[Greenbuilding] A watt saved.....

[Gennaro Brooks-Church]

One of the things I see green building doing is connecting quality
with quality. Period. Up until now quality has not been connected with
quality but rather with price or name. "It's a [name brand] stove
therefore it must be good quality." Or "It is expensive and you get
what you pay for."
Obviously sometimes you do get what you pay for and sometimes certain
brands are better. But first and foremost the actually quality of the
object should be the decisive factor. For example a straw bale house
from Farmer Joe's field that cost little to build might be high
quality wheras the Luxury Villa from Sea View Private Estates might be
built like crap and cost a lot.


Gennaro Brooks-Church
Cell: 1 347 244 3016 USA
www.EcoBrooklyn.com




On Fri, Feb 20, 2009 at 11:40 PM, Reuben Deumling <9watts at gmail.com> wrote:
> First off the (all too familiar) logic of setting up a consumer decision
> like this all too often *does* suggest people buy the expensive product.
> Obscuring the very real possibility that there is an option that is both
> cheaper to buy and operate, as this framing does, is no accident. Such
> products explode the premise that yields things like product rebates and
> sundry other incentives and programs that presume that an extra increment of
> energy efficiency must be purchased at a premium. We come to think that the
> solution to our energy problem requires new cutting edge technical solutions
> that experts are continually devising for our benefit.
>
> Energy Star is based on and reinforces the prevalent logic that to get more
> energy efficiency you have to pay a premium. Energy Star refrigerators (to
> stick with LL-man's example) are on average a spendy lot, but this is not
> because some extra technical effort has been expended to get them to use
> less energy, but because the majority of refrigerators that qualify for an
> Energy Star have through the door ice and water and/or are Side-by-side
> models which by the rules means they may consume more kWh per cubic foot
> than if they didn't have those specifications.
>
> If we recognize who wins the game of equating greater up front cost with
> higher energy efficiency, and in what situations this way of structuring the
> choice landscape obscures certain (more interesting if less profitable)
> choices, I think we might learn to be more suspicious of the whole effort.
>
> My point was basically the same as yours, Corwyn: 'doing your efficiency
> homework' as you put it leads me to question the larger framework within
> which we are commonly exhorted to act as efficiency-mindful consumers.
>
> Reuben Deumling
>
> On Fri, Feb 20, 2009 at 2:36 PM, Corwyn <corwyn at midcoast.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> Reuben Deumling wrote:
>>
>>> On Thu, Feb 19, 2009 at 10:40 AM, Lawrence Lile <LLile at projsolco.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> ...
>>>> Let's say you are considering two appliances that accomplish the same
>>>> job,
>>>> one of which uses 1000 watt-hours per day and the other that uses 500
>>>> watt-hours per day.  It will take you =  $500 worth of extra solar cells
>>>> to
>>>> run the less efficient appliance.  Is the more efficient appliance less
>>>> than
>>>> $500 more than the cheap one?  Then it is a good buy.  This is how you
>>>> justify a  $1000 refrigerator on a PV system.
>>>>
>>>
>>> The problem with this calculation is that the appliance that uses the
>>> least
>>> energy may also be the cheapest/cheaper. Cheap (in terms of purchase
>>> price)
>>> does not ipso facto mean uses more energy or is less energy efficient. Not
>>> that the appliance manufacturers' marketing departments wouldn't like you
>>> to
>>> think otherwise, but 'tain't usually so.
>>>
>>
>> How is this a problem?  It doesn't say you should buy the most expensive
>> appliance.  Just that if the most efficient one happens to be more
>> expensive, it is worth it if it is not more expensive by X amount.  None
>> of this relieves you of the obligation to do your efficiency homework.
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