Ronald Mitchell
Wed, 30 Jul 2008 13:42:52 -0700
Dale, Not clear whether you are limiting it to efficiency elements or not, but here are some ideas. If your focus really is efficiency, then two examples might be insulating houses and more energy efficient cars. To retro-insulate a house requires considerable cost and energy to produce the insulation and to blow it into the walls but then saves thereafter. Likewise, new energy efficient cars (and furnaces) cost a lot because they have lots of embedded energy in them. Imagine the energy used to completely change out the current car fleet in any country of the world with vehicles that got 100 miles per gallon (or kilometers per liter). If its on environmental damage more generally, I always love the notion that there will be zero-emission hydrogen cars or electric cars on the road. Yes, zero emissions at the tailpipe but stripping hydrogen off water molecules or shoving electrons into a battery are processes that require considerable energy. If all of that energy comes from solar or wind, perhaps its okay, but if you are burning fossil fuels to do it, then the net environmental damage equation needs greater attention. Hope some of this is on the mark and of use, Ron -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Dale W Jamieson Sent: Wednesday, July 30, 2008 12:55 PM To: 'GEP-Ed' Subject: request for an example intuitively, some gains in energy efficiency can be obtained without any technological intervention (e.g., greater use of natural sunlight), while others would require intervention, perhaps even using technologies that themselves had high levels of embodied energy or in some way were environmentally damaging. i'm looking for examples of the later. thanks in advance. dale ********************** Dale Jamieson Director of Environmental Studies Professor of Environmental Studies and Philosophy Affiliated Professor of Law Environmental Studies Program New York University 285 Mercer Street, 901 New York NY 10003-6653 http://philosophy.fas.nyu.edu/object/ "A day without sunshine is like night."