I doubt KP (or any Congressperson for that matter) knows jack shit about the engineering and design behind dishwashers, which is really what counts when it comes to discussing the viability and cost/benefit of new efficiency standards. That said, in theory, I'm all for maximizing the energy efficiency of pretty much any machine...who wouldn't be? But eventually you get to a point of diminishing returns when small increases in efficiency come at the expense of extra, more expensive DW parts, retooling factories, etc. KP says it cost (on average) $3 per month to run a given dishwasher. Sounds great. So now we increase the DW efficiency standards and now it cost, say, $2.00 per month (certainly a vast and unrealistic overestimate of the expected efficiency improvement). But that new dishwasher is, say, $100 more expensive to begin with (not unreasonable to expect). Its gonna take 100 months (over 8 years) to break even from the old dishwasher. Are consumers really saving a lot of money? Is the environment really that much better off? Has it all been worth it? I think we may be at or close to that tipping point with appliance efficiency.
Thank god we have you, then. Have you offered to testify to Congress about your area of expertise?Loading and unloading a dishwasher and buying soap does not make you knowledgeable about dishwashers, anymore than driving a car and buying gas makes you any kind of car expert.
I'm also of the mindset that we should keep current technology appliances working for as long as possible by continuing to fix them up as they break. It takes a lot of energy and resources to mine the metals and fab parts to make a whole new appliance from scratch. Not to mention all the pollution involved in the process. I myself have continued to fix my appliances as they break down. My stove is the baby of the bunch at almost 18 years old, my fridge and dishwasher are over 30 years old. My washer and dryer are each about 25 to 30 years old. All have failed here and there multiple times, but I fix them up and keep them going rather than send them to the landfill and buy new ones. The last to fail was my fridge about 4 months back when I came home from work and my freezer compartment completely melted leaving a huge pudde on the floor. Replaced a few parts costing about $75 and its good for a few more years until the compressor finally goes, then I'll probably be screwed and have to buy a new fridge.
And after seeing AOC's bewilderment about garbarge disposals from a few years ago, I'm not convinced politicians have the savvy to be meddling in appliance related laws.
The amount of electricity used by an appliance that is only used for a small number of hours in a month, and that is efficient is very small, and water is also cheap. The detergent would be the major part of the cost. Refrigerators, ovens and stove tops use much more power.
Regulating dishwasher efficiency is ridiculous. It is the administrative state at its far-from-worst, surprisingly not as bad as usual. Compared to other appliances*, the dishwasher rule is a paragon of comprehensibility. "Standard size dishwashers shall not exceed 307 kwh/year". But even that is ridiculous -- it ensures that a manufacturer will be prepared to spend a million dollars to get the consumption from 308 kwh down to 307 kwh, and to spend $1.95 to get it from 307 down to 207. Giving the DOE authority to set detailed efficiency regulations on dishwashers and sixty other kinds of appliances was not an environmental protection act; it was a federal regulator full-employment** act. If Congress wants the DOE to help save the environment, it should fire all the efficiency regulators, keep the DOE employees who actually measure appliance power consumption, junk all the administrative state efficiency regulations, and replace them with an actual law, voted on by actual Congressthings, saying all manufacturers and importers of household appliances must pay a per-unit-sold tax of ten cents per kwh/year, said tax to be raised annually in proportion to the CPI. If that turns out not to be enough incentive*** to get overall appliance efficiency to where Congress wants it, Congress can vote to increase the tax in the next session.House backs bills to roll back energy efficiency standards for refrigerators, dishwashers
House Republicans have approved two bills rolling back Energy Department efficiency standards for home refrigerators and dishwashersabcnews.go.com
Consumers are dumb, they buy cheap shit that costs them more.
I'm giving KP the benefit of the doubt on that one. The actual amount would be highly dependent on how big your family is, your local cost of detergent and water & electricity rates. I live in an area that has the most expensive electricity in the country*, so I would expect mine to be on the high side. I don't really know the actual cost of running a DW off the top of my head, but its certainly among the least expensive of the household appliances, I would think. I do totally agree with you about quality though. It makes no sense to go through the trouble of making super efficient appliances if they are made with cheap-ass parts and they fail within just a few years and just get scrapped. In particular, the control boards are a key component to making them energy efficient, but they use substandard parts (capacitors, especially are prone to early failure), but the manufacturers discontinue making them after just a few years. And if you do find a replacement board, its hugely expensive (hundreds of dollars just for a fucking PC board!). Given the high labor cost too, people opt to just go the easy route and buy a whole new appliance. Perhaps if Congress would mandate appliance manufacturers to use more reliable, long lasting parts in addition to the stricter efficiency regs, they would be making sense.
Anyone who paid attention in Econ 101 would appreciate the tradeoff between the unattainable 1st best policy of a tax and an attainable 3rd best policy of hide the accountability.Regulating dishwasher efficiency is ridiculous. It is the administrative state at its far-from-worst, surprisingly not as bad as usual. Compared to other appliances*, the dishwasher rule is a paragon of comprehensibility. "Standard size dishwashers shall not exceed 307 kwh/year". But even that is ridiculous -- it ensures that a manufacturer will be prepared to spend a million dollars to get the consumption from 308 kwh down to 307 kwh, and to spend $1.95 to get it from 307 down to 207. Giving the DOE authority to set detailed efficiency regulations on dishwashers and sixty other kinds of appliances was not an environmental protection act; it was a federal regulator full-employment** act. If Congress wants the DOE to help save the environment, it should fire all the efficiency regulators, keep the DOE employees who actually measure appliance power consumption, junk all the administrative state efficiency regulations, and replace them with an actual law, voted on by actual Congressthings, saying all manufacturers and importers of household appliances must pay a per-unit-sold tax of ten cents per kwh/year, said tax to be raised annually in proportion to the CPI. If that turns out not to be enough incentive*** to get overall appliance efficiency to where Congress wants it, Congress can vote to increase the tax in the next session.House backs bills to roll back energy efficiency standards for refrigerators, dishwashers
House Republicans have approved two bills rolling back Energy Department efficiency standards for home refrigerators and dishwashers
(* Source: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-10/chapter-II/subchapter-D/part-430/subpart-C/section-430.32 )
(** "There have been 3 changes in the last two weeks to § 430.32. view changes")
(*** I have not offered to testify to Congress about my area of expertise. If Congress isn't sure I'm right they can obtain all the expert testimony they need from anyone who passed Econ 101.)
Come to California. We have people who do that for free, and you don't even need to ask!
Certainly. The unattainable 1st best policy of a tax would be to junk the entire exercise of treating appliances legally differently from airplane tickets, and instead impose a uniform carbon tax, relying on rational consumers to choose appliances with lower total cost of ownership. But individuals' subjective time discount rates tend to lead to shorter-term thinking than is socially optimal, so I proposed an attainable 2nd best policy of a tax.
They could perfectly well still do that if the measurements had been made to drive a tax rather than yet another of the nonlinear cliffs administrators are so fond of pushing people off.
Curious. The regulations were imposed in 1988.
