The Power of a Hot Body

Matrix by Andrewkov · 2012-12-31 01:11 · Score: 5, Interesting

One step closer to The Matrix movie.

Re:Matrix by calzones · 2012-12-31 01:50 · Score: 4, Insightful

Not too far off considering that this concept is only worthwhile when bodies are generating excess heat that is unwanted in a space. But if you take away all the bodyheat being generated, then the people in that space will feel cold. To make up for it they will either dress warmer (insulate to keep their heat instead of sharing it) or they will expend more calories (which they must make up for by eating more) to generate more heat.
So yes, kinda Matrix-like, this could easily turn into essentially draining a person's precious energy from them without their consent.

--
Asking people to think is like asking them to buy you a new car
Re:Matrix by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-31 01:58 · Score: 1

The Power of a Hot Body

One step closer to The Matrix movie.
you surely mean Carrie-Anne Moss (the hot body)
Re:Matrix by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-31 02:17 · Score: 1

To make up for it they will either dress warmer (insulate to keep their heat instead of sharing it) or they will expend more calories (which they must make up for by eating more) to generate more heat.
So it is a self-regulating system, great.
In the current state people generate excess heat so they need cooling. Transporting the excess to a place where people doesn't generate enough heat is not exactly a sign of a dystopian future.
Re:Matrix by calzones · 2012-12-31 02:38 · Score: 2

The problem is that if you pump the thermal energy out of the building where the "hot bodies" are without somehow knowing when to stop, there's nothing to keep the system from turning that comfortable space into something less comfortable and more like the winter temperature outside. That defeats the purpose because you're not going to save energy when that happens.
At the extreme, it means the temperature in the space could become cold enough people want you to turn the heat on. A little less extreme and it means that people are less comfortable than normal and dress to avoid sharing their heat (making the space colder and making less heat available to the system).
At the most subtle level, even a degree change of -1 degrees means that people will expend more personal energy to maintain their preferred body temperature. Conservation of energy demands that this personal energy come from _somewhere_.
So, is it more carbon friendly to:
- consume food and generate body heat?
- or to heat a space by using traditional means that depend on centralized power generators?

--
Asking people to think is like asking them to buy you a new car
Re:Matrix by aliquis · 2012-12-31 02:42 · Score: 2

Or in this case accordingly to the article lower the temperature from 22-25 degrees celsius to something more comfortable (I don't know what that may be considering people will wear different kind of clothes different times of the year. Like atm people will use jackets and possibly mittens and a hat and hence 20 degrees may be too hot to feel comfortable and say 12-15 degrees more comfortable.
In the summer people will dress more lightly but on the other hand there will be less demand for the heat.
Re:Matrix by rhsanborn · 2012-12-31 02:44 · Score: 4, Insightful

Spaces like train stations are usually over heated, so they generally need to be cooled. Instead of using the outside air as your heat sink, you are using a building across the street, who happens to want the heat. The train station becomes more comfortable, and a building gets heat without expending more carbon.
Re:Matrix by Shinobi · 2012-12-31 02:45 · Score: 2

The place they are taking the heat from is a place where people are dressed for winter during winter, so lowering the temperature is desireable in the winter too. The railway station mentioned, Stockholm Central, can get quite toasty if you're dressed for the outside weather, and there's lot of people inside....
Re:Matrix by calzones · 2012-12-31 02:49 · Score: 1

Yes, I said that up front.
As long as you are doing this to avoid having to cool a space that you'd have to otherwise cool, then yes, it's a net win.

--
Asking people to think is like asking them to buy you a new car
Re:Matrix by devent · 2012-12-31 03:06 · Score: 1

I think any closed room with more then 10 people needs to have a ventilation system. Either you throw away that heat or you using it.
It's a shame that we don't have more buildings like that, that can use heat from the sun or people for anything useful. Termites nest have a strict regulated temperature (like 1 degree Celsius strict) without any ventilation or air-conditioners.
My apartment is on the north side of the house block. With mirrors and fiber optics I could get the same sun then my neighbour. I was thinking now for a long time if I could install a mirror for the sun on the wall of my neighbour house block. There are three house blocks under the same management. If we could install an array of mirrors on the south wall on each house block to reflect the sun to the north side of the next block, we could save a lot of energy in lighting and heat.

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http://www.mueller-public.de - My site http://www.anr-institute.com/ - Advanced Natural Research Institute
Re:Matrix by LordLimecat · 2012-12-31 03:21 · Score: 1

That radiated heat was going to be lost into the atmosphere, and probably from thence eventually into space. Capturing heat from air that was already being vented would have no effect on the temperature of the rail car.
Re:Matrix by richard.cs · 2012-12-31 03:50 · Score: 1

Posting to undo dodgy mod.
Re:Matrix by cheaphomemadeacid · 2012-12-31 04:05 · Score: 1

So... you're saying that when noone captures your bodyheat, you don't generate any? I really really don't see the logic here. Why on earth are you assuming that people don't lose bodyheat? Why the word 'drain'? Its not a heatdrain, its using excess heat and transfering to another building. damn you slashdot for modding this shoddy logic 'insightful'
Re:Matrix by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-31 05:29 · Score: 1

You clearly live somewhere that doesn't have many large train stations. When it's cold outside, you don't have to heat a train station. It's close to sweltering hot and wet inside just from all the people. The solution to this is to ventilate the area with outside air. In doing this you are losing all that heat to the outside. This plan is to capture that lost heat and use it to heat a different building.
I used to live in Russia, and you have to wear lots and lots of layers in the winter. When you get to a train station, you don't remove any clothes. You find your train and get on. You only remove your winter gear when you're on the train.

The idea behind this train station is to capture heat that before was just blowing out a vent into the air outside.
Re:Matrix by eugene+ts+wong · 2012-12-31 06:13 · Score: 1

It would be more like every 1,000th. I doubt that 1 person could produce enough heat to justify much.

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testing out my trending skills
Re:Matrix by Kral_Blbec · 2012-12-31 06:17 · Score: 1

A) A simple thermostat to shut off the system if the ambient temp drops below a threshold value isn't that difficult
B)Efficiency drops as the temp of both areas approach one another, so its not like you can forcibly drain one location to keep the other super hot.
C)This isn't a system to use in Kenya. Most people in modern countries already consume more calories than they need, so the argument that they would need to eat is invalid. It could even be marketed as a weightloss aid if it had a marked increase in the metabolism of people in the area.
Re:Matrix by Runaway1956 · 2012-12-31 06:29 · Score: 1

Termites and ants do indeed have ventilation. It's natural ventilation, so you don't recognize it as such, but it most certainly is ventilation.
I'm seeing paywalls, book reviews, etc that don't really have a lot of text available for the casual browser. My search:
https://www.google.com/#hl=en&tbo=d&output=search&sclient=psy-ab&q=thermoregulation+ventilation+termite+mounds&oq=vantilation+termite+mounds&gs_l=hp.1.1.0i13i30j0i13i5i30.1592.8146.0.14169.26.25.0.0.0.0.513.5998.0j12j10j1j1j1.25.0.les%3B..0.0...1c.1.8YEnc5ejSjM&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.&bvm=bv.1355534169,d.b2U&fp=eb5dc79f55434dab&bpcl=40096503&biw=994&bih=588
Enjoy

--
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Re:Matrix by Runaway1956 · 2012-12-31 06:31 · Score: 1

I don't think this has anything to do with Chernobyl. The heat carried away from the passenger's bodies is carried off by convection. The passengers aren't really glow-in-the-dark radiaoactive.

--
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Re:Matrix by mikael · 2012-12-31 06:47 · Score: 1

Have you ever been in a underground station (or even glassy college campus corridors in Summer) where there are hundreds of people walking through. The humidity and heat does build up, even when they are wearing winter jackets and shoes. Places which do suck out all the heat just feel ice cold, and will be avoided when possible.

--
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
Re:Matrix by LordLimecat · 2012-12-31 06:49 · Score: 1

Just so you know, everyone gives off "light" in the infrared spectrum, and radiated heat (infrared) is one of the main ways that heat is lost both from our bodies and from the earth. Convection is another way, but you will note for instance that the earth loses enormous amounts of heat despite convection losses against the vacuum of space being minimal.
Re:Matrix by calzones · 2012-12-31 07:18 · Score: 1

You also lose quite a lot of heat when you breathe.
The bodyheat that is "lost" to the building is also trapped by the building walls and ceiling; it doesn't radiate into space very effectively. In fact, it's a part of our global warming problem that we give off so much heat into the atmosphere from our buildings and vehicles... faster than the heat can be radiated into space.
As long as the walls and ceiling remain a certain temperature, then the ambient temperature will remain stable. If the walls are cooled off though, they will absorb heat from the ambient at a faster rate, causing the ambient to decline in temperature. Then whatever is generating heat for the ambient will have to work harder just to maintain that same temperature, even if we're talking about barely detectable and highly distributed energy expenditures.
And so, my original point was basically academic and not specific to the building being discussed. The take-away I had hoped for is that this is not a solution that can just be applied as a mindless panacea around the world. There is no such thing as free energy and too many people assume that because one system is losing energy to another, that the solution is to trap that energy, which can have the perverse effect of simply forcing the first system to increase it's energy output.
In short, this idea can only ever be worthwhile if the building in question is well-insulated and too hot for the occupants. Only in those cases will you have excess heat that would have to be dumped or pumped outdoors, which would be energy wasted. Better to re-route that excess heat somewhere where it's needed.
And for those saying that people donning jackets makes this a self-regulating system: think! When you don a jacket you are insulating yourself and keeping your heat to yourself instead of radiating it to the ambient. That means less heat overall for the ambient, which is less heat for the building.
I of course agree wholeheartedly that if you have thousands of folk bustling about in parkas indoors somewhere, and they are sweating and too hot, then that certainly qualifies for the proposed solution. But consider this: why don't we just put the entire city under walls and ceilings then? Think of all the lost energy you could collect that is otherwise lost when people walk around in parkas outside. You might even make it so they don't need parkas.

--
Asking people to think is like asking them to buy you a new car
Re:Matrix by jhol13 · 2012-12-31 07:57 · Score: 1

Except when they are not - in the mornings. I eat every working day in a restaurant which is uncomfortably cold if the (outside) temperature has dropped during night or worse, weekend.
This idea has some uses, but is very limited what it can achieve. Bad planning can make it more a nuisance than an energy saving.
Re:Matrix by tlhIngan · 2012-12-31 18:37 · Score: 1

Not too far off considering that this concept is only worthwhile when bodies are generating excess heat that is unwanted in a space.
Not really a new concept - the Mall of American actually has no heating system - no boilers or other heating mechanism. It does have chillers and A/C (and sometimes it runs in the middle of winter).
It uses body heat (of the shoppers) and solar heating (sunroofs) to keep the entire place warm (70F) in those chilly 10F Minnesotan winters.
Certain offices are also dense enough that people and equipment contribute plenty of heating during the winter - so much so that the A/C runs in the winter to keep the office from getting uncomfortably warm.
Re:Matrix by illtud · 2013-01-04 12:22 · Score: 1

Termites nest have a strict regulated temperature (like 1 degree Celsius strict) without any ventilation or air-conditioners.
Termite nests have great ventilation!

Headline by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-31 01:16 · Score: 2, Informative

Who else expected something completely different from the headline?

Re:Headline by SternisheFan · 2012-12-31 01:20 · Score: 2

I thought of strippers, naturally. Someday, I will get my mind out of the sewer, just not today.
Re:Headline by hraponssi · 2012-12-31 03:53 · Score: 2

Yeah, stories about the power of hot chicks over nerds. Damn, where is that article..
Re:Headline by jordonwii · 2012-12-31 06:31 · Score: 1

I was expecting some kind of psychological analysis of the male mind or something. Curse you, deliberately ambiguous editors! (or whoever it is that writes the titles)
Re:Headline by tedgyz · 2013-01-02 04:58 · Score: 1

My testosterone-addled mind obviously thought about naked women.

--
"No matter where you go, there you are." -- Buckaroo Banzai

The first thing I thought of was by Cornwallis · 2012-12-31 01:23 · Score: 1

how much that all might smell...

Re:The first thing I thought of was by rhsanborn · 2012-12-31 01:29 · Score: 1

Which is why they aren't pumping the air directly, but instead, they are using the body heat to heat water tanks, and sending the water across.
Re:The first thing I thought of was by kanweg · 2012-12-31 02:32 · Score: 5, Informative

You can buy drainage pipes for the shower that are basically heat exchangers. Cold water is passed through them (in countercurrent with the water draining from the shower) before it goes to the shower head. Of course, you still have to add some hot water in the mixing faucet, but thermal energy is saved.
Google: shower heat exchanger
Bert
Re:The first thing I thought of was by rhsanborn · 2012-12-31 02:48 · Score: 1

Mod this man up. Thank you Bert. This is exactly what I need. I live in Michigan and we have very cold groundwater. It makes tankless hot water heaters a tough sell up here. But this just might be the thing to put me over the edge to buying one.
Re:The first thing I thought of was by drinkypoo · 2012-12-31 04:35 · Score: 1

Whatever you do, don't go tankless unless your water heater will be installed near to the kitchen. It will drive you goddamned nuts. The water heater should always be installed on the same wall as the sink (optimally on the other side, but sometimes there's no space) and then the second-nearest thing, which should also be as near as possible, should be the sink of the most central bathroom. This is always true, but it's especially annoying when you're dealing with the additional warm-up time of a tankless heater. Also, do yourself a favor and buy a Rinnai or a Paloma or, if you can find something else as reputable, something else of that ilk. You just don't want a Myson or a Bosch etc. at any price. And finally, it is painfully easy to overestimate the flow you're going to be using, and have the heater not switch on when you want to use it, especially if you're on a well system whose pressure delivery cycles significantly.

--
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Re:The first thing I thought of was by bzipitidoo · 2012-12-31 06:08 · Score: 1

I looked into tankless when our gas powered tank water heater sprang a leak a few years ago. I concluded that converting wasn't worth it. Better to go with a solar water heating system. Also, that's the most efficient use of sunlight. Heat water first, then generate electricity from whatever is left over.
Unfortunately, I could not find a solar system for a sane price. It was $350 for a low quality new tank, or $1000 for tankless plus another $400 to convert the house to use it, or $5000 for solar. So I went with the cheap $350 tank as a stopgap. I hope in 6 years time, when the new tank heater nears the end of life, that solar will be more reasonably priced.
In any case, the tone of the article bothers me. This is the kind of obvious stuff-- really obvious with a big DUH-- that we should have been doing decades ago. It's free energy, and ought to have been harvested all along. It was worth doing even in the 1960's, when energy was ridiculously cheap. But the article talks as if there's some kind of altruism and enlightened thinking required to get designers not to be so stupid. Any time you hear of natives regarding the whites with contempt for their foolish and arrogantly wasteful ways, this is what they mean. Centuries before the Europeans reached the Americas, they could build houses that stayed cool in the summer without A/C. Builders bang out very badly designed cookie cutter homes with no regard for the variables of a particular location, and so you have idiocy like A/C units located on the west side of a home, large expanses of windows facing north, fireplaces so poorly located and designed that they might even cool a house down more if used, and more. Our housing has improved, but it's still incredibly bad.

--
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
Re:The first thing I thought of was by drinkypoo · 2012-12-31 10:37 · Score: 1

And finally, it is painfully easy to overestimate the flow you're going to be using, and have the heater not switch on when you want to use it, especially if you're on a well system whose pressure delivery cycles significantly.
Do you mean "underestimate"? I thought the danger is going below threshold flowrate and causing the heater to turn off (while some water still flows thru the "hot" pipe).
No, if you underestimate the flow that you will be using, then you will certainly have enough flow to activate the heater. If you overestimate the flow, and you have less than you think, then you might not have enough flow. HTH, HAND

Electric instant-ons at work have 0.5 gpm (or so) threshold.
That's cool, but most people on wells would prefer something that runs on propane because a water heater is a bit much to run from a generator and you want hot water even when the power is off.

--
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Re:The first thing I thought of was by rhsanborn · 2013-01-01 01:33 · Score: 1

Good and bad. My current tank is as far as possible from every potential use of hot water, which means it takes my shower 3+ minutes to heat up, and about an equal time to get hot water at the kitchen sink. The tankless is smaller and will allow me to put it into the basement without affecting the potential to finish the basement. I have city water, so pressure differentials shouldn't hurt, but I have heard of people getting frustrated with edge case uses like men who use a trickle of hot water for shaving. This is often not enough hot water to activate the hot water heater. I fill the sink with hot water for shaving, so that shouldn't be a problem. It turns out, given the cost, a tankless won't likely break even before the warranty runs out. But, it's awfully nice to still have hot water after 3 women get done in the bathrooms.
Re:The first thing I thought of was by rhsanborn · 2013-01-01 01:37 · Score: 1

You're right, they are still bloody expensive. It is also a convenience factor of always having hot water. Solar is even worse, and, my house isn't well setup for solar anything. My roofs are sloped toward the east and west, and I have decent tree cover, and I live in Michigan where snow and cold weather reduce the use of solar hot water. I like the idea of each person capturing a little bit of the free solar energy though. We'll get there, prices have been coming down across the board for energy efficient products.

How is this possible? by geckoFeet · 2012-12-31 01:24 · Score: 5, Funny

The Swedes are such a cold people. Even the Danes consider them distant and formal (not to mention a bit condescending).

Re:How is this possible? by AliasMarlowe · 2012-12-31 01:45 · Score: 1

The central station in Stockholm is probably the largest railway hub in Scandinavia. It will have plenty of foreign visitors providing heat.
Foreigners? In winter?
In summer the place is indeed replete with them, but they all go south with the brass monkeys before real winter hits...

--
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
Re:How is this possible? by KiloByte · 2012-12-31 01:45 · Score: 2

It will have plenty of foreign visitors providing heat.
I was there this August. I've seen plenty of hotties there, and from the looks, mostly locals rather than immigrants. Of course, during winter, when the heat is needed, all the hotness is covered by clothes.

--
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Re:How is this possible? by pipatron · 2012-12-31 02:33 · Score: 1

And we consider the Danes a bunch of fat, loud-mouthed alcoholics. No wonder you consider us cold.

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c++; /* this makes c bigger but returns the old value */
Re:How is this possible? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-31 02:48 · Score: 1

As we all know from thermodynamics, energy can be extracted from a temperature differential. And the Swedes' neighbours to the east are the Finns...
Re:How is this possible? by geckoFeet · 2012-12-31 03:10 · Score: 1

"You?" I'm not Scandinavian at all (short and dark, in fact). Did spend a winter in Stockholm, and definitely wouldn't recommend it for the weather. Also have to add, in case it's not obvious from your message, that the Danes have a much better sense of humor than the Swedes, and better beer as well.
Re:How is this possible? by rubycodez · 2012-12-31 05:05 · Score: 1

you forget their nominal condition, liquored up and red-faced radiating heat.
Re:How is this possible? by DeBaas · 2012-12-31 05:40 · Score: 1

The Swedes are such a cold people. Even the Danes consider them distant and formal (not to mention a bit condescending).
Maybe, but many of the women have really hot bodies!

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Re:Power, not energy by vlm · 2012-12-31 01:36 · Score: 1

It gets worse

Fiber optics relay daylight from the roof to stairwells and other non-window spaces that in conventional buildings would cost money to heat.

... cost money to light, during the day. At night you still need lights. Fiber is fairly IR transparent, even if they really did mean "heat", which I find unlikely, they still need heat during the night, especially long winter nights. I'm sure they'll have all the heat necessary during long summer days.

--
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger

Re:Power, not energy by ssam · 2012-12-31 01:38 · Score: 2

do you mean "the human body generates about 60 to 100 Watts of energy" ?
similar to saying
"the car covers distance at 100 km/h"
which is not too bad. i have seen much worse.

60W - 100W bulbs still commonly used? by metamarmoset · 2012-12-31 01:44 · Score: 3, Insightful

The average light bulb around my area (W.Europe) is 9W - 11W.

Maybe I'm nit-picking in finding this anachronistic, but this is a technology news site...

Re:60W - 100W bulbs still commonly used? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-31 02:06 · Score: 1

This is also a US-centric site, and in the US 82% of household lighting is still 40-100W incandescent, and US people are hoarding these light bulbs because of government mandated phase-out.
Re:60W - 100W bulbs still commonly used? by dr2chase · 2012-12-31 02:22 · Score: 1

A crazy subset of US people are hoarding those light bulbs. Home Depot had the Phillips LED screw-in replacements on sale for $13 yesterday. No mercury, decent color temperature, expect them to last at least 25000 hours if you don't use them in a closed-up fixture, and probably longer.
And you can always find some fool, ignorant of heat pumps and the inefficiencies of generating electricity, defending crappy old incandescent bulbs as a good source of heat.
Re:60W - 100W bulbs still commonly used? by Lumpy · 2012-12-31 02:46 · Score: 1

Mostly because a lot of us here in the usa are pretty dim, so we use higher wattage bulbs so we seem brighter than we really are.

--
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Re:60W - 100W bulbs still commonly used? by xaxa · 2012-12-31 03:00 · Score: 1

I still haven't seen the CFL that takes minutes to warm up and visibly flickers.
I have one, in my rented flat. It's very small, made to fit in the same type of fitting as a miniature halogen spot light, but in this case the fitting is shaped to only take the CFL bulb. It's like this, except not Philips. The lights take about 90-120 seconds to warm up fully. It's rarely a problem, as I don't often just pass through this room at night, and I won't bother to replace the bulbs until they fail.
I remember my mum buying a CFL in about 1990, it looked like this (but white). This was well before they were generally used, I think she bought it from a local science museum. It was similarly slow to start, but it's still working.
After rearranging the furniture in my bedroom a previously hardly-used light is now useful. I need to replace the old 60W bulb, since it uses more energy alone than the rest of the flat combined. (The typical evening power draw is about 150-350W.)
Re:60W - 100W bulbs still commonly used? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-31 03:07 · Score: 1

Crappy old incandescent bulbs are a good source of "decent color temperature". The problem is that color receptors in the human eye have sensitivity curves over light frequency/wavelength, and colored surfaces have refractive curves. So even if your eye can be fooled into considering direct light from an LED light to have a certain color temperature, that does not mean at all that colored surfaces look the same color as they would under an incandescent light of the same temperature.
It's the nightmare of paint producers that they can perfectly match paint colors in sunlight (and incandescent bulbs) when switching pigment composition, and if you look under neon light or sodium vapor lights or LED lights, a perfectly matched car paint repair job looks like utter crap.
With LED lights, your color prints and color photographs and color paintings all are off-color. Never mind that the direct light looks quite accurate. Print and photograph inks/pigments have been adjusted to deal with neon lighting in recent decades, but LED light is rather new in the game.
Re:60W - 100W bulbs still commonly used? by ultranova · 2012-12-31 03:28 · Score: 1

I need to replace the old 60W bulb, since it uses more energy alone than the rest of the flat combined. (The typical evening power draw is about 150-350W.)

So the 60W bulb is using at least 75W ?-)

--
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Re:60W - 100W bulbs still commonly used? by KiloByte · 2012-12-31 03:28 · Score: 1

expect them to last at least 25000 hours
Or ~three months if you don't waste power by having them on 24/7. Power cycling kills them dead. Add being harsh on eyes and making colors look like crap (neighbour post can tell you more).

--
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Re:60W - 100W bulbs still commonly used? by xaxa · 2012-12-31 04:32 · Score: 1

I need to replace the old 60W bulb, since it uses more energy alone than the rest of the flat combined. (The typical evening power draw is about 150-350W.)
So the 60W bulb is using at least 75W ?-)
I may have missed a word -- more energy than the rest of the flat's lighting combined.
Re:60W - 100W bulbs still commonly used? by dr2chase · 2012-12-31 05:03 · Score: 2

Power cycling does NOT kill LEDs dead. Where do you get this information? LEDs are installed on bicycles running on one phase from a bicycle hub generator; at low speeds, it is flicker-flicker-flicker. Chopping LEDs at a kHz is a recommended way of modulating their power. LEDs are used for brake lights (and now, headlights) in modern cars; those are cycled frequently.
The Phillips bulbs are notably NOT harsh; they're a low-color temperature light. I personally like a hotter (bluer) light, but that's not available yet in a good screw-in bulb (Home Depot has some other high-powered brand X that does a nice impersonation of a welding arc; THAT is harsh. Don't buy that one.)
The neighbor post is an idiot. Modern high power white LEDs deliver a much more even spectrum than your standard fluorescent bulb. It's not black-body, but the LED I can buy at Home Depot is far better than any CFL or fluorescent tube I have ever bought anywhere (someone elsewhere asserts that very good fluorescents can be had, and I'm willing to believe it). If it's my own work -- mixed color temperature mounted under cabinets over a counter, I beat that handily. For example: http://dr2chase.wordpress.com/2011/02/20/undercabinet-lights-basement-kitchen/ Yes, there is a bit of a dropout at 480nm -- I know that was immediately obvious to you -- but if I cared, I would fill in with blue+cyan.
Re:60W - 100W bulbs still commonly used? by KiloByte · 2012-12-31 05:30 · Score: 1

You're talking about some fancy good LEDs that are either prototypes or can be found only in civilized parts of the world. Around here, all you can get are CFLs or cheapest chinese crap LEDs.
I guess, I could hunt down something reasonable, but for now, incadescent bulbs just work. And their waste heat is welcome most of the year.

--
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Re:60W - 100W bulbs still commonly used? by dr2chase · 2012-12-31 05:37 · Score: 1

Where the heck are you? Home Depot stocks the Phillips LEDs, and all the parts I use are available mail order from an outfit in Vermont. There are others, these are just the guys I stumbled across when I first set out to build bike lights.
This stuff is not-not-not prototype -- I built my first set of lights in 2008 or earlier: http://dr2chase.wordpress.com/2008/10/19/more-undercabinet-lights/
The biggest problem is that the design point for incandescent bulbs is all different from LEDs, and trying to put LEDs into a compatible package in a compatible fixture is a PITA. When you can avoid that (under cabinets, for example) results are far better.
Re:60W - 100W bulbs still commonly used? by KiloByte · 2012-12-31 11:57 · Score: 1

A small town, Poland. I guess it's a combination of you painting things in way too rose colours and me in way too black, together with me not being up to date on new developments. For now I'll stay with something that works and has no downsides in my climate while you ahmericans figure a replacement out, but thanks for letting me know it's not as bad as I quite recently found out.

--
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Re:60W - 100W bulbs still commonly used? by dr2chase · 2012-12-31 15:37 · Score: 1

So what's available in Poland? How much do they mark it up? CREE is American, which I think is wonderful and amazing, but I don't think the Chinese stuff will be crap for long. And how much does power cost in Poland, per kwH? That's what makes all the difference.

Re:Fibre optics! by vlm · 2012-12-31 01:45 · Score: 1

There has been very few to look in to sub-surface building, such a shame.

I've looked into it. Sump pump / water leak costs / waterproofing attempts are extraordinarily expensive.

Also you are correct, dude in wifebeater tee shirt can dig a house basement sized hole in plain ole dirt for 3-figures... I'm guessing an entire basement can be completely built for only a couple thousand. Supposedly $5/sqft finished is reasonable. Don't confuse building a living space with shoving a basement full of $10K worth of HVAC gear... you can still build the raw empty basement for just a couple thousand. Also don't confuse confiscatory taxes and permit fees with the actual cost, in a civilized area most of the expense is the labor not permits.

The killer is I ran some numbers and digging the NYC 2nd ave subway is something like 37 million dollars every 10 feet. I'm guessing a skyscraper is less per 10ft.

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"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger

Re:Power, not energy by Shinobi · 2012-12-31 02:03 · Score: 1

Actually, during the long winter nights, you don't need as much heating as you'd think if the house is built correctly. In fact, we have a problem here in Sweden, Norway and Finland in that many houses built in the 70's and 80's are overly insulated and thus cause health problems(increased probability of asthma, allergies, sleep problems etc etc).

Re:Power, not energy by necro81 · 2012-12-31 02:04 · Score: 2

I agree. It irks me to no end when journalists, even science or engineering journalists, conflate (units of) energy and power. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, since hardly anyone else gets it right either. Nor, it seems, does anyone care. No wonder we can't have meaningful conversations about energy, where it comes from, and how we use it.

Newly proposed wind farm to produce 100 megawatts of energy per month.

MW are not units of energy. Megawatts per month makes no sense whatsoever.

Or...

Newly proposed wind farm to produce 100 megawatts of power per month.

Power is already a time-rate unit, throwing the "month" in there just confuses things.

Or...

Newly proposed wind farm to produce enough energy for 30,000 homes.

Over what time scale? Did they mean average power? What is the typical "home" journalists and PR folk use for this drivel? Homes consume power in different amounts - a highrise condo in NYC is very different than a McMansion in the 'burbs. The same house, occupied by different people, will use power at vastly different rates.

Or...

The human body generates more bioelectricity than a 120 V battery and over 25,000 BTUs of body heat

Don't even get me started.

Average bulb? Give me a break... by markdavis · 2012-12-31 02:05 · Score: 3, Insightful

>" about the same amount of heat given off by the average light bulb"

For the love of god, will people PLEASE come up with a better analogy than that tired, ancient one. I don't know about you, but I don't think I have more than one or two bulbs anywhere in my house that pull more than 20 watts, the average being more like 12.

The "average light bulb" is hardly "average" anymore.

And lets install Fart receptacles to help power by Danathar · 2012-12-31 02:06 · Score: 1

While they are at it let's install fart receptacles so that when a person feels a toot coming on they can plop their own asses on a hole to capture the methane for power plant use.....

Re:And lets install Fart receptacles to help power by drinkypoo · 2012-12-31 04:43 · Score: 1

While they are at it let's install fart receptacles so that when a person feels a toot coming on they can plop their own asses on a hole to capture the methane for power plant use.....
You can't really trust people to properly fit the plug. Obviously we should simply replace the asshole with a quick-connect valve at birth. Hopefully a gate valve.

--
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Re:And lets install Fart receptacles to help power by Beezlebub33 · 2012-12-31 05:07 · Score: 1

While they are at it let's install fart receptacles so that when a person feels a toot coming on they can plop their own asses on a hole to capture the methane for power plant use.....
You could do that for cows. See this People don't really produce enough to make it worthwhile.

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The more people I meet, the better I like my dog.

Old hat. by kqc7011 · 2012-12-31 02:10 · Score: 2

The Mall of America does a version of this.

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Passionately Indifferent

Already done. by QuietLagoon · 2012-12-31 02:31 · Score: 1

that architects and builders are finding ways to capture this excess body heat on a scale large enough to warm homes and office buildings

If you are in the building, aren't you already warming the building with your body heat, excess or otherwise?

Re:Power, not energy by Lumpy · 2012-12-31 02:48 · Score: 1

First there is no law of air conditioning. it's a law of thermodynamics.
Second it's called removing energy, I can make it "cold" by removing energy from it.
Cold is a human term for a temperature state. Reducing the temperature of an object by removing energy is in fact making it "cold".

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Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.

Next: harness the energy of flatulence. by hessian · 2012-12-31 03:04 · Score: 1

Of those 100 travelers in a busy public space, about 8 are farting at any given moment.

If that heat and gas could be captured, we might have an alternate energy revolution, especially within a few blocks of a Taco Bell.

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Futurist Traditionalism

Re:Next: harness the energy of flatulence. by cheros · 2012-12-31 05:01 · Score: 1

Of those 100 travelers in a busy public space, about 8 are farting at any given moment.
Finally, the smoking bans make sense ..

--
Insert .sig here. Send no money now. Owner may sue, contents will settle. Batteries not included.
Re:Next: harness the energy of flatulence. by arth1 · 2012-12-31 06:20 · Score: 1

Of those 100 travelers in a busy public space, about 8 are farting at any given moment.
That would mean that on average, every person lets out a 4.8 second long fart every single minute.
Unless they're all lawyers, that will by necessity produce a rather large volume of gas.
That train station doesn't need a heat exchanger, it needs anchors.

Re:When I was in school, parties did this for $0 by Waffle+Iron · 2012-12-31 03:20 · Score: 2

How many of you have been in a crowded house party in the dead of winter, with snow on the ground? Everybody piled their coats in a bedroom, the windows are open, and it's still hot. No money at all. If there are bodies in the room, and they're moving, it's hot.

That heating method is very expensive due to the fuel costs.

As soon as you run out of beer, you'll lose almost all of your heating elements. It will probably end up costing you a couple of hundred bucks per night to heat the house.

Mall of America has been using body heat for years by MNNorske · 2012-12-31 03:29 · Score: 3, Informative

The Mall of America was designed with the foreknowledge that people moving through it would generate heat. When I was working a volunteer event there a number of years ago the community relations contact we had was cheerfully explaining that they typically don't heat the mall. She cited a figure of 100 people generates about the same thermal output as an average household furnace. Which puts into context why a party in a house gets so warm... Most office towers in northern latitudes tend to heat primarily around the edges of the building where heat bleeds out of the tower through the windows. Otherwise you may find that the interior of the build could actually be receiving cool air to dissipate the body heat of the office workers.

So, while I applaud the re-use of body heat for something useful, it's definitely not a new concept. Architects and engineers have been accounting for it and sometimes harnessing it for years.

Re:Average bulb? Give me a break... by markdavis · 2012-12-31 03:31 · Score: 1

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/light+bulb?s=t
"light bulb, noun: An electric light."

So I guess it depends on your definition. And even if you require it to be glass, contain a gas, and a filament, then a fluorescent lamp is still a bulb. I guess my LED ones don't quite fit that, though.

WTF by tgd · 2012-12-31 03:35 · Score: 1

If I paid for the food that made that heat, and paid to be in the space they're using to collect that heat, I'm sending someone a bill...

Re:nothing really special.... by tgd · 2012-12-31 03:42 · Score: 1

Honestly you can build a modest, normal sized home that can do most of this without any "high tech" by using building techniques from the 1950's and 1960's and modern insulation.

Apparently you haven't been in many houses built in the 50's and 60's...

Pressed board siding, blown in paper insulation, thin walls, single pane windows, substandard wiring, no weather wrapping, inefficient heating and cooling ... only someone who literally knew *nothing* about house construction or was high as a kite would say houses built in the 50's and 60's were superior in *any* way to today. That was the initial "suburbia" boom and houses were slapped together as quickly and inexpensively as possible -- and there were no modern codes to ensure they were done well. If you were to pick ANY decades that, hands down, produced the worst quality construction in the last 125 years, those would be it. (Although, arguably, if you look at the rise of slap-together condo construction in the late 70's and early 80's, those would be worse... but its a small part of the market.)

If you're trying to wax nostalgic about structural quality, you need to go a LOT farther back than that, back to pre-WWII, when houses were built to last... but even those are a joke when it comes to energy efficiency. There's nothing you can do with modern insulation to fix a house with 4" thick exterior walls, short of filling them with aerogels... which is why modern houses in cold climates require 6"-8" exterior walls, with appropriate insulation, appropriately sealed windows, proper siding and home wrap.

Excess heat by sjbe · 2012-12-31 03:42 · Score: 1

If you are in the building, aren't you already warming the building with your body heat, excess or otherwise?

Umm, yes. In this case you (along with a few thousand of your closest friends) are heating the building so much that the excess heat has to be removed. The point of the article is to put that excess heat that has to be removed to good use heating ANOTHER building.

Re:Power, not energy by vlm · 2012-12-31 03:47 · Score: 1

Lack of ventilation more so than too much insulation. New enough to have "advanced" insulation, too old for modern heat recovery ventilator machines in the HVAC.

--
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger

Re:hottest body by game+kid · 2012-12-31 04:23 · Score: 1

Without kWh statistics, I call shenanigans.

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You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.

Where's the thermodynamics outrage? by osu-neko · 2012-12-31 04:37 · Score: 1

Usually whenever /. posts a story about harnessing energy from some source, the pseudo-physicists come out in force to complain about the energy being stolen, e.g. a story about harvesting energy from the motion of cars over a road attracts comments about stealing gas from the motorists (it must increase fuel usage, or the laws of thermodynamics are being violated, yada yada). Knowing /., I was expecting complaints about how this must increase food usage of the people in the subway. Kinda like how putting solar panels on your roof causes the sun to burn out more quickly, right? That energy you're getting has to come from somewhere...

So disappointing, /. You've lost your outrageous outrage. Or you've grasped the concepts of efficiency and otherwise wasted energy... (not holding my breath on that one -- we'll see what happens the next time an article is run on harvesting energy from something other than the sun or body heat or other examples where the fallacy is obvious.)

--
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."

Re:Where's the thermodynamics outrage? by rubycodez · 2012-12-31 05:16 · Score: 1

I'm quite curious why you would mock or label as "pseudo-physicist" anyone who pointed out the foolishness of harvesting energy from moving cars. Perhaps the pseudo-physicist is between your ears.
As for assisting HVAC heating with the human body, yes every building being heated, that also has people in it does that already, without one cent needing to be spent on additional equipment or infrastructure.
Re:Where's the thermodynamics outrage? by jank1887 · 2013-01-03 01:27 · Score: 1

they're talking about moving heat, not converting heat. sure, there's an entropy gain with moving heat. but it's not nearly as large a penalty as you'd get from conversion. so, less to get angry about. Heat reclamation is just a form of smart design. hence all of the "this isn't anything new!?!" comments.

Re:nothing really special.... by drinkypoo · 2012-12-31 04:41 · Score: 1

If you were to pick ANY decades that, hands down, produced the worst quality construction in the last 125 years, those would be it. (Although, arguably, if you look at the rise of slap-together condo construction in the late 70's and early 80's, those would be worse... but its a small part of the market.)

Well, you'd really have to say "everything built since the 1950s" because statistically they're all pieces of shit built just the same way, except they're pretty much all using glass or foam insulation now and they have a tyvek wrap.

If you're trying to wax nostalgic about structural quality, you need to go a LOT farther back than that, back to pre-WWII, when houses were built to last... but even those are a joke when it comes to energy efficiency. There's nothing you can do with modern insulation to fix a house with 4" thick exterior walls, short of filling them with aerogels

Ah yes, but if you go back pre-WWII then you're going back to at least the end of the era when lumber was still cheap, especially if you lived near it and you should probably remember that California is the most populous state, and we not only still produce lumber but we're near the other states which make a name for themselves doing it. I lived for some time in a crappy little house in Marysville that was framed in 2x6s, and they were real 2x6s, not the fake ones we have today. Sure the lumber is rough; the homeowner doesn't care and the builder wore gloves, same as he does today.

--
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"

Re:Average bulb? Give me a break... by markdavis · 2012-12-31 04:52 · Score: 2

>"Good for you, but the majority of people are still using incandescent bulbs."

Not the people that I know. All my friends and family have higher than 50% non-incandescent, making non-incandescent the "norm" or "average". Most are much, much higher uptake than 50%. My last big jump from 60% to 95% happened last year when I was finally able to get LED BR30 tracklight bulbs (Utilitech Pro #0338929) that are:

* Bright (650 Lumens)
* True soft white (2700K)
* Flood, not spot
* Fully dimmable
* X10 compatible
* Instant 100% full brightness
* Affordable

I thought it would be Philips that could do it first, but these no-names (from Lowe's, I think it was) have impressed the hell out of me. Florescent BR30 bulbs were never the right color, noisy as hell, completely X10 incompatible, take a while to brighten, and really never last as long as claimed.

My 1926 house by 3ryon · 2012-12-31 04:58 · Score: 1

My 1926 house already has this feature. All of the heat given off by the bodies in the house going directly into the air and so the heater doesn't have to run as often. It's amazing what they thought of in 1926, before central heat was even invented. No wonder they're called the Greatest Generation!

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Kind thoughts do not change the world

Re:My 1926 house by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-31 05:12 · Score: 1

Central heating was invented before the USA was invented.

Carbon Tax by alexander_686 · 2012-12-31 05:11 · Score: 1

I bit off topic – but it’s spot on when it comes to global warming.

By subsiding green energy we will overinvest in politicians pet projects (I am thinking about corn ethanol) and underinvest in neat innovated projects like this – which offers great bang for the buck. A carbon tax would be much more rational.

Re:Power, not energy by LinuxIsGarbage · 2012-12-31 05:26 · Score: 1

I agree. It irks me to no end when journalists, even science or engineering journalists, conflate (units of) energy and power. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, since hardly anyone else gets it right either. Nor, it seems, does anyone care. No wonder we can't have meaningful conversations about energy, where it comes from, and how we use it.

I'm amazed at how many people have a hard time understanding kilowatt-hours and talk about how many kilowatts per hour their computer uses, or end up fucking up the conversion so much that they think their computer costs $60/hour to run.

Or...

Newly proposed wind farm to produce enough energy for 30,000 homes.

Over what time scale? Did they mean average power? What is the typical "home" journalists and PR folk use for this drivel? Homes consume power in different amounts - a highrise condo in NYC is very different than a McMansion in the 'burbs. The same house, occupied by different people, will use power at vastly different rates.

Or...

The human body generates more bioelectricity than a 120 V battery and over 25,000 BTUs of body heat

Don't even get me started.

How many homes of bioelectricity does it take to power a library of congress?

Re:Mall of America has been using body heat for ye by zaibazu · 2012-12-31 06:10 · Score: 1

From at least least world war 2. Bomb shelters need to account for a lot of body heat on a small space.

Re:Power, not energy by mark-t · 2012-12-31 06:23 · Score: 1

That question is like asking how many meters per second are there in a kilometer More generally, it is like asking how many first derivatives of f(x) are in 1000 f(x). Quite honestly, the question has no factual answer other than discarding the wording of the question, and informing the questioner of the difference between power and energy. It would have been very interesting to watch if the contestant actually knew this and the show had the answer wrong.

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File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'

you had me worried by ILongForDarkness · 2012-12-31 07:06 · Score: 1

That they were going to pump crowded train air directly into the office. Nothing else would quite keep the cubicle monkeys in their place quite like letting them know that free heat is worth more than lack of BO :)

Re:you had me worried by ILongForDarkness · 2013-01-02 03:50 · Score: 1

Love trains or crazy trains you pick :)

Re:Mall of America has been using body heat for ye by jmcharry · 2012-12-31 07:30 · Score: 1

Yes. And in the late 60s undergraduate agricultural engineering students at the U of I were using the heat given off by a chicken in designing chicken coops.

Bell Northern Research in Ottawa, Ontario designed its later labs to not only not require heating, but to pipe heat into the older buildings that still did.

Re:nothing really special.... by russotto · 2012-12-31 09:07 · Score: 1

I have a house built in 1960. The siding is the original cedar shake over plywood cladding. The insulation is fiberglass, though some is collapsed or missing. The wiring is 3-wire NM with a circuit-breaker panel (Square D, likely original); the outlets were originally 2 prong but the boxes were all grounded. No weather wrap; that came much later. Locally a lot of people have replaced the shakes with vinyl and added a weather wrap. The windows were indeed terrible, but no worse than anything which went before; they differed from wood single pane windows of the 1700s only in that they had a spring instead of weights; I replaced them with vinyl.

Houses of a similar age which didn't have shakes either had clapboard, wood panel siding, or asbestos siding (which might give you cancer but is quite durable). A few had stucco.

The worst modern houses were slightly later, with your pressed board siding (70s and 80s, not 50s and 60s, at least in this area), aluminum wiring (which if it weren't a disaster in the 70s, we'd likely be using now), and poly-butyl pipes (another '70s "innovation"). Also I suspect anything sided with fake stucco (EIFS) and cladded with OSB will end up being the "pressed board" of this era.

Still, as far as construction is concerned, I've never heard of any of these homes falling down due to structural inadequacy. Some sagging roofs due to inadequate support. There's plenty of 1920s homes around too; it's not clear at all that they're superior in construction. Superficially they've got creakier floors and stairs, and they too have their share of sagging roofs.

Re:I programmed the HVAC system by tburke261 · 2012-12-31 09:10 · Score: 1

Mod parent up

Re:Average bulb? Give me a break... by markdavis · 2012-12-31 10:49 · Score: 1

You want pictures? Of the entire interior of my and my friends' and family's houses? I think not. You can choose to believe whatever you like, it makes no difference to me.

Re:Average bulb? Give me a break... by thegarbz · 2012-12-31 12:40 · Score: 1

That's the problem with analogies, they are based on something the majority is familiar with. ~80% of the population of the USA is over the age of 30. The incandescent bulb began it's phase out only a few years ago.

There is a tiny insignificant portion of the population who can't rationalise what a 60 watt lightbulb looks like in terms of heat and light. Old people being especially resistant to change have no idea how much light or heat a 20watt CFL generates.

Comparing something in power terms to incandescent is by far the best way to reach a vast majority of people as it directly relates heat, light, and their lives.

Now using the floppy disc as a save symbol on the other hand is approaching ludicrous. The prevalence of technology amongst a subset of the population who have never saved a file onto a floppy disc means this icon is essentially meaningless to most users.

Re:When I was in school, parties did this for $0 by dodobh · 2012-12-31 13:25 · Score: 1

Do it Dutch style, all participants bring their own fuel.

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I can throw myself at the ground, and miss.

Fireplaces should always be on internal walls by DABANSHEE · 2013-01-01 04:09 · Score: 1

It's ridiculous when you see so many houses with brick fireplaces, 3 sides of which are external of the houses they're heating. Architects that design houses with fireplaces like that should be rounded up & shot; well at least made to drive cabs instead.

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