Carbon-Pros Analyst Blog

I have used gasoline lawn mowers all my life. I never liked them. They stink, they make too much noise, they are hard to start, and they pollute the air. But my lawn looks a lot nicer when it's cut regularly. Now that our household energy comes from the solar PV on our roof, my wife and I see electric power in a new light. When our 10-year old 3.5HP gas mower died this spring, we decided to look into battery-electric mowers. We researched the market and selected a model from Neuton Power in Vermont. I must say we love the new mower. It's quiet, it has an instant-start button, it produces zero particulates, and zero CO2 emissions. Now we can actually smell the fresh air while we are mowing the lawn. The mower's lead-acid battery is 36 volts and stores 360 watt-hours of energy. It works perfectly for our small (5,000SF) lawn. So far, our weekly re-charge consumes about 300 watts. That's 0.3 kWh or about three cents worth of power for most people. We use about 1.2kWh of electricity mowing four times a month. That amounts to less than 1% of our solar PV production during the mowing season. The mower cost about the same as I was planning to pay for a new gasoline model. Battery life can a problem for large lawns, but not for small ones like ours. So far I don't see any disadvantages. We love mowing with solar! --JCB

Mowers by the numbers (Daily Camera)

• 54 million Americans mow their lawns each weekend
• 5 percent of US air pollution comes from gas lawn mowers
• 80 pounds of CO2 is released each year by the average mower
• 800 million gallons of gas are consumed each year by lawn mowers