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Here is an interesting concept to "go green" and save money while doing it.

Take a vehicle engine to spin a generator. Harness what is normally waste heat to heat your home and water.

IIRC only 17% of gasoline's energy is turned into motion, the rest is wasted as heat.

With a traditional power plant about 1/3 of the energy of the fule is turned in to usable electriciy. (Therefore 2/3 is wasted as heat and losses). [This is why resistance-coil electical heat is about 3x the price of direct fossil fuel heat, UNLESS one has a nuclear or hydro-electric source, which cost less).

The electricity can be used to run your home, turned into even MORE heat or sold back to the utility.

Some car mechanics, at least, may still have jobs when cars go electric........... Who is going to tune-up your heating system? LOL

http://www.freewatt.com/news.asp
 
The idea of using small engines to run a generator and act as a heat source for homes has been thought of before-but the pollution from all those engine exhausts-and the unit will need to run all of the time-would be more than all of the power plants combined.At least with power stations the pollution is easily managed-with small engines it is not.and the fuel costs to the user would be unbearable!!not to mention the pollution of all that engine oil that has to be changed.Would create more of an enviorenmental nightmare.and of course the fire and explosion hazards of all the fuel storage for the private gen sets.
 
Combined Heat and Power

The gas company here, Bord Gas, has always promoted CHP (Combined Heat and Power) systems for large offices, supermarkets etc.

They consist of a of a gas turbine and the waste heat is used to provide hot water which heats the buidling and provides hot water for normal use.

The power companies provide discounts for large users who agree to minimise their use at peak times, so it has a considerable saving.

Also, you can sell power back into the grid if you've excess.

There are now small systems appearing e.g. from New Zeland company, Whispergen. These can be used with smartmetered homes to provide micro CHP.

Some houses here are also adding wind turbines.

Video below:

 
Toggles

A few years ago, Mother Earth News ran an article on running a cabin with a car engine. It worked exactally like you described. The excess heat from the cooling system and exhaust were used to heat water and warm the cabin. The electricity was generated by the running engine. It also used excess electricity to charge storage batteries that would lessen the run time for the engine. This system actually used a salvaged Ford Pinto engine BTW.
Typically the engine was shut down at night.

Drawbacks were the maintenance required, also dependability as you had no backup if the engine refused to start, or experienced a breakdown.
 
Well, here in the South West region of the Keystone State we are sitting on a very large natural gas reserve, the marcellus shale, there is a lot of new drilling activity here so hopefully natural gas rates go down. We are in a very rural area next to the West Virginia Panhandle border and we still do not have public water or sewage, we have a well and septic tank, we do not have gas service either. Our home is all electric, stove, dryer, waterheater, furnace, centreal air, plus the pump for the well runs off of 240v. In the coldest of winter we pay maybe $220 per month for electric and our home is by no means huge butr a slightly larger than usual ranch with finished basement. People with slightly smaller homes with gas pay $250-$300 during winter and maybe around $50 during summer plus an average electric bill of $75. In Pennsylvania we have a cap on electricty costs which is expiring in late 2010 and cost is expected to increase 60% but increase is being phased in from 2008-2011.
 
This is fascinating

hearing about all the different costs. It seems to me where people pay less for energy the pay higher costs for food and other things, $900/month for internet WHOA!

So overall it looks like the cost of living might average out.

Here in NE most people heat with Oil but Gas has been catching on. Oil per unit of purchase offers more BTUs than Gas and NE has the most Steam Heat systems left in the US. My system is one pipe steam, the boiler has about 10 gallons of water and about 4 gallons of that has to be converted to steam to heat the radiators.
Right now to fill the oil tank it costs $400.00 and my annual bill for oil runs $2500-$3000 /year. So for 6 months of heating it runs $500/month.
Electric is $2100/year or about $170/month.
Gas which I use for Hot water and cooking is $80/month.
Now this is for a two family house, I supply and pay my tenants utilities so the cost is divided by two households by coming out of the rent. But my house is a 6 bedroom Victorian and even if you lived here in the whole house as one family the oil bill would be on the low side for New England. In the last 17 years I have put many improvements into the house to save energy so for the area of the country this is an efficient house to run.
In summer I have window AC's all over the house as you can't install central AC in a Victorian. The electric bill gets a $400 jump in the summer as the summers here are getting hotter. When I first lived here the ceiling fans took care of everything and I prefer them to AC anytime I can. I even use them when running the AC and find that they really reduce the load and cost of running the AC.
For internet I have a triple play package, unlimited local and long distance phone, 200 channels of cable, 20 channels of High def TV and FIos optical internet for about $140/month.

Rapunzel, there were some really cool bars on Oxford street in the 80's! Patches, The Ox, what was the name of that open street bar that had all the saddles at the bar instead of stools?? It was fun there!
 
~In summer I have window AC's all over the house as you can't install central AC in a Victorian.

ah window-rattlers! Now less than $100 each. Thank-you China!

But there may be quiter alternatives. The heat-pump units make these ideal for a bedroom, or say the one room you live in most. (According to ads,heat-pumps are now useful from Maine to Flordia! For our international friend that is top [north, cold] to bottom [south, hot]of country). This way less of the home needs to be heated as hot, saving energy (Read: money).

In a Victorian, it may be possible to install cooling from the basement blowing up to the main level, via floor vents. Of course, the trick is getting one big ceiling or high-wall return as high up as possible.

http://www.mrslim.com/Products/userSpecific.asp?Commercial=0
 
Oh such fond recollections!

Hi Jetcone,

That was another life time, but one of great memories. The bar you are referring to used to be called the Saddle Tram(p), which was attached to the Exchange Hotel. It had the tiniest dance floor that was about three or four feet off the ground, if memory serves me well. It made for very intimate dancing with strangers and, yes, there were those notorious saddle bar stools. The Exchange Hotel had hundreds of stuffed toys hanging from the ceiling and at the back was a set of stairs, which led to another basement bar that was only dimly lit with those purple lights that made everything white fluoresce. The only thing one could make out about others was the white of their eyes, teeth and the lint on their clothes. Much fun could be had there.

The most notable thing I remember about Patchs was the light-up dance floor and the video screen. It didn't win prizes for best decor, but it was good fun. Patchs used to get raided for drugs a lot and was eventually shut down in the mid-eighties. I think the original owners later re-opened it, after a thorough refurbishment, and called it DCM (Don't Cry Mama), which was also a great club.

Of course you may recall the Mignight Shift, Albury Hotel and, best of all, the Taxi Club. Those are still around, even though many others have disappeared. The Taxi Club was the place when there was no other place left to party. In them days most clubs shut their doors at three or four in the morning, but the Taxi club was always open till whenever and a notorious gathering place for trashed trannies and other sorry, but fun detritus.

Anyway, that was nice of you to bring this up. Perhaps we were only inches away from each other when you were visiting Oxford Street. Stranger things happen all the time.

I think all of these establishments used regular forced air cooling to climate control their premises (gotta stay relevant to the post).

So, when was the last time you came to visit this place?

Cheers

rapunzel
 

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