Re: Suspension losses

Wolfgang Strobl <news51@mystrobl.de> wrote:

Am Mon, 13 Jan 2025 12:58:35 -0500 schrieb Frank Krygowski
<frkrygow@sbcglobal.net>:
 

On 1/13/2025 12:06 PM, Wolfgang Strobl wrote:

Am Mon, 13 Jan 2025 11:03:03 -0500 schrieb Frank Krygowski
<frkrygow@sbcglobal.net>:
 

On 1/13/2025 8:57 AM, zen cycle wrote:

On 1/13/2025 2:01 AM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

On Mon, 13 Jan 2025 13:20:04 +0700, John B. <slocombjb@gmail.com>
wrote:
 

But long before the days of transistors and "circuit boards" my folks
had an electric blanket... used it all the rest of their lives. Is the
modern one better?

 
Not really better, but certainly safer.  Electric heaters are all 100%
efficient.  Every watt you shove into the heating wires is turned into
heat.  There's no way to improve on 100% efficiency.

 
Nothing is 100% efficient

 
It's certainly true that 100% of the electricity consumed by an electric
blanket becomes heat.

 
But that 100% isn't efficiency, it's just a raw conversion rate for
Electricity to heat in an isolated blanket.

 
ISTM a good definition of efficiency is "Desired output divided by
input." Since the desired output is heat, I think it's 100% efficient.

 
"desired output" does some heavy lifting, here.  What about the desired
input?
 
Textbook definitions from a specific context are often quite misleading,
when used in a different context. Rolf Mantel just gave an example for
that in <vm38of$1qe41$1@dont-email.me>, there are many more.
 
 

 

You, as a person, don't need or consume heat. Somewhat simplified, you
need a certain range of temperatures.  In the ideal case, you don't need
any additional energy, because your body already produces heat. A little
bit of isolation, perhaps provided by that very blanket, might be
sufficient. 

 
And, I suppose, we could do away with all home heating, and just wear
very heavy clothing all winter. But I don't know of anyone doing that.

 
Actually, we added some isolation to our house, last year. The reduced
energy consumption was quite noticeable and better than we expected. No
heavy clothing necessary.  It's an old house, unfortunately some
regulations prohibit doing more or would make it very expensive. Decades
ago, a former colleague build a house according to current standards
from that time, heated by a heat pump and geothermics. Compared to the
quoted 100 % "efficiency" of your heated blanket, that heating is ~750%
efficient. While riding over the land during in 2021ff, I saw not only
many new collectors on the roofs, mostly photovoltaic now, people were
isolating their freestanding houses to such an extent that you would
hardly believe it if you hadn't seen it.
 

 
 

->
<https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0301421514002638>
 
"A brighter future? Quantifying the rebound effect in energy efficient
lighting"
 
<https://www.arquiled.com/en/avoiding-the-rebound-effect-when-transitioning-to-led/>
 
"In Portugal, the average amount of light has risen 120% in the last
five years. It is urgent to prevent the energy savings associated with
the transition to LED from being offset by unnecessary lighting"

 
I don't perceive that to be a serious problem, at least indoors.

 
The difference between the expected and actual efficiency is independent
of whether the lighting is installed indoors or outdoors.
 
But there is indeed another and additional problem caused by too much
light outside: Both astronomers and wildlife are not happy about the
increasing light pollution. And, to be honest, I don't like the fact
that you can hardly see the stars anywhere these days either.

I find it ranges a lot from dark and clear enough (weather conditions
permitting) to see the shape of the galaxy around my folks place, head up
out of the valley and there is zero visible light but the stars and it’s
quite spectacular hence that area has dark sky places for Tourists and so
on, though that’s generally on lower elevations that are easier to reach.

But can see a few stars even in london and more so once in the royal parks
even if can see the orange glow of the light pollution at the edges!

More commercial areas yes naff all to be seen even have huge lit billboards
near work which blots out frankly all but Venus and the moon! And must
consume many households worth of energy!

 
 

If the
objective is to expend less energy, it's still been achieved.

 
If you are allowed to move the goalpost, the goal is already guaranteed.
 

 
I'm not a fan of overly bright headlamps nor outdoor light pollution,
but those seem to be separate issues.

 
That is true, but obviously no argument. Light pollution is just another
detriment of wasting energy by unnecessary lighting.
 
 

I do like/need street lights as my balance system does need light to
function if on foot, on the bike I have lights to see with or rather I can
easily flick from low to high if needed. And choose lights that give a wide
beam shape to facilitate my balance systems.

Roger Merriman