Offset your carbon emission usage to feel better and make a difference

I was a little leary of carbon offset programs, but as I read more into Carbonfund.org, they have a very rigorous process for validating projects. Even though I do drive a Prius, I do impact the environment with the gas I purchase and consume. I also commute 25 miles each way, five days a week, so those miles add up to about 15,000 per year.

Therefore, I decided to offset the last years worth of driving. According to their calculator, I have contributed almost 3 metric tons of CO2 to the environment in the last year. To offset that amount, I had to pay about $30, or around $2.50 per month. That seems very reasonable to me, and it helps me feel slightly better about my driving habits.

Don't get me wrong. Paying someone to allow me to continue my bad behavior is not the intent. The alternative is that I don't spend the $30 on anything related to the environment, so I'm letting them do it for me. I don't want to pay that amount each year (as affordable as it is), so there is some incentive for me to continue to find ways to reduce my driving.

If businesses and companies were forced to offset their carbon footprint each year, imagine how many projects we could get started? For example, my company generates about 150,000 metric tons per year. If they paid $10 per metric ton (which is what CarbonFund.org charges), that would be about $1.5 million! Imagine how many solar and wind projects we could implement with that kind of investment! (As a side note, my company has set aside $500,000 to fund energy reducion projects this year, which is a great start).

Oat: The new renewable energy?

I saw this mentioned on an environmental website the other day, and thought it was pretty cool, especially since I'm a former alum.

"According to a University of Iowa video, burning oat hulls - instead of just coal - saves about $1 million per year for the school. It gets the oat hulls from a Quaker Oats facility, which is just a short distance away in Cedar Rapids, IA. By 2010, the university plans to reduce its energy consumption by 10 percent and use renewable sources to generate 15 percent of all energy on campus."

There is also a short video developed by the University of Iowa to describe the "oat hulls" used to generate power.

Kill-a-Watt Electricity Usage Monitor

We bought the Kill-a-Watt, in order to help us figure out where we were spending most of our money in electricity. We were hoping it would also help us figure out whether we had phantom power on some of our devices (using power when not in use).



The device works by simply unplugging the 110-volt device from the wall, plugging in the Kill-a-Watt into the outlet, then plugging the device into the Kill-a-Watt, and pressing the on button. That simple! It starts to measure the amount of kilowatt hours (KwH) of electricity used, and retains the amount of minutes and hours that it has been plugged in, so you can determine how much is used per hour, per day, etc.



We determined that many of our devices did not have phantom power (good!), and that certain devices are very energy intensive, such as ovens and refrigerators. We turned down the temperature slightly on the fridge, and started using our toaster oven more often, instead of heating the entire oven for items that could fit in the toaster oven.

We would highly recommend this device to anyone looking to reduce their energy usage and electrical bills (which should be everybody!). It is affordable, easy to use, and will pay for itself in no time!