So in the comments to my post below, encouraging energy efficiency, Trent and Joe are jumping up and down and suggesting that I’m somewhere between foolish and stoned.
Which may be true.
But which doesn’t change the validity of my core policy argument, which rests on three legs:
# the most secure energy we can create is the energy we don’t use, and it’s possible – through some modest changes in lifestyle and in better engineering on what we consume – to enjoy pretty much the life we lead now while using substantially less energy per person and dollar of GDP. I tossed out 20 – 25% as a good target for that.# this is a good thing to do, for three basic reasons: a) it will shelter our economy – relative to the rest of the world’s economies – from interruptions in supply or spikes in price, both of which are likely as the Middle East works out it’s problems with or without our help and guidance; b) it will allow us to pick and choose where we buy our energy from – which may not help when it comes to price spikes (see above) but will make us relatively invulnerable to interruptions caused by shutting off the ME oil spigot; c) it will lessen the damage to the world economy from interruptions in supply, as there will be more ‘headroom’ in the markets; d) it will give us more of the moral high ground in discussion about the future of the Middle East, as we take concrete (and expensive) steps to demonstrate that we’re not killing Arabs to ensure that we have cheap gas to burn in our SUV’s.
# that the “don’t conserve” alternative has to be examined and priced out as well. As many of the same commenters who dinged me noted, increases in demand from a consumer society in China and India will wipe out the markets anyway.
Well, let’s go to the numbers again. Again, from www.eia.doe.gov, we get this Excel file that shows annual energy budgets by country.
In 2002, the US used 97.6 * 10^15 BTU. China used 43.2, and India 14.3.
Assume for a moment that China and India – each of whose populations in increasing at slightly more than 1%/year – start using 5% more energy each year. That suggests that in eight years, they’ll go from using a total of 57.2 (*10^15) BTU, to 84.4, for an increase of 27.3.
If the US consumption increases at about 1% per year, we’ll go from 97.6 to 105.7 – an increase of 8.1. But if, instead, we were to cut our consumption by 2% per year, we’d end up using 83.1 – for a swing of 22.7, almost enough to make up for the monstrous growth in consumption in China and India. And certainly enough to have a significant impact on the markets for energy worldwide.
As before, disagreements are fun, but they’re even more fun when based in facts (and occasionally arithmetic).
Do I think that we can conserve out way out of the Middle East crisis? Of course not, and I’ve never said so. I do believe that we’ll have far more freedom to act in the Middle East when we’re not worried that the Saudi’s will shut off the Middle East tap and lop 10% or so off our annual petroleum energy budget.
A.L.,
Your numbering scheme is idiosyncratic…this was perhaps a wry rejoinder to the “stoned” accusation? =)
Seriously, in response to point #1 (the second one), I’d have to refer to SDB’s “desirability does not equal feasibility.” Yes, I know that you say in #1 (the first one) that there is a fairly big margin of waste to trim down, but your number looks implausibly high to me.
I’m all in favor of conservation, and I think we should promote such to every extent feasible. I just don’t see the returns you’re looking at.
Also, I think the Saudi question is very close to being finessed out of being as big a problem as it once was. I do not envision a scenario where the House of Saud turns off the tap (the princes are far too fond of their lifestyle). However, invasion or revolution would be very likely to interrupt the flow of oil–in which case, I fully expect American seizure of the Saudi oilfields off the Persian Gulf posthaste. The shock would be cushioned by Iraqi production and the U.S. Strategic Reserve until those fields could be brought back online.
Re numbering…I don’t get it. Every time I try and use the Textile numbering scheme, the numbers don’t increment…they work for Joe…sheesh. A little help? What am I doing wrong?
And Sam to your specific points, there’s an interesting debate to be had between more knowledgable energy economists about how much can be saved at what level of pain, that I’ll gladly grant. But having wlaked around modern oilfields here in California, and having an amateur’s appreciation for the destructive power of modern weapons, I’ve got to think it will be a long time before any oil fields we capture in the face of an armed, hostile population (to say nothing of a remotely effective military) are back online in a significant way. Running an oil field in the face of a massive guerilla war just seems like a darn hard thing to do.
A.L.
The blog software likes me best, and is punishing you for mischaracterizing my position 🙂
Meanwhile…
2(a) To some extent.
(b) Sorry, economics just doesn’t work that way.
(c) Again, to some extent, but as I noted that may not be the greatest benefit.
(d) Not really, won’t affect the carping or characterizations one iota. Bigotry is not affected by anything like that, the bigots will just find other excuses and continue as before. In the region itself, there are much bigger issues on which the moral case will rise or founder.
Agree with 3. Thought the figure for 1. was a bit high, but in the excellent discussions around your last post, Engineer-Poet has been making some persuasive points.
What about the Iraqi experience? I will grant that seizing the Saudi oilfields would not be a trivial endeavor, but I don’t think most of them are in urban areas. Last I heard, the principal fields currently under operation were coastal and clustered near the Persian Gulf–I could be wrong about this, of course.
In the past year and a bit in Iraq, I’ve only heard a very few stories about attacks on the oil industry and infrastructure. Sure, Saddam rigged a bunch of stuff to blow, but our SEAL teams, et al., were magnificent. Why should we expect Saudi Arabia to be a markedly different experience?
In no way am I suggesting an American invasion of Saudi Arabia at this time, by the way. The situation there has been deferred for quite a while quite successfully, and we have more pressing issues elsewhere. Of course, this could change very quickly if the Saudi regime gets deposed by revolution, in which case I would strongly advocate seizing the oilfields.
If we could save 5% of our current energy use every year adding 5% more each year in 30 years we could be making 50% more energy than we consume. Just by savings alone.
See how easy words are?
Now exactly what is your plan for rolling out all these energy savers?
Not just a one of, but say 20,000 buildings housing 60,000 people every year and accelerating.
How will you manage, production, logistics, finance?
Every one says what is so hard about 1% or 3.
OK show me the plan. Not just how to build a one of a kind unit. How do you translate your building’s 35% savings into the millions of existing buildings?
A.L.
There is no doubt that you are very smart at what you do. Energy and engineering are obviously not the focus of your life work.
It has been my life work.
Go back and read my article on logistics. The possible is not always the economically feasible.
If you can really save 35% cost effectively why isn’t every one doing it? The drug market proves people will kill for profit. So why aren’t the 35% savings buildings sprouting like weeds?
Why do you have to push it rather than just announce it is possible (which engineers have known for years)? Because it is a waste of $$$$ is the most likely reason.
If you have a better reason (not involving an energy conspiracy) I’d like to hear it.
Why are building owners and banks turning down such huge profits? They hate money and are trying to avoid the gypsy curse?
AL,
I’m not an expert, but I think there are a lot of problems with these points.
1. The amount of savings that can be achieved by “modest changes in lifestyle” is likely to be quite small if by “modest” you mean painless. 20-25% is crazy as a target for voluntary lifestyle changes: that’s every american living like an amish person 3 months out of the year, not turning down the thermostat a little. Gas taxes, and other measures to reduce energy consumption will hurt the economy (which, if I’m not mistaken, is the effect we’re trying to prevent.)
Better engineering will happen when it happens, and there is not much the government can do to speed it up. Furthermore, engineered improvements in energy efficiency could wind up increasing demand, if they improve the profit margins for energy consuming devices. Of course, we could have the government quash that growth, and funnel all savings into non-use instead of growth, but then we’d just be subsidizing China’s growth indirectly.
2. I’m a little confused by your phrasing here, particularly on point b. Are you suggesting that prices could ever be independent of supply? Where we buy our oil from doesn’t matter: oil is oil. If ME oil supplies are interrupted, ALL buyers will be picking and choosing from a greatly reduced number of options. The Canadians, Nigerians &c. may not hate us like the Saudis do, but they don’t like us enough to not start charging us sensibly outrageous prices in a market like that. A cutoff and a price spike are practically indistinguishable, since the main effect of a cutoff would be a price spike for every seller that wasn’t cut off.
Also, I don’t know that there’s much to the “shielding” argument in the interconnected 21st century global economy.
Seeking “the moral high ground” amounts to placing the demands of the domestic left (which defines the moral high ground as what we’d have if we did whatever it is they want us to do that we haven’t done yet) before the demands of practicality. People inclined to believe that crap about SUVs are not thinking seriously about the issue.
3. Like some of your other commenters, I think that aggressive, painful (which is to say, effective) efforts at conservation will have the effect of retarding US growth so that China et al. can grow faster. Even if the Chinese government were as rational as the French, I don’t think I’d feel too happy about that outcome.
bq. “Well, let’s go to the numbers again. Again, from http://www.eia.doe.gov, we get this Excel file that shows annual energy budgets by country.”
Not that I want to be a fly in the ointment, well … okay I do want to be a fly in the ointment, it’s my lives work. I just want to throw this out there as food for thought. There is an underlying assumption in the use of the EIA data that I feel is potentially misleading. Those numbers are for the energy we use, not the end user energy consumption. As an admittedly extreme example consider Bermuda which has a PPP (purchasing power parity) comparable to the United States. A comparison of the per capita energy consumption, (using the above EIA data and population statistics from the CIA Factbook), shows Bermuda energy use per capita is 38% of the US. Do they really consume that much less energy per person? Part of the answer may be the import/export market. In the CIA Factbook we find Bermuda had exports of $879 million (2002) and list the major export as “reexports of pharmaceuticals”. On the imports side is $5.523 billion (2002) of “machinery and transport equipment, construction materials, chemicals, food and live animals”. I suspect there is a rather large ‘energy’ trade imbalance that understates how much energy the average person in Bermuda actually consumes. Quite a few years back I ran across a study that attempted to determine the ‘energy trade balance’ in Germany from the end user perspective. The basic formula was to take the amount of energy used, subtract the energy content of the exports and add the energy content of the imports. The conclusion, (I don’t remember the numbers but it was significant), was that the energy content of the imports exceeded the energy content of the exports. Thus the EIA type data would understate their real energy consumption.
A.L.: An analysis of the HTML suggests that you are opening and closing a numbered list with every list entry, then starting a new list for the next. Don’t do that; only close the list after the last entry (or use straight HTML). Or maybe Textile is broken.
Speaking of conservation in buildings: Home Power magazine claims that buildings built to Solar Decathlon standards would use about 1/3 of the energy of a standard building and only 1/2 as much as an “Energy Star” building (Home Power #96, p. 62). Most energy consumption in US buildings is for electricity and heat, which tends to come from coal/nuclear/hydro and natural gas/electric respectively. A 3x improvement in building tech would have comparatively little impact on oil consumption, but large effects on the demand for natural gas and coal with some improvement in air pollution due to the latter.
I haven’t the time to hunt down the full data on energy consumption of the USA by fuel (used to have it bookmarked but I can’t seem to find it), but if you saved 2/3 of the residential natural gas consumption of the USA and burned it in CNG vehicles instead you would probably be able to displace a very large fraction of the nation’s total petroleum consumption. So far as that goes, it is a not-quite-direct substitute.
The installed base of buildings becomes a huge issue under any such scenario, but you can actually leverage them to your advantage as well. You can’t rip apart the walls of the majority of them to improve their insulation, but the building systems are built for relatively easy replacement. Consider my proposal for heating them using cogenerators instead of furnaces and using the electricity to charge plug-in hybrids. You have to run the numbers to see the full potential of a scheme like this, and it is truly breathtaking – you can eliminate motor fuel consumption during the heating season if your driving cycle doesn’t go beyond battery range, and the total fuel consumption can even decrease.
M. Simon: Start by taxing or requiring special approvals for all new construction which does not meet best-practice standards for energy consumption. If the best practice is structural insulated panels, try to get everyone to use SIP’s. Give breaks for exceeding standards. If it pays off in fewer taxes, fees or hassles, builders will move to the better technology (appeals to self-interest are one good way to overcome inertia, ).
Why are people turning down the profits? Three reasons:
There are buldings which save nearly 100% of the cost of energy for space heat, but they don’t look like McMansions. People will change their visual tastes if it pays enough, and a builder being able to deliver quicker (because of fewer permits required) is one way to make it pay.
DTLV: I cut 40% off my direct petroleum consumption (22 MPG average up to 39 MPG) by replacing my car with the most efficient one that fit my needs (that I could also get my hands on this year). Years ago I cut 1/3 out of my electric consumption by just replacing all my most-used lights with fluorescent. I could probably double the electric savings if I wasn’t constrained by not owning my domicile, and if my car was available with Prius-type hybrid systems and a battery sufficient to get to work and back without starting the engine I could eliminate 50% or more of my remaining petroleum use. The technology is here.
Greg F: When I began doing these analyses I used EIA figures for homes; multiply by the number of homes using X energy supply and you have a total. The figures I got represent a floor under the potential savings. Commercial and industrial uses may be able to provide further leverage, depending on each particular end use.
A.L. again: The above list was in HTML, it works fine.
Its not so simple. Lets take major libraries for an example. If you save energy by putting VAV systems in them you actually lose energy because you have to replace the books more often and there are actual formulas for determining this.
By building our buildings so tight in the 70s we created sick building syndrome.
In the 70s…my husband and I said we dreaded anybody that would talk energy conservation because it was almost all marketing and very little understanding of the issues. Today, when anyone says…sustainable buildings…I almost get sick knowing that we are already doing a lot of that and I am going to have to teach the speaker the whole way through the project. As Mark Twain would say…
“Honey you’ve got the words…but you don’t have the music.”
Engineer-Poet who is no economist says:
“Start by taxing or requiring special approvals for all new construction which does not meet best-practice standards for energy consumption. “
If your tax is high enough no buildings will get replaced. We will live with what we have. i.e. Taxes will slow the roll out of the energy efficiency you want. Not too sharp.
The alternative is to raise taxes on everything else to subsidise these new buildings. But that is just another market distortion that will lower efficiency improvements elsewhere in the economy.
TANSTAAFL
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Let me run this by you again: no sane person will turn down a real 35% cost reduction. The reason no one is doing what you suggest is that it may cost 1.5x or 20X the savings to realize them. It is like paying a dollar to get 35 cents. Who in their right mind would do that?
So explain to me again why people are turning down 35% profits? This does not make sense. Unless the ROI is negative.
Of course I have a simpler explanation for this anamalous behavior.
The gypsy curse. But is worse this time. Not ony have the gypsys cursed the money. But they have so addled people’s brains that they would prefer losses to profits.
Now it just so happens I have the cure. I know how to clear the gypsy curse. I do it with Kaballa. And I’m Jewish so I should know. First send me all your money……
EP,
The social inertia of builders is rational.
If they install some technology into the building system that is not sufficiently robust they will be required to make good the losses. We are not talking pocket change.
Of course you can provide insurance. However, that would lead to less carefully engineered buildings – errors get absorbed by the insurance. Of course if the builders have to pay for this insurance you are back to the same economic problem. You have added new costs with uncertain gains.
You are probably too young to remember the Carter solar water heater initiative. The government put a huge subsidy into these systems. Hundreds of thousands were built. Some day soon (with a little government push) the sun was going to heat all our water. Most of those stopped producing energy after the first year or two due to bad design. The net effect was probably an increase in energy consumption. Not smart.
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The Home Power people are very nice. I correspond with them from time to time on items of mutual interest. And what they do they do well. One of designs for hobbyists or situations where the grid is not available economically.
They are in no way qulaified to comment on let a alone impliment a million building roll out of their technology. They may have the interest and desire but they lack the capacity.
BTW you have people writing for Home Power magazine who believe that “zero point energy” may one day be a significant resouce. In actual fact the tin foil hat the guy was wearing would actually be a better source of energy.
What they do they do well. They are competent electricians. They are passable one of systems designers.
No way am I going to let them any where near an industrial project. They don’t have the mind set for it. What they do and how they do it is labor intensive. Good for a hobby. Helpful in the third world. No way ready for industrial production on even a modest scale – say 50 houses.
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It is easy to screw things up with government meddling. It is very hard for government to make things better. Robbing Peter to pay Paul does not increase net output. And considering the robber expects a cut for his services……
In general capitalist systems tend towards maximum output. Government cannot improve on the market. It has been tried.
If you really want the kinds of energy efficient buildings you claim the best way to get it is not to put a gun to peoples heads (government).
You really want to make this happen? Make it economic.
Gentlemen – any one who resorts to coercion to solve every day problems will soon be living in a coercive society. There will be rules for everything (say maybe Islam is on to something).
I know. Putting a gun to people’s heads is much easier. But. Is. It. Right?
Explain again why liberals want to force people to do things at gun point? Is that the best you can do?
Wait a minute labor unions impeding progress for their own profit?
That is not very progressive.
EP,
What? Building codes holding back advances in technology? That is not how it is supposed to work. I thought government was our friend.
Tell me it ain’t so. My world is shattered.
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BTW the social inertia of the builders is not the problem. It is their customers who are paying the bills that are the “problem”. Suppy always meets demand at a price.
Two of the three points you make are about government retarding advances. Rent collection in economic terms. And in the third point we are dealing with human nature – people are more adverse to losses than they are attracted to gains.
There is an easy fix to that. Spread the knowledge. Build one and let me see the P&L statement. If it is viable, within two years it will spread through out the country. People will hold classes and seminars. The word will get out. There is money to be made.
All the rest is blowing smoke.
You guys are asking me to do somthing unprofitable so we can let the Middle East fester for a few more years without our involvement?
John Kerry needs to hear this immediately. I think he would be sympathetic. Not only that if he adopted your idea he would actually have a policy. Well actually not too different from what he proposes now. But definitely an improvement.
Cut and run with improved energy efficiency.
Sounds like a winner.
Guys,
Suppose you implimented these changes instantly at no cost for new buildings and the savings was 35%.
It is going to take you about 35 years to realise 1/2 the savings (about 17%).
How much is it worth to speed up getting to that 17% savings? 5% of the savings? 10%? 17%?
Rushing things raises costs. So does slowing them down. In most cases the cost curve is steepest in the speed up case. Speeding things up a little can cost a lot. Slowing them a little may only cost a little.
The energy problem is not isolated. It is so fundamental that there is no way of dealing with it in isolation except for experimental purposes. i.e. one of designs to prove feasability. Where cost is no object.
You are confusing a prototype with a viable production system. For a viable production system you have to be able to sell it at a profit.
Go back and read my article on Logistics until you get it.
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You know I’m beginning to see why despite SDB’s love of technical stuff he hates this subject.
Most people have no idea what they are talking about and further frustrating the discussion is that they are clueless about their ignorance. I suppose a dim bulb in a dark room is exceedingly bright. But do we really want to live that way?
Here is the minimum ciriculum (I’ve probably forgotten something important).
1. Economics including finace – if you are not a capitalist go no further – just get out your gun
2. Logistics
3. Electricity
4. Chemistry including energy balances
5. Physics including nuclear and transmission line
6. Heat Transfer and Fluid Flow
7. Systems analysis including reliability
8. Control Theory
9. Cost accounting
10. Mathematics through differential calculus (because you need to work a lot with rates of change)
11. Information theory
12. Communications systems
The equivalent of a college year spent on each subject ought to be sufficient. To start.
At that point you ought to be ready to make minor policy suggestions. Another 10 years of seasoning in industry and major policy suggestions ought to be possible. Add another 10 years experience and you will be ready to impliment major policy changes.
Of course by that time you will realize that barring catastrophe only incremental improvements are possible. And you will get busy with those.
And you know this is something I really care about.
I have devoted my life to it.
A nodding acquaintance with Maxwell’s equations wouldn’t hurt. And the ability to visualise a system in operation.
I’m beginning to see the advantage of using government to achieve what you want.
Why waste all those years studying and working for what you want when with a gun you can just take it?
How progressive.
I left out Metalurgy and materials science. Very important.
Manufacturing including setting up and balancing production lines. In some ways this is a subset of logistics. Kind of internal logistics.
Management in Theory and Practice. We are dealing with people here. It would be good if we could get them working together. Better give this one three years. To start.
Tooling and set-up which is a subset of manufacturing.
Testing and testing theory.
Quality control in theory and practice.
Probability theory. Statistics. Mechanics.
I mean really, you guys have NO IDEA.
Now it is possible that an untrained person might, once in a very long while, have a really bright idea. It rarely happens. Most of the real advances are done by people who know the problems inide out.
If you don’t know Carnot it would be wise to study energy rather than pontificating.
Not that that is the whole ball of wax. It is just indicative.
The study of Demonology.
Specifically Maxwell’s demon.
E-P,
Re: your successful conservation efforts: good for you. Seriously. But as you point out in the same post, the fluorescents have no effect on oil consumption (except that presumably there’s oil consumed at multiple points in the process whereby a new bulb arrives in your home, and incandescents require new bulbs more frequently.)
The fuel-efficient car does have a real impact on oil consumption, but how much? I honestly don’t know, but given that pretty much everything you buy requires the consumption of petroleum at some point, the reduction in total petroleum consumption that you achieved is probably quite modest (and there’s probably a lot less room to shave off consumption for trucks and tractors than there is for passenger vehicles.) Also, what seems like easily trimmable waste to you might not seem that way to everybody. For some people, particularly people with children, lugging around an extra ton of steel everywhere you go isn’t a waste, it’s a few extra percentage points between you and the unthinkable. For those people, the cost in milage is worth it. I don’t like the idea of the government coercing people into making the “right” choice on questions like that.
This leads us into the other issue with fuel efficient cars. Trading steel for plastic results in real savings in gas consumption, and real costs in lives. That’s another effect we’re trying to prevent, right?
“The terrorists want to kill americans and weaken our economy. Part of an effective strategy to defeat them includes government intervention in domestic petroleum consumption patterns, which is likely to weaken the economy and kill americans.”
You could argue that it’s like a vaccine: that we should take a little economic pain and a few extra deaths to spare ourselves a lot of both at some point down the road. Problem is, nobody’s convinced me that the savings would be worth (or even greater than) the costs. “This vaccine has a known, small risk of killing you. It may immunize you to some degree against the disease in question, or it may have no discernable effect, we can’t be sure. Wanna take it?”
My final objection to this whole line of thinking is sort of an inversion of the “moral high ground” point. If the US government undertakes this task, it will play as a sideways admission of US moral culpability in the mideast mess, which would be both incorrect and counter-productive. “How can this administration waste its time harassing the governments of Iran and North Korea, when it has yet to fully implement the recommendations of the Bipartisan Committee on Petroleum Independence for the 21st Century?” Why give our enemies a rod for our own back?
Simon –
There is no doubt that you are very smart at what you do. Energy and engineering are obviously not the focus of your life work.
Well, I hate to argue from any kind of authority, but this is an issue I’ve been involved in since 1978, when I assisted Don Terner in writing “Energy and the Cost of Housing” for the FHLBB…
When I worked in State Government in Sacramento, part of what I did was work with both the State Architect’s office and PG & E in initiating the notion of having utilities be able to count conservation investment in their customer base as a part of the capital base on which they could get a regulated return – like a generating plant.
I saw first-hand the cultural and regulatory obstacles to conservation, and I see them now.
Back to you, Simon…
A.L.
I don’t see what’s so arguable about the fact that reduced oil intensity will help shelter the US economy against exogenous shocks …
At the beginning of a fit of logorrhea, M. Simon writes:
People do all the time. Take civil engineering as an example. There have been numerous buildings designed to save energy, up to 40% overall, at little net cost (change in materials, change in construction practices). These advances have not been adopted by the mainstream.
Let’s take something which can either be built in at the time of construction or as a retrofit: solar hot water. Properly designed and installed SHW systems in California have payback periods ranging from 8 down to as little as 4 years. That is a ROI of 12.5% up to as much as 25% per annum. Shouldn’t everyone in SoCal have a solar water heater? Well, guess what was one of the biggest complaints during the spike in electric prices down there: they couldn’t afford to take hot showers.
People individually are good, but the system as a whole is insane. Here are some things which would be different if the system took its medication:
I was avidly following the subject at the time, having read Farrington Daniels not long before. But I fail to see what relevance this has. Yes, any product rushed to market can turn out to work poorly or fail quickly. Just because a great many fly-by-night SHW manufacturers made crappy products does not mean that we should not install good ones, any more than the poor record of Buick diesels means that Volkswagen and Mercedes diesels are bad.
That is a major irritant to me, and aluminum-air batteries are one of my areas of interest (though I believe they are not as practical as zinc-air).
One of the ways government can make things better is to force an honest accounting of profit and loss. This is as true for personal budgets and mortgages as it is for Enrons.
Allowing insanity to continue has its costs too. The nitrate industry in N. America has shut down because the price of natural gas is too high; the US taxpayer feels this in reduced employment and revenues. If US building codes had mandated at least optimal levels of insulation in all new construction since the Carter administration, N. American gas supplies would have considerably less demand against them and the price of gas would be lower. Since this was not done, our nitrate industry has fled and we now have the headache of trying to prevent the use of LNG tankers as floating fuel-air bombs. Any honest accounting of the costs has to include that.
DTLV asks:
If I assume 18,000 miles per year, the change in fuel consumption is roughly -44%, or -357 gallons per year. That is only what I could get in a 5-passenger vehicle that is currently on the market; the best technology on the market is not yet applied to vehicles in that class, and incremental improvements like plug-in hybrids are not yet available for sale. (Note that the ~42 million BTU of fuel saved by the car is nearly equal to the total annual heating demand of the average gas-heated dwelling in the US.)
In my opinion, there is probably more. The poor aerodynamic fairing of most tractor-trailer junctions is ripe, low-hanging fruit, and state length regulations which prevent the use of boat-tail transitions at the aft of trailers could be repealed or over-ruled by federal regulation overnight.
According to this ASME paper, the split of energy use in a semi-trailer rig is 38.5% air drag, 38.5% rolling resistance, 23% equipment losses. Steel wheels have roughly 1/10 the rolling resistance of rubber tires. A system such as the Blade Runner (see here for earlier data) has the potential to cut air drag by half and rolling resistance by 90%. On the road this would reduce fuel consumption by 19%, on rails it would cut it by 54%. (Another feature of rails is that they are relatively easy to electrify; if rail-riding trucks drew power from overhead wires they could run on electricity and reduce their fuel consumption by 100% for the span of their rail travel, as well as being far quieter and cleaner.)
If those percentage points are in the wrong direction, as they are with current SUVs and their rollover dangers, shouldn’t the government do something about it? If you need an extra ton of mass for safety, you could almost as easily make it a ton of lead-acid batteries in a package like a Volvo station wagon instead of a ton of 4WD system and extra engine on an SUV; the result would be both more economical and safer, and might well have better performance too.
You may not have noticed, but the government already has a number of policies which encourage the consumption of petroleum, reduced CAFE regulations for “light trucks” (which are now interchangeable with personal automobiles) and tax breaks among them. Repealing these policies would strengthen the economy by eliminating subsidy of activities which harm our national security and balance of trade.
That has to be the silliest thing I’ve seen in this thread so far. Did US trade sanctions against Libya constitute an admission of our responsibility for Pan Am flight 103 and the Achille Lauro? Do please at least attempt to be serious.
No question that measures which increase conservation of energy are a great idea. House by house geothermal would be a great start as the technology is well understood, reasonably priced and would take stress off the grid in both summer and winter.
That said, it is important to note that the United States is less reliant on Gulf oil than many people are inclined to think. In 2002 imports from Saudi and Iraq totalled 2030 thousand barrels a day from total imports of 11, 299. round it all off and call it no more than 1/5.
Geostrategically, it might well make a lot of sense for the US to invest in continued exploitation of the Canada oil sands. We’re friendly, next door and need the money.
Now the French and the Japanese are screwed if there is a disruption of Gulf supply; but that is their lookout.
Jay,
Actually, IIRC, the French would be less screwed than most, due to their much higher reliance on nuclear power as a source of electricity. An oil shock would be bad, but comparatively less dire for the French.
Japan, on the other hand, would be in a bad way. There isn’t much in the way of natural energy resources on the islands, and nuclear energy is competing with a fairly substantial historically-based antipathy, so most of Japan’s fuel needs are imported and oil-based.
From the CIA World Factbook (one of my favorite web resources): Japan gets 60% of its electricity from fossil fuels, 8.4% from hydro, and 29.8% from nuclear. France gets 8.2% from fossil fuels, 14% from hydro, and 77.1% from nuclear.
Sure, this doesn’t address transportation fuel costs, but Japan is using a huge amount of fossil fuels to cover fixed electrical generation needs. I’d bet that France is pretty close to maxxing out its reliance on nuclear power for baseline electricity production, and uses fossil fuels to fill out the time-dependent peaks of the daily demand cycle.
Jay
Converting to “Geothermal”:http://www.eia.doe.gov/neic/infosheets/renewableenergy.htm is not as easy or as feasible as it sounds.
bq. _”Geothermal energy comes from natural processes beneath the earth’s surface, and is recovered as steam and hot water. Known geothermal resource areas are rare, with the current domestic potential being around 27,400 megawatts (MW). (Current total national electric generating capability from all fuel sources is about 787,902 MW). Most domestic electricity from geothermal energy is generated in California (the world’s largest geothermal facility is at The Geysers), the other far western States, and Hawaii. Direct-use of geothermal energy for aquaculture, health spas and district heating continues to grow, as do installations of geothermal heat pumps.”_
I’ve taken some time to review some of the data provided on the EIA site. A lot of the tables are from 2002 so care must be taken when making comparisons about what is / isn’t going to be saved.
I find this “Page”:http://www.eia.doe.gov/neic/infosheets/preface.htm fairly useful for back ground information. This “link”:http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/ask/asknexpert.asp is very useful as well.
This topic has spanned everything from OIL to general fuel consumption in all areas of energy. If one reads the documents it is clear that the travel industry accounts for 40% of all (OIL based) expendable fuel. While other sectors do use OIL they do not account for the majority of use. This is not to say there won’t be any gains or savings in applying conservation techniques or technological innovations in these sectors. What it does say is that is not where you are going to get the biggest bang for the buck in reducing OIL consumption.
I might add we’ve been round and round on this subject but it seems A.L. is looking for a moral high ground to justify the war in Iraq or our intervention in ME affairs. OIL maybe part of the issue but it is not the driving issue. One must also keep in mind that OIL is a GLOBAL commodity and reducing US consumption is not going to make the GLOBAL issue go away.
The following are links from previous discussions about the OIL factor.
“Newscom Article”:http://news.com.com/Energy+heats+up+high+tech/2009-7337_3-5263772.html?tag=nefd.lede
“Oil Reserve Fallacy”:http://www.radford.edu/~wkovarik/oil/5oilreservehistory.html
“Crying Wolf – Warnings about oil supply”:http://sepwww.stanford.edu/sep/jon/world-oil.dir/lynch/worldoil.html
USMC: The term “geothermal” has also come to be used for ground-source heat pumps which source or sink heat to the earth below room temperature (but usually well above winter air temps and well below summer air temps); this makes heat pumps and A/C quite a bit more efficient. The corruption of the term is unfortunate, but it’s a bit late to do anything about it.
Jay writes:
Important? I’d say irrelevant. There is a world market for oil, and the physical source of the black stuff which comes to our shores makes little difference. There is a world market for oil, as anyone who paid attention during the Asian financial crisis (which decreased demand for ME oil but depressed oil prices worldwide as the surplus bid down prices) would know.
The problem is that US demand for oil is more than our domestic supply, so every increment in oil prices hits us in our balance of trade and GDP. Fixing this will not be cheap or easy, but we may reap a lot of benefits from it.
bq. If I assume 18,000 miles per year, the change in fuel consumption is roughly -44%, or -357 gallons per year.
The problem with DTLV’ and Engineer-Poet’s argument is the assumption that miles traveled will remain static. People don’t budget gallons, they budget dollars.
bq. There have been numerous buildings designed to save energy, up to 40% overall, at little net cost (change in materials, change in construction practices). These advances have not been adopted by the mainstream.
I know of one example that makes that claim, the R-2000 standard in Canada. I also worked with two Canadians that built R-2000 homes. One of them had a marginal reduction in energy use from their previously ‘traditional’ constucted home. The other actually saw an increase in energy use.
bq. “Consider my proposal for heating them using cogenerators instead of furnaces and using the electricity to charge plug-in hybrids.”
In my case I don’t see where I would save anything. I have a direct vent furnace and water heater (95% efficient). When I bought my house it had oil heat and I used 1300 gallons the first year. With a little innovative insulating by year three I was using less then 300 gallons (where I live -20F in Jan is not unusual so the cost was justifiable). Time to recovered my investment (less my labor), less than 7 years. I am also on my third generation of compact fluorescents so I am not opposed to ‘saving energy’. That said there are very few energy certified houses built where I live and for good reason. The extra cost is not justified. Typical construction is 2×6 with fiberglass insulation, ½ or ¾ sheathing, 1” foam board insulation and vinyl siding. Ceiling insulation is R value is double and floor R value is ½ the wall R value with the limiting factor being the windows (R value =4). I invite anyone to propose how this can be improved even by 10% for marginal cost.
To make it really worth while we could all live in “buildings such as this”:http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Mall_of_America and give up our freedom of choice.
_Despite being located in Minnesota, the mall is largely unheated. Enough heat is allowed in through skylights above Camp Snoopy, produced by lighting fixtures and other devices, and produced by the employees and guests of the mall to keep it comfortable. Only the mall’s entrances are heated._
>If the US consumption increases at about 1% per
>year, we’ll go from 97.6 to 105.7 – an increase
>of 8.1. But if, instead, we were to cut our
>consumption by 2% per year, we’d end up using
>83.1 – for a swing of 22.7, almost enough to
>make up for the monstrous growth in consumption
>in China and India. And certainly enough to
>have a significant impact on the markets for
>energy worldwide.
A.L.
You are going crazy eddie again.
America will not cut back on its energy demand, unless it is in response to market price signals. That was what the energy price shocks of the 1970’s proved. America’s conservation efforts of the of the early 1980’s were a response to that market signal.
Reagan’s conspiring with the Saudis to kill the Soviet oil economy cratered world wide oil prices in the late 1980’s and did in American conservation.
Today there is no constituency in American politics powerful enough to pass and maintain energy taxes of the scale necessary to achieve you social goals in terms of energy policies. Dreaming that it might be so is purest fantasy.
What will bring back American conservation won’t be taxes. It will be oil price shocks like the minor one we are undergoing right now, which will intensify after Israel hits Iranian nuclear facilities.
Once the oil traders start to realize that Iranian oil might go off the market for a couple of years. We will see 60 dollar a barrel oil for the duration. *That is going to hurt.*
BTW, in case you didn’t notice, Bush just started pumping *yet more* oil into the strategic petrolium reserve.
The stage is being set for the next campaign in the War on Terrorism.
If America cut back its energy use by an additional 5% of this years consumption every year for 30 years at the end of that time we would be producing 50% more energy than we consume. From just savings alone.
See how easy it is to fix Americas energy problem?
You have to wonder who no one thought of it before.
Probably because it would put the oil companies out of business. You know its true. They supressed the 200 mpg didn’t they?
They supressed the 200 mpg carburator didn’t they?
The cogenerator idea for homes has been around for about 25 years. The Swedes I think built a few dozen prototypes. Then scrapped the idea.
Do you really want to have to change the oil in your furnace after every 100 hours of operation?
Do you really want to replace your furnace after 3,000 hours of operation?
Do you want the noise?
What do you plan to do with the waste heat in the summer? Suppose your electrical needs don’t balance with your heating needs?
etc.
It is a stupid idea for residential use with current technology.
BTW Trent I caught the news on the additions. I thought it was interesting. Thanks for big picture.
My bet is that he is thinking like Lincoln. If he loses the election he must win the war in two months or so.
Better to give him more time if we can.
Greg F,
It is not just dollars budgeted. It is time.
About 1 hour’s travel each way every day. It has been this way for at least several thousand years.
Town size generally runs what you can get across in an hour.
Faster travel. Larger towns.
And more sprawl at the same time because the time and energy budget allows it.
The Industrial Physicist ran a good article on this and its relation to energy consumption a while back.
EP,
You really don’t know anything about natural gas in North America do you? Why not just ask for information instead of parading your ignorance as knowledge?
Natural gas supplies are under pressure because so much is used for electrical generation.
The problem is not caused by inadequate insullation. Neat theory though. Stupid humans and all.
What is happening is that because wind and natural gas electric plants are dispatchable on the same time frame they are complimentary. Gas is now very close to unsubsidised wind. When gas costs more there will be a “wind rush”. That will put a cap on gas prices because wind is all capital and maintenance, no fuel.
Our wind subsidies over the last few years have been a prudent way (if very unLibertarian) to prepare for the coming shocks.
I’d like to see one more three year extension of the subsidy (currently it has lapsed).
EP,
Well any way you have this proven idea that could save a lot of energy with a huge ROI. You are a very smart fellow.
Why not go into business?
There is money to be made if you can teach people how to do this stuff. You don’t even need to build anything. Heck. Write magazine articles.
Any way you are beginning to see why the roll out of this stuff takes so long. It is not just changing one bit. The whole system has to change. And as you have noticed it has a lot of inertia.
I’d imagine that the reason that energy hasn’t got much attention is that profits were better elsewhere. Computers and telecom say. Whole systems thinking is required here. I’d say the money was better spent on those things at the time.
Cell phones certainly have an effect on transportation costs at the margin. They may save a trip or three a year. Or more for a traveling salesman. Or make the trip more productive.
Computers have allowed us to save a lot of commutes.
Whole systems thinking.
BTW EP what kind of engineering do you do?
Well A.L.,
Now that you mention California, energy, housing, and government all together well………
Back to you A.L.
A.L.,
Tell you what. You guys in CA keep experimenting with running 10% of the American economy on a rule based system and let the rest of us get along without such encumberances but with our usual obvious stupidity and let it run for the next 20 years. I’m sure if it works it will be gladly adopted every where. If it doesn’t work then only you guys will be directly harmed.
Let us take an absurd case to illustrate the folly.
Suppose California mandates a 35% reduction in energy use in buildings and it only adds 10% to the price of the building.
Then day after tomorrow energy costs decline by a factor of 100 (that new fangled nanotechnology we have been hearing so much about).
You have now mandated a 10% increase in building cost for practically no savings. You are wasting your capital. You think you will get the law repealed easily? You must not live in California.
So only companies that can afford the capital waste are going to locate in CA. Bad for you. But hey I live in Illinois. We need somebody worse than us.
Now I will admit that no one law would be this bad.
But it is death by 100,000 cuts.
Another scenario. We start building big domes with thin skins (no insulation) that actually over the course of the day absorb more heat than they emit. Very cheap to build.
They will not get built (net energy generators) because they don’t match the code.
Now we have all these builders dependant on “35% savings” buildings who also control the law and can give campaign contributions. So we get those 35% savings while missing out on net generation.
I thought you were the guys talking about guilds and vested interests slowing things down. Why you want to make another one?
I’m beginning to understand liberalism as practiced by A.L. – were you always a fan of coercion in every realm? Don’t get me wrong, it has its uses. But weren’t we trying to limit that sort of thing in this country?
Please explain again. If this is so easy and so good why aren’t people doing it voluntarily? What is the catch. Where is the snag?
Not enough coercion? Or something more fundamental?
Have you considered an energy czar? Make people do the right thing.
=============================================
A capitalist system has an organic economy. Guys trust it to adapt and optimise based on the best use of all resources at any given instant.
Let the organism adapt.
Real prices are the best signal.
No cost accounting system can account for all the externalities or internalities. Value is hard to define. Prices are not.
In most cases a stable cost accounting system is the best
You always have the problem of the extra costs involved collecting the new data and including itin plans (more complicated plans are harder to develop).
I used to fight this all the time in the large organizations I worked for. Your problem is that the extra costs including the capital costs don’t give a ROI for the improvement even though the improvement seems obvious and easy. Certainly satisfying.
Plus there are only so many things a human can juggle at once. It is better that we leave laws out of the juggling as much as possible. Not because it might not help now (it might not). But because it will surely hurt later.
The government never knows the right thing to optimize (for long if ever).
The liberal motto,
People are stupid and can’t be enticed they must be coerced. Which is why law and enforcers (isn’t that a mafia term?) are required to get the “proper” results.
==============================
Suppose you get your 35% utopia but it is so coercive your kids no longer wish to defend it.
You won’t keep it for long.
I mean, you are not going to believe this, but people actually like making their own decisions.
I’ll prove it.
I’m the expert. Do as I say.
Don’t all crowd around my feet at once.
See how well that worked? Not at all.
================================
I’m a 35% believer. This is the good stuff. I’m an experienced engineer (see the short form of my knowledge base above). Let’s quit bull shiting and sell it. Sign me up.
When do we start?
M. Simon,
bq. It is not just dollars budgeted. It is time.
I don’t think we disagree here. The point is that CAFE standards, and those that advocate them, assume behavior will remain static. Raising CAFE standards lowers the marginal cost of driving which results in increased demand, just basic economics.
bq. Our wind subsidies over the last few years have been a prudent way (if very unLibertarian) to prepare for the coming shocks.
M. Simon trust your economic instincts, wind subsidies are neither prudent or practical. There is no cost effective way to store electric power, therefore supply needs to track demand. Unfortunately wind is intermittent and does not track demand creating some interesting problems with grid stability. The concept of a windmill generating electricity are simple, the technical realities are NOT. Wind generators utilize induction generators for simplicity and weight but have limited reactive power capability. Although some of these problems appear to be manageable they come at a cost that includes sacrificing some efficiency. See here and here. Historically the average output of a wind turbine is only 25% of its nameplate capacity, a reality the fluff news articles never seem to mention. The real problem comes back to the intermittency of the wind and the inherent grid stability problems, which we have no control over. Intermittency requires the addition of ‘spin reserve’ in the way of fossil fuel plants that is not usually accounted for in the balance of energy delivered by these 747 wanabe’s. The UK, which is embroiled in controversy over these large industrial windmill sites being located throughout the countryside, asked the The Royal Academy of Engineering to evaluate the ‘The Costs of Generating Electricity’. The numbers I believe speak for themselves.
Having listened to the ‘alternative energy’ advocates for over 30 years claiming that cost effective solutions are ‘just around the corner’ makes me wonder where that corner is. While advocating ‘alternative energy’, with promises of future technology breakthroughs, the same crowd argues against consideration of nuclear power based on 30 year old technology. Perhaps we should revisit the nuclear option, not based on what is ‘just around the corner’, rather, based on what nuclear technology is available now.
Note to all: I am not going to encourage M. Simon any further by dignifying his almost content-free floods (12 responses in a row!) with any response. As for the quality of his content, see here where I dissect what may just be gross carelessness on his part, but could be a conscious use of the Big Lie. If he cleans up his act in both respects I will reconsider.
Greg F writes:
Excellent for you; a 14% ROI is great news. But there is still room for improvement, because taking heat from a 2000 F flame and diluting it to hot water at 120 F or space heat at 70 F incurs a huge increase in entropy without accomplishing any work. Thermodynamics says that this is a huge opportunity, wasted.
At 95% efficiency, your 300 gallons of fuel oil (at 145,000 BTU/gallon for #2 diesel according to what I just dug up) would give you 41.3 million BTU of heat. Suppose that you use that same fuel in a cogenerator of 30% thermal efficiency and 95% overall efficiency (medium-speed diesels reach 40%, so 30% is not a stretch). You would get 28.3 million BTU of heat directly, plus 13 million BTU (3800 KWH) of electricity.
There are two ways you could go from there. You could employ part of the electricity in a heat pump to replace the lost heat; at a CoP of 3.0, you could replace the 13 million BTU of heat using 4.3 million BTU of electricity and have 6.7 million BTU (2550 KWH) left over. If you used this electricity to charge a plug-in hybrid car which uses 340 WH/mile when it’s not running on gasoline at 35 MPG, you’d get 7500 all-electric miles out of it and save 214 gallons of gasoline.
The other way you could go is to forego the heat pump and burn fuel to make up the difference in heat. This would boost your fuel-oil requirements from 300 gallons to 438, yielding 19.1 million BTU (5590 KWH) of electricity. That would give you 16,400 all-electric miles in a 340 WH/mile vehicle, replacing 469 gallons of gasoline at the 35 MPG equivalent. Curiously, the co-generating furnace could displace more petroleum than it burns.
Did I mention that one side-effect of the cogenerating furnace would be to make you more or less immune to grid outages during the heating season? You don’t need an emergency generator if you’ve already got an every-day generator and battery backup built into the car (assuming that it is a plug-in hybrid).
That’s just a hint of what is physically possible with off-the-shelf technology. Whether it makes financial sense to do this depends too much on the specifics, but from what I can find on the Web with a cursory search it looks like even low-volume production is within striking distance of the necessary price point. If 5 million such units were being built per year, I’d guess that the price would be closer to $2-3000 or about the cost of an auto engine.
Sounds like about R-25 total. If you used 6″ core SIPs with R-8/inch polyisocyanurate you’d get closer to R-50. Whether this makes sense or not depends on the windows, but there is the caveat: windows are retrofitted every day, while the walls are probably there for the life of the building. It makes sense to add a little extra where the investment needs the most future-proofing; it’s called risk insurance.
Greg F writes:
Experience and economics agree completely. I have been an advocate of higher fuel taxes as opposed to CAFE standards since 1990 for exactly this reason; if it is truly in our national interest to use less petroleum, we should take actions which actually do the job. Half-measures just create incentives to side-step the alleged goal (SUVs, anyone?).
Depends on the generator. GE’s technology uses variable-speed generators and electronic conversion to line frequency, and I would not be surprised if this also allowed almost arbitrary amounts of reactive power to be generated (up to the net current handling capability of the converters).
That’s a non-sequitur. Why not build systems which allow demand to track supply? Ice-storage systems for air conditioning could allow those loads to run on a wind supply that is available 1 day out of 3. Plug-in hybrid cars with smart charging systems could compensate for short-term variations in supply without having to make rapid adjustments of other generation.
This is an area where piecemeal changes would achieve less than going the whole hog; grid-interactive electric vehicles could supply spinning reserve, grid regulation and reactive power all at once. For a list of white papers on this look at AC Propulsion’s white papers though this paper appears to be the most pertinent.
There are all kinds of corners, and the lobbyists and advocates for various interests do their best to keep us from seeing past the ones for their opposition and competition. Have you forgotten the corner that nuclear power has yet to get around, long-term waste disposal? I think we’ll get around the corner when we adopt market solutions: tax petroleum to account for all the non-market costs of protecting its delivery and defending against its malevolent providers, tax smog-creating and sonic pollution sources, etc. Account for the costs and let people buy the solution that pays back the best for them.
bq. But there is still room for improvement, because taking heat from a 2000 F flame and diluting it to hot water at 120 F or space heat at 70 F incurs a huge increase in entropy without accomplishing any work.
I don’t want it to do any work, I want a hot shower which requires a “huge increase in entropy”.
bq. At 95% efficiency, your 300 gallons of fuel oil …
Ummm … I am not using fuel oil in the first place. In the second place 95% conversion of the gas to heat is still 95% conversion.
bq. Suppose that you use that same fuel in a cogenerator of 30% thermal efficiency and 95% overall efficiency (medium-speed diesels reach 40%, so 30% is not a stretch).
Why would I want to do that? Okay I will play along, please supply manufacturer and model of a suitable sized unit with REAL WORLD specifications. Discussing it further without supporting documentation for your numbers is pointless.
bq. Did I mention that one side-effect of the cogenerating furnace would be to make you more or less immune to grid outages during the heating season?
Did you even bother to ask if it was a significant problem?
bq. Sounds like about R-25 total. If you used 6″ core SIPs with R-8/inch polyisocyanurate you’d get closer to R-50.
Enough hand waving, run the numbers assuming window space is 10% to 20% of the surface area.
bq. That’s a non-sequitur. Why not build systems which allow demand to track supply?
That was the point, seems the wind doesn’t want to cooperate. All your ideas lack one important ingredient, numbers.
bq. Have you forgotten the corner that nuclear power has yet to get around, long-term waste disposal?
Long term waist disposal is a political corner, not a technical one.
Greg F:
Okay. Suppose that your shower requires 20 gallons of water taken from the main at 45 F and delivered to your showerhead at 105 F. This requires a hand-waving 20 gallons * ~8 lbs/gallon * 60 BTU/lb = 9600 BTU of heat.
You have the choice of generating this heat from ~10,100 BTU of gas and accomplish nothing else (6.1 cents at $0.60/therm) or burning 16,000 BTU of gas (9.6 cents) to heat the water and generate 5600 BTU of electricity (1.64 KWH, 16.4 cents @ $.10/KWH). What would you rather do?
Suppose you were heating the water for a hotel, or a hospital?
Sorry, but I hadn’t seen where you mentioned a conversion to gas; the only fuel you mentioned in the posts I was responding to was oil.
This unit advertises 4 KW output @ 0.2 gallon/hr fuel consumption; that is 29,000 BTU/hr input for 4 KW (13,700 BTU/hr) out. There is of course no data on cooling-jacket or exhaust heat recovery, but a purpose-built engine should be able to match the 95% your furnace gets. As for cost, I found a new 12 kW Perkins diesel (engine only) for sale on-line for $1500.
10% seems to be the standard for superinsulated structures, so I’ll go with that. If you have a 2000 sf structure on 2 floors with 9 feet per floor and dimensions of 31.25 by 32 feet, that is 1000 sf of attic ceiling + (126.5 * 18 = 2277) sf of wall. If the 200 sf of windows are R-4, you have 50 BTU/hr/F heat loss through them. If the walls are R-25 and ceilings are R-50, they lose 103 BTU/hr/F; if the walls are R-50 and ceilings R-75, they lose 55 BTU/hr/F. Even with windows as leaky as R-4, the better insulation would cut heat loss by about 1/3 over the baseline. You could improve that quite a bit with thermal shutters.
Some numbers are above. It’s ironic that you complain about the wind failing to cooperate when the whole point of having a climate-controlled structure is to deal with the undesirable fluctuations of the weather. The point of good civil engineering is to deal with it effectively and efficiently; if you can use e.g. wind power to turn a winter gale into a toasty-warm living room, I consider that good engineering.
(I would love to permanently dispose of about 4 inches of my waist, but that’s neither a political problem nor a technical one.) Guess what, I agree with you. But the inability of co-generators to connect to the grid and coordinate dispatch with utilities is also a political issue, as entrenched interests long accustomed to collecting monopoly rents ask “What’s in it for us?”
bq. “You have the choice of generating this heat from ~10,100 BTU of gas and accomplish nothing else (6.1 cents at $0.60/therm) or burning 16,000 BTU of gas (9.6 cents) to heat the water and generate 5600 BTU of electricity (1.64 KWH, 16.4 cents @ $.10/KWH). What would you rather do?”
LMAO … are you serious. Do I want to heat my water at 95% efficiency or do I want to heat my water at 95% efficiency and generate 1.64 kWh at 95% efficiency? WTF are you talking about? Where did the 95% efficient generator come from?
bq. “Suppose you were heating the water for a hotel, or a hospital?”
What? LOL Now I am running a hospital/hotel. Next thing you know I will be a truck driver.
bq. “This unit advertises 4 KW output @ 0.2 gallon/hr fuel consumption; that is 29,000 BTU/hr input for 4 KW (13,700 BTU/hr) out.”
The specs also say “110V @ 30 amp” which is 3.3kW, and 12V @ 25 amp, another 300 W for a total of 3.6 kW. What do you expect, it’s for a tractor trailer! You expect me to take this marketing hype seriously?
bq. ‘There is of course no data on cooling-jacket or exhaust heat recovery, but a purpose-built engine should be able to match the 95% your furnace gets.”
Ummm …. We have summer here too. So lets build a complicated system to capture the heat and then figure out how to get rid of the heat in the summer. LOL … Not to mention a few minor details like electricity is cheaper from the utility. Then again I could buy a tractor trailer and drive to Florida in the winter!
bq. “…(126.5 * 18 = 2277) sf of wall. If the 200 sf of windows are R-4,…”
Did I say 10% to 20% for the window? Yes I did, 10% is being generous. You see people do like windows!
bq. “if the walls are R-50 and ceilings R-75, they lose 55 BTU/hr/F.
If the walls are R-50 you just added significant cost to the building, enough I dare say, that you will NEVER get the cost back in energy savings.
bq. “Even with windows as leaky as R-4, the better insulation would cut heat loss by about 1/3 over the baseline.”
Even if the windows are “leaky as R-4”. Let me give you a suggestion, go to Anderson Windows web site, send them an email telling them about their “leaky” windows and how you can turn their business around. While your there check their specs, I was generous there too.
I’m in the process of doing what you have so far failed to do, which is to put numbers to this stuff. There are plenty of data at ORNL and on certain advertiser’s sites to make this feasible. Unfortunately it is a tedious business and I’m not going to post until I’m done; that won’t be until tomorrow night at the earliest.