Siting of panels for solar water heating
On 18 Nov 2006 meow2222@care2.com wrote:
Joe Fischer wrote: On Sat, Andy Hall wrote: All of this is focus in completely the wrong area. All the time that the U.S. continues not to make much of a federal effort in terms of emissions control
The federal government doesn't own many fossil fuel power plants.
The US govt does control policy/law though.
Only to a certain extent, on most things the federal government only has authority for things crossing state lines, and exerts some control over states by withholding funds if some goal is not met.
But both the coal industry and the power plants have been spending fortunes cleaning up coal to reduce pollution.
Less toxins is nice, but wont have any effect on CO2 output tho.
Frankly, except for Al Gore and this newsgroup, I never see any mention of CO2.
and China is opening a new coal fired power station weekly, all of this other stuff makes so little difference that it is a waste of time on environmental grounds.
There is a lot of USA bashing, but other than the French nuclear industry, I see very little about what other countries are doing to reduce CO2 emissions.
This is because US uses a lot more energy per person than other coutries. Where the european drive is more toward efficient use of more limited resources, the US approach is still generally excess and waste.
Most countries in Europe have no choice, the only thing different is they have pipelines, the US needs boats to bring the oil.
Believe me, the cars in use in Europe are not adequate for US highways, I drove my Alfa Romeo 4 door sedan 6 miles each way to have tires fixed, and I hate driving it so much I took a wheel off and took it to have it fixed. Call me chicken, but I am afraid to be on the road in it.
I confess, I did drive a big car about 40 miles today, and the cars I drove only get about 14 miles per gallon, but I was trying to get help to move one of my cars that has been parked 5 years.
If there was a way I could reduce the energy use in space heating, I would.
Even if the case for CO2 induced global warming could be demonstrated clearly and proven beyond doubt, there is nothing much that can be done without people freezing or giving up income.
Oh, there is.
First bear in mind convincing evidence would cause many more people to make greener decisions.
So convince me.
1 National new build energy policies can switch from gas and coal to nuke and wind.
The stoppage of nuke plant building was not a policy decision, it was a failure of contractors and labor to produce at contract prices, or even at double contract prices. Also, when nukes were being built there was a power producer policy of encouraging "all electric" houses, and they anticipated a constant increase in electric use that did not materialize, and that made the failure of nuke contractors and labor more critical.
Wind is probably moving along as fast as possible, where it is feasible.
2 New build houses can be required to have 6" insulation instead of 2". Saves people money
Where? The ceilings probably have at least 10 inches now, but it is difficult to put more than 3.5 inches with 3.5 inch wall studs.
3 New CH systems can be required to have a programmer for each room, so time and temp can be set for each. Saves people money
With forced air? Easy, but expensive with existing hot water systems, but forced air central furnaces would need powered shutoffs for large ducts, and I have never seen any for sale. I do have thermostats in each room, but I also use switches so I can do the work of the programmable thermostat.
4 A quality BS can be set up for cfls so the decent ones are recognised by buyers, and marked properly instead of the nonsense equivalence claims now common. People knowing they can buy quality cfls would mean many more sales. Saves people money
That would be up to the stores and bulb makers to advertise and display (in a free country).
5 filament bulbs can be taxed to prod people to move to cfl - the amount of tax would be low enough not to have much real effect on anyone's purse, and there is little need to buy filament bulbs anyway.
There are lots of places where cfl will not work, even where I do use them, they are too long.
Moving to cfl saves money.
I think it is good, even though the first couple I bought didn't seem to last long.
6 Legalise car engine conversion for greater mpg. The simplest way to do this is to close off one or more cylinders by removing rocker arms. Saves people money
You're kidding? The average ICE barely has enough power to run on all cylinders.
7 Heavily tax hungry cars at point of sale. Moving people to leaner vehicles reduces costs. Saves people money
Congressmen like to get reelected, and raising taxes too much might get them lynched. There are simply too many old cars here to change faster than they are doing, people earning less than $10 an hour can't afford a modern efficient car.
8 Increase VED for low mpg cars (annual tax disc), while at the same time offering a free VED bracket for the 5% highest mpg vehicles (this would be a moving target, moved annually to keep it to the top 5%). This could together not change total revenue, though we all know how it'll go in practice. Saves people money by reducing total fuel consumption.
There is little or no choice for the majority of drivers in the US, they buy used cars, drive them till they quit, junk them and buy another used car. There are 240 million vehicles here, at 20 million new cars a year, it will take another 8 years for everybody to get a 2000 model or newer.
10 Govt to offer a nice fat prize to the person who can design the best of various categories of energy reduction equipment. Eg: - solar space heating - solar dhw - any other enrgy saving tech and so on. The requirements would include good ROI, little or minimal maintnance, and practical diy fitting.
All that is easy on new construction, but difficult on existing houses, and it only works for young people who own a home and can count on payback for 20 years.
Theres plenty more. The main barriers are lack of genuine belief in the need for it and general ignorance regarding energy saving options, solar design and so on.
For space heating, economics has a bad effect, many people are using electric heaters in outlets and extension cords that are not rated for the amperage. And they are using unvented kerosene heaters, and even torpedo kerosene heaters without adequate ventilation. For both space heating and gasoline, economics is the determining factor, people are hurting, and have no way to do much. They really can't afford to change cars, they owe on the one they are driving.
There are ways to reduce energy use, like having people move close to where they work, but there isn't a power that can accomplish that.
Fuel taxation would, but I'm not sure this would be productive anyway. More tax incentives for home workers, making up for it with tax on non-homers would also skew the picture and reduce energy use.
There isn't any "home work" to speak of, except a very few computer users. Most jobs require a person to do something physical, and they need to go to work.
Solar energy is primarily a sub-tropic region energy source, and is not being guided in the right direction. Solar panels on the roof, especially retrofitted, is not a good idea, on walls facing the equator is a much better idea. Just one leak caused by installing panels on the roof, and all the savings for 10 years is lost,
Kit mounted atop single storey flat roofs has significant advantages.
We have no single story flat roofs, we don't really have a good roofing material for nearly flat roofs. I have tried to buy what is called "selvage" roll roofing, which is 36 inch material with aggregate only on 18 inches, and no nails showing with 18 inch overlap, but the roofers never heard of it, and the supply houses don't stock it.
FWIW its quite possible to use a controller that detects leaks and shuts off one section of a parallelled system. This would improve reliability, reduce ongoing costs, and extend system lifetimes. But this is only going to be cost effective when the equipment reaches mass production.
I wasn't talking about the system leaking, it is the roof leaks that is a problem, roofing __MUST__ be done so that gravity drain without cement or caulking is accomplished, and it is difficult to do that and still put screws through the roof to mount panels.
roofs don't usually last more than 15 or 20 years, so installing panels on a 10 year old roof is not a good idea.
In Britain average roof lifetime is mesured in centuries.
I need to check out what new homes are roofed with, I can't believe there can be that much difference in available materials.
Bee-hive apartments may be energy efficient with less outside walls, but not everybody is willing to live in an apartment.
Many are though. New build programs could become more apartment block oriented. The British planning system makes extending existing buildings difficult to impossible, and this could also be improved. Larger buildings house more people more energy efficiently.
British planning can do a lot, because of the times when the labor party is in control, many accept central government more than in the US.
Really old buildings may be the most difficult to heat, and the trend in the US is larger homes, so nothing is moving in the right direction to save energy.
Its not too hard to retroinsulate old houses.
It is a nightmare in some cases, my house was built in 1895, and mu aunt had insulation blown in the attic without properly sealing all the cracks. So I have 10 inches of insulation, and dust in the house. The walls are a special problem, they have no insulation, and drilling holes and blowing it in is not usually satisfactory, so anything done is expensive.
It seems evident that for solar energy to be affordable by the masses, there has to be a large Do-it-Yourself effort, with the right ideas, and a modular approach that can be done a little at a time is better both for time, and the up front cost. Joe Fischer
Yes, and its doable. As the real cost of energy increases, and knowledge spreads, courtesy of the www, we see more of it being done. NT
The www is full of misinformation, and the different types of housing make it difficult to devise a workable energy saving solution.
Chances are the high cost of energy will cause more people to do things than any talk of global warming, rising sea levels, or even shortage scares. It is important to work on these problems without getting too concerned about the pace things are moving, the majority of people simply do not have the money to do much of anything, and if it costs money to save money, they don't have the money unless they are in a position to borrow the money.
Joe Fischer