From everyone on the Energy Challenge team, we hope your Thanksgiving is full of food, family, friends and relatively easy travel.  We’re taking a holiday break and will be back to posting next week!

If you have a wood burning stove, make sure you pay attention to these tips for safe burning.  Wood smoke contains small particles and gases that are not healthy to breathe, especially indoors, so be careful about which wood you burn and how you burn it.

1. Burn only dry, seasoned wood. You will know this type of wood by its darker color, dryness, and hollow sound if you hit it against another piece of wood.  This type of wood also burns more efficiently, saving you money on fuel costs.
2. Buy an EPA-certified stove if you need to upgrade.  These stoves are up to 70% more efficient, which will be a great savings for you wallet and the environment.
3. Have your stove cleaned out yearly to remove any soot in the chimney, and reduce the risk of your house catching on fire.

So, if you’re using a wood burning stove, just make sure you are being safe, and only use your  stove when you are in the same room.  It’s not a super efficient way of heating a whole house, so make sure you’re close to enjoy the warmth.

:: EPA

If you are renting a home or apartment, you might think that you have less power to make changes to green your living space and save energy.  But even if you have a landlord, there are still many actions you can take to save money on your electricity and heating bill.

• Make sure your furniture is not blocking any heaters
• Ask your landlord to turn the water heater down to 120 degrees
• If you need to replace an appliance, ask your landlord to buy ENERGY STAR appliances
• Reduce lighting costs 75% by replacing the 5 light bulbs you use the most with compact fluorescent light bulbs
• Ask your landlord if you can install a programmable thermostat to set your heating preferences to your schedule
• Fix any water leaks

You are the one paying the rent, so you have the right to ask your landlord to make some changes that will save you both some money!

::EPA

The EPA just released a new addition to their website: a section for green homes. You can click on a room of a house and find out the best energy savings practices for that room. I clicked on the bathroom and learned about composting toilets!  The site also has general information on home energy savings, a special section on what renters can do, and a green home terms dictionary.

::EPA Green Homes

This Saturday is the annual Green Gifts Fair at the Midtown Global Market!  It’s an amazing event, with over 70 vendors selling different types of gifts.  Some items you might find could be creative journals made out of elephant dung (don’t worry, it’s cleansed first), or gorgeous hand-knit scarves.  There are fair trade and organic food type gifts as well.

Throwing a party for the holidays?  You can also learn about green holiday decorating, wrapping, food and party ideas, and homemade gifts.  And of course, there will be food – low carbon holiday food samples, yum yum.  If you like to save money, and who doesn’t, DoItGreen! suggests that you

bring your own cloth shopping bags, reusable coffee mug for $1 coffee at Mapps Coffee & Tea in the market, and silverware and cloth napkins to reduce waste if you eat in the market (they only serve styrofoam and plastic!). Also consider biking, busing or carpooling to the event for a free gift.

Sounds good to me! And if that’s not enough, there is an eco fashion show and music.  Come to the Green Gifts Fair and support local and fair trade artisans and find unique gifts and treats.  See you there!

:: DoItGreen!

Everyone’s heard of the three R’s, right?  Reduce, reuse, recycle.  When most people think of recycling, they think of only one step in this three-arrowed process, which is where the familiar logo comes from.  Though it’s great to recycle, it will all be for nothing if people do not buy materials made from recycled products or try to reduce the amount they buy in the first place.  Once a recycling company collects materials to recycle, they have to find vendors who will buy those individual materials to process them and create new products.  If there is no consumer demand for recycled products, then the manufacturing companies will not buy from the recycling company, which will stop the loop of the recycling process.

Did you know you can buy carpets and t-shirts made of recycled plastic?  Or notebooks made of recycled paper?  Just check the label of something you’re buying and see what it’s made of.

This Sunday, November 15, was America Recycles Day across the nation.  Continue the loop by not only recycling, but by buying recycled products too. You can check out the ARD website for the positive impacts or your recycling from their “Conversionator”, and take their pledge to recycle.  While you are thinking of pledges, make sure your pledge for the Minnesota Energy Challenge includes everything you do to recycle – just the basics, buying materials made from recycled products, and more.

To learn about where to recycle almost anything, go to the Earth911website and simply enter your product and location – they’ll figure out where you should take it.  If you have some e-waste to recycle responsibly, read this former blog post.  Happy reducing, reusing, and recycling!

::ARD

I’ve been watching the Northstar trains run behind our offices for the past month or so, so I’m really excited that service will begin for this new commuter line on Monday!  The new light rail line will run from downtown Minneapolis through Big Lake, Elk River, Anoka, Coon Rapids and Fridley.

There are ticket machines at each station, and your fare will depend on how far you are traveling.  For example, a trip from Elk River to downtown Minneapolis will run $5.50 on weekdays and $4.00 on weekends – way, WAY cheeper than finding parking in the same area.

Tickets for Northstar also allow riders to transfer free of charge to the Hiawatha light rail line and any Metro Transit buses.

For more information and to plan your first Northstar line, visit the Northstar Commuter Rail website!

:: Northstar Commuter Rail

Looking to save some money?  Love great deals?  Then you’ll be overjoyed to hear that, once again, Xcel Energy is subsidizing the cost of a variety of compact fluorescent light bulbs across the state.  You can now get high quality energy-saving bulbs for as little as ONE DOLLAR A BULB.  A buck a bulb!  That’s an insanely good deal considering that each bulb could save you $40 over it’s lifetime.  Visit Xcel’s Bright Idea website to find participating stores in your location and check out your local Ace Hardware, Home Depot, Menards and Mills Fleet Farm stores for this great deal.

Also, compact fluorescents make great holiday gifts, especially for busy parents or seniors who may not have as much time to get out and look at a variety of bulbs….if you’re starting to think about holiday shopping already, now is a great time to get a deal!

:: Xcel Energy’s Bright Idea

There is a cool Department of Energy website that personalizes your car’s fuel efficiency and carbon/petroleum footprint.  If you go to the “Compare Side-by-Side” link, you can choose your car’s make and model and find out the following: fuel costs per year, gas mileage, barrels of oil your car consumes per year, and tons of CO2 emitted per year.  The visuals are quite effective.  I did it for my car at home, a 1998 Honda Civic, which uses 12 barrels of oil, emits 6.6 tons of CO2, and costs me $1400 a year! Luckily, I take the bus to my internship.  I compared it to a Prius, which uses 7 barrels of oil a year, and gets 50 mpg  instead of 30 mpg.

Even if you don’t have an extremely fuel efficient car, there are still a few easy things you can do to lower your fuel costs and carbon emissions. First, drive safely.  This is obvious, hopefully, but if you avoid sudden accelerating and braking, and if you don’t speed, you can increase your fuel efficiency by 33% on the highway!  Also, don’t drive faster than 60 mph.  Why?

You can assume that each 5 mph you drive over 60 mph is like paying an additional $0.24 per gallon for gas.

That’s almost a quarter more for every 5 mph over 60!  If you want to keep that money in your pocket, also get rid of excess boxes or stuff in the back of your car, and use the cruise control on long trips.  You can keep an extra dime if you keep your tires properly inflated.

Now that you know, update your Energy Challenge pledge to reflect your new knowledge about driving and fuel efficiency.

:: Dept. of Energy

You wouldn’t think that coal companies would be interested in energy efficiency.  That would mean that they would be selling less electricity to customers, and therefore making less money, right?  This seems like sound logic, but here in Minnesota, utilities need to decrease their energy output by 1.5% per year, leading to an overall reduction of 24% by 2025.  Now utilities should be pretty interested  in energy efficient homes.

Glenn English, the head of an organization that unites almost 1,000 non-profit coal companies, believes that it is more important to give people energy efficiency than cheaper electricity.  Because our fossil fuel sources, like coal, are running out, energy prices will only keep increasing, as well as population and demand.  But with more energy efficient homes, electricity prices may continue to increase, but electricity bills will decrease. Superficially keeping energy prices low could mask the real amount and cost of energy available.  Also problematic would be to raise costs of electricity for consumers.

Making improvements to your home energy efficiency are beneficial for many reasons:  you will, of course, save money on your energy bills, but also become less dependent on the power company.  The changes you make, from as simple as lowering your thermostat by two degrees, to bigger changes like insulating your house, will last forever.  This will raise the property value of your home!  What’s better than doing something that will put money in your pocket not just once, but all the time?   I have to admit I agree with the coal guy.

:: Grist