Re: OT: GO SOLAR ! Was: go nuclear. Was: Detecting ETI via CO2
- From: "Rob Dekker" <rob@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 31 Jul 2005 09:00:34 GMT
"Matt Giwer" <jull43@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:rZcGe.53018$mC.34875@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Rob Dekker wrote:
> > Hi Matt,
>
> > Thanks for a great presentation of your numbers, and very useful link
(the US Dep. Energy annual report) !!
>
> > I was sure off with my guestimate of 250GW.. So it's almost TWO
capacity... Man, we are power-hungry here.
> > That's like 2500W or so per every man/woman/child... (380million people
in the US?).
> > In my native Holland, it is closer to 750 WE/person
>
> 280 million population so about 4kW but remember that is peak summer
demand on the hottest day
> where that demand is air conditioners coming on line. It is rare to find a
home without A/C in the US.
OK. I did some background checks.
Here is a report from the Dutch energy consortium, about energy usage in
Holland :
http://www.energie.nl/dossier/eprod1998.pdf
Forgive me twice : First, it is in Dutch (obviously) and second it's from
1998, (overviews of the year 1997).
Couple of interesting items (you'll have to trust me on this if your Dutch
is a bit rusty) :
Total capacity (peak) is 20 GW. (14.59 GW from centralized plants, 5.28 GW
from small plants).
Total energy usage during 1997 : 80400 GWh.
At that time, there were about 15 million people in Holland.
That is a 611 W / person average usage (and up to 1333 W peak).
In comparison, US uses 1617 W / person average (and up to 4kW peak).
What on Earth is the US using all this electricity for ?
Air conditioners ? OK. So how about using better insulation, saving air
conditioning costs ? Ever thought about building houses from double-walled
stone rather than plywood ? The mass of an inner concrete wall and an outer
layer of brick alone is a great temperature insulator. Not to mention the 5
inches of stone-wool insulation. Or heat-exchangers in the ventilation
system. The US has not even scratched the surface when it comes to saving
energy in home and transportation and industry. Don't talk to me about it
"already been done". You have no clue what can be done.
An even more disturbing trend is that while Europe continues to save more
energy, the US seems to think that all has been done already, so the rest
needs to come from increased production. From, you guessed it : fossil
fuels.
Very disturbing.
.
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