Thursday, June 13, 2013

More junk science from the fringe

1 BTU = 1 lb. H2O increased by 1°F.
1 Ton of cooling = 12,000 BTU/h to freeze 1 ton of H2O in 24 hours.
1 US Gal of gasoline = 114,000 to 125,000 BTU.

Lets say your house has 10 ft. ceilings, and it's a big ranch style, say 36 ft. wide by 5,280 ft. long.  So, got that, a mile long ranch house, and your just not perfectly comfy so you change the thermostat one degree.  Just so happens if it's average insulation, (I ain't doing the math for you here) the energy needed is 118,560 BTU the same as burning 1 gallon of gas.  You could impact 1 degree in your mile long house with the energy equivalent to 1 gallon of gas.

Now your driving around and you burn a gallon, letting 125,000 BTU loose in your town.  Here's the thing, it only takes 145 other cars burning 1 gallon  adding 125,000 BTU each to produce enough heat to raise 1 square mile area 10 foot deep by 1 degree F.   The city does not have a 10' ceiling so it doesn't increase at the rate of the insulated house, but neither does it suffer only 146 fossil fuel gallons worth of heat increase, instead it's millions.

Heat islands in cities, can be as much as 10°F greater than the open country, the result of dark roofs, forests and grasslands replaced by concrete brick and asphalt, and waste heat from traffic.

Can you grasp that first part?  1 gallon of gas pissed through the tailpipe could have heated or cooled a building of preposterous proportions.  The volume of energy waste is astonishing.  Time to push back.



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