Published on Guardian Unlimited
MY FIRST TWO WEEKS on a carbon diet are a revelation. I go from being slightly know-it-all about climate change to oh-my-God-I-knew-nothing. The project, to monitor my carbon footprint for a series of sponsored articles on Guardian Unlimited, goes from being merely interesting to all consuming.
I discover that contrary to what I thought, the science behind human-induced climate change is 100% solid. To me now, trying to say we aren't making the climate change is like saying smoking doesn't give you cancer.
And like a reformed smoker, I am becoming a zealot. A friend has even started calling me CarbonMan, on a mission to save the world.
It started with the light-bulbs. I know, I thought, I'll do a household energy audit.
I own a flat in Leyton, east London. It has seven rooms including the bathroom and the hallway/landing. I have gas central heating, three-quarters of the windows are double-glazed and there is a dusty attic. This is what I found.
Hallway
1 x 100w bulb.
Landing
1 x radiator
1 x 50w spotlight
1 x lamp with 9w ecobulb
1 x telephone and broadband router
Bathroom
1 x small radiator
1 x 50w bulb
Lounge
1 x long radiator
1 x 9w ecobulb
1 x 100w bulb
1 x DVD player
1 x TV
1 x digibox
Kitchen
1 x fridge
4 x 50w spotlights
1 x four ring electric hob
1 x electric oven
1 x four-slice toaster
1 x kettle
1 x microwave
1 x gas boiler (1993)
1 x washing machine
Bedroom one
1 x long radiator
1 x 100w bulb
1 x laptop
1 x TV
Bedroom two
1 x Apple iMac
1 x 11w ecobulb
1 x 40w bulb
1 x radiator
Bedroom three
1 x small radiator
1 x laptop
2 x 60w bulb
Loft
1 x fluorescent strip light
No insulation at all
I spend some time (all evening) on different online home energy calculators. My home is hopelessly energy inefficient. My biggest crime is my loft. I should have 270mm of insulation in there, but have none. Most of my light-bulbs are burning five times more energy than they should be and my boiler, at 13-years-old, is past it. I am quite shocked. Not only am I burning coal like a stoker on the Titanic, it is costing me a fortune.
I could save £95 a year by switching to eco light bulbs alone, according to most energy efficiency websites. Buying 12 of them online, including five 2W LED spotlights at a tenner each to replace the 50W bulbs in the kitchen, costs £68.55.
(Incidentally, in the past two weeks I've seen numerous ads in the paper for "free" energy efficient bulbs - buy four get four free sort of thing. This is a bit of a con: energy saver 20W bulbs, once £5 each, are now subsidised under the government's Energy Efficiency Commitment. They should only cost about £2.65.)
I could, says my online energy efficiency report from the Energy Savings Trust, cut my energy use by 62.5% and consequently cut my CO2 emissions by 2.1 tonnes.
Properly insulating my loft will cost £300 if I DIY and will cut gas-heating use by up to 50%. Replacing my boiler with a condensing one (£1850) will cut it 35%. I should be using a tiny amount of gas, instead I'm trying to heat the street.
I add up all my bills for the year - the energy use, not the cost. In 2005 my flat used 12,104Kwh of gas (and emitted 2.3 tonnes of CO2). The average for a small house in the UK is 10,000Kwh. If I insulate properly I should save half of that, or 1.15 tonnes of CO2.
And I used 2,665Kwh of electricity (emitted 1.15 tonnes CO2) - the small house average is 1,650Kwh.
That adds 3.45 tonnes of CO2 to my carbon footprint. How to get it down? Feeling like an elephant determined to get into ballet shoes, I go back to my computer.
Advice from all the websites is clear. The first step is to conserve energy. Before erecting windmills or converting to solar power, save all you can. Government grants for exciting things like photovoltaic panels for my roof are only available if I pass an energy efficiency test.
So, boring though it may be, the first step is to change the light bulbs, insulate the loft, put reflective aluminium (£5 for five metres at B&Q) behind all the radiators, get a sausage dog for the draughty front door and - eventually - get a new boiler.
Only then can I get solar panels for the roof. A chat with Olly at Solar Century in south London and yes, he says my roof is big enough for the solar panels needed to generate the necessary 2,665Kwh a year. But it will cost £27,000 to buy and install. A possible grant for £11,250 (a scheme run with "inadequacy" by the government he says) will bring that total down to £15,750. Completely unrealistic.
It is all very educational and very inspiring. But the best, as is so often the case, is saved until last. Last night I went online to research switching my electricity supply to a "green" supplier.
This process is full of pitfalls - lots of so-called green suppliers barely give lip-service to the idea of developing proper - wind, wave, solar - renewable power. But I end the evening by switching, painlessly and in less than five minutes, to a company called Ecotricity.
My electricity still comes through the national grid, but my money now goes to a cutting edge company that sells "deep green" energy to the grid by owning and building windfarms.
And it's guaranteed to cost no more than my normal regional electricity supplier, EDF (London Energy). I breathe a sigh of relief as I switch off my laptop. I've cut 1.15 tonnes of CO2 from my footprint in one fell swoop, I have plans to insulate away another tonne, and it feels great.
Good websites I have visited this week
Carbon calculator
www.carboncalculator.org
Energy Saving Trust
www.est.org.uk
Light-bulbs
www.lightbulbs-direct.com
Green energy
www.ecotricity.com
www.solarcentury.com
www.windsave.com
Low carbon buildings
www.lowcarbonbuildings.org.uk
www.treehouseclapham.org.uk
Climate change research at the Hadley Centre
www.met-office.gov.uk/research/hadleycentre
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