Re: New paradigm for home heating automation and control

[Marc F Hult <MFHult@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sat, 24 Dec 2005 14:05:44 -0500, "Robert Green"
<ROBERT_GREEN1963@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
<Y6OdnevX1qcpATDe4p2dnA@xxxxxxx>:

>"Marc F Hult" <MFHult@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in

>> 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 ... ;-)
>
>What happened to the ashes?

There isn't much ash compared to coal. We also used coals from almond shells
in a copper brassier that was put under a round table with a wool blanket on
top. Four or five people could sit around the table at once keeping their
feet (if nothing else ;-) toasty warm. Very traditional. Very efficient.
Very social. All gone .. :-(  No X-10 involved :-)

>I assume adding ways to control fly ash and other particulate matter brings
>that pellet fuel cost up, were an homeowner to go that route and seek to
>minimize pollutant outputs.

Last year I toured the plant of a major manufacturer of wallboard
("sheetrock") located near my house on the Ohio river. The supply of
synthetic gypsum for the wallboard is provided entirely by sludge from
sulfur-dioxide scrubbers on the very same coal-fired power plants, also on
the Ohio river, that provide the electricity to my house. This is about
2,000,000,000 pounds per year of waste that doesn't need to go to landfills,
but, rather, can become a physical part of my next energy-saving
re-insulation project ;-)

>HAL of 2001?
>
>Home: "Marc, I'm afraid I can't let you back into the house."
>
>Marc: "Why not?"
>
>Home: "Your random activity patterns make it impossible for me to operate
>at peak energy efficiency.  Calculations show that with you locked out, I
>can reach optimum efficiency levels."

I just built and installed a 1.5 x 3-foot aluminum and glass enclosure for
the solar cells that have been sitting in my 'junk box' for ~15 years. The
intent is to develop an entirely self-sufficient, low-power HA system
starting with environmental monitoring.

So HAL might run for a long time unless some black substance were to fall
over the earth blotting out the solar radiation to the solar cells (and thus
HAL's power supply). FWIW, this is a scenario (Black Gook Covers Earth) that
I was asked to evaluate, chalk in hand, during my PhD candidacy oral exam 40
years ago ;-) The premise in turn was probably stimulated by the interesting
nonsense in the 1950's book by Velikovsky _Worlds_In_Collision.

Lottsa ideas that seem new aren't ...

... Marc
Marc_F_Hult
www.ECONtrol.org