Earth Notes: The Earth Notes Podcast @Home

Updated 2020-11-22 18:51 GMT.

Listen to the Earth Notes occasional podcast on all things eco and green and efficient @Home! #eco #snackable #podcast

How to cut your carbon footprint at home without pain! All Earth Notes podcast episodes (audio-based articles) are listed here. Look out for the full transcripts.

The podcast started in June 2019. The first two episodes were created to support a local naturalist who leads guided walks around our local council housing estate.

Episodes are typically:

'snackable' at just a few minutes long
on a green, or energy efficiency, or energy data topic
based at home

Some episodes are a little more tangental, such as listening to the temperature of your radiators for a whole year in one second.

Some episodes are longer. Watch out for video too!

There are also ambient episodes with little or no commentary.

Episodes

2020-11-13 VIDEO Smart Radiator Valves - EcoHome Lab (2020-11-12) 17 min
2020-10-10 Statscast - Baselines and Bats (2020-09) 9 min
2020-09-26 Weymouth Ambient (2020-08) 22 min
2020-09-25 Diarycast - Summer Catch-up (2020-09-25) 5 min
2020-09-21 Soundwalk - an hour on the Cambridge Road Estate (2020-09-12) 61 min
2020-09-18 Bats Around our Home aka 16WW 38 min
2020-07-26 Diarycast - Conscious Uncouping - Travel (2020-07-26) 9 min
2020-07-12 Diarycast - Conscious Uncouping (2020-07-12) 7 min
2020-07-05 Statscast - Normal-ish June, Heating Re-viewed (2020-06) 9 min
2020-06-10 Statscast - Lockdown Changes and Web Log Noises (2020-05) 11 min
2020-05-23 Diarycast - Urban Dawn Chorus (2020-05-23) 24 min
2020-05-13 Diarycast - Ambient Sound of a Graveyard (2020-05-13) 11 min
2020-05-10 Diarycast - Lockdown Patently Workable (2020-05-10) 4 min
2020-05-03 Statscast - PV Up, Travel Down, Weakly Weeklies (2020-04) 11 min
2020-04-22 Diarycast - Blue Skies PV High (2020-04-22) 3 min
2020-04-19 Metacast 2: Podcast Specs and Workflow 5 min
2020-04-13 Diarycast - Lockdown Lawnmowing Sadly Allowed (2020-04-13) 3 min
2020-04-10 Metacast 1: Blue Yeti, Shy Eurasian Footwear 4 min
2020-03-21 A Short Coronacast for March 2020 2 min
2019-12-30 Sign-off for 2019, Hello 2020! 7 min
2019-11-09 VIDEO OpenTRV Movie Mashup 1: Video Out-takes and The Rest! 2 min
2019-10-29 Water Music: How Does Tap-water Temperature Sound in Time-lapse? 5 min
2019-10-28 The Green Existence of Adam Hart-Davis 6 min
2019-10-19 PV Sounds: How Does PV Grid-tie Generation Sound in Time-lapse? 3 min
2019-10-13 Battery Sounds: How Does a Battery Sound in Time-lapse? 3 min
2019-10-12 Rad Sounds II: Attempting a Higher-fi Home-heating Time-lapse 3 min
2019-09-22 Greener travel: Why We Should Cut Car-bon Miles 4 min
2019-09-15 Rad Sounds: How Cool is your Home Heating in Time-lapse? 3 min
2019-08-28 Aircon On, Windows Open! 3 min
2019-06-21 About Our Greenish Home aka 16WW, with Bonus Bats and Sparrows 4 min
2019-06-15 Solar Panels in My Garden 2 min

Other Ways to Listen

AMP and 'lite' pages play smaller, mono versions of the audio files where available. Smaller files help save your mobile data allowance and a tiny carbon toeprint. The smaller version may also be served automatically if you have data saving mode (Save-Data: on) enabled in your browser.

This podcast is also available via Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Overcast, and Listen Notes.

An RSS feed is available.

Plans

Here are some vague plans for future episodes. Don't hold your breath!

Build a beat from eg 4 daily cycles with overlay on first beat, or interleaved beats from another source, and slower arc eg from annual cycle. BPM 120 (2Hz), 135-145?
Diary of EOU HQ and notable events/stats...
- 2020-11-11: Global road usage - down 65% in April, now down merely 25%...but also not going up any more either.
- 2020-11-05: something to try when the heating goes on: enable in small bursts (otherwise off during 4pm--7pm peak electricity grid demand window) to maximise comfort improvements for electrical input.
- 2020-11-05: listening to Betatalk on heatpumps from the point of view of potential installers and users.
- 2020-11-05: my response to government consulation on Improving the energy performance of privately rented homes.
- 2020-11-05: lockdown 2 starts, but found a ripe blackberry on my walk today, and passed several people also out, with babies and dog...
- 2020-10-04: Providing decent living with minimum energy: A global scenario suggests final energy for decent living (DLE) ... 15.3 GJ/cap/yr in 2050 (~4MWh/cap/y) ... highly-efficient facilities for cooking, storing food and washing clothes; low-energy lighting throughout; 50l of clean water supplied per day per person, with 15l heated to a comfortable bathing temperature; they maintain an air temperature of around 20°C throughout the year, irrespective of geography; have a computer with access to global ICT networks; are linked to extensive transport networks providing ~5000–15,000km of mobility per person each year via various modes ... universal healthcare ... education for everyone between 5 and 19 years old ...
- 2020-10-03: trip to and from Tottenham to see friends; passenger density low on train, slightly higher on Tube. Maybe 20% or more of passengers not wearing masks at all, or not wearing properly, eg on chin or not covering nose. Mostly by not exclusively single males under about 40.
- 2020-09-28: upstairs MHRV fan on and windows closed to retain heat overnight; careful use of the MHRV should keep us going until heating on in November.
- 2020-09: shoulder months would make good use of an additional 1kWh/270W of Enphase ACB - should measure simulated change in self-consumption or "energy independence" (Enphase: 1 - (imported / consumed)) in Mar + Sep, then over full year vs extra overheads...
Brief video open house tour of green features (and link clips to existing articles).
Interviews with FnF, about how lockdown has effected their 'greenness'.
Fairphone 3 review, possibly as a video episode, and possibly including audio/video recorded by the FP3 itself.
Sonify mains voltage fluctuations as seen by the Enphase.
Sonify change in GB electricity generation before and after lockdown.
Sonify change in GB transport use (eg TfL journeys) before and after lockdown.
Do 'virtual' very low carbon non-holiday (video?) sadcastvisit to Midi w/ receipts and photos and clips from last time!
Capture weekly cycles, though that means running faster than 1 year to 1 second (day = 365Hz, week = 52Hz) to make week audible.
Discuss eg reduction in peak-time weekday imports with Enphase ToU, and sonify, and discuss other Enphase featues and foibles.
Turn snippets of sonified data into sampled notes and form tune / percussion. Maybe have note frequency be the mean for the data set.
Mains water temp to midi note; poss play all years in parallel.
Audify the fridge/freezer (W -> midi note) and other appliance.
A take on the daily treadmill getting Radbot to market, eg including fundraising (maybe with some video clips spliced in).
Interview (audio only, or video) over Skype or SquadCast or Zencastr or similar.

You may be interested in nitty-gritty tech updates and daily learnings while keeping the Earth Notes site up and running.

Some documentation of my set-up and workflow is in episode "Metacast 2".

See also Podcast Industry Statistics, updated daily.