Are there any off-grid home systems experts on this list? I am designing a small cabin and have run into a couple of design problems.
Cheers, Lawry -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, September 26, 2005 11:52 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [email protected] Subject: RE: [Futurework] N.O. Love Canals & Secular Inclusion Malcolm, Very interesting story of the shadow of having a well established standing military and the possibility of being less than obedient. I work in the strategic HR field, which involves looking at the mid and long range future relevant to all and everything pertaining to the human. Very interesting for me, its quite eclectic. Most homes in Canada are central heating using forces air. So with the advent of a DC motor to blow the air about, requires little energy - as Arther mention about 100 watt light bulb. If you are using a boiler than your heating must involve radiators and the need to heat water as well as circulate it - which I would assume does require more energy. However, for emergency purposes, the solar panel array could be used to provide other needs such light and fridge, which could be augmented with gas powered space heaters. John Verdon Sr. Strategic HR Analyst D Strat HR Department of National Defence Major-General George R. Pearkes Building 101 Colonel By Drive. Ottawa Ontario K1A 0K2 voice: 992-6246 FAX: 995-5785 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Searching for the pattern which connects.... and to know the difference that makes a difference" -----Original Message----- From: M.Blackmore [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, 23 September, 2005 17:56 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [email protected] Subject: RE: [Futurework] N.O. Love Canals & Secular Inclusion Hi John Greetings from an expat Canuck (Hamilton, Ont.) though I've been over here for (ye gads!) 35 years now. With a young family (we started very late) probably be stuck here, though I'd love to decamp to Vancouver Island. Ireland's probably a safer bet. Smaller population due to the famine (still) and no hordes of psychopathic/maddened by fear Yanks armed to the teeth, just waiting to charge north into the newly balmy (and hurricane free) climes. Unless the yellow peril decides to quit the Yellow River en masse for that of the newly mediterranean glow of the Red River Valley and Lake Winnipeg. Not sure what anyone would be able to do about a billion Chinese just deciding to up sticks and migrate if they took the notion into their heads! But then, the whole of eastern Russia is a lot more accessible and the weather may be looking up a whole heap there, too. Unless we precipitate another iceage across the northern hemisphere by shutting down the Atlantic conveyor. Fun fun fun. Incidentally, what defensive strategies are there for dealing with a militant invasion from the USA or from China? They must have all been wargamed at some point. For what its worth Dads Army would have caused the Wehrmacht a considerable problem by the summer of the next year if an invasion had been attempted, and probably intractably so by 1942. Someone once said that the most dangerous troops in streetfighting were well trained youngish middle aged family men with their kids behind them, which the Home Guard had become by then. Not prone to empty heroics but with a bitter sense of steely determination coupled with a good sense of strategic withdrawal leaving the casualty balance well skewed. What gave militias such a bad name was trying to play soldiers with them rather than make guerrillas, bad equipment, and risible levels of relevant training. That was overcome to a large extent after inintial bumblings as Spanish War veterans, for example, gained influence. The British establishment grew so worried about the HOme Guard's growing potency into 1942/43 that they started winding it down and dispersong leaders elsewhere. Found out that the list of potential collaborators and fellow travellers in the hads of theses groups for "dealing with" found too many the establishment heads upon the block (literally) at any question of some sort of appeasment. The Tory Party and quite a bit of the aristocracy might have found themselves abruptly dead as a rather grimly determined coup of the yeomanry got underway. Top of the list was people like Eden... In hindsight not many would have been missed from this little listof those who would not be missed, and its hard to see what could have stopped them enforcing their own version of the war parliament if sentiment had led to that level. Stuff like this is beginning to circuilate about a bit, and explains cryptic comments from the rural old boys who'd been recruited into special operations elements about how the County Set would have ended in the moat at the big house in a quarter hour of word of any negotions with Hitler. I knew many of these old landsmen, many of the WW1 veterans. They'd have done it too. Made my spine creep. They would have done it an' all, in remarkable short time. Now that would really have rewritten the history of winter 40 and spring /summer 42 if they'd taken it into their mind to do something about the war and who was in charge of it. Anyway, to the point. Unless the water is circulating passively by convection, it needs to be powered around by an impeller (usually) or pump. And that takes a lot more energy to move a liquid through convoluted pipe runs, bore dimension changes, up and down levels, with all the attendent issues of flow loss, turbulence and boundary effects and zillions of other frictions I know not. Much more than moving a fluid like a gas in a relatively straight line through a balanced or open flue!! Magnitudes more I would reckon. I have no idea of what sort of consumption the impeller/pump motor would use to keep a dwelling at a healthy (as opposed to comfortable) level in the event of a lekky outage! However, of we are talking about outages of under a day, it must be perfectly feasible to battery bank enough for that duration, and probably more, which can be trickle charged over time from a surprisingly small array of solar pholtaic panels. If intended to keep one going for some time in the case of major outage, then the size of the panels would be - weeellll, I dunno, but a LOT bigger! I wonder if by the time one does that, wouldn't it be worth going for community level alternative solutions and doing "local grids" as then the collective purchase of capital plant would bring unit costs down? On Fri, 2005-09-23 at 09:40 -0400, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Malcolm, > > I wish I had more knowledge of electricity, although I'm handy and have done > some simple wiring in my house as part of renovations I seem to be unable to > have the concepts 'stick' in my mind. So I have no idea of the wattage. > However, I've had a new high efficiency furnace put in and one of the > selling points was that the motor driving the fan was a direct current one > (rather than AC) and apparently that allows the fan to run all the time > while consume much less energy than the the AC motor running only in winter. > > Now as far as marketing is concern, there are already a number of products > that use a flexible solar panel to charge a variety of tools - from camping > gear (lights, and tools) to battery back-ups. I think the simple message of > conservation, easing demand on the grid, emergency preparedness along with a > modest government rebate, in a campaign of a two to three year period, would > be more than adequate to tip the masses in favour. This system may be > sufficient for older and newer, oil and gas furnaces. And as you say several > panels could be incorporated to run minimal basics - furnace, fridge, a > light or two. > > John Verdon > Sr. Strategic HR Analyst > D Strat HR > Department of National Defence > voice: 992-6246 > FAX: 995-5785 > email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > "Searching for the pattern which connects.... and to know the difference > that makes a difference" > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: M.Blackmore [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Thursday, 22 September, 2005 19:14 > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: RE: [Futurework] N.O. Love Canals & Secular Inclusion > > > On Mon, 2005-09-19 at 11:38 -0400, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > It was the lack of a minimal amount of electricity to > > keep the electrical motor that ran the furnace. I am amazed that some > > entrepreneurial spirit has not create a relatively inexpensive solar > > energy > > cell that could be directly connected to a furnace to run it in the > > event of > > a grid failure. > > Now THAT is a clever idea. What sort of wattage would need to be stored > for how long to run an electric pump and the various bits of electronics > (our gas boiler is state-fo-the-art installed in May, and the controller > circuit board is silly small...). > > What would the marketting depend upon, though? How many people aren't in > denial about insecurity of supplies? > > Thus far UK supplies of natural gas seem OK for the next decade or so, > whatever happens to liquid petrol and diesel. > > But the grid is gonna be in serious trouble due to underinvestment over > the last couple of decades. A lot of plant is going to go past its > sell-by date in the next few years. And I gather the US system is even > more clapped-out... > > Malcolm > _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] http://fes.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] http://fes.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
