Topic: Bug Reports / Car emissions graph

Hi

Maybe it is affected by how big your car’s fuel tank is – we tend to buy 3/4 to 7/8 of a tanksworth at a time, and having just changed from pug 206 (takes 50 litre max) to mini (40 ltrs tank) graph is not so extreme. Think the coding needs to just average per day – some users will be more working week commutes, whereas others will be all weekend leisure travel so no way to account for all really. By the way – mini cooper diesel – 60-70mpg and great fun to drive too!

Topic: Feature Requests / comparison graphs

Hi
Yes, that would be good, ideally with ability to show % decrease (hopefully!) ang kg carbon decrease to see if we can meet the 5 or 10% year on year reduction (depending on whose figures you believe) that we must make.

Even better would be the ability to set oneself a target of say 10% decrease (visible on graph) and see how one was doing against it

Topic: Bug Reports / Car emissions graph

I know what you mean – the thing is, it does smoothly interpolate, car data just seems to be “lumpy”. Mine is the same, and other people have mentioned the same thing. I wonder if it is because most people use their car more in the week, so the co2 per day will change depending on whether your tank of fuel lasts you over a weekend or not. I am intending to write some code to do extra smoothing and perhaps weekend compensation for fuel, so hopefully that will help. I agree it can be difficult to spot long-term trends at the moment.

Topic: Feature Requests / comparison graphs

That would be very useful – perhaps a graph that actually overlaid your data from this year with your data from last year. Would that be a good way of doing it, do you think?

Topic: Bug Reports / Car emissions graph

Hi

Maybe not a bug – but I have always wondered why the car fuel co2 graph shows as a very varied series of peaks and trouhgs rather than smotthly interpolating between tank fill-ups. It makes it much harder to spot general trends in CO2.

Georgina

Topic: Feature Requests / comparison graphs

Hi

Is it possible to add a feature so it is easy to compare the current year wih previous year (at user selected time periods) so it is easy to see how much savings have been made.

Georgina

Topic: Green Ideas / Paper, Steel, and Aluminum Recycling

Paper, Steel, and Aluminum Recycling

Paper, in the form of used newspapers, packing materials, and telephone books, may be burned for energy, but it still makes up 30 percent to 45 percent of the average landfill. Landfilled paper requires decades to decay and may release methane, a greenhouse gas that is twenty times as deleterious as carbon dioxide. Most paper could be reused or converted to materials used for blown insulation. Nearly 40 percent of office paper and newspapers is now recycled. Two problems occur in recycling paper. Each time paper is reprocessed, the fibers break and become shorter. Office copiers work best with long-fiber paper that has higher tensile strength and produces less dust. Fiber from used paper is often blended with new fibers to produce the desired qualities. A second problem in recycling office paper is the demand for white paper. Used paper pulp often contains ink or other colored materials that must be removed. Some inks and adhesives can be removed by flotation, and bleaching then whitens the pulp. Older methods of chlorine bleaching produced toxic dioxin. Oxygen and hydrogen peroxide are now used to whiten paper and are considered less damaging to the environment. Use of colored papers for printing and copying greatly decreases the need for bleaching.

Steel is widely recycled. Soon after steel was first produced, damaged steel items were recycled into new products. Today, 68 percent of used steel is recycled. The basic oxygen process of steel manufacture uses 25 percent scrap as starting material, and nearly 100 percent of the starting material for steel production by the electric arc process is scrap. Many states have “clunker” laws that require that the purchase of a new car be accompanied by turning in a junked car, and most municipalities have programs for collecting and recycling used auto parts and furniture.

Aluminum http://www.lookchem.com/cas-125/125494-53-3.html
is one of the most commonly recycled metals. Although many aluminum products are still discarded, 65 percent of aluminum materials are recycled; 95 percent less energy is needed to produce aluminum from recycled cans than from aluminum ore.

Topic: General / Calling all those with meter readings!!

My name is Simon Gooden and I’m currently studying climate change and sustainability. Carbon calculators have become an important way for people to test how sustainable their lives are in terms of climate change. My dissertation seeks to improve the accuracy of carbon calculators for home energy use. The link below is for a questionnaire that contains the questions of five calculators which estimate your household energy use in a year by asking questions such as ‘how old is your property?’ The accuracy of these estimations will be compared to the meter readings that you have recorded. To complete the questionaire you will need the total amount of gas and electricty you have used in the last year (from your meter readings), and your last bill for both gas and electric.

I’m having real problems getting people with meter readings so please try and help

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=RG_2fMBoLMLzsMyy6Bm3GUMA_3d_3d

Topic: Bug Reports / Fuel Mix statistics - Ecotricity New Energy Plus

Dear James, I wonder if you could tweak the fuel mix information.

I had an email discussion with the MD of Ecotricity a while back because I was spooked by the fuel mix statistics which appeared on here and which seemed to suggest that the only true green tariff was Good Energy and that, after having put a lot of effort into researching my supplier, I was putting out CO2 with my electricity supplier. The statistics you’ve got are imported from 2005 values available online which have never been updated and which relate to average supply statistics – for a true generating company there is bound to be some exposure to grid mix unless you can guarantee greater ongoing capacity than consumer demand – although for a particular customer a company may be able to guarantee total energy used is matched by renewable capacity if they buy in extra as required. Ecotricity don’t try to do this for their New Energy tariff which draws from their own generating supply and tops up with external grid feed.

Anyway, I pointed out a while back to Ecotricity that they should publish up to date mix statistics on their website and they have done so: see http://www.ecotricity.co.uk/about/OurFuelMix/ which shows their standard tariff is improving as they build more of their own capacity – there doesn’t seem to be a single cross supplier fuel mix table which is up to date which I can find. The nuclear supplier British Energy have published their more up to date mix data here http://www.british-energy.com/pagetemplate.php?pid=351 and it looks like a few of the others put their data into corporate brochures if you can find them.

I also asked Ecotricity about the mix in their New Energy Plus tariff (this is one where you pay a premium to ensure that all of your use is covered by renewables credits by buying in external renewables). I had it confirmed to me that New Energy Plus was as pure a ‘green’ equivalent to Good Energy. It would be great if your fuel mix stuff referenced the up-to-date mix statistics for New Energy, with the New Energy Plus tariff being included and held as equivalent to Good Energy (ie 0 CO2) on the fuel mix chart.

Why am I bothered? After all, I’ve been able to fudge it by selecting the Good Energy tariff and naming the electricity tariff in the title. Well, although I’m just a customer of theirs and not in any way otherwise connected with Ecotricity, I am passionate about the need to switch actual generating capacity and it really really annoys me that Good Energy is getting an apparently unrivalled status when they are only middle-men (see http://www.whichgreen.org/compare_green_energy_suppliers/green_gauge_energy_league_table/ ) and are doing almost nothing hands-on about the switch to renewables – instead they trade off renewable energy bought in from (or built by) the efforts of other generating companies who are the real heroes having to deal with regulatory and building issues. In my view Ecotricity, by spending on new build, deserve the extra support.

(Rant over)

Martin

Topic: Bug Reports / Items not returning to zero

Vehicle emissions calculations are based on the gaps between fuel purchases. So that we can give you a value for “today”, if you haven’t bought fuel for a while, we assume that the emissions are the same as they were between your last two purchases. At some point, that will become impossible (i.e. not enough fuel bought last time to produce those emissions up to today), so then we start to reduce them assuming that your tank is empty today. This means that fuel emissions gradually go down towards 0 the longer you go without buying fuel for that vehicle.

However, this is only done for vehicles that are “current”. If you go to edit the account details for the car and uncheck “current”, we don’t do the extrapolation. This is the best thing to do for a car that you don’t drive any more, then it won’t be reflected in your CO2 graph.

Topic: Bug Reports / Items not returning to zero

On my chart I have a vehicle listed that hasn’t been used since the last time I entered data for it – but the figures are suggesting that it is still generating CO2 even though it is not being used….

Is this correct? I don’t see how it can be….

Topic: Feature Requests / Analysis Feature: Comparisons

There is a whole load of improved analysis on the list of future developments, including the features you mention. Thanks for the suggestions!

Topic: Bug Reports / Entering Natural Gas bill error

Hi Mike,

Are you entering the amount used from your bills, or the meter readings themselves? The site uses the readings, not the amounts, so each successive reading should be higher than the last one. If you are entering readings, are you sure the dates are right?

If you still have problems, email info@carbondiet.org with the data you’re trying to enter and I’ll check it out for you.

cheers,
James

Topic: Bug Reports / Entering Natural Gas bill error

Hi,
I am entering old readings for natural gas, going to more recent.
When a newer bill entry is entered with a lower amount than the last entry, it says:

There were problems with the following fields:

• Reading is lower than its preceeding value! Are you sure it’s correct?

My unit of measurement is the “therm”

thanks…let me know in the forum if you are able to fix this sometime soon :)

Topic: Feature Requests / Analysis Feature: Comparisons

I really like the features that you have now..so easy to use and see results and impact. However I would also like to see a graphical or numerical comparison between my impact, and those in my country, or in other countries…if you can do that..the data will really be powerful, and useful.

thanks,
Mike

Topic: General / Children’s at Day care center

I am a working mom, so feel guilty for leaving my Childs at a daycare; there is any other ways to stop my Childs from daycare?

Topic: Green Ideas / Open Forum on Sustainable Living

Whether we actually practice it or not, “sustainable” is at the top of mind of most of us. For the corporate sector too sustainability is also the new frontier for driving revenue growth and enhancing brand equity. There is a growing consensus that enough damage has been done in the name of economic growth.

More and more of us are seeing clean air, open space, and good water as our birth right. Fortunately, it doesn’t require herculean efforts if all of us chip in with even slight changes in our day-to-day lives.

Come to the Copperwiki platform

How do we lead our lives that are sustainable? How do we reduce our impact on the environment?

Here’s an open collaboration platform for people seeking choices for living a responsible life.

http://copperwiki.org/index.php/Main_Page

Anyone can come in and write, edit and be heard by those seeking to live consciously on this planet.

Community driven open collaboration

CopperWiki is a community driven open collaboration. It offers choices for living a healthy, useful and responsible life. Most of us are aware of the importance of conscious living and the urgency of making this concept a way of life. The CopperWiki world informs, encourages, and shares the best practices for living responsibly as individuals, community, society, nation and as a planet. It aims at creating awareness about existing practices and products, their benefits and harmful impact and the choices available.

Fast conductor for information

The articles in Copperwiki aim at creating awareness about existing products and practices; the impact of using/following these products/practices; the choices available; the information related to these choices – all aimed at helping the reader make an informed choice. Hence it is a fast conductor for information—which otherwise exists piecemeal at various places.

The site has a wide and varied audience, who in addition to getting to know about the harmful impact of many products, want to know how to source organically produced products – especially in India.

Editable organization

The great part is that it is an ‘editable’ organization which subscribes to the wiki philosophy of an ‘anyone can edit’ where good people, with good intent and good work prevail over the not-so-good, the not-yet-great-enough, and sometimes the downright bad ones.

Topic: Bug Reports / charts not working

Hi Andy – your charts look OK to me – can you explain the problem a bit more, or send a screenshot?

Topic: Bug Reports / charts not working

Charts are not working on my profile. Any ideas.

Topic: Green Ideas / LocalEyes.org

LocalEyes is preparing to launch a comprehensive communications infrastructure for all communities throughout the UK with the assistance of the Schumacher Institute.

We’d really like to discuss creating a carbon calculating aspect to the individual profiles here as well as a tool that calculated an entire communities footprint.

www.localeyes.org

If anyone would like to get more involved, contact Peter on peter.a@localeyes.org

All the best

Peter

Topic: Feature Requests / Countries

Please James, could you add Venezuela in the county list?

Topic: Feature Requests / Possible account types

Keith,

Hopefully fuel oil will be coming along soon, though I’m not sure exactly when. It’s high on the list though. As for public transport, there are figures for different types of trains, for instance, so it might be possible to be a little more accurate than a straight average.

Topic: Bug Reports / Advance purchases

Hm, that’s entirely possible – I didn’t have in mind that people would put future data in…. I guess flights is the first place where that is even possible. I will have a look over the code and sort it out.

Topic: Bug Reports / Advance purchases

James,

Not sure that advanced purchases are being handled correctly in the calculation and display areas. I entered advanced flight details for Feb 2008 and the footprint is already showing in my year-to-day graphs and other places…

Cheers,
Wilf.

Topic: Feature Requests / Possible account types

Hi James.
I have just joined the Carbon Diet and put on my electricity consumption. As I am with Good Energy, I am pleased to see your calculator recognises that this electricity supply is carbon neutral, and has credited me with Zero carbon emissions. Great! Yours is the only calculator I have seen that does this.
Along with other commentors, I would like to put on my fuel oil usage for our Rayburn cooker/heater, so I am looking forward to this development.
I think public transport figures will have to be done by using acceptable averages on a per mile basis. It may be possible to have a choice, say between electric train or diesel train, but I guess these more accurate figures are not available.
I agree with other comments that food is going to be a difficult one. If I get any inspirations I will let you know!
Regards, Keith