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The Department of Energy (DOE) announced today that for the first time it had ordered a company to stop distibuting products that failed to meet federal minimum conservation standards.
"This action is designed to send a clear message to all manufacturers," said DOE General Counsel Scott Blake Harris, in announcing the action against two AeroSys, Inc. products. "This Administration takes energy efficiency seriously."
The deficient products are an air conditioner and a heat-pump; both failed to meet the DOE's minimum Seasonal Energy Efficiency Ratio (SEER) for these appliances. In a notice sent to Maryland-based AeroSys on last Thursday, the DOE indicated that it was also considering the possibility of fining the company.
AeoSys officials were not immediately available for comment.
Writing on his NRDC blog last week, Noah Long pointed out that "Appliances that don't meet the minimum efficiency standards waste money and cause unnecessary pollution."
Improving energy efficiency of electric appliances is fine, but it obfuscates the much more important problem which is the fundamental inefficiency of electric equipment. Only where it brings strong conveniency advantages should we use electricity.
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The DOE fails us by not recognizing the reality of present day electric power production and the marginal response of that system to electrical loads. An excessive amount of energy is wasted in our fossil fuel power plants. Economic reality tells us that this will be the governing fact far into the future. The far cheaper system is coal fired power generation, and that can not changed significantly in the real world of our industrial economy.
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So the benefits of heat pumps are far over-rated. For CO2 emissions, in comparing heat pumps to natural gas heating, these options come out about even. Thus, a large subsidy to heat pumps is very inappropriate.
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A far more beneficial program would be to encourage shifting all appliances that require heat from electricity to natural gas equipment. Cooking appliances and clothes driers are the main opportunity to make big CO2 reductions.
Osha Gray Davidson covers energy and the environment for OnEarth. A freelance writer, Davidson's work has appeared in The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Salon, Grist, Mother Jones, and many other publications. He has written five nonfiction books, including The Enchanted
...Osha Gray Davidson covers energy and the environment for OnEarth. A freelance writer, Davidson's work has appeared in The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Salon, Grist, Mother Jones, and many other publications. He has written five nonfiction books, including The Enchanted Braid, a natural history of coral reefs, which was a finalist for the U.K. Natural World Book Award. His blog on solar power, The Phoenix Sun, is widely syndicated.
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