Energy-savings no-brainers - or are they?

Jun 12 03:29 UTC 2000

Sometimes you see things that make you go "Why the heck aren't they
doing something about this?  They'd make out like bandits!"
 
Case in point:
 
40-unit apartment building.  Laundry room is on the 2nd floor on the
north; the building goes east-west.  The laundry room has its own
water heater in a closet off the room proper.
 
There is a flue and some kind of unused pipe coming into the closet
area.  Running a gas heater would appear to be a piece of cake.
Despite this, the water heater runs on ELECTRICITY at probably four
times the cost.  So do the dryers.
 
Across the narrow dimension of the building is a blank wall.  It
would appear to be simple to mount flat-plate solar collectors
to this wall and heat (or pre-heat) the laundry-room water, for
free.  It would even have qualified - maybe still qualifies -
for tax credits.  But the sunlight that falls there just heats
up the bricks.
 
IIRC, sunlight in Michigan in the summer averages around 500 calories
per cm^2 per day.  A two-yard-by-five-yard collector (about 9 m^2)
running at 70% capture efficiency and 20% losses would be able to heat
about 160 gallons of water from 50 F to 122 F, every day.  Compared to
electricity, this would save up to about $2.30 a day, several hundred
dollars a year.  $4000 invested in solar collectors would appear to
have a near-guaranteed payoff much higher than the mortgage interest
rate; financially, a no-brainer.
 
And they're still using electricity.  Aside from being cheapskates on
the capital cost, can anyone tell me *why*?

response 2 of 26:

Jun 12 03:39 UTC 2000

Another one is those little "wall wart" transformers we all have a
bunch of.  A dirty little secret is that they suck up power even
when they're not doing anything.  Supposedly, the parasitic draw of
the little black power transformers in the USA consumes the entire
output of a powerplant or two.

Just today, I unplugged the "wall wart" that recharges my hair
trimmer.  It wasn't plugged into the trimmer at the time, but it
was warm to the touch.  All that warmth was made from the parasitic
power that it was drawing for no useful purpose.

This one actually is a no-brainer... for the manufacturers.  Nobody
is going to pay extra to save a watt or two watts unless they're really
anal about it, but even two watts is a significant expense; that's 48
watt-hours a day, or about 1.4 kilowatt-hours a month.  At 8 cents a
KWH, it costs about a buck and a half a year.  Definitely a large
(and recurring) expense compared to a two-dollar transformer.

This is an example of people failing to mind the small expenses.  It
will probably take an EPA "Energy Star" program for small devices to get
this fixed.  In five years these things will probably be required to
have chips that turn them on every couple of seconds, detect if something
is connected to them, and shut down again if no power is required in the
space of 1/60 of a second or so.  It certainly wouldn't be that hard, and
it would save 99% or so of the power currently lost to parasite loads (no
pun intended).  The problem is getting everybody on board to make it happen.

response 4 of 26:

Jun 12 04:48 UTC 2000

Russ, I think you've probably answered your own question as to why the 
apt building you descirbed has electric water heaters. It's been my 
experience that most owners of large apt complexes are corporations 
that aren't the least bit ashamed of "being cheapskates on the capital 
cost" of their properties. Every dollar they shave off of their 
mortgage is another dollar that goes to the shareholders. Furthermore, 
the higher cost of operating an electric water heater is simply passed 
on to the renters. 

I just don't see how apt building owners have any econimic incentive to 
install energy-saving equipment, which is unfortunate.

response 6 of 26:

Jun 12 15:18 UTC 2000

Maybe it's an access thing.  Unless a gas utility pipeline goes across your
property in a right-of-way, you cannot get gas into a building.  Unless the
architect designs gas infrastructure into your building, you cannot attach
gas appliances to it.

I owned a home at one point that did not have gas, did not have accesses to
a gas pipeline, and would have cost me more than $100,000 to add gas
infrastructure to the house.  Needless to say, I learned to live with
electricity.  

response 8 of 26:

Jun 13 03:46 UTC 2000

Actually, most TVs now are equipped with switching power supplies, which
draw *very* little idle current.  While keeping the filaments hot, if TVs
still do that, is probably significant, keeping the power supply energized
probably isn't.

While you're at it, want to comment on all the power wasted magnetizing
doorbell transformers? :)

response 10 of 26:

Jun 13 07:54 UTC 2000

this item reminds me of why I like m-net better than grex.

response 12 of 26:

Jun 13 11:52 UTC 2000

You guys remind me why I got bored of M-Net.  Too many there couldn't see past
the last coat of paint, thought a screwdriver is a drink and hammer is what
they did to the last response.  Many are here because M-Net is / was down and
most couldn't lift a finger to help getting it back up if they even wanted
to.              (Bang, bang time over.)

I think a lot also has to do with codes, UL and liability.  Perhaps the
flue pipe you saw in the closet had problems that would have been
expensive or impossible to fix.  One begins to appreciate these things
after one has dealt with building departments, building inspectors and
tried to design products the pass UL, etc.  There is a lot you can get
away with in a private home but it's pretty difficult, and costly if you
get caught, to do so in an apartment complex.  I'm sure that solar
collectors would be a difficult and expensive thing just to push through
our local building department.

response 14 of 26:

Jun 13 19:25 UTC 2000

i'ud laika slice pappy!

response 16 of 26:

Jun 13 23:55 UTC 2000

I believe "instant on" was outlawed because of the number of TVs spontaniously
combusting.  1974-75 rings a bell.  

response 18 of 26:

Jun 16 02:30 UTC 2000

The active adverb is "cheaply". It's an example of the technological
"tragedy of the commons". Each wart is so cheap and draws so little power
that there is no obvious reason to regulate them - until there are
millions in service. 

There are a half dozen or so just around this computer - but they are
all on power strips and get turned off when the computer is shut down.
But others are always on - the answering machine, cordless phone bases,
laptop chargers...and some that don't come right to mind. For these,
it is their inefficiency that is the culprit.

response 20 of 26:

Jun 16 15:35 UTC 2000

If a single wall wart's power consumption is such a small percentage of a
household's energy use (and it is), then millions of them in service ought
to also be that small a percentage of the nation's use.

response 22 of 26:

Jun 17 04:17 UTC 2000

I suspect there are much more serious wastes than wall warts.  Excessive
outdoor lighting, for example, which also contributes to light pollution. 
Standard water heaters are another example.  On-demand units are much more
efficient, because you don't have 40 gallons of water being kept hot all the
time.

response 24 of 26:

Jun 18 00:12 UTC 2000

Much outdoor lighting is very poorly designed - the light is supposed to 
fall on the surrounding pavement, etc. - not head directly up to the
sky.