drneuter

Many people (myself included) have been making the switch from incandescent bulbs to compact flourescent bulbs due to their energy savings of around $0.50US per month. They use about 13W of power when compared to a 60W IB, and much of this is due to the fact that they waste very little energy in the form of radiated heat. This brings me to the question:

Which type of bulb is overall more efficient in the winter when houses are trying to fight the cold with furnaces and heat pumps? If IBs produce heat, is this done at a cheaper or more expensive rate than furnaces or heat pumps, making it worthwhile to swap out CFBs for IBs in the colder months?

Please, only answer if you know something about this field.

One gallon of gasoline contains roughly 130MJ/gallon. Based on this, what would be the industry average estimates for percent of energy efficiency of automobiles by type (sedan, truck, SUV, compact, etc.)? I'm sure these values vary greatly by vehicle make as well.

I would believe that there is potential for huge improvements (orders of magnitude) in efficiency based on how so much energy is lost in the forms of heat, noise, vibrations, etc. Hybrid synergy drives already help some by converting kinetic energy into electrical potential energy, doubling fuel efficiency in some cases. Perhaps some of the heat can boil water to work like a locomotive engine, adding more power. The expansion of water could also assist in air conditioning with virtually no excess energy use. There are so many possible ways for improvements, which brings me back to the question of just how efficient the internal combustion drive is by itself.

Please, only answer if you have knowledge of this field.

The following been happening as long as I remember: In the master bedroom of my house, clocks are all losing time. Those near the walls are lose about 5min/month, and those closer to the center of the room lose around 8min/month, from what we see. The type of clock doesn't matter: analog, digital, electric, pulley-powered, wristwatch - we've tried them all. It's a pain having to reset them every week or so! Nothing like this happens just outside the room or anywhere else in the house.

We've taken a compass and a dangling bar magnet into the room on different occasions to check for magnetic field abnormalities, and nothing strange shows up. An electrician found no crossed or badly-grounded wires in the walls, ceiling, and floor. We even went on a limb and got someone from the science department at the local university to bring in a Geiger counter with no results of interest.

Does anybody have an (intelligent) idea what could be happening and how to solve it without moving?