Why Obama’s Energy Savings Estimate May Be Skewed

New York Times ^ | February 6, 2009 | Bernie Becker

[reaganaut1]

I wonder if estimates of how much money consumers save include the extra upfront cost of the appliances. People don't like writing checks to the electric company. Why can't they be trusted to make the trade-off between energy efficiency, upfront cost, and features of the appliances they buy?

[Darkwolf377]

It doesn’t matter, though, he MEANS well, so let’s just skip off into the horizon with Hopey Changey and everything will be sunshine and gumdrops!

[fivecatsandadog]

““We’ll save through these simple steps over the next 30 years the amount of energy produced over a two-year period by all the coal-fired power plants in America,” Mr. Obama said.”

READ BETWEEN THE LINES VERSION: the amount of energy used over a four-year period by all the Obama family members in the White House” Mr. Obama said.”

[Entrepreneur]

Where can one find the specifics?

[MathDoc]

Where can one find the specifics?

That's easy. The specifics:

"Inflate your tires."

[raybbr]

For example, the current estimate of hot water use per household — 64.3 gallons a day — was set more than two decades ago, when the composition of households was in many cases much different from today’s.

Hah! My wife uses half that in a shower. Probably twice that washing clothes. She washes everything in hot water.

[LibLieSlayer]

That is because monkey-boy is a muzzie... and they lie and deceive by koranic mandate.

LLS

[CPOSharky]

We can conserve out way to energy independence.

We can tax our way to prosperity.

We can legislate private companies to success.

Yeah, right.

[AmericanVictory]

Exactly, the “green economy” is the “mean” economy.

It’s assumptions and projections are what they “mean” to achieve, not what they do or will achieve. In the “mean”time they aggregate power at your expense, which is the point.

[bagman]

Coal-fired power plants produce 48.5% of the electricity generated in the USofA. Residential consumption of electricity is 1/3rd of the total consumption (values taken from the US Energy Information Administration).

The nice thing about electricity is that you can’t really store it, so consumption roughly equals generation.

Obama is attempting to argue that improving the efficiency of household appliances would reduce demand by the equivalent of half of the coal-fired generation, or roughly 25% of total electrical generation (24.25% to be precise).

Given that household consumption is only 33% of demand, and recalling that households also consume electricity by other means, it looks to me that even if household appliances were completely shutdown, you wouldn’t save 25% of the national electriciy consumption. You might come close.

But even if we magically replaced every appliance with an Energy-Star appliance right now, each apparatus will still consume some amount of electricity.

Bottom line - Obama’s figure is bogus.

[abclily]

You cannot buy a clothes washer anymore that rinses in hot or warm water. They all rinse in cold water. Cold wet clothes do not spin out as well as warm wet clothes. The clothes come out of the washer cold and stiff. Now the dryer has to be run an extra 10 minutes to dry a load of clothes. Some fool must have mandated the cold water rinse. Who would that fool have been?

[Darkwolf377]

I just hope that’s not the epitaph on the US’s gravestone—”USA 1776-? Killed by The Liberals ‘But we MEANT well!’”

[mikey_hates_everything]

This from the tire inflation expert.

[Pearls Before Swine]

Given that household consumption is only 33% of demand, and recalling that households also consume electricity by other means, it looks to me that even if household appliances were completely shutdown, you wouldn’t save 25% of the national electriciy consumption. You might come close.

Hey, that's not fair. You're using simple arithmetic!

[yazoo]

If energy is cheap it means we have a lot of it.

If energy is cheap there is no incentive to buy more efficient appliances.

When energy becomes more expensive because there is less of it people will conserve with more efficient appliances.

If people conserve energy there will be more of it and it will be cheaper.

Go back to beginning. Simple economic principles.

[yazoo]

“You cannot buy a clothes washer anymore that rinses in hot or warm water.”

Well, you could just split the hot water faucet into two hoses and feed hot water to the cold and hot water inlets on the machine.

[abclily]

Thanks. I’ll mention this to my husband. He’s a fix-it man.

[RC2]

And the cost of freedom to do as you please is what? Are we saying the the cost of electricity is more important than our freedom? We have come so far.

[calex59]

Kinda like keeping your tires aired up will save enough oil so we will never have to buy another drop of foreign oil, right?

[yazoo]

“And the cost of freedom to do as you please is what? Are we saying the the cost of electricity is more important than our freedom?”

I’m sorry, but I’m not sure I understand your point. I consume whatever I want that is legal and I can afford. I think that is pretty much the basis of a free country and a free economy. If something is in short supply the cost goes up and I have the freedom to decide how much I am willing to spend on that product and adjust my use accordingly. It works perfectly in a free economy, and when the government dictates price or supply it ALWAYS fails.