5 ms·
Solar won't help in a winter storm when the sun is not shining and all your panels are covered with snow. Wind power also tends to go down when there's too much
by kijin 6y ago
Solar won't help in a winter storm when the sun is not shining and all your panels are covered with snow. Wind power also tends to go down when there's too much wind.
Everyone loves to pick on air conditioning, but the recent disaster has shown that heating is also a huge problem. As your statistics show, heating can consume more energy than air conditioning depending on the region. AC only needs to lower the indoor temperature by 10-20F, whereas heating requirements can exceed 50F. This makes it a much harder problem to reliably produce the amount of energy needed to keep people from freezing.
Climate change can bring not only hotter summers but also colder winters and more energetic storms. We desperately need methods to generate clean energy even during extreme weather. Especially during extreme weather.
- DoreenMichele 6y agoSolar won't help in a winter storm when the sun is not shining and all your panels are covered with snow. I am not talking about solar power generation. Quite the contrary. Passive solar is about building design and orientation. One of the techniques it uses is thermal mass.
- dismalpedigree 6y agoI’d love to know the all-in energy and ecological footprint of building for passive solar. I could imagine it is significant. Sure you save lots of energy over its lifetime but you likely have a huge deficit to start with.
- DoreenMichele 6y agoI doubt that, but I will add a link to this comment to my file and see if I can find anything when I get around to trying to do some kind of write up about it.
- throw0101a 6y agoCompletely passive buildings are a thing: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_house https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_house Though generally one gets to a point of diminishing returns. It's probably better to get to a certain efficiency point, and then throw some solar/PV panels on the roof and become 'net zero', producing the electricity you need on-site: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-energy_building https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-energy_building Residentially, you can built a 5000 square foot (500 sq. m) home that needs only 1500W (1.5 kW)—basically a hair dyer—to heat/cool: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vul4vMFdkA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vul4vMFdkA Using an HRV/ERV with an air filter per ASHRAE 62.1 and 62.2 gives you very good air quality.