And then there is water...

In the desert state of New Mexico, conservation of energy and reducing carbon is one thing, but water is a whole other game. Water is never valued as it should be -- Albuquerque charges $1.014 per unit (100 cubic feet).

In our rental house in Albuquerque we were using 162 units of water a month, to maintain an "east coast" garden -- lots of grass, roses, an apple tree. Now we are using about 94 units a month to maintain another rental, with more grass, peach, apricot, and cottonwoods.

1 US gallon = 0.133680556 cubic feet

If we replumb for greywater, and get 65 gallons a day, that's 8.6 cubic feet a day, 262 cubic feet a month, which is 2.6 units a month.

Carbon Footprint

So there is a circular reasoning here. One of the reasons (among many) that I gave up a career (I won't say "my career" because I was in transition, it's not as if I walked away from a tenured position in astronomy) is that I calculated our carbon footprint. Michael was commuting 75 miles one way, four days a week, so that I could work in Albuquerque. We drive fuel efficient vehicles, recycle everything curbside pickup will take, but frankly, we could hang from the trees with flowers sprouting our of our ears and it wouldn't make a difference -- commuting 150 miles a day does us in.

House      2.58 tonnes of CO2
Flights    4.58 tonnes of CO2
Car       13.32 tonnes of CO2
Secondary  5.08 tonnes of CO2
Total =   25.56 tonnes of CO2

So our carbon footprint now looks like:

House     2.39 tonnes of CO2
Flights   4.58 tonnes of CO2
Car       7.35 tonnes of CO2
Secondary 5.47 tonnes of CO2 
Total =  19.79 tonnes of CO2
line drying 80% of laundry 
Total =  19.29 tonnes of CO2

We also save half a ton a year by drying 80% of our laundry on the line (as Bridget put it "You live in a dryer").

By moving to a location where we can walk to the store, farmer's market, and all the events that happen in Socorro's plaza I hope we can trim our driving by another third to 4.9 tonnes a year.

By installing solar hot water we could cut half a tonne a year. By installing photovoltaics and a two-way electricity meter we could reduce the house electricity by 90%, to a quarter of a tonne a year.

Recycling in Socorro is a pain. Newspaper is picked up one weekend a month from one location in town. Aluminum cans are picked up a different weekend a month from another location. You can pay 20$ a month for someone to pick up your recycling.

Goal:

House     0.25 tonnes of CO2
Flights   4.58 tonnes of CO2
Car       4.90 tonnes of CO2
Secondary 4.25 tonnes of CO2 
Total =  13.89 tonnes of CO2
line drying 80% of laundry 
Total =  13.39 tonnes of CO2

Hey that's a 47% reduction. Not bad.