Now that I have written about how to make a sustainable, low energy and balanced storage infrastructure I can explain what my domestic environmental projects are:

Good things:

House: heated geo-thermally. I have a heat exchanger in the cellar which takes the heat from the ground and produces all warm water and heating. We needed to drill 2 holes in the back garden going down 200m,this was done in 12 hours with a small drilling rig they could drive up my standard size driveway. However, the cost savings of this heating unit paid back in 4yrs, especially since oil prices have increased. I had to replace old heater when we moved in as it was about 40yrs old. My house is made of wood and 100yrs old, so heating is important. Even though the old part of the house is better built and insulated than the 1960's extension's.

Car: I drive a SAAB 9-5 Biopower, this runs off ethanol (E85), meaning I go to the brewery to get fuel. The car has 180hp with ethanol and 150hp when using petrol, yes I can mix and match fuel in the same tank. Did have a lovel Audi A6 Quattro with a V6, as soon as Audi make a ethanol version they can use me to test it. Actually where I live in Sweden the above is not too strange, lots of Sun employees drive ethanol cars. Sun car park is full of Biopower SAAB vehicles. I am proud of the Sun employees, I think we have the most eco-friendly Sun office on the planet. Can anyone challenge me on that.

Batteries: I only buy rechargeable batteries, to me batteries are high pollutants, much better to do this than recycle paper which is bio-degradable.

Lights: I only use Low energy high efficiency, low power Compact Flourescent Light (CFL) bulbs, these consume 80% less power than traditional edison type coil based light bulbs and last 4 times longer.

Paper: recycle all paper, we have about 20-30Kgs a month, most from adverts in the post.  Local council Danderyd (kommun) charges to take this away.  In London where I lived in Barnet, they did this for free (plus bottles, batteries and glass).  Can a London Borough be as green as a Swedish kommun, strange, does not follow conventional wisdom.

Bad things

I need to get a composting device so that we can put all of our waste food in it and use the mulch produced for the garden. Buying compost is very eco-unfriendly as it is not renewable. These composters are really easy and they produce really good mulch. One of my neighbours does it, as the local council charges on waste disposal he saves money on bills. The left over food that you put into it turns into compost, fish, prawns, pasta everything. Now and again you need to add a bit of peat. My in-laws do this in their summer house. Saves having to transport it to a rubbish bin 10kms away.

Future project: Would like to have some solar heating. Governments could fix this if they would allow people to put their excess electricity produced back into the general grid network.

The geo-thermal heating, low tax ethanol car and low-energy light bulbs actually save me money. Pay-back periods are much shorter now that the price of dead dinasaur juice increased. In the UK people talk about schools, house prices and the traffic. In Sweden people talk about taxes, heating systems and alcohol.