WikiEnergy
WikiEnergy is here informally proposed as a WikiMedia project to help users better understand full life-cycle energy-cost and emissions accounting and make more informed lifestyle choices. It would also act as a forum in which environmentalists and other concerned parties might move towards more accurate, consensus-based estimates of energy-cost and emissions accounting for various products and services.
| WikiEnergy | |
|---|---|
| Status of the proposal | |
| Status | closed |
| Reason | Inactive proposal. --Sannita (talk) 16:20, 21 September 2013 (UTC) |
Format
editOverview
editEach entry would have an overview of the issues related to a particular activity or class of activities (e.g., Clothes Dryer (10 min), Dry Cleaning (1 shirt), Table Lamp (10 min; incandescent/fluorescent /halogen)) or product or class of products (e.g., Apple (conventionally/organically, locally/non-locally grown), Book (Pocket/Trade/Hardback)).
Energy-cost and emissions accounting
editEach entry would include an analysis of the energy consumption and emissions production of the given activity or product. Each entry would have a table listing the various steps in the life-cycle of the activity or product (like a list of ingredients), with an energy-consumption and emissions cost listed for each step, as in this table:
| Step in life cycle | Energy consumption (BTUs) | Emissions (lbs CO2) |
|---|---|---|
| [Step 1] | ||
| [Step 2] | ||
| [Step 3] | ||
| [...] | ||
| Totals |
Necessarily, WikiEnergy would be an exercise in approximations, with entries consisting of best-guess estimates arrived at through active dialogue on the discussion pages. Input from those closely involved in particular aspects of production or servicing would, it is hoped, provide windows into those activities which would make for more accurate accounting.
Options
editEntries might include links to other WikiEnergy pages for alternatives to the present entry's activity or product (e.g., Wet Cleaning for Dry Cleaning).
Common Ingredients Library
editMany products and services would of course share "ingredients", that is, would have common steps in their life cycles (e.g., shipping, refrigeration, administrative support). So an entry which included one of these ingredients could simply reference the entry for the ingredient and apply any appropriate multiplier. So for example, if an entry included as an ingredient "Refrigeration (7 hr)", this could reference the "Refrigeration (1 hr)" entry and apply a multiplier of 7.
This Common Ingredient Library would clearly benefit greatly from live data links between entries. So for example, if the estimates for energy consumption and emissions in the "Refrigeration (1 hr)" entry changed, every entry which included "Refrigeration (1 hr)" as an ingredient would be updated automatically.
Issues
edit- It would be desirable to be able to compare accountings for different brands of the same product. This might be affected by trademark and liable issues.