<Looking Ahead - The Weekly Petroleum Inventory Reports The Oil Drum DrumBeat: September 18, 2008>

75 comments on Wind and Heat Pumps: A Winning Combination

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praetzel on September 17, 2008 - 12:41pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I was under the impression that the hydrogen storage (via fuel cell, or compressed air) concept wasn't very efficient?

Correct - but it's a storage method. I wish that I could find it again - but there was a prof in the UK who had a nice setup - wind and PV generation as well as hydro-electric. Now when he had spare energy he charged the batteries (hours of energy storage) and when they were full he pumped water up into the pond (a day or two of storage) and if that was full then hydrogen was created and stored (a week or so of energy).

Now hydrogen does tend to leak out of containers, and it is inefficient creating, storing and then converting it back into energy - but if you've got energy to waste then it's a viable option.

What's nice about being grid intertied is that someone out there will be able to use the energy.

It would be nice if a good energy storage scheme (ultra-capacitors, flywheels, batteries, whatever) came online to smooth out energy from turbines and PV.

But then I hold strongly that we need to pitch the toys and dump the crap. Freezers don't need energy 24x7 and fridges can mostly survive without it. We could also do without fridges. Hot water heaters can easily get by with electricity during only part of the day (but then do we really NEED hot water?) - but energy for cooking is the rub. It's an issue with our food storage. We store a fair bit of food - but we have far more food than fuel to cook it with. We've tried solar cookers and white gas stoves are thirsty beasts and a lot more expensive than an electric range.

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lukitas on September 17, 2008 - 9:15pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

You make a few very strong points, but this point needs to be made: cooks use gas-fired ranges because of the very fine and fast temperature control these ranges offer - it is hard to cook a simple omelette on an electric range: you need a very hot plate to go down to a simmer very fast -
This may seem a frivolous argument, but I don't think it is. I think the single most important thing we humans do is to prepare food for each other and eat it together. Cooking is the only art that produces more artists than music.
It is obvious that we need to become independent of fossil fuels, but we do need usable temperature controls in order to do even the most simple of cooking. Bread is best baked in a very slowly cooling oven, for example: a refractory brick hemisphere heated by a charcoal fire, the cinders of which are removed before placing the loaves in the oven. Steak takes two minutes a side on a hot fire. Potatoes need 20 minutes in (slowly) cooking water, 25 minutes steamed.
Making a meal starts with the ingredients, but you need rather precise control of the energy applied to your ingredients, if you want to put something edible on the table.
There are quite efficient and well designed ranges for gas, wood and coal. Coal is a nightmare, gas burns clean but is finite, wood could be renewable if we had lower population. Prospects look dire.
But then, how long will tv-dinners last in post peak times?

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john milton on September 17, 2008 - 10:55pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

it is hard to cook a simple omelette on an electric range: you need a very hot plate to go down to a simmer very fast -

"Simmer"??? what are you doing to those eggs? Plain omelette should take 30 to 45 seconds on high heat if cooking on an electric burner from butter in to eggs out, no change in temp. req'd, then onto a heated plate and serve. If you Simmer you are on the road to chewiness, a bad place to go in this case :-(

Never more than 3 eggs, if you need more than that make another omelette.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpIndUafTJU

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Paleocon on September 17, 2008 - 11:27pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

What CAN'T you learn on TOD?

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lukitas on September 18, 2008 - 7:37am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

your description is much better than mine, but essentially it is the same process.
I heat the pan with oil or butter on a big flame, throw in the lightly beaten eggs, turn the heat very low, sculpt the omelette, season and serve within a minute of the eggs having hit the pan. Yum!

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kiosk on September 18, 2008 - 2:32am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Just my 2 cents, energy used for cooking is nothing compared to everything else. I drive a propane powered car and I can burn up full tank in 3.5 hours. That same tank could last me 6 months for cooking.

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Oily Bill on September 18, 2008 - 7:36am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

More for emergencies, but one of these puppies allows you to use small pieces of wood and twigs to produce a very effective cooking appliance.

http://www.woodgas-stove.com/

I have one, and the claimed outputs (3Kw) are correct !

Bill

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75 comments on Wind and Heat Pumps: A Winning Combination

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