Triangle Sustainability Blog

In a previous post, I questioned the effectiveness of the government’s notorious Cash for Clunkers program. While that program might have been a dud, another stimulus idea is percolating in policy circles that might have more merit: a Cash for Caulkers program.

Here are some of the details from the N Y Times article:

The official name of the program would be Homestar, playing off the name Energy Star, a government program that promotes energy-efficient appliances.

It would cost $23 billion over two years. Of that, $6 billion would go to incentives to people who did at least two significant weatherization projects — such as air sealing, insulation, new light bulbs and new appliances. Homestar would have a list of 10 such projects. Households that did at least two would be eligible for up to $2,000. Households that did four would be eligible for up to $3,500. The government money could not pay for more than half of any project.

The nice part about this scheme is that it would actually focus on making some of the most valuable energy improvements a homeowner can do – sealing and insulating their home – rather than purchasing new trucks from the sputtering car makers. Cash for Caulkers scheme also has a lot of potential to put idle construction workers to good use, so it probably would help with job creation on some level. And the energy savings in many cases will pay for themselves within a few years time.

At Triangle Sustainability, energy audits and home (or business) weatherization are one of our core services for our customers. Our energy audit will help you identify where energy savings in your home exist and what the best methods are to fix them. Then you can either make the improvements yourself or hire us to come do them for you.

Ready to get started with an audit? E-mail us today at info@trianglesustainability.com and we’ll set up a time to come visit your home!

The federal government’s cash for clunkers program (known officially now as the Car Allowance Rebate System or CARS), was sold to the public as a way to improve the fuel economy of America’s auto fleet. But are we really getting a decent energy bang for our buck?

Recent reports by the Associated Press have noted that the most common trade-in/purchase combo was swapping an old Ford F-150 truck for a new Ford F-150. A light duty truck like the F-150 has a “full useful life” of around 120,000 miles, according to the EPA. So an old F-150 truck that got 15 mpg and was traded in for one that gets 17 mpg would lead to a total savings of around 950 gallons of gasoline. That equates to emissions savings of a bit more than 18,000 lbs of CO² during a typical truck’s lifespan.

To most people, 950 gallons of gas sounds like a decent amount of energy savings. But lets consider what we could get if we spent that money elsewhere. The clunkers rebates ranged from $3,500 to $4,500 based on what was being traded in and what was being purchased. I’ll be conservative and say I was going to trade in my old F-150 for a new one and would receive only the minimum $3,500 rebate.

So what if I was allowed to use that $3,500 on other types of energy savings, such as installing a solar photovoltaic system? For that amount of money, I could get a 2 kilowatt solar system installed on my roof (keep in mind that’s after accounting for various other federal and state incentive programs that greatly reduce the total cost of the system).

My solar system will surpass the carbon savings from the cash for clunkers truck upgrade in about 4 years time. Not a bad deal, considering the solar panels should run for 20 to 25 years and will also pay for themselves in about 9 years time. So not only do I displace a lot more carbon over the life of the panels, I also recoup my investment and start making money after a while.

Another option is to put the $3,500 directly towards buying carbon offsets. In North Carolina we have a cool program run by NC GreenPower that allows me to buy 500 lbs of CO² offsets for about $4 per month. So using that program I could displace 437,500 lbs of CO², about 24 times as much as in the cash for clunkers program.

You can, reasonably, argue that the government already has lots of incentive programs in place for solar or that buying carbon offsets doesn’t provide me with a tangible benefit, like getting a new car.

But the real point is that – despite the government’s efforts to say otherwise – it’s ludicrous to claim that cash for clunkers is about energy savings and making a dent in carbon emissions. If it was then buying a truck wouldn’t have been an option at all. The program was about getting money to struggling car manufacturers with the taxpayers picking up the tab, and the cause of climate change getting little more than lip service.