All Questions

CAISO, the California electric grid operator, provides daily and historical reports on wind and solar curtailment: I started looking for similar data from MISO, the grid operator where I live, ...

I'm thinking about getting Jersey Giants to keep chickens in a garden with tall grass (chest high) around the edges, and I was wondering if I can keep them safely in the yard without much cover if ...

tl;dr: There's lots of solar power in California, resulting in negative pricing and power curtailment. Does this work against investment in more renewables? Risks to the grid from high renewable ...

Coffee is a wide produced and consumed drinking all around the world. After the use, exhausted coffee filters (wet coffee powder) are a very nutrient fertilizer. This brought some people to collect ...

Apologies in advanced for disgusting question. I share a bathroom with someone. He has started to get really mad that after I flush the toilet...not all the waste gets removed (95% of it does but some ...

Due to the recent COVID-19 outbreak and subsequent lockdowns in multiple countries, there have been reports of marked decreases in day-to-day pollution hanging over cities, such as this report on ...

From the Guardian, March 31, 2020: Trump to roll back Obama-era clean car rules in huge blow to climate fight (emphasis added): The Trump administration is rolling back the US government’s ...

I have an oil-filled radiator with three heat intensities: Low (900W) Medium (1100W) High (2000W) Given the radiator has a thermostat, what is the most efficient heat setting to use? My goal is to ...

A hypothetical question. Let's say I'm a male, 30-40 years, married, no children. Not stupid, all-round educated (sane humanities in university and self-educated in math/engineering from books), well ...

I am a graduate student in physics and I was considering getting a paper tablet like the reMarkable or the Sony DPT to replace the notebooks where I do calculations and take notes. But I was wondering ...

My balcony has a very ugly concrete floor that I don't like. I really like grass carpets (see a few examples on Amazon) though. I like their texture and I think they make a balcony more homely. To ...

The municipal water where I live is considered very hard, measuring about 325 parts per million dissolved mineral content. I currently have a water softener in my home, but it has been giving me some ...

Yesterday, I received my census questionnaire. So have many millions of other Americans, recently. These bags are not labeled for recycling, but are they recyclable? Can I put them in the deposits at ...

Can I use 2.5kW solar panels (10x 250 watts) to power 2kW rated grid tie solar inverter? Will anything blow up? Panels: 10x 250W, 36V panels Inverter: 2kW with max input voltage: 500V any help is ...

I saw a news article saying that Wind Turbine Blades Can’t Be Recycled, So They’re Piling Up in Landfills. This is definitely unfavourable, but I really want to get a better sense of the scale of the ...

I recently moved into a new home with 2 other housemates (joining 1 who already lived there) and our combined bill for electricity is far higher than I expected. Now we're using just over 40 kWh per ...

The Toyota Prius is available as a plug-in model, but I have a Prius that is only gas-powered, that is gas is the only fuel. I am wondering if the mpgE of the Tesla, 141, is so much better than the ...

I sometimes end up boiling water in a pot without putting a lid on top because I can't find the lid. How much energy is wasted when bringing water to a boil without in a pot without a lid? Or ...

Laundry detergent pods became popular around 2012. Rather than measuring out detergent, you throw a pod in your washer and it does the rest. The "capsule" is made from a type of plastic that is water ...

I've heard that the production and import of chocolate has some consequences including deforestation, excessive use of pesticides and CO2 emissions. There are also concerns about exploitation of ...

This chart from the U.S. Energy Information Agency was published last week in the article "EIA expands data on capacity and usage of power plants, electricity storage systems": The text of the ...

Which uses less electrical energy per passenger-km (pkm) travelled? Electric bicycle (with a single rider) Electric unicycle (aka. self-balancing personal transporter) I have heard that a standard ...

I've seen many organizations trying to sell carbon offsets based on planting trees, and recently some parties (1, 2) that were vying for control of the Canadian government promised that they would ...

Also if there is how is it recoloured and does it have any properties that are not as desirable as virgin ABS ? This would be better for the environment and more sustainable because it reuses plastic ...

I am interested in energy conservation and would like some simple tips on ways I can reduce my water and energy use in the bathroom in particular, as I feel that this is the place that I use the most ...

The most common sustainable solution for soup takeaway (to-go) containers are those compostable cup and lid sets - made from plant-based plastic (PLA) lid and a paper/PLA cup. These are basically non-...

I've been looking at some air quality monitoring results for ozone and trying to understand why there is such difference between locations. Near busy roads, the sea, near factories? I am quite ...

Smoke Control Areas are in place in 195 out of 434 local authorities. 53 of those cover the entire local authority. Smoke Control Areas make it illegal to burn coal and other smokey fuels and ...

I refilled an empty cartridge of a ballpoint pen with regular ink, but now the pen doesn't work. Why is that? How to refill the cartridge of ballpoint pen properly? What substance could I mix the ink ...

I am curious to know what the prevalence of crops produced via mutagenic breeding is? Mutagenic breeding involves bombarding seeds with ionizing radiation (like X-Rays and gamma rays) to causing its ...

If I have a compute intensive piece of software that I optimize and I cut the compute time in half, how would I go about calculating the carbon emissions I have saved? I guess I can take the compute ...

Looking at the electricity map I can see that many countries operating nuclear power plants are not running them at their full installed power, e.g.: Sweden: 5.54 GW of 9.10 GW capacity France: 38.00 ...

A few days ago I got a hand mill since at times I have enough free time to grow grain. Problem is that to test sourdough I got whole wheat grain for animal consumption, it was the only wheat grain ...

Many argue that we should not drink almond milk as it uses scarce water. (e.g. https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/food-drink/shopping-guide/soya-non-dairy-milk). However given that consuming almond milk ...

I am looking for a source that shows the development of the shares of renewable energies in the electricity production in Europe. I only found statistics about the share for the end energy consumption ...

A friend of mine is adamant that the extraction of lithium for batteries (and the creation of battery cells themselves) is a very environmentally-damaging procedure, potentially even more-so than oil (...

I am actively looking to donate to organisations that plant trees and, as far as I know, there are several websites that allow you to do that. Some offer the possibility to follow the tree's life ...

This week, the UK announced that sale of gasoline and diesel cars will be banned by 2035. This new policy moves the date up by five years, and also includes hybrid vehicles. From 2035 on, only ...

I have seen some reports saying that electric cars, because they are heavier and put more strain on the tyres, will create more particulate pollution than a petrol car. Is this true? and if so what ...

There seem to be two broad approaches to the climate crisis. One centres around technological progress, where efficiencies, a gradual switch to renewables, and CCS enable a broadly similar model of ...

If heavy metals are present in water would they precipitate to the bottom of a container if the water is left decanting long enough? This would be in order to reduce water contamination when no ...

I have an off grid powered house powered by 6 x 12v batteries all hooked up in parallel. I also have 4 x 150w 12v solar panels all hooked up in parallel too. Things were good however I decided to move ...

As I’ve wandered in many places, I have often encountered abandoned railways, or railways still in use surrounded by hundreds of discarded spikes. It makes sense in most places for scrapyards to be ...

According to Wikipedia, natural gas is a naturally occurring hydrocarbon gas mixture consisting primarily of methane, but commonly including varying amounts of other higher alkanes, and sometimes a ...

My entire family and I are all planning to move to Alaska in early April, and I'm looking for areas where it is closer to be able to do subsistence hunting and fishing, with land we can buy to build ...

There are many figures regarding how much CO2 is emitted per passenger and per km. However, I have not been able to find anywhere how much CO2 would an airplane emit if it has to carry an additional ...

The conference rooms in my office have projectors mounted on the ceilings, typical of many offices. During the day, several meetings will be scheduled in the rooms, with perhaps five to ten minutes ...

I recently bought a band brake for a home built wind turbine and was thinking of mounting it on the shaft and getting a cable from the brake to the ground so I can stop the blades in case of ...

I am curious, what people could do with a small piece of land like their home backyard (say originally it is a regular lawn smaller than 20m^2, in temperate continental climate (so pretty harsh)) to ...

In the United States, I know that paper and plastic are often not recyclable if they are greasy. Can I recycle metal that has vegetable grease on it surface? I'm thinking of canisters that once ...