Reducing My Utilities Bills

One Small Step for Political wimps

Well the federal government raised the CAFE standards to 35 MPG by 2020. It should have been 40 by 2015 and 50 by 2020 with a minimum MPG of half that.

New York City at least is trying by saying taxis need to increase the MPS to 25 by 2008 and 30 by 2009.

The feds also blocked California's (and other states who wanted to follow California's lead) requests to put tighter controls on CO2 and fuel economy. How about instead of a lawsuit to fix this California say that ALL new cars and trucks that don't exceed the 35 MPG by 2015 pay a tax of $2000 per MPG below that number special sales tax this way the federal government can not have any say. They could also have it ramp up and use that money to waive sales taxes on ultra high efficiency vehicles and possibles offer more incentives for solar and other technologies in California and to retire some of the older polluting and gas hog junkers off the road.

I see this as a National Defense issue as well as an enviromental one. The auto industry should be ashamed if we can not get to 40 by 2015 and 50 by 2020 it is because we don't want to since with existing technolgy we are there. They are worried they will loose the higher margin SUVs.

Also, so that it does not get stuck in the politics it should increase automatically by 2 MPG per year.

I can buy several family sized cars with 35 MPG now and even some smaller SUVs (Nissan Altima Hybrid, Toyota Camary Hybrid, Ford Escape Hybrid, Honda Civic Hybrid, Chevy Malibu Hybrid just to name a few). A plug in versions of some of the existing hybrids with some more batterys and/or battery improvements could easily get us to 40.

My next car will get 35 MPG or more and be able to fit the whole family and be enjoyable to drive.

Reminder I think we should have a minimum MPG standard as well.

Aaron

Other good news this week includes the picking of a FutureGen site (near zero emissions coal plant). I think this a great idea personally (home grown power but, clean). http://www.fossil.energy.gov/programs/powersystems/futuregen/index.html

 

Busy but the saving keeps rolling

I have been too busy at work to post. But, I continue to make improvements and have donates more CFLs.

But, I am looking forward to a week and a half off. In which I will will be doing some more improvements (mostly fixing so dripping faucets and replacing my remaining showerheads with a lower flow ones).

Electricity

Meter Read Date	Number of Days	Average Daily Usage	Charges this period
11/20/2007	29	49.07	$328.24
10/22/2007	31	37.87	$205.20
			$533.44
11/22/2006	29	54.66	$399.60
10/24/2006	33	60.3	$518.21
			$917.81

Gas

Energy Comparison	Daily Average 2007	Daily Average 2006
Dec	1.71	1.41
Nov	0.75	1.1
Oct	0.72	0.83
	1.06	1.113333

Note: With the natural gas price increases our overall bill on gas in virtually identical. Except December which has been unusually cool and wet.

Aaron