Electricity from wood pt. 2

[Cynnergy]

Well, I posted about this ages ago and the consensus was that this was a no-go at a house scale.

Looks like someone else is working on it though!

Not sure if this is really a new idea, but I like it. Should be enough to power the fridge at the cabin?

http://www.princegeorgecitizen.com/news/local/electricity-from-heat-1.1052181

 

[peirhead]

Even if it did produce a KWhr in a day that is worth what...15 cents....this technology is so old it..I hope it wasn't our tax dollars paying these guys to figure this out.

 

[Dune]

What do they think they invented? Thermo Electric Generators are hardly new, nor are they cost effective.

 

[begreen]

It would be interesting to see the numbers for this system. I am wondering how many btus the cooling radiator put out.

 

[sinnian]

Pellet boiler that produces energy

http://www.newhorizoncorp.com/electricheat-power-generation/

 

[Slow1]

Hmm... they must have more efficient houses than mine - if 1kwh is 10% of the average use, then that would be 10kwh/day average. I'm more like 15 here.

But in any case - I couldn't see what is novel about whatever they are doing. As stated thermoelectric couplings are well known. Unless somehow they have managed to make a much less expensive and/or efficient design.

 

[Mt Bob]

Agree with slow1,no leaps and bounds here.Why didn't they mention you could set battery in car and lay thermo on maniflod and drive around.Some years ago rika(austroflamm) designed and built pellet stoves to do this,was not cost effective until technology gets better.New Horizon looks like a twist on the same format,but nothing except the one page ad has come from them in quite some time.Is still more cost effective to produce with steam.We need more coal and nuke plants!

 

[Ashful]

Hmm... they must have more efficient houses than mine - if 1kwh is 10% of the average use, then that would be 10kwh/day average. I'm more like 15 here.

How the hell do you run an "average" house on 10 - 15 kWh??? We average 55 kWh/day, 2 adults, 1 kid, 1 baby, oil heat & DHW.

 

[Mt Bob]

I didn't even want to go there!

 

[Enzo's Dad]

This guy is interesting ,,, big into rocket stoves

 

[begreen]

How the hell do you run an "average" house on 10 - 15 kWh??? We average 55 kWh/day, 2 adults, 1 kid, 1 baby, oil heat & DHW.

Is your house is equal to approx 3 of slow's houses? If nothing else that is a lot more lighting. Do you have a lot of yard or security lighting?

 

[Ashful]

Is your house is equal to approx 3 of slow's houses? If nothing else that is a lot more lighting. Do you have a lot of yard or security lighting?

Dunno about house size, but I always figured usage is more about the occupants than the size of the structure.

We have about 570W of outdoor lighting (lamp posts and sconces) that are lit dusk - 11:30pm, and another 120W that we turn on only when the dogs go out. Until recently, I also had about 240W of floodlights trained on the front of the house, same dusk - 11:30pm timing, but eventually decided it was just a stupid waste of electrons.

I think our biggest problem is three dehumidifiers (two in basement, one in third floor attic), and a wife who likes to leave multiple TV's and lights on in rooms she's not using. Talking with friends and co-workers, that seems to be a fairly common plight.

 

[begreen]

My SIL complains that her husband is the same way. Never turns off a light or tv when he is done or leaves the room. Lighting can be a surprising load when it is for illuminating a large area or many rooms of a house.

 

[Slow1]

Well, we've been working on reducing our power consumption over the last 6 years or so. Lots of changes in habits as well as the process of upgrading lights (now on LEDs for all that are on a significant amount of time. We have 4 kids (4,8,10,12 years old) and training them from the beginning to turn off lights etc has paid off well. Biggest change for us was adapting to line-drying all our clothes instead of using the electric dryer. Doing 5-6 large loads a week I'm sure this is saving us a major portion of our potential use.

In the last week our power usage has been up - we're averaging 17Kwh/day because of using A/C in the evenings. Ironically due to allergies we are more likely to use the central air in the spring/fall when most folks can benefit from just opening windows. Believe me it is irksome to have it 50* outside and still have to keep the windows closed when the A/C was running to keep house down to lower 70's and dehumidified, but I digress.

My original point though is that I believe we are a very efficient house in terms of electric use. If the best I can average is 15Khw/day then I seriously wonder how the authors of this article can consider 10Kwh/day "average". Oh well.

 

[Bret Chase]

Well, we've been working on reducing our power consumption over the last 6 years or so. Lots of changes in habits as well as the process of upgrading lights (now on LEDs for all that are on a significant amount of time. We have 4 kids (4,8,10,12 years old) and training them from the beginning to turn off lights etc has paid off well. .

While I have tried for years.... getting my 4 kids, 14,13,12,9 to turn off the f'n lights has proven harder than teaching my dog to play the banjo....

 

[begreen]

Reward them for turning off the lights. Cut back tv, internet time if lights are left on.

 

[BrotherBart]

How the hell do you run an "average" house on 10 - 15 kWh???

Base load on this all electric barn is 15 Kwh a day. With invalid wife's sat TV, computers and DVR running around the clock. Throw in showers and washing a load of dishes and all bets are off. Well, and tonight when herself didn't turn the bathtub faucet all the way off and the well pump kept cycling for a few hours before I caught it.

Now when I had what was pretty much a data center, like yours, in the basement I burned the bearings out of a lot of electric meters. Got old, retired, and bought a couple of 20 watt laptops, LED TV, more efficient DVR, bunch of LED bulbs, Energy Star fridge and...

 

[Grisu]

How the hell do you run an "average" house on 10 - 15 kWh??? We average 55 kWh/day, 2 adults, 1 kid, 1 baby, oil heat & DHW.

Our "base load" (no one at home) is approx. 2.5 kWh per day. Our daily consumption is between 8 and 10 kWh in electricity. However, we have nat. gas range, hot water and dryer. Adding the ccfs used and converting to kWh we average about 18 kWh per day total. That goes up to 30 to 40 in the winter as some of our heat is electric plus probably increased demand for lights etc. My wife likes it bright in the room she is in but turns off the lights in the other rooms. CFLs and LEDs also help a lot with that. We rarely watch TV other than the kids maybe 2 hours of cartoons. Our computers are laptops; we have motion-activated outdoor lights, power-strips with on-off switches to further reduce baseloads, unplugging of unneeded appliances (like the garage door opener on our "storage" side), and none of us is big into electronics. My next goals are to beef up insulation to reduce the electric demand in the winter and getting the kids (6 and 8) to understand why consuming less power is in their own interest.

 

[Slow1]

While I have tried for years.... getting my 4 kids, 14,13,12,9 to turn off the f'n lights has proven harder than teaching my dog to play the banjo....

Have to get them while they are young, but I have noticed my oldest is regressing rapidly. Need to please parents going down, need to please self going up. Such is the joys of tweens I hear - and no relief in sight until they have to pay their own bills I be.

 

[Slow1]

Reward them for turning off the lights. Cut back tv, internet time if lights are left on.

I have to say as much as I dislike the easy access to electronic toys (ipod etc) this is one thing I do like. Using their addictions against them has proven far more effective and persistent than many things we've tried. For the lights left on, simply making them interrupt whatever they are doing and walk over to turn it off has been reasonably effective up to this point - will have to see what happens once they are all teens...

 

[Ashful]

What do you do when your wife is much worse than the kids?

My 4 year old shows all of my somewhat OCD tendencies, lining all his toys up and counting them, cataloging his collections of Thomas traisn and Angry Birds telepods... there is some hope for this one.

 

[maple1]

How the hell do you run an "average" house on 10 - 15 kWh??? We average 55 kWh/day, 2 adults, 1 kid, 1 baby, oil heat & DHW.

Our last 2 months bill was 16kwh/day. Prior to that it was right around 20kwh/day. In the 2-3 summer months that we heat our DHW with electric, it goes up another 4kwh/day. 2 adults + 3 teenagers. I don't consider us 'unaverage' - but seems I spend a lot of time trying to change peoples habits around here (including mine at times). Maybe it's paying off finally.

 

[Slow1]

What do you do when your wife is much worse than the kids?

Get the kids to bug her? ha! I pretty much have to turn off lights behind her much of the time, but I know her favorite ones and those now have LED bulbs so the impact of being on more than needed is minimized.

I had a roommate in college who would walk into the appt and turn every light on in every room even if he didn't plan to be in that room... seldom turned much off on the way out either. Thankfully electric was included in our rent - but I wonder if he has changed his habits since leaving school and having to pay his own bills... Hmmm.

 

[begreen]

Base load on this all electric barn is 15 Kwh a day. With invalid wife's sat TV, computers and DVR running around the clock. Throw in showers and washing a load of dishes and all bets are off. Well, and tonight when herself didn't turn the bathtub faucet all the way off and the well pump kept cycling for a few hours before I caught it.

Now when I had what was pretty much a data center, like yours, in the basement I burned the bearings out of a lot of electric meters. Got old, retired, and bought a couple of 20 watt laptops, LED TV, more efficient DVR, bunch of LED bulbs, Energy Star fridge and...

That tracks with our bills for an all electric house except for a propane cooktop. We were higher this May than last May because we ran the heat pump instead of the wood stove and are now charging the car too. That kicked us up to 19.2KWh.

 

[Ashful]

Walked into the house after working in the yard yesterday evening, and here's what was on:

10 x 45w floods in kitchen
12 x 45w floods in family room
10 x 50w floods in living room
4 x 40w in upstairs hall
2 x 60w in laundry
2 x 60w in bedroom
3 x 50w floods in changing room
2 x 40 w in bathroom

My wife was sitting at her computer in the office, in the dark.