Er, not so much. Just like how the Government standards on saturated fats have just been dropped (e.g., meats, dairy, eggs) and now it seems that the low carb diet is now falling out of favor. Yes, so much for settled science. And again, we are seeing that in governmental policy that the best watt is the watt not used – not as much of an ROI as we’ve been told by the Greenies and the Left (who have been trying to deindustrialize us and lower our standard of living (Weekly Standard, emphasis mine):
This change involves environmentalists having to undergo an embarrassing about-face and recognize that one of their favorite slogans isn’t true. For years environmentalists have promoted energy conservation measures for buildings and homes with the claim that such improvements “paid for themselves” and were more cost-effective than building new power plants. The EPA and the Department of Energy happily touted claims that conservation resulted in lower energy bills, and were therefore competitive, cost-effective investments.
But there’s a growing body of economic research going back more than 15 years that finds the conservation claims to be exaggerated, when they are not completely wrong.
Last month the National Bureau of Economic Research published a devastating study that concluded energy efficiency investments on average had a negative 9.5 percent rate of return, and that the actual reduction in energy use was less than half as much as the government models assert.
Some sharp-eyed environmentalist probably noticed this problem and tipped off the EPA to drop the conservation building block. The conservation talking point also threatened to undermine environmentalists’ goal of killing hydrocarbon energy, because it opened the door to states promoting energy conservation as a cost-effective way of achieving the Clean Power Plan’s mandated reductions, on paper at least. With this telling change, the movement should file for intellectual bankruptcy.
Modern societies need energy and they need it cheaply. Unfortunately, the Greenies have invaded the Feds like termites and have hollowed out any kind of common sense – ONLY their preferred energy sources should be allowed and they are using the Levers of Power in Government to make that happen. Our freedom to choice via the free market? That cannot stand.
Frankly, I think much of it is driven, once again, by self-loathing and guilt. You know, I have no problem if they hate themselves and want to sit around an EPA approved fire pit in front of their cave dressed in sackcloth – but stop being totalitarian in that your desire is to have the rest of us “jailed” with you. With stories abounding that our next generation of dishwashers will take 3 hours or so to wash a small load, there’s a problem.
It’s like both Kelly Ayotte and Jeanne Shaheen (re: my US Senators – their Federal energy standard bill) hate us all But then again, it took both parties to do this. After all, they can’t be seen as sitting around doing nothing, right?
Hey, how about tackling that $18 Trillion debt and ISIS first. Solve the problems that the Bureaucratic State is causing us. Then MAYBE start in forcing us into your way of how we live our lives in our own homes. Tackle Govt first – and then, and ONLY then, begin to think about other things.
Actually, just leave us alone – I can assure you we can make our own decision about our lives all by ourselves very well enough without you.
(H/T: Powerline)
