Quartz Space Heater

[Solar Flare]

NO! Sometimes you take out a cold beer and let it warm up outside.

Maybe we need a Basic programme to express this?

[Solar Flare]

But people are still trying to say that a watt is so many degrees is so many Hz is so many mph.

[Solar Flare]

You from Alaska? What would you know about heat anyway?

[Jeffrey Lebowski]

Sound energy just floats off to nowhere then, I guess...

[<kjpro]

He&#39;s talking about a different type of wattage now. :-)

[<kjpro]

Don&#39;t talk about Nick that way. Shame on you!

[<kjpro]

We better rewrite that 1 watt no longer equals 3.413 BTU then....

[<kjpro]

The one the radio displays. :-)

[<kjpro]

Electricity used creates heat... if you don&#39;t understand that... you need more help than you realize.

[Jeffrey Lebowski]

My Nikko Alpha II makes the house lights dim during any particularily loud passages.

[<kjpro]

Had a sound system in a car... going down the road at 60 MPH (had a 100 A alternator - biggest battery that would fit)... turn the radio up and up and up...

Till it would shut down the computer and kill the engine. :-)

[nicksanspam]

No... $0.50/kWh :-)

Nick

[ls1mike]

Not to pick nits (or &#39;knits&#39;), but electricity used does not *create* heat. Electricity used *is converted to* heat. And the amount of heat that results is EXACTLY 3.413 Btu per watt &#39;consumed&#39;. The fun part is that it is irrelevant of what else is being done by this electricity - lighting the room, spinning a turntable, chilling your beer, projecting an HDTV image on a big screen, etc. The amount of heat that results is EXACTLY 3.413 Btu per watt &#39;consumed&#39;. In a very real sense, all of these are simply free byproducts of the electricity- to-heat conversion. And (getting sorta back on topic), during the heating season, the efficiency of these devices is irrelevant - there is zero energy wasted (discounting, of course, leaky windows, inadequate insulation, etc). Each and every Btu dissipated by these devices reduces the demand on your primary heating plant by exactly one Btu.

But wait -- it gets even better! (this blew my mind when I first heard it expressed this way) Assuming an 80% efficient gas furnace, each Btu dissipated by your electric appliances/toys reduces the demand on your primary heating plant by 1.25 Btu (an 80% furnace sends .25 Btu of this up the chimney). You actually consume *less* total energy, albeit at a higher cost, when you leave the lights and the TV on all night! (Tell THAT to your &#39;green&#39; friends who just spent a small fortune replacing all their incandescent lamps with CFL!) Pretty wild, no?

Of course, during the cooling season, it&#39;s a very different picture.

[Mark Lloyd]

The &#39;M&#39; seems to come from Roman Numerals. I&#39;ve seen &#39;C&#39; (for hundreds) used that way too. The usage amount on my gas bills is in CCF (hundred cubic feet). The amounts on the gas royalty checks I&#39;ve seen are in MCF (thousand cubic feet).

I remember finding that &#39;M&#39; confusing, when I had more experience with metric units.

[Harry]

How many gallons are in a light year? :-)

[Mark Lloyd]

Buy a freezer so you can warm the beer inside.

[Mark Lloyd]

Both sound and heat are mechanical (not electromagnetic) vibrations.

[Mark Lloyd]

Then you need some home made ice cream. It&#39;s good for brain cooling.

[Mark Lloyd]

And not a measurement of light either.

[Mark Lloyd]

I do see the tower for the local radio station :-)

I suppose you know that "certain narrow band" is the limits of human vision.