> The architect said to me that we'll never fully recoup our costs of putting the hat on the house. To which I replied that we don't always to things for economic reasons, and just do them because they are the right thing to do.
I am so frustrated with this analysis and sentiment when it comes to environmental investment. I understand that looking at it with a financial lens can and should be done to inform what we do, and it would be great if a project just paid for itself, but you look at all the other things we spend money on and the same calculus is not used.
People don't buy the cheapest car, house, clothing, or food they could possibly get by with, or analyze the marginal cost of moving up or down the possible price tiers available to them with only the financial payback as a guide. Yet we constantly hear the refrain that you shouldn't spend a given amount of money on solar, house improvements, appliances, etc. that might be better for the environment if the payback isn't somehow positive with a 10-20 year payback period.
I've constantly had to work with contractors to let them know that I still want to pay for the marginal costs associated with investment even knowing that the marginal financial benefit is smaller. For instance, with solar panels in less than ideal locations, tri-pane windows, etc. I have disposable income, and I think the world is trouble for the 8+ billion humans inhabiting it, so I think it's worthwhile that I would spend some of that to make it marginally better even if that means I don't have a positive financial return.
It's a much more complicated equation, but it's very possible the emissions from simply producing the insulation and having the install done are more than the saved future emissions.
Insulation pays back over a long enough time horizon (economically or CO2 wise). Although spray foam at the moment does have a large CO2 impact. If someone is putting in way too much insulation then we could say that the last 30% of insulation wasn't worth it. When people say something won't payback economically on a home, they are usually looking at a time frame of 10 years or less.
In this case the insulation itself will probably payback quickly. The problem is the cost of re-siding the house to get the insulation in- likely similar for CO2 impact.
I absolutely agree this kind of nontrivial work can be done in a way that is woefully inefficient/impractical. My EWI, approx 85m2 of graphite polystyrene with an embedded CO2[1] of ~15kg/m2 is equivalent to approximately 1.5 years of CO2 emissions (combined electricity & gas), or ~9 months of CO2 emissions before I replaced windows and old kerosene boiler that came with the house.
Actual installation and other materials excluded (adhesives, mesh, silicone render, 450 hot beverages, getting the neighbour's car repaired after the scaffolders hit it, etc.) excluded.
I don't have a full year of data yet, but all in it's looking like CO2 emissions are going to come in at well under 40%. This is in line with the independent assessment I needed to clear a grant for some of the costs[2].
It seems to me "carbon ROI" is about 1/4 the financial ROI (est 8+ years).
Now if it was PU instead of EPS that would be a different cost (10x the CO2 of polystyrene). Sadly I also ended up with some PU (PIR) in a small area of low-pitched roof void, I don't know if there were better choices there.
There's also a hidden cost in living in a cold, damp building - now there are winter days when I don't even turn the heat on at all.
> People don't buy the cheapest car, house, clothing, or food they could possibly get by with... Yet we constantly hear the refrain that you shouldn't spend a given amount of money on solar, house improvements, appliances, etc. that might be better for the environment if the payback isn't somehow positive with a 10-20 year payback period.
I think the key thing here is that energy is 100% fungible unlike your examples. A kWH is a kWH.
But you’re not buying kWh in this example. You’re buying home energy systems. They have many tradeoffs, pro and con. Besides that, for many people, a kWh produced by a renewable energy source or that’s available to them when the grid is down is worth more than one produced by a coal plant that might be unavailable during an outage.
No, it really isn't. Your house might lose the same total energy as a super efficient house, but if all that energy happens to be lost through a cold spot by your dining room table, you're going to get pretty fed up with the situation.
It's not just an environmental consideration - efficient houses are much more pleasant to live in, particularly if they are designed holistically with proper ventilation systems and few cold spots.
It shouldn't be a surprise. Our economic system and even economics-related media puts individual short term gains above all else. Everything is viewed through the lens of "what makes me the most money today?" Long term positions are not valued. Positions that might benefit others are not even considered.
> The architect said to me that we'll never fully recoup our costs of putting the hat on the house. To which I replied that we don't always to things for economic reasons, and just do them because they are the right thing to do.
The outter layer wall that was added was wood studs, rock wool insulation, then wood siding. Looks great, no drafts, even temperature year round without having to run the heat-pump much. We also have an ERV to keep the air fresh in the house.
No one will pay more for a house with a higher R-value. If this were a determining factor, it would be part of real estate listings. It's a secondary or even tertiary concern for most people.
If a home were priced as little at $200,000 then 20% would cover $40k in investments. Homes around here don't sell for the little.
Assuming your percentage is correct and home prices are much bigger it makes it seem like a spectacular investment. Actually too good to be true of an investment.
If the return were 2% or max 5% I could see it maybe not being worth it depending on home prices in your area.
If you're buying a house without asking for the trailing twelve month energy bills, you are an unsophisticated real estate market participant and will pay for the ignorance over time.
In the US, this is so true and sad. After building my first home with insulation way beyond code I learned the sad lesson that it won't get you a dime more when it is time to sell.
We keep in touch with the new owners who have since thanked us for building so well. Their bills are much lower than any in the neighborhood and they had no idea.
The same goes for heat pumps. I'm living in my third build and we had room to do a ground source heat pump. It is amazing and my bills are half of what my neighbor pays for a similar size house. Mine is also better insulated. When it comes time to sell it, nobody will care.
The US needs to up the codes on insulation. Hot climate, cold climate - who cares, it helps.
> so I think it's worthwhile that I would spend some of that to make it marginally better even if that means I don't have a positive financial return.
Your action is going to make close to 0% difference for the 8+ billion humans inhabiting the planet. So from a practical standpoint, you've failed, but that practical failure makes it clear that the gesture has pure symbolic value for you.
And since that symbolic value stands in stark contrast to incessantly chasing positive financial returns: task failed successfully. Congratulations!
From a practical standpoint, they have valued their energy savings closer to what the true cost of carbon emissions are (remember, most carbon emitters are in no way paying the true cost of their emissions [1]; this externality dumping continues with wild abandon).
You're arguing systems and scale. This person is simply early in the adoption curve. Consider what will happen when this happens more broadly. As the climate situation becomes more dire [2], the price of carbon emissions per ton will rise and the willingness to prioritize energy savings and carbon emission reductions should increase regardless of fiat return. Physical system outcomes are distinct from magic number in database goes up.
But sure, if you're already poor and have nothing [3], this won't matter to you and your life trajectory is already mostly locked in today. As nullstyle mentions, we need to compound in the positive outcome direction, and those decisions are being made today.
This is a tough one, honestly. For one, being at the early adoption curve also has you on the low side of efficiency. If things aren't being done at scale, they are likely fairly low on that score.
More, though, moving to something that gets you a more climate controlled home in the name of efficiency is odd. You could almost certainly use smaller scale solutions to get more comfortable living that does not involve such a drastic change to the home. Clothing and lifestyle changes are things you can do, for one. For two, though, if the place was so drafty you could feel a breeze, it almost certainly did not have active heating/cooling to the level that they built up to. Such that is seems odd to justify how efficient you could do something that was just not getting done before?
No reason not to do it, of course. But insulation is an expensive thing to add to a house. Not just in raw costs, mind. Most insulation materials are of dubious carbon neutrality. And nothing lasts forever, least of all housing.
Insulation is one of the cheapest improvements than can be done to improve energy efficiency of a structure. Once insulated, those energy efficiency gains persist for the life of the structure. Nothing lasts forever, but homes have a 100+ year service life.
Homes have a 100+ year service life? Where? I see the median age of housing stock varies heavily in the US. Quickly scanning other markets, I see EU has older housing, in general. Even there, though, they don't talk of 100+ year old houses as being that common.
Scanning websites on this claim, I see that "properly installed, with no damage" some types claim up to 100 years of service for insulation. I strongly suspect that that is a claim that will not hold for the vast majority of homes. More reading also strongly suggests that if your house was built prior to 2005, you probably need to get the insulation redone.
Worse, from my experience, the older the home the less likely you are to have subfloor/walls to actually install insulation. Heaven help you if you do one of those container homes. And if you live in an environment where you have heavy rains or hail, expect damage to creep in rather quickly.
Don't get me wrong, I support the idea that adding insulation is almost certainly a good idea where you can. I just can't bring myself to trust claims of 100 year service life.
Depends on the country. A well-built and properly maintained house in Germany can have a service life of 80 to 100 years or more. Some may even exceed this range, especially those that are regularly updated and renovated.
German building standards contribute to the longevity of residential buildings.
A well built and properly maintained anything can last hundreds of years. Proper maintenance likely involves heavy replacement of parts, mind. And is very contingent on no damage.
I will add I just moved out of a hundred year old house in Seattle. I know they can happen. I also know that house had no air conditioning and retrofitting one on would have basically meant a new house. Even if it looked the same.
> As the climate situation becomes more dire [2], the price of carbon emissions per ton will rise
Looking at what's happening here in Canada, where it looks like what has high chances to be the next government is campaigning on getting rid of the carbon tax, these days I'm somewhat pessimistic that carbon pricing will actually be implemented by the top contributors to global emissions. I hope I'm wrong.
Literally every single accomplishment in human history was built upon millions of small "symbolic" individual actions. Good things don't just magically happen on their own.
“Close to 0% difference”, compounding over time was how we got here. I’m not saying personal responsibility is the only factor, but youre the wrong person in the exchange above, and OP has the proper attitude.
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I think one thing missing in the responses here is that there is some culpability without intent. Assume there was not ill intent, the fact that so many things that went on still happens, means they didn't have sufficient controls, or checks and balances in the practices to prevent it from happening. That lack of control is itself part of the problem, and something they could have fixed any number of times.
My 9 year old son always rightfully claims that many of the harmful things he does was accidental. The problem is that he frequently leaves little margin for error in a lot of things he does. Follows his sister just a few feet behind his bike; of course your going to run into her if she stops quickly. Stacking your bowl, cup and silverware on your plate then bring it up one handed; of course they're going to spill.
Facebook's internal controls and practices are insufficient to manage their business. It doesn't matter if they didn't willfully intend to do all of the shit they did. They did intentionally create the controls, practices, and culture in place that allowed it to happen.
I bought a 2013 Model S recently that had its wheels swapped with a 2016 Model S by a third party before sale (I didn't care for the 21" wheels that were on the 2013, and the buyer of the 2016 wanted them). Shortly after driving away from the dealer, the tire pressure sensor system reported faults. After bringing it in to Tesla they said the newer tires and older car were not compatible, but they could easily downgrade the electronics in the wheels or upgrade the electronics on the car. They were both about the same cost, so I just had them update the wheels.
I'd bet that the TPMS (tire pressure monitor/sensor) in the wheels is an off the shelf component purchased from a top-10 supplier in the automotive industry, and the problem was as simple as not having the TPMS programmed for the car. This is the same problem you can encounter if you replace all four TPMS in most any medium to high end car manufactured after about 2006, and the tire shop forgets to use their handheld wireless EEPROM flasher to apply the car's VIN to the new TPMS modules.
Tell me about it, I had a 2007 1 series BMW and its transmission computer became dead. Now, I was quoted 4000USD at the dealership (the car was worth about 5000 at that point). I went to a third party specializing in automatic transmission and they almost could do it by swapping the computer from a crashed car.
Turns out it needs an encryption key (who only the dealership has) to get the car to recognize the computer, otherwise it won't even start. I sold it for parts and will never have an automatic BMW again.
According to the transmission guy things have only gotten worse with newer models, particularly Audi/Volkswagen and BMW.
However, the actual practice of applying the now-legal practice to something like you described is far above the technical skill of most automotive shops. Some tuners may be able to do it, so it might be worth asking around and doing some digging if this happens to anyone else.
One thing to keep in mind is that one person's spare part may be another' srolen car or car parts. Especially in Europe, stealing parts is a thing. Some gangs won't steal entire cars, but only break in and take parts according to a "shopping list". Locking components to one another helps to make stolen parts useless and acts as a deterrent.
Yeah my dad and my mother both had their cars broken into and both of their steering wheels stolen.
The door locks were surgically removed and nothing else was touched or ruined. They only removed those parts and went their way.
Then there should be a mechanism of being able to prove provenance of part and forcing the manufacturer to "re pair" components into another car without having to pay an absurd price.
Reminds me of a guy I met once. He ran a small auto repair shop focusing on a single brand (Audi, AFAIR). He had a special device to talk with cars' computers and a laptop for it with software and appropriate keys. He explained to me that getting this from the auto manufacturer would cost a small fortune; instead, what he did is contract with some Chinese people, who from time to time would RDP to the laptop and update whatever in that software that needed updating; with the interface that I think was probably second-hand also, it apparently costed only a fraction of what manufacturer would want.
Cars like other pieces of technology are gradual. Its pretty easy to pick up a 90's era car with electronic fuel injection and spark advance while still having a fairly simple emissions system, and actual relays and mechanical buttons to turn on things like cruise control.
If that is to much, you can go back to the early 90's or late 80's for systems where only injectors are electronic and based solely on a couple simple sensors (mas air, or o2 sensor) and things like spark advance are still done in with a distributor + vacuum. Its all a question of what you want to tolerate, but the advantages of EFI+electronic spark advance or VVT are immense for both reliability and efficiency.
Same reason I like bikes. I can pull the whole thing apart in a day and understand what every bit does. As soon as you start including electronics you end up with black boxes that no human could ever understand entirely.
I'm not sure if wireless shifting will ever become standard. I have an ebike with di2 and I haven't noticed any reason I would want it over regular shifting. You also have the problem that if the battery goes flat you cant shift gears.
One of the big reasons for electronic shifting counter-intuitively applies to “daily riders” more than to race machines, even though at current prices, electronic shifting is rare on affordable bikes.
That reason is that once you have a solenoid, sensors, and a CPU in the mechanism, you have a self-adjusting shifter. The more gears on a derailleur-type system, the tighter the spacing, and the sooner a mechanical shifter needs adjustments or replacement of the cable.
Electronic systems can adjust themselves as needed, offering a massive potential for affordable bicycles to “just work” for people who don’t have the inclination to fiddle with their own adjustments.
The 90s have a sweet spot in automotive history where they finally got all the 80s-prototyped computer-controlled smog equipment refined and simplified, but hadn't yet let the computers infect every other nook and cranny of vehicles.
I basically aim for just before fly-by-wire became commonplace when considering ICE vehicles. No throttle cable? No way.
I mean sure. But my gas vehicle is purely recreational, it gets a few hundred miles a year at most. I really enjoy teaching myself car maintenance and repair with it. Being an 80s car, it’s super roomy in the engine area and easy to work on.
No one is dying because I own and drive this car today. Someone might’ve died mining the lithium for my Tesla however.
This is all to say that your comment is reductive.
In defense of GP, their comment is properly reductive as this is how things generalize when deployed large-scale. Your smog may not kill anyone and my smog may not kill anyone, but it's also true that X% greater in emissions leads to Y% more premature deaths, so some extra Y% people are going to keep dying if these emissions are not reduced.
I don't think GP meant it to be personal. But Kant's categorical imperative does work in some cases, so it's worth remembering.
If someone died mining our hypothetical battery, that is a choice they made (assuming that we all know working in mines is dangerous). OTOH we have little choice in breathing in smog... clean air is a communal resource we all have to share.
And the problem isn’t your gas vehicle that you rarely use, it’s the general concept of everyone from Volkswagen to our local auto sports enthusiasts thinking their smog doesn’t really matter that much.
I assume there's a mortality rate for software developers. Is it therefore the software developers fault if they die on the job? Should we shrug a point out that that career was their choice?
Does this thinking extend to other activities? The mortality rate for sleeping in non zero after all....
I guess I’d draw an analogy to astronauts, firefighters or race car drivers. Obviously mining, firefighting, space flight and racing should be made as safe as possible from a worker’a rights perspective. But anyone going in to those careers hopefully understands the risks!
And thanks for the reply, I was wondering what the downvotes were about — my comment apparently was blasé, especially since many miners frequently don’t have much other economic opportunity.
The problem isn't electronics itself. The problem is a frankly evil combination of artificial technical and legal barriers that prevent you (or your local car repair shop) from being able to do fixes and checkups yourself. In a nicer world, you'd have standardized interfaces and tools released to facilitate repairs of the complicated systems in cars.
OBDII has been legally standardized on all cars for years. However it only covers basics, every engine is different on details and so you can't get far on the standard alone.
More to the point, how much of the complexity is an excuse to charge $4000 at the dealership for something an independent mechanic could do for $495 except that there is some kind of DMCA nonsense in the car to prevent that on purpose.
Most of the complexity arises from using feedback loops in the engines similar to other control systems in industry. There are also similarities to techniques used in electronics.
You can like something without wanting to go back to it. It's nice being able to fix your own car, but great fuel efficiency and low emissions is also nice.
In states that don't have their head up a certain bodily orifice "pre-smog" is a rolling window. Requiring people to maintain emissions systems in their stock configuration on cars pushing 50 is insane. If you really are hell bent on making people smog stuff that's old and uncommon to the point of being a rounding error to the big picture then just stick a sniffer in the tail pipe and pass it as long as it meets or exceeds the standards it was built for.
> ... * and the problem was as simple as not having the TPMS programmed for the car.*
This is fairly common for those people who put on winter tires with 'winter rims'. Many people don't bother with TPMS devices for cost reasons, and just live with the low pressure "warnings" for the colder months.
I know of 2015 Ford changed their TPMS sensors so you couldn’t do a straight swap between 2013 and 2016 vehicles. Wouldn’t be surprised if the rest of the industry changed too.
For when you can't find any more pretrained ones. Or to get someone for a lower salary and growing them that provides some loyalty and help solving the problem of not having enough pretrained ones in the first place.
This is the real problem. If the consumer price is $50 but the insurer is paying $250 behind the scenes, then we all pay that price with increased premiums.
We've been using Clojure for 3 years and ClojureScript for 1.5 years. We're actively converting more of our legacy codebase to Clojure/Script.
It's been a great choice for us and even the skeptics have become converts over time. I think it's a joy to work with and allows us to reason about our problems and solve them better than many alternatives.
I am so frustrated with this analysis and sentiment when it comes to environmental investment. I understand that looking at it with a financial lens can and should be done to inform what we do, and it would be great if a project just paid for itself, but you look at all the other things we spend money on and the same calculus is not used.
People don't buy the cheapest car, house, clothing, or food they could possibly get by with, or analyze the marginal cost of moving up or down the possible price tiers available to them with only the financial payback as a guide. Yet we constantly hear the refrain that you shouldn't spend a given amount of money on solar, house improvements, appliances, etc. that might be better for the environment if the payback isn't somehow positive with a 10-20 year payback period.
I've constantly had to work with contractors to let them know that I still want to pay for the marginal costs associated with investment even knowing that the marginal financial benefit is smaller. For instance, with solar panels in less than ideal locations, tri-pane windows, etc. I have disposable income, and I think the world is trouble for the 8+ billion humans inhabiting it, so I think it's worthwhile that I would spend some of that to make it marginally better even if that means I don't have a positive financial return.