Energy Saving Tip # 2 - Boiling the Kettle

I'm sure you all know that boiling more water than you need wastes energy. But how much energy are we all wasting?

In the United Kingdom tea drinking is a national institution, we down a scalding 1909 cups of tea every second, 6.8m every hour, and 165m every day, according to figures from the UK Tea Council. This unsurprisingly uses up alot of energy, a kettle uses up to 3kW of electricity. In an article in by the Times Online blog using a 2.2kw kettle it took 100 seconds to boil. This equates to about 1.68m kWh in electricity consumption to boil the actual water used in cups of tea.

But 67% of people boil more water than is actually required for their cup of tea. I have not been able to find actual statistics for how much they overfill the kettle by other than from a few sites which claim we on average use twice the amount of water than is required. This would mean that we are wasting around 1.68m kWh a day from our tea addiction. Adding in coffee drinkers this extends to 2.33m kWh per day or 1056 tonnes of CO2 a day from electricity use, the equivalent to about 149 000 cars, or an annual 6.36kg of CO2 per capita.

To what cost you may ask; a cool £91m a year.

After computing my back of an envelope figures I found a report by DEFRA on the same topic which suggested a daily energy saving of 3.42m kWh (1547 tonnes per day).

So what can you do to reduce your impact;

• The Eco Kettle
  The innovative Eco Kettle has a unique double chamber that gets you to measure out exactly how much water you want to boil, saving electricity, water, money and time, making it better for the planet... and you still get to have a great cup of tea. That's smart thinking - making the eco kettle one of our favourite eco products, and an essential for any eco friendly kitchen or workplace. Using a kettle to boil more water than you need is the equivalent to powering 300 CFLs unnecessarily.
  
• Referring to the measure on the side can help you to accurately determine the amount of liquid necessary
• Measure how much water you require by filling the cup or saucepan you are planning to use and then pour this water into the kettle, remembering to add a little bit extra to compensate for evaporation
  
  

Energy Saving Tip # 1 - Staples

I've decide to add a daily tip to the blog, some of which I am sure you have already implemented, and others you might not. I will try to add a new dimension to these tips by delving into some of the potential savings that could be amassed from taking on such tips.

If each of the 10m office workers were to use one less staple per day this would amount to 328kg per day and over 120 tonnes of steel over a year. In energy terms this would be over one million kwh of electricity used and almost 500 000kg of CO2 reduced. A viable alternative to staples are stapleless staplers (and can hold together upto 7 sheets of paper, not to mention office-chic in Japan) or reuseable paperclips.

Why Stapleless Staplers are Japan Office Chic?

• No Staples [You never have an emergency staple moment]
• No Need to Remove Staples
• Easy to Shread Documents
• Less Frequent Jams & Irritating Stapler Related Problems
• Safe for Children [Just search staple in YouTube]
  

Whilst Im sure you are not moved by the figures to ban staples in the office just yet, it shows the impact a small action can have on a national scale. I found this stapleless stapler for under $3 USD including shipping and can hold 5 sheets together. Take into consideration the number of staples you use or in some magazines, supplements, business document, retailers and mail. That's alot of staples.

Google Ranks How to Save Energy? Page Rank 5

Google has recently carried out the first page rank update in six months, and our blog has gone from PR0 to PR5 [as we only started in April of this year]. We would like to thank all those who have linked to us and given us this credible ranking. We still offer free links to sites we feel are related to our core topics in our blogroll (sitewide on over 100 indexed pages), just send us your site to consider.

How the Rest of the Blogroll faired;

• Big Green Switch (PR5)
  
• Carbon Neutral Search Blog (PR0 - Just Launched)
  
• EcoStreet (PR5)
  
• Ethanol 85 Blog (PR4)
  
• Ethical Man (PR6)
  
• Groovy Green (PR3)
  
• Live Paths (PR0)
  
• My Recycle Tips (PR1 - Just Launched)
  
• Reduce Your CO2 (PR3 - amended)
  
• Ruth's Blog (PR3)
• The Carbon Challenge (PR4)
  
• The Man in Seat Sixty-One (PR6)
  
• TreeHugger (PR7)
  
• UK Energy Saving (PR4)
  

Congratulations to some who this is their first update and have ranked well, may your influence and authority continue to rise.

Picture: California Fires

An image from MODIS Rapid Response System taken by the AQUA satellite shows the plumes of smoke bellowing out as it ravages over 500 000 acres of land, destroying 1700 homes across California.

Picture: Gadgets Threaten Energy Savings

I have been away from the blog a while working hard and resting after my short holiday however I am back and when I saw this photo, I think this is a great image but it also made me think about an entry I wrote about in July on High Powered Gadgets Threatening Energy Savings, and how they are increasingly finding their way into our lives from a younger and younger age. The image by Eugene Hoshiko of the Associated Press was taken at the Eve's Temptation lingerie and beachwear fashion show in Shanghai, China

Carbon Footprint of Searching

I have now arrived back home from my jaunt half way across the world which in several ways was enlightening and action packed, yet emission full, but neutralised. I have some photos to upload later including initiatives like "No Straw Day".

But no sooner than I am back home is a new search engine is launched, once again this new venture is promising to offset CO2 emissions and for free. From the calculations of the company that developed the site, a search query emits less than a single gram of CO2. With the use of personal computers this rises up to almost 18g (based on the most energy consuming desktops).

For each query completed through the Carbon Neutral Search Engine they will offset CO2 emissions by a minimum of 100g via Climate Care. Having tried out the site from the Blackle.com style black background with similar totaliser, it seems to be a different way to make a small difference. Just a quick calculation on the back of an envelope if the 37 billion searches that Google processed in August were carried out through the site, that would result in 370 000 tonnes of CO2 offset, not to mention by the end of the year Google will be carbon neutral themselves, so in some cases this would result in additional carbon savings, although small as the search is powered by Google.

Still a little grudging towards offsetting, having checked out the Climate Care website when thinking about my flight offsetting they did change my perception somewhat, with projects not just having emissions reductions but in many cases helping in developing nations improve standards and quality of life, and in any case project which can be combine all this, added with the free use from completing a daily task providing the user with service, is a positive way to make a small difference on a daily basis without contemplation.