Two types of economics about energy conservation

The first thought of trembling people in the cold wave was heating, but the cost of heating forced the less wealthy people to adopt a "green" heating method. This is exactly the energy-saving and money-saving skills that Mr. Weaver, executive director of the New York State Cornell society, taught to local people in poor conditions at his recent workshops.

Heating and air conditioners account for 42% of household energy consumption, home appliances such as computers account for 28%, and hot water systems account for 14%, he said. He tried to correct a wrong idea, that is, when talking about energy conservation, he thought it was to replace his own incandescent lamp with energy-saving lamps. But this does not have much effect, "the total power consumption of the family has not been reduced because the lamp only accounts for 10% of the total energy consumption of the family ". He calculated an economic bill for the people at the workshop, saying that if you use cotton cloth to intercept the window, you should open the door and wear more clothes, don't forget to turn off the heating device before you go to bed or when you go out, so you can save about $1000 a year.

This is economics for saving money, but it is hard to say it is energy saving. If you wear three sweaters to protect the cold, all you do is to save energy for others, in addition to overspending your clothes. Energy saving means that less energy is consumed without reducing the quality of life, which requires that the inventor and manufacturer can provide a large number of energy-saving products to the market-the price must be lower than that of traditional products, otherwise, it will save energy, but it will not save money.

At exactly the same time, as Weaver explained to the poor about the economy, municipal officials in the village of Frankfort, New York were considering switching traffic lights from incandescent lights to LED lights, because the lamp is much brighter than the incandescent lamp (20 W is equivalent to 100 W) and has a longer life (several months and years of difference), it can save a lot of money for the municipal administration. There are also other ancillary benefits, such as the decrease in the number of bulb replacement, which reduces the attendance and traffic jam opportunities for the lift truck, saving money for the municipal government and citizens.

Unlike Weaver, the city officials in Frankfort village are probably followers of Mr. Gore and require energy-saving products without degrading the quality of life, even if energy-saving products are much more expensive than traditional products. Considering that LED lights are brighter and brighter than incandescent lights, it can be said that they have improved the quality of life.

However, aren't the city officials in Frankfort village listing the reasons for saving money in their proposals? Indeed, however, any performance project is built on the accounting of the replacement effect rather than the replacement cost, municipal Officials in Frankfort forgot to tell people the price difference between LED lights with the same brightness and incandescent lamps. As a good seller, I have found from other places that the price of LED lights is expensive, compared with incandescent lamps, the price of several light emitting diodes can be the same as that of an incandescent lamp. Generally, each set of LED lights consists of 3 to 5 hundred diodes. In other words, if you buy an LED lamp, you can buy one hundred incandescent lamps.

In addition, the energy consumption of several hundred diodes is certainly much higher than that of an incandescent lamp. However, the production of small electronic products such as diodes has basically moved to poor countries in the Third World, which consume a large amount of energy in these countries in order to make their country consume less energy. Different economics is represented by Council officials in the village of Frankfort, where the economics of the rich and the rich is different from that of the Frankfort village.