The first two are for winter time - for those who have to heat their homes with electricity;
Don't waste time (your energy) shutting off appliances and electronics that use "phantom" energy - or whatever they call it. The energy they use, creating heat in the process, just offsets the energy the heater would have to use.
Don't waste your money buying expensive electric heaters that claim superior performance. Electric heaters are 100% efficient * in converting electricity into heat - even the cheap ones.
* There would be some small losses for indicator light, fans or motors that move the heater.
Don't tailgate! Follow at a safe distance - like you are supposed to, to avoid unnecessary braking and accelerating.
don't tail gate. yes at 5 feet off a transports bumper you will save about 45% on fuel usage but not worth your life. even at 10 car lengths back there is a noticable difference in fuel econoy by following transports so feel free to draft but do it from a distance.
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propmod_us and propmod_1x1 are now in stock. Only $30. PCB available for $5
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mctrivia, most of the population lives in the city, suburbs, or towns so placing a storage tank outside would be a bit of a problem (eyesore). My wife is very particular about how our house and yard looks. I am considering a solar collector and tapping the heat from the air conditioner to preheat the incoming water before it gets to the water heater, and I would put an insulated tank in the basement. I may even use the collector to help heat the house if there is heat available.
I have not seen any led lights in the stores yet but then I have not been looking for them. I will keep my eyes open for them and try them out.
W9GFO, an electric heater is pretty much 100% efficient when it comes to turning electricity into heat. Friction and I2R losses in the motor end up as heat, light is absorbed by the surroundings and end up as heat, the movement of the fan, heater, and air is converted by way of friction to….you guessed it, heat.
@ kwinn, I got blasted before for stating something in the absolute so I'm trying to be more careful. I think that in the case of the fan or motor you could find some losses that don't convert to useful heat for the home. Such as the force imparted on the rest of the planet every time the heater oscillates back and forth. Or the constant torque the fan is transmitting on the planet. Stuff like that that is practically zero, but not.
mctrivia, thanks for the led light info. I will check it out.
W9GFO, you are right that there may be a small part of the energy that is not turned in to heat. Some of the light could escape into space, and some of the motion could be transferred to the planet. Maybe 0.000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001% or so.
Erik Friesen, Here is the info on the shower head. It is sold under the PlumbShop name and the part number is PS6114.
I buy it at Canadian Tire and their part number is 63 0157 8.
It is a nice durable chrome plated brass unit about 1" diameter and 2" long with a sliding flow control valve and 10 or 12 small spray holes. Gives a better shower than the fanciest most expensive shower head I have come across in my travels.
Of course, one can live in a smaller, limited space in high density housing -- maybe under ground. Why have multiple rooms allotted to one person when public space can be shared?
Residential bathrooms would no longer have bathtubs. Municipal baths and municipal kitchens would be quite handy.
Martial law with lights out after everyone is required to be indoors would eliminate a lot of waste as well.
And limiting the size of a video screens, stereos, and other appliances might be quite useful too. Batteries might be designed toward specific purposes and disallow wasteful, not productive uses - such as iPods!
Of course, you may begin to feel '1984' and 'Brave New World' were a bit naive in what the future was to become.
Nonetheless, much of this was the way things were done in Japan for centuries. Peasants were not allowed to use iron tools because they could easily be converted to weapons.
The reality is that there are generally two easy ways to reduce energy --- vastly reduce the world population or return to simpler, more labor intensive tool use of our ancestors. It also might help to become vegetarian as a means to reduce greenhouse gases - that would include no milk and no eggs, unless the milk producing mammal has a primary function as a beast of burden.
I am not really as radical as the above text might infer, but the implication is that we are all somewhat in denial about the need to aggressively manage the problem. We are all holding back our own comfort while pointing at other problem areas. Even bread making creates alcohol that without control migrates to the atmosphere to upset our environment.
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Ain't gadgetry a wonderful thing?
"one can live in a smaller, limited space in high density housing"
Why does high density housing have to be "limited space"? Why can I buy a 2700 square foot single house for about the same price as a 1200-1500 square foot condo? I know for certain that on a per unit and square foot basis the condo requires less material and labor than a house does.
"Maybe underground"
I visited an underground house a few years back. It was built around a central court yard that was open to the sky, and was spacious, quiet, and airy. Not at all what I expected and I would be quite happy to live in something similar.
"Residential bathrooms would no longer have bathtubs."
Not a problem for me. I prefer to shower, and have probably used the tub all of 5 or 6 times in a year. If I bought a condo I would make sure it had a hot tub and sauna in the building. Most I have seen have both, as well as a swimming pool and party rooms.
As for the more draconian measures, I hardly think they are necessary. IMHO we are now at a transition point where we are going from an era of high growth, rapid improvement in technology, health care, and living conditions to one of slow growth or even declines in population, and enough food, material goods, energy, and housing for all.
Batteries are legalistically paradoxical. While we are looking to electrical cars to remove problems to the environment, we completely ignore the redistribution of heavy metal pollution. Just the thought of a child removing an AA battery from a cute toy and putting it in its mouth makes me wonder what we are doing.
High density housing has less surface area to the outside. So climate control can achieve greater economies than individual homesteads. The reasons that condos often cost more per square foot is about location, image, and additional services - like security. Nordic countries have communities that live underground for up to 70% of the year as the climate is too severe to bother with living in individual houses outdoors. And the long winter nights can easily be overcome with diurnal electrical lighting. If we ignore the problem, we will all be forced into some mode of underground dwelling in the future with the native atmosphere just being a heat dump for our energy production.
Fortunately, high ambient temperature environments offer high energy food production in the form of tropical fruits and oils. Like here in southern Taiwan though, people will prefer to stay inside with A/C climate control for much of the day. Outside tends to become a jungle of greenery or a concrete jungle - nether is comfortable.
At this point, the FHA REQUIRES a bath tub in order to quality for financing. Living with just a shower could disqualify you from selling your home through normal channels of finance. But in southern Taiwan, almost no one has a bathtup - just a shower. In sum, the American lifestyle is the most energy wasteful one on the planet. Just wearing long underwear in the cooler portions of the year allows you to significantly reduce the annual heating requirements of your home. The oven in the average kitchen is non-existent through out much of the world as it is a huge waste of energy, but every American has one to at least provide for the baking of a turkey once a year. The dish washer has a huge heating element to bake the dishes dry while air drying is free.
So it seems that one must first re-evaluate how they live and how they want to live before any real progress can be made. Just transferring to an alternative energy source is not enough. Use the stairs rather than the elevator - both for the cardio workout and the environment.
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Ain't gadetry a wonderful thing?
AJ, I also have such a clock. The problem with batteries is that when you take into account the energy required to manufacture and distribute them the picture is not so rosy. Add in the disposal problems LB mentions and it gets even worse. The other thing to consider is the relative savings of your action. I would much sooner save 10% of the energy used by an AC unit, car, or furnace than 90% of the energy used by a clock, computer, or TV set. Yes, every little bit helps, and I would look for the more energy efficient items when I shop, but I would also invest my effort where it produces the greatest savings.
LB, I have no arguments with what you say, only with what is available here. Most of what I see is poorly designed and built, with very little thought given to how it is used. Take a look at a typical 4 bedroom house here and you will find the following:
A huge master bedroom with a great deal of wasted space and TV/phone outlets placed in the worst possible locations.
A master 'ensuite' bathroom with a huge tub that will hardly ever be used because the hot water tank doesn't have the capacity to fill it. In addition the bathroom is usually placed on a corner so you have 2 outside walls making it uncomfortably cold in winter unless the heat is cranked way up.
The third wall will typically be between where the headboard in the adjoining bedroom has to go and the bathroom, disturbing the occupant of the other bedroom when it is in use.
The other bedrooms will be so small and poorly laid out that once you place a single bed and dresser in it there is barely enough space to turn around, never mind being able to make the bed.
One of the biggest energy savings technologies I believe we will see in the next 20 years is room temp supper conducters. They will save 30% on grid losses alone and allow for 12v plug in our houses so no more wall warts are needed.
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propmod_us and propmod_1x1 are in stock. Only $30. PCB available for $5
Want to make projects and have Gadget Gangster sell them for you? propmod-us_ps_sd and propmod-1x1 are now available for use in your Gadget Gangster Projects.
Need to upload large images or movies for use in the forum. you can do so at uploader.propmodule.com for free.
Go primitive and frugal. I haven't had a bathtub or an automobile in 20 years or more. A 90cc motor scooter is adequate transport. Regarding heating - conductive heating in a concrete floor seems to work quite well with hot water and not require more technological development. Solar water heaters can easily augment the heat production from mutilple alternatives [noparse][[/noparse]the electric grid, geothermal, wood, oil, coal].
After all the technology has an environmental impact as well as the installation of it...... We keep advancing new technologies and keep ignoring their environmental impact while praising their cleverness.
Passive solar heat has a proven track record of providing up to 95% of a building's heat require in snow country. It is where there is fog that the sun doesn't provide additional energy. Of course, lots of insulation is required as well. Going underground eliminates the need to produce exotic insulation, so does concrete construction. Sawdust is excellent insulation as is straw, but they must be treated for fire prevention with a borax solution.
What is wrong with a wind up clock? In fact, there is a lot of potential for windup motive powered robots which are controlled by microcontrollers. Think about it! That coiled spring is absolutely brilliant for storage of mechanical energy. Why convert to and from electrical?
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Ain't gadetry a wonderful thing?
Another View from WMc on saving energy or more like saving money and politics.
Here in the USA we have to abide buy E.P.A. standards on emission. This really makes Manufacturing in the USA too expensive. But moving production to China is the way to go.In China, theres no such thing as pollution. Its the perfect place to manufacture things. This will cut down on the energy use in the USA. Wall Mart is setting the example for us all to take the China rout.( No EPA standards)(No child labor Laws), It doesn't get any better than this.
The USA wont feel any economic impact from this, Trust Me, Look at how well the economy is doing.
Another way to save energy is to turn off your computer and stop spending all your time on the NET.
_______________$WMc%____________
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The Truth is out there············································ BoogerWoods, FL. USA
i know your post was in jest so I will not coment on most of it. but you can not blaim a world wide economic down turn on stuff made in china. China was hit the hardest which would not be the case. The state of the economy is as a result of 2 things. Greed and fear.
Greed in that people have been spending way beyond there means putting everything on credit.
Fear because if no one had feared the market collapse it would not happen.
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propmod_us and propmod_1x1 are in stock. Only $30. PCB available for $5
Want to make projects and have Gadget Gangster sell them for you? propmod-us_ps_sd and propmod-1x1 are now available for use in your Gadget Gangster Projects.
Need to upload large images or movies for use in the forum. you can do so at uploader.propmodule.com for free.
I agree with you 100% on people living beyond there means.The housing market is a classic example. Buy a second house, pay way to much for it and then try to sell it for twice that price.Don't forget the deferred interest and balloon payment after a couple of years.
A quot from Ron White " You can't fix stupid"
I would like China to get on the band wagon, and start some environmental emissions standards. This would save energy.This would also drive up the cost of manufacturing in China and allow the U.S. to be more competitive.If you think meeting the US EPA standards is cheap, You are wrong.This is vary expensive.But I feel it is totally needed to protect our environment
Until we get China to implement an emission standard similar to the rest of the world, they will keep polluting the air and wasting energy by way of inefficient process's, And as long as we keep buying and having things manufactured in China. I don't see them making any changes.
____________$WMc%__________
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The Truth is out there············································ BoogerWoods, FL. USA
Comments
Don't waste time (your energy) shutting off appliances and electronics that use "phantom" energy - or whatever they call it. The energy they use, creating heat in the process, just offsets the energy the heater would have to use.
Don't waste your money buying expensive electric heaters that claim superior performance. Electric heaters are 100% efficient * in converting electricity into heat - even the cheap ones.
* There would be some small losses for indicator light, fans or motors that move the heater.
Don't tailgate! Follow at a safe distance - like you are supposed to, to avoid unnecessary braking and accelerating.
Rich H
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propmod_us and propmod_1x1 are now in stock. Only $30. PCB available for $5
Need to upload large images or movies for use in the forum. you can do so at uploader.propmodule.com for free.
I have not seen any led lights in the stores yet but then I have not been looking for them. I will keep my eyes open for them and try them out.
W9GFO, an electric heater is pretty much 100% efficient when it comes to turning electricity into heat. Friction and I2R losses in the motor end up as heat, light is absorbed by the surroundings and end up as heat, the movement of the fan, heater, and air is converted by way of friction to….you guessed it, heat.
Home Depot sells some LED lighting also.
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propmod_us and propmod_1x1 are now in stock. Only $30. PCB available for $5
Need to upload large images or movies for use in the forum. you can do so at uploader.propmodule.com for free.
Rich H
W9GFO, you are right that there may be a small part of the energy that is not turned in to heat. Some of the light could escape into space, and some of the motion could be transferred to the planet. Maybe 0.000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001% or so.
Erik Friesen, Here is the info on the shower head. It is sold under the PlumbShop name and the part number is PS6114.
I buy it at Canadian Tire and their part number is 63 0157 8.
It is a nice durable chrome plated brass unit about 1" diameter and 2" long with a sliding flow control valve and 10 or 12 small spray holes. Gives a better shower than the fanciest most expensive shower head I have come across in my travels.
Residential bathrooms would no longer have bathtubs. Municipal baths and municipal kitchens would be quite handy.
Martial law with lights out after everyone is required to be indoors would eliminate a lot of waste as well.
And limiting the size of a video screens, stereos, and other appliances might be quite useful too. Batteries might be designed toward specific purposes and disallow wasteful, not productive uses - such as iPods!
Of course, you may begin to feel '1984' and 'Brave New World' were a bit naive in what the future was to become.
Nonetheless, much of this was the way things were done in Japan for centuries. Peasants were not allowed to use iron tools because they could easily be converted to weapons.
The reality is that there are generally two easy ways to reduce energy --- vastly reduce the world population or return to simpler, more labor intensive tool use of our ancestors. It also might help to become vegetarian as a means to reduce greenhouse gases - that would include no milk and no eggs, unless the milk producing mammal has a primary function as a beast of burden.
I am not really as radical as the above text might infer, but the implication is that we are all somewhat in denial about the need to aggressively manage the problem. We are all holding back our own comfort while pointing at other problem areas. Even bread making creates alcohol that without control migrates to the atmosphere to upset our environment.
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Ain't gadgetry a wonderful thing?
aka G. Herzog [noparse][[/noparse] 黃鶴 ] in Taiwan
Why does high density housing have to be "limited space"? Why can I buy a 2700 square foot single house for about the same price as a 1200-1500 square foot condo? I know for certain that on a per unit and square foot basis the condo requires less material and labor than a house does.
"Maybe underground"
I visited an underground house a few years back. It was built around a central court yard that was open to the sky, and was spacious, quiet, and airy. Not at all what I expected and I would be quite happy to live in something similar.
"Residential bathrooms would no longer have bathtubs."
Not a problem for me. I prefer to shower, and have probably used the tub all of 5 or 6 times in a year. If I bought a condo I would make sure it had a hot tub and sauna in the building. Most I have seen have both, as well as a swimming pool and party rooms.
As for the more draconian measures, I hardly think they are necessary. IMHO we are now at a transition point where we are going from an era of high growth, rapid improvement in technology, health care, and living conditions to one of slow growth or even declines in population, and enough food, material goods, energy, and housing for all.
High density housing has less surface area to the outside. So climate control can achieve greater economies than individual homesteads. The reasons that condos often cost more per square foot is about location, image, and additional services - like security. Nordic countries have communities that live underground for up to 70% of the year as the climate is too severe to bother with living in individual houses outdoors. And the long winter nights can easily be overcome with diurnal electrical lighting. If we ignore the problem, we will all be forced into some mode of underground dwelling in the future with the native atmosphere just being a heat dump for our energy production.
Fortunately, high ambient temperature environments offer high energy food production in the form of tropical fruits and oils. Like here in southern Taiwan though, people will prefer to stay inside with A/C climate control for much of the day. Outside tends to become a jungle of greenery or a concrete jungle - nether is comfortable.
At this point, the FHA REQUIRES a bath tub in order to quality for financing. Living with just a shower could disqualify you from selling your home through normal channels of finance. But in southern Taiwan, almost no one has a bathtup - just a shower. In sum, the American lifestyle is the most energy wasteful one on the planet. Just wearing long underwear in the cooler portions of the year allows you to significantly reduce the annual heating requirements of your home. The oven in the average kitchen is non-existent through out much of the world as it is a huge waste of energy, but every American has one to at least provide for the baking of a turkey once a year. The dish washer has a huge heating element to bake the dishes dry while air drying is free.
So it seems that one must first re-evaluate how they live and how they want to live before any real progress can be made. Just transferring to an alternative energy source is not enough. Use the stairs rather than the elevator - both for the cardio workout and the environment.
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Ain't gadetry a wonderful thing?
aka G. Herzog [noparse][[/noparse] 黃鶴 ] in Taiwan
LB, I have no arguments with what you say, only with what is available here. Most of what I see is poorly designed and built, with very little thought given to how it is used. Take a look at a typical 4 bedroom house here and you will find the following:
A huge master bedroom with a great deal of wasted space and TV/phone outlets placed in the worst possible locations.
A master 'ensuite' bathroom with a huge tub that will hardly ever be used because the hot water tank doesn't have the capacity to fill it. In addition the bathroom is usually placed on a corner so you have 2 outside walls making it uncomfortably cold in winter unless the heat is cranked way up.
The third wall will typically be between where the headboard in the adjoining bedroom has to go and the bathroom, disturbing the occupant of the other bedroom when it is in use.
The other bedrooms will be so small and poorly laid out that once you place a single bed and dresser in it there is barely enough space to turn around, never mind being able to make the bed.
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
propmod_us and propmod_1x1 are in stock. Only $30. PCB available for $5
Want to make projects and have Gadget Gangster sell them for you? propmod-us_ps_sd and propmod-1x1 are now available for use in your Gadget Gangster Projects.
Need to upload large images or movies for use in the forum. you can do so at uploader.propmodule.com for free.
After all the technology has an environmental impact as well as the installation of it...... We keep advancing new technologies and keep ignoring their environmental impact while praising their cleverness.
Passive solar heat has a proven track record of providing up to 95% of a building's heat require in snow country. It is where there is fog that the sun doesn't provide additional energy. Of course, lots of insulation is required as well. Going underground eliminates the need to produce exotic insulation, so does concrete construction. Sawdust is excellent insulation as is straw, but they must be treated for fire prevention with a borax solution.
What is wrong with a wind up clock? In fact, there is a lot of potential for windup motive powered robots which are controlled by microcontrollers. Think about it! That coiled spring is absolutely brilliant for storage of mechanical energy. Why convert to and from electrical?
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Ain't gadetry a wonderful thing?
aka G. Herzog [noparse][[/noparse] 黃鶴 ] in Taiwan
Here in the USA we have to abide buy E.P.A. standards on emission. This really makes Manufacturing in the USA too expensive. But moving production to China is the way to go.In China, theres no such thing as pollution. Its the perfect place to manufacture things. This will cut down on the energy use in the USA. Wall Mart is setting the example for us all to take the China rout.( No EPA standards)(No child labor Laws), It doesn't get any better than this.
The USA wont feel any economic impact from this, Trust Me, Look at how well the economy is doing.
Another way to save energy is to turn off your computer and stop spending all your time on the NET.
_______________$WMc%____________
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
The Truth is out there············································ BoogerWoods, FL. USA
Greed in that people have been spending way beyond there means putting everything on credit.
Fear because if no one had feared the market collapse it would not happen.
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
propmod_us and propmod_1x1 are in stock. Only $30. PCB available for $5
Want to make projects and have Gadget Gangster sell them for you? propmod-us_ps_sd and propmod-1x1 are now available for use in your Gadget Gangster Projects.
Need to upload large images or movies for use in the forum. you can do so at uploader.propmodule.com for free.
I agree with you 100% on people living beyond there means.The housing market is a classic example. Buy a second house, pay way to much for it and then try to sell it for twice that price.Don't forget the deferred interest and balloon payment after a couple of years.
A quot from Ron White " You can't fix stupid"
I would like China to get on the band wagon, and start some environmental emissions standards. This would save energy.This would also drive up the cost of manufacturing in China and allow the U.S. to be more competitive.If you think meeting the US EPA standards is cheap, You are wrong.This is vary expensive.But I feel it is totally needed to protect our environment
Until we get China to implement an emission standard similar to the rest of the world, they will keep polluting the air and wasting energy by way of inefficient process's, And as long as we keep buying and having things manufactured in China. I don't see them making any changes.
____________$WMc%__________
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
The Truth is out there············································ BoogerWoods, FL. USA