je viens d'avoir une courte correspondance avec Robert Newell Shaw, de Tucson (Arizona). Il avait poste un message sur le forum de dieoff.org, avec des tables contenants les donnees moyennes de consommation annuelle en electricite des divers consommateurs (individuels prives, industrie miniere, etc). Hallucinant. Je lui ai repondu que la moyenne de ma consommation annuelle etait de 10 fois moins elevee que l'americain X!! Voici ce qu'il m'a repondu pour justifier cet ecart, je recopie ici la correspondance integrale en anglais (tables de donnees comprises vers la fin). Des que j'ai le temps, je vais la traduire en francais pour ceux qui ne comprennent pas l'anglais. Gardez-bien a l'esprit qu'en dehors des chiffres objectifs (maybe), il exprime son opinion personnelle, donc pas representatif de l'ensemble des etats-uniens.
Pour la temperature exprimee ici, c'est en degres fahrenheit. La conversion est :
T_celcius = (T_fahr - 32) * 5 / 9 (je sais, ils sont fous ces ricains ...
)Mon message :
----- Original Message -----
From: "th0rgal"
To: "Robert N. Shaw" <tutor7@cox.net>
Sent: Sunday, December 04, 2005 6:05 AM
Subject: Re: Tucson's upcoming Olduvai Collapse?
Hello Bob,
I am from Denmark. When I read the figures you posted, I am very
scared and appalled by the consumption there! As a comparison, let me
give you my annual consumption (private, individual). I live in a
110m2 apartment downtown Copenhagen and I consume on average about 1000 KWh per year. That's about 10 times less than the average
residential consumption you posted here!!! Maybe I am not
representative of the danish average, but I am convinced that this
average is far below 10,000 KWh/year. Very scary. What do you
Americans waste your energy in ???
Thorgal
--- Sa reponse :
Hello Thorgal,
Here are my guesses why the energy difference is so much larger here
than in Denmark :
1. Average house square footage, even average apartment square footage is much larger than average European house and apartment. Therefore, takes much more energy to heat and A/C per occupant. A/C is more energy intense/square ft than heating. It is a lot easier to add heat to a room than to try and remove heat from a room. Huge amounts of 3-phase 220 volt juice required to run A/C equipment and 60-100 gallon water heaters.
Older houses are poorly insulated, wasting energy. I am sure you have read yahoo forum articles about new housing of 6,000, 8,000, even 14,000 square feet--it is nuts! My house is only 1300 square feet, and I hope to downsize in the future by only cooling one or two rooms during the summer. I never turn on the heat, coldest the house got was fifty degrees. Just use a small electric heater in the bathroom when required.
2. Americans love gadgets that burn energy, instead of going for a
walk, or reading a book. Huge sales of big screen tvs to fill the big rooms, along with high power stereo surround sound. Cable tv or satellite wired throughout house. Many houses have a tv, computer, stereo/dvd player, videogame system for each child in each bedroom, even a combo
stereo/tv in the kitchen! Big refrigerators, big microwaves, big stoves/ovens, big washers and dryers, big walk-in closets. The more electrical appliances you put inside a house, the more the A/C equipment has to work to move all the heat that these devices generate. Some kids even have small refrigerators in their rooms to store drinks and snacks. No wonder America is getting so fat!
3. 60-100 gallon water heaters for long hot showers. Lots of houses,
out here in the west, have pools and outside jacuzzis-- takes a lot of
energy to run the pumps and filtration equipment 24/7. Hardly anybody uses a clothesline anymore, big electric dryers need 3-phase 220 volt juice. Many new master bathrooms have inside jacuzzi tubs-- 60-150 gallons of hot water to fill, then more electricity to pump waterjets around, keep heated while owner soaks, and aerate with bubbles. Requires 3-phase 220 volt juice and two or three 1-hp motors to run this spa equipment. Then inside vent fans and A/C equipment has to work hard to remove all the humidity added to the house.
4. Most new houses much larger, around 3500 to 5,000 sq feet [and up!]
with 3 car garages. Some wealthy people even refrigerate/ heat their garages so their cars don't get uncomfortably warm in summer, or too cold in winter. Driveways with heating systems so owners do not have to shovel snow in the winter.
5. Water is a rare commodity in the US west-- pumped hundreds of
miles-- takes unbelievable amounts of electricity. Google Central Arizona Project for example---billions and billions of gallons of water lifted 1200 ft uphill so it flows 350 miles to Phx, AZ. Even further to send it on to Tucson. We are doomed postPeak because we do not have a purely gravity fed water supply. I am guessing that much of Europe is using purely gravity fed water systems built before electricity invented, but I could be wrong. Once a person spends half of his/her day hauling water to their house, their are too exhausted to do much else. See how far you can carry a five-gallon jug of water as an experiment! That is why water only flows uphill to money!
6. Americans have enjoyed cheap energy for so long that we have not
yet learned how to turn things off. It is not unusual to walk in a house
to find lights, ceiling fans, floor fans and other devices going in unoccupied rooms. Even if you turn them off with your remote control, most devices still burn 'ghost energy' so they can sense a incoming signal from the remote. To truly turn them off, you have to unplug them, or put them on a switchable circuit. Americans love electric powered sprinkler systems, high-powered floodlamps to illuminate their porches and driveways, electrically pumped decorative fountains, and accent lighting
throughout their yards to highlight pathways, bushes and trees at night. Someday, we will learn that when the sun sets: it was meant to get dark outside.
7. What really drives me nuts is all the streetlamps throughout America
[not to be confused with traffic lights]. We burn stupendous amounts of
energy trying to get vacant black asphalt to reflect night light. Cannot be
done! Turn off the damn streetlights, then give everyone flashlights who
wants to walk after dark. The headlights on cars work well enough in unlit
rural areas, it should be the same inside cities.
I hope this info helps, we deserve to die by the millions postPeak for
being so wasteful. I cannot convince most people that Peakoil is coming
because they take cheap energy as a birthright, they cannot visually imagine life without fossil fuels and electricity. That is why here in the US, our 4% of total world pop. burns 25% of the world's oil. I am greatly afraid our leaders will kill anyone who stands between us and oil. I think the Iraqis are doomed as a civilization. Time will tell.
Bob Shaw in Phx,AZ Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
--- In the_dieoff_QA@yahoogroups.com, "Robert N. Shaw" <tutor7@c...>
wrote:
>
> Hello Dieoffers,
>
> This is my brief electrical analysis of the Tucson, Arizona area
> [Pima County] taken from this link:
>
> http://www.pagnet.org/TPD/CIDS2003/Chap ... lities.pdf
>
> My comments are enclosed in brackets []. I hope the numerical tables
> are not screwed up by the forum software. Here goes...
>
> -------------------------------------------
> Figure 9-3:
>
> Tucson Electric Power-Service Area, Customer Use, & Revenues
>
> Service Area...1,155 Square Miles
> Service Area Population...870,000
>
> Number of Customers
> Residential.........311,673
> Commercial...........30,467
> Industrial & Mining.....713
> Public Authorities.......61
>
> Average Annual Use Per Customer (KWH)
> Residential......9,715
> Commercial......49,121
> Industrial...3,181,733
> Mining.....570,405,500
>
> [This Mining usage is an astounding figure! Now add all the oil
> mining companies use to power their heavy equipment. Mining will be
> shutdown everywhere shortly after Peakoil!--BS]
>
> Other........4,237,213
>
> [Not sure what this category includes. My guess is the largest
> percentage is the municipal energy required to pump clean water for
> drinking and farm irrigation, and the required energy to process
> sewage. Recall my earlier posting on this subject. Notice this is
> more energy than the sum of residential, commercial, and industrial!
> Just shows the potential cost savings of an area humanure project!--
> BS]
>
> Maximum Net Peak Load (MW)
> Summer...1,862
> Winter...1,169
>
> [Shows how much energy is devoted to air-conditioning {A/C} during
> our blazing summers. That is why I predict much of Vegas, Tucson,
> and Phx will revert to ghost towns postpeak, unless a massive program
> is undertaken to superinsulate, solarize hot-water, swamp-cool, and
> use PVs as much as possible--BS]
>
> Miles of Distribution Lines.....16,900
>
> [These will be difficult to maintain postpeak as fuel becomes scarce
> to run heavy equipment like cranes for overhead grid towers and
> backhoes for underground residential utility lines. Fortunately,
> this geography is not subject to earthquakes, hurricanes, ice storms,
> and other natural events that can decimate electrical
> infrastructure. How about your local geography, forum members? --BS]
>
> Average Annual Residential Use (KWH)...9,834
> Average Annual Residential Electric Bill...$899
>
> [My guess is that the average utility bill will double or triple once
> the effects of Peak natgas start to ripple through our economy,
> unless people wildly insulate, downsize sq. footage of A/C living
> spaces, and conserve by any means available.--BS]
>
> Average Revenue per KWH
> Residential...........$0.091
> Commercial............$0.105
> Industrial and Mining.$0.62
> All Retail Customers..$0.82
>
> [Recall my earlier posting about breaking up the grid postPeak
> according to 'uptime' guarantees of electricity based upon the
> generating source to reduce rolling blackouts, and pricing
> accordingly. At the time of this report--pricing system is the
> inverse.--BS]
>
> Company Employees....1,138
>
> [Imagine if Jay's Pandemic Powerdown wildly reduces employee
> population for a year period. The highly technical skillset of
> safely distributing high-power transmission would be hurt bigtime {R.
> Duncan's 3Cs of Olduvai Gorge}. Unless untrained volunteers to
> handle re-attaching 100,000 volt powerlines could be found. Not
> likely.--BS]
>
> Source: Tucson Electric Power Company as of December 31, 2001.
> KWH = Kilowatt hour
> MW = Megawatts
>
> [Tucson area has probably increased population 10% since this 2001
> report was generated with many more McMansions to boot. They are
> probably drastically Overshot!--BS]
>
> Bob Shaw in Phx,AZ Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
> =====================================================
>
