MidlandMike My neighbor bought his house with the geothermal heating system already in it. He eventually shut it down in favor of a propane furnace, because the well maintenance/repair costs were eating his lunch.
My neighbor bought his house with the geothermal heating system already in it. He eventually shut it down in favor of a propane furnace, because the well maintenance/repair costs were eating his lunch.
You'd be surprised at all the little 'gotchas' over the years that have had to be learned regarding the design, care and feeding of various kinds of ground loops. One somewhat amusing variant with its own list of cautionary tales is the technology that puts the Freon exchanger in the ground-source region rather than a secondary antifreeze loop ...
It does have to be said that the Slinky loop in semi automated trenching has a number of attractive advantages over deep vertical wells with Bentonite especially in uncertain soils. I did not see that approach coming so cannot plead superior acumen in design innovation. It does help however to think carefully about the various things that might be expected to fail over the presumptive 'financed lifetime' of one of these systems, and ways to design all the little details for quick and 'as easy as possible' remediation.
It came as a surprise to me that many of these systems lacked freeze protection for the portions of the ground loop out of the constant-temperature zone, or had inadequate access to the circulation pump or its connections. This shouldn't be rocket science. (Although there can be considerable technical sophistication a la optical-fiber field-splicing kits for making flow-optimized high-integrity field joints in the ground-source loop tubing...)
This is the decade in which I will retire in (2026), I am comfortable that I will be able to.
themanAs we wave the 2010s goodbye, it is becoming increasingly clear that we may have to wave the railroads goodbye as well. The future looks dark, very dark.
Rio Grande Valley, CFI,CFII
When the reversing valves in the heat-pump system are set to 'heat', the outside coil acts as the 'evaporator' (to draw whatever heat from the outside it can). Just as in normal 'air conditioner' operation, if the refrigerant cools the evaporator below the freezing point of atmospheric water, ice will form on the coil and may eventually proceed to disturb airflow of even plug it... at which point the refrigerant will no longer boil to absorb heat and start slugging liquid into the compressor, which is Not A Good Thing. I would not be surprised to see arrangements to use resistance heat externally to keep the coil free of condensation -- of course the COP does not help the efficiency of resistance heat vs. using it directly after the air handler as in conventional resistance HVAC, but a relatively smaller amount of power can be used for 'de-icing' than for full space heating.
Now, in the evil old days, when the only provision of resistance heating in these systems was as 'emergency heat' when things got too cold for efficient heat-pumping, the de-icing would probably be done by periodic reversal of the reversing valves and operation of the outside coil as a condenser ... raising its temperature from 'inside heat' now generated silently but relatively inefficiently from the resistance -element array. This of course cycled the reversing arrangement more often which would increase likelihood of something sticking or failing... but would be cheaper to build.
If you split the refrigerant systems, as becomes easy with ground-source heat pumps, you have one sealed loop for cooling, and a separate one with different refrigerant and component sizes only for heating. These can use refrigerator-size compressors with appropriately higher reliability and the refrigerant loops are sealed so no wacky valves to fail or leak. I could spend quite some time explaining the ways this can be preferable, but it has little to do with railroad applications.
Growth. Plastic use will increase, fertilizer, medical chemistry, etc.
Overmod Paul Milenkovic How does a cold weather heat pump outside unit work when you get snow drifts? Do you have to venture outside and shovel off the snow? Yes, because you still need the airflow for the heat content. These things work with refrigerant that boils in a different range, and probably have somewhat higher fan circulation as the heat content for a given mass flow through the 'evaporator' is less.
Paul Milenkovic How does a cold weather heat pump outside unit work when you get snow drifts? Do you have to venture outside and shovel off the snow?
Yes, because you still need the airflow for the heat content. These things work with refrigerant that boils in a different range, and probably have somewhat higher fan circulation as the heat content for a given mass flow through the 'evaporator' is less.
Back in the eighties, I was in an apartment in New Jersey in the winter that had a heat pump with resistance back-up. I noticed that when there was snow on the ground, you would periodically see "steam" (actually condensation) rising from the outside unit. I don't know, but I'm guessing that it periodically reversed the pump to melt the snow. Whether it used the resistance heater to heat the inside unit at the same time, I don't know. I keep wanting to use the terms "condenser" and "evaporator", but their roles keep reversing. Anyway, this is mostly conjecture, so if anyone knows otherwise....
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"A stranger's just a friend you ain't met yet." --- Dave Gardner
Paul MilenkovicHow does a cold weather heat pump outside unit work when you get snow drifts? Do you have to venture outside and shovel off the snow?
daveklepper One real growth area in both loose-car and unit-train railroading is chemical products, both raw-material input and product output and export. This is primarily focused on the Gulf Coast, Texas in particulary, with UP the prime beneficiary, followed by BNSF, and KCS a distant third.
One real growth area in both loose-car and unit-train railroading is chemical products, both raw-material input and product output and export. This is primarily focused on the Gulf Coast, Texas in particulary, with UP the prime beneficiary, followed by BNSF, and KCS a distant third.
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
How does a cold weather heat pump outside unit work when you get snow drifts? Do you have to venture outside and shovel off the snow?
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
Lithonia Operator I'm still waiting to learn what the 8% really represents.
I'm still waiting to learn what the 8% really represents.
I don't trust any of this "data". Seems to hard to accurately collect and sort, even in the information age.
You know, in the world of model trains nobody knows how big that industry is. On the whole planet, only two model train companies are publicly traded, none in the US. So how much business are they doing? Nobody knows........
And why would they tell anyone?
Big companies tell us, and the government what they want to tell them.....
Sheldon
divebardave https://www.stb.gov/stb/docs/Waybill/2016%20STB%20Waybill%20Reference%20Guide.pdf *Railroads are permitted to "mask" contract revenue with a calculated figure. Because these figures may not represent actual revenue, use of this revenue data in any type of comparison may lead to wrong or misleading results.
https://www.stb.gov/stb/docs/Waybill/2016%20STB%20Waybill%20Reference%20Guide.pdf
*Railroads are permitted to "mask" contract revenue with a calculated figure. Because these figures may not represent actual revenue, use of this revenue data in any type of comparison may lead to wrong or misleading results.
There is a way to more or less ascertain a railroad's masking factor.
There are a number of companies marketing rail costing models to shippers that incorporate data from the STB waybill sample. Using one of these models; if a shipper can identify their own shipments by searching for the applicable STCC and BEA pairs, you can then calculate the masking factor your carrier has applied to the reported revenue earned on your shipments. You can then assume the same railroad is applying the same masking factor to other shipments in that same commodity group.
I'll also note that on some commodity groups, a railroad might not bother to apply a masking factor. I noticed this a couple times with CN.
According to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, 50% of freight (by weight) moves less than 100 miles while 84% of freight (again by weight) moves less than 500 miles. Thus, most freight isn't ideally suited to rail anyway..and a big chunk of that shorthaul freight is LTL and last mile home delivery. Clearly, delivering six couches to a showroom or a refrigerator to your home is best accomplished using a truck, not a train.. and freight moves like that make up alot of if not most of short hop moves. The 8% figure cited in the original post is therefore meaningless without proper context.
divebardaveStat lie...We are talking ton miles here in the survey...But what is needed is TEUs or tractor trailer equlivents. Since one railroad car holds 2.5-3.2 Tractor Trailer loads and hauls them 400 miles or more. Also value of containerised cargo is not by weight but by value.
A 5 bottom intermodal car is capable of hauling 20 Twenty foot containers in double stack service. On the highway each container would require a tractor to haul itl
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Stat lie...We are talking ton miles here in the survey...But what is needed is TEUs or tractor trailer equlivents. Since one railroad car holds 2.5-3.2 Tractor Trailer loads and hauls them 400 miles or more. Also value of containerised cargo is not by weight but by value.
divebardave Why oh why are railroads reluctant to give a real waybill sample to the STB? As a sometime shareholder what are they hiding from us? Investors are entitled to this info and so should the states when they are investing taxpayer infrastucture dollers in private railroads.
Why oh why are railroads reluctant to give a real waybill sample to the STB? As a sometime shareholder what are they hiding from us? Investors are entitled to this info and so should the states when they are investing taxpayer infrastucture dollers in private railroads.
I've never heard that they were reluctant. It's news to me. Why do you think they're relectant?
Often the weight just doesn't really matter. So it's just any number pulled out of the air and who cares. As an example, every UPS load we carried went at 20,000 pounds. No big deal. We didn't charge by trailer/container weight. It was just "Per Vehicle Used." Nobody cared about the weight. But we provided the waybill sample. It showed every UPS load at 20,000 pounds.
Paul_D_North_Jr There are now also cold-weather air-source heat pumps, which I'm told are designed to work well even in territories such as Maine. - PDN. PDN is correct. This Old House show had one installed in the NE on one of their TV programs.
There are now also cold-weather air-source heat pumps, which I'm told are designed to work well even in territories such as Maine.
- PDN.
oltmanndThe best way to think of a heat pump (or air conditioner) is that it "pumps" heat "uphill". The greater the difference in temperature between where you are getting the heat and where you are trying to dump it, the less efficient things are. The greater the temperature differential you try to maintain, the harder the system has to work to move each Btu...
The greater the temperature differential you try to maintain, the harder the system has to work to move each Btu...
The heating/ cooling for our home is a ground source heat pump, a/k/a geothermal. The ground around our 2 wells (ea. 250 ft. deep, for a 3-ton unit) is a nearly constant ~55 deg., so to raise to our normal winter temp of 68 deg. is only a 13 deg. increase. For cooling, it's almost obvious - air temp can be whatever, I have an essentially unlimited supply of 55 deg. ground to cool it. Also, ground - really, groundwater in my case - has a much higher specific heat capacity = holds more heat or cold, something like 500 times as much as an equivalent volume of air. So that's another advantage.
Heating our 3,200 SF home costs about $600 to $800 each season; AC is $50 to $200 depending on the summer (we live in a woods, so the trees shelter us from the sun quite a bit).
Geothermal is bedeviled by wildly inflated cost figures and incompetent installers. Any home system needs a box in the basement to make hot and cold air, regardless of the fuel source - and if it's not a heat pump, then add an AC unit. For any given house, the costs are roughly comparable, including our ground source heat pump. All houses need transfer systems like ducts or baseboards, plus a control system (thermostats, zone dampers, etc.). So the only real cost difference for geothermal is the ground component. For us, our 2 wells cost $7,700 in 2008. Since then all we pay is the electricity to run the heat pump (see above), so it paid for itself about 3 years ago. About a year ago we had to replace the ground loop circulating pump, which was about $1,000. Other than that, no issues with the geothermal system (the zone dampers are another story, but that could happen with any system, not just geo).
PSR primer:
The "scheduled RR" part of PSR has been in place on the class ones for 15-20 years now. There are fixed train schedules and each car gets a schedule and the RR tries to run the plan and measures operations against the plan. This is not new - tonnage based railroading died circa 2000 (despite what some RR PR groups try to tell us)
The PSR stuff NS and others are doing now consists of:
-trying to find more opportunities to pre-block traffic at origin locations
-mixing traffic types on trains. For example, moving coal and multilevel traffic on merchandise trains.
-trying to get more traffic moving 7 days a week rather than 5 by pushing customers to receive and release traffic 7 days a week
-run longer trains using DPU (not really a PSR thing...
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
The best way to think of a heat pump (or air conditioner) is that it "pumps" heat "uphill". The greater the difference in temperature between where you are getting the heat and where you are trying to dump it, the less efficient things are.
One of the most common shipper complaints these days seems to be the lack of a human interface with the railroad that they can put a face to - e.g. the local agents that railroads used to have back in the day. You would think reinstating such positions, in the form of local agents who also function as sales department officers, would be the best way to grow the carload business.
It's commonly accepted among economists that sales and customer service will be two of the last provinces of human beings in the business world, because they're the hardest to replace with a machine. Railroads would do well to acknowledge that fact and get over their aversion to getting more people involved in their business processes.
Just to add to what "d-b-d" said about heat pumps.
Our house here in the Richmond VA area has a heat pump system. When we were moving here in 1987 I asked the home inspector just what a heat pump was, and what it was all about since I'd never heard of them, home heating up in New Jersey being either oil, gas, or electric. He explained how the system worked, but also Virginia was about as far north as a heat pump system was practical.
Typically the average winter temperature here doesn't go below 35 degrees, but if it does go down to the teens or below we have to turn on what's called "supplemental heat." That engages an electric "furnace" which heats the house. Works well, but it does drive up the electric bill.
Anyway, the thing is heat pumps aren't a universal energy saving panacea, it all depends on what part of the country you live in.
We're on our second heat pump system, the first one started giving up the ghost 10 years ago. The new one works even better than the first one.
blue streak 1 We may need to look at this whole thread in another way. Some coal plants are being mothballed. Are we posibility seeing just a temporary reduction in electricity demand or just a slowing of demand. If either is happening then what are the reasons ? Homes converting to CFLs and LEDs. More home heat pumps. Electricity useage per unit of work has reduced because of the many energy efficiency changes that have occurred ? Commuter rails in the east are still converting to regeneration. Is that useage curve per unit of work starting to flatten out ? The one area that it soon will in my area is in lighting. One city close by is going wholesale replacement of street lighting with LED street lights. My village has to be more financially conservative by replacing street lights that burn out with LEDs. That will take longer but in 10 - 15 years be complete. Now what growth of electricity can we expect? Have no real idea. However once homes finish converting to CFLs and LEDs additional built homes will mean more consumption. Amtrak and all its commuter partners are trying to increase service (Acela-2s for example ) so more consumption there once all the equipment is converted to regeneration. More commuter railss and more light rail. California is pushing electrification of many consumers that may encourage transfer to other states. Texas Central maybe just a blip but ? More manufacturing plans using robots for many functions.
We may need to look at this whole thread in another way. Some coal plants are being mothballed. Are we posibility seeing just a temporary reduction in electricity demand or just a slowing of demand. If either is happening then what are the reasons ? Homes converting to CFLs and LEDs. More home heat pumps. Electricity useage per unit of work has reduced because of the many energy efficiency changes that have occurred ? Commuter rails in the east are still converting to regeneration.
Is that useage curve per unit of work starting to flatten out ? The one area that it soon will in my area is in lighting. One city close by is going wholesale replacement of street lighting with LED street lights. My village has to be more financially conservative by replacing street lights that burn out with LEDs. That will take longer but in 10 - 15 years be complete.
Now what growth of electricity can we expect? Have no real idea. However once homes finish converting to CFLs and LEDs additional built homes will mean more consumption. Amtrak and all its commuter partners are trying to increase service (Acela-2s for example ) so more consumption there once all the equipment is converted to regeneration. More commuter railss and more light rail. California is pushing electrification of many consumers that may encourage transfer to other states. Texas Central maybe just a blip but ? More manufacturing plans using robots for many functions.
I have seen dairy feed ingredites being hauled to feed mills in New England by truck from Iowa that used to go by railroad car
Lithonia Operator Warren Buffet is a pretty smart guy. Fairly recently he bought BNSF lock stock and barrel. He must not be as pessimistic as some folks here.
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