I’ve been doing a bunch of research lately on electric vehicles to see what might make sense for us at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage for our vehicle co-op. For 12 years we have been focusing on biodiesel and vegetable oil based fuels but things have not always been smooth. The main issues have been related to winter fuel gelling and fuel filters clogging in general. We’ve also never gotten a steady system for  collection of used oil and production going, so we have been using biodiesel made from new veggie oil which is only marginally better for the environment than petroleum.

We are now embarking on a major re-evaluation of vehicle technologies for our co-op, with a team researching things like electric vehicles, hybrids, ethanol (including home made, potentially from cellulose), bio-gas, wood-gas, human and animal powered, and any new technologies in the veggie oil world.

My interest in electric vehicles (EVs) has come out of my research into a village-wide electric power co-op with a largish wind turbine to power our whole village. With an abundant source of renewable electricity, EVs could be our most ecological option. There are ecological issues related to batteries of course, but my research shows that EVs are a net benefit over petro based vehicles and on par with other bio-fueled options currently or soon to be available (more on that in a post soon).

Of course the main issue with EVs is about range – how far you can drive on a single charge. Most all-electric vehicles (sometimes called Battery Electric Vehicles or BEVs to distinguish them from hybrids) still have ranges in the 80-100 mile range. That range is great for most folks daily commuting needs, but our rural location means many or even most of our trips are 80-150 miles.

A further complication, is that a 100 mile advertised range does not always mean you can drive 100 miles. Accessories like A/C, heat, lights, etc. can reduce your range. Higher speeds and hills also reduce range (and while we don’t have mountains we do have hills). Winter temps can also reduce battery capacity and range.  It also matters how you drive – fast acceleration and breaking are inefficient.

So what are our options?

In the All Electric Category I found the following vehicles available now or in the next 18 months.

The most appealing for us would be the Tesla Sedan because of the extended range it can provide. The price tag is pretty high though. The Nissan LEAF is definitely more affordable, but its unclear if it would really get us where we need to go (and back that is). The CODA is still limited in its availability.

For folks living in suburban or urban areas with shorter commutes I think a lot of these options would work great.

I also looked into Plug-in Hybrids such as the upcoming Chevy Volt and the 2011 Plug-in Prius as well as the various Prius Plug-in conversion kits.

The Volt is expected to have a 40 mile electric range and get 50 mpg once the gasoline (or E85) engine kicks in.  The 2011 Prius will have only a 15 mile electric range and also get around 50 mpg. With a Prius Plug in conversion you can get electric ranges of 25-50 miles before it goes back into hybrid modde and gets 46-50 mpg (depending on model year).

Its too bad the electric range on these hybrids is so short. If you could get something with an 80 mile range and a gasoline/diesel back up that would really work well for us and for a lot of people I would think. Obviously the cost and weight of having a big battery pack and a gas engine is probably the issue.

I’m expecting that once these EVs are available,  someone will come up with an aftermarket add on battery pack to increase the range, just like there are plug-in Prius kits. That could be just the ticket and demonstrate the demand for EVs with a bigger range.

Biking for the Blogathon

For today’s blogathon-fundraiser we are trying to power our computer via pedal power but pedaling is certainly not the answer to all of our energy needs. America’s electricity use per capita is over 35 kilowatt-hours per day. If you wanted to supply all that energy via pedal power, each person would need to bike at full speed for 118 hours per day. In other words it would take the entire population of the US and China pedaling 24/7 to generate enough electricity for the current US demands. Or…

Conservation is almost always a key element to meeting our needs in a sustainable way. Before we look at alternative power or fuels it is best to look at reducing our demands. Once we are consuming less, sustainable sources of power are a lot more realistic.

How you can reduce your computer’s power consumption

Your average desktop computer uses between 150 and 300 watts while it is running. Your first step in conserving energy is to turn off your computer when you are not using it or at least make sure that its power management settings are configured to have it sleep or hibernate when it is not in use. It used to be that people worried about wearing out disk drives from turning computers on and off, but that is not really an issue any longer, given modern drive technology and the typical lifespan of a computer these days. This is the most important thing you can do to save power – make sure your computer is sleeping or off when you are not using it.

The next thing you can do is consider switching to a laptop computer. Laptops can easily use only 10-33% of the power that a comparable desktop computer uses. To make them last longer on battery power they are designed with low power components.

Another option is to switch to an Energy Star computer, either desktop of laptop. To get an Energy Star rating, computers have to automatically shut down when not in use and are generally designed to have low power draws. The trick is you have to make sure that you don’t turn off any of the power saving features, like the power management system.

So lets look at an example. Let’s say you’re currently using some random desktop with an external LCD monitor (heaven forbid you still have a CRT monitor). Let’s assume it uses 150 watts and you leave it on 24 hours a day – you’ll use 3600 watt-hours per day. If you let it go into sleep mode (which use something like 5 watts) for 16 hours a day you cut your use down to 1280 watt-hours. Now let’s say you switch to an Energy Star Desktop like the iMac 21.5 inch which only uses 90.5 watts while running and 2 watts while sleeping, your power use could drop to 756 watt-hours per day.

Blog Central at the DR Blogathon

If instead you get a new MacBook Pro with a 13 inch display which Apple says uses 14 watts while its running with the display on. Let’s say you use your computer for 8 hours a day on average and the rest of the time you leave it in sleep mode (which uses 1.1 watts), you’re using about 130 watts per day for your computing needs. At that point your computer is using about the same energy as a lightbulb (a CFL of course, heaven help us if you’re still using incandescents).

So to summarize:

• Desktop (24 hours on)- 3600 watt-hours/day
• Desktop (8 hours on) – 1280 watt-hours/day
• Energy Star Desktop (8 hours on) – 756 watt-hours/day
• Energy Star Laptop (8 hours on) – 130 watt-hours/day

The electricity you use running your computer is only half the story

Now one thing to consider is that the electricity you use running your computer is only half the story. Apple gives a detailed assessment of the greenhouse gas impact for each of its products and “customer use” generally accounts for about half of the emissions. So it also helps if you buy used, or keep your computer for longer.

How Does Computer Use Compare to Other Eco Impacts

So how do home/work computers fit into the big picture of your ecological footprint?

On average Amercians emit about 24,000 kg of CO2 equivalent (CO2e) per person per year.

Using Apple’s figures for its products, computer use, including the embodied energy, produces about 100 kg to 300 kg per year per computer. Compare this to over 1100kg for a desktop thats on 24/7, or 465kg for the desktop on 8 hours a day. By changing your computer use, you could save up to 1000 kg of CO2e or about 4% of the average American’s annual greenhouse gas emissions.

What else can you do that saves 1000kg of CO2e?

• Drive about 20% fewer miles (around 2200 miles)
• Increasing your MPG by 25%
• Eat 200 fewer cheeseburgers
• Take 1 less 2500 mile round trip airplane flight

These aren’t examples of total lifestyle changes but they aren’t insignificant either. And I would certainly rather use my share of CO2e to take a vacation rather than leaving my computer running 24/7.

Can computing be part of a sustainable world?

There are a lot of factors involved in that question, but my gut sense is that it can be, assuming we are making sustainable choices in the rest of our lives. If we were aiming for reducing our impact by 90%, then using a laptop for 8 hours a day might be about 5% of our reduced impact. Still significant, but for those of us who are so dependent on our computers as to practically be cyborgs, I think its worth it.

Of course this was all about your home computer, coming next, What is the impact of the internet!

Consider making a donation to Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage as part of our blogathon. All donations will be matched dollar for dollar, doubling your impact. Thanks!