Karen Lynn Allen's Blog, page 5
February 20, 2015
Universal Time Available for Pre-Order on Kindle

If you're a Kindle reader, Universal Time, is now available for pre-order. Release date is March 6th. Paperback edition should be out that date as well, and can be ordered then from any bookstore, all on-line booksellers, etc.
From the back cover:
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Cait could’ve forgiven Atraxis for plucking her off the streets of San Francisco, but moving in upstairs was just too much. As a divorced mother, she had enough troubles with her children and her job creating affordable housing. She didn’t need aliens hounding her for the Tamaranth, the ancient crown of Trajallax. (Why, why had Jupeernis stolen the Tamaranth and hidden it in her jaw so that Atraxis had to hunt her down to retrieve it?)
Yes, Atraxis might be an intergalactic conflict mediator. Yes, he might come from an incredibly advanced society whose language was music; yes, he might travel across the universe in minutes and turn his skin blue at will. But none of this meant she had time to go gallivanting to other galaxies with him. Nor did she want to marry him and have his (blue) child.
And now her former sister-in-law was dating Atraxis’s former brother-in-law (this could get ugly), her daughter was having ADD problems at school, and her ex-husband was dropping his baby off for her to watch so that he could go antiquing with his new wife. Yes, the universe might be knocking at her door, but she had no time to answer.
Universal Time—a sci-fi urban comedy that will transport you across the universe and back again.
Published on February 20, 2015 08:31
February 13, 2015
Sneak Peak of New Novel
Sneak Peak of the cover for my new novel, Universal Time.
A sci-fi urban comedy, out in early March!

Published on February 13, 2015 19:45
September 7, 2014
Train Trip! Part 4

The route of the California Zephyr from Salt Lake City to Denver is truly breathtakingly gorgeous. (And it wasn’t chopped liver in California or Nevada either.) I highly recommend it. I can’t imagine any cruise being any more beautiful. Just have no expectations of getting anywhere in any sort of time frame. I would guess in ten years there will be a high speed train from San Francisco to Chicago that will take 20 hours (12 from SF to Denver), but it won’t be nearly as pretty. I expect the California Zephyr, left to us by our nineteenth century forebears, will remain as a tourist sightseeing line, just as some scenic highways still existed after the interstate was put through.

If I were to do this trip again, I’d bring more food to eat. The food on the train is expensive, carbohydrate heavy, and not much better than adequate. (But unless I brought a cooler, 36 hours is hard to manage?) But the views, the views. I am told we are climbing up to a 9700 foot pass where, after a 6 mile pitch black tunnel, we can see a stunning drop down to a gorge below. I am hoping we get there when it is still light.

Of the 36 hours of this trip, an entire two have been motionless, devoted to smoke breaks that have not benefited me one whit. Worse, I can smell cigarette smoke right now on my car. (Someone is sneaking one somewhere.) What is it with smokers and trains?

Train travel has its own rhythm, its own life. Everyone on the train is part of a system, our fates intertwined for the duration of the journey. This era of American train travel known as Amtrak will eventually give way to something that works a whole lot better, but in the meantime, I recommend seeing America in this entirely unique, if at times frustrating, fashion. There is literally nothing like it. I’ve driven across the country multiple times. While driving has its moments of beauty and epiphany, this is like an extended meditation.

Published on September 07, 2014 18:57
Train Trip! Part 3

Why am I in a hurry? After all, this is Amtrak. Many people are on vacation, choosing to take an Amtrak tour of the US instead of, say, a cruise to Alaska. They have all the time in the world. (They are also in private sleeper cars and eat every meal in the dining room.) The poor slobs in coach, well, you should have known what you were in for.
The thing is, rail can be electrified. Airplanes cannot. Cars can be electrified for short distances, but for long distances, they will be expensive energy gobblers, and it will be a long time before both our electrical grid and average household finances can support large numbers of them. In the medium term, electrified rail is what we're going to have. I know most people can't imagine this. This is why we, as a nation, won't deal with the reality that is pretty much baked into the cake (via climate change and peak oil) until it slaps us in the face.


Sleeping in coach was by no means comfortable but slightly better than I'd anticipated. I brought a neck pillow. (Good.) I wish I'd brought a lightweight, easy-to-pack blanket. Pretty much everyone had two seats to sleep on, and it was interesting to observe different people's reclining strategies. For me it was one of those sleep for an hour, wake briefly to reposition, go back to sleep for an hour nights. Got six hours of sleep. Could've been worse. When I woke for good, it was still dark and there was a huge orangey full moon in the sky ready to set.

The young couple with the little kids got off in Salt Lake City. Though the kids slept well all night, I fear the earlier delay tried the patience of their parents beyond their reserves. Per hour spent, traveling with children on a train is easier than on an airplane (room to move, room for them to lie down and take a nap, stuff for them to see out the window, able to walk them around, go hang out in the lounge car) but having to get through so many more hours is challenging. Little kids are cute, little kids are wonderful, little kids are so much work! I have to say I'm glad I'm through with that part of my life.
Okay, I should give Amtrak its due. We've made up half an hour and now are only 2 hours and 50 behind schedule. And we may actually be going 45 mph at the moment. We're still on the flats of Utah. The long climb into the Rockies is ahead.
Published on September 07, 2014 10:54
September 6, 2014
Train Trip! Part 2

The train filled up quite a bit before Reno but is now emptier again. I have my two seats steadily to myself and have been able to get some writing done. At Reno the conductor announced a "fresh air" break. What this meant was it was time for everyone to rush outside and smoke a cigarette. So much for fresh air, but I imagine if you're hooked on cigarettes a long ride on a non-smoking train is rough.


Our train has stopped absolutely in the middle of the desert because we've somehow picked up debris between our wheels and they need to clean it out. Or examine it. Or something. At least they gave us an explanation. However, the train is dead still and all power is off, which means all air conditioning is off. Oy, oy. This is the kind of delay that makes trains late.
It is very quiet. There may be few things quieter than a dead train in the middle of the Nevada desert.
So it is not debris. Some kind of power cable blew out in the baggage car (perhaps due to debris?) and that's why the power is completely off in the rest of the train. They have to take the locomotives and baggage car off the train and do various adjustments (put the baggage car last?) and then we will have power. Dinner is delayed until the power is returned. We are in the middle of nowhere--not like there's a place to get spare parts. But they say they can fix it. It is 5:30 and still light which is fortunate. This place seriously looks like one of those old western movies where bandits make the train stop in the middle of nowhere so they can then sweep down on the train and rob it.

Published on September 06, 2014 17:37
Train Trip Live Blogging! Part I

My journey starts at 6:55 when I leave my house to walk to the bus stop. I take a Muni bus to the Castro and Market station, then take Muni light rail to the Embarcadero Station. Walked to the Amtrak waiting/bus boarding area just to the south of the Ferry Building. Got there early. (Little traffic early Saturday morning.) The Amtrak indoor waiting area is a bit grungy but there's no reason to go in if you already have a ticket. Am told I can take the 7:30 bus if I want instead of the 7:50. But for some reason things are chaotic. Everyone wants on board the 7:30 bus. Rumors of the 7:50 bus not working. And as I sit in my seat waiting for the bus to depart, the driver has a discussion with an attendant helping passengers board. He asks questions like, "Where's the brake?" and "How do you close the door?" This does not inspire confidence, but he manages to get us on the freeway, across the Bay Bridge and to Emeryville without mishap.



We are stopped at Martinez. Out the window I see lots of people getting on, although none seem to be boarding this car. I am paying $124 for this ride to Denver, which is roughly comparable to what airfare would cost, although you have to consider paying for 36 hours of meals as well. I have packed my first lunch, but there will still be a dinner, breakfast and another lunch to get. I am hoping the train won't be dreadfully late getting to Denver so I don't required another dinner as well.


At Sacramento. Quite a few people getting on car. Most everyone is over 65 or under 30. Quite the bimodal distribution. A couple who must be close to 80 sit down behind me. Another couple bearing many tatoos and two small children sit down in front of me. I feel old and young at the same time.
Woman across from me is traveling with a full size bed pillow. (I suspect she's done this before.) Baby in front irritable. Senior citizens behind jerking my seat to lower their footrest.
On our journey now for two hours, we pull away from Sacramento on time at 11:09. Many hopes this will keep up.
Published on September 06, 2014 11:11
May 14, 2014
The Great Transition (Welcome to the Decade of Substitutions)

We live in an age of great transition. We are in the midst of the monumental process of switching from one set of primary energy sources —fossil fuels— to another— renewables. During this transition we will see almost every facet of our lives altered as all sorts of substitutions are made in a far-reaching kaleidoscope of change. In fact, this metamorphosis is already happening in slow motion all around us. If you were to pull a Rip Van Winkle and sleep through the next ten years, you would wake up to a different world indeed.


Let’s take natural gas first.
Natural gas to heat indoor space will be replaced by heat pumps powered by electricity, passive solar gain where possible, and scattered high efficiency wood stoves.


Natural gas to heat water will be replaced by solar hot water, heat pump hot water heaters, or a combination of the two.
Natural gas used to generate electricity will be replaced by wind, solar and reduced consumption through energy efficiency.


Natural gas to make nitrogren-based fertilizer will be replaced by wind-powered electrolytic nitrogen-based fertilizer production, as well as by compost, worms, green manure, animal manure, crop rotation and other permaculture techniques.

Coal and natural gas used to generate electricity to power standard air conditioning will be replaced by heat pumps, whole house fans, and ceiling fans that require much lower energy inputs.

Coal and natural gas used to create electricity to power second refrigerators will be replaced by nothing.

Oil (gasoline) used to power private vehicles will be replaced by public and private transit, bicycles, walking, and people choosing to live closer to jobs, goods and services.


Oil (gasoline) used to power private vehicles will be replaced by electric cars for a small percentage of the population.




Paved roads are hugely expensive, and right now much of them are largely financed by the federal government, which pays for them with debt. (The gas tax hasn't risen since 1993, but road repair prices sure have!) Coming soon, most roads/highways/freeways between towns/cities will be user-fee funded through tolls or a vehicle mileage tax. Since local roads will be the responsibility of cities/towns, the only ones that will be maintained are those where population density is high enough to pay for them. On the up side, the roads will be more bouncy. (This actually great for joggers.)


Oil (diesel) used to transport freight via trucking will be replaced by rail.
Already happening because per ton of cargo moved, rail uses one-fifth the energy of trucking. Demand for rail freight is growing by leaps and bounds. However, currently 40% of rail freight capacity is consumed by coal shipments. Take coal out of the picture and there’s lots of capacity to be had.
Oil (diesel) used to power rail will be replaced by electrified rail.

Oil (heating oil) used to heat homes will be replaced by heat pumps.
This substitution has been underway for years and is almost complete.
Oil (liquid petroleum gases) used to create plastics will somewhat be replaced by organic packaging materials and/or glass, metal, etc.

Oil (gasoline) used to make drive-till-you-qualify McMansions sellable will be replaced by smaller homes in dense, walkable neighborhoods.


Oil (diesel) used to bus children long distances to school will be replaced by children attending schools they can walk or bike to.

Oil (diesel) used to power farm equipment will be replaced by electrified farm equipment.
There are already people out there converting old tractors to electricity. Others have produced new electric tractors. (See video above. Love the drawl.). There are already companies making electric utility tractors that can mow, scrape and blow snow, tow things around etc. (See video below. I want one of these beauties even though I have no lawn, I live where it doesn't snow, and my entire yard is nearly vertical.) Electric motors actually have the advantage of more torque than internal combustion motors, and battery weight can be very useful in adding traction.
Oil (diesel) used to power heavy trucks (like buses and garbage trucks) that travel under 100 miles a day will be replaced by electric heavy trucks.

Oil (diesel and gasoline) used to transport goods the last few miles to their destination will be replaced by small electric trucks, electric vans and electric bicycles.

Oil (diesel) used to transport low-value, heavy items, especially liquids like soda pop and bottled water, will be replaced by nothing.
People will make their own soda and/or get a water filter. The good news is locally brewed beer will become quite economic. Perhaps even local soda fountains will spring up again.
Oil, electricity and natural gas used to dig up, transport, and process fossil fuels will be replaced by nothing.

How low can our EROEI ratios go? Some people believe it takes at least 6:1 to provide enough energy surplus for civilization to work. Right now EROEI is 6 or 7:1 for solar pv,18-20:1 for wind, and 5:1 for nuclear energy. (EROEI is rising for solar as the technology matures.) Tar sands and fracked tight oil both take a lot of energy to produce. Both have an EROEI around 5:1.
Oil (bunker fuel) used to power ships will be replaced by a combination of rigid sails, solar power, and hydrogen fuel cells.

Oil and natural gas used to grow corn for ethanol won’t be replaced.
Oil and natural gas used to grow corn for animal feed and soda pop mostly won’t be replaced.


As outlined for natural gas, coal to generate electricity will be replaced in states with great sun and onshore wind first, states with offshore wind second, and states that love their coal industry last. Already the cost of shipping coal is higher than the cost of the coal itself for some states in the South. The cost of delivered coal nearly doubled between 2004 and 2011, and coal-burning power plants are under pressure because of the toxic substances and particulate matter they produce, as well as the greenhouse gases. The big coal burning states left are: PA, IL, IN, MI, OH, WI, IA, KS, MO, NE, ND, FL, GA, WV, AL, KY, TN, AR, OK, TX, AZ, CO, and WY. If you live in any of these 23 states, your electricity system has a lot of change ahead of it but the end result will be better for your lungs.
Coal, natural gas and oil used to power waste will not be replaced.
It would, of course, be quite expensive to replace all our current energy use with renewables over such a short time span. The good news is that we don’t have to—we only need to replace about half, since the rest of our energy consumption is largely waste in one form or another and much of it is easy to reduce. Admittedly waste is in the eye of the beholder, but other countries that arguably have higher standards of living than we do already manage to use half the energy per person as the US, showing that we have a great deal of energy fat we can burn off without much harm.


--home and community food gardens (see great Guerilla Gardening video below!)
--truck farms and greenhouses again outside every major city--food waste reduced from 40% to 5%--much less beef consumed and less meat in general--elimination of surface parking lots from most cities




So by 2020 most people reading this article today will have a different form of space and water heating, will not use a personal car for most trips, will live within five miles of some kind of light or heavy rail (either by moving or by rail extending to them), will live within three miles of a store(s) that provide most of their provisions, and will grow some of their own food. They will get on a plane no more than once a year, if that. Some of their transportation will be powered by a lithium iron battery. Half will have solar PV and/or solar hot water panels on their rooftops. Sounds like a lot of change indeed.


And then there's all the money we spend on health care--close to 20% of every dollar spent in America! It is a hellacious amount of money, and all we have to show for it is a population of whom 70% are in chronic poor health. If we simply designed thirty minutes of walking into daily life and junk food disappeared, we could cut health care spending in half, people wouldn't need 2/3rds of the medical procedures, test or drugs they take, and Americans would be a great deal happier and healthier than they are today.

I know that most Americans (98%?) will think what I’m talking about here is nuts. Americans will never agree to such lifestyle changes so they simply won’t happen. Somehow someone will figure something out (!), and our energy-slurping, carbon-spewing way of life will continue blithely on. To those folks, I am an off-the-charts doomer whose negativity is at best un-American and possibly dangerous. I should stop ruminating on these matters and dose myself heavily with Xanax.



Note: if you want to understand more about oil price dynamics, this video is a great investment of your time:
Published on May 14, 2014 15:44
March 30, 2014
California Renewables 37.7%
For ten minutes this afternoon (around 1:10pm on March 30th, 2014) electricity created from non-large hydro renewable sources (solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, biogas, small hydro) equaled 8202 Megawatts, or 37.7% of California's total utility electricity demand. This, I believe, is a record.
And it's only March! By June we may see sunny, windy days that reach 50% of demand.
This by and large doesn't include renewable production "behind the meter" such as rooftop solar. It is likely rooftop solar produced another 3000 megawatts or so. (Rooftop solar generally shows up as reduced demand.)
Now this was just for ten minutes. It is likely over the course of the day renewables will be equivalent to only 20% or so the day's electricity demand. (Edit: it turns out on March 30th renewables fed into California's utility grid were equivalent to 25% of the day's 24 hr electricity demand.) But to put this 8202 megwatts in perspective, 30 states in the US averaged less than 8000MW/hour of electricity consumption in 2013. Of course all those states have much lower populations than California. However, California had the lowest per capita electric consumption of the country last year, followed closely by Hawaii. (Climate has a lot to do with it.)
Both California and Hawaii significantly dropped their per capita electricity consumption from 2012 to 2013, California by 2% and Hawaii by nearly 2 1/2%, due to a combination of efficiency measures and increased rooftop solar.Very little wind power was added in California last year, but a heck of a lot of utility scale solar went on line in the 4th quarter of 2013, and we're seeing the results now.
If you're interested in tracking California's renewable electricity production, follow this link. Another fun link is Denmark's real-time electricity production graphic, complete with little turning windmills.
You can see how they import and export electricity from Norway, Sweden and Germany to balance out their own production when the wind isn't blowing or when it's blowing a lot.

This by and large doesn't include renewable production "behind the meter" such as rooftop solar. It is likely rooftop solar produced another 3000 megawatts or so. (Rooftop solar generally shows up as reduced demand.)

Now this was just for ten minutes. It is likely over the course of the day renewables will be equivalent to only 20% or so the day's electricity demand. (Edit: it turns out on March 30th renewables fed into California's utility grid were equivalent to 25% of the day's 24 hr electricity demand.) But to put this 8202 megwatts in perspective, 30 states in the US averaged less than 8000MW/hour of electricity consumption in 2013. Of course all those states have much lower populations than California. However, California had the lowest per capita electric consumption of the country last year, followed closely by Hawaii. (Climate has a lot to do with it.)
Both California and Hawaii significantly dropped their per capita electricity consumption from 2012 to 2013, California by 2% and Hawaii by nearly 2 1/2%, due to a combination of efficiency measures and increased rooftop solar.Very little wind power was added in California last year, but a heck of a lot of utility scale solar went on line in the 4th quarter of 2013, and we're seeing the results now.
If you're interested in tracking California's renewable electricity production, follow this link. Another fun link is Denmark's real-time electricity production graphic, complete with little turning windmills.

Published on March 30, 2014 14:19
March 17, 2014
Wrassling Angels: In Memoriam Jeff Shannon

Yesterday I heard stories about Jeff, many I hadn’t known, from friends, colleagues and family. It was good to have an overview of Jeff’s life and hear tribute from the many people who loved him. But even before his passing, Jeff has long been on my mind.
Two weeks after we graduated from high school (and stayed up all night in the senior grad party writing deep thoughts in each other’s yearbooks) and a few weeks shy of his eighteenth birthday, Jeff went to Hawaii and broke his neck in a diving accident. Spinal cord injury. He was on a trip with other kids from my high school. When the accident happened, these kids saved his life. Jeff spent the next thirty-four years living with the reality of C-5/6 quadriplegia. This, Wikipedia tells me, meant he had some function of biceps and shoulders but little or none of his wrists or hands. And no controllable function in the torso below the diaphragm.
I think I heard about Jeff’s accident a few weeks after it happened, during a rather horrible summer when I was working in a paint factory earning money for college. I was shocked but imagined Jeff would probably get better. Eighteen year olds are, after all, optimists, and I had my own worries and concerns and future ahead.

At Meadowdale (doesn’t it sound bucolic, like a land of frolicking sheep?) we all knew, and took for granted, that Jeff was immensely talented. So talented that he could shine effortlessly in multiple areas at once. He could sing. He could dance. He could act. As his brother said yesterday (or was it his sister?) when Jeff got up on a stage, your eye followed him. You couldn’t help it. He was charming. He was handsome. Things came easily for him. He had a future.
He was also quite a writer, even then. I remember during the infamous spring quarter of our last year of high school, when every senior had checked out mentally even if the body was still required to be present, and watching with awe as Jeff sat down an hour before a paper for college prep English was due. In the next forty-five minutes he proceeded to handwrite a five-paragraph essay with a thesis, development and conclusion. When it was done, he turned it in and received a pretty decent grade. It was a paper I’d spent at least six hours on (and typed!) so I was both indignant and envious it came so easily to him. It was clear that writing was already a strength of his, even if the greatest value of that strength was to allow him to spit out a paper pronto so he could dedicate time to other pursuits. (I’m pretty sure if he’d allowed himself a second draft, he could’ve outwritten us all back then.)

If Jeff’s life were a movie or a novel, the spinal cord injury would be the inciting event, the point where the character moves from routine/normal/status quo into heroic territory where great achievement and great failure become possible. To overcome the presented conflict/obstacle the character must struggle, adapt, change. He (or she) must draw on both internal and external resources, invariably discovering ones he didn’t know he had. In a comedy, the process of defeating the obstacle/resolving the conflict causes the character to grow/develop/experience epiphany and achieve a higher level of existence/consciousness. (In a tragedy the obstacle defeats the hero.)
At least that’s how it works in stories.
As far as I can tell, Jeff did proceed down the hero’s path. With the help of friends and family he faced what he had to, transcended much, and achieved a level of spiritual accomplishment that I haven’t often run across in the days of my life.
How do I know this? Over the last thirty-four years I’ve only seen Jeff in person a few times. But in the last five years, through the double-edged sword known as Facebook, I have read Jeff’s writings. I was especially enamored with his contributions to Facing Disability.com where he had his own column/blog. I encourage you to read his posts. They are still up. Especially, “Finding Plan B,” “Happiness is A Choice,” and “Mother Nature Wants to Kill You.”
It is in these writings that I see both evidence of his struggles and his achievements. I see that he wrestled his way through the five stages of grief and came out in a place not so many of us ever get to. He did it through day-in, day-out perseverance, guts and courage. (In the end, is there any other way?) Combine this with his enormous intelligence and creativity, and you get the kind of life and achievement he was able to create for himself.

I suppose we all wrestle with our night of angels in one way or another. Why Jeff got that particular one is still a mystery to me. But I do see that Jeff was on a hero’s journey that transformed him. I suspect he is still on that journey. I hope in some way, some form, our paths cross again. However, you don't get to choose your angel. It chooses you.
Published on March 17, 2014 18:34
January 24, 2014
Natural Gas Prices Are Soaring. Here's What You Can Do.

What can be done to avoid inflated utility bills?
Short term, these might work:1) Install a programmable thermostat and actually program it. (It is estimated 40% of people who have programmable thermostats don’t program them.) The benefit to this is that you don’t have to constantly remember to turn the thermostat down at night or when you leave. It does it for you. Add a blanket to your bed and set nighttime temperatures to 60 -62. Drop temperatures while you’re away from home to 55 degrees. Yes, this does save significant energy even though your heater will be blasting for a short while to get temperatures back up when you return or wake up.2) Put on a sweater and reduce your household normal temperature two degrees. If your kids are comfortable walking around barefoot in the winter, your house is too warm! (Hello, I tell my kids, you don’t live in Tahiti!)3) Don’t light a fire in the fireplace. This may be counterintuitive, but when you light a fire, your natural gas-warmed air flies up your chimney, sucking out far more heat from your house than the fire contributes. However, if you have a fireplace insert or wood stove (even better a high-efficiency one), then burning wood will reduce your use of natural gas rather than increase it.4) Install a low-flow showerhead. There are good ones out there that use only 1.5 gallons of hot water a minute. This reduces the load on your hot water heater significantly. Wash clothes in warm or cold, not hot water. Let family members know that pajamas and towels should be used/worn more than once before washing.5) If your hot water heater is not insulated, read no further. Go insulate it right now. I mean it. Every home improvement-type store sells hot water heater insulating wraps/blankets.6) Feel around your doors and windows for drafts. Get ten dollars of weather stripping material and do what you can to reduce these drafts.7) Close off rooms not in use and close off vents to these rooms.8) Wear wool. I do this. A lot. The interior temperature of my house is 60 degrees as I write this.9) Get some exercise. Raising your metabolism through exercise will make a slightly cooler house still comfortable to you.10) Consider drying your clothes outside on the line on sunny days.11) Open your curtains for solar gain during the day; close them for their thermal properties at night. 12) Cooking doesn’t use much natural gas, at least not compared to space heating. In general I wouldn’t worry about cooking, however I do use an electric kettle to boil water and an electric crockpot for making broth.

1) Insulate, insulate, insulate. Best investment you can make. Heat wants to rise, so work on the attic first. Seal off the attic from air movement (insulation prevents heat from traveling, not air, so if air can travel, you’ll get heat losses from that), then make sure insulation is at least knee-deep.2) If your house is drafty, get a professional to do a thorough weather stripping. (Note: if your house is drafty, 70 degrees can feel like 66. And if your house is not drafty, 66 can feel like 70.)3) If you live some place crazy like California, your walls may have no insulation in them. I’m serious. Ours didn’t. Blowing in insulation can fix this.4) Time to think about the underpart of your house—the crawl space or basement. If there is no insulation between your warm, comfy house and the cold air beneath it, there will be an energy transfer, which means you’ll lose heat. It may seem silly to insulate the floor from underneath (and in many homes it is often not possible) but if you can, it does work.5) Seal your heating ducts or have someone do it for you. Poorly sealed ducts can reduce the efficiency of your heating system by 30%.6) Make sure the filter on your heater is not clogged and reducing your heating efficiency.7) If for any reason you need to replace your hot water heater, consider a heat pump version, or a solar-powered (with a heat pump back up) version. If you have a secondary hot water heater that is little used, consider putting in an on-demand system instead. Yes, up front costs for these new, more efficient technologies are higher, but some tax credits are still available and you might have local incentives from your utility as well. You’ll get the money back in lower energy costs within seven years even with natural gas at $4/mmbtus. (Faster with higher nat gas prices.)8) Double and even triple-paned windows. Windows are expensive, and the walls, attic and the underpart of your house are cheaper and probably more important to address. But if your windows are single-paned and drafty, at some point they will need to be tackled. I am really happy with the fiberglass-framed windows we’ve put in our house. They look very much like wood-framed ones, they don’t need paint, they seal tightly (locking out both noise and air transfer), and fiberglass expands and contracts at the same ratio that glass does, so it is not prone to warping like wood. In general they are more expensive than aluminum/vinyl but less expensive than wood.9) If you’ve got your house reasonably tight and live where it’s really cold, consider a heat-exchange ventilation system that reduces energy losses by transferring heat between outgoing and incoming air.10) Consider replacing any large evergreens on the south side of your house with deciduous trees so you will get a solar gain in the winter but still get shade in the summer.11) Do not rely on electric baseboard heaters or space heaters. They are wildly inefficient in terms of energy use, and as natural gas prices go up, so inevitably will electricity costs. A heat pump will cost you far, far less to heat your house.12) If you replace your dishwasher/washing machine, get the lowest water use, highest efficiency-rated ones you can find.

Any other ideas to keep natural gas bills low? List them in the comments!
Published on January 24, 2014 13:49