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All options need to be on the table. It's crucial that when someone spends their time and energy on a project that's good but not your preferred strategy... jus

by Panino 7y ago

All options need to be on the table. It's crucial that when someone spends their time and energy on a project that's good but not your preferred strategy... just let them. Put your energy into advancing your own goals (instead of destroying theirs), and we can all meet in the middle. That's what it will take. My 2000 sq ft home is currently using about 8kwh per day of electricity in summer, which I think is pretty good. I'd love to get solar panels to get that down to below zero. I treat electricity reduction like a game, always trying to go further. Lately I've been using a solar cooker to cook food and it's awesome. It keeps the cooking heat and smell out of the house while using no electricity. I only recently just started but I've made curry, pizza, veggie burgers, potatoes, baked bread, and reheated leftovers. My next target is getting the summer usage down to 7kwh per day average. I think improving water heating is going to be the ticket there by reducing the heater temperature a little, wrapping it in a thermal blanket, and getting a more efficient shower head. Having a solar water heater would be huge but that's a possibility for down the road. What are other people doing?

fastbeef 7y ago
Insulation and heat pumps. New houses built in Sweden _above the Arctic circle_ use less than 9000 kWh per year. 300mm of insulation and a geothermal heat pump that gives you at least 3 kW of heat for every 1 kW of electricity.
- antisthenes 7y ago
  I'm sorry, is that number supposed to be in any way impressive? You can cut that number by a factor of 3, just by building apartment blocks instead of individual houses. It cuts down the heat loss area, and lets you install larger pumps that benefit from efficiencies of scale. AFAIK, an average flat around the latitude of St. Petersburg uses ~300-500 kWh per month, or 3600-6000 kWh per year. And that's considering that most housing stock there was built in the 70s and 80s. If we're talking top of the line insulation and a geothermal heat pump, the numbers should be way lower than that even. Not to mention that generally speaking living inside the Arctic circle is a giant waste anyway. You can't do agriculture there and it costs a lot to heat things. It should be reserved for research stations and temporary work establishments.
  - fastbeef 7y ago
    You’re right, it wasn’t impressive so I double checked. It’s 6414 kWh (3596 kWh in southern Sweden) for heating and hot water production without geothermal, only by air heat reuse. It’s a two story house at 164m2 which is three times as large as an average apartment. My point is the insulation is the cheapest way of lowering heating (and chilling) costs. Also, lots of mining, logging and manufacturing jobs up north.
semi-extrinsic 7y ago
> All options need to be on the table. It's crucial that when someone spends their time and energy on a project that's good but not your preferred strategy... just let them. Put your energy into advancing your own goals (instead of destroying theirs), and we can all meet in the middle. That's what it will take. This is such an important realization which I think (hope) more and more people are coming to. No point in debating solar vs wind, batteries versus fuel cells. Do all the things.
lukifer 7y ago
Whoa, I didn't know about solar cookers, I'm gonna look into it. Did you buy yours or make it? Any recommendations? Currently working on getting panels installed before the tax incentive expires. We get a stupid amount of sun here in Colorado, and Xcel has a good net metering program.
- Panino 7y ago
  Also in Colorado here! I got an "All Season Solar Cooker" - plenty of Youtube videos showing it and other options in action. I also just finished making a toy solar oven made from cardboard, aluminum foil and seran wrap. It gets up to around 165F in strong sunlight. When I build a real oven made from wood, mirrors and glass, I think it will reach about 350F. I'm going to keep experimenting with toy designs before building something more substantial. I'd like to have multiple solar cookers and ovens to be able to cook several dishes at a time. For the solar cooker I prefer to put the cooking pan inside some pyrex dishes. This acts like a greenhouse and limits the wind's ability to blow heat away. It gets very hot, but not as hot as a solar oven. Hot enough to bake bread!

by Panino 7y ago

fastbeef 7y ago

Insulation and heat pumps. New houses built in Sweden _above the Arctic circle_ use less than 9000 kWh per year. 300mm of insulation and a geothermal heat pump that gives you at least 3 kW of heat for every 1 kW of electricity.

antisthenes 7y ago
I'm sorry, is that number supposed to be in any way impressive? You can cut that number by a factor of 3, just by building apartment blocks instead of individual houses. It cuts down the heat loss area, and lets you install larger pumps that benefit from efficiencies of scale. AFAIK, an average flat around the latitude of St. Petersburg uses ~300-500 kWh per month, or 3600-6000 kWh per year. And that's considering that most housing stock there was built in the 70s and 80s. If we're talking top of the line insulation and a geothermal heat pump, the numbers should be way lower than that even. Not to mention that generally speaking living inside the Arctic circle is a giant waste anyway. You can't do agriculture there and it costs a lot to heat things. It should be reserved for research stations and temporary work establishments.
- fastbeef 7y ago
  You’re right, it wasn’t impressive so I double checked. It’s 6414 kWh (3596 kWh in southern Sweden) for heating and hot water production without geothermal, only by air heat reuse. It’s a two story house at 164m2 which is three times as large as an average apartment. My point is the insulation is the cheapest way of lowering heating (and chilling) costs. Also, lots of mining, logging and manufacturing jobs up north.

semi-extrinsic 7y ago

> All options need to be on the table. It's crucial that when someone spends their time and energy on a project that's good but not your preferred strategy... just let them. Put your energy into advancing your own goals (instead of destroying theirs), and we can all meet in the middle. That's what it will take. This is such an important realization which I think (hope) more and more people are coming to. No point in debating solar vs wind, batteries versus fuel cells. Do all the things.

lukifer 7y ago

Whoa, I didn't know about solar cookers, I'm gonna look into it. Did you buy yours or make it? Any recommendations? Currently working on getting panels installed before the tax incentive expires. We get a stupid amount of sun here in Colorado, and Xcel has a good net metering program.

Panino 7y ago
Also in Colorado here! I got an "All Season Solar Cooker" - plenty of Youtube videos showing it and other options in action. I also just finished making a toy solar oven made from cardboard, aluminum foil and seran wrap. It gets up to around 165F in strong sunlight. When I build a real oven made from wood, mirrors and glass, I think it will reach about 350F. I'm going to keep experimenting with toy designs before building something more substantial. I'd like to have multiple solar cookers and ovens to be able to cook several dishes at a time. For the solar cooker I prefer to put the cooking pan inside some pyrex dishes. This acts like a greenhouse and limits the wind's ability to blow heat away. It gets very hot, but not as hot as a solar oven. Hot enough to bake bread!