[TheForge] new shed design and other ramblings

[Keziah's Forge]

Terry, and everyone

This is a laudable goal, but you have to decide:

Do you want environmentally friendly or economically maximized?  There are 
precious few technologies that deliver both on a micro scale

Sounds like Terry is  trying to shoot for both.  That's admirable, but not 
yet practical.

Noting green about a marine diesel, unless you are feeding it all-bio: 
veggie, bio-diesel or wood gas.

Solar/wind is good, but  Edison will squeeze all the economic gain out of 
you unless you are producing enough to be in a position negotiate away the 
charges.  F'rinstance:  if you are pumping power into the grid in a demand 
area, why should you pay any transmission costs?  You are delivering power 
where it is most valuable ( assuming you still have a neighbor or two) and 
should get ALL that value.

Forget the wood/anything except a wood gas generator:  otherwise, unless 
your fuel is free, you can't produduce heat from wood as cheap as you can 
buy it including electric up to about 30 cents/kwh.  the best wood stove on 
the market acually delivers MAYBE 30 percent of the energy content of the 
wood.  Most fireplaces deliver NEGATIVE efficiency.  Hard coal,  you might 
break even against oil or gas if  you can get it for  the same price per ton 
that you would pay for 100 gals of oil.

For a ground water heat pump, if you can bury a ot of really cheap pipe in a 
closed system,  or sneak it into a body of water rather than the ground, you 
can avoid all those groundwater problems.

BTW:  are you committed to the shore job?  What happened to the salvage 
vessels?

Keziah


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "terry l. ridder" <terrylr at blauedonau.com>
To: <theforge at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Tuesday, April 14, 2009 5:52 PM
Subject: [TheForge] new shed design and other ramblings


> hello;
>
> i am attempting to build an environmentally friendly shop. i would like
> to keep the carbon footprint for the shop as small as possible. i am
> trying to use recycled materials in building the shed to being with.
>
> i am looking at either producing all the 3-phase electrical power that i
> would need for the shop using a marine diesel 3-phase 240 volt generator
> or cut back on power requirements and produce the electricity using
> solar panels on the shed roof and a wind turbine. i have the marine
> diesel all ready i would have to purchase the solar panels and wind
> turbine. i have not reached a final decision on the electrical system.
>
> i would like to have the new shed off grid if at all possible. that way
> i am able to control the cost of producing the electricity for the shed.
> i have looked at the commonwealth edison offer and it is just loaded
> with fees and charges. there is the metering charge, distribution
> facilities charge, transmission services charge, electricity supply
> charge, purchased electricity adjustment charge, environmental cost
> recovery adjustment, energy efficiency programs charge, etc. there is
> even a charge is i do not use the 3-phase equipment often enough.
>
> if i include the cost of the equipment to produce the 3-phase electrical
> power it is clear that i would not break even for many years.
>
> i am looking at putting radiant heat in the concrete portion of the new
> shed floor. the heating system will be a wood/coal boiler/stove. i have
> not decided on just how the new shed will be cooled or even if it will
> be cooled. i may go with the new generation of spot coolers to cool the
> location of the shed where creature comforts are required.
>
> i have looked at the ground water heating and cooling systems but the
> requirement for using a double walled heat exchanger is a killer. i can
> understand the need to protect the ground water from contamination put
> there are other ways to do that other than using a double wall heat
> exchanger. a double walled heat exchanger is twice as large as a single
> wall heat exchanger.
>
>
> -- 
> terry l. ridder ><>
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