Sustainability: a job to be done
In the last blog you read about the energy of the Mr. & Mrs. Kamphuis household: 1,345 kWh in a whole year. We could produce that electricity ourselves with solar panels. But besides electricity we also use gas for heating water and our house. Last year we have used over 1,100 cubic meters of gas. “Can we compare our use of electricity with our gas use?” I wondered. Saving one percent of electricity might not have the same impact as saving one percent of gas. I felt I needed to figure this out before I could find out what the most efficient way of saving is for us.
How 1,345 kWh and 1,100 cubic meters of gas compare
One cubic meter of gas has the energy capacity of 35.17 MJ (million Joule). 1kWh of electricity is equal to 3.6 MJ. If we divide the former by the latter, we learn that 1 cubic meter of gas is equivalent to 9.769 kWh, which rounds off to 9.8.
The cost of electricity (€0.20 per kWh) is about three times as high as the cost of gas (€0.60 per cubic meter) in The Netherlands, if you consider the energy value — with the taxes taken into account.
This teaches us that while our household uses 1,345 kWh of electricity –we purchase ‘green electricity’, from renewable sources– we spend the equivalent of about 10,780 kWh in gas. We have done optimizations for reducing our electricity use. Extra electricity savings will only have a limited impact. Saving an extra 4% of electricity use, the total amount of energy saved would be just under 55 kWh. Four percent of gas saving reduces the heat we produce by a little more than 430 kWh equivalent. That’s 8 times as much!
How to reduce your own usage
For that we’ve started to look at insulation. We’ve considered insulation before moving into our house. Part of house is well insulated, though there is also plenty room for improved. The big things we can do is tackling our floor insulation and replacing the single glazing by insulated glazing. An even bigger saving can be achieved by cavity wall insulation if you don’t have this yet. All you need is an actual cavity wall.
The average terraced house (townhouse) without insulation uses 3,300 cubic meters of gas for heating per year. The same house after insulation needs about 600 cubic meters of gas. The difference is 2,700 cubic meters with a 26,460-kWh equivalent!
We discovered we had no floor insulation. Floor insulation saves both the environment and a considerable amount of money per year. It adds to our comfort and improves the value of the house. It is projected to save between 4% and 10% of gas use per year. This is a wide range of projected savings — I still need to dive into that deeper. Why had we not considered this earlier? 4% is a massive saving already.
I learned that the return on invest of floor insulation is only topped by cavity wall insulation and insulating your loft. It gives a higher return on invest than solar panels.
Moving beyond gas
Regardless of how well you insulate your house: burning gas release CO2 into the atmosphere. Heat pumps can be installed in houses — but it’s recommended that you insulate your house well before you switch to heat pumps. You don’t need to generate heat if you can keep it in your house through insulation after all.
Next to houses, cars are also moving beyond fossil fuels. In Germany diesel car sales have declined with more than 20% in 2018. Electric vehicle (EV) sales are up 70%. This shows a trend that’s likely going to continue. Many carmakers are convinced the future is electric or hybrid. It doesn’t really matter whether you’re discussing Ford, Renault, Volkswagen, Volvo or Toyota. Peugot or Audi. Mercedes or Chevy or Fiat. All these carmaker, and on top of the ones I mentioned here another almost 40, they all have electric models in production.
Chinese cities like Shenzhen and Shanghai are only buying electric buses. Another thirteen world cities have committed to doing the same at the latest in 2025.
You can be part of this!
If you’re looking for a career switch, you have just stumbled upon fast growing sectors. Between 2014 and 2023 hundreds of billions of dollars will be invested in making buildings more sustainable. The solar industry is growing at nine times the speed of the rest of the economy in the USA. Double as many people work in solar than in the coal industry. Two types of jobs stand out on the list of project fastest growing jobs in the US. Solar installers and wind turbine technicians. Both grow more than double as quick than the #3 on the list. This simply means that you can contribute. Sustainable can literally provide you a living.
