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as two 20-somethings watching our food bills rise, we thought little of the food waste produced. it was just one of the growing sources of money sapping lifestyle inflation we had. we were adding convenience foods, eating out, and generally doing what two middle-class americans do once they’re out of school and starting careers: spend! as our budget ballooned, so too did our carbon footprint and waste.

but what if we could rethink our relationship with food in a way that would cut waste and save money?

food and individual empowerment

many ideas we think about on planet forward are nuanced, distant concepts. we don’t personally have much direct control over them. but, there is something we all individually do that has a real effect on the environment, society, and even our own wealth. we eat, and sometimes not with great efficiency.

it’s been close to a decade since we started looking — bleary-eyed with student loan debt — at our finances and the consumerism that blew holes in our budget. we’ve been fortunate to turn the tide, and then some, through lots of small purchasing decisions along the way. 

while writing about financial independence as one of a duo of 35-year-old early retirees, i’ve spent copious amounts of time researching how to reduce our grocery expenses. reducing food waste became a central theme of our expert guide to saving money at the grocery store.

ultimately, we cut our monthly grocery expenses from $575.80 to $339.85 in 2019 — a more than 40% savings.

in the process, we found the fortunate side effect of a reduced carbon footprint and a dramatic drop in food waste. put in place our strategies and do the same today. cutting food waste can lead to favorable outcomes for society and the environment.

it can even save you money — and you have full control over it.

reducing food waste can save you money

when food is wasted, so too are the resources used to produce that food.

an average u.s. household spends about $5,850 per year on food, according to the aaea.

reducing waste is an opportunity for households to directly improve the environment and strengthen their own financial position. while landfills are overflowing with wasted nutrition, food banks run out of resources to provide for those in need. in the time of a global pandemic, those most vulnerable tend to be those most in need of resources like food banks.

food waste in the united states

the average u.s. household wastes 31.9% of the food it purchases. consumer‐level food waste was valued at $240 billion in a single year, according to the aaea. the average u.s. household loses $1,866 on wasted food per year, according to a recent penn state study. this food waste is all-encompassing within a household: groceries, restaurants, and fast food. 

the money you might be wasting in the food you throw away

penn state’s study is based on u.s. households, which the census defines as 2.5 people. that means there’s $746.40 per person, per year or $62.20 per month in wasted food for just one person! cutting your personal food waste in half could put enough money into your budget for your netflix subscription and cell phone bill combined. not to mention all the knock-on effects to the environment.

so what can you do?

it’s easy to say we can reduce our food waste to help the environment and ourselves. but what actual steps can we take to make this change? here are five ways to reduce food waste and save money.

1. rethink what a meal is

if you’re like me, you grew up with a dinner plate that was nicely divided between three sections. it was a little pie chart of meat, a “starch,” and hopefully a vegetable. eggs were for breakfast. cereal was a complete meal. sandwiches with cold cuts were for lunch.

it doesn’t have to be that way. it can be any way you want, you’re an adult!

you don’t have to eat meals the way that we’ve decided they should be in the last 1% of the timeframe of human existence (and 1% is very generous). your goal is to satiate yourself and provide adequate nutrition, at a reasonable cost.

2. rethink your diet from zero

that doesn’t mean you need to switch to a diet of rice and beans. but, it does mean you should rethink your diet: start from the ground up rather than trying to remove things from your current diet. consciously add dishes that meet nutritional requirements along with foods you enjoy! devise how they can fit into your meal plan.

if you couldn’t care less how you eat it, identify the healthiest ingredients at the lowest cost, stick them in a blender, and go to town. kale and peanut butter in a smoothie? i mean, have you tried it? 

no one said you have to use a fork!

3. don’t let time be the master of your meals

you can eat dinner things for breakfast. leftover beans from last night’s dinner? mix them in with your eggs! just because you don’t normally eat green beans with your breakfast doesn’t mean you can’t. 

if you’ve run out of your typical breakfast foods, don’t force yourself to run out and restock the eggs just because they’re the normal accompaniment. challenge yourself to incorporate the beans with breakfast instead. you’ll help prevent your leftover food from going to waste and make your tongue a little more flexible.

having flexibility in your diet and your idea of what a meal is will permit you to be more efficient by maximizing your food use and reducing waste. flexibility saves you money, and not only with food.

4. don’t buy bulk when you don’t eat bulk

i don’t know about you, but our household is just two people. we’re decidedly averaged sized, too. i don’t know why we so often wind up with “family-sized” multi-packs of oatmeal that might be intended to feed horses. actually, i think i know why.

for years, we’ve read those repetitive “10 grocery tips to save money!” type of articles. they typically include:

• buy in bulk

• pay the lowest per unit/ounce price

here’s the thing. that’s great starting advice when you’re just trying to get an idea of how to save money on groceries. but, if you’re not in a household of four people, bulk buying could be more expensive. we’ve followed that simple starting advice and wound up with more than our fair share of big-bottle condiments sitting in the bottom fridge shelf slowly changing colors. 

i thought ketchup was supposed to be a brighter red?

here’s the advice when you’re concerned about your food budget and waste: buy what you need!

put that optimizing part of your brain to work on figuring out how much of the product you actually use over time. purchase the size that’ll be consumed before it begins to crawl out of the fridge on its own.

reduce waste, save money.

5. grocery price-shop online; avoid driving

most grocery stores have their in-store pricing available online either through their website or app. if the brand itself doesn’t, you might have luck getting an idea of the prices by using contracted shopper services like instacart (though their prices tend to be marked up a bit). this also lets you compare pricing with online grocers like amazon or boxed from the comfort of your home.

if you want to get the absolute lowest price for your grocery list and are willing to make multiple trips to do it, do your price comparisons online. 

generally, it’s probably not worth it to go to multiple locations (especially when a car is involved) to save a few extra dollars. if you can live in an urban environment that’ll let you walk to pickup your food, that makes it easier to locally price-shop.

save money and improve the environment by reducing food waste

altering your perceptions of what a meal can be, when to have it, and not giving into marketing hype will let you rethink what food means to you. using the tactics outlined in this article, along with a few extras focused on reducing costs, let us save over 40% on our monthly grocery budget while eating a healthful diet.

a pleasant side effect has been a much lighter trash bag with barely any food waste in sight. it’s taken us some time, but our grocery spending reduction has lead to more efficient use of resources and a small improvement to the environment we had full control over.

you have the ability to make the same changes as we did, today. you can add to your wealth while taking less from the world around you.

what do you intend to do to help solve food waste in america? reach out to tictoclife on twitter with your ideas!

the purpose of this initiative is to create a more eco-friendly hockey world. according to the official nhl green website, the league plans to inspire change in a multitude of ways. some of the biggest goals of the initiative is construct greener rinks, and make both the franchises of the nhl reach lower emissions and limit waste, as well as reaching out to communities to educate and inspire change.

since the introduction of nhl green, all 31 nhl franchises have done their part to help combat the climate crisis, including 2018 stanley cup champions the washington capitals. 

like all other professional sports teams, the capitals — and hockey in general — face the same questions when it comes to resources and how their events affect the climate.

when it comes to professional sporting events, food concessions have become a major source of revenue for a franchise’s home stadium. with so much food being prepared for fans hungry for more than just a win, the capitals plan with their food distributors to make sure there is limited waste as well as any unused food is put to good use according to megan eichenberg, senior manager of communications and publicity for the capitals.

“aramark food and beverage (our in house concessionaire) actively manages all of their warehouse cooking stock, with perishables being delivered daily, to limit as much waste as possible. from time to time, donations will be made to the capital area food bank with any excess product,” eichenberg said.

even though projects like that are helpful to the cause of preserving the planet, larger updates to the capitals’ home rink at capital one arena can be a challenge. but there are still options.

“we have recently replaced our membrane roof which allows us to be more energy efficient,” eichenberg said. “… we are limited in what weight can be added to the roof while still supporting the concert loads.”

capital one arena holds more than just hockey games for the capitals. the professional basketball franchise in d.c., the washington wizards, also have their home games in capital one arena, but the venue also holds concerts as well as other types of events.

but the arena continues to go through other positive changes to combat the climate crisis, according to eichenberg.

“we have replaced all of our metal halide sport lights in the bowl to energy-efficient leds and are transitioning all of our other arena lights to leds,” eichenberg said. “we partner with dcseu (dc sustainable energy utility) to identify potential greening opportunities to offset our energy consumption.

“we partner with wgl to provide energy to capital one arena through a 0.8-megawatt ground-mounted offsite solar supply solution in frederick county, maryland,” she said. “the solar energy farm accounts for roughly a quarter of our power annually.”

eichenberg also went on to explain how wgl — a family of energy utilities based in washington, d.c. — contributes to reducing emissions from the arena.

“wgl also donates carbon offsets to counterbalance emissions from washington wizards, washington capitals, concerts, and other events,” eichenberg said.

since the start of nhl green, the league has made some important strides and that has made companies want to work with them to make their sport more energy efficient. one of those companies is chemours, a spinoff of dupont, which focuses on finding climate solutions through chemistry. 

cynthia salitsky, the global communications leader at chemours, shared how nhl green made chemours want to partner with the league.

“the nhl promotes best practices and innovations that ultimately help to lower the ecological impact of the sport,” salitsky said. “the nhl aspires to ensure that hockey thrives by addressing the places and spaces where hockey is played – especially indoor ice arena infrastructure.” 

salitsky also shared how both the nhl and chemours hope these changes will have a positive impact for future generations.

“chemours has been a leader in refrigerant innovation to tackle upcoming regulatory and environmental challenges within this infrastructure, and the partnership with the nhl to provide refrigerant options for community rinks across north america will hopefully ensure that community rinks – which function as community hubs and sports venues – thrive for future generations,” salitsky said. 

“the opportunity to educate even more rink operators on our value proposition continues to be our focus, so that everyone in the industry has the knowledge to make informed decisions on what solution is right for them.”

like the 30 other nhl franchises, the washington capitals are partnered with the green sports alliance. according to garret wong, member services manager at the alliance, the nhl’s ability to reach out to its fanbase has been key.

“one component that the nhl green has done an exceptionally tremendous job at is its focus towards fan engagement and how the nhl teams across the league are communicating and reaching their fans,” wong said. “providing that message of community stewardship and individual leadership to their respective fans and patrons has elevated the platform for the organizations to impact the community outside of the walls of their facilities.”

sports has always been a social construct that brings people together, no matter their background. from highlighting issues that deal with civil rights to fair pay. with that in mind, perhaps it is time for sports to highlight the necessity of preserving the earth.

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read more about the green sports alliance.

sustainability is something that is becoming more of a necessity for colleges and universities to not only answer a call to action from students but to have a more positive effect on the planet. the suny system is doing their part with its clean energy roadmap that all suny schools must follow. 

the new plan, released by the suny chancellor in april, coincides with new york gov. andrew cuomo’s plan to reduce the state’s greenhouse gas emissions 40% by 2030. with more than 60 campuses and almost a half million students enrolled in the suny system, the universities are taking on a huge burden to make their schools more sustainable. 

the suny system has been known to take climate issues seriously and enact change. according to a suny report starting back in 1990, the system was able to cut its carbon emissions by 770,000 metric tons by 2017, which was a 25% decrease in that span. becoming more environmentally friendly also has been a better decision financially for suny since in the last decade they have saved more than $19 million in energy costs. 

kevin rice, the director of plant and energy management at suny brockport, said there are certain challenges when it comes to making a campus less harmful to the environment — even at smaller schools like brockport, with only around 10,000 enrolled underclassmen.

“i believe any transition to eco-friendly systems is about even for all sized institutes. it’s really dependent upon access to investment money,” rice said via email.

since the sustainability program was first announced, suny brockport already has accomplished some green initiatives on campus.

“the college has replaced around 80% of our boilers to high efficient models with variable frequency drives for circulation,” rice said. “we have had multiple small projects to upgrade almost 90% of our lighting to led. we have radically improved our energy control systems and now have close to 25,000 control points in our system that controls hvacr (heating ventilation air conditioning and refrigeration) in all buildings.”

but these are just highlights from one institution. all the colleges in the suny system are working together to make sure the goals proposed in the roadmap are being met. albany has become the headquarters for the clean energy roadmap. there other schools can communicate and plan the best course of action of managing their waste and energy, according to rice. 

communication is “mostly led by the suny energy management office in albany,” rice said. “they use workshops, conferences, webinars and newsletters to get info out. lots of ideas and best practices shared.”

outside of albany a school that has been able to lead by example is suny stony brook. according to dean tufts who is the vice president of facilities and services at stony brook, who cited the university’s past when it comes to energy conservation.

“we are proud to help lead not only suny, but all of new york state, when it comes to energy conservation,” tufts said. “suny is the largest consumer of energy of all the new york state agencies, and stony brook university is the largest consumer within suny.  with stony brook representing 18% of suny’s total energy use, and 8% of the total energy used in all new york state-owned buildings, we understand and embrace our responsibility to help lead this effort,” tufts added.

the plan suny proposed aims to create a more energy-efficient campuses by enforcing new building efficiency standards and new practices for energy management, as well as a new clean energy taskforce to oversee the whole system of schools. 

the suny system also wants to become a driving force in energy efficiency, with plans to use its research facilities to help drive innovations in the area.

stony brook already has eliminated more than 16,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions while saving $50 million with energy-saving upgrades, and received $500,000 in energy efficiency rebates, according to a report by long island business news. stony brook is also set to receive $79 million from gov. cuomo. the school plans to use this funding to further reduce greenhouse gas emissions by more than 28,000 tons, worth an additional $6 million in energy savings.

tufts stated how the school has saved millions.

“in spite of the campus adding nearly 1.5 million square feet of buildings since 2010, stony brook university’s energy conservation projects along with better operation of our central plants have reduced our energy usage by 16%. by the end of 2020, our energy reduction will equate to more than $12 million in avoided utility costs annually,” tufts said.

as suny becomes a leader in sustainability people can look at this as a sign that more and more institutions like colleges are taking the threat that is climate change very seriously, which would help keep the planet clean for generations to come.

we are part of a community and a much bigger nation that is responsible for this energy crisis, but we have done very little to change our individual behaviors or make others aware about the improvements we can make to save energy.

my plan to combat this habit is to host an energy savings & awareness week, starting in 2020. the goal will be to promote reusable energy resources, implement smart technology to measure and monitor energy usage and raise awareness about energy waste and potential savings. the event, nicknamed e-saw, will begin march 21, leading up to earth hour on saturday, march 28. the message of environmental protection and energy savings will be given through various activities, themes, and campaigns.

week activity plan

sunday: selfie sunday

take a selfie while doing something that will help save the environment. it can be of you cleaning up garbage on the sides of roads, changing your incandescent light bulbs or air drying your clothes. participants should upload the picture onto social media using the #esawselfie. my hope is that they do it for the picture initially, but continue doing the action to help the environment.

monday: monitor monday

take a picture of your energy meter readings located outside your house. at the end of the week go back and compare the numbers. that will be the amount of energy your household used in a week. also, take some time to glance at your energy, water and gas bills. many people will be shocked to see how much they pay for utilities. smartphone applications like meter readings and watt’s plus can be leveraged to make people aware of energy saving applications and usages. this empowers consumers to measure, monitor, and save energy anytime, anywhere.

tuesday: tech tuesday

invest in a piece of smart technology for your home. my top recommendations are:

• a smart thermostat
• energy-efficient appliances
• smart power strips
• wi-fi controlled light bulbs
• smart utilities

upgrading to newer technology can help consumers save a lot of energy. the initial investment will pay itself back in the form of reduced energy bills thanks to energy savings.

wednesday: work wednesday

look at all the ways you can save energy at your workplace or school. start with walking, running, bicycling or sharing a ride to get to your destination. if possible, take public transportation like the bus or train. participants should take part in easy actions like turning off their lights and powering down their computers while leaving work at the end of the day.

thursday: turn off thursday

in preparation for the big event on saturday go through your house and unplug everything that you will not need to use for the remainder of the week. it can be an iron, laptop charger, etc. make sure to fully unplug them from their outlets for maximum energy saving potential. many people do not know this but even if you are not using the item, if it is still plugged in it is still using energy.

friday: fix it friday

go through your house and fix anything that can be wasting energy. check the sinks and showers for any leaks. also check around the doors and windows for any spots that are leaking air. these small cracks can have a huge effect on your energy bills. consider participating in an energy audit for your home. they will replace your light bulbs and fix all small leaks for a small charge.

saturday: showdown at sundown saturday

this is the final event of this extravaganza. in correlation with earth hour’s initiative to turn off your lights for an hour, the community will switch off all major landmarks’ lights off. all residents are encouraged to participate as well. it will wake people up to the realities of energy consumption and show them how dependent they are on electricity. residents need to go through their house and turn off all lights and unplug all non essential items like tvs, microwaves, phone chargers, etc.

as government and private sectors continue to work on alternate energy resources, electric cars, newer technologies to extract fuels, smart appliances, and other technologies, it’s important that we, as citizens, continue to adapt to newer energy resources and do our part by saving energy as much as we can. our energy savings & awareness week will instill some necessary environmental habits, create awareness that will help make the planet a cleaner and greener home.

washington — solar power is now the third most popular renewable energy source, behind water and wind, according to a new report by the u.s. energy information administration.

the latest example of its continued growth came on may 9, when the california energy commission voted unanimously to require builders to install solar power systems on all new homes. as the american power grid grapples with aging infrastructure, cybersecurity threats and a reliance on fossil fuels, solar offers homeowners a cheaper and cleaner option, according to supporters of the law.

commissioner andrew mcallister said the “modestly sized” solar systems will be designed based on the needs at each home to reduce the possibility of creating wasted energy. homeowners will be less reliant on the traditional grid, he said, and could further reduce their need by investing in panels with storage capability.

“the emergence of super-smart photovoltaic systems is expected to enable owners to participate in” the renewable energy markets “that will strengthen the ability of the grid to help achieve climate change goals,” mcallister said in an email.

if the homes do produce extra solar energy, it could also be transferred directly to the grid, mcallister explained.

however, john twitty, executive director of the transmission access policy study group, told a house subcommittee on may 10 that merging existing and alternative energy sources is a worthy idea, but difficult to implement.

“making sure it works as it relates to the total grid is one of the challenges today of intermittent resources,” twitty said at the hearing. “wind and solar are wonderful and we’re all trying to figure out ways to harness them properly, but when the wind doesn’t blow or the sun doesn’t shine, it’s a real challenge.”

rep. kathy castor, d-fla., took it one step further, stressing the importance of non-transmission alternatives, such as solar-powered microgrids that run completely independently of a larger grid.

like california, florida is increasing its commitment to renewables, completing eight solar projects already this year, according to a separate eia report released this week.

“non-transmission alternatives not only have significant environmental benefits but they can help prevent long-term, area-wide blackouts after natural disasters like we saw in texas and florida and puerto rico this summer,” castor said.

the california law – the first in the u.s. to mandate solar power in building construction – will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by the same amount as eliminating 115,000 gas-powered cars, according to the california energy commission.

homeowners will also save money in the long run, mcallister said. the commission estimates that, based on a 30-year mortgage, residents will pay $40 more each month for the panels, but save $80 each month on heating, cooling, and lighting bills.

“these standards help to deliver the clean energy and air that californians want,” mcallister said. “nationwide, renewable energy is on the rise. we expect that trend to continue.”

in 2017, solar power generated 77 million megawatt hours, exceeding biomass power — which involves burning wood, solid waste, and landfill gas — for the first time. hydropower, the most popular renewable, generated 300 million megawatt hours — about four times as much as solar.

to address this power problem, my teammates and i decided to make electric usage mitigation the topic for our systems engineering senior design project. this project is limited to studying the electric consumption behavior for two academic buildings and two residential buildings on the george washington university foggy bottom campus.

to summarize our methodology, we compared one leed building as a baseline to another non-leed certified building. by doing this baseline comparison, this will give us an idea on how non-leed buildings could be optimized to minimize electric consumption. surprisingly, our results show that for south hall, which is a leed certified residential hall, draws higher electricity compared to thurston hall, located on the same campus. this is an indicator that the leed certification might be missing behavioral consumption patterns that might be a reason for high electric consumption.

however, during our research, we found that some of the data we needed weren’t accessible or available. in light of this discovery, we also highly encourage energy and electric utility companies to make their data accessible, and perhaps create incentives for collecting data so future research on electric mitigation can be improved.

we are currently working on implementing mitigation techniques to reduce the electric consumption discovered as a result of our study, and still working on analyzing data for two of the academic buildings. so far, our research shows that phantom power, which is electricity consumed by unused appliances, draws a large amount of electricity. one simple method to significantly reduce — or eliminate entirely — phantom power is to install smart power strips in each room of the residential hall.

another important finding of our study? using technologically advanced appliances does not mean we need to increase our consumption pattern. this causes a higher amount of electricity to be consumed — even if the appliance is much more energy efficient than the old appliance. 

this shower head uses advanced nozzles to atomize water under extreme pressure, which converts the liquid into very fine particles or droplets. by doing so, the shower head substitutes streams of water, such as an average shower head, for a misty cloud. this allows it to produce ten times the surface area of a normal shower, according to nebia’s website.

nebia says that on average, americans take about eight minutes to shower. typically, this uses about 20 gallons of water with a standard shower head. to combat this, nebia incorporated technology used in aeronautical applications when producing this “breakthrough shower nozzle.” this advanced engineering and technology resulted in the shower head only using six gallons of water per average shower. nebia has tested their revolutionary product on over 500 people, several large companies, including equinox gyms, apple and google, and even stanford university campuses. the company even received funding from timothy cook, the chief executive officer of apple inc. 

nebia’s shower, according to the website, “practically rains money.” to prove this fact, nebia performed calculations to display the water, energy, and money savings that americans would experience by using its shower head in major cities, such as new york, san francisco, chicago and miami.

for example, in new york, there is an average of two daily showers per household for an average of about nine minutes. water costs about $0.013 per gallon in new york. for a household that utilizes gas heating to warm their showers, it costs $1.007 per gallon. by using a nebia shower head, this could save $226.62 per year, and about 43 days of heat for the average home. for a household that utilizes electric heating to warm their showers, it costs $0.202 per gallon. by using a nebia shower head, this could save $602.94 per year, and about 74 days of power for the average home.  

of course, the calculations don’t end here. nebia also claims that, for an average new york household, their shower head also saves 183,960 glasses of drinking water per year.

as listed on their website, nebia created their shower head to “fundamentally change the way people think about their relationship to water in their home,” while not drastically changing users’ showering habits or rituals. by using the nebia shower head, users can shower as they always have, and save thousands of gallons of water per year while doing so.

with their innovation, as nebia’s website claims: “showering just become something you can wholeheartedly enjoy.”

district heating is an integrated heat distribution network that, through an organized underground piping system, eliminates the need for wasteful individual boilers and furnaces. by connecting buildings and services to a dh network, dh also can capture and make use of heat that would otherwise be released as waste from various structures, such as factories and public transportation services. its greatest promise lies in its piping infrastructure, which provides the groundwork for the wide-scale deployment of distributed renewable energy systems.

denmark’s original dh power plant went online in 1903. it now covers more than 60% of the country’s space and water heating capacity. 

after oil prices quadrupled in response to the 1970’s oil embargo, denmark decided to refit and expand its dh network, and actually enacted laws requiring residences and businesses to connect to it. these laws were passed for a few reasons. first, at the time of the crisis, denmark could not afford to waste any more precious oil on inefficient individual heating units. the country already had begun holding “car-free sundays” — and passed a sales tax of 180% on any new car to discourage the use of vehicles — so this was the next natural step. second, in order for the project to be cost-effective and worthwhile, the danish government had to be sure that residences and businesses would physically connect to the dh system. lastly, in response to the crisis, denmark began refitting old power plants to capture the useful heat that is released as a byproduct of electricity generation, heat would otherwise be released in cooling towers as waste. in order to direct the captured heat to several different points of end-use, these combined heat and power (chp) plants require the infrastructure that a district heating network provides.

having installed its first chp plant back in 1904, denmark is one of the countries leading the way in developing chp, and even cchp — combined cooling, heat and power — plants. these systems are twice as efficient as conventional power plants, and they significantly reduce carbon emissions, electricity bills and fuel poverty. 

this simplified diagram shows the fuel trajectory in both a chp plant (top) and conventional power plant (bottom).

however, most chp plants continue to run on coal and natural gas. until renewable “fuel” sources become commonplace for chp plants, their efficiency improvements will only buy us more time with a dirty, depleting resource. this is a classic case of eco-efficiency versus eco-effectiveness. capturing waste heat from coal- and natural gas-fired plants is a necessary improvement with serious benefits, but by no means are conventionally fueled power plants the end-all solution. it is necessary to recognize this. 

through organizations like biogas taskforce, many of denmark’s chp plants have begun integrating biomass and organic biogas into their fuel systems in order to begin completely phasing out fossil fuels from heat and power production. waste is another primary source of fuel for chp plants in denmark, and is now considered a “resource” that the country actually imports from england. this, again, is only an intermediate step toward weaning off fossil fuels, and one that must not be seen as a final solution as it does not address the colossal issue of waste reduction.

district heating systems do not require chp plants, though. heat from dh systems can be sourced from geothermal heat, solar thermal heat, and large and small-scale heat pumps. when wind turbines are generating more electricity than is demanded, as has been the case many times in denmark, a dh system might even be receiving some of its heat from wind-powered electric heaters. thus, not only do these systems distribute heat in an efficient and clean way, they also directly promote the growth of certain renewable energies that depend on that vast piping infrastructure.

connecting various renewable systems into one central, integrated network will increase the reliability of renewable energies, while also improving grid flexibility and resilience. of course, the infrastructure is expensive, but the payback is certain, and the benefits are enormous. 

(image at top: the tunnel between rigshospitalet (national hospital) in copenhagen and amagerværket (amager powerplant) in amager. the tunnel transfers heated water and steam for the city. / bill ebbesen)

many people have heard the reason for turning back the clocks was to aid farmers in agriculture and bringing in the crops, but in reality it has always been about saving energy. the theory is that with an extra hour of daylight in the evenings while people were home with their families would inhibit electricity use in the home. it counts on the idea that most people go to sleep around the time it begins to get dark.

historically, it seems that turning the clocks back for that extra hour before sunset did save energy: about 1% per day for the entire country according to studies performed in the 1970s. after the arab oil embargo of 1973, the energy crisis escalated to the point where the u.s. extended daylight savings time to last the whole year in 1974 and three quarters of the year in 1975 in the hopes of conserving as much energy as possible.

despite the early success of changing the clocks, some even argue that the practice uses more energy because of the increased demand for heating and cooling while people are awake. further, many oppose the institution due to health risks, negligible effects and confusion. with the rise of technology, more people are spending an increasing amount of time in front of screens as well. it is quite possible that the extra hour of daylight means less as we consume more energy while idle and go to bed later.

despite the waning popularity and effectiveness of daylight saving time, it is unlikely that the practice will disappear as it is the law. that said, states can opt out by passing a state law. arizona and hawaii, for instance, have opted out because the practice would not produce significant savings in their states. in arizona longer sunlight just means more air conditioning being used, and therefore more energy wasted, and with hawaii’s close proximity to the equator, the practice also wouldn’t be effective.

(image at top: a partial view of a world war i era poster that is headed “victory! congress passes daylight saving bill” and was sponsored by the united cigar stores company, though the poster’s author is unknown. source: library of congress)