Leaving aside the issue of power generation external costs, there's nothing intrinsically wrong with using electrical energy that way, if it happens to be the cheapest solution. Ideally, all external costs would be internalised. If resistive heating were still the cheapest, then it would be rational solution, since doing anything else would necessarily involve waste, which reduces total wealth.
Most people have no idea how to go about comparing the costs of something that has a high capital cost and low running costs, with something with a lower capital cost, but higher running costs.
The correct way is to use discounted cash flow, but most people seem to go with the "you only have to pay for it once" approach which only gives the right answer by coincidence. Consequently, people may be deceived into going for the more expensive option, and never realise that they've done so.
Of course, even using discounted cash flow involves making some assumptions about the future, but at least they're explicit.
Come on Rich, don't you ever notice when you are being sent up? Would you have recognised the Superman reference if I'd written "for the good of all mankind", rather than just "for the good of mankind"? The "all" is redundant, but it does give a better rythm, which is important in text intended to be declaimed.
Solar water heaters ("Climax") were in wide use in California from around 1900, and later in Florida, up until WWII. Both disappeared when cheaper fossil fuels appeared on the scene.
"A Golden Thread" (foreword by Amory Lovins) covers these and other attempts to use solar power over the centuries. All the stories are about the same: cool new idea, built a few, cost too much, petered out. Passive solar was the one exception.
Solar is tantalizing, but elusive. I designed a nifty passive solar heater for my place last year, was preparing to build and fit it, then proceeded to enjoy a wicked cold winter with 8.5 / 10 cloudy days. The heater would've been awesome--if only there were some sunshine.
And will with any luck come back in again as fossil fuel becomes more expensive (which is what the carbon tax ought to achieve).
Passive solar water heating is tractable as are the evacuated mirrored tubes concentrators. If cost is no object you can make non-focusing flux concentrators using designs pioneered by HEP sensors.
Applying one to a PV array is quite fun for a while, but the packaging doesn't last long with 10x normal levels of sunshine on it.
You also need very good insulation. Where I live the sun doesn't get very far above the horizon in winter so it cannot make any worthwhile contribution to space heating. Equally in summer we never need aircon.
Better home insulation and improved vehicle fuel efficiency is the first step, but there doesn't seem to be anyone pushing it forwards. Deniers for hire have convinced a gullible public that they can trash the planet and their kids will tidy up afterwards.
By comparison when OPEC choked oil supply creating acute shortages in the 1970's there was a massive high profile "Save It" campaign and panic buying queues at the petrol pumps.
I palled around with Amory Lovins at the National Science Fair, in Baltimore, in 1963 I think it was. He was friendly and interesting but very rigid and judgmental. He was convinced that one of the other exhibitors was cheating (which he probably was) and launched a campaign with the judges to expose and eliminate him. In the end, the cheater won an award, and neither Amory or I did.
On the contrary, it's being pushed far beyond its real economic and environmental benefit. For example, we have an "Energy Star" program to promote energy-efficient appliances. It recently came to light that a number that got the highest ratings were super-hogs, not efficient at all.
Also, the ratings are relative, i.e., not "efficient," but "draws 15% less than other massive energy-hogs in its class."
The thriftiest people I know are skeptics, the most wasteful, believers. Bill's already told us we shouldn't bother conserving since it won't make any difference.
I know a major believer whose electric bill was $2,000 last month. Mine was $24.
I've always saved everything, energy included, even before Al Gore invented global warming. It just makes sense.
I remember that -- now that most appliances are microprocessor controlled, they can readily "game the system" because the "standard tests" are well-defined and the processors recognizes it's in "testing mode" and switches to behavior where the goal is to simply get the best score, even though the functionality in that mode wouldn't be appropriate for real-world use.
The engineers who knowingfully programmed in those sorts of routines are flirting with some pretty unethical behavior, in my opinion.
Agreed, but it's not always quite so clear-cut: an intial investment in energy efficiency can end up saving money long-term, but not everyone has that initial investment money around -- or the "short term" vs. "long term" money might be coming from different hands. E.g., many an apartment complex have the minimum allowable insulation because adding more directly costs the builder money -- even though the tenants will pay orders of magnitude more in energy cost over the lifespan of the building due to the lesser amount of insulation.
You assume investment. I've haven't invested in anything, I just use less. My place is horribly inefficient, but it doesn't matter--I just don't try to warm or cool the earth (by very much, any way).
When it's hot, I eat less. When it's cold, I wear a jacket. Shazzam.
I'm not preaching, but please Al Gore people, don't preach to me. I walk the walk.
Carbon isn't pollution, limiting ours to draconian levels has microscopic affect on anthropogenic global whiners' worst-feared scenarios, and has only produced fraud in Europe.
Carbon will price itself higher as China and India compete with us for it. That may not fully balance all the factors, but it's likely to encourage conservation fairly soon. People are very price-sensitive.
By contrast, taxing ourselves into oblivion just leaves our global competitors with loads of cheaper fuel, encouraging more consumption-- as we burn less they'll snap it up, cheaper. That'll make global whining even worse.
But that is a situation caused by total absence of business ethics and devices being made to game the EnergyStar tests. If you have a tick box mentality then you end up with gear that ticks the boxes.
Saving 15% is still better than nothing.
Who is Bill?
Anecdotal evidence has limited value. But why if you think energy conservation is a good idea do you argue so vehemently to maintain the status quo and trash the planet as rapidly as possible?
It would be nice if a few more of your compatriots could be persuaded to do the same. Profligate waste of energy is the American way - aircon so fiercely cold in summer you need a sweater in conference rooms and so stuffy and hot in winter that you have to strip off!
One way to drive this forward is clearly to add a carbon tax. If fuel was more expensive then cars doing under 10mpg would rapidly go out of fashion. It is no coincidence that the countries with the highest fuel prices also have the most fuel efficient cars.
The specification comes from the sales and marketting droids. The engineers do not have much choice and I expect they all do it.
You have obviously never worked on compilers. It was not uncommon for them to be tweaked to maximise performance on well known benchmarks. It was pot luck whether this generated better code for real applications. Being at the top of the benchmark tables was always good for sales.
The flip side of this game is that there has been a publicity drive to switch kit off rather than using standby. But it is perfectly possible for these standby devices to be on micropower. The only thing I have that does not drop to well below a watt when not in use is the wireless router which is 12W continuous even when idle. It would be nice it went to passive mode and CPU sleep when there is no IP traffic.
As it is people think they are helping the environment by turning off their TV overnight when in practice it saves a whopping 0.5W x 8h ~3kJ or so about equivalent to leaving it on for an extra 30s. The practice of leaving it on when unwatched uses way more power than standby!
You assume business, but I meant government. Their websites overpromise savings by factors. For example, the solar power pushing websites in California talk about saving the consumer money, or describe PV as an "investment." The feds promise me savings from insulating and changing windows (at considerable cost) that amount to
3-5x my actual annual energy spending.
It's not always dishonesty, it's often just ignorance. Or stupidity.
"Never ascribe to malice that which incompetence can explain." -- Hanlon's Razor, adapted
"My walk-in freezer / Sherman tank gets better gas mileage than last year's model" is not as good as "get a smaller freezer."
et
Sloman. He recently wrote that it wasn't worth him reducing his consumption, since his personal output wouldn't make much difference.
Okay, the average summer electrical bill in my area is $120, does that help?
I argue nothing of the sort--that's an obnoxious, wrong-headed, narrow- minded, offensive characterization. I've always been a conservationist; I've longed to use PV since childhood. I design things to run on microwatts for fun. When 74HCxx came out I switched an entire product line to CMOS, to save power. I'm just critical of the AGW science being extrapolated and misused to predict things as True Facts far beyond its ability to do that.
The models are usefully predictive over weeks and diverge hopelessly from reality in months, not decades, not centuries. I've looked myself, got it directly from an eminent author of such, and seen it in others' findings. Yet said models are constantly being abused to predict things they can't possibly predict.
I'm skeptical they even know the sign of the things they talk about, as exemplified by the recent revelation that high solar influx brings _cooling_, not warming. No one bothered measuring that periods of high solar output shift spectrum to the ultraviolet, which doesn't penetrate as well and results in less energy hitting the ground. How many Sloman lectures have we endured that assumed the opposite?
I hear absurd arguments seriously advanced about doomsday positive feedbacks the proposeurs[sic] couldn't possibly know, and which make no sense in context of the Earth's actual performance over the millennia.
Like Bill, I also see that reducing carbon in developed countries is next to pointless. Draconian cuts make almost no difference in alleged outcomes.
Further, we have no realistic energy alternative currently. Energy is necessary for life, and our best, main source right now is fossil. And, if that's truly a problem--which we have not yet established--the solution will be releasing reflective microparticles or the like, not freezing.
Energy today, OTOH, has to be dug up out of the Earth. I like mountains, oceans and streams, dislike seeing them chopped up, and burning chunks of them has other impacts too. Less is better.
Clinton proposed a BTU tax, promised it during his campaign. I supported it. He tossed it out the window as soon as he got elected, and I have since too.
ElectronDepot website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.