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Winks
Feb 16, 2009

Alright, who let Rube Goldberg in here?
There's also no real impetus to somehow force it, it will happen naturally as old things break.

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Narbo
Feb 6, 2007
broomhead

Yeti Fiasco posted:

I'm pretty sure I mentioned that efficiency is awesome, but not saving grace that will somehow make the world better.

Despite all these advancements in efficient electronics, the US energy production increases each year to fit demand because they're simply using more of it, even with all their super energy saving kitchen appliances.



No doubt that chart would be much higher if we still had horribly inefficient appliances, but it would still be the same shape.

If you want to actually do something constructive, you've got to figure out how to take that big red chunk sitting in the middle and get rid of it, being efficient takes a small bit away and that's good, but you can only be so efficient, after that you have to look at how to replace it, because we can't live without it, we're just too reliant on an energy rich society.

edit: also, all that saved energy is probably taken away from renewable, since renewable energy is so drat expensive and has to be bought at a subsidized rate.

You'll find that while electricity production increases fairly steadily in the US, per capita electricity use has started to reverse it's upward trend over the past few years. This is at least partly attributable to large scale demand-side management programs in places like California, Vermont and other north-eastern states.

It's a little strange for you to argue that it would be phenomenally easier to build carbon neutral nuclear energy than implement DSM programs when 1) DSM programs are without question the cheapest form of energy "production" and 2) they already exist on a large scale and generally have very good customer satisfaction and approval ratings.

Narbo
Feb 6, 2007
broomhead

Yeti Fiasco posted:

edit: also, all that saved energy is probably taken away from renewable, since renewable energy is so drat expensive and has to be bought at a subsidized rate.

This is usually not the case. The secondary goal with most DSM programs is to delay the need to construct a new baseload plant, there's really very little about demand-smoothing that would prevent the business case for renewables like wind and solar from improving.

One situation where you could argue that implementing efficiency programs does negatively affect the adoption of renewables is when you have an unforeseen large removal of an anchor customer from the grid (like when a large factory that takes 10-15% of the load for a particular utility shuts down unexpectedly and leaves the utility scrambling to cover their fixed costs) but that's because public perception tends to question why we're paying to reduce electricity use when electricity use has just been massively reduced. That argument doesn't make any sense, as it's the utility customers who generally eat the loss in any situation but it still happens.

Narbo fucked around with this message at 23:30 on Sep 14, 2012

QuarkJets
Sep 8, 2008

Narbo posted:

You'll find that while electricity production increases fairly steadily in the US, per capita electricity use has started to reverse it's upward trend over the past few years. This is at least partly attributable to large scale demand-side management programs in places like California, Vermont and other north-eastern states.

It's a little strange for you to argue that it would be phenomenally easier to build carbon neutral nuclear energy than implement DSM programs when 1) DSM programs are without question the cheapest form of energy "production" and 2) they already exist on a large scale and generally have very good customer satisfaction and approval ratings.

This sort of information is available from Google Public Data, which uses sources like The World Bank and the US Census Bureau to make cool graphs. Solid lines are taken from data, dotted lines are taken from predictions

US electricity consumption per capita for several countries [in kWh] (it does appear to be starting to fall, and note that this wouldn't be correcting for things like population growth, and Canada consumes a lot more electricity per capita than the US it seems :argh:)

Population growth rate for several Western countries (the US is the highest of the countries that I chose, it's predicted to remain relatively flat at about 0.7-0.8% per year, so we'll probably still be growing for awhile yet)

The same plot, but just population instead of population growth

Cartoon
Jun 20, 2008

poop

Install Gentoo posted:

<SNIP>
My utility bill at this apartment has gone down drastically over the past like 2.5 years I've lived here. First, they replaced the heating and air conditioning units with newer models, and my utility bill went down even though I now have it set to heat to 70 instead of 68 in winter, and cool to 72 instead of 74 in summer. Then I replaced my old 24 inch CRT which broke with a 32 inch LCD - it uses like 38% the power and looks better. I switched from a few incandescents and mostly CFLs to a few CFLs and mostly LED bulbs and that power usage dropped a lot. I got rid of my old Pentium 4 computer with a CRT for a Core i7 computer and LCD combo that's way faster but also uses way less power. The fridge that came with the unit broke and was from the mid-90s - the new fridge I got in uses way less power and is even bigger and has an icemaker now.

Basically efficiency is great, and you don't have to compromise to get it.
Unfortunately new appliances commonly bring another inefficiency with them. http://standby.lbl.gov/faq.html

quote:

How much power is used for standby in the US?...Worldwide?
Nobody knows for sure, but it's typically 5-10% of residential electricity use in most developed countries and a rising fraction in the developing countries (especially in the cities). Standby power in commercial buildings is smaller but still significant. Altogether, standby power use is roughly responsible for 1% of global CO2 emissions*.
Is standby growing or shrinking?
It's probably growing. Programs directed at consumer electronics have stimulated manufacturers to cut standby power use in many products. At the same time, the number of new appliances that continuously draw power is increasing rapidly, especially in the developing countries. We suspect that standby continues to increase. Recent Japanese policies to reduce standby appear to be effective since the latest studies (2008) suggest that standby power is decreasing. The reduction is a result of both improved technologies and heightened consumer awareness.

Here is a rough guide to costs, by appliance. http://www.choice.com.au/reviews-and-tests/household/energy-and-water/saving-energy/standby-energy.aspx

The installation of a simple master switch that turns off all the power to non-essential appliances is a simple yet uncommon fix.

* I suspect that 1% should be >1% but haven't checked any source or done any calculations myself.

QuarkJets
Sep 8, 2008

This kind of term is also known as "phantom load" and some other terms. If we're talking appliances, then older appliances suffer the same problem so I don't think that your assessment is accurate. The growth of phantom power comes from the tendency to make more products that are remote controlled and things like that and doesn't really have anything to do with efficiency; in fact, most electronics and appliances these days have industry standards that attempt to minimize phantom load, but those standards might not be enough. These kinds of losses are usually dwarfed by efficiency gains in other areas

While it's important to be aware of phantom load it's not really something that you need to concern yourself with if you're worried about a new refrigerator consuming more power than your old one from the 1960s. A brand new fridge or even a new computer won't really have any more phantom load than the older model. A new coffee maker with a digital display, a new remote controlled stereo, and things of that nature will all increase the phantom load of your home (unless your old coffee maker also had a display, your old stereo was also remote controlled, etc.)

That 1% seems about right, phantom load is a small fraction of overall electricity usage. It's something that people can reduce if they're willing to be mindful about it (it seems silly to pay electricity for no reason, but people also love being able to control things remotely and not having to mess around with plugs or a kill switch whenever they want to turn something on)

Did you think about your suggestion that a master kill switch is a "simple" solution? Sometimes, sure, you can just lay down a power strip and then hit the switch whenever you're done with that outlet, but I can think of some other scenarios where this would be cumbersome (and hopefully you didn't intend to imply that you could just have a big lever that controls "all nonessential appliances" because that would be a lot of work to setup, unless you just want to use a well-marked fuse box to cut power to entire room sections, which could work adequately with a little planning)

QuarkJets fucked around with this message at 01:01 on Sep 15, 2012

Winks
Feb 16, 2009

Alright, who let Rube Goldberg in here?

Cartoon posted:

Unfortunately new appliances commonly bring another inefficiency with them. http://standby.lbl.gov/faq.html

Standby isn't really a problem. In fact I would wager that it takes many more modern devices to add up to one older device like a 90s era VCR. Low Power standby has advanced by great margins in the past couple decades and will continue to decrease.

The appliances with the potential for greatest efficiency gains are things like refrigerators, CRT televisions, HVAC, etc. In other words the large electricity uses.

Nintendo Kid
Aug 4, 2011

by Smythe

Yeti Fiasco posted:

Why do I have to keep reiterating that I think EFFICIENCY IS A GREAT THING THAT SHOULD BE SRIVED FOR, I just think that getting everyone to do it is phenomenally more difficult than building carbon neutral nuclear energy sources.

What exactly is hard to do about "people will naturally end up with more efficient appliances as the old ones break"? You literally have to actively strive to avoid getting a more efficient appliance when an old one breaks down. Everyone is already doing this. There is no difficulty. The difficult part is to not use less power when replacing old stuff.

Aureon
Jul 11, 2012

by Y Kant Ozma Post

Install Gentoo posted:

What exactly is hard to do about "people will naturally end up with more efficient appliances as the old ones break"? You literally have to actively strive to avoid getting a more efficient appliance when an old one breaks down. Everyone is already doing this. There is no difficulty. The difficult part is to not use less power when replacing old stuff.

Does it matter that much?
We're talking about cutting oil/gas/coal and replacing it, not dealing with future increases in power needs.

Even if efficiency drops the power consumption by 50%, we still need to produce the other 50%, don't we?

Bucky Fullminster
Apr 13, 2007

Yeti Fiasco posted:

Humans are extremely bad at being efficient, especially with energy, as it requires effort and change, two things that as a species we do really really badly.

A much better idea would be to focus efforts on producing excesses of cheap, available energy like the thorium cycle and say "Ok, now you don't need to be as efficient because we have lots of carbon neutral energy."

I'm not saying that efficiency is BAD and is something that shouldn't be strived for, I'm just saying its incredibly difficult to implement on a level that would be meaningful.

Efficiency is usually tied to a base cost of upgrading before any savings are made, the majority of people would rather have their teeth pulled than be forced to buy into something they can't see any benefits from for 3+ years.

Are you kidding me? You may be right about what we're bad at as a species, but what do you think requires more effort and change - using lightbulb X instead of Y, or having to research and develop and build a whole new system of energy?

Efficiency is the quickest and easiest and cheapest way we can work towards solving the problem. We can save 50% of our costs for basically no investment. Ask Amory Lovins.

I'm not just talking about lightbulbs and other appliances, I'm talking about the way we orient our buildings and the angles of the eaves, the way they are heated and cooled, the way the grid is structured, the way the demand peaks are met, etc. Everything to do with using less energy, while maintaining our lifestyles.

Basically there is a gap between how much energy we presently need, and how much energy we can presently provide renewably. The best way to close that gap is to work from both ends - boost our renewable capacity, while simultaneously reducing our demand, through efficiency.

Those saying we don't need to worry about turning the lights out because they're better lights, are missing the point. We're using things we don't need to use. That's what we have to cut out. That is the core of sustainability.

Any system that is based on "now you don't need to be as efficient" is doomed to fail. You know why? Because it's not scalable. That's what got us into this mess in the first place. This conception of limtitless energy from limitless resources. Our resources aren't infinite. And even if you build thousands of thorium plants everywhere, you've still got to mine the fuel and ship it around and maintain them and everything.

The less energy we use the better, and its saves us billions, if not trillions of dollars. The best example here is refrigerators.



The thin line is size of the fridges, the thicker one is energy use. You can see they go up and up together til the 70s, then some standards come in. The industry complained that it would put them out of business of course, as they always do, but once they got over it, they made more efficient units, and now we save 200TWh per year, worth about $16.5 Billion. Just from fridges. Think of the savings we can make elsewhere.


Pvt Dancer posted:

Missed your post, sorry!

My job is as a contractor, working at an engineering firm designing and building the electrical transformer platform that sits at the center of the wind farm. Its main function is to connect the individual wind turbine cables (at 30 kV) to the big cable (150 kV) going to shore. I work in The Netherlands, but most of the farms are built in Germany at the moment. Germany has a relatively small piece of the North Sea pie, but they plan to cram as much wind turbines in it as possible, see this link. I'm not entirely sure how much of this is subsidized by the German government, only that it's substantial. To compare, The Netherlands has more North Sea but only two small wind farms, with not a lot of plans for more.

The case for wind parks on land vs sea is mostly about scale. On land (in densely populated Northern Europe at least) it's very difficult to build a 100-turbine farm because you would run into a mountain of poo poo from local governments and NIMBY residents. The NIMBY attitude is pretty valid as well because for wind turbines to be effective they need to be very large, say 100 meters high with 120 meters span. Apart from the eyesore these turbines make a lot of noise that carries very far due to the height. The noise is a killer here, you're talking about a 40-50 square km area where you can hear turbine noise all day every day, good luck finding one.

On sea you don't have this problem but going offshore means there are a lot of practical problems and expenses that you don't have on land. It's a pretty hostile environment for people doing maintenance, and because wind turbines break *often* you have to deal with lovely winter weather and high wind (oops) at sea. Everything is made from high grade stainless steel ($$$), but it still rots like a motherfucker because salty air is one of natures best ways of increasing entropy. Safety systems, emergency generators, redundant communications, helicopter landing pads, it all adds up pretty quickly. If you have the room, build them on land really.

Fantastic, thanks, this is what I'd love to have more of in the thread.

QuarkJets
Sep 8, 2008

There is a type of person who, when congratulated for using less electricity than their neighbors, will deliberately start using more electricity. You will never convince this person to use less power voluntarily. This person eats entire meals of pure meat to spite vegetarians and drives an SUV a few times around the block to spite environmentalists

a lovely poster
Aug 5, 2011

by Pipski
Well, Japan has decided that fossil fuels are a better option than nuclear. Awesome.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-19595773

Narbo
Feb 6, 2007
broomhead

Aureon posted:

Does it matter that much?
We're talking about cutting oil/gas/coal and replacing it, not dealing with future increases in power needs.

Even if efficiency drops the power consumption by 50%, we still need to produce the other 50%, don't we?

Only having to produce 50% as much energy sounds like a pretty good deal to me though there has to be an accompanying shift in the energy mix. Efficiency won't solve any energy problems alone but it's a fantastically cheap place to start.

GulMadred
Oct 20, 2005

I don't understand how you can be so mistaken.

Narbo posted:

Efficiency won't solve any energy problems alone but it's a fantastically cheap place to start.
Emphasis mine. The issue is that cogeneration and efficiency improvements, while initially the most cost-effective path, will eventually reach a point of marginal-cost parity with one or more non-fossil power generation options. If we believe that nuclear power is going to form a larger part of the eventual energy mix, then we'll probably want to start building reactors before that tipping point is reached, simply because nuclear has longer lead times than other options.

Even if we assume massive standardization/streamlining of design and regulation, there are only a few foundries in the world the world that can cast a PWR pressure vessel. In the case of CANDU-type reactors, the current global production of heavy water would be sufficient to provide for only one to two new reactors per year. Regardless of the exact reactor technology, we'd also need to ramp-up mining, fuel fabrication, and (don't forget!) training of specialized construction crews and reactor technicians.

Mc Do Well
Aug 2, 2008

by FactsAreUseless

QuarkJets posted:

There is a type of person who, when congratulated for using less electricity than their neighbors, will deliberately start using more electricity. You will never convince this person to use less power voluntarily. This person eats entire meals of pure meat to spite vegetarians and drives an SUV a few times around the block to spite environmentalists

People who do not want to be convinced, eh?

:commissar:

QuarkJets
Sep 8, 2008

Narbo posted:

Only having to produce 50% as much energy sounds like a pretty good deal to me though there has to be an accompanying shift in the energy mix. Efficiency won't solve any energy problems alone but it's a fantastically cheap place to start.

Can't we do both? I don't know why we're even discussing this, it's the Energy Generation thread. Of course improving efficiency is important, but removing fossil fuels from the energy generation mix is at least just as important, if not more important.

Nintendo Kid
Aug 4, 2011

by Smythe
It seems to me that we should simply force the power companies to permanently shut down the fossil fuel plants first when efficiency lowers demand. Some form of incentives to keep the renewables up? Tax credit stuff if they shut down coal plants first?

If we're doing 3000 TWh of electricity production from fossil fuels now (like that chart from a bit ago said), and we can cut that down to 2000 TWh worth - well that's a shitload less pollution and stuff. And it's effectively the same benefit as replacing that 1000 TWh production with renewables and nuclear.

Aureon
Jul 11, 2012

by Y Kant Ozma Post

Install Gentoo posted:

It seems to me that we should simply force the power companies to permanently shut down the fossil fuel plants first when efficiency lowers demand. Some form of incentives to keep the renewables up? Tax credit stuff if they shut down coal plants first?

If we're doing 3000 TWh of electricity production from fossil fuels now (like that chart from a bit ago said), and we can cut that down to 2000 TWh worth - well that's a shitload less pollution and stuff. And it's effectively the same benefit as replacing that 1000 TWh production with renewables and nuclear.

Yes, but meanwhile, we should replace the other 2 PWh with nuclear/renewables, too.

Narbo
Feb 6, 2007
broomhead

QuarkJets posted:

Can't we do both? I don't know why we're even discussing this, it's the Energy Generation thread. Of course improving efficiency is important, but removing fossil fuels from the energy generation mix is at least just as important, if not more important.

Well that's what I mean by an accompanying shift in the energy mix. Efficiency measures make it easier to accomplish the switch to a greater share of renewables because you don't need to produce as much as you would have. Like GulMadred said, we will eventually reach a point where further efficiencies at the national level will be uneconomical compared to new renewable generation, and we should be preparing for that eventuality. In the mean time, it is undisputed that not producing a kWh in the first place is by far the cheapest option.

Install Gentoo posted:

It seems to me that we should simply force the power companies to permanently shut down the fossil fuel plants first when efficiency lowers demand. Some form of incentives to keep the renewables up? Tax credit stuff if they shut down coal plants first?

If we're doing 3000 TWh of electricity production from fossil fuels now (like that chart from a bit ago said), and we can cut that down to 2000 TWh worth - well that's a shitload less pollution and stuff. And it's effectively the same benefit as replacing that 1000 TWh production with renewables and nuclear.

I can speak to how it works in some Canadian jurisdictions, though I don't know much about American federal regulations.

We have targets for renewable generation that ramp up over the next 15-20 years. So when they were put in place the generation mix by capacity might look something like 80% coal, 10% bunkerC, 5% NG, 3% hydro, and wind/biomass/tidal/solar making up the rest. By 2025, the share of renewables has to be 25% and that's going to take a big bite out of the share coming from coal and bunkerC because they're the oldest plants, NG is cheap, and there are new federal regulations around the amount of CO2 thermal generating stations are allowed to emit.

So the four factors of increasing efficiency, renewable targets (with the force of law), increasing age of existing thermal stations, and penalties for carbon emission are designed to push us away from fossil fuel generation

Mc Do Well
Aug 2, 2008

by FactsAreUseless

Install Gentoo posted:

It seems to me that we should simply force the power companies to permanently shut down the fossil fuel plants first when efficiency lowers demand. Some form of incentives to keep the renewables up? Tax credit stuff if they shut down coal plants first?

If we're doing 3000 TWh of electricity production from fossil fuels now (like that chart from a bit ago said), and we can cut that down to 2000 TWh worth - well that's a shitload less pollution and stuff. And it's effectively the same benefit as replacing that 1000 TWh production with renewables and nuclear.

In the economics of the "free market" fossil fuels remain the best option because all the infrastructure and technology is geared toward it, in addition to subsidies that the industry can lobby for. This will continue as long as there is some place to get fuel (arctic, antarctic, deep sea, domestic coal deposits waiting to be stripped)

You seem just short of endorsing nationalization, which is what should be done :)

lapse
Jun 27, 2004

Hobo Erotica posted:

:words:

The best example here is refrigerators.


It seems to me that refrigerators are an extreme example, because they were so bad to begin with.

I have trouble thinking of any other super common appliance or device that was that inefficient.




Also, it seems like the really easy improvements are either done, or being pushed now through existing programs like energy star and CAFE.

So I guess the question would be, what program would you actually expand or create to force additional efficiency improvements?

Narbo
Feb 6, 2007
broomhead

lapse posted:

It seems to me that refrigerators are an extreme example, because they were so bad to begin with.

I have trouble thinking of any other super common appliance or device that was that inefficient.




Also, it seems like the really easy improvements are either done, or being pushed now through existing programs like energy star and CAFE.

So I guess the question would be, what program would you actually expand or create to force additional efficiency improvements?

A refrigerator, freezer, and room air conditioner are all the same cycle so you could say that they were all very inefficient to begin with (and still are). That said, a 40% improvement in COP over 30 years is still an impressive accomplishment.

It's not just about replacing a particular appliance one-for-one with a more efficient model. The more lucrative measures for households are in tightening up the building envelope and upgrading insulation especially in older housing stock. The graph of increased appliance efficiency doesn't consider the effect of switching from a house cooled by a room air conditioner and heated by oil or baseboards to a mini-split heat pump or geothermal system.

New programs should be (are) focused on new construction; making sure at least ducts are roughed in instead of the builder just dumping baseboards in, siting and orientation, and generally just making it easier for the new occupant to perform upgrades.

There's plenty of room for new commercial and industrial programs around HVAC, process improvements, lighting, etc. There is tremendous waste of energy in large commercial and institutional buildings in motors and lighting alone, controls and EMI systems are a huge growth area especially in hospitals and manufacturing.

Flaky
Feb 14, 2011
Probation
Can't post for 3 years!

lapse posted:

I have trouble thinking of any other super common appliance or device that was that inefficient.


Cars are another standout. Although they have improved mightily in the performance and safety departments, all that came at the cost of fuel efficiency.

Flaky fucked around with this message at 09:02 on Sep 16, 2012

Struensee
Nov 9, 2011

Flaky posted:

Cars are another standout. Although they have improved mightily in the performance and safety departments, all that came at the cost of fuel efficiency.

I'm pretty sure all cars have vastly improved fuel efficiency. It's just that americans used the fuel efficiency to build bigger cars, not save on fuel costs.

Farmer Crack-Ass
Jan 2, 2001

this is me posting irl

Struensee posted:

I'm pretty sure all cars have vastly improved fuel efficiency. It's just that americans used the fuel efficiency to build bigger cars, not save on fuel costs.

At least part of that goes into crash safety standards, though. The CRX was a tremendously efficient and lightweight vehicle, but I don't think it could be legally sold as a new car today because it wouldn't stand up nearly as well in a crash as a modern car.

But yeah, we also take those efficiency gains and spend them on bigger/faster.

Winks
Feb 16, 2009

Alright, who let Rube Goldberg in here?

Struensee posted:

I'm pretty sure all cars have vastly improved fuel efficiency. It's just that americans used the fuel efficiency to build bigger cars, not save on fuel costs.

The Honda Civic of the 1980s had mpg in the lower 30s. The modern Honda Civic also gets mpg in the lower 30s despite huge efficiency and aerodynamic improvements. Part of it is that it's slightly heavier because it's slightly larger (~10 cubic feet), but almost all of the rest of the efficiency gains are eliminated by modern safety design and pollution controls.

Nintendo Kid
Aug 4, 2011

by Smythe
I'd certainly prefer to err on the side of pollution controls rather than pure fuel efficiency, personally.

Also is that "fuel economy in the lower thirties" for city, highway, or mix? And is that comparing both using the new EPA formula or comparing the 80s car with the old EPA formula for efficency to the new one with the new formula?

Winks
Feb 16, 2009

Alright, who let Rube Goldberg in here?

Install Gentoo posted:

I'd certainly prefer to err on the side of pollution controls rather than pure fuel efficiency, personally.

Also is that "fuel economy in the lower thirties" for city, highway, or mix? And is that comparing both using the new EPA formula or comparing the 80s car with the old EPA formula for efficency to the new one with the new formula?

I'm not arguing against it, I'm just stating why mpg hasn't really increased over the past couple decades.

penus de milo
Mar 9, 2002

CHAR CHAR
RE: the LED bulb argument, it has always been the case that it is expensive to be poor. Crappily made stuff costs less up front but breaks more often and leads to more money being spent in the long run. People should buy the more expensive but better quality item but often are unable. The answer will probably not come from something inherent to lightbulbs but a fundamental change in the relationship between producer and consumer.

QuarkJets
Sep 8, 2008

TURBO BUTTON posted:

RE: the LED bulb argument, it has always been the case that it is expensive to be poor. Crappily made stuff costs less up front but breaks more often and leads to more money being spent in the long run. People should buy the more expensive but better quality item but often are unable. The answer will probably not come from something inherent to lightbulbs but a fundamental change in the relationship between producer and consumer.

Pretty much; making an effort to upgrade your lightbulbs is middle class effort, the family trying to keep a roof of their heads won't be thinking about lightbulbs

Maybe there's an argument to be made that fighting poverty lets people who end up leaving poverty make better energy decisions, which in turn helps fight poverty (by slightly bringing down electricity costs)

Narbo
Feb 6, 2007
broomhead

QuarkJets posted:

Pretty much; making an effort to upgrade your lightbulbs is middle class effort, the family trying to keep a roof of their heads won't be thinking about lightbulbs

Maybe there's an argument to be made that fighting poverty lets people who end up leaving poverty make better energy decisions, which in turn helps fight poverty (by slightly bringing down electricity costs)

Usually for low-income families the only way they have to control their energy costs are small measures like lightbulbs, anything else is definitely out of reach. Low-income families are more likely to be renting as well.

Lots of DSM programs recognize this problem and address it with income-eligible programs. For example, Efficiency Vermont has a weatherization program:

EVermont posted:

Eligible households include any whose incomes are at or below 60% of Vermont’s median income, based on household size. Weatherization agencies can also assess major appliances and replace inefficient models in households whose incomes are less than 80% of Vermont’s median income.

Where they'll send a few contractors to a home and perform all the weatherization and some minor insulation for free.

Manitoba Hydro goes a little further:

ManHydro posted:

Qualifying homeowners will receive:

free qualifying insulation upgrades;
a new high efficiency natural gas furnace for only $19/month for a fixed term*;
free in-home energy efficiency review and basic energy saving items.

An energy advisor will come to your home to review the energy efficiency of your home and explain how the program works. During the energy efficiency review, the advisor will provide you with free basic energy efficient items, such as low-flow showerheads and compact fluorescent lights.

Based on the results of the energy efficiency review, insulation can be added to the attic, basement, crawlspace and/or wall cavity (improving the insulation to Power Smart levels).

You can upgrade your standard natural gas furnace or boiler to a qualifying high efficiency ENERGY STAR natural gas furnace or boiler. Read about how you can save with energy efficient boilers.

So they'll provide the light bulbs, a hot water tank wrap, pipe insulation, faucet aerators, etc. for free for households under LICO criteria. Once you recognize that there are families that will simply be unable to participate in energy saving programs due to the cost, the only thing that makes sense is to provide the services for free.

Great Metal Jesus
Jun 11, 2007

Got no use for psychiatry
I can talk to the voices
in my head for free
Mood swings like an axe
Into those around me
My tongue is a double agent

Install Gentoo posted:

Also is that "fuel economy in the lower thirties" for city, highway, or mix? And is that comparing both using the new EPA formula or comparing the 80s car with the old EPA formula for efficency to the new one with the new formula?

From my experience it's a mix. When I was driving a CRX and monitoring my fuel economy I was getting around 33 MPG driving a combination of freeway, back roads, and in town.

The Ender
Aug 2, 2012

MY OPINIONS ARE NOT WORTH THEIR WEIGHT IN SHIT

quote:

Humans are extremely bad at being efficient, especially with energy, as it requires effort and change, two things that as a species we do really really badly.

A much better idea would be to focus efforts on producing excesses of cheap, available energy like the thorium cycle and say "Ok, now you don't need to be as efficient because we have lots of carbon neutral energy."

:psydwarf:

Changing your lightbulbs is something that you have 100% control over, and something you can literally do tomorrow while buying more Cheerios. You don't have to lobby a congressman to maybe get something done a few years from now, you don't have to wait for new technology, you don't have to convince your crazy parents or neighbors of anything - you can just choose to go to Wal Mart and do it yourself.


If that is not the low-hanging fruit of energy consumption, then no such thing exists. If people don't even want to change their loving lighting, then I'm pretty sure that they aren't going to want to change their entire loving economy & society in order to pave the way for thorium reactors.

Yeti Fiasco
Aug 19, 2010
I really wasn't thinking of just lightbulbs when I said that, that's literally the easiest and cheapest form of energy saving you can do, using that as a base mark for ease of efficiency as a whole is stupid.

Also, this thread is getting wildly off topic.

What are people views on the pros and cons of Solar thermal?

blacksun
Mar 16, 2006
I told Cwapface not to register me with a title that said I am a faggot but he did it anyway because he likes to tell the truth.
Pros:
Very clean
Popular with Green voters
Cons:
Probably at least 4x as expensive as nuclear.

adorai
Nov 2, 2002

10/27/04 Never forget
Grimey Drawer
I am extremely lazy, and I have taken the time to change to CFL bulbs in every fixture except my Kitchen, Dining Room, and three special bulb fixtures that take a small bulb. It fits my lifestyle because I don't have to change them as often.

Aureon
Jul 11, 2012

by Y Kant Ozma Post

Yeti Fiasco posted:

I really wasn't thinking of just lightbulbs when I said that, that's literally the easiest and cheapest form of energy saving you can do, using that as a base mark for ease of efficiency as a whole is stupid.

Also, this thread is getting wildly off topic.

What are people views on the pros and cons of Solar thermal?

I'm substantially biased against, but i'll try.


Pros:
Nearly no human cost
Nearly no rare materials needed
popular as gently caress
Somewhat scalable

Cons:
Cost (27c/KWh, Andasol's)
Cost
Cost (Three times, since it's over three times the normal cost)
[
Unreliability (Even molten salt storing can't prevent a rainy day)
Grid problems
Lack of adequate batteries and/or long-range transmission
]
Land use (Not an issue in central America or Australia, but come down in Europe to put a few scores of stadium-sized plants)
heavily location-dependant

Aureon fucked around with this message at 13:28 on Sep 17, 2012

Yeti Fiasco
Aug 19, 2010
No one ever seems to mention the sheer quantity of water you need to keep the vast array of mirrors clean, along with the difficulty of getting it where solar power is situated (In arid, sunny regions at high altitude).

The biggest solar thermal complex in the world (Solar Energy Generating Systems, Mojave) has an installed capacity of 354mW but only has a capacity factor of 21% (thanks wikipedia!), considering the enormous footprint it takes up (483,960m2), this doesn't seem like much, though I guess the land has no other use.

spankmeister
Jun 15, 2008






Yeti Fiasco posted:

this doesn't seem like much, though I guess the land has no other use.
Sure it does, you could build a nuclear reactor there! :v:

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Aureon
Jul 11, 2012

by Y Kant Ozma Post

Yeti Fiasco posted:

No one ever seems to mention the sheer quantity of water you need to keep the vast array of mirrors clean, along with the difficulty of getting it where solar power is situated (In arid, sunny regions at high altitude).

The biggest solar thermal complex in the world (Solar Energy Generating Systems, Mojave) has an installed capacity of 354mW but only has a capacity factor of 21% (thanks wikipedia!), considering the enormous footprint it takes up (483,960m2), this doesn't seem like much, though I guess the land has no other use.

500k m^2 is just a square of 700x700m, though.

Nuclear has the smallest land footprint of anything.

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