What are your frugal and sustainable tips and tricks?

[gtaus]

I found an interesting chart on cost per billion BTU for heating. According to this chart, I might save more money burning my coop litter than composting it for my garden!

The data comes from Oklahoma State University, and they say they have a spreadsheet online available where you can input your exact costs of each resource for comparison.

FWIW, I have off-peak electric heat with a propane backup. My off-peak rates are about $0.06 per kWh, so it's actually cheaper than propane or natural gas. The electric company can shut off my electric heat if their demand for electricity exceeds their current capacity. If that happens, my furnace automatically switches over to my propane tank backup. Typically, that only happens a few times per winter and maybe for only a few hours.

I have not had my backup tank refilled in many years, and it still sits at 60%. That's really good considering they only fill the tank to 80%, allowing for gas expansion safety in the summer months.

 

[fuzzi]

Thanks for the info. As it comes from a government site (eia.gov) I am not confident in it being unbiased.

But I also don't want to detail the thread with too much debate. I think both sides have had their say.

Finally, I will just remind all that the battery industry, which is being promoted as being better for the environment, is supported mainly by child labor. There is no equivalent in oil and gas production.

https://www.independent.co.uk/clima...ctric-vehicle-congo-cobalt-mine-b2277665.html

 

[gtaus]

All this discussion of greenhouse gas production, renewable resources, etc... got me thinking about what the current state of my local electric cooperative gets from renewable energy. I was guessing maybe 30%.

But I was pleasantly surprised to learn that my cooperative gets about 34% of its electricity from wind and 9% from hydro-electric sources. This means that approximately 43% of their electricity comes from renewable sources.

Notice there is no figure for solar there. Not too surprising to me as I have stated that where I live, we don't have lots and lots of sunshine. However, my electric cooperative does have a small solar panel "garden" that you can subscribe to if you want.

However, they are upfront with subscribers in that the solar power is still more expensive than their regular rates.

At least it's good to know that my electric cooperative is increasing the percentage of renewable energy sources while keeping our prices relatively low. Even though I cannot afford my own rooftop solar panels or wind turbines, I still get 43% of my electricity from renewable sources!

 

[saysfaa]

Sorry about the bolding. I can get it off while I write but it comes back when I save the changes.​

From the following source but I think the concepts apply to other countries. The whole thing is worth reading. It doesn't say much about how hard it is to mine without significant environmental damage.. which was what I was looking for when I found this source. That can wait for another time, perhaps.​

https://www.metabolic.nl/publicatio...le-electricity-generation-in-the-netherlands/​

​

"..Conclusions [of one section]​

• Future annual critical metal demands of the energy transition surpass the total annual critical metal production.
• Exponential growth in renewable energy production capacity is not possible with present-day technologies and annual metal production. As an illustration: in 2050, the annual need for Indium (only for solar panel application) will exceed the present-day annual global production twelvefold....

Conclusions [of a later section]​

• Newer technologies are often more efficient and cheaper, however, they rely on the properties of critical metals to achieve this.
• Thin film cadmium-tellurium solar PV cells have the best performance in terms of CO₂-emissions and energy payback times. They do however require large quantities of tellurium and cadmium, and tellurium is one of the rarest metalloids....

Currently, mining of most metals follows a path of exponential growth. Even a moderate growth rate of 3% would double mining production every 25 years. This is clearly not sustainable in the long run. For major industrial metals (e.g. iron, aluminum, and copper), that are used in relatively concentrated form, losses can be limited and recycling is possible.

Demand for these metals has also been shown to level off when economies and applications are mature. An example: the input of iron has levelled off between 1975-2000, after a period of strong growth related to the buildup of urban infrastructure in OECD countries. Once the cities and infrastructure are in place, recycling and thus secondary production can almost keep up with demand.

This picture is quite different for most minor metals (e.g. indium and neodymium): recycling rates are below 1%.¹²
..

Recycling critical metals appears to be a good solution to supplement growing demand. There are two important factors that determine the uncertainty concerning recycling:

• Technological complexity: Recycling critical metals is a complex process. Materials are often combined and alloyed to enhance and create functional properties. This in turn makes them difficult to separate and recover. For example, consider that the Belgian company Umicore, a global leader in recycling, manages to recover only 8 of 25 critical metals from a smartphone. Other materials are lost in the process.
• Availability of secondary material: In the coming 20 years, the material demand for new wind turbines and solar panels exceeds the potential supply from recycling: there is simply insufficient material to be recycled yet. Therefore, even if recycling efforts are increased, a significant need for primary materials will remain relevant in the upcoming years.

...

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, substitution does not remove material demand, it merely shifts the burden onto another material. If overall demand is large enough – as seems likely in a global energy transition – then many materials would become scarce simultaneously, which would prove an even more significant challenge.
...

 

[gtaus]

Finally, I will just remind all that the battery industry, which is being promoted as being better for the environment, is supported mainly by child labor.

I think it would be hard to find anyone in favor of child labor used in those mines in Africa. I am hoping that new battery technologies, such as sodium-ion batteries (salt-based batteries) will be the next evolution in battery storage. Salt can be mined from the ocean without child labor.

Also, disposable at the end of life of a sodium-ion battery would less toxic as compared to currently used heavy metals. They cost about 1/2 as much as Lithium-ion batteries, so that would be great. Only bad thing, right now, is that they have less energy density and capacity compared to Li-ion batteries. But one expects that to improve as more research is done. Current estimates are that the new batteries might hit the retail shelves in 2027. I look forward to that possibility.