Who to believe? How to assess the integrity of research.

One of the problems with relying on research presented on Internet sites is that it's sometimes hard to separate the wheat from the chaff - especially if you are not familiar with the researcher or the organisation publishing the material. Here's a useful, easy-to-read paper on Evaluating Research Quality, showing you how to decide for yourself whether what you are reading is just propaganda. The paper also provides a number of online references for those who want to read more on this topic.

embodied energy vs operating energy for a house

The Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation, and SAR Engineering, have developed a computer program called "Optimize" that is designed to estimate the embodied energy, lifecycle energy, and environmental impact of a house.

The creators of the Optimize program estimate that for a "standard house in Toronto with a 40-year life," the total embodied energy is 2,352 Gj (one gigajoule is equivalent to about 1 million Btu). The total operating energy over 40 years is 9,060 Gj, which results in expected operating energy of approximately 226 Gj per year. This means that a typical house will exist and operate for ten years before the total operating energy starts to outstrip the embodied energy contained in the building components.

And an estimate made by Tracy Mumma, "Reducing the Embodied Energy of Buildings," Home Energy Magazine Online, January/February 1995, is that the energy used to make and transport the materials to build a conventional house in Vancouver is 948 million btu, and that the annual energy consumption to heat that house is 101 million btu.

[Sources: World Watch and Home Energy Magazine]

guidelines for a Provencal well

A provencal well is probably one of the easiest ways to cool your house in hot weather and keep it warmer in winter, by drawing air into the house through an underground pipe. Just add a solar chimney, and you won't even need to power a fan.

Cycling uses less energy than driving - maybe.

According to Bicycle Universe [as reported by World Watch], the energy efficiency of a one-mile urban trip in a 2003 Honda Civic is 32 mpg (13.6 km per litre). The energy efficiency of a one-mile urban trip by bicycle, when the cyclist is fueled by meat (which contains the embodied energy required to produce and transport one mile's worth of meat energy to the cyclist's home), is 31 mpg (13.2 km per litre). But... the energy efficiency of a one-mile urban trip by bicycle when the cyclist is fueled by bread is 300 mpg (134.2 km per litre).

industrial-strength cooling

Toronto's clean secret. Using 75% less energy than conventional chillers, Enwave has been cooling a handful of buildings in downtown Toronto since 1997. Five-km pipes draw water from 83m below the surface of Lake Ontario, where it is 4 degrees Celsius year-round. The system will have the capacity to cool 100 office towers, or 20 million square feet of office space, making a significant dent in the city's electricity demand.

overhauling zoning by-laws

Form-based development codes are a new alternative to traditional zoning codes, and have emerged in the past couple of years as an offshoot of new urbanism. As reported in 'Zoning Practice' of the American Planning Association (May 2004), its essence is to regulate physical form rather than use, in response to the urban sprawl and incompatible development types in neighborhoods and districts that has resulted under traditional zoning practice. Andres Duany has also developed what is called SmartCode, merging new urbanism and smart growth. Using an ecological analogy, SmartCode establishes "ecozones" that are distinguished by varying density and character of the built environment.

rockin' across the countryside

One of Toronto's challenges is in supporting growth with adequate supplies of aggregates (crushed stone used in concrete and tar paving) without destroying the Oak Ridges Moraine, where a lot of the stone comes from. Compact urban development reduces consumption of aggregates by making more efficient use of infrastructure (roads, bridges, buildings, concrete pipes, and so on). Consumption can also be reduced by recycling aggregates and building rubble.

More ideas on the benefits of compact urban form are in Places to Grow - A Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe", issued by the Ontario Ministry of Public Infrastructure Renewal on July 13, 2004.

going cordless

When we moved to our house a year ago, we felt that one easy way to improve the way we consume energy was to go cordless. We didn't have many power tools, so the idea was that whenever we bought one it would, if possible, be cordless. The idea was that by using stored energy, we could recharge during off-peak times. Here in Ontario, the power company has not started metering according to the time of use, but there have been murmurings that they would, and I believe they should. Reducing peak demand could be a significant component of the provincial government's current strategy to eliminate coal-fired power stations. Using cordless tools, we are also ready to recharge with electricity from solar panels, if we ever get enough cash to go that route.

The biggest cordless electric item we have bought is a lawnmower, and I am happy to report that it does the job reasonably well. It's quieter than gas mowers, and doesn't pollute the neighbourhood. It is not pollution-free, since the electricty we are using is not green, but my guess - and I could be wrong - is that even coal-fired power stations have lower emissions from generating the amount electricity we use to cut the grass than are produced by the millions of gas lawnmowers brought out every week. I am not in favour of coal-fired power, but at least cordless lawnmowers can reduce peak electricity demand and can make use of energy sources that are not derived from fossil fuels.

There was only one model to choose from in our area: the Yardworks 24 volt 19 inch mower. By my calculations, it does about 9,000 sq ft on one charge if I keep the grass cut regularly. Unfortunately we have around 10,000 sq ft of lawn, but our plan is to drastically reduce that, replacing some of it with productive areas (vegetables) and low-maintenance indigenous plants that don't require watering (another topic for another day).

Update on 4 June 2007: And now you can ride it!