To: truthguy
3) Energy Efficiency Yes this is overrated but helps a little
Sorry, but this is bull. Energy efficiency is overrated when it comes to blenders and electric toothbrushes, granted. However, 90% of existing buildings could reduce their heating bills by 50%, just by updating to 21st century insulation. And that is quite a lot of oil / natural gas you can use elsewhere.
5) Don't waste too much time with wind and solar.
Why not let the market decide? If someone saves money by installing a solar water heater at home or solar panels on an office building coupled to the air conditioning, there's nothing wrong with that. The specific case is what matters, the market will sort out the rest.
18 posted on
08/25/2008 6:31:46 AM PDT by
wolf78
To: wolf78
Wolfie, you really need to read more carefully. I was talking about Europe and not the United States as I believed you inferred. Energy efficiency is in fact OVERRATED! The figure that you stated that 90% of all buildings could save 50% is bogus. I don't know where you got that number but it's in doubt whether that number is valid in Europe. The Europeans have always paid more for energy so I would imagine that they have already done a good deal in the area of energy efficiency already. They have picked the low lying fruit. New construction is already very efficient in most cases. Very few low efficiency buildings are build anymore.
As far as letting markets decide your comments are a joke. The Europeans have subsidized Solar and Wind to a ludicrous extent. Markets aren't deciding, European bureaucrats are deciding. The markets would have killed off solar and wind a long time ago. Solar doesn't work at night or on cloudy or rainy days which Europe has a ton of. Wind is also very unreliable. The best they can do with wind is 30% up time. There is also tremendous maintenance with wind energy as the Dutch are starting to find with their Windmills along the coast. See the Dutch never calculated what the salt air would do to their precious Windmills. It's a lot tougher on the big metal and composite ones than the old wood water pumping ones they used to use.
20 posted on
08/25/2008 10:02:06 AM PDT by
truthguy
(Good intentions are not enough!)
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson