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vern_humphrey
Guest
Another benefit is that my hot water heater is hooked into the system. That makes for cheaper hot water.
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Al_Masetti
Guest
Have you signed up yet for www.climatechangedebate.org ?
Yesterday and today there were some excellent new posts.
[Accuracy in posting: a few of the new postings were mine.]
[But only a few. The other guys did a super job and I just responded to their posts.]
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wildleafblower
Guest
Well, I’ve traveled more miles than your average person. The San Joaquin Valley sure ain’t like the Sacramento Valley where you can see many a motor bike zip zapping around those twisting, tomato trucker’s delta backroads as speed boats slip slide across the slouths. Yahoo!
However, the San Joaquin Valley has been sprouting new communities, hospitals, and longer commutes to work for some folks, but what the heck there’s plenty of cheap fresh fruit and vegetables.(tee hee) Fortunately, it’s brought about ‘environmental groups in support of habitat and species conservation’. (What can I say, I’m a worldwide global WILDLIFER
) And PG&E as one of California’s largest landowners supports 'em. 
PGE Launches Industry-Leading Habitat Conservation Plan, Regional Approach to Environmental Stewardship Improves Long-Term Habitat Protection and Customer Service February 25, 2008. Here is a sippet of the article:[snip]
PG&E’s Operations & Maintenance Habitat Conservation Plan is an extension of the utility’s commitment to serve its customers and protect the environment by effectively balancing the utility’s need to maintain existing gas and electric infrastructure, and perform work in a way that avoids and minimizes impacts to protected wildlife and plant species.
“Our extensive network of gas and electric infrastructure spans over 74,000 square miles and is home to wildlife and other important natural resources,” said Steven Kline, vice president, corporate environmental and federal affairs at PG&E. “As we upgrade and maintain our gas and electric facilities to meet California’s growing needs, protecting threatened and endangered species and their habitats is critical. PG&E’s new Habitat Conservation Plan will protect more than 175 sensitive wildlife and plant species system wide, and is the latest example of how we are developing innovative solutions to ensure responsible stewardship of these resources while continuing to provide our customers with safe, reliable and clean energy.”
The utility’s new O&M HCP program is designed to ensure the long-term protection of sensitive species through a process that allows PG&E to access and maintain its facilities in a timely manner. Unlike most HCPs which govern habitat protection for future land development, PG&E’s O&M HCP is the first to be activity-based, addressing protection for existing land uses. Other innovative aspects of the program include the wide range of sensitive species to be covered and the governance of many small-scale operational activities dispersed over a large geographic area. This approach improves PG&E’s service to customers by avoiding schedule delays associated with acquiring individual, project-by-project permits for threatened and endangered species.
Developed in collaboration with federal and state natural resource agencies, the O&M HCP program also allows PG&E to more effectively partner with local stakeholders and environmental groups in support of habitat and species conservation efforts. As part of the program, PG&E is looking forward to partnering with local, state and federal conservation organizations to protect 15,000 acres of sensitive habitat.
PG&E’s O&M HCP will first be rolled out to the San Joaquin Valley region in early 2008, the first in a series of six regions that cover PG&E’s service area stretching from Eureka in the north to Bakersfield in the south. Additional regions include the Bay Area, Sacramento Valley, North Coast, Central Coast and Sierra Nevada. Recognizing the unique features of each region, PG&E is developing the plans to reflect the species, geography, and operational activities specific to each region. All six regions will roll up into one permit – PG&E’s Operations and Maintenance HCP.
The San Joaquin Valley O&M HCP will cover almost all of the utility’s routine operations, maintenance, and minor new construction activities that occur within the San Joaquin Valley for the next 30 years. It also establishes clear goals and measures for protecting, managing and monitoring 23 wildlife and 42 plant species, including the San Joaquin kit fox, California red-legged frog, vernal pool fairy shrimp and western burrowing owl.
As one of California’s largest landowners, PG&E is committed to protecting California’s natural resources. In addition to PG&E’s Habitat Conservation Plan, the utility has partnered with the Pacific Forest and Watershed Lands Stewardship Council to permanently protect 140,000 acres of watershed lands associated with the utility’s hydroelectric system – one of the largest individual dedications of private lands to conservation. PG&E’s Land Conservation Commitment protects a broad range of public beneficial uses including natural habitat of fish, wildlife and plants; preservation of open space; and public outdoor recreation, among others. *
pge.com/about/news/mediarelations/newsreleases/q1_2008/080225.shtml
http://www.pge.com/about/news/mediarelations/newsreleases/q1_2008/080225.shtml
Thanks for the break mr. low rider. I gotta trot on over to laugh at VERN
after I feed the birds then deal my cards on a DEBATE.
That could take days, until then I have hummers going through 24 cups of suger water a day! The babies are humming. As far as food prices go . . . they ain’t ever going back
d
o
w
n !
Help the poor.
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Al_Masetti
Guest
Which is why moving to methanol NOT ethanol ] is so important.
Visit www.energyvictory.net
Ask your library to get the book “Energy Victory” by Robert Zubrin.
Methanol can be made from waste junk vegetation … NOT foodstuff sugars. NOT corn. NOT sugar cane. NOT sugar beets.
Methanol can also be made from coal and natural gas (which is often trapped in uneconomically small deposity).
And methanol can be made from garbage and from wood chips.
Methanol suffers from some transportation issues. There apparently are limits on pipeline transport. But if methanol was locally generated from locally produced items that are now wasted … and the waste mix varies from place to place … then there would be tremendous advantages in reducing transport costs … and … in securing energy independence … energy victory.
Read Zubrin’s book … www.energyvictory.net*
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Al_Masetti
Guest
Vern, this is fabulous!!!
How did you get this system designed? Is this a local “cottage industry” in the place where you live? Do your neighbors have systems like this?
More details please!!!
Maybe start a new thread just for this??? …
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rlg94086
Guest
QSI makes the nano-metals and they developed the hydrogen generation system; however, they work with other companies (many) that make the actual batteries. I’m not sure who the company is in the report you saw.
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vern_humphrey
Guest
It’s a standard system – you can get it anywhere, although there may be local restrictions on the “wells.” These wells are not really wells that tap groundwater – regular treated potable water is circulated in them. The key is that the water circulated through the wells is kept at the same temperature as groundwater – 55 to 56 degrees.
My sistem is hooked into the water heater – it starts out a bit warmer than water line water in the winter, and there’s plenty of surplus heat in the summer – so it saves energy and money that way, too.
My neighbor has one, and I checked his out when I built – I calculated the added cost of the system would be paid back in savings in 10 years. Rising energy costs made the payoff in less than five years.
Here’s the site:
waterfurnace.com/?gclid=COrJqIiS4JICFQcigQodcn4g7A
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Doug50
Guest
Yea these are nice systems. I’d like to have one but retrofitting to my house would be a big problem. I know people who built there new homes with geothermal heatpumps and the spray foam insulation (Icynene). The technology to buil net zero energy homes is around but building them is more expensive. I’d still like to have one, though. I did spray my atic decking with the foam and it made a huge difference in heating, well see how the summer cooling season goes. The push today with the foam insulation is to actually seal the atic space (called a conditioned atic) and mechanically transfer the air exchange with outside air.
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Doug50
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Here’s how the work, Al: with a well system you drill one well for every tonage per house conditioning required (at least that’s how it’s calculated in Texas). Two pipes are run down the well with a “U” at the bottom so all that’s needed is a circulating pump top ground.
http://www.shive-hattery.com/images/geothermal.gif
The other way is to not have wells but lay the piping in a trench
(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)
http://www.shive-hattery.com/images/geothermal.gif
The other way is to not have wells but lay the piping in a trench
(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)
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drpmjhess
Guest
Thanks, Al – I know about the book, but have yet to read it. I’ll check it out.
Petrus
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Al_Masetti
Guest
Seems to me that the local contractors need to know what they are doing. And the heat pump components need to be readily available (locally). And the selection of components needs to be carefully matched … computed … and etc.
I tried to buy a regular air-to-air heat pump here last year and got nothing but negativity.
[Decades ago, a military facility where I lived and worked used heat pumps. When the units wore out, we put in an order for replacements and the wonderful [sarcasm] bureaucracy that issued the bids sent us air conditioners.]
[We ordered heat pumps that were 220v 50Hz …cycles per second in those days … approximately certain BTU range … and no larger than certain dimensions to fit in the existing space available.]
[What we got were 110v 60Hz air conditioners that were too large to fit in the spaces available.]
So, what we have here … is yet another example of bureaucracy in action. One size fits all. And if not, well then we’ll reduce your size.
I tried to buy a regular air-to-air heat pump here last year and got nothing but negativity.
[Decades ago, a military facility where I lived and worked used heat pumps. When the units wore out, we put in an order for replacements and the wonderful [sarcasm] bureaucracy that issued the bids sent us air conditioners.]
[We ordered heat pumps that were 220v 50Hz …cycles per second in those days … approximately certain BTU range … and no larger than certain dimensions to fit in the existing space available.]
[What we got were 110v 60Hz air conditioners that were too large to fit in the spaces available.]
So, what we have here … is yet another example of bureaucracy in action. One size fits all. And if not, well then we’ll reduce your size.
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Doug50
Guest
maybe not in NJ but heat pumps are standard around here. On the air coil systems two speed fan/compressors are also the norm. The higher speeds don’t kick in unless they’re needed.
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drpmjhess
Guest
Al, I’ve been afraid that when heating oil goes through the roof on a family budget, my relatives in Marquette Michigan will not be able to live there. Would heat pumps work so far north? Drilled into lakeside granite? Is the ground temperature fairly consistent around the globe, except for geothermal or volcanic areas?
Petrus
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vern_humphrey
Guest
Once I needed electric forklifts. So I ordered them, along with battery chargers.
The response was they would send me the forklifts, but not the battery chargers. It seems there were several different forklifts under the same number, and until they came to ship them, they wouldn’t know which ones I was getting, and therefore wouldn’t know which chargers I needed.
I was supposed to wait until the forklifts arrived, read the accompanying manuals to find out which charger they needed, then figure out the number for that charger and order it – while my forklifts remailed idle.
When I finally got the chargers, the engineers told me they couldn’t hook them up – wrong plug. Wouldn’t fit the sockets in the warehouse.
When the smoke cleared, the surviving engineer allowed maybe they could get a plug that fit our sockets, cut off the original plug, and put that one on.
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vern_humphrey
Guest
Groundwater temperature closely approximates the average year-round temperature. If it’s a few degrees above freezing, geo-thermal systems will work – although they will work better the greater the differential.
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Al_Masetti
Guest
In one of the engineering magazines, they described a geothermal system up in Alaska. The ground water was relatively low temp, but the temp difference between the water and the ambient air temp was great enough to all the system to work.
Not a precisely responsive answer to your question.
But you’re right; … it depends.
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Al_Masetti
Guest
It bugs me: the April 2008 issue of Popular Mechanics goes into a lot of detail * with respect to alternative energy … the article mentions ethanol but not methanol.
I guess I need to start working on Popular Mechanics.*
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Ridgerunner
Guest
You also need readily available groundwater that’s not too far down, and it helps if it’s moving water. I know approximately where Vern lives, and it’s like where I live. Limestone karst formations; chock full of moving water very near the surface. That’s an almost perfect situation. But I suspect there are lots of places where it would still work well, if not perfectly.
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peregrinus_WA
Guest
Petrus
I read the book on Al’s recommendation and it was an excellent start on understanding alternative energies.
Technology is rapidly advancing in this field so that almost anything organic will be able to be used for biofuels (both methanol and ethanol). What is extremely promising is the use of cellulose material.Imagine this scenario: A field of corn is harvested. The kernel is extracted and send for processing as food. The stalk, husk, and cob is used at material for biofuels.
Not only will we have food from the kernal, but biofuel from the waste products. The same can be said for any other agricultural product where part of the plant is discarded. The same could be used for waste from lumber, leaf collection, and landfills.
The list materials, both cellulose and non-cellulose, is endless. Even raw sewage could be used.
What I am saying is that alternative energy, even bio-fuels, can be socially responsible if done properly.
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vern_humphrey
Guest
Since I’m getting estimates for the cost to repair a mile of private road that was washed out, a pond that overflowed and eroded the dam, and the topsoil stripped off the pasture, I’d say “chock full of moving water” is an understatement.
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