From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@datamann.com)
Date: Tue Jun 25 2002 - 11:02:07 MDT
Once more: HTML is a no-no on email lists. It is unquotable by many
email programs.
> In connection with Professor Mueller's contention that conservation, cogeneration technology is of much greater promise then previously thought.
>
> Oak Ridge National Laboratory (http://www.arizona.edu)
>
> Date: Posted 6/24/2002
>
> ORNL To Work With Habitat On Energy Efficient Houses
> OAK RIDGE, Tenn., June 17, 2002 -- An effort to construct up to 20 local Habitat for Humanity houses with state-of-the-art energy efficient building technologies was
> announced today during a ceremony at Lenoir City's Harmony Heights subdivision.
> The technologies will be tested through the Buildings Technology Center at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
> With four Habitat homes utilizing ORNL-tested technology already constructed in the subdivision, the new houses -- which will showcase different technologies -- will provide
> living laboratories for developing integrated building systems that lead toward net-zero energy houses of all types by 2010.
It's a contention I've made to the list since the early days, based on
my own experience in the field. Conservation can be had for ~1-2 cents
per kwh saved, and cogen costs about the same or a little more,
depending on local fuel prices and capital costs.
Utilities generally don't like their customers to go to these methods if
they are burdened with large stranded costs, such as for cancelled
reactors, retired power plants, environmental cleanups, and large legal
burdens from NIMBY conflicts, unless of course the customer is financing
these through their utility, which can then tack on fees to help defray
stranded costs.
I think, though, that a 'net-zero' house is a nearly unattainable myth
much like free internet access. Homes that are so air-tight so as to
save energy are generally also bigtime collectors of toxics that are
emitted by building materials (even natural ones) and even the
respiration of the home's occupants (CO2). The energy required to filter
these toxics out of the air inside the home will ensure that net-zero is
a long ways away, until, of course, roof shingles double as PV units
(and are affordable and cost effective, less than $0.1/kwh) or we become
troglodites. Nano-santas excepted, of course.
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