http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainability

Sustainability, at least in terms of environmentalism, means that a system has the ability to last indefinitely, not in the sense of reliability, but in the sense that it doesn’t use more than can be replenished naturally, where ‘it’ is energy, food, water, air, etc.

I’d have to say that from my perspective, our electricity is pretty sustainable - yep, we lose it from time to time (mainly due to wind, not avalanche), but it’s usually reliable.

To me, the thing that makes so many communities questionable is food: there’s no way we could grow enough of it here to feed 30K+ people a Western diet. And, with salmon stocks down, I wonder if the entire region could feed 75K people on what’s available naturally.

OH - and our energy consumption went from about 12 KWH/day to 5 (oil fired boiler). We’re holding pretty steady, but some of the change isn’t long-term sustainable. Easy changes we’ve maintained: plug everything optional (TV, wireless router, phone) into power strips and check every night to be sure all power strips were off; put the bird lights on a timer, change to CFLs, and turn off the darned lights when you leave the room!

In an effort to reduce our energy costs, ironically, we’ll be installing an electric hot water heater for on-demand HW. Currently our boiler fires every time we turn the water on (hot or cold) due to the way it’s plumbed.

Units for the whole house are available in the US, but cost (IIRC) several thousand dollars. It would take several years of savings to amortize the cost.

We have a gas water heater in the attic here in Houston, TX, rather than electricity. I don’t like having the gas line running into the house (I haven’t found where to turn it off yet were we to evacuate for hurricanes.) But if we ever lose power due to a hurricane in the winter ;);) (out of season), I guess it would be nice to stay warm without electricity. Since the lowest monthly average low temperature is only 41 degF, the water heaters days may be numbered.

“not one suggests the obvious, most responsible course of action - leave Alaska!”

Every area has their reoccurring natural disasters. Earthquakes, mudslides, floods, and avalanches are just a part of life. If you suggest we leave somewhere because something bad happened, where would we go?

Honestly, avalanches have taken down our power lines before, this was a known problem. However, last time it happened, diesel wasn’t so expensive, so not many heard about it. The town probably didn’t bat an eye. This time it’s cost prohibitive, so everyone went nuts.

On the plus side, did anyone hear about the energy rebate attached to our permanent fund this year? In case anyone was wondering, the yearly permanent fund does not make up for the increased cost of living here.

Here’s the comparison. They generate & consume on average 73 kWHs, and the average american household uses 8900, per year. So each of us uses about as much as 122 developing world households. Think of how much difference our waste could make, if we could somehow send it abroad!

But the costs do add up. I still amke more in rent, so it’s still worth it. But I think as energy costs continue to rise, people will become more aware of their own energy usage. We might like to cool the house in the summer to 74 degrees, but it’s expensive to do that. And people have lived for thousands or millions of years without AC. I think we can manage now to allow the indoor temperatures to fluctuate just a little bit more.

If you think about it, it’s easy to understand how that’s possible, even using the same habits.

Apartment had steam heat, which the landlord paid for along with the hot water costs. We didn’t directly pay the electricity for steam heat, water pump, water heater for the shower/clothes washer.

You pay for those indirectly with your monthly rent. Make no mistake, it’s not free. The landlord sure isn’t going to pay for it out of his pocket, out of the “Goodness of their Heart”. They charge enough rent to cover that cost.

Also, a house is usually larger than an apartment. So there are more lights to light, even if they’re CFL, more space to heat/cool, etc.

I live in the Canadian prairies, hot summers and cold winters. I’ve kept track of the power bills each month for 7 years, and in winter they go up by $20-$30, but go down in the summer by the same amount. Generally, it’s been a $60 monthly average power bill.

While I agree that avalanches are likely common, having the entire power system of Juneau knocked out and having to resort to diesel generators for 3 months is uncommon.

In any case, the energy expenditures required to live in an inhospitable climate like Alaska are clearly not sustainable.

The original poster was not subject to “regular, natural occurances that can quintuple the price of energy”. This was a freak occurence and they were looking for immediate solutions.

As I mentioned, my summer usage (in my detached 150sq meter home with 2 people) has reached as low as about 100kWh per month. In a 31 day month, with 24 hours in a day, that’s the equivalent of running a 134W appliance 24 hours a day. And that’s it.

How are those dozen 60W or even 100W bulbs looking now?

Seriously, if your area of the world is subject to regular, natural occurances that can quintuple the price of energy, that’s a pretty obvious signal that your community is unsustainable.

I’ve only recently started paying my own power bill, so I’m not sure what winter usage will look like, but until last month my consumption was about 150 kwh a month. That doubled to 314 for last month’s bill. During summer, though, consumption is really influenced by where you live and what kind of work you do. My work allows me to work from home frequently, so instead of using the AC at the office I used the AC at home. And living in California’s central valley region, I faced 100+ degree temperatures for much of the previous month. I try to be conservative with my AC and, when outside temps allow, cool my apartment by opening doors and windows, but sometimes CA weather makes AC a necessity. So that’s where most of my usage comes from.

Reducing light usage and such is a good idea, but it really won’t save that much money. Even regular non-fluorescent bulbs don’t consume that much energy. And surprising as it may sound, even appliances like your refrigerator tend to be pretty energy efficient. The biggest consumers will usually be your dryer, microwave, and AC. Of course, since you don’t usually run a microwave for extended periods of time, fingers really only get pointed at the other two appliances.

>My oil furnace looks to be my only option >and honestly it will break me this year. I >have a 1 year old as well so I can’t set >the thermostat too low.

Dave,

If you don’t have a lot of available money to pay someone else you just need to be more creative and do the work yourself! I can think of a few ideas:
Apply Caulk/weather strip so that there are no holes around your doors/windows. This will save you in summer as well as winter. So do it now!

You could get a small electrical space heater to warm the baby’s room and keep the rest of the house far colder.

You could also try to improve the insulation of your windows by making removable window covering. I bet you could find a cheap or even free foam mattress on craigslist. You then cut it up to fit your windows. Put the coverings in place at night to help keep the heat in.

I bet you could come up with more ideas by looking around your house… Also, are there other monthly expenses you could cut down or sacrifice to help fund the heating bills? For example you could switch from cable TV to rabbit ears.

-Rick Francis

-We always shut lights off when not in the room.
-We use “normal” light bulbs.
-We don’t own an air conditioner, but we also don’t live in a very hot region. We use a fan.
- Already mentioned the steam heat we don’t pay for. But in our old house we had a heat pump in one room and all the other rooms were heated by a portable kerosene heater or an electric space heater. We had heated carpets and an electric blanket which we used for real cold nights. We were living abroad and this method was the norm.
- We go to a laundry mat to wash clothing and hang our wet clothes
- We have two TVs, one computer. We use at least the TV and the computer everyday for a few hours.
- Only one fridge
- We do mostly stove-top cooking on halogen burners… I don’t know if this is more or less efficient than regular burners but the heat is way easier to control.
- Don’t have a dishwasher or a pool. I do use a hairdryer for about 5-10 minutes everyday!

That’s interesting. I wonder if we can maintain the same habits if and when we do buy a home.

Most of the increased usage in a house comes from phantom loads. In a house you usually have more appliances, tvs, etc. Small increases can add up.

I am Juneau as well. We have a house and very young children, so turning off all of the heat wasn’t an option. Luckily, the immediate days after the avalanche, we did have some sun, so we closed up the house and let the sun heat the house. It was a bit warm some evenings, but we made it through. We already didn’t use a clothes dryer because we don’t like how it treats our clothes. We did change how we wash our dishes. We had a few electronic cat related items that were unplugged.

The biggest impact on our usage occurred when we shut things down at the breaker. That saved us some considerable kwh. We have an HVAC system in our home and it runs 24/7. We turned it off at the breaker when we left the house. We left most rooms switched off at the breaker all the time.

So, our normal usage rate during that time of year was around 600 kwh. That would have left us with a $300 bill. Our monthly usage during the crisis was around 325 kwh and our bill was $175. I think we did ok.

Right after our rates went down again we went on a road trip. During that time we shut down everything, including the water heater. We left the refrigerator and the DVR running. Priorities, no?

We have decided to save for an alternative energy source. We do not have a consistent supply of sun, so solar is really cost prohibitive. But we do have some wind and maybe enough water to supply us with some alternatives. (We do live in a temperate rainforest, but the rain can be sporadic. We’ll talk to a specialist when the time comes.) We are buying a weather station and are going to track the weather until we have saved enough money for something. By then we will have a better idea of what we can do at our house.

Thanks for everyone’s good thoughts and advice!

- Leave lights on when you leave the room vs. shut them off
- Use incandescent light bulbs vs. CFLs
- Air condition your house in summer until it’s so cold you can see your breath vs. avoid air conditioning whenever possible
- Heat your house until you can wear t-shirts in winter vs. heat your house to a reasonable level (19 deg C in winter for me in Ontario)
- Run multiple small loads of laundry per week vs. run a load only when you have to
- Use a dryer for an hour on high heat vs. dry your clothes on a line, on a rack, or just for less time in the dryer
- Use lots of appliances like TVs, computers, etc. vs. activities like reading (I don’t own or miss a TV)
- Have more than one fridge/freezer that is hardly used vs. make do with a single fridge/freezer
- Use the oven to cook meals vs microwave/bbq/toaster oven/stove
- Use a dishwasher with the electric dryer setting on vs. wash dishes by hand
- Use energy hogs like electric pool heaters vs. not

I doubt you have to worry about “It kind of scares me when I think about buying a house to think my electricity usage could jump so much”. If you conserve now, you’ll likely conserve later. There are normally two people in my home as well. Last time we went on vacation for a month, my brother in law house sat for us. He, a single person, used 3x as much power as us. It’s a combination of your habits and the house (insulation, etc.) but I’d put a lot more of the blame/credit on habits.

I don’t feel I go without, I don’t sit shivering in the dark, I take moderately long showers, I don’t unplug all the machines in the house. It kind of scares me when I think about buying a house to think my electricity usage could jump so much. Can anyone explain to me where all this usage comes from? There are only two people in my household right now, I guess this is also a factor?

Kudos for finding creative ways to respond to the disaster.

Of course, many of them use resistive heat strips instead of a heat pump (the latter is more than 100% efficient)

There are cold climate heat pumps available that work down to -15 F, but you’ll need ductwork.

Or, install through the wall gas-fired heaters in critical rooms that *must* have heat - models are available that don’t use any electricity.

Of course, the above assumes you can get natural gas or propane for a reasonable cost.

I live in Ontario, Canada where winters are pretty tough, though perhaps not as tough as in Alaska I live in a 2-person, 150 square meter home with gas heating. Our electricity usage is 1850kWh PER YEAR. In winter, usage is higher due to the furnace fan motor, so in summer we sometimes have months around the 100kWh mark. When I read that the average NA home uses 10000kWh per year, I just shake my head.