Cash For Refrigerators Program This Fall!
 

This is real...but it doesn't have as catchy a name as "Cash For Clunkers."

Latest in Stimulus: 'Cash for Refrigerators' - Yahoo! News

This makes a lot more sense than trading in cars, I think. Appliances require less to build and their efficiency increases have been much more dramatic than in cars.

Just backwards of anything that'd do me good, since I bought a new refrigerator only a couple of years ago (trading in the previous working one). Now if they'd just give me money for the old, old one that's been taking up space in the garage since I bought the house a decade ago, I'd go for it. Heck, if they'd even offer to recycle it for free/cheap, I'd haul it to anyplace within 20-30 miles.

COOPs and utilities, in concert with the gummint, have been promoting conservation for decades. They've offered rebates for the purchase of Energy Star rated appliances, free CFL's, reduced price heat pumps, etc.

Results:

Not even a blip in skyrocketing household use.

There is no comparison between the utility usage of 20 years ago and today.

Effective, eh? :rolleyes:

Ah, Frank, just because the overall trend is upwards doesn't mean our efforts have been ineffective. Our electric consumption would be way worse if we were all using 30 year old appliances.

A similar phenomenon has been identified when people get a more fuel efficient vehicle... suddenly, they feel the need to pile on more miles. :rolleyes:

Oh- my appliances are 40 years old! But my kwh/mo is usually about 170-180. Full-sized house with well and sump pumps besides.

Policy is decent, about 20% of the difference between the U.S. and a state with comprehensive policies that encourage conservation like CA, but political attitudes are a big part of the picture.

Energy in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

also: U.S. Household Electricity Uses: A/C, Heating, Appliances

FWIW

Yeah, efficiency improvements tend not to be optimally effective, but they still tend to reduce energy consumption.

It's like putting Smart cars in cities- it merely delays the inevitable crisis.

Say what?

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

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.

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? :confused:

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Cities can get smaller, petrol use was going down before the economy fell on it's face, electricity is down although that follows the economy pertty good, natural resources are still there for the most part, and don't forget about the horrors of less piece and quiet! It's not like people can move or anything... :p

So how exactly do I get a rebate on a new freezer? I'm sure mine isn't very efficient, but there is way too much milk in there to just not use it... and we have no other place to keep it frozen.

I'm just gonna let that one twist in the wind for all to see.

Why make sense when we can make smug? ;)

Lets see...

Desktop, Laptop, 4 XBoxen(Original) XBOX 360, 37" TV, Wii, DVD player, Media Center PC (doesn't work), Cable box, Cable modem, wireless router, stereo system... I think that covers it.

I have lots of crap... and I don't have 25 CE products. Unless you count freezers and stuff like that, but I still don't have 25...

Twizzlers make great straws, as well.

Those minisodas need to be more like kaliforniastan. :D

I know! Wish they all could be kalifernia girlz

It depends on location, a lot! But yeah... *droolz*

Reducing the size of all cars in a city by 2/3rds would help, but would just cause other problems/ construction. And it isn't very practical. And far from realistic. But I guess it's a nice thought for traffic to be cut down by 2/3rds.