First microwave-powered home boiler could help cut emissions

[Brian Gaff (Sofa]

No all the electric gadgets now being thought of seem to be against a backdrop of having to mburn fossil fuel to make the electric reliable in the first place. Brian

[Brian Gaff (Sofa]

How are they going to make that horrible transformer rattle most microwaves make go away, nobody would want that racket in their house, and in any case the Magnetrons have a very short life if you start to need them on for long periods. Maybe use a Klystron or a travelling wave tube like they do on the satellites? Brian

[Max Demian]

That's the point. Most people watch TV from a sofa, not an exercise bike. (Though the latter might be needed when Green Energy is found to be unreliable.)

[charles]

Today's Times tells me that by buying my energy froma Green supplier, I'll be helping to save the planet. How does my electricity meter know that it's getting Green Energy?

[Owain Lastname]

If it's 3p per kWh you're getting nuclear.

If it's 30p per kWh you're getting subsidised greenwash.

If it's £3 per kWh you're getting coal or gas, and be grateful you're getting it at all.

Owain

[The Natural Philosopher]

They get paid by the company to write it up, or their paper does.

This is how it works. company says 'here is a glossy load of ecobollox, please write about it'

Paper says 'there's a quarter page advert free on page 3....'

If both parries are 'experienced' a very overpriced advert is taken out and an eco bollox journalist cuts and pastes the press release.

share price shoots up, directors sell their shares for massive profit, and company goes bust.

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

Tim+ has brought this to us :

That fits - thanks!

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

It happens that charles formulated :

Your meter has a filter built in, which filters out all the black electronics, just letting the green ones pass through. The black ones are marked 'return to the sender'.

[alan_m]

I keep one room at 21C for "sitting" in and watching TV etc. The rest of the house is 18C or below. Cool bedrooms are preferred here.

[alan_m]

I do wonder if there is enough "green" energy to supply all those energy companies now advertising that they only buy green or that their 20% bio-gas is truly green.

[Tim+]

What I?d like to know is how does it only manage to be 96% efficient. What does it do with the other 4%?

Tim

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

on 17/03/2021, alan_m supposed :

Default (programmed) heating setup here is 18C during the day, 16C during the night hours. Heating is available 24/7. We turn up the 18C to 21C as needed.

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

They plucked the figures out of the air.

[PeterC]

More to the point (I admit that I haven't read the blurb), microwave ovens waste about 50% - my first one was 600W output and 1200W input; current one is 60% 'efficient'.

[Theo]

There was some stuff in the article that made it sound a bit 'combined cycle' - recovering waste heat from the microwave generator presumably. Still no clue why you would bother with microwaves in the first place.

Their portable microwave does use some interesting (bought-in) tech though - uses RF transistors rather than a magnetron. But those only go up to 350W:

so no idea how you'd get 10-20kW required from a boiler, except by having some TV transmitter valves in your basement.

Theo