Re: Oh no, I've fallen in love again! WARNING: WILDLY OT

You also have to take into account that the extra heat is not "wasted"
during the heating season - whatever energy the espresso machine uses is
almost completely offset by the reduced load on your heating system (if you
are measuring "carbon footprint" it may even be a net positive if you
substitute nuclear generated electricity for natural gas or oil, though on a
$ basis the electric heat will cost more than the fossil fuel that your
furnace burns). Around here, the heating season can run as much as 8 months
of the year. The only time of year that a big espresso machine is really a
drag is in the cooling season (and then it is, unfortunately a double drag -
once for the energy it takes to run the machine and again for the energy
needed to remove the waste heat from the room). You can obviate a lot of
that by running the machine on a timer or turning it down to a lower PID
setting when you're not using it.

Even if you are a believer in the global warming religion, I can't begin to
emphasize how little such penances for our environmental sins as not having
a big espresso machine or not using an electric toothbrush mean in the
global scale of things - they are pure theater. Reducing carbon this way is
like bailing out the ocean with a teacup. All 20 million people in
Australia could revert to aboriginal lifestyles and it wouldn't budge the
global thermometer one hundredth of a degree. The real action on carbon use
will be in Asia - right now every person in China , India, Indonesia,
Vietnam, etc. would like to have a motor vehicle, an air conditioner, a
fridge, a TV, travel by air ocassionally, etc. (to the extent they don't
have these goods already - a lot of them do). That's 2 or 3 billion more
people looking to join the consumer economy. And when they are done, there's
another billion in Africa and Latin America that would like to upgrade their
lifestyles, too. That's 100 or 200 times the population of Australia. Do
we tell these people that they can never have these things no matter how
hard they work because some rich white lady in Australia is worried about
the theoretical impact on the polar bears?




"D. Ross" <ross@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:461a81a3.2067422@xxxxxxxxxxxx
| After having been here a while, myself, I have decided that some people
just
| do not merit my time, as people or the posts they inflict upon this ng.
I
| would have stopped reading this person's posts some time ago had I ever
| started.
|
| I promise that if you simply avoid reading posts from individuals who
give
| gastric distress, the quality of your time on this planet (whether or
not it
| warms up and for whatever reason) will improve.

Yeah, I let myself get pissed off. I think it was the context - 25+ years
ago I was in a job where I occasionally risked limb and life while trying
to
enforce antipollution regulations, and now someone comes along accusing me
of not doing my bit for the environment. Feh!

I do think there is an interesting on-topic question lurking in this
thread,
namely how much more energy does such a machine actually use than, say, a
one-group HX? Say, if you lag the boilers (as Harmon would surely do,
given
his earlier threads on boiler insulation). While the machine is massive,
the actual volume of water it is heating is not huge, maybe on the order
of
the volumetric difference between two brands of household hot water
heater.
I suspect Ms. Drest does not know the answer, but maybe someone else here
does.

- David R.
--
Less information than you ever thought possible:
http://www.demitasse.net


.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: New paradigm for home heating automation and control
    ... In the example of the upstairs furnace in my house that died, ... I may end up with four heat sources in the same air handler: ... andanother heating plant which might be in an out-building ... My first repair will be to re-examine insulation and other energy conservation ...
    (comp.home.automation)
  • Re: Oh no, Ive fallen in love again! WARNING: WILDLY OT
    ... during the heating season - whatever energy the espresso machine uses is ... almost completely offset by the reduced load on your heating system (if you ... | do not merit my time, as people or the posts they inflict upon this ng. ...
    (alt.coffee)
  • Re: When I click sleep - stay asleep!
    ... large parts of the country don't use heat for much of the ... However by dismissing the entire heating ... Combine that with other easy-to-do energy reduction steps ... use 30% less electricity because that's not going to do anything. ...
    (comp.sys.mac.apps)
  • Re: Efficiency of utilities
    ... heating is "less efficient" than gas heating. ... Gas or oil boilers waste 8% to 30% of the heat through the flue. ... I've done some online research in this area, and it is incredibly hard to find out the *real* cost in energy when it gets delivered to your home. ...
    (uk.tech.digital-tv)
  • Re: Bollocks: Call to scrap TV standby buttons to help environment
    ... When you think of the total waste of energy from devices in standby, ... buildings in most of Britain need heating most of the time, ... Not all of the heat gain is useful heat. ... Norman Wells ...
    (uk.media.tv.misc)