There are some good ones in this series (at least I think so - but then who am I).
09 February 2011
Form Poems 100217-100226
There are some good ones in this series (at least I think so - but then who am I).
Poetry
I wanted to verify my citing of poetry as coming from the ancient Greek (which I knew, but there is an old English history as well - a "maker" is a poet). So I googled. What I found surprised me. Not the amount of hits, but that only Wikipedia has a definition. "Poetry (from the [Greek] 'poiesis'/ποίησις [poieo/ποιεω], a making: a forming, creating, or the art of poetry, or a poem) is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning." No other sites, not the Library of Congress, not the Poetry Foundation, not the Academy of American Poets - no one has dared venture to define the art. Yes, to define it is to close it, but provide a wedge into the conversation. Give friction against which to rub to challenge. I feel my drawings challenge the Wikipedia definition, at the same time as they affirm it.
05 February 2011
Refrigerators
No exactly sexy reading.
I found this site http://www.toptenusa.org/, which gives the top ten energy saving appliances in the US. I also found this site http://www.topten.info/, which gives the top ten energy saving appliances in Europe. What a difference.
1. The ranking is based on energy use per unit of volume. This is not necessarily the best ranking. The least consuming refrigerators should be placed first, regardless of size. A very large refrigerator might out perform a smaller one based on the kWh/volume ranking, but a smaller fridge uses less energy overall. The former ranking encourages a larger-than-needed appliance.
2. The best US refrigerators use 335 kWh/year. The best performing EU refrigerators use at most 211 kWh/year for their largest units. They determine that fridges that use more than 296 kWh/year are inefficient.
Why don't we see European models being mimicked here in the US?
In general, EU fridges are smaller than US fridges. There are also much higher performing units at the smaller end of the size range. Unit efficiency in the US declines with size; rather than remaining equivalent total energy use often increases.
It is hard to make specific comparisons because the EU uses a different method of calculating volume than the US. Overall exterior dimensions that are comparable have a significantly different interior volume - the US interior volume apparently far larger. I need to do more research on this disparity.
Long and short of it: our appliances are as fat as our population and consume typically twice as much as our EU cousins.
I found this site http://www.toptenusa.org/, which gives the top ten energy saving appliances in the US. I also found this site http://www.topten.info/, which gives the top ten energy saving appliances in Europe. What a difference.
1. The ranking is based on energy use per unit of volume. This is not necessarily the best ranking. The least consuming refrigerators should be placed first, regardless of size. A very large refrigerator might out perform a smaller one based on the kWh/volume ranking, but a smaller fridge uses less energy overall. The former ranking encourages a larger-than-needed appliance.
2. The best US refrigerators use 335 kWh/year. The best performing EU refrigerators use at most 211 kWh/year for their largest units. They determine that fridges that use more than 296 kWh/year are inefficient.
Why don't we see European models being mimicked here in the US?
In general, EU fridges are smaller than US fridges. There are also much higher performing units at the smaller end of the size range. Unit efficiency in the US declines with size; rather than remaining equivalent total energy use often increases.
It is hard to make specific comparisons because the EU uses a different method of calculating volume than the US. Overall exterior dimensions that are comparable have a significantly different interior volume - the US interior volume apparently far larger. I need to do more research on this disparity.
Long and short of it: our appliances are as fat as our population and consume typically twice as much as our EU cousins.
03 February 2011
Carbon Tax
I just read a piece on Grist.org (http://www.grist.org/article/2011-01-28-investment-is-win-win-for-global-economy-and-climate-stiglitz) about Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz regarding combating climate change and improving the economy. He feels that the investment in a societal good, instead of simply trying to stimulate spending on consumption, will help the world out of the current recession. I tend to agree. He thinks ultimately that a price on carbon emissions needs to be instituted to create the incentive to invest in clean energy and a disincentive for the consumption of fossil fuels. His figure was $80/ton of CO2.
To put this into perspective, I looked at the CO2 emissions of a variety of fossil fuels:
Gasoline: 19.4 lbs/gal = a $0.78/gal tax, or a little over a 25% price increase.
Diesel: 22.2 lbs/gal = a $0.88/gal tax
Natural gas: 11 lbs/therm = a $0.44/therm tax. Current US average price per therm = $1.07, so this is about a 41% increase. This is tougher on the poor to pay this. It also puts a hit on business. Then phase it in over 5 years. Use the tax generated to give a tax credit for efficiency upgrades.
Coal: For the generation of electricity, coal produces 1.3 lbs/kWh = $0.05/kWh tax. The national average price for electricity is $0.11.2/kWh, so this is also a 45% cost increase. Again, phase it in, subsidize upgrades, reduce taxes in other areas.
This is not drastic. Europe has gas taxes that are roughly double the cost of the fuel. The sooner we start, the sooner we send a price signal to invest in new technologies, in our homes and businesses to improve their efficiency. So if any of my elected representatives reads my blog, please tax my carbon.
To put this into perspective, I looked at the CO2 emissions of a variety of fossil fuels:
Gasoline: 19.4 lbs/gal = a $0.78/gal tax, or a little over a 25% price increase.
Diesel: 22.2 lbs/gal = a $0.88/gal tax
Natural gas: 11 lbs/therm = a $0.44/therm tax. Current US average price per therm = $1.07, so this is about a 41% increase. This is tougher on the poor to pay this. It also puts a hit on business. Then phase it in over 5 years. Use the tax generated to give a tax credit for efficiency upgrades.
Coal: For the generation of electricity, coal produces 1.3 lbs/kWh = $0.05/kWh tax. The national average price for electricity is $0.11.2/kWh, so this is also a 45% cost increase. Again, phase it in, subsidize upgrades, reduce taxes in other areas.
This is not drastic. Europe has gas taxes that are roughly double the cost of the fuel. The sooner we start, the sooner we send a price signal to invest in new technologies, in our homes and businesses to improve their efficiency. So if any of my elected representatives reads my blog, please tax my carbon.
02 February 2011
Drying Clothes
This is a work in progress. I am going to try the approach that a blog is a kind of notebook. Rather than present fully baked ideas, perhaps the evidence of thinking is an appropriate approach.
I have been doing a weekly guest post on Annie Coggan's blog, www.chairsandbuildings.wordpress.com. I have long been interested in how we use energy in our culture. I have been trying to find a merge between my drawings, which have been primarily about form, and my political interests, tied up with climate change. I have started to keep more complete notes on the background facts. This one is about drying clothes.
Clothes drying
In 2001 average annual household electrical consumption for dryer use was 1079 kWh, representing 5.8% of household electricity consumption overall. That’s an average annual expense of $162. This does not include the cost of heating the hot water. Average US carbon emissions per kWh are 1.3 pounds of CO2. Thus 1402 lbs for electric drying. [this seems low]
Natural gas use for dryers is harder to determine. The DOE does not have specific appliance energy data for anything but electricity, so one has to extrapolate. Total natural gas consumption for appliances was .43 quads, or 43,000,000,000,000 btus. This is probably a combination of cooking and dryer operation. This represents 111 million households. Therefore natural gas use is about 387,000 btus per household. I cannot make a clear educated guess of the dryer’s use, but let’s say half, or 190,000 btu. LP use is fairly small by comparison – 5 trillion btu, 45,000 btu/household, perhaps 22,000 btu for clothes drying.
This website has actually looked deeply at this issue.
http://www.laundrylist.org/index.php/faq/35-general-laundry-questions/51--how-much-energy-is-actually-used-by-the-electric-clothes-dryer
Am I a luddite? No. No I’m not. The modern clothes dryer is a useful appliance. It takes an hour to complete a job that previously would take a day. It saves the time and labor required to hang clothing and take it down. The more sophisticated units remove wrinkles and have moisture and temperature sensors to avoid over-drying. Why would I want to hang clothes? This convenience comes at a cost, as do all of our modern conveniences. This cost is typically paid for with fossil fuels. All of us Americans have our own personal slaves in fossil fuels that make these machines work. But it is clear that our addiction to this equipment is costing us. This labor saving seems somehow to further cement the loss of jobs in our economy, and the flight of dollars overseas to support oil addiction. It is not just about the convenience of the dryer, it is about all of our "conveniences," such as the automobile. I find this chart quite fascinating. While 79% of US households have a dryer, the highest rate in the EU is about 61%, and Italy has a mere 2%. Clearly this is a cultural issue rather than economic.
There are devices out there that make drying easier that do not rely upon large quantities of energy to achieve, and that make the task easier.
This thing is a spin dryer. It spins most of the water out of clothes prior to line drying.
This is a basic clothes drying rack (this one on ecohousekeeping.com).
I have been doing a weekly guest post on Annie Coggan's blog, www.chairsandbuildings.wordpress.com. I have long been interested in how we use energy in our culture. I have been trying to find a merge between my drawings, which have been primarily about form, and my political interests, tied up with climate change. I have started to keep more complete notes on the background facts. This one is about drying clothes.
Clothes drying
In 2001 average annual household electrical consumption for dryer use was 1079 kWh, representing 5.8% of household electricity consumption overall. That’s an average annual expense of $162. This does not include the cost of heating the hot water. Average US carbon emissions per kWh are 1.3 pounds of CO2. Thus 1402 lbs for electric drying. [this seems low]
Natural gas use for dryers is harder to determine. The DOE does not have specific appliance energy data for anything but electricity, so one has to extrapolate. Total natural gas consumption for appliances was .43 quads, or 43,000,000,000,000 btus. This is probably a combination of cooking and dryer operation. This represents 111 million households. Therefore natural gas use is about 387,000 btus per household. I cannot make a clear educated guess of the dryer’s use, but let’s say half, or 190,000 btu. LP use is fairly small by comparison – 5 trillion btu, 45,000 btu/household, perhaps 22,000 btu for clothes drying.
This website has actually looked deeply at this issue.
http://www.laundrylist.org/index.php/faq/35-general-laundry-questions/51--how-much-energy-is-actually-used-by-the-electric-clothes-dryer
Am I a luddite? No. No I’m not. The modern clothes dryer is a useful appliance. It takes an hour to complete a job that previously would take a day. It saves the time and labor required to hang clothing and take it down. The more sophisticated units remove wrinkles and have moisture and temperature sensors to avoid over-drying. Why would I want to hang clothes? This convenience comes at a cost, as do all of our modern conveniences. This cost is typically paid for with fossil fuels. All of us Americans have our own personal slaves in fossil fuels that make these machines work. But it is clear that our addiction to this equipment is costing us. This labor saving seems somehow to further cement the loss of jobs in our economy, and the flight of dollars overseas to support oil addiction. It is not just about the convenience of the dryer, it is about all of our "conveniences," such as the automobile. I find this chart quite fascinating. While 79% of US households have a dryer, the highest rate in the EU is about 61%, and Italy has a mere 2%. Clearly this is a cultural issue rather than economic.
There are devices out there that make drying easier that do not rely upon large quantities of energy to achieve, and that make the task easier.
This thing is a spin dryer. It spins most of the water out of clothes prior to line drying.
This is a basic clothes drying rack (this one on ecohousekeeping.com).
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