Buildings — Capturing furnace emissions - Technology Org:
Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers have developed a novel solution to reduce the environmental impact of natural gas-condensing furnaces commonly used in U.S. homes. The team built a prototype furnace that incorporates monolithic acidic gas reduction, or AGR, as the catalyst to minimize acidic gases and condensate acidity, and oxidize carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons and methane.
In a demonstration, researchers conducted a 400-hour reliability and durability test and proved that AGR, made of titanium dioxide, copper oxide and minor platinum, removed more than 99.9% of the acidic gas products produced during combustion. It trapped and removed sulfur oxides and reduced additional emissions.
[...] ORNL's Zhiming Gao said [...] "This technology could be applied to commercial rooftop units, thermally driven heat pumps, gas-fired water heaters and boilers."
Journal Reference:
Zhiming Gao, Kyle Gluesenkamp, Anthony Gehl. et al.
Ultra-clean condensing gas furnace enabled with acidic gas reduction, Energy
Volume 243, 15 March 2022, 123068 (DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2021.123068)
(Score: 4, Funny) by Corelli's A on Friday March 04 2022, @02:30PM (4 children)
A catalytic converter for furnaces. I look forward to having a persistent P0420 code and meth-heads breaking in to saw it out.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 04 2022, @02:52PM (2 children)
You won't need to worry about being mandated to buy one, since the Democrat's aren't going to get re-elected.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 04 2022, @06:35PM
That's OK. The unelected bureaucracies will create "rules" out of thin air on their own with the force of law behind them. Then, the affected parties can spend years fighting the bureaucracies in court over it. The govt bypasses the legislative process with its pesky democratic control and rules instead by fiat with the judicial system being the only democratic control, only slower, more expensive, and with unpredictable outcomes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 05 2022, @03:18AM
Why? You guys going all in for Putin again? He's having a bit of a PR problem at the moment, so don't be so sure. But Tucker and the boys are hard at work fixing his image, so who knows?
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday March 04 2022, @04:36PM
Probably easier to take my TV. The reason they grab your catalytic converter is because it's already sitting outside.
(Score: 3, Funny) by looorg on Friday March 04 2022, @03:28PM (17 children)
Natural gases in US homes? Just how much beans do you guys eat?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Friday March 04 2022, @04:59PM (1 child)
Which knucklehead moderated Looorg's question as troll? The proper response would have been a witty dig back at him, not this. Geeez, Louise!
Harden the fuck up, America! [youtube.com]
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 04 2022, @10:15PM
We shoulda Spam modded the sucka! Fart jokes have no place on SoylentNews! We already have a flatulent asshole.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by ElizabethGreene on Friday March 04 2022, @05:22PM (14 children)
I had natural gas in a prior home, and it was nice to have. I like the redundancy of having a couple of different power sources.
With the caveat that I'm ignorant on the topic, I think there are some efficiency arguments too. E.g. Hot water heaters, cooking ranges, and ovens. I feel (and willing to accept evidence to the contrary) that it's more efficient to burn natural gas in my home to heat water or food than to burn natural gas to heat water in a steam boiler at the power plant, drive a turbine generator with that steam, transfer that power across miles of cable, and then use that electricity for resistive heating. The only area where electricity wins out is if you get your electricity from non-hydrocarbon sources or for heat pumps. Even for heat pumps, gas makes more sense than electric strip heaters for supplemental heating.
All I can get where I live now is electricity. That's not entirely true, I could get a large propane tank and have it filled. That doesn't have the same convenience of natural gas or electricity "on tap" obvs. That's worth thinking about; I'm going to need a new hot water heater soon.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 04 2022, @05:34PM
Nothing beats gas for heat. Instant on, very warm. Cooks very evenly on the stovetop too.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Friday March 04 2022, @05:50PM (4 children)
Given a reasonably recent furnace, it's much more efficient. As long as the power plants are burning coal or gas, a gas furnace makes sense economically and environmentally.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 04 2022, @07:22PM (3 children)
> Given a reasonably recent furnace, it's much more efficient.
Yes, the low natural gas bills are nice. However the total cost of ownership, in my recent experience, is not good. The new Navien condensing boiler (hot water heat) installed 2+ years ago has already needed several service calls. First time it wouldn't fire up it was the ignitor--the wires extend a couple of inches into the flame (from a ceramic base) and they sagged to the point that the spark coil was no longer able to make a spark that would jump the gap. Next, the mixture was wrong and most recently it scaled up and needed to be de-scaled (special liquid cleaner pumped through the heat exchanger).
Each service call is $150 and up, easily the cost of a month's worth of natural gas in the winter here. According to the heating contractor who installed it (who I like, have used for years), I should plan on an annual service every fall.
I replaced one ignitor on my own, it looks like this will be a yearly requirement. I tried bending the wires back into position but they snapped--very brittle material. The next one that sags I'm going to try and "sag" back the other way--turn upside down and carefully heat with my oxy-acetelene welding torch. Otherwise, it's an extra USD $20/year, for the life of the boiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 04 2022, @07:40PM
I, on the other hand, have had no problems whatsoever.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Friday March 04 2022, @10:52PM
I haven't had any such problems with the forced air furnace here. The most intensive service was running an emery cloth over a flame sensor once. It hadn't failed at that point, I just noticed that sometimes it would abort a heating cycle and have to re-try.
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Saturday March 05 2022, @12:18AM
That's an interesting data point; Thanks for sharing it. The furnace in our old house required zero maintenance, other than filter changes, for the ~10 years we owned it. I always expected I'd get a call on it eventually, but never did.
It's quite reasonable to assume that a Furnace in Tennessee gets far less use than our more northern comrades.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 04 2022, @06:39PM (1 child)
It is shamefully wasteful to take electricity (a precision product) that was produced from heat at fair cost, resources, and complexity to just turn it back into simple heat again at the end. Ever seen a Rube Goldberg machine? That's what turning electricity into heat is.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 05 2022, @02:41PM
Not if you use clean coal to generate the heat.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday March 04 2022, @08:56PM (5 children)
You're intuition is correct that the fewer energy conversions required (gas->heat versus gas->electricity->heat), the more efficient the system is likely to be, assuming all components are well-maintained of course, because no conversion is 100% efficient.
In my experience, and in the opinion of a buddy who does HVAC for a living, much more important than what you're using to heat the building is how well you're insulating it, because that (and to some degree thermal mass) determines how much your heating system needs to produce to maintain a reasonably comfortable inside temperature. I spent about $700 and a bunch of time re-insulating the attic of my old house to bring it up to local code, and it saved me something like $1200 in fuel my first year and every year since. Your windows are also worth a check, especially if you're feeling any drafts near them.
And really the most efficient method I can think of for heating a building is passive solar. A few well-placed windows or skylights can make about a 5 degree Farenheit difference.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Saturday March 05 2022, @12:32AM (4 children)
I read a great deal on passive solar design as a teen, but the techniques don't lend themselves well to remodeling and I've never scratch built a home. It's definitely an area where we can make massive improvements. I've seen how much fiberglass batting compresses after it's installed, and I don't understand why spray foam insulation hasn't replaced it as an industry standard.
Changing topics, I'm replacing two end-of-life single-digit SEER units with, hopefully, a single geothermal heat pump this and a couple of air handlers. Any advice, warnings, or opinions would be welcome.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 05 2022, @03:51AM (1 child)
> geothermal heat pump
Lucky you. I think you mean ground sourced heat pump? Geothermal (iirc) means going down into really hot rocks, maybe a mile or two deep?
My house is on limestone bedrock (lawn around the house averages about 6" of soil). The frost line here (Great Lakes area) is at least 4 feet deep, that is a lot of rock drilling to bury pipes for a ground source heat pump.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 05 2022, @04:34AM
You don't have to go down very far to hit consistent temperatures. Anything 10 feet / 3 meters or more deep has you covered in most areas if you are doing a horizontal system. For a vertical system, they are not likely to drill more than four to five hundred feet or so because you are well past the zone where temperatures are consistent and you have plenty of surface area for a ton of cooling and heating.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 05 2022, @04:02AM
re: passive solar design
I took a great solar energy class in college, in the late 1970s. To make passive solar work (at least at that time) took a full system design. Windows had to be very high performance (4 layer) and/or have insulated shades, windows had to mostly face South (or SE to get some early morning sun), rest of the house needed to be superinsulated, with a heat exchanger to save heat on ventilation air. And then there was the question of how much heat storage was worth paying for--more storage will get you through more cloudy days, but more heat storage usually means less floor area available for the occupants.
The same prof was part of the design team for this building, https://libguides.mit.edu/c.php?g=175920&p=1160874 [mit.edu] There is a technical paper with lots of details, but my google-fu failed tonight (I've seen the paper in the past).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 05 2022, @04:26AM
There is a lot that can go into designing a geothermal system. But one thing to keep in mind is that the sales person is there to sell to you on the most money. Whatever they think will get the most money is what they will recommend in the end. Therefore, you should get plenty of quotes and double check what they tell you with other companies.
The most common thing I've seen about this is recommending vertical versus horizontal systems. What of your FOUR main geothermal options, or one of the hybrid options, or one of the dual-source options is best for your home is dependent on a large number of factors. If they don't even check them for your particular site, you are probably on a ride. There is no common answer that is best for all and your best option can be different than your neighbor's best option.
Since you are doing a major HVAC overhaul, you may want to consider variable fan systems, water heating, HRVs, and duct sealing to be done at the same time for much less cost or even thrown in for free.
(Score: 3, Informative) by captain normal on Friday March 04 2022, @04:39PM (2 children)
TFA and the ORNL link is pretty scarce on information on this. As a former facilities tech I would be interested in some details.
The Musk/Trump interview appears to have been hacked, but not a DDOS hack...more like A Distributed Denial of Reality.
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Friday March 04 2022, @05:05PM (1 child)
Me too. I'll be watching for service life and (I don't have a word for this) "sunk cost/chemistry"* data. "Clean Coal" research overpromised and underdelivered repeatedly in this area so I'm a little pessimistic on top of my natural skepticism.
* Sunk cost/chemistry - If it would cost more money to build/install/maintain the widget or if manufacturing the widget creates more pollution than it removes**.
** If someone could suggest a good word to encapsulate this concept, I'd be grateful.
(Score: 4, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Friday March 04 2022, @05:14PM
Lifecycle Analysis (or Assessment) [sciencedirect.com]