NitronomicsWould you like to know how you can do more to help carbon reduction? Here are a few simple suggestions.
All of these things can allow anyone to help out the environment.
Managed fleets like this one are also part of the cost of carbon.
Today marks the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Sandy, where over 150 people died as a result of the storm and it’s aftermath. On the one hand, this is a tragic event and it was unfortunate that it happened. On the other hand, Hurricane Sandy was just the most recent in a series of natural disasters. Fourteen months prior to Hurricane Sandy, Tropical Storm Irene hit the Northeast causing $15 billion dollars in damages. Sandy was also more devastating, as these superstorm statistics reveal:
These costs of Superstorm Sandy affected more than just those that lived on the East Cost and those that did business on the Eastern Seaboard. It affected entire industries like the trucking industry who also have a vested interest in the area’s recovery and who can’t be at its best because of problems such as the working days lost and the lack of cell phone service. The cost of carbon is much more than bigger natural disasters and changing climates. It also includes a shift in our livelihoods and our way of life. Trucking is very much a part of that, and trucking can be part of the problem, or it can be part of the solution.
It’s been one year since the disaster, and thousands are still without a home and still without government aid or insurance money to rebuild. The industry is already making improvements, as U.S carbon emissions are at their lowest since 1994, but the time for action is now. This is action from everyone in the transportation community, and not just a few managed fleets or forward-thinking companies. The costs of carbon, of inaction, and of the climate change are already hitting the United States and aren’t going to stop. Below is a video illustrating more of these costs and the action that it will take to make a change:
Increased fuel efficiency, longer tire life, and increased safety are just some of the benefits of having a nitrogen tire program in your fleet. Recognizing the benefits isn’t always the most difficult part. The toughest aspect is implementing such a program and ensuring that your managed fleet actually gets to see these benefits. Here’s how to implement a nitrogen tire inflation program into your fleet:
Nitrogen tire inflation will benefit one vehicle as well as a hundred or a thousand, but if you have a small fleet, then it might take a long time for your managed fleet to recoup the cost of the equipment. One nitrogen tire system can run several thousand dollars, so it’s important to consider the initial cost and how long it will take your fleet to recover that cost. The cost and carbon savings are much more substantial for larger fleets, and the initiative to go green may also be an additional incentive. A good place to start to calculate these numbers, if you are considering a nitrogen tire inflation program, is to use our carbon reduction calculator to get an idea of what you would save.
This is an obvious step, but the hardest part is figuring out how many machines or inflation carts you need. Although this will differ from provider to provider, our nitrogen tire system can fill up to six tires simultaneously. It takes about seven minutes to purge those tires of air and to refill them with nitrogen.The number of machines that you purchase will depend on how many vehicles you have in your fleet, as well as how many locations your fleet has to do regular maintenance. For example, you could have a fleet of 1000 , but if there are five maintenance locations for your fleet, then you might only need 10 or 15 machines to ensure that each maintenance location is adequately serviced.
Once you have your machines, the next step is to transition all of your vehicles. You want to purge them of the regular air and refill the tires with nitrogen. This is the only way to get your program started right, and to be able to track certain metrics. Your results will be skewed if you start by only topping off your tires with nitrogen, as the benefits won’t be as noticeable.
One of the most crucial elements in implementing a nitrogen tire inflation program, and in doing it successfully, is educating your drivers and maintenance workers about nitrogen tire inflation. This is more than telling them why the company is doing this and what nitrogen is supposed to do to the vehicle. It’s also about educating them on the importance of proper tire care i.e. checking tire pressure regularly, how to check tire pressure, when to do it, and what’s considered proper tire pressure. This ensures that while the vehicle is on the road, the tires aren’t over- or under-inflated on accident, which puts the driver at risk for a flat or a blowout. Nitrogen won’t make much of a difference in driver safety if the tire is over-inflated in the first place.
Once you implement the program and get everyone involved, you ought to track certain metrics to measure your savings and to show that the initial expenses were justified. Some of the metrics that you want to track include fuel costs, number of blowouts per month, average tire pressure upon maintenance, number of tire retreads per month, and length of a tire retread. Of course, you will need to track these metrics over several months to be able to see the benefits and the difference nitrogen made to your fleet. It would help if you had some or all of these numbers prior to starting the program, so that you can compare the results, but that’s not always necessary.
I am originally from Hawaii, where solar panels and solar power are not a new concept. Growing up, we always used solar water heating, unless the day was rainy or cloudy. The state is one of the biggest users of solar energy, and has the second highest state tax credit (behind Louisiana) for solar power installation.
It’s easy for a state like Hawaii to jump into solar panels and solar power, where the costs of importing other energy sources drive up everyone’s rates. However, most other states have yet to follow suit, and they are missing out on a valuable opportunity to offset carbon emissions and to reduce their carbon footprint. Here’s how solar panels and solar power do exactly that:
According to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, fossil fuel-fired power plants account for 40% of man-made carbon dioxide emissions. Moving away from fossil fuels, whether that’s done by installing solar panels on your home, your apartment building, or your office building, reduces the emissions of greenhouses gases like carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide. To truly make progress in changing how our electricity is generated, it’s best to take steps yourself and to do the installations as well as lobby, show support, write letters, and other activist activities. This is because the utility companies are most likely to be using fossil fuels such as coal, natural gas, or oil. The biggest difference is made by stopping your own consumption of fossil fuels in conjunction with pressure on utility companies and local governments to make changes. Doing one or the other makes a difference, but not as much of a difference as the two together.
This number is just an average, and it’s just what’s released from purchasing electricity from your local utility company. Keep in mind that this number does not include the other ways that a household can leave a carbon footprint, such as transportation, heating, and food and product consumption. Even the location of your household makes a difference in your carbon footprint and its size. Planting a single tree removes 0.039 metric tons over its lifetime, but installing solar panels is the equivalent of planting 171 trees each year over the life span of your solar panels (about 20 to 25 years). Although solar power isn’t the only way to reduce your carbon footprint and the carbon footprint of your household, you can still make a big difference in carbon reduction (and your pocketbook) by making some switch to solar panels. Electricity and transportation are the two largest contributors to a household’s carbon footprint.
Yes, it does add to carbon footprint to purchase a few solar panels, as their manufacturing does add something to greenhouse gases. However, solar panels pay for themselves in just a few short years. In less than two year, they are carbon negative, as their savings makes up for what it added to the atmosphere upon its creation. According to Home Power magazine, manufacturing a 100-watt solar panel produces about 960 pounds of CO2. But, in the 20-25 year life span of that solar panel, you offset 8,400 pounds of CO2. Those numbers compound when you install several on your home, apartment building, or office building. The panels also pay for themselves in about four years, with the money you save in using a renewable and cheaper energy source.
The Need for Carbon Reduction [Infographic]
We’ve all heard of the ill effects of global warming: summers are hotter, ice sheets melt, ocean levels rise, blah blah blah. These consequences may seem like things that won’t affect us for another 100 years, but that’s not entirely true if we don’t make any changes now. By cutting our carbon emission levels, the impact is much larger than decreased pollution and reducing our dependence on foreign oil. This infographic from Information is Beautiful shows you why we need carbon reduction now, and why the consequences of global warming (some you may not even know about) aren’t as far away as we may think. Of course, this infographic presumes that will maintain, or even increase, our current levels of carbon emissions, which further demonstrates that small changes can make a big difference.
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Pump your tires green with nitrogen tire inflation!
Managed fleets are part of the solution, NOT part of the problem in reducing fuel usage and carbon emissions on a very large scale. It’s simply about making a more efficient use of the resources we have, especially with our tires and what we put in them.
A study from the American Automotive Leasing Association found that in 2007, managed fleets saved over 400 million gallons of fuel. Given that the United States consumers about that much in a single day, this savings represents progress toward reducing our dependence on foreign oil. This study also found that a managed fleet results in a more efficient use of fuel and a reduction in carbon emissions because the managed fleet model is structures around efficiency.
Do you have a managed fleet business model, or you want to make your current fleet more efficient? Well, here’s one way: nitrogen tire inflation.
By putting nitrogen into your tires instead of air, or even just getting into the habit of topping off your tires with nitrogen, you make your tires hybrid in an instant. Over 300 million tires are disposed of annually. Nitrogen tire inflation can reduce this number by 30 percent if only more fleets and consumers embraced the practice.
Air also leaks from three to four times faster than nitrogen. So, you know those great strides managed fleets made in reducing carbon emissions and saving all that fuel? All that goes down the drain if your tires aren’t the proper pressure. These hybrid tires create savings in three ways: improved fuel efficiency, reduced carbon emissions, and extended tire life. To calculate your fleet’s savings with Nitrofleet99 Hybrid Tires, then use our carbon reduction calculator to figure out the exact savings!
At Nitrofleet99, we promote sustainable business with better use of our natural resources by providing nitrogen products and services that achieve environmental gains. Specifically, we offer a Carbon Credit Program for managed fleets.
