The warmist community loves Amory Lovins, lebeling him a physicist — even though he has no degree in the field.
The Guardian reports:
On Monday, Amory Lovins, physicist, environmentalist, and unassuming colossus of the green movement, appeared in London to talk about energy use. I mention this in the context of the Guardian’s story that meteorologists are due to meet next week to discuss whether our bizarre weather is climate change-related (moreover, anthropogenic climate change-related) or just represents natural variation.
I have got into the habit of mentally and often literally shutting my eyes when I see a story like that; ditto, when I see the phrase “400 parts per million”. What else do you do about a looming disaster that politics refuses to address? How is it possible to stay hopeful, when the G8 is meeting and climate change isn’t even on its agenda? What’s the point of international politics if not to address this?
But then I heard Lovins talk about his negawatt revolution, and it cheered me right up.
He said the solutions are already there; we know how to make cars out of materials that make them so much lighter they could be powered on hugely reduced fuel. We know how to build houses with solar bricks so that they don’t need heating (he grows bananas in his house, while it’s snowing outside and without heating it. This blew my mind). We also already know how to make renewable energy work: Austria gets a quarter of its inland energy consumption from renewables; Sweden a third; Latvia more than a third.
Warmist Amory Lovins: Fight global warming by making houses with solar bricks | JunkScience.com
Real Estate in US http://findaplace.me/unitedstates/
Gone; He floated over on his own ego.
Did he get to london in a solar airplane or did he fly one of those fossil fuel powered CO2 airplanes the rest of us fly?
The only “solar bricks” I can find are solar lights used in place of a few pavers for walkways.
So, what is the global warming footprint of converting all housing in England to 2 x 6″ sandstone with 4″ foam insulation? Just for the elite, I suppose?
According to the articles I checked out, Lovins home was inordinately expensive when originally built, and only 25 years later is being totally redone at a cost “Well in excess of $150,000”.
I take this to mean it probably cost around $250K to $300K.
A great deal of the financing was supplied by supporters and businesses eager to be connected to Lovins and his green project.
I originally was curious about the so called “solar bricks”, but searches didn’t bring up anything even close to that description.
Turns out Lovins used local sandstone to create two 6″ stone walls, sandwiching foam insulation 4″ thick.
Nothing even close to solar bricks, just heavily insulated walls.
Lovins admits the new refit / remodel is not cost effective, and is more of an experiment in what could be done, but cost effectiveness has to be a main consideration in the feasibility of any energy saving experiment.
Great idea, especially in England where the sun shines 24/7. Germany had 8% of installed solar capacity over the last winter. That’s some return on investment.