[Graeme]

Before Adding, Try Reducing

The U.S. government is committing billions of dollars to support renewable energy such as wind- and solar-power plants. Some say it should use more of that financial clout to encourage less energy consumption in the first place.

Advocates of conservation, including businesses that help homeowners and companies save energy, think there should be more subsidies and tax incentives for basics like insulation and window shading, and for newer, more costly products like light-emitting-diode lamps and building-automation systems. LEDs cost more but use less energy than incandescent bulbs. The new automation systems help buildings waste less energy on cooling, heating and lighting.

wsj

[Graeme]

Mods, Please move this to Conservation and Efficiency Forum. Thanks

[Narz]

But "the American way of life is non-negotiable"!

[TreeFarmer]

I am going to agree with this one. We should do more to construct office buildings and houses that use less energy from the beginning. One important aspect of such construction is that these buildings never require a large amount of energy during their lifetimes. Therefore, if solar panels improve, and I expect they will I just don't know how much, such a building might be easily made self-sufficient in the future.

I recently watched a presentation by Avory Lovins (I hope I have that right). His passive solar house in Aspen CO at 2200 meters evelation does not have a heater! If I had known as much about passive solar construction as I do now the house I built 5 yeras ago would be much different!

We just spent ~8 years on a housing bubble buiding houses using technologies and construction methods that are way out of date. How much do you want to bet that those huge empty subdivisions would be empty if the houses only required a very minimal amount of electricity? People would be abandoning the older housing to get into them like crazy. This to me is one of the biggest disappointments of the housing bubble, we built out-of-date housing.

TF

[vision-master]

The Hennepin County Public Works building in Medina has a new $900,000 set of solar panels. Instead of being truly green, they're just another line item in the red for taxpayers. They're advertised to save only $15,000 per year in energy costs. So, by a simple value estimate, they should pay for themselves in 60 years, by about 2070. This is a Math Problem.

[TreeFarmer]

Good example.

If they would have put that 900k into better insulation, windows, lighting, and all around better design think about what they could have gotten!

This is what the original post is about and what I agree with totally.

TF

[Narz]

I read this article today in the print Wall St. Jounral on a bus from NY to NJ. It's amazing how different an experience of reading the paper vs. reading online is.

[WisJim]

The basic rule of thumb that I tell people when they ask me about installing a solar or wind electric system is that "each dollar spent on reducing energy consumption will reduce the cost of the renewable energy system by $3 to $5).


(I think that the Hennepin county PV installation farce has been mentioned in another thread here, hasn't it?)

[yesplease]

The article seems to be missing the point of subsidies for wind/solar. Encouraging young industries. Most of the industries involved in conservation and their materials are already mature, so government incentives that encourage growth won't drive prices down. Comparing LEDs to incandescents when CFLs are the cheapest per lumen, and failing to mentioned that $4500 worth of new appliances are entitled to the 30% tax credit, seems to be pretty disingenuous too. Considering the credit lasts until 2016, it seems like a pretty good deal to me. Replace some bulbs/appliances one year. More insulation the next year, and so on.

[VMarcHart]

...each dollar spent on reducing energy consumption will reduce the cost of the renewable energy system by $3 to $5.

I'm unable to understand how your math works, but despite being a renewable energy developer, I too am more for reducing energy consumption than adding more capacity to meet increased demand.