What heats a person working in a cold winter garage better?

[TimR]

The US Army recommendation for motor pool buildings (except they're now called TEMFs, Tactical Equipment Maintenance Facility) is a heated floor.

The reason is that much of the time you're working under a vehicle and radiant heat doesn't do much.

During my time I only built one TEMF, and we didn't have sufficient funds to do it that way, so I never saw it work, but it made a lot of sense. When we lived in Germany we had heated floors in the bathroom and they were wonderful on a cold morning.

We did add gas radiant heat to an existing motor pool building, and it helped a lot but not if you were shielded by what you were working on.

[Scott Lurndal]

[Ed Pawlowski]

Yeah, it will take a few seconds to bring that 3500# mass up to temperature.

[Scott Lurndal]

The "input" energy to the fusion reaction is the output of the lasers.

The lasers in question were designed almost fifty years ago and are less than 1% efficient (e.g. if the laser produced 1 KW, it required 120KW from the power company). Modern equivelent lasers are over 20% efficient, which reduces the input 120KW by five-fold to about 25KW. There's no doubt that efficiency can be further improved.

Only 4% of the fuel pellet (Deuterium-Tritium) was fused to produce the output power.

So, even with the 20% efficient lasers, fusing 100% of the capsule will return far more energy than was required to initiate the fusion.

It will take time to get there, but it's certainly not infeasable.

Note that all the above was quite clearly stated by the LLNL scientists during the press conference round table.

You need to look a bit more carefully at the quality of your news sources.

[rbowman]

Sometimes. They are thermal mass so they would tend to stabilize the temperature as long as they stay in the garage. That could be good or bad. Right at the moment here they would be a ton of -20 iron if the garage wasn't heated.

[rbowman]

Yeah, that always feels good as you walk by but it's the Longhi fan type that goes into the cart.

[rbowman]

Ultimately but the motors are also transferring electrical energy to kinetic energy in moving the air mass.

[rbowman]

Yes, the cord does get warm.

[Clare Snyder]

The radiant is more effective because it heatsthe workbenc and the tools on it and YOU - without having to heat the air first. Heats the floor too - which makes your feet more comfy - just doesn't heat the floor - or you feet - under the bench!!!

[Clare Snyder]

Turns to light??? I don't know - always figured erlectric resistance heating was 100% efficient - whether it heats the heater or the wires to the heater.

[micky]

"Electric furnaces are more expensive to operate than other electric resistance systems because of their duct heat losses

--Why would duct heat losses lower the efficiency of an electric furnace? The heated duct heats space inside the walls and then heats the walls themselves from the inside. If they were not heated, they would suck heat from the air inside the rooms and make the furnac run longer. If the inside of the walls or the ducts were never cold, they would not suck heat from the forced air.

[Scott Dorsey]

This is comparing localized heaters with centralized heaters. An electric furnace is far away and the hot air is piped to you through cold ducts that leak heat out. A space heater in your area heats your area directly without those duct heat losses.

--scott

[rbowman]

A lot of ductwork is not within the living space. True, the crawl space may be cozy. Stray cats will be pleased.

[micky]

Of course. They require more to reach the same temp. It was a joke.

When did I claim to be always on target? I didn't. Get a sense of humor.

[Ed Pawlowski]

If the cars were both run and up to full operating temperature they would add some heat when brought in.

[micky]

Just now I was watching a movie about the Invisible Man, from the 40's, when he was parachuted in to occcupied Europe to spy against the germans.

At one point, the german officer sets a trap for him and he has him locked in his 4th floor office, with soldiers outside.

Coincidentally with this thread, there is a parabolic heater on the floor and the IMan puts it in the waste basket and sets fire to the papers in it. then pours out the papers and adds a lot of papers from the desk drawer, then he spreads it around to the curtains, and most of the room was burning when I finished dinner, so I don't konw what happens next.

If your a german officer, parabolic heaters are dangerous.

[trader_4]

Your source for that? I didn't see anything that indicated it.

The National Ignition Facility construction began just 25 years ago, was completed in 2009 and cost billions. Given that and the nature of the mission that seems unlikely.

Irrelevant

We've known the theoretical output for most the last century.

Maybe not, but BS about it and pipe dreams don't help.

Not going to watch an hour long video. As to the quality of the news I looked at what was widely reported by the leftist mainstream media. They made it sound like what you want to hear, a great miraculous breakthrough, implying that it will be available in the not too distant future to power the lib wet dreams of forcing all electric cars and heating in ten years. Truth is we might get something out of fusion someday but it remains highly doubtful.

[Scott Lurndal]

The video you refuse to watch.

See the video, by the scientists who did the experiment.

Your loss.

[micky]

I probably didn't read anything on this but what I heard on NPR or MSNBC also made that clear.

No one misled anyone until the nattering nabobs of negativism got involved.