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The 14x Plan
A few months ago I wrote a brief post about a plan from a guy named Edward Mazria. His basic idea was that we could get a huge bang for our stimulus buck by refinancing mortgages at low rates if homeowners agreed to renovate their homes to increase energy efficiency. This would reduce energy consumption, lower mortgage payments, and stimulate the flagging construction industry all at once — as well as providing an enormous multiplier for every stimulus dollar spent.
Well, Mazria's plan is starting to get a little more attention. For more, take a look at Mike Mechanic's piece on our main site. It's intriguing stuff.
This plan looks much to
This plan looks much to reasonable to ever be attempted here.
Not to worry, however, since the banks will never agree to refinancing and big energy will never to agree to more efficiency.
Rather wasteful
It strikes me as fairly wasteful, unlikely to be well-targetted to actual need, and end up driving yet more excessive investmetn in housing assets.
remodel/weatherize
I just finished residing the weather side of a mid-century home here in Portland, Oregon. It was a small job that I was glad to do as the building industry here is suffering. My small job checked-off all of the 14x talking points; I rented a scaffold, I purchased materials, I improved the energy efficiency of the house. At least half a dozen people came in contact with this small job.
And because I am about four to six months away from having to dip into my "retirement" to cover my own mortgage, I would love to see this plan get a fast track to reality.
I have my own opinion about the fine folks at AIG who are too big to fail, and the financial business practices that are in no small way responsible for the mess we are dealing with today. I also know who and what really works for a living.
I don't know about the relative mertis.
Clearly incentivising efficiency is a win-win. We already have some of it in the tax code, and to some extent your local utility might also offer rebates for some forms of improvements. So the question becomes, what are the most efficacious ways of doing it?
I'm currently putting in a radiative barrier (attic foil), in a case like mine where the biggest part of the investment is sweat equity tax rebates on materials costs, are only a small driver.
I'm a pretty cynical guy
but even I don't think 'big energy' is against improving the energy efficiency of homes.
For one thing homes use energy from electricity, natural gas and propane, and heating oil. The electrical utilities promote efficiency, and I haven't seen much push back from natural gas and heating oil suppliers.
Let's not confuse home utility suppliers with the oil companies selling gasoline for our cars.
The only thing I don't like is I've already done most of these things in the past few years and once again being ahead of my time means I miss out on the giveaways. But, hey, I've saved money and I'll benefit from a healthy economy so what the hey.
Tripp
i like it
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i like this plan
i like the idea of getting a huge bang for our stimulus buck by refinancing mortgages at low rates. This would for sure reduce energy consumption, lower mortgage payments, and stimulate the flagging construction industry.