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It is getting to the point as a narrative which will be much easier to communicate to a comatose audience.
The thing which is still missing is the reason why Joe Schmoe should reduce his demand, in the context of a global situation of increasing demand.
The narrative should say something along the lines of "But Joe, you're already wasting so fucking much, couldn't you be a bit more careful?" I don't know what the soundbite should be, but if we can get it, it could change the world. You can't be me, I'm taken
I'm sure you saw this study.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/06/060628091247.htm
European tax policy on trans. fuels made sense, but the US voter just doesn't have the maturity to sacrifice now for the future. Hence enormous deficits and off to the mall. Friend was whining last night because gas was so high. He's getting 12 MPG in a V-8 pickup truck that never hauls anything or goes off road road. Why I asked. "It's comfortable".....good solid Republican voter.
The narrative for Joe will simply be: "This costs X, it is better than Y, will give you Z benefits and, really, Y is a load of pants, right?"
The car, for example, is a smoggy, polluting menace that serves a specific purpose: get person A to point B, where point B is not close to mass transit. Great! So why do Europeans and why does anyone else drive when that rule doesn't apply?
(My vision at this point is of a thousand swearing teenage boys on hybrid scooters...my ears will curse me, but my lungs will thank me.) Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.
Dividing by TEN, those numbers should be:
£1,400
and
2000 (ish) euros
to lay underfloor heating in a medium-size flat. You wouldn't get radiators plus associated plumbing for less. Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.
"Okay, if I had the money, I would invest in a company that produced underfloor electric central heating because...electricity can be produced by windfarms.
And if you had the money, I would strongly recommend against it. Heating by electricity is very wasteful compared to using the electricity to drive a heatpump. For reasons of thermodynamics you get 3 times the heating if you use it to drive a heatpump (like a refrigerator but reversed). Electrical heating was installed in many swedish homes during the hey-day of the nuclear program and is today being replaced by heatpumps or a line to a central heating plant.
I looked up "heat pump" on wikipedia, and found this:
My ignorance on such topics is, well, now stated, but living where it can get cold for more than a couple of months every year, and where we heat a flat with radiators, which have their water heated by gas, which has gone up in price by 25% in a year, I like the concept of underfloor electric heating.
A search on google for "electric underfloor heating" brought up a load of businesses (so my non-investment investment has already been made by others.) I clicked on a link, found a Q & A, and read this, relating to bathroom underfloor heating:
Isn't it expensive to run ?
Answers
The devimat® tile warming system only uses as much electricity as a standard light bulb per m². The on-off cycling effect of the floor temperature-sensing thermostat can reduce this by as much as 50%.
It seems a huge market (and as gas prices rise, an ever-cheaper heating resource) for people who live in flats, though maybe not an idea for people who live in detached properties.
I don't see the "rip off" aspect. Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.
Electric underfloor heating mat = approx. £1,400, or approx 2000 euros.
(I quickly check the zeros...yes, they are correct.)
The flat (not mine, one I saw) is between, say 60 - 90 square metres (lots of rooms in funny places, and I'm no good at guessing room sizes), and had no heating system installed (apart from two hundred year old fire places.) Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.
I have just contracted a company for drilling a 650 feet deep well for a 9kW heat pump. The drilling cost is about €5500 or $7200. The heat pump costs about €7500 ($9600). Add installation and the total is about €15000. I already have radiant floor heating and radiators since I've been burning oil until now.
They don't usually drill multiple wells here unless you need more than ~700 feet depth which means 11kW pump and up.
Year average COP should be about 3.5, time to earn back is about 10 years with todays oil price, much less if it hits $100 :)
I've never heard someone reporting a year average COP of more than 4. Still, when already at 3.5 or so, higher COPs mater less and less. The difference in savings from 2 to 3 is huge, from 4 to 5 is miniscule in comparisation.
