Superinsulating Aerogels Arrive on Home Insulation Market At Last

this could lead to huge efficiencies in heating and cooling costs for homes and could be applied to other applications like automotive and electronics.

Someone should figure out the cost savings in energy that could be gained from adopting these materials.

Interesting story, but I would have appreciated some numbers. How much better an insulator? What's the ratio? etc.

@MegaWordMan Read the first paragraph. It says "and an insulator four times more efficient than fiberglass or foam"

I doubt the house would get too hot just from a candle. Firstly, you assume that there are people living in this home. Unless they're all reclusive JD Salinger type hermits who never leave the house (from what I've heard), then walking in and out of the house will introduce cooler air which will keep the temperature in check.

After 70 years of being so expensive, how and why did the price drop so dramatically to make it reasonably affordable now? In the article, it says "recent production advances"...care to elaborate?

agreed, we need elaboration. This is pretty cool but I'd rather have the picture of an aerogel that has a blow torch under it and some unmelted crayons on top.

SEE VIDEO AND EXTENDED ARTICLE:
CLICK ON "AEROGEL INSULATION IS NOW AVAILABLE .." ABOVE.

This material can be shaped in to birth control if it’s cheap enough. Let me explain.

In the industrialized world we have energy and machines to do most of the labor, but in the third world, women labor to have children to do the same work. If you cannot buy or produce a tractor then you produce a child instead. Most of the energy lost in the world can be saved by cheap insulation. This would double the capacity of power plants, and half expense for third world countries to lift themselves out of poverty, and hi infant mortality.

Since this product is probably not cheap enough for birth control. Then its best application is an insulating paint for water pipes for efficient sparing use of expensive materials.

Perhaps the least expensive and most immediate energy saving use for these devices in almost every home is for your water heating tank and refrigerater/freezer.

You might not even need to buy a new water heater to take advantage of this. You just wrap the water heater you have with the stuff and some of the pipes leading out of the heater. To minimize that though, it would probabably be best to design water heaters with valves at their outlet so their isn't hot water in the pipes conducting heat out of the tank when the water isn't being used.

I expect that this might make solar water heating less expensive as well. Then we can stop burning natural gas and the more expensive electricity to heat our water.

If we were smart, (which we aren't) the wise thing to do with this technology in insulating homes is to design homes with this insulator to last for centuries (as some European buildings have) with the insulator designed or encased to last that long as well. This would make up for their energy intensive production requirements.

Wow, amazing. I was wondering if this would ever come about.

Jerr
www.internet-anonymity.se.tc

I've actually seen some product that looks like what's in the picture. I've also seen the price list.

1) It is still not affordable.
2) It's a hybrid product of aerogel and other materials. The other materials reduce the aerogel's insulating efficiency substantially. In the end, this product isn't much better than a good quality urethane spray foam. R-10/inch for the aerogel blanket, R-7/inch for foam.

The product really isn't ready for prime time, yet. The other issues are construction detailing - how do you install it? Particularly around windows/doors and other openings.

now we need a snuggie made of aerogel and we'll be set...

This makes no sense. It implies that I only need **four** candles to heat a one or two bedroom house with regular insulation, and it would get too hot? That's silly.

Actually, it just said that the insulator is "four times more efficient" that does not mean that it will take four times less heat to complete a task. The equations are most likely parabolic or limits approaching zero in nature so that it takes significantly less (or more) energy to complete a task as efficiency improves (or degrades).

I think that this break through in production looks promising, but time will tell if these materials become mainstreamed (Hopefully!!!)

Another insulation I read about was rice husks .

wow. having just installed some insulation, I could definitely see the use of this. XPS is kind of expensive, I wonder how this would compare.

Beecher Bowers
www.beecherbowers.com

I seriously doubt this will make even a tiny dent in our home energy consumption.

The article claims it's 4 times as efficient as fiberglass or foam. Nonsense. Laboratory aerogels have achieved insulation values of almost R-50 per inch, but practical ones have a real-world value of R-10 or so. Compare that to R-4 for fiberglass/cellulose and R-7 for the best sprayed polyurethane foams.

I bet the price difference between it and conventional insulation is huge. 50% better performance for 5 times the cost? No Thanks!