Windmill nonsense.. Tilting at Wind mills

snipped-for-privacy@care2.comtyped

That would need an additional light fitting, with all attendant wiring hassle.

On Thu, 6 Jul 2006 08:26:16 +0100 someone who may be Helen Deborah Vecht wrote this:-

This is a do it yourself group:-)

Of course. But there are other only ways there too. Plug in light, or put a cover round a central cfl in a chandelier so it lights upwards only, and let the arms take the filaments.

NT

How does Nucleur power generation emit CO2? Unless your just thinking about the construction of the power station.

Mark

snipped-for-privacy@care2.comtyped

Still means changing or getting additional light fittings.

I certainly don't want anything else plugged in my hallway.

David Hansen typed

Yebbut who says I want to *do* anything?

The point is that my lights are satisfactory, if wasteful of electricity.

I won't do anything unless I get a marked improvement of some sort. I'd better slink back to the Shedde...

That is only so if the energy saving equipment uses more energy (or far more labour) to make.

If the former is true, its not energy saving is it?

If the latter is true, then it needs better design.

We stopped using canals, because although very energy efficient, they were very SLOW. We stopped using steam trains because although they wer very energy inefficient, they were more relevantly HUGELY labour intensive to maintain vis a vis diesels. We fly jet aircraft rather than pistons engines for the same reasons.

In each case pure economics - labour versus energy costs - rules. Up the energy costs and that shifts the balances.

Those who peruse the FT will have noticed the extreme rise in activity in agricultural futures on energy raw materials - cereals for ethanol - rape for biodiesel. These are now break even or profitable ways to generate fuel. With oil at $75 a barrel.

Its economics biassed by politics as well.

Despite the fact that both rely on fossil fuel, a fully battery electric car is infinitely cheaper to RUN (as opposed to make) because electricity is not subject to swingeing road fuel taxes.

Running your vehicle off domestic heating oil at 35p a litre illegally is an option not a few people have adopted..

I don't see how or why it does that.

Please expand..

Try a TRV on the radiator in the office/bedroom..

And a basic read up on 'conduction' 'convection' and all teh other ways that heat spreads around till it meets an 'insulator'

Sheesh, are you deliberately thick? In this office. loaded up with electronic kit, the local heating system never comes ON until the absolute depths of winter.

Its well insulated and as the door is left open mostly heats via the corridoors (ungheated) most of this part of the house..

Yes, but they are not as high in many cases as the grid infrastructure per capita needed to bring electricity to your door, also the house itself is a HUGE per capita cost...which you neglect - wheras the housing for a power station is a direct cost, nit one buried somewhere else in the opportunity cost calculations.

I suggest its slightly more complex in that the real energy figures we make decisions on are not primarily the energy embodied in manufacture, but the energy used to run a business. This is why mass produced goods are so much cheaper than low volume goods, the embodied manufacturing energy might be the same (not always) but the energy used running the manufacture business and distribution chain varies hugely on a per item basis. It is this extra overhead on low volume sales that often blocks adoption of what would be energy saving goods if you look at manufacturing energy alone.

Rising energy prices will not improve this overhead any. They may, or may not, reduce our standard of living, if they do we will be able to invest in less energy saving expenditure rather than more. Maybe there are too many unknowns to know which way it goes. We cant even assume energy costs will rise in the longer term, though they are doing so in the short term.

One thing thats clear is that we will have abundant cheap energy at some point, but we dont know when, and whether or not it will occur in our life time. Its likely it wont, but it may.

yes, absolutely. And money is some kind of guide to the real embodied energy as opposed to hte more often discussed manufacturing-only embodied energy. Money isnt an accurate measure short term, but fairly accurate longer term, once initial blips have settled down to a steadyish state.

There are energy options with costs not too far above that of oil, and this will cap the rise of energy costs. The future is not as bleak as some seem to think.

NT

IME these are not very effective, nor can they ever be. Rad temp inevitably has some effect on sensor temp, therefore the best they can be made to do is change throughput gradually in response to changing room temp. Thus inevitably there is a fairly wide swing of regulated temp in cold weather versus mild.

In practice they appear to work ok simply because theyre not needed in the first place, thus their poor attempts at regulation go unnoticed, and theyre generally set to well above the wanted temp, effectively not giving significant regulation. But in an unbalanceable system they just do not work well, and can not. The only way to temperature regulate a room is to measure the temp away from the rad, not next to it.

NT

The message from The Natural Philosopher contains these words:

I reckon I've always wanted a Steptoe and Son type rag and bone cart - complete with Hercules.

The message from snipped-for-privacy@care2.com contains these words:

I suppose if you want to be posh you'll have to have a motor valve for each room, controlled by the roomstat drawing hot from a manifold.

I have hot air blowers with a thermostat controlling the fan, fairly remote, in each upstairs room. The biggest problem is as the temperature on every room gets close to optimum, the boiler tends to short cycle.

TRV's have their problems, but they are infinitely better than nothing at all, or just a master thermostat.

I agree that a zone valve and thermostat in every room, all coupled into the boiler on an OR basis, is the best. I may yet do that.

The whole purpose of temperature control is simply to prevent gross heating beyond what is necessary for any particular area that has an outside (heat losing) wall or floor or ceiling.

Then any additional heat generated by e.g. electrical equipment simply reduces the call on the CH system.

In the periods of spring through autumn, MOST of the house heating is in fact generated by waste heat from the electrical equipment..a typical large room here is adequately heated with about 300W, and it takes that much to LIGHT them, without CFLS..the smaller rooms need only about

On Thu, 06 Jul 2006 08:56:24 +0100 someone who may be Mark wrote this:-

Fairly obviously. What is mined is not fuel rods. Converting the ore into fuel rods is an energy intensive operation.

After it has been "burnt" that is not an end to it, especially if it is "reprocessed" (another energy intensive operation).

On Thu, 06 Jul 2006 11:22:49 +0100 someone who may be The Natural Philosopher wrote this:-

Very far from perfect.

No need to. I have designed, installed and maintained all sorts of heating systems in all sorts of buildings.

More importantly I have written computer software to model such things. If anyone thinks they understand something trying to model it on a computer will soon indicate whether they really do understand it. One bit of software worked out the angle of the sun to the windows, so that the amount of sunlight falling on the floor could be followed across the floor and thus the heat gain worked out. Yes, the software did allow for the heat emitted by humans and gadgets.

Gas arrives at houses without infrastructure? Fascinating.

In all those large boiler houses I once looked after the gas just appeared by magic, those booster stations and large pipes were just a figment of my imagination? Fascinating.

On Thu, 6 Jul 2006 09:16:36 +0100 someone who may be Helen Deborah Vecht wrote this:-

One of the marked improvements is that your electricity meter will spin round less, or the red light will not flash so often if it is a relatively new meter.

As long as nuclear contributes more energy to the grid than it uses, it is eliminating carbon emissions.

NT

Yes. Or a standard trv controlled via a separate programmable thermostat, which has some advantages such as very easy to retrofit, and continues working ok if it fails. I'm fairly convinced this is the way heating will go. As progstats steadily come down in price the case for turning off the bedroom rad for much of the day will become compelling.

NT