[Greenbuilding] ENERGY STAR Clothes Dryers Program Launch

[Reuben Deumling]

On Sun, Jul 22, 2012 at 5:36 AM, Paul Eldridge <
paul.eldridge at ns.sympatico.ca> wrote:

>
> There are roughly 90 million tumble dryers in the United States alone and
> no matter how much we collectively hold our breath and stomp our feet (or
> pontificate), they're not going to magically disappear.
>

This is the kind of argument I hear in discussions of when cars may no
longer be ubiquitous. Invariably someone will say 'You're trying to take my
car away!'  These kinds of statements betray an understandable anxiety
about the kinds of changes that might be afoot, but also a misunderstanding
of who's in charge. I'm not trying to take anyone's car or clothes dryer
away. Personalizing this is absurd. The people who argue that we can't
afford clothes dryers powered by fossil fuel or the grid, or that cars have
no future aren't saying this because they want to ruin other people's fun
or convenience. I believe we say this because it is our best guess as to
what will come to pass, whether we want it or not. Pretending that this
doesn't concern us, that consumers rule, that we're somehow exempt from all
the limits others take seriously is ridiculous.  In the US we have gotten
used to thinking we're in charge, that if we want clothes dryers well then
we're damn well going to get (to keep our) clothes dryers. But what if one
day we discover that we no longer call the shots, hold all the cards?
Dryers aren't going to 'magically disappear,' but they might cease to be
viable. Public opinion I think could easily shift when we realize the
absurdity of thinking we need power plants and a complex grid and ancient
sunlight to accomplish a task as simple as drying our clothes.

>
> According to Natural Resources Canada, electric dryers sold in 2008
> consume, on average, 916 kWh a year.  That number is based on eight loads a
> week, which works out to be some 2.2 kWh per use. As a two person
> household, we typically run two loads of laundry a week -- 229 kWh/year.  A
> TV set-top box (and there are reportedly 160 million of them in US
> households) or digital video recorder could consume upwards of twice that
> over the course of the year. Where are the pitchforks and torches?
>

The whole thing is ridiculous. Just because we keep thinking of new ways to
use electricity doesn't mean older ways aren't discretionary, aren't
something we can un-learn.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.bioenergylists.org/pipermail/greenbuilding_lists.bioenergylists.org/attachments/20120722/a188f196/attachment.html>