A workshop was convened to assist DOE's Technology Assessment Division in evaluating the need to prepare additional environmental- and social-impact assessments of different energy-conservation measures. Attendees participated in a decision-making exercise designed to rank 19 different energy-conservation measures according to their overall potential for achieving important national goals and their ease of implementation. The participants felt that the most-important ranking criteria dealt with questions concerning feasibility (economic, political/institutional, social, and technical) and economic efficiency. Other criteria, such as environmental quality and occupational health and safety received lower weights; possibly because of the widespread belief that most of the conservation measures …
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A workshop was convened to assist DOE's Technology Assessment Division in evaluating the need to prepare additional environmental- and social-impact assessments of different energy-conservation measures. Attendees participated in a decision-making exercise designed to rank 19 different energy-conservation measures according to their overall potential for achieving important national goals and their ease of implementation. The participants felt that the most-important ranking criteria dealt with questions concerning feasibility (economic, political/institutional, social, and technical) and economic efficiency. Other criteria, such as environmental quality and occupational health and safety received lower weights; possibly because of the widespread belief that most of the conservation measures presented would be environmentally beneficial. In the participants' view, the most-promising and feasible conservation measures include new-building-performance standards, retrofit of existing housing stock, new-appliance-performance standards and increased use of smaller cars. In contrast, conservation options which ranked rather low, such as diesel engines, coal-fired aluminum remelt furnaces, and cupola furnace modifications were expected to have some harmful environmental and health impacts. Most of these impacts are expected to be highly localized and of lesser national concern. Disagreement exists as to the efficacy of funding those projects deemed highly desirable and feasible versus those which are expected to have the greater environmental and social impacts. These differences must be taken into account in the research priorities that are eventually established. While environmental and social impacts of alternative energy-conservation measures may prove to be either harmful or beneficial, neither side should be ignored by the policy maker.
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Moskowitz, P.D.; Le, T.Q. & Pierce, B.Ranking energy-conservation measures to establish research priorities: synopsis of a workshop,
report,
May 2, 1979;
Upton, New York.
(https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1059359/:
accessed May 29, 2024),
University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu;
crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.