UserId="4951" />
  <row Id="9004" PostId="6259" Score="0" Text="The only thing on line I can find on this is the battery can &amp; should be recycled. It does not say were or how. A dealer would know on this. Or there hot line to the company. I looked up E-Golf battery recycle. It was posted in 2015." CreationDate="2017-11-09T01:30:43.563" UserId="5003" />
  <row Id="9019" PostId="6259" Score="0" Text="Youtube: [The Fixers Using Recycled Laptop Batteries to Power Their Homes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNbsiZcwGSY)" CreationDate="2017-11-20T13:24:28.860" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="11960" PostId="6259" Score="0" Text="It depends on the battery. Battery composition is changing all the time to make them 'better' according to some parameter of interest. Recycling may not be the parameter of interest to the battery maker trying to maximise their profit." CreationDate="2019-12-02T19:49:06.927" UserId="8200" />
  <row Id="12000" PostId="6259" Score="0" Text="I have no time to summarize or translate it (sorry) but you might be interested by the presentations at https://jt-batteries.record-net.org/ (in French)" CreationDate="2019-12-12T12:35:55.993" UserId="8222" />
  <row Id="13211" PostId="6259" Score="0" Text="Everything is recyclable :It is a question of which costs more - recycled or new raw material." CreationDate="2020-12-30T16:26:06.373" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="13212" PostId="6259" Score="0" Text="The European Commission has funded a project to develop a process: [ReLieVe Project](https://www.eramet.com/en/activities/innovate-design/relieve-project), which suggests that they recognise there is a gap here. In the UK, all household batteries can be recycled, including Lithium .. so there doesn't appear to be a fundamental problem about Lithium. I guess there aren't enough end-of-life Lithium car batteries around at the moment for an efficient industrial process." CreationDate="2020-12-31T07:45:56.357" UserId="8013" />
  <row Id="9003" PostId="6261" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Thank you for your answer, but do you have any references to back up your claims? Why is sugarcane better than corn-based plastic?" CreationDate="2017-11-12T09:31:22.997" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="9361" PostId="6261" Score="0" Text="corn based plastics are made from GMO corn and decompose very slowly.  https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/environmental-impact-of-corn-based-plastics/" CreationDate="2018-03-12T23:48:25.323" UserId="5517" />
  <row Id="9002" PostId="6262" Score="3" Text="It has been my impression that UTZ is slightly more strict than Rainforest Alliance, but I can't back that up right now. In any case UTZ and RA [recently announced](https://utz.org/merger/) that they will soon merge and continue with 1 certification scheme under the name Rainforest Alliance. The new standard will be published early 2019." CreationDate="2017-11-12T09:26:29.520" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="9010" PostId="6266" Score="2" Text="One option to investigate is converting the engine to run on recycled vegetable oil instead of diesel. I know from friends who have done this that this is relatively simple with many diesel engines. You will reduce efficiency, but total environmental impact is less since you'll be using biofuel. Many restaurants pay to have used cooking oil removed from the premises." CreationDate="2017-11-16T15:44:37.340" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9011" PostId="6268" Score="1" Text="Do you have any references for the cost aspect? I've read somewhere that recycling Li-ion isn't economically worthwhile." CreationDate="2017-11-17T06:35:49.540" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="9013" PostId="6268" Score="0" Text="Also curious if anyone does it, whether it's economically worthwhile or not.  There's only so much Lithium easily available but it's not like someone can decide to be environmentally responsible and recycle the batteries in their garage." CreationDate="2017-11-17T11:39:23.600" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="9015" PostId="6268" Score="0" Text="@Jean-PaulCalderone There is an Instructables guide for doing this with smaller batteries.  Google DIY Tesla wall.  Integrating backup power with household power isn't simple.  Some parts need to be done by professionals so that in a power outage, YOU aren't going to electocute someone working on the grid.  Completely off grid is simpler." CreationDate="2017-11-17T19:51:24.940" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="9016" PostId="6268" Score="0" Text="@THelper Sorry I don't.  I'm basing it on that aluminum and lithium are both usually refined electrolytically.  You would need to dig into recycling technology to veryify this." CreationDate="2017-11-17T19:54:22.433" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="9017" PostId="6268" Score="0" Text="@SherwoodBotsford Sorry, the &quot;it&quot; I meant was recycling not repurposing." CreationDate="2017-11-20T01:30:02.083" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="12047" PostId="6268" Score="0" Text="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxCFDWMPu38" CreationDate="2019-12-20T13:59:33.443" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="9020" PostId="6269" Score="2" Text="Why do you feel conversion to bio-diesel is bad for the environment? Presumably it will replace conventional diesel." CreationDate="2017-11-21T03:02:55.237" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9021" PostId="6269" Score="3" Text="Putting oil and grease down the drain has never been a good idea whether connected to proper sewers or to a septic tank. Kitchen oils are biodegradable since they are of animal or vegetable origin. I think the first course of action is to reduce the use of oils by changing the way you cook. It might be healthier as well. I mostly sautee with small amounts of oilive oil so I end up eating most of it and wiping the pan out with a paper towel before washing up to remove any remainder. I doubt biodiesel is any worse  for the environment than petroleum." CreationDate="2017-11-21T04:07:03.900" UserId="4951" />
  <row Id="9022" PostId="6270" Score="0" Text="I listened to an interesting discussion on the &quot;fuel vs food&quot; debate a while ago, and learned that this isn't the real issue. The root cause of malnutrition in the world is not a lack of food production, as evidenced by how much food is wasted in rich nations. However, converting virgin forest to cropland, or not allowing farmland to lie fallow periodically, is a serious environmental issue." CreationDate="2017-11-21T14:18:58.833" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9023" PostId="6270" Score="0" Text="Biodiesel produced from cooking oils does in fact produce 45-65% less greenhouse gas emissions than petrodiesel. This is great, don't get me wrong and I agree that this is probably the best option for now. It does however rely on you're local government providing this service or on you personally owning a diesel vehicle if you wanted to do some DIY production. In an age where electric cars seem to be the future, this really only seems like a stopgap solution as I envisage combustion engines will only decline in popularity as electric cars become more financially viable." CreationDate="2017-11-22T10:57:20.840" UserId="5061" />
  <row Id="9024" PostId="6270" Score="0" Text="Agreed, but that will take decades - and hopefully by then there will be other technologies to make use of the old oil (perhaps turning it into some kind of plastic by rearranging the hydrocarbon chains or something)" CreationDate="2017-11-22T11:33:06.873" UserId="4155" />
  <row Id="9025" PostId="6270" Score="0" Text="Maybe your response is something that you could use in your question to clarify why you consider &quot;Bio-Diesel&quot; an invalid Option, @AndyFurniss?" CreationDate="2017-11-22T14:51:37.840" UserId="1233" />
  <row Id="9026" PostId="6270" Score="0" Text="Good point @T-Saurus. I will add it in." CreationDate="2017-11-22T15:29:12.693" UserId="5061" />
  <row Id="9027" PostId="6271" Score="1" Text="The question (and first answer) demonstrate an implicit bias.  &quot;Potentially beneficial&quot;?  If look for such a certifying body, you may find one (though I suspect that right now the first answer is correct and none such exists yet).  But do you want to be told GMOs are beneficial or do you want to be told the truth about GMOs?  I would think the latter (at least, I find an accurate model of reality inherently desirable).  So what you really want to do is find a body doing science on the effects of GMOs.  And for the _health_ effects of _eating_ them, you're probably out of luck right now." CreationDate="2017-11-22T16:37:18.270" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="9037" PostId="6271" Score="0" Text="I am looking for a certification that would look at commercialised GMOs and consider the research associated to such variety (i.e. if there is any proof of negative environmental/health impact so far) as well as assess its potential to make agriculture more sustainable. As far as I know, you have to prove that something is _dangerous_, not the other way around." CreationDate="2017-11-24T04:16:05.407" UserId="80" />
  <row Id="9049" PostId="6271" Score="1" Text="I'm not sure what you're saying when you say &quot;you have to prove that something is dangerous&quot;.  Who is &quot;you&quot;?  Why does that person &quot;have&quot; to do anything?" CreationDate="2017-11-26T00:24:14.783" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="9050" PostId="6271" Score="1" Text="Sorry if I wasn't clear. What I meant is that I want the certification body to look at the current evidence: evidence that GMOs can help make agriculture more sustainable, and evidence that GMOs harm or are likely to harm humans. Research has the potential to prove that something is harmful; it can't prove that something can do no harm" CreationDate="2017-11-26T23:44:24.107" UserId="80" />
  <row Id="9065" PostId="6271" Score="0" Text="While research cannot _prove_ something harmless, it can make it plausible. The [precautionary principle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle) basically says “wait till it _has_ been made plausible”." CreationDate="2017-11-30T11:57:19.183" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="10357" PostId="6271" Score="1" Text="There's an old but interesting look at GMOs [from Slate](http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2015/07/are_gmos_safe_yes_the_case_against_them_is_full_of_fraud_lies_and_errors.html). The author argues that the anti-GMO movement ignores some of the biggest problems with GMOs by focusing on human health." CreationDate="2018-11-01T14:51:25.263" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10573" PostId="6271" Score="0" Text="Sustainable certifications are hard because the people who deserve them are generally poor. But the people with money want the certifications to be widely accepted and easy to get... which is not generally what the buyers want.&#xA;There's a solid argument that we already have GMOs in the food chain, but because they're not made in a controlled manner they &quot;don't count&quot;... but are possibly more dangerous than the ones the GMO haters are concerned with. For every orange kiwifruit we get a super-sugary but tasteless tomato. And that's just with selective breeding." CreationDate="2018-12-24T03:09:12.810" UserId="6100" />
  <row Id="9028" PostId="6272" Score="0" Text="Answering your last sentence: you could do what is done in a lot of other areas (eg medical interventions).  Start with animal trials and work towards human trials.  Given what little we know about human health and nutrition, though, expect this to be a long, long, long road.  Given the willingness of consumers to buy GMOs now with minimal evidence of safety and the unwillingness of many governments to intervene, I don't see why anyone would ever undertake the cost to perform such trials." CreationDate="2017-11-22T17:24:04.497" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="9029" PostId="6272" Score="1" Text="@Jean-PaulCalderone I don't see consumers as being particularly willing to buy GMOs. I them as being manipulated into doing so by misinformation and lax labelling laws." CreationDate="2017-11-22T18:16:18.107" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="9030" PostId="6272" Score="0" Text="@HighlyIrregular You say potato..." CreationDate="2017-11-22T19:17:52.693" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="9031" PostId="6272" Score="2" Text="Sorry, down-voting as bitter screed. There's some truth and insight here that's obscured by the tone, and as such doesn't really address the question." CreationDate="2017-11-22T20:38:09.477" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9035" PostId="6272" Score="2" Text="Wasn't it the US federal government that enacted a law (a couple of years ago) which _prevented_ states from requiring GMOs to be labelled as such?  Thus making it _impossible_ for citizens to make informed choices about what they were eating and turning the entire population of the whole country into unwilling GMO test subjects?" CreationDate="2017-11-23T10:20:49.193" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="9036" PostId="6272" Score="2" Text="_The Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act of 2015 (H.R. 1599) passed the House of Representatives on July 23, 2015.[1] The Act is called by some GMO labeling advocates &quot;The DARK Act&quot; for &quot;Denying Americans the Right to Know&quot;_ —  [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safe_and_Accurate_Food_Labeling_Act_of_2015).  As is a feature of a lot of US legislation, the name given to acts is completely opposite to the intent and effect of those acts." CreationDate="2017-11-23T10:26:26.210" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="9038" PostId="6272" Score="0" Text="I also downvoted this response, sorry. I am looking for an answer to my question, not a debate about the safety of GMOs / how businesses behave. We could chat for hours on the subject, but in short: I don't see GMOs too different to selection variety or evolution. Organisms keep mutating all the time, and crops' genotypes constantly change in an non-targeted way (mutation + natural selection), a somewhat targeted way (crop selection and breeding) and in a highly targeted way (genetic engineering) – it's a continuum. We are all &quot;guinea pigs&quot;: it took a while to figure out how bad sugar can be." CreationDate="2017-11-24T04:29:06.640" UserId="80" />
  <row Id="9039" PostId="6272" Score="0" Text="@stragu, I explained why no such certification body exists, and made clear the problem(s) that need to be overcome for such a body to come into existence.  You are free to reject the answer, but that won't change history or the current reality.  You seem to accept your role as guinea pig, and seem to want to use labelling (that cannot _possibly_ assure safety) as a means to convince (some would say &quot;trick&quot;) others into become guinea pigs also.  Have you contemplated the **ethics** of your current course of action?" CreationDate="2017-11-24T07:25:54.913" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="9040" PostId="6272" Score="3" Text="@Tim, you say that such a certification can't exist based on your _belief_ that there will never be a way to achieve an acceptable level of confidence in a GMO's innocuity. Your answer contains no reference whatsoever; you make sweeping statements about millions dying, the public not trusting corporations at all, 99% of corporations being untrustworthy; and you make a GMO name up to illustrate your point. Are you also against most pharmaceutics and technologies because of the same belief that something needs to be tested over several generations to be deemed safe enough to be used by humans?" CreationDate="2017-11-24T11:01:18.180" UserId="80" />
  <row Id="9041" PostId="6272" Score="0" Text="@stragu, you _avoided answering_ the question, and instead have exploded the scope of this topic in an attempt to turn it into a debate... which you previously _claimed_ you didn't want.  This is not a forum for debate.  I merely asked if you have contemplated the ethics of convincing/tricking people to become guinea pigs when you cannot, in any way, guarantee their safety.  If you have, then I'd be interested in hearing your considered thoughts.  If you haven't considered the ethical issue, then, well... I would encourage you to do so before progressing further." CreationDate="2017-11-24T12:30:54.040" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="9043" PostId="6272" Score="0" Text="In case it is not clear why I asked, your original post expressed a desire for a _&quot;more sustainable and **ethical** food production system.&quot;_  As I am unsure how a GMO certification system — that provides assurances but cannot guarantee safety — can contribute to an _ethical_ food production system, I was seeking clarification on the point." CreationDate="2017-11-24T12:51:07.017" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="9032" PostId="6273" Score="2" Text="A key point is advertising has a huge cost. This cost is sustained by consumers, who have to work more, drive more vehicles and use more resources to get money and buy stuff." CreationDate="2017-11-23T09:13:21.113" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="9044" PostId="6273" Score="1" Text="There is different approaches to advertising as well as different types and avenues of advertising. At a minimum level advertising is necessary because if other people don't know about the product or service (in a very general sense) then they will either continue without out what might be something helpful or valuable or they will spend the time to reinvent the product or service. So advertising should not be looked at as &quot;the problem&quot; however there is certainly advertising that is problematic (looking at you pharma industry with pill pushing adverts directly to consumers)." CreationDate="2017-11-24T15:48:34.027" UserId="4951" />
  <row Id="11460" PostId="6273" Score="0" Text="It might be interesting to review the literature related to cigarette usage/ smoking and drinking. At least in the USA both advertising sectors were regulated and anti-smoking and drinking adds were promoted. It had the desired effect." CreationDate="2019-09-19T21:19:34.150" UserId="7952" />
  <row Id="9033" PostId="6274" Score="0" Text="Thanks Adam, I didn't realise oil could be composted. Would composting oil differ from composting plant matter in any way, in terms of how you do it? As you yourself have a specific composter for oils, do you have any advice for keeping vermin away?" CreationDate="2017-11-23T09:51:26.583" UserId="5061" />
  <row Id="9034" PostId="6274" Score="0" Text="I found this page which was quite helpful - https://www.planetnatural.com/composting-101/compost-digesters/anaerobic/" CreationDate="2017-11-23T10:02:24.580" UserId="5061" />
  <row Id="9051" PostId="6278" Score="1" Text="How does this relate to sustainable living?" CreationDate="2017-11-27T14:31:29.367" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9052" PostId="6278" Score="0" Text="@LShaver Well I am a homesteader. Sustainable living and homesteading are one in the same. What is your definition of sustainable living?" CreationDate="2017-11-27T16:09:32.797" UserId="5073" />
  <row Id="9053" PostId="6278" Score="0" Text="I agree, and wasn't trying to challenge you -- however for the purposes of this site we ask that you include in your question how it relates to sustainable living, as per [the site help section](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic)." CreationDate="2017-11-27T16:49:21.197" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9055" PostId="6278" Score="0" Text="I see. Well I used to be able to have turkey to eat as a pose to having to go to the grocery store. Is that a good reason or should I delete this question. I don't want to cause trouble. Just thought I found a site that fits my lifestyle. My bad." CreationDate="2017-11-27T17:17:35.540" UserId="5073" />
  <row Id="9056" PostId="6278" Score="1" Text="Nope, no trouble at all! You can [edit your question](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/posts/6278/edit) to include that info, as well as your comment on homesteading. Being specific about how the things we discuss here relate to sustainability makes the site a more valuable resource for others who have similar questions (which, you might say, is more *sustainable*)." CreationDate="2017-11-27T17:45:42.900" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9058" PostId="6286" Score="0" Text="That's a good anecdote. While it is mostly easy to see in rural lifestyles the carbon footprint, in big cities it may be harder to see some hidden environment impacts, like the maintenance of subway systems, higher consumption of small packed products which are transported from farther away and with higher losses (big supermarket chains buy products cheaper so they can afford more mishandling). City lifestyle is more superficial than a rural one, so people consume more high end brands while rural people rather invest in their property." CreationDate="2017-11-28T23:27:56.603" UserId="4988" />
  <row Id="9062" PostId="6288" Score="0" Text="This is **one** consumer prefence, nothing about *what the research/analysis/industry says about this*." CreationDate="2017-11-29T08:32:50.933" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="9061" PostId="6289" Score="0" Text="Could you expand on how you cleanup the dog waste in your yard?" CreationDate="2017-11-29T03:48:53.793" UserId="2942" />
  <row Id="9066" PostId="6289" Score="2" Text="Rake it into piles. Load piles into wheel barrow.  Trundle to the compost pile.  Some fraction crumbles during the raking process as mixes with the thatch." CreationDate="2017-11-30T15:50:12.247" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="9072" PostId="6294" Score="0" Text="A better alternative would be to have separate utility meters for each apartment. I'm surprised that for an apartment building with only three units it wasn't done that way to start with." CreationDate="2017-12-05T10:59:19.090" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="9073" PostId="6294" Score="0" Text="@Fred the building is from around 1900, renovated first some time in the 40s, and then separated into apartments some time in the 70s. Setting up separate utilities is the best option, but in this case and many others, it would be costly and impractical. I edited the question to point this out -- I'm looking for ways to create an incentive when separate utilities is _not_ an option." CreationDate="2017-12-05T15:53:36.743" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9221" PostId="6294" Score="0" Text="Separate utility meters is _always_ an option.  Incentivising the landlord to install them is the problem.  It sounds like you are unhappy about having to subsidise your neighbours' extravagance and wastefulness, and are trying to find a &quot;plan&quot; that you could pitch to your apathetic landlord which you hope will... ultimately... result in your utility bills coming down — is that correct?" CreationDate="2018-01-25T17:36:19.873" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="9074" PostId="6299" Score="2" Text="I would counter that first a mindset change is needed in developed countries where ever bigger/better/faster products are constantly being produced, with nary a thought about their long-term impacts." CreationDate="2017-12-06T23:38:06.903" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9077" PostId="6299" Score="0" Text="I agree with this, although developed countries have got a lot of major changes to make in the sense of 'old habits die hard'. In places where there is for instance *no* electricity yet, there are no old habits to change, so basically a step can be skipped.." CreationDate="2017-12-07T20:57:34.480" UserId="5117" />
  <row Id="9146" PostId="6299" Score="0" Text="@LShaver Indeed. *the example being set is still very inefficient and fossil-fuel based* is set by the 'developed' world." CreationDate="2017-12-21T12:55:17.803" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="9075" PostId="6300" Score="0" Text="No offense, but that is more of a &quot;comment&quot;-Level remark than a full answer. ;)" CreationDate="2017-12-07T13:44:56.580" UserId="1233" />
  <row Id="9076" PostId="6300" Score="0" Text="Oops! Sorry - I'm new to this place. Will keep in mind!" CreationDate="2017-12-07T20:52:53.627" UserId="5117" />
  <row Id="9078" PostId="6300" Score="0" Text="No need to apologise. Thanks for your understanding and considering to answer! :) &#xA;&#xA;Also, welcome to SE-Sustainable Living!" CreationDate="2017-12-08T08:07:35.037" UserId="1233" />
  <row Id="9144" PostId="6301" Score="0" Text="Those are a lot of interesting claims you make. Can you add your sources to back them up?" CreationDate="2017-12-20T11:09:47.797" UserId="1319" />
  <row Id="9145" PostId="6301" Score="0" Text="Been there worked there on my job before retiring. Seen the world on the Company card." CreationDate="2017-12-20T12:10:33.850" UserId="5003" />
  <row Id="9088" PostId="6303" Score="0" Text="I'm voting to close as &quot;primarily opinion based.&quot; The question could be improved by focusing on one of the particular issues raised -- industrialization, pesticides, antibiotic use in livestock, etc." CreationDate="2017-12-11T21:03:53.877" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9090" PostId="6303" Score="0" Text="@LShaver I agree the question is opinion-based, but I'm not sure the answers necessarily would-be. Your suggestion that the question can be fixed by focusing on a particular topic seems to imply that the question is &quot;too broad&quot;?" CreationDate="2017-12-12T13:58:43.310" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="9101" PostId="6303" Score="0" Text="@Lshaver I agree with THelper, and I think that the answer from Richard Chambers rescues the question." CreationDate="2017-12-13T17:42:05.357" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="9085" PostId="6304" Score="0" Text="Do you have any examples of good feedback loops which protect the environment for industrial agriculture? In my example I was trying to get at how industrial agriculture’s negative feedback loop of increasing usage of pesticides damages the soil, where as a smaller organic farm that doesn’t use pesticides wouldn’t have the same negative impact on the land, that was sort of the intention of my argument" CreationDate="2017-12-10T21:46:59.517" UserId="5216" />
  <row Id="9087" PostId="6304" Score="0" Text="@ben see the edits I made to this answer with two feedback loops, lawsuits and consumer preference changes." CreationDate="2017-12-11T20:04:58.230" UserId="4951" />
  <row Id="9091" PostId="6307" Score="0" Text="If your only costs other than fuel for the generator are food, basic clothing, and toiletries, what do you need the generator for?" CreationDate="2017-12-12T16:37:12.987" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="9092" PostId="6307" Score="0" Text="@Jean-PaulCalderone heating maybe.." CreationDate="2017-12-12T16:40:55.060" UserId="5224" />
  <row Id="9093" PostId="6307" Score="0" Text="Do you need healthcare?" CreationDate="2017-12-12T16:58:29.267" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="9130" PostId="6307" Score="0" Text="Without health care? live to 100 years? I really doubt that... I think money is the least thing you will worry about." CreationDate="2017-12-18T19:38:46.370" UserId="5246" />
  <row Id="9134" PostId="6307" Score="0" Text="@Aus You obviously haven't studied remote cultures so much :)" CreationDate="2017-12-19T08:15:56.243" UserId="5224" />
  <row Id="9135" PostId="6307" Score="0" Text="Not much, but you should be at least &quot;on the grid&quot; of some tribe." CreationDate="2017-12-19T09:30:56.827" UserId="5246" />
  <row Id="9098" PostId="6309" Score="1" Text="This is only *one* component of the answer and the OP is still left with not knowing *how* to calculate. And the link is incorrect and only for Finnish wood. And link-only answers are unwanted on SE sites because of possible link rot." CreationDate="2017-12-13T14:04:28.853" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="9096" PostId="6310" Score="4" Text="I'm afraid this doesn't answer the question, because clearly the OPs intent is to get some kind of average. Also I suspect that you didn't take conversion loses into account, but this is hard to verify because you didn't provide a source for your information." CreationDate="2017-12-13T12:44:11.083" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="9100" PostId="6312" Score="1" Text="You are right if the OP doesn't use a battery, but whether he does or not is unclear from the question unfortunately. There is an earlier question from the same OP where he mentions he's thinking about buying the cooler and battery: https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/6214/how-long-will-a-12v-koolatron-compact-cooler-last-with-12ah-battery" CreationDate="2017-12-13T15:52:50.370" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="9099" PostId="6314" Score="0" Text="I think you mean psych**r**ometric don't you? (psychometric is something very different)" CreationDate="2017-12-13T14:27:10.960" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="9103" PostId="6316" Score="0" Text="In Europe: mainly agricultural activity (including manure application) lead to the release of inorganic nitrogen into river and ground water. Generally, apart from agriculture: In industrialized regions with weak waster water control mechanisms (_mechanisms_ in the sense of environmental protection agencies monitoring industrial effluent water) an import source might be some facilities of the chemical industry." CreationDate="2017-12-14T08:26:07.267" UserId="3641" />
  <row Id="9104" PostId="6316" Score="0" Text="I don't want to say that farmers generally cause the release of ammonium/nitrate into rivers. But the extensive agricultural activities and the application of vast amounts of manure as present in large parts of Northern Germany, Denmark, and the Netherlands has this impact." CreationDate="2017-12-14T08:28:48.973" UserId="3641" />
  <row Id="9124" PostId="6316" Score="0" Text="could you explain the word &quot;secondary forest streams&quot;? I am not familiar with that nor do I find a clear explanation for it." CreationDate="2017-12-17T18:41:53.757" UserId="3641" />
  <row Id="9155" PostId="6316" Score="0" Text="Not a significant source, but aquatic animals secrete ammonia and nitrogen in their waste" CreationDate="2017-12-28T06:57:34.280" UserId="5265" />
  <row Id="9102" PostId="6317" Score="1" Text="one reason may be that soy-ink is more expensive and most people aren't willing to pay the cost difference. It may also be that it requires special equipment for printing. Perhaps you should update your question with the specifics of your printer such as what kind it is, model number and manufacturer, etc." CreationDate="2017-12-14T05:15:53.807" UserId="4951" />
  <row Id="9121" PostId="6318" Score="0" Text="Note that this already happens without intervention, search for the term  'nitrogen deposition', and is a serious problem e.g. for diversity in plants because the plants which thrive well on large amounts of N (think nettles, grasses) tend to overgrow the smaller species which do not rely on N that much. Here's just one of many studies: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/03/160330174216.htm" CreationDate="2017-12-16T19:54:39.063" UserId="4158" />
  <row Id="12546" PostId="6320" Score="0" Text="Related, but no applicable answer: https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/6811/what-are-crisp-packets-made-from. And see [my answer here](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/a/8434/2451), partly about metal film." CreationDate="2020-04-14T08:43:40.470" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="12547" PostId="6320" Score="0" Text="The weight of pigment in the colored ink is likely greater than the weight of aluminum. One could certainly ignore the aluminum when disposing of it." CreationDate="2020-04-14T14:56:09.690" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="9105" PostId="6321" Score="0" Text="You point is that the common procedures to separate isolation from cables does not work for these small cables? Therefore, you are asking whether these cables can be recycled at all?" CreationDate="2017-12-15T08:27:55.377" UserId="3641" />
  <row Id="9106" PostId="6321" Score="2" Text="I suspect the main concern for the local recycler is not so much if it benefits the environment, but if it's economical." CreationDate="2017-12-15T09:13:59.697" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="9122" PostId="6325" Score="0" Text="Thank you for taking this discussion to [chat](https://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/70335/discussion-between-neel-and-paparazzi). I've cleaned up the comments here." CreationDate="2017-12-17T07:22:24.233" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="13784" PostId="6326" Score="0" Text="But I still think that the second episode of Black Mirror was far-fetched" CreationDate="2021-07-28T09:40:46.973" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="9113" PostId="6328" Score="0" Text="A patent does not make it economical.  Is this being used commercially today?" CreationDate="2017-12-16T19:09:11.713" UserId="2914" />
  <row Id="9115" PostId="6328" Score="0" Text="A patent does not make it economical: True, but it does show how to clean up the environment ! No clue, if this is available as a product today." CreationDate="2017-12-16T19:20:38.440" UserId="5040" />
  <row Id="9119" PostId="6328" Score="0" Text="Converting NO2 and SO2 to solid forms for use in fertilizer does not clean up the environment.   Scrubbers have been used to remove NO2 and SO2 since the 1940s due to emission standards.   How to economically deal with NO2 and SO2 is totally separate." CreationDate="2017-12-16T19:47:14.693" UserId="2914" />
  <row Id="9129" PostId="6328" Score="0" Text="A patent could be as vague as a patent troll fishing net can be. It shouldn't be used as is, as an answer." CreationDate="2017-12-18T19:34:13.533" UserId="5246" />
  <row Id="9140" PostId="6331" Score="0" Text="If there's too much oil in the bread, won't this make composting more complicated?" CreationDate="2017-12-19T16:13:52.867" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9141" PostId="6332" Score="0" Text="This sounds like a good idea, but it would seem hand washing might be better -- depending on how oily the cloth is, it could take a lot more soap or stain the other clothing you're washing." CreationDate="2017-12-19T16:14:33.137" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9132" PostId="6333" Score="0" Text="Here you go https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Heat-exchanger-paper-core-air-ventilation_60636606176.html" CreationDate="2017-12-18T21:15:16.110" UserId="5246" />
  <row Id="9148" PostId="6337" Score="1" Text="Possible duplicate of [What are the cheapest and easiest methods to convert grey water to potable water?](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/776/what-are-the-cheapest-and-easiest-methods-to-convert-grey-water-to-potable-water)" CreationDate="2017-12-21T16:11:44.043" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9149" PostId="6337" Score="3" Text="Not a duplicate, no interest in reclaiming grey water just in dispersing it. Interesting question tho." CreationDate="2017-12-21T17:22:35.380" UserId="5250" />
  <row Id="9481" PostId="6337" Score="0" Text="These systems are very sensitive to local conditions.  What is your climate, what soil types do you have available, what is your local topography like, what is the local hydrology you'll be interacting with?  And what is your estimate for the quantity you need to deal with (as an approximation, how many people will be in the structure)?" CreationDate="2018-04-01T12:34:06.680" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="9147" PostId="6338" Score="1" Text="Can you add more detail? How much water, what type (shower, dishwater, industrial use, etc)? Is this an off-grid situation?" CreationDate="2017-12-21T16:09:34.980" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9150" PostId="6340" Score="2" Text="Interesting. Given the issues you noted with RA, and the third-party monitoring of UTZ, I think the scales would tip in UTZ's favor. Hopefully this third-party monitoring will be maintained after the merger." CreationDate="2017-12-21T18:24:18.637" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9153" PostId="6341" Score="1" Text="Can you re-write this answer in clear English please, not just bullet-pointed half - sentences?" CreationDate="2017-12-22T08:32:14.693" UserId="5224" />
  <row Id="9159" PostId="6342" Score="0" Text="Great, so I should start smoking so that I can fill those. Great idea." CreationDate="2017-12-30T15:51:47.067" UserId="4863" />
  <row Id="10373" PostId="6343" Score="0" Text="Could you provide any references to support your answer, or a bit more detail?" CreationDate="2018-11-06T15:58:57.627" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10381" PostId="6343" Score="0" Text="In the system described, the tank simply becomes the sump. The water level difference depends on the dimensions of the 3500 gallon tank." CreationDate="2018-11-07T18:31:46.450" UserId="5265" />
  <row Id="9164" PostId="6353" Score="1" Text="Not sure if it's still the case but many cans (used to) have [a lining that contains BPA](https://www.ewg.org/research/bpa-canned-food/executive-summary), especially cans containing tomatoes" CreationDate="2018-01-02T08:35:25.907" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="9166" PostId="6353" Score="1" Text="A comparison against other forms of preservation would be interesting as well - eg fermentation, dehydration, salting." CreationDate="2018-01-02T14:13:44.780" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="9165" PostId="6354" Score="0" Text="Does 120 kcal/month for frozen food storage assume that otherwise you would not have any frozen storage?  Or does taking a freezer that's half full already and adding one package of frozen corn to it increase the operational cost of the freezer by 120 kcal/month?" CreationDate="2018-01-02T14:12:55.507" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="9167" PostId="6354" Score="0" Text="@Jean-PaulCalderone I suggest you read the article and follow up with the referenced book from which the article author pulled their data. However I suspect it is all averages and using statistics to predict a specific scenario usually has some probability of the prediction being different from the actual reality." CreationDate="2018-01-02T15:23:47.410" UserId="4951" />
  <row Id="9168" PostId="6356" Score="0" Text="I assume they are electric space heaters? Is there any sort of zone control for the central furnace? any option of closing vents in your room to keep you cooler while the rest are warmer?" CreationDate="2018-01-08T06:11:11.027" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9169" PostId="6356" Score="1" Text="No outer wall insulation is a major part of your problem. You do not say the construction of the house, whether wood frame or brick or what, but I suspect the R-value of your walls and ceiling could be greatly improved. See this table http://www.coloradoenergy.org/procorner/stuff/r-values.htm" CreationDate="2018-01-08T14:24:08.957" UserId="4951" />
  <row Id="9170" PostId="6358" Score="0" Text="I suspect quite a bit of fruit and vegetable waste in the West comes from items that are cosmetically blemished or whose shape and size does not fit well with current processing equipment or the needs of food manufacturers." CreationDate="2018-01-08T23:33:59.067" UserId="4951" />
  <row Id="9174" PostId="6358" Score="0" Text="@RichardChambers perhaps in the grocery store -- but from farms, a lot of &quot;ugly&quot; fruit is moved into plants for processing into sauces, canned produce, etc. Processing machines are quite advanced: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-MlJI48XX4" CreationDate="2018-01-10T16:55:06.390" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9175" PostId="6358" Score="0" Text="I think &quot;wasted&quot; is a relative term -- fruit that falls to the ground will rot and return its nutrient value to the soil." CreationDate="2018-01-10T16:55:50.297" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9176" PostId="6358" Score="0" Text="@LShaver Yes, although direct human consumption is a much higher level use than compost.  Yes, compost is important.  But food waste could have been compost after they were used as nutrients/calories as well." CreationDate="2018-01-10T18:42:19.137" UserId="1662" />
  <row Id="9177" PostId="6358" Score="0" Text="@LShaver [THE US THROWS AWAY AS MUCH AS HALF ITS FOOD PRODUCE](https://www.wired.com/2016/07/us-throws-away-much-half-food-produce/)  [Food Waste: The Next Food Revolution](https://modernfarmer.com/2013/09/next-food-revolution-youre-eating/)  [Left Out: How much of the fresh produce that we grow never makes it off the farm?](https://www.nrdc.org/experts/dana-gunders/left-out-how-much-fresh-produce-we-grow-never-makes-it-farm) [Wasted: How America Is Losing Up to 40 Percent of Its Food from Farm to Fork to Landfill](https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/wasted-food-IP.pdf)" CreationDate="2018-01-10T20:58:44.710" UserId="4951" />
  <row Id="9178" PostId="6358" Score="0" Text="@RichardChambers thanks for the links, particularly the NRDC study." CreationDate="2018-01-10T21:08:02.597" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9189" PostId="6358" Score="0" Text="Sustainable - feed it to animals you can eat." CreationDate="2018-01-17T14:02:30.737" UserId="1567" />
  <row Id="9181" PostId="6362" Score="1" Text="Interesting question! BTW the rumour that a [two Google Searches requires the equivalent of boiling one litre of water](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/4217055/Two-Google-searches-produce-same-CO2-as-boiling-a-kettle.html) is most likely incorrect (see also [my answer on How much CO2 do I cause with one Google search?](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/a/5584/99))." CreationDate="2018-01-11T10:33:07.810" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11003" PostId="6362" Score="0" Text="Just saw an interesting piece on YouTube's energy consumption from researchers at the University of Bristol: [&quot;Simple Design Changes Could Make YouTube Better for the Planet, Researchers Say&quot;](https://earther.gizmodo.com/simple-design-changes-could-make-youtube-better-for-the-1834581507)." CreationDate="2019-05-08T14:34:41.893" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12541" PostId="6362" Score="1" Text="There's been an increase in use of streaming video services during the COVID-19 crisis, and the International Energy Agency published an interesting blog post on the energy implications: [The carbon footprint of streaming video: fact-checking the headlines](https://www.iea.org/commentaries/the-carbon-footprint-of-streaming-video-fact-checking-the-headlines)" CreationDate="2020-04-08T17:09:43.653" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9180" PostId="6363" Score="0" Text="Thanks! Very good answer, but I'll keep this as open for a while if anyone manages to find any kind of equivalent data from the platform or infrastructure side and also information specifically about computers and computer monitors." CreationDate="2018-01-11T10:28:15.180" UserId="5307" />
  <row Id="9223" PostId="6371" Score="0" Text="You are free to do the math yourself to dispel any illusions of &quot;accounting sophistry&quot;.  If you are _unwilling_ or _unable_ to do the math, then perhaps you should reflect on the basis of your own opinions?  If they are not based on hard data, logic and math, what _are_ they based on?  The first step to making the world a better place is to see it how it actually is.  That means putting aside ideology and looking hard at the numbers.  I've done that, and I invite you to do the same." CreationDate="2018-01-26T06:22:49.500" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="9560" PostId="6374" Score="0" Text="hmm... I understand." CreationDate="2018-04-16T16:22:38.737" UserId="5298" />
  <row Id="9192" PostId="6379" Score="1" Text="An uninsulated studio is going to take a _lot_ of power to heat.  So much so that you can probably ignore the rest of the loads and approximate the answer as &quot;looooooooooooooooots&quot;." CreationDate="2018-01-18T13:17:52.797" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="9194" PostId="6379" Score="0" Text="Could anyone give me an approximate number?" CreationDate="2018-01-19T21:32:20.237" UserId="5338" />
  <row Id="9229" PostId="6379" Score="1" Text="I think &quot;small house&quot; or &quot;one-room cabin&quot; would be more accurate than &quot;studio,&quot; since that typically implies a small apartment in an apartment building." CreationDate="2018-01-28T16:15:21.730" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9308" PostId="6379" Score="0" Text="Living in an uninsulated building somewhere that gets to freezing seems like absolute madness to me.  Invest in some tapestries at least!" CreationDate="2018-02-27T00:15:18.983" UserId="5479" />
  <row Id="16422" PostId="6380" Score="1" Text="To save energy, you would want to use in air-to-water heat pump rather than direct heating." CreationDate="2023-07-14T07:13:58.973" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="9196" PostId="6381" Score="1" Text="There have in fact been significant improvements in solar cell technology since the late 1990s: NREL's [solar PV efficiency chart](https://www.nrel.gov/pv/assets/images/efficiency-chart.png) shows progress for all major (and emerging) solar cell technologies." CreationDate="2018-01-20T21:00:36.017" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9197" PostId="6381" Score="0" Text="This answer has very limited validity: it is from 1997, it is about chips like DRAM, processors and not photovoltaic cells." CreationDate="2018-01-21T12:53:01.660" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="9199" PostId="6383" Score="1" Text="Looks like this article, and related studies, could be a good starting place: [&quot;Differences between household waste reduction, reuse and recycling behaviour...&quot;](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=18407416464812275148&amp;hl=en&amp;as_sdt=5,50&amp;sciodt=0,50)" CreationDate="2018-01-22T17:19:37.483" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9227" PostId="6383" Score="1" Text="Try the book [Not in my backyard](https://www.amazon.in/BACKYARD-Solid-management-Indian-Cities/dp/8186906908) and [Excreta Matters](https://www.amazon.in/Excreta-Matters-Students-Special/dp/8186906665)" CreationDate="2018-01-28T02:46:11.437" UserId="2260" />
  <row Id="9200" PostId="6385" Score="0" Text="I know I'm not the smartest guy but the way I figure it, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but the light from the led will travel in a 180 degree arc from the source, 360 degrees around so it would make sense that multiple panels in a dome would be able to capture more emitted light than just one panel alone. As for powering the led, I would use the power generated from the panels to feed the light. I know an intital power source would be required for the led but after the panels absorb enough light couldn't they power the led themselves?" CreationDate="2018-01-22T19:36:27.580" UserId="5357" />
  <row Id="9201" PostId="6385" Score="0" Text="@Davidhill Yes,would capture more of the emitted light with multiple panels.  But you would not capture more light than emitted.  What you do capture is 14% efficiency." CreationDate="2018-01-22T19:40:39.113" UserId="2914" />
  <row Id="9203" PostId="6385" Score="0" Text="I get that you can't capture more light than emitted but if one panel produced x amount of power then would 2 panels create 2x amount from the same source and so on since more of the enmities light is absorbed?" CreationDate="2018-01-22T20:04:18.493" UserId="5357" />
  <row Id="9204" PostId="6385" Score="0" Text="@Davidhill Don't know how to be more clear. Can't help you." CreationDate="2018-01-22T20:09:02.683" UserId="2914" />
  <row Id="9205" PostId="6385" Score="0" Text="Thanks anyway. I guess I just not understanding the concept." CreationDate="2018-01-22T20:23:24.457" UserId="5357" />
  <row Id="9209" PostId="6385" Score="1" Text="@Davidhill If you add more panels, eventually the placement of the panels will become more and more difficult and panels placed at less optimal positions will have a much lower yield. Even if you were to somehow capture all the emitted light, you'll still have conversion losses resulting in less energy output than energy input." CreationDate="2018-01-23T15:54:39.933" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="9206" PostId="6386" Score="0" Text="Why not DC refrigerator and washer?" CreationDate="2018-01-23T14:46:17.310" UserId="2914" />
  <row Id="9207" PostId="6386" Score="0" Text="@Paparazzi I suspect because these are harder to find and more expensive -- a quick search on a swap site for the medium city where I live gives 10 results for chest freezers for under $200. A converted freezer will also tend to have better insulation, meaning it will run less often." CreationDate="2018-01-23T15:11:12.763" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9208" PostId="6386" Score="0" Text="@LShaver It is also more efficient.  I would like to get a response from the OP." CreationDate="2018-01-23T15:13:40.617" UserId="2914" />
  <row Id="9210" PostId="6386" Score="0" Text="Thanks for your replies, here in New Zealand the 12 volt versions of these appliances are very expensive and not readily available. The models that are available are generally very small and intended for occasional use in an RV. As this will be my home I would like full size, reliable brand products for a reasonable price." CreationDate="2018-01-23T16:26:35.907" UserId="5300" />
  <row Id="9211" PostId="6386" Score="0" Text="That's some good detail to add to the question. Also, roughly what size freezer are you looking for?" CreationDate="2018-01-23T17:20:56.483" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9289" PostId="6386" Score="0" Text="I keep 2 refrigerators in my home.  One in the garage that I use in the winter and one in the kitchen that I use the rest of the year.  Since the garage is uninsulated and cold in the winter, we save on electrical power." CreationDate="2018-02-22T00:13:10.863" UserId="4574" />
  <row Id="9213" PostId="6387" Score="0" Text="Thanks, this is helpful and does indeed help with my second question.  My understanding was that a chest fridge made from a freezer was very efficient, and It would indeed be around the 5 to 7 cubic foot I would use.  I would perhaps use a separate inverter for each appliance. I would still ask if this setup would generally be considered reliable and efficient. Thanks for your time." CreationDate="2018-01-24T07:37:53.123" UserId="5300" />
  <row Id="9212" PostId="6388" Score="3" Text="My guess is that the health impact of Coke would mean the downstream healthcare costs outweigh any production costs." CreationDate="2018-01-24T00:47:56.420" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="9214" PostId="6388" Score="0" Text="Hmmmm... Not sure how you would quantify that! Besides, given that 1.8 billion coca cola drinks are sold a day [https://www.statisticbrain.com/coca-cola-company-statistics/], can we really pin down healthcare costs on a single beverage? I mean this question seriously, please respect it." CreationDate="2018-01-24T23:42:50.010" UserId="5361" />
  <row Id="9215" PostId="6388" Score="0" Text="I do respect it... I still upvoted :-)" CreationDate="2018-01-25T01:12:07.130" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="9218" PostId="6388" Score="1" Text="I think your estimate for boiling the water is slightly out - a bit of googling suggests that the average temperature for tap water is around 7-15C (say an average of 10) depending on location and season - so the delta would be 90K, not 75. I'd also suggest there is a much bigger transport difference, as tea can be packed quite densley - I'd say a 100g pack of tea is about the same volume as one single tin can" CreationDate="2018-01-25T13:07:55.800" UserId="4155" />
  <row Id="9222" PostId="6388" Score="0" Text="@NickC Agreed, the temperature difference is quite rough and ready. I haven't take into account the variation in packing density as the statistics I have only give the amount of energy required per tonne, averaged over all vehicles I guess. So if you have a little van which uses more fuel per unit mass than a huge lorry then we are averaging over the two. I guess an advantage with tea is that it is often transported in dry form, so less energy in transport (unless it is Ice Tea)!" CreationDate="2018-01-25T21:40:16.687" UserId="5361" />
  <row Id="9224" PostId="6388" Score="0" Text="You need to add also the raw products transportation for coffee or tee." CreationDate="2018-01-26T10:54:44.550" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="9283" PostId="6388" Score="0" Text="Not really an answer to the question... One thing I have started doing is to drink Yaupon, which is a caffeinated Holley leaf native to North America https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilex_vomitoria .  This means it takes less resources for shipping/transportation (if you are in the United States)." CreationDate="2018-02-19T23:44:59.103" UserId="5444" />
  <row Id="9347" PostId="6388" Score="0" Text="More sustainable to grow your own tea" CreationDate="2018-03-11T19:54:59.407" UserId="5517" />
  <row Id="9219" PostId="6390" Score="0" Text="+1 for the proposed website name. One minor issue is on the verification side -- the utility bill goes to the landlord, so none of the renters would ever see it. To this end though, a simple change in laws could be to require landlords (or utilities) to send renters an annual summary of utility usage. I also updated the question to clarify precisely why separate meters is impractical -- it would involve re-wiring the whole building, since several circuits are shared between two or three apartments (which I am reminded of periodically when a breaker is tripped)." CreationDate="2018-01-25T17:15:20.883" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9220" PostId="6390" Score="0" Text="At my current address we have a shared meter for water, and the water company sends out individual bills that clearly shows that we are expected to pay a 1/88th share of the total bill.  The handling of shared meter billing is obviously not uniform... so unless you want to reinvent the wheel for every single landlord, government area, state and country, a common approach would seem to be more likely to succeed." CreationDate="2018-01-25T17:22:09.707" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="9228" PostId="6393" Score="2" Text="Can you [edit] this and do something about the [wall of text](http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Wall_of_Text)? Some references would be nice too." CreationDate="2018-01-28T13:16:22.257" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="9226" PostId="6394" Score="2" Text="Not all carbon goes back into the atmosphere when a tree dies, otherwise we wouldn't have coal, oil and gas deposits underground. I'm not sure what percentage of a tree ends up permanently stored underground though..." CreationDate="2018-01-28T01:47:05.547" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="9233" PostId="6395" Score="0" Text="it should be pretty evident if you light it on fire. Polyester fibers will melt and drip, cotton and other natural fibers will not." CreationDate="2018-01-29T18:16:43.120" UserId="1701" />
  <row Id="9252" PostId="6395" Score="0" Text="@ThatIdiot Not a bad idea... probably best to do it outside, and take care not to breathe the smoke..." CreationDate="2018-02-04T21:27:28.360" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="9230" PostId="6397" Score="0" Text="I used the Degree Days calculator you provided and got the spreadsheet. However, I didn't understand what the numbers mean. What is a &quot;heating degree day&quot;? (i.e. its unit?) and what is &quot;Estimate&quot;?" CreationDate="2018-01-28T20:21:29.010" UserId="5338" />
  <row Id="9231" PostId="6397" Score="0" Text="I just used the degree days calculator to break the annual energy down into monthly. A &quot;heating degree day&quot; is a measure of a cumulative heating demand over a period of time. [This link](http://www.degreedays.net/introduction) gives a good overview." CreationDate="2018-01-29T03:21:03.633" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9234" PostId="6400" Score="2" Text="Seems to be [little in the UK](http://sustainablefoodtrust.org/articles/dairy-cows-livestock-behind-growth-soya-south-america/)" CreationDate="2018-01-30T08:13:47.937" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="9236" PostId="6400" Score="1" Text="A pedantic answer could be that no soya is _required_ to make milk." CreationDate="2018-01-30T21:20:04.263" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="9238" PostId="6400" Score="0" Text="Agreed, but theory does not always match practice. Shops do not label their products with the specifics of what feed was used for good reason as the complexity would be overwhelming." CreationDate="2018-02-01T09:00:46.337" UserId="5361" />
  <row Id="9239" PostId="6400" Score="0" Text="Anyone have any ideas for countries other than the UK e.g. US or developing nations?" CreationDate="2018-02-01T09:01:45.383" UserId="5361" />
  <row Id="9240" PostId="6403" Score="0" Text="Did you see these terms used somewhere that implied that they are strictly distinct?" CreationDate="2018-02-01T15:07:43.050" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9241" PostId="6403" Score="0" Text="No, that's why I am asking what the common understanding here is. :-)" CreationDate="2018-02-01T15:16:11.793" UserId="2187" />
  <row Id="9243" PostId="6403" Score="1" Text="Hmm.... then where did you see these concepts? What's the motivation for asking this? What do *you* think the difference is? The question needs a bit more context." CreationDate="2018-02-01T16:29:46.390" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9244" PostId="6403" Score="1" Text="Not necessarily LShaver. We have two working groups in our university that are interested in sustainable consumption / responsible consumption.&#xA;We want to know if there are relevant differences between the two concepts or if there is no problem in treating them as synonyms." CreationDate="2018-02-01T15:11:22.740" UserId="5393" />
  <row Id="9247" PostId="6411" Score="0" Text="I recently saw a video about a Belgian company, [Turbulent](http://www.turbulent.be/), that is working on simple, eco-friendly micro-hydro power plants. Could be a good place to get some ideas." CreationDate="2018-02-03T18:18:24.100" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9248" PostId="6411" Score="0" Text="I wouldn't try the 'periodically' - you're likely to do that less and less frequent. Besides, your're introducing 'shocks' to the system that way." CreationDate="2018-02-03T18:31:58.213" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="9249" PostId="6411" Score="0" Text="It's a pretty mountainous area, every hard rain &quot;shocks&quot; the system, and raises the level of the pool. I'm basically looking for a way to increase the water volume temporarily for recreational purposes. I would slowly &quot;open&quot; a gate to bring the volume of water back to normal when I'm done .... in theory" CreationDate="2018-02-03T18:38:29.067" UserId="4037" />
  <row Id="9253" PostId="6411" Score="0" Text="I'd have thought that damming such a perennial stream (brook) would be prohibited." CreationDate="2018-02-05T19:52:58.543" UserId="1701" />
  <row Id="9276" PostId="6411" Score="1" Text="Is it not just easier to introduce beavers and let them do the dam work for you?" CreationDate="2018-02-17T13:05:57.657" UserId="5450" />
  <row Id="9250" PostId="6412" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainability.SE! Thanks for the answer, and this seems like a helpful tip -- however, how does this limit the amount of pine that the goats eat? Do they get full on the molasses, or does it make eating the pine harder?" CreationDate="2018-02-04T01:10:24.557" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9254" PostId="6416" Score="5" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! It depends on the source of the gas and electricity. Can you add to your question where the gas is coming from, and what percentage of the electricity is from renewable sources? If you're unable to find that out, please add the location where you live." CreationDate="2018-02-07T08:11:53.103" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="10719" PostId="6416" Score="0" Text="@THelper If 90% of electricity in an area are from renewable sources, all users of electricity are guilty of using the rest 10%: https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/7112/what-is-marginal-energy ...so it doesn't matter what percentage comes from renewable sources. All that matters is whether exactly 100% or less than 100% are produced in a carbon-free manner. Also, you are excluding nuclear for no reason at all. Nuclear is equivalent to renewables in produced emissions." CreationDate="2019-02-20T18:28:41.917" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="9255" PostId="6417" Score="0" Text="Not sure how to link questions, but this one is very related: https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/734/how-to-make-a-fully-reused-reusable-plastic-bottle-raft" CreationDate="2018-02-08T16:46:08.663" UserId="5420" />
  <row Id="9256" PostId="6417" Score="0" Text="Why wouldn't you use the bottles for some time in your boat, then discard them responsibly? Given that an adagium for waste is *reduce - reuse - recycle*, you extend the 'reuse' phase this way, which is good." CreationDate="2018-02-08T22:24:26.153" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="9258" PostId="6417" Score="0" Text="Most plastic is not biodegradable.  This includes PET and PETE.  Instead, over any interesting timeframe, they break down into smaller pieces of plastic.  This is the hazard.  Tiny pieces of PET and PETE floating around the environment, being eaten by things which then get sick or concentrate them to be eaten by something else which gets sick.  Making a boat out of this stuff is a great way to accelerate the rate of this degradation and pollution." CreationDate="2018-02-09T14:52:46.293" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="9259" PostId="6420" Score="0" Text="This is just barely an answer. I've edited it for you, but if you have more information you can add, such as a link to your local government's web site saying they accept the black plastic, that would help. At the moment it's more of a comment than an answer ." CreationDate="2018-02-10T13:24:09.393" UserId="1053" />
  <row Id="9261" PostId="6421" Score="0" Text="I flagged the flag as off-topic because it is a mathematical homework question. Equally, the homework question &quot;Albert earns 600 EUR per week and get's an annual bonus of 2000 EUR. Bart earns 2760 EUR per month. Who earns more per year?&quot; does not fit to Economics.SE although it is about payment." CreationDate="2018-02-12T08:36:17.867" UserId="3641" />
  <row Id="9262" PostId="6421" Score="2" Text="@daniel.neumann Personally I think it's on topic because the OP seems to be struggling with MSY concept and we can help with that. I do agree that the exact outcome has less relevance here." CreationDate="2018-02-12T13:26:48.803" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="9264" PostId="6421" Score="0" Text="@THelper: Thank you (for your answer below)! I think I understand how much I should harvest now since I do have the necessary values (K) to figure out how much there would be at K/2. From here, I believe I know the approximate number of fish to harvest without going below one-half capacity." CreationDate="2018-02-12T18:38:12.593" UserId="5431" />
  <row Id="9266" PostId="6424" Score="3" Text="I believe this would be a better fit on [Gardening.SE](https://gardening.stackexchange.com/search?q=aquaponics) -- there appear to be a number of good questions and answers on aquaponics there." CreationDate="2018-02-14T15:35:48.830" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9267" PostId="6424" Score="0" Text="I'm not sure what you mean by the siphon method. Do you mean that the top water level in koi tank is higher than the drain in the planting bed. You need powered flow at some point." CreationDate="2018-02-14T18:36:24.580" UserId="1701" />
  <row Id="9345" PostId="6424" Score="0" Text="I suspect he means flood and drain using bell siphons" CreationDate="2018-03-11T19:38:50.580" UserId="5517" />
  <row Id="9350" PostId="6424" Score="0" Text="Would love to hear whether you got your problem solved..." CreationDate="2018-03-11T22:12:53.217" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="9268" PostId="6425" Score="0" Text="Thanks.Should we use supplementary nutrients in aquaponics?" CreationDate="2018-02-15T21:19:01.037" UserId="5441" />
  <row Id="9270" PostId="6425" Score="0" Text="@farnaz That's not something I can answer, sorry!" CreationDate="2018-02-16T00:58:34.697" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="9346" PostId="6425" Score="0" Text="You might need potassium and iron supplementation. But this question belongs to gardening which covers this topic." CreationDate="2018-03-11T19:41:10.100" UserId="5517" />
  <row Id="9269" PostId="6427" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainability.SE! It sounds like what you're interested in is a sort of decision tree or flowchart to help you decide when to replace items in a general sense. If so, I'd add that clarification to your question. Otherwise, you may want to ask separate questions for each item (food container, desk, etc)." CreationDate="2018-02-15T23:30:57.937" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9271" PostId="6427" Score="4" Text="Great questions in there, but it's too broad a question to try to answer all those things at once. I've voting to close this in it's current form, but I'd love to see you ask those questions separately." CreationDate="2018-02-16T01:03:39.737" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="9272" PostId="6427" Score="0" Text="You would need to calculate the impacts of a product based on a life cycle analysis and compare that with the impacts of the alternative/new product. This is not an easy task; it needs to be done by a skilled LCA practitioner and even then can the results be difficult to interpret and compare. More practically you would need to use heuristics that tell you when it's better to replace something, but heuristics differ from product to product.That's why I agree with Highly Irregular's comment that it's better to limit this question to a specific type of product." CreationDate="2018-02-16T08:31:41.377" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="9273" PostId="6427" Score="2" Text="Two example questions we already have; [What is the environmental impact of replacing a vehicle](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/3190/99), &#xA;[Should I replace existing inefficient light bulbs](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/6073/99). Perhaps some of the questions tagged '[alternative](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/alternatives)' are interesting as well." CreationDate="2018-02-16T08:39:48.153" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="9274" PostId="6427" Score="0" Text="The question is indeed too broad. Even answering it for one specific product is a lot of work (Life Cycle analyses are not complicated)." CreationDate="2018-02-16T10:16:19.817" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="9275" PostId="6427" Score="2" Text="@THelper I think if you were to expand that a bit with some links it would provide a good answer to this question -- to help OP understand what sorts of things to consider, and how to go about making the keep/replace decision." CreationDate="2018-02-16T15:00:13.080" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10330" PostId="6427" Score="0" Text="-1 This question is not answerable in its current form. If you were looking to minimize your costs, or maybe looking to minimize some metric of environmental footprint, those would be more answerable. But if you need something for health reasons, only you know your priorities and only you can make that judgement call." CreationDate="2018-10-25T19:04:29.160" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="9278" PostId="6429" Score="0" Text="That is exactly his kind of projets I was looking for, thank you @j-chomel !" CreationDate="2018-02-17T17:04:03.457" UserId="5446" />
  <row Id="9277" PostId="6430" Score="0" Text="https://www.google.com/search?q=get+rid+of+cockroaches+naturally ?" CreationDate="2018-02-17T13:18:43.243" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="9465" PostId="6432" Score="0" Text="You can also do this using icing sugar (confectioners sugar) and powdered borax.  Most recipes have a higher sugar to borax ratio -- often 10 to 1." CreationDate="2018-03-27T03:25:43.210" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="9466" PostId="6432" Score="0" Text="Clean the sprayer well after use.  If it dries in the sprayer you will have fun getting it unstuck." CreationDate="2018-03-27T03:26:16.350" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="9348" PostId="6433" Score="2" Text="Almost all natural gas in the US comes from fracking -- https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=26552. At the same time, coal's share of total power production is now less than that of gas, and continuing to decline -- https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=34612." CreationDate="2018-03-11T21:08:59.700" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9285" PostId="6436" Score="0" Text="People smoke meat with nut shells. Lots of references to pecan and pistachio. Can't find anyone specifically using almond but it sounds worth a try." CreationDate="2018-02-21T04:47:49.480" UserDisplayName="Sobachatina" />
  <row Id="9286" PostId="6436" Score="0" Text="I've removed a lot of comments about migration and cross posting. (For the record, closure as off topic would not have been a big deal - we can always reopen to migrate. And manually reposting would've been fine at that point too; the rule about cross posting is about trying to get answers in multiple places, not about preventing people from ever asking anywhere once they've picked the wrong site first.)" CreationDate="2018-02-21T15:15:56.810" UserDisplayName="Cascabel" />
  <row Id="9287" PostId="6438" Score="0" Text="Composting would be 'more sustainable' than burning." CreationDate="2018-02-21T15:23:21.143" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="9288" PostId="6438" Score="0" Text="@THelper when I answered this was on cooking.se, and I don't intend to edit just because of a migration.  But if you burn for needed heat (e.g. in a log burner) it's debatable." CreationDate="2018-02-21T15:32:49.917" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="9291" PostId="6439" Score="1" Text="This question is (also) on-topic here, but I suspect there are more people on [Chemistry SE](https://chemistry.stackexchange.com) that can help you with this question." CreationDate="2018-02-22T13:09:43.710" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="9294" PostId="6439" Score="0" Text="I wouldn't fancy storing the CO -- if it vents you've got big problems, and so has anyone downstream. Better to burn it" CreationDate="2018-02-24T20:41:14.870" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="9295" PostId="6439" Score="0" Text="@ChrisH Yes, I do plan to burn it and route the hydrogen to the fuel cell.  the trick is to separate the CO from the H2" CreationDate="2018-02-25T02:51:50.073" UserId="4574" />
  <row Id="9300" PostId="6439" Score="0" Text="Duplicate question on [Chemistry SE](https://chemistry.stackexchange.com/q/91112/)" CreationDate="2018-02-26T08:39:33.593" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="9305" PostId="6439" Score="0" Text="You will be able to find many more references if you call it &quot;water gas&quot;." CreationDate="2018-02-26T20:08:55.940" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="9307" PostId="6439" Score="0" Text="May I ask why you want to use a fuel cell rather than burning the gas?  If you're worried about environmental effects, then you're already sinking the CO2 if you bury the biochar and I suspect the environmental impacts of building a fuel cell may be higher than rereleasing some of the carbon." CreationDate="2018-02-27T00:02:58.277" UserId="5479" />
  <row Id="9309" PostId="6439" Score="0" Text="@turksarama the goal is to generate electricity from biomass.  The fuel cell is much more efficient in this regard because we are going directly from the chemical energy involved in oxidation of hydrogen to electrical energy.  Otherwise if we combust the biomass we have to go chemical energy of Combustion of wood gas to mechanical energy of the generator then to electrical energy; a much less efficient process." CreationDate="2018-02-27T03:45:07.993" UserId="4574" />
  <row Id="9290" PostId="6440" Score="0" Text="Given that you can get extruded aluminium computer heat sinks from eBay for as low as $1.76 with free international shipping, I'm not sure why you would want to DIY one.  Nonetheless, if you want to spend more than $1.76 in fuel/energy, you could use propane/electricity to melt down a whole pile of random aluminium scraps and pour it into a sand cast.  A flat base plate with an array of rods sticking out of it (made using straws or knitting needles) would probably give you the conductivity and surface area you need." CreationDate="2018-02-22T06:09:39.883" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="9292" PostId="6440" Score="0" Text="You need a low O2 (ideally no O2) environment to melt aluminum.  If you heat aluminum in an O2 environment you'll just get aluminum oxide.  A propane torch definitely will not work." CreationDate="2018-02-22T15:45:31.120" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="9304" PostId="6440" Score="0" Text="lol... You might want to tell that to the tens/hundreds of thousands of people that smelt and sand cast aluminium for small projects every week.  ;)  https://duckduckgo.com/?q=sand+cast+aluminium+propane" CreationDate="2018-02-26T13:08:36.460" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="9296" PostId="6443" Score="0" Text="Would brazing the copper be better than soldering since we are working with higher temperatures?" CreationDate="2018-02-25T02:55:33.110" UserId="4574" />
  <row Id="9297" PostId="6443" Score="0" Text="@0tyranny0poverty. Quite possibly. We didn't have the facilities to try, also soldering with paste in an oven is much quicker. I know in bike manufacturer aluminium is usually welded. It's not the easiest metal to weld but the strength you need is much less." CreationDate="2018-02-25T07:45:44.543" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="9464" PostId="6444" Score="1" Text="We tried it.  The mice thought it was hilarious.  The flies chuckled to themselves in sardonic amusement.  All stayed." CreationDate="2018-03-27T03:24:23.170" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="9403" PostId="6445" Score="2" Text="Why does your garden need to meet USDA Organic standards?" CreationDate="2018-03-17T09:14:52.830" UserId="2914" />
  <row Id="9310" PostId="6448" Score="0" Text="Given your knowledge of your local weather, landscape and proximity of your neighbours, if you were to burn it, what do you think the chances are that the neighbours (or yourselves) willl be significantly affected by the pollution? I see this issue as outweighing the other issues." CreationDate="2018-02-27T20:27:21.527" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="9311" PostId="6448" Score="2" Text="What is the difference between wood CO2 and coal CO2 ?" CreationDate="2018-02-28T02:59:36.310" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="9313" PostId="6448" Score="1" Text="@HighlyIrregular Interesting, I hadn't even thought along those lines. We have no neighbours within 100metres so I don't think they would be directly affected in any way." CreationDate="2018-02-28T21:48:56.237" UserId="5481" />
  <row Id="9314" PostId="6448" Score="2" Text="@blacksmith37 From a chemical composition, no difference between wood and coal CO2 but I tend to think of emissions from wood as being &quot;current&quot; in that it they were fixed from the atmosphere relatively recently so adding it back doesn't add significantly to atmospheric CO2 (so long as trees are being replaced). With coal CO2 I think of it as &quot;ancient&quot;, having been fixed from the atmosphere millions of years ago so releasing it adds to the current atmospheric CO2. Maybe this is a naïve and over-simplistic view." CreationDate="2018-02-28T21:52:24.237" UserId="5481" />
  <row Id="9315" PostId="6448" Score="0" Text="PS **Thanks!** This is my first foray onto StackExchange and it is great to get others' views!" CreationDate="2018-02-28T21:53:36.633" UserId="5481" />
  <row Id="9354" PostId="6448" Score="0" Text="You are probably not allowed to burn coal in a wood-burning stove. But if it's not much, consider using it for barbecueing or burning outside on cool evenings in a fire place or fire bowl." CreationDate="2018-03-12T13:12:39.700" UserId="1567" />
  <row Id="9463" PostId="6448" Score="0" Text="Store it.  It becomes an emergency fuel supply if you run out of wood.  Electric radiators are 100% efficient.  All the power in them is released as heat.  You can do much better with a heat pump, but he extra initial cost and maintenance is not usually warranted.  You can do somewhat better by clever use of heaters so you only heat up what needs to be warm -- radiant shining on you or your work." CreationDate="2018-03-27T03:10:38.763" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="10705" PostId="6448" Score="0" Text="I like the storage idea best. Look at the world and all the turmoil – the thought of government failure, extreme fuel shortage or even war is not too far off. Store it for bad times if you don't have lack of space." CreationDate="2019-02-14T12:13:34.130" UserId="6365" />
  <row Id="9319" PostId="6452" Score="0" Text="Is the &quot;small wood burner&quot; a wood heater or a wood stove?  Perhaps more importantly, is it solely used for heating or is it used for heating and cooking?  Can you specify it's make/model?" CreationDate="2018-03-03T05:57:26.670" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="9323" PostId="6452" Score="0" Text="It's a small (5kw) room-heater, a Smellie Crator (unfortunate name of the week) if that helps. (www.whatstove.co.uk/james-smellie-crator-stove-reviews)" CreationDate="2018-03-06T18:43:48.660" UserId="1210" />
  <row Id="9325" PostId="6452" Score="0" Text="Great name!  Nice, flat top.  If you end up getting a thermoelectric stove fan, positioning it in a back corner, and having it blow diagonally across the stove-top, will probably add another 4-6 months to the life of the product." CreationDate="2018-03-07T15:13:21.803" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="9316" PostId="6453" Score="1" Text="Thanks for the answer Tim.  It's an interesting and informative take on the problem and it's always good to look at different routes to the end aim.  The issue I have with the 'computer fan' approach is primarily that such a fan would need a dedicated power supply (adding to the purchase and energy cost) and that the vicinity of log burners is not a trivial place to run wiring etc. (Also I don't have a socket handy).  So while I like the approach, I'm not sure it's a workable solution for me." CreationDate="2018-03-02T14:01:19.317" UserId="1210" />
  <row Id="9317" PostId="6453" Score="2" Text="12V DC fans are trivially-simple devices to power.  You don't need an actual computer PSU to power one.  You can use a 5V USB charger (which would run the fan at 5/12= 42% of max speed), or you can use a 6V lantern battery (for 6/12= 50%), or a random combination of rechargeable AA/C/D-cells, or a lot of old mobile phone chargers, or any (variable) AC/DC power adaptor, of which there are squillions on Amazon.uk for under £10 a pop.  At most, these approaches drop efficiency by ~20% which won't make a dent on the 800%+ lead that they have over thermoelectric." CreationDate="2018-03-03T05:34:40.020" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="9318" PostId="6453" Score="1" Text="As far as mounting is concerned, the reason thermoelectric oven fans fail quickly is because they sit directly on top of the oven.  If you want electronics to last, you don't mount them in a hot place.  Better to mount a fan on a wall behind or next to the oven, and have it blow air from there.  Works just as well, no wires on the floor, and the electronics don't fry due to the heat.  You might even have power on the other side of that wall you could tap into." CreationDate="2018-03-03T05:40:46.047" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="15987" PostId="6453" Score="0" Text="To add to the list of non-air-mixing uses, my Peltier fan is very useful as an audio-visual stove thermometer. The pitch of the faint whirring noise lets me know when to put another log on, even if I'm at the other end of the boat at my desk." CreationDate="2022-09-06T21:45:41.177" UserId="14329" />
  <row Id="9344" PostId="6457" Score="1" Text="Perhaps you could add a link for a home method of making biochar" CreationDate="2018-03-11T19:35:37.220" UserId="5517" />
  <row Id="9357" PostId="6458" Score="1" Text="Heat pumps are inefficient in cold climates https://www.nordicghp.com/2015/12/air-source-heats-pump-cold-climates/" CreationDate="2018-03-12T18:14:11.140" UserId="5517" />
  <row Id="9369" PostId="6458" Score="1" Text="Air heat pumps are slightly less efficient than a heat pump that takes energy from thr soil, bedrock etc. If it is really cold our electric heater kicks in, if it is -15C or so. But that doesn’t negate the fact that it works really well in general." CreationDate="2018-03-13T22:51:09.660" UserId="5498" />
  <row Id="9758" PostId="6459" Score="0" Text="One must also consider the environmental impact of High Fructose Corn Syrup, and all of the environmental impact that big agribusiness has on our watersheds. Like the dead zone in the gulf, which is caused largely by fertilizer runoff." CreationDate="2018-05-30T15:44:04.943" UserId="4922" />
  <row Id="9321" PostId="6461" Score="1" Text="I used paperkarma for years and loved it -- it worked great for me. Unfortunately I can't currently justify the cost -- perhaps at some point in the future when I'm flooded with junkmail I'll pay for a year." CreationDate="2018-03-04T17:54:38.923" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9407" PostId="6467" Score="0" Text="Not getting how higher earnings is a bigger footprint.   A trader at a desk has a pretty low footprint." CreationDate="2018-03-17T09:31:58.137" UserId="2914" />
  <row Id="9363" PostId="6468" Score="0" Text="Perhaps a better question to ask would be &quot;Do customers want to be nickel-and-dimed when they visit a hotel?&quot; — because if they don't, then feasibility/legality is irrelevant because the proposed model fails at the very first hurdle.  I suspect that the existing &quot;fixed, up-front fee&quot; model is preferable for the large (perhaps even overwhelming) majority of hotel guests looking for a stress-/care-free trip away from home." CreationDate="2018-03-13T04:20:22.273" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="9373" PostId="6468" Score="0" Text="@Tim as in nearly all matters related to sustainability, the existing model needs improving or replacing." CreationDate="2018-03-14T19:41:37.163" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9376" PostId="6468" Score="0" Text="What is this doing in &quot;sustainability?&quot;" CreationDate="2018-03-14T22:37:21.647" UserId="1692" />
  <row Id="9378" PostId="6468" Score="0" Text="@Ernie assigning a cost to use of non-renewable resources (electricity and purified water) sends economic signals which can result in reduced consumption. The current hotel model allows/encourages guests to waste water and electricity." CreationDate="2018-03-14T23:20:27.623" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9399" PostId="6468" Score="0" Text="@LShaver  If the guests weren't at a hotel they'd be home consuming water and electricity anyway.  You are extrapolating your own tendencies to the rest of the population and assuming that it is an issue of such great magnitude that it needs addressing... without providing any data to back up your view.  &quot;the existing model needs improving or replacing&quot; is nothing more than an opinion presented as a fact.  It is illogical/ill-advised to slap the &quot;sustainability&quot; sticker on every facet of life and get totalitarian." CreationDate="2018-03-16T19:32:40.033" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="9400" PostId="6468" Score="0" Text="Step 1:  Prove the &quot;problem&quot; actually exists.  &#xA;Step 2:  Determine the magnitude of the problem if it does.&#xA;Step 3:  If the magnitude is significant, collaborate with others to address the problem.  No point putting the cart before the horse." CreationDate="2018-03-16T19:32:45.740" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="9401" PostId="6468" Score="0" Text="@LShaver  Perhaps another thing you are not considering is occupancy rates.  _People don't book into hotels to sit in them all day running taps and lights._  They go outside.  Indeed, on a holiday, you spend _most_ of your waking hours _outside._  If you're not in your hotel room, you're not using up resources.  Contrast that with staying at home all day.  It might actually be the case that people use **less** water and electricity in a hotel than they would if they stayed at home.  If that's the case, what is the point of this thread?" CreationDate="2018-03-16T19:46:19.317" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="9408" PostId="6468" Score="0" Text="@Tim, I edited the question a fair bit in response to your comments and some others." CreationDate="2018-03-17T15:06:30.923" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15523" PostId="6468" Score="0" Text="It would reproduce the home-buyer problem: it's impossible to know the energy consumption of a residence in any detail without actually living there. I've stayed in a literal tin shed &quot;backpackers&quot; that was only rendered marginally habitable by a huge air conditioner... but that shed wasn't shown in the photos and I had no idea it even existed until I arrived to check in to my booked room. The flip side was renting a holiday house and discovering that it was a passivhaus. We could have known that, in theory, and the energy cost of staying there was negligible." CreationDate="2022-01-21T23:22:17.947" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="9336" PostId="6471" Score="1" Text="Roof is actually facing west if it can be called facing at all at this pitch.  I guess there's the additional issue of dirt ( no snow ) not washing off the panels so easily if they're lying flat.  I'll have a play with the calculator.  thx." CreationDate="2018-03-09T19:50:53.437" UserId="5517" />
  <row Id="9337" PostId="6471" Score="0" Text="@GrahamChiu the &quot;system losses&quot; variable includes panel soiling. You could increase this number a bit to get a better idea of what output would look like longer-term." CreationDate="2018-03-10T16:35:35.297" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9349" PostId="6471" Score="1" Text="More tilt means less dust build up (slightly)..." CreationDate="2018-03-11T22:11:16.907" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="9360" PostId="6471" Score="1" Text="FWIW: over 30° they can **basically** be considered self-cleaning; below that, not so much. If your location is dusty, know that you may lose as much as *15%-20%* in dirt-based occlusion between cleanings. Back when I was working for a renewable energy contractor, we'd advise the angle just based on that alone; the exception was that if the user was utility grid-tied and on time-of-use metering, sometimes the better $$ was to not angle, if their best sun angle aligned with their peak cost of power.&#xA;If you are grid-tied, look at your power purchase agreement: if not time of use, angle them." CreationDate="2018-03-12T22:57:10.447" UserId="5478" />
  <row Id="9339" PostId="6472" Score="0" Text="The first several google results for &quot;lead nano carbon batteries&quot; point to stores or marketing. I suspect this may be a marketing term more than a technical one... do you know the manufacturer or model, to get a few more details? Also the main advantage of lithium-ion is power density, which typically isn't worth the added cost in an off-grid situation (unless you're carrying the batteries up a mountain on foot)." CreationDate="2018-03-10T22:12:12.600" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9341" PostId="6472" Score="0" Text="They don't give me a manufacturer ... http://greensparksolar.co.nz/Off-Grid.php I think they're talking about this technology https://chargedevs.com/newswire/solving-the-energy-density-challenge-with-single-wall-carbon-nanotubes/" CreationDate="2018-03-10T22:27:03.037" UserId="5517" />
  <row Id="9343" PostId="6472" Score="0" Text="Another battery type you may want to investigate is vanadium redox (also known as vanadium flow) battery." CreationDate="2018-03-11T11:10:14.473" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="9358" PostId="6472" Score="0" Text="Ok, they gave me this link http://en.naradapower.com/index.php/products/info/14?ctype=46 lead carbon batteries" CreationDate="2018-03-12T18:45:02.220" UserId="5517" />
  <row Id="9359" PostId="6472" Score="0" Text="Maybe the same as this https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/UltraBattery" CreationDate="2018-03-12T19:21:35.493" UserId="5517" />
  <row Id="9382" PostId="6472" Score="0" Text="How many local businesses or contractors can you find who are willing to service these batteries?" CreationDate="2018-03-15T13:49:33.267" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="9385" PostId="6472" Score="0" Text="The importer will warranty them for three years" CreationDate="2018-03-15T18:38:52.637" UserId="5517" />
  <row Id="9340" PostId="6473" Score="0" Text="You could compare the electric bill and size of your current house, to what you're proposing to add." CreationDate="2018-03-10T22:13:20.370" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9342" PostId="6473" Score="0" Text="So, if we calculate the loads during winter, then the battery has to be what percentage of this load presuming one doesn't want to flatten them?" CreationDate="2018-03-10T23:11:43.013" UserId="5517" />
  <row Id="9381" PostId="6473" Score="0" Text="What kind of batteries are available for the project?" CreationDate="2018-03-15T13:48:36.920" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="9386" PostId="6473" Score="0" Text="Lead acid, lead carbon, lithium ion are suggestions by suppliers so far" CreationDate="2018-03-15T18:56:56.087" UserId="5517" />
  <row Id="9446" PostId="6474" Score="0" Text="That towel thing you mention has been in use for more than 15 years...." CreationDate="2018-03-26T06:37:29.353" UserId="5569" />
  <row Id="9351" PostId="6475" Score="0" Text="Why would one need to have their own biogas reactor? Why would't gas from biogas reactor owned by a city / state / country be a renewable resource?" CreationDate="2018-03-12T07:41:49.363" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="9352" PostId="6475" Score="0" Text="Name one city that supplies biogas in the U.S. ... I have no idea of what is available, whereas home biogas is readily done" CreationDate="2018-03-12T08:46:31.373" UserId="5517" />
  <row Id="9353" PostId="6475" Score="0" Text="A quick google search shows me [this project](http://www.hybridcars.com/us-largest-biogas-plant-being-built-in-north-carolina/) which says that '*[biogas] will be sent nationwide through the natural gas pipeline system*', but admittedly I don't know if the plant is operational yet. In any case, where I live (Europe) there are several biogas plants that inject gas into the grid." CreationDate="2018-03-12T09:04:01.917" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="9355" PostId="6475" Score="0" Text="I think the closest thing in the U.S. would be farms and sewage treatment plants which convert manure into biogas -- however as far as I know, most of these burn the gas locally to use the heat/electricity for their own needs, occasionally export excess power to the grid. But the gas never leaves the site." CreationDate="2018-03-12T14:34:52.340" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9356" PostId="6475" Score="0" Text="@THelper added a link.  Home based biogas reactors are common in some countries." CreationDate="2018-03-12T18:12:06.267" UserId="5517" />
  <row Id="9462" PostId="6477" Score="0" Text="You need a Another 10 degrees to be self snow shedding, and you need to have no lips or edges for sliding snow to catch on." CreationDate="2018-03-27T02:54:05.633" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="9372" PostId="6478" Score="1" Text="Thanks for the perspective. One model I can imagine for improving customer experience is to charge a flat rate, then offer a discount for keeping energy use below some threshold value. Or give the option of paying one flat rate or reduced rate + utilities." CreationDate="2018-03-14T19:39:30.410" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9365" PostId="6480" Score="3" Text="Without references to this process actually being used, this looks like a troll answer." CreationDate="2018-03-13T12:52:04.267" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="9383" PostId="6482" Score="1" Text="The scale of the impact is a function of the organic production, though, not of the total amount of environmental impact the OP has on the world through her job.  Someone could say &quot;buying organic instead of conventional offsets 3 blubs of GHG and 2 blabs of soil loss&quot;.  The fact that OP puts 5 blabs of soil per day into a machine that produces depleted uranium underwear makes no difference to this result." CreationDate="2018-03-15T14:05:55.993" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="9371" PostId="6483" Score="0" Text="I have a milk crate on my bike similar to yours. When I used to bike commute past a grocery store I would stop once or twice a week. I could easily fit two full grocery bags (reusable, of course) in the crate." CreationDate="2018-03-14T19:24:54.223" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9374" PostId="6483" Score="0" Text="That's not my bike, it's an image I stole off Google. My image is one of a 3 year old blissfully sleeping surrounded by groceries, but I can't find it." CreationDate="2018-03-14T20:48:30.917" UserId="1692" />
  <row Id="9375" PostId="6484" Score="0" Text="What sort of plastic?" CreationDate="2018-03-14T22:26:52.733" UserId="5517" />
  <row Id="9377" PostId="6484" Score="0" Text="@GrahamChiu any sort -- I'm interested in whatever data is available on the topic." CreationDate="2018-03-14T23:18:21.727" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9384" PostId="6486" Score="2" Text="I don't understand the logical connection between these two statements: &quot;However, some industries that use HDPE for their products eg. garden pots, ropes etc it is cheaper to use recycled HDPE than purchase virgin HDPE. And this is why it is downcycled.&quot;.  Can you clarify this part of the answer?  Why does &quot;cheaper to use recycled&quot; result in it being &quot;downcycled&quot;?" CreationDate="2018-03-15T15:33:07.127" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="9391" PostId="6486" Score="0" Text="It's cheaper for whatever product to use recycled hdpe than virgin. The food industry prefers virgin." CreationDate="2018-03-15T19:36:15.543" UserId="5517" />
  <row Id="9394" PostId="6486" Score="0" Text="Do you have any references for your claim that HDPE can be recycled indefinitely?" CreationDate="2018-03-16T10:24:33.987" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="9395" PostId="6486" Score="0" Text="https://waste-management-world.com/a/enzymatic-recycling-process-to-allow-infinite-recycling-of-pet-developed-in-france" CreationDate="2018-03-16T10:39:13.300" UserId="5517" />
  <row Id="9396" PostId="6486" Score="0" Text="Thanks for sharing, but the article is about PET and it says they are working on achieving this. I am not able to find any article that says HDPE can be recycled infinitely, but I did find [this article](https://www.plasticstoday.com/packaging/scientific-tests-prove-hdpe-can-be-recycled-least-10-times/68825031358152) where they say it can be recycled at least 10 times" CreationDate="2018-03-16T11:33:05.847" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="9398" PostId="6486" Score="0" Text="The practical limitation is due to contamination with other fibres and contents. https://labiotech.eu/carbios-technipfmc-pet-recycling/" CreationDate="2018-03-16T18:42:37.603" UserId="5517" />
  <row Id="9387" PostId="6488" Score="0" Text="I can charge during sleeping hours as there will be minimum draw from appliances at that time. Also I gather lithium ion batteries are limited to a maximum draw of 2kW per hour whereas lead batteries don't have this limitation" CreationDate="2018-03-15T19:00:29.290" UserId="5517" />
  <row Id="9388" PostId="6488" Score="0" Text="2kW per hour?  I'm not sure what that means.  You mean 2000Wh / 3600S ~= .5Wh?  Anyway, it doesn't matter.  There are many different variations on the market.  I am absolutely certain you can arrange to have a lithium-ion battery with greater than 2kW draw (whatever that might mean).  In the absolute worst case, you just buy two of that product and put them next to each other and you've nearly doubled whatever it is you're measuring." CreationDate="2018-03-15T19:26:41.330" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="9389" PostId="6488" Score="0" Text="added some comments about what kind of battery to use before the closing paragraph" CreationDate="2018-03-15T19:31:10.677" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="9390" PostId="6488" Score="0" Text="I got that wrong. The tesla power wall 2 can power a maximum of 5kW https://www.tesla.com/en_NZ/support/powerwall/faqs#appliances" CreationDate="2018-03-15T19:34:20.700" UserId="5517" />
  <row Id="9392" PostId="6488" Score="0" Text="Where I live the grid power is mainly green anyway - wind or hydro but by adding panels and batteries I am adding to the resilience of the network." CreationDate="2018-03-15T20:58:44.257" UserId="5517" />
  <row Id="9397" PostId="6488" Score="0" Text="Tesla wall is a combination of battery and inverter.  When you say &quot;5kW&quot; you're talking about peak draw, which I discussed in my answer.  For capacity planning, &quot;Each Powerwall provides 13.5 kWh&quot;." CreationDate="2018-03-16T11:35:30.260" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="9393" PostId="6489" Score="3" Text="I have seen this question before (but cannot find it). Was that on [opendata.se]? And shouldn't you just rephrase it to &quot;How can I increase recycling rates among university students?&quot;. That seems to be what you want. BTW: recycling *of what* and *where*? Please [edit] your question." CreationDate="2018-03-16T08:38:51.860" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="9423" PostId="6491" Score="0" Text="This is interesting, afaik durable wood sold locally is tropical hardwood and suspected to be the product illegal logging. Maybe you have more options your side of the pond or i didnt do my homework (or both)." CreationDate="2018-03-20T12:59:28.317" UserId="5532" />
  <row Id="9424" PostId="6491" Score="0" Text="A little bit of quick looking around suggest you _may_ have black locust as an option... but only maybe.  Since it's not native, some folks might argue that what few individuals are around are fair game to be harvested.  I'm not gonna argue one way or the other on that one.  And they may be rare enough that practically you can't get any, anyway.  None of the other species I saw in my brief searching jumped out at me as very rot resistant (of course, I know a lot less about native netherland species than native US species so ...).  https://www.bomengids.nl/uk/bosbomen.html is the list I found" CreationDate="2018-03-20T13:23:24.417" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="9426" PostId="6491" Score="0" Text="But are you saying you recommend sticking the fence poles into the ground just like that, untreated?" CreationDate="2018-03-20T16:16:20.323" UserId="5532" />
  <row Id="9427" PostId="6491" Score="0" Text="I would recommend sticking black locust or red cedar straight in the ground, untreated, yes, and expect that you would get a minimum of ten years service out of them (perhaps much longer if you don't have the worst possible conditions).  I have _heard_ of black locust in this kind of use providing 30 years of service." CreationDate="2018-03-20T17:14:47.770" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="9471" PostId="6491" Score="2" Text="You can &quot;treat&quot; your cedar or locust posts in an eco-friendly way by charring them. Build a nice campfire, maybe even get out the marshmallows, especially if you have kids. Put the &quot;ground end&quot; of your posts in the fire pit, and turn occasionally until fully charred. Most rot enters in via the end grain, which is also difficult to char properly. I use a small propane torch to make sure the ends are fully charred. This technique will extend the life of your poles by perhaps 25%, without using any harmful chemicals." CreationDate="2018-03-30T04:41:31.007" UserId="5497" />
  <row Id="9421" PostId="6492" Score="0" Text="Some good points, but one error... In the residential sector, private electric submetering is a widespread and growing industry -- property owners purchase electricity at low wholesale rates, then sell it to their tenants at higher retail rates (limited by law to the utility's standard retail rates). The difference covers hardware, operations, and a modest profit. A similar model could easily be applied in hotels which would create both a profit and conservation incentive for hotels. Also, I admit that 4.4% reduction sounds low... but how much is it?" CreationDate="2018-03-19T21:24:53.990" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9422" PostId="6492" Score="0" Text="I'm not sure what 'error' you are referring to — can you please clarify?  As far as private electricity submetering is concerned, since landlord profits are tied to the amount of electricity consumed, that means that higher consumption rates result in higher profits.  I don't see why they would seek to undermine their own profitability by discouraging consumption.  If the same model were used for hotels, the same logic would apply.  I'm not sure what &quot;how much is it?&quot; is asking." CreationDate="2018-03-20T03:53:27.250" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="9425" PostId="6492" Score="0" Text="I was referring to the statement &quot;there seems to be no ROI.&quot; Even if guests consume less, submetering still turns a cost center into a profit center. By &quot;how much is it,&quot; I mean, what does 4.4% reduction translate to in kWh? &quot;Low&quot; percentages can often hide significant savings. For example, 0.5% of US GDP is &quot;only&quot; $93 billion..." CreationDate="2018-03-20T14:07:13.543" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9431" PostId="6492" Score="0" Text="There seems to be no ROI on _a model where feedback is provided and usage is discouraged_ — the model you are proposing.  It's not an error.  The donkey won't walk forward if you attach the carrot to its tail.  As for absolute levels of reductions, that's a diversionary line of thought that isn't helpful.  If you want to make a real difference you tackle the biggest problems first.  Ignoring (at least) 95.6% of consumption and going after the (at most) 4.4% isn't a productive use of human time.  It's like rearranging deck chairs as the Titanic sinks.  I have nothing further to add." CreationDate="2018-03-20T23:49:11.127" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="9452" PostId="6492" Score="1" Text="Retro-fitting to implement individual room charging will be very expensive, however, if conceived and fitted as part of initial construction then it is a much cheaper." CreationDate="2018-03-26T06:52:18.580" UserId="5569" />
  <row Id="9530" PostId="6493" Score="0" Text="@Bregalad  Are you suggesting that modern, all-electric vehicles — that run on power generated by the solar panels on the roof of your own house — are not sustainable?  Or is your reference to &quot;conventional cars&quot; directed at cars with internal combustion engines — that run on fossil fuels?" CreationDate="2018-04-12T03:11:26.950" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="9458" PostId="6494" Score="0" Text="Given the cost and plastic construction, it would seem that a more sustainable solution would be to telecommute, walk, or take public transportation on days that aren't favorable to biking..." CreationDate="2018-03-26T14:25:34.560" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9418" PostId="6495" Score="0" Text="An interesting point, but, isn't this an apples to oranges comparison? A tax on a industries at the point of production seems significantly different than a tax on consumers at the point of sale. Not saying the latter is necessarily more effective -- but it would be a better place to look for a comparison." CreationDate="2018-03-19T17:54:22.290" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9428" PostId="6495" Score="0" Text="It is a tax on consumers at the point of sale. See the breakdown of gas prices in British Columbia: https://globalnews.ca/news/2712837/vancouver-pays-second-highest-gas-taxes-in-the-country/" CreationDate="2018-03-20T18:30:19.583" UserId="1692" />
  <row Id="9429" PostId="6495" Score="0" Text="Indeed. I assumed it was similar to the California tax on power producers. Might be valuable to include this detail in your answer. However, I still think the comparison breaks down a bit since purchasing plants instead of animals is an easier switch than replacing a gas-burning car with an electric car." CreationDate="2018-03-20T18:58:07.140" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9430" PostId="6495" Score="0" Text="I doubt it. The link to the foodandwaterwatch.com article is fine to prove my point." CreationDate="2018-03-20T20:06:26.497" UserId="1692" />
  <row Id="9444" PostId="6496" Score="0" Text="And plastic is so eco-friendly : oceans anyone..." CreationDate="2018-03-26T06:33:28.697" UserId="5569" />
  <row Id="9449" PostId="6496" Score="0" Text="@SolarMike These are supposed to be used indefinitely.  I guess the parts are readily replaceable since it's basically a bike on steroids.  Whereas a car might end up in the junk yard." CreationDate="2018-03-26T06:44:23.120" UserId="5517" />
  <row Id="9451" PostId="6496" Score="0" Text="So where do the old parts go? And indefinitely - we must have differing definitions of indefinitely... I see lots of bikes in the junk yard - in fact it's a good source of wheels when one of my sons buckles one..." CreationDate="2018-03-26T06:49:17.753" UserId="5569" />
  <row Id="9453" PostId="6496" Score="0" Text="@SolarMike Well, you can always walk.  That's what the cave man did." CreationDate="2018-03-26T07:06:27.440" UserId="5517" />
  <row Id="9456" PostId="6496" Score="0" Text="@SolarMike It uses sun light for charging so the power source is infinite but of course we don't know for sure." CreationDate="2018-03-26T07:34:00.943" UserId="5517" />
  <row Id="10006" PostId="6497" Score="0" Text="https://www.resilience.org/stories/2015-06-26/how-to-build-and-plant-large-hugelkultur-berms/" CreationDate="2018-08-02T18:06:57.170" UserId="4922" />
  <row Id="9432" PostId="6499" Score="2" Text="Those two sites just advocate the use of essential oils and do not raise and debate or investigate if this wastes detergent." CreationDate="2018-03-21T07:43:07.803" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="9433" PostId="6499" Score="0" Text="That is true, I did not find any sources that specifically looked into whether detergent was being wasted. However, I assume that if adding essential oils are advocated by these sites and if the laundry isn't completely covered in grease, then there would not be any &quot;wasting&quot; of detergent. I'm also assuming wasting detergent would mean using too much, and since the essential oil wouldn't be doing much in terms of wicking away dirt from the clothes, there is no need to worry about wasting detergent." CreationDate="2018-03-21T07:53:55.070" UserId="5537" />
  <row Id="9436" PostId="6501" Score="0" Text="The question says *without contradicting USDA Organic standards*. Do you have any numbers to back up your answer?" CreationDate="2018-03-22T10:08:05.240" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="9437" PostId="6501" Score="1" Text="@JanDoggen it is well known that non-organic potatoes often contain pesticides, for example potatoes are listed 12th in the [EWG list of 'dirty' vegetables](https://www.ewg.org/foodnews/dirty_dozen_list.php)). So if the OP wants an organic garden then adding potato mulch with pesticides is indeed a bad idea. It's unlikely that the pesticides are allowed by USDA standards, but the only way to know for sure is if the OP investigates which kind of pesticides are on the potatoes and with what quantities." CreationDate="2018-03-22T13:06:10.923" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="9441" PostId="6501" Score="1" Text="So it's okay for the OP to eat the potatoes but not to compost them?" CreationDate="2018-03-23T03:54:26.563" UserId="5517" />
  <row Id="9562" PostId="6501" Score="1" Text="The question wasn't whether it is okay to eat them.  The question says &quot;without contradicting USDA Organic standards&quot;." CreationDate="2018-04-19T10:30:04.387" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="9434" PostId="6502" Score="1" Text="[The Ocean Cleanup](https://www.theoceancleanup.com/) is raising a lot of money to do this. However, [a lot of other people](https://www.kcet.org/redefine/6-reasons-that-floating-ocean-plastic-cleanup-gizmo-is-a-horrible-idea) are concerned the whole idea is naive, and may make the problem worse. Generally speaking, it seems the amount of time, money, and effort required to clean the oceans would be better spent keeping them from getting dirtier." CreationDate="2018-03-21T16:12:08.823" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9461" PostId="6502" Score="0" Text="You have made an unsupported statement about plastic in the ocean.  Edit your question and add *How much plastic there is? *It's typical concentration *Why this is a problem." CreationDate="2018-03-27T02:42:10.953" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="9435" PostId="6503" Score="1" Text="Thank you for your answer. I understand my wording might be confusing, but when I say &quot;Is the detergent wasted on the added essential oil&quot;, I mean &quot;will my clothes be washed less efficiently&quot;? However, I do vary my use of detergent if I notice that my clothes are particularly filthy. If the essential oil significantly competes with the lipids in my clothes, it is fair to assume that overtime I might actually waste detergent by intuitively putting some extra in as the recommended amount doesn't seem to do the job." CreationDate="2018-03-22T06:35:55.080" UserId="80" />
  <row Id="15273" PostId="6505" Score="0" Text="some toilets do use salt water" CreationDate="2021-11-21T02:57:08.947" UserId="3532" />
  <row Id="9485" PostId="6508" Score="0" Text="Cracks are not large. I may try that one, but it will take a lot of time for me to gather enough spruce." CreationDate="2018-04-03T14:16:48.017" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="9491" PostId="6508" Score="2" Text="Pine resin should work.  It's available on Amazon.  Lard will go rancid. If you do need to soften the mix use a stiff grease or soft wax, it won't go rancid." CreationDate="2018-04-03T15:01:18.463" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="12617" PostId="6508" Score="0" Text="This worked great, thanks! Easily found spruce resin here in the mountains. Don't by stuff on Amazon, they don't pay there taxes as they should." CreationDate="2020-05-13T08:07:43.847" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="9551" PostId="6511" Score="3" Text="May I suggest that you change your question to use the term &quot;[menstrual cup](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menstrual_cup)&quot; rather than a specific brand? That would make it more likely that someone will contribute some relevant information, especially since most brands offer a similar product with a similar life span." CreationDate="2018-04-14T12:18:08.033" UserId="80" />
  <row Id="9472" PostId="6512" Score="0" Text="They will, but do take care not to accidentally give them poisonous plants growing in grass, there's a bunch of those depending on where you live. And not all of those plants have the same effect on the different typs of animals (horses vs goats vs pigs vs ...)" CreationDate="2018-03-30T11:19:59.640" UserId="4158" />
  <row Id="9467" PostId="6514" Score="1" Text="Where I live only qualified technicians are allowed to make modifications to the electricity supply. So before you do anything I'd advise you to check if you are allowed to make modifications yourself. Also check what your insurance has to say about it." CreationDate="2018-03-28T13:44:53.640" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="9468" PostId="6514" Score="0" Text="Where do you live? Often local distributors of international brands will provide versions of inverters that meet local utility requirements. Or, a local manufacturer may have a product that larger brands wouldn't sell in isolated local markets." CreationDate="2018-03-28T13:53:23.173" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9469" PostId="6514" Score="0" Text="@LShaver This is about Morocco. Finding an inverter configured specifically for the Moroccan market seems difficult, but I'll look further." CreationDate="2018-03-28T14:14:02.127" UserId="2134" />
  <row Id="9470" PostId="6514" Score="2" Text="If you have a hot water cylinder then often it's better to dump excess power into that than feed back to the grid." CreationDate="2018-03-28T18:38:24.570" UserId="5517" />
  <row Id="9486" PostId="6516" Score="0" Text="Hi Jan, thank you for the idea. That's not exactly an answer to my question. And I cannot use stapling on the concrete wall (I should have been more accurate, apologizes)" CreationDate="2018-04-03T14:18:48.377" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="9475" PostId="6518" Score="0" Text="&quot;Batteries... tend to break.&quot; It would be more accurate to say they degrade over time, requiring ongoing maintenance costs. Also, it's not true to say that *all* grid-tie inverters come with anti-islanding." CreationDate="2018-03-30T18:11:14.213" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9476" PostId="6518" Score="0" Text="@LShaver Good points, fixed both in the text now." CreationDate="2018-03-30T18:39:18.587" UserId="2134" />
  <row Id="10374" PostId="6518" Score="0" Text="Given your in-depth analysis of this topic, you might also be able to answer [this question](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/5889/solar-ups-with-priority-of-power-sources)." CreationDate="2018-11-06T16:08:06.080" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9473" PostId="6520" Score="0" Text="Do you have a source for number four, or example of where this regulation exists? In this case and item one, the physical meter itself is likely the same, technically &quot;binning&quot; power consumption and production separately, so that the utility can apply different rates to each." CreationDate="2018-03-30T15:27:40.460" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9478" PostId="6520" Score="0" Text="All following [this article](https://www.victronenergy.com/live/ess:design-installation-manual#pv). Number 4 seems to me rather a limitation of older meters which were never meant for feed-in. Number 1 would use bi-directional meters (for net metering) or separate import / export meters (to allow different rates)." CreationDate="2018-03-30T19:07:26.703" UserId="2134" />
  <row Id="9534" PostId="6525" Score="1" Text="Research would show two suitable books (among others) How to shit in the woods by Kathleen Meyer who explains reed-beds for treating water and Lifting the lid by Louise Halestrap &amp; Peter Harper, whuch also expounds reed-beds." CreationDate="2018-04-12T04:55:08.397" UserId="5569" />
  <row Id="9536" PostId="6525" Score="1" Text="@Solar Mike I'm not sure why you posted that comment.  The OP explicitly says that they have looked at and _discounted_ reed beds, and I am talking about bamboo which provides a direct yield instead of reed beds that don't." CreationDate="2018-04-12T06:13:01.780" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="9537" PostId="6525" Score="1" Text="Perhaps because they may be useful references to some people prepared to read them... the do contain much more than just reed beds..." CreationDate="2018-04-12T06:23:53.243" UserId="5569" />
  <row Id="9487" PostId="6527" Score="0" Text="@LShaver sorry. should I delete this question?" CreationDate="2018-04-03T14:40:23.390" UserId="5595" />
  <row Id="9488" PostId="6527" Score="1" Text="It depends... does that one answer *your* question? Or is your question somehow different? If so, you'd need to provide more detail here." CreationDate="2018-04-03T14:41:43.800" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9489" PostId="6527" Score="0" Text="@LShaver I think I have got the answer." CreationDate="2018-04-03T14:45:48.710" UserId="5595" />
  <row Id="9490" PostId="6527" Score="1" Text="Then in that case, I'd mark the question as a duplicate, which you should be able to do by clicking &quot;flag&quot; beneath the post." CreationDate="2018-04-03T14:49:53.990" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9492" PostId="6528" Score="3" Text="Sounds like a better question for https://electronics.stackexchange.com" CreationDate="2018-04-04T10:02:59.227" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="9493" PostId="6528" Score="0" Text="@Jan Doggen you are correct. I did a quick search on said stackexchange with search string 'modified sine wave inverter' and came up with quite a lot of info." CreationDate="2018-04-06T07:42:26.453" UserId="5300" />
  <row Id="9518" PostId="6529" Score="0" Text="I started editing my answer to cover the second part of your question (calculating how much methane to charge a cell phone) but I think this should really be a separate question." CreationDate="2018-04-10T16:34:03.250" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15420" PostId="6529" Score="0" Text="When building DIY-solutions always be aware, that Methane has 22 times the impact on global warming than CO2 (Propane only has 3 time the impact). I.e. you should be very careful to prevent any leaks in your system." CreationDate="2022-01-03T02:28:33.303" UserId="13592" />
  <row Id="9494" PostId="6531" Score="2" Text="As Tim writes in his answer *Use the cheapest sawdust/shavings you can find*. I would add: use *any* material that is clearly a **waste** product. If I see something like your example, I'm immediately suspicious that this is some specially produced/harvested material which is not ecological/sustainable at all." CreationDate="2018-04-06T14:06:44.520" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="13424" PostId="6531" Score="0" Text="You can also use rotted leaves and peat moss in your toilet." CreationDate="2021-02-05T17:56:40.627" UserId="9351" />
  <row Id="9508" PostId="6534" Score="0" Text="Ask on a fish keepers or planted tank Forum. They like to do CO2 injection to help plant growth. They might even pay you for them." CreationDate="2018-04-08T00:26:39.630" UserId="5517" />
  <row Id="9495" PostId="6536" Score="1" Text="It's turning out to be more work than I thought it would be to make a quality answer so I will provide you with a few links if you want to do the research, the first one goes in a lot of detail and has further reading on the subject: [1](http://www.thecenterforrainwaterharvesting.org/2_roof_gutters2.htm), [2](http://www.waldeneffect.org/blog/Best_roofing_material_for_rainwater_collection/), [3](https://www.pacificwestroofing.com/blog/the-best-roofing-systems-for-harvesting-rainwater)." CreationDate="2018-04-06T18:49:38.747" UserId="5611" />
  <row Id="9496" PostId="6536" Score="1" Text="What are you planning to do with the water you collect? What climate are you in?" CreationDate="2018-04-06T18:58:19.830" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9497" PostId="6536" Score="0" Text="@LShaver I plan to use it for drinking and watering garden (on days it doesn't rain). I am in north central Texas, rainfall varies per month from 1.4&quot; to 5&quot;." CreationDate="2018-04-06T19:40:17.313" UserId="5606" />
  <row Id="9498" PostId="6536" Score="0" Text="FWIW Kynar coating of roofing materials is acceptable for food contact:&#xA;[Micro Surface Article](http://www.microsurfacecorp.com/kynar.php)" CreationDate="2018-04-06T20:01:11.280" UserId="5606" />
  <row Id="9499" PostId="6536" Score="0" Text="Another confirmation that it's approved for potable water contact, from (presumably) the manufacturer: [Kynar](https://www.kynar500.com/en/product-information/faq/)" CreationDate="2018-04-06T20:10:03.567" UserId="5606" />
  <row Id="9500" PostId="6536" Score="1" Text="Don't forget about the bugs, birds, trees, etc, that will leave &quot;deposits&quot; on the roof -- many of those won't be food grade..." CreationDate="2018-04-06T21:59:19.503" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9501" PostId="6536" Score="0" Text="@LShaver yes , I plan on using a first-flush device" CreationDate="2018-04-07T01:17:02.823" UserId="5606" />
  <row Id="9507" PostId="6536" Score="1" Text="http://www.level.org.nz/water/water-supply/mains-or-rainwater/harvesting-rainwater/ says aluminium okay. Still you can use a water filter for the drinking water." CreationDate="2018-04-08T00:24:42.670" UserId="5517" />
  <row Id="12451" PostId="6536" Score="0" Text="For example, many hot water heaters have stainless-steel tanks. Stainless-steel is not exotic as stainless-steel sheet-metal can be bought on a coil and priced wholesale by the pound. If the sheet-metal is cut-to-size and flattened then that is expensive. Or 304L is available in standard structural shapes in 20-foot lengths and is designed for welding. 430 is less expensive that 304L but has more crevice corrosion and is not for welding. 409 is less expensive than 430 but okay for welding." CreationDate="2020-03-05T00:44:40.907" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="9509" PostId="6538" Score="1" Text="Outstanding answer, thanks ... what I’m worried about is when I walk on the corrugated roof, that I will kink and dent the wavy corrugations. I plan on keeping the system at least 30ft away from the trees" CreationDate="2018-04-09T05:53:40.250" UserId="5606" />
  <row Id="9510" PostId="6538" Score="1" Text="Roof frames have trusses/rafters that go from ridge to gutter, and then purlins that run at 90⁰ to those.  Metal roof sheeting is affixed to the purlins... so you'll see a horizontal line of screws wherever there is a purlin underneath.  If you walk where you see screws, you know you'll be well supported (and won't be stepping onto an unsupported void).  I don't know how much you weigh, but I weigh over 130kg and don't dent the roofing even when carrying tools.  Wear rubber sneakers, walk along the screw lines, and you'll be fine." CreationDate="2018-04-09T09:04:04.833" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="9511" PostId="6538" Score="1" Text="Just to clarify:  I can walk on _steel_ corrugated roof cladding and not dent it.  Given how much softer aluminium is, my weight would probably cause an issue with that.  Steel is a _lot_ stronger than aluminium.  If you want to make sure, you can order thicker ('industrial-grade') steel sheeting that will happily support even the heaviest apes without denting.  Suggestion:  Buy a single 'normal' sheet, screw it down to a few pieces of lumber, then walk/jump on it.  A few bucks spent on a stress-test might save you hundreds/thousands on over-engineered roofing." CreationDate="2018-04-09T09:35:12.037" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="9512" PostId="6538" Score="0" Text="you can walk on it, no kidding? we're talking about the same thing right? The continuous wavy-gravy sheet metal?" CreationDate="2018-04-09T14:33:01.233" UserId="5606" />
  <row Id="9513" PostId="6538" Score="1" Text="Correct.  762mm wide sheets of 0.42mm thick corrugated steel with 16mm deep ribs.  It's standard practice around here to fix sheets with either 3 or 5 screws per purlin — which translates to either one screw every 3/4 ribs, or 1 screw every 2 ribs.  The more screws you use, the less deflection you get and the more weight can be supported.  As long as you place each foot down evenly on (spread your weight over) _at least two_ ribs there's no denting.  Of course if you put all your weight on one heel and put that on one rib you'll dent it... but that's an obvious no-no." CreationDate="2018-04-09T15:23:11.497" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="9515" PostId="6538" Score="1" Text="For reference, here is a link to the actual product that is on my roof:  http://www.lysaght.com/products/custom-orb" CreationDate="2018-04-09T16:39:15.993" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="9526" PostId="6545" Score="0" Text="L.Shaver I read up on Boskani bins &amp; will get one." CreationDate="2018-04-11T23:46:34.817" UserId="5624" />
  <row Id="9527" PostId="6545" Score="0" Text="I'd like to 'vote' on the resonse I recv'd as it was a very informative answer &amp; addressed my particular query but as I'm a Learner with all this technology could you please tell me how it's done. Thankyou" CreationDate="2018-04-12T01:22:06.277" UserId="5624" />
  <row Id="9540" PostId="6545" Score="1" Text="@JennyPedersen You're welcome. If you like an answer, you can 'upvote' it by clicking on the arrow that's pointing upward (▲) at the left side of an answer (the arrow pointing downward is for downvoting incorrect answers). Additionally you can 'accept' one answer as the one that solved your problem best, by clicking on the ✔ also left of the answer. More information about how this site works is in the [tour of this website](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/tour)" CreationDate="2018-04-12T07:29:40.683" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="9538" PostId="6547" Score="2" Text="If you soak bones in vinegar it breaks down the harder calcium-based structures and leaves you with a more rubbery 'bone' that decomposes faster.  If one happens to do a bit of pickling, then one could freeze the bones until a pickle jar was free, then pop in the bones, top up with water, sit on a shelf for a few days, then empty the whole lot onto the compost pile and cover with some compost from the edge of the pile." CreationDate="2018-04-12T06:53:50.887" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="9541" PostId="6547" Score="2" Text="@Tim interesting! Any indications how long the entire process will take, including decomposing to something that's reusable? Perhaps you can turn your comment into a full answer?" CreationDate="2018-04-12T07:33:02.010" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="9542" PostId="6547" Score="1" Text="There are too many variables for me to predict time frames meaningfully.  Our compost piles are cool/fungal and nothing identifiable remains after about 18 months (Warm Temperate climate).  I don't bother turning them, monitoring temperature, or spraying them to maintain humidity.  If you have a hot/bacterial compost pile/bin that gets turned, monitored and moistened, then one would predict much, much faster results.  I can't say how much faster, however, because I don't do hot/bacterial composting.  I have acreage and time on my side, so I just have multiple piles." CreationDate="2018-04-12T12:00:53.563" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="9543" PostId="6547" Score="1" Text="I actually stumbled across the vinegar effect when trying to find a way to stop the dog from digging into the compost pile.  Dogs (or at least _our_ dog) won't touch anything that has been pickled.  So the accelerated breakdown was just a bonus (for me, at least).  Unfortunately, apart from gherkins, cornichons and beetroot, we don't pickle much... so don't generate enough pickling brine to do that to all the bones left over from feeding our dog, cats and selves.  Most of the time I just drive a spade into the compost pile, wedge the bones in, pour the pickling brine on top, then close it up." CreationDate="2018-04-12T12:10:54.120" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="9545" PostId="6547" Score="1" Text="Oh, one more note: Bones + vinegar + time produces a stinky gas. So 'on a shelf' means on a shelf in the garden shed (or somewhere outside/ventilated) — not inside. Also, you don't want to screw down the lid on your pickling jar so tightly that it produces an airtight environment — the pressure might ruin your lid or crack the jar. Just screw it down enough to keep the mice out and allow the gas to slowly escape." CreationDate="2018-04-12T12:52:41.973" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="9546" PostId="6547" Score="1" Text="@Tim I agree with THelper -- all of these comments would make a great answer to the original question." CreationDate="2018-04-12T14:16:01.643" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9547" PostId="6547" Score="0" Text="Thanks Tim for the bone pickling advice. I have one toy poodle 6kg so not many bones. I will try this in a large glass jar on my verandah.  As I live in SE QLD, a sub-tropical zone, it'll be interesting to see how long it takes. One other query tho, as I've never pickled anything. Whilst bones in the vinigar how does one know when things have gone too far &amp; the jar has to hit the freezer?" CreationDate="2018-04-12T23:08:25.567" UserId="5624" />
  <row Id="9816" PostId="6550" Score="0" Text="I bought a used kohler commercial grade touchles faucet for 60 dollars, It claims to run on a single 9 volt battery with 4 years of average commercial use. so far so good!" CreationDate="2018-06-13T05:48:16.097" UserId="5793" />
  <row Id="9817" PostId="6550" Score="0" Text="@Richie that's a good point... I dug around on the Kohler website a bit, it looks they have faucets that use batteries, or AC adapters. I couldn't find any information on how long they last though. It'd be interesting to know how much energy they require per liter of water, or per activation." CreationDate="2018-06-13T15:41:01.703" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9549" PostId="6552" Score="0" Text="Is there any reason for having the word 'free' in your question?  I can't see how free public transport would be any more sustainable (or unsustainable) than non-free public transport.  A bus is still a bus regardless of how the owner pays for its operation — the pollution it generates does not change.  Are you of the opinion that free public transport is somehow more sustainable?  If so, have you checked that such an opinion is actually based on facts and evidence?" CreationDate="2018-04-14T08:00:48.140" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="9550" PostId="6552" Score="0" Text="It is right that nothing is for &quot;free&quot; at all. However it makes a difference when people have to pay for something separately. The case of Tallinn [link]https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/oct/11/tallinn-experiment-estonia-public-transport-free-cities shows, that &quot;free&quot; access to public traffic changes behaviour of people using less cars and occupying less space in city centres." CreationDate="2018-04-14T10:10:55.627" UserId="5602" />
  <row Id="9552" PostId="6552" Score="0" Text="&quot;If you can take public transport for free you may substitute the short trip you used to walk for public transport. Most of the increase in public transport ridership stems from either people who walked previously, or previous transport users who travel more frequently or perform longer trips. Only a small part of those additional trips come from people who also used the car. **So we cannot say that there was a net gain in terms of reducing car traffic, or the congestion and emissions associated with it**.&quot; — http://www.dw.com/en/can-free-public-transport-really-reduce-pollution/a-42584328" CreationDate="2018-04-14T17:41:53.547" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="9553" PostId="6552" Score="0" Text="&quot;As a study from the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden found, Tallinn’s fare-free transit, which applies to buses, trams and trolleys, didn’t bring new riders in droves as city officials expected. The researchers, who presented at the annual meeting of the Transportation Research Board in Washington, D.C. this January, found that **dropping fares only accounted for a 1.2% increase in demand** for the service.&quot; — https://www.fastcodesign.com/3025761/why-the-worlds-largest-experiment-in-free-public-transportation-failed" CreationDate="2018-04-14T17:43:44.533" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="9554" PostId="6552" Score="0" Text="My question is NOT related to Pro or Con of free public transportation. I just want to know where it is offered. Comparing the different projects might be a second step." CreationDate="2018-04-14T18:13:54.210" UserId="5602" />
  <row Id="9555" PostId="6552" Score="1" Text="Have found a list of cities with &quot;free public transportation&quot;: [link]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_free_public_transport_routes. The large number of locations where public traffic is free gives rise to the supposition that not only bad or poor results were achieved. Who intends to know more about Pros and Cons may look here: [Link]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_public_transport." CreationDate="2018-04-15T11:16:00.373" UserId="5602" />
  <row Id="9556" PostId="6552" Score="0" Text="Given what you found and the discussion, it might make sense to [edit](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/posts/6552/edit) the question to ask about the impact of free transport on sustainability, and outcomes from cities where it's been attempted." CreationDate="2018-04-15T22:35:36.100" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9557" PostId="6552" Score="0" Text="@ LShaver: Excellent idea. However, I fear that same people will blame me afterwards for opening a political discussion, which was no my intention. But I will try." CreationDate="2018-04-15T23:07:40.150" UserId="5602" />
  <row Id="9591" PostId="6555" Score="1" Text="Marked as answers, because while both current answers are good, yours has pointed out something I haven't thought about - that waste is not only disposed off (either legally and environmentally acceptable or in a illegal/&quot;dirty&quot; manner) but also is taken by the elements to the rivers, which flows into the sea/ocean. And this is something not easy to control, hence less plastic used in general, should reduce amount which is hijacked by the winds/rain and transfered to the ocean." CreationDate="2018-04-25T13:08:16.687" UserId="5629" />
  <row Id="9592" PostId="6555" Score="0" Text="@Niteraleph  Yep, less use of plastics overall is probably the best strategy.  Changing lightweight plastics to make them more UV-unstable/biodegradable would also help on the back-end." CreationDate="2018-04-25T17:10:32.597" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="9566" PostId="6558" Score="0" Text="Are you asking about what people _can_ feed crickets in a home-scale operation or are you asking about what large-scale operations _do_ feed crickets?" CreationDate="2018-04-20T19:32:39.133" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="9567" PostId="6558" Score="0" Text="@Jean-PaulCalderone I am asking about what large-scale operations *do* feed crickets. Bonus points for alternatives that would also work at an industrial scale." CreationDate="2018-04-20T19:36:07.020" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="9565" PostId="6560" Score="0" Text="A real answer to this question may require much more information about the house.  Floorplans, insulation details, etc.  A really good answer would probably involve doing some energy modeling which needs even more information.  Short of that, it's hard to do much more than guess.  Also, because of the very specific nature of this question and answer, it may not be useful to anyone else.  So it may not be a great fit for this stackexchange.  Maybe you could ask some questions about the principles behind solving this problem.  Or try the DIY stackexchange." CreationDate="2018-04-20T15:19:28.483" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="9595" PostId="6560" Score="0" Text="You are probably going to need expert advice on this one, but my guess is that the large uninsulated ground floor is the main culprit" CreationDate="2018-04-26T11:17:30.213" UserId="1445" />
  <row Id="15717" PostId="6560" Score="0" Text="Could you add more radiators downstairs, to extract more of the heat in the space you need it? From some of your comments it sounds like you don't think convection is the problem." CreationDate="2022-04-24T01:31:48.673" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9561" PostId="6562" Score="0" Text="This may help other people with the same question if it appears as a search result in Google." CreationDate="2018-04-19T06:40:17.330" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="11533" PostId="6563" Score="0" Text="Here's a little tidbit to go with this answer. The studies for tea and coffee consider just the tea/coffee, with no milk. A large (476 ml) cup of tea without anything extra has a footprint of 317 gCO2. Adding a tiny (12ml) pot of dairy milk increases the carbon footprint by 17 g to 334 gCO2. A more realistic amount (say one part milk to four tea) and this jumps to 387 gCO2 per cup. A large Nespresso capuccino has a footprint of around 460 gCO2/cup (980 g/L including the froth). If you can't stand black coffee try non-dairy milk (330 g CO2 for soy) or try a medium cup (209 gCO2 for 257 ml)" CreationDate="2019-10-05T13:53:16.427" UserId="5361" />
  <row Id="11534" PostId="6563" Score="0" Text="Removed my previous answer. Typos" CreationDate="2019-10-05T13:53:55.403" UserId="5361" />
  <row Id="9569" PostId="6564" Score="0" Text="Was there a typo in &quot; In change a lot of animal food... &quot;?" CreationDate="2018-04-22T08:25:54.977" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="9570" PostId="6564" Score="0" Text="... was probably unclear, so I changed to &quot;on the other hand&quot;" CreationDate="2018-04-22T11:00:25.303" UserId="5602" />
  <row Id="9719" PostId="6564" Score="0" Text="Are you asking specifically about the energy cost of transportation, or are you talking about the entire practice of raising animals off-pasture?" CreationDate="2018-05-18T00:50:01.877" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="9720" PostId="6564" Score="1" Text="I am talking about the entire practice. From my point of view soy and other fruits - which even are no natural food to the animals which later consume it - draw minerals and more from one part of the world and overload and pollute - turned into slurry - an other part of the world. I assume from the energy point of view that growing animals at the place where their food is grown, slaughter them there also and only sending the final products to the countries of consumption would reduce the whole energy consumption under less than 10%." CreationDate="2018-05-18T06:16:33.290" UserId="5602" />
  <row Id="9568" PostId="6565" Score="0" Text="I didn't have countries in mind like New Zeeland, where animals are grown almost free in landscape. I am not opposite to feeding animals with food from local region or their farm directly, even those that grow some rabbits in their urban gardens.&#xA;&#xA;I wonder about the tremendous transport of animal food worldwide, produced under doubtful conditions with chemicals, etc. I really wonder if that is sustainable. However, I am not completely sure, because growing fruits in an optimized way may be efficient, not only related to economic figures, but also sustainable. In any case I have my doubts." CreationDate="2018-04-22T00:27:51.367" UserId="5602" />
  <row Id="9571" PostId="6566" Score="1" Text="Trees and turbines generate energies in different condition. Difficult to compare if they first have to be converted. Conversion of energy involves always loss of energy. In addition time scale must be equivalent. If wood as energy product from trees is included all the years of growth must be considered as well." CreationDate="2018-04-22T21:21:48.437" UserId="5602" />
  <row Id="9573" PostId="6566" Score="1" Text="What are your sources for these numbers? Also, are you saying that trees growing in the same space as a given number of wind turbines produce more power... when burned? And what about the time to grow the trees?" CreationDate="2018-04-23T02:00:05.217" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9576" PostId="6566" Score="1" Text="It will probably take more than 25 years to grow a one ton tree. Have you considered how many turbines you could get in a 250k m2 land base?" CreationDate="2018-04-22T20:23:10.010" UserId="5619" />
  <row Id="9582" PostId="6566" Score="1" Text="I suspect this question has been asked to promote a commercial tree-selling company, but since it's an interesting question I'll leave it open." CreationDate="2018-04-24T07:01:38.807" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11142" PostId="6566" Score="0" Text="[Wind Turbines kill insects](https://www.google.com/search?q=wind+turbines+kill+insects). So their ecological damage has to be weighed against perceived benefits in the few areas they are even worthwhile ." CreationDate="2019-06-15T22:19:02.753" UserId="6704" />
  <row Id="11167" PostId="6566" Score="0" Text="And trees do not kill birds  US FWS ( fish and wildlife) permits the wind turbine operators to keep their own bird kill records BUT permit the results to be kept secret; Lawsuits have been filed by Cornell Ornithology to get the info." CreationDate="2019-07-02T20:12:19.973" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="9583" PostId="6569" Score="0" Text="and indeed, plants can be taller, with taller towers." CreationDate="2018-04-24T07:30:12.157" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="10123" PostId="6569" Score="1" Text="Wouldn't tress create turbulence and reduce the efficiency of the towers though?  Wind farms typically have only low growing plants such as grass for grazing or grain below them from what I've seen." CreationDate="2018-09-04T03:43:47.983" UserId="5479" />
  <row Id="9577" PostId="6571" Score="1" Text="Can you provide some of the sources for your values and calculations? It's unclear what you mean by &quot;generator efficiency&quot; when discussing wind turbines, and whether you're comparing the electric energy produced by wind turbines, to what could be produced by combustion of trees." CreationDate="2018-04-23T14:14:06.927" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9578" PostId="6571" Score="0" Text="http://lmgtfy.com/?q=net+primary+productivity ... http://lmgtfy.com/?q=generator+efficiency ... http://lmgtfy.com/?q=wind+turbine+power+equations ... Production of biomass is different to utilisation of biomass.  The latter seems irrelevant to the question — so whether it's burnt for heat, consumed as feed, or made into timbers doesn't really matter.  Indeed, worrying about utilisation is a distraction that complicates and paralyses analysis.  The utility of land is distinct from and different to its productivity.  I just calculated the latter because that's all the OP asked for." CreationDate="2018-04-23T15:50:18.863" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="9580" PostId="6571" Score="0" Text="Power formula added to answer." CreationDate="2018-04-23T16:20:40.980" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="9581" PostId="6571" Score="0" Text="NPP source and conversion method added to answer." CreationDate="2018-04-23T17:19:04.107" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="9585" PostId="6571" Score="2" Text="Good approach, but there are some problems. Firstly, generated power is not proportional to wind speed: therefore, taking average windspeed is not a good way to calculate average power. Secondly, there are already stats out there on wind generation from actual windfarms. Thirdly, and this is a problem with the question too, turbines and trees are not mutually exclusive, rarely compete for land, and generate different types of energy." CreationDate="2018-04-24T07:32:29.217" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="9596" PostId="6571" Score="0" Text="1) In the absence of actual wind data, using the average wind speed is entirely reasonable and gets you into the ball park, at least.  2)  Formulae to determine turbine power exist entirely to negate the need for people to waste their their time trying to track down existing turbines with exactly the same characteristics as the one being proposed.  3)  Dragging in secondary uses (stacking functions) is an unnecessary complication... and beyond the scope of the question." CreationDate="2018-04-26T22:33:26.763" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="9597" PostId="6571" Score="0" Text="Answer updated in light of more information being added to the original post." CreationDate="2018-04-26T22:49:01.070" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="9586" PostId="6572" Score="0" Text="I bought my vermicomposting set years ago and IIRC the worms came in a sealed plastic bag. I remember that I found that strange, as I was wondering how long worms can survive in such a bag without any air holes in it. In any case if you want to make sure worms can breath look for 'breathable' or 'oxygen permeable' plastic bags." CreationDate="2018-04-24T07:43:30.100" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="9587" PostId="6572" Score="0" Text="Please [edit] and define *shipping*: what mode of transport, what distance, what climate?" CreationDate="2018-04-24T07:51:26.697" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="9589" PostId="6573" Score="1" Text="Not sure if snails feel pain, but just in case I suspect it would be kinder to just squash them thoroughly." CreationDate="2018-04-24T22:12:59.147" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="9590" PostId="6573" Score="0" Text="@HighlyIrregular - I would love to do that, but the biggest snail I have found so far is 1,5cm. I can barely grab them" CreationDate="2018-04-25T08:04:26.557" UserId="3173" />
  <row Id="9599" PostId="6573" Score="1" Text="@HighlyIrregular - yesterday I tried your _recommendation_ - they are small and slimy, it's difficult to apply force on them. First trial they just got flat, second trial some of them popped up. Afterwards the concrete was full of goo. This morning I caught 30 slugs and just threw them into a solution of industrial alcohol and baking powder." CreationDate="2018-04-27T07:48:43.000" UserId="3173" />
  <row Id="9593" PostId="6577" Score="0" Text="Answer given is 'staggering' in it's clarity and usefulness. I am amazed, and a little shocked that someone did this for me. &#xA;&#xA;I will explore a differential thermometer controller and a little PC fan." CreationDate="2018-04-26T07:36:19.750" UserId="5664" />
  <row Id="9598" PostId="6577" Score="0" Text="If an answer's worth doing, it's worth overdoing.  ;)  If you found it useful, vote it up.  As long as you have the power to spare, a computer fan is a good way to go — just remember to get an airflow (AF) model, not a static pressure (SP) model.  Oh, and larger fans spinning slowly make less noise than smaller fans spinning quickly — if you care about noise." CreationDate="2018-04-26T23:11:37.577" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="9600" PostId="6579" Score="0" Text="Note that you aren't required to use composted material in your garden.  You can just compost them and leave the resulting compost in the pile as you continue to add more." CreationDate="2018-04-27T15:18:24.507" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="9682" PostId="6579" Score="0" Text="Related question for people with cats: [Solution To Cat Litter](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/193/solution-to-cat-litter)" CreationDate="2018-05-13T23:45:50.460" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="9610" PostId="6581" Score="0" Text="I had not thought of the point about **antibiotics** — but how much of a problem is flushing then, given that people on antibiotics go on flushing their own fæces?" CreationDate="2018-04-30T12:22:35.993" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="9611" PostId="6581" Score="0" Text="I do not use a _dustpan_, but collect it in 3 layers of **lavatory paper**, which I put between more paper in a resealable freezer bag which I use until it no longer works." CreationDate="2018-04-30T12:24:43.660" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="9612" PostId="6581" Score="1" Text="You say _dogs excrements seem to be something special_ — what do you refer to? If it is the earthworm aspect, perhaps it would make things a little clearer to say there “_the special thing is_ …” or to add to your first sentence “_(see the paragraph on earthworms!)_”" CreationDate="2018-04-30T12:39:56.003" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="9619" PostId="6581" Score="0" Text="I don't understand why you can't put dog faeces in the toilet. How would antibiotics in dog faeces be different from antibiotics in human faeces? Also I can't recommend putting dog faeces in a worm compost heap because you can't do hot composting which means potential harmful bacteria and parasites aren't killed." CreationDate="2018-05-01T06:52:32.030" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="9621" PostId="6581" Score="0" Text="&quot;dogs excrements seem to be something special&quot; I meant as being a rather complex item and in first line not recommended in composts to create plants for food." CreationDate="2018-05-01T12:44:19.863" UserId="5602" />
  <row Id="9622" PostId="6581" Score="0" Text="General resistance on antibiotics is already being distributed via sewage-treatment facilities, where bacteria is needed to water treatment. There might be a difference between those animals grown as human food and pets. Exist legal restrictions to limit application of antibiotics on pets with other intensities or other active substances? We as humans do not have alternatives to deposit our excrements during application of antibiotics, but additional charge of pets antibiotics to the sewage-treatment facilities can only amplify already existing problems." CreationDate="2018-05-01T12:50:09.900" UserId="5602" />
  <row Id="9664" PostId="6581" Score="0" Text="Whilst there may be little difference in the effect of either human or dog contributed antibiotics, the latter is avoidable. Humans need to do their stuff in the loo, but much less difficult to dispose of the excreta of a dog that is on antibiotics" CreationDate="2018-05-08T07:43:21.577" UserId="2718" />
  <row Id="9630" PostId="6584" Score="0" Text="Sorry, I fail to see how your answer remotely answers my question" CreationDate="2018-05-02T10:55:24.437" UserId="3173" />
  <row Id="9631" PostId="6584" Score="0" Text="My reading is that you have a problem with slugs in your garden.  I proposed a solution which will help eliminate slugs.  As a bonus, it will also produce additional outputs (food and garden amendments).  I hope this helps.  If not, no worries and good luck!" CreationDate="2018-05-02T12:32:28.080" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="9636" PostId="6584" Score="0" Text="I want to know why slugs die if you put them into a one-day-old solution of baking soda. If I put that on stackExchange chemistry they downvote and close the question as they see it as too trivial" CreationDate="2018-05-02T15:00:00.683" UserId="3173" />
  <row Id="9638" PostId="6584" Score="2" Text="Sorry that I didn't find that clear from your question.  I'm not sure that the biology/physiology of slugs is particularly on-topic for this stackexchange either, alas.  Good luck." CreationDate="2018-05-02T15:30:25.323" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="9639" PostId="6584" Score="0" Text="@Qohelet you do ask, in the first paragraph of your question, what to do with the slugs you have. Jean-Paul has given you an answer to that question. I know you then go on to ask a different question; it seems that you have now found an answer to that, and have edited it into the question. Is that right? If so, please can you put the answer in an answer, rather than in the question." CreationDate="2018-05-03T05:45:22.327" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="10121" PostId="6584" Score="0" Text="I suggest asking it on biology.SE  Slugs have little resistance to osmotic pressure.  Dissolve *anything* in water and with a reasonable quantity, they will lose water from their cells to the container.  Salt, fertilizer, sugar, should all work.  And you don't need beer.  Bit of sugar, bit of yeast is all you need." CreationDate="2018-09-03T20:27:52.987" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="9684" PostId="6585" Score="0" Text="On the contrary, I think this is a useful suggestion. It's a bit short and terse - it would benefit from some explanation of *why* this would help." CreationDate="2018-05-14T15:52:23.937" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="9606" PostId="6587" Score="0" Text="What happens to the water quality downstream of the Danube?" CreationDate="2018-04-29T22:56:15.290" UserId="5517" />
  <row Id="9607" PostId="6587" Score="0" Text="@Graham It deteriorates, but I don't know whether me running the tap longer contributes to this or not." CreationDate="2018-04-30T06:40:54.573" UserId="5670" />
  <row Id="9608" PostId="6587" Score="0" Text="Does the fresh water come from the Danube as well?  And do the countries downstream use the same water for drinking?" CreationDate="2018-04-30T07:23:53.093" UserId="5517" />
  <row Id="9609" PostId="6587" Score="0" Text="Yes and yes, though not directly from the Danube but rather from the waters under the banks that already go through a national purification process." CreationDate="2018-04-30T10:06:43.283" UserId="5670" />
  <row Id="9613" PostId="6587" Score="1" Text="You're thinking in the wrong direction. The issue is not the waste water, but the *cleaning the water* you mention. That is not only an economic factor: cleaning pollutes as well. The main factor there is probably that you need energy for it." CreationDate="2018-04-30T13:24:56.250" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="9615" PostId="6587" Score="0" Text="Just the point by @JanDoggen above, qualifies as a sufficient answer by itself." CreationDate="2018-04-30T18:55:16.887" UserId="2734" />
  <row Id="9617" PostId="6587" Score="0" Text="@Jan as I wrote above, putting clean water in the sewers doesn't seem to require additional cleaning." CreationDate="2018-04-30T20:37:11.310" UserId="5670" />
  <row Id="9618" PostId="6587" Score="0" Text="The point of my questions was as @JanDoggen points out is that there is an economic cost of cleaning water.  No matter what is done to the water it all ends up in the same place and has to be cleaned to make it drinkable again.  The more you waste, and every other person wastes, the more that needs to be cleaned." CreationDate="2018-04-30T21:45:56.180" UserId="5517" />
  <row Id="9620" PostId="6587" Score="0" Text="There are fixed overheads in treatment facilities.  Up to some capacity, any amount of &quot;waste&quot; water has the same cost to treat.  Only when you exceed that capacity are additional costs incurred.  Consider a home septic system.  It has some fixed installation cost.  Then, up to its capacity, no matter how much you put in to it, the incremental cost is the same (zero).  So - it depends." CreationDate="2018-05-01T12:24:58.863" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="9623" PostId="6587" Score="0" Text="Sure, I agree to this, but here the cleaning process is that they add some chemicals to the water until certain parameters get into a given range. This means that my greywater doesn't require any extra chemicals, so all the cost I contribute is the cost of (a fraction of) a measurement." CreationDate="2018-05-01T16:02:30.733" UserId="5670" />
  <row Id="9602" PostId="6588" Score="0" Text="I fully agree that it depends where the water is coming from and where it goes. However for many people your 'positive examples' are not positive. Very few people take cold showers or do the dishes with cold water so it's likely that (fossil fuel-based) energy is used to heat the water." CreationDate="2018-04-29T09:53:50.577" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="9605" PostId="6588" Score="0" Text="Thanks for your answer, I've added more details about my situation. Btw, water is quite cheap, so probably my parents just repeated what they've learnt." CreationDate="2018-04-29T19:05:47.650" UserId="5670" />
  <row Id="9624" PostId="6588" Score="0" Text="I would be very interested to learn about your opinion." CreationDate="2018-05-01T16:03:51.910" UserId="5670" />
  <row Id="9625" PostId="6588" Score="0" Text="Answer updated — see text from &quot;Update...&quot; onwards." CreationDate="2018-05-02T00:48:47.960" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="9603" PostId="6589" Score="0" Text="I mean the increased emission arguments are valid for using anything that costs money and (I suppose) the emission is proportional to the cost. So probably if I cancel once my flight, then I save more emission than all the water I ever waste in my apartment, right?" CreationDate="2018-04-29T17:12:21.423" UserId="5670" />
  <row Id="9604" PostId="6589" Score="0" Text="@domotorp that's true, but you could skip the flight *and* reduce water usage ;) It sounds like perhaps your question is more **how bad** is wasting water." CreationDate="2018-04-29T17:47:42.573" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13370" PostId="6591" Score="0" Text="I think hot air convecting upstairs is a minor part of the problem, it's the heat load upstairs too, with high performance gaming PCs, servers and various desktop replacement work laptops that cause most of the problem. All generate significant heat. I now have a two stage plan to pump cold air from downstairs into the server cupboard upstairs, and the hot air from upstairs down into the living room. So far I've completed the first step, and when I complete the second step I'll answer my question with the details." CreationDate="2021-01-23T15:16:04.030" UserId="164" />
  <row Id="13372" PostId="6591" Score="1" Text="@Mark your plan seems sound given your heat loads. Here it must be convection - I have one modest pc upstairs, only usually on when in use, a well-insulated airing cupboard and no other significant loads. The back of downstairs is under-heated but where the stairs start isn't. One fan may be enough if there's a clear return path" CreationDate="2021-01-23T17:20:04.133" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="9637" PostId="6592" Score="0" Text="One thing that's becoming more common in the US is for packages from private carriers (UPS, FedEx, DHL) to be handed over to the federal carrier (USPS) for &quot;last mile&quot; delivery. This limits the number of trucks driving around the same neighborhoods." CreationDate="2018-05-02T15:24:40.807" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9674" PostId="6592" Score="1" Text="Your third sentence contains a huge assumption. I work from home. So do most people I happen to know. I don't pass a central delivery point, or any point outside my home, every week never mind every day. Whether I am the norm or the people you imagine are, you need some actual numbers and data about the trips people normally take." CreationDate="2018-05-08T21:12:05.087" UserId="1053" />
  <row Id="9633" PostId="6593" Score="1" Text="Assuming that Chinese businesses were *paying* for the waste plastic, this would indicate it was cheaper than producing virgin plastic from raw crude, regardless of transportation and processing costs. If, however, the exporting countries were somehow subsidizing the waste plastic, it's hard to say." CreationDate="2018-05-02T14:04:06.450" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9829" PostId="6593" Score="0" Text="A recent research article on China's import ban: [&quot;The Chinese import ban and its impact on global plastic waste trade&quot;](http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/4/6/eaat0131)." CreationDate="2018-06-20T19:36:12.563" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10814" PostId="6593" Score="0" Text="Add to all that the fact that we are keeping it out of the landfills. That is the main reason I recycle. But the savings of energy is just icing on the cake for me." CreationDate="2019-03-19T15:54:40.623" UserId="6462" />
  <row Id="10816" PostId="6593" Score="0" Text="Great question!! China does lots of our ewaste, things like lead, and irridium found in cellphone antenna, and then sells it back the US as cheap plastic junk. Mardi Gras beads are a great example of this. [Link to an article by the Smithsonian](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/toxic-truth-mardi-gras-beads-180962431/)" CreationDate="2018-05-16T21:24:46.223" UserId="4922" />
  <row Id="9677" PostId="6596" Score="0" Text="&quot;some extra land&quot; is far more complicated than that. Most people don't like to live near a solar farm; they're ugly. They require permits and assessments and new roads and all kinds of infrastructure. They get opposed. Panels on the roof are far simpler politically." CreationDate="2018-05-09T16:16:38.490" UserId="1053" />
  <row Id="12977" PostId="6598" Score="0" Text="For other instance, put two solar panels on a pole, above a tree, in a parking lot. A 6&quot; diameter brushed-finish 304L round tube with a 0.120&quot; wall thickness is set 4' directly in a concrete footing with 16' above the ground. At a lateral load of 200 lbs there is a 1.64&quot; deflection of the round tube. The 304L round tube, in regular finish, is found at $2640 price. The 304L will never rust, corrode, or need painting." CreationDate="2020-10-10T14:44:18.863" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="9640" PostId="6600" Score="0" Text="Don't green roofs also help a lot to prevent floods?" CreationDate="2018-05-03T10:13:57.377" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="9642" PostId="6600" Score="1" Text="Welcome to sustainability.SE! Thanks for your thoughts and answer. Can you provide some numbers to support your conclusions? Is it possible that the energy savings from the insulation value of a green roof could be greater than what a PV system would produce? What energy input does a green roof require?" CreationDate="2018-05-03T13:51:05.567" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9654" PostId="6600" Score="0" Text="I am not an environmental scientist, I am a computer scientist. I have collaborated with sustainable technology researchers at csus.edu/storc when I was a student. My conclusions therefore are better classified as opinions based on cost and effort to build the systems in questions. a PV system produces energy that can be used to offset other less sustainable methods of energy production which is a huge boost to its sustainability score. Green roofs, for the same square footage, are going to merely offset _some_ of the insulation value while likely being *more* of a cost and effort to maintain." CreationDate="2018-05-04T19:30:44.230" UserId="5681" />
  <row Id="9652" PostId="6601" Score="0" Text="Are you doing organic?" CreationDate="2018-05-04T15:50:15.670" UserId="5686" />
  <row Id="9655" PostId="6601" Score="0" Text="Maybe, I am not certain if hydroponics or aquaponics can be certified organic under the USDAs guidelines for organic farming. I can say that in controlled environment agriculture, which is what I work in, we use no pesticides and minimal artificial fertilizers. My work focuses on optimizing alternative closed loop systems like the one described in my question. Vermicompost tea is rich with &quot;natural&quot; fertilizers that plants crave. *no not like brondo*" CreationDate="2018-05-04T19:47:41.527" UserId="5681" />
  <row Id="9775" PostId="6601" Score="0" Text="The question *Has everyone ever used* is not very relevant. Please [edit] your question and **ask your real question** (also in the title). There is a reason that you are asking this!" CreationDate="2018-06-04T08:34:59.110" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="9643" PostId="6602" Score="1" Text="Based on the abstract of [this article](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921344902001714), it seems that disposal of copper slag is an environmental issue in itself, and researchers are investigating ways to incorporate it into building materials (e.g. concrete) as a more sustainable means of disposal." CreationDate="2018-05-03T14:17:48.187" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9644" PostId="6604" Score="0" Text="Do you have a garden or lawn which requires watering?" CreationDate="2018-05-03T16:26:58.100" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9645" PostId="6604" Score="0" Text="@LShaver I have a lawn, but it's at the same level the water barrel would be (minus the height of the barrel) -- I wouldn't think enough pressure could be generated to do anything but create a puddle wherever I tried to connect a sprinkler." CreationDate="2018-05-03T18:09:41.637" UserId="4604" />
  <row Id="9646" PostId="6604" Score="3" Text="What about drip irrigation?" CreationDate="2018-05-03T18:10:57.247" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9785" PostId="6604" Score="1" Text="Put it 5 ft in the air.  It will enough pressure to water the plants." CreationDate="2018-06-05T17:17:45.280" UserId="2914" />
  <row Id="9651" PostId="6605" Score="0" Text="No, according to the vendor, this is actually the waste byproduct of smelting copper - actual copper slag." CreationDate="2018-05-04T13:28:52.100" UserId="1701" />
  <row Id="9732" PostId="6608" Score="1" Text="You'd need a good filter if you were going to run a pressure washer off a rainwater barrel" CreationDate="2018-05-22T15:28:50.993" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="9737" PostId="6608" Score="1" Text="Better using two filters - one at entry to the barrel and the other one at exit. They are recommendable for all applications using pipes or ducts to avoid stuffing. Drawing water out of calm barrels some inches above the sediments should provide clear water, but with filters much better." CreationDate="2018-05-22T19:33:29.543" UserId="5602" />
  <row Id="9663" PostId="6611" Score="0" Text="Just a thought: Is a (de-oiled) pile of boats on the seabed, in a well considered location all bad?  Artificial reefs have their merits I understand.  Might be less environmentally damaging than the energy used to reprocess." CreationDate="2018-05-08T07:29:44.570" UserId="2718" />
  <row Id="9665" PostId="6611" Score="0" Text="That proposal could also contribute as an answer to a previous question about &quot;How do plastic bags and other waste end up in the ocean?&quot; Even when fibreglass plastics do not rot fast, small parts of it can remove from the body of the boats and drift in the sea. Building riffs may be better using steal, as it is in cars, etc." CreationDate="2018-05-08T13:00:36.747" UserId="5602" />
  <row Id="9666" PostId="6611" Score="0" Text="Fibreglass is pretty inert. I've not read anything on the effects of ultra long-term immersion in sea water, but bits don't spontaneously break off boats. If they became colonised, the encrustations, concretions and other growth layers would protect the fibreglass to a not inconsiderable extent." CreationDate="2018-05-08T13:29:32.487" UserId="2718" />
  <row Id="9667" PostId="6611" Score="0" Text="Most boats are protected against osmosis from outside, but not from inside the boat. Osmosis will start very soon where water penetrates the material and creates growing bubbles that finally break up. Fishes and other animals will nibble and eat it. So it enters into the circle. And as it is inert indeed you will find it some day on your table." CreationDate="2018-05-08T13:47:21.843" UserId="5602" />
  <row Id="9668" PostId="6611" Score="0" Text="That seems a fair point. Is there any research on this?" CreationDate="2018-05-08T13:50:06.450" UserId="2718" />
  <row Id="9670" PostId="6611" Score="0" Text="Could this help? https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0261306914008206" CreationDate="2018-05-08T14:05:46.760" UserId="5602" />
  <row Id="9671" PostId="6611" Score="1" Text="This item was also discussed at other place in StackExchange: https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/questions/14206/what-happens-when-fiberglass-gets-wet" CreationDate="2018-05-08T14:09:28.610" UserId="5602" />
  <row Id="9678" PostId="6611" Score="0" Text="Maybe not. I know FRP sucker rods( oil well pumps) are real problem to get rid of when they reach end of life." CreationDate="2018-05-09T17:28:50.020" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="9698" PostId="6611" Score="0" Text="¿“However, I fear that there will come a lot of none recycled fibreglass waste to nature.”? Do you mean _that a lot of  fibreglass waste will not be recycled but end up in the environment_?" CreationDate="2018-05-16T10:10:50.913" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="9699" PostId="6611" Score="0" Text="It is already a serious issue. They estimate more than 200.000 boats left from owners only in Europe. Serious discussion about recycling started with wind power blades but there are already a lot of places where the waste is deposited or not. A lot of boats go down to the sea. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110609083228.htm https://www.soundingsonline.com/boat-shop/the-fiberglass-dilemma" CreationDate="2018-05-16T10:50:46.173" UserId="5602" />
  <row Id="13106" PostId="6611" Score="0" Text="Your question is intriguing, but is the premise correct?: &quot;Lifetime is running out for a large number of fibreglass boats produced about 50 years ago.&quot;  What makes you believe their lifetime is running out?" CreationDate="2020-11-13T10:35:42.767" UserId="2727" />
  <row Id="13122" PostId="6611" Score="0" Text="Note that a lot of maintenance of fibreglass boats involves sanding fibreglass... ie, turning it into microplastics, generally with no attempt to collect them." CreationDate="2020-11-19T22:44:49.490" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="9672" PostId="6612" Score="0" Text="PTFE is inert unless you heat it to  above 600 F." CreationDate="2018-05-08T15:53:29.073" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="9669" PostId="6613" Score="1" Text="There's a great question on cooking.SE about how to properly [season a cast iron skillet](https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/641/whats-the-best-way-to-season-a-cast-iron-skillet)" CreationDate="2018-05-08T14:00:29.853" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="16426" PostId="6620" Score="0" Text="*As long as cheap construction is profitable* — you could add &quot;and legal&quot;.  Building codes exist and in some (perhaps many) countries building a new energy-inefficient house is not legal." CreationDate="2023-07-14T08:25:06.583" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="9680" PostId="6622" Score="0" Text="It sounds like this may be a regulatory issue -- what country/state is the supplier located in? Humans *can* eat food corn, but there isn't anywhere in the US (at least) where you could buy it labeled for human consumption." CreationDate="2018-05-13T16:47:45.870" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9681" PostId="6622" Score="0" Text="The supplier I contacted is in Canada." CreationDate="2018-05-13T16:50:15.917" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="10018" PostId="6622" Score="0" Text="The grade of soy, beans, and buckwheat they are using is not intended for human consumption. this is the case with lots of feed used for animals. It is not any more sustainable. And the food they use makes them all taste crappy." CreationDate="2018-08-07T16:51:20.630" UserId="4922" />
  <row Id="9686" PostId="6627" Score="0" Text="Hmm I clarified the question a bit. I understand the averages, but if I were building a house, how would I know how big a solar system I must install? Is there some formula that is used to determine this?" CreationDate="2018-05-14T20:49:21.717" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9687" PostId="6627" Score="0" Text="They are not only considering solar power, but also improvements with other components like Building insulation, inside ventilation, other energy consumers, solar water heating AND Solar Photovoltaic Systems. They estimate an improvement in power consumption of 7% less. Half of electric energy (53%) consumed in the household shall be produced by additional photovoltaic systems. These people calculate with estimates and statistic figures (average household consumption, market price reduction, etc.)." CreationDate="2018-05-14T21:08:26.910" UserId="5602" />
  <row Id="9692" PostId="6627" Score="1" Text="This doesn't seem to answer the question asked." CreationDate="2018-05-15T19:25:23.293" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="9693" PostId="6627" Score="0" Text="I worked with big international companies and developed projects for them. Forecasts are never made on individual figures, but only on assumptions, estimates and statistical figures. Governments work the same way. It is unlikely to receive an other answer to that question in general. If to build a house the formula to confirm with the objectives would be: Calculate the power consumption based on 2016 standards and then reduce that value by 53%. They assume that the required additional costs will be around $9,500. This should include all additional effort and not just solar photovoltaic." CreationDate="2018-05-15T20:13:58.923" UserId="5602" />
  <row Id="9731" PostId="6627" Score="0" Text="Please see my answer -- from a recent news article I was able to find the specific requirement, which depends on the size of the home and the climate zone where it's located." CreationDate="2018-05-22T12:54:37.687" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9789" PostId="6627" Score="0" Text="The found figures answer the electrical capacities calculated but do not answer your question on what the cost of $9,500 was based on. Considering the new higher customs duty for imports from China would make such calculations obsolete anyway in the meantime." CreationDate="2018-06-06T16:20:24.403" UserId="5602" />
  <row Id="9704" PostId="6632" Score="0" Text="Trade and import of various mussel shells is restricted or even forbidden. Even shells of conch cannot be imported to the European Union. There must be reasons for it. https://www.green-trade.org/?p=245 http://ec.europa.eu/environment/cites/info_souvenirs_en.htm The question is &quot;Do you have it locally available and is there enough of it?&quot;" CreationDate="2018-05-16T14:27:10.787" UserId="5602" />
  <row Id="9705" PostId="6632" Score="0" Text="@LShaver: I need to add detail! To quote the linked Wikipedia article: _Due to a single clam shell yielding only a limited number of stones (around three), white stones are expensive to produce. The clamshells used to make the white stones used to be farmed from Japan, but since the supply is dwindling, most clamshells are harvested from Baja California in Mexico._ Go stones are lens-shaped, 22mm diameter and vary in thickness from 4mm to 12.8mm, high quality tends to mean at least 7mm. They are, of course, not made from the the blue mussel, Mytilus edulis, usually eaten in the UK." CreationDate="2018-05-16T18:17:01.367" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="9706" PostId="6632" Score="0" Text="@LShaver: I have realised that I have mistranslated _Muschel_ (which I had at the back of my mind) with _Mussel_, actually we are talking about **clams**!" CreationDate="2018-05-16T18:28:25.110" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="9707" PostId="6632" Score="0" Text="@Salt: I have realised that I have mistranslated _Muschel_ (which I had at the back of my mind) with _Mussel_, actually we are talking about **clams**!" CreationDate="2018-05-16T18:29:05.233" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="9725" PostId="6634" Score="1" Text="Thanks. It's too bad governments don't tell corporations to deal with the plastic. Going back to fabric bags and glass jars doesn't need technical innovation, just political courage." CreationDate="2018-05-19T04:06:49.963" UserId="5723" />
  <row Id="9726" PostId="6636" Score="0" Text="Thanks. We will bring plastic out to poorer people that will deal with it. Not the greatest plan but better than burning." CreationDate="2018-05-19T04:08:16.880" UserId="5723" />
  <row Id="9727" PostId="6636" Score="0" Text="Ever seen where and how poor people live, especially in the poor suburbs? No need to bring plastic to them, they are surrounded with it, don't have efficient garbage collection nor income. The real answer was &quot;pyrolysis&quot; which needs plastics to be efficient and can generate value." CreationDate="2018-05-19T09:31:04.297" UserId="5602" />
  <row Id="9723" PostId="6637" Score="1" Text="Given that neither of these answers have really answered your question, this might need an edit. It sounds like your question is something along the lines of &quot;For the average municipality, what makes up the bulk of items going into landfills (assuming recyclables are removed)?&quot; This likely varies a fair bit from country to country." CreationDate="2018-05-18T14:13:44.393" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9734" PostId="6637" Score="0" Text="Pizza boxes without lumps of cheese/meat go in the worm composter for me (they make a good inner cover to keep the contents from drying out).  But I don't get through very many and instead make my pizza." CreationDate="2018-05-22T15:31:56.847" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="9714" PostId="6638" Score="0" Text="But the question I guess I'm trying to wrap my head around is what I should expect to be in my trash when all is said and done. Obviously we should strive to avoid landfills completely, but I want a sort of shorthand in my head for what is trash so I can know without going down the list (so to speak). One that came to mind was the Lysol wipes in the bathroom, since they are toxic but also paper towels and not reusable. On Earth Science, someone suggested water hose, but I think that that's a rare occurrence and also easily repurposed." CreationDate="2018-05-17T15:07:40.793" UserId="5726" />
  <row Id="9716" PostId="6638" Score="0" Text="I mean, you would know best. it's your trash can... You could chose not to use Lysol wipes. or paper towels, I re-use old clothing as rags. I'm not really sure I can help you with this question." CreationDate="2018-05-17T20:37:49.630" UserId="4922" />
  <row Id="9717" PostId="6638" Score="0" Text="Assume I'm an average person. I didn't mean to suggest I wanted to know what exactly would be in my trashcan, but what most people would still have leftover that would not normally fit under recycling, compostable, and batteries (and other similar &quot;we know it's not supposed to go in the trash), and obvious repurposable/donatable items. Put another way, if I (the every man) did all of that, would I have 0 trash?" CreationDate="2018-05-17T20:51:33.307" UserId="5726" />
  <row Id="9718" PostId="6638" Score="0" Text="And it's also about isolating those remaining items to get a better handle on what special things can be done (like not using disposable diapers or starting a local community medicine recycling dropoff). Basically I keep thinking there's trash I'm forgetting about, which makes it easier to assume that I have little to no trash and neither would anyone else if they just did the bare minimum." CreationDate="2018-05-17T20:57:29.063" UserId="5726" />
  <row Id="9724" PostId="6638" Score="0" Text="I think I see where you're coming from. I don't think we can stop our industries from producing so much trash. There is the possibility of reducing our consumption, but even that is a pittance compared to waste in other industries. I don't know if personal praxis is enough for us to get to 'zero waste' in any real way." CreationDate="2018-05-18T14:20:47.130" UserId="4922" />
  <row Id="9722" PostId="6643" Score="2" Text="+1 for **non-scratch dish scrubber.** I spent some time in El Salvador, and in the countryside this was the only type of dish scrubber available -- either made from mesh produce bags, or woven plastic rice bags." CreationDate="2018-05-18T14:10:29.140" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9728" PostId="6645" Score="2" Text="Shiny foil wrapping paper and dog vomit paper towels, juice boxes and and batteries and styrofoam egg cartons. Those are a few of my favorite things!" CreationDate="2018-05-19T23:28:30.350" UserId="5726" />
  <row Id="9733" PostId="6645" Score="0" Text="Tetra-pak recycling is becoming more common.  I don't know how they're dealt with but recently my collection started taking them with the cardboard (previously they were seperate).  This is in the UK" CreationDate="2018-05-22T15:30:41.387" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="9729" PostId="6647" Score="0" Text="I like the reverse supply line ideas a lot." CreationDate="2018-05-20T19:02:15.580" UserId="5726" />
  <row Id="16483" PostId="6647" Score="0" Text="&quot;Home fireplaces, wood stoves, and backyard incinerators are not meant to burn paper. **Modern paper contains** many harmful chemicals like **plastics**, **varnishes**, and even **formaldehyde**. When burned, these chemicals can be released into the atmosphere and cause serious **health problems** for anyone who breathes them in.&quot; [(Source.)](https://www.shrednations.com/blog/burning-paper-documents-is-a-bad-idea-with-expert-commentary/#:~:text=Home%20fireplaces%2C%20wood%20stoves%2C%20and,anyone%20who%20breathes%20them%20in.) **Do not burn paper.** It is not safe, and you may be ticketed." CreationDate="2023-08-27T19:01:46.347" UserId="938" />
  <row Id="16484" PostId="6647" Score="0" Text="Burning plastic produces by-products which are even worse.  **Never, ever burn plastic.**  The only safe place to burn plastic is at a commercial incinerator or waste-to-energy facility.  Such places have scrubbers to prevent harmful levels of **dioxins, furans, and other hazardous pollutants** from escaping into the air we breathe." CreationDate="2023-08-27T19:04:20.433" UserId="938" />
  <row Id="10180" PostId="6648" Score="0" Text="Superb bit of research to dig this out" CreationDate="2018-09-18T05:44:44.170" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="9735" PostId="6649" Score="2" Text="The question takes the premise that proof-of-work is the only basis for cryptocurrencies.  Proof-of-work is the &quot;use up a ton of electricity&quot; part of cryptocurrencies.  A number of systems use other methods instead (for example, proof-of-stake)." CreationDate="2018-05-22T19:03:17.733" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="9738" PostId="6649" Score="0" Text="That is definitely the question because &quot;many companies do not disclose information about their operations&quot; (2nd article). Considering that currently only few people are using crypto currencies the estimates made by the author show that it cannot expand to global money if there are no improvements to reduce energy consumption or increase sustainable energy generation." CreationDate="2018-05-22T19:49:43.680" UserId="5602" />
  <row Id="9739" PostId="6649" Score="2" Text="Apart from the flawed assumption, I don't think the question is a good fit for this forum.  It calls for prediction of the future.  There's no way anyone can provide an evidence-based answer to the question.  People can guess.  However, anyone who could make even remotely accurate guesses of such a nature would be able to profit massively on cryptocurrencies.  I don't think there's any reason to suspect that anyone with such information or capabilities exists." CreationDate="2018-05-22T20:35:19.223" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="9740" PostId="6649" Score="1" Text="Being profitable doesn't mean being sustainable. Sustainability should reflect against alternatives to achieve the same result considering the charge involved to the ambient nature" CreationDate="2018-05-22T22:16:16.160" UserId="5602" />
  <row Id="9741" PostId="6649" Score="0" Text="I wasn't trying to answer the question.  I was pointing out that being able to answer this question is somewhat equivalent to being able to print money." CreationDate="2018-05-22T22:48:01.330" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="9742" PostId="6649" Score="0" Text="Isn't generating crypto money something like printing money, or do they generate anything else with it? If so, what makes printing money impossible? Even when my question seems to animate you for guesses or personal opinions, why shouldn't there be others in this community that can really contribute to answer the question?" CreationDate="2018-05-23T07:30:06.457" UserId="5602" />
  <row Id="10109" PostId="6650" Score="0" Text="Can you make some examples of the two kinds of cryptocurrencies? Bitcoin is of course a cryptocurrency that requires a lot of power. But what about cryptocurrencies that require less?" CreationDate="2018-08-27T19:59:52.233" UserDisplayName="user5966" />
  <row Id="10111" PostId="6650" Score="1" Text="All networks dependent on &quot;proof-of-work&quot; are energy hogs by design.  To not fall into that category you need to base your network on &quot;proof-of-something-else&quot;.  [PeerCoin](https://peercoin.net) uses &quot;proof-of-stake&quot; and [Chia](https://chia.net) plans to use &quot;proof-of-space&quot;, for example.  Note that just because something is _sustainable_ it doesn't mean that it will be _successful_.  The western financial system tends to reward greed and corruption, not sustainability." CreationDate="2018-08-28T08:50:47.387" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="9902" PostId="6651" Score="1" Text="Quite so, but that is not what the question is about: what do you do when you get something in one of these envelopes?" CreationDate="2018-07-05T13:25:09.367" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="9747" PostId="6653" Score="0" Text="To avoid ambiguity, can you refer to the worms you are asking about using its scientific name?  Is this Eisenia fetida?" CreationDate="2018-05-27T12:08:43.810" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="9750" PostId="6654" Score="1" Text="I think that Wikipedia article is a bit unclear. It says earthworms are invasive, but then says there are over 6000 species. So I think it means there are invasive species everywhere, but of course each species must be native somewhere." CreationDate="2018-05-28T15:58:54.817" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9771" PostId="6654" Score="0" Text="Don't think so. There may be endemic populations, that did not spread to other places, due to their specific needs and there may also be some places of origin of different species. But there was always invasion of species to other continents or places in the world through rivers and sea. Especially worms as a trivial body had more possibilities to survive drifting on a peace of wood than mammals. The question is rather whether invasion happened by man or by chance in nature. The additional question is whether red worms are already present or can be introduced without risk to nature." CreationDate="2018-06-01T01:38:21.263" UserId="5602" />
  <row Id="9751" PostId="6660" Score="2" Text="The shorter the better..." CreationDate="2018-05-29T07:27:21.607" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="9755" PostId="6660" Score="1" Text="Perhaps it makes sense to generalize this to &quot;phone charging cables&quot;? That would include Apple's lightning cables, and USB-C which is starting to become more common." CreationDate="2018-05-29T14:02:50.297" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9759" PostId="6663" Score="1" Text="Solder?  Have you ever soldered a USB?" CreationDate="2018-05-30T22:54:25.753" UserId="2914" />
  <row Id="9765" PostId="6663" Score="0" Text="https://www.androidcentral.com/weekend-project-diy-usb-go-old-cables" CreationDate="2018-05-31T14:12:19.657" UserId="4922" />
  <row Id="9766" PostId="6663" Score="2" Text="Yes I actually have." CreationDate="2018-05-31T14:27:13.953" UserId="4922" />
  <row Id="9768" PostId="6663" Score="0" Text="I used to have computer repair shop and I never soldered a cable.  I had 100s of cables from machines that went bad." CreationDate="2018-05-31T16:43:36.163" UserId="2914" />
  <row Id="9769" PostId="6663" Score="0" Text="so, you're saying free cables?" CreationDate="2018-05-31T17:24:12.900" UserId="4922" />
  <row Id="9770" PostId="6663" Score="0" Text="Yes, in the business cables are free.  Devices fail faster than cables." CreationDate="2018-05-31T17:41:14.743" UserId="2914" />
  <row Id="9760" PostId="6664" Score="1" Text="The question specifically asks about _production_ of USB cables -- though you make a valid point, this works better as a comment on the question." CreationDate="2018-05-31T01:07:18.007" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9761" PostId="6664" Score="1" Text="@LShaver Then OP is asking the wrong question.   There is an excess of cables as they outlast the device." CreationDate="2018-05-31T06:54:46.387" UserId="2914" />
  <row Id="9763" PostId="6664" Score="2" Text="I think this answers the title question &quot;What's the most environmentally friendly micro USB charging cable…if any?&quot; with &quot;a used one&quot;." CreationDate="2018-05-31T08:08:14.180" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="9764" PostId="6665" Score="0" Text="Have you considered a box fan in the window? If you set this to exhaust it removes warm inside air and draws in cool outside air. A dehumidifier will remove moisture but also add heat (from the compressor running)." CreationDate="2018-05-31T13:14:50.873" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9767" PostId="6665" Score="0" Text="A dehumidifier is not going to cool the room." CreationDate="2018-05-31T14:33:57.660" UserId="2914" />
  <row Id="9773" PostId="6668" Score="1" Text="I did think that German Es looked a lot better insulated than British Cs!" CreationDate="2018-06-01T08:27:08.103" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="9780" PostId="6669" Score="1" Text="I totally agree that it is very likely that excess nitrogen is a possible side effect and you are right again that algal blooms would deoxygenate the water. I use air stones and have dissolved oxygen sensors so thats not much of a risk.&#xA;&#xA;What I am wondering about is how to massively scale aquaponics sustainably. I begin studying these systems in university where this idea was discussed but never pursued. Like I mentioned above I do a lot of work with sensors for monitoring so nitrogen sensors would be added to achieve optimum levels.&#xA;&#xA;Thanks for the feedback!" CreationDate="2018-06-05T04:40:03.130" UserId="5681" />
  <row Id="9777" PostId="6673" Score="0" Text="I've heard of smelter slag being used in roading mix in a limited percentage in place of stone chip; is that the kind of hazardous material you're talking about? Some examples or references would be helpful to clarify the problem." CreationDate="2018-06-04T10:04:45.187" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="9778" PostId="6673" Score="0" Text="Asphalt and Cement frequently seem to be &quot;The last Solution&quot; to deposit &quot;hazardous materials&quot;. To name some of them: asbestos, slag, which contains (among others) cadmium, arsenic, and in asphalt additionally tar which contains (again among others) polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (generates cancer), bitumen. The list is by far longer and contains a lot of heavy metals. For a long time burned waste was not deposited but used as an add-on to be integrated into concrete or road surface." CreationDate="2018-06-04T11:16:00.660" UserId="5602" />
  <row Id="9779" PostId="6673" Score="0" Text="[Concrete is already being recycled](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concrete_recycling) quite a lot. It see it more and more where I live (The Netherlands) when buildings are being demolished. Asphalt recycling is also possible (promo website [here](https://www.americanasphalt.com/how-is-asphalt-paving-recycled/)), but AFAIK not done often, at least here. The only problem is that both are often recycled into pavements and roads, so if those become obsolete as your premise is, we would need to find new uses." CreationDate="2018-06-04T11:28:52.997" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="9818" PostId="6673" Score="0" Text="&quot;due to different transportation systems no longer requiring streets&quot; is so far into future that we will have significantly different technology - also for recycling." CreationDate="2018-06-14T12:04:02.167" UserId="5798" />
  <row Id="9819" PostId="6673" Score="0" Text="Drones and aerial ropeways are already upcoming, solving traffic problems in big cities. In addition more and more projects for new streets exclude toxic and non recyclable materials. Future is much closer than it seems." CreationDate="2018-06-14T22:53:07.827" UserId="5602" />
  <row Id="9782" PostId="6674" Score="0" Text="*each kit contains the exact amount of all perishable ingredients needed for the recipe, meaning there's no excess produce to spoil once the meal is made* Not true: these are averages, you are much more likely to buy the right amount yourself." CreationDate="2018-06-05T13:56:12.807" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="9783" PostId="6674" Score="1" Text="@JanDoggen that's the claim, and in some cases I find it's true. For example, where I live in Wisconsin, USA, many types of produce are sold in fixed quantities, such as fresh herbs, salad greens, and mushrooms. So if you only need a small quantity you'll end up with extra that might spoil. Meal-kits eliminate the need to figure out what to do with the extra, which (in theory) reduces food waste." CreationDate="2018-06-05T14:12:20.690" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9784" PostId="6674" Score="0" Text="This is a very broad question. The transport issue alone (along which routes are which masses of food transported) is [a question onto itself](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/6677/home-delivery-versus-going-to-stores-how-does-fuel-usage-for-transport-compare)" CreationDate="2018-06-05T14:40:20.403" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="9792" PostId="6674" Score="1" Text="It would be much cooler to subscribe to a CSA. (Community Supported Agriculture, basically a subscription to the farmer's market.)" CreationDate="2018-06-06T21:13:36.357" UserId="4922" />
  <row Id="9808" PostId="6674" Score="1" Text="@JanDoggen agreed -- I narrowed the scope a bit and linked to your question regarding home delivery." CreationDate="2018-06-10T23:36:36.977" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9781" PostId="6675" Score="3" Text="I think only a small part of this answer addresses the question. Also you say that &quot;[boxes] are being returned by next delivery&quot;, but what happens then? Are they reused, recycled, dumped?" CreationDate="2018-06-05T07:34:00.983" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="9786" PostId="6677" Score="0" Text="The question is comparable to this one. https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/6592/is-delivery-of-mail-to-house-doors-by-postal-services-more-sustainable-than-pick" CreationDate="2018-06-06T01:08:47.730" UserId="5602" />
  <row Id="9806" PostId="6677" Score="0" Text="I recently read an article somewhere that alleged that shipping companies are working on zero (net) emissions targets which would be great. Big inefficiencies quoted were excess packing (where the box is much larger than the goods - wasting vehicle volume) and failed/repeated delivery attempts, again wasting vehicle space &amp; trips." CreationDate="2018-06-09T20:07:03.657" UserId="2537" />
  <row Id="9807" PostId="6677" Score="0" Text="Possible duplicate of [Is buying online more sustainable than in local shop next door?](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/5054/99) but I like this question better." CreationDate="2018-06-10T16:35:01.750" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="9913" PostId="6677" Score="0" Text="Running a cold engine is much less efficient (and more polluting in particulate terms), and the delivery vans don't stop for long enough for the engine to cool down, and routing tends to be optimised to save time/fuel/money.  But they're big thirsty engines.  I have seen (and will try to find) a study suggesting that when it comes to grocery shopping it's more efficient to have a delivery from a local-ish supermarket than to drive there and back. But obviously cycling to the supermarket (as I will on Sunday) is more efficient still." CreationDate="2018-07-12T15:04:08.233" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="13358" PostId="6677" Score="0" Text="Another consideration is packaging. When I buy something from a shop it will have &quot;retail packaging&quot; (which for some things is just a price/barcode sticker). But if I have that exact same thing delivered it will probably be wrapped in padding then put in a plastic bag then a printed label applied. All of that extra packaging counts against the delivery compared to my shopping trip. Often each item I buy is separately packaged, especially if I use the big online sellers who ship from multiple suppliers (I am suffering a wave of online &quot;buy five items, get five deliveries&quot; right now)" CreationDate="2021-01-19T22:03:38.130" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="9790" PostId="6680" Score="1" Text="Do you ever have electrical grid disruptions in your area?" CreationDate="2018-06-06T18:05:32.913" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="9798" PostId="6680" Score="0" Text="It's a new house, so I'm not sure - we're a rural/suburban neighborhood, so I expect there are occasional power outages, but nothing out of the ordinary." CreationDate="2018-06-07T17:33:01.303" UserId="5771" />
  <row Id="9799" PostId="6680" Score="0" Text="Have any plans to have hot water during a grid disruption?" CreationDate="2018-06-08T01:21:44.860" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="9800" PostId="6680" Score="0" Text="Yes, I'd like to have at least hot water available during power outages - the house is electric heat, so some source of warmth would be welcome - but that's not really a deciding factor in this scenario. Thanks!" CreationDate="2018-06-08T15:52:34.347" UserId="5771" />
  <row Id="9802" PostId="6680" Score="0" Text="I suspect it is due to the power draw. An on-demand gas unit I saw burns over 100,000 BTU per hour, equivalent to around 30kW, or over 100 amps at 240V. This type of power is normal for gas appliances, but high-performance for electric, which heats slowly. You may get some insight over at [Home Improvement SE](https://diy.stackexchange.com/)." CreationDate="2018-06-08T17:05:31.023" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9805" PostId="6680" Score="0" Text="If you plan to have a backup power supply that will run an electric hot water heater and you want to choose between having an electric hot water heater or a propane hot water heater for environmental reasons (strongly implied by your question, but not explicitly stated now that I look carefully), the fact that you may end up running a dirty gasoline generator to supply backup power may be an important factor.  You may easily blow through any environmental benefits of a clean electric heater by powering it with dirty gasoline electricity for a short period of time." CreationDate="2018-06-08T22:19:46.133" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="9872" PostId="6680" Score="0" Text="you forgot compost heating" CreationDate="2018-06-27T02:45:16.220" UserId="3532" />
  <row Id="9801" PostId="6681" Score="0" Text="Thanks! Yes, you're right in that the grid is stable. I had the same thoughts - why would anyone use the propane, since electric seems like such a great option? Do you have any personal experience with on-demand water heaters, or do you have any ideas as to why people (like the two plumbers I've spoken with) would recommend propane so strongly?" CreationDate="2018-06-08T16:18:52.550" UserId="5771" />
  <row Id="9804" PostId="6681" Score="0" Text="Worked 13 years in a utility company (telecoms, energy, contracting), what created sensibility. In last years I visited frequently Brazil where almost all houses and (cheap) hotels use electric showers (www.youtube.com/watch?v=uweQVL-Vr5A). I'm not happy with the electrical connection they provide and asked the people why they use these electric showers. They answered that it would be the cheapest solution. Don't need boilers, tank for fuels nor 2nd (hot) water pipes. For daily showers the energy costs are still too low. From sustainability point of view electricity from solar is perfect." CreationDate="2018-06-08T18:34:33.417" UserId="5602" />
  <row Id="9796" PostId="6684" Score="1" Text="The titular question is answered in the body of your question.  Yes, of course it can.  I suggest you change the title to focus on the content: what are the obstacles?" CreationDate="2018-06-07T09:31:18.480" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="9797" PostId="6684" Score="1" Text="There is more than one question in here: 1. *Why does Microsoft experiment with a data center under sea*, which is off-topic for this site. 2. *Why this isn't done more often*. I suggest you [edit] this and limit the question to 2." CreationDate="2018-06-07T09:32:30.143" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="10108" PostId="6684" Score="0" Text="I think cryptocurrency mining operations could provide a lot of heat energy, too." CreationDate="2018-08-27T19:54:21.070" UserDisplayName="user5966" />
  <row Id="9809" PostId="6691" Score="0" Text="Wouldn't an MPPT charger allow me to wire the panels in series, in order to obtain a higher voltage and minimize losses?" CreationDate="2018-06-11T18:03:18.807" UserId="5789" />
  <row Id="9810" PostId="6691" Score="0" Text="@dieortin I'm not sure I follow -- you could buy any charger (whether MPPT or PWM) with a higher input voltage allowing the panels to be wired in series. Is there a specific MPPT charger you're looking at?" CreationDate="2018-06-11T19:30:40.330" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9811" PostId="6691" Score="0" Text="I thought PWM charge controllers needed some specific voltage to work, while MPPT ones can have any voltage to a maximum (and from the minimum to make it work) So if I'm correct then I would be able to wire up any number of panels in series up to the maximum voltage, which I can't do with PWM. Is this correct?" CreationDate="2018-06-12T04:34:36.273" UserId="5789" />
  <row Id="9812" PostId="6691" Score="0" Text="@dieortin now I get it. You can buy either PWM or MPPT chargers for most standard battery voltages, but you're right that the MPPT charger will work better over a broader range of input voltages, making it better suited to panels in series. I'll edit the answer tomorrow to include this detail." CreationDate="2018-06-12T04:53:12.673" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9813" PostId="6693" Score="3" Text="Maybe a better fit for diy stackexchange." CreationDate="2018-06-12T10:51:23.643" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="10130" PostId="6693" Score="1" Text="I don't know if this question is specifically off-topic here, but it would almost certainly do better on diy or electronics." CreationDate="2018-09-05T12:22:31.263" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="9820" PostId="6695" Score="1" Text="My guess is that bamboo plywood probably doesn't have the economies of scale yet that traditional plywood production has. If the industry was supported, the price may come down (this is less likely if the production process is difficult, or patented). I have heard that bamboo is something like 4 times as fast growing compared with trees, so this in itself seems to make it worth careful investigation. Hopefully this helps someone put together a more complete answer.... :-)" CreationDate="2018-06-18T03:41:59.790" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="9822" PostId="6695" Score="3" Text="Even if bamboo grows X times faster, that doesn't necessarily mean it is &quot;more sustainable&quot;.  You could have X times as much production dedicated to conventional plywood, for example, and exactly balance production.  Or you could have different levels of production and simply end up with different levels of product available on the market.  Instead, what is likely important is the externalized costs of production.  Is bamboo for plywood grown in a way that degrades the environment?  Or enhances it?  And since this is a comparison, take the answers relative to those for conventional production." CreationDate="2018-06-18T22:18:43.923" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="9825" PostId="6695" Score="1" Text="I found a really neat [Life Cycle Assessment tool](https://www.americanhardwood.org/en/environmental-profile/american-hardwoods-life-cycle-assessment-tool) from the American Hardwood Export Council. Birch is analyzed, but unfortunately there's nothing on bamboo." CreationDate="2018-06-19T16:59:59.500" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9826" PostId="6695" Score="1" Text="... and [here's one on bamboo](https://repository.tudelft.nl/islandora/object/uuid%3A2b1f58e2-2a72-4247-bf57-49eb7d5646a1), from a partnership between a trade group, a manufacturer, and a university in the Netherlands. When I've got some time I'll look through the two and see if it's possible to compare directly and draw some conclusions." CreationDate="2018-06-19T18:29:52.257" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9827" PostId="6695" Score="0" Text="@Jean-PaulCalderone good point(s). _also_ we should consider the habitat for _fauna_ that is created by the Birch plywood trees (_while they are growing/maturing_), etc. I'm really hoping someone has a comprehensive answer to this question at some point. :-)" CreationDate="2018-06-19T19:55:17.600" UserId="5803" />
  <row Id="9910" PostId="6695" Score="0" Text="Cost actually isn't a bad metric for sustainability, if it is in a competitive market.  Competitive means everyone is working on roughly the same mark ups, and so cost is a measure of the resources used.  It doesn't take into account industry wide non-sustainabilities -- pollution mostly, and it is distorted by economies of scale." CreationDate="2018-07-11T13:13:31.297" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="9912" PostId="6695" Score="0" Text="@SherwoodBotsford sadly, the _economic_ cost of something is _rarely_ a good indicator of the `true` _cost_ to the environment.  as you say, pollution is not factored into the price neither is habitat destruction through deforestation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality" CreationDate="2018-07-12T07:11:33.647" UserId="5803" />
  <row Id="10103" PostId="6695" Score="0" Text="I think @SherwoodBotsford's point is that cost is a good *proxy* for sustainability, since society doesn't value externalities of different commodities differently, If one sheet of plywood costs 25% more than the other, we can assume it's negative externalities are roughly 25% greater." CreationDate="2018-08-24T16:04:14.663" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9830" PostId="6700" Score="2" Text="If you don't describe this more, we are forced to follow the link." CreationDate="2018-06-21T12:40:36.623" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="9840" PostId="6700" Score="2" Text="Hi Tom, and welcome to the site. It'd be great if you could [edit] this and add a couple of sentences to describe how Ethex and Abundance meet the criteria set out in the question." CreationDate="2018-06-21T19:30:16.747" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="9832" PostId="6702" Score="0" Text="Probably because of coal use and oil/gas development.   Western red states mine a lot." CreationDate="2018-06-20T22:59:33.117" UserDisplayName="farrenthorpe" />
  <row Id="9833" PostId="6702" Score="0" Text="I would say more driving and greater distances between stuff.   I don't think this is an Earth Science question though.  It's more about infrastructure and usage.   Not sure what board it would belong in." CreationDate="2018-06-21T05:04:19.817" UserDisplayName="userLTK" />
  <row Id="9834" PostId="6702" Score="1" Text="As a non American, what are &quot;red states&quot; &amp; should I care?" CreationDate="2018-06-21T09:02:13.280" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="9835" PostId="6702" Score="0" Text="Could suit in Sustainability SE." CreationDate="2018-06-21T09:44:43.533" UserId="5285" />
  <row Id="9836" PostId="6702" Score="0" Text="When I heat my home I am also heating the homes of four neighbors and they do the same for me. We live in apartments and share party walls." CreationDate="2018-06-21T10:39:24.157" UserDisplayName="AllInOne" />
  <row Id="9837" PostId="6702" Score="0" Text="@Fred: &quot;Red&quot; states are states that tend to vote Republican.  On the other hand there are &quot;blue&quot; states that tend to vote Democrat and states that are more or less undecided are often called &quot;purple&quot; states.  IMHO: As of now this question reads more like a political statement and may be more suitable in Politics SE." CreationDate="2018-06-21T11:13:20.223" UserDisplayName="wanderweeer" />
  <row Id="9838" PostId="6702" Score="0" Text="@fred Notably, the red=Republican/blue=Democrat terminology is largely a product of TV news graphics used during the 2000 presidential election dispute: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_states_and_blue_states" CreationDate="2018-06-21T15:39:04.687" UserDisplayName="jeffronicus" />
  <row Id="16251" PostId="6702" Score="0" Text="Late comment, I know, but which of those patches is Wyoming?" CreationDate="2023-01-23T12:28:40.063" UserId="1567" />
  <row Id="9841" PostId="6704" Score="2" Text="Fantastic question Russell!  You can't pump what's not there, so typical R/C ACs become increasingly inefficient as it gets colder outside (when you want/need heating the most).  Heat pump hot water systems (that work on the same principles as heat pump ACs) break-even in Mild Temperate climates in Australia (winter overnight lows of around 5°C / daily highs of around 13°C) and are uneconomic and discouraged much below that.  Marketing and advertising, however, is powerful, and convenience is valued by the masses.  I wish I could offer more than anecdotes." CreationDate="2018-06-22T09:06:07.683" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="9842" PostId="6704" Score="1" Text="This will vary from unit to unit.  Apart from the usual efficiency variation between brands and models, there are heat pumps optimized for different temperature ranges (by using a different refrigerant, operating at different pressures, etc).  Given this, I'm not sure what a general answer to this question actually looks like.  For example, it sounds like the unit in my home is very different from the one you've looked at: the literature suggests 2 to 1 at -20C." CreationDate="2018-06-22T12:52:09.970" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="9844" PostId="6704" Score="0" Text="Thanks for the comments Jean-Paul. The sort of answer I was looking for would be data showing how COP varies according to temperature for various manufacturers. I'll amend the question to make it clearer." CreationDate="2018-06-22T15:25:23.710" UserId="5822" />
  <row Id="9845" PostId="6704" Score="0" Text="There's a bit of data here https://www.academia.edu/1073992/A_review_of_domestic_heat_pump_coefficient_of_performance that you could selectively analyse to get a few numbers, perhaps?  In the summary: &quot;Linear fits to each data set suggest that COP falls by 0.67-1.07 for every 10°C temperature rise.&quot;" CreationDate="2018-06-22T17:01:26.180" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="9846" PostId="6704" Score="0" Text="Tim, this sounds like an answer to me. Would you consider pasting it into the answers section if you are happy with it?" CreationDate="2018-06-22T17:23:37.660" UserId="5822" />
  <row Id="9847" PostId="6704" Score="0" Text="The above is a bit minimal to be answer-worthy, so I fleshed it out a bit to add a bit of value." CreationDate="2018-06-22T18:04:03.650" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="9894" PostId="6704" Score="0" Text="Real-world test data for late model cold climate air source heat pumps can be found in this [U.S. Department of Energy report (pdf)](https://www1.eere.energy.gov/buildings/publications/pdfs/building_america/inverter-driven-heat-pumps-cold.pdf)." CreationDate="2018-07-02T20:02:06.497" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9895" PostId="6704" Score="0" Text="And another one: the [Minnesota Center for Energy and the Environment](https://www.mncee.org/resources/resource-center/technical-reports/cold-climate-air-source-heat-pump/) found that cold climate ASHPs have a COP greater than one for temps above -12C." CreationDate="2018-07-02T20:19:29.477" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9843" PostId="6705" Score="1" Text="Have you considered mixing it with ground earth for your plants? This aerates and makes the ground easier to handle (plant new things, remove unwanted weeds,...).  But in the first place, I would advise you to find a way to dispose the branches **without burning them**. With a little work you may either shred this wood to pieces or bury it until it rot and make your earth better. See also https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/282/what-to-do-with-wood-ash ." CreationDate="2018-06-22T14:50:18.560" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="9874" PostId="6705" Score="2" Text="Not a dupe IMO. The wood ash question is not about charcoal pieces, and it's about someone living in an apartment." CreationDate="2018-06-27T06:59:45.033" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="9876" PostId="6705" Score="0" Text="Agreed -- close vote removed." CreationDate="2018-06-27T13:04:00.283" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9909" PostId="6705" Score="0" Text="Look into BioChar. Also use charcoal for filtering water." CreationDate="2018-07-10T13:10:09.297" UserId="1701" />
  <row Id="9849" PostId="6706" Score="0" Text="This seems to imply that the rated COP for a unit is only valid when the temperature rise is 0° (this is the only ΔT where your equation gives a COP drop of 0).  I don't have evidence to contradict this but it seems odd to me that units would have a COP rating under conditions where you would never even use them.  I suspect that the real COP drop equation should be something more like max(ΔT - N, 0) / 10 where N is some per-unit value that gives an efficient operating range within which you get the rated COP and not some de-rated value." CreationDate="2018-06-23T13:49:15.233" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="9850" PostId="6706" Score="0" Text="The linear fit (and hence COP drop rate) was determined from data _between different units,_ not the same unit at different temperatures — thus would only be of use provided it didn't stray too far from a unit's declared COP.  Different refrigerants in different units would produce different, non-linear curves within their operational ranges — something with far too many variables to reduce to a simple equation with any meaningful level of accuracy.  I don't think any rules-of-thumb should be trusted when the outdoor temp nears the limits of the AC — it'll probably just ice up and stall." CreationDate="2018-06-23T14:38:00.643" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="9851" PostId="6706" Score="0" Text="I think my point was that it doesn't seem that the referenced paper supports the conclusion that you should expect a COP drop of 2.5 when there is a 25°C temperature difference between input and output.  Instead, you should expect a COP drop of 2.5 when you _increase_ the temperature difference by 25°C.  Thus &quot;increase it from what?&quot; becomes a rather important question.  The referenced paper presents data which shows no unit with a COP below 1.67 even for a ΔT of 60°C.  Therefore, I find the last paragraph of your answer significantly misleading." CreationDate="2018-06-23T15:05:02.763" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="9853" PostId="6706" Score="0" Text="I've had another look at the paper and it still makes sense to me.  I cannot understand your confusion.  Lines of best fit are easily extrapolated.  Since COP 0–1 is likely to be very close to the operational limits of a given AC I added a paragraph to the answer to warn folks about using rules-of-thumb near operational limits (where the performance curve is likely to be very non-linear)." CreationDate="2018-06-23T16:32:04.617" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="9860" PostId="6706" Score="0" Text="What is the &quot;initial&quot; COP based on? Is there some standard operating condition that mfgr's use to calculate that? Also, I'd recommend including the paper title, and perhaps a snapshot of the most relevant graph, in case that link breaks, or if others don't have login access to adacemia.edu." CreationDate="2018-06-24T16:34:56.413" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9867" PostId="6706" Score="0" Text="I'm unfamiliar with the way(s) manufacturers calculate the COP that they advertise for their products.  The answer has been updated to include the paper title, author and date to make finding a copy easier if the link breaks.  The paper is available on multiple sites, most of which are not behind paywalls.  The link used does not lead to a paywall." CreationDate="2018-06-25T10:52:54.580" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="11138" PostId="6706" Score="0" Text="@Tim I've re-posted my interpretation of this discussion here https://community.bettercentury.org/t/are-air-to-air-heat-pumps-worth-it-in-the-uk-climate/142, hope I have represented the facts correctly, please feel free to chip in on the discussion there if you like. If you want to join, that would be amazing. Full disclosure: I'm an admin of bettercentury.org." CreationDate="2019-06-13T13:55:19.343" UserId="5822" />
  <row Id="11139" PostId="6706" Score="0" Text="@Russell Doesn't look like one can post there without creating an account.  :(  If you want to have a bit of a chat about the inner-workings of airconditioners, to get a better grip on your problem, then I'm happy to do so on https://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/7310/sustainable-living" CreationDate="2019-06-14T00:37:38.067" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="11141" PostId="6706" Score="0" Text="@Tim was sort-of hoping you might want create an account. hehehe. We're only little and are trying to grow." CreationDate="2019-06-14T14:23:17.543" UserId="5822" />
  <row Id="9871" PostId="6709" Score="0" Text="I just noticed this question is a duplicate. You may want to post this answer at the other question: https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/282/3379" CreationDate="2018-06-26T21:27:36.140" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9875" PostId="6709" Score="0" Text="@LShaver Although they are both produced by wood fires, wood ash and charcoal are distinct by-products with different uses.  That other question is about wood ash, not charcoal, so I don't think my answer belongs there.  I also don't think that this question is a duplicate (for the same reason)." CreationDate="2018-06-27T07:16:40.560" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="9877" PostId="6709" Score="0" Text="Good point, I removed my close vote." CreationDate="2018-06-27T13:04:29.707" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9858" PostId="6712" Score="0" Text="*I am cognizant that starting a car uses a lot of fuel, probably equating to 30 seconds of idling.* Do you have a source for this? There have a been a few discussions here on that topic, and it seems [starting your car uses less gas than idling for about 10 seconds](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/666/how-effective-is-turning-a-cars-engine-off-while-standing-at-a-traffic-light/670#670)." CreationDate="2018-06-24T16:25:21.617" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9859" PostId="6712" Score="1" Text="Another thought -- perhaps other places you already go accept batteries? My office recycles batteries, so I bring mine there. A university I attended collected batteries at libraries. Ask around -- bringing a pair or two whenever you go will solve both problems!" CreationDate="2018-06-24T16:27:40.083" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9861" PostId="6712" Score="0" Text="I thought starting an engine equates *roughly* to 30 seconds of idling because of old wisdom about turning off the car if you intend to idle for more than half a minutes. I looked at your link, and the 10-second rule also seemed to be without a source. But the fuel cost is more than just starting, is slowing down, parking, unparking, weaving out to the road again, and re-accelerating. It pales in comparison to other driving inefficiencies, but again, I'm wondering about whether this can be compared to the harm done by a pair of AA batteries in the land fill, and whether one is clearly worse." CreationDate="2018-06-24T16:48:36.650" UserId="5831" />
  <row Id="9862" PostId="6712" Score="0" Text="About going to where I've done before, I dispose of batteries so rarely that, not only am I unable to recall the last disposal, but the company arrangements and the companies themselves have changed." CreationDate="2018-06-24T16:49:51.353" UserId="5831" />
  <row Id="9863" PostId="6712" Score="0" Text="That answer links to [one on Physics.SE which calculates the idling vs restarting time to about 3 seconds for a Honda Civic](https://physics.stackexchange.com/a/75572/141232). 10 seconds was the (very) conservative estimate for a broader range of vehicles. Also, where do you live? Your municipal solid waste collector's website can likely provide guidance on how to dispose of batteries. I once lived in a municipality where we could put them directly in our recycling bins to be sorted." CreationDate="2018-06-24T17:03:24.247" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9864" PostId="6712" Score="0" Text="Thanks for point that out, LShaver.  Three seconds vs. 30 seconds.  But really, we're talking order of magnitude here, and when you factor in the weaving into the parking spot, weaving, out, joining traffic, and accelerating up to speed, I think the gist of my question still holds.  Basically, is it more harmful to make a stop or to dispose of two batteries in the landfill. The answer could very well be that the comparison can't be made, since the consequences are so different." CreationDate="2018-06-24T17:33:22.413" UserId="5831" />
  <row Id="9865" PostId="6712" Score="0" Text="As for municipal waste websites, they show The Source as the place to bring it. After spending half hour reaching them on the phone, they said &quot;no&quot; -- to both corporate programs and individual municipal arrangements with specific stores. I was anticipating a milk run of many stops to confirm this with the stores (only a central number is provided online). Thus the question. Fortunately, I called them back and asked for phone numbers of individual stores, who were able to confirm that they accept spent batteries.  But I'm still interested in whether the harms can be compared meaningfully." CreationDate="2018-06-24T17:36:06.150" UserId="5831" />
  <row Id="9855" PostId="6713" Score="0" Text="I already minimize battery usage. This is the 1st time I've run a disposal battery to the ground in so many years that I can't even recall. That's the problem -- accumulating the batteries for disposal doesn't really make sense because I will hang on to them possibly for the rest of my life. They'll likely leak before I have a decent amount.  It seems to make sense to return them right away, but does the car resultign car exhaust (not the cost of the fuel) do more environmental harm? Batteries leaking into landfill create focused local damage while car exhaust creates dispersed global damage." CreationDate="2018-06-24T14:56:44.623" UserId="5831" />
  <row Id="9856" PostId="6713" Score="0" Text="Disposing of batteries every 0.5-1 year is OK if you use many batteries and are comparing with the alternative of making the trip more frequently. But the trip to dispose of batteries should depend on how many you've accumulated -- not frequency per year. If it doesn't make sense to make the trip with (say) 10 batteries, then it doesn't matter whether you reach 10 batteries in 2 months or 20 years." CreationDate="2018-06-24T15:18:59.137" UserId="5831" />
  <row Id="9857" PostId="6713" Score="0" Text="Similarly, if the trip is justifiable after 50 batteries, it doesn't matter when you reach 50 batteries. But determing the minimum threshold quantity at which you should make the trip is extremely complicated. This also ignores the fact you can't keep spent batteries forever." CreationDate="2018-06-24T15:19:07.600" UserId="5831" />
  <row Id="9873" PostId="6721" Score="0" Text="The OP didn't say anything about fermenting. If no fermented bran is added, it's not bokashi." CreationDate="2018-06-27T06:33:03.743" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="9878" PostId="6721" Score="0" Text="when you put compost in a sealed container you're fermenting, so I put the method they're talking about in my explanation." CreationDate="2018-06-27T14:14:45.860" UserId="3532" />
  <row Id="9881" PostId="6724" Score="2" Text="A few additional details to be able to answer this question adequately -- 1. Do you have whole-home air conditioning? 2. What latitude are you at? 3. What rough percentage of the equator-facing wall is glass? 4. Is this wall shaded at all (such as by trees or other buildings)? 5. Are you cooling the house during the hottest part of the day?" CreationDate="2018-06-27T21:23:32.590" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9883" PostId="6724" Score="0" Text="Added your desired details." CreationDate="2018-06-28T17:16:33.740" UserId="3464" />
  <row Id="9882" PostId="6725" Score="3" Text="Sorry, the question asks for studies, not for anecdotes." CreationDate="2018-06-28T06:41:22.610" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="9885" PostId="6727" Score="2" Text="I'm not sure you're asking the right question (ie &quot;How fast does it degrade?&quot;). If we're going to use bulk quantities of paper cups and try to compost them or hope that they'll break down in the environment harmlessly, then we need to understand what can be defined as a &quot;paper cup&quot; and what counts as &quot;harmless&quot;. If a paper cup has a wax or thin plastic coating, does that still count as paper? (I'd say no, or it should at least be tested separately) If there is a toxin or pollutant in the paper, then it may become concentrated as it breaks down. The result might look like soil, but be poisoned." CreationDate="2018-06-30T03:03:44.380" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="9887" PostId="6727" Score="1" Text="@HighlyIrregular Yeap, you listed the right concerns but let's ignore all that for a while. Let's just focus on paper breaking down to some reasonably broken state." CreationDate="2018-07-02T06:44:22.537" UserId="679" />
  <row Id="9886" PostId="6728" Score="0" Text="New Zealand's position on the chart, and your statement that *recycling rates can be misleading* makes me hopeful that perhaps the average kiwi just produces so little waste that recycling isn't cost effective, and there's just a small back lot landfill somewhere that won't be full for another 100 years. Is there a per capita or per GPD version of this chart?" CreationDate="2018-07-01T19:57:35.910" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9888" PostId="6728" Score="0" Text="I'm afraid the situation in New Zealand looks rather bad, at least at first glance. [This website](https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/countries-generating-the-most-trash-per-capita.html) puts New Zealand at place 10 of the countries who produce the most waste per capita (3.68 kg/capita per day). Also a quick search on &quot;[New Zealand recycling rate](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=New+Zealand+recycling+rate)&quot; returns this article as first hit: &quot;[Kiwis are rubbish at recycling, report finds](https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/our-backyard/74864465/Kiwis-are-rubbish-at-recycling-report-finds)&quot;" CreationDate="2018-07-02T07:04:12.190" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="9889" PostId="6728" Score="2" Text="Interesting that 11 of the top 13 from that list are islands. Sounds like a good topic for another question..." CreationDate="2018-07-02T14:51:46.853" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9890" PostId="6730" Score="0" Text="Interesting... did you happen to look at any other factors, such as land area or population density? I can imagine the latter having a significant impact also." CreationDate="2018-07-02T19:14:28.817" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9892" PostId="6730" Score="0" Text="Makes sense. It'd be interesting to see some of those details/data in your answer." CreationDate="2018-07-02T19:24:39.133" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9893" PostId="6730" Score="1" Text="That extra detail added.  I actually conflated smaller/poorer and larger/richer in my comment, so I've deleted it to avoid confusion.  I really hate how you only have five minutes to edit comments." CreationDate="2018-07-02T19:49:03.620" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="9899" PostId="6731" Score="0" Text="Any reason why you're trying to avoid these three materials? I would be helpful to know so that answers don't include other materials that you might want to avoid for the same reasons." CreationDate="2018-07-03T17:54:51.690" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9903" PostId="6731" Score="0" Text="There are ways to do passive cooling that require less power than conventional air conditioning, but it will be hard to answer the question for you without knowing the size of the construction, or you budget. &#xA;&#xA;For keeping cool, I can't make any specific reccomendations but you should look to create a 'passive cooling' home if you don't want to run AC:&#xA;https://newatlas.com/top-five-passively-cooled-homes/29433/&#xA;http://www.i4at.org/lib2/aircool.htm&#xA;&#xA;as for materials[https://www.lowimpact.org/lowimpact-topic/earth-bag-building/]" CreationDate="2018-07-05T17:29:15.253" UserId="4922" />
  <row Id="9904" PostId="6731" Score="0" Text="Oh this one looks cool: http://kotaronishiki.com/" CreationDate="2018-07-05T17:37:07.680" UserId="4922" />
  <row Id="9914" PostId="6737" Score="7" Text="The answer is yes, it not only can but it does this right now,we humans eat meat from plant eaters so if we start eating only plant matter and skip eating meat there still will be plenty of food." CreationDate="2018-07-16T06:16:51.953" UserDisplayName="trond hansen" />
  <row Id="9916" PostId="6737" Score="2" Text="You realize that a lot of those cows eat grass, right?  When was the last time you enjoyed a heaping plate of grass?" CreationDate="2018-07-17T13:13:07.463" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="9918" PostId="6737" Score="1" Text="And there are places where the ground is so poor that only grass (and other stuff not edible by humans) grows, so we can use that land only for livestock." CreationDate="2018-07-18T11:04:05.160" UserId="1567" />
  <row Id="9932" PostId="6737" Score="0" Text="@trond hansen, doesn't it create an imbalance in food chain? I wanted to ask if we can do it without endangering any other species (except for the animals that are raised for food, in which case I don't know if we have any other choice)" CreationDate="2018-07-19T01:26:05.573" UserId="5873" />
  <row Id="9939" PostId="6737" Score="2" Text="@user41965 Your question basically asks &quot;Can humanity switch to an ~100% vegetarian diet?&quot;  The answer is a qualified &quot;Yes&quot;, but I wonder if you could explain the reason why you are asking this question?  Why would humans want to go vegetarian?  What *problem* are you trying to solve?" CreationDate="2018-07-19T02:51:32.870" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="9940" PostId="6737" Score="0" Text="Food intake is ~3.2GJ/year for adults, compared to 290GJ/year total energy consumption per capita (for USA in 2014).  At a mere 1.1% of total energy, food is almost irrelevant.  Switching to a vegetarian diet thus has 'negligible' sustainability value.  I'm not sure what the purpose of the question is." CreationDate="2018-07-19T04:07:04.400" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="9963" PostId="6737" Score="1" Text="Related: [What are the greenhouse gas benefits of vegetarianism?](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/704/3379)" CreationDate="2018-07-24T13:54:55.143" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10015" PostId="6737" Score="0" Text="I started to write an answer, but I see you adding additional questions (*health*) and clarifications (*arable land*) as comments to answers. Together with ambiguous wording in your question I think any answers should be postponed until you have cleaned up your text and ask **one** question. And as others comment, adding the purpose of your question gives us some context." CreationDate="2018-08-07T14:52:03.947" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="9919" PostId="6739" Score="0" Text="From the article you cited: &quot;That means corn averages roughly 15 million calories per acre.&quot; — not 15 million kCal.  Your numbers are thus off by a factor of 1,000 and the sustainable population reduces to 0.97 billion — a figure in line with my own research, as well as that of the United Nations.  It doesn't matter how you cut the cake, there are already too many people on the planet." CreationDate="2018-07-18T13:20:59.893" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="9920" PostId="6739" Score="0" Text="yay, the ambiguity of the word &quot;calories&quot;.  Thanks.  I'll double check the article and adjust the answer accordingly." CreationDate="2018-07-18T13:47:36.703" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="9921" PostId="6739" Score="0" Text="http://mathscinotes.com/2017/01/calorie-per-acre-improvements-in-staple-crops-over-time/ suggests that corn is indeed close to 15 M kcal/acre.  http://www.waldeneffect.org/blog/Calories_per_acre_for_various_foods/ suggests it may be closer to 3 M kcal/acre (comment section).  Neither of these suggests an overestimate of 1000x in this answer though.  Do you have a source for the correct value being 15 million calories instead of 15 million kilocalories?" CreationDate="2018-07-18T13:54:58.287" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="9922" PostId="6739" Score="0" Text="I just quoted the text in the body of the article you linked to &quot;Intensively cultivated corn yields 15 million kcal per acre.&quot;  It may be that the author just made a typo in the body.  Doesn't change the reality that Earth cannot support what we have now, let alone 129x as many." CreationDate="2018-07-18T13:58:46.563" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="9925" PostId="6739" Score="1" Text="@Tim the confusion is likely due to the fact that in the U.S., the layperson's term for energy in food is &quot;calorie,&quot; which is more accurately a large or kilogram calorie (*Cal* or *kcal*). The same word is also used to describe the small calorie or gram calorie (*cal*). [&quot;In spite of its non-official status, the large calorie is still widely used as a unit of food energy.&quot;](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calorie)" CreationDate="2018-07-18T15:01:49.370" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9927" PostId="6739" Score="0" Text="That Wikipedia link says it all:  &quot;Although these units relate to the metric system, all of them have been considered **obsolete** in science since the adoption of the SI system.&quot;" CreationDate="2018-07-18T15:10:29.160" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="9931" PostId="6739" Score="1" Text="Good answer, except for the last sentence: natural gas is not a **required** feedstock. It's the feedstock most commonly used, but it's not **required**." CreationDate="2018-07-18T20:05:13.903" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="9933" PostId="6739" Score="0" Text="@Jean-PaulCalderone thank you very much for your answer, but one of the main thing I wanted to know is if meat alternatives (which gives us protein, fat, etc) can be sufficient for humans. One more thing is can we actually grow corn in all kinds of land(maybe we can, maybe we can't) and also when we consider other things too (which provide us important nutrients apart from energy) is there enough cultivable land for those vegetation(and also it should be feasible and sustainable)?" CreationDate="2018-07-19T01:40:03.470" UserId="5873" />
  <row Id="9941" PostId="6739" Score="0" Text="@user41965 I don't believe there is any science-based medical consensus about whether vegetarian diets are safe and healthy for humans (particularly children).  So it's not clear to me that even one person can be sustained on a vegetarian diet from a _health_ perspective." CreationDate="2018-07-19T14:37:43.937" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="9944" PostId="6739" Score="0" Text="*whether vegetarian diets are safe and healthy for humans* ... do you mean *vegan*, a diet which consists of no animal products? There are millions of vegetarians who eat dairy products (and in some cases, chicken eggs), but no meat. Some 40% of Indians fall into this category." CreationDate="2018-07-19T18:41:44.360" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9945" PostId="6739" Score="0" Text="I guess I'm not sure what I meant there.  The context is confused as the original question says &quot;vegeterian/vegan&quot; as though these are interchangeable.  The tone of the question makes me think the question is about veganism (eg &quot;And animals are only breed in zoological parks ...&quot;) so I probably mistakenly started using &quot;vegetarian&quot; to mean &quot;vegan&quot; myself." CreationDate="2018-07-19T19:03:25.080" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="10016" PostId="6739" Score="1" Text="@Tim You can safely assume that in any non-scientific publication *calories* actually means kilocalories." CreationDate="2018-08-07T14:55:35.390" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="10196" PostId="6739" Score="0" Text="@Jean-PaulCalderone sorry for the delayed reply, if it makes difference I would like to know the answer to both the cases vegetarian and vegan. Thank you" CreationDate="2018-09-25T04:59:15.040" UserId="5873" />
  <row Id="11600" PostId="6739" Score="0" Text="This answer is probably out by at least an order of magnitude.  A 2004 meta-study (https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/54/3/195/223056#126051279) suggests human carrying capacity between 0.65 and 98 billion, median 7.7 billion." CreationDate="2019-10-16T11:27:19.000" UserId="1445" />
  <row Id="11601" PostId="6739" Score="0" Text="Table 5 in that study suggests that whether or not a study takes into account regional variations in diet - which can be taken as a very crude proxy for assuming vegetarian diets - makes a difference of a factor of 1.4 in ln(carrying capacity) estimates.  Plugging 7.7bn in there gives 17.7bn as the vegetarian carrying capacity: a difference much smaller than the error in the estimates!" CreationDate="2019-10-16T11:34:09.367" UserId="1445" />
  <row Id="11603" PostId="6739" Score="1" Text="It seems quite likely to me that calorie production is not the limiting factor for Earth's carrying capacity, indeed, and my answer only addresses calorie production." CreationDate="2019-10-16T13:09:30.207" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="9923" PostId="6740" Score="3" Text="Could you please provide a reference or explanation for the 1 billion humans carrying capacity?" CreationDate="2018-07-18T14:31:50.367" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="9924" PostId="6740" Score="1" Text="Countless ways to work it out.  I used the planetary energy budget filtered through trophic layers.  Perhaps the easiest way is to simply look at the USA's Earth Overshoot Day for 2018:  March 15.  That means if the whole planet lived like Americans, all of the planet's renewable resources would be consumed in only 73 days.  That's 1/5th of a year.  Thus if the world wants the USA's standard of living, there can only be 1/5th as many people.  7.6 billion / 5 = 1.52 billion.  And that number is getting smaller as resources run out.  It converges on 869 million by my math." CreationDate="2018-07-18T14:48:52.593" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="9926" PostId="6740" Score="5" Text="Many countries enjoy a similar standard of living as the U.S. without the same level of resource depletion." CreationDate="2018-07-18T15:05:35.343" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9930" PostId="6740" Score="0" Text="True, but pretty much all comparable countries have overshoot days in March/April/May.  Whether the carrying capacity of Earth (calculated by that method) is 1.5 billion or 2.5 billion doesn't really matter.  Overshoot is overshoot, and eating lentils instead of pork isn't going to make a lick of difference.  Besides, a later overshoot day only means that things like oil will run out *slower* — it doesn't stop the oil from running out.  Global commodities are *global* — what the Europeans save the Americans will squander." CreationDate="2018-07-18T15:39:03.393" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="9934" PostId="6740" Score="0" Text="@Tim thank you for your answer, sorry if my question was misleading, but I only wanted to know about the things we consume as food, is there enough arable land for us to lead a healthy life eating only vegetation. My question was not related to fossil fuels or energy we consume for other purposes(as far as I understand your question), but if they are related, I would be happy if you can explain a bit more. Sorry if I didn't understand any part of your answer" CreationDate="2018-07-19T01:47:45.600" UserId="5873" />
  <row Id="9935" PostId="6740" Score="0" Text="The point I was trying to make was that both vegetarian and omnivorous diets are dependant on non-renewable fossil fuels (primarily oil).  Once the oil runs out, *neither* will be able to be sustained.  If the species switched to a 100% vegetarian diet today, and the oil ran out tomorrow, ~6.6 bn people would starve to death within a year.  A vegetarian diet not only requires arable land — it requires oil (for all the machinery that prepares land, plants seed, fertilises soil, harvest crops, processes the food, distributes it, etc.).  Without oil, **no diet** is viable for &gt; 1 bn humans." CreationDate="2018-07-19T02:00:46.710" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="9938" PostId="6740" Score="0" Text="The short answer is that **planet Earth can support ~7.6 billion vegetarian humans only as long as we have oil.  Once that runs out planet Earth can only support ~1 billion vegetarians.**  Vegetarian or omnivore actually doesn't make any meaningful difference to the population level that can be supported — planet Earth can only sustain ~1 billion humans with American lifestyles, period." CreationDate="2018-07-19T02:21:49.463" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="9956" PostId="6740" Score="0" Text="Could you please back up your claims in your answer instead of in the comments? &#xA;Also, not all people on Earth have an American lifestyle so if you use the calculations of Earth Overshoot Day for calculating the carrying capacity then why not say that given our current lifestyle the Earth's carrying capacity is 7.5 billion * 213/365 (august 1 = day 213), but it's declining? That's more accurate than stating it's 1 billion." CreationDate="2018-07-23T06:59:42.383" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="9957" PostId="6740" Score="0" Text="Since carrying capacity is almost entirely about lifestyle, there is no point using a 'global average lifestyle', because that's not something the OP can relate to.  By their use of the English language, it's highly likely that the OP is a westerner and thus an &quot;answer in western units&quot; is most appropriate.  No-one here can relate to the lifestyle of someone in an impoverished part of the world.  Since vegetarianism can't save the planet, and seems (to me) to merely be a lifestyle choice, I think that was the right call." CreationDate="2018-07-23T09:32:25.403" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="9958" PostId="6740" Score="0" Text="Further, with August 1 being 2018's Overshoot Day, even if you went down the 'global average lifestyle' route, doing the math correctly would mean that the carrying capacity would by 7.6*213/365= 4.4 billion.  A 3.2 billion overshoot cannot be fixed by dietary changes — so that's pointless as well.  The reality is that people *like to think* that becoming a vegetarian is more sustainable.  It isn't.  People also don't like to hear that population control is the only answer, or that the USA is the biggest threat to life on Earth.  That's why this answer is at -2.  The truth is painful." CreationDate="2018-07-23T09:37:50.383" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="9964" PostId="6740" Score="0" Text="There's a discussion of the validity of the &quot;Earth Overshoot Day&quot; concept over on [Skeptics.SE](https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/41809/is-earth-overshoot-day-a-useful-or-reliable-metric-of-humanitys-effect-on-the)." CreationDate="2018-07-24T13:56:12.643" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9965" PostId="6740" Score="0" Text="There are dozens of different ways to calculate how overpopulated the planet is.  Overshoot Day is just one of them.  Overpopulation Denial is a thing now." CreationDate="2018-07-24T14:01:39.137" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="9968" PostId="6740" Score="0" Text="The core of the question revolves around the (apparent) assumption that switching to a vegetarian diet is sustainable.  As mentioned in a comment on the original question, food — being a mere 1.1% of a westerner's total energy consumption — proves that diet is *irrelevant* to sustainability of a population with western lifestyles.  Even if the West suddenly *had no need for food whatsoever,* 98.9% of the consumption would still occur and the planet's resources would be depleted.  Western lifestyles are not sustainable.  Basic math.  There's nothing you can do to 1.1% to offset 98.9%." CreationDate="2018-07-24T14:28:36.553" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="9969" PostId="6740" Score="0" Text="If 98.9% of your body is riddled with cancer, it doesn't matter how healthy your little finger is — you're still going to die.  Taking better care of that finger won't change the outcome." CreationDate="2018-07-24T14:34:30.463" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="9971" PostId="6740" Score="0" Text="Let us [continue this discussion in chat](https://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/80610/discussion-between-lshaver-and-tim)." CreationDate="2018-07-24T14:54:33.633" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9942" PostId="6741" Score="0" Text="What environmental impacts specifically are you seeking to minimise?  Local air pollution, local smell pollution, carbon footprint?" CreationDate="2018-07-19T17:06:28.237" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="9943" PostId="6741" Score="0" Text="Good question. Carbon footprint mainly, as it accounts for some of the point-of-use impacts (related to local air pollution) as well as life cycle impacts." CreationDate="2018-07-19T17:57:18.147" UserId="2942" />
  <row Id="9951" PostId="6741" Score="1" Text="The BBC had an [article](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-44880398) today on the subject of charcoal - it appears a lot of it comes from unsustainable forest, and so is contributing to deforestation. That's something to take into account..." CreationDate="2018-07-20T20:27:12.483" UserId="4155" />
  <row Id="9984" PostId="6741" Score="1" Text="A bit of a non-answer,... but: I believe the biggest impact is from the substance being BBQ'ed rather then the BBQ-fuel itself. Are we braai-ing bokkies or beets? ;-)" CreationDate="2018-07-27T16:39:47.457" UserId="5895" />
  <row Id="10046" PostId="6745" Score="0" Text="What do you mean &quot;Stone is renewable&quot;? Iron is too in that case, it is produce on large scales over the entire universe..." CreationDate="2018-08-17T06:46:41.810" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="9972" PostId="6747" Score="1" Text="Electric resistance, electric induction, gas, or other?" CreationDate="2018-07-25T14:03:14.103" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="9974" PostId="6747" Score="0" Text="good question. regular electric stove and oven (not induction)." CreationDate="2018-07-25T19:41:55.897" UserId="5889" />
  <row Id="9978" PostId="6747" Score="2" Text="A tricky thing making the comparison here will be determining the duty cycle of each appliance.  It's likely that all three of these will cycle on and off as they perform the cooking task.  A 100W appliance with a 50% duty cycle will may get the job done more efficiently than a 75W appliance with a 100% duty cycle.  I suspect it will be hard for anyone to know how your particular appliances compare.  Perhaps an answer describing a method for measuring this yourself could be constructed, though ..." CreationDate="2018-07-26T00:20:22.777" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="9982" PostId="6754" Score="0" Text="I was preparing an Excel file. Is there a formula I can use the correction factors for tilt and orientation?" CreationDate="2018-07-26T12:57:12.150" UserId="3653" />
  <row Id="9983" PostId="6754" Score="1" Text="Not sure exactly what you're asking, but the [PVWatts technical manual](https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy14osti/62641.pdf) goes through the calculations step by step." CreationDate="2018-07-26T13:04:13.160" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="9985" PostId="6756" Score="2" Text="Welcome to Sustainability.SE! Given the complexity of the question (which you note), perhaps it makes sense to separate into two or more questions? For instance, the issue of packaging could be it's own question, as well as country of origin." CreationDate="2018-07-27T20:33:52.777" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10000" PostId="6756" Score="0" Text="rather see here for the last reference: https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/a/5937/3293" CreationDate="2018-07-31T05:47:57.263" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="10001" PostId="6756" Score="0" Text="Why only 1x 500ml Coconut Milk?" CreationDate="2018-07-31T06:59:25.077" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="10005" PostId="6756" Score="1" Text="@J.Chomel: Cocunut milk is usually quite thick and I assume I would consume it 1:1 with water." CreationDate="2018-08-01T19:52:23.283" UserId="5898" />
  <row Id="10116" PostId="6756" Score="0" Text="Well defined question. You get an upvote for that." CreationDate="2018-09-01T02:05:44.843" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="10007" PostId="6757" Score="0" Text="I was thinking you might user wood chips instead of wood pellets. It is explained [here](http://www.gemcopelletmills.com/wood-pellets-vs-wood-chips.html) why pellets are better. Reasons exposed do not necessarily apply to your case, and one of them suggest that you should add drying the waste to the process you are thinking of." CreationDate="2018-08-03T11:45:49.703" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="10008" PostId="6757" Score="0" Text="Wood pellets are not sustainable the way they are produced in many parts of the world." CreationDate="2018-08-03T12:15:09.100" UserId="5517" />
  <row Id="10014" PostId="6757" Score="0" Text="What *biowaste*?" CreationDate="2018-08-07T14:17:47.250" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="10017" PostId="6757" Score="0" Text="Coffee grounds for example" CreationDate="2018-08-07T15:11:52.027" UserId="5517" />
  <row Id="13505" PostId="6758" Score="0" Text="While the jury is still out on this, EV's may well last much longer than IC vehicles, given reasonable body construction." CreationDate="2021-03-10T21:53:41.773" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="13506" PostId="6758" Score="0" Text="There is also a virtue value of postponing a new vehicle, especially if you are a low mileage user.  If you don't buy it, it's available for a high usage person to buy.  In addition the range/winter usage issues may mean that the best option is to own two vehicles, an IC vehicle with winter tires on it for cold weather use, and an EV for the other three seasons." CreationDate="2021-03-10T21:56:09.183" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="9991" PostId="6760" Score="0" Text="This question is indeed not good for [electronics.se], and it is fine here, but you may get better/more answers at [opendata.se]. If you do not get good answers here, you can post your question there later. There are already [some questions on energy production](https://opendata.stackexchange.com/search?q=is%3Aq+energy+production) there" CreationDate="2018-07-30T11:13:51.310" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="9992" PostId="6760" Score="1" Text="Are you after live data or historic? That EU site **does** show it stacked one country at a time, for all electricity generation: what do you want it to do, that it doesn't already do? And are you interested in electricity production, primary energy consumption, or supplied energy?" CreationDate="2018-07-30T11:19:28.027" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="9993" PostId="6760" Score="0" Text="Jan - thanks for the feedback and the link, I'll take a look at that.  @EnergyNumbers - thanks for the comment, I'm interested in electricity production (and actually the sorts of energy consumed, be it from electricity, gas or renewable).  The EU site shows either a country:energy type breakdown or an All EU stacked graph:a single energy type.  I'm particularly interested in the 6 large graphs (daily, monthly and yearly electricity production output) - I'll update my question to make it clearer." CreationDate="2018-07-30T11:43:26.420" UserId="5901" />
  <row Id="9994" PostId="6760" Score="0" Text="If you tick &quot;Gross electricity generation by source&quot; and &quot;Select All Countries&quot;, doesn't that give you what you want? That's a stack of all countries, of electricity production from all fuels summed." CreationDate="2018-07-30T12:44:57.803" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="9995" PostId="6760" Score="0" Text="No, I want to see just one country at a time - plus the graph shows a 'shadow' of the total EU production.  I'd like to see one country on a graph, with a stacked line, each part of the stack would represent one energy source.  Sorry for being fussy...I know all the data is there on the site.  It could that searching by individual countries, rather than EU, would be more fruitful." CreationDate="2018-07-30T13:31:52.263" UserId="5901" />
  <row Id="10022" PostId="6764" Score="1" Text="A major problem is many do not even recycle what is recyclable." CreationDate="2018-08-10T13:59:52.857" UserId="2914" />
  <row Id="10727" PostId="6764" Score="1" Text="[From BBC news Jan 2018](https://www.bbc.com/news/business-42704291): Fast food giant McDonald's has said all its packaging worldwide will come from sustainable sources by 2025. The world's biggest restaurant chain wants 100% recycle packaging by then (2025), compared with only 10% now (2018)." CreationDate="2019-02-23T09:19:05.173" UserDisplayName="user4844" />
  <row Id="10026" PostId="6771" Score="0" Text="I have some doubts if boiling sea water is enough to filter out harmful substances and use it for cooking. Also the salt content of sea water is rather high, so you would need to add very little." CreationDate="2018-08-14T07:50:26.207" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="10027" PostId="6771" Score="0" Text="@THelper Thanks! With 'substances' do you mean: chemical pollution of the sea?" CreationDate="2018-08-14T08:20:02.453" UserId="5895" />
  <row Id="10028" PostId="6771" Score="1" Text="Yes, basically everything that's in sea water and you don't want to ingest; chemicals, feces, tiny plastic particles, sand." CreationDate="2018-08-14T08:53:22.570" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="10032" PostId="6771" Score="0" Text="Generally speaking the mineral content of the water does affect the effectiveness of soap negatively and also affects the fibres (and colouring) of textiles. I don't think you can use salt water for laundry." CreationDate="2018-08-14T11:35:14.033" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="10033" PostId="6771" Score="1" Text="Also, flushing the toilet with salt water is not necessarily a good idea. Again, the mineral content will affect piping and if the waste water is not dumped in the ocean (which would not be good as it would pollute the ocean), it will either have to be treated to make fresh water (at which point the salt will have to be removed anyway) or it will be dumped on the land, where the salinity will slow down or even prevent the natural breakdown of organic material." CreationDate="2018-08-14T11:40:57.427" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="10039" PostId="6771" Score="0" Text="@Earthliŋ If the sewage system doesn't like salt water, then that itself is a reason not to substitute fresh or grey water with salt water anywhere? That in itself would be worthy of a Real Answer." CreationDate="2018-08-15T08:55:18.853" UserId="5895" />
  <row Id="10043" PostId="6773" Score="1" Text="I hadn't though of &quot;bring your own&quot; -- such an obvious solution!" CreationDate="2018-08-16T01:57:51.150" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10398" PostId="6773" Score="1" Text="As a side note: there are of course a lot of legal food regulations depending your country that will limit the choice of packaging or bring-your-own..." CreationDate="2018-11-09T20:18:22.053" UserId="5933" />
  <row Id="10034" PostId="6774" Score="1" Text="What about a faucet-mount water filter, like this -- http://amzn.eu/4xCEJeI? I am a renter and have used these in the past. As long as your faucet has a screw-mount aerator these work." CreationDate="2018-08-14T19:03:43.617" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10036" PostId="6775" Score="1" Text="Great initiative! We have something similar in [The Netherlands](https://www.krnwtr.nl). I guess all the OP now has to do is figure out which nearby cities provide higher quality tap water. Perhaps [this post](https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/18836/is-tap-water-in-ireland-and-england-drinkable) or [this article](https://www.water.org.uk/consumers/water-and-health/faqs#Trust?) can help with that." CreationDate="2018-08-15T06:55:23.150" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="10038" PostId="6775" Score="0" Text="Added a link to refill.org.uk to the answer — it lists the refill areas and makes the app available for download that locates specific refill points." CreationDate="2018-08-15T07:13:15.437" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="10040" PostId="6778" Score="0" Text="Most of the inside of an oven is just air.  Air has a very low specific heat compared to any food you might want to prepare.  Therefore the volume of the oven can likely be disregarded.  Apart from air, there is the structure of the oven itself.  This is more likely to be significant but there are confounding factors such as cook time and insulation." CreationDate="2018-08-15T18:37:50.957" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="10076" PostId="6778" Score="0" Text="A regular oven has much more mass to heat. And in a warm area , you put the toaster out side and and do not need the energy used by the AC to cool the heavy mass of the oven . In any case the toaster oven is more efficient." CreationDate="2018-08-22T20:29:32.137" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="10042" PostId="6779" Score="1" Text="Related: [What to do with wood ash?](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/282/3379)" CreationDate="2018-08-16T01:49:51.517" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10048" PostId="6779" Score="1" Text="Related:  [How do I get rid of numerous small pieces of charcoal?](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/6705/how-do-i-get-rid-of-numerous-small-pieces-of-charcoal)" CreationDate="2018-08-17T11:17:14.650" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="10044" PostId="6780" Score="2" Text="A 1,000kg, 5m, 200RPM flywheel would store 685,567J of energy if it was shaped like a disc.  That's 0.19kWh of energy — enough to boil the water for about seven (7) cups of tea or run a typical airconditioner for about 10 minutes.  I think you might be over-estimating how much energy these things can store." CreationDate="2018-08-16T03:49:09.023" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="10045" PostId="6780" Score="3" Text="This does not answer the *How close are we?* question and has more opinions than facts." CreationDate="2018-08-16T09:58:57.690" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="10850" PostId="6781" Score="1" Text="It's not the RADIUS but the angular momentum that matters. That means you can increase the RADIUS, or increase the MASS. Most commercial flywheel systems use a drum-shape to allow the flywheel to be extruded vertically instead of increasing the radius. A flywheel storage system is also almost identical in many respects to a power generator - it's often built around a magnetic coil so the motor and the output generator are the same piece of hardware, with simple switching reversing the circuit to switch between spin-up and discharge." CreationDate="2019-03-28T01:12:54.660" UserId="6484" />
  <row Id="16065" PostId="6781" Score="0" Text="Why would you want to fit it IN a home? For many reasons it's best to bury it, or store away from home. Also, this would be great for rural/off-grid cabins. People bury their septic and propane tanks routinely. I would love the $6,000 15KWh solution from Velkess, mentioned in another answer (if only it was brought to market)." CreationDate="2022-10-28T19:44:42.967" UserId="14443" />
  <row Id="10050" PostId="6783" Score="1" Text="The charcoal for BBQ sold in our area is declared to be from organic growth and not otherwise treated. The question is: Should I trust it?" CreationDate="2018-08-17T20:47:27.013" UserId="5602" />
  <row Id="10052" PostId="6783" Score="0" Text="@Salt  Yep, that's the problem.  With no regulations in place, the marketing department can pretty-much put anything they want (or omit anything they want) on the packaging of a product.  You, as a consumer, simply don't (can't) have confidence in what you read on the packaging.  Online research about the product, the processes used to make it, and the company (or companies) involved in making it, may provide some degree of assurances, though.  There *are* safe BBQ fuels out there — you just need to exert some effort and find them." CreationDate="2018-08-18T02:05:03.313" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="10053" PostId="6783" Score="0" Text="As far as specific things you can do to test charcoal, I always use the 'sniff test' first.  If it smells like petrol, diesel, oil, grease, or wax then it definitely contains accelerants.  The other test is 'ease of lighting'.  Pure charcoal is not actually that easy to light.  If you can light the fuel with just a match, it probably contains accelerants.  Pure charcoal (in semi-round lumps) is nothing but carbon, and should require kindling or a blowtorch to get going." CreationDate="2018-08-18T02:21:15.853" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="10169" PostId="6783" Score="0" Text="On the other hand by the time the barbecue is out, there will be trace quantities at most of accelerants.  I can buy lumpwood charcoal, rather than briquettes. The latter are reconsituted wood (from unknown sources), pressed together *apparently*  without additives, but the former are made from forestry waste and still look like random bits of branch.  The little BBQ ash I produce gets stirred into the compost bin" CreationDate="2018-09-14T15:52:27.900" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="10049" PostId="6784" Score="0" Text="By &quot;K&quot; are you referring to potassium (by its chemical symbol)? Or something else?" CreationDate="2018-08-17T16:58:16.683" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10051" PostId="6784" Score="0" Text="Initially I was just thinking about charcoal used from BBQ, but the question may expand to ash from burned wood in a fire place. In my area the chimney sweeps recommend to put ash into metal trash cans instead of putting it into the garden. But this seems to be related to the fact that many people burn painted or treated wood, which is forbidden due to its content of heavy metals etc. Ash from fossil coal I would not use for compost, even not knowing why. Doesn't seem organic to me." CreationDate="2018-08-17T20:48:19.743" UserId="5602" />
  <row Id="10059" PostId="6784" Score="0" Text="Yes, K = potassium, i am a lazy slow typist." CreationDate="2018-08-18T19:28:30.067" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="10057" PostId="6787" Score="0" Text="I doubt that the weight of the trailer would cost less energy than it generates. Maybe if you leave the bike parked outside all-day when not riding. But that is a complicated calculation." CreationDate="2018-08-18T10:05:39.533" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="10058" PostId="6787" Score="3" Text="@JanDoggen Solar bike trailers have been viable for years as a way to boost speed or extend range — which is what the OP is looking to do.  Search the web for &quot;solar bike trailer&quot; for hundreds of working examples.  If you don't want to carry cargo, you can build a functioning trailer that weighs less than 20kg with off-the-shelf parts — and that includes the weight of the panel.  Such basic trailers typically only consume ~15–20% of the power they generate to move themselves, with the remaining power used to (help) move the bike and cyclist." CreationDate="2018-08-18T11:14:06.400" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="10099" PostId="6788" Score="0" Text="I like Amazon Prime mainly for the free movies, television and Amazon original series, movies, music and e-books that come with the account. The number of items I order is far less than the content I use digitally. If I ordered from another site, I would probably use the fastest shipping available on that site as well." CreationDate="2018-08-23T19:52:26.180" UserId="5733" />
  <row Id="10100" PostId="6788" Score="0" Text="@JstJayne Note that the purely online part of Amazon Prime also has a non-negligible carbon footprint — information (like streaming of videos) is processed in data centers, whose carbon footprint [may soon outweigh the carbon footprint of the entire aviation industry](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/17/internet-climate-carbon-footprint-data-centres)." CreationDate="2018-08-24T10:47:43.420" UserId="85" />
  <row Id="10104" PostId="6788" Score="0" Text="I apologize if my use of Amazon digital services is harming the enviornmenment, but since I don't drive, rarely leave my home, and recycle routinely, I believe my carbon footprint is small." CreationDate="2018-08-25T07:18:48.693" UserId="5733" />
  <row Id="10060" PostId="6789" Score="0" Text="*Does my imagination have anything to do with reality?* ... see also: [philosophy.stackexchange.com](https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/)" CreationDate="2018-08-20T15:08:31.907" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10068" PostId="6789" Score="0" Text="And greenhouses make it easier to use insects for pest control - they don't fly away so easily." CreationDate="2018-08-21T12:52:52.683" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="10115" PostId="6789" Score="0" Text="Your house is closed.  Do you get any bugs in your house?" CreationDate="2018-08-31T22:27:48.533" UserId="2914" />
  <row Id="10117" PostId="6789" Score="0" Text="@paparazzo Only when the windows are open, I think." CreationDate="2018-09-03T09:40:22.847" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="10064" PostId="6790" Score="0" Text="how is biocide different from pesticide?  pesticide kills pests, biocide kills …?" CreationDate="2018-08-20T22:56:24.383" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="10380" PostId="6790" Score="0" Text="Sorry, I meant biological biocides. Corrected in the text. Biocides (kills a form of life) can be chemical or biological." CreationDate="2018-11-07T17:22:57.180" UserId="5933" />
  <row Id="10061" PostId="6791" Score="7" Text="A phone that's hot on the secondhand market will command a higher resale price. That makes the phone more valuable to the original purchaser, so all other things being equal, consumers should prefer the resellable one. It's an indirect connection, but I don't think reusability and dollar voting are totally decoupled." CreationDate="2018-08-20T18:25:07.603" UserId="5953" />
  <row Id="10062" PostId="6791" Score="0" Text="@NuclearWang That could indeed be a connection. But I think buyers are not that rational, and almost nobody will check the second hand market price of the phone they are thinking tu buy and use that to guide his decision. People do that with cars, but not with phones. Also, phones change so fast that there is no second hand market of the models currently been sold new." CreationDate="2018-08-20T18:34:48.317" UserId="5950" />
  <row Id="10065" PostId="6791" Score="1" Text="Not an answer to your question, but you may be interested to know that Fairphone occasionally sells refurbished phones on their website. Also they have a [forum](https://forum.fairphone.com/c/market/offered) where other people offer 2nd hand phones." CreationDate="2018-08-21T07:24:33.903" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="10063" PostId="6792" Score="0" Text="Thanks for your answer! I'd love to see links to any other businesses producing or selling it, if you're aware of any." CreationDate="2018-08-20T21:41:55.320" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="10093" PostId="6793" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! From what I've seen plastic suitable for freezing is always made from traditional non-compostable plastic. I'm not sure if compostable plastics exists for these purposes. Perhaps something that can be washed and reused is an option? Small glass jars for example?" CreationDate="2018-08-23T08:13:01.613" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="10119" PostId="6793" Score="3" Text="For an ice pop, do you care about freezer burn?  They aren't going to be in your freezer long enough, and I think the FB effect would only concentrate the flavour on the surface.  Also:  Are you selling frozen ones ready to eat, or liquid ones that people take home to freeze and eat later?" CreationDate="2018-09-03T17:16:48.063" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="13734" PostId="6793" Score="0" Text="Glass. Infinitely recycleable, non-toxic" CreationDate="2021-07-19T07:17:28.267" UserId="9007" />
  <row Id="10066" PostId="6794" Score="1" Text="FairPhone actually facilitates re-use: https://forum.fairphone.com/c/market" CreationDate="2018-08-21T12:48:51.903" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="10067" PostId="6794" Score="1" Text="*Cars* are an even better example than *tractors*. https://www.econ.nyu.edu/user/lizzeria/eurocar_2revision.PDF" CreationDate="2018-08-21T12:50:41.710" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="10069" PostId="6797" Score="0" Text="A relevant factor might be what happens to the left-over plates of each type at the end of the event.  Are they saved for the next event or discarded?  Put another way, does choice about which plate to use have an impact on the number of plates of each type discarded?" CreationDate="2018-08-22T18:48:47.133" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="10073" PostId="6797" Score="0" Text="Does the final destination have to be a landfill? Plastic plates could be washed and recycled, whereas paper plates soiled with greasy food can typically only go to the landfill." CreationDate="2018-08-22T19:46:29.990" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10091" PostId="6797" Score="0" Text="There also is biodegradable plastic... as discussed here: https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/2509/why-do-we-think-of-biodegradable-plastic-as-recycled-and-sustainable - non-biodegradable plastic is the worst and has high probability to end directly in [*our children* oceans](https://brisbanepowerhouse.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/brisbane-powerhouse-a-plastic-ocean-2017-2-1178x663.jpg)." CreationDate="2018-08-23T06:01:24.113" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="10097" PostId="6797" Score="0" Text="@J.Chomel not if it's going into a properly maintained landfill, which is the assumption here. Part of me thinks that oil (in the form of plastic) being buried in a landfill is better than trees (in the form of paper) being buried in a landfill, where they will eventually release their stored carbon to the atmosphere, but I don't have anything to back this up." CreationDate="2018-08-23T14:04:34.413" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10071" PostId="6798" Score="1" Text="The heat emitted is a fairly low temperature." CreationDate="2018-08-22T19:36:55.107" UserId="2914" />
  <row Id="10072" PostId="6798" Score="0" Text="Is the McDonald's going to be inside another building? What size and type of building? Some of the waste heat from kitchens can be recovered, but typically not enough to replace heating systems -- only to supplement. A big problem is that the hot exhaust air is also smoky." CreationDate="2018-08-22T19:45:05.663" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10074" PostId="6798" Score="0" Text="@paparazzo - 60℃ is enough for community heating. One can even recycle heat from lukewarm sources using heat pump. Burning fossil fuel can get to hundreds of degrees, which is an overkill and a huge waste for community heating." CreationDate="2018-08-22T20:26:55.417" UserId="1177" />
  <row Id="10075" PostId="6798" Score="0" Text="@LShaver - Since McDonalds' are already throwing away waste heat, they can recycle it and sell it back to the community. They can use small furnaces to burn their wast oil in place and sell the BTUs to their neighbours." CreationDate="2018-08-22T20:29:08.517" UserId="1177" />
  <row Id="10077" PostId="6798" Score="2" Text="If you feel you know the answer then why did you ask the question?" CreationDate="2018-08-22T22:44:01.910" UserId="2914" />
  <row Id="10078" PostId="6798" Score="0" Text="@paparazzo - I need a number from a real example so that I can ballpark the order of magnitude." CreationDate="2018-08-22T23:33:42.007" UserId="1177" />
  <row Id="10087" PostId="6798" Score="0" Text="You can use your fridge as a space heater. Put a pound of room temperature water in your fridge and freeze it to 0 F, you'll get way over 70 BTUs. Since water releases heat when changed to ice, you'll get a lot more heat." CreationDate="2018-08-23T05:15:32.003" UserId="1177" />
  <row Id="10092" PostId="6798" Score="1" Text="@paparazzo and GeorgeChen: Please keep the discussion civil. There is no need to question each other's education." CreationDate="2018-08-23T07:41:13.813" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="10102" PostId="6802" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainability.SE, and thanks for your answer! Could you provide a few key details from the links you've added, so that it will still be helpful in the event that the links break?" CreationDate="2018-08-24T15:57:17.883" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10113" PostId="6807" Score="2" Text="Great first post, welcome to sustainability.SE! As usual, it seems that going with electric appliances is the lowest footprint route today." CreationDate="2018-08-30T20:40:35.253" UserId="2942" />
  <row Id="10114" PostId="6807" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living and thank you for your answer! Do you have any references for the numbers you mention?" CreationDate="2018-08-31T10:19:46.977" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="10118" PostId="6817" Score="1" Text="More also in this question [What is the IPAT identity, and does it still matter?](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/3142/99)" CreationDate="2018-09-03T15:16:32.887" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="10120" PostId="6818" Score="0" Text="The question supposes you already have a pellet fire." CreationDate="2018-09-03T19:07:02.563" UserId="5517" />
  <row Id="10122" PostId="6819" Score="1" Text="The gist of the question was to get some considerations on what threshold quantity of batteries would make a trip worthwhile." CreationDate="2018-09-04T02:14:33.287" UserId="5831" />
  <row Id="10125" PostId="6824" Score="0" Text="Good points here.  Ridges tend to be less productive for biomass production anyway *and* harvesting is more expensive there." CreationDate="2018-09-04T12:02:34.343" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="10146" PostId="6827" Score="0" Text="It seems that you are on a holy crusade against wood heaters.  You are cherry-picking facts and making blanket statements that simply aren't true under average conditions.  Do you think that is even remotely wise?  Sure, in a small number of situations, wood heaters are sub-optimal, but for billions of people wood heat is so far ahead of any other option that it's not even funny." CreationDate="2018-09-08T06:10:38.050" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="10149" PostId="6827" Score="0" Text="@Tim Do you have any citation for &quot;for billions of people wood heat is so far ahead of any other option&quot;? Who are those people and what are their other options?" CreationDate="2018-09-08T09:57:14.670" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="10150" PostId="6827" Score="0" Text="A third of the planet (2.5 billion) lives off less than $2 a day.  Unless you somehow think they are able to afford [fancy, feel-good heating option of your choice] then they have no option but to use wood for heating and cooking.  If you outlaw fireplaces you kill them from exposure and starvation.  Well played." CreationDate="2018-09-08T10:33:03.497" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="10151" PostId="6827" Score="0" Text="Please cite actual evidence that something like a Rocket Mass Heater produces more particulate emissions than a diesel truck.  It burns wood, and your assertion is that burning wood produces more particulates than a diesel truck.  Evidence please." CreationDate="2018-09-08T10:36:01.447" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="10152" PostId="6827" Score="0" Text="Also, even if the 250,000 deaths per year figure is accurate, given that at least 2,500,000,000 would die within a single year from _not_ burning biomass, that makes **&quot;banning fireplaces&quot; ~10,000x more lethal** than leaving them in place.  Have you _really_ thought this through?" CreationDate="2018-09-08T11:10:25.297" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="10153" PostId="6827" Score="0" Text="Oh, and finally, if the firewood is from a managed woodlot (i.e. the fuel is renewable), then all you are doing when you burn wood is returning carbon back to the same atmosphere that it came from in the first place.  Over a 20–30 year time frame the whole process is **carbon neutral.**  That's pretty-much the _gold standard_ for environment friendliness.  If you think &quot;carbon neutral&quot; is &quot;the worst thing you can do&quot; then I'm not sure we are living on the same planet." CreationDate="2018-09-08T11:28:45.893" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="10154" PostId="6827" Score="0" Text="@Tim I'm not talking about carbon (climate change), I'm talking about particulate matter (air quality), and there are people in **central London** who are burning wood because they think it's cozy or sustainable, while it isn't. I cited evidence for the effects on air quality. England is rich enough to upgrade their homes to never need any active heating. Yes, there are billions of people who are living in bad air quality because they are too poor to afford a healthy way of heating or cooking or transport. My final line clearly said *alternatives are available*." CreationDate="2018-09-08T13:12:37.043" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="10155" PostId="6827" Score="0" Text="@Tim As for cooking in rural areas in 3rd world countries, charities are working to bring [solar cookers](https://www.solarcookers.org/) to these communities, saving forests and improving health.  The reality is that the wood being burned by poor people is not sustainably sourced in practice, so it's not even carbon neutral.  Deforestation is a serious problem.  In big polluted 3rd world cities, local government is aware that traffic and home wood fire cooking toxifies and they are working on providing alternatives." CreationDate="2018-09-08T13:20:36.043" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="10156" PostId="6827" Score="0" Text="@Tim The people you're talking about primarily use wood fires for cooking, not for heating, as most live in warm climates such as in Africa, South-Asia, or South-East Asia. The question is about heating. The majority of the world lives in cities, this is even more true in cold climates. It is very important for the air quality in cities in cold climates (like in northern China or Mongolia) to move *away* from fires for domestic heating, but regrettably they cannot always afford the alternatives. My answer of course is about whether wood burning is sustainable: de facto, it is not." CreationDate="2018-09-08T13:26:06.707" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="10157" PostId="6827" Score="0" Text="@Tim I have rephrased my answer to explain the context more." CreationDate="2018-09-08T13:32:35.030" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="10158" PostId="6827" Score="0" Text="Thanks for editing your answer and toning down some of the wildly generalised and false statements.  Facts: Managed woodlots are entirely renewable and sustainable.  Large swaths of Af/SEA endure nightly freezing temperatures on a regular basis, so treating it all as &quot;warm&quot; is simply wrong.  Most of the planet cannot afford fancy alternatives, so there are no other options.  By admitting that low-emission heaters exist, you contradict your own assertion that &quot;burning wood&quot; causes the problem.  The reality:  *Poorly designed heaters are the problem.*  Blaming the _fuel_ is a mistake.  I'm done." CreationDate="2018-09-08T14:18:31.467" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="10159" PostId="6827" Score="0" Text="@Tim Many people in the world cannot access clean drinking water, many people in the world who can just about afford a motorised vehicle can only afford one of the dirtiest type of scooters, etc.: often the cheap alternatives are dirty. Just because many people can only afford dirty solution does not mean we shouldn't thrive for a cleaner one. The question I'm answering is one of sustainability, not affordability. And I don't think your statement on freezing temperatures in SEA is accurate." CreationDate="2018-09-08T20:53:30.613" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="10160" PostId="6827" Score="1" Text="@Tim I have rephrased my answer to not blame the fuel as such." CreationDate="2018-09-08T21:02:05.640" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="10165" PostId="6831" Score="0" Text="haha great, an upvote for the unexpected input, and for the relevant comment :)" CreationDate="2018-09-11T05:57:43.450" UserId="80" />
  <row Id="10166" PostId="6833" Score="0" Text="A lot of assertions that are not logical to me.  In my city the city does garbage and recycle." CreationDate="2018-09-13T16:14:41.967" UserId="2914" />
  <row Id="10173" PostId="6833" Score="0" Text="They may collect it but do they also process the recycling/trash? As I said though, i know some municipalities handle trash/recycling and some strongly enforce it, levying fines and repercussions but not commonly." CreationDate="2018-09-15T18:57:40.653" UserId="5998" />
  <row Id="10185" PostId="6833" Score="0" Text="It's an interesting topic, but as it says &quot;on the label&quot;, &quot;This site [StackExchange] is all about getting answers. It's not a discussion forum.&quot;" CreationDate="2018-09-19T17:20:26.080" UserId="1123" />
  <row Id="10186" PostId="6833" Score="0" Text="Yes, Brian but what I'm asking is is there an explanation for this? Maybe there's some sort of legal precedent or notable disinterest by the government that makes the trash and recycling industries predominantly private." CreationDate="2018-09-19T18:18:43.687" UserId="5998" />
  <row Id="10172" PostId="6836" Score="2" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Nice first answer. I think that Brazil nuts can be grown sustainably, but there is always a danger of overexploitation (see [this paper](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169534704000771) for example)" CreationDate="2018-09-15T17:03:24.037" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="10174" PostId="6836" Score="0" Text="&quot;Ground nuts&quot; may refer to apios americana, not a nut at all." CreationDate="2018-09-16T00:04:45.777" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="10175" PostId="6836" Score="1" Text="Great answer! It would be helpful if you could include the titles and possibly authors of the referenced studies/articles, in case the links break in the future." CreationDate="2018-09-16T03:18:17.890" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10176" PostId="6836" Score="1" Text="@Jean-PaulCalderone certainly not a nut from a biology viewpoint, but included with nuts from a culinary viewpoint." CreationDate="2018-09-16T03:20:03.747" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10177" PostId="6836" Score="0" Text="@THelper Thanks, that's useful information, so there are issues with Brazil nuts as well. It is probably not possible to scale up production anyway, to replace any of the other nuts. (The report lists a production of 0.06 mio tons/yr, compared to 0.5 for only pistachios, or 35 for 'groundnuts'.)" CreationDate="2018-09-16T15:49:33.127" UserId="4477" />
  <row Id="10178" PostId="6836" Score="0" Text="@LShaver Added the title." CreationDate="2018-09-16T15:52:27.970" UserId="4477" />
  <row Id="10179" PostId="6836" Score="0" Text="@Jean-PaulCalderone Yes, or any of the others listed on Wikipedia under 'Groundnut'. But looking at it again, the production figure for 'groundnuts' is really big - 17 times the figure for Cashews - so I would guess they really mean peanuts.  - And thanks for the nice feedback everyone!" CreationDate="2018-09-16T15:57:57.770" UserId="4477" />
  <row Id="12675" PostId="6836" Score="0" Text="Edited to add that Brazil nuts are probably not a good base for a diet, because poisonous in large amounts. I wasn't aware of that back then." CreationDate="2020-06-12T21:12:46.987" UserId="4477" />
  <row Id="16424" PostId="6837" Score="0" Text="Is it possible to feed natural gas back into the grid?" CreationDate="2023-07-14T07:16:59.287" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="10181" PostId="6838" Score="1" Text="Note that PET bottles are often labeled as *refillable*, but they are not actually refilled (one of the great lies of the beverage industry). They are shredded and new bottles are made from the material." CreationDate="2018-09-18T07:22:59.080" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="10194" PostId="6843" Score="0" Text="Cows emit a bit of CO2." CreationDate="2018-09-24T21:32:42.087" UserId="2914" />
  <row Id="10205" PostId="6843" Score="0" Text="@paparazzo they produce a lot of CO2-equivalent, yes, and I suspect that enteric emissions from the cow's gut (CH4) would be the main source of a potential difference between the two kinds of milk here." CreationDate="2018-09-26T10:13:19.553" UserId="80" />
  <row Id="10259" PostId="6843" Score="0" Text="Carbon footprint and global footprint are rather different... and yes, means of production has a massive difference as https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/6843/carbon-footprint-of-soy-milk-versus-cows-milkdoes the location of production and also the location of consumption. So whilst figures exist, they probably do not represent the optima that are possible (which I'm guessing you are hoping for)." CreationDate="2018-10-08T14:14:55.783" UserId="4264" />
  <row Id="10260" PostId="6843" Score="0" Text="Another problem is that soy milk and cow's milk are not the same. So you then have to consider what are the nutritional aspects that are important to your scenario. Is is it simply calories? Is it protein? If so which ones? And so on... It is also easy to forget the immediate impact on biodiversity, soil structure and so on. Cows are a lot easier to integrate into soil-conserving systems than soy." CreationDate="2018-10-08T14:15:01.243" UserId="4264" />
  <row Id="10271" PostId="6843" Score="0" Text="@Georgeofalltrades do you have  a reference for &quot;cows are a lot easier to integrate into soil-conserving systems than soy&quot;, or do you want to expand on that? I am interested." CreationDate="2018-10-10T11:47:31.093" UserId="80" />
  <row Id="10272" PostId="6843" Score="2" Text="Not to hand, but essentially extensively reared cattle can graze on a range of swards. These can be tailored to sequester carbon. Soy as an annual crop is difficult to integrate with perennials and carbon sequestration predominantly occurs through the root systems of perennials. Furthermore, tillage-based agriculture leads to oxidation of soil carbon. Granted there are no-till systems, but permanent grasslands are better at sequestering carbon." CreationDate="2018-10-10T12:15:13.177" UserId="4264" />
  <row Id="10191" PostId="6844" Score="1" Text="Can you [include the essential parts into the answer](http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/225370/your-answer-is-in-another-castle-when-is-an-answer-not-an-answer)? SE sites are supposed to be standalone Q&amp;A sites, and [link rot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_rot) would break that." CreationDate="2018-09-24T10:05:35.340" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="10192" PostId="6845" Score="0" Text="I am not seeing this a sustainability question but I don't authority to VTC.   Some software must be run in house.  How can you compare a data center to a phone?" CreationDate="2018-09-24T21:23:06.837" UserId="2914" />
  <row Id="10195" PostId="6845" Score="1" Text="@paparazzo The way this becomes a sustainability question is when you begin comparing different methodologies for creating software, as well as different efficiency characteristics of the created software. My guess is that software that takes less effort to create and maintain, and uses computing resources efficiently, has a smaller environmental impact than less efficient and more &quot;bloated&quot; alternatives. I wonder if it's possible to do that comparison, the way you can compare a diesel car to an electric car from an LCA perspective." CreationDate="2018-09-24T23:28:32.697" UserId="6021" />
  <row Id="11114" PostId="6845" Score="0" Text="Someone actually went and did an LCA on training deep learning models: https://arxiv.org/abs/1906.02243" CreationDate="2019-06-07T18:56:21.457" UserId="6021" />
  <row Id="10193" PostId="6846" Score="1" Text="Welcome to sustainability.SE! Great question -- you might find info at this related question helpful: [What is the most sustainable way to handle food waste…throwing food scraps into garbage or down my sink's garbage disposal?](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/673/3379)" CreationDate="2018-09-24T21:25:31.200" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10197" PostId="6846" Score="0" Text="Where does your trash go = landfill, incinerator, separator? That makes a whole lot of difference. And note that the question refered in the comment assumes there is such a thing available as a 'sink garbage disposal', something that is not common outside of the US. And both of these  remarks would be (partially) adressed if you also added your country." CreationDate="2018-09-25T07:40:36.883" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="10200" PostId="6846" Score="0" Text="@JanDoggen I live in Moscow and garbage goes primarily into landfill here to the best of my knowledge. There seems to be a push for switching to incineration, but most of the garbage ends up in landfill as of now. That said, I'd like to keep the question broad enough to cover *all* of the disposal methods you mentioned, hence the avoidance of the location tag." CreationDate="2018-09-25T18:17:27.887" UserId="6022" />
  <row Id="10210" PostId="6846" Score="0" Text="Surely it depends on what your city does with sewage. Some cities compost it and then sell it back to the citizens." CreationDate="2018-09-26T19:16:55.817" UserId="5517" />
  <row Id="10209" PostId="6848" Score="0" Text="Most food grabs CO2 from the air. If it's converted to methane and then burnt back to CO2, isn't that carbon neutral?" CreationDate="2018-09-26T19:11:21.690" UserId="5517" />
  <row Id="10212" PostId="6848" Score="0" Text="@GrahamChiu that's a good point, however in addition to the carbon content of the food itself, there is the carbon content related to the energy required for that food's production and transportation. If less food is wasted, less of that &quot;secondary&quot; carbon is released to the atmosphere." CreationDate="2018-09-27T14:04:28.857" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10219" PostId="6848" Score="0" Text="Sure, but that also applies to anything that is called carbon neutral eg. Fire wood, pellets etc. That stuff needs to use carbon to prepare it, and transport it to the final point of use. And any food we do consume is turned into CO2 eventually." CreationDate="2018-09-28T21:13:06.687" UserId="5517" />
  <row Id="10269" PostId="6848" Score="0" Text="There is a question about composting vs biogas digester that might help expand here: https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/6883/which-is-best-for-dealing-with-food-waste-composting-or-a-biogas-digester/6884#6884" CreationDate="2018-10-09T07:49:27.657" UserId="4264" />
  <row Id="10198" PostId="6849" Score="1" Text="There's another term that would more accurately describe the OP:  **Parasite**  n. *&quot;One who habitually takes advantage of the generosity of others without making any useful return.&quot;*  Freeganism — at least my understanding of it — doesn't involve the calculated exploitation of others (be they individuals or organisations/businesses) for one's own selfish desires.  Since the one and only reason the OP is doing what he is doing is so that he can hoard cash for later spending, I don't think that constitutes &quot;limited participation in the conventional economy&quot;." CreationDate="2018-09-25T16:44:17.407" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="12234" PostId="6849" Score="0" Text="@Tim There's something your are missing, parasites affect their hosts, what Cooler-Ranch is doing makes no harm to others, as he is taking advantage of waste. Maybe you should research about garbage millionaires." CreationDate="2020-01-28T06:53:26.043" UserId="3415" />
  <row Id="12250" PostId="6849" Score="0" Text="@DavidTaubmann It costs stores real money to provide free samples.  The social contract is that you consume a free sample to decide whether or not you like the product and, if you do, then you buy it.  Continuing to consume free samples, with no intent to ever buy the product, is ethically wrong, tantamount to theft, and causes direct financial harm to the stores.  It costs real money to heat water for showers as well.  None of that behaviour is remotely similar to making use of other people's garbage, which is a practice I have no problem with.  Hot water and food samples are not 'waste'." CreationDate="2020-01-30T10:51:23.490" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="12251" PostId="6849" Score="0" Text="@tim I may agree with your point of the samples, nevertheless it might be the only one, you might re-check where the showers are, and for who." CreationDate="2020-01-30T17:12:01.150" UserId="3415" />
  <row Id="10201" PostId="6850" Score="1" Text="It's unclear what you mean by &quot;internal greenhouse&quot; and &quot;double panel glass corridor.&quot; Is this simply [insulated glazing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insulated_glazing), where a window has multiple glass panes with a gap between them? Or something more complicated?" CreationDate="2018-09-25T21:52:58.980" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10202" PostId="6850" Score="0" Text="@LShaver I've included an image of an earthships' greenhouse situated between two rows of glass panel walls." CreationDate="2018-09-25T22:37:19.013" UserId="5292" />
  <row Id="10333" PostId="6850" Score="1" Text="Confusing.  What is the internal greenhouse?  What is the double panel wall?" CreationDate="2018-10-28T04:47:15.950" UserId="2914" />
  <row Id="10336" PostId="6850" Score="1" Text="@paparazzo I agree. Its confusing. The greenhouse is flanked by two walls of glass panels. I was asking about the thermal  efficiency of this corridor and its possible applications in other constructions." CreationDate="2018-10-29T23:12:55.473" UserId="5292" />
  <row Id="10338" PostId="6850" Score="0" Text="Still not clear to me and I have a BS in Chemical Engineering.   We study heat transfer." CreationDate="2018-10-30T00:42:54.283" UserId="2914" />
  <row Id="10340" PostId="6850" Score="1" Text="@paparazzo The question could be rephrased as: &quot;Is the earthship's green house an effective pasive solar building design?&quot;. In asking the question I was thinking in Trombe Walls, which are an effective way of regulating temperature inside a building." CreationDate="2018-10-30T00:59:54.767" UserId="5292" />
  <row Id="10342" PostId="6850" Score="0" Text="Not meaning to get on your case but a Trombe wall wall has a large thermal capacitance and is opaque .  Open air is neither." CreationDate="2018-10-30T01:14:32.537" UserId="2914" />
  <row Id="10343" PostId="6850" Score="0" Text="@paparazzo I was thinking that maybe the principle operating in insulated glassing was at work behind this design on a larger scale. Now I see that maybe this is just an inefficient design." CreationDate="2018-10-30T01:19:26.627" UserId="5292" />
  <row Id="10344" PostId="6850" Score="0" Text="I will try an answer." CreationDate="2018-10-30T01:27:41.427" UserId="2914" />
  <row Id="10207" PostId="6852" Score="2" Text="There is a lot of useful information in this post but it does not appear to be an answer to the question that was asked.  The question seems to be legitimate (though it might benefit from some further detail) and seems like it merits a real answer." CreationDate="2018-09-26T14:13:37.113" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="10211" PostId="6853" Score="2" Text="This looks more like a comment than an actual answer." CreationDate="2018-09-27T09:43:06.790" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="10216" PostId="6855" Score="0" Text="Does the tilted irradiance data tell you what angle it's tilted at? You'll want irradiance data that matches the angle of the panels you're doing the calculation for." CreationDate="2018-09-28T14:00:30.930" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10223" PostId="6855" Score="0" Text="@LShaver. Yes, I do have the tilt angle of the panels. But is the &quot;tilted irradiance&quot; the only measure required here? Cause I have all of the mentioned measures and it doesn't make sense to use only &quot;tilted irradiance&quot;.if it was like that then why is there a need to measure any of the other measures?" CreationDate="2018-10-01T06:59:45.407" UserId="6028" />
  <row Id="10225" PostId="6855" Score="0" Text="I presume if the tilted irradiance value is for a different angle than what you're looking for, you could use the horizontal and vertical irradiance values to make an approximation. Could also be useful for sun tracking arrays." CreationDate="2018-10-01T13:39:52.447" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10238" PostId="6855" Score="0" Text="@LShaver. The tilted irradiance value that I have is for the angle that I require. That's no problem at all. Problem is how can I properly make the approximation of solar irradiance." CreationDate="2018-10-03T05:08:39.840" UserId="6028" />
  <row Id="10250" PostId="6855" Score="0" Text="If you provide more details about the formula you're using and the data you have it may be possible to help answer your question. Please [edit](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/posts/6855/edit) your question and provide a link to the data source, the units of the values, references, etc." CreationDate="2018-10-05T15:43:01.493" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10217" PostId="6856" Score="1" Text="In part, they're a fad.  They're popular because they're popular.  There is cultural (and socioeconomic) baggage attached to traditional mobile homes that's not attached to &quot;tiny houses&quot;." CreationDate="2018-09-28T15:35:47.290" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="10218" PostId="6856" Score="0" Text="I am not sure this is a sustainable living question." CreationDate="2018-09-28T20:00:35.883" UserId="2914" />
  <row Id="10221" PostId="6861" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainability.SE! Since the question asks about diesel engines, do you know if LPG conversion works for that type of engine? or only for gasoline?" CreationDate="2018-09-29T15:02:05.177" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10226" PostId="6864" Score="0" Text="I had to look up RSPO -- seems like it's a way for palm oil producers to &quot;greenwash&quot; some of their less palatable tactics." CreationDate="2018-10-01T13:42:27.073" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10227" PostId="6864" Score="0" Text="@LShaver Yes, RSPO has gotten so much criticism that it looks like it's more greenwashing than an actual certification label. But then again it is probably slightly better than having no label at all. In any case I added a link to RSPO on Wikipedia that has more information." CreationDate="2018-10-01T13:54:35.263" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="10230" PostId="6868" Score="4" Text="Curious that whole milk would have a higher GWP, since that's the way it comes out of the cow, whereas skim milk requires additional processing." CreationDate="2018-10-02T16:10:23.007" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12068" PostId="6868" Score="0" Text="Replying to LShaver: I think the difference is that skimmed milk is only part of the product, so the GWP for whole milk (plus the GWP of the additional processing) gets split between skimmed milk and the cream that is taken off. I expect that the additional processing does not add much, as it is a simple mechanical operation." CreationDate="2020-01-01T11:23:10.947" UserId="8013" />
  <row Id="10229" PostId="6869" Score="0" Text="Welcome to sustainability.SE! Can you clarify why you want to know? Are you asking about plastics you're looking at in the store, or plastics you have that you're trying to dispose of?" CreationDate="2018-10-02T16:08:14.037" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10240" PostId="6871" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! I've edited your question. Hopefully this is what you meant to ask. If not, please click on the 'edit' option below your question to change the question text again." CreationDate="2018-10-03T06:42:01.250" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="10239" PostId="6872" Score="0" Text="The majority of biodegradable plastics indeed will only decompose under [specific conditions](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/a/4778/99), but plastics that biodegrade in your compost heap do exist (although they are still a bit rare). They have a label that says &quot;[home compostable](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/2594/99)&quot;" CreationDate="2018-10-03T06:17:26.013" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="10263" PostId="6875" Score="0" Text="In some cases you can use the heat in the flue gasses to dry out the input stream.  This increases your efficiency." CreationDate="2018-10-08T22:25:13.653" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="10241" PostId="6876" Score="0" Text="Is this question asking for a prediction about the behavior of some unspecified neighbors?  That seems both unrelated to sustainability and impossible to answer.  Maybe you could re-frame this so that instead the question is about techniques for introducing beekeeping (which I suppose might be sustainability related because honey bees are important pollinators for certain flowers and because local honey production might be more sustainable than alternatives) without creating conflict with neighbors." CreationDate="2018-10-04T12:25:29.353" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="10242" PostId="6876" Score="0" Text="If you have a good idea for rephrasing, please suggest an edit. I wasn't sure how to ask this question, as it isn't just about talking to neighbours - if that was the case, I would have posted this in Interpersonal Skills. I am interested in bringing in bees as a strategy for sustainability, but I want to be sure it won't be detrimental to the horses or the neighbours." CreationDate="2018-10-04T13:15:08.260" UserId="6040" />
  <row Id="10253" PostId="6876" Score="1" Text="No way would bee keeping be a problem for horses.  Bees don't attack animals.  They sting only to protect themselves.  If you've got a neighbor who is truly allergic to a bee sting, then, sigh, that would be a problem.  That is rare btw, akin to a peanut allergy sadly deadly.  Horses have to deal with biting flies, horse flies that are far worse than any bee.  Someone would have to throw a saddle blanket on a horse and in the act accidentally cover a bee to get a bee to sting a horse.  Becoming a bee keeper is a very big deal, a very cool deal.  Costs some bucks not to mention the cool outfit!" CreationDate="2018-10-07T06:56:57.053" UserId="3540" />
  <row Id="10254" PostId="6876" Score="0" Text="Learning how to keep bees, you will most certainly learn about how bees affect your neighbors. Actually you will be way more interested in how your neighbors affect your hives!  Just one neighbor using powdered Sevin in their garden could kill your entire hive over night." CreationDate="2018-10-07T06:58:44.517" UserId="3540" />
  <row Id="10245" PostId="6877" Score="0" Text="@THelper I've added some references. I can't find the one I really wanted, which compared a 20-year-old Land Rover to a new Prius, and came out clearly in favour of the Land Rover, mainly due to the manufacturing and transport costs of the Prius batteries" CreationDate="2018-10-05T09:55:01.760" UserId="4155" />
  <row Id="10246" PostId="6877" Score="0" Text="Thanks for adding the references! I hope you weren't looking for the 2007 'Dust to dust' study where they claimed a Prius is worse than a Hummer? That study was bogus." CreationDate="2018-10-05T10:15:55.490" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="10247" PostId="6877" Score="0" Text="Nope, the one I was thinking of was definitely a Land Rover - I remember it commenting on the fact that the simplicity of the Landy made the initial manufacturing impact much lower, and the lack of plastics made it much easier to recycle at the end of it's life, along with the greater ease of repair and reuse compared to a normal car" CreationDate="2018-10-05T11:47:48.300" UserId="4155" />
  <row Id="10251" PostId="6878" Score="2" Text="Do you mean you want the garden to provide all food for this person? Or only the lettuce, herbs and beans?" CreationDate="2018-10-06T05:51:30.500" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="10252" PostId="6878" Score="0" Text="Related question: [Dimensions for greenhouse to feed a family of 4?](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/394/99)" CreationDate="2018-10-06T05:56:11.150" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="10261" PostId="6878" Score="1" Text="A recent article on the same topic provides some number for consideration:  http://readynutrition.com/resources/can-a-home-garden-produce-enough-food-to-live-on_03102018/" CreationDate="2018-10-08T15:12:36.300" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="10255" PostId="6879" Score="0" Text="Are you including driving?" CreationDate="2018-10-07T13:29:29.940" UserId="2914" />
  <row Id="10256" PostId="6879" Score="0" Text="Related: [How much of the emitted CO2 is human caused](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/2339/3379)" CreationDate="2018-10-08T00:56:52.683" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10262" PostId="6881" Score="0" Text="I just grew some herbs and tomato plant. I think zone 7.  Soil is good - just 20 miles away is massive farm land.  But I would use soil products.  During growing season about 2&quot; rainfall a month.  It seems to me you can get rotation with just 4 boxes.  I don't have the place yet.  I am planning out how large a lot I want.  Green house will be tables as I want to do starters.  Herbs and lettuce in the winter." CreationDate="2018-10-08T22:08:07.343" UserId="2914" />
  <row Id="10266" PostId="6881" Score="1" Text="I have a 'grow room' with artificial lighting and temperature control.  Great ventilation to include pulling fresh air in and pulling 'old' air out.  I use just pots in there and grow all of our starts.  I ONLY use sterilized potting medium, never garden soil in pots or to start seeds.  I've had huge gardens, 10,000 sq. ft. and that was too much unless you want to sell at a market or give to the food banks or support your friends and neighbors.  1000 sq. ft. gives enough flexibility to allow crop rotation and allowing a bed or two to become acidic.  To also grow a few perennials." CreationDate="2018-10-09T04:28:58.267" UserId="3540" />
  <row Id="10257" PostId="6882" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Of course a smaller garden requires less maintenance, but the question is will it produce enough food to support 1 person?" CreationDate="2018-10-08T06:46:10.987" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="10258" PostId="6883" Score="0" Text="I'd say, biogas first, then use the leftovers from that process for compost. But I'm not an expert in this." CreationDate="2018-10-08T12:55:25.347" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="10264" PostId="6885" Score="0" Text="I think I need to back off on the goal of complete sustainability.  Seasonal  sustainability with some canning.  I would  like to live near the city but if I am willing to go 10 miles out I can get 3 acres for a good price." CreationDate="2018-10-08T22:25:56.530" UserId="2914" />
  <row Id="10267" PostId="6885" Score="0" Text="You would get tired of driving out 10 miles and back every day and that is what it takes...a few hours everyday.  Security measures, being able to monitor and recognize problems before they start.  Do you have an area of 1000 sq. ft. you could make into a vegetable garden?  Zone 7, perfect climate!  That is all you would need to begin.  I would fence it in so animals couldn't help themselves...ummm.  When one wants to install a hot tub for instance, one puts that hot tub as close to the home as possible or it will not get used.  A garden means work, a hot tub means ahhhhh.  Less motivation?" CreationDate="2018-10-09T04:35:53.420" UserId="3540" />
  <row Id="10593" PostId="6885" Score="0" Text="Wherever you are, just do what you can to grow anything!  Time to practice!  Success growing food plants takes practice!  If you are starving you just won't be able to be successful and you'll starve.  Stay with the basics. Learn how to water and fertilize! How to compost food scraps.  How to feed your soil once the compost is decomposed.  How to start seeds and up pot from tiny to larger to larger as the plant grows.  When to fertilize.  How to enhance the drainage of your soil!  How to get a soil test and what those tests tell you.  Just one at the beginning and years later test again." CreationDate="2019-01-07T02:10:39.113" UserId="3540" />
  <row Id="10594" PostId="6885" Score="0" Text="@Sherwood Botsford Very very nice answer!  I have to disagree about a small greenhouse and growing SOME food. Great for growing starts for the garden! Artificial lighting, tomato plant, basil plant, pepper plant, lettuce is very productive.  A small greenhouse is easier to maintain with heat, water and lighting.  Growing food all year round Zone 5 and down is never going to happen.  Winter one needs to be in charge of the lighting and the day/night hours.  Winter daylight hours are too short to grow anything.The major point is grow what you are able in the growing season and learn to PRESERVE!" CreationDate="2019-01-07T02:18:13.387" UserId="3540" />
  <row Id="10265" PostId="6887" Score="3" Text="Yep, smashing them down to gravel-sized pieces is the way to go.  Minimal energy required, and you have got nice, sharp fill material that compacts and drains well.  Concrete pads, French drains, mulch layers, greywater leach fields, backfill for retaining walls, hydroponic bed media — countless uses." CreationDate="2018-10-09T03:16:25.347" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="10270" PostId="6888" Score="1" Text="I would tend to include your first two bullet points -- processing waste and grocery store waste -- as a subset of food waste. I hadn't thought of yard waste however -- given that [grass is the biggest crop in the U.S.](https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/lawn-largest-crop-america_us_55d0dc06e4b07addcb43435d) this probably does make up a huge portion. Regarding permafrost, that certainly is something to be concerned about, but I'm mostly interested in methane from landfills in this question." CreationDate="2018-10-09T14:02:07.680" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11059" PostId="6888" Score="0" Text="I learned today that in the US, large amounts of compost go into landfill: (https://craftsmanship.net/drought-fighters/)." CreationDate="2019-05-25T01:09:00.783" UserId="3722" />
  <row Id="10268" PostId="6889" Score="0" Text="Solar atlas's like these http://globalsolaratlas.info/ does help to know the PV output as well as GHI, GTI etc at a place. But I'm actually trying to understand which measure irradiance (or how they are all used) to calculate the PV output rather than just knowing the output." CreationDate="2018-10-09T05:21:59.843" UserId="6028" />
  <row Id="10274" PostId="6891" Score="1" Text="Somewhere down the line a component will be made using fossil fuels. That's also the case with the answers in the question you link to. The copper is undoubtedly mined and melted using fossil fuels. So I'd say the answer is no." CreationDate="2018-10-11T07:01:04.750" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="10275" PostId="6892" Score="2" Text="+1 for mosaics. I once visited someone whose kitchen was tiled with leftover and broken tiles, quite lovely." CreationDate="2018-10-11T12:46:01.593" UserId="1567" />
  <row Id="10276" PostId="6893" Score="0" Text="Hi Dain and welcome to Sustainability.SE! Not sure if you meant to post two answers, but you could combine this information about refrigerators with your previous answer on sink/vanity units by [editing](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/posts/6894/edit) your previous answer." CreationDate="2018-10-11T20:02:00.093" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10305" PostId="6894" Score="0" Text="Thanks for your answer, but I'm more interested in general rules and guidelines. Not specific examples. I guess we can summarize your post with 'check for stainless steel screws for everything that regularly gets wet'" CreationDate="2018-10-22T06:37:43.203" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="10278" PostId="6895" Score="0" Text="Welcome to the site! Could you [edit](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/posts/6895/edit) your post to better answer the question, what are the advantage of a tiny house vs an RV trailer?" CreationDate="2018-10-12T18:14:47.053" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10281" PostId="6900" Score="2" Text="Related question: [Do small portable solar chargers generate more energy than it costs to produce them?](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/120) but that only takes energy into account plus the only answer is already 5 years old and things could have changed." CreationDate="2018-10-15T05:57:26.710" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="10290" PostId="6902" Score="0" Text="Food pellet machines don't use heat to fuse the pellets." CreationDate="2018-10-17T01:29:35.170" UserId="5517" />
  <row Id="10308" PostId="6906" Score="1" Text="Thanks! There are some really neat ideas in your answer!" CreationDate="2018-10-23T01:27:33.993" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="11421" PostId="6906" Score="0" Text="Sounds interesting. However even new wheels might work. I've done a lot of research recently for my new car, and it's hard to find wheel weights (they aren't advertised very often). However, with the few numbers that I was able to dig up, I still found wheels that were 3kg lighter, and they were standard cast aluminium alloys for cheap." CreationDate="2019-09-10T15:01:49.770" UserId="2570" />
  <row Id="11669" PostId="6906" Score="0" Text="This answer seems to consider mostly the financial rather than the environmental costs." CreationDate="2019-11-05T21:28:52.667" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="10359" PostId="6909" Score="0" Text="Thanks, that's helpful. Demand is based solely on my electrical usage and is independent of any solar production I have, while the distribution and generation charges are reduced based on my solar production, right? If that's the case, my standby charge would actually *increase* as the size of my solar system increased, since the consumption-based charges would go down as my production went up. It seems like any savings I get from adding the 6 additional panels would be offset by the added standby fees, making my ROI negative on the new panels. Is that a correct summary?" CreationDate="2018-11-02T04:14:03.910" UserId="6090" />
  <row Id="10360" PostId="6909" Score="0" Text="Reducing peak demand seems like the only way to reduce the standby fees but that also seems very difficult, since running the dryer while my AC is on (for example) even once during a month would peg my demand at a fairly high number, right?" CreationDate="2018-11-02T04:17:14.387" UserId="6090" />
  <row Id="10361" PostId="6909" Score="0" Text="@Steve I added some detail on net metering. *None of the charges are based on what your solar system produces* -- the standby charges are all based on your net consumption and net demand. Once you exceed a system size of 10 kW, you will be assessed standby charges. But as your solar system increases in size above 10 kW, your net usage will necessarily decrease. However if your typical peak occurs at night, this quantity will not be affected by your solar system size. So the &quot;top line&quot; standby charge, based on demand, will not change." CreationDate="2018-11-02T15:12:32.820" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10362" PostId="6909" Score="0" Text="However keep in mind that this analysis *only* looks at the standby charges -- you'll still be using less power from the grid, reducing your total energy charge. If you can shift some of your load to be during the day -- say, pre-cool your home before the sun goes down, and run your dishwasher and dryer during the day, you'll also reduce your peak. The rider charge is also the lesser of demand or energy, meaning as long as your improve one, your bill will go down." CreationDate="2018-11-02T15:14:21.763" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10320" PostId="6911" Score="0" Text="Keeping in mind that all actions have so far made no change in the increasing rate of per-centage of CO2 in the atmosphere  ; Refer Mauna Loa or other atmospheric CO2 measurements." CreationDate="2018-10-23T19:21:18.593" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="10318" PostId="6912" Score="0" Text="Given the longer payback of big hydro and some of the known disadvantages, I just asked [whether it still makes sense anymore](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/6916/3379)." CreationDate="2018-10-23T15:37:48.823" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10321" PostId="6913" Score="0" Text="That is substantially worse than desalination which returns 300 litres per kWh." CreationDate="2018-10-24T02:35:52.910" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="10322" PostId="6913" Score="0" Text="@Nic true, but this doesn't need to be near an ocean to work. They might even work [on Tatooine](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Moisture_vaporator)." CreationDate="2018-10-24T14:53:18.620" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10323" PostId="6913" Score="0" Text="@LShaver That's very true, but I wonder why SkySource claims that &quot;Skywater machines are much cheaper and more efficient than water desalination&quot; [Source](http://www.skysource.org/#skywater)." CreationDate="2018-10-24T16:34:11.113" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="10324" PostId="6913" Score="0" Text="@Nic since they don't back that up there's no way to know. Perhaps they're just looking at small scale desalination?" CreationDate="2018-10-24T19:21:54.787" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10325" PostId="6913" Score="0" Text="Small scale desal can be very efficient, though - yachts use reverse osmosis systems and the more manual ones rival the big plants (at least on energy consumption). SkySource seems to be one of those &quot;wait and see what happens when they become commercially available&quot;." CreationDate="2018-10-24T21:58:41.950" UserId="6100" />
  <row Id="10309" PostId="6914" Score="0" Text="Are these garbage trucks picking up recycling or are they taking their load to landfills, incinerators, or some other _garbage_ management endpoint?" CreationDate="2018-10-23T14:07:46.277" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="10310" PostId="6914" Score="0" Text="@Jean-PaulCalderone I have no idea, but let's assume they go to recycling or to some other management. My question is really about whether closed bottles pose any problem for a garbage truck (besides taking up space) and whether any mechanism is needed/exist inside to crush closed bottles." CreationDate="2018-10-23T14:41:16.933" UserId="6026" />
  <row Id="10313" PostId="6915" Score="0" Text="Let me explain: We pay by the container and not by the weight. If we send in 2n instead of n containers, regardless what they are filled with (bottles with air or compacted trash), we pay double fee. You are right in that trucks do not transport air, but this only means that implicitly I had 4 points instead of 3." CreationDate="2018-10-23T15:03:07.287" UserId="6026" />
  <row Id="10316" PostId="6915" Score="1" Text="@IstvánZachar Then you must edit your question; because now it is about your own containers and not the truck. And instead of making it two questions in one, I suggest you limit everything in the question to the truck only. The other issue (paying per container) is obvious, and you don't need to ask others about that." CreationDate="2018-10-23T15:27:10.837" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="10319" PostId="6915" Score="0" Text="Jan, I have asked a very specific question (and a secondary one closely related), which is **clearly about the truck** and the truck solely. I have added context only to make my question eligible to SustainableLiving.SE. I think you misread something because I did not ask anyone about the paying per container issue." CreationDate="2018-10-23T16:47:47.710" UserId="6026" />
  <row Id="10347" PostId="6915" Score="0" Text="@IstvánZachar If you are not asking about pay per container then why the comment?" CreationDate="2018-10-30T17:36:13.493" UserId="2914" />
  <row Id="10348" PostId="6915" Score="0" Text="@paparazzo I felt that the emphasized statement &quot;*there really is no need to screw the caps from the bottles*&quot; is not a correct conclusion based on the premises. I understand, that trucks can deal with closed bottles, but there are other considerations when it comes to sustainable living (detailed above). Hence advising not to taking the cap off is somewhat equivalent to saying &quot;*you can pour your used oil/pet fish/toxic waste into your kitchen sink, the treatment plant can easily handle it*&quot;. And therefore it shouldn't be the take-home message of a post." CreationDate="2018-10-30T18:47:51.173" UserId="6026" />
  <row Id="10350" PostId="6915" Score="0" Text="@paparazzo I didn't know whether trucks could crush, that is why I asked. Jan answered this perfectly. However, he went further and gave a conclusion that was unnecessary. Just because trucks can crush it doesn't follow that **there is no need** to take caps off, elementary logic." CreationDate="2018-10-30T19:16:53.457" UserId="6026" />
  <row Id="12754" PostId="6915" Score="0" Text="170 bar is the pressure in the main hydraulic system, which is used to drive hydraulic cylinders which move the compactor.  Hydraulic systems use a very high pressure in a fairly small cylinder to create a force.  The pressure of the compactor against the bottle is far lower than that.  The bottles are never subjected to the main hydraulic pressure, so it's really irrelevant to the question." CreationDate="2020-08-04T14:31:05.517" UserId="6629" />
  <row Id="10328" PostId="6921" Score="0" Text="I like this idea... I wonder how other factors could be included -- for instance, living near the coast is inherently more sustainable than living in the desert. Could a coastal city and a desert city somehow &quot;trade&quot; gap points?" CreationDate="2018-10-25T14:54:59.267" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10327" PostId="6922" Score="5" Text="&quot;Cheese is a dairy product derived from milk&quot; - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheese" CreationDate="2018-10-25T13:40:09.467" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="10329" PostId="6922" Score="0" Text="Agree with @Jean-PaulCalderone... this is an answer to a different question, and while it has merit, I'm personally not able to eat nut-derived foods, so I'd prefer to eat less cheese than equal amounts of a substitute -- hence why I was hoping to find out which cheese is best." CreationDate="2018-10-25T14:57:02.660" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10335" PostId="6925" Score="4" Text="Consider adding a thicker blanket to this comparison." CreationDate="2018-10-29T12:40:56.957" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="10339" PostId="6925" Score="0" Text="Your questions tend to have a bias to the answer you want." CreationDate="2018-10-30T00:46:55.620" UserId="2914" />
  <row Id="10345" PostId="6925" Score="0" Text="@paparazzo sorry if they come off as loaded questions. It may be because I already have an intuition and some reasoning behind a particular answer when I ask the question, but I'm looking for a more solid basis for the answer (or to find that my guess is wrong and it's a different answer)." CreationDate="2018-10-30T13:32:22.067" UserId="2942" />
  <row Id="10346" PostId="6925" Score="0" Text="But your intuition skews the question.  Is the assumption this is a drafty house.  Not all natural gas is fracked." CreationDate="2018-10-30T17:31:52.160" UserId="2914" />
  <row Id="10351" PostId="6925" Score="0" Text="@Paparazzo Those features of the question are not my intuition, they're factual context for my question. I'm looking for an answer in the context of a drafty old house in a place where conventional heating is done using fracked natural gas." CreationDate="2018-10-30T21:06:16.030" UserId="2942" />
  <row Id="10352" PostId="6925" Score="0" Text="That is not clear in your question.  Sorry I tried to help." CreationDate="2018-10-30T22:38:18.243" UserId="2914" />
  <row Id="10353" PostId="6925" Score="0" Text="@paparazzo feedback noted anyway, I'll try to keep that in mind and be clearer about what are specific qiestion details and what are my own notions about the likely answer. No hard feelings" CreationDate="2018-10-31T03:15:14.643" UserId="2942" />
  <row Id="10355" PostId="6925" Score="2" Text="The energy requirements could actually be calculated (not by me) if you gave dimensions, temperature differences and insulation coefficients of the room and the building. That would make it a better question. Currently answers will be largely guesswork." CreationDate="2018-10-31T13:07:01.707" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="10702" PostId="6926" Score="0" Text="Good answer but a couple of points :" CreationDate="2019-02-13T22:54:00.760" UserId="4729" />
  <row Id="10363" PostId="6928" Score="0" Text="Hello and welcome! Based on the answers so far it would appear that your location makes a big difference. For which country are you asking this question?" CreationDate="2018-11-02T21:07:23.773" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10367" PostId="6928" Score="0" Text="@paparazzo because without any marking they don't know whether it is recyclable (at least according to his local recycling rules)." CreationDate="2018-11-03T15:29:34.873" UserId="4155" />
  <row Id="10368" PostId="6928" Score="0" Text="@NickC I read &quot;putting a recyclable item in the landfill&quot;  as they know." CreationDate="2018-11-03T15:32:15.247" UserId="2914" />
  <row Id="10372" PostId="6928" Score="0" Text="Tip: don't rely on the recycling information only. With some education you can reasonably judge plastics yourself (Worth another question?)" CreationDate="2018-11-06T10:57:26.977" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="10366" PostId="6930" Score="0" Text="I don’t see how this is answer to the question posed." CreationDate="2018-11-03T14:13:26.910" UserId="5835" />
  <row Id="10369" PostId="6930" Score="0" Text="I referred to: &quot;... plastic package which didn't have any recycling information on it ...&quot; in the origin question. So I understood that the question was, &quot;must plastic be marked with information or labels to be recyclable or being allowed to enter recycle bins?&quot; In Germany they cancelled this kind of restriction or hesitation." CreationDate="2018-11-04T16:51:49.460" UserId="5602" />
  <row Id="10371" PostId="6931" Score="0" Text="See [*Shortest transatlantic flight from Europe to somewhere, so that continental US can be reached by land (with possible ferry)*](https://travel.stackexchange.com/q/88920/2509) on [Travel.SE]." CreationDate="2018-11-06T10:56:48.507" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="10407" PostId="6934" Score="0" Text="and given our 30 year window to go carbon neutral that methane really, really matters." CreationDate="2018-11-13T00:12:39.213" UserId="6100" />
  <row Id="10409" PostId="6934" Score="0" Text="One secondary benefit(?) of the diesel is that it is more effective at reducing population." CreationDate="2018-11-13T00:21:27.283" UserId="6100" />
  <row Id="10377" PostId="6936" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Why do you think US wind energy production follows oil production? If you compare [this chart showing US crude oil field production](https://ycharts.com/indicators/us_crude_oil_field_production) with [this chart showing US wind energy production](https://ycharts.com/indicators/us_wind_energy_production) there isn't a similar pattern." CreationDate="2018-11-07T07:18:01.557" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="10378" PostId="6937" Score="2" Text="Your question needs some clarification (please [edit]): monitors don't go into hibernation, computers do. In your case, do they? If not, when they arrive on Monday they hit the power switch and turn the computer **off** ;-)" CreationDate="2018-11-07T14:28:36.933" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="10391" PostId="6937" Score="1" Text="What is the OS?" CreationDate="2018-11-09T13:27:20.910" UserId="2914" />
  <row Id="10383" PostId="6940" Score="6" Text="You left a possible option off of your list: a laundry line for hang-drying (and/or a complementary indoor drying rack)." CreationDate="2018-11-08T23:53:26.427" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="10386" PostId="6940" Score="0" Text="Are you talking about tumble driers or drying cabinets?" CreationDate="2018-11-09T10:26:48.697" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="10393" PostId="6940" Score="1" Text="@Jean-PaulCalderone in my climate air drying is not a year-round option, unfortunately." CreationDate="2018-11-09T16:07:07.057" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10394" PostId="6940" Score="1" Text="@gerrit I hadn't heard of a drying cabinet before -- I looked into this and it seems to be rather large, slow, and expensive." CreationDate="2018-11-09T16:08:09.930" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10395" PostId="6940" Score="0" Text="@LShaver I've only seen them in shared laundry rooms ([tvättstuga](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tv%C3%A4ttstuga)) in Swedish apartment blocks." CreationDate="2018-11-09T16:09:53.837" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="10411" PostId="6940" Score="1" Text="You can dry by hanging in any climate; It does make some funny sights when the clothes freeze before drying , but they do dry." CreationDate="2018-11-14T22:09:09.943" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="10387" PostId="6942" Score="0" Text="Why do you not line dry year round?" CreationDate="2018-11-09T10:28:43.763" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="10388" PostId="6942" Score="2" Text="I live in a warm-temperate environment.  It only dips below 0°C a handful of times each year — for a few hours at a time.  It never snows.  Winters are cold, wet and humid.  Line-drying doesn't work when it is cold, wet and humid." CreationDate="2018-11-09T10:43:07.917" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="10389" PostId="6942" Score="1" Text="We dry our clothes in the kitchen or the bathroom in winter." CreationDate="2018-11-09T11:01:36.390" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="10390" PostId="6942" Score="2" Text="I'm glad that works for you.  We don't dry inside because a) the extra humidity it creates, b) it looks messy, c) the clothes end up 'stiff', and d) we have a conventional electric dryer that gets the job done in a fraction of the time, produces warm, soft and fluffy clothes, costs us nothing to run, and generates no emissions.  It's great that there is more than one valid solution in the world to every problem!" CreationDate="2018-11-09T11:07:10.617" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="10396" PostId="6943" Score="0" Text="As in @Tim's case, line drying isn't a year-round option in my case. But that you've made it work in such a small apartment, and for two people, is very impressive! +1 for that." CreationDate="2018-11-09T16:10:14.813" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10397" PostId="6943" Score="0" Text="@LShaver Well, it's not great, but I believe quite many people who live small in England do as we do.  There wouldn't be space to put a tumble drier anywhere even if we wanted to.  Perhaps if we got rid of the sofa…" CreationDate="2018-11-09T16:14:24.733" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="10402" PostId="6945" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Your answer provides very little explanation why a halogen heater is prefered over an oil heater. How much (less) energy do the halogen heaters use? And are the heaters comparable when comparing the time it takes to heat up a room?" CreationDate="2018-11-10T12:08:28.463" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="10408" PostId="6946" Score="1" Text="proposal 1: It is almost certainly possible to set the solar charger to a slightly higher voltage than the mains one. That will cause it to deliver more power while it can. But a better solution is a proper change-over circuit. Those are more common than you might think, and there's one built into the UPS." CreationDate="2018-11-13T00:17:27.303" UserId="6100" />
  <row Id="10410" PostId="6946" Score="0" Text="Yes, an [automatic transfer switch](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transfer_switch) is a simple and workable solution. Only issue, it's &quot;either-or&quot;, not &quot;use solar first, if not sufficient add grid power&quot; as requested by the OP." CreationDate="2018-11-13T00:44:43.050" UserId="2134" />
  <row Id="10412" PostId="6948" Score="2" Text="You've got two different questions here: please [edit] this to pick out one of them, or to consolidate it into a single question: for example, you might ask whether there exists an economic impact assessment of the pathways that included not just the costs of implementation but also the damage costs of overshoot." CreationDate="2018-11-15T14:21:51.940" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="10413" PostId="6949" Score="0" Text="Hi Bob, welcome to the site. Can you edit that large blob of text to make it more readable? &lt;br /&gt; for line breaks, empty line for paragraph breaks." CreationDate="2018-11-15T20:41:00.477" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="10414" PostId="6950" Score="1" Text="Methane is a much more effective greenhouse gas than CO2 so the US EPA considers it harmful and has required refuse dumps with methane collection pipes to seal the pipes." CreationDate="2018-11-17T17:57:15.560" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="10415" PostId="6952" Score="1" Text="Hello and welcome! I edited the formatting of your question a bit. Also, looks like you meant to post a link for the milk carton but left it off?" CreationDate="2018-11-18T21:44:25.100" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10417" PostId="6952" Score="0" Text="Hey @LShaver thanks, correct-edited!" CreationDate="2018-11-19T08:01:20.660" UserId="6154" />
  <row Id="10418" PostId="6953" Score="0" Text="Werner, good answer! [It seems that you are right](https://allaboutberlin.com/guides/pfand-bottles), thank you very much!" CreationDate="2018-11-19T08:06:30.517" UserId="6154" />
  <row Id="10419" PostId="6953" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Nice first answer! If the images are copyright free you can include them directly in your answer by clicking on the 'image' button (on top if you click &quot;edit&quot; below your answer). That will upload the image to an external service used by StackExchange website so the images are preserved if the original image links break." CreationDate="2018-11-19T10:01:37.433" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="10420" PostId="6953" Score="0" Text="@THelper: Thank you for the hint - unfortunately i couldn't find pictures, which are guaranteed to be copyright free :-(" CreationDate="2018-11-20T15:19:35.347" UserId="6156" />
  <row Id="10440" PostId="6953" Score="0" Text="Perhaps you could find some pictures in Wikipedia. I would also have emphasised that returnable containers (_Pfand_) are preferable and said that many containers indicate on them whether or not they are returnable or recyclable. There is also a good resource (if you can read German) for interpreting the environmental implications of labels on products: http://siegelcheck.nabu.de/ ." CreationDate="2018-11-22T22:53:12.967" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="10421" PostId="6955" Score="3" Text="Fun fact: There are usually limits to how much of a product contains post-consumer materials for materials like paper because paper degrades over multiple recycling processes, unlike say, glass or aluminum." CreationDate="2018-11-21T11:39:32.897" UserId="5998" />
  <row Id="10541" PostId="6955" Score="0" Text="Not just the product itself, but similar label can be found on packaging box like &quot;The Arm &amp; Hammer Pure Baking Soda&quot; had: Box made from 100% recycled paperboard, minimum 35% post-consumer content." CreationDate="2018-12-17T16:04:43.557" UserDisplayName="user4844" />
  <row Id="10437" PostId="6960" Score="2" Text="Thanks for adding a link to the report! I was wondering where exactly you got the 400,000 PM2.5/cm2 from because I don't see any PM2.5 measurements in the English part of the report. Only NOx and UFP measurements." CreationDate="2018-11-22T12:26:04.813" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="10438" PostId="6960" Score="0" Text="You are probably right. The 400,000 figure is mentioned on page 45 on the second graph, in the first carriage of a train in pull mode. The axis says &quot;Average UFP per cm^3&quot;." CreationDate="2018-11-22T17:18:38.180" UserId="6159" />
  <row Id="10439" PostId="6960" Score="0" Text="The first table on page 55 has the figure regarding pollution on the station. Point 2 averaged 194,154 per cm^3 or roughly 200K per cm^3. I am wondering how can I explain those number in common language to spread awareness." CreationDate="2018-11-22T17:21:14.680" UserId="6159" />
  <row Id="10428" PostId="6961" Score="3" Text="I feel that the questions you ask at the bottom are rather subjective and make your question broad. Can you please specify what exactly your criteria are here? Are you looking for furniture with a very low overall environmental impact, or are you more concerned with climate-change and deforestation for example?" CreationDate="2018-11-21T14:33:14.113" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="10448" PostId="6961" Score="1" Text="Mainly quality and durability, so ultimately lifespan. What I'm getting at is, I'm used to seeing cheap Ikea products made of cheap MDF, and practically treated as disposable furniture. But I've been shown that some is actually decently rigid and made of more robust yet unspecified materials like hardwood. So despite the percieved build quality, is Ikea a good long-term furniture company? Will even the pricier options break in a few years? Am I better off buying something else?" CreationDate="2018-11-24T08:09:23.250" UserId="5998" />
  <row Id="10433" PostId="6962" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! I wonder if there are already life cycle inventories for software development processes? I think there's a good chance that you'll have to do everything from scratch, and in that case you'd better strike the word 'easily' from your answer." CreationDate="2018-11-21T16:05:56.700" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="10434" PostId="6962" Score="0" Text="Hi Jonas, are you saying that either you, or someone else, has already done an LCA for a software product? If so, could you please send me some links? As @THelper mentioned, unless there already are lifecycle inventories for software products, one would have to do everything from scratch." CreationDate="2018-11-21T19:38:58.480" UserId="6021" />
  <row Id="10447" PostId="6963" Score="0" Text="Cheers for the answer. According to this, spending time at the station is not as bad as I initially thought. Moreover, this gave me some new insights on cigarettes - cigarettes are worse than I thought.. I am not smoking but I will for sure pass this information to any of my smoking friends." CreationDate="2018-11-23T19:43:51.507" UserId="6159" />
  <row Id="10449" PostId="6966" Score="0" Text="Thanks. That's pretty much what I'm looking for. Are you aware of people with long lasting IKEA products? For whatever reason, everyone I know either gets rid of theirs or simply hasn't had theirs for long." CreationDate="2018-11-24T08:10:24.993" UserId="5998" />
  <row Id="10454" PostId="6966" Score="1" Text="you need to know older people. My IKEA stuff is all about 30 years old and can't be told from brand new, except some of the pine has that &quot;aged pine&quot; colour." CreationDate="2018-11-25T14:49:43.880" UserId="1053" />
  <row Id="10460" PostId="6966" Score="0" Text="I've got an old &quot;Ivar&quot;-shelf (which I painted twice when I got it 18 years ago) and it still is in good condition. I also have a couch table from full wood for about 14 years now, it received the same treatment and probably will last another 14 years - at least." CreationDate="2018-11-27T14:18:46.343" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="10504" PostId="6967" Score="0" Text="A recent article in Scientific American discusses the potential of forests (new and old) to fight climate change: [The Best Technology for Fighting Climate Change Isn't a Technology](https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/the-best-technology-for-fighting-climate-change-isnt-a-technology/)" CreationDate="2018-12-05T20:55:20.477" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10707" PostId="6967" Score="1" Text="In the context of resolving climate change, &quot;cut &amp; regrow&quot; and &quot;just grow&quot; are not the only alternatives for forests. You could also &quot;[grow and collect the deadwood](https://doi.org/10.1186/1750-0680-3-1)&quot;, there estimated to have a sequestration potential of 10 GtC/yr." CreationDate="2019-02-15T22:47:00.097" UserId="2134" />
  <row Id="10453" PostId="6969" Score="0" Text="Yes, this seems to be the case, tnx" CreationDate="2018-11-25T09:03:45.557" UserId="6154" />
  <row Id="10458" PostId="6971" Score="0" Text="I think you've conflated &quot;large&quot; with &quot;mature&quot;." CreationDate="2018-11-27T07:00:16.243" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="10459" PostId="6971" Score="0" Text="Young trees also are supposed to use more O² than they produce. Can't find the source right now." CreationDate="2018-11-27T14:15:01.757" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="10473" PostId="6971" Score="0" Text="@Tim I included some additional research discussing the idea of trees &quot;maturing.&quot;" CreationDate="2018-11-28T15:43:40.823" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10479" PostId="6971" Score="2" Text="@LShaver  Look, if forests were carbon-negative then in the 360 million years that they have existed they would have depleted the planet's atmosphere of carbon and humans wouldn't have evolved.  That didn't happen, so they can't be carbon-negative.  Since trees themselves are primarily made of carbon, being carbon-positive would have made forests self-terminating.  That didn't happen either.  The only rational explanation for forests and humans still/currently existing is that forests are — over the long term — carbon-neutral.  That's how living systems work.  *All of them.*" CreationDate="2018-11-29T19:37:48.840" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="10482" PostId="6971" Score="1" Text="@Tim forests are in competition with other ecosystems such as grasslands and deserts. The research also excludes large-scale events such as strong storms, fires, landslides, fungal/insect attacks, etc." CreationDate="2018-11-30T12:46:02.830" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10461" PostId="6972" Score="0" Text="While in general I disagree with your answer (stay tuned for edits on mine...), I found some recent research contradicting your point on the Amazon. Looks like we're both wrong: [due to human activity, the Amazon rain-forest is currently a carbon source](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/surprisingly-tropical-forests-are-not-a-carbon-sink/)." CreationDate="2018-11-27T15:22:25.553" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10466" PostId="6972" Score="0" Text="Care to write another answer? The bonus is still available." CreationDate="2018-11-27T20:31:36.377" UserId="1057" />
  <row Id="10467" PostId="6972" Score="1" Text="There's no point confusing the issue by trying to factor in human activity (e.g. conversion of forest land to agriculture), because every single forest is different.  For every example of a forest that's being cleared it is easy to find a forest that's not, or is being protected.  The question doesn't ask about a specific forest at a specific point in history — it is asking about forests in general.  It's best to understand forests in general and then, if you really, really want to try and account for specific human activity, do it separately." CreationDate="2018-11-27T22:57:18.747" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="10469" PostId="6972" Score="0" Text="Put another way: You can't extrapolate human activity in the Amazon basin to every forest on Earth. Thus it should not be applied to either of the OP's two hypothetical forests. It's the human activity that's carbon-positive, not the forest." CreationDate="2018-11-27T23:10:25.250" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="10474" PostId="6972" Score="0" Text="I agree they need to be maintained as separate issues, but I thought it was important to point out what's happening in the Amazon today." CreationDate="2018-11-28T15:45:18.940" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10475" PostId="6972" Score="1" Text="It seems your interpretation of a &quot;fully grown&quot; forest is one where the trees are past their maximum lifespan, meaning they are dead and decomposing. I think there's a bit more wiggle room between a tree being &quot;fully grown&quot; and dying. Trees are either growing or dead, so in the strictest sense, yes, a tree is only &quot;fully grown&quot; once it dies. But I think that definition might be a bit harsh here -  it's not really fair to compare the carbon sequestering abilities of a sapling to a piece of dead wood." CreationDate="2018-11-28T17:22:03.377" UserId="5953" />
  <row Id="10476" PostId="6972" Score="3" Text="@Nuclear Wang.  That's not my interpretation at all.  I didn't say that the age of all the trees is ≥ the lifespan of the species, I said the age of the *forest* is ≥ the lifespan of the species.  A forest isn't mature until it has supported _at least a generation_ of trees.  Some may (with good reason) argue it is even longer, but it certainly isn't any less.  Heavily diminishing returns on carbon sequestration are already evident by the time the forest's age reaches the lifespan of the species." CreationDate="2018-11-29T16:25:50.813" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="10477" PostId="6972" Score="2" Text="Forests dedicated to sequestration should never be cut.  Thus natural (new) growth will constantly occur.  Any sustainable forest ends up being a well-balanced mix of ages.  All the trees aren't one age.  That would be called a plantation.  We're not talking about plantations — we're talking about forests." CreationDate="2018-11-29T16:34:04.483" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="10485" PostId="6972" Score="1" Text="@Tim Good point, sounds like the germ of another potential question regarding efficient management of plantations for carbon fixing." CreationDate="2018-12-01T17:58:43.260" UserId="1057" />
  <row Id="10486" PostId="6972" Score="0" Text="Hi Tim, thanks for the answer, could it be that in @LShaver 's answer in the mature forest some carbon ends up in soil and buried underground over time where it turns to coal and oil and what not and it makes mature forests carbon negative? I am not an expert on this topic so I hope you will forgive me if I am off the mark..." CreationDate="2018-12-01T18:51:41.317" UserId="4103" />
  <row Id="10487" PostId="6972" Score="3" Text="If you dig a hole in a forest you'll find that you don't have to go down very far before you hit mineral soil.  Mineral soil isn't organic — it doesn't contain any statistically significant amount of carbon.  Soil biology (e.g. worms, fungus, bacteria) consume/recycle it in the upper levels.  Fossil fuels come from organic matter settling at the bottom of bodies of water where anaerobic conditions exist.  Since 'forests' don't grow on lakes or oceans, their carbon doesn't accumulate to form coal or oil.  Bogs, marshes and lagoons are primarily where you find that process occurring." CreationDate="2018-12-01T19:31:33.360" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="10462" PostId="6973" Score="0" Text="Another option would be for package recipients to notify the carriers if they wanted to pick up their packages from the local distribution point themselves. Or perhaps an app which would notify customers of packages available when they're driving in the direction of the depot." CreationDate="2018-11-27T15:29:43.680" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10463" PostId="6973" Score="0" Text="First option might result in rather complicated, addtional work for the carriers - and unsatisfied customers. Second option would require everyone to possess and successfully operate a smartphone - excluding a rather long list of people. Any solution should - in my opinion - rather refrain from requiring additional effort for the customers or complicated communications between customers and carrier while reducing the environmental impact." CreationDate="2018-11-27T15:33:47.737" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="10464" PostId="6973" Score="0" Text="Why not just an &quot;opt-in&quot; system? This way the early adopters could get their packages sooner, and the carriers could reduce their costs and carbon footprint. The U.S. postal service currently offers [Informed Delivery](https://informeddelivery.usps.com/) which lets me see a scanned image of mail I'm receiving each day. With this technology, notifying me when I drive by the post office of mail that's available for me to pick up wouldn't be a big leap." CreationDate="2018-11-27T15:54:59.897" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10470" PostId="6973" Score="1" Text="Here in The Netherlands letters and newspapers are delivered per bike, at least in cities (see for example cdn.easyapps.nl/pictures/000/000/000/112/832/035_640x480.jpg). This definitely beats pick-up from a central-point in terms of CO2 emissions. In more remote areas scooters or cars are used, but small electric vehicles are slowly starting to become more common." CreationDate="2018-11-28T08:17:19.797" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="13359" PostId="6973" Score="0" Text="&quot;Not everybody leaves their home every day - or drives&quot; that's an important point. The last time I drove anywhere was months ago, and that was unusually recent because I typically only drive a couple of times a decade. I normally use a large cargo bike :)" CreationDate="2021-01-19T22:06:39.700" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="10480" PostId="6974" Score="0" Text="I think you've asked a good question, but please be aware that answers and comments aren't very suitable for discussions. It's best to do that in chat." CreationDate="2018-11-30T07:04:09.590" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="10481" PostId="6974" Score="1" Text="You should also factor the expected rise in energy costs." CreationDate="2018-11-30T08:09:01.673" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="10493" PostId="6974" Score="1" Text="Powerwall only becomes economical viable if your locale does not support feed in, at all. Otherwise, you can use the grid as your battery." CreationDate="2018-12-03T01:30:10.960" UserId="1462" />
  <row Id="10496" PostId="6974" Score="0" Text="I have removed your call for discussion. As THelper commented, this is a Q&amp;A site." CreationDate="2018-12-03T15:11:40.487" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="16418" PostId="6974" Score="0" Text="If you expect to use 24 kWh each night, then you might have to look into your electricity consumption." CreationDate="2023-07-14T06:35:37.760" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="16427" PostId="6974" Score="0" Text="@gerrit I _agree_ that 24 kWh can _seem_ like a lot if you live alone. But it's a &quot;normal&quot; when running a 3.5 kW air conditioning unit for 8 hours. Thanks." CreationDate="2023-07-15T04:14:16.660" UserId="5803" />
  <row Id="16429" PostId="6974" Score="0" Text="@nelsonic Heating or cooling needs no electricity storage.  You can simply store hot or cold water when it's sunny in a well-insulated tank, then use that after dark.  That even works on seasonal scales if you have enough water and bury it.  Storing heat (or lack thereof) is easy and relatively cheap.  Storing electricity is expensive.  Storing electricity when you use it only for heating or cooling is a poor choice." CreationDate="2023-07-15T20:14:54.360" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="16434" PostId="6974" Score="0" Text="@gerrit we're well aware of the physics of using water for heat/cold storage. But when we procured a quote for doing this in the centre of a major city it was 3x the price of a PowerWall setup and involved major building works. Thanks." CreationDate="2023-07-20T08:11:18.407" UserId="5803" />
  <row Id="10483" PostId="6975" Score="0" Text="great points. I expect to have enough &quot;spare&quot; solar energy to fully charge the Powerwall each day and the remaining solar will be fed into the grid for a kWh lower price (the feed-in tariff is no longer subsidised where we live in Portugal), So I have discounted the cost of solar panels form my decision. But you are _correct_, most other people doing this calculation will need to factor _buying_ the solar capacity to charge the Powerwall into the up-front cost of the investment. " CreationDate="2018-11-30T20:17:15.930" UserId="5803" />
  <row Id="10484" PostId="6975" Score="0" Text="@nelsonic you still have yet to discounted the potential lost income from selling to the grid..." CreationDate="2018-12-01T08:24:13.433" UserId="1462" />
  <row Id="10501" PostId="6978" Score="0" Text="This led me to write another question: https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/6982/is-burning-pcv-with-municipal-waste-acceptable-nowadays" CreationDate="2018-12-05T13:09:59.933" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="10500" PostId="6980" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Good answer. Stopping crop stubble burning will improve air quality and prevent loss of soil nutrients, but what about farmers who have no choice but to burn stubbles because they cannot afford machinery to clear their fields?" CreationDate="2018-12-05T07:55:24.420" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="10515" PostId="6980" Score="0" Text="The waste can be dumped in a common location in each village after which it can be cleared by the govt. on a regular basis during the harvest season or be used as feed for bio-gas plants." CreationDate="2018-12-10T07:42:41.530" UserId="6201" />
  <row Id="10518" PostId="6980" Score="0" Text="It's a good idea, but I think there is still the problem that some farmers do not have the time or money to remove the stubbles and/or transport it. See for example [this article](https://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/stubble-farm-fire-slash-burn-agriculturepunjab-haryana-pollution-health-hazards-3074434/)" CreationDate="2018-12-11T09:07:06.303" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="12417" PostId="6982" Score="0" Text="This article seems like a good place to start, but I was not able to find an open access version: [Catalytic conversion of waste plastics: focus on waste PVC](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jctb.1757)" CreationDate="2020-03-01T16:20:54.807" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12418" PostId="6982" Score="0" Text="The problem with burning PVC is that it produces hydrochloric acid; well , HCl ,which becomes acid when water is present as in a nasal passage." CreationDate="2020-03-01T16:53:10.010" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="10502" PostId="6984" Score="0" Text="Do you mean [coal](https://firecookeat.com/charcoal-vs-coal/)?" CreationDate="2018-12-05T16:32:56.273" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10503" PostId="6984" Score="0" Text="It may be a language issue. I mean fossile coal that is produced from exploiting natural deposits" CreationDate="2018-12-05T19:13:49.980" UserId="1581" />
  <row Id="10505" PostId="6984" Score="0" Text="Could you get carbon credits by leaving coal in the ground ?" CreationDate="2018-12-06T00:57:25.567" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="10507" PostId="6984" Score="0" Text="Charcoal is the stuff you get by charring wood. Still, the best solution would be to never produce/dig up the stuff, since the production/mining already leads to carbon emissions. All CCS-technology currently comes down to &quot;put it in the ground&quot;. So... leave it, where it is." CreationDate="2018-12-06T09:34:18.537" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="10506" PostId="6985" Score="1" Text="I'd argue that growing food is not completely within the carbon cycle, depending on the type of food you're talking about. Especially meat adds not only CO2 but also methane to the atmosphere, increasing the amount of CO2-equivalents." CreationDate="2018-12-06T09:24:32.123" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="10509" PostId="6987" Score="0" Text="My personal experience is, that everyday choices tend to be in favour of sustainable solutions for, but e.g. vacation choices sometimes negate these choices (long distance travel by plane, etc)." CreationDate="2018-12-07T13:09:56.273" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="10510" PostId="6987" Score="1" Text="It might also be the other way around? People who make sustainable choices at home are more likely to want to work for companies who have sustainable policies?" CreationDate="2018-12-07T14:35:59.973" UserId="4155" />
  <row Id="10511" PostId="6990" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! I have completely different experiences with LED. All LED bulbs we bought are still working fine; light is at full brightness instantaneous and no noticeable performance loss over time (oldest bulb is about 9 years old now). One cheap dimmable LED we bought does give blueish, cold light, but the brand bulbs give warm light." CreationDate="2018-12-09T07:29:59.207" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="10512" PostId="6990" Score="1" Text="Can you back up the anecdotes in the question with any data?  Do you have evidence supporting a particular claim of the useful lifespan of some line of LED products (or LED products in general)?  There's really no answer to the question as written now - your anecdotes are your anecdotes and the conditions you describe are relative and unquantified." CreationDate="2018-12-09T12:18:09.977" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="10513" PostId="6990" Score="1" Text="Are you purchasing mostly dimmable LED's? These can be hit or miss. I purchased some yesterday that take a moment to start up. Others I've had make terrible buzzing sounds." CreationDate="2018-12-09T15:36:13.387" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10514" PostId="6990" Score="0" Text="I am not sure about that, I have tried out the ones with the orange sticks inside and some with milky glass. No idea if they are dimmable as I don't have dimmable light switches. Is there a model, which is a sure bet? I don't mind spending money on more expensive products." CreationDate="2018-12-09T20:10:34.440" UserId="6213" />
  <row Id="10516" PostId="6992" Score="1" Text="15000 hours are about 2 years. I am pretty sure I had to replace more often than that. However I do use &quot;closed luminaire&quot;, so maybe this is the problem! Didn't figure heat would be a problem with lights." CreationDate="2018-12-10T13:37:44.597" UserId="6213" />
  <row Id="10520" PostId="6992" Score="2" Text="I also recommend keeping the proof of purchase and not hesitating to go back to the shop to ask for a replacement, even if the product doesn't include a warranty or your country doesn't have a law that gives consumers more rights: I have been able to get a few replacement for LED bulbs that have not lasted more than a few months. They _are_ expensive, and brands / resellers should be told that it's not acceptable to sell poor quality products, especially when they are touted as more &quot;environmentally friendly&quot;." CreationDate="2018-12-12T04:56:45.357" UserId="80" />
  <row Id="11148" PostId="6994" Score="0" Text="Related: [How many times do you need to re-use cloth napkins to offset their impact?](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/7074/3379)" CreationDate="2019-06-24T18:39:40.573" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10522" PostId="6996" Score="0" Text="Thanks! I also had the feeling that the 1700 kWh in the paper was way to high." CreationDate="2018-12-13T08:32:30.600" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="10521" PostId="6998" Score="2" Text="Most jobs in forestry involve cutting down trees : removal of dead, lightening strike , diseased , wind damaged , and overcrowded , etc. In the&quot; Piney Woods&quot; of southern US , pine bark beetles attack and kill crowded pines, the best control is thinning. I have volunteered with a retired forest expert, mostly cutting and removing storm damage trees; It is much more work that computer games.  I have been interested in silvaculture most of my life and planted well over a thousand trees in 4 states. I have about 25 tree varieties on my quarter acre lot.  Get out in the woods and enjoy trees." CreationDate="2018-12-13T03:21:36.650" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="10523" PostId="6998" Score="0" Text="@blacksmith37 it is true that most forestry work involves the cutting, removal, and thinning of trees. But good forestry can be 'pro forest' in the sense that it: 1) makes it economically sustainable (and even beneficial) to keep land forested; 2) produces wood goods which stores carbon and brings the rest of society in closer connection with forests however indirectly; and 3) good silviculture can actually improve forest ecosystem health and net primary productivity over time." CreationDate="2018-12-13T14:27:02.177" UserId="2942" />
  <row Id="10524" PostId="6998" Score="0" Text="Plus tree planting and/or natural regeneration keeps the cycle going. And as you said - working in the woods and enjoying the trees is a solid part of keeping the world forested :)" CreationDate="2018-12-13T14:27:45.337" UserId="2942" />
  <row Id="10528" PostId="7001" Score="0" Text="In my opinion the clothes dryer is something you don't have to replace. When replacing the furnace and the water heater, you could consider buying one with a water buffer and/or solar thermal heating." CreationDate="2018-12-14T08:47:41.787" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="10740" PostId="7004" Score="3" Text="If you're so concerned about your impact I suggest getting a load or two of wood chips dumped in your yard, put a pipe in the middle to do an air exchange, then bury it back up  to cause a massive compost pile so you get great soil. You should also get some mycelium like Wine Cap, or Oyster (this one requires covering with a light blocking tarp or shade cloth), then have a lot of mushrooms when they start popping up (food source). I live less than 1000 feet from the county wood chip dump site, and last years wood chips are starting to get very soft due to how fast the composting is at the quan" CreationDate="2019-02-26T05:27:08.593" UserId="3532" />
  <row Id="13360" PostId="7004" Score="2" Text="The question depends a lot on what exactly this &quot;soil&quot; is. Where I live &quot;soil&quot; is typically a mix of sand, mulch and compost made up by the supplier, but the cheaper it is the less sand it has in it. So for minerals bagged soil is likely to be almost useless. If you want available organic material right now (now!) bags are just an expensive, waste-generating way to get it. A load of sand or if you can find it, construction waste topsoil will give you minerals faster and cheaer. A load of woodchips/mulch is slower but more effective, and a load of compost is effective and fast." CreationDate="2021-01-19T22:24:26.160" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="10531" PostId="7005" Score="0" Text="Why not just buy an actual water distiller?" CreationDate="2018-12-16T13:09:29.930" UserId="2914" />
  <row Id="10538" PostId="7005" Score="0" Text="Not a bad thought... although those boil water with an electric heating element which would use quite a bit of electricity, so I'm not sure that would be a good ongoing solution for a gallon of water per day." CreationDate="2018-12-17T15:03:27.023" UserId="5958" />
  <row Id="10539" PostId="7005" Score="0" Text="After reading a little about the electric distiller, the electricity required isn't too bad compared to buying gallons of distilled water at the store. The main downside to using a distiller would be having an appliance to clean and maintain, and having the upfront cost of $100+" CreationDate="2018-12-17T15:13:14.493" UserId="5958" />
  <row Id="10530" PostId="7006" Score="3" Text="I guess there are far worse decisions you can do on christmas, especially when it comes to presents etc. Still, it would be better, if you decided to get a rather small tree in a pot, groom it over the next years and use it several times as a christmas tree. Best would be not to get a tree at all." CreationDate="2018-12-16T09:23:17.923" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="10532" PostId="7006" Score="2" Text="It can be argued that buying *anything* is not sustainable, so the obvious answer would be **no**. But maybe you meant *instead of an alternative*? - if so, what alternative. And you are not saying anything about the kind of Christmas tree, where and how it was grown, etc. Voting to close as 'unclear' until this question has some more flesh on its bones." CreationDate="2018-12-17T08:46:40.847" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="10563" PostId="7006" Score="0" Text="Buy one like  Norfolk Island Pine , keep it in the house and use it every year. I have decorated Dracenea and other house plants , bit of a hassle to get the tinsel  off ,so I don't use it anymore. Start a tradition." CreationDate="2018-12-19T22:29:04.500" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="10551" PostId="7009" Score="0" Text="I believe the major difference will be in the timescale -- a growing tree accumulates CO2 slowly, and a biodegrading tree releases it slowly. But a burning tree releases CO2 quickly." CreationDate="2018-12-18T16:33:41.857" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10560" PostId="7009" Score="1" Text="I think a review of photosynthesis is in order.&#xA;The CO2 plants take in are actually stored as sugars. Burning this will release it, but wood that decomposes naturally would have those sugars broken down by animals and fungi etc (who will release co2 via respiration) but will actually use much of that carbon to build their own bodies and keep the carbon within a naturall cycle." CreationDate="2018-12-19T21:55:43.900" UserId="4922" />
  <row Id="10561" PostId="7009" Score="0" Text="https://www.howplantswork.com/2009/02/16/plants-dont-convert-co2-into-o2/" CreationDate="2018-12-19T21:55:54.960" UserId="4922" />
  <row Id="10566" PostId="7009" Score="1" Text="@flummingbird I think that answers the part of the question about bio degradation. You should post this as an answer." CreationDate="2018-12-20T08:27:34.393" UserId="6213" />
  <row Id="10572" PostId="7009" Score="0" Text="Don't forget methane from decaying wood. Depending on the environment the wood rots in that can push the CO2-equivalent emissions up a lot." CreationDate="2018-12-24T03:03:59.470" UserId="6100" />
  <row Id="10544" PostId="7010" Score="0" Text="Very interesting, seems to have potential. What are the materials that it's constructed of? I'd like to see the materials' mechanical performance analysis for each part. What are it's operational parameters? Can you get a prototype up and running maybe to establish it's performance in real world situations? How about a paddle below, like a keel for stability. There's a very great deal of work to be done. In terms of sustainable living it has potential. What you need to know about is the engineering. We can't answer without more information, can you help us help you?" CreationDate="2018-12-18T00:28:31.153" UserId="1057" />
  <row Id="10610" PostId="7010" Score="0" Text="Slowing down a hurricane: https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/9/8/16264376/hurricane-michael-how-to-slow-down-a-hurricane" CreationDate="2019-01-11T00:29:32.790" UserId="6287" />
  <row Id="10549" PostId="7012" Score="0" Text="I turn to big bags of raised bed soil because my composting (via warms and via 4'x4'x4' heap) aren't fast enough for the planting I'm doing. Anyway, what's the difference between DOM and compost? Maybe better suited for a separate question." CreationDate="2018-12-18T14:13:25.017" UserId="2942" />
  <row Id="10550" PostId="7012" Score="3" Text="I'd recommend removing the last bit of this answer about global warming -- it's not relevant to the question and likely to be seen as controversial around these parts. Otherwise this looks like a helpful answer." CreationDate="2018-12-18T16:26:04.107" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10552" PostId="7012" Score="2" Text="Does not answer the question, and ends with counter-factual mumbo jumbo - not helpful despite the suggestions about soil improvement." CreationDate="2018-12-18T19:07:25.793" UserId="1123" />
  <row Id="10554" PostId="7012" Score="0" Text="@cr0 I am glad you asked this question.  Compost is a work in progress.  DOM is the process completed.  Compost is actually thought of as mulch, I've made gardens out of virgin soil and had great crops the first season.  Just learning to manage whatever soil type you have.  All soil is great soil if one learns how to manage that soil and...the only thing that will improve any soil and all soils is DOM dumped on the surface.  Make those soil organisms earn their keep!  Going up to the top then back down into the soil, aerates and mixes the DOM into the soil far better." CreationDate="2018-12-19T06:19:26.947" UserId="3540" />
  <row Id="10555" PostId="7012" Score="0" Text="Global warming is all about some ridiculous idea about CO2 holding heat in the atmosphere...some even think CO2 is Carbon and black smoke.  I know this is emotionally charged but I feel it is important to think about and question.  I KNOW there is no warming...I am amazed that so many believe this is true.  I have a need to teach not promote ridiculous propaganda.  Let's go to chat and debate...or discuss?  We are in a cooling period, historically proven and great data from all the 'right' resources to support, yet...I am a teacher.  If I am wrong I expect the student to explain to me why." CreationDate="2018-12-19T06:26:21.567" UserId="3540" />
  <row Id="10556" PostId="7012" Score="0" Text="CO2 most certainly affects how to think about the garden.  The chemistry.  How plants work and what we humans need to add or not add.to our oh so artificial gardens.  Global cooling is kind of sort of important to gardening and landscaping. Yay, I get to be the party pooper yet again.  I am not here to be popular.  I question everything and what I know I KNOW because I question especially my own views and ideas firstus." CreationDate="2018-12-19T06:32:20.780" UserId="3540" />
  <row Id="10557" PostId="7012" Score="0" Text="Thanks for the clarification on the compost/DOM difference." CreationDate="2018-12-19T14:12:17.457" UserId="2942" />
  <row Id="10558" PostId="7012" Score="1" Text="I'm an environmental scientist and see both large-scale data from climate experts and see wackier weather in my own neck of the woods over the past 20yrs. Anthropogenic climate change or not, I've seen first hand that humans are degrading ecosystems we live in and/or rely on. Regardless of political agenda, we shouldn't shit where we sleep." CreationDate="2018-12-19T14:17:45.967" UserId="2942" />
  <row Id="10559" PostId="7012" Score="1" Text="That said, humanity is changing the carbon cycle, storing more carbon in the atmosphere; how is pottery made? concrete? steel? What happens to carbon atoms when gas goes from underground to our car's engines? Or the natural gas as it goes from underground to our home furnaces and water heaters? Thus, I disagree with you saying &quot;quit worrying about carbon&quot;. Let's actively store carbon in ways beneficial to us - trees, wood, soil - and not let it go haphazardly to oceans, where simple &amp; advanced science experiments can show it is not helpful for us or most other organisms." CreationDate="2018-12-19T14:20:25.127" UserId="2942" />
  <row Id="10564" PostId="7012" Score="0" Text="@cr0 very quickly because this is all verboten, this chemistry about carbon which is oh so very applicable for plants soils and heck, all of life.  We humans are NOT CHANGING THE CARBON CYCLE!  So sorry Sue but I felt I really needed to raise my voice.  You've just said what others who might have a bit of hesitancy (thank goodness) about CO2 that gee whiz, &quot;don't you think that people who believe in this CO2 warming might actually be more amenable to helping to CHANGE human's input for the better'?  NO.  Getting humans or any animal to change based on a lie is simply going to set us back." CreationDate="2018-12-20T05:22:39.880" UserId="3540" />
  <row Id="10565" PostId="7012" Score="0" Text="Make no mistake, I think humans are self centered filthy lifeforms, our methods will only make us go extinct sooner than later.  I know the science, I see the truth, AGW shows not one bit of scientific truth, facts or ability to predict.  Especially since we are in a very obvious cooling period that comes with humongous ramifications, very surprising complications...total catastrophe.  Just go take a peek? Quit worrying about carbon...love to chat more anytime..." CreationDate="2018-12-20T05:27:42.127" UserId="3540" />
  <row Id="10562" PostId="7018" Score="0" Text="Some is processed into fertilizer ( primarily phosphorus )." CreationDate="2018-12-19T22:22:45.857" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="10567" PostId="7018" Score="0" Text="Ever wondered what gelatin is made of? Right, bones (and skin)." CreationDate="2018-12-20T13:08:26.743" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="10592" PostId="7018" Score="1" Text="[Blood &amp; bone fertilizer](https://homeguides.sfgate.com/blood-bone-fertilizer-44632.html)." CreationDate="2019-01-06T02:25:27.127" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="12477" PostId="7019" Score="2" Text="Thanks for the answer; please consider [improving it](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/help/how-to-answer) by adding sources. You might also want to list more uses (some examples are given in the comments above)." CreationDate="2020-03-12T15:26:40.837" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="10568" PostId="7022" Score="2" Text="What happens to those bodies?  They die, decompose, get eaten.  Life cycles don't remove appreciable amounts of atmospheric CO2.  The exception is when some part of the life cycle gets sequested, for example as happens in the creation of coal, oil, or other fossil fuels." CreationDate="2018-12-20T21:14:43.447" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="10570" PostId="7023" Score="0" Text="Section headings added to improve readability/navigation." CreationDate="2018-12-22T00:40:26.690" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="12447" PostId="7023" Score="1" Text="Fantastic answer." CreationDate="2020-03-04T17:25:07.530" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="12454" PostId="7023" Score="0" Text="When some of the wood decays anaerobically, some of the carbon will be converted into methane, with is a worse greenhouse gas than CO2.  Does this not change the calculation?" CreationDate="2020-03-05T11:07:34.437" UserId="6896" />
  <row Id="12464" PostId="7023" Score="0" Text="The question was about CO₂ emissions, not methane, or greenhouse gases in general.  Besides, the rate at which the wood decays anaerobically is so slow (compared to aerobically) that it really doesn't matter what compound is released — the impact on 'global warming' will be lower.  (Felling a tree in a tundra or in some other very cold region may have a slower decay rate even than underwater in a temperate zone, but edge cases like that aren't worth exploring.)" CreationDate="2020-03-06T13:39:09.860" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="10575" PostId="7025" Score="0" Text="You are right that a single plastic bag is more environmentally friendly compared to a cotton bag provided it's discarded properly (see also [How many times do you need to use a cheap re-usable bag to offset its impact?](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/5840/99)), but the biggest problems with plastics in general are 1) environment pollution (plastic soup) and 2) since they are usually made from fossil fuels and often burned after usage, they contribute to global warming. Not using plastic solves these problems, but has other disadvantages." CreationDate="2018-12-25T08:59:01.420" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="10574" PostId="7029" Score="0" Text="Plastic pyrolysis sounds very interesting. Could you link to a webpage with more information?" CreationDate="2018-12-25T07:46:53.040" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="10576" PostId="7029" Score="0" Text="&quot;plastic takes ~500 years to decompose&quot; but this alone is not a problem. What is the impact of plastic sitting around for a long time? &quot;burying large amounts of waste leads to groundwater pollution&quot; I alluded to this in my question - does plastic cause groundwater pollution (how?), or just organic waste?" CreationDate="2018-12-25T15:52:33.730" UserId="4736" />
  <row Id="10577" PostId="7029" Score="0" Text="A bit of googling tells me that landfill space is starting to run low, which I wasn't expecting. That sounds like the most serious problem to me. Thanks." CreationDate="2018-12-25T15:58:02.197" UserId="4736" />
  <row Id="10578" PostId="7029" Score="0" Text="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gz0cwb0hEdg   A simple video explaining plastic pyrolysis" CreationDate="2018-12-26T15:20:08.323" UserId="6201" />
  <row Id="10579" PostId="7029" Score="0" Text="http://www.waterencyclopedia.com/La-Mi/Landfills-Impact-on-Groundwater.html link about groundwater contamination due to lanfills" CreationDate="2018-12-26T15:21:14.660" UserId="6201" />
  <row Id="10672" PostId="7029" Score="0" Text="@AlexHall *landfill space is starting to run low* From the perspective where you're living. In many countries this has already been an issue for decades (I researched that in The Netherlands around 1990)." CreationDate="2019-01-30T07:41:07.403" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="10580" PostId="7030" Score="0" Text="Take a look at [this answer](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/a/6667/3379) -- turns out the impact of trans-oceanic shipping is minimal compared to that of the waste itself. I think your point about not knowing how other countries are processing waste is strong -- even if they aren't burning it, how safe and efficient is the processing they are doing?" CreationDate="2018-12-26T16:50:15.357" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10671" PostId="7030" Score="0" Text="-1 Your answer contains two claims without proof (the dumping and the burning) and from there generalizing as if this is the whole truth. In reality (e.g.) China has been a large importer of our plastic waste (until recently in 2018 when they seriously reduced that) and there is plenty of documentation showing that it **is** (was) recycled there." CreationDate="2019-01-30T07:38:28.673" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="10582" PostId="7032" Score="0" Text="The onegreenplanet.org reference for health information about palm oil seems questionable.  It doesn't cite any primary sources, only advocacy groups and soft news coverage.  It also doesn't even unambiguous come down on the side of &quot;fine for health&quot; - see the comment about low-grade inflammation.  Given that the question is about *health* (perhaps making it off-topic) this doesn't seem like a great citation for an answer.  But maybe the whole thing should just be migrated elsewhere." CreationDate="2018-12-31T16:25:33.687" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="10583" PostId="7032" Score="0" Text="@Jean-PaulCalderone I agree it's not a great article, but in it's defense it does reference [an (old) scientific article on the potential health problems associated with oxidized palm oil](http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1008089715153#page-1). &#xA;If the community decides to keep this question I'll see if I can find a better reference." CreationDate="2018-12-31T17:17:50.243" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="10589" PostId="7033" Score="1" Text="I think this is a difficult one to answer as it depends a lot on what type of fodder is used. Also, a lot of fodder is waste from another crop (e.g. straw) - what proportion of the water used to grow that would you allocate to the fodder, rather than the primary crop?" CreationDate="2019-01-03T15:43:30.073" UserId="4155" />
  <row Id="10595" PostId="7033" Score="0" Text="We definitely need more information:  What zone are you in?  Where do you live on this planet?  What kind of soil do you have?  Do you own a well or are you on city water?  Have you ever grown plants of any kind?" CreationDate="2019-01-07T02:24:30.617" UserId="3540" />
  <row Id="10597" PostId="7033" Score="0" Text="Let's say the Midwest. So I'm asking for the majority, a rough number. If straw is the primary composition, then some small percentage of that water. It does not have to be exact, as it's somewhat subjective choosing how much percent. ...Just some reasonable calculation..." CreationDate="2019-01-08T18:27:02.903" UserId="6264" />
  <row Id="11846" PostId="7035" Score="0" Text="We have so many that they even filled up bottoms of wine bottles that we placed next to the bin, planning to take them to the glass bin. We kept them there as traps." CreationDate="2019-11-19T14:26:55.103" UserId="8149" />
  <row Id="10590" PostId="7036" Score="1" Text="Excellent question, and surely one that has been studied. Someone at ASHRAE should know" CreationDate="2019-01-04T21:27:26.913" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="10591" PostId="7036" Score="2" Text="This may not be an issue regarding your ducts, but I'm assuming the black grime would be carbon deposits resulting from improper burning of methane (natural gas). Chimneys from fireplaces that burned coal or wood (which had a higher rate of carbon deposition than fires from gas) would need to be swept clean to reduce the accumulation of carbon to minimize the potential for uncontrolled chimney fires resulting from the accumulated carbon (char) catching fire." CreationDate="2019-01-06T02:21:22.263" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="10596" PostId="7038" Score="0" Text="Hello and welcome! I think this question is a good fit for this site, however there's a chance you might get some better answers over on [Chemistry.SE](https://chemistry.stackexchange.com/)." CreationDate="2019-01-08T17:27:11.213" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10598" PostId="7038" Score="0" Text="Related (but different) questions: [Sustainability of steel versus plastic bottles](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/938/99) and [Leak proof water bottles?](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/3030/99)" CreationDate="2019-01-09T07:36:55.213" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="10699" PostId="7038" Score="0" Text="The amount of plastic microparticles/molecules you ingest from a reusable plastic bottle will be in the same order of magnitude as from a single use bottle." CreationDate="2019-02-13T09:52:10.967" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="10599" PostId="7040" Score="0" Text="Nice answer. I wonder if cleaning food containers (getting out all the food residue, for instance) is thus more important than getting the labels off?" CreationDate="2019-01-09T17:39:00.700" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10600" PostId="7040" Score="0" Text="@LShaver My guess is removing the labels is more important: food residu will just be dust after drying, and can be blown off, *and* some remains in the glass won't matter when heated to 1300-1600 C. Make that a new question - I can't answer it ;-)" CreationDate="2019-01-10T10:56:44.683" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="10601" PostId="7040" Score="0" Text="Looks like that's been addressed here: [How 'clean' should something be for recycling?](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/3025/3379)" CreationDate="2019-01-10T14:51:30.863" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10623" PostId="7043" Score="0" Text="Just to add some numbers, I went back to my power bills to see how big the change was. It looks like the fridge replacement from a medium-sized 80's model to a modern (2018) 27 cu. ft. model saved just over 3.5 kWh/day. I did a few other things around that time too, but they would have been pretty minor (changing lightbulbs out, etc.) It's pretty significant. And my water consumption went up during that measure (probable more laundry) so it could be even more. Anyway, just to give a bit of the sense of scale of the change. Again, it depends on how old it is." CreationDate="2019-01-11T23:31:30.557" UserId="6287" />
  <row Id="10605" PostId="7048" Score="1" Text="*In terms of GHGs, the gases release are minor compared to what they absorbed in their lifetime* -- how could this be? Eventually all of the carbon a plant absorbs will be released back to the atmosphere if it's left to decompose aerobically. Only burying it would keep the carbon out of the atmosphere." CreationDate="2019-01-10T21:52:56.857" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10607" PostId="7048" Score="0" Text="&quot;Eventually all of the carbon a plant absorbs will be released back to the atmosphere&quot;. Well, that's just it - it doesn't, it sits on the land and goes into the soil (to be used by other plants, grows fruit, gets eaten, goes back into the ground...). It's how forests are carbon sinks." CreationDate="2019-01-10T23:42:04.890" UserId="6287" />
  <row Id="10613" PostId="7048" Score="1" Text="Not to pile on, but as an experiment, if you take grass clippings you can compost it into soil. Grass is basically cellulose and water. Cellulose is just a carbohydrate (carbon + hydrogen), and water is, well, H2O so nothing bad or to add there. If it all went to gas, it wouldn't make soil. Sorry, but there seems to be a repeated idea on this site that decomposition is similar to burning, and it's not; I'm not really sure where that idea comes from. It's odd. Which isn't to say no gas is released during decomposition (e.g. CO, CO2, CH4), but it's a small fraction of the whole." CreationDate="2019-01-11T01:52:00.173" UserId="6287" />
  <row Id="10615" PostId="7048" Score="0" Text="The difference is in the rate. The carbon in the soil from decomposed matter is eventually used by other organisms which then also decompose. Each molecule of carbon will eventually be cycled through the atmosphere. Organisms only hold onto it for as long as it takes them to live to maturity, die, and fully decompose. Take a look at [this article](https://www.nature.com/articles/nature07276). What effectively makes old growth forests into carbon sinks is that trees hold carbon for a long time, and then take a long time to decompose. The difference with burning is that it's *fast.*" CreationDate="2019-01-11T04:22:26.510" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10616" PostId="7048" Score="0" Text="I think we are essentially in agreement -- burning does in moments what natural processes of decomposition take decades or centuries to do. Thus on human timescales forests act as carbon sinks." CreationDate="2019-01-11T04:30:31.443" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10619" PostId="7048" Score="0" Text="Thanks @FreeText!  I am sustainably minded, so my question is in the context of already doing A LOT of composting.  I wonder often about the chemistry on our 'farm' and if I take some product and sell it in the market, will I necessarily have to buy other molecules to replace the ones I sold.  I know that the carbon comes mostly from the air, but I know too that it goes back to the air.  The conversation with @LShaver is very notable, as it touches on the base of my confusion - I want to understand every part of these processes and not for political reasons ;p" CreationDate="2019-01-11T13:36:17.903" UserId="1662" />
  <row Id="10621" PostId="7048" Score="0" Text="Well, if you want to get technical about what's in your compost, you can find out what's good for particular crops and add additional stuff. E.g. egg shells for calcium, coffee grounds have nitrogen. To get the richness of what you're composting available for the plants, you need the bacteria to break down the more complex hydrocarbon chains, and as thoroughly as possible. It will continue when distributed, but far less efficiently. This tends to be the priority for composting. Soil is primarily organic matter, i.e. hydrocarbons, so you're not losing much (miniscule amounts, really)." CreationDate="2019-01-11T23:24:18.753" UserId="6287" />
  <row Id="10622" PostId="7048" Score="0" Text="I think what you're more likely to lose are minerals, which are more rare and are taken up by what you grow. Generally adding back any vegetative waste, especially from the kitchen is good. After that, find out what the crops like, and then where to get it, e.g. from various waste products.  Good luck!" CreationDate="2019-01-11T23:25:44.103" UserId="6287" />
  <row Id="10643" PostId="7048" Score="0" Text="@LShaver, your article link cites a paper that doesn't actually support the point. Even the paper mentions it as a possibility (but really as if something changes then something may change), but is not proven by, or the point of, the paper. You might be right but neither actually proves it or tries to prove it. If anything, the cited paper proves that &quot;ancient carbon&quot; is stable. What they did find is old carbon was *mineralised*, not *gasified*. But let me know if you have any other links or references. Maybe we should ask this as a new question?" CreationDate="2019-01-16T18:20:05.023" UserId="6287" />
  <row Id="10644" PostId="7048" Score="0" Text="Take a look at this quote from the paper: &quot;Although tree mortality is a relatively rapid event (instantaneous to several years long), decomposition of tree stems can take decades. Therefore, the CO2 release from the decomposition of dead wood adds to the atmospheric carbon pool over decades, whereas natural&#xA;regeneration or in-growth occurs on a much shorter timescale.&quot;" CreationDate="2019-01-16T18:33:21.273" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10652" PostId="7048" Score="0" Text="Yes, I'll go with that. Yes, there is gas released through composition. But the net *gas* released does not equal the gas captured over lifetime. After decomposition, most of the carbon remains in hydrocarbon chains as solids. It becomes the soil. Again, grass to soil. The soil is the (decomposed) grass, i.e. holds the (now shorter) hydrocarbon chains. What makes forests carbon sinks, to respond to your initial comment, is not just that the tree is around for a long time, and not just that decomposition takes a long time, but also after decomposition the carbon remains in the soil." CreationDate="2019-01-17T19:42:38.600" UserId="6287" />
  <row Id="10653" PostId="7048" Score="0" Text="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soil_horizon  When they say &quot;organic compounds&quot;, think hydrocarbon chains. It's primarily carbon (hence &quot;carbon-based life form&quot;). It's carbohydrates, lipids, proteins and nucleic acids; all of which are hydrocarbon chains, plus some other atoms like oxygen, etc. This is where the carbon goes. To circle back to the original question, you don't have to worry about offgasing since there's a plethora of carbon, and a lot of it came from the atmosphere. New growth will do the same. It's the other stuff, minerals, etc., that's more rare (and add more robust flavour)." CreationDate="2019-01-17T19:58:42.933" UserId="6287" />
  <row Id="10603" PostId="7050" Score="0" Text="It is an interestingly dynamic problem. The move to renewables favors electricity vs fossil fuel heating; increasing the carbon efficiency of air conditioning in Texas while not affecting the carbon cost of heating Ohio. On the other hand, future global warming, assuming it continues for another 1-2 C at a minimum, will strongly favor Ohio, since cooling demand will increase faster in Texas and heating demand will decrease faster in Ohio." CreationDate="2019-01-10T21:36:31.303" UserId="3955" />
  <row Id="10604" PostId="7050" Score="0" Text="I suspect that the reduction of colder temperatures in the winter for Ohio will matter more than hotter days in Texas (which supports your thought nonetheless). Winters warming faster than summers: https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/12/20/18136006/climate-change-warmer-winters        But overall Texas will be able to add much, much more in terms of renewables (they have sun and wind). This article has various maps of sun and wind in the US that can be tapped. https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2019/1/7/18167351/texas-energy-solar-wind-renewables-ercot" CreationDate="2019-01-10T21:45:14.673" UserId="6287" />
  <row Id="10618" PostId="7050" Score="0" Text="The OP is asking for data sources; this does not answer that." CreationDate="2019-01-11T09:23:42.290" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="10617" PostId="7054" Score="0" Text="Please edit your question and define *good*." CreationDate="2019-01-11T09:21:22.640" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="10620" PostId="7054" Score="1" Text="What does &quot;Referring to hydro energy&quot; mean?  Where is the excess energy you're talking about coming from?" CreationDate="2019-01-11T14:05:23.130" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="10669" PostId="7054" Score="0" Text="Is this for home usage? Or are you working for a power company?" CreationDate="2019-01-22T08:13:35.970" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="10668" PostId="7055" Score="1" Text="You say that hydrogen &quot;*is too tricky to handle for the general public.*&quot; and I fully agree, but I'm not sure if home usage is what the OP has in mind. My take of the question is if hydrogen is usable by big power companies that utilize hydro-dams. I'm hoping the OP can clarify his intent." CreationDate="2019-01-22T08:12:28.140" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="10670" PostId="7055" Score="1" Text="My bad, I misread the question. An industrial site could handle the hydrogen . But  &quot;pumped storage&quot; would be more practical / cheaper/ more efficient  than hydrogen." CreationDate="2019-01-23T01:35:14.063" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="10624" PostId="7056" Score="0" Text="An excellent question. I know that the answer is hydronic (boiler), and so do the top several results on Google -- but so far I can't find any hard numbers to back this up. I'll keep looking..." CreationDate="2019-01-13T16:29:13.273" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10625" PostId="7056" Score="0" Text="@LShaver Interesting, for the person who brought my attention to forced air in the first place claimed it was more efficient than with water, but that was just a random person in a non-technical chatroom." CreationDate="2019-01-13T18:36:01.577" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="10642" PostId="7057" Score="0" Text="Depending on how the ammonia is made it can cause stress corrosion cracking of some steels." CreationDate="2019-01-16T16:29:04.797" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="10626" PostId="7059" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Thank you for your answer. Can you give an example of a menstrual cup that is worse compared to pads or tampons? Also please indicate your affiliation with the organization behind the link you supplied. Are you just a happy user, or do you own that site?" CreationDate="2019-01-14T09:00:31.743" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="10658" PostId="7059" Score="0" Text="I don't have a concrete example but I've read on one or more (don't remember exactly how many) of the menstrual cup makes that as a consumer you should watch out for counterfeit products. Basically their products and/or brands have been counterfeited by companies with not so great reputation or are only in the business just to make money. I don't know of any real case but I do believe the original brands when they are warning their customers about it because I've seen and heard about it in other industries and most people already know this anyways so." CreationDate="2019-01-20T18:46:03.270" UserId="6296" />
  <row Id="10659" PostId="7059" Score="2" Text="And yes, I am affiliated with minmenskopp.se trying to help women make the right menstrual cup choice." CreationDate="2019-01-20T18:48:51.777" UserId="6296" />
  <row Id="10634" PostId="7061" Score="0" Text="What I understood about the *purge* process for snails is that in the end you feed them nothing." CreationDate="2019-01-15T10:08:21.197" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="10654" PostId="7061" Score="0" Text="Welcome to the site tr3ndyBEAR. Well, you seem to have seven (7) questions here, we like to answer one at a time. Please take the tour: https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/tour and read the topics in the help centre: https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/help/how-to-ask Then by all means use the edit button to fit your question to the site model and we'll be glad to help if we can." CreationDate="2019-01-17T20:50:18.060" UserId="1057" />
  <row Id="10635" PostId="7063" Score="4" Text="What do you mean by &quot;minimum optimal&quot;? This sounds like two different operating points to me." CreationDate="2019-01-15T20:34:36.963" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10636" PostId="7063" Score="0" Text="What I'm referring to with solar is that there is an optimal energy conversion output of around 20% light to electricity created. I dont know how much lower you can go on the conversion output before its considered inefficient. So lets just assume that 15% is the minimal energy conversion output we would be willing to tolerate and go from there." CreationDate="2019-01-15T21:49:39.407" UserId="6303" />
  <row Id="10637" PostId="7063" Score="0" Text="So what you're looking for is the minimum light intensity to achieve the highest efficiency from a panel? Assuming that the intensity vs efficiency curve may be parabolic? Any particular panel type/chemistry you're interested in?" CreationDate="2019-01-15T21:52:39.567" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10638" PostId="7063" Score="0" Text="Yes! I'm not really looking for any specific type of panel. I'm going to use this info to test out a theory." CreationDate="2019-01-15T22:05:55.757" UserId="6303" />
  <row Id="10639" PostId="7063" Score="3" Text="Please [edit[ your question to describe that you want to achieve the panel's optimal efficiency, how you're going to test the theory, and what the theory is. That way, people will be able to give you a better answer." CreationDate="2019-01-16T05:45:12.417" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="10645" PostId="7063" Score="0" Text="The question is simple. How many lumens do I need across a solar panel to reach a minimum optimal energy conversion of 15%? This is all I need to know." CreationDate="2019-01-16T20:58:42.457" UserId="6303" />
  <row Id="10651" PostId="7063" Score="2" Text="The question is simple, but we still need to understand it first. ;) That &quot;minimum optimal&quot; notion, AFAIK, is not really used with solar panels, so it can confuse people. If you mean that a) &quot;Does efficiency depend on the amount of light?&quot; (for one, I'm [not sure](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cell_efficiency), but interested!), and b) &quot;If yes, how much light is needed to reach some arbitrary level, like 15%?&quot;, then please rephrase the (description of the) question, so that people won't need to munch through the comments to figure out what was really meant." CreationDate="2019-01-17T19:38:32.347" UserId="6314" />
  <row Id="10650" PostId="7071" Score="0" Text="I like the detailed numerical analysis in your link, but some of the figures might need refining. The estimate that half the air escapes from a fridge with each opening sounds way too high - the fridge is not midway between room and refrigeration temperature after being opened once. And what refrigerator can go from room to refrigeration temperature in 30 seconds??" CreationDate="2019-01-17T17:13:21.690" UserId="5953" />
  <row Id="10656" PostId="7071" Score="0" Text="Thank you for the feedback. I edited my post on the link to clarify things based on your comments." CreationDate="2019-01-18T22:50:33.307" UserId="6313" />
  <row Id="10657" PostId="7072" Score="1" Text="Depending on whether you live in a city or more rural area: Good old goose feathers and selfmade ink, e.g. from acorns. Or a rather old-fashioned pen, which you have to dip into the selfmade ink." CreationDate="2019-01-19T08:29:27.997" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="10660" PostId="7073" Score="1" Text="Thanks for you answer. Your conclusion puzzled me a bit. Usually a conclusion follows from the text above, but here you introduce overheating. Could you elaborate?" CreationDate="2019-01-21T06:26:45.513" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="10661" PostId="7073" Score="0" Text="@THelper Please seeSecond graph relating to temperature and efficiency and the following paragraph relating to the test method of manufacturers being at 25 celsius and not in field test conditions where the temp in full sunlight gets much higher and thus the efficiency drops (as per graph)." CreationDate="2019-01-21T16:13:10.423" UserId="1057" />
  <row Id="10662" PostId="7073" Score="0" Text="Perhaps I should have used a different phrase. Not overheating, but, heating beyond STC. What do you think?" CreationDate="2019-01-21T16:16:38.880" UserId="1057" />
  <row Id="10663" PostId="7073" Score="0" Text="Peak sun is taken as standard to be 1000W/m2, so 900 is not a third of max illumination. And the OP is asking about low levels of illumination, which your answer doesn't cover. What's the efficiency around 50 or 100W/m2?" CreationDate="2019-01-21T20:31:40.420" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="10665" PostId="7073" Score="0" Text="@EnergyNumbers Oops my error, should have fact checked my memory, will edit. The OP wasn't specific (quantativley) about light levels, only about 15% efficiency, I supplied the info available about diminishing light levels, if there's other valid sources of info relating to lower levels - let me know and I'll edit my answer accordingly - but not much of quality seems to be in the public domain which is usable here." CreationDate="2019-01-21T21:05:35.793" UserId="1057" />
  <row Id="10667" PostId="7073" Score="0" Text="@EnergyNumbers I have indeed found a (just one so far) relevant study and I'll have a good go at modifying my answer accordingly. (I'll need some time, it's dense and will take some time to unpack to myself before making an answer of it)" CreationDate="2019-01-21T21:49:00.240" UserId="1057" />
  <row Id="10763" PostId="7076" Score="0" Text="What do you mean &quot;do not have time&quot;?  After an initial startup delay, composting doesn't take any time.  You have an ongoing stream of finished compost ready for use." CreationDate="2019-03-06T13:40:20.850" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="10840" PostId="7076" Score="0" Text="@jean-paul-calderone. Yesterday I emptied my composter in the back yard after several years of collecting stuff. I got about 50% of roots and 50% of great soil. A lot of work! It will be great to understand how to stop the roots to take over the bin. But I am over the food composter now-my question above (not a god product it seems)." CreationDate="2019-03-25T19:20:45.823" UserId="6343" />
  <row Id="10859" PostId="7076" Score="0" Text="If you want to do slow composting (pile it up and ignore it) then start a new pile every year.  After you have two or three piles going, then every year you'll also have a pile that you can use the material from.  If you want to do fast composting, do the same thing but on a 6 or 8 week cycle instead of a 1 year cycle.  Slow composting isn't really any work, it's just time.  Fast composting *is* a lot of work - you have to get the mix of C and N right, get the moisture level right, and turn the pile at least a handful of times at the right time." CreationDate="2019-04-02T13:58:06.667" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="10678" PostId="7077" Score="0" Text="Take a look at [this answer](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/a/6754/3379), which includes info about [PVWatts](https://pvwatts.nrel.gov), an easy-to-use tool for location-specific modeling of solar arrays." CreationDate="2019-02-02T21:29:08.417" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10682" PostId="7078" Score="0" Text="I just input my own numbers in PVWatts and it gives quite a good estimate. I found a REST interface as well, so I'll have some coding to do!" CreationDate="2019-02-04T13:42:02.460" UserId="6354" />
  <row Id="10683" PostId="7078" Score="0" Text="@BartFriederichs Yes they do have an API: https://developer.nrel.gov/docs/solar/pvwatts/v6/" CreationDate="2019-02-04T13:46:49.983" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="10685" PostId="7078" Score="0" Text="May want to check tht 10% capacity factor.  That's even worse than Germany, which is about 800 Wh/W/year" CreationDate="2019-02-06T17:15:58.793" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="10686" PostId="7078" Score="0" Text="@SherwoodBotsford there are 8760 hours in a non-leap year, so 10% capacity factor = 876 Wh/W/y" CreationDate="2019-02-06T17:21:45.503" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="10689" PostId="7078" Score="0" Text="Oops. You're right." CreationDate="2019-02-07T21:57:46.593" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="10680" PostId="7079" Score="0" Text="Thank you @Malu, let's hope somebody else knows some more about the Food Cycler. Cheers!" CreationDate="2019-02-04T05:08:44.100" UserId="6343" />
  <row Id="10684" PostId="7079" Score="0" Text="Hi @Dani, I am very eager to get this food cycler too. Reading in detail, apparently, in only 3h most of the process is done. Would be nice to check with the manufacturer the efficiency of the product. I couldn't find this information anywhere. :/" CreationDate="2019-02-04T15:25:08.887" UserId="6320" />
  <row Id="10839" PostId="7079" Score="0" Text="Hi @Malu, reading the reviews in Amazon discouraged me quite a bit. It seems that this just dehydrates the material and that is not a very robust machine. I think it comes from South Korea and therefore the repair, maintenance, and customer service is non-existent." CreationDate="2019-03-25T19:18:24.683" UserId="6343" />
  <row Id="10858" PostId="7079" Score="0" Text="Hi @Dani, I don't think it only dehydrates the material but the other problems seem quite a bummer. Nonetheless, look what I recently found: https://wlabsinnovations.com/pages/zera  -- I am editing my answer to incorporate this new gadget." CreationDate="2019-04-01T21:31:20.843" UserId="6320" />
  <row Id="11738" PostId="7084" Score="0" Text="For both fountain pen cartridge system I've met so far also refillable (piston) cartidges are available (no idea about the English term - in German it's Tintenkonverter) - besides the obvious option of refilling the cartridge by syringe. Regular pencil &quot;since you don't click or twist after breaking the lead&quot; How about sharpening - a sharpener isn't that big (or if that's not at hand, a knife)." CreationDate="2019-11-14T18:48:14.733" UserId="3722" />
  <row Id="10688" PostId="7086" Score="1" Text="Possible duplicate of [Reusable vs. disposable diapers: which is better?](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/907/reusable-vs-disposable-diapers-which-is-better)" CreationDate="2019-02-07T08:30:13.283" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="10691" PostId="7088" Score="0" Text="Thank you for your answer, but I feel it fits much better as an answer to [the question that is asking about which has more impact](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/907/reusable-vs-disposable-diapers-which-is-better). This question merely asks whether or not LCAs exists and your answer does not address that." CreationDate="2019-02-08T08:53:00.620" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="10703" PostId="7088" Score="0" Text="There is also the environmental impact of zinc in the wastewater.&#xA;It may impact the treatment facility's influent loadings and bio-solids disposal." CreationDate="2019-02-13T19:25:18.573" UserId="4110" />
  <row Id="10696" PostId="7092" Score="1" Text="This post doesn't seem to answer the question. Why one would one prefer a tiny house over an RV (or vice versa)." CreationDate="2019-02-11T08:04:38.807" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="10697" PostId="7092" Score="0" Text="A tiny-house can be built heavier than an RV because it only has to appear to be a parked RV. However, there are some situations of tiny-houses built on a permanent foundations." CreationDate="2019-02-11T20:55:04.960" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="10698" PostId="7096" Score="0" Text="Thanks for your answer. You say &quot;*in the plans I've read in the last few months, that seems to be the general idea for air travel.*&quot;. Can you link to one or two on-line sources on this?" CreationDate="2019-02-13T07:30:23.197" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="10713" PostId="7096" Score="0" Text="An issue with using any sort of combustible fuel in jets is that the high-altitude emissions are more effective GHGs than the CO2 itself. So even if the fuel is &quot;carbon neutral,&quot; the net effect of burning *anything* at a sufficient altitude contributes to global warming." CreationDate="2019-02-19T16:32:48.013" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10700" PostId="7098" Score="0" Text="Did you do any research? Googling (as one example) [diy plastic pellets](https://www.google.com/search?q=diy+plastic+pellets) seems to give enough information." CreationDate="2019-02-13T09:54:19.333" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="10739" PostId="7098" Score="0" Text="You need to show that you have attempted to find an answer.  Rewrite your question addressing why you want to make pellets, what the characteristics of melted HDPE are, what size pellets you need to make, and what the pellets will be used for.  A solution to make pellets the size of hockey pucks is unlikely to be effective for making ones the size of bird shot." CreationDate="2019-02-25T20:05:32.920" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="11280" PostId="7102" Score="0" Text="Slowness is what we do need!" CreationDate="2019-08-06T13:46:41.583" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="10708" PostId="7104" Score="1" Text="This was super well put together, thanks! I’m bummed there isn’t better information available but I think you hit the nail on the head about what the best steps are at this time in lieu of legitimate alternatives, thanks." CreationDate="2019-02-16T22:34:51.407" UserId="2122" />
  <row Id="10706" PostId="7106" Score="0" Text="The list or resources is useful, but would be better if you could include a finding or data point from some of the more notable ones." CreationDate="2019-02-15T22:15:17.000" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10709" PostId="7108" Score="3" Text="This question may be better suited for https://electronics.stackexchange.com/" CreationDate="2019-02-18T08:36:05.470" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="10710" PostId="7108" Score="0" Text="The sustainability angle is also not clear to me.  Another stack exchange seems like a better fit.  Or, reframe the question to make the sustainability context clear." CreationDate="2019-02-18T14:13:20.147" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="10711" PostId="7108" Score="0" Text="I noticed the OP has cross-posted the question [here](https://electronics.stackexchange.com/q/422952/117472) so I'm closing this one." CreationDate="2019-02-19T12:09:18.157" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="12148" PostId="7108" Score="0" Text="@Jean-PaulCalderone (and the other two commenters) a) I believe the correct answer is that decent solar panels are designed with a bypass diode and a blocking diode. b) There are a number of misconceptions in the OP's question that should be cleared up. c) Someone needs to tell him to isolate the power used for amenities. d) etc, etc, etc." CreationDate="2020-01-13T06:18:47.620" UserDisplayName="user8340" />
  <row Id="10716" PostId="7109" Score="0" Text="Perhaps it's me but after reading this 2 times, I still don't understand your reasoning." CreationDate="2019-02-20T16:03:05.903" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="10717" PostId="7109" Score="0" Text="What do you mean by &quot;marginal energy&quot;? In the U.S. coal plants are shutting down due to economic pressure from cheap natural gas specifically because it can't compete on the margins. In Europe renewable energy prices and policies are putting similar pressure on coal generation." CreationDate="2019-02-20T16:57:50.793" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10718" PostId="7109" Score="0" Text="I agree, in US marginal energy is natural gas. In Europe, it's coal currently." CreationDate="2019-02-20T17:40:33.923" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="11281" PostId="7110" Score="0" Text="... 2% of CO2! You speak like Airplane lobby guy! There are also other greenhouse gasses, especially high altitude released  water vapor, hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxides, ..." CreationDate="2019-08-06T13:49:55.243" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="10714" PostId="7111" Score="1" Text="Hello and welcome to Sustainability.SE! As it stands, this question is likely to be closed as too broad. Can you limit the post to one question? Also note that your Q3 looks like a shopping question so wouldn't be suitable here." CreationDate="2019-02-20T04:07:26.227" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10715" PostId="7111" Score="0" Text="I agree with LShaver. If you narrow down the scope of your question you are more likely to get a useful answer. You can always ask a second question later We don't allow 'shopping/product recommendation' questions here as the answers would be very subjective and most likely attract spam posts." CreationDate="2019-02-20T08:18:39.363" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="10723" PostId="7111" Score="0" Text="Thank you for your advice, I deleted the links to the shopping sites" CreationDate="2019-02-21T02:19:24.717" UserId="6394" />
  <row Id="10738" PostId="7113" Score="0" Text="While your answer is of interest philosophically, it doesn't really answer the question." CreationDate="2019-02-25T20:02:02.373" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="10722" PostId="7118" Score="0" Text="Thanks for the reply!, but I think you have some misunderstanding, the actual scenario are:&#xA;1.Using human power to pump water(No electricity generated) 2.convert the potential energy of the water into electricity. There are no power grid between 1. and 2.." CreationDate="2019-02-21T02:13:33.640" UserId="6394" />
  <row Id="10720" PostId="7119" Score="0" Text="After posting I found similar data for Europe from the [Entsoe transparency platform](https://transparency.entsoe.eu/generation/r2/actualGenerationPerProductionType/show). Adding detail would make this answer a bit long, but there's more variety across the pond, with natural gas, coal, and hydro each being marginal in some countries." CreationDate="2019-02-20T21:47:27.847" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10724" PostId="7120" Score="0" Text="Thanks for the tips! My next goal is actually making a small system which can charge USB power banks and tablets." CreationDate="2019-02-21T04:36:43.540" UserId="6394" />
  <row Id="10725" PostId="7120" Score="0" Text="My ultimate goal is to organize a week-long  &quot;marathon&quot; event which allows the &quot;runners&quot; compete with each other by the &quot;electricity mileage&quot; instead of physical distance. But now this is still far away from reality. I'll focus on building feasible system on small scale." CreationDate="2019-02-21T04:43:48.283" UserId="6394" />
  <row Id="10731" PostId="7126" Score="1" Text="Most monitors pull ~3W in standby mode. Education-specced PCs pull 30–100W (depending on faculty) when *idling.* Schools typically have a 4–5 year replacement schedule, so no prehistoric devices exist with dramatically different power consumption figures. So yes, computers that are idling pull **far more** power than a monitor on standby — 10–30x as much. I spent a decade and a half teaching IT and helped manage ~280 computers in a school with ~900 students. Those figures are what we *measured.*" CreationDate="2019-02-24T07:08:43.627" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="10732" PostId="7126" Score="0" Text="Standby? Where did it say standby in the question?" CreationDate="2019-02-24T07:40:34.553" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="10734" PostId="7126" Score="1" Text="The OP asked &quot;What is best for the greater good?  Train them to shut down and leave the monitors in hibernation or ...&quot;. By &quot;hibernation&quot; they actually meant &quot;standby&quot; (because monitors don't actually hibernate)." CreationDate="2019-02-24T07:55:47.953" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="10729" PostId="7127" Score="0" Text="Good to see an answer that is not in the &quot;baffle them with bull &quot; category." CreationDate="2019-02-23T22:08:02.293" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="10736" PostId="7130" Score="0" Text="Suggest you edit your question to ask for alternate arguments favouring re/continued use." CreationDate="2019-02-25T19:57:54.333" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="10737" PostId="7130" Score="1" Text="Your third point can be generalized to changing our zoning system so that business can be mingled with residential so more people can walk to work." CreationDate="2019-02-25T19:59:22.877" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="10744" PostId="7130" Score="2" Text="Regarding point 4 - electric vehicles don't _necessarily_ generate more particulates from their brakes, as the regenerative braking systems can provide considerable retardation by themselves - it will depend on the model but cars such as the BMW i3 or Nissan leaf can supposedly be driven around with very little use of the brakes. I agree with the main thrust of your argument though." CreationDate="2019-02-26T14:30:27.633" UserId="3960" />
  <row Id="10743" PostId="7132" Score="0" Text="1. The figures I've seen are nearer 50% (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/green-living-blog/2010/sep/23/carbon-footprint-new-car). 2. Good point. 3. The schemes they have had here require the scrapping of the old car (hence the name), thus reducing the supply of used cars and therefore increasing the cost. 4. I understood both to be PM2.5? We don't have studded tyres here in the UK anyway, and the tyre pollution is reckoned to be nearly 50% of the emissions from an average car, trending up towards 80% for EVs" CreationDate="2019-02-26T09:53:33.930" UserId="4155" />
  <row Id="10746" PostId="7132" Score="0" Text="Re your edit on point 4 - I'll refer you to the Defra study I linked in this answer: https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/a/6877/4155 - which found the non-exhaust emissions to be 38% of the total vehicle emissions in 2009, with a prediction of 59% for 2015 and 81% for 2020." CreationDate="2019-02-27T10:59:07.890" UserId="4155" />
  <row Id="10748" PostId="7133" Score="0" Text="This doesn't make sense. Based on your suggestion, everybody should drive a 50cc two-stroke moped with no catalytic converter, and an energy-efficient low-emission 2.5 litre naturally aspirated Atkinson cycle hybrid-electric engine like I have will be forbidden." CreationDate="2019-02-27T22:47:47.493" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="10749" PostId="7133" Score="0" Text="I didn't say to give up vehicle emission standards I just said to additionally limit engine size. In fact the MPG requirements that are in addition to emission requirements, the MPG standards tend to encourage smaller engines. And the suggested engine size limit was for high air pollution areas of major cities. To really reach for a result, lightweight vehicles with small engines are only available in high performance cars, they are not available in sedans. The idea would be something like a Camry, which is a midsize four-door car, at 2500 pounds weight and an engine size of  1.8 ," CreationDate="2019-02-28T01:49:21.247" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="10750" PostId="7133" Score="0" Text="Well, engine size, when not electric motor or when not hybrid, could be limited in size but then midsize cars would have lower performance. Midsize cars would have lower performance if not built with lightweight construction methods. Examples of lightweight vehicle construction methods are Alfa Romeo 4C, BMW i3, BMW i8, Chevrolet Corvette, Lotus Elise, and Lotus Evora. Now these types of vehicle construction methods have not yet been applied to midsize sedans. But a city limiting the engine size that could operate in high pollution areas that favors small cars or mid-size cars w/ 2.4 ." CreationDate="2019-02-28T02:28:24.937" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="10741" PostId="7134" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! There are 2 similar questions asked and answered [here](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/472/99) and [here](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/798/99). Do those answers help or do you feel your question is different?" CreationDate="2019-02-26T07:36:06.413" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="10742" PostId="7134" Score="1" Text="BTW do you intend to put everything in a compost heap and make compost first or do you want to use it as mulch (add directly to your soil)?" CreationDate="2019-02-26T07:44:16.803" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="13152" PostId="7136" Score="0" Text="Just found another example: [Project Sciurus](https://www.kaluza.com/case-studies/project-sciurus/) in the UK." CreationDate="2020-12-08T22:55:25.663" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10751" PostId="7137" Score="2" Text="My question is not about the pros and cons of V2G (though I tend to agree with you). I'd like to know of examples of where it's being done in practice." CreationDate="2019-02-28T14:29:13.067" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10817" PostId="7137" Score="0" Text="Thank you for revising your answer. Is there a particular reason why you want your old answer to still be included? People who are interested in how this answer evolved can look at its [edit history](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/posts/7137/revisions) (that's the link when you click on the &quot;edited &lt;date&gt;&quot; link below a post)" CreationDate="2019-03-20T15:18:17.207" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="13597" PostId="7141" Score="0" Text="The specific question is &quot;compared to bitcoin&quot;, so &quot;very high&quot; presumably puts cash as using more energy than, say, the USA. Right now BitCoin mining alone (no other BitCoin-related consumption) puts it ~20 in the world if it was a country. As always on SE, actual numbers would greatly improve your answer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_electricity_consumption" CreationDate="2021-05-17T06:34:57.493" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="13593" PostId="7142" Score="1" Text="Bitcoin is even more reliant on state-provided security than cash, though, since it is dependent not just on the physical security of the miners and exchances, but also on the security of the internet and other communications infrastructure that make it usuable, and the whole chain of production that leads to unbiquitous computing. We can use cash during a local power cut, for example, but we can't use bitcoin." CreationDate="2021-05-15T22:51:00.303" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="13594" PostId="7142" Score="0" Text="The big difference is that the internet as a whole relies on infrastructure that is provided by multiple states/companies. A significant part of the world's economy runs on the internet and the marginal cost of securing bitcoin in it is arguably negligible. Also, bitcoin doesn't break as a system if the internet goes down; it can still operate over satellite networks (in the same way as other internet services)." CreationDate="2021-05-16T13:34:08.943" UserId="2605" />
  <row Id="13595" PostId="7142" Score="0" Text="Multiple states provide cash, though. And the idea of satellite internet without internet is fun. Think about what would happen if China shut off all internet through its borders, for example. Somewhere between 10% and 50% of miners would drop out (depending on whose stats you believe), and likely a smaller but non-zero proportion of buyers." CreationDate="2021-05-17T06:27:35.850" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="13599" PostId="7142" Score="0" Text="Sure, if the USD collapses, you can just use EUR in the US, in the same way as other countries like Argentina use USD. What I wanted to point out here is that the stability of fiat relies heavily on a single state.&#xA;&gt; And the idea of satellite internet without internet is fun&#xA;This is not what I meant. The important point is that Bitcoin as a protocol can operate over different link layers. China shutting down internet in its border is a known risk, so most Bitcoin miners are already equipped with satellite gateways (like https://blockstream.com/satellite/)." CreationDate="2021-05-17T08:29:34.617" UserId="2605" />
  <row Id="13600" PostId="7142" Score="0" Text="Anyway, my intention with this answer was to show that fiat money, in the way it works in countries like the US, has also huge impacts. Bitcoin and other PoW networks are probably worse in terms of carbon footprint, and their decentralised nature make them virtually unstoppable, which is also concerning. There are also some features that fiat money has and cryptocurrencies haven't (eg. high throughput), and vice versa (eg. smart contracts). So I'm not sure at what point it makes sense to compare them. Furthermore, it's extremely difficult to provide a quantitative analysis of both." CreationDate="2021-05-17T08:41:31.110" UserId="2605" />
  <row Id="10752" PostId="7143" Score="4" Text="Hi Bionson.  You can always edit your question and make it &quot;less vague&quot;.  The StackExchange format is one that encourages specific questions that can attract specific answers.  It's not designed to be a place where folks conduct broad-ranging conversations on general topics." CreationDate="2019-03-01T02:35:21.447" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="10753" PostId="7143" Score="0" Text="&quot;We&quot; will not use up reasonable fossil fuel sources by 2050. One of many factors - The US is about the only area where fracking is used at this time; It has yet to be used in all other oil producing areas. The US has just recently reached the highest ever level of oil production  primarily because of fracking." CreationDate="2019-03-01T16:21:41.213" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="10795" PostId="7144" Score="0" Text="I believe that China is actually the biggest polluter, at least in terms of CO2 emissions, but yes, I agree that on the current trajectory the future looks pretty horrific." CreationDate="2019-03-14T11:45:17.740" UserId="3960" />
  <row Id="10796" PostId="7144" Score="1" Text="@John M  When an American buy a product manufactured in China, who is responsible for the pollution involved in its manufacture?  The Chinese that make it, or the American that ordered and paid for it?  The mere fact that Americans have off-shored the pollution (and exported the waste) doesn't absolve them of responsibility for it.  US consumerism is still the largest cause of pollution on the planet.  More generally, **consumerism is what generates pollution**.  China's growing middle class should, however, consume more than America's in less than five years — so then it will be official." CreationDate="2019-03-14T15:36:42.667" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="10797" PostId="7144" Score="0" Text="... There are just too many damned people pursuing unsustainable western lifestyles.  Doesn't really matter what country they live in.  It's the lifestyle that is the problem.  :(" CreationDate="2019-03-14T15:39:10.507" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="10754" PostId="7145" Score="0" Text="CO2 is a local pollutant as well as a global one - https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0143624418790129" CreationDate="2019-03-02T04:17:48.877" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="10755" PostId="7145" Score="0" Text="Unfortunately while many countries have banned CFCs many others have not effectively halted their production and sale and are rapidly industrializing, resulting in a [recent increase in CFC emissions](https://www.noaa.gov/news/emissions-of-ozone-destroying-chemical-are-rising-again). Local air pollution from cars continues to be a problem -- look at Beijing, Delhi, Bangkok, etc. If cars reduce pollution by half, but then vehicle miles quadruple, the problem is still worse." CreationDate="2019-03-02T04:25:39.387" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10811" PostId="7145" Score="0" Text="&quot;It's your choice&quot; - er, no. Those who will be worst affected by climate change are the poorest people in vulnerable parts of the developing world who have zero choice over the things you're talking about" CreationDate="2019-03-18T12:12:25.303" UserId="3960" />
  <row Id="10757" PostId="7149" Score="1" Text="[This case study](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214509514000059) is site specific but at least adds a data point -- their analysis showed that a polished lime floor had about 45% less embodied CO2 than a polished concrete floor." CreationDate="2019-03-05T15:44:55.280" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10759" PostId="7152" Score="0" Text="Only your first 3 sentences seem to address the question, but it's not backed-up with any data." CreationDate="2019-03-06T06:51:37.920" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="10760" PostId="7152" Score="0" Text="I think it is a sufficient self-evident logic that if fewer pounds of material were shipped or transported then there would be less carbon-dioxide generated by the shipping industry. In fact light-gauge-steel joists are available and even entire houses are framed with light-gauge folded steel. Personally, I would use 430 for folded-steel structural building material but as for bolting not for welding." CreationDate="2019-03-06T08:06:27.103" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="10761" PostId="7152" Score="0" Text="Lighter weight is not the only consideration - embodied carbon in the materials, plus how far they have to travel.  The general point is valid (think about design not just materials), but I'm specifically asking about foundations and floor slab." CreationDate="2019-03-06T08:32:30.180" UserId="1445" />
  <row Id="10762" PostId="7152" Score="0" Text="I have a light-weight crawl-space foundation design. In fact the crawl-space height could be just a couple of inches if wanted. I went on and mentioned light-gauge steel framing material but I'm not forgetting that lumber has its own carbon offset." CreationDate="2019-03-06T08:38:59.620" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="10771" PostId="7156" Score="1" Text="How old/what species are the trees, until you tell us things like that it's next to impossible for us to answer the question accurately." CreationDate="2019-03-10T10:00:08.857" UserId="3532" />
  <row Id="10772" PostId="7156" Score="0" Text="I understand this is a very general question. But it looks that Tim's answer cover a range of possibilities. I was particularly interested in rain forests in southern Patagonia (fitzroya, nothofagus, etc) which are dense, old and--I assume--store a high amount of carbon, but a general answer could be useful for more people." CreationDate="2019-03-11T10:24:41.013" UserId="2605" />
  <row Id="10791" PostId="7156" Score="0" Text="@vaz  South Patagonia's got a range of climates thanks mainly to the mountains.  Got a specific area in mind?  If we go with cool temperate moist, then the 18 forests covered in the study averaged 642 tC/ha (~2,350 tCO₂/ha) with a standard deviation covering 46% of that.  In the absence of specifics, you could thus consider a rough lower bound to be 1,270 tCO₂/ha and a rough upper bound to be 3,430 tCO₂/ha.  Or 1.3–3.4 x10³ tCO₂/ha." CreationDate="2019-03-12T11:31:12.073" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="10794" PostId="7156" Score="1" Text="@Tim yes, the question came to me after 10,000 ha got burnt in Aysén, which is on the west side of the Andes (on the east side there are barely any woods). &#xA;Thanks for your detailed answer!" CreationDate="2019-03-13T10:14:33.197" UserId="2605" />
  <row Id="10770" PostId="7157" Score="1" Text="Answer updated.  Here's the raw link:  https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/106/28/11635.full.pdf" CreationDate="2019-03-10T06:35:53.627" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="10773" PostId="7157" Score="0" Text="You are way overestimating the ability of boreal forests to emit CO2. 20% of 1835 tonnes per hectare is 367 tonnes per hectare, or equivalently, 367 square meters of wood per hectare. Where I live, practically no managed forest will ever reach that density." CreationDate="2019-03-11T11:13:22.407" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="10776" PostId="7157" Score="0" Text="@juhist  Luckily, I am not estimating anything.  Qualified university researchers studied 52 boreal forests and measured them.  The paper containing the data is named and linked.  If you think your anecdote and sample size of 1 is more accurate than their study, feel free to take it up with them.  Further, you are comparing 1,835 tons of CO₂ to tons of wood — which is a fail.  Use 20% of the ~500 tC/ha figure if you want a legitimate basis for comparison.  Also, remember what the term 'average' means." CreationDate="2019-03-11T13:10:12.297" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="10780" PostId="7157" Score="0" Text="I'm using the entire forests of Finland. Yes, the sample size is 1 if you consider one country one unit of sample, but the total area for the sample is an entire country with lots of forests! Besides, 1 cubic meter of wood (sorry, should have said m3 not m2) is 500 kg, only part of which is carbon atoms, other important atoms being hydrogen and oxygen. So, 1 m3 of wood is not 1 tonne of carbon, because it's only 500 kg, only part of which is carbon." CreationDate="2019-03-11T14:08:29.773" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="10793" PostId="7159" Score="0" Text="Sounds more like a costs issue than laziness." CreationDate="2019-03-13T08:02:22.377" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="10777" PostId="7160" Score="0" Text="Does the 2400 figure include just what's harvestable, or everything that would be burnt (bark, leaves, underbrush, etc)?" CreationDate="2019-03-11T13:30:07.470" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10779" PostId="7160" Score="0" Text="@LShaver That's actually a good question. I assume the volume of leaves is minimal compared to volume of solid useful wood. But, the answer is: I'm not certain." CreationDate="2019-03-11T14:03:21.413" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="10784" PostId="7160" Score="1" Text="The 2400 figure quoted is actually *growing stock:*  &quot;Volume of all living trees in a given area of forest or wooded land that have more than a certain diameter at breast height. It is usually measured in solid cubic metres (m³).  It includes the stem from ground level or stump height up to a given top diameter, and may also include branches above a certain diameter.&quot;  In short, it's only the **amount of commercially viable harvestable wood,** and is therefore far, far less that what burns in a bushfire." CreationDate="2019-03-11T15:27:24.170" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="10785" PostId="7160" Score="0" Text="The ANU data in the research paper includes above-ground living biomass, above-ground dead biomass, and also below-ground living biomass. That is: It includes anything that can and usually will burn — unless humans or weather interfere." CreationDate="2019-03-11T15:32:33.860" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="10786" PostId="7160" Score="0" Text="@Tim Thanks, that sounds valid! Yes, the forestry professionals usually consider only growing stock. Wood under the ground may not be included. I'll add a note to my answer." CreationDate="2019-03-11T15:37:24.923" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="10789" PostId="7160" Score="1" Text="FWIW [this article](https://edmontonjournal.com/news/local-news/carbon-release-in-wake-of-fort-mcmurray-wildfire-spikes-greenhouse-gasses) mentions &quot;*170 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents per hectare*&quot; which is in line with your calculated results. It is for &quot;*forest fires in the boreal plains*&quot; of Canada. I expect the climate and forest density there to be somewhat similar to that of Finland, but I doubt it's similar to the region the OP is interested in (rain forests in southern Patagonia)" CreationDate="2019-03-12T08:45:44.310" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="10790" PostId="7160" Score="0" Text="@THelper I'm not particularly interested in highly accurate estimations. I'm happy with a lower and an upper bound in the order of magnitud, which seems to be ~10^2 and ~10^3 [tCO₂/ha], respectively.&#xA;I'm accepting Tim's answer as it looks more general." CreationDate="2019-03-12T11:08:06.047" UserId="2605" />
  <row Id="10788" PostId="7163" Score="0" Text="Wouldn't it make more sense to recommend wood that is sourced from &quot;plantations or sustainably-managed forests that are **local**&quot; rather than &quot;boreal taiga forests&quot; so as to reduce the environmental and financial costs associated with transport? Most people don't live anywhere near a boreal forest." CreationDate="2019-03-12T04:25:37.813" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="10792" PostId="7163" Score="0" Text="@Tim Actually, I have to say that quite many people don't live anywhere near any kind of forest! So, transportation will have to take place very often, unfortunately. But I'll revise my answer to include cost and CO2 estimates of shipping." CreationDate="2019-03-12T12:26:27.793" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="10799" PostId="7166" Score="0" Text="&quot;Aluminum, in general, is not suggested because aluminum corrodes when out in the weather.&quot; — **Wait, what?**  Aluminium forms an oxide passivation layer — that reduces corrosion to negligible levels — in the same way that the chromium in stainless steel forms an oxide passivation layer.  That, combined with its relatively low cost, is why it's the *preferred* metal for construction in exposed and highly-corrosive (e.g. marine) environments.  Indeed, our house and shed gutters are _made entirely of aluminium_ because of the corrosion resistance that the metal inherently offers." CreationDate="2019-03-16T02:28:03.377" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="10800" PostId="7166" Score="0" Text="Aluminum corrodes as a white pitting or as while streaks in paint. It is not okay to use aluminum structurally when out in the weather. It is not okay to use aluminum in concrete footings. Aluminum does form a mild oxide layer but it is not as good as stainless-steel." CreationDate="2019-03-16T06:07:04.460" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="10801" PostId="7166" Score="0" Text="You are talking about painting now.  The same thing occurs with stainless steel if you deprive it of oxygen — it can't form an oxide layer without oxygen.  Aluminium isn't used in concrete footings because its yield strength is 2–8x lower than that of steel and it is significantly more expensive than mild steel — not because of anything to do with oxidation." CreationDate="2019-03-16T07:37:00.770" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="10804" PostId="7166" Score="0" Text="If your 'aluminium in concrete footings' comment is about aluminium conduit instead, you should be aware that in investigated cases corrosion was due to a galvanic reaction established by use of aluminium and steel together with significant concentrations of soluble chlorides. In essence, the folks that specced it failed to realise they were creating a sacrificial anode. No fault of the material, and easily avoided either with more competent design, better quality concrete (spec. use of rainwater instead of chlorinated mains water), or a protective coat on either the steel or aluminium." CreationDate="2019-03-16T08:02:42.773" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="10805" PostId="7166" Score="0" Text="The answer concerns stainless-steel as a material that has no damage from corrosion and therefor has unlimited longetivity for recycling or for re-use. Aluminum is damaged by corrosion. I have torn corroded aluminum siding like paper. Aluminum is a good material but it doesn't last forever. Anodizing is popular with aluminum and that can help. My aluminum storm windows, under the eaves, are pitted with white corrosion." CreationDate="2019-03-16T08:23:04.733" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="10806" PostId="7166" Score="0" Text="Well, search for &quot;corroded aluminum siding&quot;, for example, https://www.ehow.com/how_7190646_repair-aluminum-siding-corrosion-holes.html" CreationDate="2019-03-16T08:48:01.827" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="10808" PostId="7166" Score="0" Text="The point I'm trying to make is that there's nothing wrong with aluminium itself.  You can fabricate a clean aluminium post, drive it into the ground, come back a thousand years later and it will still be there.  Humans, who have no clue what they are doing, can design/weld/paint/nail aluminium and then it will fail.  That's not the metal's fault — it's the Humans' fault.  Your answer blamed the metal.  Aluminium doesn't &quot;corrode in the weather&quot; to any appreciable extent — incompetent human treatment causes that.  Just like incompetent human welding of stainless steel causes SS to rust." CreationDate="2019-03-16T11:52:57.670" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="10809" PostId="7166" Score="0" Text="http://www.rvdoctor.com/2010/01/galvanic-corrosion.html" CreationDate="2019-03-16T11:58:18.450" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="10813" PostId="7169" Score="1" Text="Most 'rated' timber construction materials have been treated to resist termites and/or rot, so your pine/plywood/fibre board _may_ be 'contaminated' with various undesirable substances as well." CreationDate="2019-03-20T03:24:46.177" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="10819" PostId="7169" Score="0" Text="Some related Q/A on burning wood: [Should I use my wood fireplace?](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/36/3379) and [How much wood can I burn sustainably, carbon neutral and in an ecologically responsible way from a forest?](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/2750/3379)" CreationDate="2019-03-20T16:45:14.190" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10815" PostId="7170" Score="0" Text="This looks more like a comment than an actual answer. Why do you think burning it is the best thing to do?" CreationDate="2019-03-20T08:18:24.140" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="10822" PostId="7173" Score="0" Text="Related question here:  https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/217765/led-as-power-generator" CreationDate="2019-03-22T01:02:56.037" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="10825" PostId="7175" Score="0" Text="[This link](https://www.analog.com/en/analog-dialogue/raqs/raq-issue-108.html) validates your points: *With the sun falling directly on it, the photocurrent of a red 5-mm LED (1000 mCd @ 20 mA) is over 20 μA; in the sunny tropics this might keep a clock battery charged.*" CreationDate="2019-03-22T13:55:45.477" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10830" PostId="7178" Score="1" Text="I'm not the person who downvoted - but I am dubious that people froze to death because they ran out of trees in the middle-ages. Maybe that happened, but if it did you definitely need to back this claim up with sources." CreationDate="2019-03-24T15:08:07.593" UserId="2431" />
  <row Id="10835" PostId="7178" Score="0" Text="You are dubious that people without access to heating die in winter when it's very cold, freezing or snowing?  Seriously?  50,100 &quot;excess winter deaths&quot; occurred in England and Wales alone over the 2017/18 winter.  https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/excesswintermortalityinenglandandwales/2017to2018provisionaland2016to2017final  Do a quick search on &quot;excess winter mortality&quot; and/or &quot;fuel poverty crisis&quot;.  Nothing has changed — if you can't get fuel for heating the risk of death skyrockets.  In the middle ages, wood was the only fuel." CreationDate="2019-03-25T02:14:56.830" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="11058" PostId="7178" Score="0" Text="This doesn't change the conclusion about which scenario is sustainable and which isn't, but: How do you know that D = f (L, P) is a simple multiplication? I'd suspect that for many aspects of pollution D (L, P) increases non-linearly (in particular for the question here: more than proportionally for high population density)" CreationDate="2019-05-25T01:03:47.617" UserId="3722" />
  <row Id="11056" PostId="7179" Score="0" Text="I don't see how you can conclude from the need to reach 0 average emission that population size does not matter: that holds only if there is no interaction between population (density) and emissions. (I'm thinking, e.g. along the lines: at population densities of 10^-x people / km² in central/western Europe we would need hardly any wastewater treatment: natural self-cleaning capacity would cover everyone s****ing in the woods. At a population density of 200/km², we build, maintain and run massive infrastructure and technology to clean up after ourselves." CreationDate="2019-05-25T00:19:00.503" UserId="3722" />
  <row Id="11057" PostId="7179" Score="0" Text="(just to be clear, I totally agree that modern technology rather than middle age or stone age lifestyle/technology is the solution we should seek)" CreationDate="2019-05-25T00:22:56.770" UserId="3722" />
  <row Id="10833" PostId="7180" Score="0" Text="Regarding shipping recycling to China: [Does transporting plastic offset the benefits of recycling it?](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/6593/3379)" CreationDate="2019-03-24T16:06:03.123" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10841" PostId="7184" Score="0" Text="Hi and welcome! Can you provide some more detail on the battery, such as the type/chemistry, model, brand, etc? I suspect that the batteries slowly drained to a voltage below the charge controller cut off. You could try boosting them back up with a trickle charger plugged in to a standard outlet, but if they are damaged the voltage may simply collapse again." CreationDate="2019-03-25T20:44:52.747" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10842" PostId="7184" Score="0" Text="@LShaver the bank made up of 2 100ah 12v sealed AGM batteries in parallel.  One was purchased 2 years ago and was previously in decent shape.  The other is about 5 years old now and should probably just be removed from the bank" CreationDate="2019-03-25T21:26:54.303" UserId="3973" />
  <row Id="10843" PostId="7184" Score="0" Text="and ya, I've got a trickle charger (Battery Tender brand), but unfortunately the van is parked about 150ft from the nearest outlet.  I just need to buy longer EXT cord." CreationDate="2019-03-25T21:30:23.643" UserId="3973" />
  <row Id="10844" PostId="7184" Score="0" Text="I was about to write an answer but something fishy is going on here... the controller shows now current, but you're measuring current from the panels? Where is that current going? Are there loads connected in the van?" CreationDate="2019-03-26T13:53:05.580" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10846" PostId="7184" Score="0" Text="@LShaver That's what's got me puzzled! I measured the current across the panel input terminals directly on charge controller terminal.  I've disconnected all my loads from the batteries, but I didn't measure amps from charge controller to battery.  I'll go do that now" CreationDate="2019-03-26T17:44:54.970" UserId="3973" />
  <row Id="10847" PostId="7184" Score="0" Text=".... it's been a while since I've used the current functionality on my multimeter... Pretty sure I wasn't measuring current correctly... hopefully I didn't short anything :0" CreationDate="2019-03-26T17:55:04.327" UserId="3973" />
  <row Id="10848" PostId="7184" Score="0" Text="@LShaver Ok... Update... &#xA;&#xA;I measured current properly (by breaking the circuit) and I now see 0 amps (The current I saw earlier must have been coming from the battery.  Yikes!)  &#xA;&#xA;Could it still be that the panel is good, but the charge controller just isn't pulling any amps out of it?  Is there an easy way to test it isolated from the charge controller?  So many questions...." CreationDate="2019-03-26T18:02:35.577" UserId="3973" />
  <row Id="10849" PostId="7184" Score="1" Text="It sounds like the panel and charger are fine, but the batteries dropped below low voltage threshold of the charger, so they're no longer charging them. I'd try connecting them to your trickle charger." CreationDate="2019-03-26T18:46:06.463" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10852" PostId="7186" Score="0" Text="That batteries probably _are_ toast anyway, fwiw.  Lead-acid left sitting at 9.8v for any amount of time is going to mean serious sulfation.  In this case, the effective capacity of the batteries is now greatly reduced.  They will appear to charge quickly and then discharge just as quickly.  There are folk tales about how to reverse sulfation damage but no proven methods.  11.9v is generally accepted as 100% discharged, for what it's worth." CreationDate="2019-03-28T16:57:38.867" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="10853" PostId="7186" Score="0" Text="@Jean-PaulCalderone ya I've read a little about it.  I'll probably pick up new batteries eventual but for now they will work.  Mostly these just run some LED's and a vent fan." CreationDate="2019-03-28T17:01:20.200" UserId="3973" />
  <row Id="10855" PostId="7187" Score="0" Text="If you google [life cycle analysis](https://www.google.com/search?q=life+cycle+analysis+database) you'll find quite a few results. Here are [64 free results for &quot;paper&quot;](https://nexus.openlca.org/search/query=paper!Price=%3C10!Country=United%20States) from OpenLCA." CreationDate="2019-04-01T15:14:08.607" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10860" PostId="7187" Score="1" Text="I looked through those but neither really have what I'm asking for. I'm looking for something like this, where you can adjust parameters and draw from a pool of products https://www.capterra.com/" CreationDate="2019-04-02T23:30:44.800" UserId="6488" />
  <row Id="10867" PostId="7195" Score="2" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Thank you for your answer. Could you say something about the effectiveness? Are the ant not coming back the next night?" CreationDate="2019-04-05T07:25:22.107" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11068" PostId="7197" Score="0" Text="In many ways this is a very broad question because different contaminants require different remedial measures. With hydrocarbons, microbes can be used to decontaminate the site, but the time required depends on the degree of contamination &amp; the degree of &quot;cleanliness&quot; required. Sometimes plants can be grown that can absorb some contaminants, certain metals, but then plants must be harvested &amp; disposed of safely elsewhere." CreationDate="2019-05-26T18:35:30.907" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="11233" PostId="7197" Score="1" Text="[Suspicious hat on] Are there any signs of mixing contaminated and clean soil (possibly coming from elsewhere)? That is a not uncommon trick to reduce concentrations below levels where the requirements for further handling/processing are less stringent. [Hat off]" CreationDate="2019-07-24T11:18:17.737" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="10869" PostId="7198" Score="0" Text="It seems like this could reasonably be broadened to a consideration of all widely-available domestic hot water systems?  For example, what about heat pump hot water heaters?  Or resistive electric + PV?" CreationDate="2019-04-06T14:15:46.870" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="10874" PostId="7199" Score="0" Text="Melting aluminum is not trivial like melting lead or tin." CreationDate="2019-04-07T20:20:58.897" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="10889" PostId="7199" Score="2" Text="How about generating less waste first, and then wondering about how to dispose of it? Also write a concerned letter to your landlord, as to why the program was cancelled etc pp." CreationDate="2019-04-09T10:13:26.460" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="10896" PostId="7199" Score="1" Text="Yall are doing a great job trying to convince me not to melt the cans, but how will the engineer in me be satisfied if I can’t build myself a new tool? ;-)" CreationDate="2019-04-10T15:23:49.703" UserId="6514" />
  <row Id="10898" PostId="7199" Score="0" Text="The aluminum cans should not be washed because of the enormous use of water. That's why I suggest collecting the cans in a chest freezer. Then I suppose that the chest freezer has a thermostat so that the freezer does not run all the time. But how many solar panels and what type of setup would be needed to run the freezer ?" CreationDate="2019-04-10T19:42:27.657" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="11405" PostId="7199" Score="0" Text="@SSpring 1 ounce of water, 2 or 3 times, is hardly enormous.  That's all it takes when the can has *just* been emptied of contents and everything is still wet.   Once sugar-puddles dry out, a 12oz can needs 12oz of water in it to soak, then a couple more 1oz splashes.  Still not enormous." CreationDate="2019-09-06T06:28:27.467" UserId="6925" />
  <row Id="10870" PostId="7202" Score="2" Text="This question doesn't seem to be related to Sustainable Living." CreationDate="2019-04-07T06:21:36.847" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="10875" PostId="7202" Score="1" Text="it is related to driving on a type of minimum maintenance road" CreationDate="2019-04-07T23:37:33.730" UserId="3532" />
  <row Id="10876" PostId="7202" Score="1" Text="Woodchips are very valuable to homesteaders (and folks with large gardens/yards), and homesteading is definitely all about sustainability.  Most environmentally conscious people also subscribe to &quot;treading lightly upon the earth&quot; — which is _literally_ what this question is about.  I think the question is fine.  I don't think it's wise or valuable to narrow the focus of SLSE to &quot;solutions for city slickers&quot;." CreationDate="2019-04-08T00:29:41.603" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="10877" PostId="7202" Score="0" Text="@acoder Can you expand your question to include a little bit of information about existing access?  How many (viable) ways are there for the truck to access your property?  What fraction of the access is gravel/compacted sand/grass-over-clay?  How far into your property will they need to drive?" CreationDate="2019-04-08T00:33:59.437" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="10878" PostId="7202" Score="0" Text="Also, do you actually mean *tons* of woodchips *every day* for a *whole* year?  That would be an absolutely insane amount of material to cope with.  A vertitable mountain of chips larger than most houses." CreationDate="2019-04-08T00:39:43.773" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="10879" PostId="7202" Score="0" Text="arborist truckloads of wood chips dumped into the garden for next year basically every day as the arborist is a neighbor" CreationDate="2019-04-08T02:09:12.257" UserId="3532" />
  <row Id="10880" PostId="7204" Score="0" Text="how thick would wood chips need to be as I've seen a logging TV show,and noticed that they use trees, but I need to do it with wood chips for composting reasons I have an unlimited supply of the good 3 ply cardboard, and can lay wood chips on top of it if necessary." CreationDate="2019-04-08T02:12:51.977" UserId="3532" />
  <row Id="10881" PostId="7204" Score="0" Text="the pigs is a different question than this one" CreationDate="2019-04-08T02:14:35.843" UserId="3532" />
  <row Id="10882" PostId="7204" Score="0" Text="I'm permanently killing grass, so i can easily &quot;maneuver&quot; around my garden." CreationDate="2019-04-08T02:16:10.043" UserId="3532" />
  <row Id="10884" PostId="7204" Score="0" Text="The thickness that will work for you depends on your soil texture, rain/moisture levels, the dump truck mass and number of axles, and so-on.  No magic number exists that works for all situations.  &quot;It depends.&quot;  You could start relatively thin (say 10cm) and see how it goes.  If you see it getting mushy, add another 10cm layer.  Repeat until it's stable.  Or just err on the side of caution and go deep right from the get-go.  Here 50cm of woody debris on sand works for 20+ ton log trucks.  YMMV." CreationDate="2019-04-08T06:20:10.983" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="10885" PostId="7204" Score="0" Text="so if i know the soil will eat tractors on the run start 6-12 inches on 3 ply cardboard?" CreationDate="2019-04-08T06:30:25.560" UserId="3532" />
  <row Id="10886" PostId="7204" Score="0" Text="Can't say what effect the cardboard will have — never seen/tried that.  It might disintegrate the moment it gets wet, and provide no support at all.  I don't think it would make things worse, however, so if you have a free supply you may as well try it (on at least one section of the road).  If the soil currently &quot;eats tractors&quot; then I wouldn't even consider 15cm — start at 30cm and add more if needed.  Oh, and if your land slopes across the road, lay down a PVC pipe under the cardboard/chips to act as a culvert so you don't accidentally end up with a dam on the uphill side." CreationDate="2019-04-08T06:41:56.627" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="10888" PostId="7204" Score="0" Text="it's not a &quot;road&quot;, it's a &quot;parking lot&quot; (garden), so it's level." CreationDate="2019-04-08T13:36:04.827" UserId="3532" />
  <row Id="10903" PostId="7204" Score="1" Text="50cm?! In some wet forestry I've worked on, slash (woody debris, limbs from trees turned into logs) is dragged onto trails in piles 1-2m high, then driven on with heavy equipment and flattened to ~0.5-1m high. Pretty sketchy to walk on but works great to protect soil and water quality. As Tim said though YMMV in terms of depth needed. Overall this sounds like the right answer: drop a pathway of chips to support the truck as it backs in, and use cardboard to facilitate." CreationDate="2019-04-11T16:48:30.650" UserId="2942" />
  <row Id="10904" PostId="7204" Score="1" Text="I've used cardboard to keep vehicles out of the mud but it doesn't work so well. It's more like a snowshoe distributing weight, not really the fluffy mat that woody debris serves as. I agree though that cardboard wouldn't hurt, you'll basically just be sheet mulching the garden dirt road." CreationDate="2019-04-11T16:50:18.427" UserId="2942" />
  <row Id="10905" PostId="7204" Score="0" Text="My point about depth is that the material will get very compressed, so starting with 50cm is probably too little. Start with more and watch it shrink." CreationDate="2019-04-11T16:55:55.733" UserId="2942" />
  <row Id="10890" PostId="7205" Score="0" Text="Thanks! I'm which way would that be 'offsetting', and how is that good?" CreationDate="2019-04-09T13:06:11.300" UserId="6506" />
  <row Id="10891" PostId="7205" Score="0" Text="Well, if you need 1 MJ energy, you could burn 1 MJ fossil fuels (bad) or if you happen to have waste with 0.9 MJ energy content, you could burn the waste and only 0.1 MJ fossil fuels (much better)." CreationDate="2019-04-09T13:07:35.850" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="10907" PostId="7205" Score="0" Text="I see, thanks for clarifying." CreationDate="2019-04-12T19:48:11.867" UserId="6506" />
  <row Id="10895" PostId="7206" Score="0" Text="What should the OP do with it after crushing? Still bring it to the recycling plant?" CreationDate="2019-04-10T07:03:53.610" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="10908" PostId="7208" Score="1" Text="Also, I've heard it's important to remove paper and glue, and that cans with paint (like beverage cans) should be done separately, so that the paint doesn't contaminate the purer aluminum from other cans." CreationDate="2019-04-13T18:23:47.287" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10934" PostId="7211" Score="0" Text="Related: [What is marginal energy?](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/7112/3379)" CreationDate="2019-04-24T19:34:36.423" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10911" PostId="7212" Score="0" Text="Wow, thanks for that incredibly detailed answer. Way more than I was expecting," CreationDate="2019-04-15T00:02:30.607" UserId="6529" />
  <row Id="12393" PostId="7213" Score="2" Text="This question would get more answers on the Stack Exchange site for gardening." CreationDate="2020-02-26T18:18:10.707" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="10912" PostId="7214" Score="0" Text="This is very interesting. Out of curiosity, do you know of a reputable site that maintains a list of the warmest LED bulbs? I have sleep cycle problems that are worsened by lots of nighttime exposure to cooler light." CreationDate="2019-04-16T11:31:21.790" UserId="2234" />
  <row Id="10921" PostId="7214" Score="0" Text="This is interesting, but unfortunately not an answer to the question, which (in the body, if not the title) asks for the _most environmentally friendly_ use. If you can afford to do so, it would be better to donate appropriate (suitably warm) LEDs." CreationDate="2019-04-19T15:04:26.187" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="10914" PostId="7215" Score="2" Text="Hello.  Welcome to Sustainable Living.  Is keeping a hot tub running 24/7/365 ever going to be sustainable (before we have clean, practical, large scale fusion, I mean)?  What is your sustainability goal here?" CreationDate="2019-04-16T14:06:45.217" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="10916" PostId="7215" Score="0" Text="Hi Jean-Paul, I was thinking that if a heat pump is used then that could address a big chunk of the energy required in the short term. Medium term, we're waiting on the new gov consultation to determine how to best use renewable energies. We just missed the boat on the solar panels as we moved into our house after they stopped the solar grants. Longer term, we're keeping an eye on the energy storage options, it seems like an expensive and not widely used option at the mo, but longer term may be a welcome addition to our house." CreationDate="2019-04-16T19:43:10.263" UserId="6540" />
  <row Id="10917" PostId="7216" Score="2" Text="It will depend on where you are, but a quick google turns up plenty of possibilities in the UK (asparagus, rhubarb, oca, globe artichokes, perpetual kale, skirret, sprouting broccoli)" CreationDate="2019-04-17T09:34:08.167" UserId="1445" />
  <row Id="10918" PostId="7216" Score="1" Text="Strawberries may be not perennial, but usually last two seasons and &quot;seed&quot; themselves." CreationDate="2019-04-17T12:58:08.560" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="12662" PostId="7221" Score="0" Text="Tomatoes are cultivated as annuals (even if some species are perennials in their native habitat). [link](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomato)" CreationDate="2020-06-04T09:03:55.850" UserId="5594" />
  <row Id="12663" PostId="7221" Score="0" Text="Yup.  That's so." CreationDate="2020-06-04T14:00:02.980" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="10925" PostId="7223" Score="0" Text="Great! Really informative answer!" CreationDate="2019-04-23T06:39:55.610" UserId="135" />
  <row Id="11825" PostId="7223" Score="1" Text="Few notes. Electric arcs produce a lot of RF noise which can have negative impact on sensitive electronics. All capacitors do wear out, just much much more slowly than batteries. When I worked in electronics company, any repaired tech had all their caps replaced as a routine part of the repairs." CreationDate="2019-11-18T16:24:19.663" UserId="8149" />
  <row Id="10946" PostId="7224" Score="2" Text="I don't know if this is the right answer but it is _cool_." CreationDate="2019-04-26T23:56:40.293" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="10927" PostId="7225" Score="2" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Can you provide some more detail on what exactly this is, or perhaps a picture of how it works?" CreationDate="2019-04-23T14:38:18.810" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10928" PostId="7230" Score="2" Text="Can you be more specific about what needs to be better than a bike? Also, what issues have you had with the bikes you've had?" CreationDate="2019-04-23T19:55:03.513" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10929" PostId="7230" Score="0" Text="Some way of transporting that I can use myself at my convenience, but that is more reliable than a standard bicycle at the least. Most bikes I get have many issues over not so long periods of time, such as broken chains; wheel bearings damaged/parts going out of place; frame bending; and misalignment/general wear downs. I do ride almost every day, so this might explain it -- but it still is an issue if you can't even rely on a bicycle for at least 2 solid years. Also, there are other annoying, stressing problems like inner-tube damage; tire issues; and having to refill air every few weeks." CreationDate="2019-04-23T20:20:45.370" UserId="6563" />
  <row Id="10930" PostId="7230" Score="0" Text="Basically the whole point to me was getting these transportation vehicles to avoid high costs and burdens like cars with insurance, gasoline, licensing, lease payments/etc. But if I'm getting a bicycle to have to spend hundreds in repairs and/or stress having to fix and pay everything in a DIY way, it becomes not much better than a car which I can't afford/manage anyways. I know nothing's perfect, but bikes have become a bad memory." CreationDate="2019-04-23T20:22:16.210" UserId="6563" />
  <row Id="10931" PostId="7230" Score="0" Text="And as the question states, it can't be a license-required vehicle/something requiring a driver's license. I thought about biting the bullet and spending more on a better quality bike with airless tires, but as I said nothing lasts forever anyways, so I don't know if going all out will make a difference if the base of the bicycle I were to buy would just break down/have too many/issues/need to be replaced again within a span of 2 years." CreationDate="2019-04-23T20:24:47.723" UserId="6563" />
  <row Id="10932" PostId="7230" Score="7" Text="A bicycle needs maintenance like every other means of transportation. If you are not willing to do the maintenance, pay somebody to do it. Otherwise you wont get anything better than a bicycle when you want mostly carbon-free, low cost, individual transport. E.g., I got a new bike (800€, so not that expensive) last November, been doing about 2.000 km since then (daily comute) and the maintenance so far has been tightening some screws, pumping air thrice, and most importantly, oiling the chain regularly. Quite reasonable effort for low cost, healthy transport." CreationDate="2019-04-24T11:32:14.277" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="10955" PostId="7230" Score="3" Text="*I also don't have good terms with regular bicycles as every single one I've had has worn out well before even 2 years of daily use* You buy the wrong bikes or don't maintain them properly. If you change that, that requirement (complication) can be removed from the question." CreationDate="2019-04-29T08:40:15.597" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="10957" PostId="7230" Score="0" Text="What is it that you need to transport? What country are you in? How is the vertical profile in your area? Do road conditions matter? Please update your question." CreationDate="2019-04-29T08:41:49.817" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="13623" PostId="7230" Score="0" Text="A horse? I too am looking for other modes of transport for a friend." CreationDate="2021-05-30T14:15:09.640" UserId="9777" />
  <row Id="10937" PostId="7231" Score="2" Text="I cannot understand why in the sustainability site the recommendation is to use a vehicle with very likely a two-stroke engine and no catalytic converter (although some do have a four-stroke engine, yet they still don't have a catalytic converter)!" CreationDate="2019-04-25T17:32:50.490" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="10940" PostId="7231" Score="2" Text="Because it is _more sustainable_ than a ICE car.  There is no magical pass/fail threshold for &quot;sustainability&quot;.  Anything that is _better than_ the &quot;normal&quot; option moves us in the right direction.  Your personal standard for &quot;sustainability&quot; is pretty-much irrelevant, because no-one else shares exactly the same views.  In other words, _your_ way isn't the _only_ way.  Other approaches, which you may not agree with because they don't meet your personal standard, can be entirely appropriate/legitimate/valid." CreationDate="2019-04-25T22:10:29.183" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="10973" PostId="7233" Score="0" Text="Here is a full-size sit-down electric-scooter: https://images.app.goo.gl/7YK7yKyoPP3UJRfT8 . It looks very chunky. What is missing is a moped, designed like a mountain bike, that has a hydrogen fuel-cell. The mountain bike frame could hold the compressed hydrogen." CreationDate="2019-04-30T20:17:57.633" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="10974" PostId="7233" Score="0" Text="A hydrogen fuel-cell would allow a smaller vehicle battery and save weight. A hydrogen fuel-cell sends electricity to the electric-motor/battery system. A city fueling system could be developed for a city-vehicle system." CreationDate="2019-04-30T20:28:33.240" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="12637" PostId="7233" Score="0" Text="Honda has a &quot;Super Cub&quot; motorcycle that should be allowed in with moped laws. The Super Cub has a 125cc engine, a four-speed transmission, and an automatic clutch. Of course this is a motorcycle with large diameter wheels not a motor scooter with small diameter wheels." CreationDate="2020-05-25T22:08:38.363" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="10939" PostId="8234" Score="0" Text="how does BSE transfer to plants, and how should we worry about this aspect of BSE?" CreationDate="2019-04-25T22:01:39.717" UserId="3532" />
  <row Id="11021" PostId="8234" Score="0" Text="As I am resident in Australia and BSE hasn't reached the country yet, I am fairly safe in using bonemeal, bones etc." CreationDate="2019-05-14T08:55:21.087" UserId="6565" />
  <row Id="10942" PostId="8235" Score="1" Text="Consider the small diameter wheels of an electric scooter versus the large diameter wheels of a bicycle, and a bicycle has a much greater capability due to stability. As for 50cc scooters, both Honda and Yamaha have four-stroke engines with catalytic converters. Also, consider fuel injection versus carburetors and liquid cooling versus air cooling but these specifications can depend on the model." CreationDate="2019-04-26T00:57:11.717" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="10943" PostId="8235" Score="0" Text="Here is a link to a Honda 50cc scooter with a catalytic converter: http://www.motorscooterguide.net/Honda/Ruckus/Ruckus.html." CreationDate="2019-04-26T01:17:35.293" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="10944" PostId="8235" Score="0" Text="Here is a link to a Yamaha 50cc scooter with a catalytic converter:&#xA;https://www.motorcyclistonline.com/2013-yamaha-zuma-review" CreationDate="2019-04-26T01:23:02.720" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="10945" PostId="8235" Score="0" Text="Thanks, answer revised! Indeed it may be the cat has finally reached the 50cc engines!" CreationDate="2019-04-26T16:50:09.943" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="12639" PostId="8235" Score="0" Text="Why pull up on the bars at all? Routine cycling has the rider seated and the weight of the arms resting on the hands, so far less torque than you calculate (and probably higher cadence). And the parts subject to the most torque aren't the ones that need the most maintenance. Chains and cassettes will need doing first. I've only just changed the bottom bracket on mine and recently the most used chainring, after 20 000km." CreationDate="2020-05-26T12:11:17.407" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="12640" PostId="8235" Score="0" Text="Also anti puncture tyres don't add very much at all to the pedalling effort, and are well worth it on all bikes used for utility purposes. Even the pros use them when training; only in competition is the power loss appreciable." CreationDate="2020-05-26T12:14:56.287" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="10971" PostId="8238" Score="1" Text="This is true, but I don't see how charging time is relevant from a sustainable point of view. It's a (minor?) discomfort for the user, not the environment." CreationDate="2019-04-30T10:17:17.070" UserId="2301" />
  <row Id="10938" PostId="8239" Score="0" Text="I don't think I have unstable power, but maybe it really was the enclosed fixture. However, there are many LED lights sold, with a fixture, that looks like a circle. Isn't that basically enclosed? Or do these have some way of disipating the heat?" CreationDate="2019-04-25T20:19:26.927" UserId="6213" />
  <row Id="10941" PostId="8239" Score="0" Text="They often have air vents around the top." CreationDate="2019-04-25T22:55:23.250" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="10948" PostId="8240" Score="0" Text="+1. Can you provide a source or two for your numbers?" CreationDate="2019-04-27T15:35:40.713" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10950" PostId="8240" Score="1" Text="The 0.91 net-to-gross factor is now referenced.  The 5.14kWh/kg figure (although widely used in places like http://www.soliftec.com/fuelproperties.htm) is behind standards paywalls, so I wasn't able to get a link to that.  Added a postscript showing how folks can access such a figure for themselves using a live database." CreationDate="2019-04-27T22:39:21.113" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="10976" PostId="8241" Score="0" Text="I had read the question several times not really understanding what is going on here. Am I to understand that it is so common in the UK that food items are delivered in plastic bags, that food 'manufacturers', knowing that, therefore print these labels on their individual products? What a horrible idea." CreationDate="2019-05-03T12:04:14.260" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="10977" PostId="8241" Score="0" Text="@JanDoggen Apologies if there was any confusion. When delivering food, drivers will usually take back your carrier bags. Some items (such as the plastic container for cereals) cannot be put in the regular recycling bin *but* can be handed back to the driver along with the carrier bags (as indicated in &quot;recycle at larger store&quot; symbol). My question is wether the same logic could be applied for other kind of plastic containers. Based on the resin code, can one reasonably assume that these items can be recycled along with carrier bags?" CreationDate="2019-05-03T19:50:48.260" UserId="6438" />
  <row Id="10958" PostId="8242" Score="1" Text="I see some problems with this approach. E.g. 100 mi in the Rockies should be quite different from 100 mi in the Netherlands when it comes to energy costs. Also quality of train and tracks could be important, same when it comes to road-based transport. Furthermore, if you want to include all other costs, keep in mind that invention of TEU changed transport fundamentally." CreationDate="2019-04-29T11:56:10.463" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="10959" PostId="8242" Score="0" Text="@Erik: So one would have to add at least one further variable: region of earth (at least for road and rail-based transport)." CreationDate="2019-04-29T12:03:33.923" UserId="6576" />
  <row Id="10960" PostId="8242" Score="0" Text="What does *100 resp. 1000 miles* mean?" CreationDate="2019-04-29T13:43:37.090" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10961" PostId="8242" Score="0" Text="@LShaver: For lesser miles the (energy) costs of reloading/transhipping arise, possibly." CreationDate="2019-04-29T13:59:44.693" UserId="6576" />
  <row Id="10962" PostId="8242" Score="0" Text="Agreed -- my question is specifically, what is *resp.* an abbreviation for? I haven't seen this before." CreationDate="2019-04-29T14:04:32.480" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10963" PostId="8242" Score="0" Text="@LShaver: Sorry, I'm not a native speaker of English and did make [this mistake](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/resp.#Usage_notes). So &quot;resp.&quot; just means &quot;or&quot; (but was intended to mean German [&quot;beziehungsweise&quot;](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bzw.)" CreationDate="2019-04-29T14:12:11.333" UserId="6576" />
  <row Id="10964" PostId="8242" Score="1" Text="@LShaver: So it should have been *100 or 1000 miles, respectively*. (In German you would say *100 bzw. 1000 Meilen*.)" CreationDate="2019-04-29T14:13:11.663" UserId="6576" />
  <row Id="10965" PostId="8242" Score="0" Text="@LShaver: Because you mention &quot;Russian literature&quot; in your profile: Have you read any of [Vodolazkin](https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?rh=p_27%3AEugene+Vodolazkin)? I loved [Laurus](https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/holy-foolery)." CreationDate="2019-04-29T14:23:39.113" UserId="6576" />
  <row Id="10967" PostId="8242" Score="0" Text="Let us [continue this discussion in chat](https://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/92996/discussion-between-hans-peter-stricker-and-lshaver)." CreationDate="2019-04-29T14:32:38.267" UserId="6576" />
  <row Id="10969" PostId="8242" Score="2" Text="Related: https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/6677/home-delivery-versus-going-to-stores-how-does-fuel-usage-for-transport-compare" CreationDate="2019-04-30T07:02:28.247" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="10970" PostId="8242" Score="1" Text="Thanks for the link to your great question! This is also my way of thinking (data-based), which is in a wider context. (My interest started with the observation that today in Germany there are 10 times more trucks on the highways than there have been some X years ago. And today it's not obvious anymore what they transport - as it used to be when it was written on the truck.)" CreationDate="2019-04-30T07:34:01.867" UserId="6576" />
  <row Id="10979" PostId="8247" Score="0" Text="I think you mean &quot;the identifying mark of **AC** cable is that it has more strands.&quot;" CreationDate="2019-05-05T01:57:34.250" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="10980" PostId="8248" Score="0" Text="Sadly I think the answer to 1 is that they're not - it's well past the next election which is as far as our politicians ever seem to plan... Then when we start getting brownouts they will blame 'the previous government' as usual..." CreationDate="2019-05-05T14:37:17.650" UserId="4155" />
  <row Id="10983" PostId="8248" Score="0" Text="Not an answer: You've been lied to. People will have to change their mobility patterns from cars to public transport and bikes. While it could be possible to provide enough electricity for all the cars, we're still running low on space to park all the cars. The idea behind renewable energy is to first reduce energy consumption, then make the use more efficient and then provide the rest by renewable sources. Which this strategy doesn't seem to do." CreationDate="2019-05-06T06:32:40.007" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="10982" PostId="8252" Score="2" Text="For foot races I often see flour used. You can cut a corner of the bag and shake to apply." CreationDate="2019-05-05T15:31:54.750" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11006" PostId="8253" Score="0" Text="Hi, i looked into it and chalk and limestone are pretty much the same thing. Then i had trouble finding the crushed limestone marking-stuff in the Netherlands where i live. The reason is, it turns out spray-on markings are used more often here (http://www.sportbelijning.nl/natuurgras%20advies.html). So i'll go with the original plan and grind chalk." CreationDate="2019-05-08T20:51:55.297" UserId="5532" />
  <row Id="11020" PostId="8255" Score="0" Text="No, they don't need to be ground up but I am approaching saturation in burying them! And if they aren't buried, they become targets for dogs, wild dogs, foxes, etc. That is the point of my original question. It seems no-one is able to tell me how to do it so I will leave it at that. Thanks all." CreationDate="2019-05-14T08:55:09.003" UserId="6565" />
  <row Id="11041" PostId="8255" Score="0" Text="Some things are impractical at the cottage-industry level, e.g. rock-crushing and bone-grinding, so there is no simple answer to your question. If simply scattering them in your garden is unacceptable, then the next option requiring the least effort on your part is to burn them in a backyard incinerator or bonfire. Originally the word was literally 'bonefire', suggesting this was the popular solution to this problem before the advent of commercial slaughter-houses and industrial grinding equipment." CreationDate="2019-05-17T18:59:59.567" UserId="6595" />
  <row Id="10986" PostId="8256" Score="0" Text="To quote from [Cradle to Cradle](https://books.google.com/books?id=KFX5RprPGQ0C&amp;lpg=PP1&amp;pg=PA67#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false): &quot;As long as human beings are regarded as 'bad,' zero is a good goal. But to be less bad is to accept things as they are, to believe that poorly designed, dishonorable, destructive systems are the *best* humans can do. This is the ultimate failure of the 'be less bad' approach: a failure of the imagination. [...] This is a depressing vision of our species' role in the world. What about an entirely different model? What would it mean to be 100 percent good?&quot;" CreationDate="2019-05-06T20:12:34.700" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10987" PostId="8256" Score="0" Text="OK so basically, triggering world war 3 would be much more efficient than cycling and tax fluel in order to save the environment, Sad but true." CreationDate="2019-05-07T07:15:10.990" UserId="2431" />
  <row Id="11004" PostId="8256" Score="0" Text="Not that humans per se are bad, but that 8 billion of us, whatever we do, is beyond the carrying capacity of the earth." CreationDate="2019-05-08T16:40:21.967" UserId="6595" />
  <row Id="10991" PostId="8258" Score="0" Text="Can you provide the make/model of the charger? Most likely you'll want these in series (lower current reduces losses) but it can depend on the charger. The rated allowance vs the optimum arrangement can be different." CreationDate="2019-05-07T17:48:17.867" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10992" PostId="8258" Score="0" Text="From spec sheet:" CreationDate="2019-05-07T18:07:14.350" UserId="6598" />
  <row Id="10993" PostId="8258" Score="0" Text="Max pv input voltage 50VDC renogy wanderer 10A" CreationDate="2019-05-07T18:09:01.887" UserId="6598" />
  <row Id="10994" PostId="8258" Score="0" Text="Panels 22.7v open circuit voltage (each so x2) at 2.84 short circuit amps" CreationDate="2019-05-07T18:10:55.880" UserId="6598" />
  <row Id="10995" PostId="8259" Score="0" Text="Interesting explanation. On such a small scale (less than 3’ of line) I predicted the losses would be negligible but they are losses nonetheless and I paid dearly for those electrons just to lose them. I shall wire in series. Thanks." CreationDate="2019-05-08T01:14:11.277" UserId="6598" />
  <row Id="10996" PostId="8259" Score="0" Text="@AlexHale  I added a strategy to the answer that improves efficiency in series, and lets you easily fall back to parallel if need be." CreationDate="2019-05-08T01:21:34.803" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="10997" PostId="8259" Score="0" Text="Yes the cables have already been purchased with mc4 connectors. The charge controller only accepts up to 14ga wire due to the cheap screw terminals. I had been concerned about the charge controller seeing 22VDC at 5A vs 44VDC at 2.2A and how its performance on battery charging is concerned. I guess it depends on the circuitry of the CC. Thanks for you input on resistance as it relates to voltage though I totally forgot about that." CreationDate="2019-05-08T02:12:09.060" UserId="6598" />
  <row Id="10998" PostId="8259" Score="2" Text="While I was thinking the same thing as you at first I realize now with these cheaper PWM chargers the panel and battery nominal voltages should match. The charger will dump all current into the battery at first, then start pulse width modulation when the battery is nearly full. If the input voltage is significantly higher than the battery, it will be in PWM mode almost constantly, resulting in switching losses far greater than the resistive losses of the cables." CreationDate="2019-05-08T02:14:29.007" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="10999" PostId="8259" Score="1" Text="Wow, good catch. Yes is is cheap $15 and the connectors they provide for connecting two panels together are incidentally parallel." CreationDate="2019-05-08T02:54:30.530" UserId="6598" />
  <row Id="11000" PostId="8259" Score="0" Text="@LShaver  Yep, good catch.  It didn't even cross my mind that it could have been a PWM controller.  I just assumed MPPT.  I have updated my answer in light of this.  Cheers." CreationDate="2019-05-08T05:20:12.450" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="11002" PostId="8261" Score="0" Text="Convincting argument too, but [the easter island running out of trees could just as well have been a myth](https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/02/new-evidence-easter-island-civilization-was-not-destroyed-by-war/). Also, a pre-industrial local overuse of a ressource is much less damaging than modern industrial abuse of worldwide ressources." CreationDate="2019-05-08T11:44:32.157" UserId="2431" />
  <row Id="11005" PostId="8262" Score="0" Text="Can you provide a picture or a link to the listing where you bought them?" CreationDate="2019-05-08T18:19:55.213" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11010" PostId="8262" Score="0" Text="@LShaver thanks for taking the time to respond - I tracked them down (answer added)... My microgreens are going to be very happy... I just need to monitor the power consumption so I can then work out how many solar panels I'll need to run them." CreationDate="2019-05-10T21:43:49.337" UserId="4343" />
  <row Id="11008" PostId="8264" Score="0" Text="Rereading the question , I think there is a misunderstanding. The coal fired boilers were not shut down , they were switched to oil and gas from coal for fuel. Modern coal units blow in pulverized coal , it is not very difficult to replace the coal with oil and gas . This change has been going on in the UK for decades ,utilizing oil and gas from the North Sea offshore production." CreationDate="2019-05-09T14:48:48.423" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="11009" PostId="8264" Score="0" Text="Hmm I've never heard of coal plants switching to burning oil/gas -- can you provide a source? Either way, according to the map in [this article](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/jan/05/uk-coal-fired-power-plants-close-2025), the &quot;newest&quot; coal plant in the UK came online in 1987, and most of them are nearly 20 years older than that, so I don't know if that counts as modern. However if you're correct that would answer my question -- any coal in the burner would probably continue contributing to generation while the switch to oil/gas was occurring." CreationDate="2019-05-09T20:12:48.553" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11011" PostId="8264" Score="0" Text="Put &quot;coal to gas conversions&quot; into an internet search. I see there are fewer in the US than I thought because coal is still lower cost than gas here but the UK, plentiful North Gas  and higher carbon taxes on coal change the economics. The references do not emphasize enough the lower operating cost of a coal unit switching to gas; minerals in the coal ( silica, limestone,sulfur, etc) cause significant problems in the boiler which gas does not ( in my judgement)." CreationDate="2019-05-11T17:29:22.933" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="11012" PostId="8264" Score="0" Text="According to [this article](https://www.power-eng.com/articles/print/volume-119/issue-6/features/coal-to-gas-plant-conversions-in-the-u-s.html) under &quot;co-firing gas and coal,&quot; the conversion is a one-time operation -- there aren't plants which can switch back and forth between fuels. My question is about a short-term shut down. According to the first link in my question, coal plants in the UK are now occasionally shut down for days at a time, with the expectation that they will again burn coal. I want to know how much coal is burnt during that transition when no power is being produced." CreationDate="2019-05-11T18:06:11.060" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11013" PostId="8264" Score="0" Text="After thinking about this I ended up editing my question quite a bit to give it a better focus and connection to sustainability." CreationDate="2019-05-13T02:27:31.407" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11053" PostId="8265" Score="0" Text="If a car rated at 105 g/km &quot;particularly aggressive&quot; driving may end up close to 200 g/km (&quot;conventional wisdom&quot; over here is that driving style makes a factor 2 in gas consumption and has similar influence on brake and tire wear)...  There are public data bases where people enter their fuel consumption. Here's an example for a model close to your spec: https://www.spritmonitor.de/en/overview/50-Volkswagen/451-Polo.html?fueltype=1&amp;vehicletype=1&amp;constyear_s=2014&amp;constyear_e=2018&amp;power_s=65&amp;power_e=67&amp;gearing=1 (105 g CO2/km ≈ 4 l Diesel/100 km). For that model, the reported spread is about ..." CreationDate="2019-05-24T20:22:28.473" UserId="3722" />
  <row Id="11054" PostId="8265" Score="0" Text="... a factor 1.5, but you need to take into account that such data bases have a strong (self)selection bias towards drivers with low fuel consumption." CreationDate="2019-05-24T20:23:15.127" UserId="3722" />
  <row Id="11017" PostId="8266" Score="1" Text="Related: [Research on consumer behavior and waste management](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/6383/3379)" CreationDate="2019-05-13T19:43:28.553" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11019" PostId="8271" Score="2" Text="Another factor is that laptops are much harder to repair.  So if a part stops working often the whole thing needs to be replaced.  But desktops can be kept going for longer." CreationDate="2019-05-14T08:33:14.777" UserId="1445" />
  <row Id="11023" PostId="8271" Score="0" Text="This requires a full (statistical) [Life-cycle assessment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-cycle_assessment) for both product *groups*. I doubt you will get more than opinions. Sorry, voted to close as too broad. [Meta question](https://sustainability.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/250/are-life-cycle-analysis-questions-doable-how-do-we-deal-with-them)" CreationDate="2019-05-14T14:23:07.523" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="11024" PostId="8271" Score="0" Text="@JanDoggen given the helpful answer I think this question could be salvaged with a bit of editing -- perhaps to focus more on how to analyze the problem, rather than seeking a specific answer." CreationDate="2019-05-14T16:16:00.540" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11025" PostId="8271" Score="1" Text="I was looking for how to analyze the problem anyway, so I've edited the question to indicate that.  Is it better now?" CreationDate="2019-05-14T18:28:32.130" UserId="6578" />
  <row Id="16153" PostId="8271" Score="1" Text="If you consider that, for example, H.264/5 or AV1 hardware decoding needs a certain amount of circuitry to work, then whether that circuitry exists in laptop, desktop or miniPC form doesn't really make a difference.  The _features_ a user wants determines the circuitry required, and thus the materials required to build it.  In that case, doesn't 'waste reduction' revolve around users not buying computers that have features they don't want and won't use?  Isn't 'right-sizing' at the core of your question?" CreationDate="2022-12-06T01:56:29.737" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="11015" PostId="8272" Score="0" Text="Hello and welcome! Thanks for the thoughtful answer. I've taken the liberty of editing to add links to the additional papers you cited." CreationDate="2019-05-13T17:53:30.293" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11018" PostId="8274" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! How do you know that the 'extra' energy that is used by desktop computers does not outweigh the disadvantages of laptops? Do you have any references to backup your claims?" CreationDate="2019-05-14T07:00:17.007" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11026" PostId="8274" Score="0" Text="@THelper Bodies such as the EU Energy Star commission ratings give energy efficiency statistics TL:DR most laptops draw at max 60W whereas desktops commonly use around 200W. While charging losses tend to be small the main difference between laptops and desktops is the embodied Carbon (in other words the energy used to produce them) with batteries and seldom recycled laptop components requiring a long manufacturing chain; a metal desktop body will also have a similar value but just ask any PC builder how many uses they've got out their cases. Also refer back to renewable generation sources^^^" CreationDate="2019-05-14T23:06:10.877" UserId="6614" />
  <row Id="11022" PostId="8275" Score="0" Text="Interesting point!  I hadn't realized it's feasible to build low-power desktops these days.  I guess I'm used to using old computers.&#xA;&#xA;I'm still wondering what to do with older, power-consuming desktops that meet my needs?  Is it better to take them apart and use the appropriate parts than to keep using them?  Since I play games, is it worth having one computer just for games, and a second computer for other uses for the sole purpose of reducing electricity usage?  My computer uses 100W when idle (plus 25W for the monitor), and people keep giving me their old desktop computers." CreationDate="2019-05-14T13:04:42.693" UserId="6578" />
  <row Id="11027" PostId="8275" Score="0" Text="&quot;Gaming rigs&quot; are built for performance, not efficiency, and there's no practical way to make them substantially more efficient.  My new computer costs about AU$187 less *per year* to run — so the return on investment is quite high.  I specced it to last at least 7 years, so over its life I will have saved ~$1300 — a non-trivial sum.  Whilst extending the service life of your computers makes a lot of sense, keeping old gaming rigs running *eventually doesn't* because of high idle power consumption.  Do the math for your particular situation and let the numbers guide you." CreationDate="2019-05-15T01:39:41.720" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="11028" PostId="8275" Score="1" Text="OK.  I was looking more for an idea of the environmental cost of each option rather than the monetary cost (I've updated the original question to clarify that).  However, since it may not be feasible to get an idea of the environmental cost of the production of electronics parts, estimating it from the monetary cost is probably as good an estimate as any.  For me the savings are much lower, so it may only be worthwhile for a computer that gets used all day." CreationDate="2019-05-15T12:55:24.850" UserId="6578" />
  <row Id="11055" PostId="8275" Score="1" Text="@user2596667: it's not only feasible but actually quite easy. The desktop I currently use was put together with at most &quot;half an eye&quot; on energy consumption but mainly to be used for machine learning-type calculations (no GPU for calculations, though) and office use (as opposed to gaming) 2 years ago, 2nd consideration was noise. IIRC, I also measured about 35 W in &quot;normal light use&quot; (plus 2 monitors that still work fine at 11 yo). I certainly think that updating some parts can go a long way." CreationDate="2019-05-24T20:49:31.020" UserId="3722" />
  <row Id="11060" PostId="8275" Score="0" Text="@cbeleites: I think you must have interpreted &quot;environmental cost&quot; as &quot;energy consumption&quot;?  I know it's feasible to build a low-powered computer, I was saying it may not be feasible to get data on whether it's worth doing so from an environmental perspective.  I was hoping for some way to measure the environmental harm of producing electronics or some reason why I should consider this to be much greater or much less than the harm from the electricity use." CreationDate="2019-05-25T02:02:55.787" UserId="6578" />
  <row Id="11061" PostId="8275" Score="0" Text="@user2596667: sorry I wasn't more clear: that comment was related to &quot;In 2019 it is possible to build a 'serious' desktop system that consumes very little power&quot;. Just found some numbers on environmental costs for a desktop, will try to throw together a quick answer." CreationDate="2019-05-25T02:14:37.510" UserId="3722" />
  <row Id="11063" PostId="8275" Score="0" Text="@user2596667 Yep, that's the problem. Ultimately it comes down to apples and oranges... you can't compare the two until you break them down into something that they have in common. Whilst it's easy to understand the concept of 'environmental harm', I don't know what *units of measurement* could be used to express such a concept. Carbon, dollars — both are inadequate. A weighted assay of all elements and compounds used in production might sound reasonable, but would seem impractical and unlikely to get us closer to an answer. Did you have any units for 'environmental cost' in mind?" CreationDate="2019-05-25T09:41:18.590" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="11064" PostId="8275" Score="1" Text="@Tim That's true.  However, we can at least compare the carbon emissions.  The answer by cbeleites is what I had in mind - it shows that the carbon emissions of production are of a similar order of magnitude to the emissions of electricity usage, plus production has the other issues besides carbon emissions.  This tells me that it's probably worth making use of older, higher-consuming parts until they fail, even if they use more electricity." CreationDate="2019-05-25T12:01:51.197" UserId="6578" />
  <row Id="13020" PostId="8275" Score="0" Text="&quot;the most important factor becomes the lifespan of the device&quot; - But, as you say, they have been getting more energy efficient over time, so a long-lived device may become an energy pig (compared to newer models) in its old age." CreationDate="2020-10-26T01:18:10.340" UserId="9020" />
  <row Id="11029" PostId="8276" Score="0" Text="Thank you so much, this really helped!" CreationDate="2019-05-15T13:01:22.157" UserId="6611" />
  <row Id="11030" PostId="8277" Score="1" Text="I agree with the close voter that this question is too broad. Can you perhaps narrow down on the question about conferences? What are the sustainability concerns there, that the scientific community should be addressing?" CreationDate="2019-05-15T13:22:58.533" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11031" PostId="8277" Score="0" Text="I agree, it's probably best to focus on 1 particular aspect to avoid making this too broad.. May I propose all the travel to conferences?" CreationDate="2019-05-15T17:30:37.420" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11032" PostId="8277" Score="0" Text="I'm not looking for a comprehensive overview, but rather for concrete examples.  I hope this is now clearer from the way I have rephrased the question. &#xA;&#xA;Indeed, travel is the most obvious concern.  But even with the question as broad as it is, my feeling (as a scientist) is that there simply are no examples of the kind I'm looking for.  I'll happily narrow the question down if someone can convince me that, on the contrary, there are indeed “too many” such initiatives." CreationDate="2019-05-15T20:59:58.267" UserId="6616" />
  <row Id="11040" PostId="8277" Score="1" Text="[Related question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/84184/958) on [academia.se]." CreationDate="2019-05-17T12:31:51.613" UserId="6621" />
  <row Id="11067" PostId="8278" Score="1" Text="It could be used as mulch in gardens to conserve moisture." CreationDate="2019-05-26T18:19:53.733" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="11035" PostId="8279" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Why do you want to shred the plastic? Why not sell it as it is? In any case, making recycling cost-effective is a matter of scale. You need lots of plastic before a business is interested in buying. Also you probably want to separate the [different types of plastic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resin_identification_code) so you can offer batches of a particular type" CreationDate="2019-05-17T08:07:29.300" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11038" PostId="8279" Score="0" Text="I assumed more recycling plants and hobbyists would be willing to purchase it if it was processed but that assumption may be wrong. @THelper" CreationDate="2019-05-17T08:51:49.057" UserId="6619" />
  <row Id="11039" PostId="8279" Score="0" Text="For hobbyist you are probably right, for recycling plants I doubt it. Perhaps if you can guarantee high quality and bulk delivery" CreationDate="2019-05-17T09:11:36.487" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11034" PostId="8281" Score="1" Text="Sorry, this is a 'list type question' which should be avoided on SE sites for [the reasons given here](https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/139618/are-list-questions-off-topic). Voted to close." CreationDate="2019-05-17T07:19:41.323" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="11036" PostId="8281" Score="1" Text="@Jan_Doggen Generally list type question are to be avoided because: &quot;every answer is equally valid&quot;  and &quot;those questions are infinite&quot;, but that is not the case here. So far we'll be happy if there is a list of 1." CreationDate="2019-05-17T08:26:56.150" UserId="5532" />
  <row Id="11037" PostId="8282" Score="0" Text="I was thinking more along the lines of salvaging packaging material for reuse on a street or neighborhood basis, or return packaging material to the next delivery person. But this is great!" CreationDate="2019-05-17T08:29:19.137" UserId="5532" />
  <row Id="11042" PostId="8285" Score="0" Text="This is a reference poiting to a definition, not a definition in itself." CreationDate="2019-05-20T07:31:53.797" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="11043" PostId="8285" Score="2" Text="@bobkinch welcome to the site. We're looking for answers to be self-contained, rather than pointing to the real answer elsewhere. Please can you [edit] your answer to include the actual definition from the Bruntland Commission?" CreationDate="2019-05-20T09:14:22.323" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="11044" PostId="8287" Score="1" Text="Its your example of a low energy expensive fridge, but perhaps a better example would be a brand new electric car. If I owned one then my daily CO2 footprint for commuting to work would be lower, but I'd have to work a lot more to afford on, compared to buying a cheap secondhand petrol car." CreationDate="2019-05-22T08:22:27.073" UserId="6602" />
  <row Id="11047" PostId="8292" Score="1" Text="As written, this question is somewhat too broad for an answer that fits here, as it essentially amounts to &quot;how can we measure the sustainability of anything?&quot; Can you narrow it down to one specific issue?" CreationDate="2019-05-24T02:01:46.850" UserId="1370" />
  <row Id="11048" PostId="8292" Score="0" Text="Also, what is you definition of sustainability? Do you only want to take GHG-emissions into account? Or should reduction of soils, usage of pesticides, fair trade issues etc be taken into account?" CreationDate="2019-05-24T08:32:47.233" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="11052" PostId="8292" Score="0" Text="https://sustainability.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/250/are-life-cycle-analysis-questions-doable-how-do-we-deal-with-them" CreationDate="2019-05-24T15:08:10.427" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="11065" PostId="8292" Score="0" Text="One thing I find is rarely included in such analyses is the impact of transportation - it's no good buying a more sustainable product if it has to be shipped halfway round the world and so ends up with a bigger impact than an otherwise less efficient local product." CreationDate="2019-05-26T07:48:58.717" UserId="4155" />
  <row Id="11066" PostId="8292" Score="2" Text="@NickC the margins are actually quite small there, especially if a product is literally *shipped*, as in a boat on the ocean. I looked into it for [this answer](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/a/6667/3379) and found that shipping accounts for less than 3% of the energy use of plastic sent for recycling. Given how efficient ships are at moving cargo (there's a reason why we've been using boats for thousands of years) I doubt the numbers are much different for any standard product category that doesn't require refrigeration." CreationDate="2019-05-26T15:11:31.770" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11088" PostId="8292" Score="0" Text="I basically want as many factors as possible, but would also settle for different indices for different things." CreationDate="2019-05-29T15:16:03.477" UserId="6213" />
  <row Id="11050" PostId="8293" Score="0" Text="Great question! Looks like this article might provide some clues or references, but I don't have time now to dig into it: [&quot;Alternatives to the global warming potential for comparing climate impacts of emissions of greenhouse gases&quot;](https://elib.dlr.de/10336/1/fulltext.pdf)" CreationDate="2019-05-24T13:35:09.983" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11051" PostId="8293" Score="3" Text="Nobody converts *all air pollution into CO2e* - they do it only for those substances that have a warming effect and then only to calculate the warming effect, not any others (but that's what you're asking for). This makes your question very broad. I suggest you limit it to substances having a warming effect and ask for those *by name specifically* (it's not hard to find them since you know what CO2 equivalents are)." CreationDate="2019-05-24T15:04:39.740" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="11073" PostId="8300" Score="0" Text="The question is fine, but you don't need it refute that ridiculous statement. Obviously the person does not take into account the amount of imported soy etc that goes into animal food. Just look at what's happening in many South American countries with cut down forests, diseases from heavy pesticide use, and violent  practices against the native population that protests." CreationDate="2019-05-27T16:00:24.073" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="11078" PostId="8300" Score="0" Text="Related: [What is palm oil mostly used for?](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/5262/3379)" CreationDate="2019-05-27T17:47:04.143" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11085" PostId="8300" Score="0" Text="Since I can't answer your direct request for statistics I'll leave a comment here. I have had that argument when someone was trying to tell me that I am unduly taking the higher ground. If the meat-eater's concern is that rainforests are being destroyed, that is actually true of even cattle  and goat herders. More forests are being destroyed for cultivation and animal husbandry. Heck, even Chocolates. So forget meat or veganism, eating chocolates is an indirect cause. That is just an arrogant person's way of saying 'my life, my wish' and 'meat eating is actually better'." CreationDate="2019-05-28T23:24:12.460" UserId="6640" />
  <row Id="11161" PostId="8300" Score="1" Text="A lot of palm kernel meal is used to produce animal feed. It may not count as palm oil, but it is from the same source. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/may/09/pet-food-asian-rainforest" CreationDate="2019-06-27T16:40:03.243" UserId="1173" />
  <row Id="11072" PostId="8301" Score="3" Text="Why are you asking this hypothetical question? I fail to see its relevance, especially since it's so broad." CreationDate="2019-05-27T15:56:12.923" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="11074" PostId="8301" Score="0" Text="Respectfully, this is not a hypothetical question. I am asking because, I see people focusing on card board and paper recycling, but not doing recycling of Plastic bottles and aluminum. I feel paper and card board can be get recycled by itself, but Plastic and aluminum will not in 400+ years, so wanted feedback/answer from Sustainable Living." CreationDate="2019-05-27T16:57:24.133" UserId="6648" />
  <row Id="11075" PostId="8301" Score="0" Text="Related: [What is the environmental impact of recycling beverage containers, by material?](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/6838/3379)." CreationDate="2019-05-27T17:40:24.450" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11076" PostId="8301" Score="0" Text="I think, to @JanDoggen's point, a better question would be about the relative impact of the three different materials both as virgin products, and through recycling." CreationDate="2019-05-27T17:41:12.707" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11080" PostId="8301" Score="1" Text="Then tell us about *I see people focusing on card board and paper recycling* to show it is not hypothetical. **Why are you asking?**. There may be far more factors at play (like availability of recycling services) that determine if people recycle or not." CreationDate="2019-05-27T18:02:45.700" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="11098" PostId="8301" Score="0" Text="Why leave out glass?" CreationDate="2019-05-31T00:44:54.740" UserId="6581" />
  <row Id="11111" PostId="8301" Score="0" Text="@mblakele I am specifically asking &quot;if only one&quot;" CreationDate="2019-06-07T18:18:10.250" UserId="6648" />
  <row Id="11097" PostId="8307" Score="0" Text="I would say the 50 tons of steel in a common 3KW monopod base ( not counting steel in the  foundation or in the generator )  caused substantial CO2 emissions." CreationDate="2019-05-30T23:44:09.747" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="11103" PostId="8307" Score="0" Text="50 tonnes of steel in a 3kW turbine? Citation needed, please." CreationDate="2019-06-04T06:38:54.267" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="11095" PostId="8308" Score="1" Text="Abbreviations I looked up: CCS = [Carbon Capture and Storage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_capture_and_storage), BECCS = [Bio-Energy with Carbon Capture and Storage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bio-energy_with_carbon_capture_and_storage), LULUC = [Land Use and Land Use Change](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_use,_land-use_change,_and_forestry), AR5 = [UN IPCC Fifth Assessment Report, 2014](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPCC_Fifth_Assessment_Report)" CreationDate="2019-05-30T14:05:49.500" UserId="1370" />
  <row Id="11099" PostId="8308" Score="1" Text="Here is the Nature paper on Researchgate&#xA;&#xA;https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321683340_Understanding_future_emissions_from_low-carbon_power_systems_by_integration_of_life-cycle_assessment_and_integrated_energy_modelling" CreationDate="2019-06-02T18:29:10.037" UserId="6663" />
  <row Id="11100" PostId="8310" Score="0" Text="This is a repeat of Sherwoods answer from Oct 2014. Please do not repeat answers on SE sites." CreationDate="2019-06-03T07:41:23.573" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="12481" PostId="8313" Score="0" Text="Thanks for the answer; please consider [improving it](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/help/how-to-answer) by adding context for the link. Your post should have enough information that people can understand what Project Sunroof does before they click the link." CreationDate="2020-03-12T17:25:18.483" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="11106" PostId="8314" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Nice answer. Could you please link to the Wikipedia page where it says that flywheels have 20-50% energy loss in 2 hours?" CreationDate="2019-06-06T13:06:56.733" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="13103" PostId="8314" Score="0" Text="[Datasheet](https://www.amberkinetics.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Amber-Kinetics-DataSheet.pdf) from a long term flywheel energy storage retailer shows their solution at ~86% efficient. The full details give a better view: a 32kWh storage what consumes 55W when idle and consumes 140W when charging/discharging at 8kW. For off-grid where you store the power for 20 hours at time the 55W draw will be pretty costly. But the 30 yr lifetime absolutely beats any electrochem battery." CreationDate="2020-11-09T23:23:23.303" UserId="9101" />
  <row Id="11110" PostId="8315" Score="0" Text="According to [research from Turkey](http://www.pjoes.com/The-Effect-of-Some-Indoor-Ornamental-Plants-non-CO2-Levels-During-the-Day,76243,0,2.html), yucca can reduce CO2 concentrations from over 3,000 to 475ppm in a day in a 0.5 m3 sealed glass enclosure." CreationDate="2019-06-07T16:22:21.447" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11115" PostId="8315" Score="0" Text="@LShaver That's awesome, but what I really want to know is whether the concentration could fall any further over more days?" CreationDate="2019-06-07T19:27:07.270" UserId="1370" />
  <row Id="11117" PostId="8315" Score="0" Text="The experiment ran for 5 days and the level never dropped below 475 ppm. I'd post this as an answer but I can't find any corroborating research. It's also a bit concerning that of 30 references, 23 are self-citations." CreationDate="2019-06-07T20:36:56.807" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11119" PostId="8315" Score="0" Text="Are you keeping in mind that plant respiration _produces_ CO₂ around the clock?  So the bulk of any CO₂ removed from the air during the day via photosynthesis is returned at night via respiration?  Over the long run, the whole process is neutral.  That's why terrariums are possible.  You'll only have a noteworthy amount of CO₂ removed if you move the plants out of the house at night-time." CreationDate="2019-06-08T05:38:42.123" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="11121" PostId="8315" Score="0" Text="@Tim not quite the bulk, as some is incorporated into the plant structure, which over time gives us lovely coal/oil/gas to use for planet-destroying purposes." CreationDate="2019-06-08T16:08:41.760" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11122" PostId="8315" Score="0" Text="@Tim moving the plants out of the house at night sounds like an excellent way to increase the efficiency of this process! I wonder how much it would help." CreationDate="2019-06-08T20:00:49.383" UserId="1370" />
  <row Id="11124" PostId="8315" Score="0" Text="@LShaver Whole-plant respiration accounts for a little less than half of the CO₂ under global ambient conditions, but doubles for every ~10°C increase in temperature.  If you take plants from outside (~14°C global average) and put them inside (~20–21°C comfortable indoor temperature) then whole-plant respiration accounts for significantly more than half.  Ergo 'bulk'.  That's why tropical forests are anaemic compared to temperate forests (store less than half the carbon).  If memory serves, you need a ~16°C (average) temperature for CO₂ to be split 50:50 between respiration and structure." CreationDate="2019-06-08T21:06:44.480" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="11125" PostId="8315" Score="2" Text="@krubo Actually moving the plants would be impractical, I think.  You could, however, build a lean-to greenhouse/sun-room on one side of your house, have it open to the house during the day, and have it open to the outside at night.  The stationary plants would then act as a pump, and all you need to do is open/close some louvres/vents/windows/doors at sunrise/sunset.  You see this sort of feature on some passive solar homes (e.g. https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/89/274930313_f0cc51cf85_b.jpg and https://offgridworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/greenhouse-homeheating1.jpg)." CreationDate="2019-06-08T21:25:40.690" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="11107" PostId="8316" Score="0" Text="+1. In the U.S., the [energy code](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Energy_Conservation_Code) used in many jurisdictions mandates three air changes **per hour** in most climates. Restrictions are even looser in warmer climates." CreationDate="2019-06-07T15:16:37.040" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11108" PostId="8316" Score="0" Text="Your calculations are very interesting. I hadn't realized the huge impact of air changes. So for my plan to be feasible, I'll have to reengineer the house to reduce air change with the outdoors. I now think the project could be doable if I build a greenhouse on my roof and allow it to interchange air with the house, while reducing air interchange with the outside atmosphere." CreationDate="2019-06-07T15:33:54.640" UserId="1370" />
  <row Id="11109" PostId="8316" Score="1" Text="@krubo you'll need to maintain a balance between limiting air changes and allowing proper ventilation. Take a look at [Passive House](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_house) for guidelines on air sealing. They recommend 0.4 to 0.6 air changes per hour." CreationDate="2019-06-07T15:46:50.193" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11112" PostId="8316" Score="1" Text="If you reduce air changes with the outside, you have to manage all other contents of the air in the house.  CO2 is not the only one.  Carbon monoxide and radon are two others that readily come to mind.  The outside environment is a giant dumping ground where all of these toxins can be diluted to the point of harmlessness (we hope - at least until we dump so much of them that they become a problem, like we've done with CO2).  If you cut yourself off from the dump to solve a CO2 issue, you may have created more problems than you've solved." CreationDate="2019-06-07T18:48:12.850" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="11113" PostId="8316" Score="0" Text="&quot;the energy code used in many jurisdictions mandates three air changes per hour in most climates&quot; - thanks, I always forget if it is 1 every 3 or 3 every 1." CreationDate="2019-06-07T18:49:19.327" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="11116" PostId="8316" Score="0" Text="I have a doubt about the calculation of human exhalation. Suppose a human metabolizes about 2000 kilocalories in a day, for simplicity let's suppose all carbohydrates, so equivalent to 500g of glucose, times avogadro's number divided by 180 mol-1 = 1.6 x 10^24 molecules of glucose. Aerobic catabolism of a molecule of glucose releases 6 molecules of CO2, which suggests that a breathing human should emit around 1 x 10^25 total molecules of CO2 per day. Intuitively it makes sense that I should have to grow enough corn to live on in order to absorb the CO2 I emit from metabolizing it." CreationDate="2019-06-07T19:55:26.577" UserId="1370" />
  <row Id="11118" PostId="8316" Score="0" Text="@krubo That's a good point.  I was surprised the human contribution wasn't greater - so perhaps that part of the math or some assumption it is based on is flaky.  I'll try to revisit it sometime soon." CreationDate="2019-06-07T22:24:27.477" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="11120" PostId="8316" Score="0" Text="@Jean-PaulCalderone I think I found two errors which explain the difference. It looks like 1.27 * 10^-3 should be 1.27 * 10^3. And 3.3 x 10^22 should be 3.3 x 10^21." CreationDate="2019-06-08T13:07:52.343" UserId="1370" />
  <row Id="11135" PostId="8316" Score="0" Text="Thanks.  I think you're right on both counts.  The human contribution still comes out to around 1% of what the corn is doing so there may be more issues.  Separately, I realized I have only accounted for the human edible carbon stored by the corn.  There's a lot more in cellulose in the rest of the plant.  I may try to factor that in at some point.  This probably makes the picture much more favorable - but I suspect not so much that it's practically achievable." CreationDate="2019-06-11T01:39:49.303" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="13228" PostId="8316" Score="0" Text="There's still an error, I think: the daily human contribution of 1.27 * 10^3 g of CO2 should be divided by molar mass 4.4 * 10^1 g which yields 2.9 * 10^1 mol = 1.8 * 10^25 molecules of CO2" CreationDate="2021-01-06T11:14:12.690" UserId="1370" />
  <row Id="12422" PostId="8317" Score="0" Text="Related: [Do small portable solar chargers generate more energy than it costs to produce them?](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/120/1056)" CreationDate="2020-03-02T15:54:53.647" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="15109" PostId="8317" Score="0" Text="With such a significant positive return on energy investment, what's to stop solar panels taking over the world? Sure, there are not enough of them to meet our energy needs at the moment, but if a large proportion of energy output from solar panels is allocated to making new solar panels, the total number of panels can just keep growing exponentially with surplus electricity to spare. It's not like the world is going to run out of the raw materials (basically silicon &amp; silicon dioxide) within any meaningful time frame. Am I missing something?" CreationDate="2021-10-14T12:58:54.197" UserId="13280" />
  <row Id="11129" PostId="8319" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Great answer!" CreationDate="2019-06-09T09:33:15.107" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11130" PostId="8320" Score="0" Text="For static installations, we get payback time by using the price of energy from other available sources. The alternative source for a portable solar panels should be batteries, because there is not available wall plug, and since batteries are way more expensive payback time could be very short." CreationDate="2019-06-09T11:17:44.933" UserId="6678" />
  <row Id="11132" PostId="8320" Score="0" Text="@Pere My question is about payback of energy, not currency." CreationDate="2019-06-09T16:10:37.423" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="11140" PostId="8325" Score="0" Text="Sustainable sells!" CreationDate="2019-06-14T01:06:02.330" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="11146" PostId="8333" Score="2" Text="I can't comment as to whether or why the US installation rate is dropping, but I'd quibble with your idea that wind is dead &quot;essentially everywhere else&quot;, and also ask for evidence of China's wind being of low quality (not sure whether you mean the resource or the equipment, but either way...)" CreationDate="2019-06-24T05:19:19.613" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="11147" PostId="8333" Score="1" Text="You are going to need more facts than just *there's only a handful of new farms being built* to make this a good question." CreationDate="2019-06-24T08:32:01.647" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="11150" PostId="8334" Score="1" Text="Depending on which places you're looking at, there are other issues. A lot of countries in Europe basically have almost no space left for economically sustainable windfarms. In Germany there is also the issue of very complex, lengthy permission proceedings. Repowering is on the rise, but still suitable places are hard to come by, especially with locals fighting hard against wind parks in their vincinity. I heard of projects in the UK, where land owners who wanted to cooperate with wind park planers were harassed extremely by other locals, at least one landowner comitted suicide supposedly." CreationDate="2019-06-25T09:06:56.577" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="11152" PostId="8335" Score="3" Text="BTW, the answer is *No*. Even for single items a full LCA is hard to define." CreationDate="2019-06-24T11:04:03.193" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="11160" PostId="8335" Score="0" Text="Frame challenge: I'd bet my bottom dollar that neither of your lifestyles are truly sustainable (it's pretty much impossible if you are living a vaguely &quot;normal&quot; lifestyle in an industrialised country).  Don't focus on where you are, think about the next most impactful change both of you could make to get *closer* to being sustainable.  Then when that becomes embedded, make the next change.  And so on." CreationDate="2019-06-27T13:33:02.480" UserId="1445" />
  <row Id="11153" PostId="8337" Score="1" Text="Does you question have a connection to sustainable living? If not, you may get better answers on [Biology.SE](https://biology.stackexchange.com/)." CreationDate="2019-06-25T13:59:30.530" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11154" PostId="8337" Score="0" Text="Or [worldbuilding.se]?" CreationDate="2019-06-25T15:10:13.013" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="16581" PostId="8337" Score="0" Text="I'm not sure about corn, but one of the ways we've changed wheat during its domestication is to stop it spraying its seeds everywhere when it's ripe. We can harvest the head with all the seeds attached at once, but if it had already spread them the harvest would be a nightmare. So our domestication has altered the reproductive ability of the wheat. (Source: Tamed by Alice Roberts)" CreationDate="2024-01-26T15:17:57.483" UserId="15347" />
  <row Id="11155" PostId="8338" Score="0" Text="Excellent. That precisely answers my question" CreationDate="2019-06-25T23:41:26.020" UserId="6733" />
  <row Id="16577" PostId="8338" Score="1" Text="@Celestialgranturismo - While I suspect Jean-Paul's answer is correct, You might be able to find a real-world scenario where this has happened on a smaller scale. Surely somewhere in the world there would be a few corn fields that have been left untended for years - for one of many different reasons (abandoned farm, bankruptcy, death of the land owners, land disputes etc). Keep an eye out :)" CreationDate="2024-01-18T05:35:17.377" UserId="8232" />
  <row Id="11284" PostId="8339" Score="0" Text="That 4GW, is that [thermal (GWt) or electric (GWe) capacity](https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/Megawatts_electric)? Do we actually *have* powerplants with 4 GWe?" CreationDate="2019-08-07T13:47:31.683" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="11290" PostId="8339" Score="0" Text="I am wondering if the decommissioning land use is being added to the estimated output of nuclear power plants? You need to add the number of years following the; what 25 year? use of the plant, until the land is safe for any other use, and compare this with the space taken up by wind farms which can be dismantled within weeks if necessary." CreationDate="2019-08-07T13:12:30.693" UserId="6825" />
  <row Id="11157" PostId="8341" Score="0" Text="I took my figure of 5 - 5.4 MW/sq km from an analysis of actual wind generation operating in Europe. Are there any installations actually achieving 15.5 MW/sq km? That's three times the European average. I understand that interference causes efficiency losses with closer spacing. My capacity factor was obtained by rounding up the average of 37% for European wind in 2018. (https://windeurope.org/wp-content/uploads/files/about-wind/statistics/WindEurope-Annual-Statistics-2018.pdf)" CreationDate="2019-06-26T08:50:23.053" UserId="6734" />
  <row Id="11158" PostId="8341" Score="0" Text="The European average takes into account WT built almost 20 years ago - those thingies have about 450 kW output. And since you're talking about replacing power plants, the WT would have to be built, and 13.5 MW/km² is what can  be achieved currently." CreationDate="2019-06-26T08:56:47.313" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="11159" PostId="8341" Score="2" Text="As an example of what is possible, Scotlands brand new Hywind wind farm has a 65% capacity factor (so far, it's early days) and is generating 30MW from 5 turbines, meaning each is 6MW with a 150m rotor.&#xA;&#xA;This just about doubles the output relative to the answer by @Erik." CreationDate="2019-06-27T04:57:34.477" UserId="5479" />
  <row Id="11189" PostId="8341" Score="0" Text="I disagree with reducing energy demand significantly. Energy is not evil. For example, converting the forest industry CO2 exhaust gases with hydrogen electrolysis + Fischer-Tropsch process to synthetic fuels would increase electricity consumption of the country where I live by 3x. Replacing coal with geothermal power would also increase electricity consumption. Electric cars also increase electricity consumption. Electricity consumption should go up, not down!" CreationDate="2019-07-09T15:19:20.330" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="11190" PostId="8341" Score="0" Text="Why should it go up? Why always &quot;more, more, more&quot;? @juhist" CreationDate="2019-07-09T15:30:08.730" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="11191" PostId="8341" Score="0" Text="@Erik Because electricity is a cleaner form of energy, and electricity can be used to make CO2 emissions of plants into liquid / solid material. Energy is a plentiful resource on planet Earth. The solar radiation hits our planet with orders of magnitude more power than what humans use, and solar panels can be made from literally sand. I think we should not focus on reducing energy consumption; we should focus on reducing CO2, destruction of forest, loss of species, etc." CreationDate="2019-07-09T15:48:00.040" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="11193" PostId="8341" Score="0" Text="@juhist yeah, and who guarantees, that any form of CCS is truly permanent, that depots don't leak, that we don't waste a lot of energy just to have CO2 escape and ruin our great plans? Nope, reduction is more important." CreationDate="2019-07-09T16:11:25.193" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="11596" PostId="8341" Score="0" Text="@juhist: Electric cars also increase electricity consumption. Ok. And: Electric cars also reduce energy consumption." CreationDate="2019-10-16T05:52:43.013" UserId="8067" />
  <row Id="11162" PostId="8342" Score="2" Text="I think you'll need to provide some data to back up these claims. The best way to clean up a mess, is not to make a mess in the first place." CreationDate="2019-06-28T14:49:43.683" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11163" PostId="8342" Score="1" Text="This is incomplete.  Perhaps the numbers here are correct, I don't know, but this doesn't amount to a methodology.  It's just a couple particular points.  Using dollars as a standard unit for everything uncovered in an analysis may be a good idea but it's only the tip of the iceberg." CreationDate="2019-06-28T18:47:28.960" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="11165" PostId="8345" Score="2" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Silicone bags will work, but can you explain a bit more about the pros and cons? How sustainable are they?" CreationDate="2019-07-02T07:33:22.857" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11168" PostId="8346" Score="2" Text="Hello and welcome.  The obvious answer is that you could eat them.  Perhaps you could expand your question to cover the reasons this solution doesn't currently seem feasible to you." CreationDate="2019-07-03T19:24:32.477" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="11169" PostId="8346" Score="0" Text="@Jean-PaulCalderone - As I indicated in my question, solutions that involving eating in some form or the other is not what I'm looking for. As for why not, the yolk is full of cholesterol, which we could avoid." CreationDate="2019-07-03T19:28:56.750" UserId="6640" />
  <row Id="11170" PostId="8346" Score="1" Text="Dietary cholesterol is an essential part of human nutrition.  An individual falling within the normal range of human health shouldn't be concerned about consuming it.  There are many citations available for this.  I might put them in an answer.  This is why I asked you to add reasons.  Perhaps there is a medical condition involved which really does preclude consumption.  Or perhaps there's just a misunderstanding of the health consequences of consuming egg yolks." CreationDate="2019-07-03T20:13:50.140" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="11171" PostId="8346" Score="2" Text=":) I think that should be a discussion with one's dietician/physician or a post in medical stackexchange. From a sustainability standpoint how else could I use the yolk?" CreationDate="2019-07-03T21:46:33.640" UserId="6640" />
  <row Id="11174" PostId="8346" Score="4" Text="Animal feed. Whilst you may not be keen to eat egg yolk, other birds and mammals would be delighted." CreationDate="2019-07-04T09:17:25.590" UserId="6602" />
  <row Id="11186" PostId="8346" Score="1" Text="@ChristopherGilmour I think this could be an answer, if you added a bit more detail." CreationDate="2019-07-08T15:39:31.070" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11175" PostId="8347" Score="0" Text="Hello and welcome! Do you have any data or sources to support this? It makes sense, but I'm wondering if magnets could be used to separate the paper (like is done to separate metal from plastic)." CreationDate="2019-07-04T15:36:19.437" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11176" PostId="8348" Score="2" Text="Sorry, this is way too broad for the site. It's almost like asking for a complete project plan." CreationDate="2019-07-05T07:10:08.683" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="11177" PostId="8348" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! I agree with Jan Doggen; you ask a very broad question. If you focus on one specific problem per question you will get much more useful answers." CreationDate="2019-07-05T07:44:00.460" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11178" PostId="8348" Score="1" Text="So what's the specific question that you are trying to answer? What's the specific problem that you are trying to solve? By the way, who's the builder? Not all new build is the same ..." CreationDate="2019-07-05T13:20:12.107" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="11179" PostId="8351" Score="1" Text="Hello and welcome! Your question is a bit unclear. Are you looking to generate electricity by burning methanol? This seems like a [shopping question](https://stackoverflow.blog/2010/11/23/qa-is-hard-lets-go-shopping/)... can you explain the connection to sustainability?" CreationDate="2019-07-05T20:12:43.183" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11180" PostId="8351" Score="1" Text="Just looking for a place to ask the question.  Yes I just want a way to buy a generator that will run on methanol" CreationDate="2019-07-06T03:38:21.193" UserId="6760" />
  <row Id="13144" PostId="8351" Score="0" Text="Pretty much any gasoline engine can be adapted to run on methanol.  https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S036012851830042X" CreationDate="2020-12-05T22:45:12.530" UserId="8342" />
  <row Id="11183" PostId="8352" Score="0" Text="Methanol is probably the easiest fuel to produce.  I don’t want a fuel cell, I want an ICE electrical generator that uses methanol as fuel.  The whole reason I would want one is that it would be sustainable.  Fuel cells are not ready for prime time.  You’d be changing out membranes frequently.  Solar and wind are great, but batteries are also not ready for extensive use." CreationDate="2019-07-06T20:27:41.567" UserId="6760" />
  <row Id="11184" PostId="8352" Score="0" Text="@KerryThurber I know that some electrical companies started using electricity generators running on methanol only a few years ago, so that's for large-scale energy production. AFAIK generators for consumers / small-scale usage do not exist yet. I suspect it has something to do with the corrosive nature of methanol. BTW wood, vegetable oil and ethanol are easier (and safer!) to produce than methanol." CreationDate="2019-07-07T07:11:24.020" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11185" PostId="8352" Score="0" Text="Great!  Do you know of a specific electrical company that would be willing to talk?  Wood alcohol is the same thing as methanol.  (Did you mean just wood and use  some sort of steam engine equivalent?)  Vegetable oil can be used to produce diesel, but you have to grow the vegetables buy the materials for esterification, which usually includes methanol.  Ethanol is almost the same process but has to be fermented first.  Methanol and ethanol are both corrosive, which means the engine needs to be specially made.  I’m trying to ascertain how durable and economical such an engine could be." CreationDate="2019-07-07T14:32:24.573" UserId="6760" />
  <row Id="11194" PostId="8352" Score="0" Text="@KerryThurber I tried to find my original source where I read about electrical companies starting using methanol but couldn't find it anymore. I did however find [this presentation](https://ngi.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/Dor_-_Stanford_July_2017_.pdf). It's about how a company called 'Dor Group' converted a steam boiler to use methanol for the Israel Electric Company.&#xA;I did mean plain old wood and not wood alcohol. You can use wood to power a [wood gas generator](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_gas_generator)" CreationDate="2019-07-10T07:01:27.093" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11187" PostId="8353" Score="0" Text="This sounds like a very special hole... how deep is it? Generally speaking, a few meters below the surface, the temperature will be constant at the annual average surface temperature. This fact is what makes [ground source heat pumps](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_heat_pump) cost-effective and functional." CreationDate="2019-07-08T15:49:55.110" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11188" PostId="8353" Score="0" Text="@LShaver these things are 50-100 meters across and 10-20 meters deep or less. Typically filled with grass. Not very large. In the meantime I have found the proper name of these: &quot;forst hollows&quot; or &quot;frost pockets&quot;." CreationDate="2019-07-08T16:10:41.480" UserId="384" />
  <row Id="11195" PostId="8355" Score="0" Text="From your answer I take it you are using a carbon footprint calculator? While this does provide a partial answer to the OPs question, such a calculator focuses only on emitted greenhouse gases and leaves out many other things such as water usage, pollution, resource depletion. Then again no method will ever be complete." CreationDate="2019-07-10T07:10:57.747" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11545" PostId="8356" Score="0" Text="I wouldn't either, however it could be a bubble (not saying that it is, but market wise it may resemble one)." CreationDate="2019-10-07T08:13:03.390" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="11546" PostId="8356" Score="0" Text="@gerrit Agreed, but then again at P/E 26.49 it's not high enough to be a real bubble..." CreationDate="2019-10-07T08:27:40.687" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="11547" PostId="8356" Score="0" Text="I have no clue what P/E is so I'll take your word for that :)" CreationDate="2019-10-07T08:40:59.427" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="11197" PostId="8357" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! To prevent spam and misuse this site works with [reputation points](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/help/privileges) which you can earn when you ask good questions or write good answers. Once you have 15 points you can show your appreciation for other posts by upvoting. Meanwhile I took the liberty to revise your question post because that should focus on the question you have." CreationDate="2019-07-11T13:12:43.337" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11198" PostId="8357" Score="2" Text="I found a rather similar question [here](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/7199/99). Do the answers there help you? If not, can you please edit your question and add how your question is different?" CreationDate="2019-07-11T13:19:15.987" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11199" PostId="8357" Score="0" Text="no thats brill ... thanks .... on the right track sort of &#xA;&#xA;but could you add my thanks under neath my question ?" CreationDate="2019-07-11T13:46:32.203" UserId="6779" />
  <row Id="11201" PostId="8357" Score="0" Text="I can't post comments for you, but you can write them under your own posts yourself. Also you now have enough reputation to upvote and thank people for good questions or answers that way." CreationDate="2019-07-12T07:57:11.800" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11202" PostId="8357" Score="0" Text="terrific - thank you" CreationDate="2019-07-12T09:49:13.337" UserId="6779" />
  <row Id="11203" PostId="8357" Score="0" Text="Oh and thanks for welcoming me and welcome :)" CreationDate="2019-07-12T14:21:00.653" UserId="6779" />
  <row Id="11211" PostId="8359" Score="0" Text="thank you for the elaborate response with sources. We don't have pets but we do have cats (likely neighbors') that visit and also birds. We already use a bird feeder and put nuts in them. I tried breaking the boiled yolk and adding them to the feeder. So far it looks like it works.&#xA;Needless to say, the cats love them." CreationDate="2019-07-14T06:12:40.100" UserId="6640" />
  <row Id="11206" PostId="8361" Score="0" Text="Frost pockets are frost pockets only at night, and works only when there is no wind and there is clear sky (exactly during a heat wave). During the day the sun shines in and heats the ground and equalizes the temperature with the surroundings rather quickly. At night the radiation loss of the ground is about 50-100 W/m². For 1000m² it's about 50-100kW rate of cooling. The cold air is just a working fluid here which I intend to collect.&#xA;So it's a not a problem if the cold air is exhausted within a day." CreationDate="2019-07-13T12:30:56.713" UserId="384" />
  <row Id="11207" PostId="8361" Score="0" Text="For large areas I may consider using and earth wall to surround the area, it would have the same effect." CreationDate="2019-07-13T12:32:38.933" UserId="384" />
  <row Id="11208" PostId="8361" Score="0" Text="I'm looking forward what minimum temperature can you reach within your artificial frost pocket." CreationDate="2019-07-13T12:33:32.423" UserId="384" />
  <row Id="11209" PostId="8361" Score="0" Text="@Calmarius  As am I.  That said, I don't really want the pond to turn into a skating rink in winter.  Ducks and fish wouldn't appreciate that.  The local climate (warm temperate) makes overshoot unlikely, however.  The plan is to just dig-observe-dig-observe-dig-observe...  Work the fundamentals week after week, year after year until diminishing returns make further investment of time, effort and money irrational.  A worthy experiment, methinks." CreationDate="2019-07-13T15:17:29.167" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="11212" PostId="8365" Score="0" Text="If the big supermarkets near-by don't sell paper or metal straws you can try and ask them if they can order it for you. If enough people do this it will be added to their product range. BTW it should only be a matter of time before it becomes available. [Single-use plastics like straws will be banned in the EU in 2021](https://ec.europa.eu/environment/efe/content/european-parliament-votes-single-use-plastics-ban_en) Meanwhile you could also try to [grow your own straws](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/3110/99)" CreationDate="2019-07-16T07:40:18.860" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11213" PostId="8365" Score="0" Text="@THelper I will tell them. Moreover, I will try to not use at all until the get available, I think... Maybe you should post an answer, since the answer seems to be no." CreationDate="2019-07-16T08:34:29.657" UserId="6154" />
  <row Id="11216" PostId="8365" Score="2" Text="@Erik I found some glass-made straws in Karstadt, with a spear-morphed sponge. WMF had a cup-like thing, with an attached straw - doesn't fit my needs. Leonardo is not around... Depot on the other hand seems to have a plethora of straws, from variations of what I found in the others, to Bamboo and paper straws - although I am not sure what's better - in Hellas I used from Cane (straw in Hellenic is &quot;Canie&quot; (Cane = Καλάμι, Straw = Καλαμάκι).  I think you answered perfectly my question in your comment, so, please, post an answer, with **Depot** as the winner! :)" CreationDate="2019-07-16T16:15:29.740" UserId="6154" />
  <row Id="11215" PostId="8366" Score="2" Text="For comparison, the average passenger vehicle emits 251 g CO2 per km ([source](https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/greenhouse-gas-emissions-typical-passenger-vehicle))." CreationDate="2019-07-16T13:47:29.107" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12505" PostId="8366" Score="1" Text="I asked [a question on meta.stackexchange.com](https://meta.stackexchange.com/q/331301/164138) if there are plans to switch to renewable energy. The question got several upvotes and sadly a bit more downvotes. There was no official response." CreationDate="2020-03-24T07:36:05.867" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11218" PostId="8367" Score="0" Text="Let's hope that non-plastic straws and such will become the de facto &quot;soon&quot;, thanks for the answer!" CreationDate="2019-07-17T08:43:05.930" UserId="6154" />
  <row Id="11247" PostId="8367" Score="0" Text="@gsamaras: I also saw some reusable straws at DM the other day." CreationDate="2019-07-31T09:07:19.860" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="11248" PostId="8367" Score="0" Text="Aha, will have it in mind, thanks!" CreationDate="2019-07-31T09:49:30.393" UserId="6154" />
  <row Id="11222" PostId="8369" Score="0" Text="You probably want to rule out an electric dehumidifier for the same reasons as air conditioning, right?" CreationDate="2019-07-19T00:31:42.983" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="11223" PostId="8369" Score="0" Text="@Jean-PaulCalderone that's correct -- a dehumidifier works on the same principle as air conditioning, but instead of exhausting heat outdoors, would leave it inside." CreationDate="2019-07-19T02:26:48.637" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11226" PostId="8371" Score="0" Text="Interesting. Any idea how much water this could remove?" CreationDate="2019-07-19T15:48:34.293" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11228" PostId="8371" Score="0" Text="@LShaver &#xA;Assuming summer temp of 30°C, relative humidity of 80%, fridge size of 300L, fridge temp of 5°C, and 20 door openings per day, you would extract 105mL of water from the air every day. Not a huge amount, but perhaps part of a solution.  Opening the fridge door more often, opening the freezer door, a larger fridge/freezer capacity, or a higher RH would all increase the amount removed, of course.  Lots of variables — and not all of them scale linearly." CreationDate="2019-07-23T13:25:13.033" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="11525" PostId="8372" Score="0" Text="Ethanol has 1/3 less energy ; gasoline has 50% more energy. Environmentalists only look at the CO2 per gallon because if you considered all the energy inputs to produce ethanol it produces more CO2 per mile traveled." CreationDate="2019-09-30T14:21:53.513" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="11229" PostId="8374" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! I like your question, but one counter-argument is that photovoltaic cells have higher efficiency when it's cold. Nevertheless it would be interesting to see if overall the reduced efficiency in the summer outweighs the reduced need for heating (and extra air-con)." CreationDate="2019-07-23T14:42:00.367" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11230" PostId="8374" Score="0" Text="According to [this paper](http://research.iaun.ac.ir/pd/jjfesharakiold/pdfs/PaperC_4124.pdf), the small increase in temperature won't make such a big difference in efficiency." CreationDate="2019-07-23T14:47:38.410" UserId="6811" />
  <row Id="11231" PostId="8374" Score="0" Text="I am not expert, but we also have to put in the table the other consequences of climate change: summers more hot and winters more colds, and that makes us use more airconditioners and more heater, increasing our energy consumption and so on..." CreationDate="2019-07-23T16:50:55.033" UserId="6552" />
  <row Id="11697" PostId="8374" Score="0" Text="Another factor is that a warmer atmosphere is able to carry more moisture, potentially resulting in more cloudy days and reduced solar PV output over the course of the year (especially with the reduction in efficiency that occurs at higher temperatures)" CreationDate="2019-11-08T20:48:01.123" UserId="3960" />
  <row Id="11235" PostId="8376" Score="0" Text="There's a similar question [here](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/7187/3379), but it doesn't have any answers yet." CreationDate="2019-07-25T02:25:36.493" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11377" PostId="8376" Score="0" Text="One of the large UK supermarkets published a document with listed the carbon footprints of their top thousand or so products. I was reading it online in May 2019, but I can't find it now. It was incredibly comprehensive, with the different footprints of organic and battery farmed eggs, different brands of meat burgers, vegetables and so on. Its out there online somewhere..." CreationDate="2019-08-27T15:50:04.890" UserId="6602" />
  <row Id="11239" PostId="8379" Score="0" Text="Hello and welcome! There's a lot of good info here, however on longer posts sometimes it's helpful to include some headings (using '#'). It also doesn't look like you've answered the specific question -- tailpipe emissions per km for gasoline and ethanol." CreationDate="2019-07-26T18:43:12.733" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11240" PostId="8379" Score="0" Text="@LShaver I agree that a short summary or headings will improve the answer, but I also feel that the percentages mentioned in the 3rd section do answer the question. The OP didn't specify that he wanted absolute numbers, he merely asked which has higher emissions." CreationDate="2019-07-27T08:52:49.657" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11241" PostId="8379" Score="0" Text="@THelper looks like that stat covers life cycle emissions and not tailpipe emissions, unless I've missed it." CreationDate="2019-07-27T14:05:17.737" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11245" PostId="8379" Score="0" Text="@LShaver You are right. I forgot that the OP asked for tailpipe." CreationDate="2019-07-30T07:02:16.623" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11242" PostId="8381" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! You raise 2 interesting points. I do wonder how big the effect of albedo is. Do you have any references for this?" CreationDate="2019-07-30T06:30:52.703" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11279" PostId="8382" Score="2" Text="I'm not entirely convinced by your superconductor argument. If the superconductors require cooling to liquid nitrogen or liquid helium boiling temperatures, due to the large temperature difference between these and the ambient temperature, worldwide temperature increase is going to increase nitrogen/helium consumption only very little. I would be more concerned about our helium supplies depleting." CreationDate="2019-08-06T08:13:37.557" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="11283" PostId="8382" Score="0" Text="no, you are right, I shouldn't have mentioned superconductors. I think the best way to answer the question is to look at where the bulk of the energy using population is distributed around the world. People in cold climates use less heating as the climate warms, in hot climates more air conditioning. So its really a question of weighing energy spent in heating your house against energy spent in cooling it." CreationDate="2019-08-07T12:16:40.713" UserId="6825" />
  <row Id="11246" PostId="8384" Score="1" Text="Normally I'd say the less waste the better. But in your case: can you find out more about these trucks? Do they have close tops etc? And what materials will you be recycling? For instance here, depending on those things, the trucks compress everything and they're made so that nothing can fall out, so it really doesn't matter whether ther's lining or not." CreationDate="2019-07-30T19:45:36.120" UserId="4158" />
  <row Id="11367" PostId="8384" Score="1" Text="You could bag in paper as an alternative. What are the guidelines listed on your recycling facility’s website? That will dictate what your options are." CreationDate="2019-08-23T01:41:27.473" UserId="6488" />
  <row Id="11252" PostId="8385" Score="0" Text="I think option 2 is better, because it's recyclable and because producing metal has a big environmental impact. However I can't back this up with numbers from LCAs. Any chance you can use compostable plastics for option 2?" CreationDate="2019-08-01T05:58:32.977" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11253" PostId="8385" Score="0" Text="@THelper I wish, but it's not available on my country yet. What's LCAs btw?" CreationDate="2019-08-01T06:23:34.673" UserId="6829" />
  <row Id="11254" PostId="8385" Score="0" Text="Sorry, I shouldn't have used or at least explained the abbreviation. It's life-cycle-analyses (see also [this tag](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/tags/life-cycle-analysis/info))" CreationDate="2019-08-01T06:38:58.433" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11256" PostId="8386" Score="0" Text="You are not answering the question about fleece" CreationDate="2019-08-01T07:52:15.317" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="11249" PostId="8387" Score="0" Text="I 100% agree with you. However this answer derails from the question. So i have to downvote it. Thanks for answering though :)" CreationDate="2019-07-31T16:42:35.933" UserId="6829" />
  <row Id="11293" PostId="8387" Score="1" Text="What about the argument that glass is heavier than e.g plastic and thus transporting it causes more emissions?" CreationDate="2019-08-08T18:27:58.043" UserId="6706" />
  <row Id="11251" PostId="8388" Score="0" Text="This is an anecdotal answer and not a generic solution. Where I live our recycler specifically asks people to put recyclable materials in a (recyclable) plastic bag." CreationDate="2019-08-01T05:51:53.993" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11266" PostId="8388" Score="0" Text="That is what I said. I got told off for putting it in a non recyclable bag.. Obviously it makes life easier for dustmen, not to have to empty out non recyclable bags as they do their rounds. It would slow them up a lot. However rules are different depending on where you are. I don't think there are any recyclable plastic bags in the UK" CreationDate="2019-08-02T15:02:08.580" UserId="6825" />
  <row Id="11255" PostId="8390" Score="0" Text="To some extent we can use dams, but it does depends on how much the sea-level will rise. If it's 5 meters as some projections say then dams don't work anymore and parts of the Netherlands and many other countries need to be abandoned." CreationDate="2019-08-01T06:48:09.357" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11257" PostId="8390" Score="0" Text="Actually sea levels have [risen 130 meters in the last 20,000 years](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Past_sea_level). That is pretty noticeable." CreationDate="2019-08-01T17:18:15.033" UserId="1513" />
  <row Id="11261" PostId="8391" Score="0" Text="@Erik a chilli can or a bottle of liquid soap.  But I don't know what is excessive cleaning, that is the point of the question.  I imagine that if it takes more water then the container holds to clean it, you are wasting more resources then you are saving." CreationDate="2019-08-02T11:00:20.857" UserId="1513" />
  <row Id="11262" PostId="8391" Score="0" Text="Follow-up: Why are you under the impression, that this stuff needs thorough cleaning? Has someone told you so?" CreationDate="2019-08-02T12:48:36.227" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="11263" PostId="8391" Score="0" Text="Further thoughts: When using liquid soap, I usually add a bit water, when the bottle is almost empty, to maximise its &quot;yield&quot;. Similarly, when using canned food, I usually add a bit water (4 to 5 spoons), slosh it around in the can and add the now flavoured water to my dish/cooking. Though, if we really wanted to be sustainable, we used paper-wraped soap or wouldn't buy canned food ;-)" CreationDate="2019-08-02T13:15:12.770" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="11285" PostId="8391" Score="0" Text="'Excessive' is irrelevant to the question, you just want to know when cleaning takes too much resources." CreationDate="2019-08-07T13:52:16.450" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="11260" PostId="8392" Score="0" Text="You say &quot;_it would probably make more sense to bury those renewable sources underground in an anaerobic environment and continue burning oil._&quot; Why? Oil adds CO2 to the atmosphere, renewables do not (if you replant)" CreationDate="2019-08-02T06:12:58.437" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11264" PostId="8392" Score="0" Text="@THelper Renewables can produce NEGATIVE indirect emissions if they are buried underground in an anaerobic environment. If renewables have more direct CO2 emissions than oil, it makes sense to bury renewables underground and burn oil, than to leave oil underground and burn renewables." CreationDate="2019-08-02T14:00:20.273" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="11272" PostId="8392" Score="0" Text="I understand that burying wood or biochar or plastics for that matter can be a carbon sink. However if that also means using oil as fuel then it's still counter-productive. Burning oil adds 'new' CO2 to the atmosphere, wood (or ethanol from organic matter) doesn't because it took CO2 from the atmosphere first." CreationDate="2019-08-04T09:45:34.197" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11265" PostId="8394" Score="0" Text="This answer does not address the point in the question if the fleece clothing is made from otherwise discarded plastic." CreationDate="2019-08-02T14:35:58.067" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="11270" PostId="8396" Score="0" Text="The question is if there *is* one, not if you *can make* one..." CreationDate="2019-08-04T08:23:18.417" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="11271" PostId="8397" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! I think your answer is informative, but I do wonder if it's possible to &quot;compensate 250 tons of CO₂ emissions&quot; this way." CreationDate="2019-08-04T09:33:12.173" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11273" PostId="8397" Score="0" Text="I found [this article](http://livingwebfarms.org/biochar-as-carbon-neg-tech/) that indicates that biochar can indeed be used as a carbon negative technology.&#xA;There can however also be some drawbacks as is discussed in [this article](https://e360.yale.edu/features/refilling_the_carbon_sink_biochars_potential_and_pitfalls)" CreationDate="2019-08-04T09:49:11.060" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11275" PostId="8397" Score="0" Text="250 tons of CO2 is only 85 tons of Carbon, or 85 trees which can easily fit into an acre of land. Even without the trees its still only 20g of Carbon per square metre over an acre." CreationDate="2019-08-05T10:06:39.567" UserId="6602" />
  <row Id="11274" PostId="8399" Score="0" Text="This answers (some aspects of) 'how to calculate', not the question 'which are worse'." CreationDate="2019-08-05T07:47:29.963" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="11287" PostId="8400" Score="0" Text="It also helped me remember a youtube video where a guy was avising large-scale use of cattle to store carbon in the soil... but I am not totally convinced of its honesty - question raised https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/8410/why-dont-we-use-cattle-to-re-store-co2-in-the-soil" CreationDate="2019-08-07T14:35:30.727" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="11276" PostId="8402" Score="2" Text="This analysis is incomplete because it only includes above-ground biomass.  It also doesn't consider the complete lifecycle of the biomass.  Where does the carbon from the above-ground portion of a tree end up at the end of its life?  Typically, released into the atmosphere.  So over the *complete* life of a tree it is often close to carbon neutral." CreationDate="2019-08-05T13:23:15.640" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="11282" PostId="8406" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Are you affiliated to TekPak by any chance? Please note that we require people to mention any affiliation they have when recommending brands/companies." CreationDate="2019-08-07T09:23:44.177" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11288" PostId="8406" Score="0" Text="Thanks for pointing that out @THelper. I am not affiliated with TekPak in any way. However I am the main (volunteer) developer for the Creative Culture Guide. I looked for the sustainability stackexchange guidelines for what the proper my way mention the fact that I was linking to a project that I was affiliated with but I didn't manage to find any guidance. What is the correct way to disclose that?" CreationDate="2019-08-08T02:23:20.393" UserId="4189" />
  <row Id="11291" PostId="8406" Score="0" Text="Thank you for editing your answer. There are no rules on how to disclose exactly, your edit is fine." CreationDate="2019-08-08T06:49:56.353" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11294" PostId="8406" Score="0" Text="I'm aware of TekPak, but it's not viable to get from where I live right now. :)" CreationDate="2019-08-09T08:46:13.220" UserId="6829" />
  <row Id="12015" PostId="8411" Score="0" Text="Hi Scott, what would you answer to this [article](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/276215805_Holistic_Management_Misinformation_on_the_Science_of_Grazed_Ecosystems), clearly going against what you say?" CreationDate="2019-12-16T09:09:32.817" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="12022" PostId="8411" Score="0" Text="Half of my canyon is not accessible to cattle at all. This gives me a valuable opportunity to compare unspoiled virgin land to degraded/restored holistic acres. I believe it will be clear that both portions will demonstrate how immensely preferable they are to neighboring ranches where everything is chomped down to dirt.  It's ugly and heartbreaking, but I believe we can do something about it." CreationDate="2019-12-17T21:42:22.783" UserId="6837" />
  <row Id="11299" PostId="8414" Score="0" Text="Two remarks: 1) *mass husbandry* and *environmental impact* are two different things (although related). 2) *you also do not incentivise the companies* is not true: consumption drops" CreationDate="2019-08-11T11:33:28.323" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="11300" PostId="8414" Score="0" Text="@jan-doggen 1) Yes, thats true. Mass husbandry sometimes even causes less enviromental damage than organic meat productuon. 2) Someone who becomes vegetarian has propably already eaten only organic meat before becoming a vegetarian. So there would actually be a drop in sales of organic meat while all other sales stay normal. Which could lead to wrong conclusions in management and have the opposite effect we intended." CreationDate="2019-08-11T12:06:03.727" UserId="6850" />
  <row Id="11301" PostId="8414" Score="0" Text="*Someone who becomes vegetarian has propably already eaten only organic meat before becoming a vegetarian* I challenge that assumption" CreationDate="2019-08-11T12:58:32.563" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="11303" PostId="8414" Score="0" Text="@JanDoggen Fair Point. So it depends on your previous meat consumtion (organic/non-organic) case-by-case." CreationDate="2019-08-11T17:30:24.463" UserId="6850" />
  <row Id="11376" PostId="8414" Score="0" Text="*&quot;As a vegetarian you do not provide incentives for the companies behind meat production to change their behavior.&quot;* - Yes I do! **Lower consumption of meat is the best incentive** for them to get off the market! ;-)" CreationDate="2019-08-25T16:09:15.403" UserId="591" />
  <row Id="11295" PostId="8415" Score="0" Text="Doesn't keeping your own animals contradict with what you wrote earlier about influencing meat producers via purchasing?" CreationDate="2019-08-11T06:02:50.443" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11296" PostId="8415" Score="0" Text="@THelper  How so?  The important thing to me is that the animals lead a 'happy' life, enjoy good feed, and are humanely dispatched before becoming dinner.  I _know_ I can have a large and positive impact on the small number of animals we consume by raising and processing them ourselves.  If we buy meat from someone else, then we _should_ be exerting a small positive influence that affects a larger number of animals — but we all know that sub-optimal practices _can_ hide behind 'organic' and 'free-range' labels.  It's net-positive either way, but I prefer not to gamble." CreationDate="2019-08-11T07:15:57.970" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="11298" PostId="8415" Score="0" Text="For many and varied reasons, raising your own meat is not something that everyone (or even most people) can do. If that route is closed, then making wise (animal-friendly) purchasing decisions at the store is the next-best thing." CreationDate="2019-08-11T07:36:56.920" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="11304" PostId="8418" Score="0" Text="I disagree. Electric engines have much less moving parts and require less maintenance than combustion engines. Electric cars are also cheaper to maintain than petrol cars and although not much is known yet about their longevity, it looks like they will surpass that of a combustion engine." CreationDate="2019-08-12T14:09:28.760" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11305" PostId="8418" Score="0" Text="Your disagreement does not provide any point for against my points.An electronic circuit board has zero moving part but its lifespan is far shorter than an motor.So i see no logical point here." CreationDate="2019-08-13T15:30:51.013" UserId="6854" />
  <row Id="11328" PostId="8418" Score="0" Text="Can you provide some references or data to support your points?" CreationDate="2019-08-18T16:26:05.330" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11307" PostId="8419" Score="0" Text="Thank you for trying to answer, but I feel your answer is too short to be helpful. How do you know ink is environmentally safe? Doesn't that contain harmful chemicals? How do ink and toner impact the environment per printed page? And what do you mean with point 3; toner is polluted air?" CreationDate="2019-08-14T11:47:32.640" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11306" PostId="8420" Score="0" Text="Very informative, thank you! You mention quarts and ounces in your answer, I assume that's US units and not Imperial?" CreationDate="2019-08-14T11:41:30.000" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11308" PostId="8420" Score="0" Text="@THelper cell -  For all I know it could be both, but I also assume it is US units because that's normally the system used for oil. It's possible that the figure applies only to black cartridges with black toner or ink, but that factoid should be disregarded for multiple reasons, at least until I find a trustworthy source for it." CreationDate="2019-08-14T16:38:24.947" UserId="6837" />
  <row Id="11325" PostId="8420" Score="0" Text="Thanks for a very detailed answer, do you have any sources for the paragraphs on paper recycling?" CreationDate="2019-08-17T07:02:28.807" UserId="6853" />
  <row Id="11326" PostId="8420" Score="0" Text="The most helpful source for that portion of the answer was Lignocellulose Biotechnology: Future Prospects Rames Kuhad, Ajay Singh, published by I.K. International Publishing House 2007 but wikipedia sections on toner, paper recycling, and deinking were very helpful in updating that information." CreationDate="2019-08-17T14:47:05.963" UserId="6837" />
  <row Id="11327" PostId="8420" Score="0" Text="Perhaps I should have added that I NEVER send paper to the recycle center.  I compost it.  I've seen whole collection trucks being dumped at the landfill due to contamination cause by people throwing trash into their recycle bins.  I should probably edit the answer to include the techniques I use." CreationDate="2019-08-17T15:06:18.323" UserId="6837" />
  <row Id="11311" PostId="8422" Score="0" Text="Perhaps SAC can share some info on how many supply flights they have per week for a moderately attended mountain hut, and then calculate the CO2 emissions based on that.  From anecdotal observations, I believe they are supplied closer to 2-3 times per week than to every 2-3 weeks. Maybe we should invite over some people from [Outdoors.SE] as they might have more expertise (although the question is on-topic here)." CreationDate="2019-08-15T10:56:41.070" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="11315" PostId="8422" Score="0" Text="The AMC huts in NH are not over 3000m, but this might give you an idea of the needed supplies and weight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9BOphdwvYY&amp;feature=youtu.be" CreationDate="2019-08-15T16:01:42.717" UserId="6862" />
  <row Id="11316" PostId="8422" Score="0" Text="Do you know if water will be required" CreationDate="2019-08-15T19:34:24.967" UserId="6837" />
  <row Id="11317" PostId="8422" Score="0" Text="To make a comparison, you would need to know  what kind of helicopter would be used,  how far it would have to fly, and what kind of car would be used.  To determine your CO2 footprint, it would help to know the location of the hut, the type of supplies, and the source of the supplies you intend to use.  Info regarding the time of year, type of hut, and type of fuel used to heat the hut would also be helpful." CreationDate="2019-08-15T19:56:24.063" UserId="6837" />
  <row Id="13481" PostId="8422" Score="1" Text="&quot;Can you consider sleeping in a hut being environmental-friendly?&quot; — So is the comparison between a) nobody sleeps there: no helicopters; b) people sleep there: yes helicopters?" CreationDate="2021-03-01T20:30:34.310" UserId="9379" />
  <row Id="13483" PostId="8422" Score="0" Text="You should also want to consider construction and re-construction of these facilities. How many trips helicopters make during such (re-)constructions? Do they carry liquid concrete up from the valley in massive buckets? (Yes, they may carry liquid concrete in buckets; yes they may do many turns in such a case (two AS-350 Ecureuils in rotation can keep up a steady and speedy supply).) (Yes, it's for demolishing a small already existing accommodation/storage building, to replace it with a concrete-built coffee-terrace.) (Location is in the Alps @ 2500m.a.s.l.)" CreationDate="2021-03-01T20:44:54.373" UserId="9379" />
  <row Id="11329" PostId="8427" Score="2" Text="Take a look at this article: [Incense smoke: clinical, structural and molecular effects on airway disease](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2377255/). Environmental impacts are not discussed, but you may be interested to read about the health effects of air quality impacts." CreationDate="2019-08-18T16:30:04.460" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11333" PostId="8427" Score="0" Text="Thanks, that helps" CreationDate="2019-08-19T08:31:09.800" UserId="6865" />
  <row Id="12478" PostId="8427" Score="2" Text="Is your concern about people inhaling smoke from incense sticks, or about what effect smoke has on global heating and climate change? Please edit your post to clarify the question." CreationDate="2020-03-12T16:00:01.297" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="12504" PostId="8427" Score="0" Text="Sorry, this site is primarily about sustainability, so the environmental impact of manufacturing, using or disposing things. If your question is about public health issues it would be better to ask on https://medicalsciences.stackexchange.com." CreationDate="2020-03-23T07:01:57.887" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11332" PostId="8428" Score="0" Text="IIRC under WTO rules they'd have to tax all beef imports equally (least favoured nation principle).  And, France and taxing meat?  That would lead to an explosion of the *gilets jaunes* compared to which 1789 is a walk in the park." CreationDate="2019-08-19T08:20:06.580" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="11337" PostId="8428" Score="0" Text="Of course not France, only I know about the eco-taxe here! But Sweden or Danemark or the entire European Union ?" CreationDate="2019-08-19T20:21:29.613" UserId="1015" />
  <row Id="11331" PostId="8429" Score="2" Text="refuse reduce reuse recycle rehome replant rot... perhaps the real question is why you have so much to recycle?" CreationDate="2019-08-19T07:56:39.717" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="11334" PostId="8429" Score="1" Text="That's a fair point @gerrit - and I thoroughly understand that reduction far outweighs the benefits of recycling. To be specific I don't have &quot;so much to recycle&quot;, I stockpile in my garage and only need to make this trip once every few months. I also reuse the cardboard for all sorts of other things where possible." CreationDate="2019-08-19T10:48:07.760" UserId="6868" />
  <row Id="11343" PostId="8429" Score="0" Text="Do you only ever have cardboard to take?  Even a small amount of scrap metal (worn out bike parts in my case) probably offsets more CO2.  Now if only they'd let me into the tip on a bike!" CreationDate="2019-08-20T15:55:27.787" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="11338" PostId="8430" Score="1" Text="Could they possibly declare sale of beef legal if and only if the full life cycle is documented back to the origins and certified to not involve deforestation?" CreationDate="2019-08-19T22:22:26.600" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="11342" PostId="8430" Score="0" Text="Yeah, that would be a great solution. Its not what was originally asked about taxing beef, and it would drive up the costs of beef production, making it more expensive for consumers and putting a few beef producers out of business, and maybe kill of Brazil's beef industry." CreationDate="2019-08-20T07:50:18.953" UserId="6602" />
  <row Id="11363" PostId="8430" Score="0" Text="I do not agree.&#xA;1) Illegal taxes? It seems odd to me, what is Trump doing the last couple of years?&#xA;2) I would say that deforestation, these climate change days, is much more dangerous that Iran's atomic bombs. Still, Iran endures heavy sanctions (like no oil exporting allowed). Why not apply the same to more dangerous countries ?&#xA;3) Sorry for somehow suggesting to targeting Brazil specifically. I would tax all meat imports that do not practice respectful (for the Planet) agriculture. Meat or soybean or palm oil or something else - the first step is the most important." CreationDate="2019-08-21T20:57:58.707" UserId="1015" />
  <row Id="11364" PostId="8430" Score="0" Text="4) The tax doesn't need to return to Brazil - why give them money? To blackmail back later? No, the tax should go to local respectful farmers. You are talking about UK - they can raise cows there with some help, don't they?&#xA;5) Price will be higher, but people can be educated - it's our future on stake." CreationDate="2019-08-21T20:58:03.610" UserId="1015" />
  <row Id="11335" PostId="8431" Score="1" Text="Thanks Christopher - so the key unit to use in calculation is CO2? I'll use this as a guide and do the same maths for cardboard also." CreationDate="2019-08-19T10:50:13.800" UserId="6868" />
  <row Id="11336" PostId="8431" Score="0" Text="From an ecological perspective CO2 is perhaps the best measure. Although usually I convert everything into money which helps to contain more external costs. For example, you have to pay for the petrol but the money might be better spent on buying products with card packaging instead plastic packaging, or just offsetting the CO2 and putting it in the general trash. Also the cost of producing virgin plastic is about six times the cost of recycled plastic (£1,200 per tonne versus £200). Is it worth spending £2 of petrol to save £1 worth of plastic and £0.10 of CO2? Maybe." CreationDate="2019-08-19T11:11:19.073" UserId="6602" />
  <row Id="11344" PostId="8431" Score="1" Text="@ChristopherGilmour converting to money is handy but given the large effective subsidies for fossil fuels it can significantly distort the calculation" CreationDate="2019-08-20T15:56:49.457" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="11350" PostId="8431" Score="0" Text="@ChrisH In the UK more than half the price of fuel is tax, when the government is subsidising fossil fuel, they're using the money we've already handed over when we bought the fuel. I don't know if it cancels itself out but if the subsidies didn't exist fuel would still be roughly the same price." CreationDate="2019-08-21T11:23:33.387" UserId="6602" />
  <row Id="11351" PostId="8431" Score="1" Text="That's one way of looking at it, but it doesn't take into account the current value of historic subsidies for fossil fuel infrastructure, or the costs imposed on all of us from NOx, particulates, and of course CO2. The tax/subsidy balance varies a lot between countries - in the US fuel is cheaper, in some of the UK's nearest neighbours it's 10-20% more, so there's clearly room for quite a lot of variation" CreationDate="2019-08-21T11:40:17.470" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="11339" PostId="8433" Score="3" Text="As usual: Refuse, reduce, recycle - first of all try to minimize the presence of alumimium in your life - then recycle the rest." CreationDate="2019-08-20T06:56:38.803" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="11340" PostId="8433" Score="0" Text="@Erik, minimizing aluminium is one option, but because aluminum can almost perfectly be recycled, substitung it might not always be the best choice. For example, canned foods are often in aluminum cans (or steel/tin). Both glas and plastic as alternative packaging is more difficult to recycle." CreationDate="2019-08-20T07:08:43.500" UserId="6858" />
  <row Id="11341" PostId="8433" Score="2" Text="Side note: From BBC *The elements* podcast on alumin(i)um (https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02rnv8s) Yes it is indeed perfectly recycable, but we are still producing new material because the current 'stock' is tied up in buildings and misc objects. The material becoming available out of this stock for recycling is far less than the demand." CreationDate="2019-08-20T07:30:53.337" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="11345" PostId="8433" Score="0" Text="@Erik Refuse, reduce, reuse, recycle, rehome, replant, rot :)" CreationDate="2019-08-20T18:26:19.400" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="11362" PostId="8433" Score="0" Text="Everyone overlooks the amount of aluminum used in aircraft, cars, office buildings, long-distance power transmission lines.... There's more to the aluminum issue than empty coke cans. Kudos for wanting to make things better, though." CreationDate="2019-08-21T18:44:57.613" UserDisplayName="user6891" />
  <row Id="11348" PostId="8434" Score="0" Text="This also applies to &quot;tin foil&quot;" CreationDate="2019-08-21T10:15:43.767" UserId="6884" />
  <row Id="11356" PostId="8434" Score="0" Text="Separate [question about tin foil](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/8437/sustainable-alternative-to-aluminium-foil) posted by another user" CreationDate="2019-08-21T15:11:11.013" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="11346" PostId="8436" Score="0" Text="I agree for aluminium because, as you said, most people won't care if it's recycled or not, but I don't think your reasoning holds for CO2 and renewable energy. CO2 emissions and renewable energy are not free markets. Governments stimulate renewable energy and carbon sequestration with subsidies. Many countries also enforce CO2 emission limits to comply with national laws and international agreements." CreationDate="2019-08-21T07:25:52.513" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11347" PostId="8436" Score="0" Text="@THelper So your argument is that it's better to spend money on lobbying to increase carbon taxes and renewable subsidies than building actual renewable power sources? Otherwise I don't see how you're contradicting anything in juhist's answer." CreationDate="2019-08-21T09:48:21.590" UserId="6883" />
  <row Id="11349" PostId="8436" Score="0" Text="@Luaan What I was trying to say is that juhist's reasoning about supply-and-demand is only valid for free, open markets. It doesn't hold for markets that are heavily influenced by government regulations and subsidies such as renewable energy and CCS. In these cases ownership is not the only way of making an impact. What is most effective is a different discussion." CreationDate="2019-08-21T10:16:08.603" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11352" PostId="8436" Score="0" Text="The supply of recycled aluminium is not fixed. If demand and prices increase, it becomes more worthwhile to extract it from waste." CreationDate="2019-08-21T13:09:16.543" UserId="1173" />
  <row Id="11357" PostId="8437" Score="0" Text="What about parchment paper? For example [this one](https://www.ifyoucare.com/baking-cooking/parchment-baking-paper/) (no affiliation) is home compostable and has FSC label." CreationDate="2019-08-21T15:27:52.867" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11358" PostId="8437" Score="0" Text="@THelper I edited in some additional information, but regarding the parchment paper- it would be a good partial replacement (for non-broiling and temperatures below the range specified as 'safe') but I would also be interested in additional replacements for the hotter temperatures and for broiling." CreationDate="2019-08-21T15:30:57.160" UserId="6886" />
  <row Id="11359" PostId="8437" Score="0" Text="Can you supply more information on how you use aluminum foil in broiling? I assume you line the dish you are cooking in with foil to ensure more even browning. In that case, you can equip your oven/broiler with permanent aluminum panels and skip the foil completely, or you can invest in a shiny pan that is oven safe as your container. Note that the aluminum lining is not strictly necessary for an even broil if you invest some time in determining the broiler's sweet spot." CreationDate="2019-08-21T17:47:46.633" UserId="6858" />
  <row Id="11360" PostId="8437" Score="0" Text="@RollingCompass To be honest, usually when I'm broiling something it's one of the last steps (I do a normal bake and then broil to finish it) so the foil is just there from the earlier step, underneath the food- but I'm not a chef so maybe aside from aluminium foil I'm doing something wrong there as well." CreationDate="2019-08-21T17:51:08.637" UserId="6886" />
  <row Id="11361" PostId="8437" Score="2" Text="@Onyx In that case, you can just leave the foil away entirely and simply oil/butter your baking dish well and you won't have any problems with sticking food. I haven't been using aluminum foil in the kitchen for years now, substitung it for parchment paper when baking or leaving it out entirely for more high temperature endeavors." CreationDate="2019-08-21T18:13:59.363" UserId="6858" />
  <row Id="11365" PostId="8437" Score="0" Text="@RollingCompass In that case the only detriment is having to clean the baking dish, but on that point I guess I'm just being unreasonably lazy. If you'd like to make an answer out of your comments so far, it seems worth accepting to me." CreationDate="2019-08-21T21:17:07.097" UserId="6886" />
  <row Id="11366" PostId="8438" Score="1" Text="Just cheese, or all dairy?" CreationDate="2019-08-23T01:13:42.080" UserId="6488" />
  <row Id="11368" PostId="8438" Score="3" Text="1. What is FCR? 2. Please do not start an answering in the question; leave that to the answers" CreationDate="2019-08-23T07:30:47.073" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="11369" PostId="8438" Score="0" Text="@Jan Doggen I have put in the definition of FCR.  Do you think I should remove the paragraph &quot;I can see 2 interpretations of this...&quot;?  I thought it clarified my thinking, but I shall remove it if that fits better." CreationDate="2019-08-23T08:24:12.370" UserId="6896" />
  <row Id="11370" PostId="8438" Score="0" Text="@Maria I concentrated on cheese as it is most similar nutritionally to beef, I would expect the calculation to be similar for all dairy." CreationDate="2019-08-23T08:25:38.137" UserId="6896" />
  <row Id="11832" PostId="8438" Score="0" Text="@Dave do you think sheep or goat's cheese is better?" CreationDate="2019-11-19T05:27:07.390" UserId="8041" />
  <row Id="11839" PostId="8438" Score="0" Text="It seems that FCR is a mass ratio. Dry mass or wet? I suspect dry, in the case of dairy, but is the same adjustment made for meat? A better calculation would be a per-calorie figure. Also, but removing the lactose, you're aiming it has no value in by-products. I'm not sure that's true" CreationDate="2019-11-19T08:11:17.487" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="11944" PostId="8438" Score="0" Text="Dave, I simplified your question by removing the parts that also tried to answer the question; hopefully this helps to bring in more responses. If you want to preserve your hypothesis, you might want to post it as an answer here." CreationDate="2019-11-29T02:30:32.700" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="11372" PostId="8440" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainability.SE! I think I see what you're asking, but perhaps a better way to phrase it is: &quot;Is putting plastic in the garbage better than putting it in the recycling bin?&quot; Your concern seems to be that what you put in the recycling bin doesn't actually get recycled, correct? Asking that directly may also be more clear." CreationDate="2019-08-23T19:58:48.153" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11373" PostId="8440" Score="0" Text="@LShaver good call -- edited to be more clear." CreationDate="2019-08-23T20:15:38.650" UserId="5010" />
  <row Id="11374" PostId="8440" Score="0" Text="&quot;Would it be better to just toss them in the garbage?&quot; needs to be answered on a national scale (maximum) . Recycling possibilities differ between countries. Maybe  emphasize US and add a tag?" CreationDate="2019-08-23T21:42:09.297" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="11371" PostId="8441" Score="1" Text="Aye, so it's strapping stilts to a donkey and calling it a stallion.  But besides the name the main point of my question is:  Is burying becoming 'better' than recycling?" CreationDate="2019-08-23T19:36:36.867" UserId="5010" />
  <row Id="16363" PostId="8441" Score="0" Text="CCS might be better renamed CO2CS if it only applies to carbon dioxide rather than other forms of carbon.  But anyway, any method of storing carbon, in any form, underground, achieves the same objective as CCS. So it would be a good thing and is not just creative bookkeeping." CreationDate="2023-05-04T05:46:00.040" UserId="14907" />
  <row Id="11375" PostId="8442" Score="0" Text="I like the last part of your answer about potential alternatives, but I don't agree with the rest. Melting aluminium yourself and/or having it recycled has an environmental impact, so I think that's why the OP asked this question. How can he lower his impact? Or can you provide some evidence that the difference in impact between aluminium and alternatives is negliable?" CreationDate="2019-08-24T06:51:45.467" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11378" PostId="8442" Score="0" Text="I melt aluminum using a large fresnel lens salvaged from an old big screen TV.  No impact there, but it's a lot of work to keep it focused. You could also use solar PV to melt it with a small kiln.  I may have misunderstood the part of the question where the OP seems to imply that aluminum foil cannot be recycled. It can, regardless of the fact that many people who recycle will not accept it. Just trying to say that it has a high value and should not be tossed out." CreationDate="2019-08-28T03:19:55.990" UserId="6837" />
  <row Id="11379" PostId="8444" Score="0" Text="See also: [ecofriendly alternatives to PTFE-based (teflon) pots?](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/6612/ecofriendly-alternatives-to-ptfe-based-teflon-pots)" CreationDate="2019-08-28T18:30:50.110" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12396" PostId="8445" Score="0" Text="I like this question; I wish someone wrote a good answer. I think an assumption that best efforts will be made by the consumer to recycle the waste is appropriate. This question is a good reason why products need carbon, water and pollution measures on them (dare to dream). This was the only useful information I found:https://www.procarton.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/PC-Carton-Plastic-Sustainability.pdf" CreationDate="2020-02-26T18:27:43.583" UserId="6287" />
  <row Id="11380" PostId="8446" Score="0" Text="I think this question would better suited for [Eletronics.SE](https://electronics.stackexchange.com/)." CreationDate="2019-08-29T13:36:36.240" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="11381" PostId="8446" Score="0" Text="&quot;We often start to struggle with our freezer.&quot; Can you be a bit more specific? Does it stop running? Or is it running a lot but not keeping things frozen? Something else?" CreationDate="2019-08-29T14:22:00.803" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11382" PostId="8446" Score="1" Text="@Erik there's a bit of a gray area on whether a PV question fits better here or there. However, since this is for an off-grid home, and the topic is a basic understanding of such systems, I think it's best to see what sort of answers we get here. Electronics.SE is generally a better fit for more specific questions." CreationDate="2019-08-29T14:24:16.100" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11383" PostId="8446" Score="1" Text="Can you post the brand and model of your inverter or include more complete specs in the question? In particular, I wonder if it is a combined inverter / charge controller. This is important for a good answer. I also wonder if your panels are AC or DC output (DC seems more likely but I'd rather not guess). Also, in what condition are the existing batteries? Are they lead acid? If so, can you measure the specific gravity? If not, can you give a sense of how they've been used? How long have they been in service and to what depth do you typically discharge them? Does the system give you SoC info?" CreationDate="2019-08-29T15:43:52.550" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="11385" PostId="8446" Score="0" Text="@LShaver Thanks. I've added some notes about what I meant about &quot;struggling&quot; with our freezer. The freezer itself is fine. It's more that _managing_ the freezer has a knock-on effect in terms of us struggling with our batteries." CreationDate="2019-08-30T04:16:43.950" UserId="6909" />
  <row Id="11386" PostId="8446" Score="1" Text="@Jean-PaulCalderone I've added a lot more information into the post. Thanks for asking the clarifying questions!" CreationDate="2019-08-30T04:17:48.427" UserId="6909" />
  <row Id="11387" PostId="8447" Score="0" Text="Thanks - you make some very good points, and a generator is a possible option. I think I'd like to add more panels first to see if we can do without a generator though (I have no idea where we'd keep it!). But your arguments to get a generator _before getting new batteries_ are definitely worth considering." CreationDate="2019-08-30T04:21:39.407" UserId="6909" />
  <row Id="11384" PostId="8448" Score="6" Text="I'm not seeing any analysis of the environmental impact of glass here, how does cardboard win without comparing it to anything?" CreationDate="2019-08-29T18:36:50.287" UserId="5953" />
  <row Id="11447" PostId="8448" Score="1" Text="@Harper wine boxes are regular cardboard. The wine is contained in a plastic bag that’s completely removable" CreationDate="2019-09-15T07:28:50.100" UserId="6488" />
  <row Id="11448" PostId="8448" Score="0" Text="@Maria Oh, well, that's much better then.  Trash the plastic, recycle the paper." CreationDate="2019-09-15T08:08:07.470" UserId="6925" />
  <row Id="12395" PostId="8448" Score="0" Text="The wine box tetra packs (the plastic insides) are often recyclable, depending on your area. In Ontario, Canada you get a deposit back for them for this reason, just like wine bottles." CreationDate="2020-02-26T18:23:28.257" UserId="6287" />
  <row Id="11388" PostId="8449" Score="1" Text="Good answer, but be careful with fat or salty food leftovers, those can be harmful for the worms. Also you say &quot;...not too much plastic...&quot;, I'd recommened no plastic at all because that will degrade into microplastics and contaminate your compost." CreationDate="2019-08-30T13:44:58.367" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11389" PostId="8449" Score="0" Text="@THelper, I have started going into zero waste for those almost two years, and one of the consequences is that I tend to have no leftovers at all ;-) To the compost what is left is only vegetable peelings. But it may have happened from time to time I put in the compost a forgotten plate that has been too long in the fridge: so I'll be careful that it should not be too salty. Thanks for the remark." CreationDate="2019-08-30T14:39:15.257" UserId="135" />
  <row Id="11390" PostId="8450" Score="0" Text="This is a remarkably well-written, informative, and detailed answer to my specific context. Thank you! I see that it's impossible to answer the general question of which to upgrade first since the components are so interdependent. Based on 1 and 2, it really does seem that getting two more batteries than required (i.e. 4 extra instead of just 2 more) and a stronger inverter is a little bit of overkill? Is it possible to get a separate charge controller to handle the extra panels so that the requirement 'drops' to two panels, an external charge controller, and just two batteries?" CreationDate="2019-08-30T19:54:41.900" UserId="6909" />
  <row Id="11392" PostId="8450" Score="0" Text="@AdamReynolds you might be able to find a 24V inverter with a higher input power rating. That would be the easiest way to avoid needing four more batteries. Having a parallel charge controller could work but you'd likely need to talk to the vendor of your current inverter to see how to do that." CreationDate="2019-08-31T22:20:58.840" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11393" PostId="8451" Score="1" Text="Possible duplicate of: [Most sustainable type of cream container?](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/5786/3379)" CreationDate="2019-09-01T15:38:02.273" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11489" PostId="8451" Score="1" Text="Frame challenge: switching to non-dairy milk substitutes (just drinking less milk) is likely to have a much greate sustainability impact than any packaging choice - see https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/9496/paper-packaging-once-a-day-or-plastic-every-second-day" CreationDate="2019-09-25T08:36:05.817" UserId="1445" />
  <row Id="11491" PostId="8451" Score="1" Text="*or* just drinking less milk (just too late to edit the comment!)" CreationDate="2019-09-25T08:42:01.643" UserId="1445" />
  <row Id="15798" PostId="8451" Score="0" Text="@aucuparia:  If it's too late to edit a comment, you can always:  Copy it to the clipboard, delete it, modify your text, and then submit it again.  :)" CreationDate="2022-05-24T21:15:42.643" UserId="938" />
  <row Id="11394" PostId="8452" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Thank you for your answer, but I'm not sure I understand it. I think you are not answering the question at the top of the page." CreationDate="2019-09-02T08:07:38.317" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11417" PostId="8452" Score="0" Text="I've only done it on a small scale it's not like I have full size panels at the house, but rechargeable solar landscape lighting an solar toys I have tested have produced more when confronted with the higher spectrum scale of lights far as lumens I didn't keep up with it because I still use watts as a measurement of light." CreationDate="2019-09-09T22:35:22.793" UserId="6916" />
  <row Id="11434" PostId="8453" Score="0" Text="The article you link to suggest that this has less environmental impact than carton or plastic bottle. Too bad they don't compare with glass and don't link to the original report. BTW where did you find that there is a break-even point at 150-300 km?" CreationDate="2019-09-13T07:57:58.607" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11436" PostId="8453" Score="0" Text="That's an estimation by the dairy I linked. Also, they don't compare with glass, since they a) provide glass bottles and b) glass is reusable, but the comparison focuses on waste." CreationDate="2019-09-13T08:10:09.550" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="15799" PostId="8453" Score="0" Text="The original all-plastic [milk bags](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milk_bag) (what you call &quot;tubes&quot;) are still sometimes used in Canada, Israel, India, South America, and other places.  [(Source.)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milk_bag)" CreationDate="2022-05-24T21:20:13.083" UserId="938" />
  <row Id="11395" PostId="8456" Score="0" Text="How about you take the &quot;studies&quot; you dug up and compare them with studies on readability alone? Also, just don't print as much ;-)" CreationDate="2019-09-04T07:46:22.910" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="11403" PostId="8458" Score="1" Text="I am unclear whether you are talking about toner (used by laser printers) or ink (used by inkjet printers).  Night and day.  Also, *enterprise* laser printers are a very different duck than &quot;personal-use tier&quot; laser printers.  The latter are architected to maximize supply expense, playing the same &quot;cheap razors, expensive blades&quot; game they play with inkjets.   This sick game doesn't work on enterprises, who do life-cycle cost analysis.   *You can get used enterprise-tier lasers at any university surplus store*. They are maintainable." CreationDate="2019-09-06T01:06:34.313" UserId="6925" />
  <row Id="11396" PostId="8459" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! I agree with what you are saying, but you are not answering the question. The premise here is that people forget to turn the lights off and that an automatic switch can help." CreationDate="2019-09-04T12:21:13.163" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11413" PostId="8461" Score="1" Text="Have you taken up this question with the HomeImprovement.SE? Because since you're asking for structural integrity I think your question would be better posted there." CreationDate="2019-09-09T08:59:19.823" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="11397" PostId="8462" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Very informative answer, but I was wondering if there isn't a better solution than flushing away the sodium aluminate solution?" CreationDate="2019-09-05T09:29:19.290" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11401" PostId="8464" Score="0" Text="Some emission factors (CO2 per energy delivered): https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2018-03/documents/emission-factors_mar_2018_0.pdf. Note: cruise is a destination. You should add flight + full inclusive hotel if you want to compare (OTOH many people flight to cruise). it is complex topic. Like flights: there is much marketing bs (e.g. reducing services and telling us that it is for environment). IIRC there were a discussion on aviation stack exchange." CreationDate="2019-09-05T12:01:09.340" UserId="3533" />
  <row Id="11402" PostId="8466" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainability.SE! This is a great answer -- dumping and having a parallel charge controller are both great suggestions." CreationDate="2019-09-05T21:24:38.230" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11410" PostId="8469" Score="0" Text="Interesting idea, but I don't think the economics of recycling plastic are ever likely to make pulling it from a landfill a viable option. There seems to be an endless supply of it in the waste stream..." CreationDate="2019-09-06T14:25:25.637" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11415" PostId="8474" Score="1" Text="Some gas , from some wells, in some infrastructure situations , is flared as a waste product." CreationDate="2019-09-09T15:28:39.543" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="11412" PostId="8475" Score="2" Text="Refillable glass bottles, for example a [swing-top bottle](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=swing-top+bottle&amp;ia=images&amp;iax=images)" CreationDate="2019-09-09T06:54:04.410" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11416" PostId="8476" Score="0" Text="Makes you wonder why there is a building boom in LNG plant construction , mostly Russia and Canada. The plants  cost  $ billions and need to run years to be profitable ( how many years depends on some assumptions , so no hard number)." CreationDate="2019-09-09T18:34:21.957" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="11419" PostId="8476" Score="0" Text="@blacksmith37 same in the U.S. My understanding is that it's heavily subsidized by the govt. Increasing demand for LNG boosts the industry, increasing supply, creating revenue (from taxes) and energy security. It's smart, in an evil way." CreationDate="2019-09-10T12:03:03.460" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11420" PostId="8476" Score="0" Text="@blacksmith37 The big problem with renewables is still storage. [Gas is seen as a good 'bridge' fuel](https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2018/09/09/how-long-will-natural-gas-be-a-bridge-fuel) while we wait for better battery technology. We expect that that will arrive in the next 10-20 years, but this is not certain. I also suspect that governments are not willing to abandon their natural gas reserves and will try to sell as much as possible before batteries take off." CreationDate="2019-09-10T12:36:26.327" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11422" PostId="8476" Score="0" Text="There is no subsidies to LPG in the US. A local municipality may give some reduction of local taxes to encourage some unit to be constructed providing local jobs. This is the same as a local tax break to build a new mall." CreationDate="2019-09-10T15:47:40.580" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="11418" PostId="8477" Score="1" Text="Perhaps it differs per country, but here in The Netherlands we also have various compostable plastics used for food packaging. The packaging usually has a logo or text on it so you know it's biodegradable, but otherwise it can be very hard to distinguish it from non-biodegradable plastics." CreationDate="2019-09-10T11:24:39.807" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11429" PostId="8477" Score="2" Text="Where does the idea come from, you have to clean your plastics before recycling?" CreationDate="2019-09-12T08:14:11.917" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="11445" PostId="8477" Score="0" Text="It says clearly on every plastic bag collection bin that the bags have to be clean and dry." CreationDate="2019-09-14T03:46:32.530" UserId="2763" />
  <row Id="13498" PostId="8477" Score="0" Text="In Australia the supermarkets accept any plastic bag in their recycling collections and just say &quot;free from obvious contamination, do not wash&quot;, but they are degraded into generic lumps of plastic as bollards and park furniture rather than being recycled:  https://www.redcycle.net.au/faqs/" CreationDate="2021-03-04T23:40:03.537" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="11425" PostId="8478" Score="0" Text="Wow, that is AWESOME news! Are you absolutely sure about this? Because my recycling bag o' bags is about to get a lot of PP in it if that’s true :)" CreationDate="2019-09-10T19:18:33.377" UserId="2763" />
  <row Id="11426" PostId="8478" Score="3" Text="After wandering around on the internet , I conclude it is difficult to get straight answers.   To recycle into something like the original , ALL plastics must be kept separate , using the little ASTM triangle with the number inside : 1-PET , 2-HDPE, 3- PVC ,4- LDPE , 5- PP , 6- polystyrene, 7- everything else.  Even high density and low density PE are different enough that they are separated. I conclude much recycle plastic is just mixed and used as fuel but no one will admit it. Our town puts all plastics in one container ,  and it can't be separated by machine." CreationDate="2019-09-10T20:37:26.423" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="11427" PostId="8478" Score="0" Text="Plastic in a single-stream bin is probably an ungodly mess, yeah. Plastic in a bin specifically for shopping bags is hopefully more pure. I've never seen a plastic shopping bag that's not unequivocally LDPE." CreationDate="2019-09-10T22:05:34.983" UserId="2763" />
  <row Id="11430" PostId="9480" Score="2" Text="Good question! I cannot answer, only if it is pure cotton or organic fibber, it should be OK then? Sorry if you used acrylic or similar." CreationDate="2019-09-12T13:51:22.380" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="11431" PostId="9480" Score="0" Text="@J.Chomel it is a t-shirt which used to say &quot;100% cotton&quot; on the label, but it had some prints on it, and was also dyed with some synthetic color" CreationDate="2019-09-12T13:52:38.963" UserId="1529" />
  <row Id="11432" PostId="9480" Score="0" Text="Now that you have it, you should use it. It is one sponge less to produce for big corps, and this will release only traces of pollutants. Not even what you would release ridding a bike, or walking with synthetic shoes." CreationDate="2019-09-12T14:22:59.213" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="11433" PostId="9480" Score="0" Text="I agree with J. Chomel; if it's cotton then it is not a big problem if fibers are released. For nylon clothing this is different as it will add microplastics to the environment." CreationDate="2019-09-13T07:50:35.057" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11725" PostId="9480" Score="0" Text="I'm thinking that a pieces of cotton cloth are probably better for dishwashing than weaving them into a sponge-like thing as they dry faster and are thus more hygienic (require less frequent washing)." CreationDate="2019-11-13T00:29:33.370" UserId="3722" />
  <row Id="11435" PostId="9482" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Thanks for providing a new perspective on this." CreationDate="2019-09-13T08:00:11.113" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11437" PostId="9483" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! I don't think direct sunlight is a necessity, but it will help charge the battery faster. Of course there is a minimal amount of light required during the day to fully charge and it is possible that on cloudy days you don't get enough. Doesn't the manual or the manufacturer say anything about this?" CreationDate="2019-09-13T10:43:10.590" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11439" PostId="9483" Score="0" Text="@THelper The manual is poorly worded.  I contacted the manufacturer (Germany), but they have directed me to the local rep., whom I have already talked to and don't trust that much.  I am really upset with the whole venture and am going to return the product." CreationDate="2019-09-13T13:17:01.953" UserId="7945" />
  <row Id="11440" PostId="9483" Score="0" Text="By the way, the local rep's response to me was &quot;It is a *solar* panel after all, what'd you expect? It obviously needs to be placed in direct sunlight&quot; implying that the product's packaging does not really need to state this fact." CreationDate="2019-09-13T13:41:52.780" UserId="7945" />
  <row Id="11441" PostId="9483" Score="0" Text="These things often have multiple modes. Can't you switch it turn on only with motion?" CreationDate="2019-09-13T13:47:54.113" UserId="5517" />
  <row Id="11442" PostId="9483" Score="0" Text="@GrahamChiu I don't think so.  In any case, one of the reasons for my purchase was to have it provide lighting throughout the night, albeit at a reduced level." CreationDate="2019-09-13T14:02:05.987" UserId="7945" />
  <row Id="11443" PostId="9483" Score="1" Text="US $14.35  37%OFF | LED Solar Light 36 leds PIR Motion Sensor night light Outdoor Waterproof Garden Street light Security Wall Lamp with mounted rod&#xA;https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/L0zr5WKU" CreationDate="2019-09-13T18:01:47.013" UserId="5517" />
  <row Id="11444" PostId="9483" Score="1" Text="It looks like this from AliExpress, and you are using it in mode 1. Try pushing the mode button next to the pir sensor to switch to mode 2 to save power. But realistically without direct sunlight you're not going to get a light on all night." CreationDate="2019-09-13T18:03:36.800" UserId="5517" />
  <row Id="11438" PostId="9484" Score="0" Text="Thank you!  I really think the packaging for the product should have stated what you've described.  Thanks for the invaluable information you've shared." CreationDate="2019-09-13T13:15:15.247" UserId="7945" />
  <row Id="11446" PostId="9484" Score="0" Text="This would be better for your purpose. https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32985318187.html  18 hours of light after fully charged.  On continuously.  4400mAh batteries which are replaceable.  9.8ft cable so you can place the solar panel in direct sunlight." CreationDate="2019-09-15T02:09:10.670" UserId="5517" />
  <row Id="11554" PostId="9487" Score="0" Text="Interesting answers to both questions. One thing that gets mentioned is replacement of components, such as hard disk drives (HDD). Whether or not computer components, such as HDDs need to be replaced can depend on usage &amp; power up &amp; power down cycles, but it can also be due to the quality of manufacture of the components. I have two laptops, made by the same manufacturer, one was made 11 years ago, the other 8. The only thing that died on the older one was the battery. The younger one has had the HDD replaced at least once. Both have been switched on &amp; off repeatedly &amp; used similar amounts." CreationDate="2019-10-08T01:48:14.583" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="11449" PostId="9488" Score="4" Text="Grass isn't cleared when installing solar panels, the panels simply are put on stilts over the grassy area, which has to be mowed or otherwise kept short once or twice a year. I haven't heard of trees being chopped down to solar panels, but hey, somewhere some moron probably did it." CreationDate="2019-09-16T11:38:35.750" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="11450" PostId="9488" Score="0" Text="Yeah, just google cutting trees for solar farm." CreationDate="2019-09-17T12:20:18.347" UserId="7952" />
  <row Id="11626" PostId="9491" Score="0" Text="Steel is much better than aluminium when it comes to the carbon footprint of making it. I looked into this for a question at [bicycles.se](https://bicycles.stackexchange.com/a/53750/7309). Concrete would be even worse. Apart from wood, steel is probably the best option" CreationDate="2019-10-27T20:01:40.077" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="12186" PostId="9492" Score="0" Text="Probably we just pay the shipping cost and let them do what they described in the website" CreationDate="2020-01-16T21:46:50.367" UserId="8353" />
  <row Id="11462" PostId="9495" Score="3" Text="Well, I guess somewhere on your router there's info on how much Watt it &quot;has&quot;. Aiming for the worst case: Multiply this number by 24, then by 365 - voila, you know, how many Wh your router guzzles up if it runs 24/7 at full power. The carbon footprint depends on your energy mix. Ask your energy provider, how much CO2 is in a Wh, multiply it with your consumption and there you are. As to personal health... unless you sleep directly on top of the router and/or amplify the signal significantly, there's no harm." CreationDate="2019-09-20T13:52:26.507" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="11461" PostId="9496" Score="6" Text="Frame challenge: I bet the impact of the cheese vastly outweighs the impact of either sort of packaging." CreationDate="2019-09-20T13:43:14.937" UserId="1445" />
  <row Id="11463" PostId="9496" Score="5" Text="Think outside the box: Use a box! Really, get a tight closing plastic or even glass box and let the shop put the cheese in there. Rinse it with hot water with the rest of your dishes." CreationDate="2019-09-20T13:54:32.220" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="11472" PostId="9496" Score="0" Text="@aucuparia: This is a good point" CreationDate="2019-09-23T07:52:41.067" UserId="7966" />
  <row Id="11473" PostId="9496" Score="0" Text="@Erik: I like this idea! Sadly the grocery store only sells the product pre-packaged, but I have to check my local market. Maybe they sell it without packaging so I can get it in my own container." CreationDate="2019-09-23T07:52:45.940" UserId="7966" />
  <row Id="11465" PostId="9497" Score="1" Text="Indeed. The most energy-intensive things in our daily lives include home heating, home cooling, and transportation (gasoline for cars)." CreationDate="2019-09-20T16:10:31.423" UserId="6558" />
  <row Id="11475" PostId="9497" Score="0" Text="I've reduced my consumption by a good few tens of watts by looking at little loads, but the router stays on except when I'm on holiday: If I forget just once to turn it on, my desktop draws more power in the time it takes for the router to boot than I'd save in a month (it's not a powerful desktop, but it is a slow router)" CreationDate="2019-09-23T15:53:20.310" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="12895" PostId="9497" Score="0" Text="+1 It might not make much sense when talking individually, but it could be a good candidate for being on a circuit controlled by a timer with other electronics (like TVs/DVD Players/Game Consoles etc that have an 'idle off' state. Especially if you aren't home 8am-6pm - having it switch 'on' at 6pm and off at 12am for example, would save 18 hours of runtime. If everyone did this, that's a lot of idle juice saved!" CreationDate="2020-09-10T06:24:05.717" UserId="8232" />
  <row Id="11471" PostId="9502" Score="1" Text="Yay, you're right.  I will say that even now that I know where to look, and even in a strong light, it is VERY hard to see." CreationDate="2019-09-22T23:41:51.957" UserId="7975" />
  <row Id="11476" PostId="9506" Score="4" Text="It's also important to consider the lifespan of the tree and what happens to it after it dies or is chopped down." CreationDate="2019-09-24T10:20:51.280" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11477" PostId="9506" Score="0" Text="@THelper I agree heavily. Only perhaps 25% of the wood is useful as sawmill products (about 50% is sawlogs if you let the tree grow to its natural steady-state size, but sawmill will generate some waste too). The rest are burnt to energy, made to pulp/paper/cardboard that will be recycled few times and then burnt to energy. Well, I guess the only good thing in burning wood to energy (and releasing its CO2) is that it offsets fossil fuel use." CreationDate="2019-09-24T12:47:03.393" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="11479" PostId="9506" Score="1" Text="You have an unusual definition of a &quot;large&quot; tree.  Of the 3 oaks at the bottom of my garden, the medium one has a trunk diameter of nearly a metre.  That means there's more than 2 cubic metres below the first branch (I have a good idea of the size as my ladder was up against it this morning for my neighbour to retrieve his cat). That tree is probably ~150 years old though (the big oak nearby is getting on for  600 years)" CreationDate="2019-09-24T13:05:52.123" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="11480" PostId="9506" Score="0" Text="Yep, that might be the case. I was thinking more of spruce and pine grown to a size where it's economical to harvest them for sawlogs." CreationDate="2019-09-24T13:08:28.020" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="11481" PostId="9506" Score="0" Text="My hardwood example will also store a little more C per cubic metre due to the higher density.  But there are bigger questions in the difference between our estimates, such as: what do we do with all the wood?  The carbon capture effect is maximised by leaving the trees standing, but if we make durable things out of plantation-grown timber instead of fuel-heavy materials, we also displace some emissions." CreationDate="2019-09-24T13:12:16.020" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="11483" PostId="9506" Score="0" Text="&quot;This depends obviously on the size of the tree&quot; and on the calculation method(s) used." CreationDate="2019-09-24T16:14:25.527" UserId="7984" />
  <row Id="11478" PostId="9508" Score="1" Text="Interesting. 1 tC in 20 years. That's way more than my estimate (perhaps trees in my boreal taiga region are smaller than trees in warmer regions?), but then you take into account that only some of the trees will survive, which I didn't take into account." CreationDate="2019-09-24T12:50:01.540" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="11482" PostId="9508" Score="1" Text="Most of the carbon in the leaves (etc.) that are dropped will return to the atmosphere in a few years. I recall reading that it's 90% eventually - but the remaining 10%  adds up to a fair bit over a few years" CreationDate="2019-09-24T13:15:56.683" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="11486" PostId="9508" Score="1" Text="@juhist Keep in mind you would choose different trees for sequestering carbon than you would for wood farming.  We grow pine even in warm climates for wood, but might choose something like Eucalyptus instead for carbon sequestration." CreationDate="2019-09-24T22:28:21.233" UserId="5479" />
  <row Id="11487" PostId="9508" Score="2" Text="Can you please add a citation or explanation for your paragraph beginning &quot;in order to get a decent twenty year old tree, you need to plant about twelve trees...&quot;, as I don't understand what you mean. Why do you need to do this to get one decent 20 year old tree, and what do you mean by a &quot;decent&quot; tree?" CreationDate="2019-09-24T22:59:32.627" UserId="7992" />
  <row Id="11484" PostId="9510" Score="0" Text="Two related questions with pieces of the answer: [Lowest impact transatlantic crossing](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/829/3379) and [What is the share of global human CO2 emission of cargo transport by ship?](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/2857/3379)" CreationDate="2019-09-24T20:09:51.103" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11485" PostId="9510" Score="1" Text="Do you know anything about how the parcels are transported? Overseas by plane or boat? Within Europe by train and truck, or only by truck?" CreationDate="2019-09-24T20:59:08.550" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11488" PostId="9510" Score="0" Text="Weight and volume of the parcel? Transport method (probably in bulk by container)?" CreationDate="2019-09-25T08:10:21.283" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="11494" PostId="9510" Score="0" Text="@THelper I will double check, but I am sure the large majority is transported either by train/truck/van." CreationDate="2019-09-25T17:36:02.990" UserId="7990" />
  <row Id="11495" PostId="9510" Score="0" Text="@JanDoggen At least 90% will be relatively small packages of between 30x20x10 and 60x40x30 cm." CreationDate="2019-09-25T17:36:47.350" UserId="7990" />
  <row Id="12732" PostId="9511" Score="0" Text="Do you know if the weight of the ship itself is accounted for in the calculations?" CreationDate="2020-07-24T13:02:22.803" UserId="8864" />
  <row Id="12733" PostId="9511" Score="0" Text="@clapas this would directly affect fuel efficiency, so I'd assume so. A heavier ship, all else being equal, would use more fuel, and fuel use is what's actually being measured." CreationDate="2020-07-24T14:36:49.183" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11496" PostId="9512" Score="0" Text="Do you mean this: https://www.carbon-neutrality.global/members/ ? That's a coalition of 19 countries, not 66 so perhaps you mean something else. Do you recall at which climate summit this was?" CreationDate="2019-09-26T09:38:36.780" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11497" PostId="9512" Score="1" Text="It was 3 days ago. https://www.straitstimes.com/world/united-states/sixty-six-countries-vow-carbon-neutrality-by-2050-un" CreationDate="2019-09-26T10:22:02.463" UserId="7994" />
  <row Id="11498" PostId="9512" Score="0" Text="May be only 65, see https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/23/climate/climate-summit-global-warming.html" CreationDate="2019-09-26T10:49:28.147" UserId="7994" />
  <row Id="11499" PostId="9516" Score="1" Text="I tend to agree, but it would be nice to have some 'evidence' that shows that turning your computer on-and-off does't negatively impact the hardware." CreationDate="2019-09-26T14:27:24.683" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11500" PostId="9517" Score="0" Text="Many thanks! The 65 countries are OK, but I don't find the other list with 70  countries on the given [link](https://climateaction.unfccc.int/views/events.html) I think the good link is https://climateaction.unfccc.int/views/cooperative-initiative-details.html?id=95" CreationDate="2019-09-26T16:29:29.733" UserId="7994" />
  <row Id="11513" PostId="9517" Score="0" Text="@LShaver nice work! And congrats on reaching 5000+ reputation this week!" CreationDate="2019-09-28T07:28:16.357" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11515" PostId="9517" Score="0" Text="@THelper thanks!" CreationDate="2019-09-28T15:17:36.113" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11508" PostId="9518" Score="0" Text="This is an interesting question, but I'm not sure about the end goal of contextualizing the burning of fossil fuels. As one of the answers points out, coal has accumulated over time due to plants growing and dying repeatedly in the same area, so you require many earths worth of land (over time) to get one earth-worth of coal. But I don't think that implies that burning some fraction of that coal has a similar environmental impact to burning down all forests on the planet, does it?" CreationDate="2019-09-27T15:54:30.083" UserId="5953" />
  <row Id="11509" PostId="9518" Score="0" Text="@NuclearWang agreed, this is all very hypothetical. I'm assuming it's easier for most people to visualize a forest fire than a tree being converted to coal and burned in a furnace. The end result is similar -- carbon (and other chemicals) are released into the atmosphere." CreationDate="2019-09-27T16:13:33.727" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12009" PostId="9518" Score="0" Text="Technical/Scientific Point: coal as you state formed from plants. [Petroleum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum) is derived from animals (zooplankton) &amp; possibly some algae (phytoplankton). [Natural gas](https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/Natural_gas_formation) (methane), if associated with petroleum deposits (the main source of natural gas, also know as a conventional deposit of gas) is effectively slow pressured cooked petroleum. Lesser amounts of natural gas are formed in some coal deposits or shale deposits. So how many critters died to form 1 L of petroleum? ;-)" CreationDate="2019-12-15T12:31:44.353" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="11503" PostId="9522" Score="0" Text="Nice.  I wonder if there are any estimates of what proportion of the trees growing during that time actually made it into coal?  Presumably some fell down and rotted, releasing some portion of their carbon immediately.  Are we looking at 90% of the carbon in these trees turning into coal?  2%?  I don't think this substantially changes the reasoning of your answer - unless the percent turns out to be vanishingly small, 10^-10% or some such.  It would just be nice to have an estimate for completeness." CreationDate="2019-09-27T13:02:23.890" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="11504" PostId="9522" Score="0" Text="It seems like if you could work out how many trees turned into coal, one further step would be to convert to the number of times you'd have to cover the earth's entire surface area with trees, then wait 20 years for them to grow" CreationDate="2019-09-27T14:33:58.863" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="11506" PostId="9522" Score="0" Text="This is helpful, thanks. However, I'm more interested in how much coal we've burned -- not how much is in the ground. Of the 3 million generations of trees covering the land, how many became coal *which we've already burned*?" CreationDate="2019-09-27T15:09:44.753" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11507" PostId="9522" Score="0" Text="@LShaver the last last two paragraphs of the answer, imply that we have already burned about one hundred thousand earth-sized landmasses.  Your thought that &quot;Africa/Asia/some other recognizable land mass&quot; is off be several orders of magnitude." CreationDate="2019-09-27T15:45:13.383" UserId="1513" />
  <row Id="11514" PostId="9523" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! I tend to agree with your anwer, but it's not so clear-cut you describe. There are downsides to paper as well; it is not necessarily sourced sustainably. Also you forget that not all types of plastic are made from fossil fuels." CreationDate="2019-09-28T07:40:25.213" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11510" PostId="9524" Score="1" Text="only downside, probably a lot more people cut themselves on broken glass. (Like i did today when my shower door shattered.)" CreationDate="2019-09-27T17:29:24.113" UserId="6934" />
  <row Id="11558" PostId="9524" Score="0" Text="Not questioning your main point, just a few technical details: I bet most people use energy for warm water to clean out the bottles. These days people might even use a dishwasher for that. Also I feel that the last sentence of your answer is overly idealistic and romantic. I think it was just whatever was cheapest for producers at the time." CreationDate="2019-10-08T12:52:38.780" UserId="8040" />
  <row Id="11720" PostId="9524" Score="0" Text="Glass unfortunately needs quite a lot of energy during recycling and transport (because it is quite heavy compared to the amount of liquid inside the bottle). This makes the question whether glass bottles are ecologically preferrable over other alternatives (plastic reusable and tetrapak are usually the competitors) quite situation specific. (I remember talking to someone from a dairy years ago - I don't remember specific numbers but he said that the number of uses for the milk bottles was surprisingly low because they use thinner bottles with a wider mouth than the fizzy mineral water variety" CreationDate="2019-11-12T22:47:55.380" UserId="3722" />
  <row Id="11721" PostId="9524" Score="0" Text="... and they're more prone to have splinters being broken off at the top. Also because people tend to buy only single bottles compared to full boxes of mineral water bottles which gives better mechanical protection. The situation may have improved meanwhile - or this may be one of the reasons why hardly any milk is sold in bottles any more over here.) A recent study concluded that unless you live near one of the few remaining dairies who use glass bottles, tetrapak has the better ecobalance)" CreationDate="2019-11-12T22:53:54.460" UserId="3722" />
  <row Id="11511" PostId="9525" Score="2" Text="It sound like your answer could be summed up as &quot;don't buy products that mix aluminum with other materials&quot;, correct?" CreationDate="2019-09-27T19:28:21.957" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11519" PostId="9529" Score="0" Text="A contrail does reflect sunlight, but it also means emissions of greenhouse gases.  Studies have shown that the warming effect of aircraft emissions is slightly larger than the cooling effect of reflection, meaning there is a net warming effect (see for example this [Wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contrail#Contrails_and_climate))" CreationDate="2019-09-29T06:31:27.190" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11532" PostId="9529" Score="0" Text="OK but is the slightly larger effect of the emissions greater than the emissions of a cruise ship? This is a difficult one to work out because you have to consider the amount of people on the ship V the amount on the plane, But also the amount of time the ship takes to make the voyage against the flight time." CreationDate="2019-10-05T09:59:15.903" UserId="8002" />
  <row Id="11537" PostId="9529" Score="0" Text="Yes, that is indeed the difficulty here, hence the question." CreationDate="2019-10-06T07:40:46.283" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11571" PostId="9529" Score="0" Text="I thought after I had written this that comparing the amount of fuel used should be easy. The plane and the ship would of course know how much fuel they each used in covering the same distance, so time doesn't need to be in the equation. However the fuels used are different and each has a different effect on the environment. I do not know what work has been done on comparing the deleterious effects of fuels at different altitudes. Where the air is thinner and colder, and radiation levels higher, chemical reactions will be different. There is this to consider also." CreationDate="2019-10-08T20:24:46.443" UserId="8002" />
  <row Id="11522" PostId="9530" Score="0" Text="Interesting. I remember Oringina being a popular brand of what we would call orange-aid often been sold in pubs in small glass bottles. But don't know if it was ever sold in larger quantities." CreationDate="2019-09-30T02:21:43.890" UserId="6934" />
  <row Id="11523" PostId="9530" Score="0" Text="@zooby orangina as I know it is always sold ready to drink, and is fizzy. You still see the glass bottles in France at least, though not everywhere (a bit like coke in that you can get the retro bottle sometimes)" CreationDate="2019-09-30T05:40:34.203" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="11520" PostId="9531" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! I appreciate your suggestions, but please be aware that this is a Q&amp;A site and not a discussion board. If you are unsure if it will work then it's a better idea to post your suggestions as a [new question](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/ask) instead of as an answer." CreationDate="2019-09-29T16:48:21.723" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11722" PostId="9539" Score="2" Text="One of the interesting properties of lanolin is that it mixes well with large amounts of water (this is used for creams). So I'd expect that lanolin will be washed out (by rain) faster than, say, other waxes." CreationDate="2019-11-12T23:09:07.043" UserId="3722" />
  <row Id="11535" PostId="9542" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living and thank you for your answer! I'd like to add that there is more information about using linseed oil in [this question on The Great Outdoors SE](https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/q/22380/18827)" CreationDate="2019-10-06T07:33:02.953" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11544" PostId="9542" Score="0" Text="Thiank you. I like this answer, but i think it is not complete. Otterwax has useful tutorials on their website as wel as a FAQ. Their wax, and this is likely the case with other natural products, works best on natural fabric. My current coat is 100% polyester. I'm not opposed to buying a canvas coat but i would like to know: will it hold for a 45 min bike commute and how can i keep ventilated so i'm not entirely wet with sweat. The polyester jacket solves this with ventilation holes and a mash inner layer." CreationDate="2019-10-07T08:11:56.823" UserId="5532" />
  <row Id="11723" PostId="9542" Score="0" Text="The combustion danger of linseed oil is only while &quot;drying&quot; (which is actually an oxidation process). Once that is over, it's not more inflammable than e.g. the beeswax." CreationDate="2019-11-12T23:10:45.493" UserId="3722" />
  <row Id="11567" PostId="9549" Score="0" Text="I considered this, but then decided against it at the time because i would throw out more then i would actually use. It does seem to be less harmful then the spray i used." CreationDate="2019-10-08T22:09:20.530" UserId="5532" />
  <row Id="11663" PostId="9550" Score="0" Text="Where I am, idling for minutes (the taxi and shop scenarios as well as e.g. when waiting on railway crossings or warm up idling in winter) are actually forbidden and nowadays, noone does this any more. Hence, I'd tend to say that start/stop is not needed for those scenarios, a key to turn is sufficient. Start/stop would be good for the bus, maybe at traffic lights (but I've successfully been turning off my engine manually at traffic lights for years). I'm not sure about junctions: here, most junctions w/o traffic light either have low waiting time or require fast start." CreationDate="2019-11-05T20:37:05.033" UserId="3722" />
  <row Id="11561" PostId="9551" Score="0" Text="Welcome.  Citations would help strengthen this answer.  For example, do you have any material that supports the assumption that the duty cycle of the car engine is 100% correlated to emissions?" CreationDate="2019-10-08T15:33:13.337" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="11563" PostId="9551" Score="0" Text="Thank you! Do you mean the cost in fuel to restart the engine?" CreationDate="2019-10-08T15:38:42.303" UserId="8041" />
  <row Id="11564" PostId="9551" Score="0" Text="In the link at the bottom I included some references and calculations.  Do you think it would be better if I included them in the answer? (I thought the answer was getting a bit long!)" CreationDate="2019-10-08T15:40:50.387" UserId="8041" />
  <row Id="11565" PostId="9551" Score="0" Text="It is better to include all information in the answer on the site, yes.  External links may go away over time and the information will be lost." CreationDate="2019-10-08T17:23:24.857" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="11566" PostId="9551" Score="0" Text="Fuel cost to restart the engine would indeed be interesting.  Emissions during startup and shutdown seem like they might also matter.  I don't know if they differ from emissions during normal operation but it seems possible." CreationDate="2019-10-08T17:24:17.950" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="11672" PostId="9551" Score="0" Text="I suspect that you underestimate the amount of fuel 69 stopped cars need in order to accelerate. Bringing 1.5 tons from 0 to 50 km/h ≈ 0.15 MJ. 1 l gasoline is roughly 31 MJ. So for your 69 cars, that corresponds already to 320 ml at hypothetical 100 % efficiency. ICEs are nowhere near their optimal efficiency during this phase of acceleration, so instead of top notch 35ish% efficiency (920 ml), we're probably closer to 1.5 - 2 l of gasoline going into the acceleration. And that's on top of your 450 ml as 10 l/100 km seems to be a usual fuel consumption for traveling at constant 20 - 30 km/h." CreationDate="2019-11-05T22:50:27.837" UserId="3722" />
  <row Id="11673" PostId="9551" Score="0" Text="That would bring the waste by idling to somwhere in the order of magnitude between 7.5 - 10 % of the fuel consumption &quot;around this junction&quot;. My not-too-educated (I'm no traffic engineer) *guess* is that improvements in the timing of the traffic lights or changing it to a roundabout could lead to more improvement in terms of pollution. Or 5-7 cars less (or maybe 15 cars going instead when traffic isn't that heavy). Which doesn't mean that one shouldn't switch off the engine, but it's effect is probably limited and there's more to be done in addition." CreationDate="2019-11-05T23:02:25.427" UserId="3722" />
  <row Id="11675" PostId="9551" Score="0" Text="Thanks so much for the additional calculations around the acceleration.  44% certainly seemed high; I'm glad you have identified where I might have gone wrong.  I will do some further work on these numbers.  I am no traffic engineer either although I do feel that start-stop tech is so underrated.  It could allow traffic to stay stationary longer without the expense of pollution and then, with some intelligent traffic lights, keep the cars moving at a more constant speed and, most importantly the cars would stop fewer times saving the expense required for acceleration from stationary." CreationDate="2019-11-06T08:16:15.280" UserId="8041" />
  <row Id="11833" PostId="9551" Score="0" Text="I will update this later but mostly as a reminder to myself, it will be more than 7.5 - 10% because the speed limit is 40km/h, also the area in which I was calculating cars would only have a chance to accelerate to around 20km/h." CreationDate="2019-11-19T05:35:57.773" UserId="8041" />
  <row Id="11570" PostId="9552" Score="0" Text="You still need infrastructure around the airport to get to it. Would you include this also? Also, air travel relies on radio and radar stations, which also need to be built &amp; maintained. Furthermore, which type of train are we talking about? Electrical, diesel, coal? Which travel distance are you interested in?" CreationDate="2019-10-09T07:30:39.053" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="11576" PostId="9552" Score="0" Text="@Erik Obviously all &quot;gray energy&quot; for infrastructure, including what you mentioned, would have to be calculated. I don't particularly care about one type of train or one particular travel distance, I just wish to know whether or not those &quot;studies&quot; are including infrastructure greenhouse emissions, which sounds to me massive especially in the case of high-speed trains." CreationDate="2019-10-09T16:01:26.710" UserId="2431" />
  <row Id="11568" PostId="9555" Score="1" Text="How long would the flight take? How long the trainride? How are the distances travelled? How would you arive at the airport, how far is it for you to the next trainstation? How much CO2 would be emitted by the trainride? Also, how would you define &quot;best option&quot;: moneywise? timewise? environmental-wise? Furthermore, your header indicates a different question than you asked in the body." CreationDate="2019-10-09T07:26:17.877" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="11578" PostId="9555" Score="0" Text="the per passenger CO2 emissions for the train journey are in the region of 40Kg" CreationDate="2019-10-10T15:41:23.057" UserId="6602" />
  <row Id="11569" PostId="9556" Score="0" Text="But a car uses a bit more petrol when restarting the engine, so if the wait time is (very) short then idling is more efficient." CreationDate="2019-10-09T07:29:52.203" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11573" PostId="9556" Score="0" Text="Thanks, I added to the answer above with a couple of links at the bottom" CreationDate="2019-10-09T08:34:30.913" UserId="8041" />
  <row Id="11577" PostId="9557" Score="0" Text="Thanks for the link, info and answer.  Really interesting about the NO2 being worse when idling, I did not know that.  I strongly agree that managing traffic flow is a really great way to improve air quality.  I have thought, if stop-start tech was mandatory and law (or hybrid) then cars could be stopped at lights for longer and then left to travel for longer.  This would improve air quality by getting cars to drive at speeds more optimal for fuel efficiency and pollution, reducing acceleration (which is known to be costly especially the way drivers drive) and reducing idling entirely." CreationDate="2019-10-10T10:02:57.383" UserId="8041" />
  <row Id="11585" PostId="9557" Score="0" Text="Do you have a link or info on any more recent studies?" CreationDate="2019-10-13T10:29:39.943" UserId="8041" />
  <row Id="11579" PostId="9558" Score="1" Text="Better concerning what? Definitely not environmentally." CreationDate="2019-10-11T12:07:37.200" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="11580" PostId="9558" Score="0" Text="We've priced in the carbon offset for both options which makes them environmentally equal. Is there an environmental impact that hasn't been accounted for?" CreationDate="2019-10-11T12:12:56.500" UserId="6602" />
  <row Id="11581" PostId="9558" Score="3" Text="No, it makes them economically equal. Still the environmental effect of the flight is way larger." CreationDate="2019-10-11T12:18:09.897" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="12429" PostId="9559" Score="0" Text="Regarding &quot;too important&quot;: if everybody else goes and I attend remotely I have good reason to believe that I will be marginalised in a number of important discussions and decisions. If everybody attended remotely (which is starting to look like a possibility) then it may be possible to conduct the business with less travel -- but it would be challenging. In this community we have dozens of online meetings for every &quot;face-to-face&quot; meeting .. but those annual &quot;face-to-face&quot; meetings are still considered essential." CreationDate="2020-03-02T22:36:48.280" UserId="8013" />
  <row Id="11592" PostId="9560" Score="0" Text="The real question is: Why are new cars built at all?" CreationDate="2019-10-15T09:31:04.923" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="11588" PostId="9562" Score="3" Text="Nice answer, but it should could do with some citations. Can you add links so that we know that it is more than one person's opinion?" CreationDate="2019-10-14T07:21:20.093" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="12019" PostId="9562" Score="0" Text="The majority of cattle methane emissions are actually from belching, not farting. See, for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enteric_fermentation" CreationDate="2019-12-17T08:33:00.190" UserId="3851" />
  <row Id="11664" PostId="9563" Score="1" Text="Even though it is a fairly simple technology, there are details that need to be taken care of. And that's not only figuring out when to stop the engine and making the starter last 10x as long, it's also e.g. making the engine OK with far more turns with low oil pressure: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Start-stop_system#Enhanced_components" CreationDate="2019-11-05T20:39:08.040" UserId="3722" />
  <row Id="11589" PostId="9564" Score="2" Text="I believe air source heat pumps tend to be noisiest when defrosting during cold weather.  I don't (yet!) have one myself though so that is hearsay." CreationDate="2019-10-14T07:26:08.007" UserId="1445" />
  <row Id="11582" PostId="9568" Score="2" Text="Thank you for answering, but do you know why the UK or EU is not making start-stop technology mandatory? Because that's the OP's question." CreationDate="2019-10-13T07:06:48.243" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11587" PostId="9568" Score="0" Text="There's a conflict between small vehicle hybrid systems, which can be start-stop technology, and large hybrid systems which are much more than a start-stop technology. The popularity of the large hybrid systems is why start-stop technology is not featured. But I warn about the weight, expense, and chosen method of use of large hybrid systems." CreationDate="2019-10-13T15:42:48.087" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="11593" PostId="9571" Score="2" Text="Hello.  Welcome to Sustainable Living.  Can you add any citations to your answer that support doubting the coal-creation explanation and calculations in Christopher's answer?  The explanation of the carboniferous period seems compelling and supported." CreationDate="2019-10-15T12:48:53.277" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="11595" PostId="9573" Score="0" Text="It might be possible to come up with a better estimate by using this tool. http://tool.globalcalculator.org/globcalc.html" CreationDate="2019-10-16T00:02:27.490" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="11599" PostId="9573" Score="0" Text="If everyone in the world stopped having children entirely, humanity would go extinct and nature would rebound strongly in a post-human world." CreationDate="2019-10-16T11:07:22.320" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="15049" PostId="9576" Score="0" Text="Place it in a location that is closest to the electric power and the inside unit /air handler." CreationDate="2021-09-22T15:57:45.657" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="11613" PostId="9581" Score="1" Text="This post doesn't seem to be a new answer with a different angle on the problem, but rather a response to [Jean-Paul Calderone's comment on your earlier answer](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/9518/how-much-land-would-be-covered-by-the-plants-that-turned-into-the-fossil-fuels-h/9581#comment11593_9571). Please use comments to reply back to a comment, or edit your original answer." CreationDate="2019-10-21T07:37:08.373" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="15046" PostId="9583" Score="1" Text="You're talking about ground source heat pumps. The question specifically refers to air source heat pumps" CreationDate="2021-09-22T11:36:16.730" UserId="3960" />
  <row Id="11610" PostId="9584" Score="0" Text="&quot;*the Earth would return to &quot;normal&quot; within twenty years*&quot;, how do you define normal? Does this include 'normal' CO2 levels? Btw human breathing hardly influences atmospheric CO2 levels because it does not add new CO2 to the atmosphere." CreationDate="2019-10-20T17:30:43.710" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11611" PostId="9584" Score="1" Text="Can you explain your reasoning about how you picked 20 years as the time period under which the Earth would return to normal? Adding references or citations would be ideal." CreationDate="2019-10-21T04:34:16.860" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="11612" PostId="9584" Score="1" Text="I suggest editing your answer to remove all except the first two sentences. The rest of the post, although interesting, is not relevant to the question. As written right now, this answer could be [considered for deletion](https://vegetarianism.stackexchange.com/help/deleted-answers) because most of it is unrelated to the question." CreationDate="2019-10-21T04:37:27.963" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="11615" PostId="9584" Score="0" Text="Human breathing  does influence the atmosphere because it is a direct result of human farming which is a direct result of human industry. If we were not farming on an industrial scale the population could never have grown to its present proportions. The air we breathe out is greater than the air breathed out by all animal life on land in past ages. Remember that only man maintains full activity throughout the year, and therefore is breathing out more than animals most of whom have a much lower metabolic rate for most of the year." CreationDate="2019-10-22T09:04:05.157" UserId="8002" />
  <row Id="11616" PostId="9584" Score="0" Text="@JanetRooke The CO2 we breathe out comes from our food. For plant-based food it's CO2 that was taken from the atmosphere by those plants, so it's a closed loop, no new CO2 is added. For animal food, the loop is more complicated but is basically still the same. No new CO2 is created. The exception is if we harvest more plants and trees than there originally were and don't replace them, but then it's more fair to say that deforestation is adding CO2 to the atmosphere." CreationDate="2019-10-22T12:09:25.150" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11883" PostId="9587" Score="1" Text="The answer might lie with what happens with the contents of sharps containers from hospitals &amp; intravenous drug user centers. If the metal components from needles, etc. is recycled, then placing safety razor blades in such sharps containers would be a way to have them recycled." CreationDate="2019-11-21T18:19:05.250" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="11953" PostId="9587" Score="0" Text="@Fred disposal of medically- or chemically-contaminated sharps bins generally involves incineration, with the remains going to landfill. When they're known not to be contaminated (some light industrial uses), they go to landfill." CreationDate="2019-12-01T07:33:15.883" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="11620" PostId="9590" Score="0" Text="This explanation makes a lot of sense. It's summer here, and from my power curve (added to the question), there's no flat top which would indicate I'm inverter-power limited. It never occurred to me the PV panels might be producing so much less than their rated power given the favorable conditions (except, of course, as you just pointed out, the temperature.)" CreationDate="2019-10-24T20:02:51.357" UserId="8089" />
  <row Id="11621" PostId="9591" Score="1" Text="This doesn’t really answer the question. Please read the FAQ on  [how to write a good answer](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/help/how-to-answer)." CreationDate="2019-10-26T17:54:44.267" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="11622" PostId="9591" Score="1" Text="This is your second answer to this question. Did you mean to write a comment in reply to THelper?" CreationDate="2019-10-26T17:56:12.187" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="11709" PostId="9591" Score="2" Text="Regardless of the animal that eats the food, basically all of it is turned into greenhouse gases. Even if you just let the food rot, the same thing happens. And refined sugar is nothing special. It is just sugar that isn't mixed with other plant matter." CreationDate="2019-11-10T19:34:11.413" UserId="8130" />
  <row Id="11627" PostId="9595" Score="0" Text="They're cars... they're unsustainable per definition. You need ores, you need to refine them, you need oil/plastics, etc, pp." CreationDate="2019-10-29T07:47:30.770" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="11628" PostId="9595" Score="0" Text="The biggest sustainability issue with hydrogen fuel cells is the same as for electric vehicles, namely the electricity source. The production of hydrogen fuel requires electricity (hydrogen is used as an intermediary energy storage), which may come from renewables or non-renewables. Ultimately the sustainability of the technology thus depends on this source." CreationDate="2019-10-29T11:12:15.100" UserId="6858" />
  <row Id="11631" PostId="9595" Score="2" Text="Having worked with hydrogen in a laboratory test situation , I am certain the general public could never handle hydrogen safely . That is the refueling and even garaging of vehicles , which will occasionally leak." CreationDate="2019-10-29T15:22:21.827" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="11632" PostId="9595" Score="1" Text="@blacksmith37 At first I was a bit sceptical about your comment because I know there are already quite a bit of hydrogen cars out there and I hadn't heard of any problems with them. But after googling a bit I found: http://evtalk.co.nz/exploding-hydrogen-station-leads-to-fcv-halt/ and https://abc7news.com/bay-area-hydrogen-shortage-after-explosion/5328775/ so safety does seem to be a problem." CreationDate="2019-10-29T18:57:29.030" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11956" PostId="9595" Score="0" Text="@Erik granted... but how do they compare with other types of vehicles, if we ignore the fuel source? That is my specific question here." CreationDate="2019-12-02T18:31:38.137" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11957" PostId="9595" Score="0" Text="@RollingCompass I am interested in the vehicles themselves, not the fuel source." CreationDate="2019-12-02T18:31:58.053" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11973" PostId="9596" Score="0" Text="I disagree. Need for lithium in batteries will never go down as it's lithium that stores the energy, i.e. certain amount of lithium stores certain amount of energy. The catalyst usage can be optimized to practically zero. Catalyst takes no part in reaction, so there's a LOT of room to optimize." CreationDate="2019-12-05T20:33:56.560" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="11987" PostId="9596" Score="0" Text="I didn't mean to imply anything about future technologies.  My answer was just intended to describe the current state of affairs." CreationDate="2019-12-06T14:17:03.517" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="11988" PostId="9596" Score="0" Text="Also, I didn't say anything about lithium in my answer." CreationDate="2019-12-06T14:17:54.303" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="13571" PostId="9596" Score="0" Text="PEM fuel-cells, suitable for vehicles since they make less waste-heat, do require platinum. But the platinum is being reduced with a granulation on a geometric shape. Also, platinum mines tend to be the smaller underground mines with the platinum at a particular depth. Well, except that the palladium in Russia seems to be dispersed all through the nickel ore. Now street sweeper machines recover palladium from the highways since palladium is used in catalytic converters." CreationDate="2021-04-27T23:34:58.443" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="11955" PostId="9597" Score="0" Text="I'm interested in issues with production of the vehicles themselves -- not the fuel." CreationDate="2019-12-02T18:30:30.507" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11974" PostId="9597" Score="0" Text="This is a poor description of a soon-to-be-outdated hydrogen production technology. Electrolysis due to its environmental benefits is rapidly growing to displace steam reforming." CreationDate="2019-12-05T20:35:11.620" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="11636" PostId="9603" Score="0" Text="Can you add more information about which region you are referring to, the EU standards are quite different to US standards, and the testing regimes are different accordingly. In the EU tests for NOX emissions there are ‘not to exceed limit’ tests, so it doesn't matter how inefficient the driving is, if the emissions exceed the limit then the vehicle fails. It should be possible for the vehicle (as designed) to exceed the limit." CreationDate="2019-10-31T16:05:02.177" UserId="6602" />
  <row Id="11637" PostId="9603" Score="0" Text="Thanks for your input, I just updated it.  Did you mean to say that it should NOT be possible for the vehicle to exceed the limit?" CreationDate="2019-10-31T17:03:14.017" UserId="8041" />
  <row Id="11647" PostId="9603" Score="0" Text="I think it does make sense to measure the fuel consumption for best practice driving as bad practice can be arbitrarily bad (idling). As a rule of thumb, I've heard that good vs. bad fuel efficiency driving habits result in a factor 2 (!) in fuel consumption. That's like VW Fox vs. Amarok real life average diesel consumption reported on Spritmonitor (which is still probably confounded by fuel-saving drivers probably being more likely to drive a Fox than an Amarok)." CreationDate="2019-11-03T20:32:54.643" UserId="3722" />
  <row Id="11648" PostId="9603" Score="0" Text="There are public data bases like https://www.spritmonitor.de/ that collect real-life consumption from volounteers. (I'd expect the data there to be somewhat biased towards low consumption as I'd expect that people who submit data there are more likely than the average to care about fuel saving.)" CreationDate="2019-11-03T20:34:27.417" UserId="3722" />
  <row Id="11653" PostId="9603" Score="0" Text="Thanks for your info :-) I would say it makes sense to measure fuel consumption for best practice but also bad...in my town I'd say 50% are bad drivers so what is emitted from them is just as important as what is emitted from the good drivers.  I think there should be better guidance that education and enforcement on how to driver efficiently is just as important as lowering pollution levels as it is, just simple messages in the car - don't switch off the idle-stop would probably help!  Out of interest, do you have a reference for the factor of two efficiency info?" CreationDate="2019-11-04T09:04:11.400" UserId="8041" />
  <row Id="11659" PostId="9603" Score="1" Text="Wrt. emissions: I think we can (could) know this more easily from macro-economic statistics. Factor 2: sorry, no hard reference. It is a rule of thumb I learned in driving school (fuel economy is mandatory topic here since &gt; 20 years). But it is also not unplausible compared to the range seen on spritmonitor (which also includes variation due to other factors such as hilly vs. flat landscape, rural vs. town etc. but as I said is probably biased towards fuel saving people, so also biased towards showing too low variation in fuel consumption due to driver style). I found some newspaper artole..." CreationDate="2019-11-05T19:35:47.307" UserId="3722" />
  <row Id="11661" PostId="9603" Score="1" Text="...(https://www.zeit.de/mobilitaet/2017-11/spritverbrauch-auto-fahrer-fahrweise, in German) that says &quot;prudent driving behavior&quot; saves 30 % [compared to normal/standard/usual driving behavior] and go on discussing a number of choices in detail (e.g. saying economic choice of gear saves 10 - 20 %, etc.). It is not clear, though, which factors they include in &quot;driving behaviour&quot; (I'd say tire pressure and AC/heating are important important for fuel economy, but I would not call them driving behavior). Normal driving ±30% for behavior would again mean imprudent : prudent fuel consumption ≈2, btw." CreationDate="2019-11-05T19:48:35.537" UserId="3722" />
  <row Id="11639" PostId="9606" Score="1" Text="This is very true, as pointed out by the second reason I stopped using disposable razors. Safety razor blades are simple iron though." CreationDate="2019-10-31T19:25:08.650" UserId="4604" />
  <row Id="11641" PostId="9609" Score="0" Text="thank you for such a great reply.  Yup, I thought that might have been the case.  With that information I would think that driver education, enforcement and ethics while driving is just as important as having a car capable of driving at low emissions." CreationDate="2019-11-01T15:14:45.330" UserId="8041" />
  <row Id="11655" PostId="9611" Score="0" Text="This doesn't seem to answer the question. I think the OP wants to know how to calculate when he has offsetted his footprint with energy from solar panels." CreationDate="2019-11-04T12:58:28.893" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11994" PostId="9611" Score="0" Text="That is the question asked, but is it well posed in strict scientific sense? His wedding would, no doubt, have involved conversion of mineral carbon into atmospheric CO2, and solar panels don't reverse that. If he was asking for equivalence based on UNFCC conversion factors, you could arrive at a mathematical answer, but if, on the other hand, it is a more general question about compensation for the damage done, then I think my answer is relevant." CreationDate="2019-12-09T22:00:35.087" UserId="8013" />
  <row Id="11644" PostId="9614" Score="0" Text="Also, I'm completely new to this site (which I love BTW) but should I have posted this as a new question?" CreationDate="2019-11-03T01:24:14.383" UserId="8112" />
  <row Id="11646" PostId="9614" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! I'm glad you like our site. We try to provide great answers to great questions. Since your post does not answer the question at the top of this page it could be downvoted or deleted by the community. Please repost it as a question [here](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/ask) because it looks interesting, but please focus on 1 problem/question at a time. You can refer to related posts simply by linking to them. Let me know if you need more help or check out our [help section](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/help)" CreationDate="2019-11-03T15:26:32.750" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11654" PostId="9615" Score="0" Text="I never thought that while I have 20°C in the room, the temperature during operation near the radiator may be higher." CreationDate="2019-11-04T09:26:20.170" UserId="3653" />
  <row Id="11662" PostId="9615" Score="1" Text="FarO, I just did a quick &amp; dirty measurement: behind fridge while it was working I had 2 °C more than in the room (that was just after it started, so the temp may have been going further up). My fridge has 9 cm to the wall instead of the 5 cm &quot;indicated&quot; by its ventilation grid, and I put it on higher feet, so air circulation is probably better than usual." CreationDate="2019-11-05T19:54:23.090" UserId="3722" />
  <row Id="11678" PostId="9615" Score="0" Text="This is the regulation for calculation of energy rating: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32010R1060&amp;from=EN however I couldn't find out exactly the values for the type of appliance and standard temperatures! (I added the link to my fridge) There are too many types. I guess that the manufacturer pick the reference values that give the best final rating." CreationDate="2019-11-06T08:58:27.317" UserId="3653" />
  <row Id="11679" PostId="9615" Score="0" Text="&quot;(3) for multi-use appliances and compartments, the storage temperature during the measurement of energy&#xA;consumption shall be the nominal temperature of the coldest compartment type as claimed for continuous&#xA;normal use according to the manufacturer’s instructions;&#xA;(4) the energy consumption of a household refrigerating appliance shall be determined in the coldest configuration,&#xA;according to the manufacturer’s instructions for continuous normal use for any ‘other compartment’ as defined in&#xA;Annex VIII, Table 5&quot;." CreationDate="2019-11-06T09:14:02.587" UserId="3653" />
  <row Id="11680" PostId="9615" Score="0" Text="The manual states that by default temperatures are +5°C and -18°C. By keeping +6°C, I should use less energy. Also, I performed the test in October, when the room temperature was about 20-21°C, and therefore the rear temperature likely not higher than 25°C (same setup as yours)." CreationDate="2019-11-06T09:14:11.627" UserId="3653" />
  <row Id="11691" PostId="9615" Score="0" Text="Thanks for digging out the directive. Of course, your fridge should use less energy with lower temp difference. But the testing procedure does not include any food that needs to be cooled down, nor any door openings. Instead the report gives the &quot;soft&quot; information that the test procedure replaces this by prescribing an unusually large temperature difference." CreationDate="2019-11-07T12:52:56.403" UserId="3722" />
  <row Id="11657" PostId="9616" Score="0" Text="The carbon content for wood is discussed by [Lamlon in Biomass and Energy](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0961953403000333).&#xA;&#xA;This doesn't necessarily convert to coal (sorry for missing that) ... my answer addresses a narrow interpretation of the question: how much land would forest cover to hold the carbon content of the coal we burn.  Looking at the answer from Christopher Gilmour above, 30% of the plant matter was broken down (in the carboniferous era) and 70% mineralised (converted to coal or gas under pressure), so there should be another factor in the calculation." CreationDate="2019-11-05T08:03:43.307" UserId="8013" />
  <row Id="12004" PostId="9616" Score="0" Text="20,000 teragrams of coal is only 20 gigatonnes (20*10^9 tonnes) of coal. My understanding is that from 1870 to 2014, cumulative carbon emissions totaled about 545 GtC. Alone in 2014, carbon emissions were 9.795 gigatonnes of carbon or 35.9 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide." CreationDate="2019-12-13T17:01:19.917" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="12006" PostId="9616" Score="0" Text="Could you please explain where you drew up the figure 40,000 TWh of energy? What does it represent?" CreationDate="2019-12-13T17:08:12.797" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="11671" PostId="9617" Score="0" Text="Thanks for your reply. But this talks a lot about video on demand which means the streaming content is actually stored on a server, but I'm questioning on real time streaming, which is likely different because data is streamed in real time and likely not &quot;stored&quot; permanently on servers..." CreationDate="2019-11-05T22:35:00.690" UserId="8104" />
  <row Id="11674" PostId="9617" Score="0" Text="Unless you're talking about watching your webcam, at least over here in Germany TV programmes do store their contents, and they are available on their servers for at least some time. Before those media servers of the TV stations became available, people would store the broadcasted (streamed) TV - I'm not sure that this is any more efficient, as at least in my experience one tended to store rather more (and then delete when one ran out of space - but it's the saving process, not the keeping that needs the energy)." CreationDate="2019-11-05T23:47:59.033" UserId="3722" />
  <row Id="11682" PostId="9617" Score="1" Text="True, but even when broadcasted through standard hertzian network, it had been stored on servers at some point.... it's really hard to know in the end." CreationDate="2019-11-06T11:27:05.523" UserId="8104" />
  <row Id="11688" PostId="9622" Score="0" Text="Oh, a car with an increase in traction drives a tighter line and uses less fuel !" CreationDate="2019-11-06T23:15:28.800" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="16552" PostId="9622" Score="0" Text="▼ This does not address the question of whether they pay for themselves, financially or environmentally." CreationDate="2023-11-15T14:34:47.410" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="11695" PostId="9624" Score="0" Text="I disagree with the use of plastic to prevent soil evaporation. Soil needs to breathe it is full of micro-organisms. Covered with plastic it will become sour and eventually sterile. It is better to use bark,  straw, or even paper, but the best way of all to prevent evaporation is to use drought resistant planting, like sage." CreationDate="2019-11-08T12:10:48.297" UserId="8002" />
  <row Id="11731" PostId="9624" Score="0" Text="@JanetRooke I added the last five paragraphs to address your concerns." CreationDate="2019-11-13T17:30:44.063" UserId="6837" />
  <row Id="11734" PostId="9624" Score="0" Text="Thank you Scott. A small but significant rider to the use of plastic. The ground beneath it would eventually dry out because it isn't getting any rain.  BUT all the rain falling on it would evaporate much faster than it would, falling on soil! For this reason alone plastic is a no no." CreationDate="2019-11-14T13:28:35.900" UserId="8002" />
  <row Id="11780" PostId="9624" Score="0" Text="@JanetRooke In my experience, everything you've said is straight up not true. Plastics aren't some sort of anti soil demon.  I literally see soil condensation on plastic every day. If the bottom of the soil being dry some how mattered to your specific plant, that's on you for not watering it enough. putting it in a metal, rock, clay, or potato skin container is not going to change that.  Ideally however, you don't want the bottom of your plant's container to contain excess water, or the roots of your plant will suffocate and rot.  You put holes in the bottom of pots to prevent over watering." CreationDate="2019-11-15T21:12:09.647" UserId="8161" />
  <row Id="11781" PostId="9624" Score="0" Text="@JanetRooke Oh an Plastics aren't a sterilizer, period. I have about 10 plastic bottles that contain live fish and plants that have been thriving for over a year.  It hasn't sterilized the bacteria (other wise everything would die because the nitrogen cycle would stop), or killed the plants. The best way to prevent evaporation was to just put something on top of the bottles (that didn't completely remove air circulation).  There isn't any magic vodoo going on with this, you prevent water evaporating by reducing the area it can escape." CreationDate="2019-11-15T21:18:01.050" UserId="8161" />
  <row Id="11804" PostId="9624" Score="0" Text="@JanetRooke If you understand how a roof can shed water, how a bowl can hold it, and how a greenhouse can retain it, then ponder how scrap plastic can be used as roof, bowl, and greenhouse in extremely arid environments where nothing would otherwise grow. My main point is that water is sometimes more precious than gold, and that affects the answer to the posted question. Trash plastic, if used creatively, can produce, collect, store, and retain hundreds of times more water than it takes to produce it. In fact, it can sometimes make the difference between life and death." CreationDate="2019-11-17T20:44:11.433" UserId="6837" />
  <row Id="11699" PostId="9627" Score="6" Text="This is very broad. Can you narrow to a specific good or type of goods? Something you have in mind?" CreationDate="2019-11-09T16:05:12.767" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11877" PostId="9627" Score="0" Text="This is broad, but a good question nonetheless. Would targeting it to a specific item type of item (car, appliance, furniture) make it more acceptable question?" CreationDate="2019-11-21T17:20:10.243" UserId="215" />
  <row Id="11703" PostId="9628" Score="0" Text="Your question mentions 3 different concepts; carbon credits, carbon offsetting and the Natural Asset Exchange (which uses Earth tokens). From your question I get the feeling that you are primarily interested in NAE and why people would use that to buy carbon credits or do carbon offsetting? Is this assumption correct?" CreationDate="2019-11-10T07:53:25.473" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11704" PostId="9628" Score="1" Text="From what I read on their website, the Natural Asset Exchange is a blockchain platform where people can buy products with Earth tokens that can have a positive impact, for example carbon credits, RECs and (renewable?) energy. However the website fails to explain me why blockchain is the best approach here. Blockchain is a very energy-intensive method to make it more transparent what you buy and from who. However people can still sell you rubbish. Since blockchain technology consumes so much energy I personally think this platform is counter-productive and just increases climate change." CreationDate="2019-11-10T07:54:01.853" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11995" PostId="9628" Score="1" Text="@THelper No activity on their twitter, website, youtube, or blog since January. I'm thinking it's dead." CreationDate="2019-12-10T22:21:51.070" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11996" PostId="9628" Score="0" Text="@LShaver thank you for investigating. I'm tempted to close this question as unclear because the OP isn't responding to comments. But I'll wait until it has at least 2 close votes." CreationDate="2019-12-11T07:12:52.720" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="12010" PostId="9628" Score="0" Text="It's a means for polluters to feel good when they don't want to change their equipment or practices but want to keep making money via their pollution emitting ways. Changing equipment to produce little, or if possible no pollution, is expensive. It's cheaper &amp; easier to keep doing what they are doing &amp; pay someone to keep some trees that are supposed to adsorb the CO2 emitted from their manufacturing plants." CreationDate="2019-12-15T12:46:17.573" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="11706" PostId="9629" Score="1" Text="Just a note, but traditional radiators can also operate at something like 40 C without extra fans. Don't know the specific English term but it gets used for instance in houses which get renovated but don't allow floor heating for instance. The radiators are usually a bit bigger and provided the house is well insulated there's no problem at all getting it warm. Don't know about efficiency numbers, but the claim is it's better than operating at 95 C." CreationDate="2019-11-10T19:14:13.580" UserId="4158" />
  <row Id="11708" PostId="9629" Score="0" Text="Yes, but the issue is that they need to be about twice the size and you need the wall space to accommodate them." CreationDate="2019-11-10T19:22:13.440" UserId="5517" />
  <row Id="11711" PostId="9629" Score="0" Text="You mean twice the surface? I assume that's technically sound but in reality I don't think that is a general rule because there are other factors. E.g. especially in the renovation case I mentioned. If I look around here there are many of those cases where the amount of energy needed for the house gets reduced drastically because of insulation and windows so the radiators sometimes don't even need to be resized but can just run at lower temperature." CreationDate="2019-11-11T08:30:32.813" UserId="4158" />
  <row Id="11712" PostId="9629" Score="0" Text="Normal &quot;radiators&quot; are misnamed anyway. They mostly deliver heat by convection. Try holding your hand in front of one that's hot, then a similar distance above" CreationDate="2019-11-11T19:58:03.587" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="11714" PostId="9629" Score="0" Text="The other option with existing radiators and low temperature water is to run them for much longer. With an air source heat pump they're effectively running full time in cold weather." CreationDate="2019-11-11T20:02:16.973" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="11700" PostId="9630" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living. Thank you for your answer, but do you have some more background on this that explains why people would do this? Perhaps a link to the article you read?" CreationDate="2019-11-10T07:20:15.743" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11719" PostId="9632" Score="0" Text="We use a thicker aluminum thingy (sold for BBQ) for broiling in the oven. They can be reused many many times after washing." CreationDate="2019-11-12T21:50:29.980" UserId="3722" />
  <row Id="11701" PostId="9633" Score="0" Text="I agree the OP could compost some of the cardboard, but it sounds like he regularly has a pile of cardboard and there is only a limited quantity you can compost at a time." CreationDate="2019-11-10T07:23:51.443" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11997" PostId="9634" Score="0" Text="I have seen initiatives of private individuals buying CO2 credits *with the intention of raising the price*, not for compensating their own footprint. I was unable to (re-)find them though. There are also firms advocating buying credits [as a way to make money](https://www.fairclimatefund.nl/en/news/from-30-eurocents-to-25-euros-the-price-of-a-tonne-of-co) (doing better than other investment funds)." CreationDate="2019-12-11T16:31:46.887" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="11707" PostId="9635" Score="4" Text="This is basically what I would say, except I want to emphasize that building something is easy to entirely automate because it's the same thing every time. Every repair job is different and requires coming up with solutions." CreationDate="2019-11-10T19:17:06.833" UserId="8130" />
  <row Id="11705" PostId="9637" Score="0" Text="So the energy used to drive the fans is much less than the extra energy extracted from the water?" CreationDate="2019-11-10T18:54:19.300" UserId="5517" />
  <row Id="11710" PostId="9637" Score="0" Text="That's the assumption, and it seems safe even without power consumption data for the units. The largest one produces up to 3500 W of heat with a rated electrical input of 12 W, for a ratio of 1:0.003." CreationDate="2019-11-10T20:28:24.887" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11713" PostId="9637" Score="0" Text="The electricity used to power the fans will be charged at a higher rate than the gas used to power the boiler (typical UK installation), but may still cost less than its saved by the higher efficiency. It will also be partially from renewable sources." CreationDate="2019-11-11T20:00:23.510" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="11724" PostId="9637" Score="0" Text="@ChrisH The UK seems to be special in that people have access to low cost (non-renewable) natural gas which is cheaper than electricity.  In my own case I'd power the fans from batteries charged by my PV panels." CreationDate="2019-11-12T23:50:13.773" UserId="5517" />
  <row Id="11726" PostId="9637" Score="0" Text="@GrahamChiu that may be the case; certainly gas is the main heating fuel for most people. We don't have much sunlight at the times of year we need heating, so unless you really need loads that are suited to batteries (and have an excess of solar power), running dedicated cabling to power the fans off batteries would seem rather a lot of effort and materials for little benefit. That's assuming a grid tie solar setup" CreationDate="2019-11-13T06:50:31.613" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="11716" PostId="9639" Score="1" Text="This seems like a better comment on the question than an answer to it." CreationDate="2019-11-12T20:47:27.690" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="11718" PostId="9640" Score="1" Text="I don't think this is true in general. There are cases where the repair effort is clearly much lower than the value added broken -&gt; working product. But yes, there are also cases where repairing isn't worth while." CreationDate="2019-11-12T21:33:47.300" UserId="3722" />
  <row Id="11735" PostId="9640" Score="1" Text="As stated above most electrical items are deliberately made not to be reparable, ostensibly for safety reasons. There is also the fact that the component parts are changed regularly so that new parts will not fit older machines. But looking at fabrics, repairing and redesigning can be more productive than buying new, and boutiques are starting up selling redesigned clothing. I do agree that in tiny things like darning a sock it probably is worthwhile." CreationDate="2019-11-14T14:15:01.310" UserId="8002" />
  <row Id="11730" PostId="9641" Score="0" Text="Not sure how my vote was sufficient to get this question closed -- but in any case, does the linked question provide the answers you're looking for? The study in the top-rated answer is from 2006, and presumably EVs have improved since then, so it's possible that answer no longer holds." CreationDate="2019-11-13T14:58:09.997" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11778" PostId="9641" Score="1" Text="I closed it as duplicate" CreationDate="2019-11-15T19:54:23.693" UserId="8136" />
  <row Id="11765" PostId="9642" Score="0" Text="Rugged may actually be *more* repairable - but heavier, bigger and less desirable.  The material needed for screws to fit often adds toughness.  I have a cheap, tough, waterproof phone, and it's screwed together - but it's massive." CreationDate="2019-11-15T17:00:16.210" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="11769" PostId="9642" Score="1" Text="@ChrisH: that is also a possibility - this is by no means meant as an exhaustive list of engineering/design trade-offs." CreationDate="2019-11-15T17:09:31.900" UserId="3722" />
  <row Id="11771" PostId="9642" Score="0" Text="Yes, I'm in broad agreement, but posted my comment quickly before I could say so or vote up, as I had to go for my train." CreationDate="2019-11-15T17:25:04.667" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="11772" PostId="9642" Score="0" Text="BTW, regarding your last paragraph, I made a good start on the design for a spin coater (electronics, vacuum chuck etc.) before we found the money to buy one. That would have been open sourced if we'd finished it." CreationDate="2019-11-15T17:27:28.563" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="11727" PostId="9643" Score="1" Text="[&quot;*Do not place plastic bags (even biodegradable or compostable ones) in the recycling or organics carts.*&quot;](https://www.surrey.ca/city-services/23128.aspx). This suggests that your local recycler doesn't accept compostable plastics, but of course you could always ask them to be sure." CreationDate="2019-11-13T10:58:19.390" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11729" PostId="9644" Score="0" Text="The ironic thing is that oil is also &quot;plant-based.&quot; At some point these manufacturers will essentially be making plastic from new plants instead of really old plants, and we will have come full circle." CreationDate="2019-11-13T14:52:49.597" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11728" PostId="9645" Score="2" Text="... and this also applies to spare parts: in order to supply spare parts after the production of the new product ends, you'll either have to face the high unit costs of producing them on demand (including the cost of holding some required machinery/storing the mold/making a new mold), or you have to face storage costs of spare parts produced while the production was still running." CreationDate="2019-11-13T14:15:43.303" UserId="3722" />
  <row Id="11732" PostId="9647" Score="0" Text="I guess we could summarize your post with &quot;No, there isn't such a certification because GMOs have a bad reputation&quot;?" CreationDate="2019-11-14T08:36:10.040" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11733" PostId="9647" Score="0" Text="@THelper  Right, but not so much because of their reputation.  It's because they have been swallowed up by the law.  &quot;Organic&quot; food certification is, by clear legal definition, mutually incompatible with GMOs, simply making the term &quot;organic GMO&quot; an oxymoron.   When I was a wee lad, organic meant any substance that is living or once was alive. Now it's a legal term that excludes GMOs. Despite the bad reputation, I believe a certifying body would be formed if GMO labels were required either in the states or federally. Only then would a producer want to have one and be willing to pay for it." CreationDate="2019-11-14T12:38:18.680" UserId="6837" />
  <row Id="11736" PostId="9647" Score="1" Text="I took this statement as the tl;dr: &quot;Keep in mind that good sustainability usually involves very local small scale agriculture, and most GMO's are not designed for tiny geographical areas.&quot;" CreationDate="2019-11-14T17:19:40.223" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11737" PostId="9647" Score="0" Text="@LShaver Thanks. I cut a lot that I wasn't too happy about. I think it's better now." CreationDate="2019-11-14T18:25:06.130" UserId="6837" />
  <row Id="11739" PostId="9647" Score="0" Text="Hmm I think you lost the plot. What I gathered originally was that GMOs, as a strategy intended for broad application and distribution without regard for local conditions, work against sustainable farming practices, which by necessity are rooted in an understanding of local climate, ecosystem, and practices." CreationDate="2019-11-14T20:06:08.367" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11757" PostId="9648" Score="0" Text="Can you be a bit more specific? Are you referring to cars with built-in solar panels? Or battery electric vehicles charged by separate solar panels (such as a parking garage with solar panels)?" CreationDate="2019-11-15T14:51:41.230" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11784" PostId="9648" Score="0" Text="I mean a car with solar panels on the roof and on the body of the car." CreationDate="2019-11-16T01:01:16.520" UserId="8076" />
  <row Id="11789" PostId="9648" Score="0" Text="There is a Dutch company called [Lightyear](https://lightyear.one/lightyear-one/) that is building an all-electric solar passenger car. It can be charged like a normal electric car and the solar panels extend the driving range by adding 12 km/h during daylight exposure. The price is very steep though; you can pre-order it at $135,000" CreationDate="2019-11-16T10:38:31.720" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11797" PostId="9648" Score="0" Text="I would expect a solar car to weigh about 300 pounds, have one seat, and  have a battery in addition to the solar panel. http://solarcar.njit.edu/ . Compare to a Renault Twizy at 1000 pounds weight including a 220 pound battery. Well the Twizy could tow a trailer carrying a solar panel.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_Twizy" CreationDate="2019-11-16T18:54:55.363" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="11753" PostId="9649" Score="2" Text="Why is it important how abundant hydrogen is in the universe (as opposed to on Earth)?" CreationDate="2019-11-15T14:07:00.790" UserId="2869" />
  <row Id="11755" PostId="9649" Score="1" Text="To make a fuel cell work you need hydrogen *and* oxygen.  75% of the universe is hydrogen, but only 1% of the universe is oxygen. On Earth, oxygen makes up 46% of matter, most of it tied up in rocks, but hydrogen only 0.15%, mostly tied up in water...and rocks.  How does that impact sustainability?  Does it even matter?  How do you propose to collect that hydrogen from the universe?" CreationDate="2019-11-15T14:15:33.933" UserId="8150" />
  <row Id="11788" PostId="9649" Score="1" Text="@Hobbamok Please be polite to the OP. There is no need to question anyone's knowledge." CreationDate="2019-11-16T10:01:57.360" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11754" PostId="9651" Score="2" Text="So... what is the answer to the question?" CreationDate="2019-11-15T14:10:23.027" UserId="2869" />
  <row Id="11756" PostId="9651" Score="10" Text="I think the critical point that's missed here is that, on Earth, hydrogen is not a *source* of energy at all - it is a *store* of energy.  We can take solar energy and *store* it by producing hydrogen from water.  We can take wind energy and *store* it by producing hydrogen from water.  We can take biomass, which has stored solar energy, and *re-store* its energy by extracting the hydrogen.  But there is no sustainable *source* of hydrogen for us to exploit.  A fuel cell is really just a battery - we need to &quot;charge&quot; it by producing hydrogen and we discharge it by consuming the hydrogen." CreationDate="2019-11-15T14:22:08.433" UserId="8150" />
  <row Id="11763" PostId="9651" Score="1" Text="It is a sure bet that using the heat from the fuel cell to produce more hydrogen from natural gas will be a loss." CreationDate="2019-11-15T16:51:42.043" UserId="8154" />
  <row Id="11766" PostId="9651" Score="0" Text="But the house also uses the waste heat from the hydrogen-fuel-cell and that is a gain in efficiency. Also the solid-oxide-fuel-cell that makes the most heat is the most affordable hydrogen-fuel-cell." CreationDate="2019-11-15T17:00:56.717" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="11767" PostId="9651" Score="0" Text="Hydrogen can be a store of sustainable energy but the sustainable energy, as close to power grids and requiring large surface areas, is logistically limited. So remote areas of sustainable energy could be developed because the sustainable energy can be converted into hydrogen and shipped. In fact hydrogen can be converted into ammonia-gas for easier shipping but ammonia-gas can be lethal to breathe. However, the farming industry works with ammonia-gas. Consider oil as a direct source of energy but oil requires refining operations." CreationDate="2019-11-15T17:07:18.440" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="11770" PostId="9651" Score="0" Text="Sorghum to produce ethanol must be close to processing plants. But the ethanol itself can be shipped large distances. Then the ethanol must be converted to hydrogen for use in fuel-cells because the cities want not just carbon-neutral but want zero-emissions in the city. Algae can produce a liquid fuel and hydrogen itself can produce a liquid fuel but the cities don't want liquid fuels that produce local air pollution." CreationDate="2019-11-15T17:17:31.373" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="11783" PostId="9651" Score="1" Text="This in no way answers the question." CreationDate="2019-11-15T23:28:28.740" UserId="8163" />
  <row Id="11786" PostId="9651" Score="0" Text="Sustainable ? Waste treatment plants can make hydrogen from methane and run the hydrogen in a fuel-cell to make electricity. Solar power, wind power, hydro power, and bio-mass can make hydrogen, store the hydrogen until needed, and then run the hydrogen in fuel-cells to make electricity." CreationDate="2019-11-16T02:09:41.337" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="11761" PostId="9653" Score="0" Text="Here's the first piece of the puzzle: [according to Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita), in 2018 U.S. per capita carbon emissions were **16.1 metric tons**." CreationDate="2019-11-15T16:34:40.290" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11777" PostId="9653" Score="1" Text="I suggest you edit your question and ask for the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. That removes one large uncertainty from the question (CO2 concentration versus temperature)." CreationDate="2019-11-15T19:35:54.470" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="11838" PostId="9653" Score="0" Text="Hello all! Thanks so much for the help and answers given so far! Just to give a bit of background on what I'm trying to show with this question... I'm building an app to enable users to track their carbon emissions (plus reduce and then offset), and I'd like to show users the global impact of their average emissions - so 'if everyone in the world had your emissions, temperatures could rise by x.xx...' ideally helping people realise the implications their lifestyle could have if adopted at a global scale. Thanks again :) Josie (p.s. you can check out our project at www.thecapture.club)" CreationDate="2019-11-19T07:02:41.990" UserId="8142" />
  <row Id="11742" PostId="9654" Score="0" Text="Good question; I find the farmer's statement hard to believe. That would mean that protein content of organic bread is lower than that of non-organic bread." CreationDate="2019-11-15T08:50:56.393" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11743" PostId="9654" Score="0" Text="Yes, I also did some googling on that but no result. Maybe she mixed up fertilizer and pesticides. But also then: people had bread before they had fertilizer." CreationDate="2019-11-15T08:58:16.523" UserId="8145" />
  <row Id="11775" PostId="9655" Score="0" Text="Please edit your question to give a maximum time and minimum outside temperature (define 'cold'). Half an hour or two hours makes quite a difference. So does 0C or -10 C" CreationDate="2019-11-15T19:32:59.673" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="11745" PostId="9656" Score="2" Text="I wonder about the efficiency of using the cigarette lighter. Its power comes from the car's battery which is recharged when driving, so basically you are still using fossil fuels to get warm. Doesn't that defeat your purpose?" CreationDate="2019-11-15T11:53:11.397" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11746" PostId="9656" Score="1" Text="@THelper battery charging efficiency will be much greater when driving than when idling." CreationDate="2019-11-15T12:52:13.357" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11762" PostId="9656" Score="1" Text="@THelper also you're heating the person who needs to be heated, rather than heating the entire engine, cooling system etc. just to collect some small amount of that heat and use it to warm a poorly insulated cabin with lots of windows.  You can draw up to about 150W from the lighter socket (don't do that for too long or you'll flatten the battery) while even idling an engine burns a few kW of fuel." CreationDate="2019-11-15T16:49:55.083" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="11768" PostId="9656" Score="1" Text="The engine block will stay warm for some time after turning off the engine. If you leave the fans running on low it should help keep you warm. I haven't tried this myself but I imagine it would be sufficient for 30 minutes or so, depending on how cold it is outside." CreationDate="2019-11-15T17:08:59.703" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11774" PostId="9656" Score="0" Text="@LShaver thanks, I had not considered that option, really good idea (obvious really!)" CreationDate="2019-11-15T17:47:28.693" UserId="8041" />
  <row Id="11779" PostId="9656" Score="3" Text="@LShaver Running the heater with the engine off will provide warm air for a couple of minutes at most. The engine block will retain heat for quite some time, but that heat isn't available unless coolant is being circulated." CreationDate="2019-11-15T20:46:56.620" UserId="8159" />
  <row Id="11901" PostId="9657" Score="0" Text="Third remark: nuclear fission of Pu-239 created by U-238 + neutron capture is sustainable too for billions of years. Uranium can be extracted from seawater: http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/nuclear-faq.html and http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/cohen.html" CreationDate="2019-11-22T19:02:13.380" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="11903" PostId="9657" Score="1" Text="@juhist The same holds for gold and almost anything else, but: Did anybody ever calculate the energy and industrial scale requirements? Reducing entropy is costly. But fossil and nuclear are moribund anyway. Solar electricity cost is still in freefall. Remember when blank CDs were $16 apiece and remote controlled drones were James Bond issue? That's were we currently are with solar cells. Keystone etc. will be scrap metal before the first gallon has passed it." CreationDate="2019-11-22T19:56:00.650" UserId="8151" />
  <row Id="11908" PostId="9657" Score="0" Text="Agreed, renewables make fission a bit pointless. Just wanted to point out, however, that fission is sustainable too." CreationDate="2019-11-23T04:28:25.757" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="11782" PostId="9658" Score="0" Text="For petrol engines it is a much more efficient way. For diesel engines it is a &quot;hmmmaybe&quot;." CreationDate="2019-11-15T21:37:38.017" UserId="6884" />
  <row Id="11787" PostId="9658" Score="0" Text="@Stian, why's that? Diesel heaters for motorhomes and some work vehicles were where this started, because they use so much less fuel than heating via the engine" CreationDate="2019-11-16T07:22:58.930" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="11790" PostId="9658" Score="0" Text="Because of the compression ratio and the rotating flywheel mass diesel engines use very little fuel when idling, and it is common enough to just let the engine run over night when it gets cold enough. But yeah, a heater is a good answer - for petrol engines it is clearly the better choice, and for some diesel engines it is." CreationDate="2019-11-16T12:16:18.780" UserId="6884" />
  <row Id="11791" PostId="9658" Score="0" Text="@Stian [figures from 2015](https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/fact-861-february-23-2015-idle-fuel-consumption-selected-gasoline-and-diesel-vehicles) say otherwise for cars, and even if there's been a revolution in fuel economy since then, most cars on the road are older than that.  For that much fuel you'd get [4kW from a diesel heater](https://www.eberspacher.com/fileadmin/data/countrysites/EB_UK/images/technical_images_ebuk/tech_airtronic_ebuk/airtronic_D4_table_ebuk.jpg) which is several times what you'd need to warm a car cabin." CreationDate="2019-11-16T14:30:52.157" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="11792" PostId="9658" Score="0" Text="... Delivery trucks use so much more at idle than cars that keeping a cab warm would use 30x as much fuel using the engine at idle compared to a dedicated heater. (900W should be enough). Figures from links in my previous comment. I'll probably expand this worked example into my answer, when I'm at a pc" CreationDate="2019-11-16T14:33:48.307" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="11793" PostId="9658" Score="0" Text="Chris yes, there are certainly examples of diesel cars where the calculation is net positive - I am for instance not saying that a delivery truck, or for that matter, an 18 wheeler is going to be cheap to run overnight. I am saying that many diesel cars are cheaper and easier to warm with idle - considering the investment cost of the heater. You even get the added bonus of driving a fully warmed up engine, which decreases wear and increases efficiency." CreationDate="2019-11-16T14:57:11.140" UserId="6884" />
  <row Id="11794" PostId="9658" Score="0" Text="Those are averages. If you pick and choose carefully you can find cases where it's not too bad, but you'll always do better burning fuel in a system designed to put heat where it's needed than relying on the waste heat of an unnecessary process. As for wear, idling is bad for engines, so that doesn't help. Overnight isn't the subject of the question, so I won't address that" CreationDate="2019-11-16T15:03:38.903" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="11806" PostId="9659" Score="0" Text="So in fact there are insects that alter the protein quality of the wheat. Now the statement makes sense." CreationDate="2019-11-18T05:49:47.013" UserId="8145" />
  <row Id="11809" PostId="9659" Score="0" Text="Journal of the Institute of Food Technology in Novi Sad Volume 35, Issue 2,  pages 47-52" CreationDate="2019-11-18T08:41:48.650" UserId="6837" />
  <row Id="11810" PostId="9659" Score="0" Text="Here's an in depth article if anyone wants to get all scientific about it. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3914345/" CreationDate="2019-11-18T09:05:02.603" UserId="6837" />
  <row Id="11776" PostId="9660" Score="3" Text="Use electric cars for taxis. This is already happening, e.g. at Schiphol airport in The Netherlands." CreationDate="2019-11-15T19:34:09.647" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="13191" PostId="9661" Score="0" Text="They aren't cars, but I think there is at least one solar power bus already in operation, and at least one RV!" CreationDate="2020-12-23T21:17:26.867" UserId="2727" />
  <row Id="11801" PostId="9662" Score="0" Text="Thank you, I think this would work well (although I don't think an assistant would always be possible).  Do you think maybe sensors and video cameras could help?  https://youtu.be/jqYMghbbK3k" CreationDate="2019-11-17T15:41:31.263" UserId="8041" />
  <row Id="11807" PostId="9663" Score="0" Text="Given the fact that it was a short interview and the farmer might have been a bit nervous by the fact that she's being interviewed it is quite possible that she mixed up some things. I think that in this context the answer by @Scott Tramposch is the most plausible explanation." CreationDate="2019-11-18T05:53:46.673" UserId="8145" />
  <row Id="11808" PostId="9663" Score="0" Text="@THelper  What I was trying to explain is that all those factors can come into play when a farmer wants to (or has to) reduce his use of pesticides.  Different fetilization,  cultivars, companion crops, sowing times, and many other strategies can be used to deal with restrictions on pesticides. All of them, including pests themselves, have an effect on the protein content of the final product. I grow many kinds of wheat in small quantities, seldom enough to make bread, but I play with all those factors for the sake of genetic diversity and the result is that I never need pesticides at all." CreationDate="2019-11-18T08:26:30.743" UserId="6837" />
  <row Id="11798" PostId="9664" Score="1" Text="Hello and welcome! are you affiliated with Loop? If so, you'll need to indicate that in your answer. Thanks!" CreationDate="2019-11-16T21:03:13.923" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11799" PostId="9664" Score="1" Text="No I'm not.  I would like to apply there but have not done so.  I wasn't sure how to make this read from a more neutral point of view since I only know of one tangentially related company." CreationDate="2019-11-16T21:04:44.583" UserId="8165" />
  <row Id="11800" PostId="9665" Score="0" Text="Thank you, good suggestion.  I always take that approach too. I usually try to wait for as long as possible (in the ferry queue sometimes 6 or 7 cars even but people do get impatient)." CreationDate="2019-11-17T15:34:21.010" UserId="8041" />
  <row Id="11802" PostId="9665" Score="0" Text="I would like to add that idling is only one source of the problem and potentially, the edging forward behaviour could create more pollution than is created through idling." CreationDate="2019-11-17T19:37:09.797" UserId="8041" />
  <row Id="11803" PostId="9665" Score="0" Text="Yes, edging forwards is inefficient, but (assuming manual transmission here) moving the same distance in fewer moves should mean less slipping the clutch, so be more efficient." CreationDate="2019-11-17T19:56:25.587" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="11805" PostId="9665" Score="0" Text="yup, definitely good to reduce the number of stop starts." CreationDate="2019-11-17T22:12:02.143" UserId="8041" />
  <row Id="11813" PostId="9667" Score="0" Text="Inductive charging." CreationDate="2019-11-18T14:28:13.363" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="11814" PostId="9667" Score="0" Text="@Erik interesting :-) is it available now? Also I think it would require the taxi to be stationary to charge so maybe could be incorportated to the solution below?" CreationDate="2019-11-18T14:43:17.697" UserId="8041" />
  <row Id="11815" PostId="9667" Score="0" Text="Meh, actually the project I knew was scrapped a week ago: https://www.electrive.net/2019/11/12/bvg-beendet-projekt-zum-induktiven-laden/" CreationDate="2019-11-18T14:52:04.230" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="11824" PostId="9667" Score="0" Text="As a programmer I know to avoid getting too excited about new tech!  but thank you (promising none the less)" CreationDate="2019-11-18T16:22:16.900" UserId="8041" />
  <row Id="11834" PostId="9667" Score="0" Text="@Erik here is a new scheme in London regarding wireless charging and a taxi rank...could be interesting to see how it develops but I think the vehicles need to be stationary for the charging to effective and efficient so a solution similar to my answer below may still be required&#xA;https://www.taxi-point.co.uk/single-post/2019/02/14/Wireless-EV-charging-trial-set-for-St-Pancras-Taxi-rank" CreationDate="2019-11-19T05:46:17.753" UserId="8041" />
  <row Id="11880" PostId="9667" Score="0" Text="Inductive charging would definitely be a tidy &amp; simple solution. A messy &amp; more complex solution, which would require the taxi driver to be more mindful of what is happening is to use an overhead wire &amp; a [pantograph](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantograph_(transport)) on the taxi. Similar to what is used by electric trains, tram &amp; trolley buses. When the taxi has needs to move into the traffic, the pantograph is lowered." CreationDate="2019-11-21T18:00:07.680" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="12031" PostId="9667" Score="0" Text="Uber, Tesla etc are working on the other end of the spectrum: remove the human that is driving. If you do this (and taxis are no longer independently owned/operated), it doesn't matter which order the taxi leaves the rank." CreationDate="2019-12-18T11:43:18.727" UserId="8232" />
  <row Id="12037" PostId="9669" Score="0" Text="This of course is very similar to the solution to the previous question, because in both cases we want to minimise the number of moves each vehicle makes. It also works with current charging systems, making it much more practical than the alternatives (although there are serious attempts at inductive charging for buses)" CreationDate="2019-12-19T07:47:08.213" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="11836" PostId="9670" Score="0" Text="Thanks so much Scott! Haha yes indeed it is a very scary thing to ask... with more consumerism &amp; flights being taken on a per-capita basis in developing countries, I have a feeling we are heading in this direction! Thank you for sharing globalcalculator :D" CreationDate="2019-11-19T07:00:52.237" UserId="8142" />
  <row Id="11827" PostId="9671" Score="3" Text="I live in a two story house and used this technique all summer -- it was quite effective. I also used a fan in the upstairs window to exhaust the hot air out at night, drawing cooler air in through the main floor windows." CreationDate="2019-11-18T19:52:49.203" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11841" PostId="9671" Score="1" Text="@LShaver Oh, I totally forgot to mention the fans! I used fan in each window to blow cold air in and turned the kitchen extractor hood to suck the air out, this created quite a current of air and it was done in 30 minutes." CreationDate="2019-11-19T09:50:42.793" UserId="8149" />
  <row Id="11915" PostId="9671" Score="0" Text="Fans might be great but the question asks about ways without using electricity." CreationDate="2019-11-24T01:38:46.493" UserId="60" />
  <row Id="11816" PostId="9672" Score="3" Text="Another great example is California emissions requirements. Because of the size of that market, all mfgrs selling cars in the U.S. meet that requirement -- it's cheaper than maintaining two different product lines." CreationDate="2019-11-18T14:53:57.957" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11840" PostId="9673" Score="0" Text="Doesn't answer the question, which was about GHG emissions from current production methods of beef and cheese" CreationDate="2019-11-19T08:24:18.897" UserId="3851" />
  <row Id="11854" PostId="9673" Score="0" Text="@andyyy  That was addressed completely and thoroughly within the text of the question itself.    The only answer this question required was a response to the part of the question: &quot;Can anyone critique my reasoning?&quot;  which I certainly was able to do regarding the part of the question  that assumed  beef and cheese production is inherently bad. It's not. It's only bad for the environment when it's produced irresponsibly in unsustainable ways and in quantities greater than the local ecology can support.  That's something few people consider." CreationDate="2019-11-19T21:01:41.957" UserId="6837" />
  <row Id="11828" PostId="9674" Score="0" Text="Pittsburgh mostly lost heavy industry but then developed service industries. They didn't have a goal of getting rid of heavy pollution but just lost it. They did have some early projects of cleaning the air and the rivers but heavy industry was still running at that time." CreationDate="2019-11-18T22:37:18.383" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="11829" PostId="9674" Score="0" Text="Thank you, S Spring. Pittsburg is a good example. Do you know any small rural areas or small cities that did something similar?" CreationDate="2019-11-18T22:59:06.953" UserId="8170" />
  <row Id="13325" PostId="9674" Score="0" Text="Costa Rica comes to mind -- a lot of agricultural areas turned to ecotourism. Also the island of Ometepe in Nicaragua." CreationDate="2021-01-13T14:41:01.873" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13337" PostId="9674" Score="0" Text="Thank you @LShaver." CreationDate="2021-01-14T23:56:59.900" UserId="8170" />
  <row Id="11842" PostId="9675" Score="5" Text="The production of meat and dairy has a much bigger environmental impact than the production of vegetables or grains (see for example [this blog](https://www.newswise.com/articles/the-environmental-impact-of-the-protein-we-consume) or [these](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959652616307570) [two](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11367-016-1071-3) scientific papers). So I would argue that almost all plant farming is more eco-friendly than raising livestock. Admittedly these studies only look at environmental impact, not social impact (jobs)" CreationDate="2019-11-19T13:16:48.027" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11879" PostId="9675" Score="0" Text="It would also depend on the location of the ranch, its climate, soil type &amp; water resources. Cattle or sheep ranches can exist economically on difficult country with poor soils water with certain levels of salt, such as semi arid lands, that would be very inhospitable to crop agriculture." CreationDate="2019-11-21T17:48:50.330" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="11923" PostId="9675" Score="0" Text="Thank you @THelper." CreationDate="2019-11-26T00:35:44.817" UserId="8170" />
  <row Id="11924" PostId="9675" Score="0" Text="Thank you @Fred." CreationDate="2019-11-26T00:36:10.277" UserId="8170" />
  <row Id="11837" PostId="9676" Score="0" Text="Wow thank you so much Nic! Really appreciate your answer and I've just sent you a separate email on all this :) Thanks again, Josie" CreationDate="2019-11-19T07:02:04.900" UserId="8142" />
  <row Id="11835" PostId="9677" Score="0" Text="the design is cool yes?!!!" CreationDate="2019-11-19T06:50:19.227" UserId="8041" />
  <row Id="11905" PostId="9678" Score="0" Text="Sorghum, switchgrass, and algae pull large amounts of carbon-dioxide out of the air.    Corn nets very little carbon-dioxide out of the air and partially because of the amount of fertilizer that it requires." CreationDate="2019-11-22T23:50:27.767" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="11925" PostId="9678" Score="0" Text="Thank you @S Spring." CreationDate="2019-11-26T00:37:18.803" UserId="8170" />
  <row Id="11847" PostId="9679" Score="0" Text="Thank you Nick C, I was thinking along these lines too.  You would have to have a few screens around the place but maybe an app could also help and the alert could be sent to a taxi driver's phone in case they miss the number pop up on the screen.  I would have thought the idea of reading a license number wouldn't be too difficult either.  Should be quite an inexpensive and easy solution (maybe more involved than mine with the gates and two sensors but then the additional benefit of there being zero edging forward).  It also allows electric charging because the cars would remain stationary" CreationDate="2019-11-19T14:36:27.143" UserId="8041" />
  <row Id="11848" PostId="9679" Score="0" Text="The only downside to this would be if two or three numbers were called very close to one another there could be a little race for the drivers to beat one another but...if there is a small queue towards the pickup point of a couple of cars then this might remove the urgency of getting there...and I assume all taxi drivers are well behaved too :-)" CreationDate="2019-11-19T14:39:47.870" UserId="8041" />
  <row Id="11851" PostId="9679" Score="1" Text="@atreeon but then if three numbers are called, all three drivers would know they're going to get a fare, so there's no need to rush to beat each other. They have no idea which fare is going to be the most lucrative after all!" CreationDate="2019-11-19T15:34:09.723" UserId="4155" />
  <row Id="11853" PostId="9679" Score="0" Text="yeah, i agree, it is a small problem, with identifying the number plates that makes things fairly simple for the drivers too.  I think it would need some kind of admin, like all the systems proposed but the admin could be done remotely via cctv." CreationDate="2019-11-19T18:08:09.483" UserId="8041" />
  <row Id="11852" PostId="9680" Score="1" Text="This seems like a question better suited for https://diy.stackexchange.com/ or perhaps https://electronics.stackexchange.com/" CreationDate="2019-11-19T17:40:11.417" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="11863" PostId="9680" Score="0" Text="Since they are all in series the current won't exceed the rated max at any one panel so the built-in bypass should be sufficient. Do you have reason to believe it won't?" CreationDate="2019-11-20T14:17:17.723" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11933" PostId="9682" Score="0" Text="A parking lot isn't an electromagnetic field.  What do you mean by the last sentence in the answer?" CreationDate="2019-11-26T13:45:36.997" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="11934" PostId="9682" Score="0" Text="A flow of electricity produces an electromagnetic field. Power lines are usually overhead by twenty feet or so. A lightweight structure, instead of a thick concrete structure, for low-lying solar panels might not provide the people in the parking lot with enough protection from the electromagnetic field. Protection from the electromagnetic field would just be a design requirement." CreationDate="2019-11-26T13:55:24.480" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="11940" PostId="9682" Score="0" Text="Consider a column and beam structure for the solar panels, and using this system http://www.kbhscape.com/columns.htm , a 20' square is made based on an expected available length of channel beam section. That's a 20' square with a column at each corner. So that's a structure for slightly more than two parking spaces ! Also, channel cross-beams are needed along the solar panel attachment lines. Most developers would give-up and put the solar panels on light poles" CreationDate="2019-11-27T21:34:17.800" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="11855" PostId="9683" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! I'm not sure I understand your answer. Why do you think people will &quot;*organize to buy and own the means of production*&quot;? I don't see a group of people buying and owning a car factory for example." CreationDate="2019-11-20T07:48:42.997" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11869" PostId="9683" Score="0" Text="While a car factory seems unrealistic since we buy cars so rarely, consider the products you buy weekly, such as bread, or almost continuously, such as electricity." CreationDate="2019-11-21T08:15:29.923" UserId="8174" />
  <row Id="11871" PostId="9683" Score="0" Text="It creates a sort of direct insurance for any good or service you can predict you will need." CreationDate="2019-11-21T08:39:19.183" UserId="8174" />
  <row Id="11866" PostId="9684" Score="2" Text="Possible duplicate of [How can we dispose or recycle hair clippings from barber shops?](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/4683/99) although that question is not specifically about upcycling and the science behind it." CreationDate="2019-11-20T14:43:19.903" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11870" PostId="9684" Score="1" Text="In the past it was common to fill matresses/pillows with animal (horse) hair. I wonder if that would work with human hair (after proper cleaning). Another (not so nice) area of investigation might be looking at what Nazi Germany did with the hair from Holocaust victims." CreationDate="2019-11-21T08:19:15.040" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="11881" PostId="9688" Score="1" Text="What shape is your container? My proper vermicomposter is designed to be used in layers, and not turned, but can't have too much material added at one time. My rather cool deep compost bins have a significant amount of worm action, and benefit from turning." CreationDate="2019-11-21T18:09:19.840" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="11894" PostId="9688" Score="0" Text="@ChrisH I added a picture. It has two layers, but the second one is empty so far. Maybe we should start using both?" CreationDate="2019-11-22T12:44:15.863" UserId="8149" />
  <row Id="11886" PostId="9691" Score="0" Text="Fantastic answer. Thank you." CreationDate="2019-11-22T06:39:34.477" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="11902" PostId="9691" Score="0" Text="I wonder what the leakage rate is like in practice at those managed anaerobic sites. It won't be zero, not from a big messy gas system" CreationDate="2019-11-22T19:33:54.367" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="11909" PostId="9691" Score="1" Text="@ChrisH good question, and as I suspected, the IPCC also addressed this -- I edited the answer to include their findings." CreationDate="2019-11-23T04:58:40.533" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11913" PostId="9691" Score="0" Text="It seems like a good idea to burn this methane by having plastic pipe in the landfill to  collect gases. This was done in IL but the EPA made then extinguish the fires and just vent the gas." CreationDate="2019-11-23T16:26:56.347" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="14828" PostId="9691" Score="0" Text="Looks like the [2019 update to this report](https://www.ipcc-nggip.iges.or.jp/public/2019rf/vol5.html) was published days after I wrote this answer." CreationDate="2021-07-30T14:53:28.287" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11887" PostId="9692" Score="0" Text="Smart idea. They would have to account for the local disturbances of wind patterns by the wind farms themselves, and maybe also local temperature disturbances with larger solar parks." CreationDate="2019-11-22T07:06:02.357" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="11895" PostId="9694" Score="1" Text="You're rightfully sceptical about indoor use. I mean it doesn't smell at all, that's true, but the swarms of fruit flies are quite frustrating." CreationDate="2019-11-22T13:20:01.583" UserId="8149" />
  <row Id="11896" PostId="9694" Score="0" Text="I get them round my little caddy in the summer" CreationDate="2019-11-22T14:14:43.307" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="11897" PostId="9695" Score="0" Text="It's hardly relevant for car drivers - with their speeds is not an issue of being attracted to the light, but being at the wrong time in the wrong place (in front of the car). Even with your bike speed I'm not sure the numbers you kill are relevant." CreationDate="2019-11-22T16:15:31.590" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="11898" PostId="9695" Score="0" Text="@JanDoggen The linked article disagrees for the case of cars, and suggests that insects are in fact attracted to roads due to the many headlights there.  do you have evidence to the contrary?" CreationDate="2019-11-22T16:36:19.213" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="11899" PostId="9695" Score="0" Text="Why the downvote?" CreationDate="2019-11-22T16:36:34.177" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="11912" PostId="9695" Score="0" Text="@JanDoggen To clarify; I don't think they mean an individual car in an otherwise deserted area is going to kill lots of insects due to the lights.  But a busy highway has lots of cars, and it passing through an otherwise dark area, the way I understand it is that the insects will be attracted to the general vicinity of the road due to the large number of lights there." CreationDate="2019-11-23T12:47:28.473" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="11910" PostId="9696" Score="0" Text="I understand that solar panels and wind turbines cannot out-compete information gathered from airplanes, satellites or professional measurement stations, but could information from a large amount of them be used as additional information source? Or do you think they are too unreliable to be useful?" CreationDate="2019-11-23T08:06:03.677" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11911" PostId="9696" Score="0" Text="I think I answered it already: (a) we do not always have a full picture of winds in the oceans due to lack of measurement stations, so offshore wind turbines could be used as an additional information source, but (b) the likely way this happens is that professional equipment will be installed to offshore wind turbine platforms, not by measuring the power production directly. About solar, I think the answer is no. Satellites continuously improve at a great rate, so someday we might have sub-kilometer resolution from geostationary satellites." CreationDate="2019-11-23T08:12:23.417" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="11900" PostId="9697" Score="0" Text="Thanks, but your answer is a little bit more specific than I intended.  Maybe I elaborated too much in my question on the specific example.  But maybe the general question &quot;how can I tell&quot; is too broad?" CreationDate="2019-11-22T17:19:07.633" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="11904" PostId="9697" Score="0" Text="Do you know anything about wavelength (narrowband, wideband, specific frequencies) or flicker?" CreationDate="2019-11-22T20:47:52.657" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="11906" PostId="9698" Score="0" Text="There are renewable sources of methane and so make hydrogen from the available methane and run the hydrogen in fuel-cells to make electricity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_natural_gas . Also, since a fuel-cell makes both electricity and heat it is a more efficient use of ordinary natural-gas when for a building." CreationDate="2019-11-23T00:19:09.210" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="11907" PostId="9698" Score="0" Text="The renewable sources of methane are not large enough to supply large-scale hydrogen usage. Also, gas turbines burning renewable methane directly can utilize waste heat in district heating networks. The only renewable source large enough for widespread use is electrolysis of water using wind/solar power." CreationDate="2019-11-23T04:26:58.337" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="11914" PostId="9698" Score="0" Text="Every waste treatment plant could make hydrogen from methane and produce electricity with hydrogen-fuel-cells. This is a contributing system just like most other forms of renewable energy are merely contributing. But most waste treatment plants that make hydrogen set-up a vehicle hydrogen fueling station a couple of miles from the plant." CreationDate="2019-11-23T19:22:55.577" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="11919" PostId="9701" Score="0" Text="Somehow you must have gotten the idea of putting it up, so why don't you start with what you think the benefits are?" CreationDate="2019-11-25T10:12:42.963" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="11921" PostId="9701" Score="2" Text="There is unlikely to be enough light of the right colors to grow inside , with no natural light. A dedicated , close LED light may be successful  . I am getting good aquarium plant growth with LED lights . And fluorescents like Gro-Lux.." CreationDate="2019-11-25T21:01:28.783" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="11920" PostId="9702" Score="1" Text="Every single molecule of CO2 emitted into the air from a biomass plant originally came from the air, so there is approximately no net increase in atmospheric CO2. Contrast with fossil fuels where every single molecule of CO2 came from the ground and emitted into the air" CreationDate="2019-11-25T10:55:34.957" UserId="6602" />
  <row Id="11922" PostId="9702" Score="0" Text="Hi,&#xA;&#xA;Thank you so much for your replies. Here is one of the articles I was shown, I can find another if necessary. Can you please provide your thoughts on this? https://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2011/08/18/is-biomass-really-renewable/ (the link says 2011, but it was updated in 2016)" CreationDate="2019-11-25T22:08:19.323" UserId="8185" />
  <row Id="11927" PostId="9702" Score="0" Text="@gunter that link would be a good addition to the question" CreationDate="2019-11-26T08:29:03.943" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="11929" PostId="9702" Score="0" Text="@ChrisH No it is not - don't change the goal posts. It also asks for opinions and is too broad (*provide your thoughts on this*). Note that you are (also) answering the critiques in the article (now gone from the comments) and not just the question. This confirms my suspicions that we are having a good example of an X-Y problem here: Gunter asks X, but actually wants an answer to Y." CreationDate="2019-11-26T08:53:01.060" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="11931" PostId="9702" Score="0" Text="@JanDoggen &quot;I recently read&quot; is how the question starts.  It wouldn't be unreasonable, or moving the goalposts, to include the source(s)" CreationDate="2019-11-26T09:15:32.520" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="11932" PostId="9702" Score="0" Text="This is an expansion on my question... I said &quot;I recently read&quot; this in an article somewhere. Which is why I do not understand why we are utilizing biomass. I have provided one of the articles I saw, so users can provide better insight on my question, instead of providing a generic answer on what a biomass plant is." CreationDate="2019-11-26T09:17:07.950" UserId="8185" />
  <row Id="11935" PostId="9703" Score="1" Text="Another way of looking at it is that WTW is the marginal (carbon)  cost, while LCA attempts an estimate of the manufacturing cost divided by the lifetime output. That's a few extra variables to assess" CreationDate="2019-11-27T08:54:38.943" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="11936" PostId="9703" Score="0" Text="@ChrisH I guess you are saying it's more work. That could be a reason. In my case the numbers are already given for electricity from renewable sources, but I would also need to take manufacturing and disposal into account for other components in my calculations." CreationDate="2019-11-27T09:21:42.983" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11937" PostId="9703" Score="0" Text="Not so much more work (though it is), as more margin for error and subtle forms of bias. Those values further depend on externals - e.g. if your wind turbines have to sit idle for significant periods because their power can't be used due to grid capability limits, but still only last the same number of years, your LCA value changes, but your WTW value doesn't." CreationDate="2019-11-27T10:05:34.893" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="11938" PostId="9703" Score="1" Text="This only really looks at the underlying reasons behind the existence of two valid approaches; when and why each should be used is much more political. Consistency is important, and using LCA figures for the tech you don't like but WTW for the one you do is a common trick used by proponents of both electric vehicles and traditional cars." CreationDate="2019-11-27T10:08:25.677" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="12645" PostId="9706" Score="0" Text="This isn't quite right. Some people can see LED flickering and are extremely bothered by it. One reason incandescents continue to be popular." CreationDate="2020-05-26T19:01:14.387" UserId="8736" />
  <row Id="12646" PostId="9706" Score="0" Text="@InterLinked flicker (existence and frequency) is a property of the driver not the LED itself.  It's a minor point but a crucial one.  Flicker at human-observable frequencies is far more likely on mains-powered lights with cheap drive circuits than pulse-width modulation of DC-powered emitters." CreationDate="2020-05-26T19:05:47.160" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="12647" PostId="9706" Score="0" Text="Right, but in practice most LEDs are powered by AC, not DC, so it's an issue. The people I know who can see LED flickering only observe that with AC powered LEDs." CreationDate="2020-05-26T21:05:07.733" UserId="8736" />
  <row Id="12649" PostId="9706" Score="0" Text="@InterLinked technically that's true in this case as a bike dynamo is really an alternator.  Note though that I didn't say &quot;AC-powered&quot;, I said &quot;mains-powered&quot;, which this isn't unless the OP has a very long cable (mains is fixed at 50 or 60Hz, but the variable frequency of a bike dynamo means the electronics have to smooth as well as rectifying.  This isn't perfect as you'll notice at very low speeds." CreationDate="2020-05-26T21:14:43.200" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="11942" PostId="9707" Score="0" Text="Are you planning to use a battery in this system?" CreationDate="2019-11-29T02:08:36.100" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="11943" PostId="9707" Score="0" Text="Yes. Not sure whether to use 12V or 24V, but seeing how hard to get 24V, probably stick to 12V..." CreationDate="2019-11-29T02:15:01.803" UserId="8194" />
  <row Id="11945" PostId="9707" Score="0" Text="Been looking at the GIANDEL 2200W Pure Sine Wave Power Inverter 12V DC to 120V AC with 20A Solar Charge Control. Although it is PWM and not MPPT, it's at a reasonable price for an all in one, for what I have." CreationDate="2019-11-29T02:36:03.370" UserId="8194" />
  <row Id="11950" PostId="9707" Score="1" Text="The question as written is quite broad -- can you narrow to a specific component? As a side note -- if you are considering expanding the system, I'd consider going for an MPPT charger and a higher voltage. The lower battery voltage will limit the amount you can expand later on." CreationDate="2019-11-29T15:47:36.583" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12064" PostId="9708" Score="0" Text="This is a good answer. The fundamental difference is that a dairy cow can keep on producing milk, while the beef cow is, of course, finished when you eat it. The details can be complicated, but eating dairy food clearly requires less resources and produces less emissions in general." CreationDate="2019-12-30T22:28:51.087" UserId="8013" />
  <row Id="12007" PostId="9709" Score="1" Text="a small remark: if you want to decide what's best between repairing a buying anew, remember that carbon footprint is only a fraction of the environmental impact so before deciding to buy a new appliance, you might want to check the full life-cycle assessment of the product, e.g. [here](https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/IDETC-CIE/proceedings-abstract/IDETC-CIE2011/54792/1011/358410) to see its other environmental impacts." CreationDate="2019-12-15T10:39:15.203" UserId="8227" />
  <row Id="12008" PostId="9711" Score="0" Text="I must say I'm amazed by how precised the result of the rule of thumb is: results from life-cycle assessment of toasters I found gave 0.5 and 2 kg CO2e for an eco and standard toaster...did you check this on other appliances? (I mean it makes sense that it would give a reasonable range, but is it always that close?)" CreationDate="2019-12-15T10:41:26.970" UserId="8227" />
  <row Id="11954" PostId="9715" Score="0" Text="After two months of doing this I've accumulated about 8 used blades -- which don't make a dent in the glass bottle under my sink they're sitting in. Guess I'll just fill the thing up until I die :)" CreationDate="2019-12-02T16:57:40.937" UserId="4604" />
  <row Id="11958" PostId="9715" Score="0" Text="Most community recyclers just collect material until they have enough to truck to an industrial operation." CreationDate="2019-12-03T00:48:07.207" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="11962" PostId="9719" Score="0" Text="I read on a Tesla owners web site one persons'  list of recommendations  necessary to get good performance ; One that i remember is that the regenerative braking ( to recharge the battery) does not work until the batteries have warmed for a half hour." CreationDate="2019-12-04T00:51:42.190" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="11992" PostId="9719" Score="0" Text="On the Tesla comment, one may now set a &quot;Scheduled Departure Time&quot;, which finalizes charging and conditions the car's battery and interior temperatures by the time you need to leave, which should minimize battery issues related to cold weather." CreationDate="2019-12-09T17:21:56.920" UserId="8210" />
  <row Id="12392" PostId="9719" Score="0" Text="Anecdotally, I compared my Honda to a co-worker's Tesla last winter (2019). The reduced fuel efficiency of my car in the winter (cold weather, winter tires, short trips) was roughly equal and a little worse than the Tesla (same conditions). My car went from 7.5-8.0 L/100 km to 10 L/100 km. The Telsa lost about 20% battery efficiency. This was for 1 winter in southern Ontario in Canada, which is colder than many places in the world but not Wisconsin in winter. On the plus side, in prairie winters you're plugging your car in anyway. :)" CreationDate="2020-02-26T18:16:33.647" UserId="6287" />
  <row Id="16578" PostId="9719" Score="1" Text="With the extreme cold experienced in North America during mid January 2024, some EV owners have experienced difficulties in charging the batteries of their vehicles: [Tesla drivers stranded after extreme cold makes simple feature impossible](https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/other/tesla-drivers-stranded-after-extreme-cold-makes-simple-feature-impossible/ar-AA1nazM2?ocid=mailsignout&amp;pc=U591&amp;cvid=b1c4a066c8da46e497e5c799300c63cd&amp;ei=22)." CreationDate="2024-01-19T08:45:15.407" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="11986" PostId="9721" Score="0" Text="&quot;A gas-turbine that uses its waste heat can have efficiencies of about 65%.&quot; -- disagreed. Where I live, gas turbines generate 45% heat + 45% electricity = 90% efficiency." CreationDate="2019-12-06T12:01:25.643" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="11993" PostId="9721" Score="0" Text="I think the effective use of the waste heat is the point. Here is one link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_turbine ." CreationDate="2019-12-09T20:35:29.633" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="11964" PostId="9723" Score="0" Text="The effect of cabin temperature can of course be mitigated by dressing for the conditions, and preheating (or precooling) while plugged in. At they low end of the OP's temperature range this would still reduce the heating power consumption, though not remove it completely." CreationDate="2019-12-05T07:57:01.827" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="11965" PostId="9723" Score="0" Text="Now I wonder about the efficiency of the charge/discharge process vs temperature, rather than the effect of temperature on capacity" CreationDate="2019-12-05T07:58:27.387" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="11966" PostId="9723" Score="0" Text="@ChrisH That would probably make a good new question." CreationDate="2019-12-05T08:05:34.640" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11968" PostId="9723" Score="0" Text="I think it would be another useful answer to this one, as efficiency is important for range.  I might get time to write it myself." CreationDate="2019-12-05T09:51:08.570" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="11972" PostId="9723" Score="0" Text="I have reason to believe that increased air resistance (air becoming more dense when cold) has a larger effect than tire pressure variations." CreationDate="2019-12-05T20:19:16.313" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="12023" PostId="9723" Score="0" Text="I did an active experiment with a Subaru once.  1 psi increase in tire pressure = 1.5% greater mileage.  Tested it from 28 to 40 psi trying to even out some tire wear." CreationDate="2019-12-18T03:44:10.627" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="12024" PostId="9723" Score="0" Text="Even with correct pressure in the tires, cold weather makes tires stiffer.  You lose more energy flexing the tire walls.  Overall the difference between 0C and -35C is between 20 and 25% for an ICE engine." CreationDate="2019-12-18T03:45:30.787" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="12025" PostId="9723" Score="0" Text="The problem with nicely warmed batteries for your trip, is that they may NOT be warm for your home coming trip.  While many parking lots have plugins here in Alberta most of them don't run until temps are below -15, and then only run 50% of the time starting about 2 hours before work departure." CreationDate="2019-12-18T03:47:22.640" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="12501" PostId="9723" Score="0" Text="The Norwegian Automobile Federation just published some data on [real-world testing of EVs in cold weather](https://www.naf.no/elbil/aktuelt/elbiltest/ev-winter-range-test-2020/). They found an average reduction of 18.5% compared to rated range." CreationDate="2020-03-19T13:28:57.990" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11971" PostId="9725" Score="0" Text="Not much if there is no air conditioner." CreationDate="2019-12-05T15:45:29.997" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="12013" PostId="9725" Score="0" Text="It's all good news if there is no air conditioner. I love a hot Wyoming night; I get a *very notable* MPG boost in my gas car cruising at posted limits." CreationDate="2019-12-16T02:08:10.490" UserId="6925" />
  <row Id="12011" PostId="9726" Score="0" Text="And it gets better still if the heating is resistive, because air conditioning is *always* heat-pump based.   Also, air conditioning is not necessary. I haven't had an A/C car since 1998." CreationDate="2019-12-16T01:58:50.617" UserId="6925" />
  <row Id="11975" PostId="9729" Score="0" Text="How much impact does the density of air have? Is this variation on a similar scale to what happens with elevation? I'm skeptical that this would even be measurable compared to other things which affect aerodynamics, such as the amount of bugs on the windshield, or whether the windows are open." CreationDate="2019-12-05T20:40:08.743" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11977" PostId="9729" Score="0" Text="Air resistance in highway driving is the majority resisting force, i.e. over 50% of energy goes to overcoming air drag. Resistance is proportional to density. Density is inversely proportional to temperature. At 240 Kelvins (-33.15 Celsius) drag is 300/240 times what it is at 300 Kelvins (26.85 Celsius). So the largest resistance force just increased by 25%!" CreationDate="2019-12-05T20:55:31.720" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="11984" PostId="9730" Score="0" Text="The air density has a negligible effect, the difference between a car full of warm air and a car full of cold air is about 1 lb." CreationDate="2019-12-06T11:33:25.070" UserId="6602" />
  <row Id="11985" PostId="9730" Score="0" Text="@ChristopherGilmour Disagreed. It affects air resistance by 25%, see my comment to https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/a/9729/6393" CreationDate="2019-12-06T11:46:49.483" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="11989" PostId="9730" Score="0" Text="Do you have any references that back-up your claim about 25% more air resistance?" CreationDate="2019-12-06T16:54:06.103" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="11990" PostId="9730" Score="0" Text="@THelper Yes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideal_gas_law and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drag_(physics)" CreationDate="2019-12-06T16:59:32.910" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="12012" PostId="9730" Score="1" Text="@ChristopherGilmour you're wrong. Google &quot;hot-and-high&quot; which is an aviation term, and understand why it has such a profound effect on aviation.  What makes it hard for airplanes to fly gives my gas car better MPG.  It's not the air in your car.  It's the air you're pushing out of your way.  Thelper look at aviation performance charts." CreationDate="2019-12-16T02:03:24.197" UserId="6925" />
  <row Id="11976" PostId="9731" Score="0" Text="But what if removing lithium from dirt is significantly cheaper than removing it from a battery? In this case, the concentration may not matter." CreationDate="2019-12-05T20:41:51.173" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11978" PostId="9731" Score="0" Text="@LShaver Given the transportation electrification plans and plans to shift to renewable wind electricity that can suddenly stop (thus requiring lithium ion backup batteries and possibly longer-term hydrogen energy storage), there will be need for every last lithium atom economically extractable. Agree that if we have an endless source of lithium dirt, then the old batteries could end up to be a problem. But alas, we have finite lithium reserves." CreationDate="2019-12-05T20:57:54.743" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="11979" PostId="9731" Score="0" Text="I agree -- at some point there will be so many Li-ion batteries piling up that somebody will figure out a good way to recycle them. But do we have one now? That is the core of the question." CreationDate="2019-12-05T21:01:20.020" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11980" PostId="9731" Score="0" Text="Well, there could be a problem in the very short term as lithium reserves won't be depleted in the next 10 years or so... I'm primarily interested in 100-year timescale. We all should be. In 10 years, even climate change is not a problem!" CreationDate="2019-12-05T21:03:15.330" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="13213" PostId="9731" Score="0" Text="Uranium isn't the main metal being mined at Talivivaara, it's only a very minor by-product. The main metal is nickel followed by by-products zinc, copper &amp; cobalt. It just so happens that uranium is leaching out from the heap leach pads. One way to mitigate a radioactive metal, dissolved in liquid, from becoming an environment issue is to remove it. It's an opportunistic recovery. If the mine had to rely solely on uranium it would be uneconomic because of the quantities produced, only 350 t/yr compared to 33 000 t/yr for nickel &amp; 66 000 t/yr of zinc &amp; 10 000 t of copper." CreationDate="2021-01-01T08:59:52.267" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="14912" PostId="9731" Score="0" Text="The argument of @Fred could be used too for EV battery recycling. Lithium is not the main product. The main product is nickel. Some cobalt can be recovered too. Lithium is very low on the list of recovered metals." CreationDate="2021-08-19T15:32:42.703" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="12035" PostId="9732" Score="0" Text="Here is another link that suggests the importance and difficulty of the use of cobalt: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/18/tesla-and-gm-want-to-deliver-on-the-hype-over-self-driving-and-electric-vehicles.html" CreationDate="2019-12-19T04:27:39.680" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="12043" PostId="9732" Score="0" Text="Well, the DRC is increasing royalties on metals including cobalt. They might consider instead a plan similar to Indonesia where mineral export is not allowed such that product manufacturing is required in the country. The finished products can be exported." CreationDate="2019-12-19T20:45:02.650" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="13397" PostId="9732" Score="0" Text="Sounds like some of these methods were only developed in the last year or two. Is there data on actual recycling rates?" CreationDate="2021-01-29T00:41:11.780" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11981" PostId="9733" Score="2" Text="This is only applicable if a battery can be reused. Eventually every battery will be rendered unchargeable &amp; unusable because it has reached the end of it functionality. When that happens it needs to be either disposed of or preferably recycled." CreationDate="2019-12-06T04:21:18.600" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="11982" PostId="9733" Score="0" Text="All other answers already cover that last-resort atypical case for what to do with an EV battery that no longer works for the EV use case. This answer rather points out that Grand Central Station doesn't need to be torn down and rebuilt when it stops to serve train traffic, when it can have a great high-yield after-life as an Apple Store." CreationDate="2019-12-06T05:05:55.223" UserId="8209" />
  <row Id="12048" PostId="9733" Score="0" Text="Among hobbyists reuse is already a thing. One example: [power banks](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=lithium+battery+reuse+powerbank)" CreationDate="2019-12-20T14:04:18.190" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="12049" PostId="9733" Score="0" Text="... and even for entire [home storage systems](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=lithium+battery+reuse+home+power+system). Look at [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNbsiZcwGSY&amp;t=40s) specifically." CreationDate="2019-12-20T14:15:31.900" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="13396" PostId="9733" Score="0" Text="Any data on actual rates of reuse? I don't think the powerwall is a re-used EV battery -- it's a brand new one." CreationDate="2021-01-29T00:40:24.413" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="11983" PostId="9734" Score="1" Text="A naive take suggests it could be more efficient, as losses in resistive components scale with the square of the current, and your 110V circuit is specified as 15A. However I don't propose that as an answer because the manufacturer has the ability to optimise the charger design for certain conditions, and that can be a bigger effect." CreationDate="2019-12-06T06:44:52.617" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="12207" PostId="9737" Score="2" Text="I spent a while looking for this data and as best I can tell, it just isn't out there. The IEA [gives an estimate of 35 million tons globally in 2019](https://www.iea.org/fuels-and-technologies/carbon-capture-utilisation-and-storage), but they don't provide context or a source. There's also a Global CCS Institute that has [an annual report](https://www.globalccsinstitute.com/resources/global-status-report/) and a [database of facilities](https://co2re.co/), but both of these seem to prioritize flashy graphics over detailed statistics." CreationDate="2020-01-23T15:09:40.577" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12001" PostId="9741" Score="1" Text="It's written in Javascript, [according to Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Sheets)." CreationDate="2019-12-12T20:21:54.367" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12002" PostId="9741" Score="1" Text="That's the client side. The server side could be JavaScript (NodeJS), or something entirely different." CreationDate="2019-12-12T20:37:42.560" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="12016" PostId="9741" Score="2" Text="References please...." CreationDate="2019-12-16T10:17:12.153" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="12026" PostId="9741" Score="1" Text="I feel this answer could be improved by delving into actual emissions caused by server farms (there are various benefits to using cloud computing over say, a local office server room, but perhaps not by an excel document stored on a local, powered-down machine)." CreationDate="2019-12-18T06:11:46.713" UserId="8232" />
  <row Id="12032" PostId="9741" Score="1" Text="I suggest you add a remark to your answer to clarify that you know the client is JS but not what the server is." CreationDate="2019-12-18T14:11:00.373" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="12003" PostId="9742" Score="0" Text="I found it interesting to compare your answer to [that of user3540774](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/a/9616/99). Due to different assumptions the final answer is different by a factor 100. I wonder which answer is more accurate." CreationDate="2019-12-13T08:53:25.543" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="12005" PostId="9742" Score="0" Text="@THelper I have reason to believe my answer is somewhat more accurate, as the other answer assumes 20 gigatonnes of coal is enough. If we assume coal is 100% carbon, the 20 gigatonnes of coal would be emitted in little over 2 years at the current rate of fossil fuel burning." CreationDate="2019-12-13T17:04:00.967" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="12017" PostId="9744" Score="0" Text="thanks for sharing this!" CreationDate="2019-12-16T16:33:47.917" UserId="1912" />
  <row Id="12018" PostId="9744" Score="0" Text="@SustainableProgrammer cheers!" CreationDate="2019-12-16T21:40:38.870" UserId="6664" />
  <row Id="12014" PostId="9745" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! This Q&amp;A site  is all about sustainability, so my question is primarily about the environmental pros and cons of bamboo. Do you know anything about that?" CreationDate="2019-12-16T07:18:21.470" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="12028" PostId="9748" Score="2" Text="I don't think this answers the question, which was about infrastructure (airports, rails, stations, etc)" CreationDate="2019-12-18T09:16:07.420" UserId="1445" />
  <row Id="12036" PostId="9748" Score="0" Text="Trains have a known efficiency of economy. Aircraft have a known efficiency of time. They each already relate to their required infrastructure. Aircraft systems can't match train systems on a per-pound carrying-capacity basis." CreationDate="2019-12-19T05:00:00.067" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="15641" PostId="9749" Score="0" Text="Really helpful, especially the links to papers, thank you!" CreationDate="2022-03-21T13:49:58.320" UserId="13850" />
  <row Id="12041" PostId="9750" Score="2" Text="BTW Assuming you don't mean a trolley bus, you can't do &quot;an 11 hour route of stop-start traffic&quot; on one charge. *As of 2018 such buses can have a range of over 280 km with just one charge, however extreme temperatures and hills may reduce range* ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_bus) ref 6)." CreationDate="2019-12-19T15:28:03.057" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="12044" PostId="9750" Score="0" Text="@JanDoggen - I assumed the range would be less than diesel but that's valuable info, thanks :)" CreationDate="2019-12-19T23:05:02.183" UserId="8232" />
  <row Id="12166" PostId="9750" Score="0" Text="Yeah, you're really talking about a thing that doesn't exist.  A bus that's a Tesla is not a thing, because real transit buses are [way too kinetic](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXAaNXuV2Yc) and you run into the Rocket Equation vis-a-vis carrying enough battery.  It can work for a bus that's a Prius.  It can also work for little community-service shuttles, because they tend to run infrequently and can plug in during layovers." CreationDate="2020-01-13T20:24:57.703" UserId="6925" />
  <row Id="12167" PostId="9750" Score="0" Text="@Harper - Tesla no, but they are far from the only electric vehicle company in operation. [An electric bus is very much a thing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BYD_K9), and as I've learned after asking this question, a proposal similar to what I list above [is currently being trialled](https://www.transitsystems.com.au/electric-buses) not too far from my hometown." CreationDate="2020-01-14T05:17:34.330" UserId="8232" />
  <row Id="12027" PostId="9754" Score="1" Text="From your description of the conditions where you live I suspected that you're in Australia, your profile tells me specifically NSW.  There are [apparently](https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/nsw-floating-solar-mb0554/) proposals at the state level to encourage floating solar" CreationDate="2019-12-18T09:12:27.567" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="12029" PostId="9754" Score="0" Text="correct, and that is good to know, thanks!" CreationDate="2019-12-18T10:31:08.733" UserId="8232" />
  <row Id="12059" PostId="9754" Score="0" Text="Municipal water supplies tend to be unable to provide what is really needed, unless you just happen to be a bit thirsty at the moment. Please consider the alternatives." CreationDate="2019-12-28T14:12:43.983" UserId="6837" />
  <row Id="12038" PostId="9755" Score="1" Text="From the ElectricityMaps website the CO2 intensity of power generation is around 800 gCO2/kWh, which is really bad, 1068g of CO2 per km. That is so bad that it might actually be cleaner to stick with modern diesel buses. If Sydney wants to be carbon neutral, they're going to have to get rid of the coal power stations before they change the buses." CreationDate="2019-12-19T10:46:48.337" UserId="6602" />
  <row Id="12039" PostId="9755" Score="1" Text="As of 2016, the US now uses more natural gas than coal ([source](https://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/browser/#/topic/0?agg=2,0,1&amp;fuel=vtvv&amp;geo=g&amp;sec=g&amp;linechart=~ELEC.GEN.COW-US-99.A~ELEC.GEN.NG-US-99.A~ELEC.GEN.NUC-US-99.A~ELEC.GEN.HYC-US-99.A~ELEC.GEN.WND-US-99.A~ELEC.GEN.TSN-US-99.A&amp;columnchart=ELEC.GEN.ALL-US-99.A~ELEC.GEN.COW-US-99.A~ELEC.GEN.NG-US-99.A~ELEC.GEN.NUC-US-99.A~ELEC.GEN.HYC-US-99.A~ELEC.GEN.WND-US-99.A&amp;map=ELEC.GEN.ALL-US-99.A&amp;freq=A&amp;start=2001&amp;end=2018&amp;chartindexed=0&amp;ctype=linechart&amp;ltype=pin&amp;rtype=s&amp;pin=&amp;rse=0&amp;maptype=0))." CreationDate="2019-12-19T15:02:36.213" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12042" PostId="9755" Score="0" Text="Now we can get hung up on semantics, at this exact moment in time in 2019 the MidcontinentIndependentSystemOperator is using 45% coal and 33% gas, the SouthWestPowerPool is using 33% coal and 19% gas (35% wind). Real time datafeeds are so much fun." CreationDate="2019-12-19T16:17:48.260" UserId="6602" />
  <row Id="12165" PostId="9755" Score="0" Text="I must disagree. The problem is, you're looking at the energy mix **today** and cursing the new electric-bus development with that mix **for its lifetime**. That's wrong for two reasons: first your grid will clean up generally over time, and the bus does benefit from that. Second, the bus will be **new load** which will require **new generating capacity**.  That new capacity will be the cleanest, and likely, renewable if the government support is in the right place." CreationDate="2020-01-13T20:18:37.167" UserId="6925" />
  <row Id="12170" PostId="9755" Score="0" Text="Can you provide any evidence that the Australian electricity grid is cleaning up over time?" CreationDate="2020-01-14T13:18:05.583" UserId="6602" />
  <row Id="12107" PostId="9757" Score="0" Text="It is possible to use a large covered pile of woodchips as the drainage field of a septic system." CreationDate="2020-01-07T16:07:44.823" UserId="963" />
  <row Id="16030" PostId="9757" Score="0" Text="Surely a question of scale. What works for one family in the woods somewhere will not scale up to 2 million people in a metropolis." CreationDate="2022-10-11T12:35:57.087" UserId="1567" />
  <row Id="12052" PostId="9758" Score="0" Text="This gives few pointers, but doesn't provide a full answer I think? To consider: a septic tank uses water, but that can be rain and most if not all goes back into the soil. Septic tanks aren't necessarily all concrete, though the alternatives might not be better energy-wise. Similar for the piping. And what materials are composting toilets made of? Last but not least: the continuous addition (for the designs needing it that is) of sawdust etc is something which is hard to ignore from an ecological point of view unless it's sourced right next to your toilet. All in all: pretty hard to compare.." CreationDate="2019-12-22T17:15:03.060" UserId="4158" />
  <row Id="12040" PostId="9761" Score="0" Text="It's unfortunate that the carbon footprint report didn't look at the readily-available [state level data](https://www.eia.gov/environment/emissions/state/), and instead used a regional average in the U.S. Iowa and Minnesota use quite a lot of wind energy, but with their smaller populations the average tips toward Illinois which uses lots of coal." CreationDate="2019-12-19T15:21:18.337" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12045" PostId="9761" Score="1" Text="@LShaver To be honest I had some doubts about the carbonfootprint.com report. I found rather different carbon intensity numbers for California and Australia in various sources. The intensity of California in the footprint report was the lowest number I found, which is a bit suspicious. Eventually I decided to use that anyway because it's the only source I found that reports on US states and Australia. I assume those numbers are gathered using a similar methodology." CreationDate="2019-12-20T08:41:51.947" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="12046" PostId="9761" Score="1" Text="And thanks for fixing the link! Seems I accidentally added a character to it." CreationDate="2019-12-20T08:43:54.493" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="12051" PostId="9764" Score="0" Text="Related: [What are ethical ways to curb the global human population increase?](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/5563/what-are-ethical-ways-to-curb-the-global-human-population-increase)" CreationDate="2019-12-21T14:01:37.897" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12332" PostId="9764" Score="0" Text="Well, *any* effort counts, I'd say. The differences between e.g. a 2 degree or 2.5 degree average temperature rise are large enough to justify any measure. And don't forget that with climbing wealth, the global population will stabilize at approx 11 billion." CreationDate="2020-02-15T16:51:14.790" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="12400" PostId="9766" Score="0" Text="War is a lousy form of population control.  No war has ever caused a net decrease in the world population (between 1940 and 1950, world population increased by 10%), and outside of extreme examples like the War of the Triple Alliance (which nearly depopulated Paraguay), it doesn't cause local decreases either." CreationDate="2020-02-27T01:11:01.880" UserId="7993" />
  <row Id="12366" PostId="9767" Score="2" Text="Surely the counterpoint to that is that total emissions = intensity * population.  If your population doubles, then you need to halve your intensity.  If we stop growing population sooner, then that gives us a little more wiggle room in how we can lower intensity." CreationDate="2020-02-24T04:45:59.183" UserId="5479" />
  <row Id="12440" PostId="9767" Score="1" Text="Note that the emissions per capita on the first figure do not account for the imported goods! Including them would significantly increase the impact of Western countries (and subtracting the exports, since they are not consumed in the countries where they are produced, would lower those of Asian countries)" CreationDate="2020-03-03T19:57:29.327" UserId="8227" />
  <row Id="12920" PostId="9767" Score="0" Text="Turksarama : but population growth has already virtually stopped in the countries which are responsible for most of the emissions. Cutting emissions to zero by population reduction is an interesting idea, but I don't think it will catch on." CreationDate="2020-09-20T22:30:29.270" UserId="8013" />
  <row Id="12062" PostId="9773" Score="0" Text="I was able to find two different research articles on this [here](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2016.08.035) and [here](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpowsour.2005.01.069). Full text of the first one [is available](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/306347119_A_comparative_study_of_two_SOFC_based_cogeneration_systems_fed_by_municipal_solid_waste_by_means_of_either_the_gasifier_or_digester), but I couldn't find it for the other, so not quite enough info to put a complete answer together." CreationDate="2019-12-30T17:38:05.980" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12252" PostId="9773" Score="0" Text="I see you are aware the pyrolytiic method  produces odorless ,highly toxic carbon monoxide . It is sort of playing with fire ;pun intended." CreationDate="2020-01-31T20:52:48.840" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="12056" PostId="9776" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! We have a related question here https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/1242/99.&#xA;Do the answers there help you, or do you feel your question is rather different?" CreationDate="2019-12-24T18:24:31.397" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="12060" PostId="9778" Score="0" Text="A cursory search of a few brands' warranties doesn't indicate any issues with mixing brands. Most likely, for each brand you purchase, you should ask the vendor." CreationDate="2019-12-28T16:27:56.747" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12071" PostId="9779" Score="0" Text="That can also be an effective and natural way to control mosquitoes because it alters the surface tension of the water which prevents the maturing larva from escaping the water as adults.  A few drops of vegetable oil will do the trick on a small pond." CreationDate="2020-01-02T12:33:37.510" UserId="6837" />
  <row Id="12130" PostId="9779" Score="0" Text="I'm not sure that it will work that way.  Oleic acid makes for a very thin layer.  My experience with veg oil and water (salad dressing) is that it doesn't spread over the entire surface.   But it will also reduce air exchange between water and air, which means that the lake is fully dependent on photosynthesis in the water column to not go aerobic." CreationDate="2020-01-08T20:07:18.880" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="12069" PostId="9780" Score="0" Text="This sounds like a pretty great solution - any chance you could share some pictures?" CreationDate="2020-01-02T00:40:48.917" UserId="8232" />
  <row Id="12061" PostId="9781" Score="0" Text="Keep in mind that &quot;lifetime&quot; means different things for different systems. [Solar PV degrades slowly over time](https://www.nrel.gov/pv/lifetime.html), so the &quot;lifetime&quot; number is just a convention for how much degradation is considered &quot;acceptable&quot; -- usually 10 to 15%. The panels keep producing power, but if some other system component fails after that (inverter, batteries, racking), it's probably not worthwhile to replace compared to upgrading the complete system." CreationDate="2019-12-28T16:39:49.600" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12063" PostId="9782" Score="0" Text="This doesn't seem to answer the question about mixing different brands of batteries in a single solar system." CreationDate="2019-12-30T19:55:13.353" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12067" PostId="9782" Score="0" Text="You are right. Thanks. I added the last five paragraphs to &quot;match&quot; the question better." CreationDate="2019-12-31T13:12:24.307" UserId="6837" />
  <row Id="13342" PostId="9786" Score="1" Text="Just came across the [RIOPA](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15213705/) study from 2005, which is a MASSIVE project to answer just this question. There's a ton of data and not something I'm familiar with, so I'll leave to others to answer." CreationDate="2021-01-17T17:59:19.917" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12985" PostId="9788" Score="0" Text="All other things being equal, I suspect that you're right. I'm just not sure that they are equal. Which helpfully begs an evolution of the question: In a gasification system what percentage of dry material is not convertible to gas and does it vary from wood to wood, and likewise, in an anaerobic digestion system what percentage of dry material is not convertible to gas and does it vary from wood to wood. I'll see what I can find. I suspect that little if any of the mass won't ultimately be converted to gas by the microbes." CreationDate="2020-10-15T13:42:20.600" UserId="8245" />
  <row Id="12270" PostId="9791" Score="0" Text="There is this study in PLOS about dogs and cats https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0181301" CreationDate="2020-02-06T10:56:42.423" UserId="8227" />
  <row Id="12274" PostId="9791" Score="0" Text="Thanks .. that study doesn't answer the question about the difference between meat for human consumption and meat for pets, but I Iearnt a lot from it." CreationDate="2020-02-07T11:15:10.503" UserId="8013" />
  <row Id="12277" PostId="9791" Score="0" Text="By the way, regarding the difference between meat from dedicated herd and &quot;dairy-production byproduct&quot;, here are the figures: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ghg-kcal-poore" CreationDate="2020-02-08T13:46:18.017" UserId="8227" />
  <row Id="12280" PostId="9791" Score="0" Text="Thanks again -- the &quot;beef (dairy herd)&quot; is an interesting category, and the report behind the graphic ([Environmental Impacts of Food Production](https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impacts-of-food)) has a huge amount of fascinating information." CreationDate="2020-02-09T08:55:22.683" UserId="8013" />
  <row Id="12328" PostId="9791" Score="0" Text="[This article](https://www.petmd.com/dog/nutrition/evr_pet_food_for_your_pets_sake) gives a pretty scary view of some of the things which get into pet food -- large quantities of waste products. I have the impression that they are talking about the major part of the market, but it is not clear what percentage of pet food is made up of waste animal products (e.g. diseased meat or non-meat parts containing protein). They give figures for specific regulated categories in the US, but nothing for the market as a whole." CreationDate="2020-02-14T12:15:15.967" UserId="8013" />
  <row Id="12367" PostId="9791" Score="0" Text="I think the difficulty here is defining what foods are for human consumption and what only for animal consumption. In some cultures eating offal is a taboo, but in other cultures it's a delicacy (for example [foie gras](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foie_gras) or [haggis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haggis)). Similarly in many countries you are not allowed to eat dog meat, but it's fine in countries like South-Korea or Vietnam. It would be very hard to come up with a uniform definition that is globally acceptable." CreationDate="2020-02-24T08:47:50.857" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="12369" PostId="9791" Score="0" Text="True, but there are two aspects to this: what the food is and what the history of the food is. There are some fairly common rules about food for human consumption. Details vary from country to country and culture to culture, but the basic idea is that animals killed for human consumption should be slaughtered in a controlled way -- whereas meat from diseased animals can be sterilised and put into pet food." CreationDate="2020-02-24T15:35:14.933" UserId="8013" />
  <row Id="12076" PostId="9792" Score="0" Text="Related: [How is Natural Gas more sustainable as fuel than Gasoline?](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/520/how-is-natural-gas-more-sustainable-as-fuel-than-gasoline)" CreationDate="2020-01-02T18:56:18.967" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12078" PostId="9794" Score="0" Text="I actually think this answer is better than your other one :). I found some data showing the relationship, which I added to my answer. Looks like with the explosion (no pun intended) in shale gas wells, the ratio of gas:oil from a &quot;typical&quot; well is increasing, meaning the link between the two fuels is not as strong as it once was." CreationDate="2020-01-02T22:21:30.550" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12072" PostId="9795" Score="0" Text="Thank you. So is the premise of the question (gas being cleaner than oil) wrong?" CreationDate="2020-01-02T17:27:04.510" UserId="8265" />
  <row Id="12077" PostId="9795" Score="0" Text="@UTF-8 that's a question that's still widely debated, but probably it's wrong. Take a look at this related question: [How is Natural Gas more sustainable as fuel than Gasoline?](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/520/how-is-natural-gas-more-sustainable-as-fuel-than-gasoline)" CreationDate="2020-01-02T18:59:21.353" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12082" PostId="9795" Score="0" Text="Methane has a higher ratio of H to C than any other hydrocarbon ,so per pound of fuel it produces less CO2." CreationDate="2020-01-03T20:08:16.130" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="12079" PostId="9796" Score="1" Text="Why don't you ask the companies directly? They certainly know the answer, and just asking how much their service would cost for different scenarios usually is free of charge. If you definitely want to expand your system in the future, you should consider this when it comes to sizing the transformer." CreationDate="2020-01-03T10:06:30.350" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="12080" PostId="9796" Score="0" Text="@Erik - I'm looking for expert advice from people that maybe have been through this scenario before. A lot of companies will promise the world when it comes to trying to make the sale, I cannot trust that they will give unbiased and honest advice. I certainly don't want to put $5k down to find out a year or two down the track that they lied to my face." CreationDate="2020-01-03T10:19:42.690" UserId="8232" />
  <row Id="12081" PostId="9796" Score="0" Text="@Erik I also currently don't know the pros and cons of the various systems they offer. What if the one they offer to install becomes 'obsoleted' after a year, does that make the particular panels I'd need to use with that system harder to find? (Is this even a problem in the solar space? I dunno, this is all new to me!) :)" CreationDate="2020-01-03T10:24:00.193" UserId="8232" />
  <row Id="12220" PostId="9798" Score="0" Text="Could you please add more information about what characteristics matter to the sustainability of an object? Knowing the characteristics would help answer whether the price indicates the presence or absence of those characteristics." CreationDate="2020-01-26T17:03:41.913" UserId="8373" />
  <row Id="12236" PostId="9798" Score="0" Text="No.  Quite often the more sustainable option is more expensive (organic veg vs. conventially farmed; beef from cows raised on deep-ley pasture vs. soya-fed; electric car vs. petrol car; gas boiler vs air-source heat pump; taking public transport vs. driving)." CreationDate="2020-01-28T13:25:35.657" UserId="1445" />
  <row Id="12091" PostId="9800" Score="1" Text="OP, is this a final setup or do you intend on growing the installation more in the future with additional panels?" CreationDate="2020-01-06T20:18:41.727" UserId="8279" />
  <row Id="12092" PostId="9800" Score="2" Text="@Criggie - This is a final setup. I thought it would work out easier to do the phased install but honestly it seems to be just as easy to do it all at once" CreationDate="2020-01-06T22:17:33.253" UserId="8232" />
  <row Id="12094" PostId="9800" Score="3" Text="The fact that you're asking this question tends to indicate you're assuming you're going to routinely get 6.6kW out of your system with panels rated at 6.6kW. That's unlikely to happen, and it certainly won't happen most of the time. We don't know your use case. Just be sure the power which is expected to be generated from your system (i.e. far below 6.6kW on average), will meet the needs you actually have under the conditions which prevail in your location and with the installation you're having done." CreationDate="2020-01-07T00:58:04.077" UserId="5607" />
  <row Id="12096" PostId="9800" Score="1" Text="@Makyen - I've added a sentence addressing why I thought this might be a problem. :)" CreationDate="2020-01-07T02:45:23.610" UserId="8232" />
  <row Id="12132" PostId="9800" Score="0" Text="@Robotnik: With which orientation? Towards the North? Do you know the slope of the roof?" CreationDate="2020-01-09T07:30:12.523" UserId="6312" />
  <row Id="12133" PostId="9800" Score="0" Text="@EricDuminil The house is slightly L-shaped. I assume the majority of the panels will face north or south, with some on the east portions of the building. Slope I'd say is ~30° but that's a guesstimate" CreationDate="2020-01-09T07:43:11.833" UserId="8232" />
  <row Id="12134" PostId="9800" Score="0" Text="@Robotnik: Okay. You *really* should ask for some simulation because your case isn't trivial. I've updated my answer." CreationDate="2020-01-09T08:14:31.277" UserId="6312" />
  <row Id="12084" PostId="9801" Score="9" Text="It's possible that given the latitude, roof pitch, and the direction the roof faces the panels can never achieve their rated output, or will only do so briefly around noon around the summer solstice, even if you assume perfect weather and no shading.  I would expect manufacturers' planning software to build in a derating factor based on the site survey, or it could be done with a set of tables." CreationDate="2020-01-06T11:44:10.220" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="12095" PostId="9801" Score="2" Text="Or twice a year, 23 days before and after the Summer Solstice, at 2:31pm." CreationDate="2020-01-07T02:09:23.433" UserId="6925" />
  <row Id="12099" PostId="9801" Score="3" Text="@Harper-ReinstateMonica: Max power output is usually achieved in may (in the northern hemisphere). Ambient temperatures aren't too high yet but the sun is already close to its highest declination." CreationDate="2020-01-07T08:34:09.183" UserId="6312" />
  <row Id="12087" PostId="9803" Score="6" Text="For a simple estimation, the EU has a free and easy to use tool called PVGIS here: https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/en/pvgis, which also appears to work for locations in a good part of the Americas." CreationDate="2020-01-06T16:05:04.940" UserId="8141" />
  <row Id="12088" PostId="9803" Score="3" Text="@AlexanderKlauer: Indeed, it's a really good tool. It assumes that the PV system is correctly designed though, right? As far as I know, you cannot specify inverters and panels in order to detect mismatch, for example." CreationDate="2020-01-06T16:09:28.743" UserId="6312" />
  <row Id="12089" PostId="9803" Score="1" Text="Correct, you simply give it some geometry info (geocoordinates, mounting position), installed peak power and an overall &quot;system loss&quot; percentage. But it's good to get a general idea of what the actual peak production might be (use the &quot;Hourly data&quot; tool and load the resulting CSV file into your spreadsheet app)." CreationDate="2020-01-06T16:20:43.147" UserId="8141" />
  <row Id="12090" PostId="9803" Score="2" Text="@AlexanderKlauer: Thanks, I updated the answer." CreationDate="2020-01-06T16:28:49.307" UserId="6312" />
  <row Id="12098" PostId="9805" Score="1" Text="+1. This is the only one that answers whether there are risks in using lower-rated inverter." CreationDate="2020-01-07T07:19:20.623" UserId="8287" />
  <row Id="12108" PostId="9807" Score="0" Text="I guess you don't mean buses that get power from overhead lines ?" CreationDate="2020-01-07T17:37:35.833" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="12114" PostId="9807" Score="0" Text="Which is, to be honest, a rather rare, eastern european thing @blacksmith37." CreationDate="2020-01-08T08:55:13.253" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="12115" PostId="9807" Score="0" Text="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_efficiency_in_transport" CreationDate="2020-01-08T09:25:20.537" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="12117" PostId="9807" Score="0" Text="I think, some points need clarification: Which distance are we talking about? How many stops? How many passengers? Should other traffic (espacially road traffic which can slow down busses significantly) be included in the calculation? What facet of sustainability are you mostly interested in?" CreationDate="2020-01-08T09:50:09.680" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="12124" PostId="9807" Score="0" Text="I asked a similar question recently about swapping [diesel buses for electric](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/9750/8232), Christopher Gilmour's answer shows that if you're generating energy from dirty sources, there isn't a big difference between diesel or electric. Similarly, the difference between electric buses vs trains might be fairly moot if your local energy generation mix is dirty." CreationDate="2020-01-08T14:21:53.610" UserId="8232" />
  <row Id="12138" PostId="9807" Score="0" Text="Actually when I lived in Chicago most surface public trans was electric overhead buses. Thinking about it , a visitor to downtown Chicago ( Michigan Ave. etc) would not see that as the few square miles downtown was diesel or gas buses . I expect so many overhead systems would have been a problem. @ erik, maybe that all changed." CreationDate="2020-01-09T14:39:22.747" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="12145" PostId="9807" Score="0" Text="@blacksmith37 I'm gonna guess you haven't been to Chicago in awhile.  Only five US cities still have trolley buses: Boston, Philly, Seattle, San Francisco, and for some weird reason, *Dayton, Ohio*. I remember them in Toronto but now it's Vancouver only.  *Meanwhile, in Russia*..." CreationDate="2020-01-13T01:13:07.937" UserId="6925" />
  <row Id="12146" PostId="9807" Score="0" Text="@Robotnik isn't a big difference *today*. Your network cleans itself up as your power sources clean up -- and better yet, since you're **adding new load**, you are also **adding new capacity**. The new capacity can be as green as you please.  &quot;It might be cloudy&quot; -&gt; got any pumped storage?" CreationDate="2020-01-13T01:17:15.560" UserId="6925" />
  <row Id="12147" PostId="9807" Score="0" Text="@Erik no, it's all over Europe, and in North America as discussed.  It's in 5 US cities, but 4 of them are 4 of the most transit-heavy cities in the US. Unfortunately economies of scale work against us: our and Canada's six systems don't buy enough buses to sustain two continuous manufacturers, so they're all bespoke. Not a problem in Europe, but the US is super weird about foreign acquisition." CreationDate="2020-01-13T01:22:36.383" UserId="6925" />
  <row Id="12174" PostId="9807" Score="0" Text="Correct, I have basically been only on interstate highways when in Chicago for many years." CreationDate="2020-01-14T16:28:29.680" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="12118" PostId="9813" Score="1" Text="I assume it's not ok to just throw the trash into the chute without the plastic bag? I.e. in the apprtment keep it in a plastci bag which you reuse then empyt the bag in the chute?" CreationDate="2020-01-08T11:05:37.537" UserId="4158" />
  <row Id="12119" PostId="9813" Score="0" Text="Yes, we are advised to throw trash in a bag to avoid contaminating the refuse chute and producing a breeding ground for pests." CreationDate="2020-01-08T12:12:24.900" UserId="8310" />
  <row Id="12120" PostId="9813" Score="1" Text="Well then either you need to eliminate the cute and throw the trash right into the big bin (the least waste option), or you need a bag which is not plastic so you'll be looking into compostable 'plastics' which are not actually plastic but usually some kind of polymer made from e.g. corn." CreationDate="2020-01-08T12:51:10.120" UserId="4158" />
  <row Id="12122" PostId="9813" Score="1" Text="@stijn The first option is not viable since you can't really access the &quot;big bin&quot;, the only way is through the central refuse chute.. but I guess the second option could be viable." CreationDate="2020-01-08T13:19:33.550" UserId="8310" />
  <row Id="12125" PostId="9813" Score="0" Text="@stijn that looks like an answer to me. Also add 3: Use something you're already throwing out to contain other garbage." CreationDate="2020-01-08T14:24:32.320" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12129" PostId="9813" Score="1" Text="@LShaver yes I'm aware, but it's been a while since I looked into the compostable bags etc and I don't have the time now to lookup the facts and don't want to write a partial answer without enough correct information. There's more btw. 4: only the liquid is a problem, rest can be trashed without bags. So, start dividing dry/wet. 5: I assume the liquid is mostly about food, and so if that is from vegetables only, a small home composter will turn it into fairly dry compost which could then be trashed without bag (or put to use)." CreationDate="2020-01-08T15:20:02.983" UserId="4158" />
  <row Id="12135" PostId="9813" Score="0" Text="Does the incineration plant have adequate pollution control to prevent dioxin emissions, or other toxins?" CreationDate="2020-01-09T10:18:00.297" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="12221" PostId="9813" Score="1" Text="Does this answer your question? [Alternatives to garbage plastic bags](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/5027/alternatives-to-garbage-plastic-bags)" CreationDate="2020-01-26T23:13:44.067" UserId="1053" />
  <row Id="12126" PostId="9814" Score="0" Text="How does that fixed remuneration for wind/solar compare to what a fossil fuel plant is paid in the market? Also, legal definitions of subsidy are a bit silly. If solar is paid more than wind just because it's solar, then it's subsidized." CreationDate="2020-01-08T14:32:46.183" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12128" PostId="9814" Score="0" Text="&quot;Usual&quot; energy has to be sold at the energy stock EEX, where [prices vary](https://www.eex.com/en/market-data/power/power-indices/auction#!/2020/01/08) wildly: Today from 2.455 to 4.776 €-cent/kWh. I also heard of times when energy had negative prices. Solar is paid more than wind because it costs more per kWh to produce the energy, so I'd like to argue with you, though I still get why you say &quot;subsidy&quot;." CreationDate="2020-01-08T15:05:54.700" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="12275" PostId="9817" Score="0" Text="With a recycle bin (even if you don't &quot;recycle&quot;), +1. The chute empties into a dumpster; I'm pretty sure no one will care that your dry waste is not bagged." CreationDate="2020-02-07T11:16:05.490" UserId="8425" />
  <row Id="12276" PostId="9817" Score="0" Text="@Mazura Useful advice, the OP can just empty a wastebasket into the chute. Why not make that an additional answer?" CreationDate="2020-02-07T14:50:49.973" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="12136" PostId="9818" Score="1" Text="What is a residential colony?" CreationDate="2020-01-09T12:14:41.973" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="12137" PostId="9818" Score="3" Text="Perhaps you can convince them to create something like a large communal compost heap or organic waste processing facility that is maintained by volunteers. All organic waste goes on the heap and once or twice a year everyone who contributed can pick up the resulting fertile soil that it produces for free?" CreationDate="2020-01-09T14:04:45.747" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="12139" PostId="9818" Score="0" Text="Maybe the grass could be cut several times, before it grows that much? The cut grass then could be left lying around, decomposing. Though, if you worry about CO2, burning the grass or decomposing it doesn't make that much a difference. Furthermore, since the grass captured the CO2 in the first place, the whole affair is next to carbon neutral (except for the labour put into cutting it)." CreationDate="2020-01-09T14:56:19.123" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="12141" PostId="9818" Score="0" Text="Would local farmers want it for their animals? Perhaps you/your council could put the word out for farmers to pick it up?" CreationDate="2020-01-09T21:43:07.657" UserId="8232" />
  <row Id="12143" PostId="9819" Score="1" Text="Metal can be cleaned easily, it most likely is also melted down when being recycled - so some grease should be no hassle." CreationDate="2020-01-10T08:51:34.740" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="12149" PostId="9819" Score="0" Text="greasy paper should be able to be composted?" CreationDate="2020-01-13T06:30:29.853" UserId="4378" />
  <row Id="12173" PostId="9819" Score="0" Text="thanks y chung! I will look into that more." CreationDate="2020-01-14T14:56:14.627" UserId="6870" />
  <row Id="12142" PostId="9820" Score="1" Text="i don't know if cutting and leaving (&quot;chop and drop&quot;) is actually carbon neutral.  The cuttings shade the earth and moderate temperatures as well as provide food for organisms in the soil.  Growing grass grows roots, too, which die back when the leaves are cut.  Root carbon often remains in the soil rather than returning to the atmosphere.  I think &quot;cutting it and letting it decompose&quot; should be backed by some references." CreationDate="2020-01-10T01:29:25.530" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="12153" PostId="9820" Score="0" Text="This is a little bit simplistic to say burning grass is carbon neutral. If the grass is not cut at the &quot;right time&quot;, the exposed soil surface would likely have higher decomposition rate because of aeration and there would also likely be more erosion. Many more nuances that comes into play." CreationDate="2020-01-13T17:12:46.440" UserId="4378" />
  <row Id="12144" PostId="9821" Score="2" Text="Hello and welcome! Are you associated with Positive Outlook? If so you'll need to disclose that." CreationDate="2020-01-10T15:29:27.537" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12151" PostId="9821" Score="0" Text="No, simply purchased from them in the past" CreationDate="2020-01-13T12:27:35.150" UserId="8336" />
  <row Id="12171" PostId="9822" Score="0" Text="I got two great answers since I last checked! Just picked the first one as the &quot;official answer.&quot; Thanks!" CreationDate="2020-01-14T14:55:42.617" UserId="6870" />
  <row Id="12223" PostId="9823" Score="0" Text="Note that once the OP (and fellow citizens) are able to seprate out compostable waste, the amount of water in the incinerated fraction goes down dramatically. (Initially, here in the Netherlands, incinerators plants had trouble with the cladding of the ovens because the combustion temperatures went up once the compostable fraction was taken out)." CreationDate="2020-01-27T08:21:47.953" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="12224" PostId="9823" Score="0" Text="Good advice about the liquids, but make sure oils/fats are NOT flushed down the drain. [Remember the London fat berg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatberg)?" CreationDate="2020-01-27T08:24:24.707" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="12164" PostId="9824" Score="0" Text="@THelper You're right, I was getting there, but got tired and stopped.  Dumbville's trains are 0% because they went diesel, thinking 20% renewable wasn't worth hanging trolley wire." CreationDate="2020-01-13T19:17:37.097" UserId="6925" />
  <row Id="12169" PostId="9824" Score="1" Text="Of course. Thanks for your response and improving your answer." CreationDate="2020-01-14T09:00:13.383" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="13028" PostId="9824" Score="0" Text="&quot;a pure battery-electric bus is thermodynamically impossible&quot;...  nice theory. In practice electric buses exist and work well, they're a commodity item in China and even &quot;advanced&quot;{cough} countries are starting to buy them now. Australia, for example. Back in 2016 someone even drove one 1000km from Melbourne to Sydney on a single charge. https://starfish-initiatives.org/all-electric-bus-gets-from-melbourne-to-sydney-on-one-charge/#:~:text=The%20Australian%20all%2Delectric%20bus,one%20charge%2C%20at%201%2C018km!" CreationDate="2020-10-27T00:28:35.477" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="12172" PostId="9826" Score="0" Text="I got two great answers since I last checked! Just picked the first one as the &quot;official answer.&quot; Thanks!" CreationDate="2020-01-14T14:55:45.907" UserId="6870" />
  <row Id="12180" PostId="9826" Score="0" Text="My answer  should be more or less the opposite of the first; I guess I need to wok on communication skills" CreationDate="2020-01-15T16:34:50.273" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="12181" PostId="9826" Score="0" Text="Oh sorry, I thought you are both saying that grease doesn't matter. Are you saying that oil/grease/paint are non-factors only for copper?" CreationDate="2020-01-15T18:39:59.577" UserId="6870" />
  <row Id="12182" PostId="9826" Score="0" Text="They do not matter and they are not removed. Although scrap charge is usually preheated to be certain it contains no water and for efficiency. This preheat can be high enough to burn off paint ,oil and grease." CreationDate="2020-01-15T22:27:18.913" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="12187" PostId="9826" Score="0" Text="okay, so both of you are saying it doesn't matter but for different reasons?" CreationDate="2020-01-17T01:49:21.070" UserId="6870" />
  <row Id="12156" PostId="9827" Score="2" Text="There is a scheme used on some BMX bikes involving a sort of disk on the fork, such that pressure from the brake lever pushes on the disk (which is still free to spin around) and the disk activates the brake.  These are found on even department store bikes, so you can probably look at some to see how it works.  And likely you can find a scrap bike to salvage the disk from." CreationDate="2020-01-13T13:19:06.020" UserDisplayName="Daniel R Hicks" />
  <row Id="12157" PostId="9827" Score="2" Text="Or just buy one of these new: https://www.universalcycles.com/shopping/product_details.php?id=44151&amp;gclid=EAIaIQobChMI4I_k_NSA5wIVhMhkCh2ImwXMEAYYASABEgId2PD_BwE" CreationDate="2020-01-13T13:19:21.490" UserDisplayName="Daniel R Hicks" />
  <row Id="12158" PostId="9827" Score="3" Text="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detangler" CreationDate="2020-01-13T13:21:23.167" UserDisplayName="Daniel R Hicks" />
  <row Id="12159" PostId="9827" Score="0" Text="@DanielRHicks Good suggestion! I would make it into an answer if I were you" CreationDate="2020-01-13T14:25:06.407" UserDisplayName="Maarten -Monica for president" />
  <row Id="12161" PostId="9828" Score="1" Text="These devices tend to work OK when new. If cared for they will continue to work OK. If they are not kept rust free and lubricated they become problematic. Left in the weather water will wash the lubricant off the bearings and flow down the bottom cables causing rust. It may be possible to use a device like this to prevent tangling but care will need to be take on installation to minimize weather related issues and frequent checks will be needed to verify functionality." CreationDate="2020-01-13T18:35:52.913" UserDisplayName="David D" />
  <row Id="12162" PostId="9828" Score="1" Text="This is a great idea, and fits the design requirements.  OP will probably need to make something of the same general format, but use a larger inner diameter to go around the mounting pole.   The end product would benefit from a large sealed roller bearing rather than the small bearing pictured." CreationDate="2020-01-13T18:51:22.163" UserId="8279" />
  <row Id="12163" PostId="9828" Score="1" Text="@DavidD - Actually, these things hold up fairly well to weather exposure - other brake components fail sooner, when left in the weather.  And it should be possible to place the mechanism inside the &quot;hood&quot; shown on top of the pole." CreationDate="2020-01-13T19:11:19.943" UserId="8342" />
  <row Id="12168" PostId="9829" Score="1" Text="It is a good idea, didn't think of it before but since the pole is 4m high I would need at least 2m long cable which wiil bring the risk of strong wind making the cable wrap around the tale and making it unreachable. I think having the cable inside the pole would be safer so I will go with the other suggestions from daniel and hot licks. Really appreciate the help thanks." CreationDate="2020-01-14T07:22:11.057" UserId="8344" />
  <row Id="12189" PostId="9831" Score="2" Text="To answer this question you just need to now the amount of energy needed to keep it on/standby (i.e. does your projector keep it's light source on when not in use?) and during the cooldown/warmup, and fairly exactly, otherwise it's pretty much guesswork. Ideally measure this with a kWh meter directly on the projector socket. Possibly the tech specs have the number as well. Can you check that? There's also another aspect which might need considering: lifetime. Would all those ten minutes turned off increase lifetime? Or decrease, because just the act of turning on/off degrades components?" CreationDate="2020-01-18T08:30:23.563" UserId="4158" />
  <row Id="12193" PostId="9831" Score="1" Text="Your question calls for stats on usage so this is not quite an answer, however many of these projectors have a 'turn off on idle' timer you can set - perhaps this could be a potential solution? Setting it to 15-20 minutes idle could save 40 minutes of 'runtime' for hour-long booking windows, but still allow enough time for back-to-back meetings to change over and continue using the projector" CreationDate="2020-01-19T22:20:42.670" UserId="8232" />
  <row Id="12199" PostId="9834" Score="0" Text="I would think it would correlate with fuel consumption, at least to some extent, so I would start there; airlines track their fuel usage quite exactingly." CreationDate="2020-01-21T20:15:07.800" UserDisplayName="choster" />
  <row Id="12203" PostId="9834" Score="0" Text="I seem to recall reading that a ballpark figure is 1 kg extra CO₂ per 1 kg extra weight for a transatlantic flight, but I don't have a source right now." CreationDate="2020-01-22T08:38:31.890" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="12205" PostId="9834" Score="0" Text="It is indeed an interesting question, but when thinking about your own behaviour remember that your getting on a plane is also contributing to the airline's bottom line and enabling it to keep flying, helping to keep flying socially acceptable, signalling to policy makers that there is a demand for flying, etc.  So there is a good case for acting based on the CO2 per passenger km, rather than the marginal CO2.  Assuming you are interested in sustainability." CreationDate="2020-01-22T16:17:12.633" UserId="1445" />
  <row Id="12204" PostId="9835" Score="0" Text="Long haul trips are the best case, right?  It would be cool to see this compared to shorter trips - eg New York to DC or even Boston to New York." CreationDate="2020-01-22T13:18:16.283" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="12206" PostId="9835" Score="0" Text="@Jean-PaulCalderone Generally, yes, long-haul is where flying really does make sense.  Once the distance drops below ~1,600km air travel is no longer the clear winner, and it gets worse as the distance shortens.  Flights shorter than ~400km should probably be banned outright.  Electric planes will change all that, but we're stuck with dinosaur juice-powered planes for the time being." CreationDate="2020-01-23T07:51:55.930" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="12271" PostId="9835" Score="0" Text="Awesome answer, thanks!&#xA;So it does indeed make a real instant difference if one does board into an airplane or not. This could help to counter-argue when somebody says: &quot;the plane is going to flight anyway, so it does not matter whether I fly in it or not&quot;." CreationDate="2020-02-06T19:11:00.047" UserId="8421" />
  <row Id="12272" PostId="9835" Score="1" Text="@J0ANMM Well, technically, if you consider 0.36g/km/kg to be 'a real instant difference', then yes, it does.  But since 99.936% of the emissions will still be released even if a single person refuses to board a long distance/international flight, those that say is _doesn't make a difference_ are 99.936% correct.  The math favours avoiding short (&lt;1600km) domestic flights (which do have a possibility of being consolidated or cancelled) and boycotting flights &lt;400km entirely.  There's nothing really wrong with flying long distances, or to international destinations, on under-capacity flights." CreationDate="2020-02-07T10:33:32.787" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="12273" PostId="9835" Score="0" Text="Specifically, if you need to travel &gt;2000km and/or to another country, then boarding a plane that's less than about ⅔ full is an environmentally acceptable (perhaps even 'responsible') thing to do." CreationDate="2020-02-07T10:38:37.560" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="12278" PostId="9835" Score="0" Text="@Tim My question arose from the fact of counting the CO2 emitted per passenger in a flight in order to make travelers more aware of their footprint. It is usually attributed between 300kg and 500kg of CO2 per PAX. So in that sense, 10% of that emission would be due to the weight itself. Looking it this way, for me it makes a difference.&#xA;&#xA;If you compare it to how much the complete aircraft emits, then the percentage is really low. For sure the impact is much bigger if you manage to avoid that an airplane stops flying." CreationDate="2020-02-08T17:24:36.147" UserId="8421" />
  <row Id="12279" PostId="9835" Score="0" Text="For long distances, it might be the most reasonable mean of transportation... IF transportation is really needed. Some business trips could actually be avoided by doing telcos. Some leisure trips could be avoided by choosing a closer destination accessible by train...&#xA;But in some cases, this is not possible. Then is when flying makes sense, instead of traveling 2 days by bus, for instance. And one can always compensate the footprint with website like cooleffect." CreationDate="2020-02-08T17:30:12.963" UserId="8421" />
  <row Id="12210" PostId="9836" Score="0" Text="sustainable living has more to do with using a low carbon footprint and grow food on the land without using traditional farming equipment , more like JM Fortin's &quot;The Market Gardener&quot; type of bio intensive farming on small acreage. that sort of thing." CreationDate="2020-01-25T01:46:12.513" UserId="8370" />
  <row Id="12211" PostId="9836" Score="0" Text="Thats what we're planning.  Full on off grid green housing and farming homesteading. But im more the hunter and fisher of the family." CreationDate="2020-01-25T01:48:47.567" UserId="8369" />
  <row Id="12215" PostId="9836" Score="0" Text="Well for the farming part i'd suggest you look into that Fortin guy I wrote about earlier, if not for the making food for selling etc, at least for the self sustainable part, it's quite complete and is a great stepping stone. &#xA;For the offgrid self building solar and everything, check out my favorite Wild wonderful offgrid https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCX49PVlb4bpvee5mZe1LIyA" CreationDate="2020-01-25T01:52:14.740" UserId="8370" />
  <row Id="12219" PostId="9836" Score="0" Text="Let us [continue this discussion in chat](https://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/103690/discussion-between-marc-andre-benoit-and-bradley-lindsey)." CreationDate="2020-01-25T02:00:58.007" UserId="8370" />
  <row Id="12222" PostId="9838" Score="0" Text="Thank you that is actually very helpful." CreationDate="2020-01-27T03:21:57.910" UserId="8369" />
  <row Id="12235" PostId="9839" Score="0" Text="Doesn't answer the question but all useful info nonetheless!" CreationDate="2020-01-28T10:30:56.793" UserId="3285" />
  <row Id="12225" PostId="9840" Score="0" Text="For my house I'm actually planning a viking style long house. The rest of the family have there own ideas." CreationDate="2020-01-27T23:26:01.103" UserId="8369" />
  <row Id="12229" PostId="9840" Score="3" Text="This looks like a good answer to a different question, but it doesn't really address *this* question -- where in Alaska to do subsistence hunting/fishing?" CreationDate="2020-01-28T01:46:22.693" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12233" PostId="9840" Score="1" Text="Everyone that goes to Alaska, to somewhat live off the land, builds a cabin or a house. And the subject mentions building on land. Here is a link about locations: https://dnr.alaska.gov/mlw/landsales" CreationDate="2020-01-28T02:53:19.353" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="12244" PostId="9844" Score="2" Text="There's a systematic bias here: you don't see all those railway tracks that *have* been removed." CreationDate="2020-01-29T09:35:29.087" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="12246" PostId="9844" Score="0" Text="Good point, meriting an edit to the question.  I do know of a spot where some rails have been removed.  But they were a branch off a line that has two more unremoved branches growing trees and blackberries.  One of those still has the grade crossing signals and barriers." CreationDate="2020-01-29T15:43:55.197" UserId="8383" />
  <row Id="12248" PostId="9844" Score="0" Text="Specifically for the USA, [Rails to Trails](https://www.railstotrails.org/) knows about lots of abandoned railways where the tracks *have* been removed." CreationDate="2020-01-29T15:58:25.547" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="13521" PostId="9844" Score="0" Text="I was once a board member of a group that successfully converted a former railway into a multi-use trail.  Yet it still has a piece of rail unused since 1968.  And near where I live, UPRR recently removed part of the switch, leaving half a kilometer of rail inaccessible." CreationDate="2021-03-20T14:03:21.430" UserId="8383" />
  <row Id="12239" PostId="9845" Score="0" Text="You’ve missed the whole point.  I asked why they DON’T recycle it, and you’re telling me they do, in contradiction of the evidence I said I have seen personally." CreationDate="2020-01-28T23:19:01.853" UserId="8383" />
  <row Id="12240" PostId="9845" Score="2" Text="The great bulk are recycled but because there were so many , I am sure there are remnants in place . Also because of the length of rails and continuous rail it requires equipment and scheduling to collect them : That is unused track still in place is likely on someone's &quot;to do&quot; list. Also to abandon a track , the ties are also picked up and disposed of which requires other equipment. As far collecting spikes and track plates ( the steel plate between the track and rail)  it is a matter of economics ; one can't afford RR union scale wages for people to pick these up ." CreationDate="2020-01-29T02:16:14.703" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="12241" PostId="9845" Score="0" Text="Well, the ones I mentioned must have been “on the to-do list” for decades" CreationDate="2020-01-29T02:19:28.800" UserId="8383" />
  <row Id="12242" PostId="9845" Score="0" Text="It does seem an enterprising scrap dealer could collect spikes and track plates ; However they are  RR  property ,maybe that is why you have found it not easy to sell them. Also , I know from personal experience there  can be thorny legal matters to resolve when abandoning  a track because of many different property ownership arrangements." CreationDate="2020-01-29T02:26:44.200" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="12243" PostId="9845" Score="0" Text="Well, at least in that Oklahoma county, it’s illegal.  And, interestingly, though I’ve seen hundreds of discarded spike, I haven’t seen any of the plates.  Hmmm." CreationDate="2020-01-29T02:43:16.003" UserId="8383" />
  <row Id="12247" PostId="9847" Score="0" Text="One of the places I mentioned, the land is no longer owned by the railroad." CreationDate="2020-01-29T15:49:43.697" UserId="8383" />
  <row Id="12415" PostId="9847" Score="0" Text="The high carbon content of rails make them impractical for reuse on anything requiring welding. The nominal weight of 350 lb for an 8 ft length ( for a 6 ft fence ) makes them impractical for fence posts .( Wiki reports typical rail in US and UK is 130 lb / yard.)" CreationDate="2020-02-29T15:14:46.093" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="12253" PostId="9849" Score="1" Text="Could you please clarify the following:  You hooked up the new 290W panel to your MPPT and then a load of some sort, and NO current flowed?" CreationDate="2020-02-01T08:38:20.853" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="12254" PostId="9849" Score="0" Text="Can you provide a wiring diagram? Sounds like the wiring of the new panel may be suspect. Have you tried connecting the new panel to the existing wiring that worked for the existing panels?" CreationDate="2020-02-01T17:12:16.577" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12266" PostId="9849" Score="0" Text="Maybe you need some diodes in there to stop the panels from interfering with each other. The panels are likely to have significant design differences (as your question implies there was a significant interval between purchase of the first panels and the new one), so the voltage from one may be able to force a reverse current through the other. Possible wiring diagram here: https://www.instructables.com/community/Use-of-diodes-when-connecting-solar-panels-in-para/" CreationDate="2020-02-05T21:25:53.930" UserId="8013" />
  <row Id="12325" PostId="9849" Score="1" Text="Check panel is not installed backwards!" CreationDate="2020-02-14T06:17:00.597" UserId="8474" />
  <row Id="12255" PostId="9851" Score="0" Text="thanks for the informative answer." CreationDate="2020-02-03T05:58:25.173" UserId="8403" />
  <row Id="12258" PostId="9853" Score="0" Text="you can check this paper (Jacobson et al. 2019) on transition and grid stability: https://www.cell.com/one-earth/pdf/S2590-3322(19)30225-8.pdf" CreationDate="2020-02-04T13:02:36.360" UserId="8227" />
  <row Id="12259" PostId="9853" Score="0" Text="I think the problem is that solar, wind, and hydro power require land area and there is a limited amount of land area that each region will give-up to power production. Fossil-fuel powerplants and nuclear energy use a relatively small amount of land area. Now carbon-capture at fossil-fuel powerplants can be used to make plastic for use in long-term building materials. But such a system would be a master-plan and require legislation." CreationDate="2020-02-04T13:20:25.267" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="12260" PostId="9853" Score="0" Text="@SSpring yes, I assume land area is likely to be the limiting factor.  That may be the question - how much land area is required to power all of the UK's transport, heating, manufacturing etc?" CreationDate="2020-02-04T13:43:30.743" UserId="1445" />
  <row Id="12264" PostId="9855" Score="0" Text="Just did a search on Google and found this: &quot;In general, turning a projector on and off repeatedly decreases the life of the bulb. But leaving it on all of the time will also decrease the life of the projector. ... As a general rule, if you expect to use your projector again within an hour, just put it in blank mode.&quot;" CreationDate="2020-02-05T07:30:59.683" UserId="8411" />
  <row Id="12265" PostId="9855" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! I'm afraid your post doesn't really answer the question. Only the last part of your answer is more or less relevant. Your comment seems more useful, but it would help if you link to the source." CreationDate="2020-02-05T08:10:52.647" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="15702" PostId="9857" Score="0" Text="How is using methane for energy two uses?" CreationDate="2022-04-19T19:13:15.110" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="15705" PostId="9857" Score="0" Text="Obviously, using captured methane as an energy source is just one of two possible uses of the methane." CreationDate="2022-04-20T19:20:47.850" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="15706" PostId="9857" Score="0" Text="Well, why not amend your answer to say as much? On another point, the question asked for the carbon footprint, rather than carbon equivalent, but it seems people are taking it to mean the latter, which is probably more useful, so fair enough." CreationDate="2022-04-20T19:57:07.733" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="12268" PostId="9858" Score="2" Text="There's a question about this on Skeptics.SE, but the links in the accepted answer are broken. Could be a good starting place though. [Do electric cars create more fine dust pollution than comparable petrol cars?](https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/25280/do-electric-cars-create-more-fine-dust-pollution-than-comparable-petrol-cars)" CreationDate="2020-02-06T02:09:22.133" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12308" PostId="9859" Score="0" Text="I'm not sure this answers the question (you don't mention particulates!)" CreationDate="2020-02-12T11:51:39.420" UserId="1445" />
  <row Id="12309" PostId="9859" Score="0" Text="The question concentrated on tires under a category of particulates. The question mentioned the weight of the vehicle as stressing the tires." CreationDate="2020-02-12T15:12:00.997" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="12281" PostId="9860" Score="0" Text="This [DEFRA consultation](https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/air-quality-brake-tyre-and-road-surface-wear-call-for-evidence/outcome/brake-tyre-and-road-surface-wear-call-for-evidence-summary-of-responses) backs that up: regenerative breaking is expected to reduce emissions from braking, but vehicle weight will increase it ... and they don't have quantitative data yet." CreationDate="2020-02-09T13:00:50.693" UserId="8013" />
  <row Id="12322" PostId="9860" Score="0" Text="I don't believe your comparison is fair. To simplify the task, you are deliberately choosing cars with both gas and &quot;e&quot; models. That means you are choosing cars in which the EV powertrain is a bolt-on afterthought, and there are none of the design efficiencies available to a purpose-built EV design.  You should compare a Tesla model S to whatever gas car is comparable in size, space and amenities." CreationDate="2020-02-14T02:50:14.583" UserId="6925" />
  <row Id="12346" PostId="9860" Score="0" Text="Does road/tire/brake wear change depending on the placement of the engine? I would think that ICE cars are generally heavier on whichever end houses the engine, so more of that weight is pressing down on one end over say, a Tesla with batteries distributed across the entire car." CreationDate="2020-02-19T01:05:04.190" UserId="8232" />
  <row Id="12290" PostId="9864" Score="0" Text="can you link to some such websites please?" CreationDate="2020-02-11T00:40:40.003" UserId="3024" />
  <row Id="12292" PostId="9864" Score="4" Text="How can you be sure they didn't sell you a tree that they we're going to plant anyway and then cut down in 20y and sell it back to you?" CreationDate="2020-02-11T01:00:35.610" UserId="8425" />
  <row Id="12298" PostId="9864" Score="0" Text="@Mazura - yes, that is another good question!" CreationDate="2020-02-11T08:14:10.760" UserId="8428" />
  <row Id="12302" PostId="9864" Score="0" Text="@gabt Be sure to consider the environmental impact of the tree planting.  How much carbon is emitted during the planting process (machinery and vehicles) and to transport the seeds and personnel?  What is the footprint of all of the monitoring including photography and electricity usage of servers to share the monitoring and photos with you.  You might find that algae is a more sustainable investment if you're interested in turning CO2 to O2 as it can be produced at the shore and naturally drift over the 70% of the earth that is ocean." CreationDate="2020-02-12T01:10:23.640" UserId="8450" />
  <row Id="12303" PostId="9864" Score="0" Text="@BillyC. - ok, but then we have another question: how can I estimate the carbon emission, without knowing how they do what they do?&#xA;Also, I will look into this algae you're suggesting since I didn't know about it." CreationDate="2020-02-12T07:29:45.747" UserId="8428" />
  <row Id="12312" PostId="9864" Score="0" Text="So you're not looking to plant trees, you're looking to donate to charities or other organizations that do plant trees. Is that correct? There's a big difference, and it's not quite clear from your question." CreationDate="2020-02-12T20:54:12.667" UserId="8465" />
  <row Id="12314" PostId="9864" Score="0" Text="@user91988 - yes, that's exactly what I wanted to do in the first place! Why do you say it wasn't clear, since I referred to external services?" CreationDate="2020-02-13T07:25:07.887" UserId="8428" />
  <row Id="12320" PostId="9864" Score="0" Text="@gabt Your question starts with &quot;I am actively looking to plant trees&quot; which isn't _really_ what you're doing. It's confusing. It should say &quot;I am actively looking to donate to a tree-planting charity.&quot;" CreationDate="2020-02-13T16:35:05.807" UserId="8465" />
  <row Id="12327" PostId="9864" Score="0" Text="@user91988, ok you're right. So, for the sake of clarity, I edited the question." CreationDate="2020-02-14T07:40:05.223" UserId="8428" />
  <row Id="12282" PostId="9865" Score="1" Text="you raised a lot of issues I haven't thought about until now. How can we know how **they** work?" CreationDate="2020-02-10T11:42:30.530" UserId="8428" />
  <row Id="12294" PostId="9865" Score="2" Text="@gabt - excellent question - please do post it as a new question to this site!" CreationDate="2020-02-11T07:35:11.773" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="12296" PostId="9865" Score="0" Text="@EnergyNumbers, yes, I was thinking the same. Still need to figure out how to post it since, I believe, there is not an easy answer but I will. Now I dig a bit into the topic!" CreationDate="2020-02-11T08:07:00.200" UserId="8428" />
  <row Id="12330" PostId="9865" Score="0" Text="The [Gold Standard](http://www.goldstandard.org) organisation provide a means of paying for carbon to be absorbed by trees (you pay per tonne of CO2 taken out of the atmosphere) with a mechanism for monitoring projects. The price varies from project to project, e.g. 20 USD/tonne for reforestation in Australian Yarra Valley. That is quite a high price per tree ... but you get some sort of guarantee (of best practice, if not success)." CreationDate="2020-02-14T12:37:44.777" UserId="8013" />
  <row Id="12283" PostId="9866" Score="0" Text="Not relevant to the question but: the conversation we had led into one about EVs vs Hydrogen fuel cells (HFCs) and the various technologies and efforts involved in large-scale replacement of fossil-fuels. quite interesting, but the mining point was the sticking point here." CreationDate="2020-02-10T11:55:13.123" UserId="8232" />
  <row Id="12284" PostId="9866" Score="1" Text="One big factor is that the oil is (nearly all) subsequently burned contributing to climate change.  But whether the whole EV supply chain can realistically scale to replace internal combustion engines - and at what environmental cost - is a good one." CreationDate="2020-02-10T15:13:40.010" UserId="1445" />
  <row Id="12285" PostId="9866" Score="0" Text="What does &quot;better&quot; mean ? Your friend is correct; Li is open pit surface mined. gas/oil wells are very limited ( a well head sticking out of the ground) after the drill rig is finished and moved." CreationDate="2020-02-10T15:17:29.550" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="12288" PostId="9866" Score="0" Text="@blacksmith37 I'm looking for a comparison of emissions at every stage of the extraction and refining of both Li and Oil. Does Lithium mining and processing have a higher carbon impact than the extraction and processing of fossil fuels?" CreationDate="2020-02-10T22:23:44.667" UserId="8232" />
  <row Id="12289" PostId="9866" Score="0" Text="Lithium is going to be replaced in future developments of batteries because a damaged lithium-ion battery is prone to repeated fires." CreationDate="2020-02-11T00:25:56.270" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="12291" PostId="9866" Score="0" Text="@SSpring I'm primarily concerned with production-scale issues with Li, as that is what is being used by EV manufacturers today. Until the new battery options hit production-readiness (and face similar problems regarding the extraction of materials used to make them!) it's a bit of a moot point." CreationDate="2020-02-11T00:57:19.513" UserId="8232" />
  <row Id="12293" PostId="9866" Score="0" Text="There's one type of battery development for replacing lithium and several types of battery development for a safer use of lithium. Some of those safer uses of lithium use less lithium because of honeycomb designs and others because of alloying to solids. Well, reduce vehicle weight for less use of lithium. For instance the BMW i3 has a carbon-fiber bodywork to reduce weight. And the original Tesla roadster had an SMC bodywork." CreationDate="2020-02-11T01:59:40.993" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="12306" PostId="9866" Score="0" Text="It's not the extraction and processing of fossil fuels that's the big problem, so this seems like a nonsensical comparison. It's the burning of fossil fuels that's the big problem." CreationDate="2020-02-12T09:15:21.233" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="12311" PostId="9866" Score="1" Text="Oil-sands involves un-advantageous oil extraction and refining. Sour crude requires more refining than sweet crude but reserves of sour crude are available to just pump out of the ground. But I also wouldn't suggest a comparison of the problems of lithium mining to the use of oil." CreationDate="2020-02-12T15:40:06.580" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="12313" PostId="9866" Score="1" Text="@EnergyNumbers &amp; SSpring - I'm mostly trying to compare the extraction/refining processes, thus leaving the use out of the equation for now." CreationDate="2020-02-12T21:21:07.163" UserId="8232" />
  <row Id="12318" PostId="9866" Score="1" Text="But then it's a nonsensical comparison." CreationDate="2020-02-13T14:16:42.910" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="12337" PostId="9866" Score="1" Text="This is cherry-picking. If you properly represented what he said, he is comparing the production of a specific item with a very vague term 'extraction of oil.' A valid question would be comparing the lifetime (production and use) impact of an electric car versus one on gas - and those comparisons come out in favor of the electric vehicles, **including** the (indeed) negative effects of producing lithium batteries. How much in favor depends on the way the electricity is produced." CreationDate="2020-02-16T10:43:26.297" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="12286" PostId="9867" Score="3" Text="If it requires heavy equipment you are not planting it, you are transplanting it." CreationDate="2020-02-10T19:18:51.140" UserId="1513" />
  <row Id="12287" PostId="9867" Score="2" Text="Depending on the health of the trees and the distance involved (Alberta to Illinois), your &quot;from the woods&quot; example could easily introduce non-native pests to the transplant site. Might be better to keep the whole process more local." CreationDate="2020-02-10T20:24:02.683" UserId="8431" />
  <row Id="12297" PostId="9867" Score="1" Text="well...in order to do so you need to have some land, I think. Which, unfortunately, I don't." CreationDate="2020-02-11T08:08:31.953" UserId="8428" />
  <row Id="12301" PostId="9868" Score="0" Text="Each coastal area is going to have limits about taking away of navigation routes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_the_United_Kingdom#/media/File:Thames_Estuary_and_Wind_Farms_from_Space_NASA_with_annotations.jpg . Orsted predicts wind power reaching 50% of UK electricity usage but the UK is a specific case with no continental interior. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_the_United_Kingdom" CreationDate="2020-02-11T20:32:00.137" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="12304" PostId="9868" Score="0" Text="@SSpring while that's true, it doesn't change anything - shipping lanes are tiny compared to the available seas." CreationDate="2020-02-12T07:55:16.947" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="12310" PostId="9868" Score="0" Text="Routes have long approaches and maneuvering area is required. Also, there are issues of coastal access. Allowed locations of offshore wind farms are going to be very thoughtful designs." CreationDate="2020-02-12T15:25:19.273" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="12319" PostId="9868" Score="0" Text="@SSpring I recommend a look at the German Bight on the map at https://www.4coffshore.com/offshorewind/ for an idea of how little space the shipping needs, relative to the space available" CreationDate="2020-02-13T14:18:53.790" UserId="48" />
  <row Id="12321" PostId="9868" Score="0" Text="There's also near-shore fishing and boating coastal access. But I'm just saying that positioning of offshore wind farms is thoughtful design." CreationDate="2020-02-13T20:05:31.560" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="12295" PostId="9869" Score="0" Text="I don't mind planting a top-notch, super fancy ecological wonder over a simple pine on a feedlot...I simply would like to do something useful! But first, I wanted to understand which way is better to achieve this goal." CreationDate="2020-02-11T08:05:11.383" UserId="8428" />
  <row Id="12315" PostId="9874" Score="0" Text="Thanks a lot for the answer and your help. Do you know a similar source for the US and China?" CreationDate="2020-02-13T10:35:35.170" UserId="8459" />
  <row Id="12316" PostId="9874" Score="0" Text="@Energizer you can get data on both from the U.S. Energy Information Agency, [here](https://www.eia.gov/international/data/world/electricity/electricity-capacity). I'm not familiar with other sources for data on capacity in China, but I've heard it can be hard to come by. The [International Energy Agency](https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/data-tables/?country=WORLD&amp;year=2017&amp;energy=Electricity) probably has some good data." CreationDate="2020-02-13T13:23:03.780" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12317" PostId="9874" Score="0" Text="Thanks a lot LShaver for your help and effort. I really appreciate it." CreationDate="2020-02-13T13:43:18.317" UserId="8459" />
  <row Id="12323" PostId="9875" Score="0" Text="You missed the last sentence:  The trees I encountered didn’t grow that much in “weeks or months”.   Or the one before about tracks unused for more than fifty years.  I didn’t mention my most recent encounter: one rail removed from the middle of an abandoned section.  And the discarded spikes I mentioned have been there for years." CreationDate="2020-02-14T04:55:14.927" UserId="8383" />
  <row Id="12324" PostId="9875" Score="1" Text="@WGroleau No, I saw it.  I didn't say &quot;weeks or months&quot;.  It's you who holds that expectation... that railroad time scales should be anything like your time-scales.  Trees growing up through the track is unfortunate but does happen.  The Susequehanna Railroad was just like that and was reopened for heavy freight.  It wouldn't have been reopened if the rails had been lifted." CreationDate="2020-02-14T05:59:44.673" UserId="6925" />
  <row Id="12326" PostId="9875" Score="0" Text="Sorry.  Somebody used that phrase.  As for “rails to trails,” I spent a few years on the board of such a group.  The fifty-year-old rails are still on part of the trail we developed." CreationDate="2020-02-14T06:42:27.057" UserId="8383" />
  <row Id="12401" PostId="9875" Score="0" Text="An abandoned line near my current home does have two section of rail missing, but much of it still there.  One of the bridges has been converted for walking/biking (one of the two sections).  I keep thinking that if no one wants to recycle the remaining rails, they would make a convenient form to pour cement into.  Another section has a business built over the rails." CreationDate="2020-02-27T01:13:06.600" UserId="8383" />
  <row Id="12406" PostId="9875" Score="0" Text="@WGroleau Yes, the #1 thing an environmentalist can do to help is to preserve right-of-way.  Rails-To-Trails used to be a great friend to that goal, but of late they've turned evil. Now they destroy going-concern freight railways and cherished heritage lines,  Here, just *off the top of my head*: Kingston NY, Pemberton NJ, Walled Lake MI, Noblesville IN (they took out a train *that carried 100,000 people to the state fair, what are they thinking!?*), and the line to Lake Placid NY... RtT used to favor rail+trail; now they oppose it - they don't want to share! It's not the movement it once was." CreationDate="2020-02-27T17:04:25.683" UserId="6925" />
  <row Id="16587" PostId="9875" Score="0" Text="&quot;rail is the only transport mode that lends itself to electrification&quot; -- [citation needed]" CreationDate="2024-02-04T14:24:32.537" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="12333" PostId="9876" Score="0" Text="*For example...clean water*. I did some quick googling and that statement seems untrue." CreationDate="2020-02-15T16:57:32.280" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="12338" PostId="9876" Score="0" Text="Hi Jan, this is exactly what I learnt in the very helpful answer below! I will stick to locally, EU-produced organic oats for dairy alternatives." CreationDate="2020-02-16T23:23:54.393" UserId="3297" />
  <row Id="12331" PostId="9879" Score="4" Text="Valid argument, but can you back this up with some data (That's what Stack Exchange sites are about) and edit out your opinions (That's what Stack Exchange sites are *not* about)." CreationDate="2020-02-15T16:48:32.803" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="12335" PostId="9879" Score="2" Text="Your opening statement is clearly untrue, and that is the reason people don't waste time discussing it. Having children and bringing them up to lead the profligate life-styles of the wealthy western nations is certainly a problem -- but the main issue is the profligate life-styles." CreationDate="2020-02-15T19:09:36.950" UserId="8013" />
  <row Id="12339" PostId="9880" Score="1" Text="Hello.  Welcome to Sustainable Living.  Can you elaborate on the sustainability angle you are interested in?" CreationDate="2020-02-17T15:31:46.730" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="12378" PostId="9880" Score="0" Text="This sounds like it belongs over on cooking.se." CreationDate="2020-02-24T21:07:02.470" UserId="6925" />
  <row Id="15808" PostId="9882" Score="0" Text="Assuming facts not in evidence. The OP said nothing of hosting &quot;3000 domains.&quot; He said &quot;a&quot; domain, singular. For someone hosting a simple Wordpress blog on a Mac Mini or even a Raspberry, self-hosting with green energy is certainly very sustainable. It can be done with a single solar panel and a single deep-cycle battery." CreationDate="2022-05-29T19:36:58.760" UserId="5497" />
  <row Id="12357" PostId="9883" Score="1" Text="I just listened to this [podcast about recycling lithium batteries](https://www.dw.com/en/living-planet-battery-powered/av-52366226?maca=en-podcast_living-planet-948-xml-mrss). Currently, this is not a done deal: it is mainly done for the cobalt and nickel; the lithium has degraded and is still hard to recover/re-use." CreationDate="2020-02-21T18:48:34.567" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="12358" PostId="9883" Score="2" Text="Lithium atoms do not degrade. Yes, the lithium is there as a compound so by taking an old battery you won't get pure lithium. You need some chemistry tricks for extracting the lithium." CreationDate="2020-02-21T19:03:40.703" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="12361" PostId="9883" Score="0" Text="Precisely, that's the (currently) hard part." CreationDate="2020-02-23T11:00:41.570" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="12362" PostId="9883" Score="0" Text="I'm sure chemical engineers will solve the hard part eventually. There's no hurry; it is possible to use degraded batteries with 50% of their capacity left for grid energy storage to balance hour-to-hour wind power short term variations." CreationDate="2020-02-23T11:24:40.197" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="12365" PostId="9883" Score="1" Text="Exactly, and the three R's (reduce, reuse, recycle) are in order of usefulness.  Reusing a battery until it can't be used for anything and _then_ recycling it is better than recycling it as soon as it can't be used for its initial purpose." CreationDate="2020-02-24T04:43:34.350" UserId="5479" />
  <row Id="12341" PostId="9884" Score="0" Text="I never noticed... This is a very good question... Of course there are regular controls during which the facilities are switched off but I don't think that would explain such large fractions..." CreationDate="2020-02-17T20:55:58.347" UserId="8227" />
  <row Id="12354" PostId="9884" Score="0" Text="Note that the electricity map is real-time, so the actual output changes depending on when you're looking at it. Currently (4pm local time), Sweden's nuclear output is 5.73 GW, and France's is 44.8 GW." CreationDate="2020-02-20T15:10:44.937" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12340" PostId="9885" Score="0" Text="This is not the case on many nuclear power plants in Europe https://www.oecd-nea.org/nea-news/2011/29-2/nea-news-29-2-load-following-e.pdf" CreationDate="2020-02-17T20:49:56.310" UserId="8227" />
  <row Id="12344" PostId="9885" Score="0" Text="That nicely demonstrates the load-following ability of hydro as well" CreationDate="2020-02-18T09:09:02.740" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="12348" PostId="9885" Score="0" Text="@LShaver, what I mean is that, since it is the case for France and it goes against the general rule your propose, even though what you said is valid it cannot be the answer to the question asked by the OP" CreationDate="2020-02-19T07:46:05.167" UserId="8227" />
  <row Id="12352" PostId="9885" Score="0" Text="@LShaver nice update! But to answer the OP, where do you think the discrepancy between installed capacity (63.1 GW) and maximum generation (around 52 GW) comes from? Just a safety margin to max power + plants offline for maintenance?" CreationDate="2020-02-19T16:33:55.790" UserId="8227" />
  <row Id="12353" PostId="9885" Score="0" Text="@Silmathoron good point... after some more edits, I think I've got it this time ;)" CreationDate="2020-02-20T14:54:13.017" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12356" PostId="9885" Score="0" Text="@LShaver Nice :D" CreationDate="2020-02-21T14:39:24.593" UserId="8227" />
  <row Id="12376" PostId="9885" Score="0" Text="@ChrisH A lot of French hydro is run-of-river, and there, your load-following options are limited; if you back off hydro power, you have limited time before the river tops the spillway and is wasted." CreationDate="2020-02-24T20:45:26.087" UserId="6925" />
  <row Id="12384" PostId="9885" Score="0" Text="@Harper that may be so. When I wrote my comment the graph was for the US; edits to the  answer have changed the context and made my comment make less sense" CreationDate="2020-02-25T08:11:17.040" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="12345" PostId="9886" Score="1" Text="Regarding the colour of flour: store-bought flour is actually bleached white - it's (generally) not the case of companies &quot;wasting&quot; wheat." CreationDate="2020-02-18T22:42:50.143" UserId="8232" />
  <row Id="12355" PostId="9886" Score="0" Text="After much research I found out indeed not so much is not packaged, still thanks for the input" CreationDate="2020-02-21T06:31:06.547" UserId="8477" />
  <row Id="12349" PostId="9888" Score="0" Text="Is this the case also for EU? It sounds to have a fixed power set by the government." CreationDate="2020-02-19T10:47:02.637" UserId="8349" />
  <row Id="12347" PostId="9889" Score="0" Text="i.e. The &quot;Western lifestyle&quot; as we currently know it is, essentially, unsustainable." CreationDate="2020-02-19T01:25:58.427" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="12372" PostId="9900" Score="0" Text="That example assumes that the Beef is in all other respects equal between local and imported - which is not likely as if you're going to the effort to eat local, you'd also check that it was grass-fed (less emissions from feed) etc." CreationDate="2020-02-24T16:57:03.803" UserId="4155" />
  <row Id="12373" PostId="9900" Score="0" Text="@NickC agreed, and that proves the point. You should *go to the effort* of choosing grass-fed beef, regardless of where it comes from." CreationDate="2020-02-24T17:01:34.070" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12411" PostId="9900" Score="0" Text="The NFU have published a paper on exactly this: https://www.nfuonline.com/nfu-online/sectors/dairy/mythbuster-final/" CreationDate="2020-02-28T16:35:48.560" UserId="4155" />
  <row Id="12377" PostId="9901" Score="0" Text="Many thanks @Harper, some interesting things there.  I am looking for something a bit more concrete, some analysis on the differences after the smoke control areas were implemented for instance." CreationDate="2020-02-24T20:59:31.777" UserId="8041" />
  <row Id="12382" PostId="9902" Score="0" Text="I reckon you'd make a great mod, your high activity, friendly demeanor, and knowledge of the site would transfer well into modship. Best of luck to you LShaver :)" CreationDate="2020-02-25T02:39:40.787" UserId="8232" />
  <row Id="12383" PostId="9902" Score="0" Text="@Robotnik thanks -- same to you!" CreationDate="2020-02-25T03:01:53.880" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12380" PostId="9903" Score="0" Text="I do wonder how accurate these values actually are.  Possibly you just need a combination and just one element, such as NO2 on its own won't do anything.  Maybe VOCs disperse more quickly than NO2 so the NO2 has to move towards the VOC emissions and maybe damp air can be blown from far distances.  It still doesn't explain Marylebone and Kensington and Hammersmith differences though.  Maybe it is just complicated!  but then that might mean this monitoring could be a bit pointless!" CreationDate="2020-02-24T22:37:08.227" UserId="8041" />
  <row Id="12385" PostId="9903" Score="1" Text="Can you provide your source for this data, and/or a map of the locations?" CreationDate="2020-02-25T14:51:13.277" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12399" PostId="9903" Score="0" Text="High ozone in urban situations is usually, I believe, the result of a photochemical smog ... which occurs during prolonged dry and sunny conditions when photochemical reactions (i.e chemical reactions which take place with the help of sunlight) produce a range of chemicals, including ozone. My guess is that your &quot;generally low&quot; ozone levels come from normal days when there is a fresh wind blowing into the city. As LShaver says, you need to give more details about where these numbers come from." CreationDate="2020-02-26T22:48:00.280" UserId="8013" />
  <row Id="12513" PostId="9911" Score="1" Text="Correct. The ink is a shear thinning non-newtonian fluid. The ball in the tip of the pen applies a shear force which locally thins the ink. You'll have a hard time finding the proper fluid and then refilling the cartridge with it (it at all possible at home)." CreationDate="2020-03-27T14:12:42.590" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="12390" PostId="9912" Score="1" Text="Interesting. One question: when you consider washing, how hot is that - heat dominates the energy consumption of a wash load, and not many rags would need to be hot washed, though it may be desirable to wash all rags together. I actually wash floor cloths when I run a cleaning/descaling powder through my machine, as the process seems to work better with something in there.  Pick a dry day so you can dry outside and the energy cost is almost zero as the machine needs descaling anyway.  But they're not filthy" CreationDate="2020-02-26T17:12:00.010" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="12391" PostId="9912" Score="2" Text="The base case machine wash scenario I'm citing here is a cold water wash. Switching to hot water would use much more energy, but still less than paper towel." CreationDate="2020-02-26T17:23:54.323" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="12398" PostId="9912" Score="1" Text="Good answer, but can you say what assumptions about the supply of hot water for the washing machine and the energy rating of the washing machine are used? The report cited appears to list a range of options. I've read that paper towels made with recycled paper have half the carbon footprint, which would make them better than the wash+dry option. I think you need to give the hot-wash figures. Kitchen surfaces need to be hygienic, and cold washed rags are not going to be good enough." CreationDate="2020-02-26T22:16:14.347" UserId="8013" />
  <row Id="13693" PostId="9912" Score="1" Text="At the risk of turning this into a lifehacks page, it's possible to sterilise cloths in a microwave after a cold wash, so you need only heat the small amount of residual water in the cloths rather than the whole 20l for the wash." CreationDate="2021-06-28T07:07:04.607" UserId="1445" />
  <row Id="13698" PostId="9912" Score="0" Text="@MJuckes, cold-water washing works just fine with the correct laundry detergent.  Most viruses and bacteria have a lipid outer layer, and breaking up lipid layers is what detergents are designed to do.  You just need to get one that's designed for cold water rather than hot water." CreationDate="2021-07-01T01:35:16.890" UserId="7993" />
  <row Id="12410" PostId="9913" Score="0" Text="UK Dairy Milk - 8L of blue water per L of milk. Californian Almond Milk - 158L/L - https://www.nfuonline.com/nfu-online/sectors/dairy/mythbuster-final/" CreationDate="2020-02-28T16:34:42.237" UserId="4155" />
  <row Id="12434" PostId="9916" Score="0" Text="Thanks, nice answer. We are more-so looking for a cup that could sustain moisture, but is made from natural materials that will compost down completely.&#xA;The closest we have found is sugarcane bagasse (a cardboard-like material that is fairly watertight and will compost completely if released into the environment).&#xA;There are bagasse cups lined with PLA available which are waterproof.&#xA;We're looking for a solution that will breakdown in a garden (for example), and PLA will not. &#xA;Are there any water tight, plastic-like plant based liners that actually compost in normal soil conditions?" CreationDate="2020-03-03T11:46:52.870" UserId="6929" />
  <row Id="12403" PostId="9917" Score="3" Text="You may want to edit your question to indicate what country/climate you live in, whether you currently take showers or baths, how your water is currently heated, and whether you own your home (i.e. have the ability to change infrastructure).  If you use any energy-consuming appliances or things like infra-red heaters, they would probably be worth detailing as well." CreationDate="2020-02-27T10:10:39.770" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="12404" PostId="9917" Score="1" Text="Also, the infrastructure of your bathroom. Shower, bath, toilet? Equipment like washing machines? Hot, cold taps? Number of users (including children)?" CreationDate="2020-02-27T15:05:18.497" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="12408" PostId="9917" Score="0" Text="@Max I appreciate the accept but editing in some more details about your bathroom would help make this question useful for others. Also the other answers have great suggestions too so please do up-vote!" CreationDate="2020-02-28T14:17:56.440" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12413" PostId="9925" Score="0" Text="@THelper a replacement" CreationDate="2020-02-29T09:10:31.830" UserId="5216" />
  <row Id="12414" PostId="9925" Score="0" Text="Ok, thanks for deleting the old question. BTW as long as there are no answers, it's perfectly fine to edit your own question and change its scope." CreationDate="2020-02-29T12:09:16.183" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="12419" PostId="9929" Score="7" Text="In addition to the factors in point 2, monoculture forests aren't sustainable, after three generations the pH balance of soil is ruined and the trees become less productive. https://www.squawkpoint.com/2018/08/messy-by-tim-harford-book-review/" CreationDate="2020-03-02T10:37:39.680" UserId="6602" />
  <row Id="12427" PostId="9929" Score="3" Text="There is also the question of &quot;additionality&quot; -- which overlaps with 1 &amp; 2: is the tree that has been planted absorbing more CO2 than whatever was happening on that bit of land before the tree was planted?" CreationDate="2020-03-02T22:30:44.520" UserId="8013" />
  <row Id="12428" PostId="9929" Score="0" Text="The Microsoft aspiration to plant trees .. then convert the carbon to CO2 and bury that is an interesting variation." CreationDate="2020-03-02T22:31:50.767" UserId="8013" />
  <row Id="12435" PostId="9929" Score="0" Text="I feel it should be added that 10 million trees - if they grew to full size in a day; would offset the carbon emissions for the USA for 12 hours." CreationDate="2020-03-03T14:57:34.630" UserId="8523" />
  <row Id="12437" PostId="9929" Score="1" Text="@UKMonkey do you have any references that backup this claim?" CreationDate="2020-03-03T15:39:10.847" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="12442" PostId="9929" Score="2" Text="@THelper spitballing here and using the numbers found elswhere in this thread, according to wikipedia the US has produced 5.400.000.000 tonnes of CO2 Equivalent Greenhouse Gasses in 2018. Thats ~14,8 million tonnes a day. Christopher's answer below assumes non cut down trees sequester about 6 tonnes each for a 20 year old tree, which taking that means you'd need around 1,2 million trees to offset 12 hours of emissions in the USA. So the claim by UKMonkey might be off by a lot, but seems to be at least on the right order of magnitude." CreationDate="2020-03-04T11:57:54.900" UserId="4277" />
  <row Id="12446" PostId="9929" Score="2" Text="The second argument is - at least in part - a consequence of the fact that there simply may not be enough space on earth, let alone in certain countries, where planting trees actually has a measurable, positive effect: https://ethz.ch/en/news-and-events/eth-news/news/2019/07/how-trees-could-save-the-climate.html" CreationDate="2020-03-04T16:08:57.620" UserId="8534" />
  <row Id="12453" PostId="9929" Score="0" Text="Trees require space and water ..... lots of water." CreationDate="2020-03-05T06:34:10.187" UserId="8543" />
  <row Id="12436" PostId="9930" Score="8" Text="There is also a question of timescale.  If I take a flight from London to Sydney today, I have caused about 3 tons of CO2 to be emitted today.  Planting a tree that will sequester 3 tons of CO2 over the next 20 years does not solve the problem of the 3 tons of excess and undesired CO2 that exist right now." CreationDate="2020-03-03T15:25:40.097" UserId="8524" />
  <row Id="12452" PostId="9930" Score="2" Text="@padd13ear a 20 year time-lag is **best case scenario**. That tree can easily result in 0 or negative amount of CO2 stored, as in people spend gas to chop it down and haul it away / burn it." CreationDate="2020-03-05T03:17:37.783" UserId="8433" />
  <row Id="12444" PostId="9940" Score="1" Text="This answer doesn't mention copper once.  Are you sure it's an answer to this question?" CreationDate="2020-03-04T14:24:11.453" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="12450" PostId="9940" Score="0" Text="The question also asked for other roof covering options. But copper is more expensive than stainless-steel and has more thermal expansion. The green color that develops on copper is actually corrosion but the copper can hold-up for many years. But what thickness of copper is required for, say, 50 years of service ? Residential stainless-steel standing-seam roofing panels are 0.015&quot; thickness." CreationDate="2020-03-05T00:29:50.247" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="12460" PostId="9941" Score="3" Text="This will be very hard to answer objectively and we also risk this post becoming a spam magnet for chocolate brands. Nevertheless I do like the question. I think answers should focus on the chocolate making processes that have the lowest environmental impact and/or highest social impact." CreationDate="2020-03-06T09:01:08.547" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="12455" PostId="9946" Score="1" Text="I guess this could possibly have some sustainability angle if it incorporates what was previously a waste product to replace another input (eg cane sugar).  But ... the press release says nothing about sustainability and presumably Nestle's goal is just to maximize profit, not protect rainforests, workers, or the climate.  So ... is this really an answer?" CreationDate="2020-03-06T00:38:11.867" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="12456" PostId="9946" Score="1" Text="There is additional viewpoint in news articles: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/16/nestle-to-sell-a-chocolate-made-without-added-sugar.html" CreationDate="2020-03-06T01:15:02.257" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="12458" PostId="9946" Score="1" Text="This answer could be better if it explained why being made from the cocoa fruit mattered, and how that process is different from the current standard process." CreationDate="2020-03-06T05:58:27.997" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="12459" PostId="9946" Score="1" Text="This answer doesn't explain why this chocolate would be the most sustainable choice. Furthermore Nestle has a very bad reputation when it comes to (social) sustainability and greenwashing, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestlé#Controversy_and_criticisms" CreationDate="2020-03-06T08:55:39.420" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="12461" PostId="9946" Score="0" Text="A ad-hominem attack on Nestle doesn't prove a new chocolate development to be insignificant. Each development stands on its own merits." CreationDate="2020-03-06T10:18:36.317" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="12462" PostId="9946" Score="1" Text="Indeed, my comment doesn't provide proof. I was hoping that after my comment you would edit your answer and explain why you think this new development is the best. The basis for your answer seems to be the 2 links. StackExchange-wide policy is that answers should contain the most relevant information and only provide links for background information. Otherwise if a link breaks your answer will be worthless." CreationDate="2020-03-06T12:28:41.053" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="12463" PostId="9946" Score="3" Text="Additionally, the links do not provide any evidence why Nestle would be better than say [these guys for example](https://www.grenadachocolate.com) who produce organic chocolate in the same location where the cocao is grown and transport their chocolate per sailboat. The articles you link to do not mention preservation of (rain)forests, being fair-trade, carbon footprint, etc.  All 3 topics are of concern to the OP." CreationDate="2020-03-06T12:29:25.903" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="12457" PostId="9949" Score="1" Text="Hi Peter_V and welcome to the Sustainable Living Stack Exchange. Not all questions here are about sustainability at home, so it's possible that optimizing a piece of software could have effects on more than just one computer." CreationDate="2020-03-06T05:35:45.677" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="12468" PostId="9950" Score="0" Text="+1 I'm also very interested in this question, especially the relationship between energy used to produce detergent and energy used during the wash process." CreationDate="2020-03-07T16:18:09.860" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="12473" PostId="9950" Score="1" Text="I think your further Q on dishwashers would be a good one.  My options these days seem to be plastic-wrapped tablets (bin the wrapper) or pods (dissolve the wrapper, and they're much more expensive). Powder would probably be better (recyclable plastic bottle, you can use a reduced dose if nothing is very dirty) but neither of my regular supermarkets stocks it any more" CreationDate="2020-03-09T10:56:49.087" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="12469" PostId="9951" Score="0" Text="My question here is slightly different from this related question: https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/815/1056" CreationDate="2020-03-07T17:30:41.263" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="12515" PostId="9951" Score="0" Text="Using a lid while boiling/cooking reduces heat loss, thus the item being boiled/cooked reaches the desired temperature quicker, consequently less energy is used in boiling/cooking." CreationDate="2020-03-29T09:47:27.443" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="15951" PostId="9951" Score="0" Text="For small amounts it would be more sustainable to use a kettle (an object used only for heating water). You heat the exact amount you want. Modern ones allow you to set the desired temperature." CreationDate="2022-08-09T08:54:32.727" UserId="1567" />
  <row Id="12470" PostId="9952" Score="0" Text="I will try this." CreationDate="2020-03-07T18:44:42.253" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="12472" PostId="9952" Score="1" Text="The penultimate paragraph is crucial: Measuring the time to bring to the boil will underestimate the loss if you're simmering, even if you scale by the time, because loss to steam is greater at higher temperatures.  You could weigh everything and work out how much water is boiled off, at [2.2kJ/kg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latent_heat#Table_of_specific_latent_heats)" CreationDate="2020-03-09T10:54:01.053" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="12471" PostId="9956" Score="1" Text="This is certainly the case in the UK.  Wood is segregated. Last time I dropped some off I had to sort it - *untreated: with garden waste to be shredded and composted, *treated, painted etc.: separate container (burnt in a controlled facility)*." CreationDate="2020-03-09T10:50:48.127" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="12475" PostId="9958" Score="0" Text="Did you change the filters regularly? I used to have a recirculating hood (mounted on an outside wall so no excuse for it) and if I didn't change both the grease and the odour (charcoal) filters regularly it wasn't much help.  Of course this can't deal with steam, but a dehumidifier could help with that." CreationDate="2020-03-11T16:36:50.387" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="12476" PostId="9958" Score="1" Text="We really didn't - we thought it was just putting the dirty air outside. I believe we do now, and we only started the coffee roasting recently, so I'm not suggesting a non vented hood with decades old filters can handle coffee roasting." CreationDate="2020-03-11T16:47:22.993" UserId="1053" />
  <row Id="12479" PostId="9959" Score="1" Text="I appreciate the detailed response. It appears clear that the Tesla with the smaller battery significantly reduces the overall impact, bringing the date when it is an improvement over the Prius much sooner. Can you clarify how you can say the Tesla battery is &quot;10 times bigger than the Prius&quot; when the Prius is listed as .75 kWh and the smallest Tesla battery 50 kWh? That looks like a difference greater than 66 times." CreationDate="2020-03-12T17:02:28.907" UserId="8560" />
  <row Id="12480" PostId="9959" Score="0" Text="@JerryMcIntire thanks, glad to help. Re: 10 times -- that was a typo. Fixed!" CreationDate="2020-03-12T17:14:20.800" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12482" PostId="9962" Score="1" Text="There are some great suggestions on this diy.se post: [How best can I discover what is up with my electrical bill?](https://diy.stackexchange.com/questions/1713/how-best-can-i-discover-what-is-up-with-my-electrical-bill)" CreationDate="2020-03-12T19:38:41.893" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12488" PostId="9962" Score="3" Text="Look for heating equipment ,eg aquarium heaters, electric clothes dryers. Maybe metal halide lights in the basement to grow  many plants." CreationDate="2020-03-13T00:34:09.723" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="12492" PostId="9962" Score="3" Text="Is the basement on the same meter?" CreationDate="2020-03-13T13:56:48.967" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="12493" PostId="9962" Score="0" Text="@ChrisH yes, on the same meter." CreationDate="2020-03-13T14:09:45.827" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="12494" PostId="9962" Score="5" Text="It's possible the (gas) heating in the basement is faulty or not to the renter's liking, and they're using electric heat down there, or they're doing something daft like leaving the oven on all the time.  Without access, or with limited access, you're going to struggle to track this down" CreationDate="2020-03-13T14:12:17.837" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="12495" PostId="9962" Score="1" Text="@ChrisH electric heat in the basement is a good possibility. Thanks for mentioning that." CreationDate="2020-03-13T14:13:30.343" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="12500" PostId="9962" Score="5" Text="Maybe someone is growing weed in the basement? Afaik this is how some plantations were discovered in the past, due to the law enforcement looking for unusally high electricity consumption. (please don't take this too seriously)." CreationDate="2020-03-16T09:10:22.610" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="12503" PostId="9962" Score="1" Text="The way it goes up and down, and given the amount of energy, I would guess that it is related to heating. With that amount of energy you don't really need a meter, you can just look for really hot electrical equipment. Given the steps you have taken, it is a near certainty that it is in the parts of the house that you can't access. Could be time to look into having separate meters." CreationDate="2020-03-22T09:32:56.783" UserId="8013" />
  <row Id="12534" PostId="9962" Score="1" Text="From the second graph, it looks like usage starts to increase just before weekends &amp; continues through the weekend. Does the occupant of the basement do anything significant during that period of the week: parties, visitors, electrically heat the premises while spending more time at home?" CreationDate="2020-04-05T11:50:18.430" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="13667" PostId="9962" Score="2" Text="Legally in many places a shared meter means the landlord has to include electricity in your rent. Worth looking up your locals laws to see if that is the case for you." CreationDate="2021-06-14T01:49:02.573" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="13682" PostId="9962" Score="1" Text="Are you now on metered billing, I had to put a timer on my moms electric dryer and her pottery kiln as these 2 devices used at the wrong time almost tripled her power bill. They were asking me because I am an electrician, everything looked fine but it was when they were using the power that mattered. Something to think about." CreationDate="2021-06-24T23:18:48.233" UserId="9862" />
  <row Id="13733" PostId="9962" Score="1" Text="Shut off your breakers one at a time and monitor your power meter." CreationDate="2021-06-30T01:44:06.027" UserId="9007" />
  <row Id="15209" PostId="9962" Score="0" Text="Actually unplugging things from the socket can reduce usage I believe, in addition to turning things off - especially for older/more energy-intensive items." CreationDate="2021-11-08T12:25:58.097" UserId="13357" />
  <row Id="12487" PostId="9964" Score="1" Text="I think effort should be put into the root cause of ( potential) failure. Apparently the problem is they were not strong enough to have a very long fatigue life ; Engineering was inadequate. But once they are removed from service , land-fill is about the only recourse." CreationDate="2020-03-13T00:27:35.533" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="12489" PostId="9965" Score="1" Text="Welcome to the Sustainability site on Stack Exchange! Thank you for deciding to come here and share your experience with calling Kidde. It would be ideal if they provided you a better answer about recycling, but any answer they give is still worth sharing here. Please also be mindful that [civility is valued here](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/help/behavior) and the tone of your answer could be more neutral." CreationDate="2020-03-13T00:47:58.050" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="12491" PostId="9967" Score="0" Text="This is helpful, thanks!" CreationDate="2020-03-13T13:31:17.060" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="12496" PostId="9968" Score="1" Text="Can you provide make/model of the inverter? The panel rating will be max supply to inverter, and inverter rating will be max supply to the grid. It will not draw more from the panels than it can use to supply." CreationDate="2020-03-13T16:11:44.760" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12497" PostId="9968" Score="2" Text="Actually, I see you also [posted this on Electronics.SE](https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/486006/can-i-use-2-5kw-solar-panels-to-power-2kw-rated-grid-tie-solar-inverter). The answer there is correct, but more detail might help you get a more specific answer." CreationDate="2020-03-13T16:32:12.763" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12540" PostId="9968" Score="0" Text="You need to make sure that you donot exceed the maximum input DC voltage that the invertor can handle. The 36 Volts specified for panel is the nominal voltage at capacity. Open circuit voltage can be higher then that by 10 to 20%." CreationDate="2020-04-08T05:03:37.960" UserId="8607" />
  <row Id="12506" PostId="9977" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! In recent years there were concerns about health issues arising from the materials that are used to make &quot;crumb rubber&quot; that is part of grass carpets. I'm not sure though if all or only some carpets have that, and if those issues are resolved now." CreationDate="2020-03-24T13:55:38.673" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="12507" PostId="9977" Score="1" Text="Googling for 'artificial grass rug recycled', if you ignore the greenwashing &quot;our material can be recycled&quot;, you find come companies that claim to *use* recycled material, like [Easygrass](https://www.easygrass.net/recycled-bottles-now-used-in-easygrass-synthetic-grasses/). You'll still have to find out what the percentage of recycled material is, though. And don't forget other factors like &quot;How long will it last&quot;?&quot;, &quot;Can you *actually* recycle it when its lifetime is over?&quot; and &quot;Does it have to come from across the continent/world?" CreationDate="2020-03-24T14:07:37.363" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="12509" PostId="9977" Score="0" Text="Maybe use actual sustainable materials like wood? There are wooden tiles (with plastic buffers underneath, sadly) available, which can be laid out on any even surface (e.g. check your local hardware store)." CreationDate="2020-03-25T13:52:37.410" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="12512" PostId="9978" Score="0" Text="Can you enrich and update the answer with what hair type, hairstyles &amp; length (through the comparative timeline), etc you have/ had. Since we dont have pictures its rather vague to imagine how, who it works for - male vs female, hair variety, length, styling, bangs, side, middle etc." CreationDate="2020-03-26T22:27:41.967" UserId="2891" />
  <row Id="12508" PostId="9979" Score="1" Text="There are 2 related questions asked here: [How do word processing on a laptop and writing with pen and paper stack up sustainability-wise?](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/3210/99) and [Reading on paper vs. screen](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/487/99). Your question is different because of the writing on screen, but my guess is that the total impact is not that different from an ebook used for reading." CreationDate="2020-03-25T09:51:46.753" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="12511" PostId="9980" Score="0" Text="Technically, AHRI defines test procedures. In the US, regulation is defined by local codes, which are set by jurisdiction (often state-level, but some states let counties/municipalities set their own). Most states adopt the International Energy Conservation Code (IECC), with specific changes. IECC 2018 is the latest version. You can see HVAC efficiencies [here](https://codes.iccsafe.org/content/IECC2018P3/chapter-4-[ce]-commercial-energy-efficiency#IECC2018P3_CE_Ch04_SecC403.3.2). Within the table, the required AHRI or ISO test procedure is listed, with temperature set-points where applicable." CreationDate="2020-03-26T16:19:52.387" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="14973" PostId="9984" Score="0" Text="Rather redundant ; all the wattage is converted to heat so they have equal efficiency , 100 %." CreationDate="2021-08-31T20:53:09.127" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="14974" PostId="9984" Score="0" Text="@blacksmith37 [Please do not answer in the comments.](https://sustainability.meta.stackexchange.com/q/388/1056) Use comments to [request clarification](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/help/privileges/comment) to the question, not to leave an answer." CreationDate="2021-08-31T21:02:43.853" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="12524" PostId="9988" Score="1" Text="Another factor: If US car makers want to export to Europe or Asia, they will have to meet the rules there." CreationDate="2020-04-01T14:47:06.990" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="12521" PostId="9989" Score="2" Text="Three weeks ago, just after the start of the lockdown here in the Netherlands, the media reported that the power consumption of people working at home versus in an office is more or less the same. AFAIK hardly any factories are closed here, but the first results on air pollution published a few days ago reported that the air is now 20-60% cleaner because of the reduction in emissions from transportation. If only I could find the scientific studies this is based on....." CreationDate="2020-04-01T06:33:20.373" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="12707" PostId="9989" Score="1" Text="The US Energy Information Agency just published an update on electricity sales -- the total for all sectors was [down 4% this year compared to last April](https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=44276). Data on natural gas and petroleum sales for April weren't available yet." CreationDate="2020-06-30T16:12:43.510" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12525" PostId="9990" Score="0" Text="This is good info, thanks! It would be good to get some numbers for places where the mass transit usage is higher, as the commute may factor in differently. But for now, I'll accept this as you've covered the majority of what I was asking :)" CreationDate="2020-04-01T23:09:07.547" UserId="8232" />
  <row Id="16151" PostId="9990" Score="0" Text="Great collection of information. Are you making the assumption that when an individual worker works from home, the office building does not still consume that worker's worth of energy? The building will still be heated/cooled, appliances and equipment will still be run... To some degree doesn't the home energy consumption add to the office energy consumption instead of replace it?" CreationDate="2022-12-06T01:10:04.167" UserId="14539" />
  <row Id="16154" PostId="9990" Score="0" Text="I think 44 square meters per office worker is a bit excessive. The place where I work has about 15 square meters per office worker. Also 515 kWh electricity per square meter is just absurd and probably includes factories too. In Finland (a very cold country), 100 kWh per square meter per year is used for HEATING. Remember all electricity turns into heat. So if 515 kWh per square meter per year was used for e.g. computers and lights, it would turn into heat, and the heat would be so much it's 5x too much even for a very cold country." CreationDate="2022-12-06T07:32:52.563" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="16155" PostId="9990" Score="1" Text="Yes, the 773 TWh/year seems to be 22900 kWh/year per office worker. In United States, electricity usage per capita is 12300 kWh. That 773 TWh/year can't be possibly right. It's probably including factories and other large users of electricity." CreationDate="2022-12-06T07:39:11.497" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="16157" PostId="9990" Score="2" Text="@juhist all those numbers are straight from U.S. Energy Information Agency data, and I just went through and double-checked the numbers. Factories/industry is not included in the survey. You can see the definition used for office [here](https://www.eia.gov/consumption/commercial/building-type-definitions.php#Office). 44 m2 includes all spaces in the building such as conference rooms, lobby, cafe, etc, divided through by number of workers. The energy consumption includes cooling as well -- you can see intensities [here](https://www.eia.gov/consumption/commercial/data/2012/c&amp;e/cfm/e2.php)." CreationDate="2022-12-07T01:35:34.360" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="16158" PostId="9990" Score="0" Text="Land and energy are much cheaper (way too cheap) in the U.S. than almost anywhere in the world, which is why these numbers seem so ridiculous. And only about half of the population is employed (full time or otherwise), so that 12,300 per capita includes children and the retired." CreationDate="2022-12-07T01:38:47.587" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="16159" PostId="9990" Score="0" Text="@electronpusher the assumption is that the energy consumption of both the home and the office are the same for each worker, and don't change regardless of where the worker is (home or office). This lets us focus on the impact of the commute relative to the office consumption." CreationDate="2022-12-07T01:40:48.430" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="16162" PostId="9990" Score="1" Text="In addition to the home office energy, the office-office energy, and the commute, what about all the other things related to working out of the home? Coffee shops and lunch restaurants etc? Many of these have closed (and so are not emitting anything) due to lack of customers. Alternatively, some home workers are driving to not-very-local fast food places when they want something cooked for them instead of walking to the sandwich shop next to the office... people are taking trips to stores instead of getting stuff on the way home from work ... lot to consider really." CreationDate="2022-12-07T14:48:40.747" UserId="1053" />
  <row Id="16291" PostId="9990" Score="0" Text="Do these estimates include emissions from office building construction / renovation? Ideally both the construction process and raw material extraction." CreationDate="2023-02-20T02:53:13.357" UserId="14700" />
  <row Id="16292" PostId="9990" Score="0" Text="@JeremyBeale no, the question and this answer assumes that the home and office are already built. Factoring the office construction would further tip the balance towards the home, since you'd still need a place to sleep even if you didn't need an office." CreationDate="2023-02-20T16:04:11.810" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="16293" PostId="9990" Score="0" Text="Maybe that can be included on a future edit. The construction industry is massive. Estimated [13%](https://architecture2030.org/why-the-building-sector/) of all CO2 emissions globally. Another potential edit could be a separate category for &quot;[non-office workers](https://www.nber.org/papers/w26948) with WFH potential&quot;. More commutes potentially cancelled, although the OP's office emission numbers would remain the same." CreationDate="2023-02-20T16:40:31.863" UserId="14700" />
  <row Id="16294" PostId="9990" Score="0" Text="@JeremyBeale probably better as a new question, actually, since this one is in the context of covid." CreationDate="2023-02-20T16:47:52.337" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12838" PostId="9991" Score="0" Text="Not really relevant to sustainability, and please don't take this as anything but helpful advice - but it's worth mentioning that floating stool is a [sign of high-fat content in the stool](https://www.everydayhealth.com/digestive-health-pictures/icky-but-interesting-facts-about-poop.aspx), and could be an indication of malabsorption brought on by celiac disease or chronic pancreatitis. If this is a regular issue, it might be worth having a checkup with your doctor." CreationDate="2020-09-02T07:04:51.637" UserId="8232" />
  <row Id="12531" PostId="9993" Score="0" Text="Hello and welcome! any idea (other than guess and check) about how to determine the right amount of water? Won't this be the same as just flushing again?" CreationDate="2020-04-04T14:48:09.793" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12532" PostId="9993" Score="0" Text="I think that with a bucket you can better regulate the amount of water you want to use for flushing. More, with a bucket, you can lift it up and increase water potential energy, so that a little water carries more energy and can flush more." CreationDate="2020-04-04T15:18:35.517" UserId="8603" />
  <row Id="12530" PostId="9995" Score="0" Text="This question also reminds me that, because of a structural/system lack, people has little understanding of how they can reduce their energy consumption. It would be nice if not only the electical company, but also the house electric counter, could easily indicate the energy consumption to the tenants. hopefully domotic progresses in the future will allow each domestic appliance to record a time serie of energy consumption and, maybe, efficiency." CreationDate="2020-04-04T10:09:21.850" UserId="8603" />
  <row Id="12533" PostId="9996" Score="2" Text="Do you mean in addition to food waste collections, or instead? Collecting and composting all food is surely better, and uses for uncomposted coffee grounds are fairly limie" CreationDate="2020-04-05T11:48:34.667" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="12535" PostId="9996" Score="1" Text="I doubt that you'll find *separate* waste streams for coffee grounds only. And the 'internet wisdom' of using it as fertilizer is probably more of  a hype than wise advice. Googling for 'soil improvement coffee grounds' turned up several warnings such as [this](https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/oct/23/coffee-grounds-are-not-good-for-plants-its-a-myth) and [this](https://www.sgaonline.org.au/using-coffee-grounds-in-the-garden/)." CreationDate="2020-04-05T13:21:31.313" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="12536" PostId="9996" Score="0" Text="Thanks everybody for helping me bursting the myth. Jan's comment is the one I was looking for. Please Jan, type it as answer and I will flag it as correct. I voted both your comments" CreationDate="2020-04-05T13:31:32.930" UserId="8603" />
  <row Id="12577" PostId="10000" Score="1" Text="The world needs more [batteries](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/12/26/teslas-enormous-battery-in-australia-just-weeks-old-is-already-responding-to-outages-in-record-time/) like the one in [South Australia](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-19/sa-big-battery-set-to-get-even-bigger/11716784) are [required](https://www.energy-storage.news/news/undeniable-success-south-australias-129mwh-tesla-battery)." CreationDate="2020-04-23T20:35:07.647" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="13421" PostId="10002" Score="0" Text="Some data here: [IEA Renewables 2020](https://www.iea.org/reports/renewables-2020/key-trends-to-watch#are-system-operators-curtailing-too-much-wind-and-solar-electricity)." CreationDate="2021-02-04T16:28:29.147" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12548" PostId="10008" Score="1" Text="[Here](https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/aluminium-foil) they say it's between 4 µm and 150 µm, so that would be a factor 40-1500 thicker&#xA;but I agree with your point that's very difficult to make this profitable." CreationDate="2020-04-15T06:13:16.257" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="12549" PostId="10008" Score="0" Text="Your reference is wrong! Is is NOT foil , it is a vapor deposit ." CreationDate="2020-04-15T22:09:56.137" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="12550" PostId="10009" Score="2" Text="I think your question fits better on https://electronics.stackexchange.com/" CreationDate="2020-04-16T10:10:54.887" UserDisplayName="user2451" />
  <row Id="12551" PostId="10009" Score="0" Text="Thanks, I'll try there too." CreationDate="2020-04-16T10:24:16.563" UserId="8628" />
  <row Id="12553" PostId="10009" Score="2" Text="Question is now also on [Electrical Engineering](https://electronics.stackexchange.com/q/493482/117472)" CreationDate="2020-04-17T08:12:30.170" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="12554" PostId="10010" Score="2" Text="If your end goal is generating electricity, why not install a turbine at the water source? Transmitting electricity where you need it is cheaper/easier than pumping water." CreationDate="2020-04-17T13:13:00.337" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12558" PostId="10011" Score="0" Text="Thank you for your response. It did address many of the questions I did and did not ask. Apparently we had a different idea about what our fictional water source was working with. Also, 5 kW turbine would be enough to host small concerts at the homestead with lasers. 1kW was probably closer to what we would need. Still, I do see the practical elements about building cost and energy transfer cost being not worth it. A reservoir on a hill is the way to go. Ram pumps are best used for limited irrigation." CreationDate="2020-04-18T06:21:03.193" UserId="8631" />
  <row Id="12562" PostId="10011" Score="0" Text="I assumed a non-navigable/unregulated stream or creek passing through your property — i.e. something quite small and common — as you would not be permitted by 'authorities' to put anything in a large/navigable waterway.  You had something else in mind?  Also, 5kW just covers a water heater and a kettle at the same time.  It's not really a large amount of power.  But if you aren't using the power directly, and just trickle-charging a battery bank overnight, then yeah, you can get away with a lot less." CreationDate="2020-04-19T00:02:49.137" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="12575" PostId="10011" Score="0" Text="No initially I was trying to make a given that the water source was a giant river that could essentially provide enough flow to handle my idea just for crazy's sake. That is not a realistic scenario once you pointed out the calculations for potential energy and the logistics involved.It has definitely changed our land search considerably. as I am bound and determined to have our own pico hydroelectric system on our property one way or another, even if it only ends up providing only a percentage in the end." CreationDate="2020-04-21T14:05:03.493" UserId="8631" />
  <row Id="12560" PostId="10012" Score="1" Text="the energy necessary to recycle a tin can is much higher than anything plastic related, so its carbon footprint would be much higher. Making it for the first time also requires much more resource and therefore generates more pollution. Plastic is surprisingly cheap for resource and energy (more than paper even), but is usually not recycled.&#xA;I don't have the exact numbers, but provided you properly throw the plastic, chances are refill would be much better. Story would be different if the company recovered and reused the tins cans." CreationDate="2020-04-18T07:11:03.360" UserId="8227" />
  <row Id="12705" PostId="10012" Score="1" Text="Will the choice matter compared to the impact of what's inside the container?" CreationDate="2020-06-29T17:44:44.160" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="12706" PostId="10012" Score="2" Text="@Jean-PaulCalderone Milo's cocoa is (allegedly) [sustainably grown](https://www.nestle.com.au/en/media/newsandfeatures/milo-now-made-with-sustainable-cocoa) and certified by UTZ. Nestle has done some real dodgy things in the past though, so who knows. But for the purposes of this question, yeah I'm mainly concerned about the packaging side of things." CreationDate="2020-06-29T22:23:00.297" UserId="8232" />
  <row Id="12555" PostId="10013" Score="1" Text="Wash with detergent, rinse, add baking soda &amp; fill with hot water (which will be a challenge at 275 Gallons), agitate (likewise) let sit for a day or more, rinse, repeat baking soda &amp; water until no trace of oil/odor remains. Or get containers that are not pre-contaminated by oils if you want to store water." CreationDate="2020-04-18T02:46:14.917" UserDisplayName="Ecnerwal" />
  <row Id="12556" PostId="10013" Score="0" Text="Agitate... well put them on a trailer and do a few miles on rough roads..." CreationDate="2020-04-18T05:22:16.147" UserId="5569" />
  <row Id="12559" PostId="10013" Score="0" Text="Keeping in mind that 275 gal. is over a tonne of water..." CreationDate="2020-04-18T06:25:47.097" UserId="6925" />
  <row Id="12561" PostId="10013" Score="0" Text="People forget that water is so heavy, 2294 lbs to be more exact, though it wouldn't be anywhere near full during the cleaning. I would also throw into the container a scrubbing pad or a wash rag or two to provide some physical scrubbing action while Dukes of Hazzard'ing" CreationDate="2020-04-18T16:52:42.093" UserId="8636" />
  <row Id="12563" PostId="10015" Score="0" Text="Thanks for the answer. It's actually for a large fifth-wheel camper that will often be used in an off-grid / dry-camping situation and for various reasons I don't want to rely on a generator too heavily. The wattage numbers sound about right; this is based on a hypothetical situation in which a hair dryer and microwave are running simultaneously, along with some smaller AC loads like a TV. In addition, there are some direct DC loads (furnace blower motor, lights, etc.) that the batteries will have to power as well." CreationDate="2020-04-20T10:52:44.380" UserId="8628" />
  <row Id="12564" PostId="10015" Score="0" Text="I've run similar loads off the 3kw inverter in my truck without an issue (I have a power meter that measures the real time amperage and/or wattage); in fact, by accident I once pulled 4.3kw and it was humming along just fine until the 300A fuse blew. So I'm pretty confident that the inverter will handle the task." CreationDate="2020-04-20T10:54:34.510" UserId="8628" />
  <row Id="12629" PostId="10016" Score="0" Text="I'm doubtful of the claims about shellfish. Our World in Data looked at [impact of transport on GHG emissions from food](https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local), and included farmed and wild caught fish. Most of the impact of farmed fish is due to fuel use by fishing vessels. Farmed shrimp/prawns have over double the impact of farmed fish. Wild caught shrimp aren't included, but we can assume fuel use during fishing would be similar. So the shells would need to sequester ~2.5kg CO2 for each kg of food product to break even." CreationDate="2020-05-19T14:28:48.313" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12631" PostId="10016" Score="0" Text="That's why it is the last point. 1kg of calcium carbonate CaCO3 corresponds to 0,44 kg of captured CO2, stoichiometric-wise. I'm fine with removing this info or labeling it a fun fact." CreationDate="2020-05-19T18:39:35.783" UserId="1581" />
  <row Id="12565" PostId="10017" Score="0" Text="You could grow your own banana tree. But why do you assume that produce from overseas has a great CO2 level? Compared to what?" CreationDate="2020-04-12T19:01:31.890" UserDisplayName="Bjartur Thorlacius" />
  <row Id="12566" PostId="10017" Score="0" Text="Compared to locally (from Europe) produced fruit. I cannot accept growing your own banana tree as an answer" CreationDate="2020-04-12T21:16:26.427" UserId="6857" />
  <row Id="12567" PostId="10017" Score="3" Text="Not really an answer, but suggest reading the book 'How bad are bananas' by Mike Berners-Lee. This attempts to estimate the carbon footprint of various foods and activities. Turns out bananas aren't really that bad compared to, for example, the european apples in the shops now (April) which have been refrigerated since autumn. Transport is only part of the problem - refrigeration and production are also important carbon sources." CreationDate="2020-04-21T07:31:26.823" UserId="3851" />
  <row Id="12576" PostId="10017" Score="0" Text="What's special about bananas ? I suspect from cycling that they're a good mix of starch and sugar, in their own sustainable wrapper (not as quickly  biodegradable as you'd think BTW)." CreationDate="2020-04-22T09:46:15.653" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="12609" PostId="10017" Score="0" Text="They are quite unique in terms of quick energy supply. No wonder that for extreme endurance sports such as skyrunning, cycling, triathlon they are the number one." CreationDate="2020-05-06T21:29:24.143" UserId="6857" />
  <row Id="12568" PostId="10019" Score="0" Text="I disagree with your cynical view of education and I think it distracts from the answer." CreationDate="2020-04-21T12:10:54.227" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="12569" PostId="10019" Score="0" Text="Very few colleges and teachers are open to having their worldviews challenged.  The same goes for the products of those systems.  When the products of the system voluntarily police others to promote the system that conditioned them, then that is a sign that the system is working as intended." CreationDate="2020-04-21T12:18:59.730" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="12570" PostId="10019" Score="0" Text="I don't know where in the world you've had this experience, but my experience is entirely different.  I went to school and university in Netherlands, Germany, and Sweden, and I found that critical, independent thinking and thinking out of the box was almost always highly valued, of course based on the best available evidence." CreationDate="2020-04-21T12:22:50.263" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="12574" PostId="10020" Score="0" Text="An important piece of context to add -- currently in the US, commercial buildings (which includes education) use about 20 times as much fossil fuel for heating (through direct combustion on site) as electricity ([source](https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/data/browser/#/?id=5-AEO2020&amp;region=0-0&amp;cases=ref2020&amp;start=2018&amp;end=2050&amp;f=A&amp;linechart=ref2020-d112119a.18-5-AEO2020~ref2020-d112119a.31-5-AEO2020~ref2020-d112119a.39-5-AEO2020&amp;ctype=linechart&amp;sourcekey=0))." CreationDate="2020-04-21T13:06:51.300" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12588" PostId="10020" Score="0" Text="You could also mention heat lamps which generate radiative heat which might be considered a more direct way of getting heat to an individual than heating up a radiator and relying on thermal conduction." CreationDate="2020-04-27T22:01:34.660" UserId="8013" />
  <row Id="12589" PostId="10020" Score="0" Text="@MJuckes I did mention radiative heaters, I've now edited to name heat lamps as an example thereof." CreationDate="2020-04-28T07:11:56.513" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="12590" PostId="10020" Score="0" Text="OK .. I'm sorry that I overlooked that .. thanks for the clarification." CreationDate="2020-04-29T08:02:38.667" UserId="8013" />
  <row Id="12583" PostId="10021" Score="2" Text="A composting system would help. If the kitchen is not going to generate waste going to landfill, it may need to be designed to deal with suitable volumes of fresh food." CreationDate="2020-04-24T20:22:57.207" UserId="8013" />
  <row Id="12579" PostId="10022" Score="0" Text="I edited the question a bit to clarify -- I'm assuming that best practices are already being implemented for construction waste and daily waste management. I want to know if there are building design strategies that help improve waste management." CreationDate="2020-04-24T13:23:52.433" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12580" PostId="10024" Score="0" Text="They already have strategies for reduced energy and water usage. I'm specifically asking about *designing* a building to reduce landfill usage. Is this possible? Bottle choice is an operations question, not a design question. Drink dispensers could be a design question. What other strategies are there?" CreationDate="2020-04-24T16:21:26.220" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12582" PostId="10024" Score="0" Text="Most of the land fill waste from a building is logistical. Why is the solution a technology ? Re-cycling is logistical. With the drink dispensers there is the worry about over-use." CreationDate="2020-04-24T17:19:26.310" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="12584" PostId="10024" Score="2" Text="The drink dispensers are actually a good idea. Lots of waste is just cans and bottles" CreationDate="2020-04-25T21:08:21.687" UserId="1581" />
  <row Id="12686" PostId="10024" Score="0" Text="Also, if beverages are in aluminum bottles with twist-caps, then any aluminum bottle not recycled by the building was probably carried home by the consumer. Building design only has to position aluminum recycle bins." CreationDate="2020-06-19T21:37:13.730" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="12585" PostId="10027" Score="0" Text="I've edited the question a bit. I'm looking for strategies specific to design of a building (what architects/engineers put on the drawings). The first two could be done by management at most any building, old or new. The last one gets to the question, though. Could you expand a bit?" CreationDate="2020-04-26T15:17:29.653" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12587" PostId="10027" Score="0" Text="I assumed that your planning is not restricted to the building itself, but also includes the immediate surrounding. So you may be able to plan a garden with composting capabilities." CreationDate="2020-04-26T19:28:46.307" UserId="1581" />
  <row Id="12598" PostId="10032" Score="3" Text="or convert it to bioChar?" CreationDate="2020-05-02T20:24:26.727" UserId="6311" />
  <row Id="12627" PostId="10032" Score="0" Text="not very &quot;sustainable&quot; to destroy forests where &quot;things&quot; live. See this bat-pangolin story?" CreationDate="2020-05-19T07:46:26.887" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="12591" PostId="10033" Score="2" Text="I'm wondering where you'd get softdrinks in 33 ml cans. That's one-and-a-half shot. That aside, the basic idea is: The larger the volume, the lesser packaging is need. So, consider larger bottles &amp; serving in glasses. Maybe even softdrinks from the tap. And take glas bottles into account." CreationDate="2020-04-29T14:04:44.540" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="12592" PostId="10033" Score="0" Text="Sorry there was an error in the volume column" CreationDate="2020-04-29T15:29:59.033" UserId="8603" />
  <row Id="12593" PostId="10033" Score="0" Text="@Erik. I am okay with the basic idea, but I am wondering if different kinds of packagings for the same food could change by far its impact on the recycling process. Let's suppose for example that Trangle ALU 41 has an impact that is 3-4 times lower than triangle PETE 1, because in a certain time ALU is recycled 100% and plastic is recycled just 20%" CreationDate="2020-04-29T15:32:53.640" UserId="8603" />
  <row Id="12594" PostId="10033" Score="1" Text="You also have to consider how energy-intensive the recycling process is, how far to the recycling facility etc." CreationDate="2020-04-29T19:04:47.990" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="12600" PostId="10033" Score="0" Text="@erik Thanks Eric, it's exactly one of the data I need. I have been looking for it but my city does not have official documentation about. I wonder if there are international laws forcing cities and countries to publish this kind of data.." CreationDate="2020-05-03T09:40:48.407" UserId="8603" />
  <row Id="12596" PostId="10034" Score="0" Text="A BMW i3 mitigates vehicle weight with a carbon-fiber body and with a load of batteries for a moderate driving range. A U.S. 2018 i3 has a driving range of 114 miles under optimum conditions. So if the car owner drives 50 miles a day they would just be inclined to keep the car charged for its own use. A U.S. 2019 i3 has a driving range of 153 miles." CreationDate="2020-04-30T00:20:04.557" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="12603" PostId="10036" Score="0" Text="This is a great answer, I already have the inverter / switch b/c that was required to sell back energy to the utility company.  Very annoying all the hoops we have to jump through, when we have solar readily available and a mobile battery.  *sigh*" CreationDate="2020-05-04T21:15:54.777" UserId="8675" />
  <row Id="12599" PostId="10038" Score="0" Text="Glad to hear it! You made me realize that i should update my description to specify that I'm mostly thinking about systems &quot;of a normal size to be marketed to an individual consumer.&quot;" CreationDate="2020-05-02T21:29:56.713" UserId="6870" />
  <row Id="12661" PostId="10038" Score="1" Text="What is &quot;normal size&quot;?" CreationDate="2020-06-02T10:20:09.757" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="12605" PostId="10040" Score="1" Text="Wealth leads to a decline in reproduction rates, visible e.g. in the demographic pyramids of e.g. Germany or the UK. So the question should rather be &quot;how much do we need to reduce our consumption rate&quot;." CreationDate="2020-05-06T08:50:35.917" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="12612" PostId="10040" Score="0" Text="@Erik: I’m trying to understand what the basic global aggregate fertility rate would need to be primarily to get a sense of magnitude. I think the dynamics of how to get to this rate would be a separate question, probably centred on the problem of decoupling: how to increase (or maintain) well-being sufficiently for birth rates to decrease (or remain low) while simultaneously lowering the consumption of natural resources." CreationDate="2020-05-07T12:14:21.773" UserId="8448" />
  <row Id="12613" PostId="10040" Score="0" Text="You need to population to drop to about 60 %, so when you know the time frame, you can calculate this quite easily. Within one generation it'd be a fertility rate of 0.6, the longer you stretch you time frame, the higher the rate may be. Still, it'd couldn't be 1.0 or above." CreationDate="2020-05-07T12:30:54.597" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="12614" PostId="10040" Score="0" Text="If consumption is held stable I understand that the global fertility rate would have to drop to 1 / 1.75 (EF) = 0.57 x 2 (the fertility rate measures number of children per woman) = 1.14 for the population to shrink into the ecological footprint within a generation. Only a few industrialised territories are at or below this level but it is generally not considered sustainable socio-economically and it is usually compensated with immigration of working age people to increase the dependency ratio. On a global aggregate level immigration would of course not be possible." CreationDate="2020-05-07T14:42:18.463" UserId="8448" />
  <row Id="12604" PostId="10041" Score="4" Text="This doesn't quite answer my question. Yes, tins are better than plastic, but if I want more chocolate powder, should I refill my tin by purchasing plastic-packaged refills, or buy new tins every time?" CreationDate="2020-05-05T23:36:50.317" UserId="8232" />
  <row Id="12700" PostId="10041" Score="2" Text="Tins are only better than plastic if you have a use case for them, i.e. if they are used &quot;as is&quot; over and over again to store stuff. If you use them only once, they're pretty terrible..." CreationDate="2020-06-26T07:29:39.767" UserId="8227" />
  <row Id="12606" PostId="10045" Score="0" Text="Hello and welcome! A good answer may depend on knowing what typical sorts of fruit you're talking about, and where you're located (or at least, what the climate is like, and how municipal waste is handled)." CreationDate="2020-05-06T13:24:56.373" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12608" PostId="10045" Score="0" Text="Today it was a banana, but it could have been anything (If you are saying it depends on the fruit, I think it could be part of the answer for everyone to benefit). I am in Israel (no idea how municipal waste works)." CreationDate="2020-05-06T13:53:11.200" UserId="8686" />
  <row Id="12611" PostId="10047" Score="0" Text="Thanks. The fact that other life forms would consume the waste is actually what drove my thinking. Instead of rotting in a confined space, nature would eat it away." CreationDate="2020-05-07T07:39:52.403" UserId="8686" />
  <row Id="12616" PostId="10047" Score="1" Text="The nature that eats waste is generally not the nature we like. Rats, beetles, wasps (for meat scraps), scavengers and squabblers. Attracting more of them to a park isn't helping anyone." CreationDate="2020-05-09T15:44:09.860" UserId="1053" />
  <row Id="12659" PostId="10047" Score="0" Text="This is a good answer, but it could be even better if it included some of the interesting details from the linked article on deschuteslandtrust.org. In particular, the time it takes for banana peels to decompose is relevant to the question." CreationDate="2020-05-28T19:48:48.073" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="12660" PostId="10047" Score="1" Text="Wonder if it being a park drives the whole answer. I am in similar situation n similar thinking but where I go for a daily walk, I am close to a  forest like bushes , secluded(not a designated or classified forest). Is it fine for me then to throw all veg n fruit waste  there? My living space isn't too suitable for composting." CreationDate="2020-05-29T15:28:10.970" UserId="2734" />
  <row Id="15643" PostId="10047" Score="0" Text="@Erik, &quot;put the fruit back into the packaging and throw it into the bin&quot;? &#xA;Are you serious? It goes against the spirit of dry/wet waste segregation. You need to upgrade your basic concept of waste disposal which even a high-school goer knows." CreationDate="2022-03-25T07:23:21.520" UserId="5534" />
  <row Id="15644" PostId="10047" Score="0" Text="@pongapundit please read the whole sentence and understand the context. Or are you aspiring to be a SUN-&quot;journalist&quot;?" CreationDate="2022-03-25T08:58:41.410" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="12615" PostId="10049" Score="0" Text="Thanks Bob.  That's a clever trick.  How dirty is the power when you cut it and restore it via GFI?  I'm wondering if you get spikes on that circuit or others nearby." CreationDate="2020-05-09T06:58:05.493" UserId="2727" />
  <row Id="12622" PostId="10051" Score="1" Text="Related question: &quot;[Is Linux more sustainable than Windows?](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/4824/99)&quot;" CreationDate="2020-05-17T15:10:17.473" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="12618" PostId="10052" Score="0" Text="Insteresting - i hadn't even considered the reboots as a factor. Which parts of the hardware would you say are affected? (you mentioned the monitor) Thanks!" CreationDate="2020-05-17T12:08:13.967" UserId="8712" />
  <row Id="12621" PostId="10052" Score="0" Text="When a computer crashes, if it is the hard-drive that crashed, then all the files are lost including recovery partition. The OS could be installed on another hard-drive if recovery disks were made. Working on a crashed computer would be easier with a full-size tower form-factor that has a side access panel." CreationDate="2020-05-17T12:57:09.393" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="12623" PostId="10052" Score="1" Text="To provide some anecdotal evidence: supporting your point on starting premium... my personal laptop was state-of-the art over six years ago, which I used for three years of grad school (more demanding than office work). It can no longer run processor-intensive applications, but works fine for home use. Meanwhile, my office buys mid-grade computers, and I've gone through two in the last three years." CreationDate="2020-05-17T15:37:20.660" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12635" PostId="10052" Score="1" Text="I get the 'buy premium' (anecdotal, but workstations from the main manufacturers easily last &gt;10 years it seems, so did my previous laptop, they all outlive the hard drives though, SSD or not, so that needs replacing), but can you elaborate on what the problem is with rebooting? Not rebooting means always on or a sleep mode. Both cases still require power (AFAIK) and I was under the impression that eletronic circuitry which gets used i.e. is powered ages faster. If that's correct, not using a desktop PC and switching off it's power completely could outweigh whatever problem rebooting causes?" CreationDate="2020-05-24T18:20:53.433" UserId="4158" />
  <row Id="12691" PostId="10052" Score="0" Text="@stijn: there are also zero-power &quot;sleep&quot; (sometimes called hibernation) modes. I wouldn't dare saying anything about aging, though. That is: for my laptop, the main aging probably happens when it is in my bike pannier :-/" CreationDate="2020-06-21T21:51:30.127" UserId="3722" />
  <row Id="12692" PostId="10052" Score="0" Text="As an addition to buy premium strategy, I can recommend buying used premium hardware. In particular laptops are routinely sold by companies after 3 years, and in my experience a 3 year old premium laptop gives a good compromise of linux supporting the hardware, still a whole lot of &quot;life&quot; left and it being *much* cheaper than new." CreationDate="2020-06-21T21:55:06.260" UserId="3722" />
  <row Id="12619" PostId="10053" Score="0" Text="Nice recap! Do you know wheter there are Linux distributions that commit to a longer lifetime (Xubuntu LTS seems to be 3 years)." CreationDate="2020-05-17T12:18:09.537" UserId="8712" />
  <row Id="12620" PostId="10053" Score="1" Text="@atmoas18 it's quite easy to upgrade from one LTS release to another. I think my current desktop started as 14.04 and is currently 18.04 so the 3 year cycle isn't too much of a problem. I think you could skip an LTS release and upgrade every 4 area while still getting security updates, though that may no longer be the case" CreationDate="2020-05-17T12:49:47.363" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="12630" PostId="10053" Score="1" Text="[This](https://askubuntu.com/q/1094744/178354) might be of interest regarding (X)Ubuntu support. Mainstream Ubuntu LTS versions have gone to 10-year security support lifetimes. You can also install Ubuntu LTS and a lightweight window manager like LXDE or XFCE if you find you need to improve performance (I've done this before)." CreationDate="2020-05-19T15:23:03.243" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="12624" PostId="10054" Score="1" Text="Where in the world are you? Answers may depend on whether it's native, provides equivalent resources to a native species, or is completely alien (I know, for example, that some common birds will nest in it in the UK)" CreationDate="2020-05-18T12:15:26.940" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="12626" PostId="10054" Score="1" Text="Deer love to eat the large privet -ligustrum.  Bees also love the flowers." CreationDate="2020-05-19T01:16:35.330" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="12690" PostId="10054" Score="0" Text="Both Crateagus (Weißdorn) and Prunus spinosa (Schwarzdorn, Schlehe) are native in Central Europe. The former will give you edible, red, mealy berries, the latter edible, blue, adstringent berries. As the names suggest, both are thorny. It is not true that Liguster is a green desert, but it is toxic e.g. for sheep or goat (but not for roe deer AFAIK). Weißdorn grows higher than Schwarzdorn, so it may not work for a low hedge." CreationDate="2020-06-21T21:45:58.933" UserId="3722" />
  <row Id="12664" PostId="10068" Score="0" Text="You're looking for ways to store recyclables before they're transported to recycling facilities?" CreationDate="2020-06-05T16:06:23.973" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12665" PostId="10068" Score="0" Text="Just squish it?" CreationDate="2020-06-08T06:58:56.390" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="12666" PostId="10068" Score="0" Text="@LShaver Yes, my current solution is just storing them in a cardboard box but due to the lightweight nature of the items plenty of air ends up between them, making the storing solution inefficient." CreationDate="2020-06-08T07:45:38.827" UserId="8752" />
  <row Id="12671" PostId="10074" Score="0" Text="Well, a paper bottle is going to have a plant-based thin plastic film lining it. The thin plastic film will be recyclable but not biodegrading in a natural environment before a couple of years." CreationDate="2020-06-10T19:56:50.783" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="12668" PostId="10075" Score="0" Text="Since this is a specific product, have you tried contacting the manufacturer?" CreationDate="2020-06-09T23:23:32.063" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12669" PostId="10075" Score="0" Text="I haven't .. they're in Finland I think.  But it's the principle I am interested in.  Can a solar air heater work inside better than outside ducting air into the house.  Or is there a principle I'm missing." CreationDate="2020-06-09T23:25:55.070" UserId="5517" />
  <row Id="12672" PostId="10076" Score="0" Text="the solar facing side is translucent plastic, and there's a PV panel inside to power the fan to move the air out.  this is the current product which looks black but mine is translucent so I can see the PV panel inside https://www.solarventi.com/product/sv7-air-up-to-50m%C2%B2/" CreationDate="2020-06-11T04:09:58.013" UserId="5517" />
  <row Id="12674" PostId="10076" Score="0" Text="Okay.  I think the analysis stands, then.  You're not paying for the electricity, at least, but you're not getting any extra power for free either.  The PV panel on the inside is probably serving as the primary site of heat gain - whatever doesn't turn into electricity goes into heating up the panel, then the air in the device and the rest of the structure of the device." CreationDate="2020-06-11T12:47:03.537" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="12678" PostId="10081" Score="0" Text="Total square footage/meterage of the solar panels is how much? They's *each* need to be over a square meter/yard to give 150W each, does that fit?" CreationDate="2020-06-18T03:03:27.403" UserId="1057" />
  <row Id="12681" PostId="10081" Score="0" Text="Hello, the most left label is &quot;PV&quot; under input. All panels are connected in series circuit.&#xA;Don't have any circuit diagram." CreationDate="2020-06-18T16:40:27.553" UserId="8772" />
  <row Id="12682" PostId="10081" Score="0" Text="Solar Panels Specs:&#xA;Rated Maximum Power 150W,&#xA;Maximum Power Voltage 20v,Maximum Power Current 8.02A" CreationDate="2020-06-18T17:07:35.890" UserId="8772" />
  <row Id="12689" PostId="10081" Score="0" Text="To confirm, you've got 7x20V panels in series = 140V nominal (137V measured?), and an inverter input rating of 24V (presumably ideal/minimum)?  Is that within spec?" CreationDate="2020-06-21T10:00:50.737" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="12693" PostId="10081" Score="0" Text="Without a complete wiring diagram (including batteries, if you have any) it will be difficult to troubleshoot this for you. We need to know what *should* be happening, in order to figure out why it isn't. Feel free to draw one on paper and include a photo of it." CreationDate="2020-06-23T14:02:42.083" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12694" PostId="10081" Score="0" Text="@ChrisH it *looks* like the inverter is combined with an MPPT charger... so the charger section takes 120 to 450 VDC and supplies 27VDC max to an inverter section with 24 VDC nominal input. But hard to say from the info here." CreationDate="2020-06-23T15:42:02.307" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12695" PostId="10081" Score="1" Text="@LShaver that would seem reasonable, though the rating plate appears to give undue prominence to the specifications in between the two parts of one unit - not very clear, and without more info from the OP we're not likely to get far." CreationDate="2020-06-23T18:48:51.187" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="13343" PostId="10081" Score="0" Text="What is the load connected to the system? The inverter will only draw as many watts as there are watts of load to supply." CreationDate="2021-01-18T15:17:41.430" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12679" PostId="10082" Score="0" Text="How many panels can you fit on the roof? If the van will be parked, it should be easy to set them up on a movable rack so you can tilt them toward the sun. Then lower them back to flat for when you're driving." CreationDate="2020-06-18T14:02:32.227" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12680" PostId="10082" Score="1" Text="@LShaver Tilting them towards the sun will sadly be not possible. The roof space is about 4m*1,6m. So the maximum I could mount would probably be 2x 360W panels because there also needs to be vents on the roof which take up space." CreationDate="2020-06-18T14:20:18.937" UserId="8782" />
  <row Id="12683" PostId="10083" Score="0" Text="With no one opening it ,it will be much more efficient than normal use. Some condensing coils may be built into the exterior so do't put insulation on the outside." CreationDate="2020-06-18T18:41:01.493" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="12684" PostId="10083" Score="0" Text="In general, for a house not suited for a large solar-panel system, a small solar-panel system could possibly be setup just to charge AGM batteries that run the refrigerator." CreationDate="2020-06-19T01:27:39.057" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="12702" PostId="10083" Score="0" Text="Slightly lowering the thermostat setting for the fridge may be an option. I have doubts about placing a large container of water in the fridge. I'm assuming that when first placed into the fridge the water will be at room temperature. The fridge has to do work to initially cool the water for it to act as a cool store." CreationDate="2020-06-28T10:12:04.957" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="12685" PostId="10085" Score="0" Text="Well, granulated paint on steel roofs is probably for climates that have hot sunlight most all year. And hardwood trees don't grow in climates that have very long winters but do grow in many four-season climates." CreationDate="2020-06-19T21:23:53.687" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="12687" PostId="10085" Score="0" Text="If the refrigerator is full with items having a constant temperature, why on earth would it run more than an empty refrigerator? To me, it seems that the only thing that matters is the temperature inside. Full or empty, doesn't matter in the long run although it can affect the cycling (lots of short cycles vs few long cycles)." CreationDate="2020-06-20T20:28:49.453" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="12688" PostId="10085" Score="0" Text="The refrigerator is not likely to be stuffed so full as to have a problem:https://www.dtappliance.com/blog/does-a-refrigerator-work-better-full-or-empty/ . Here is another link: https://products.geappliances.com/appliance/gea-support-search-content?contentId=16932 ." CreationDate="2020-06-20T21:00:41.503" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="12699" PostId="10087" Score="1" Text="Probably a bit of [xkcd 641](https://xkcd.com/641/)." CreationDate="2020-06-25T23:57:19.800" UserId="8232" />
  <row Id="12696" PostId="10088" Score="0" Text="Unplug everything that doesn't need to be running or on standby (WiFi, TV, PC, washing machine, etc). If you live in a house and have modern heating, turn down the heat as far as possbible. And how should your home use water while you're gone?" CreationDate="2020-06-24T14:27:23.420" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="12697" PostId="10088" Score="0" Text="@Erik I have a water softener that runs on a cycle. I'll turn that off." CreationDate="2020-06-25T01:48:44.803" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12703" PostId="10088" Score="0" Text="If you don't want to have totally cold water when you return home you could lower the temperature setting for the hot water heater. If you have air conditioning &amp; you turn it off at the main power supply you may need to wait 10-20 minutes before you can use it afterwards, as some AC units need to be warmed up before use." CreationDate="2020-06-28T10:17:07.110" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="12792" PostId="10089" Score="1" Text="And if you turn off the fridge, wedge the doors open. Otherwise every interior surface will be covered in mold.  It's impossible to get all the water out since much of it is behind the interior skins." CreationDate="2020-08-22T05:39:43.383" UserId="6925" />
  <row Id="12698" PostId="10090" Score="0" Text="Not a home owner, but my parents have a solar collector, combine with a large storage for hot water at theirs - plus the have a gas line for cold/cloudy times. Depending on where you're living, the collector plus a large enough storage might be enough to last through the year." CreationDate="2020-06-25T06:59:21.590" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="12711" PostId="10090" Score="0" Text="A couple of things to consider. Depending on the quality of water where you are, minerals from the water may be depositing on the inside of the water heater. With time these can build up rending the heater no longer usable, or repairable, requiring it to be replaced. Regarding instant hot water systems, they require a certain level of water flow before they start heating the water, so before you get any hot water from them they can waste a lot of water. by having the tap running to get hot water flowing." CreationDate="2020-07-06T09:30:59.450" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="12956" PostId="10090" Score="0" Text="**Update** - The responses to this question have varied wildly. It seems that location, local climate, install location (inside/outside/roof/ground/basement etc) and weather can all be a factor here. Keeping it open ended would be too broad, thus I have restricted this to the temperate climate of coastal Australia, which I believe is more reasonably scoped, and more closely aligns to the [actual problem that I face](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/help/dont-ask)." CreationDate="2020-10-07T00:03:03.963" UserId="8232" />
  <row Id="12715" PostId="10108" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! What's the intended usage? Consumption?&#xA;I think it's a topic the European Commission is working on; if you [search here](https://ec.europa.eu/search/index.do?queryText=water+reuse+quality+consumption)&#xA;you'll find all kinds of documents. &#xA;BTW asking for a (potential) long list of things is generally not a good fit for this website and such questions may be closed." CreationDate="2020-07-09T09:20:07.987" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="12716" PostId="10108" Score="0" Text="I was looking for a documents that has &quot; for usage 1, say toilet flushing, these are the allowed or preferable thresholds&quot;. Thank you so much for your help! i'll keep the question format in check next time :). On another note, would you recommend working with a country's general reclaimed wastewater quality thresholds if i didn't find anything specific to graywater regulations ?" CreationDate="2020-07-09T09:58:03.433" UserId="8823" />
  <row Id="12717" PostId="10108" Score="1" Text="Without knowing more what your goal is and where and when you intent to reuse the water we really cannot recommend anything. Feel free to ask another question about this, but please keep in mind that good questions focus on the problem you are trying to solve and should be objectively answerable." CreationDate="2020-07-09T12:01:30.707" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="12718" PostId="10108" Score="0" Text="Take a look at the [International Plumbing Code](https://www.iccsafe.org/content/international-plumbing-code-ipc-home-page/) (which, despite it's name, mostly applies to the US). They also list other relevant codes: BOCA National Plumbing Code, SBCCI Standard Plumbing Code, and ICBO Plumbing Code." CreationDate="2020-07-09T18:16:55.887" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12777" PostId="10108" Score="0" Text="I have edited this slightly, but I think it would be better if this question were to be reworded to ask what the guidelines are (or what the differences are between guidelines in different countries or regions), and then specify that you want them backed up by official sources, rather than asking specifically for off-site guidelines. I can help with this if you want?" CreationDate="2020-08-12T02:10:55.063" UserId="8232" />
  <row Id="12778" PostId="10108" Score="0" Text="A lot of Stack Exchange sites dislike questions that ask directly for off-site resources, 1) because it seems to be a bit of an [X-Y problem](https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/66378/179041) (i.e. if you need the resources (Y) because you're having some problem (X) - you should ask about X instead). and 2) any answer that simply links to off-site resources, will be useless when those resources are moved or deleted." CreationDate="2020-08-12T02:11:16.680" UserId="8232" />
  <row Id="12723" PostId="10111" Score="4" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! The article is indeed hard to find, so I would suggest to ask either the conference organization or the authors. Contact information of SETAC is [here](https://dublin.setac.org/contact-us/staff-contacts/)&#xA;The authors work(ed) at the Sustainable Engineering group of the Institute of Environmental Technology, Technische Universität Berlin and for 2 their email addresses are listed [here](https://www.see.tu-berlin.de/menue/about_us_team/parameter/en/)." CreationDate="2020-07-13T06:20:57.303" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="12725" PostId="10113" Score="0" Text="Best sources of advice on this will probably be 3D printer communities. My (limited) understanding is that plastic degrades when re-heated, but I don't know if that's all plastic or only certain types. +1 for an interesting question!" CreationDate="2020-07-17T01:15:18.690" UserId="8232" />
  <row Id="13500" PostId="10113" Score="0" Text="Wonder if the plastic, in the sea, can be recycled? This would surely clear up the ocean!" CreationDate="2021-03-05T22:13:22.917" UserId="9426" />
  <row Id="13501" PostId="10113" Score="0" Text="This is a fascinating question.  I have always heard to never melt plastics around anything living because of toxic fumes that are emitted." CreationDate="2021-03-08T01:38:42.137" UserId="2727" />
  <row Id="12728" PostId="10117" Score="3" Text="Wooden buildings are an option to &quot;store&quot; CO2 for a while. Not indefinitely, since wood, not matter how well taken care of it is, will decay. In fact, with all the transportation and other stuff built into the bouse, the net effect will not even be zero, but above. Still, compared to a building made from concrete the CO2 footprint will be way better." CreationDate="2020-07-20T09:44:34.597" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="13317" PostId="10117" Score="4" Text="How many years is the &quot;long run&quot; to you? The answer will vary depending on whether you're asking about 10, 100, or 1000 years (or more)." CreationDate="2021-01-13T02:52:52.847" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="12727" PostId="10118" Score="5" Text="If it's an antique the refrigerant (if any is left) is likely of the ozone-depleting CFC type. A good first question might be about how to safely remove that from a fridge you don't plan to use." CreationDate="2020-07-18T15:26:56.480" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12738" PostId="10118" Score="0" Text="Note even if it's not a CFC type, refrigerants are amongst the most potent greenhouse gasses so if you're not actually going to use the fridge it would still be advisable to try to dispose the gas." CreationDate="2020-07-29T19:58:26.617" UserId="4158" />
  <row Id="12779" PostId="10118" Score="0" Text="You can use it to keep your clothes in it" CreationDate="2020-07-22T02:19:41.657" UserId="8858" />
  <row Id="12798" PostId="10118" Score="2" Text="If it isn't &quot;worth anything&quot; as an antique, you could turn it into a smoker ala: https://dengarden.com/misc/how-to-turn-an-old-fridge-into-a-cold-smoker-73526" CreationDate="2020-08-24T10:45:58.483" UserId="1701" />
  <row Id="13344" PostId="10120" Score="0" Text="Is there a specific question?" CreationDate="2021-01-18T15:19:21.580" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13348" PostId="10120" Score="0" Text="@LShaver No. Not a specific question, loads of em! I thought someone may have already solved this... And the upvotes suggest other people are hoping others have too!&#xA;&#xA;I guess not - but I have shifted to kratky based hydroponics, so sidestepping the regular watering thing entirely..." CreationDate="2021-01-18T21:58:35.133" UserId="4343" />
  <row Id="12729" PostId="10121" Score="0" Text="That's a good point on re-selling parts -- the refrigerant lines are likely copper, which could sell for a decent price." CreationDate="2020-07-21T03:44:17.803" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12730" PostId="10121" Score="1" Text="@LShaver Very true. In terms of scrap worth, you're probably looking at $20-$50 worth of copper, if I recall correctly it hovers around $5-$10/kg and there's probably a couple of kilos of copper on the back of those old fridges." CreationDate="2020-07-21T04:15:11.323" UserId="8232" />
  <row Id="12737" PostId="10121" Score="1" Text="Not convinced if it would be economical to keep it in service; in any case when it's on it consumes energy, and depending on what 'antique' is, how big it is and what local energy costs are, it could actually be cheaper to get a second-hand recent fridge to cool the same amount of goods and in just a couple of years that pays itself back (wrt keeping the old fridge running). And, you can still have the doghouse :)" CreationDate="2020-07-29T19:55:13.793" UserId="4158" />
  <row Id="12790" PostId="10121" Score="1" Text="Another reason to have a fridge shop suck out the Freon is, they’re not making any more. Recovered Freon is the only remaining source." CreationDate="2020-08-20T22:21:06.973" UserId="6925" />
  <row Id="12731" PostId="10123" Score="0" Text="Standard plywood has formaldehyde in it that many applications would want to avoid. There is a plastic that can be made from carbon-dioxide that is a less toxic replacement for formaldehyde. Possibly cut the clips off the end of a rough cedar 4-by-4. They could be broken by hand but most users wouldn't break them." CreationDate="2020-07-22T04:41:03.390" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="13326" PostId="10124" Score="1" Text="[GreatOutdoors.SE](https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/) might be another place to get an answer to this question." CreationDate="2021-01-13T15:09:23.377" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13341" PostId="10124" Score="0" Text="Thanks! I will try that." CreationDate="2021-01-16T22:01:49.413" UserId="6870" />
  <row Id="12744" PostId="10126" Score="0" Text="I'm not sure how regulations are in Columbia, but where I live all houses and apartments are required to be connected to the sewer system. The only other option is to get a special permit and install an alternative waste system but that is also bound to specific regulations. Any idea if there are such regulations in Columbia? If not perhaps that's a question to ask on law.stackexchange.com" CreationDate="2020-07-31T11:44:43.457" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="12766" PostId="10132" Score="1" Text="I can't comment on the weight but the problem is losses - 10% losses when charging a bus is a lot of waste heat." CreationDate="2020-08-06T21:09:15.000" UserId="1921" />
  <row Id="12767" PostId="10132" Score="1" Text="Since the buses are uniform, it's probably more efficient and cheaper to use a train overhead system like trams use" CreationDate="2020-08-06T21:15:38.370" UserId="1921" />
  <row Id="12787" PostId="10132" Score="1" Text="Yeah these days you use a segmented pantograph, with diodes to auto select the DC hot wire vs the return.  Or AC, the diodes care not..." CreationDate="2020-08-20T21:38:13.303" UserId="6925" />
  <row Id="12788" PostId="10132" Score="0" Text="@w unfortunately the San Francisco Muni and other systems  are NOT responding to the electric transport revolution by adding more trolley bus wire to more routes.  I’m not aware of any trolleybus “new starts” either. They seem to be going into battery and hybrid more." CreationDate="2020-08-20T21:41:12.240" UserId="6925" />
  <row Id="12799" PostId="10132" Score="0" Text="To be fair, busses are just about a no brainer for hybrid technology. They stop and start constantly so regenerative braking is a big deal, and if you plan for it you could build them to be easy to retrofit to pure BEV later when the price is right.&#xA;&#xA;Building overhead wires is expensive and makes it harder to change bus routes at a later date." CreationDate="2020-08-24T22:52:17.237" UserId="5479" />
  <row Id="13112" PostId="10132" Score="0" Text="The problem is normally less about the weight on the bus and more about the size of the charger. Since current buses can do a full day in service without charging, then charge overnight, the question is whether you can have a smaller battery if you charge the bus while it's in service. In other words, what fraction of the route time can you cover with chargers? Since buses mostly move, that means in effect how much of the route can you build wireless chargers underneath... now do you see the problem?" CreationDate="2020-11-16T20:16:42.680" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="12768" PostId="10141" Score="0" Text="Do you mean taking whole plants in areas that are going to be deforested anyway?" CreationDate="2020-08-06T23:17:01.420" UserId="8232" />
  <row Id="12770" PostId="10141" Score="0" Text="Have a look at [the indian guy who planted a forest on his own](https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2017/12/26/572421590/hed-take-his-own-life-before-killing-a-tree-meet-india-s-forest-man?t=1596783111822)" CreationDate="2020-08-07T06:52:19.407" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="12950" PostId="10141" Score="0" Text="Why not just plant New ones from seedling." CreationDate="2020-10-05T04:23:51.707" UserId="9007" />
  <row Id="12776" PostId="10144" Score="1" Text="I remember reading somewhere that in a dense forest seedlings will often die because of competition for water and sunlight, so in that case moving them to a different location could be a net +1. But as you say, it would be best to hear from a real dendrologist." CreationDate="2020-08-10T14:41:24.177" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12771" PostId="10146" Score="3" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Could you add your location to the question, or better yet the average day temperature?" CreationDate="2020-08-07T11:07:33.770" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="12772" PostId="10146" Score="2" Text="BTW there's a related question [here](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/5455/99)" CreationDate="2020-08-07T11:08:51.077" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="12775" PostId="10146" Score="0" Text="@THelper I saw that I was just wondering about the mirror and fresnel lens. I also learned about Carbon paper and now I am thinking of a design. I still need help with the design if you want. Also, I am exploring lithium from seawater using desalination. Also, I live in Texas, but this is meant for people who need it, like people in India, Africa, and turkey. Also for fishermen or anybody on the coast." CreationDate="2020-08-08T16:49:56.050" UserId="8893" />
  <row Id="13327" PostId="10146" Score="0" Text="You might get answers to this question on [GreatOutdoors.SE](https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/)." CreationDate="2021-01-13T15:10:47.453" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12769" PostId="10147" Score="2" Text="I think we'd need some more information about that packaging material and its properties." CreationDate="2020-08-07T06:50:30.397" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="12773" PostId="10147" Score="0" Text="@Erik I don't know much I just read somewhere about using potato peels we could make some biodegradable food packaging. I was wondering If yall knew anything about it to help me." CreationDate="2020-08-08T16:47:22.683" UserId="8893" />
  <row Id="12774" PostId="10148" Score="0" Text="@S Spring Wow thanks for the info, that is very helpful, I am currently looking into that right now." CreationDate="2020-08-08T16:48:10.053" UserId="8893" />
  <row Id="12780" PostId="10149" Score="0" Text="This isn't quite an answer but https://www.foodanddrinknews.co.uk/2012/sodastream-has-achieved-product-carbon-footprint-certification-from-the-carbon-trust/ reports that the SodaStream &quot;cola syrup&quot; has a carbon footprint 75% lower than other &quot;cola drinks&quot; distributed in PET bottles.  If you found the carbon footprint of a &quot;cola drink&quot; and the carbon footprint of a SodaStream then you'd be close to being able to calculate how many &quot;cola drinks&quot; it takes to break even.  I don't know if &quot;cola drinks&quot; and &quot;sparkling water&quot; have comparable footprints or not." CreationDate="2020-08-13T13:36:41.877" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="12786" PostId="10149" Score="0" Text="Are deposit glass bottles a thing anywhere?  Just yesterday I found residue of one of the 1980s deposit glass bottles of Mountain Dew; our lodge was basically built on that stuff lol." CreationDate="2020-08-20T21:34:09.407" UserId="6925" />
  <row Id="12789" PostId="10149" Score="0" Text="@Harper-ReinstateMonica They are pretty common in Germany." CreationDate="2020-08-20T21:55:05.600" UserId="3659" />
  <row Id="12860" PostId="10149" Score="0" Text="Some places have container deposit laws so almost every drink bottle or can has that deposit built in. Where I live it's only 20c but applies to most things (milk and wine bottles are the main exceptions. Beer bottles have the deposit) https://www.epa.nsw.gov.au/your-environment/recycling-and-reuse/return-and-earn" CreationDate="2020-09-05T22:30:58.003" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="12863" PostId="10149" Score="0" Text="Not a direct answer to the headline-question, just a COMMENT about involved things:&#xA;Soda stream water, made of CO2 and mains water should not be directly compared to high quality mineral water, because of big differences in mineral contents and taste. Bottled mineral water might be more good for health (contents and weight lifting). If people that are longer healthy are more sustainable for this planet or not is a very complex question, because it depends on how they live and how much children they produce, etc. Some people might find out, after buying soda-stream, that it is NOT the same as a" CreationDate="2020-08-27T17:59:53.393" UserId="8936" />
  <row Id="12957" PostId="10149" Score="0" Text="You don't even need the soda stream, a bottle of club soda is cheaper" CreationDate="2020-10-06T19:03:47.370" UserId="9007" />
  <row Id="12782" PostId="10150" Score="0" Text="Despite the things you mention (lack of insulation etc - though an unused room with no ventilation also by itself acts as a bit of extra insulation from the outside), the sheer decrease in volume and wall area wich is in contact with the heat source (i.e. the outside) directly should still make this worth it and result in decrease in energy usage. I can't pinpoint the exact physics laws behind it though, would guess 2nd law of thermodynamics." CreationDate="2020-08-19T07:44:02.030" UserId="4158" />
  <row Id="12816" PostId="10151" Score="0" Text="Hello everyone, thank you for your answers to help me out. I tried vinegar, baking soda with vinegar, which are the so-called &quot;popular&quot; method by &quot;Dr. Google&quot; and popular magazines out there, but NONE works. I tried citric acid and it works very quickly, I don't have to leave it there for hours. However, you need to use the right toilet brush. The traditional round brush won't work, but why is it still sold everywhere?! Use the toilet brush like Joseph Joseph Flex Lite toilet brush, it reaches almost all areas." CreationDate="2020-08-28T13:10:31.110" UserId="8910" />
  <row Id="12814" PostId="10152" Score="0" Text="Hello Robotnik, thank you. you are right about the pool of water there. The problem is this toilet bowl cannot be drained of water, there is no shutoff valve anywhere." CreationDate="2020-08-28T12:59:39.767" UserId="8910" />
  <row Id="12781" PostId="10153" Score="1" Text="This might be better suited for diy.stackexchange.com" CreationDate="2020-08-18T23:41:31.620" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="12784" PostId="10153" Score="0" Text="Looks like you got some help over on [DIY.stackexchange.com](https://diy.stackexchange.com/questions/201422/how-to-identify-electrical-panel-busbar-rating)." CreationDate="2020-08-19T18:05:58.987" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12815" PostId="10156" Score="0" Text="Hello NaniBly, thank you for your answer. You are right about the tool, I tried another toilet brush Joseph Joseph Flex-Lite and it reaches almost all areas in the bowl." CreationDate="2020-08-28T13:05:24.797" UserId="8910" />
  <row Id="12793" PostId="10158" Score="0" Text="I forgot to mention it in the question, but the hot water system would be installed outside in my case. We also have mild winters and hot summers here." CreationDate="2020-08-22T09:53:58.053" UserId="8232" />
  <row Id="12794" PostId="10158" Score="2" Text="I've never heard of a heat pump which takes heat from a room. Sounds mad (as you imply).  Mine - an air-source heat pump takes heat from outside air (even in the winter).  The best (ground source heat pumps) take heat from below ground where temperatures are stable year-round, but they have a high capital cost." CreationDate="2020-08-23T23:00:09.260" UserId="1445" />
  <row Id="12795" PostId="10158" Score="0" Text="@aucuparia its a heat pump *water heater* we're talking about. It's a new product type." CreationDate="2020-08-24T01:29:42.813" UserId="6925" />
  <row Id="12797" PostId="10158" Score="0" Text="Interesting - may be a country-specific thing then: separate water heaters are very unusual in the UK, space heating and hot water are nearly always done by the same system." CreationDate="2020-08-24T06:51:51.017" UserId="1445" />
  <row Id="12801" PostId="10158" Score="0" Text="@aucuparia That is interesting. Hasn't been a thing in Australia - hot water and home heating/cooling systems have generally been completely separate appliances. There might be some exceptions (especially in newer homes/estates) that I am not aware of however." CreationDate="2020-08-25T02:09:20.400" UserId="8232" />
  <row Id="13234" PostId="10158" Score="1" Text="I had a heat pump hot water system.   The cylinder was relocated outside, so extra bonus of more cupboard space." CreationDate="2021-01-07T23:16:19.610" UserId="9219" />
  <row Id="12808" PostId="10161" Score="1" Text="Two things come to mind; 1) ceramic mugs have a high impact from production phase, so if they have a short life because they break, or if they are washed often with lots of hot water then their impact will be higher than that of a plastic cup (see also https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/5173/99)&#xA;2) canvas bags also have a large impact from manufacturing, so also need to be reused a lot before their life-time impact is lower than a plastic bag (see https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/5840/99). But if used properly both should still have a lower impact." CreationDate="2020-08-27T08:16:15.913" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="12809" PostId="10161" Score="0" Text="Thank you, so this relates to not using multi-use products often enough or high costs in being able to use a reusable product again. I'd be happy if you make this an answer." CreationDate="2020-08-27T09:54:37.083" UserId="453" />
  <row Id="12817" PostId="10162" Score="0" Text="Hello Didi, I haven't tried the all-in-one eco dishwasher tablets. it is not limescale though, it is rust. Thank you." CreationDate="2020-08-28T13:13:56.483" UserId="8910" />
  <row Id="12811" PostId="10163" Score="0" Text="Here are a couple of links: &#xA;https://fuelcellsworks.com/news/repsol-to-invest-60-million-euros-to-develop-net-zero-synthetic-fuel-plant-based-on-green-hydrogen/&#xA;&#xA;https://www.petroleum-economist.com/articles/low-carbon-energy/energy-transition/2020/repsol-repositions-for-green-hydrogen" CreationDate="2020-08-27T20:57:26.457" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="12812" PostId="10165" Score="0" Text="Can always needing a new cap be an argument, seeing the exact same thing is true for any single-use bin as well? Perhaps because of the material used? Besides there are glass bottles which don't use the caps you talk about but reusable ones (don't know the names, similar to weck jars). Anyway: even though I think you're probably right, without actually running any numbers at all to support the claim ('a lot' of energy, reused only 'a few' times) I'm not sure this really provides the answer the OP is looking for?" CreationDate="2020-08-28T07:45:38.453" UserId="4158" />
  <row Id="12813" PostId="10165" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Do you have any references that provide evidence that glass containers are less sustainable?" CreationDate="2020-08-28T08:58:40.897" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="12818" PostId="10167" Score="0" Text="I see the sustainability connection, but I think this question might be a better fit on [Skeptics.SE](https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/)." CreationDate="2020-08-28T18:13:09.220" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12819" PostId="10168" Score="0" Text="Is your current fridge/freezer an upright model?  What are your usage patterns like?  Do you go months without any refrigeration needs?  Or is it more like you're always using 10% of the available capacity?  Or something else?" CreationDate="2020-08-29T14:07:56.160" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="12820" PostId="10168" Score="0" Text="Thanks, good questions! My fridge is upright and probably about 10 years old. I always use about 0.3 cubic feet of fridge space and 0.2 cubic feet of freezer space. The fridge space is vegetables and the freezer space is ice packs. This arrangement doesn't really vary throughout time. Not sure what temperature I keep everything at." CreationDate="2020-08-29T17:52:13.450" UserId="6870" />
  <row Id="12825" PostId="10170" Score="0" Text="I've read that it's best to replace fridges or freezers of 10+ years old with a new energy-efficient one. Old freezers use so much energy that a new one will offset the environmental impact of the new freezer's production. If you decide to buy new it would be best to buy one that is just the right size for your purposes." CreationDate="2020-08-30T10:25:52.557" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="12828" PostId="10170" Score="0" Text="Thanks! That makes a lot of sense. Do you know where I can find super-tiny (&lt;1 cubic foot) freezers?" CreationDate="2020-08-31T14:28:02.780" UserId="6870" />
  <row Id="12829" PostId="10170" Score="0" Text="Can't help you there I'm afraid. The smallest stand-alone freezers I've seen are 30 liter / 1.1 cubic foot. A more energy-efficient option may be a small fridge with built-in freezing compartment." CreationDate="2020-08-31T14:52:31.747" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="12830" PostId="10170" Score="0" Text="Thanks! That's great advice." CreationDate="2020-08-31T15:02:14.253" UserId="6870" />
  <row Id="12827" PostId="10173" Score="0" Text="Thanks! This looks perfect. Do you have a way to estimate what percent of the time it would need to be running if it were used year-round?" CreationDate="2020-08-31T13:53:10.723" UserId="6870" />
  <row Id="12832" PostId="10173" Score="0" Text="I would try asking the manufacturer" CreationDate="2020-08-31T17:07:55.313" UserId="251" />
  <row Id="12833" PostId="10173" Score="0" Text="Thanks a lot! I did that and they directed me to this: https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0343/7179/7125/files/md14f-performance-chart.pdf?v=1589216073 ; can anyone guess whether the amperage draw listed there represents a) the amperage draw for the time period when the device is running or b) for the time period when it is running plus when it is not running?" CreationDate="2020-08-31T18:42:52.917" UserId="6870" />
  <row Id="12933" PostId="10173" Score="0" Text="This is a great answer, thanks! I just picked one of the two at random." CreationDate="2020-09-25T23:50:44.937" UserId="6870" />
  <row Id="12826" PostId="10174" Score="2" Text="Hi wilkvolk welcome to the site and thanks for your answer :) I do have one question - how is an air leak any different or worse than cooling an entire room that is not being used?" CreationDate="2020-08-30T23:21:34.057" UserId="8232" />
  <row Id="13422" PostId="10175" Score="0" Text="I found a few references that may address this question. Hopefully someone with a bit more time and a better understanding of the topic can take these and write an answer: Peer-reviewed articles from Germany: [1](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2016.10.012), [2](https://doi.org/10.1007/s00107-015-0953-6). From the U.S. Forest Products Lab: [1](https://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/pdf2014/fpl_2014_bergman007.pdf), [2](https://www.fs.usda.gov/treesearch/pubs/44001). [Peer-reviewed article from an environmental consultant in the U.S.](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2010.12.004)" CreationDate="2021-02-04T16:44:26.010" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13335" PostId="10176" Score="1" Text="Rheostat temperature control of a refrigerator would be exceptionally unusual . They were used in electric heaters.." CreationDate="2021-01-14T22:30:41.287" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="13340" PostId="10176" Score="0" Text="Ah okay thanks! You're right--it's probably something else. But it is a dial with no temperature markings on it." CreationDate="2021-01-16T22:00:47.693" UserId="6870" />
  <row Id="12831" PostId="10177" Score="0" Text="Great ideas, thanks! I will try that." CreationDate="2020-08-31T15:36:42.493" UserId="6870" />
  <row Id="13356" PostId="10178" Score="0" Text="I would use a multimeter and buy a few resistors for the low end, but that involves playing with mains voltages and even in Japan or the US that's not for everyone. One option is renting a proper power meter and comparing the outputs. But that's likely to cost more than buying a cheap one. FWIW my PowerMate meter gives the same results as my $20 cheap one down to about 5W, at which point the cheap one guesses and is often within a factor of two of the correct result (it's not consistent either, so it's not very useful for sub-5W loads)." CreationDate="2021-01-19T21:55:20.490" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="12836" PostId="10179" Score="0" Text="I'm not sure of whether it would be more or less efficient (i.e. whether heating up cold water might take more energy than simply maintaining it at temp), but another option might be to dial the temperature down while you're away, and have it only maintain the lower temperature." CreationDate="2020-09-02T00:05:45.393" UserId="8232" />
  <row Id="12837" PostId="10179" Score="1" Text="Does it have a pilot light, or electronic ignition?" CreationDate="2020-09-02T00:19:30.867" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12839" PostId="10179" Score="0" Text="I wouldn't bother.Depending where you are ,the minimum monthly gas charge is very likely exceeds the cost of the gas used." CreationDate="2020-09-03T00:19:06.507" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="12843" PostId="10179" Score="0" Text="@LShaver good question! Electric ignition" CreationDate="2020-09-03T23:40:36.807" UserId="6870" />
  <row Id="12856" PostId="10189" Score="1" Text="&quot;Highly efficient, it typically draws around 1 to 2 Amps per hour&quot; -- I would stay away from any refrigerator whose marketing material uses the unit &quot;amps/hour&quot;. Not only that, but it looks small so it must have very little space and very little insulation, i.e. huge losses for tiny interior space." CreationDate="2020-09-05T11:15:28.467" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="12858" PostId="10189" Score="0" Text="Haha, I am not too crazy about amps/hour either. I'm told that this company is popular in the &quot;sailing community,&quot; see here: https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/10168/how-to-get-a-small-volume-of-freezer-capacity-with-high-efficiency-and-low-cost/10173#10173. But I guess that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with efficiency." CreationDate="2020-09-05T20:57:21.517" UserId="6870" />
  <row Id="12859" PostId="10189" Score="0" Text="@juhist Assuming you believed the data sheet, what do you think of my methodology and how it compares to EPA? Also, would there be a good way to insulate this thing to reduce the loss?" CreationDate="2020-09-05T20:58:00.863" UserId="6870" />
  <row Id="12881" PostId="10189" Score="0" Text="@juhist Maybe it has polyurethane insulation based on this review of a similar-looking product? https://shedheads.net/the-best-coolers/engel-review/" CreationDate="2020-09-08T18:12:41.333" UserId="6870" />
  <row Id="13350" PostId="10189" Score="1" Text="I don't think there's enough data here to answer the question. The heading at the top says &quot;NO LOAD.&quot; Presumably this means the plots are for an empty cooler, which probably isn't what you're interested in doing with it." CreationDate="2021-01-18T22:03:15.010" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15144" PostId="10192" Score="0" Text="I actually think the transportation of full bottles of water would play a bigger factor in the equation than indicated in this answer, but I couldn't say how much. Another consideration is that there may be some benefit from drawing smaller amounts of water from millions of different locations (as in the case with soda stream) rather than millions of gallons from just a few locations (as with bottling plants)." CreationDate="2021-10-25T10:47:11.823" UserId="1701" />
  <row Id="12903" PostId="10195" Score="0" Text="Do you know what happens when you burn plywood? This [article](https://wooddad.com/what-wood-is-toxic-to-burn/#Plywood_Chipboard_Wood_Pallets_or_Stained_Wood) suggests that burning plywood in a domestic fire will produce toxic gasses. It is a genuine question ... I've no idea whether the article is reliable or not." CreationDate="2020-09-12T21:21:10.700" UserId="8013" />
  <row Id="12904" PostId="10195" Score="0" Text="@MJuckes Maybe yes, but then again large scale waste-to-energy plants have a high temperature and burn the waste in the presence of methane." CreationDate="2020-09-12T22:38:17.370" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="12871" PostId="10200" Score="0" Text="This is a great answer, thank you for this and for educating others (and yes of course CO != CO2, schoolboy error from me!)" CreationDate="2020-09-08T09:57:30.730" UserId="8041" />
  <row Id="12882" PostId="10203" Score="0" Text="That's still the best answer, though costs will have gone down significantly. Can you link that question?" CreationDate="2020-09-08T20:25:37.207" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12883" PostId="10203" Score="0" Text="Good idea! I edited the question." CreationDate="2020-09-08T20:32:30.407" UserId="6870" />
  <row Id="12884" PostId="10203" Score="0" Text="@LShaver Thanks a lot! That makes sense. I guess my other concern is that heat pump might not be suitable for a low target temperature (for me &quot;low&quot;=45°F)? Not sure. My understanding is that heat pumps tend to perform better at higher temperatures." CreationDate="2020-09-08T20:34:23.870" UserId="6870" />
  <row Id="12879" PostId="10204" Score="1" Text="It's generally not recommended to keep a house at less than 45 degrees F, for precisely this reason. Any solution that doesn't involve heat can only delay freezing, but may not prevent it entirely." CreationDate="2020-09-08T17:00:31.620" UserId="5953" />
  <row Id="12880" PostId="10204" Score="0" Text="Thanks! I'll turn it up to 50 if you tell me more of your secrets :)" CreationDate="2020-09-08T17:02:47.163" UserId="6870" />
  <row Id="12891" PostId="10205" Score="0" Text="This strongly borders on HomeImprovement.SE topics." CreationDate="2020-09-09T06:48:52.047" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="12913" PostId="10205" Score="2" Text="How would water freeze at &quot;plus 4 degrees Celsius&quot;?" CreationDate="2020-09-17T10:33:28.613" UserId="679" />
  <row Id="12915" PostId="10205" Score="0" Text="@sharptooth Good question. I am not a scientist/engineer, but I was thinking maybe the water in the pipes could be cooled by water outside the room." CreationDate="2020-09-17T13:48:16.053" UserId="6870" />
  <row Id="12916" PostId="10205" Score="2" Text="Yes, that's possible but if that water freezes then all adjacent pipes are also at risk." CreationDate="2020-09-17T15:22:33.593" UserId="679" />
  <row Id="12885" PostId="10206" Score="0" Text="Thanks, that helps a lot! Your link to the health risk post made me think. For other interested readers, I think the most important thing there is &quot;TLDR: condensation-&gt;mold.&quot;" CreationDate="2020-09-08T22:27:04.390" UserId="6870" />
  <row Id="12886" PostId="10206" Score="0" Text="In the scenario you recommend, where I had a heat pump with capacity sufficient for 90% or 95% of days, would you expect the heat pump to function &quot;significantly&quot; more efficiently than baseboard or other comparable alternatives?" CreationDate="2020-09-08T22:28:59.120" UserId="6870" />
  <row Id="12887" PostId="10206" Score="1" Text="I edited to explain COP a bit more. The heat pump will be more efficient than any electric resistance or fuel combustion system, which by their nature can not have a COP higher than 1 (100% efficiency)." CreationDate="2020-09-08T22:40:58.783" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12888" PostId="10206" Score="0" Text="Ooh thanks! I should have researched a bit more before posting the question." CreationDate="2020-09-08T23:15:41.263" UserId="6870" />
  <row Id="12889" PostId="10206" Score="0" Text="I'll mark this as the answer tomorrow :)" CreationDate="2020-09-08T23:27:39.163" UserId="6870" />
  <row Id="12890" PostId="10206" Score="1" Text="so to oversimplify, basically the heat pump will always be more efficient than baseboard, it's just that it can only do the job under certain conditions?" CreationDate="2020-09-08T23:37:57.783" UserId="6870" />
  <row Id="12908" PostId="10206" Score="1" Text="Basically, yes -- the heat pump can *always* provide heat more efficiently than the baseboard, it's a question of whether it can provide *enough* heat to maintain the temperature of the house." CreationDate="2020-09-14T20:22:13.837" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12893" PostId="10207" Score="0" Text="Cool, thanks! I'll mark this as the answer tomorrow." CreationDate="2020-09-09T15:07:58.087" UserId="6870" />
  <row Id="12932" PostId="10207" Score="0" Text="any ideas of how to estimate the necessary flow rate under various conditions?" CreationDate="2020-09-25T23:49:12.013" UserId="6870" />
  <row Id="12936" PostId="10207" Score="1" Text="Given the physics involved (pipe length, material, the spaces it passes through, temperature of the water), I think trial and error would be the way to go." CreationDate="2020-09-26T13:35:09.970" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12938" PostId="10207" Score="0" Text="As I do this experimentation, is there a good way to measure when I am getting &quot;closer to freezing the pipes,&quot; rather than just waiting for the pipes to freeze? Maybe I could periodically turn the flow up and see whether it seems low? Also is there a good way to inspect exposed pipe to check for ice inside?" CreationDate="2020-09-26T16:24:45.390" UserId="6870" />
  <row Id="12912" PostId="10208" Score="0" Text="And then the people using cars create two times more polution (with transportation) than the people who don't." CreationDate="2020-09-17T10:02:51.053" UserId="8934" />
  <row Id="12931" PostId="10216" Score="0" Text="From my googling, it looks like an important element is that freezers are also just more insulated all around, similar to your &quot;relief&quot; valve point." CreationDate="2020-09-25T23:48:17.910" UserId="6870" />
  <row Id="12940" PostId="10216" Score="2" Text="Two further factors are: (1) the fridge linked to is a larger volume than the freezer and (2) it is a top-loading freezer, which means that the heat exchange when the door is  open is far less than for the side-opening fridge. If people would buy top-loading fridges, they could be significantly more efficient." CreationDate="2020-09-27T16:42:22.303" UserId="8013" />
  <row Id="12930" PostId="10217" Score="0" Text="Thanks! Do you have any guidelines on where to apply insulation, other than avoid places where heat is coming out?" CreationDate="2020-09-25T23:47:14.187" UserId="6870" />
  <row Id="13111" PostId="10226" Score="0" Text="Can you explain more why the plug-in charger needs the 75kg &quot;coil plate&quot;? It would also be useful if you gave references for the claims about reduced battery size, since disagreements about those are normally where wireless charging stops being useful (viz: if the bus has to stop for an hour to charge after every hour of service no-one cares what sort of charger it uses). But if instead you have to build chargers covering 50% of every bus route that's just grossly unreasonable." CreationDate="2020-11-16T20:13:48.947" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="13150" PostId="10226" Score="0" Text="@Móż the coil plate is not required -- that was a typo. I've added some additional references about battery size reduction." CreationDate="2020-12-07T19:35:03.980" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13165" PostId="10226" Score="0" Text="Thanks. The Korean paper is really interesting. Looks as though their conclusion is that  you need a very frequent service to justify wireless chargers, and you need to cover more than just the bus stops. But in some circumstances, yes you can save weight by wireless charging. Does make me wonder how trolleybuses compare on those routes." CreationDate="2020-12-11T08:03:22.793" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="13543" PostId="10226" Score="0" Text="@LShaver thank you so much for your reply, I didn't see this at the time.  This is really helpful" CreationDate="2021-03-31T10:16:46.003" UserId="8041" />
  <row Id="12917" PostId="10228" Score="0" Text="Hello.  Welcome to sustainable living.  There seems to be ample information about optimal incubator conditions available online.  Did you look for it and have trouble finding it?  Was it unclear?" CreationDate="2020-09-18T12:53:24.163" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="12918" PostId="10228" Score="0" Text="Thank you Jean Paul Calderone for the comment. I will look for the optimal conditions and update my question soon." CreationDate="2020-09-18T13:06:21.823" UserId="8976" />
  <row Id="12922" PostId="10231" Score="0" Text="Interestingly, one of the ways that more efficient washers save energy is by spinning faster - this removes more water from clothing, meaning less energy is needed for drying. For the eco-conscious, it has the benefit of making line drying more feasible." CreationDate="2020-09-23T12:15:01.870" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12944" PostId="10231" Score="0" Text="@LShaver - That's interesting, I never considered that! Line drying is the default here - even soaked clothes only need a few hours in the sun - so I just assumed washers spun slower to conserve power." CreationDate="2020-09-29T06:33:35.290" UserId="8232" />
  <row Id="13347" PostId="10231" Score="0" Text="You'd probably have to look into the product details to know for sure the difference. Could be that one uses hot water and the other doesn't? If you have the model number of a specific product with these options we could dig into it." CreationDate="2021-01-18T15:27:32.607" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13349" PostId="10231" Score="0" Text="@LShaver I'll see about getting the make/model when I get home" CreationDate="2021-01-18T21:59:21.723" UserId="8232" />
  <row Id="13143" PostId="10233" Score="1" Text="I'll note that here in Minnesota &quot;summer cottages&quot; commonly have the water shut off and the pipes drained in the winter.  But this must be done with care, and it usually involves &quot;blowing out&quot; the pipes with compressed air to make sure that all the water is gone." CreationDate="2020-12-05T22:41:29.670" UserId="8342" />
  <row Id="12934" PostId="10235" Score="1" Text="Is there a practical point to this question?  By that I mean, regardless of what the answer may or may not be (0.5x, x, 2x), what difference would it make?  How could any answer to this question be used in a tangible and constructive way?" CreationDate="2020-09-26T09:35:19.113" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="12975" PostId="10235" Score="1" Text="@Tim Good question! The answer could affect how much water I choose to use; in fact, I currently face a situation in my own life where I have to choose between using more water or more electricity. Also, the way that the answer is arrived at could affect my understanding of our water system, and that understanding could affect how I act as a &quot;citizen,&quot; e.g. voting/advocacy/consumer choices/charitable giving." CreationDate="2020-10-10T04:27:55.650" UserId="6870" />
  <row Id="12973" PostId="10237" Score="3" Text="Towers or uphill reservoirs. Pressure is relied on to prevent contamination. If it fails they need to flush the mains." CreationDate="2020-10-09T02:41:54.197" UserId="9020" />
  <row Id="13197" PostId="10237" Score="1" Text="I am not an expert here (but have a bit of knowledge about speccing water pumps).  I expect that the answer depends on the pressure available on the building.  For approx every 10 meters you loose 1 bar of pressure - and a typical pressure would be 2-3 bar - so I would expect a typical house would not need a pump but a low rise building would may -  to provide reasonable pressure to the upper floors if its more then 3 stories or so depending on the lay of the land." CreationDate="2020-12-26T03:20:05.037" UserId="9219" />
  <row Id="13590" PostId="10237" Score="1" Text="In some municipalities it is illegal to have your own water pump if municipal water is available .  Having a private water source competes with the municipal source and reduces  its income." CreationDate="2021-05-14T14:19:23.640" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="12942" PostId="10238" Score="0" Text="Can you link one or two of the studies?" CreationDate="2020-09-28T16:30:26.367" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="12943" PostId="10238" Score="0" Text="Thanks! Good idea." CreationDate="2020-09-28T16:36:54.683" UserId="6870" />
  <row Id="13036" PostId="10240" Score="1" Text="This question is too complex.  Break it down into 3 questions." CreationDate="2020-10-29T02:09:29.570" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="13037" PostId="10240" Score="0" Text="Thanks @SherwoodBotsford! That makes sense, but would it be better to just remove the bullet points? Those were just supposed to be examples." CreationDate="2020-10-29T02:14:31.593" UserId="6870" />
  <row Id="12949" PostId="10255" Score="2" Text="@THelper https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forb" CreationDate="2020-10-05T04:18:10.880" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="12952" PostId="10256" Score="3" Text="This most likely varies on your location but at least in Finland stuffing plastic inside bottles or other otherwise tightly together is strictly forbidden since it messes up the sorting of the materials. [source](http://www.uusiomuovi.fi/fin/in_english/)" CreationDate="2020-10-05T13:06:59.610" UserId="8752" />
  <row Id="12962" PostId="10274" Score="2" Text="Cast iron scrap has very little value , you can probably donate it to a scrape yard. I can't imagine the enamel could make any difference. Or drill a hole in the bottom and use it as a planter. I have a few aluminum frying pans I use as saucers for plant pots." CreationDate="2020-10-07T21:32:03.180" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="12963" PostId="10274" Score="0" Text="You could potentially get it re-enameled? I've heard of bathtubs being completely redone, not sure if it's possible for dutch ovens" CreationDate="2020-10-07T23:00:41.220" UserId="8232" />
  <row Id="12969" PostId="10281" Score="1" Text="all glass for recycling is crushed and a magnet is used to remove most of the metall before the glass is melted,any waste metall will float or sink when the glass is melted this slag can be easily removed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_recycling" CreationDate="2020-10-08T06:12:41.100" UserDisplayName="trond hansen" />
  <row Id="12970" PostId="10281" Score="0" Text="While you have to make sure to throw away the glass separately, first." CreationDate="2020-10-08T07:11:59.860" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="12971" PostId="10281" Score="0" Text="I'm not sure I understand your question; to recycle glass it doesn't matter if it's broken or not. As user trond hansen commented everything is melted anyway." CreationDate="2020-10-08T13:38:04.027" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="12974" PostId="10282" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! [This website](https://www.lcacommons.gov/lca-collaboration/search/query=Ferrocyanide) at least has information on Ferrocyanide, but I'm not sure if those files you can download are useful." CreationDate="2020-10-09T08:27:45.150" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="12978" PostId="10282" Score="0" Text="Thanks for sending the information. I will check it. Regards," CreationDate="2020-10-10T19:49:32.870" UserId="3923" />
  <row Id="12994" PostId="10284" Score="0" Text="In warmer climates littering glass can start wild fires." CreationDate="2020-10-18T15:30:45.180" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="12979" PostId="10285" Score="0" Text="Who is doing the painting? If it is being done by children, then the paint should be safe. No guarantee, of course, but the kinds of toxicity that you are worried about are getting rarer in domestic settings. However, I don't know enough about this or the source of your pumpkin paint to offer an answer ." CreationDate="2020-10-12T06:54:44.640" UserId="8013" />
  <row Id="12986" PostId="10290" Score="0" Text="Thanks! How much is that in percentage?" CreationDate="2020-10-15T15:36:24.620" UserId="8934" />
  <row Id="12987" PostId="10290" Score="1" Text="28% percent melted and 72% remaining ice in 2016" CreationDate="2020-10-15T16:09:54.000" UserId="2703" />
  <row Id="12988" PostId="10291" Score="0" Text="I'm a customer of Riverford Organics which has an excellent [Sustainability Report](https://images.riverford.co.uk/pdf/2019+Sustainability+Report.pdf) -- it doesn't explicitly commit to carbon neutrality, but it sets out some broad aims. It depends a lot on the business, for them the priorities include a transition to electric delivery vehicles, avoiding use of air freight, and avoiding fossil fuel heated greenhouses." CreationDate="2020-10-16T06:58:33.913" UserId="8013" />
  <row Id="12997" PostId="10291" Score="0" Text="Whether you're a big company or a small one there isn't a single industry that doesn't use carbon." CreationDate="2020-10-18T17:51:18.320" UserId="9007" />
  <row Id="13169" PostId="10291" Score="0" Text="I've been receiving newsletters from the company I buy toilet paper from. They've gone carbon neutral and have shared all their research along the journey. Enjoy :) https://blog.whogivesacrap.org/home/goodnews/why-carbon-neutral" CreationDate="2020-11-02T12:38:07.467" UserId="9087" />
  <row Id="13130" PostId="10294" Score="0" Text="Coca cola can work, but it can also add stains too. I'd be careful trying to use it." CreationDate="2020-11-26T01:01:03.370" UserId="8232" />
  <row Id="12991" PostId="10296" Score="0" Text="Any reasonable amount of hot water, poured onto a pile of ambient-temperature compost, will return to ambient temperature in a matter of minutes.  Pouring hot water on compost will have no effect other than making it wetter.  If it is too dry, great.  Otherwise, you're just setting up conditions for anaerobic decomposers to take over and that's rarely what you want in a backyard compost pile.  Also, heat does not rise.  Hot air (or steam) can rise, but probably not if obstructed by a couple feet of dense organic material." CreationDate="2020-10-18T15:12:12.477" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="12998" PostId="10297" Score="1" Text="Ehm, are you sure you answered the right question?" CreationDate="2020-10-19T06:56:39.770" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="12999" PostId="10297" Score="0" Text="I eliminated a building's use of fossil fuels and that's a reduction in expended carbon for the business." CreationDate="2020-10-19T11:12:33.380" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="13000" PostId="10300" Score="1" Text="This question is in regard to reusing existing batteries for grid storage, not recycling (breaking them down to base components to make new batteries). You say &quot;You'd have to gather 110,000 tesla batteries to store a days worth of electric use.&quot; - yeah, but those batteries can be recharged from the grid and would generally only be needed for 12-ish night-time hours. Plus, the transport cost of batteries is a once-per-5-10 year deal, compared to trucking hydrocarbons around *daily*." CreationDate="2020-10-20T00:38:07.373" UserId="8232" />
  <row Id="13001" PostId="10300" Score="1" Text="*&quot;Even if you recycle the car batteries, they're gonna find their way into cars again to meet speculative demand.&quot;* - I'm not sure what you mean - even if old batteries WERE reused in cheaper/low-range EVs - isn't that a win? *&quot;Worse, what's the quality of the battery that it can be re-adopted for other duties.&quot;* - most examples talk of batteries that have hit 50% degredation, but their usefulness for grid storage would still be good, as the output demand would be a 'trickle out' rather than the 'bursts' of power that an EV would demand." CreationDate="2020-10-20T00:42:17.947" UserId="8232" />
  <row Id="13003" PostId="10301" Score="0" Text="Maybe we can only start answering this question in 25 years and 1 day (or more seriously, in about 30-35 years)?" CreationDate="2020-10-20T07:47:12.010" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="13004" PostId="10301" Score="1" Text="@gerrit I am sure they did not test the current panels 25 years either, still they came up with 90.8% after 25 years :-) I am sure people in the industry can give us decent estimate based on their observations for longer time, even though with higher statistical bias." CreationDate="2020-10-20T08:02:58.813" UserId="9056" />
  <row Id="13005" PostId="10301" Score="0" Text="Those are estimates, and manufacturer estimates at that.  Time will tell if they live up to the claim (and if the company will still be in business in 20 years to handle warranty claims if they don't)." CreationDate="2020-10-20T08:53:11.850" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="13007" PostId="10301" Score="0" Text="@gerrit Agreed. All I am after is extending these charts by another 20/30 years to see what producers expect to happen there. I am aware the best I can get is educated guess." CreationDate="2020-10-20T16:00:48.947" UserId="9056" />
  <row Id="13008" PostId="10301" Score="0" Text="The U.S. National Renewable Energy Lab has a [project studying PV degradation rates](https://www.nrel.gov/pv/lifetime.html). If I get a chance I'll attempt to summarize into an answer." CreationDate="2020-10-20T18:29:45.197" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13013" PostId="10303" Score="0" Text="Having the panels face south would only be applicable to Northern Hemisphere locations. In the Southern Hemisphere they would need to face north." CreationDate="2020-10-23T09:00:49.403" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="13014" PostId="10303" Score="0" Text="The asker's profile indicates that he lives in London, which would be the northern hemisphere." CreationDate="2020-10-23T16:04:22.330" UserId="9061" />
  <row Id="13126" PostId="10303" Score="0" Text="Yachts move. Just because the question is asked by someone from London doesn't mean they're in London now." CreationDate="2020-11-23T06:29:46.757" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="13437" PostId="10303" Score="1" Text="Yes the key fact here is that as a sail boat things are in a constant state of flux. There is rigging and sails overhead casting shadows which move with the motion of waves, and there will always be some panels in an array in partial or total shade, which would bring down the entire array if treated as a unit." CreationDate="2021-02-11T14:40:21.713" UserId="251" />
  <row Id="13012" PostId="10304" Score="2" Text="Referenced data stating the carbon sequestration rate for different grasses for a given area of grass would significantly improve this answer." CreationDate="2020-10-23T08:44:08.530" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="13019" PostId="10308" Score="0" Text="Do you have access to any sort of machinery — like a tractor?" CreationDate="2020-10-23T23:14:13.610" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="13058" PostId="10308" Score="0" Text="A friend up the road has a subcompact Kubota. I may have to invest in one myself at some point." CreationDate="2020-11-01T16:03:46.340" UserId="9064" />
  <row Id="13022" PostId="10309" Score="1" Text="[Reference for stump decay time](http://www.harpersferrywv.us/trees/acc_stump_decay.pdf). I had to look it up because they last decades here in the Great White North." CreationDate="2020-10-26T01:37:46.730" UserId="9020" />
  <row Id="13029" PostId="10309" Score="0" Text="I understand the  temperature and moisture make a difference .I am in a warm area , zone 2 ( 2 years ) on the map. I drill holes and pour fertilizer in the big stumps." CreationDate="2020-10-27T03:20:42.960" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="13039" PostId="10309" Score="0" Text="@KeithMcClary  Nice link.  Thanks" CreationDate="2020-10-29T02:22:45.370" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="13021" PostId="10310" Score="1" Text="The OP has 170,000 tiny stumps, LazyReader." CreationDate="2020-10-26T01:32:45.760" UserId="9020" />
  <row Id="13030" PostId="10312" Score="0" Text="copy, and paste" CreationDate="2020-10-27T06:14:45.627" UserId="3532" />
  <row Id="13025" PostId="10314" Score="1" Text="This does not appear to be an answer to the question." CreationDate="2020-10-26T13:54:58.790" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="13023" PostId="10315" Score="0" Text="google.com/search?client=ubuntu&amp;hs=XOa&amp;ei=ASqWX-a5Derv9APi1oz4CA&amp;q=compost+flies+solution" CreationDate="2020-10-26T01:45:55.420" UserId="9020" />
  <row Id="13024" PostId="10315" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! How often do you turn your compost? And do you bury your scraps?" CreationDate="2020-10-26T07:27:26.480" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="13027" PostId="10316" Score="0" Text="Yes, I am putting fruit skins/scraps into the pile.   Starting the freezing process now.  Thank you." CreationDate="2020-10-26T15:14:16.920" UserId="9066" />
  <row Id="13066" PostId="10316" Score="0" Text="LazyReader's observation about gnats being attracted by fruit proved true.   We discontinued adding fruit scraps to the bin and within a few days observed a dramatic reduction in the gnat problem.   We think once all the present gnat eggs have hatched, that the problem will be eliminated." CreationDate="2020-11-02T14:50:04.037" UserId="9066" />
  <row Id="13033" PostId="10325" Score="1" Text="And their website is very brief on the contents and scope :-(" CreationDate="2020-10-28T12:29:51.423" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="13056" PostId="10325" Score="0" Text="Their description is a bit vague too, but nonetheless it's useful. Thanks for sharing!" CreationDate="2020-10-31T22:44:31.123" UserId="3727" />
  <row Id="13038" PostId="10328" Score="0" Text="Thanks a lot!!!" CreationDate="2020-10-29T02:18:13.527" UserId="6870" />
  <row Id="13040" PostId="10329" Score="1" Text="This is true, but you only address a technicality in the word &quot;wasting&quot; with regards to the natural water cycle - you haven't *actually* covered any consequences of letting municipal water supplies be &quot;wasted&quot; or 'used without purpose'. You say water moves *&quot;from place to place&quot;*, but for a city's water supply, this requires energy (in the form of water pressure). Water pipes have to be maintained, the more sewage there is the more that has to go through treatment, and so on. It's naive to talk to a natural cycle while ignoring the human element and the associated costs that go into them." CreationDate="2020-10-29T03:02:45.567" UserId="8232" />
  <row Id="13041" PostId="10331" Score="0" Text="Having trouble picturing this... does your wall look like [this](https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/model/45e1441b2b1c79a5a41e647f3ab2b297/01101-Brick-Block-Cavity-Wall-Foundation-Detail-01)? How will you replace the cavity insulation without having to completely rebuild one leaf?" CreationDate="2020-10-29T14:38:14.523" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13042" PostId="10331" Score="0" Text="Hi - It does but without block insulation as pictured. We plan on blowing in EPS blown bead insulation which is done by drilling holes in the external leaf and using an air blower and 'ball injector' to fill the cavities" CreationDate="2020-10-29T14:45:21.027" UserId="9079" />
  <row Id="13043" PostId="10331" Score="0" Text="Got it! So there's no insulation in the cavity currently?" CreationDate="2020-10-29T14:51:24.723" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13044" PostId="10331" Score="0" Text="Correct! There's nothing in place which according to my sheet would be 1.63W/m².K - I'm just not sure if that's 'pie in the sky' or if it looks correct" CreationDate="2020-10-29T15:14:42.807" UserId="9079" />
  <row Id="13045" PostId="10334" Score="0" Text="Thanks! I might edit this question to replace 7 deg C with 4 deg C, does that make sense?" CreationDate="2020-10-29T20:58:09.517" UserId="6870" />
  <row Id="13046" PostId="10334" Score="1" Text="Go ahead, make the change." CreationDate="2020-10-29T20:59:59.827" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="13051" PostId="10338" Score="0" Text="THE PROTON PROCESS&#xA;Find out how we make Hydrogen from Deep Earth&#xA;&#xA;LEARN MORE --&gt; 404&#xA; PAGE NOT FOUND" CreationDate="2020-10-15T00:01:20.990" UserId="9020" />
  <row Id="13052" PostId="10338" Score="0" Text="@KeithMcClary cannot find that 404" CreationDate="2020-10-15T10:07:17.507" UserDisplayName="juan Isaza" />
  <row Id="13053" PostId="10338" Score="1" Text="For me, the &quot;LEARN MORE&quot; link is http://proton.energy/hygenic-earth-energy/ , which gives me 404. I found more info by googling &quot;Proton’s patented Hygenerator&quot;." CreationDate="2020-10-15T19:05:36.627" UserId="9020" />
  <row Id="13054" PostId="10338" Score="0" Text="Great, any conclusions?" CreationDate="2020-10-17T10:19:44.990" UserDisplayName="juan Isaza" />
  <row Id="13547" PostId="10338" Score="0" Text="Great buzz words. I finally remembered what the old name is  ; Lurgi Gasifier, maybe with some Fischer Tropsh tech. Basically making fuel gas from coal or oil. The new wrinkle is they do it underground ; then you don't see the coal or oil fed into the process. A good trick as doing it in controlled vessels is difficult enough." CreationDate="2021-03-31T22:29:37.583" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="13076" PostId="10340" Score="0" Text="Its clear that it's non-renewable, but still it emits no C02 and that is the ultimate goal to reduce climate change." CreationDate="2020-11-03T11:13:38.543" UserId="9090" />
  <row Id="13077" PostId="10340" Score="0" Text="I don't know if they are planning to inject water, it could be a problem in the middle east, but not in Canada where the company is based." CreationDate="2020-11-03T11:14:25.497" UserId="9090" />
  <row Id="13078" PostId="10340" Score="0" Text="They claim they developed a filter that only lets hydrogen get through and they say this is the key innovation. They use a well on top of the reaction, with a filter on top to get only the hydrogen out." CreationDate="2020-11-03T11:16:05.510" UserId="9090" />
  <row Id="13079" PostId="10340" Score="0" Text="Concerning pipes, I'm not an expert, it could be a problem. Perhaps for small quantities they can use trucks, at least for the proof of concept." CreationDate="2020-11-03T11:17:28.727" UserId="9090" />
  <row Id="13139" PostId="10340" Score="0" Text="&quot;capturing or flaring natural gas&quot; ... and letting it leak, which is worse. Current research seems to suggest that methane leaks obviate any greenhouse advantage from burning methane instead of heavier hydrocarbons. This &quot;hydrogen reformation in a natural cavity&quot; process seems as though it would be at least as prone to leaks as fracturing." CreationDate="2020-12-01T22:21:31.237" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="13545" PostId="10340" Score="0" Text="Hydrogen embrittlement of pipelines is not a problem if qualified people build them . Many pipeline capable of transporting sour gas exist ( the same hydrogen embrittlement problem)." CreationDate="2021-03-31T21:20:51.350" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="13548" PostId="10340" Score="0" Text="Hydrogen embrittlement as far as I know (correct if I'm wrong) is a problem only if the hydrogen is in the form of an ion -- i.e. positively charged hydrogen ion that happens to consist only of a single proton. A single proton is a small particle that can reach to many places. However, if the hydrogen is in the form of an atom or of an H2 molecule consisting of two hydrogen atoms, I understand that it won't embrittle metals." CreationDate="2021-04-01T13:23:23.237" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="13060" PostId="10344" Score="0" Text="Having worked with hydrogen my whole professional like , I am waiting to hear about the explosions as it becomes more common and people treat it as an ordinary compressed gas." CreationDate="2020-11-01T21:33:59.517" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="13061" PostId="10344" Score="0" Text="Maybe also worth being explicit about the two pieces of infrastructure. A battery charging station doesn't have to solve the *distribution* problem.  Plop one down wherever the electric grid exists.  Hydrogen fuel cell charging station has nothing comparable to plug in to." CreationDate="2020-11-01T22:02:17.713" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="13065" PostId="10344" Score="0" Text="The only way that the electric grid could support 280 million battery-powered electric-vehicles would be for the vehicle charger to turn-on at something like 11 PM and turn-off at something like 6 AM. And within the context of that viewpoint, I don't understand the logic of having hundreds-of-thousands remote vehicle chargers." CreationDate="2020-11-02T01:02:24.137" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="13067" PostId="10345" Score="1" Text="This will depend on the size and type of building -- can you specify? For example, a home is mostly occupied in the evening when the sun is lower in the sky, but an office is occupied during the day when the sun is higher. Different design principles apply as a result. Larger buildings also have different heating/cooling requirements." CreationDate="2020-11-02T17:29:52.733" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13068" PostId="10350" Score="0" Text="This is all interesting info - do you have some sources for further reading? I'm especially interested in the using of CO2 + electricity into plastics" CreationDate="2020-11-03T00:06:33.737" UserId="8232" />
  <row Id="13069" PostId="10350" Score="1" Text="Here is a link to plastic developed from carbon-dioxide: https://www.rutgers.edu/news/how-convert-climate-changing-carbon-dioxide-plastics-and-other-products ." CreationDate="2020-11-03T01:42:58.847" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="13070" PostId="10350" Score="1" Text="Here is a link to synthetic fuel made from carbon-dioxide and green hydrogen: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-oil-global-spain-repsol/repsol-to-invest-90-million-in-two-low-emissions-projects-in-spain-idUSKBN23M13M ." CreationDate="2020-11-03T01:54:12.710" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="13071" PostId="10350" Score="0" Text="Here is a link where Saudi Arabia exports blue-ammonia to Japan: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/09/28/business/corporate-business/saudi-arabia-blue-ammonia-japan/#:~:text=Saudi%20Aramco%2C%20which%20made%20the,the%20first%20shipment%2C%20Aramco%20said. ." CreationDate="2020-11-03T01:57:33.183" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="13072" PostId="10350" Score="0" Text="Here is a link to hydrogen produced from solar power: https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/nextera-energy-to-build-its-first-green-hydrogen-plant-in-florida ." CreationDate="2020-11-03T02:02:38.907" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="13073" PostId="10350" Score="0" Text="Here is a current article about electrolysers worldwide: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-01/-hydrogen-wars-pit-europe-v-china-for-700-billion-business?srnd=premium ." CreationDate="2020-11-03T02:10:25.173" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="13074" PostId="10350" Score="0" Text="There was a question about efficiency. Here is an older source that says that electrolysers in series can use the power of magnified solar panels: https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms13237" CreationDate="2020-11-03T02:24:50.313" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="13075" PostId="10350" Score="0" Text="It might be worth pointing out that hydrogen gas always leaks from any container it's placed in, so it's not a good solution for long-term energy storage." CreationDate="2020-11-03T05:43:54.853" UserId="9089" />
  <row Id="13081" PostId="10350" Score="0" Text="It's a big subject with a lot of details but it was pointed-out that hydrogen is often converted to ammonia-gas for easier shipping. But it's liquefied hydrogen that has evaporation. If compressed hydrogen were leaking it would be gone. Also, massive salt caverns are being developed for hydrogen storage. One more note, compressed natural-gas is held at about 3000 PSI while compressed hydrogen is held at about 5000 PSI." CreationDate="2020-11-03T14:50:58.923" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="13082" PostId="10350" Score="1" Text="Hi, I think your answer would be much improved if you add those links there instead of posting them as comments." CreationDate="2020-11-03T18:24:08.470" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="13089" PostId="10351" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Generally speaking all foods fit for human consumption can be composted. It may take longer to break down because of preservatives (or fats), but eventually it should become compost. Personally I would not use the resulting compost in my vegetable garden, just to be safe, but I am rather picky about I add there." CreationDate="2020-11-05T08:13:58.620" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="13090" PostId="10351" Score="1" Text="Just because it's over the expiration date, doesn't mean, it's spoiled. Maybe give it to someone who needs it and will use it soon." CreationDate="2020-11-05T08:22:19.140" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="13092" PostId="10351" Score="0" Text="I feed leftovers , etc. to deer in the forest behind the house . Racoons eat things like meat that the deer don't eat." CreationDate="2020-11-05T23:48:18.040" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="13095" PostId="10351" Score="0" Text="@Erik i don't see any reason why giving others what we want to get rid of because of health concern (danger)" CreationDate="2020-11-06T09:37:22.747" UserId="9093" />
  <row Id="13096" PostId="10351" Score="0" Text="@THelper I actually meant about  it - organics, since the additives used were petroleum based" CreationDate="2020-11-06T09:37:33.903" UserId="9093" />
  <row Id="13097" PostId="10351" Score="0" Text="@blacksmith37 While I don't think meat considered ultra-processed food, i am concerning about disposal.. (my cat have also ever undergo similar situation - eat beefflavored chips snack, which is quite acceptable considering their smell)" CreationDate="2020-11-06T09:38:22.723" UserId="9093" />
  <row Id="13098" PostId="10351" Score="0" Text="Sausage has about the most processing I can think of. And hams are given 6 months of cure in 72 hours, etc" CreationDate="2020-11-06T19:19:33.907" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="13099" PostId="10351" Score="0" Text="Update :  The deer have no problem licking up syrup  and jelly from pancake leftover dishes , actually the dishes are so clean they can go directly into the dishwasher." CreationDate="2020-11-06T22:22:25.423" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="13100" PostId="10351" Score="0" Text="@Erik please write an answer, rather than leaving an answer in the comments!" CreationDate="2020-11-09T02:08:29.677" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13101" PostId="10351" Score="0" Text="@blacksmith37 please consider turning your comments here into an answer." CreationDate="2020-11-09T02:08:51.460" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13102" PostId="10356" Score="0" Text="Thanks! I currently have the thermostat-controlled new top-loader, but no insulation mods, solar power or additional thermal mass. Awesome ideas, I will work on them!" CreationDate="2020-11-09T17:52:11.690" UserId="6870" />
  <row Id="13104" PostId="10361" Score="0" Text="Not all old clothes are heavy.  Old knitwear or tights (pantyhose) work well." CreationDate="2020-11-10T09:40:05.987" UserId="1445" />
  <row Id="13105" PostId="10361" Score="0" Text="If you drop the lightweight and spongy requirement, there a natural options like many types of seeds (even actual dry beans) and wood shavings" CreationDate="2020-11-11T19:14:32.520" UserId="4158" />
  <row Id="13110" PostId="10367" Score="1" Text="Several parameters regarding the chacteristics of the soil  all the way to the aquafer , the depth of the aquafer ( mine in N IL was about 70 feet,)  the properties of the oil , volume, time ,  and several others factors before a good guess could be made." CreationDate="2020-11-15T03:55:03.393" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="13129" PostId="10377" Score="0" Text="Yes, I'm sure it said cooking oil, &quot;óleo alimentar&quot;." CreationDate="2020-11-24T11:57:06.960" UserId="9106" />
  <row Id="13125" PostId="10379" Score="0" Text="Although I'm not entirely sure this answer is relevant to the question - it is an interesting design - can you expand on how it works, give more info? How much water can it desalinate per day? i.e. How does it directly compare with the device in the question, and why is it better?" CreationDate="2020-11-23T00:55:45.050" UserId="8232" />
  <row Id="13124" PostId="10380" Score="0" Text="*&quot;the incandescent light is still superior in ambient light quality&quot;* - I'm not sure what measure of quality is being used here - do you mean in terms of the intensity of wavelengths? Do you have any further info to share on the subject, maybe an article or study that could clarify this?" CreationDate="2020-11-23T00:53:22.233" UserId="8232" />
  <row Id="13128" PostId="10383" Score="0" Text="I think I'm going to head down this track since I already have an extra charge controller. Might have to rethink the battery size I was going to go with, or put in a timer. Don't really need the lights on all night, but midnight or earlier they'd be nice." CreationDate="2020-11-23T21:36:27.770" UserId="9117" />
  <row Id="13190" PostId="10383" Score="0" Text="I respectfully disagree that &quot;solar and complicated go hand in hand&quot;.  Some solar solutions are just as simple as buying batteries, but without the waste." CreationDate="2020-12-23T21:13:11.063" UserId="2727" />
  <row Id="13132" PostId="10388" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Thank you for your answer. Is it possible to add some references, for example about the half life of carbon? It would be even more great if you could find references that verify your expectations regarding the carbon emissions." CreationDate="2020-11-27T08:13:19.880" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="13133" PostId="10389" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Could you please explain what &quot;trace htg&quot; is?" CreationDate="2020-11-28T09:42:42.333" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="13134" PostId="10389" Score="0" Text="Trace heating is where you install an electrical element which heats up when its on running alongside the pipe &amp; covered by insulation. The idea, which works brilliantly in practice, is to replace the heat that the cold is taking away. If you replace the heat then the water doesn't freeze." CreationDate="2020-11-29T13:49:33.100" UserId="9148" />
  <row Id="13135" PostId="10389" Score="0" Text="@YorkshireDave Thanks! That's a good idea. It's tough for me to get to most of it but I can get to some of it. Do you think it's possible that accessing maybe 10% of the exposed length would do anything?" CreationDate="2020-11-29T19:40:05.713" UserId="6870" />
  <row Id="13138" PostId="10389" Score="1" Text="TBH I feel 10% is too little. While heat will travel along the copper &amp; water, you'll be left with 90% of the area losing heat. I feel that battle could never be won. If you could switch that round, it'd be a diff ball game." CreationDate="2020-11-30T20:05:28.613" UserId="9148" />
  <row Id="13164" PostId="10393" Score="0" Text="I think this is a pretty good answer, though it needs numbers. Compared to even minute changes in heating or transport use, I'd bet the difference between a lifetime's pencil use and a lifetime's pen use is effectively zero. It might even be outweighed by the energy used to store and serve the answers to this question." CreationDate="2020-12-10T20:30:51.190" UserId="1445" />
  <row Id="13141" PostId="10394" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Do you know what the packaging is made off? Does it have any logo's or markings?" CreationDate="2020-12-05T14:45:14.327" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="13142" PostId="10395" Score="0" Text="My compostable packaging was used to hold a soup from a take-away restaurant. It's very valuable that you said I should not dispose it with other plastics. Thanks for the quick answer!" CreationDate="2020-12-05T15:07:31.753" UserId="9159" />
  <row Id="13148" PostId="10399" Score="2" Text="Sounds like a frustrating problem. It might be worth a phone call to the recycling business that runs the public drop off points to discuss the situation and see whether it's worth your effort to use them. Also, would it be worth asking your local council (or equivalent) about it? They may have some useful information." CreationDate="2020-12-06T22:36:37.293" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="13149" PostId="10399" Score="1" Text="Just a slight nitpick: *sorting* should not be confused *recycling*, i.e. I think you mean your apartment has no sorting of waste. And unfortunately, not everything which gets sorted effectively gets recycled. An article from a Ducth reporter came to find only about 10% of the sorted plastics got actually recycled. The rest goes to landfill in other countries. Sad, but to keep in mind that the first thing to do remains reducing waste." CreationDate="2020-12-07T17:59:11.780" UserId="4158" />
  <row Id="13151" PostId="10401" Score="2" Text="Hello and welcome! That's quite the claim -- can you provide a reference?" CreationDate="2020-12-08T01:42:46.870" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13153" PostId="10401" Score="0" Text="Check out Joel Salatin's Ted talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z75A_JMBx4 He mentions that his fields produce 10,000lb of grass per acre each year. There is plenty of other similar data out there as well as life experience that is impossible to provide a reference to." CreationDate="2020-12-09T11:53:58.587" UserId="9166" />
  <row Id="13154" PostId="10401" Score="0" Text="Conduct a thought experiment; consider a piece of ground, think about how tall the grass will grow in, say, 2 months, multiply that by the cuttings you could get per year and multiply that by, say, 20 years. Compare than to the trees that could be planted on the same ground and how tall they would be after 20 years." CreationDate="2020-12-09T11:59:55.887" UserId="9166" />
  <row Id="13163" PostId="10401" Score="0" Text="But trees take decades to biodegrade (releasing captured CO2 back to the air). Grass takes... a few months?" CreationDate="2020-12-10T20:11:53.803" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13168" PostId="10401" Score="0" Text="So after capturing the carbon, the next question is what you do with it! You can sequester the carbon captured by the grass in the soil or feed it to cows or other animals—which is a great way to store the carbon. Peat is one of the richest carbon stores that we have.&#xA;&#xA;Trees can either be turned into timber—a great store of carbon—or burned—which releases the carbon back into the atmosphere very quickly." CreationDate="2020-12-14T11:54:20.430" UserId="9166" />
  <row Id="13170" PostId="10401" Score="0" Text="If you put the grass blades inside a cow you are not sequestering the carbon for any meaningful amount of time.  This is not to say it is not a great use for grass but it is not a carbon-sequestering use.  I suggest augmenting the answer with references detailing how much of the carbon ends up in the soil vs in any above-ground greenery." CreationDate="2020-12-15T15:45:57.727" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="13172" PostId="10401" Score="0" Text="Wherever carbon is collected, there are various things that can happen to it. Nothing—with the possible exception of diamond—is a permanent store of carbon; trees can be burnt, biological matter can be eaten or rot; chemicals can react. The original question has a number of misconceptions but I take the main thrust to be about how effective grass and trees are at stripping CO₂ out of the atmosphere and converting the carbon into a form that is useful and can significantly delay the return of the carbon into the atmosphere as CO₂. In that respect, grass is far more effective than trees." CreationDate="2020-12-16T19:09:10.840" UserId="9166" />
  <row Id="13173" PostId="10401" Score="0" Text="Maybe it is!  I suggest putting more arguments and evidence into the answer to support that conclusion." CreationDate="2020-12-17T18:31:05.787" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="13155" PostId="10404" Score="0" Text="Our of curiosity, are you working for a company that sells 304L?" CreationDate="2020-12-10T08:13:05.173" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="13156" PostId="10404" Score="0" Text="For the purpose of making a house foundation that costs 1/3 ? No I am an advocate of metal that doesn't corrode, doesn't waste products, and is available for either recycling or reuse. Now 304L is a stainless-steel that is available in standard structural shapes and is designed for welding. Or 409, as a less expensive stainless-steel, would likely be formed into simple shapes from sheet-metal with an industrial brake." CreationDate="2020-12-10T08:32:21.700" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="13157" PostId="10404" Score="0" Text="Ok, just wondering because I noticed you mention 304L or 409 in a number of answers." CreationDate="2020-12-10T08:34:14.037" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="13159" PostId="10404" Score="0" Text="Given the large environmental footprint of steel, in my opinion wood from sustainably-kept forests is a much better choice for construction material." CreationDate="2020-12-10T11:49:11.960" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="13161" PostId="10404" Score="0" Text="My house design uses wood but not for the foundation. The wall-studs, the floor-joists, the ceiling joists, and the rafters are wood." CreationDate="2020-12-10T15:34:15.877" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="13162" PostId="10407" Score="2" Text="I agree voting could help, but one can probably do that just once every 4 years or so. Perhaps starting a campaign or petition for better public waste facilities is faster and more effective?" CreationDate="2020-12-10T18:51:59.180" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="13167" PostId="10411" Score="3" Text="To my knowledge, it will reduce air pollution and reduce heat in the summer.  Collectively, if many of us do this, it will make a large change.  Individually, I think you will likely notice the latter, but not the former so much.  That's based on a somewhat educated guess, not hard science with references to cite." CreationDate="2020-12-13T16:41:57.547" UserId="2727" />
  <row Id="13171" PostId="10413" Score="0" Text="Hi! There's a related question here: [Is buying online more sustainable than in local shop next door?](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/5054/99). Perhaps that answers your questions?" CreationDate="2020-12-16T07:11:08.003" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="13187" PostId="10413" Score="0" Text="I think our supermarkets all charge for delivery which encourages single orders rather than a single item per order. That's likely to improve the situation. Also, the delivery trucks are mostly new fleets so emissions will likely be better than average (and Australia's car fleet is older than the world average so that also helps). I think it's a lot more local than you might suspect. Also, the difference between Amazon orders and local supermarket orders will be significant, and your local grocery coop different again. (not sure of the cost, I ride my bicycle to the shops)" CreationDate="2020-12-23T02:20:15.437" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="13188" PostId="10413" Score="0" Text="At least one online retailer pushes free delivery, so that cost is removed from the equation (obviously the cost is shouldered elsewhere but that's a moral &amp; political issue). This paves the way for drip-buying one item at a time, which is not a good direction to be heading in regarding sustainability." CreationDate="2020-12-23T08:37:01.073" UserId="2718" />
  <row Id="13186" PostId="10414" Score="0" Text="I'm shocked that apparently walking or bicycling to the shop wasn't considered in that study. Pasting it into google translate one page at a time I may have missed something, but it did seem strangely obsessed with fossil fuels." CreationDate="2020-12-23T02:16:02.867" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="13189" PostId="10414" Score="1" Text="@Móż, have a look at table 2, pp. 28-29. And yes, the focus is on fossil fuels/CO2 emission, since the UBA is an environmental agency. While social sustainability is relevant in the overall context of product life cycles, their job mainly focusses on environmental impacts, e.g. carbon emissions." CreationDate="2020-12-23T10:29:56.357" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="13192" PostId="10414" Score="0" Text="Thanks for the reply, I hadn't spotted that.I count bicycles as environmentally sustainable too... check my history on bicycle.so :)" CreationDate="2020-12-23T23:40:17.067" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="13175" PostId="10416" Score="0" Text="that's answer enough for me! Makes sense. I guess technically if there's a shiny side of the foil, even on the other side of the paper, this would still have a heat-retention effect huh" CreationDate="2020-12-19T15:53:11.120" UserId="2122" />
  <row Id="13233" PostId="10416" Score="3" Text="You could add that both sides have essentially the same reflectivity for infrared radiaton ([Pozzobon et al](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/337390826_Household_aluminum_foil_matte_and_bright_side_reflectivity_measurements_Application_to_a_photobioreactor_light_concentrator_design) )." CreationDate="2021-01-07T19:17:38.363" UserId="8013" />
  <row Id="13174" PostId="10418" Score="1" Text="This might be more complicated than you think. What mix of mined Li is envisaged [hard rock mining](https://www.mining-technology.com/features/top-ten-biggest-lithium-mines/) or [specific salt lakes](https://www.zmescience.com/science/lithium-mining-098534/). Also how recyclable is Li, % that can be recycled, energy used, waste products from recycling &amp; what gets done with the waste from recycling? Do you want to include the cost of rehabilitating the mine sites once they're exhausted?" CreationDate="2020-12-19T09:13:12.587" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="13176" PostId="10418" Score="0" Text="@Fred good questions. Let's ignore end of life for now. Regarding Li mining methods, which is more common? I'm fine with an answer that addresses either or both (probably whichever one has the best data)." CreationDate="2020-12-19T16:02:02.613" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13184" PostId="10418" Score="0" Text="I came across this item concerning the cost of mining Li, [Lithium Sector: Production Costs Outlook](https://pages.marketintelligence.spglobal.com/lithium-sector-outlook-costs-and-margins-confirmation-CD.html). Mining hard rock Li is cheaper than mining brine. The significant difference between the two is that brine produces a higher value product. So much so, some hard rock miners want to further process the [spodumene](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spodumene) concentrate to produce a higher value product." CreationDate="2020-12-22T15:59:10.797" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="13185" PostId="10418" Score="0" Text="The horrible impact of lithium mining on native and Aboriginal peoples is a serious problem.  Lithium mining regularly takes place on their sacred grounds, destroying it forever.  Oil drilling and pipelines often destroy native lands and sacred sites as well.  The bottom line is that when something becomes desirable, the greedy scum of the earth often exploit it without concern for the impact on others.  Often, governments collude with them." CreationDate="2020-12-22T22:14:39.867" UserId="2727" />
  <row Id="13205" PostId="10418" Score="0" Text="It appears that currently, [Li from batteries is not recycled](https://blog-en.condorchem.com/lithium-extraction-recovery/), because it is only worth 6 euro per kg ([9 USD per kg](https://www.lme.com/en-GB/Metals/Minor-metals/Lithium-prices#tabIndex=0)). The only metals recovered from Li batteries are the valuable ones such as cobalt, which has a current LME price of [32 USD per kg](https://www.lme.com/en-GB/Metals/Minor-metals/Cobalt#tabIndex=0)." CreationDate="2020-12-29T10:52:19.217" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="13206" PostId="10418" Score="0" Text="The answer to your question may be totally different if co-research by Australian &amp; US researchers can use [reverse osmosis to extract Li from sea water](https://www.thechemicalengineer.com/news/extracting-lithium-from-water-using-synthetic-membranes/.)" CreationDate="2020-12-29T10:53:31.583" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="13207" PostId="10418" Score="0" Text="@Fred that could be a good source for an answer to [this question on EV battery recycling](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/6259/3379)." CreationDate="2020-12-29T14:55:18.983" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13177" PostId="10422" Score="0" Text="I understand the point about recycling, but as a primary analysis I want to understand how the impact of mining the 12 kg of Li compares to extracting the 14,000 kg of oil for the first car." CreationDate="2020-12-21T00:39:19.053" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13178" PostId="10422" Score="1" Text="No industrial process is 100% efficient, some Li will be lost during recycling. Most steel *isn't* made using hydrogen reduction. Most mine sites are in remote locations, the cost of using 100% green energy would be very high. The question needs to be answered with reference to actual practices that are currently being used, not what might happen in ideal situations. Significant amounts of Li are still being mined from hard rock, which means: drilling, blasting, trucking, process plant operations: crushing, grinding, flotation, drying, stockpile reclamation, haulage &amp; addition processing. ..." CreationDate="2020-12-21T03:10:15.870" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="13179" PostId="10422" Score="0" Text="... Then there's manufacturing of the batteries &amp; haulage to the car markers." CreationDate="2020-12-21T03:10:49.547" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="13182" PostId="10422" Score="0" Text="Recycling is definitely important .. I don't agree with @LShaver 's comment suggesting that it is fair to compare the 12kg of Li against the lifetime fuel use of a car, but 100% recycling is also unrealistic. There will be loss due to damage in collisions which makes recycling impractical, damage in house fires, cars being dumped, wastage at the recycling plants, and wastage in the manufacturing system. I don't know what the numbers are, but I doubt that you will get above 90% efficiency of recycling. It is also unclear whether anyone will want the Lithium in 50 years time." CreationDate="2020-12-21T22:55:22.117" UserId="8013" />
  <row Id="13183" PostId="10422" Score="0" Text="@MJuckes I agree that recycling is important -- my point is that to understand *how* important, we first need to know the impact of mining. Then *any* amount you can recycle improves the comparison." CreationDate="2020-12-21T23:18:59.833" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13196" PostId="10428" Score="0" Text="Maybe a partial experiment to try yourself to help answer the question - some people lightly mist their windows with water and use that to stick bubble-wrap to it as an insulator.  If you have some from packaging it would be a virtually free way to see if it helps - albeit at the cost of the view." CreationDate="2020-12-26T03:08:03.033" UserId="9219" />
  <row Id="13383" PostId="10428" Score="1" Text="If there is water running down the window then there is airflow into the cavity formed by the kit.  The kits are meant to be installed to seal off the cavity so there can be no airflow.  No doubt achieving a seal depends on the particularities of the window involved but it is possible in some cases.  In cases where it is not possible, indeed, do not use these kits.  The condensation is not only unsightly and annoying, it is a mold and rot hazard." CreationDate="2021-01-24T23:47:12.070" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="13385" PostId="10428" Score="1" Text="You can not reasonable seal the plastic sheet. Cryogenic facilities go to great lengths to seal foam insulations with little success , moisture (air ) will get in someplace." CreationDate="2021-01-25T17:01:32.390" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="13618" PostId="10428" Score="0" Text="More usefully: seal the top and sides very carefully, and have a (small) gapo at the bottom. That way as air folws in and out it's at least at the bottom and water will flow out.  I get condensation on the outside of my double glazed windows as well as on the walls so it seems inevitable that it will happen somewhere." CreationDate="2021-05-25T00:35:50.690" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="13198" PostId="10429" Score="0" Text="Note: the index they apply is quite a borad definition of 'sustainability'. Also the Fairphone was established in 2013, bit strange to talk about an electronics device sustainability in a report 1 year later. I mean: 2014 I owned a functioning Nokia phone which at that point was probably 10 years old, replaced battery just once. Afaic (ignoring possibly bad labour conditons) that's quite sustainable in the sense that longlasting = less labour, less materials to source and less waste. So even if another device outranks it, what does that mean should it last only a couple of years?" CreationDate="2020-12-28T15:46:27.997" UserId="4158" />
  <row Id="13199" PostId="10430" Score="0" Text="The land comparison is an interesting angle, but my understanding is that with horizontal drilling, oil extraction itself probably requires less land than lithium extraction? I understand that some lithium extraction involves pumping water underground to create a lithium-rich slurry, then pumping it back to the surface for evaporation, with the slurry just being left on the surface. Seems like this would take up a lot more land than an oil rig." CreationDate="2020-12-28T17:53:12.450" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13202" PostId="10430" Score="0" Text="True .. it may be worth trying to get an estimate of the land footprint of the Lithium mine. I think it would need to be compared with the land footprint of the refinery. You make a good point. In other words, the &quot;dirty&quot; part of the Lithium processing is at the mine, while the &quot;dirty&quot; part of the oil processing is at the refinery." CreationDate="2020-12-28T23:30:56.200" UserId="8013" />
  <row Id="13204" PostId="10430" Score="1" Text="I've added a discussion of brine and open cast mines .... it becomes quite an essay. It may be instructive to compare against hydrogen cell technology ... but that is another question." CreationDate="2020-12-29T09:15:20.677" UserId="8013" />
  <row Id="13208" PostId="10430" Score="0" Text="I think some headings, and numbers in the conclusions, would make this more readable. You've pulled together a lot of good info but it's not clear how it all relates." CreationDate="2020-12-29T17:47:46.803" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13217" PostId="10430" Score="1" Text="Fair comment (the answer is somewhat longer than I had hoped), I've added some headings." CreationDate="2021-01-03T20:01:36.623" UserId="8013" />
  <row Id="13201" PostId="10432" Score="2" Text="If they come out dry either way, then the same amount of liquid water has been converted to vapor and so the same amount of energy has been used.  Therefore, in the ideal case, the two configurations are the same.  So the question probably comes down to how a particular clothes drier diverges from the ideal case - what are the operational inefficiencies?  Does it run past dry in one setting or the other?  Does it fail to direct energy as heat at the wet clothes somehow?  Does one setting put more physical wear on the device, leading to a shorter lifetime and earlier replacement?" CreationDate="2020-12-28T21:21:41.723" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="13203" PostId="10432" Score="0" Text="My best suggestion is to measure it using a kWh meter. The dryer will use a certain amount of power, measured in watts (most likely kilowatts). Multiplying by the time it takes gives the energy used, kWh." CreationDate="2020-12-29T08:40:22.313" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="13209" PostId="10432" Score="0" Text="@Fred I hadn't thought of that, but unfortunately in this case it will be harder because the dryer uses a special 240V plug, not the standard 120V." CreationDate="2020-12-29T23:54:52.243" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13398" PostId="10433" Score="0" Text="Do you have data on the actual recycling rate?" CreationDate="2021-01-29T00:41:32.963" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13214" PostId="10434" Score="0" Text="I wonder how the effect of venting heated indoor air might affect this analysis? Long and slow will end up pushing more warm, indoor air outside that my furnace needs to replace." CreationDate="2021-01-03T17:30:23.220" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13220" PostId="10434" Score="0" Text="@LShaver A few years ago the average US house was ~2300ft² which would suggest an air volume of ~20,000ft³.  One ASHRAE standard specifies a *minimum* of 0.35 air exchanges per hour to maintain air quality.  That implies ~7200ft³/hr or 120ft³/min.  Vented US dryers typically draw 100–125ft³/min.  Those numbers would suggest that your dryer is venting the *bare minimum* amount of air that is considered acceptable.  A short cycle might put you below the minimum standard.  So, from an air quality/health perspective, short cycles are bad for you (or, at least, aren't doing you any favours)." CreationDate="2021-01-04T10:29:42.540" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="13221" PostId="10434" Score="0" Text="Whether saving money is more important than maintaining health is a personal choice, as always." CreationDate="2021-01-04T10:31:28.260" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="13222" PostId="10434" Score="0" Text="To be clear:  What I meant with the above comment was simply that running a vented dryer can actually *help* owner/occupiers maintain air quality within their homes.  Many modern homes are so tightly wrapped that they do not do this naturally.  Whether or not this is an issue for you depends on your house and your climate.  It is, at least, something to consider.  &quot;More vented air&quot; is not necessarily, or by definition, &quot;bad&quot;.  &quot;Leaky houses&quot; are not necessarily, or by definition, &quot;bad&quot;." CreationDate="2021-01-05T00:12:24.630" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="13224" PostId="10434" Score="0" Text="Any holes in a house above the NPP (Neutral Pressure Plane) leak air out, and any below the NPP let air in.  If your house leaks 200ft³/min naturally, then turning on a 100ft³/min dryer *does not result* in simple addition of those numbers and a leak rate of 300ft³/min.  You just turn the inside of the house into a negative pressure zone, and all holes become inlets — with the exception of the dryer vent which becomes the only outlet.  In such a scenario, the *actual change in leakage would be small*, possibly even zero, as you are primarily changing the *direction* of leakage, not the rate." CreationDate="2021-01-05T00:41:01.780" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="13395" PostId="10435" Score="0" Text="Any data on actual recycling rates?" CreationDate="2021-01-29T00:39:34.773" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="14895" PostId="10435" Score="0" Text="Lots looking to the future with a lack of actual reclaim now.  It sounds a lot like the nuclear power industry of years past to me and we know where that waste is stored." CreationDate="2021-08-14T22:26:40.047" UserId="9862" />
  <row Id="14913" PostId="10435" Score="0" Text="@EdBeal Note that Tesla, at least, is already reclaiming/reusing/recycling per their 2020 impact report. News article version here: https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-100-percent-battery-recycling-model/" CreationDate="2021-08-20T21:22:35.393" UserId="8210" />
  <row Id="14918" PostId="10435" Score="0" Text="@pdobb my comment was on what is actually being done read the entire articles that are linked. No place is reclaiming 100% yet but they are looking ahead as stated in the articles. It would be great if we could have zero impact but our power grid alone is 75 years out for those kind of loads and I state this as a professional electrician." CreationDate="2021-08-22T02:06:21.900" UserId="9862" />
  <row Id="14928" PostId="10435" Score="0" Text="@EdBeal My hat's off to your profession -- I've considered jumping in myself. The linked articles are mine and out of date as of now. Tesla is reporting that they are in fact reclaiming 100% today. Agree that the grid needs a lot of work, but we have time to get there and solar and battery microgrids will help distribute the pain, too." CreationDate="2021-08-23T03:14:29.560" UserId="8210" />
  <row Id="13218" PostId="10437" Score="0" Text="Wiki seems to have left off a very large category - plastic or polymers." CreationDate="2021-01-03T20:46:34.563" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="13219" PostId="10437" Score="1" Text="&quot;Practical&quot; is ,of course totally arbitrary , so you can make the answer anything you want . . It seemed to me chemical engineers could turn any thing into something for a price." CreationDate="2021-01-03T20:50:20.517" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="13227" PostId="10437" Score="1" Text="@blacksmith37 plastic is there if you scroll down -- the page isn't organized very well. Regarding &quot;practical&quot; this is inherently hard to define. If an alternative is 2x the cost, it *may* be practical, or at least it's in striking distance if costs can improve. But if it's 10x the cost, it's unlikely ever to be practical. The challenge is figuring out a cutoff in between two extremes." CreationDate="2021-01-06T04:18:43.193" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13361" PostId="10437" Score="0" Text="Helium is a petroleum (by) product: http://www.sciences360.com/index.php/where-does-helium-come-from-2-8230/  Hydrogen is the only alternative for cooling and lifting, argon for welding and as a shielding gas. The alternatives are often much worse in many respects - pure argon makes it hard to strike an arc when welding, for example, so 1% helium is preferred. For cryogenics hydrogen is a PITA even compared to helium because it reacts with everything, percolates through things, and catches fire/explodes if you look at it funny." CreationDate="2021-01-19T22:29:22.437" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="13431" PostId="10437" Score="0" Text="QANTAS will be using &quot;[biofuel](https://www.qantasnewsroom.com.au/media-releases/qantas-aircraft-to-be-powered-by-renewable-biofuel-from-2020/)&quot; in its jets from LA to Australia from 2020, supposedly. However it is not 100% biofuel, it will be a 50:50 blend of traditional jet fuel with biofuel made from non-food plant oils." CreationDate="2021-02-07T23:05:49.330" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="13433" PostId="10437" Score="0" Text="Methane is the source of ammonia. Without ammonia corn production would be substantially reduced reducing the world food supply." CreationDate="2021-02-08T15:23:18.943" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="13225" PostId="10439" Score="0" Text="Does the article translate this? &quot;FMCGs purchased through pure players&quot;" CreationDate="2021-01-05T23:20:05.667" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13226" PostId="10439" Score="1" Text="Fast moving consumer goods purchased [by a consumer] from online only suppliers delivering directly to the consumer's home" CreationDate="2021-01-05T23:28:09.587" UserId="8448" />
  <row Id="13229" PostId="10440" Score="1" Text="I'm not sure if it's complete, but [this wiki post](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-out_of_fossil_fuel_vehicles#Cities_and_territories) mentions only California and Massachusetts (and 3 US cities; Los Angeles, New York and Seattle). So maybe there are no other US states that finalized this yet?" CreationDate="2021-01-07T08:09:52.387" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="13235" PostId="10441" Score="0" Text="Depending on where you live (esp. whether you need heating) you definitely should consider a thermic use of solar power. Yes, you need a buffer of about 1 cubic meter, but the reduction in heating and hot water cost is significant. Once the sun is out, the panels give you 50 ° C hot water even on Christmas at 0 ° C air temp. As to your actual question... sorry, I have no idea." CreationDate="2021-01-08T07:53:52.943" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="13240" PostId="10441" Score="0" Text="@Erik  As it happens I have a large hothouse on my property - so I guess I am already making thermic use of solar power!   I'm not sure what you mean by a buffer of 1 cubic meter, but I know as a very crude approximation the raw power of the sun when overhead is 1kwh/m^3   Of-course, when the sun is up I don't need much heating." CreationDate="2021-01-08T08:06:30.967" UserId="9219" />
  <row Id="13243" PostId="10441" Score="0" Text="The 1 cubic meter is the approx. volume of a buffer tank you'd need to heat a &quot;normal&quot; family home (ground floor, top floor, about 3 bedrooms)." CreationDate="2021-01-08T08:10:17.893" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="13250" PostId="10441" Score="0" Text="You say you explored this years ago. Is that also when you decided not to work with the utility? This is a rapidly changing space, so you may find that the utility has improved their offerings." CreationDate="2021-01-08T17:08:09.107" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13255" PostId="10441" Score="0" Text="@sspring this is really about the solar panel - you don't want to overcharge any kind of battery.  I don't think an aircon is a practical arbitrary load as you will stuff up the compressor in no time if you treat it that way.  On that matter, do you know people who actually use a chest freezer as an on-demand load?" CreationDate="2021-01-10T03:13:24.983" UserId="9219" />
  <row Id="13256" PostId="10441" Score="0" Text="If I can ask, who is your utility? usually rates and policies are public, I'd be curious to dig into it some." CreationDate="2021-01-10T15:32:38.643" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13257" PostId="10441" Score="0" Text="@lshaver not sure its relevant as I live in NZ- I happen to now be using Meridian - https://www.meridianenergy.co.nz/your-home/sustainability/solar - in addition to the lines fee they charge 16c at the moment. They pay back 8c - but I think the rate you pay goes up on that plan.  Their claims if 100% renewable power are misleading if you don't understand the market - the power they generate is green, but the power they sell is the same as everyone else - so &quot;only&quot; 80% renewable." CreationDate="2021-01-10T20:04:20.007" UserId="9219" />
  <row Id="13242" PostId="10443" Score="0" Text="Good answer, but I don't get your last point. What exactly do you mean with &quot;*may not be made with recycled paper*&quot;?" CreationDate="2021-01-08T08:08:27.817" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="13244" PostId="10443" Score="0" Text="Some articles at [this link](https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/recycled-paper), mentioned that once the fibre length degrades, the end product becomes gradually coarser. Personal hygeine paper (toilet paper, face wipes) are required to be softer!" CreationDate="2021-01-08T08:11:54.840" UserId="9243" />
  <row Id="13245" PostId="10443" Score="1" Text="Nevertheless toilet paper made from recycled paper is sold, both in Western and other countries." CreationDate="2021-01-08T08:13:50.480" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="13246" PostId="10443" Score="0" Text="If your were referring to my remark `Problem specific to Western and west copying countries`, I said that because in some countries, culture requires, washing with water and some cleaning agent." CreationDate="2021-01-08T08:14:05.450" UserId="9243" />
  <row Id="13247" PostId="10443" Score="0" Text="Ok, but I still don't see how this is considered to be a con of recycled paper." CreationDate="2021-01-08T08:15:03.777" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="13248" PostId="10443" Score="0" Text="What I meant was, if the paper is coarse, many consumers will not use it!" CreationDate="2021-01-08T08:22:23.260" UserId="9243" />
  <row Id="13249" PostId="10443" Score="1" Text="That's a fair point. Perhaps you can replace your last point with this remark?" CreationDate="2021-01-08T08:23:40.870" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="13251" PostId="10443" Score="0" Text="Thanks! Out of interest: what CIE value would raw tree product have? R&gt;146 seems to be assumed to be &quot;recycled&quot;." CreationDate="2021-01-08T20:22:14.650" UserId="8448" />
  <row Id="13252" PostId="10443" Score="0" Text="That I will have to check!" CreationDate="2021-01-09T17:42:35.160" UserId="9243" />
  <row Id="13259" PostId="10443" Score="0" Text="Hang on though. Probably a dumb question but don't we WANT these trees to be cut down (provided its fast-growing man-planted trees) so they can regrow and sequester more carbon?" CreationDate="2021-01-10T20:20:39.897" UserId="9219" />
  <row Id="13266" PostId="10443" Score="0" Text="@davidgo I found [this link](https://twosidesna.org/US/paper-grows-trees-quite-fast/), which states that deforestation is not an issue in the North America. This claim can only be verified by some official figures and/or Environmental Activists!" CreationDate="2021-01-11T06:35:56.093" UserId="9243" />
  <row Id="13267" PostId="10443" Score="0" Text="as to the `fast-growing`, I guess the conifers used for paper making (due to long fibres) take on average 15-20 years to become ready for harvest. If you ask me, I would not call that _fast_" CreationDate="2021-01-11T06:39:29.343" UserId="9243" />
  <row Id="13291" PostId="10443" Score="0" Text="A naive question, and the answer is probably an obvious yes, but does the re-recycling of paper degrade the quality of the resultant paper even more, i.e., will it keep becoming more and more yellow and less and less durable? Since the answer is, by common sense, an obvious yes, I should probably ask how many cycles of recycling can we go through before the paper becomes practically non-usable?" CreationDate="2021-01-11T23:29:55.460" UserId="9264" />
  <row Id="13295" PostId="10443" Score="0" Text="@DvijD.C. the answer is 'yes' as you have stated, but, still the question is an important one. The number of cycles depends on the original paper quality. I believe this is also being studied and one of the links I have shared points to some article regarding that." CreationDate="2021-01-12T05:07:36.693" UserId="9243" />
  <row Id="13258" PostId="10444" Score="0" Text="Why do you need springs in this scenario?  I posit its highly impractical because you will still be concentrating forces on the winches and concrete is brittle.  Also, this would seem difficult to turn back into practical kinetic energy due to the limited vertical movement available." CreationDate="2021-01-10T20:13:54.600" UserId="9219" />
  <row Id="13260" PostId="10444" Score="5" Text="There are spring-based energy storage devices.  This is how watches that you wind work.  A little web searching brings up plenty more information.  What are you looking for that you can't find?" CreationDate="2021-01-10T21:25:14.903" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="13262" PostId="10444" Score="2" Text="Related: [Domestic flywheel energy storage: how close are we?](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/6035/domestic-flywheel-energy-storage-how-close-are-we?rq=1)" CreationDate="2021-01-10T21:41:29.687" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13263" PostId="10444" Score="0" Text="@Jean-PaulCalderone those use spiral springs which are very weak and don't have the square-distance law" CreationDate="2021-01-11T05:28:10.703" UserId="1921" />
  <row Id="13265" PostId="10444" Score="0" Text="@davidgo the springs would have added square-of-distance force, except that's apparently not how they work, see my edit. Indeed, a steel plate would be better than concrete for the purpose." CreationDate="2021-01-11T05:50:46.017" UserId="1921" />
  <row Id="13273" PostId="10444" Score="0" Text="Possibly they do, if you consider compressed gas to be a spring - there are various liquid air/compressed air scams around where the engineering looks vaguely plausible as long as someone can find an airtight underground resevoir large enough." CreationDate="2021-01-11T09:32:20.000" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="13280" PostId="10444" Score="3" Text="A wind-up watch?" CreationDate="2021-01-11T14:41:35.143" UserId="8150" />
  <row Id="13284" PostId="10444" Score="3" Text="Spring-based energy storage is common in toys: jack-in-the-box, snake-in-a-can." CreationDate="2021-01-11T15:52:00.020" UserId="9253" />
  <row Id="13293" PostId="10444" Score="0" Text="Actually, there is.  My Subaru has a spring to store the energy required to start the engine after it automatically shuts down when stopped for a stop light." CreationDate="2021-01-12T01:43:20.503" UserId="8342" />
  <row Id="13294" PostId="10444" Score="0" Text="Paolo Bacigalupi's otherwise well written [The Windup Girl](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Windup_Girl) suffers from this terrible idea which entirely spoils it." CreationDate="2021-01-12T02:49:23.157" UserId="8151" />
  <row Id="13311" PostId="10444" Score="1" Text="I've heard of the opposite system - a concrete block on springs, say, a sidewalk paver in a busy city.  As people walk on this block, it compresses the springs underneath it and - something-something, kinetic energy is stored for later use.  Not sure the exact mechanism or if it was ever implemented.  Seems like it'd be a good source of &quot;free&quot; energy in any densely populated city.  (Though less so during a quarantine of course)" CreationDate="2021-01-12T21:48:31.197" UserId="3255" />
  <row Id="13329" PostId="10444" Score="1" Text="@DarrelHoffman The energy has to come from somewhere, and that would be from the people walking on the sidewalk. Like walking on soft sand, it would make walking more difficult and more exhausting defeating the point of a sidewalk. And that kinetic energy has to be turned into electric energy and that mechanism maintained. More feasible would be to use [piezoelectricity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piezoelectricity), at least there's no moving parts, but only relatively. The big problem is humans are really efficient at walking; there isn't much energy to gain." CreationDate="2021-01-13T22:59:57.603" UserId="9288" />
  <row Id="13331" PostId="10444" Score="0" Text="@Schwern That's why I put &quot;free&quot; in quotes.  The idea as I understand it is the panel doesn't move very much.  A millimeter or two at most, people wouldn't even notice.  The energy gain would come from the fact that thousands of people a day would walk over the panel.  It's only a negligible amount per person, but it adds up." CreationDate="2021-01-14T14:00:57.393" UserId="3255" />
  <row Id="13332" PostId="10444" Score="1" Text="@DarrelHoffman Does it add up? We can do some rough calculations to find out how much energy you'd get. A 60 kg adult exerts a force of about 600 N. A spring which is compressed 2 mm by 600 N has a stiffness of 300 kN/m. [That same 600 N person stepping on that spring produces 0.6 J](https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%281%2F2%29+%28300kN%2Fm%29+%282mm%29%5E2). 15,000 people would produce (ideally) 9000 J or about enough to charge a AA battery. A cheap 60 W (60 J / s) solar panel will (again, ideally) produce that in about 3 minutes. It doesn't add up." CreationDate="2021-01-14T20:15:33.680" UserId="9288" />
  <row Id="13333" PostId="10444" Score="0" Text="@Schwern I suppose I'd have to go back and find the article - it was a number of years ago, and I'm not even sure which publication it was.  It might not have been springs per se, but some other pressure-activated element that was the active element in this proposed device.  I think the idea was to rig up an entire NYC block with these.  Can't really compare with a solar panel, since you wouldn't want people walking on those.  Again, I'm not sure if it was ever actually done, just proposed." CreationDate="2021-01-14T20:24:26.057" UserId="3255" />
  <row Id="13334" PostId="10444" Score="1" Text="@DarrelHoffman [Pavegen claimed 217,000 J from 55,000 steps over a busy week](https://www.imeche.org/news/news-article/pavegen-kinetic-technology-powers-christmas-lights). A 60W solar panel can do that in an hour. [JR East tried a piezoelectric version in a busy train station](https://www.jreast.co.jp/e/development/press/20080111.pdf) and got 10,000 J out of 6m^2 over a week. 6 m^2 of solar panel can do that in less than a minute. And yes, people keep trying solar sidewalks [and roads](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Roadways), the maintenance issues are horrendous." CreationDate="2021-01-14T20:50:03.200" UserId="9288" />
  <row Id="13429" PostId="10444" Score="1" Text="Even gravity storage is not very efficient. Storing mass at the top of a hole.  A single kWh is 3,600,000 Joules.  If you use a 1000 kg weight, you need a 360 meter deep hole to store a kWh.  This assumes perfect efficiency.  Two barrels full of rocks would do it.  Now, go price what it costs to put a two foot diameter hole a thousand feet and change.  And that is for 1 kWh.  Most households use 30 kWh/day." CreationDate="2021-02-07T19:25:38.053" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="15684" PostId="10444" Score="0" Text="**So how would you calculate the gravimetric &amp; volumetric energy density of a gravity based system like Energy Vault ?**" CreationDate="2022-04-05T18:01:18.373" UserId="13884" />
  <row Id="13261" PostId="10445" Score="1" Text="Related: [Can you drink condensation water from air-con after treating it?](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/3228/3379)" CreationDate="2021-01-10T21:26:19.997" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13264" PostId="10446" Score="0" Text="That's why I added the springs, they store energy at the square of the extension" CreationDate="2021-01-11T05:30:10.023" UserId="1921" />
  <row Id="13283" PostId="10446" Score="2" Text="On the other hand, having your house run on wind-up energy for 3 minutes at a time would pretty darn awesome. Remind me to build one when I'm rich and famous and properly educated in electrical engineering." CreationDate="2021-01-11T15:48:53.113" UserId="9252" />
  <row Id="13285" PostId="10446" Score="0" Text="@w00t : OK .. I should have dealt with springs as well LShaver has answered that fully now." CreationDate="2021-01-11T18:29:54.437" UserId="8013" />
  <row Id="13286" PostId="10446" Score="1" Text="@user253751: I did invest in a wind up radio a few years ago. For a while it was OK ... 5 minutes winding for an hour of play back. After a couple of years it was 10 minutes winding for 15 minutes play back, at which point it became another piece of waste electronics." CreationDate="2021-01-11T18:30:05.397" UserId="8013" />
  <row Id="13278" PostId="10447" Score="1" Text="I'm fairly sure a spring with a diameter of 5 meters would be unusable as a spring." CreationDate="2021-01-11T14:13:23.177" UserId="9249" />
  <row Id="13281" PostId="10447" Score="3" Text="@Nzall indeed -- it can be a system of springs, rather than just a single spring. In addition, most of the systems explored in the literature are mainsprings (like in a watch), not coil springs." CreationDate="2021-01-11T14:44:59.617" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13289" PostId="10447" Score="1" Text="In some sense, lithium-ion batteries and lithium-polymer batteries can be thought of as &quot;spring-based&quot; storage systems.  They rely on intercalation of the lithium ions between the layers of some other substrate, which has the effect of pushing the substrate layers apart when the battery is charged.  This places the substrate under strain, storing (at least some of) the energy as elastic energy." CreationDate="2021-01-11T20:56:54.237" UserId="9261" />
  <row Id="13290" PostId="10447" Score="4" Text="+1. Great answer! It's also important to point out that converting electric energy into the potential energy of a spring system would involve much more losses than storing that same energy into the electro-chemical energy of a battery. The same problem regarding the loss will persist when you use the energy stored in the springs." CreationDate="2021-01-11T23:23:25.983" UserId="9264" />
  <row Id="13310" PostId="10447" Score="1" Text="A few years ago I worked through the possibility of energy storage using the structural changes in granitic minerals as they were compressed. I can't remember the detail, but the figures were astoundingly unimpressive." CreationDate="2021-01-12T21:10:56.910" UserId="9272" />
  <row Id="13328" PostId="10447" Score="0" Text="By the way, a flywhell of some tough material that is strained by centrifugal force to its maximum strength, actually stores maximum possible amount of kinetic **as well as** elastic energy (which is efficiently transferred/released through a change of momentum of inertia, like a balette stretching hands). The kinetic energy is usually considerably larger for a given flywheel mass, though." CreationDate="2021-01-13T17:19:55.453" UserId="3052" />
  <row Id="13270" PostId="10448" Score="0" Text="What is the source of the water?  (I postulate it should be OK, however it will have a slightly  higher percentage of &quot;contaminants&quot; (it would likely have 1/20'th to 1/5th more contaminants per litre then if the to filter was not present). I expect this would be unlikely to be an issue." CreationDate="2021-01-11T09:17:25.527" UserId="9219" />
  <row Id="13274" PostId="10448" Score="0" Text="the source of the water is the government managed municipality water supply system; although I have to admit, the water quality index may be way different in most Asian countries than in European/American countries. I currently do not know/have means to measure the quality." CreationDate="2021-01-11T09:33:54.063" UserId="9243" />
  <row Id="13288" PostId="10448" Score="0" Text="I suggest reading what  the RO process does." CreationDate="2021-01-11T19:08:05.093" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="13268" PostId="10449" Score="0" Text="has there been any study to back this up?" CreationDate="2021-01-11T08:50:11.500" UserId="9243" />
  <row Id="13269" PostId="10449" Score="1" Text="I've not looked for one, and don't see why one would he needed.  Incomplete (or imperfect) burning of LPG/propane/butane results in water, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide.  The later 2 are gasses, so even if they weren't gasses they would not hurt plants.  (Indeed they would likely benefit plants)" CreationDate="2021-01-11T09:08:26.170" UserId="9219" />
  <row Id="13271" PostId="10449" Score="0" Text="Well, @davidgo, I came across [this 2015 article](https://www.jlconline.com/how-to/hvac/drain-pain-furnace-condensate-proves-tricky-to-manage_o) which says that the condensate water output is corrosive. That might be harmful to the plants/trees!" CreationDate="2021-01-11T09:21:22.887" UserId="9243" />
  <row Id="13272" PostId="10449" Score="0" Text="Further, I came across [this article](http://pss.uvm.edu/ppp/pubs/oh34.htm) with information about what should be the pH value of the growing medium of some of the plants/trees!" CreationDate="2021-01-11T09:29:16.767" UserId="9243" />
  <row Id="13275" PostId="10449" Score="0" Text="So the questions then would be - what is the effect of nitric acid on your particular plants and how concentrated is it?" CreationDate="2021-01-11T09:38:51.523" UserId="9219" />
  <row Id="13277" PostId="10449" Score="0" Text="Well, all I am saying is, before a practice is adopted by a large populace, its short and long term effects should be studied in controlled environments." CreationDate="2021-01-11T10:16:22.320" UserId="9243" />
  <row Id="13287" PostId="10449" Score="0" Text="Corrosive has nothing to do with plants. Basically it is distilled water saturated with CO2 ;  so it is acidic but neutralized as soon as it contacts soil ( by limestone , etc.)" CreationDate="2021-01-11T19:04:29.437" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="13296" PostId="10449" Score="0" Text="@blacksmith37 As per the 2015 article link I have shared above, the condensate also has Nitric Acid, which may not be good!" CreationDate="2021-01-12T05:56:43.467" UserId="9243" />
  <row Id="13300" PostId="10449" Score="0" Text="Don't believe something just because because it is printed on the net . What makes this condensate acidic is the CO2 ,not a ppm of nitrate." CreationDate="2021-01-12T17:23:53.587" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="13301" PostId="10449" Score="1" Text="On the other hand , if you want to believe the net story ; you are getting free fertilizer in the water  ( the &quot;N&quot;  of  NPK ).." CreationDate="2021-01-12T18:31:02.520" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="13299" PostId="10451" Score="0" Text="Thanks, this is very helpful!" CreationDate="2021-01-12T13:59:10.160" UserId="1921" />
  <row Id="13304" PostId="10452" Score="2" Text="Does Chicago no longer take water out through the river ? They reversed a river flow well over 100 years ago to take water out instead of putting it into Lake Michigan ( to carry away sewage instead of dumping it into the lake like Milwaukee )." CreationDate="2021-01-12T19:42:58.950" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="13305" PostId="10452" Score="2" Text="Burns Harbor  Indiana was also able to take water out ( and put it into the I &amp; M Canal system ) or put it in depending on water levels." CreationDate="2021-01-12T19:46:46.023" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="13306" PostId="10452" Score="2" Text="I don't know if it qualifies as &quot;long distance &quot; but the city of Chicago takes &quot; a lot &quot; of water out of Lake Michigan and sells it to suburbs up to 70 miles away." CreationDate="2021-01-12T19:50:28.780" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="13308" PostId="10452" Score="1" Text="Most of this info can be found under &quot;Chicago River&quot; ( my computer skills are poor ).. They have changed the name of the I &amp; M canal  system , but it still connects to Burns Harbor  , they just make it difficult to get the information." CreationDate="2021-01-12T20:10:33.457" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="13309" PostId="10452" Score="1" Text="@blacksmith37 good point. I looked into this a bit -- see [this article](https://greatlakesecho.org/2011/06/22/great-lakes-diversions-does-illinois-catch-a-break/). Basically, in exchange for being able to continue to divert water out of the lake via the Chicago River, Illinois is not eligible to take any future exceptions." CreationDate="2021-01-12T20:45:42.987" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13312" PostId="10452" Score="1" Text="Of course that does not address the large amount of water Chicago takes and sells . Because it is a big money maker , public  info that is true will not be easy to find . And nobody wants to talk about Burns Harbor." CreationDate="2021-01-12T21:53:58.493" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="13313" PostId="10452" Score="1" Text="@blacksmith37 the Indiana Dept. of Natural Resources gives information on water withdrawals here: https://www.in.gov/dnr/water/4841.htm. It's more information than I can handle, in a field I'm not familiar with, but I assume there's enough detail there if you want to chase it down." CreationDate="2021-01-12T22:36:51.343" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13297" PostId="10453" Score="3" Text="The most energy-intense spring that most people encounter are the torsion springs that help reduce the apparent weight of garage doors. [Those springs are notoriously dangerous](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2iazseebHc), and the energy they store is not more than the work to open a garage door." CreationDate="2021-01-12T08:46:10.563" UserId="1830" />
  <row Id="13307" PostId="10453" Score="0" Text="Mousetraps, Crossbows, Harpoon guns .... while these are intentionally dangerous devices, they &quot;just&quot; have a bit of energy stored in a spring of some description..." CreationDate="2021-01-12T19:54:34.337" UserId="9266" />
  <row Id="13338" PostId="10454" Score="0" Text="This relatively old [WHO Guideline](https://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/dwq/chemicals/tds.pdf) and this [blog article on safe water](https://www.safewater.org/fact-sheets-1/2017/1/23/tds-and-ph) may be useful when studying this answer." CreationDate="2021-01-15T09:01:33.690" UserId="9243" />
  <row Id="16283" PostId="10454" Score="0" Text="New links for [WHO Guidelines](https://www.who.int/teams/environment-climate-change-and-health/water-sanitation-and-health/water-safety-and-quality/drinking-water-quality-guidelines) and [WHO Guideline PDF](https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/44584/9789241548151_eng.pdf)" CreationDate="2023-02-10T04:29:44.383" UserId="9243" />
  <row Id="13321" PostId="10455" Score="0" Text="from the concept image on the website shared, it seems the city is a small island city, connected to mainland via bridges. So delivery to some depot will be via raods but inside the city everything will at walking distance! Also, most of these buildings most probably will have helipads, so..." CreationDate="2021-01-13T06:52:53.930" UserId="9243" />
  <row Id="13298" PostId="10456" Score="0" Text="Interesting thoughts about bringing Soylent Green in light. Didn't know about it! While food is one primary point of concern, the major aspect is bringing mobility in a sustainable way. Even hyperloop mobility solution also depend on electricity." CreationDate="2021-01-12T13:42:31.607" UserId="4708" />
  <row Id="13302" PostId="10456" Score="0" Text="After this problem is solved ; work should be started on hauling away rubish .I guess energy is delivered by pipe or wire.." CreationDate="2021-01-12T19:31:28.600" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="13318" PostId="10456" Score="1" Text="The plans for this project (&quot;THE LINE&quot;) include high-speed rail for inter-city transit and and underground service layer with vehicles for intra-city delivery, including food. Source: https://www.neom.com/whatistheline/" CreationDate="2021-01-13T03:00:35.300" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="13319" PostId="10456" Score="1" Text="@Nic So they **do** have cars/trucks and they **do** have streets.  They just put them underground... and then the marketing department spins it to make it sound like they don't exist.  What a &quot;revolution&quot;!  /slowclap" CreationDate="2021-01-13T03:59:31.430" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="13320" PostId="10456" Score="0" Text="The other problems I envisage are: what happens when someone wants to renovate their apartment, or repair a broken window, or there is a fire or someone needs an ambulance or for the police to attend to some matter. I'm assuming there would be walkways for people to traverse outside. It's a concept that requires much thought &amp; planning." CreationDate="2021-01-13T05:24:43.777" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="13322" PostId="10456" Score="0" Text="@Tim Rail ≠ street" CreationDate="2021-01-13T09:21:02.990" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="13323" PostId="10456" Score="0" Text="@gerrit  The page that Nic linked shows wheeled trucks on sub-level 1, and AI-controlled/railed transport on sub-level 2." CreationDate="2021-01-13T09:38:13.293" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="13324" PostId="10461" Score="0" Text="Thoughtful @Erik ! Yes, I agree to the point that modern word 'construction' itself is not sustainable, particularly the way video of &quot;The Line&quot; shows." CreationDate="2021-01-13T14:37:07.000" UserId="4708" />
  <row Id="13656" PostId="10475" Score="0" Text="That makes a lot of sense, but I wonder, if meat production should be reduced to 0, considering that there always will be some waste product left? Might as well feed the hulls to cows instead of discarding them?" CreationDate="2021-06-07T18:38:40.700" UserId="6213" />
  <row Id="16203" PostId="10484" Score="0" Text="Typically organic means pesticides and artificial fertilizers are omitted, hydroponics doesn't require either however the nutrient solution can be organic but must be dissolved and soluble...." CreationDate="2022-12-04T04:41:57.130" UserId="9007" />
  <row Id="13416" PostId="10486" Score="0" Text="Thanks!!!!!!!!!" CreationDate="2021-02-01T03:41:08.907" UserId="6870" />
  <row Id="13387" PostId="10492" Score="0" Text="(BLEVE = explosion)" CreationDate="2021-01-27T22:14:15.870" UserId="9252" />
  <row Id="13390" PostId="10492" Score="0" Text="I thought BLEVE was only an issue if the compressed gas was itself flammable?" CreationDate="2021-01-28T19:06:21.580" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13391" PostId="10492" Score="2" Text="@LShaver Oh no, that's only a bonus.  If the liquid is heated to above boiling@ambient, and then suddenly the vessel breaches and pressure falls to ambient, then some of the liquid boils to vapor *instantly* to consume the excess temperature. 1 BTU = 1 pound of water heated 1 degree.  So if you have 200lbs of water at 5 degrees F above boiling@ambient, that's 1000 BTUs of excess energy. 1000 BTU is the enthalpy of 1 pound of water, so it will *instantly* turn 1 pound of water into steam.  1 pound *is a lot of steam*." CreationDate="2021-01-28T22:13:00.323" UserId="6925" />
  <row Id="13420" PostId="10493" Score="0" Text="See also: [Why do I need batteries to use solar when the grid is down?](https://diy.stackexchange.com/q/167552/86548) on DIY.SE." CreationDate="2021-02-03T15:23:14.880" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13388" PostId="10494" Score="1" Text="Interesting question, but why would you want to put a solar panel indoors in space? Space capsules are usually rather small, and on the outside there is plenty of ... well...space.&#xA;Or do you mean in future housing on the moon or Mars?" CreationDate="2021-01-28T14:00:10.323" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="13389" PostId="10494" Score="1" Text="@THelper for the space usecase, I was thinking on the lines of mitigating dust issues for Martian settlements. Solar panels are relatively delicate compared to sunlight collectors. But, for the use case on Earth, think of a facility that is underground, or even the lower floors of High Rises." CreationDate="2021-01-28T14:36:18.620" UserId="9243" />
  <row Id="13393" PostId="10496" Score="2" Text="Possible duplicate of [To what extent (if any) are electric vehicle batteries recyclable?](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/6259/3379)" CreationDate="2021-01-29T00:37:03.970" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13392" PostId="10497" Score="0" Text="Ok when the battery of a Tesla car is exhausted, is it recycled? Does Tesla get them for recycling? How much % of it can be recycled?" CreationDate="2021-01-28T22:57:11.917" UserId="8934" />
  <row Id="13394" PostId="10497" Score="2" Text="Problem is, it's not happening -- see [this answer](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/a/6268/3379): &quot;At present recycling lithium from batteries costs about 5 times the cost of mined lithium.&quot;" CreationDate="2021-01-29T00:38:23.603" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13411" PostId="10501" Score="0" Text="Related: [Which countries, regions, or cities have set a date to ban the sale of gasoline and diesel vehicles?](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/10501/3379)" CreationDate="2021-01-29T04:14:27.323" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13428" PostId="10501" Score="0" Text="Interesting.  Making natural gas with surplus power is an obvious use for surplus energy from renewables.  I suspect at present this is only about 40-60% efficient.  CH4 is expensive to store.  Making di-ethyl-ether would give you what amounts to synthetic heating oil/synthetic diesel fuel." CreationDate="2021-02-07T19:04:53.183" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="13413" PostId="10502" Score="1" Text="I doubt the swimming pool pump would reach 60C" CreationDate="2021-01-30T04:28:24.917" UserId="8232" />
  <row Id="13427" PostId="10502" Score="0" Text="@LShaver I added some generic links, but here's a swimming pool one for 1900: https://www.univeco.com/en/heat-pump/7191-poolstyle-inverter-r32-165kw-heat-pump-3661145018458.html" CreationDate="2021-02-06T09:18:55.380" UserId="1921" />
  <row Id="13423" PostId="10508" Score="0" Text="Glass containers could also be a better option than plastic -- much easier to recycle. Some plant-based plastics require very specific conditions for composting." CreationDate="2021-02-05T14:28:00.720" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13425" PostId="10508" Score="0" Text="@LShaver Yes, very true.  Plus glass tends to get more commonly reused without any additional processing.  I currently receive some of my herbal supplements in glass bottles, and I'll tend to save the bottles to reuse for other purposes.  They work great hold things like sugar, salt, and spices in the kitchen.  They also are great for storing paint and rubbing alcohol." CreationDate="2021-02-06T04:25:59.323" UserId="2727" />
  <row Id="13426" PostId="10508" Score="0" Text="@LShaver Thinking for another moment regarding plant-based containers... even if some need special conditions for composting, they could also be used as temporary planters for seedlings and succulents, and probably decompose nicely in a community trash dump / landfill." CreationDate="2021-02-06T04:28:19.087" UserId="2727" />
  <row Id="16504" PostId="10510" Score="1" Text="40°C can be enough if you have underfloor heating." CreationDate="2023-10-11T15:00:20.587" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="13430" PostId="10513" Score="0" Text="One advantage of asphalt roads is they flexible, whereas ones that use concrete are rigid. In the long term the implication of this is concrete roads can become cracked &amp; prone to water damage, sections of concrete pavement can rise &amp; fall differentially creating blocky uneven surfaces." CreationDate="2021-02-07T22:59:34.560" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="13432" PostId="10514" Score="0" Text="The OP was asking for quantitative studies rather than restatement of the problem permaculture is trying to solve, I think." CreationDate="2021-02-08T05:21:48.017" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="13434" PostId="10514" Score="0" Text="Dear @Sherwood Botsford, I appreciate your perspective on Shepherd, and I am of course aware of the high labour costs of permaculture. The goal of my question was a more quantitative comparison of calories and labour per ha, so any studies on the &quot;outstanding efficiency in terms of calories per acre&quot; would be highly appreciated." CreationDate="2021-02-09T07:16:58.090" UserId="9209" />
  <row Id="13435" PostId="10514" Score="0" Text="Can't help you there.  I don't know of any full hectare permacuture establishments.  And if it's not economic, it won't happen, so your search won't change anything even if you do find an answer." CreationDate="2021-02-10T19:26:17.613" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="13446" PostId="10517" Score="0" Text="Interesting to note that the cost vs popularity of flying is much studied but relatively price insensitive, at least for the level of variation we normally see. The flygskam movement likewise did little, it took the pandemic to get people to decide that flying less is worth while.&#xA;&#xA;Which suggests that &quot;what price&quot; is not measured in money, it's measured in lives." CreationDate="2021-02-15T07:37:42.847" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="16439" PostId="10520" Score="0" Text="Question asks about the UK, but the UK does not have a cold climate." CreationDate="2023-07-26T09:12:37.717" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="13445" PostId="10521" Score="0" Text="Yes, 3000 hours at nameplate capacity (in full sun). Of course, the panel doesn't generate much power at dusk/dark/dawn so estimating the number of days/years for EROI depends on more variables." CreationDate="2021-02-13T17:48:10.077" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="13447" PostId="10522" Score="0" Text="There are microbes that break down some plastics, but slowly and seemingly not if there's other food. That's being actively researched, but it beats burning the plastic. Which is the other way plastic is known to break down. Unless the landfill catches fire I doubt anything much breaks down in it - they emit some methane but nowhere near as much as a composting operation does." CreationDate="2021-02-15T07:39:46.113" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="13454" PostId="10523" Score="0" Text="Very interesting. Equally terrifying. Thanks for sharing." CreationDate="2021-02-16T16:21:48.620" UserId="9372" />
  <row Id="13448" PostId="10524" Score="0" Text="Looks like some words got cut off after &quot;mostly because electricity is ...&quot;" CreationDate="2021-02-15T14:53:20.237" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13451" PostId="10524" Score="0" Text="@LShaver saves energy..." CreationDate="2021-02-15T23:27:56.027" UserId="9377" />
  <row Id="13452" PostId="10525" Score="1" Text="It also depends on your goals/lifestyle: taking the train to the gym can never be more efficient than riding your bike for transport and getting exercise that way instead of going to the gym. The other thing is that we can easily run trains on renewable electricity, but it's impossible to feed everyone renewable food (numbers vary, but without oil we can feed somewhere between 1B and 5B people... there are ~9B now)" CreationDate="2021-02-16T05:57:31.933" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="13453" PostId="10528" Score="0" Text="I think most people find it more convenient to plug in an electric refrigerator than put in ice and take out water every couple days. Although when camping in the mountains , I used compressed  snow ( 50 % ice) in a cooler chest.." CreationDate="2021-02-16T15:52:14.097" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="13456" PostId="10528" Score="0" Text="You really need an &quot;ice box&quot;, they were pretty clever ; various compartments and drinking water tank. ( I remember a neighbors from a very long time ago). A refrigerator would not be very effective substitute." CreationDate="2021-02-16T21:19:21.227" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="13489" PostId="10528" Score="0" Text="@blacksmith37 I was thinking of something that would fit inside my fridge in the winter -- a compartment on top for snow, and a reservoir underneath to collect the water. Every few day you drain the water and add more snow. Obviously this would take up space, but could it be worthwhile?" CreationDate="2021-03-03T16:20:06.407" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13458" PostId="10531" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Are you affiliated with SunPower by any chance? Your post reads a bit as if it's spam. We require posts to mention any affiliation of recommended products." CreationDate="2021-02-18T10:24:55.373" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="13461" PostId="10532" Score="2" Text="I haven't used them, but you could look for a [battery management app](https://www.androidauthority.com/best-battery-saver-android-apps-266980/) that would maintain the battery at 50%, rather than having to do this manually." CreationDate="2021-02-19T16:36:20.227" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13462" PostId="10532" Score="1" Text="Without getting into a fun electronics project involving scavenged components and likely a whole bunch of tools you don't have, that seems like the best option. Make sure you have a reaconably recent charger rather than the really old transformed-based &quot;brick&quot; ones (don't be tempted to scrounge one, in other words), because they often used 2-3 watts to heat the transformer and 0.1W to run the phone..." CreationDate="2021-02-20T09:56:33.790" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="13463" PostId="10532" Score="0" Text="@LShaver Interesting idea! If the device is not rooted, do you know if any of those apps actually work to stop the device from charging at a certain point?  I use one (AccuBattery), and it alerts me when my battery is charged at x% (you get to define x), but at least without root, it doesn't actually stop the device from charging.  Separately, I *think* that removing the battery will be more energy efficient in the long-haul, but I'm happy to learn something different." CreationDate="2021-02-20T10:02:54.737" UserId="2727" />
  <row Id="13464" PostId="10532" Score="0" Text="@Móż Great point about the charger.  I have various chargers of all generations... what's a good way to tell how power efficient each one is?  I do have a digital multimeter and electrical leads.  Actually, let me open a new topic about this because it may help others as well: https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/10535/how-to-ensure-you-are-using-efficient-chargers-for-cell-phones-laptop-computers" CreationDate="2021-02-20T10:16:05.117" UserId="2727" />
  <row Id="13459" PostId="10533" Score="0" Text="Thank you Fred.  I updated my question based on the question you asked in your first sentence." CreationDate="2021-02-19T15:22:11.427" UserId="2727" />
  <row Id="13465" PostId="10535" Score="0" Text="Does your multimeter measure ac current, and are you comfortable connecting it to mains voltage?" CreationDate="2021-02-22T15:18:45.713" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13466" PostId="10535" Score="0" Text="@LShaver I'm almost positive that it measures AC current, but I'll double-check as this one replaced a broken analog one that I used for years.  Regarding connecting to mains voltage, the leads are insulated but not heavy duty.  Also, the multimeter was not expensive (meaning it's not industrial quality).  I can follow instructions carefully as long as they are written clearly (and stop if they aren't!).  I'm not an electricity expert by any means, but I have a very healthy respect for it.  Given those responses, do you think it's reasonably safe to connect the multimeter to mains voltage?" CreationDate="2021-02-22T17:45:42.700" UserId="2727" />
  <row Id="13467" PostId="10535" Score="0" Text="Turns out there are some standards around these things, marked on most chargers -- see my answer. Could be a better option than testing on your own." CreationDate="2021-02-23T05:03:34.390" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13468" PostId="10535" Score="2" Text="Quick way: pick up the charger.  If it feels lightweight, it's efficient; if it feels like a solid block of metal, it isn't.  The efficiency difference between modern switch-mode power supplies and older transformer-based ones dwarfs any minor variation between switch-mode designs." CreationDate="2021-02-23T06:28:11.900" UserId="7993" />
  <row Id="13470" PostId="10535" Score="0" Text="@Mark Thank you for the helpful tip.  Back in the day, the way to measure quality electronics was the opposite: as a general rule, the heavier the better.  It's wonderful to learn that, at least for chargers, the opposite is now true.  Which is the now the case for surge suppressors?  In the past, light ones were worthless, but I wonder if that has now changed too." CreationDate="2021-02-23T11:31:13.153" UserId="2727" />
  <row Id="13474" PostId="10535" Score="0" Text="The simple way to guess is to touch them when they're in use - if they're warm they're inefficient. Higher power ones have to be more efficient because wasting 10% of 200W means they have to get rid of 20W somehow." CreationDate="2021-02-24T05:11:08.497" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="13475" PostId="10535" Score="1" Text="Also, it's not worth trying to put a multimeter in series with mains to measure current. The people who know enough to do that almost always buy a proper mains current or power meter instead specifically because it's so dangerous not to. A plug in power meter (search online for that, you'll find ones wityh local plugs) is about $20 in most places and while those are almost always garbage for loads under 10W they're much better than bare multimeter probes." CreationDate="2021-02-24T05:12:15.723" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="13469" PostId="10536" Score="1" Text="Wow. This is an amazingly helpful answer.  Thank you.  What about EPS made before 2004?  I hesitate to use them because of potential inefficiency, but I hesitate to get rid of them due to environmental waste combined with the resources required to create new ones." CreationDate="2021-02-23T11:22:11.067" UserId="2727" />
  <row Id="13471" PostId="10536" Score="0" Text="@RockPaperLz-MaskitorCasket I added the last section for one other way to estimate power supply efficiency." CreationDate="2021-02-23T18:33:32.410" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13472" PostId="10536" Score="0" Text="Thank you for the added information!" CreationDate="2021-02-23T18:35:33.433" UserId="2727" />
  <row Id="13477" PostId="10539" Score="1" Text="The most cost effective way is to reduce your own contribution - and you probably even gain money by doing so. Use your car less, reduce your energy consumption, eat less meat, buy less stuff and/or more sustainable stuff, etc, pp." CreationDate="2021-03-01T08:51:50.447" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="13478" PostId="10539" Score="0" Text="Is it though? I mean the car is a mute point for me, and I'm not by any means an excessive consumer in other domains, but it isn't clear that these actions make any measurable impact on *global* emissions" CreationDate="2021-03-01T19:20:51.503" UserId="8754" />
  <row Id="13479" PostId="10539" Score="0" Text="At least the authors of the fouders pledge [climate &amp; lifestyle report](https://founderspledge.com/stories/climate-and-lifestyle-report) would argue that putting $1000 in their fund dwarves any other action you might take, other than maybe not having a child. (See figure 7 in link)" CreationDate="2021-03-01T19:47:17.377" UserId="8754" />
  <row Id="13484" PostId="10539" Score="0" Text="You are asking about cost efficiency, not about absolute impact. So yes, your own behaviour is the most cost efficient way to reduce emissions, since it cuts your own expenses without having to invest any money. And unless you're handicapped or need to transport stuff for your job, reducing car travels isn't a mute point. So don't try to buy yourself a clean consiousness, rather act on what you try to achieve." CreationDate="2021-03-02T08:00:42.467" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="13485" PostId="10539" Score="0" Text="Or you don't own a car. I guess my point is reductions only take you so far. As far as I can see I am already living a relatively minimal lifestyle, as far as things within my control are concerned, and as far as I have the time / capacity to know. But I still have money I could spend to do more. So how *should* I spend it?" CreationDate="2021-03-02T09:12:28.533" UserId="8754" />
  <row Id="13486" PostId="10539" Score="0" Text="Should I reword the question? What I want is most bang per buck. Where bang is emissions reductions." CreationDate="2021-03-02T09:17:20.900" UserId="8754" />
  <row Id="13488" PostId="10539" Score="2" Text="It might actually come from a different corner then you'd expect: could very well be that the most effective way which mainly costs time (if you want you can fill in AUD/hour) is persuading enough other people or entities (governments, ...) to do something for the climate. A bit too many possibilities to sum up though, so just one simple example: suppose you live in a town where road lights are on the entire night and you can get them to turn them off lights at night instead for the future that's not unlikely going to save more than anything else you can personally do over a lifetime." CreationDate="2021-03-02T20:15:51.367" UserId="4158" />
  <row Id="13490" PostId="10539" Score="1" Text="I would edit a bit to address some of the things in the comments -- you're assuming you've already done everything feasible to reduce your personal emissions, and you're looking to invest or donate money to further reduce emissions. So you're specifically looking for an organization to donate to, or a fund to invest in, which will reduce your tax liability in Australia." CreationDate="2021-03-03T17:57:35.487" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13491" PostId="10539" Score="1" Text="Thanks @LShaver, I have clarified my intent and think the question is better for it. You are right, I am looking for an organization (or rather I think I have found one in founders-pledge-fund, and want to know if I can do better)." CreationDate="2021-03-03T19:46:45.607" UserId="8754" />
  <row Id="13492" PostId="10542" Score="0" Text="Does this answer your question? [Any way for microinverter PV array to power a house when the grid is down?](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/10493/3379)" CreationDate="2021-03-03T20:58:50.630" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13499" PostId="10542" Score="1" Text="The answer is going to be no, because without a battery the power available fluctuates unpredictably so even if the inverters ran they would quickly destroy anything electronic by flicking on and off all the time. Once you have a battery it's much easier." CreationDate="2021-03-04T23:41:53.630" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="13493" PostId="10543" Score="0" Text="It's relatively easy to buy gas sensors for the air pollution component of this, and you could likely even buy cheap aliexpress or banggood air quality monitors to get some idea (volatile organic compunds or VOC is they keyword). Heavy metal testing requires a lab, but there are many in Singapore (and Maylasia, or elsewhere, you only need a few grams for a test sample: https://www.google.com/search?q=singapore+soil+heavy+metal+test" CreationDate="2021-03-04T23:22:53.633" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="13494" PostId="10543" Score="0" Text="Getting into a fight with your government over safety is going to need legal as well as scientific expertise, because this is one of the classic situations where people die and 30 years later the government or companys says &quot;sorry we lied about that for the last 30 years&quot;. Community protest is necessary, but only one component, and as a kiwi I can't really help... you'll more than I doabout the political stuff where you live. If you can get a university environmental department or someone from one on side that will help a lot." CreationDate="2021-03-04T23:25:37.567" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="13495" PostId="10543" Score="0" Text="Meantime, for those who have reasonably airtight homes, HEPA air filters work really well. In Australia bushfire season where the smoke cuts visiblity to 100m in the middle of Sydney, a portable in-room filter can cut PM10 from &gt;1000 to &lt;10 fairly realiably. It's a race between air leaking in bringing new smoke and the filter removing it. I own several, and the key thing seems to be buying extra filters with the purifier... and if you can't get extra filters don't buy the unit that uses them. When it's bad you might need a new filter every day, you can see the dust they have filtered out." CreationDate="2021-03-04T23:27:57.150" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="13496" PostId="10543" Score="0" Text="The obvious alternative is what Singapore always does... truck it to Maylasia and dump it, or process it there. Bad alternative! Better to use a chemical incinerator that's been modified to deal with the huge amount of ash that's produced when you &quot;burn&quot; soil. That's expensive, but there are companies in Singapore that do it: https://www.nea.gov.sg/our-services/pollution-control/hazardous-waste/toxic-waste-control  (incinerator rules exist, therefore incinerators exist)" CreationDate="2021-03-04T23:33:09.013" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="13502" PostId="10543" Score="0" Text="We do export to SEA nations for recycling and salvage but I don't think any is reckless dumping..which is what Indonesia, Vietnam is facing etc. We have our man made landfills which is however running out now. Thanks for the comment on the fumes. It's challenging to capture PAHs and VOCs on personal handheld devices. Testing professional is expensive and government can register and attribute to environmental sources." CreationDate="2021-03-08T04:39:20.977" UserId="9422" />
  <row Id="13509" PostId="10547" Score="1" Text="I note you don't consider recycling, which is accurate but also horrible. Especially the magnets in legacy disks which contain accessible rare earths. And note that a lot of hard disks are used in airconditioned or at least force cooled evironments, so the electricity saving is not just the label difference. Lifetime is harder to calculate and changes all the time, but I suspect SSDs are close to legacy disks now." CreationDate="2021-03-11T01:52:52.813" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="13512" PostId="10547" Score="0" Text="@Móż actually with disposal I meant the end-of-life of the product in a more general sense, whatever it may be. I know a lot of electronics are dumped in lower income countries, so that's probably the most common scenario. However, I'm open to studies that assume recycling." CreationDate="2021-03-11T14:17:45.237" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="13517" PostId="10547" Score="0" Text="@THelper You need a rule for environmental impact that reduces to a single figure of merit.  How do I compare something that uses 50kWh/GB vs 200 kWh/GB over total lifespan but uses 200 gal of water vs 10,000 gal of water to make? vs 10 pounds/GB of low problem industrial waste vs 1 pound of highly toxic industrial waste?  This is a problem common to all sustanabilty questions." CreationDate="2021-03-15T18:09:31.100" UserId="400" />
  <row Id="13519" PostId="10547" Score="3" Text="@SherwoodBotsford I disagree that a single figure is needed. Saying that product A has a lower carbon footprint but higher water footprint than product B would be a perfectly fine answer. Such results are very common in LCAs. I do grant you that calculating all aspects yourself would be way too much for an answer, so I'll make clear that I'm actually looking for results from research studies." CreationDate="2021-03-15T18:47:02.780" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="13515" PostId="10548" Score="0" Text="Try it and see, it will depend a lot on conditions  where the boxes are placed. I'd be inclined to put newspaper over the gap on the inside to reduce air movement. If you can keep your current farm running as a backup in case it doesn't work that would help." CreationDate="2021-03-14T00:57:11.103" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="13516" PostId="10548" Score="1" Text="@Móż I am testing it out and will report back on what I find. Crumpled newspaper in the gaps could work, we'll see how cumbersome it is to repack every time the boxes get lifted but that shouldn't be too often. Sadly my other worm bin is no longer in service - starting anew with this one." CreationDate="2021-03-14T17:23:40.170" UserId="2942" />
  <row Id="13520" PostId="10548" Score="1" Text="also, it might be possible to unscrew/lever apart the top right end joint in the middle photo so you get a small gap there rather than a big gap on the other side. It is probably not too late to just put the stack on hard ground and stand on it to force it all into the same degree of not-quite-square :)" CreationDate="2021-03-16T00:42:24.567" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="13514" PostId="10550" Score="2" Text="You can just buy offsets directly, no need for a broker. The problems you will have auditing those offsets are the same as you would have auditing the broker (many offset schemes are worthless, and the whole idea is dubious. It's like going out to search for  change off the sidewalk to pay off a car loan... it might work, but not for long, you need to get rid of the car loan)" CreationDate="2021-03-14T00:50:56.233" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="13522" PostId="10555" Score="0" Text="You imply that it costs $20 to eliminate 1 lb of CO2 - where does that number come from?" CreationDate="2021-03-24T04:50:24.947" UserId="9454" />
  <row Id="13535" PostId="10555" Score="0" Text="I was refering to Gasoline above.&#xA;A gallon of heating oil costs $2.50, went burned produceds 26 lbs of CO2. Average american household that's heated using oil uses 1825 dollars worth or 730 gallons wiht 26 lbs per gallon that's 9.49 tons per year, so it produces 10.4 lbs of co2 per dollar spent. Carbon schemes that cost as much as 10-50 dollars per ton; that's 40 dollars a pound because it only costs 10 cents to emit it's a scam" CreationDate="2021-03-28T23:03:16.583" UserId="9007" />
  <row Id="13523" PostId="10557" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! We have a few questions that address this, for example [this one](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/190/which-is-more-sustainable-paper-bags-or-ldpe-bags) and [this one](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/5840/99). Do these answer your question? If not, could you please indicate what parts are still unaddressed?" CreationDate="2021-03-24T06:56:20.330" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="13525" PostId="10557" Score="0" Text="The first answer has an obscure title. Neither answers the entire question (and I wrote this after seeing an article about cotton being the worst possible replacement for paper bags). At very least, not all canvas is created equal.&#xA;&#xA;And the cost of transporting heavier disposable paper bags vs. much lighter disposable bags is not discussed anywhere." CreationDate="2021-03-24T17:46:05.950" UserId="9487" />
  <row Id="13527" PostId="10557" Score="0" Text="For this kind of question, it would be great to provide for a structured response format: what is the carbon footprint, water waste, pollution, energy cost, etc." CreationDate="2021-03-24T17:49:47.997" UserId="9487" />
  <row Id="13541" PostId="10557" Score="0" Text="Have you done some research on the topic? I am pretty sure there are studies out there covering exactly this issue." CreationDate="2021-03-30T06:54:25.597" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="13556" PostId="10557" Score="1" Text="I'd heard that paper has a greater environmental impact than plastic (e.g. https://stanfordmag.org/contents/paper-plastic-or-reusable). The whole point of a site like this, I would think, is to crowd-source information on a topic rather than for one person to do some googling and present a &quot;definitive&quot; answer." CreationDate="2021-04-05T22:54:52.050" UserId="9487" />
  <row Id="13529" PostId="10558" Score="0" Text="https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/a/5460/659 has some info on efficiency, but for microhydro rather than the &quot;nanohydro&quot; size system you're talking about" CreationDate="2021-03-26T01:59:27.357" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="13530" PostId="10559" Score="0" Text="There's even a patent for a bucket lift in a hydro storage system: https://patents.google.com/patent/DE4122510A1/en" CreationDate="2021-03-26T02:15:38.447" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="13531" PostId="10559" Score="0" Text="How does an arrangement like the following compare to your remarks above on turbines?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V82SVeVXKcA" CreationDate="2021-03-26T05:30:41.557" UserId="9499" />
  <row Id="13532" PostId="10560" Score="2" Text="Are you sure schedule A refers to your specific system? Any chance it's based on a system of some x kW, and you'd have to scale it up/down based on the size of your specific system?" CreationDate="2021-03-28T18:57:57.960" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13533" PostId="10560" Score="2" Text="Whether you can challenge their FMV figure is likely to be in the contract. If you can, the requirements for that will be there. It's unlikely that &quot;some guy on the internet said&quot; is going to cut it. But first: can you challenge their FMV at all?" CreationDate="2021-03-28T21:36:59.963" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="13540" PostId="10560" Score="0" Text="I just came across this tool, which may help answer your question: [PV Value](https://www.pvvalue.com/). I haven't used it before myself, but it does appear to be part of a U.S. Dept of Energy project, so could be a good resource." CreationDate="2021-03-29T15:30:03.787" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15110" PostId="10560" Score="0" Text="That first year production number looks accurate for a 38 panel system if it’s similar to mine, which is 45 panels. Est. first year production&#xA;16,759 kWh Did you ever get the answer? Seems like it’d be a simple phone conversation to get a concrete offer. I just put in my request to get a purchase quote and the price they gave you is very promising!" CreationDate="2021-10-14T01:17:41.250" UserId="13279" />
  <row Id="13536" PostId="10561" Score="0" Text="That is what I'm afraid of.  Ok.  Sounds like a battery is the most practical option." CreationDate="2021-03-29T02:23:08.300" UserId="3505" />
  <row Id="13539" PostId="10561" Score="1" Text="Even with the batteries, a conventional grid-tied inverter still won't work. However, solar/battery inverters sold as a single unit will often function without grid power, but you'll need a disconnect or manual lock-out to ensure you're not energizing the grid." CreationDate="2021-03-29T15:08:01.417" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13549" PostId="10562" Score="0" Text="Will you need back-up power? The simplest, cheapest solar systems will not provide electricity when there is a grid outage. If you want backup power it will affect the answer, and also cost significantly more." CreationDate="2021-04-01T15:47:02.617" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="14845" PostId="10562" Score="0" Text="3000kW is certainly wrong - you probably meant 3000W?" CreationDate="2021-08-02T17:09:45.757" UserId="9252" />
  <row Id="13553" PostId="10563" Score="1" Text="What kind of dishes? I mean, these are usually from pretty hard and sturdy material. Hard enough that some water stream at relatively low pressure (let alone soaking) is going to be able to do any damage at all. By (anecdotal) example: my grandma has used a dishwasher for about 40 years now on the same dishes. The only (visible) damage is from dropping them or othar abbrasive actions, not from the dishwasher. I.e. the question is based on the premise dishes will detoriate by washing them, but is that really the case for your particular dishes?" CreationDate="2021-04-03T19:05:55.783" UserId="4158" />
  <row Id="13554" PostId="10563" Score="0" Text="@stijn Good point. We have ornamented dishes with colourful ring and painting in the back." CreationDate="2021-04-04T12:24:08.250" UserId="9524" />
  <row Id="13555" PostId="10563" Score="0" Text="Paint might indeed wear out. But have you checked your dishwasher's manual? IIRC some of them actually mention estimated water and electricity usage per program. Could just as well be the 30m program uses in fact less than that ECO mode (though might also clean less good). In whih case it's almost best of both worlds (assuming shorter = less disch wear as well)." CreationDate="2021-04-04T16:16:08.213" UserId="4158" />
  <row Id="13557" PostId="10563" Score="0" Text="Do you know what the actual differences between the programs are? I suspect the short program uses higher temperatures." CreationDate="2021-04-07T16:31:09.510" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13558" PostId="10563" Score="0" Text="@LShaver The buttons show 50°C for the eco program and 45°C for the short program. After the comment of stijn I have tried to find some more information on the differences, but I turned up blank." CreationDate="2021-04-07T18:55:15.507" UserId="9524" />
  <row Id="13559" PostId="10563" Score="0" Text="Interesting. If your dishes come out clean when using the short program, it seems like that one might actually be best." CreationDate="2021-04-07T19:24:10.747" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13544" PostId="10564" Score="0" Text="Is it possible that they meant *per passenger*?" CreationDate="2021-03-31T14:22:10.717" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13546" PostId="10564" Score="0" Text="Yes, I realised that when I was writing this!  However, I wrote this spreadsheet that shows, based on emission limits alone, that the difference per passenger is not clearcut.  For example to have parity between in emissions between a bus passenger &amp; a car passenger (1.4 per car), the bus would need to achieve 8mpg with an average of 23 passengers...for CO you would need an avg of 32 passengers...these are very high occupancy rates.&#xA;https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1CamCrsprC0IGBcgWrxDieAREb9wSqw_v-AEk3Od45wk/edit#gid=0" CreationDate="2021-03-31T21:59:43.457" UserId="8041" />
  <row Id="13574" PostId="10565" Score="0" Text="The specific pollutants depend on the specific engine model, condition and speed /power  output when measured. Diesels are famous for continuing to run in poor condition ,often discharging black smoke." CreationDate="2021-05-01T21:28:09.073" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="15555" PostId="10566" Score="0" Text="Some people had doubts about the heating but on the other hand heat conduction underground is very poor making the ground store energy for a very loong time. See for example Centralia in the US a town that has a burning coal mine under and its still hot after many years..." CreationDate="2022-01-31T02:20:38.923" UserId="9090" />
  <row Id="15580" PostId="10566" Score="0" Text="There are many burning coal deposits around the world . &quot;Burning&quot; makes them all hot." CreationDate="2022-02-07T14:08:00.557" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="13550" PostId="10567" Score="0" Text="Generally magazine writers do not understand what they are writing about .  I think what he was told is that the 50 year old pelleting enrichment process would be taken much further . Instead of blast furnace gas ( CO , H and methane )  H would be used to reduce oxide content to very low levels like 1 %. Then an electric furnace would be used to melt the iron pellets and the melt would be fluxed to reduce S, P and Si. No clue how they heat the pellets.  Ferroalloys would bring the tiny amount of carbon needed along with Mn and any other alloys . It will be interesting to see if it works ." CreationDate="2021-04-01T21:16:44.297" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="13551" PostId="10567" Score="0" Text="@blacksmith37 Is this description better?:  https://www.miningmagazine.com/sustainability/news/1394253/swedens-green-steel-plant-starts-operations" CreationDate="2021-04-01T21:38:14.253" UserId="9020" />
  <row Id="13552" PostId="10567" Score="0" Text="Yes, they are direct reducing pellet ore . But do not say how they heat it. Also fluxing the melted iron to remove impurities is new technology to be developed. I will try to follow developments." CreationDate="2021-04-02T03:36:30.267" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="15582" PostId="10568" Score="0" Text="In summary: &quot;Market forces will make fossile fuels uncompetitive&quot;, interesting!" CreationDate="2022-02-07T15:24:33.557" UserId="9090" />
  <row Id="13712" PostId="10571" Score="2" Text="Given that this is the **Sustainable Living** forum, I would suggest that financials are not the only consideration for the OP" CreationDate="2021-07-12T11:41:41.837" UserId="3960" />
  <row Id="13715" PostId="10571" Score="0" Text="@JohnM it's not just financials, but opportunity cost. If you save money by not installing solar panels, perhaps you could invest that in an EV, a better furnace, improved insulation, etc." CreationDate="2021-07-14T14:14:52.613" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="14846" PostId="10571" Score="0" Text="@LShaver sure, but that is clearly not what the answerer had in mind" CreationDate="2021-08-02T17:10:45.463" UserId="9252" />
  <row Id="13563" PostId="10572" Score="0" Text="Very interesting @juhist I'll do some investigation on this and try to find out if it is motive-kWh or thermal-kWh" CreationDate="2021-04-12T10:26:27.263" UserId="8041" />
  <row Id="15667" PostId="10577" Score="0" Text="Some would say that these days simply being &quot;above 90%&quot; is not &quot;very efficient&quot;. It's also not a fair comparison; computers do not convert power, they *consume* power. Every time you charge the gate of a CMOS FET you do work that can't be recovered. It's not the same &quot;consume&quot; as a space heater who's job it is to convert all the electrical power it draws into heat, but it's thermodynamically inevitable nonetheless. Even the power of the light emitted by the display and EM waves radiated by the bluetooth and WiFi and the power delivered to headphones and speakers nearly all ends up as heat." CreationDate="2022-04-03T02:49:34.070" UserId="5824" />
  <row Id="15668" PostId="10577" Score="0" Text="For AC/DC power converters you can see 90, 95 and even 98% efficiency values discussed, and that represents a factor of five difference in wasted energy." CreationDate="2022-04-03T02:51:02.283" UserId="5824" />
  <row Id="13561" PostId="10578" Score="0" Text="What do you mean by &quot;rust platters&quot;?" CreationDate="2021-04-10T13:25:43.513" UserId="2727" />
  <row Id="13564" PostId="10578" Score="2" Text="@RockPaperLz-MaskitorCasket, one of the materials that's been used for the magnetic layer of hard drives is iron oxide, aka rust.  Most hard drives these days use cobalt alloys, but the term &quot;spinning rust&quot; for hard drives has stuck around." CreationDate="2021-04-12T20:26:25.573" UserId="7993" />
  <row Id="13565" PostId="10578" Score="0" Text="@Mark Thanks for the explanation Mark." CreationDate="2021-04-12T22:37:32.567" UserId="2727" />
  <row Id="13566" PostId="10585" Score="0" Text="Can you provide details on the panels?" CreationDate="2021-04-21T13:22:50.793" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13567" PostId="10585" Score="0" Text="6 Solara panels (http://solara.eu). I *believe* 4 are 140W, 2 are 120W (I know, it's best if they are homogeneous). I also believe (the boat builder assembled them, the wires are well-hidden, and I haven't verified) they are (140+140+120) together, with another set in parallel." CreationDate="2021-04-21T14:50:37.060" UserId="9625" />
  <row Id="13568" PostId="10585" Score="0" Text="Hard to tell without part numbers, but I looked at a few 120 and 140 W panels and they were all 24 V. Assuming they're all in parallel you'd need your MPPT set to 24 V. To give a proper diagnosis we'd need a full wiring diagram with part numbers." CreationDate="2021-04-21T15:03:52.437" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13569" PostId="10587" Score="0" Text="Hello and welcome to Sustainability.SE -- great first answer! I put the list from Mother Jones into a block-quote, since it looks like that came directly from the article." CreationDate="2021-04-21T18:08:44.087" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13577" PostId="10589" Score="0" Text="&quot;Reduce - reuse - recycle&quot; is the &quot;saying&quot;. First reduce your needs, then try to meet your needs with existing goods/packaging, and then try to create the goods you lack by recycling old stuff." CreationDate="2021-05-04T07:52:36.993" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="13613" PostId="10593" Score="0" Text="it may not be advisable to try and biodegrade the wax but you can re-use it for various purposes." CreationDate="2021-05-21T09:19:35.847" UserId="2122" />
  <row Id="16140" PostId="10593" Score="0" Text="@Trav but what? I wonder what it would smell like as a candle!" CreationDate="2022-12-02T16:38:52.587" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="13582" PostId="10597" Score="0" Text="This study is more broadly applicable than the title indicates, IMO: https://renew.org.au/research/the-viability-of-domestic-wind-turbines/  TLDR: unless you live in a very windy place with no neighbours or height restrictions wind is unlikely to work, and it will definitely be more expensive." CreationDate="2021-05-06T04:59:05.133" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="13606" PostId="10598" Score="3" Text="Also, don't forget about the wind turbines shadow, the effect on the landscape and the issue of wind friction - one of the reasons wind turbines are built larger and larger is so they can reach higher wind &quot;layers&quot; where there's less turbulence and thus more energy to be harvested. Still, there are some innovative solutions for domestic use, e.g. [this one](https://www.promekon.de/windkraft.html) (no affiliation, I only happen to have seen these in use) - but I can't give you figures when it comes to the overall energy output per year." CreationDate="2021-05-19T08:50:22.517" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="13585" PostId="10602" Score="1" Text="The infrastructure exists whether you're drawing on it or not, right?  Apart from the marginal difference in the quantity of deployed infrastructure that depends on how much you individually use, does not using the existing infrastructure make a difference to how much gas leaks?" CreationDate="2021-05-12T18:55:25.673" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="13586" PostId="10602" Score="0" Text="@Jean-PaulCalderone that's a good question, and I'd like to understand the scale of the leakage first. Is it 1%, or 25%? While it's true the infrastructure will still be there, if I use less, than less gas will be injected into the leaky pipes on the other end." CreationDate="2021-05-12T19:28:22.963" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13587" PostId="10602" Score="1" Text="Leakage occurs in the production area. Once the gas is on the distribution system there is very little leakage.  There is a trace of leakage at pinhole corrosion pits , they are difficult to locate because they are so small.  Depending on your diet , your gut likely generate more methane than your &quot;share&quot; of the methane leaked by the distribution system." CreationDate="2021-05-13T14:50:26.390" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="13588" PostId="10602" Score="0" Text="@blacksmith37 if you can cite some sources I think that could count as an answer." CreationDate="2021-05-13T15:17:55.873" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13591" PostId="10602" Score="0" Text="I am old ,from a time when one learned and remembered something and did not rely on the net  for all information ( there was no net). Upside- when the net is off , I still know stuff.  Downside- I am terrible at looking up info on the net.  If I wanted info on pipeline pit leaks , I would go to the DOT Pipeline Section. All pipeline operators are required to submit a plethora of operating information including all leaks. I expect DOT summarizes  and publishes some info." CreationDate="2021-05-14T15:34:27.773" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="14952" PostId="10602" Score="0" Text="Gas leaks are definitely not isolated to the production area; there's leakage throughout the distribution system. [This story](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/09/gas-leaks-are-everywhere/405820/) about checking gas lines in Chicago is particularly enlightening." CreationDate="2021-08-28T20:11:36.140" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="13592" PostId="10605" Score="1" Text="You'd also need to take into account the ewaste from bitcoint mining, and the electricity production footprint since a lot of mining is done using coal power rather than hydro etc. But *all* analysis involves setting boundaries, so while we can argue about which are appropriate it's not reasonable to dismiss a particular analysis simply because it has boundaries." CreationDate="2021-05-15T22:48:44.653" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="13601" PostId="10606" Score="0" Text="Hi! Welcome to Sustainable Living! I'm not familiar with the abbreviation UHT, but from the article I take it it stands for Ultra-Heat-Treated milk? Am I right in thinking that it's only sold in Tetra-Packs were you live?" CreationDate="2021-05-18T06:25:54.777" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="13602" PostId="10606" Score="0" Text="Yes, or long life milk.  The packs look like this https://www.woolworths.com.au/shop/productdetails/748595" CreationDate="2021-05-18T10:03:06.020" UserId="9740" />
  <row Id="13603" PostId="10606" Score="2" Text="Tetra Paks may be more difficult to recycle, but also cost less energy to produce than other forms of packaging. They are also lighter and fit together neatly, again reducing the energy required to transport. Also I would check your local recycling facilities - our local council didn't collect Tetra Paks for a long time, but there were recyling centres within a couple of miles that would take them." CreationDate="2021-05-18T10:52:26.407" UserId="3960" />
  <row Id="13610" PostId="10607" Score="1" Text="This is a good answer +1, but I wonder if there is a difference in leak rate between that supplied to power stations and homes?  I recall a figure of 25% leakage being quoted somewhere for domestic gas, but I have been unable to find it." CreationDate="2021-05-20T12:32:14.847" UserId="6896" />
  <row Id="13604" PostId="10608" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living SE! Interesting option, at first I thought it looked similar to a vasectomy so it would be very difficult to undo, but then I read that &quot;_The contraceptive action appears to be completely reversible ..._&quot;." CreationDate="2021-05-18T14:56:22.927" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="13605" PostId="10608" Score="0" Text="@THelper indeed, same here. If it wasn't undoable, I wouldn't have posted it, as it's hardly a condom alternative. :-)" CreationDate="2021-05-18T15:38:55.617" UserId="3625" />
  <row Id="13607" PostId="10608" Score="0" Text="Hope it reaches general public faster!" CreationDate="2021-05-19T17:21:51.937" UserId="4708" />
  <row Id="13609" PostId="10608" Score="0" Text="@PDPro not 100% sure, but it might already be available in India, worth asking your doctor about it." CreationDate="2021-05-20T06:01:07.440" UserId="3625" />
  <row Id="15783" PostId="10608" Score="1" Text="The RISUG technology is known as Vasalgel in the West, and has [been under some long-term studies](https://www.revolutioncontraceptives.com/vasalgel/#1519942720340-a77dc31e-674f) for a while. Also, it doesn't so much 'sterilize' the sperm as shred them, IIRC. And yes, at least according to studies done on animals, it was completely reversible." CreationDate="2022-05-18T11:08:14.987" UserId="8232" />
  <row Id="15785" PostId="10608" Score="0" Text="@Robotnik yeah, well my answer does say &quot;not yet approved in other places&quot;, as in &quot;still in studies/tests phase&quot;. Pity it's not becoming widely known/available even after so much time." CreationDate="2022-05-18T11:22:26.150" UserId="3625" />
  <row Id="15786" PostId="10608" Score="0" Text="@Shadow Yeah they're taking their sweet time with it that's for sure. I've been keeping tabs on it for a while but it seems to be in limbo a bit which is unfortunate." CreationDate="2022-05-18T11:26:54.403" UserId="8232" />
  <row Id="15787" PostId="10608" Score="0" Text="@Robotnik true, reason is probably &quot;Pharmaceutical companies have expressed little interest in RISUG&quot; as written in the Wiki page. No interest means not enough money to justify developing it. :(" CreationDate="2022-05-18T11:31:50.983" UserId="3625" />
  <row Id="13614" PostId="10609" Score="0" Text="Also, &quot;for a long time&quot; means you need a system that is cheap to build and maintain, because operating costs will make up a big part of the cost per unit of energy stored. It's exactly the same as renting a warehouse - the cost of putting an item into the warehouse and getting it out again is usually most important because most things don't stay in the warehouse very long. But if you're leaving stuff there for years... that daily storage charge adds up. Most energy storage is expensive so the owners want to run it as much as possible. Multiple cycles per day, ideally." CreationDate="2021-05-24T01:44:26.750" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="13615" PostId="10609" Score="0" Text="https://medium.com/land-buildings-identity-and-values/pumped-hydro-update-ec4538cbdb87 this pumped hydro project is designed to store power for 1-5 years and it would be one of the biggest pumped hydro projects ever... for a country with only 5M people." CreationDate="2021-05-24T01:47:36.873" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="13649" PostId="10609" Score="0" Text="Yes, that's called &quot;pumped storage&quot; and it's definitely on the playing field, but not at a *small* scale.  If you're fitting a 50 megawatt plant you'll have factory sales reps lined up out the door to sell you bidirectional generator-pumps." CreationDate="2021-06-06T21:45:50.367" UserId="6925" />
  <row Id="13611" PostId="10610" Score="1" Text="There are some interesting solutions appearing to gravity energy storage. A couple worth mentioning are lowering heavy weights down disused mineshatfs, and sending railcars filled with ballast up the side of a mountain. Worth bearing in mind that as hydro schemes also require lots of height and huge amounts of water, it's not always easy to find suitable locations." CreationDate="2021-05-20T17:52:14.017" UserId="3960" />
  <row Id="13612" PostId="10611" Score="1" Text="The bitcoin analyses likewise fail to consider the impact of building bitcoin miners, running exchanges, and so on, right through to the impact on countries of the tax evasion, money laundering and drug dealing that bitcoin is explicitly designed to facilitate." CreationDate="2021-05-21T02:17:00.333" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="13622" PostId="10619" Score="0" Text="do you have the information about the heavy metal and ceramic? it would be a good information providing in the answer." CreationDate="2021-05-28T12:39:22.580" UserId="9757" />
  <row Id="13624" PostId="10622" Score="4" Text="What's the specific heat capacity of basalt? Then you can work it out." CreationDate="2021-06-05T12:05:45.780" UserDisplayName="Transistor" />
  <row Id="13625" PostId="10622" Score="2" Text="&quot;*... given a total process efficiency rate of 75%?*&quot; Where does this number come from? As far as I know 45% would be considered good for a steam plant on its own, never mind the additional losses with hot rock." CreationDate="2021-06-05T12:16:35.120" UserDisplayName="Transistor" />
  <row Id="13628" PostId="10622" Score="0" Text="Couldn't we just build cities on big basalt blocks? ;-)" CreationDate="2021-06-05T12:49:27.777" UserDisplayName="Scott Seidman" />
  <row Id="13629" PostId="10622" Score="0" Text="http://endmemo.com/chem/specificheatsearch.php?q=Basalt%20Rock and &quot;The average density of basalt is 2.9 g/cm3&quot; from wikipedia." CreationDate="2021-06-05T12:57:06.143" UserDisplayName="ErikR" />
  <row Id="13630" PostId="10622" Score="0" Text="Reason you can't find a spec has to do with there being a fairly wide variety in composition.  To make it more annoying, you probably shouldn't just consider composition by mass since there are vesicles which can be air pockets of varying sizes (probably part of why you're considering it in the first place - insulation built in)" CreationDate="2021-06-05T13:14:47.817" UserDisplayName="Abel" />
  <row Id="13632" PostId="10622" Score="0" Text="I remember, ~35 years ago, we used &quot;heat accumulating space heater&quot; - in essence, a block of heat-resistant bricks, heated by electricity at night (3x cheaper) and slowly releasing the heat by the day. It was quite a pleasure to get rid of it, back then. Now I am starting to think I made a mistake trashing it." CreationDate="2021-06-05T20:34:31.690" UserDisplayName="fraxinus" />
  <row Id="13653" PostId="10622" Score="0" Text="Do you have a reference giving an example of what is supposed to be happening?  I'm tending to think that heating basalt via wind power is an inefficient process &amp; a waste of effort. Instead of heating basalt &amp; then using it to generate steam I would have thought it more efficient to get the wind generators to directly store the electricity they generate in batteries which can then be utilized when required." CreationDate="2021-06-07T05:10:44.047" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="13646" PostId="10623" Score="0" Text="I'd say there are more than 200 containers visible above deck on the first row of that ship." CreationDate="2021-06-05T13:23:15.640" UserDisplayName="Transistor" />
  <row Id="13644" PostId="10624" Score="0" Text="Hey Andy, I tried to figure it out using 600'C of usable temperature, i.e. from 150 to 750'C.  Perhaps the range is 750'C, from 200'C to 950?" CreationDate="2021-06-05T13:19:05.987" UserDisplayName="DeltaEnfieldWaid" />
  <row Id="13645" PostId="10624" Score="0" Text="At 150C the steam plant efficiency will be hopelessly low." CreationDate="2021-06-05T17:14:47.673" UserDisplayName="user_1818839" />
  <row Id="13633" PostId="10625" Score="0" Text="Just one gold mine can dig &gt;150 m cube of rocks though. the total value of the gold is $7.5 trillion, and the same volume of basalt is priced at a competitive $4 million. I think it's amazing that it would take only 4 million's worth of basalt battery to keep NYC running every day for a year. perhaps its'the future? https://www.google.com/search?q=gold+mine" CreationDate="2021-06-05T13:51:23.540" UserDisplayName="DeltaEnfieldWaid" />
  <row Id="13634" PostId="10625" Score="0" Text="@Transistor It's possible they are making that limited comparison. That's not really how I read their comments. However, my view on it may be a bit biased by having seen a quite substantial number of people who jump to the misconception I described as they get enthusiastic about what the numbers look like for such energy storage mechanisms when you ignore that you still have to have a *source* of the energy." CreationDate="2021-06-06T18:53:49.670" UserId="5607" />
  <row Id="13635" PostId="10625" Score="0" Text="@Makyen, I think s/he's just saying that the total amount of basalt required to make enough thermal storage for the whole world small relative to other mining exercises. The practicality of the whole thermal storage idea is a different matter." CreationDate="2021-06-06T18:45:43.877" UserDisplayName="Transistor" />
  <row Id="13636" PostId="10625" Score="0" Text="@Transistor No, I didn't miss that. The question is reasonable. The comments here are what I'm talking about. The comments they've placed on this answer make direct comparisons of basalt to coal, as if you can just mine basalt and use it as an energy *source*, without the need to get the energy you're storing from somewhere else. Such comparisons just don't make sense and indicate that the OP has fallen into a fairly common misconception about what such an energy storage mechanism is and can do. It's *that* misconception I'm trying to address." CreationDate="2021-06-06T18:41:44.237" UserId="5607" />
  <row Id="13637" PostId="10625" Score="0" Text="@Makyen, DeltaEnfieldWaid is the OP.  S/he said, &quot;*... where many tons of rocks are heated to 750°C by wind power ...*&quot;. Did you miss that?" CreationDate="2021-06-06T18:33:20.063" UserDisplayName="Transistor" />
  <row Id="13638" PostId="10625" Score="0" Text="@DeltaEnfieldWaid Your comments here appear to be assuming that the basalt is actually a source of energy. It's not. It's merely a way to *store* energy as a thermal differential. The energy still has to be *generated* somehow. In the example mentioned in the question, the energy is generated from wind power. Overall, comparisons of the basalt to the use of coal don't make a lot of sense, because we, humans, don't use coal as a way to store energy which we collect from elsewhere (coal *is*, ultimately, an energy storage mechanism, but it's not something we use/conceive of in the same way)." CreationDate="2021-06-06T18:30:26.340" UserId="5607" />
  <row Id="13639" PostId="10625" Score="0" Text="@transisor, 25m3 of gold are mined per year, vs 8 cubic kilometers of coal (1m3 for every human)... 10,000 times more coal is mined per year than than basalt that would be necessary for the planet" CreationDate="2021-06-05T21:29:07.830" UserDisplayName="DeltaEnfieldWaid" />
  <row Id="13640" PostId="10625" Score="0" Text="@fraxinus Indeed i thought that gold isn't a fair indicator of basalt cost.. coal is on-topic, 2000 tons of gold per year vs 8 billion tonnes of coal that are mined per year... basalt sounds cheaper than coal and 1/9th of nuclear." CreationDate="2021-06-05T21:23:36.610" UserDisplayName="DeltaEnfieldWaid" />
  <row Id="13641" PostId="10625" Score="1" Text="@DeltaEnfieldWaid be aware that the basalt will be nowhere the most expensive part of such an operation. It may as well go into &quot;others&quot; category in the Big Table Of Expenses." CreationDate="2021-06-05T20:25:58.427" UserDisplayName="fraxinus" />
  <row Id="13642" PostId="10625" Score="2" Text="Ask Iceland if they have any going cheap. They can supply you a load already pre-heated." CreationDate="2021-06-05T13:53:23.547" UserDisplayName="Transistor" />
  <row Id="13643" PostId="10625" Score="1" Text="Just for comparison, the total amount of gold mined in human history is about a 19 m cube." CreationDate="2021-06-05T13:25:12.080" UserDisplayName="Transistor" />
  <row Id="13647" PostId="10625" Score="0" Text="That confidence is what i required!!! cheers! compare that to fossil fuels it's a lot less quantity through the year." CreationDate="2021-06-05T13:21:11.643" UserDisplayName="DeltaEnfieldWaid" />
  <row Id="13648" PostId="10625" Score="0" Text="All your formulas appear to be broken. They didn't survive the migration from ee.se I think. @Transistor" CreationDate="2021-06-06T20:51:59.860" UserId="6925" />
  <row Id="13654" PostId="10625" Score="0" Text="Where do you account for the 55% efficiency of the system, as stated in the question? Wouldn't this mean the size of the basalt cube would be 62 m (34/0.55)?" CreationDate="2021-06-07T05:17:40.240" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="13658" PostId="10627" Score="0" Text="Here are some links: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/16/britain-will-build-its-first-hydrogen-fueled-homes-by-april.html . And, https://www.peoples-gas.com/get-gas/energy/fuelcell" CreationDate="2021-06-08T02:41:00.433" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="13672" PostId="10627" Score="0" Text="Here is another link: https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy13osti/51995.pdf ." CreationDate="2021-06-18T08:42:29.543" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="13657" PostId="10629" Score="0" Text="Seems like this would apply to any vehicle, and not just hydrogen-powered vehicles?" CreationDate="2021-06-07T21:37:30.437" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13665" PostId="10629" Score="0" Text="Yes, indeed. However the question did not exclude issues that apply to any vehicle, regardless of the fuel source." CreationDate="2021-06-10T18:55:44.407" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="13666" PostId="10629" Score="0" Text="Actually, that was my intent. I've edited the question to clarify." CreationDate="2021-06-10T18:59:00.133" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="14958" PostId="10630" Score="1" Text="@Erik *Every bit of GHG emitted due to consumption or decomposing has been taken from the atmosphere during plant growth.* But first you have to destroy a more biodiverse plot of land by converting it into monoculture. Biodiverse lands with healthy soils can absorb more carbon dioxide than monocultures with degraded soils." CreationDate="2021-08-29T11:29:46.777" UserId="2266" />
  <row Id="13664" PostId="10631" Score="0" Text="Try it. See if it helps. That's the cheap and easy way to answer your own question." CreationDate="2021-06-10T02:18:42.613" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="13669" PostId="10634" Score="1" Text="While a tor site COULD implement PoW, I have not come across one that does, they all use captcha's.  Would &quot;tor without PoW&quot; meet your requirements?" CreationDate="2021-06-14T13:20:29.220" UserId="6896" />
  <row Id="13670" PostId="10634" Score="0" Text="I am unsure how I would be able to tell if a site uses PoW though." CreationDate="2021-06-14T14:18:05.357" UserId="9842" />
  <row Id="13671" PostId="10634" Score="0" Text="Would a site be able to run PoW without javascript ?" CreationDate="2021-06-14T14:24:42.747" UserId="9842" />
  <row Id="13673" PostId="10635" Score="0" Text="Would using waste products as compost really be more effective than cow dung?" CreationDate="2021-06-18T22:04:01.850" UserId="6213" />
  <row Id="13674" PostId="10635" Score="0" Text="It depends on what you mean by &quot;effective&quot;.  But for some definition, yes.  A cow is a less efficient system for turning organic waste into compost.  This doesn't mean it isn't worth having a cow but it isn't worth having a cow *just* for this purpose.  A cow produces beef, milk, calves; it walks around, it moos, etc.  All of these are &quot;inefficiencies&quot; from the perspective of compost production." CreationDate="2021-06-19T11:05:20.827" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="13675" PostId="10635" Score="0" Text="Yeah but cow dung is many times more nutritious compared to plant based compost. I am not even sure if we could ever grow crops for a long time only on compost?" CreationDate="2021-06-19T13:29:57.533" UserId="6213" />
  <row Id="13676" PostId="10635" Score="1" Text="Where does the extra nutrition come from, exactly?" CreationDate="2021-06-20T14:06:25.167" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="13679" PostId="10639" Score="0" Text="Just for us non-Americans, I a lower SEER is worse than a higher one? Can it be that the better rate is for a newer revision of the unit but you got an older unit?" CreationDate="2021-06-24T09:55:29.170" UserId="5490" />
  <row Id="13685" PostId="10639" Score="0" Text="[Related question](https://diy.stackexchange.com/q/227880/86548) on diy.SE." CreationDate="2021-06-25T02:22:23.217" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13694" PostId="10640" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Thank you for your answer, but I'm afraid I'm not following the part about the hydrometer. Do you mean the hydrometer of a dehumidifier (assuming there's one present in the OPs home)? And how would one determine it is malfunctioning?" CreationDate="2021-06-28T09:13:33.447" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="13697" PostId="10640" Score="1" Text="My bad to use the term &quot;Hydro meter&quot;! I live in Ontario, Canada where &quot;Hydro&quot; is short for &quot;the Electric Power company&quot;, with examples like Ontario Hydro and Hydro One. So, by &quot;Hydro meter&quot; I meant the energy meter from the electric power utility, typically measuring the electric energy usage for the entire house. I will edit my answer to avoid this confusion. Not everyone lives in Ontario :-)" CreationDate="2021-06-29T12:42:44.997" UserId="9854" />
  <row Id="13678" PostId="10641" Score="0" Text="It says right there in the first article &quot;Replacing hundreds of existing coal plants with **unsubsidised** renewable energy sources could save $32.3bn (£22.8bn) every year in energy system costs&quot; - emphasis mine." CreationDate="2021-06-24T08:58:05.847" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="13681" PostId="10642" Score="0" Text="*The trouble with natural gas is that the fuel cost is high*: that is changing in the U.S.: [Coal prices are steady, but natural gas is coming down](https://www.eia.gov/electricity/annual/html/epa_07_04.html). A bigger concern (illustrated [here](https://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/browser/#/topic/15?agg=2,0,1&amp;fuel=vtvv&amp;geo=g&amp;sec=g&amp;linechart=ELEC.COST_BTU.COW-US-99.M~ELEC.COST_BTU.NG-US-99.M&amp;columnchart=ELEC.COST_BTU.COW-US-99.M&amp;map=ELEC.COST_BTU.COW-US-99.M&amp;freq=M&amp;ctype=linechart&amp;ltype=pin&amp;rtype=s&amp;maptype=0&amp;rse=0&amp;pin=)) is the volatility of natural gas prices, on display in Texas this year." CreationDate="2021-06-24T16:44:13.560" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13686" PostId="10642" Score="0" Text="Yes, there can be regional variations as natural gas is expensive to transport over the oceans. I mainly considered Europe. Thanks to hydraulic fracturing, US prices in fact can be quite low." CreationDate="2021-06-25T07:37:48.023" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="13688" PostId="10647" Score="0" Text="I would add sources for items two and three on your list (injury rate and lifespan). I'm not saying it's not true, but to make accurate comparisons better data on incidence and severity is needed." CreationDate="2021-06-26T11:53:45.877" UserId="227" />
  <row Id="13689" PostId="10647" Score="0" Text="As far as utility goes, I've used it once whilst visiting friend in Tacoma, and in order for me to make it to the Tacoma Central bus terminal to make an early flight out of Sea-Tac, it allowed me to gain extra half hour of sleep, which, at 04:30 in the morning, is not trivial. I reckon, people taking those into the city cores in lieu of a taxi can see substantial time savings versus walking, considering the speed of these scooters can reach 3-4 times that of a brisk walk." CreationDate="2021-06-26T12:02:20.800" UserId="227" />
  <row Id="13692" PostId="10649" Score="2" Text="The downstream costs of plastic &quot;cloths&quot; is a nightmare, though, with microplastics produced at every wash. But using old cotton shirts cut up as rags in the kitchen seems to be unacceptable to most people (observation how how people react to my kitchen cloths)" CreationDate="2021-06-27T22:38:45.433" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="13695" PostId="10649" Score="0" Text="@Móż thanks for that point. In my question I am not concerned about cultural acceptance of different solutions, I am just trying to find what the ecological sensible solution I can incorporate into my lifestyle. It seems like a good option, to make rags out of old clothes beyond minor repair." CreationDate="2021-06-28T14:30:57.023" UserId="2942" />
  <row Id="13696" PostId="10649" Score="2" Text="I hope no one here was thinking to compare synthetic fiber (and microfiber) fabrics to paper towels. Even cotton has a hard time proving itself better than paper, you have to go for seriously eco-friendly materials like linen or various rags to beat paper for both CO2 emissions and water usage." CreationDate="2021-06-28T20:25:20.087" UserId="9885" />
  <row Id="13716" PostId="10649" Score="0" Text="@abm personally, I find there's more than enough worn out clothes and scrap fabric to make all the rags I could use in a lifetime. When I do buy new 'rags' it's towels or nicer napkins, which are usually cotton or linen." CreationDate="2021-07-15T11:45:33.067" UserId="2942" />
  <row Id="13699" PostId="10654" Score="0" Text="It seems like reduction to 70% output is the standard definition of &quot;lifetime&quot; in the industry, according to [this wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lumen_maintenance). I'm not sure about how power cycling is factored in the testing though." CreationDate="2021-07-02T14:00:19.687" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13703" PostId="10658" Score="0" Text="Cool, we have one vine plant which - after a few years now - does a good job of covering part of the terrace in shade. But there is a lot left. I didn't know canvas was so sturdy." CreationDate="2021-07-04T20:40:16.513" UserId="5532" />
  <row Id="13706" PostId="10661" Score="4" Text="If you want to compare efficiencies, you have to be careful you're comparing apples to apples.  Electrical power can be turned into heat with 100% efficiency (because heat is the ultimate fate of *all* power, whether we like it or not).  The goal of home heating equipment is not just to create heat but to create it in a way that creates a safe, comfortable living environment.  To the extent these resistive heating systems have different efficiency, it is in creating such an environment - not merely in converting electricity into heat." CreationDate="2021-07-07T12:54:24.130" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="13707" PostId="10661" Score="0" Text="Good point. I think what you're saying is probably at the heart of what makes convection resistive heating relatively inefficient. I'm wondering why hydronic baseboards would be more efficient in converting that same heat energy into a more comfortable environment." CreationDate="2021-07-07T13:29:55.740" UserId="9918" />
  <row Id="13708" PostId="10661" Score="0" Text="Great question! Lots of hits on Google saying they are more efficient, but as near as I can tell no one has actually done the experiment." CreationDate="2021-07-07T14:36:08.750" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13790" PostId="10661" Score="0" Text="There are also heat pumps with &gt;100% efficiency. Compared to those, electric heaters are inefficient." CreationDate="2021-07-28T10:30:00.257" UserId="9252" />
  <row Id="14975" PostId="10661" Score="1" Text="I wonder whether temperature and heat distribution is the key here. Heaters don't just generate heat, they heat *something*. For convective heaters, that's air. So a heater that also heats the wall behind it will be less efficient than one that just heats the air in the room. And a  hairdryer will be less effective than a radiator that produces a gentle draft of slightly warm air." CreationDate="2021-09-01T00:37:14.227" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="13709" PostId="10662" Score="0" Text="There is dry-land farming of cotton: https://agfax.com/2018/07/16/texas-cotton-dryland-crops-suffering-irrigated-fields-look-good/ . Also there is dry-land farming of sorghum." CreationDate="2021-07-08T00:22:16.097" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="13711" PostId="10662" Score="1" Text="Why are consumers so hooked on externalizing much of the costs of the products they purchase?" CreationDate="2021-07-08T19:42:03.933" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="13713" PostId="10662" Score="0" Text="Because pesticides in the end lead to a larger/better harvest, thus earning more money." CreationDate="2021-07-13T07:33:43.830" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="14883" PostId="10668" Score="0" Text="But do the scooters prevent any cars at all being made? Do they even replace many car journeys (or instead replace walking/public transport)?" CreationDate="2021-08-11T09:56:19.670" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="14885" PostId="10668" Score="0" Text="If you use them." CreationDate="2021-08-13T08:30:47.307" UserId="9007" />
  <row Id="14886" PostId="10668" Score="1" Text="I mean in the general population - would more than a tiny minority use a rental scooter instead of *buying* a car, or even buy their own scooter?  I've never used one myself, but do use rental bikes which for me  replace public transport or walking. Otherwise I'd be on my own bike, only driving when carrying too much or occasional child-transport, neither of which is a use case for scooters - and that's from someone who wants to see more low-carbon options" CreationDate="2021-08-13T08:35:00.833" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="14896" PostId="10669" Score="0" Text="Hard to get the data on this I would bet it is much higher than reported, I state this as an electrician that my state had to add additional requirements for electrical safety because of the number of fires created in small solar installations." CreationDate="2021-08-14T22:45:10.993" UserId="9862" />
  <row Id="13718" PostId="10672" Score="1" Text="&quot;1.5% of home fires&quot; answers a different question.  How many homes have residential solar?  How many home fires were there?  This additional information is necessary to apply *any* interpretation to the &quot;1.5%&quot; statistic given here." CreationDate="2021-07-18T11:47:59.190" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="13731" PostId="10672" Score="0" Text="Knowing how many home PV fires and systems would help, but the 1.5% number tells us that since we don't have hundreds of commercial PV systems we're not likely to see a fire in one. That's what &quot;much lower&quot; means in my answer." CreationDate="2021-07-20T02:52:20.403" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="13723" PostId="10676" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Please note that the rules of this website require you to mention your affiliation with a recommended product." CreationDate="2021-07-19T13:39:54.337" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13725" PostId="10676" Score="1" Text="Thanks @LShaver, appreciate the comment. I'm actually NOT in anyway affiliated with OpenLCA or any product in the domain! I've just installed it first time this morning and find it nice so far - after a bit of looking what seems to exist all around (and keen to hear if my view seems flawed); sadly so much only at high cost..." CreationDate="2021-07-19T15:33:12.070" UserId="9945" />
  <row Id="13726" PostId="10676" Score="1" Text="@LShaver I provided this answer because I think it is much more an answer really to the Poster's question than the (bit sad) accepted answer is - imho!" CreationDate="2021-07-19T15:38:16.703" UserId="9945" />
  <row Id="13727" PostId="10677" Score="0" Text="Well, cut down trees in California and this is what grows: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heteromeles . Arizona would require something that uses even less water." CreationDate="2021-07-19T23:58:42.017" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="13724" PostId="10678" Score="0" Text="While I get the idea behind the concept, some examples look similar to the rather frowned-upon gravel gardens, which are nowadays somewhat popular. But thank you for putting a name to the idea." CreationDate="2021-07-19T14:22:50.647" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="13735" PostId="10678" Score="0" Text="@Erik: Gravel can be used for its &quot;decorative&quot; aspect, to mimic a particular type of natural landscape, but it can also be used as a mulch. It can easily be replaced by conventional mulch sourced from biological materials." CreationDate="2021-07-20T05:59:38.430" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="13765" PostId="10678" Score="2" Text="@Erik: I think the point is also that while gravel in Britain is mimicking an alien landscape, in these examples it is appropriate to a droughty environment." CreationDate="2021-07-26T10:52:50.373" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="13740" PostId="10682" Score="1" Text="The sustainability question is less about energy and more about weight and air resistance. It would be possible that the extra energy consumed by transporting the panels would outweigh the benefit, even in sunny areas. Either way you'd get more benefit from putting the panels in a fixed location, feeding the grid." CreationDate="2021-07-21T00:56:22.783" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="14881" PostId="10682" Score="0" Text="I've seen them start to appear recently on diesel trucks to power accessories such as tail-lifts.  Presumably they've run the numbers but I'm sceptical the it's more than greenwashing compared to running those off batteries charged by the engine.  Compared to idling just to power accessories  of course it's a saving, with urban air quality benefits" CreationDate="2021-08-11T09:51:46.497" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="13741" PostId="10684" Score="0" Text="One place that PV very much will make sense is on electric RVs. I did some fairly detailed calculations for a &quot;10 ton&quot; truck converted into a mobile home, because that's what I owned. With fold-out panels to triple the foor area I would have got ~12kW of panels and somewhere around 20-50km of range per day (depending on how much my all-electric appliances used)." CreationDate="2021-07-21T06:01:16.337" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="14882" PostId="10684" Score="0" Text="It might be interesting for deliveries that are limited by bulk and not by weight - unless they add significant height.  This is quite common given all the empty space in packaging" CreationDate="2021-08-11T09:53:36.740" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="13742" PostId="10687" Score="0" Text="Where are you considering diverting shower and dish washing drainage _from_?  Are you sure it's not already co-mingled?" CreationDate="2021-07-22T01:36:43.970" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="13743" PostId="10687" Score="0" Text="@Jean-PaulCalderone I intend to put some buckets in the sink and tubs to catch the water!" CreationDate="2021-07-22T02:46:28.110" UserId="9956" />
  <row Id="13745" PostId="10687" Score="1" Text="That's not where you're diverting from.  That's how you're diverting.  Where was the water going before?" CreationDate="2021-07-22T09:45:43.420" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="13747" PostId="10687" Score="0" Text="@Jean-PaulCalderone Good point! Hm I suppose I can assume they go to the same place. 0_0" CreationDate="2021-07-22T21:05:34.843" UserId="9956" />
  <row Id="14893" PostId="10688" Score="0" Text="Why would it need to be filtered ? if grey water is not separated from black water it usually goes to the same place so there would be no difference just less fresh water going down the drain." CreationDate="2021-08-14T22:09:34.757" UserId="9862" />
  <row Id="13744" PostId="10690" Score="0" Text="Thanks for the effort" CreationDate="2021-07-22T09:19:21.687" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="15474" PostId="10690" Score="1" Text="@SergeyZolotarev I believe this book may have additional information: [Sustainable Fashion: Why Now?](https://www.google.com/books/edition/Sustainable_Fashion_Why_Now/oupAPAAACAAJ?hl=en)." CreationDate="2022-01-07T21:46:08.187" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15603" PostId="10690" Score="0" Text="No scientific verification clothing decomposition rates, but one [apparel recycler](https://upparel.com.au/clothing-recycling/) claims ...*clothing waste takes up to 40 years to decompose, whilst shoes can take 1,000 years to break down*." CreationDate="2022-02-19T22:45:40.897" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="13749" PostId="10693" Score="1" Text="The majority of this answer appears to be a rant about EVs in general and the industry as a whole - not sure how relevant it is to the question of how much of an EV battery is or can be recycled." CreationDate="2021-07-23T05:33:00.283" UserId="8232" />
  <row Id="13750" PostId="10695" Score="2" Text="Please provide sources/citations. Also, comparing energy use in 2012 to data storage in 2020 is not a valid analysis." CreationDate="2021-07-23T13:35:12.907" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="14894" PostId="10696" Score="0" Text="I agree, decades past some homes grey water bypassed the septic tank directly into the field but that practice is rarely used today." CreationDate="2021-08-14T22:12:35.467" UserId="9862" />
  <row Id="13751" PostId="10697" Score="0" Text="You mention homes -- are you interested specifically in single family, or multi-family homes? Or just in general?" CreationDate="2021-07-23T19:26:59.277" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13752" PostId="10697" Score="1" Text="I was thinking single family when I wrote the question, but either or both are fine by me" CreationDate="2021-07-23T21:33:44.967" UserDisplayName="user9950" />
  <row Id="13754" PostId="10697" Score="0" Text="I'm realizing this question is a bit broad -- I'm wondering exactly what you're looking for? Product recommendations would be off-limits. Also, why would a gray water system be less comfortable? Sounds like maybe you have a particular challenge in mind." CreationDate="2021-07-23T21:54:34.853" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13755" PostId="10697" Score="0" Text="I think greywater use would be for the toilet or for the yard or for a root irrigation of a shade tree in a desert climate. For the toilet, a toilet-bowl-cleaner with bleach in it works very well and that's chlorine." CreationDate="2021-07-23T22:31:53.050" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="13756" PostId="10697" Score="0" Text="Yeah, my water bill is more than the electricity bill so pump the shower and sink water into an overhead stainless-steel tank that refills the toilet-tank. Turn the water pressure line to the toilet-bowl as off. But rainwater from the roof could work without pumping. And basically, the stainless-steel roof is clean after the first few minutes of rain." CreationDate="2021-07-23T22:41:54.103" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="13759" PostId="10697" Score="0" Text="@LShaver yes, the challenge is to design a new single family home that uses graywater, what's the current &quot;state of the art&quot; in both comfort and waste reduction?" CreationDate="2021-07-24T06:24:39.463" UserDisplayName="user9950" />
  <row Id="14892" PostId="10697" Score="0" Text="I find composting toilets and then the use of grey water for watering plants to be more of a sustainable low use water  direction but have only seen this done on a few homes and they were “tiny houses”." CreationDate="2021-08-14T22:05:45.077" UserId="9862" />
  <row Id="15146" PostId="10697" Score="0" Text="There won't be one system for this, it's more a collection of techologies. Objects like sink-over-cistern toilets and reed beds, ideas like not flushing wet wipes. And the targets vary from DIYers who will poo in a bucket rather than buy a composting toilet to public facilities where users will actively vandalise things (rainwater collection/tanks at public toilets, for example). In Australia building standards require rainwater tanks feeding laundry+toilet (via a &quot;get this score, points for diffent options&quot; setup , so you don't *have* to have a tank, it's just hard not to)" CreationDate="2021-10-25T21:14:45.263" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="13764" PostId="10700" Score="0" Text="&quot;Fun&quot; fact: After Germany introduced container deposits in 2003, single use packages sales still rose, from 28 to about 40 % of all sold beverages. But hey, at least about 96 % of them are returned to the store. Wohoo -.-" CreationDate="2021-07-26T09:10:48.203" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="13767" PostId="10700" Score="0" Text="The consumer prefers curbside pickup of recyclables instead of available redemption values. But how does the recycling company make profit without a redemption value ? Basically, the municipality pays the recycling company to reduce its land-fill volume. Or there could be some economy-of-scale relative to the value of the recyclables." CreationDate="2021-07-27T12:26:48.220" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="13787" PostId="10700" Score="0" Text="You could also have tried looking at the Wiktionary article for [pant](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pant#Swedish); I have edited that to clarify that the sense _[container deposit](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/container_deposit)_ is distinct, and ensured that that links to the English Wikipedia article." CreationDate="2021-07-28T10:12:16.290" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="13788" PostId="10700" Score="0" Text="I have added the link to the English Wikipedia page [Container deposit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Container_deposit), which is a redirect to the [actual article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Container_deposit_legislation). It was not automatically linked because the English article is associated with the Wikidata entry for Container deposit legislation while the Swedish article is associated with that for Container deposit, a distinct concept!" CreationDate="2021-07-28T10:15:11.387" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="13792" PostId="10700" Score="0" Text="I have also extended the list of links from the English Wikipedia article to other languages to include all those listed at Swedish _pant_. All that remains is to see if there is a discussion on how to make Wikidata work better in such cases, and start one if not, and to check and if necessary try to improve (¿or even create?) the Swedish Wiktionary entry." CreationDate="2021-07-28T10:57:01.020" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="13793" PostId="10700" Score="0" Text="@Erik: What do you think one should conclude from your “fun fact”? And of what are 96% returned to the shop?" CreationDate="2021-07-28T11:00:31.887" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="13794" PostId="10700" Score="0" Text="@PJTraill that people are stupid and go for convenience, instead of sustainability. And I was talking about single use packages for beverages." CreationDate="2021-07-28T11:43:48.130" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="14891" PostId="10700" Score="0" Text="In my state a can of soda has a 10cent deposit on it to help encourage recycling. The deposit used to be 5 cents but not enough people were recycling so it was raised to 10 cent deposit. That has been the term used in the United States it started with glass bottles but now it is on most all glass, plastic and aluminum beverage cans or bottles." CreationDate="2021-08-14T21:51:08.573" UserId="9862" />
  <row Id="13760" PostId="10702" Score="0" Text="Part of the answer lies in the quality of recycling systems for plastics. Regions with high populations will have better potential for quality recycling systems simply on the basis of scale of throughput will reduce the costs associated with operating the recycling systems." CreationDate="2021-07-25T04:56:58.600" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="13761" PostId="10702" Score="0" Text="It's not difficult to make plastic from strong sugars. The trick is to make plastic from affordable weak sugars like wood chips. But the plan was for the plastic to be easily biodegradable but they changed their mind because the food industry wanted safer shelf life. Now the plastic will be biodegradable but not easily biodegradable. The source for this is the company history of Avantium. Now renewable electricity can be combined with captured carbon-dioxide and with catalysts to make carbon-neutral plastics. The source for this is RenewCo2." CreationDate="2021-07-25T13:21:37.457" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="14818" PostId="10702" Score="0" Text="You might be interested in this from the BBC, [*The fungus and bacteria tackling plastic waste*](https://www.bbc.com/news/business-57733178)." CreationDate="2021-07-30T05:32:36.863" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="15503" PostId="10702" Score="4" Text="I've had this question open for weeks, as I would really like to provide an answer. I worked with plastics in my master thesis and have become opinionated about it (obviously based on the research I read, but what's objectivity anyway?!). The short answer is: no. Whenever you can use some kind of rock, wood, mineral, glass, or degradable material (for which you don't have to ask whether it is or isn't), use that instead. Don't color it, as there are plastics in colors, or use natural pigments, y'know. If a material has the properties and the durability of a plastic, it's probably just as bad." CreationDate="2022-01-11T16:43:39.897" UserId="13570" />
  <row Id="15784" PostId="10702" Score="0" Text="@thymaro - Oh, please do expand that into a proper answer :)" CreationDate="2022-05-18T11:11:49.033" UserId="8232" />
  <row Id="13785" PostId="10704" Score="0" Text="But not if there is no return value." CreationDate="2021-07-28T09:41:52.553" UserId="9252" />
  <row Id="13763" PostId="10705" Score="0" Text="This doesn't target the main concern of microplastics." CreationDate="2021-07-26T09:02:44.307" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="15365" PostId="10705" Score="0" Text="Recycling Bakelite is particularly challenging." CreationDate="2021-12-22T16:27:10.727" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="13762" PostId="10708" Score="4" Text="Please provide your sources." CreationDate="2021-07-26T03:41:26.157" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13768" PostId="10709" Score="3" Text="Related: [How much power can a bicycle generator produce?](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/4391/3379)" CreationDate="2021-07-27T19:59:09.353" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="13773" PostId="10709" Score="8" Text="[Its just slavery with extra steps](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kKoqE-sAb8) :-)" CreationDate="2021-07-28T06:14:14.580" UserId="9991" />
  <row Id="13774" PostId="10709" Score="1" Text="What about gyms?" CreationDate="2021-07-28T07:07:01.120" UserId="9994" />
  <row Id="13776" PostId="10709" Score="5" Text="@Kerkouch: https://spectrum.ieee.org/green-tech/conservation/these-exercise-machines-turn-your-sweat-into-electricity" CreationDate="2021-07-28T07:28:37.297" UserId="1460" />
  <row Id="13777" PostId="10709" Score="1" Text="I don't have time to write an answer now, but see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roundabout_PlayPump" CreationDate="2021-07-28T07:59:16.490" UserId="3504" />
  <row Id="13778" PostId="10709" Score="0" Text="[Is the basic premise of humans as a power source in The Matrix reasonable?](https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/1263/is-the-basic-premise-of-humans-as-a-power-source-in-the-matrix-reasonable) (scifi)" CreationDate="2021-07-28T08:19:05.820" UserId="8531" />
  <row Id="13789" PostId="10709" Score="1" Text="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empower_Playgrounds" CreationDate="2021-07-28T10:23:30.217" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="13802" PostId="10709" Score="0" Text="I suspect systems such as the &quot;Empower Playgrounds&quot; you've linked is feasible in a place like Ghana only because the power demand there is so much lower than in more developed countries.  Putting one of those in every playground in the US, for example, would hardly make a dent in the extremely high energy demands, even if you could force all the kids to turn off the video games and go play outside more often." CreationDate="2021-07-28T18:46:40.383" UserId="3255" />
  <row Id="13804" PostId="10709" Score="0" Text="Interestingly, a similar question was asked in SpaceExplorationSE, with a similar answer. [Do exercise machines on the ISS generate electric energy?](https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/3698/do-exercise-machines-on-the-iss-generate-electric-energy)" CreationDate="2021-07-28T22:31:51.617" UserId="6678" />
  <row Id="13805" PostId="10709" Score="8" Text="Dollar for dollar, the far and away best investment toward making playgrounds generate electricity is putting up shade shelters that happen to be solar panels.  This could be over parking spaces, picnic tables, whatever fills the bill.  &#xA;&#xA;It's simple, easy, cheap and reliable, and you can predict the energy you'll get out of it." CreationDate="2021-07-28T23:30:00.973" UserId="6925" />
  <row Id="13806" PostId="10709" Score="1" Text="This can be seen in action in Sierra Leone where the vibrations from pedestrians' movements are being converted into electricity: [BBC Future](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210713-how-pedestrians-are-lighting-homes-in-sierra-leone)." CreationDate="2021-07-29T00:56:12.373" UserId="10020" />
  <row Id="14806" PostId="10709" Score="0" Text="As per previous comments, this probably would not pay off. A better use of human energy is something like the Pedal Cinema https://www.electricpedals.com/hire-us-cinema" CreationDate="2021-07-29T12:44:57.930" UserId="12022" />
  <row Id="14809" PostId="10709" Score="0" Text="@TobyMak That article is the exact reason why I asked this question in the first place. Walking doesn't seem to be such an energy-intensive activity compared to all those children yelling and going nuts in playgrounds" CreationDate="2021-07-29T21:15:10.787" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="14833" PostId="10709" Score="0" Text="@TobyMak  always ask:  how MUCH electricity, context, compare to alternatives.  Watt-hours or joules per day or similar.  Is it to feed the power grid or a pacemaker; allowable cost/Whr is very different.  Tech journalists tend to write encouraging pieces that encourage readership and companies to continue letting them in and talking to them.  E.g. articles on piezo-based power sources may tout high voltage but not mention insignificant current." CreationDate="2021-07-30T20:39:01.137" UserId="12030" />
  <row Id="13769" PostId="10710" Score="6" Text="But they eat anyway" CreationDate="2021-07-27T20:10:10.493" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="13772" PostId="10710" Score="22" Text="@SergeyZolotarev: the financial payback period on the equipment would be functionally infinite. The biggest swing set I recall seeing has _maybe_ 10 swings; assuming 10 children swing 24 hours a day (which is generous), that's $1.40 in electrical production; if the generator bits add $1000 to the cost, that'll take 714 days - almost 2 years - to pay off. In that time, the kids will probably have broken the generator so that the swings are more fun to swing on. And, $deity help you -if-_when_ somebody gets shocked and sues for millions." CreationDate="2021-07-28T04:08:09.060" UserId="9988" />
  <row Id="13775" PostId="10710" Score="1" Text="Actually, on the surface, a 2 year payback does not seem terribly uneconomical: playground equipment tend to have lifespans measured in decades rather than years.  But obviously they won’t be used 24x7; plus, as you say, they wouldn’t be fun to use and/or the generator components will break much sooner than playground equipment otherwise would." CreationDate="2021-07-28T07:21:33.977" UserId="1460" />
  <row Id="13780" PostId="10710" Score="7" Text="Don't forget the embedded energy in the generators. There's a good chance that it would never repay the energy involved in making it in the first place." CreationDate="2021-07-28T09:11:43.283" UserId="1171" />
  <row Id="13800" PostId="10710" Score="0" Text="How come it doesn't work, but vibrations from walking do (https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210713-how-pedestrians-are-lighting-homes-in-sierra-leone)?" CreationDate="2021-07-28T15:12:03.177" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="13801" PostId="10710" Score="4" Text="@SergeyZolotarev: That BBC article was a little short on actual info, so I searched around a bit for info on piezoelectrics. I see a lot of huge promises around &quot;experiments&quot; (e.g. in Israel), and some actual results of such installations lighting... basically, the installation. Since the advent of LED's, light is very cheap (power-consumption wise); from lighting a lamp to making a contribution to the power net is a huge step. Also, a rolling vehicle is a *huge* amount of energy compared to a child on a swing. (Try having one crash into the other and see which is sent flying...)" CreationDate="2021-07-28T15:40:09.100" UserId="10005" />
  <row Id="14813" PostId="10710" Score="0" Text="@SergeyZolotarev  it's important to be a bit skeptical about articles; journalists may lack understanding, be motivated to get clicks or keep those they are covering happy to see them and willing to talk.  IIRC, one talked about piezoelectric energy in terms of the number of 120V wall outlets based on the high voltage -- and completely missed the &quot;at X micro-amps&quot; part." CreationDate="2021-07-30T03:37:47.747" UserId="12030" />
  <row Id="13783" PostId="10711" Score="1" Text="What do the cows eat?" CreationDate="2021-07-28T09:40:03.133" UserId="9252" />
  <row Id="13770" PostId="10712" Score="0" Text="Please comment on the figures I provided" CreationDate="2021-07-27T22:11:16.867" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="13771" PostId="10712" Score="0" Text="@SergeyZolotarev I edited the answer to include this." CreationDate="2021-07-27T22:32:45.270" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="14948" PostId="10712" Score="0" Text="*and the share from agriculture, crop burning, and rice cultivation would increase by substantially less than 5.8 percentage points...* - it would even decrease, because less feed crops would be produced." CreationDate="2021-08-28T10:53:49.173" UserId="2266" />
  <row Id="16442" PostId="10712" Score="0" Text="It is unfortunate that the graph shows emissions per weight rather than per nutritional value (ee.g. calories or mass of protein)." CreationDate="2023-07-26T09:47:39.657" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="16443" PostId="10712" Score="0" Text="@PJTraill I addressed this in the section &quot;What about caloric content?&quot;." CreationDate="2023-07-26T11:37:03.600" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="16449" PostId="10712" Score="0" Text="Yes, though there are some outliers such as coffee and chocolate, and cheese (the Q was re vegetarian, not vegan) is a case where people say the mass-based approach is unfair. I also cannot help thinking that for most of the foods, particularly cheese, the variability must be great. It is a complex issue, and hard to present simply, though the vegan (or at least animal-reduced) case is very strong." CreationDate="2023-07-27T12:15:06.707" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="14832" PostId="10714" Score="1" Text="I'd say the energy generation rate is a rather important thing to consider, but only mentioned in a side clause of your answer. If kids could generate GW of power I'm sure the safety and durability concerns could be overcome." CreationDate="2021-07-30T16:52:03.113" UserId="8152" />
  <row Id="13803" PostId="10716" Score="0" Text="Related: [Which materials dumped into landfills are the largest sources of methane?](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/9689/3379)" CreationDate="2021-07-28T21:21:03.700" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="14827" PostId="10716" Score="0" Text="Are you interested in any particular type of landfill, in any particular country?" CreationDate="2021-07-30T14:48:28.503" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="14830" PostId="10716" Score="0" Text="@LShaver I don't think it matters much (gas recovery systems aside)" CreationDate="2021-07-30T16:37:28.117" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="14811" PostId="10718" Score="9" Text="Also users find drag or otherwise lost energy desirable, unlike on a swing; when e.g. using an elliptical machine, stair-stepper or treadmill you WANT there to be resistance." CreationDate="2021-07-30T03:32:00.010" UserId="12030" />
  <row Id="14834" PostId="10718" Score="0" Text="Even for gym equipment it’s not really worth it. Humans can sustain between 100 to 400W of extended power output, depending on fitness level, mass, duration etc. That’s barely enough to power the lights above the machine and its electronics+display+fan. It’s not even enough to power the air conditioning or heating." CreationDate="2021-07-30T20:59:52.140" UserId="12050" />
  <row Id="14841" PostId="10719" Score="0" Text="But how do you know what portion of species may disappear?" CreationDate="2021-08-02T12:08:55.157" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="14844" PostId="10719" Score="1" Text="@SergeyZolotarev It is the ratio of species found in the test plot compared to the reference plot.  So if they found 100 in semi-natural woodland and 50 in the test plot that would be a PDF of 0.5.  I have tried to make this more clear in the answer." CreationDate="2021-08-02T13:48:11.043" UserId="6896" />
  <row Id="14836" PostId="10721" Score="1" Text="An elite cyclist can output around 400W of mechanical power for a whole hour. A good electric generator can convert more than 90% of that into electricity. But it doesn’t change the conclusion that it’s just not worth it." CreationDate="2021-07-30T21:03:40.700" UserId="12050" />
  <row Id="14860" PostId="10721" Score="0" Text="Please check your numbers and consider adding references to your sources. Lance Armstrong is known to produce [over 400 watts sustained](https://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=10147239&amp;page=1). Even [a beginner cyclist can produce 75 watts](https://blog.afaa.com/using-watts-to-amp-up-indoor-cycling-drills)." CreationDate="2021-08-06T15:17:32.893" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="14824" PostId="10724" Score="0" Text="or 4 LED bulbs for 70 hours - get with the times" CreationDate="2021-07-30T08:48:28.577" UserId="9252" />
  <row Id="14822" PostId="10725" Score="2" Text="I noticed you copy-pasted this largely from 2 of your [previous](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/a/10666/99) [answers](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/a/10691/99) which seems kind of pointless. If the question is a duplicate it should be closed as such, otherwise please address the different aspects of this question in your answer." CreationDate="2021-07-30T08:14:09.460" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="14840" PostId="10729" Score="5" Text="Have you asked the management of you nature reserve, what steps have been taken in order to ensure there is no negative environmental impact? Will the art be completely removed after the 3 months?" CreationDate="2021-08-02T08:08:07.910" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="14848" PostId="10729" Score="1" Text="@Erik send him a mail yesterday, am invited to his office tomorrow :)" CreationDate="2021-08-03T10:33:45.383" UserId="12054" />
  <row Id="14931" PostId="10733" Score="0" Text="Important to distinguish the more traditional &quot;rent a wedding dress&quot; and &quot;rent bowling shoes&quot; type operations that are generally profitable as well as environmentally sustainable because they effectively share little-used clothing; compared to the newer &quot;keep fast fashion churning&quot; operations that seem to be mostly about greenwashing consumption. They add delivery and pickup costs plus cleaning every time a garment is worn to the existing cost of fast fashion items. I suspect the key question is the number of times an item is worn before being disposed of compared to the cost of making it." CreationDate="2021-08-24T03:26:16.130" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="14850" PostId="10734" Score="0" Text="The reference used by @rory_alsop states that Tesla did not provide details of the efficiency of the battery charging system. Should this be included in the comparison? What is the initial store of energy for EV cars, the power grid or the battery? Fuel for internal combustion energies has the same energy availability whether it's in the vehicle tank or not. Getting fuel into a tank is much easier than getting electricity into a battery." CreationDate="2021-08-04T05:44:16.760" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="14862" PostId="10734" Score="0" Text="I think the phrase &quot;powertrain efficiency&quot; is very relevant to this question." CreationDate="2021-08-06T15:58:08.037" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="14863" PostId="10734" Score="0" Text="@Nic that's part of it, but different vehicles with the same powertrain would have different total efficiencies depending on aerodynamics, weight, wheels, etc." CreationDate="2021-08-06T16:08:07.013" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="14849" PostId="10735" Score="3" Text="That 90% is just for the motor, efficiency of the inverter is 96%, which brings the 90% down to 86.4%. There was no mention of the efficiency of the components for the drive train &amp; power to the wheels, or losses to the climate control system, headlights, which would further reduce the efficiency." CreationDate="2021-08-04T05:34:36.113" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="14851" PostId="10737" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Please be aware that we require all answerers to state their affiliation to recommended products and services. Are you affiliated with Terracycle?" CreationDate="2021-08-04T17:47:46.970" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="14854" PostId="10738" Score="2" Text="Good work! I was curious, is that ball sugar *all the way through?* Seems like that would be expensive -- I assumed it was some sort of hollow ball with a sugar coating." CreationDate="2021-08-04T20:04:08.283" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="14855" PostId="10738" Score="1" Text="Thank you for sharing the results of your follow-up!" CreationDate="2021-08-04T21:03:34.760" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="14857" PostId="10738" Score="0" Text="@LShaver actually it is solid concrete, covered in about 1 cm layer of sugar. But the rain already washed a lot away." CreationDate="2021-08-05T07:24:13.000" UserId="12054" />
  <row Id="14856" PostId="10740" Score="1" Text="Good find -- here's the updated [Residential Service Schedule 1](https://cdn-dominionenergy-prd-001.azureedge.net/-/media/pdfs/virginia/residential-rates/schedule-1.pdf?la=en&amp;rev=3981be9c339c49848ed7edb5ee1b558b&amp;hash=7179E66395F8C92E4C6E8AE707AF399C). The 15 kW limit is noted in section II.4." CreationDate="2021-08-05T04:01:57.440" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="14859" PostId="10741" Score="0" Text="Hi Kathy, thanks for sharing and welcome to the site! This answer is a reasonable use of [self-promotion](https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/59302/137452) because it's directly relevant to the question and you disclosed your affiliation up-front. I look forward to seeing more questions and answers from you here. :-)" CreationDate="2021-08-06T15:10:42.763" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="14868" PostId="10743" Score="0" Text="I closed this question as opinion-based because each person has their own opinion about whether or not to pay attention to specific organizations. Wikipedia has an excellent summary of [support and criticism for FSC](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forest_Stewardship_Council#Support_and_criticism_of_FSC_certification). Please consider making this question [on-topic](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic) by adding detail about how you're trying to live more sustainably." CreationDate="2021-08-09T04:04:13.553" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="14867" PostId="10744" Score="1" Text="I'm not sure it is as simple as 'Greenpeace is against GMOs'? Ok the image in the article shows a flag which such unnuanced claim, but it's a flag, not much room there for a complete text. The title of the article is alreadydifferent and the rest can be interpreted as 'not against GMOs per se, but against the way it is applied in combination with pesticides and certain malpractices by industrial agricultures'" CreationDate="2021-08-08T08:36:28.293" UserId="4158" />
  <row Id="14890" PostId="10744" Score="1" Text="Many things we eat today were modified by cross breeding that is a form of genetic modification.  The tomato is the best example I know of. there are many others that have taken decades to cross breed using nature but many see doing it with science as wrong. I would think if it could happen through nature what would be the harm? On the other hand some splicing shortcuts creating hybrid crops may have consequences we won’t know until it’s two late. I think that is the argument against the splicing method." CreationDate="2021-08-14T21:32:50.567" UserId="9862" />
  <row Id="14869" PostId="10746" Score="0" Text="So is GMOs bad (sorry for simplicity)?" CreationDate="2021-08-09T07:17:41.123" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="14870" PostId="10746" Score="0" Text="@SergeyZolotarev the whole point here is there are way too much nuances to be able to say something simple as 'X is bad'" CreationDate="2021-08-09T08:58:19.583" UserId="4158" />
  <row Id="14871" PostId="10747" Score="0" Text="Are you talking about forest clearing for agricultural use or building areas, or about forest management." CreationDate="2021-08-09T11:21:35.507" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="14873" PostId="10747" Score="0" Text="@Erik I'm primarily talking about cutting down trees to make something from them. But the woods that were cut down and left to rot, probably, still store carbon (first, in the trees themselves, then in soil)" CreationDate="2021-08-09T20:08:08.943" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="14949" PostId="10747" Score="0" Text="A rotten wood releases very large amount of its carbon into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. You have to make biochar from the wood to have any kind of semi-permanent carbon fixing." CreationDate="2021-08-28T16:06:09.410" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="14874" PostId="10748" Score="0" Text="&quot;Those waste products will eventually decompose or alternatively can be burned immediately for energy.&quot; But if they do, the carbon would be stored in the soil, wouldn't it?" CreationDate="2021-08-09T20:13:18.120" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="14875" PostId="10748" Score="0" Text="@SergeyZolotarev nope, burning combines carbon and oxygen to CO2, which is then released to the atmosphere." CreationDate="2021-08-10T07:02:44.430" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="14876" PostId="10748" Score="0" Text="@Erik I'm not talking about burning, I'm talking about aerobic decomposition" CreationDate="2021-08-10T07:56:14.577" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="14877" PostId="10748" Score="0" Text="&quot;can be burned immediately&quot; - you're talking about burning." CreationDate="2021-08-10T08:19:17.790" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="15382" PostId="10748" Score="0" Text="@eric I just quoted him" CreationDate="2021-12-27T05:03:08.037" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="14872" PostId="10750" Score="2" Text="5% multiplied across millions of cars is a lot of savings!" CreationDate="2021-08-09T14:57:54.310" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15065" PostId="10751" Score="0" Text="Frame challenge - not everyone agrees native=good, non-native=bad.  And &quot;native&quot; is not a yes/no thing - native since when?  The end of the last ice age is sometimes considered the baseline, but that's arbitrary.  https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22716462-the-new-wild" CreationDate="2021-09-28T13:10:23.947" UserId="1445" />
  <row Id="14878" PostId="10753" Score="0" Text="+1. Lots of great resources -- I'll have to spend some time with these!" CreationDate="2021-08-10T13:25:30.503" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="14879" PostId="10754" Score="0" Text="+1 for the approach. Someone actually gifted me one of the books for Wisconsin, but I'll keep my eyes peeled for the other recommendations as well." CreationDate="2021-08-10T13:26:20.837" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="14909" PostId="10757" Score="1" Text="As one answer says, one needs to know how pollution is being measured, but such a statement still remains meaningless until one is also told what the reference value is, i.e. per what unit the pollution is being compared. The most helpful would probably be __(weight transported × distance)__, where for a fair comparison the distance should be as the crow flies from start to destination.  The extreme ratio suggests that something else is being used, perhaps only __distance__ or even __one trip__. We should also bear in mind that cars cannot transport across oceans!" CreationDate="2021-08-18T10:04:22.940" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="14964" PostId="10757" Score="0" Text="Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been [moved to chat](https://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/129100/discussion-on-question-by-nic-does-1-container-ship-really-pollute-as-much-as-50)." CreationDate="2021-08-30T15:52:44.587" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="14965" PostId="10757" Score="0" Text="[Please do not write answers in the comments](https://sustainability.meta.stackexchange.com/q/388/1056)." CreationDate="2021-08-30T15:58:50.657" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="14966" PostId="10757" Score="0" Text="Here is another link. The shipping company is buying eight ships that can run on carbon-neutral methanol. The astounding thing is that the shipping companies might be the only industry that has a clear path to the future:  https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/24/maersk-spends-1point4-billion-on-ships-that-can-run-on-methanol.html ." CreationDate="2021-08-30T19:51:54.957" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="14942" PostId="10758" Score="0" Text="I believe the world has changed; most ships now use diesel engines. If it were making steam with bunker C , there would be some level of visible smoke. Because of various restrictions ,bunker c is mostly refined in hydrotreaters, etc. and made into diesel and other oil and gas products." CreationDate="2021-08-27T14:28:58.427" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="14947" PostId="10758" Score="0" Text="@blacksmith37, diesel engines can burn a very wide range of fuels: basically anything that can be aerosolized and undergoes compression ignition can be used in a diesel engine after appropriate modification to the fuel system.  Bunker fuel works just fine, as long as you've got a heated fuel system to keep it from solidifying in the lines." CreationDate="2021-08-27T20:13:39.253" UserId="7993" />
  <row Id="14953" PostId="10758" Score="0" Text="No, not really, for one ,sulfur is limited to 0.5 % ( No way is that bunker C) . Also there is a viscosity listed ; I an not familiar with viscosity but i would bet a dollar that bunker will not meet it. Also , Sulzer note the fuel is mostly distillate ." CreationDate="2021-08-28T20:17:43.890" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="15041" PostId="10758" Score="0" Text="Do you have a source for any of these statements?" CreationDate="2021-09-20T13:21:07.330" UserId="1371" />
  <row Id="14888" PostId="10759" Score="1" Text="Is your question about switching *all* vehicles, including trucks? _(Asking because your title only says cars.)_" CreationDate="2021-08-14T04:06:12.157" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="14889" PostId="10759" Score="0" Text="Thinking of country size may make a larger impact, for example when I go to see my mom it is a 600 mile trip each way if I go to see my son it is a 2800 mile trip each way. There is no public transit in my area and my daily commute is 43 miles. I have friends that have a much longer commute and some that live in the city with only a 5-10 mile daily commute so the location in the world may create a large differential on the amount if they can get battery life high enough to make commuting a reality and the power grid beefed up enough to handle all the additional charging stations." CreationDate="2021-08-14T21:06:42.427" UserId="9862" />
  <row Id="14897" PostId="10766" Score="1" Text="Based on the global warming potential, R-32 should not be used. About its only benefit that as an old chemical, its patents have expired. Propane is far better and causes less global warming damage if vented to the atmosphere." CreationDate="2021-08-15T12:53:29.480" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="14908" PostId="10766" Score="0" Text="I notice that the circle for CO2 (Global Warming Potential = 1) is clearly not 675 times bigger than the circle for R-32 (GWP = 675). Very &quot;convenient&quot; visual from the manufacturer!" CreationDate="2021-08-17T21:47:06.713" UserId="1445" />
  <row Id="14898" PostId="10768" Score="0" Text="Great answer, thanks!" CreationDate="2021-08-15T13:44:12.603" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="14901" PostId="10768" Score="0" Text="The challenge with alternative refrigerants such as ammonia or propane/butane is that they introduce a safety issue where none existed before. Even if the fire risk is small, there was no fire risk before. Since new technology is generally proven in large-scale commercial systems where the propane charge would be significant enough to cause damage, it takes a while to make it's way to smaller systems where there's less risk." CreationDate="2021-08-16T03:27:06.460" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="14905" PostId="10768" Score="0" Text="The original refrigerant was ammonia.  CFC refrigerants were seen as a major breakthrough because, unlike ammonia, they don't kill you when they leak." CreationDate="2021-08-17T00:30:54.237" UserId="7993" />
  <row Id="14904" PostId="10770" Score="0" Text="I downvoted because this answer ignores the fact that electric vehicles (as compared to internal combustion engine vehicles) require substantially less primary energy per distance travelled." CreationDate="2021-08-16T21:29:07.667" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="14907" PostId="10770" Score="0" Text="In the use stage maybe! Cuz you forget charging an EV quickly uses more power. A 100 kwh battery half depleted needs 50 kwh to charge. In 8 hours needs 6.25 kilowatts, To charge in 30 minutes as they promise needs 100 kilowatts! This massive power demand places huge demands on grid to have stability to prevent a blowout, and cooling, etc. More power is needed in distribution. From generator, transformer to end consumer 1/3 of electricity will be lost as waste heat. And EV efficiencies depend on temp, humidity. Some vehicles lose 20% of battery in casual/traffic driving" CreationDate="2021-08-17T08:49:45.283" UserId="9007" />
  <row Id="14924" PostId="10776" Score="0" Text="Short answer: no. Schemes range from direct carbon capture and storage (DCCS) which obviously happens immediately, right through to avoided emissions that will be ongoing forever (ex, invading a country and killing all the inhabitants (although I don't think this is a commercial carbon offset scheme (yet))). Methan is even more problematic because in most cases unemissions are sold based on a 100 year life when 10-15 years is much more important. Mostly this is done to allow a market to be created trading fungible tokens &quot;one tonne of carbon dioxide not emitted&quot;." CreationDate="2021-08-23T00:14:52.667" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="14925" PostId="10776" Score="0" Text="Alternatively: the benefit is immediate. Whoever sold you the offset gets your money immediately so from a market/economic point of view the benefit is transferred at the time of sale. There is a lot of handwaving in the economics desicipline to avoid this problem, but as yet no solution has been found (AFAIK). Bankruptcy, insurance and discount rates are easy ways to start thinking about that problem. (viz, the cliche of &quot;what is the replacement cost of planet earth? How long would it take to build or acquire that replacement? And how much to house people in the meantime?&quot;)" CreationDate="2021-08-23T00:18:27.400" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="14917" PostId="10777" Score="0" Text="Are the carbon offsets a financing mechanism? i.e. the project is built with a bank loan, then the offset payments are used to pay off the loan?" CreationDate="2021-08-21T14:08:52.437" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="14915" PostId="10778" Score="0" Text="It goes without saying that recycling without using a bag beats both scenarios, or that if you need a bag to drop mixed trash the separation is better. This is really a question about whether it is worth consuming plastic to separate plastic." CreationDate="2021-08-21T08:44:11.243" UserId="12136" />
  <row Id="14916" PostId="10778" Score="2" Text="Does this answer your question? [Should I use a plastic trash bag for my recycling bin at home or not?](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/8384/3379)" CreationDate="2021-08-21T14:06:39.073" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="14926" PostId="10778" Score="2" Text="You're better to avoid the production of the extra bag by reusing an existing bag. You should also make sure that you are even allowed to put recycleable plastic inside a bag and put the whole bag into the recycling syste, In Australia that's explicitly not allowed." CreationDate="2021-08-23T00:21:09.377" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="14991" PostId="10778" Score="0" Text="Does the recycling point **require** you to put plastics in a bag, or are you allowed to dump the loose contents of your bag there?" CreationDate="2021-09-02T20:33:37.057" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="15022" PostId="10778" Score="0" Text="@Nic IT is allowed to either use a transparent bag or no bag (just not the normal black trashbag so they can easily recognize mistakes)." CreationDate="2021-09-07T07:55:59.750" UserId="12136" />
  <row Id="14934" PostId="10780" Score="0" Text="Let's not try to pull in the environmental impact of a walk (as people may need to exercise anyway). The perspective of the weight of the bag vs weight of the trash is interesting and indeed the fraction is quite extreme so I will accept the answer (and continue to separate the plastic)! — Only nuance: one should look at the impact of separating vs not separating (opposed to not recycling) as I think that some plastic may still be filtered out for recycling when processing the mixed trash." CreationDate="2021-08-25T11:44:04.810" UserId="12136" />
  <row Id="14933" PostId="10781" Score="2" Text="Do you have any sources to back this up, just curious? It'd be incredibly sad if this were true, especially considering so many places offer such options (e.g. Stripe during checkout)." CreationDate="2021-08-24T16:12:13.450" UserId="12147" />
  <row Id="14938" PostId="10781" Score="0" Text="All of this applies to any product really. When I buy a house it's in the interest of the seller to sell the same house multiple times. Selling it only once would be contrary to their interests." CreationDate="2021-08-25T18:06:12.330" UserId="9252" />
  <row Id="14935" PostId="10792" Score="1" Text="Related: [How to perform investments that benefit sustainable development?](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/5454/3379)" CreationDate="2021-08-25T14:23:59.080" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="14968" PostId="10798" Score="1" Text="The point about particulate matter is a good one, depending on the OPs location this could be the most significant problem. Wood-burning stoves are the biggest source of PM in the UK (3x more than road traffic!), and those burn cleaner than a fire pit..." CreationDate="2021-08-31T11:33:04.413" UserId="3960" />
  <row Id="14955" PostId="10800" Score="2" Text="What about hand pour coffee (also known as pour over)? This can be done one cup at a time, and there are even products that don't require a disposable filter. And is there no where to buy coffee in bulk where you are? This lets you buy just what you need." CreationDate="2021-08-28T20:59:28.910" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15111" PostId="10804" Score="0" Text="I disagree that fossil fuel plants wouldn't pay back the embodied energy. For example, the major oil and gas company Eni is planning that in 2050 the production is 90% natural gas, and emissions are net zero. Yes, that even includes emissions from the use of the produced fuels, not just emissions from extracting the gas. So they are planning to pump back the carbon dioxide back where the natural gas came from. One mole (/ cubic meter) of natural gas produces one mole (/ cubic meter) of carbon dioxide. So if there was room for natural gas under ground, you can fit the carbon dioxide there." CreationDate="2021-10-14T15:25:41.993" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="15112" PostId="10804" Score="0" Text="We will need either natural gas or hydrogen for generating electricity when intermittent renewables have zero or low production. There is not enough rainfall in the world to create all adjustable power as hydropower, and no battery is big enough to store energy for use during calm winter periods with no winds for example (and during winter in areas that have real winter, solar production is practically zero). The only competitor to natural gas is hydrogen. We won't know if green hydrogen will ever be cheap enough. Natural gas might be needed." CreationDate="2021-10-14T15:27:46.883" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="14978" PostId="10805" Score="0" Text="Hi Rudydoo, I edited your post a little bit to make it more readable. I also removed the valediction at the end (&quot;Take care Ned&quot;) because here at Stack Exchange we prefer answers that [do not use signature, taglines, greetings, thanks and other chit chat.](https://stackoverflow.com/help/behavior)" CreationDate="2021-09-01T04:07:53.127" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="15003" PostId="10805" Score="0" Text="Sounds good, thanks." CreationDate="2021-09-03T09:04:55.570" UserId="12164" />
  <row Id="14979" PostId="10806" Score="0" Text="Hi Woahdae, thanks for the great question and welcome to  Sustainability on Stack Exchange. Are you most interested in optimizing your costs, minimizing your environmental impact, or expanding your off-grid abilities? Your priorities might affect the answer. :)" CreationDate="2021-09-02T06:16:53.190" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="14986" PostId="10806" Score="0" Text="Is it safe to assume that you don't have mains power at the sheds, so this is essentially an off-grid system?" CreationDate="2021-09-02T14:41:06.587" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="14987" PostId="10806" Score="1" Text="I have a long extension cord currently but yes I’d like it to be off grid." CreationDate="2021-09-02T14:59:34.607" UserId="12168" />
  <row Id="14990" PostId="10806" Score="1" Text="@Nic, I'd say my order of priorities are expanding off-grid abilities (not that I need a weed whacker in an emergency, but it'd be nice to cut out the 200ft extension cord), optimizing costs, then minimizing environmental impact, but all are motivations. The tools cost about $600 so it'd be nice not to spend more than that on the solar charge system..." CreationDate="2021-09-02T15:23:45.257" UserId="12168" />
  <row Id="15075" PostId="10806" Score="0" Text="From my limited experience with 18V tools and a 36V bicycle the answer is: AC and a small 12V battery. Get a charge controller that you can set the cutoff etc, and keep those conservative (cycle the battery between 60% and 80% SoC, it's not there to provide actual charging, just to buffer the SCC). Finding random-voltage MPPT controllers with decent LiPo battery charging profiles is hard. Better to use the AC charger they came with." CreationDate="2021-10-05T06:16:22.067" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15076" PostId="10806" Score="0" Text="FWIW there seem to be some 36V LiPo chargers, and one of those might be worth looking at. But not AFAIK any name brand ones, so you're kinda feeding your ebike battery to an AliExpress warranty and hoping for the best. I'm not doing that, put it that way." CreationDate="2021-10-05T06:17:49.417" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="14993" PostId="11806" Score="1" Text="You need to make sure the TV is happy to lose power random and will recover. I would not be surprised if it failed unexpectedly from that treatment. If the TV has a DC power brick you would be better off using a DC-DC converter. But you'll be much better off with even a small Lithium battery to cover the brief periods when solatr output fluctuates" CreationDate="2021-09-02T22:07:17.567" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="14984" PostId="11807" Score="0" Text="Is it safe to assume these batteries are all normally charged on mains voltage and used for consumer applications, such as power tools, garden equipment, etc?" CreationDate="2021-09-02T14:36:57.513" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="14988" PostId="11807" Score="0" Text="Yes, charged on mains voltage (120 V). Regular consumer items like power tools and laptops." CreationDate="2021-09-02T15:00:59.617" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="14992" PostId="11808" Score="2" Text="I edited your question to incorporate the additional details you provided in your comments." CreationDate="2021-09-02T20:54:04.123" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="14994" PostId="11809" Score="1" Text="You'd be bypassing the control mechanisms this way which could damage the batteries and/or start fires, unless you had a thorough understanding of how the EGO system worked. The fact that there is a data line from the charger to the battery makes me think you'd have a very hard time reverse engineering the system." CreationDate="2021-09-03T00:36:54.243" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="14998" PostId="11810" Score="0" Text="Here's a source for [CO2 emissions per tonne-km](https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/daviz/specific-co2-emissions-per-tonne-2#tab-chart_1) you could use to verify your marginal scenario." CreationDate="2021-09-03T02:45:21.213" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15001" PostId="11810" Score="0" Text="Thanks Nic! I agree, litres/passenger-km is off as it factors in the weight of the ship into the average. I think that the correct calculation (assuming constant vessel speed) would be [weight of the ship + all cargo] = reference, [weight of the ship + all cargo + 1 car] - reference = added weight percentage. Also very good point if the captain stresses out and sails faster, that would be significant." CreationDate="2021-09-03T05:35:33.363" UserId="9331" />
  <row Id="14995" PostId="11811" Score="1" Text="You can link the product as long as you clarify whether you are affiliated with the manufacturer/vendor or not. *Asking* for specific product recommendations [is what's frowned upon](https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/158809/why-was-my-shopping-list-question-closed)." CreationDate="2021-09-03T00:41:24.420" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="14996" PostId="11811" Score="1" Text="There are also combined inverter/charge controller systems designed for RVs and boats, which could be cheaper and also have less components (so less failure modes and less conversion losses). Here's [one example](https://www.amazon.com/Inverter-Charge-Controller-Remote-Control/dp/B07RSB6PMN/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&amp;keywords=solar%2Binverter%2Bcharge%2Bcontroller%2B120V%2BAC&amp;qid=1630630106&amp;refinements=p_36%3A-9000&amp;rnid=2661611011&amp;sr=8-3&amp;th=1)" CreationDate="2021-09-03T00:55:16.920" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15000" PostId="11813" Score="0" Text="+1. Is [this](https://www.ebay.com/itm/233314195391) the inverter you're talking about? The ebay description says &quot;We've recently found that this inverter can support up to 6kW of power when used off-grid with no battery bank attached.&quot; I'd be highly skeptical of this claim, especially since nothing in [the manual](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1INHtfLScAw5rPCNr5kzIA6tIO5m5xnfa/view) indicates this is true." CreationDate="2021-09-03T02:57:56.917" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15002" PostId="11813" Score="1" Text="Good point, I would be skeptical as well, and no the manual does not mention such a feature. The Sunny Boy 3800 TL-US does provide such a feature, up to 1500 watts with solar only, but for the cost you can get a battery based unit like the Xantrex SW3024, and batteries for less money, then you have full wattage available at night as well. I personally can’t see the point in the batteryless setup from a users standpoint, even a stray passing cloud would shut your loads down momentarily." CreationDate="2021-09-03T08:48:31.707" UserId="12164" />
  <row Id="14997" PostId="11814" Score="0" Text="Given you've got a GitHub link in your profile, I'm guessing the second option could work for you :)" CreationDate="2021-09-03T01:34:51.153" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="14999" PostId="11814" Score="0" Text="Oh nice, an RPi seems like a good choice for this project." CreationDate="2021-09-03T02:53:38.760" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="15004" PostId="11815" Score="2" Text="The first thing to do is to see how your local area recycles glass.  If glass is crushed and used as construction aggregate, it doesn't matter what sort it is." CreationDate="2021-09-03T20:08:35.850" UserId="7993" />
  <row Id="15009" PostId="11815" Score="0" Text="Borosilicate is more expensive, and unlikely to be used in a disposable container, especially where it's not needed - and it's really not for a candle holder, that doesn't even get all that hot.  If the label says it's glass *for recycling purposes*, then the best you can do is trust the manufacturer.  The exception may be if there's glass that's in contact with the flame, like in mini-fondue sets or oil evaporators" CreationDate="2021-09-06T09:42:07.180" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="15005" PostId="11816" Score="1" Text="I'm trying to see if there are any perfume-free soap bars wrapped in paper out there in the meantime" CreationDate="2021-09-04T14:17:27.057" UserId="1778" />
  <row Id="16615" PostId="11817" Score="0" Text="100% merino wool and cotton are the best options" CreationDate="2024-03-11T02:13:57.730" UserId="15553" />
  <row Id="15007" PostId="11818" Score="7" Text="I wonder where those microplastics from fine-mesh bags go. Do you collect the plastic dust from it and put it in the trash after every washing? Or do they accumulate in the bag until it's time to throw the bag away? Or do they just stay on your clothes?" CreationDate="2021-09-06T08:40:17.460" UserId="13173" />
  <row Id="15024" PostId="11818" Score="0" Text="Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been [moved to chat](https://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/129361/discussion-on-answer-by-nic-what-should-i-pick-for-sportswear-if-synthetics-are)." CreationDate="2021-09-07T17:15:27.483" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="15381" PostId="11818" Score="0" Text="@nic it's a pitty you effectively deleted those comments. They were helpful, to an extent" CreationDate="2021-12-27T05:00:36.587" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="15386" PostId="11818" Score="0" Text="@SergeyZolotarev The comments are still readable in the chat room that I linked to above. Stack Exchange is a Q&amp;A site, not a discussion forum. As a site moderator, I aim to uphold the norms of the Stack Exchange network, including [those about commenting](https://meta.stackexchange.com/help/privileges/comment). If you want to discuss further, join the [chat room](https://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/7310/sustainable-living) and send me a message." CreationDate="2021-12-27T16:55:01.243" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="15388" PostId="11818" Score="0" Text="@nic I see the message that the page was deleted" CreationDate="2021-12-28T01:57:58.303" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="15030" PostId="11826" Score="0" Text="I just had a quick look at it seems that a lot of those unicycles have top speeds over 50kph/30mph. That's well into 99% power going into air resistance territory, as well as likely fatal if you hit something solid. That might be why we see so few of them around..." CreationDate="2021-09-12T07:18:57.273" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15034" PostId="11829" Score="3" Text="I would assume, though I can't be certain, that recycling companies aren't &quot;pre-sorting&quot; recycled paper, but separating the &quot;bad&quot; fibres during the re-pulping process, whether through chemical treatment, 'skimming' or other process." CreationDate="2021-09-14T02:57:38.630" UserId="8232" />
  <row Id="15036" PostId="11829" Score="2" Text="Separation is done via a &quot;sludge&quot; process - unwanted ooze settles and is extracted before the fibrous mass is re-pressed into new paper. The ooze is often mostly clay from gloss paper, but depending on the input mix will have a lot of short fibre and contaminants in it (plastic fragments are particularly problematic as if they get through they don't accept ink... and that makes the paper much less useful)" CreationDate="2021-09-16T03:07:57.400" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15035" PostId="11830" Score="0" Text="Worth noting that in many countries line drying is common. I suspect the UV exposure from that both sterilises and ages the cloth, but it significantly reduces the external energy use. Why pipe solar from the PV on your roof to the dryer in your house when sunshine is also available in your back yard!" CreationDate="2021-09-16T03:04:47.790" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15037" PostId="11831" Score="0" Text="Why did you make this &quot;community wiki&quot;? It seems like a reasonable answer on its own." CreationDate="2021-09-16T15:30:07.600" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="15038" PostId="11831" Score="0" Text="@Nic - If the answer consists solely of a C&amp;P, I make it a CW." CreationDate="2021-09-16T15:31:44.153" UserId="8425" />
  <row Id="15039" PostId="11831" Score="0" Text="Also, full disclosure, all I did was google *SSDs have a lower environmental impact* (which *'loaded the question'*) (!). This was hit #3. #1 being this question." CreationDate="2021-09-16T15:39:03.693" UserId="8425" />
  <row Id="15040" PostId="11832" Score="1" Text="Please share your sources. Because there are many places to read stuff, not few of them spilling a lot of bollocks." CreationDate="2021-09-20T07:42:31.883" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="15047" PostId="11832" Score="2" Text="@Erik I read that in [Patagonia's Product Care](https://eu.patagonia.com/gb/en/product-care-101.html) article. They write &quot;studies show synthetic jackets laundered in top-load washing machines shed more than seven times as many microfibers as the same jacket in front-load washers.&quot;. Unfortunately they don't reference what study it was. Only as far as I know they are last company to spread some unconfirmed bollocks. But I'll try to find some other source that would confirm it..." CreationDate="2021-09-22T13:24:13.277" UserId="13201" />
  <row Id="15042" PostId="11835" Score="0" Text="This is a great answer, and gives me good insight on how emissions and recycling works.&#xA;&#xA;I have one question though. In your example, you said that if making 200 grams of pasta creates 260 grams of CO2 emissions, 26 grams of CO2 emissions is created for the plastic packaging.&#xA;&#xA;But then you can burn that 26 grams of packaging, so that can be used for electricity, and overall it's recycled. Right?" CreationDate="2021-09-20T18:29:33.453" UserId="13211" />
  <row Id="15043" PostId="11835" Score="0" Text="Also I'm trying to upvote your answer, but when I try to sign in, Stackexchange just keeps asking me to sign up. Something's not right." CreationDate="2021-09-20T18:32:42.627" UserId="13211" />
  <row Id="15044" PostId="11835" Score="0" Text="@user13211 Welcome to Stack Exchange! You will be able to upvote answers after you accumulate 15 reputation. https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/help/privileges/vote-up" CreationDate="2021-09-20T21:49:04.437" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="15103" PostId="11835" Score="0" Text="Will this works for coal and gasoline?" CreationDate="2021-10-12T12:12:45.237" UserId="13268" />
  <row Id="15421" PostId="11835" Score="0" Text="I'm not sure about &quot;There's nothing more to do&quot;. Before *recycling*, there is *reduction*. I personally would buy food without packaging altogether. Of course, thinner packaging is better. This is about saving aluminum through package optimization of cans: https://youtu.be/hUhisi2FBuw?t=332" CreationDate="2022-01-03T02:36:29.820" UserId="13592" />
  <row Id="15045" PostId="11836" Score="1" Text="That is what dogs were (partially) bred for? Also, the dog wouldn't have to be able to physically fend off the bear, it just shouldn't be overly afraid and bark loud enough to get the message over. E.g. in Slovenia dogs are used for this purpose." CreationDate="2021-09-21T08:00:06.357" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="15052" PostId="11836" Score="0" Text="I don't know if this will help you, or even if this technique works, but years ago I was scheduled to go on an expedition into an area with polar bears.  One piece of advice I was given (and again, I have no idea if it really works) was to frequently urinate in all areas surrounding our camp to mark the territory." CreationDate="2021-09-24T13:07:44.263" UserId="2727" />
  <row Id="15053" PostId="11836" Score="1" Text="@RockPaperLz-MaskitorCasket I doubt it because polar bears are renown for not caring about anything that should scare them off." CreationDate="2021-09-24T18:14:25.727" UserId="5" />
  <row Id="15057" PostId="11836" Score="0" Text="I can only comment from experience. The answer from @Mark is good. No dog or pack of dogs can handle a bear. One swipe from their claws will kill the largest and toughest breeds. The best that you can hope for is the barking will scare the bear away. Some dogs have no fear and will challenge the bear. That will result in the dog's death or a crippling injury." CreationDate="2021-09-25T20:52:39.857" UserId="13233" />
  <row Id="15048" PostId="11838" Score="0" Text="*This is why heat pumps are not desirable in cold climates*: This isn't as true as it once was. See recent developments from [NREL](https://www.nrel.gov/news/features/2021/even-in-frigid-temperatures-air-source-heat-pumps-keep-homes-warm-from-alaska-coast-to-us-mass-market.html), [RMI](https://rmi.org/heat-pumps-a-practical-solution-for-cold-climates/), and the [Dept of Energy](https://www.energy.gov/eere/buildings/articles/cold-climate-air-source-heat-pumps-innovative-technology-stay-warm-winter)." CreationDate="2021-09-22T15:37:05.650" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15050" PostId="11838" Score="0" Text="@LShaver I took a look at some of these resources which had links to some research which appears to have been done around 2017. The DOE research seemed to involve duct-less splits which do have a lower outside temperature tolerance according to what I found for Fijitsu and Mitsubishi product offerings. Some of these materials also reference backup heating systems. The reported COP was low as in less than 5 and typically less than 2 in some of the test results at low temperatures. What specific product offerings are being used in cold climates by which I mean lower than 0F?" CreationDate="2021-09-22T20:12:00.117" UserId="4951" />
  <row Id="15051" PostId="11838" Score="0" Text="For specifying HVAC equipment industry standard in the U.S. is to use [heating degree days](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heating_degree_day), and &quot;cold climate&quot; is any region with over 5,400 HDD per year -- zones 6 and 7 in [this map](https://basc.pnnl.gov/images/climate-zone-map-iecc-2021). Utilities in these regions currently run cold climate heat pump programs such as: [Minnesota](https://www.otpco.com/ways-to-save/heating-and-cooling/heat-pumps/cold-climate-heat-pumps/) and [Maine](https://www.efficiencymaine.com/landing_page/heat-pumps-work-cold-climates/)." CreationDate="2021-09-22T21:06:50.920" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="16410" PostId="11838" Score="0" Text="Does it make a difference if it's air-air or air-water? For air-water central heating, I think often heating rods [such as this one](https://www.paw.eu/en/applications/heatpump/) are used, but it seems your source considers only air-air heat pumps." CreationDate="2023-07-12T07:40:18.230" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="16411" PostId="11838" Score="0" Text="It's not enough to look at average temperatures. People want to stay warm on the coldest days of the year too." CreationDate="2023-07-12T07:46:40.597" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="16413" PostId="11838" Score="0" Text="@gerrit You are correct in that average temperature may not be a good criteria. I would think the median temperature or most usual temperature would be a better criteria. I can't remember seeing any kind of standard deviation when average temperature is mentioned. There is quite a bit of difference between average temperature of 5C with a standard deviation of 8 degrees and average temperature of 5C with a standard deviation of 2 degrees. Also it may not be reasonable to design a heating unit for the coldest days should those coldest days be a few days out of the year." CreationDate="2023-07-12T14:29:47.913" UserId="4951" />
  <row Id="15056" PostId="11840" Score="0" Text="Is there any difference between propane and natural gas in terms of impurities? I.e. is one easier/more likely to be produced with more purity than the other?" CreationDate="2021-09-25T20:29:34.443" UserId="13225" />
  <row Id="15061" PostId="11840" Score="0" Text="@EricMarsh Both propane/natgas only need to be 90% pure to be marketable. There really isn't much difference." CreationDate="2021-09-26T16:20:00.363" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="16252" PostId="11840" Score="0" Text="Mercury is rare and removed in separation. Sulfur is removed at gas plants. Compounds over C3 are removed at the gas plant as they are more value than methane." CreationDate="2023-01-24T15:43:26.620" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="16285" PostId="11840" Score="0" Text="I’ve been looking for an answer to this question given the recent high profile research on in-home gas appliances. I just had to add here that while I’m pretty convinced propane is unlikely to be much better if at all than natural gas, the answer above is disingenuous at best. The only information cited, about propane, to back up this claim is a study by the US armed forces testing a large propane burner array in open air conditions to simulate aircraft catching on fire. To use this as a comparable to an in-home propane range is misleading, especially considering that the study’s conclusions i" CreationDate="2023-01-22T23:48:57.507" UserId="14625" />
  <row Id="15058" PostId="11842" Score="0" Text="thx for answer juhist, about your last paragraph, those things need a lot of capital and find the appropriate people. In EEUU (you're from, right?) maybe it isn't that hard, but in other places with different mentalities it could not be so easy. Deffinitely I will take your advice in consideration, but I must be consequent with the options available." CreationDate="2021-09-26T11:10:43.080" UserId="13231" />
  <row Id="15059" PostId="11842" Score="0" Text="The things that would consume the most of the energy would be various electrodomestics, and some machines for the agrary part. The rest of the energy consumption (light bubbles, etc) could be solved with various approaches like using LEDs, candles, etc. Anyways intuit that it will not do a big difference, for disgrace. Must research it better, though." CreationDate="2021-09-26T11:18:21.753" UserId="13231" />
  <row Id="15060" PostId="11842" Score="1" Text="Anyway, for a given amount of electricity needed, it's always cheaper to produce it at scale in wind farms and store at scale in large batteries, hydrogen or pumped hydro. Producing electricity at small scale in solar installations and storing it in small scale batteries is always the option that requires the largest amount of capital." CreationDate="2021-09-26T12:22:04.217" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="15064" PostId="11843" Score="0" Text="Doing as you suggest would achieve nothing. If you had a way to bind some of the carbon using your fungus in the form of glomalin rather than the bacteria producing CO2 and methane... then that's a different question." CreationDate="2021-09-27T01:54:38.947" UserId="1057" />
  <row Id="15066" PostId="11846" Score="1" Text="The **storage** part is the important thing here." CreationDate="2021-09-30T08:01:35.463" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="15067" PostId="11846" Score="1" Text="I disagree that we don't know how to turn electricity into gasoline. If we have a source of carbon dioxide, we can turn electricity into gasoline. Why it's not done is that (1) the energy efficiency of the whole chain including Fischer-Tropsch reactor is way too low to even remotely make economical sense, (2) we don't have enough stationary sources of sustainable carbon dioxide. So if the carbon dioxide is not sustainable, the produced gasoline won't be sustainable either. Capturing the gaseous carbon dioxide emissions of moving vehicles for reuse makes even less sense than using hydrogen." CreationDate="2021-09-30T16:01:13.060" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="15085" PostId="11851" Score="0" Text="Amazingly detailed answer.  ⭐️" CreationDate="2021-10-09T14:25:21.310" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="15097" PostId="11851" Score="0" Text="Food delivery bicycle riders in NYC use throttle controlled electric bicycles. The major bicycle makers don't really offer them but the laws allow them at 20 MPH. These are &quot;Class 2&quot; electric bicycles." CreationDate="2021-10-11T12:57:28.207" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="15091" PostId="11853" Score="1" Text="The thermal mass of the sand will dominate the insulation value. Also, because of its density it will be difficult to contain compared to just about anything else. Where sand is used as is in buildings they're usually buried in it to and the thermal mass works to cool the building, with the sand over the top helping heat it at night. Sand in the walls will not be an insulator in any meaningful sense, as @juhist points out in their answer" CreationDate="2021-10-10T08:48:09.380" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15092" PostId="11853" Score="0" Text="Whatever keeps the water out of the sand should also stop plants growing in it, especially if you're in an area with termites. Otherwise you are likely to get roots or stems growing through it (rather than in it)." CreationDate="2021-10-10T08:49:36.917" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15095" PostId="11853" Score="0" Text="@Móż By the sentence *'The thermal mass of the sand will dominate the insulation value'* do you mean that I will spend too much energy to warm up the sand before it can act as a heat barrier?" CreationDate="2021-10-10T09:06:26.047" UserId="13262" />
  <row Id="15099" PostId="11853" Score="0" Text="thermal mass: there are two numbers, the specific heat capacity and the speed of thermal transfer. If you get the depth right the heat wave in the sand will arrive at the inside just as the evening cools down (many hot climate buildings work this way). If you get it wrong it will just delay the point where the building gets uncomfortably hot and then when it cools down again in the evening. My brick house works this way - it gets hot inside mid-afternoon and stays hot until midnight." CreationDate="2021-10-12T01:59:57.687" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15100" PostId="11853" Score="0" Text="You would probably be better off looking at biocomposites, like mud/straw bricks, strawbale, hempcrete (which can be made using reeds or straw), or even concrete composites. &quot;reverse brick veneer&quot;  is another way to mix concrete/brick and insulation, but only if you can get away from sand=insulation rather than sand=thermal mass." CreationDate="2021-10-12T02:02:19.773" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15102" PostId="11853" Score="0" Text="@Móż I did not specify it in the original question but my main purpose is to reduce heating costs in winters as much as possible. Here it may get as cold as -5 Celsius at nights and 2-3 Celsius daytime." CreationDate="2021-10-12T10:47:47.757" UserId="13262" />
  <row Id="15108" PostId="11853" Score="0" Text="If you're in a heating climate sand won't help you. You need to keep the heat inside, and that means insulation. Thermal mass inside the insulated building can help keep it warm, especially if you're using fire to generate the heat (rocket stoves with thermal mass are popular in many places). The big change for many older buildings is making them airtight, and if you can do that the next step is an airtight cavity in the wall that you fill with lightweight material to stop air moving round in the cavity. Strawbale etc do that implicitly using the straw, with the render making it airtight" CreationDate="2021-10-13T02:40:21.363" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15084" PostId="11854" Score="0" Text="According to [this link](https://www.geothermal-energy.org/pdf/IGAstandard/WGC/2010/2952.pdf) dry sand (sand with 0% water content) has thermal conductivity around 0.25 W/mK." CreationDate="2021-10-09T08:42:39.427" UserId="13262" />
  <row Id="15090" PostId="11854" Score="0" Text="So, for 25cm thick sand barrier, U-value is 1 W/m^2.K. That means 'each square-meter of the 25cm-thick-sand-barrier' will leak /conduct heat at the rate of 1W per Kelvin, right? Then, if the outside is 15 degrees colder than the inside in average, a 30m long and 1.5m high sand barrier will conduct heat at almost 0.7kW. This is around 17kWh daily and 500kWh monthly. Does not seem to be an economical solution." CreationDate="2021-10-10T06:22:34.363" UserId="13262" />
  <row Id="15098" PostId="11854" Score="0" Text="I don't know about sand, but rammed-earth walls get their insulating power not from heat conductivity, but from thermal mass: it takes several days to warm up a wall a half-meter thick, so the indoor temperature is the long-term average of the outdoor temperature." CreationDate="2021-10-11T20:58:23.657" UserId="7993" />
  <row Id="15101" PostId="11854" Score="1" Text="@Mark a properly designed mud brick wall will have a heat travel time of about 12 hours, so that successive waves of heat and cool reach the inside just as the day turns. Or alternatively the wall takes about 12 hours to heat up or cool down, depending on how you look at it. Sadly this is often not the case, and obviously not all walls can face the sun so in heating climates they just make it hard to heat the house. A friend has a house like this and it's really, really annoying in winter. You need actual insulation over most surfaces for the thermal mass to be useful." CreationDate="2021-10-12T07:57:01.647" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15105" PostId="11855" Score="0" Text="AGM batteries have a small amount of gas emission and are allowed in passenger compartments. AGM batteries are economical and the charge holds for good periods of time. Lithium-ion batteries are a fire risk and should be installed in out buildings. And there's a town near the arctic circle that does this. They don't take the fire risk of lithium-ion batteries but they pay the expense for the fast-charging performance of the batteries." CreationDate="2021-10-12T20:09:59.813" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="15087" PostId="11856" Score="1" Text="+1. Might also add that lead acid batteries have ventilation requirements, so figuring out where to put them in your house can be more challenging." CreationDate="2021-10-09T15:19:20.673" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15089" PostId="11856" Score="0" Text="Thanks a lot. Very good explanation on why not to use lead acid batteries. What is your opinion on Nickel-Iron solar batteries?" CreationDate="2021-10-10T00:51:46.490" UserId="13262" />
  <row Id="15096" PostId="11856" Score="0" Text="Nickel-Iron is a bit of strange battery type these days. I don't know much about it except that they can have very long life. If you can find them cheaply enough, you could of course research them bit more." CreationDate="2021-10-10T09:18:03.753" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="15842" PostId="11856" Score="0" Text="At least one company is manufacturing nickel-iron batteries and charging systems for them today. Google &quot;nickel iron battery&quot; and you'll find them near the top of the first page of search results." CreationDate="2022-06-21T21:01:57.567" UserId="4671" />
  <row Id="15133" PostId="11857" Score="0" Text="Glancing at the DIY EV forums it seems that people are doing this, but until a major EV manufacturer puts together a product the short answer is &quot;making just one costs too much&quot;. Viz, economies of scale overwhelm everything else.  Vehicle heat pumps need to cope with a lot more vibration than stationary ones (and there are a bunch of other design considerations) that make it impractical to use stationary heat pumps in cars. I suspect that until EVs standardise somewhat it won't be worth a third party manufacturer designing on on spec." CreationDate="2021-10-21T00:41:29.710" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15134" PostId="11857" Score="2" Text="One place you do see reverse cycle aircons is in campervans and housetrucks, not just DIY ones but the more expensive commercially made ones too. But those are large and power hungry, so not suitable for cars (also, you probably don't want 10kW of heat in your car)." CreationDate="2021-10-21T00:43:23.367" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15107" PostId="11858" Score="2" Text="Hydropower?  Geothermal?  Biomass?  Wind and solar may be getting all the publicity right now, but there are far more sources of renewable energy than just those two." CreationDate="2021-10-13T01:08:49.740" UserId="7993" />
  <row Id="15121" PostId="11858" Score="0" Text="Guess why some entrepeneurs thought about building a gigantic solar array in the Sahara to power half of Europe: Because there the sun shines almost every day." CreationDate="2021-10-18T07:48:31.133" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="15120" PostId="11860" Score="1" Text="Though the question is rather comeplete when it comes to material properties, it lacks some other specifications: What do you mean by &quot;economical&quot;? Where do you live (different countries/regions have different local resources)? What kind of house are we talking about?" CreationDate="2021-10-18T07:46:31.933" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="15122" PostId="11860" Score="0" Text="(Modern) houses in the Mediterranean usually are built from concrete, with single block walls, if I am not mistaken (only been there on vacation, haven't lived in the area). A good solution when building a new house would be to build double walls and place the insulation in between." CreationDate="2021-10-19T07:00:11.557" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="15123" PostId="11860" Score="0" Text="@Erik Yes this looks robust. But I am trying to minimize the cost even further. If the insulation material was the building material at the same time (just like the strawbale solution) it would be awesome." CreationDate="2021-10-19T18:13:11.193" UserId="13262" />
  <row Id="15124" PostId="11860" Score="1" Text="@Erik It looks like gas concrete satisfies this condition, i.e. it can be used as building material as well as insulation materiall. It has the thermal conductivity around 0.05 W/mK." CreationDate="2021-10-19T18:28:31.047" UserId="13262" />
  <row Id="15125" PostId="11860" Score="1" Text="Hempcrete is relatively common in France and has many positive properties. Documentation is readily available in English and French, possibly Spanish, and there are businesses bulding with it in the France and other EU countries. France has some regulatory recognition of the hygrothermal properties because it has ok insulation but excellent humidity regulation and so acts as a phase change material, making pure insulative testing not reflective of actaul performance in buildings. &quot;Bio Aggregate base building materials&quot; by Amziane and Arnaud is worth reading IMO (I just read it)" CreationDate="2021-10-20T10:11:12.983" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15116" PostId="11864" Score="1" Text="Not all renewables use solar fusion.  Tidal power uses the orbital potential energy of the Moon instead, while geothermal uses the Earth's internal radioactivity." CreationDate="2021-10-14T20:07:45.447" UserId="7993" />
  <row Id="15118" PostId="11864" Score="0" Text="That's true. I was mainly thinking about the &quot;renewables&quot; that are globally outcompeting fossil fuels today. Tidal power isn't cost-effective today and geothermal is limited to some rare sites where the internal heat of Earth is near the surface. Now I fixed the answer and mention alternative power sources." CreationDate="2021-10-16T07:55:58.627" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="15119" PostId="11864" Score="0" Text="What exactly hydropower uses is a crazy mix of all of them :) Just to confuse the issue." CreationDate="2021-10-17T23:54:36.923" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15127" PostId="11865" Score="1" Text="Awesome answer. Thank you very much. It looks like having the insulation outside and having the thermal mass inside is much better for comfort. Maybe, using inner insulation only on the ceiling and having thermal mass on the floor and the walls is a good idea. In the northern hemisphere, windows facing south and east seems to be preferable. Shade idea is cool, they can also be adjustable according to the season." CreationDate="2021-10-20T11:40:26.043" UserId="13262" />
  <row Id="15128" PostId="11865" Score="0" Text="According to [this link](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hempcrete#Benefits_and_constraints) hempcrete seems to be weak against water and humidity. It would lose most of its heat insulation property once damp.This is a common problem with many materials like glass fiber, rockwool, cellulose fiber, wood, wool etc. They require some sort of reliable sealing, which I think not easy to achieve over the whole house. Do you know any waterproof, healthy, durable and stable &quot;heat insulation&quot; material?" CreationDate="2021-10-20T11:52:36.387" UserId="13262" />
  <row Id="15129" PostId="11865" Score="0" Text="if you have water inside your house insulation is the least of your worries. If you live in a flood-prone area you are going to end up having waterproofing on the outside of a concrete house, or moving. There are no good, cheap solutions to regular floods (there are houses that float, but they cost at least twice what a non-floating house does)." CreationDate="2021-10-20T20:54:45.630" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15132" PostId="11865" Score="1" Text="This is sustainability.SO, so your questions ignoring that aspect aren't appropriate here. Strictly speaking &quot;waterproof, healthy, durable and stable heat insulation&quot; the answer is sprayfoam. It of course fails horribly on non-toxic, non-flammable, cheap and environmentally friendly. It sounds as though you would be better starting with some &quot;how to design a house&quot; books because I think you're getting side-tracked into weird theoretical questions and forgetting that houses need to be &quot;machines for living in&quot; first, and playthings for engineers second." CreationDate="2021-10-20T21:08:17.873" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15138" PostId="11865" Score="0" Text="I was talking about the insulation on the outside as outside insulation seems to be more preferable in terms of comfort. So, the question was &quot;what is an easy and reliable method to keep the insulation material outside the house dry?&quot;. Because there can be cracks on the most outer shell of the house due to poor construction /craftsmanship, temperature fluctuation, animal activities, earth /soil movement etc." CreationDate="2021-10-21T14:32:49.490" UserId="13262" />
  <row Id="15140" PostId="11865" Score="0" Text="You're right, which is why I already suggested learning about the basics of building a house before you get too far into your plan to reinvent everything. Note that things inside the house generate water vapour and that needs to be removed or you get mold. So either by breathable parts of the building, or by ventilation (which conflicts with &quot;airtight is the start of insulation&quot;). People breathe, cook, take showers, come inside wet when it's raining and so on. And they're only really comfortable with humidity between ~40% and 70%... it's not trivial" CreationDate="2021-10-21T23:27:47.753" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15136" PostId="11867" Score="0" Text="*most horizontal axis washing programes use heated water.* The source actually says &quot;very often&quot; and doesn't include a reference. I'm guessing perhaps in Europe a washer only needs a cold water connection which is why heating is internal? In the U.S. the standard washer has both hot and cold water connections, so horizontal axis machines (like mine) don't have internal heating." CreationDate="2021-10-21T13:23:14.680" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15288" PostId="11867" Score="0" Text="Thank you for an extensive answer @Sursula. I especially like the point &quot;The better distinction would be vertical axis (impeller and agitator) and horizontal axis&quot;. That answers it for me." CreationDate="2021-11-24T14:29:34.787" UserId="13201" />
  <row Id="15137" PostId="11868" Score="0" Text="+1 but note that &quot;washing less often&quot; probably doesn't apply in this (sportswear) case.  It may even be counterproductive as kit that's been sweated in repeatedly without washing can end up being thrown out for being permanently stinky (as well as being offensive to those around you)." CreationDate="2021-10-21T13:30:38.323" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="16297" PostId="11868" Score="0" Text="Good quality wool surprisingly doesn’t get that smelly. I used to be an arborist and could wear my woolen base layer for a worryingly long time :)" CreationDate="2023-02-24T16:42:55.437" UserId="8656" />
  <row Id="15142" PostId="11869" Score="3" Text="Crops consume carbon while growing, but unless entire crops are being buried underground to sequester that carbon away, once the crop is consumed or left to rot it just goes back into the regular carbon cycle." CreationDate="2021-10-24T21:41:54.973" UserId="8232" />
  <row Id="15143" PostId="11869" Score="0" Text="Additional carbon emissions come from machinery and transportation. Otherwise crop production is a net zero in the long run." CreationDate="2021-10-25T07:53:18.543" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="15145" PostId="11869" Score="1" Text="regenerative agriculture is one useful term when looking at this. At a high level modern/chemical farming strips carbon out of the soil so that alone means net emissions are inevitable (one mechanism is via tilling exposing carbonaceous material to the air where it oxides or is eaten). It's possible to farm in ways that increase soil carbon but they're generally not profitable and thus strongly disfavoured." CreationDate="2021-10-25T21:11:20.690" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15154" PostId="11871" Score="0" Text="Possible duplicate of: [Are electric cars as environmentally friendly as we think they are?](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/612/3379)" CreationDate="2021-10-27T02:31:52.747" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="16441" PostId="11871" Score="0" Text="Why ask this question, given that electricity is increasingly renewably generated. It is liable to generate misleading answers making electric cars appear worse than they are in practice." CreationDate="2023-07-26T09:43:26.810" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="15159" PostId="11872" Score="1" Text="A few things deserve mention and lightly fertilized sorghum grown on un-irrigated land can produce carbon-neutral ethanol when by cellulosic processes. Also, green-hydrogen combined with industrially captured carbon-dioxide can produce carbon-neutral synthetic methanol. Or the big news and Saudi Arabia is going to massively export gray-hydrogen. Finally, all renewable electricity projects, to be fully utilized, should be connected to both the powergrid and to green-hydrogen production." CreationDate="2021-10-27T19:38:10.397" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="15161" PostId="11872" Score="1" Text="There are certainly places where all our almost all energy is produced by burning coal, for example (or natural gas)" CreationDate="2021-10-27T20:04:31.077" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="15186" PostId="11873" Score="0" Text="Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been [moved to chat](https://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/131004/discussion-on-answer-by-s-spring-is-driving-an-electric-car-any-better-than-driv)." CreationDate="2021-10-30T23:34:05.803" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15160" PostId="11874" Score="0" Text="I suppose that the efficiency of a battery-powered electric-vehicle should be scaled with the efficiency of the electric powerplant. Also, an electric-vehicle doesn't get all the electricity during charging. And the battery-powered electric-vehicle loses charge just when parked. That situation is worse on a cold day while energy-use is higher with heater or air-conditioning use. I would just guess that a battery-powered electric-vehicle is about twice as efficient as an ICE vehicle. However, weight of the vehicle and size of the motors also matter for quantitative energy use." CreationDate="2021-10-27T19:41:16.177" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="15171" PostId="11874" Score="0" Text="Your 45% efficiency for a coal power plant seems quite high to me. Maybe an integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) plant could have 45% efficiency, but an old aging traditional coal plant, no way." CreationDate="2021-10-28T21:48:34.730" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="15172" PostId="11874" Score="0" Text="@juhist, even an &quot;old aging traditional coal plant&quot; can draw on two centuries of research in getting the most from your coal.  IGCC plants claim even higher efficiencies." CreationDate="2021-10-29T20:39:18.590" UserId="7993" />
  <row Id="15187" PostId="11874" Score="0" Text="First Google search result: &quot;Figures from the World Coal Association, a keen advocate of HELE, show that the average efficiency of coal-fired power plants around the world today is 33 percent.&quot;" CreationDate="2021-10-31T09:26:39.907" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="15258" PostId="11874" Score="0" Text="There are other factors that make exact comparison hard. Consider, for example, all of the petroleum that gets burned by tanker trucks and trains in order to distribute gasoline to tens of thousands of gas stations, compared with the fewer and larger shipments to power plants. Distribution of electricity is much cleaner." CreationDate="2021-11-16T21:39:05.310" UserId="13411" />
  <row Id="15261" PostId="11874" Score="0" Text="This was a decent article from a few years ago attempting to compare them in a more realistic real-world scenario. The upshot is always though that internal combustion engines aren't very efficient, and so much is lost in heat, that EVs don't need to be that good to be much better.&#xA;&#xA;https://thecorrespondent.com/7056/why-electric-cars-are-always-green-and-how-they-could-get-greener/741917761200-afaa6e5d&#xA;&#xA;The same is true of BEV vs FCEV: https://www.volkswagen-newsroom.com/en/stories/battery-or-fuel-cell-that-is-the-question-5868&#xA;&#xA;TLDR: Battery EVs are 70-90% efficient, well-to-wheel." CreationDate="2021-11-17T12:02:58.567" UserId="13422" />
  <row Id="15262" PostId="11874" Score="2" Text="A further point is that it requires energy to drill for oil, refine it to gasoline and to transport it. You must account for that too, if you want to do a fair comparison." CreationDate="2021-11-17T12:12:24.990" UserId="13422" />
  <row Id="15266" PostId="11875" Score="1" Text="&quot;Thus, best approach to reduce risks is to convert all natural gas we can into carbon dioxide.&quot; No, definitely not. Methane (natural gas) may be a more potent greenhouse gas than CO2 but it breaks down much more quickly than CO2. CO2 remains in the atmosphere several times longer than methane. The best approach is to leave natural gas in the ground, not converting it to carbon dioxide and emitting it into the atmosphere." CreationDate="2021-11-18T19:55:01.723" UserId="13449" />
  <row Id="15605" PostId="11875" Score="0" Text="While it's true that CO2 has a much longer lifetime than methane, methane is so much more potent a GHG that even on timescales of 500 years, the cumulative impact of methane on warming is more than 5x that of CO2 (see e.g. [recent estimates of the methane GWP](//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_potential#Values)). On much longer timescales, CO2 does catch up. That's not to say it's a net GHG benefit to go *drilling* for new methane reserves just to convert them to CO2 and re-inject, but for most policy goals, swapping methane for CO2 is certainly preferable." CreationDate="2022-02-21T17:44:26.747" UserId="13781" />
  <row Id="16440" PostId="11875" Score="0" Text="You write “a particular amount of natural gas contains twice as much hydrogen as the same amount of hydrogen gas” — I take it you mean volume of gas and mass of hydrogen, but in any case this you could make this clearer by stating the dimensions, rather than using the vague terms “amount” and “twice as much”." CreationDate="2023-07-26T09:34:17.523" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="15358" PostId="11876" Score="1" Text="It's a good point, but a more complicated single system could pump heat from the battery/electronics into the cabin without the need for a second cooling loop and compressor" CreationDate="2021-12-21T14:05:03.250" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="15189" PostId="11880" Score="3" Text="RE: *Reduced productivity...* and *the reduced productivity is more significant*.  You may want to research these claims, which are likely false.  There exists substantial research indicating that people are ***more productive*** in a four-day work week, despite working fewer hours during the week.  In other words, the less time people spend working, the more productive they are per hour worked.  I don't have all the studies in front of me right now, but instead of expecting 80% productivity from a 4-day work week, employers can expect significantly over 100% total productivity." CreationDate="2021-11-02T06:41:01.027" UserId="2727" />
  <row Id="15190" PostId="11880" Score="0" Text="Specific links: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-57724779 (Iceland) https://www.smh.com.au/business/workplace/the-four-day-workweek-pathway-to-productivity-or-unpaid-work-20200108-p53psr.html (NZ)" CreationDate="2021-11-02T06:50:23.107" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15191" PostId="11880" Score="0" Text="So sadly we may get the same consumption (measured in money) or even more (with more spare time people may pollute more per dollar spent), with fewer working hours for the same pay. In my limited experience WFH means shorter working hours, same pay, higher productivity (measured by output) but less enagement (measured by time spent in meetings)" CreationDate="2021-11-02T06:53:07.173" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15198" PostId="11880" Score="0" Text="It surprises me how people assume working less/getting salary cut will make things unaffordable. Working less will lead (if you are individual with healthy attitude) naturally  eating less, driving less, clothing less, washing less and so on. All in all it is good for everything and everybody. People don’t have an idea what is the cost of those white collar jobs and jobs in general." CreationDate="2021-11-05T08:42:16.367" UserId="13223" />
  <row Id="15206" PostId="11891" Score="1" Text="Well, single-use plastics could be made out of sugars and be quickly biodegradable. Or China, Thailand, and India have banned single-use plastics. The fundamentals that really make a difference are legislated policies of countries." CreationDate="2021-11-07T19:16:15.503" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="15208" PostId="11891" Score="2" Text="It's worth thinking about whether you can encourage change in the country you're in, rather than leaving. But that does depend a lot on the details of who you are and which country you're in." CreationDate="2021-11-07T23:06:01.873" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15223" PostId="11891" Score="0" Text="Regarding the second point, continue bringing your own cup and if more people do this, baristas will get used to it eventually!" CreationDate="2021-11-09T22:00:37.640" UserId="9252" />
  <row Id="15229" PostId="11892" Score="1" Text="Bicycles tend to be made of steel, which has nearly 100% recycle rate, and even landfills will run your trash through a magnetic separator to pluck out the iron." CreationDate="2021-11-10T06:27:01.860" UserId="6925" />
  <row Id="15256" PostId="11892" Score="0" Text="bicycles haven't been all steel for 100 years. These days they're a horrible mix of plastics and mixed metals, even the &quot;steel&quot; ones. Taking them apart to extract the steel is a manual task that takes way more time than the steel is worth. You're better off taking out the aluminium and throwing the rest into the steel pot to burn off the organic parts (this is what the bike shop I worked at did)." CreationDate="2021-11-16T21:00:01.417" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15224" PostId="11899" Score="0" Text="It does have an influence on *generation*: if you (and everyone else) spread out the startup surges, the power company can satisfy the load with the most efficient generators, rather than needing to put everything they've got on it." CreationDate="2021-11-09T22:11:18.533" UserId="7993" />
  <row Id="15228" PostId="11899" Score="0" Text="I suspect when they turn power back on, they do it in sections one at a time, for exactly that reason. It wouldn't even surprise me if the re-closers are set to do this *automatically*." CreationDate="2021-11-10T02:44:39.893" UserId="6925" />
  <row Id="15210" PostId="11900" Score="1" Text="Yes, I thought it might be different for home use. &#xA;Thank you for that information, that is very helpful!" CreationDate="2021-11-08T16:59:39.030" UserId="13357" />
  <row Id="15212" PostId="11900" Score="0" Text="I doubt they were measuring demand in 15 minute windows back in the 1980's. They probably just had a demand meter which measured the largest demand for the month. They are still around and the advice in the question is still given: https://www.newfoundlandpower.com/Business-Services/Demand-Meters" CreationDate="2021-11-09T01:35:21.380" UserId="13361" />
  <row Id="15214" PostId="11900" Score="0" Text="So, it sounds like the power company was incorrect - the high bill had essentially nothing to do with the fact that the usage spiked when all the appliances got turned on simultaneously. The bill was instead caused simply by using more power during peak hours. Had all the appliances been turned on simultaneously overnight, the bill also would have been lower. Spreading out power-ups in itself makes no difference, but using electricity during peak/non-peak hours does. You could even see your bill *increase* if you spread the power-ups into peak hours!" CreationDate="2021-11-09T14:47:29.610" UserId="5953" />
  <row Id="15215" PostId="11900" Score="1" Text="@NuclearHoagie since the bill went down, it sounds like they were correct. And waiting 15 minutes wouldn't put you in an off-peak period." CreationDate="2021-11-09T15:03:11.447" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15216" PostId="11900" Score="1" Text="@David42 some old mechanical meters actually did use interval periods, though it was typically an hour. They had a system with two ratcheting rings with a damper. The smaller ring would push the larger ring forward, and every hour the smaller ring reset back to zero, while the larger ring held its position. The damper kept short, transient spikes from being registered. The meter used the 60 Hz of the grid to keep time. When the meter was read, the technician would reset the demand back to zero." CreationDate="2021-11-09T15:18:39.657" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15218" PostId="11900" Score="0" Text="@David42 That newfoundlandpower.com website seems to be almost the only resource about demand metering though. At least it is usually mentioned whenever demand metering [is brought up](https://www.reddit.com/r/homeautomation/comments/qlfhqk/anyone_know_what_this_is_19th_century_house/)." CreationDate="2021-11-09T20:44:22.537" UserId="13373" />
  <row Id="15221" PostId="11900" Score="0" Text="@NuclearHoagie Given that the power company presumably determines how power usage is charged, they can't be incorrect about the high bill if that's how they actually charge people (even if higher charges doesn't directly correspond to a higher strain on the system). They may charge people in this way to reduce spikes, which spreads out peak hours, rather than saying &quot;X-Y o'clock are peak hours and thus more expensive&quot;, which may have no effect to those who need to use power during that time or may shift peak hours to some other time." CreationDate="2021-11-09T21:22:20.607" UserId="13374" />
  <row Id="15230" PostId="11900" Score="1" Text="@NuclearHoagie AFAIK some (if not most) devices actually demand quite a bit more electricity during startup than during sustained operation. So if you turn on all devices at the same time, you have a huge power spike, with consumption dropping afterwards. See [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inrush_current)." CreationDate="2021-11-10T08:51:32.910" UserId="13379" />
  <row Id="15231" PostId="11900" Score="2" Text="@Tomeamis Yes, but the inrush current shouldn't trigger the demand meter since it is designed to react slowly. What does knock you into a higher demand rate is turning on several devices controlled by thermostats at once. These includes heat, air conditioning, and electric grills. They will all draw considerable power continuously until the set temperature is reached. After that they will each draw power periodically to maintain temperature, but probably not all at once. Staggering their initial warm up reduces the chance you will trip the demand meter." CreationDate="2021-11-10T13:00:51.873" UserId="13361" />
  <row Id="15217" PostId="11902" Score="6" Text="This is absolutely not a concern unless we're talking about a scary illegal installation.  Electrical codes are designed such that neither wire heating nor voltage drop can ever be a problem while operating within the breaker limits." CreationDate="2021-11-09T17:53:15.847" UserId="8150" />
  <row Id="15219" PostId="11903" Score="1" Text="I heard that hydro plants (including pumped hydro) are also pretty fast at demand response. They don't have to wait for anything to heat up - they can just open the literal floodgates a little more." CreationDate="2021-11-09T21:12:19.083" UserId="9252" />
  <row Id="15222" PostId="11903" Score="2" Text="@user253751 fast hydro is typically on a 1-10 minute scale, with a lot of hydro running on a 5-30 minute response time. Getting thousands of tons of water moving or stopping is hard work. Batteries and solar PV are typically responsive within 1-10 cycles (0.1s)." CreationDate="2021-11-09T21:23:15.970" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15226" PostId="11903" Score="0" Text="And here I was thinking it was an issue of how the power company calculates the bill. Turn on everything in the morning = power company thinks the trend line in the 15 or less minutes leading up to the surge represents your total power usage (so they overestimate how much power to charge you for)" CreationDate="2021-11-09T22:41:54.853" UserId="13375" />
  <row Id="15227" PostId="11903" Score="0" Text="@MontanaBurr With smart meters, which have actually been around in many areas for quite a while, it is easy for the utility to get peak demand, time of day usage and a whole bunch of other information. The most expensive thing for the utility is peak demand, and they always have to be ready for it. Like the water company has to be ready for everyone to flush at halftime of the super bowl." CreationDate="2021-11-09T22:47:24.303" UserId="13372" />
  <row Id="15235" PostId="11903" Score="0" Text="&quot;in the case of solar, at least the peak solar generation generally corresponds to peak usage&quot;...this is only true in the Summer.  Once A/Cs aren't running heavily the usage peaks are typically early in the morning before there's much sun and then again in the evening when the sun is going down.  Many utilities have their biggest peaks of the year in the winter." CreationDate="2021-11-10T19:52:12.357" UserId="2853" />
  <row Id="15236" PostId="11903" Score="0" Text="@DeanMacGregor It does vary a bit - as Texas found out the hard way several months ago. In my area (Maryland) *most* of the peak times are summer afternoons, but there are occasional winter days." CreationDate="2021-11-10T20:11:28.033" UserId="13372" />
  <row Id="15237" PostId="11903" Score="0" Text="As you note, they have to be able to handle the peak regardless of how short its duration or sporadic its frequency.  Many utilities in Florida have a winter peak higher than their summer peak even though they might only see it once or twice per year." CreationDate="2021-11-11T01:39:58.433" UserId="2853" />
  <row Id="15232" PostId="11904" Score="0" Text="Interesting, thank you! Another time around 2000-2001 I worked for a nonprofit in Downtown Mpls, and they had a deal with Xcel to lower their electricity usage during peak demand times in return for lower rates at all times I think. So during weekdays in the summer, when the sun was out and it was very hot, they would lower or turn off their air conditioning. I had the impression they were notified of when those times were. At the time, we would groan of course.. but now I so wish that practice had been much more widely adapted!" CreationDate="2021-11-10T14:17:16.583" UserId="13357" />
  <row Id="15233" PostId="11904" Score="1" Text="Pepco (Washington, DC and Maryland suburbs) has had remote control of air conditioners to lower peak demand on hot days for many, many years, with anyone who signs up getting some money for allowing it. Unfortunately, the pandemic pushed a **lot** of people to be home during the day and it letting it get a few degrees hotter inside is more of an inconvenience for more people than it used to be." CreationDate="2021-11-10T15:58:46.523" UserId="13372" />
  <row Id="15234" PostId="11904" Score="0" Text="Both of these are examples of the old style &quot;demand response&quot; that cheeses everyone off. The thesis of that video is the smarter play is to over-cool the buildings *prior to* the expected overload." CreationDate="2021-11-10T19:41:03.090" UserId="6925" />
  <row Id="16249" PostId="11905" Score="0" Text="Thanks. However, what I had in mind was carbon sequestration crops - a plant that grew very fast, captured a lot of carbon (bamboo? hemp?) and then could be cut and buried. The question is about how to bury it so the carbon stays underground." CreationDate="2023-01-22T14:41:07.677" UserId="13235" />
  <row Id="15239" PostId="11907" Score="1" Text="Ah okay, thanks for that. So I'd probably go with 3 sets of 2 panels connected in series, then connect those 3 sets in parallel. I have a solar charge controller between the inverter and the panels, but I'll still check in with the manufacturer of the charge controller before I change my setup. Thanks!" CreationDate="2021-11-11T18:43:06.703" UserId="13386" />
  <row Id="15240" PostId="11907" Score="0" Text="Also, in your second to last sentence, don't you mean that I'll have the voltage from a chain of *3 panels (not 6)? As in, if I have two chains of 3 panels each (in series), and I connect those two chain in parallel, my total output voltage will be that of 3 panels, right?" CreationDate="2021-11-12T00:36:36.687" UserId="13386" />
  <row Id="15241" PostId="11907" Score="0" Text="Yes it will be that of 3 panels (as opposed to that of 6 panels you used to have)." CreationDate="2021-11-12T17:46:52.283" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="15248" PostId="11911" Score="0" Text="Well, the X-prize car weighed 800 pounds and got 102.5 MPG. That wasn't a hybrid. But take a 2000 pound Lotus Elise, put in a 1.4 engine of normal tune, set the gearing a little higher, and that's 50 MPG in highway driving. That's not a hybrid either. The most impressive hybrid is a BMW i8. It weighs 3501 pounds, gets 76 MPG in combined mode, and costs $147500. Now the correct way to run a hybrid is in combined mode and not in all-electric mode. Combined mode give the expected performance level while the all-electric mode quickly wipes-out in range which puts the car completely into ICE mode." CreationDate="2021-11-16T01:29:20.250" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="15246" PostId="11914" Score="0" Text="Why did you say &quot;biomass burning&quot; instead of &quot;anaerobic decomposition of biomass with methane as the end product&quot;?" CreationDate="2021-11-16T00:44:22.747" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="15249" PostId="11914" Score="0" Text="How promising is hydrogen considering its flammability (Hindenburg)? We may have just a few large-scale explosions before public sentiment kicks it to the curb like it did with nuclear power" CreationDate="2021-11-16T02:22:02.653" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="15250" PostId="11914" Score="0" Text="What are your thoughts on gravity storage facilities that use solids (like this one: https://www.energy-storage.news/energy-vault-asks-investors-to-bet-on-pre-commercial-gravity-storage-tech-ahead-of-nyse-listing/)?" CreationDate="2021-11-16T02:27:02.547" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="15254" PostId="11914" Score="0" Text="*But based on the initial information we have, they seem very surprising* — did you mean to write *very promising* rather than *very surprising*?  And I'm a bit confused by your points on biomass, thermal energy storage, and nuclear energy.  How can any of those be used for long-term energy storage?  Would you use excess electricity (in summer) to power greenhouses to grow biomass to burn in winter?  Using nuclear for excess energy storage seems even more far-fetched.  And is thermal home energy storage economical on a seasonal scale (storing energy for months)?" CreationDate="2021-11-16T09:17:54.227" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="15255" PostId="11914" Score="0" Text="Natural gas is flammable too and widely used today. If hydrogen replaces natural gas, we won't increase our total risk of explosions at all." CreationDate="2021-11-16T17:52:17.840" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="15268" PostId="11915" Score="0" Text="It's a matter of perspective; a mature forest holds lots of carbon, so chopping it down and replacing with seedlings reduces the capacity of an existing carbon sink. It will take a very long time before it can store the same amount of carbon again. But using wood for building is also creating a new carbon sink. Calculating the net effect is difficult as you often don't know how effective replanting is and how long the new &quot;wood-building&quot; carbon sink will last." CreationDate="2021-11-19T11:43:47.940" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="15286" PostId="11915" Score="0" Text="I would be surprised if replanting efficiency was anywhere below 100%. In fact, efficiency of only 99% would be very surprising. I live in a country where every forest has to be replanted by law (Finland), and failures of replanting just do not happen. If a forest is planted where forest was previously chopped down, it's a rule of nature that the replanting succeeds. It won't fail." CreationDate="2021-11-23T16:42:04.637" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="15287" PostId="11915" Score="0" Text="@juhist replanting itself usually isn't the problem (unless a mono-culture is introduced), the issue is that [a mature forest can sequestering carbon better](https://envirobites.org/2019/09/24/old-is-better-than-young-the-carbon-sequestration-potential-of-letting-forests-mature/) than a newly planted one. On the other hand there's also [research](https://psmag.com/environment/young-trees-suck-up-more-carbon-than-old-ones) that says the exact opposite. My take on this is that it depends on other circumstances than just old and new." CreationDate="2021-11-24T08:13:04.690" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="15290" PostId="11915" Score="0" Text="A middle-aged forest grows the fastest. It is true that in the very start of the lifetime of a forest, it is very slow in capturing carbon but the growth in the very start is exponential. An old forest won't capture any carbon, it's in equilibrium. If we want to have many middle-aged forests, we need to plant many new forests and don't care about the inefficient carbon capture in very young forests, realizing that as the forest becomes slightly older, its carbon capture massively increases." CreationDate="2021-11-25T17:54:25.817" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="15259" PostId="11918" Score="2" Text="This has been proven wrong so many times that I am at a loss for words. But see https://www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-how-electric-vehicles-help-to-tackle-climate-change" CreationDate="2021-11-17T11:34:29.393" UserId="13421" />
  <row Id="15263" PostId="11918" Score="0" Text="@Timores, if you read the article you point to, it states: &quot;In countries with coal-intensive electricity generation, the benefits of EVs are smaller and they can have similar lifetime emissions to the most efficient conventional vehicles – such as hybrid-electric models.&quot; &#xA;&#xA;My point here is comparing an existing conventional car (its manufacturing carbon impact is out of scope since done for years) and a new electric car.&#xA;&#xA;Plus the fact that if you run 5,000 miles a year in an old car, you have less Carbon impact than an electric car running 35,000 miles a year.&#xA;Changing usage is key." CreationDate="2021-11-18T15:07:29.790" UserId="13420" />
  <row Id="15265" PostId="11918" Score="1" Text="@OpenSEO: &quot;comparing an existing conventional car (its manufacturing carbon impact is out of scope since done for years) and a new electric car&quot; - if you compare apples with oranges, you get useless results. What about comparing an existing electrical car with a new conventional car? Does that make sense to you too?" CreationDate="2021-11-18T16:03:21.370" UserId="13442" />
  <row Id="15269" PostId="11918" Score="0" Text="@Aganju, real life is scenario about existing conventional can keep running or being replaced by new electric cars. Other use cases are for scholar students.&#xA;Why would you buy a new car if you don't need one ?" CreationDate="2021-11-19T17:17:17.857" UserId="13420" />
  <row Id="15267" PostId="11920" Score="1" Text="I like this answer the most, because it factors in the co2 footprint, which is the most important aspect." CreationDate="2021-11-19T08:55:32.733" UserId="13451" />
  <row Id="15264" PostId="11922" Score="5" Text="It's only fair to mention the significant downsides of biofuel, such as the amount of land and water that are required to produce them in significant quantities, plus the production process can use more energy than the resulting fuel actually produces." CreationDate="2021-11-18T15:07:46.783" UserId="3960" />
  <row Id="15277" PostId="11924" Score="1" Text="All I see is a pile of missing images. This is a terrible question. Please add a description or transcript." CreationDate="2021-11-21T08:55:37.947" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15270" PostId="11925" Score="0" Text="I didn't understand this part, please explain: &quot;That's 365 cycles per year as opposed to 1 cycle per year in seasonal energy storage. Your battery just became 365 times cheaper.&quot;" CreationDate="2021-11-19T23:22:16.147" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="15271" PostId="11925" Score="0" Text="If you have summer that's 182.5 days long and you want to store 2 GWh per day during summer, you need 365 GWh battery. If you have daytime that's 12 hours long and you want to store 2 GWh per day (0.0833 GWh per hour), you need 1 GWh battery. A 1 GWh battery is 365 times cheaper than a 365 GWh battery." CreationDate="2021-11-20T09:33:28.233" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="15272" PostId="11925" Score="0" Text="Your calculations, if I understand correctly, assume there's zero sun during winter in places like Siberia. It's not the case" CreationDate="2021-11-20T17:23:34.700" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="15278" PostId="11925" Score="0" Text="In Siberia, there's only few hours of sun every day in winter. Also the sun angle is low. This has two effects: the sunlight has to travel through a large mass of air, reducing its intensity. Also if you orient the solar panels for good production around the year, the low sun angle in winter means the angle of the solar panels is inoptimal." CreationDate="2021-11-21T14:16:00.757" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="15279" PostId="11925" Score="0" Text="Usually it doesn't make sense to mount solar panels on automatically tilting platforms. The reason being that today, the solar panel is cheaper than the platform!" CreationDate="2021-11-21T14:17:47.390" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="15280" PostId="11925" Score="0" Text="there are around 8 hours of sunlight in January in the city I'm from (https://ibb.co/6NLdVL6). Is it not enough? Also, why can't the angle be tweaked for winter? Are they really so expensive, the platforms?" CreationDate="2021-11-21T17:14:28.027" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="15276" PostId="11926" Score="1" Text="Do you mean all concentrated solar plants, or are you asking for a comparison between solar thermal and solar photovoltaic plants? Cencentrated photovoltaic plants exist, and are often more efficient than non-concentrated PV system." CreationDate="2021-11-21T08:54:06.263" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15939" PostId="11926" Score="0" Text="One consideration—not necessarily a deal killer—is that any system that concentrates sunlight must necessarily accept sunlight only from a very narrow range of angles. The greater the ratio of &quot;concentration,&quot; the narrower the angle. Such systems can only be practical if they actively track the sun as it moves across the sky. That can cost a lot more than solar collectors that hang passively on non-moving racks, accepting sunlight from a broad range of angles." CreationDate="2022-08-06T20:23:12.070" UserId="4671" />
  <row Id="15281" PostId="11927" Score="2" Text="Cars and windows kill way more birds than windpower, yet we still use them. Great answer otherwise." CreationDate="2021-11-22T09:56:52.383" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="15317" PostId="11927" Score="0" Text="https://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/Concentrating/concentrating.htm  Appears that the DIY CSP project space has at least some members." CreationDate="2021-12-07T00:30:50.910" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="16094" PostId="11927" Score="0" Text="What do you think on this: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421518305512?via%3Dihub? Concentrated solar appears to be better than other kinds of solar in terms of power density" CreationDate="2022-11-19T02:00:36.690" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="16095" PostId="11927" Score="0" Text="I suspect the sciencedirect article isn't about concentrating solar-thermal power but concentrating photovoltaics, because it doesn't mention the word &quot;thermal&quot;. Maybe I should have included it in my answer too. Also the builditsolar website is probably about concentrating photovoltaics." CreationDate="2022-11-19T10:08:55.373" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="15283" PostId="11928" Score="0" Text="Take a look at [RoHS](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restriction_of_Hazardous_Substances_Directive)." CreationDate="2021-11-22T14:55:42.950" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15289" PostId="11929" Score="0" Text="A brief overview (it's old, though, but seemed relevant to me still): Saran Paul Sohi &amp; Simon Shackley 2009, 'Biochar: carbon sequestration potential'" CreationDate="2021-11-25T04:18:29.773" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="15291" PostId="11934" Score="0" Text="&quot;This is negligible.&quot; 3,7 GtCO2e per year (the calculated potential) is quite big compared to most other options" CreationDate="2021-11-25T18:46:25.857" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="15292" PostId="11934" Score="0" Text="My information is that deforestation causes between 0.4 and 1.0 GtCO2e per year, whereas for example fossil fuels cause 36.4 GtCO2 per year, methane leakage and methane from cows and permafrost is around 10% that of fossil fuels, and cement is 1.5 GtCO2 per year." CreationDate="2021-11-26T19:02:29.107" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="15293" PostId="11934" Score="0" Text="You don't trust the IPCC, do you?" CreationDate="2021-11-26T22:27:56.990" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="15302" PostId="11934" Score="0" Text="You don't need to plant forests in the Sahara to stop climate change, you just need to re-forest every single place that humans have cleared for farmland." CreationDate="2021-11-29T21:58:04.500" UserId="7993" />
  <row Id="15373" PostId="11934" Score="0" Text="@Mark That's not enough. Deforestation is an infinitesimally small component of climate change. Most of climate change is caused by combustion of fossil fuels. To remove the carbon created by fossil fuels, you do really need to plant forests in Sahara. Reforesting every deforested place is nowhere near enough." CreationDate="2021-12-26T12:37:23.803" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="15294" PostId="11935" Score="0" Text="Why do you think it's not sustainable? Any source for this? Also what is your goal?" CreationDate="2021-11-27T12:01:43.257" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="15295" PostId="11935" Score="0" Text="@thelper that's what they said in the media, but it's apparently an overestimate: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02526-3. The carbon footprint is an issue, though" CreationDate="2021-11-27T16:59:51.120" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="15296" PostId="11935" Score="2" Text="Considering that in places where cannabis is illegal, it is grown by amateurs indoors in secret places, I would be very surprised to find out if the water consumption is a problem. My understanding is that if cannabis can be grown indoors by amateurs, the amount of water it needs must stay reasonable. Illegal cannabis growers are found by thermal cameras that detect the heat from the massive lamps that are needed for growing it. Thus, the main sustainability issue seems to be need for light, rather than water. However, if it was legal, it could be grown outdoors in natural light." CreationDate="2021-11-27T20:00:07.380" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="15297" PostId="11935" Score="0" Text="If water consumption is a measure of sustainability then cotton might be one of the more unsustainable crops. *Cotton consumption is responsible for 2.6% of the global&#xA;water use. As a global average, 44% of the water use for cotton growth and processing is not for serving the domestic market but for export*.  [The water footprint of cotton consumption](https://waterfootprint.org/media/downloads/Chapagain_et_al_2006_cotton.pdf)" CreationDate="2021-11-28T05:51:27.150" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="15298" PostId="11935" Score="0" Text="@fred u can't smoke cotton though" CreationDate="2021-11-28T14:02:33.127" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="15299" PostId="11935" Score="0" Text="You could, but it wouldn't be pleasant experience." CreationDate="2021-11-28T15:00:14.713" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="15301" PostId="11935" Score="1" Text="A distinction should be made not only between legal/illegal but also grow method. For people having a garden or balcony etc, it's possible to grow it (possibly aided with a greenhouse) and use collected rainwater without adding any pesticides/synthetic fertilizer/.... In such case it's probably as sustainable as can be." CreationDate="2021-11-29T11:19:24.920" UserId="4158" />
  <row Id="15300" PostId="11936" Score="0" Text="Your question seems to imply the answer.  It is as green as the supply and the use to which the material is put allows.  Thus there is no blanket &quot;wood is a green material&quot; or &quot;wood is not a green material&quot;.  It depends.  Likewise for the second part of your question - can an end consumer find the source?  Sometimes, maybe.  For example, many people where the wood for the framing in their house came from.  Many do not.  It depends." CreationDate="2021-11-28T18:50:54.733" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="15303" PostId="11937" Score="1" Text="Australia has a disturbing amount of native forest woodchipping going on where the income from the woodchips is less than the cost of producing them (we're essentially using taxpayer money to remove native forests and the timber companies are making a profit only once the subsidies are counted). So sadly, some paper manufacturers are deforesting. (the woodchips are generally low value and used for cardboard)." CreationDate="2021-11-30T00:18:05.557" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15304" PostId="11937" Score="0" Text="Terrible wikipedia article stub: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodchipping_in_Australia has references, this article has more detail  https://theconversation.com/logged-native-forests-mostly-end-up-in-landfill-not-in-buildings-and-furniture-115054" CreationDate="2021-11-30T00:20:32.427" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15354" PostId="11937" Score="1" Text="I believe there is another source of deforestation than raising cattles : it's for firewood, in rural regions where many people don't have much more alternatives" CreationDate="2021-12-21T12:10:42.737" UserId="13554" />
  <row Id="15314" PostId="11941" Score="0" Text="Note for both answers: remember that a healthy fire cycle depends on what sort of forest you want to have. Many species just die if burned, more die if burned too often and the frequency that counts as too often varies dramatically - from less than a year to more than a century. So any fire is likely to change the species mix. In Australia this is very obvious as recent fire regime changes have been aimed at producing fires less often but making them much larger and much more intense, and thus they are more devastating across the areas burned. I disagree with that change." CreationDate="2021-12-03T00:40:32.877" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15311" PostId="11944" Score="0" Text="Thanks for the thorough and (as usual) interesting and well-sourced answer!" CreationDate="2021-12-02T23:17:45.750" UserId="5824" />
  <row Id="15310" PostId="11948" Score="0" Text="Interesting answer! Now I'm wondering if climate change is actually &quot;*reducing* the area suitable for coffee cultivation&quot; or is it more that it is *moving it* to other, uncultivated and perhaps undeveloped and/or inaccessible areas that would require deforestation (and time and money and carbon) to develop into new coffee production areas?" CreationDate="2021-12-02T23:16:58.540" UserId="5824" />
  <row Id="15309" PostId="11949" Score="2" Text="Most washing-machine modes exist for the sole purpose of letting the marketing department say &quot;Our machine has more modes than our competitors&quot;." CreationDate="2021-12-02T21:34:33.813" UserId="7993" />
  <row Id="15312" PostId="11949" Score="0" Text="This will likely vary between washing machines. My one has a bunch of adjustments for spin speed, washing temp and rinse temp, and those vary as I switch between cycles. So at the very least the wash temp will change and that significantly affects energy use." CreationDate="2021-12-03T00:36:28.717" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15313" PostId="11949" Score="0" Text="FWIW the major beneficial change most people can make is just to wash clothes less often. Even underwear can often be worn more than once, but most clothing can be aired and then re-worn (or in the case of teenagers &quot;rested&quot; on the floor for a while then re-worn)" CreationDate="2021-12-03T00:38:03.910" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15316" PostId="11949" Score="0" Text="The synthetics mode, if used correctly, produces microplastics in the wastewater, and the cotton mode, if used correctly, washes clothes the production of which consumes massive amounts of fresh water, causing water shortages in cotton-producing areas." CreationDate="2021-12-03T17:55:34.613" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="15360" PostId="11949" Score="0" Text="You might be interested in this old news item: [*Delicate wash releases more plastic microfibres*](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/sep/26/vicious-cycle-delicate-wash-releases-more-plastic-microfibres)." CreationDate="2021-12-21T22:52:03.333" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="15477" PostId="11952" Score="0" Text="But first, what's your own view, and what is that based on?" CreationDate="2022-01-08T22:23:25.017" UserId="13643" />
  <row Id="15576" PostId="11952" Score="1" Text="What is meant by &quot;plastic&quot;?" CreationDate="2022-02-04T16:15:42.243" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="15319" PostId="11953" Score="0" Text="Very thorough, thank you.  A few points in brief to your implied questions: Electricity is considerably more per kWh here to the consumer; the boiler is also needed for my hot water and baseline space heating so the marginal cost of maintenance is minimal (and the rest of the system I maintain myself); The go-to option for a house that already has wet central heating is an air-to-water heat pump.  While not a drop-in replacement it's less invasive and cheaper than a unit per room." CreationDate="2021-12-07T21:16:23.423" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="15320" PostId="11953" Score="0" Text="There is indeed a tool: [GridWatch](https://gridwatch.co.uk/). This shows that for the last few weeks there's always been gas burning for power.   Rather strangely it says the same during summer, and I recall reading that  that wasn't the case.  It may be an artefact of the display.  Worse still, there's even coal being burnt, even though the gas generating capacity isn't maxed out (some of that may be about where the power is needed).  So on balance any savings would have to come from me heating less than about half the house (on a carbon basis) or less than about 1/3 (price ratio basis)" CreationDate="2021-12-07T21:23:53.927" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="15325" PostId="11953" Score="0" Text="One further note - here at least it's not quite true that the marginal generation comes form the cheapest available source.  That would be true in a real-time free market, but the grid operator and regulator set up contracts to prioritise reliability of generation, rather than momentary cost.  Thus suppliers are guaranteed to sell a certain amount so they can afford to keep their generators available" CreationDate="2021-12-09T10:58:57.713" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="15404" PostId="11954" Score="1" Text="If you release it into the wild, the main positive effect of plastic (*doesn't degrade*) vanishes, which would simply lead to a new undegradable material which will pose the same problems." CreationDate="2022-01-01T09:12:44.247" UserId="13592" />
  <row Id="15322" PostId="11956" Score="0" Text="Could you add a bit more detail? What number does your utility report, and what number does Enphase report? Could you include a simple diagram showing how the utility, PV, and your load are connected? Also, a three phase load with no heating or cooling sounds unique to me, but maybe this is typical where you are?" CreationDate="2021-12-08T15:59:31.530" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15332" PostId="11956" Score="0" Text="Good questions, edited!" CreationDate="2021-12-10T03:42:45.547" UserId="295" />
  <row Id="15333" PostId="11956" Score="0" Text="Hmm I'm sensing that this 45 kWh discrepancy may be due to some contractual requirement, assuming it's as precise as you indicate. Any chance you could share the name of your utility and the rate schedule that's on your contract? Or possibly details about the contract you have with the solar provider?" CreationDate="2021-12-10T06:11:16.773" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15334" PostId="11956" Score="0" Text="It also works out to be pretty close to a continual 60 W, which is a standard light bulb size. Any chance there's an outdoor light somewhere, perhaps on a pole where the utility service enters your property? Could be that the utility meter picks this up but the meters on the solar system don't." CreationDate="2021-12-10T06:14:05.860" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15335" PostId="11956" Score="0" Text="The discrepancy is always 43-47 kWh, though I don't have the precise meter read time (only the date) so that would introduce some error.&#xA;I spoke to my retailer OVO Energy here in Australia but they weren't able to shed any light. I might need to reach out to the grid operator CitiPower.&#xA;The house was recently renovated and has a brand new electrical system. I'm not aware of any loads between the street and switch box, aside from the smart meter itself which is only supposed to consume ~1 kWh/year." CreationDate="2021-12-10T10:54:25.750" UserId="295" />
  <row Id="15336" PostId="11956" Score="0" Text="Another possibility is the power use of the inverters themselves, depending on how things are wired. If you're able to share the data from the bills and the solar array that might help us give you an answer, but it may also be that no one can answer without opening the panels and seeing how things are wired." CreationDate="2021-12-10T15:11:17.337" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15331" PostId="11957" Score="0" Text="Thanks the the quick and thoughtful response! I've done my best to add more context to the question above." CreationDate="2021-12-10T03:42:28.650" UserId="295" />
  <row Id="15323" PostId="11959" Score="0" Text="Does it apply to its liquified form too?" CreationDate="2021-12-09T01:42:40.260" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="15324" PostId="11959" Score="1" Text="Liquefied natural gas is less likely to leak, but if it does leak, the effects are the same as with the gaseous form." CreationDate="2021-12-09T01:51:28.047" UserId="7993" />
  <row Id="15328" PostId="11959" Score="0" Text="Liquefied natural gas is more likely to leak. You can liquify natural gas only if you make it very cold. The trouble is, it won't stay cold forever. Heat is slowly leaking into the liquid natural gas container, which makes the liquid gas due to evaporation. The pressure starts to build up. If you aren't prepared to consume the produced gaseous natural gas as quickly as it is being produced, the only solution to prevent a pressure explosion is to vent that gaseous natural gas into atmosphere. Thus, liquid natural gas slowly leaks, even in ideal conditions. Pressurized natural gas never does it." CreationDate="2021-12-09T17:45:54.927" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="15330" PostId="11965" Score="0" Text="But if the feed is plant-based (e.g. food waste, seaweed), it's net-zero" CreationDate="2021-12-10T00:05:07.977" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="15337" PostId="11965" Score="0" Text="Yes, it is. However, there is not enough plant-based feed available." CreationDate="2021-12-10T18:32:31.903" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="15338" PostId="11965" Score="0" Text="...and besides, you could store the plants underground in anaerobic conditions to capture the carbon. You could also burn them directly for energy, capture the carbon dioxide, and store the carbon dioxide underground. However, if you create methane and sell it for use in mobile sources like cars, they will emit the carbon dioxide directly to atmosphere, with no possibility to capture it." CreationDate="2021-12-10T18:33:36.007" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="15339" PostId="11965" Score="0" Text="Seaweed. 6 more to go..." CreationDate="2021-12-11T03:31:55.240" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="15340" PostId="11965" Score="0" Text="If it's a closed loop, no biggie. We need to make our emissions net-zero, not our atmospheric CO2 concentration" CreationDate="2021-12-11T03:35:07.013" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="15352" PostId="11967" Score="0" Text="So are you saying that any device containing capacitors or thermal protectors are designed with planned obsolescence ? It's interesting but it does not really help chosing between such products so I think it misses a little bit the point of the question" CreationDate="2021-12-21T11:54:18.623" UserId="13554" />
  <row Id="15343" PostId="11969" Score="0" Text="Using water could raise the indoor humidity, which depending on the climate may be a health concern. I've heard of others using bricks for this purpose (one reason why fireplaces, hearths, and chimneys are made of brick)." CreationDate="2021-12-16T17:20:34.773" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15344" PostId="11969" Score="0" Text="@LShaver I mean water in enclosed containers. Don't let the water evaporate!" CreationDate="2021-12-16T17:48:10.063" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="15345" PostId="11969" Score="2" Text="You need to take care that &quot;closed container&quot; doesn't mean &quot;pressurized container&quot;.  Creating a pressurized hot water system using a wood stove as a heat source is incredibly dangerous.  &quot;Kill you and anyone nearby&quot; dangerous.  If you use a low-pressure container then you've got at least a &quot;gallons of boiling water spreading uncontrolled&quot; in the failure mode.  If you use a high-pressure container then you've got at least a &quot;high velocity projectiles and high pressure steam&quot; problem.  You don't want either one of these problems." CreationDate="2021-12-17T02:03:15.297" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="15346" PostId="11969" Score="0" Text="@LShaver Are there climates where high humidity is a problem when you would be operating a wood stove?  I have trouble thinking of one.  The air outside is cold.  You heat it up in your living space.  The relative humidity drops dramatically.  Perhaps it could be a problem in a building that is so well air-sealed that the humidity has a long time to build up ... but then the air quality is going to be extremely unhealthy, too, and also what's going to supply the fire with fresh air?" CreationDate="2021-12-17T02:05:06.310" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="15347" PostId="11969" Score="0" Text="I certainly don't encourage putting a container that can become pressurized in an area where temperatures is likely to exceed the boiling point of water. Each container should either be placed in an area where you are 100% sure it's not possible the temperature exceeds the boiling point of water, or the container should be such that it releases the pressure gradually, without becoming a bomb." CreationDate="2021-12-17T17:14:05.907" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="15348" PostId="11969" Score="0" Text="Cast iron can be heated red-hot without trouble.  Water has a somewhat lower maximum temperature." CreationDate="2021-12-17T21:38:06.670" UserId="7993" />
  <row Id="15356" PostId="11969" Score="0" Text="@Jean-PaulCalderone here in the UK (and many other maritime climates) we have fairly mild damp winters but still need heat.  This is very different in terms of humidity to climates where the outdoor temperature stays below freezing for months on end. All but the draughtiest homes are prone to excess humidity.  Cooking and washing (people, clothes etc.) all add to indoor humidity as well. I get about 2.5l of water per day in my dehumidifier. If I didn't I'd get mould around all the cold spots from the condensation (e.g. double glazed windows)" CreationDate="2021-12-21T13:55:32.337" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="15357" PostId="11969" Score="0" Text="... The best wood-burners these days are room-sealed with a balanced flue, so the combustion products only enter the room when you open the door to add fuel." CreationDate="2021-12-21T13:55:42.850" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="15359" PostId="11969" Score="0" Text="Thanks for the info @ChrisH" CreationDate="2021-12-21T14:10:35.303" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="15362" PostId="11970" Score="0" Text="So you suggest mixing after all, don't you? Should I use the synthetics program in such cases?" CreationDate="2021-12-22T00:56:28.260" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="15366" PostId="11970" Score="0" Text="I mix, but use the cotton program because my synthetics don't come to any harm from the faster spin. The wash may also be more vigorous, again not a problem for me" CreationDate="2021-12-22T17:28:05.160" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="15368" PostId="11970" Score="0" Text="But it consumes more energy. Is it worth it?" CreationDate="2021-12-23T05:05:27.590" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="15372" PostId="11970" Score="0" Text="Unless you can dry with no further use of energy (i.e. outside) spinning is better from the point of view of energy" CreationDate="2021-12-23T09:44:39.880" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="15371" PostId="11976" Score="0" Text="I also found this: https://www.oxygenlevels.org/&#xA;I'd assume the less trees are full-grown and live at any given moment, the smaller the Earth's oxygen production capacity is, and when growing trees for timber, they'll be cut off soon after they reach their &quot;full-grown&quot; state" CreationDate="2021-12-23T09:29:22.320" UserId="8469" />
  <row Id="15355" PostId="11977" Score="2" Text="Another point you have to put aside is access to your own data: connections aren't perfect and even the most reliable service has downtime" CreationDate="2021-12-21T13:48:01.523" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="15363" PostId="11977" Score="0" Text="@ChrisH that's more of a budget question, even in remote areas it's possible to get reliable internet if you're willing to pay (Starlink is the cheap version of satellite internet, for example). We run two wired connections plus cellular at work, just so we're more likely to have connectivity if there are problems. At home wired+celleular is easy enough to set up, USB 4G dongle are common." CreationDate="2021-12-22T07:02:02.597" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15367" PostId="11977" Score="0" Text="@Móż, to some extent that's true. I've got fibre to the cabinet which is pretty reliable apart from brief glitches; only my phone can fall back to 4G. But the cloud services themselves can and do fail (hopefully only temporary outages, but Google et al. also switch off useful APIs on a whim), and running a backup connection costs electricity as well as money." CreationDate="2021-12-22T17:32:53.523" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="15369" PostId="11977" Score="0" Text="Yes, but then so does running RAID, the cost difference between a Raspberry Pi with a uSD card and something with enough power to run RAID and the whole rest of your failure-tolerant setup is significant. Both in power and money terms. I've run parallel Pi setups before and they both died to the same software flaw at the same time, leaving their uSD cards corrupted. Luckily they'd been posting data to another machine that didn't crash." CreationDate="2021-12-23T06:31:25.673" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15361" PostId="11978" Score="0" Text="Are cloud batteries more efficient than cell phone batteries (the Google Maps case you described)?" CreationDate="2021-12-22T00:44:03.343" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="15364" PostId="11978" Score="0" Text="@SergeyZolotarev most cloud systems run on grid electricity and only have batteries as backups in case the grid is unavailable. So their &quot;battery efficiency&quot; is nearly 100%. Like everything else, it goes up because the small cost is split across a lot of computing poiwer." CreationDate="2021-12-22T07:03:29.670" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15393" PostId="11979" Score="0" Text="If you instead quit using paper all around, sure, please go ahead." CreationDate="2021-12-30T10:17:35.633" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="15379" PostId="11980" Score="0" Text="Why does making virgin corrugated containers take more energy than making it from recycled materials (p. 3-14 here: https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2020-12/documents/warm_containers_packaging_and_non-durable_goods_materials_v15_10-29-2020.pdf)?" CreationDate="2021-12-27T04:26:43.403" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="15383" PostId="11980" Score="0" Text="Also, why is recycling of corrugated containers heavily disadvantageous at the processing stage on p. 3-14 but slightly beneficial to virgin production on p. 3-13 (exhibit 3-17, -0,02 MTCO2E/Short Ton)? In other words, what is the difference between &quot;Recycled Input Credit&quot; and &quot;Difference Between Recycled and Virgin Manufacture&quot;? Why do they differ so much? Please respond, it keeps bothering me" CreationDate="2021-12-27T07:07:38.957" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="15392" PostId="11981" Score="0" Text="Eastern Germany turns some former pit mines into recreational areas after securing the walls of the pit and flooding them partially." CreationDate="2021-12-30T10:16:14.980" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="15480" PostId="11981" Score="0" Text="@Erik  you. expound that, please? Turning a nminem into n recreational area sounds wonderful… but how?" CreationDate="2022-01-08T22:33:42.583" UserId="13643" />
  <row Id="15485" PostId="11981" Score="0" Text="@robbiegoodwin the same way as in the case of lake Kepwari, I guess" CreationDate="2022-01-09T06:42:51.193" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="15490" PostId="11981" Score="0" Text="Really? Other than perhaps large areas, what similarities do you see between lakes and mines?" CreationDate="2022-01-10T18:35:33.043" UserId="13643" />
  <row Id="15496" PostId="11981" Score="0" Text="@RobbieGoodwin Lake Kepwari used to be a mine, then they flooded it and turned it into a recreational area" CreationDate="2022-01-10T21:50:29.810" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="15414" PostId="11983" Score="0" Text="I guess a better phrasing would be &quot;How to make use of decommissioned coal mines in a way that is both environmentally and socially beneficial?&quot;" CreationDate="2022-01-02T01:40:25.300" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="15374" PostId="11986" Score="0" Text="I actually meant &quot;paper products&quot;, i.e. both paper and cardboard. Finland is probably not representative of the global forestry" CreationDate="2021-12-26T12:52:12.970" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="15375" PostId="11987" Score="0" Text="How is it collected?" CreationDate="2021-12-26T13:08:47.547" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="15376" PostId="11987" Score="0" Text="Usually waste is collected as separately sorted waste, such as waste bin containing only organic waste, and a waste bin containing only energy waste (and there are different bins for paper waste, cardboard waste, metal waste, plastic waste, glass waste, electronic waste, batteries, etc). Yet some people throw organic waste into the energy waste bin." CreationDate="2021-12-26T16:47:44.777" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="15378" PostId="11987" Score="0" Text="What exactly is energy waste?" CreationDate="2021-12-26T20:33:58.663" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="15415" PostId="11987" Score="1" Text="You answered a slightly different question, &quot;What SHOULD developed nations do with organic municipal waste?&quot;" CreationDate="2022-01-02T01:46:26.033" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="16122" PostId="11988" Score="0" Text="I guess you were talking about American suburbia, weren't you? I was talking about cities, urban practices (in Europe, most of all)" CreationDate="2022-11-26T14:46:53.530" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="15384" PostId="11991" Score="0" Text="Please copy/paste text directly, rather than as images. Images of text can't be searched and can't be read by screen-readers for the visually impaired. I've edited your question for now." CreationDate="2021-12-27T16:01:45.543" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15389" PostId="11994" Score="4" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Your answers seems to discuss the issues of going over the maximum mark, but the question is about staying below the minimum mark." CreationDate="2021-12-28T10:09:33.777" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="16502" PostId="11994" Score="0" Text="Note that the brand (Moulinex) is European, even if it is made in China." CreationDate="2023-10-10T21:36:19.387" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="15390" PostId="11996" Score="0" Text="But the paper considers landfills with gas capture separately. So, it argues, it's a sink even without such installations. Do you think the quoted reasoning is wrong? I didn't understand the part where it says that carbon dioxide is &quot;sequestered&quot; in methane. If it produces greenhouse effect, it can't be called sequestration" CreationDate="2021-12-28T22:40:54.343" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="15394" PostId="12001" Score="0" Text="Where is this table from? 500g/kWh is worse than many countries -- the rate is lower in the the U.S. and most of Europe ([source](https://www.carbonfootprint.com/international_electricity_factors.html))." CreationDate="2021-12-31T15:50:11.573" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15395" PostId="12002" Score="0" Text="The main reason of 44g/km emissions in test are that the test procedures are such that electric-only operation is mostly used. The reason of 120g/km real emissions is that many plug-in hybrids won't allow electric-only operation when weather is cold, and if you ever exhaust the battery, the big non-Atkinson cycle engine starts up and wastes fuel propelling the heavyweight car with no optimizations that would be present in Toyota hybrids for example. If you buy a Toyota plug-in-hybrid, you realistically will have much less than 120 g/km." CreationDate="2021-12-31T17:38:02.677" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="15396" PostId="12002" Score="0" Text="...so essentially, 95% of plug-in hybrids are to scam the taxman, by lying that you have 20 g/km emissions, whereas you have 200 g/km emissions in real life. The rest (5%), which are Toyota plug-in hybrids, are useful but nearly as expensive as a comparable electric car so they will be outdated very soon as electric cars become more common." CreationDate="2021-12-31T17:42:12.003" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="15397" PostId="12003" Score="0" Text="But if organic matter aerobically decays, it releases not sequesters carbon, doesn't it?" CreationDate="2022-01-01T05:47:37.503" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="15398" PostId="12003" Score="0" Text="But organic farming also employs biodiversity, not chemicals to fight pests, doesn't it?" CreationDate="2022-01-01T05:51:08.473" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="15411" PostId="12003" Score="0" Text="@SergeyZolotarev When organic material decays, the larger part of the carbon is released but part is taken up in the soil. Since syntropic farming focuses on increasing the amount of fertile soil on (previously) barren lands, the net effect is carbon storage." CreationDate="2022-01-01T17:50:00.050" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="15412" PostId="12003" Score="0" Text="Generally speaking organic farming tries to not do harm to biodiversity. For pest management using natural predators is usually prefered, but some chemicals (like copper) are allowed. Syntropic farming actively tries to increase biodiversity and chemicals are a big no. As mentioned before, there is some overlap of ideas, especially when it comes to biodiversity." CreationDate="2022-01-01T17:53:59.637" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="15399" PostId="12006" Score="0" Text="Thank you! I improved the question a little as a result of your answer: You seem to compare collection/distribution service with a DIY solution. Can you say something about collection/distribution composting VS collection/distribution burning ?" CreationDate="2022-01-01T07:29:12.357" UserId="13592" />
  <row Id="15413" PostId="12006" Score="0" Text="@DarkTrick I added some more discussion as well as a few good resources I came across." CreationDate="2022-01-01T18:39:07.557" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15416" PostId="12006" Score="0" Text="LShaver, thank you very much for putting in this lot of work! I personally find your &quot;digester&quot;-statement the most convincing. In short you could say: **Burning needs energy. Composting is 0 on 0. Digesting produces energy**." CreationDate="2022-01-02T11:38:52.687" UserId="13592" />
  <row Id="15517" PostId="12006" Score="0" Text="A more interesting comparison than the original would be a diesel-powered truck taking food waste to an anaerobic digester, vs. putting the same food waste in a composter at home. Of course both have to be available. They are for me, but I rarely use the municipal food waste collection  as I rarely waste anything, e.g. meat (hardly eat it) or dairy (eat it all up)  that I wouldn't compost at home. But should I? Maybe I'll find time to ask that" CreationDate="2022-01-21T15:13:45.450" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="16459" PostId="12006" Score="0" Text="What about if you add food scraps to your wood heater (plus wood) and use the ash in the compost?" CreationDate="2023-07-05T10:36:11.190" UserId="15044" />
  <row Id="15405" PostId="12007" Score="1" Text="I disagree with the latter &quot;much choice&quot; claim. If you run a single computer 24/7 for 5 years and use 100 watts to do that, it's 4383000 watt-hours of energy. If human brain uses 100 watts and you use two work-days (8h each) to decide which distribution to use, that's 1600 watt-hours of energy. So running the computer uses about 2700 times more energy than deciding which distribution to use." CreationDate="2022-01-01T09:16:59.390" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="15407" PostId="12007" Score="0" Text="Valid point. But two points to your comparison: (1) 2 days of body work might be around 6kWh (3000kcal per day); + having a house for 2 days + gas + water + people who depend whom you depend on + x days to make up for the stress + ... . (2) Windows XP could run on 7W total consumption. Win 10 should also be able to run low-energy because it runs on portables." CreationDate="2022-01-01T09:28:26.753" UserId="13592" />
  <row Id="15472" PostId="12007" Score="0" Text="Excellent take on the issue, much thanks. Regarding the human brain, after @juhist -- I'd frame the disagreement point slightly differently: One invests an additional amount of energy to make the choice, but afterwards the efficiency of the chosen system could offset that by a large margin." CreationDate="2022-01-07T10:49:31.590" UserId="2661" />
  <row Id="15431" PostId="12008" Score="2" Text="I am not sure that there us a &quot;definitive&quot; definition of sustainability, and I am sure that there is no *definitive* definition of &quot;greenness&quot;, so it's pretty hard for anything to be definitively and authoritatively &quot;green&quot;." CreationDate="2022-01-03T16:14:32.243" UserId="13607" />
  <row Id="15439" PostId="12008" Score="2" Text="Fusion synthesis is mind-bogglingly expensive.  Further, elements heavier than nickel *consume* energy when produced.  Synthesizing a single gram of neodynium from iron in a perfectly efficient way, for example, would consume about 40 GJ of energy -- about as much energy as you'd get from burning a ton of oil.  Apart from using neutron capture to synthesize specific isotopes, don't expect to ever see fusion synthesis outside of the laboratory." CreationDate="2022-01-03T21:28:59.587" UserId="7993" />
  <row Id="15440" PostId="12008" Score="0" Text="To put this in perspective - 1 ton of oil costs 600$ (80$ per barrel). 1g Neodymium costs around 0.04$, 1g gold costs around 50$, 1g Rhodium costs around 400$. Rhodium with atomic number ~45 is far lighter than ~ 60 Nd, that means that energy consumption can be lower. So, from the energy cost it can be economically viable to produce Rh even today." CreationDate="2022-01-03T21:48:23.410" UserId="6024" />
  <row Id="15457" PostId="12008" Score="1" Text="@TomR, cheaper, yes, but not dramatically so.  At a rough estimate, synthesizing rhodium from iron is around 30 GJ per gram -- the savings from the lighter atoms is mostly countered by the need for more atoms to make up each gram.  And remember: this is assuming perfect efficiency.  Current techniques typically get efficiencies of a few percent per step at best, with a minimum of 17 steps needed to turn iron into rhodium." CreationDate="2022-01-04T22:13:50.437" UserId="7993" />
  <row Id="15459" PostId="12008" Score="1" Text="In general in a nuclear vs chemical debate nuclear is more sustainable (chemical is fine in for energy *storage* unless we are burning it in an un-clean manor, but not as a *source*). This is because of the extreme energy density of nuclear which means much less fuel and waste per unit energy." CreationDate="2022-01-05T01:11:39.880" UserId="13629" />
  <row Id="15479" PostId="12008" Score="0" Text="Where is your own research, please?" CreationDate="2022-01-08T22:31:33.977" UserId="13643" />
  <row Id="15417" PostId="12010" Score="0" Text="I think this question may be too hypothetical for this site -- see [What types of questions should I avoid asking?](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/help/dont-ask). If you have specific questions about this technology, you might try [Physics.SE](https://physics.stackexchange.com/) or [Engineering.SE](https://engineering.stackexchange.com/)." CreationDate="2022-01-02T19:35:03.280" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15418" PostId="12010" Score="0" Text="The Price of car batteries and the availability of rare earths for the computer chips and chips for devices - all these are not hypothetical questions. Nor the policy options to solve them." CreationDate="2022-01-02T19:39:08.377" UserId="6024" />
  <row Id="15478" PostId="12010" Score="0" Text="@TomR Could you Post a better translation?" CreationDate="2022-01-08T22:30:19.930" UserId="13643" />
  <row Id="15419" PostId="12012" Score="5" Text="I think approaching it from the perspective of insurance and risk management is difficult since nuclear accidents are incredibly expensive but incredibly rare. Insurance companies don't tend to deal well with these sorts of risk profiles, the total costs of major natural disasters such as large earthquakes are rarely well covered by insurance. It would somewhat be easier to understand if nuclear power stations had far more small accidents like other sources of energy! Perhaps the closest comparison would be hydroelectric dam failures, but even those are far more common." CreationDate="2022-01-03T00:39:49.523" UserId="13597" />
  <row Id="15428" PostId="12012" Score="5" Text="Fukushima is hardly modern nor were the risks that caused the incident unmanageable. Tsunamis resulting in flooding was an expected risk in an earth quake region, additional backup power generators were installed at a higher elevation to reduce flood risks but the switching stations for them weren't flood protected. Other reactors on the site which had flood protection were operating normally after the tsunami. TEPCO ignored various reports of tsunami risks." CreationDate="2022-01-03T13:09:33.647" UserId="13603" />
  <row Id="15432" PostId="12012" Score="1" Text="@AlanBirtles I edited a bit. While it's true that those specific risks could have been predicted and avoided, the problem is that you can't predict or avoid ALL risk, and Fukushima taught us that accidents still happen today, and the impacts are still enormous." CreationDate="2022-01-03T16:56:09.563" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15435" PostId="12012" Score="6" Text="&quot;because the risk is just too high and hard to quantify.&quot; Okay. But it's easier to quantify the risk of relying on fossil fuels for 80% of our energy, and the sure risk is even much higher than what could happen with nukes. Also, there's radiation everywhere, and it can be measured long before it's dangerous. If you mention radiation in Canada from Chernobyl, you should mention how strong it was." CreationDate="2022-01-03T18:02:22.433" UserId="6312" />
  <row Id="15436" PostId="12012" Score="0" Text="@EricDuminil the question is specifically about comparing nuclear to sustainable energy sources, not fossil fuels." CreationDate="2022-01-03T18:15:49.670" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15437" PostId="12012" Score="4" Text="@LShaver as usual with climate and energy problems, its not really possible to isolate them and consider them separately. Look at what happened in Germany after the *Atomausstieg*, for example, where coal powerplants are, sadly, still going really strong. Converting large SUVs from gasoline to electric won't help either. I totally agree that nuclear power has many drawbacks, BTW, it's just that every other energy source has some too. It's not just evil nukes vs good renewables and batteries." CreationDate="2022-01-03T18:33:05.577" UserId="6312" />
  <row Id="15444" PostId="12012" Score="0" Text="&quot;insurance companies, who are in the business of calculating risk, never changed their minds on the insurability of nuclear power&quot; - this seems to have been presented a bit less favourably than would be accurate (or it needs to be better justified). Insurance companies are in the business of taking on risk of many parties and profiting from the fact that those parties pay more to cover the risk than the weighted loss from the risk. Regardless of the actual risk, this doesn't work so well with few parties (and a huge potential payout), as it's only likely to average out with large numbers." CreationDate="2022-01-04T09:41:23.637" UserId="13374" />
  <row Id="15447" PostId="12012" Score="1" Text="re. the dumping of water from the Fukushima plant, the [&quot;Comparison to other nuclear facilities&quot; section on that wikipedia page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discharge_of_radioactive_water_of_the_Fukushima_Daiichi_Nuclear_Power_Plant#Comparison_to_other_nuclear_facilities) is rather hilarious. Plus there's the quote from the US FDA saying in 2021 that &quot;FDA has no evidence that radionuclides from the Fukushima incident are present in the U.S. food supply at levels that are unsafe&quot;" CreationDate="2022-01-04T10:19:52.820" UserId="13616" />
  <row Id="15448" PostId="12012" Score="2" Text="@LShaver, I'm not sure you can separate nuclear from fossil fuels given the context of the EU labelling mentioned in the very first sentence of the question. As far as I've followed the media, the talk seems to be about labelling not only nuclear, but also natural gas, a fossil fuel." CreationDate="2022-01-04T10:21:29.437" UserId="13616" />
  <row Id="15455" PostId="12012" Score="3" Text="&quot;As a result of the Chernobyl incident, radiation traveled as far as Canada.&#xA;As a result of the Fukushima incident, Japan will be releasing radioactive water into the ocean for the next 30 years.&quot;&#xA;I think this is missing some important context. First, modern radiation detectors are *exquisitely* sensitive. So it is very easy to make sensationalist headlines even if the actual risk posed is miniscule. Second, the intentional release by Japan is tritium only, which has a short half life, very rapid dilution in oceans and does not bioaccumulate. Minimal risk." CreationDate="2022-01-04T21:15:43.633" UserId="13626" />
  <row Id="15456" PostId="12012" Score="3" Text="It's not even &quot;modern&quot; detectors. Since the first nuclear detonation tests in the 50's any university worth its salt had a setup on a roof to measure the radioactive dust." CreationDate="2022-01-04T21:34:34.980" UserId="13627" />
  <row Id="15460" PostId="12012" Score="1" Text="Air pollution, which is almost entirely due to combustion, kills about 3 million a year. Combustion is 80 percent of energy. How many deaths has nuclear caused, including exposing the public but only including peaceful energy generation and what percent of energy is it? My understanding is fossil is way worse." CreationDate="2022-01-05T04:37:59.243" UserId="13629" />
  <row Id="15441" PostId="12013" Score="0" Text="The problem with hydropower is that almost all the good sites are already in use.  For example, the only free-flowing stretch of the Columbia is in Hanford Reach National Monument (one dam site on a watershed that already has 60 hydroelectric dams)." CreationDate="2022-01-03T22:13:29.707" UserId="7993" />
  <row Id="15443" PostId="12013" Score="0" Text="I'm personally not really convinced the waste problem is solved by just stuffing it deeper into the ground, on an island known for vulcanic activity, of all things. Perhaps I'm too skeptical, I don't know about geology enough, or my idea that it's not impossible for bad actors to gain access to it is unfounded, but my main gripe with this is: no-one can really predict what is going to happen to such facilities in the next couple of thousands of years." CreationDate="2022-01-04T09:32:20.187" UserId="4158" />
  <row Id="15445" PostId="12013" Score="3" Text="@stijn, &quot;island known for volcanic activity&quot;? Are you thinking about Iceland? It's about 2000 km from the &quot;Onkalo&quot; cave in Olkiluoto in Finland. And Finland isn't really known for its volcanoes, quite the opposite." CreationDate="2022-01-04T10:05:18.137" UserId="13616" />
  <row Id="15446" PostId="12013" Score="0" Text="@ilkkachu oops, spot on, I indeed misread that :) - please ignore that bit" CreationDate="2022-01-04T10:10:49.910" UserId="4158" />
  <row Id="15449" PostId="12013" Score="1" Text="This seems to be based in large parts on the idea that if humanity had put a lot more effort in nuclear research since the 1980s we would have save sustainable nuclear reactors now. This may or may not be the case, making predictions about technological progress is super hard but fact is we didn't. There are only reactors already built now which are nowhere near current technology and the option to start building news ones now with current technology which will come online in 10 years under very optimistic assumptions." CreationDate="2022-01-04T10:48:09.497" UserId="13617" />
  <row Id="15451" PostId="12013" Score="0" Text="“If you extract solar power, eventually the sun has run out of fusion fuel, and you can't extract solar power anymore.” – well, that's obviously not fair. The sun will run out of fusion fuel no matter how much solar power we install on Earth. — I agree that nuclear power still has its place, and particularly that research into new, better reactors should continue. But even thorium isn't _effectively infinite_ in supply (even though there is orders of magnitude more energy to be had from it than from coal etc.), and what we use of it will be permanently gone." CreationDate="2022-01-04T16:31:41.817" UserId="8531" />
  <row Id="15452" PostId="12013" Score="0" Text="For geothermal your equivalence is closer to being true. In this case it is an _actual_ fission source that you employ, but one that has absurdly move radioisotopes available than we could ever mine at the Earth's surface (because the heavy elements mostly sank to the Earth's core). But again, like for the sun, the reaction rate doesn't depend on whether or not we use it for geothermal power." CreationDate="2022-01-04T16:37:40.927" UserId="8531" />
  <row Id="15453" PostId="12013" Score="0" Text="&quot;and if the carbon dioxide produced is captured and stored back underground from where the natural gas came&quot;. That's a *huge* &quot;if&quot;." CreationDate="2022-01-04T19:44:48.100" UserId="6312" />
  <row Id="15458" PostId="12013" Score="0" Text="&quot;[Nuclear is] by far the safest electricity generation method we currently have.&quot; This is where log scales get misleading. On the more meaningful linear scale they are almost on par with wind and solar (hydro floods are very deadly), while fossil is really horrible.&#xA;&#xA;Also, if you can run it for 1000 years without significant depletion (true for reprocessing or Thorium) or environmental degradation, that is sustainable in my book. Because we then use those thousand years to transition to a source that lasts 10000 years, etc." CreationDate="2022-01-05T01:06:45.287" UserId="13629" />
  <row Id="15461" PostId="12013" Score="1" Text="you seem to confuse &quot;sustainable&quot; with &quot;renewable&quot;, especially in the first paragraphs" CreationDate="2022-01-05T10:15:36.750" UserId="13631" />
  <row Id="15465" PostId="12013" Score="1" Text="@Mark And if the definition of &quot;good site&quot; includes not destroying ecosystems, natural beauty, and cultural treasures, then there were never any good sites." CreationDate="2022-01-05T19:52:56.063" UserId="13638" />
  <row Id="15466" PostId="12013" Score="0" Text="@quarague, *theoretical* reactor design has seen dramatic progress in the past 40 years.  There are blueprints for assembly-line reactors.  There are designs for reactors that cannot melt down.  There are studies of reactors that can run off natural thorium.  But with reactor construction effectively ending in the 1980s, almost none of these paper reactors has been turned into so much as a prototype." CreationDate="2022-01-05T22:00:10.900" UserId="7993" />
  <row Id="16547" PostId="12013" Score="0" Text="@Mark Primary hydropower is pretty much all used, but according to a paper in Nature Communications, new pumped storage hydro can be constructed to fulfil all our energy storage needs: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-14555-y" CreationDate="2023-11-12T17:01:11.100" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="15433" PostId="12014" Score="0" Text="Good, but it doesn't attribute GHGs to specific stages of virgin production" CreationDate="2022-01-03T17:25:33.400" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="15434" PostId="12014" Score="0" Text="@SergeyZolotarev no, this report is looking only at energy use, so GHG emissions would depend on the grid mix where production or recycling is happening. This is only a piece of the puzzle -- hopefully other answers will provide other pieces." CreationDate="2022-01-03T17:33:36.653" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="16037" PostId="12014" Score="0" Text="Polypropylene is not a category of polyethylene" CreationDate="2022-10-17T03:15:48.987" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="15426" PostId="12015" Score="1" Text="I'm somewhat bemused by this question. Breast feeding or sucking one's young is natural for all mammals &amp; monotremes. During the suckling period the milk is &quot;there&quot;. Nature does the work. It's a biological function. The suckling parent may need to eat &amp; drink water a little more but that's it. With formula feeding it's all industrial processes. Getting milk from a cattle, pasteurizing it, transporting, turning it into formula, packaging &amp; transporting that. Then there's everything associated with making the bottles &amp; teats a safe water supply to mix with the powder to make something that is .." CreationDate="2022-01-03T12:16:59.653" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="15427" PostId="12015" Score="0" Text=".. drinkable. Then there's the manufacturing processes required to make devices to heat the liquid formula, such as microwave ovens, stoves &amp; pots with water.  Then there's everything associated with cleaning the bottles &amp; teats after use &amp; sterilizing them for reuse. How is all this going to be more sustainable &amp; environmentally beneficial than what nature provided?" CreationDate="2022-01-03T12:21:18.373" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="15430" PostId="12015" Score="0" Text="@Fred agreed :) The question is, has anyone quantified all of that?" CreationDate="2022-01-03T15:34:26.357" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15482" PostId="12017" Score="0" Text="This is why most air conditioners also have fans, surely? They have a certain amount of &quot;must move air to work at all&quot; but most seem to have way more than that, complete with moving louvres and various programs to move those in happy patterns. I have one above my work desk (more accurately, I put my desk in front of/below the aircon), and the cool, dry-ish moving air from that is much better than just being in a cool-ish room. If the &quot;move air through the machine&quot; fan isn't running it's unlike the cooling mechanism is working at all - it would freeze solid quite quickly unless the air is dry." CreationDate="2022-01-09T01:13:39.193" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15483" PostId="12017" Score="0" Text="So I suppose my short answer is: yes, don't people already do that?" CreationDate="2022-01-09T01:14:32.380" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15484" PostId="12017" Score="0" Text="The question is whether the *extra* airflow from the fan helps, and if the fan is only blowing directly on the person it wouldn't use much energy." CreationDate="2022-01-09T04:44:28.877" UserId="13629" />
  <row Id="15491" PostId="12017" Score="0" Text="As you move more air (either faster or coving more of your body) there will be a limit after which further increases don't help. But that is specific to your exact situation. Without more information it's not possible to answer whether you will benefit from moving more air. Perhaps you could try it." CreationDate="2022-01-10T19:47:02.853" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15470" PostId="12018" Score="0" Text="The question is about when the fan does not provide enough relief and you need AC, if the fan can reduce the AC by letting you get away with a higher temperature." CreationDate="2022-01-07T01:35:46.373" UserId="13629" />
  <row Id="16012" PostId="12020" Score="0" Text="It is not true that it emits **no** CO², as plants with finite lives are built of concrete and fuel is mined, so you should give figures (and cite sources). To show it is geen you need to consider usage of **all** resources. There may currently be no shortage of uranium, but other answers say known supplies are limited." CreationDate="2022-10-05T16:17:33.033" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="15462" PostId="12021" Score="1" Text="I believe this is the best answer so far. You may wish to incorporate some of what the IPCC says in [chapter four, section 4.3.1.3 on nuclear energy](https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/chapter/chapter-4/) in the special report on warming of 1.5C." CreationDate="2022-01-05T16:09:11.783" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15463" PostId="12021" Score="1" Text="[Chapter 7 of the fifth assessment report](https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/ipcc_wg3_ar5_chapter7.pdf) also addresses the question of uranium availability in section 7.4.3." CreationDate="2022-01-05T16:20:22.873" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15464" PostId="12021" Score="1" Text="@LShaver The chapter is interesting; I'd simply let your comment stand as a pointer. The chapter goes a little bit more into historical and political details concerning feasibility but it seems too much detail for this summary." CreationDate="2022-01-05T16:47:23.963" UserId="8151" />
  <row Id="15469" PostId="12021" Score="1" Text="@LShaver Wow, thanks for the pat on the back ;-)." CreationDate="2022-01-06T21:46:56.617" UserId="8151" />
  <row Id="15467" PostId="12022" Score="0" Text="Isn't this more a question for Tesla-PR? I don't really get the connection to sustainability, besides EV having the potential to be more sustainable than ICE." CreationDate="2022-01-06T08:16:33.560" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="15468" PostId="12022" Score="0" Text="@Erik I edited to address that." CreationDate="2022-01-06T15:32:57.033" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15471" PostId="12023" Score="0" Text="This all makes me wonder, maybe [Toyota](https://www.toyota.com.au/electrified/hydrogen) might be correct in favoring the development of hydrogen powered cars, instead of battery powered ones. Each form of technology for cars has it set of advantages &amp; disadvantages. Charging a battery to 90 or 95 % capacity during cold weather will be another thing motorists will have to learn &amp; adapt to. It might be preferable if car manufacturing had a system that altered the max charging capacity based on average air temperature in the previous 15 to 30 minutes before arriving at a charging station." CreationDate="2022-01-07T03:36:46.183" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="15473" PostId="12023" Score="0" Text="Another factor - EV batteries are less efficient at low battery temperatures - whilst the sophistication of battery management systems varies, a fast charge will give the additional advantage of substantially raising the battery temperature" CreationDate="2022-01-07T13:15:45.637" UserId="3960" />
  <row Id="15508" PostId="12023" Score="0" Text="Though I don't have specific expertise or evidence to add weight to my comment, I have my doubts that a heat pump in an EV could even keep operating for long when parked in deep snow, and even if it could I doubt it could achieve COP 2.5." CreationDate="2022-01-11T23:22:16.890" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="15515" PostId="12023" Score="0" Text="Do you know what proportion of EVs actually use heat pumps for heating?  Also, @HighlyIrregular if you carry a shovel, dig the snow out from around the heat pump; that will warm you up" CreationDate="2022-01-21T15:04:55.883" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="15516" PostId="12023" Score="0" Text="*ICE vehicle whose driver is lazy in refueling* - or rather *efficient in refuelling* carrying fuel around costs fuel, so does driving to fill up, so filling up as infrequently as possible saves fuel.  Preparedness vs. efficiency is almost always a trade-off." CreationDate="2022-01-21T15:06:38.087" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="15481" PostId="12024" Score="0" Text="Where's your own research, please?" CreationDate="2022-01-08T22:38:49.670" UserId="13643" />
  <row Id="15550" PostId="12024" Score="0" Text="What do you mean by &quot;regular aerobic decomposition&quot;? My understanding is that composting _is_ aerobic decomposition. &quot;Proper&quot; composting should avoid anaerobic conditions, by avoiding packing or compressing too much, adding bulky, carbon-rich elements, and possible turning it.&#xA;Maybe composting can be considered &quot;enhanced, assisted, managed&quot; aerobic decomposition, by keeping an eye on nitrogen/carbon ratio, and brining temperature up (but not too much) instead of just leaving it unmanaged." CreationDate="2022-01-28T03:03:07.097" UserId="80" />
  <row Id="15486" PostId="12027" Score="2" Text="If you think waste might belong somewhere other than a landfill, could you update your post to be more specific about where litter should be? Left in the streets, perhaps?" CreationDate="2022-01-09T22:07:31.197" UserId="1056" />
  <row Id="15487" PostId="12027" Score="0" Text="Related: [Which materials dumped into landfills are the largest sources of methane?](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/9689/3379)." CreationDate="2022-01-10T03:27:46.523" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15499" PostId="12027" Score="2" Text="Plastic litter is bad. It slowly degrades into tiny pieces of micro-plastics that is very hard to clean-up and may end up in groundwater. Also animals may eat plastics or get entangled in them and eventually die. I strongly doubt that leaving it as a signal &quot;that it needs to be handled differently&quot; will work. Look for example at cigarette butts. They are mostly made of plastic and are the most commonly found type of litter. Hardly anything is done to change this." CreationDate="2022-01-11T09:40:58.470" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="15488" PostId="12029" Score="0" Text="But what about the &quot;residential-scale electrical generation&quot; that was actually the question?" CreationDate="2022-01-10T13:32:42.780" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="15504" PostId="12029" Score="0" Text="If you read my answer carefully, you will note wood gasifiers on modified generators are residential-scale." CreationDate="2022-01-11T17:18:29.557" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="15500" PostId="12030" Score="0" Text="You lose digestate, which could be used as a fertilizer, if you don't sort out organic waste and instead send it to landfills. So it's not the perfect option. Besides, it takes decades for organic waste to decompose in landfills' anaerobic conditions. Toxic substances can leach out if lining isn't flawless (and it isn't in many places, if present at all). There's no plastic underground" CreationDate="2022-01-11T11:41:04.657" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="15502" PostId="12030" Score="0" Text="@SergeyZolotarev still far better than litter on the ground though, right? You'd be capturing no digestate, and all the toxic substances would leak out. Regarding plastic, it's made from oil, which did come from a hole in the ground." CreationDate="2022-01-11T16:37:37.433" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15505" PostId="12030" Score="0" Text="The portion of organic litter that is resting on soils will give it its nutrients (N) as it decomposes. In landfills that portion is zero per cent. Landfills are not &quot;holes in the ground&quot; in the fossil fuel sense since they are above groundwater (microplastic). Petroleum and gas are pumped from much greater depths. Proper lining, methane capture, it's what developed countries have, and most countries are not developed" CreationDate="2022-01-11T17:23:43.087" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="15506" PostId="12030" Score="0" Text="@SergeyZolotarev then it sounds like your question is whether litter on the ground is better than litter in an unlined, unmanaged landfill? That is unclear in the question." CreationDate="2022-01-11T17:28:09.097" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15507" PostId="12030" Score="0" Text="Now it is. 4 more to go..." CreationDate="2022-01-11T18:34:40.157" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="15509" PostId="12030" Score="0" Text="@SergeyZolotarev 4 more to go? I don't understand." CreationDate="2022-01-12T04:20:29.897" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15510" PostId="12030" Score="0" Text="Ignore it. 4 more to go..." CreationDate="2022-01-12T12:58:28.323" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="15492" PostId="12031" Score="0" Text="The copper has more thermal inertia as well, so it not only moves heat away from the water more efficiently, it takes more heat to warm the copper pipe up in the first place. The internal area of both pipes will also effect this - if the pipe holds more water you need to take more cold water out before it's full of hot water." CreationDate="2022-01-10T19:51:14.797" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15493" PostId="12031" Score="0" Text="Sadly, &quot;same distance as the person walks&quot; and &quot;same distance as the plumbing travels&quot; are almost unrelated questions. You would need to trace the pipes to find out what the actual length is (in my house the &quot;far&quot; bathroom also has about twice as much pipe as the simple distance between points would suggest. It takes ~10 litres of water to empty that pipe... or fill it with hot water)" CreationDate="2022-01-10T19:51:19.773" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15494" PostId="12031" Score="1" Text="@Móż the piping distance is roughly the same -- I edited to clarify." CreationDate="2022-01-10T20:01:32.147" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15498" PostId="12031" Score="0" Text="Are both plumbing runs insulated (or not insulated) the same way?" CreationDate="2022-01-11T06:51:22.817" UserId="6629" />
  <row Id="15501" PostId="12031" Score="0" Text="@Mark I added a diagram. The point where the plumbing diverges is where it goes into the wall, so I'm not able to add insulation after that. I know it's un-insulated because no other plumbing in the house was insulated when I moved in." CreationDate="2022-01-11T16:33:54.617" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15511" PostId="12031" Score="0" Text="Perhaps define what you want 'energy efficient' to mean; transfer hot water with a minimum of energy loss to surroundings? Or more general? I.e. the pipes probably run within your house and as such deliver part of the hot water's energy to your houses which isn't necessarily a (complete) loss, if the pipes run in spaces which are heated through CV anyway?" CreationDate="2022-01-16T16:37:38.013" UserId="4158" />
  <row Id="15547" PostId="12031" Score="0" Text="I think the question is incomplete without a time frame; then it becomes &quot;which will last longer , copper or plastic&quot;?" CreationDate="2022-01-27T21:06:50.877" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="15548" PostId="12031" Score="0" Text="@blacksmith37 either one should last at least 30 years. I don't expect to be living here that long, or if I do, the bathrooms will probably be renovated by then." CreationDate="2022-01-27T21:13:02.863" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="16038" PostId="12035" Score="0" Text="What is supposed to happen to paper and glass under the PMD scheme?" CreationDate="2022-10-17T03:19:44.353" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="16039" PostId="12035" Score="0" Text="That didn't change. PMD is a separate additional waste stream." CreationDate="2022-10-18T05:56:50.140" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="15514" PostId="12041" Score="0" Text="Related: [Shortcut carbon emission trading by buying and sinking coal](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/6984/3379)" CreationDate="2022-01-21T02:50:03.927" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15518" PostId="12042" Score="1" Text="*So your plan would work only if you purchased every single coal mine on this planet, and would continue buying them at a great rate as new mines are found.* There's an old joke, [You don't have to outrun the bear; you just have to outrun the other people.](http://folklore.usc.edu/meaning-behind-the-proverb-i-dont-have-to-outrun-the-bear/) Similarly, you don't have to buy up *all the reserves in the world*. The more you buy, the more it costs for coal consumers to get at the remaining coal left over; you'd need to buy *enough to make coal uneconomical*, *relative to other energy sources.*" CreationDate="2022-01-21T17:28:22.190" UserId="13625" />
  <row Id="15519" PostId="12042" Score="0" Text="That might still be impracticable, possible even absurd, given how much you'd have to buy up to seriously move the market. On the other hand, coal is already economically pretty marginal in many developed markets (hence the widespread shift in the US etc. to cheaper natural gas). I have no way of knowing what's possible here, but it seems like the thing you should be looking at is &quot;Could somebody lock up enough coal to move the commodities markets?&quot; not &quot;Could somebody lock up all the coal in the world?&quot;" CreationDate="2022-01-21T17:30:44.297" UserId="13625" />
  <row Id="15520" PostId="12042" Score="0" Text="@AlabamaScholiast The problem of coal is that we have 10x the amount of reserves we could realistically use without causing dangerous climate change. So if you buy 95% of the coal reserves, in that case you could have some effect. However, buying less than 90% of coal reserves is not enough, as we probably are going to use only 10% of reserves anyway." CreationDate="2022-01-21T17:41:32.087" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="15521" PostId="12042" Score="0" Text="*However, buying less than 90% of coal reserves is not enough...* Why not? Again, you do not need to lock up all of the coal reserves that people might use. What you need to do is affect the price of coal so that it is prohibitively expensive to burn it, relative to other things you might use for energy. If the price of coal increases significantly, then ceteris paribus for-profit companies will buy and burn less coal, even if there is still lots of coal left over for them to buy." CreationDate="2022-01-21T18:48:14.930" UserId="13625" />
  <row Id="15522" PostId="12042" Score="1" Text="It would almost certainly be cheaper to buy politicians, or at least join the auction to drive the price up for the fossil companies. But it's worth remembering that an awful lot of fossil reserves are owned by governments (Saudi Arabia is an obvious example), and there is no way to use money to change their behaviour - not so much that they have more of it than you, but they are soveriegn countries so other people's money is less important to them. Limiting their ability to spend their money would be more useful, but that';s back into &quot;vote. campaign&quot; territory" CreationDate="2022-01-21T23:19:07.347" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15524" PostId="12043" Score="2" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living SE. I've seen &quot;Please recycle&quot; claims on packaging I know my local recycler doesn't accept (e.g. compostable plastics). If the packaging doesn't say what it's made of then the only way to be sure is to ask the manufacturer. You may also want to check with your local recycler in which waste stream that should go." CreationDate="2022-01-23T07:03:23.883" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="15525" PostId="12044" Score="0" Text="I don't have quite enough reputation to add a `russia` tag" CreationDate="2022-01-24T00:55:40.487" UserId="5824" />
  <row Id="15526" PostId="12044" Score="2" Text="Interesting. I'll dig into this if I get the chance, but I'm going to guess that if it's true, the &quot;how&quot; is that Russia doesn't control for leaks as well, and the &quot;why&quot; is because doing so would be costly." CreationDate="2022-01-24T02:31:19.773" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15527" PostId="12044" Score="0" Text="@LShaver Thanks! I see; the methane leaks rather than (or in combination with) CO2 produced as a bi-product somehow. Yes that makes more sense and it never occurred to me." CreationDate="2022-01-24T02:36:45.560" UserId="5824" />
  <row Id="15528" PostId="12044" Score="2" Text="methane leaks are huge issue for the fossil industry in general. Much of the equipment was designed back when methane was only a problem if it exploded. It's also difficult to control leaks of a low-value product without becoming unprofitable." CreationDate="2022-01-24T03:00:16.450" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15529" PostId="12044" Score="1" Text="@Móż ...was only *known to be* a problem..." CreationDate="2022-01-24T03:10:24.883" UserId="5824" />
  <row Id="15532" PostId="12044" Score="0" Text="Not directly commenting on Russian natural gas [issues](https://www.lehman.edu/faculty/rwhittaker/Day02-Research/Russia_%20Environmental%20Issues.pdf), but if the issues concerning its oil industry can be a guide the situation is bad: &quot;The oil and gas extraction industries not only contribute to the air pollution problem in Russia, but are also significant sources of pollution in their own right. Environmental standards are weak, enforcement is poor, and small-scale accidents, pipeline leakage, and tanker spills have contaminated many areas of Russia. Oil pipelines ..." CreationDate="2022-01-24T11:38:27.250" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="15533" PostId="12044" Score="0" Text="...  leak significant volumes of oil. Serious health problems from oil pollution have been reported in the more contaminated area. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, thieves have tapped into the pipelines and have stolen large quantities of oil from reserves at refineries in Grozny. Also, according to Russian military ecologists, an estimated 15,000 &quot;mini-refineries&quot; have been built. These mini-refineries, ... typically dump their residual refining wastes with little regard for the environmental consequences, contaminating the ground and water supplies, rivers and fish." CreationDate="2022-01-24T11:41:59.947" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="15534" PostId="12044" Score="1" Text="There's some country-level data from IEA [here](https://www.iea.org/reports/methane-tracker-2021), which does indeed show that Russia's emissions are both higher and more intense than those of the U.S." CreationDate="2022-01-24T17:11:00.453" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15535" PostId="12044" Score="1" Text="Just in today, [Mapping Methane Emissions from Fossil Fuel Exploitation](https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/149374/mapping-methane-emissions-from-fossil-fuel-exploitation). Russia has some very emission rate data." CreationDate="2022-01-25T12:28:01.033" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="15543" PostId="12044" Score="1" Text="Side note: you could rank between sources of fossil fuels, and between fossil fuels themselves, but at the end of the day/year/century we will run out of them, and along the way even a comparatively lower amount of environmental pollution still adds up. We should stop using these for low quality uses like space heating, and preferably completely." CreationDate="2022-01-27T15:05:37.473" UserId="13681" />
  <row Id="15584" PostId="12044" Score="1" Text="@Fred also [Climate change: Satellites map huge methane plumes from oil and gas](https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-60203683)" CreationDate="2022-02-08T01:52:22.957" UserId="5824" />
  <row Id="15585" PostId="12044" Score="1" Text="Probably not robust proof, but very suggestive of an answer, from the BBC article, *&quot;By plugging these leaks, countries could save billions - including $6bn for Turkmenistan, $4bn for Russia and $1.6bn for the US, the research suggests.* If Russia could save $4bn &amp; the US $1.6bn then Russian gas would be more detrimental to the environment than US gas." CreationDate="2022-02-08T05:41:40.727" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="15612" PostId="12044" Score="1" Text="More anecdotal data, [*Searching for methane leaks, scientists find “ultra emitters”*](https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/03/fixing-ultra-emitting-methane-leaks-is-a-low-cost-climate-win/). *In total, these leaks released 8 million metric tons of methane per year. Of this, Turkmenistan and Russia were responsible for close to 1 million metric tons per year each, while the US ranked third, with a little under 0.5 million metric tons per year.*" CreationDate="2022-03-02T16:23:56.227" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="15537" PostId="12050" Score="0" Text="The physics involved in this question might be better addressed in https://physics.stackexchange.com/ . It would also help if you knew the temperature and volume of the exhaust air, as that will make a difference. Another significant factor for the amount of heat required to sustain the pool at 25 degs is the ongoing heat loss from the pool, which will differ depending on ambient temperature, humidity, and wind speed, as well as the size of the pool (more surface area = more heat loss to evaporation). Without those thing defined, you can't get an exact answer." CreationDate="2022-01-26T04:13:26.887" UserId="15" />
  <row Id="15539" PostId="12050" Score="0" Text="Mechanical engineers who deal with heat exchange can deal with this. Whether what you want to achieve is possible with also be dependent on: the temperature of the exhaust air, the temperature you would like the pool water to be, the distance between the heated air &amp; the pool - how long do the heating pipes have to be, diameter of the  pipes, available insulation for the pipes &amp; its heat retaining, the properties, the production rate of heated air (cubic meters per hour), humidity of the heated air, what will be the heat transfer medium: air, water or refrigerant." CreationDate="2022-01-26T22:57:29.000" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="15542" PostId="12050" Score="0" Text="Thank you, I'll have to measure the volume of air and temperature of air that is coming off from the exhaust gas. The surface area would me 250m² at a maximum. The temperature of the water would be able to fluctuate between 22deg &amp; 28. The next problem is to work out what mechanical process to use to getting the air to heat water..." CreationDate="2022-01-27T12:31:34.010" UserId="13698" />
  <row Id="15549" PostId="12050" Score="1" Text="As @blacksmith37 notes, the source of the exhaust is important - can you provide that?  Corrosion can be incredibly fast if acidic liquids condense on the heat exchanger." CreationDate="2022-01-27T22:20:11.013" UserId="6629" />
  <row Id="15850" PostId="12050" Score="0" Text="Having just thought about this, the best way to get warm/hot air to heat water is to direct the air into pipes, duct or flue &amp; to submerge the pipes, duct or flue in the water. However, do not exhaust the into the water in case the hot air contains something that could contaminate the water. Let the end of the flue emerge from the water so the cooled air can exhaust to the atmosphere." CreationDate="2022-06-26T19:26:10.617" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="15848" PostId="12051" Score="0" Text="Natural gas is not low cost, it's literally cooking the planet. Avoiding that is a big part of the point of Sustainable Living." CreationDate="2022-06-25T23:33:01.683" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15849" PostId="12051" Score="0" Text="Must admit I am off, my excuse is old age. I have mostly paid 1 to 2  $ US: I see now it has jumped to over  $ 6.  In perspective I remember 0.10 $ ( price to oil company from gas pipeline). Still cheaper than any renewable when full cost basis is used." CreationDate="2022-06-26T17:19:34.400" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="15854" PostId="12051" Score="1" Text="This does not seem to be an answer to the question." CreationDate="2022-06-27T01:13:44.153" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="15855" PostId="12051" Score="0" Text="@blacksmith37 you're assuming we can just buy another planet when we wreck this one? &quot;full cost&quot; has to include that or it's just a lie." CreationDate="2022-06-27T10:45:13.977" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15544" PostId="12052" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Your question looks similar to [this question](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/12044/)?" CreationDate="2022-01-27T15:44:34.780" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="15545" PostId="12052" Score="0" Text="I do not know how I missed that, it answers my question.  Should I delete my question do you think?" CreationDate="2022-01-27T15:59:37.623" UserId="13618" />
  <row Id="15546" PostId="12052" Score="1" Text="No worries. If you have no additional questions then please delete. Alternatively we can close it as a duplicate." CreationDate="2022-01-27T17:26:56.053" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="15552" PostId="12055" Score="0" Text="This tends to be very product-specific. The [documentation](https://www.renogy.com/48v-3500w-solar-inverter-charger/) is unclear about whether you can use multiple of these units together, so I'd recommend [contacting them to ask](https://www.renogy.com/contact-us/)." CreationDate="2022-01-29T15:36:10.330" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15553" PostId="12055" Score="0" Text="Unless you're somewhere that has no electricial regulations at all it's very likely that a commercial install like yours will need to be done strictly according to both code and manufacturer guidelines. I don't know about Renogy but Victron charge extra for inverters that can work in parallel, but for those the limit is quite large (more than 10 IIRC... I wanted four). So the answer is: whatever Renogy say it is. Then work out whether you can do that while complying with your local electrical codes." CreationDate="2022-01-30T02:53:03.447" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15554" PostId="12055" Score="0" Text="What's reasonable for power draw depends a great deal on where you are, and the state of the guests. In the UK with 13A per wall socket you have to assume guests will be plugging in 3kW heaters or hair dryers or welders. In Japan you might reasonably budget 1kW for the same thing, but you will also need to have a mcirowave, kettle and fridge available so there's another 2kW or more. But on top of that I assume there's an air conditioning load and I'm not sure you're including that?" CreationDate="2022-01-30T02:56:19.657" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15556" PostId="12058" Score="0" Text="Is it a widespread practice in the place where you live? In what country do you live?" CreationDate="2022-02-01T13:11:43.220" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="15557" PostId="12058" Score="1" Text="I think the practice is fairly widespread here, although my Council is a bit more sustainably minded than many of the rural councils here. I think councils in other Scandinavian countries also do this - I live in Sweden." CreationDate="2022-02-01T17:08:56.770" UserId="8656" />
  <row Id="15579" PostId="12062" Score="0" Text="Discussion so far ignores one option: fusion power. Use oil as a source of hydrogen to fuse, then use the remaining carbon etc in some non-climate change inducing way." CreationDate="2022-02-07T00:28:25.767" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15581" PostId="12062" Score="0" Text="@Móż That sounds like the beginning of a useful answer!" CreationDate="2022-02-07T14:57:41.627" UserId="2727" />
  <row Id="15583" PostId="12062" Score="0" Text="It's a fantasy answer, even more unlikely than carbon capture. Fusion power has been 20 years in the future for more than 50 years now..." CreationDate="2022-02-07T23:46:43.563" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15587" PostId="12062" Score="0" Text="@Móż That was 50 years ago.  Fusion energy was established 30 years ago. It's just that it created a rift in the time-space continuum and we are now stuck in time 50 years ago.  C'mon, get with reality. :) :) :)" CreationDate="2022-02-08T08:42:13.893" UserId="2727" />
  <row Id="15588" PostId="12062" Score="0" Text="*without contributing to global climate change* at what threshhold? Burning hydrocarbons for energy always contributes something &gt;0 to global greenhouse gas concentrations, as a matter of chemistry; but how *much* depends on (1) how much you burn, and (2) what else you're doing besides. Burn enough &amp; you have a significant contribution to greenhouse effects unless you also find ways to capture &amp; sequester enough emissions to counteract. But you'd need to say more specifically how much/little net effect you'd count to get a meaningful idea of how much (1) or (2) would need to change to avoid it" CreationDate="2022-02-08T16:20:32.530" UserId="13625" />
  <row Id="15589" PostId="12062" Score="0" Text="@AlabamaScholiast My limited understanding is that our planet can withstand a certain level of greenhouse gases without creating global climate change.  I'm referring to meaningful climate change, and not something that can only be measured in a lab or that has no effect on life on Earth." CreationDate="2022-02-09T04:46:54.850" UserId="2727" />
  <row Id="15559" PostId="12064" Score="0" Text="Thank you for your answer.  I'm not sure this is accurate.  It's like saying apples aren't a renewable resource for caterpillars because it takes longer for an apple to grow than the caterpillar will live.  If all humans, together, only used 1L of oil per year, surely our planet would produce much more than that annually.  So I'm thinking it's not that oil isn't renewable, but that humans use ***much too much*** of it." CreationDate="2022-02-02T00:36:36.933" UserId="2727" />
  <row Id="15560" PostId="12064" Score="1" Text="Caterpillars can kill an apple tree." CreationDate="2022-02-02T01:17:23.520" UserId="13721" />
  <row Id="15561" PostId="12064" Score="2" Text="@Rock - Yeah, we use far too much oil, but the regeneration rate is so minuscule that treating oil as a renewable resource (where human consumption rate is the issue), just doesn't make sense. It's like thinking about the sun: it uses a non-renewable resource, Hydrogen. Sure, eventually it will run out, but does this really matter for humans in 2022? The sun isn't going to run out of Hydrogen until the year 5 billion or so, it's just not a problem on the human timescale." CreationDate="2022-02-02T12:00:21.290" UserId="8232" />
  <row Id="15563" PostId="12064" Score="0" Text="I appreciate how you added a scale amount to your answer and the link to the related question on Earth Sciences SE.  I have little insight into the accuracy of all those figures, but let's say it's 100 times off in either direction.  That's still a very small amount.  Now, if it's off by 1000+ times, that leads to conclusions that are quite different.  Continued..." CreationDate="2022-02-02T12:17:14.760" UserId="2727" />
  <row Id="15564" PostId="12064" Score="0" Text="What is also a challenge is estimating how much oil each of us actually consumes.  Directly, perhaps outside of fueling a vehicle or home, most people don't use much oil directly (not to minimize those 2 large forms of consumption).  But many people use products and services that require oil to produce or transport. For example, I use very little oil directly (I currently use less than 2L per year), but my indirect use is completely unknown to me.  All I know for sure is that my indirect use is greater than zero.  A website/app on which one could estimate indirect use would be an asset." CreationDate="2022-02-02T12:22:37.787" UserId="2727" />
  <row Id="15574" PostId="12064" Score="0" Text="Not directly related to the question, but crude oil is the source for soil’s carbon enrichment. This fact is omitted always. Carbon is a part of every organic compound, differently said, the main ingredient of life. Tectonic shifts are spreading oil evenly.Without it soil will deplete and will not be able to maintain life. Moreover so it needs to be spent mindfully." CreationDate="2022-02-04T09:48:41.760" UserId="13223" />
  <row Id="15558" PostId="12065" Score="0" Text="What about [carbon capture and storage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_capture_and_storage)?" CreationDate="2022-02-01T22:22:21.057" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15568" PostId="12065" Score="1" Text="That is not specific to burning oil / fossil fuels. If it's useful it could be done without burning oil." CreationDate="2022-02-03T00:32:53.267" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15567" PostId="12067" Score="0" Text="Personally, I'm optimistic that there will be a &quot;trickle up&quot; effect -- EVs will take over for passenger vehicles, and technology advancements/efficiencies of scale will make the technology viable for heavy equipment, continuing up the chain until eventually even electric airplanes perform better than their jet-fueled counterparts. The question is how long this takes!" CreationDate="2022-02-02T17:40:43.707" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15572" PostId="12067" Score="0" Text="@LShaver feasability depends on how much minerals we will have to extract for it... with what energy." CreationDate="2022-02-03T10:14:36.083" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="15569" PostId="12068" Score="1" Text="That ignores the cost of doing either. If we spend resources on CCS or synthetic oil, they aren't available to address contributions to climate change that we can't avoid. So by choosing the more resource-intensive reduction, we're choosing a net increase in climate change." CreationDate="2022-02-03T01:12:44.317" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15571" PostId="12069" Score="0" Text="From my understanding, it would be very difficult to create a bug free aeroponics system in an open outdoor environment, even with secure netting to deter bugs etc." CreationDate="2022-02-03T09:59:23.143" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="15590" PostId="12069" Score="0" Text="yes. Use netting supported by a lightweight frame." CreationDate="2022-02-03T06:06:17.950" UserId="13725" />
  <row Id="15575" PostId="12072" Score="1" Text="Whatever the damage ,it is much less than in the past like the 1960's.  Oil was  then changed at 2000 ,not 6000 or 8000 miles like today. There were dramatically more leaks . There was dramatically more burning; at that time if car burned a quart in 1000 miles , you could say &quot;it did not burn oil&quot;. Mineral oil is hydrotreated so not a lot different from baby/mineral oil, I don't know about additives. And , NO, vegetable oil can not be substituted, ideally motor oil is paraffinic ." CreationDate="2022-02-04T16:13:35.117" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="15577" PostId="12072" Score="1" Text="@blacksmith37 Just FYI, Toyota considers it completely acceptable for a Toyota Prius to consume up to 1.1qt of oil every 600 miles (1L per 1000km).  Source: Toyota Prius owner's manual page 427.  Many Toyota Prius vehicles consume even more oil than that, but to my knowledge, there still has not been any recall or action by any government.  Yes, it's disgraceful and unacceptable of Toyota." CreationDate="2022-02-06T08:01:40.710" UserId="2727" />
  <row Id="15578" PostId="12072" Score="1" Text="Every car manufacturer is lying that 1L per 1000km is okay for oil consumption. In reality, well-designed cars consume either no oil at all, or consume it so little that in the 15000km oil change interval, the oil level is above the low mark if it was at the full mark when oil was put there. The car manufacturers want to avoid liability for broken engines. An engine that consumes 1L per 1000km is broken but the car manufacturer won't admit that." CreationDate="2022-02-06T09:39:46.980" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="15586" PostId="12074" Score="1" Text="Interesting supplemental information, but it doesn't answer the question." CreationDate="2022-02-08T05:47:52.693" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="15593" PostId="12077" Score="3" Text="Thank you for your answer. I assume the year 1945 you mention comes from the [Great Pacific Garbage patch Wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_garbage_patch#History)?. I haven't read the book they refer too, but it sounds like a speculative date. The Wiki article also says that it wasn't until 1988 that people theorized it should exist and it took 9 more years to actually find it." CreationDate="2022-02-12T09:15:32.740" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="15594" PostId="12077" Score="0" Text="Oh I see, Wikipedia says it has been growing at an increasing rate since 1945. Probably it was assumed that since plastic use began, the growth began in 1945. It might be the case it was so small in 1945 it was essentially unobservable." CreationDate="2022-02-12T11:52:47.453" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="15598" PostId="12081" Score="0" Text="I assume this is a long comment-answer that should have been as a comment to my answer, and refers to industrial-scale generation and not commercially sold wood generators that you can run at home. I didn't exclude the former, I excluded the latter. Volter's 40 kW isn't residential-scale. Holz-Kraft's 30 kW - 1 MW isn't residential-scale either." CreationDate="2022-02-15T17:56:45.257" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="15617" PostId="12081" Score="0" Text="Oh right sorry my bad the non-residential scale plant that heats 60 homes + 2 schools + 1 church isn't residential scale you mean somthing in the lines of https://www.ieabioenergy.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/5-Gasifier-Skive-DH_DK_Final.pdf in denmark. But I do ofc agree with you about replacing EVERYTHING with wood gasification is a folly, it would at best be a piece in the larger energy puzzle to be layed." CreationDate="2022-03-07T13:43:24.520" UserId="13757" />
  <row Id="15618" PostId="12081" Score="0" Text="@juhist yeah sorry some mixup in what was ment by residential scale, on this side of the pond what the topic maker is asking about is refered to as personal use or personal residence use, while residental would reference a apartment block or multi-family home or even homes. You got to read up on the output of running combustion engines on woodgas though much cleaner then what you stated above, check the IEA document above for some real numbers from their 500kWe generators." CreationDate="2022-03-07T14:29:35.457" UserId="13757" />
  <row Id="15599" PostId="12083" Score="1" Text="Your last sentence sums things up well. One of the &quot;conveniences&quot; for domestic producers of CO2 is the gas enters the atmosphere &amp; the producer doesn't have a waste disposal problem. The result of which, is everyone is adversely affected by this method of cheap &amp; &quot;convenient&quot; disposal via global warming. Let's image basalt can be used to quickly convert CO2 into stone, as you mention. If you had such a system at home, what would you then do with the stone produced? Keep it or get rid of it? What use would it be to you at home? If you get rid of it, how do you do it &amp; would it affect others?" CreationDate="2022-02-16T22:23:35.867" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="15601" PostId="12083" Score="0" Text="As well as the waste, the cost of capturing the CO2 is quite high, especially for the &quot;liquify and inject&quot; type system where you need a big compressor or ten. The cheap home version is going to be plant-based, but if you're inb a low-sunlight area that's going to be very energy-intensive. If you want a different answer it would be worth looking at heat pumps, especially ground-sourced ones. Those are much more efficient than burning gas at home, as well as lacking the emissions (which are not just CO2, they leak gas as well as combustion products)" CreationDate="2022-02-17T02:54:00.210" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15638" PostId="12083" Score="0" Text="I don't think that there is any system for home carbon-capture. But boilers running fuel-oil are sometimes replaced with air-source heat-pumps which increases demand on the powergrid. Ground-source heat-pumps would be better of course. Or there are systems that reform natural-gas to hydrogen and then produce electricity with hydrogen-fuel-cells. The neat trick is that the waste heat from the hydrogen-fuel-cell can supply steam radiators and, of course, supply hot-water systems." CreationDate="2022-03-16T21:52:46.513" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="15606" PostId="12084" Score="0" Text="Thanks for your very detailed answer. Lots of information to review and ponder over!" CreationDate="2022-02-22T16:32:35.687" UserId="4353" />
  <row Id="15602" PostId="12085" Score="0" Text="Thanks for the detailed answer! Most of this makes sense to me. One thing I'm unclear about is if this process is so impractical on small scales, how does a capture system fit to trucks work? I do understand that an HVAC system also is ventilating, so it both maintains air quality and temperature, but would it be possible to isolate the products of burning the gas, which I assume in the current design are quickly combined with the air expelled from the living space deliberately. If this could be isolated would it be similar enough to a trucks exhaust to be fed into similar capture tech?" CreationDate="2022-02-19T01:02:50.923" UserId="13767" />
  <row Id="15604" PostId="12085" Score="0" Text="I don't know of any plans to implement a capture system fit to trucks. Truck manufacturers, as far as I know, are planning to use compressed hydrogen as their fuel." CreationDate="2022-02-21T16:31:34.590" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="15609" PostId="12085" Score="0" Text="I gave an example in the original question - https://remoracarbon.com/" CreationDate="2022-03-01T13:45:20.840" UserId="13767" />
  <row Id="15621" PostId="12085" Score="0" Text="@jaltekruse Trucks need a way to store energy, where fossil fuels have an [energy density](https://cleantechnica.com/2016/05/13/ev-battery-energy-density-parity-gasoline-2045/) advantage over batteries. Houses don't need to store energy or carry it around, so that's not a concern -- switching to all-electric to reduce carbon emissions is far more cost effective than home-scale carbon capture." CreationDate="2022-03-10T20:12:41.333" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15623" PostId="12085" Score="0" Text="Currently it is significantly more expensive to heat with electricity. I understand in a world with lots of renewable electricity generation it makes sense, but today we are struggling to replace current electricity use with renewables (home use like AC, appliances, industrial use, etc). We need even more capacity to replace all heating and transportation with electricity generated by renewables. Maybe we need to think more about carbon capture on current widely deployed fossil fuel powered tech while we deploy both new renewable  electric generation and new cars/appliances?" CreationDate="2022-03-12T14:08:45.457" UserId="13767" />
  <row Id="15624" PostId="12085" Score="0" Text="@jaltekruse while it's true that it's more expensive to heat with electricity today, the tech is commercially available and all the infrastructure is in place. But CCS tech for home use doesn't exist, and there's no infrastructure for collecting the captured carbon. Ultimately it's a question of which of these two technologies will win, and where is it wisest to spend the time and money for development? It's clear that we need to stop using fossil fuels within the next 20 years maximum, so it seems that it would be best to spend the time/money on the solution that doesn't involve fossil fuels." CreationDate="2022-03-12T15:59:52.437" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15625" PostId="12085" Score="0" Text="I do agree that we need to stop emitting carbon as soon as possible, and it would be even better if we could reduce carbon from historical emissions already in the atmosphere. I would love for that to take the form of all renewable energy generation and storage, but so far that hasn't be happening fast enough. I'm fearful we will continue to fight the inertia of natural gas infrastructure being installed and usable right now, and I'm afraid that might be happening still 20 years from now, which is why I am concerned people aren't looking at options like this to reduce carbon output." CreationDate="2022-03-12T16:41:47.550" UserId="13767" />
  <row Id="16438" PostId="12088" Score="0" Text="Why not take the train?" CreationDate="2023-07-26T09:11:33.417" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="16447" PostId="12088" Score="0" Text="@gerrit good point if you live somewhere that's connected to a warmer climate by train" CreationDate="2023-07-27T10:35:03.263" UserId="13783" />
  <row Id="15607" PostId="12089" Score="0" Text="This goes to illustrate why only the wealth in India, Ceylon &amp; Malaya, during the era British occupation, could afford to undertake seasonal migrations, *overland*, when the British would spend [Summers](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/28/shimla-indian-summers-raj-colonial-legacy-lives-on) in [hill stations](https://psychology.fandom.com/wiki/Seasonal_human_migration)." CreationDate="2022-02-25T12:47:45.267" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="15611" PostId="12089" Score="0" Text="The OP also mentioned air-conditioning, which you have not included. But given your figures so far, I imagine this could only conceivably make enough difference for a single person." CreationDate="2022-03-02T08:38:16.293" UserId="2828" />
  <row Id="15613" PostId="12089" Score="0" Text="Air-conditioning is needed in areas where heating isn't needed, and heating is needed in areas where air conditioning isn't needed. Theoretically it might be possible that some intermediate location uses both heating and air conditioning, but given that the technology to get heating (heat pump) is the same as the technology to get air conditioning (heat pump in reverse), it's unlikely that air conditioning would change any of the math. Less heating means more air conditioning." CreationDate="2022-03-02T18:03:18.837" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="16437" PostId="12089" Score="0" Text="If travelling only twice a year, spending 48 hours on the train (with a bit of ferry if coming from Finland) is of course a viable alternative to flying." CreationDate="2023-07-26T09:10:50.073" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="15615" PostId="12091" Score="2" Text="incomprehensible? Put three empty milk bags and their overbag next to 2 empty 2L cartons and tell me which is more. Either you get your milk from the farm in glass bottles that you manage and clean, or you accept a disposable container. The bag system is far less to dispose than cartons, tetra packs, or any other rigid thing you can think of. (And the 4L returnable jugs were not reused they were recycled.)" CreationDate="2022-03-06T16:46:02.393" UserId="1053" />
  <row Id="15831" PostId="12091" Score="2" Text="And now there is a scientific study that says &quot;Litre for litre, compared with jugs or cartons, milk bags consume only about 20 per cent to 30 per cent of the energy, use about 2 per cent (compared to cartons) to 40 per cent (compared to jugs) as much water, and produce only 20 per cent to 40 per cent of the greenhouse gases.&quot; More quotes and a link at https://www.tvo.org/article/think-bagged-milk-is-weird-think-again" CreationDate="2022-06-13T16:41:57.387" UserId="1053" />
  <row Id="15950" PostId="12091" Score="0" Text="To brainstorm about solutions, you could try our [chat room](https://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/7310/sustainable-living) although that usually is rather quiet. Since you provide a quite a bit of information about the problem you are trying to solve and people are posting answers addressing that, I propose to rewrite this question and focus on possible solutions instead." CreationDate="2022-08-09T07:31:34.907" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="15952" PostId="12091" Score="0" Text="&quot;Ongoingly storm&quot; What?" CreationDate="2022-08-09T08:56:10.517" UserId="1567" />
  <row Id="15953" PostId="12091" Score="0" Text="Exercising one's creativity here.  Not being constrained by linguistic conventions." CreationDate="2022-08-09T13:48:30.647" UserId="5831" />
  <row Id="15616" PostId="12094" Score="0" Text="A very fulsome response, not really to the question, but probably more relevant to sustainability.  It's a lot of new information to digest, and I'm just starting to search for background information.  Not just based on environmental considerations, but also on nutritional differences of alternatives.  Thanks." CreationDate="2022-03-06T16:56:05.990" UserId="5831" />
  <row Id="15619" PostId="12095" Score="3" Text="&quot;About 5 tons of polysilicon is required to manufacture one 1 megawatt (MW) conventional solar modules&quot; source: [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polycrystalline_silicon)" CreationDate="2022-03-08T10:37:48.057" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="15620" PostId="12095" Score="1" Text="Polysilicon is not a limiting resource in any way. You can get silicon from sand. The limiting resource is silver." CreationDate="2022-03-08T17:13:44.017" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="15622" PostId="12097" Score="1" Text="The other metric that would be useful would be, which would give a higher MW per square kilometer &amp; even maximum MW per device: kite or wind turbine. The picture in the question shows a key difference between the two. Wind turbines occupy a specific area of land &amp; they need to be positioned so they don't interfere with one another. I get the impression that due to the length of the tether &amp; the 3D movement of kites, each kite may occupy a larger area of land than a wind a turbine." CreationDate="2022-03-11T21:13:38.610" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="15627" PostId="12097" Score="1" Text="I haven't heard of offshore kites being explored. To my knowledge kites are mostly of interest when it comes to temporary, small scale energy production, while wind farms are a huge, long term investment." CreationDate="2022-03-14T13:41:43.393" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="15629" PostId="12097" Score="1" Text="Makani were very interested in offshore kites. The big advantage is that areal density was less of an issue and the lower torque meant smaller platforms. Plus no-one cared if they dropped one in the sea 5km from their tower, but people get excited on land. End of doco is all about the water option: https://youtu.be/qd_hEja6bzE?t=4624" CreationDate="2022-03-15T22:53:03.217" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15630" PostId="12097" Score="1" Text="The problem with fabric kites is durability, it's just hard to make lightweight, flexible, durable fabrics. Makani went with a solid glider for that reason. They also put the generator into the kite since they needed a motor to launch it. The fabric setups tend to use the winch motor as the generator AFAIK, which means it's on the ground but also harder to launch and recover. FWIW I've got no ties to Makani, I know a couple of the people but they know I think it's a stupid idea, but because I know them I know more about that project than other kite generators." CreationDate="2022-03-15T22:55:05.257" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15631" PostId="12097" Score="2" Text="The brutal answer is: wind turbines. They actually work, kites don't. Kites might work in the future, but in the next decade they're not going to be able to be deployed at any useful scale." CreationDate="2022-03-15T22:59:43.637" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15632" PostId="12097" Score="0" Text="@Móż certainly &quot;kites don't work&quot; would be a great answer if it can be supported, but it seems too soon for that to be bourn out conclusively. Perhaps this question can't be currently answered in a *Stack Exchange* way?" CreationDate="2022-03-15T23:03:04.860" UserId="5824" />
  <row Id="15633" PostId="12097" Score="0" Text="It can't be answered because you're asking us to document a negative. The answer &quot;there is no commercial off the shelf kite power at useful scale&quot; is purely opinion. Me not being able to find any evidence that such a thing exists might be down to my limited knowledge and skills. You're asking one question &quot;how resource intensive are kite-based wind farms?&quot; when no-one can point to such a thing existing, so underneath your question is &quot;can anyone find a kite-based wind farm that is producing electricity&quot;. Until we find that person any question about resource intensity  of one is unanswerable." CreationDate="2022-03-15T23:06:29.483" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15634" PostId="12097" Score="0" Text="If your question is actually &quot;in theory, could kite based electricity generation work at at the GW scale?&quot; then I reckon you should close this question and ask that instead." CreationDate="2022-03-15T23:08:40.480" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15635" PostId="12097" Score="0" Text="@Móż well in that case I can adjust the question to make it more answerable or delete it. I'm happy with either, do you have any thoughts on how it could be salvaged? Your comments are certainly valuable and I find them interesting, perhaps something along the line of &quot;How far away are kites from full-scale demonstrations?&quot; (oh, I forgot about closing, I'd rather just delete than have a bad closed question record. Since I've only got 3 other questions it would be 25%)" CreationDate="2022-03-15T23:09:15.003" UserId="5824" />
  <row Id="15636" PostId="12097" Score="1" Text="That's also unanswerable, like &quot;how far away is fusion power&quot; where the answer is &quot;[30 years, always 30 years](https://www.discovermagazine.com/technology/why-nuclear-fusion-is-always-30-years-away)&quot;. While we're still in the research phase all we can really say is that some experiements show promise and let's hope. I'm not sure how to rescue your question but I kind of like having the topic at least mentioned here. It's kind of suggestive that Google couldn't make it work, with their budget, and the folk I know from Makani have all gone into completely different areas" CreationDate="2022-03-15T23:12:38.467" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15637" PostId="12097" Score="0" Text="@Móż Okay well I don't see any dramatic harm to the site leaving it here for another 24 hours to give it some further thought on what to do next. *Thanks for your help and input!*" CreationDate="2022-03-15T23:15:44.103" UserId="5824" />
  <row Id="16580" PostId="12097" Score="1" Text="@Móż or another 16,000 hours for that matter :-) I just read through (quickly) IEEE Spectrums January 17, 2024 [Flying Kites Deliver Container-Size Power Generation; Automated wind-energy system brings portable renewables off-grid](https://spectrum.ieee.org/micro-wind-power-kitepower) and it helps to get a feel for what might actually work in the near future - something small and portable for remote locations where building a tower might not be an option." CreationDate="2024-01-20T08:51:33.183" UserId="5824" />
  <row Id="15626" PostId="12098" Score="1" Text="I assume you or someone else in the household is already picking up the Fido Nuggets by some means &amp; placing them in the composter. Why not by-pass the composter &amp; place them in the household toilet &amp; flush them. Very inexpensive." CreationDate="2022-03-13T08:20:53.227" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="15628" PostId="12098" Score="0" Text="@Fred that would result in increased water usage and, I suspect, loud protestations from my family :)" CreationDate="2022-03-15T17:55:07.750" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15692" PostId="12098" Score="1" Text="You can keep the poo in a dish and put them to the household toilet just before using the flush; I do this with my cat litter (a special one which goes to toilets)" CreationDate="2022-04-13T13:00:58.907" UserId="13882" />
  <row Id="15639" PostId="12099" Score="0" Text="The leading comments about grass sound quite suspect to me.  Citations to back them up would greatly improve this answer.  As a counter-reference, Zirkle et al., 2011 found that lawns can sequester from 25.4 to 204.3 g C/m2/year." CreationDate="2022-03-18T11:11:51.827" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="15640" PostId="12099" Score="0" Text="Turns out while we once believed carbon capture slows with age, a recent large and thorough study recently demonstrated the opposite: [large (old) trees sequester more carbon than young trees](https://www.nature.com/articles/nature12914)." CreationDate="2022-03-20T01:24:23.857" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15642" PostId="12102" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Do supermarkets in your area also accept bubble wrap envelopes (combination of paper and plastic)?" CreationDate="2022-03-22T18:30:09.397" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="15645" PostId="12103" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living. Most EV manufacturers guarantee a lifespan of 8 years for the battery but this does not mean it's spent after 8 years. Yes, it is expensive to replace it eventually, but general maintenance costs are much lower. The question is how the total cost of ownership compares between EV and ICE car. This depends on your milage." CreationDate="2022-03-26T07:04:52.030" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="15646" PostId="12103" Score="1" Text="Worse, the 8 year old fossil fuel car will also have lower efficiency, but that's not part of the rating system for second hand cars so most people are unaware of how bad the problem is. With electric you at least get the obvious &quot;range is only X&quot;, but almost no-one fills the tank, drives to empty and says &quot;range now X&quot; on a fossil car... let alone put that on the ad for the car" CreationDate="2022-03-26T07:37:13.060" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15647" PostId="12104" Score="0" Text="Gas turbines can be external combustion engines... it's one of the reasons why we call the others internal combustion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_turbine#External_combustion" CreationDate="2022-03-26T07:40:16.123" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15648" PostId="12105" Score="0" Text="You touched on the problem ; How can the condition of the battery be evaluated? That may be an unexploited area of technology. Do the lithium batteries deteriorate with use like lead/acid." CreationDate="2022-03-28T14:33:08.433" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="15658" PostId="12105" Score="0" Text="https://www.goodcar.co/ that market already exists and there are companies that specialise in it. I've been looking at second hand kei vans and there are a couple of companies importing those who include electric ones" CreationDate="2022-04-01T05:02:32.427" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15679" PostId="12105" Score="0" Text="It's a bit of a messy situation with a lot of uncertainties, particularly when it comes to car batteries. Not all battery systems are the same or similar. One issue is the number of recharging cycles the battery has undergone &amp; the other is the efficiency or effectiveness of the battery cooling system. Keeping a battery hot is one of the worst things that could happen to a battery. In some ways, buying an electric car is more complicated than buying an ICE car, particularly if you want to buy a used EV. The other issue with EVs is there needs to be standardization of ..." CreationDate="2022-04-04T17:40:36.907" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="15680" PostId="12105" Score="0" Text="... the recharging plugs. ICE cars utilize standardized fuel nozzles which allows all cars to be refueled at any refueling station. EVs need something similar for charging. For example if you use an electric shaver or hair dryer at home &amp; you travel to another country you will need to acquire and electrical outlet adapter for the country you're visiting if you want to use the shaver or hair drying. We don't need or want incompatible charging systems for EVs." CreationDate="2022-04-04T17:44:44.647" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="15649" PostId="12108" Score="0" Text="What is a &quot;green roof&quot; ? I remove leaves, twigs, etc , and use rain water for aquariums and plants. I often get mosquito larva in my plastic storage barrel, big plus for aquariums." CreationDate="2022-03-29T14:50:11.547" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="15650" PostId="12108" Score="0" Text="I'm familiar with homemade 430 stainless-steel roof coverings. That's 0.028&quot; thickness lateral-side-lapping strips with lateral attachment slots cut in it. Material flattening is not required until forming ridge shapes. Hold-downs are needed at the gable-ends. Or standing-seam panels could be formed with 0.015&quot; thickness. The 430 is not painted and will not rust. Well, it will rust if touched with a cut-off disk but not rust if touched with a grinding wheel or if touched with a SS brush. I think I would use the water off the roof for toilet flushing." CreationDate="2022-03-30T00:41:55.423" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="15651" PostId="12108" Score="0" Text="The 430 roof covering lowers the house temperature during summertime. Or steel roofs are available with a granulated paint for the same purpose." CreationDate="2022-03-30T00:50:35.850" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="15678" PostId="12108" Score="0" Text="@blacksmith37, green roof is a roof with plants on it: [Green roof](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_roof)" CreationDate="2022-04-04T12:33:24.907" UserId="6683" />
  <row Id="16156" PostId="12108" Score="0" Text="Often the problem is not the rain and how it is collected, but how the water is stored. A few years ago, clay water fountains were popular in the region where I live.  People with tendencies towards allergies often became sick drinking this water. Black mold growing between the clay particles was discovered to be the culprit." CreationDate="2022-12-07T01:24:29.363" UserId="14520" />
  <row Id="15652" PostId="12110" Score="0" Text="Should your point #1 read something more like &quot;Are there non-renewable *distributed* energy sources...&quot;? Because there certainly are non-renewable sources connected to the grid ..." CreationDate="2022-03-30T16:30:29.180" UserId="13628" />
  <row Id="15653" PostId="12110" Score="0" Text="@brhans I said ''connected to the DISTRIBUTION grid'' so it is the same of your observation" CreationDate="2022-03-30T16:33:37.643" UserDisplayName="Samuele Benito Di Gioia" />
  <row Id="15654" PostId="12110" Score="0" Text="Ok nevermind - your differentiation of &quot;high voltage grid&quot; vs &quot;distribution grid&quot; went way over my electronics head..." CreationDate="2022-03-30T16:40:27.750" UserId="13628" />
  <row Id="15655" PostId="12110" Score="0" Text="@brhans ahahaha don't worry ;)" CreationDate="2022-03-30T16:41:56.830" UserDisplayName="Samuele Benito Di Gioia" />
  <row Id="15657" PostId="12110" Score="1" Text="EuroStat does not appear to differentiate the two using any keywords I tried. That's very annoying. But it is the obvious place to look." CreationDate="2022-04-01T04:59:37.770" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15659" PostId="12112" Score="0" Text="+1. Great article here that looks at the effect of regenerative braking on battery degradation, and should have some answers. I'll take a look when I have more time. [&quot;Impact of Dynamic Driving Loads and Regenerative Braking on the Aging of Lithium-Ion Batteries in Electric Vehicles&quot;](https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1149/2.0801713jes)" CreationDate="2022-04-01T16:12:20.297" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15660" PostId="12118" Score="1" Text="I assume that the summarized answer to the question would then be &quot;painting the aluminium heat reflectors makes them useless&quot;." CreationDate="2022-04-02T10:22:53.760" UserId="13869" />
  <row Id="15661" PostId="12118" Score="2" Text="The question is &quot;Do they still reflect the heat&quot;, so the answer is &quot;no&quot;." CreationDate="2022-04-02T12:51:55.663" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="15662" PostId="12119" Score="0" Text="A great answer, thanks! What's your take on nuclear power? How does it slot in?" CreationDate="2022-04-02T13:40:59.347" UserId="13868" />
  <row Id="15663" PostId="12119" Score="1" Text="Nuclear power is a very good way to create constant electricity without weather causing production interruptions. Waste can and will be handled properly, for example by storing it in Onkalo in Finland. However, constructing new nuclear plants today is perhaps bit too expensive, so I believe renewables will have a more dominant role than nuclear." CreationDate="2022-04-02T18:28:41.330" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="15670" PostId="12121" Score="0" Text="Interesting topic, but asking for a list of things is often not the best type of question, unless you are sure the list is very small and will remain so in the near future. Is there a specific reason why you are asking this?&#xA;Anyway, I'll provide an answer." CreationDate="2022-04-03T07:19:43.663" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="15671" PostId="12121" Score="0" Text="@THelper Since there is nothing here in Sustainability SE about AI-based shutting down of wind farms during peak bird fluxes, and I don't know anything more about the topic than what I've cited nor how it could be narrowed down, I decided this would likely *turn out to be* a reasonably-scoped question. Since the first thing Weidensaul mentioned was only experimental (not really &quot;using&quot; as much as &quot;testing&quot;) and the second was only &quot;theoretical&quot;, I had a hunch the number of instances where either was really &quot;in use&quot; would be quite small, perhaps not a list at all." CreationDate="2022-04-03T08:26:02.190" UserId="5824" />
  <row Id="15672" PostId="12121" Score="0" Text="That said, I'm happy to try to find a way to narrow the question further, but now that you've posted an answer my hands are somewhat tied. I'll await your further instructions." CreationDate="2022-04-03T08:26:37.030" UserId="5824" />
  <row Id="15673" PostId="12121" Score="0" Text="Usually changing the scope of a question is not a good idea if there are answers already, but I'm fine with changing or deleting my answer if it doesn't fit your revised question, so feel free to make changes. &#xA;BTW I was wondering if my answer is appropriate since I do not consider cameras and microphones to be an 'advanced' system. I do remember vaguely seeing on television a similar system using also radar, but I can't remember where that was used." CreationDate="2022-04-03T08:31:25.143" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="15674" PostId="12121" Score="0" Text="@THelper okay we're both being very considerate here :-)  I'm happy either way, it's just that I feel obligated to try to address your concerns in your comment above without at the same time putting your answer at risk below and not sure how to proceed beyond explaining why I didn't anticipate this would need a list to answer. I'm just at a loss as to how to proceed." CreationDate="2022-04-03T08:34:48.217" UserId="5824" />
  <row Id="15675" PostId="12121" Score="1" Text=":-) If you think you'll get the answer you want with the question as it is now, then let's leave it. If we end up getting a lot of answers we may close the question as too broad but I suspect that will not happen soon (if it happens at all)." CreationDate="2022-04-03T08:42:14.460" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="15682" PostId="12121" Score="1" Text="There are proposals and a few test stages, but nothing really operational in Germany. The same goes for bats. Currently WTG simply can't (as in &quot;aren't allowed to&quot;) be build in areas with high concentrations of migratory birds. Furthermore, certain agricultural events which lead to a concentration of endangered birds (e.g. cutting long grass) trigger a shut down of the WTG in the vincinity for 3 days. This is quite common for newly planned turbines, but the farmer has to annouce it to the operator of the WTG and the shutdown is done manually. Shutdown for bats follow a similar general approach" CreationDate="2022-04-05T12:34:42.110" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="15681" PostId="12126" Score="0" Text="Thanks Andy for your comment. it allowed me to be  more precise in my question (I've just edited it). Your explanation with CO2 makes senses, however, it seems that vermicomposting and composting creates greenhouse gas that are far more powerful than CO2: Methane (CH3) especially for hot compost; and Nitrous Oxyde (N2O) for vermicomposting (from the worm's guts)." CreationDate="2022-04-05T12:30:37.587" UserId="13882" />
  <row Id="15685" PostId="12126" Score="0" Text="I wasn't aware of home composting producing gases other than CO2, so I don't really have the knowledge to help much further. My gut feeling is that it should still be better to compost at home, because of the truck emissions and that some of the same processes may happen in landfill anyway (I assume that eventually worms would get to food waste in landfill)." CreationDate="2022-04-07T07:58:50.117" UserId="3851" />
  <row Id="16372" PostId="12128" Score="0" Text="Just as a side note: gravity based energy storage is already used for more than a century on large scale: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricity . Some factors that make them energetically favorable are relevant for the solid-based gravity batteries as well: We put them where geography is favorable so no supporting tower needs to be built. We put them where the storage material (water) is cheaply available. And we basically build them where the volume is of no concern (stone/concrete has a density of ≈ 2.5 t/m³ - that's only a factor 2.5 compared to water)." CreationDate="2023-05-24T10:02:49.837" UserId="3722" />
  <row Id="16200" PostId="12129" Score="0" Text="Volumetric timing. Simply time how long it takes to drain both tanks. If need be adjust diameter of pipe to slow or speed up rate of drainage" CreationDate="2022-12-24T05:13:31.627" UserId="9007" />
  <row Id="15690" PostId="12130" Score="0" Text="Thank you very much ! I can see how the stored energy is calculated, and definitely can see the incredible costs associated with it. With regards to energy density (energy/unit volume), how would you calculate that ?" CreationDate="2022-04-12T20:06:46.433" UserId="13884" />
  <row Id="16007" PostId="12130" Score="0" Text="It's always nice to have a link.... https://www.energyvault.com/" CreationDate="2022-09-26T10:51:22.227" UserId="14377" />
  <row Id="16008" PostId="12130" Score="0" Text="BTW, energyvault are giving a cost- point of $150/kWh (no details of how they get to this price point on their website)" CreationDate="2022-09-26T11:02:57.767" UserId="14377" />
  <row Id="16365" PostId="12130" Score="0" Text="juhist, The brick average height statement doesn't make sense to me. In the case of the EVx, the 24 ton block has dimensions of 11x9x4 feet and is raised to a height of &quot;over 300 feet&quot;. So, the delta h certainly is much larger than 150 feet...." CreationDate="2023-05-10T14:03:34.740" UserId="14921" />
  <row Id="16371" PostId="12130" Score="0" Text="+1 for crunching numbers even though I do not agree with all your assumptions (e.g. @vronp's comment). While I understand your calculations for the given system. a bunch of improvements both wrt. energy and costs IMHO fairly jump to the eye. Wrt. cost: yes, tower cranes are expensive. That's why they are typically only used where their particular advantages are needed: mobility (can be brought from one construction site to another) and adaptability (to the particular construction site). But when the lifting needs are not temporary, much simpler hoists are put in place (e.g. in mining shafts)." CreationDate="2023-05-24T09:50:51.147" UserId="3722" />
  <row Id="16374" PostId="12130" Score="0" Text="Concrete weights: Their mechanical requirements are pretty much only to sufficiently stable to be lifted and put down again many times. From a sustainability pov, containers filled with locally available stones/gravel/sand would be just as good. (And bricks could probably be produced in a lime-based way that absorbs as much CO2 during carbonization as was released during heating). 1 t of local sand/gravel for filling/ballast purposes is about 6 € where I am, and yields the same density as the 100 €/t concrete." CreationDate="2023-05-24T10:33:12.760" UserId="3722" />
  <row Id="15691" PostId="12132" Score="0" Text="Thank you Haw'n Hillbilly to show that vermicomposting is clearly better than hot composting in term of greenhouse gas emission.&#xA;But about the balance between the very powerful greenhouse gas that worms produces (N2O) versus the far less powerful greenhouse gas (C02) that transportation would produce if the waste are thrown to standard bin? I mean if vermicomposting would be everywhere, would it impact negatively the fight against climate changes? I know it is not an easy question, but I find it worth to be asked. Maybe there is no research yet on this issue?" CreationDate="2022-04-13T12:36:08.403" UserId="13882" />
  <row Id="15699" PostId="12132" Score="1" Text="I see the fine point.  Quite possibly at a 'total vermicultivation' society scale, the net N2O could signifiacntly effect the climate. Perhaps, this would be mostly by Ozone layer scavenging where this has more effect than just a CO2 equivalency.  But, lacking a significantly complex metric for what the actual volume of N2O emissions might be from the median global households and the net potential total for that scenario... hmm, let me see about that; in terms of global food waste total volumes by region...  'Hold my beer' ~HH" CreationDate="2022-04-16T06:59:35.333" UserId="13768" />
  <row Id="15703" PostId="12132" Score="1" Text="I've edited to clarify the lack of a relationship between percentage emissions of N2O for transportation (the standard bin) vs vermiculture." CreationDate="2022-04-20T07:34:38.660" UserId="13768" />
  <row Id="15704" PostId="12132" Score="0" Text="&quot;As all food waste byproduct not incinterated will eventually undergo decomposition, whether intentional or simply buried in a landfill; any situation which worms participate in the process appears to reduce harmful emissions overall.&quot;&#xA;&#xA;Good point for the case of comparing vermicomposting VS landfill burying. What about in countries where incineration is the norm?" CreationDate="2022-04-20T15:10:02.890" UserId="13882" />
  <row Id="15709" PostId="12132" Score="1" Text="Incineration has so many different emission profiles possible. Is is pure organic waste or mixed post consumer plastic and electronics? Are the wastes burned in an open pit? Are they vaporized in an anoxic reducing chamber, then charged into plasma to use paramagnetic effects to essentially refine them into Carbon Monoxide and H2 for secondary use as fuel for IC engines and steam generation? Short answer; most likely case is at this time most of the CO2 is headed airborne fast if it's incineration." CreationDate="2022-04-21T23:47:38.360" UserId="13768" />
  <row Id="15710" PostId="12132" Score="0" Text="Could you include this to your answer in order to make it more thorough? And maybe you may reorganize the text to make it more structured in regards to the question and the different cases. That would make a perfect answer! Thanks." CreationDate="2022-04-22T08:57:53.303" UserId="13882" />
  <row Id="15782" PostId="12136" Score="0" Text="YouTube doesn't default to the highest resolution in all scenarios. If you are on a mobile device and connected to a cellular network, YouTube will default to a lower resolution. Likewise, if your internet speed is slow, YouTube will also lower your streaming resolution." CreationDate="2022-05-18T10:54:06.527" UserId="8232" />
  <row Id="15788" PostId="12136" Score="0" Text="Thanks @Robotnik, I've just edited my response" CreationDate="2022-05-18T14:21:49.407" UserId="13882" />
  <row Id="15693" PostId="12137" Score="0" Text="Do you have any reason to think methane is not normal for a ruminant digestive system?" CreationDate="2022-04-14T14:26:10.250" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="15694" PostId="12137" Score="0" Text="&quot;normal&quot; is a bit to broad. If you're asking &quot;can methane be changed by diet?&quot; So the methane is produced, or mostly produced, by the microbiome in the gut of a cow, which means answer is &quot;yes&quot;. But if your question is &quot;if we lower the emissions without negatively affecting the productivity (meat, milk, reproduction), the answer is I don't know." CreationDate="2022-04-14T15:56:31.797" UserId="13899" />
  <row Id="15696" PostId="12138" Score="0" Text="amazing, thank you so much!" CreationDate="2022-04-15T14:11:06.957" UserId="13899" />
  <row Id="15700" PostId="12140" Score="2" Text="Citations that verify this would improve this answer." CreationDate="2022-04-17T17:55:18.843" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="15701" PostId="12141" Score="1" Text="This doesn't answer the question." CreationDate="2022-04-17T17:56:57.323" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="15711" PostId="12142" Score="0" Text="The reason that VRF is normally found in larger buildings is because the efficiency gains are most notable while parts of the building need cooling, while others need heating. In large commercial buildings, the core areas (with no external walls) may in fact need cooling year-round; in a home it's unlikely that one area would need heating while another needs cooling, so you're unlikely to get the most benefit from VRF. Instead, different areas will simply need different *amounts* of heating or cooling." CreationDate="2022-04-22T14:39:46.810" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15712" PostId="12142" Score="0" Text="Another disadvantage of VRF is that large amounts of refrigerant are needed, increasing the risk of leaking refrigerants, which are [potent greenhouse gases](https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/resources/documents/high-gwp-refrigerants). As an alternative, have you considered placing a [minisplit](https://www.fujitsugeneral.com/us/residential/what-is-a-mini-split.html) in the area(s) of the home that are most often at the &quot;wrong&quot; temperature?" CreationDate="2022-04-22T14:43:24.180" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15714" PostId="12142" Score="0" Text="I'm guessing these comments were made on the answer without having read my question, since that's exactly the situation I describe.&#xA;Plus, I also don't think the refrigerant volume is an issue either. Three mini split systems would need almost double the length of refrigerant pipes as a Mitsubishi VRF-HR system with a suitably positioned Branch Controller, if you could get one small enough." CreationDate="2022-04-24T00:32:19.573" UserId="164" />
  <row Id="15716" PostId="12142" Score="0" Text="I reread the question, and want to clarify one thing. If you turned your current system completely off on any given day in heating season, would both parts of the house get cold? If so, VRF is not the solution. VRF is designed for buildings where during heating season, some parts need heating, and others need cooling. I believe your problem is that your current system overheats one part in an attempt to sufficiently heat another." CreationDate="2022-04-24T01:30:30.087" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15721" PostId="12142" Score="0" Text="Even in 2018 the upstairs radiators rarely turned on, but since my original question (now updated), heat load upstairs has increased further (more tech, more power hungry tech, working from home &amp; needing to keep windows closed for privacy reasons), so we've moved to a situation where upstairs would benefit from cooling all year round, and downstairs only ever really needs heating. What we really don't want is to be simultaneously using electricity to cool upstairs, while burning gas to heat downstairs, which is why VFR-HR would be ideal, it it were available for smaller installations." CreationDate="2022-04-27T12:10:06.737" UserId="164" />
  <row Id="16305" PostId="12143" Score="0" Text="&quot;I imagine the gas used while idling is about the same as if you feather it at 60mph.&quot; - I don't see how it could be possible that maintaining a speed of 60mph for 1 minute takes the same amount of gas as maintaining a speed of 0mph for 1 minute. If that were true, you could idle your way down the highway at 60mph without touching the gas pedal, since idle power would be enough to maintain your speed." CreationDate="2023-03-07T19:28:34.113" UserId="5953" />
  <row Id="16642" PostId="12144" Score="0" Text="Related question: [Lowest impact transatlantic crossing](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/829/99)" CreationDate="2024-03-26T08:05:34.567" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="16640" PostId="12145" Score="2" Text="Buses don't use 40 liters per kilometer. 40 liters per hundred sounds more realistic. Flights are at 3.5l per passenger per 100km. A bus with 10 passengers will be at 0.4l/pax/100km - or a tenth of the plane." CreationDate="2024-03-25T23:03:26.043" UserId="14517" />
  <row Id="16641" PostId="12145" Score="0" Text="Trains are better than buses, but both are better than driving your own car or flying. I would not feel guilty about taking a bus." CreationDate="2024-03-25T23:04:35.747" UserId="14517" />
  <row Id="16644" PostId="12145" Score="0" Text="A bus that used 40l per kilometer would be constantly stopping to refuel, which clearly isn't the case. Long distance diesel buses/coaches are a relatively low carbon way to travel, if electric train is not an option. A study by the UK Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy referenced here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-49349566 suggests that the carbon emissions from travelling by coach is significantly less than domestic rail (in the UK)" CreationDate="2024-03-26T08:39:33.880" UserId="3851" />
  <row Id="16645" PostId="12145" Score="0" Text="Indeed, all of the units (including that of the airplane) were off by a factor of 100. However, that doesn't change the end result, since airplane was similarly affected." CreationDate="2024-03-26T15:36:29.177" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="15718" PostId="12146" Score="0" Text="I didn't find a resource-request or reference-request tag, nor one for artificial-intelligence or rural-solutions, so I've tagged the best I could. Suggestions welcomed!" CreationDate="2022-04-25T02:38:16.510" UserId="5824" />
  <row Id="15719" PostId="12146" Score="1" Text="Note: this only works in areas without real winter. Areas such as California. In Europe for example, only the southernmost parts such as south Italy, south Spain and Greece have enough solar power every day regardless of the seasons. In North Germany or Finland for example, solar power is so heavily seasonal that you would need seasonal energy storage. That's only feasible using hydrogen or pumped hydropower, both of which are large-scale solutions. The only other alternative renewable power production that doesn't suffer from seasons, wind power, is also large-scale." CreationDate="2022-04-25T16:29:01.400" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="15720" PostId="12146" Score="0" Text="@juhist yes that seems correct. Northern Africa and India do look like good candidates in [this map](https://earthscience.stackexchange.com/a/8880/6031) but the Indonesian archipelago and northern South America might be more challenged by extended periods of cloud cover." CreationDate="2022-04-25T20:37:40.173" UserId="5824" />
  <row Id="15724" PostId="12147" Score="0" Text="Thanks, PCM looks interesting. The difference between an unoccupied room and a room occupied by one person is about a kW of heat load, so if a material can absorb 12 hours of the room being occupied during 12 hours of it being unoccupied, it could potentially offset any diurnal variation, but that still leaves the static heat load to deal with." CreationDate="2022-04-28T12:14:58.283" UserId="164" />
  <row Id="15725" PostId="12147" Score="0" Text="Sadly, while teher are many papers, actual products seem thin on the ground, so it looks like PCM products are at an earlier stage in their development cycle than VRF/VRV systems are. In fact the only actual PCM product I've found so far is a Daikin module for their VRV system which is designed to provide a heat source while defrosting their external heat pumps in cold environments." CreationDate="2022-04-28T12:17:13.157" UserId="164" />
  <row Id="15726" PostId="12147" Score="1" Text="Names of a few vendors are listed in [this blog post](https://www.ecohome.net/guides/2205/phase-change-building-materials-natural-heat-storage-in-buildings/). My colleagues did a field study in the U.S. so it is commercially available, though still very niche and mostly targeted to the new construction market." CreationDate="2022-04-28T12:31:39.407" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15727" PostId="12147" Score="0" Text="Yeah, this reminds me of BIPV, there are products out there, but it's so much easier to integrate at building design time that options for retrofitting are few and far between." CreationDate="2022-04-28T14:55:46.923" UserId="164" />
  <row Id="15728" PostId="12147" Score="1" Text="I fear a large enough amount of a phase-change material would be so expensive and require so much space that there would be cheaper changes to the heating system to equalize the temperature." CreationDate="2022-04-28T16:25:45.580" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="15729" PostId="12147" Score="0" Text="@juhist that's entirely possible -- it may in fact end up being more expensive and complicated than heating the concrete slab, which I would argue is the best solution." CreationDate="2022-04-28T16:44:08.420" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="16430" PostId="12147" Score="0" Text="If you can bury a 1200 m³ cistern under your house, [you can even heat with ice](https://www.kfw.de/stories/environment/renewable-energy/eisspeicher-sternenberger-hof/)." CreationDate="2023-07-17T14:40:45.167" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="15730" PostId="12148" Score="0" Text="Query: You mention blown in cellulose insulation is already in place. I'm assuming it's loose. Is this type of insulation just above the horizontal blue zone or is it also in the red zones? If it is in the red zones has the entire triangular section formed by the angled ceiling &amp; wall been filled in with loose cellulose fiber, or does the thickness of the insulation vary from very thick at the bottom to thin at the top, near the blue zones?" CreationDate="2022-04-30T03:27:52.080" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="15731" PostId="12148" Score="0" Text="@Fred that's a good question. There is no venting at the rafter tail, only the peak, so I assume the whole space in red is filled with cellulose (or at least that an attempt was made to fill it). But the attic access is only large enough for my head, so I can't actually investigate without opening the ceiling. I added a picture of the exterior." CreationDate="2022-04-30T14:28:09.790" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15734" PostId="12148" Score="0" Text="From the photo of the external of the house, I would be surprised if there is any blown in insulation in the red zones. The gap between the ceiling and the roof looks very narrow. The type of insulation for such a situation would need to be solid &amp; sheet like, something similar to what @blacksmith37 mentions. I think it would be easier to replace the insulation at the same time as the roof is being replaced, particularly in the red zones. The people at SE Home Improvement might be able go give some ideas." CreationDate="2022-05-01T11:56:14.993" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="15750" PostId="12148" Score="0" Text="Regarding the blown in insulation in the roof. Prior to doing anything, ensure it's something benign like cellulose fiber &amp; **[not asbestos](https://www.thespruce.com/how-to-identify-dangerous-asbestos-insulation-4119906)**." CreationDate="2022-05-05T20:32:32.547" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="15732" PostId="12150" Score="0" Text="Was this a renovation? Did you notice much improvement?" CreationDate="2022-04-30T23:05:23.807" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15733" PostId="12150" Score="0" Text="New construction, nothing to compare it to. And this design was was a small fraction of the total roof ; less than 10%." CreationDate="2022-05-01T00:00:39.057" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="15736" PostId="12152" Score="0" Text="The clover that I know pokes-up white flowers and looks like weeds. However, the honey bees like it. Now, wild-strawberry looks more neutral in the yard to me. Something else to consider is fine-fescue which just flops over when it gets too tall. Fine-fescue is said to not like heat but it does seem to like sunlight. Now how is the current lawn removed without too much expense ?" CreationDate="2022-05-02T07:17:01.460" UserId="6293" />
  <row Id="15739" PostId="12152" Score="0" Text="You just cut the current grass as low as your mower will allow, rake up that and the thatch, and then over-seed it. Last, water for about a week." CreationDate="2022-05-02T21:02:29.650" UserId="6264" />
  <row Id="15738" PostId="12153" Score="0" Text="Nice find! I wonder how recently this was added, it wasn't there when I asked the question." CreationDate="2022-05-02T13:39:12.057" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15744" PostId="12154" Score="0" Text="Net or gross? The cost of building shade would be non-trivial, and the difficulty of planting trees significant. But if there were solar panel arrays over the car parks that would dramatically change the equation.  Reflective semi-inulating windscreen shades are very common   here (~$10). As are cheap plastic window-mounted solar powered fans (~$20). But I ride a bike so I don't have the problem and I might be missing something important." CreationDate="2022-05-04T04:21:32.847" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15745" PostId="12154" Score="0" Text="@Moz I was interested in the gross benefits first -- we'd have to know how much energy the shade could save before determining how much solar you'd need. A steel structure with metal roofing for shade would go up quickly -- there are also aluminum-framed &quot;hoop houses&quot; you can buy for cars and set up with one person in a few hours. Also I agree with those solutions, but shaded parking lots would not require people to do anything they aren't already doing." CreationDate="2022-05-04T12:21:31.573" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15746" PostId="12154" Score="1" Text="In Australia people are already doing the windscreen shades, I'm not sure I'd say it's rare to see someone not using one but in some places that's definitely true (near beaches especially)" CreationDate="2022-05-05T01:21:23.537" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15747" PostId="12154" Score="1" Text="to me the &quot;solar panels over car park&quot; seems easier to get investment for, because there's a definite return to the people doing it. &quot;put up shade for others&quot; ... the carpark is already heavily used, adding shade won't change that. That's a different sense of &quot;not require anything people aren't already doing&quot; though. A quick search says there's multiple businesses in Australia already doing &quot;car park solar farm&quot; so you and me might be a bit slow off the mark on that one." CreationDate="2022-05-05T01:23:28.123" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15748" PostId="12154" Score="1" Text="@Móż I really just want to know what the energy benefits of shading the cars are -- regardless of who or what is providing the shade :)" CreationDate="2022-05-05T01:31:37.520" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15749" PostId="12154" Score="0" Text="I doubt there is much energy factor as an ICE engine has so much power that turning an AC makes little difference. The huge difference is quality of life. My employers in Houston provided covered parking , I may not have taken a job with no covered parking in Houston. Not the same as wimpy sun in WI." CreationDate="2022-05-05T14:37:27.393" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="15751" PostId="12154" Score="1" Text="Don't do the trip by car in the first place?" CreationDate="2022-05-06T07:43:35.860" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="15752" PostId="12154" Score="0" Text="@Erik I agree that less driving is best. I'm simply curious to know how much energy this might save. Considering that certain vehicles will always be required (delivery vehicles, taxis, ambulances, etc) there could still be a place for this solution, especially if the energy savings are significant. But that's not a conversation we can have until we know how much!" CreationDate="2022-05-06T11:02:25.117" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15779" PostId="12154" Score="1" Text="I do not know anyone who parks in the sun when shade is available." CreationDate="2022-05-17T06:32:18.437" UserId="1567" />
  <row Id="15740" PostId="12155" Score="4" Text="I disagree with this assessment. I get the impression you have never lived in a hot climate. For a car that has been sitting in the sun for several hours with ambient temperatures above 40C every part of the interior will have absorbed heat. Simply cooling the air inside is insufficient. The front of anyone seated may be cooled by AC cooled air from the air vents, but the back, buttocks &amp; thighs will be heated by the heat within the seat. Heat will be radiated from the steering wheel, dash, console, doors &amp; everything else in the car. Opening the windows to let the outside air in to ..." CreationDate="2022-05-04T00:58:52.603" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="15741" PostId="12155" Score="0" Text="... reduce the temperature inside while driving is no comfort when the ambient temperature is still 40C or above. It's just a hot air blast! Opening all the doors for a prolonged period to remove the ultra hot air inside with ambient air, prior to travel can reduce some of the heat burden, but the interior of the car will be radiating heat for a long time &amp; people's backs will be heated. Most people don't have time to what to replace the interior hot air with ambient outside air prior to travel. In many ways this question is poorly framed. ..." CreationDate="2022-05-04T01:07:01.683" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="15743" PostId="12155" Score="0" Text="... Driving a car that has ultra hot air in it for a short distance, the AC will do a lot of work, but the occupants of the car may not experience any effective cooling during a short trip. Having left my car out of the sun at shopping centers on blistering hot days, whether it's under an awning/canopy or an underground car park, the difference in temperature of the car interior can be vary significant &amp; it's much more preferable than leaving the car in the sun. Cooling of the car interior is achieved more quickly." CreationDate="2022-05-04T01:17:10.300" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="15756" PostId="12159" Score="0" Text="I'd have thought that the [second answer](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/a/116/1057) in your link covers it, though without citations. What do you think?" CreationDate="2022-05-08T04:48:49.323" UserId="1057" />
  <row Id="15757" PostId="12159" Score="0" Text="@LittlePickle I saw that answer before posting this question. Subjectively, without knowledge that an entire generally energy conscious nation does things the way of the second most upvoted answer, I would have voted for the first since opening your windows in the middle and of winter strikes me as nonsensible in comparison to an ERV/HRV. Recognizing a potential bias in my culture (and a similar potential bias in other upvoters), I asked this question in hopes of more objective supporting data in the answers." CreationDate="2022-05-08T05:58:35.423" UserId="13960" />
  <row Id="15758" PostId="12159" Score="0" Text="… If opening your windows is truly the inferior solution, then I can think of no better way to be green than to use objective data to try to convince an entire country that they’re doing it wrong (unless they aren’t)." CreationDate="2022-05-08T06:02:37.270" UserId="13960" />
  <row Id="15845" PostId="12159" Score="0" Text="I live down by the Bodensee, maybe it's different there, but we are advised to open our windows for 60 seconds once per hour as long as you are using the room. This gets rid of the warm, moist and CO2 filled air without cooling the surfaces in the room. It heats up again in no time." CreationDate="2022-06-23T08:51:07.667" UserId="1567" />
  <row Id="15760" PostId="12161" Score="0" Text="That's true, but the original question was for the US emissions factors provided by the US EPA vs the UK government.  See the image I uploaded.  The answer is the one below." CreationDate="2022-05-08T13:19:53.493" UserId="13962" />
  <row Id="15763" PostId="12164" Score="0" Text="Water is commonly used as a heat sink. It can be passive ( storage tank) , or active with water being pumped between various containers. I have a poor multifunction system with 135 gallons of aquariums in my shed that heat in the day and cool at night." CreationDate="2022-05-08T19:55:36.690" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="15770" PostId="12164" Score="0" Text="Asking now at https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/12167/combining-an-air-water-heat-pump-and-a-solar-water-heater" CreationDate="2022-05-10T23:23:47.410" UserId="13963" />
  <row Id="15764" PostId="12165" Score="0" Text="Wait - I was asking what material I can use for wall coverings, bookcases and cabinet walls." CreationDate="2022-05-09T17:37:26.297" UserId="13963" />
  <row Id="15765" PostId="12165" Score="0" Text="... that said, I am considering putting solar panelling on the roof. I take your answer implies that I should look into systems that use solar energy captured on the roof to heat water (I have water-based radiators, which will be heated by an air-to-water heatpump otherwise) in the winter, while presumably converting it into energy in the summer. Do such systems exist (for private houses)?" CreationDate="2022-05-09T17:42:11.683" UserId="13963" />
  <row Id="15766" PostId="12165" Score="0" Text="Wall coverings, bookcases and cabinet walls are not effective in storing heat. You really need a water-based system if you want to store significant amounts of heat." CreationDate="2022-05-10T17:02:10.797" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="15767" PostId="12165" Score="0" Text="I'm not trying to heat my house with cabinet walls. I am trying to see: given that I must have bookcases, walls and cabinets, and that there is a wall that gets direct sunlight (through the windows) during the winter, is there something I can do with said bookcases, walls and cabinets to gain 1 or 2 C, say, at least in the area immediately adjacent to them." CreationDate="2022-05-10T18:22:00.970" UserId="13963" />
  <row Id="15768" PostId="12165" Score="0" Text="That said, I do have a roof, and of course I am considering using it to heat water (or produce electricity). You are right that that should help much more, but it is complementary to my other question. Or is there some other possibility I am not understanding?" CreationDate="2022-05-10T18:23:57.163" UserId="13963" />
  <row Id="15769" PostId="12165" Score="0" Text="Asking at https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/12167/combining-an-air-water-heat-pump-and-a-solar-water-heater . Thanks for pointing me in that direction." CreationDate="2022-05-10T23:05:43.007" UserId="13963" />
  <row Id="15773" PostId="12170" Score="0" Text="Thanks juhist for the considered answer, but sorry I should have clarified, I more meant around what projects could a developer get involved in creating software that supports environmental initiatives rather than performance of languages themselves - but interesting none the less." CreationDate="2022-05-14T20:23:51.223" UserId="13980" />
  <row Id="15790" PostId="12181" Score="4" Text="Interesting discussion, but this doesn't really answer the question." CreationDate="2022-05-19T13:46:28.747" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15796" PostId="12185" Score="1" Text="Why do you line your bins at all? At least where I am there's no legal requirement to do that, and I find that if I wash the bin occasionally it's fine without a liner. The outside wheely bin I never wash or do anything more than scrape stuck items loose after it's been emptied." CreationDate="2022-05-24T05:15:38.087" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15797" PostId="12185" Score="1" Text="@Móż Smell containment, wind containment, to ensure all of it ends up in the truck and not flying out and into the gutters, and to reduce the impact of [pests](https://edition.cnn.com/2021/07/22/australia/cockatoos-trash-can-study-intl-hnk-scli-scn/index.html). I only line internal bins, not external ones." CreationDate="2022-05-24T11:21:30.623" UserId="8232" />
  <row Id="15846" PostId="12185" Score="0" Text="Don't they sell paper sacks too? We use more-or-less waterproof paper sacks for biodegradable rubbish. You have to let the stuff drip dry first... But obviously we are not allowed to put plastic in the bio bin." CreationDate="2022-06-23T09:00:49.797" UserId="1567" />
  <row Id="15791" PostId="12186" Score="1" Text="+1.  Just saying that I have found the same issue, it is really hard to book long distance multi-stage public transport trips and it seems it is only IT systems that are missing.  Building IT systems should be really easy/cheap from a AGW standpoint." CreationDate="2022-05-23T10:46:19.163" UserId="13618" />
  <row Id="15793" PostId="12186" Score="1" Text="NB, it is slightly overstated to say that buying tickets from England to southern Spain is a nightmare.  Both London - Barcelona and Barcelona - Malaga can be bought at thetrainline.com and you can stay in Barcelona overnight in-between." CreationDate="2022-05-23T15:53:35.843" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="15802" PostId="12186" Score="0" Text="Portugal to Latvia by train, meh, ... what about Buenos Aires to Vancouver? That would be a train trip &amp; a half. I can already visualize the advertising poster - *Across the Andes by Bullet Train*. Or how about Cape Town to Copenhagen via Cairo &amp; Istanbul, or the western route via Gibraltar? Better still, do a loop, travel to Copenhagen via Cairo &amp; Istanbul, then return to Cape Town via Gibraltar." CreationDate="2022-05-25T07:45:35.420" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="15804" PostId="12186" Score="0" Text="@Fred haha yes exactly, but actually why not? Taking into account climate changes seriously will imply to change the way we consider long-distance travels" CreationDate="2022-05-25T10:52:36.130" UserId="13882" />
  <row Id="15805" PostId="12186" Score="0" Text="These kinds of routs are handy for certain type of travelling,but what keeps them to be more useful and high in demand is inconvenience.That was the reason railway industry lost its vigour.The trains have improved greatly but still noise isolation, smoothing vibration, improving on train services, increasing privacy of a traveler by different approach to the interior design can get the vigour back to it.For travellers on long distance and several countries on their itenerary,train traveling will be preferential.Right now it’s boring and clumsy.Airway industry is relatively new, has the vigour." CreationDate="2022-05-27T08:36:13.573" UserId="13223" />
  <row Id="15918" PostId="12187" Score="0" Text="We (in Germany) checked if we could go on holiday to e.g. the South of France by train. Of course you can, but the train companies don't seem to want you to. A long-distance train may not travel at night at all. One we could have taken stops in Lyon for 8 hours. And so on. Trains won't cross borders (e.g. from France to Spain), you have to get out and change. Until the train companies decide they want our custom we will continue to use the car to go on holiday. Shame." CreationDate="2022-08-01T13:03:33.523" UserId="1567" />
  <row Id="15919" PostId="12187" Score="1" Text="@RedSonja There are direct daily trains from Frankfurt to Marseille that you can book on bahn.de.  There are also direct daily trains from Paris to Madrid that you can book through SNCF or RENFE, no need to change at the border!  I already mentioned thetrainline as a booking website and seat61.com as a general source.  It's true that booking long distance trains in Europe can be a hassle, but I've taken train vacations to southern Spain many times from Sweden, Netherlands, UK, and Germany, and it's entirely possible. Don't let the complicated booking put you off.  You know [Travel.SE] SE ☺" CreationDate="2022-08-01T13:07:44.257" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="15920" PostId="12187" Score="1" Text="You have renewed my interest in rail travel. Shall try it. Next stop Prague. Though we are down by the Bodensee, which often means we have to take the slow train to Stuttgart or Ulm before we even start." CreationDate="2022-08-02T07:50:42.817" UserId="1567" />
  <row Id="15795" PostId="12189" Score="1" Text="In regards to your first paragraph - this is why I had a tub of them - I kept all of them, even took some off family and friends to save them from being thrown out. I've used them for various things over the years, but all of their use cases (other than waste disposal) were usurped by reusable shopping bags [like these](https://cdn0.woolworths.media/content/content/bag-for-good-v2.png). I gave the plastic bags a good multi-use run while I had them though :)" CreationDate="2022-05-24T00:18:22.947" UserId="8232" />
  <row Id="15809" PostId="12197" Score="0" Text="Thanks a lot for the explanation. What I have trouble with is that now I have calculated all lcai based on what I found in the Okobaudat and I would like to convert various impacts into a same unit. However, I don't know from where I can find a conversion table for EN15804+A2. My input is only material." CreationDate="2022-05-30T10:49:38.407" UserId="14030" />
  <row Id="15810" PostId="12197" Score="0" Text="@Arbo94 I'm afraid I am not following you. EN15804+A2 is a norm. I'm not very familiar with it, but my understanding is that it says what impacts should be included in your analysis and dictates that you have to do an end-of-life-analysis (among others). So what's this conversion table you are looking for?" CreationDate="2022-05-30T14:16:00.633" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="15811" PostId="12197" Score="0" Text="Sorry, I meant that I like to convert different LCA impact units to kg CO2 eq. For example, from Kg CFC 11-eq to Kg Co2-eq...but I don't know the conversion value." CreationDate="2022-05-31T11:34:12.227" UserId="14030" />
  <row Id="15812" PostId="12197" Score="0" Text="@Arbo94 Ok, so the issue is converting different greenhouse gasses to CO2e. I'll add something to my answer how to do that." CreationDate="2022-05-31T12:34:24.820" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="15813" PostId="12198" Score="0" Text="*as I would just be charged for it, not credited for it because there is not a 2 way meter.* Are you sure that you'd be *charged*? Can you provide your country and the name of your electric utility? I'm not aware of anywhere that it's legal to charge people for excess solar generation per kWh." CreationDate="2022-06-01T00:24:12.570" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15815" PostId="12198" Score="1" Text="I don't think it's about if it's legal or not, more of a technical limitation. The meter is dated 1991. I have read this in many places that these meters can only detect the current, and have no way to determine the direction of the current. Anywho it is in Alberta, Canada. Enmax is the electrical provider." CreationDate="2022-06-01T02:27:40.650" UserId="14037" />
  <row Id="15816" PostId="12198" Score="0" Text="I looked at Enmax's website and they indicate you'd get a credit for excess solar (see [microgeneration](https://www.enmax.com/home/renewable-energy/solar/solar-costs-credits-and-your-utility-bill/solar-and-your-utility-bill)). I'd recommend calling them to ask -- when you apply for solar interconnection, they may verify if your meter is compatible and upgrade it if necessary." CreationDate="2022-06-01T12:33:55.270" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15817" PostId="12198" Score="0" Text="Yeah I already looked into it and it's just not a very good deal, they force you to use one of their contractors, make you pay them to install your own solar panels, etc. It's just a big money black hole. I just want to try and understand how to do, what I am trying to do." CreationDate="2022-06-02T02:36:50.560" UserId="14037" />
  <row Id="15818" PostId="12198" Score="0" Text="Note that &quot;interconnection&quot; is different from &quot;installation&quot; -- regardless of who installs it, you need to notify the utility through an interconnection application that you've got a solar PV system, in order to legally be able to turn it on. As part of this process they should confirm if your meter is the right type, and what it would cost to upgrade if needed. It's possible that your local city/town may actually handle the permitting and interconnection process too." CreationDate="2022-06-02T03:13:48.887" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15819" PostId="12198" Score="1" Text="Either way, if there's no charge for exporting power, then there's really no difference from your perspective between limiting your export and just letting the excess go back to the grid. Besides, export limiting would require some electronics and programming that cost money and can break, so if you skip this step you will likely save time/money. You'll just have to live with the fact that the utility is getting a bit of free power from you!" CreationDate="2022-06-02T03:15:26.600" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15821" PostId="12199" Score="0" Text="&quot;It's possible each phase is measured separately with a separate ratchet.&quot; I don't believe this is true. [Blondel's theorem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blondel%27s_theorem) was developed in 1893, which states that for a system of `n` wires, `n-1` wattmeters are needed. So a three phase system uses three wattmeters (referencing the neutral) to measure a single total value -- it would cost more to build a meter with three separate ratchets..." CreationDate="2022-06-06T02:17:09.437" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15822" PostId="12199" Score="0" Text="...  and if you look at an [old electric meter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_meter#/media/File:Hydro_quebec_meter.JPG) there's a single big wheel in the middle, which is where the ratchet would be." CreationDate="2022-06-06T02:17:50.620" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15841" PostId="12199" Score="1" Text="It is _technically_ possible for a digital meter with remote monitoring capability to alert the power company if you feed even a small amount of power back to the grid for any amount of time. I don't know if any meter actually does that or, if any power company watches for that, but the potential is there for you to get into some kind of trouble if you feed back power without having secured permission to do so." CreationDate="2022-06-21T20:00:45.813" UserId="4671" />
  <row Id="15874" PostId="12199" Score="0" Text="With digital meters, the ratchet is just a software feature. Thus, it's as easy to implement three separate digital ratchets than just one digital ratchet. Of course with analog meters, having separate ratchets adds cost." CreationDate="2022-07-04T16:34:46.237" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="16071" PostId="12199" Score="0" Text="There are two misconceptions here. First, utility meters use`n-1` wattmeters for a system of `n` wires because it is cheaper and sufficiently accurate across any number of phases (less sensor hardware). Per-phase power (using `n` wattmeters) is only done in highly specialized equipment, power quality monitoring, etc." CreationDate="2022-10-31T18:01:31.943" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="16072" PostId="12199" Score="1" Text="Second, digital meters don't use a &quot;ratchet&quot; in the same sense as analog meters. On an analog meter, if the meter starts to run &quot;backwards&quot;, the ratchet engages, and the information about how much power went backwards is lost. Digital meters, instead, have separate &quot;buckets&quot;, one for measuring power used, and one for power generated -- so the data about time the meter went backwards is *not* lost. The utility can then see both quantities, and they are only combined at the end for billing purposes." CreationDate="2022-10-31T18:03:16.523" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="16073" PostId="12199" Score="0" Text="Source: I used to commission and service utility-grade electric meters." CreationDate="2022-10-31T18:04:15.867" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15820" PostId="12200" Score="1" Text="I'm guessing the reason is that the efficiency benefits don't outweigh the maintenance and cost concerns (i.e. for the amount of efficiency you'd gain, it would be cheaper/easier to just spec a more efficient unit). But I'll be interested to see what answers come." CreationDate="2022-06-04T17:35:57.367" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15825" PostId="12200" Score="0" Text="I have come up with a potential issue with sudden temperature changes when the first cold water drops hit the hot radiator, it could cause the metals to wear faster due to expansion and crimping. But how much difference would it case during the life span? I still think the energy savings will far outweigh the material damage." CreationDate="2022-06-08T07:17:36.327" UserId="2182" />
  <row Id="15826" PostId="12200" Score="0" Text="Anything involving a Peltier is going to be really inefficient." CreationDate="2022-06-09T08:48:56.430" UserId="9252" />
  <row Id="15823" PostId="12201" Score="0" Text="For indoor units I understand, they usually have a bucket with a float switch. However These could also use Peltier elements to boil it away into the hot air duct. I added a photo of what I have often seen here in the Netherlands, these units are often labeled as A+++ for energy efficiency, but could raise the bar allot more with a minor tweak. I wouldn't give the water a 2nd chance since it will not get much cleaner. [This company even has heated pans to evaporate the water.](https://www.ezyair.com.au/blogs/before-you-start/termination-of-condensate-drains) (scroll down to the bottom)." CreationDate="2022-06-06T21:02:28.563" UserId="2182" />
  <row Id="15824" PostId="12202" Score="0" Text="If the AC is also used as a heat pump during the winter (which is becoming common), then there will be a few months where it will be &quot;usually wet&quot;. When it is freezing the air is dry but between 0 and 20 Celsius the radiator is bound to get allot of dew." CreationDate="2022-06-08T07:06:30.193" UserId="2182" />
  <row Id="15832" PostId="12203" Score="0" Text="How do you define &quot;damage from current energy crisis&quot;? Damage to who or what?" CreationDate="2022-06-14T10:20:28.940" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="15827" PostId="12204" Score="2" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Could you please add in which country you are living? Rules vary." CreationDate="2022-06-09T17:09:05.487" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="15828" PostId="12204" Score="0" Text="What restrictions are you thinking?  Health (physical or mental), legal, practical? [Are you aware of people that do](https://travellermovement.org.uk/gypsy-roma-and-traveller-history-and-culture)?" CreationDate="2022-06-10T06:27:35.643" UserId="13618" />
  <row Id="15830" PostId="12204" Score="0" Text="in Canada, thank you! I am not aware of legal restrictions yet, and hygiene is also a concern." CreationDate="2022-06-11T03:18:40.780" UserId="14058" />
  <row Id="15834" PostId="12210" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Is there a research report or publication you could share?" CreationDate="2022-06-18T07:21:55.473" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="15833" PostId="12211" Score="0" Text="Thank you for reading and answering my question! You offered practical data on first hand. And I do think this system will be difficult to maintain by only one person. What I planned is to run at community scale, which includes major organic waste producers (Supermarkets, coffee shop, local parks, etc). The waste  will be collected and delivered to nearby reactors on regular basis. This will also decrease the fuel consumption of garbage trucks." CreationDate="2022-06-17T04:08:28.677" UserId="13870" />
  <row Id="15835" PostId="12212" Score="0" Text="The situation in Sri Lanka may be more complicated than reported in the media. I wonder whether the right type of organic fertilizer was used. Did it have all the requirements needed by the crops and did the farmers have enough fertilizer?" CreationDate="2022-06-18T12:01:41.877" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="15836" PostId="12212" Score="4" Text="Based on [this q on Skeptics.SE](https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/q/53220/38403), it's my understanding that the problems in Sri Lanka stem from the attempt to make the transition with no training for farmers and no understanding of the proper way to transition farming methods." CreationDate="2022-06-18T12:15:25.787" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="16092" PostId="12212" Score="0" Text="it's possibly more helpful to think about it as &quot;industrial farming&quot; or &quot;chemical farming&quot;... there's a whole interlinked web of systems that go into the &quot;green revolution&quot; modern farming systems. Similarly with organic and especially sustainable farming techniques. Although worth noting that agriculture is traditionally extractive and short term, we have few example of agricultural societies lasting more than a millenia and the major one was deliberately exterminated (the British invasion of Australia). Some useful terms to look for are &quot;regenerative farming&quot; and &quot;permaculture&quot;." CreationDate="2022-11-15T22:20:57.830" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="16093" PostId="12212" Score="1" Text="You will find the objectively measured nutrients ( N, P, K ) , in organic fertilizer is inadequate for substantial crop production." CreationDate="2022-11-16T00:44:08.860" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="15844" PostId="12213" Score="0" Text="+1 The majority of this explanation is comparing opening all windows at once to a window left open slightly all day, correct? While I get the very last point that would apply to an inefficiently designed ERV system (e.g. one that extracts and introduces air from/to a single room within a home would result in inefficient air exchange), I think a properly designed ERV/HRV system with a forced air furnace to efficiently exchange air throughout a home could still be more efficient in winter." CreationDate="2022-06-22T21:46:06.243" UserId="13960" />
  <row Id="15847" PostId="12213" Score="0" Text="Fair point .. I've added an extra paragraph." CreationDate="2022-06-23T12:03:21.630" UserId="8013" />
  <row Id="15938" PostId="12213" Score="0" Text="Is your heat capacity for humid or dry air? With the &quot;typical room conditions&quot; from , I get 20 K ⋅ 40 m³ ⋅ 1.21 kJ K⁻¹ m⁻³ ≈ 1000 kJ ≈ 0.28 kWh" CreationDate="2022-08-05T15:48:51.857" UserId="3722" />
  <row Id="15838" PostId="12214" Score="1" Text="But with the current technology, we can't do without chemical fertilizers, can we? They say we don't have enough manure to keep crop production at its current levels. We would have to keep more cattle and grow more grains to feed them (doesn't sound sustainable)" CreationDate="2022-06-20T22:17:15.403" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="15839" PostId="12214" Score="3" Text="Your answer would be improved by a whole truckload of citations" CreationDate="2022-06-21T09:24:39.430" UserId="1567" />
  <row Id="15905" PostId="12214" Score="0" Text="Nitrogen is not a problem as substance, but it is very much an energy problem in terms of sustainablilty. I crunched numbers some years ago, and came to the conclusion that about 1/6 of the worldwide fossil gas consumption goes into the production of nitrogen fertilizer. Nitrogen losses to the air or ground water are a concern for organic fertilizers as well, a quick googling told me an order of magnitude of about 10 % (for fermented manure), but with a range that can be as low as 2 %, but also as high as 40 %. (It still may be most effective to let parts of  the nitrogen of the manure ..." CreationDate="2022-07-29T07:54:39.280" UserId="3722" />
  <row Id="15906" PostId="12214" Score="0" Text="... be converted to N2 which escapes into air during fermentation and instead have biological nitrogen fixation by e.g. mixed crops with Fabaceae (legumes/peas/beans).) However, right now, IMHO the energy aspect is not to be neglected." CreationDate="2022-07-29T07:58:06.007" UserId="3722" />
  <row Id="16096" PostId="12214" Score="0" Text="Yes, today natural gas is massively used to make hydrogen, to make ammonia, to make fertilizers. However, we need to look into the future. There's massive land wind power resources in many countries (like Finland), and even more massive offshore wind resources practically everywhere. Wind power is already competitive. Green hydrogen projects are popping up all the time. It won't take long until green electricity produced ammonia is used to make fertilizers." CreationDate="2022-11-19T10:21:00.613" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="15840" PostId="12216" Score="1" Text="Question is tagged [tag:city-living], so *Drive your car more efficiently* or *buy an electric car* do not really apply, because city living does not need car ownership.  On the other hand, not travelling by plane is difficult when living in the UAE, unless not travelling to most of the world at all.  Maybe one could take a ferry to Iran and then travel to Europe or East Asia by train from there, but it's not easy." CreationDate="2022-06-21T11:50:48.087" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="15837" PostId="12217" Score="0" Text="It was a tossup between asking here and asking in Aviation SE. I'm assuming they don't mean [this kind of flight](http://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/airlander-10-air-nostrum/index.html) :-)" CreationDate="2022-06-20T20:27:06.227" UserId="5824" />
  <row Id="16119" PostId="12218" Score="1" Text="vote for a party that supports sustainable initiative, join associations that are promoting sustainability, change job for something that has a significant impact, or at least no negative impact, put your money in a bank that finances sustainable projects." CreationDate="2022-11-25T23:25:31.300" UserId="14519" />
  <row Id="15843" PostId="12219" Score="0" Text="interesting, it sounds like a bit like a voluntary &quot;guilt tax&quot; for the rich :-)" CreationDate="2022-06-21T21:28:23.847" UserId="5824" />
  <row Id="15852" PostId="12219" Score="0" Text="@uhoh: not just for the rich, but the environmentally concerned as well. If they must fly." CreationDate="2022-06-26T19:57:40.773" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="15853" PostId="12219" Score="0" Text="Of the 7.75 billion people on Earth, what fraction not only flies regularly but has sufficient &quot;spare change&quot; to pay a realistic carbon tax on it? I think it's way less than half." CreationDate="2022-06-26T20:53:43.433" UserId="5824" />
  <row Id="15909" PostId="12219" Score="0" Text="&quot;this just in&quot; [Carbon offsets alone won’t make flying climate-friendly](https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/07/carbon-offsets-alone-wont-make-flying-climate-friendly/)" CreationDate="2022-07-29T12:50:33.363" UserId="5824" />
  <row Id="15910" PostId="12219" Score="1" Text="@uhoh: Thanks, I'm not surprised. A few days ago, this news item appeared, [Rex Airlines announces plan to retrofit existing fleet with electric-propulsion engines in regional trial](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-27/rex-airlines-plan-retrofit-aircraft-electric-motors-emissions/101272566). Instead of burning jet fuel, the electric motors will be powered by a combination of  batteries &amp; hydrogen." CreationDate="2022-07-29T18:14:21.983" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="15911" PostId="12219" Score="0" Text="Cool! It will be interesting to see when testing with live, paying customers aboard actually begins; &quot;But I expect that we'll be seeing this happening in this decade, which is something I would not have thought possible three years ago.&quot; Previous flights carrying large quantities of hydrogen [left some customers less than satisfied](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hindenburg_disaster.jpg)." CreationDate="2022-07-29T21:44:15.617" UserId="5824" />
  <row Id="15912" PostId="12219" Score="0" Text="@uhoh: Not to mention, hot under the collar! [Hindenburg Disaster in Color](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7clAJJNsdmQ)" CreationDate="2022-07-30T01:21:46.857" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="15913" PostId="12219" Score="0" Text="Strangely, I just last night found out where the expression &quot;hot under the collar&quot; may have come from - celluloid made from camphor! starting at `03:37` in Asianometry's [White Gold: How the West Broke Taiwan's Camphor Monopoly](https://youtu.be/VxWt36579Hg)" CreationDate="2022-07-30T05:21:07.993" UserId="5824" />
  <row Id="15914" PostId="12219" Score="1" Text="@uhoh: Very interesting!! I've some things today, thanks." CreationDate="2022-07-30T07:59:00.587" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="16099" PostId="12219" Score="0" Text="fyi I've just asked [What Fraction of Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) is Actually Used Cooking Oil? Is this fraction itself sustainable?](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/12404/5824)" CreationDate="2022-11-23T20:57:57.510" UserId="5824" />
  <row Id="15856" PostId="12222" Score="1" Text="Presumably they fit on pallets? Maybe stack a few of those? You can often find them free/cheap." CreationDate="2022-06-28T19:51:08.843" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15857" PostId="12222" Score="1" Text="Cheers @LShaver - it takes a lot of pallets to get that high, and in practice they aren't that freely available around here -- I have been looking to make stands out of wood from pallets as I have a few, but safety is an issue so I don't want to under-engineer it." CreationDate="2022-06-28T22:31:23.543" UserId="4343" />
  <row Id="15866" PostId="12222" Score="0" Text="Pallets on an even, stony surface should suffice. Maybe protect the pallets from weather by skirting them with some plastic sheet. Or place the IBCs on top of a small mound of dirt." CreationDate="2022-07-01T07:42:58.743" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="15859" PostId="12223" Score="0" Text="No numbers , but one factor is speed. In our area I 45 has a 75 speed limit and semis move at least at that speed . The speed limit was formerly lower ( 65 ?).  Air resistance for a big box with poor aerodynamics increases rapidly with speed." CreationDate="2022-06-29T15:55:13.460" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="15861" PostId="12223" Score="4" Text="I suspect express delivery is to blame -- to deliver packages faster, you need more trucks with less payload." CreationDate="2022-06-29T16:55:21.063" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15865" PostId="12223" Score="0" Text="The other aspect about the comment by @LShaver is such deliveries are mostly in urban &amp; city/town environments where traffic flow conditions may involve a lot of start-stop traffic movements which results in more internal combustion engine fuel being burned when vehicles are stationary either because of traffic situations or when drives don't turn off vehicle engines when making or taking deliveries." CreationDate="2022-06-30T10:42:29.340" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="15916" PostId="12223" Score="0" Text="@Fred: and more energy wasted by braking and accelerating again" CreationDate="2022-07-30T17:23:21.953" UserId="3722" />
  <row Id="15864" PostId="12226" Score="0" Text="The obvious answer is by storing fully grown trees somewhere. That lets us re-use the same bit of land multiple times. And grass might be better than wood since it grows faster. Under the sea is probably easiler than the more traditional underground, at least on the timescale we care about right now. Piling them on a subduction zone is all very well, geologically speaking, but making landfills on lowlying coastal areas that are going to get inundated soon is quuicker and has other uses." CreationDate="2022-06-29T23:37:53.433" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15868" PostId="12226" Score="0" Text="Atmospheric CO2 has recently risen to 500 ppm. i guess the 1000 + trees I planted aren't working." CreationDate="2022-07-01T15:58:28.233" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="15869" PostId="12226" Score="0" Text="Man, for better or worse, there is SO much land out there. I could plant 168 seeds in an afternoon just driving to Mt. Baker" CreationDate="2022-07-01T18:34:45.003" UserId="2385" />
  <row Id="15871" PostId="12228" Score="3" Text="With much tongue in cheek: green-washing - washed by the green sea., with bonus salt &amp; UV treatment! &quot;By purchasing one of our ocean bound plastic items you have save a tenth of a whale, so why stop at purchasing one item, buy ten.&quot; Maybe I should apply for a job in advertising or PR. ;-)" CreationDate="2022-07-02T17:00:32.183" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="15872" PostId="12228" Score="1" Text="For plastic bags, any kind of recycling is not positive. It's heavily negative. There used to be a time when you could use a plastic bag 10-30 times. Today, most bags are so weak that they get damaged on first use, sometimes tearing so much that you are genuinely worried if your groceries drop out of the bag. Maybe someday it will become feasible to burn plastic into carbon dioxide, then capture that carbon dioxide and combine it with hydrogen produced using electrolysis to create recycled plastic as good in quality as new plastic is." CreationDate="2022-07-02T17:50:29.827" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="15873" PostId="12229" Score="0" Text="Nice finds. May be relevant to add that both links are from for-profit companies, one of whom manufactures credit cards." CreationDate="2022-07-02T19:38:34.550" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15875" PostId="12232" Score="2" Text="Related: [More sustainable pick-me-up: can of coke or cup of tea/coffee?](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/6388/3379)" CreationDate="2022-07-06T15:29:08.770" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15908" PostId="12232" Score="0" Text="different but related: [Would choosing coffee alternatives reduce deforestation? What is the deforestation rate associated with the coffee industry?](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/11943/5824)" CreationDate="2022-07-29T12:49:50.847" UserId="5824" />
  <row Id="15876" PostId="12234" Score="2" Text="Just use the bike, bus, tram or train." CreationDate="2022-07-07T12:11:24.627" UserId="14188" />
  <row Id="16117" PostId="12234" Score="0" Text="Europe is broad. More specifically?" CreationDate="2022-11-25T23:20:26.047" UserId="14519" />
  <row Id="16118" PostId="12234" Score="0" Text="I don't understand that part: &quot;sustainable personal transportation [...] let us ignore the question of emissions&quot; What do you mean by sustainable, then?" CreationDate="2022-11-25T23:21:19.643" UserId="14519" />
  <row Id="16129" PostId="12234" Score="0" Text="@njzk2 I meant that I don't want the discussion to focus on which options are most sustainable; rather, from the options which use renewable fuels of *some* kind, which are the most practical?" CreationDate="2022-11-27T17:04:53.213" UserId="14187" />
  <row Id="16130" PostId="12234" Score="0" Text="@njzk2 I intentionally left the geographical area broad; I'm interested in moving between different countries across Europe, so I need to know the viability of the technology across the continent." CreationDate="2022-11-27T17:06:54.093" UserId="14187" />
  <row Id="16132" PostId="12234" Score="0" Text="CNG is not renewable, though" CreationDate="2022-11-27T20:12:43.817" UserId="14519" />
  <row Id="16062" PostId="12236" Score="1" Text="In the EU, LPG is used in about 2% of cars. Contrary to what you wrote, LPG fuel stations are reasonably common. Here's an example picture: https://raadvanstate.nl/publish/library/24/lpg-tankstation.jpg And, also contrary to what you wrote, most LPG cars can also run on petrol. (That doesn't change that LPG is a fossil fuel that should be abandoned though.)" CreationDate="2022-10-26T00:23:39.817" UserId="14437" />
  <row Id="16131" PostId="12236" Score="0" Text="This doesn't answer my question; I was looking for practical advice on a personal choice of transportation technology today, not a theoretical assessment of which technology is viable for large scale adoption in the medium to long term future." CreationDate="2022-11-27T17:09:32.457" UserId="14187" />
  <row Id="15880" PostId="12238" Score="0" Text="Can you explain how running the AC while going downhill is better from a sustainability sense? Seems to me the compressor will draw a similar amount of power in either scenario (and therefore burn a similar amount of gas)." CreationDate="2022-07-14T04:40:07.637" UserId="8232" />
  <row Id="15877" PostId="12240" Score="1" Text="Do you have anything to back this up? We don't as such ban personal expertise, but we expect it to be backed with verifiable facts, citations from credible sources. Please [edit] to include those in your answer. You would do well also to ensure that you address the point that the question is seeking to challenge, and not get too distracted by your (perhaps justifiable) annoyance that they (offsets) don't seem to achieve what they're meant to." CreationDate="2022-07-12T05:56:16.000" UserId="1057" />
  <row Id="15878" PostId="12240" Score="0" Text="I could sprinkle the posting with &quot;†&quot; markings, referring to &quot;† Personal email correspondence,&quot; if that would help! Very little of dealing with bureaucracy can be &quot;documented&quot; in the sense you seem to desire. Also, this was not some research paper, with grant funding — we were running a farm and trying to make a living at the same time! Trying to get carbon offset funding came out of my personal sleep time, after working the farm for sixteen hours." CreationDate="2022-07-13T02:59:22.220" UserId="5497" />
  <row Id="15881" PostId="12243" Score="0" Text="The cost of the equipment and maintenance is much greater than the value of low temperature heat." CreationDate="2022-07-16T21:04:44.367" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="15882" PostId="12243" Score="0" Text="Why not just stopping using air conditioning at all? It's not used that much in Europe, despite it getting quite hot in summer." CreationDate="2022-07-16T15:32:12.850" UserId="14206" />
  <row Id="15887" PostId="12245" Score="0" Text="*I did not know about Legionella bacterium, thank you. Plan is that water will go to washing machine, dish washer, or boiler, to be heated above 60 degrees. Is it a problem when there many killed bacteria?&#xA;&#xA;*Saving comes from shorter AC on-time, not from heating the water. It is functioning only when I am at home, so cold water should flow, and I would excect the Carnot efficiency to be better than 10. How can I calculate how quickly the water heats?&#xA;&#xA;*Refrigerant pipes installed between indoor unit and tank? My pipes at indoor unit are cold. I address that in second paragraph of question." CreationDate="2022-07-19T13:36:36.233" UserId="1909" />
  <row Id="15907" PostId="12245" Score="0" Text="**Legionella** are a problem only for drinking water (including shower etc - as opposed to warm water heating systems), and even there lower temperatures are safe *iff* the warm pipe volume is sufficiently small and the water doesn't sit extended times at the low temperature. A big tank whose water is used directly for drinking or shower and is sitting around at lukewarm temps for long time is very much of a concern. At 30 - 45 °C, they double every 1 - 3 days in clean water (in nutirent-rich environments doubling time can be as low as 3 h). Our home has a heat exchanger off a larger warm..." CreationDate="2022-07-29T08:08:07.550" UserId="3722" />
  <row Id="15915" PostId="12245" Score="0" Text="water tank that also supplies the general heating system. With the heat exchanger to warm up drinking water as needed (no big boiler), we can even set the thermostat to lukewarm temp e.g. for just showering. Every once in a while, we nevertheless give it hot temp (70 °C is the max setting) when the tank is hot and the hot water is needed." CreationDate="2022-07-30T15:05:04.647" UserId="3722" />
  <row Id="15883" PostId="12246" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! I'm curious about this photoswitch. Is there an article you could share?" CreationDate="2022-07-18T06:55:53.973" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="16282" PostId="12247" Score="0" Text="Could you please also share what the luminous intensity is of the solar indoor lighting? I understand that the collector and transfer cables will induce some loss, but, is it significant? If not, I think a solar panel based system may be charged indoors!" CreationDate="2023-02-10T04:20:59.957" UserId="9243" />
  <row Id="15884" PostId="12249" Score="2" Text="You say &quot;it's not even using fuels that would emit carbon&quot;, but what about the processes to produce these fuels? Hydrogen can be made from renewable energy, but according to [this article](https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/hydrogen-fuel-basics) *today, about 95% of all hydrogen is produced from steam reforming of natural gas*." CreationDate="2022-07-18T07:02:57.810" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="15885" PostId="12249" Score="0" Text="Well I did calculate numbers for using methane, the source of most hydrogen today. It shouldn't matter much whether the methane is first converted to hydrogen before burning, or burned directly." CreationDate="2022-07-18T18:02:37.207" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="16116" PostId="12249" Score="0" Text="can we count this in ton from the start, rather than in fraction of million of kilos?" CreationDate="2022-11-25T23:19:28.353" UserId="14519" />
  <row Id="16114" PostId="12250" Score="0" Text="also a 3rd plan, not necessarily sustainable, but presented as such: synthetic non-hydrogen fuel" CreationDate="2022-11-25T23:13:52.300" UserId="14519" />
  <row Id="16136" PostId="12250" Score="0" Text="insofar as current pricing doesn't account for externalities, and as most plans involve influencing the market by factoring costs for those, it would seem that yes. But keep in mind that the current state of very cheap flights is only a couple of decades old. This era of constant flying, if it ends in the near future, would have been only a very short period of time" CreationDate="2022-11-29T19:58:33.240" UserId="14519" />
  <row Id="15889" PostId="12251" Score="1" Text="There are at least two massive downsides to biofuels - firstly that they take land away from growing crops for food, and secondly it is likely that they take more energy to produce than the fuel actually generates when burned. It's hard to see how this is in any way &quot;sustainable&quot;." CreationDate="2022-07-20T12:18:48.277" UserId="3960" />
  <row Id="15890" PostId="12251" Score="0" Text="@JohnM I disagree. Next generation biofuels produced for example from waste don't have those limitations. They do have the limitation that we can never produce enough of them for all road transportation usage (but we can probably produce enough of them for only all aviation usage)." CreationDate="2022-07-20T15:41:56.007" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="15893" PostId="12251" Score="0" Text="Second-generation biofuels are indeed better in some ways, but there are still some significant issues depending on the sort of &quot;waste&quot; that you are talking about, such as the potential effect on soil quality and biodiversity" CreationDate="2022-07-21T09:47:05.977" UserId="3960" />
  <row Id="15955" PostId="12251" Score="3" Text="For short distances, we should be using trains, not planes." CreationDate="2022-08-17T11:43:40.570" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="15956" PostId="12251" Score="0" Text="@JohnM Biofuels could be made from seaweed.  Most people in the world don't eat seaweed (much)." CreationDate="2022-08-17T11:46:06.307" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="16115" PostId="12251" Score="0" Text="@gerrit agree, although some short distances are not coverable by train (e.g. between islands)" CreationDate="2022-11-25T23:15:48.927" UserId="14519" />
  <row Id="16127" PostId="12251" Score="1" Text="@njzk2 True.  Boats may be an option, but they're very slow, so the distance at which they become unfeasible for most will be shorter than for trains (and boats are also harder to do sustainably if we're not willing to go back to sailing)." CreationDate="2022-11-27T11:33:12.030" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="16133" PostId="12251" Score="0" Text="@gerrit re: seaweed, one good use for those at the moment is carbon storage: they grow fast, and can be sunk to the ocean floor easily" CreationDate="2022-11-28T20:45:16.577" UserId="14519" />
  <row Id="16134" PostId="12251" Score="0" Text="@njzk2 One use does not rule out the other." CreationDate="2022-11-29T07:53:15.587" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="15888" PostId="12252" Score="0" Text="I don't find anything unclear there. Gas turbines have been used for a long time to create electricity, it's the most modern combustion based electricity generation method. I think the main problem in that case is that airplanes usually operate near full load, so it would probably be more efficient to use a gas turbine as a propelling engine rather than as an electricity generator." CreationDate="2022-07-19T19:46:53.687" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="15891" PostId="12252" Score="0" Text="@juhist &quot;gas&quot; as in &quot;gaseous substance&quot;? Where does that gas come from and what gas is used, exactly?" CreationDate="2022-07-20T19:25:06.570" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="15895" PostId="12252" Score="1" Text="Gas is usually a flammable gaseous substance, although strictly speaking it doesn't have to be gaseous. The turbine compresses air to such hot temperatures that flammable liquids become gas in those temperatures too. So airplanes use turbines that burn a flammable liquid, mainly because carrying large amounts of gaseous fuels in compressed form is just too hard. Liquids are easier. However, in fixed power generation the turbines usually burn methane (natural gas)." CreationDate="2022-07-21T15:38:31.980" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="15901" PostId="12252" Score="0" Text="How is it better than just using conventional combustion engines if it still relies on fossil fuels? Lower emissions? I thought the whole purpose of electric planes is no emissions" CreationDate="2022-07-25T20:34:25.777" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="15903" PostId="12252" Score="0" Text="It's not an electric plane, it's a hybrid, so yes it will still use fossil fuels." CreationDate="2022-07-27T15:01:34.440" UserId="14236" />
  <row Id="15894" PostId="12254" Score="0" Text="There is a chance that you could get some information or help from Sipi Metals in Chicago IL. They have recycled electronics about 50 years and copper scrap for much longer." CreationDate="2022-07-21T15:13:16.163" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="15896" PostId="12254" Score="0" Text="thanks @blacksmith37 will check" CreationDate="2022-07-22T07:15:54.257" UserId="14203" />
  <row Id="15897" PostId="12254" Score="0" Text="@blacksmith37 why that particular company? There are many other e-waste companies." CreationDate="2022-07-22T07:52:59.957" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="15898" PostId="12254" Score="0" Text="The only one I know and they have been in business 50 years." CreationDate="2022-07-22T16:06:14.643" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="15899" PostId="12255" Score="0" Text="The other thing to be mindful of is processing e-waste, or any other form of waste, can generate it own waste &amp; a management plan needs to be established &amp; enacted for it." CreationDate="2022-07-23T09:53:53.580" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="15902" PostId="12257" Score="0" Text="Wont work for me since I don't have a garden, sorry." CreationDate="2022-07-27T09:22:15.303" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="15904" PostId="12257" Score="1" Text="You can grow it inside, in a large pot, if you have decent window sunlight!" CreationDate="2022-07-28T00:05:02.487" UserId="5497" />
  <row Id="16215" PostId="12257" Score="1" Text="You can even grow it in pots under grow-lights, if you don't have enough sun." CreationDate="2023-01-13T04:00:55.667" UserId="14520" />
  <row Id="15928" PostId="12259" Score="0" Text="Thank you for answering! You shared many valuable data and researches. I'm glad that bio gas technology is still going and improving in Germany. There are some pig farms here in Taiwan also trying to do it." CreationDate="2022-08-04T03:57:48.503" UserId="13870" />
  <row Id="15934" PostId="12259" Score="0" Text="@gitpharm01: slightly nitpicking: the linked biogas facility is in (a German-speaking region of) Switzerland." CreationDate="2022-08-04T13:38:09.687" UserId="3722" />
  <row Id="15935" PostId="12259" Score="1" Text="It's always good to be accurate. But Germany does have advance technologies in bio gas. Many bio gas projects in Taiwan are actually using systems from German companies." CreationDate="2022-08-05T04:16:09.063" UserId="13870" />
  <row Id="15921" PostId="12260" Score="0" Text="You probably want another forum for this one. Maybe Home Improvement?" CreationDate="2022-08-02T07:54:25.110" UserId="1567" />
  <row Id="15922" PostId="12261" Score="0" Text="&quot;Note also that 30 amperes should use 6 mm2 wiring. You may be able to achieve 30 amperes with 4 mm2 wiring without melting the insulator, but at 12 volts and 30 amperes, the voltage drop for long 4 mm2 wires might be just a little bit too much, and if the two wires are close in a hot environment, two 4 mm2 wires could still heat just a little too much for infinite insulator lifetime.&quot;&#xA;&#xA;Wow, I didn't think about it. Thank you very much." CreationDate="2022-08-02T12:23:02.827" UserId="14245" />
  <row Id="15923" PostId="12261" Score="0" Text="Can I use automatic AC circuit breaker of 1A after the 220V invertor? Will it limit discharging current at battery by 18A?&#xA;&#xA;With a combination of 30A fuse on 12V side, of course." CreationDate="2022-08-02T12:25:41.110" UserId="14245" />
  <row Id="15925" PostId="12261" Score="1" Text="220V, 1A is 220 watts, which is 18.333 amperes at 12 V. However, if you run down the battery to nearly empty, and if the efficiency of the inverter isn't 100%, it could be over 20 amperes. If you use an automatic 1A AC circuit breaker, I would still put a 30 ampere fuse in there. The AC circuit breaker should trip first (thus saving the fuse from blowing), but if for example the inverter fails in a short-circuit mode then the fuse still is there as a secondary protection." CreationDate="2022-08-02T18:23:41.877" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="15926" PostId="12261" Score="0" Text="The last question: if battery maximum charging current is 16A, can I add 15A fuse between solar controller and battery? Should I also add 30A diode here (to protect 16A fuse from 30A current on discharge)?" CreationDate="2022-08-03T15:03:38.130" UserId="14245" />
  <row Id="15927" PostId="12261" Score="0" Text="Yes, if you use solar controller to charge it, please do add the 15 ampere fuse. Obviously make sure the controller is LiFePO4-compatible and safe. Diodes have voltage drop and 30 ampere diode would dissipate huge power. Because of the diode voltage drop, current preferentially would flow through the fuse and not the diode. I recommend attaching the load directly to battery, not via the solar controller. Then you can have 30A fuse on the load, and 15A fuse on charging -- although it's still theoretically possible if the panel is big that 15A fuse would blow because of load." CreationDate="2022-08-03T20:13:59.267" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="15936" PostId="12261" Score="0" Text="I'm trying to assemble something like this: https://ibb.co/xhfS243&#xA;&#xA;I want to limit maximum current that PWM controller can send to battery by maximum charging current and maximum discharging current that load can take from battery.&#xA;&#xA;I just want to add safety and shutdown system if something going wrong. I don't want the battery explosion." CreationDate="2022-08-05T11:13:17.067" UserId="14245" />
  <row Id="15937" PostId="12261" Score="0" Text="Oh, maybe my scheme a bit wrong. I want that load also can take a current from the solar panels. For i.e. if panel produce 10A right now, I want send 3A to battery and 7A to load. And if panel produce 1A, I want to sent this 1A to load and take 29A from battery.&#xA;So, in this scheme the 3A fuse will turn off panels if I take 7A from it. How can I fix it?" CreationDate="2022-08-05T11:20:58.773" UserId="14245" />
  <row Id="15924" PostId="12262" Score="2" Text="Unfortunately, per their [customer letter](http://velkess.com/letter.html), Velkess is no longer working on their flywheel." CreationDate="2022-08-02T15:17:39.580" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15930" PostId="12265" Score="1" Text="You ask a lot of questions. You will probably get better answers if you separate this into different question posts. Perhaps one about recycling rates, and one about separation methods? And maybe one about the weird claim of the smart politician's son, because I'm pretty sure that's incorrect." CreationDate="2022-08-04T07:28:56.510" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="15931" PostId="12265" Score="1" Text="Germany apparently is the largest exporter of plastic waste in the EU, but the amount they export is decreasing and most now goes to The Netherlands so the politician's son is definitely incorrect. ([source](https://www.destatis.de/EN/Press/2022/06/PE22_N035_51.html;jsessionid=D88108770A92EF61D7AA7B1DDA0B4CB2.live732))" CreationDate="2022-08-04T07:36:14.013" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="15932" PostId="12265" Score="0" Text="@THelper did what I can but please don't be shy to edit yourself!" CreationDate="2022-08-04T08:47:43.523" UserId="108" />
  <row Id="15933" PostId="12266" Score="0" Text="Thanks. Setting the thermostat involves unscrewing a panel, so not really something that can easily be done every day unfortunately." CreationDate="2022-08-04T10:32:44.227" UserId="3237" />
  <row Id="15940" PostId="12269" Score="0" Text="(this is Y via another account) thank you for the guidance. So I'd get four of these batteries: https://www.renogy.com/deep-cycle-agm-battery-12-volt-200ah/" CreationDate="2022-08-07T14:07:21.500" UserId="14258" />
  <row Id="15941" PostId="12269" Score="0" Text="And this inverter/charger https://www.renogy.com/48v-3500w-solar-inverter-charger/ (does it waste much energy being 3500 instead of 2500?)" CreationDate="2022-08-07T14:08:13.517" UserId="14258" />
  <row Id="15942" PostId="12269" Score="0" Text="And 8 of these panels: https://www.renogy.com/320-watt-monocrystalline-solar-panel/" CreationDate="2022-08-07T14:10:39.557" UserId="14258" />
  <row Id="15943" PostId="12269" Score="0" Text="Btw, my roof is facing north, at 9 degree pitch" CreationDate="2022-08-07T14:10:57.357" UserId="14258" />
  <row Id="15944" PostId="12269" Score="0" Text="Did I get it right?" CreationDate="2022-08-07T14:13:23.217" UserId="14258" />
  <row Id="15945" PostId="12269" Score="0" Text="That seems like a good purchase list. 3500w inverter is more than what you need, usually larger inverters have more idle current usage, but if your plan is to run air conditioning then that doesn't matter. If you are planning to use a low-power 10 watt consuming laptop for as long as possible then 3500w inverter would be total overkill and would waste a lot of power. But 8000BTU air conditioning unit draws so much the additional idle current of 3500w inverter doesn't matter." CreationDate="2022-08-07T17:29:00.430" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="15946" PostId="12269" Score="0" Text="You also need wiring and cable terminals. Attaching those terminals requires soldering tools or crimp pliers, I'd say soldering is easier to get right (although if you can find correct crimp pliers then it's easy to make the connection, but crimp pliers are heavily specific to the type of terminals so not every terminal is compatible with a specific type of crimp pliers)." CreationDate="2022-08-07T17:30:14.277" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="15947" PostId="12269" Score="0" Text="If your latitude is 9 degrees south then facing panels 9 degrees north is correct. At my latitude (60 degrees north), panels facing 9 degrees north would be totally terrible." CreationDate="2022-08-07T17:32:37.240" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="15948" PostId="12269" Score="0" Text="My latitude is 37.8216° N&#xA;Going point regarding cables, I'll research that." CreationDate="2022-08-08T13:05:59.377" UserId="14258" />
  <row Id="15949" PostId="12269" Score="0" Text="Lead acid batteries are strictly for people on a savage budget who need to save a few dollars right now even if it costs them a lot later. LFP batteries are cheaper and last longer. AGM offer &quot;up to 2000 cycles&quot;... if discharged gently and never below 20% DoD.  If discharged to 80% you might get 200 cycles. It's just not worth it for almost anyone." CreationDate="2022-08-09T01:00:18.030" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15962" PostId="12277" Score="0" Text="So, correct me if I wrong. It is safer to have a 12V 300A battery than 60V 60A, right?&#xA;&#xA;So, 3.7 volts can't hurt me even if it will be hundreds of amperes, right?" CreationDate="2022-08-18T12:18:33.930" UserId="14245" />
  <row Id="15963" PostId="12277" Score="1" Text="It's the voltage that causes current flow through a human. 100 milliamperes (0.1A) kills, but to cause that current, you need high voltage. 60V could maybe cause at least painful shock with sweaty hands, but 12V, never. The 300A / 60A part does not matter at all, because it tells what the battery provides if you have low resistance. Humans never have that low resistance. 3.7V battery is never high enough voltage to cause hundreds of amperes through a human. So 3.7V 300A is the same as 3.7V 0.1A for lethality purposes -- neither is lethal." CreationDate="2022-08-18T13:45:31.067" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="15971" PostId="12277" Score="0" Text="In my opinion this answer could be improved by explicitly mentioning Ohm's law and some ballpark numbers to make it clear what the reasoning is. As you say yourself it's the amount of current which determines damage done, the batteries can deliver ample current, so there's a missing link for why that current cannot flow (basically: skin resistance being way too high). https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/189691/can-a-12v-battery-give-you-a-shock-or-not for example explains it pretty well." CreationDate="2022-08-21T18:48:16.347" UserId="4158" />
  <row Id="16041" PostId="12277" Score="0" Text="What is the limit between safe voltage and dangerous?" CreationDate="2022-10-20T13:39:43.753" UserId="14245" />
  <row Id="16045" PostId="12277" Score="0" Text="Extra-low voltage (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extra-low_voltage) is DC 120 volts or less, or AC 50 volts or less. You can get shock from highest extra-low voltages as well, but they are relatively safe voltages with dry hands, so the shock shouldn't kill you unless you do something stupid such as touching 50 volt AC with left and right hand, both hands wet. But to be completely safe, you should halve the voltage to AC 25 volts or less, or DC 60 volts or less." CreationDate="2022-10-21T14:31:09.090" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="15957" PostId="12278" Score="1" Text="If you don't get a good answer here, this question would also be welcome on [EarthScience.SE]." CreationDate="2022-08-17T14:53:40.120" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="15959" PostId="12280" Score="0" Text="But what about pasture v. feedlot?" CreationDate="2022-08-17T21:34:31.320" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="15961" PostId="12281" Score="0" Text="Wonderful, thanks a lot!" CreationDate="2022-08-18T10:45:08.603" UserId="14285" />
  <row Id="15964" PostId="12283" Score="0" Text="Great answer! But haven't cows evolved to eat grass, not corn? It's as if they don't stomach grass as well as grain, given how much they belch after eating it " CreationDate="2022-08-18T14:33:05.127" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="15966" PostId="12283" Score="1" Text="I think it's disingenuous for those raising cattle to claim credit for the carbon sequestration of the grass - especially as pastures have often replaced woodland, which sequesters vastly more carbon than pasture does." CreationDate="2022-08-19T06:57:34.533" UserId="3960" />
  <row Id="15967" PostId="12286" Score="0" Text="Two additional factors: heating and air conditioning of malls has carbon footprint too. Also the car trip to a mall has a carbon footprint, although that can be minimized if using a bicycle. However, even a storage warehouse has a carbon footprint to construct, although I suspect storage warehouses have more stuff per cubic meter than a mall." CreationDate="2022-08-20T12:59:58.870" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="15968" PostId="12286" Score="0" Text="Possible duplicate question: [Is buying online more sustainable than in local shop next door](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/5054/99)" CreationDate="2022-08-20T15:29:09.743" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="15969" PostId="12286" Score="1" Text="Does this answer your question? [Is buying online more sustainable than in local shop next door?](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/5054/is-buying-online-more-sustainable-than-in-local-shop-next-door)" CreationDate="2022-08-21T04:30:28.110" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="15970" PostId="12286" Score="0" Text="@Fred I did not ask about &quot;a local shop next door&quot;. The latter is obviously more sustainable" CreationDate="2022-08-21T11:02:44.510" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="15973" PostId="12286" Score="0" Text="I suggest you amend the title of the question if you are specifically asking about out-of-town shopping malls as opposed to local or city-centre shops." CreationDate="2022-08-24T11:37:28.467" UserId="3960" />
  <row Id="16025" PostId="12289" Score="0" Text="Was net zero ever any more than a dream?" CreationDate="2022-10-10T11:30:15.503" UserId="1567" />
  <row Id="15974" PostId="12290" Score="0" Text="Greenpeace says it's unsustainable so it's not. Radioactive waste and such. Besides, they are, as it were, Chekhov's guns waiting to become an apocalyptic threat the moment some terrorist group or insane dictator like Putin gets hold of them (as you can see now with the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station). It's a very bad idea" CreationDate="2022-08-24T20:35:31.160" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="15975" PostId="12290" Score="1" Text="*Sadly, constructing new nuclear power plants is so expensive that it will be outcompeted by renewable electricity and electricity storage* — why is that sad?" CreationDate="2022-08-25T09:00:12.047" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="15976" PostId="12290" Score="0" Text="More than half of the EU nuclear fuel is coming from Russia, so replacing fossil by nuclear is no improvement at all as far as geopolitics are concerned." CreationDate="2022-08-25T09:01:10.793" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="15977" PostId="12290" Score="2" Text="It's sad because nuclear is predictable, whereas renewable electricity is weather-dependent and storage usually has short durations, with the exception of maybe hydropower -- but we don't have enough hydropower to have enough storage. Also, nuclear fuel is so cheap it can be considered free. Getting something from Russia practically for free isn't an issue. Besides, there are suppliers other than Russia in case price would increase so that Russia could fund war with nuclear fuel payments." CreationDate="2022-08-25T12:50:05.760" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="16026" PostId="12290" Score="0" Text="Clean energy sources, just like that. Pouf! Abracadabra! Hand-wavery alert." CreationDate="2022-10-10T11:31:32.130" UserId="1567" />
  <row Id="16031" PostId="12290" Score="0" Text="@RedSonja I think you'll find that investors are investing into clean energy sources en masse. Coal power companies, on the other hand, have practically no value and in the free (market economy driven) world, no new coal power plants are being built. If someone invests into a new gas turbine power plant for instance, they will make sure that the gas turbine can burn hydrogen. Wind is growing exponentially, solar is too, batteries are too, hydrogen is too. Grids are becoming stronger. All of that is investor-driven." CreationDate="2022-10-11T15:13:28.290" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="16032" PostId="12290" Score="0" Text="Just look at valuation of Tesla and Legacy Auto and you see where the investors put their money..." CreationDate="2022-10-11T15:15:04.923" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="16029" PostId="12294" Score="0" Text="In some countries milk is sold in bottles which can be returned for a deposit. In Germany at least this has been extended to a lot of liquid or sloppy edible substances: yogurt, sauce, beans, etc. Is this what you had in mind?" CreationDate="2022-10-11T12:33:59.383" UserId="1567" />
  <row Id="16076" PostId="12294" Score="0" Text="For industrial packaging, such systems are quite widespread: for pallettes, barrels, ... (though they may be sold and sold on rather than having a deposit system) Here in Germany, the system for electrical and electronic devices is a mix: the producer is responsible for paying for the recycling, but since handing everything back to the producer is inefficient, electronic waste is collected locally/comunally and the manufacturers pay for containers according to their production volume. Since the possibility of leaving your electronic waste without paying a fee is sufficient to not have large..." CreationDate="2022-11-02T19:30:33.130" UserId="3722" />
  <row Id="16077" PostId="12294" Score="2" Text="... amounts polluting the landscape, why add deposit burocracy? Lead-acid (car) batteries have system close to deposit: you'll pay a deposit on a new one, and with that receipt can get the deposit back when handing in an old one, which will typically not be the same. Still other containers are often rented, so you hand the identical one back: gas bottles. Oh, and Christmas markets (or similar fairs) may have a deposit on their mugs." CreationDate="2022-11-02T19:34:47.773" UserId="3722" />
  <row Id="15978" PostId="12301" Score="0" Text="CHAdeMO to CCS (although DC to DC so easier) seems to be very impractical as well: https://www.speakev.com/threads/is-it-technically-possible-to-have-an-adaptor-between-ccs-and-chademo.129218/" CreationDate="2022-08-29T16:34:00.127" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="15979" PostId="12301" Score="0" Text="Thank you for your detailed answer an a comment which partially or practically answers [my other question](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/12299/14308). However, your linked forum says: &quot;_An adapter in the CCS(car) to CHAdeMO(charger) direction is significantly easier than one in the other direction - and Tesla's adapter is in most respects equivalent to that easier case_&quot;. Which (if I am getting it correctly) would make CHAdeMO charger / cable to CCS port possible (or even existing -- Tesla?). If you can, please answer my other question. Thank you." CreationDate="2022-08-30T20:06:00.577" UserId="14308" />
  <row Id="15981" PostId="12303" Score="2" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! I think the author means that it's in everyone's best interest to make sure that also upcoming countries increase their usage of renewable energy. If lots of people in developing countries gain access to refrigeration powered by electricity from the current energy mix (world-wide 75% fossil-fuel based), then CO2 emissions will increase dramatically. However, this isn't limited to refrigerators. It goes for any technology that uses electricity (for example washing machines)." CreationDate="2022-09-01T06:58:03.730" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="16113" PostId="12305" Score="0" Text="Does it help to think about km/h and km?" CreationDate="2022-11-25T23:08:14.977" UserId="14519" />
  <row Id="15985" PostId="12313" Score="1" Text="This is much more than I have expected - thank You! I'm sure 'total waste per capita' is a [confound](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confounding) in 'not littering the Earth' but that's a whole new topic." CreationDate="2022-09-05T21:08:53.700" UserId="108" />
  <row Id="15988" PostId="12314" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living and thank you for your answer. You say you understand why the replacement leg costs so much. Could you please explain this? The tent costs $225, but buying 4 legs separately would cost $280. Not even counting the costs for other materials, that is already quite a big difference." CreationDate="2022-09-08T07:21:59.903" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="15986" PostId="12317" Score="0" Text="There's no problem using reasonable amounts of plastic. A plastic lens is unlikely to ever become microplastics. The amount of oil used in that plastic compared to the cost of the eyeglasses is insignificant. Also all plastics made from oil can be made from trees. So buying eyeglasses is 99.9% lensmaking and 0.1% oil. However, scratching is a valid concern." CreationDate="2022-09-06T17:10:16.460" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="16022" PostId="12320" Score="1" Text="Don't wait for it to decay, that's too late." CreationDate="2022-10-10T11:20:02.160" UserId="1567" />
  <row Id="16027" PostId="12320" Score="0" Text="@RedSonja thanks for the tip. I appreciate the importance of maintenance before there are problems. I'm asking as I recently moved and have inherited some neglected fixes. Now I'm prioritizing and trying to minimize environmental harm while fixing and updating things." CreationDate="2022-10-10T12:24:10.040" UserId="2942" />
  <row Id="15998" PostId="12324" Score="1" Text="Frankfurt/Germany (ca. 50°N) has about 50 h of sunshine *per month* in Nov - Jan. That's an average of 1h 40min  per day. AFAIK sunshine for these stats is defined as &gt; 120 W/m² perpendicular to sun, which is 12 % of the roughly 1000 W/m² of full direct sun shine. Midday height of the sun is somewhere around 20° during these months. A quick look on actual irradiation data by the German metereological service was about 20 kWh/m² perp. *per month* Nov - Jan over the last 3 winters. 20 % efficiency times a factor 0.25 for sin sun height since OP cannot tilt the panels =&gt; 1 kWh harvest per month" CreationDate="2022-09-14T18:39:30.293" UserId="3722" />
  <row Id="15999" PostId="12324" Score="0" Text="... assuming that there is no whatsoever shadowing. I'd call that comparable to your southern Finland data." CreationDate="2022-09-14T18:48:37.607" UserId="3722" />
  <row Id="16046" PostId="12325" Score="0" Text="If you don't mind the limitations (can't start a fire indoors, at night, or on a cloudy day), this is certainly the most sustainable option.  Properly cared-for, a good burning glass will last centuries, making the per-use cost effectively zero." CreationDate="2022-10-21T20:37:02.863" UserId="7993" />
  <row Id="16187" PostId="12325" Score="0" Text="Just happened to read your answer +1. That reminds me to incorporate all the super great ideas of our elder ancestors of the wild, both Sapiens and Neandertal. Coal or cold ember powder at the point of focus of the lens. There's also the technique of using the heat produced by wood friction, with the help of coal powder again. And finally that Neandertal trick of using manganese or magnesium (I always mistake the two names) that produces firing sparkles when hit by silex (or the inverse, silex hitting Mn/Mg). Well done Neanderthal men !" CreationDate="2022-12-27T10:52:45.557" UserId="135" />
  <row Id="15989" PostId="12327" Score="3" Text="More stuff in the fridge also reduces the amount of air, so with an upright fridge less air falls out when you open the door. Drawer fridges and chest fridges have much less of a problem with that." CreationDate="2022-09-12T02:48:48.643" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15990" PostId="12327" Score="0" Text="Oh that's true indeed. So if your refrigerator is full and you open the door often, it could actually consume less energy!" CreationDate="2022-09-12T15:56:55.297" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="15991" PostId="12327" Score="2" Text="I tend to agree with this answer providing the temperature of the cans is always the same when they are placed in the fridge. If the cans first stay in a &quot;cool room&quot; where the temperature is, say 20C or less, then it takes less effort to cool the cans to 4C, when they are in the fridge. If however, the cans have been in a hot location, the car on a hot day for hours, &amp; their temperature is 30C or higher, then it takes more effort to cool them. If it's hot today &amp; you know it will be cooler in 7 days, may be place half the can in now &amp; the rest when it's cooler." CreationDate="2022-09-13T02:55:45.513" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="15992" PostId="12331" Score="0" Text="It would be possible, but the amount of energy that could be derived would be very small &amp; most likely not worth the cost of establishing such a system." CreationDate="2022-09-13T14:01:08.297" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="15993" PostId="12331" Score="0" Text="I second the comment above, and you may be interested in [systems that use human](https://bike-power.co.uk/services/bike-powered-sound-system/) power [to generate electricity](http://www.thesmoothiebikecompany.co.uk/bicycle-powered-sound-systems)." CreationDate="2022-09-13T14:03:34.633" UserId="13618" />
  <row Id="16112" PostId="12332" Score="1" Text="another way of measuring how much max energy can be outputted is to count the calories the animal eats: it can't physical give out more energy than that." CreationDate="2022-11-25T23:06:18.367" UserId="14519" />
  <row Id="15994" PostId="12333" Score="0" Text="In order to answer this question we'd need to know the make/model of the powerbanks and the device you're connecting to. However, it's unlikely that any powerbank would be designed to work this way, so at best it won't work, at worst it will damage everything. If you're able to provide significantly more detail, you may consider asking this question at [Electronics.SE](https://electronics.stackexchange.com/)." CreationDate="2022-09-13T17:21:53.777" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="15995" PostId="12333" Score="0" Text="For i.e. this bank https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004225785453.html in PD version or this https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004127142508.html to connect 12V ports. I planned to connect few power banks to get a power source for all my telescope accesories in the wild field." CreationDate="2022-09-13T17:28:06.723" UserId="14245" />
  <row Id="16000" PostId="12333" Score="0" Text="With PD and other smart protocols it will almost certainly not work, and it could easily damage the equipment you're connecting it to. PD means up to 48V so if you confuse one of the power supplies enough it might send 48V to what you're powering regardless of whether that can accept 48V. https://www.usb.org/usb-charger-pd" CreationDate="2022-09-16T00:21:53.037" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="15996" PostId="12334" Score="0" Text="&quot;If your device requires USB-C power delivery negotiation, none of this is going to work.&quot; - Why? I planned to use USB PD ports." CreationDate="2022-09-14T10:28:06.983" UserId="14245" />
  <row Id="15997" PostId="12334" Score="1" Text="USB PD negotiates the voltage between power supply and load. You can't negotiate with two supplies using a single wire. If you put the wires to only single supply, the second supply doesn't know what voltage should be used and uses incorrect voltage." CreationDate="2022-09-14T17:53:25.140" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="16001" PostId="12334" Score="0" Text="I would focus on the PD negotiation, based on the OP comments. With same-model dumb USB 5V supplies it should be relatively safe to paralell them. As soon as you bring in PD the best outcome is 5V 1A, and the worst is 48V at 3A or more. But with multiple devices and multiple power banks why not just hook each power bank up to one device? Or buy one 5V/10A power supply, run it off a big 12V battery, and hook all your USB devices to that? My preference is one 12V battery and as many USB adapters as I need, but you don't have to to it that way." CreationDate="2022-09-16T00:26:54.803" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="16003" PostId="12339" Score="0" Text="The BSC3048 indicates it does have LiFePO4 direct support and I doublechecked it was configured for that.  I'll triple check and experiment with manual settings and check against this particular battery specs as you suggest.  I'm told that when the battery is at near-full conditions, one might see very high voltages from time to time" CreationDate="2022-09-16T22:59:24.463" UserId="14343" />
  <row Id="16004" PostId="12340" Score="0" Text="Does this answer your question? [Removing agricultural plastic film waste after 10+ years degradation](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/4665/3379)" CreationDate="2022-09-18T17:24:24.307" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="16195" PostId="12343" Score="0" Text="@glorfindel it doesn't look like your edit did anything except reformat the link?" CreationDate="2023-01-02T14:05:34.423" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="16196" PostId="12343" Score="0" Text="@LShaver I noticed that as well - I was planning to look through my log files to see whether the Springer site was down at that moment. Feel free to roll it back BTW." CreationDate="2023-01-02T14:16:09.083" UserId="4099" />
  <row Id="16006" PostId="12345" Score="2" Text="The other issue with farming fish in marine environments is the effect that escaped fish might have. In addition to eutrophication, waste from the farm can create dead zones on the marine floor in the vicinity of the farms, killing all life that used to be there.." CreationDate="2022-09-22T18:42:46.950" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="16197" PostId="12345" Score="1" Text="farmed fish are usually carnivorous as well - so they're fed partly-to-mostly on wild caught fish. Which is terrible in yet another way." CreationDate="2023-01-02T23:42:34.743" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="16005" PostId="12347" Score="2" Text="Have you tried softening the the baked on food by soaking it for about an hour prior to washing the dish? Instead of using a lot water to soak the item, place a saturated towel, or similar, over the affected region." CreationDate="2022-09-22T10:12:46.113" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="16048" PostId="12350" Score="0" Text="That is not a CCS plug. It's a Type 2 plug, which forms *part* of a CCS connector.... So I guess in a sense this might help the OP, but only if they want to charge their car very slowly." CreationDate="2022-10-25T12:34:56.233" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="16054" PostId="12350" Score="0" Text="Type 2 accepts up to 44 kW (at least I have stations with such designation in my country) and CHAdeMO _gives out_ 50 kW at max. I'd say difference is minimal. People are charging their EVs using sockets as &quot;small&quot; as 5,6 kW or 11 kW, so I'd strongly doubt if charging a car with 44 kW still mandates as _very_ slowly." CreationDate="2022-10-26T15:48:40.257" UserId="14308" />
  <row Id="16055" PostId="12350" Score="0" Text="Type 2 might support up to 44kW (that surprises me, I thought it was 22, but I might be wrong) - but most cars don't. Renault Zoes will charge at 22kW on type 2, but most others will only do 7 or 11 kW. Also, since (I think?) CHAdeMO is a DC system with most of the hardware in the &quot;shore station&quot;, and type 2 charging is AC with the charger in the car, I don't actually know if this will work at all for non-Teslas..." CreationDate="2022-10-26T19:32:56.447" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="16063" PostId="12350" Score="0" Text="I am also surprised with the possibility of charging AC 44 kW through Type 2. That's why I did mention a stickers on my chargers around and in-app information. My car also limits charging to 22 kW at most. I don't own any Tesla and don't know nothing about it. Could it be that it charges DC through Type 2? That would explain connecting pure-DC charger (CHAdeMO) to the AC socket (Type 2) through this extension." CreationDate="2022-10-28T07:55:00.297" UserId="14308" />
  <row Id="16064" PostId="12350" Score="0" Text="doing a little googling around this, it appears that Tesla connectors are different in the US vs EU, which makes everything confusing. But it looks as though in the EU, where they use Type 2 for their own charging stations, they do put DC through them at up to 43 kW.&#xA;Some (very little) info at https://www.zap-map.com/charge-points/tesla-model-s-charging-guide/" CreationDate="2022-10-28T14:25:18.313" UserId="812" />
  <row Id="16010" PostId="12356" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Why not simply compost the bird droppings, perhaps along with any other compostables you might have? If you do hot composting you will probably kill a lot of pathogens and reduce the risk of diseases like avian flu." CreationDate="2022-10-05T09:51:01.443" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="16021" PostId="12356" Score="0" Text="Hi, Thank you! :) It is a very good idea indeed. I can use your suggested hot composting method but I also would like to know whether I can do something with uric acid or not. If yes, I also want to use it and not waste it." CreationDate="2022-10-08T20:45:00.860" UserId="14398" />
  <row Id="16009" PostId="12357" Score="2" Text="I don't know the answer, but why would you need to store 4 months' worth of energy? Plenty of wind and hydro power available in the winter." CreationDate="2022-10-05T09:21:13.283" UserId="3851" />
  <row Id="16011" PostId="12357" Score="2" Text="Also, thinking further about it, for longer term storage, flow batteries would be more appropriate anyway. So perhaps the question should really be about the abundance of Vanadium." CreationDate="2022-10-05T10:01:55.957" UserId="3851" />
  <row Id="16013" PostId="12357" Score="0" Text="Lithium may be the favored metal for batteries, but it is not the only metal that can be used. Also, so called lithium batteries predominantly contain nickel &amp; the amount of lithium they contain is very small by comparison." CreationDate="2022-10-05T18:00:05.517" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="16014" PostId="12357" Score="0" Text="@andyyy I agree re. the flow batteries.  I've heard them called liquid metal batteries, and they've been proposed as preferable for grid storage.  I agree that there is some solar and wind power in the winter, but not enough to meet average, let alone peak, demand; it has to be supplemented with some kind of base load." CreationDate="2022-10-05T18:45:50.067" UserId="14400" />
  <row Id="16024" PostId="12357" Score="0" Text="Why fixate on batteries? Pumped water is the big scale way to go." CreationDate="2022-10-10T11:26:28.413" UserId="1567" />
  <row Id="16028" PostId="12357" Score="1" Text="Why fixate on renewables that need batteries?  Inherently safe, next-generation nuclear, preferably MSR, is the way to go, actually." CreationDate="2022-10-11T02:35:00.243" UserId="14400" />
  <row Id="16033" PostId="12357" Score="0" Text="There is a lot more lithium in the planet than we can get at. With increased effort and better technology the supply could be increased, but we'd never get 100% of it." CreationDate="2022-10-13T11:23:11.213" UserId="1567" />
  <row Id="16040" PostId="12357" Score="2" Text="There're way more great energy storage ideas, and each works for a different use. Wanna heat your house? Pump excess energy in an insulated silo full of sand, then retrieve the heat over the winter. etc, pp." CreationDate="2022-10-18T07:04:07.123" UserId="6182" />
  <row Id="16176" PostId="12357" Score="1" Text="Read rethinkX. The cheapest strategy is to overproduce electrity when it is easy and have a small amount of storage. Or watch a video about it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUySXZ6y2fk" CreationDate="2022-12-10T21:20:12.270" UserId="4458" />
  <row Id="16015" PostId="12358" Score="0" Text="The calculation looks good. Can you expound on your statement that no one would store 4 months of electricity in batteries?  Do you mean they would store less (perhaps the difference between total average demand and average supply from renewables during all of Winter, minus the amount of energy obtained elsewhere), or they wouldn't store it at all?" CreationDate="2022-10-05T18:50:01.940" UserId="14400" />
  <row Id="16016" PostId="12358" Score="0" Text="@Life5ign I have expanded that point.  Does it make sense now?" CreationDate="2022-10-05T21:05:46.033" UserId="13618" />
  <row Id="16017" PostId="12358" Score="0" Text="This answer isn't very useful. We can only extract highest grade lithium ores and brines near enough the surface of this planet. Calculating the total amount of lithium in this planet and using that figure, I'm afraid, isn't useful, because we can't access all of that -- as the answer correctly states." CreationDate="2022-10-06T16:44:52.073" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="16018" PostId="12358" Score="0" Text="@juhist yes it is.  it's a fact check on an arbitrary statement, giving the *most possible generous amount of lithium*: all of it, not only the amount that could be mined; the ad extremum is the point, to show that the statement is wildly incorrect (even though I agree with him on other points).  If there were enough in the the crust, the answer could be further refined to reflect how much could be mined.  Do you see how the simpler, extreme calculation is more powerful, faster, and by definition rules out the more complicated &quot;how much can we mine?&quot; calculation.  That is not necessary." CreationDate="2022-10-06T21:18:12.757" UserId="14400" />
  <row Id="16019" PostId="12358" Score="0" Text="@juhist I tried to address that in the last paragraph, without adding too much text critiquing the question rather than answering it." CreationDate="2022-10-06T21:27:05.620" UserId="13618" />
  <row Id="16020" PostId="12358" Score="0" Text="@User65535, yes, thanks for rounding that out" CreationDate="2022-10-06T22:06:56.500" UserId="14400" />
  <row Id="16083" PostId="12361" Score="0" Text="I understand why it's low, but why is it getting lower? You'd think that as solar and wind capacity increase, there'd be a higher demand for energy from storage, not less." CreationDate="2022-11-05T02:34:16.967" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="16084" PostId="12361" Score="0" Text="When the share of wind and solar increases, a larger share of our energy usage can come from wind and solar. However, you also need to supply whatever power is required when there's zero wind and solar. So in my opinion it's very logical: as wind and solar increases in share (assuming electricity use doesn't increase), the amount of kilowatts demanded from storage stays the same, but the amount of kilowatt-hours demanded reduces (because more is supplied by wind and solar). Therefore, capacity factor decreases." CreationDate="2022-11-05T15:36:06.923" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="16085" PostId="12361" Score="0" Text="Yes but in theory the new wind/solar is replacing &quot;baseload&quot; generation, so there's an increase in variability of the energy supply." CreationDate="2022-11-05T16:39:27.613" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="16042" PostId="12362" Score="0" Text="It would depend on the make/model of the inverters -- do you know it?" CreationDate="2022-10-20T14:51:50.057" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="16043" PostId="12362" Score="0" Text="I want to get theoretical answer. Imagine that I have a lot of random invertors. What params should I check?" CreationDate="2022-10-20T15:37:48.300" UserId="14245" />
  <row Id="16044" PostId="12362" Score="0" Text="Theoretically it is possible as juhist's answer explains. I'd recommend [editing](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/posts/12362/edit) your question to clarify that you're wondering about a theoretical case." CreationDate="2022-10-20T18:44:50.537" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="16050" PostId="12365" Score="0" Text="There are two other factors that affect the rate of tyre wear: how aggressively or gently a vehicle is driven &amp; the abrasiveness of the road surface." CreationDate="2022-10-25T17:44:20.850" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="16053" PostId="12365" Score="0" Text="Only if you consider the generation of the electrical charging power." CreationDate="2022-10-26T15:37:11.307" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="16056" PostId="12365" Score="0" Text="It's fair to consider too, by the way" CreationDate="2022-10-27T00:13:26.840" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="16060" PostId="12365" Score="0" Text="See also [Do electric cars create more fine dust pollution than comparable petrol cars?](https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/25280/)" CreationDate="2022-10-27T11:54:17.937" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="16061" PostId="12365" Score="0" Text="You changed the question, the answer now can be shortened to a single word: no.&#xA;The previous answers, to the original question, have all the information needed to back this short answer." CreationDate="2022-10-27T04:35:20.290" UserId="14436" />
  <row Id="16180" PostId="12365" Score="0" Text="This might be of interest: [*Here’s why electric vehicles need EV-specific tires*](https://arstechnica.com/cars/2022/12/heres-why-electric-vehicles-need-ev-specific-tires/)." CreationDate="2022-12-25T10:28:47.113" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="16052" PostId="12367" Score="0" Text="No it's not a typo. One liter of fuel weighs 0.735 kg. You add oxygen, so you get more weight for the carbon dioxide. 2.35 grams would mean matter somehow vanishes." CreationDate="2022-10-26T14:43:35.123" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="16057" PostId="12367" Score="0" Text="@juhist Got it! Thank you for making it clear, I didn't imagine that oxygen would add more than twice the weight of the fuel itself. After you said it was not a typo I stopped and remembered of the periodic table. Instantly I noticed why you are correct. Maybe because it's a gas we tend to think of it as being kind of light while in fact it is heavier than carbon." CreationDate="2022-10-27T04:24:17.053" UserId="14436" />
  <row Id="16058" PostId="12369" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Most compostable plastics only degrade under specific circumstances. They usually require a quite hot and moist environment, so not something that you can easily manage at home (see also [Which compostable plastic types can be composted at home?](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/2594)).&#xA;Anyway, your post doesn't seem to answer the question so it could be removed." CreationDate="2022-10-27T11:38:41.447" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="16516" PostId="12372" Score="0" Text="This is a great suggestion and reminds me of something that happened a while ago. I had an old bike (non-electric) that I wanted to get rid of. I just advertised it on craigslist and gave it away to the first person who responded. Later someone replied to my ad and said I should give it away to a nearby non-profit where they fix up bikes and give them to people in need. Unfortunately I already gave it away and regretted not giving it to the non-profit. But now I know for the future." CreationDate="2023-10-21T17:03:53.550" UserId="14379" />
  <row Id="16066" PostId="12375" Score="0" Text="Thank you for such a detailed answer and for solving all my doubts. Just to clarify. Does &quot;inverter built-in&quot; means the same as &quot;V2L functionality&quot;? If my next car will be Kia EV6 or Hyundai Ioniq 5 will I have a &quot;driving pendrive functionality&quot;? Sorry for making complex things such dumbly simple, but I am a very, very newbie to EVs. Thanks." CreationDate="2022-10-29T20:07:41.173" UserId="14308" />
  <row Id="16067" PostId="12375" Score="1" Text="If you buy EV6 or Ioniq 5, then the car should come with the cable so you don't need to purchase a separate cable. You should obviously confirm from the dealer that in your market area, the feature is included." CreationDate="2022-10-29T21:41:16.307" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="16109" PostId="12375" Score="0" Text="@juhist *all* cars have the inverter. The frequency converter used for powering the motor is essentially an inverter. But it may not have the software or wiring required..." CreationDate="2022-11-25T20:29:00.663" UserId="14517" />
  <row Id="16068" PostId="12378" Score="0" Text="Looks like your charger will autodetect 12V or 24V, so you could connect the batteries in parallel and the the charger would work, then you could also connect the inverter directly to both batteries in parallel." CreationDate="2022-10-31T16:03:54.480" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="16069" PostId="12378" Score="1" Text="@lShaver yes but when using the batteries in parallel, it will only give me 650watts and the rest energy isn't harvested" CreationDate="2022-10-31T16:19:06.240" UserId="14460" />
  <row Id="16070" PostId="12378" Score="0" Text="What's the battery capacity, and how much power do you need?" CreationDate="2022-10-31T17:51:10.583" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="16074" PostId="12381" Score="0" Text="As I understand it, the tree planting is via certified programs in Panama and Tanzania, though I don't know who certified them and what the worth of that certification is. The solar panels are in Vietnam and various parts of Africa, sunny places which are experiencing rapid growth in demand for electricity so the use of solar panels could be preventing new gas/coal power stations from being built, which is good. The cookstoves thing is always the one I've been most skeptical about." CreationDate="2022-11-01T17:57:59.223" UserId="14464" />
  <row Id="16075" PostId="12381" Score="0" Text="Vietnam and Africa are good places for solar panels. Panama and Tanzania for forest planing, though... I'm not sure how good the investor protections there are. Maybe they don't really invest in land but rather pay for forest to be planted, in which case it's anyone's guess whether the forest will be there in 30 years. Cookstoves, though, don't be so skeptical: it's a genuine problem that inefficient wood-burning stoves are used in poor countries." CreationDate="2022-11-01T18:33:06.040" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="16082" PostId="12383" Score="0" Text="If you want to get anything close to 50Ah out of these batteries (and discharging lead-acid battery past 50% DoD is a good way to destroy it fast) then you probably can't take much more than 5A out of them.  5A is the C/20 discharge rate, the typical rate where lead-acid chemistry comes close to providing the nameplate capacity.  If you discharge 100A then you are discharging at the 1C rate.  You should probably expect something like a 40% loss of capacity at this rate - leaving you with 30Ah to use." CreationDate="2022-11-05T01:28:36.323" UserId="4834" />
  <row Id="16078" PostId="12385" Score="0" Text="This question probably belongs on Skeptics. Consider moving it." CreationDate="2022-11-03T08:31:44.447" UserId="1567" />
  <row Id="16079" PostId="12385" Score="0" Text="[&quot;Ammonium nitrate is a major aerosol constituent over many land regions and contributes to air pollution episodes, ecosystem destruction, regional haze, and aerosol-induced climate forcing.&quot;](https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/21/15901/2021/). Also from the same article, NO3 can occurs as either fine or course particles. &quot; ... fine NO3 burdens are concentrated over land, coarse NO3 (i.e. coarseNO3) is more evenly spread over the Earth and prevalent over maritime areas where it forms on sea salt and aged dust particles.&quot;" CreationDate="2022-11-03T09:03:17.147" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="16080" PostId="12385" Score="0" Text="[Effects of mineral dust on global atmospheric nitrate concentrations](https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/16/1491/2016/), [Particulate nitrate photolysis in the atmosphere](https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2022/ea/d1ea00087j). [&quot;Nitrate (NO3−) has been the dominant and the least reduced chemical component of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) since the stringent emission controls implemented in China in 2013&quot;](https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/22/12629/2022/)." CreationDate="2022-11-03T09:15:09.733" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="16081" PostId="12385" Score="0" Text="@Fred what do you mean to say?" CreationDate="2022-11-03T13:39:53.117" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="16549" PostId="12387" Score="0" Text="I don't think that is right. Usage factor is calculated for storage as = gross generation / (capacity x  hours in month). This means duration is ignored. If anything, increasing duration means usage factors would likely go up as the gross generation / capacity ratio would increase. This is also the trend you see with increasing usage rates and storage duration length over the last few years" CreationDate="2023-11-14T15:49:05.587" UserId="15345" />
  <row Id="16086" PostId="12390" Score="0" Text="Why didn't Hindenburg's hydrogen dissipate?" CreationDate="2022-11-09T11:43:42.810" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="16087" PostId="12390" Score="1" Text="It ignited right when it was dissipating. That kind of failure mode isn't really reasonable for high-strength hydrogen tanks, that develop small leaks as opposed to large leaks, so the hydrogen simply has enough time to dissipate. If you have a soft balloon filled with hydrogen, when it breaks it develops a huge leak, so huge that the hydrogen can ignite when it's actively dissipating." CreationDate="2022-11-09T15:03:48.123" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="16089" PostId="12391" Score="0" Text="Just some wild theories: maybe climate change negatively affects clean fresh water availability. Maybe also E.Coli benefits from increased temperatures. When multiplying in the human body, it has a temperature of 37 degrees Celsius. When multiplying in the environment, especially in water, not so likely." CreationDate="2022-11-13T13:28:53.570" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="16143" PostId="12391" Score="0" Text="Diarrhea comes from Contaminated water. This proliferation in the 3rd world is result lack of sanitation...." CreationDate="2022-12-03T19:46:35.457" UserId="9007" />
  <row Id="16088" PostId="12392" Score="3" Text="Great question, but before comparing recycling rates you need to know what definition of recycling is used. For example, does it include reuse or thermal recycling (burning waste to generate heat and/or electricity)." CreationDate="2022-11-13T07:01:57.570" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="16091" PostId="12393" Score="1" Text="Thank you for your answer. But what about the different types of plastic? Do these two methods differ in the different types that they can treat?" CreationDate="2022-11-15T20:56:29.477" UserId="13543" />
  <row Id="16172" PostId="12393" Score="0" Text="What I was going to ask too. Of the seven common types of plastic only the first two are easily recyclable https://ourworldindata.org/faq-on-plastics#are-all-types-of-plastic-equally-easy-to-recycle" CreationDate="2022-12-09T06:16:43.893" UserId="14520" />
  <row Id="16173" PostId="12393" Score="0" Text="Burning plastic can treat any plastic, maybe apart from PVC the burning of which produces toxic gases. Chemical recycling, I assume it has probably similar restriction, because PVC has chlorine and plastics are made from hydrocarbons (containing only hydrogen and carbon), maybe adding oxygen, but the feedstocks don't have chlorine. So in the future, only PVC remains a problem." CreationDate="2022-12-10T09:23:51.117" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="16296" PostId="12393" Score="0" Text="@juhist can you provide an example where Chemical plastic recycling is up and running? If yes, I’m interested to know what the energy source is, given that the energy usage of Chemical plastic recycling must be huge?" CreationDate="2023-02-24T16:33:37.290" UserId="8656" />
  <row Id="16298" PostId="12393" Score="0" Text="Actually the carbon dioxide process is the one that requires huge energy input in the form of hydrogen (which would be provided mainly by excess wind energy during windy times in the future). Chemical recycling, not so much. I think chemical recycling might arrive faster than the carbon dioxide based process, I already provided Alterra Energy as a sample. Not sure if they have built recycling plants yet." CreationDate="2023-02-25T17:29:10.130" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="16299" PostId="12393" Score="0" Text="Oh yes they already have a plant: https://alterraenergy.com/how-we-do-it/#plant" CreationDate="2023-02-25T17:29:49.200" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="16168" PostId="12395" Score="0" Text="Is it normal for a 'sustainability professional' responsible for Life-Cycle Assessments  to also be involved in comparing these products to each other if their primary task is to see that the measurements are done, and interpret and write up the report?&#xA;With comparing products come value judgements. Not sure whose role that it. Bias is a serious threat here. Maybe get AI onto that. &#xA;How can the complexity of comparing products be a trade-off, other than by economic considerations such as how long it takes to do the comparison?" CreationDate="2022-12-08T06:10:59.413" UserId="14520" />
  <row Id="16290" PostId="12396" Score="1" Text="This question is really important [what does reduce-reuse-recycle actually mean](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/2522/what-does-reduce-reuse-recycle-actually-mean) because recycling is the last ditch effort when everything else has failed, not the first step." CreationDate="2023-02-16T23:59:23.900" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="16090" PostId="12397" Score="1" Text="To add to this, the lack of water can also a reduction of person hygiene practices which result in the increased likelihood of people injecting microbes that would have been washed off with adequate water supplies being injected &amp; subsequently resulting in diarrhea or other gastrointestinal conditions." CreationDate="2022-11-14T09:06:00.577" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="16141" PostId="12400" Score="0" Text="You might get more answers at [outdoors.se, where reproofing has been discussed quite a bit](https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/search?q=reproofing)" CreationDate="2022-12-02T16:41:01.587" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="16098" PostId="12404" Score="0" Text="related: [For airlines that have &quot;vowed to offer carbon-neutral flights&quot; how do they say they plan to actually make some flights demonstrably carbon-neutral?](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/12217/5824) and potentially helpful https://www.neste.com/products/all-products/saf/key-benefits" CreationDate="2022-11-23T20:56:38.423" UserId="5824" />
  <row Id="16146" PostId="12404" Score="1" Text="https://www.spglobal.com/commodityinsights/en/market-insights/latest-news/oil/040122-saf-demand-on-the-rise-but-feedstock-availability-a-concern-industry-experts" CreationDate="2022-12-05T07:27:37.497" UserId="14520" />
  <row Id="16100" PostId="12406" Score="0" Text="My understanding is that compostable plastics are both biodegradable &amp; they can be composted. Given that compost is used to benefit gardens, some biodegradable plastics are not suitable for composting due to the potential for soil of food contamination." CreationDate="2022-11-25T10:29:36.083" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="16110" PostId="12407" Score="1" Text="even without a thermostat, one should be able to turn the radiators down, no?" CreationDate="2022-11-25T22:56:51.950" UserId="14519" />
  <row Id="16120" PostId="12407" Score="0" Text="@njzk2 it's either on or off" CreationDate="2022-11-26T09:50:07.737" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="16101" PostId="12409" Score="1" Text="Are you sure you have a 500A battery, and not 500Ah? For comparison, the maximum power draw of most homes is less than 100A." CreationDate="2022-11-25T17:12:57.627" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="16108" PostId="12409" Score="0" Text="What are you trying to achieve? Cooking when power is out? Get a small gas burner." CreationDate="2022-11-25T19:09:36.363" UserId="14517" />
  <row Id="16178" PostId="12409" Score="0" Text="500A is very hard to deal with compared to 125A at 48V. Losses rise with current-squared." CreationDate="2022-12-15T02:40:45.343" UserId="318" />
  <row Id="16102" PostId="12410" Score="0" Text="&quot;what on Earth are you planning to do with 6 kW&quot; - power the whole my appartaments: fridge, microwave owen, teapot, electrical convector." CreationDate="2022-11-25T18:00:59.200" UserId="14245" />
  <row Id="16103" PostId="12410" Score="0" Text="Can I connect few 2kW 220V inverters to a same single battery to get the theree phases: one for each room?" CreationDate="2022-11-25T18:02:55.843" UserId="14245" />
  <row Id="16104" PostId="12410" Score="0" Text="&quot;6 kW single phase is insane&quot; - Why? I have a 25A fuses at the enter of my appartaments. So, it can carry that power." CreationDate="2022-11-25T18:04:52.187" UserId="14245" />
  <row Id="16105" PostId="12410" Score="0" Text="For i.e. I have a two fridges at my kitchen and also electrical owen and microwave owen. I don't want to turn off anything when want to turn on that devices (fridges should to work 24/7). And also electrical washing machine and water heater at the bathroom and two air conditioners." CreationDate="2022-11-25T18:06:15.787" UserId="14245" />
  <row Id="16106" PostId="12410" Score="0" Text="&quot;use a 48 volt system&quot; - I have only four 3.2V 300Ah LiFePO4 cells." CreationDate="2022-11-25T18:10:23.650" UserId="14245" />
  <row Id="16107" PostId="12410" Score="1" Text="@Robotex That's 3600Wh. Your 6kW inverter will suck that dry in twenty minutes. You *don't* want to use electricity for cooking and so forth in such a scenario: use ethanol or some other fuel for cooking. Use electricity for what you ***need*** electricity for; fridges, lights and electronics. A single fridge is 150-200W, so total load for essentials for a flat should be &lt;1kW. I use ~300W for non-heating loads for 60m^2 flat. Edit: I see you're in Ukraine." CreationDate="2022-11-25T19:08:30.257" UserId="14517" />
  <row Id="16121" PostId="12411" Score="0" Text="But unless you insulate every single home, adjusting anything down would make some people freeze, wouldn't it?" CreationDate="2022-11-26T09:54:22.573" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="16123" PostId="12411" Score="1" Text="@SergeyZolotarev No. Usually in district heating water flow can be adjusted per-apartment or at least per-building." CreationDate="2022-11-26T18:47:06.650" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="16111" PostId="12413" Score="0" Text="&quot;so why not do it a bit more specific?&quot; -&gt; because it costs more than a landfill" CreationDate="2022-11-25T22:58:28.493" UserId="14519" />
  <row Id="16124" PostId="12413" Score="0" Text="Sure, but recycling costs even more. Any kind of garbage management will cost money, it can't be profitable by itself (at least, right now) so it's always backed up by some kind of government incentive" CreationDate="2022-11-26T22:10:53.450" UserId="14518" />
  <row Id="16125" PostId="12415" Score="0" Text="&gt; What you're missing is that an insignificant amount of the oil we use is used to create plastic.&#xA;&#xA;You probably talking from the point of carbon emission but plastic waste creates problems by itself, it's in the oceans and forests, microplastic inside our blood etc.&#xA;Burying plastic is - in my view - is just a way of preventing that direct plastic contamination without increasing CO2 production, not reducing overall CO2 emissions." CreationDate="2022-11-26T22:15:35.467" UserId="14518" />
  <row Id="16126" PostId="12415" Score="0" Text="Well yes, but then you have to be really sure the storage method for storing plastic doesn't leave it to the environment with wind. Most actively used landfills leak plastics to the environment with wind. Maybe it's better to simply burn or chemically recycle the plastic, and use biochar made from trees for CO2 sequestration?" CreationDate="2022-11-27T10:14:26.100" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="16128" PostId="12415" Score="0" Text="I dunno, maybe it is :) That's why I'm asking. For me it seems strange to release CO2 and then capture it again, that - surely - should take more energy than not releasing it at all?" CreationDate="2022-11-27T15:59:48.663" UserId="14518" />
  <row Id="16174" PostId="12416" Score="0" Text="Insulation is pointless, if you are opening windows to control the temperature." CreationDate="2022-12-10T20:33:52.570" UserId="4458" />
  <row Id="16264" PostId="12416" Score="1" Text="@ctrl-alt-delor *Insulation is pointless, if you are opening windows to control the temperature **while running the heating***. Plenty of us in temperate climates control temperature with the windows in summer, and heat our houses in the winter. Insulation reduces the need for heating and also probably  reduces solar gain." CreationDate="2023-01-31T15:03:32.310" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="16268" PostId="12416" Score="1" Text="@ChrisH Yes. Opening windows, while heating or cooling systems are running. Is the problem. Not the opening of the windows. I often open windows, if this will control the temperature, without resorting to turning on some device to do it." CreationDate="2023-02-01T10:12:55.407" UserId="4458" />
  <row Id="16135" PostId="12418" Score="3" Text="&gt;Plastic wastes are largely inert. Stored in landfill pose no long term environmental harm&#xA;&#xA;But plastic from landfills may end up in the surrounding area or in the ocean; animals will eat it and choke. Also I'm not sure if microplastic is considered inert, looks like there is no consensus on that so far" CreationDate="2022-11-29T12:48:25.020" UserId="14518" />
  <row Id="16137" PostId="12424" Score="2" Text="I somewhat disagree that plastic burning would necessarily lead to poisonous gases. Well-engineered waste-to-power plants burn it cleanly, or at least as cleanly as they would burn wood, coal or oil." CreationDate="2022-12-01T15:33:13.870" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="16138" PostId="12424" Score="0" Text="I agree with that @juhist, waste-to-power plants that are well-engineered prevent gaseous and solid (from ash) wastes poisoning the atmosphere. But many countries are still allowing landfills to incinerate wastes without any filtering of either gases or ash. Australia where I live has two WTE plants still being built, with 530 municipal councils, most doing landfill and flaring off unfiltered methane. And we're meant to be developed." CreationDate="2022-12-02T03:14:20.327" UserId="14520" />
  <row Id="16139" PostId="12424" Score="0" Text="@juhist cleanliness of burning is just one aspect. Burning plastic (especially clean burning) requires additional energy input in the form of flammable oil derivatives. And burning will release CO2.&#xA;Sure, that's better then simply burning the landfils.." CreationDate="2022-12-02T12:23:35.793" UserId="14518" />
  <row Id="16142" PostId="12424" Score="1" Text="Yes, it's true that clean burning requires for example natural gas (i.e. methane) to help the burning process. However, if you capture the carbon dioxide output of the waste-to-energy plant, and combine the carbon dioxide with hydrogen created by electrolysis, you actually get more methane out than you put in there in the first place. This isn't currently done on a massive scale, but I suspect it won't take many years until that is the source of our methane." CreationDate="2022-12-03T10:14:32.217" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="16238" PostId="12426" Score="1" Text="I guess what I meant was that there are many kinds of unlabeled plastic that are in principle recyclable, but which aren't recycled merely because no one has taken the time to investigate how to do so.  It seems to me that one way to encourage more widespread recycling at an industrial scale would be to look for new ways of recycling at an amateur (e.g. single household) level.  One could in theory approach this task in isolation, but far more effective would be to solve it as part of a larger community." CreationDate="2023-01-16T19:54:21.170" UserId="14489" />
  <row Id="16149" PostId="12430" Score="0" Text="miniPCs are an interesting niche. Much like entry-level laptops (in that they usually rely on an iGPU, use SO-DIMMs, and have a non-upgradable CPU), miniPCs usually have very low power requirements, but unlike desktops, there is no real upgrade/repair path. At least you don't need to throw away the screen and keyboard when the system gets too slow to be useful. But it is a completely different niche. Being non-portable, you just can't compare miniPCs to laptops. And being basically incapable of upgrades/gaming, you can't compare them to desktops either. Apples and oranges." CreationDate="2022-12-06T01:07:48.257" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="16150" PostId="12430" Score="0" Text="I've been following miniPCs for a long time, and am very, very close to getting one to use as a HTPC and home automation server.  I think miniPCs would do well in both roles.  There is, however, no way that one could ever replace my laptop.  Nor could one currently replace my (general-purpose) desktop system.  If my desktop computing needs somehow decreased significantly then a miniPC would be an option, but I don't see that happening for many, many years." CreationDate="2022-12-06T01:14:18.317" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="16165" PostId="12430" Score="1" Text="@Tim it certainly depends on the person's needs.  As you mention if someone needs portability or a powerful computer then a mini PC is not sufficient.  But for basic needs such as internet, word processing, pictures, files, a mini PC is reasonable and can be compared to a desktop.  Especially if you put a version of Linux on it that's designed to be lightweight for older hardware, like I'm using now." CreationDate="2022-12-07T15:16:01.707" UserId="6578" />
  <row Id="16166" PostId="12430" Score="1" Text="Are your needs basic enough to consider SBCs (Single Board Computers) -- like the RaspberryPi -- as an option?" CreationDate="2022-12-07T22:13:48.320" UserId="4886" />
  <row Id="16169" PostId="12430" Score="0" Text="@Tim Probably not because I prefer using an SSD, but that's a good suggestion for some people.  They're not only much faster but they also have lower energy consumption than a traditional hard drive.  My mini PC has an SSD whereas with the Rasperry Pi 4 you'd have to buy and connect an external SSD to get similar speeds." CreationDate="2022-12-08T14:41:15.723" UserId="6578" />
  <row Id="16170" PostId="12430" Score="1" Text="Relatedly, since we're talking about maintainabilty the only things I'd be likely to upgrade on a computer are hard drive and memory, which I can do with my mini PC.  Separate monitor and keyboard and no battery makes them about as maintainable as a desktop for me, and a Rasperry Pi is similarly more maintainable than a laptop in that sense." CreationDate="2022-12-08T14:42:03.073" UserId="6578" />
  <row Id="16145" PostId="12439" Score="1" Text="A forest's &quot;eventually&quot; is a long time for puny humans, though. Depending on the fine print it's almost never less than 100 years, and can be thousands of years. The sudden reforestation of the Americas caused a measurable cooling, for example, and that took quite a lot of effort to reverse (but we've done it, we can stop now) eg: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277379118307261" CreationDate="2022-12-05T02:16:01.357" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="16198" PostId="12439" Score="1" Text="You also have to factor in what the building is replacing, and whether a timber-frame building requires more/less carbon emissions for construction." CreationDate="2023-01-03T18:28:51.447" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="16147" PostId="12440" Score="0" Text="So, nothing immediately wrong with just storing it now and use it as a resource later?&#xA;Sure, this  &quot;out of sight out of mind&quot; tendency is what brought us in the current mess of things and I agree that this is a big red flag here.. but still, any kind of recycling - afaik - is still too expensive compared to the using oil. Maybe when oil prices skyrocket, using plastic again will be profitable but until then any kind of waste management needs to be paid for by the state (i.e. by tax-payers).. and state also wants to pay as little as possible :\" CreationDate="2022-12-05T23:41:11.307" UserId="14518" />
  <row Id="16265" PostId="12444" Score="0" Text="You can normally also adjust valves, even if it's just nearly closing an isolating valve mainly meant for maintenance.  In one rented house I had to do both - the combination of me feeling the cold less than my housemates and a rather uneven system meant my room was an oven if they were warm enough.  After covering the radiator with towels, pushing furniture up against it also helps" CreationDate="2023-01-31T15:05:57.410" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="16209" PostId="12445" Score="0" Text="Yes, I know it. Problem that I have only one 12V battery. But question is not relevant for me anymore. I found that 1kW is more than enough and I'm using camping gas stove for cooking" CreationDate="2023-01-10T16:41:28.960" UserId="14245" />
  <row Id="16177" PostId="12446" Score="0" Text="Indeed, and a 7 kg tire won't lose 7 kg from new to fully worn. A lot of is is casing, steel belts, sidewall, bead, etc that will still be there when fully worn. Only part of the tread wears away." CreationDate="2022-12-11T10:06:26.810" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="16202" PostId="12447" Score="0" Text="If it is damp add sand and very dry dirt to try to mix up. Then dig it out." CreationDate="2022-12-22T06:33:18.750" UserId="9007" />
  <row Id="16188" PostId="12458" Score="0" Text="It looks like you've got two accounts, one with your email and an un-registered one. There are instructions [here[(https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/help/merging-accounts) to address that." CreationDate="2022-12-29T03:26:06.573" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="16224" PostId="12458" Score="0" Text="Do you have a height limit? Can row 2 be above row 1?" CreationDate="2023-01-14T22:29:01.747" UserId="4458" />
  <row Id="16186" PostId="12462" Score="0" Text="Some good hints in this answer. Freezing food scraps for example, when one doesn't have access to composting. Fans with lights are a bugbear in my present accommodation, I use side lamps." CreationDate="2022-12-27T03:33:34.890" UserId="14520" />
  <row Id="16182" PostId="12463" Score="0" Text="Thank you, @juhist Lots of good info on air conditioners, it'll be interesting to see what sort the landlord will provide. I hope it'll be possible to remove humitdity from the indoor air. I've started to look into purchasing ownership in a sustainable energy provider." CreationDate="2022-12-26T02:43:50.050" UserId="14520" />
  <row Id="16183" PostId="12463" Score="1" Text="Every air conditioner will remove humidity, too." CreationDate="2022-12-26T08:40:33.373" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="16425" PostId="12465" Score="0" Text="*none of the alternatives for batteries makes sense* — [home hydrogen storage exists](https://www.homepowersolutions.de/produkt/), but the price (~€100,000) seems to confirm that it does not make much sense" CreationDate="2023-07-14T07:19:21.877" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="16191" PostId="12467" Score="0" Text="&quot;Up to 80%&quot; doesn't really say anything. Such a figure is achieved under ideal circumstances which may not be realistic. The question is how much microfibre release will be reduced by the average consumer continuing their otherwise normal washing pattern." CreationDate="2022-12-30T08:44:35.403" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="16243" PostId="12467" Score="2" Text="I've read in a science magazine (will try to find link) that washing with cold water and line drying IE not in tumble dryer are the two most important ways of reducing microfiber shedding." CreationDate="2023-01-17T09:21:05.617" UserId="14520" />
  <row Id="16266" PostId="12467" Score="0" Text="@MocBird yes, though cold cycles often run for longer - more soaking and more agitation, which somewhat offsets this benefit of washing cold" CreationDate="2023-01-31T15:07:10.527" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="16204" PostId="12469" Score="1" Text="Don't forget the other side of the scale: situations where walking, public transport or cycling are better. Sustainably speaking, cars/trucks are very much the fallback position when none of those can be used." CreationDate="2023-01-06T06:37:56.683" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="16199" PostId="12470" Score="0" Text="I agree, intense weather is a concern. Also the availability of charging stations in the area. And your trip length is significant, I understand where you're coming from!&#xA;I'm a fan of EV's still myself, but I know they won't be a fit for everyone." CreationDate="2023-01-04T20:57:18.683" UserId="13357" />
  <row Id="16222" PostId="12470" Score="0" Text="Where did you get the data on AC?" CreationDate="2023-01-14T22:09:06.950" UserId="4458" />
  <row Id="16237" PostId="12470" Score="0" Text="Internal reports from Amoco engine lab . Speeds like 40 and 50 mph with little wind resistance require only low horse power." CreationDate="2023-01-16T15:42:01.683" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="16208" PostId="12471" Score="1" Text="Flukso is an open source power meter, I'm not sure of your regulations but installation involves putting clamp sensors on the relevant wires in your distribution board. That's something that could be cheap to get an electrician to do. I suspect that there aren't any general-purpose, non-invasive, non-technical solutions. All the ones I know of are either &quot;point a camera at the meter&quot; then write a bunch of code, or start with &quot;open up your distribution board&quot;" CreationDate="2023-01-10T09:48:00.543" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="16212" PostId="12475" Score="1" Text="I have often seen park benches and rubbish bins made of recycled plastic. You know this because there is a sign proudly informing you of the fact." CreationDate="2023-01-12T14:10:33.893" UserId="1567" />
  <row Id="16214" PostId="12475" Score="0" Text="Why do you think there is still a problem with plastic waste? If all the garbage went only to building materials, then this problem should have disappeared long ago." CreationDate="2023-01-12T20:48:36.967" UserId="14602" />
  <row Id="16218" PostId="12475" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! We have a related question: [Would it be possible to recycle all plastic into bricks and use them for building or insulation](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/q/3206/99)" CreationDate="2023-01-13T17:35:00.327" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="16219" PostId="12475" Score="0" Text="@THelper Thank you! I read this question before, but this is not an answer to my question. There they offer to make bricks from plastic, and I suggest using plastic as a filler. And the main question: if it is theoretically possible (bricks, or a filler), then why is there still a problem with plastic? There must be some good reason" CreationDate="2023-01-13T22:51:49.270" UserId="14602" />
  <row Id="16259" PostId="12475" Score="0" Text="The demand for recycled plastic is not necessarily the issue so much as the supply. For some types of plastic, the demand for recycled plastic is already greater than the demand for new plastic, making new plastic a cheaper option. Making these items out of recycled plastic won't necessarily increase the amount of plastic being recycled. Additionally, recycling plastic is energy-costly, making recycled plastic not a great choice from an economic or climate-change perspective." CreationDate="2023-01-28T04:38:56.843" UserId="14328" />
  <row Id="16261" PostId="12475" Score="1" Text="'Building materials' and 'plastics' are both compendium categories, both contain materials made using many different methods that sometimes clash. Example, wall cladding needs to be fire-proof. Many plastics are not. How to separate them economically?" CreationDate="2023-01-29T09:09:59.723" UserId="14520" />
  <row Id="16221" PostId="12478" Score="0" Text="Reducing mortality, reduces population, because it lowers birth rates (at least when mortality is high)." CreationDate="2023-01-14T21:59:50.113" UserId="4458" />
  <row Id="16225" PostId="12478" Score="0" Text="Could you provide a source for that?" CreationDate="2023-01-15T09:02:48.663" UserId="14604" />
  <row Id="16230" PostId="12482" Score="2" Text="Whether it's feasible or not, there are [ethical issues with selling human hair](https://borgenproject.org/ethics-of-human-hair-trade/#:~:text=increase%20farmers%27%20earnings.-,The%20ethics%20of%20human%20hair%20trade%20can%20be%20complex.,consent%20and%20are%20paid%20fairly.)." CreationDate="2023-01-15T17:50:26.620" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="16231" PostId="12482" Score="1" Text="@LShaver by the same token, aren't there ethical issues with exploiting animals?" CreationDate="2023-01-15T17:55:11.973" UserId="9669" />
  <row Id="16232" PostId="12482" Score="1" Text="It is not down. More like a replacement for horse hair." CreationDate="2023-01-15T18:54:53.823" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="16235" PostId="12482" Score="0" Text="If you don't get a good answer here, [Vegetarian.SE] might have a community to answer this question (I think replacing animal hair by human hair would make it vegan if no humans are coerced to part with their hair)." CreationDate="2023-01-16T12:54:24.983" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="16245" PostId="12482" Score="0" Text="Physically feasible yes. However human hair requires significant quantity if donors. Also widely bought for hair extensions. Wigs. Etc." CreationDate="2023-01-17T04:31:20.963" UserId="9007" />
  <row Id="16250" PostId="12482" Score="1" Text="Due to incidents of 20th century history, this idea would not be received well at all here in Germany." CreationDate="2023-01-23T12:25:20.260" UserId="1567" />
  <row Id="16267" PostId="12482" Score="0" Text="@LazyReader mine (and many other men's) hair wouldn't be much use for wigs - what's cut off is too short.  The grey ones probably aren't worth much either.  So it would be quite available for this, if hair was useful" CreationDate="2023-01-31T15:14:16.260" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="16286" PostId="12482" Score="0" Text="A lot of hair is goes in the rubbish bin of barber shops and hairdressers around the world. It would be poor quality, but it could be used for cheap canvas and there would be a lot of applications for it. It does not necessarily have to be used to replace down or wool. If the media does not make the usual fuss out of it I don't think that the ethical issues could be such a problem. Collecting the rubbish of a barber shop would not be such a big deal." CreationDate="2023-02-14T11:22:23.903" UserId="13969" />
  <row Id="16239" PostId="12484" Score="1" Text="You have the electrical theory part, your question is more about the details of your contract with your electricity retailer. It's likely that you're on a net use contract, but that's not guaranteed, in which case it's just the brute 5A generated, 6A used, 1A to pay for. But your contract could say just about anything so you need to look at that." CreationDate="2023-01-17T04:41:58.330" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="16241" PostId="12484" Score="0" Text="Thanks, so at least my assumptions of L1 pulling 1.5A and L2 giving 0.5A at the same time are good." CreationDate="2023-01-17T05:41:11.283" UserId="14612" />
  <row Id="16244" PostId="12484" Score="0" Text="Who is your utility? They should have published rate information to help understand." CreationDate="2023-01-17T14:17:14.683" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="16289" PostId="12486" Score="0" Text="The Australian REDCycle scam has collapsed: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-11-17/recycle-collapse-proof-plastic-recycling-system-broken/101666054  From what I can tell it never recycled anything, didn't even downcycle anything." CreationDate="2023-02-16T23:58:11.803" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="16247" PostId="12487" Score="0" Text="Wow excellent explanation. Though I would still have a doubt. Since this is a split phase, Load1 and Load 2 should cancel itself as much as possible on the neutral. So the currents should actually be both travelling on the same direction. Take a look at the edited diagram. Is this more acurate?" CreationDate="2023-01-19T22:26:29.593" UserId="14612" />
  <row Id="16248" PostId="12487" Score="1" Text="@BenQuan the currents cancel on the neutral because they are 180 degrees out of phase (it's alternating current, so one current will be at a maximum while the other is at a minimum), but the direction of current flow will always be from line to neutral for a load." CreationDate="2023-01-20T18:26:39.070" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="16253" PostId="12495" Score="0" Text="I think I see, so the large size of the energy-intensive industry (linked to the size of the *customer base*) divided by the small size of the population drives (in part) the large per-capita usage." CreationDate="2023-01-25T10:27:24.977" UserId="5824" />
  <row Id="16257" PostId="12495" Score="2" Text="@uhoh exactly. Alaska has some big energy users and very few people. A lot of what the energy uses is sent out of Alaska - think about the heated oil pipelines, for example. Those people aren't using much of the energy the state consumes, but the &quot;per capita energy use&quot; doesn't take that into account." CreationDate="2023-01-27T00:49:15.487" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="16255" PostId="12497" Score="0" Text="Interesting! https://transportgeography.org/contents/chapter4/environmental-footprint-of-transportation/urban-density-energy-consumption/ &quot;Two main factors explain why transport-related energy consumption **increases exponentially as urban density decreases:** 1) There is a shift from collective and non-motorized forms of transportation toward automobile use, implying a fast increase in energy use.2) The average commuting distance increases, implying a non-linear growth of energy consumption with return trips.&quot;" CreationDate="2023-01-25T21:37:02.730" UserId="5824" />
  <row Id="16263" PostId="12500" Score="1" Text="You'd need something with a big battery to justify a connector that large and complex. Even a large motorbike could fully charge in an hour or less from one. So there's no benefit rto having it, and on a bicycle the extra 1-2kg from the socket would be significant." CreationDate="2023-01-30T22:12:56.343" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="16269" PostId="12500" Score="0" Text="You can not save by buying more." CreationDate="2023-02-01T10:21:46.563" UserId="4458" />
  <row Id="16272" PostId="12500" Score="1" Text="Do you mean like ordinary golf carts ?" CreationDate="2023-02-03T16:42:16.870" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="16274" PostId="12500" Score="0" Text="@blacksmith37 I mean anything smaller than an EV, powered via Type 2." CreationDate="2023-02-05T19:00:50.683" UserId="14308" />
  <row Id="16275" PostId="12500" Score="0" Text="Will Prowse suggested recently that he might be able to charge his very large &quot;portable power station&quot; things that way. Or at least faster than the 100V/15A that the US is normally limited to" CreationDate="2023-02-05T22:41:05.903" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="16270" PostId="12501" Score="0" Text="links to supporting sources or specific citations would help." CreationDate="2023-02-01T10:30:37.300" UserId="5824" />
  <row Id="16276" PostId="12503" Score="0" Text="How is your question not answered by your linked article?  In particular the second figure, [that I put here](https://i.imgur.com/RoVmpE7.png), seems to answer most of your question." CreationDate="2023-02-06T18:46:06.900" UserId="13618" />
  <row Id="16277" PostId="12503" Score="0" Text="@User65535 1) I'd looked at that but I can't really understand what's going on, can you? *Is heating really only via thermal infrared radiation?* I think there's a good chance that there's someone here who can better than I, and 2) remember [@uhoh's lemma #3](https://meta.stackexchange.com/q/377004/303080) the primary goal of a Stack Exchange question is to generate answers not only for the OP to read but for many future readers as well." CreationDate="2023-02-06T23:06:03.457" UserId="5824" />
  <row Id="16279" PostId="12503" Score="0" Text="The paragraph that seems to explain it precisely [I have put here](https://i.imgur.com/rGlsOMI.png), perhaps explain what is not clear." CreationDate="2023-02-08T10:33:16.853" UserId="13618" />
  <row Id="16280" PostId="12503" Score="0" Text="[The paragraph before is also relevant](https://i.imgur.com/F3niGRd.png)" CreationDate="2023-02-08T10:41:26.780" UserId="13618" />
  <row Id="16579" PostId="12503" Score="1" Text="@User65535 if you think those paragraphs are sufficiently clear, and address my question you are welcome to summarize in an answer post!" CreationDate="2024-01-20T08:46:19.923" UserId="5824" />
  <row Id="16284" PostId="12506" Score="0" Text="For Zero it [seems](https://www.zeromotorcycles.com/ride-electric/charging-and-range) that Type 2 is not supported. The Level 2 graphics shows something different to me than Type 2. It is weird, because Level 3 charging shows CSS and CSS is extension of Type 2. But... the graphic in Level 2 charging is surely different than a typical Type 2 socket." CreationDate="2023-02-11T18:11:22.923" UserId="14308" />
  <row Id="16377" PostId="12507" Score="1" Text="Eco-friendly and plate friendly are not necessarily the same. E.g. sodium hydroxide or - carbonate are very effective for breaking down protein in the food remainders, and they are of very low concern for the wastewater (the small amounts needed are easily neurtralized and/or buffered by the organic acids in wastewater, and the microorganisms in biological wastewater treatment like slightly basic conditions). But they are comparatively corrosive to glass and porcelain (e.g. glazing going dull, for chipping I'd suspect rather mechanical reasons)." CreationDate="2023-05-24T11:29:38.730" UserId="3722" />
  <row Id="16287" PostId="12509" Score="0" Text="This question is probably a better fit for Electronics.SE." CreationDate="2023-02-15T12:26:21.530" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="16288" PostId="12509" Score="0" Text="@LShaver Maybe, but I can't ask questions here and don't know why." CreationDate="2023-02-15T12:29:39.703" UserId="14245" />
  <row Id="16303" PostId="12509" Score="0" Text="This is an XY question, because you are asking generically and not about a specific critical load, for which other options might be available." CreationDate="2023-03-07T02:49:07.837" UserId="6925" />
  <row Id="16295" PostId="12511" Score="0" Text="So, it's impossible to switch immediately without AC-DC-AC conversion, right? Thank you for your answer." CreationDate="2023-02-21T06:33:50.457" UserId="14245" />
  <row Id="16302" PostId="12511" Score="1" Text="You wouldn't want an instant switch.  A guy tried DIYing a fast switcher.  Big surprise!  The furnace fan started running in reverse and filled the house with carbon monoxide.  Turns out, the auto-switch happened just at the perfect time, and in counter-phase, to cause the motor to kick backwards, and once it's moving backwards it's going to stay going backwards because it's single-phase!   When you glue two random AC waveforms together, stuff happens!" CreationDate="2023-03-07T02:45:50.180" UserId="6925" />
  <row Id="16312" PostId="12511" Score="0" Text="@Harper-ReinstateMonica Wow, this should be an answer" CreationDate="2023-03-09T12:21:30.823" UserId="14245" />
  <row Id="16300" PostId="12512" Score="0" Text="See https://superuser.com/questions/274194/lcd-lifespan-does-frequently-10-times-a-day-turning-on-off-lcd-shortens-its." CreationDate="2023-03-02T12:23:39.957" UserId="4158" />
  <row Id="16301" PostId="12514" Score="0" Text="I would generally focus on areas with bigger impacts. Even if you manage to halve your toaster footprint, it's not a huge part of your total." CreationDate="2023-03-04T10:16:34.853" UserId="14517" />
  <row Id="16313" PostId="12514" Score="0" Text="I've used Dualit toasters a few times, in work and in group accommodation.  They're robust and repairable so make a lot of sense there (and go up to 6 slices).  They should outlast a few cheap ones in heavy use, offsetting the extra cost and saving manufacturing energy.  Otherwise I had a 4-slot in the form of 2x2 slots (I think that was Philips, but it's long gone).  I don't know about you, but I'm far more likely to eat toast at cold times of year, when the waste heat goes into warming the house anyway (which I allow to get rather cold)" CreationDate="2023-03-09T14:35:05.073" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="16308" PostId="12515" Score="0" Text="It doesn't help when operating systems such as Windows 11 are introduced that require computers with specific hardware requirements for supposedly security reasons. Anyone who has an old computer that functions perfectly well &amp; they are happy with their situation then has the dilemma of either having to dispose of the old computer &amp; buy a new one to use Windows 11 or abandoning Microsoft operating systems &amp; install GNU/Linux on the perfectly functioning computer they have been using for many years." CreationDate="2023-03-09T07:41:15.793" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="16309" PostId="12515" Score="0" Text="@Fred Yes, which is why I've thought that extending support backwards might be ecologically more sound even when several vendors seem to not want to do it due to so few users. But I am not sure whether &quot;so few users&quot; is the chicken or the egg. It is also possible that software vendors rely on business techniques that make upgrades unavoidable. It sounds reasonable that prolonging the lifetime of products might not be profitable." CreationDate="2023-03-09T07:49:35.797" UserId="14717" />
  <row Id="16310" PostId="12515" Score="0" Text="I think there are other factors at play as well. We are being increasing regarded as a product for advertisers by &quot;tech companies&quot;. They want to monitor us for various reasons, some of them business related. With older platforms they can't do that. By making the new systems incompatible with the old they are trying to force users into their preferred channel so it's easier for them to maintain a long term income source. It's a variation of the concept of design obsolesce, or consumer engineering, as the term was in the 1930s. To complement this, we are also being forced into using online ..." CreationDate="2023-03-09T08:19:28.060" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="16311" PostId="12515" Score="0" Text="... storage &amp; away from storing things on local hard drives: long term storage devices that we own. We also being forced into a situation where a computing device is only useful when constantly connected to the world wide web - software such as Office 365 (ex Microsoft Office)  that can only be used via a continual online link &amp; no long installed on local computers. There are advantages regarding updating such software by doing this, but there are also disadvantages as well." CreationDate="2023-03-09T08:23:20.790" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="16339" PostId="12521" Score="0" Text="Many are LCD..." CreationDate="2023-03-20T07:21:55.307" UserId="14769" />
  <row Id="16341" PostId="12521" Score="0" Text="@Barreto Backlight is led. That's the relevant thing here. There's no such thing as a LED monitor." CreationDate="2023-03-20T07:56:53.067" UserId="14517" />
  <row Id="16342" PostId="12521" Score="0" Text="I see, I misread your answer" CreationDate="2023-03-20T08:19:25.243" UserId="14769" />
  <row Id="16306" PostId="12530" Score="1" Text="&quot;Halfway across the country&quot; could mean anything from a few km to 5000 km… you may want to clarify." CreationDate="2023-03-08T08:06:25.540" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="16307" PostId="12530" Score="0" Text="It's across several states." CreationDate="2023-03-08T19:29:35.987" UserId="14759" />
  <row Id="16375" PostId="12532" Score="0" Text="Where I am only cold-fill dishwashers were available until very recently. Our new dishwasher has cold + hot inlets, and I consider that a decided advantage (at least if renewables are used for the hot water supply). I may add that here, any hot water cooling in the pipe (which will just the same happen when hot water is used at the kitchen sink a few cm besides the dishwasher) will just offset the heating of the house during heating season. When it is so hot that we take care not to let the house heat up too much, there is OTOH for sure sufficent sun for solarthermally heated water..." CreationDate="2023-05-24T11:11:24.450" UserId="3722" />
  <row Id="16376" PostId="12532" Score="0" Text="Wrt to pipe length influencing the actual temperature of the water arriving in the dishwasher, circulating lines for the hot water supply have been the standard here for decades. The dishwasher uses the hot inlet only for the cycle parts where it would otherwise heat any supplied cold water, and I don't see where the idea that it would use more hot water than otherwise cold water comes from!? (It's anyways not the case for ours.)" CreationDate="2023-05-24T11:16:17.883" UserId="3722" />
  <row Id="16378" PostId="12532" Score="0" Text="That being said, I'd also tend to think that the choice of the dishwashing chemicals may have higher influence here. You may be able to find chemicals that are less corrosive on dishes, but if the reason behind all this is to be eco-friendly you'll need to check carefully what their properties wrt. wastewater treatment are. Another option would be to lower the dose of dishwashing agent." CreationDate="2023-05-24T11:48:21.800" UserId="3722" />
  <row Id="16379" PostId="12532" Score="1" Text="@cbeleitesunhappywithSX solar thermal changes things, certainly. And if that leads to modern designs having hot and cold fill, it could be good.  My point about water consumption was that the water-efficient designs on the market are cold fill only - perhaps with hot-fill coming back this is no longer the case." CreationDate="2023-05-24T12:08:25.560" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="16380" PostId="12532" Score="0" Text="As for secondary circulation, it's rare here, even though we need to heat our houses for about half the year.  Even with insulation it still heats the rooms." CreationDate="2023-05-24T12:09:31.133" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="16381" PostId="12532" Score="1" Text="And detergent choice could absolutely have an effect, but it's not clear that eco-brands will be better than mainstream brands.  For example if the eco brands don't use enzymes (some do, some may not), the other ingredients may  be harsher to make up for it.  If you can easily get powder detergent, you can reduce the dose.  I have trouble getting anything other than PVA-wrapped tablets  without a trip to a different supermarket - and when I cycle there I'm already bringing back as much as I can get on the bike so I can't stock up (also @cbeleitesunhappywithSX)" CreationDate="2023-05-24T12:14:17.753" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="16352" PostId="12534" Score="1" Text="The battery charger that &quot;reconditions&quot; sounds like marketing bullpuckey. The only thing that would be remotely useful in that space would be doing a deep discharge every 20-30 uses on a nickel-*cadmium* pack to avoid memory effect.  But that's a peculiarity of that one obsolete chemistry, and enen so, you can do that yourself for free by leaving the light on LOL." CreationDate="2023-03-28T20:09:47.340" UserId="6925" />
  <row Id="16354" PostId="12534" Score="0" Text="Just discovered that likely only 15% of Li is recovered during Li-ion battery recycling https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-00915-3" CreationDate="2023-03-31T16:50:58.563" UserId="13189" />
  <row Id="16355" PostId="12534" Score="1" Text="Wow, that's it. Some lab level experiements by a small team is the culmination of the recycling effort. That's almost as bad as the fact that most of our power comes from burning coal.  Seriously, &quot;progress&quot; is a thing :) The Wright Brothers didn't start out with the 747." CreationDate="2023-03-31T18:57:38.630" UserId="6925" />
  <row Id="16314" PostId="12535" Score="0" Text="I've not had good experiences with dynamo lights - with two different bikes they have just stopped working after a couple of years. In addition, the amount of light generated isn't really enough for riding on an unlit road at night. In addition, some of them seem to have batteries embedded anyway as they continue to shine after the bike is stopped." CreationDate="2023-03-10T12:16:19.353" UserId="3851" />
  <row Id="16315" PostId="12535" Score="0" Text="@andyyy I don't know what type of dynamo lights you have tried, but I have used mine without problems for 14 years and the light is bright enough to ride safely at 30 km/h on an unlit forest track (I just wish I had a button to switch between high-beam and low-beam, but last time I looked this was only available for e-bikes, not for human powered bikes; for full speed I like to point the light forward, so I can see low-hanging branches well ahead of time, but when meeting people the light should point down to the road, which is good enough at low speed anyway)." CreationDate="2023-03-10T12:55:53.120" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="16316" PostId="12535" Score="0" Text="I can confirm that dynamo lights are THE choice today. My advice for road use would be B&amp;M Lumotec IQ Cyo Premium. I have never experienced lack of light with it." CreationDate="2023-03-12T09:05:30.067" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="16317" PostId="12535" Score="0" Text="...but however, old 2.4 watt halogen dynamo lights are indeed poor and they stop working very soon because of a burnt bulb. However, this is not the state of the art today." CreationDate="2023-03-12T09:06:10.087" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="16318" PostId="12535" Score="2" Text="Also the best dynamo is a hub dynamo. The ones that continue providing light after stopping are usually implemented with a supercapacitor rather than a battery. Supercapacitors have longer lifetimes than batteries." CreationDate="2023-03-12T09:07:15.137" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="16320" PostId="12535" Score="0" Text="Long term it would be good to get a dynamo with a decent lighting system, but I need to wait until I either replace a back wheel or a whole bike. And when replacing a whole bike, it generally requires a wheel rebuild by the local bike mechanic to fit the dynamo hub. Maybe one day factories will produce backwheels with dynamos built-in." CreationDate="2023-03-12T15:24:42.367" UserId="13189" />
  <row Id="16322" PostId="12535" Score="1" Text="@Adam I think they're more common in the front (the rear wheel might have internal hub gears) but it's true that installing one means a new wheel or rebuilding an existing wheel." CreationDate="2023-03-13T07:46:32.057" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="16323" PostId="12535" Score="0" Text="Yes, dynamos go in the front hub.  I've got 2, in wheels I built, and I certainly like them.  There is a certain versatility to battery lights though, and I carry them as backups (riding through the night repairs may be needed using a battery front light as a torch, and a second back light can be good)." CreationDate="2023-03-14T16:28:13.573" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="16324" PostId="12535" Score="1" Text="*The energy source would be (mostly) human muscle power (assuming the bicycle is human powered and not electric), which is also more ecological than any other alternative.* I doubt many people here are fuelling their rides on steak, but the carbon footprint of that is going to be far worse than a typical electricity generation mix.  I looked into something similar [here](https://bicycles.stackexchange.com/a/53750/7309)." CreationDate="2023-03-14T16:38:37.270" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="16326" PostId="12535" Score="0" Text="@ChrisH Hmm, are you suggesting an e-bike is potentially &quot;greener&quot; than a human powered bike? That's an interesting proposition." CreationDate="2023-03-14T16:53:44.600" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="16327" PostId="12535" Score="1" Text="@gerrit for a worst case diet and a best case electricity generation mix, the emissions per unit distance are almost certainly better on the e-bike. But the extra manufacturing emissions would require a lot of distance to offset, and batteries in particular cause non-carbon pollution in manufacturing. On the other hand a largely plant-based diet and typical generation involving some fossil fuels looks pretty clearly in favour of human power." CreationDate="2023-03-15T08:01:06.670" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="16328" PostId="12535" Score="1" Text="... Going further, cycling is good for health (though e-biking can be almost as good if it gets you out more) . Healthy people live longer, increasing their lifetime emissions, but need less healthcare and healthcare can be quite polluting" CreationDate="2023-03-15T08:02:23.610" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="16329" PostId="12535" Score="0" Text="@ChrisH In some cities, cycling also increases the risk of an early death, thus significantly reducing carbon footprint (in particular if the death is immediate and thus no healthcare is used)… perhaps the risk of deadly accidents is increased with e-bikes…" CreationDate="2023-03-15T08:12:19.387" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="16330" PostId="12535" Score="1" Text="@gerrit statistically the health benefits far outweigh the risks in most places. I do see a correlation between risky riding and e-bikes, but that may have something to do with the popularity of e-bikes among food couriers who are under too much time pressure" CreationDate="2023-03-15T08:39:48.617" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="16332" PostId="12535" Score="0" Text="@ChrisH when we consider that a person is better off dying a violent death because it reduces their lifetime carbon footprint, I think it's obvious we've gone too far. I actually work on CO2 emissions policy and the most sensible but unacceptable is carbon allowances. You get your carbon budget and can spend it on whatever you like. It's fair. But freeloaders don't like the idea of being forced to take responsibility for their own CO2, frankly. I'd never have said freeloaders were a big problem, but with CO2 emissions, they really are." CreationDate="2023-03-15T17:42:26.497" UserId="13189" />
  <row Id="16333" PostId="12535" Score="1" Text="@Adam I agree, and for me getting to questions of health in later life was enough. I don't usually mind thinking about things to the absurd, morbid stage though" CreationDate="2023-03-15T17:44:47.947" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="16319" PostId="12536" Score="1" Text="Interesting praise for Eneloop. The consumer test https://www.which.co.uk/reviews/rechargeable-batteries found Eneloop Pro AA are the best, but Eneloop AA (not Pro) are significantly less good and several other brands are better. Thanks for the pointers." CreationDate="2023-03-12T15:18:25.773" UserId="13189" />
  <row Id="16321" PostId="12536" Score="1" Text="I disagree that pro should be chosen. Pro has more capacity, but faster self-discharge and less durability. My opinion is that it was a major mistake by Sanyo/Panasonic to enter the high-capacity competition with the Pro model. The basic model is the one that should be chosen. I suspect 15-year old Pro batteries wouldn't have more than 90% of their capacity left." CreationDate="2023-03-12T15:31:37.267" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="16325" PostId="12536" Score="0" Text="Don't forget the rather large upfront cost of dynamo lights.  I like mine, but even a budget setup cost more than many bikes." CreationDate="2023-03-14T16:39:33.307" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="16331" PostId="12537" Score="0" Text="Handy if you have those skills. I could use a soldering iron, no problem - it's just knowing what electronics to buy (and where) that's the important bit." CreationDate="2023-03-15T17:17:59.147" UserId="13189" />
  <row Id="16337" PostId="12538" Score="0" Text="This seems like a question of local legal requirements and possibly structural engineering, not sustainability." CreationDate="2023-03-19T23:55:28.970" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="16338" PostId="12538" Score="0" Text="Please clarify your specific problem or provide additional details to highlight exactly what you need. As it's currently written, it's hard to tell exactly what you're asking." CreationDate="2023-03-19T23:55:42.437" UserId="-1" />
  <row Id="16350" PostId="12538" Score="0" Text="There's not much difference between a tiny house &amp; a shed. If you want either to be long lasting they are made from the same materials as houses are. If they are made from anything lighter &amp; someone dies as a result would the builder be liable for manslaughter?" CreationDate="2023-03-27T08:42:21.487" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="16336" PostId="12541" Score="0" Text="See also https://climate.ec.europa.eu/eu-action/climate-strategies-targets/progress-made-cutting-emissions/emissions-monitoring-reporting_en" CreationDate="2023-03-17T22:16:22.683" UserId="13192" />
  <row Id="16343" PostId="12544" Score="0" Text="This is totally and completely false. NiMH can be recharged before fully flat. The reason in some cases you should have flat batteries is poor chargers: a timed charger should ideally be used only for flat batteries. But with proper negative delta-V termination, you can charge a battery in every single case. So-called memory effect only occurs in satellites: if the battery is discharged to exactly the same state-of-charge (like what occurs for satellites orbiting Earth), it will remember that state-of-charge. In terrestrial applications there is no memory effect, but there are poor chargers." CreationDate="2023-03-20T18:10:55.880" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="16346" PostId="12544" Score="0" Text="I have seen this effect here on earth. Not a very big effect in recent years. Mainly on older stuff. But, even a new toothbrush seem to suffer a little. Every so it seems that the battery is broken, I let it run all the way down and recharge, and it mostly fixes it." CreationDate="2023-03-24T21:28:43.713" UserId="4458" />
  <row Id="16340" PostId="12545" Score="0" Text="Yes, the question implicitly revolves around what can one do when manufacturers don't do anything." CreationDate="2023-03-20T07:50:31.773" UserId="14717" />
  <row Id="16345" PostId="12549" Score="0" Text="&quot;eventually&quot; not just in geologic time, but literally an astronomically long period of time." CreationDate="2023-03-22T21:58:15.207" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="16348" PostId="12549" Score="0" Text="But think of all the problems we're having *now* because we stole energy from dinosaurs.  If we're stealing energy from the moon's orbit, we could bring it down on our heads!  (but it does beg the question of whether we could push the moon away by having giant propulsors assist the tides)." CreationDate="2023-03-27T02:17:57.480" UserId="6925" />
  <row Id="16351" PostId="12549" Score="1" Text="Actually, due to virial theorem if you steal energy from the Moon, it will cause Moon to become more distant. There are two forms of energy, gravitational energy and kinetic energy. Due to virial theorem, kinetic energy is twice the negative gravitational energy. You are stealing from Moon's kinetic energy, giving a bit back to its gravitational energy, and the total energy of the Moon reduces as it becomes more distant from Earth." CreationDate="2023-03-28T15:26:51.830" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="16356" PostId="12549" Score="2" Text="Such power plant already exist, for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rance_Tidal_Power_Station" CreationDate="2023-04-05T08:38:52.403" UserId="14848" />
  <row Id="16353" PostId="12552" Score="2" Text="While this link may answer the question, it is better to summarise or quote the relevant parts here, and only provide the link as a reference. This way, your answer will stay relevant even if the link is removed or deleted." CreationDate="2023-03-28T22:09:17.303" UserId="8232" />
  <row Id="16357" PostId="12557" Score="0" Text="I'm not sure I'm following, because it's known that the gravity assist can be used multiple times against the same planet. For instance, the Rosetta spacecraft used three assists from Earth: https://sci.esa.int/web/rosetta/-/58336-rosetta-by-numbers" CreationDate="2023-04-07T11:08:31.303" UserId="14819" />
  <row Id="16358" PostId="12557" Score="0" Text="@emaxx, may be this picture will give you a better understanding of the concept: https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/q6SgDc6TTizYUW2aftmp8Y-1920-80.jpg.webp. Though Rosetta used 3 Earth slingshots, it was part of an extended trajectory where it also used other planets and asteroids in between and their positions in their respective orbits at specific times to make it to its final destination." CreationDate="2023-04-07T18:47:41.837" UserId="14858" />
  <row Id="16360" PostId="12559" Score="2" Text="Who are you replying to?" CreationDate="2023-04-19T01:54:30.017" UserId="13225" />
  <row Id="16361" PostId="12561" Score="0" Text="I’m voting to close this question because I moved it to the more active DIY stack exchange" CreationDate="2023-04-22T15:25:44.143" UserId="2942" />
  <row Id="16382" PostId="12561" Score="0" Text="&quot;the wood would [...] then rot and store carbon&quot; just a side note: when the wood rots it *releases* the carbon dioxide the trees stored when they grew." CreationDate="2023-05-24T12:36:40.183" UserId="3722" />
  <row Id="16383" PostId="12561" Score="0" Text="Sorry I was not writing precisely. I just mean, using this plain, biodegradable product will store carbon and even when it becomes unusable due to weathering, it will slowly decay and can even be broken down in useful ways. But you are right and I'll edit, &quot;rot and store carbon&quot; is not right" CreationDate="2023-05-25T01:14:28.577" UserId="2942" />
  <row Id="16366" PostId="12563" Score="0" Text="You could ask about the *sustainability issues* related to the use of rubbing alcohol (isopropyl alcohol ~70%) in the home for example. Surprisingly, in some places (like where I live) if you go to the drug store and buy a bottle of alcohol for sterilization and other household uses it's actually *ethanol*, not isopropanol!" CreationDate="2023-05-14T23:05:35.810" UserId="5824" />
  <row Id="16364" PostId="12566" Score="1" Text="This might get you started. When I have a minute I'll see if there's something similar for ISO testing of freezers. https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/a/10464/3379" CreationDate="2023-05-06T14:02:22.440" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="16399" PostId="12574" Score="0" Text="A very good observation! Something also to note: weather service business isn't an exactly free business, the data you use must be paid for. If you haven't paid for weather data, chances are you don't have the weather data in the first place. There are today some exceptions such as GFS but it is not the best of weather models. ECMWF, one of the best models, is moving towards an Open Data model but as far as I know the data isn't open yet." CreationDate="2023-06-30T17:45:30.633" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="16397" PostId="12584" Score="1" Text="Your question is quite long and I'm not sure all you wrote is relevant. Why not simply ask &quot;what is a more sustainable alternative to putting empty glass jars in the trash bin&quot;? You could elaborate that you're interested in lowering your negative environmental impact?." CreationDate="2023-06-30T09:58:29.363" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="16479" PostId="12585" Score="0" Text="The last comment is a strange one. [The USA is the 13th largest producer of rice](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_rice_production) in the world and arguably the largest or second largest where it is not an absolute cultural staple (I am not familiar enough with the culinary traditions of Brazil). Are you referring to the need for irrigation, which is not unique to North America?" CreationDate="2023-08-20T18:58:56.043" UserId="15157" />
  <row Id="16386" PostId="12587" Score="1" Text="Surely you are aware that both mining equipment manufacturers and heavy truck manufacturers are rapidly adopting electricity and in the future hydrogen as their power source? Besides, buying water glasses from store is something you do only rarely, since the water glasses will be used a long time. I don't think any kind of &quot;optimization&quot; matters here at all." CreationDate="2023-06-12T17:51:13.383" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="16415" PostId="12587" Score="0" Text="I tend to agree with @juhist. I recall during my student days some of my colleges used to drink beer out of cleaned out glass jam jars. Things some &quot;poor&quot; students did when money was tight or they wanted a convenient beer drink receptacle in their cars to be used when circumstances &quot;required&quot;." CreationDate="2023-07-13T09:25:30.230" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="16387" PostId="12589" Score="0" Text="Certainly where I live, only glass *packaging* is recycled.  I think that's partly because glass kitchenware can be borosilicate or other unusual and incompatible types.  Where it gets confusing is that a few (French) products are packed in [jars without screw tops that are intended to be drinking glasses](https://europafoodxb.com/maille-fine-dijon-mustard-in-a-whisky-glass_1508/)" CreationDate="2023-06-15T15:45:46.263" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="16390" PostId="12590" Score="0" Text="I prefer the idea to buying used glassware from thrift stores over my idea of using empty glass jars which originally contained salsa Verde or spaghetti sauce. Glassware purchased from a thrift store is more aesthetically pleasing to human eyes. The glass jars which used to contain salsa Verde look uglier than used glassware. In general, purchasing used glassware is more sustainable and environmentally friendly that purchasing new glassware (relatively speaking). In both cases, transportation costs are comparable." CreationDate="2023-06-27T22:03:01.620" UserId="14965" />
  <row Id="16391" PostId="12590" Score="0" Text="Driving a car to the thrift store and driving a car to the Walmart have a similar affect on the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Also, comparable amounts of fossil fuels are consumed, even for automobiles powered by electric batteries." CreationDate="2023-06-27T22:03:32.847" UserId="14965" />
  <row Id="16392" PostId="12590" Score="1" Text="In general, buying glassware from thrift stores consumes fewer fossil fuels than melting mined quartz, rich in silicon oxide, in order to make new glassware. Perhaps it would be prudent to buy glassware only from thrift stores, unless inventory of used products is low. In that event, new glassware can be molded from raw materials (quartz)" CreationDate="2023-06-27T22:04:45.733" UserId="14965" />
  <row Id="16394" PostId="12590" Score="0" Text="@SamuelMuldoon I must admit I didn't even consider driving emissions. I usually go to the shops by bike, only driving on the rare occasions I'm buying lots of bulky and heavy stuff" CreationDate="2023-06-28T06:36:34.567" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="16389" PostId="12594" Score="0" Text="I purchased a glass cutter once. In order to operate the device, a person rotates a cylindrical glass jar. A small hardened steel blade is used to score a line going around the jar. In theory, the glass will only break along the groove cut into the glass. In practice, the glass jar cracks and breaks in other places. It might or might not be more effective to cut glass jars on a lapidary saw designed for cutting agate slabs and other rocks and minerals. If the edge of the blade is encrusted in diamond dust, and lubricated with used automotive oil for cars, then the saw can cut through glass." CreationDate="2023-06-27T21:55:36.823" UserId="14965" />
  <row Id="16400" PostId="12594" Score="0" Text="It takes a delicate touch and you must only score the bottle ONCE, otherwise there's multiple fracture points." CreationDate="2023-07-01T11:41:54.173" UserId="15012" />
  <row Id="16393" PostId="12596" Score="0" Text="You say you want to research this, but also that you want to avoid delving into EER or SEER. These metrics take into account the impact of ambient temperature on a/c performance, so they're hard to avoid. What's the question you're trying to solve?" CreationDate="2023-06-27T23:39:15.370" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="16395" PostId="12596" Score="0" Text="Have you looked into other alternatives of cooling, such as insulation, reduction of incoming solar radiation, night cycling, geothermal cooling, and others?  A classical air conditioning unit can use huge amounts of energy, as a brief glance at the ludicrously high summer domestic electricity consumption in the USA shows (my German household uses per year what an average Texas household uses per month)." CreationDate="2023-06-28T07:34:13.307" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="16414" PostId="12596" Score="0" Text="Using your numbers, 950 W of **electrical** energy is used by the AC to produce 3516 W of cooling energy." CreationDate="2023-07-13T08:54:38.607" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="16396" PostId="12597" Score="0" Text="Sadly I'm just a regular person trying to recycle responsibly, but thanks!" CreationDate="2023-06-29T14:46:16.477" UserId="2763" />
  <row Id="16398" PostId="12599" Score="0" Text="While this doesn't answer the question, I should note that there are two ways to make plastics from renewable sources: (1) create hydrogen, combine it with carbon dioxide to form methane, create longer-chain hydrocarbons from that; (2) make petrochemicals from trees. We can build enough renewable electricity for (1) to make all the plastics the human race will ever need, and similarly we have enough trees for (2) to make all the plastics the human race will ever need." CreationDate="2023-06-30T17:20:47.497" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="16401" PostId="12601" Score="2" Text="Don't forget that the soil in an old-growth forest has had a long time to accumulate, from deadwood, fallen leaves etc.  As these decay they release much of their carbon but not all, and not very quickly.  And the topsoil layer in a forest can be rather deep as well as carbon-rich. I can't (without a lot of reading that I don't have time for now) rule out fungal biomass being included in soil biomass, but that's just a matter of accounting" CreationDate="2023-07-03T12:03:50.163" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="16403" PostId="12602" Score="0" Text="You **might** get a better answer on SE Engineering." CreationDate="2023-07-10T00:56:30.837" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="16404" PostId="12602" Score="1" Text="*&quot;So pressure in the mains is a good thing!&quot;* It is in a well maintained piping network &amp; where taps are also well maintained. In poorly maintained or aged networks, or where someone has a leaky tap, more pressure in the network can lead to a greater amount of leakage water being lost by the system. There's always advantages &amp; disadvantages with everything." CreationDate="2023-07-10T01:01:20.593" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="16570" PostId="12612" Score="0" Text="I am not certain about canned versus fresh pineapple. However, on a related topic of discussion, sun-dried pineapple moves less carbon from planet earth's crust into the atmosphere than canned pineapple and sun-dried pineapple decays (gets moldy) more slowly than frwsh pineapple. The shelf life of dried fruit in sealed containers is great compared to fresh fruit. I did not say that dried pineaapple tastes the same as canned pineapple, but sun-dried pineapple has a smaller carbon footprint than pineapple canned in water." CreationDate="2023-12-11T04:55:22.433" UserId="14965" />
  <row Id="16416" PostId="12614" Score="1" Text="Sorry I'm too new to upvote yet. Is the energy use from canning meaningfully balanced by any of those other factors? (less need for refrigeration, maybe less waste or lower transportation emissions)" CreationDate="2023-07-13T13:49:44.730" UserId="15062" />
  <row Id="16474" PostId="12614" Score="2" Text="What about transport? If you don't live in a place with pineapples available nearby, I would expect that transportation of fresh pineapples to have a higher gCO2e/kcal than transportation of canned pineapples -- because fresh pineapples spoil faster, so you may need to use, e.g., air freight instead of sea freight. How would this compare to the footprint of canning?" CreationDate="2023-08-14T12:54:49.843" UserId="9566" />
  <row Id="16435" PostId="12621" Score="0" Text="100% AI probability at https://www.zerogpt.com/" CreationDate="2023-07-22T20:35:51.717" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="16458" PostId="12621" Score="0" Text="@juhist, zerogpt is not an effective way of detecting AI content.  It's very prone to false positives (the US Constitution gets a score close to 100%), and very prone to false negatives (I've gotten a score of 0% for direct copy-and-paste of AI output)." CreationDate="2023-08-03T02:07:10.820" UserId="7993" />
  <row Id="16476" PostId="12624" Score="0" Text="A good question - I once lived in a cottage with thick stone walls, which was beautifully cool on hot summer days - but then I would bake as it released all that stored heat at night..." CreationDate="2023-08-17T09:53:09.890" UserId="3960" />
  <row Id="16436" PostId="12625" Score="0" Text="Well, if you said &quot;airline(r)&quot;, the 50K figure is way too much. It's too much even if you include small aircraft (which consume 1-2 orders of magnitude less). The usual estimate is 7-9 thousand aircraft in the air (for which 5 t/h is a reasonable order-of-magnitude average). So here you are ~order of magnitude off, and the rest is plausible (again within the order): _worldwide_ industry produces ~10% of a country's emission. If you need an exact tally, I'm sure somebody already did it." CreationDate="2023-07-25T02:51:15.330" UserId="15093" />
  <row Id="16457" PostId="12625" Score="0" Text="An idling aircraft uses far less fuel than one that's cruising, which in turn uses far less fuel than one that's taking off.  You can't just say &quot;an airplane uses *x* tons of fuel per hour&quot;." CreationDate="2023-08-03T01:55:06.003" UserId="7993" />
  <row Id="16494" PostId="12625" Score="0" Text="The linked article mentions how in 2021 the total of American greenhouse emissions was a little above 6 billion metric (&quot;*6,340.2 million*&quot;) tons." CreationDate="2023-09-12T21:04:08.193" UserId="8360" />
  <row Id="16445" PostId="12629" Score="0" Text="This is not a criticism of the question, but the DAV process seems convoluted. It makes me wonder why not leave manufactured limestone as is &amp; try to use as gardening or building material?" CreationDate="2023-07-27T09:36:48.220" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="16450" PostId="12629" Score="0" Text="@Fred I calculated that to create sodium hydroxide (NaOH) needed to react with 1 tonne of carbon dioxide, you need 3600 kWh of electricity for the chloralkali process. Most of the estimates of direct air capture put the energy usage per tonne of CO2 at far smaller values. Therefore, you want to recycle the chemicals (which releases CO2 as gas), rather than to get it as solid carbonates." CreationDate="2023-07-27T18:26:14.937" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="16451" PostId="12629" Score="0" Text="Also, to create calcium hydroxide, you need to mix calcium oxide with water. The way calcium oxide is created is by heating calcium carbonate (requires heat energy), which then releases carbon dioxide. So if you want enough calcium hydroxide to capture the carbon dioxide, you need to release the same amount of carbon dioxide to produce the calcium hydroxide needed for that." CreationDate="2023-07-27T18:30:58.970" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="16452" PostId="12629" Score="0" Text="If we want to store massive amount of CO2 as calcium carbonate, we need a massive source of calcium oxide or a massive source of calcium hydroxide, which we don't have." CreationDate="2023-07-27T18:32:11.613" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="16460" PostId="12636" Score="0" Text="initial energy consumption is normally the first half cycle for a compressor in an air conditioner. Things that take a while to come up to speed like tablesaws spread that, but a compressor's first compression stroke is where the load is, and most stop at the start of that. They will usually draw whatever the circuit provides, which can be way over the nominal rating (and that's usually ok on grid-connected systems. But not generators or inverters)" CreationDate="2023-08-04T07:01:06.417" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="16461" PostId="12636" Score="0" Text="hard numbers for my &quot;500W&quot; aircon are a half cycle peak of about 24A on a 10A rated circuit. Which my chest freezer also managed, despite having a 90W continuous draw! I think 24A was the short circuit current..." CreationDate="2023-08-04T07:02:36.253" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="16469" PostId="12639" Score="0" Text="&quot;Why would you therefore expect that if the resistance is something else than zero or infinite, that the power would not depend on the resistance?&quot;&#xA;&#xA;This verges on calling the question a stupid one. I expected what I did because I didn't understand how it worked.&#xA;&#xA;&quot;If you want to do something useful with your panels, other than testing it with resistors,&quot;&#xA;&#xA;I already am, but be that as it may, I consider doing tests, writing down measurements, and studying the results to be an excellent use of my time and equipment, regardless of whatever else I use my panels for." CreationDate="2023-08-09T15:28:49.867" UserId="15118" />
  <row Id="16463" PostId="12640" Score="2" Text="Have you considered washing dishes by hand in the kitchen sink either as you are making a meal or after having eaten the meal? Much less water &amp; electricity would be used. Alternatively, prior to placing dishes in the dishwasher rinse them under the tap in the kitchen sink." CreationDate="2023-08-08T07:18:21.423" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="16464" PostId="12640" Score="4" Text="@Fred You have that backwards - even running the dishwasher half-full will almost certainly use less water, and possibly less electricity than handwashing the same amount of dishes. Handwashing dishes is notoriously water-inefficient, you'd use less water running a mostly empty dishwasher." CreationDate="2023-08-08T16:24:53.037" UserId="5953" />
  <row Id="16467" PostId="12641" Score="1" Text="I totally agree with answer." CreationDate="2023-08-09T05:58:12.380" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="16470" PostId="12641" Score="0" Text="Dishwashers don't have partial-load cleaning modes because they don't need them.  A top-load washing machine works by immersing the clothes in the water, where a dishwasher works by spraying the dishes with water jets." CreationDate="2023-08-09T20:23:03.570" UserId="7993" />
  <row Id="16510" PostId="12641" Score="0" Text="-1.  Most pots and pans are marked suitable for dishwasher use, and nearly all the rest can tolerate it long term.  Even sharp knives are fine if they can't rub against other things.  I also live mostly alone, and wash up by hand so rarely that I turn my hot water off in summer (I have an electric shower if I want a warm shower, and my dishwasher and washing machine are cold-fill only).  That keeps my house cooler too.  Washing during cooking is likely to use more water than washing after the meal, because the food will have dried on by the time you're next cooking." CreationDate="2023-10-19T12:41:53.210" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="16511" PostId="12641" Score="0" Text="...and dishwashers sort of have a part-load option.  The quick wash often uses the least water and electricity, but doesn't work as well as the longer programs if the machine is crammed full, or if food has dried on" CreationDate="2023-10-19T12:44:09.257" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="16512" PostId="12644" Score="0" Text="It's usually hard to avoid the drying feature unless you're standing in front of it.  Most don't allow you to turn it off on the normal slow programs. So if you run it overnight (when the grid power mix is better), or as you leave the house in the morning (if you have solar panels) you're committed to the drying cycle.  A typical quick wash cycle without a drying cycle needs you to be there to open the door anyway.  A few models now open their own doors, but generally at the end of a drying cycle" CreationDate="2023-10-19T12:46:52.867" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="16488" PostId="12651" Score="2" Text="Any oil will come off after just a little use. WD-40 and motor oil are the only two oils I've ever seen used on metal tools, neither of which can be produced on a personal scale, but then again consider that neither can the metal tool heads. Linseed oil is usually only used for the wooden handles, but will help for the heads too, just may be less effective. In addition, make sure to clean the head with a wire brush after each use, oil after each use, and de-rust with steel wool when needed to keep the rust from spreading." CreationDate="2023-08-30T16:42:20.473" UserId="14328" />
  <row Id="16489" PostId="12651" Score="0" Text="Thanks @Eonema, your comment could be post as an answer, good advice! even so we replace WD-40 by linseed" CreationDate="2023-08-31T07:13:43.040" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="16477" PostId="12653" Score="0" Text="The screw top on cartons is a recent invention.  The older method of sealing them through clever folding of the top has superior usability, though it doesn't seal as well." CreationDate="2023-08-18T03:05:59.917" UserId="7993" />
  <row Id="16478" PostId="12655" Score="0" Text="Thanks for sharing! The source looks like a commercial site. And do not refer to natural oil. Not sure how it answers my question." CreationDate="2023-08-18T06:11:26.477" UserId="3293" />
  <row Id="16485" PostId="12655" Score="0" Text="@J.Chomel: A.) It tells you to add oil _just before winter storage_, when the oil won't rub off. If you can't get linseed oil, at least you can put sunflower oil on as winter approaches, and hopefully it will last until the spring. B) It also tells you some non-oil methods which help to answer the question in your post title: &quot;How to prevent rust on garden tools?&quot; If the post title is not what you actually meant to ask, please [edit it](https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/posts/12651/edit)." CreationDate="2023-08-27T19:16:15.690" UserId="938" />
  <row Id="16481" PostId="12656" Score="1" Text="Good question. More on PFAS in &quot;compostable&quot; paper-based food packaging: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/apr/17/pfas-forever-chemicals-food-containers-study, but no short-term solution unfortunately." CreationDate="2023-08-22T14:17:40.027" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="16482" PostId="12662" Score="0" Text="Something like this? https://claycups.com.au/ (A 'cup' is a more general word for a drinking vessel that's not dependent on the material)" CreationDate="2023-08-24T23:21:55.443" UserId="8232" />
  <row Id="16518" PostId="12672" Score="0" Text="LOL &quot;Toronto Metroplex&quot; - also describing a Canadian project as America's anything." CreationDate="2023-10-23T16:11:44.900" UserId="1053" />
  <row Id="16593" PostId="12674" Score="0" Text="Additionally, the angle that the solar panels are mounted at likely play a role - I think you want at least a 15 degree slope." CreationDate="2024-02-09T19:55:45.287" UserId="9219" />
  <row Id="16490" PostId="12679" Score="0" Text="To add to your argument, for optimal performance in hot climates EV batteries need to be cooled, which would add to the cost of the battery or car. When comparing the cost of EV batteries to house batteries how many of each are produced globally? The cost of items is related to the numbers produced. Generally, the more of an item produced the lower the cost of production for each item." CreationDate="2023-09-01T04:02:33.543" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="16493" PostId="12679" Score="0" Text="In the same vein, why are nickel-iron batteries, which are extremely durable and require no rare metals, and which have been produced for 120 years, are still being sold at prohibitive prices?" CreationDate="2023-09-06T17:29:28.587" UserId="1051" />
  <row Id="16491" PostId="12680" Score="1" Text="I wonder if it has something to do with patents? Lead acid is an older technology so most patents are probably expired. Some vendors of Li-ion batteries may still be paying costly licensing fees for manufacturing methods, distorting costs." CreationDate="2023-09-02T18:10:21.910" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="16503" PostId="12680" Score="0" Text="@LShaver: The economies of scale for each Li battery type may also be a factor. EV battery packs are larger than packs for tools etc. Focus is currently on larger battery packs as use in EVs, domestic battery storage packs  &amp; grid storage battery packs." CreationDate="2023-10-11T00:24:07.957" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="16492" PostId="12681" Score="0" Text="The question has been cross posted in SE Engineering." CreationDate="2023-09-03T08:01:46.170" UserId="2345" />
  <row Id="16495" PostId="12686" Score="2" Text="Outstanding answer, many thanks!" CreationDate="2023-09-15T21:09:01.087" UserId="15219" />
  <row Id="16496" PostId="12691" Score="0" Text="Wouldn't it make more sense to run the A/C since that's mostly on when the sun is up? I run a mini off grid system with 750W of panels + 1kWh LFP battery and put about 3kWh/day through it in summer.... because it mostly powers my daytime loads. . . Most &quot;solar power stations&quot; are built the other way round - lots of battery and a token solar panel so they can say it's possible to charge it from solar. The washer/dryer is likely too much load, but if you have enough panels to power the A/C plus enough battery+inverter to start it that seems more reasonable." CreationDate="2023-10-03T00:36:12.863" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="16497" PostId="12691" Score="0" Text="There are lots of &quot;DIY solar power station&quot; guides around, and one of those might save you money but would mostly let you get exactly the system you want. So if you decide on a 3kW inverter with 1kWh of battery and 3kW of PV... a DIY system can be built to do that. If you buy an all-in one it looks prettier but you get what they sell." CreationDate="2023-10-03T00:37:52.493" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="16498" PostId="12693" Score="1" Text="Thanks for your answer. I don't know much about this but I'm willing to learn if it means that I won't have to depend on the electric company.&#xA;&#xA;The refrigerator is a regular whirlpool fridge.&#xA;&#xA;&quot;Grid power is incredibly cheap&quot;: not in my country. The electric company here is particularly expensive and famously unstable." CreationDate="2023-10-03T15:12:32.107" UserId="3664" />
  <row Id="16506" PostId="12702" Score="0" Text="I like the idea, however... I may have received incorrect information, but I was told that CDs and DVDs release toxins when melted or burned. I wouldn't melt them without conducting proper research." CreationDate="2023-10-15T23:25:21.553" UserId="2727" />
  <row Id="16507" PostId="12702" Score="0" Text="BTW, what clever uses did you find for the plastic sheets?" CreationDate="2023-10-15T23:26:04.623" UserId="2727" />
  <row Id="16514" PostId="12703" Score="0" Text="I think you are thinking this incorrectly. If you buy from China, you are supporting our dependence on China. That's the main problem. As for emissions, yes, western batteries would produce less emissions during manufacturing, but considering that it allows you to use clean solar power during night, it's a non-issue. If you actually use the battery, it does more good than harm. So ask this question: do you want that everyone is dependent on China or not? If you don't want that, supporting western battery industry is good choice." CreationDate="2023-10-21T10:42:22.823" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="16550" PostId="12703" Score="0" Text="@juhist perhaps trade with China is an issue *for you*, but OP didn't mention it and since it's an ethical stance based on a particular worldview you can't definitively say it's the &quot;main problem&quot; or ignoring it is &quot;incorrect&quot;." CreationDate="2023-11-15T14:18:39.997" UserId="15347" />
  <row Id="16551" PostId="12703" Score="1" Text="@Tally You mention China's use of slave labour but the West is just as complicit. The slavery in the mines in Congo is part of the battery supply chains all over the world. It's unlikely you can buy any slavery-free battery anywhere." CreationDate="2023-11-15T14:20:40.097" UserId="15347" />
  <row Id="16553" PostId="12703" Score="0" Text="Good point on the materials mining, it is a shady business.  Seems difficult to do the right thing, every choice seems compromised." CreationDate="2023-11-15T15:22:15.103" UserId="5901" />
  <row Id="16556" PostId="12703" Score="2" Text="It is possible to get LFP (Lithium Ferrous Phosphate) batteries for domestic storage, which have better safety and lifespan over other Li-ion batteries for stationary use and do not contain any cobalt, so are not contributing to slavery in the Congo" CreationDate="2023-11-17T12:38:47.827" UserId="3851" />
  <row Id="16561" PostId="12703" Score="0" Text="Example of a LFP battery: https://sonnenbatterie.co.uk/knowledge/four-reasons-for-lithium-iron-phosphate-in-battery-storage/ - see their point 4 on Environmental Compatibility" CreationDate="2023-11-20T14:35:30.027" UserId="5901" />
  <row Id="16517" PostId="12706" Score="0" Text="Thanks a million for this elaborate answer! It is awesome. &#xA;&#xA;I went to the place again and the poster says (in Polish) what's below.&#xA;&#xA;&quot;Officie building The Bridge will be power green energy coming from solar farms Ghelamco. Our goal is to make the company and projects energetically neutral via solar farms in 2025 at the latest.&quot;&#xA;&#xA;What do you think is the goal behind the poster? Do they really wanna scam people or they just don't know how it all works? They wanna follow the eco-trends wave? &#xA;&#xA;We both now know how it works, how would rephrase such a poster?" CreationDate="2023-10-21T17:49:47.570" UserId="15290" />
  <row Id="16519" PostId="12709" Score="0" Text="For what purposes will you be using the tree sap?" CreationDate="2023-10-27T10:32:05.977" UserId="2727" />
  <row Id="16520" PostId="12709" Score="0" Text="Maple sap.  Maybe I should have been more specific and I'll put that in the question.   The purpose is back yard home made maple syrup.   Most of the concerns with maple syrup are very easy to look up.   Don't over-tap the trees, and warnings about mold or bacterial contamination for home production.   But the first question, In an area where the ground water isn't safe for drinking, does that affect the maple sap?  That has me stumped, and so far, stumped my friend google too." CreationDate="2023-10-27T10:36:44.877" UserId="15300" />
  <row Id="16521" PostId="12709" Score="4" Text="I'm no expert on ground water contamination, but I would expect that it depends on what exactly is making the groundwater unsafe. What kind of contamination are we talking about?" CreationDate="2023-10-27T13:27:13.140" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="16523" PostId="12709" Score="1" Text="I made maple syrup a couple years, simple and easy. No sign of any of the problems you found on the net. I made it before the net , so did not know any of problems created by the net." CreationDate="2023-10-27T15:27:10.527" UserId="5477" />
  <row Id="16524" PostId="12709" Score="0" Text="@THelper It's south Jersey not far from Philly.   I don't think it's anything really toxic, but I can try to find out a bit more.    It seems to me there are a couple of possibilities.   Either trees store toxins in their sap, or they don't.  Trees are good at picking up toxins from the soil, but that doesn't mean the toxins concentrate in their sap.     It seems like there should be an answer out there, but I've had no luck finding one.    You're also right that the type of toxin might matter, but I think any research on this would address that." CreationDate="2023-10-27T19:15:07.193" UserId="15300" />
  <row Id="16525" PostId="12709" Score="0" Text="@blacksmith37 You might be right.  I thought I read warnings about home production, but looking again, maybe I mis-read.  The process of cooking should make maple syrup quite safe to make at home . . . again, providing that it's not concentrating toxins from the groundwater . . . which brings me back to my original question." CreationDate="2023-10-28T01:54:20.493" UserId="15300" />
  <row Id="16638" PostId="12709" Score="0" Text="There doesn't seem to be much research on this. If you have reason to believe the groundwater where you are tapping trees is unsafe, think about getting the sap tested for contaminants by a water-testing laboratory." CreationDate="2024-03-22T19:15:59.587" UserId="14328" />
  <row Id="16526" PostId="12710" Score="0" Text="I see. Let me stick to the milk analogy from the other answer. Let's say there is a dairy cooperative (grid) and restaurant X (building) puts up a poster saying &quot;we use milk from free range cows from local farmers&quot;. In fact, restaurant is buying 20% of all milk from the cooperative and the cooperative says that 25% of their milk comes from &quot;from free range cows from local farmers&quot;. However sometimes due to cows' tantrums the free range farms can supply only 15% of the demand. In this case the restaurant X uses 15% available and 5% from the robotized cowbarns. Does this make sense?" CreationDate="2023-10-29T11:15:17.863" UserId="15290" />
  <row Id="16527" PostId="12710" Score="1" Text="That's a different situation, because the milk from different sources is different, so a common distribution system won't work.  But the electricity from different sources is indistinguishable.  There is no way to tell where the electricity in a particular building actually came from, but the total amount of green electricity produced is equal to the total amount of green electricity demanded." CreationDate="2023-10-29T16:11:04.913" UserId="6629" />
  <row Id="16528" PostId="12710" Score="0" Text="&quot;third is a wind farm, and 20% of the customers buy their power from the third supplier, then the wind farm is supplying the energy needs of 20% of the customers.&quot; -- no it isn't. Hint: think about a windless day! With storage, the theory &quot;in the end it will all balance out&quot; would be correct, but unfortunately, we don't generally have economical electricity storage today. Maybe with hydrogen and pumped storage hydro we could have, but those have traditionally been too expensive to build." CreationDate="2023-10-29T19:08:13.473" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="16529" PostId="12710" Score="0" Text="@juhist &quot;If the wind stops blowing, the coal and nuclear plants will increase output temporarily. Then when the wind picks up again, the wind power will be increased to a higher level than their customers demand in order to make up for the power they didn't supply.&quot;" CreationDate="2023-10-29T19:44:00.523" UserId="6629" />
  <row Id="16533" PostId="12710" Score="0" Text="Yes, but once you emit CO2 into atmosphere, it will stay there. 100% wind power is expected to be 0% carbon emitting electricity but isn't. That's the most important part to understand. Note: I don't oppose wind power, I strongly favor it, but my opinion is that we should start investing massively to offshore wind power where winds are more often strong enough, and also to electricity storage technologies to balance the grid which wind power can't do alone." CreationDate="2023-10-30T17:11:12.697" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="16535" PostId="12710" Score="0" Text="@juhist. I agree wholeheartedly about investing heavily in offshore wind and grid storage.  But I think even without that, the carbon emissions are the same whether you store green electricity in batteries, or use the grid to balance the periods when green power isn't available." CreationDate="2023-10-31T00:03:17.253" UserId="6629" />
  <row Id="16536" PostId="12710" Score="0" Text="(2) Imagine that you want to build a new solar-powered factory in a small town.  Suppose the town has its own power plant, and to make the arithmetic simple assume the town uses 100 MegaWatts continually, night and day, supplied by the power plant which generates 100 MW continually.  And assume your new factory will use 1 MW round-the-clock.  Your solar panels will produce 2 MW for 12 hours every day, and nothing during the other 12 hours." CreationDate="2023-10-31T00:05:16.367" UserId="6629" />
  <row Id="16537" PostId="12710" Score="0" Text="(3) During the day you generate 2 MW of power, consume 1 MW, and feed the other 1 MW into a battery.  At night you draw 1 MW out of the battery.  Meanwhile, the town power plant continues to generate 100 MW continually and is unaffected by your factory." CreationDate="2023-10-31T00:05:39.727" UserId="6629" />
  <row Id="16538" PostId="12710" Score="0" Text="(4) Now imagine that something breaks and you are unable to use the battery, so you instead feed the surplus power into the grid during the day, and draw out of the grid at night.  For 12 hours during the day you feed 1 MW into the grid, while the town continues to consume 100 MW.  So the power plant now only has to generate 99 MW during the day." CreationDate="2023-10-31T00:06:09.907" UserId="6629" />
  <row Id="16539" PostId="12710" Score="0" Text="(5) Then at night you draw 1 MW from the grid, while the town continues to draw 100 MW, so the power plant generates 101 MW at night.  The average power generated by the power plant is still 100 MW, just as it was while you were using the battery and not connected to the grid.  And since the daily average power generation is the same, the daily average CO2 emitted is also the same." CreationDate="2023-10-31T00:06:29.853" UserId="6629" />
  <row Id="16530" PostId="12711" Score="1" Text="For the record, radon doesn't build up.  It decays quicky.   That's why, even in poorly ventilated basements where radon is a problem, radon inspectors don't even bother wearing protective gear.   It takes years for radon toxicity to happen.    &#xA;&#xA;I also find it hard to believe that this subject has never been studied.  There has to be an answer out there." CreationDate="2023-10-30T07:37:35.127" UserId="15300" />
  <row Id="16531" PostId="12711" Score="1" Text="Not that it could build up in the soil/atmosphere, but in you. Radon is indeed only a problem if you live in the house for years, not on a brief visit. So if you drank some maple syrup with radon in it, no big deal." CreationDate="2023-10-30T10:32:27.553" UserId="1053" />
  <row Id="16540" PostId="12714" Score="1" Text="A [large enough bicycle](https://www.greenbike-shop.de/lastenfahrrad/gewerblich/urban-arrow-tender?number=URB-201361L-UA09-1101) might hardly be recognised by customers as such.  Would they scoff at that?  Can add a trailer for bulky stuff.  I don't know your customers, but you might get free advertising in regional newspapers :)" CreationDate="2023-11-02T11:28:56.833" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="16548" PostId="12727" Score="0" Text="Thanks for the info. The battery is a AA, 1.2 V 700mAh and that is the one that came with the light fixture. The solar array is also the one that came with the light &amp; is probably 4”x4” on the top of the fixture. Therefore there is no way to add batteries or increase the size of the solar array. “Life” vs “Lifetime”, the light fixtures are less than 1 year old, and the lights only stay lit for about 2-3 hours" CreationDate="2023-11-13T23:58:06.613" UserId="15343" />
  <row Id="16554" PostId="12729" Score="0" Text="One thought is,  would it be better for the environment to leave the used zoes for people with high milage commutes." CreationDate="2023-11-16T09:27:35.803" UserId="15348" />
  <row Id="16555" PostId="12729" Score="0" Text="I have a couple more comments to consider. 1) Some of the older used EVs in the market have a very low range, because of battery degradation and not having a very large capacity to begin with. These vehicles would only ever be suitable for someone that just made short trips, albeit they might be OK for someone that made a short commute every day. 2) Only being used for short occasional trips is also bad for the health of an internal combustion engine, which will likely not get up to operating temperature and experience worse fuel economy and increased sludge, deposits and wear." CreationDate="2023-11-17T12:30:25.830" UserId="3851" />
  <row Id="16557" PostId="12729" Score="0" Text="yep, it will also be kept in a windy, rainy, salt spray exposed location.  its really not a good assignment for any car!" CreationDate="2023-11-17T13:56:13.933" UserId="15348" />
  <row Id="16558" PostId="12729" Score="0" Text="range isnt a massive concern.  as long as its real-world 60-80 miles it can cope with anything id need." CreationDate="2023-11-17T13:56:43.800" UserId="15348" />
  <row Id="16559" PostId="12729" Score="0" Text="My point about range is that if it is low, you aren't really preventing the car being owned by someone who could make more use of it, as whoever owns such a vehicle, it is unlikely to be doing significantly more than 2000 miles per year." CreationDate="2023-11-17T14:34:48.577" UserId="3851" />
  <row Id="16560" PostId="12729" Score="0" Text="Right I see, and actually doing the maths a bit more carefully, ill be way under 2000.  but point taken" CreationDate="2023-11-20T10:11:00.243" UserId="15348" />
  <row Id="16562" PostId="12734" Score="0" Text="Do you know the age and efficiency rating of the furnace? Those will both be factors. If it's a 20 year old conventional (85% efficient) furnace vs a 5 year old condensing (95%+ efficient) furnace, the answers will be very different." CreationDate="2023-11-22T21:00:29.230" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="16563" PostId="12734" Score="0" Text="The only info I have is from an inspector who said &quot;Conventional gas fired forced air furnace. These units contain a heat exchanger.&quot; Age is unknown." CreationDate="2023-11-22T21:19:36.560" UserId="15366" />
  <row Id="16568" PostId="12744" Score="0" Text="Thanks so much for this.. I've had to look up a couple of abbreviations, fine. It strikes me this could be the answer to quite a range of questions, so full is the explanation." CreationDate="2023-12-03T16:46:43.153" UserId="15365" />
  <row Id="16573" PostId="12745" Score="0" Text="This photo essay will show you how &quot;the standard toothbrush&quot; varies around the world. https://ideas.ted.com/what-our-toothbrushes-tell-us-about-inequality/ I'd suggest the second photo - twigs of a specific kind of bush - as a highly biodegradeable option." CreationDate="2023-12-26T21:54:30.467" UserId="1053" />
  <row Id="16574" PostId="12751" Score="1" Text="related: https://travel.stackexchange.com/q/105928/46 (it didn't get good answers in my opinion.) I would burn it outside if that's an easy option for you." CreationDate="2024-01-10T16:53:07.323" UserId="1053" />
  <row Id="16575" PostId="12755" Score="0" Text="If it's cloudy, you probably don't need as much air conditioning." CreationDate="2024-01-15T22:44:10.977" UserId="7993" />
  <row Id="16576" PostId="12755" Score="0" Text="@Mark The question stated that the A/C is on during the night. During the night there's even less solar power available than when it's  cloudy. So I naturally assumed the climate is such that temperature is uncomfortable during the night, and A/C is needed then, and not during the daytime since nobody wants to sleep during daytime but sleeping during a hot night is practically impossible without A/C." CreationDate="2024-01-16T17:27:58.347" UserId="6393" />
  <row Id="16596" PostId="12758" Score="0" Text="Indeed. If I was earning a little less, I wouldn't dare raid my savings to pay for solar panels because I wouldn't be able to build them back up again in a reasonable timeframe even with their effect on reducing my outgoings." CreationDate="2024-02-12T16:12:46.340" UserId="2846" />
  <row Id="16582" PostId="12760" Score="1" Text="See Space Exploration SE's meta question [Should we have a canonical response for folks intent on blowing themselves up?](https://space.meta.stackexchange.com/q/1026/12102) and this answer to a related question: &quot;[Advice about dangerous personal amateur projects is off-topic. Building a successful (incinerator) project is hard. We don't believe this work can be done safely by amateurs. There's legal considerations as well. Leave it to the pros.](https://space.meta.stackexchange.com/a/1032/12102)&quot;" CreationDate="2024-01-27T08:37:24.327" UserId="5824" />
  <row Id="16583" PostId="12761" Score="1" Text="Thank you for such a solid answer." CreationDate="2024-01-28T06:22:02.503" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="16584" PostId="12761" Score="1" Text="Ok, dioxins requiring 850 °C temperatures to degrade is certainly a huge barrier to overcome at small scale and dioxins are even a worse evil than microplastics, so direct combustion is out of the question then.&#xA;I disagree with the scale is good regarding waste treatment and the electric car analogy but it does not take from the dioxin argument, so I'll mark it as answered." CreationDate="2024-01-28T19:55:05.123" UserId="15022" />
  <row Id="16585" PostId="12761" Score="0" Text="@javert if you can demonstrate that there aren't &quot;technological and economic advantages of scale&quot; in the context of treatment via incineration, and for the fraction of electricity for transportation that is hydrocarbon-sourced is bad, please write it up! But I think that while one incinerates waste or burns fossil fuel for electricity, those activities are better done *at scale* until such time as we can stop doing them altogether." CreationDate="2024-01-29T00:37:21.183" UserId="5824" />
  <row Id="16594" PostId="12770" Score="3" Text="Your answer could be improved with additional supporting information. Please [edit] to add further details, such as citations or documentation, so that others can confirm that your answer is correct. You can find more information on how to write good answers [in the help center](/help/how-to-answer)." CreationDate="2024-02-11T06:20:30.393" UserId="-1" />
  <row Id="16639" PostId="12770" Score="0" Text="If you've seen YouTube videos on this, please post some.  I did check YouTube before asking here.  I found nothing conclusive.&#xA;&#xA;Ultimately there are three possibilities.   1) Tree sap is safe, even where the ground water is polluted.   2) tree sap is about the same toxicity as the ground water - small amounts might be OK, or 3) Tree sap concentrates the toxins from the ground water and should be avoided, especially when you consider that tree sap is usually boiled down so you get a concentrated amount when you make syrup.     One of these 3 things is true, but I've yet to determine which." CreationDate="2024-03-24T03:39:24.693" UserId="15300" />
  <row Id="16600" PostId="12771" Score="0" Text="How would this &quot;infrared oven&quot; be any different from a conventional oven?  Especially an electric oven which has a big incandescent filament generating infrared light (radiant heat)." CreationDate="2024-02-14T02:55:17.407" UserId="6629" />
  <row Id="16601" PostId="12771" Score="0" Text="@Mark: In a conventional oven the whole oven gets very hot. Don't touch the walls! But having *reflective* polished metal walls will ideally keep the oven itself cool (except the filament of course) and like a microwave the heat will bounce around until it finds the food." CreationDate="2024-02-14T06:08:36.527" UserId="13629" />
  <row Id="16597" PostId="12772" Score="2" Text="The goal of car manufacturers isn't to protect the environment (otherwise they wouldn't be car manufacturers) - their goal is to make money. If marketing EVs as fast, sporty, manly etc. makes them more money, that's what they'll do." CreationDate="2024-02-13T13:36:00.657" UserId="15347" />
  <row Id="16599" PostId="12772" Score="0" Text="who put these people in charge. governments shouldn't be able to promote a better future and a throw away society at the same time. frustrating" CreationDate="2024-02-14T00:40:22.877" UserId="14809" />
  <row Id="16602" PostId="12772" Score="1" Text="They're tagged as green *compared to* the similar fossil alternatives. Which all things considered is sort of correct. In a similar way, what you propose would be green compared to a larger EV, but for small distances a lot less against, for instance, an electric bicycle. Or for putting 50+ passengers in one electric bus, etc. For the exact same reasons you're stating." CreationDate="2024-02-15T10:11:40.103" UserId="4158" />
  <row Id="16606" PostId="12772" Score="0" Text="i agree we need to size EV fit for purpose but I've been looking at EVs on the road and they're almost always carrying no passengers. they could be more greener, if this is the intended use case then people should know that they're not helping us save the environment. I know it might be better but we are capable of alot more in EVs" CreationDate="2024-02-16T07:00:59.267" UserId="14809" />
  <row Id="16598" PostId="12773" Score="0" Text="yeah I drive a 5 seater station wagon loaded with tools I never use but I looked for a job close to home and have been working 3 minutes drive from my place for over a year now compared to average 1 hr trip. It's not in most peoples mindset yet the green slogan is everywhere" CreationDate="2024-02-14T00:35:56.137" UserId="14809" />
  <row Id="16603" PostId="12776" Score="0" Text="Congratulations for your well reasoned and realistic answer. Is not common at all to find this kind of answers in generic forums about cars." CreationDate="2024-02-15T21:59:10.647" UserId="15497" />
  <row Id="16605" PostId="12776" Score="0" Text="@jap1968 did you do the amount of research required by this answer? i'm about to, doesnt seem realistic to provide % values without any actual voltages or references to current and capacitance or formulas." CreationDate="2024-02-16T04:25:38.117" UserId="14809" />
  <row Id="16609" PostId="12778" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Questions about LCA are on topic here, but my impression is that your question is more about sustainable data formats, is that right? &#xA;If so, I'm not sure if that is on topic here. In any case, perhaps you could explain a bit more what your problem is?" CreationDate="2024-02-29T08:57:22.087" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="16607" PostId="12781" Score="0" Text="Is the underfloor heating the only heat source?" CreationDate="2024-02-25T20:39:55.097" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="16608" PostId="12781" Score="0" Text="No, we also have a free standing wood burner in family room, this is only burning in evenings" CreationDate="2024-02-25T20:41:38.830" UserId="15518" />
  <row Id="16613" PostId="12781" Score="0" Text="Reducing temperature. For a given temperature, you require N kWh of electrical energy. There's no magical bullet." CreationDate="2024-03-03T23:28:22.157" UserId="14517" />
  <row Id="16610" PostId="12783" Score="0" Text="Did you ask this question to the institute that provides the API?" CreationDate="2024-02-29T08:58:25.087" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="16612" PostId="12783" Score="0" Text="I tried the mails given in the documentation but i got informed by an admin of the KIT in Karlsruhe that the mailing list is not active atm" CreationDate="2024-03-01T10:01:08.373" UserId="15505" />
  <row Id="16611" PostId="12785" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Do you have any particular purpose or ailment in mind? There are hundreds if not thousands of plants that can be regarded as medicinal, so asking for &quot;the best&quot; makes the scope of your question very wide and any answer would be incomplete.&#xA;I also take it you want to grow them yourselves, so perhaps you can tell us something about the climate or conditions of your backyard?" CreationDate="2024-02-29T09:03:42.140" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="16616" PostId="12786" Score="0" Text="thanks for the information. I think meat is always the last option" CreationDate="2024-03-11T02:09:42.120" UserId="15553" />
  <row Id="16619" PostId="12788" Score="1" Text="I've finally found it locally.. thank you for those who helped! it cost about $2.50 - [store listing image](https://i.stack.imgur.com/rIl9m.jpg)" CreationDate="2024-03-08T01:30:41.093" UserId="15520" />
  <row Id="16614" PostId="12791" Score="1" Text="How is this question related to sustainable living?" CreationDate="2024-03-05T16:21:02.507" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="16617" PostId="12796" Score="0" Text="Not familiar with the term whirlybird.  Does it refer to an [attic fan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attic_fan)?" CreationDate="2024-03-13T09:15:49.380" UserId="106" />
  <row Id="16618" PostId="12796" Score="1" Text="In Australia that would be the &quot;Wind-powered roof turbine ventilator&quot; in your link." CreationDate="2024-03-13T21:52:39.653" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="16620" PostId="12798" Score="0" Text="There's two numbers: thermal resistance, and air changes per hour at a given pressure. Those account for both radiative+conductive losses, and convective/physical movement losses. So you need to do your test on a day with absolutely no wind for the resistive measurement. But again on a day with a constant wind from a known direction so you can guess at how permeable your house is." CreationDate="2024-03-14T22:14:43.250" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="16621" PostId="12798" Score="0" Text="The cheap option would be a DIY blower test, you could possibly even use cardboard to block up the door with a hole for the fan to do the blow and suck tests. That wouldn't give you a repeatable or generalisable number, but that plus a few sticks of incense would let you find and fix the worst of the air leaks." CreationDate="2024-03-14T22:16:35.100" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="16622" PostId="12798" Score="1" Text="From your profile, looks like you are in SDG&amp;E territory. There's a number at the bottom of [this page](https://www.sdge.com/residential/savings-center/energy-saving-programs/res-program) you can call to schedule a free energy assessment." CreationDate="2024-03-15T12:51:34.570" UserId="3379" />
  <row Id="16623" PostId="12798" Score="0" Text="Time actually is in your first equation, Q = U A (T2-T1).  The heat transfer coefficient, U, has units of watts/m^2 K, where a watt is 1 Joule per second.  The resulting value, Q, is a heat loss rate such as Joules/second." CreationDate="2024-03-16T01:55:50.053" UserId="6629" />
  <row Id="16624" PostId="12799" Score="1" Text="https://www.bosch-home.in/experience-bosch/living-with-bosch/fresh-reads/how-eco-mode-saves-energy  Bosch say a longer, less hot wash cleans as well as a hotter, shorter one. By implication the even cooler, much short wash doesn't clean as well. So if you're getting satisfactory cleaning from the quick cycle I suggest continuing to use it since it's likely even more efficient. That link has some very polite grumbling at the end suggesting that Bosch only include the &quot;very extreme&quot; cycle for review magazines" CreationDate="2024-03-16T21:06:56.393" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="16625" PostId="12799" Score="0" Text="Do you have the manual? Our dishwasher manual contained electricity and water consumption data for each different cycle." CreationDate="2024-03-18T10:02:04.063" UserId="15347" />
  <row Id="16626" PostId="12799" Score="0" Text="I do wonder if it takes longer because it waits for things to drip-dry rather than using heat to dry? I notice my eco mode finishes cold and wet rather than hot and dry." CreationDate="2024-03-18T10:02:54.313" UserId="15347" />
  <row Id="16627" PostId="12799" Score="0" Text="@Móż Thanks for that link though I've been playing with the quoted (and noticeably selectively incomplete) figures and having difficult getting to meaningful conclusions." CreationDate="2024-03-18T14:18:49.070" UserId="1210" />
  <row Id="16628" PostId="12799" Score="0" Text="@thosphor I have the manual, it gives no such useful information, just details of what each programme's temperature is.  Our eco mode ends dry and warm, and the 'drying' phase takes around an hour. so it may be using a lower, longer drying temp." CreationDate="2024-03-18T14:18:54.117" UserId="1210" />
  <row Id="16634" PostId="12799" Score="0" Text="Yes, I fear actual measurements is the only way to know. Getting fine details out of the manufacturer is beyond most people (hackers excluded...?)" CreationDate="2024-03-20T22:59:18.660" UserId="659" />
  <row Id="16629" PostId="12800" Score="1" Text="Do you have Freecycle (freecycle.org) or similar in your area?  Re-use is the best option and someone may like to have a spare jug.  Otherwise I would take it to a collection point because heat-tolerant glass (e.g. pyrex) cannot be recycled like ordinary glass." CreationDate="2024-03-18T14:30:07.743" UserId="1210" />
  <row Id="16630" PostId="12800" Score="0" Text="Thank you! I will do as instructed. Just for my own curiosity:  What happens when such an object get into the glass container? Will it screw the recycling of the rest of the glass?" CreationDate="2024-03-18T18:06:32.177" UserId="15565" />
  <row Id="16632" PostId="12800" Score="0" Text="&quot;Will it screw the recycling of the rest of the glass?&quot; - I believe so." CreationDate="2024-03-19T10:52:26.830" UserId="1210" />
  <row Id="16631" PostId="12801" Score="1" Text="[Newspapers](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/31/climate/frank-mitloehner-uc-davis.html) have reported that the expert in these videos is payed by the meat industry and is often [criticised](https://clf.jhsph.edu/sites/default/files/2019-04/frank-mitloehner-white-paper-letter.pdf) for downplaying the statistics he presents." CreationDate="2024-03-19T10:27:34.450" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="16633" PostId="12802" Score="1" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Note that this is not a discussion board, but a Q&amp;A website. You say &quot;manufacturing of the plant based alternates needs more resources like water, energy&quot; but 1) compared to what? and 2) do you have any references to back up this claim?" CreationDate="2024-03-19T13:20:47.867" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="16635" PostId="12803" Score="0" Text="do you actually know any small farmers who produce grains for market? Where I live, many small farms are being bought up by agribusiness, who can use different costs and command different prices. The remaining ones grow grains to feed their animals because it's cheaper than leaving the land empty and buying grains to feed their animals. Did you take that into account in your calculations?" CreationDate="2024-03-21T20:57:57.693" UserId="1053" />
  <row Id="16636" PostId="12803" Score="0" Text="I don't know grain producers, so that's why I am asking.&#xA;&quot;[...] who can use different costs and command different prices&quot;&#xA;Can you provide a specific corn example of a price they can command at which production is profitable? The quick calculation was done with zero cost and still came up short.&#xA;&quot;[...] it's cheaper than leaving the land empty and buying grains&quot;&#xA;This is a better than nothing argument, at this point sow anything else that is more profitable. Unless the grain basically grow by itself with no work needed other than sowing and harvesting, it's an argument hard to buy." CreationDate="2024-03-22T16:49:25.593" UserId="15022" />
  <row Id="16637" PostId="12803" Score="0" Text="you think a cattle farmer should plant like watermelons or strawberries or something and sell them, then use the money to buy grain to feed the cows? Even though they don't know how to grow those other crops and don't have special equipment that might be needed?  This is not how most people make choices in my experience." CreationDate="2024-03-22T16:57:36.113" UserId="1053" />
  <row Id="16643" PostId="12805" Score="1" Text="Why do you think flying or being a passenger on a container ship are the best options?" CreationDate="2024-03-26T08:05:57.343" UserId="99" />
  <row Id="16646" PostId="12807" Score="0" Text="Welcome to Sustainable Living! Thank you for your answer, but could you please cite the most relevant parts of the IKEA blog (the parts about what makes it difficult to recycle and what IKEA does to overcome this)? This way your answer will remain useful even when the link breaks." CreationDate="2024-03-27T08:49:51.037" UserId="99" />
</comments>