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midwest home heating??

A

Al Baker(pumpman)

Member
This morning it was 3 here next to the big lake . Easily 10-15 degrees lower inland. Just how are we going to heat our homes if we no longer can use fossil fuel?? I bet 80% of everyone in my "hood" uses wood, Corn/wood pellets, or LP/natural gas. So what will we be allowed to use?? If a average guy from lets say Iowa, or maybe Nebraska farm land was allowed to dictate how the NY subway was scheduled or operated. Without ever even riding one he was now the boss. Wouldn't the city people think this was nutz? Its just as nutz to think city folks know whats best for us. Anyone heard any ideas how they expect to keep us warm this time of year??
 
Four things will point us in the direction:
Better retrofitted insulation
Solar co generation, heat and electric from the same panel
Commercial and farm based wind power
Redox Flow battery storage systems (or better)

Nuclear Power will assist in getting to the other side.
Wood/corn burning is still functional, but has pollution issues and diesel used for production/transportation.
Jim
 
While I am all for energy efficiency, "green" power etc. the "green new deal" should be known as "the green no deal". It can't work, would cost us trillions of $$$ we can't afford to spend on it, and probably couldn't be done even if we had the money. Anyone who is serious about pollution, Co2, etc. has to look at countries like China. Mexico, and India who have huge populations and few or no environmental controls or regulations. The U.S. is way ahead of most of the rest of the world in the area of reducing pollution. And before I take any such plan seriously it would have to include some plan for stabilizing then reducing the world population. We have, as a race, gone for quantity not quality of life. I know that some religions frown on population control and other folks say they have the right to as many children as they wish. This being a farm related forum, I will put it like this, you can only put so many cows in the a field. World population is doubling in shorter and shorter times, it can't go on for ever. If world population had been limited to only a few billion we wouldn't be having the discussion/problems with pollution that we are. We need to continue with energy efficiency research, world wide pollution control, and population control to ever realize a stable enduring civilization. I hope the human race is as smart as it thinks it is and realizes this at some time soon.
 

Have no fear - your fossil fuel is not going to go anywhere for several more generations. The posturing and histrionics out of DC are humorous. The mass death that would be caused by the latest proposals from the no-nothing crew is not something that Americans will sign onto. Home heating aside, we cannot grow enough food without fossil fuel, and even if we could grow it we could not distribute it. It is a shame that wackos get so much "news" coverage, but they are entertaining, I'll give them that.
 
How many panels and wind turbines would it take to replace the BTU's from gas/oil/corn/wood/combustible type heat sources. Even if every structure in the country had the best insulation, I still can't wrap my brain around it. I'm not saying it's stupid or impossible, I'm just ignorant to the answer.
 
WOW? What to do. Those of us in the north would have no choice but to move south. Anyone who thinks that wind and solar will met out needs is dreaming. Basically without NG/LP wood/corn/coal every home would have to be 100% electric. And all this building wind and solar infrastructure? IN 10-12 years? And it's only 10% and isn't reliable? And solar reflecting heat into the atmosphere? And they are saying that the wind towers are effecting wind patterns? Maybe we need an EPA study to see long term effects!

Then people go on about storage batteries in case the wind doesn't blow hard enough or we don't get enough sun? Go research what materials go into making a battery, how those materials are collected, and the processes needed to make a battery. Then calculate just how many batteries we will need for all these backup systems for each and every house (127,000,000 in the US alone) and for every car, truck and tractors in the world?

Heck of a lot more involved in cleaning up pollution than yelling "Green New Deal" on a street corner.

Cause and effect!

Rick
 
I have never understood how CO2 can be a greenhouse gas as such. First it is used by all plants to survive, just as animals use oxygen to used to survive.
As for the other pollution it is nonsense. What are the governments going to do fine all the volcano's for erupting and the deer for farting and the rest of the wild for it's so-called pollution? Now for some of the other versions of pollution as labeled. A lot of the packaging used for products could be changed to be more reusable. Not recyclable as is considered in today's society. Reused like some of the boxes or plastics could be reused for other packaging without having to destroy it or melt it down to form something else. Spray jugs can be used for drain pails to change oil and such like that. This does not mean they could be used to store some products in. We have for years used old steel 5 gallon oil pails/cans for fuel hauling or refueling in the field with no dangers. The old steel oil containers are actually better suited for this than those junk plastic fuel containers you have to buy.
 
The Parrot mouthed nitwit from the bronx had a thought, it was not original but being stupid to start with and young on top of that she thought it was, her kind would holler first and loudest were any creature comforts banned, she knows not what she asks for. Big article from the NYT's today stating that maybe the rush to mandate alternative fuels such as ethanol has actually caused more harm to the environment than good, hundreds of thousands of additional acres in grain crops and prairie plowed under etc. I have no idea if any of that is actually true, and I sure am not quoting the NYT's as a reliable source, just mentioning this latest theory to illustrate the fact that nothing is free, there are no forms of energy which can be harnessed and used without impacting something else.
 
It's pretty simple Al. We'll have to do what every other civilized country on Earth does and burn yak dung.
 
Geothermal energy is a viable option, but it does cost a fair bit up front. One of my cousins in Saskatchewan, near the ND border , built a new home around 12 years ago. And it is completely heated and cooled with a ground source Geothermal unit. You can also set these systems up where there is a large pond, or lake to run the pipes into, even a water well can be a source of an access to ground heat, with out ripping up your yard, or if you live on a house lot in town. One of these systems can cost as much as 30 grand to put in. From my cousin?s experience almost no maintenance, and less than $40.00 per month in electric cost. And if you wanted to go extreme green, a solar collector could power the system.
 
Or they could cram us all in to a small room and heat it with body heat like cows in a stanchion barn.
 
Cat Guy ..... well of course green plants use carbon dioxide, they use it during light hours to produce sugars through photosynthesis (and this feeds the planet actually). They also use oxygen, 24 hours a day actually for cellular respiration ..... just like you and I do. Problem is that right now, there is no longer a balance and our activities on the planet are producing more carbon dioxide than the green plants need or can use to keep things in balance. Consequently it builds up and is a greenhouse gas once it hits certain levels. The greenhouse effect is not a myth, sit your car outside on a cold day in the sunshine and see how much warmer it is inside the car. No comment on some of your other ideas that followed.
 
It's like my neighbor used to say - "Makes you wanta run out and set fire to an old tire, don't it".
 
Realistic capacity is ~4 billion. Work from the 30% that are not looking for work is a real source of power to change things. (they are not interested, but they do get hungry) Sustainability is a 2000 year plan, not one that forgets to count resources, or the real limits of the earth's supply side. Jim
 

People always assume that we will face the future with only the technologies and mindsets we have today. They also assume that the future will arrive suddenly one day and we'll all be caught unprepared.

Fossil fuels aren't going anywhere soon but their use is ALREADY being slowly reduced I just drove through 2 massive new wind farms that weren't there 5 years ago. I heard Iowa will have 20% of their power coming from wind by sometime next year.

Slowly we will evolve away from fossil fuels. The future will probably involve use of a variety of sources of energy for heating depending on what's most plentiful at that moment. If wind/solar generated electricity is plentiful that day, you'll consume that. At night the system will switch to geothermal or nuclear-generated power.

Also, gains in efficiency have just scratched the surface. 10 years ago if I told you that you could get 100 watts of light from 13 watts of energy consumption, you'd have said I was nuts.

And... We will use technologies that are currently unknown to us. This is always hard to envision, but can you imagine if you could get into a time machine and go back to 1800 and try to explain to people that all those horses and wagons will be obsolete in just over 100 years? They'd say nothing will ever replace the horse.

Grouse
 
Rich and secure countries use their assets and generally use the low cost options of power until their hey need to invent/ improve the next cheapest option.

We ran on horse power and whale blubber oil in this country and got along fine, prospered and became a strong country on it. Because that was the best cheapest
option for the time.

As we needed much more power and needed mobility and our goals and needs changed and old stuff ran out, we evolved and invented and adapted new stuff to again
fit the low cost, lots of, energy.

Artificial limits and silly direction from govt to artificially control such stuff rarely ends well.

Some other country will do it right, if we don?t want to. It is very easy to become a second class country in this world.

Paul
 
(quoted from post at 07:23:02 03/08/19) Four things will point us in the direction:
Better retrofitted insulation
Solar co generation, heat and electric from the same panel
Commercial and farm based wind power
Redox Flow battery storage systems (or better)

Nuclear Power will assist in getting to the other side.
Wood/corn burning is still functional, but has pollution issues and diesel used for production/transportation.
Jim
Click to expand...

Solar panels do not work when covered with snow. Wind power is on the way out. Shadow flicker and noise is being proven to be a health hazard, not to mention that wind turbines kill birds. Nuclear is the only answer.
 
(quoted from post at 08:20:46 03/08/19) Realistic capacity is ~4 billion. Work from the 30% that are not looking for work is a real source of power to change things. (they are not interested, but they do get hungry) Sustainability is a 2000 year plan, not one that forgets to count resources, or the real limits of the earth's supply side. Jim
Click to expand...

Jim, the thing of it is getting completely away from fossil fuels in the next 100 years is not going to happen. And folks are going to kick the can down the road. I'm not going to spend 65,000 to get a wind generator large enough to run this place. Nor am I going to buy batteries for when the environmentalist forget to turn on the wind! Batteries that are made out of materials strip mined by the way. Materials that are so nasty that they ship them on a ship (that burns fossil fuel) to China and other countries to be processed. Then again on that same smoke belching ship ship it back to be made into batteries. It's not practical. And get this. From an electrical engineer working on man-pac battery powered stuff for the military. The military wants a longer lasting battery. Nothing in the pipeline so they are working hard are making this stuff use less electricity. NO SIGNIFICANT NEW BATTERY TECH ON THE HORIZON! That is the terminology used. Then as I posted. there are about 127,000,000 homes just in the US (times 38 per house I looked it up). How many batteries per home? What about a farm? Or a factory? Plus figure in how many batteries for cars (7100 cells at 6 per battery for comparison= lot of batteries per car) , trucks, construction equipment and farming? That whole idea is smoke and mirrors or the person who envisioned it was too dumb or lazy to research it. We will have stripped the earth bare looking for materials to make enough batteries so we can do away with fossil fuels. And then what? When all the materials are being used? And we run out? Is that when the sick wackos start eliminating human life? Of do we revert to using fossil fuels?

How dumb do you think we are? A 2000 year plan? We have no way of knowing what is going to be here in 2000 years. How would our forefathers have figured our energy needs 2000 years ago? Guess this is all Rome's fault because 2000 they didn't come up with an energy plan for today! Sorry, you can't take a leak on my shoes and tell me it's rain. 2000 year plan..... :lol: :lol: :lol:

Rick
 
We have a new ng power plant going in here soon. It will employ less than a third of the workers of a coal plant, no waste products, and is cheaper and faster to build. Coal is dead here. I doubt there will be a coal plant in the state in 5 years.
 
You are suggesting would be correct if it wasn't for the electoral system. If it were a straight popular vote then NYC and LA would be running the entire country and the midwest would get screwed over. It would be a wasteland.
 
The home with a wind genny and solar panels according to what i can find requires 38 batteries who when the wind isn't blowing and and the sun isn't up. There are 127,000,000, yes well over 1 hundred million homes. Times 38. That's 4 billion 826 million batteries needed to make homes sustainable.

Rick
 
And one volcano erupting will cancel out all those savings for a year.
And they about every year.
 
Since I was born, 1950 the worlds population has more than doubled. I am not a kid person so I have zero population growth. There isn't a political party out there that doesn't know how to solve all of this mess and not one of them will dare to do anything about it. Understand folks WE are a plague. World population of maybe 3-4 billion would still be on the high side but much Easier to maintain. What mother nature needs to do is give this plague, "us", a real shot in the rear and create another spectacular plague. Really knock the population down. With todays air traffic you could infect the entire planet in one or two weeks. Actually we ourselves have done pretty good this century with socialism. All of its incarnations have easily wiped out more than 400,000 Million people. Maybe socialism is the ultimate answer to global over population. Before you start sending hot replys stop and think about it a little. Watch the video too. Not even One Hundred and fifty years folks. Zoooom. Look on the map where the two major growth areas are. Maybe Columbus should have stayed home?
Population growth
 
Maybe Westinghouse helping Nikola Tesla was the best thing that ever happened to this country. Thing is Edison was such a basturrd. He tied so much stuff in in courts where we could have advanced so far if Tesla could have had some free rein. There are people like the Men in Black movie that say he was an alien. His ideas were so incredibly far advanced
 

I have been heating our house with wood, cut from the same patch of timber on the farm, for all of my 68 years. My father did the same before me, and his before him. Firewood seems to be an infinitely renewable energy. It is naturally replenished. The technology to utilize it isn't very complicated. I don't need some lame-brain from Washington DC to tell me how to do it.
 
We have corn in excess supply, might need to burn some to heat some houses and replace lost coal, corn is green till it gets in the grain cart. Green deal, green corn, fits right in with her plan, doesn't it.
 
How long would Central Park last is NYC was heated by wood. A solution for you, sure a solution for 90% of the worlds population
Nope. Many parts of the world spend 3 to 5 hours a day scrounging twigs, dung, and grass to make a cooking fire. Jim
 
A recent NPR segment said that in the forties over half of all US homes were heated with coal. Now it's down to 130,000. Did all those folks change because the gubmit told them to? No, it was economics and convenience. And so it will be with renewable energy. Folks switch when it makes economic sense to do so.
Coal Heat
 
[we no longer can use fossil fuel?? I bet 80% of everyone in my "hood" uses wood, Corn/wood pellets, or LP/natural gas. So what will we be allowed to use??

Wood and corn and pellets are not fossil fuels. You should still be OK if that's what you burn. I believe Propane may be considered a fossil fuel, however.
 
It is not a 2000 year plan, it is a plan now for 2000 years. Running out the clock when the team is behind is foolish. The word
nonrenewable is the most serious energy word there is. I study it because I teach it. I believe it because I understand it with
an integrated set of knowledge and engineering foundation. I have lived in the area of mined out coal fields and so have many
others on this forum. They are not pretty places. AS we scrub for the last 50% of the worst coal, and most difficult to extract
natural gas, let us work toward solutions that are both affordable and plentiful. Jim
 
I live in Iowa and Mid-American Energy, owned by its investors-a co-operative-is on track to supply 100% of our needs by 2021. The directors are predicting rates can be frozen for up to 15 years since no longer necessary to buy fuel. Our electric rates are already 37% lower than the national average. Solar panels use too much acreage, BTW.
 
How can I burn wood for heat?? I am not going to be able to use a smoking up the environment chain saw. Dont think I can drag a mile and half of extension cord to the woods for an electric saw. How would I grow and harvest corn to burn?? Electric tractor and combine??
 
OK, everybody has had their say-so about this issue. Now it is my turn.

Fossil fuels. Electricity. Renewable fuels. For what it is worth, it is basically all the same. Why, you ask? Well, for openers, they ALL pollute. They all take up resources from the earth. They ALL generate CO2. Whether it is out the chimney, the tailpipe, or the power plant down the way.

Is climate changing? Yes it is. Like it has been doing in cycles for millions of years. Not a thing that we can do to stop it or reverse it.

Do you think that nuclear is the answer? In some ways, it has advantages. BUT, while it does not pollute in the more common sense of the word, the pollution from nuclear energy is many times worse in that it produces highly toxic and radioactive waste that stays toxic for millions of years. My feeling on that is that we should stop any further use of nuclear energy until a solution to the waste is found. Nuclear scientists have had over 80 years to figure this out. Encasing it in salt or concrete is only a short term answer. What needs to happen is finding a way to process nuclear waste into a usable product or a harmless leftover. It is time to look in that direction.

Talking about population control is about as big of a waste of time as I can think of. We still have millions of acres of unpopulated lands in this country. As do other countries like Russia, Australia, and the entire continent of Africa.
And, just how do any of you propose to control population growth? Who is going to tell folks that they cannot have children? And how do you enforce that? Mandatory sterilization? Mandatory abortion? Really?

My big question is exactly what do you or anyone expect ME to do to address this alleged "crisis?" Want me to stop driving my car? Stop heating my house? Stop cooking my food?

WHAT???????

Then there is this "alternative energy" baloney.
Wind is fine when the wind is right. Not too slow, not too fast. What about maintenance? Do those wind turbines need maintenance? What does that cost? Do these things pay for themselves in savings in the long run? What about the end of life disposal when these things are worn out?

Solar panels. Do these things have a finite lifetime? Do they need periodic replacement? What cost is involved in producing and maintaining them? What resources are needed to produce them? How about end of life disposal? In reality, is this an answer? Or just more pie in the sky?

I also wish to point out that the people that can't seem to get a 3-day forecast right are telling me what is going to happen in 50 years. Really? Sorry. I call BS on that one!
 
I was amazed when we were in Ireland how many homes were heated with Coal and fuel oil.

and i swear their toilets took 2 or 3 gallons of water. AND they all drove diesel cars (at 50MPG for a midsize car they couldn't have had much pollution nonsense on them).
 
first off she/they have no idea what they are talking about and no idea how the real world works.

basically they mean ALL carbon.. yes.... that means NO wood either. so.. that means ALL electric everything... heat, hot water, cars tractors... yes that means we cannot make the amount of food we do now.... yes that means alot of people won't be around any longer.... yes that would mean the economy is gone... yes that means the country will be weak... yes.. our enemies would love to over run us... when they do you can guarnentee they WILL use fossil fuels to extract our energy to send it back and they will take over and use fossil fueled equipment to farm our land and....

ok a little bleak but it is....

it we were allowed to burn wood the country would be deforested pretty fast... which would accelerate so call man made global warming.
 
Almost everything you have expressed is a clear statement of staying on the same path we were on in 1950. We are on a different path today. Like a thrown switch? no. More like the 100 years it took to stop using horses. Transition, not revolution. (I hope) Jim
 
Heaven sakes if more large dams are built to harness the hydro energy and give water for irrigation and recreation. pretty much a no brainer. I live near a small 290 Meg pump storage plant that neither ruined the scenery, ecosystems and gives so much back. We should all think about this energy source more. Yes some land would be given up but the payback is very potential.
 
(quoted from post at 11:52:35 03/08/19) It is not a 2000 year plan, it is a plan now for 2000 years. Running out the clock when the team is behind is foolish. The word
nonrenewable is the most serious energy word there is. I study it because I teach it. I believe it because I understand it with
an integrated set of knowledge and engineering foundation. I have lived in the area of mined out coal fields and so have many
others on this forum. They are not pretty places. AS we scrub for the last 50% of the worst coal, and most difficult to extract
natural gas, let us work toward solutions that are both affordable and plentiful. Jim
Click to expand...

OK if you teach this where are the peer reviewed studies to back your claims from unimpeachable reliable sources? You know Jim, the kinda stuff turned out by real scientist with no personal agenda? Ones not associated with some climate change/environmental/global warming group? Groups that haven't come under and scrutiny for fudging data or government groups hoping that climbing on the band wagon will increase their budget.

Rick

Rick
 
(quoted from post at 14:48:11 03/08/19) Heaven sakes if more large dams are built to harness the hydro energy and give water for irrigation and recreation. pretty much a no brainer. I live near a small 290 Meg pump storage plant that neither ruined the scenery, ecosystems and gives so much back. We should all think about this energy source more. Yes some land would be given up but the payback is very potential.
Click to expand...

Thing is more and more folks are climbing onto the "take the damns out" wagon. Now it's gotten to the point with having to deal with the EPA it would take decades to do the impact studies to put new ones in.

Rick
 
Science Journal. A publication with soild reputation and peer review. Find a copy in the library and read a few articles. The
firs =t 1/2 is general readership reviews of the second 1/2. Also Scientific American Magazine. (first issue August 1845) also a
general readership document. I also use scientifically accepted Text books. Jim
 
When the Jellostone Supervolcano goes off in a few years they say it will be a pretty good population control.
 
I don't know how you control the population, I only know that in the end we will have to or nature will do it for us in an unpleasant way. At some point we (the human
race" has to realize this. We cannot go on forever doubling the population in ever shorter periods of time for ever. We have upset the natures balance and because of our
excessive numbers are polluting the environment that keep us alive. About those huge "undeveloped" areas of the world, well some of them won't support us without
bringing in water, fuel, food, energy, etc. from the areas that will produce them. And we need forests, jungle, and open "undeveloped" areas to provide water runoff and
filtration, forest products, habitat for other species which maintain the balance of nature. Examples of nature being out of balance are gypsy moths in the north east,
invasive fish in the great lakes and rivers that are causing extensive damage. While these examples were introduced by humans, the same type of damage will happen if we
cause enough species to go extinct. We need open spaces and a healthy and diverse environment for our health and the health of our environment. This means open
"undeveloped" areas.
 
OK, so you are telling me about this so called population problem.

I'm awake. I may not agree with you, but I am awake.

What, exactly, do you expect from that? should I stop having children? I did that a long time ago. Should I leave the Earth? And, next do you expect to tell me what temperature I may have in my house, what car I can drive, how much I can drive it?

All of this talk about population is just that. Talk. I have no power to change it. You also have no power to change it. Whatever happens is out of our control. 9 billion people are not going to stop what they are doing and listen to us. Therefore, you are wasting your time complaining about it.
 
Does this mean that you think that electricity is the answer to all of the problems? Really?

Just where do you think electricity comes from? Mostly from power plants. They burn a variety of fuels. Some burn coal, some burn petroleum products (natural gas), and some burn radioactive fuel. While there are some that are relatively pollution free - like hydroelectric - they are only a part of the total picture.

News flash! Power plants also pollute. They give off things like CO2 and steam. They also can generate radioactive waste. They interfere with the natural migration of fish.

So, all of those electric appliances and machinery just move the pollution down the road to a different location. Not a solution by my line of reasoning. Sorry.
 
Jim, you ever read Road and Track or Car and Driver? I don't trust them any more than any other magazine. I ask for reliable sources. Not a publication that is going to 1: cater to advertisers and 2: cater to subscribers. Of all the environmentalist I've talked to not one has ever cited those magazines as sources of reliable info.

Heck even the EPA has been caught gaming the system. The many scientist they quote? About 80 and they cherry picked those. There are 1,290,300 scientist give or take in the US alone. And the EPA can only find 80?

And most scientist agree that climate change is occurring the vast majority say that it's part of the natural cycle and man has little if anything to do with it.

What do you teach? Environment studies?

Rick
 
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