This is a calculator to figure out how much you can save from incidental travel – ie all the short distance travel you make during the week, such as to the supermarket, to the beach, to the movies and to town.
Tag: Carbon Friendly
Ideas that result in a lower household carbon footprint.
Ebikes versus electric cars – pros and cons
You’re thinking about buying an electric car and toting up all the various cost savings and lifestyle change pros and cons. But wait – before you make such a large financial commitment, have you stopped to consider whether a car is even necessary?
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Parking Savings Calculator: How much do you save in parking fees by riding to work on an ebike?
Here is a nice and simple calculator to help you figure out how much you will save in parking fees and fines by travelling to work and parking an ebike instead of a motorcar.
Is the coast clear? Ebiking from Otaki to Paraparaumu Beach for work
As part of my preparation for travelling to work each day, I hired a mountain bike to test out the voyage from Paraparaumu (where my new office is) to Otaki and back again. This was stage one in committing to an ebike to travel into work – I needed to check that the coast was clear and that there were no major obstacles on the route. I also wanted to get a sense of what it would be like to go there and back if my bike battery ran out, so I would know how it would be under the worst circumstances. And this is what I learnt…
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What’s the ROI for an ebike?
I got in the habit of riding my bike to work every day while visiting my mum up in the Coromandel and I’m finding it a rather hard habit to shake. The problem is, now my work is 25 km away instead of 5 km away. Could an ebike help with this situation?
Excuse me, but why does anybody need solar power batteries?
Today I intend to lay out a system that works well in harnessing the power of the sun, without the need for any costly solar power batteries.
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Energy Transfers In The Commercial Kitchen
For the past few months, while I’ve supported my mother through a sickness, I’ve been working as a prep chef in a busy commercial cafe in a coastal town. My main observation has been of how energy transfers within a commercial kitchen. It is one of those things that I’m sure no one else would find remotely interesting, but that fascinates me intensely. In a busy commercial kitchen, not a single joule is wasted. Everything is on just for long enough to deliver the desired result, and then it is shut off. A busy commercial kitchen seems to operate on a fine line between careful resource management and deft resources as the chef arranges a wide array of components in the last few seconds before the plating.
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Geographical features that make Otaki Motel a good location for solar panels
Our solar power installation is now set up and in recent articles I’ve addressed how our solar installation is currently generating more than 50% more power than was initially forecasted based on NIWA data. The savings we’ve achieved have also been on the high side, cutting our bill down by around $93 during our first month and by around $150 during our second month. In fact, our monthly daytime consumption for last month, at 170 kWh, was the lowest number we have ever consumed during any month in recent memory.
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Solar Panels on an Overcast Day vs Solar Panels on a Sunny Day
It’s a miserable, shitty, overcast day here in Otaki, and what better way to use it than to generate some fodder for my blog. And I had hoped to put my washing out today – oh well. At least one silver lining in this is I get to get some forward intel to help me plan ahead for the winter months, to see how our energy use will be affected.
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My brother, the secret electricity hog
One of the unexpected side advantages of solar power is it gives you the opportunity to keep a careful watch on your whole family’s energy consumption. At least insofar as it makes their energy consumption habits a bit more conspicuous.