Re: Fluorescent Bulbs Are Known to Zap Domestic Tranquillity; Energy-Savers a Turnoff for Wives

[Marc_F_Hult <MFHult@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, 11 Jun 2007 09:04:31 -0400, "Robert Green"
<ROBERT_GREEN1963@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
<-o6dnUMPwK-i1PDbnZ2dnUVZ_u3inZ2d@xxxxxxx>:

>Marc Hult wrote:
>
>>Now it's taken BoobyG a while to get taken in"

ROTFL. Here it is! The infamous typo that BobbyG said was "Booby". Why am I
not surprised that he can't program his Ocelot? BobbyG types typos while
complaining about other folk's typos. The Hippo-speak shorthand for that is
hyp_4.

>Marc apparently bases his rather caustic comments on his own quite mistaken
>premise I fail to understand multivariate analysis.

No I don't.

>His supposition was quite wrong:

Actually it is a conclusion based on what I have seen BobbyG write in this
newsgroup including home automation topics.

>I understand it quite well enough to know that his estimate of
>his recent flight's carbon load was astonishingly incomplete.  It lacked a
>host of important variables so it's no wonder his numbers came out
>ridiculously low compared to the source Dave cited about the carbon load of
>a typical jet flight.

Taking the second point first. I did not calculate a "typical" flight because
I did what BobbyG asked, which was about a _specific_ flight. I did BobbyG
the courtesy of answering the question he asked and now he indulges
transparently in trying to change the question after I answer it.

What BobbyG would prefer is for me to parrot Dave's numbers. Not likely ;-)
Dave scours the Internet for numbers and snippets that support his
curmudgeonly habits (Remember his CFL "power factor" howler ? )

I took a non-stop, fully-filled Cincinnati to UK flight in one of the most
efficient aircrafts in the sky and I showed the calculations in detail how my
life-long transportation habits covered the equivalent of 1.5 round-trip
flights per year. This is in a thread in which BobbyG munged the Subject by
adding a ! to the front. Typo? The effect is to separate it from the rest of
the thread.

Quote:

"Carbon offset: When one is unable or unwilling to reduce one's own
emissions, Carbon offset is the act of reducing ("offsetting") greenhouse gas
emissions elsewhere. A well-known example is the planting of trees to
compensate for the greenhouse gas emissions from personal air travel"
(Wikipedia)

But I _was_ willing and able and did reduce my own emissions for decades and
still do as I showed.  And although Delta was the first US airline to sell
"offsets", they were not available until June after I returned.

So I so I _did _*also*_ donate 2.5 times the amount that the various "offset"
enterprises charge for 8000 miles of flights to The Climate Trust
www.climatetrust.org

so BobbyG has not the faintest, foggiest notion about what he writes. He
posts baseless personal attack after sophomoric rant after false statement
after muddled mess.

BobbyG wrote insulting things about the detailed published analysis of the
power consumption of old refrigerators and said that he was going to regale
us with specific data from his fridge. He measured it. And then refused to
post it because the results confirmed that BobbyG  was, as I wrote, wildly
wrong in his original assertions. BobbyG continues to demonstrate this avert
ion to real data and real facts and to actually walking the walk.

" >So how much of your yearly carbon allotment do you think you burned up on
  >the trip?  You're good at numbers.  That should be a cakewalk for you."

Yes, it was.

There are several concepts involved. BobbyG didn't actually tell me what my
"yearly carbon allotment" was, and when I asked questions about what should
be included he failed to answer. So I used the concept of "offset" a concept
embraced by the Kyoto Protocol which elsewhere in your posts you seem to
accept. This has direct application to home automation too because there are
numerous areas where HA could play a critical role.

>He omitted big things like the megawatts of radar his plane was bathed in
>from start to finish, the support facilities it took to get that flight in
>the air, megawatts of airport and air traffic control tower electrical power
>and landing lights, the carbon load of constructing the plane, refining the
>fuel, maintaining the plane, the airport and probably a dozen other
>interrelated activities that all produced CO2 (and worse) on his behalf,
>just for that one flight.

What BobbyG dishonestly fails to state is that I also did not account for the
energy cost of building and maintaining the US interstate freeway system and
the local roads and byways of the US.

And I also did not include the avoided energy cost of the 2-3 vehicles that
would have needed to be built had I not conserved energy all my life as
explained. Nor the triple car garage that was not needed. And so on.

BobbyG doesn't like that part so he indulges in pretending that it doesn't
pertain. This is either profoundly dishonest or profoundly sophomoric, or
both..

Fact is, all models are approximations, and are typically used as tools in
answering questions. And as I wrote before, one starts model construction
with a conceptual model. And one strives to build a model that can be useful
-- which typically means for which the data are known, and for which the
equations can be written and solved. A more complex model that can't be
solved is typically less helpful that a simpler model than can be solved.

This is true whether one is modeling transportation or the energy consumption
of a house as one might want to do for home automation to determine whether a
set-back thermostats or damper controls are energy and (or) cost effective.

It is basic algebra that if terms on both side of an equation are equal, they
cancel. I didn't credit my avoided use of the interstate freeway and all the
streets and byways of America because for this calculation, they were offset
by constrtruction of runways and airports for the purposes of this model.

Moreover no airplane or airport will not get built if I didn't fly. But its a
reasonable assertion that 2-3 cars actually did not need to be built, and
dozens of tires not consumed and a double (triple, quadruple?) car garage not
built because I didn't own a second car and didn't drive to work. FWIW, we
have no garage now. The car I drive was purchased for used $3000 and now has
~180K miles it -- an example of the second R in (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle)

>I don't know why these additional, collateral items slipped his mind.

BobbyG writes endlessly about what he doesn't know, so it's not surprising
that he doesn't know this either.

definition: "Collateral: accompanying as secondary or subordinate".

When a secondary or subordinate component is small compared to the primary
ones it can often be reasonably neglected, especially if its value is small
compared to the uncertainty in quantitatively more important factors.

For example, if you ask me how much hydrocarbon my car burns, it is
reasonable for most purposes to neglect the small amount of oil that a car in
good condition burns.

And when terms on each side of an equation are identical, they can both be
eliminated even with no knowledge whatsoever of their absolute value. So by
making the useful assumption that the infrastructure and vehicle and
maintenance costs for airplanes is the same as for cars, they drop out. This
creates a model that can be solved. BobbyG would have me try to solve an
intractable problem. How much of the carbon put in the air when the Jamestown
settlers first cut a path through the forest that is now a highway should I
include (for example?) BobbyG can't/doesn't answer much simpler questions.

But as I just wrote, I _also_ provided funding for 2.5 times the commercial
rate for physical carbon offset for my flight.

So I was covered 1.5 + 2.5 = 4 times over, as it were (personal reduction +
purchased offset).

>After all, he's told us - repeatedly - what an expert he is at building
>these models.

I never claimed to be an expert in transportation models and I am not so
sophomoric as to think that I am. But I gave a useful calculation that showed
where the reduction was  for the principal carbon cost for my trip (namely
fuel).

One way to assess my calculations is to compare the same calculations by
others. The following web-based car and flight calculations  are largely
black-box. Mine consists in explicit calculations using values that can be
independently reassessed.

              Vehicle savings/Flight expenditure

Hult in c.h.a (*)     233gal/150gal 		= 1.56 trips compensated for
climatecare.org     2.63tonnes/1.77tonnes 	= 1.49 trips compensated for
zerofootprint.org   2.37tonnes/1.89tonnes 	= 1.25 trips compensated for
terrapass.org         4519lbs/3081lbs   	= 1.47 trips compensated for

(*) message  <gs8c63dcf3vghjjp114rmffclhrkloeia5@xxxxxxx>:
Subject: !Re: Fluorescent Bulbs Are Known to Zap Domestic Tranquillity;
Energy-Savers a Turnoff for Wives
Tue, 05 Jun 2007 23:13:00 -0400, Marc_F_Hult <MFHult@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
message  <gs8c63dcf3vghjjp114rmffclhrkloeia5@xxxxxxx>:

The agreement is remarkable. That my estimate is on the high side conforms
with the fact the Delta flight that I took and that BobbyG asked me to
calculate was more efficient than typical. Delta airlines has just emerged
from bankruptcy and is determined to increase efficiency (IIRC ~35% of their
total costs are for fuel).

So BobbyG's false claims don't withstand even the most casual scrutiny.

And the accuracy and usefulness of my calculation is supported by its close
agreement with other entirely independent estimates.

And I cover my carbon footprint four times over by life-long personal
life-style *and* physical carbon offset.

As I wrote,

"Now it's taken Bo[b]byG a while to get taken in";

Let's see if he can find the honourable way out.

... Marc
Marc_F_Hult
www.ECOntrol.org