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 Saving Energy (& Water)

Thread - Energy Saving

On 20/11/2002,  Ray posted - perhaps tongue in cheek:

Witnessing the number of TV ads and magazine ads selling exercise machines, I wondered why something isn't done to turn green energy from the practice.

Most of these devices involve turning wheels and moving levers, so why not connect this mechanical energy to generators and circuit the power into storage batteries?

With a bit of ingeniuty, a piston a lever system could be installed into mattresses to serve the same purpose.

This way, something even more practical that the notion that a face-lift could tighten the butt could be put to constructive, environmentally friendly use.

I'm not sure exactly how much electrical power could be stored this way, but hey, every little bit is something.  :)

Toby responded:

You still need to look at whole of life energy calculations, Ray.  If you insist on poetic licence, you are going to have to work on the rhyming of your sentences somehow.

Zero Sum replied:

Because the energy cost of recycling the item wouldn't be covered in it's lifetime let alone the cost of manufacturing it - and the lost opportunity cost of not manufacturing something else.

However, the basic idea is not so silly, though some may make it out to be.  My wristwatch is a swiss made Lanco self-winding and waterproof.  I've had it for over thirty years.  Making a decent self-winding mechanical watch that lasts a lifetime is probably better for the environment than the 'cheap' electrionic ones and their entire attendant battery industry and considerably less polluting.

Similarly modern 'entertainment' electronics and even lighting could be powered by batteries which could be charged by (your suggested) crank, solar cells and a variety of sources.

Better design and passive systems could reduce or eliminate the electric power needed for heating and cooling.

If you then eliminate the distribution grid and generating industry it would, again, probably be a better way to do things.

In the home, that still leaves us with high power equipment such as washing machines, power tools, vaccum cleaners, dishwashers, refrigerators, etc.  Going to be hard to get people to give them up, but maybe there are alternative there too (any input?).

However, that still leaves industry, and industry is a power hog.  We could talk about moving industries to places where power was available, I suppose.

So one hand we have the ability to severely reduce our power needs (and encourage our health at the same time), on the other hand we have to make some severe, dramatic and expensive changes to the whole of society.  But the gripping hand we have the fact that if we don't make the changes we will have severe, dramatic and expensive consequences anyway.

Tamara posted:

Mmmm... I'm thinking that the couch potato generation's "game boys" should be manually powered so kids have to turn crank handle to recharge them OR maybe we could develop a simple bike attachment recharger so every time they wanted to play they would have to take the battery pack out for a ride. That would kill 2 birds with one stone.

With regard to the washing machine replacement... put your clothes in a barrel of water in the back of the car and take them to work. If you drive with appropriate abandon they should be very well agitated by the time you get home.

Instead of replacing the dishwasher - get a staffie.  I have occasionally returned to the table to discover a well cleaned plate >:-(
Ray responded:

The point is that the facts of 'green energy' have to include environmentally costly counterparts in manufacturing.

I have no idea what is involved in storage batteries, but if anything like wet cell car batteries, lead, plastic and sulphuric acid are logistics which cannot really be ignored.

Similarly, the manufacture of solar cells includes items not so very environmentally friendly, nuclear energy, hydro,.. they all pay a less than green price.

The 'poetic licence' was a weak attempt on my part ( I admit it) to over-rule the truth that my art was bull in another post.

Toby replied:

Here is an interesting link about a life cycle analysis of  industrial paper sacks:

http://www.eurosac.org/lca/intro.htm

Jim enquired:

In times of drought like these perhaps it is better to save water than to save energy.  e.g.: Sometimes I make coffee by filling the kettle with cold water and putting it on the electric stove to boil.  This uses less water but more energy than the other way which is to turn on the hot tap and when it runs hot, filling the cup and placing it in the microwave for 50 seconds.

Which way is the greenest?
Ray replied:

I'll take a guess Jim.

One cup brought to boil by microwave. (without using preheated tap water) 100sec on high setting would do it, pending size of cup.

As for water saving, considering how much water is on this planet, I think we're fools which begin to act too late.

It is not as if we have not had ample prior warning of a potable water crisis, nor sufficient evidence that our farming, irrigation and deforestation practices are of themselves creating more problems.

Global 'water wars' are pending, yet most of the planet is covered by water. It depends I suppose on what we take as the more important, sufficient fresh water or the fiscal bottom line.  If the latter, then we deserve what we paid for.

Distillation, deionisation (reverse forced osmosis)... giant cloned kidneys or a GM renal system?
Steve van Z commented:

I couldn't agree more, but there is another shortage looming: People depending on "old water" from aquifiers. This has to be regarded as "fossil" water and will not be replenished in a thousand (million) years. Up to now it was believed that sufficient rains would fill the void. They can not, this water lays under impenetrable layers, that's why it is still there

David Allen added:

We had this debate a few months ago and, I think, decided that using the appropriate quantity of water in a well insulated electric jug with the element in contact with the water is the most efficient method. At least, I did.

Jim's method of running the hot water supply to waste until it gets hot is verging on environmental vandalism in my view.
Toby Fiander responded:

This might depend on where he lives.  Around here, things have been so dry, a little extra water in the creek after the sewer treatment works is probably a good thing.  Also, Sydney Water has so much water, it is almost ridiculous, and it is priced badly, so there is a limited incentive to save it.... at 93.38c/tonne (or whatever it is), who cares?  If the entire bill was made volumetric, the equivalent charge for an average user would be about $2.50/tonne and it then might be worth saving some.

Instead, we have a voluntary restrictions scheme (a what?) and a distribution authority who still has paid no attention to any of the leaks reported to it in the past months.  There was a crew working within 2m of one of them a week ago but its job was to renew a tee, not fix the stopvalve that is leaking - so it is still leaking enough that someone has built a channel into the Council drain.... volume involved is about the same and Jim behaving as you describe about every 15 minutes.... still, that also winds up in the (same) creek, and for now, this is a good thing, because it is near the top of the catchment and it dilutes the sewer leaks a bit.

On a brighter note, the Council has (finally) stopped watering the 1.2ha of exotic grass around its offices with potable water.

Depressingly bad water management seems endemic....

Peter Macinnis replied:

Depends on your criteria.  In all probability, the dams of Sydney will fill before they drain dry, so Jim's wasted water will not matter, except in the processing costs, while energy ALWAY costs.

Mind you, if the dams DO run dry, Jim's method will be all you say -- and in many parts of Australia, it is that now.  But for the moment, given the likely outcome, not so, not in Sydney.

Peter, who parked his car outside last night as it was raining.  Slow steady ground-replenishing low run-off rain that made delightful puddles in the car park at work for me and the masked lapwings.  It's OK, I put my shoes and socks back on before the others arrived . . .
Jim responded:

Excellent response, Ray.  I tried it, and found that 80 seconds on high worked without boiling over.  I am sure that 80 s in the microwave uses far less energy than 5 minutes on the electric stove, and starting with cold water means that besides the water saving there is energy saving in that the HWS does not have to cut in to heat the replacement water.

Jim
(who would do anything to avoid being an environmental vandal)

Karyn  added (in separate posts):

unless we're collecting the off-run water and using it for plants or cup-rinsing then plants ...

just be careful and don't put your coffee in without stirring the water first, to avoid hot spots of super-heated water exploding ...
Toby posted:
David said:

> And revealed what I have long suspected by missing altogether the point that
> a great deal of power is also wasted by Jim's method. Some people just have
> too much money.

I offer no contest, except that I doubt much of it resides with Jim.

The minimisation of energy loss requires good design, I think.  Once the hot water is located and the pipes are in, there are only limited options for energy saving from operating technique.  There is, of course, an entire
field of technology known as Operations Research.  During my limited study of it years ago, I was rather tickled by a paper from one of the great proponents of this mathematical art title, Is the Future of Operations Research Past?   Perhaps you had to be there....

Zero Sum said:
On Saturday 23 November 2002 09:26, Karyn wrote:
> Perhaps then it would be best for all if we did not have a central
> hot water tank, rather a smaller unit close to each faucett to heat
> the water locally
> ...
>
> reduction in energy loss during pipe movements, and reduction in
> water wastage while waiting for warm water ....
>
> Or would the energy required to use these zip-boil type facilities
> outstrip potential savings?
>

Smaller devices will be more efficient with smaller quantities and less efficient with larger.    Also there is the (vastly) increased manufacture and installation cost.

Ray replied:

Having once had a gas device which did exaclty this, heating the water as and when required, it had only one disadvantage upon the usual electric or gas devices which store water preheated by off-peak timing; -every time you turn on the hot water tap, you are using additional gas.

I know of no such device which uses an electric water heating system, but I suspect (depending on how many people are likely to be turning the tap on during any given day) that they use more gas than the storage systems.

Off peak electricity and good hot water tank insulation is probably both less expensive and less energy consumptive, and if solar heating is used as a part of the process, all the more the less.

But I might be wrong....

and added

One of the most innovative systems I've seen used capillary water tubes* within a cast-iron backing plate to an open fire to supplement both hotwater and central heating supplies for a mudbrick house.

To my knowledge the house has not burned down or had a boiler explosion yet. (I'm not sure whether it was actually a legal innovation?)  Something like this, with added solar capillaries on the roof would probably reduce water heating bills to almost nil.

Ray

*reversed utility of automobile radiators.

Toby Fiander responded:

There are tables for design of systems of this kind for all the capital cities and some major country centres.

I have owned such a system.  There was a storage tank, which part of the commercial unit itself, but heat supplementation after a cloudy day was required, generally including a peak load period for energy.

It seemed to me that this system had significant shortcomings.  So...

I have/had drawings for a system in which a separate hotwater system is used for the dishwasher.  If correctly used, a good dishwasher can be more water efficient than hand washing-up.  My solar energy system for heating water would have made it more energy efficient.  Regrettably, I moved before implementing this system.

I am currently reviving the idea, but the capital cost appears great for retro-fitting, in part because of the required strengthening of the roof trusses.  Until secondary costs such degradation of the environment are costed into the energy supply, it seems to me that this type of system is likely to remain an interesting curiosity.

However, stranger things have been known to happen and adoption of roofwater tanks in an area of reticulated supply is among them.  Delivery in Sydney of a roofwater tank ordered now would be in later February, 2003, by which time it is possible they may be useful as boats... perhaps....

I am uncertain, Ray, why a boiler is required - was the system sealed so that pressure was accumulated?  Ray replied "The boiler also provided for steam venting." An unpressurised system can be designed - I have seen and used one at a fishing shack owned by my former wife's family in on Great Lake in Tasmania.  A clever design uses the heating of the water to induce circulation into a (header) tank.  You may think this has some problems during summer when there is no open fire, but one of my enduring memories is snow at this place three days before Christmas and the weather being so unpleasant that arising from one's sleeping bag, other than to feed the fire, was unwise.  On another I will recount tales of late (and former) father-in-law happily fishing while I rowed the boat strenuously into the wind.  It was shipping water as the waves broke over the bow at a greater rate than my then wife could bale.  Perhaps Forbzy can comment on the behaviour of Tasmanians and the genetic matters involved in their behaviour.
Chris Lawson added:

We had an electric on-demand system in New Guinea, which now that I look back was horrendously dangerous. It screwed onto the shower head! I once managed to blow it up by switching it on during a power blackout, forgetting it was on, and when the power came back there was no running water to cool the element. End of heater.

Jim Edwards replied:

Dead right there, Toby.

My problem is that my HWS came with the house when I bought it (with my lump sum super payout), so I had no say in its design.  It is an insulated tank in the roof space with off-peak heating and gravity feed.  The trouble is that the piping does not seem to be insulated so the only way to get hot
water out is to run the cold water out of the pipes first, so I am finding ways (like the one Ray suggested) to minimise the number of times I have to do that.

Fortunately, my dishwasher is an ancient Dishlex which heats its own water and I always use cold water in the washing machine.  So the main uses of hot water are bathing and washing up in the sink.  I can't remember enough of my course on Operations Research to be able to apply it to this problem, tho it's funny how little one hears about OR these days.
David Allen responded:
> Perhaps then it would be best for all if we did not have a central hot water
> tank, rather a smaller unit close to each faucett to heat the water locally
Dead right. Unfortunately, ridiculously cheap off peak tariffs make it impossible to justify expense over and above the basic HW storage system.

Our controlled supply account is only about $25 per quarter.

and in a further post:
> I am uncertain, Ray, why a boiler is required - was the system sealed so
> that pressure was accumulated?  An unpressurised system can be designed - I
> have seen and used one at a fishing shack owned by my former wife's family
> in on Great Lake in Tasmania.  A clever design uses the heating of the water
> to induce circulation into a (header) tank.
<snip>

This is, or at least was, the standard HW system installed in English homes.  Every home I lived in there had such a system and they were built between around 1830 and 1950.

In more recent years, as gas fires have replaced open coal fires, this, essentially, free hot water is no longer available.

The houses you see on Coronation St. etc. would have had such systems.

Gerald Cairnes posted:

I started to design a system which automatically prevented the loss of cold water discharged while awaiting the arrival of the hot water and it also reused the saved cold water.  When we found that our illustrious Standards Australia through its subsidiary QAS (Quality Assurance Systems) had engineered a price of $13,000 to register each tapwasher and they cannot/will not supervise such regulations we stopped any further design. We have also stopped the production of the Water Saving anti hammer tapwasher which cuts water consumption down on an adjustable basis from around 20 L/min to as low as 3 L/min even though the moulding dies are around 90% complete! The DynaValve R&D has been terminated, probably permanently. All of the above could have been commercialised more than 20 years ago but for the activities of governments.!!! Further they will never again get the chance to screw any of our other products ..!

I was told to wait the publication of the new standard for domestic reticulation and all would be corrected. Well I was mug enough to pay $70 to find out that this new Standard did not even cover tapwashers at all. These people are rip off merchants no more no less!!! We have ceased using Standards Australia, they are a "joke" overseas anyway! I have a few more choice stories about the activities of Standards Australia but enough for now.

They are actively seeking overseas applications, great for free trips to do inspections which they cannot even get right! So I suppose we will just have to rely on our governments to go on mouthing off about buying Australian, the "Clever Country" and the "Smart State" etc. etc. ... it is nothing but one bloody great con. Some of these senior public servants who head up these systems I believe are hoping to be able to seek privatisation and the multi million dollar fees that go with the positions.

The same influences can be seen in the National Registration Authority charging $40,000 for registration of a weedicide based on known safe chemicals!!!

All of this is coming out of the so called economic rationalism, WTO and free trade negotiations which will secure the Aussie markets for the overseas technologies. So much for Australian Innovation, it hasn't got a snow balls chance in Hell!  Before anyone points to the new Triton Innovation Foundation that to has now been suborned by the public service and governments generally, so the tumbril rolls on!