The "REAL" price of gasoline,,,

And if we practiced moderate conservation and fulfilled water and space heating use with solar heating, the space would be I suspect considerably less than one Delaware.

 

Quite clearly the subsidies for fossil fuels have not worked out either.

 

Yup, Europeans use half the electricity that we do yet have an excellent standard of living. At our house we use ~ 25% less energy than the average Japanese household and we don't do anything exotic (household of 4, 1300 sqft house). We used ~32oo kWh last year. This year we'll use a bit more, but I've been pretty lax recording our usage (last year v. this year was a draw), but in the main it's been somewhat higher... colder winter and hotter summer. Still, we used 307 kWh in July, which is pretty damn good IMO.

 

^^ Exotic is in the eyes of the consumer. I bet you do outrageous things like turn off lights when nobody is in the room.

 

Our electricity + natural gas bill has been less than $60 month for 21 years (2300 sq ft). We retrofitted the house to reach an Energy Efficiency Index of 1.0 (most homes are 10 to 20+). Payback period compared to other homes: 2.5 years. Our house is quieter (R-100 ceiling, R-45 walls, triple pane windows, double dual pane sliding glass doors, ceramic tile floors, tile roof, fully insulated garage) - I did most of the work myself because most contractors are skeptical or just plain won't do the work.

Nuclear (fission) power requires huge subsidies and is akin to using a chain saw to cut butter: it is overkill and makes a mess. Space for photovoltaic and hot water panels is available on every existing roof (homes, schools, businesses, churches) and along highways (as Germany already does).

Conservation and efficiency are the most cost effective as repeatedly identified by the Rocky Mountain Institute and the US Dept of Defense ("Winning the Oil Endgame").

 

That depends how you look at it. We could have developed more sustainable and less expensive energy sources, but oil has been subsidised to the point that people falsely think it's cheaper. So, we're still addicted. In most schools of thought, that would be judged a success.

 

By exotic I mean PV or some of the excellent upgrades that Skruse did back in the day. We have a 70's tract home without much in the way of energy efficient upgrades (to the shell). We use CFLs, have a new fridge (that was easily the single best upgrade that we've done), and manage our usage well (like Sage pointed out). We have an evaporative cooler instead of an AC (you can do that here in CO), which is a huge plus. I pay attention to our usage and when I need to replace or upgrade a device that uses electricity, efficiency is a top priority.

Case in point, when I had to replace the pump on our evap cooler, I was able to cut 30W off of the pump's draw without diminishing the specs (except the energy consumption) at all.

Replacing our old refrigerator cut >70 kWh off of our monthly usage. Payback on that one is roughly 6 years.

IMO, solar water heating should be standard on all new homes and commercial buildings. It's a no brainer. Does anybody have numbers on the cost of installing a solar water heating system in a new home vs a retrofit?

 

Tripp, is solar thermal installed in your home ?

 

As an example on the thrifty side of consumption, on our recent 12 day sailing trip we consumed about 40 Ah, which at 12.8 V equals about 512 Wh, or about 0.5 kWh of electricity. This power was used for lighting, running the radios and instrumentation, and powering the diesel fired hot water system.

Obviously this example doesn't translate to a household situation, since we weren't doing a lot of heating or washing clothes, but we were very comfortable. It doesn't take a lot of power to live well.

Tom

 

Tom, it would be interesting to know the total power consumption of your trip. You probably burned at least some diesel, and of course you 'borrowed' a bit from the wind. No doubt the power use is far less than it would have been on land, and a higher percentage of it would be renewable.

Plus, the fun factor is higher.

 

Total diesel consumption for the entire trip was 3.6 gallons. This figure includes diesel burned by the engine for mechanical propulsion and electrical generation. It also includes the fuel burned by the diesel fired hot water system for domestic use (dish washing and a little bathing).

The SOC of the battery was pretty much the same at the start and finish, so we can safely ignore it.

On top of diesel fuel, we burned about a half gallon of gasoline for the outboard on the tender (dingy). Our dingy has a 2 hp four cycle Honda outboard. We used it extravagantly on this trip, but still burned less than a gallon of gas.

The only other energy costs were electricity for the pumpout when we returned, and two or three bags of ice for the icebox. Food and dirty clothes were no different than at home.

The running costs of a sailboat are pretty small. The fixed costs, on the other hand, are something I try not to think about.

Tom

 

The fixed costs of a house are mind-numbing, too. But at least they tend to appreciate in value instead of depreciate. Most years, I don't mind an inflationary economy at all.