by Jeff Ihnen | Feb 8, 2022 | Energy Rant
In case you missed last week’s post, you’ll need to go back and review the setup for this week’s demonstration of code challenges and mistakes. To summarize, I have an installed ENERGY STAR-qualifying 95% AFUE[1] (efficient) boiler with a brazed plate heat exchanger,...
by Jeff Ihnen | Feb 1, 2022 | Energy Rant
Over the last forty years, computers have become orders of magnitude more powerful while they have become much easier to use. When I was in college, mainframe IBM computers owned all the muscle of computations. I was terrified of coding and wanted nothing to do with...
by Jeff Ihnen | Jan 25, 2022 | Energy Rant
Per the last couple of posts, we examined policies, trends, and physics behind property destruction, storms, and fire. This week provides ways to avoid destruction and loss from fires, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, and extreme cold, which we are experiencing again....
by Jessica Wagner | Jan 19, 2022 | The Big Why
I am renovating my kitchen. The project was supposed to start in March 2020, but then the world shut down due to Covid. Now, nearly two years later, we are finally getting started. During that time, I have decided to switch from a gas range to an induction cooktop....
by Jeff Ihnen | Jan 18, 2022 | Energy Rant
This week we continue responding to the reader question, “What kind of home can withstand fire, hurricanes, floods, heat domes & polar vortex?” Before we get into design considerations, let’s look at modes of failure. From my research, hurricanes and tornadoes...
by Jeff Ihnen | Jan 11, 2022 | Energy Rant
A reader last week asked, “What kind of home can withstand fire, hurricanes, floods, heat domes, and polar vortex?” This is a great question. I love the challenge, so here we go[1]. Flooding and Landslides Think ahead and ask yourself, “what if” before or even after...
by Jeff Ihnen | Jan 4, 2022 | Energy Rant
While compiling the last post in which I reviewed the accuracy of my predictions for 2021, I realized that most of those were in the 20-30 year timeframe. For 2022, I forced myself to choose most things that will or will not happen in 2022 – the good and the bad. Coal...
by Jessica Wagner | Dec 22, 2021 | The Big Why
A major theme of the Big Why of Evaluation is that evaluations always involve balancing accuracy and costs due to time and budget constraints as well as the pesky issue of dealing with counterfactuals. The eternal question of “how good is good enough” drives one of...
by Jeff Ihnen | Dec 21, 2021 | Energy Rant
Predicting the future with infinite degrees of freedom is hard, especially when projected years into the future. A few years ago, Public Utilities Fortnightly posted an article about the accuracy of The Jetsons forecasting the future. William Hanna and Joseph Barbera...
by Jeff Ihnen | Dec 14, 2021 | Energy Rant
I introduced exergy to readers 4.5 years ago, had a refresher on it for industrial decarbonization earlier this year, and it is part of our decarbonization training course that is frontrunning AESP’s annual conference in Nashville on February 7th. Decarb Course...
