Riot for January 2012 – Month 39

This is the Riot for the month of January 2012 for the three of us. My summary of the first three years is here. Edson fixed the calculator: all go tither to crunch those numbers!

Gasoline.  Calculated per person. Our bugbear again. DH’s shuttle to work wasn’t running because of the holidays, so he had to drive in. I’ve also been doing a lot of driving around town for events, etc. I’ve been trying not to be too hard on myself, but that hasn’t stopped us from investigating alternatives for at least one of our cars: an electric  or a solar car (the affordable ones are low speed), a hybrid (a bit beyond our price range)… But, in the meantime, for January:

13.51 gallons per person

32.9% of the US National Average

Electricity. This is reckoned per household, not per person. As the sun climbs in the sky, our solar harvest climbs too. According to our solar meter, we produced 1816 kWh since the system was turned on, and 237 kWh in January (compared to 176 kWh in grey December).  (You can follow our solar harvest live here). So in January we consumed:

237 (solar) + 139 (wind) =   379kWh

16.9% of the US National Average

Heating Oil and Warm Water. This too is calculated for the entire household, not per person. We did badly this month. I am the fire keeper in the household and I’ve not been on top of it, at all. We ran out of firewood stacked on the porch at the beginning of the month, and it was so cold and DH was traveling for work, I didn’t manage to replenish it from our ample wood pile in the back. Keeping the fire also requires attention throughout the day, and I don’t like leaving the house when the stove is going. I’ve been on the road a lot with meetings and events for Transition, so I often fell back on the oil to warm the house. At the end of the month we all fell sick and on top of not having the energy to get the wood, we also upped the thermostat (from 59 to 63F) to feel more comfortable.  Excuses, excuses, but there you have the result:

44.85  gallons of oil

72.8% of the US National Average

Ouch!

Trash. After recycling and composting this usually comes down to mainly food wrappers.

6 lbs. pp per month

4.4% of the US National Average

Water. This is calculated per person. We used up very little water this month. We took less showers, I think. I couldn’t account for it otherwise. I’ll take it!

246.76 gallons pp.

8.2% of the US National Average