How green is my household?

Plane travel

We all eat and drink, buy goods and services, and most of us travel in cars. However, not everyone flies, whereas others are frequent flyers. Plane travel will account for most of the difference between high and low greenhouse gas emitters.

So how much greenhouse gas is produced by flying?

I calculated per person emissions for the Sydney to London route (return about 35,000 km) using three Australian online calculators. The results ranged from Carbon neutral’s 11.61 tonnes, to Greenfleet’s 12.85 tonnes, to the ACF Greenhome’s 17.1 tonnes.

Australia’s per capita emissions are 28 tonnes (at 2004 levels) — the highest in the world — of which only 0.45 tonnes is for domestic and international flights. Although the average is low, because many people don’t fly, just one long haul return flight will blow your greenhouse budget — as it did ours!

Using ACF Greenhome, I calculated our annual greenhouse emissions (without flights) as 13.5 t for Hilary, 7.0 t for Becky and 12.4 t for me

Last year, we all flew to London for Hilary’s Dad’s 80^th birthday, thus adding 17 t of greenhouse emissions (ACF figures) to each of our budgets, more than the total of all our emissions from all other sources!

So, although international aviation contributes only a small percentage of the total world production of greenhouse gases, at the personal level it adds a huge amount. 

We live in a big country a long way from the rest of the world, and plane travel is the most polluting form of transport, so aviation is a difficult greenhouse issue for Australians.

There are options. Work flights should be scrutinised to ensure they are essential; could the task be done via a video conference or phone hook up? Short flights, eg Sydney to Canberra, can be done by train or bus, as Hilary now tries to do.

For overseas holidays, flights are hard to avoid.  However, the planet can’t support us all having an annual long haul holidays, so why not try short haul destinations, such as New Zealand, Norfolk Island, or Bali. Even better, why not holiday domestically, at least on alternate years, and travel by bus or train?

Vehicle update

Hi, it’s Bruce again with more vehicle stuff. In my post of 18/12/06, I calculated that Hilary’s Toyota Echo produced 2.8 tonnes of CO2 each year, while my Nissan Navara emitted 5.5 tonnes.

Having rechecked the Nissan’s fuel efficiency, I now realise it pumps 6.5 tonnes of greenhouse gases annually, which means our combined vehicle emissions are 9.3 tonnes per year. The national average per vehicle is 4.3 tonnes (ie 8.6 tonnes for 2 cars), so before starting our CN year, our 9.3 tonnes per year put us above the national average.

We are trying the following strategies to reduce our emissions:

• Reducing speed — Instead of driving at the speed limit plus 10 kph, we are now driving at or below the limit when it is anything up to 80 kph, and at 10 kph below the limit for higher speed limits. This is fine on dual carriageways where everyone – and I mean everyone – just races past us, though on single lane roads we sometimes get a bit of agro behind us.
• Minimising use of air con — Recirculating outside air is a good way to cool the car providing it’s not stinking hot outside. When we do use air con, we have it on low settings for short periods only.
• Reducing weight — A useful tip in NRMA’s Open Road magazine was not to carry excess weight (eg golf clubs in the boot), as this reduces fuel efficiency. This got me thinking about the bull bar on the Nissan, which is heavy and not aerodynamic. I’m looking to replace the bull bar with a second-hand bumper bar, but so far haven’t been able to find one.
• Better planning — We’re using the Echo in preference to the Nissan when only one car is required, or if we both needed a car, whoever is driving the furthest uses the Echo. So on Tuesdays, when Hilary works in nearby Hall, and I have commitments in Canberra, she takes the Nissan, I take the Echo. There will be occasions when the Nissan is required for jobs the Echo can’t do, but the Echo is fine most of the time.

The Echo has thus become the family car.

As we have just completed 3 months of our CN year, I have checked how we are going with fuel use — the results were interesting.

The Echo’s average daily mileage has risen from 54 to 80 km, while the Nissan’s has dropped from 58 to just 29 km per day. Extrapolating from these to get annual emission figures our combined output of CO2 reduces from 9.3 to 7.45 tonnes, a reduction of nearly 20%, which is a good start to our CN year. 

Christmas travel

Hilary and I alternate our Christmas’s between Sydney (with my extended family, Hilary’s being in England), and Canberra (with our children).

This year it’s Sydney’s turn, so we gave some thought to the most greenhouse friendly way to travel up and back. The arrangements were complicated by the need to be in Canberra on Christmas Day morning and by the fact that Hilary and Becky were staying on in Sydney for a few days. This precluded travelling by bus or train.

My youngest son Toby was coming also so one option was to take 2 cars, and for Toby and I to drive back on Boxing Day. This was quickly rejected as being climate unfriendly, especially as I had just re-checked the Nissan’s fuel economy and was shocked to find it uses 13 litres per 100 km. I previously thought it was 11 litres, so the 650 km round trip to Sydney in the gas guzzling Nissan was not on.

The next option was for us all to travel up in Hilary’s Echo, and for Toby and I to return by plane, bus or train on Boxing Day. As plane travel, especially on short haul flights such as Sydney to Canberra, is the most greenhouse polluting form of travel, the choice was bus or train, and as a devotee of train travel, that’s what I chose.

Booking the tickets raised a couple of transport policy issues. I caught the Canberra- Sydney Explorer in March this year, and the fare then was around $32. I was surprised to be charged $54 and on asking whether there had been a price rise, was told this was the peak travel time and hence the fares were higher. 

Further, I was not able to purchase a student concession for Toby (he’s just finished Year 11) as he didn’t meet Countrylink’s student criteria. If he was a NSW or Victorian student, or an ACT private college student, or held an international student card, he could have got a concession. However, because he is in the ACT public school system, he is not entitled to a student concession on trains departing or returning to Canberra. This is bizarre.

So instead of paying around $50–60 for our tickets, I was slugged $110.

While having to pay an extra $50 for our tickets was annoying, it was the thinking — or lack of it — behind the price of these fares that really annoyed me.

Public transport is more greenhouse friendly than either car or plane, and you would think governments’ wishing to reduce emissions would encourage the use of buses and trains by implementing appropriate fare schedules, but not, apparently, the NSW Government.

Vehicles

We are a 2-car household. Hilary has a fuel efficient Toyota Echo (which uses 6 litres of petrol per 100 km), whereas my farm vehicle, a 4WD twin cab Nissan Navara, (11 litres per 100 km), is a guzzler. Before starting our CN year, Hilary had been averaging 19 600 km a year, while I was clocking up 21 000 km.

According to the Greenfleet website, the average Australian car produces 4.3 tonnes of CO2 emissions each year. We wanted more precise figures, so I ran our data – annual km, fuel type (both ULP) and fuel efficiency – though Greenfleet’s customised calculator and came up with a better than average 2.66 t for the Echo, and a worse than average 5.22 t for the Navara. The Men of the Trees website produced figures of 3.95 t and 6.76 t for the Echo and Navara, respectively.

There is a big difference between these two sets of results. Whereas the Greenfleet calculator used actual fuel efficiency data, the Men of the Trees calculator worked on vehicle groupings (eg small car; medium 4WD) and hence may not be as accurate.

The Australian Greenhouse Office (AGO) website states that one litre of petrol produces 2.5 kg of C02 emissions. Using this figure, the Echo and Navara produce 2.94 and 5.78 tonnes of C02 annually, reasonably in tune with the Greenfleet results.

Averaging the Greenfleet and AGO results gives C02 emission figures of 2.80 and 5.50 tonnes for our 2 cars per year.

But wait, there’s more, and it’s called embodied energy. This is the energy required to produce, package, transport, etc, any manufactured item. Thus petrol, and our cars, have embodied energy which needs to be added to our C02 emissions budget. And then there’s the energy cost of all those expensive services our vehicles have — we’ll check these out later.

Mollymook

Toby and I had a good break in Mollymook, staying at my sister's beach house. We went beach combing, (found an old craypot), and bushwalking in Morton and Monga national parks, and Narrawallee Creek Nature Reserve. We also drove through Conjola and Meroo national parks.

To minimise greenhouse emissions, I had chosen to use our more fuel efficient vehicle, Hilary’s Toyota Echo. To maximise the Echo’s fuel efficiency, I stayed within the speed limits for the whole trip, a novel experience for me, as I, like most drivers, normally drive at the speed limit plus a bit while hopefully staying under the radar. Also, although it was warm, we left the air con off, and either drove with the windows open, or set the controls to allow cooler outside air to come in.

On the way home, I was hanging out for a milkshake, thinking of the days when they were served in re-usable metal containers rather than disposable cardboard ones. 

I was delighted, therefore, when the Braidwood café assistant served my milkshake – spearmint with double flavouring - in a shiny metal container.

I was so pleased that I decided to support the shop by buying some specialty jams they had on display. However, my delight soon turned to despair as I discovered the jams were ‘Made in France’, so they remained on the shelf.  There are many local jam and condiment makers that could supply stores like this, which is good for the regional economy, and reduces transport costs and carbon emissions.

Travel decisions

We initially thought we would do a weekly posting. However, the reality is that, if you are serious about becoming carbon neutral, there are daily decisions regarding the energy implications of everything you buy, and many of the things you do.

Toby and I are going to Mollymook tomorrow for a 3-day break. It’s a 3-hour drive, and there are 3 options for getting there. I could take my fuel-inefficient farm truck (a 4WD twin cab), or borrow Hilary’s little Toyota Echo, which is twice as fuel efficient, or catch the bus. British research shows that car travel produces about 7 times more greenhouse gases than does a bus, which is why public transport is such a good option for the greenhouse conscious.

I searched the web and found good bus connections from Canberra to Batemans Bay, and then from the Bay north to Mollymook. The bus would have been ideal if we intended to stay close to the beach house, laze around on the beach, or sit on the deck with a good book.

However, I had always wanted to climb Pigeon House mountain in Morton National Park, just inland from Mollymook, and also visit Conjola National Park, and this meant a car was essential. The compromise was to take Hilary’s car and accept the fact that we would have more offsets to make at the end of the year.

I had recorded the odometer readings for both vehicles, and also the electricity meters on Day 1, so we will be able to accurately measure our mileage and power use for the year.