Its not working for me...anybody else having problems listening in? Too much traffic?

Its on now, Thanks.

Some good ideas to save energy that quickly come to mind:

1. A "cool" and "warm" biz program like Japan:
http://www.triplepundit.com/pages/japanese-cool-biz-program-payi-001781.php
Government can set an example by having official dress codes that encourage energy-saving dress during extreme hot or cold temperatures.

2. Reduce climate control in tall buildings by taking better advantage of natural air circulation at those heights -- i.e. make buildings more permeable to air. You get significant breezes at those heights, you don't need air conditioning most of the summer if you let the breezes in.

Transportation stuff is very broad brush -

* Get subways to state of good repair.
* Expand transit capacity to reduce or at least not worsen travel times in the city as the population rises sharply.

How to achieve the 2nd? Watch these pages!

I took a quick tour through the PlaNYC site, which is mainly a portal through which to view existing content on NYC.gov with a bit of added content. The added content includes a ten- point plan for city residents seeking ways to "make themselves and their communities more sustainable", dubbed "ActioNYC". This ten point plan omits any mention of shifting transportation whatsoever! (except to advise readers to stay in NYC because living in a city that has mass transit has less environmental impact than living in a non-urban location).

Forget congestion pricing, traffic reduction targets, or any other meaningful policy initiatives; the Mayor is not even willing to make a direct moral appeal to residents to use mass transit instead of driving! He takes the subway himself as a kind of example; why couldn't he have at least elaborated on that and said that his preference is informed not only by his desire to be "close to the governed" (ha), but his concern for global warming?

I know that today is just the announcement of the initiative and things presumably will become more detailed and concrete. And I know better than to expect a charismatic or even direct appeal from this man. But the lack of any detail or passion on transportation issues or open space is far below my already low expectations.

On the other hand, I am surprised by the scope of vision behind reclaiming 90% of the waterways and waterfronts. That would be huge and dramatically transform the city. It may be under this plan that the city "greens from the edges in" and that the dominance of motor vehicles will be the last thing to be fixed.

John-
Unsubsidized solar panels have at least a 20-30 year simple payback time.

Changing your light bulbs to compact fluorescents pays itself back in 6 months to a year. Better insulation and a better heating system are also much better values for your money if you want to reduce the amount of fossil fuel you use.

I'm all for the bike proposal though.

"John-
Unsubsidized solar panels have at least a 20-30 year simple payback time.

Changing your light bulbs to compact fluorescents pays itself back in 6 months to a year. Better insulation and a better heating system are also much better values for your money if you want to reduce the amount of fossil fuel you use."

A good point. The unfortunate truth is that replacing consumer products- air conditioners, refridgerators, cars, light bulbs- with "more efficient" products is a scam. There is no such thing as green consumerism because through the entire use of the product, it will never, ever save more energy than was required to manufacture it.

Oy, such a lightweight speech! Okay, maybe it's the table-setter for bold specifics later on, but it's still a missed opportunity. Imagine (just one little example) if the mayor had talked of having every New Yorker live within a 3-minute bike ride walk of a park (rather than "within a 10-minute walk of a park"). Multiply by 50-odd paragraphs ...

And hello Brent -- sorry, but your blanket indictment of energy efficiency (won't save enough btu's to offset the energy to mfg) just ain't so.

Consider compact fluorescent light bulbs. They cost around 3 bucks wholesale. If 20% of that cost is for energy (and that's generous), then the energy cost to make each bulb is 60 cents, which would have paid for around 10 kilowatt-hours. Yet over its life the bulb -- if it replaces incandescent bulbs -- will save around 400 kilowatt-hours, or 40 times the energy need to make it.
(Math supplied upon request.)

Get my point? Meanwhile, did you see I put a quote from you (anonymously) in my piece about Eric Ng's death, in the Downtown Express (see link on Sblog). Thanks for that.

V- I agree. I am just tired of the corporate machine trying to manipulate people into solving environmental problems through consumption. Like Al Gore in 'An Inconvenient Truth' telling people to buy all kinds of environmental products. Mass consumerism and environmentalism are completely incompatable no matter how it is advertised (and reinforced by the corporate media).

We just installed solar panels on the roof of our house in Brooklyn for hot water heating along with an ultra-efficient oil boiler. Boy, I could have used some subsidies from the city to help pay for it. Jeff Perlman at Brightpower.biz did the work for us. He's great if anyone is interested in having him do similar work. I'll try to do a posting on it soon. It's still too early to tell how much money and carbon it's saving us but I don't think it's going to pay for itself for a long while (unless, of course, oil goes through the roof, which it might).

It's true that a solar heating system has a long payback time. I wonder if the same holds true for geothermal heating systems.

Jersey has great subsidies for this kind of thing. My Father only paid 25% for his solar panels, the NJ Govt. paid the other 75%! I think they are scaling this back though - because they obviously cannot afford to do that for everyone.

In NY I think you can get a 17-25% rebate...anybody know the specifics on this?

"My point is that if someone has a crappy inefficient fridge and wants to save energy, the best thing to do is just keep it."

The price of the refrigerator has the cost of the energy built into it (undervalued or not). If the energy savings of a new Energy Star refrigerator pay for the replacement of your ten year old refrigerator (which they do) you are consuming less energy despite the production of a new appliance.

The equation will become even more pronouced as the cost of energy rises because it is only one component of many in the manufacture of a refrigerator while it is the entire cost of the operation of a refrigerator.

Ever ride a bike down 57th Street in August? All the boutiques have their doors thrown open with industrial-strength air conditioners turned to 11 in hopes of luring shoppers in off the simmering pavement. The effect is so powerful that it cools you off as you bike by. Outlawing that practice would probably reduce energy consumption more than all of the personal conservation steps that Sblog readers might undertake, with or without subsidies. Personal responsibility is important, but it's not everything.

Uhh.. sounds like a fail-safe plan, gecko..