[Greenbuilding] FW: ENERGY STAR Clothes Dryers Program Launch

[Steven Tjiang]

Reuben, you're right in "purist" sense but I think the energy star dryer
program is still a net win.

A net win for the planet.  Think long term. If we run a program to convince
people to line dry OR we make energy star dryers the standard, which one
would result in less energy use for clothes drying?  Of course, we should
do both.  BTW, clothes dryer don't have to use fossil fuels.  Mine is
electric and when I use it, it is powered by renewables.

In the end, the only sure way to solve the climate crisis is to raise
energy price, i.e. carbon tax.  Our politicians won't do it and the public
won't accept it.  So I guess we are doomed.

---- Steve (KZ6LSD)


On Sat, Jul 21, 2012 at 2:19 PM, Reuben Deumling <9watts at gmail.com> wrote:

>
>
> On Sat, Jul 21, 2012 at 2:02 PM, Steven Tjiang <steve at tjiang.org> wrote:
>
>>  And anything that preserves convenience but saves energy will be a net
>> win.
>>
>
> A net win for whom?
> Anything that uses fossil fuels to dry clothes, however efficiently, is
> not a net win for the players I care about. Call me a purist or a
> curmudgeon. Not only can we no longer afford to pretend that drying clothes
> with fossil fuels (or with wind-generated electricity) is responsible, if
> we endorse this line of thinking who's going to point out the fallacies,
> the myopia, the nuttiness?
>
> Convenience is a social construct.
>
> *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *
> The Christian Science Monitor
> October 3, 2001, Wednesday
> SECTION: OPINION; Pg. 9
> A new line on terrorism
> Jonathan Rowe
> POINT REYES STATION, CALIF.
>
> My friend John Francis maintains that we must be the change we want to
> see. When he witnessed an oil spill in San Francisco Bay in the early
> 1970s, he swore off motorized transit for almost 20 years. When he saw
> people spouting opinions but not listening, he stopped talking, too, so
> that he could learn to listen better.
>
> John walked and listened all the way across the United States, and down
> most of South America as well. He observed how changes in himself rippled
> out into his surroundings. Since he wasn't talking, family and friends had
> to communicate by letter - a small step, as it were, for literacy. Since
> he walked everywhere, others had to adjust their pace to his. Life slowed
> down where John went. So, when we first spoke about recent events, it was
> not surprising that John didn't dwell on feckless jingoism and the
> rest. Instead, the talk turned to clotheslines.
>
> Yes, clotheslines. This nation's entanglements in Central Asia and the
> Middle East arise largely from its appetite for oil. This appetite leads
> to trouble continuously. Already there are efforts in Congress to use the
> terrorist attacks as an excuse to open up the Arctic National Wildlife
> Refuge for oil drilling, supposedly to make us "energy independent."
>
> Yet, if terrorists could find a way to blast into the Pentagon, how hard
> will it be for them to hit a pipeline meandering through hundreds of miles
> of Alaskan tundra? Besides, the Alaskan oil wouldn't start flowing for up
> to 10 years; and even then, it would provide gas for only about 2 percent
> of the nation's cars and trucks. When it ran out we'd be back to the
> Mideast, more dependent than ever.
>
> That brings us back to homely clotheslines. Some 5 to 10 percent of
> residential energy use in the US goes to washing and drying clothes. Use
> cold water to wash, and you cut energy use on the washing side by 85
> percent. Hang the clothes to dry and that's 100 percent on the drying
> side. Together it's the British-thermal-unit equivalent of at least a
> third of the oil in the Arctic refuge. In other words, genuine energy
> independence.
>
> John Francis and I both use clotheslines, as do many of our friends. It
> can seem a bit inconvenient at first. But soon that feeling flips, and it
> seems idiotic to pay a power company for something the sun provides for
> free. The clothes smell fresher and last longer. The environmental impacts
> are totally benign. As for terrorism, even the most determined adversary
> would have problems trying to knock out all the nation's clotheslines.
>
> Of course, not everyone can use a clothesline. But the point here is how
> small steps can make a large difference. The war on terrorism is shaping
> up as another government production. We are told our role is to just watch
> and shop. But we can never win this battle unless ordinary citizens start
> to take responsibility. As John Francis says, "If we can hang out flags,
> why can't we hang out laundry, too," as a sign that we are really serious
> about our independence?
>
> Start in the laundry room, and pretty soon we get to the driveway, where
> the potential savings are so great, it's practically ridiculous. If just 3
> to 4 percent of US cars were as efficient as the new hybrid cars, it would
> save the equivalent of all the oil in the Arctic refuge, observe Amory and
> Hunter Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute. This is energy no terrorist
> could touch, because it's energy we wouldn't use. It would reduce both the
> opportunity for terrorism and the geopolitical urgencies that feed it.
>
> Cutting our dependency on oil would mean little increase of power in
> Washington, moreover. One of the deeper ironies of the current situation
> is how the Bush administration, once so dismissive of government, is
> embarking on a major increase in its reach into our lives. Higher
> fuel-economy standards seem mild by comparison.
>
> To some degree, more surveillance and the like is necessary. But then,
> should we not seek to minimize the need for it? Should we not curb the
> energy waste that invites trouble of so many kinds? Somehow, we have
> bought into the notion that strength lies in appetite, and that progress
> means doing less with more, when the ages show the opposite to be the
> case.
>
> Let us hope our leaders start to see this. Let us hope that, while they
> launch a war on terrorists, they will encourage modes of energy use that
> make us less vulnerable to terrorists. Meanwhile, the rest of us don't
> have to wait. We don't have to accept the role of dutiful shoppers who
> watch the government do the job on TV.
>
> "It's when we commit ourselves to do something, it's when we take that
> first step, that we become a participant - a committed participant," John
> Francis says.
>
> "And in being a participant we change the world."
>
> Jonathan Rowe is a fellow at the Tomales Bay Institute, and a former
> Monitor staff writer.
>
>  (c) Copyright 2001. The Christian Science Monitor
>
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