Labor of Lovins

[jpak]

http://www.plentymag.com/features/2007/10/labor_of_lovins.php

Amory Lovins might not be a household name, but the ideas he’s put forth for the past 30 years have affected virtually every household in America. Increasing energy efficiency, supporting small and local power generation from renewable sources, and building smart rather than big are just a few of the concepts he’s promoted. Lovins started when he was 29, using the energy crisis of the late ’70s to reach President Carter’s ear. This year, the Rocky Mountain Institute, the nonprofit organization devoted to energy research he founded with his wife, celebrated its 25th anniversary with a forum attended by luminaries such as Thomas Friedman of The New York Times and Majora Carter of the nonprofit Sustainable South Bronx. Plenty stole a few minutes of Lovins’s time to discuss ultralight cars, an indoor banana garden, and why efficiency is the best alternative fuel we’ve got.


What are the easiest ways for Americans to do what you propose: boost energy and financial efficiency?
The best known one is to unscrew an incandescent bulb and put in a compact fluorescent—you get the same light, it uses five times less electricity, and it lasts about ten times longer. And next time you’re going to buy a household appliance, get the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy’s guide to the most energy-efficient appliances (aceee.org); you can get them two or three times more efficient than normal, and typically they don’t cost more.

Those are pretty common tips. Are there bigger changes to make?
Actually, it’s easy to build a very efficient house. But you have to optimize the whole system for multiple benefits, and that’s a way of thinking many people aren’t used to. A super-insulated window, for example, isn’t just insulated—it actually has ten different benefits.

If green building is so easy, why aren’t more people doing it?
The information on how to do it is not very widespread. Some of the big merchant builders are picking up on it, but they have a long way to go. Most people don’t understand they can do it, or contractors say it will cost you more or you won’t like it.

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[XemaSab]

1. "If green building is so easy, why aren’t more people doing it?"

A lot of homeowners struggle every month to pay the mortgage.

My mom has a really leaky single-paned picture window in her house that I've caulked, but it still bleeds heat.

If she was wealthy, she'd totally get solar power and really do a lot of energy upgrades on the house, but she's not, so it's easier to get nickel & dimed by the energy companies than pay a huge lump sum for needed repairs.

[AlecBGreen]

3. yeah

I hear you. My house loses so much heat b/c of ****y windows and insulation but we dont have the money to upgrade. My wife is a full-time student and Im a teacher. Not a whole lot of extra cash laying around.

"If green building is so easy, why aren’t more people doing it?" You have to contend with that pervasive (and wrong) belief that "if it were good, everyone would be doing it by now."

[Kolesar]

5. I heard that banks were considering home loans based on efficiency improvements

The payback periods are not very short, so the bank would have to be patient and take the risk of a five year (or more) loan. However, they could make money on loan origination fees and interest (!). Maybe you should call a bank and ask. The banks need another source of business now that mortgage business has rolled back.

[diane in sf]

20. Have her drop some heavy curtains in front of it with some filmy ones underneath

this will stop the movement of cold air through her window. The filmy curtains will even stop some cold air by themselves in the daytime. Its what I do with my old windows here in the winter.

[AlecBGreen]

2. cue NNadir in 5 ... 4 ... 3 ...

:evilgrin:

[kestrel91316]

10. Gee. You must be psychic.

:evilgrin:

Right on schedule......

[NNadir]

4. The guy is the protypical anti-nuke.

He is paid off by fossil fuel companies, gold mining companies, arctic diamond mining companies, Walmart and god knows who else that seeks the "green stamp of approval." Like all anti-nukes he is an apologist for dangerous fossil fuels and the care culture and he has been consistently wrong about almost everything for thirty years.

He doesn't give a rat's ass about dangerous fossil fuel waste, poverty, suffering or anything else, although he misses his pal Jeff Skilling from Enron in Aspen now that Jeff is doing 24 years in the Federal Penitentiary for fraud.

It all should be a scandal, but anti-nukes aren't shy about hypocrisy and indifference, are they?

[jpak]

7. Brought to you by the good folks at the Nuclear Energy Institute

who really give a flying fuck about poverty, the rat's ass, etc...

Nuclear Power Convention Applauds Cheney, Energy Program

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/0523-01.htm

The nuclear power convention sported the bold slogan "A Flourishing Renaissance," and Vice President Cheney went before the reactor executives yesterday to accept their adulation and underline the administration's enthusiasm for nuclear power.

The energy policy President Bush released last week includes promises to speed up relicensing for safe and efficient nuclear reactors and take a number of other steps to encourage production of nuclear power. The report refers to it as a "clean and unlimited source of energy."

Cheney was the policy's architect, and was greeted by two standing ovations from the crowd of 375 at the Nuclear Energy Assembly. The annual conference is sponsored at a Washington hotel by the industry's major trade group, the Nuclear Energy Institute.

Cheney said the nuclear industry is allowing electricity to be generated "efficiently, safely, with no discharge of the greenhouse gases or emissions."

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Data Shows Industry had Extensive Access to Cheney's Energy Task Force

http://www.nrdc.org/media/pressreleases/020521.asp

WASHINGTON, DC (May 21, 2002) -- A close examination of more than 12,000 pages of documents provided by the Energy Department confirms that energy industry lobbyists enjoyed extraordinary access to Vice President Cheney's energy task force. NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) has finally compiled from Energy Department documents a comprehensive, quantitative analysis of outside contacts during formulation of the Bush administration's national energy plan. (Contact NRDC's press office for a copy.)

<snip>

"A year ago the Cheney task force issued recommendations that read like a wish list for energy companies," said NRDC senior attorney Sharon Buccino. "When it came to developing the administration's environmentally and fiscally reckless energy policy, it was all industry all the time."

The representatives tallying the most direct contacts with the energy task force were from some of the nation's largest and most influential energy companies and trade associations. Not surprisingly, these industries stood to benefit from the president's policies to boost domestic energy production. Some of them also are major donors to President Bush and Republican congressional candidates. For example:

Nuclear Energy Institute had contact with the task force 19 times. (NEI contributed $437,404 to Republican candidates and the GOP from 1999 to 2002.)

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The Best Energy Bill Corporations Could Buy: Summary of Industry Giveaways in the 2005 Energy Bill

http://www.citizen.org/cmep/energy_enviro_nuclear/elect...

<snip>

NUCLEAR POWER SUBSIDIES: $12 BILLION

Section 1306
Production tax credit of 1.8-cent for each kilowatt-hour of nuclear-generated electricity from new reactors during the first eight years of operation, costing $5.7 billion in revenue losses to the U.S. Treasury through 2025. Considered one of the most important subsidies by the nuclear industry.

Section 638
Authorization of $2 billion in “risk insurance” to pay the industry for any delays in construction and operation licensing for six new reactors, including delays due to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission or state agencies, litigation, sabotage or terrorist attacks, or other events. The payments would include interest on loans, operation and maintenance costs, the price of power, and taxes.

<snip>.

Section 625
Exemption of construction and operation license applications for new nuclear reactors from an NRC antitrust review.

Title XVII
Unlimited taxpayer-backed loan guarantees for up to 80% of the cost of an “innovative” energy technology project, including building new nuclear power plants. Authorizes “such sums as are necessary,” but if Congress were to appropriate funding for loan guarantees covering six nuclear reactors, this subsidy could potentially cost taxpayers approximately $6 billion (assuming a 50% default rate and construction cost per plant of $2.5 billion, as Congressional Budget Office has estimated).

Title VI, Subtitle A
Reauthorization of the Price-Anderson Act, extending the industry’s liability cap to cover new nuclear power plants built in the next 20 years.

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The Other Half of the Nuclear Industry's Power Couple

http://www.counterpunch.org/farsetta08292007.html

Christie Todd Whitman's Nuclear Spinning Wheel

By DIANE FARSETTA

"Was it wrong to try to get the city back on its feet as quickly as possible?" an exasperated Christine Todd Whitman asked members of Congress. The occasion was Whitman's first appearance before the House subcommittee investigating her handling of New York air quality issues post-9/11, when she headed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

"Absolutely not," she continued. "Safety was first and foremost, but we weren't going to let the terrorists win."

There are many critics of the EPA's response to the admittedly unprecedented attacks. In August 2003, the EPA's own inspector general reported that there was not "sufficient data and analyses" to claim -- as Whitman did on September 18, 2001 -- that New York's air was "safe to breathe." The inspector general also found that EPA statements were confusing even to experienced toxicologists, and may have contributed to low rates of respirator use among Ground Zero workers. In February 2006, federal judge Deborah Batts called Whitman's statements post-9/11 "misleading" and "conscience shocking." In June 2007, the Government Accountability Office identified serious, continuing problems with how Whitman's EPA addressed indoor contamination in lower Manhattan.

<snip>

When the Nuclear Energy Institute -- with help from its PR firm, Hill & Knowlton -- launched the "Clean and Safe Energy Coalition" in April 2006, Christie Whitman was named its co-chair, a paid position. Since then, the industry-funded campaign to re-brand nuclear power as clean, green and safe has benefited from Whitman's communications skills, political connections and environmentalist image.

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So what the hell did Ms. T-W do to fight global warming when she was EPA Administrator????

NOTHING

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/hotpolitics/int...

...and we are supposed to believe she now shills for the NEI because she wants to fight global warming???

I have this bridge in Brooklyn...

and finally...

http://neinuclearnotes.blogspot.com/search?q=nnadir

[phantom power]

8. Hey, I'm not NEI, I play for Team Uranium.

[jpak]

9. So r u conflicted???

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x117529

:evilgrin:

[phantom power]

13. Well, I'm not conflicted by cronyism at least...

Now they've gone and spoiled Team Uranium for the rest of us with their scandal.

I do suffer from chronic apocalypse fatigue, due to excessive participation in this forum. That makes me feel conflicted. Or at least vexed to nightmare.

[bananas]

18. And Jimmy Carter is EVIL!!!!

"he couldn't stop kneeling before the great and terrible Mohammed Reza Pahlevi, the vicious little homicidal cretin who called himself the "Shah" (Emperor) of Iran."
"Jimmy Carter apparently couldn't have cared less about Savak, the Iranian KGB"
"his cozy comfortable co-conspiracy with Reza Pahlevi"
"he is taking up the "kill Iranians" business again"
"he has no moral right to tell the Iranians anything. Hanging out with the owner of Savak eliminated that right forever."
"he apparently couldn't care less what dangerous fossil fuels do to Iranians and every other person on the face of the planet."
"his close friendship with Pahlevi"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x114686

[mahina]

19. That's libel by the way...

just fyi.

Is there a difference in your mind between doing work and being paid for it, and getting paid off?
Do you think that there is a benefit to be gained by counseling Walmart to change? Any actual proof you might have of your accusations would be helpful.

[hunter]

6. Lovins' Utopia is fueled by Natural Gas.

I'm not digging through my notes, but I remember Lovins and David Brower were utterly captivated by cogeneration, describing how the nation's natural gas pipeline system was going to evolve into a magnificent renewable energy distribution system, without the use of ugly disruptive high voltage power lines. For some reason this was more acceptable to them than the HVDC power lines, which were my interest at the time. I'm guessing it was because HVDC implied a nuclear powered energy infrastructure, but natural gas pipelines didn't. The way they saw it fossil natural gas would be gradually supplanted by gas produced in giant digesters, and otherwise synthesised in some unspecified matter. Eventually the system would be adapted to hydrogen.

You can just imagine David Brower's horror when the energy companies started extoling the virtues of LNG imports. If I recall correctly, Lovins was less upset about where the fuel for his super-duper-efficient gas fired toys would be coming from. These days it looks like it won't matter anyway, since the U.S. dollar will not be strong enough to attract LNG from anywhere, and the conservation is going to be accomplished by demand destruction. It is less capital intensive to build electric power plants and have families huddling around 1 kilowatt heaters in the winter than to make sufficient quantities of natural gas from coal.

But both these guys have a history of living high off the indulgences of some rather creepy associates. Optimism can blind a person to a lot of rotteness in the world.

Enron especially ate a lot of these guys for lunch.

Patagonia First In California To Commit To 100% Wind Energy

Enron's New Wind Project To Serve As Source

VENTURA, CA — July 6, 1998 — Patagonia, Inc., the Ventura-based outdoor clothing company, announced today it has contracted with Enron Energy Services, a subsidiary of Enron Corp., to supply renewable energy for all its California electricity needs.

This step marks Patagonia as the first company in California to commit to 100 percent wind energy. Patagonia selected Enron because of the energy service provider's intention to provide power from newly created generating capacity.

"We believe energy efficiency and clean power can create competitive advantage for us," said David Olsen, Patagonia's Chief Executive Officer. "With the environmental costs of non-renewable energy sources becoming less supportable every year, we're pleased to work with Enron to jump-start a market among corporations for new, renewable generation."

http://www.eere.energy.gov/greenpower/buying/pr/patagonia_998_pr.html

My own wretched cynicism about all these energy issues was hard won and pretty well established by 1986. There is simply too much tainted money flying around to take anything at face value.

I think the true solutions to the problems will occur as the result of Social Justice movements. The wealthy will have their expensive toys -- their hybrid cars, their solar panels, their home grown rocky mountain bananas -- but how do you keep a kid living in poverty in some decrepit Colorado trailer park warm in the winter?

[XemaSab]

11. At my last job

Enron schwag was a sign of power and privilege.

The Office Manager had an Enron egg timer. :awesome:

[AlecBGreen]

16. not to be an asshole, but...

"The wealthy will have their expensive toys -- their hybrid cars, their solar panels, their home grown rocky mountain bananas."

Im a public school teacher earning $35,000 a year. My wife is a full-time college student. We are not wealthy. We DO own a hybrid car. We dont have active solar panels but we are looking into passive solar, and with the right greenhouse (which we're putting up) we CAN grow bananas.

:P

[The2ndWheel]

12. Easy is what got us here

Alright, so we get efficient. What happens to the energy we've saved? Will it just sit there? Will we find more ways of using that saved energy?

Not that the energy would just sit there. There is no waste in nature. What I mean is that we wouldn't use it at all. I doubt that will be the case. We'll just find new ways of using the energy. There are billions of people in this world that aren't connected to the global socio-economic system. Some of that saved energy will go towards that, along with who knows what else. We're not going to use less energy as we go. That's not why we want to be efficient in the socio-economic sense.

[XemaSab]

14. Saving energy is like saving money.

It will be used at some point, just not on a drunken tour of Nevada brothels and casinos, ya know? :)

[GliderGuider]

15. The demographers will say,

"Hey, this is terrific! All the energy you've just saved will help Africa industrialize so their fertility rate will go down! Thanks a lot for this miraculous opportunity!"

And once again humanity gets Jevons-bites all over its ass.:banghead:

[depakid]

17. Jevons-bites all over its ass....

:rofl:

Jevon's paradox is counter intuitive and sometimes a bit hard to wrap one's mind around.