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Energy box cuts room-heating carbon bill in half

Inventors claim
Friday, 7 March 2008, 20:10

A SYSTEM for monitoring heating and hot water use in any given location can cut the use of distillate oil or gas by more than half, its inventors claim.

Israeli outfit Phoebus Energy, produces a box together with a
sophisticated set of computer algorithms and adaptive software, to evaluate parameters such as temperature, humidity, current oil price, electricity prices, user demand and regulate enegry sources correspondingly.

"Phoebus' system takes all the factors it is programmed to check and evaluates them 24/7, providing up to the minute adjustments to the way energy is used," Yoav Ben-Yaacov, head of Phoebus' energy team, told israel21c.

"More than three kilograms of pollutants are generated for each kilogram of fossil fuel burned. The Phoebus system reduces this by up to 90 per cent," he adds.

The system will get its first chance to prove itself when it is deployed at the end of March in a small farming collective called Kibbutz Tzora, near Jerusalem. ยต

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Comments
90%?

How could this system reduce pollutants emitted by 90%? I went to Phoebus' website; it is extremely sparse on teh information. However, the understanding I've cobbled together from there and The Inq's article says that this unit is both electric and gas/oil/distillate/somekindapetrol. So it switches between these... let's say you live in an area where electricity is rather cheap so the unit's really clever algorithm tells the heating unit to just keep usin' that juice. 90% reduction in pollution with that electric, right?

Not really- I'm inferring that they came up with 90 by assuming the power plant at which the electricity was generated is either very green or has -excellent- enviro standards & controls. Let's face it, folks: cheap energy is usually dirty. Cleaning it up costs. Solar's expensive. So is wind... hydro is a bit better but it's a limited resource and totally screws over the local (& often other) ecosystems.

In conclusion, this newfangled energy box, wise thought it may be, is probably not as great as the inventors claim. Sadly, most things aren't. They -could- actually program the thing to constantly find the most environmentally-sound source of energy: it'd be difficult, but it could be done. Phoebus (or someone else) could even rate energy sources and give them a composite "value" score which takes "green" into account and even weights it according to user preference. 
It would be a huge strength if this box could be modified to the individual user's taste: eviro-conscious home users and even large corporations seeking out carbon credits or good press could benefit, as well as those penny-pinchers needing to save every bit for more important things. These Israelis are onto something, but they shouldn't go around making borderline-boastful claims of things like "90% pollution reduction" the chances of which seem remote, even in the most advantageous, not to mention unlikely, of conditions. So if you're reading, fellas:
1. Make more realistic claims, or at least add in -some- kind of reference point so we know what you're talking about.
2. We know you've spent a lot of time programming your clever little hybrid-box-child, but it could probably benefit from a lot more versatility. Make it user-programmable, or make an add-on module with said functionality. It's not easy, but that would be something REALLY new and inspiring, perhaps even revolutionary.

posted by : Grant, 08 March 2008 Complain about this comment
Shurely Shome Mishtake...

"More than three kilograms of pollutants are generated for each kilogram of fossil fuel burned."

Sounds suspiciously overstated to me...

posted by : Stevie Boy, 08 March 2008 Complain about this comment
High tech commune

The people at Kibbutz Tzora are also very inventive - www.freepatentsonline.com/6739669.html

posted by : RogerP, 08 March 2008 Complain about this comment
EneeergyyyBOXXXX

These type of energy boxes seem to appear over and over again. The previous I saw was at a French supermarket: Wooden 600W energy box to heat your apartment.
I gathered that 6 light bulbs might do the same for cheaper...
It looked nice though. 

posted by : spfoo, 08 March 2008 Complain about this comment
Not some mistake, just marketing

Buring hydrocarbons releases CO2 and H2O. The EPA or some court or whatever in the US has decreed that CO2 is a pollutant (please stop breathing now).

C + O2 = CO2; in atomic masses that's
12 + 16 x 2 = 44, i.e. 1 kg of CO2,
so 1 kg of high carbon fuel yields 3.7 kg CO2.

For methane,
CH4 + 2xO2 = CO2 + 2xH2O which is
16 + 2 x 16 x 2 = 44 + 2 x 18,
so 1 kg of CH4 yields 44/16 yields 2.75 CO2. 

Of course, H2O is a greenhouse gas, so it's only a matter of time before that is declared a pollutant.




posted by : Ric Werme, 09 March 2008 Complain about this comment
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