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[Azure]

Originally Posted by Winsor_Pilates

I don't think that's the point. No body actually thinks 1 hour without any further commitment will do anything. But if people do 1 hour today, they may start to think of other ways/times they can do it again.

The point is to get people thinking about it and maybe some of them will start to do this on a more consistent basis.

Yeah, I think its more of an awareness thing than anything else.

[photon]

Originally Posted by You Need a Thneed

^Even though all the energy end up as heat, light bulbs a terribly unefficient heaters. You'll use WAY more energy trying to heat your house with light bulbs then with a furnace.

Lol what? If it takes x amount of energy to heat your house it takes x amount of energy, regardless of the source of that energy be it electricity or natural gas.

Light bulbs are very efficient heaters; they convert almost all of the energy they use into heat. The only losses are the light that goes out your window, and that gets converted to heat too, just not inside your house.

[GirlySports]

I think I'll participate.

I'll have to read by the light of my monitor and open some really bright pages
in a browser. CP is fairly bright!

[Flames in 07]

Originally Posted by photon

Light bulbs are 100% efficient at generating heat, every joule that is used by the bulb ends up as heat. Only 85% of the natural gas burned by my furnace ends up as heat on the other hand.

Now if the question is which has a greater/lesser impact on the environment, 1j of energy from the electrical grid or 1j of energy from burning natural gas in your furnace, that's a good question. EDIT: And I think the answer depends on where you are, if your electricity comes from hydro or nuclear, then I'd rather leave ALL my lights on (from an environmental point of view). If it's coal fired plants, maybe not so much.

That's the big problem I see in all these things, no one seems to look at things from end to end, but just at one small portion of the system.

ya that's essentially my point, the majority of electricity around here, and in many places is via burning coal, furnaces generally are nat gas.

[photon]

Yeah then one would think the natural gas would be more, but I don't know for sure, and that was essentially my point is they do all these things but don't weigh the total impact for whatever it is.. Be it the coal plant, or the environmental cost of extracting the natural gas from the ground and transporting it.

Reminds me of that report that said the end to end environmental impact of a hybrid was more than a Hummer.

[lambeburger]

Originally Posted by Azure

Yeah, I think its more of an awareness thing than anything else.

#18 on Stuff White People Like:

An interesting fact about white people is that they firmly believe that all of the world’s problems can be solved through “awareness.” Meaning the process of making other people aware of problems, and then magically someone else like the government will fix it.

http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpres.../18-awareness/

[Flames in 07]

Originally Posted by photon

Yeah then one would think the natural gas would be more, but I don't know for sure, and that was essentially my point is they do all these things but don't weigh the total impact for whatever it is.. Be it the coal plant, or the environmental cost of extracting the natural gas from the ground and transporting it.

Reminds me of that report that said the end to end environmental impact of a hybrid was more than a Hummer.

I'd argue the other way around, nat gas is clean burning, coal emmissions are brutal vs gas and even oil.

[Locke]

This is the first I've heard of this voodoo and in accordance with my belief in voodoo I shall turn off all the lights in my house.

I'm watching the game at a bar anyways.

[Torture]

I won't be home, watching the game then going to a party.

I shall turn my lights off when I leave home. That's what they want isn't it?

[bluejays]

Originally Posted by lambeburger

#18 on Stuff White People Like:

http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpres.../18-awareness/

lol...that's seriously funny stuff. I ain't white, so I'm not going to comment, but (though, I think #18 is more the artsy types who protest over spilled milk).

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by photon

Lol what? If it takes x amount of energy to heat your house it takes x amount of energy, regardless of the source of that energy be it electricity or natural gas.

Light bulbs are very efficient heaters; they convert almost all of the energy they use into heat. The only losses are the light that goes out your window, and that gets converted to heat too, just not inside your house.

Not really true. Lightbulbs are very efficient at generating heat, but not at heating your house. Most of the heat is in the bulb/fixture itself and the air surrounding the bulb. A very small portion of it will keep you warm while you're sitting on your couch watching hockey, which makes heating your house with a furnace or hot water more efficient.

[photon]

The bulb/fixture and air surrounding the bulb are part of the house, so they are heating the house. It's not like that heat stays around the bulb, physics demands it flows away to cooler areas.

If the bulb was off, the furnace would have to heat that area of air and fixture; there are no arbitrary zones of warm and cold.

100% of the energy goes towards heating your house; if it doesn't, where else does it go?

[Flames89]

While I can't say I know exactly how a furnace works, I do know that industrial refridgerators work within a fairly wide band.

So, if you set the temperature to (say) 5C. The compressor will turn on, and the refridge will cool down to about 3C, then turn off and not turn on until 8C... the idea is that the average sits around 5C.

Heating systems are very inefficient - we do not live in closed systems, there is heat leakage from every crack in our walls and ecery window, and unless you live in a high-end Pentagon server-room, then our heaters are not going to blast on as a result of us turning off 4 lightbulbs. They just approximate the temperature via an average.

Yes, you may have a very fancy digital display, but they are just a fancy coating. There is an interesting firm called SmartCool Systems that essentially have a widget with a smart algorithm that merely makes the compressors on refridgerators turn on earlier. And as a further aside, it is the last degree that takes something like 70% of the energy. So you want 5C, the compressor turns on at 8, cools to 3. But the last couple degrees takes 70% of the energy.

As for Earth Hour. I am all for it. It is not about the actual savings, because in fact the real energy fluctuations from thousands of houses and businesses turning off and on their lights at the same time will cause potentially larger dirty-energy demands than a current state (coal plants firing up to handle load-balancing)

Earth Hour was about voicing a concern about our endless consumption of energy (and a whole bunch of other hippie stuff). Global warming aside, one good trend in our generation is the realization that companies and individuals can't just trash our environment. I'd rather my kids (should my boys make the big swim) be able to experience nature as it is meant to be, to not deal with a world in social unrest due to food and power issues, and be able to breathe without asthma from pollution.

So maybe I have been living too long out east and the hippie/yuppie is taking control, but my love of the outdoors came from, and can't be beaten by anywhere but Calgary.

Some interesting stories, tell me this is not kinda cool:
http://www.thestar.com/SpecialSectio...article/407246

http://www.thestar.com/SpecialSectio...article/407156

[Flames89]

also. Fortunately the Flames game started here at 10.

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by photon

The bulb/fixture and air surrounding the bulb are part of the house, so they are heating the house. It's not like that heat stays around the bulb, physics demands it flows away to cooler areas.

If the bulb was off, the furnace would have to heat that area of air and fixture; there are no arbitrary zones of warm and cold.

100% of the energy goes towards heating your house; if it doesn't, where else does it go?

Well all the fixtures in the ceiling of your top floor send most to the attic.

[jammies]

Well, if light bulbs are so much more efficient for heating than furnaces, why doesn't *everyone* have an electric furnace instead of natural gas?

#1 - The heat from a lightbulb (or bulbs) does NOT diffuse equally all over the house, or even room. If you could heat connected areas efficiently this way, why do you think they would have air ducts in your house where hot air is FORCED into different rooms? Do you think standing 12 feet away from your fireplace is just as warm as standing 3 feet away?

#2 - Heat escapes your house through the roof, walls, and foundation - otherwise you'd have to heat your house once and then turn off your furnace forever. That's why air ducts are mostly on the floor for efficient heating - the hot air flows up and out, into the room, whereas lightbulbs on the ceiling mostly send their heat into that same ceiling, where it flows through the solid portions of the house and eventually outside.

#3 - You not only have to calculate (for efficiency) how the electricity is generated, but the efficiency of the power lines getting it to the end point where it used. Subtract an average of around 7% for that. Modern natural gas furnaces can be over 95% efficient in converting fuel to energy - even with just the 7% transmission penalty, you can see that this is MORE efficient than any kind of fossil fuel burning energy plant conceivable - like the coal plants that produce the majority of Alberta's energy, for example.

You also have to consider that coal - despite the scrubbers and other pollution-reducing technologies they use - burns a lot dirtier than natural gas. Like 3 times as much C02, for one.


In short, while it is true that lightbulbs do have some effect on heating your house, doing so is the equivalent of running space heaters in every room that you've nailed to the ceiling in order to severely reduce their practical heat output. In other words, stick to the furnace...

[photon]

Originally Posted by Flames89

While I can't say I know exactly how a furnace works, I do know that industrial refridgerators work within a fairly wide band.

So, if you set the temperature to (say) 5C. The compressor will turn on, and the refridge will cool down to about 3C, then turn off and not turn on until 8C... the idea is that the average sits around 5C.

Heating systems are very inefficient - we do not live in closed systems, there is heat leakage from every crack in our walls and ecery window, and unless you live in a high-end Pentagon server-room, then our heaters are not going to blast on as a result of us turning off 4 lightbulbs. They just approximate the temperature via an average.

All true, so by turning off the 4 bulbs the temperature is going to go down quicker and you are going to reach the bottom trigger a bit sooner.

In reality yes the amount of heat is so small the difference will be almost zero, but it is NOT zero.

Way back when oil was scarce, Toronto had a campaign where they wanted everyone to turn off their lights to conserve energy. It was very successful, there was a very distinct drop in the amount of electricity used.

Problem is that that actually made the oil problem worse, because offices and multi-family buildings which used heating oil to heat actually had the demand go UP as a result. And since electricity wasn't generated by oil, there was no offset on the other side from people conserving, so the net result was more oil used.

Again this is my point, you can raise awareness all you want, but at the end of the day if people aren't doing things that actually have a real positive impact, then it's nothing more than a marketing scheme.

[photon]

Originally Posted by hulkrogan

Well all the fixtures in the ceiling of your top floor send most to the attic.

The attic is a cold zone, so no they shouldn't be. And even if they were, then they're heating your attic so your furnace doesn't have to.

Basic physics.

[photon]

Originally Posted by jammies

Well, if light bulbs are so much more efficient for heating than furnaces, why doesn't *everyone* have an electric furnace instead of natural gas?

For other reasons, cost, distribution, safety...

#1 - The heat from a lightbulb (or bulbs) does NOT diffuse equally all over the house, or even room. If you could heat connected areas efficiently this way, why do you think they would have air ducts in your house where hot air is FORCED into different rooms? Do you think standing 12 feet away from your fireplace is just as warm as standing 3 feet away?

How evenly the heat is distributed doesn't say anything about efficiency. Forced air heating is for comfort. In-floor heating can accomplish the same thing.

#2 - Heat escapes your house through the roof, walls, and foundation - otherwise you'd have to heat your house once and then turn off your furnace forever. That's why air ducts are mostly on the floor for efficient heating - the hot air flows up and out, into the room, whereas lightbulbs on the ceiling mostly send their heat into that same ceiling, where it flows through the solid portions of the house and eventually outside.

This is true, but again that isn't about efficiency, it's how well the lightbulb is at heating a given space. But just because some of the heat is conducted to colder spaces doesn't mean all of it is; some of still goes into the house, which still means that it's partially doing the job of the furnace.

I never claimed it did the job of the furnace well.

#3 - You not only have to calculate (for efficiency) how the electricity is generated, but the efficiency of the power lines getting it to the end point where it used. Subtract an average of around 7% for that. Modern natural gas furnaces can be over 95% efficient in converting fuel to energy - even with just the 7% transmission penalty, you can see that this is MORE efficient than any kind of fossil fuel burning energy plant conceivable - like the coal plants that produce the majority of Alberta's energy, for example.

You also have to consider that coal - despite the scrubbers and other pollution-reducing technologies they use - burns a lot dirtier than natural gas. Like 3 times as much C02, for one.

I already mentioned most of this, and I agree. My entire point is people don't look at all the parts of the system when coming up with solutions, resulting in solutions which make things worse or are at best a sideways move.

In short, while it is true that lightbulbs do have some effect on heating your house, doing so is the equivalent of running space heaters in every room that you've nailed to the ceiling in order to severely reduce their practical heat output. In other words, stick to the furnace...

Congratulations on defeating a point I wasn't making

Of course a furnace is much more appropriate at heating houses, at least right now.

Electric *could* be better if all our power was generated by solar and wind and nuclear, and just replace the burner in the furnace with a heating element. Or if we used the electric to generate hydrogen, piped the hydrogen to houses, and burned that. We could even then put a fuel cell in each home to generate the electricity for the house, and drink the resulting water.

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by photon

The attic is a cold zone, so no they shouldn't be. And even if they were, then they're heating your attic so your furnace doesn't have to.

Basic physics.

With a ceiling light fixture, a large portion of the heat travels up into your attic and some of it conducts into the air around the fixture. Yes, this heat will disperse by conduction throughout your house. Still, much is heating the fixture, the structure of your ceiling, and the attic. Your attic is colder than your house, so the majority will conduct to the air in your attic, not making you any warmer, and requiring your furnace to turn on still. Yes this will decrease the amount of heat that conducts out of the air to your ceiling, but this really doesn't matter all that much.

When your furnace turns on, the temperature of your attic is fairly negligible. It's a forced air system and doesn't rely on heat being conducted. The air in your house, no matter what temperature it is, is replaced by warm air. Fresh air is taken in to the furnace, heated, forced into the rooms of your house, and the cold air is forced to return. It doesn't operate by conduction (for the most part) so although a warmer attic will keep your house from cooling down as much, your furnace is still expending just as much energy to heat up the outside air it is fed.