LED lighting

LED lighting is near and dear to my heart, I'll admit, because I knew graduate students when I was in the PhD program at UC Santa Barbara who were working on the materials science behind blue LASERs and white-light LEDs. The physics and manufacturing of these devices was my specialty, but I still find them magical. A tiny chip a millimeter on a side can convert electric power nearly 100% efficiently into light! It's amazing, even though I understand how it works.

LEDs are nearly 100% efficient, which means that they generate almost no waste heat, and use much less electric power to illuminate a room, so they are far superior in both respects to incandescent lightbulbs. I remember sweating under my desk lamp when I was studying in school in a warm climate, but LEDs produce only light, not heat. They have none of the downsides of fluorescent lights, either -- no flicker, no weird greenish color, no buzz, no blink, no delay in coming on. And they are far more efficient than fluorescent bulbs, while being no more expensive.

One of my favorite features of LED lights is the ability to select the color temperature of the light. In most situations I prefer 4000K light, which is the pure white used in art galleries, to the yellow glow of 3000-3500K bulbs, or the blue cast of 5000K "daylight" LEDs. 4000K LED spotlights make my art "pop," under-cabinet task lights make my food appetizing, bulbs in my closet don't alter the color of my clothing while I'm choosing what to wear, the downlight over the bathroom vanity is flattering to my face, and a track light picks out the controls on the washer in the laundry room. With LED bulbs, I can select the same color temperature for the various fixtures in a room so that everything looks clean and uniformly lit. And, if I'd like to have several moods to choose from, I can strategically place a romantic 3500K bulb in a bedroom lamp, along with 4000K in the closet and reading light.

Did I mention LEDs are cool? I'm a fan!

Our house was outfitted with all fluorescent lights when we bought it, because that was the most efficient technology at the time it was built. The fluorescent bulbs cast ugly greenish light, flickered, and used 3 times more energy than LEDs would to produce the same amount of light. So I set about replacing all the fluorescent light fixtures with LEDs. The previous owner had installed electrical wiring above all the windows, with fluorescent fixtures in wooden shadow boxes that illuminated the cathedral ceiling. We removed the wood and the fluorescent fixtures, took them to the building resale depot, and replaced them with simple metal LED fixtures that use less than 1/3 the power. Each LED light bulb in our house uses between 4 and 9 W. We can turn them all on and be using less than the power one incandescent reading lamp required in my childhood home. We refitted the entire house for less than $1000. And the bulbs will last many years longer than incandescent or fluorescent bulbs would, for no more cost.

We also installed solar-powered metal LED landscape lights that shed a soft downward glow on the path from our car to our door, and a solar-powered LED motion-sensor light above our grill. They were inexpensive, simple to install, are fully automatic, and require no power from our house system.

Truly magical!

Switch to electric cooking from burning fuel

When we bought our house, it had several propane appliances (stove, water heater, and fireplace). Our intention has been to move to all-electric primary systems, retaining the propane appliances for backup only.

We removed the propane stove in our house immediately to eliminate the indoor air pollution it produced, and we now use a variety of electric appliances to cook food efficiently with no fuel burning or carbon emissions.

Did you know that you can cook potatoes perfectly in an instant pot in about 10 minutes instead of boiling water on your stove for up to an hour? The pressurized steam gives a nice plump texture to them, even if they were a little dried out and wrinkly going in. Rice also cooks much better under pressure at our altitude. And pressure makes cooking beans and lentils much easier and faster. The instant pot also serves as a pasta pot, quickly boiling a big pot of water, and as a yogurt maker.

Of course, a crock pot is perfect for cooking stews, curries, stock, pulled pork -- anything that benefits from cooking slowly and thoroughly. We already had a crock pot, but the instant pot has a slow cook mode, too, so we can use either one for stews.

A microwave oven is the most efficient way to reheat leftovers or boil water for tea. We also use it to heat warming disks -- they're made for pets, but we use them as modern hot water bottles by our feet on cold nights.

One of our most-loved appliances is a little electric Breville milk frother we bought used from a neighbor. It heats and stirs a pot of chai or coffee to the perfect temperature in no time. It also makes the best hot chocolate and foamy hot milk (or oat "milk," if you're dairy-free).

We've recently bought a small (24" wide) electric stove with a ceramic cooktop and convection oven. We don't use the cooktop often, and we wanted the smaller size range for our small kitchen, so we did not buy the more expensive induction type. When we do cook on our ceramic-topped electric stove, we've found that using very flat-bottomed pots allows the pot to heat up quickly, so we don't keep the burner on very long. We love the ceramic cooktop's ease of cleaning and the fact that we don't get sticky fossil fuel residue on our cabinets, as we used to with a gas stove. The oven pulls very little power since it is small, and once it comes to temperature, the element turns off, and the convection fan circulates the heat. It only takes 15 minutes to cook a frozen pizza to perfection, and it also bakes desserts beautifully.

Our food is just as tasty cooked with these low-power all-electric methods -- but we are using a fraction of the energy and time to prepare it, and, since our electric power is 100% solar, not producing carbon emissions!

We have a propane grill outdoors that we used for cooking whenever we were on backup power our first year living in the house. Since we've increased our PV generation, we have only used it occasionally for fun in the summer, so the electrification of our cooking is complete!

Wildflowers

Other than our food plants, we have committed to fostering 100% native plants on our land, and we have been thrilled with the number and beauty of the wildflowers we already have, and the insects and birds that depend on them for food. The hillsides are covered with a variety of wildflowers, and in the summer native bees and hummingbirds can be heard happily buzzing from flower to flower.

One of our projects the first year we lived on the property was to document, by photographing and identifying, all the wildflower species. Each time we would notice a new variety, we would take a picture, noting the date they flowered.

When we spot invasive non-native plants, like salsify, we pull them on sight. It is sad to drive by untended hillsides that have been taken over by such plants, crowding out the diverse species that the ecosystem depends on.

We also started to learn some of the native insect and bird species and photograph them. We are carefully adding wildflower species that we enjoy and that live in the area already, to increase the diversity on our property, focusing on ones that provide food to insects and birds. As the climate changes, either because of global shifts or just the normal annual variation, different species are encouraged to take center stage. In our first year, we had more precipitation than usual in May and June, which resulted in a bumper crop of Sago lilies, but a dry August and September led to less showy displays from the late-season flowers. Increasing the diversity of the species helps this little portion of the ecosystem be more resilient in the face of changing conditions.

Wildfires are increasing in frequency and severity in the Western U.S., as the climate becomes warmer and drier, and burn areas do not necessarily regrow the same species that lived there before. But we are heartened to see the native grasses and pioneer species like fireweed coming back to the burned slopes after a few years. Whether or not the trees are able to repopulate these areas is more of an open question, but wildflowers are certainly able to grow in surprisingly little soil, even after the devastation of a forest fire.