Comments on: Green pork http://www.joannejacobs.com/2008/06/green-pork/ Thinking and Linking by Joanne Jacobs Fri, 10 Feb 2012 00:20:20 +0000 hourly 1 By: SuperSub http://www.joannejacobs.com/2008/06/green-pork/#comment-36857 SuperSub Wed, 11 Jun 2008 00:07:22 +0000 http://joannejacobs.com/2008/06/09/green-pork/#comment-36857 Well, much of the "Green" movement is little more than pork. Why do you think a whole industry has sprung up in the past ten years... Well, much of the “Green” movement is little more than pork. Why do you think a whole industry has sprung up in the past ten years…

]]> By: Walter E. Wallis http://www.joannejacobs.com/2008/06/green-pork/#comment-36856 Walter E. Wallis Tue, 10 Jun 2008 17:21:14 +0000 http://joannejacobs.com/2008/06/09/green-pork/#comment-36856 With 40 years of school construction behind me, I grieve at the costs this green crap will impose on the process. I learned in the dawn of my engineering career that just because you could do something didn't mean you should. Back then the "Total energy system" where you made your electricity, usually with diesel drive generators, and used the waste heat to heat buidings and water. The primary problem was that when you make your own electricity you need enough capacity to do all the electrical jobs, which can mean that a base load of 10 KW might require a 50 KW gen set. It also means you need to hire competent operators, since even full automatic equipment needs watching over. Utilities do much of that much better than you ever could, as I discovered when my self contained factory went down and we were an hour away from having to bring in a steam locomotive to get a plant generator turning. Much of the green stuff is just someone's theoretical gain rather than performance proven. "Green roofs", wher a lawn is grown on the roof, can moderate interior temperatures but you need another roof under them to do a roof's job of keeping the rain off you. I would offer this deal to politicians - they don't try to be engineers and I won't try to waste taxes. With 40 years of school construction behind me, I grieve at the costs this green crap will impose on the process. I learned in the dawn of my engineering career that just because you could do something didn’t mean you should. Back then the “Total energy system” where you made your electricity, usually with diesel drive generators, and used the waste heat to heat buidings and water.
The primary problem was that when you make your own electricity you need enough capacity to do all the electrical jobs, which can mean that a base load of 10 KW might require a 50 KW gen set. It also means you need to hire competent operators, since even full automatic equipment needs watching over. Utilities do much of that much better than you ever could, as I discovered when my self contained factory went down and we were an hour away from having to bring in a steam locomotive to get a plant generator turning.
Much of the green stuff is just someone’s theoretical gain rather than performance proven. “Green roofs”, wher a lawn is grown on the roof, can moderate interior temperatures but you need another roof under them to do a roof’s job of keeping the rain off you. I would offer this deal to politicians – they don’t try to be engineers and I won’t try to waste taxes.

]]> By: Marianne http://www.joannejacobs.com/2008/06/green-pork/#comment-36855 Marianne Mon, 09 Jun 2008 16:52:42 +0000 http://joannejacobs.com/2008/06/09/green-pork/#comment-36855 As a school committee member who serves on our building committee, I can tell you that we've built some wonderful schools with all the latest high efficiency burners, lights that turn off automatically, sun shades, glazed windows, etc. BUT, that also means that they meet the current building codes for schools which mandate significant ventilation requirements AND they have all included air conditioning - to better serve all the children who are sensitive to asthma and pollen. Our fuel and electricity costs, of course, tend to be dramatically higher than they were prior all the "green" enhancements. Not that it wasn't the right thing to do. The community upgraded the school buildings when we could afford it. Trust me -- the ongoing cost will be significant. As a school committee member who serves on our building committee, I can tell you that we’ve built some wonderful schools with all the latest high efficiency burners, lights that turn off automatically, sun shades, glazed windows, etc. BUT, that also means that they meet the current building codes for schools which mandate significant ventilation requirements AND they have all included air conditioning – to better serve all the children who are sensitive to asthma and pollen. Our fuel and electricity costs, of course, tend to be dramatically higher than they were prior all the “green” enhancements.

Not that it wasn’t the right thing to do. The community upgraded the school buildings when we could afford it. Trust me — the ongoing cost will be significant.

]]> By: Green pork at Joanne Jacobs « Bruman Media Blog http://www.joannejacobs.com/2008/06/green-pork/#comment-36854 Green pork at Joanne Jacobs « Bruman Media Blog Mon, 09 Jun 2008 15:07:30 +0000 http://joannejacobs.com/2008/06/09/green-pork/#comment-36854 [...] Green pork at Joanne Jacobs [...] [...] Green pork at Joanne Jacobs [...]

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