Ari's Planet

A couple of years ago Amory Lovins and a couple of other folks (including a local architect) gave a talk in Chapel Hill, NC. Lovins said basically that conservation had a negative cost: implementing conservation measures saves more money than it costs. Economically it therefore should be implemented before building, for instance, new power plants. He pointed out that nuclear power plants would have a higher marginal cost. Interesting, but I had no corroboration, and let it sit there.

The Economist reports on Vattenfall, a Swedish utility, that has provided a nice graph of the marginal costs of various energy conservation measures. Wouldn't you know, they come to about the same conclusions as Lovins. Improving insulation, vehicle efficiency, lighting systems, water heating, has a negative cost. Nuclear is break even, while most everything else has a positive cost. That is, you get your money back if you do the negative cost ones, and lose money on the other investments, including cellulosic ethanol (which itself is better than, say, corn ethanol).

Maybe you'll stop voting for idiots that want to turn our top soil into ethanol? I'd rather be eating it. Policies to improve building efficiency are sorely needed, among other things. We're talking decade horizons for replacement of buildings, better get started now.