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catbirdsings's avatar

Let's look at all of those "green" features:

veggie based insulation: Maybe a good idea for new home, but an old home with good, already manufactures insulation is just fine. Retrofitting would consume more energy and release more carbon.

High performance windows: perhaps a good investment both financially and carbon wise if windows are old and leaky.

Demand response appliances - big brother again.

Solar thermal heating system - not viable in many cold, cloudy or snowy climates as well as where there are lots of trees. Won't make a meaningful difference in a large multifamily building because of the small roof to volume ratio in multifloor buildings.

Grey water recovery - perhaps a good idea if easy to do, but it's a lot more complicated than they make it out to be. Poop needs to be thoroughly composted unmixed with flush water. Washing machine water will be full of detergent and plastic fibers. not in my garden!

Heat pumps and geothermal - much more complex than advertised. Not viable everywhere.

Solar panels - sure, on well exposed roofs and reasonably sunny climates, but what a net source of carbon on some of the poorly exposed rooftops I've seen!

Wind power system - come on! 90%+ of locations are very poor locations for a small turbine and the net carbon footprint will surely be positive.

low flow fixtures - sure, but they better rinse shampoo out of thick hair in a reasonable amount of time!

Home energy manager - Feels like big brother to me.

Energy efficient lighting - as long as the impact of the light spectrum delivered, flicker and EMFs don't harm health.

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Sweettea71's avatar

Once I see Klaus and his minions living in a thatch house I’ll consider it. Until then he can buzz off.

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