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Problem is that: 1) People's use of energy is relatively insensitive to price, or they don't know the price, or few people care about the price when it comes t
by supernova87a 6y ago
Problem is that:
1) People's use of energy is relatively insensitive to price, or they don't know the price, or few people care about the price when it comes time to need it
2) When you need the energy, it's too late to make the equipment/house more efficient, and when you don't need it, people don't think it's important to make it more efficient
3) Mandating that people upgrade their equipment is unpopular, they vote against it, yet when they get hit with the bill for the energy later, they're unhappy with government for not having done more to control it.
It's a thankless job, to be sure. Good thing taking away people's incandescent bulbs was recognized as a threat to democracy and stopped.
- jay_kyburz 6y agoDo you still have incandescent bulbs in the US? Its really hard to find them here in Australia. I thought they were banned but I just read that they are not, but have been phased out.
- evan_ 6y agoThere was an incandescent bulb phase out over several years that was supposed to end in 2020, but Trump blocked it because he claimed that LED bulbs were too expensive and made him look orange.[0] You pretty much can’t buy them anymore at stores except for specialty bulbs like oven lamps, but that might vary state-to-state. 0: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/20/climate/trump-light-bulb-rollback.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/20/climate/trump-light-bulb-...
- TheGrim-999 6y agoSo, someone at the Department of Energy that was hired in 2012, under Obama, made a ruling, and that's translated by the NYTimes as the "Trump Administration" doing it, which then gets referenced as "Trump blocked it because they make him look orange". Fake news in action, folks.
- 8ytecoder 6y agoHe literally said it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_iFi1qH8Cg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_iFi1qH8Cg
- jayd16 6y agoYou gotta love implying the president has no power in this sort of thing while simultaneously implying Obama is at fault here. In the same sentence, no less.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- tamaharbor 6y agoFew appreciate Trump’s humor. Particularly democrats.
- rayiner 6y agoTypical LED bulbs have shit spectrum coverage, and have terrible flicker when used with dimmers. I’ve been stockpiling incandescents.
- ricw 6y agoMaybe try dimmable LED bulbs? They work perfectly fine here. I find LEDs look much better, particularly if you have chandelier type lights.
- akvadrako 6y agoDimmable led bulbs come in multiple varients and don't work with all style of dimmers. Quality matters too. The best bet is switching to Hue or other smart bulbs that manage their own dimming. It's generally cheaper too unless you have a dozen bulbs on one dimmer.
- ashkankiani 6y agoStockpiling incadescent bulbs instead of spending time doing research to find LED bulbs with a better light spectrum?
- ffk 6y agoLEDs tend to give off a good range over the visible light spectrum. Incandescents tend to bias towards the higher end of the spectrum (towards red). Agreed that some research can also help find a good light. There are plenty of "full spectrum" light solutions out there which may work for the original poster. Compare Incandescents (A) vs LED (D) at https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Emission-spectra-of-different-light-sources-a-incandescent-tungsten-light-bulb-b_fig1_312320039 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Emission-spectra-of-diff...
- namibj 6y agoAs an example for high-CRI LED lighting components, I'll mention Yuji. https://www.yujiintl.com/ https://www.yujiintl.com/
- tryonenow 6y agoI've had terrible luck with LED lifespan. Totally ridiculous honestly. I imagine given the failure rate and the cost of manufacturing, LEDs are actually worse for the environment. Sure, the actual LED in the bulb should theoretically outlast incandescent bulbs, but the extra circuitry is apparently made of garbage, and I think it shortsighted that this mandate was forced on us.
- ruined 6y agoyep. CFLs and LED bulbs are available everywhere, but every store stocks extremely cheap incandescent bulbs right next to them
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- pkaye 6y agoIts pretty much LED bulbs and fixtures in the US. I think Trump administration reversed the original law but there are a few state laws that are even stricter. The manufacturers have all moved onto LEDs so no going back.
- seanmcdirmid 6y agoIt would have been an executive order the Trump administration reversed, he wouldn’t have had the authority to reverse a congressional passed law.
- pkaye 6y agoLooks like it was just the more recent DOE regulations that were reserved. These were for specialty bulbs. But with some of the states still enforcing the changes combined with other countries doing similar things, the manufacturers probably will move on to newer technology. > In 2014, the Department of Energy issued regulations that would extend the efficiency standards of the 2007 EISA law to some specialty bulbs, effective January 2020.[91] The new standards would apply to Edison, globe, and candelabra bulbs among others. In February 2019, the Department of Energy announced a proposal to withdraw this change. In September 2019 the Trump administration rolled-back these energy efficiency standards for lightbulbs with the Energy Department's publication of regulations in the Federal Register.[92][93] The Energy Department announced the reversal of the 2014 regulation that would have taken effect on January 1, 2020 and implemented the last round of energy-saving light bulb regulations outlined by the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007.[94]EISA law to some specialty bulbs, effective January 2020 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-out_of_incandescent_light_bulbs#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-out_of_incandescent_ligh...
- makomk 6y agoThere are loopholes that allow incandescent bulbs to be sold in the US still. However, replacing incandescent bulbs would do basically nothing to help with this kind of power shortage caused by a cold spell - all their waste energy is heat, and they're as efficient at producing it as any other resistive heater. Switching to LED lighting saves people money during more normal times but makes the long-termp peak to average power usage ratio worse, and ordinary people have no reason to care about that because they pay the same amount for power during this kind of peak than they do at any other time even though it's a lot more expensive to produce.
- Denvercoder9 6y ago> However, replacing incandescent bulbs would do basically nothing to help with this kind of power shortage caused by a cold spell It depends on what you replace it with. If you switch to a resistive heater, yeah, that's pointless, but if you switch to a heat pump or natural gas-based heating it'd help.
- CodeWriter23 6y agoIJS record-breaking cold weather in Texas currently.
- jcranmer 6y agoThe problem here is the high tomorrow in Dallas is supposed to be about 10°F. The typical winter high for Dallas is a bit below 60°F. This means that the demand for heating is about 4-6× what it normally would be for winter.
- adrianN 6y agoEnergy loss is strongly supralinear in the temperature gradient, so it's probably a lot more than that.
- airhead969 6y agoTime-dependent solutions to temperature change across a gradient are exponential decay functions that solve diff eqs based on Newton's law of cooling. It depends mostly on the insulation and the temperature difference. While it is 10 F outside, the central heating system for my apartment in a 6-story building cannot maintain temperature. It is 66 F and gradually falling. I would guess it would be 2.5kW running 24/7.
- jacquesm 6y ago25KW more likely
- tgtweak 6y agoProbably closer to this than 2.5kw. 2.5kw on a decently modern heat pump should be providing 25k btu. About enough to heat a 2000sqft house ~50f over ambient.
- NickNameNick 6y agoI have a 2.4kW heater in my bedroom...
- skinkestek 6y agoJust in case anyone is about to miss this detail: That heater probably doesn't run continously. For a well designed shared system you can get away with less than n x what an individual unit needs. (That said, I too guess 2.5kW is too small for what GP mentioned.)
- Scoundreller 6y ago> People's use of energy is relatively insensitive to price, or they don't know the price, or few people care about the price when it comes time to need it Basically this. Few individuals pay the actual price of electricity. At best, they'll pay time-of-day rates that might change schedules 2x/year. Otherwise, everyone pays the average cost, and couldn't care less if noon-time electricity costs 10x on Monday vs. last Thursday.
- londons_explore 6y agoThe real fix here is to have more residential customers either knowing the minute by minute pricing, or paying extra for the privilege of an "unlimited plan" or something. That could be achieved for example by instead of setting your space heater to "low heat", "Mid heat" or "high heat", you could just hit the "$1/hour of heat", "$2/hour of heat", or "$3/hour of heat" settings. The heater itself can look at the minute by minute pricing to decide how much heat to output, and the user can decide to turn it up if they want to pay. Electronics to connect to wifi and check a server for pricing cost under a dollar now (ESP8266).
- joosters 6y agoThe real fix here is to have more residential customers either knowing the minute by minute pricing This is insane. Do you really believe that individuals are going to be monitoring the energy prices like a rabid day-trader, making 'rational' decisions between "oh good, power is cheap now" and "power is expensive, I guess I'll just freeze"?
- londons_explore 6y agoPeople make similar choices all the time... Eg. "Oh, there's a queue at the gas station today. I'll drive on and get gas tomorrow instead." Thats them observing that the cost (to their time) of getting gas is high today, and that they can purchase later for a lower time cost.
- 6y ago
- adrianmonk 6y agoThe problem is it's the coldest night in about 30 years. Here in Austin, it's just past midnight, and it's already down to 13°F (-10.5°C). It hasn't been that cold here since December 23, 1989. Also, a lot of Texas homes have electric heat (except in the northern part of the state). Winters are relatively short and mild. Many homes use electric heat pumps as the heating source. They're energy-efficient and easy to install in a home which has AC, so generally a good choice. But they get less and less effective as the outside temperature drops, so a backup electric heating coil kicks in, which uses way more electricity.
- sn9 6y agoAnd with windchill, it's well below 0°F. I've lived in Texas all my life and can't remember the last time that happened.
- Scoundreller 6y ago> And with windchill, it's well below 0°F. You won't feel the windchill inside, but it will amplify the impact of draughty buildings/poor insulation.
- sn9 6y agoYeah it's crazy. The water pressure in my apartment has dropped so much I basically don't have running water. The upstream pipes must be mostly frozen. Luckily I stocked up on soup before all this so I'll last until the freeze breaks.
- enraged_camel 6y agoIt has been snowing like crazy’s I just lost power too. Time for bed. :)
- criddell 6y agoJust about every Texas building has air conditioning which is blasting for those 100 days of summer where it's often above 100 degrees. I'm surprised that a few days of cold is a bigger load than the crazy heat of summer.
- noodlenotes 6y agoTexas has the equipment, but it's all frozen due to an extreme weather event. 1. The extreme cold is driving up demand to heat homes which is usually done in part by natural gas but 2. The cold has frozen natural gas pipes and wells, driving up the cost of gas 33x. 3. People are trying to heat their homes with electricity but 4. Wind turbines are frozen, limiting capacity, AND those sky high gas prices are limiting what gas power plants can output.
- namibj 6y agoHow do you manage to freeze natural gas pipelines? It isn't even liquid at the near-surface air low-temperature record (-89.2 C/-128.6 F).
- fuzzfactor 6y agoCrude natural gas is usually saturated with water downhole at warm temperatures and high pressures, some of which condenses as it is produced at the surface. At many points in a pipeline further water removal can be essential too. Even when not liquefied like LPG, when passing through a restriction valve or orifice, there is still additional cooling due to the product acting a bit like a refigerant. The water content may be small but the quantity of cold gas passing through a narrow point which is well below 0C eventually can build up kilos of ice and block the flow until the ambient temperature rises enough to open it back up.
- pfdietz 6y agoAnd you get can get clathrates (combinations of methane/ethane/propane and water).
- dmurray 6y agoMethane can't realistically freeze in the pipes, but unrefined natural gas has plenty of impurities which can. Note they're talking about "pipelines and wells" freezing in a gas production context, not residential gas mains.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- brobdingnagians 6y agoMy parents live in Dallas and rarely use the heating because of cost; instead they wear scarves and mittens inside. They are running it now, because it is the coldest they've ever seen. When your alternative is to freeze to death, you pay. Finding fault with people because of that is insensitive and lacking in empathy. They know the cost, they also know what the temperature outside is. Resilience is an important principle in engineering, we know that from software, but it is even more important in infrastructure. People rely on this for staying alive. It is important to have a diverse set of electrical generators. Atomic energy and coal are very resilient. As someone else pointed out, a lot of green infrastructure is prone to failure in extreme events. The wind turbines froze. When the sun isn't shining the solar doesn't work, and it is coldest at night. It is great to have green infrastructure _with_ other types. This stuff is way to important to play politics with.
- saurik 6y agoOf all the things the comment you replied to complained about, people's inelastic demand wasn't one of them: it was merely the background for all of the actual things being complained about.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- freetime2 6y agoShutdowns of natural gas plants made of the majority of the shortfall, not wind turbines[1]. [1] https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/16/texas-wind-turbines-frozen/ https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/16/texas-wind-turbines-...
- Gravityloss 6y agoSo the people decide to act in a way that there will be power cuts - if it was only them, it wouldn't matter much - they would deserve it. But since the system is shared, it affects everyone. Insulation and heat pump equipped spot price aware water heaters etc could probably help a lot.
- fy20 6y agoInsulation is the main issue. I live in a cold country where it often gets to -20c (-5F) during winter, but we can have peaks well below that. We usually don't even turn our heating on until it drops below freezing as our home is well enough insulated (we have much stricter building standards regarding this than the US), so that it's comfortable inside (21C/70F) until then. Insulation helps in the summer too though - it's not just something you need in cold climates. If it's hot outside and you are running AC there's a temperature differential. Insulation will reduce the equalisation of that, and reduce the amount of energy you are using to cool your home. It's epecially important if you are in a stick framed home where there's basically no thermal mass (as opposed to masonry).
- jodrellblank 6y agoWhat’s the problem with incandescents here? They’re inefficient, which means they turn lots of energy into heat instead of light, which means your thermostat will turn down your heating to compensate because it needs to produce less of the desired amount of heat. In the abstract, they’re bad when you’re cooling a Texas house and they’re putting more heat into it; on a cold night a 100W resistance heater is a 100W resistance heater and if you’d banned them, the people with them would need 100W heat from another source for every bulb replaced. That wouldn’t save power or money or reduce demand now as you seem to be suggesting. Or it’s day time and the bulbs are off, or nighttime and the bulbs are off for sleep. They seem the least relevant thing to gripe about in this specific context?
- bluGill 6y agoNatural gas to a powerplant is overall less energy efficient compared to natural gas to a high efficiency home furnace. This is about Texas though where high efficiency gas furnaces. In the north natural gas is the normal way to heat. I'm not sure about Texas.
- briandear 6y agoNatural gas heating is common in Houston. Most new construction I’ve looked at in north Houston use gas forced air for heating. I have never seen electric central heating in Houston; I am sure it exists, but in my experience most houses that have central heat, have gas.
- clavalle 6y agoI'm in Austin and my heater uses gas. Every house I've had has used gas. It's incredibly cheap around here.
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