4 ms·

Industrial consumption dwarfs the rest of us. We can fool around with 'energy theatre' turning off lights and walking to the market. But unless we can do 'big i

Industrial consumption dwarfs the rest of us. We can fool around with 'energy theatre' turning off lights and walking to the market. But unless we can do 'big industry' more efficiently then it's all for show.

omniscient_oce 5y ago
Even if it's true I always see this excuse to not try to reduce your consumption as a pure cop-out. If everyone had this attitude then nothing would ever change.
djfobbz 5y ago
This is absolutely correct!
siliconunit 5y ago
Exactly, same goes for pollution, container ships, aviation..etc.
hef19898 5y ago
We all depend on industry, yet the majority of people have zero idea how industry actually works. It is just there, and supposed to work. And yes, big industry is the key driver. They are also among the first to change when money is to be made, or saved.
galangalalgol 5y ago
Is that true everywhere? Last year we went from -18c to 46c. It wasn't the demands of big industry that shut down our grid for a week, and dropped gas line pressures so low we couldn't turn on backup gas plants. It was residential heating. And in the summer, our load peaks because of residential air conditioning. Maybe the base load is mostly industrial and large relative to those peaks?
- cool_dude85 5y ago
  >Maybe the base load is mostly industrial and large relative to those peaks? Exactly right. Residential usage tends to spike greatly during hot or cold events since a much larger portion of it is for heating and cooling. For industrial users, there is some heating and cooling component, but the industrial process is generally what's going to dominate. So, if you look at extreme events, residential usage will dominate during those times. The residential usage total may spike up to 2x or 3x "baseline" usage, which industrial never will. However, if you look at sum totals across a year, industrial will typically be a much larger user than the residential sector.
pjc50 5y ago
My pet complaint, flaring: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mossmorran https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mossmorran It's pretty hard to care about saving energy when there's a hundred meter column of flame on the horizon. Mossmorran is an intermittent offender, but worldwide you would be appalled at how much gas is flared. It's probably enough to make up for the loss of Russian gas.
- s1artibartfast 5y ago
  I never understood the strong emotional reaction to gas flaring. I think there is likely some excess use on the fringes, but my understanding is that in most cases not-flaring would be more wasteful.
  - cptskippy 5y ago
    > I never understood the strong emotional reaction to gas flaring. Ignorance. > my understanding is that in most cases not-flaring would be more wasteful. Case in point. Why would not releasing something that could be captured and sold be more wasteful?
  - r00fus 5y ago
    > my understanding is that in most cases not-flaring would be more wasteful Can you explain this further?
    - lobocinza 5y ago
      Because it's methane and contribute more to global warming than the CO2 from it's burn. Though there's the expensive and not always practical alternative of selling it. It is difficult to transport/store natural gas.
  - pjc50 5y ago
    It's not complicated: it's wasting an irreplaceable resource (fossil fuel) and a difficult-to-replace resource (CO2 safe capacity), in large quantities, while at the same time everyone else is being asked to reduce their consumption. It often costs more to not flare, which isn't quite the same kind of "wasteful", and sometimes it is necessary for safety reasons. But mostly it happens because gas is a "cheap" byproduct of production of other fuels.
hedora 5y ago
One simple improvement would be labeling all consumer goods with their embodied carbon. More ambitiously, the government could tax embodied carbon at the current price of atmospheric carbon capture.
- goodpoint 5y ago
  Environmental impact is way more complex than carbon emission. Stop focusing on carbon emissions.
  - danans 5y ago
    GHG emissions are the single biggest driver of climate change, which is the most significant environmental impact we are facing. Steps taken to reduce GHG emissions (reducing fossil fuel use) also reduce other pollutants like local particulate pollution.
goodpoint 5y ago
It's not "all for show". House heating and cars are very significant polluters and energy sinks.
reportingsjr 5y ago
While I don't disagree with the need to make commercial and industrial industries more efficient, I don't think ignoring residential/consumer choices is a good move. Industrial and commercial energy usage accounted for about 50,000 trillion BTU of energy consumption in the US in 2019. Residential used about 21,000 trillion BTU in the same time. [0] Definitely not insignificant in any way. However! Transportation used about 28,670 trillion BTU that year. Somewhere around 50-55% [1] of that is from people driving around. I include that in residential/individual choice even if a lot of it is for commuting, because a massive amount of that number is driven by vehicle choice (people have switched to gas guzzling SUVs and trucks in droves as fuel efficiency has crept up, negating efficiency increases), housing type/density and location, etc. This puts residential/individual energy usage at ~35,000 trillion BTU and commercial/industrial at 71,000. So individual usage is a full _third_ of total energy consumption. That's massive, and a huge amount of that could easily be cut out if we stop subsidizing people driving trucks, SUVs, etc 45+ minutes each way to work so they can live in some mediocre suburb. We could also not listen to a minority of NIMBYs and throw out the awful zoning laws that have swept the US over the last 50+ years to make it legal to build more traditional styles of homes and apartments to reduce sprawl and reduce infrastructure costs massively. Industry still needs to be made far more efficient, but individuals are still a huge factor in energy usage. Other parts of the world have different energy numbers, but a lot of first world countries look fairly similar to what I just laid out. 0: https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/browser/index.php?tbl=T02.01#/?f=A&start=200001 https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/browser/index.php?tbl=T... 1: https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/use-of-energy/transportation-in-depth.php https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/use-of-energy/transporta...
pkdpic 5y ago
What more can individuals do? It sounds like the commenter isn't interacting with big industrial entities. Local produce, not flying / driving etc. Fighting with their wallet and personal decisions. I agree we should be self critical and vigilant about calling out climate posturing but if we shame people / ourselves for anything short of al gore wetdream ecoterrorism aren't we in danger of creating a convenient nihilism narrative that justifies not doing anything at all?
Nasrudith 5y ago
That sort of argument baffles me. Do they think industy just burns fuels for fun like some Captain Planet Villain and products automagically appear on store shelves? Consumers are the ultimate source of funding for the industry through their purchases or purchases of their governments. That is what drives industrial consumption. They aren't rogue mining von Neumann machines who make more miners for the sake of it!

omniscient_oce 5y ago

Even if it's true I always see this excuse to not try to reduce your consumption as a pure cop-out. If everyone had this attitude then nothing would ever change.

djfobbz 5y ago

This is absolutely correct!

siliconunit 5y ago

Exactly, same goes for pollution, container ships, aviation..etc.

hef19898 5y ago

We all depend on industry, yet the majority of people have zero idea how industry actually works. It is just there, and supposed to work. And yes, big industry is the key driver. They are also among the first to change when money is to be made, or saved.

galangalalgol 5y ago

Is that true everywhere? Last year we went from -18c to 46c. It wasn't the demands of big industry that shut down our grid for a week, and dropped gas line pressures so low we couldn't turn on backup gas plants. It was residential heating. And in the summer, our load peaks because of residential air conditioning. Maybe the base load is mostly industrial and large relative to those peaks?

cool_dude85 5y ago
>Maybe the base load is mostly industrial and large relative to those peaks? Exactly right. Residential usage tends to spike greatly during hot or cold events since a much larger portion of it is for heating and cooling. For industrial users, there is some heating and cooling component, but the industrial process is generally what's going to dominate. So, if you look at extreme events, residential usage will dominate during those times. The residential usage total may spike up to 2x or 3x "baseline" usage, which industrial never will. However, if you look at sum totals across a year, industrial will typically be a much larger user than the residential sector.

pjc50 5y ago

My pet complaint, flaring: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mossmorran https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mossmorran It's pretty hard to care about saving energy when there's a hundred meter column of flame on the horizon. Mossmorran is an intermittent offender, but worldwide you would be appalled at how much gas is flared. It's probably enough to make up for the loss of Russian gas.

s1artibartfast 5y ago
I never understood the strong emotional reaction to gas flaring. I think there is likely some excess use on the fringes, but my understanding is that in most cases not-flaring would be more wasteful.
- cptskippy 5y ago
  > I never understood the strong emotional reaction to gas flaring. Ignorance. > my understanding is that in most cases not-flaring would be more wasteful. Case in point. Why would not releasing something that could be captured and sold be more wasteful?
- r00fus 5y ago
  > my understanding is that in most cases not-flaring would be more wasteful Can you explain this further?
  - lobocinza 5y ago
    Because it's methane and contribute more to global warming than the CO2 from it's burn. Though there's the expensive and not always practical alternative of selling it. It is difficult to transport/store natural gas.
- pjc50 5y ago
  It's not complicated: it's wasting an irreplaceable resource (fossil fuel) and a difficult-to-replace resource (CO2 safe capacity), in large quantities, while at the same time everyone else is being asked to reduce their consumption. It often costs more to not flare, which isn't quite the same kind of "wasteful", and sometimes it is necessary for safety reasons. But mostly it happens because gas is a "cheap" byproduct of production of other fuels.

hedora 5y ago

One simple improvement would be labeling all consumer goods with their embodied carbon. More ambitiously, the government could tax embodied carbon at the current price of atmospheric carbon capture.

goodpoint 5y ago
Environmental impact is way more complex than carbon emission. Stop focusing on carbon emissions.
- danans 5y ago
  GHG emissions are the single biggest driver of climate change, which is the most significant environmental impact we are facing. Steps taken to reduce GHG emissions (reducing fossil fuel use) also reduce other pollutants like local particulate pollution.

goodpoint 5y ago

It's not "all for show". House heating and cars are very significant polluters and energy sinks.

reportingsjr 5y ago

While I don't disagree with the need to make commercial and industrial industries more efficient, I don't think ignoring residential/consumer choices is a good move. Industrial and commercial energy usage accounted for about 50,000 trillion BTU of energy consumption in the US in 2019. Residential used about 21,000 trillion BTU in the same time. [0] Definitely not insignificant in any way. However! Transportation used about 28,670 trillion BTU that year. Somewhere around 50-55% [1] of that is from people driving around. I include that in residential/individual choice even if a lot of it is for commuting, because a massive amount of that number is driven by vehicle choice (people have switched to gas guzzling SUVs and trucks in droves as fuel efficiency has crept up, negating efficiency increases), housing type/density and location, etc. This puts residential/individual energy usage at ~35,000 trillion BTU and commercial/industrial at 71,000. So individual usage is a full _third_ of total energy consumption. That's massive, and a huge amount of that could easily be cut out if we stop subsidizing people driving trucks, SUVs, etc 45+ minutes each way to work so they can live in some mediocre suburb. We could also not listen to a minority of NIMBYs and throw out the awful zoning laws that have swept the US over the last 50+ years to make it legal to build more traditional styles of homes and apartments to reduce sprawl and reduce infrastructure costs massively. Industry still needs to be made far more efficient, but individuals are still a huge factor in energy usage. Other parts of the world have different energy numbers, but a lot of first world countries look fairly similar to what I just laid out. 0: https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/browser/index.php?tbl=T02.01#/?f=A&start=200001 https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/browser/index.php?tbl=T... 1: https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/use-of-energy/transportation-in-depth.php https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/use-of-energy/transporta...

pkdpic 5y ago

What more can individuals do? It sounds like the commenter isn't interacting with big industrial entities. Local produce, not flying / driving etc. Fighting with their wallet and personal decisions. I agree we should be self critical and vigilant about calling out climate posturing but if we shame people / ourselves for anything short of al gore wetdream ecoterrorism aren't we in danger of creating a convenient nihilism narrative that justifies not doing anything at all?

Nasrudith 5y ago

That sort of argument baffles me. Do they think industy just burns fuels for fun like some Captain Planet Villain and products automagically appear on store shelves? Consumers are the ultimate source of funding for the industry through their purchases or purchases of their governments. That is what drives industrial consumption. They aren't rogue mining von Neumann machines who make more miners for the sake of it!