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Energy consumption is tightly correlated with wealth and living standards. We should move to nuclear power and invest more in energy research like at ITER. Th

Energy 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 ago
The 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 ago
  That 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 ago
    From the page you quoted -- first bar graph on the page. Energy use per capita, US is #1 -- Kilograms of oil equivalent (2011)
- trgn 8y ago
  We (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.
  - moosey 8y ago
    Transport and home comfort are #2 and #3 in the list for your average US citizen for production of carbon output. #1 is food, so in your list, we need to include meat consumption as one of the sacrifices that we must make. This is, stunningly, one of the harder ones for people to adjust to, based on anecdotal evidence. Changing out your car is easy, as long as you still have a personal vehicle (I think that this logic must change too). Your house needs to be more efficient, but that's fine as long as you have a single family home (I think that this must change as well). It just seems that there is a logical leap in the list of sacrifices that people have a lot of difficulty with.
    - TheCoelacanth 8y ago
      I'm curious what your source is for this, because it isn't matched by the ones I'm finding. The EPA[1] says that 9% of emissions come from agriculture while 28% comes from transportation with about half of that being from passenger vehicles. Also this article[2] says that giving up a car for transportation is higher impact than giving up meat. [1] https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis... [2] https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/7/14/15963544/climate-change-individual-choices https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/7/14/1596354...
      - moosey 8y ago
        http://www.fao.org/3/a0701e/a0701e00.htm http://www.fao.org/3/a0701e/a0701e00.htm https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/21/lifestyle-change-eat-less-meat-climate-change https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/21/lifestyl... There are a number of others, but many of the studies that show largely meat free living vs. living with meat have ignored Biomass Transfer Efficiency. Giving up meat, as a society, would reduce the amount of plant matter that we need to grow by a huge amount, allowing large tracts of land to return to nature, locking up carbon and reducing the amount of fertilizers that we need to use, by a huge extent. However, I do think that we get here just as well with a hefty carbon tax, as we watch meat prices jump through the roof.
  - 8y ago
Scoundreller 8y ago
And energy efficiency is tightly correlated with wealth and living standards. Laptops vs. Desktops. (I have this fear about computers donated overseas that cost more to run in electricity than buying new(er) laptops). A 95% efficient furnace costs more than the 85%. A heat-pump water heater costs more than the standard immersion element type. A new fridge will pay for itself in electricity savings when replacing a 25 year old unit. Insulation costs money. Building with 2x6s costs more than 2x4s. A digital thermostat that keeps track of whether you’re at home or not costs more. LED light bulbs cost more than incandescents (but the difference has shrunk). With a carbon tax to replace income/sales taxes, we’ll properly target those that have oversized or poorly designed homes (even if they are “efficient” per square meter). Cars have the same things going on: LED headlights, electric everything instead of mechanical on the serpentine belt. Hybrids. Stop/start. And I don’t care what anyone says about how complicated and computerized cars are getting: it’s nice to have the car tell you what’s wrong and be able to google it. Otherwise I would never have known my mom’s gas cap was faulty, or her intake manifold gasket was what was causing the high rev rpms and occasional stall.
- adrianN 8y ago
  A laptop contains so much embodied energy that you're probably better off running an old laptop that consumes 50 Watts longer instead of buying a new laptop that consumes 25 Watts.
papermill 8y ago
I wonder at what point the relations are so tightly correlated that we can safely say it is causative. At this point, can't we say the link between energy consumption and wealth is pretty much causative. Or at the very least, energy consumption is one of the necessary causative conditions for wealth and rising living standards. From the US to Japan to Germany to China, energy consumption is the most glaring predictor of rising wealth and standards of living. I suspect this is also hold true for India, ASEAN and Africa in the coming decades. Either they are going to start consuming a lot more energy or they are going to be stuck in poverty. I don't see how can justify keeping billions of people in poverty.
adrianN 8y ago
We should have invested more in nuclear and ITER... thirty years ago. Starting to build new nuclear plants today is unlikely to be enough to prevent catastrophic global warming. According to the IPCC, we need to cut our emissions by at least 40% compared to 2010 until 2030 and become completely carbon neutral by 2050 if we want a chance of staying below 2 degrees. Building reactors takes too long.
- briandear 8y ago
  Has the IPCC ever been wrong?
- alexgmcm 8y ago
  Well, the best time was 30 years ago, the second best time is today. I mean it's not like we have much of an alternative although I agree with you on the scale of the challenge.
jodrellblank 8y ago
Where are we going to get the resources to make planetary levels of power using nuclear technology? global power consumption today [2011] is about 15 terawatts (TW). Currently, the global nuclear power supply capacity is only 375 gigawatts (GW). [..] Abbott estimates that to supply 15 TW with nuclear only, we would need about 15,000 nuclear reactors. In his analysis, Abbott explores the consequences of building, operating, and decommissioning 15,000 reactors on the Earth, looking at factors such as the amount of land required, radioactive waste, accident rate, risk of proliferation into weapons, uranium abundance and extraction, and the exotic metals used to build the reactors themselves. “A nuclear power station is resource-hungry and, apart from the fuel, uses many rare metals in its construction,” Abbott told PhysOrg.com. “The dream of a utopia where the world is powered off fission or fusion reactors is simply unattainable. Even a supply of as little as 1 TW stretches resources considerably.” [..] at the current rate of uranium consumption with conventional reactors, the world supply of viable uranium, which is the most common nuclear fuel, will last for 80 years. Scaling consumption up to 15 TW, the viable uranium supply will last for less than 5 years. - https://phys.org/news/2011-05-nuclear-power-world-energy.html https://phys.org/news/2011-05-nuclear-power-world-energy.htm...
- adrianN 8y ago
  Build some breeder reactors and you can stretch the Uranium by about a factor of 100.

istjohn 8y ago

The 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 ago
That 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 ago
  From the page you quoted -- first bar graph on the page. Energy use per capita, US is #1 -- Kilograms of oil equivalent (2011)
trgn 8y ago
We (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.
- moosey 8y ago
  Transport and home comfort are #2 and #3 in the list for your average US citizen for production of carbon output. #1 is food, so in your list, we need to include meat consumption as one of the sacrifices that we must make. This is, stunningly, one of the harder ones for people to adjust to, based on anecdotal evidence. Changing out your car is easy, as long as you still have a personal vehicle (I think that this logic must change too). Your house needs to be more efficient, but that's fine as long as you have a single family home (I think that this must change as well). It just seems that there is a logical leap in the list of sacrifices that people have a lot of difficulty with.
  - TheCoelacanth 8y ago
    I'm curious what your source is for this, because it isn't matched by the ones I'm finding. The EPA[1] says that 9% of emissions come from agriculture while 28% comes from transportation with about half of that being from passenger vehicles. Also this article[2] says that giving up a car for transportation is higher impact than giving up meat. [1] https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis... [2] https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/7/14/15963544/climate-change-individual-choices https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/7/14/1596354...
    - moosey 8y ago
      http://www.fao.org/3/a0701e/a0701e00.htm http://www.fao.org/3/a0701e/a0701e00.htm https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/21/lifestyle-change-eat-less-meat-climate-change https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/21/lifestyl... There are a number of others, but many of the studies that show largely meat free living vs. living with meat have ignored Biomass Transfer Efficiency. Giving up meat, as a society, would reduce the amount of plant matter that we need to grow by a huge amount, allowing large tracts of land to return to nature, locking up carbon and reducing the amount of fertilizers that we need to use, by a huge extent. However, I do think that we get here just as well with a hefty carbon tax, as we watch meat prices jump through the roof.
- 8y ago

Scoundreller 8y ago

And energy efficiency is tightly correlated with wealth and living standards. Laptops vs. Desktops. (I have this fear about computers donated overseas that cost more to run in electricity than buying new(er) laptops). A 95% efficient furnace costs more than the 85%. A heat-pump water heater costs more than the standard immersion element type. A new fridge will pay for itself in electricity savings when replacing a 25 year old unit. Insulation costs money. Building with 2x6s costs more than 2x4s. A digital thermostat that keeps track of whether you’re at home or not costs more. LED light bulbs cost more than incandescents (but the difference has shrunk). With a carbon tax to replace income/sales taxes, we’ll properly target those that have oversized or poorly designed homes (even if they are “efficient” per square meter). Cars have the same things going on: LED headlights, electric everything instead of mechanical on the serpentine belt. Hybrids. Stop/start. And I don’t care what anyone says about how complicated and computerized cars are getting: it’s nice to have the car tell you what’s wrong and be able to google it. Otherwise I would never have known my mom’s gas cap was faulty, or her intake manifold gasket was what was causing the high rev rpms and occasional stall.

adrianN 8y ago
A laptop contains so much embodied energy that you're probably better off running an old laptop that consumes 50 Watts longer instead of buying a new laptop that consumes 25 Watts.

papermill 8y ago

I wonder at what point the relations are so tightly correlated that we can safely say it is causative. At this point, can't we say the link between energy consumption and wealth is pretty much causative. Or at the very least, energy consumption is one of the necessary causative conditions for wealth and rising living standards. From the US to Japan to Germany to China, energy consumption is the most glaring predictor of rising wealth and standards of living. I suspect this is also hold true for India, ASEAN and Africa in the coming decades. Either they are going to start consuming a lot more energy or they are going to be stuck in poverty. I don't see how can justify keeping billions of people in poverty.

adrianN 8y ago

We should have invested more in nuclear and ITER... thirty years ago. Starting to build new nuclear plants today is unlikely to be enough to prevent catastrophic global warming. According to the IPCC, we need to cut our emissions by at least 40% compared to 2010 until 2030 and become completely carbon neutral by 2050 if we want a chance of staying below 2 degrees. Building reactors takes too long.

briandear 8y ago
Has the IPCC ever been wrong?
alexgmcm 8y ago
Well, the best time was 30 years ago, the second best time is today. I mean it's not like we have much of an alternative although I agree with you on the scale of the challenge.

jodrellblank 8y ago

Where are we going to get the resources to make planetary levels of power using nuclear technology? global power consumption today [2011] is about 15 terawatts (TW). Currently, the global nuclear power supply capacity is only 375 gigawatts (GW). [..] Abbott estimates that to supply 15 TW with nuclear only, we would need about 15,000 nuclear reactors. In his analysis, Abbott explores the consequences of building, operating, and decommissioning 15,000 reactors on the Earth, looking at factors such as the amount of land required, radioactive waste, accident rate, risk of proliferation into weapons, uranium abundance and extraction, and the exotic metals used to build the reactors themselves. “A nuclear power station is resource-hungry and, apart from the fuel, uses many rare metals in its construction,” Abbott told PhysOrg.com. “The dream of a utopia where the world is powered off fission or fusion reactors is simply unattainable. Even a supply of as little as 1 TW stretches resources considerably.” [..] at the current rate of uranium consumption with conventional reactors, the world supply of viable uranium, which is the most common nuclear fuel, will last for 80 years. Scaling consumption up to 15 TW, the viable uranium supply will last for less than 5 years. - https://phys.org/news/2011-05-nuclear-power-world-energy.html https://phys.org/news/2011-05-nuclear-power-world-energy.htm...

adrianN 8y ago
Build some breeder reactors and you can stretch the Uranium by about a factor of 100.