Thursday, June 19, 2008
Strength and Weakness
I was involved in a rather enlightening forum discussion today, involving alternative energy. With gas prices as high as they are, energy is on everyone’s mind, and everyone has their own pet solution to the problem. Nuclear, wind, and solar are being batted around constantly, compressed air and turkey gut fermentation come up periodically, and once in awhile one even sees the occasional cold fusion nutter come out of the woodwork. I sat on the sidelines for awhile, and then I couldn’t take it anymore.
I linked to some of Steven den Beste’s old posts on alternative energy (here, among others), where the conclusion basically is that those fancy ideas range from totally nuts, to cute but impractical, to a nice idea but totally inadequate for a modern society. None of the solutions we have today are really meaningful solutions, as much as we would like them to be.
I learned something. When in a den of hippies, slamming alternative energy is like informing them that someone just accidentally smoked the last patchouli plant in the world. They went absolutely berserk.
I was hoping to have a rational, science-based discussion of the ideas they were batting around. People batting around ideas is what good forums are all about. I figured, great, lets base the discussion on some facts.
Apparently some facts are unacceptable.
Then all of a sudden, I realized with horror – these people vote.
Voting is open to all, and that’s the way most people think it should be. It is democracy’s greatest strength, while simultaneously being it’s greatest weakness. It is our strength, because everyone is within the system, everyone has more to gain by propping up the system than by tearing it down, everyone has a sense of all being in it together, for better or for worse. It is in this opposition, in the conflict of interests inherent to democracy, that lies our stability and our strength.
It is our greatest weakness because when we as a nation get something right, it is usually by accident. More typically, we lurch from one silly thing to the next, over and over, in and endlessly repeating cycle.
The body politic acts a lot like a stereotypical American individual. Willing to do the right thing, as long as it isn’t too much work and doesn’t take too long. Happy to take the easy road over the hard road, even though the easy road will likely lead to failure. Excited about fads, and willing to ostracize anyone that doesn’t buy in. And very happy to take what isn’t theirs, as long as they can get away with it.
Some prefer to sit in the grandstand and observe the proceedings, trying our best to stay above the fray. Nock felt that politics was nothing more than “boob-bumping”, equivalent to and as pointless as the fans of two sports teams rioting and trying to shout one another down. Fairly early in life he even decided that voting was pointless.
My conscience will never let me detach myself from society that completely. I could never bring myself to not vote, thus being complicit in the election of the greater of two evils.
But even so, with the advent of the messianic Obama progressive movement, pseudoscience masquerading as environmentalism with the ultimate goal (intentional or otherwise) of destroying our way of life, and socialist rhetoric being used even by “our” candidate, I’m feeling more and more marginalized. Nock saw his place as that of a social critic, pointing out the silliness of society without materially participating in it. I feel it would be supremely arrogant for an amateur like me to declare myself in his company, on the same mission, and yet, that’s how I feel. On the sidelines, in the grandstand, watching silly people do their silly things.
Nock felt though that one’s goal should not be to change society, for society will never change. Human nature is too strong to be reformed in any meaningful way. Instead, we improve ourselves, while trying to help the occasional like-minded person along the same path we’ve found for ourselves.
Amidst the storm of hippie scorn, one person told me that reading den Beste’s words was like reading something “plagiarized from [his own] unwritten memoirs.” One person.
One person who gets it.
That makes it all worth it.
Comments
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“Turning America back in to a Nation of Citizens, one person at a time?”
I try to convert people ignorantly on the fence. I figure that way, I’m magnifying my vote.
As to alternative energy, I’d think we ought to be working to do more with sunshine and gravity somehow. They’re always on.
Not sure just how solar works out from a lifecycle cost perspective for electricity, but I’ve thought that a solar prewarmer for the water heater might just take advantage of some free-ish energy.
I’d think we might be able to take some advantage of hydro in streams and such.
Geothermal might could be used a bit more, too.
I don’t think there are any magic bullets, but I’d think we ought to be able to get an assist from some parts of nature.
Weetabix | 6/20/2008 09:27 AM CDT -
Nope. Not one of them comes close to oil, coal, or nuclear. You gotta read Steve’s posts. He blows every one of them out of the water.
And there isn’t any reason to do it, until the science expands into cold fusion (or the like).
We have PLENTY of oil reserves… over 250 years in the shale deposits in the Dakotas alone. That doesn’t include ANWR. That doesn’t include oil from coal, and we’re sitting on the largest coal deposits IN THE WORLD.
The Chinese are going to start drilling off our shores, side mining to get to the deposits we’re too environmentally paranoid to get to. And there’s not a damn thing we’ll be able to do about it, because their rigs will be more than 100 miles offshore.
The Cubans are starting to do the same thing.
Mrs. du Toit | 6/20/2008 10:02 AM CDT -
I was probably unclear. I don’t think they come close to those things. I was looking for reasonable lifecycle cost ways to assist my own utility bills to be lower. Kind of like planning a hiking trip from high to low instead of vice versa - looking for an assist from things that are already there.
I wasn’t saying that we could run trucks or power plants that way. I like nuclear for power plants. I seem to recall that vehicles generally tend to get better mpg from diesel. I’m OK with that.
I ain’t no hippie. I’m a cheap engineer.
Weetabix | 6/20/2008 10:52 AM CDT -
Then I’d agree with you. All of us can find small ways to reduce our energy consumption. It makes sense from a dollars and cents perspective.
However, we’re pretty close to the end of saving’s curve, without drastic changes in lifestyle, and that still doesn’t guarantee any long term savings.
I’ve been on this kick for about 5 years… ever since we first got a summer electric bill of $1,500. Now that was the peak of the summer, with our air conditioners running full blast. The typical winter bill was about $400. That meant that the A/C in the summer was about $1,100 of the cost.
I could do two things:
1. Attack the $1,100: Reduce our A/C usage/increase the A/C’s efficiencies
2. Attack the $400: Figure out what we’re currently using that equates to $400, and reduce that.Obviously, the greatest yield would be on the first option, but we decided to attack both.
The low-hanging fruit for the second option was to start yelling at the kids. This meant they had to turn off the lights on their room, turn off computers/TVs at night, switch to lower wattage bulbs and use florescent bulbs in bathrooms with multi-socket fixtures, and not run partial loads of laundry or dishes. Given the fact that there are at least 20 hours in a day when someone in our house was awake, some computer or TV was going to be on (and that required keeping the cable modem on, as well as the routers, etc., that distribute that signal).
The first thing I did was change energy providers (from $.115 to $.113 per). That knocked $200 off the bill immediately.
That didn’t do anything to reduce our energy usage, but it dramatically reduced our energy costs. (I later switched energy providers again and saved more, down to $.111 to $.112 per.)
The second thing we did was buy a dehumidifier that runs in the lower floor of our house. That allowed us to turn the thermostat down by 2-3 degrees and have the same feeling of cool.
It didn’t keep our bedroom cool enough (nor the office, now Toad’s room), but that was addressed by small window A/C units that could run at night.
The next thing was to look at the architecture of our house. An open to the second floor ceiling was the biggest problem, but there wasn’t much we could do about that, save closing that off and doing a remodel to enclose that in the 2nd floor. But even that wouldn’t have long term benefits or solve the problem entirely. That area would still be where it is, only it would have a floor. The heat still rises, and we’d still have to cool that area.
What we tried was putting up a “wall” to the half second story to see if that would keep the kids (upstairs) cool enough, with their thermostat set higher.
Unfortunately, that also made us realize that both A/C intakes (for up and down) were located on the 2nd floor. By closing off that area we created a pressure vacuum that:
1. Made it impossible for enough air to get to the intake for the unit to push enough air through it to cool the downstairs.
2. It caused our ducting to collapse (that will require about $1,800 of repair).It was a worthwhile experiment, because we had considered putting up a permanent wall, but the construction plastic we used allowed us to see the results of that, and we didn’t spend $3,000 on the wall AND have to spend the $1,800 to replace the ducting. We only had to remove the plastic sheet to get us back to square one.
What we realized, after that experiment, is that we’d have to move the intake for the upstairs to a lower location (so it was pulling in cooler air, rather than hottest air, higher in the house). But that still doesn’t solve the problem of the hot air, stuck in the highest part of the house. That air is still going to be there, and intrude in the upstairs bedrooms, regardless of where the intake is located. The A/C won’t have to work as hard to make the cooler air cooler, but the warmer air isn’t gone or cooled.
Then we looked at alternative energy sources, such as solar panels. We’re in Dallas, the back of our house faces South, and our roof is reasonably flat and big.
Solar panels that would create enough energy to provide HALF of what we would need would cover our roof. The ROI on those panels was 40 years (if they didn’t need replacement or repair after installation, and their life span is about 20 years). So that was completely out.
We have two water heaters (one gas, the other electric). The cost of replacing them with on-demand water heaters (tank less) would be about $800 per unit. We wouldn’t see any savings in replacing the gas one, but the on-demand systems don’t run out of hot water. We plan to do that as soon as we have the $1,600, but we’re not certain if we can replace the electric one, because the on-demand units require venting (unless we replace it with an electric, rather than gas unit, which reduces our ROI). Our ROI on that is about 2-3 years, so that’s a good one.
We sold the Suburban and replaced it with a Kia Sportage. Our gas mileage doubled as well as our payment cut to 2/3 (that came with a longer term for pay off, but the Suburban was requiring routine repairs that far exceeded the extended payment of the new car, averaging $1,800 a repair… and I haven’t included the value of not having a car that breaks down routinely).
The next thing we did was to try to reduce the heat hitting the house on the back (that’s where there is the most sun). Unfortunately, the tornado took out a number of branches on the tree in the front of our house, that created substantial shade there. Not much we can do about that, expect wait for the tree to grow more limbs.
The quickest and cheapest solution was to put shades on the windows (on the outside) to reduce the glare on the back windows. The longer term, and better solution, is to build a patio cover to shade the windows 24/7. That will require about $3,000 to install, and we’ll do that when we have the money.
One of the cheapest solutions was to install a mister system, which we added this spring. That is similar to a drip irrigation system, except it goes on the eaves, rather than in a garden. The system uses less than a half a gallon of water, and distributes a fine mist of water to reduce the temperature by about 10 degrees. It doesn’t produce shade, but it does reduce the temp of the air hitting the windows.
We can’t plant a tree in the back, because the yard is about postage stamp size, and we have a pool. The pool itself does provide a cooling effect, so there wouldn’t be a net savings in removing the pool and replacing it with a tree (plus, we’d no longer have the benefits of the pool).
We also looked at replacing our pool motor with a salt system, but there’s NO ROI on that since the salt systems are about $2,000 to install, and the saline charger has to be replaced every couple of years at about $600 a replacement. Any newer system, salt or traditional, is going to be more efficient than the 20 year old unit we have, but the reality is that the ROI just isn’t there.
We do all the other obvious things we can… not use the oven as much in the summer (using the BBQ grill instead). Keeping lights turned off, etc.
The reality is that all of this costs money. Yes, over time there will be a savings, but you have to have the capital in order to realize those savings, and not many people have that kind of capital, nor is the ROI as brilliant as the salesmen advertise.
With our furnaces breaking (the first one broke in April and the second one broke last week), I expect that our energy usage for June will be really low. We ran out to buy cheap window units to tide us over until we can replace both furnaces and repair the ducting (and move the intake in the process), but that is a $6,000 repair cost (to replace both furnaces). I have no idea what the ROI on that will be, but I suspect it will be about 10 to 15 years… we are not likely to still be in this house then, so there is no real ROI.
And that’s really the bottom line of all of this. Most people don’t stay in their homes long enough to realize any ROI. Typical stay in homes is 5 years. All but a small number of projects have much longer ROIs.
The simplest solutions (change in behavior) are really the best. You can attack, and attack, and attack, but you will eventually reach a point of diminishing returns.
We’re at that point now, or will be when we spend the $12,000 or so to do all of the above. Our energy bill, by doing the simple stuff I described above, reduced our energy bill to about $700 in the summer (that’s an $800 a month savings--which is HUGE, but the biggest hit was reducing the amount we were paying, not on actual energy reductions).
After we do ALL of that, there won’t be ANYTHING else we can do that we can afford or that would yield any real benefits in cost or energy savings.
The ONLY thing that would yield a considerable return would be if the tornado had destroyed our house entirely, and we could build again (from the ground up) using the latest technologies and products available. But once that was done, that would be the edge of the savings you could yield for the house. Nothing more after that could be found.
That’s really Steve’s point about all of this. You do (quickly) reach the end of the energy savings curve. Industry wise, we reached that in the 1980s (they did all of the above in the industry arena). The savings to be found are now at a MUCH higher cost… and negative ROI.
Until we can buy a cold fusion nuclear box from 7/11 and plug it into our garage, there will be little we can do about our energy usage.
Mrs. du Toit | 6/20/2008 11:57 AM CDT -
Actually, my point was somewhat different. The reason I got into that topic a few times was because some people, desperate for a way to “win without war”, seized on the idea that if we just stopped buying oil from the Arabs, then it would cut off the flow of money to the terrorists, and then the danger would be ended.
My responses to that were:
1. Terrorism is war on the cheap; there would still be plenty of money for it.
2. Even if we stopped buying Arab oil, someone else would.
3. It doesn’t matter anyway, because there’s no way we could transition away from buying Arab oil soon enough, large enough, to make any difference in this war.But as you say, when you talk about “alternate energy” negatively, certain people react as if you have desecrated a shrine. These people don’t want to hear truth, they want to hear “yes”.
These people were looking for a solution which was cheap, plentiful, and could be broadly implemented rapidly with very low capital investment. When you pointed out that if such a solution existed, normal market forces would have caused it to be have been adopted already, their answer to that was The Conspiracy. It’s out there but it’s locked in the same dusty vault as the 200 MPG carburator. It isn’t being used because the Evil Oil Companies (and their puppet Bush) are doing everything possible to prevent it.
Baloney, of course, but as soon as you find people summoning up the spector of The Conspiracy in discussions like this, it’s clear you will make no more progress.
And that’s why I always hated posting about alternate energy.
Steven Den Beste | 6/20/2008 04:09 PM CDT -
I know you hated it, but I AM SO GLAD YOU DID.
Having all that stuff in one place is one of the best resources on the Internet.
Mrs. du Toit | 6/21/2008 08:00 AM CDT -
You might find this helpful, too:
http://www.abelard.org/briefings/replacing_fossil_fuels.php
Steven Den Beste | 6/21/2008 05:56 PM CDT -
Not quite sure how much credence to give those folks since they have so much stuff on the global warming side of the site.
I’m not too thrilled with theories when they say “it might” or “the link has not been established” and then go on to suggest that it is likely.
They keep talking about the rise in CO2 as the major cause, but C02 rise follows warming. It doesn’t precede it.
Whether the planet is on a permanent warming trend is not confirmed. This science is not that old. Whether man has any influence on warming depends on proof of the first, ie, we cannot be sure we’re responsible for warming, unless we can prove first that warming exists.
Even if we allow that warming is happening globally, the site offers that there has been nothing unusual about that warming trend until the last 30 years or so.
The planet may be on a permanent warming trend, but the leap that man has created it or that man can undo it doesn’t work for me when someone freely admits that the models don’t work YET.
I’m not anti-science. On the contrary, science is fabulous; however, science this new, with far too many political implications combined with this amount of unconfirmed complexity, doesn’t fill me with confidence.
It just seems as if a healthy dose of skepticism is gone from the science realm. Rather than trying to prove that something isn’t true or the most likely explanation (which always seemed to me to be the foundation scientific principle) they now seem hell-bent on proving that something is true… and we’re to accept ‘on faith’ that there aren’t other explanations or causes.
Mrs. du Toit | 6/22/2008 08:45 AM CDT -
“To everything there is a season...”
I don’t believe we’re on a permanent warming trend. But I admit it’s belief, and I don’t posit it as fact.
Also, this dearth of skepticism? Maybe that’s science’s season rolling around again. Since the industrial revolution, science has waxed ascendant. Maybe people are moving back to voodoo science - belief without proof, belief without facts, and theory totally independent of actual scientific method.
I think I might still have some ways to save money on energy - I live in an 86-year-old house with no insulation and probably a 40-year-old boiler.
Weetabix | 6/23/2008 09:09 AM CDT -
I chortled reading a schadenfreude article yesterday .... biodiesel has hit the first of many “unintended consequences” ... too many people looking fo rthe free cooking oil from the fast food places ... going from “yes, please take it, it’ll save us disposal fees” to “sorry, you’re number 20 million on the waiting list”
If you happen to see any of the warming down your way that you want to blow up north ... I’m still not able to grow bananas ... and we haven’t hit a record high temperature yet ... although we DID manage to break a LOW temperature this winter ... as well as several snowfall records.
pete in Midland | 6/23/2008 11:12 AM CDT -
Thanks for the suggestion
google bilgisayar gemisi
kurtlar vadisi pusu izle
youtube benzeri siteler
enişte ve dayı çocuk kaçırmaalfemo | 9/9/2008 12:29 AM CDT
