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Say good bye to gas

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Comments

  • Steamhead
    Steamhead Member Posts: 16,796

    @Hot_water_fan , I'm in Baltimore too. During the summer, the grid in my neighborhood is so strained that it regularly gets down to 100 volts when everyone's A/C is running, trying to maintain a 20° ΔT between inside and out (source: the UPS on my main computer which has a voltage monitor). If everyone here switched to heat pumps, we'd have a Texas-style disaster in the winter, when the ΔT can get up to 65°- a fact lost on heat-pump pushers.


    I am not concerned. For the worriers, installing a hybrid heat pump is easy enough. If it's a real concern, BGE should pay for the hybrid unit, it is their reliability after all. There's no compelling reason to choose only expensive BGE gas over a heat pump here, given that AC is so widespread.
    I'm keeping my radiators. As others have posted, I can run my boiler with a small generator if the grid goes down.
    All Steamed Up, Inc.
    Towson, MD, USA
    Steam, Vapor & Hot-Water Heating Specialists
    Oil & Gas Burner Service
    Consulting
    Hot_water_fanpecmsg
  • hot_rod
    hot_rod Member Posts: 22,020
    Wood chip or other biomass powerplants -- including, on a small scale, wood heat -- are problematic on several counts, although there are some running. First, if you are truly thinking sustainable yield, softwoods, such as ponderosa pine, will yield on a sustainable basis somewhere around 30 million BTU of fuel per acre of forest -- around 200 gallons of oil equivalent, Douglas fir is a bit better, but not that much. If we suppose a 100 megawatt powerplant, that works out to around 21,000,000 gallons of oil per year (neglecting the inefficiency of the power plant!):our power plant will take about 106,000 acres of woodland, or 166 or so square miles. Throw in corrections for inefficiencies and it's more like 300 square miles. Peak power demand in California is around 50,000 megawatts; if we suppose that somehow 50% of that is from wind or batteries, That works out to some 60,000 square miles or so. That's a decent size chunk of territory. Very roughly, about half of the state. And mind, this is a managed woodlot -- not a nice forest. Then there is the air pollution problem. Wood is a complex chemical, unlike natural gas or oil, and as such needs scrubbers for sulphur reduction. It is also remarkably difficult to eliminate fine particulate emissions, so it would need big, high efficiency filters. There is also transportation of all that wood, and the production of it. Wood is attractive on a small scale, but on a utility scale? Perhaps not so much. Then you
    Over 100 million acres and growing of beetle  kill pine available for cheap. Got to the point where they pile slash piles and burn it to lessen fire spreads. Although it is a nice blue stain color inside for wood working 🥴
    Bob "hot rod" Rohr
    trainer for Caleffi NA
    Living the hydronic dream
  • Hot_water_fan
    Hot_water_fan Member Posts: 1,823
    I'm keeping my radiators. As others have posted, I can run my boiler with a small generator if the grid goes down.
    Very easy to keep radiators and replace the AC with a heat pump when the time comes. 
  • archibald tuttle
    archibald tuttle Member Posts: 1,085
    @hot_rod not to mention precommercial thinning in forests managed for the timber we need
  • Jamie Hall
    Jamie Hall Member Posts: 23,161
    edited October 2022
    Folks, I said sustainable yield. Not beetle kill salvage or precommercial, thinning. Sustainable. In that every year you grow exactly as much wood as you cut.

    To give you an idea of what NOT to do, consider the DRAX wood fired plant in the UK. Where are they getting their wood? Clear cutting old growth and virgin forest in British Columbia.
    Br. Jamie, osb
    Building superintendent/caretaker, 7200 sq. ft. historic house museum with dependencies in New England
  • JakeCK
    JakeCK Member Posts: 1,356
    pecmsg said:
    Then why are A/C evaporator and condenser coil leaks becoming common? All too common! Rifled, tubing, tubing stretched so it's even tinner for better heat transfer.
    I do not have an answer to that. But do you have any research or evidence that it is the acidity from the food aromas? Not saying you're wrong I just find it hard to believe the coils are that sensitive.
  • pecmsg
    pecmsg Member Posts: 4,775
    JakeCK said:
    pecmsg said:
    Then why are A/C evaporator and condenser coil leaks becoming common? All too common! Rifled, tubing, tubing stretched so it's even tinner for better heat transfer.
    I do not have an answer to that. But do you have any research or evidence that it is the acidity from the food aromas? Not saying you're wrong I just find it hard to believe the coils are that sensitive.
    Let’s see
    thinner copper for better heat transfer?
  • JakeCK
    JakeCK Member Posts: 1,356
     The CO2 itself does very little of the feared warming. 
    With all due respect this, simply, is wrong.

    Take a couple glass vacuum canisters. Put a thermometer in each, leave one with common atmospheric air, and the other filled with CO2. Leave them in the sun and then take regular readings of the temperatures. Report your results.

    This is very similar to part of the experiment that Eunice Newton Foote performed when she discovered the warming potential of CO2 in 1856, or as she called it carbonic acid gas. 
  • archibald tuttle
    archibald tuttle Member Posts: 1,085
    edited October 2022
    @jakeCK you maybe aren't reading what i wrote which i can't blame anyone because i am the definition of loggorhea in the dictionary.

    I didn't say CO2 is not a greenhouse gas. What i said is that the feared warming , i.e. the sensitivity which includes knock on effects in models is predominately water vapor which blows the doors off CO2 as a greenhouse gas. So the actual argument is that CO2 is, after a fashion, the butterfly's wing that propels a more humid atmosphere which is the predominate source of warming in the models. but if it is moisture as in certain types of clouds it may reflect more  light energy than it traps. And figuring that out is an immense amount of guesswork about which there is not consnesus and the closer more anyone looks the lower the IPCC estimates of sensitivity. 

    Might those still be of concern? Yes. Crisis? No.
  • Dave Carpentier
    Dave Carpentier Member Posts: 586
    Woods Hole Oceanographic had a good article a couple of years ago, signed by seniors etc, that basically said that there isnt nearly enough evidence/data to claim any overall direction in ocean/atmos relations due to human activity. There are too many interrelationships of many systems, feedback loops etc.
    Were they just asking for more research investments ? Who knows.
    I tried to find the article again a few months ago, cant find it.
    Was it withdrawn ? Deleted ?
    30+ yrs in telecom outside plant.
    Currently in building maintenance.
  • ChrisJ
    ChrisJ Member Posts: 15,583
    edited October 2022
    pecmsg said:


    JakeCK said:


    pecmsg said:


    Then why are A/C evaporator and condenser coil leaks becoming common? All too common! Rifled, tubing, tubing stretched so it's even tinner for better heat transfer.


    I do not have an answer to that. But do you have any research or evidence that it is the acidity from the food aromas? Not saying you're wrong I just find it hard to believe the coils are that sensitive.


    Let’s see
    thinner copper for better heat transfer?

    Is anyone making copper evaporators for R410A?
    Single pipe quasi-vapor system. Typical operating pressure 0.14 - 0.43 oz. EcoSteam ES-20 Advanced Control for Residential Steam boilers. Rectorseal Steamaster water treatment
  • pecmsg
    pecmsg Member Posts: 4,775
    ChrisJ said:
    JakeCK said:
    pecmsg said:
    Then why are A/C evaporator and condenser coil leaks becoming common? All too common! Rifled, tubing, tubing stretched so it's even tinner for better heat transfer.
    I do not have an answer to that. But do you have any research or evidence that it is the acidity from the food aromas? Not saying you're wrong I just find it hard to believe the coils are that sensitive.
    Let’s see
    thinner copper for better heat transfer?
    Is anyone making copper evaporators for R410A?
    They were. 
    ADP and a few others still do!
  • ChrisJ
    ChrisJ Member Posts: 15,583

    Single pipe quasi-vapor system. Typical operating pressure 0.14 - 0.43 oz. EcoSteam ES-20 Advanced Control for Residential Steam boilers. Rectorseal Steamaster water treatment
    Hot_water_fanBobZmuda
  • Hot_water_fan
    Hot_water_fan Member Posts: 1,823
    Americans just don’t want steam, for better or worse. 
  • jumper
    jumper Member Posts: 2,226
    edited October 2022
    JakeCK said:



     The CO2 itself does very little of the feared warming. 


    With all due respect this, simply, is wrong.

    Take a couple glass vacuum canisters. Put a thermometer in each, leave one with common atmospheric air, and the other filled with CO2. Leave them in the sun and then take regular readings of the temperatures. Report your results.

    This is very similar to part of the experiment that Eunice Newton Foote performed when she discovered the warming potential of CO2 in 1856, or as she called it carbonic acid gas. 
    Jack & Eunice are misguided. For one thing earth is not enclosed in a glass container.
  • ChrisJ
    ChrisJ Member Posts: 15,583
    Americans just don’t want steam, for better or worse. 
    I'm an American....  You don't speak for me.

     ;) 
    Single pipe quasi-vapor system. Typical operating pressure 0.14 - 0.43 oz. EcoSteam ES-20 Advanced Control for Residential Steam boilers. Rectorseal Steamaster water treatment
    Solid_Fuel_Man
  • Hot_water_fan
    Hot_water_fan Member Posts: 1,823
    @ChrisJ me neither! I wouldn’t turn down some steam. But almost all Americans outside of HH don’t value it. 
  • jumper
    jumper Member Posts: 2,226

    @ChrisJ me neither! I wouldn’t turn down some steam. But almost all Americans outside of HH don’t value it. 

    Who wants to visit boiler regularly? Now a hermetic maintenance free heating system sounds desirable.
  • ChrisJ
    ChrisJ Member Posts: 15,583
    jumper said:
    @ChrisJ me neither! I wouldn’t turn down some steam. But almost all Americans outside of HH don’t value it. 
    Who wants to visit boiler regularly? Now a hermetic maintenance free heating system sounds desirable.
    You feel refrigeration systems with blowers, very narrow passages in both the evaporator and condenser as well as filters for the evaporator only are maintenance free?

    Seriously?


    I spend more time cleaning my condenser every year than I spend on my boiler in 5 years.

    Single pipe quasi-vapor system. Typical operating pressure 0.14 - 0.43 oz. EcoSteam ES-20 Advanced Control for Residential Steam boilers. Rectorseal Steamaster water treatment
    archibald tuttle
  • archibald tuttle
    archibald tuttle Member Posts: 1,085

    " Perhaps you just tagged the wrong person?"

    my bad, the quote was @Sal Santamaura , went back and fixed it


  • Sal Santamaura
    Sal Santamaura Member Posts: 529
    edited October 2022


    " Perhaps you just tagged the wrong person?"

    my bad, the quote was @Sal Santamaura , went back and fixed it


    OK, now that you "fixed it," I'll react.

    @Sal Santamaura

    "making up fake nonsense about the world ending (no scientist ever claimed it would), is the sillyness"

    hears a link. you'll love it cause it's fox news which somebody sent to me, I actually don't pay to be able to watch any of the so-called "news" channels. But this is just a convenient recitation. I have AEI's list of 50 such predictions of imminent disaster, much of it focused on climate but there is less explanation and many of the links are out of date or require subscription. But the habit of suggesting the world is at irrecoverable risk if we don't act on climate by a certain deadline is just about a standing headline. Denying it seems much more like the verb than questioning drastic action for climate.

    That said, you suggest "no scientist ever claimed" this. I don't see where I ever suggested who made the claim but rather that the claim was made in the name of science, and scientists seldom speak up to refute exaggerations...

    First, a collection of unattributed (except for blatantly non-scientists being quoted in some cases) Murdoch propaganda is worthless as evidence of anything. Second, even those "predictions" don't include anything about the world ending. This globe still has about five billion years left before its nuclear power source (the sun) burns out. It won't end any time soon. Finally, many of those "predictions" were wrong only with respect to the specific times stated. The bad stuff they describe is happening, much sooner than humanity would like, if on a slightly different timeline. But not very different. And it's occurring just as Jamie predicted it would.

    So, to reiterate, making up fake nonsense about the world ending (no scientist ever claimed it would as a result of anthropogenic global warming), is sillyness that confirms my conclusion no serious on-topic exchange is possible.
  • JakeCK
    JakeCK Member Posts: 1,356
    edited October 2022


    " Perhaps you just tagged the wrong person?"

    my bad, the quote was @Sal Santamaura , went back and fixed it


    OK, now that you "fixed it," I'll react.

    @Sal Santamaura

    "making up fake nonsense about the world ending (no scientist ever claimed it would), is the sillyness"

    hears a link. you'll love it cause it's fox news which somebody sent to me, I actually don't pay to be able to watch any of the so-called "news" channels. But this is just a convenient recitation. I have AEI's list of 50 such predictions of imminent disaster, much of it focused on climate but there is less explanation and many of the links are out of date or require subscription. But the habit of suggesting the world is at irrecoverable risk if we don't act on climate by a certain deadline is just about a standing headline. Denying it seems much more like the verb than questioning drastic action for climate.

    That said, you suggest "no scientist ever claimed" this. I don't see where I ever suggested who made the claim but rather that the claim was made in the name of science, and scientists seldom speak up to refute exaggerations...

    First, a collection of unattributed (except for blatantly non-scientists being quoted in some cases) Murdoch propaganda is worthless as evidence of anything. Second, even those "predictions" don't include anything about the world ending. This globe still has about five billion years left before its nuclear power source (the sun) burns out. It won't end any time soon. Finally, many of those "predictions" were wrong only with respect to the specific times stated. The bad stuff they describe is happening, much sooner than humanity would like, if on a slightly different timeline. But not very different. And it's occurring just as Jamie predicted it would.

    So, to reiterate, making up fake nonsense about the world ending (no scientist ever claimed it would as a result of anthropogenic global warming), is sillyness that confirms my conclusion no serious on-topic exchange is possible.
    I just want to add that even while our star has five billion years left it will expand into a red giant long before that and will basically cook and then completely destroy this planet a billion or more years before that.
    Sal Santamaura
  • Sal Santamaura
    Sal Santamaura Member Posts: 529
    JakeCK said:

    I just want to add that even while our star has five billion years left it will expand into a red giant long before that and will basically cook and then completely destroy this planet a billion or more years before that.

    Picky, picky. Go ahead, make a liar out of me for a mere 20% difference. Let's discuss it again in three billion years and see how close the calculations were. :)
  • Jersey2
    Jersey2 Member Posts: 166
    Californians don't even need heaters. Winters are about 50 degrees. All they need is a blanket.
    I'm not a plumber or hvac man and my thoughts in comments are purely for conversation.
  • ratio
    ratio Member Posts: 3,615
    I think blankets cause cancer in California.
    JUGHNE