Getting to net zero
Outside of housing one of my main interests is sustainability and clean technology. On that front I’ve been tracking and trying to reduce the emissions of our house. Here’s a bit of a summary of how to do that in Victoria, and where we are so far.
Where do the emissions come from?
Before you can sensibly start reducing emissions, you have to understand where they come from. For reference, we can look at the extensive Saanich climate plan for information about emissions in our region. While you can make tweaks around the sustainability of your paper towels and kid’s toys, the reality is those changes do little to move the needle. To make a dent, you want to concentrate on the low hanging fruit: transportation and housing.
Reducing emissions around the house is fundamentally simple in BC and can be summed up in one word: Electrify.
To compare how big the difference is, you just have to look at the emissions per unit of energy. That’s not even accounting for the fact that when burning fossil fuels much of the energy is wasted and not used for work.
The small dirty stuff
Given our power is 97% clean, all you really have to do is slowly migrate the energy you use from fossil fuels to electricity. The easy start to that is any kind of lawn and maintenance tools. Gas lawnmower? Get rid of it and buy a plug-in (best) or battery (next-best). Same with the leaf blower, mini-chainsaw, weed whacker, what have you. People down the street hire a lawn service and for 2 hours every couple weeks the place turns into a war zone with several small and badly tuned engines spewing fumes and noise. Aside from CO2 those small engines are terrible polluters that you really don’t want to be breathing anyway.
Transportation
Other than looking for a place close to work so you can cut down on driving (you might be surprised how much a commute costs), the clear way to reduce emissions in transportation is with an electric vehicle. Popularity of those has exploded in the last few years, and you’ve likely seen many of the ~2200 EVs driving around Victoria. Electric cars now make up about 10% of new car sales in BC so expect that number to climb quickly. Yes they are still quite expensive to buy new, but they don’t have to be. We bought ours used for $16k 3 years ago and it fits the bill as a city runabout (new vehicles have 300-500km ranges so work for road trips too). For most people personal vehicles are the primary source of emissions so it’s the single biggest change you can make. We have a dedicated electric vehicle dealership in Sidney and Colwood and Campus Nissan also sells a lot of selling electric cars while Tesla is delivering thousands of cars out of the Vancouver location. More detail on electric vehicles in a later article, but entirely outside of any environmental benefits they are simply more fun to drive so will take over for that reason alone in the coming years.
Once the small equipment and the car is electric, you also get the pleasure of getting rid of any fluids and gas you might have around the house. No more oil, jerry cans of gas, or tools for engine maintenance. All obsolete.
Heating
Again, electrifying is the solution here. If you’re on oil or natural gas, look into a heat pump. Currently you can get up to $3350 in rebates to convert an oil or gas heating system to a heat pump. Although Fortis will claim that heating costs less with natural gas, once you take into account fixed costs of having a gas connection and our mild winters a heat pump will be approximately equal and you get AC in the summers. For example, with our natural gas hot water, a couple fireplaces, and central furnace backup to the heat pump (rarely used), fixed fees end up making up much of our gas bill. Gas is supposedly $1.55/GJ but effective rate for the year in our house is $13.30/GJ which is about the same as what we would pay to generate that heat using a heat pump even at today’s low natural gas prices (and you know the carbon tax will increase on that in the future).
What about renewable natural gas? Is it an option to eliminate the emissions associated with natural gas without changing out your heating system? Sort of. Yes it’s a low emissions way to generate natural gas (from landfills and biomass) but it’s three times the price and there’s a hidden proviso on Fortis’s page that says if they don’t have capacity to meet demand for renewable natural gas they will just buy an equivalent carbon offset. I asked Fortis whether they currently had enough renewable natural gas capacity to meet demand, and although I’m not entirely sure they understood the question, they did say that “demand for RNG has exceeded our supply and we are currently looking to get more suppliers up and running“. In other words unless you want to incentivize RNG development in BC, you’re better off buying your own carbon offsets rather than paying Fortis 6 times the going rate to do it for you.
Is that it?
Pretty much. Once you’ve banished the small polluters, switched transportation and heating to electric, that takes care of most household emissions. We’ve done the first two and are working on the third, which has reduced emissions by about 55% so far. Note the switch to an electric car in 2017 increased annual hydro usage by about 1500kWh or about $200. I plan to eventually get rid of the natural gas connection entirely but that will take some time. Then of course it’s on to emissions from food and consumables, but that’s too far off topic for a housing blog to get into.
Solar power might make sense in Victoria in some cases and of course saving power through use of LED lighting and energy smart appliances is usually a no-brainer financially even if the emissions impact is not large. However generating renewable power in the home and saving electricity still makes sense as then that surplus low emissions power can be sold to neighbouring regions to offset dirtier power. That puts us in a bit of a unique position to cut emissions in BC even for relatively inefficient single family detached housing and allows future build out of intermittent renewables that use the dams as a storage mechanism to bridge the times they aren’t available.
What do you think? If household emissions are at all important to you do you have any ideas to bring them down?
I certainly agree, we have 2 used electric cars and a high efficiency heat pump. Not only are they great for the environment they are great for us. Electric cars need much less maintenance and the new high efficiency heat pumps work down to -10’c.
I still have to replace the Honda mower though.
Monday numbers post: https://househuntvictoria.ca/2019/11/18/nov-18-market-update/
As Yogi Berra said, “Nobody goes there anymore, it’s too crowded”
careful.. GOVT might lease them make it into homeless shelters
The build of office space in Victoria doesn’t seem enough to meet demand, with the Victoria office vacancy rate falling to a 10 year low. More occupied office space = more jobs. Seems good for the Victoria economy, but will likely put pressure on residential housing market too, as some of the people working in these “new agencies” leased by the “new driver of the [Victoria] economy” (aka the govt ) also need residential accommodation.
https://biv.com/article/2019/11/provincial-government-gobbles-victoria-office-space
“(Nov 2019) Greater Victoria is facing the tightest office market in a decade as the provincial government becomes a major factor in the market.
“There’s a new driver in the economy that we haven’t had in the last 16 years. The [provincial] NDP are out there leasing space,” said Spark.” “It’s exciting, but a little frightening,” Spark said. “We are running out of space, even with the new space coming on the market.” The government has plans to absorb office space to accommodate new agencies to study the effects of climate change, and to house the bureaucracy regulating cannabis, Spark said. “
Thank you Leo for making the font darker, just about perfect and easy to read.You are a hero.
Susan would have had no issues if she stuck to studying polar bear populations and didn’t use that to try to make unsubstantiated claims. But her message is if polar bears are currently OK that means they will be OK forever which means climate change is not a problem. That is clearly not a conclusion based on science and that’s why she isn’t taken seriously in scientific circles. Anyway, thanks for leaving it.
No worries, I just thought it was good news story from an old UVic professor about polar bears, but yeah i’ll keep to real estate.
Sorry Michael, not interested in hosting misinformation on this site hence have removed your comment. Dr. Crockford is not a serious scientist and has an obvious agenda that extends well beyond honest research which is the reason she was… let’s say “released to industry” by the university.
I’ll add my two cents re transportation…..going into my 5th year of EV ownership and 150,000 km later I would not buy anything else other than an EV. In my personal circumstance it has been far more convenient than an ICE car. A lot of time saved not having to go to gas stations and a fraction of the servicing required. After 150,000 km battery is at 97%. Car will most likely fall apart before the battery dies.
Thanks. I don’t think mine justify treatment and most of the time I don’t even notice them. Thankfully I don’t have any other issues along with it. It was sure scary when it happened though – like WTF is this? But they’re super common and most of the time don’t require treatment.
Leo, I like the strip-out of the left and right columns. Comment section was far too claustrophobic in here with those.
My husband developed floaters two years ago, and unfortunately also had a Weiss Ring. After looking locally unsuccessfully, we went to Amsterdam and had them treated with no wait for a cost of $3000: https://floaterlaser.co.uk/. Dr. Gerbrandy has patients from all over the world, speaks good English and has the experience and latest laser tech you want for this operation. Highly recommended and we also had a great trip.
“Anyways, I don’t know what you’re worried about – Leo flatly rejected that option. ”
I’m so sorry that you were afflicted with floaters so young.
I agree that most floaters are dark but disturbances in the eye from PVD are not limited to dark floaters – there is also the detachment of the white “Weiss Ring”, etc. The darkening of the entire field of vision from cataracts is something else again.
I do agree that darkening the unused screen around the browser window is very helpful. But for sure, in my case, small bits of white (such as type) on a dark background for reading text over any length of time is impossible because of the visible vibration.
Progressive to total blindness is a huge issue in my family. Everyone with young eyes please give thanks – any change to eyesight as a person ages is likely not a positive change.
Thank-you,
J. Claire Alexi
Will do some more testing of the column order as well. I can easily move it to the right but it shouldn’t be moving around at all now that it’s no longer sticky. Will check it out.
Thanks for the feedback Claire
Thanks for the feedback I’ll continue to tweak including a heavier weighted font. I’ve switched it from grey to black already.
Top banner will get less tall as well.
I might be missing something but someone new to the blog ad reading the article might wellmiss the fact that there is a comment section. Before it was clearly at the end of the article and now you have to hit the little green button. But I could be doing something wrong.
I have some PVD with floaters. Started when I was 27, others have them in their teens. They’re actually far less visible on a darker computer screen than a lighter one. Likewise for most people, a candle lit room makes them disappear, whereas being outdoors in the snow on a sunny day will make you mental. Another option for computer use that helps a little is to use a program called Flux , although that’s not nearly as effective as the darker screen.
Anyways, I don’t know what you’re worried about – Leo flatly rejected that option. 🙂
Hi,
I’ve been reading HHV for a very long time now & it’s become part of my daily life. I rarely comment & hate to complain cause this really is the best forum ever but I agree with so many of the comments that the changes to the design & type choice are not working.
Your current choice of the clean “sans serif” font is definitely best for readability on the computer screen. I think that simply choosing a STRONGER WEIGHTED sans serif font will solve the problem. (Serif fonts such as Times Roman have little lines at the feet & the tips of letters. While serif fonts are the best choice for readability on print media – those little lines vibrate & cause eyestrain against the backlight of the computer.)
I really, really hope that you don’t follow the suggestion to change the blog to a dark background dark with grey type. The suggestion is highly controversial as the visual vibration would be so much worse for a lot of people’s vision (ie. folks with cataracts, Posterior Vitreous Detachment with floaters, etc. Most everyone after middle-age experiences at least some of these sorts of disturbances in their field of vision.) If folks insist on lowering the contrast then then lightly greying the background – lightly – then individuals can, in turn, lower the light coming from their screens for most customizable results.
The left column is impossible though !!! It moves around constantly on my iPad & as most of us are Western readers it feels off to have this column on the left. Overall, I think you had it right on the old version of the blog. I would be happy if it just stopped bobbling around, especially when I zoom on my iPad.
Thanks,
J. Claire Alexi
I hate to agree a bolder and somewhat darker font would really help these old eyes.
Where are the links to prev/next post now?:)
At least pick a bolder font for readability. Study online versions of reputable newspapers.
It’s bonkers to me, too. But it’s all too common. I have family in town that bought a SFH in the core in the ’90s for ~$250K. Their place is now worth about $700K, and they still have a mortgage. Same deal as the couple in the article: they didn’t make saving, or the mortgage, a priority. And they spent way too much on consumer goods (and vacations).
A $600K mortgage is doable, if you’re disciplined and intentional with your finances. But if you’re sloppy and lackadaisical, it ain’t gonna happen.
Since no one has mentioned it yet, there are also legal arguments against Site C, including that the project violates Treaty 8. (The other two dams also violate the treaty, I bet, but I’m not sure whether First Nations were able to litigate in the olden days.)
I had written a lengthy reply against the ‘have fewer kids’ argument, which is pretty flawed in Canada. But I deleted it, since it’s even further off topic.
Nice new website; navigation will take some getting used to, but you know, change is good.
Nice article Leo. Could you provide more info on the chart “household and transportation energy use and emissions”. Is this monthly data from your house hydro and nat gas and how do you collect it to chart so many measurements like that. What is the transportation energy use, if you drive an electric car -is that zero for transportation? Are the lines a 12m average or something else?
The website is looking a lot better, Leo.
There are free browser extensions that do just this.
The Peace is not really a salmon river. Also there are already two huge dams on the Peace immediately above Site C. That’s one reason some can reluctantly support Site C – since it is on a an already dammed river the additional environmental damage from one more dam is not that great.
The Peace is a tributary to the Mackenzie and drains to the Arctic Ocean. No connection to the Fraser.
FYI
https://www.saanichnews.com/news/saanich-resident-calling-for-gas-powered-leaf-blower-ban-finds-support-as-autumn-leaves-fall/
Grey font fixed. Sidebar no longer sticky so it scrolls away.
Looks like it will soon be possible to adapt to dark mode preferences in the operating system, which is the best choice there as it respects user preferences. https://medium.com/@jonas_duri/enable-dark-mode-with-css-variables-and-javascript-today-66cedd3d7845
Not a huge fan of the dark theme myself because it really makes charts look out of place.
In terms of the contrast/fonts comment, one of the easiest views on the eyes is actually to have a black background with light grey text. Drastically reduces eye strain.
Satirical columnist Maddox has used this format on his site since the late 1990’s:
http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=case_for_grinch
Mike Grace is creeping me out
https://business.financialpost.com/personal-finance/family-finance/this-b-c-couple-lived-beyond-their-means-and-now-a-big-mortgage-debt-loom-over-their-retirement
“ They paid $220,000 for the house many years ago. Its present value is $770,000. They could sell for $731,500 after five per cent fix-up and sale costs, pay off the $320,000 mortgage, then use the balance, ”
Always amazed at these stories that are always set in BC. How do you buy a house for $220k many years ago and end up with a $320k mortgage on it at retirement?
And what will happen to today’s buyers who buy the place at $731k with a $600k mortgage? Lots of people are going to have to become a lot better with their money. And the rest of the economy will miss those extra hundreds of thousands of spending
I agree I cannot well withe grey font.
Leo, I don’t want to be a bother, but this grey font is killing my eyes. Could you up the contrast?
And on the subject of SiteC, there is some skepticism that the government will be able to come in on budget (bridge cough interchange cough). Could we take that 15 billion and put it towards a more holistic approach to the issue(s)?
I thought only Vancouver can do that due to the charter allowing them to set separate rules. Or would simply adopting the higher steps of the step code accomplish the same?
I’d like to add that the very first step, before considering a switch from gas/oil to electricity, is to reduce your household energy consumption where possible. You’re going to get a far better bang for the buck (and the environment) by getting rid of drafty, rarely-used fireplaces, old single-pane windows, drafty doors etc. This type of thing is low-hanging fruit, and will save $ and be better for the environment than simply switching to electric and leaving the rest unchanged. An added benefit is you’ll have a more comfortable living space as well.
If you’re building new or doing a significant reno, consider a little extra insulation (or ‘outsulation’ if you stick it on the outside). A couple thousand worth of insulation can have a huge payback over the lifetime of a structure.
The middle is actually wider than it was before, but I can make it wider still..
Nice job tracking your usage Leo! I love seeing real-world data/experiences.
I recently saw that the City of Victoria is planning on banning nat gas on new builds in the next 5-10 years. I’ve heard rumours that this is playing out in other cities which are trying to reduce GHG emissions. I’ve mentioned in the past that there is a reason Fortis has big incentives and will install a line essentially for free. The writing is on the wall for all gas appliances with the step code coming into effect, and environmental initiatives getting more airplay.
What have you done? Is it possible to get rid of the left side
IMHO, this theme is cluttering up the posts/comments, which is the meat and potatoes of the blog.
If you could make the first and third columns less wide, so the posts/comments in the middle had more real estate 😉 that would make it better, I think.
Last I checked this isn’t a tropical area 🙂 Anyway if you’re interested there is extensive discussion of this in the IPCC report chapter on hydropower, starting on page 470. In short: It’s complicated, with every lake emitting GHGs, and some reservoirs have similar emissions while others have higher ones. In general colder climates means less emissions, but emissions from decaying recently grown biomass (which sucked CO2 out of the atmosphere while growing) is quite different than emissions from oil that has been outside the atmosphere for millions of years. Emissions also change over time, higher at the beginning when submerged biomass decays and lower in older dams.
https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/03/Chapter-5-Hydropower-1.pdf
Secondary effect is that hydro allows us to build out other renewables because we can use hydro as the storage.
Yeah. Old theme was starting to cause problems. No longer supported. I’ll keep tweaking this one.
https://edmonton.ctvnews.ca/home-prices-drop-again-in-edmonton-benchmark-lowest-in-six-years-report-1.4688007
In a few years, should I sell and buy two houses in Edmonton with cash?
The answer is no.
Leo, damn you and your fancy new formats!
If this were my site, it’d be all HTML! 😛
I’ll agree with you that tropical reservoirs are even worse than BC hydro dams, and coal and natgas 🙂
Not true. Emissions from reservoirs are not a new thing they’ve been known about for ages and are included in the total lifecycle emissions of those plants (if not yet fully accounted for in global emissions). For hydro median estimates are 24g CO2e/kWh which is higher than BC Hydro’s grid mix of 9g CO2e/kWh. Reservoir emissions are a bigger issue in tropical reservoirs, but either way add 25% to this very low level and it’s still low.
Quiet you!
Oh my god.
Switching themes, bear with me.
I figure we’ll investigate solar panels when our roof needs replacing (maybe 10-15 years). Not so much to reduce our emissions, but so that BC hydro electricity can be used somewhere else, and hopefully not require more Site Cs etc. Hoepfully they will be cheaper by then, but I understand that a large % of PV costs in Victoria are currently labour, and that’s not going to be going down anytime soon.
We did a similar transition over the last few years:
-upgraded our house’s insulation and windows (took it down to the studs for asbestos reasons, was trivial to add significant insulation once the walls were down.)
– replaced the oil furnace with a heatpump. Incentives weren’t as good then, but I figured the incremental cost was about $6k over a high efficiency natural gas furnace. At current rates, fuel/electricity costs would be about the same.
– got a new Nissan Leaf. With the incentives available at the time, I figured that the incremental cost over a similar car was about 8k. We probably wouldn’t have bought new, so it’s not quite an apples to apples comparison. We like the Leaf way more than a close friend’s Tesla 3 (way roomier)
We’ve gone from about 8 tonnes/year C02e for our family down to about 0.2. I figure the incremental cost was about $15k, which, given the lifespan of the upgrades (insulation – 30-50 years, heatpump 20 years, car 12 years (that’s how long we had out last car was), it works out to less than $1000/year, but we’re saving about $130/month in gas.
We also have a wood stove that we use for atmosphere on cold nights- plus it’s our emergency backup. It does produce some particulate and local emissions, but it’s considered zero carbon as the carbon is within the atmospheric carbon cycle (as opposed to burning carbon that was sequestered underground for 30 million years.)
I think the costs are worth it, and as a typical dual earning professional family, not all that hard to do. It’d be harder for a lower income family to make these kinds of capital outlays. And way harder if we weren’t already upgrading the house, replacing the oil furnace, and replacing our car. Key thing I think is to make it easy when its time to upgrade anyway, as opposed to getting rid of a serviceable furnace/car/etc before its useful end of life.
Yes, I understand the term CO2 equivalent, but I highly doubt your bar chart is accurately depicting the equivalent (for example the IPCC ‘politicians’ don’t even acknowledge CH4 emissions from hydro dams).
I’m guessing you were happy with Enbridge’s presentation about the lack of risks with the Northern Gateway pipeline as well?
You shouldn’t eat fish from a lot of rivers and lakes in the area already because of methylmercury bio-accumulation. If i’m not mistaken, the watershed empties right into the Fraser.
You’re not understanding the term tCO2e, which takes this into account. See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_equivalent
Methane remains in the atmosphere for about a decade and is about 30 times stronger of a GHG, albeit than the incredibly weak CO2.
Good point.
Not really though. https://www.sitecproject.com/sites/default/files/info-sheet-methylmercury-feb-2018.pdf
When calculating lifecycle emissions all greenhouse gasses are generally converted to tCO2e. The e means “equivalent” and captures greenhouse gasses other than CO2.
Awfully difficult to power cities on rice though. Seriously though, who thought that comparison was worth doing?
Methane is not CO2 (as per your bar chart).
That is entirely not true. Any reduction of use in this province is sold to other provinces or the states, reducing emissions there. So while your not reducing them provincially, you’re still reducing them.
Because hydro poisons everything with methyl mercury. It’s worse than the oil sands tailing ponds in terms of ruining watershed. It also does massive damage to the entire ecosystem, since it ruins the salmon runs which are a keystone species for all of BC.
Battery production already debunked below.
Good research, bad summary. They said “we found that the estimates of methane emissions per area of reservoir are about 25 percent higher than previously thought”. So add 25% to the bar chart on the left and see if it makes a difference.
There are many reasons, but perhaps we shouldn’t get into it.
I spoke in favour of Site C when they were holding public hearings. 95% of people that came out to the Victoria hearing were against it.
One argument against it was that we don’t need the power. In my statement I said the only reason we don’t need the power is because we are doing things like strapping 2 stroke engines to our backs so we can blow some leaves from one spot to another spot three feet away.
Also, BC hydro dams are incredibly high in the worst type of GHG emissions. Better to stick with a 4-cylinder ICE (far cheaper too).
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/nov/14/hydroelectric-dams-emit-billion-tonnes-greenhouse-gas-methane-study-climate-change
When considered over a 100-year timescale, dams produce more methane than rice plantations and biomass burning, the study showed.
i dont understand why people oppose SITE DAMN C so much
Great post, by the way, Leo.
We’re a one-car family. Many shorter trips are done by bike, including taking kids to school.
Most EVs are still too small in terms of leg room. We’re a tall family, and compacts aren’t going to work for us, especially on road trips to Calgary and beyond.
We’re lusting after a Tesla (there’s one in our cul-de-sac and two in the next one over), but it would need to have the leg room of a Model X at the price of a Model 3.
Until such a thing exists, we’ll keep chunking away at the mortgage so that in about five years’ time we’ll be payment-free and able to save to buy a nice EV in short order with cash.
We should probably switch to an electric lawnmower, but (1) we have a lot of lawn, (2) I don’t like that damn extension cord, and (3) I’m not sure if you can get an electric mulching mower (no bag) powerful enough that it doesn’t bog down in tallish, damp grass.
I’ve seen these guys doing jobs in Gordon Head:
https://cleanairyardcare.ca/
Ditto. Seems like there’s room for a locale-aware app for tracking and reducing your footprint. I tried Oroeco and it’s was horribly inaccurate. It said I was something like 20% worse than the average American at a time when I had no car, fully electric heating and hadn’t taken flights in years. When I tried researching where it was inaccurate and asking questions, the company got really defensive simply saying it was based on “research” and never provided any sources.
No fan, convection based, totally silent operation. Both units are Valor gas fireplaces. It puts out crazy amounts of heat, even with a relatively small flame. I’m sold on them, personally.
https://www.valorfireplaces.com/
We have a gas fireplace insert. It “works” when there is no power as in it burns gas, but it produces essentially zero heat because the fan doesn’t turn on. Maybe you have a better one that works purely on convection?
Most common at-home maintenance is likely oil changes every 6 months or so. I used to do those myself so it was nice to get rid of the oil, filters, filter wrench, oil pan, along with gas and jerry cans for the lawn equipment.
Figure from another lifecycle emissions study out of SFU comparing Leaf to Versa.
https://pluginbc.ca/wp/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Environmental-Life-Cycle-Assessment-of-Electric-Vehicles-in-Canada.pdf
Yeah I’m the same. When we sold the gas car it was a roughly lateral move and I calculated that over 3 years it would cost the same to drive electric so I made the switch. Teslas are of course much nicer EVs and if you’re in the market for a premium sedan it is cost competitive, but I don’t need to spend $50k+ on any vehicle. I love driving, but I love driving small cheap cars just as much as big expensive ones.
Just a spreadsheet. Couldn’t find any online tools that let you track over time and also correctly take into account our electricity grid mix.
Yeah already f’d that one up. That’s why I have to save emissions elsewhere!
Big part of emissions is embodied energy in buildings. I think the future there is mass timber construction to replace steel and concrete for bigger buildings. Might even get you to a carbon negative building and help out our forestry sector at the same time.
Yeah that’s about right. By the way much of the emissions currently from battery production is just from the power used at the factory to produce the cells. Source that power from renewable sources and the initial emissions essentially disappear. Tesla has said they already do this but haven’t provided concrete full lifecycle data yet to prove it.
Producing an EV creates more GHG emissions on account of the battery (and bigger batteries equal bigger emissions, so Leafs are better than Teslas in this regard).
But after just 1.67 years of driving a 30 kWh Nissan Leaf, you’ve reached the break-even point with a comparable ICE vehicle in terms of emissions, meaning cradle-to-grave EVs produce vastly lower emissions. (BTW, a 100 kWh Tesla is about 5.5 years to break-even.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RhtiPefVzM
It’s crazy that lawn care companies don’t switch. There’re compelling electric versions of everything and it would save them a ton of money and grief for the noise. They always show up at 7 am on Saturday where I live and this small army of tiny terrible engines is maintaining what’s probably 3 parking spaces worth of grass.
I’ve followed Tesla very close since it’s inception. At one point I was certain I would preorder a Model 3. That changed when I got a hybrid for under 10k. I just can’t imagine spending more than that on a car when spending less gets the job done. My wife and I walk or bike most of the time so its impacts aren’t huge. I don’t think Tesla will be producing any truly affordable cars while it’s headed by a billionaire man-child. The VW ID series however is pretty compelling and I can see myself picking up a used CROZZ when my hybrid is on its last legs.
Are you using any tools to track that progress or just a spreadsheet? I’d love to make an app for that if it doesn’t already exist.
There are all kinds of advice out there and a lot of it doesn’t move the needle. Flights are a big one. You can go vegan and bike commute all you want, but if you take flights every year, it’s like ordering a double big mac with your diet coke. Not having kids is probably the best thing you can do for the environment but I don’t know how many people would make that decision based on that reason. It’s infuriating when I try to find a consistent source of good information and there are articles about more sustainable concrete mixed in with articles about organic cotton baby onesies. I work for a company that consults with other companies and governments about how to measure and reduce GHG impact. That’s the most important stuff we do – consumers are at the whims of the choices made by governments, energy producers and major corporations. We also try to create and implement standards to empower consumers to make better choices. It gets really complicated when you start to consider where goods and food are from and how it’s processed before they get to you.
It can’t be reasonably argued that an electric car has the same maintenance as a gas car. No engine, no transmission and significantly reduced brake wear means way lower costs, way fewer trips to a shop and way fewer replacement parts and fluids.
Indeed, but I wasn’t talking about a gas central furnace.
The house I’m in uses 2 gas fireplaces, one upstairs and one down. Inserts are what we’ll be using in the new place as well. It has no connection to power other than the battery powered receiver box to control the flame level via remote.
Regardless of a insert fireplace’s comparative efficiency, even at the lowest setting, it heats the whole place up no problem and very rapidly too. As well, it certainly adds a pleasing ambience, if you’re into that sort of thing.
Water tank is a 60 gallon John Wood gas – it’ll go from completely depleted to full hot water in 20 minutes. The old electric took an hour and a half.
Okay, then why did you tout that as a plus? Why have any tools at all no matter what kind of car you have? PS, yay, I’m a 1%er 😛
What percentage of people do any of that work at home? 1% perhaps. Probably less. Also outside of tires none of those are a regular maintenance item.
For sure and I never claimed otherwise. The article isn’t about saving money it’s about reducing environmental impact.
My $2000 Tercel I had 10 years ago was definitely cheaper than an electric car.
The mass switch to electric cars will happen not because they are cheaper or more environmentally friendly, but because they are better. Hard to explain without driving one.
I don’t think that’s true.
https://www.fortisbc.com/safety-outages/preparing-for-emergencies/power-outages
We are in the interesting scenario that as a family of 5, we cycle, walk and bus so much that our only vehicle is driven less than 7000 km per year. I’m curious if an electric car is much of a carbon savings when factoring in manufacturing carbon costs.
The costing is only an aside. The purpose was to discuss how to reduce emissions, not how to save money per se.
Neither does a gas central furnace which has a blower.
Depends on the type. Single or dual head mini splits are not that expensive and can heat the main part of the house. You can always leave baseboards in the bedrooms which are normally unheated during the day.
True. Knowing nothing about furnaces google says average lifespan is 15-30 years. Probably longer than a heat pump but they don’t last forever.
I pay about $60/month on my gas bill to not heat the house (hot water and very occasional fireplace use) that seems.. too low.
I’m not an expert in any of this, but I feel like this is not a very neutral article, at least from the costing and maintenance perspective. So I’ll go the other side…
Our new place is currently all baseboard, and we’re switching to natural gas. The issue with a heat pump is the enormous up-front costs, and keep in mind they don’t work in a power outage during the winter. The pump rebates are large, but that’s a reflection of the huge cost of the system – which in about 20 years, you could be replacing all over again. It’s not that a heat pump is a bad system, but natural gas isn’t bad either, depending on what you have in your house now and your type of energy requirements. Plus, gas has plenty of rebates as well.
Don’t care about A/C – Victoria is a temperate climate and almost never gets hot enough during the summer to justify it, so my energy costs for cooling are zero. Heating with gas costs vastly less than baseboard. Where I live right now, the whole house (about 2800sf) costs about 60 dollars a month to heat with gas during the coldest months – and that’s running it to some degree, 24/7. The fixed costs of the gas connection over the year are virtually negligible (under 20 bucks a month). During the summer the cost of powering the heating systems might be literally more with gas, but in absolute numbers I don’t think it makes that much practical difference. Plus, you continue to get the benefit of savings by heating your hot water and dryer with it – which costs much less than powering it with electricity. Power outage during the winter? You’re still toasty warm with gas. 🙂
I could just as readily speculate that the cost of hydro will jump too. And do we actually know that the carbon tax will jump that dramatically? It could all be true and then some, but if you’re just speculating, then there’s not much point in asserting it.
Leo, that’s not a very accurate picture. Yes, there’s little engine maintenance, but that says nothing about vehicle maintenance. The reality is electric cars have all the same wearable chassis components as a gasoline car. They still have shocks, strut mounts, control arm bushings, wheel bearings, tie rod ends, rack and pinion systems, ball joints, sway bar bushings, stabilizer links, brake calipers, brake pads, ABS and TPM systems, various sensors, tires, and the list goes on.
An electric car isn’t some get-out-of-jail-free card, and god forbid you ever have to replace the battery pack. Dollar for dollar, I would still say a base model, small economy car is, for now, a much better financial move than an electric car. Of course, that is also affected by your driving requirements and habits.
“the clear way to reduce emissions in transportation is with an electric vehicle.”
Don’t forget cycling, both my wife and I ride our bikes to work, our one son usually rides his bike to school and the other walks. it’s actually faster from oak bay/fairfield to downtown by bike then driving these days and you get exercise.
And then there’s new construction…
https://thewalrus.ca/the-false-promise-of-green-housing/
All else being equal a smaller house might be better. Smaller floor area = smaller envelope area. The other saving from smaller would be less space = less acquisition of energy intensive manufactured goods as you simply don’t have space for them.
Great post Leo. Question – is it really fair to count BC Hydro as being that low emission? The way I look at it is that North America is an interconnected electrical grid. If BC residents use less electricity BC Hydro will sell that power elsewhere and probably displace natural gas generation. If we use more electricity then we don’t DIRECTLY cause much emissions but indirectly we cause someone else somewhere else on the continent to crank up an alternate source of generation.
So bottom line I think there is good merit to saving electricity beyond the small financial savings and the minuscule direct BC Hydro emissions.