Earth Notes: The Earth Notes Podcast @Home

The podcast started in June 2019. The first two episodes were created to support a local naturalist who leads guided walks around our local council housing estate.

Episodes are typically:

• 'snackable' at just a few minutes long
• on a green, or energy efficiency, or energy data topic
• based at home

Some episodes are a little more tangental, such as listening to the temperature of your radiators for a whole year in one second.

Some episodes are longer. Watch out for video too!

There are also ambient episodes with little or no commentary.

Episodes

51 episodes, newest first:

• 2022-08-11 Six Minutes of Med-ness 7 min
• 2022-07-04 TTK AGM Overview (2022) 7 min
• 2022-06-06 Statscast - Energy Storage Stats Special (2022-05) 8 min
• 2022-05-22 16WW House Suburban Sparrows Ambient (2022-05) 11 min
• 2022-05-08 Hanwell Hootie Ambient (2022-05) 11 min
• 2021-12-29 Diarycast - End of Year Roundup (2021-12-28) 3 min
• 2021-11-14 Diarycast - June to November Roundup (2021-11-14) 6 min
• 2021-09-08 English River August Ambient (2021-08) 11 min
• 2021-09-05 Microbrewery Ambient (2021-09) 11 min
• 2021-08-28 Direycast - I'm All Right Jack (2021-08-28) 4 min
• 2021-08-22 On Being a Hardware Developer (2021-07-30) 12 min
• 2021-08-01 Herne Bay Ambient (2021-07) 24 min
• 2021-06-27 Wren Loud and Bold Ambient (2021-06) 2 min
• 2021-06-14 Diarycast - March Warm, April Snow, June Xmas (2021-06-14) 3 min
• 2021-03-21 Diarycast - Smoke and Snow to Census Jab (2021-03-21) 4 min
• 2021-02-07 Soundscape - Going Postal in Audio 21 min
• 2021-01-14 Diarycast - Interview Snippets (2021-01-14) 4 min
• 2020-12-31 Statscast - Load Profile (2020-12) 4 min
• 2020-12-22 Soundscape - Solstice Exercise Mile Walk 20 min
• 2020-12-21 Diarycast - Solstice Lockdown Edition (2020-12-21) 8 min
• 2020-11-13 VIDEO Smart Radiator Valves - EcoHome Lab (2020-11-12) 17 min
• 2020-10-10 Statscast - Baselines and Bats (2020-09) 9 min
• 2020-09-26 Weymouth Ambient (2020-08) 22 min
• 2020-09-25 Diarycast - Summer Catch-up (2020-09-25) 5 min
• 2020-09-21 Soundwalk - an hour on the Cambridge Road Estate (2020-09-12) 61 min
• 2020-09-18 Bats Around our Home aka 16WW 38 min
• 2020-07-26 Diarycast - Conscious Uncouping - Travel (2020-07-26) 9 min
• 2020-07-12 Diarycast - Conscious Uncouping (2020-07-12) 7 min
• 2020-07-05 Statscast - Normal-ish June, Heating Re-viewed (2020-06) 9 min
• 2020-06-10 Statscast - Lockdown Changes, Log Noises (2020-05) 11 min
• 2020-05-23 Diarycast - Urban Dawn Chorus (2020-05-23) 24 min
• 2020-05-13 Diarycast - Ambient Sound of a Graveyard (2020-05-13) 11 min
• 2020-05-10 Diarycast - Lockdown Patently Workable (2020-05-10) 4 min
• 2020-05-03 Statscast - PV Up, Travel Down, Weakly Weeklies (2020-04) 11 min
• 2020-04-22 Diarycast - Blue Skies PV High (2020-04-22) 3 min
• 2020-04-19 Metacast 2: Podcast Specs and Workflow (2020-04) 5 min
• 2020-04-13 Diarycast - Lockdown Lawnmowing Sadly Allowed (2020-04-13) 3 min
• 2020-04-10 Metacast 1: Blue Yeti, Shy Eurasian Footwear (2020-04) 4 min
• 2020-03-21 A Short Coronacast for March 2020 2 min
• 2019-12-30 Sign-off for 2019, Hello 2020! 7 min
• 2019-11-09 VIDEO OpenTRV Movie Mashup 1: Video Out-takes and The Rest! 2 min
• 2019-10-29 Water Music: How Does Tap-water Temperature Sound in Time-lapse? 5 min
• 2019-10-28 The Green Existence of Adam Hart-Davis 6 min
• 2019-10-19 PV Sounds: How Does PV Grid-tie Generation Sound in Time-lapse? 3 min
• 2019-10-13 Battery Sounds: How Does a Battery Sound in Time-lapse? 3 min
• 2019-10-12 Rad Sounds II: Attempting a Higher-fi Home-heating Time-lapse 3 min
• 2019-09-22 Greener Travel: Why We Should Cut Car-bon Miles 4 min
• 2019-09-15 Rad Sounds: How Cool is your Home Heating in Time-lapse? 3 min
• 2019-08-28 Aircon On, Windows Open! (2019-08) 3 min
• 2019-06-21 About Our Greenish Home aka 16WW, with Bonus Bats and Sparrows 4 min
• 2019-06-15 Solar Panels in My Garden 2 min

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Plans

Here are some vague plans for future episodes. Don't hold your breath!

• Diary of EOU HQ and notable events/stats...
  • 2022-08-07: had a pleasant piece of apple from our tree; there have already been quite a few edible apples this year.
  • 2022-08-02: the levelised cost of energy (LCOE) from renewables plus storage in South Korea and China is well below the cost of gas-fired power. For 16WW with 5.29kWp of PV, utility/LCOE ratios imply storage of ~2.6kW/10.6kWh vs the ~1kW/5kWh actually installed.
  • 2022-07-21: it's not a huge shock to see that during this very hot period we're using less DHW than usual at ~3kWh/d vs a more typical ~4kWh/d.
  • 2022-07-19: starting the day (~7am BST) at ~26°C (last night may have been the warmest ever in the UK) makes purging heat from the house hard, and the day is likely to peak outside at ~37°C again, and so warmer inside than yesterday. A bit grim for a workday. Not long after solar noon (12:54Z) and the porch sensor is reporting 37°C and the BBC forecast 38°C for here (risen to 39°C by ~13:30Z) and Heathrow just exceeded 40°C. Temps in the house peaked ~8:30pm (BST) at ~31°C upstairs, and a couple of degrees cooler downstairs. There was even a little rain with thunder!
  • 2022-07-18: difficult to sleep (~25°C upstairs) so awake at ~2am (BST) and opened front and back doors for ~1h to cool house while ~18°C outside. Went for walk at ~7am (BST) when 'only' ~21°C to avoid forecast 39°C later. Doors and windows shut at ~11am (BST) with temps outside ~29°C already. Peak outside air temp was ~37°C.
  • 2022-07-15: as of 1pm BST 40°C is forecast for Monday (18th) and 37°C for Tuesday; good job that this climate change thing is all a big hoax... (Met Office issues first red extreme heat warning.)
  • 2022-07-10: Just trying my first cold brew coffee - a mere 3h at room temperature while I went for a walk etc and forgot about it! Tastes good.
  • 2022-07-06: there is a suggestion that a mini-fast is good for you, and stopping eating 3h+ before bedtime also helps the gut switch to repair mode during sleep; so it also means that I should stop snacking by the time I feel comfortable running electrical appliances after the evening peak!
  • 2022-06-21: the longest day of the year allows me to run the dishwasher after supper ~6pm without needing to draw from the grid (1kW of battery support + over 1kW PV generation still).
  • 2022-06-20: Just participated in a study (ACU-VENT) about sound perception in mechanically and naturally ventilated dwellings in the London area. Interesting!: call for volunteers. I filled in a survey while sound levels were measured in the living room and outside, with off-set contributions from planes from LHR, dogs barking, parakeets and jackdaws...
  • 2022-05-22: put together a sparrow medly.
  • 2022-05-07: visited the Hanwell Hootie!
  • 2022-05-06: the heat battery reduced our gas demand in April to well under 0.5kWh/d; we then seem to have snuck through a few dull days at the start of May without much higher gas use.
  • 2022-04-30: created uniform, standardised-format energy series dataset, with different sources for the same data visible side-by-side and at multiple granularities.
  • 2022-04-20: sitting in the kitchen having lunch, listening to my @myenergiuk eddi clicking off (stopping diverting) when grid frequency drops < 49.9Hz! Hurrah!
  • 2022-03-28: my cemetery walk was sweet-smelling with white candelabra racemes of laurel!
  • 2022-03-26: it's been a sunny week, with the Thermino almost eliminating gas use. Today two showers and a bath were supplied and the Thermino nearly full up again by about 4pm having absorbed over 9kWh.
  • 2022-03-09: the Sunamp Thermino was installed today, by ~4pm.
  • 2022-03-08: to further trim gas use I have turned off the central heating entirely this evening just into the final 'on' period (8pm), with the intention of leaving it off, ie stopping our heating season here, unless things get very cold.
  • 2022-02-26: a pleasant sunny day, the off-grid battery hit FULL and the Enphase grid-coupled battery hit 100% too, and ~4kWh has been exported most of which in future would be in the heat battery possibly destined for my bath.
  • 2022-02-22: preparing for Thermino install, we are getting rid of the grill (George Foreman Dual Knockout No 10387) that I think was the first purchase through our new virtual credit-card system at Ixaris for ~£100 at Amazon! We haven't used it for years, one half no longer works, but it went quickly on Freegle/Freecycle...
  • 2022-02-20: a walk round the cemetery in the afternoon (with a rather milder Met Office yellow warning of wind) revealed quite a lot of tree (and fencing) damage: a large Cypress smashed into pieces for example.
  • 2022-02-18: today's predicted terrifying storm Eunice as of just before 8am and on the live forecast in the next hour nominal 62mph winds, is barely windy. A couple of hours later into the 'red warning' phase and for some hours, became more gusty, but still not damaging, at EOU HQ.
  • 2022-02-13: because the central heating radiator circuit pressure keeps dropping to 0 (and rising sharply, so I fear a problem with expansion vessel and/or overpressure relief valve) and the boiler is making unhappy noises at low pressure, I have turned the flow tmperature down to minimum (~30°C) to see if that stresses the system less.
  • 2022-02-12: the house basically imported nothing from the grid today and exported ~1kW; the Enphase started the day nearly 50% full and will end nearly 90% full with 6.7kWh generated.
  • 2022-02-01: the sparrows are keeping up their racket outside my study window in the Pyrocanthus!
  • 2022-01-31: it's noon and I'm at least briefly running my MBA off-grid, and the off-grid system is dumping too, so taking ~30W load away leaving ~200W to spill to grid from ~1200W generation. The Enphase AC Batteries claim to be charging ~900W, maybe below the nominal maximum because it's chilly (~7°C).
  • 2022-01-30: off-grid battery hit FULL today for the first time since 2021-10-31, ie in about 3 months!
  • 2022-01-30: set up basic heat-battery top-up control script and logging.
  • 2022-01-29: Myenergi Eddi+Hub arrived today, ahead of schedule; very preliminary check-over, and set-up of hub.
  • 2022-01-28: Fame! To quote @EarthOrgUK just now, who concisely summarized our paper: "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence (especially if one eye is closed and one ear covered)." We opened both eyes and found clear evidence for the obvious answer: nuclear power DOES reduce CO2 emissions.
  • 2022-01-28: Myenergi eddi and hub now on their way for heat battery setup; I'm hoping to have programmed everything fairly thoroughly long before the sparks gets involved!
  • 2022-01-22: in a thread on Twitter I mused FWIW I don't put any of my qualifications (or even "Mr"!) on my business cards etc. And even if I finally go for a PhD and achieve it, I won't be using "Dr" much. Objective qualifications are important but not the whole story: mediocre people collect and hide behind them...
  • 2022-01-17: Energy Digitalisation Taskforce publishes recommendations for a digitalised Net Zero energy system: I contributed to the open data element of this in the Before Times.
  • 2022-01-16: my MacBook Air is offering me an upgrade to Monterey even though I think it's too old (MacBookAir6,2 ~2013?) ... and when I click on the offer and get to Software Update I am told that I'm up to date at 11.6.2.
  • 2022-01-11: installed the at command so that I could at noon something I want to run when the sun has been out for a bit tomorrow. I used to use at all the time, eg at uni, but probably haven't for a decade or two since it wasn't installed by default. But it only took a apt-get install at and abut 30 seconds to bring it all back!
  • 2022-01-08: into part 2 of Daniel Dennett's "From Bacteria to Bach and Back" 2017...
  • 2022-01-05: first decent few hours of sunshine in nearly a month, with horribly low off-grid battery managing to soak up over 360Wh cf ~50Wh on previous days.
  • 2022-01-01: warm and sunny enough (>14°C) for us to have washing drying on the line in the garden, while I pored over end-of-month and end-of-year data capture and processing!

More

You may be interested in nitty-gritty tech updates and daily learnings while keeping the Earth Notes site up and running.

Some documentation of my set-up and workflow is in episode "Metacast 2".

See also Podcast Industry Statistics, updated daily.

Some anecdotes.