The National Resources Defense Council went on a little rant about clothes dryers in the USA.
A couple of items stood out:
“natural gas dryers typically cost 50 percent to 75 percent less to operate.”
“A typical household pays over $100 in annual utility bills to operate an electric dryer and $40 for a gas dryer.“
Clearly, to me, the NRDC is telling people: Buy A Gas Dryer!
“If all of America’s electric dryers were updated to the most efficient models sold in other parts of the world, U.S. consumers would not only save $4 billion worth of energy per year”
The NRDC are certifiably insane. An “Eco-Dry” dryer costs 1,199$. There are 89,000,000 dryers in the USA. That would cost 107 billion dollars to save 4 billion dollars. Does that make sense?
And if the USA did have a spare 108 billion dollars to send to Korea or China or Europe for new dryers:
” it would prevent roughly 16 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually, equivalent to the pollution from three coal-fired power plants””
Or one natural gas power plant. Unless the 107 billion dollars was spent on gas dryers (as the NRDC recommends) in which case it would probably increase the amount of CO2. Just kidding. Gas dryers produce less CO2 than electric ones because a large portion of US electricity comes from coal.
“How a consumer uses a dryer is almost as important as which dryer is purchased. Choosing a lower operating temperature can slow the drying process a little, but it cuts energy use significantly. Stopping the dryer before all of the clothes are bone-dry saves time and energy, while reducing wrinkles and helping clothes last longer.”
Sure. Lets spend 107 billion, burn more natural gas (actually I like that recommendation) so we can have slow drying wet clothes.
sunshine hours 