New world of electrical power generation - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: zeke.
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: February 24, 2022, 01:23:52 pm
content: I am curious to what majority of the forums opinion is on future power generation. I noticed talk about fusion energy and recently LG closing their PV busines on the forum. Also the Ukraine and Russia conflict (prays out for Ukraine) will shake up the world and oil supply.To me, it seems like there’s only two options we go as civilization (or both). Either nuclear fission makes a comeback, phasing out coal and gas. People become energy independent, home owners invest in battery storage, solar and large gas generators.I follow some people on YouTube who are energy independent and live off the grid. However most of them have more than an acre of land and have access to wood, well water, gardening, ground mounted solar...etc. This isn't possible for people in populated towns.Thoughts? I tend to be pessimistic and worried the future of the energy market will collapse.

author: JohanH
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 24, 2022, 01:50:30 pm
content: Due to the outrageous actions by Russia, European countries will cut their ties to Russian energy, is it then gas, oil and electricity. Some countries will have harsh times, but it is necessary. Now Europe is investing a lot in wind and solar. We probably have to build some fission as well, but this takes time. Finland's new reactor inOlkiluotois still not producing power and they started to build it in 2005. It is now one of the most expensive projects in the world. Fusion is still not viable in the foreseeable future.

author: f4eru
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 24, 2022, 07:12:18 pm
content: The future of electricity generation is pretty clear :short term :1) Renewables (much much much cheaper than anything else)2) Utility scale batteries for hourly variationthen :3) Much more Renewables (get even cheaper)4) Utility scale batteries for daily compensation (hydro)5) better long range networks.and on the long term :6) Only Renewables (remove the remaining fossils, including nuclear)7) seasonnal storage (TBD)Individual renewable generation is very good, still costs double than big scale.Off-line individual is economically and technically bad, and will remain marginal, except if home scale seasonal storage is introduced before grid-scale (unlikely)

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 24, 2022, 08:05:35 pm
content: Quote from: zeke. on February 24, 2022, 01:23:52 pmStorage still adds too much costs and space for solar and wind will run out long before these can meet the demands. Keep in mind that in the next couple of decades electricity demand may double (or more) due to also needing electricity for heating and transport. At this moment a lot of people seem to think that electricity flows from an outlet magically without any harmfull emissions, but in reality current production using coal and/or gas is very polluting. In the end electricity is not easy to come by and could even become a scarse commodity at some point.There is no other logical outcome than that we will see a significant number of additional nuclear fission power plants being put into operation 10 to 20 years from now to meet the demand and reduce CO2 AND harmfull pollution.Further beyond the horizon we'll likely see hydrogen getting a major role where it comes to storing and transporting energy with countries that have large deserts (and thus space for solar) as major producers. Looking at a solar irradiation map: a solar panel receives more than twice as much energy from the sun in the Sahara desert compared to when it is mounted on my roof. People keep saying batteries but these are seriously hampered by the amount of resources available. No matter how optimistic people are about the future of batteries, the fact remains that hydrogen needs much less materials to store a certain amount of energy.Nuclear fusion would be great to add to the mix to get rid of being fully dependant on energy from foreign countries but realistically many countries have to rely on importing energy in one form or another.

author: T3sl4co1l
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 24, 2022, 10:09:31 pm
content: I'm lukewarm on nuclear. It's absolutely serviceable -- but no one else wants it. And, probably for good reason. Not great reason, but, a reason.See, it's entirely possible to operate it responsibly, but we utterly lack the social systems to do that. It's a systemic problem in NA; and it is a political problem, as it is the same intrinsic problem that has led to the last several decades of declining infrastructure, corporate conglomeration and incredible wealth disparity.To be fair -- even given all those issues -- I would argue that nuclear is a net positive. But it's an unseemly argument to make.It's like saying, let's poison our children with just lead paint, rather than aerosols from leaded fuels. Why is that even an alternative, can't we get rid of both? Well, in reality we did (notwithstanding legacy buildings with very old paint still), but for sake of illustration, you know? People don't want to pull the lever and kill fewer people, they'd rather not pull the lever and keep killing everyone who's already resigned themselves to their fates.And so, I would argue that, given mass adoption of nuclear  (that is, >50%, but perhaps closer to 80% or even more, depending on availability/cost of alternatives by region -- for example, solar is nearly futile in .ca, but solar + battery might be viable elsewhere), then, yes we will have a marked increase in Fukishimas and Chernobyls. And we will have to learn the tough lesson of how best to clean up those disasters. Example: studies suggested Fukishima's evacuation put undue stress on residents -- stress that materially worsened outcomes for many people, people who would've been better off had they remained in zones of only minor fallout. Likewise, decontamination and remediation processes might be improved; rather than ripping up and burying entire ecosystems, perhaps there's a cheaper way to do it. Maybe it can be automated. Maybe we simply leave the exclusion zone alone for a while, while being more picky about how much area we exclude, more relaxed on what is an acceptable level of background radiation (and of what kind of contamination).But you see how it works, right? These are dark subjects. It's impossible to have any kind of meaningful public discourse about why we have a baby-smashing machine, or why we need to keep feeding it babies, or why we should build more of them. We certainly can't have a conversation about building new ones that run on fewer babies. Hell, we can't even talk about why we have the ones we already have.And to be fair -- the western history of meltdowns is still better than Chernobyl, in part thanks to the containment vessel, among other design features. Which, to be doubly fair -- is also an incredible expenditure of concrete, something else we need to reduce our consumption of. But there are new, more intrinsically-safe designs these days, which simply haven't been tested because no one wants to touch the 'N'-word at all.So that's my perspective on that at the moment.Anyway, I'm excited to see renewable fuel syntheses. Some exciting research has been shown in recent years, in the development of electrolytic and photolytic carbon reduction catalysts. Batteries are SUCH. A. PIG. for any kind of mobile transportation, and even just for static (utility) storage. Whereas hydrocarbons are energy-dense, eminently transportable, and have an entire intercontinental infrastructure dedicated to them.Like, consider your average apartment dweller in urban or suburban US. It's the US, so EVERYONE NEEDS A CAR. This is in itself a soluble problem -- getting rid of big-box stores, highway strips, and building walkable cities with mixed zoning -- but we've seen no change on this front. The urban resident might benefit from a parking garage, or they might be lucky enough not to need a car -- but may also suffer from more limited work opportunities in that case. Your car is your livelihood, to a startling degree. The suburban resident might not have enough parking spaces, so has to park on the street nearby. (Needless to say, there's never any parking in the city, and it's usually metered at that.) Finally, neither resident might be making enough to afford a brand new shiny EV. They have to choose among used stock, 10 year old vehicles say -- and almost certainly it's not going to be anything with a battery that old (likely on a refurbed/replaced battery, which they may have to add to the sticker price themselves in case the owner hasn't done it yet -- good motivation to sell, right?). Finally, with street parking -- where the hell are you going to charge the thing, even if you find a used EV with reasonable battery life at an affordable price? I haven't seen sub/urban charging stations going in just everywhere. (Granted, I haven't been driving as much the last few years either, for obvious reasons!) You're fooling yourself if you think a person surviving on $15/hr (or less!!) can spare the two hours to drive to, and wait at, a charging station ten miles away. If there's no charging at home or business, you're just completely screwed with an EV.And that's not even the biggest part, that's just to put a more personal tone on it. Imagine renewable powered airliners. Batteries are just preposterous there. But industrial scale fuel synthesis gets us use of existing vehicle stocks, supply infrastructure, and all that can be done carbon-neutral.So that's all to explain why I think renewable fuels are interesting. We can generate electricity at wind farms, solar farms -- the temperate regions of the Earth may become the breadbasket of the new energy economy -- and store it in, essentially, liquid carbon batteries. Indeed, one dream would be a fuel cell, with high efficiency, that can directly, and reversibly, operate on relatively complex molecules like say methanol. (We have half of that now, but the carbon goes to waste -- current fuel cells are exclusively hydrogen based, IIRC. So it's neither efficient -- the carbon burns to heat -- nor reversible.)So we wouldn't have to scrap existing automotive stocks, we can keep fueling them -- and at little to no expense to atmospheric carbon, thanks to capture and synthesis. Forcing EVs on everyone is neither something we have the infrastructure to support as it is, nor a cost the average worker can even begin to afford.And to clarify, hydrogen is a pipe dream; there is exactly one good storage method for it and it uses a carbon backbone!Tim

author: ejeffrey
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 24, 2022, 10:25:33 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on February 24, 2022, 08:05:35 pmI don't know about the needs of other countries in as much detail but in the US, current estimates are that we can get to somewhere around 80% renewable generation using today's prices for storage. This basically means we can build enough production capacity and that batteries can be produced in the quantity needed for daily load shifting. Weekly to seasonal storage is probably not feasible with batteries and that is what would be needed to get to 100%.As for land use: the US state of Iowa currently has 6.5 million acres of farmland devoted to producing ethanol for gasoline. That is about 1/3 of the total ethanol production of the nation. Since almost all light vehicles in the US currently run on E10, Iowa produces about 3% of our light vehicle fuel (while consuming an almost equivalent quantity of diesel and natural gas -- this is a terrible idea).Solar panels + EVs are about 30 times more efficient than photosynthesis + refining + ICE use. If you just put solar panels or a mix of solar and wind on all that farmland, you could produce enough electricity to power all light duty vehicles in the US. If you replaced all farmland in the US that is currently used for biofuel production you could produce enough electricity to displace 100% of our fossil fuel power generation as well. This doesn't include replacing gas heat, powering heavy vehicles and air transportation or industrial sources of CO2, but would be a dramatic reduction in the US carbon emissions, and would take up no more land than is already used for fuel production.US ethanol policy is absolutely insane, it would be far better for the environment to just pay farmers to not grow anything. Also Iowa and other corn growing territories are mostly not ideal for solar power. You would get more power for the same panels if you put them elsewhere, and practically you want to spread them out so your transmission requirements are not so crazy. But the land use for renewable energy, while significant, is not a deal breaker in the US. Neither is cost nor raw materials nor lack of storage technology.The US has a relatively low population density and a lot of wide open land that is good for wind, solar, or both. This plan would not work as well in many other countries although it would in others. The US also has among the highest per captia consumption of any nation and other nations have other advantages as well.Wind and solar are already the backbone of new energy production capacity in much of the world, so it doesn't actually require much of a "prediction" to figure out this will continue for some time. Batteries will be the medium term storage solution of choice when the goal is mostly daily load balancing.Some technologies to keep an eye on that maybe become important in 10-15 years as we start to saturate what we can do with conventional renewables will be new nuclear power, fuel cells for longer term storage applications, artificial pumped hydroelectric. Eventually we are going to have to come up with something for cargo ships and airplanes. Maybe synthetic fuel can work for airplanes. Some people want to develop nuclear cargo ships, but imagine how touchy the Ever Given situation would have been if that ship had a nuclear reactor in it. Nuclear carrier ships work because they are a cost-is-no-object heavily staffed military vehicle. A built-to-the-lowest cost barge piled with containers until it almost tips over with a skeleton crew trying to navigate through a shallow ditch heading with a nuclear reactor on board is a whole different scenario. Or think about the risk of piracy.

author: ejeffrey
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 24, 2022, 10:45:59 pm
content: In terms of LG closing their solar business, as far as I know LG mostly made expensive high efficiency monocrystaline panels for rooftop solar and other end-user production where the labor and auxillary costs are higher than the panel cost. This will have basically no effect on utility scale deployment which is where the majority of the new capacity will come from.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 24, 2022, 11:22:52 pm
content: Quote from: ejeffrey on February 24, 2022, 10:25:33 pmThere are quite a few renewable energy deniers on this forum who are looking away from reality. I have not checked the US market forces but for the UK, Australia, and Europe energy storage is a profitable enterprise be that with batteries or hydro, simple as that. While it is profitable people will keep building more of it, the market is working (its just there is such a long/slow approvals/regulatory process that it is hard to stabilize).There is a continual "argument" from the obstructionists (including some politicians) that any replacement generation should look/work/feel/deliver just like their favored coal/nuclear source (batteries must be installed at wind/solar sites). Which is just as dumb as saying we shouldn't build any nuclear generation as it is slow to respond to changes in demand. This tries to block discussion about the cost effectiveness of massively over provisioning renewable sources.As the levelized cost of "unreliable" energy drops low enough, you can just build more capacity and accept there will be times when you can produce energy (at close to zero marginal cost) in excess of demand, and the spot price will swing to zero/negative. Disconnecting/curtailing solar and wind production is fast and without cost so they dont care. Slow ramping and high fixed cost producers are very scared of that becoming the norm, as they will no longer be profitable. That future is already here, wind and solar are so cheap to install and operate they are dominating investment.As many people keep saying on this forum, if you let the electricity power market run with significant capacity in "unreliable" sources, industry will come up with ways to use that "free"/cheap energy. Storage of energy does not have to be reversible back to energy, having a wider throughput widget/consumable/commodity production plant and a larger physical storage on site, run the plant when the energy is cheap, dont run when its expensive. No batteries or future tech needed, just install more of the existing mature plant.Which brings your thought provoking discussion:Quote from: ejeffrey on February 24, 2022, 10:25:33 pmA very cool way to look at it. We are currently running down the stored energy that was put aside in inefficient ways. Using cheap/free solar/wind power to run "inefficient" synthetic hydrocarbon production isnt stupid, its just economics.

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 24, 2022, 11:23:31 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on February 24, 2022, 08:05:35 pmThere's very cheap thermal storage that takes care of a big part of residential load (HVAC and hot water) as well as automated load management. Then you only need batteries for the remainder which is a small part of the total load - mostly LED lights and home electronics.Quote from: T3sl4co1l on February 24, 2022, 10:09:31 pmWhile it might not yet be practical to require that all new cars be EVs, it certainly would be practical to impose stricter MPG requirements for new cars. 35 MPG highway is readily achieved for well over a decade without even requiring special technology.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 24, 2022, 11:46:39 pm
content: Quote from: T3sl4co1l on February 24, 2022, 10:09:31 pmThis is interesting as motivated parties put out some wildly disagreeing figures on what should be relatively easy to agree on:how many excess deaths were caused by each specific electricity/energy production method? preferably in some simple measure like deaths/PJOpenly biased groups like the IAEA say crazy things like solar power needs more steel/concrete per unit of energy than a nuclear plant, which other sources confidently say is false (even before adding in the other nuclear "infrastructure" needed to run a fission power plant). Or the often repeated statistic that solar power kills more people per unit energy than nuclear, based on data from when small residential rooftop installs were the norm which is not comparing like to like (lets take the early years of the nuclear industry as a measure?).Quote from: T3sl4co1l on February 24, 2022, 10:09:31 pmElectricity to hydrocarbons will certainly be a thing for decades to come, renewable electricity is just so cheap all sorts of uses like this will become practical.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 25, 2022, 12:16:56 am
content: Quote from: T3sl4co1l on February 24, 2022, 10:09:31 pmMy country has a problem with burning hydrocarbons in combination with EU regulations due to NOx emissions. So those hydrocarbons really need to be useful in fuel cells here.

author: ejeffrey
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 25, 2022, 04:34:36 am
content: Nuclear is great on paper. It's safe. There are enough proven uranium reserved for centuries even just plain low enriched uranium and the small quantities of fuel needed mean the environmental impact of mining is relatively low. The waste is bad but small enough quantity that on site storage is probably fine for the life of the plant and beyond.The problem is actually building the things. Already in the 70s costs were skyrocketing even when everything was going nuclear and the industry was thriving. The 4 AP1000 reactor started in the US 10 years ago suffered no significant environmental, legal, or political delays, and enjoyed wide support from local residents and politicians, enormous loan guarantees and the ability to pre charge their utility customers for the capital costs. Two of the reactors are cancelled and two are years delayed and billions of dollars over budget, and Westinghouse went bankrupt halfway through making everything worse.The causes are multiple but mostly come back to terrible project management. The initial cost estimate was ludicrously low, it was basically impossible to meet. The designs were incomplete when approved and had to be redesigned and approved. There were also some changes mandated based on the Fukushima disaster but that happened in 2011, 2 years before construction of Vogtle units 3 and 4. Scheduling the extremely specialized equipment, workers, and parts manufacturing was done poorly. Several steps were done wrong and had to be torn down and restarted. Recently the storage pool was damaged by applying too much pressure while trying to locate a leak. It's reasonable to hope that we can learn from these mistakes and do it better last time and costs will go down, but that is not the experience with nuclear. Even in it's heyday there were always cost overruns and prices always went up over time. Plus, since no other projects are currently under construction in the US, the workforce isn't going to be able to move to another project. Much of the experience that was gained will immediately be lost. At the current cost, time, and project risk nuclear just can't compete even with heavy subsidies. All of this makes it very hard for projects to gain traction.This is the reason some people are really excited about small modular reactors (SMR). The idea is that you can move more of the construction to factories which can theoretically be much more efficient than on site construction. The problem here is that thermal power plants benefit a lot from scaling. Truly small reactors are expensive and inefficient, and the larger ones stretch the definition of being small and modular and are not going to gain as much advantage from mass production.If SMRs can really show the benefit of manufacturing in a factory they seem like a reasonable option. More likely at least than any massive nuclear plants in the near future of the US.Even China has had major problems with cost and schedule overruns on their nuclear program but they have stuck with it. If they continue to make progress maybe in a few years more countries will show some renewed interest in nuclear power. That would be great but it is going to be a decade at the minimum before we would see the benefit of such a change of heart.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 25, 2022, 07:21:50 am
content: Quote from: NiHaoMike on February 24, 2022, 11:23:31 pmI doubt it. When I look at my energy bills I see that I use as much energy for heating & hot water compared to the electricity use (and not a single kWh is used for heating).

author: f4eru
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 25, 2022, 08:00:31 am
content: Nuclear power is economically obsolete.Old nuclear reactors running costs are already much over the cost of new renewables, andnew nuclear projects are so expensive that the outcome is 4-5x electricity cost.Storage cost goes down, renewables also.Renewables + storage is already cheaper than nuclear electricity on average.This trend continues, the gap widens every year.Nuclear electricity is obsolete. Economically obsolete.

author: T3sl4co1l
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 25, 2022, 09:19:16 am
content: Quote from: Marco on February 25, 2022, 12:16:56 amAlso an excellent point, in part for NOx pollution generally, and especially for regions prone to smog. So, by extension, anywhere within reasonable travel distance to such areas, vehicles there should also be so equipped.Also I wonder how NOx compares between gas, diesel, and alternative fuels like methane, methanol, and other light fuels (ethanol probably the next most accessible by synthesis? then, might as well go all the way up to regular gasoline?). I suppose diesel is (rather notoriously) bad at NOx, and also particulates; it can run clean, but needs a lot of help (emissions controls, which need to be responsibly used, see scandal; or stable operating conditions i.e. hybrid EV).Tim

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 25, 2022, 12:56:00 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on February 25, 2022, 07:21:50 amTalking on average, of course there are some who live in climates that don't need much heating or cooling and so that part would be smaller. But every kWh you use indoors does heat up the space.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 25, 2022, 02:31:19 pm
content: Quote from: T3sl4co1l on February 25, 2022, 09:19:16 amNot just that. In the NL the amount of NOx in the soil is so high that the PH is worse than Coca-Cola in some places. Large areas (in total probably a larger area than the danger zone around Fukushima) are so badly affected that the natural ecosystem is failing / collapsing. In some places the government is considering replacing the top soil like it is a toxic spill.QuoteDiesel is almost impossible to get low NOx emissions with. Diesel engines used to be very reliable and cheap to run but a modern day diesel engine from a car is costly to repair and prone to malfunctions. The principle problem is that a diesel engine works with excess air so there is a lot of opportunity for NOx to form. The Otto engine that runs on gas uses a fuel / air mixture so that all the oxygen is used. Hybrids with an Atkinson cycle engine are at the other end of the spectrum; their NOx emissions are extremely low just by how the engine works. AFAIK fuels like ethanol burn cleaner so cause less pollution (and synthetic ethanol doesn't contain Sulphur).

author: woody
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 25, 2022, 04:19:33 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on February 25, 2022, 07:21:50 amMaybe I misunderstand, but that cannot be right? Maybe in $$ but not in energy.We use on average 2300m3 natural gas per year for heating/cooking/hot water in a free-standing, fairly large, older house. That translates to ~26000kWh energy. Our electricity use is roughly 10000 kWh / year, and at least 50% of that disappears in the EV. Heating takes much more energy than lighting and bingeing Breaking Bad.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 25, 2022, 05:05:28 pm
content: Quote from: woody on February 25, 2022, 04:19:33 pmI'm on district heating so I pay for actual energy used. On average I'm around 32GJ which is about 8900kWh for heating + hot water. Electricity usage is around 6700kWh for electric equipment and cooking.

author: emece67
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 25, 2022, 05:35:58 pm
content: .

author: PaulAm
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 26, 2022, 08:19:55 pm
content: :Just saw an interesting article about a spinoff from MIT. They're planning on using a 1MW 150GHz Gyrotron to drill 12-20Km boreholes for geothermal. Estimated time to drill a hole is 100 days. Pump water down, get supercritical water up, pipe it to your obsolete coal plant and use the already existing steam/electrical infrastructure. They plan on demonstration field deployable machines in 24 and a 100 MW demonstration plant in 26. They plan on repowering their first fossil fuel plant in 28.Timelines always slip, but it does look encouraging. The power utilities would love it since their operation costs would drop and they would still have a monopoly on supplying electricity. None of that distributed generation hooey that they can't control.Here's the article:https://newatlas.com/energy/quaise-deep-geothermal-millimeter-wave-drill/

author: f4eru
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 26, 2022, 08:53:03 pm
content: interesting conceptQuoteI would not call it "fossil" any more.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2022, 01:02:16 am
content: Quote from: PaulAm on February 26, 2022, 08:19:55 pmInteresting, but 5 cm is a small hole. I'd estimate they'd get a MW or so per double walled pipe in the borehole.

author: kaz911
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2022, 10:29:31 pm
content: Quote from: f4eru on February 25, 2022, 08:00:31 amIt is not as black and white as you seem to think. Huge price increases are coming everywhere for renewable (Listen to Vestas investor presentation)Renewables INCLUDING storage is NOT currently cheaper than nuclear when you look at the entire lifetime and current prices.Now wind renewables in the UK expect around 17 years before profit as prices have been pushed down via the bidding. As the mills only have an estimated lifetime of 25-30 years - that is a big risk for investors. With the increased cost Vestas and others are pushing out - we are looking at 19-23 years before profit @ current prices.For the UK to - the last 12 months - the storage requirement for Wind/Solar - would be roughly 6-8 days continuously. That is the amount of time where solar + wind generated < 5-10% of net "normal". The next interval is 7-14 days where wind generated 10-20% of net "normal" - that is a huge amount of energy storage. And as we have seen this winter - when the wind does not blow in the UK - it is very unlikely it blows more up and down the European coastlines where we have "exchange" agreements.I'm all for solar, wind and storage. But we have to be pragmatic. If not we risk an absolute collapse of the energy markets - and the people who get hurt are the poorest.We are designing our new house to at least 95% PassiveHaus standard. Our goal is to be energy independent (which is whey it is only 95%) - We will have as many solar panels as we can fit. Roof is being designed for max solar capacity. We will have battery storage with 3 days full backup. But we will also have full "isolated island" run options - so there will be a generator plugin and Natural Gas boiler (hybrid boiler setup with heatpump). And the whole system is "pre-planned" as much as possible to be future flexible so it will be "reasonably" simple to add thermal storage and other future "energy" and storage options.But no matter how we do the calculations -it will never be profitable. But we are earning money now and want to make sure we can afford to live here when we do not have any active income. So we are "willing" to "pre-pay" for our independence and security.So I'm all for nuclear - especially the Gen 4 reactors (Like China just announced they are building several of)There is a reason why all the Middle Eastern countries with oil and plenty of sunshine - all are going nuclear. (Saudi & UAE..)

author: ejeffrey
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 01, 2022, 12:45:33 am
content: Quote from: kaz911 on February 28, 2022, 10:29:31 pmThere is no such thing as current lifetime prices for modern nuclear, other than "very expensive". No country other than China has a functioning modern nuclear power industry where you can plan to build a power plant and realistically expect to get one with only moderate cost and schedule overruns.QuoteTo be clear, what I am claiming (maybe others, but I don't want to speak for anyone else) is that with renewables plus 6-12 hours of storage can cover 80-95% of electricity needs in many areas of the world, and where they can they do that it is much cheaper than any realistic estimate of nuclear costs, and can be deployed much faster than nuclear and start reducing CO2 emissions now.How you make up the remaining 5-20% balance is up for debate. The simple answer is that in the medium term future it will be handled by fossil fuels, particularly natural gas, just operating at low capacity factor. These will be expensive per kWhr because they need to pay for their capital costs with only a few weeks a year of operation, but it will still be an acceptable system cost.Long term of course that isn't ideal. But we have a minimum of 10-15 years runway before it starts to be an issue. We can built terrawatts of renewable energy and short term storage before we hit that 80% mark. And there are several promising technologies for bridging that last 20%.

author: themadhippy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 01, 2022, 01:13:37 am
content: I thought the main thinking about future energy genaration was to help keep the planet a bit cleaner for future generations,not build something that whilst being a quick expensive fix in the now ,but leaving yet another toxic mess for future generations to deal with.

author: kaz911
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 01, 2022, 07:34:24 am
content: Quote from: ejeffrey on March 01, 2022, 12:45:33 am6-12 hours would not cover 95% At 6-12 hours you would be using backup batteries almost every day. So you would introduce excessive wear on the batteries. Best batteries today have around 3000-3500 cycles - so roughly enough for 10 years operation before you would have to replace all of them. And that is calculated by batteries being at optimal temperatures. Any temperature deviation will degrade life and capacity unless storage have both heating and cooling to maintain optimal battery temperature.And promising technologies : if they are "promising now" they are at least 10-20 years away from production - at least based on history. We can't rely on future promises.UAE Nuclear - yes went over budget - but phase 1 was operational after 9 years since construction started. Phase 2 & 3 have followed same schedule and are now operational.So we can HOPE for fast advances in battery technology - or fusion - or similar.Until then we can only work with what we got.

author: f4eru
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 01, 2022, 10:06:23 am
content: Existing running out nuclear is more expensive today than bigger scale renewables + storage. This excludes initial investment (paid off in the last 30 years) and cleanup+storage costs (largely ignored)Building new nuclear today is much more expensive than running existing, which are more expensive than renewables. It's just economic suicide to build new nuclear plants...In France, the EPR which is not finished already costs 20 billion Euros. and that is the building alone. Just that building alone costs already more than the same amoount of electricity from renewables it will produce over 30 years lifetime. no running costs, and disposal costs included.Also, France is currently operating small scale wars in and around Niger, to secure it's uranium supply. This blood is one of the numerous non-considered "externalities" of nuclear, at least for Francehttps://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-levelized-cost-of-storage-and-levelized-cost-of-hydrogen/

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 01, 2022, 10:31:28 am
content: Quote from: kaz911 on March 01, 2022, 07:34:24 amWell, batteries cycling daily is the current solution, and its profitable. Even if that will end up with a 10 year lifespan. More and more are planned to come online.90% of all demand is a pretty accurate estimate for the capabilities of a grid with maximum of 12 hours of storage:http://www.withouthotair.com/c26/page_189.shtmlBut thats assuming you have zero dispatchable generators! Just hold back the (non-pumped) hydro generation until the prices rise. NZ goes through that sort of seasonal cycling most years. Graph below from:https://brendon-harre.medium.com/pumped-hydro-update-march-2020-9d83399ef6fd

author: kaz911
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 01, 2022, 11:11:19 am
content: Quote from: Someone on March 01, 2022, 10:31:28 amPumped storage is (so far) only viable with natural water features - which "might" have been "enhanced" using dams. There are not any hydro storage I have seen that is purely artificial. That is why it is a great success in Norway and less so in many other countries.None of the "artificial" systems actually work (so far) including the very published cement block mover. Problem is you only get full efficiency from dropping blocks from absolute top to bottom. So the lower you get in the stack - the less efficiency. And that is without mechanical maintenance costs.And the problem with the link you sent - is that 1200 GWh (5 x 10GW x 24h) is not enough. UK had 7+ consecutive days with < 5-10% generation and 10-12 consecutive days with < 20%. So optimistic we would need 10GW minus 2GW (max of min production ) = 8 GW * 12 days * 24 hours. So that would be 2300 GWh - minimum. And that is without system losses (round trip cost) ofat least10% dependent on storage type.But then on top of that 2 of the 7 day periods of low production (<10%) was only a week apart. So in one week they would have had to recharge the full battery set - so a 100+% overproduction for 5-7 days. Batteries do not recharge themselves.So it is not as simple as you are trying to postulate. It is a lot more complex when you have battery storage.Battery stacks are great for slew protection though and a lot simpler.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 02, 2022, 01:07:25 am
content: Quote from: kaz911 on March 01, 2022, 11:11:19 amYou jumped right past the point again. How slowly do we need to say this:taking battery storage and pumped hydro as sufficient for 12-24 hour cycling (despite that they can do longer)you've come up with a missing "storage" capacity of 2300 GWh, say 4 to 5 times a year, approximately 10 TWh of seasonal storage.Whats the annual consumption of the UK grid? around 350TWh. So you only need to retain 3% of the total grid production for dispatchable power. Sounds like we have a solution that meets 97% of demand with just batteries and wind+solar.How much of the generation in the UK currently comes from hydro? about 2%, so short but not by much. They will need more generators put in to deliver the peak power, but the energy is there. Worldwide, over 10% of all electricity comes from hydro so its already "solved" in many countries: Australia, China, United States, Russia, Japan, Germany, New Zealand, etc etc etc. All have enough hydro production.Storage does not have to be electricity in electricity out. Holding back some resource (coal) until you need electricity and then using it has been completely fine/normal for fossil fuel powered plants, but you and others somehow miss that holding back water is almost exactly the same. Just wait until you need the power and let it rip. These facilities are already in place, with enough capacity in most countries, whats missing to fill in the grid is the short term storage and increasing the peak power of the long term storage. Both easily done and profitably.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 02, 2022, 01:59:30 am
content: Averages don't mean sh!t; your math is way way off. You need to be able to deal with the worst case peaks. Actually, kaz911's analysis is far too optimistic. An analys of the Dutch government shows that the NL needs about 12TWh (12000GWh) of storage to bridge periods with low production and allowing storage to replenish over time. The UK will need a multitude of that amount because it is much bigger with more people compared to the NL. More likely in the 40TWh ballpark.And adding more generators to hydro also does not make hydro more effective or increase the capacity. For more capacity that can deal with worst case peak usage of storage, you'll need to add more water surface area at the cost of massive amounts of land that need to be flooded (vilages moved, etc). Calling hydro in Germany (to take one of your listed countrys) a succes is a gross overstatement:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroelectricity_in_GermanyA measly 3% and no room for growth. The reality is that hydro is low hanging fruit and most of it has been harvested by now.To put numbers further into perspective: Wordwide pumped hydro accounts for about 9TWh of storage. That is just a drop in the bucket when looking at what is needed locally. Using some form of natural gas or hydrogen storage underground is a much more realistic approach:www.nlog.nl/sites/default/files/2019-08/juez_larre_et_al_2019_fb_st_july.pdfJust the storage capacity in the NL alone dwarfs the worldwide pumped hydro storage capacity.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 02, 2022, 02:30:36 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on March 02, 2022, 01:59:30 amYou can keep shouting that all you like, worldwide hydro generation is around 4-5PWh out of 30PWh annual, well over 10% of energy (the thing people want to store). Pumped hydro is not the only way to have a dispatchable energy source with hydro, nature does a good job of filling up the dams without any electricity input. NZ already runs their hydro in eactly the way I describe and other countries could easily do the same to get long term storage and dispatchable power right now.Feel free to keep going on about how the Dutch cant have enough hydro power/storage, its a flat country, no-one is surprised. But they do have significant connectivity to surrounding countries, rich in such storage. Strawman is still strawman.Neither of you have looked over the hill you intentionally make to frame your "argument". Energy is stored in hydro dams, it doesnt need to be pumped up with electricity. That is a dispatchable energy source that is already used for seasonal time frame storage, and the worlds resources of it are neither: at capacity, completely exploited, or prioritized for storage.Quote from: nctnico on March 02, 2022, 01:59:30 amas the saying goes... citation required. But thats still "only" 10% of the annual electricity use of the Netherlands, right in line with the originally quoted point:Quote from: ejeffrey on March 01, 2022, 12:45:33 amThe world could easily (and with existing mature technology) come up with 10% seasonal storage in water dams. If there are other ways to get there, thats great too. But continuing to distract from the very basics of not turning on the hydro plants when other energy is abundant is starting to wear thin.

author: kaz911
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 02, 2022, 07:17:22 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on March 02, 2022, 01:59:30 amhaha - I was not trying to be precise at all - just trying to easyly illustrate how optimistic the original statement was - and how complex battery storage is in real life.But I think if we took just 30% of the money we are putting into renewables and sent to researchers in universities etc for better and cleaner power production - we would get to net zero a lot faster than trying with the intermittent solar and wind + current battery technology.I'm still for nuclear with generation 4 plants - as leftover waste is very limited - and potential issues of runaway are eliminated as far as I can tell.

author: kaz911
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 02, 2022, 07:21:33 am
content: Quote from: Someone on March 02, 2022, 02:30:36 amThe NL 10% is of total energy consumption. The linked articles 10% is off pure net average renewables production. So they are not "comparable" 10%'s

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 02, 2022, 12:08:25 pm
content: Quote from: kaz911 on March 02, 2022, 07:21:33 amIndeed. The amount of storage needed being 1, 2 , 10 or 20% of the annual energy consumpution doesn't mean anything. There is no statistical relation at all. Any storage will need to be able to supply a significant part of a country's energy needs. Likely close to 100% if there are no constant power sources like nuclear or fossil fuels (and no, hydro is not a constant source because it depends on the amount of rain which is getting more erratic in some places).

author: kaz911
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 02, 2022, 12:46:17 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on March 02, 2022, 12:08:25 pmOne of my issues with current "Electricity Pricing" like in the UK - is that people think energy made on a stable source - should have the same value /MWh as electricity made with intermittent renewables without full backup.You can not compare £/MWh from Wind/Solar with £/MWh from coal, nuclear or gas. You have to DEDUCT risk of non-delivery to intermittent sources. The Risk factor is is different for each platform. So risk from "fossil" or nuclear is in the 50-60 days per year @ below average production. Risk from Wind is in the range of 150-170 days - and risk from Solar is in the 170-230 days (where production is below averagenominal)The risk from reliable systems is from breakdowns and maintenance. The risk from wind/solar is mainly no driving force - and then maintenance and breakdowns.In 2022 we will have huge maintenance downtime for fossil and nuclear - but that is mainly due to a lack of maintenance during Covid. So there is a lot of catchup to do.So Wind / Solar is just like having an employee who have 2 weeks annual vacation and maybe some sick days - but only turns up when it suits him/her/it - and only put in a part effort most of the time.And old fashioned energy is like having an employee who have 5 weeks vacation and maybe some sick days. But the employee turns up and works full time and at peak efficiency every day.Who would you pay a higher salary ? And how much less should you pay the person that randomly turn up when they feel like it?

author: jonpaul
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 02, 2022, 02:41:02 pm
content: Clean safe nuclear fission, [powered France and Switzerland safely and cleanly for decades.Natural Gas plants are now in the balance better than solar or wind in use of resources.SSPS is feasabe, Space Based Solar Power Station, uses solar cells in orbit synch, and efficient GaN transistors to create a microwave beam.1960 invention at BTL.Needs acres of RecTennas at land based station.Dual use as a weapon!Jon

author: zeke.
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: March 02, 2022, 03:02:37 pm
content: I think the biggest pro of PV is the independence it provides the consumer. I'm all for nuclear but it requires alot of institutions to get involved and the public to cooperate.Quote from: kaz911 on March 02, 2022, 12:46:17 pmYou made good points in respect to nuclear but how much can we rely on government and utilities? Wouldn’t it be better to have investment in the direction of PV and batteries so consumers can take control of their energy needs (or at least a substantial portion of it)?

author: themadhippy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 02, 2022, 03:54:19 pm
content: A question for all the proponents of nuclear,would you be happy with a new power station being built at the end of your road ? How about a solar or wind farm?

author: kaz911
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 02, 2022, 04:36:16 pm
content: Quote from: themadhippy on March 02, 2022, 03:54:19 pmFor general noise - not at the end of my road for wind and nuclear.Solar is fine close by as long as it is "considered" so ones does not get blinded by panel reflections.But within 3 to 5 mile radius - fine with both nuclear and wind. I have a wind-park viewable from my windows - and it is far enough away so we can't hear them or get low frequency issues. And the 3 to 5 miles is only because of noise and ugliness of both windmills and nuclear.If they could put nuclear underground and noise would be a non-issue - then I would not mind distance being smaller. But Windmills are ugly when built in "park" structures.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 02, 2022, 04:42:05 pm
content: Quote from: themadhippy on March 02, 2022, 03:54:19 pmAs long as they don't make noise. I just got back from a cycling trip and passed loads of wind turbines. Even from 1km away a wind turbine can be heard quite well even though the wind wasn't strong today. I wouldn't want to live near it as the noise would irritate the hell out of me. I'd take a nuclear power plant over a fossil fuel power plant any day. Nuclear doesn't emit toxic gasses into the air that kill me slowly. There is no denying that nuclear power is extremely safe; the numbers back that up very solid.

author: Seekonk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 02, 2022, 08:37:16 pm
content: I worked at the startup of one of those nuclear plants on the coast that are now shut down. By the time I returned I lost all faith that engineering could overcome any problem. TEPCO was all about money and doing things as cheap as possible. It seemed every week we had a small earthquake. Not like you could think it would never happen. The sea wall was way too short and they put the emergency generator/fuel tank right near the ocean. It was the first thing hit by the wave. Had they placed the emergency generator away from the ocean the plants would have survived. The bean counters will destroy the world.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 02, 2022, 08:38:43 pm
content: Quote from: kaz911 on March 02, 2022, 12:46:17 pmLevelized costs don't require any adjustment, its the deliverable energy over the cost of the install/operation/cleanup etc. Thats a guide to show if a technology is competitive. Running on the low end of rated capacity is not the risk to the pricing, its the other side when generation is in such high excess that the price goes to (or below zero) and the generation is no longer used. Generators aren't paying for not producing (unless they pre-comitted on a contract). Wind or Solar + storage is already cheaper, per delivered unit of energy. As disucssed above with just a small amount of storage such a system already meets the vast majority of energy demand. Whats left is the harder less frequent events.How far should grid reliability go? 99.99% uptime, is the existing flat pricing for consumers (no incentive to curtail when power is short) really a viable model?

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 02, 2022, 08:50:13 pm
content: Quote from: Someone on March 02, 2022, 08:38:43 pmIt is the expected model. How can businesses operate when the power goes out all the time? It is counterproductive to have a whole bunch of people sitting idle. Nowadays with people working at home more often, power grid reliability only got more important.Suggesting to have power outages due to energy shortages is an evolutionary step back.

author: kaz911
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 02, 2022, 09:02:29 pm
content: Quote from: Someone on March 02, 2022, 08:38:43 pmyes - 99.99% uptime as minimum should be the goal for any country. (Slightly less than 1 hour per year downtime)We are reliant on stable and affordable electricity. That is how our societies are built. But our governments know it won't stay stable - which is why you are getting "smart meters" that can either cut you off - or delay when you are put back on the electricity grid at the goverments behest. And the losers in that game will be the low income families, as the high income areas have "power" and lawyers.SmartMeters do not save energy for the average consumer six weeks post installation when the "effect" of the gadget wears off. So apart from the load management part - it is a waste of energy and money to put in the smart-meters as an energy saving incentive. LED lights have done more to reduce consumption than SmartMeters ever will.For a country to be successful - it requiresCHEAPand reliable energy.Everythingelse is secondary - because if the country is not successful - the country have much bigger problems ahead.

author: f4eru
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 02, 2022, 09:13:31 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on March 02, 2022, 08:50:13 pmPower outages due to generation have always existed, and will always exist.In fact, in practice, reliability goes up with renewables !And that is the state before cheap massive storage appears.

author: kaz911
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 02, 2022, 09:17:11 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on March 02, 2022, 08:50:13 pmMy primary business operate with a lot of people in an Asian country - where brownouts are a close to daily occurrence. I therefore had to split our locations 30 km apart to minimise total downtime risk (200+ people not being able to work is expensive) - and that is despite having battery backup and generators. Total downtime per year is 30-120 hours. Problems are big - especially due to grid "overload" when power comes back.Often power will tick back on - only to go again in a short while later for "priority" energy delivery to "high end" residential and influential big businesses.Generator parts are hard to get (at least "original" ones) and due to the climate they do not last long despite hardcore maintenance. And when something happens to the power - everybody stand in line for generator spare parts. So we try to stock most common parts in the warehouses.But the biggest problem is telecom infrastructure - often exchanges do not have backup capability for long enough - so commutations disappear - and then it takes quite a while to get it back. So we run both on leased lines AND with Satellite backup.I do not wish for the same to happen here. But it is where we are heading with current policies.

author: kaz911
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 02, 2022, 09:22:08 pm
content: Quote from: f4eru on March 02, 2022, 09:13:31 pmIs that based on research or are you guessing?Most improvements in electricity network uptime have come from moving from cables in the air - to cables in the ground.

author: Jester
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 02, 2022, 09:51:06 pm
content: We will see a lot more wind generation. The cost to install has dropped and is often the lowest cost option now.I was involved with the design of a protection scheme for these windmill generators and the sales in the last 5 years are simply going through the roof.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 02, 2022, 10:09:26 pm
content: Quote from: f4eru on March 02, 2022, 09:13:31 pmWhat the deniers (here) neatly step over is that widely distributed fluctuating generation averages out to be very reliable. Unplanned outages still happen with "reliable" generation sources. Even without storage wind generation over provisioned by a factor of 10x ends up similarly reliable as coal (nuclear tends to be a little more reliable for unplanned outages, but can have longer planned outages) but at around 3x the price, add storage into the mix and price is similar/same/lower depending on who you talk to.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 02, 2022, 10:11:52 pm
content: Quote from: Someone on March 02, 2022, 10:09:26 pmYou mean that the sun shines in the NL while it is dark in Australia. Yeah, sure... keep on dreaming.Maybe it is time for you to come up with some actual numbers instead of throwing wild guesses around and going for a round of name calling. IOW: put some substance in your posts.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 02, 2022, 11:00:12 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on March 02, 2022, 10:11:52 pmYour contrary straw man arguments about obvious unworkable ideas does not discount the already proven and known solutions that do work.Even at 90% penetration "unreliable" renewable sources + storage are cheaper than alternatives:GenCost 2020-21, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation 2021Quote from: nctnico on March 02, 2022, 10:11:52 pmSays the person who is suspiciously thin on figures/numbers and throws confusion in left right and centre.

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 03, 2022, 02:37:30 am
content: After HVAC and hot water which can easily be moved to off peak using thermal storage, I wonder how much of the remaining residential load can be scheduled for off peak without too much inconvenience. Most of what cannot be rescheduled appear to be fairly small loads as in lights and home electronics. The biggest remaining (common) residential load I can think of is cooking, but I rarely use the full 1.8kW of my induction cooker for more than a minute or two, so while the peak demand is high, the total energy used is not as high as you might think.Quote from: nctnico on March 02, 2022, 08:50:13 pmI would like to see a plan to get paid to be the first to be dropped, to give an incentive for backup power at home. It will also mean the outages will more affect those ready to deal with it. I can say a lot about the backup solution I had (to tap power from my car) that went unused last year since it would be more expensive than charging batteries from the grid when it was up, even though that adds to the problem.It would also be interesting if there was a "wholesale" plan like what Griddy had but with a "lifeline" feature where (for example) the first 1kWh every hour will always be a reasonable cost.

author: f4eru
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 04, 2022, 07:53:56 am
content: Quote from: NiHaoMike on March 03, 2022, 02:37:30 amThe biggest remaining residential load is the washing machine. It heats up 20 liters of water, and runs a beefy motor for an hour.Can also be easily time shifted to off-peak, as long as noise permits.Basically, the future of electrical energy is market pricing of kWh direct to the customer, so normal users can use this as a good way to implement any time shifting they can or they want.Makers of equipment will then promptly implement user interfaces to simplify this time shifting, or even network to utilities, as we already see in EVs.Using market forces for greater good

author: kaz911
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 04, 2022, 09:26:50 am
content: Just a little quote from Norway from Dec '21QuoteQuoteAnd the above is from before Ukraine... (source:https://www.newsinenglish.no/2021/12/06/high-electricity-rates-spark-much-debate/)Norwegian electricity prices have doubled, tripled or evenquadrupled!So even hydro storage have issues with stable supply.

author: emece67
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 04, 2022, 09:49:17 am
content: .

author: f4eru
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 06, 2022, 09:30:09 am
content: That's the clear market signal that either:1) there's not enough generation : add some, high prices justify it2) seasonal storage and other shift mitigations are not yet working : add more...Gives incentive for change.

author: kaz911
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 07, 2022, 10:36:53 am
content: Quote from: f4eru on March 04, 2022, 07:53:56 amI think you are way off in your postulations - my washing machine uses about 0.5 to 0.7 kWh for a complete wash dependent on load size and program. So off-peak that cost me £0.025 to £0.035. At peak it would be £0.0825 to £0.1155.Washing machine energy consumption have changed drastically over the last 10 years.My biggest energy consumer is my car.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 07, 2022, 10:54:20 am
content: Quote from: kaz911 on March 04, 2022, 09:26:50 amIf export capacity is large enough to cause even small shortfalls internally, internal spot prices will mirror foreign spot prices.

author: kaz911
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 07, 2022, 11:10:33 am
content: Quote from: Marco on March 07, 2022, 10:54:20 amIt was NOT internal spot prices. It is the consumer prices for electricity that has increased drastically. Even Denmark who has the largest one of the largest renewable production capabilities per capita - prices have gone up dramatically. And Denmark was already one of the most expensive EU countries for electricity.

author: Wolfram
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 07, 2022, 11:15:32 am
content: Quote from: kaz911 on March 04, 2022, 09:26:50 amElectricity prices have increased in Norway due to a tighter integration into the European grid, causing our prices to rise to European levels. Traditionally, they have been very low due to the abundance of cheap hydroelectric power, which accounts for almost 90 % of the total electricity production.The price did not increase due to a lack of hydroelectric power compared to the consumption, there was actually a significant net export of energy in 2021. Total energy production for 2021 was 157.1 TWh, and the total consumption for the year was 139.7 TWh, leaving a net export of 17.3 TWh.https://www.statnett.no/om-statnett/nyheter-og-pressemeldinger/nyhetsarkiv-2022/det-eksepsjonelle-kraftaret-2021/

author: kaz911
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 07, 2022, 11:51:19 am
content: Just a quote from the linked articleFromhttps://www-statnett-no.translate.goog/om-statnett/nyheter-og-pressemeldinger/nyhetsarkiv-2022/det-eksepsjonelle-kraftaret-2021/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapptranslated:QuoteAnd I totally agree - it is important that we have systems that can withstand all variations. The problem is those systems can be expensive. But it highlights we can't just continue to add intermittent renewables without suitable backup systems.And funny Norway is exploding in electricity consumption over time.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 07, 2022, 12:55:48 pm
content: Quote from: kaz911 on March 07, 2022, 11:51:19 amI don't see that anywhere in the graphs. In the last 10 years their consumption went up by less than 10%.

author: kaz911
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 07, 2022, 02:21:46 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on March 07, 2022, 12:55:48 pmOver the last many years most EU countries have gone down in actual electricity consumption. So compared to many other EU countries - it has exploded.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 07, 2022, 02:33:42 pm
content: My guess is that the increase has to do with the rather high BEV adoption in Norway. But still I wouldn't call a 10% increase 'exploded'. It does seem that the electricity consumption per person in Norway is extremely high anyway. For example: in the NL 3 times more people use less electricity compared to Norway. All in all I wouldn't use Norway as some kind of 'standard' where it comes to electricity use/production because they are in the unique position to have access to a lot of hydro.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 07, 2022, 03:41:29 pm
content: People also miss one important factor, thinking that production must be increased no matter what:Energy pricecanbe accepted to rise. This will work as a motivator toreduce energy consumption.People have certain amount of cash at their disposal. That will be spent. If energy is cheap, people use more of it. Efficiency does not matter; investments to improve efficiency won't be made.Days of crazy wasting of energy because it is so cheap, are simply over, we have to admit that, and adjust our living accordingly. Often, it's as simple as investing in more energy efficient devices like EVs and heatpumps.Solutions such as installing a heatpump to replace natural gas furnace are not new at all, and utterly trivial. The only reason this hasn't happened so far has been cheap availability of natural gas.I have used approx. 5000kWh for heating (house and hot water) so far during this heating season. It will end up somewhere around 7000kWh. The earlier consumption was 2000 liters of oil, in other words, around 20000kWh energy. This cut in one third is as expected from the upgrade to air source heatpump. And it will work much better in warmer climates, i.e., most of the Europe. Just do it.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 07, 2022, 04:04:50 pm
content: Quote from: kaz911 on March 07, 2022, 11:10:33 amIf the suppliers all have short running supply contracts their prices will follow spot too.If my supplier is willing to pay the hydro owner more, why sell it to Norwegians for less?

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 07, 2022, 09:27:43 pm
content: Quote from: kaz911 on March 07, 2022, 02:21:46 pmCitation required! OECD electricity consumption has been relatively flat over the past 10 years:https://www.iea.org/sankey/Just as Norway:Quote from: nctnico on March 07, 2022, 02:33:42 pmQuite the misleading points, as above electric vehicle use even in Norway is just a tiny blip for now. Trying to compare electricity use between countries is fraught with different energy mix, the Dutch using gas for the majority (57%) of their (non industry, non transport) energy consumption with electricity being under a third. While Norway flush with historically cheap electricity uses electricity almost exclusively (77%). So when you divide up energy use per capita Norwegians are only 20% higher than the Dutch.

author: emece67
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 08, 2022, 12:25:05 am
content: .

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 08, 2022, 02:07:48 am
content: Quote from: ejeffrey on February 24, 2022, 10:25:33 pmI hate ethanol in gasoline. I have had to dispose of quite a bit of gas over the years that went stale after only a few months. I have also had fuel tanks, carburetors, fuel pressure regulators and other equipment destroyed by the water the ethanol pulls out of the air. I've wasted far too much time tearing apart carburetors on lawnmowers, generators and other equipment and had to replace some of them or scrap the entire thing due to damage from the ethanol. It's hard to fine ethanol-free gas anymore but there are at least a couple stations within a reasonable drive where I can get it for my generator. I need fuel that can be stored for several months at least for that.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 08, 2022, 02:09:51 am
content: Quote from: Someone on March 02, 2022, 10:09:26 pmI've never in my life experienced an outage that was caused by failure of the source, whether renewable or fossil. In every case it has been trees falling on power lines or tree roots ripping up buried lines.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 08, 2022, 02:28:13 am
content: Quote from: james_s on March 08, 2022, 02:09:51 amYour point? Non-renewable generators have periods of planned and unplanned non-production, yet by having enough of them (and storage) consumers (such as yourself) don't notice. This same situation can be replicated with renewable generators.

author: T3sl4co1l
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 08, 2022, 01:22:01 pm
content: Quote from: james_s on March 08, 2022, 02:07:48 amI have no idea if it's a good and recommendable solution -- but ethanol can be absorbed by several water-absorbent chemicals, such as calcium chloride. Obviously, filter the result carefully, and YMMV if that ruins the octane or something. (Related additives like MTBE might be affected as well?)...I wonder if silica gel is lipophobic enough to still be useful as a moisture (and probably ethanol) absorber, while surrounded by gasoline? You'd need quite a lot of it to do that (ethanol), of course. Or molecular sieves, which can dehydrate ethanol without also absorbing it.Tim

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 08, 2022, 02:23:57 pm
content: Quote from: james_s on March 08, 2022, 02:07:48 amDid you consider buying / using additives to prevent this from happening? These have been available for a long time already.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 09, 2022, 05:07:00 am
content: Quote from: f4eru on March 04, 2022, 07:53:56 amAmerican washing machines don't heat the water, at least most of them don't, they take in separate hot and cold feeds from the wall. It's been a long time since I've measured my Maytag Neptune but IIRC it consumes about 0.6kWh per cycle, not much at all really. The dryer on the other hand is 5.5kW and also runs for about an hour.

author: kaz911
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 09, 2022, 08:58:00 am
content: Ethanol is bad for engines - they run ok with it but the problems Ethanol create is huge.The engine manufactures was up in arms until they realised it would increase their service income and part sales by a lot. Then they got quiet.But the ethanol eats rubber and silicone over time. It attracts humidity and cause condensation. It causes phase separation when the ethanol attracts too much water - and water is heavier than the fuel so it sinks to the bottom of the thank (where inlet to the engine is)So to avoid the above - you have to keep you tank almost full to minimise condensation. And you have to add stabilisers every time you refuel unless you use the device every day. The stabilisers are usually only good for < 12 months.So for generators, lawn mowers, boat engines and other "seasonal use" engines - E based fuel is really bad.When you then count the extra service and parts needed over time and stabilisers - you probably do not have any environmental benefit at all.

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 09, 2022, 02:51:36 pm
content: Quote from: james_s on March 09, 2022, 05:07:00 amA (first generation) heat pump dryer takes that down to 1.2-1.5kW although for longer for about half the energy use. Newer ones likely do even better. Or switch to a drying rack or clothesline for no energy use.

author: kaz911
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 09, 2022, 05:20:25 pm
content: Quote from: NiHaoMike on March 09, 2022, 02:51:36 pmA full 9 kg load of cotton on my Miele heat pump dryer is about 1.5 kWh (if filters are clean) and is EU A+++ rated. I don't think there are many that are much more efficient yet.The biggest plus compared to our old dryer - it does not heat the room very much. With the old dryer (10'ish years old) - the small room would be 30+ deg c when the dryer was running. Now we neither hear it nor feel it.Last year we made an effort to limit our consumption in total - so low energy appliances etc. so this year so far - despite having a new electric car as well - we are actually using the same kWh as we did a year ago just after moving in the new house. And since we have the electric car we could get on the 5p rate nighttime rate with Octopus Go - so until now we have paid a LOT less per month due to load shifting.But that will probably change April 1st with the rate changes in the UK. We expect prices to increase 55-65% on electricity and gas. I do not know what price Octopus Go will change to. But new Octopus Go signups now are asked to pay 7.5p / kWh vs our 5p / kWh for night time usage. So those rates are already up 50%.But I do wish they would "implement" the German "SmartGrid" signalling here so we could have the machines just turn on when we have cheap electricity available or activated by "solar surplus"

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 09, 2022, 05:26:44 pm
content: Quote from: kaz911 on March 09, 2022, 08:58:00 amThat might have been true 40 years ago but the fact is that ethanol is being mixed into gasoline for decades (for example in France) and all modern consumer cars can deal with it just fine for several decades already.

author: kaz911
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 09, 2022, 07:43:29 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on March 09, 2022, 05:26:44 pmThere is nothing I wrote about ethanol that is not true today - as it was 15 years ago or 40 years ago.Yes cars can deal with it (if you use your car on a regular basis) - but Ethanols "behaviour" have not changed.Fuel lines have become better at dealing with Ethanol - but over time they still deteriorate much faster than if they run on "none E fuels" - so you have to change fuel filters more often on "seasonal use" products as particles from fuel hoses gunk them up - and that is with "E fuel" rated fuel hoses.Most of my "electronics" business is marine and boat related. The damage we see in boats from Ethanol is quite big. Boats have big fuel tanks (some 100-800l x 2 or even x3) - and we have gigantic fuel water filters on the engines - and that is still not enough. E fuel causes engines and tanks to rust inside due to attracted humidity. Now when we winter prep a boat we run the engine with non-E based fuel if we can find it. Then we empty the fuel tank(s) completely if < 20% or fill them to 95%. But it is not nice to have a boat yard full of completely full "petrol" filled speedboats and cruisers.Prep - or "decommission" time for the engines takes almost twice as long as it used to and is not super safe when emptying fuel tanks. When we empty the tank - we have a separate water filter/separator and usually that needs emptying once for every 50-100l (so about 50-70ml of water)But as I said - most problems with E fuel is for products that is not used on a regular basis. If you use your car everyday - you are probably fine.My own boat has been sitting in the water for the last 2 years - and engines run every 2 weeks by a friend - and fuel water filter has been exchanged twice despite having almost full tanks and stabiliser in the fuel every 12 months. Now when I go for the first time for easter - it is booked to have all fuel removed (roughly 400l) because we have no idea how much is slushing around in the bottom of the tanks. But if we took the boat out on open sea - we would quickly find out how much water is in the tanks...

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 10, 2022, 08:33:35 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on March 09, 2022, 05:26:44 pmWell that's just great, but not all cars are modern, and even a modern car is not helped if it is rarely driven. On top of that, cars are only one use of gasoline. I recently had to throw away a whole tank of gasoline that went bad in my classic car that is only driven a few times a year. I have also had countless carburetors destroyed in small engines. For my generator I finally started driving 25 miles to one of the few stations that sells pure gas without that destructive shit mixed into it. Sure it's fine in my daily driver, even being 32 years old it has no problem with it, but if I wasn't driving it regularly it would be a problem and it's a huge problem in all sorts of other stuff. It pulls water out of the air and corrodes metal parts.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 10, 2022, 08:38:41 am
content: Quote from: NiHaoMike on March 09, 2022, 02:51:36 pmMy friend has a heat pump dryer, it works reasonably well but for me it wouldn't make economic sense. My electricity is still only $0.10/kWh and I run a load of laundry about once every 2 weeks so about $1.50/month, that's nothing.A drying rack is a viable option for many but it won't work for me. My house is completely surrounded on 3 sides by tall trees that drop pollen (which I'm allergic to) and sap. It also drizzles rain a substantial part of the year. My grandmother used one in her back yard in the summer when I was a kid though.

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 10, 2022, 12:51:37 pm
content: Quote from: james_s on March 10, 2022, 08:38:41 amDrying racks also work indoors. If that would raise the humidity too much, get a dehumidifier, that's pretty much what a heat pump dryer is in the first place.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 10, 2022, 05:08:00 pm
content: Quote from: NiHaoMike on March 10, 2022, 12:51:37 pmYup. We never dry the laundry outside; always on a few indoor lines next to the washing machine. Don't need a dryer at all. Most of the laundry is dry overnight.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 10, 2022, 05:49:06 pm
content: Also don't wash ridiculous amounts of laundry and don't wash yourself to ridiculous extent.Not smelling bad is enough. No need to overwash (yourself or clothes) with some ridiculous safety margin like smelling bad is comparable to nuclear meltdown.We (2 people) wash clothes maybe once a week, and dry the laundry indoors overnight. No significant energy consumption in either washing or drying.

author: kaz911
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 10, 2022, 06:44:05 pm
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on March 10, 2022, 05:49:06 pmWell try that with 2 children in school uniforms, school training clothes and school swim clothes. We would have to triple the amount of clothes we buy to dry it "manually" outside or inside. And as the children grow like weeds - every 3-4 months they need a wardrobe change.It is MUCH cheaper to wash and machine-dry 2-3 times per week... I think. 4/5ts of the clothes washes are the children's.I do prefer "outside air dried" - but right now that is an unobtainable dream that happens only once a quarter when the weather is fast enough to dry it before night time.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 14, 2022, 10:10:44 pm
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on March 10, 2022, 05:49:06 pmI have to wash my hair daily or it turns into a big greaseball, I don't think I do a ridiculous amount of laundry though, I usually run out of either socks or underwear first and run a load when that happens.

author: uer166
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 14, 2022, 10:56:15 pm
content: Quote from: james_s on March 10, 2022, 08:33:35 amWhy stop here? Even older cars require lead additives in gas to seat their valves properly and avoid damage. Let's go back to leaded gasoline so you can daily drive your grandpa's 60 year old car? 32 yr old cars are an edge case that shouldn't be considered thAt much in the environmental big picture, especially if it's not a fatal issue if it's being often used.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 15, 2022, 06:00:26 am
content: I drive a 25 year old car and it consumes less fuel and emits less CO2 than 90% of the new cars people are buying. The reason is really simple; gasoline engines were already in 1996 nearly as efficient as they ever can be, but cars were smaller.One of the root causes for many issues (effect of increasing gas prices, climate change, lack of parking space, etc. etc.) is the constantly increasing size of the car; width, height and weight.The trend should be the opposite, really, but business-wise, it makes more sense to sell problems than solutions.

author: T3sl4co1l
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 15, 2022, 08:16:33 am
content: Not quite true; just a combination of, manufacturers don't want to put in the work to materially improve MPG, and customers don't want to pay for it. Hybrids have somewhat extended that, using a small engine over a narrow power band and filling in the gaps with electric boost, making MPGs over 50 feasible. As I recall, the limit is somewhere around 80 or 100 MPG, at which point aerodynamics dominate, even basic stuff like crashworthiness gets really hard to meet, and exotic materials are required to keep curb weight absolutely minimal.Lemme see here... oh yeah, it was the VW (X)L1 that did it:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_1-litre_carWhich even got much more efficiency than that, but was toned down for the "production" model.But other than that, yeah, pretty dismal. Last year I upgraded my car by 16 years, yet the weight and mileage are almost identical. It does achieve that with a slightly smaller engine (1.8 vs 2.2L), but that's about it.I would love to see a trend towards actually-effective public transportation, and walkable cities, but it's a long, LONG way off for the US's suburban strip-mall addiction.Tim

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 15, 2022, 09:08:18 am
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on March 15, 2022, 06:00:26 amNo, not at all. First of all the small volume turbo charged engines really are more efficient compared to non-turbo charged engines. On top of that they can deliver more power as well. Expect a 15% increase in efficiency (= 15% lower fuel consumption) when used in a comparable weight / size car (turbocharged 1.0 litre versus non-turbocharged 1.6 litre engine). Hybrids with a true Atkinson cycle engine can easely reach a 30% decrease in fuel consumption (1.8 litre Atkinson hybrid versus 1.6 litre atmospheric). Both numbers not from the manufacturer's spec sheets but from actual driving conditions (*).The problem however is that people keep buying bigger and bigger cars and many of them are not hybrids; that is where the real problem is. To make things worse, car manufacturers are allowed to compensate CO2 emissions between electric cars and ICE cars. Governments should not have allowed that. Currently only Toyota is on track to make efficient cars; the rest is far behind still selling gas guzzlers.* I have been doing quite a bit of research into which car to buy next. Since a significant part of the costs of a car goes into fuel and I try to find a car with the lowest TCO, fuel consumption is a big factor. The car I think I want to buy (1.8 hybrid) is similar in size to what we have now but it has a much lower fuel cosumption: around 5.5 litre / 100km according to websites that collect fuel consumption data from owners. Our current car has a fuel consumption of 8.1 litre / 100km. Last year it broke down so we had to drive back home in a rental for >2k km. That rental car had a similar size compared to our own car (we needed be able to bring all of our luggage as well) but it's fuel consumption was around 6.7 litre/100km (including driving some stretches at high speed on the German highways where there is no speed limit).

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 15, 2022, 10:50:17 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on March 15, 2022, 09:08:18 amYes, yes at all. This 15% increase is exactly what I meant by "nearly". We are in complete agreement regarding the numbers.If you increase the efficiency by 15% and then weight and frontal area times drag coeff by 50%, you get a car that consumes 30% more.This is exactly what can be seen. One of the most popular family cars used to transport people currently consumes 7.5 l/100km on paper (and some 8.5 in reality). It's an SUV which is unsuitable for driving in difficult terrain, and no one uses it for that. Yet that is what is most popular. My 25-year old car, which is not an SUV, consumes 5l/100km on paper (actually measured at 5.8 l/100km).Large cars have just become popular, completely eating up all the engine improvements, and sadly, even beyond. The opposite should be happening, IMHO. Everybody should be driving something resembling a 1980's Nissan Micra but hybrid EV, or even better, just battery EV. Instead, even the Nissan Micra has become bigger.Hybrids are even larger, so-called monster SUV category is where hybrid "shines" apparently. All the benefit from the technology has gone into size increase, not fuel savings.People who do this shit deserve the gasoline price increases.This size increase reflects in everything; emissions, living costs, parking space availability, etc. I can quickly name two parking halls where I work which are built in 1980's or 1990's that only work with 2/3(!) capacity with today's cars, because modern cars simply do not fit in the parking spaces (3 spots between each two pillars, but only 2 cars fit).If someone told you they have came up with a 83% efficient SMPS to replace 80% efficient old version, would you tout this as some breakthrough miracle SMPS? No, you wouldn't. Yet this is the scale of internal combustion engine development during last 2-3 decades.

author: emece67
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 15, 2022, 01:39:46 pm
content: .

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 15, 2022, 02:30:24 pm
content: Ignoring the USA maybe, I think "average" personal commuter car has consumed approx. 7.5 l/100km for the last... 60-70 years?Available peak power and size has significantly increased. Collision safety has improved, which partially explains the fact thatexternalsize increase is larger than internal.I'd hazard a guess the peak low was around early 2000's; engines were just a few % away from today's, and size craze has not started yet. SUVs became mainstream (status symbol forlowermiddle class) some years later. Manufacturers responded by making all models larger.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 15, 2022, 09:14:35 pm
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on March 15, 2022, 02:30:24 pmNope:https://www.iea.org/articles/fuel-economy-in-the-european-unionhttps://www.iea.org/reports/global-fuel-economy-initiative-2021/explore-dataEmissions regulations squeezed efficiency "backwards".

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 16, 2022, 12:07:17 am
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on March 15, 2022, 10:50:17 amThe 2022 Toyota Sienna gets 36 MPG, on par with some sedans.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 16, 2022, 09:22:24 pm
content: Quote from: NiHaoMike on March 16, 2022, 12:07:17 amIndeed. Claiming that hybrid technology only serves large cars is nonsense. Toyota has been proving that hybrid works excellent for small / regular cars (like the Prius) beyond any doubt for over 20 years.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 17, 2022, 09:34:24 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on March 16, 2022, 09:22:24 pmIndeed, like claiming that the Moon is actually cheese.I'm glad no one is making such strange claims. I see you love fighting with strawmen. That's good for you, because it's very easy to win, and no one loses. The only thing that suffers is the SNR of the forum.

author: JohanH
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2022, 07:54:57 am
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on March 15, 2022, 02:30:24 pmThis is all quite interesting. The most efficient car I've owned was a 1988 Honda Civic with 1.3l gasoline engine, carburetor, four cylinder and four valves per cylinder. Even the VW Golf 1.6 diesel I have today has worse fuel consumption if you count liter/100km. The Honda was obviously lighter and not as secure as the VW Golf. And it had rust problems, so I definitely learnt how to use a MIG with it. It even rusted around the windshield. I think it was finally scrapped around the 450 000 km mark. Now today's cars seem to have less issue with rust, but some have electrical issues instead. And there is a lot more components in modern cars.

author: f4eru
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2022, 06:09:53 pm
content: Please stop off-topics.

author: fourtytwo42
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2022, 07:11:06 pm
content: Quote from: f4eru on March 18, 2022, 06:09:53 pmCan you be more specific ?

author: f4eru
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2022, 09:00:05 pm
content: Quote from: fourtytwo42 on March 18, 2022, 07:11:06 pmNo.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 23, 2022, 06:00:22 pm
content: Quote from: uer166 on March 14, 2022, 10:56:15 pmThat's a strawman argument. There are lead substitutes for older cars and old engines can be retrofitted with hardened valve seats so this is not really an issue at all. I know somebody with a collection of cars some over 100 years old and they are able to run on modern fuel. You have completely ignored the biggest part of the issue here, the fact that ethanol containing fuel spoils after just a few months so even your modern car will have problems if you don't drive it regularly. I'm surprised you'd bring up the environmental picture and then ignore the fact that I had to throw away almost 13 gallons of fuel that went bad. Also the fact that so much small equipment gets destroyed by the moisture in ethanol fuel corroding carburetors and other parts to pieces. It's also a bit of a scam, ethanol often costs more in resources to produce than you get out by using it as fuel. Crops are better used as food.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 23, 2022, 06:42:20 pm
content: Quote from: james_s on March 23, 2022, 06:00:22 pmThen again, such engines are better replaced by electric motors nowadays (unless it is used to run a generator).

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 23, 2022, 07:30:47 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on March 23, 2022, 06:42:20 pmYeah well the ones I have to deal with are mostly generators, and they are the ones that tend to sit the longest without being used and suffer the most damage. It's better to just have actual gasoline that is not deliberately contaminated with alcohol available for applications that benefit from it. Thankfully at least I can go to the marina and get pure gas, ethanol gas is a bad idea in boats for obvious reasons, very high humidity environment and large fuel tanks that often sit for extended periods.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 23, 2022, 07:55:52 pm
content: Quote from: james_s on March 23, 2022, 07:30:47 pmStill, cars don't suffer from the humidy problem at all even when sitting idle for long period (I have to move my car every now and then to avoid flat spots on the tires). My guess is that it is due to the fuel system of a car being air tight (to avoid build up of combustible fumes inside garages). This means that it is next to impossible for moisture to get in since the empty space in the tank is not filled with air but gas fumes.

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 24, 2022, 01:12:11 am
content: Quote from: james_s on March 23, 2022, 07:30:47 pmIf a generator is used so infrequently as to long term storage being a problem, wouldn't it make sense to make it part of something else that is used more often? For example, a car:http://priups.com/riddle/answer-1.htm

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 28, 2022, 06:09:01 am
content: Quote from: NiHaoMike on March 24, 2022, 01:12:11 amSooo take the 50 pound suitcase that I can carry around and use anywhere I need it, and turn it into a 4,000 lb car that is then tied up while I'm using it as a generator? How does that make any sense? The whole point of a portable generator is that it's a compact source of power, I use it to power my house during outages, I use it to charge my RC airplane batteries when I'm flying at fields without power, I use it to run power tools when I'm too far from a house to run extension cords. How about just make gasoline that is not contaminated with alcohol available for those uses that need it? I don't mind running the ethanol gas in my daily driver.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 28, 2022, 06:11:20 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on March 23, 2022, 07:55:52 pmWell I'm glad that you don't have this problem, it must be nice. Perhaps you can at least understand that not everybody is so fortunate as you are. The fact that you are not having problems with water getting in your fuel doesn't mean that it is not a real problem that people have. Try letting your car sit for 6 months to a year as is common for classic cars and see how that works out.

author: kaz911
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 28, 2022, 07:04:03 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on March 23, 2022, 07:55:52 pmEthanol Phase separation starts the moment you fill the tank. On a modern car with airtight fuel system - you can minimise the issue by ALWAYS filling your tank completely. If you on a regular basis fill your tank to 1/2 or less - then your tank is 1/2 full of humid air. And then phase separation of E10 starts. So it happens slower - but it still happens. But ethanol is still hard on modern fuel lines. And the more humid air environment you live in - the worse it gets. So if you 1/2 fill your tank at 50% humidity - you have put in roughly 0.25 ml of water. (0.5 ml at 100%). Those small ml's condense with mixed with E10 and the water content drops to the bottom of your fuel tank. And the ONLY way to get the water out is to drain the tank completely.But many devices do not have closed system fuel tanks.As I said - from lawnmowers to boats and older cars - many have open vented tanks. And with open vented tanks the problems are huge as they suck in air from outside all the time. So the humid air gets replenished continuously.In the USA they know about the problems with boats and take it very seriously now - so smart boat owners can buyREC-90fuel with little or no ethanol. Same goes for small aircraft engines. You do not want ethanol in a gasoline airplane engine at all as you are in the extremes of humidity generating events.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 28, 2022, 08:33:01 am
content: Quote from: kaz911 on March 28, 2022, 07:04:03 amI strongly doubt the latter. When I look at the construction of the fuel pump of my car (which is mounted inside the fuel tank as usual for gasoline engines), it looks like it is always sucking up fuel from the bottom of the tank so any amount water at the bottom gets removed immediately; a tiny bit of water in fuel isn't a problem for the engine.

author: kaz911
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 28, 2022, 10:54:57 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on March 28, 2022, 08:33:01 amAll fuel tanks have a little raised spout at the bottom of the tank. They NEVER suck from absolute lowest point. If they did they would suck in dirt, muck and contaminants entering when you fill the tank or if your supplier have slightly "dirty" fuel. So there are usually about 1/2 to 3++ litres in a car tank you can't "empty" by running the engine.That is the place where the water will drain assemble over time. When you then have enough of it or is slushes up to be high enough to be drained by the fuel pump - you might get a hose full of water. Your engine does not like that.If you take an old fuel tank apart you will learn just how much crap collects at the bottom of your tank. And now you know why most vehicles have fuel filters. Most boats have water separators before the fuel filter as well. But only for a tiny amount of water.

author: T3sl4co1l
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 28, 2022, 04:14:15 pm
content: So what if they do, that's what the fuel filter is there for; the pump itself (in the tank) also has a filter on its intake, at least on the ones I've seen.I never had to change anything about the fuel system in my last car (a '95). The fuel line rusted through from the outside (underbody/salt spray) before any internal parts had to be replaced. E10 is a long solved problem.Indeed the pump runs continuously in operation, a regulator returns the excess to the tank; it's always in circulation, no stratification as long as it's used from time to time.What's the matter with water anyway, as long as it's not separated it's increasing the octane of the fuel. Win-win, right?! ;-DDIf your filler cap is ill fitted (or missing!) I can see that moisture ingress might be a big problem. Indeed it's part of the emissions control system, the headspace has to build a little pressure so the charcoal canister can do its job.Tim

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 28, 2022, 04:56:16 pm
content: Quote from: T3sl4co1l on March 28, 2022, 04:14:15 pmFor a modern car that is driven regularly yes, it's fine, but as people have mentioned repeatedly there are lots of classic cars out there and other equipment and it gets a bit tiring to be marginalized and told none of our problems matter. Classic cars, infrequently driven cars, lawnmowers, tractors, pressure washers, snowblowers, generators, boats, light sport planes, there are millions and millions of people that are negatively impacted by ethanol contaminated gasoline. A real need exists to have pure, clean gas available, and the reasons it is so hard to find are almost purely political. Even with newer cars I have seen breakdowns twice where enough water collected in the fuel that the engine stalled and would not restart without considerable cranking.

author: kaz911
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 28, 2022, 05:00:21 pm
content: Fuel filters do not filter water away. They just filter particle matter.To separate water - you need a water filter/separator. That is a different animal.And no E10/E15 issues have not been solved - far from it.

author: uer166
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 29, 2022, 12:48:57 am
content: Just buy 100LL avgas or racegas for christsake. Sure, it's more expensive, but it's a niche product for a niche market? Nobody is obligated to provide cheap commodity prices or availability for something that is such a small % of vehicles/devices/generators/planes.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 29, 2022, 12:54:16 am
content: You might wanna look up what 100LL avgas is before recommending it. The LL stands for "low lead" which is actually quite a lot more lead than the old leaded auto gas had. It will very quickly destroy catalytic converters, oxygen sensors, and it will spew toxic lead into the environment. It's used in piston engine aircraft because no suitable alternative has been found but I would never advocate running it in portable equipment or any car made since the mid 70s when catalytic converters appeared.Pure gasoline is readily available at the source, the ethanol is added to it later. Any marina will carry it, and a few other places in states that allow it, but some states like CA don't allow it to be sold at all, that's the issue. It's not a matter of someone being obligated to carry it, it's a matter of heavy handed government regulations not allowing it to be sold.

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 10, 2022, 02:15:28 pm
content: I think the problems with fission waste make it so much more costly than they try to make it out to be that it needs to be avoided.At the same time the problems posed by the deline in cheap natural gas is going to lead to many people trying to find viable alternatives in the developed and developing worlds.Here in the US powerful entities committed more than two decades ago in the WTO to sell off whatever natural gas we have until its gone if there is demand for it. And there is, of course. Ending the export ban changed the picture considerably, so the cheap energy Americans grew up with its going away soon. And today's nuclear energy is dangerous.Quote from: zeke. on February 24, 2022, 01:23:52 pmAs long as energy is scarce, it wont get cheaper. You can count on that. In Europe, energy bills are already like student loans are in the US with a significant proportion of the population never getting caught up on their debt for energy.That will likely happen here in the US within the next few years, too. Living in colder parts of the US may become a luxury few Americans can afford without the subsidy on fuel that the export ban represented until 2020 or so and the ending of the energy subsidy.Heat pumps are not a game changer as some claim. Nor is nuclear fission. The nuclear fission industry is spending money on spin and PR campaigns to misled the public in order to put off replacing aging power plants which all have the same huge weaknesses as Fukushima. They must do it.Putting energy source agnosticism in laws isnt a solution. Its a lie, and one should understand its a theft of peoples votes and a way to get the public to become very cynical very rapidly.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 10, 2022, 02:27:05 pm
content: Heat pumps, resistive heating and burning hydrogen are pretty much the options for zero emission heating (wood doesn't scale). Regardless of nuclear power.The game which is changing is emissions, heat pumps are one of the logical conclusions to adapt.

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 10, 2022, 02:53:20 pm
content: Burning wood, makes people sick and the amount of wood which would have to be burned to replace other forms of energy is too high to be tolerable in the US. Much of the various bio-scams are just that, scams as they are positioning to get subsidies for various schemes that dont really make sense except top the politically deranged.Many communities have outlawed burning wood for heat because it makes one's neighbors sick.When its legal it leads to people choking and very high levels of various kinds of pollution (particulates) in certain communities in the winter. It impacts breathing diseases, and aggravates asthma. It covers everything with black soot.If people can only afford to heat by burning wood, maybe they should try to get a raise due to the rise in the cost of living and use gas or even costly electricity (which costs 3 or 4 times more) instead. Nuclear will cause problems as long as corporations are treated as they are today which is they are the darlings of the elites, who are in denial as to how dishonest they often are. Especially when it comes to nuclear fission. Nuclear fission is not cheap energy.People are going to need to invest in more research on non fission non fossil sources of energy. Energy is the need that isn't going away. And corporations and the consultants they hire to spin for them cant be trusted to tell the truth..

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 10, 2022, 03:01:01 pm
content: How or where do heat pumps create more and or cheaper clean heating? Wood pollutes the air, thats the problem with it. It measurably lowers children's IQ, as does diesel fuel. If it becomes the dominant heating source it leads to massive deforestation and susceptibility to flooding and other problems. Nuclear fission isn't clean power, almost all of it is vulnerable to the loss of the ultimate heat sink problem inherent to BWRs. And nuclear power plants wear out, they become aged and brittle and need to be replaced. They require a constant source of power to pump in fresh water to cool them.Quote from: Marco on April 10, 2022, 02:27:05 pmThey are, it seems to me, another kind of dodgy technology that is only successful because of logical and legal tricks they play. They do not in fact generate heat any more efficiently.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 10, 2022, 04:57:58 pm
content: Quote from: cdev on April 10, 2022, 03:01:01 pmComplete bullshit. Heatpumps work just fine and up to the promises (well, obviously, excluding normal amount of marketing exaggeration... always be careful when buyinganythingand read the fine print). Millions, millions and millions are installed and monitored. I monitor mine. Cut the energy consumption by around 50-60%. Works even better in a bit warmer climates, where most of the people are.If you don't understand how it works, it's your problem. It's explained literally everywhere, you can easily find different explanations.The source of the free energy is the Sun. Sun heats up the air (or soil in case of ground-source pumping), this heat is tapped into.It does not work completely without external energy source, though. It does not hence produce unlimited amount of free energy, but no one is claiming that. Producing 3-4kW out of 1kW is still just huge, even if that 1kW is from dirty sources. And the grid is getting cleaner, and you can always help by installing PV. I have PV, too.In essence, a house warmed up by 4kW of burned gas, oil, or direct electric heating consumes 4kW from the mentioned source, and dissipates this 4kW through the envelope of the house, heating up the environment by the same 4kW. A house with a heatpump consumes 1kW from the grid, heats up the house by the same 4kW. This 4kW still escapes through the envelope of the house, but the outdoor unit of the heatpumpcoolsdown the outside air by 3kW. Environment if only warmed up by 1kW, which is also what you get billed for.This is all true completely regardless of whether you choose to believe it or not. You can choose not to believe in facts if you so wish. Hopefully you stop confusing other laymen with your political agenda, though. Heatpumps are the key of solving the energy and climate crisis, period. As many as possible should be installed ASAP.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 10, 2022, 06:42:36 pm
content: Quote from: cdev on April 10, 2022, 03:01:01 pmLets say in 30 years the UK is completely on nuclear and they turn off gas.Some is more than none. You can't keep comparing against natural gas, it will simply be taken away.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 10, 2022, 06:45:26 pm
content: Burning wood is indeed non-scalable (meaning: not everyone can burn wood on this planet; and it would be disastrous if everyone tried to do it). On the other hand, in small enough scale, it's also a renewable energy source, using the solar energy + CO2 collected by the plants, and only emitting the same CO2 that was consumed by the trees growing. Bun unlike some, I don't think it's realistic to try at very large scales; human has the tendency to overuse the resources.But, burning wood works along with air-source heatpumps during coldest seasons, in coldest of the climates, when the conditions for heatpumping get poor. Such "auxiliary" usage naturally limits the extent of doing it. It makes no sense to burn wood during conditions when you can pump heat at COP=4, using significant amount of wind and PV to provide that 1/4 of the energy.The burning conditions (stove / boiler design; how the wood is dried and chopped, etc.) are really important. With the right equipment and attitude, particulate emissions are not that big of a problem, especially in sparsely populated areas.I have a hybrid:* Air source heatpump* Resistive heating* PV generation* Heat storagePlus a combination boiler which can burn:* Oil* WoodThe old combination boiler from early 1980's is not the most clean and efficient by modern standards, but also not hopeless. The idea is to burn oil or wood locally during times when the heatpumping COP gets close to 1 (in other words, amount of extracted "free" energy getting small), and when the grid is especially overloaded or dirty. You can look up the CO2 emissions of the grid at any point in time, like you can monitor the hourly market price. Last December was harsh as many Europeans might remember; there were a few moments in such way that my locally burned oil produced less emissions per kWh than using the grid. So I burned oil for a few days. Next winter I'm probably going to burn some wood during the coldest days.But in the end, the economical, environmental, even political cost of burning fossil fuels depends on the total (or average). Heatpumps areexcellentstill at dT=30degC or so. Heat distribution within house is critical. With fan coil units (either directly running the refrigerant, or water),largemodern radiators, or in-floor heating, COP around 3.5-4 is still totally achievable at around 0degC outside. If you look at the integral over the winter season, even in Finland most of the heating energy is spent at conditions like -5degC, still totally manageable to heatpumps. Where majority of people live, conditions are much easier. Heatpumps totally shine at +5degC, without having to run defrost cycles.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 10, 2022, 06:54:32 pm
content: Quote from: Marco on April 10, 2022, 06:42:36 pmGas is just bullcrap. It's OK for limited use, but not to the extent it's being used in Europe right now. It's insane to burn Putin's farts when you have perfect conditions for extracting truly free energy out of thin air!It does not need to be forbidden. Either a truly free market, or a sane politically controlled one, will both result in the same: getting rid of artificially cheap gas and artificially expensive electricity.There does not need to be a full 1:1 parity on energy prices, but if electric energy is freaking 4 times more expensive than gas, this completely eats up the natural incentive for installing heatpumps.If the energy price is roughly similar, then the transition to heatpumping will happen on its own. And, gas can remain as an auxiliary energy source during specially cold days, when the heatpump efficiency drops.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 11, 2022, 01:52:09 am
content: Wow, this thread is a gold mine!

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 11, 2022, 06:44:32 am
content: Quote from: Marco on April 10, 2022, 06:42:36 pmMaybe where you are, but here that is highly unlikely, not in my lifetime. Natural gas is cheap and plentiful. It's so cheap that it is common at oil drilling platforms to simply burn off the excess to dispose of it. Oil is not going anywhere as long as it can be found, we could stop burning it as fuel today and there would still be huge demand. It's used in almost everything.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 11, 2022, 09:43:33 am
content: One way or another, things are going to change fast.Between demographic collapse, mass migration and climate change the status quo hasn't been this unstable since WW2. The last 40 years have been exceptionally stable in the west, luxury products and the way we spend leisure time changed and nothing much else except on paper (ie. more debt, less savings). That's not going to continue.In the sea change, I think the NWO is going to force through some changes to fight climate change as well. Demand be damned.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 11, 2022, 01:17:24 pm
content: Quote from: james_s on April 11, 2022, 06:44:32 amIt is impossible to foresee. It is clear that burning fossil fuels is not the way forward and that the earth will be a lot less habitable for us humans when all fossil fuels are going to be used. It comes down to the political will (and intelligence) to stop using fossil fuels in the next couple of decades. The 'Paris agreement' is pretty clear about being CO2 neutral in 2050 by countries that have committed to it.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 11, 2022, 06:57:46 pm
content: Even the most optimistic data I have seen seems to show that even the most drastic efforts to combat climate change are essentially futile and it is too late to really make much difference. This makes me question to what lengths it is worth going to try to prevent damage that has already been done. The time for drastic action may have been 100 years ago.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 11, 2022, 08:35:39 pm
content: Quote from: james_s on April 11, 2022, 06:57:46 pmEven in that scenario: fossil fuels are finite and there isn't enough of it to support the increasing amount of people on the world that have money to spend on things like TVs and cars.

author: kaz911
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 13, 2022, 10:05:39 pm
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on April 10, 2022, 04:57:58 pmThat is a statement with some "hidden facts"You specify heat pump with a COP of 4. That is average coefficient of performance over a year. The COP is dependent on the outside temperature AND the inside temperature increase you require. So for a well isolated newish house - based on heating systems are based on 35-40c water circulation or air circulation - a heat pump CAN be great. But for most of those installations you have resistive heater for hot water.But if you live in an older property - where room heat is based on circulating water at 60-75c (the norm) - then you have issues - and for even the current best heat pumps - the winter months in countries like DK/SE/NO/FI/UK/N-DE - DEC/JAN/FEB/MAR - the COP will be around 2 - so only twice as effective at best. And usually you then require additional resistive heat element for hot water. You can upgrade radiators and insulation and get better results but that has a huge CO2 impact as well.So you spend a lot of CO2 up front replacing your 92-95% efficient gas burner to a 200% winter efficient heat pump and new radiators etc - where about 30-50% of the electricity is produced by converting Natural Gas into Electricity - the actual TOTAL environmental savings are minimal.So for the colder countries - Combo systems are probably the best - where you have a heat pump combined with a gas burner. It also gives you some redundancy and modern system can auto-switch based on rates. So you can use cheap night time electricity for the heat pump part and Nat Gas for daytime.But I think if we have to replace Nat Gas to something else - heat pumps is not the answer for most current properties in the UK at least.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 13, 2022, 10:25:58 pm
content: Quote from: kaz911 on April 13, 2022, 10:05:39 pmEven in older properties a lot of the radiators will be duals, which are perfect to put fans in between, which will massively knock down the thermal resistance to the room and thus allow lower water temperatures. Currently those kind of boosters are ridiculously overpriced, but if government was serious about getting rid of natural gas and did large scale replacements they could create low cost standardized solutions which work for the most common type of home situations. Among which would be adding fan boosters to radiators. Then when installing district ground source heating, they could apply those solutions where it worked and do more expensive custom work on what's left.Of course this is supposing efficient government, which is a bit optimistic.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 13, 2022, 10:28:17 pm
content: An option would be to upgrade older homes to underfloor heating but that is only viable for cement / concrete floors where the tubes for the water can be cut into the floor. I have done that (so far) for the ground floor and the bathroom of my home. Under floor heating has the advantage that it feels more comfortable at lower temperatures because the floor is also radiating heat.

author: kaz911
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 13, 2022, 10:57:43 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on April 13, 2022, 10:28:17 pmI'm 100% for UFHbut typical old UK properties are not easy to refurb to efficient UFH. You can get insulation materials that help but it will never be as good as a good "stone" base.My previous house in the UK had UFH for all rooms - except the bathrooms - where they in typical UK style had built all the bathrooms up on a plywood base with tiles. The UK builders LOVE tiles on plywood - but it is a horrible and expensive long term solution to bathrooms. Plywood vs tiles have different heat expansion rates so they always fail at some point - leading to very expensive repairs - even with marine-grade plywood bases.My principle for bathrooms : Water based UFH on stone base + 2 electric heat mats + dual fuel towel heaters (so both water + electricity) - then you can take the chill of the tiles in the "warm" periods with electric floor heat - and have a spare mat when one burns out. So when "water heating system" is running everything comes off the water heat system. That solution add maybe 10-15% to the overall cost of the bathroom - but should last for much longer time as long as you don't select "current fashion" colours for the tiles.

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 14, 2022, 01:35:42 am
content: Quote from: Marco on April 13, 2022, 10:25:58 pmJust needs a bunch of computer case fans and a smart controller based on ESP32, almost too easy.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 14, 2022, 06:07:38 am
content: Quote from: kaz911 on April 13, 2022, 10:05:39 pmOlder property, like my house from 1952. I installed larger radiators, dropped the water from 55degC to 45degC (at -25degC), which is a significant change. Swapping radiators is trivial work for nearly any plumber, it wasn't difficult for me to DIY as a first-timer, either. Radiators are not expensive either, because they are mass produced from stamped steel. For me, the cost of upgrade was around 600EUR IIRC. But of course, it can be more for a larger house.Of course, the new radiators are a bit larger, eating up room space. So my main living floor is now down from 65 square meters to 64.9 square meters. Compromises!Underfloor heating can be retrofitted, too, but it's obviously much more work.Concentrating on coldest days is mentally dishonest, because regarding fossil fuels, only the total matters. You need to look at the integral. It's OK if COP drops down to 1.0 and you even burn fossils, if that only happens 10 days a year. Yearly COP (SCOP) is exactly the right number to look at, because it is calculated as produced heat divided by consumed energy.

author: kaz911
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 14, 2022, 07:03:12 am
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on April 14, 2022, 06:07:38 amNo - COP in winter months are the correct place to look - as you usually (at least in the UK) spend 50-70% of your total annual heating energy during those months. So COP or even SCOP are offset as they are not based on real "consumption pattern"And if you dropped water temperature from 55c to 45c - what temperature is your hot water? or are you not using a heat pump for your hot water consumption? On most low temperature with "overdrive" heat pumps that can generate 60-70c hot water for your water tank - COP is very low (close to 1) - but most "low heat" heat pumps do not even offer the option of 60-70c hot water for your water tank.So you end up spending a lot of CO2 on buying heat pumps and new radiators - and it will take quite a few years to get that CO2 investment back - vs just continuing on Nat Gas.So which heat pump do you have? I can calculate the winter COP on it if I have an approximate location as well.My latest calculation on Daikin Altherma 3 - gives a winter COP of 1.8 for DEC/JAN/FEB/MAR based on AVG temperature for my winter months. But them heating run hardest during nighttime/early morning - where COP of nighttime running drops to 1.3-1.4. During summer COP is closer to 8. But we have very little heat demand during summer. 80% of our total Nat Gas bill is during the above 4 months - and we do not have any resistive water heaters etc.

author: kaz911
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 14, 2022, 07:20:15 am
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on April 14, 2022, 06:07:38 amOhh and if your system was running at 55c before - going to 45c is not a big issue - I totally agree.But most UK properties and most other "wet based" systems I know of is based on / and specified on 70c hot water flow. So your 1952 house probably had improvements before you moved in.So going from 70c radiators to 45c radiators means about twice the size of the radiators. So then you have to choose of you go 'out" or "up" and how many layers.Even my house in Spain is calculated based on circulation temperature of 55c for UFH - where modern UFH is based on 30-40c. I can run it at 40c but it take about 2 days more to get up to temperature. So that is 2 full days of the system running 100% - But once it is primed it is not a problem keeping the temperature due to the heavy stone floors.But one issue many UK properties have is absolutely horrible installation of heating systems. My "new" old house have a boiler that is about twice the size it should be based on my heat loss calculations. So I spoke to the former owners and they upgraded as they could not keep the house "hot" so the heating engineer suggested a larger boiler. That solved nothing. The ONLY issue the system had - was the heating engineer had not read and understood the boiler manual. The ONLY thing that was missing from the system was a £15 auto bypass valve to make certain the return water was the correct temperature. If the return water was too cold - the boiler would "cycle" all the time and not produce constant heat. I had 5 different heating "professionals' out to check the system - and only ONE gave the correct answer. So he is now doing our heating maintenance.And Heat Pump engineers are no better - and it is not country dependent. There are very few "real" professionals out there compared to the "market" growth.So after fixing the system - we have used 50% less Nat Gas vs previous owners bills. And house is nice and warm. And I have derated the boiler to 60% the capacity. Sadly boiler is not great so it burns full speed the first 60 seconds when it turns on - ignoring the de-rating. So I could change boilers and improve it slightly more. But now my boiler burns clean and lean - and average at 92-93% efficiency despite the "oversized" boiler.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 14, 2022, 07:51:40 am
content: Don't get me started on installers of heating systems. In my experience they know nothing about what they are actually doing.

author: kaz911
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 14, 2022, 08:46:27 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on April 14, 2022, 07:51:40 amI actually think the UK could lower total home heating Nat Gas consumption / CO2 by 30-40% if all installations got a good health check. It would be a faster and cheaper and more OVERALL CO2 efficient solution than switching to Heat pumps.After we found our issue - I have paid attention and spoken to other house owners - and 3 in 5 had same issue - lack of a bypass valve and cycling boilers. So I have earned a few pints... A £15 part that completely destroy heating efficiency if not installed. NOT all boilers need it though. Only boilers that have a Delta-T in/out requirement. But a lot do.In my old property I put in Intergas (NL) boiler to replace the stupid Baxi Boilers. That worked a treat with Evohome and OpenTherm. But in the UK they are so focused on their old WB or Baxi boilers that heating engineers for Intergas is hard to find. But Intergas is a much better boiler.And for those with GAS - the Testo 115i Bluetooth Pipe measurement devices are great for finding issues with heating systems. Armed with 2 of those you can diagnose boiler issues fast - and it makes it child's play to balance radiators. (Another "often forgotten" improvement to your system) - Testo's software/apps are terrible but I have not found anything better.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 14, 2022, 09:24:54 am
content: Quote from: kaz911 on April 14, 2022, 07:03:12 amRealyearly COP is the correct figure, I don't mean the headline marketing figure. It seems you have invented your own "winter COP" which you look at, when the others look at yearly COP. Latterdirectlyis, by definition, the number that defines the heating cost and CO2 output.Heating power goes up linearly with decreasing ambient temperature. So colder days dominate in the energy consumption, indeed. But not thecoldestdays, because number of such days starts going steeply down at some point.COP goes down at the same time, further delinearizing the energy consumption.So look at Southern Finland for example, with yearly average of something like +5degC. You totally can calculate the yearly heating energy consumption based on this average figure, because heating power required is linear. And this matches with the input power required by resistive heating. But, with a heatpump, if you look at the input power, you can't calculate it at the average yearly temperature, because it performs worse under lower ambient temperature. So then you need to actually calculate the integral. For each hour, heating energy required is k*(Tin - Tout). Input energy with a heatpump is this through the COP function, let's very roughly approximate by k/4 * (Tin - Tout)^1.3. Then just integrate over the year.Now if you approximate by the yearly average temperature, you get too optimistic results. And, if you approximate by the coldest temperatures, you get too pessimistic results.Some of us actually monitor the results. Here in my region,realyearly COPs of air-to-water vary between maybe 1.8 and 3.5, mostly depending on distribution system (radiator size, etc.). Not all retrofits are indeed successful, and the same solution can't be forced to everyone.But conditions here suck. What I'm disheartened to see is that in much easier conditions, people claim to have the same or even worse numbers. This only means people are either making up excuses, or spendingeven lesseffort to change the things. It's the same with house insulation: we are required by law to install 500mm of modern high performance wool in the attic, and 250mm in the walls. Our newly built houses are actually "pressure tested", air leaks being measured and documented.And then you go down 500-1000km where conditions aremucheasier, and energy consumption is not lower, but actuallyhigher. It makes no sense.QuoteMy hot water is 55-60degC as per regulations. It is pre-warmed by the heatpump to whatever temperature the heating system requires, then brought up to the final temperature by resistive heating. Alternative installation is to have two storage tanks so that the heatpump alternates production at different temperatures. But even then, it needs to practically use resistive heating to support DHW. Final COP is nearly the same, and varies with the outdoor temperature. It's obviously worse than the house heating COP, but still significantly over 1. For our family, DHW energy use is probably less than one tenth of heating energy usage.QuoteYou are orders of magnitude off. I did take you seriously until this.QuoteES AWC9 R32 aka. Amitime HeatStar09M R32. I do have the factory test reports for COP under different conditions. Right now I'm still measuring just input power and comparing to earlier power consumption of the house in similar conditions, because I have not yet installed the output energy meter (instrument measuring flow rate and temperature difference accurately). Yearly COP seems to be roughly around 2.3, including amount of supportive oil burning calculated as COP=1. COP1 parity is reached around -20degC ambient, in which condition the pump still runs, but produces only its input power worth of output. For nearest location with climate data, see Tampere, Finland.What is worth noting is that differences between expensive flagship heatpumps and cheaper units is usually very small, almost negligible. The cheaper ones implement mostly the same technology. For example, mine cost 2900EUR; many would have chosen a 5000EUR model instead, to get 0.1 units better yearly COP. Instead, I was able to spend another 600EUR into radiator upgrade, which increased the COP by maybe 0.3-0.4 units.But most of the World's population live in significantly easier conditions. I specifically look at the UK, where the humid air over 0degC for most of the year provides just excellent conditions for air-source heatpumping. (Humid air even at +1degC does not seem to freeze, as latent energy can be pulled out by condensing the humidity, causing small dT over the evaporator and little need for defrost cycles.) But if natural gas is 1/3th of the price of electricity, the change is not going to happen.

author: JohanH
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 14, 2022, 09:32:11 am
content: No problem in my case converting from oil to heat pump. Just add larger radiators as Siwastaja said. And preferably MUCH larger.I have a house from 1927. It used oil and 80 degr C water to radiators. The house is now better insulated (also has a new section with in-floor heating), and new larger radiators installed. Water temp is now max 55 degr C in winter at -25 degr C outside (and lower at warmer temps of course). The heat pump also creates warm water. Heat pump is 6 kW Nibe F1255-6 (compressor has variable rpm). House is 145 m^2.I have reliable measurements ofCOP(separate energy meter and flow sensor in the heat pump). TotalSCOPfor 2021 was 3.7. Total electrical consumption by the heat pump was 4745 kWh. It produced 13575 kWh heating and 3995 kWh warm water, in total 17570 kWh energy. The 6.5 kW resistive heaters (that are used as spare if the compressor fails or to top up) have basically never been used.An important thing was also to ditch all thermostats on radiators. On one or two of the radiators I've restricted the flow (e.g. on upper floor), but most are wide open. This is important for the heat pump. Temperature and flow speed is automatically adjusted by the heat pump to get optimal delta T on the water.

author: JohanH
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 14, 2022, 10:03:18 am
content: Quote from: Marco on April 13, 2022, 10:25:58 pmI've thought of this and it would indeed improve efficiency of the heat pump. DIY setups are out of question due to reliability. But some manufacturers of radiators have models with fans, but they are way too expensive. E.g. the local Purmo here:https://global.purmo.com/en/products/heating-systems/radiators/panel-radiators/fan-radiators

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 14, 2022, 10:08:14 am
content: Quote from: kaz911 on April 14, 2022, 07:03:12 amAnd here, a simple calculation would do;I did purchase 2pcs of Purmo C22 1600x600mm, and for the rest, combined the old radiators in new configurations.Weight is 53kg, total 106kg. Because steel stamping and welding is trivial, I assume the manufacturing of steel itself dominates in CO2. Quick Googling reveals 1.85 tonnes per 1000kg of steel. CO2 = 196kg.10 degree drop in water temperature equals 0.7 units in COP under -10/+40 conditions, but under average conditions, it's not as much, let's say 0.4 units.House energy consumption is 16000kWh/year. With COP = 2.0 (no radiator update) energy bought is 8000kWh. With COP=2.4 (radiator update) it is 1333kWh less.Quick Googling reveals average CO2 in Finnish grid in 2020 was 72g/kWh, but this is yearly average, and during the coldest seasons the figure is worse, so let's use the yearly average of 2018 - 121g/kWh instead. With this, each year the new radiators save 1333kWh * 0.121kg = 161kg of CO2.The radiators save up the CO2 they spent in 1.5 years. Given that the expected lifetime of the radiators is basically infinite (the originals from 1960's are still in perfect condition with no signs of any issues), and it is only expected the usage of heatpumps continues in the future, and future heatpumps also similarly benefit from the lower distribution temperature*, it's an excellent investment which pays for the CO2 it consumed at least 15-20 times but possibly over 50 times during its lifetime.*) many other interesting technologies benefit from that, too; including water-based energy storage, extending the energy density of each water liter by allowing larger temperature variation range, and/or decreasing losses through the storage tank insulation.-Then, let's look at the environmental impact of the heatpump itself. Refrigerant is the nastiest component; mine has 1.4kg of R32, with GWP=675. This is equivalent of 945kg of CO2. Now R32 is a "pure" (non-mixed) refrigerant, making recycling it easier. Also the machine is a factory-made sealed monoblock type so leakage is much more improbable than in the "professional" installations of split units. Let's still assume that in 25% of the units, all of the refrigerant somehow escapes; average CO2 equivalent output would be 236kg.Now let's see how much the CO2 saving is:COP=2.4, grid = 0.121kg CO2 / kWh: 16000kWh/2.4 * 0.121 kg = 806kg CO2Burning natural gas, 0.185kg/kWh: 16000kWh * 0.185 kg = 2960kg CO2Difference = 2154kg. The leaked refrigerant is "paid back"ten timesduring each year, orhundred timesduring expected 10-year lifetime. It's a total non-issue!

author: kaz911
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 14, 2022, 10:09:22 am
content: When I talk about CO2 emissions from replacement of one system with another - it is the PRODUCTION footprint of new radiators + heat pumps + gasses you fill in the heat pump.Just like an electric car - there is a "production" cost of CO2 you have to overcome. On electric cars you have to drive 30-100k miles before you are "at equal level" to a similar fossil fuel powered car for total CO2 expenditure - mostly due to batteries. But all the components to upgrade your heating system with have a CO2 cost to produce.We are doing full end to end calculations where it is possible.Insulation: I fully agree that insulation should be better. In the UK a lot of the houses from <1930 (a huge percentage of housing stock) does NOT have hollow wall cavities. So to efficiency insulate you have to either build inside - reducing square footage - or outside - and build new walls. Both solutions have to be done with utmost care to minimise future damp issues. Especially adding another outside wall can be a disaster for damp proofing and often fails with huge impact.For me to upgrade my 1930 house to a heat pump - I would have to not only add internal or external walls - I would also have to replace all pipework as the pipes are not correctly sized for colder water and more flow from new bigger radiators. The house have tiny wall cavities and no insurance company will cover insulation as they can't do a full survey on the cavities to ensure no damp issues or thermal bridging - which means - it is on my dime 100% if I do cavity wall insulation - OR internal / external wall insulation. Insurance will only cover if I can document EVERY part of the house walls - which then require removal of quite a few walls to document.So estimated cost for my 200m2 house is £60-70.000 without insurance and about £100-120.000 with insurance to convert to efficient heat pump operation.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 14, 2022, 10:20:30 am
content: Quote from: kaz911 on April 14, 2022, 10:09:22 amI edited my previous post to add such calculation about the refrigerant escaping, which is considered the worst-case scenario regarding the climate.I chose to show partial calculations of the components assumed to dominate. This enables me to do an independent calculation.Feel free to show a more complete calculation, but I'm sure the end result won't be massively different. Maybe double my numbers.Compared to the footprint of an EV, which is 1000kg of steel and A LOT of energy intensive battery chemistry, a heatpump and a few radiators or underfloor heating pipe is fundamentally very simple technology. Heck, the EV alone includes the similar heatpump, and as cars tend to, loses the refrigerant in 5-10 years after which new refrigerant is just put in.It is exactly this simplicity of heatpumps: small CO2 footprint, ease of manufacturing, ease of scaling up, which is why I suggest installing them whenever possible. Compare this to complex and less scalable systems which deal with lot more toxic substances or conflict minerals: PV and li-ion storage, for example. And I'm not saying they are bad technology, not at all.And no one ever claimed installing an air-to-water heatpump is suitable for every situation. There are pathologic cases really hard to upgrade; for example, series connected radiators, with pipes hidden inside walls. (I don't know how usual series connection is in the UK, for example. Here, parallel connection dominates.)Split type air-to-air pumps can offer good yearly COP with the expense of some acoustic noise (you can't use smallest fan settings or you compromise the COP for the same reason we discussed above; high condenser temperature) and the fact one unit really caters only one room properly. But still, installing one or two is one of the simplest and cheapest way to cut down the energy use.

author: JohanH
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 14, 2022, 11:43:54 am
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on April 14, 2022, 10:20:30 amWe did use an air-to-air heat pump in addition to oil for a couple of years. I didn't detect much lower oil consumption, maybe because most of the house still had the original 1927 insulation at the time, but comfort was dramatically better.What was impressive, though, was replacing the oil and air-to-air pump with a ground source heat pump. It consumes a little bit more electricity than the air-to-air pump, but I'm saving all of the oil (about 1500-2000 l/year)! Now a new house section and some added insulation to the old part of the house makes it hard to compare directly. But still, basically saving the oil was worth it.That said, in warmer climates than this, air-to-air or air-to-water heat pumps are probably the way to go.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 14, 2022, 11:51:28 am
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on April 14, 2022, 10:20:30 amThis is (leaking from the other similar thread) part of the issue, people think having whole-house HVAC is normal, then take it a step further and think it is essential. Humans don't die because some of the rooms in their house are a little uncomfortable. I grew up in a house that had one warm room, and the rest were effectively uninhabitable during the worst of winter (other than sleeping under the mountain of bedding), saved a bunch of money. Compare to people I know who complain about the cost of living and their heating bills, yet warm up the entire house to 23-24 degrees.We have a single split heat pump, COP 3 point something, 2kW electrical draw. That is more than enough for our 60m2of living space in a modern insulated house and easily spills over into other rooms if the doors are left open.

author: kaz911
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 14, 2022, 12:21:19 pm
content: Quote from: JohanH on April 14, 2022, 11:43:54 amWe looked at ground source heat pumps as well. But they do not work on chalky soil.Our "re-do" house for heat pump would cost the equivalent of about 14-18 years of our current CO2 expenditure using Nat Gas. That does NOT include CO2 part of Electricity consumption for heat pump over the years. But that does include building works / all replacement materials / heat pump (combo with Nat Gas) / underfloor heating etc.So in actual terms - pretty much equivalent to our EV in CO2 "payback time"

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 14, 2022, 01:03:51 pm
content: Quote from: kaz911 on April 14, 2022, 12:21:19 pmIn what way? Too little replenishment? That can be solved with net zero heating across the year. Power is getting ever cheaper in summer, at some point electricity from PV in the summer day will be almost free, open your windows and turn on the airconditioning

author: JohanH
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 14, 2022, 01:10:00 pm
content: Quote from: kaz911 on April 14, 2022, 12:21:19 pmThe most common here are vertical bore holes in the bedrock. We have a 170 m hole. Out of that, topmost 8 meters, that was soil, had to be reinforced with a steel pipe. People that have plenty of land do put down horizontal loops also, it's a bit cheaper than drilling.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 14, 2022, 03:03:02 pm
content: Quote from: Marco on April 14, 2022, 01:03:51 pmAt least some summertime cooling is needed almost everywhere, you can just use passive (i.e., no heatpump, just circulation pump) cooling from the ground loop, and as a side effect, replenish the ground source. This is a total no-brainer. COP is excellent (in excess of 10-20) because it's just a ~50W circulation pump to fan coil units.Or if you don't want to cool your house for some reason, just run the ground loop liquid in a fan coil unit outside, like a car radiator! No need to replenish using precious PV power, let that PV go to the grid for those who need to cool with air-source air conditioners.This should be an almost mandatory part of ground-source heatpumping because it's so trivial, but as it stands today, it's considered some DIY enthusiast trick.

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 14, 2022, 03:35:08 pm
content: If the outdoor humidity isnt super high, in the example, you give, a fan with a decent filter on the intake would be better.Quote from: NiHaoMike on March 10, 2022, 12:51:37 pm

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 14, 2022, 03:58:55 pm
content: Quote from: NiHaoMike on April 14, 2022, 01:35:42 amDrop the smartness and the ESP32, buy a bunch of cheap 12V computer fans and a 5V or 6V plug-in switch mode power supply. Wiring is left as an exercise for the reader. Nowthisis something a complete layman can do, following instructions, and it's completely safe as well.But I know. Any solution that requires any amount of creativity, or actuallydoing anythingexcept paying taxes and going to work from nine to five, is a no-go in our current mindset.

author: kaz911
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 14, 2022, 06:00:59 pm
content: Quote from: Marco on April 14, 2022, 01:03:51 pmWe live on chalk ground like white cliffs of Dover. It works really bad for Ground Source heat systems. So we have maybe 50cm of soil with high chalk content - and then straight chalk down for many many meters (-70m at least - estimates are around 170m) - calculations said a cop of 1.1 to 1.3...

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 14, 2022, 08:03:25 pm
content: Quote from: kaz911 on April 14, 2022, 06:00:59 pmBut limestone isn't really special and ground source heatpumps do work in solid rock.For COP 1.1 to 1.3 you'd have to be freezing the borehole deep below zero ... those calculations are questionable.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 14, 2022, 11:25:08 pm
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on April 14, 2022, 09:24:54 amHow about some data to back that up:"Technical, economic and ecological effects of lowering temperatures in the Moscow district heating system"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544220317886A very long tail distribution for the temperature (copied below). Percentage of world population living in a colder environment than Moscow? I'd put that somewhere under 0.5%

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 14, 2022, 11:37:57 pm
content: Quote from: kaz911 on April 14, 2022, 06:00:59 pmWhy? I cant see any references that say it is unsuitable, in fact the reverse saying it is often semi-saturated and has good conductivity.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 14, 2022, 11:51:14 pm
content: Quote from: Marco on April 14, 2022, 08:03:25 pmBest guess is that they have (non specified) constraints that the heat pump should be directly producing hot water at some unreasonably high temperature, as a drop in replacement for the moronic combined UK heating/DHW system. Sure it might have made sense in the past, but it doesn't seem to make sense with todays technology and market. Saying its the geologies fault is misleading and almost certainly wrong.Separate HVAC and DHW appliances... like the majority of the world does it.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 15, 2022, 05:45:30 am
content: I think the "COP 1.1 to 1.3" is not any actual calculation, but some misunderstood techno babble with words and numbers put together. Ground source heatpump systems are not calculated like that. Instead, they choose some sensible minimum ground loop temperature (like 0 degC) and calculate the required ground looplength; and ifthatnumber is toohigh, then they say your soil type is not optimal.If the "calculation" was indeed made by some company specializing in HVAC installations, it sounds like it's a marketing trick trying to sell you something else.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 15, 2022, 05:55:05 am
content: Quote from: Someone on April 14, 2022, 11:25:08 pmThanks. And you can easily finalize the calculation in MSpaint: scale up the bar sizes according to the temperature difference between the room temperature and said bar. For example, assuming room temperature of +20degC, if you keep the 0degC bar unmodified, multiply the -20degC bar by two. Now you have transformed from the hour count to relative energy consumption, and you can directly see which outdoor temperatures cause most of the energy consumption. Looking at the picture, this transform increases the contribution of -10 to -15degC weather, but* around 0degC still dominates!* below -20degC is still meaningless in the total bill!

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 15, 2022, 07:13:00 am
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on April 15, 2022, 05:55:05 amYep, and since there are air-source heat pumps with COP > 1 at -20C all this talk about requiring ground source to be practical is silly. Air source will work and be practical almost anywhere, ground source might be a nice investment for additional savings, or it might not.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 15, 2022, 07:26:17 am
content: Ground source heatpumps decrease worst case loads for the grid, it's not about individuals but the community.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 15, 2022, 08:04:14 am
content: Quote from: Someone on April 15, 2022, 07:13:00 amIn essence, ground source is a "must" in:* absolute coldest areas like Northern Finland, Siberia, Alaska... Where peak colds are -40degC, and basically the winter is below -20degC three-four months straight.* less extreme but still quite cold conditions like Southern Finland, Moscow, Montreal, in large, poorly insulated estates, with small radiators that cannot be upgraded. Estates with historical value with least modifications possible, for example. In such cases, air-to-water may perform really poorly, for yearly COP of 1.5 to 2.0, but ground source can still deliver in excess of 3.0 (which is, obviously, not that good number for ground source, either!)Ground source is totally the wrong tool for the job in:* the UK* or anywhere with similar climate, especially in large cities.There are of course many borderline cases. In Southern Finland, it's actually a big deciding factor whether to go for air source or ground source heatpumping. JohanH's case seems to be quite typical, where ground source has been the correct choice because despite some radiator upgrades, the water temperature required is still high-ish, and the old house itself isn't most energy efficient either, and I guess there are aesthetical and practical reasons why improving the insulation is a no-go.On the other hand, for me, air source was the right choice and totally viable with simple, inexpensive radiator updates, and it will get even better when I finish the underfloor heating upgrade. Being on sand, ground source is not optimal for me anyway.At this very moment, it makes little sense to buy air-to-water heatpumps in Finland professionally installed, because the mass hysteria caused hyperinflation in their install prices, resulting in nearly doubling from 8000EUR to 14000EUR investment almost overnight. At the same time, you can get ground source for 18000EUR. But this does not affect DIY people, or those who know how to plan the project and pull the right ropes (for example: just buy the heatpump, get it delivered to your door, and get a plumber to do the job with hourly rate), and anyway the situation will correct itself at some point in time.Air-to-air units are really popular here since around 2005. Many have been able to cut their oil usage down from 3000l (30000kWh) a year to maybe 1500l (15000kWh), plus 5000kWh of electricity, but with a single unit this requires keeping doors between rooms open and accepting the fan noise at high setting. I know someone who has five (probably six or seven now as I haven't heard about him for some time) split air-to-air units in his house, basically one for every room, as they are originally designed. A very good alternative to air-to-water unit without the problems of high distribution water temperature.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 15, 2022, 08:25:33 am
content: Extreme winter with complete transition to air source heatpumps would blow out the current grid. Being able to reduce the worst case heating load on a nation scale by say 2x makes a huge difference in necessary grid expansion.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 15, 2022, 08:49:41 am
content: Quote from: Marco on April 15, 2022, 08:25:33 amI burn oil or wood for those few days when the COP is getting too near to 1.0. You can optimize the exact transition point based on cost or CO2, but for me the operating point is approximately this:* Tambient = -16 degC* Twater = +43 degC* Phouse (to maintain Tin=+21degC with Tambient=-16degC) = 4000W* Pin = 2300W (compressor speed = 100%; this pump is maxed out)* Pout = 3300W (COP = 1.4)* Psupport_resistive = 700W* Total COP = 4000W/(2300+700W) = 1.3Approximating oil price at 0.10 e/kWh and electricity at 0.13 e/kWh, the price parity is reached.For CO2, the situation of the grid variesa lot, depending on how cold it is elsewhere, Sweden and Denmark included. Sometimes it's far greener to burn oil locally at this operating point, sometimes not.In any case, during this past winter, this ambient temperature (-16degC) was the deciding operating point: below it, I enabled the oil burner and if close to -16, did not shut down the heatpump but let it do part of the job, after all with supporting oil, the target water temperature for the heatpump can be dropped, increasing its COP, so the systems work together. But below about -20degC, I put the heatpump completely to rest, except the coldest day, -26degC, when I wanted to test if the heatpump works as intended. It did. Of course COP is 1 then.Transitioning from oil/gas to air-source heatpumping in countries with -20degC or below conditions means the worst-case situation becomes worse for the grid. I don't participate in this, I'm happy to drop my consumption to a few hundred W when the grid is under heaviest load.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 15, 2022, 09:38:17 am
content: Good for you, but the only way to get other people to consistently join you with current market mechanisms would be a couple years of rolling blackouts. Which doesn't seem an option.I suspect that on a nation level district heating with ground source heatpumps is by far cheaper than massively over dimensioning the grid and generation. Even at higher temperatures the COP differences are still substantial.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 15, 2022, 10:28:35 am
content: Quote from: Marco on April 15, 2022, 08:25:33 amPerhaps with your blinkered Dutch viewpoint, but that situation is not universally mirrored around the world. This has come up already, in this thread:Quote from: Someone on March 07, 2022, 09:27:43 pmSo again we go back to a reliable source:https://www.iea.org/sankey/#?c=Netherlands&s=Final%20consumptionDutch residential energy is dominated by Gas consumption, and in the larger country wide figures electricity use per capita is well below OECD average.Finland is majority electricity for residential energy demand, with district heating and bio-mass/fuel making adding up to the majority, fossil fuels are a tiny slice. Their electricity use per capita is much higher already.Norway is even more onboard with electricity, dominating their energy use in all sectors other than transport (from their historically cheap electricity).Yes, transitioning Dutch or US/Canadian residential fossil fuel use to electricity would stress the their domestic electric power capacity. But no so in Finland, Norway, Sweden, Australia, or numerous other countries

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 15, 2022, 04:03:39 pm
content: You can also improve the grid. Grid is a little bit of steel and aluminium. Transformers are bit of steel and copper. The price of electric energy transport is ridiculously small, and transmission losses are small as well, compared to what you get with the grid.Improvement of the grid would be one of the best investments many European countries (and big part of USA, too) could do, since with PV and wind, production is uncertain, but electricity is always generatedsomewhere.This should have been done decades ago already. But political priorities seem to be elsewhere.True silver bullet does not exist, but things that areclosestto a silver bullet, aka. low hanging fruits:* Improve the grid,* Install heatpumps in suitable estatesInstead, forget high-tech pipe dreams like complete hydrogen society or nuclear fusion. They are smoke screens used to distract you.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 15, 2022, 04:31:53 pm
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on April 15, 2022, 04:03:39 pmThe fact is that the existing natural gas grid is suitable for hydrogen as well. Use of hydrogen doesn't need electricity grid upgrades, installing heatpumps and doing huge investments in insulating older homes.

author: T3sl4co1l
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 15, 2022, 05:51:13 pm
content: Do you have a report saying so?Handling hydrogen is nontrivial: much natural gas infrastructure is steel (susceptible to embrittlement) and plastic (significant diffusion losses?). It also has an extremely wide explosive range, invisible flame (would it be mixed with something to make it better visible?), and I would guess takes a different air mixture for best results so entirely every gas burner would need to be adjusted, if such adjustments are even available. Unless it happens that the same mixture works out by coincidence (maybe not stoichiometric, but maybe that's a good thing for a cooler flame giving less NOx or something).City gas comes to mind, though that includes CO so several of these considerations will be different. Hmm, should be plenty of reports whether hydrogen embrittlement was a problem, especially with the poorer quality of steel back then? (Is city gas still in use anywhere? I forget if that's mostly/entirely an anachronism, or actually still quite important?)On the upside, utility gas doesn't need high pressures, unlike storage for transportation applications. Where, likewise, even given the higher density of methane, CNG is quite uncommon outside of specific uses (buses etc.). Compressed hydrogen might be a viable alternative for such stations, if hydrogen took over the pipeline system. Assuming, again, suitable handling equipment, materials, combustion adjustments, etc. (H2 in ICE basically has to be diesel injected, right? It has basically negative octane, it just detonates all at once, impossible to get a smooth burn, something like that? So, not at all a trivial change from other fuels. Upside: it's even better for fuel cell vehicles. Though I don't know how many of those there are, using methane, or methanol or whatever, nowadays, that would thus benefit from conversion in such a scenario.)Tim

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 15, 2022, 07:25:56 pm
content: Quote from: T3sl4co1l on April 15, 2022, 05:51:13 pmYou'd have to re-jet a gas furnace for sure, and even then I doubt it's even feasible to convert one. Most of them can be converted between natural gas and propane fairly easily but I don't even know where hydrogen falls with that. The gas regulator, burner orifices and draft inducer are all matched and in the higher efficiency furnaces everything is even more critical. The BTU output and flame characteristics matter too, if the flame is too hot you will overheat the heat exchangers and risk damaging the flue collector or draft inducer. Too low and you risk condensation in the primary heat exchanger which will rot it. This is just the practical aspects, the legal aspects and certification are a whole different matter. You can't just take an appliance certified for one fuel and muck with it to burn a different fuel and call it good.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 15, 2022, 08:07:56 pm
content: Quote from: T3sl4co1l on April 15, 2022, 05:51:13 pmYes (in Dutch):https://www.kiwa.com/globalassets/netherlands/kiwa-technology/downloads/publicatie-ombouw-waterstof-stad-aan-t-haringvliet.pdfAnd there are quite a few of these projects being rolled out in the NL. All use the existing natural gas infrastructure. For a couple of years already every part used on the natural gas infrastructure, is suitable for hydrogen as well. Embrittlement and diffusion are not a problem.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 16, 2022, 12:23:05 am
content: Quote from: Someone on April 15, 2022, 10:28:35 amThe grid is both generation and distribution.Even where distribution doesn't require much extra scaling, the zero emission 2050 deadline without nuclear makes the worst case still relevant regardless (continent wide dunkelflaute). Improved efficiency during worst case scenarios can be cheaper than the alternatives.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 16, 2022, 01:20:38 am
content: Quote from: Marco on April 16, 2022, 12:23:05 amSee those examples, Norway Sweden Finland? They already have very low fossil fuel use for electricity generation and residential use. Their generation and distribution can handle shifting to heat pumps, no problem, almost certainly without causing increase in CO2. Could they get to 100% renewable, absolutely! In horrible cold/dark climate that needs lots of energy to support their comfortable lifestyles. Are they promising zero nuclear?Which makes it easier in pretty much any other country. Australia has most of the distribution in place already, only lacking in renewable generation which is coming along strong. Its the scale of energy storage required that is a big unknown. Australia doesn't have history with significant off peak thermal storage, unlike the UK or Nordic countries.But even including the costs of todays mature technologies for electricity storage in hydro or batteries, 100% renewable is still cheaper than fossil fuels. No carbon price required. Who loses? only people who invested in fossil fuels. They made the bad investment, sadly that includes many governments/grid operators who pass it on to the consumers.Quote from: Marco on April 16, 2022, 12:23:05 amWhat do you mean? This whole sidetrack was about improving efficiency in worst case (for countries where peak energy demand is from heating), people said heat pumps cant do it, and have been shown to be wrong. The current leading example is CHP/cogeneration/trigeneration, which Finland and Denmark are doing well at. Pure optimal is likely stepping up to district/community scale heat pumps (which you seem to hint at in the other parallel thread) with ground source seasonal storage.If you want to keep making disagreement, then make it correct. If you want to say something is the case under specific location/situation/assumptions then say it. Generalised statements that its not possible are plainly wrong. The Dutch, UK, Australian, and US history have been fossil fuel (oil/petrol particularly, now gas) focused from their "luck" of "owning" those resources easily available in bulk, so of course they were the dominant/cheap/prevalent energy source in place. But that balance is changing.When a country can use gas in a heat pump + co-generation plant to produce 300-400% of the heat energy compared to burning it directly at the heat demand, what do you think the price of gas will do? Being a relatively fluid market, gas will increase in price. Likely above the $/kWh rate of electricity, because it inherently has storage and peak power delivery capabilities. The days of cheap gas are going away, and people/countries who have relied on that will have to change their behaviour/equipment.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 16, 2022, 01:26:09 am
content: Now you are entering 'big oil' conspiracy theories. As I have shown a few posts before, the problem is that many homes in the NL (and likely other countries as well) don't have the insulation necessary to make a heatpump a good alternative to a gas fired heater. It really isn't more complex than that. Insisting that heatpumps are always a better option is ignoring the facts.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 16, 2022, 01:48:29 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on April 16, 2022, 01:26:09 amDo heat pumps exist with as large thermal outputs as gas fired heaters? YesDo they work in the ambient temperatures in that region? YesA poorly insulated house can be heated just as well with either, its a matter of correctly sizing the device. Your "simple" argument falls over immediately.So now you're down the locally/individually specific details like:Relative pricing of different energy sources.Existing heating infrastructure (sunk costs).Relative pricing of different appliances.Which still dont stack up over the life of the appliances for the cases we have seen! Air-air mini-splits are dirt cheap, mass produced, and self contained, I know plenty of people putting them in to replace fossil or resistive heating just because its cheaper in the long run, not even waiting for the other system to fail.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 16, 2022, 09:35:36 am
content: Lack of insulation does not lead into the unsuitability of heatpumps, they are completely orthogonal. Quite the opposite, poorly insulated house requires more heating, which makes the choice of the energy sourcemoreimportant. Lack of low-temperature hydronic distribution system inside a house does mean that the system needs to be upgraded, or air-to-air heatpumps used instead of air-to-water, I accept that because it's true.Hydrogen is usable as a last resort storage medium when PV is installed in such large scales excess can't be used in any other meaningful way. It's maybe 10 years into the future.You can't burn hydrogen in the old gas boilers directly, so equipment modification is still needed.The elephant in the room is still the efficiency; by turning renewables into hydrogen and burning it, efficiency is around 30% mark, whereas running heatpumps has around 300% efficiency. 10x difference, roughly! Of course, hydrogen can be stored in large pressurised tanks, but OTOH, thermal energy can also be stored in large tanks, in water and pressure is much less (typically <1.5bar), and storage efficiencies are easily in excess of 60-70% (of that 300%, for total of 200-250% maybe).What people miss, fundamentally a heatpump is solving both energy generationand storage. The source of energy is solar. The large mass of the Earth and the somewhat insulating atmosphere forms an RC circuit with time constant long enough to provide seasonal storage. This is why the temperature does not drop to -273.15C during the night when the sun sets, or even during winter, even if we don't see the Sun much at all. The Earth keeps us warm. Italmostkeeps us warm enough without any technology at all, that's how human has survived. Heatpump taps into this stored solar energy (air source: in the atmosphere, near ground; ground source: in the ground directly), and converts it into more usable heat - from lower temperature thermal energy, into higher temperature thermal energy. I don't think many have thought about this at all.Indeed the grid in Finland is completely fine with full transition to EVs, heatpumps, and a lot of renewable production. And Finland's not the only one. Besides, no massive investments, not much planning behind this. Any country can do the same if they so decide. Most of the countries that "struggle" with the idea are much more developed than Finland in many other areas. There is no excuse, push your politicians to improve the grid, it's important.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 16, 2022, 10:30:36 am
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on April 16, 2022, 09:35:36 amWell, the real experts disagree with this statement. Look at the link (using Google translate) to the Dutch homeowners association I posted earlier. It is all explained in there including cost estimations.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 16, 2022, 11:40:12 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on April 16, 2022, 10:30:36 amI could not find anything to support the claim, or even the claim itself, to any meaningful degree. Just a short mention that insulation is impractical. There is no explanation why it affects heatpumps specifically. Heatpumps only get affected if something requires high distribution temperature.But I can kind of see how the thought process went:* Houses are not insulated* Houses are small, with possibly historical, aethetical values people like* Houses are fitted with very small, inefficient radiators, because gas boilers allow distribution temperatures of 80degC* Heatpumps would require radiator upgrades, replacing them with either BIG radiators, or fan-assisted modern radiators. Possibly ruining the aesthetical values of the old, small radiatorsOnly in this sense, the claim is true.Looking at hydrogen to save the day without having to change pretty much anything is an excellent example ofmagical thinking. It's not a complete hoax, as I said, and it's well worth pursuing and researching. But it's not the magic silver bullet you'd hope for, mostly because of the extremely crappy efficiency.There is a Real Expert^tm for everything. Look athttps://www.yitgroup.com/en/news-repository/press-release/the-planning-of-the-worlds-largest-seasonal-heat-storage-is-well-under-way.And don't get me wrong, I'm not saying hydrogen is a dead end with no use at all. I just think you are overestimating the simplicity, and underestimating the problems. Efficiency is important, because we don't have massive excess of renewable energy available, not in the near future.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 16, 2022, 11:42:48 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on April 16, 2022, 10:30:36 amYou mean this link?https://www.eigenhuis.nl/energie/maatregelen/duurzaam-verwarmen/warmtepomp/prijs-en-rendementIts all geoblocked, and in Dutch, but regardless: They put up very high figures for the cost of a heat pump:All-electric luchtwarmtepomp (3 - 12 kW) €6.500 tot €14.000Oh, but you might be in line for subsidies to bring the price to a very cheap: €1.300 tot €2.500WAT?! Googling for prices says that is way too high, €1000 air-air units are readily available with seasonal COP > 4That source expect the savings per year to be €200 (or twice that if you gan get rid of the gas connection altogether) or more, which neatly fits in the 10 year payback period for a subsidised system. So their advice could well be interpreted as excellent choice if you get a cheap unit.More importantly, that gets us one of the fundamental figures you kept avoiding. In the Netherlands, gas is delivered to residential customers at 1/3 of the price per kWh that electricity is. Close to the point where both technologies were considered competitive with each other, and the capital costs will likely dominate, before newer higher COP units came on the market. Now with higher efficiency heat pumps readily available and cheap, even 1:3 ratio of energy is still an easy win for heat pumps.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 16, 2022, 11:46:05 am
content: For those fairly small, poorly insulated houses, just do what the rest of the world is doing, especially look at the old paper houses in Japan, the country where the split type air-to-air heatpump was invented in 1980's to reduce oil consumption:Install split air-to-air heatpumps. A 2.5kW (nominal heating power) model costs around 500 - 2000 EURinstalleddepending on where you live. ~500EUR in most of Asia, 2000EUR in Finland. I'm sure you can get one installed in the Netherlands for 1500EUR. If many rooms with a maze-like room layout, buy two or three. Double the gas price and it pays for itself in a year or two.Do this and stop coming up with excuses and waiting for magic tricks.Additionally, improve insulation whenever easily possible (i.e., low hanging fruits); for example, during other renovations. This is regardless of heating source.This way, you can start really solving the problem today, while waiting for magical hydrogen economy.Also install PV. You can improve the quality of life by cooling the house during summer (with the very same heatpump), and that will coincide with high PV production really well, so your cooling is easily energy neutral.The air-to-air heatpump energy saving craze peak years were in Finland over a decade ago. It works very well as evidenced by significant % of the people, even though the conditions are much worse than in the NL. And the pumps have got even better. There is absolutely no excuse.And you can keep the natural gas infrastructure and store some amount of that Putin's fart and burn it if some miraculously bad once-in-a-century winter becomes a reality, in the big picture it does not matter. Now you keep burning that fart during conditions when you have massive amounts of free energy outside of you just waiting to be harvested by a simple, well-tested device with three decades of legacy.

author: MadScientist
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 16, 2022, 02:31:11 pm
content: I heat my house using timber and occasional oil fired central heating. I’ve no need for AC.Last year my heating bill was 600 euros.No insulation upgrade ( 000s) PV panels ( more 000s) heat pumps or anything makes sense. Everything has 20 year plus paybacks which is just ridiculousIf I want a higher temperature a burn a bit more timber or turn up the oil burner a bit. So my bill goes up a bit so what.Spend 10k on insulation or heat upgrades etc , save 30 % , whoop de do , that’s 200 euros. Long time seeing my investment of 10k being recoupedIt’s nonsense.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 16, 2022, 02:46:46 pm
content: Free timber is a well known way for free heating.Most people do not have access to free timber, though. Even those who do, kid themselves because they could sell the timber instead, so it does have a monetary value. When this is pointed out to a believer, all you get back is a blank stare. Remember, there are people with IQ < 90. Some even on this forum. Keep believing.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 16, 2022, 02:51:28 pm
content: Quote from: MadScientist on April 16, 2022, 02:31:11 pmI've lived in houses several centuries old, long-term investments do not seem ridiculous to me.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 16, 2022, 03:15:47 pm
content: In actual reality, 20-year payback should still be acceptable, of course assuming the technology in question lasts that time, or longer. For example, radiator updates last as long as the building.A heatpump lasts maybe a tad over 10 years on average, say 15 years. Payback must be significantly below 10 years for it to make financial sense. Which is almost always the case, except in countries with artificially low fossil energy prices (as discussed) such as the UK, or sudden and temporary installation price peaks like currently evidenced in Finland. Mine has 4 year payback (1 year of which has already passed, so I can already see it performs exactly as expected).Of course I can write myself a quote for heatpump installation with cost of one trillion euros, and then claim the payback time is 1300 million years. You can make anything up if you so wish (agenda, stupidity, or just non-interest and hedonism).This is why I think the increasing fossil energy price is a good thing. It only reflects the actual reality; it's a limited and geopolitically controlled resource. Days of artificially cheap energy and wasting it like no tomorrow, are over. With doubling energy price, 20-year payback for an alternative becomes 10 years, and so on. People who are not interested in the big picture but only their own wallet, will have to start making the right decisions. This is all right.

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 16, 2022, 03:38:18 pm
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on April 16, 2022, 02:46:46 pmThat's assuming it's of good enough quality to sell for a reasonable price. It could be scrap cuts that are of little value in woodworking projects.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 16, 2022, 10:23:46 pm
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on April 16, 2022, 02:46:46 pmOr cost: their time, the chainsaw maintenance + fuel, and transport (few have it close enough to walk).Delivered cost of wood per unit energy here (Australia) is around half the price of electricity, or similar to gas.Quote from: NiHaoMike on April 16, 2022, 03:38:18 pmBut there is a market for burnable wood, you might save transport costs by being co-located with the source but it still has measurable value.Perhaps we should count self consumption PV solar as "free"What, you want to count the capital cost of the panels? I'll send you some panels and have them installed for free if you give me some land adjoining my property to plant all those trees on. Everything has costs.

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 18, 2022, 08:51:06 pm
content: Around here, there are people selling hardwoods by the cord. On the other hand, wood from conifers makes really crappy firewood and is basically almost worthless. Its not good to burn softwoods as fuel. Hardwoods must be dried to be good firewood. Which takes a significant amount of time and effort. And dry space to do it in. Out of the rain and fog.Wood from conifers shouldn't be burned as fuel. Its more trouble than it is worth. Not only because it doesn't burn cleanly, but that needs to be emphasized.. Softwoods ruin chimneys with creosote which often catches on fire, its a fire hazard.I hate it because it makes me cough. It makes me feel ill. Because sometimes an air inversion prevents the smoke from blowing away. Then I really wish people didnt burn it.Also, many towns either have banned burning wood, or are likely to if use increases. It causes lung problems/coughing/etc. in neighbors.So people should keep that in mind. Its unhealthy to burn wood unless the stove is a very good one and the chimney a high one that puts the smoke far away from peoples homes.Some areas depend on wood and most people have burned wood for heat for hundreds of years. But in many other areas people stopped burning wood 60-100, basically a hundred years ago and are unlikely to go back to it as its sooty and unhealthy.In poor areas like Haiti where its the only available means of cooking for many people the countryside and slopes of mountains are denuded of wood and this causes flooding and sometimes, devastating mudslides.One way to save money on heat that few people implement is very simple. Take a fan, a strong 120 mm computer fan is probably enough. and hang it, blowing down, from a hook on the ceiling somewhere near the most heated, used room in your house. This will mix the layers of air and save significantly on heat. It will save much more in fuel than the tiny amount of electricity it uses.

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 18, 2022, 09:16:44 pm
content: Here in the US a very large number of people appear to think that artificially low fuel prices will continue indefinietely, and are acting really shocked now when they get their first big bill. This is because ever since the 1970s here in the US an export ban on natural gas made natural gas prices among the lowest in the world. That is changing as export ramps up. They are going to have to fine an alternative, big parts of this country are too cold to survive in without substantial amounts of heat. And at the same time many are losing jobs, the old jobs tended to be much better than the new jobs. They tended to pay well, too. So, they wont be easy to replace.Quote from: Siwastaja on April 16, 2022, 03:15:47 pmBig cars are a big energy waster where I live. At least half of the cars in my street are largish SUVs that probably almost never are driven off-road. They are driven by "soccer moms" around town. And people have a lot of them. Almost all adults where I live have their own cars. I am an exception to the rule, an unusual one.I suspect that the kind of person who buys a gas guzzling SUV is not the kind of person who will limit their consumption much.The people I am concerned about are people on fixed incomes, older people, mostly. Food banks are helping the poor a lot but I dont think enough to make up for the high food and energy prices. I wonder how many people are falling into debt. A few years ago a lot of people had homes foreclosed on.Luckily I am very responsible about money, even phobic about debt. I'm also very good at saving energy, it appears.But I miss being able to keep the house warm.I don't have to look far to see people who are literally freezing in the cold, Ukrainians for example. But many families here are behind on their heating bills, I read the other day.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 18, 2022, 11:41:42 pm
content: Quote from: Someone on April 16, 2022, 10:23:46 pmIt's a bit more complex than that though. Several times I've had to take out a tree anyway, it was too close to my house, or leaning over, damaged, sick, etc. Other times someone I know has had to take one out and I was able to haul away the wood as a favor to them. It did require some work but there is some satisfaction in accomplishing something like that and it's good for me to get up and move around. There is also a much greater enjoyment factor in burning wood in a nice sealed wood stove, relaxing and basking in the heat while watching the flames through the glass.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 25, 2022, 01:48:36 pm
content: Quote from: MadScientist on April 16, 2022, 02:31:11 pmDepending on your location, the oil could be going away in 20 years or get very expensive.

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 26, 2022, 12:40:41 pm
content: Bait and switch days are in effect, because profit is everything, now all power gets switched to nuclear..