For nerds or you and me?

Today we had lengthy discussions about where to put the indoor-part of the heatpump. The guys wanted to put it "right in your face" when entering the house through our frontdoor, but we want it to be placed somewere more discrete.

They told us there will some water coming out of the unit (condensated humidity from the air) so the unit has to be placed higher than the drainage point. This was new information for us - but found a solution where they put the heatpump where we want it and add a small pump that will make sure the water gets to the drainage point even from a lower point.

Except for the good news that much of the garabage in our garden now has been removed (have they read my blog?) - not much more to report from the project itself.

I also promised to share with you some numbers and calculations......

I have had a hard time putting all the CO2- and energy numbers I read about in the press into perspective. I believe that I'm finally begining to make sense of it all - and I hope that sharing my thoughts with you will be helpful.My objective is to help you compare the effects of different types of climate friendly efforts. Provided below is part 1 of this section - and some of the numbers will have to be added tomorrow (part 2).

Experts say a country like Norway has to spend 2% of gross domestic product (GDP) each year on efforts to limit/reduce green house gas (GHG) emissions. (Some even say 3%). For Norway spesifically this means approximately 10billion USD a year or 2.500 USD per person per year. To me this sounds like very high numbers - just think for a moment how much you could do in a house (with 5 people) for 12.500 USD/year.

When they see the amount of CO2 emissions saved in a JAHUS project, the governments should at least use some of the 12.500 USD per person to provide cheap loans for JAHUS-type projects (like in France) and make the JAHUS-type products taxfree. I'll get to that tomorrow when I compare the cost of different efforts for saving a ton of CO2 emissions.

I'll start by estimating the savings as a result of our JAHUS project. Last year we spent more on electricity than the average house of our size - but I'll use the standard number 200 KWh/square meter per year (for houses older than 10 years). After the JAHUS project we expect the house to meet the "low energy house" standard which means we're down to 100 KWh/sq meters per year - or a delta of 100KWh/sqm*300sq.meters= 30.000 KWh/year

How do we "translate" this to amounts of CO2 emissions? The norwegian authorities confirm that if we assume there is enough capacity to transfer excess clean electricity from Norway to the continent - then 1 KWh saved here means 1 KWH less of the most dirty electricity on the continent. 1 KWh produced on coal generates 1 kg of CO2. The savings in our house is expected to result in savings of 30 tons of CO2 per year !

If the total cost of the project should end up at a total of 60.000 USD and we expect it to last at least 10 years => 30tons * 10 years / 60.000 USD = 5 kg CO2/USD. This is the cost before we deduct the savings on the electricity bill. A fairly accurate estimate of the price for electricity on the European continent is 0,2USD per KWh and hence 30.000 KWh per year => 6000 USD per year. Multiply this with 10 years and you get .....yes, 60.000 USD (the price of the project).
Saving 30 tons of CO2 per year, getting better indoor climate and the electricity savings pay for "the party"? Sound like a "no-brainer" to me....

The CO2 effects and cost of other efforts we could do will be presented tomorrow.

• introduce 3 meat-free days a week
• bike to work and leave the car at home
• drop the yearly vacation trip to sunny Spain (by air)
• limit showers to 5 minutes
• drop temperature inside by 1C

How many of these efforts would you have to do to match the effect of a JAHUS project? Join me tomorrow :-)