Termyn8or
Posts: 18681
Joined: 11/12/2005
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LE, you've doubled up on me. The one point that alot of travel should be eliminated is a good one. I have oft said, but locally because that is where it is understood. "You got a roofer driving from Eastlake to Westlake to do a job, as another roofer passes by on the same road going from Westlake to Eastlake to do the exact same job on a different house". Just to clarify, Westlake is a suburb about 15 miles west of me and Eastlake is about 25 miles east of me. Each of them is driving forty miles each way.
I have said it more than once, but not so much here being international and all, but I actually did it. I traded jobs with someone about three years ago. They had been driving about forty miles each way to work, and I was driving twenty three. After the swap he was driving about fifteen and I was driving about seven. And this job is not something everyone can do, but what about jobs with different skill levels ?
Like landscaping. Unless you are the master of landscaping, it doesn't take all that much in the way of schooling. In fact there is a maintainence component of that kind of work which mostly entails mowing the grass, once everything is in. Now why do I see a pickup with a trailer hauling lawnmowers on the highway, and see one going the other direction as well ?
This is meant for everybody, but LE, of all people you know what has happened to the bottom line when it comes to transportation. Maybe start a network called Jobtrade or something like that.
Now as to you other point about compressed air. It may be a viable option for some things, but understand it takes quite a bit of pressure, as well as delivery. Factories use to to power small tools as it is more efficient than electricity or other means. In fact in the old days alot of factories had one huge motor mounted up high and belts drove all the machines, the bigger ones anyway. Any transferrence of power costs money. I'm sure plenty of them used compressed air as well because it is more practical for certain things.
However running a house on compressed air is not practical.
I can't claim to be a real engineer but I am damn close, and probably know more than some of the stupid ones. Years ago I designed something that, but for the lack of one component, would be worth patenting. I dropped it.
This was a car AC system that uses no freon, latent heat principles or anything like that. And knowing what I know I can say this assuredly, if a deisel engine can run, this would work. A deisel runs because at around 25:1 compression ratio it needs no spark plug, The intake air temperature rises once compressed in the cylinder. This is not because of friction, this is because you have compressed the air to such a degree that the same amount of heat energy in the large volume of air is now in a very small volume of air. By the basic laws of thermodynamics the temperature must increase, and remember we are coming from absolute zero here, not zero celsius or farenheit.
Now my idea entails filtering and compressing air to several atmosphers and pushing it through a heat exchanger. The system has a regulator at the output of the heat exchanger (it would be improper to call it a condenser I think) and it lets out enough air, which when allowed to expand is at a much lower temperature.
The problem with the KISS theory here is that a compressor must be designed which can maintain the high air pressure needed to effect enough of a temperature difference between the heat exchanger and the ambient air, all the while providing enough volume to cool the cabin of the vehicle.
Therein lies the problem. A compressor with sufficient capacity to do it, and along with that, the requisite energy to run the compressor.
Which brings us to the flaw in your theory. First of all gas lines are low pressure and in many areas would not be able to handle it. But even if we forget using gas lines, make new lines, it is going to take alot. That is a major undertaking to upgrade the infrastructure to do this. It can be done though, but is it practical ?
First of all we are talking bigger pipes that the gas company used, and really, compressed air is not the way to heat a house. With high pressure lines coming into the house I could see a network of pipes running certain things. Somewhat like they use in factories and garages. I could see refrigerators, AC units, washers and dryers powered by air. Anything with a decent size motor in it.
However compressed air does nothing to fill the washing machine tank, and heating, that's a nighmare. Using air, which you will no doubt pay for by CFM, or outstates cubic litres or something, the only way to make any heat is to generate electricity. We are back where we started.
It is cheaper to burn gas. I said gas because it applies to both gas gas and gasoline, or benzine or petrol, your choice. Although it covers more other costs, in Europe petrol has been very expensive for some time now. Whatever they use all that money for matters not, under those conditions people do look for alternatives. They haven't quite found it yet.
One has to do math sometimes. Natural gas rates have skyrocketed in this area, and now it is "semi-privatized" with companies being allowed, for a fee, to deliver thweir gas through the existing pipes. This year, we are going to an electric dryer. We will still have both but our electric bills have not increased all that much over the years.
But are we at the crossover point where electricity is cheaper ? If it gets to that point we will install electric heat, but get this, we are going to remove anything. We will be able to pick which form of heat on any given day. OK so we got options, but what are those options, both cost money.
I don't think, as far as transportation goes, we will see the crossover point making something other than gasoline viable until it hits about twenty bucks a gallon. Right now an electric car looks good, but once you get one, and you get the electric bill after charging it, you have gained nothing.
The problem lies in the fact that it takes energy to generate electricity, and electricity is not really an efficient medium. That is why electric furnaces are not in vogue in Ohio, US. But it might happen. Eventually.
So in analogy to the compressed air theory, just what is ultimately to compress that air ? That has to take energy.
One tenet of science is that energy cannot be created nor destroyed, but the thing is, it can be apparently created and destroyed. It's all in one's prespective.
In the end, the answer has to be solar. I think eventually, possibly after a couple of wars, the crossover point will come and between reduced consumption and increased efficiency in the use of solar power, it will ultimately be the answer. Thing is everybody thinks inside the box. Whenever solar is brought up is comes back to solar cells. That is not the only way to use solar energy.
If you have a bigscreen TV, a rear projection, in it behind the screen is a fresnel lens. If you ever go nuts and throw a beer through it or something you have to get a new one and it is $$$, lots of them. It says right on the box "Do not remove it from the box outside". That is because it is basically a huge magnifying glass. Out in the sun it can cause a fire.
A coworker and I one day decided to test that. We took one outside on a warm sunny day and we found that we could burn asphalt with no problem. Discussion on anther group, a guy said to use it for casting bullets for reloading. Melt lead, it would be no problem at all. Now a heat source like this, you have to be able to do something with it.
But winter does come. Every year that I have been alive.
Gathering and transporting an alternativwe form of enegy is already a headache to say the least, now try to store it. At least gas can go in tanks, and again I used the word gas because it applies to both gasoline and natural gas. Yoiu can keep it bottled up somehow.
Battery technology sucks, even wire transportation of electricity sucks. They have to step it up with transformers to hundreds of thousands of volts so the don't have to use wires that are three feet thick.
Everything is a pain in the ass, but there will come a point when the scales will tip. When people finally say "Fuck this" and go alternative. That when the power dynamic of the world will also tip.
Enjoy it if you live long enough to see it happen.
T
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