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Saving Energy Without Derision
George Maschke writes "Saving Energy Without Derision (5 mb PDF) is a new (and free) e-book by former Sandia National Laboratories senior scientist Dr. Alan P. Zelicoff. This book is intended to be a real-world, no-nonsense, thoroughly documented collection of easy-to-implement recommendations to help the average thoughtful person to pick the 'low-hanging fruit' of conservation and renewable energy. The author is after the easy 75% of actions we can all take (but almost uniformly ignore) that most certainly make a difference in energy costs (after all that's what most people care about) and adjuring a bit of unnecessary adverse impact on the environment (which a few folks actually think is important beyond the mere dollar valuation). The author welcomes comments and intends to continuously update the book (consistent with readership interest) and address many new topics. For example, next on his list is an analysis of the economics and scientific basis of fuel-cell vehicles powered by hydrogen. (Bottom line, he maintains, is that it's a cruel hoax and energy disaster, and far less useful than, for example, heavy hybrid automobiles that get about 50 - 60 miles on an electric charge alone -- which accounts for more than 85% of driving in the US and elsewhere on a daily basis -- and which are available now.)"
Might be outdated! HERE
Read the HTML version instead, without the pretty graphs
Google is your friend.
Please tell me that was sarcasm.
Fuel cells will not provide us with energy. They will only help store it. If we had the perfect battery (long life, close to completely efficient, no leakage, no memory, high output, quick recharge) then the electric car would become a lot more feasible. The electric car is a good thing because your power plant can burn oil and coal at around 80% efficiency. Your car burns gas at, IIRC, a meager 20%-40%. Also, this would allow new forms of electricity generation to not only affect your home, but also your car, trains, trucks, and planes.
Help I'm a rock.
Instead of investing billions in pipe dreams, we should focus on excellent technology that can be implemented in the next few years for a reasonable cost. Renewable cellulose-derived ethanol could reduce our dependence on foreign fossil fuels and is neutral in net carbon impact (the carbon emissions from burning the fuel are offset by growing more low cost fuel crops that take CO2 out of the environment). And current gasoline engines run with minimal modifications on E85, an 85% ethanol, 15% gasoline mix. Making FFV engines (flexible fuel vehicles - compatible with ethanol and gasoline in various mixtures) can be done for at most 100-200 dollars of extra cost at vehicle build time, and many FFVs are already on the road in the US (in many cases, people don't even know they have them, the manufacturers build them for tax breaks then don't market the features outside of certain areas of the midwest where corn-derived ethanol is available at the gas station).
At current gas prices, cellulose-derived ethanol is actually more than competitive, it is cheaper than gas - the problem is the long term instability of gas prices makes investing in infrastructure to produce cellulosic ethanol as a fuel substitute too risky - it's hard to compete with something pumped out of the ground, where most of the costs are transportation, and political/defense issues. Please note that we're NOT talking about corn ethanol, which a highly subsidized and environmentally contentious product due to high energy costs of growing and harvesting corn.
Holy cripes, here we go again... why can't you people get it?
it isn't an energy *source*
Umm, that is the whole *point* of using hydrogen: to provide an efficient storage mechanism for energy, which can then be extracted cleanly using fuel cells, combustion, etc.
And *why* do we want this? Because then we can generate large quantities of energy in central locations using methods not normally available to vehicles (hydroelectric, solar, wind), as well as benefiting from economies of scale with traditional technologies (traditional, large scale power plants are *far* more efficient than a standard internal combustion engine in a car).
Moreover, centralized generation makes it easier to move to new generation technologies (geothermal, tidal, etc), and to upgrade existing plants (since you only have thousands of plants to upgrade, rather than hundreds of millions of cars).
So, in the end, I'd say we all benefit from a multi-billion dollar investment in Hydrogen energy.
Powering cars by rechargable batteries has MANY more problems... If 50% power loss is assumed at each step (optimistic), how much power is really needed to charge a battery, after 1) Generation 2) Transmission 3) Step down to battery V in garage 4)Recharge loss 5) Storage loss
You want leaks? Battery drains faster than hydrogen can escape
Let's not even talk about the unchanging (heavy) weight of batteries (whereas fuel weight decreases at is consumed). You are still hauling 500 lbs of battery full or empty.
What about practicality? It takes several hours to recharge a battery vehicle. They are only practical in closed loops e.g. golf courses, where usage is more or less constant. Though admittedly a setup with chargers at home +and+ at place of employment would be useful for the 9-5'ers.
What about the environment? Lead and elecrtolyte will have to be replaced regularly. And accidents will get really ugly as acid is spilled all over the place.
But the first movers on the "big ticket" efficiency ideas are the ones that get all of the press. I am not against PVs. I think it is great that the technology is progressing as it has, but there are millions of households that could save ~$100-$300 worth of electricity per year with very simple, inexpensive, boring improvements. These aren't whizbang enough to attract media attention, so people just don't know about them.
Fuel cells, PVs, super-insulated passive solar houses...these get the press...or at least did at different times since the 70s. Turning down 10% of the water heaters in America by 5 degrees and installing a water heater blanket will save more energy than produced by all of the PVs ever produced. See, my argument is that it must be economically viable in order for Joe Average to bother with it. There are economically feasible efficiency ideas that are commonly overlooked because they are so boring.
Good example. I have a ground-source (aka geothermal) heat pump in my house. I had a hard time finding a dealer to install it. They just aren't that popular. During heating season, it operates at a coefficient of performance of about 4. Every watt of electricity I put in, I get 4 watts of heat out. My electric bills are only about $100/month, even in the winter (Southwestern PA)...compared to people who got $400 gas bills last year. That is an energy efficiency and an economic win. But, there was no promotion of geothermal heat pumps. There was no discussions of them in the press. Energy efficient ideas have been divorced from economic viability for far too long...lining them up right next to people wearing hemp clothing. This needs to change. It should not be "fringe" to be energy efficient.
As father of five kids, with seven people in the house, basic things such as double-paned windows, water-saving shower heads, gas dryer, hot-water blankets, compact flourescent bulbs, and so on have been the mainstay.
If this was not the case, my monthly utility bill (in California) would easily hit $500-$600/mo. As it is, we're lucky to have bills typically in the $200-$300 range. (I have two mini-servers for my business that are never off)
Often, these kinds of things provide clear advantages beyond merely saving money.
Recently, the water-saving shower head in the downstairs bathroom broke, and I screwed on the original shower head, which I still had in the shed, thinking this would "get us by" until I could get in for another one.
Boy, was I wrong! With the old shower head, we could shower everybody in the household, one right after another in about one or two hours, including dressing.
But, with the new shower head, we ran out of hot water within 20 minutes, making showering everybody nearly an all-day venture while we waited for the hot-water heater to catch up.
Once, my son left the shower running hot water all night long, and in the morning, we found the shower going, and there was still plenty of hot water!
Another example: Flourescent bulbs not only use far less energy than incandescent, they also last much longer (who wants to replace light bulbs once a month?) and don't heat up the house.
I noticed the difference when I changed out the three 60-watt bulbs on the living room fam with three 15-watt flourescent! The room was, if anything, brighter, and, previously, when the fan was on low, you could FEEL the heat coming off those three 60-watt bulbs!
Double-paned windows mean that my teen children can blare their punk music as loud as they want to without pissing off the neighbors. Also, we live on a somewhat busy street, and I can sleep off hours without car noise waking me. (as long as said kids don't blare their punk music)
Also, in the winter time, you can sit next to the windows and not feel cold. That adds much to my sense of well-being on a cold winter morning...
Embrace conservation. It doesn't *have* to be a hassle!
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
The article (which I've only read through the google cache link) has a bunch of images, which are probably bloating it to the 5MB mark. The cached version, including all of the crazy markup google uses to make the HTML look like the PDF, is ~380K.
Those things have no crumple zones at all. You get into a crash, they stop suddenly, and none of the energy is absorbed by the car - it all gets transferred to the people in the car. Squish.
What is the robbing of a bank, compared to the founding of a bank? -- Bertolt Brecht
Yes, indeed when the "Slashdot effect" took over, the server where my website is hosted crashed. The server owner/host isn't very happy, but this is my mistake and I apologize to all of the MANY readers who want to download the book. If you can't connect (I have no idea how much longer it will be before the server is rebooted, and when it is, I may be forced to remove the book), just send me an e-mail and I'll send you a copy (and hope you'll find it useful enough to send a small voluntary donation of $5 or $10 so that I can continue to update it with useful science and new technologies). My e-mail: zalan8587@qwest.net
I don't think what he's suggesting will dim the bulbs. His suggestion is basically a hack that screws with the oddities of AC power. Without checking things exactly, I believe what he's done is screw up his Power Factor. In the US (I believe), residential owners are billed without consideration for the Power Factor, so he's probably right that this will save you money. The light won't be any dimmer.
He's also right that it doesn't save any power. And he omits the fact that screwing up your Power Factor is not good for the efficiency of the grid, and probably ends up costing the grid more power than just running normally in the end.
I have heard that other countries measure the PF for residential users-- which is why you see computer power supplies marketed with "active PF correction" to keep your 600W gaming machine's PSU from fucking up the power grid.
Here's an article (and another) that explains the basics of AC Power Factor-- an excess of capacitive or inductive loads will result in a leading or lagging power factor, which results in you getting more current delivered for the same amount of power used, and they eat it as line loss in their grid. Industrial facilities in the US *are* charged for having a leading or lagging (ie, not 1) Power Factor, so for factories with lots of electric motors (big inductors), they'll often have a big capacitor bank to pull the PF back in the other direction.
His trick is to use the fact that light bulbs could care less about PF, AC, or DC to run them roughly DC. The diode clips off the bottom half of the 120V sine wave. The capacitor (charged during the "up" cycle) will supply power during the "down" half of the cycle (which is now off, thanks to the diode), with side effect of giving him a leading power factor.
My EE classes are getting rusty, so if anybody wants to post a more thorough analysis or point out any mistakes, feel free.
I have my displays set to turn themselves off on sleep mode. It isn't perfect, since it still uses something like 3 watts, but it's better than a couple hundred by far. Another thing that helps is to search for computer equipment that's Energy Star compliant. It means that the equipment is guaranteed to use at most a certain amount of power when set to sleep mode. The bonus is that the computer starts back up in a matter of seconds. If that isn't fast enough for you, then you really need to take a break.
"Anyone who attempts to generate random numbers by deterministic means is living in a state of sin." -- John von Neumann
Studies find that suburban sprawl may bad for your health due to it's probable link to obesity. Not terribly surprising since you're driving most places instead of walking.
If you don't want to use your car, you should have picked the area you live in better
Fair argument, but you assume there was better choices to make near where the parent poster works.
...or make sacrifices so you can afford to live downtown somewhere with everything packed together.
Nonsense and balderdash. This assumes that the only downtown spaces can be person (versus car) friendly. Space-gulping pedestrian unfriendly suburban planning (or lack thereof) is *not* a given. Alternative block design and the new trend of "traditional neighborhood development (TND) bring up alternatives to cul-de-sacs, mega-mall fortresses, and strip-mall hell.
Besides, we're smart slash-dot readers, why should be feel compelled to be stuck with inferior choices when there's a possibility of smart design for our living and working communities?
My dad works for a heating/cooling company in Lincoln, NE, and they're putting these things in left and right. But from what I understand there are certain factors for the installation that makes it difficult to retrofit homes with it.
Housing makers tend to be traditional. Now I've been looking at the concrete dome houses. I wish we weren't still building places using the old hundred year old stick built homes that were built that way because it was cheap.
I don't read AC A human right
Why don't you use Bittorrent to distribute it before your email server crashes too?
Linux is not Windows
Very good points. Don't forget, also, that coal is responsible for the increasing levels of mercury in the environment. Over time, the metallic mercury released by coal-burning plants is transformed into organic methyl mercury, which is phenomenally toxic and teratogenic. The FDA and EPA are recommending that pregnant and nursing women severely limit their intake of fish, and that humans should never eat certain kinds of fish high on the food chain (shark, tilefish, swordfish, etc.) Mercury levels in tuna have also risen to worrisome levels.
u ryinfish.htmlm ercupd.pdf
Until we change our outlook, the growing energy needs of our planet will be met primarily with toxic, dirty coal, and we will be suffering the consequences for a very long time.
Credible links with more information:
http://www.pbs.org/now/science/merc
http://www.epa.gov/ost/fishadvice/
Plus I've mirrored it here, with the author's permission: http://s108450040.onlinehome.us/savingenergy.pdf.z ip. Al asks that I should "let your mirror users know that substantive comments (that is,
science based as opposed to political ranting) also welcomed."
Cracking water/steam using solar furnaces - use the power-tower or similar concepts to first heat water to super-heated steam, then run the steam over red-hot iron (heated by the sun as well).
As I have noted before, I don't know why this couldn't work - or why it works. All I know is that this was a major method of hydrogen production back in the 1800's for ballooning (aerostat racing and exhibitions) - super heated steam was passed over red-hot iron and cracked into hydrogen (and one assumes oxygen - it binds with the iron to make rust?) at fast enough rates to fill a balloon envelope. If it worked then it would work now. In fact, a variation of this is how we crack hydrocarbons into hydrogen at a refinery.
I have proposed that a plant be built in Barstow/Daggett in California, near Boron. There used to be a technology marketed to bind the hydrogen to borax (similar to hydrate storage?) - making these "solid fuel" tablets of hydrogen - reacted in water (IIRC), the tablets would release hydrogen gas to run an engine, and heat (exothermic reaction) - and the water/precipitate (don't remember what the reaction created) could be recycled to create more "solid hydrogen" tablets (bonded hydrogen would be a better term).
How many times do I need to post this idea - and when will I get an answer of why it won't work (I have a theory that there may be a practical reason - but I have yet to hear it)? Such a system of generating hydrogen would be mostly eco-safe: solar, water, and iron (scrap cars?) would be all that is needed, and a source of borax (hence the location for the plant - plenty of nearby borax, location on a fairly major trucking route to ship the resulting fuel, and plenty of sun year round for generation!).
BTW - the test plants that were built in Barstow/Daggett - they routinely output 10+ megawatts, and used very little ground area for a solar plant (less than an airport - possibly even less than a conventional power plant)...
Damn - why aren't we doing this!?
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Yes, if you try to download it, it downloads a PDF that basically says "email me if you want a copy". I did, and he sent it within 15 minutes. I'm in the process of putting it on my website right now: Here
(And as soon as I find an existing torrent for it, I'll join the stream.)
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
My book "Saving Energy without Derision" can be accessed in the at several mirrors and by Bittorrent. Mirrors are posted at: http://www.zelicoff.com/SMLR/#PayPal_Line Bittorent file at: http://www.zelicoff.com/SMLR/SavingEnergy.torrent