DC Space heaters and BTUs per square feet

[russ]

@ plateauhops

What is your end goal? To have a totally green cabin? Survivalist? What utilities do you have access to?

Russ

[plateauhops]

@ plateauhops

What is your end goal? To have a totally green cabin? Survivalist? What utilities do you have access to?

Russ

I live in a suburban area, and I have ample utility access, including natural gas, electric lines, municipal water, sewage, and television station receptions & internet , so I'm not at a loss of access. I'm not sure I want to have a cabin (it wouldn't have to be strictly green either). I want to know if the recent trend of dramatic and impressive energy/wattage reductions in appliances such as fridges and laptops can be made low enough to run on batteries, which when there are enough in a pack, serve as their own backups. I think my end goal is to understand through research what affects the costs of utilities in areas with price fluctuations that make the cost of living prohibitive or not and figure out how to make them less expensive. So, if I can simplify the way a utility system is designed in a household, by converging technologies or by standardizing some widely-sought parts by making them modular and swappable, then perhaps they can be made more affordable because they are mass produced. Also, if I can simplify the number of parts, perhaps the fluctuations in global prices could also be made more stable, if the only parts that would need replacing would be filters on a water pump/purifier, or batteries every 10 years. Thus some economic markets I think would have a better idea of the cost of energy, as energy seems a very volatile market. And thus more people can make predictions on costs if devices such as PVs will have a good chance of lasting 25 years or more.

I don't consider myself survivalist, as I'm not sure I'd need to be. I consider myself somewhat social. Those were some great questions. Thanks.

[russ]

The use of grey water is touchy. In some states, I believe CA is one, the water must be released below the top of soil in the surrounding area.

The crud, slime etc from body oils, soaps and whatever make it very difficult to filter with success over periods of time. Cleaning filters daily is not something most people are interested in. NASA can do it as they had the cash and the staff. The solar panels NASA uses are also a bit more expensive than commercial panels - something like 1000 times more expensive?

If grey water sits 24 hours it can well be considered to have become black water.

The survivalist question was to let me know whether to expend any effort or not. I consider that line of thought to be a bit short of a full deck. İf everything went down the toilet PV panels on top of a house would attract a lot of unwanted attention I expect.

[plateauhops]

The use of grey water is touchy.

Cleaning filters daily is not something most people are interested in.

I agree and I don't expect most people would be interested in cleaning filters.

NASA can do it as they had the cash and the staff. The solar panels NASA uses are also a bit more expensive than commercial panels - something like 1000 times more expensive?

The filtering system I agree was more expensive and more personnel were there- though in outer space I'm curious of how much maintenance it needed- the mechanisms that were automated for the duration of the space flight. As for solar panels, I wasn't saying I needed NASA-grade panels- the ones made for residential systems look mature already.

If grey water sits 24 hours it can well be considered to have become black water.

I agree too and thus I would be interested in a system that processes it in a shorter time frame.

İf everything went down the toilet PV panels on top of a house would attract a lot of unwanted attention I expect.

Since I would like to avoid that, I'd like to develop/manufacture a utility system in enough quantities that would be so abundant that it would not be a high-demand product. In the United States, where I live, I can spend a day walking down one of the many alleys in my suburban neighborhood come back at the end of the day having found perfectly working CRT monitors and televisions, desks, lamps, and appliances that everyone already has. There are some people who pick them up for scrap metals, but it's not hard to find technologies that are slightly out-of-date for free. It's mainly because flat screen TVs and more comfortable desk chairs apparently appeal to a large number of people in the U.S, so they throw their old one out. Many people I know have 2 or three TVs, or more. Why can't we manufacture millions of PVs? They wouldn't depreciate in value the way a car does when it leaves the lot. If they were everywhere, would anyone want to steal one? How many people actually use their roof space? And perhaps, they'd have enough cheap components to build their own shelter, wherever they are. Similar to how an ATX motherboard standardizes FRUs for universal access. That could prevent an economy from going bad, but I can't say for sure. Just a thought. It's probably different in other countries where resources are respected and reused/repaired more. Not that one product or system that would make the economy stable, but I would like to integrate and develop a hardware utility system (metaphorically the way a motherboard integrated sound, ethernet, video cards) that can be used in any location, by anyone, whether it's urban, suburban, or rural. Modular parts that can be scalable for larger buildings.

For example, the ATX form factor for cases and motherboards are open standards, non-proprietary with dimensions and that are available such that any computer case or motherboard manufacturer can design the components so they conform to IEEE or ISO standards of discrete devices. Which is maybe why today, I can buy an ATX motherboard for $30-40 (among the cheapest-w/ a complete build for under $300) and not $3000 in 1985 for a proprietary computer form factor (ATX wasn't available until 1995) and probably cost $300,000,000 in 1960 or more by NASA for control rooms in Houston. That was only made for a few specific uses. Since water, heat, and electric are universal needs, their peripheral ports could be standardized onto a converged medium. For example, imagine if the illustration of the floor plan was like a blueprint for a motherboard, but let's call this a fatherboard (or whatever you want to call it). I would specify the dimensions of the the AWG ports and publish them to an open standard like free open-source software licenses (GNU/GPL) and using OpenCAD, an open source variant of Lonworks/BACNet, QModbus, BMS & RepRap, etc. In such a specification, the connections could simplify the dimensions needed for manufacturing pipes (of many lengths, depending on house size) that could connect the AWG to the water tank heater and other pipes could go to the fridge for storage (for ice cold drinking water). The fridge itself could be of any brand or type- it would just benefit from having connectors that fit ones that go to AWG pipes. Water could also be stored in the AWG. Another example would be pipes that go from the solar water heater to the shower. Metaphorically, it would be like would be an ethernet cable that connects an NIC card to a router or hub always needs a CAT5 cable and not a network cable of another specification, but it can be made by any manufacturer. In this analogy, an ethernet cable would be like pipes and data would be water in this system (no pun intended on "a series of tubes", an internet meme). Since none of these devices need to be all processed centrally, it's not an entirely congruent metaphor. However, the PSU in this case could be the batteries. I would agree with the idea that AC and electricity is already a universal medium for energy, but the devices that use it aren't as conveniently swappable. And in this type of utility system, I would help devise standard dimensions for connectors such as pipes, washes and filters-more valuable because universal compatibility. In Europe there were some news articles that wanted to make one standard cell phone charger plug so people who buy new cell phones don't have to throw out their old charger, using a number of volts with the same size connector, etc. Companies that make their own proprietary charger would understandably object because they would lose some sales. I think that when a motherboard was first designed, it set limits to proprietary standards that may have also made it more difficult to make some devices compatible and probably frustrated many non-compatible device makers. Though it set goals in terms of efficiency by having it all work under one system, and making it modular to deal with scalability issues. The consumer could also benefit by having more manufacturers to choose from when it comes to finding cheaper standardized parts. And, by setting limits to power consumption of certain parts, it allows designers to have an idea of what kind of wattage levels many energy intensive appliances can be reduced to. Maybe that's why a motherboard might use 25 watts rather than 100 watts of crudely linking a # of discrete devices when a large niche market would be satisfied with a standard system. Selling a system that provides the physiological needs of Maslow's hierarchy, not so people would just focus on that, but so it gets it out of the way and so there's more time to pursue higher needs (including social ones). I think many people have to spend all their time just surviving and getting paid minimum wage, using that income towards bills (mainly mortgages and health costs, but also heat, water, and electric, so I want to get those costs out of the way, so they don't need to be monetized, and, if possible, as bartering would be difficult but a curious alternative economic form) so that they have more time to socialize, thus I want to make it easier to survive so it's easier to live well. By removing all the inefficient parts, and only starting with the bare necessities, it could at least be presented in a way that may be economical- not to survivalists, but for anyone who wants to live easier. It seems that many technologies that may have originally been designed for emergency situations evolve it's marketed purpose into one that became a regular household product.

The scope of my idea is both reductionist, holistic, and interdisciplinary. If I asked on this forum that I wanted to buy a solar panel system that can power a Smith Corona typewriter, VCR, a vintage 1980s era VHS camcorder that plugs into an outlet, a cassette recorder for audio, a stereo, and a CRT television, you might recommend (or not) a large solar panel system of 10KW covering a large suburban home's roof if it used maybe 2kw. But If I instead replaced all those appliances with a netbook that does that all with a built in sound recorder, webcam, keyboard, USB, solid state harddrive with gigabytes of music and video storage that runs on 15 watts, I'd only need one solar panel. Also, DEVap: http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/1...ergy-Use-50-90 So I'm using this critical analysis of the history of convergent multimedia technology's progress in efficiency/reductions and am applying this as a meta, transferable idea as a large engineering goal (perhaps end goal) toward a basic, integrated household utility system. Basic as a standard motherboard. So if anyone sees this as a not impossible goal, I would encourage you to forward/freely edit this to anyone who would like to develop this. Relatively speaking, in terms of progress on this, I think solar thermal panels are more technologically mature than solar electric, but both are more mature and affordable than an Atmospheric water generator, and I also think the atmospheric water generator is still slightly or much more mature than a greywater filtering system. Please correct me on my relativistic estimates if I'm wrong. So if they were all integrated, perhaps the costs of the most expensive parts might be lowered if they were included and mass produced. Not saying it will and I can analogize that there is still a large market in computers that prefer some of their devices remain separate, such as the discrete video card market. Intel owns a large share of the video card market~50%, yet they are integrated. Nvidia~29% ATI 18%?. Could the same happen with utilities? Integrated graphics, arguably the most expensive part of a computer, could bridge the metaphor that the most expensive part of this system- a greywater purifier, could become cheaper than a discrete (external water center) plant. But, if a barebone "motherboard" (household utility system) like an ATX were designed, would most people buy it (like generic Intel graphics, because they're acceptable graphics for basic needs), rather than opt for discrete utilities/graphics? The strategy is to make an integrated standard cheaper than discrete, while technically still keeping it modular (so it is discrete physically, but integrated in the sense that it is generated from the home and not from an external source (printing press/one hour photo/film studio). I hope I didn't make this too complicated, but I hope someone can understand this engineering/design project as a practical one and not just as an academic exercise. An additional end-goal would be to transfer a meta-idea- Nicholas Negroponte's goal, the OLPC- if a compact utility system were made so it could be affordable and distributed anywhere the way laptops evolved in price reduction. Thanks for your time.