Quote Originally Posted by Takeovers View Post
The DDR was on par with the USA on energy consumption per head, due to extreme inefficiency.
Again, I cannot agree with you. Do you have some figures? Although I cannot give you a link with figures - they surely can be found - it's a very known fact that USA did not have any need to save energy since abundance of a pretty cheap sources around.

Many years ago (ca. 40) I had been involved in planning of all-electrical housing, thus studying available sources and realized projects . The West Germany had been very advanced in this field, so getting know a lot, not only about them. In that time all available sources indicated that the US energy consumption per head was always 3 - 4 times more than of an European average. Not only in electrical domestic housing but also in a total energy.

The reason why it is so, is very clear: The majority of US houses is of wooden construction with a poor insulation including the sliding windows (mainly single glazed), with a direct electrical heating combined with air/conditioning. Nothing like that comparable in Europe - whether West or East.

And the large road cruisers where no one cared about consumption of the cheap gas?

I know, in last decades it has changed a lot, the gasoline is no longer so cheap and the houses are of better construction. But in Europe it has changed a lot as well.

That you did see black clouds of soot over the Berlin wall? It does not mean that nobody cared about a reasonable energy consumption and so the cost.

That's why the first oil crisis in 1973 was not so shocking in Europe as in USA...