One gigawatt can power about 1 million U.S. homes. But since solar power is on only about a third of the time, a gigawatt of solar can only power about 330,000 homes.
And by that logic 3 women can have one baby in 3 months.
One gigawatt can power about 1 million U.S. homes. But since solar power is on only about a third of the time, a gigawatt of solar can only power about 330,000 homes.
And by that logic 3 women can have one baby in 3 months.
The difference is around half of Texas's summer electricity usage is on AC. AC use tends to be the best use-case for solar power, as both AC use and solar power are primarily driven by the sun.
Basically, in some cases, the mythical man-month holds.
Which in many ways shows that the state should be encouraging passive houses. A passive house would put less pressure on the power grid when the heat kicks in. On the other hand humidity appears to be the current Achilles heal of these houses.
Great so all we have to do is tear down the roughly 8 million houses and rebuild them...
I agree that *new* buildings need to be built more efficiently, and a lot of existing buildings can be upgraded in various ways to save energy, but shit like "encouraging passive houses" is about as useful a suggestion as "just move where the food is" is for hunger, which is to say not useful at all. =Smidge=
Actually, it's very useful, because we are building new homes somewhat rapidly (albeit mostly for investment purposes, so there's still a housing shortage — many if not most of these new homes are not affordable to those people who need housing) and because most homes in America are built like shit.
I can't compare to other "fully developed" nations because I haven't been to any, but I can compare to what we used to build homes like here in the USA and modern homes are trash. They are built out of a mixture of 2x4s, glued beams (which can actually be quite good) and manufactured wood products, plus thin sheet rock and usually inadequate insulation. The homes of the past only had the poor insulation in common; they were built with true dimensional lumber (i.e. 2x4" 2x4s, 2x6" 2x6s, etc.) and had much thicker walls than we use today, and they were made with plastered lath interior walls which were much more solid and quiet. Today's homes are designed to be built quickly and cheaply, not well. And this means they also disintegrate quickly, and wind up having to be repaired or replaced. Either is an opportunity for upgrade.
Frankly we should require that all new home building incorporate passive solar design with proper overhangs over windows and alignment of homes to sun positions, or other design features which provide equivalent benefits. It isn't a complete solution, but it is useful.
Again, I agree that new buildings need to be constructed to a higher efficiency standard.
However, doing that will merely make the problem worse at a slower rate - it will not solve the already big problem of existing, inefficient buildings. That's why saying "Just build more efficient housing" is not useful. It doesn't actually address the problem. To do that, we need to either upgrade or straight up demolish and rebuild what we already have. =Smidge=
Typically you'd approach such a problem from multiple angles, since there isn't a one size fits all. Examples:
- Existing buildings would need to retrofitted, though would probably only be done if the home owner can recupe the cost within a reasonable time or had a grant to make it more likely they can
- The building code would be updated with certain energy requirements, while it is up to the contractor to work out how to achieve them. The exact technology should not be prescrib
Math (Score:3, Insightful)
One gigawatt can power about 1 million U.S. homes. But since solar power is on only about a third of the time, a gigawatt of solar can only power about 330,000 homes.
And by that logic 3 women can have one baby in 3 months.
Re: (Score:5, Insightful)
The difference is around half of Texas's summer electricity usage is on AC. AC use tends to be the best use-case for solar power, as both AC use and solar power are primarily driven by the sun.
Basically, in some cases, the mythical man-month holds.
Re: Math (Score:2)
Which in many ways shows that the state should be encouraging passive houses. A passive house would put less pressure on the power grid when the heat kicks in. On the other hand humidity appears to be the current Achilles heal of these houses.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Great so all we have to do is tear down the roughly 8 million houses and rebuild them...
I agree that *new* buildings need to be built more efficiently, and a lot of existing buildings can be upgraded in various ways to save energy, but shit like "encouraging passive houses" is about as useful a suggestion as "just move where the food is" is for hunger, which is to say not useful at all.
=Smidge=
Re: Math (Score:2, Informative)
Actually, it's very useful, because we are building new homes somewhat rapidly (albeit mostly for investment purposes, so there's still a housing shortage — many if not most of these new homes are not affordable to those people who need housing) and because most homes in America are built like shit.
I can't compare to other "fully developed" nations because I haven't been to any, but I can compare to what we used to build homes like here in the USA and modern homes are trash. They are built out of a mixture of 2x4s, glued beams (which can actually be quite good) and manufactured wood products, plus thin sheet rock and usually inadequate insulation. The homes of the past only had the poor insulation in common; they were built with true dimensional lumber (i.e. 2x4" 2x4s, 2x6" 2x6s, etc.) and had much thicker walls than we use today, and they were made with plastered lath interior walls which were much more solid and quiet. Today's homes are designed to be built quickly and cheaply, not well. And this means they also disintegrate quickly, and wind up having to be repaired or replaced. Either is an opportunity for upgrade.
Frankly we should require that all new home building incorporate passive solar design with proper overhangs over windows and alignment of homes to sun positions, or other design features which provide equivalent benefits. It isn't a complete solution, but it is useful.
Re: (Score:2)
Again, I agree that new buildings need to be constructed to a higher efficiency standard.
However, doing that will merely make the problem worse at a slower rate - it will not solve the already big problem of existing, inefficient buildings. That's why saying "Just build more efficient housing" is not useful. It doesn't actually address the problem. To do that, we need to either upgrade or straight up demolish and rebuild what we already have.
=Smidge=
Re: (Score:2)
Right, we need to do both things.
There are no simple solutions to problems of this complexity, only complex ones.
If the problem is distributed, the solution needs to be distributed.
Re: (Score:2)
Typically you'd approach such a problem from multiple angles, since there isn't a one size fits all. Examples:
- Existing buildings would need to retrofitted, though would probably only be done if the home owner can recupe the cost within a reasonable time or had a grant to make it more likely they can
- The building code would be updated with certain energy requirements, while it is up to the contractor to work out how to achieve them. The exact technology should not be prescrib
Which is it? (Score:2)
First you said we're building homes nobody can afford.
Then you said we're building homes more cheaply than ever before.
Which is it?
Also, do you *really* believe that most of the new houses are sitting empty because nobody can afford to live there? Really?
Re: (Score:2)
whee [census.gov]