5 ms·

> Norway has been almost all-in on electric for a good while now. According to a quick Google search: "The current population of Norway is 5,483,767 as of Frid

by seneca 5y ago

> Norway has been almost all-in on electric for a good while now. According to a quick Google search: "The current population of Norway is 5,483,767 as of Friday, December 24, 2021" and NY state is estimated at 20.2 million as of April 2020, and New York City at 8.8 million. It seems you appreciate that Norway is a special scenario. It seems silly to assume something that works there would work in a country that has single cities with larger populations, and states with around four times the population of your entire country.

Retric 5y ago
Economies of scale make energy distribution more efficient as you scale population not less. New York City could for example use a relatively shallow bore hole to gather geothermal energy and get “low grade” heat (50-100C) for district heating where such systems don’t really work for single family homes.
- bluefirebrand 5y ago
  > Economies of scale make energy distribution more efficient as you scale population not less. This may be so, but New York also has one of the oldest electrical grids on the planet. Upgrading it to support larger and larger populations is a challenge, not just to manage it overloading with the density, but also in terms of logistics. You can't just tear up a major street in New York and upgrade the electrical for a block, without causing massive logistics problems for the city. Upgrading New York's grid is going to be a huge challenge
  - peter422 5y ago
    It’s going to have to happen eventually. Why keep putting it off?
    - csomar 5y ago
      That’s something for future Ted… High-population means high complaining ratio. Also lots of rich companies there who will sue when things go wrong.
    - labster 5y ago
      Why pay for today when tomorrow’s shareholders will pay for it instead? See also: PG&E
  - passerby1 5y ago
    How much would the upgrade cost, can anyone estimate?
  - Retric 5y ago
    It seems worse simply because it’s concentrated in a small area. The project would actually be less disruptive in NYC than doing the same thing for 8+ million people in the suburbs somewhere. Especially if they could reuse tunnels built for deprecated systems like copper phone lines. Hell NYC already has district heating, adding a tunnel under the existing building could swap things over for 1700+ customers with minimal disruption. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_steam_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_steam_system
- klabb3 5y ago
  Off topic meta point: The narrative "X wouldn't work here because of [size/population]" where X is unrelated or even helps the argument seems to be reproduced almost exclusively by (often highly informed) Americans, from personal anecdotal experience. Does anyone have a theory about the origins of this thought pattern?
  - midasuni 5y ago
    “X wouldn’t work here” probably stems from generations of institutional belief in American Exceptionalism, the “because” part is probably attempting to justify that (unconscious) view
onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
Also - isn't >90% of all Norway's electricity production hydro? It would seem a lot more feasible to go all in on electric when you have that much hydro. Since that much of the production is hydro - I'm assuming it's relatively economical, and not just Norway paying a massive premium to be green.
toofy 5y ago
> It seems silly to assume something that works there would work in a country that has single cities with larger populations it would also be silly were we to imply that scaling up automatically means less efficiency. in many situations things get significantly more efficient the more they scale. it also would seem silly to assume that we couldn’t take many of the pieces that are actually working in an entire country and adapt to our situation. We are very good at adapting things for various situations.

by seneca 5y ago

Retric 5y ago

Economies of scale make energy distribution more efficient as you scale population not less. New York City could for example use a relatively shallow bore hole to gather geothermal energy and get “low grade” heat (50-100C) for district heating where such systems don’t really work for single family homes.

bluefirebrand 5y ago
> Economies of scale make energy distribution more efficient as you scale population not less. This may be so, but New York also has one of the oldest electrical grids on the planet. Upgrading it to support larger and larger populations is a challenge, not just to manage it overloading with the density, but also in terms of logistics. You can't just tear up a major street in New York and upgrade the electrical for a block, without causing massive logistics problems for the city. Upgrading New York's grid is going to be a huge challenge
- peter422 5y ago
  It’s going to have to happen eventually. Why keep putting it off?
  - csomar 5y ago
    That’s something for future Ted… High-population means high complaining ratio. Also lots of rich companies there who will sue when things go wrong.
  - labster 5y ago
    Why pay for today when tomorrow’s shareholders will pay for it instead? See also: PG&E
- passerby1 5y ago
  How much would the upgrade cost, can anyone estimate?
- Retric 5y ago
  It seems worse simply because it’s concentrated in a small area. The project would actually be less disruptive in NYC than doing the same thing for 8+ million people in the suburbs somewhere. Especially if they could reuse tunnels built for deprecated systems like copper phone lines. Hell NYC already has district heating, adding a tunnel under the existing building could swap things over for 1700+ customers with minimal disruption. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_steam_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_steam_system
klabb3 5y ago
Off topic meta point: The narrative "X wouldn't work here because of [size/population]" where X is unrelated or even helps the argument seems to be reproduced almost exclusively by (often highly informed) Americans, from personal anecdotal experience. Does anyone have a theory about the origins of this thought pattern?
- midasuni 5y ago
  “X wouldn’t work here” probably stems from generations of institutional belief in American Exceptionalism, the “because” part is probably attempting to justify that (unconscious) view

onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago

Also - isn't >90% of all Norway's electricity production hydro? It would seem a lot more feasible to go all in on electric when you have that much hydro. Since that much of the production is hydro - I'm assuming it's relatively economical, and not just Norway paying a massive premium to be green.

toofy 5y ago

> It seems silly to assume something that works there would work in a country that has single cities with larger populations it would also be silly were we to imply that scaling up automatically means less efficiency. in many situations things get significantly more efficient the more they scale. it also would seem silly to assume that we couldn’t take many of the pieces that are actually working in an entire country and adapt to our situation. We are very good at adapting things for various situations.