Tag: energy efficiency

What is California’s ‘inefficient tire’ ban, and why does it matter?

Snow tires, mud tires, all-terrain tires — gone?

California’s new efficiency standard could wipe out most of the tires on the market by 2033.

From CFACT

By CFACT Ed

Snow tires, mud tires, all-terrain tires — gone? California’s new efficiency standard could wipe out most of the tires on the market by 2033.

Marc Morano from ClimateDepot.com joins Kelly Sadler on Politically Unstable to explain the rule, the backlash from tire makers, and why this fight could spread far beyond California.

[SADLER] What is an inefficient tire? An inefficient tire to me is one that a tire that doesn’t roll.

[MORANO] That’s right. And all tires roll. No, what this is is they’re considering tires that are inefficient, meaning not aerodynamic enough, not fuel-mileage conscious enough. Doesn’t meet their specific requirements for carbon dioxide reduction. Their goal is to remove the equivalent of almost half a million cars off the road, you know, equivalent in CO2 reductions. That’s what’s going on behind this energy efficiency.

So when they say a noncompliant tire, say you got one from the factory that was just sort of your boring middle-of-the-road tire and you want to upgrade. So you have an SUV you want to upgrade to maybe a mud tire or an aggressive all-terrain. Well, hey. That’s not very good with resistance. That’s going to cause a lot more resistance with the road, i.e. more traction in that case, or even people who live in the mountains want snow tires. All sorts of specialty tires are going to be impacted.

And the tire manufacturers themselves say 70% of the tires currently sold in California may not be legal to be sold by the time this is fully implemented. That’s how insane this is. So it’s climate-focused, climate-motivated, and it’s unelected bean counters in California coming after just the next thing. I mean, they’ve already come after the pizza ovens, the gas stoves, the dishwashers, the washing machines, the dryers, the ceiling fans, gas-powered cars. Why not add tires to that list?

[SADLER] So what has been the response from the tire industry? Let’s say Goodyear, Bridgestone, Michelin, because it seems like they’re going to have to change their business model to deal with California. California has a huge economy; a lot of tires are sold in the state of California. What is the industry’s response, as well as the car dealerships and the car manufacturers, let’s say Ford?

[MORANO] Well, I can say no one likes this, and they’ve all been pushing hard against it. Dunlop Tire, Goodyear, they’re actually saying, as I said, 70% of the tires won’t be legal to be sold. And this is a huge business model problem. And California knows it. California dreaming is that they set environment, energy, climate policy for the rest of the country. And for years, they had that sort of terrorist role to be able to do that with the — starting with the California Air Resources Board — this is back now, and I think it was 2021 maybe, where they actually did the EV mandate and they started the slow gas-powered car ban.

And their goal was to force the auto manufacturers to follow, because California is such a big market. And then you add to that, you have other insane states that will likely follow, including Washington, Oregon, Massachusetts, New York. A lot of these blue states will follow whatever. I live in Virginia and we have a law on the books that says whatever California does, Virginia will follow. So we had the California gas-powered car ban, EV mandate on our books just because we were blindly following California. It’s nuts.

And so this is huge. The tire manufacturers see what’s coming. What it really means, at least in the short term, is people leaving California to cross state lines to buy tires. Just like they’re probably buying tobacco, fireworks, gas, stoves- who knows what else they have to buy in California. They’re going to have to cross over. Manufacturers are sounding a big warning on this, but this is California. Nothing usually deters them, except that the Trump administration was able to reverse the gas-powered car ban. And that took federal statutes. That took court cases. It took years. California is like — I want to say environmental terrorist, but they’re like an economic terrorist when it comes to this. They can do a lot of damage. Damage lasts for years. It takes a lot of years to overdo it.

[SADLER] When does this ban go into effect? I read it, it’s a two-phase ban. And is there any way to reverse it before it does go into effect?

[MORANO] Well, in terms of reversing, yes. This is five unelected board members of the California Energy Commission, and it was a unanimous vote. And so they have to have the efficiency standard in place by — for original equipment tire replacement — by 2033, and the automakers are saying that by that point, you know, especially the way these bureaucrats — not even the way something’s written or the initial ruling — it’s actually how it’s going to be interpreted, and then how it makes economic sense to react to it.

So even if a bureaucrat lays out, well, here’s all you have to do: follow these 14 steps and you can still sell that tire, a tire manufacturer is going to look at that and say, that’s insane, I’ll never do it, we’re just not going to sell that tire there. And that’s the reality of it. The unelected bureaucrats don’t ever see that part of it. They just say, well, I just follow these 18 point plan and they can do it. No, well, no company will do that if the 18-point plan is going to cost more and not be even remotely cost-effective. They’ll just say, not worth it, not going to happen. And that’s what’s going to end up happening to the California consumer.

This article originally appeared at The Washington Times

Together, Power Plants and Greenhouses Can Feed Humanity.

Reusing wasted heat exhausted from power plant stacks can support endless greenhouses to help feed the world’s population.

A person standing in a lush greenhouse filled with various plants, surrounded by a glass structure that allows natural light to filter in.

From Watts Up With That?

Reusing wasted heat exhausted from power plant stacks can support endless greenhouses to help feed the world’s population.

Ronald Stein, P.E. is an engineer, columnist on energy literacy at America Out Loud NEWS, and advisor on energy literacy for the Heartland Institute and CFACT, and co-author of the Pulitzer Prize-nominated book “Clean Energy Exploitations.”

Sid Abma’s company Sidel Systems specialized in the design and installation of warm water heating systems for the commercial greenhouse industry. His passion is to deliver maximum energy efficiency to everything.

Co-authored by Ronald Stein, P.E. and Sid Abma

Published America Out Loud NEWS

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and datacenters are coming and so are the natural gas power plants that will be required to provide continuous uninterruptible electricity to power a lot of these facilities. These power plants today can operate at well over 90% Energy Efficiency. 

The natural gas power plant that has produced electricity can further benefit humanity via the waste exhaust that would normally be put into a chimney and vented into the atmosphere, which is a waste of heat and a waste of CO2.   

Rather than exhausting hot gases up power plants chimneys, the exhaust can be utilized in greenhouses, typically through a cogeneration system. The recovered heat energy can be used to warm greenhouses, and the CO2 fertilizes the plants, and all contributes to feeding the world’s population. 

A Combined Heat and Power (CHP) power plant, also known as cogeneration, is a highly efficient energy system that simultaneously produces both electricity and useful heat from a single fuel source. The process involves using a “prime mover,” such as a gas turbine or engine, to generate electricity and then capturing the waste heat from the prime mover for thermal applications like heating or cooling buildings. This integrated approach significantly increases energy efficiency and reduces fuel consumption compared to generating heat and power separately, leading to lower operating costs and fewer carbon emissions.  

The CHP process in the power plant involves treating the exhaust with catalytic converters to reduce any harmful components in the exhaust.

  • Exhaust Gas Treatment: The exhaust gas is passed through a selective catalytic reduction (SCR) unit and an oxidation catalyst to remove pollutants like nitrogen oxides (NOx) and non-methane hydrocarbons (NMHC). 

Within the combusted exhaust is heat energy that was not used to create electricity. The Sidel SRU Flue Gas Condenser was developed in the early 1980’s to recover the waste heat energy from the exhaust of the boilers used to heat these commercial greenhouses. 

Today, over 2.5 million square feet of Greenhouses are using this “recovery of wasted heat” technology every day for increasing energy efficiency and to provide cooled CO2.  The cooled exhaust, CO2, is being used in commercial greenhouses for CO2 enrichment. Even the created water in the exhaust has a purpose. The Sidel SRU Flue Gas Condenser is being used today in many other applications such as processing plants, hospitals, petrochemical plants, universities, commercial laundries, and State prisons. 

To make the most of the elements from future power plants combusted natural gas exhaust, a greenhouse becomes a perfect partner. The SRU recovered heat energy will be piped over and will be used to maintain the perfect growing environment for a multitude of different food crops. The CO2 in the exhaust will be piped over and injected into these growing environments as a fertilizer that will increase fruit and vegetable size and quantity. The condensate water will have nutrients added and then be used to irrigate these crops.

To apply this technology in power plant applications is a natural forward progression. In Utah at the Current Creek power plant this technology is today being applied, heating 30 acres of commercial greenhouses owned by Houweling Nurseries.

All this happens because the owners of the power plant decided to improve their energy efficiency from 50% to 97% by redirecting the combusted exhaust and utilizing the heat energy and the CO2 and the water to better uses. 

Utilizing the wasted heat in the exhaust from natural gas power plants can support endless greenhouses to help feed America and the world’s population.

The AI Centers, datacenters, power plants, and greenhouses will be operating for generations, providing good paying community jobs to parents, kids, and grandkids and food for the population. 

The technology condensing flue gas heat recovery, provides beneficial use for heat and emissions that would otherwise be released into the atmosphere. This increases plant yield while reducing the economic costs of energy for the greenhouse.

Everyone WINS, with produced electricity and food.

  • Increased Plant Growth: Elevated CO2 levels in greenhouses accelerate plant growth and increase harvest yields. 
  • Reduced Energy Costs: By recovering waste heat from the exhaust for heating, operating costs for the greenhouses can be significantly reduced. 
  • Sustainable Operation: This closed-loop system reuses byproducts, turning potential pollutants into a valuable resource for plant cultivation. 

Greenhouse Benefits:

  • CO2 Fertilization: The carbon dioxide from the exhaust is naturally used by the plants, a process known as CO2 enrichment, which can significantly boost plant growth and yield. 
  • Heating: The heat from the exhaust provides efficient heating for the greenhouse. 

Utilizing the exhausted energy from power plant stacks is a Win-Win situation for all. All this is because the power plants improved their energy efficiency to 97% just by utilizing the exhaust – the heat and CO2 emissions.  A good deal for everybody. 

  • The new AI Centers and datacenters are going to create a lot of new jobs.  
  • The new power plants are going to create a lot of local professional jobs.  
  • The new greenhouses will help feed the world’s growing population and create hundreds of new good paying jobs for the local community. 

Utilizing waste heat that is normally exhausted from power plant stacks can support endless greenhouses to help feed the world’s population. It also reduces wasting natural gas.

What Corporate Media Isn’t Telling You About Trump’s Cuts To Decades-Old Energy Efficiency Program

As corporate media outlets race to cast the Trump administration’s termination of an energy savings program as a net loss for Americans, experts note that the coverage omits several inconvenient facts.

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin makes an announcement at the agency headquarters on Feb. 18, 2025, in Washington, D.C. Zeldin is dramatically reshaping the agency, which approves certain permits necessary for offshore wind development. (Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)

From Watts Up With That?

THE DAILY CALLER

Daily Caller News Foundation

Ireland Owens
Contributor

As corporate media outlets race to cast the Trump administration’s termination of an energy savings program as a net loss for Americans, experts note that the coverage omits several inconvenient facts.

Several news outlets have recently reported that the administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is looking to eliminate the Energy Star program, while seeming to gloss over criticism of the program and the fact it received multiple unsatisfactory reports from federal government audits. While Energy Star has reportedly saved American households and businesses over $500 billion in energy costs since 1992, some experts have warned that the program can negatively impact consumers, such as by pushing them to purchase less effective appliances.

“I guess the nicest thing I can say about the Energy Star program is that it’s not as bad as the energy efficiency regulations, because those are mandatory,” Ben Lieberman, a senior fellow who specializes in environmental policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “But, the Energy Star label is at least supposedly voluntary, you don’t have to buy the Energy Star model, but that information is there if you want to.”

“That being said, I think the program has been misused in a variety of ways,” Lieberman added. “Environmental groups tend to pressure the big retailers to only carry Energy Star products, a lot of the tax credits that the government extends for [home] appliances only apply to the energy efficient or Energy Star models. So, it’s not as voluntary as it is made out to be … There’s also concerns that they’re trying to use the Energy Star program to pursue a climate agenda.” (RELATED: ‘Got To Go’: DOE To Cut Off Billions Of Dollars’ Worth Of Biden-Era Green Energy Projects)

“I would not be sad to see the [Energy Star] program go,” Lieberman told the DCNF.

The EPA and the Department of Energy (DOE) launched Energy Star in 1992. The program was created to help consumers and businesses “save money and protect the environment through the adoption of energy-efficient products and practices,” according to the DOE’s website. 

A March 2010 report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that Energy Star was “vulnerable to fraud and abuse.” GAO’s report also found that the Energy Star program’s controls that were in place at the time did not ensure that products actually met efficiency guidelines.

“Just the same as we choose many products without a government rating, we can choose our iPhones without a government rating, we can choose our lawnmowers without a government rating,” Diana Furchtgott-Roth, director of the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Energy, Climate and Environment, told the DCNF. “Think about all the appliances we buy every day that do not have a government rating … we do not need a government rating to be able to choose lower-energy use appliances if this is what we want.”

GAO noted in its report that it created a variety of “bogus” products to covertly test if it could obtain Energy Star certifications for them. GAO reported it was able to acquire Energy Star certifications for 15 of the fake products, including a gas-powered alarm clock, while two of the “bogus” products were rejected by the program and three did not receive a response.

“A big part of that that people should understand is if you look at the term ‘energy efficiency,’ the Energy Star program and the DOE’s standards are all about what they said was energy efficiency,” John Kennerly Davis Jr., a senior attorney and former deputy attorney general for the Commonwealth of Virginia, told the DCNF. “If you have to run an energy-efficient dishwasher twice to get the job done, then that’s not efficient.”

“By artificially imposing on the market these products that ‘yeah this dishwasher is more efficient but you have to run it twice,’ that’s the fatal conceptual flaw that people need to understand,” Davis Jr. added. “Energy efficiency is not task efficiency, and that’s why getting rid of this whole program is a very good thing for efficiency.”

Moreover, an October 2009 audit from the DOE’s Office of the Inspector General found that “officials had not … developed a formal quality assurance program” to help ensure that product specifications for Energy Star were adhered to. The audit report stated that the DOE had not “effectively monitored” the use of the Energy Star label to “ensure that only qualifying products were labeled as compliant.”

“In our judgment, the delay in the Department’s planned improvements in its management of the ENERGY STAR Program could reduce consumer confidence in the integrity of the ENERGY STAR label,” the report states. “Such loss of credibility could reduce energy savings, increase consumer risk, and diminish the value of the recent infusion of $300 million for ENERGY STAR rebates under the Recovery Act.”

An August 2007 report from the EPA’s Office of the Inspector General found that there was “little oversight” in using the Energy Star label on products in retail stores.

“We found little oversight in using the ENERGY STAR label in retail stores, which is commonly the purchase point for the consumer,” according to the report. “[The] EPA could not provide documentation related to follow-up actions taken, final results for all retail store assessments, or the resolution status of label inconsistencies. We also found that manufacturers may label and sell products as ENERGY STAR qualified prior to submitting test results to the Agency. Using the label on products that do not meet ENERGY STAR requirements may weaken the value of the label and negatively impact the ENERGY STAR program.”

Similarly, a separate report from the EPA’s Office of the Inspector General published in 2009 found that the “performance results” of Energy Star and non-Energy Star products “call into question the assumptions used to calculate energy savings and greenhouse gas reductions attributed to this program.” Moreover, a 2010 report from the EPA’s Office of the Inspector General found that the agency’s implementation of the Energy Star program was “inconsistent with the program’s authorized purpose” of achieving “environmental benefits by identifying and promoting energy-efficient products and practices that meet the highest energy conservation standards.” (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE — GOP Rep Unveils Bill To Block Future Presidents From Launching An ‘Assault On Domestic Energy’)

“We believe the ENERGY STAR program has sought to maximize the number of qualified products available at the expense of identifying products and practices that maximize energy efficiency,” the report states.

President Donald Trump has notably prioritized overturning a variety of energy regulations during his second term, as part of his “unleashing American energy” agenda.

A source familiar with the program told the DCNF that Energy Star “is a non-statutory program the private sector can effectuate without taxpayer resources. The U.S. Department of Energy already regulates many of the sources covered by the EnergyStar program which leads to confusion among consumers. If companies falsely advertise their products, then they can be subject to penalties from other regulators further proving that a ‘government seal of approval’ is unnecessary.”

“With respect to all voluntary programs, companies do not need a federal government ribbon at the cost of taxpayers so that they can more easily sell products to consumers,” the source told the DCNF, adding that the cost of the product relative to potential savings over time does not need certification from the federal government.

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Abusive DOE Energy Efficiency Policy Archives (60+ articles)

“It is our sincere hope that the incoming Trump Administration, the Department of Energy, the newly formed National Energy Council and/or its Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) make use of these resources in considering what to overhaul and what to scrap.”

From Watts Up With That?

By Mark Krebs and Tom Tanton

“It is our sincere hope that the incoming Trump Administration, the Department of Energy, the newly formed National Energy Council and/or its Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) make use of these resources in considering what to overhaul and what to scrap.”

The incoming Trump Administration, committed to tame inflation and the Deep (Administrative) State, recognizes energy as the master resource. This blogsite by the same name was established in 2007 to demonstrate the importance of energy exceptionalism free-market style.

Politicized “energy efficiency” policies increase costs and limit choice for consumers, thus the need for government mandates and subsidies. The failed history of government in this area–and why–are cross-referenced here by author and subject. These resources are freely available to anyone interested in the evolution of energy policy.

It is our sincere hope that the incoming Trump Administration, the Department of Energy, the newly formed National Energy Council  and/or its Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) make use of these resources in considering what to overhaul and what to scrap.

Of particular interest to us is the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE).  Simply put, EERE is obsolete and counterproductive to a free-market economy. Structural reformation of EERE is overdue for improving consumer choice and prosperity. And it is a relatively easy budget cut.

The Krebs category uniquely provides the devils-in-the-details of how EERE routinely flouts its own laws and regulations and manipulates “data” to stifle legitimate interests of everyday consumers. Further, the original justification for EERE, dating back to the 1970’s oil embargoes, has long been solved. Some 50-years later, it’s well past time to declare victory and move on.

Beginning in 2013, Mark Krebs (with frequent collaboration from Tom Tanton) has authored 60 articles at MasterResource. It is our hope that these articles (listed below) provide the incoming Trump Administration with ample rationale for eliminating EERE. 

Major Themes

These are the top four re-occurring themes: 

  • EERE’s irrational push for societal electrification via renewable generation is Congressionally unauthorized mission creep that overloads already challenged electric grids and will conservatively cost taxpayers $18-29 Trillion. Others estimate “electrifying everything” can’t be done at any cost due to raw material constraints.
  • EERE routinely reduces consumer choice and/or increases consumer costs through biased appliance efficiency standards.
  • EERE’s renewable energy favoritism further inflates electricity costs and reduces energy security through limiting energy diversity and shifting the market to electric appliances.
  • EERE and its beholding minions (e.g., the “National Labs”) routinely “pack the bleachers” and rig the apparatus of so-called “consensus” building energy codes to move the market to electrocentric “net zero” construction.  The added expenses of such homes deters the American Dream of home ownership.

Illustrations

Pictures can be worth a thousand words when it comes to understanding EERE’s self-serving motives.  The most pernicious of which is arguably its self-serving empire building/mission creep of the “Deep State.” Here are pictorial examples:

From Heat Pump Subsidies: Never Enough:

“Transitioning” energy efficiency to carbon efficiency grows the regulation business

Source: “Electrification – What Does It Mean for Energy Efficiency?”

From Warring Against Natural Gas: Joint EEI/NRDC Statement to NARUC (crony environmentalism at work):

From Gas Furnace Rule Part II: Return of the “Scorched Gas” Policy

Comparison of 2011 & 2015 Life Cycle Cost (LCC) Spreadsheet Cost-Saving Inflation Calculations for
 Non‐Weatherized Residential Gas Furnaces

Archive Posts

While several other excellent analyses populate the MasterResource’s energy efficiency category, authors Krebs and Tanton[1] are the most prolific and proficient in documenting and explaining the routine gaming of DOE’s “energy efficiency” policies. The following is a listing of the complete  “Krebs Category:”

  1. DOE Efficiency Standards: Consumer Time?
  2. Heat Pump Subsidies: Never Enough
  3. AI & Data Center Load Growth: On-Site Generation, Not Government Planning
  4. “Green” Weaponization in Missouri: Ameren vs. Ratepayers, Taxpayers
  5. “Wartime” Climate Policy vs. Natural Gas: Biden Gets Desperate
  6. Review of Proposed Minimum Efficiency Standards for “Consumer Boilers”
  7. Update: DOE Appliance Minimum Efficiency Standards
  8. Did DOE “flip the bird” to the DC Circuit?
  9. Energy Appliance Victory! (DC Circuit vs. DOE)
  10. DOE vs. Gas Cooking: A Review of Critical Comments
  11. The White House State: ‘Regulatory Reform’ in Sheep’s Clothing (OMB Circular A-4)
  12. Gas Stoves: The Beloved Blue Flame is Just Better
  13. Dangerous ‘Deep Decarbonization’ (Krebs PowerPoint to Cooler Heads Coalition)
  14. “Rare Earths,” Electrification Mandates, and Energy Security (Part II)
  15. “Rare Earths,” Electrification Mandates, and Energy Security (Part I)
  16. Gas Furnaces and Big Brother Revisited
  17. Gas Furnaces: Big Brother Says No
  18. Environmentalists Petition EPA to Ban Natural Gas Use in Buildings
  19. All-Electric Forcing in the “Inflation Reduction Act” (up to $14,000 per home)
  20. The Department of Energy’s Intent to Eliminate Non-condensing Furnaces
  21. ‘The $287 Million Pipeline No One Needed’: Deconstructing an Anti-Natural Gas Argument
  22. Energy Efficiency under Biden’s DOE: An Update
  23. Mark Krebs on Energy Efficiency under Biden’s DOE (Part IV of IV: More Issues)
  24. Mark Krebs on Energy Efficiency under Biden’s DOE (Part III of IV: Biden’s Bias)
  25. Mark Krebs on Energy Efficiency under Biden’s DOE (Part II of IV: EERE Modeling)
  26. Mark Krebs on Energy Efficiency under Biden’s DOE (Part I of IV: “Deep Decarbonization” Reigns)
  27. Gas Furnaces vs. DOE’s EERE (Trump trumps Obama, but Biden is Next)
  28. Energy Efficiency Policy Under Trump (Part III: Litigation)
  29. Energy Efficiency Policy Under Trump (Part II: EERE’s Process Rule & Overhaul)
  30. Energy Efficiency Policy Under Trump (Part I: A Mixed Bag in the Swamp)
  31. Gas Industry to DOE: Don’t Ban Non-condensing Gas Appliances
  32. Stimulus IV: Last Chance for the Green New Deal?
  33. Problems of Industrial Electrification (forced decarbonization on the firing line)
  34. EERE Reform: Brouillette’s Turn (‘deep decarbonization’ threat still alive)
  35. DOE Revisits Forced Electrification (Decarbonization) Rules re Non-condensing Furnaces, Water Heaters
  36. Costing the Green New Deal and “Deep Decarbonization”: Some Clarifications
  37. Hearing Summary: “Wasted Energy: DOE’s Inaction on Efficiency Standards & Its Impact on Consumers and the Climate”
  38. Dear EERE: Past Time to Debate “Deep Decarbonization” (Obama program inconsistent with America First energy policy)
  39. Behind the IPCC Curtain: the Costs of Climate Mitigation Policy
  40. Paris Lives! “Deep Decarbonization” at DOE
  41. Estimating Costs of Deep Decarbonization (California and beyond)
  42. Update: ‘Is DOE Leading Us Astray?’ (A 1999 analysis revisited)
  43. Warring Against Natural Gas: Joint EEI/NRDC Statement to NARUC (crony environmentalism at work)
  44. Secretary Perry’s Hearing (Part II)
  45. The “Powering America” Hearings (Part I)
  46. Direct Use of Natural Gas: Unshackle Efficiency from Obama’s ‘Deep Decarbonization’ (Part II)
  47. Direct Use of Natural Gas: Unshackle Efficiency from Obama’s ‘Deep Decarbonization’ (Part 1)
  48. DOE’s EERE: Reform Ideas for Secretary Perry
  49. Federal Energy Efficiency Mandates: DOE’s End Run vs. the Public Interest (Part II)
  50. Federal Energy Efficiency Mandates: DOE’s End Run vs. the Public Interest (Part I)
  51. Direct-Use Natural Gas Needs a Free Market Too (‘deep decarbonization’ easy target for elimination in new policy era)
  52. ‘Home Appliance Energy Efficiency Standards’ Hearing: Some Reflections (Part II)
  53. ‘Home Appliance Energy Efficiency Standards’ Hearing: Some Reflections (Part I)
  54. Mark Krebs: Digging Down on Energy Efficiency Claims (an interview)
  55. The Regulatory Assistance Project (RAP): Warring Against Gas
  56. “Grid-Enabled” Water Heating: “Deep Decarbonization” as Crony Environmentalism (Part II)
  57. “Grid-Enabled” Water Heating: “Deep Decarbonization” as Crony Environmentalism (Part I)
  58. Gas Furnace Rule Part II: Return of the “Scorched Gas” Policy
  59. Energy Mischief at the Rural Utilities Services (USDA): Climate Hubs, Efficiency Mandates, Fuel Switching Rules
  60. Gas Furnace Rule: Beware of “Scorched Gas” Policy

Conclusion

MasterResource has long documented DOE’s abuse of its of energy efficiency authority (predominately through articles by Krebs and Tanton) in the hope that the time would come for someone willing, able, and insightful enough to make significant course corrections. Finally, with the Trump 47 Administration, the time is now to purge the Deep State’s self-serving, empire building/mission creep that permeates EERE. Please feel free to contact us as shown below, if we can be of further assistance.

———————–

[1] There is also a category for articles by Tom Tanton at https://www.masterresource.org/category/tanton-tom/ which covers topics beyond energy efficiency and EERE.

Mark Krebs (markedwardkrebs@gmail.com), a mechanical engineer and energy policy consultant, has been involved with energy efficiency design and program evaluation for over thirty years. Mark has served as an expert witness in dozens of State energy efficiency proceedings, has been an advisor to DOE and has submitted scores of Federal energy-efficiency filings. His many MasterResource posts on natural gas vs. electricity and “Deep Decarbonization” federal policy can be found here. Mark’s first article was in Public Utilities Fortnightly, titled “It’s a War Out There: A Gas Man Questions Electric Efficiency” (December 1996). Recently retired from Spire Inc., Krebs has formed an energy policy consultancy (Gas Analytic & Advocacy Services) with other veteran energy analysts.

Tom Tanton (tantontwitter@gmail.com) is a Director of the Energy and Environmental Legal Institute. Mr. Tanton has 45 years in energy and environmental policy, focused on enabling technology choice and economic development. Mr. Tanton has testified to numerous state Legislatures and Congress as an expert on energy policy. He formerly served as Principal Policy Advisor at the California Energy Commission.

Addendum to Abusive DOE Energy Efficiency Policy Archives (60+ articles)

I apologize our graphics were not as self-explanatory to everyone as we assumed. While the graphics are fully explained in the linked articles they came from, below are the essence of them:

The first chart titled “Transitioning” energy efficiency to carbon efficiency grows the regulation business, shows a plan to “transition” EERE’s regulatory authority to establish appliance minimum energy efficiency standards into a much larger market for regulating maximum appliance carbon emissions.

The second chart titled Levelized Cost of Energy: 2017 Dollars summarizes a study that compared non-electric alternatives against electric generation alternatives (which is all traditional LCOE studies consider).  By taking this wider perspective of LCOE, it becomes obvious that the societal cost-effectiveness of fossil-fueled appliances can achieve vastly superior results.    The chart is from Levelized Cost of Energy: Expanding the Menu to Include Direct Use of Natural Gas, by Thomas Tanton, published in August 2017 and available at the Energy and Environmental Legal Institute under the heading “TANTON : ELECTRIFICATION REPORT.”

The third and final graphic titled Comparison of 2011 & 2015 Life Cycle Cost (LCC) Spreadsheet Cost-Saving Inflation Calculations for Non‐Weatherized Residential Gas Furnaces gets deep in the weeds to expose EERE’s analytical manipulation buried within their “Technical Support Documentation” (TSD) than typically exceed a thousand pages.  In this case, (Non‐Weatherized Residential Gas Furnaces) it compared EERE’s analyses conducted for 2011 and 2015, a period in which gas prices declined.  Despite declining gas prices, EERE’s cost-effectiveness “determinations” markedly increased by the percentages shown in the right-most column. Depending on what the furnace AFUE was and where it was located, this percentage increases ranged between a negligible 1.1% and a whopping 2,156.3%. DOE avoided addressing this chart in numerous public meetings and filed comments that I submitted.

I hope this helps.  If not, you have my email address at the end of the article.

Food Accounts For A Quarter of the World’s Emissions

When it comes to tackling climate change, the focus tends to be on ‘clean energy’ solutions – the deployment of renewable or nuclear energy; improvements in energy efficiency; or transition to low-carbon transport. Indeed, energy, whether in the form of electricity, heat, transport or industrial processes, account for the majority – 76% – of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

When it comes to tackling climate change, the focus tends to be on ‘clean energy’ solutions – the deployment of renewable or nuclear energy; improvements in energy efficiency; or transition to low-carbon transport. Indeed, energy, whether in the form of electricity, heat, transport or industrial processes, account for the majority – 76% – of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.1

But the global food system, which encompasses production, and post-farm process such as processing, and distribution is also a key contributor to emissions. And it’s a problem for which we don’t yet have viable technological solutions.

https://ourworldindata.org/food-ghg-emissions

The most worrying thing about this is that they are even wanting to quantify emissions from farming.

If there is anything that should be excluded from the Net Zero madness, it is agriculture. Nothing can be more important to the world than food, no matter how much GHGs are emitted.

Heat Pump Subsidies: Never Enough

The upshot is that despite Federal rebates of up to $8,000 per the “Inflation Reduction Act,” real-world economics of electric heat pumps are dismal.  Several commenters to the second article aptly summarized why from a consumer perspective.

From Master Resource

By Mark Krebs

“The Competitive Enterprise Institute is leading a coalition of free market advocates attempting to organize support to stop the IRA’s obscene and consumer abusive funding. In response, the Biden (mis)Administration is attempting to shovel IRA funding out the door as fast as it can to contractually shield it.”

Early this month, Lucas Davis, a Professor in Business and Technology at the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley, published an article titled: How Do We Pump Up the Impact of Heat Pump Subsidies? In April, Professor Davis published a precursor article titled: Why Are Heat Pump Sales Decreasing?

The upshot is that despite Federal rebates of up to $8,000 per the “Inflation Reduction Act,” real-world economics of electric heat pumps are dismal.  Several commenters to the second article aptly summarized why from a consumer perspective.

Case Study One

As the owner of a 30-year-old gas furnace, I was in the market for a heat pump during all of 2023. As a low-income retiree, I also looked forward to an $8,000 subsidy from the Inflation Reduction Act passed in November of 2022. Well, as readers of this blog probably know already, the IRA subsidies did not take effect in 2023 (and are now projected to be available in California no sooner than late summer 2024).

I had gotten a bid in the summer of 2022 of $25,000 for a heat pump, but I was waiting for the IRA subsidy to take effect. Then I discovered that the bidder had failed to mention that installing a heat pump would also require new ductwork because the existing ducts were too small to handle the larger air volumes required by a heat pump. Two subsequent bids in mid- and late-2023 ranged from $30K to $40K when ductwork was included.

So when the furnace failed in December 2023 at age 31, I had to make a quick choice: a replacement gas furnace (costing $12K with an 18-month 0% loan, and a 2-day wait for installation), or $30K+ for a heat pump with a couple month wait for installation. The estimated fuel savings from the heat pump worked out to under $1000 per year, not even close to enough to outweigh the $18K capital cost differential. The fact that the estimated life for the heat pump was 15 years, versus 30 years for the gas furnace, didn’t help at all.

So there’s my anecdotal story: it wasn’t interest rates, it wasn’t tax law, it largely wasn’t fuel prices, it was mostly capital costs. Had the original bid of $25K been legit and had the $8K subsidy been available by mid-2023, I would have chosen the $17K heat pump over the $12K furnace based on environmental concerns. But at $30K versus $12K, I didn’t.

Case Study Two

I also got pricing for a 6 head mini-split heat exchange system that would be mounted in each room, and it came to $26,000 for the two pumps and 6 heads wired, installed and tested. Pricing is important.

Yes, pricing (meaning total installed cost) is important.  Total installed costs for heat pumps (as evidenced by the above commenters) can include expensive retrofit expenses that normally are avoided when not switching from a traditional gas furnace to an electric heat pump. And heaven forbid something like a motherboard failure out of warranty (that tend to be much shorter than furnace warranties).

Alas, however, our Federal energy efficiency “experts” are also making sure that traditional/inexpensive (non-condensing gas furnaces are going to soon be illegal as a result of their abuse of regulatory authority regarding minimum appliance efficiency standards under the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975 ( EPCA)  in  response to the “1973 oil crisis by creating a comprehensive approach to federal energy policy.”

The American Public Gas Association (APGA) explains:

The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) within DOE issued a notice of proposed rulemaking establishing a new 95% annual fuel utilization efficiency (AFUE) standard for furnaces. This proposed standard can only be met by condensing furnaces, effectively banning non-condensing furnaces that have been in millions of American homes for a generation or more.

“But wait, there’s more” (in the immortal words of Ron Popeil). EPCA also states that DOE can include “any such other factors as the Administrator deems appropriate.”   The social cost of carbon SCC is a prime example of how DOE is using this nebulous authority to impose carbon reduction benefits within its cost/benefit analyses.  The Competitive Enterprise Institute’s (CEI), Ben Lieberman, explains SCC:

Junk Science Behind Federal Appliance Regs About to Get Junkier

The Biden-Harris administration has embarked on a wave of anti-consumer home appliance regulations over the last several years. Each was justified in part by overblown claims of climate change benefits. And now, the Department of Energy (DOE) has proposed using a new methodology that would further inflate these hypothetical benefits to justify even worse regulations in the years ahead.

DOE is in the process of creating new energy use limits for stoves, dishwashers, furnaces,  washing machines, water heaters, ceiling fans, refrigerators, and more. The agency always asserts that consumers experience net gains from these regulations, but CEI has filed comments highly critical of these rosy assumptions. In reality, such rules often raise the up-front costs of appliances more than is likely to be earned back in the form of energy savings. Some rules also compromise appliance choice, performance, and reliability.

But DOE’s fictitious consumer benefits are only part of the problem. CEI has also taken issue with the agency’s assertions that these regulations deliver quantifiable climate change benefits. For example, DOE’s costly 2023 final rule for residential furnaces was estimated by the agency to provide $16.2 billion worth of such benefits.

The agency arrives at this figure by calculating the reduced energy use attributable to the efficiency standards and then estimating the amount of greenhouse gas emissions avoided as a result – mostly carbon dioxide emitted to produce electricity at coal or natural gas-fired power plants. Then it multiplies the tons of emissions avoided by the calculated per unit dollar cost to society of such emissions.

Until now, DOE has relied upon the 2021 Interagency Working Group on the Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases (IWG 2021). IWG 2021 provides the agency with the per ton Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases (SC-GHG) values.

Relying on IWG 2021 was bad enough, but in its most recent proposed rule for commercial refrigeration equipment DOE is switching to an updated 2023 version of SC-GHG provided by the Environmental Protection Agency.

The new methodology takes several already-dubious assumptions in IWG 2021 and stretches them further. For one category of commercial refrigeration equipment covered in the proposed rule, DOE calculates the climate benefits of $48-$320 million dollars under IWG 2021 but a whopping $564-$1,713 million under the new way. That’s around 5-10 times higher.

More Concerns

In May of 2022, I wrote an article published in Real Clear Energy titled Fallacies of Supplying American LNG and Electric Heat Pumps to Europe to Fight Putin and Global Warming. Primarily, it summarized the flawed “energy efficiency” physics behind this Biden administration plan that has since been regurgitated in the so-called Inflation Reduction Act a few months later.  This article, which I stand by, received 189 comments.

This leads to my overarching concern:  What is the fundamental motive behind all of this.  It is:

  1. Globalized social control through the establishment of an all-electric energy monoculture.
  2. The transformation and growth of energy efficiency regulations into carbon efficiency regulations.

The following graphic cogently illustrates:

“Transitioning” energy efficiency to carbon efficiency grows the regulation business

Source: “Electrification – What Does It Mean for Energy Efficiency?”

In short: DOE and its minions are running out of stuff to regulate under existing energy efficiency statutes within EPCA. A move to carbon efficiency regulation vastly expands their regulatory empire. The IRA is providing obscene amounts of taxpayer funding to force-feed this anti-consumer agenda.  For more information, see Dangerous ‘Deep Decarbonization’ (Krebs PowerPoint to Cooler Heads Coalition). For the record, that presentation identified the $8,000 heat pump tax credit stated at the beginning of this article.

As Travis Fisher testified before the House Energy & Commerce Subcommittee on Energy, Climate, and Grid Security on September 11th, “ The subsidies in the IRA for wind, solar, and batteries alone could cost American taxpayers $3 trillion by 2050.” Fisher also testified: “Between the IRA subsidies and the EPA rules, I would summarize the administration’s power grid policy as this: Green the grid and brace for blackouts.”

The Competitive Enterprise Institute is leading a coalition of free market advocates attempting to organize support to stop the IRA’s obscene and consumer abusive funding. In response, the Biden (mis)Administration is attempting to shovel IRA funding out the door as fast as it can to contractually shield it.  For further information, see Inflation Reduction Act Two Year Anniversary Letter.

——————–

Mark Krebs, a mechanical engineer and energy policy consultant, has been involved with energy efficiency design and program evaluation for over thirty years. Mark has served as an expert witness in dozens of State energy efficiency proceedings, has been an advisor to DOE and has submitted scores of Federal energy-efficiency filings. His many MasterResource posts on natural gas vs. electricity and “Deep Decarbonization” federal policy can be found here. Mark’s first article was in Public Utilities Fortnightly, titled “It’s a War Out There: A Gas Man Questions Electric Efficiency” (December 1996). Recently retired from Spire Inc., Krebs has formed an energy policy consultancy (Gas Analytic & Advocacy Services) with other veteran energy analysts.

How collapsing energy use reveals Britain’s economic disaster

Doomsayers warn that Britain is returning to the bad old days of the 1970s – yet by one measure, we are already there.

Dwindling domestic consumption plunges the UK back into the dark years of the 1970s.

Doomsayers warn that Britain is returning to the bad old days of the 1970s – yet by one measure, we are already there.

The country’s energy usage has tumbled to its lowest level since the era of Edward Heath’s three day week, official figures show.

In 2022, excluding the 2020 Covid lockdown, the country used less energy than in any year since at least 1970. This figure includes energy generated from all sources including coal, gas and renewables.

The Government puts the decline down to “a variety of reasons, including unseasonably warm weather and continued improvements in energy efficiency”.

Officials add that energy usage is expected to decline because of net zero “as we transition to a more efficient use of energy through electrification”. The Telegraph has the story.

Yet experts argue the numbers tell a story of economic decline rather than energy efficiency improvements.

“Electricity consumption isn’t an independent variable. It is linked to the fact that we’re not equipping ourselves to maintain our living standards,” says Gordon Hughes, a former senior adviser to the World Bank.

Hughes, who is also a former professor of economics at the University of Edinburgh, believes Britain’s economy is in a similar state to the dark years of the 1970s when dysfunction forced the country into an IMF bailout.

Domestic capacity is winnowing away and the country is increasingly reliant on infusions of foreign cash. Energy use is falling as factories and businesses close and as families become poorer, not because of efficiency benefits.

Britain used enough energy to power 155 million homes for a year in 2005. By 2022, the equivalent figure had fallen to 128 million – a slump of 17pc in less than 20 years.

Historically, there has been a strong correlation between higher energy consumption and faster economic growth, says Ben McWilliams, an affiliate fellow at Bruegel, a Brussels-based think tank.

“That goes back to the industrial revolution,” says McWilliams. “Ever since then, you typically see there’s an association between high energy consumption and higher GDP.”

The link will eventually break as energy efficiency improves. But this is not what is happening now, he says.

There were some exceptional circumstances in 2022 that should be taken into account. Massive jumps in energy prices following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine reduced usage as people and businesses could simply not afford as much.

Warm weather also meant there was less demand for heating or electricity-sapping indoor entertainment activities such as watching TV.

Domestic energy consumption fell by 14pc year-on-year to hit a record low.

However, the record forms part of a longer-term trend. Energy use peaked in the UK just before the financial crisis and has been in decline ever since.

Since then, falling energy consumption has mirrored snail-like productivity growth and economic growth. The UK’s GDP per capita has never recovered and is still 8pc below where it was in 2007, according to the World Bank.

“Declining energy consumption is definitely not on the back of efficiency,” says Jorge León, who leads oil market research at Rystad Energy. “Definitely not.”

Read the full story here.