Whoa.
I figured out the numbers for April (except the water bill’s not in yet) for the Riot for Austerity challenge, and I got a nice surprise!
Here’s the numbers we started out with back in June 2007:
Gasoline: 59% of the American national average
Electricity: 425% (multiple computers, TV’s, and lights on all the time, in an almost totally electric house. Boggled my mind when I first saw this…)
Natural gas: 42%
Water: 44%
Food: 100% non-local
I started tracking consumer spending but gave it up, as I found calculating it confusing, and I don’t do garbage (although between the compost bin, the yard, and the bunnies, there’s not much to throw away besides plastic, which I try not to buy.
Here’s where we’re at now:
Gasoline: Hovering around 28% of the national average. This hasn’t changed for several months, and I’m trying to figure out how to bring it down more.
Electricity: 269% (I’m quite excited about this. For the first month since starting, we’re below 300%.)
Natural gas: 3% (I’m also excited about this, seeing as we just came off winter. I ran the numbers twice, thinking I made a mistake!)
Water: 40% (April’s not counted yet, like I said.)
Food: 60% local, 10% regional, 30% non-local (This is just an estimate, I really should count items eaten one of these days. We really do eat local food on a daily basis. I’d say the non-local things are the junk food type stuff we buy for the kids, and things like salt and coffee.)
So this month is looking great! 
May 1st, 2008 at 8:05 am
Excellent work. At this rate, in about 3 years you’ll be at 10% in all categories, and might even manage a one tonner.
May 1st, 2008 at 6:13 pm
LOL!!
Well, with my family the way we’ll get there is if the power is cut, but I’m chipping away at it …
Nice to hear from you.
May 3rd, 2008 at 11:45 pm
Do you not have some greenpower option you can choose? Nobody gets to a tonne without it, unless as you say they pull the plug entirely.
May 4th, 2008 at 6:31 pm
Not really. Our state does have wind power, but it’s a really low percentage and only for the north-west part of the state, which isn’t where I live.
There’s talk of adding more but it’s controversial as they want to put the towers right where some endangered birds live.
May 30th, 2008 at 10:19 pm
What, and coal dust is good for the birds? Pfft. Last government we had an “environment” minister tried that, knocking back a wind farm because of the “orange-bellied parrot” - the report said that at worst one every twenty years would be killed. The outcry of the hypocrisy turned him around, and the wind farm will be built.
We don’t have to have renewable energy near us to buy it. The thing is that all the electricity generated goes into the same grid. Here we can nominate whether we’ll buy “standard” (coal) electricity, or wind or solar. If we pay extra for the wind or solar, then the electricity retailer buys that much electricity from the guys who own the wind or solar plants. So it’s just a matter of whether your money is going towards coal or what. Your choice.
Or to be clear, there’s not just “the power company”, there’s the wholesalers - the companies which own the power stations of whatever kind who actually generate the electricity - and the retailers - who buy the electricity from the wholesalers and then sell it to customers, us. So we have the option of several different retailers, and each of them has several different plans. We chose the plan that says, “hey retailer, make sure you buy from the wind turbine wholesaler guys, not from those coal bastards.”
The amount of renewable energy in the grid exceeds the amount people are paying for with the GreenPower option. That is, schlubs like me are subsidising less polluting electricity generation for average Joes. But I’m happy enough about that, to me it’s like saying “watch out for that dog turd” to some guy who’s about to step on one - because he’s wandering around stupidly, I have to make extra effort to help him out.
May 31st, 2008 at 8:52 pm
They learn to adapt. That’s what happened in CA with the Tehachapi wind farm. Everyone was so afraid the birds would all die … blah blah blah. A few stupid ones did die, but most of them just flew a different way through the canyon, avoiding the windmills. Animals are smarter than we give them credit for.
The mills are just beautiful, it’s become a tourist attraction as well as a great energy source.