Elevator Power and Whatnot

Imagine a 200-pound human traveling by elevator from the 5th floor to the lobby. That is a lot of energy potential that isn’t getting captured. Your descent should be turning a generator or compressing gas or doing something else to power the grid.

How hard could that be?

I also wonder why homes in California aren’t designed to make better use of the stable temperature ten feet beneath the house. It’s always cooler down there during the hot summer. It’s like sitting on a free air conditioner and not using it.

Suppose you dig a ten foot hole, with a ten foot diameter, and fill the hole with a thermal mass that absorbs the surrounding temperature and bleeds it into the thermal mass of the home’s flooring. Wouldn’t that keep the home a lot cooler?

There might be times you wanted to turn off the effect, so I suppose you could engineer it so an insulating layer is applied when needed.

I realize geothermal heating systems are used in cold climates. They just aren’t economical in California because we don’t have the cold extremes.

I remember going into a house in California years ago on a hot summer day and being surprised that the homeowners didn’t need any air conditioning. They had a large attic fan that was drawing out the hot air. Since then I have noticed in a few places I lived that a fan is unnecessary if you have a window in the top floor open and one on the ground floor. The “chimney effect” brings warm air up and out so efficiently the fan is redundant. The only problem is that you don’t want to go to bed with a downstairs window open. That’s why I invented the Jailer Screen Window. It’s a ground floor window you can open, but still has jailer bars to keep out humans, and a screen to keep out bugs. Open that bad boy before bedtime, along with the windows upstairs, and you won’t need AC in the evening.

Okay, I didn't invent the Jailer Screen Window. But I did give it a cool name.

I often think the energy crisis is a failure of imagination.

[As usual with my posts, I get two types of comments: 1) It will never work, and 2) It is already being done. -- Scott]

Comments

[Devon Klosterman]

The people building houses weren't willing to pay the money to build a 10 foot hole because housing tends to be built during times of cheap energy.

[Jeffrey]

Wow, lots of commnets. Mostly uninformed.

I only ran across a few that referred to actual examples of your proposal. You don't need a big yard a or a huge thermal mass. Heat sinks have been on the market for a while. It's best to install them whiel the home is being built. They are just pipes that run 20-60 feet underground and then through your house (like a dryer vent hose). The naturally cooler air keeps coming up, year round.

In response to some of the above comments: Vancouver has many buildings with grass on their roofs. It does more than you might imagine. Toronto is starting this.

And Toronto ran pipes out into Lake Ontario to cool several downtown office buildings (same as a heat sink only circulating water in a closed system). It works very well.

Toronto has a building with gold-glazed windows (real Auric Goldfinger gold). It helps cool the building. Unfortunately, all the reflected heat heats up the buildings around it, who successfully sue the gold building's owners' for their extra cooling costs (don't do this one. But it is imaginative!).

[Kin]

Baduh!!! IT IS.

Sort of.

The real energy is the 1000+ kg elevator little room souring up and down. And, that is used by a counterweight cord. You have one shaft with the elevator, and one shaft with the counterweight.

This is what I am of the impression...I'm not an expert, though.

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[Jay]

My goodness that's a good idea, someone should do that if it's possible or not already being done.

[Jelle]

Elevators can run on air; (sort of)

http://www.daytonaelevator.com/Pneumatic%20Vacuum%20Elevator%20Main%20Page.htm

And keeping a house cool can be done with natural resources, grass on the roof and natural air circulation. All financially attractive too. Like i said before, check this;

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3058533428492266222&q=cradle+to+cradle&total=19193&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=2

It really opened my eyes...

[Mark]

[As usual with my posts, I get two types of comments: 1) It will never work, and 2) It is already being done. -- Scott]

Maybe you'd be better off researching stuff before tossing these sorts of things off the cuff.

And to explain the apparent inconsistency here,

1) could be seeing your idea as a way to get more power for the grid. This will not work because you have to pull the lift up with electric power. Which you're going to replace partially with the recovered energy.

2) could be seeing your idea as a way to make powering a lift cheaper, which is already being done by having the lift counterweighted.

So both can be true and correct.

You were an only child, weren't you? If you'd been in a big family, you'd have learned how to dispute at an early age. There IS an art to it.
:-)

[Annie]

People go to gyms to expend a LOT of energy to lose weight. Why isn't THAT energy being conserved? Sure, theres a lot thats lost as heat energy that would be pretty difficult to keep hold of, but what about tredmills that are actually powered by tred (and not only that, can store the extra that is generated). Rowing machines, weight lifting...people PAY to do this work..if we could store the energy then not only could the gyms be free (and therefore more popular than other gyms) but we could generate a lot of potential energy. Potentially.
(Excuse this theory if the logisitcs are completely lacking..note that I know very little of physics, engineering and fitness).

[joy]

The Idea of engineering is very good, but it need a lot of potential to follow up the setup process as there are many steps to engineer the work.

[Jailor]

All this talk about people on health equipment generating electricity - well how about convicts? Let them generate some energy while they are in jail. Hell, they could even earn some money, each megawatt (or whatever) is worth $10. And that way if we ever run low on energy, we can just start enforcing more laws to fill up the electric factories, woops I mean jails.

The jails should of course use geothermal, hydroelectric, and wind energy.

More seriously, the guy who mentioned nuclear energy is most on point. Increase the supply to the point that energy is nearly free, and we can all just have more fun and not worry about it. Electric cars totally miss the point when we are still using fossil fuels to generate the electricity.

[Mr. Stackelberg]

Exhibit 1: "[As usual with my posts, I get two types of comments: 1) It will never work, and 2) It is already being done. -- Scott]"

Exhibit 2: "Researchers have discovered that people who are incompetent generally lack the knowledge that they are incompetent."

I rest my case.

Sorry Scott, love your posts, just couldn't help it.

[anon]

There is already a hydro-electric dam at the Grand Canyon (actually a little bit beyond it); Hoover Dam, which has been functioning since 1935.

[bobwool]

I saw a neat cooling option on TV one day using an external ice storage tank. Here's a link I found for how it works - it shifts almost all of the cooling energy demand to off peak hours (night). It freezes water in a storage tank at night, then during the day a refrigerant is circulated through the ice tank and used to cool the air inside the structure. This particular vendor appears to have commercial and residential products available.

[Hal]

They use "swamp" coolers quite a bit in hot dry areas of the southwest. This little webpage has some basic info:
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-swamp-cooler.htm
We had one at one of my previous jobs. It worked well, was incredibly reliable, and cheap to run.

[Jshope]

The number of under-informed armchair experts on energy has reached critical mass. I laugh at the people that think changing their light bulbs from incandescent to florescent will change the world. I'm not claiming to be an expert on energy, but the energy consumption from light bulbs is vastly outstripped by the energy used for air and water conditioning. The energy used to light homes is also vastly outstripped by the energy used to light streets, public venues, commercial buildings, and operate traffic signals.

Your incandescent lighting costs are probably less than the energy used to keep your TV, PC, and numerous other devices simply plugged in when not in use. How many florescent light proponents use a power strip to turn off this 'standby energy' drain?

My favorite is the guy who says "Dam up the Grand Canyon". First off, the Grand Canyon is a gorge. The Colorado River, that flows through the Grand Canyon is already dammed. Ahead of the Canyon is Lake Powell, created by the Glen Canyon dam. Beyond the Canyon is Lake Mead, created by the Hoover dam. These have both been in operation for over 40 and 70 years, respectively.

[jerry w.]

If you could hook some sort of device that could produce electricity from hot air,

we could get enough power to run the country. Sadly, this would only occur every four years.

This power would be available on pretty much the same time schedule as the campaigns

for the office of president happen, but I'm sure that's just a coincidence.

http://boskolives.wordpress.com/

[BDelacroix]

As has been said already, its been done.

Its called a geothermal heat pump. One of the schools here uses it.

[Haz]

How about someone builds a system that harvests all the free cooling energy going to waste as we use water? The water comes out of the ground, as you said, around 50 degrees. Let's assume a family used 10,000 gallons per month for washing, cooking, and watering plants, and they kept their house at 75 degrees.

10,000 gallons of water = 83,000 pounds.
x
25 degree temperature differential.

= 2 million BTUs of cooling power going to waste.

Additionally, half of that water we pay to heat up anyway. It would save more energy to transfer heat in our homes to the water before heating it in the water heater.

[HB3]

Scott,

Geothermal heating systems work very well when installed correctly in the right setting. My parents have one in their home, and it works excellent. They work the best when there is a well to draw water from to use as your thermal mass. Well water is always the same temperature. You use the temperature difference to heat or cool your home as needed, and you use the hot water waste in the summer (from cooling the house) in your hot water heater.

If you don't have a well nearby, you can bury a very large u-shaped water storage device to do the same thing (thermal mass). The problem with that is that it requies a large-sized backyard space. Most areas in urban California do not have that backyard space to make it work unfortunately. Hell, most areas in urban St. Louis don't have that yard space. In those cases the u-shaped water/thermal mass storage area would have to be buried under the house itself, and most people don't want to do that unless it's a new construction.

Both my father and I live in the St. Louis metro area where it regularly hits the 90's in the summer. It's not a cold climate.

[JS]

No offence but this will

1) Never Work

and

2) It's been done before!

[Phil]

"I often think the energy crisis is a failure of imagination. "

No, it's just captilism pays more.

[DM]

It'll never work. And in any case it's already being done.

[Ibid]

You should be able to run a Sterling Engine pretty well using the temperature difference between a basement and an attic.

[Marc Jennings]

I knew I'd find the reference *after* posting the previous comment, so here it is -> http://www.loe.org/shows/segments.htm?programID=08-P13-00005&segmentID=5

[Marc Jennings]

This reminds me of a scheme I heard about in Scandinavia recently. In a new office building, they are planning to use waste heat from the local underground / subway / mass public underground transport station nearby. A system of heat exchangers sucks the excess and unwanted heat energy out of the station and delivers it to the office building nearby. Using humans as a source of energy? The writers of The Matrix will be loving that one.

[Jshope]

I'm sure you've all seen the Al Gore vs. George Bush email. If not, check it out on Snopes - http://www.snopes.com/politics/bush/house.asp

Bush uses Geothermal energy to heat his pool and cool his home. He didn't do this to earn Nobel and Oscar prizes. He did this for practical reasons, since the house is in a hot, dry area.

[Jesus]

Scott,
I don't care about what idea is new or feasible, but I belive you are right the energy crisis is a failure of imagnation.

[Just Me]

In Toronto they're pumping cold water out of Lake Ontario and using it to cool office towers in the summer. THen the water gets pumped into our drinking water system. And no, it's not boiling hot when it comes out of the tap.

[itzsmi]

http://advocate.com/exclusive_detail_ektid52947.asp

[Amber]

Plus the Jailer window helps to keep your kids from sneaking out at night!

[tony]

I have wondered for some time now about attaching a little hydroelectric generator to my toilet.
Every flush causes 8 litres of water to flow downward, so it could be used to charge a battery and light the room the next time I take a whizz.
I also think tall buildings should have wind powered generators on their roofs; Tokyo City government is giving tax breaks to buildings that put gardens on their roofs, to increase CO2 output.

And this is creative,,,
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/08/japan_ticket_gates.php

Tony in Japan

[ShakeAndBake]

> I often think the energy crisis is a failure of imagination.

Sorry to stomp your buzz, but this means you are often wrong.

[Stew]

sorry scott, but the underground heat thing has already been done:

http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/generate_your_own_energy/types_of_renewables/ground_source_heat_pumps

i'm pretty sure this can also be used to cool your house

[Matt]

Also we need to find a way to take advantage of all the energy people expend at a gym. Surely it wouldn't be hard to make a machine that turns some turbines at X resistance when you select Xlbs to lift.

[Rubén]

I live in Spain, where the climate is similar to that of California, with temperate to cold winters and hot dry summers. The traditional solution here, in country houses, is thick walls made of clay bricks (up to 2-3 ft thick). Let the wall's thermal inertia do the trick. It helps keeping the house warm in winter and fresh in summer. And keeps the siegers out.

Else, to avoid warming in the summer, the inside of the house is kept in shadows and closed in the day's middle hours, and windows are opened only in the night and evening. A big mistake is to force an air circulation during the hotter hours through opening windows. It ruins the shielding effect of the thick walls: you would be changing cold air for hot air. We're talking about mid-summer temperatures in the sun over 55 ºC (130+ ºF) The walls outside are painted dark in cold winter areas, and white in hot summer zones.

I guess the original idea was to dig a hole in the ground and go living there, but somehow it became unfashionable. Maybe we were too lazy to dig that much in heavy soils, or the houses tended to get flooded, or the enemies found too easy to fill it with rocks, or just we aren't hobbits.

[Joel Odom]

I can't believe there's no mention anywhere in this post or on the page of nuclear power (insert banal radioactive fish joke here). Reducing demand through technological innovation (LED lights, geothermal, etc.) is a great idea, but we need to hit the problem from the supply side, too.

[Jelle]

I agree, a lack of imagination. But check this for some inspiration; cradle to cradle.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3058533428492266222&q=cradle+to+cradle&total=19193&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=2

[AC]

My comment was to your question "How hard could that be?". Hard in the context of having the know-how to do it? I don't think it is very hard at all. Hard in the context to justify the cost and effort for the benefit gained. I think so in the current economic environment.

However, I think this is changing as being "green" is becoming more cool.

It is stuff like this where we need a benevolent dictatorship to set the course to gain efficiencies one small step at a time when there is little profit in each of the actions. Yes, I love the USA *waves his flag lapel in the air* and the freedoms we have. No other country I want to be in.

Yet, our government is very inefficient. If we could could cut through some of the layers, we could take advantage of many opportunities to save/produce energy. Then again, I do fear that this solution is worse than the current problem. At least with our form of government it takes some effort and time for that many idiots to screw things up.

[bgarrett]

free air conditioning by using the earth? this nuclear physicist has a website giving the details--and yes, hes from California
http://mb-soft.com/solar/saving.html

[ramesh kashyap]

I found a similar solution...albeit a bit different. The engineer wanted to put huge windows in my house. I told him to put a sunlight instead, so there is very little dependence on electricity even when the outside light is low.
Simple solutions are there as long as you are prepared to look

[jamie sangster]

In Toronto several of the large office buildings are now cooled by pumping in water from deep in the lake where it stays cold all year. This is great for corporations but the start up cost for it, and for geothermal units is too much for average families, even if it does save in the long run.

[Columbo]

Some itsy bitsy hole with a bit of thermal mass? Mate, you gotta visit Coober Pedy (South Australia). There, they don't dig a hole under the house; they put the house in the hole. Living underground, it's the cool thing to do if you're serious about aircon – free cooling.

[Anarchy In Your Head]

People don't care until they get hit hard enough in the wallet. I've actually become quite the carpooler lately and that just took gas getting expensive enough at the same time that I'm not making much money due to a personal artistic sabbatical. As energy costs go up, particularly oil, the market will drive the demand for both existing (there are a lot) and new technologies. As demand rises, costs will go down quite a bit (contrary to the general rule) from the benefits of scaling production. It's like VCRs and cellphones and what not. They were expensive luxury items for a little while until they caught on.

[Murky]

The elevator thing is non-practical for two reasons

1) The guy was lifted int he first place
2) Lifts are counter-weighted, so effectively all the motor does is overcome friction and lift the difference (interestingly, a cable is slung under the lift and counterweight, and hangs loose - this is to stop the load on each side changing as the lift moves).

Heat pumps can be used, as others have pointed out. The trouble is that though these have lower running costs, they need to be installed at build time for economy. Retrofitting is expensive, as there is a house in the way.

Straight conduction isn't tremendously good, you'd have better results by digging down a bit, but people tend to like sunlight and windows.

[William Tell]

I have always wondered why elevator doors are closed when waiting at a floor. Think of all the energy saved if the door would stay open. Also, elevators need a "cancel" button, for when you press the wrong floor.

[Sabine Dinis Blochberger]

No, no, it's great to reiterate useful ideas! Some people still do't "get it" - they have AC, so why bother.

Anyway, you can use some underground pipes to keep your inhouse temperature stable winter or summer, it doesn't matter if it doesn't freeze there. These pipes don't go so far down where it start to get hot (which is geothermic energy).

Good isolation of walls and avoiding heatbridges is also a good idea (tm) ;)

And I totally agree that the energy crisis/global warming are to a large degree due to carelessness/uninventiveness (the need being the mother of such) etc.

[Scatman Dan]

Most of that energy goes into adding potential energy to the counterweight, by lifting it: energy that can then be re-used to lift the next person up a few floors. It's not perfect - no energy conservation system is - but it's pretty damn good as far as they go.

[l.a.guy]

Actually I think California does a pretty good job integrating energy efficiency into the building codes, particularly for commercial buildings. I can't find a reference, but I think I heard on NPR recently that per capita energy consumption has not increased in California since around 1980. That's pretty impressive, if true, considering the increased reliance on technology.

[gametheory]

I red about a project -I don't remember if it was Chicago or somewhere in Canada- where a company is installing water pipes in the bed of a big lake. During the summer they circulate water that captures the cold which is then used to cool large buildings in the office district. Cool.

I also heard of plans to connect gym bicycles to the grid to reuse the energy generated by people training. Add some photovoltaic tiles, a small windmill and of course a Scott basement window (tm) and you should have a decent hole in your bank account. And some energy.

As for the elevator, I thought elevators have a counterweight that minimizes the energy required to move the cage, which accounts for most of the weight. I guess the weight of humans is lost in friction, but you could put some prius-style regenerative braking to capture some energy. My hunch is that it will not be worth the cost, but tecincally it should be possible.

[Harry D]

The system you describe with the Jailer Window and top floor window is like an old system used in the middle east. A large house had a cooling tower. At night you open a little door/window to the tower and the cold air is sucked into the room (from outside) by the rising air in the tower.

The cooling effect of your system can be augmented by a little water fountain in front of the Jailer Window. The evaporation of the water cools down the air.

Energy conservation is indeed a matter of imagination and really doing something. Because we have limited oil and gas reserves here in Europe, we have been on the road to energy conservation for the past 35 years. At the moment the average person in the US uses TWICE the amount of energy an average person in Europe (Germany/France/UK/Spain/Italy/Denmark) uses. And we do live in comfort.

[Audent]

Don't think so small... think BIG! The principle you're talking about would work as a way of getting energy from ocean (almost free since the water is doing it anyway). A big device that uses the warm water rising from the bottom of the ocean and the cold water descending to create a turbine...

or even science fiction's favourite, the space elevator (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator) which uses the same principle you describe in the first paragraph. Someone much brighter than me (can't find it with google, that's how dumb I am) said in the long run it would take more power to keep the elevator car powered with lights and muzack than it would take to move the car up and down into orbit.

[Evil Mike]

Good work on predicting the comment categories!
I wish my blog got as much commentary... but then there must be a point where it's also annoying.

Glad you keep this blog up, and open to everybody (especially me). Thanx.

[bashworth]

Hi Scott rather than your Jailer Screen Window system you could also look at the Trombe Wall systems. Also in hot climates a considerable reduction in heat gain can be obtained by putting reflective film on windows

[gary]

seth are you retarded geo thermal ie geo- the earth and thermal -heat energy is heat from the earth usually using the heat to heat water which spins a turbine

[Dan Quixote]

What about the third type of responses - the ones that are funny in their own right? I like those the best. Unvented humor pockets get pent up in the blogosphere, and it takes just the right blog bost to get that gas pocket released.

[Rick in China]

"Jailer Screen Window" I only see these in ghettos, do you have some way to mask their ugliness from the outside?

[rita mae]

[As usual with my posts, I get two types of comments: 1) It will never work, and 2) It is already being done. -- Scott]

I didn't say that, Lovey. It WILL work, and it HASN'T been done yet. Not by, you, anyway.

So, there! All you nay-sayers should be ashamed of yourselves, making Scott so discouraged.

What did you expect, Scott? We can't always dance around the flag pole every time you start the music. It's 9:11 p.m. Tuesday evening and I am getting ready to leave work. Been here since 7:30 a.m. and didn't leave my desk -- even for lunch. I ate some cheese and crackers and a yogurt. Okay, I did go potty a couple of times, but that doesn't count. (No one brought me any ice cream, either, so I'm going home and make myself a hot fudge sundae.)

I love you, Scott. Think I'll have an extra scoop of Rocky Road in your honor.

Rita Mae

[Justin]

I love these ideas about the energy crisis. Just this week, I've come across 2 people in Australia who have built & drive electric cars that resolve 99% of the issues critics raised: cost/endurance etc. One is in Brisbane and the other in Melbourne. We will ressurect the EV1 yet!

The real thing here is awareness. If you raise people's awareness of their consumption, behaviour changes follow. My favourite idea is to print a Saudi flag on the bill of every customer who used more energy since last bill (our utility companies here do a little graph, so it wouldn't be difficult to do.

Imagine if you got your next energy bill and it was addressed to "Dear traitor" with a lovely Middle Eastern flag - that would get attention...

[Arby]

It does work. Thermal ground loop exchange systems are very effective in capturing the lower ambient temperatures below ground and converting them to heating and cooling for residential and commercial applications.

http://www.capitalwell.ca/Geo_Thermal.htm

http://www.dlsc.ca/how.htm

The real problem is that people think alternative forms of energy (solar, wind, micro-hydro and geothermal) are too expensive to apply to their situation. They forget how much the public utilities invested to develop their power production infrastructure. Power companies pass this cost on in the ever increasing energy bill that everyone complains about.

The cost of installing smaller decentralized systems (your house) is coming down due to advances in technology and competition. Government rebates and tax incentives even make it cheaper and many are taking advantage of these. Shopping for renewable energy solutions reveals how good deal they are.

Jail Screen Windows? Drive through many older any inner city neighborhood and all the windows are covered with them. I always thought they create fire traps.

[rd]

today is my Bday
what i learned recently:
'if we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present
our life has no end in just the way in which our visual field has no limits'
Wittgenstein, TLP

[Fern]

George Bush uses a geothermal type system. Y'all might find the Bush-Gore comparison interesting:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/bush/house.asp

There is merit to the thermal mass idea if you sink long rods in the ground rather than bury one big chunk. Just like fins on any heat exchanger. The rods then connect to a plate that the house sits on. As an engineer I'm wondering what the optimum array shape would be ... interesting thought. As always, its probably been done before :-)

[Bruce Purcell]

(2) it's already being done.
I held the idiot stick last spring for a guy digging out a foundation. He dug a hole next to the basement, piled in about thirty feet of flexible tubing, and covered the hole back up.
Mostly for cooling, just running air through the tube before it goes into the air conditioner. Would work in winter too.
No way it cost 20 grand.
500.00$ MAYBE.

[quantum_flux]

The important thing is to never stop brainstorming, then record your inventions in a database. Whenever you need more money, then just reach into your bag of brainstormed inventions and pull out a patent. Of course, thats the part where it gets expensive, but being a celebrity the probability of somebody taking your patent before you do is much less since you have investing money and could buy a patent on a whim. :)

[quantum_flux]

The important thing is to never stop brainstorming :)

[sung]

This is all just FYI,
When they first built the first four lines of the underground subway system in Seoul, they didn't include cooling systems, based on the principle that the temperature remains more or less constant at that depth. However, as time passed, it got to a point that the temperature at the subway stations became somewhat the same as the temperature outside. Of course, I'm sure the ground tubes they use for small residences don't have to bear the same amount of cooling load.

[Davo]

Best thermal mass is Water, a big water tank under your floor will help moderate temperatures, by the time time it heats up (in summer) it's winter and it slowly surrenders the heat back to cool down just in time for summer again.

We have a solar powered fan on our roof, we open all the windows and let the fan suck out the hot air.Where we live, we've got no fences and just leave the house unlocked (even when we're out) gotta love Australia.

Best of all would be a draw through system, where the air passes through an underground tunnel up into the house to be sucked out the top buy convective flow. As the air cools, water condenses out also, cool dry air is then drawn up and ito the house. A true solid state airconditioner. Termite mounds use exactly that principle to stay cool here in Aust.

[Kit]

The high/low window idea sounds an awful lot like the 'wind tower' or 'wind catcher' which has been a feature of Middle Eastern architecture for centuries:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_tower

[Tristan]

How unfortunate for you that the vast majority of people don't live in multiple-storey houses.

[Alisha]

I don't understand why geothermal can't work in California. It seems to me that it's just energy exchange. As long as the ground is a different temperatute than what's above the ground you can use geothermal effectively. And yes - on small scales - they are expensive to put in. But the fact that your electricity bills are tiny sort of makes up for that I think. Good that you are thinking of alternative methods!

[Isobel]

Sash windows, if used properly, can cool in this manner. The top and bottom halves should be opened a few inches so that hot air rises out of the top half and cooler air is drawn in the bottom half.

[patti]

Patti considers your windows:
Jailer windows? On the ground floor ....
Hmmmm
Gee, I think they could almost be considered dual purpose windows.
They can be used for Teenagers, too... can't they?
To keep them in the house at night? Yeah, I believe those and a good video surveillance security system should keep our kids at home..oops..I mean "safe".
Would it be legal or would that be considered abusive?

I mean, you CAN get air through them and talk through them, right?

[Sam Thornton]

Considering the huge number of jerkoffs in the current administration, harnessing the excess energy generated by self-gratification should not only be a no-brainer, it might well be the answer to our energy crisis, but not necessarily global warming.

[Brett]

The guy who was worried about humidity must not have spent much time in California.

Malcolm Gladwell wrote a blog post about how his dad heats and cools his house with an air compressor and a tube that runs 10 or fifteen underground. Said it worked really well. I'm too lazy to find the link.

[Chris]

Also, why do we use power for refrigerators in winter (in cold climates)? Couldn't we just have a tube that runs outside to get the freezing air and bring it into the fridge on a thermostat regulated system? That's a whole lot less power than keeping the fridge cold since its in your 'warm' house.

There should be a 'winter' setting on the fridge where it rotates from outside air to inside/house air depending on the temp of the fridge.

Also, just keeping food outside or in the garage can work as a fridge, but usually does as a freezer. Not good for soda when it explodes...

[MH]

What about the sewage pipes in tall buildings? All of that water gets pumped to the top and then falls to the ground mixed with stuff that came-up on the elevators. Couldn't they hook at to a turbine?

[Florin]

Yep, I often wonder why don't homes with swimming pools exchange the heat in the house with the water in the pool during summertime? That would be a win-win situation: the house gets cooler, while the pool gets warmer. I'm pretty sure it could be done with a passive radiator as well, so you don't have moving parts, just pipes and radiators running the water through your walls for instance.

I guess many people have thought about all these things already, but I believe the energy is still so cheap that it's not worth the extra investment for these more elaborate systems, when you can just install an A/C unit. Or maybe it's the A/C manufacturers lobby on the home builders? ;-)

Also when I think of it, a passive cooling system would barely need any maintenance, so why would anyone sell you that? The more maintenance, the better, more profit can be made by selling it :-) So, I guess that's why these ideas are not commercially viable...

[Tenelus]

It will never work, and it's already being done anyway. What this tells me is that your ideas are genius! given that the majority of people are morons, by a long shot, even the elite who read your blog are still more likely to get it wrong than right, so my conclusion is that it will not only work, but that no one has thought of it before. (although, something similar to the thermal protection of the ground exists, it's really cool, entire towns in Australia are underground! But as you said, that's for extremes)

Top work!

[spoilsport engineer]

Natural heating and cooling are way site-dependent. That's why there's no single answer. All the stuff you've mentioned is in common, but not universal use.

The whole-house fan is common. Cross ventilation by opening windows on opposite sides works too if you get any kind of breeze (see...site dependent). Ground-sink heat pumps work, but they are more expensive to install than air-sink heat pumps, so they are less common. Houses all around me have jailor window screens. I can't believe they aren't in your common experience. Most passive solar designs are anticipated by 1000 year old structures. Guess when A/C isn't an option you learn to build green.

The real problem is too many people, with too much money, living in places with nasty climates because someone is already squatting in all the nice places.

[Trebonius]

To the guy who worried about using up the wind:
Even if it were possible to use up a significant amount of the earth's wind power with windmills, global warming is expected to make our weather windier and stormier.

[Will Von Wizzlepig]

Scott you genius! you keep inventing all these things which save the world!

...anyway, it doesn't matter if it's already been invented or not.

If you are remembered as the finger pointing at the moon, then the glory is yours, no matter who invented it and is struggling to make a living promoting and selling it.

When you come up with these ideas, you could do a little spotlight on the mom&pop startups doing this work and thereby make your vision a reality, and their work a little less hard.

Go on Scott, brand those little companies with the "Dilbert endorsed" logo.

Replies to my post will be of two sorts: 1.) Scott will never do that, or 2.) Scott is already doing that.

[Slap D. Monkey]

Scott,

I think we should go hunt through the jungles of South America to find an actual King Kong-size gorilla. Then teach it how to yo-yo.

Voila! An elevator that requires no electricity whatsoever. Of course, passengers have no say in what floor they land on. There would be no way to control what speed they travel. Plus, you'd have to bring in a couple truck loads of bananas each day. But certainly that would be worth it to save energy, right?

However, bananas give me gas, so if that's also true of Kong, the methane generated could accelerate global warming (if there is such a thing) plus make life in the vicinity of the building rather uncomfortable. But think of all the energy you could save.

P.S. What if you could capture the banana-methane and burn it to generate electricity? Now we're outside the banana box!!

[jeremiah]

Well, you're partially right. It is being done and it isn't being done.

I helped build a driveway for a church about a decade ago (for pickups and dropoffs) that had flexible plastic tubing all through it, about an inch from the surface, spaced about 2 inches apart. a lot of tubing. the tubing was filled with some antifreeze material and then went down into the ground 20 feet or so into several coils, then came back up to complete a circuit. when it snowed, a pump was turned on and the 53 degree F underground warmed the antifreeze, and that heat was carried onto the driveway. the snow not only melted as it landed, but the water left behind evaporated away a few hours after it would stop snowing. that is something your ultimate house should have, btw. seems cheap enough to be practical. 53 degrees is more than enough heat needed to throw away your snowblower.

you're definitely right about the cooling effects as well, though I know of no one in the US that does this. a similar system that the church used could work; just pump a fluid into the ground piping to dissipate heat, and bring the cooler fluid through a heat exchanger (fancy word for radiator in this example.) Have a fan blow hot house air over the exchanger. push the now cooler air through the house and you have dirt cheap A/C. i don't know what the best fluid would be, however, and it probably wouldn't do a heck of a lot on a really hot day, but for a single room such as a bedroom it could be practical.

[Keshav Bhatt]

Dude sorry to break you dreams (glass shattering!!!) this thing has done for centuries. See any old palace/fort you'll find it has already been done , otherwise pay India a visit ;)

[Pat]

Here's another idea a co-worker of mine thought of during the tragic wild-fires this past summer. This was around the time of flooding in the southeast.

This sounds nuts, but what if the government created a giant pipe from, say, New Orleans, and had that water end up in Southern California to either help with drought or fight fires? I do know there are elevation concerns and whatnot, and it would marvelously expensive to build a 1600 mile pipe. But what if it doubled as a border fence at some parts in New Mexico and California? I'm sure if that were emphasized, you could get both sides of Congress to back the idea. Who knows how long it would take to pay itself off.

[chocka]

Houses in India have a flat roof so no danger of pumpkin falling on your head! I think you have slanted roofs in the US so better I make it clear ..

[JL]

The visitor's center at the Zion National Park in Utah uses the downdraft from "cooling towers" to cool the building -- essentially a chimney, but instead of burning fuel at the bottom, they evaporate water at the top. I'm not sure how well it would work in more humid environments, but it seemed to work fine for Utah's desert.

http://geology.utah.gov/sep/renewable_energy/solar/nps_solar/zion/index.htm

[David]

Speaking of energy crisis, I’ve sadly just realized that I’m an energy ogre.

Yesterday evening there were two hockey games on at the same time, both of which I wanted to watch (Yes I live north of the 49th parallel). My solution was to set up my bedroom television right next to my family room TV. During the third period a message scrolled across the bottom of the larger screen that read something along these lines: "Everyone has a role to play in using less energy, consider turning down your lights while watching the game."

As I looked around the room I thought that perhaps my two televisions, three lights and electric fireplace meant my carbon footprint is a wee bit bigger than it need be. I turned off two lights and the fireplace but finish watching both games.

[Geek in Texas]

I used to work in a 15 story building that was occupied mainly by obese women (don't ask). Because the building was so overcrowded, we had to park at a large parking lot about a mile away and ride a shuttle bus back and forth. We used to theorize about a pulley system on the roof connected to somewhere in the remote parking lot. A couple of the obsese women coming down could probably pull three or four of us up, and the ride to and from the remote parking would be a lot more fun.

[chocka]

In India we always build tall houses with two windows (both with cross bars and mosquito net). The small top window is almost near the ceiling and is called a 'ventilator'.

Another common practise to keep the house cool is to grow a roof garden. For example, the pumpkin plant starts from the ground and goes up to the roof where it covers the entire roof surface. You can keep the house cool and get free organic vegetables!

[Dave B.]

The jailer screen window is kind of a bad look. People don't like to live in neighborhoods with these, as they imply a high level of crime. You could just hook an alarm up to the screen that gets activated if it is removed or cut.

[keithjonesblog]

Actually the Bush Ranch (yes, that Bush) in Crawford uses water cooled below ground to help keep the house cool.

Just an FYI, creative guy.

keithjonesblog

[Julián Rodriguez Orihuela]

It has been done before over and over again, and it NEVER WORKED.

[Alex]

or course, the energy used to lift the 200 pound person in the first place is exactly equal to the amount of energy that can be harnessed from lowering him, minus energy wasted on inefficiency. I'm too lazy to do the math, but it is easy to calculate the exact amount of power that could be generated, and I doubt that it is significant.

[kan]

I jus got to say two things,

Ventilation based cooling system - It is already being done.
Some ground digging based cooling system - It will never work.

keep thinking,
Jhonny Walker

[Andrew]

Elevators are counterwaited so they actually use more engergy going down and less going up. Interesting idea though.

[Mike Michaelson]

Scott,

One of the advantages of the attic fan you may not have realized is it also purges the extra hot air in the attic, adding additional thermal barrier during the day to reduce heat soak (from the attic) into the house. Just something to think about.

Also geothermal systems are expensive (not just to dig the hole, but for all the equipment too), so the "savings" has to be enough to justify the "extra" up-front cost. That is probably the biggest (economic) reason some of the "green" energy is not used more.

[Fuzznsmoo]

I put hinges on my attic cover at my old house in the bay area. I would pop it up and open some windows, but it wasn't nearly as effective as the whole house fan in my current house. What seems a waste in my current house, which is two stories, is not being able to run the heat from upstairs down to the downstairs during the winter. It's nice upstairs and I can hear the heater blowing away downstairs. And during the summer it would be nice to take the cold air from downstairs and pipe it upstairs.

[Aaron]

Would the bars be sufficient to keep out wildlife such as raccoons? Little bastards are tricky...

[charlie]

With the elevator, if you wanted to "get energy" from the elevator dropping, you'd have to just let it free fall. And that it would be... uncomfortable. Think of it this way: change in energy = force * distance. Force = mass * acceleration. So, 0 acceleration = 0 force = 0 change in energy.

For the homes, I don't know if it would work today, but i do remember reading that the Pueblo Indians used to use underground rooms as refrigerators.

[Javier Pacheco]

Almost every window in my city (Monterrey, Mexico) has the jail bars and the bug screen. With constant heat of over 1OO°F, it is a must to have windows open.

[David]

Wow, I'm surprised no one yet has commented that this is just a primitive windcatcher.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windcatcher

Of course your idea has the advantage of not needing to rebuild the house...

[Bloodboiler]

Please write about economy, cartooning or even philosophy. Every time you write about engineering/science I die a little inside.

The elevator point was good and doable with similar technology that is used in some hybrid cars that store energy while breaking.

But. You cant transfer coldness (physically coldness is lack of movement). That would be like pumping vacuumness into a barrel. What you can transfer is heat from higher temperature to lower temperature, and this is exactly what air conditioning systems do. I doubt there is any energy saving to be gained in pumping heat to ground instead of air (pool could work though). Since air is in continuous motion, light wind etc,, the air-to-air cooler always has "new" air to which transfer heat. In the ground, environment is static and your air-to-ground cooler would quickly run out of low temperature dirt around it.

The point about windows makes me question the general level of sanity in US. Some of you live in hot areas but window for cooling is somehow novel idea?
At least here in Skandinavia, we generally have a narrow door-like air wents beside windows. Inside this narrow door is a bug screen and on the outside it's covered with nice paneling that allows air to pass it. Wouldn't that be nicer than opening entire windows and covering them with steel bars?

[James]

Sounds good to me--I've noticed that I've become much more of a fiscal conservative in the years since graduating from college and paying my own bills. This would be such a great way to do air conditioning, I'm surprised more people don't! Even so it can get pretty hot (I live in Georgia) in the summer so I'd like to try before buying.

ooh, here's a idea: Instead of the ground floor window, why not let the air come in through your 10-foot-deep pit?--i.e. dig the pit, then conect it to a side shaft that opens in the yard somewhere & cover *that* with the bars/screen. Then the air coming into the house would be the cool underground air (rather than the warmer outside air) as the hot stale used air leaves via the attic fan/upstairs window. This method might require a bigger pit, though, to allow the outside air to cool down before entering the house.

[Mark Thorson]

Instead of trying to capture
the energy of descending fat
people, I suggest that in
a busy building that the
regular elevators could be
supplemented by a "green"
elevator based on the
principle of the funicular
railway.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funicular

If you can just wait a few
minutes, the load can be
balanced, and one elevator
lifted while another descends.
It could use almost zero
energy.

If you're in a hurry or there
isn't enough traffic to power
the elevator, then you use the
regular elevator.

[kman]

Hey, you could throw in a jailhouse greatest hits cd with the Jail Screen Window for your buyers to cool off with. Including great hits like Jailhouse Rock, San Quentin Blues, Chain Gang, etc.

[Memo G.]

I'm going to use response number 2.

I live in Saltillo, Mexico and here it is quite a risk to have windows without bars or some sort of protection (unless you live in a gated community). My house has 2 stories and we use the chimney effect a lot, although a small fan does come in handy if you like to feel a breeze.

[Richard]

Ok, For all the people mentioning the counterweight.

That's for the Elevator.

The 200Lb guy still has the exact same ammount of potential energy put into him as Scott said.

[E]

Jailer Screen Window isn't going to help when it's hot and muggy outside. That's what most of our summers in SE Michigan seem to be like. It's got to actually cool down and not be horribly humid at night for the outside air to cool off the house.

[Helm2Lee]

On a similar note, could health clubs generate a percentage of their own energy by hooking the exercise machines to generators? Thirty people in a spinning class generating 100 watts apiece -- surely that is worth harnessing?

Helm

[Helm2Lee]

Scott, that's a terrific idea! I miss my 1938 brick house -- it had a very high level of heat inertia, slate roof shingles, and a huge attic fan. Run that bad boy in the evening after a hot day, and the house would be nice and cool all night. Turn it off in the morning, and the house would take all day to heat up again. I had a one-room air conditioner downstairs, but during one of the hottest summers in Baltimore history, I only had to run it twice.

I've also heard of a house which was laid out like a villa in Provence, which had a huge iron cylinder full of water in the middle of the kitchen, like a big pillar. It acted as a thermal sink, moderating the swings in temperature passively. Would also make a nice emergency water supply.

Helm

[No one]

It is already not working!

[Erik]

Heard about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_pump ?

They work reverse too, cold pumps. Very nice for saving electricity.

[Borjan]

[As usual with my posts, I get two types of comments: 1) It will never work, and 2) It is already being done. -- Scott]

Why not put some mechanism to use the energy of opening the door? The doors would open just a little bit harder, but that would benefit your physical (although maybe not mental) condition and the stored energy could be used for electricity or something.

Come to think of it, you know all those machines in gyms for which people pay to come so they can burn surplus of calories - why not hooking them up to power generators?

That would certainly reduce an electricity bill (at least for the owner of the gym)...

[carfree since '93]

Wow! you mean if you open 2 windows, air can flow in and out? Brilliant!

CFS '93

[crowcoder]

Invent a suit with generators at all the joints for my kids and I'll power the whole neighborhood.

[oreo]

guys, did you all forget the best source of energy know to man? What we all NEED to to is make use of the hamsters that are born inside whatever heating system in our homes. Ok, maybe theyre not hamsters, actually theyre mice, but its the same thing. those crazy little things have endless energy. and it might take a while to train all of them, considering theyre afraid of a huge hand coming their way to pick them up, also the fact that they dont live very long, and whatever time theyre alive, those little suckers are cooking, just watch rattatouille and you'll know what i'm talking about. but once you take care of that, you've got just enough energy to compensate for the energy you lost doing all this work. God Bless America

[Fair Witness]

If you want to see a good example of counterweighting on a large scale, check out the Falkirk Wheel here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falkirk_Wheel

[Darren]

Having been raised in the North (well North of the 49th parallel) it amazed me when I lived in North Texas the lack of insulation that homes are built with.
The amount of energy wasted daily air-conditioning homes because of failure to properly insulate walls and attics and use effective thermal pane windows was simply amazing to me.
You either have to heat a space or cool a space if you want the temperature inside that space to be different that the outside.
Head up North where people live with -40F for extended periods of the year and 100F in the summer to learn how to insulate the home. It's not rocket science. Builders and homeowners are just very reluctant and change years of construction habits.

[patti]

Patti says:
I'm not sure about the pit thing. I don't know much about thermal mass etc.
(I do believe that fermenting manure pits might heat the northern floors... but perhaps that is a stinky idea)

I suppose stored energy from elevator usage can work. IF YOU HAVE A HIGH ENOUGH BUILDING with enough floors. AND YOU CAN GET SOMEONE TO JUST KEEP GOING UP AND DOWN.
SO? WHY NOT TRAMPOLINE-ENERGY?
Just let the neighbor kids jump up and down all day for free and then store the kid-energy some way.

AND? How about just using those wonderful tubes of water under the floor. They can be heated for nighttime and cooled for daytime.
The water tubing under floors is a great idea. Especially if you hook it up to solar. And hell, why not the walls? This would be clean temp control with recycling water.
I definitely like that idea.

Actually, I am about to install those attic/roof turbines to cool the attic. (I live in Florida)
SO, I am wondering.. what about some very small windmills on our roofs camouflaged using upper roof-decks with rails or something. We can use them for electric energy and then go up onto our roofs in the summer to get cool on our upper decks. With all the windmill paddles/fans blowing.
I do believe the answer to all this …. is blowing.. in the wind.


.

[Kevin]

We do this all of the time. Our skylights open (there's a screen) so I open then, plus windows, in the evening and leave them open all night until mid-morning. On the hottest of days we close it all up and run the AC, but that happens maybe 10 days a year. I wish I had an attic fan, or whole-house fan. I'm planning on installing a solar attic fan soon.

[nick davis]

How about capturing the energy from people pushing revolving doors?

[Jonah]

My college, Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, has something called an Aquifer Thermal Energy Storage system (ATES). It's a series of wells drilled under the parking lots where water is used to transfer heat from the buildings to the ground in the summer, and I think it took like 18 months for it to pay for itself.

[alex]

We had to replace the original heating system (fuel).Replacing it with a new one is less expensive.
But we decided to go for a heat-pump (air-air system) what you also have to consider is how well the house is isolated. Some work had to be done in regards of doors and windows.

In the short term it is more expensive, but in the long run…. And now looking in the increase in fuel prices it really starts paying off.

I think the next step is to add solar panels.

[Sam]

the elevator thing is real. It's being used to rise a counterweight.

[thomas]

I thought last night how great it would be to have a refrigerator with a door that would turn transparent at the touch of a button so I could gaze at all my options without having to stand there with the door open. (Looking into my messy fridge at all times would be ugly, so being able to turn the transparency on and off feels important.)

[astrorishi]

Whenever I used to hit the gym I wondered if the treadmill can generate energy ( in a dynamo effect ) rather than eat energy. All we would then need is a highly efficient bank of capacitors and a feedingl line to/from power stations!
Your blog has got me thinking again. Imagine - converting all the fat calories into real energy joules. Either this concept is too simple for scientists to look at or else I am a total dodo!
cheers
Rishi.

[D. Mented]

Actually, houses with yards in California often do use geocooling these days - run a long loop of 12" pipe deep underground and then just run your forced air system on "fan only" and the underground loop cools the air, which the fan then distributes.
As for your convection cooling, congratulations on thinking of that! I've been using it for 15 years now - in my neighborhood you need the iron bars, but fortunately, they make some very nice 'fortress doors' with expanded metal screens and worked-iron bars. Mine's on the back door - lock the fortress door, leave the wooden door open, turn on the window fan in the upstairs window, and the house cools by about 3am.
Then I have to get up and shut the house up tight, because at 4:45 am, the garbage truck comes and empties the dumpster for an office building 150 yards away, and when it backs up, the beeper startles the skunk that forages in my backyard, and he shoots off a good blast. It dissipates by 5:30 when my alarm clock sounds, but if I get skunked awake, I won't get back to sleep by alarm time.
The one I absolutely can't stand is Congress' plan to save energy by extending daylight "savings" time; They have their heads so far up their asses they don't know if it's day or night, so they think we don't either; most Americans are getting up at dawn at that time of the year - set the clocks ahead, we're getting up an hour before dawn. Congress members hadn't thought that one through - we turn on the lights when it's dark - whether we're getting up or going to bed.
Worse than that - most people are energised by light and pacified by dark; something to do with production of seratonin and melatonin. People actually turn on more lights getting up before dawn than settling down after sunset. Sometimes by doctor's orders.
If Congress had had any sense, they would have run a short "the more you know" ad explaining that if you turn down the lights an hour or more before bedtime, your body starts producing melatonin, the hormone we need to go to sleep. This can help fight insomnia. With all the money people are spending on sleep aids, a whole lot of people would have tried the lights-down technique, found that it helps at least a little, and there would have been some energy savings. The rerun of the Nixon energy savings plan has actually produced a net increase in energy use.
We're doomed. This election will NOT get rid of all the idiots in positions of power. Not even close.
D. Mented

[Lwinn]

I think it is great to be creative in trying to solve the energry crisis. However, you need to base your creativity on sound principals. The first thing that anyone who wants to help solve the energy crisis sould do is to study some basic Physics, especially the laws of thermodynamics.

Our best chance to save the world is to stop waisting so much time on things that have no potential because they are not based on sound principals.

We need to understand that there are only very few real sources of energy. 1. Sun 2. Geothermal 3. Nuculear (fision and fusion). Even coal and oil are really just solar power that has been stored up over millions of years.

Also, we need to understand that we can not create or distroy energy. People have waisted a lot of time thinking that they can create energy from springs or magnets. The concept of extracting energy from an elevator or putting windmills on trucks is creative, but void of an understanding of Physical law.

Don't get me wrong, I have great hopes that we will solve the energy crisis. The government is not going to do it, big industry is not going to do it, it is going to be someone in their garage that creates a solar pannal that is 60% efficient or maybe someone who finds a safe, inexpensive way to produce nuclear power.

Good Luck everyone.

[infidel]

No chimney effect or attic fan is going to save you here in AZ when the overnight low is 90+ degrees. Just a couple summers ago we had an overnight low of 100! The highest low on record.

Would be a lot better, though, if people actually built houses here that were designed for a desert locale. Silly humans.

[rita mae]

Elevators. Air conditioning. Geothermal heating systems. I live in Nebraska. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. We have furnaces and air conditioning.

I am going to ask one of the CPAs to bring me a chocolate turtle sundae when they come back from lunch. Just thought you would like to know that.

Rita Mae

[josh]

Scott, you've been getting your science wrong a lot lately. I know you'll never read this but I'm posting it anyway. Elevators are already counterweighted, which means you don't need much energy at all to move a 200 pound man around. And your version of geothermal energy was invented a long, long time ago; it's just that such systems are usually costly and impractical when done on a small scale.

[Bob]

Sorry to burst your bubble, but they already have it.

It's called a heat pump with a ground source/sink (depends on direction of heat flow - the heat exchanger is buried underground). It's less common than using air as the source/sink with a forced convection heat exchanger system (the box shaped fan most people think of as a heat pump) due to the difficulty of maintenance and impact of leaks (ethylene glycol is a common fluid used). They also have systems where a body of water is used as the heat source/sink.

[~~Silk]

I use ground-water based heat pump air conditioning, in central NY state. It doesn't work very well. More than two people in a 1750 sq ft house overwhelms it.

[Courtney]

Agree - brick homes stay cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter, window treatments (like blinds and cutains) make a HUGE difference in summertime, windows/doors that are properly sealed keep the house cozy in winter. It's not rocket science. But so far, it's just been easier to be watesful.

[Real Live Girl]

I hope that's changing - we need more energy options. Hopefully some thinking caps are being worn as we speak.

As for keeping things cool in the hot summer in SoCal, originally adobe was used to tile and roof homes, which when built near some shady Pepper trees, provided a nice cooling effect throughout the casas. So, there was life before A/C!

[RavenBlack]

Heat-pumps are more effective than just conducting the heat or cool out of the ground (or out of the water if you're lucky enough to have a body of water near enough to your house, since installing the unit via "chuck in a pond" is much cheaper than installing it via "dig a big series of deep trenches").

They are also not just "on or off" but "bring in heat", "send out heat" or off.

They do have the disadvantage versus just conducting of the fact that they use power, but they don't use much by comparison to aircon or standard heating.

[dsg]

Hi Scott,

I don't know much about these various methods for cooling and heating. What we really need to harness is all the energy from the falling economic indicators, then capture all the hot air from the various analysts and government officials, and finally use the stock market fluctuations like a piston engine. There seems to be a lot of available energy trying to control the economy. I guess you are saying we should expend similar effort on energy issues.

Thanks for the post,
dsg

[Travis Walden]

Actually ... Otis does offer an elevator that will provide power back onto the building's grid as cars descend.
http://www.otisgen2.com/index.shtml

[Marco]

Dam up the grand caynon. The three gorges dam in China (when finished) will supply 100 TWh annually, which is about 3% of ALL electricity consumed in the US.

[Mr. Wampus]

What you describe is used a lot in Florida and other southern states. In that case they pump ground water up and blow air across a water-filled grid to exchange heat. The water is then pumped back into the ground so there is no waste. The ground water is a pretty constant 52 degrees or so. It is also used in the winter to help boost heating efficiency. It only works in mild winter climates for heatinng though.

Expanding on your Jailer Screen Window system, why couldn't you create an enclosed air duct that passes underground to cool the air first before coming into the house maybe through a floor vent. It would be more secure and you get cool air coming in. You could still use an attic fan or just open an upper window.

What you describe is used a lot in Florida and other southern states. In that case they pump ground water up and blow air across a water-filled grid to exchange