Re: New paradigm for home heating automation and control

[Marc F Hult <MFHult@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

ROTFL. Top Dog Dave top posts and takes credit -- more than three decades
into the era of significant mathematical computations of global heat budgets
that account for the relative proportion of solar energy that is absorbed or
reflected. I'll read the hardcopy  of the journal _Nature_, in which this
article was published when it gets to my house. Lay accounts often pull out
a theme of topical interest and distort its significance for news purposes.

FWIW, As best as is now understood, the major factor in the anthropogenic
effects on climate from burning coal in modern generating plants is carbon
dioxide. About/very roughly 7% of all anthropogenic CO2 release from energy
production worldwide is from burning of coal in US.

There is real work by real people doing constructive work on these real
issues. For example, regions of the world that have sedimentary rocks from
which coal is mined also tend to have thick sedimentary rocks into which
carbon dioxide captured from the burning of coal could be injected, thus
sequestering the CO2 from the atmosphere and biosphere much as natural
geochemical deposition of the sedimentary rock limestone and dolomite does.
This the case in Kentucky where Dave and I live and where most of  the coal
that runs our computers is mined.

http://www.uky.edu/KGS/emsweb/co2/co2.html

There are significant (home automation) choices in all this that I am
personally pondering at this time (hence the thread.)

A home heating system that burns coal pellets in the back yard releases as
much CO2 as burning the coal in a modern coal-fueled power plant, but the
home system typically releases more particulate matter and sulfur. Here in
Kentucky, home use of coal and other solid fuels is making a comeback. I
know someone locally who just added a coal-pellets to their home heating
system and is thrilled with it.

The use of pellet-like fuel for residential heating is not a new idea. Forty
years ago I lived in an apartment in Spain that heated by a system that fed
almond shells from an electrically operated  hopper to the firebox to heat
the boiler. No X-10 though ... ;-)

However dirty they may or may not be, coal and other pellet fuels are legal
(in most place in the US), available, practical and much, much cheaper than
energy sources from utilities, so -- as they say -- I'm 'conflicted' ;-)

The end is in sight for my hardwired lighting project. So the next five-year
HA effort might be to develop a HVAC system and overall energy strategy that
is low enough in cost so that I can afford to stay in the house when the
price of petroleum-based fuels doubles and redoubles again.

One of the next steps may be to build a mathematical energy budget model of
the house, as much for the challenge as for a tool for decision-making in
design and operation. This might also be a good start in graduating from an
automated house to an autonomous house.

Marc
Marc_F_Hult
www.ECOntrol.org

On Thu, 22 Dec 2005 15:12:49 GMT, nobody@xxxxxxxxxxxx (Dave Houston) wrote
in message  <43acc0ed.37396564@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>:

>I told you so!
>
>http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/22/science/earth/22climate.html?pagewanted=all
>
>Burn more dirty coal to generate cheap electricity and slow global warming
>at the same time. And wear rose colored glasses if you don't like the
>darkened sky. ;)
>
>nobody@xxxxxxxxxxxx (Dave Houston) wrote:
>
>>Economics 101:
>>
>>There is enough coal to meet the world's energy needs for 800 years. All
>>that black smoke in the air will severely impact solar energy costs.
>>
>>Plus, current coal mining methods flatten West Virginia mountaintops and
>>fill the valleys in preparation for selling them as beachfront property.
>>It's a twofer.
>>
>>"Robert Green" <ROBERT_GREEN1963@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>>>That's the lynchpin.  If the Feds were really sincere about becoming
energy
>>>independent, we would see serious assistance in the purchase and
>>>installation of solar systems.