Motor Fuel

Rural Ways is always looking for ways to save money on energy. Not because we are righteous, but because we are cheap. One way to do it is to spend less on motor fuel for the cars. We have tried to do that by combining trips, driving gently, and keeping our tires in shape . . . all the obvious stuff. Nevertheless our costs have been rising inexorably. One reason for this has been a decline in mileage from both of our vehicles. Granted the cars are old, but there doesn't seem to be any good reason why our efficiency would drop by 5 or 10 percent in miles per gallon in both vehicles. Recently, however, someone mentioned that the more ethanol there is in your petrol, the worse your mileage will be. So, I looked it up.

It takes one gallon of fossil fuel to produce 1.34 gallons of corn ethanol in the United States. (There are some who dispute these numbers, but the numbers come from the Argonne National Laboratory, so I'll live with them.) Great. We're getting a third more energy out for every gallon we put in. Umm, not so fast. The bad news, and the thing I guess I didn't realize is that there are only about 85,000 BTUs of energy in a gallon of ethanol, as compared with 124,000 BTUs in a gallon of gasoline. That is about a third less energy. Now, Rural Ways is not mathematically inclined, so readers can feel free to check my arithmetic, but it seems like the benefits of ethanol may be hovering somewhere in the range of slim to none.

What really gets my goat, however, is the effect of all this ethanol on my fuel consumption. Consumer Reports says that at least 70% of the fuel you buy at the pump is a 90/10 mix of gasoline and ethanol. In 2009, the US EPA allowed this ratio to go to 85/15. (You may have started to see the stickers on the gas pumps stating that your fuel may contain up to 15% ethanol.) This means that, at 90/10, every gallon of gas we pump contains 120,000 BTUs of energy, or 3% less than we'd get from straight petrol. At 85/15, every gallon contains about 118,000 BTUs, or 5% less energy than gasoline.

So, let's take the worst case scenario: Rural Ways drives an old pick-up that could (formerly) be counted on for about 15 MPG. If we are fueling it with a 15% ethanol blend, that goes down to about 14 and a quarter. At $3 per gallon spread over a year of driving (12,000 miles), our costs go up by $124.17. The car only costs an extra 74.50 due to its smaller motor, but, together, we are going to pay an extra $200 for motor fuel in 2011. Now, to many, that may seem a small price to pay for a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, but, according to the ANL, a 90/10 gasoline/ethanol blend only reduces our GHG emissions by 2%. So, wait? We burn 3% more to reduce our emissions by 2%? I'm still having trouble with the arithmetic. Besides, at Rural Ways, $200 is a lot of money.

From the Easel

Rural Ways periodically makes available, as a service to its readers, an exclusive sneak peak at an unfinished work of fine art. Rural Ways has secured unprecented access to the easel of the principal artist at Valerie Orlemann Fine Art. Today we have a small oil original on gallery wrapped canvas depicting the wall above Bowery Creek draped in snow. See it here first!

Spending Moratorium

Do you ever have a family spending moratorium? At Rural Ways we spent more money during December 2010 than we earned during the month. Now, I ain’t too book smart, but I know the formula for debt when I see it, and there it is. So, for the month of January 2011, we tried to reverse the trend by imposing a spending moratorium—necessities only, no luxuries. The interesting question, of course, is, which is which. Now, I would say that some of what I’ve seen in the media during the Great Recession has convinced me that most rich westerners are confused by the difference between those two terms. Is Rural Ways? Well, let’s see, what have we purchased during January? Half and half for the coffee, fuel for two cars, cheap red wine for the dinner table, dance lessons for the kid. Hmm. I think we may be a little confused ourselves. On the other hand, we did succeed in reducing our January spending to 1/3 of what it was in December. Does that entitle us to a February splurge on, say, wine that comes in a bottle instead of a plastic bag?

Across the Great Divide

We left Road Canyon a little too late and dusk was almost over by the time we got back to the truck. That kind of thing makes me nervous because, if you have a problem, you are going to have it in the full dark. In any case, we didn't have a problem, and we simply needed to drive 15 or 20 miles back to the pavement. As we went, in silence, with a little rain on the windshield, Ellen suddenly asked, "Can we have some music?" She wanted to listen to Nancy Griffith's Other Voices, Other Rooms, so we plugged in a cassette tape, and tunneled on into the deepening dark. At about that same time we came to a part of the road that was almost completely blocked by tumbleweeds. Having driven it before, I knew the road well enough not to stop, so we continued at a moderate pace around and through the tumbleweeds. Nancy Griffith was singing the Kate Wolf song, Across the Great Divide, and we all began to sing along as we surfed the tumbleweeds. It was a moment I'll remember for the rest of my life. To hear the voices of my wife and daughter—Ellen a little out of tune—singing with gusto, "Now I find myself on the mountainside/Where the rivers change direction/Across the great divide," as we bumped along in our old truck after a long day together was priceless. No joke. I would not have traded it for a million dollars. This is the stuff of which heaven is made: In a crappy old truck with a broken cassette player in the dark and the rain twenty miles from pavement, a family, fording the tumbleweeds and singing together.

Rural Ways' Energy Saving Tips

Since we frequently post information about the travails of wintery weather, it seems only fair to point out that southern Utah is actually known for its bright sunshine and mild winters . . . which is what we are enjoying now. After two weeks of cold and snow, a mid-winter thaw arrived at The Homestead on about Thursday or Friday, and we have since been enjoying sunny afternoons in the 40s, with overnight lows above 25F. Despite this respite, however, I have learned from my brother-in-law on the east coast that winter is not over, and that the fight against cold weather and high energy bills goes on. Thus, in the spirit of liberte, egalite and faternite, Rural Ways presents its top three energy saving tips for winter living:

Get Dressed. I know that my readers are tired of hearing this . . . so this will be the last time . . . but there where does it say that all Americans should wear shorts and flip-flops all the time? When did shorts and flip-flops become the uniform for EVERY-person, EVERY-where regardless of the weather or the activity? If you want to cut heating costs, get dressed. At Rural Ways, it is often in the 30s when we roll out of bed: wool socks, long underwear bottoms, jeans, t-shirt, long underwear tops, sweatshirt, ski cap. Bingo. Ready for anything.

Look for Free Energy. It can be difficult to use energy efficiently, but sometimes there is help available for free. In the winter, let the sun in, it is a powerful source of heat; in the summer, block it to keep the house cool. Always put the biggest water pot you can carry on top of the woodstove; it will be ready for a bath in the evening, and will save your hot water heater from doing all the work. And, of course, always look to position your heat source at the lowest possible point; the heat will rise and warm everything above it.

Plug the Holes. The best thing we have done at the The Homestead in the past two years is to seal the cracks. When you are standing in the middle of your living room and you can feel the winter wind ruffling your hair, it is going to be difficult to conserve energy. So, you start by plugging the holes. Without spending a ton of money, you can caulk, glaze, and weather strip; you can add storm doors and storm windows; you can stuff insulation in the cracks and spray foam in the crevices. These are low cost, low skill activities that can make a very big difference.

Campbell's

If one drove a nice car and lived in the suburbs, I don't know what it would take to fix a broken headlight. But, this is how it works around here: You pull the offending part off your old car and take it down to Fad's NAPA. As you walk through the door, Fad, from 100 feet away in the back of the store says, "I know I've got one for a GM, but probably not for a Ford." So, you ask Fad's nephew, behind the counter, what he would recommend. "Wal, you could go over to Tank's in Cedar City. Or, we could order one. If they've got anything in Salt Lake, you could have it by Tuesday." Then, from further down the counter, Steve, a guy from the neighborhood, says, "I'd go out to Campbell's and see what I could find." "Yeah, Campbell's, I forgot about them," says the nephew. "Go out here a couple of miles and take a left, and then take your second left."

So, you go out to Campbell's, tell your daughter not to get out of the truck, step around the chained pit bulls, and go find Campbell, who is driving an old logging skidder turned into a home-made car crusher. You wave your part at Campbell who leaves the machine and sets off through the mud, broken glass, and torn upholstery of his junk yard towards an old Mercury Sable. Campbell rips the part off the wrecked car with his bare hands, holds it up to what you've got, and says, "Ya want it?" "How much?" "Ten bucks." You turn your wallet inside out and come up with four ones and a five. "Will you take nine?" "Jeez," he grumbles, "you're as bad as those [racial/religous slur unprintable in Rural Ways]." He snatches the money and stomps back to his skidder. You return to your truck, where your daughter is watching through the window as the pit bulls tear the limbs off a baby seal, and back slowly out of Campbell's. You go home, stick the part on the car, and then head in for some seafood chowder. Problem solved. And all it took was nine bucks and a short trawl through the underworld of the local junk car business. (BTW, the part about the baby seal didn't really happen . . . at least, not yet.)

Monthly Energy Costs

The data are in for December 2010, and Rural Ways has managed to wrack up its third highest energy bill (the cost of electricity and natural gas) since January of 2009. The winner, should someone be perverse enough to call it that, was last December (2009), with a whopping total of $202.54. (Second place goes to February of 2010.) After two years, it is clear that December has earned the dubious honor of "energy hog." The best explanation for the December spike is the Christmas travel week. In both 2009 and 2010, Rural Ways spent one December week out of town. Concerned about the potential for frozen pipes, we left the gas furnace turned up both times. As a result, our two highest gas bills have been in December. When added to the cost of electricity during the rest of the month . . . well . . . there you have it.

In the 24 month period from the start of last year, we have had energy bills that have averaged about $110 per month. This seems to be a painfully high average. I would sleep better at night if we were paying about half that. One thing that would help would be to smooth out that August bump. Why, from April to November, are our costs relatively low . . . except for August? What is pushing our August cost towards winter levels? Is it the air conditioning? Rural Ways can't stand to be hot.

Very Neighborly

On one side of The Homestead is a home owned by a couple from Vegas. The owners come to Parowan to get out of Vegas on most weekends (who wouldn't?) and we chat with them from time to time. A couple of days ago, I saw Larry out shoveling his driveway, and I stopped to say "hello." We started talking about heating . . . as in heating our cold houses. Larry told me that they had been relying on ventless natural gas heaters. He took me inside to show me a couple of units. He felt that they were cheap to operate and easy to install. At The Homestead we have a loud gas furnace that inefficiently blows air into every corner of the house, but it drives me crazy cutting on and off every three minutes while trying to heat rooms we aren't using. So, Larry's little one room wall unit looked like it might be something that we could use.

Larry offered to come to The Homestead to look at our set-up and give some advice. We agreed to meet the next day (yesterday). In the meantime, I got on the web and shopped around for the appliance. There are plenty of them available, but none of them were in stock locally. I was thinking that I would need to order a unit and have it shipped. Plus, they are not sold with the gas hoses and fittings, so I would probably need to make a couple of trips to the hardware store to get it hooked up. I was thinking that it would probably take at least a week and a couple of hundred bucks to test one of these things.

So, Larry came over, took a look at our gas lines, gave a few pointers, and then offered to let us try an older unit that he had sitting in his garage. It sounded good to me, and I figured I could go down to the hardware store a few times and try to find the right fittings for it. No. Larry said he had a drawer of old fittings. So, he found something that looked like it might work and brought it over. Great. I figured I could fiddle around with the unit and get it hooked up in a day or two. Nope. Larry came in and methodically fitted up the whole system. It looked good. Well, in a couple of hours, I thought could probably fiddle around with our gas service and get the thing ignited. Umm, No. Larry got the thing turned on and running hot.

What can I say? I had expected to spend money and time messing around with this over the next couple of weeks. Instead, the heater was working great within two hours. This was an act of pure generosity from Larry. He owed us nothing, yet he spent his time and money helping us out . . . and asked nothing in return. It was a humbling reminder to Rural Ways, that a generous spirit is something to be cultivated in our own hearts.

Minus Seven

The new year arrived with sub-zero temperatures. This makes for hard times at The Homestead. The place is hard to heat . . . to say the least . . . and, at seven below, it takes a lot of effort to maintain fifty degree temps inside the house. Without the effort, it is mostly in the thirties indoors. Now, Rural Ways has a "Hard A," but even we don't like using the bathroom when the potty is frozen. The trick that seems to work the best is to aim an electric hair dryer at the base of the toilet until the plumbing is warm enough to make the water flow again.