I'm moving this blog over to wordpress, which I like a bit better for a few reasons. (Not the least of which is that blogger is owned by a competitor of my company!)
Please change your bookmarks to:
http://greeningmyhouse.wordpress.com/
Monday, March 17, 2008
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
There's a Reason They Call it Kitty "Litter"
We have two cute little kittens, Kinnie and Cali, a brother and sister team from the same litter. Well, they are not so little any more. They are 6 months old at this point and have grown like crazy. They are also getting very bratty, so maybe they are not so cute as they used to be, but heck, they have stolen our hearts anyways!
As you may have already guessed from the title, the reason I'm writing this particular blog post is because pets produce waste. Lots of it. In fact, according to the book "In Defense of Garbage" by Judd Alexander, American cats produce over 2 million tons of kitty litter each year! (And that was in 1993... who knows what it is now?)
Of course, we have a litter box in our garage and a little cat door so they can get from the house to the garage. The litter box was filled with the clumping clay type of litter which works really well with the type of lifting sifter box we have. I estimate that 5 to 15% of our garbage is kitty litter based on a visual inspection of the volume of the garbage bin taken up by litter and garbage bags.
Okay, So There's Waste. Big Deal. What's the Problem?
There are a number of problems with traditional clumping litters:
Okay, So What to Do About it?
Well fortunately, there are biodegradable kitty litters out there. Usually they are based on one of these:
Composting? Well What About All those Nasty Bacteria?
That's a very good point. Cat feces sometimes contains many types of fecal coliform bacteria such as the dreaded E. Coli, and also a very nasty bug called taxoplasma gondii which can survive in soils and eventually get into food growing in that soil. This particular taxoplasma bacteria is very nasty for pregnant women and their babies, and for that reason pregnant women should never be "doing the litter". Unfortunately, us guys need to sign up for that household chore. (I was going to make a quip about "always dealing with the crap" but I realized my wife will probably read this posting! ;-)
Composting does get rid of a lot of bacteria, especially if you do worm composting (vermicomposting). But it does not get all of it. The safest thing to do if you are composting your litter is to use the resulting worm casting on non-food plants only, such as trees, shrubs, flowers, ornamentals, etc.
You can also sterilize the soil by essentially "cooking" it to kill off all the bacteria. This can be done in a green fashion via solarization. Solarization is a technique where you spread a thin layer of soil (or in this case, worm castings) out on a black surface and cover it with a transparent cover such as a thick plastic sheet. Then, you leave that out in the sun to "cook". In sunny climes, this technique can raise the temperature of the casting up to as much as 140 to 150F. If this is left in the sun for a few weeks, pretty much all bacteria, fungus, weeds, and seeds will be sterilized. Also be very careful -- the temperature must be above 140F for a few hours to ensure that the bacteria are all killed off. If you are not sure about it, don't use this compost on your food crops. See the USDA web site for more details about killing off harmful bacteria in foods, some of which applies to killing bacteria in compost.
Alternately, you can cook the castings in the oven at 200F for 20 minutes to do the same thing. (Don't worry, the worms have removed anything smelly!) This is what companies do to chicken and cow manure that you buy in those huge packs at your home and garden megastore.
The only problem is that cooking it in the oven probably uses electricity that causes carbon emissions. Solarization is the preferred "green" method if it gets warm enough where you live to raise the temperature sufficiently.
But there is a problem with cooking. Even the beneficial bacteria can be eliminated. All of its mojo is gone, baby!
So, the idea is that you would keep 2 compost heaps: one for kitchen wastes, and one for worm composting the kitty litter. When a batch of the worm compost is done, and then appropriately solarized or sterilized, then it goes directly into the kitchen compost heap to get its mojo back. The castings will pick up beneficial bacteria and also provide food and materials to help the bacteria break down the food wastes as well. The result should be usable on food gardens.
So What are You Doing, Edwin?
Well, step 1 is already complete: we have switched from the clumping clay litter to Swheat Scoop wheat litter. The cats didn't seem to mind at all. The only thing I have noticed is that there is an ammonia smell when I change the litter that I didn't smell before with the clay. Currently, we are still throwing the litter out in the garbage. (You can't put it in the green bin for the same bacteria reasons listed above.) Also, the price seems to be competitive with the clay clumping litter. We pay perhaps a dollar more (that's about 10%) to get this biodegradable stuff.
Step 2 is to get a 2 composting bins, one for food and one for litter. Then, we'll use the food compost for the food garden, and the litter compost for the non-food parts of the garden.
Step 3 is to build or buy a solarization tray so that we can sterilize the litter compost with a high enough heat that we can use it for the food parts of the garden.
I'll blog again when we have done parts 2 and 3.
As you may have already guessed from the title, the reason I'm writing this particular blog post is because pets produce waste. Lots of it. In fact, according to the book "In Defense of Garbage" by Judd Alexander, American cats produce over 2 million tons of kitty litter each year! (And that was in 1993... who knows what it is now?)
Of course, we have a litter box in our garage and a little cat door so they can get from the house to the garage. The litter box was filled with the clumping clay type of litter which works really well with the type of lifting sifter box we have. I estimate that 5 to 15% of our garbage is kitty litter based on a visual inspection of the volume of the garbage bin taken up by litter and garbage bags.
Okay, So There's Waste. Big Deal. What's the Problem?
There are a number of problems with traditional clumping litters:
- Clumping kitty litter is typically made out of sodium bentonite. This is essentially clay. It works really well at absorbing liquids and clumping, but it has to be mined out of the ground to be produced. These mines are not particularly "green" -- many are open cast mines.
- Sodium bentonite is very dusty, and when cats follow their natural "burying instinct" after they are done, they kick up a lot of this dust. And then they breath it in. Not good.
- Some cats ingest this litter, causing clumps and in rare cases even blockages in their digestive tracts when the bentonite soaks up all the usable moisture.
- The used litter is non-compostable and non-reusable. So all you can really do is throw it out. It then finds its way into landfills. This biological material should be reused and recycled back into the ecosystem to help combat soil erosion, but instead it is sent out of the ecosystem for good.
- Clay can get in between kitten's toes and get stuck there, and if they have any injuries, it can get into the wound, clump, and then get infected. Vets recommend against clumping clay for cats with recent surgeries and for kittens.
- Clumping litters often contain other rather-nasty chemicals in order to trap smells or otherwise neutralize odors. Some of these chemicals are toxic if ingested.
Okay, So What to Do About it?
Well fortunately, there are biodegradable kitty litters out there. Usually they are based on one of these:
- pine wood pellets
- non-food grade wheat or wheat bran
- paper pellets
- sawdust
- corn cobs
Composting? Well What About All those Nasty Bacteria?
That's a very good point. Cat feces sometimes contains many types of fecal coliform bacteria such as the dreaded E. Coli, and also a very nasty bug called taxoplasma gondii which can survive in soils and eventually get into food growing in that soil. This particular taxoplasma bacteria is very nasty for pregnant women and their babies, and for that reason pregnant women should never be "doing the litter". Unfortunately, us guys need to sign up for that household chore. (I was going to make a quip about "always dealing with the crap" but I realized my wife will probably read this posting! ;-)
Composting does get rid of a lot of bacteria, especially if you do worm composting (vermicomposting). But it does not get all of it. The safest thing to do if you are composting your litter is to use the resulting worm casting on non-food plants only, such as trees, shrubs, flowers, ornamentals, etc.
You can also sterilize the soil by essentially "cooking" it to kill off all the bacteria. This can be done in a green fashion via solarization. Solarization is a technique where you spread a thin layer of soil (or in this case, worm castings) out on a black surface and cover it with a transparent cover such as a thick plastic sheet. Then, you leave that out in the sun to "cook". In sunny climes, this technique can raise the temperature of the casting up to as much as 140 to 150F. If this is left in the sun for a few weeks, pretty much all bacteria, fungus, weeds, and seeds will be sterilized. Also be very careful -- the temperature must be above 140F for a few hours to ensure that the bacteria are all killed off. If you are not sure about it, don't use this compost on your food crops. See the USDA web site for more details about killing off harmful bacteria in foods, some of which applies to killing bacteria in compost.
Alternately, you can cook the castings in the oven at 200F for 20 minutes to do the same thing. (Don't worry, the worms have removed anything smelly!) This is what companies do to chicken and cow manure that you buy in those huge packs at your home and garden megastore.
The only problem is that cooking it in the oven probably uses electricity that causes carbon emissions. Solarization is the preferred "green" method if it gets warm enough where you live to raise the temperature sufficiently.
But there is a problem with cooking. Even the beneficial bacteria can be eliminated. All of its mojo is gone, baby!
So, the idea is that you would keep 2 compost heaps: one for kitchen wastes, and one for worm composting the kitty litter. When a batch of the worm compost is done, and then appropriately solarized or sterilized, then it goes directly into the kitchen compost heap to get its mojo back. The castings will pick up beneficial bacteria and also provide food and materials to help the bacteria break down the food wastes as well. The result should be usable on food gardens.
So What are You Doing, Edwin?
Well, step 1 is already complete: we have switched from the clumping clay litter to Swheat Scoop wheat litter. The cats didn't seem to mind at all. The only thing I have noticed is that there is an ammonia smell when I change the litter that I didn't smell before with the clay. Currently, we are still throwing the litter out in the garbage. (You can't put it in the green bin for the same bacteria reasons listed above.) Also, the price seems to be competitive with the clay clumping litter. We pay perhaps a dollar more (that's about 10%) to get this biodegradable stuff.
Step 2 is to get a 2 composting bins, one for food and one for litter. Then, we'll use the food compost for the food garden, and the litter compost for the non-food parts of the garden.
Step 3 is to build or buy a solarization tray so that we can sterilize the litter compost with a high enough heat that we can use it for the food parts of the garden.
I'll blog again when we have done parts 2 and 3.
Monday, February 18, 2008
Carbon Offsets are BS
I figured it would be a while before our house is carbon neutral, if indeed we can even get to that state at all without spending too much money. So, I started looking into carbon offsets. What are they? How much do they cost? Will it really help eliminate my carbon emissions and thereby reduce global warming?
The answer I found was surprising. I came to the conclusion that they are basically BS. They do not eliminate carbon emissions, and may even help produce more of them!
What are Carbon Offsets?
The basic idea behind carbon offsets is that you pay someone else to either reduce their emissions or to recapture carbon from the atmosphere so that it will offset the emissions caused by whatever it is you are doing. For example, when you book a trip on a plane with Travelocity, you can buy carbon offsets from a non-profit company called The Conservation Fund to offset the carbon emissions from burning all that jet fuel. The fund then uses the money for various environmental projects that will better the environment.
What do They Cost?
The actual amount depends on which company or organization you are buying offsets from. It can range from a dollar and change for that flight you booked, to a few tens of dollars.
Will it Really Help Eliminate my Carbon Emissions?
The answers is NO. You are still taking that flight, aren't you? That flight is on a jet powered by kerosene, which is derived from crude oil, and therefore a fossil fuel. You are still contributing that carbon to the atmosphere. Yes, the organization will be funding green energy projects elsewhere, but that does not mean your carbon emissions are removed.
Well, What are the Problems With it Then?
You may be thinking why is Edwin arguing against funding green energy projects elsewhere? Well, I'm not. I'm advocating against you thinking that buying an offset will reduce your carbon guilt!
Here are the problems with offsets:
First and foremost, the name. Wiktionary defines the word "offset" as
"Anything that acts as counterbalance; a compensating equivalent."
A carbon offset does not counterbalance your carbon emission. If you produce 2 units of CO2, and you pay someone to produce zero units by let's say funding a wind farm, then on average the two of you have produced 1 unit of CO2 each. Even worse, 2 new units of CO2 have been contributed to the atmosphere that weren't there before. ie. this is "business as usual".
The second problem is that the offsets do not remove carbon from the ecosystem, as the word "offset" would imply.
Some of these organizations plant trees or plants to capture carbon and turn it into plant matter via photosynthesis. The problem is that you haven't removed the carbon from the ecosystem. When the plant dies or gets eaten or some human kills it, the carbon is returned to the atmosphere again. Animals or micro-organisms eat the plant matter (ie. it decays) and the whole cycle starts again. All you are doing by growing new plants is moving the carbon from one place to another. Well, this shell game doesn't work! The new carbon is still there!
The idea can be understood in the context of biofuels. Carbon is captured from the atmosphere by plants using sunlight to power the reactions. Then later when the plant is turned into a biofuel and I burn that fuel in my car or boat, all I am doing is releasing the same carbon back into the air again. I am not adding any extra. It is just being recycled again and again.
Alternately, let's say the organization decides to fund a wind farm. This wind farm produces no carbon and electricity consumers can then purchase this clean energy to avoid burning fossil fuels. Net effect: zero carbon emissions... and zero carbon capture as well.
But isn't funding these sort of projects a good thing? Yes, it is, but this brings us to the third problem. The problem is "guilt". When you take that flight you booked earlier, you are producing carbon emissions. 'But,' you reason, 'It's okay because I bought carbon offsets.'
Carbon offsets are a way to prey on people's feelings of guilt about producing carbon emissions. All they end up doing is encouraging people to continue behaving the way they were behaving before because their guilt is assuaged by buying offsets. Some people will now feel free to emit EVEN MORE carbon because all they have to do is buy offsets to make it okay.
Well, guess what. It's not okay.
We all have to stop these emissions, and it starts at home and with your own behaviours.
Another aspect of this is that it takes the focus away from making stricter laws and/or governmental subsidies for encouraging green projects. Carbon offsets are not "pay as you go" because only those people that feel guilty about it are buying offsets. The worst offenders are not. We need to mandate that everyone reduces their emissions, and encourage better behaviour via tax incentives and rebates for green technologies and projects. The government will see this money back again later because the coming boom in green companies is going to produce lots of new tax revenues.
This brings me to the fourth problem, which is financial. When I buy an offset, I don't really get anything out of it except to feel better about myself. So offsets are basically charitable contributions to organizations that does good things with them. Except, it's not a real charitable contribution. You don't get a receipt and you can't write them off on your income tax.
'Hey wait a minute! Why can't I write them off?' you think.
The reason is that many of these organizations are for-profit companies, and others are non-profits that are not registered charities. To me, this seems deceptive.
If you book your flight with Expedia, for example, you can contribute to a company called Terrapass. Terrapass' web site has carbon offsets for sale right there on its home page and even implies that it will "reduce and balance your impact". "Reduce" maybe by averaging your impact and theirs together, but "balance"? That's deceptive because they are not removing carbon from the air.
Another problem, according to this USA Today article, is that Terrapass declines to disclose its finances, including its profits, citing competition. What? What kind of non-profit is this that does not have such transparency... oh wait... I see. It's a for-profit company. Who knows how much of this carbon offset money I just paid goes to lining executive's pockets and how much actually goes to green projects? They won't tell us.
So where does that leave us? Well, that carbon offsets don't offset your emissions and may even encourage more emissions. They are often purveyed by deceptive companies. You don't make any financial gain from them. And worst of all, they don't solve the problem they are trying to solve, which is global warming.
So to me, this means they are BS. I would not recommend buying them.
Now, the thing is that green projects should still be funded. It just shouldn't be via this deceptive means. If an organization said I could make a charitable contribution to help fund green projects without attaching any "offset" idea to it, that would at least be more honest.
I personally would rather invest in a company doing green projects rather than contributing something to a deceitful organization that is doing unknown things with that money. This way, I see some of that money back. In fact, I can even make lots of money on it! Heck, someone is going to... why not me?
I bought shares of First Solar and Sunpower a few ago, and both have done very well up until this recent mortgage crisis thing. I have already seen the returns on those shares, and I am helping these companies with their green projects by funding them. I will be looking for more such green companies in which to invest in the future... but that is a topic for another blog post.
Now if some company does come up with viable carbon sequestration, which is the act of capturing CO2 out of the air and storing it somewhere permanently outside of the ecosystem, then I will be golden. I could buy offsets that are really and truly offsets.
On second thought... nah. I'll just going to try to not emit the carbon in the first place.
The answer I found was surprising. I came to the conclusion that they are basically BS. They do not eliminate carbon emissions, and may even help produce more of them!
What are Carbon Offsets?
The basic idea behind carbon offsets is that you pay someone else to either reduce their emissions or to recapture carbon from the atmosphere so that it will offset the emissions caused by whatever it is you are doing. For example, when you book a trip on a plane with Travelocity, you can buy carbon offsets from a non-profit company called The Conservation Fund to offset the carbon emissions from burning all that jet fuel. The fund then uses the money for various environmental projects that will better the environment.
What do They Cost?
The actual amount depends on which company or organization you are buying offsets from. It can range from a dollar and change for that flight you booked, to a few tens of dollars.
Will it Really Help Eliminate my Carbon Emissions?
The answers is NO. You are still taking that flight, aren't you? That flight is on a jet powered by kerosene, which is derived from crude oil, and therefore a fossil fuel. You are still contributing that carbon to the atmosphere. Yes, the organization will be funding green energy projects elsewhere, but that does not mean your carbon emissions are removed.
Well, What are the Problems With it Then?
You may be thinking why is Edwin arguing against funding green energy projects elsewhere? Well, I'm not. I'm advocating against you thinking that buying an offset will reduce your carbon guilt!
Here are the problems with offsets:
First and foremost, the name. Wiktionary defines the word "offset" as
"Anything that acts as counterbalance; a compensating equivalent."
A carbon offset does not counterbalance your carbon emission. If you produce 2 units of CO2, and you pay someone to produce zero units by let's say funding a wind farm, then on average the two of you have produced 1 unit of CO2 each. Even worse, 2 new units of CO2 have been contributed to the atmosphere that weren't there before. ie. this is "business as usual".
The second problem is that the offsets do not remove carbon from the ecosystem, as the word "offset" would imply.
Some of these organizations plant trees or plants to capture carbon and turn it into plant matter via photosynthesis. The problem is that you haven't removed the carbon from the ecosystem. When the plant dies or gets eaten or some human kills it, the carbon is returned to the atmosphere again. Animals or micro-organisms eat the plant matter (ie. it decays) and the whole cycle starts again. All you are doing by growing new plants is moving the carbon from one place to another. Well, this shell game doesn't work! The new carbon is still there!
The idea can be understood in the context of biofuels. Carbon is captured from the atmosphere by plants using sunlight to power the reactions. Then later when the plant is turned into a biofuel and I burn that fuel in my car or boat, all I am doing is releasing the same carbon back into the air again. I am not adding any extra. It is just being recycled again and again.
Alternately, let's say the organization decides to fund a wind farm. This wind farm produces no carbon and electricity consumers can then purchase this clean energy to avoid burning fossil fuels. Net effect: zero carbon emissions... and zero carbon capture as well.
But isn't funding these sort of projects a good thing? Yes, it is, but this brings us to the third problem. The problem is "guilt". When you take that flight you booked earlier, you are producing carbon emissions. 'But,' you reason, 'It's okay because I bought carbon offsets.'
Carbon offsets are a way to prey on people's feelings of guilt about producing carbon emissions. All they end up doing is encouraging people to continue behaving the way they were behaving before because their guilt is assuaged by buying offsets. Some people will now feel free to emit EVEN MORE carbon because all they have to do is buy offsets to make it okay.
Well, guess what. It's not okay.
We all have to stop these emissions, and it starts at home and with your own behaviours.
Another aspect of this is that it takes the focus away from making stricter laws and/or governmental subsidies for encouraging green projects. Carbon offsets are not "pay as you go" because only those people that feel guilty about it are buying offsets. The worst offenders are not. We need to mandate that everyone reduces their emissions, and encourage better behaviour via tax incentives and rebates for green technologies and projects. The government will see this money back again later because the coming boom in green companies is going to produce lots of new tax revenues.
This brings me to the fourth problem, which is financial. When I buy an offset, I don't really get anything out of it except to feel better about myself. So offsets are basically charitable contributions to organizations that does good things with them. Except, it's not a real charitable contribution. You don't get a receipt and you can't write them off on your income tax.
'Hey wait a minute! Why can't I write them off?' you think.
The reason is that many of these organizations are for-profit companies, and others are non-profits that are not registered charities. To me, this seems deceptive.
If you book your flight with Expedia, for example, you can contribute to a company called Terrapass. Terrapass' web site has carbon offsets for sale right there on its home page and even implies that it will "reduce and balance your impact". "Reduce" maybe by averaging your impact and theirs together, but "balance"? That's deceptive because they are not removing carbon from the air.
Another problem, according to this USA Today article, is that Terrapass declines to disclose its finances, including its profits, citing competition. What? What kind of non-profit is this that does not have such transparency... oh wait... I see. It's a for-profit company. Who knows how much of this carbon offset money I just paid goes to lining executive's pockets and how much actually goes to green projects? They won't tell us.
So where does that leave us? Well, that carbon offsets don't offset your emissions and may even encourage more emissions. They are often purveyed by deceptive companies. You don't make any financial gain from them. And worst of all, they don't solve the problem they are trying to solve, which is global warming.
So to me, this means they are BS. I would not recommend buying them.
Now, the thing is that green projects should still be funded. It just shouldn't be via this deceptive means. If an organization said I could make a charitable contribution to help fund green projects without attaching any "offset" idea to it, that would at least be more honest.
I personally would rather invest in a company doing green projects rather than contributing something to a deceitful organization that is doing unknown things with that money. This way, I see some of that money back. In fact, I can even make lots of money on it! Heck, someone is going to... why not me?
I bought shares of First Solar and Sunpower a few ago, and both have done very well up until this recent mortgage crisis thing. I have already seen the returns on those shares, and I am helping these companies with their green projects by funding them. I will be looking for more such green companies in which to invest in the future... but that is a topic for another blog post.
Now if some company does come up with viable carbon sequestration, which is the act of capturing CO2 out of the air and storing it somewhere permanently outside of the ecosystem, then I will be golden. I could buy offsets that are really and truly offsets.
On second thought... nah. I'll just going to try to not emit the carbon in the first place.
Monday, February 11, 2008
Greening our computer systems
Well, I've done a little research and found out that the desktop computer system with which I am currently typing to you was using up a lot of electricity that it does not have to use.
The biggest culprits were:
By far, the biggest usage of energy stems from leaving the system on when we are not using it. We usually leave the system on because we frequently access it at random times during the day, and booting our Windows machine from scratch just takes too darn long when all you want to do is a quick check to see if you have any new emails or check the weather. (Booting, logging in, and waiting for the network to get an IP address over a minute on our computer!)
But one thing I hadn't tried before is standby mode. I thought of that only in the context of laptops where you are trying to save battery life, but I was surprised to learn it works on desktops too. Not only that, it works well!
My Dell Dimension 4550 (yeah, I know, it's old, but it still works fine for checking the emails) goes into standby mode in approximately 3 or 4 seconds. When I touch any key on the keyboard, it wakes up again and reconnects to the network in about 5 or 6 seconds. That's fast enough for me, and certainly much faster than the 90 or so seconds it takes to boot from scratch.
But how much does it save? Well, a running computer that is not doing anything will use about 60 to 150 watts depending on the beefiness of the configuration you have. A full-on latest-and-greatest gaming machine will be on the 150 watts end of the spectrum, and your basic email checking system like I have will be closer to the 60 watt end of the spectrum. Either way, if you put your system in standby mode, the usage drops to range of 1 to 5 watts or so.
Let's say we use our desktop 3 hours a day (yes, I am a nerd!). The other 21 hours a day, it is idle. Also, let me figure that the difference between running the computer with the screen saver and standby mode is approximately 80 watts (= 0.08 kilowatts). Also, the marginal rate for our electricity is $0.22 per kilowatt hour because we are "over 200% of our baseline." I don't know where PG&E gets that baseline from, but it is pretty low if I have to scrimp and save in order to meet it. In any case, the point is that any kilowatt-hour we save will save us $0.22
Let's calculate that for a year:
21 idle hours * 365 days a year = 7665 idle hours per year
7665 idle hours * 0.08 kilowatts = 613.2 kilowatt-hours
613.2 kilowatt-hours * $0.22 per kilowatt-hour = $134.90 a year
That means we are saving $135 a year without spending a dime to do it! Not bad, eh?
Even better, in the Windows Power Options settings, you can set your computer to go into standby mode automatically if there is no user activity for a period of time. I have ours set to 1/2 hour in case we forget to put it in standby mode manually.
The Monitor
We had 2 CRT monitors from back in the dark ages. (ie. the 1990s). One was a 19" Komodo monster, and the other a small 15" one that I used for my Linux machine whenever I run that. The 19" monitor was physically HUGE, but had a gorgeous display that could do 1600x1200. It consumed about 80 watts while it was on, and about 1.5 watts in sleep mode.
My wife's company was moving and did not need some of their Sony LCD monitors any more, so we acquired two of them for very cheap to replace our CRTs. Instead of throwing out the CRTs, we placed them on Craig's List, and they were taken pretty quickly. Getting used monitors and selling used monitors -- reusing older equipment is better than recycling! No landfills got any bigger as a result of our transactions.
In any case, I calculated that the new LCD monitor uses about 35 watts when it is in use, and about 0.6 watts in sleep mode. That means it saves about 45 watts in regular use, and 0.9 watts in sleep mode.
Let's calculate:
Regular usage
3 hours a day of usage * 365 days a year = 1095 hours a year
45 watts saved in regular mode * 1095 hours a year = 49.275 kilowatt-hours
49.275 kilowatt-hours * $0.22 per kilowatt-hour = $10.84 a year
Sleep mode
21 idle hours * 365 days a year = 7665 idle hours per year
7665 idle hours * 0.9 watts = 6.9 kilowatt-hours
6.9 kilowatt-hours * $0.22 per kilowatt-hour = $1.52 a year
That means the monitors will save us a total of $12.36 a year each, which means they will pay for themselves in terms of electricity alone pretty quickly. (Plus we sold the CRTs for a little money, so that offset of the costs too.)
The Printer
We don't print things very often, but the printer stayed on all the time in case we did. Our HP color inkjet printer would use 12 watts while printing, 5 watts when it was idle but in ready mode, and surprisingly, about 4 watts when the thing was turned completely off! The usage of energy when it is turned off is what is referred to as "vampire energy". I'll talk about that in a subsequent blog post, as many devices in your home like TVs, DVD players, cell phone chargers, etc. use this vampire energy and there are ways to combat that as well.
We probably printed on average for about 3 minutes a day, which is 0.05 hours of usage a day and 23.95 hours of idle time a day.
To solve this problem, I got a spare power strip and plugged a few of the non-essential things like the printer into it. When the power strip, you can flip the power button on the whole strip and any devices plugged into it will use no electricity at all. Plus, the power strip has the advantage of giving surge protection. No when we want to print, we flip the switch on the power strip, hit the power button on the printer, and we're ready to go in about 15 seconds.
Let's calculate:
23.95 idle hours per day * 365 days a year = 8741.75 idle hours per year
8741.75 idle hours * 5 watts idle mode = 43.71 kilowatt-hours
43.71 kilowatt-hours * $0.22 per kilowatt-hour = $9.62 a year
Total
With a few simple changes and a few smart transactions, we will save:
$134.90 putting the computer in standby mode
$12.36 switching to LCD monitors
$9.62 putting the printer on a power strip and turning it off
-------
$156.88
Not too shabby!
Ooo, I almost forgot. The total kilowatt-hours we will save is:
613.2
49.275
6.9
43.71
------
713.085
If each kilowatt-hour is generated from a fossil fuel like coal or natural gas and represents 2.095 pounds of CO2, that means our savings represent a total of 1494 pounds of CO2 not released into the atmosphere. That's where the real savings are!
The biggest culprits were:
- Leaving it on when we're not using it
- The monitor
- The printer
By far, the biggest usage of energy stems from leaving the system on when we are not using it. We usually leave the system on because we frequently access it at random times during the day, and booting our Windows machine from scratch just takes too darn long when all you want to do is a quick check to see if you have any new emails or check the weather. (Booting, logging in, and waiting for the network to get an IP address over a minute on our computer!)
But one thing I hadn't tried before is standby mode. I thought of that only in the context of laptops where you are trying to save battery life, but I was surprised to learn it works on desktops too. Not only that, it works well!
My Dell Dimension 4550 (yeah, I know, it's old, but it still works fine for checking the emails) goes into standby mode in approximately 3 or 4 seconds. When I touch any key on the keyboard, it wakes up again and reconnects to the network in about 5 or 6 seconds. That's fast enough for me, and certainly much faster than the 90 or so seconds it takes to boot from scratch.
But how much does it save? Well, a running computer that is not doing anything will use about 60 to 150 watts depending on the beefiness of the configuration you have. A full-on latest-and-greatest gaming machine will be on the 150 watts end of the spectrum, and your basic email checking system like I have will be closer to the 60 watt end of the spectrum. Either way, if you put your system in standby mode, the usage drops to range of 1 to 5 watts or so.
Let's say we use our desktop 3 hours a day (yes, I am a nerd!). The other 21 hours a day, it is idle. Also, let me figure that the difference between running the computer with the screen saver and standby mode is approximately 80 watts (= 0.08 kilowatts). Also, the marginal rate for our electricity is $0.22 per kilowatt hour because we are "over 200% of our baseline." I don't know where PG&E gets that baseline from, but it is pretty low if I have to scrimp and save in order to meet it. In any case, the point is that any kilowatt-hour we save will save us $0.22
Let's calculate that for a year:
21 idle hours * 365 days a year = 7665 idle hours per year
7665 idle hours * 0.08 kilowatts = 613.2 kilowatt-hours
613.2 kilowatt-hours * $0.22 per kilowatt-hour = $134.90 a year
That means we are saving $135 a year without spending a dime to do it! Not bad, eh?
Even better, in the Windows Power Options settings, you can set your computer to go into standby mode automatically if there is no user activity for a period of time. I have ours set to 1/2 hour in case we forget to put it in standby mode manually.
The Monitor
We had 2 CRT monitors from back in the dark ages. (ie. the 1990s). One was a 19" Komodo monster, and the other a small 15" one that I used for my Linux machine whenever I run that. The 19" monitor was physically HUGE, but had a gorgeous display that could do 1600x1200. It consumed about 80 watts while it was on, and about 1.5 watts in sleep mode.
My wife's company was moving and did not need some of their Sony LCD monitors any more, so we acquired two of them for very cheap to replace our CRTs. Instead of throwing out the CRTs, we placed them on Craig's List, and they were taken pretty quickly. Getting used monitors and selling used monitors -- reusing older equipment is better than recycling! No landfills got any bigger as a result of our transactions.
In any case, I calculated that the new LCD monitor uses about 35 watts when it is in use, and about 0.6 watts in sleep mode. That means it saves about 45 watts in regular use, and 0.9 watts in sleep mode.
Let's calculate:
Regular usage
3 hours a day of usage * 365 days a year = 1095 hours a year
45 watts saved in regular mode * 1095 hours a year = 49.275 kilowatt-hours
49.275 kilowatt-hours * $0.22 per kilowatt-hour = $10.84 a year
Sleep mode
21 idle hours * 365 days a year = 7665 idle hours per year
7665 idle hours * 0.9 watts = 6.9 kilowatt-hours
6.9 kilowatt-hours * $0.22 per kilowatt-hour = $1.52 a year
That means the monitors will save us a total of $12.36 a year each, which means they will pay for themselves in terms of electricity alone pretty quickly. (Plus we sold the CRTs for a little money, so that offset of the costs too.)
The Printer
We don't print things very often, but the printer stayed on all the time in case we did. Our HP color inkjet printer would use 12 watts while printing, 5 watts when it was idle but in ready mode, and surprisingly, about 4 watts when the thing was turned completely off! The usage of energy when it is turned off is what is referred to as "vampire energy". I'll talk about that in a subsequent blog post, as many devices in your home like TVs, DVD players, cell phone chargers, etc. use this vampire energy and there are ways to combat that as well.
We probably printed on average for about 3 minutes a day, which is 0.05 hours of usage a day and 23.95 hours of idle time a day.
To solve this problem, I got a spare power strip and plugged a few of the non-essential things like the printer into it. When the power strip, you can flip the power button on the whole strip and any devices plugged into it will use no electricity at all. Plus, the power strip has the advantage of giving surge protection. No when we want to print, we flip the switch on the power strip, hit the power button on the printer, and we're ready to go in about 15 seconds.
Let's calculate:
23.95 idle hours per day * 365 days a year = 8741.75 idle hours per year
8741.75 idle hours * 5 watts idle mode = 43.71 kilowatt-hours
43.71 kilowatt-hours * $0.22 per kilowatt-hour = $9.62 a year
Total
With a few simple changes and a few smart transactions, we will save:
$134.90 putting the computer in standby mode
$12.36 switching to LCD monitors
$9.62 putting the printer on a power strip and turning it off
-------
$156.88
Not too shabby!
Ooo, I almost forgot. The total kilowatt-hours we will save is:
613.2
49.275
6.9
43.71
------
713.085
If each kilowatt-hour is generated from a fossil fuel like coal or natural gas and represents 2.095 pounds of CO2, that means our savings represent a total of 1494 pounds of CO2 not released into the atmosphere. That's where the real savings are!
Thursday, January 17, 2008
What Have we Done Already? (part 2: Adjusting the Heat)
According to wikipedia, a typical American home uses 44% of its energy for space heating. For our house approximately 50% of our gas usage goes towards space heating. That represents about $350 a year.
We have done a few things to save on our heating bill. First, we have installed a programmable thermostat, we have closed the heating vents in those rooms we don't use, and we close curtains/shutters at night to keep the heat in.
The programmable thermostat is a simple device that replaces your regular thermostat. It allows you to program when you want the house to be at particular temperatures.
The one we bought at the home megamart has different settings each day and 4 time blocks per day. During the day time block when we're at work, we have it set to 60F (~16C). In the evening around 6pm or so when we come home from work, it warms up to a more comfortable 67F (~19C). Later in the evening, we have it set to go back down to 62F (17C) for sleeping. Finally, we have it set to 67F (~19C) again for a half hour in the morning when Margaret gets up for work.
The second thing we have done is close the heating vents in those rooms we don't use, like the guest bedroom. This means those rooms become rather cold, but there is nothing in there that would have a problem with the temperature. (Yes, we do open them up again when people come to stay!) It also means that the heater doesn't have to work as hard to heat up the rest of the house to the set temperature.
Finally, we close the drapes/curtains/shutters at night. This helps keep the warmth in the house. A large percentage of the heat escapes the house via the windows rather than through the walls.
Together, these things have saved us roughly 8% or so on our gas bill in the winter months, and nothing in the summer of course. That represents about 30 therms of gas, 360 lbs of CO2, and $42 for all of 2007. The thermostat itself cost us $50, so it has paid for itself in 2 winters.
Things we still need to do:
We have done a few things to save on our heating bill. First, we have installed a programmable thermostat, we have closed the heating vents in those rooms we don't use, and we close curtains/shutters at night to keep the heat in.
The programmable thermostat is a simple device that replaces your regular thermostat. It allows you to program when you want the house to be at particular temperatures.
The one we bought at the home megamart has different settings each day and 4 time blocks per day. During the day time block when we're at work, we have it set to 60F (~16C). In the evening around 6pm or so when we come home from work, it warms up to a more comfortable 67F (~19C). Later in the evening, we have it set to go back down to 62F (17C) for sleeping. Finally, we have it set to 67F (~19C) again for a half hour in the morning when Margaret gets up for work.
The second thing we have done is close the heating vents in those rooms we don't use, like the guest bedroom. This means those rooms become rather cold, but there is nothing in there that would have a problem with the temperature. (Yes, we do open them up again when people come to stay!) It also means that the heater doesn't have to work as hard to heat up the rest of the house to the set temperature.
Finally, we close the drapes/curtains/shutters at night. This helps keep the warmth in the house. A large percentage of the heat escapes the house via the windows rather than through the walls.
Together, these things have saved us roughly 8% or so on our gas bill in the winter months, and nothing in the summer of course. That represents about 30 therms of gas, 360 lbs of CO2, and $42 for all of 2007. The thermostat itself cost us $50, so it has paid for itself in 2 winters.
Things we still need to do:
- Insulate the ductwork where-ever we can. The US Department of Energy estimates that as much as 20 to 40% of heat generated by a heater could be dissipated in the duct work and never reaches its final destination. That should probably be a cheap fix -- imagine using duct tape for what it was actually intended for!
- Get a new high-efficiency gas furnace. The furnace we have right now looks like it is from the 80's. It has service labels on it from before 1996, so know it is at the very least 12 years old, but it looks much older than that. A furnace's efficiency is measured with an annual fuel-utilization-efficiency (AFUE) rating. Furnaces from the 80's typically have ratings around 65%, which means that 65% of the energy in the burning natural gas is used to heat your home. The other part is waste that is heating up the air above the chimney pipe outside your home. Today's furnaces by US law have to have at least 78% efficiency, but many are even more efficient than that, with some even at 97% efficiency. A new furnace has the potential to save us $114 a year on the heating bill, not to mention saving 82 therms of gas or 984 pounds of CO2.
- If we really get intrepid, we can install heating "zones" in the house. That is, we install various thermostats that control the opening or closing of vents to regulate which parts of the house get heated at which times. That helps efficiency by only heating those parts of the house where we are located. For example, we could put the rest of the house at 50F and our bedroom at 62F when we are sleeping. I am not sure how much a system like that might cost though...
Saturday, January 12, 2008
What Have we Done Already? (part 1: CF bulbs)
Okay, as I said in an earlier posting, I said I would be listing the few things we have done already to be more green. In this posting: Compact Fluorescent Bulbs
CF light bulbs use about 1/4 of the energy of regular incandescent bulbs.
So, a few years ago, I replaced all the bulbs in our house (and outside sockets!) with compact fluorescent bulbs, except the ones on dimmers, 3-way switches, and touch lamps. The electricity portion of our utility bill went from $60 to $52 a month. That's a real savings of 13%. Yearly, that means $96 in our pockets. I spent $8 a bulb (approximately) and there were about 10 of those bulbs for a total of $80. That means these bulbs paid for themselves in less than a year! Woo hoo!
Since that time, some companies have started shipping 3-way and dimmable CF bulbs. We will buy some of those in the future for those lamps fixtures that need them, and I'll report back to you how the eletricity bill changes.
But Edwin, aren't the regular bulbs so much cheaper that CF isn't even worth it?
Well, a regular 100w incandescent bulb costs anywhere from $1.00 on special to $1.50, and the equivalent 23w CF bulb costs about $8, so it seems like it may be true. (A 23w CF bulb puts out about the same amount of light as a 100w regular bulb.)
However, the cool part about these CF bulbs is that their lifespan is typically longer than those of regular incandescent bulbs. A CF bulb can last anywhere from 6 to 15 times as long as an incandescent bulb, depending on its usage pattern. So now multiply the cost of a regular bulb by 6 to calculate how much you have to spend on regular bulbs during the lifespan of a CF bulb, and now you see that the regular bulbs now cost anywhere from $6 to $9... But wait a sec, that's practically the same price as a CF bulb!
The question is, is that true? Do they really last longer. Well, I can tell you that of the 10 CF bulbs, I've had to replace 3 of them so far. They may have been faulty, and we may have switched them on and off too often or left them on for too short a time. The other ones are 5 years old now and are still working normally.
So, same price, but much less electricity usage and therefore money in our pockets. Sounds like a winner to me. Everyone should switch to CF bulbs where-ever possible.
More about CF bulbs:
http://green.yahoo.com/blog/greenpicks/94/everything-you-ever-wanted-to-know-about-cfls-but-were-afraid-to-ask.html
http://18seconds.org/18seconds/
Now the next step after CF bulbs is LED bulbs. However, they are much more expensive per usage hour than CF bulbs are, even factoring in that they use only 90% less energy than regular incandescent bulbs and 60% less energy than even CF bulbs and last 5 to 10 times longer than CF bulbs and about 30 to 150 times longer than regular incandescent bulbs.
Right now, the replacement for a regular 100w bulb still costs about $98. Multiply the cost of a regular bulb ($1.50) by 30 and you get $45. That means it is still cheaper to put in incandescents than LED bulbs, let alone the CF bulbs.
However, the prices are coming down. I think in a few years, it will reach the "tipping point" where it will be more economical to put in long lasting LEDs than to put in CF bulbs. That point just hasn't been reached yet.
Friday, January 11, 2008
Navy Showers
One thing I have started doing that costs us nothing is "navy showers".
Edwin, what do you mean by that exactly? Are you only taking showers on boats?
Haha, no, I don't mean that. What I mean is that I only turn the water while rinsing. Basically, I turn on the water at the beginning of the shower to get it nice and hot, then wet myself, and turn the water off again. Then, soap and shampoo up, then turn on the water again, rinse, turn it off again. (Lather, rinse, repeat until you're clean.)
A typical shower uses about 40 gallons (150 L) of fresh water from the tap, or if you are being especially luxurious, up to 60 or 70 gallons (225 to 260 L) of water. A navy shower can use as little as 3 gallons (11 L). I think I probably don't use that little. More like 5 to 10 gallons, especially in the winter when the initial hot water feels so good when it is cold in the house.
Why is This a Green Thing to Do?
Water must be pumped through pipes to get to your house. It is estimated that about 6% of all electricity used in California today is used to pump water. So, if you save water, you save electricity, and that's many tons of carbon not going into the air as a result of burning the coal necessary to generate the electricity to pump the water.
Also, water is scarce here in California. Saving water is just generally a good idea to make sure we all have enough of it.
In a typical house, about 18.5% of the fresh water is used by baths and showers. If you reduce your water consumption for showers to 1/4 of the original amount, this means you are saving almost 14% of your total water usage for the whole house. That doesn't sound like much, but it doesn't really cost you anything to do it, and it won't be the only thing we will be doing to reduce our water usage.
The savings don't stop there, though. Most of the water used in a shower is hot water that came from your boiler. Using less hot water means you will need less energy to heat up that water. Approximately 13% of the energy your home uses goes to water heating, typically done with natural gas, and a majority of that goes towards showers. If you reduce that by three quarters, that is 5 to 10% of your total gas bill saved right there.
Later, if we can afford it, we will put in tankless water heaters which will save even more on the gas bill. A dream would be to put in solar heating as well, but that sounds very expensive. We'll see.
So not bad, eh? Try it yourself and see.
I'll look closely at my next quarter's utility bill and see what affect I have had and report back later in another blog posting.
Edwin, what do you mean by that exactly? Are you only taking showers on boats?
Haha, no, I don't mean that. What I mean is that I only turn the water while rinsing. Basically, I turn on the water at the beginning of the shower to get it nice and hot, then wet myself, and turn the water off again. Then, soap and shampoo up, then turn on the water again, rinse, turn it off again. (Lather, rinse, repeat until you're clean.)
A typical shower uses about 40 gallons (150 L) of fresh water from the tap, or if you are being especially luxurious, up to 60 or 70 gallons (225 to 260 L) of water. A navy shower can use as little as 3 gallons (11 L). I think I probably don't use that little. More like 5 to 10 gallons, especially in the winter when the initial hot water feels so good when it is cold in the house.
Why is This a Green Thing to Do?
Water must be pumped through pipes to get to your house. It is estimated that about 6% of all electricity used in California today is used to pump water. So, if you save water, you save electricity, and that's many tons of carbon not going into the air as a result of burning the coal necessary to generate the electricity to pump the water.
Also, water is scarce here in California. Saving water is just generally a good idea to make sure we all have enough of it.
In a typical house, about 18.5% of the fresh water is used by baths and showers. If you reduce your water consumption for showers to 1/4 of the original amount, this means you are saving almost 14% of your total water usage for the whole house. That doesn't sound like much, but it doesn't really cost you anything to do it, and it won't be the only thing we will be doing to reduce our water usage.
The savings don't stop there, though. Most of the water used in a shower is hot water that came from your boiler. Using less hot water means you will need less energy to heat up that water. Approximately 13% of the energy your home uses goes to water heating, typically done with natural gas, and a majority of that goes towards showers. If you reduce that by three quarters, that is 5 to 10% of your total gas bill saved right there.
Later, if we can afford it, we will put in tankless water heaters which will save even more on the gas bill. A dream would be to put in solar heating as well, but that sounds very expensive. We'll see.
So not bad, eh? Try it yourself and see.
I'll look closely at my next quarter's utility bill and see what affect I have had and report back later in another blog posting.
What does this blog title mean?
In 1974, Ted Nelson wrote a very odd book entitled "Computer Lib/Dream Machines". It was a series of cartoonish drawings and rantings written by a guy who was ahead of his time. In a time where computers were large boxes that needed special rooms to house them, he envisioned a computer system where words in a document would link to other documents automatically, and that the system was chaotic, and the organization was definitely not hierarchical. At the time, people thought of him as a little eccentric.
He came up with this before the graphical UI was really out of the lab at Xerox, and before most people had even heard of the concept of a "personal computer".
His vision is pretty much now realized in a simplified form in the medium that you are viewing right now: the web. The concept he came up with was coined "hypertext" and "ht" in the "http" stands for "hypertext". (The other part is "transfer protocol".)
As part of his vision, he realized that when documents were related to each other, they were related in a myriad of complicated and uncategorizable ways. He wrote: "Everything is deeply intertwingled" to describe this idea, and with this coined the phrase "intertwingled".
Though Ted was talking mostly about documents and ideas in a computer system, his ideas could apply equally well to the natural environment of the earth.
Everything you see and touch and feel is connected to other things in ways that we can see and sometimes in ways that we don't see. (yet). This means that everything you do in the natural world has an effect on something else.
Burn fossil fuels and you change the climate.
Burn wood, and you are carbon neutral, but yet you still put nitrous oxides, complex carbohydrates and soot into the air, which are pollutants and have been linked with asthma.
Even if you are trying to be good and you manufacture a solar cell, you will possibly expose dangerous rare earth metals to the environment during the manufacturing process.
My friend Rich always says, "There's no 'get' without a 'give'."
The question is, which of these consequences is the least troublesome to the environment. Obviously, a solar cell only uses a very, very small amount of rare earth metals, and an even smaller amount is leaked accidentally by solar cell manufacturers. It probably has a very small affect on things, compared with the pollution caused by the mining of the coal you would need to burn to generate that electricity in the current, more traditional way.
So the idea here is not to eliminate your affect on the environment, but to eliminate as much of the bad affects you have on the environment as you can.
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
What is this blog?
In a nutshell, I'm going to journal the greening of our home in Redwood City, California.
Who are We?
We are a regular, middle-class couple that has been married for 3 years now. We have a 1700 square foot house in Redwood City, which is not very big. However, real estate costs a lot here in the Bay Area so we couldn't afford much more. We have no kids, but 2 4-month-old rambunctious kittens. (Although they have grown so fast, it is weird calling them kittens now.) Edwin (that's me!) works as a software engineer for a large, online Internet company that you have all heard of (no, not that one, the OTHER one), and my wife Margaret works in sales for a large mass storage company.
Why are we Doing This?
We are not particularly green right now, but we are figuring we should do what we can. There are two primary motivations for this:
What are we Going to do?
At first, we want to do things that are not going to cost a lot. Later when we have saved up some money, we can spend it on more expensive things if they make sense and pay for themselves in the long run. What I mean by "make sense" is that we are not for example going to buy a new car just to get the better gas mileage when our current cars are perfectly serviceable right now. However, when it comes time to buy a new car, fuel economy will be a top priority. (That, and cool gadgets! Hey, I'm still a tech-head software guy after all. ;-)
Our goal is not to become green tomorrow, or even next week, but to slowly change our lifestyle in a permanent way to become more and more green as we go along.
What's Next?
In the next few posts, I'll document what we have done already before this blog was even started. Then, I'll write about new things we have done to become more green.
So stayed tuned for reports from your average family doing what they can to become more green.
Who are We?
We are a regular, middle-class couple that has been married for 3 years now. We have a 1700 square foot house in Redwood City, which is not very big. However, real estate costs a lot here in the Bay Area so we couldn't afford much more. We have no kids, but 2 4-month-old rambunctious kittens. (Although they have grown so fast, it is weird calling them kittens now.) Edwin (that's me!) works as a software engineer for a large, online Internet company that you have all heard of (no, not that one, the OTHER one), and my wife Margaret works in sales for a large mass storage company.
Why are we Doing This?
We are not particularly green right now, but we are figuring we should do what we can. There are two primary motivations for this:
- Save money. I figure if you do it right, you increase efficiency. This saves us money in the long run. We may have to spend some money up-front though to get the higher efficiency. But, if it pays for itself in a reasonable amount of time, we will do it.
- Be good to the environment. We are not particularly political, and being green to me is not really a political issue. I would classify us as fiscally somewhat conservative and socially somewhat liberal, so not your stereotypically California Democrat like you might expect for someone who is going to green their home. We are just two people who want to make sure that the earth is okay after we're gone. I'm a pretty logical person (which makes sense for a software engineer) and to me, the rhythms and cycles of nature are a good example of how a closed system like the earth can operate at 100% efficiency.
What are we Going to do?
At first, we want to do things that are not going to cost a lot. Later when we have saved up some money, we can spend it on more expensive things if they make sense and pay for themselves in the long run. What I mean by "make sense" is that we are not for example going to buy a new car just to get the better gas mileage when our current cars are perfectly serviceable right now. However, when it comes time to buy a new car, fuel economy will be a top priority. (That, and cool gadgets! Hey, I'm still a tech-head software guy after all. ;-)
Our goal is not to become green tomorrow, or even next week, but to slowly change our lifestyle in a permanent way to become more and more green as we go along.
What's Next?
In the next few posts, I'll document what we have done already before this blog was even started. Then, I'll write about new things we have done to become more green.
So stayed tuned for reports from your average family doing what they can to become more green.
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