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Energy consumption increased at a record rate in 2018
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- paganel 8y agoA quick glance at the chart tells me that most of the consumption increase came from gas (seen as cleaner compared to other sources) and renewables, it reminded me of the Jevons paradox [1] [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
- Retric 8y agoJevons paradox is less relevant with energy as you don’t want to heat your home above a pleasant temperature for example. US per capita electricity use has dropped over time with increasing energy efficiency. Global population increases and economic development are the root cause for this spike.
- bryanlarsen 8y agoThe temperature people set their thermostats to hasn't changed, but the volume heated and cooled has increased dramatically and will continue to increase, and new uses will start to become common. For example, sidewalk heating to melt ice.
- DataWorker 8y agoUnless the NIMBY’s are able to restrict new home construction. Of course that would require limiting population growth in the US and that’s a political problem.
- saeranv 8y agoKinda the other way around. NIMBY's prefer, and advocate for more single-family housing which tends to consume drastically more energy (per person) then more efficient multi-residential buildings, which they oppose. No need to limit population growth if we were allowed to allocate population density more intelligently.
- Retric 8y agoSurface area is more important than volume in that case. Further, the ultra rich don't keep building ever larger homes 1:1 as their wealth increases because walking around becomes a real limitation.
- roenxi 8y agoAre you sure US per capita electricity use hasn't dropped with the vastly increased cost of coal & oil? 2008 is more than a decade ago now, but it also coincided with the highest oil price per barrel in modern history, both nominal and real dollars. The prices since have not exactly been low. Coal has followed a similar story, up until ~2012 it was unaffordable, and since then it has merely been expensive by historic standards. There seems to be a theory that massive price increases don't count for some reason. I'm not even aiming that at you, I just don't think people have cottoned on to how different the situation is now vs the late 90s. I've seen operations that were optimised to mine coal at a $30/tonne market price. > as you don’t want to heat your home above a pleasant temperature for example You are vastly underestimating how much people can do with cheap energy. There is no practical limit to how much energy a household could consume if it were available. In the limit, if you had enough cheap electricity you could probably use E=mc2 to fabricate new matter into existence. Even without invoking that sort of silly example, there are a lot of things on the edge of possible that would happen if the electrical power power was cheap enough. More aluminum products is the easy one that springs to mind. Cheaper lightweight materials? Hundred and one uses. That would bring per capita electrical use up.
- dTal 8y agoAs sci-fi writers cottoned on to long ago, energy is the driver of progress. With energy, anything is possible, any lifestyle. With enough of it, you could build diamond space towers for a hobby. Without an artificial source, we're reduced to collecting it the old fashioned way - subsistence farming, with hand tools. There is indeed no limit to how much energy a single person could use, if available.
- api 8y agoUltimately you're probably right about there being no demand limit, but I think there is context here. There probably are demand limits on Earth, and demand limits certainly exist at any point in time. I disagree that without an "artificial" source we are reduced to "collecting it the old fashioned way" unless these are elaborated upon. Do photovoltaic panels count as an artificial source? The fusion reactor is a natural gravitational confinement one, but the collection apparatus is artificial. Of course farming with hand tools is artificial too. Anything but bare hunter gatherer life with virtually no tools is artificial.
- istjohn 8y agoUS per capita electricity use may have dropped, but the chart FTA shows that the US total energy increase in demand constitutes around one third of the global increase in total energy demand. So to characterize this as due to population increase and economic development seems to let the US off the hook for what is presumably a per capita increase far more than any other country in the world.
- SilasX 8y agoThe Jevons paradox probably applies the strongest to energy, actually. Even if the typical home consumer isn't responsive to energy efficiency, energy is highly fungible, and, at any given moment, there will be many industrial projects just "waiting in the wings" for a tiny change in energy prices to flip back into profitability. So, in the absence of coordinated legal restrictions on emissions, the most likely effect of your personal cutbacks is for someone else to ramp up. Sad, but true.
- Retric 8y agoLittle need for “probably” as you can look at actual data. While generally ignored, farming is the #1 consumer of energy via photosynthesis (everything else combined is a rounding error in comparison). As effecency increases less farm land is cultivated up to population limits. Modern suburbs waste a vast bounty of energy in modern economies. In the US. “The proportion of the land base in agricultural uses has declined from 63 percent in 1949 to 51 percent in 2007.”
- Fricken 8y agoI think your thinking on this is constrained. There is no limit to how much energy we would use if we could harness it. We would terraform planets and conquest the universe.
- Retric 8y agoSpace exploration removes several other constraints that allow for the utilization of more energy. But, energy on it's own is only so useful. Ramp things up enough, and removing waste heat becomes more limiting than simple access to energy.
- userbinator 8y agoI wonder how much of this was due to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency mining...
- village-idiot 8y agoProbably not a lot. The estimates I’ve seen for bitcoin energy usage puts it at 1% world energy usage. That’s a lot of power, enough to run a country like Ireland, but it’s not enough to explain the jump in the chart.
- kbody 8y ago[ Probably bad calcs below: ] From the article 2018 saw an increase of 300 million tonnes of oil equivalent of primary global energy demand. Which is[1] equal to 3489 TWh. Taking the worst case from one of the most inaccurate reports about bitcoin's estimated power consumption (which is also the highest estimate I've found) is 61.4 TWh annually. So the total power consumption of bitcoin seems to be the ~1.7% of 2018's total increase on the global power demand. Take it with a grain of salt, I most probably I have something wrong. [1]: https://www.unitjuggler.com/convert-energy-from-toe-to-MWh.html?val=300000000 https://www.unitjuggler.com/convert-energy-from-toe-to-MWh.h...
- holri 8y agoThis is probably because of higher energy efficiency: https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2018/01/bedazzled-by-energy-efficiency.html https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2018/01/bedazzled-by-energ...
- black-tea 8y agoHigher efficiency would lead to lower consumption.
- bottled_poe 8y agoYou might think so, but... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
- Shivetya 8y agoas energy becomes cheaper and cheaper it will certainly be used in greater amounts. one side effect that may still be of concern is all the waste heat from its use. I look at it this way, as computer capability increased we never ceased to find ways to use more of it.
- black-tea 8y agoTrue. The same with highways.
- coldtea 8y ago
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- spac 8y agoFrom the article: “Perhaps the most worrying finding in the report is the threat of a feedback loop between severe weather events and carbon emissions. According to the IEA, a hotter-than-average summer and colder-than-average winter led to greater use of heating and air conditioning, which together were responsible for about half of the rise in energy demand in America and roughly a fifth of the worldwide increase” In the same article it points to US and China as the worst offenders. Sure the availability of cheaper energy may cause increased consumption, but the idea of this vicious cycle is pretty scary.
- perfunctory 8y ago> but the idea of this vicious cycle is pretty scary. And I suspect it doesn't stop with increased air conditioning. Efforts to provide relief and rebuild communities after natural disasters will require more energy still.
- ximeng 8y agoAlso competition over limited resources means that it is in nobody’s interests to reduce energy use first. The only way this gets fixed is with cleaner energy mix and active carbon removal.
- i_am_proteus 8y agoHistorically, competition over limited resources has often led to reduction in population from warfare and disease. A significant population reduction from the same, today, would reduce carbon emissions. This is an observation, not a proposal, suggestion, or endorsement.
- adrianN 8y agoI don't have a crystal ball, but I think that a major war that kills enough wealthy people to more than offset its own carbon cost is relatively unlikely during the next ten years. Unfortunately the next ten years are what determines whether we will be able to limit global warming to two degrees or not.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- keymone 8y agoprogress towards type 1 civilization is good.
- mac01021 8y agoMaybe, but this is not that.
- titzer 8y agoWe are going over the cliff with both eyes open.
- vanderZwan 8y agoMost of us are not in a position of power, and a lot of these issues can only be fixed at the top-down systemic level. So it's more like the bus is going over the cliff, and the people in the driver's seat are refusing to change course.
- clarkevans 8y agoBecause a very noisy section in the back insists that there's no cliff. It's only the few in the front rows that see the cliff, the rest are too busy with their spitballs.
- hn_throwaway_99 8y agoSeems to be letting "us" off a little lightly. At least in the US the passengers (or I guess the passengers sitting in half of the bus seats) voted for the bus driver who said the problem was all a hoax.
- adrianN 8y agoI know of no party anywhere in the world that has a solid plan to limit global warming to below two degrees. Who should I vote for?
- gameswithgo 8y agopro nuclear democrats
- adrianN 8y agoBuilding reactors takes too long and is too expensive. It's too late to go all-in on nuclear.
- alexgmcm 8y agoEnergy consumption is tightly correlated with wealth and living standards. We should move to nuclear power and invest more in energy research like at ITER. The alternatives are population control or condemning swathes of the globe to poverty - neither of which are tenable.
- istjohn 8y agoThe United States also needs to make real sacrifices to our standard of living. We are by far the most prodigious users of energy per capita in the world. During WWII we changed the way we lived in substantial ways. We should be prepared to make similar changes. The stakes are every bit as high. And just as in WWII, the sacrifices need to be made by the middle and upper class as much as, if not more than, by the lower class.
- DataWorker 8y agoThat isn’t true according to this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_energy_consumption_per_capita https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_energy_... We are up there but a number of countries, Bahrain, Qatar, Singapore, and several other nations all rank higher in per capital energy consumption.
- prolepunk 8y agoFrom the page you quoted -- first bar graph on the page. Energy use per capita, US is #1 -- Kilograms of oil equivalent (2011)
- trgn 8y agoWe (by example, and the way we communicate) need to paint an alternative picture that makes this alternative look, not like making a sacrifice, but is fundamentally better. - I drive my car less, because my employer encourages working from home. Don't you like working form home, get rid of that slog of a commute! - hey bub, your new electric car is bitching cool. Quiet, doesn't rattle, instant powah. I want one too now. - yeah, I downsized to a smaller home. Still 3 bedroom, 1800sqft, enough for my family of four. But much less space to clean. Also, heating bills are much lower. Also, damn, I actually can furnish this home with bespoke cabinetry instead of that disposable crap from IKEA. Badass! - Nah, are you nuts, I'm not flying across the world just so I can take a selfie with other tourists taking the same selfie. I'm vacationing in driving distance, can do without the drag of air travel, that's for losers without inspiration anyway. - yeah, I'm walking to the small grocery store a couple of times a week, instead of driving. Cost a little more, but get some exercise, plus, my food is fresh, and get to buy meals on a whim more. Living large, daily! A life without burning fossil fuels can be aspirational. We need to talk up what we gain, not what we lose. And what we lose is not critical anyway. Cheap fossil fuels just enable us to waste space because of convenience, and an imaginery convenience at that.
- mojomark 8y ago>Much more encouragingly... Natural-gas consumption in the United States increased by 10% last year... So, I wouldn't say that statement is absolutely encouraging since any unburned Natural Gas releases methane (i.e. "methane slip"), which is 80-times more potent than CO2 in terms of planetary greenhouse effects. (1) Though, at least there's a solution: completely burn your natural gas. But is this to much to ask of the consumer? It's not necessarily in their control. I imagine it will take a healthy amount of regulation of gas consuming products, but I know that every time I turn my crappy gas Kenmore (""elite"" - don't buy one) range, the gas runs for 3-4 seconds without burning, and my gas heater pilot has a few second delay before the flame catches, and god only knows how efficient these actually are burning the gas when operating. Multiply that by several million (2), and I cringe at the prospects. The further we go, the more attractive Nuclear becomes to me. Looking at the plot, I think the U.S. should work (invest - even at a loss) directly with India to establish Nuclear plants ASAP as their hunger for energy grows with an already massive population. It's going to get ugly if we don't. 1.) https://www.edf.org/media/new-study-finds-us-oil-and-gas-methane-emissions-are-60-percent-higher-epa-reports-0 https://www.edf.org/media/new-study-finds-us-oil-and-gas-met... 2.) https://www.statista.com/statistics/221447/gas-range-and-oven-shipment-forecast-in-the-us-by-quarter/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/221447/gas-range-and-ove...
- Scoundreller 8y agoA condensing (“high-efficiency”) extracts something like 95% of the heat with consistent blue flames. The efficiency is definitely there. Newer gas water heaters have a similar efficiency. If you want to improve your cooking efficiencies, pre-thaw your frozen stuff in the fridge, pre-heat it using the microwave and/or use a pressure-cooker. Cool multiple meals in one big batch and then portion them out for the week.
- CydeWeys 8y agoThey're referring to combustion efficiency, not thermodynamic efficiency, i.e. what percentage of the natural gas is completely combusted and released into the atmosphere as CO2.
- lightedman 8y agoShut down Bitcoin and regain all that lost solar capacity. Seriously, Bitcoin now eats more more power than all the PV on the planet can produce.
- dalbasal 8y agoBesides the obvious "save the world from destructive climate change," the reason I want renewables to overtake petrochemicals is the I am sick of living in a world where energy=bad. My mind's eye future has floating buildings, undergound beaches, offworld tourism, subterranian transport grids and iron man suits. All that stuff requires energy. I don't like the "energy austerity" trend. We need more energy, not less. We just need it to be clean.
- wcoenen 8y agoEven without global warming from greenhouse effects, there are limits. Starting at current world energy use of about 5e20 joules/year, and a modest 2% yearly growth, it would take only about 500 years to get to the level of power that the Earth receives by the sun, about 5e24 joules/year. We'd be in trouble long before that. Because if all that comes from renewables on Earth, there'd be no sunlight left for the biosphere. If it comes from nuclear or offworld sources, then per thermodynamics all that energy becomes waste heat and you have a second sun worth of heat to deal with.
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago>Because if all that comes from renewables on Earth, there'd be no sunlight left for the biosphere. If it comes from nuclear or offworld sources, then per thermodynamics all that energy becomes waste heat and you have a second sun worth of heat to deal with. Suck enough greenhouse gasses out of the air and you'll need that waste heat
- dalbasal 8y agoThat's the spirit! So... You're saying we can increase energy consumption by 20,000X before we encounter hard engineering problems like building an offworld heat waste dump? As far as the sun being insufficient, nuclear. I like the moxy, but let's go for a modest 1,000X by 20x0.
- wcoenen 8y ago> So... You're saying we can increase energy consumption by 20,000X before we encounter hard engineering problems No, I think we would run into serious issues already at 100 times current use, or "1% of an extra sun" worth of power. And that's only 230 years away at 2% growth rate. Or even just 60 years at 8% growth rate. (That's what oil growth was like before the oil shocks in the seventies, so plausibly what would happen if we got something like cheap fusion.)