The following appeared in a memorandum from the planning department of an electric power company.
"Several recent surveys indicate that home owners are increasingly eager to conserve energy. At the same time, manufacturers are now marketing many home appliances, such as refrigerators and air conditioners, that are almost twice as energy efficient as those sold a decade ago. Also, new technologies for better home insulation and passive solar heating are readily available to reduce the energy needed for home heating. Therefore, the total demand for electricity in our area will not increase — and may decline slightly. Since our three electric generating plants in operation for the past twenty years have always met our needs, construction of new generating plants will not be necessary.”
Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
The electric power company planning department has made several fallacious leaps in logic when declaring that no construction or upgrades are needed for their plants. The department makes generalizations about the capacity and competency of homeowners, about the ways and amounts in which electricity is used, and the overlooks the limits of its equipment. Such oversights could leave the power company unprepared for the future, through unexpected demand or loss of demand.
Energy-efficient refrigerators and air-conditioners are cited as “almost twice as efficient” as those sold a decade ago. However, stating this condition does not consider what percent of home owners have purchased these efficacious appliances and had them properly installed.
The planning department assumes that they will see the benefits of increased technical efficiency. It’s possible that it make take many years for older devices to be phased out of use, and even when more effective devices are put in place, they must be operated correctly. For example, an A/C unit with a dirty filter must work twice as hard as a clean one to maintain the same temperature.
Another consideration to new energy-efficiency technology is the overall number of devices in each home. Human standards of domestic environmental precision and convenience have increased with modernization. A family of four may have a refrigerator in the kitchen, but also one in the garage, with a free-standing freezer as well. The garage may also have an outlet to charge an electric car. Perhaps all bedrooms are out-fitted with televisions. With all these additions, the electric company must calculate whether energy use may actually be going down or up with time.
The planning department also mentions that the effectiveness of insulation and passive solar has improved in home construction. This could have provident impact only if the power company is located in areas where large temperature swings occur. In a milder climate where the percent of power used for heating may be relatively small, or in areas with low levels of new construction are taking place, these evolutions in building technology are insignificant.
Most glaringly, the planning department assumes that the size and location of the consumer population will remain the same, and that their plants will not need upgrades due to the wear and tear on equipment over the past decades. As equipment ages, it generally becomes less efficient, so the power supplied by the plant is likely to use more energy to be produced. Three generating plants could perhaps be dropped to two with more current mechanical parts. And the population may have increase in the area, or moved further away, which perhaps demand opening of other plants.
The power company’s planning leaves much to be desired. They must examine the home-owner population with more sophistication, in terms of what technology is owned and how it is use. They must also look at the positioning to the client and condition of the plant’s own equipment before declaring that no changes are needed in the future.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 24 15
No. of Words: 497 350
No. of Characters: 2545 1500
No. of Different Words: 267 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.722 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.121 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.936 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 177 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 142 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 103 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 75 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.708 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.781 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.458 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.26 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.543 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.041 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 7 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 479, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...gh unexpected demand or loss of demand. Energy-efficient refrigerators and air-c...
^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 100, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...fits of increased technical efficiency. It's possible that it make take man...
^^
Line 7, column 400, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...n one to maintain the same temperature. Another consideration to new energy-effi...
^^^^^^^^
Line 11, column 579, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...actually be going down or up with time. The planning department also mentions th...
^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, however, if, look, may, so, well, for example
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 20.0 19.6327345309 102% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 17.0 12.9520958084 131% => OK
Conjunction : 20.0 11.1786427146 179% => OK
Relative clauses : 13.0 13.6137724551 95% => OK
Pronoun: 24.0 28.8173652695 83% => OK
Preposition: 61.0 55.5748502994 110% => OK
Nominalization: 23.0 16.3942115768 140% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2655.0 2260.96107784 117% => OK
No of words: 496.0 441.139720559 112% => OK
Chars per words: 5.35282258065 5.12650576532 104% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.71922212354 4.56307096286 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.0745802485 2.78398813304 110% => OK
Unique words: 270.0 204.123752495 132% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.54435483871 0.468620217663 116% => OK
syllable_count: 843.3 705.55239521 120% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.76447105788 114% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 7.0 1.67365269461 418% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 24.0 19.7664670659 121% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 43.578154568 57.8364921388 75% => OK
Chars per sentence: 110.625 119.503703932 93% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.6666666667 23.324526521 89% => OK
Discourse Markers: 2.75 5.70786347227 48% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 7.0 5.15768463074 136% => Less paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 4.0 5.25449101796 76% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 9.0 4.67664670659 192% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.151035707709 0.218282227539 69% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0445283968886 0.0743258471296 60% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0356131264331 0.0701772020484 51% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0734768400669 0.128457276422 57% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0172228719262 0.0628817314937 27% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.1 14.3799401198 98% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 42.72 48.3550499002 88% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.3 12.197005988 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.75 12.5979740519 109% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.05 8.32208582834 109% => OK
difficult_words: 139.0 98.500998004 141% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 12.0 12.3882235529 97% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.1389221557 90% => OK
text_standard: 14.0 11.9071856287 118% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Maximum six paragraphs wanted.
Rates: 83.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 5.0 Out of 6
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.