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Wednesday, April 27, 2011
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17 comments:
Contrarian
If Ron Paul ever gets in a position of power we will be in a full fledged collapse.
Look, there are a lot of problems out there, but we can fix them..
1) The US Spends 18% of GDP on health care. We could easily get to 12% by treating health care the way we run VA and DoD medicine....
2)The US Rns about 700 Billion annual trade deficit. Almost half of that is Energy.
if we started mandating much higheer efficiency standards and installing renewables, we could solve half of that.
3) We are facing climate change, if you get to a green economy, we can, get to a clean energy future.
if we started mandating much higheer efficiency standards and installing renewables, we could solve half of that.
Ever hear of the parable of the broken window?
kevin
Bastiat's parable fails to view improved technology and imposed value from new approaches.
consider the existing window, which is single pane, rattles, leaks, is hard to open. 1% of the time, the householder wrenches his back opening the window.
The new window is smooth, simple, air tight, leak proof, double paned and has a special coating to keep out UV and summer's heat. It helps knock down the A/C bill and saves a fortune on doctor bills.
So tell Bastiat to go shove.
Pat,
The assumption of imposed new value would be that there is substantial efficiency, enough to justify the replacement costs. If you're talking about an HVAC unit or city bus that's good for another ten years, how in the world is it going to save money to replace them, let alone a net savings equal to the energy savings as you're suggesting (which implies that a replacement cost would equal zero)?
"If you're talking about an HVAC unit or city bus that's good for another ten years, how in the world is it going to save money to replace them,"
it's Ops Cost vs cycle costs.
that gets down to financial analysis, which depends intensely on assumptions, but, it's also about ROI, Cap Rate and social values.
The Germans have been investing hard in efficiency for 2 decades, it's paid off in they aren't having to Invade Libya.
what do you think the true cost of a Barrel of Oil is?
Kevin & Pat-
Also as a quick example if you assume that a 18 wheeler gets 6 miles to the gallon, travels 50MPH, 10 hours a day, 365 days a year, and gasoline is $4 the fuel cost is 122K. Currently natural gas would cost ~1/3rd that amount saving 80K per year. You can retrofit trucks so they can accept natural gas for 70-80K. Under any reasonable ROI target this is a great investment. Trucks aren't doing this though because there aren't enough places to fill up. If the government mandated the switch gas stations would start adding natural gas as an option and it would help reduce dependence on foreign oil. This is just a quick example there are many others.
I'm intrigued by the idea of small scale thorium reactors.
Hariet-
I had never heard of them before, but they look very interesting based on my 10 minutes of research. It appears way better for the environment than coal and slightly better than uranium :)
I am always amazed when I see how cheap houses are in Texas. You get 5,500 sq. ft. and and pool for ~300K.
I found this statistic:
"One ton of thorium produces the same amount of energy as 200 tons of uranium or 3.5 million tons of coal."
Contrarian,
Great link. I'm sure there are people who would pay the extra dough just for the chance possibility of owning a museum someday. :-)
HB, that's a major reason why I believe fed. Income tax should take into account geographical differences in the cost of living, in setting tax rates on the same income level.
Ace-
I agree. Although to some extent I am okay that DC gets penalized and I will end up paying more taxes seeing how much the feds subsidize this area.
HB, that's an interesting perspective. I'm in an industry that is basically unaffected by the fed. govt. and its spending in the area, so would have to stretch to let that count for much!
I hope everyone has a great weekend.
Ace-
My industry has nothing to with the federal government also. I was more talking about things like the metro, the museums, zoos, cherry blossoms... There is a lot of free stuff in the city because of the federal government.
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