In Stalin Lives, I mentioned our plan for securing an ENERGY STAR® clothes washer and dryer for our house. What I did not mention was that the local appliance stores do not even stock gas-heated dryers. Think about how stupid it is to generate electricity with maybe 35% thermal efficiency, lose 10% of it to line losses, as discussed last week, in it’s transport to the home and then use this high-value energy as a toaster coil to dry clothes. We, as well as I am sure millions of households, use “gas”, natural gas in our case and propane in…
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Many states have opt-out provisions for major consumers of energy so these consumers do not have to pay into EE programs. The reasoning typically goes something like this: They are major users of energy so they naturally are going to cut energy cost to increase profit; they can take care of themselves They shouldn’t have to provide outside subsidies to these programs They don’t participate in the programs so why should they have to pay in The facts are these concessions are required to get EE laws (bills) through legislatures and/or governors. Consider that typical opt-out regulations require that these…
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