Why is modern power demand so high?

[Vdubchaos]

But completely awesome.

One can say, sure. In northeast, I think it's an overkill.

I can never figure out why Central units are so expensive especially when you see how dirt cheap window units are.

Weird...

 

[vi edit]

climate control causes obesity, usually everything we like is bad for us lol.

Meh. Lazy makes for obesity. If it's 95 degrees and humid enough to make me a sweaty mess just walking out to get the mail I'm not doing shit outside. At least I can plop down on the treadmill or exercise bike in my basement and not worry about heatstroke.

Same thing in the winter. I'm not running outside when it's 5 degrees, icy, and a windchill of 30 below. But I can go down to my nice comfy 70 degree basement and work out for an hour.

Conditioned temperatures are a benefit to my health.

 

[vi edit]

There is pros and cons to both window units and central. For example, you can't have AC in one room (have to cool each zone).

That's not exactly energy efficient....



Lucky I don't have mine anymore. I have 4 PCs set up in my office (24/7 lan party). And they all get used each and every day (have 3 sons).

The *only* pro to a window unit is in a very small appt or house where you only care about cooling a single room. In a home where I want 3 or 4 bedrooms and a living room conditioned it makes zero sense. And I'm looking at this from a house that was built ground up with central air in mind. Retrofitting isn't cheap at all and to which I agree it would take years, if ever paying off. Especially in areas where you use it infrequently.

Me on the otherhand...I live in central IL which is just one step away from the south on the scale of swamp-assy humid summers.

 

[Puppies04]

Per inch, sure. But a 12" B&W CRT TV uses a LOT less power than a 60" LCD...and in the past, people would only have the one TV. Try putting your hand above your 50" LCD TV and you'll see that plenty of heat is still being generated...

Are we all kinda ignoring the fact that tvs aren't heaters? They are not designed to produce heat and as newer technology has come out the energy produced as waste heat will have reduced by what I can only imagine is a lot. The heat produced by a 60" plasma has no relevance what so ever to the heat produced by a 20 year old TV and neither number can be used to imply which device uses more power.

 

[JimKiler]

Also:
- More TVs. One for every room!
- Bigger TVs. Quadruple the screen size and it's going to use more power no matter what you do.
- Plasma TVs. Some people still like them, but they use much more power than any variety of LCD.

And then there's me. See my sig for my reason.

When I bought my Plasma 18 months ago I checked the energy guides for plasma and LCD and the difference for a year was $7 more for plasma, seem trivial to me.

 

[edro]

Here are the reasons I can come up with:

- Most homes had gas or boiler powered heaters (dryers, ovens, furnace).
- Most homes had only a few light fixtures (~1 per room)
- Circuits used larger gauge wire and each branch circuit had many rooms/functions on them

 

[Red Squirrel]

Are we all kinda ignoring the fact that tvs aren't heaters? They are not designed to produce heat and as newer technology has come out the energy produced as waste heat will have reduced by what I can only imagine is a lot. The heat produced by a 60" plasma has no relevance what so ever to the heat produced by a 20 year old TV and neither number can be used to imply which device uses more power.

Actually heat is a great way to compare as all electrical energy is converted 100% into heat. A small percentage of that heat occurs from the power plant to your house, but it's safe to say that the hotter something gets, the more electricity it uses.

A 100w bulb produces 100w of heat, while a 100w equivalant CFL, which is actually 23w or something like that, only generates 23w of heat. You can practically touch a lit CFL, though it will still be hot enough to hurt. A light bulb will give you an actual burn.

 

[who?]

Energy companies are trying to sell less energy so they don't have to build as many new plants and transmission lines.They would like you to have a smart meter so that you will do more washing at night when the load from everybodys ac is lower.

 

[Meghan54]

30 years ago there was one TV on an hour or so a day.

Are you that young that you think back in the 1980's, which is 30 years ago, that people only owned one TV and ran it for only an hour or two per day?

I think you're trying to channel the 1950's, but even then, while the number of TV's per household wasn't high, they were definitely used more than an hour or two per day. Sheesh......

 

[TXHokie]

Just wait til electric cars take off...

 

[ElFenix]

Yeah I have a portable AC unit (all my windows are crank so could not get a window unit) and it's a pain in the butt and uses lot of space. Also had to mod it quite heavily to make it more efficient since it was sucking more hot air in the house than making cold air. :awe: "Portable" is really a joke because this thing is monstrous and by the time I connect all the tubes and stuff, I don't want to move it again for the season.

I definitely want central air at some point. Especially now that our winters are getting shorter and summers are getting longer, it's more worth it. Even for that one week where we get +30's, it pays for itself.

don't get central, get mini split systems. cool just the room you're in!




as a tangent, iirc a lot of modern housing materials need air conditioning in order not to mold/mildew in the high humidity regions of the south.

 

[deanx0r]

Where is all of this additional load coming from? Lighting, cooking, drying clothes, and AC are easily the biggest demands in any house, and all of them have improved over the years.

The additional load comes better efficiency, because efficiency doesn't curb down demand, it raises it. This is known as the Jevons Paradox which states that efficiency in using a resource will result as an increased consumption rather a reduction. This theory has been around for 150 years now and has yet to be proven wrong.

That's why it is laughable that our current administration thinks they can quench our thirst for oil by mandating a fuel economy of 55mpg by 2025.

 

[shortylickens]

As lighting gets more efficient, people use more of it.

ANYTHING that gets more efficient has that problem. When cotton gins helped produce more clothing people starting keeping wardrobes instead of wearing the same shirt each day.
Gasoline efficiency goes up? More driving.
Electricity? More gadgets and more air conditioning.

Farming? We eat more flour and corn and get fucking fat.

 

[Bateluer]

Population has grown, power generating capacity has not. NIMBY and environmentalist movement have inhibited the construction of new power plants.

Some cities have more than doubled in size in the past 20 years alone, and are powered by facilities built in the 60s and 70s.

 

[dullard]

Are you that young that you think back in the 1980's, which is 30 years ago, that people only owned one TV and ran it for only an hour or two per day?

I think you're trying to channel the 1950's, but even then, while the number of TV's per household wasn't high, they were definitely used more than an hour or two per day. Sheesh......

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_otfwl2zc6Qc/S92BXzWM3SI/AAAAAAAANWo/9-zNGAqM3R4/s1600/tv.jpg

Oh No! I should have said 1.6 TVs instead of one TV. The horror!!!!!!

Clearly since I truncated a number on a minor portion of a semi-large post on an online forum, I must be a younger age than you!

 

[Gibsons]

The additional load comes better efficiency, because efficiency doesn't curb down demand, it raises it. This is known as the Jevons Paradox which states that efficiency in using a resource will result as an increased consumption rather a reduction. This theory has been around for 150 years now and has yet to be proven wrong.

That's why it is laughable that our current administration thinks they can quench our thirst for oil by mandating a fuel economy of 55mpg by 2025.

There's an exception to every rule though. I don't drive much at all, mostly due to parking and traffic issues. Even a 100 mpg car in my garage wouldn't change that.

 

[who?]

AC became much more prevalent in the 1960s which is why that was the first decade when the American south gained population instead of losing it. Cities like Dallas, Fort Worth and Houston would be much smaller without AC.

 

[Doppel]

Big houses, lots of lights, big screens, appliances, etc. A lot of people now with CFLs don't even turn off lights like they used to. I have to admit if I'm half way up the stairs already and look down and a light is still on I just can't be bothered sometimes to bother lugging my ass down four steps again. A 60W equivalent will burn about 1.5 cents left on overnight, but oh well.

 

[Red Squirrel]

don't get central, get mini split systems. cool just the room you're in!




as a tangent, iirc a lot of modern housing materials need air conditioning in order not to mold/mildew in the high humidity regions of the south.

I was actually thinking about mini split, but they're not really that much cheaper. May as well pay a bit more and get central air. Though I guess a mini split would use less energy. One for my office and one for my bedroom is all I'd really need.

 

[FallenHero]

 

[vi edit]

Ah so mini split is another name for ductless. Yeah, if I was trying to retrofit then I'd be looking at that route.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Mini splits work too, but they're actually not that cheap either. Couple grand when I had checked. May as well pay a couple grand more and go central. Though mini splits are nice if you only want specific areas cooled, then you save on hydro as I imagine they don't use as much as central air.

 

[ElFenix]

Mini splits work too, but they're actually not that cheap either. Couple grand when I had checked. May as well pay a couple grand more and go central. Though mini splits are nice if you only want specific areas cooled, then you save on hydro as I imagine they don't use as much as central air.

exactly. you want it frosty in your bedroom in the middle of summer? you can do that with a mini split system and not cool off the whole rest of your house that you're not in.


i guess you could do it with central with zones maybe?

 

[vi edit]

exactly. you want it frosty in your bedroom in the middle of summer? you can do that with a mini split system and not cool off the whole rest of your house that you're not in.


i guess you could do it with central with zones maybe?

Yeah there is some zoning you can do but it's rather expensive. Another couple grand on top of what the HVAC is already costing you. It has a controllable damper that open and closes on demand to allow more or less airflow depending on need.

Another way to do it is common in two story, or very large homes where two cooling systems are installed on independent thermostats. That way you have one that manages the upstairs and a 2nd for the main floor.

I've only got one AC unit in my house and it is not zoned and my upstairs can run 15 degrees warmer or cooler than the main floor depending on the season. We just adjust the main floor temp a few different degrees and deal with the difference.

 

[ShawnD1]

Meh. Lazy makes for obesity. If it's 95 degrees and humid enough to make me a sweaty mess just walking out to get the mail I'm not doing shit outside. At least I can plop down on the treadmill or exercise bike in my basement and not worry about heatstroke.

That was always my theory about why obesity in the south is so high. It would also explain the lazy accent. I would talk lazy too if it was super hot and humid all the time.


Will the government ever take a stand and make some kind of requirement about wall warts and efficiency? Most of them are pretty good, but some are terrible. The AC adapter for my computer speakers is always warm, and it draws about 10 watts. It reminds me of the AC adapter for my Sega Genesis. That thing was always really hot. So much wasted power and needless stress on the grid.