I recently became aware of a home energy-saving device known as the ‘whole house fan’. In hot summer climates, this device helps your air conditioning work a lot less, which is especially useful if your house is the size of the Buffalo, NY train depot pictured above. But even if your house is much smaller, whole house fans can lower your electrical or gas usage significantly. Since electricity is produced primarily by fossil fuels and gas is a fossil fuel, you are lowering your carbon footprint and saving money!

The whole house fan is installed in your attic where much of the home’s hot air is trapped. When activated, it exhausts the hot attic air to the outside while pulling in cooler air back into the attic. Simple! However, you want to do this when the air outside is colder than the air in your attic - like in the evenings when you get home from work or school. This quickly cools down your house and uses less energy than your air conditioning. Then if you want to run the air conditioner to bring the temperature even lower, your A/C unit doesn’t need to work as hard and cuts off sooner. This saves energy and money! Make sure the installers build in a temperature shutoff gauge or timed dial so the fan doesn’t run all night.

Prices range from $1,000-$1,600, including installation. According to my manufacturer, a whole house fan can pay for itself over 2-3 summer seasons! Compare that with solar panels, which cost a lot more to purchase and can take 7 years or more to pay off, and the whole house fan becomes a no-brainer.

And if you ever sell your home, don’t forget to include the whole house fan and your historical cost savings in the real estate marketing materials (but don’t guarantee it!). The buyers will be able to enjoy the green energy savings too - lowering their costs of ownership.

Much has been said about the LEED certification for buildings, Energy Star appliances and other energy saving systems for the home or apartment. But little has been said about choosing locations that reduce your carbon footprint until now. WalkScore helps you determine the green factor of any location. Their algorithm includes proximity to grocery stores, restaurants, coffee shops, bars, schools, parks and more. Plus they map the location and show you distances to these amenities. Now you can choose housing based on how little you need to use your car. Who needs a gym membership when you got Walkscore?

Just joined CarrotMob at Facebook. Works like this…competing businesses bid for the CarrotMob to visit their store and spend money. Whomever bids the highest percentage of their profits to greening up their facility wins! A liquor store recently had a couple hundred C-mobbers spend over $9000 in a few hours and became part of their music video. Since the winning bid was 22%, the liquor store will be implementing $2200 worth of green improvements! Why not start this up in your community?

The Casual Conservationist book can be found in these fine book stores in the San Francisco Bay Area:

Book Passage, Ferry Building @ Embarcadero, San Francisco

Towne Center Books, 555 Main Street, Pleasanton

Diesel Books, 5433 College Avenue, Oakland

Diapers. 20 billion/year in our landfills. 500 years to decompose. Why not 500 hours? www.Gdiapers.com.

A letter to the owner of 19moons.com :
My publicist gave me a pair of your beauty-on-the-inside watch cufflinks and they are so groovy! I wore them to Leah Garchik’s book signing last week and had several admirers asking about the time. I just wanted to congratulate you for your conservation consciousness and crafty savvy.

I read a Contra Costa Times article today, “Hydrogen Highway stuck in first gear.” To start, hydrogen-fueled engines are propelled by fuel cells that produce electricity from oxygen and hydrogen. Somehow the electrons are separated from the protons, croutons and futons…let’s just say it gets you to the grocer and furniture stores! But unless you live a few minutes from the whopping 24 hydrogen fuel stations in California, it’s likely you don’t own a hydrocar. Why so few stations? Well, there’s always the chicken-egg scenario…the automakers won’t build hydrocars en masse until there is a network of refueling stations. The state has offered matching funds to build the $3M stations but requires the stations to jump through some environmental hoops that reverses the economic benefit. A $3m investment requires a return of at least $300,000/year in net profits (10% interest) before hydrogen stations will be embraced, which would require at least 176 cars($300k/$1700 per yr gas bill) dedicated to using each particular station and right now there are a total of 175 hydrocars in California. I didn’t factor in the yearly operating costs of a hydrogen fuel station, which would mean more cars are needed. Anyone know the op costs? It doesn’t make economic sense for the oil companies that own the distribution system. Their money gets better returns with less doubts by focusing on oil production and better-recognized alternative fuels like ethanol. I’m not saying hydrocars won’t be a significant part of the energy mix, but it is foolish to push environmental technology at taxpayer expense unless the buyers see the economic benefit, along with the environmental one. In this case, the buyers are the automakers, gas companies and drivers and only when all of their economic concerns are met will this technology flourish. If California politicians want to use our money to advance this technology, fine. But focus it on businesses with local car and truck fleets who are most likely to reap the economic benefit of building and operating a hydrogen-fuel station, without requiring them to jump through so many hoops. This will slowly build a market for hydrocars and keep businesses from leaving California. In fact, if you focus on businesses you think are getting ready to leave, maybe you can achieve a double win! Fast Facts: $3M per hydrogen-fuel station to build, 24 stations in California, 3 in Bay Area, and 175 hydrogen vehicles in California including the Chevrolet Equinox (180-mile range) and the Honda FCX Clarity (270-mile range). In 2005, the Legislature provided $19M to the Air Resources Board to boost the hydrocar market.

I’m back with more tips for us lazy-busy conservationists. I just discovered the environmental beauty of condensed soup. Soup cans often travel great distances to reach your supper bowl, traveling by truck from the cannery and by car to your home. But if you sneak a peak at the ingredients you will find water fills these cans as the majority ingredient. When you buy a smaller can of condensed soup and add tap water, with a filter if you like, you reduce the fuel used and thus, the greenhouse gasses you contribute to our skies. Plus, less aluminum is used in the cans since they don’t need to be so big! And you provide a greater degree of quality control over your soup water.

What other food items offer a condensed alternative?

2005 Silver Ford Escape Hybrid Green SUV All Wheel Drive

Go Green with room for the kids and all their stuff on your way to Squaw Valley for a pow-pow day!

Roominess: Seats 5 people comfortably with good leg room and ample trunk space. Seats fold down flat in the back and there is a roof rack for additional storage space.

Fuel Savings: I saw an average of approximately 30 miles per gallon fuel efficiency - lower for hill driving, higher on the flats and in the city. If you drive 70 miles roundtrip each day to work, 250 days a year, pay $3/gallon at the pump and:

you get 20 MPG now, you may experience $875 gas savings per year
you get 15 MPG now, you may experience $1750 gas savings per year
you get 10 MPG now, you may experience $3500 gas savings per year

Engine Power: A traditional gasoline-powered 2.3L I4 Atkinson Cycle Engine and a hidden-rechargeable battery that works together with the combustion engine to improve fuel efficiency. Most of my driving was highway so if you are a city driver, you can expect better MPG than I experienced. The Reason? When you come to a stoplight the engine turns off. If you ease the gas pedal down to accelerate, the SUV runs exclusively on battery power until the computer decides more power is needed (over 25-30 MPH or when you need some quick zip).

Factory Warranty: 3yrs/36,000 miles overall and 8 years/100,000 miles on Hybrid components.

Extended Service Plan (Premium Care): 5yrs/48,000 miles overall (cost me $1500). This policy will be transferred at time of sale at my cost ($50).

Mileage: Less than 32,000 miles and was serviced recently. I can provide all records.

Exterior: Excellent condition. The silver color hides dirt well so you don’t need to wash as often - a plus for the planet and your pocketbook. There is a small dent on the tailgate (as shown in the picture) which I can fix before transferring ownership or lower the asking price if you want to do it yourself.

Features: All-Wheel Drive, Navigation System, Grey Leather Seats, Roof Rack, Privacy Glass, Cargo Cover, 110v Outlet, Alloy Wheels, Keyless Entry, Alarm, Fog Lights, Power Door Locks, Power Seat, Power Windows, Power Steering, Alloy Wheels, Cruise Control, Dual Front Air Bags, Premium Sound, ABS (4-Wheel), Tilt Wheel, Multi Compact Disc, Heat/Air Conditioning, and AM/FM Stereo.

An article on the 2005 Ford Escape Hybrid:
http://trucks.about.com/od/suvreviews/fr/05_hybridescape.htm

Asking price $22,000. To test drive my Escape Hybrid, please email me at MongoSpeaks@HowToConserve.com. I’m located in Contra Costa County, California.

Thank you,
Eric
MongoSpeaks@HowToConserve.com

Finally made it back to California. I stopped on my way through the Southern California foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountain range and found a local farm with some sweet pluots, where I picked up some homecoming gifts. See, I’m not the scrooge I make myself out to be. I was rewarded with this beauty of a dusk photo.

Thanks for joining me on the trip. I plan to keep learning about conservation and have more adventures. I hope you can join me at www.HowToConserve.com. Farewell, for now.

And don’t forget to join me at a few local bookstores in the Bay Area in early November when I will be talking about the book, my trip and all the new conservation news you can handle. Chow! Ciao?