Oliver chewed on my laptop’s power cord last week, so I took my visit to the Apple Store as an opportunity to ask about my battery. A full charge was only giving me about an hour of use. This is the second battery I’ve had for my three-and-a-half-year-old computer, and I was a little upset at the idea that I’d have to replace it again.

It turns out that my computer was constantly trying to wirelessly connect to a printer that didn’t even exist anymore. It had been doing this for a whole year! This sucked up a lot of power, slowing down my computer and making my battery run down faster. (I could have figured this out myself if only I’d thought to look at the Activity Monitor.)

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The guy at the Apple Genius Bar told me that my battery is about 2/3 of the way through its useful life. On average, after 300 cycles the full charge drops to 75%. But I can extend my battery’s life by reducing the number of cycles it goes through (and saving energy in the process). There are a few ways that I can do this:

1. Keep it 20-80% charged at all times. Old nickel-cadmium batteries regularly needed to be fully discharged, then fully recharged. However, that’s not necessary for the lithium-ion batteries that laptops now use. Instead, try to keep the charge somewhere in the middle. If the estimated power has gotten inaccurate, it will be necessary to completely drain it and completely charge it again, to reset the charge meter, but this doesn’t need to be done often. I’m not sure if I can do this consistently, but I’ll try.
2. Use the computer on a hard surface. Soft surfaces like pillows or your lap block proper ventilation. This makes the fan work harder (using more energy) and overheats the battery. I’ve got mine on a hardcover book right now.
3. Turn the computer off to charge it. Or, if you’re going to use your computer while plugged in, pull out your battery. This prevents it from overheating. It’s not very convenient for me to charge the computer where I use it most (on the couch), so this isn’t a major problem for me.
4. Don’t overcharge the battery. I admit to usually charging overnight, and I’m not sure I can conveniently stop that. . . . I’ll try.
5. Update your software. Apple, at least, says that their updates sometimes improve battery performance.
6. Turn off unused applications and wireless connections. They consume power even when not in use.
7. Improve your energy settings. Put your hard drive to sleep after a short amount of time (say, 7 minutes) and your display to sleep after a minute. Keep your monitor’s brightness level low. The less energy you use, the longer your battery will last.

If there’s one common thread here that I’m going to keep in mind, it’s that heat eats batteries. My computer being warm will be a good reminder to me that I need to do something different in order to preserve my battery.

All the things that increase your battery’s lifespan also reduce your computer’s energy use. Laptops are already designed to use far less power than desktop computers, and by doing this we can make them even more efficient. Bonus!

I’m so happy to be hosting Treehugger’s Carnival of the Green this week! I’ve been reading it for a long time, and I’m really glad to finally be involved. Check out the November 23rd carnival at the Evangelical Ecologist. (We missed last week, so this will be two weeks of material.) And come back next week, when Daily Mitzvah will be hosting. On to the carnival:

• Tyler at Frugally Green presents Multiple Intelligences: Why You’re a Green Rock Star but Suck at Saving Money, all about different learning styles and how we can put our particular styles to use. If you wondered, I scored highest at Intrapersonal, Linguistic, and Mathematics and lowest at Kinesthetic, Interpersonal, and Visual. Can you say solitary bookworm?
• Sally Kneidel at Veggie Revolution reviews Jonathan Safran Foer’s Eating Animals. I’ve heard lots of good stuff about this book, most recently from my boss, who may become a pescetarian because of it. Definitely going on my wishlist.
• Philip Booth at Ruscombe Green offers Water Saving Tips. I think our biggest sin in this area is our 2.5 gpm showerhead. The largest amount of hot water used in a household is usually the shower, so we could cut ours almost in half by getting a 1.5 gpm showerhead.
• EcoDiva at Bargaineering gives us 5 Green Ideas for a Naturally Clean Home. I’ve really got to try these. We recently bought a gallon jug of white vinegar, but haven’t had a chance to experiment much with it yet.
• RecycleCindy at MyRecycledBags.com offers up a Christmas Plarn Stocking Pattern.
• Beata Antoszek at MomandDadCamping.com discusses Leave No Trace Principles for Ethical Camping.
• Marie Snyder at Project Earth shares the OneEarth video-letter to Stephen Harper made by high school students.
• Simon at Road.cc presents Jingle bicycle bells – green Santa swaps his sleigh for a bike.
• Scott Artis at JournOwl presents The Salmon Problem: 10 Years and No Solution.
• And Beth Terry at Fake Plastic Fish gives away Planet Box stainless steel lunch containers.

Not many Twitter submissions this week, so I found a few of my own:

• @SallyKneidel Sick of raking? Mow your leaves instead of raking them. Your hungry trees will thank you. http://sallykneidel.com/?p=806
• @CambEnergy Here is a neat tool to track the progress of the international Climate Change negotiations currently underway. 
• @ConsciousShoppr What we buy (or don’t buy) has more of an effect on the environment than you might think. 
• @BrendaPike To save energy, use the dishwasher? http://wp.me/pzYeS-8Q

Yeah, that last one was mine. What can I say, I’m an attention-whore.

That’s all! Thanks everyone for participating.

The special election for Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat is coming up on Tuesday, and Cambridge Energy Alliance points to a bunch of environmental-related information on the candidates, including links to the Massachusetts League of Environmental Voters. They endorse Michael Capuano and, for what it’s worth, so do I. He’s been my representative for ten years, and it seems that every time I email his office about an issue I care about, he agrees with me and has taken some kind of action. Much of the time, he’s already cosponsored the bill in question!

Most of my posts focus on things that we can do in our personal lives to preserve the environment, but taking an interest in politics is one of the most effective ways to achieve change. Just by being an informed citizen, voting, and letting our representatives know our opinion on legislation, we can extend the reach of our actions: not just driving a fuel-efficient car,  but making better standards for all cars; not just weatherproofing our home, but creating tax credits for anyone to insulate their home.

Okay, off my soapbox now. Get out there and vote!

This weekend we went on a cooking/cleaning binge, and one of the things that needed cleaning the most was the filter in our dishwasher. It was surprisingly easy to remove, but so disgusting that Jason and I took turns washing it out—neither of us wanted to deal with it for long. It definitely hasn’t been cleaned in the year we’ve lived in our apartment and, from the looks of it, for years before that, either. I didn’t even know it existed until I read Don’t Throw It Out!

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Since the length of most dishwashers’ cycles depends on how much dirt they’re sensing coming off the dishes, cleaning the filter can make them more efficient. Although many newer dishwashers have self-cleaning filters, it should be one of the first things you check if your dishes aren’t getting completely clean.

I know what some of you are thinking: Why are you using the dishwasher in the first place? Isn’t washing dishes by hand more efficient?

People can be very proud of their particular dishwashing methods, but the best study to date, from the University of Bonn, has shown that a full dishwasher load washed by hand takes an average of 27 gallons. Even the most efficient handwashers used 8 gallons of water. By comparison, an Energy Star–qualified dishwasher uses less than 5.8 gallons per load.

Water conservation isn’t a big deal in the Northeast, but in this case the most energy is used in heating the water, so water consumption is a good yardstick. I probably wouldn’t run out to upgrade a five-year-old dishwasher just to improve its efficiency, but a 15-year-old dishwasher uses twice as much water as a new one. While some people argue that the production of the dishwasher makes it less efficient than handwashing, studies have shown that over a 15-year life cycle, energy use accounts for 95% of its environmental impact.

You could argue that with all the variables, it’s impossible to say exactly how your particular hand-washing stacks up to my particular dishwashing. But even with the benefit of the doubt given entirely to the by-hand proponents, it’s a wash, and in that case it’s much like the paper or plastic bag debate—not worth arguing about (except to say, use less of them). I’m not a big fan of handwashing dishes to begin with, so the dishwasher’s my choice. I’m just happy that my laziness is justified by facts.

Things we can do to make our dishwasher even more environmentally friendly include:

1. Turn off the heat dry feature. If you feel like the dishes take too long to dry this way, open the dishwasher door slightly to let the air circulate.
2. Turn your hot water heater down to 120 degrees if your dishwasher has its own heating element (most do).
3. Don’t pre-rinse—scrape instead.
4. Run only full loads, but don’t overload. You want water getting to every inch of your dishes. (Seriously, I don’t know what the people in Rachel Getting Married were thinking.)
5. Use a phosphate-free detergent. Phosphate runoff leads to algae blooms (much like nitrogen from fertilizers).

And, by the way, federal dishwasher standards are changing in January, and Energy Star standards are changing in July 2011, so if you’re planning on buying a new dishwasher, you might want to wait for the more efficient models. Check out Greenerchoices.org (Consumer Reports’ eco-site) for more buying tips.

Cross-posted at Cambridge Energy Alliance.

As I mentioned, we’re skipping Thanksgiving this year. Instead, we’re planning on going to the movies and a Chinese restaurant. (I’ve always wanted to do that on Christmas, but Thanksgiving works, too.)

I’m really looking forward to going to My Thai Cafe. It’s my absolute favorite Boston vegetarian restaurant. I went there for the first time over ten years ago (then called Buddha’s Delight) and had “chicken” fingers. It’s also one of the few vegetarian restaurants in Massachusetts open on Thanksgiving. Others are:

• Grasshopper in Allston, regular hours
• Dosa Temple in Ashland, regular hours
• Udupi in Shrewsbury, 11:30 a.m.–3:00 p.m.
• Udupi Bhavan in Lowell, regular hours
• Mysore Veggie in Lowell, regular hours

Thanks to the Boston Vegetarian Society for compiling this list in their email newsletter!

And although they’re not open on Thanksgiving, I want to give a shout out to Vej Naturals. They’re in the process of moving from Malden to a new location in Somerville, and I’m really looking forward to the new space. The old one really didn’t do justice to the great food.