Unresponsive RTF

This message was sent to persons unknown, at RTF, on September 15th, 2010:

To RTF:

Please see beginning of an interaction with Regional Technical Forum, on math bases for "deemed measures."

https://sites.google.com/site/phillipnormanatticaccess/Home/bpa-math

My numbers are thoroughly and publicly derived. Measure details are real, learned in first-hand down-and-dirty experience. I assert that I am nearing maturity in a self-taught college of weatherization. I  wish to find my place among other researchers in Portland, and anywhere.

I ask to see bases for the numbers in the RTF work product.

Phillip Norman

Attic Access

It seems I am not entitled to a response. That is crummy. This is Day 35 of waiting for any response. At Day 13, I asked for support from Energy Trust, and was advised:

My guess is they’ll take your numbers into consideration. No guarantees of the outcome.

The message to RTF does imply criticism of their hugely-expensive, unfriendly and unprintable "work product." I find the RTF numbers are cruelly inaccurate, showing modest penalty for living with no insulation. I think the BPA/RTF numbers may have some basis in a sampling of actual before-and-after energy costs, considering heating season only, where lifestyle choice is not considered. "Before", we are less-productive in conditions of freezing, not affording enough heat. We are foolish if we afford ourselves air conditioning.

Any reader may make the comparisons, to judge merit in the work product paid-for extravagantly from our remittances for BPA electricity. 

Math Error Found

Sadly, the clothes line math error reported in this post is in the direction of lesser justification for savings effort. The math of Build It Solar is quite correct. Further math for understanding is correct at my web site: Convert KWH at 29.3 KWH per therm and 12 pounds CO2 per therm. About 410 pounds of CO2 results from generating 1000 KWH.  Here is one credible outside source for the conversions. The 410 number looks right for the Northwest mix of sources, mainly coal and hydroelectric. 

Numbers above are from the UC Irvine link.


Allow that my two-person household would be using 860 KWH per year with full resort to an electric dryer. Saving half of that is 180 pounds of CO2 and $30 at $2 per therm, per year. Savings are smaller (by half?) where I have a natural gas dryer.


The error found? It is in the often-cited CS Monitor article. Annually, these dryers consume 1,079 kilowatt hours of energy per household, creating 2,224 pounds of carbon-dioxide emissions.
1079 KWH converts to perhaps 440 pounds of CO2.

More Clothes Line Math

Build It Solar - Clothesline Thoughts


Drying clothes in a gas or electric dryer is energy intensive.  An electric dryer uses about 2.3 KWH of electricity to dry one load.  In addition, as the dryer vents its exhaust out of the house, new air is pulled into the house to replace it, and in the winter, this new air must be heated.  If the temperature outside is (say) 30F, it takes about another 2 KWH to heat this incoming air.  In climates where AC is used in the summer, air pulled in by the dryer must be cooled.  So, drying one load can takes from 2.3 KWH to 4.3 KWH for each load -- a lot.  If you do a load a day, then you probably spend about 1000 KWH per year on drying energy. 


I'll figure 200 loads in a year, for a two-adult household. Without AC, figure 860 KWH. Do the Math on that.


One therm is 29.3 KWH and 12 pounds CO2. 860 KWH is 29.4 therms and 350 pounds of CO2. If I save half of that, it is about fifteen therms, $30, 180 pounds CO2.


Where is my error?

More Thought of Carbon Footprint: Shunning My Clothes Dryer

It is time at last to curtail my luxury of mindlessly tossing laundry in my natural-gas clothes dryer. The conversion from electric heat in a hand-me-down, free dryer was ticket for ease that I let go through another Summer. What is the amount of my savings opportunity?


I refer first to one of my clothesline shopping discoveries. I will just accept for now that a two-person household, with half-time resort to clotheslines, may save 500 pounds of CO2 per year. The saving is sizable, judging by math for my total carbon footprint, about 20,000 pounds of CO2 per year. Every measure that might save another 1000 pounds of CO2, will be painful.


The cost of a durable, convenient and presentable clothesline seems to be more than $250. How does this pan out in a payback calculation, the Insulation Math?


A therm corresponds to emission of about 12 pounds of CO2. 500 pounds is 42 therms. At $2 per therm, my saving is $84 per year. A $300 clothesline cost is repaid in less than four years, 28% simple return. Worth doing. Worthy of incentives. Spending $300 will not be extravagant.

An Especial Obligation to Honesty

Bonneville Power Administration is a rare government creation that is self-funded, with much money from too-abundant power sales, to spend as it chooses. The money is a corruptible basis of BPA influence. That is why BPA has an especially large need of public scrutiny. Actions to that end include this, of March 24, 2010: 

AN EVALUATION OF THE REGIONAL TECHNICAL FORUM – Final Report –
http://www.nwcouncil.org/rtf/meetings/2010/04/RTF_Eval_EMI240310.pdf


This report is kind to its sponsors, accepting exponential growth of RTF.

The scrutiny is not always voluntary. Among scholarly reviews, I have picked as significant, this PhD thesis, dated November 27, 2007:


The Columbia River's region: Politics, place and environment in the Pacific Northwest, 1933--present

https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/handle/1794/6280

BPI Flu

The nature of the illness is throwing around the word "performance" and stating that improvement of "performance" is so key, that its practitioners should drive the weatherization wagon. Performance improvement, as used in acronyms BPI and PTCS, is only the little good someone in a clean shirt can do in an hour or so of attempted tightening of a house envelope against infiltration or HVAC duct leakage, rarely for energy savings of more than $20 per year. The performance practitioners blessed with "certification" attend classes, pay large fees and maybe take tests, and can then call themselves "professionals." There is no checking back to show they are honest or do good work, as any employer would require.


The performance word, as blower door reading, is so indeterminate, that in fact only change of reading has meaning. This then mandates a "before" test, fudged as much as possible to be a high number, and, worst, serves as a preventive of air sealing. Someone seeing a problem can't fix it until its blower door consequence is recorded, and won't fix it, or does at five times the cost. If the fix will have no consequence to a blower door test, as with an attic floor pit, why bother? This is absurd. It is very costly in maintaining waste of energy.


I am heartened at finding a large majority of HVAC contractors warning of the misbehavior of BPI, and others, attempting to corrupt HomeStar legislation, for self-interest. I now feel freer to speak out.


I thought Bonneville Power Administration, Oregon and Washington had a lot to do with the BPI/ Home Performance phenomenon, nationally. I'm right about Oregon. Oregon is third in the nation, just a little worse than Virginia, in per-population acceptance of BPI certification. Most states have none.

And who is spreading it?


In Oregon, forced by publicly-funded BPA and its child, Regional Technical Forum, pressure to get with the program is intense. In Washington, it is only PTCS that has been enforced. I will hope to understand the forces for conformance in New York and New Jersey.


The claimed-biggest "trainer" is Everblue Training Institute, location unknown, perhaps Charlotte NC.


Numbers in red above include "service providers" franchised by WellHome.


WellHome, Masco Brands:

Isn't that scary regarding intent to steal public resources through HomeStar?

Building Performance Madness

Letter to the City of Portland person responsible for Clean Energy Works, sent 8/20/2010:

You saw the full depth of the problem in the well-meaning man who spoke with you, just before I did, at August 3rd Green Drinks. "I have nearly finished my BPM (sic) training. How can I become part of your Program?" I imagine his "training" is with  ECONTC , upon which I comment.

I took little of your time, mentioning that I have construction skill and insights useful to Clean Energy Works, in my opinion. As a sole proprietor, I can't be all things, rejecting BPI investment, properly the realm of full-time professional furnace mechanics. The real skill of fixing things is missed when money and project control is directed only through BPI-Certified contractors. I mentioned "diligence," and other ways of administration.

You saw that BPI Certification very often is unrelated to the ability or wish, to fix anything.

I am trying very hard, to have a voice and a role in state and national implementation of up-front financing, as the progressive way to do weatherization, putting the money in the hands of consumers, for qualifying projects of the very greatest worth and integrity. My Insulation Math is far more useful than a blower door.