7 ms·

...but, being so cheap, it also enabled crazier ways of using fuel, like cars and airplanes, which wouldn't have been possible (or would have been possible, but

by rob74 5y ago

...but, being so cheap, it also enabled crazier ways of using fuel, like cars and airplanes, which wouldn't have been possible (or would have been possible, but not feasible at the scale we have nowadays) with wood or coal. So now our civilization is addicted to cheap oil and other fossil fuels, and the question is how we can keep up our level of civilization (or let's call it "standard of living") while beating this addiction.

automatic6131 5y ago
> it also enabled crazier ways of using fuel Which massively raised the quality of life most humans can live in, in various direct (we can transport a wide variety of foods quickly) and indirectly. The question is how we can feed this "addiction" (stupid word: you're also "addicted" to breathing and eating) yet ever more whilst reducing or eliminating the negative externalities. A low energy use society is also poor society which is also, in most of the ways you presumably care about, a bad society. And I don't mean poor as in dollars.
- developer93 5y ago
  "A low energy society is a poorer society" while you're right in general, in the west we can live far more efficiently than we do without really impacting our quality of life via things like longer product life cycles, more public transport, living closer to places we need so we don't have to travel so far every day, better distribution of resources. These things could be improved if society took enough interest. Still might not be enough and we have to beware of efficiency increases getting swallowed by increased use, but my point was it's not 100% true.
  - philistine 5y ago
    There are signs that we are transitioning to all of these. For example, demographic growth is at best neutral in everything but cities; that means people are using less land and are closer to their needs. The problem is the pace at which this transition is happening. It’s not fast enough to stop a really bad future.
    - jtbayly 5y ago
      And we're all going to starve in the 1800's, too.
      - dredmorbius 5y ago
        Those grim predictions were only pushed back by the exploitation of nonrenewable resoruces. Coal-fired furnaces produced iron ploughs. Strip-mining guano from South American deserts and Pacific islands fertilised fields until Haber and Bosch discovered how to turn nonrenewable natural gas into ammonia fertiliser, and munitions. Steam-powered, and later electrified, pumps, irrigated fields regularly. Chemical pesticides eliminate insect pests (and disrupted ecosystems). Vast new farmlands in the Americas fed Europe (pity the natives who'd been there before). Powered farm equipment displaced human and animal power on the fields. Rail and refrigeration moved food across continents and oceans to hungry mouths, without spoilage. Virtually all of that entailed utilising resources at rates faster than they could be replaced: coal, oil, gas, guano, topsoil, fertilisers, groundwater. There were also advances in cultivar selection, in hybridisation, in weather forecasting, in general farming techniques, and the like. Many of those relied heavily on reducing defencive and other metabolic loads on crops (e.g., staving off insect pests, or sending deep roots for uncertain water) and directing more energy into producing grain yields. This is a gain in efficiency, but a loss in resilience. (See Howard Odum for more on this.)
        jtbayly 5y ago
        It sounds like you’ve got a prediction to add to the list. Go ahead. I’ll write it down with a calendar reminder to see if you’re right.
        dredmorbius 5y ago
        Sorry?
        jtbayly 5y ago
        You said the predictions that food was unsustainable just got delayed by doing other things that are unsustainable. So it sounds like you’re convinced we’re still all going to starve. I was just curious when this is going to happen.
- pfdietz 5y ago
  If I replace incandescent bulbs with LEDs, I use less energy (yes, even with elasticity of demand) yet I'm better off, not poorer. The notion that any reduction in energy use is bad is wrong.
  - zaroth 5y ago
    LED lighting is a perfect example of how technology can eliminate any trade-offs for becoming more efficient. I would say EVs are another. This is definitely not always the case, but any time that it is, I think market adoption will be swift and eventually universal. For me, the take away is that ultimately to be successful the efficient and sustainable choice needs to be the better choice on the individual level.
    - dredmorbius 5y ago
      30 years ago my neighbours didn't have garden lighting running until midnight every night. Today they do. That's only one example of a lighting application which LEDs have enabled. It's just not that we crank up the lumen output in every lighting fixture (though that happened in many cases). It's not just that we've started illuminating parts of our houses, offices, and exteriors which were never previously illuminated (though that's also happened). It's that activities and populations which never previously could afford to run a 60W bulb now have multiple 10W LEDs. Those might be mains or battery powered (or a combination). There's also the reliability factor. Mains power which shuts off for hours per day is useful, but has limits. Mains power which shuts off for only a few minutes or seconds per year is far more useful. Access to electricity has increased from 78% to 90% of the global population since 2000. That's nearly a billion more people with access to lighting. Kenya is a reasonably modernised country in Africa, with 47 million citizens. Its total electric generation capacity is about 2.6 GW (roughly the equivalent of a single major US or EU power station). That works out to 55 watts of power per person. Less than a single 60W light bulb. (Actual peak demand was 1.9 GW, November, 2019, or 40 watts/person.) With such a limited supply, availability of LED lighting could very well lead to far more lighting, and a shift from other energy uses. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Kenya https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Kenya https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenya https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenya
Tade0 5y ago
> So now our civilization is addicted to cheap oil and other fossil fuels, and the question is how we can keep up our level of civilization (or let's call it "standard of living") while beating this addiction. Lots of low-hanging fruit here. Most drivers of SUVs and trucks don't need such large and thirsty vehicles. I guess we'll find out soon enough, considering what Russia's invasion has done to fuel prices.
- ajsnigrutin 5y ago
  Fuel prices have gone up way before russa attacked ukraine, and cars are not just a transporting-device, but also shelter, storage and a safety device. Electric cars would solve many things, but general unavailability of cars (wait list), general no-repair fuckery of factories (either unable to replace the battery or making it too expensive), and lack of general infrastructure (charge points) make them unusable in many cases now. But due to fearmongering of both pro-oil people and 'green' parties we practically stopped building nuclear powerplants, which would bring power prices way down and make stuff like electric cars more viable.
mlindner 5y ago
The future is a further increased energy usage powered by the Sun (and energy indirectly derived from the Sun like wind and hydro), the Earth (geothermal), and the Moon (tidal).
throw0101a 5y ago
> ..but, being so cheap, it also enabled crazier ways of using fuel […] See: > In economics, the Jevons paradox (/ˈdʒɛvənz/; sometimes Jevons' effect) occurs when technological progress or government policy increases the efficiency with which a resource is used (reducing the amount necessary for any one use), but the rate of consumption of that resource rises as falling cost of use increases demand.[1] The Jevons paradox is perhaps the most widely known paradox in environmental economics.[2] However, governments and environmentalists generally assume that efficiency gains will lower resource consumption, ignoring the possibility of the paradox arising.[3] […] > The Jevons paradox was first described by the English economist William Stanley Jevons in his 1865 book The Coal Question. Jevons observed that England's consumption of coal soared after James Watt introduced the Watt steam engine, which greatly improved the efficiency of the coal-fired steam engine from Thomas Newcomen's earlier design. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
- zaroth 5y ago
  Isn’t increasing consumption through increased efficiency (decreased cost) a crucial factor for how standards of living are raised? I don’t see how this is a paradox.
  - Majromax 5y ago
    The paradox arises because cost per unit fuel does not decrease because of use-efficiency. Whether your car gets 20 miles to the gallon or 50, you pay the same price per gallon at the pump. Therefore, in an "all other things being equal" sense, you'd expect more efficient use of the fuel to lower total consumption, since the same desired effect is achievable with less input. Switching from incandescent lights to LED lighting should lower your electricity bill. The paradox arises because of an income effect or "standard of living" effect, as you note, and it arises as "all other things being equal" gives way to a new equilibrium. It's not guaranteed to happen -- I imagine few people's electricity bills have gone up because they use so much more LED lighting than incandescent lighting -- but it can happen.

by rob74 5y ago

automatic6131 5y ago

> it also enabled crazier ways of using fuel Which massively raised the quality of life most humans can live in, in various direct (we can transport a wide variety of foods quickly) and indirectly. The question is how we can feed this "addiction" (stupid word: you're also "addicted" to breathing and eating) yet ever more whilst reducing or eliminating the negative externalities. A low energy use society is also poor society which is also, in most of the ways you presumably care about, a bad society. And I don't mean poor as in dollars.

developer93 5y ago
"A low energy society is a poorer society" while you're right in general, in the west we can live far more efficiently than we do without really impacting our quality of life via things like longer product life cycles, more public transport, living closer to places we need so we don't have to travel so far every day, better distribution of resources. These things could be improved if society took enough interest. Still might not be enough and we have to beware of efficiency increases getting swallowed by increased use, but my point was it's not 100% true.
- philistine 5y ago
  There are signs that we are transitioning to all of these. For example, demographic growth is at best neutral in everything but cities; that means people are using less land and are closer to their needs. The problem is the pace at which this transition is happening. It’s not fast enough to stop a really bad future.
  - jtbayly 5y ago
    And we're all going to starve in the 1800's, too.
    - dredmorbius 5y ago
      Those grim predictions were only pushed back by the exploitation of nonrenewable resoruces. Coal-fired furnaces produced iron ploughs. Strip-mining guano from South American deserts and Pacific islands fertilised fields until Haber and Bosch discovered how to turn nonrenewable natural gas into ammonia fertiliser, and munitions. Steam-powered, and later electrified, pumps, irrigated fields regularly. Chemical pesticides eliminate insect pests (and disrupted ecosystems). Vast new farmlands in the Americas fed Europe (pity the natives who'd been there before). Powered farm equipment displaced human and animal power on the fields. Rail and refrigeration moved food across continents and oceans to hungry mouths, without spoilage. Virtually all of that entailed utilising resources at rates faster than they could be replaced: coal, oil, gas, guano, topsoil, fertilisers, groundwater. There were also advances in cultivar selection, in hybridisation, in weather forecasting, in general farming techniques, and the like. Many of those relied heavily on reducing defencive and other metabolic loads on crops (e.g., staving off insect pests, or sending deep roots for uncertain water) and directing more energy into producing grain yields. This is a gain in efficiency, but a loss in resilience. (See Howard Odum for more on this.)
      - jtbayly 5y ago
        It sounds like you’ve got a prediction to add to the list. Go ahead. I’ll write it down with a calendar reminder to see if you’re right.
        dredmorbius 5y ago
        Sorry?
        jtbayly 5y ago
        You said the predictions that food was unsustainable just got delayed by doing other things that are unsustainable. So it sounds like you’re convinced we’re still all going to starve. I was just curious when this is going to happen.
pfdietz 5y ago
If I replace incandescent bulbs with LEDs, I use less energy (yes, even with elasticity of demand) yet I'm better off, not poorer. The notion that any reduction in energy use is bad is wrong.
- zaroth 5y ago
  LED lighting is a perfect example of how technology can eliminate any trade-offs for becoming more efficient. I would say EVs are another. This is definitely not always the case, but any time that it is, I think market adoption will be swift and eventually universal. For me, the take away is that ultimately to be successful the efficient and sustainable choice needs to be the better choice on the individual level.
  - dredmorbius 5y ago
    30 years ago my neighbours didn't have garden lighting running until midnight every night. Today they do. That's only one example of a lighting application which LEDs have enabled. It's just not that we crank up the lumen output in every lighting fixture (though that happened in many cases). It's not just that we've started illuminating parts of our houses, offices, and exteriors which were never previously illuminated (though that's also happened). It's that activities and populations which never previously could afford to run a 60W bulb now have multiple 10W LEDs. Those might be mains or battery powered (or a combination). There's also the reliability factor. Mains power which shuts off for hours per day is useful, but has limits. Mains power which shuts off for only a few minutes or seconds per year is far more useful. Access to electricity has increased from 78% to 90% of the global population since 2000. That's nearly a billion more people with access to lighting. Kenya is a reasonably modernised country in Africa, with 47 million citizens. Its total electric generation capacity is about 2.6 GW (roughly the equivalent of a single major US or EU power station). That works out to 55 watts of power per person. Less than a single 60W light bulb. (Actual peak demand was 1.9 GW, November, 2019, or 40 watts/person.) With such a limited supply, availability of LED lighting could very well lead to far more lighting, and a shift from other energy uses. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Kenya https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Kenya https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenya https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenya

Tade0 5y ago

> So now our civilization is addicted to cheap oil and other fossil fuels, and the question is how we can keep up our level of civilization (or let's call it "standard of living") while beating this addiction. Lots of low-hanging fruit here. Most drivers of SUVs and trucks don't need such large and thirsty vehicles. I guess we'll find out soon enough, considering what Russia's invasion has done to fuel prices.

ajsnigrutin 5y ago
Fuel prices have gone up way before russa attacked ukraine, and cars are not just a transporting-device, but also shelter, storage and a safety device. Electric cars would solve many things, but general unavailability of cars (wait list), general no-repair fuckery of factories (either unable to replace the battery or making it too expensive), and lack of general infrastructure (charge points) make them unusable in many cases now. But due to fearmongering of both pro-oil people and 'green' parties we practically stopped building nuclear powerplants, which would bring power prices way down and make stuff like electric cars more viable.

mlindner 5y ago

The future is a further increased energy usage powered by the Sun (and energy indirectly derived from the Sun like wind and hydro), the Earth (geothermal), and the Moon (tidal).

throw0101a 5y ago

> ..but, being so cheap, it also enabled crazier ways of using fuel […] See: > In economics, the Jevons paradox (/ˈdʒɛvənz/; sometimes Jevons' effect) occurs when technological progress or government policy increases the efficiency with which a resource is used (reducing the amount necessary for any one use), but the rate of consumption of that resource rises as falling cost of use increases demand.[1] The Jevons paradox is perhaps the most widely known paradox in environmental economics.[2] However, governments and environmentalists generally assume that efficiency gains will lower resource consumption, ignoring the possibility of the paradox arising.[3] […] > The Jevons paradox was first described by the English economist William Stanley Jevons in his 1865 book The Coal Question. Jevons observed that England's consumption of coal soared after James Watt introduced the Watt steam engine, which greatly improved the efficiency of the coal-fired steam engine from Thomas Newcomen's earlier design. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

zaroth 5y ago
Isn’t increasing consumption through increased efficiency (decreased cost) a crucial factor for how standards of living are raised? I don’t see how this is a paradox.
- Majromax 5y ago
  The paradox arises because cost per unit fuel does not decrease because of use-efficiency. Whether your car gets 20 miles to the gallon or 50, you pay the same price per gallon at the pump. Therefore, in an "all other things being equal" sense, you'd expect more efficient use of the fuel to lower total consumption, since the same desired effect is achievable with less input. Switching from incandescent lights to LED lighting should lower your electricity bill. The paradox arises because of an income effect or "standard of living" effect, as you note, and it arises as "all other things being equal" gives way to a new equilibrium. It's not guaranteed to happen -- I imagine few people's electricity bills have gone up because they use so much more LED lighting than incandescent lighting -- but it can happen.