The 2000W Challenge

[SandyD]

I have just read this Article in the New Scientist - Paper version, a a quick summary from the website is - 

 

"A Swiss vision of a low-energy society set a goal that is irresistibly simple: consume energy at a rate of just 2000 watts. It’s a great way to push us to use less power - good for the purse and the planet

Perhaps a thought experiment from Swiss researchers could help. If you shared all the energy produced in the world, everyone would get roughly 2000 watts of continuous power, the equivalent of 48 kilowatt-hours a day. Those who made this calculation in the 1990s envisioned a 2000-watt society, where everyone had access to no more, no less."

 

My immediate thought (rather stupidly!) was I have a 1500w inverter I can easily do that on the boat. However further though produced the following thought process.

 

1 Ltr of diesel is approx 10kWh providing hot water, tops up the batteries and propulsion (as long as I walk to the shops!). So to meet the challenge I can run the engine for 4.8 hours a day if my engine uses about 1 ltr of diesel an hour.

 

BUT

 

What about cooking and heating? if there is approx. 48MJ/kg in gas thats about 13kWh and if it takes 3 months to use a 13kg cylinder, Therfore I must use about 2kWh a day cooking and making tea.

 

Down to 2.8 hours a day running time on the engine per day - I think that would still work?

 

Heating, well the diesel heating on my boat also uses about a ltr an hour so either run the engine or the heating. Coal? Well in the depths of winter we were using about 7kg a day at 6.7kWh/kg I can burn about 4kg a day IF I don't run the engine.

 

In conclusion it's possible in the summer but as soon as I need heat I can't do it.

 

Any Thoughts? Comments? 

 

 

[churchward]

Living or indeed holidaying on a boat (when it's your own) does make one frugal over power as it is when out and about on the cut self-generated.

 

On our holiday boat (we do go out for several weeks at a time and last year 8 weeks in one go) we have no 240v appliances so no microwave or kettle etc. and only a 500 watt inverter for charging stuff mainly.  We do carry a petrol generator with us to power a battery charger etc. (1000w) for occasional use when we stay in one sport for a few days.

 

So, on the boat 2KWH limit is not hard to stay within.

 

A different story on land though. Our usual kettle is 3kw and the electric induction hob is about 2.5kw. We use oil for heating and cooking and a 2kw air fryer/mini oven.  It would be hard to stay within 2KW max although pure electric we consume about 10-11KWH per day currently (hoping to drastically lower that with solar and battery system about to be installed) if one adds in the oil and multifuel/log burners etc. in winter it would be harder to stay within 48KWH per day but I have not looked at how much that would be in KW.  In the summer I expect we would be OK on average.

Edited February 20, 2023 by churchward

[nicknorman]

23 minutes ago, churchward said:

 

So, on the boat 2000KWH limit is not hard to stay within.

 

 

 

This is true, but then 2000KWH is quite a lot!

As to 48KWH, you also have to factor in running the car or your proportion of the bus and train, popping off to the Med for a summer holiday, energy used by the hospital you might have to visit occasionally, your share of the pub's heating bill, the energy expended in getting your food to you (and a bit of energy expended in getting your poop disposed of) etc etc. Doesn't bear thinking about when it's all added up, which is why we are doomed.

[magnetman]

Overconsumption related to wealth does seem to rather be the elephant in the room. 

 

If anyone is interested in sorting anything out you also have to look at wealth generation itself as a consumer of energy. People making a lot of money very often do this at the expense of other people and/or the environment everyone depends on. Wealth generation is viewed as a successful means of existing in the world. The more money you can generate, regardless of the side effects, the more 'successful' you are. 

 

The whole thing needs a phase shift but humans like their comforts too much for this to ever happen. 

[rusty69]

Funnily enough, I read that article yesterday. Most of the energy used was in travelling, by either car or air iirc. Not forgetting food production and clothing, manufactured goods etc. The only people that are able to achieve it are the minority that would have the money to buy into futuristic housing, solar panels, water heating, growing their on food and doing no travelling and no consumption whilst living in a climate that was neither too hot nor too cold.

 

ETA. I downloaded the 'magazine' from the library.

Edited February 20, 2023 by rusty69

[magnetman]

I wonder how people are supposed to heat their living spaces with 2kw. I can do this but my boats are very small. I would think slightly awkward to heat a house with 2kw. I suppose if it has 4 people in it then you are allowed 8kw. 

 

Global warning could solve this problem . 

 

Maybe laws should be brought in to limit the amount of space people are allowed to live in. 15 square metres each should do it. 

Edited February 20, 2023 by magnetman

[TheBiscuits]

8 minutes ago, magnetman said:

I wonder how people are supposed to heat their living spaces with 2kw. I can do this but my boats are very small. I would think slightly awkward to heat a house with 2kw. I suppose if it has 4 people in it then you are allowed 8kw. 

 

Running a 4KW Squirrel at half power would do it ... just not 24/7 if you want any other energy use!

[system 4-50]

Mmm.  If you used 0Kw then presumably I could use 4Kw?  Where do you live?

[Mike Todd]

The OP was about 2000W not 2000kWh. Seems it is not just TV journalists who have problems with energy units . . . 

[David Mack]

38 minutes ago, Mike Todd said:

The OP was about 2000W not 2000kWh. Seems it is not just TV journalists who have problems with energy units . . . 

The OP was about 48kWh per day, which averages out over 24 hours at 2kW. Nothing to stop you using more than that at some times of the day and less at other times.

But the original premise is all of the energy produced in the world shared equally across the world's population. So the resulting 48kWh figure includes not only personal consumption, but also each individual's share of all of the energy used in industry, transport, commerce etc.  It's not clear how much would be left for purely domestic use after you have deducted all that.

[churchward]

2 hours ago, nicknorman said:

 

This is true, but then 2000KWH is quite a lot!

As to 48KWH, you also have to factor in running the car or your proportion of the bus and train, popping off to the Med for a summer holiday, energy used by the hospital you might have to visit occasionally, your share of the pub's heating bill, the energy expended in getting your food to you (and a bit of energy expended in getting your poop disposed of) etc etc. Doesn't bear thinking about when it's all added up, which is why we are doomed.

I added a zero too many I have edited my post.

 

I can only speak for myself and my consumption. I do not pop off to the med or fly anywhere else.  We do around 8000 miles per year in the car which as an EV is an average of 6-7KWh per day. 

 

I rarely go to the pub so that will be minimal.  There will be energy consumed in processing black water but we have our own digester (we are not connected to a public sewer system) and that is powered most of the year by solar so not too much there and what there is, is within the 10-11Kwh per day I said above.  But as I said keeping to 48KWh per day in total in the house is much more of a challenge than when we are on the boat.

 

The oil burning for heating and cooking will be the main issue on average across the year but weighted toward winter, of course, We burn about 1500ltrs per year give or take depending on how cold it has been which averages to about 40kwh per day or so.

 

If we could eliminate the oil system we could stand more of a chance but the heating has to come from somewhere even if we could insulate more.

 

In the summer months once the solar and battery system is up and running at the house, we should in the summer months at least run the house and charge the car on solar alone but that is yet to be seen for real.

Edited February 20, 2023 by churchward

[DaveP]

Travelling -diesel engine @ 1lt/hr = 10kWh, plus the potential energy of the water being let out of the locks @ 0.4kWh per narrow lock (150m^3 falls average 1m) or double that for a broad lock.  Are we counting the energy then needed to evaporate it all and send it back up to the reservoir as rain?

[Bee]

Today the postman called with three 'straight in the bin' letters and a bill. two separate courier vans pulled up with parcels and I drove  5 miles to buy paint. That lot must have been a fair few kilowatts. My grandparents lived most of their lives on a farm on the Staffordshire moorlands with no mains services and then into a railway terrace with no mains services (but plenty of coal), finally retired to a small house with mains services. Their daily use of kilowatts or any other measurement of energy was tiny. Mine is, by comparison, enormous. Swapping my diesel car for some sort of electric car, recycling tin cans and bunging some solar panels on the roof doesn't even make a dent in my total. I would be happy to 'Tune in, turn on and drop out' with an acre and a pig (and a whippet) but that is not the way human life is arranged these days and I expect the local council would object as well as DEFRA and probably Mrs. Bee too.

[MtB]

3 hours ago, David Mack said:

The OP was about 48kWh per day, which averages out over 24 hours at 2kW. Nothing to stop you using more than that at some times of the day and less at other times.

But the original premise is all of the energy produced in the world shared equally across the world's population. So the resulting 48kWh figure includes not only personal consumption, but also each individual's share of all of the energy used in industry, transport, commerce etc.  It's not clear how much would be left for purely domestic use after you have deducted all that.

 

I keep thinking this too. 

 

So the MWhr or ten it perhaps took to mine the ore to smelt the iron to make the steel to form and weld up each of our narrowboats needs taking into account too. 

 

But another aspect is it might help people figure out the difference between a kW and a kWh! 

 

 

 

[Mike Todd]

13 hours ago, DaveP said:

Travelling -diesel engine @ 1lt/hr = 10kWh, plus the potential energy of the water being let out of the locks @ 0.4kWh per narrow lock (150m^3 falls average 1m) or double that for a broad lock.  Are we counting the energy then needed to evaporate it all and send it back up to the reservoir as rain?

And remember that many stretches of the canal network are dependent on extended use of back pumps.

[churchward]

43 minutes ago, Mike Todd said:

And remember that many stretches of the canal network are dependent on extended use of back pumps.

The thing is though if we are looking to minimise energy consumption it is not about what others consume but what we consume ourselves as this is all we can directly affect.  

[Mike Todd]

On 21/02/2023 at 10:40, churchward said:

The thing is though if we are looking to minimise energy consumption it is not about what others consume but what we consume ourselves as this is all we can directly affect.  

But boaters are as much a consumer of canal water as they pas through locks as anything else. Net zero has to be about total consumption nit simply direct energy, otherwise it makes a nonsense. We have to try and influence those things we cannot directly choose. Some people live in places where they have no choice about the form of energy they use but must still surely be expected to minimise their wastage,

[jonesthenuke]

Should you also allow for use of the energy guzzling internet? Just browsing this forum uses energy.

 

[George and Dragon]

49 minutes ago, jonesthenuke said:

Should you also allow for use of the energy guzzling internet? Just browsing this forum uses energy.

 

Difficult to quantify though. If I don't look at the forum how much energy will that save? If I play an online game instead of looking at the forum will that mean more energy expended? If I get my tax letters online does that save energy (I hope so)?

[churchward]

1 hour ago, Mike Todd said:

But boaters are as much a consumer of canal water as they pas through locks as anything else. Net zero has to be about total consumption nit simply direct energy, otherwise it makes a nonsense. We have to try and influence those things we cannot directly choose. Some people live in places where they have no choice about the form of energy they use but must still surely be expected to minimise their wastage,

Sure, we can try and influence by several means the general consumption but what it comes down to is that if you want to make a difference start with yourself and your own consumption.

 

If everyone does the same the bigger picture will in some part take care of itself.

[ditchcrawler]

1 hour ago, jonesthenuke said:

Should you also allow for use of the energy guzzling internet? Just browsing this forum uses energy.

 

Loads

[magnetman]

it would be better if there was no storage. Threads to be automatically deleted from the server after say 30 days. 

 

Would also promote more active discussion and allow new ideas. 

 

Computer servers are using shed loads of power to store worthless information. 

[IanD]

42 minutes ago, magnetman said:

it would be better if there was no storage. Threads to be automatically deleted from the server after say 30 days. 

 

Would also promote more active discussion and allow new ideas. 

 

Computer servers are using shed loads of power to store worthless information. 

 

That's a terrible idea; one of the best things about CWDF is there's an awful lot of useful information (and a lot of drivel...) in it going back for years, and it's searchable.

 

Get rid of this and it just becomes another short-term platform for arguments, like most of the rest of the internet (and the politics forum)... 😞

 

And just FYI, most of the power used by servers is not longer-term (cool/cold) storage like past threads, it's serving up all the queries and searchable Google databases and page views and graphics of current users. In addition the total storage used by CWDF is relatively small compared to sites with massive numbers of pictures and more particularly videos, these take *way* more space than every thread ever posted on CWDF.

Edited February 22, 2023 by IanD

[magnetman]

I still think it is a good idea in terms of promoting discussion but yes this particular forum is a drop in the ocean. 

[Alan de Enfield]

17 minutes ago, IanD said:

 

That's a terrible idea; one of the best things about CWDF is there's an awful lot of useful information (and a lot of drivel...) in it going back for years, and it's searchable.

 

Get rid of this and it just becomes another short-term platform for arguments, like most of the rest of the internet (and the politics forum)... 😞

 

And just FYI, most of the power used by servers is not longer-term (cool/cold) storage like past threads, it's serving up all the queries and searchable Google databases and page views and graphics of current users. In addition the total storage used by CWDF is relatively small compared to sites with massive numbers of pictures and more particularly videos, these take *way* more space than every thread ever posted on CWDF.

 

 

But you have regularly argued that 'it' must start somewhere and even small savings from individuals 'add up'.

 

"A lot of bananas make a bunch"