Comments on: Everything Is In the Wrong Place

By: Alrenous

Alrenous — Fri, 28 Mar 2014 05:58:19 +0000

The problem with civilization is none of its critics know any engineering.

By: Handle

Handle — Thu, 27 Mar 2014 16:56:42 +0000

Actually, I specifically remember this precise ‘indoor refrigerator heat transfer efficiency’ problem from a thermodynamics class.

One compared the two scenarios:

1. A BOX1′s internal temperature must be held at T1, inside a larger BOX2 held at T2, and the outside temperature is T3.

vs.

2. BOX1 is outside of BOX2.

The question is, what the is the difference in energy requirements for the two scenarios.

The answer, at realistically and reasonably high levels of heat transfer efficiency, is ‘there is hardly any different for highly various values of T1, T2, and T3.

It’s almost never worth moving appliances around except in extreme circumstances that are not representative of most homes.

By: Bruce Charlton

Bruce Charlton — Thu, 27 Mar 2014 11:44:43 +0000

One the one hand we discuss saving a few calories of energy and a sliver of resources here and there; on the other hand (in the UK) for more than a decade about a million economic dependents are added annually to a population of about 55M (from delaying employment by warehousing youths at ‘college’, by population ageing and – mostly – by mass migration).

An insane world.

The only rational attitude in life is “Look-after the pounds (or dollars) and the pennies (or cents) will look-after themselves…”

By: Spandrell

Spandrell — Wed, 26 Mar 2014 05:29:23 +0000

That’s the kind of pointless optimization that I’d imagine Dilbert’s character to push for.

By: Eric Crampton

Eric Crampton — Tue, 25 Mar 2014 20:54:18 +0000

Doubt there’s much efficiency to be had on the “fridge ducted to winter” plan. The time of year when you’d want to do it is when you’re spending a lot to heat your house. Your refrigerator is a heater: it sucks marginal bits of heat out of the inside of the fridge and dumps it into the rest of the house.

If you’re running a heat pump as your primary heat source, then there really isn’t much difference, at that time of year, between sucking marginal heat out of your fridge and dumping it into the house and sucking marginal heat from identical-temperature-outside and dumping it into your house.

Or at least there’s not a lot of gain.