UK to "get serious" About Renewable Energy 505
Bob Dobbs writes "Tomorrow the UK government will
announce (observer.co.uk) it's going to "get serious" about renewable energy; in the bleakest look at global warming so far Tony Blair will warn that extreme weather will wreak £150 billion worth of damage across Europe within a decade and the current situation is "unsustainable". On the bright side, it's mentioned that sustainable energy sources are less susceptible to terrorist attack."
Hamsters! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Hamsters! (Score:5, Funny)
But the metamphetamine you need to power them comes from non-renewable sources...
Re:Hamsters! (Score:5, Funny)
Hamsters need food, let say 10 kg a year per hamster and then we assume each hamster manages to generate 10W and that we need three shifts. That's 3 * 10 / 10 == 3 kg of salad per watt, now to get a terrawatt you'd need 3 * 1,000,000,000 kg of salad which is a lot. Not to mention that you'll need support hamsters to bread new hamsters for when the ones in the wheels drop dead. That alone would easily double, or maybe even triple the amount of salad needed for each watt. You might be able to justify some of the salad usage by using the droppings as fertilizer, but still
Now legistlation that would require every comb to be connected to your local electrical plant, that could work.
Unsustainable situation (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Unsustainable situation (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Unsustainable situation (Score:5, Insightful)
Europe's a small place. That kind of thing makes people very rationally concerned.
Oh, not to mention the ongoing problems in the Irish Sea, and the atypically high rates of cancer recorded around some of the existing plants...
Re:Unsustainable situation (Score:3, Funny)
But money is global, no? There are many nations that have basically nothing useful to offer to the world economy except empty space and geological stability. Of course, making sure that the local Saddam equivalent doesn't simply dump the stuff on whatever ethnic group he considers unwanted, or that he doesn't pack it in dirty bombs for a return-to-sender is another matter...
Re:Unsustainable situation (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Unsustainable situation (Score:5, Insightful)
If it weren't for the timely intervention of the French 300-odd years ago, the American freedom fighters would most likely have *lost* the War of Independence, and the USA wouldn't exist today. Don't forget, your own Statue of Liberty was a gift from France, symbolizing the two nations' common ideals of liberty, equality, fraternity.
It's rather disappointing to see Americans so ready to hate their friends just because those friends should be, on occasion, strong enough to take a moral stance against them. This is the behaviour one might expect of a maladjusted child, not that of a civilised adult.
Even the best of friends can't always be expected to agree. It's no basis for racial hatred, and to show such petulant disrespect for another civilised nation, even in jest, is not only infantile but dangerously arrogant.
Re:Unsustainable situation (Score:2, Interesting)
Call Ripley's... (Score:5, Funny)
Next up, he's going to be accused of supporting Al Qaeda's scheme to cripple American industry with this 'global warming' nonsense.
Re:Call Ripley's... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Call Ripley's... (Score:3, Insightful)
If Bush was serious... (Score:5, Insightful)
Gasoline at $5/gallon would get rid of the SUV craze, and good riddance.
the CAFE standard is a better solution (Score:5, Interesting)
Mandating fleet fuel efficiency standards, in contrast, results in car manufacturers charging less for fuel efficient cars and charging more for gas guzzlers. That allows low-income families to both buy inexpensive fuel-efficient cars and save money on gas, while being subsidized by people who voluntarily choose to buy gas guzzlers. It seems like a very elegant free market solution to me. And it seems like a much better solution than raising the price of gasoline.
Re:the CAFE standard is a better solution (Score:3, Insightful)
And if you wanna talk about gas guzzlers. Buses really are, especially when you've got maybe 4 people on them, because of the above problem with the system.
I agree, car ownership is very costly, especially when you need to get it fixed. That's a real set back to a low-income family. How can you afford the repair when you're barely paying your monthly bills in the first place?
Re:the CAFE standard is a better solution (Score:3, Funny)
Poor people can be crowded into large inner city areas and those who can't afford to move, well, let 'em eat cake!
Sincerely,
Jonathan Swift
Re:If Bush was serious... (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Because the free market (as presently constituted) fails to allocate finite energy resources efficiently over time.
Specifically the exchange technology currently available to the market (money), fails to recognise that energy is in a category sui generis. That is to say energy IS wealth. Every utilitsation of wealth is a utilisation of energy, whether this energy is in a 'natural' form, or is expressed as human labour.
Perhaps it would be different if we used an 'energy standard' (like the old gold standard), but the current commodity neutral exchange technology fails in this fashion: A finite store of some particular energy reserve (eg oil), is consumed subject to a certain level of inefficiency. Now the market will find it 'inefficient' to invest an amount of money in rectifying that inefficiency until such time as the energy reserve dwindles and the price rises to a certain level. Until such time the energy is wasted (which might be as much as 25% with oil), resulting in a net loss of wealth.
2. More obviously to the point. As currently instituted, the market fails to percieve climatic change, it is an 'externality.' Your countrymen, when they buy the fuel that drives them to work or their children's library, do not pay for the destruction of Australian homes, properties and forests, (and only as taxpayers forthe destruction of American homes, properties and forests) for which their (and indeed Australian driver's) fule consupmtion is responsible.
The 'free market' is an efficient basal means for the allocation of resources. More often than not, well intentioned, but poorly designed, interventions in the market result in an overall net loss. That, however, does not mean the free market is either the efficient of all possible allocation schemes, nor even that it is a sufficient system for allocation. Maybe it is not easy to discern what kind of intervention will better the markets efficiency, but that, after all, is why we have economists. Well the pragmatic economists, not the ones who make a religion out of the free market
Blow Up The Sun (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah let's see them terrorists blow up the sun. The jokes on them though even if they do, they'll just kill themselves too. HA!
Oh, kamikazes. yeah
Re:Blow Up The Sun (Score:2)
Clearly, you've never heard of Mr. Burns.
Re:Blow Up The Sun (Score:3, Funny)
Not if they go at night.
See also (Score:2, Interesting)
renewable energy is a nationalist's dream (Score:5, Insightful)
It means you'll never have to depend upon a foreign country for energy or fuel.
April Fuel (Score:4, Funny)
Considering the published date, it's no surprise that the final line of the ad was "April Fuel!"
IIRC they were slapped on the wrist for wasting 50k of taxpayers money.
Ian.
National Pipe Dream (Score:3, Insightful)
As for energy policy, I'm less than impressed. Nuclear plays second fiddle, what a shame. The UK will pay a high price in than high electric costs when it uglifies it's landscapes with windmills and it's shores with tideal generators. Reprocessing and the rest of the renewable nuclear power generating scheme was dropped a generation ago by people who feared "nuclear proliferation". The idea was to keep nuclear technology and materials from the rest of the world so that the rest of the world could be dominated and terrorist would not have weapons. That policy has failed because you can't keep nature a secret. We have simply lost the benifits of cheaper and more reliable power generation. The bombs are being made but there is no corresonding peaceful benifit. Here is another paper trying to put the future off two years more. Oh well, at least they are not trying to close plants down and mention nuclear in positve terms.
I like how they predicted a 6 C increase in temperature for this centruy when there was a 0.6 C increase in the whole last polute till you drop, make even Dikens sick, centry.. There has been a radical departure since 1940, others will tell you. Now, three years into this century, someone got out a pen and drew the curve out 97 years, HA! Some reputable scientists might tell you that missing neutrinos from the sun indicate a solar minimum and that temperatures will drop.
What to do? Nothing at all say the Greens, bottle yourself up, stop having children and use as little as possible till there's nothing left in our closed system. No, thank you. Build, make, exploit the rest of the solar system and the universe. Do not go quietly, the system is not closed.
Speaking of pipes and dreams (Score:3, Insightful)
> without supplies from around the world?
Actually, nobody said that. You are setting up a straw man so you can knock it down. Sadly, since this particular rhetorical device is novel to nobody but you, it's not a terribly effective one.
What they said was, wow, here's a good way to reduce dependance on foreign energy sources. And how awful that must be, to make you so desparate to find any reason to argue against it.
>
That's got to be one of the funniest arguments I've ever heard from an anti-environmentalist head-in-the-sand libertarian. (Well, or he could be a Republican, too, but they're pretty thin on the ground around here.) As for nuclear, well, it's a puzzle, isn't it? I mean, those people who are delighted to use the power from a nuclear station don't seem to want to sit on the waste. As long as it's someone ELSE near the storage dumps, though, that's fine. After all, they don't have as much money, so they aren't as important as he is.
> I like how they predicted a 6 C increase in temperature for this centruy
I love how, when we get to the issue of global warming, every libertarian becomes a scientist. In fact, pretty much every credible (as in 'actually endowed with a doctorate and some sort of research or teaching position') scientist now agrees that global warming is a serious, if not THE serious, threat to civilization for the next century, but the head-in-the-sand lobby keeps using data from 20 years ago, when not everyone was so sure. Want new data? Take the old data from 20 years ago, issue a press release by someone without any knowledge of science but with a good name, and bingo... nothing to worry about!
As for comparing today's pollution with that of 75 years ago, it is to laugh. If you assume that carbon dioxide has no effect on the atmosphere, then you can almost sort of pretend to believe that. In the US, that's the blinders we have on our government... CO2 isn't regulated as a pollutant, and so people can point to the pollution figures and prattle on about how they're not really actually getting much worse.
> Now, three years into this century, someone got
> out a pen and drew the curve out 97 years, HA!
Mmhmm. After all, there's really only ONE scientist who actually thinks this way, huh? And obviously you know, far more than any lousy scientist, that anything that messes with your worldview must just be wrong.
> Some reputable scientists might tell you that
> missing neutrinos from the sun indicate a solar
> minimum and that temperatures will drop.
Now, that's about the first rational thing you've said. Of course, this is a hypothesis, supported by only the most tenuous of real evidence. And even then, I don't think I ever heard anything about temperatures on Earth actually dropping... because one of the statements I heard on this was, 'Well, I don't think we really have to worry about this, because the current rate of global greenhouse gas emissions will more than compensate for this effect.' And Bush wants to limit the GROWTH of the amount of CO2 put out per year... so if 100k metric tons were put out this year, he only wants 110k metric tons to be put out next year. But, of course, it's a voluntary program...
> What to do? Nothing at all say the Greens...
Look, another straw man.
But here, I'll try to set up one for you:
Use all you can, destroy what you will. Always be unwilling to admit the possibility that someone else might be right, that you might be doing irreparable damage to the planet, and that, in a few decades, you could actually feasibly wipe mankind completely from the earth. After all, even if they're right, you'll have had a hell of a good time, and you probably won't live long enough to be forced to believe them when they say 'I told you so'.
Oh, wait, that's not a straw man... that's exactly what you said.
-Fred
Re:It's also an internationalist dream (Score:3, Insightful)
Dear Mr Blair (Score:2, Insightful)
This is not a good timing, most people are ungry about you and Mr Bush attacking Iraq for ENERGY COSTS and supply and you're attempting to discuss about cheap and good energy for your country.
I'm sorry Mr Blair but no one cares, no one believes you anymore.
Oh my (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Oh my (Score:3, Insightful)
Why is that sad? (Score:3, Informative)
"Economics" is one of the better ways we have of quantifying that.
The thing that might be considered sad is that they didn't realise the economic imperative before now.
don't-hold-your-breath dept?? (Score:2, Funny)
This is good (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:This is good (Score:4, Insightful)
It's like those ads here in the US where they claim drugs fund terrorism, which isn't true, oil funds terrorism.
Typical Politician Bull (Score:5, Insightful)
£150 billion (Score:5, Insightful)
Watch for this, watch for how often things are expressed in monetary terms, as though that was all that mattered.
Re:£150 billion (Score:2, Interesting)
So the only real motivations for us to change our energy sources are economical and political.
Money and life are intertwined though (Score:5, Insightful)
Sadly some of us do consider human life cheap (It's very easy to make, and will be around a long long time). I believe in quality of life over quantity of life, and economics is a reflection of quality of life. When the shuttle broke up, I didn't think twice about the people on board, I wondered what it was going to do to the US financially.
We are all going to die, I promise you that. Spending an extra 2 months out of the year working to fund federal disaster programs affects me directly, and I am not ashamed to say that I care about that. Counting costs and counting lives are equally important, and intimately connected.
I'm not actually saying you are wrong, just that money and life aren't so seperate.
Re:£150 billion (Score:5, Funny)
I would watch for it, for say, $20/month. I estimate this vigilence is worth at least $23/month, so the earth will make a tidy profit.
Deal?
Re:£150 billion (Score:2)
We're not talking about saving whales here, or preserving Antarctic wildlife, or even saving a site of natural beauty. All of those are things that can't be expressed just as an amount of money. But natural disasters, in Europe, tend not to kill anybody; rather, their cost is the damage they do to property and the economy. You say that the damage caused by the floods will cost X amount to put right, and the loss of production is Y.
It's totally legitimate to measure these things in monetary terms because economic damage is the only real kind of damage these disasters cause (at least in Europe, which is what the figure refers to). They don't damage wildlife (in the long term) or destroy an unspoilt landscape or do many of the other things for which you would have to resort to value judgements.
It's an odd day when Slashdot messages criticize quantitative statements which have a clear meaning and are independently verifiable, asking instead for generalizations and handwaving. If a government instead issued a report saying 'we are switching to renewable energy because it's obviously better and, like, will someone please think of the children', would that meet with your approval?
Re:£150 billion (Score:2, Funny)
Which is why we should have sex now, baby.
Re:£150 billion (Score:5, Insightful)
However, Blair isn't trying to convince people that Global Warming would be distructive. He's trying to convince businesses, who measure just about everything in terms of money.
In the States, we've heard the term "Sure, global warming is happening, but it's not worth the economic cost to fix." By coming up with some economic numbers, Blair is attacking these monetary arguments directly.
Re:£150 billion (Score:3, Interesting)
IMHO a more important difference between "environmental" and "business" approaches is the time scale involved. At worst, businesses are interested in short-term profit, whereas the environmental goals are infinitely long-term at best (truly sustainable).
Re:£150 billion (Score:2, Informative)
Disaster prone areas will be uninsurable... (Score:3, Interesting)
It may cost that much for the first 3-4 years, but then the price will decrease. Why? Because noone will bother fixing what was broken anymore. Those who live in disaster-prone areas will quickly become uninsurable, and noone will risk living in those places any longer.
--sex is a renewable resource [slashdot.org]
From the Wire (Score:4, Funny)
Shortly after receiving a telephone call from US President Bush, Tony Blair announced that he was wrong about alternative energy, that it is actually part of an "Axis of Evilnessity". Blair also said he recently read in some college essays on the internet that alternative energy would help fund terrorism. It was also revealed that the UK will be joining a "league of allies" in the US-led "War on Liberals". "I believe, and I think the people of the UK stand behind me on this, that we should do whatever Bush says, if it helps kill terrorists."
The Hydrogen Powered Jeep to Save the Day. (Score:5, Informative)
No telling what the British are thinking though, with all of that renewable energy sitting right there under the North Sea.
Now if only the United States would do the same (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Now if only the United States would do the same (Score:2)
I saw an interesting show on the Discovery channel. They have the largest coal mining equipment on earth digging away following the seam. They move entire towns if they are in the way too, as it is a surface mine.
What "tax breaks for SUVs" are you talking about? I recall a recent proposal for small businesses to be allowed to expense up to $75,000. If you spend all of that on an SUV you still have to amortize everything else you buy, but you might be talking of something else.
I am still missing the point on this "fossile fuels bad" arguement, but here is a post [slashdot.org] with some related info. I bought the arguement when I was a teenager, but not any more, as NONE of the predictions on fossil fuels materialized, including (in constant dollars) the price (it has dropped over time).
But I am still open to new facts as they come in.
Re:Now if only the United States would do the same (Score:2)
If you want to see what happens in the scenario where your costs are externalised and you rip stuff out faster than it renews, you could examine collapsing fishing industries around the world - everything looks fine for ages, no-one wants to do anything about it, and then suddenly your fishery dissapears.
Re:Now if only the United States would do the same (Score:3, Interesting)
Different problem - most fisheries are unowned so as fish become scarce the price of fisheries does not go up - there is no one around who starts to make more money because they have a larger reserve of fish than everyone else. Oil is quite different. Oil reserves are mostly owned, so as oil becomes scarce we should see the price of oil reserves increase. What we actually see is a decline in oil prices which suggests that no one in the oil industry actually expects oil to become scarce any time soon.
You were on to a good point when you brought up externalities though - the price of oil does not really reflect its cost of production because it does not include all the money spent of keeping the oil reserves and infrastructure secure. When you include the cost of things like the Gulf War, and the War on Terrorism, then oild begins to look much more expensive than its market price would suggest.
Re:Now if only the United States would do the same (Score:5, Informative)
Well, if he's talking about the ones everyone else is talking about, it's that SUVs don't have to meet the emmissions rules that cars do, nor do they have to meet the same MPG requirments (20 vs 27 for cars.)
Since it costs a bit more to make a cleaner car or a more efficient car, the suburban assult vehicles are getting a free ride on a statute meant to assist rural farmers and small businesses.
spin spin spin (Score:4, Informative)
this white paper, a few weeks ago,about the governemnt setting targets
for CO2 and renewable energy levels, instead they've set aspirations
(see the BBC [bbc.co.uk] , The Sunday Herald [sundayherald.com]
and The Telegraph [dailytelegraph.co.uk]).
Most people seem to share the view that New Labour 'aspirations'
mean absolutely nothing, and we'll probally end up in 2050 with
more coal/gas/nuclear (best option in my opinion) powerstations than
ever before.
Re:spin spin spin (Score:3, Informative)
Really? Last time I checked we had about enough U-235 availible to fire fission powerplants at current levels for about 150 years. fissile uranium is not all that common, less so than fossil fuels. Of course if someone managed to get a fusion generator working (hot or cold) for more than a fraction of a few seconds then that might be feasible. After all, we've got loads of hydrogen in the sea, and separating it from the oxygen takes a lot less energy than you get by fusing it into helium (for example).
Re:spin spin spin (Score:3, Informative)
True, we've only got a few thousand years of mined uranium, but you see, uranium exists in sea water at a few parts per billion, and is extractable for a reasonable cost (about 10x the current market rate). There's a lot of cubic km of seawater, enough that this supply can last millions of years. By then, erosion kicks in and puts more into the sea, enough to sustain us for a billion years. All we need are breeder reactors. (Oh, and there's even more thorium in earths crust.)
Incidently, the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant produces about four times as much energy a year than all 13000 bird-choppers in California, COMBINED. Look it up on the california wind-power page and on last year's power production at Diablo Canyon. 750 acres of land, including the exclusion zone, produces more power than every wind turbine in the US! (given that cali has 30% of US windpower)
I'm a conservative! (Score:2, Funny)
I got a small schling
I like to bomb niggahs
and make a lot o' bling
I got a bunch o' friends
in high up places
They helps me get dem
government graces.
You think I'm smart
I just know who's who
I couldn't run a fruit stand
without the red white & blue
I'll drop some crap
about Jesus the Christ
You'll buy it all
and vote for me twice
'Fact, Jesus is comin'!
Real soon, now!
So we gotta prop up Israel
That ol' sacred cow
Don't need no history
Don't need no schoolin'
I got my ideology
To keep me a shootin'
Liberals! Faggots!
Commies and queers!
Socialist hippies
Full o' pussy tears
Propaganda's m'friend
But I calls it "fact"
Even though I don't read
'Cept for Chick tracts
Facts? No! Don't need em here!
We're conservatives! We work on FEAR!
Don't like what we say?
Well FUCK YOU, bud!
We'll shove it down yer throat
and tell ya it's good!
Cool down (Score:3, Informative)
See for instance here: http://www.kuro5hin.org/print/2003/2/17/15110/519
Re:Cool down (Score:2)
--Bad futurama quote. =)
About that terrorist part... (Score:3, Insightful)
Here in Norway, we use mainly water power. Blow a reservoar, and you got one helluva flood. Of course that's a lot of concrete, but there's also damn many tons of water pushing from behind. So it's not automatic that sustainable = safe... but since I haven't bothered to read the article, this is probably about some other kind of sustainable energy
Kjella
Re:About that terrorist part... (Score:3, Informative)
Also, most of the suitable hydropower sites in the world already have been exploited.
More Green victims? (Score:5, Informative)
Renewable or sustainable? Nuclear fission is not renewable, but is sustainable in the long run (possibly with breeder reactors) and looks like the only way to reduce CO2 emission levels while keeping the energy production comparable to the current levels.
(Solar/photovoltaic consumes almost as much energy to make solar cells as they produce over their entire lifetime and yield toxic waste, solar/thermal has a poor ration of conversion to electricity, windmills and dams need to be spread over very large areas -- think whole countries -- to produce the same quantities...)
And nuclear reactors would still be vulnerable to terrorism. But they are not PC anyway.
Re:More Green victims? (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, if the solar cell can last long enough you do OK with them. But your assuming technology is static in the solar power world. It isn't.
Thin film solar power systems are in development, and they have the potential in the future to vastly decrease the amount of material, energy and waste involved producing solar cells. Don't assume the current problems are the way it will be forever. Enough work on solar will find some good solutions. There are already promising ideas out there. But we need to keep at it.
Bullshit (Score:5, Interesting)
Your assertion about wind energy is also incorrect. The time for most wind turbines to be net positive in energy is a few months. The area required for energy production for wind is much smaller than you say. If 6% of the total land in the US were cultivated for wind power (which doesn't exclude other uses, like ranching), the total energy production would be 1.5 times the total produced in the US today.
The key to energy independance is not just switching sources, but using substantailly less energy. Using less energy is possible without making huge sacrifices, it just requires developing and building smarter.
See:
http://www.awea.org/faq/bal.html
http://
Re:Bullshit (Score:3, Interesting)
Distributing them in areas with enough wind really makes the problem of total area less important, especially when you consider the fact that wind farms take advantage of the vertical real-estate and leave the horizontal area available for other functions.
I don't want to be anywhere near wind power. (Score:5, Interesting)
Even wind farms have their dangers.
Re:I don't want to be anywhere near wind power. (Score:3, Informative)
You must have vistited the Altamont Pass windfarm at some point. Those turbines are practically the only electrical windmills in the past 50 years which produce more than 75 decibels each.
First, that's nowhere near a jet engine. You can't hear them in a running car, even if parked with the windows down.
Second, modern turbines are whisper-quiet. If you don't believe me, and you're (I'm assuming) in California, drive down past any of the Riverside County wind farms and let me know if you hear anything.
Makes sense in so many ways (Score:5, Interesting)
Renewable energy (wind, hydro, solar) creates local industries and reduces reliance on foreign energy sources.
It makes political, economic, and ecological sense
Too Little Too Late? (Score:5, Insightful)
Before such measures have any effect on global warming, the following will have to take place:
As we are not even approaching the first step, we have to face the fact that these changes are coming. Not that we shouldn't try to change things - we'll have to have other forms of power when fossil fuels start to run out anyway. But these changes are coming and it is now out of our power to stop them.
The real question is, how is the world's food production going to be affected by the climate changes? From the current predictions, it seems that most intensive farming areas of the world are going to have less water, which is an extremely bad sign. I hope people start planning for this soon.
The most ironic part of the article is the continued push against nuclear power, which is currently the only technology which could produce a significant amount of Britain's power without CO2 emission. We have truly dug a deep hole for ourselves.
(Sorry if this is a bit bleak, it's monday morning here.)
Re:Too Little Too Late? (Score:5, Insightful)
Ethonal production is now efficent (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Ethonal production is now efficent (Score:3, Interesting)
Before you go too far down the ethonal path (which I like BTW), is it sustainable? That is if every car on the road today burned ethanol, and we had enough plants to make that much, could the farms provide enough production to keep the plants running. (assuming we don't allow poor people to starve)
There is only so much farm land on the earth, and plants are generally considered 1-2% efficent at turning sunlight into energy. (Solar cells can reach 40% in labs, and that was 15 years ago, though realisticely 10% is easy to obtain)
Solar UK? (Score:3, Informative)
Given their island nature, wind power might be reasonably useful. Current windmills [natwindpower.co.uk] in the UK seem to be bringing in 2MW per turbine. Of course, this is small in comparison to the 38GW [geographyiq.com] that's currently being consumed by the UK. (Wh / hours_per_year)
Divide it out and they need only build 19,000 wind power turbines to power the country's electricity needs.
There is certainly value in installing as many affordable renewable energy sources as possible. However, for general purpose usage in all countries, the world's energy needs won't be solved before commercial fusion is available.
Re:Solar UK? Commercial fission (Score:3, Interesting)
On the other hand the North Sea is windy and relatively shallow, and the basic technology for building platforms in it and running cables from it has been long established by the oil industry. Building wind farms in the North Sea actually looks like quite an exciting technical challenge with a real payoff. If the space program kickstarted the 60s high tech economy in the US, perhaps a serious wind farm program would do the same for the moribund, dismal UK economy.
As North Sea oil dries up the UK is predicted to become a net oil importer within 3 years - the stock market is far deader than the Dow Jones - if Blair doesn't do something soon there will be no money to pay the wages.
Government Science (Score:2, Interesting)
In the 70's "scientists" predicted a new ice age.
We don't know for sure what the climate will do but we do know that we are exiting an ice age so common sense would suggest that temperatures get warmer when this occurs.
To say that temperatures are getting warmer due to human intervention is simply conjecture.
The worst thing is to monopolize entire industries by allowing the government and their "scientists" to create the standards for any improvements upon fuels, energy sources etc.
This is like allowing Microsoft to set the standards for the entire computer industry.
People do care about becoming self-sufficient and weaning themselves off of oil but if you allow the government to tell us how this is going to be accomplished you can bet that somebody who is friends with some Senator or Parlimentary leader will get rich and those with truly good ideas will be prevented from bringing their ideas to market.
If the airline industry had been allowed to be completely responsible for its own security, you can bet that at least one airline would be letting you carry your loaded sidearm with you. That airline would more than likely not have suffered on 9/11 (boxcutters do beat seat cushions as offensive weapons) and perhaps garnered a loyal following among law abiding gun owners.
Government is about controlling the market however and so good ideas will always be shoved aside to accomodate those who have political influence. In the wake of 9/11 government decided that the best way to secure airline travel was to ban plastic knives and subject your grandma to an anal probe. If you have any confidence that they can solve global warming then you probably haven't looked into the various problems they've attempted to solve and how their "solutions" have worked out.
Re:Government Science (Score:5, Insightful)
2) It's stupid to put sneer quotes around the term "scientist" when referring to government scientists. They're graduating from the same doctorate programs as non-government scientists. Without further evidence, there's no reason to assume that they're any less qualified than their civilian counterparts.
3) Government represents the will of the people (one man, one vote). Microsoft represents the will of its shareholders (one share, one vote). That is why I feel safer about government-imposed standards than standards imposed by a near-monopoly corporation, and why you should too.
4) I have almost zero confidence that any government will be able to fix global warming, but I have even less confidence that unregulated corporations would do so. There's just no incentive to do so.
But corporations are often far more flexible and innovative than governments. The best solution is probably to let the government create the incentives through tax breaks and fines, and give the corporations free rein in deciding how to meet the challenge.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's hope they really are serious (Score:5, Interesting)
1) The obvious one - sustainable power. Fossil fuel will not last forever. That is not up for debate, by the way. The Earth is a closed system finite volume. We burn fossil fuel faster than it is being created. We will run out. The only question is when, and I for one prefer not to wait until the last minute to work on the next step.
2) Environment. In the long pull, renewables are MUCH better for the environment than burning fossil fuels. It's true they aren't zero impact - I hear lots of gripes about how wind turbines cause view problems, create noise and mess with birds, and how solar cells are a mess to make. Making silicon solar cells does release a lot of CO2, but the process is still a net gain eventually and new thin film technologies may drasically improve that situation. As for wind, people are going to have to accept that we cannot produce power without having some impact on the environment. Coal plants do too. Noting is totally free, and wind is a lot less offensive than a nuclear plant, which is the other option after we run out of viable fossil fuels.
3. Distributed power. Yes, terrorism is a concern (this gets beat to death by the press but the problem is real) but if each home has its own solar grid and on site power storage than we won't have things like whole sections of towns going dark with brown outs and blackouts.
Of course, people will also point out the renewables won't supply enough power to run everything. That is true, but doesn't have to be. We can be MUCH more efficient about how we build things, and since most everything gets replaced/rebuilt every few decades or sooner, if we shift our focus NOW to building high quality, easily maintainable, easily upgradable and very efficient appliances, houses, cars, and whatever else uses power the situation will improve. If we change our thinking to "how can we run a civilization on a third or less of our current power" I bet we make progress. This is supposed to be the government's job, since businesses can't seem to think long term. I hope when the UK says they will be serious they mean it all the way, because the undertaking is not small and will impact almost everything in some way. In the end I think it will work, and be worth it, but we have to start now while our current system is strong enough to build a new one. If we try to hang on to fossil fuel until the bitter end, we will have to use nuclear as a crutch. Which causes it's own major problems.
Dead End (Score:4, Insightful)
I refer you to this article [denbeste.nu] by Steven Den Beste talking about amounts of energy produced by various technologies. (He starts with biodiesel but moves on from there.)
Personally, I think nuclear energy is the only realistic way to go, but like Den Beste, I admit that nuclear power is politically dead. On average, nuclear waste is by far the most containable pollution compared to anything releasing massive amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. IMHO, being an 'environmentalist' and being anti-nuclear power is nonsensical.
- Necron69
Re:Dead End (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Dead End (Score:5, Insightful)
You should have made a more limited claim, perhaps along the lines of "alternative energy is not going to replace fossil feuls anytime soon". Alternative energy as such is obviously not a dead end because there are lots of types of alternative energy that are cost effective. Sometimes these sources of alternative energy are cost effective only in special cases (like solar powered phones on the side of the road) but in many other cases they are cost effective even when competing directly with fossil fuels (like wind power being used to supply electricity to the national grid).
All the same, the author of the article you linked to is right when he says:
The question is not whether this, or any of the others, actually are commercially feasible. The question which began this whole thing was whether any single one of them, or all of them collectively, could make it so that the US no longer had to import oil. They aren't even close to representing a big enough source of energy to offset the amount we bring in via tanker.
But then commits the same error that he describes here:
You've got to think big. I've run into this before. Most non-engineers (and even a lot of engineers) don't actually have an intuitive understanding of large numbers. (That's why people play the lottery.) For most people, any number above about a thousand is the same size.
People make the same mistake with small numbers. A large number of tiny contributions can add up to a very large contribution, but people tend to treat very small contributions as though they were nothing at all. I think your author is making the same mistake - he assumes that individual alternative energy sources must contribute at least 10 megawatts to be worth considering at all. This is a mistake. If you have a large number of sources, each contributing small amounts of energy, then in fact this could put a big dent in the demand for fossil fuels.
A realistic view of future energy use is that a combination of many alternative sources, and many types of conservation (more fuel efficient cars etc), will put a dent in the demand for fossil fuels, but will not eliminate fossil fuels as the main source of energy. If the aim is just to reduce greenhouse emissions then that might be good enough.
Fossil fuels are too expensive to burn these days (Score:5, Insightful)
More people should look at wood burning these days. The technology has come a long since the days of an old rusty pot belly stove in the basement. There is a good site about burning wood [woodheat.org]
Re:Fossil fuels are too expensive to burn these da (Score:5, Insightful)
No. Not on a global scale, because then it becomes non-sustainable.
Excessive wood burning is one of the major reasons for desertification [usgs.gov] in developing countries. They experience a population explosion while many people retain their agricultural/nomadic lifestyle. Too many eaten, trampled and burnt plants means rapid erosion.
If you plant one tree for every one you burn, it's OK, but this makes little economic sense, as the energy density of wood is too low and the costs (time, space) too high to warrant the effort in a developed society.
Might make sense in rural Canada (Score:3, Insightful)
When you've got a decent-size property with eucalypts on it, a fair number of of large branches and entire trees end up on the ground, and chopping them up and turning them into firewood is pretty much a no-brainer. On our property, we plant far more trees than are being removed, by the way (as it was overcleared in the past).
I agree entirely that it's not a mainstream solution, but it has its place in less densely-populated areas.
too hard on the future? (Score:2)
I don't know, with the right promotions, pay-per-view tie-ins, etc. Xtreme Weather could be the next big thing. Get Tony Hawk(TM) to claim boarding in Xtreme Weather is amazing and you're halfway there. They could recoup their losses and then some.
Or save the environment. Either way.
Alcohol is the answer, and it's ready NOW (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not only ready to go right now, but could be incredibly cheap, and renewable. All you really need is sugar and yeast, and the sugar could easilly come from excess produce, such as corn, so this would also financially benefit the farming industry a great deal.
Sure, it's not solar, it's something that would be feasable right now, and would have 99% of the benefits of solar (burns very clean, does not pollute, would be incredibly inexpensive, would be compact and effecient power, and would put an end to OPEC and all their !@#$%^&* ).
Re:Alcohol is the answer, and it's ready NOW (Score:3, Informative)
I also can't imagine any reason the fuel pump would need to be modified in the slightest.
Try backing up your statements with some facts.
Re:Alcohol is the answer, and it's ready NOW (Score:5, Informative)
First Carbs have been out of favor for 15 years now. (The last auto with a carb was in the mid 80s) Second, even then US regulations required all cars to operate with a 10% ethanol mixture. Not 100% alcohol, but start. Further, many gas pumps supply that mixture, and in most cases you do not even know you are getting it.
I will grant that your points (other than sugar depostis) were true for old cars, but you looking at the 70s or before, not many cars that old are on the road, and those that are, are collectors cars who can afford expensive gas for the car. (That is the car should be driven so little due to its value as a collectors item that even $10/gallon for gas is affordable, no matter how poor you are)
Carbs are easier to modify for ethanol/alcohol than fuel injection, just change your jets, while fuel injection requires you find someone who can give you a good prom. (in theory easy, in practice nobody does it) Of course if you want to get your performance and power back after that mod you should increase your compression ration, which is a major rebuild, but that is a semi-optional step and destroys your ability to easially go back to regular gas.
In MN there are many cars on the road that run on E-85, which is 85% ethanol. All those cars will run just fine on regular gas, but with E-85 about 20 cents/gallon chepaer than gas, and avaiable in nearly every MN town I don't see why you would. To be fair ethanol is subsidiesd in MN, something that will likely end soon due to budget problems, but there now are enough E-85 cars on the road that they should be able to make money continuing production unsubsidies..
Wind power (Score:4, Informative)
Pah, I'll believe it when I see it... (Score:3, Insightful)
Fossil fuels are causing many problems (environmental, foreign policy in the middle east), nuclear is politically incorrect and subject to NIMBYs and not enough investment is being made into renewable/alternative sources of energy. Duh. Does anyone see the problem with this picture?
--
tripe (Score:3, Informative)
First of all.. if we were to take the encylopeadia Britannica and stack all the books up.. then the thickness of each page would represent more than 100,000 years of the earth's history. This means that the last ice age [scotese.com] which ended about 10,000 years ago and was at peak 18,000 years ago would be within 1/5 of the thickness of the last page.
There were 8 ice ages in the last 2 million years and that is within the last 20 pages.
Within the last 2,000 years (2% of the thichness of the last page) there have been several warming and cooling periods denoted by such names as the little ice age [sunysuffolk.edu] and the medieval warm period [agu.org]. Crocs were in the themes during Roman times... (little warmer).
look here [scotese.com] to see a chart showing global temperature over the last billion or so years. This is the paleomap project an they have done increadible work.
Check out the university of Carleton, Tim Patterson has an excellent course on climate change [carleton.ca] and this is being broadcast on TLC as well.
On Chris Scotese's web site you will see that for 90% of the history of the planet for the last 650 million years or so, the earth was about 20 degrees warmer than now. If you look at the miocene maps [scotese.com] you will see that 14 Million years ago the planet was warmer.. and a lot wetter..
BTW... the time scale on Chris's chart [scotese.com] is not linear. If the chart is re-scaled it tells the same story but is even more dramatic. (We leave the re-scalling to the student as an excersize).
Look here [hubbertpeak.com] if you want to know why Britian is so keen on renewable energy and specifically look at these charts [hubbertpeak.com] which show the decline rate of North Sea oil production. Britain will become an oil importer within 2 years. The decline rate of North Sea oil production is more than 15% per year. The chart shows how feilds deplete. You can see how the big plays are drilled first and last the longest... and thereafter smaller and smaller fields are brought online until they give up and stop drilling. This is where Britian is now. One of the stats is that Britian has about 250 barrels of oil per capita. That is it! On to renewable because the oil resource is gone.
The real issue of climate change is this. Water in the atmosphere is far more significant than CO2. Firstly H2O is at a far greater level so the question becomes... how would we express the level of H2O in the atmosphere? Secondly there is uncertainty in the measurements. Thirdly, irrigation and agriculture increase the H2O levels. Most of that water pumped onto the fields will evaporate and plants do transpire!
CO2 levels are in the range of 0.036% and this of course is a plant nutrient.
So we are left with adding 2 numbers for instance.
H2O = 0%-4.0% +/- what? a percent?
CO2 = 0.036% +/- 0.0005
You can see these numbers here [ouc.bc.ca] in table 7a-1.
Since the warming response is most likely due to the weighted "sum" of the CO2 and H2O and all the other green house gasses of course, then we need to "add" the H2O levels to the CO2 levels. Well - the numbers are in the preceeding paragraph and I don't know how to add them. We don't even have a good handle on the uncertainty of the H2O levels... but, My guess is that irrigation and agriculture have increased the H2O substancially.
So - we end up with the anaolgy to the encyclopeadia. Almost all of the data for climate modeling has been collected in the last 100 years and this represents 1/1000'th of the thickenss of the last page of the stack of books. Meanwhile all the other pages are basically ignored. The geological history of the planet shows that the planet is usually (90% of the time) about 20 degrees warmer than now. So most likely the planet will warm back up. But we don't know when and we might get another ice age or several before this happens. Anyone for 10,000 feet of ice over Toronto? Who votes for palm trees in the artic circle?
sustainable and green is a very hard combination (Score:5, Insightful)
To get right answers to the energy question, we must start understanding that
a technology's efficiency rating must subtract the true energy cost of production of all hardware involved and extraction of all resources including the energy and resources consumed by the people involved and
an assessment of the environmental impact of technology must include the environmental impact of the factories producing the energy production devices, the raw materials consumed, the wastes produced, the land covered, and the environmental energy transferred (many transform environmental energy of some type to electricity and transfer that electricity to other locations where it almost always becomes heat).
Almost every "solution" I've seen come from the friends of the environment has huge environmental impacts and many consume more energy than they produce. Let's talk about a few.
Hydrogen - its an energy transportation mechanism, not a source. Its impact is little different than electrical wires with the exception that it allows you to "wire" a vehicle to a hydrogen generation plant that will likely be oil fueled. To date, it is cheaper to mass produce hydrogen from oil than any other substance.
Solar cells (cost) - once again, solar cells are an energy transport mechanism. Because the energy investment in lifecycle support (mining, production, distribution, maintenance, recycling) is greater than the lifetime energy output. Efficiencies would have to be far higher to offset this. Don't forget that you have to produce all the energy that we currently consume + all of the energy consumed to produce the energy. Another big weight on the efficiency rating is that you have to back this with other technologies for storing the energy to supply energy at night and when cloudy, these reduce the overall energy efficiency ratings of the system too, both directly and indirectly through the energy cost of production of the backup systems. On top of that, you have to plan for worse case scenarios because you'd likely supplant much of the other energy production technology. What effect would the fires a couple of years ago in Indonesia have had on regional and even worldwide solar energy production? And they lasted for how long?
Solar cells (environment) - solar cell energy consumption might be environmentally friendly, but the energy production will alter the landscape of an order of magnitude more land than oil. To get the capacities we need we will have to significantly change the reflectivity of large areas of our planet. What will that do to weather patterns?
Various underground organic energy sources - none are sustainable. We should stop just burning these up because they are also our cheapest stores for many other raw materials needed to sustain modern technology, though I'm figuring they will eventually make a bug to turn coal into oil/gas and leave behind an equivalent volume tubular matrix made from non-organic substances in the coal. This will allow for easier, more environmentally friendly extraction (it really ticks me off when they cut the tops off of the mountains). Anyway, suffice it to say that there will still be a massive need for oil even when none of it is used for energy production.
Wind - oh come on. Those things are a noisy, ugly blight on the landscape. Someone is making big bucks selling the Brooklyn Bridge here (and most of them are coming from tax dollars because it isn't a very good business yet except in very special circumstances). Has anybody even bothered to figure out the total energy cost of manufacturing and raw materials on these monstrosities? Not to mention maintenance, recycling, etc. And, once again, you need an entire backup infrastructure. It can't be another infrastructure needing a backup unless you can prove that their needs will never significantly overlap. No energy is free and wind seems far from it.
Inland hydroelectric - already more exploited than I like. So many beautiful rivers lost. So much history submerged. Very sad.
Oceanic water movement - This would include wave, current, and many other oceanic energy production methodologies. How come the environmentalists scream when a nuclear plant puts out heat but don't scream at the combined impact of all of this on the oceanic environment. No reason really. So they will. And rightly so. I can't wait for all the studies about what kinds of weather extremes are being caused by the minuscule reduction of energy transfers from one part of the ocean to another that all of these technologies cause.
????? combination maybe - just an easy way to trick yourself by distributing the impacts. The combination of all the smaller impacts is still as big or greater than the whole impact of other technologies.
So what's the answer. Nuclear of course. Its the only answer. Its environmental effects especially are far more containable than the other sources. Fission at first, preferrably with breeder technology, then fusion. Either way, it should be combined with a hydrogen and electrical distribution system. Perhaps mostly hydrogen at some point. I suspect hydrogen may prove to have a lesser loss in long distance transport than electric.
Even with fusion, we'll eventually need to find a way to radiate more of the energy into space because the heat produced by our consumption will eventually reach levels able to influence climates. Probably about the time we start moving society underground so that we can restore our environment and increase food production.
The interesting thing is that this is exactly the answer Bush has proposed. Hmmm. Maybe not so dumb after all. Its a wise man who seeks wise instead of radical counsel.
Like others have said, Blair's move is just a fig leaf thrown to the lions for political purposes. Unless he means "nuclear power" when he says "sustainable energy", it will have no real impact, not only because it won't last, but because its based on sensationalism and fear, not science.
I'm trying hard to follow you here... (Score:3, Insightful)
> recycling) is greater than the lifetime energy output.
So many people have debunked this so many times. Why does anyone bother saying it?
> solar cell energy consumption might be environmentally friendly, but the energy
> production will alter the landscape of an order of magnitude more land than oil.
I've heard this one before, but it never fails to amuse me. Why? Well, because a clearcut, and there are plenty of those, is just as big a change in the reflectivity of large portions of our planet. But nobody ever seems terribly concerned with that aspect of them.
> Wind: Has anybody even bothered to figure out the total energy cost of manufacturing and raw
> materials on these monstrosities?
Can you seriously, honestly say that you think nobody has bothered to do this. Do you seriously, honestly think that you're *that* much smarter than everyone else out there?
Wait, this is Slashdot... of course you do.
> Oceanic water movement
The arguments here are just as silly as the 'but don't forget, wind-power will cause the wind to slow down'. Believe it or not, a forest of trees slows down the wind dramatically more. Perhaps we should be thinking about that before we cut down all the trees? (Oops, too late!)
> Nuclear
Yes, its waste products are more containable than other types, at least currently. But they're also impossible to neutralize. They are toxic forever, and in novel and entertaining ways. But, since you're rich, relatively speaking, you can pay someone else to play Russian roulette FOR you.
> Fusion
Someday, maybe. But no time soon.
And man, am I having trouble with the fact that you used the name Bush and the words 'wise counsel' in the same paragraph.
I love your claim that all of this silliness is based on science. It's based on your personal opinions, which clearly haven't even been fact-checked by the other three brain cells in there.
But it's a beautiful piece of evidence that humans in general will do almost anything rather than venture out of their own skulls.
-fred
The obvious solution for England is... (Score:4, Funny)
Problem solved. That will be $100 please.
Solar tower costs vs cost of war on oil: (Score:4, Insightful)
Has anyone looked at the costs of switching to solar towers vs the cost of war, and how much area would be required? I think that the answers actually look both economically and practically viable.
First the facts
from:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/262
Sorry about the formatting - I can't figure out how to get the 2nd col to line up right.
So a TOTAL area of about 51x51 km of desert would be needed to provide all the households in the US with all their power. Since the household power usage figures are for Australia, you'd probably have to double or trebble this figure for US households (higher per capita consumption etc) but even so, you could practically pay for them ALL for the cost of 7 year's war on terror, or about 2/3 of a single year's annual defence budget, assuming you didn't get more efficient at building them - with practive, the costs of putting one up should drop.
You can extrapolate for the world & see that you could provide power for every man woman & child on earth at the Australian rate of consumption for about 20 times this amount.
Best of all, since it's relatively low-tech, ie. not sensitive military capable technologies - just a bloody big tower & turbines, there should be no issues regarding technology transfer. I would imagine it would be a nicely profitable business to be experts at building these things for other countries.
Isn't it time to start building these things all over Texas or something? How much does it cost to set up a new oil drilling site anyway?
Uninformed assumptions masquerading as fact (Score:5, Informative)
That is the problem with solar power, any type of generation really, you cannot concentrate it. Energy is lost as heat, proportional to the resistance of the wire, which is proportional to the distance of the line. So #1, even if you can generate it, you can't transport it that distance. #2, the more you concentrate, one cloudy day would wipe out the majority of your generation... remember, this is not a 365-day guaranteed capacity source. Not to mention #3 that a common sand storm in the desert would crack and scratch your glass, driving up repair costs.
What you would need is a 100% distributed system, maybe one station per square mile across every population center in the US, minimizing the path between generation and consumption. Now, try to get local approval from the municipalities to install it (and junk up their landscapes). Then, calculate the maintainence costs to visit each one of these locations... astronomical.
Finally, your whole "war on terror" argument is, for lack of a better word, crap. Every statement you've made is an approximation, and your solutions assume the ideal. It's a thinly masked anti-war rhetoric pretending to pass as fact. If the war were really about oil, we'd drill it ourself on our homeland, and be done with those dictators in the middle east. Then you finish it off with a snide remark against the President's home state
Q. How long does it take to drill these wells? A. Miocene: 1 to 2 weeks; Norphlet: 6 to 12 months
Q. How much does it cost to drill these wells? A. Miocene: $750,000 to $2 million; Norphlet: $15 million to $40 million
Q. What is the average daily drilling rig cost? A. $100,000 to $120,000
Q. How much and long does each well produce? A. Miocene: 2 million to 15 million cubic feet per day for 1 to 10 years, Norphlet: 10 million to 126 million cubic feet per day for 10 to 20 years
From StudyWorks Online [studyworksonline.com]: "For example, the consumption of oil in the United States reached a peak in 1978, then decreased by almost 20 percent by 1983 as more fuel-efficient cars were introduced and less oil was used for electricity. However, gasoline consumption increased again in the '90s as gas-guzzling SUV's and small trucks became more popular. Nonetheless, oil consumption is currently increasing by only 1 percent per year, and consumption in 1999 was only 3.5 percent higher than it was in 1978." Get those SUVs on a normal fuel usage plan. Improve gas-electric hybrids. Encourage more efficient fossil fuel generators. What we really need is efficiency, not alternative generation.
Why does solar always mean cells? (Score:3, Interesting)
Yah, it's tall, it's been tested, and it's pretty simple. It's made out of almost all glass, concrete, and some steel. Stick these puppies out in the desert where nobody is anyway. Like in Australia and the southwestern US (*cough* california power problems).
Yes, you're going to have some problems with cloudy days, so accept that there are going to be some days when you're not going to get much power out. So make sure you use the extra electric on good days to make lots of hydrogen. That way we can move a source of energy around the country to places that may have trouble with this type of power (new england for example). You could also fire up some fuel cells to make electric out of said stored up hydrogen when the days are nasty.
So umm... why not?
Cost Effective BS (Score:3, Insightful)
Renewable energy sources will never be seriously considered in the United States because businessmen here are smart. They know people will no longer have a permanent dependence on their products. Just look at Microsoft, they wouldn't survive if they made a product that didn't crash and was full of bugs.
Patents (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe a lot of inventions related to our own survival could not see the light because of the actual state of the patenting system.
There are more on this here [altenergy.org]
so much wasted (Score:3, Insightful)
I just installed a heat pump after having my A/C croak on me last spring. I went the entire summer with NO A/C.
It was miserable with inside temps averaging 95f. and 100% humidity and that was at NIGHT!! (Gulf Coast city)
I had to order and wait for delivery of a special A/C unit.
Arrrrrgh!!
Anyway, I had many thoughts on cooling and heating and saving money while I suffered through it all.
Central heaters blow hot air at the ceiling. DUH!!
I find that in the winter my feet are miserable cold and I live a life of freezing hell. If I were building a new home I would lace the slab with water lines and circulate heated water (or some fluid) through to cause the floor to be warm. Heat rises and considering that you live closer to the floor than the ceiling it only makes sense. Also when your feet are toasty warm the rest of you feels so much better. I keep a cheap heating pad on the floor at my computer desk, kick my shoes off and my feet are happy. I can then turn the central heat down a few more degrees.
Your refrigerator puts off heat. Capture it and use it!
My heat pump blows very cold air outside durning the winter. I want to build a heat exchanger to capture that wasted cold and circulate it into my icebox. Why not?!
And how about capturing all the other wasted heat and or cold?? In the summer, use the same heat exchanger to capture the heat from the heat pump as you cool your house to pre-heat the water going into your hot water heater. Have two water tanks, 1st is a pre-heater that steals otherwise wasted energy from your A/C and warms the water before it gets to the real water heater, the result being that the water is already quite warm and requires much less electricity to heat it.
SMART ceiling fans. When the heater is off the ceiling fans are running and making me cold so I turn them off, when the heat turns on I jump up and turn the fans on.
Why not use remote control fans that turn on and off when the main A/C (or heater) turns on and off?? They sell ceiling fans that operate by remote control and I bet it would be easy to set them up with an X-10 system to do this. Saves money by not running the fans when they are not needed.
There are so many wasteful things going on in a typical house and if one was clever enough they could capture and reuse a lot of otherwise wasted energy.
This summer I'm going to install one of those ridge cap vents on my house and re-insulate the attic, squirrels got in and stole LOTS of the old insulation. (Damn tree rats!!)
It's amazing the heat that we generate trying to get the ultimate computer! All the elaborate water cooling systems and the like, I would like to see someone built a whip ass machine that helps slash utility bills as a by product of cooling the system down. Have it's heat recycled for a good cause, like a sandwhich warmer or coffee cup warmer or a foot warmer or something useful!
Now that would be an interesting challenge..
... lace the slab with water lines... (Score:3, Informative)
Just google for underfloor heating...