Given the fact that the most popular tips post of 2007 included 14 tips, y'all are getting your money's worth today!

14 ways to reduce your energy bill

As Brian Tanabe, Lower Valley Energy's communications manager says:

We want to provide our members with the lowest electric rate. The less power we use, the cheaper we can keep our rates.

So, many thanks to Brian and Wid Ritchie for the following tips:

1. Energy Star - In the typical home, appliances and electronics are responsible for about 20% of the energy bill. Buy efficient and energy-saving Energy-Star appliances.
2. Computers - Consider turning off your monitor if you aren't going to use the PC for more than 20 minutes. Consider turning off the entire system if you're not going to use the PC for more than two hours.
3. Lighting - Artificial lighting consumes almost 15% of a household's electricity use. You can reduce lighting energy by selecting lighting and sources that use energy more efficiently, and by installing lighting controls. Ask LVE about a lighting audit!
4. When to turn off lights - The general rule of thumb is to turn off incandescent lights whenever they're not in use and fluorescent lights if you're not using them for more than 15 minutes.
5. Heating - Heating and cooling account for about 56% of the energy use in a typical home, making it the largest energy expense for most homes. While typical heating via electricity can be as high as 100% efficient, heat pumps can be up to 400% efficient (because they move rather than generate heat).
6. Water heating - Look into ways to heat water more efficiently–water heating can account for 14-25% of the energy consumed in your home. Lower Valley Energy sells Marathon water heaters, with plastic molded tanks wrapped with high efficient fiberglass and foam insulation. In addition, you can lower the thermostat on your water heater (water heaters often come from the factory with high temperature settings, but a setting of 115° F provides comfortably hot water for most uses).
7. Home Energy Audits - A home energy audit is the first step to assess how much energy your home consumes, and to evaluate what measures you can take to make your home more energy efficient. An audit will show you problems that may, when corrected, save you significant amounts of money over time. Audits also determine the efficiency of your home's heating and cooling systems. An audit may also show you ways to conserve hot water and electricity.
8. Insulation - You can reduce your home's heating and cooling costs through proper insulation and air sealing. A proper balance between all of these elements will also result in a more comfortable, healthier home environment. For example, insulate your hot water storage tank and pipes, but be careful not to cover the thermostat.
9. Windows - Windows provide homes with light, warmth and ventilation, but they can also negatively impact a home's energy efficiency. You can reduce energy costs by installing energy efficient windows in your home.
10. Heat loss - Caulk windows and weather-strip doors that have air leaks which can cause heat loss. Close off rooms that are not being used and shut off the heat to those rooms. In the winter, turn your thermostat down to 68° or below. Reduce the setting to 55° before going to sleep or leaving for the day. (For each 1° you turn down the thermostat in the winter, you'll save up to 5% on your heating costs.) During the heating season, keep the draperies and shades on your south-facing windows open during the day to allow sunlight to enter your home and closed at night to reduce the chill you may feel from cold windows.
11. Cleaning - Clean or replace filters on furnaces once a month, or as needed. Clean warm-air registers, baseboard heaters and radiators as needed; make sure they're not blocked by furniture carpeting or drapes.
12. Fireplace - If you never use your fireplace, plug and seal the chimney flue. Keep your fireplace damper closed unless a fire is going. Keeping the damper open is like keeping a 48-inch window wide open during the winter.
13. Repairs - Repair leaky faucets promptly; a leaky hot water faucet can waste a lot of energy and water in a short period of time.
14. LVE Rebates - Lower Valley Energy can help pay for many of the above energy-saving methods.

• After performing an energy audit on your home, we can help pay to upgrade your insulation and windows.
• Receive an instant $100 rebate on Marathon water heaters.
• LVE helps pay to upgrade lighting in commercial facilities.
• Ask about geothermal heat pumps.
• Receive instant rebates on Energy-Star appliances.

Please call Wid Ritchie at 800-882-5875 with any questions about LVE's conservation programs.

2. recycling your old cell phone

3. Plant a tree for me

4. green travel planning

5. talking points

Carbon Neutral Journal's tips are brought to you by Nuts & Bolts.

Popularity: 18%

Wouldn't you know it, after I struggled to come up with coherent rants on a weekly basis, the pop-meter says Alisan wrote the most popular rant this year. The third most popular rant was last year's Rant of the Year, and number five was originally written by James R. Udall for the Eagle Valley's Alliance for Sustainability website. Guess I need to rethink my approach to rants in 2008.

Here's Alisan's rant:

drowning in plastic

I was standing in the Produce Department at my favorite market Saturday, along with about 14 others, wandering the aisles, poking the fruit and ripping those veggie bags off the spindle like there was no tomorrow.

I did the math, and it was not pretty.

15 shoppers X 5 bags each (let’s say) for grapefruit, lemons, broccoli, what have you,  X 52 weeks per year  = 3900 bags per year for just that 15-shopper set.  We have 3 full-on grocery stores in Jackson. How many grocery stores are there in Wyoming … in the country? You do the math.

My question to you is, why.

If you knew that approximately 12 million barrels of oil go into producing plastic bags EACH YEAR, would you still not make the effort to reuse those puppies for a few weeks?  I mean, at least trying that before drilling the Arctic Refuge?

Here’s the deal:  Plastic veggie bags are a habit, a bad one, sort of like biting your nails or twirling your hair.  We’re so conditioned to this sort of overuse, we don’t even question it.  Question it, heck. We don’t even think about it.  And yet, it’s such an easy fix, one that takes so little input from each of us, one that, were we each able to convince one other person to reuse their bags, the impact over one year would be remarkable.

I don’t know how you break a habit – it took me nearly thirty years to take pride in my fingernails.  But I did it, a private achievement that means not much to anyone but me.  But it means a lot to me.  So, when I get home and empty my canvas tote of all the groceries, I wash the fruit and the greens and into the fridge bins they go, no bags necessary.  And you know what I’ve found?  They’re happier that way.  They last longer than if they were all wrapped up in plastic sheeting.  I use them sooner, because I can see what I’ve got.  My “mystery growth” ratio has plummeted.

And all those bags that came home from the store?  I tie the clean ones in a loose knot and throw them back in the canvas bag for the next shopping trip.  The dirty ones get turned inside out, rinsed off and air-dried, then they meet the same re-useable fate.

The nice thing about changing a habit?  It’s not rocket science!

2. don't (just) dis Hummer

3. 2006 Rant of the Year

4. damn the skeptics

5. it's not cost effective?

Carbon Neutral Journal's rants are brought to you by Vertical Media.

Popularity: 19%

I've never been able to figure out the popularity feature of my journal. Nevertheless, after a year of writing, the popularity meter clearly identifies some of my posts as being more popular than others. Hoping to take a semi-holiday until New Year's Day, I thought I'd spend the next week recycling the posts readers have somehow identified as being the most popular.

Here's the top "thoughts" post of 2007, posted on June 26th:

green tour buses

As I was riding my bicycle into Grand Teton National Park yesterday, I couldn't help but notice the three tour buses parked at the first turnout. While scores of tourists lined-up to have their picture taken in front of the welcome sign–with the Tetons in the background–I wondered what the impact would be if all the tour buses that come through Jackson Hole in the summer ran on biodiesel.

With no train access to Jackson Hole, tour buses are our best hope for fuel efficient mass transit. But they could be so much "cleaner" than they currently are.

As I often do when I wonder about something, I turned to google to see what I could find out about "green tour buses." Voila: a story out of Ithaca, New York about a dozen student activists promoting sustainability issues on a 54-day, 8,600-mile tour across the country in a biodiesel-fueled bus. Their journey is called the Udall Legacy Bus Tour and their goal is to honor former Arizona Congressman Morris Udall.

Their bus is fueled by a blend of 20 percent biodiesel and 80 percent ultra-low sulfur diesel fuel and equipped with emissions-monitoring hardware.

Hoping to learn more about their bus, I googled the Udall Legacy Bus Tour and found a website chock full of information about this Celebration of Public Service and the "certified green" bus these students are riding:

When the Udall Legacy bus rolled into Burlington, Vermont, on June 21, representatives from the University of Vermont certified our motor coach as the country’s first ever “Green Coach.”

UVM’s Green Coach Certification Program is an exciting environmental initiative to encourage the motor coach industry to become cleaner and greener. Our food can be certified as organic by USDA; appliances are given the EPA’s Energy Star certification. How do you know if the transportation you use is clean and green?

Working much like the USDA’s Organic Certification program, UVM’s Green Coach Certification Program provides incentives for the motor coach industry to use new engines meeting the most stringent EPA standards, participate in carbon-offsetting programs, and use biodiesel blends, hydrogen, hybrid technologies, and other alternative fuels. Nationwide, certified operators will be able to participate in value-added incentive programs, including technical assistance, marketing support and recognized levels of Green Coach Certification.

So there you have it: the beginnings of a green tour bus initiative that I hope will wend its way west, sooner than later.

As for the students on the Udall Legacy Bus Tour–they'll be in Grand Teton National Park on Monday, July 16th, doing good work. Rest assured, if I happen to see their green bus stopped at a turnout, I'll stop by to check it out.

As a bonus, if you're looking for more Christmas reading, here are the other top-five posts in the thoughts category over the past year:

    2. The first R stands for reduce.

    3. there ought to be a law against idling vehicles

    4. before you buy carbon offsets, spend $4.95 on this

    5. Of course it will be inconvenient.

Happy reading and Merry Christmas!

Carbon Neutral Journal's thoughts are brought to you by Hawtin Jorgensen Architects.

Popularity: 16%

In what's likely to be my last new post of the year — I plan to recycle readers' favorites for the next week — I thought I'd address one of the most significant choices young adults and their parents face: where to go to college.

After reading the recent AP story that College of the Atlantic has become the nation's first "net-zero" campus for carbon emissions, I began to wonder what a list of the greenest U.S. colleges and universities would look like. After a quick google search, voila, I found the list I was looking for.

From Sierra Magazine via AlterNet:

As the biggest purchasers and employers in many communities, colleges can create demand for ecofriendly services and products. High-profile schools have a bully pulpit — and the financial resources — to lead by example with their actions and investments. Research institutions are primed to develop technological solutions. And even small community colleges are educating tomorrow's leaders. If students start their adult lives in a culture of sustainability, they just might take that ethos with them wherever they go.

Here's Sierra Magazine's list of the top-10 green universities and colleges:

1. Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH
2. Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
3. Warren Wilson College, Swannanoa, NY
4. University of California (all 10 campuses)
5. Duke University, Durham, NC
6. Middlebury College, Middlebury, VT
7. Berea College, Berea, KY
8. Pennsylvania State University (all 24 locations)
9. Tufts University, Medford, MA
10. Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA

Of course, there are plenty of other cool schools out there. Some 400 college and university presidents in the U.S. have signed a pledge to make their institutions carbon neutral, and students at over 500 schools in the U.S. and Canada have joined the Campus Climate Challenge. So, you see, the field of green choices in colleges and universities is much greater than just the top-10 list above.

Carbon Neutral Journal's choices are brought to you by Jorgensen Associates.

Popularity: 19%

If there were an award for America's greenest city, San Francisco would certainly be a front runner. Mayor Gavin Newsom and civic leaders have announced a number of significant environmental initiatives this year:

• outlawing plastic shopping bags
• eliminating bottled water from restaurant menus
• converting its entire fleet of diesel vehicles — from ambulances to street sweepers — to biodiesel
• offering companies and residents government-funded loans and rebates to offset the costs of installing solar panels

And, just this past week, Newsom's office announced the creation of the San Francisco Carbon Fund — a first-ever, city-based carbon offset program that funds only local green activities.

According to the the press release:

Our carbon offset program will achieve meaningful, measurable reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. It is the first effort of its kind, where you can buy carbon offsets for projects that take place in San Francisco, that directly benefit San Francisco. (Mayor Newsom)

By developing our own program and funding local projects, we have the ability to assure that the offsets actually happen, benefit the local community, and help achieve our aggressive greenhouse gas reduction goals. (Jared Blumenfeld, director of San Francisco’s Environment Department)

The San Francisco Carbon Fund will begin as a pilot program to offset emissions from municipal air travel, and will be expanded to San Francisco residents, businesses and visitors once the program infrastructure has been established. The fund will also provide City government, residents and businesses information regarding the true costs of carbon intensive activities, which are likely to be much higher than nominal amounts charged by several current offset programs.

When it comes to upping the ante, San Francisco has been reliable all year long.

Carbon Neutral Journal's news is brought to you by High Country Linen Service.

Popularity: 15%

Popularity: 22%

Over the course of the past year, I've given lots of kudos and coverage to progressive bicycle initiatives. They are, of course, a great way to reduce traffic and related inner city congestion, not to mention a great way to reduce one's carbon footprint.

As I was scanning past posts, however, I noticed that I haven't done justice to many of my hometown's two-wheel accomplishments. Fortunately, the mainstream media has taken notice. Here's a sampling of the news from and about Portland, Oregon's bicycle-friendly climate:

New York TImes: In Portland, Cultivating A Culture Of Two Wheels.

Cyclists have long revered Portland for its bicycle-friendly culture and infrastructure, including the network of bike lanes that the city began planning in the early 1970s. Now, riders are helping the city build a cycling economy…

in a city often uncomfortable with corporate gloss, what is most distinctive about the emerging cycling industry here is the growing number of smaller businesses, whether bike frame builders or clothing makers, that often extol recycling as much as cycling, sustainability as much as success.

Also, the NYT piece has an accompanying video titled The Business Of Biking that is well worth watching.

One of the trends I have covered extensively is city-wide bike rental programs, from Berlin to Barcelona and New York. Not to be left out, Portland has its own program in the works, as the Portland Tribune reports.

But a city-wide bike rental program isn't the only thing on Mayoral candidate Sam Adam's agenda. As Willamette Week reports in Wheels Of Fortune:

If Commissioner Sam Adams gets his way, the city will spend nearly three times as much on bike projects as it does now.

Adams, the front runner in the May mayoral election, says the rationale for his proposal is simple: About 4.5 percent of daily commuters in Portland report getting to and from work by bike, according to the U.S. Census.

Adams thinks the Office of Transportation’s five-year capital budget should devote that same 4.5 percent to bikes rather than the 1.6 percent it does now. The difference in spending would work out roughly to $7 million over the next five years, or about $12.75 per Portlander.

Indeed, Portland is the epitome of a bike-friendly city. Sure, the sheer numbers of cyclists can't compare to Amsterdam or Copenhagen, but Portland is leading the way on American soil. Kudos to all.

Carbon Neutral Journal's kudos are brought to you by Grand Targhee Resort.

Popularity: 8%