4 ms·

I'm going to bet power consumption is like hard drive space, the more you have the more you use. There is of course some thermodynamic limit to the amount of p

I'm going to bet power consumption is like hard drive space, the more you have the more you use. There is of course some thermodynamic limit to the amount of power we can use before over heating

spacegod 7y ago
Jevons paradox
phil248 7y ago
The trend towards better energy efficiency has all but stalled increasing energy use per capita in developed nations. And effective efforts at water conservation show that it is possible to pull back consumption in some cases, even if the natural trend is increased consumption.
- Spooky23 7y ago
  That’s because incentives shifted toward decreasing peak demand.
bjourne 7y ago
Not at all! For the last few decades, reductions due to efficiency gains has far outpaced increased demand. For example, we nowadays build much more well-isolated homes which reduces the need for electrical heating in colder climates, and air conditioning in hotter ones. I don't think there is any Western country in which the per capita consumption of electricity has grown significantly over the last 20 years.
- zaroth 7y ago
  Consumer electricity is expensive. In some ways it's good because it drives the economics behind efficiency, but in other ways, it's unfortunate that energy is such a large part of the average American's monthly budget (electricity, oil, natural gas, and gasoline). Cheap energy is an extraordinary economic driver. Cheap green energy is a double win.
- flukus 7y ago
  Surely electricity prices have something to do with that, I hope in future energy becomes abundant enough that we can waste it without costing a fortune or destroying the environment. I want my toilet seat warmers and aircon, I want my PC to be as fast as possible and not throttled, I don't want to feel guilty about using a clothes dryer. On the bigger scale imagine what we could do with cheap water desalination and removing dams.
  - mrpopo 7y ago
    The environment is being destroyed right here and right now. Are you willing to risk it being destroyed more because you want toilet seat warmers and a clothes dryer? Sorry if this makes you feel more guilty.
- roenxi 7y ago
  Do you have a source that controls for real electricity prices? Coal prices for example have risen faster than inflation over the last few decades (coal ~$30->$88 [0] vs inflation expectation $30->$42 by the US BLS calculator 2003-2019) and the renewables that have been bought online weren't exactly cheap. There is always going to be a sink for more power, because all else failing electricity can produce more aluminium products, and aluminium is one of those wonder materials that there will always be uses for. We know that energy efficiency can just as easily cause consumption to rise as to fall [1]. [0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/214236/thermal-coal-prices-since-2003/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/214236/thermal-coal-pric... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
- m4rtink 7y ago
  Still, you can always only go so far with efficiency gains - they are important, but should not be depended on instead of looking for new cheap & clean energy sources. And there are also some technologies, that while very energy hungry, can help fix many of the pressing world problems (large scale desalination, plasma waste processing, large scale CO2 capture, various benefiting megaprojects, etc.).
Florin_Andrei 7y ago
> There is of course some thermodynamic limit to the amount of power we can use before over heating The benefit of solar is that no new energy is produced this way. You consume what hits the Earth anyway. Things might change if and when we cover so much ground with panels, we change the global albedo significantly. But we're a long ways off from that.
rsynnott 7y ago
Somewhat surprisingly, this doesn't seem to be the case. Your average middle-class person in the west probably uses less today than 30 years ago; all major appliances (particularly lighting and heating) are more efficient, TVs are much more efficient, cars are much more efficient. World power consumption is going up largely due to a rapidly growing middle class, but within that class, not so much.
- michaelt 7y ago
  However, if we're going carbon-neutral people driving gas cars and using gas to heat their homes may well end up needing electricity for those as well. So we might expect an increase in per-capita demand for electricity, if not for total power.

I'm going to bet power consumption is like hard drive space, the more you have the more you use. There is of course some thermodynamic limit to the amount of power we can use before over heating

spacegod 7y ago

Jevons paradox

phil248 7y ago

The trend towards better energy efficiency has all but stalled increasing energy use per capita in developed nations. And effective efforts at water conservation show that it is possible to pull back consumption in some cases, even if the natural trend is increased consumption.

Spooky23 7y ago
That’s because incentives shifted toward decreasing peak demand.

bjourne 7y ago

Not at all! For the last few decades, reductions due to efficiency gains has far outpaced increased demand. For example, we nowadays build much more well-isolated homes which reduces the need for electrical heating in colder climates, and air conditioning in hotter ones. I don't think there is any Western country in which the per capita consumption of electricity has grown significantly over the last 20 years.

zaroth 7y ago
Consumer electricity is expensive. In some ways it's good because it drives the economics behind efficiency, but in other ways, it's unfortunate that energy is such a large part of the average American's monthly budget (electricity, oil, natural gas, and gasoline). Cheap energy is an extraordinary economic driver. Cheap green energy is a double win.
flukus 7y ago
Surely electricity prices have something to do with that, I hope in future energy becomes abundant enough that we can waste it without costing a fortune or destroying the environment. I want my toilet seat warmers and aircon, I want my PC to be as fast as possible and not throttled, I don't want to feel guilty about using a clothes dryer. On the bigger scale imagine what we could do with cheap water desalination and removing dams.
- mrpopo 7y ago
  The environment is being destroyed right here and right now. Are you willing to risk it being destroyed more because you want toilet seat warmers and a clothes dryer? Sorry if this makes you feel more guilty.
roenxi 7y ago
Do you have a source that controls for real electricity prices? Coal prices for example have risen faster than inflation over the last few decades (coal ~$30->$88 [0] vs inflation expectation $30->$42 by the US BLS calculator 2003-2019) and the renewables that have been bought online weren't exactly cheap. There is always going to be a sink for more power, because all else failing electricity can produce more aluminium products, and aluminium is one of those wonder materials that there will always be uses for. We know that energy efficiency can just as easily cause consumption to rise as to fall [1]. [0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/214236/thermal-coal-prices-since-2003/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/214236/thermal-coal-pric... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
m4rtink 7y ago
Still, you can always only go so far with efficiency gains - they are important, but should not be depended on instead of looking for new cheap & clean energy sources. And there are also some technologies, that while very energy hungry, can help fix many of the pressing world problems (large scale desalination, plasma waste processing, large scale CO2 capture, various benefiting megaprojects, etc.).

Florin_Andrei 7y ago

> There is of course some thermodynamic limit to the amount of power we can use before over heating The benefit of solar is that no new energy is produced this way. You consume what hits the Earth anyway. Things might change if and when we cover so much ground with panels, we change the global albedo significantly. But we're a long ways off from that.

rsynnott 7y ago

Somewhat surprisingly, this doesn't seem to be the case. Your average middle-class person in the west probably uses less today than 30 years ago; all major appliances (particularly lighting and heating) are more efficient, TVs are much more efficient, cars are much more efficient. World power consumption is going up largely due to a rapidly growing middle class, but within that class, not so much.

michaelt 7y ago
However, if we're going carbon-neutral people driving gas cars and using gas to heat their homes may well end up needing electricity for those as well. So we might expect an increase in per-capita demand for electricity, if not for total power.