41pounds.org

Did you know that the energy used to produce, deliver and dispose of junk mail produces more greenhouse gas emissions than 2.8 million cars? Well thats a big number folks. You can dramatically reduce your junk mail and offset CO2 emissions through the service of the nonprofit organization 41pounds. 41pounds will contact dozens of direct mail companies to remove your name from their lists – credit card offers, coupon mailers, etc. plus the catalogs you specify. The service costs $41 for everyone in your household for 5 years, thats $8.2 a year and only 2 cents a day, and 41pounds will donate $15 to Carbonfund.org . Using this $15 Carbonfund.org will offset 1 metric ton of CO2 (2204 pounds) — which offsets the burning of 114 gallons of gasoline. We can achieve following at just 2 cents/day. I have already done it and hope that you also think about it.

Time — No credit card offers to shred or unwanted catalogs.
Trees — Keep 100+ million trees in forests, cooling the planet.
Water — Protect 28 billion gallons of clean water.
Climate — Junk mail produces more C02 than 2.8 million cars.
Planet — They donate to your favorite charity when you sign up.

Above information is obtained from 41pounds and Carbonfund.org

Scan Gauge

Couple of months back I got a new toy, Scan Gauge. Basically this device connects to you car computer and provides you real time data about the mileage, rpm etc. It also does and little book keeping which would store data about the current day and yesterday (a day before). It will give you a Trip summary such as total mileage of the current trip, total time traveled, max speed etc and same for the previous day. It also gives you information about the error codes when you see some new lights turned around the odometer. If you see such lights often, this device will help to diagnose about the issues and might save you a trip to the mechanic. Its form factor make is very easy to fit even in a very small space. Connecting it and setup is very easy, just connect it with the car computer and you are good to go. It (car computer connection) is the same place at which the technician connects when you go for State inspection. Then start the car and set the size of the engine (e.g. 2L ,1.8L etc.) and the gas tank size. It might take up to a couple of tank fill-ups for the device to give near to accurate information. I have been using since couple of months and I see mileage data very close to the actual mileage I get. In near future I will try to post some data which I get from the scan gauge. To get more correct information about the device and its uses visit ScanGauge website.

WHY USE RECYCLED PAPERS?

All the time we have heard and read that using recycled paper helps to save trees and conserve energy, all in all is good for environment. This information which I got from a cover of printer paper ream by Aspen , which shows actually how much it helps the environment. Choosing recycled papers over non-recycled paper has following environmental impact*.

	30% Recycled Paper	50% Recycled Paper	100% Recycled Paper
% fewer trees used	30%	50%	100%
% less energy used	13%	22%	43%
% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions	11%	19%	37%
% less water	14%	23%	46%
% reduction in solid waste	15%	25%	49%

*Source: Environmental Defense's Paper Calculator, www.environmentaldefense.org/papercalculator

HOW MUCH CAN YOU SAVE - II

This post is in continuation with my previous post. I want to prove my point that with little consideration we can save electricity and contribute in the fight against the global warming. So let's take one more example. In my rest room I have 6 normal light bulbs to enlighten it, each bulb 60W. Let's say that I spend 1.5 hr every day in the restroom, so that would be 6*60=360Wh=.36kWh everyday. So for one month that would be 0.36*30 *1.5=16.2kWh every month => 16.2 * 0.22= $3.56 approx. I surely didn't needed all the six bulbs so I removed 3 of them and replaced the other 3 with 13W fluorescent bulb. 13W fluorescent is equivalent to 60W normal bulbs, so after these changes the saving would be= 3*13W=39W *1.5 hrs* 30 days = 1.755 kWh *.22= $0.39 approx So I save about $3.15 every month. So now justs adding the savings from previous post $4( by switching off the wireless router and cable modem) + $3.15 =$7.15 savings / month. Now the above scheme of bulbs there is a catch, you have to buy the fluorescent bulbs, but hey thats one time investment for at least 3-5 years. And also you are helping to avoid global warming. I will be posting some more examples, as I they come in my mind but surly currently we are abusing environment by relying more and more on non renewable sources of energy!! I hope after reading these posts a small thread would have spawn in your minds! Feel free to post your views or the changes which you made after reading my blog, sometimes feedback give motivation as well!!

HOW MUCH CAN YOU SAVE-I

I don't know how to start this but am trying to bring out one of the threads that has been running in my mind since long. Call me "Global warming" fanatic or "kanjoos" (you will know in a short while why am saying this), I am going to put down the thoughts and the research I did after that. Also this is not only just about me or my thoughts, the suggestions I have would help you to mitigate your rising electric bills to some extent. The use of electric/electronic devices in our life is so common that sometimes we even don't realize that we are using them. We need to burn fuel in order to generate electricity, and combustion of fuel leads to more green house gases in the atmosphere which leads to global warming. See its that simple!!
I have always been thinking as how much electricity would a given device consume in a given time? Lets say my TV is on but am not watching it, so what impact would this have on the environment? There are two parts to above questions a) how much electricity my TV consumes? b) what impact would this have on the environment?
First I will try to answer the first question.
I know that there is a very basic formula to calculate electic consumption of a given device, but me being a dumbo in Electrical stuff (e.g. it was tough for me to remember ohm's law) had to search it online and I came across this nice website by Michael which gives me all the necessary information.
Thanks to this website and its author, now I understand HOW MUCH ! electricity a given device consumes in a given time.I am putting down some interesting information but I encourage you to go through the site for more information if you are still reading this blog.
Usage of electricity is measured in kWh => kilo watt hour and we are billed according to that number. The formula to calculate kWh = (# watts usage per hour * # hours )/1000.
We are charged according to amount of electricity we use and the unit is kWh=>kilo watt hour. Nearly everything you can plug into the wall has a label that says how much electricity it uses i.e # of watts. (It may be printed directly into the plastic or metal.) You will have to make some efforts to find it.
If the label only gives the number of amps and not the number of watts, then just multiply the amps by 120 (for USA) to get the number of watts.
e.g. it the label says 65W, it means the device consumes 65Wh every hour.
if it says 5 amps, then it means the device uses 5*120 W hour every hour. (120 for USA and I think for India and European countries it is 240).
Now if you know how much you are charged per kWh then you can exactly calculate how much a the usage of a give device can cost you. Lets take an example so that I can help you take off some $s from you electric bill -;)
I have cable internet at my home, and I also use wireless router so that I can get internet in any room without need a physical connection between the computer/laptop and cable modem. For the sake of the study we will exclude the electricity consumption by the computer/laptop. Both the cable modem and the wireless router use electricity when they are turned on. My modem uses 18W and router uses 16W, so when I use them both, the total usage is 34W every hour. Lets say I don't switch them off during night (when we are not using it). Lets say we don't use internet from 11pm to 5 pm other day as we sleep at night and work till 5 pm. So in total 18hrs of non usage time. So the total kWh = 34*18 = 612/1000=0.612 kWh . In my last electric bill I saw that I am charged $0.22/kWh, so that totals 0.135 $ per day => $4 /month. So see now I am saving $4 every month just by switching off the modem and wireless router and you can too!.
Thats enough for now, will be adding more information soon as this post seems to have grown a bit big!!!!

Why do we still keep using Pennies and Nickel?

Soaring copper prices are pinching the penny makers. It now costs 1.3cents to make a penny and 7.7cents to make a nickel. But there's an environmental cost, too, to minting new coins- namely, copper mining and refining that involves huge amounts of power and water. Coinstar estimates there are some 150 billion coins going unused in US. => $10billion or $90 per household, stashed in mason jars and under couch cushions. Cashing in just 10% of this amount would translate into sizable environmental savings as show in the table below.

Savings Of	Equivalent to
Water	82 million showers*
Energy	4.1 million 60-watts bulbs**
CO2	12619 cars removed annually from roads***

* 40 gallons each
** Over average life span of 1000 hours
*** Assuming average mileage
Source: Business week May 2008

World's cleanest car

With the increasing concern of global warming and the prices of gas (petrol) we are looking for other renewable sources of energy. Fuel combustion produces carbon dioxide which is a green house gas. More vehicles on the road means more carbon dioxide which in turn means more risk to global warming. What if we have a car which runs without gas or any other combustible fuel!

MDI is a company which has created an engine which works on compressed air. Well this is similar to the small rockets we used to create when we were kids. Blow air into the balloon and then let it loose. What happens? The air rushed out with a force which pushed the balloon forward. This is the principal which this car follows, except we don't have to fill up the air in the car.
Look at this link for more details, www.theaircar.com
Well the concept is interesting but this is even more interesting. When the compressed air is let loose it is cooler, and we can use this cool air to cool the car during summer. There are certain drawbacks here. The maximum speed this car runs is about 70 mph, so our F1 racers won't be able to drive this car. Also these cars need to be smaller in size due to capacity of the engine, so big SUV owners won't be interested in this car either.
But here is the main part, after fully charged, meaning after having tank full of compressed air, the car runs for 125 miles. It takes about 1.5 hours and costs about $2.5 to fill the tank with compressed air.
TATA from India is trying to bring this car in India by 2009. This car is being launched in Summer 2008 in France and other European countries. Just think about the future of this engine and the future of planet earth with this automobile running on similar engines.

QT Cross Platform Application Devleopment Framework

If you are looking to develop non-commercial applications with different platforms in mind, Qt (Qtopia) is surely worth a look. You can use for commercial applications as well if you buy a licensed version. It includes C++ class library(if you are C++ fan, its for you) and tools for cross-platform development and internationalization. Qt is also available for Java programmers. For more information you can go to Qt . They also have application platform for efficient creation of Linux-based devices. For more information go to Qtopia

HYPERMILING

Today, in newspaper I came across an interesting article about this guy Wayne Gerdes and his Hypermiling theory. In the theory he suggest/explains different ways to get better mileage than the EPA estimate for your car. For detailed explanation you can visit www.cleanmpg.com . He has some interesting ways by which we can increase the mileage of our car, and its not limited to hybrid cars. One of his accomplishments that were described in the paper were getting 57MPG in Honda Accord and 127MPG in Toyota prius. Not all the ways he describes on the website are totally safe but they are worth reading as they explain the forces which take away the MPG from our while we drive in our AC car totally oblivious of.