Re: When I click sleep - stay asleep!

In article <4d8i4sF18nqf2U1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Dave Hinz <DaveHinz@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Keep in mind also, that in the winter, waste heat from all your wall
warts and such, just helps cut down on fuel costs for the furnace.
Slightly, possibly meaninglessly, but that energy is warming the house.
Leave the lightbulbs _on_, in the winter, you're not wasting anything.
In fact, if it's at night around here and you're on time of use, it's
cheaper to use electricity to heat than to use propane, during off-peak
hours.

You're not taking into account the fact that the heat is a byproduct
of the lighting, and the lightbulb certaintly isn't designed to be
giving off the maximum amount of heat for the amount of electricity
it's drawing. Plus, the heat that's being generated by the recessed
lights in my kitchen ceiling isn't doing a whole lot to heat the air
down low.

Plus, the heat being put off by a TV that's off is largely negligible
for an individual (particularly when the TV is in the living room and
you're asleep at 2 am in the bedroom), but the amount of electricity
being wasted by all the turned-off TVs around the country is, in the
aggregate, a meaningful amount.

(Don't worry, we're all hydroelectric here in Seattle, I'm not killing
your "Planet."

Imagine the environmental impact studies these days if you wanted to
build a dam around here.

Well, you need to quantify the costs. On the plus, you're generating
cheap, non-polluting electricity. But it can have serious consequences
not only for nature but also for folks who live downstream, sometimes
far downstream. It's important to take these all into account, and not
just to support building a dam because it can provide cheap
electricity.

This is one of those places where
environmentalists (I consider myself to be one) lack the "big picture".
Nuke plants of modern design are fail-safe.

Famous last words.

It's fine that they don't
understand the physics because they choose not to educate themselves, I
guess, but when they equate it to Chernobyl's reactor they just show
ignorance. If we'd build nuke plants and offset some of this
carbon-based fuel economy we have, think of the improvements.

You paint too broad a brush by saying "environmentalists." I agree
with you, and a growing number of other environmentalists do as well.
But just because you have a fail-safe reactor design doesn't mean
you've solved all the answers.

Hell of a lot more than worrying about me having some wall warts plugged
in.

Well, but building nuclear plants or hydroelectric dams has serious
costs. Redesigning electrical equipment so it draws little or no
electricity when off costs little and gives measurable (in the
aggregate) advantages. In any event, you're not going to get a nuclear
plant built tomorrow, but you can turn off your electrical equipment
today.

- geoff
.

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