Residential energy efficiency improvements twice the cost of benefits

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in environment on (#HVRJ)
Energy efficiency investments are widely popular because they are believed to deliver a double win: saving consumers money by reducing the amount of energy they use, while cutting climate-forcing greenhouse gas emissions and other pollutants harmful to human health. But a new study by a team of economists finds residential energy efficiency investments may not deliver on all that they promise. Through a randomized controlled trial of more than 30,000 households in Michigan - where one-quarter of the households were encouraged to make residential energy efficiency investments and received assistance - the economists find that the costs to deploy the efficiency upgrades were about double the energy savings.

While the researchers found that the upgrades did reduce the households' energy consumption by about 10 to 20 percent each month that only translated into $2,400 in savings over the lifetime of the upgrades - half of what was originally spent to make the upgrades, and less than half of projected energy savings. "In actuality, the energy efficiency investments we evaluated delivered significantly lower savings than the models predict." Further, some say that the broader societal benefits - savings as a result of reductions in pollution from energy production- justify the investments. But the findings did not support this. The cost per ton of CO2 avoided in the sample amounted to $329, significantly larger than the $38 per ton that the federal government estimates as the social cost of carbon.

Re: What about if the cost is free? (Score: 1)

by evilviper@pipedot.org on 2015-08-22 01:07 (#J3WG)

they cost more because of the exotic materials they contain rather than it being a function of the difficulty of refining them.
You don't pay the platinum an extra fee for its star power... You pay the mining operation, because they have to move tons and tons of ore to get sufficient quantities of platinum, then refining operation because it takes a lot of chemicals, electrical and mechanical processes to separate it out. There will be some with operating costs lower than the current spot price of platinum, but many that are barely breaking-even.
The labor mostly goes to the workmen with a much smaller amount for any transportation costs.
The workmen aren't taking your money and putting it in a sofa, they're spending it on many things which have a big carbon footprint of their own. And if you could get it done with half the labor, for half the price, you'd be encouraging only half the footprint.
These would be things who's price would fluctuate at nearly the global oil price.
Oil is only for mobile energy usage like transportation. You aren't saving any oil by insulating your home or buying more-efficient appliances.

And it's not at all true that commodities will fluctuate with global prices at all. In fact energy prices are often very, very localized. See: Alcoa plants in Iceland.

Anyhow, I've made the case as clearly as I can. You're free to disbelieve it if you choose.
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Which of 30, four, 34 or 25 is the highest?