121–130 of 454 posts
This is good, in the way that filtered cigarretes are better than unfiltered. As long we we keep building & being forced to live in low density, single-family houses, we'll keep consuming the huge physical and energy resources necessary to sustain them. I'm not saying we have to turn every neighborhood into manhattan, far from it. But this is similar to the gas -> electric car change. Yeah, it's a marginal improvemen…
I just see this as another subsidy for single family housing developments. The home may be "zero energy ready" or whatever greenwashing term they want to use. But the fact is they are spending that energy in driving from the sticks (in some cases >20 miles away) and back, driving from their home to the grocery store and back, driving to areas of interest (ie, parks, restaurants, doctors appointments). All of this is…
I just see this as another subsidy for single family housing developments. The home may be "zero energy ready" or whatever greenwashing term they want to use. But the fact is they are spending that energy in driving from the sticks (in some cases >20 miles away) and back, driving from their home to the grocery store and back, driving to areas of interest (ie, parks, restaurants, doctors appointments). All of this is…
I just see this as another subsidy for single family housing developments. The home may be "zero energy ready" or whatever greenwashing term they want to use. But the fact is they are spending that energy in driving from the sticks (in some cases >20 miles away) and back, driving from their home to the grocery store and back, driving to areas of interest (ie, parks, restaurants, doctors appointments). All of this is…
> All of this is dependent on highways and new roads, new electrical, water, and sewage infrastructure. What if this was done this brownfield development in areas with existing infrastructure? New development doesn't need to be coupled with sprawl. There is a significant amount of multifamily development that looks exactly like that. The IRA also included large incentives for the retrofit of the existing housing stoc…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> All of this is dependent on highways and new roads, new electrical, water, and sewage infrastructure. This is all very expensive to build and maintain, and the cities and municipalities are left to foot the bill. That's not generally how this works. There aren't necessarily highways and new paved roads going to rural properties. Electrical service isn't only downtown in cities but for miles outside of them or from…
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I'm not a fan of suburbs but I'm tired of people holding up the worst possible examples and saying "SEE, SUBURBS SUCK!"
I just see this as another subsidy for single family housing developments. The home may be "zero energy ready" or whatever greenwashing term they want to use. But the fact is they are spending that energy in driving from the sticks (in some cases >20 miles away) and back, driving from their home to the grocery store and back, driving to areas of interest (ie, parks, restaurants, doctors appointments). All of this is…
Highly efficient low density housing has a place. So does high density housing.
Everything you say about improving urban development practices is valid, but doesn’t mean that efforts to improve suburban/exurband/rural development are problematic. They’re all inextricably part of the future and they all have their own development needs.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> All of this is dependent on highways and new roads, new electrical, water, and sewage infrastructure. What if this was done this brownfield development in areas with existing infrastructure? New development doesn't need to be coupled with sprawl. There is a significant amount of multifamily development that looks exactly like that. The IRA also included large incentives for the retrofit of the existing housing stoc…
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Earlier quoted context omitted.
> All of this is dependent on highways and new roads, new electrical, water, and sewage infrastructure. This is all very expensive to build and maintain, and the cities and municipalities are left to foot the bill. That's not generally how this works. There aren't necessarily highways and new paved roads going to rural properties. Electrical service isn't only downtown in cities but for miles outside of them or from…
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Is there data to back this up, particularly the "usually" part?
Having nearly always lived in suburban areas (a few times rural), food shopping is nearly always within an easy walk. I'm sure there are some cases where this might not be so, but I doubt it's the norm. For rural areas, sure.
When you've confused "per kWh cost" with "energy to the house delivery costs," this sort of stuff sounds good on paper, but it doesn't fundamentally solve the problem that in the winter, homes use a lot more energy than they can generate, and in the spring/fall, they will generate a lot more energy than they need. I've got a large ground mount solar install I put in a few years ago (15.9kW nameplate, though mostly ea…
A passive house can have 10% the energy cost/use of a regular "code" house. Even off grid, this can immensely help in the size of your battery required.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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What does this mean exactly? Like we should be forcing people to move into big cities? What about all the people that don't want to live that kind of lifestyle?
The free market will sort it out in short order.