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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.)"

38 of 698 comments (clear)

  1. Good to see! by mprinkey · · Score: 4, Interesting

    There is a definite need for energy conservation ideas that can be directly supported with economic validation. So many "green" initiatives are driven solely by politics and have economics, and often even environmental impacts, that are questionable. We need more people installing compact flourescent lamps and water heater blankets...not $20,000 solar panel arrays. A healthy dose of common sense here could really make energy efficiency ideas more popular. Here's hoping it works.

  2. The fundamental issue with Hydrogen... by Ricdude · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ...is that it isn't an energy *source*. You have to make hydrogen, either by splitting it out of water, or some hydrocarbon source (e.g. petroleum), then pressurize it to extremes in order to get any usable range out of it in an automobile. If hydrogen can be manufactured by renewable means (geothermal, for example, would work well in Iceland), then there is some benefit to it.

    However, if you use solar energy to create electricity to electrolyze water, and make hydrogen gas that way, you end up with less energy at the wheels of a car than you would just charging a battery from the same solar energy.

    So you have to ask yourself, who benefits from multi-billion dollars of investment into a Hydrogen energy infrastructure?

    --
    How's my programming? Call 1-800-DEV-NULL
    1. Re:The fundamental issue with Hydrogen... by mprinkey · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The key issue with hydrogen is that there is no good way to store it. It diffuses through everything, so leaks will always be an issue. Liquifying takes super cold temperatures and is very expensive. Compressed hydrogen needs to be a ~1000 psi to get a sufficiently high energy density...and that will make for one interesting car crash.

      The best solution for transportable, stable, environmentally friendly fuel is probably methane. Compressed natural gas vehicles are very common. We can make methane about as easily as we can make hydrogen or oil or even from coal, via gasification. All fuel cell manufactures are also looking at reforming mechanisms to make methane useful in fuel cells. As engineer who has worked on fuel cell technology for the last five years, I think it is pretty clear that for future of transportation applications of fuel cells...particularly hydrogen-only systems...is very bleak.

      Fuel cells will be used (eventually) in stationary power systems and very soon in portable electronics that will use liquid methanol as a fuel. Everything else is just a pipe dream, IMO.

    2. Re:The fundamental issue with Hydrogen... by Ricdude · · Score: 2, Interesting

      It's not particularly efficient as a transportable energy medium, that's the problem. You need highly pressurized tanks to do this, and leaks are quite dangerous in these circumstances. It's more efficient to charge a battery, and use that stored energy than it is to generate hydrogren, pressurize it, distribute it, and convert it back to usable energy.

      The problem with centralized generation is distribution losses. Upgrading thousands of plants is just not going to happen. The plants out there will run until they fall apart, or are otherwise decommissioned for safety reasons.

      Replacing hundreds of millions of cars (and refueling pumps, and transport trucks, and hydrogren manufacturing plants) is exactly what's necessary to implement this hydrogen scheme. There's an easier way to increase energy independence, especially in the transportation sector, and that's via biofuels. Biodiesel and Ethanol can resuse the majority of the current transportation infrastructure: existing tanks, pumps, and with no or only minor modifications, even the cars. All that changes is where the tanker trucks fill up.

      Also, decentralizing the infrastructure, renders it less susceptible to disruption (plant downtime, maintenance, terrorist attack, etc.).

      --
      How's my programming? Call 1-800-DEV-NULL
    3. Re:The fundamental issue with Hydrogen... by Ricdude · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Using ethanol as a fuel results in a fossil energy balance of approximately 1.1:1, you get just a little more out of it than you put into extracting it. Biodiesel from soy beans tends to average about 3:1, due to the large solar input (which is not considered in the fossil energy balance). Soy is by far, not the most efficient (economic, nor energy) feedstock for biodiesel. Nuts, algaes, and even mustard seed are far more efficient for that sort of thing.

      Oh, and most diesel engines today require no conversion to run on biodiesel. I pull up to the B100 (100% biodiesel) pump in my TDI New Beetle, pump and go. All I have to "convert" is which pump I pull up to. Older diesel cars may require replacement of fuel lines (natural rubber and biodiesel are not a good combination), but that's about it.

      --
      How's my programming? Call 1-800-DEV-NULL
    4. Re:The fundamental issue with Hydrogen... by Phanatic1a · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Compressed hydrogen needs to be a ~1000 psi to get a sufficiently high energy density...and that will make for one interesting car crash.

      Ah, come on.

      Gasoline has an energy content of 45 megajoules per kilogram, or 56 MJ per liter. Energy density of hydrogen is about 11 kilojoules per liter.

      My car gets about 325 miles on a 16-gallon tank, so that's 60 liters of gas, or about 3400 megajoules. To get that same amount of energy from hydrogen, I'd need 309100 liters of the stuff, at STP. To fit that into a 16-gallon tank, I'd need to pressurize it to about 5000psi, or about 340 atmospheres.

      Not particularly difficult to build a tank that can hold that. Not even particularly difficult to build a tank that can hold that and still have a huge safety margin. HY80 steel, ferinstance, has a yield strength of (surprise!) 80,000psi on a one-inch thickness. Even aluminum might do the job; 5083 H-116 plate has a yield strength of 34,000 psi. Sure, you're carrying around a tank of highly-compressed hydrogen, but making a tank that's strong enough not to rupture in approachingly-normal circumstances, and connecting it to the car with a strong enough leakage that it won't break itself free and go flying into the next county if it *does* happen to rupture is hardly a game-breaker. Hell, cars today carry around tanks of a highly-flammable liquid in a tank of thin sheet steel, and those rarely rupture, and people aren't concerned about the safety of it.

      No, the key issue with hydrogen is that there's no good way to produce it. Until you go all-nuclear, electrolysis is ridiculously expensive, and steam-reformation of hydrocarbons doesn't really help you.

      Leaks? Get the production cost low enough and nobody'll care about leaks, anymore than they care about the trickle of water leaking from a car's exhaust pipe.

    5. Re:The fundamental issue with Hydrogen... by Yartrebo · · Score: 3, Interesting

      My car gets about 325 miles on a 16-gallon tank, so that's 60 liters of gas, or about 3400 megajoules. To get that same amount of energy from hydrogen, I'd need 309100 liters of the stuff, at STP. To fit that into a 16-gallon tank, I'd need to pressurize it to about 5000psi, or about 340 atmospheres.

      My math shows that the pressure will be 41.6 kPa per mole of hydrogen using a 60 litre tank at 300 Kelvins (around room temperature). The heat of reaction of H2 + 1/2O2 = H20 is 241.8 kJ/mol, so to store 3.4 GJ of energy, you would need 14,060 moles of hydrogen, and the pressure would be about 584 MPa, or about 5,800 atmospheres assuming hydrogen is an ideal gas.

      Hydrogen ceases to be like an ideal gas far before 5,800 atmospheres are reached. In fact, no amount of compression short of squeezing the hydrogen into a ball of neutrons (trillions of atmospheres required at a minimum) will fit the hydrogen into that tank. Well, there would be an intermediate point (after a few billion atmospheres) where the carbon and leftover hydrogen could be combined into hydrocarbons and those should fit into the tank.

  3. Diesel with or without Biodiesel is a good start by CapsaicinBoy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Driving a modern VW or MB diesel whether or not you ever plan to use a single drop of domestically produced biodiesel is a good place to start.

    My 2003 Jetta TDI has 40862 miles on it and I've used 832.7 gallons of diesel (and 56.9 gallons of biodiesel) thus far. For those of you keeping score at home, that's about 45.93 mpg over the life of the car. Not too shabby.

    Why wait 15-20 years for hydrogen when we can start reducing our dependence on foreign oil NOW?

  4. I've never understand electric cars by Loco3KGT · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Batteries are amazingly corrosive.

    A lot of the U.S. gets its electricity from coal and other non-replaceable fuels that damamge the environment.

    Everytime you drive it you have to plug in and get more electric charge from the above environment destroying power plant.

    Where's the bonus?

    --
    Blessed be he who reads this post, Cursed be he who tells my boss.
    1. Re:I've never understand electric cars by RTMFD · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Does that include all of the inefficiencies introduced by the power grid, step-up, and step-down tranformers, etc.?

      Nuclear power really seems to be the way to go here. The "elephant in the room" with electric power right now is the pollution produced by it and the crumbing infrastructure used to conduct it from the generator to the load.

  5. From the article by jawtheshark · · Score: 2, Interesting
    If you drive an average, 20 mpg car or small truck in America, the engine is capable of generating 200 horsepower (or more) when you slam down on the accelerator.

    Uhm... I'm not an automobile engineer, but somebody got to explain this to me. Is the *average* American car really in the 200HP range? I mean, I have a 225HP car, and that's considered "a lot" in Europe. Is there anybody that can explain this to me?

    --
    Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
  6. Sadly, we've built a North American wasteland... by Dzimas · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I went shopping this morning - spent my time shuttling my car between various big-box stores. WalMart, the grocery store, the bank. I've got a 2 year-old, so walking is out of the question (and, honestly, I wouldn't want to walk that distance anyway). The truly sad thing is that the shops are "next to each other" but separated by huge expanses of parking lot. What makes it truly sad is that there is an LRT line that runs through the shopping district, with a stop at 2km intervals. Too far for anything but waiting for the busses (which run on a 45 minute schedule on the weekend). My point? Its nearly impossible not to have a car, and each of the free-standing houses in the surburban neighbourhoods is approximately 2000 square feet. Most are at least 2km from shops, schools, and rec centres. I doubt many residents want to live in the area, but we cannot afford expensive "trendy" inner city homes. And the developers seem stuck in a rut -- they just churn out more sprawl each year. I wonder if its possible to make them change? Signed, Sad is Suburbia.

  7. Re:It's a nice thought.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    What happened to the days when sports cars were cool?

    Now everyone needs a 2 ton armor plated jeep to be cool...

    Back in the day kids who wanted to show off and impress chicks bought tiny european sportscars not some huge tank that looks like a reject from the soviet army.

  8. 110v - 220v? by Cardbox · · Score: 2, Interesting

    How much energy would the USA save by switching from 110VAC to 220VAC power distribution? It would halve the ohmic losses in local wiring and would also reduce the amount of copper used. Since the rest of the world uses 220V, it would also simplify equipment design.

    1. Re:110v - 220v? by Infinityis · · Score: 2, Interesting

      It would halve the ohmic losses...I don't think so, I think it might quarter them.

      Assuming that we'll consume the same amount of power and knowing that 110V is the RMS voltage (i.e. DC-equvalent voltage), we can see that the current is going to be halved. However, the power losses due to that current are I^2*R. Thus (0.5*I)^2*R = 0.25*I^2*R, so we'll consume 1/4 the amount of power in ohmic transmission losses.

      However, this overlooks the fact that much of the power distribution occurs over much higher voltage lines (we're talking kilovolts here, which is why those "big" power lines have such "big" insulators holding them away from the structure). It still doesn't make it a bad idea though...no matter how you cut it, a watt saved is a watt earned, wattever that means...

  9. hydrogen by Ralph+Spoilsport · · Score: 3, Interesting
    The Parent Spaketh:

    (Bottom line, he maintains, is that it's [hydrogen] 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.)

    What is also sad from my viewpoint is that hydrogen, technically, isn't really a "fuel". You need a lot of energy to make it. Now, if one uses solar power to make electricity to crack water to make H, then you've sort of solved part of the problem, but solar panels have a shelf life, and are dependent on local weather conditions.

    I don't see Hydrogen as much of a solution for transportation. But I do think it could be used for home heating and local electrical generation in adverse environments. Still, the generation of Hydrogen is the big nut to crack. I think one nation on earth could become the Saudi Arabia of Hydrogen: Iceland.

    1. They're an island, so they have all the water they need.
    2.The whole freakin' island is basically a lava slick.

    You don't have to drill very far down to get Enormous Amounts of geothermal energy, which they are already tapping for island electrical needs. All they have to do is build extra geothermal plants and crack the Atlantic Ocean. Geothermal s steady and continuous power (the earth isn't going to cool off anytime in the near future, and as Iceland is part of the Atlantic Spread, I don't think anything we can do will slow plate tectonics or cool Iceland off).

    Hawaii and Vanuatu could be the Pacific Equivalents. Steady energy, lots of water. With that kind of a set up, we'll have a situation more like petroleum, where we'd have a real "fuel" i.e., lots of stored energy for very little energy expenditure in its creation.

    I used to be all into Hydrogen - thikning - Hey - it turns into WATER when you burn it! KEWL!

    But when I found out that the easiest hydrogen to get is out of petroleum, and that getting it out of either water or petroleum takes a lot of energy (which we get from either petroleum or fission - neither of which is renewable, except for the politically suicidal option of breeder reactors) my enthusiasm faded.

    The first thing is conservation, and the article provides a lot of great ideas (many of which I am already doing, and had pointers for some that I will be dong!) for that. But I'm afraid that the next several decades will be warfare over water and energy, and we really need to find solutions to both problems.

    I've stated before that the real problem is demographic - there are simply too many people. We need to *gradually* reduce populations to a sustainable level (I would estimate a global population of 250 - 300 million could be made sustainable indefinitely) and then develop long term energy, water, and metal recycling solutions.

    If we don't the not so distant future will be one of horrifying catastrophe: disease, continuous war over ever dimishing resources, no power, crushing poverty and crowding, and a long term future best described as a paleolithic extinction event.

    So, these are simple little choices we can make now, so we can plan for the future. OR, we can be our typical shortsighted green eyed greedy guts eat the world up everything for me and mine, and fuck the rest of you losers and simply watch the most precious of things in the universe - sentience - disappear.

    It WILL eventually disappear, but it doesn't have to go this way - so stupidly, and so preventably.

    Your every decision has far reaching effects.

    RS

    --
    Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
  10. Re:Diodes by ericpi · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The watt-hour meters used by electric companies are supprisingly accurate, and resiliant to many types of 'cheats'. I've heard of several schemes to fool meters, such as drawing lots of power in very short bursts, in hopes that the meter can't keep up, etc. The results I heard were the same: The meter will do a reasonably good job of measuring your energy usage, reagardless of how you choose to use that energy.

    Sure, the the diode you suggest will make your meter run slower... at the mere expense of a bulb that's not as bright as it was before. (Standard light dimmers work in much the same way: By reducing the % of the cycle the bulb is powered.) Aside from the time you spent, you'll simply come out even in the end.

  11. Cutting the electric bill down by here4fun · · Score: 3, Interesting
    I am saving $10 a month on electricity from one easy change. I replaced the kitchen lights (there were three 100 watt bulbs before) with fluorescent lights. In the past, I tried to pay attention to turning the lights off before bed so I would not waste electricity or shorten bulb life. With the fluorescent lights, I now don't care if the lights stay on all night long, I still pay so much less money.

    I also saw something cool on the web. Some guy had a small solar panel and battery kit which could hold enough of a charge to run a small air conditioner for most of the day (when there was sunlight). I think that is a cool idea, as most friends who must use window air conditioners always complain how much more their electricity bill is in the summer.

  12. Comments on the draft... by AtariDatacenter · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I'm up to page 22. Page 22! I started to read this to find ways that I could save money on my energy (gas/electric) bills. Instead, I'd bombarded with page after page after page of introductory material.

    Mind you, this is good background information that seems really thought out, but you really have to WANT to read this thing in order to get it done.

    I'm just hoping the end of this is better than a standard energy saving pamphlet, or I'll feel like I was bait-and-switched to read some environmentalist's propaganda.

  13. Re:Enviro guilt by Yokaze · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Maybe it is only the perception?

    As far as I can remember, people were doing this. So at least since the mid-80s. Almost all those things he says (except the hybrid car) could be practiced before, and the cost savings were real then as they are today.

    In what does his position differ from those people?

    --
    "Between strong and weak, between rich and poor [...], it is freedom which oppresses and the law which sets free"
  14. Energy waste by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Last week we were called to install two 3 door coolers for displaying and selling beer. They are in a small room, each with a 3/4 hp 115v compressor. The room will overheat very quickly.

    We suggested installing a single compressor on the roof to reject the heat outside instead of into the small room. But no, we were told to install an air conditioner to cool the room.

    This 'solution' will use twice the energy, but installation will cost approximately half.

    They will pay the difference maybe twice over the lifetime of the equipment in increased energy costs.

    This is real world. The only thing that will change this mindset is a drastic increase in energy prices.

    Derek

  15. mostly true, but with exceptions by Trepidity · · Score: 2, Interesting

    If you take a look at the League of Conservation Voter's identification of the worst policians in terms of environmental record, it's true that most are Republicans, but not all. In particular, if you happen to live in Minnesota's 7th district, and care about the environment, you'd do well to vote against Democrat Collin Peterson, who has one of the worst environmental records in the House.

  16. Re:You forget about nuclear power by ArsenneLupin · · Score: 1, Interesting
    Invest money in plutonium breeding technology or a thorium nuclear reactor because uranium will run out as well.

    ... and at the same time such reactor while protect you from power-hungry madmen who mistake themselves for the world police.

    Don't believe me?

    Then just answer one question: are there any GI's in North Korea?

    Saddam's error was not to have weapons of mass destruction. No, his error was to have no weapons of mass destruction!

  17. Obsolete Assumptions by alizard · · Score: 1, Interesting
    NO amount of conservation by us will noticeably affect global warming or the coming of peak oil or the continuing upward trend in the price of energy, which is an indirect tax on everything we do for business or pleasure.

    The growth in energy demand from the industrializing Third World dwarfs anything we can do in this area.

    Conservation is fun stuff, but if we are to survive the consequences of past and present energy policy, we need to get to work on the real problem.

    We need to be looking at energy replacement instead, and that energy should be a lot cleaner and a lot cheaper than we are buying today.

    The author pointed out that the future "hydrogen economy" is a cruel hoax perpetrated by the ignorant and by people who find the technologies so l33t and k3w1 that they haven't noticed that hydrogen is an inefficient energy distribution medium that might be uneconomic even if the price of electricity were $0.000 per KWh.

    We are best off growing our own crude oil and prcessing and distributing it using existing infrastructure.

    Biodiesel even when grown using ridiculously energy and labor intensive food crops is at rough parity with diesel fuel drilled in the middle east. We can do better than this, turning our sewage treatment plants into energy farms for algae that transforms raw sewage into crude oil should be a lot cheaper.

    Remember the article here about $250/ton transport to LEO?

    The NASA proposal for the Space Power Satellite showed that the system would be profitable even at launch costs of $400/kg.

    What does 25% a pound to orbit using an extension of a 200 year old technology suggest to you?

    Hopefully, more than it suggests to our political and corporate leadership.

    If we can sell electricity directly to the Third World cheaper than they can buy oil to make it with, that's a lot of carbon dioxide and general pollution that isn't going to be happening.

    We can replace fossil fuel, both as oil and as coal with solar energy packaged as cheaper and cleaner replacements.

    For more information, click here. This includes links to the relevant UNH / NASA / DOE / space transportation sites.

  18. The answer for cars is plug-in hybrids by Thagg · · Score: 5, Interesting
    A group of people called PriusPlus have just about completed a plug-in modification of one of their 2004 Priuses. It is a great car, and a great way to save energy -- at least a good way to save gasoline.


    The normal Prius uses its battery pack to help acceleration, hill climbing, and to power accessories. The battery pack is recharged by the gas engine and by regenerative braking. Every place except North America, the Prius has an EV button, which turns the car into a pure electric car -- but only for a mile or two before the battery reaches a state-of-charge (SOC) that is too low. The Prius battery back is designed to last an extremely long time (warranteed for 150,000 miles), and one way Toyota assures that is by limiting the SOC to a small range, from about 25% full to 80% full.


    Priusplus is adding a separate "traction" battery, that works with the normal Prius drivetrain, to provide a long-distance EV mode. In their first proof-of-concept car (which should be finished this weekend) it uses 12 motorcycle Lead-Acid batteries, and it should go about 20 or 30 miles on an overnight (or overday) charge. Using far superiour Lithium Ion batteries, they should get about 80 miles for a battery pack that costs about $5,000 or so (although current Lithium cells are quite small indeed, requiring a rediculous number of batteries wired into a large pack)


    If I could go, say, even 40 miles on a charge, I wouldn't use the gas motor in my Prius except to climb very steep hills during the week. I'd effectively get well over 100 mpg (Electricity costs, even in California, give a price-per-mile of about 2 cents. Unfortunately, at this point, the cost for the traction battery (because it is more deeply cycled it doesn't last as long) probably adds another few cents/mile.


    PriusPlus is hoping to display there car at a show here in Los Angeles at the end of the month, and is attempting to persuade Toyota that this is a car they should build. Once people are educated about the benefits of hybrid technology, it should be a small step to show them the further benefits of plugging them in.


    I fervently hope that PriusPlus will succeed!


    Thad

    --
    I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
  19. Re:You forget about nuclear power by danharan · · Score: 2, Interesting

    God damnit, nuclear energy is NOT the cheapest source of energy out there. Natural gas, oil, coal, wind are all cheaper, 1/2 or 1/3 the price.

    Like wind, nuclear power is cheap to produce once you've spent insane amounts of capital building a plant. And it takes a long while to start producing energy, never mind producing more than it actually cost to get the plant up and extract its fuel.

    Oh, and did I mention that before you actually build the first plant, you need socialism to pay for the R&D for the big corporations? Slashdotters are all going on about new types of plants that will be safe, cheap, etc... but those also need massive subsidies.

    Wind only needs subsidies right now to create a level playing field with other subsidized forms of energy- but when the production tax credit is in place, they're already a good investment, with growth rates around 30% year over year. And that means economies of scale and prices that keep falling- soon wind will be cheaper than natural gas.

    --
    Information: "I want to be anthropomorphized"
  20. Re:tiny little cars by Rew190 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    You're more likely to die in an SUV than a car because of their tendencies to roll. I've seen it with my own eyes on a few occasions.

    Nowadays though, this might be different as the chances I die in my WRX are probably greater since every day it becomes more likely that in an accident I'll an have obnoxiously-sized tank rolling over me instead of a car merely hitting me.

    At any rate, the nation as a whole would be better off without SUVs (excluding those that are actually used as workhorses).

  21. think of hydrogen as a battery by TheSwirlingMaelstrom · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Ok, I haven't read the article yet (mirrors?), but I have read some of the comments.

    Don't think of hydrogen as an energy source or a fuel: as has been pointed out many times before (and not just on /.), hydrogen is a rotten fuel since it takes so much energy to harvest it (i.e. from water or hydrocarbons). Instead, think of it as a half-decent battery which can store a *lot* of energy and doesn't have any toxic waste.

    After all, what do you do with a battery: you charge it somehow, the energy is stored chemically (notoriously inefficient), and then it is discharged. Some batteries can be recharged and reused but, in the end, there is always a shell laden with noxious stuff left to dispose of.

    How does a hyrdogen cell work? You put energy into creating and storing the hydrogen ( think charging a battery), the hydrogen is expended by combining it with oxygen in the air (producing heat and, hence, work to drive an engine or generator). After the cell is discharged, it can very likely be reused or, if not, recycled.

    The problem with a hydrogen-based 'energy transport mechanism' (aka battery) is the source of the energy initially required to break the hydrogen from its chemical bonds. Lots of options:

    • nuclear (results in some nasty waste, but it is a heck of a lot less stupid than burning fscking coal
    • solar
    • wind
    • bacterial (proposed as a way to break some hydrocarbons)
    Some of these mechanisms are made more viable because you're using a more efficient battery to store the energy.

    My $0.02CDN.

    --
    #include "cunning_plan.h"
  22. Insulate..... by ge · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I live in Tucson, AZ, in a 2500 sq. ft. house, with lots of windows. The electric bill runs about $150 in the middle of summer, $60-$75 in winter. I do have 2 PCs and various other equipment running 24/7.

    Friends who live in a 2000 sq. ft. home built by a volume builder pay about $300 right now, and I have heard of people that have $600/month power bills.

    We spent a few $1000 extra to get a more efficient house:
    - blow-in insulation was used everywhere. There's more than a foot of the stuff under the roof, and 6 inches in the walls, packed tight.
    - most windows are dual-pane Low-E2, tinted to reduce glare
    - we limited the number of skylights
    - the A/C is a high-efficiency, dual-compressor model (18 SEER)
    - we use fluorescent lights where possible
    - we keep shades drawn in rooms we don't use, such as a guest room, and my office on weekends.

    It looks like we'll recover the extra cost in about 5-7 years.

  23. Re:It's a nice thought.. (I call.... bullshit!) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    1. My wife has lupus, so getting in and out of my Saturn SL (29/40 mpg) is painful. My father-in-law has rheumatoid arthritis and couldn't get into my car if he tried. They both drive trucks because they couldn't get a fuel-efficient car if they wanted to.

    what the does fuel-efficiency have to how hard it is to get into a car? Yes the saturn might be hard to get into, but I can't imagine jumping out of a truck is any better on the knees. This is crap, find a more comfortable fuel-efficient car. There is nothing inherent in a a truck that makes it easier to get in and out of, compared to a minivan or large sedan.

    2. My mom commutes 40 miles to work every day in a Mazda 2200 truck on a crowded interstate. She got rear-ended once by a Cadillac and drove home while the other went to the junkyard. She's happy to sacrifice the mileage for idiot protection. I don't want to imagine what that Caddy would have done to a hybrid.

    So your mom can't avoid getting in accidents, so she drives a tank. uh-huh. That really solves the problem, buddy. Odds are she's just as bad a driver as everyone else (literally, the odds are this). Ever heard of a volvo? Safest damn car there is. If you were really concerned about safety, get a volvo, not a tank..
    Once again, where's your evidence for this statement: (1*k)/fuel_effiency = safety.

    3. What about if you're married with four kids? Your options start getting slimmer because six people just don't fit in a car. Not many other choices outside of a minivan, which doesn't exactly get great mileage either.

    Still better then a n suv. And better gas mileage.
    Do some reasearch:
    http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/noframe s/18168.shtm l
    http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/noframes/17102.s htm l
    5-6 mpg may not be huge, but every chunk helps. And a minivan is easy to get in and out of.
    (see #1)

    4. Suppose you don't live in an urban hell. Good luck getting out into the woods in a low-riding economy car. Every time my wife and I would go visit her grandmother in southeast Arkansas, I'd bottom out my car in a gravel road pothole.

    Oh yes, a suv with Four-wheel independent suspension (you don't want independent suspension for off-road). That's *really* designed for the off-road world. Yes, uh-huh, all the guys I see going out with a lincoln navigtor off-road.
    Once again: What does "fuel-efficiency" have anything to do with this? If you don't think smaller cars can go off-road, go to a rally race you nitwit.
    Point it case:
    This car:
    http://www.reviewcentre.com/reviews961.html
    Became this car:
    http://www.autointell-news.com/european_comp anies/ volkswagen/audi-ag/audi-pikes-peak-03/audi-pikes-p eak-03.htm
    because hick jerks like you don't know jack about cars, or driving off-road.

    So in summary, sounds like you need a minivan:
    1) easy to get in and out of.
    2) plenty safe
    3) better gas mileage then an alternative that meets all the fuctionality requirements.
    4) Will do just as good off-road as any suv I've seen.

    blah. People like you are idiots. I drive an suv for the *children*. come-on..

  24. Blankets not always helpful. Go tankless! by raygundan · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Most modern water heaters already have the equivalent of the insulation blankets people put on older models. A recent model will not benefit from the blanket nearly as much as an older unit. More insulation always helps, but the gains become very small after a while.

    A quick reference on when to use or not use the blanket. Anybody reading this should note that the original poster's "warm to the touch test" is absolutely correct-- if it isn't warmer than the surroundings, it isn't losing much heat.

    What you REALLY want to fix this "keeping a tank of water warm all the time" problem is an on-demand water heater. They're a little more expensive than normal water heaters, but they have a few key benefits:

    1. No tank to take up space.
    2. Never runs out of hot water.
    3. Doesn't have to keep a tank of water warm when not in use, making them much more efficient.

    I'm surprised that #2 alone hasn't made them the de-facto replacement for tank water heaters in America (I understand they're common in europe and japan). Energy efficiency aside-- you can't run out of hot water with a tankless, on-demand water heater!

    If you're even *considering* a new unit in the near future, go tankless! Installing them isn't any different than anything else that needs plumbing for water and gas-- even if they've never heard of one, your local contractor will be able to install it.

  25. Re:You forget about nuclear power by El+Puerco+Loco · · Score: 4, Interesting

    There are plenty of people at risk from decaying hydroelectric infrastructure. Dams don't last forever and when they fail the results can be catastrophic. The Chernobyl accident killed 32 people. With the exception of an increase in thyroid cancers, the dire predictions of a massive epidemic of cancers and leukemia have largely failed to materialize. Now consider the Johnstown flood of 1889. More than 2200 people were killed outright as the result of a dam breach. In more recent times, nearly 10,000 people were killed in 1973 in China alone as the result of dam failures. Huge, expensive hydroelectric dams in the U.S. are in danger of being rendered useless as a result of silting, many after a service life of only 50 years or less, and the problem is nearly impossible to fix without breaching the dam and starting over. Hydroelectric dams are responsible for depleting fish stocks and generally wreaking havoc on both down and upstream ecosystems. Hydropower is hardly environmentally benign nor is it entirely safe for communities near large projects. Hydropower has killed more people than nuclear energy (not counting, of course, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki) has or is ever likely to, but I guess people just feel more comfortable being killed by something familiar that they can see, like a 50 foot wall of water than by a mysterious, invisible force like nuclear radiation, even if the former is far more likely.

  26. Re:Sadly, we've built a North American wasteland.. by superdude72 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Knowing the inner-city conditions and living costs of most major cities i've been to, i'm continually amazed anyone wants to live there.

    I'm amazed that anyone thinks suburbia is a good place to raise kids. I was a prisoner in my home until I was 16 and allowed to drive a car. After-school options until that age were curtailed by the lack of transportation. It would have been good to have some kind of after-school clubs to go to, but who's gonna drive us home? Our school was 7 miles away. If you wonder why our culture is so vapid, maybe it's because the last generation of kids, instead of going to band practice or drama practice after school, went home to watch the Jefferson's on TV.

    When my sister and I were in high school, we both had our own car, and worked crappy McJobs to pay for them. That's one household, four cars. We didn't need to haul things, usually--we just needed them to get ourselves places. What a waste.

    I live in "inner city" San Francisco now, without a car, and I love it. My stress is so much lower now that I no longer spend an hour a day fighting traffic. No place in the city is more than 2 blocks from public transit. If I need a car, I can rent one, but so far I haven't needed to at all this year. My neighborhood isn't "crime-ridden." There was a murder a couple years ago, but the locals were as shocked as if it had happened in any Mayberry, USA. We have great parks that are much more interesting than any fenced-off suburban yard.

    I do miss having a dog. Maybe when I can afford doggy day care...

  27. Re:You forget about nuclear power by Phanatic1a · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Actually, I just did a BOTE and realized I could have made that entire post much shorter. Here's the shorter version.

    Chemical:
    One pound of coal = 926 watt-hours = 3.36 megajoules.

    Nuclear
    One pound of coal = 5-millionths of a pound of uranium (median value) = 0.000000036 pounds U235 = 1.20 megajoules.

    In other words, you'd get almost one-third the energy you get from burning coal from fissioning the uranium that's in the coal you burn.

  28. Re:You forget about nuclear power by ChumpusRex2003 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Don't forget that energy can be massively multiplied with suitable reactor technology (i.e. breeders). A fully recycled breeder reactor system could obtain 50x as much energy from the uranium. The same could be done with thorium - except that thorium is 3-4x as abundant as uranium in coal. The total energy resource of nuclear materials in coal, exceeds the energy content of the coal by more than an order or magnitude.

  29. Just my two yen.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Since I have moved to Japan from the US, I am amazed at the waste in my former home. Make energy expensive, and I am sure that Americans can find some ways to reduce consumption. The Japanese have sure done it.

    My home is about 125 m2. No basement. I would call it modern, but not new. We pay 9000 yen (90 bucks) a month for electricity and about 4000 per month (forty bucks) for gas. That is a family of five.

    We have central heating, but most homes here have different heaters for different rooms. I have never seen that in the US. Standard kit for an "unfurnished" apartment in the US is a dishwasher, old refrigerator and electric oven and range. We have to "slum it" here in Japan by having a very small dishwasher, a gas oven, and a small modern refrigerator. I would hazard a guess that this home uses less energy than my college apartment (lived alone).

    The reason so much energy is wasted in the US? I think it is the size of the house, cars, etc. I don't know why everything has to be so BIG in the US. The houses, the cars, office buildings. What is the point? (BIG GULP mentality?) You have to heat that space, cool it, clean it. You also take that space from some other, probably more efficient, use. I gas my car up for about 4000 yen per month (forty bucks) to commute, and I have a minivan that just gets outstanding mileage. It is a series that is not sold in the US. I am sure it would just be "too small" for that market.

  30. Re:My $0.02 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting
    As father of five kids

    If all kids are your own, you would have saved a lot of energy by not having five kids in the first place. These kids will turn into adults and consume even more energy.

    What the world needs is less humans. Trim the population to about 10e6 and resources would last a long long time, and human caused global warming and pollution would be a non-issue.

  31. Re:Start the invasions... by Fulcrum+of+Evil · · Score: 2, Interesting

    What's your source for the 9% transmission losses? I have always heard a figure of about 2%, which is a lot more reasonable.

    That's total driveline losses. My MR2 is quoted as having around 11% losses, and Subarus are around 20% due to the AWD. 2% is what you get from a racing transmission, where the clutch isn't damped and the gears are all straight cut.

    --
    "We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"