Steps Toward Eco-Friendlier Model Railroading

[Dave Vollmer]

The environment has been in the news lately, especially relating to the hot topic (pun intended!) of global warming.  Since this is a model train board, and as a meteorologist I have an emotional investment in this topic, I'll stay away from the debate of whether global warming is a man-made or natural phenomenon (not looking for a flame war!).

That said, for those of us looking to reduce our impact on the environment, maybe lower the power bill a notch, or just reduce pollution, here are a few tips I think could help:

1.  Unplug whenever possible.  Appliances draw current when plugged in, even if they're not on.  The current is very small, but it's still there.  I plug everything into a single surge protector, which I can then unplug.

2.  Layout lighting.  I use fluorescent lighting, but that's really not as eco-sound as it could be.  CFLs are a better bet, but require baffles, and can be slow to reach full intensity (depending on the type).  LED lighting is getting there, but still has the one major drawback of LEDs: LEDs are directional.  I've seen some discussion on this topic, and most have been disappointed with LEDs so far for layout lighting.  My suggestion; use the minimum possible wattage you can get away with and still have adequate lighting.  I think in a few years CFL and LED technology will have improved to where they will be preferable for layout lighting.

Note:  CFL bulbs contain trace amounts of mercury; dispose of them at a designated facility.

3.  Work outside.  In warmer climates, benchwork can be built outside or in the garage in sections, and moved to the layout room for final assembly.  This cuts down on indoor climate control and lighting needed in construction.

4.  Non-toxic paints and glues.  Whenever possible, stick with acrylic-based paints.  For plastic kits, there are very effective non-toxic plastic glues.  I'm no chemist, and I don't know how they work, but I use them and they do work!  This is less an energy-saving thing as a generally more eco-friendly thing.

5.  Use good wood for benchwork!  By this I mean look for wood that was grown in a sustainable forest.  Proper foresting techniques can increase the amount of carbon dioxide removed from the air and sequesters in old growth trees and the soil.

Well, there are probably a lot more ideas out there.  I'd love to hear them!

I also appreciate that not everyone is concerned with ideas like "carbon footprint" and energy savings.  I respect those opinions and am not attempting to sway them.  I do, however, suspect that there are other people like me who are concerned about how we can reduce our impact, to include our hobbies.  Please, no flames!

With so much made in China, and with the requirements of shipping and lax Chinese emissions standards, "carbon neutral" model railroading is probably only achievable either by scratchbuilding everything, or by garden railroading (plant trees on your garden railroad!).

[GAPPLEG]

Interesting topic Dave. I'm no chemist or anything else. But most of your ideas and comments are good ones. We can and should look at ourselves and how we affect our enviroment. Thanks for bring it up.

[simon1966]

If you carry on like this Dave you will have a Nobel prize before you know it!!  Not for anything to do with the environment, but for begging pitifully to avoid a flame war. A peace prize at the very least I would say.

[loathar]

Soy based plastics and hemp scenery!

I saw a show on industrial pollution in China last week. They said the Sun barely shines through it in some large cities.

[reklein]

Ya mean we're not to sprinkle asbestos fibers in our plaster anymore ,to give it strength and texture??

[MisterBeasley]

Do you remember the "Boneyards" show on railroads?  It was mostly focused on recycling, and how the railroads re-use equipment, and recycle metals and even old ties to get the maximum out of them rather than just creating more landfills and dumps.

Many of us do this, too.  We don't throw stuff away, but instead keep boxes of old parts that sometimes come in useful for repairs or projects.  We transfer ownership of things we're through with at train shows, swap meets and on eBay.

It's a pretty low-impact hobby.  Most of the time, I doubt that my layout is drawing much more energy than a 100-watt light bulb, a bit under one amp.  I've got my scenery lighting circuits on front-panel toggles, so that I can leave them off in the daytime, or when I'm not "showing off" the layout.  I usually go to my LHS or the craft store on my way home from work, saving a bit on gas, too.  (I've even bicycled to my LHS, returning with a Peco turnout in my back pocket.)  While that's no different than going to the grocery store on the way home, it's all part of that "environmental consciousness" and the small things that add up to significant savings in the long run.

Remember before the environment was a concern?

 

I sure hope the production of hops and barley is good for the environment, though.

[Greg H.]

I use CFL's in most places, with a few exceptions.  

The bathroom, they don't appear to last due to the very high humidity and high number of on/off cycles.

The garage I'm usualy in and out in which case they don't reach full brightness or are not on long enough to save much if anything.   If I' know I'm going to be in there for 5+ min, I turn the CFL overhead on, but again that's rarely the case.

The dining room - the light fixture is dimable, with a bunch of the small bulbs.

The kids bed room - when it needed on, it's needed at full brightness from the moment it's turned on , besides they have broken the incandecent bulb in their room 3 times with just playing around - need I say more?

Extra bedroom down stairs - excet when the inlaws stay for a visit ( once every 3-4 yrs ), it's just just not used, and in the 9 yrs we have been in this house, it hasn't needed to be replaced yet.

 

Other than that;

When I know that I'm not going to use the computer for more than an hour, I put it in stand by mode.

Meals/cooking habits in summer and winter change to avoid having to cool or heat the house more than nessary.   In the winter more baking is done and what heat leaves the oven helps warm the house.   While we will make use of a electric roaster of crock pot outside on the deck to cook things in the summer.

We live in a dry climate and vent the electric dryer into the house in the winter, this adds moisture to the air, and what heat leaves the drier also warms the house after it's used to dry the laundry, and keeps the furnace from working as much.   In the summer we dry with little to no heat ( if it's a rainy day we will use the lowest heat setting ).

We make use of the clocks that are on Radio's, TV's and VCR/DVD's - so while they stay plugged in, we don't have the need to also have a seperate clock plugged in, in the same room.

The furnace room has vents, near the floor and near the celing, so that even after the furnace shuts off, the residual heat escapes into the used parts of the house.  

All the heat vents in the unused rooms in the basement are closed so that heat is directed into the parts of the house that see use. 

 

[PA&ERR]

If you carry on like this Dave you will have a Nobel prize before you know it!!  Not for anything to do with the environment, but for begging pitifully to avoid a flame war. A peace prize at the very least I would say.

And, unlike Al Gore, Dave would actually deserve it!

George

[selector]

Yeah, I'm sorry folks, but that stuck in my gullet when I heard about it, too.  Sheesh.

I'm afraid my layout is a real barn fire when I am working on it or playing with it.  I have no fewer than 10 mini-halogens in track lighting, 50 watts each.  Compared to my lighting, my motive power requirements are small change.

Still, the missus and I are stingy on power.  We could do even better, such as unplugging little safety lights in dark places, but safety comes first...everywhere.  Besides, they're light sensing and turn off when the ambient light reaches a threshold.  As for TV's and other constantly drawing devices, if I have to I'll do it.  When I have to, I'll know it.  Right now, I am not convinced of the whole cause and effect thing with global warming.  Temporal proximity does not mean correlation

[Ted Marshall]

Dave,

Very good post, I enjoyed reading it very much. You've made some seriously good points and I will do my best to conserve energy from now on. I will also start to look for eco-friendly products when/where ever I can.

BTW, please tell Al Gore that he owes me $750 for that 30lb. cylinder of R-12 refridgerant that I got for him last week on the black market. Don't ask me what he needs it for.

[MAbruce]

2.  Layout lighting.  I use fluorescent lighting, but that's really not as eco-sound as it could be.... 

Why not? 

[rayw46]

Dave, they don't give a Nobel Prize for Model Railroading, but if they did how much would a million dollars be in N scale?

Ray 

[GraniteRailroader]

Enough for me to build a structure large enough for me to accurately model the prototypes in VT that I'm interested in.

[Dave Vollmer]

2.  Layout lighting.  I use fluorescent lighting, but that's really not as eco-sound as it could be.... 

Why not? 

Standard fluorescent lighting is more efficient than incandescent lighting to be sure, but still uses more power and gives off more heat (wasted energy) than CFL or LED.

BTW, I'm very, very happy about how civil this has been!  I don't mean to sound "preachy."  I do try to do my best (I drive a Prius and use almost exclusively CFL lighting), but I'm hardly doing enough myself.

Energy is an issue I'm very "aware" of, having served in the Middle East.  Any way you cut it, many of the same steps leading scientists say we need to take to mitigate climate problems (again, you may not agree on this point) are the also ones we need for energy independence (and hence, national security).  Even we model railroaders can take part.

I'm all for a Nobel Prize in Model Railroading.  Heck, if guys like Kim Jong Il and Achma-dina-what's-his-name (Iranian beard guy) had trains to play with, maybe they wouln't be playing with nukes!

[MAbruce]

2.  Layout lighting.  I use fluorescent lighting, but that's really not as eco-sound as it could be.... 

Why not? 

Standard fluorescent lighting is more efficient than incandescent lighting to be sure, but still uses more power and gives off more heat (wasted energy) than CFL or LED.

OK, I see what you mean now.  40W per tube vs. 20W (max) CFL.  However, I've always wondered how many CFL's it would take to match the output of a standard duel 40W tube fixture? 

The other efficient lighting method I've heard of is fiber optic lighting.  One lighting source gets transmitted throughout a fiber optic network (dozens of strands, each ending in an outlet).  Not sure how effective it has been to date. 

BTW, I'm very, very happy about how civil this has been! 

So far, so good.  But the weekend is coming...   

[PA&ERR]

2.  Layout lighting.  I use fluorescent lighting, but that's really not as eco-sound as it could be.... 

Why not? 

Standard fluorescent lighting is more efficient than incandescent lighting to be sure, but still uses more power and gives off more heat (wasted energy) than CFL or LED.

BTW, I'm very, very happy about how civil this has been!  I don't mean to sound "preachy."  I do try to do my best (I drive a Prius and use almost exclusively CFL lighting), but I'm hardly doing enough myself.

Energy is an issue I'm very "aware" of, having served in the Middle East.  Any way you cut it, many of the same steps leading scientists say we need to take to mitigate climate problems (again, you may not agree on this point) are the also ones we need for energy independence (and hence, national security).  Even we model railroaders can take part.

I'm all for a Nobel Prize in Model Railroading.  Heck, if guys like Kim Jong Il and Achma-dina-what's-his-name (Iranian beard guy) had trains to play with, maybe they wouln't be playing with nukes!

I was unable to find any hard numbers comparing CFL's and standard fluorescent lighting - most comparisions are between incandescent lights and CFL. HOWEVER, I did find information that CFL's will lose 20-25% of their lighting power by mid life - so to maintain a given light level over a period of time, you will need more wattage with CFL's that with fluorescent. Also if CFLs are turned on and off for short periods of time it can reduce their life span by up to 80% - so you don't want to put them in closets or places where you only need light for a couple of minutes.

Also, heat generation by light bulbs is not always a bad thing. Air that is heated by a light bulb doesn't need to be heated by a furnace. (No, I'm not suggesting that you pull out your furnace and heat the house with your layout lighting. I'm just pointing out that so-called waste heat is not always wasted.)

George 

[rayw46]

I'm not familiar with the terminology, but I assume by, CFL, you mean the fluorescent bulbs that screw into a regular incandescent socket.  It's my understanding that these bulbs contain mercury, recognized worldwide as a serious environmental health hazard.  And if I'm not mistaken, the EPA has banned the manufacture of these bulbs within the U.S. for that very reason.  Theoretically, if you were to break one of these bulbs, you are required to call a hazardous materials cleanup company to decontaminate the area.  That doesn't sound very enviornmentally, or economically friendly, but that's just me.  Of course, this all depends on whether or not I am mistaken, which is something that has happened a few times; well maybe more than a few.

Ray

[alco_fan]

I'm not familiar with the terminology, but I assume by, CFL, you mean the fluorescent bulbs that screw into a regular incandescent socket.  It's my understanding that these bulbs contain mercury, recognized worldwide as a serious environmental health hazard. 

Substantially wrong. The amount of mercury is very small, There are urban legends about calling hazmat teams to clean up broken CFLs, but that's related to a couple of cases (maybe one) early on when people didn't understand the fact that the risk is minimal.

http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/cfl.asp

And if I'm not mistaken, the EPA has banned the manufacture of these bulbs within the U.S. for that very reason. 

You're totally mistaken. Their website is out of date, since there are other manufacturers of CFLs in the US today, but this company is proud to claim their CFLs are made in America.

http://www.lightsofamerica.com/usmade.htm

Theoretically, if you were to break one of these bulbs, you are required to call a hazardous materials cleanup company to decontaminate the area.  That doesn't sound very enviornmentally, or economically friendly, but that's just me. 

Completely wrong, see snopes listing above. Do you also believe that there are alligators in the sewers below NYC?

Of course, this all depends on whether or not I am mistaken, which is something that has happened a few times; well maybe more than a few.

Including this time.

[Dave Vollmer]

I'm not familiar with the terminology, but I assume by, CFL, you mean the fluorescent bulbs that screw into a regular incandescent socket.  It's my understanding that these bulbs contain mercury, recognized worldwide as a serious environmental health hazard.  And if I'm not mistaken, the EPA has banned the manufacture of these bulbs within the U.S. for that very reason.  Theoretically, if you were to break one of these bulbs, you are required to call a hazardous materials cleanup company to decontaminate the area.  That doesn't sound very enviornmentally, or economically friendly, but that's just me.  Of course, this all depends on whether or not I am mistaken, which is something that has happened a few times; well maybe more than a few.

Ray

Compact Fluorescent Lights (CFL) do, in fact, contain trace amounts of mercury.  Yes, if you break one, you should probably call someone in to clean it up, just as you should if you broke a good old-fashioned mercury thermometer.  I checked my CFLs, and they appear all to be made in China.  Then again, so is everything else these days.  I don't know whether the EPA has banned manufacturing in the US; in fact the EPA has recently been very vocal in advocating CFL usage.

From Wikipedia (I know, I know...  not the most reliable source...):

CFLs, like all fluorescent lamps (e.g., long tubular lamps common in offices and kitchens), contain small amounts of mercury^[32][33] and it is a concern for landfills and waste incinerators where the mercury from lamps may be released and contribute to air and water pollution. In the USA, lighting manufacturer members of the National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) have made a voluntary commitment to cap the amount of mercury used in CFLs:

Under the voluntary commitment, effective April 15, 2007, NEMA members will cap the total mercury content in CFLs of less than 25 watts at 5 milligrams (mg) per unit. The total mercury content of CFLs that use 25 to 40 watts of electricity will be capped at 6 mg per unit.^[34]

Coal power plants are "the largest uncontrolled industrial source of mercury emissions in Canada".^[35] According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), (when coal power is used) the mercury released from powering an incandescent lamp for five years exceeds the total of (a) the mercury released by powering a comparably luminous CFL for the same period and (b) the mercury contained in the lamp.^[36] It should be noted, however that the "EPA is implementing policies to reduce airborne mercury emissions. Under regulations issued in 2005, coal-fired power plants will need to reduce their emissions by 70 percent by 2018."^[37].

Some manufacturers such as Philips and GE make very low-mercury content CFLs.^[38] In 2007, Philips claimed its Master TL-D Alto range to have the lowest mercury content of any CFL on the market, at 2mg.^[39]

Safe disposal requires storing the bulbs unbroken until they can be processed. Consumers should seek advice from local authorities. Usually, one can either:

• Return used CFLs to where they were purchased, so the store can recycle them correctly; or
• Take used CFLs to a local recycling facility.

The United States Environmental Protection Agency publishes guidelines on how to clean up after CFL tube ('bulb') breakage ^[40] and recommends that, in the absence of local guideline, CFLs be double-bagged in plastic bags before disposal.

The first step of processing CFLs involves crushing the bulbs in a machine that uses negative pressure ventilation and a mercury-absorbing filter or cold trap to contain and treat the contaminated gases. Many municipalities are purchasing such machines. The crushed glass and metal is stored in drums, ready for shipping to recycling factories.

[Don Z]

Our current house (built 9 years ago) uses can lights everywhere....in our kitchen, we have 6 can lights alone. They were equipped with 75W Halogen flood bulbs. When they were on, you could stand under them and get a sunburn on your head.....I replaced them with CFL flood bulbs that look just like regular flood bulbs, yet they only consume 16W of energy and produce more lumens than the halogen bulbs.

Every ceiling fan in the house has received CFLs as well as the breakfast tabel light.....over 35 bulbs to date. I have already seen a drop in our electrical bill, plus the A/C doesn't run as much thanks to the reduced heat load from the lights. Not to mention the dose of freon to bring it up to spec helping reduce the cycle time....every little bit helps.

Don Z.

[joe-daddy]

Nice job Dave!

1 - CFLs - Lke many of you, yes, I am a fan of CFL's more for heat management, but with 35 bulbs over my layout, I'd rather not be using a couple of KW per hour when I have the lights on! 

2 - Foam - Interesting how no one has mentioned foam, which is manufactured from petroleum and not a renewable resource.  I suppose the only acceptable use of foam for modelers would be if the foam is recycled.

3 - CRT monitors - It seems many of us have computers in our train rooms.  Replacing the CRT with an LCD monitor reduces electrical demand and is therefore green.

4 - Enamel - Use of enamel instead of acrylic paint would also fall into the category of being less abusive to the environment.

5 - LED's instead of incandescents for layout lighting reduces current demand while improving reliability.

6 - Smoke - I suppose buying locomotives with smoke generators are contributing to the brown cloud and affect global warming.  (I wonder,  how many billion HO locomotives with smoke would it take to equal mount St. Helens?)

7 - Move to N Scale - We all know how much more efficient N scale locomotives are and the smaller layouts would use less support materials and power.

Joe 

 

 

Interesting Dave.

 

 

 

[fiatfan]

One company manufactures at least some of their bulbs in the US.  Feit Electric has a manufacturing facility in Pico Rivera, CA and another in China.  I use their daylight bulbs in the layout room and am replacing the rest of the bulbs with cfl's as they burn out.

 

Tom 

[tattooguy67]

This is one of those times my mom warned me about, but then i never did listen that well so here goes, first off Mr Vollmer is right on about one thing ( other then modeling in N-scale of course! you go Dave!!) i am sure there is stuff we could all do to conserve our usage of energy but please also remember that Al Gores private jet uses more energy in an hour then all the model railroads in the world use, or will use probably ever( ok well i really cant back that up but you know that thing sucks fuel like crazy!) also this kind of talk comes from people who just 20 some years ago talked about global cooling and the need to use plastic bags to save trees, now its use paper because its renewable and global warming ( oh wait now its climate change just to cover all bases) and the thing that scares me the most is that while we are sitting in the dark sweating and unable to run our trains in summer and cold and no trains in winter is that mr gore and the like will be flying and driving suv's and their huge houses will be cool or warm and well lighted, also if its about energy independance why are we not drilling in alaska and in the gulf of mexico, to me it seems more about control of people then energy savings, just my 2 cents, hope i did not offend anyone, if so i am sorry.

[Dave Vollmer]

Tattooguy,

I'll try my best not to get too argumentative here...  And I do appreciate that you put it politely!

I'm not talking about Mr Gore.  You're right; he talks a great talk but leaves a much bigger carbon footprint than you or I.  I'm not defending that.

But then, I work for the United States Air Force, the world's largest consumer of oil.  Do I feel a bit guilty about that?  You bet!

As a meteorologist with a BS in MS in meteorology, and having passed my PhD candidacy exams in meteorology (i.e., I'm more qualified to speak on the issue than Mr Gore), I do want to clarify something that's been a much misunderstood issue.

30 years ago, it's true, folks were worried about global cooling.  This phenomenon has since been traced to, among other issues, particulate matter (pollution) in the air acting to reflect sunlight (sulphur dioxide, a product of coal burning, is well known for this property, and is the reason volcanic eruptions have a cooling effect).  The Clean Air Act changed that so we have less sulphur in our air.  Less sulphur means less acid rain.  But more sunlight reaches the surface.  There's no free lunch.

The main difference, however, between the 70s and now is the advent of General Circulation Models based on the full set of dynamic equations and parameterized physics which can be used to predict climate.  They all have flaws, and none of them agree on the exact outcome of the future.  Unfortunately one thing they all agree on is that the future climate they predict looks vastly different (and warmer!) than the current one.

I'm not likely to sway anyone here, and Tattooguy, I'm sure I haven't changed your mind.  But I do hope I've convinced you that we in the atmospheric sciences are not just winging it, and neither are we a bunch of non-thinking lemmings that have to sing the company song.

I used to be a big-time skeptic.  I laughed at Mr Gore's first book, Earth in the Balance.  But the evidence became overwhelming to me to the point that I was unable to remain in denial.  Gosh, I hope we're all 100% wrong about this!

Anyway, I'm just doing my best to make sure my trains have less impact.  I personally feel like "better safe than sorry."

[empty net]

A few more thoughts;

1) recycle the plastic styrene sprues, or other plastic waste, in your curb side blue box instead of throughing them out. in the garbage.

2) do not flush your solvents (or gas line deicer, brack fluid, etc) used for stripping paint down the toilet or dump it into the ground.  Instead, collect your waste, label it properly, and when neccessary take it to your local recycling/waste centers.

Empty Net

[Paul W. Beverung]

A very interesting thread. Thanks Dave for starting it. When I was flying out of Ft. Wolters Tex. We had an Air Force weather guy there that gave us great service. After giving us the weather he'd tell us to look out the window to be sure. Great sence of humor.

I read lately that China and India are putting out 40% of the polution from coal mine fires that are going on and not being controled. If that could be changed it would help alot.

 

[tattooguy67]

Well put Dave and i do thank you for your sevice to the country and am sure you know lots more about the climate being as that is your field of expertise but a couple of things i would like you to think about, first off garbage in garbage out, a model forcast is only as good as what goes in, and given the fact that we are hard pressed to say whether its going to rain a week out i am yes some what sceptical about the 20-30 year forcast, also i think about the fact that there are no vikings left on greenland because the fiords all froze up and they could not grow crops any more, plus england used to have a nice enough climate to outproduce france in grape production plus they just found a i believe bronze age silver mine that was uncovered by a retreating glacier, well lets just say yes it is getting warmer, just as it got cooler, and warmer, ect ect, and no i do not think you are unthinking at all( if that were the case you would not be in N-scale LOL, ok sorry bout that, it just slipped out) or winging it, but then what about the fact that a lot of the temp reading stations in russia went off line when the soviet union collapsed and the recent discovery that a lot of the temp stations here in the U.S. are in paved parking lots or next to a/c vents and jet ways, or the fact that one volcanic eruption puts out more garbage into the air then a lot of stuff man does, look i will admit that we do waste to much, and i mean all the world not just here, i hate to see some guy driving down the road in a hummer with 2 bags of groceries to, its a waste, but like i said in last post it does scare me when the government talks about maybe we should regulate who can drive those hummers, and i do try to keep an open mind despite what i see as a crediblity gap on the gorites part, but i need to see some more evidence before i am won over, and this is probably not the place to do that, i come here to see and read about trains, and ps those were some nice photos in an earlier thread that you posted there Dave, nice work, and as you say lets all do what we can to conserve, now i am putting away my box and going to bed.

[Dave Vollmer]

Tattoo,

Thanks for a well-stated, mature rebuttal!  If only our politicians could learn to debate like this...

As a forecast modeler (my research uses smaller-scale shorter-range models like the WRF/ARW and NHMASS) I completely understand garbage-in/garbage out.  Indeed, one of the biggest problems in any modeling, but especially climate modeling, is that we never have a perfect handle on "initial conditions."  It's a big challenge!  And sensitivity to initial conditions, a characteristic of all nonlinear systems, is why we can really only forecast general patterns, and not specific weather, more than 10-14 days out.  So you have a very valid point.

You must be OK, you're an N scaler!

[Anonymous]

Minor nitpick: studies estimate that annual man-made CO2 output overwhelms annual volcanic output by a factor of roughly 150 times. Too, as Dave mentioned, the sulphurous aerosols released in a typical volcanic eruption actually have a cooling effect, overcoming any heating effect from the CO2 released.

Meanwhile, back on topic :)

Has any one experienced problems with the UV output from fluorescent lights fading or damaging plastics or other materials? Or is it neglible enough to be a non-issue?

And for those of you using fluorescent bulbs to light your layout, what type are you using: Warm White, Cool White, Daylight, or something else?

 

[Weighmaster]

I was so thrilled with today's Nobel award I immediately turned on all my appliances started the F150 and Grand Caravan, opened all the windows, and turned the thermostat up to 94. Gary