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Subject: Re: [worldcruising] Re: Watermaker
From: Lew Hodgett (lewhodgett@XXX.XXX)
Date: Mon Sep 18 2000 - 19:51:14 EDT
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Tom O'Meara writes:
>Ah, but Lew... you are only considering diesel charging, at least in
>the
>above. That is being overtaken by solar technology pretty quickly.
The diesel charging example was used since that was one of the
considerations of your example.
Again, regardless of the replacement energy system chosen, "There ain't
no free lunch".
More years ago than I will admit, took a class in fluid mechanics as an
undergraduate engineering student.
We were given a project. Design a water delivery system to deliver water
to a city.
The water source distance from the city was given along with a map of the
topography of the area.
The cost of laying pipe on a per mile basis was given, along with the
cost of a pump, how many feet of head the pump could produce, and the
cost to operate the pump on an annual basis were given.
The challenge was to design the lowest cost water delivery system over a
about a 30 year period.
Pretty basic engineering problem.
Some designs used the minimum amount of pipe, which was very expensive,
because it had to be laid under ground, but required lots of pumps, which
were basically very low cost. The result was low initial cost system.
Other designs used more pipe, but very few pumps. The result was a very
high initial cost system.
I'll digress for a moment. That topography map revealed lots of hills
between the water source and the city. Lots of ups and downs, thus there
were several ways to approach the problem.
Next was the matter of Total Cost Of Ownership.
IMHO, it is the only consideration that has any merit in the evaluation
process.
First there was the initial investment.
Next were interest charges, or as I prefer to call them, "The Time Cost
of Money".
High initial cost meant higher interest charges.
Next to be considered were the operating costs.
Pipe had very low maintenance costs.
Pumps were more expensive to maintain.
Pipe had no associated operating (energy) costs.
Pumps had an operating (energy) cost, but it was small, or so we thought.
REMEMBER ONE PENNY PER KILOWATT HOUR POWER COST?
That was the number as I recall it.
What do you pay today, $0.12-$0.15/KWH, if you are lucky?
The bottom line..............................
30 years of power and maintenance costs of a single pump paid for a whole
lot of installed pipe and the associated interest costs.
That project taught me some lessons I have never forgotten.
High initial cost is not necessarily bad.
Operating costs can and will eat you alive if you are not careful.
Total cost of ownership is never to be forgotten. As Emeril would say,
"It Rules, Baby".
Made a very comfortable living over the years selling the high cost,
energy efficient product offering vs: my competitors low cost,
inefficient product offering.
High efficiency products will win hands down, every time, if usage is a
factor, because simply put, it is the lowest cost solution.
The only way for low cost inefficient devices to win is to never turn
them on.
It's one of the basic reasons high efficiency product manufacturers can
charge what appear to be very high prices is because everybody wins. The
manufacturer, the distributor and the end user all benefit from the
process of the creation and delivery of better devices.
Lew
S/A: Challenge (The hull is turned in the Southland)
Visit <http://home.earthlink.net/~lewhodgett> for pictures
There are no problems, only varying degrees of challenging opportunity.
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