Since the purchase of my Prius, I have changed

Since the purchase of my Prius and after reading some of the mpg saving tips from the forums here, I have changed. My life is different and will never be the same again. Here's what I have found that I have changed in my life because of my Prius:

1) I drive more sensibly. I don't come to screeching haults at red lights or stop signs and I generally don't accelerate down hill runs. I found myself doing this in my other vehcile that I own too, even though it is a Honda Civic and not a hybrid vehicle, funny thing is, I find that I try to drive it like my Prius. The Prius actually has taught/ is teaching me how to drive sensibly.

2) I have inflated my tires on the prius to 42/40. I also inflated the tires on my Honda Civic as well. I never used to care about tire pressure and rarely if ever did I ever check it. I usually had the garage check it when I had an oil change. I have bought a very good tire gauge and do it regularly, usually every week!

3) I was very ship/shod about recycling, meaning that if a soda can ended up in the regular waste, i didn't really care. Now I am more in tune with recycling and make sure to recycle as much as I can.

4) I replaced the regular lightbulbs in my house with energy saving lighbulbs, not just for savings on my eletric bill, but to cut down CO2 levels as well. I dont' turn on appliances such as lamps etc, unless I am using them. I am sure to turn off lights when exiting a room, I generally do this at home, but I now do it at work too.

Overall I just feel that my mind and thinking has changed and my thoughts about how to do things involve efficency and energy savings. I have heard people from other countries tell me how wasteful America is. It never really dawned on me until now, and I am trying to reverse some of that.

What things have changed about you since the purchase of your Prius? I'd be glad to read what others have experienced.

 

I was always a good recycler, commuted on the Metro, drove efficient cars, insulated the house, bought energy-efficient appliances, used fluorescents, and so on. So I figured I was doing as much as I reasonably could do.

Wrong. Buying the Prius sparked more changes. After realizing that I can get from A to B on x% of the gas that it used to take, with no significant sacrifices, I looked harder at other aspects of what I've been doing. Not with the idea of sacrifice, but with the idea that there's a lot of inadvertent waste that can be eliminated with little sacrifice.

At first, I came up with nothing but nickel-and-dime items. Great, but no change in the big picture. Then I did a serious audit of my family's carbon footprint to get the bigger picture in focus. I learned a few things and made some adjustments.

First, by my calculation, the single largest item among our consumables, in terms of the fossil fuel required to produce it, was food. This is ofen overlooked, but the rule of thumb is that it takes about 10 fossil fuel (k)calories to produce the average edible (k)calorie in the US diet. Of that, most is for animal products, with beef being substantially the worst offender. So, we stopped buying grocery-store beef and bought a side of locally-grown grass-fed beef. No sacrifice, cost savings, reduced energy use. Better for me, better for the animals. In theor, based on the best data I could get, the fossil-fuel savings from that change were in the only modestly smaller than the savings from buying the Prius -- there's that much energy required for grain-fed beef production. My lesson is that, for me (with no car commuting), what I eat is as important as what I drive, in terms of overall environmental impact.

And I will eventually get back to looking again at our diet and the impact that is has, because that's still a major item in our carbon footprint. And, another Priuschat discussion of methane emssions called into question whether or not I came ahead by buying grass-fed beef, in the sense of reducing total greenhouse gas emissions. But at least I'm aware of what the stakes are there, even if I haven't quite figure out what to do about it yet.

Second, we opted for wind-powered electricity (in Virginia). I dId not even realize I had that option until somebody on this board pointed it out. That costs me more -- about $1.25 per day -- but with a single move I (in principle) eliminated all carbon emissions from my electrical use. And I'm still looking at the price of solar cells, and may yet put some in if there is a significant drop in price.

Third, for a few months, we went with just one car, but ... I was too lazy to maintain that. It makes you drive less, it makes you plan your driving more, it means the car is driven "warm" more often, but I just couldn't fit the family plus Grandma into the Prius.

Fourth, I bought a spin-dryer for the laundry (we will not hang the laundry to dry due to allergies). But that's obsolete, as the appliances died a couple of weeks back and we bought a reasonably efficient front-loading washer. So, we upgraded the efficiency of our laundry. For most people, laundry ranks right after air conditioning as use of energy within the home.

Now I'm looking at the natural gas heat and hot water (by my estimate, one quarter of our remaining carbon footprint) and am considering putting in one of the new clean woodburning stoves. (So that the fuel is not a fossil fuel, and so the heating would be essentially carbon-neutral). In the DC area, we don't have the intensive pollution problems from wood burning that they have elsewhere, and the best modern stoves appear to be very clean. Best of all, around here, trees are always being taken down, and in any given week there is usually wood piled at somebody's curb to be hauled away. Have not taken that step yet, but am weighing it. Heating with wood is a lot of work and, with capital consumption and required maintenance, probably does not save any money. A lot of people have suggested solar hot water as being very cost effective in most southern locations, but I dont' have the right roof setup for that (shaded most of the time).

The upshot is that if I compare our household carbon emissions pre-Prius to current, we cut our carbon more than in half. Of that entire reduction, the switch to the Prius (from my wife's prior car, a Volvo wagon) was about one-quarter of the savings.

My point is mainly that I've cut my household carbon output by maybe 55%, with zero sacrifice and for all intents and purposes zero cost. I have given up nothing. I've just stopped thoughtlessly using carbon-intensive methods to live. And I *thought* I started from a fairly lean base.

If I had to offer advice, I'd say start from the top down. If you're like most people, the carbon footprint of your household consumption has four big pieces: electrical, gasoline, home heating/hot water, and food. I shot for major changes in all four: Prius for gas, simply pay a premium for wind-powered electric to make the electrical carbon-free, addressed the single biggest offender in food (grain-fed beef), and am pondering a solution for home heating (while in the meantime switched to far more efficient appliances for laundry). And I'm keeping my eyes open for further improvements. For example, I definitely want an electric or plug-in hybid electric car. Maybe some day I'll have to do something that requires some significant sacrifice or cost to make further reductions -- but it hasn't happened yet.

 

Excellent post, FTW (and follow-up, chogan).

I'm a slow learner. I can't claim to have made all the changes you guys have made. The biggest change of course is in the driving of the car. My habits there have changed radically. I'm a more patient and more relaxed driver. I was never predisposed to outright road rage, but I've been guilty of some aggressive tactics that probably could have incited road rage in others. Makes me wish I had learned about hypermiling in some of my previous cars. I bet now I could squeeze 35 MPG or more out of my old Honda CRV.

As for the larger environmental concerns, no major change in philosophy: This world is God's creation and His gift to us, and He expects us to be good stewards (not worshipers) of it. I have rethought certain aspects of environmental strategy and tactics (like chogan has, though not to that degree). Many of you folks here are responsible for that. I don't actively participate in most environmental discussions, but I enjoy learning from all sides in a logical, intelligent, balanced, and respectful dialog. I'm sure some here might disagree, but the terms "conservative" (which I apply to myself) and "environmentally responsible" are not mutually exclusive.