The National Research Council wants the Department of Energy to undertake something tough: Instead of setting new efficiency standards for 15 or so appliances in the traditional way, DOE should take into account all the emissions and inefficiencies of the fuels and processes used to run the appliances.
Whew. First of all, DOE is having to get cracking even to tackle the traditional approach. It's already years late in issuing more stringent standards and has agreed to deadlines for doing so. President Barack Obama asked the department in February to finalize five of them as quickly as possible; these are standards that face deadlines before August 8, for ovens, microwaves, air conditioning units and more.
But to include in the standard all the factors that go into running the appliances? The research council asks what may be far too much, and maybe the scientists and engineers were mainly trying to make a point that to many people is well worth making: The lifecycle costs of things are seldom counted, and it would be awfully nice if they could be.
But it's hard to see how DOE could possibly, possibly consider it. The current method is for the department to consider the amount of energy an appliance uses. The council's recommendation is to look at other factors, including the inefficiencies of electricity and transmission and net greenhouse gas emissions from natural gas production, for example.
According to the research council, site measurements for an appliance's energy use may show that an electric water heater operates with 90% efficiency while a natural gas water heater operates with 65% efficiency. Full-fuel-cycle measurements, though, would take into account the upstream energy costs. Energy losses in generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity can be as high as 70-75%, whereas losses incurred in the distribution of natural gas are only about 10%. (The council does not say "production and distribution" of gas, but earlier in its description does say its recommendation is for inclusion of production and distribution of fuels.) "Therefore, using full-fuel-cycle measurements, the natural gas water heater may be considered the more energy-efficient appliance."
The council's news release notes that the report's authors did not all agree. Some, it said, argued that such all-in costs would not necessarily reduce customer consumption and "would inevitably favor one fuel, which is a matter of national energy policy, not the appliance efficiency program." And what fuel might that be?
Does this proposal represent a serious break from reality? Could be, although probably one could generalize about various electricity supply scenarios, and educate appliance buyers at a web site. And as a job-creation idea, it may have some legs: Tailoring appliance ratings to every power distributor in the country, updating them to account for changes in power generation sources, would keep quite a number of people busy.
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