How green am I?

 How green am I? That's a very good question. What sort of impact do I , personally, have on the environment?

It seems that all our efforts to go green have some sort of counter effect - if we drive an electric car, we are responsible for raping the planet of essential resources like cobalt and lithium, and worse still responsible for child exploitation in mining those elements. But if we drive diesel, even though we were encouraged to do it by government, we are still evil polluters. So let's set aside all those arguments and look at what is achievable in an ideal world.

Generally I try to live ecologically. I wear old clothes, for example, until they literally fall apart, then I use them as rags in the garage. I recycle plastics, aluminium, steel, cardboard and paper. And I use eggshells, and banana skins to make fertiliser for the garden, and rhubarb leaves to makes a natural insecticide. I don't litter and I respect nature and feed wildlife. Sounds like I am a great guy right?

When it comes to driving, I have tried all sorts of alternative fuels. I have used bio-diesel, made from waste cooking oil collected from local cafes and takeaways. I have used LPG, less than half the price of petrol and almost as powerful. I have had petrol and diesel cars - the diesels ranging from non injected basic combustion engines to modern fuel injected TDI engines, with modifications to maximise economy. 

I managed to get a Vauxhall Vectra 1.9 CDTI family saloon to regularly achieve high 60 to low 70 mpg with a few modifications and a tuning chip - this being with a family of four and luggage on board, or towing a race car and trailer. My current fleet is a Skoda Roomster 1.4 diesel and a Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV hybrid. The Roomster is used for long distance runs, and with the back seats stripped out, as a load lugger, and returns up to 70 mpg. It's 16 years old, so it has repaid it's manufacturing environmental impact, and every mile I keep it running is now carbon negative. The Outlander is used for my daily commute and local runs. It does the 20 miles round trip commute purely in electric mode, powered by electricity from my home solar panels, so is carbon negative. It's now late September and I last put petrol in in early July - almost 1000 miles on about 25 litres of fuel. About 200 miles to the gallon. So my motoring is fairly low impact. Of course, in order to keep fit, and keep unnecessary journeys to a minimum I walk or cycle the short distances when I can, so walk to the shop in the village, or cycle to the gym (roughly 6 miles round trip)

So to the house. This has solar panels and a battery storage system, which provides sufficient electricity throughout the summer for our use, including that of charging the electric hybrid car. I have changed the gas cooker and hob for electric induction units, and the washing machine for a direct drive drum unit. The drier has been replaced with a modern one with an Air Source Heat Pump built in, which reduces the cost of a load from around 45p to 15 for a bigger load. Or cheaper than that on overnight eco7 or free on the solar battery energy. 

At present I use either nothing, or 1 kw/h of power per day from the grid, this being for a detached six bedroom house in Northern England. 

Today I have made the decision to do away with the gas central heating and hot water altogether, and switch to an air source heat pump. During the summer I have used virtually no gas at all, but have had to pay standing charges of around £18 a month anyway. This is madness. Time will tell if my investment is worth it, but on a rough calculation a £10000 investment in an ASHP will save £28000 over the next 20 years, as well as reducing the carbon emissions. A £5000 government grant, just increased to £7500 to help pay towards the costs, so it may only cost me £7500. Quite a saving in the long term, and an Iboost heater into the water tank also means that any excess energy from the solar panels will go into the heating and hot water supply, and not back to the grid. So for example, today, in late September, 5 kwh of electricity exported to the grid, will instead heat the house and hot water, meaning the ASHP won't have to run, saving money as well.

Can I do any more to reduce my impact on the environment and use less energy? I doubt it. I have low energy lightbulbs, I only heat the house to around 16 degrees, maybe 18 or 19 if the daughter is visiting (she has cold bones) and I even use water sparingly, using waste water to water the garden in the summer months. Watch this space to see how things map out with the ASHP versus gas.