OT: The cold elephant in the room...

[adub]

While some of you are telling me how bad my A/C is, fridges are terrible and I shouldn't drive, take a look at how much bunker fuel and GHG emissions are from cargo/container ships.

[jamesdak]

Originally Posted by Mikej

We still have to live, jeez refrigerator, a/c and all. I don’t know why there is so much guilt. So, let’s say no fridge, no ac, I bet a fan in each room, and take out food blow away the costs of a fridge and ac.

No guilt on my end. I"m old, cranky and just don't care!

Oh and I drive 23 miles one way to work each day and in the winter that requires my 4x4 truck. I'll be danged if I'll live in a city surrounded by a bunch of people I want nothing to do with.

Guess I'm bad.....but I sure am happy. And with views like this from my side yard I bet I continue to stay happy and not guilty about the choices I make.



Not to mention I get to leave from my house each day for a long ride for views like this. The city folk have to drive their cars to come ride in this view.

[Tickdoc]

I’ve got a refrigerator in the main house, a refrigerator in the garage, and a Montgomery ward deep freeze from about 1970 that just runs like a champ. I don’t feel guilty about any of those. Life is too short for me to lose sleep or feel guilty about how I keep my food cold.

I’m just thankful we have the ability to do such.

I actually owe a lot to refrigeration. My wife’s grandfather was an ice delivery man as a young teenager. He and his dad would take a horse drawn carriage downtown to the icehouse and haul, cut, and deliver ice to homes so they could keep food cold in their iceboxes. One hot day he delivered ice to a neighbor and gave a small piece to a cute young girl languishing in the heat. They married and had a son, who married and had a daughter. I married her and here we sit happy as can be. Thanks, ice man.

[Peter P.]

Originally Posted by dustyrider

I do think water is going to be the next currency.

Remember the Great Recession of 2008? It was caused by the collapse of the mortgage financing market. ONE PERSON started the stock market bet against all those sub-prime mortgages. He made a total of $800 million on this bet. Now what is he investing in? WATER.

Originally Posted by steveandbarb1

Ditch the clothes drier and hang clothes (like my mother taught us) .

I moved into my condo in 2015. Haven't used the included dryer yet. I lived in an apartment for 20+ years before that. I hung the clothes on a rack in a walk-in closet. Still use that rack.

I think we can conclude from the previous posts that refrigerators do not have that much room for improvement in energy savings. But clearly from mentions of conditions in the west and southwest, we can safely say temperature control in our homes is a place for significant energy/money savings.

I'll hazard a guess and say the future is building homes underground, where temperatures are cooler in the summer and overall temperature swings are much less than above ground.

Currently the temperature in my condo's underground basement, the temperature is a wonderful 68 degrees without any additional cooling, while outside it's 85.

[pbarry]

Living in western MA 15 years ago, the old fridge in my apartment bit the dust. The landlord was fully prepared to replace the unit. I'd recently purchased an old Servel 110v electric/propane fridge from a client that had converted to grid power after 35 years off-grid, and wanted to give it a whirl running on 110v.

My electric usage went down $25 a month as the Servel has no compressor or fan. Surely it wouldn't do as well against a modern small (12cu. ft or so) refrigerator, but I was impressed. No noise is another added benefit, but it did require defrosting.

[reuben]

Originally Posted by Peter P.

I'll hazard a guess and say the future is building homes underground, where temperatures are cooler in the summer and overall temperature swings are much less than above ground.

Currently the temperature in my condo's underground basement, the temperature is a wonderful 68 degrees without any additional cooling, while outside it's 85.

My basement is about the same, probably cooler.

Regarding underground living, I'm planning on geothermal cooling/heating in my next house.

[tomato coupe]

Originally Posted by Peter P.

Remember the Great Recession of 2008? It was caused by the collapse of the mortgage financing market. ONE PERSON started the stock market bet against all those sub-prime mortgages.

Only one person? You sure about that?

He made a total of $800 million on this bet. Now what is he investing in? WATER.

There's nothing new about investing in water.

[buddybikes]

Originally Posted by ripvanrando

It can be really hard to buy a small footprint home in some markets. New homes are huge compared to the small ranches and capes that I remember as a kid in the 60's. I could not get a decent builder interested in a "small" custom home of 2800-3000 sq-feet. Everything and everybody is supersized these days. Free money disincentivizes builders, they build right right to buyer's pain limits with no concern for environmental impacts. When you see a 5,000+ sq-ft home, they have multiple A/C and heating units and $1000+ monthly electric bills. Those are the real beasts in the room.

Wow, small is 2,800? Only way to fix this is through town/city zoning. In my neighborhood we are average size, but it is a small community on the water. Other parts of the town, is like above, someone has a 1/3 acre, looks like the new house (wiping out totally functional old house) is 2/3'rds of the property. We are moving to retirement, nice when it take 20 min to clean for friends coming over.

[nickl]

Originally Posted by MikeD

Just get solar. My system produces more electricity than I use over the year. Refrigerators are the flea on the back of the elephant as far as energy use goes.

The real problem is SUVs, pickups, and other gas guzzlers and people driving around unnecessarily.

You are correct. In California solar is mandated for virtually all new residential construction. Makes sense considering the lower costs and greater efficiencies related to this alternative energy source not to mention actual and potential benefits.

http://www.calsolarinc.com/solar-req...in-california/

[ripvanrando]

Originally Posted by steveandbarb1

Wow, small is 2,800? Only way to fix this is through town/city zoning. In my neighborhood we are average size, but it is a small community on the water. Other parts of the town, is like above, someone has a 1/3 acre, looks like the new house (wiping out totally functional old house) is 2/3'rds of the property. We are moving to retirement, nice when it take 20 min to clean for friends coming over.

Not sure how zoning would fix supersizitis. The town gets more tax money on a big house and in some towns, minimums are 3 or 5 acres per lot. If anything the towns make supersizitis worse. I am so happy that I downsized but everywhere I look, new houses are huge. My wife has a second refrig in the basement that we hardly use, I'd like to get rid of it but divorce costs more than the 10 bucks a month that it uses.

[tctyres]

Originally Posted by unterhausen

Well, he only posited an energy savings, with no demonstration of said savings.

... the biggest waste of energy is the building envelope itself. Insulating rim joists, plugging holes for wiring, fixing insulation problems, etc.

Agreed. I was just saying "he would be right if ...."

[tctyres]

Originally Posted by adub

... take a look at how much bunker fuel and GHG emissions are from cargo/container ships.

People are working on that one, too. The shipping industry is acutely aware of its cost per dollar goods delivered: lower the shipping cost, and the industry benefits.

[sipmeister]

Thankful, not guilty, that I have the means of preserving food so that it's not wasted. A good portion of the world still does not have that ability.

[54ny77]

wow, that's nuts. one guy did it all?

With that 800 mil, maybe he's hoarding SRAM Red 11 spd. etap too.



[QUOTE=Peter P.;2944621]

Remember the Great Recession of 2008? It was caused by the collapse of the mortgage financing market. ONE PERSON started the stock market bet against all those sub-prime mortgages. He made a total of $800 million on this bet. Now what is he investing in? WATER.

[Peter P.]

Originally Posted by tomato coupe

Only one person? You sure about that?

He was the first. If I understood the book correctly, The Big Short by Michael Lewis, it was only AFTER others saw/overheard what he was doing and realize he was likely correct, did they decide to engage in a similar investment strategy.

There's nothing new about investing in water.

It's not that investing in water is new, but HIS investment strategy, and the fact that he chose water as an investment after presciently shorting the mortgage bond market, leads many to want to dissect Burry's thinking and possibly follow his strategy.