NATO Climate Change and Security Centre of Excellence

[Kirkhill]

Available or not, if I'm reading the description properly, roughly 1Kw is fairly small and won't power a whole lot (less than an electric kettle), and it seems the heat is created by exhaust recovery. It might be enough to warm your water but I'm not sure it would have the electrical capacity to pump it around.

1 kW is 1000 Watts
A light bulb (old style is 60 Watts and most of the LED replacements are about 10 Watts)
A microwave oven is on the order of 1000 Watts but it is only used for a few minutes a day.
A refrigerator consumes at the rate of 350 to 800 Watts.

The average Alberta home uses about 600 kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity each month.
24 hours per day for 31 days 744 hours so a 1 kW unit would suffice to meet the electrical demand of a single house exclusive of the heating requirement. 744 kWh is equivalent to 2.7 GJ
Assuming a 33% electrical efficiency then the fuel consumption would be around 8.1 GJ per month with 5.4 GJ emitted as heat and waste gas.
Assuming 90% heat recovery then on a monthly basis you would be harvesting 4.5 GJ or 54 GJ per year.

In Alberta, the average household uses 110 GJ of natural gas per year, comprising about 77% of total energy consumption (including electricity, natural gas, ...

One 1 kW unit would supply your total electrical requirements and 50% of your heating requirements. I would likely opt to keep my gas fired furnace although you could also install two or three 1 kW units for extra capacity and redundancy.

....

There is enough energy there to work with.

 

[Baz]

Available or not, if I'm reading the description properly, roughly 1Kw is fairly small and won't power a whole lot (less than an electric kettle), and it seems the heat is created by exhaust recovery. It might be enough to warm your water but I'm not sure it would have the electrical capacity to pump it around.

Editted: my original math didn't include two running to produce 100,000ish BTU's, so two of them could meet average residential electrical use

That's why they parallel them as required.

The Marathon one produces "between 13,000 - 47,000 BTU's of heat per hour and generating 1.2 - 4.4kWh." Assume that the 47,000BTU's is for a 4.4kWh per hour (I don't know why they do that, that is an average power of 4.4kW). Although I couldn't be bothered to find the exact model number of my current oil fired boiler it is around 100,000BTUs. So for the same recovery rate I would need two 47,000 units. That would be producing 4.4kW each when running, for a total of 8.8kW.

I haven't been measuring my boiler cycle times but the 3 hours a day seems a good average from a quick search. So back of the cigarette pack number mean a cogen should produce 26.5ish kWH per day. Given the average house use (again, I haven't started measuring my new house yet) is around 27kWH, that means it's providing the electric needs, for pretty much free running cost.

By the way, using spot loads or starting loads isn't the best for efficient home systems. That's why you either are grid tied or have battery capacity. Whichever of those two you have picks up the load during starts (for instance, a fridge starts at 1,800 and runs at 180 on average, and I have measured that to confirm with my old fridge) or high draws (running your kettle). The battery then recovers during the rest of the time. I have confirmed this with my battery during outages: my (horribly inefficient generator) only gives 3,000 - 3,600 watts but with my battery and inverter (that is also rated at 3,000 watts) I can easily handle 5,000 watt intermittent loads (which is a lot). The 50Amp Cabtire to feed that to my balancing transformer isn't cheap though :-(

I also think (by my experience) that those 27kWH daily use is in the right ball park. I ran two heat pumps, a fridge, and a freezer during power outages, plus a few other essential house services (like internet) for 8 hours over night on my 200aH 12V li-ion without it going anywhere near dead (200aH * 12V = 2400 kWH or an average of less than 300 watts).

So, yes, I am watching for when they become available at a reasonable cost, hopefully before my boiler needs replacing.

 

[Baz]

There is enough energy there to work with.

Sorry, we both provided roughly the same numbers...

 

[suffolkowner]

You are kidding, right Kirkhill !!!

There is no debate that rapid climate change is happening and has accelerated in the last 30 years or so. The debates left , if any (I put this here to satisfy both sides), are (1) is it anthropogenic? and, (2) regardless of cause, can humans do anything about it?

Well, military staffs in many countries serious about defense have started long ago to examine the strategic consequences of climate change. This of course hasn't happened in Canada, though I believe there is now a cell set up at NDHQ within the strategic review organization to look at this.

Just to show you how far back such military strategic review goes, Gwynne Dyer obtained copies of these strategic studies, where possible, and interviewed many of the staffers who worked on them in order to publish a book called "Climate Wars" back in 2009. That's 15 years ago.

P.S. : That book was an interesting and good read 15 years ago, and I pulled it out again about a year ago and found that it had aged very gracefully. It is still a relevant read.

If one wants to know the current state of research on AGW all one needs to do is look at the IPCC reports. They represent the conservative analysis of the situation

IPCC — Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

www.ipcc.ch

 

[Kirkhill]

You are kidding, right Kirkhill !!!

There is no debate that rapid climate change is happening and has accelerated in the last 30 years or so. The debates left , if any (I put this here to satisfy both sides), are (1) is it anthropogenic? and, (2) regardless of cause, can humans do anything about it?

Well, military staffs in many countries serious about defense have started long ago to examine the strategic consequences of climate change. This of course hasn't happened in Canada, though I believe there is now a cell set up at NDHQ within the strategic review organization to look at this.

Just to show you how far back such military strategic review goes, Gwynne Dyer obtained copies of these strategic studies, where possible, and interviewed many of the staffers who worked on them in order to publish a book called "Climate Wars" back in 2009. That's 15 years ago.

P.S. : That book was an interesting and good read 15 years ago, and I pulled it out again about a year ago and found that it had aged very gracefully. It is still a relevant read.

I'm not sure if we are disagreeing or not.

Climate change is.

It always has been and it always will be.

The rate of change is also constantly changing.

We have to adapt.

I have no issue with adapting.

I do take grave exception to those that would insist that the world will end tomorrow if we don't adopt their proclaimed panacea today. I can't decide whether or not they intend to scare the flock or they are just being foolish. Either way they are wrong and I decline to run over the cliff with them.

.....

On the other hand I do like efficiency. It appeals to my instincts to save money and keep things clean and tidy and leave them pretty much the way I found them.

Cheers.

 

[Kirkhill]

National Security Snapshot: Climate Change Risks to National Security

Climate change poses threats to national security, as effects like rising sea levels and catastrophic storms threaten both military and civilian...

www.gao.gov

The US military has looked at it since at least 2014. It considers climate change a threat to national security.

I agree. Climate change is a risk to national security. It has been since the Mesopotamians found it necessary to build irrigation systems and the Yamnaya moved west to find new pastures for their horses. Stuff happens.

Another risk to national security is everybody playing follow the leader.

 

[Kirkhill]

Editted: my original math didn't include two running to produce 100,000ish BTU's, so two of them could meet average residential electrical use

That's why they parallel them as required.

The Marathon one produces "between 13,000 - 47,000 BTU's of heat per hour and generating 1.2 - 4.4kWh." Assume that the 47,000BTU's is for a 4.4kWh per hour (I don't know why they do that, that is an average power of 4.4kW). Although I couldn't be bothered to find the exact model number of my current oil fired boiler it is around 100,000BTUs. So for the same recovery rate I would need two 47,000 units. That would be producing 4.4kW each when running, for a total of 8.8kW.

I haven't been measuring my boiler cycle times but the 3 hours a day seems a good average from a quick search. So back of the cigarette pack number mean a cogen should produce 26.5ish kWH per day. Given the average house use (again, I haven't started measuring my new house yet) is around 27kWH, that means it's providing the electric needs, for pretty much free running cost.

By the way, using spot loads or starting loads isn't the best for efficient home systems. That's why you either are grid tied or have battery capacity. Whichever of those two you have picks up the load during starts (for instance, a fridge starts at 1,800 and runs at 180 on average, and I have measured that to confirm with my old fridge) or high draws (running your kettle). The battery then recovers during the rest of the time. I have confirmed this with my battery during outages: my (horribly inefficient generator) only gives 3,000 - 3,600 watts but with my battery and inverter (that is also rated at 3,000 watts) I can easily handle 5,000 watt intermittent loads (which is a lot). The 50Amp Cabtire to feed that to my balancing transformer isn't cheap though :-(

I also think (by my experience) that those 27kWH daily use is in the right ball park. I ran two heat pumps, a fridge, and a freezer during power outages, plus a few other essential house services (like internet) for 8 hours over night on my 200aH 12V li-ion without it going anywhere near dead (200aH * 12V = 2400 kWH or an average of less than 300 watts).

So, yes, I am watching for when they become available at a reasonable cost, hopefully before my boiler needs replacing.

I do wish we would just do everything in Joules. He was a decent chap.

kWh's frost me. 1000 Joules per second for 3600 seconds = 3,600.000 Joules. Why not just measure in Joules and be done with it?

 

[Kirkhill]

Sorry, we both provided roughly the same numbers...

Baz - check my arithmetic - based on that 1.5 kW ATCO - AISIN CORECO model.

ATCO-AISIN CORECO
Electrical Efficiency		23%​
Thermal Efficiency		55%​
Overall Efficiency		78%​
Losses		22%​
Electrical Output	kW	1.5​
Electrical Output	kJ/s	1.5​
Electrical Output	kJ/h	5,400​
Electrical Output	J/h	5,400,000​
Electrical Output	J/day	129,600,000​
Electrical Output	J/month	3,888,000,000​
Electrical Output	J/year	47,304,000,000​
Fuel Consumption	btu/h	22,000​
Fuel Consumption	J/h	23,210,000​
Fuel Consumption	J/day	557,040,000​
Fuel Consumption	J/month	16,711,200,000​
Fuel Consumption	J/year	203,319,600,000​
Hot Water Output	btu/h	12,000​
Hot Water Output	J/h	12,660,000​
Hot Water Output	J/day	303,840,000​
Hot Water Output	J/month	9,115,200,000​
Hot Water Output	J/year	110,901,600,000​
Electrical Demand	kWh/month	600​
Electrical Demand	kJ/kWh	3,600​
Electrical Demand	kJ/month	2,160,000​
Electrical Demand	J/month	2,160,000,000​
Electrical Demand	J/year	25,920,000,000​
Thermal Demand	GJ/year	110​
Thermal Demand	J/yr	110,000,000,000​
Supply/Demand Ratio
Electrical		1.8​
Thermal		1.0​

 

[Baz]

I do take grave exception to those that would insist that the world will end tomorrow if we don't adopt their proclaimed panacea today. I can't decide whether or not they intend to scare the flock or they are just being foolish. Either way they are wrong and I decline to run over the cliff with them.

I agree… some people are trying to match the response to their agenda.

But I also take exception to people that use outliers, edge cases, et al to support their desire to maintain the status quo.

One of my pet peeves is “Canada is too small to have much effect so we shouldn’t do anything,” even though we’re amongst the worst per capital in the world. The whole trying to live the lifestyle of the US in a much colder climate should make us world leaders in efficient heating systems…

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

Yes. here in Quebec, the government has been pushing for electrical heating since the late 60's. We have tons of electricity at cheap rates, so it makes se, but they decided to push the worst form of it and least efficient : baseboard electrical radiators. Now we are entering a period where, to get on with the program - so to speak -, will require electrical economies while simultaneously, our summers are getting hotter and hotter. How far ahead would we have been if instead, they would have pushed for central air systems hooked to geothermal heat pumps.

I know what people would have said at the time: "geothermal is barely new technology and is extremely expensive". Yes, but with a mandate to put them in, the cost would have gone down tremendously and fast.

If you are going to do/require something that has a multiple decades or even a century horizon, you'd better think it all through properly.

An example of poorly thought out plan: Mandating all automobiles to be electrical by 2050. That will require doubling the electrical output of the country in the next 25 years - something that in itself requires at least 25 years. Anybody see any new power plants coming on line anywhere in Canada, or large scale production facilities being planned and their construction started? I don't.

 

[Kirkhill]

I agree… some people are trying to match the response to their agenda.

But I also take exception to people that use outliers, edge cases, et al to support their desire to maintain the status quo.

One of my pet peeves is “Canada is too small to have much effect so we shouldn’t do anything,” even though we’re amongst the worst per capital in the world. The whole trying to live the lifestyle of the US in a much colder climate should make us world leaders in efficient heating systems…

One of our biggest problems, in my opinion, is the tendency to put power generating plants out in the boonies, remote from the point of use.
It made some kind of sense for Hydro when you had to put the generators where the water was.
It makes no sense for thermal plants regardless of the fuel.

Our northern neighbours solve their problems by putting their power plants in the middle of their cities.
They then use the "waste" heat to heat their houses.
And eliminate their electrical transmission line losses.
In fact the CORECO system replicates the Scandinavian municipal system at the residential level.

And they get rid of their landfill problems the way that my parents did when I was that wee wee lad carrying coal. They burn it. It fuels their local power plants. Inefficiently thermally no doubt - but waste management problem solved.

The Öresundsverket CHP Plant Project, Sweden

The Öresundsverket combined heat and power (CHP) plant in Malmö, Sweden, was opened on 31 August 2009. Owned by E.ON…

www.power-technology.com

Nuclear plants are put out in the boonies making them less efficient.

 

[Kirkhill]

According to [1], the fundamental idea of district heating is ‘to use local fuel or heat resources that would otherwise be wasted, in order to satisfy local customer demands for heating, by using a heat distribution network of pipes as a local market place’. Traditional excess heat resources are combined heat and power (CHP) plants, Waste-to-Energy (WtE) plants, and industrial processes. During recent decades, some renewable heat from geothermal wells, solar collectors, and biomass fuels have been introduced into the European district heating systems. Hereby, a combination of heat recycling and renewable heat is the current focus for district heating systems. This provides a substitution of ordinary primary energy supply for various societal heat demands. Hence, the district heating economy can be characterised as economy-of-scope instead of economy-of-size that characterise other parts of the energy system, giving a fundamentally different business situation for district heating compared to other energy supply.

2.1. District heating​

The first Swedish district heating system was introduced in Karlstad in 1948, when a thermal power station was converted to a combined heat and power (CHP) plant and heat was provided to an industrial facility [8]. Further nine major municipalities introduced district heating systems during the 1950s. Nowadays, all major cities and towns in Sweden have district heating systems. Current national statistics lists about 500 systems, also including small district heating systems in small towns and villages.

Customers buy district heat from the heat distribution systems in competition to other heat supply, since mandatory connections have no legislative support. Historically, district heat has mainly substituted fuel oil boilers as illustrated in Fig. 1. This figure reveals also that the increase of market shares has been very steady during the fifty years presented. District heating is currently the market leader with a market share of about 55% during 2014 for all heat supply to buildings. This estimation is based on original information from Ref. [9] and corresponding preceding reports.

According to [29], the total storage capacity in 2016 was 900 000 m3 of hot water volume corresponding to about 150 TJ heat storage. These heat storages are located in systems responsible for three quarters of the heat deliveries and the average size of installed heat storages was 7 m3 per TJ heat sold. However, only 2.5 m3/TJ is required to counteract the expected daily variations [27]. Hence, the heat storages can also take care of additional load variations somewhat beyond the daily variations.

The total trench length of heat distribution pipelines was 23 400 km in the end of 2014, while the annual distribution losses became 12% of heat supplied into the networks. The distribution waters are often coloured in order to facilitate leakage detection and this method was originally introduced from a proposal by Ref. [33]. Major distribution failures and accidents can be traced to pressure surges [34].

Distribution of hot water in distribution networks is performed with a design temperature difference of about 50 °C. Annual average distribution temperatures during recent years have been 86 °C in the supply pipes and 47 °C in the return pipes.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544217304140

 

[Kirkhill]

Yes. here in Quebec, the government has been pushing for electrical heating since the late 60's. We have tons of electricity at cheap rates, so it makes se, but they decided to push the worst form of it and least efficient : baseboard electrical radiators. Now we are entering a period where, to get on with the program - so to speak -, will require electrical economies while simultaneously, our summers are getting hotter and hotter. How far ahead would we have been if instead, they would have pushed for central air systems hooked to geothermal heat pumps.

I know what people would have said at the time: "geothermal is barely new technology and is extremely expensive". Yes, but with a mandate to put them in, the cost would have gone down tremendously and fast.

If you are going to do/require something that has a multiple decades or even a century horizon, you'd better think it all through properly.

An example of poorly thought out plan: Mandating all automobiles to be electrical by 2050. That will require doubling the electrical output of the country in the next 25 years - something that in itself requires at least 25 years. Anybody see any new power plants coming on line anywhere in Canada, or large scale production facilities being planned and their construction started? I don't.

I think you have outlined my problem with central planning.

Since those houses were built in the 60s how many new ones have been built and how many old ones have had their heating systems repaired/refitted/renovated?

In 1960 it was difficult to see what the options and their costs would look like today.

 

[lenaitch]

1 kW is 1000 Watts
A light bulb (old style is 60 Watts and most of the LED replacements are about 10 Watts)
A microwave oven is on the order of 1000 Watts but it is only used for a few minutes a day.
A refrigerator consumes at the rate of 350 to 800 Watts.

The average Alberta home uses about 600 kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity each month.
24 hours per day for 31 days 744 hours so a 1 kW unit would suffice to meet the electrical demand of a single house exclusive of the heating requirement. 744 kWh is equivalent to 2.7 GJ
Assuming a 33% electrical efficiency then the fuel consumption would be around 8.1 GJ per month with 5.4 GJ emitted as heat and waste gas.
Assuming 90% heat recovery then on a monthly basis you would be harvesting 4.5 GJ or 54 GJ per year.

In Alberta, the average household uses 110 GJ of natural gas per year, comprising about 77% of total energy consumption (including electricity, natural gas, ...

One 1 kW unit would supply your total electrical requirements and 50% of your heating requirements. I would likely opt to keep my gas fired furnace although you could also install two or three 1 kW units for extra capacity and redundancy.

....

There is enough energy there to work with.

You're mashing concepts . A (kilo) Watt is a measure of power - the amount of energy consumed to do work: a (kilo) Watt) Hour is a measure of power consumed over time. In terms of loads, they require a certain amount of available power to operate and, with loads like motors and compressors, significantly more power to start than run . As Baz explains in more detail, a fridge or well pump starting up will require more power than that Honda device can deliver, possibly damaging the generator and/or load in the process. Without some kind of battery storage, it's capacity to deliver power at any given point in time is less than a single 15a household circuit.

Yes. here in Quebec, the government has been pushing for electrical heating since the late 60's. We have tons of electricity at cheap rates, so it makes se, but they decided to push the worst form of it and least efficient : baseboard electrical radiators.

In the '60s, baseboard heaters was probably the only electrical option available to them. I'm not exactly sure if forced air electric was available but if it was it certainly wasn't all that common (or cheap - we owned one). Heat pumps, either ground or air sourced, really only became commercially available in the 1970s and the earlier versions weren't all that efficient or reliable. They were much better at cooling than heating, particularly in cold climates. 'Cold climate' heat pumps, something that would be suitable for Quebec winters, are fairly new on the market.

I don't know anything about the energy history of Quebec but did the government directly subsidize or mandate electric heating, or was it simply more attractive because of the cheap rates? It's a broad brush, but in Ontario, a ground sourced heat pump costs between $15K and $35K to install. That's a lot of coin if they wanted to get into subsidizing.

Ontario went through a 'live better electrically' phase. Ontario gets to exchange power with Quebec because their consumption is winter-weighted (electric heat, less NG, less a/c) and ours is summer-weighted. If they get into central a/c in a big way, that could change the dynamics.

 

[Good2Golf]

Anybody see any new power plants coming on line anywhere in Canada, or large scale production facilities being planned and their construction started? I don't.

Yup, Ontario with multiple small modular reactors (SMRs) coming online in 2028-2029, and OPG is collaborating with Alberta, Saskatchewan and New Brunswick to build more nuclear power plants.

Media release | Capital Power and OPG partner to advance new nuclear in Alberta – OPG

Capital Power Corporation and OPG have entered into an agreement to jointly assess the development and deployment of grid-scale SMRs.

www.opg.com

 

[Navy_Pete]

Does anyone know what the plan is for areas where heat pumps aren't suitable? I know some places you can't actually dig down because of bedrock, ground water freezing concerns and some other issues.

I think they are great option where they work, but they aren't a magic bullet.

 

[OldSolduer]

Does anyone know what the plan is for areas where heat pumps aren't suitable? I know some places you can't actually dig down because of bedrock, ground water freezing concerns and some other issues.

I think they are great option where they work, but they aren't a magic bullet.

Ya mean like EVs?

 

[lenaitch]

Does anyone know what the plan is for areas where heat pumps aren't suitable? I know some places you can't actually dig down because of bedrock, ground water freezing concerns and some other issues.

I think they are great option where they work, but they aren't a magic bullet.

There are two ground source configurations; vertical, like boring a well, or horizontal, like laying out a tile bed. Boring down, particularly into bedrock, would obviously be more costly, but requires less land. Neither are impacted by freezing since they use a closed water-glycol solution.

I think the larger issue is even cold climate heat pumps have limits that would render them completely useless much of the winter in far north areas.

 

[Furniture]

Yup, Ontario with multiple small modular reactors (SMRs) coming online in 2028-2029, and OPG is collaborating with Alberta, Saskatchewan and New Brunswick to build more nuclear power plants.

Media release | Capital Power and OPG partner to advance new nuclear in Alberta – OPG

Capital Power Corporation and OPG have entered into an agreement to jointly assess the development and deployment of grid-scale SMRs.

www.opg.com

The sensible solution to power generation in developed countries.

I get that Three Mile Island and Chernobyl scared people, but nuclear has pretty much always been the solution since it was discovered. Cheap and readily available energy drives productivity, which drives progress. Every time we have progressed we have found new ways to be efficient, and more environmentally conscious.

 

[RangerRay]

The sensible solution to power generation in developed countries.

I get that Three Mile Island and Chernobyl scared people, but nuclear has pretty much always been the solution since it was discovered. Cheap and readily available energy drives productivity, which drives progress. Every time we have progressed we have found new ways to be efficient, and more environmentally conscious.

If our governments were serious about reducing atmospheric carbon, they would be investing like crazy in nuclear energy. That includes in investing in increasing safety and safer waste disposal.