Email lists

Christmas is with us with all the environmental damage it causes. However, the admirable trend to forgo sending cards for friendly emails may be being offset by the generous use of the cc: button

While its nice to know that I am one of a long list of friends, I may not be so keen to have my address distributed to so many people I don't know. I have nothing against other peoples friends, just their computers. Who knows where they have been and if they practice safe email.

In our fight against spam, we should not send messages to long lists of cc:'s.

It only takes one machine compromised with some viral program (lots are picked up with apparently clean downloads) to have all the addresses posted to Russia and added to a spam database.
(I, on the other hand, knowing these to be quality addresses, will sell them for a good price to the Nigerians.)
The better and simple option is to use bcc:

Bcc: stands for blind carbon copy. Addresses on the bcc: list are not included in the header of the message (with the other to: and cc: names). In fact your own name is not included on the message sent to you, which is why messaged from mailing list quite often seem to only have one recipient, usually the person who sent it.

It should also be noted that long lists of recipients is one of the things that prompts spam filters to reject messages.

E-cards are also sources of addresses for spammers, as the e-card people are known to sell the lists of senders and recipients.

So Happy Christmas to everyone. I will send individual hand crafted massages to people on my list.

Light bulbs

Foolishly, when we refitted the kitchen, we installed a ceiling light fitting that takes the small Tungsten halogen diachronic spot lamps. We had 5, 50w lamps, which made the room sparkle. The tragedy is that once we started worrying about the energy waste, we stopped using them.

However, I have purchased a number of different lamps to try in the fittings.

They were ordered over the internet. They fall in to 3 classes:

Compact florescent:

This is the technology of the ‘low energy’ light bulb.

The package was 5 cm longer than the light fitting.

They were rated at about 7 watts.

They were not focused and did not seem very efficient.

Cold cathode

This is the technology of the ‘neon’ sign.

A little more efficient than the CF and slightly more focussed,

but still in a package that sticks out of the fitting.

Light Emitting Diodes

These come with 15 to 35 little bulbs, packages in the same fitting as the 50w halogen spot, but only rated at 2 to 4 watts.

They provide a tight beam.

They are 2 to 4 time more efficient than the CF and 3 times more efficient than the halogen, but the low power means that they only provide a 15% of the light.

They do have a significantly longer life.

The latest ones have one to three much more powerful LEDs and are said to be more efficient.

Here is what I bought

www.initiallights.co.uk, (Brilux V Series 4 Watt and  Brilux M Series 3 watt.)

www.ultraleds.co.uk, (48 Day Light White leds)

www.ricamstore.co.uk

www.led-lightbulbs.co.uk

www.lighting-direct.co.uk

www.yourwelcome.co.uk

Carbon Offsetting

Carbon offsetting has been in the news a lot, and I have had to update the CCF webpage .
I also wasted some time going to a Cambridge Energy Forum discussion "Carbon Offsets – fix or fig-leaf?", but the debate centred on the technical issues. A common problem here!
So I added this post to the cam.misc topic (Carbon Offsets – fix or fig-leaf?)

" There is another issue with the voluntary offset market, which is about internationality. The concern for offsetting is to reduce personal carbon emissions. To be useful, this has to be part of a programme to make continuing reductions over the time until some target is reached. This should be 60% by 2050, in line with Kyoto as a minimum, or more realistically 90% or about 1.5 tonnes per person by 2030, as suggested by the likes of the Hadley Centre and WWF. Even if you believe in the role of offsetting in personal carbon reduction, the problem comes from the sustainability of the approach. If by 2025 you have reduced your personal emissions by 5 tonnes and offset the rest by purchasing 7 tonnes of offset, you are now totally dependant upon the CDM to maintain your lifestyle! The purpose of carbon trading and capped/validated offsetting is to prompt cost effective emission reductions, so we would expect projects to become scarcer and more expensive as time goes on. So in 2015 you now have to make the carbon savings that you have been putting off. On top of this there are the second order effects of having done so little. Eg.

* Easy jet claims there is still a demand for flying and a second runway is built at Stanstead.

* Tescos still see demand for out of town shopping and continue trash the local trade economy

* There is no demand for domestic renewable energy and the UK industry remains moribund.

So when you need to make changes, there is not a lot more you can do. So while ‘additionallity’ may mean that there is a first order saving, offsetting sends a message to the world that we don’t care about personal reduction and think that we can use the same imperial approach that got us here in the first place. If you want to discuss the moral issues, it would be more useful to read the chapter in heat by George Monbiot’s heat or look at ‘www.cheatneutral.com’

"

Light bulbs

Foolishly, when we refitted the kitchen, we installed a ceiling light fitting that takes the small Tungsten halogen diachronic spot lamps. We had 5, 50w lamps, which made the room sparkle. The tragedy is that once we started worrying about the energy waste, we stopped using them.
However, I have purchased a number of different lamps to try in the fittings.
They were ordered over the internet. They fall in to 3 classes:
Compact florescent:

• This is the technology of the ‘low energy’ light bulb.
• The package was 5 cm longer than the light fitting.
• They were rated at about 7 watts.
• They were not focused and did not seem very efficient.

Cold cathode

• This is the technology of the ‘neon’ sign.
• A little more efficient than the CF and slightly more focussed, but still in a package that sticks out of the fitting.

Light Emitting Diodes

• These come with 15 to 35 little bulbs, packages in the same fitting as the 50w halogen spot, but only rated at 2 to 4 watts.
• They provide a tight beam.
• They are 2 to 4 time more efficient than the CF and 3 times more efficient than the halogen, but the low power means that they only provide a 15% of the light.
• They do have a significantly longer life.

The latest ones have one to three much more powerful LEDs and are said to be more efficient.
Here are some of the suppliers I tried:

• www.initiallights.co.uk, (Brilux V Series 4 Watt and Brilux M Series 3 watt.)
• www.ultraleds.co.uk, (48 Day Light White leds)
• www.ricamstore.co.uk
• www.led-lightbulbs.co.uk
• www.lighting-direct.co.uk
• www.yourwelcome.co.uk

Savaplug review

A comment on energy saving in the home.
"One accurate measurment is worth a thousand expert opinions", Grace Hopper

We have a 15 year old freezer and a some what older fridge. In the not to distance future they will both have to be upgraded to A+++ models. In the meantime I thought it would be a good idea to try a savaplug, from www.savawatt.com. I was not so impressed!

12 March 2007 22:10
To:enquiries@savawatt.com
Subject: Savaplug performance

Sirs,
I would be interested to know the basis of your figures for the
Savaplug. I purchased the unit from yourselves and tested it using
the Maplin Energy Monitor. Results for a Electrolux EU1320 freezer,
purchased 1992

With fitted plug, 1.23 kWh/day
with Savaplug, 1.19 kWh/day
saving 2.8% at 11.52 p/kWh, annual saving of £1.34.
This is a 15 year payback or 50% longer than the guarantee!

At 15 years old, there can not be many freezers less efficient than ours. Indeed the fridge, which is older, only consumes half a kWh
per day. I run a course on carbon reduction and energy in the home.
Can you provide any further information that would justify mentioning
the Savaplug?

Regards,

19 Mar 2007 10:09:24 +0000

Subject:
Re: Savaplug performance
From:
Andy Brown Date:
18/03/2007 16:32
Tarinderjit Lehal at SavaWatt wrote:

Thank you for your e-mail.

I apologies for the late reply, we currently moving into larger
premises which is introducing an unavoidable delay.

I would expect you would see a larger saving by using a power meter
set to instantaneous power, but if you try to measure kWh over days
it may give you a false reading. This is due to the fact that the
utilisation of the appliance will not have been taken into account
when comparing the two figures. There are also many different types
of power meters available on the market and in some cases they don't
always give the same values due to the algorithms they use to
calculate energy. For this reason I would suggest that you measure
instantaneous power in Watts to give you an indication of savings.

Also the savings achieved from the SavaPlug will depend on the type
of appliance you have and how you use it.

I hope this has been helpful.

Please contact me if you have any further enquires.

Thank you

T Lehal


19 Mar 2007 10:09:24 Andy Brown

Dear Tarinderjit,
Thank you for your reply. I am surprised by some of your comments. I would be grateful if you could you clarify the issues you have raised.

Why is instantaneous power (watts) a better measure of power saving than energy consumed (kWh, Joules)?
You suggest that a longer energy trial is needed. Is this not at odds with your suggestion that instantaneous power is a better indication of saving?
How long a trial do you suggest? What data for fluctuations in daily consumption of electricity in freezers do you have?
Given the small number of power meters on the market, I had hoped you might be able to comment on the accuracy (or even the algorithms ) of the Maplin unit that I was using.
What data do you have for comparative savings for different makes of appliance.

We have another meeting on Thursday. I hope you have time to comment before then.

Regards, Andy

I will add to this post if there is any interesting news!