Cash For Refrigerators Program This Fall!

[roflwaffle]

Say what?

[Daox]

Well, that sucks for me. I just bought a new energy star dishwasher... blah.

[Ryland]

I was given a 35 year old fridge and after plugging it in to my kill-a-watt meter found only a few of the new fridges out there were more efficient due to it being on the smaller end of the full size with a single door with the freezer inside, no auto defrost, no ice maker, no other junk.
I have some issue with this whole idea, mostly because it seems like it's hard to find appliances that are made in the US and that Americans tend to do dumb things with their old fridges, like put them in their garage to keep beer cold.

[Frank Lee]

Originally Posted by roflwaffle

Say what?

Say we gots a hypothetical congested city with one million Crown Vics in it. Then a decree comes down from on high that all the Crown Vics be replaced by Smarts. Say three Smarts take the same space as one Vic.

Does the city then enjoy 2/3 more room on the streets, freedom and ease of movement, and general ahhhhhh, or does the city promptly fill up with three million Smarts?

You might know what my guess is.

[roflwaffle]

Originally Posted by Frank Lee

Say we gots a hypothetical congested city with one million Crown Vics in it. Then a decree comes down from on high that all the Crown Vics be replaced by Smarts. Say three Smarts take the same space as one Vic.

Does the city then enjoy 2/3 more room on the streets, freedom and ease of movement, and general ahhhhhh, or does the city promptly fill up with three million Smarts?

You might know what my guess is.

Cities triple their population every time vehicle sizes are cut by a third on average? Say what?

[Frank Lee]

What- do you think if that scenario came to pass that the city would just sit there with it's newfound "open space"?

Prolly some percentage of the pop was already there and didn't have cars due to the inconveniece. They saw the opp to become upwardly mobile and took it.

Well no city has ever had their vehicles downsized by 2/3.

But no major city has ever really gotten SMALLER either, right?

Seems like every effort that gets made to economize on something, no matter what it may be, becomes an excuse for breeders to step in and make the situation as bad or worse than it was before then. Or for consumers to up their consumption until they've matched or surpassed their "old" level.

Got a more efficient car? Drive it all over hell, all the time!

More efficient appliance? Get a dozen more toys and plug 'em in!

High efficiency furnace? Crank it up another 10 degrees!

and so on.

[roflwaffle]

Originally Posted by Frank Lee

What- do you think if that scenario came to pass that the city would just sit there with it's newfound "open space"?

Prolly some percentage of the pop was already there and didn't have cars due to the inconveniece. They saw the opp to become upwardly mobile and took it.

Generally speaking, shorter cars won't change traffic jams much. It's mostly about traffic density, and that's mostly a function of people's behavior everywhere. They just tend to clump up. I suppose there could be more parking spots, but more parking alone isn't enough to triple the vehicle fleet.

Originally Posted by Frank Lee

Well no city has ever had their vehicles downsized by 2/3.

But no major city has ever really gotten SMALLER either, right?

Well, except for the two largest cities in the most populated country on Earth?

Originally Posted by Frank Lee

Seems like every effort that gets made to economize on something, no matter what it may be, becomes an excuse for breeders to step in and make the situation as bad or worse than it was before then. Or for consumers to up their consumption until they've matched or surpassed their "old" level.

Got a more efficient car? Drive it all over hell, all the time!

More efficient appliance? Get a dozen more toys and plug 'em in!

High efficiency furnace? Crank it up another 10 degrees!

and so on.

As bad or worse than it was before? That hasn't been seen in decades. Most efficiency improvements in the past century haven't been optimal, meaning that in most cases consumers did increase driving, or heating, or whatever after the improvement, but at no time have they increased whatever they're doing to the point where it overwhelmed the efficiency improvement and made consumption bad or worse. Efficiency improvements tend to not be optimal, but they still tend to be effective.

[Frank Lee]

Right. Cities are getting smaller.

As bad or worse?

Is petrol use going up or down? Yes I know the short term blip is down- that's due to the economy.

Is electricity use going up or down?

How's that natural resource situation?

How about open space and quiet? Is that not a component of quality of life? Evidently not.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by Frank Lee

Got a more efficient car? Drive it all over hell, all the time!

Like (I imagine) a lot of people, I don't have the time or the desire to drive much more than I do now. I might possibly make a few more trips to somewhat more distant hiking spots, but even now (or indeed, even when I had a much less efficient car than the Insight) what deterred me from such trips was the time, not the trivial cost of the gas.

High efficiency furnace? Crank it up another 10 degrees!

Not so, because I keep the house at a comfortable (to me) temperature now. If I got a more efficient furnace, or if I added better insulation (which in fact I have been doing), I'd still keep it at the same comfortable temperature. Efficiency increases would only change that if I'd been keeping the place cooler than I liked to save money.

[Frank Lee]

You have to remember, people frequenting a forum such as this probably don't have "normal" energy consumption habits.