With gas prices taking a toll on people’s wallets, Consumer Reports (CR) has a new survey of what Americans think about battery electric vehicles
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Moving the Decimal Point on the Price of Gas
More reasons to buy an EV than your pocketbook. They drastically reduce your carbon footprint and the amount of air pollution you are generating (and, in turn, breathe). And they’re delightfully quiet and fun to drive.
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How Does a Heat Pump Work
If you are looking to replace the air conditioning or heating system in your home, you may want to consider an air-source heat pump.
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Fight Back Against Fossil Fuel Autocrats
One of the many downsides to our reliance on fossil fuels is that it empowers autocrats in petro-states to spread chaos at home and across the world. It’s time to Electrify & Decarbonize.
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Save the Planet & Money with Heat Pumps
Super high-efficiency electric heat pumps have become very common in all parts of the world for water heating, space heating, and air conditioning. They can operate in even the coldest climates and deliver the same heating and cooling benefits, often at lower operating costs. In addition, heat pumps powered by renewable energy produce zero emissions! Heat pumps are super-efficient because they use very little energy to move heat. Heat pumps have been used for decades to transfer heat out of your refrigerator to keep it cold on the inside and for air conditioning systems to cool your house. The same technology can now heat and cool your home or heat…
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Alternatives Exist for Rare Minerals in Batteries
Greener, Friendlier Alternatives Exist for Rare Minerals in Batteries The Myth For years, commentators have been handwringing about the extraction practices, environmental and social harms, and corporate ownership of mining operations that contribute to clean energy technology, with a focus on cobalt, rare earths, and other rare ingredients of the clean energy transition. Much like governmental, intergovernmental, and private assessments of “critical materials,” these critiques pay far too little attention to how scarcity, usually signaled by price, elicits not only mineral exploration and mine development but also a powerful set of other and faster adaptations and alternatives like efficient use, substitution, and recycling. A major contribution to this genre comes from…
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Our Own Backyards
EDITOR’S PAGE Long before we began publishing the Green Living Journal, we bought a home that happened to be well insulated and heated and cooled with an efficient electric heat pump. It was the year 2000, and little did we know then that we had set the stage for our future personal journey to reduce our environmental impact. Our 3/4 acre property was nothing more than an empty field with blackberries and a few oaks, cherry, and hawthorn trees on the edges. So, over the next several years, we established our veggie garden, planted five kinds of berries, and kiwis, and added several different species of trees and shrubs. Of…
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8 Days, 2 Kids, 2700 Miles, 1 Tesla
Lessons Learned From A Cross Country EV Road Trip If there is one Achilles heel of the electric automobile (EV), it’s the road trip. Even if the road trip is something we only very occasionally ask of our personal vehicles, it’s still a crucial aspect of the American car owner experience I’ve been singing the praises of electric transport for four years, so it was only fitting that I put my money where my mouth is and attempt not just a local EV road trip, but the most sacred and grueling of American long drives — the Cross Country Road Trip. My family of four (with kids ages 5 and…
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Induction Stoves
Say Bye Bye to Gas in the Kitchen Induction stoves allow consumers to happily leave behind fossil fuels in the kitchen. Plus, they cook food faster than other types of stoves, adjust heat instantaneously, offer precise temperature control, and are incredibly safe (they only work when a magnetic pan is placed on top of them, so no more accidentally leaving the burner on). Best of all, they are powered by clean electricity. Like so many technologies in the electrified home of the future, induction stoves are exciting newcomers on the scene because they change the rules of the game. They eliminate one more gas industry argument for why we need…
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Cordless Electric Yard Tools
About 6 years ago, we ran an article on switching your gasoline-powered lawn and garden tools to all battery-electric versions, and since then, there have been a lot of changes—time for an update. The first change is in the number of makes and models available today. A Google search for electric yard tools will bring up more than 30 brands, and each brand can have multiple types of tools (lawnmowers, edgers, leaf blowers, etc.), as well as a selection of models for many of the different tools. For instance, walk-behind lawn mowers are available in 14-inch cut to 25-inch cut and as either push or self-propelled. This range of choices…
