3% Less Initiative

[theholycow]

I was changing my National Grid (electric company) account information on their website and they had this link:
http://www.powerofaction.com/?WT.mc_id=3pNARRAHP
It's a quiz that asks you stuff about your home energy usage and suggests what you can do about it.

Shortly into the quiz, it asks about my eating habits. Specifically, it asks if I eat red meat. It suggests:

Substitute buffalo for beef once a month
Potential savings per year: 91 lbs CO2

I really like buffalo, it's like higher quality beef that's leaner, more consistent, and more flavorful...but how does it save CO2 emissions?

[Jay2TheRescue]

Because its served @ Ted's Montana Grill? Ted's is one of my favorite places to go, and Ted's restaurants are supposedly eco friendly. Do Bison emit less methane than cows?

[GasSavers_Pete]

Holycow,

The short answer is I have no idea whatsoever but I am intrigued as to how they work it out.

Maybe an email and see what they reply?

Really curious.

Pete.

[GasSavers_JoeBob]

I took that quiz, and here's what I found:

WOW! I can save $145 per year by changing my windows to Energy Star windows!

I had a nice man from, I think it was Sears, come out and give me an estimate a couple years ago. The estimate was about $20,000 to upgrade all my windows to modern double pane windows. So let's see...$20k/$145...They would pay for themselves in only 138 years. So, if I live to be 192, I'll make a profit! Yippie!

The Energy Star Fridge should only take about 7 or 8 years to show a profit, but since mine is a little less than 10 years old, it may take longer.

I might save $45 by line-drying my wife's clothes. Then again, when the cats see them, and decide to jump on them, pull them down, tramp all over them with muddy paws and pee on them, then I'm out many times that $45. Not to mention that we get a LOT of wind here...

[JanGeo]

The idea behind it is to have you use less electricity so you don't get the volume discount and they end up making more profit by billing you at a higher rate per kwh and producing less electricity. Buffalo I guess don't produce as much methane gas as Beef Steer do probably because they eat different food.

[GasSavers_JoeBob]

Out here they don't give you a volume discount on electricity. You get charged a premium if you go over the baseline amount.

[GasSavers_RoadWarrior]

Originally Posted by JoeBob

Out here they don't give you a volume discount on electricity. You get charged a premium if you go over the baseline amount.

Ah, you probably don't know you're getting a volume discount, yet. When we went to metered water here, they implied it would be much cheaper for the average family because we'd only pay for what we use... turns out we're not using enough, so they put the prices wayyy up to cover costs. It's not really like this area has a water problem either.

Our generating suppliers are having a disagreement with the politicians about the same thing now, the govt is trying to get them commit, even give them money to build LOTS of carbon neutral generating capacity to meet demand, and they are saying. "Actually we have plenty of generating capacity" while the message to the consumer is conserve, conserve, conserve... because what they actually want to do is force the consumer to make do with what carbon neutral plant they currently have at exorbitant future pricing...

Our internet providers are trying that thing too, everyone is on hard bandwidth caps, with exorbitant overages, when bandwidth in bulk is under 5c a GB and they could comfortably provide 100s of GB for the prices they are charging...

Now all this would get sorted out in short order by competition but for the fact that these companies and organisations are now to all intents and purposes monopolies, and have welcomed increasing regulation with open arms because it puts a 3 mile high barrier to entry into their markets.

All they are doing is increasing profits at the expense of jobs, and it's not going to work out long term, because the techs they all sack are no longer (in part) supporting the livelihoods of the customers they charge. However it all looks very nice from an ROI point of view and they can probably report several quarters worth of big gains before the whole shambles comes crashing down.

I don't know whether to hope they play it stupid and REALLY piss the people and government off whereupon no-one will shed a tear that the military has to sieze facilities "to preserve national infrastructure" or whether to hope they smarten up by themselves, in which case the threat would still be there.

[GasSavers_Scott]

I understand 1 sheep emits more methane than a football team and a keg of beer.

Buffalo is good, had it at The Grinder restaurant in Los Angeles and at Buffalo Burger in San Francisco.

My friend in Orange County has been hit up a couple of times from solar companies, who want to install a solar system for free, the catch is, its a minimal system, so you can never make so much energy that the city has to pay you back.

My energy bill was high with an electric dryer, I got a gas dryer and chopped off a chuck from my bill from over a hundered to under. Some electric dryers and electric ranges hit the 5200 watt mark when theyre on, even the drying feature on an electric dish washer can suck as much as a large window A/C.

[Jay2TheRescue]

I only know of one person I've ever met that uses the heated dry setting on the dishwasher. It was a former roommate of mine, I put the pitcher to my iced tea maker in the dishwasher, as I have done for years, and it melted. She was eccentric though. She would leave the back door open all day long in the middle of winter, so her dogs could go in & out as they pleased. Then she would have space heaters in the living room because "the electric bill is too high when I have it set to keep the house comfortable." Well no sh** Sherlock. Close the back door! Its 20 degrees and snowing outside!

[theholycow]

Originally Posted by Scott

My friend in Orange County has been hit up a couple of times from solar companies, who want to install a solar system for free, the catch is, its a minimal system, so you can never make so much energy that the city has to pay you back.

Am I missing something? He gets free solar, gets to save on his electric bill, and the only catch is that he'll never receive money for it?