maxparrish
Veteran Member
- Joined
- Aug 30, 2005
- Messages
- 2,262
- Location
- SF Bay Area
- Basic Beliefs
- Libertarian-Conservative, Agnostic.
Anyone familiar with California's frequent civic hostility to making residential building affordable (while the same civic officials claim to be frustrated and bewildered by the lack of affordable housing) may be able to relate one of pratfalls of love of regulatory "green" social planning - building codes for energy efficiency.
A recent study, by an economist who was employed by the Obama folks, has found some "surprising" results: 40 years of California's aggressive energy building codes has failed to deliver promised benefits.
They have, naturally, succeeded in making building less affordable. Is California socialism great or what?
http://faculty.georgetown.edu/aml6/pdfs&zips/BuildingCodes.pdf
A recent study, by an economist who was employed by the Obama folks, has found some "surprising" results: 40 years of California's aggressive energy building codes has failed to deliver promised benefits.
Abstract
Construction codes that regulate the energy efficiency of new buildings have been a centerpiece
of US environmental policy for 40 years. California enacted the nation’s first energy building
codes in 1978, and they were projected to reduce residential energy use—and associated
pollution—by 80 percent. How effective have the building codes been? I take three approaches
to answering that question. First, I compare current electricity use by California homes of
different vintages constructed under different standards, controlling for home size, local weather,
and tenant characteristics. Second, I examine how electricity in California homes varies with
outdoor temperatures for buildings of different vintages. And third, I compare electricity use for
buildings of different vintages in California, which has stringent building energy codes, to
electricity use for buildings of different vintages in other states. All three approaches yield the
same answer: there is no evidence that homes constructed since California instituted its building
energy codes use less electricity today than homes built before the codes came into effect.
They have, naturally, succeeded in making building less affordable. Is California socialism great or what?
http://faculty.georgetown.edu/aml6/pdfs&zips/BuildingCodes.pdf
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