Using an aggressive setback on a programmable thermosat can save substantially a bit. A $200 programmable thermostat is a more costly than usual; thats typically the price point for a learning thermostat (which attempt to be programmable thermostats for lazy people, but aren't as good).

For example I set back from 68 to 50 during the night when I sleep and during the day when I am working. For "average" outdoor temperature of lets say 30F, I slashed heating bill by 48% durring that setback. Since I am working and sleeping 75% of the day. Total savings are 36%. Utilities are cheap here, I pay ~$700 to heat and cool my place. So I don't save much (though, incidentally, enough to pay off a very cheap programmable thermostat in less than a heating season) Some people are spending $3000-$4000 to heat and cool moderately sized houses. Few weeks = 3 to 5 * 3000/52 = $173 to $288 in heating costs. Slashing that by 30% gives you at least $18-24/week savings.

And this guy could easily have an extra ordinary situation such that he is measuring payback in weeks instead of months. e.g., in a heating climate he could have an St. Paul 1890 5900 sq ft house with an oil boiler from the same era, or in cooling climate Yuma AZ, a 1994 AC with uninstalled duct work running through the 160F attic. Yeah, in both situations they could substantially and cost effectively reduce operational costs using other methods, but this is the type of crap that permeates american construction.

Regulations? where did they come up

Yes. The debate is ongoing since at least canals and railroads from 1830s, and the only common theme is that again and again the federal government is there to do big new things and the private money is not (at least without help from our friend :) !). The golden gate bridge is not of the scale of the federal highway system, but my recollection is that it was funded by some shady relationship involving government bonds and bankers. Over the last 200 years, private enterprise has simply shown they are not willing to accept the risk of these projects.

And that is fine. Maybe we should have "built America" over centuries instead of years or decades. I don't really have a strong opinion about that, I do know that most people, including private capital greatly prefer the latter. However what I really cannot tolerate is the commonly held fairy tale that capitalists can do more, better, and faster when unencumbered by the government. Somehow, they will take more risk and spend more money for the same gain? It makes no sense. FYI, I actually have 50.4% of economy from said sectors from BEA data (mining, ag, exports, durable mfg, transport, utility, government, defence, ...). This ignores that these sectors, particularly energy, transportation, and telecom, grease the gears of the entire service economy. Again demonstrating just how valuable mega infrastructure can be.

In response to your link, I'm aware of that fiasco, and many others, as bad worse, that span the history of corrupt government/private partnerships. It is a very tricky subject. How do you evaluate it when really good* things come from terribly unfair and corrupt processes? I am not interested in silly absolute ideological answers to that question, which is basically the only form of conversation one finds on this issue.

*Most people do believe that rapid expansion of the economy and enhanced access to goods, services, & resources, is a good thing. I am of mixed opinion on that as well.

We're competing with other nations that will fund advanced infrastructure and new industries. We will lose economic battles to those countries, and fail, stagnate, stutter, use whatever word you like for fall short of potential or "not do well"

Hmm. ASPS on Mono modules are on the order of 0.75 $/W to distributors, leaving BOS and installation at 37 cents. That seems possible if you did it yourself and had no inter connection, meter, or electrician fees. But that price cannot be right based on the details you have provided. Are you neglecting ITC rebate? That would give you $1.6, or about the cheapest rate utilities putting up MW projects now...

Do you feel threatened by a growing solar energy industry?

yet, solar's output can be tailed very conveniently to peak loads that would otherwise be served by peaking plants, which by virtue of their operation (low capacity factor) are 2-4X more expensive than regular generation, and, as it turns out 15%CF solar. That's before we throw all our natural gas on boats and sell it overseas for a 300% profit.

Following on, the support of these projects and industries "trickled down" to effectively create the industrial might of the US including continental trade in agriculture, forestry husbandry, steal, coal, oil, concrete, etc. It also exploded the economy at an impossible pace compared to that which would have been pursued by otherwise risk averse capital investors. We know because they passed the opportunities and wrote as much.

and I fcked it up again, anyway, hope you have the point

sorry "... have openly declared projects were not possible direct support ..."

Collectively these industries are well over 50% of GDP. Over time most of the private beneficiaries (capitalists) of the defining infrastructure projects (railroads, electrification, nuclear power, and federal highway system) were not possible direct support of the federal government. I'm open to hear any accomplishments of free market capitalists that are equivalent in scale to those projects started, funded, backstopped, guaranteed by the federal government.

Sorry that your ideology is offended, but its true. Railroads, highway systems, aerospace, telecom, defense, nuclear power and directly and indirectly via all these avenues, energy. All major industries kick started by massive federal government. All systems still dominated by direct government subsidies and by virtue as the largest paying customer.

This is not a high performance custom frame. It is a steel tubed tank in the shape of a chair that has little in common with any famously designed road bike. There is no design expertise that will allow a single seat post adjustment to accommodate widely varying human anatomies. There is however probably a rigorously developed computer algorithm that can churn out a design that is nominally acceptable for a large range of body types. Furthermore, the new citibike looks to have an identical frame as the previous bikes, probably because its still the same bike, produced by the same company. Serotta added a hole in the seat, new gears, and a EU kickstand...

What hysteria? Assuming the US-centric position, no one here is doing anything about it, unless you count all the hot air. What poor short term choices have we made?

As for China, they could single handily neuter any attempt at AGW mitigation, but instead they are doing the opposite. Their emissions growth has shrunk dramatically, they are reducing coal use faster than anyone expected (from a peak 2 years ago), they are installing more wind and solar than anyone one earth while supplying 80% of wind and solar to everyone on earth. Also its kind of a dick move to outsource all your heavy industry to a county and then give them shit about their emissions.

But the Citibike is one size fits all.