[flightster]

> People don't buy the cheapest car, house, clothing, or food they could possibly get by with... Yet we constantly hear the refrain that you shouldn't spend a given amount of money on solar, house improvements, appliances, etc. that might be better for the environment if the payback isn't somehow positive with a 10-20 year payback period.

I think the key thing here is that energy is 100% fungible unlike your examples. A kWH is a kWH.

[dap]

But you’re not buying kWh in this example. You’re buying home energy systems. They have many tradeoffs, pro and con. Besides that, for many people, a kWh produced by a renewable energy source or that’s available to them when the grid is down is worth more than one produced by a coal plant that might be unavailable during an outage.

[hgomersall]

No, it really isn't. Your house might lose the same total energy as a super efficient house, but if all that energy happens to be lost through a cold spot by your dining room table, you're going to get pretty fed up with the situation.

[Scoundreller]

Sorta, around here, a bucket of kWh at 2PM sells for more than the same sized bucket at 2AM.