Crying shame

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MurrayM said:
The one negative against us after our rather small boat is a small wood stove in which we burn pellets made from sawmill waste wood. It gets fired up a couple times a day to take the edge off during winter and when the power goes out, like a couple years ago when we got 7 feet of snow in 2 days and the power was out for three days.

Think global, act local, be responsible, and TOHO! (Today Only Happens Once) :)
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Use to heat my Maryland house with wood pellets. For several reasons, we removed the stove this fall, and installed a Geothermal heat pump. The unit pulls heat out of the house in the summer and stores it in the ground. During the winter we pull it out of the ground and pump it back in the house. Still have to use some electricity to run the pump, but much more efficient than a traditional heat pump. Early numbers look to have the same annual electrical cost (summer air conditioning), but not the pollution from burning 3 tons of pellets each winter.

Ted
 
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RT Firefly said:
Greetings,
Mr. B. Thanks but I don't think so...


200w.gif



Mr. BK. "...can no longer dispose...". I disagree. Man is quite able to dispose of garbage in an environmentally safe (by current standards) manner....
I don't know about Aus but years ago, here, when you bought a soda, you paid a deposit on the bottle. Turn in the bottle, get $.02 back in your pocket. NEVER saw bottles on the side of the road or in alleys (unless broken). Kids would scour the landscape for pocket change. Alas it became cheaper to produce and market one use bottles and the inevitable mess ensued. Some states have container (cans/bottles) deposits but not all.
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There are always fights about garbage disposal here,I don`t resile from my view on man`s "inability to dispose of rubbish". IMO, we are "rubbishing the planet".
We too had bottle deposits long ago, and just reintroduced them in my State. At least one other state, South Australia, from which Auscan hails, had deposits for years. Scheme seems to work, though the collection/payment facilities are not yet adequate. I just put ours in the local Council supplied recycling bins and someone else gets the $. We have a huge problem since China ceased accepting "recycling"/rubbish. For now we seem to send it by polluting diesel trucks to neighbouring Queensland. No one wants garbage,maybe we just keep it moving,now there`s a new industry.....
In Philippines there is/was a huge rubbish dump, often scavenged,often burning, known locally as "Smoky Mountain".
 
O C Diver said:
Use to heat my Maryland house ... and installed a Geothermal heat pump.
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We likewise went with an in-ground geo-thermal setup. Two wells, 350' deep. Into three exchangers and four zones indoors.

We nearly tripled the interior square footage. Our overall HVAC costs have remained nearly the same. We shifted from using a lot of natural gas in the winter, to using all electric. But we also use a lot less electric in the summer, as pulling up 56F water from the ground makes it pretty easy to cool the house. We've never had to use the emergency backup heat, even when we had some stretches of 0F (and below) temps last winter. The basement and 2nd floor zones are setup with electric emergency heat, the main floor uses natural gas. None have yet been needed, as the ground-loop has provided all that's necessary.

Another upside is no noisy external AC units in the summer and no exhaust in the winter.

Other factors came into play, of course, the old house had literally NO in-wall insulation (just drywall, furring strips, concrete block and then a brick facade. The new house has closed-cell spray foam insulation and triple-pane windows and about 24" of attic insulation. It's not LEED-tight, but it's much, much better than before.

Drilling for wells is a messy task, it pretty much inundated the entire lot with mud during the drilling process. Fortunately the silt fencing kept it all the mud on-site. They carted off the excess water. That and the truck for the drilling was 60,000# and had to VERY carefully avoid any disturbed soil when it came onto the construction site.
 
wkearney99 said:
We likewise went with an in-ground geo-thermal setup. Two wells, 350' deep. Into three exchangers and four zones indoors.

We nearly tripled the interior square footage. Our overall HVAC costs have remained nearly the same. We shifted from using a lot of natural gas in the winter, to using all electric. But we also use a lot less electric in the summer, as pulling up 56F water from the ground makes it pretty easy to cool the house. We've never had to use the emergency backup heat, even when we had some stretches of 0F (and below) temps last winter. The basement and 2nd floor zones are setup with electric emergency heat, the main floor uses natural gas. None have yet been needed, as the ground-loop has provided all that's necessary.

Another upside is no noisy external AC units in the summer and no exhaust in the winter.

Other factors came into play, of course, the old house had literally NO in-wall insulation (just drywall, furring strips, concrete block and then a brick facade. The new house has closed-cell spray foam insulation and triple-pane windows and about 24" of attic insulation. It's not LEED-tight, but it's much, much better than before.

Drilling for wells is a messy task, it pretty much inundated the entire lot with mud during the drilling process. Fortunately the silt fencing kept it all the mud on-site. They carted off the excess water. That and the truck for the drilling was 60,000# and had to VERY carefully avoid any disturbed soil when it came onto the construction site.
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We had 4 tons of air conditioning (central air) but not a true heat pump. The ground water in our neighborhood is contaminated with trichloroethylene, so we all now have municipal water. As such, the state wouldn't allow the well driller to break the clay layer (natural barrier) at 120'. So, instead of getting 4 wells 200' deep (1 well per ton) for $6,400, we got 12 wells 100' deep for $8,400.

For those interested in the overall cost: I did some hunting and found an HVAC company who did lots of heat pump installations but wanted to get into Geothermal. Got a very good deal from them, plus the well driller is a former customer. Also had my carpenter build a nice 4 × 8' concrete slabbed shed on the side of the house to hold the condenser and pump pack. He also needed to improve the attic access for the air handler. Adding some reworking of ducts and vents, brought the total before tax credits to $24,000.

The tax credits make it hard to pass up. The Federal government will give you a tax credit (not a deduction) for 30% of the total cost (including the carpenter) for a new 1st time Geothermal system. For me that's $7,200! If you owe taxes on April 15th, it goes directly against it and can be carried forward. The state of Maryland will give you a maximum of $3,000 for a new 1st time installation. The local power company will give you a $1,000 credit for a new 1st time installation with one of their approved contractors. So, after the money settles, we should have under $13,000 in it. Pretty sweet deal since we were preparing to replace the 15 year old air conditioner anyway!

20181016_121635.jpg

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Ted
 
Any federal compensation for Air (mini split) heat pumps?
 
O C Diver said:
The tax credits make it hard to pass up.
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Exactly. I don't have the specific numbers for our install as it was part of constructing the whole house. As I recall one of the figures we used was 30% of anything attached to the HVAC setup. I believe that included all ducting, thermostats, and various plumbing bits.

Thus far the only maintenance required was to have the ground loop system 'burped' to eliminate some air that remained from the initial setup. Otherwise it's been cranking along without issue for just over 5 years now (5.5 if you count the months before we took occupancy).

We also salvaged the previous structure on the site (the whole old house) and that also provided a considerable tax break. Second Chance, out of Baltimore, handled it. You have to have a tax burden high enough to make it worthwhile. That also helped avoid a number of additional dumpsters worth of material going into a landfill.

I'm guessing the drilling mess and costs are going to be entirely dependent on local below-grade conditions. The depth of wells and strata made ours a messier affair. Looks like yours was a lot less trouble! Here's a pic of the truck doing ours. This was at the start, before things got messy.
 

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MurrayM said:
Everything is relative.

We have one vehicle (Honda Element) and I bicycle to work when there isn't snow or ice on the ground. We live in a city of about 9,000 people, so driving across town takes 5 minutes. We don't haul a camping trailer or have motorcycles, ATV's, snowmobiles, or jet ski's. We also don't eat beef or jet around the world for fancy holidays. We have electric baseboard heat where the electricity is derived from hydro, or dammed river systems.

The one negative against us after our rather small boat is a small wood stove in which we burn pellets made from sawmill waste wood. It gets fired up a couple times a day to take the edge off during winter and when the power goes out, like a couple years ago when we got 7 feet of snow in 2 days and the power was out for three days.

Believe or deny human influenced climate change all you want, but our effects on the environment are planetary in scale as evidenced by a radioactive fallout layer from above ground nuclear testing and effects such as this:
https://www.iflscience.com/plants-a...itter-our-oceans-not-only-where-you-d-expect/

In a million years that radioactive layer and fossilized remains of seabirds with stomachs full of plastic will be a significant change in the geologic record. Some have taken to calling it the Anthropocene:
https://www.nature.com/news/anthropocene-the-human-age-1.17085

Call me a dreamer, but I think if shareholders were somehow held partially responsible for the damages, cleanup, and remediation of negative effects caused by the companies they invested in (say, by garnishing a percentage of future dividend payments or profits made from dumping their stock after a disaster) this might make companies/corporations more responsible for their actions and people might be more thoughtful about what they invested in.

Think global, act local, be responsible, and TOHO! (Today Only Happens Once) :)
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Your juice comes only from hydro? Are you saying your supplier provides juice that comes ONLY from hydro? If not, if your supplier also uses non-hydro (fossil) sources, then you are indeed consuming juice derived from fossil fuel. Electrons are a fungible commodity. They cannot be isolated one from another at the generator.
 
catalinajack said:
Your juice comes only from hydro?
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Yup.

I live in British Columbia, Canada, where BC Hydro generates enough power for the province and sells the rest into the grid. I believe Prince Rupert and Fort Nelson have combustion generators. Fort Nelson probably runs theirs all the time since they are sitting in the natural gas fields, but Prince Rupert uses theirs when avalanches or rock slides knock out power lines along the Skeena River mountains.

I also live in Kitimat, where an aluminum smelter has dammed a river system high in the nearby coast mountains and uses tunnels to deliver water to its powerhouse at sea level, which also sells excess power into the grid.
 
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Hi,

It's great to see that you also have pellet and geothermal power in use. I also consider geothermal energy when it comes time for a new heating system in my house; it's a big investment estimate of geothermal heat + work +40,000 $ and I'll do it just as it should.

I have chosen 100% wind power electricity, which consume heat in my house and other consumption. It's just a bit more expensive than other electricity eg nuclear, coal. I spend about 55,000kw of energy a year and want my carbon footprint a little smaller so I buy electricity as a wind power. I could also heat the wood with the same 800gal water heater tank, but I use it less often because it has more work and time.

NBs
 
Once again Kalifornia is on the cuttin' edge of savin' the planet by requirin' all houses built from 2020 on to have solar power. That oughta do it.:facepalm:
 
ancora said:
Once again Kalifornia is on the cuttin' edge of savin' the planet by requirin' all houses built from 2020 on to have solar power. That oughta do it.:facepalm:
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Makes sense. There are 2 million houses in Australia with solar panels. One political party wants to subsidize the purchase of battery installations to store excess day generation for night use. Barring another "pink batts affair" mess, it has merit, though even subsidized, batts will cost more than the actual panel install.
 
Greetings,
Mr. BK. Makes sense indeed. I'm sure Mr. a meant to add "Every little bit helps" to his post to voice HIS support for the efforts of California. I expect he simply forgot...
 
RT Firefly said:
Greetings,
Mr. BK. Makes sense indeed. I'm sure Mr. a meant to add "Every little bit helps" to his post to voice HIS support for the efforts of California. I expect he simply forgot...
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I`m sure you are right,it`s easy to forget something.
 
I support everything Sacramento comes up with, no matter how ludicrous.
 
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North Baltic sea said:
Hi,


I'm funny about this topic, Actor Leonardo Dicaprio used Instagram as his picture of the Finnish Power Plant although his message was addressed to MrTrump and the US. The Finnish coal power plant sent Leonaro Dicaprio a fun message, see the links.


Leonardo instagram https://www.instagram.com/p/BrDhRJMlnJZ/?utm_source=ig_embed


Finish cola power Helen instragam https://www.instagram.com/p/BrH0P-whzkW/?utm_source=ig_embed


NBs
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I’m funny about it, too. The way I see it, I cause about a hundreth of the climate damage Leonardo DiCaprio does with his lifestyle.

When he gets worried enough to reduce his pollution to my levels, then I’ll start to think he really believes what he is saying.

But, based on his standard, I’m golden.
 
Good idea but....... :banghead: Last time I saw plastic in the water as pictured was Baltimore Harbor. How to educate penalize those who have life styles that think nothing of tossing plastic, etc out the window of the car or boat is the problem also.
 

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HiDHo said:
Good idea but....... :banghead: Last time I saw plastic in the water as pictured was Baltimore Harbor. How to educate penalize those who have life styles that think nothing of tossing plastic, etc out the window of the car or boat is the problem also.
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Littering is part of the problem, although just using plastic unnecessarily is a problem as well. Just because we dispose of it “properly “ does not mean it won’t end up messing up our oceans.

Visit a landfill site on a windy day. It’s not a pretty sight. They have portable trash fences set up to catch some of the blowing plastic bags. - but at times they get so covered in plastic that they blow over and release their load downwind.

We’ve created this entire mess of plastic during our lifetime. It is used far too much. Do we really need to buy plastic garbage bags that come in a plastic bag which then gets put into another plastic bag at the checkout counter.
 
Can someone explain how banning plastic shopping bags make sense when our local govt REQUIRES homeowners to put all garbage for disposal in plastic bags!!!!
 
The town where I am living put in place garbage management based on composting anything organic (even journal paper), recycling and remaining trash. We have 3 trash cans, one for organic materials, one for recycling and one for the remaining. What is shocking is how much non recyclable product packaging we get in the remaining trash. Even if we have few left (like one small bag per week for two) we could have far less if producers would revise the way they package their product ( and we are using mainly fresh products, almost no manufactured food). Nowadays even vegetables are in some case packaged with plastic films that are just going right to the trash, this is ridiculous.

L
 
Greetings,
Mr. B. I suspect the green garbage bags are handled in a controlled fashion whereas shopping bags tend to get blown all around the countryside. It may not be the plastic so much rather than the way they are used.
 
The bags (and other garbage) then break down into micro particles and end up a long ways from where they originated, like in the Arctic: https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/arctic-ice-microplastics-1.4632912

Remember the dead seabird photo with bits of plastic that had caused it to starve to death? Do micro plastics get ingested by base of the food chain organisms? If they do, what effect will that have on organisms further up the chain, and ultimately, to us? (Thinking more in terms of how fewer feeder fish would impact fish we and larger organisms eat)
 
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In Australia, the supermarkets now sell us plastic shopping bags instead of packing our purchases in them without charge.
Lots of examples of sea creatures killed by plastic ingestion. I suspect much more is occurring due to micro particles of plastic.
Our gratis shopping bags were deemed "single use". We reused ours, they were never single use, and we disposed of them properly. It comes down to people,and their behavior, good and bad. Some people dispose of packaging in awful ways.
But,there are problems disposing of rubbish generally, because an ever growing population generates an ever growing pile of rubbish which we have lost the ability to deal with safely and properly. It will get worse.
 
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