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It's code for something! (Image by Marco Fedele, CC 2.0 licensed)
As I discussed in my earlier post, Code changes and incentives are critical for energy independence, it's going to be tough to change the energy efficiency of our building stock until building and planning commissions provide incentives to owners and builders to take those extra steps, and spend that extra money.
We get a lot of kale in our CSA box of veggies (image by terren in Virginia, CC 2.0 license)
There's a perception that green is more expensive and less convenient, and, truth to say, that's sometimes true. It is more expensive to buy your groceries at Whole Foods. And putting solar panels on your roof doesn't really save you money for many years, if at all, (although it's still less than buying a new car).
But on the other hand, we know that there are lots of green things you can do that actually save money - replacing your incandescent lights with compact fluorescents is one familiar example. And if you're building a house, putting in lots more insulation than is required by code can save a huge amount of both money and energy, while making your home more comfortable.
Sometimes it's small changes that can flip this perception. I have a recent example from my own life that brought this home to me (so to speak):
Santa and His Sleigh, Compressing Space and Time
In the last week or two I came across a number of interesting energy-related resources, blogs, websites, and talks that I wanted to share.
Old Windmill (image by waterwin, CC 2.0 license)
The results of this study on , by Stanford professor Mark Z. Jacobson, are somewhat surprising, given the drumbeat from many areas on both nuclear and biofuels as necessary for the salvation of the world.
Jacobson analyzes 12 energy sources for their beneficial impact on global warming, air pollution, and energy security - the ten electricity sources are solar-photovoltaics (PV), concentrated solar power (CSP), wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, wave, tidal, nuclear, and coal with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology; the two liquid fuel options are corn-ethanol (E85) and cellulosic-E85.
Some classic old GM cars (Image by thebi429, CC 2.0 license)
An article in today's Seattle Times says that GM does know how to make good small cars, :
Nearly three-fifths of General Motors' employees make cars that are admired, popular and profitable. They just don't work in the United States.
GM has a bigger presence and employs more people outside the United States than in it, and actually makes money selling cars around the globe. Its U.S. revenue has sunk 24 percent in the past three years, but in the rest of the world, GM can boast a 28 percent increase.
The best pieces I've read on the auto industry bailout/failure/bankruptcy are Bob Sutton's giant flame, and Umair Haque's
While neither of these articles are about green energy or hybrid cars or sustainability per se, they both get at some of the big issues that industry and finance worldwide have to overcome for the the world to change as it must.
Available: Home with free electric (photo by Kainet, CC 2.0 Sharealike license)
From MIT's Technology Review comes , about a recent report from Deutsche Bank on the economic benefits of investing in new energy projects:
It argues that it's possible to address challenges related to climate change, energy security, and the financial crisis at the same time by investing in four specific areas: energy-efficient buildings, electric power grids, renewable power, and public transportation. The report cites figures that suggest investing in these areas creates more jobs than investing in conventional energy sources because much of the old energy infrastructure is already in place. It says that "a $100 billion investment in energy and efficiency would result in 2 million new jobs, whereas a similar investment in old energy [such as coal or natural gas] would only create around 540,000 jobs."
Taleb's The Black Swan. Image via Wikipedia
In his Edge Magazine essay , Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the trader and author (of and ) discusses why he no longer thinks that using statistics and probability to make decisions is wise. The problem, he says, is that:
When it comes to low odds, decision making no longer depends on the probability alone. It is the pair, probability times payoff (or a series of payoffs), the expectation, that matters. On occasion, the potential payoff can be so vast that it dwarfs the probability—and these are usually real-world situations in which probability is not computable.
