6 ms·

I think the man needs a lesson in Jevon's Paradox (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox) Simply put, if an

I think the man needs a lesson in Jevon's Paradox (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox) Simply put, if an increase in efficiency, ecologically in this case, leads to an increase in consumption then the end result isn't a decrease in energy usage but an increase. One of the reasons carbo-hydrogen consumption has barely fallen totally is because every time we make something more efficient we have the fantastic idea to use it for something other than substituting the old energy sources. Every solar panel put to use for something that isn't turning an old power plant off is slowing the energy transition. The people on HN who rightfully ask why our software is so slow despite our chips being so fast know Jevon's paradox by heart. It's important to point out that this applies to the infrastructure needed for green energy itself, which is not green. Solar panels, batteries, concrete, steel, rare earths, the downside of that green energy the author blasts so abundantly through is some toxic mining pit in Africa.

gwicks56 4y ago
Are you making the argument that we should be striving for a decrease in consumption? Because I can see no compelling argument that that should be so. In fact, we should be using way more energy. It should be green, but trying to tell people to use less is a guaranteed way for any kind of climate action to fail. Cheaper, cleaner, more abundant, is the only way we are going to move forward, people are just not going to sign up to a future we're we use less than our parents generation.
- tjoff 4y ago
  > [...] people are just not going to sign up to a future we're we use less than our parents generation. This is why we are doomed and why a sizeable and increasing portion of our society has no hope.
  - v-erne 4y ago
    My thoughts also. Greed has no limits. I have lots of absurdly rich family members and friends and all they do is talk and think how to have more (I once witnessed a coversation where someone was complaining that he have to drive 2 hours to his favorite golf course while his brother takes his private helicopter and is there in 15 munutes - I kid You not!)
  - thomasmg 4y ago
    The problem isn't the amount of usage of electricity, the problem is CO2.
    - tjoff 4y ago
      They are for the most part interlinked. Even with solar. Also, we have more problems than CO2. Buying an AC isn't climate-neutral even if electricity is free (and that is also without taking into account that "free electricity" doesn't come for free, and additionally, in time needs maintenance and replacing as well). Producing a billion electric vehicles and enough solar to sustain them isn't either.
      - freemint 4y ago
        Yeah but earth overshoot day would be way later if we ran solar powered electric cars. So that's a good thing.
        tjoff 4y ago
        The point was that it's not good enough.
        freemint 4y ago
        I'd like to see your math on that.
        tjoff 4y ago
        You said it yourself that it would just delay it... But you think that solar panels and electric vehicles would be enough?
        freemint 4y ago
        If it is delayed past the years end we are good, are we not?
- Barrin92 4y ago
  >Are you making the argument that we should be striving for a decrease in consumption? Because I can see no compelling argument Yes. The compelling argument is that we're late on the clock when it comes to even fulfilling the modest measures we've set ourselves and that if we don't act faster we're going to destroy our ecology for both future generations and countless of other species on this planet. That's not compelling or clear enough? You want to sit in 50°C degree summer heat and ration your food because crops aren't sustainable rather than ration some energy now? Because you don't get to 'sign up' for anything, you'll have to pick one.
  - internet_user 4y ago
    Could you argue how nuclear energy will cause 50 degree summers? Because I cannot.
    - discreteevent 4y ago
      This is a race against time. We need to put out the fire right now with whatever we have to prevent damage to this building and spread to other buildings. This might buy us some time to work on better fire prevention in future.
      - bergenty 4y ago
        Using renewable energy is putting out the fire. There’s no reason to advocate for reduced consumption of it. It doesn’t add to the fire.
  - gwicks56 4y ago
    If the energy is clean, what difference does it make how much we use? Should a break through happen in fusion tonight, and clean limitless green energy became available cheaply, would you still argue we should use less? The fact remains that what people say they care about, and what they are prepared to sacrifice for, are two totally separate things. What you are suggesting is essentially an enforced recession ( drop in consumption and quality of life). Politicians are never rewarded for having a recession on their watch. It's just never going to fly. It's as realistic as we can end war if everyone would just be nicer to one another.
- eastbound 4y ago
  Aren’t they? I see swathes of young voters in UE, everywhere I go, who claim that we should consume less, and who align their actions with their beliefs with: - Not having travelled more than 200km from home for the last 10 years, - A friend who is CEO of renewable startup in Paris and is worth 60m€ today (the company is ~300m€), spent his wedding trip in France instead of Maldives, - Not eating meat, - Using blankets instead of heating at home, - Suffer through 40°C rather than use A/C, - Buy organic at the local market. It’s enough voters that the entirety of Europe cheers Macron & Merkel’s decision to cut off our gas supplies from Russia in 6 months. Sure it’s about the war, but people’s mindset is that we’d have to do it anyway for ecology, so why not now. And when you do speak with partisans, they acknowledge that we’ll half-replace with other sources, but they also tell you that the goal is to consume less in absolute numbers. At least this (majority) of people in Europe is mentally prepared to use much less energy than their parent’s generation, and the little remainder should be renewable. They accept the deflation that it represents. They’d be happy to be poor for those political ideals of leaving a healed earth to the next generation. Whether or not you believe in their vision, their vision is certainly not to replace-and-increase energy consumption.
  - jacquesm 4y ago
    > It’s enough voters that the entirety of Europe cheers Macron & Merkel’s decision to cut off our gas supplies from Russia in 6 months. Merkel?
  - vasco 4y ago
    > At least this (majority) of people in Europe is mentally prepared to use much less energy than their parent’s generation Do you have a source for this because I've lived here all my life and in 3 different European countries and this is not really something I've seen, other than some young people caring about green energy, it's definitely not the majority and definitely varies a lot country to country. Your average Pole has a very different stance to your average Dutch.
  - cyberlurker 4y ago
    This observation is detached from reality in so many ways it should be a copypasta. Merkel is not even in office anymore and you can be sure Macron wouldn’t be either if it wasn’t for French nuclear power and that he just won an election before these decisions. Germany doesn't even know if they will make it through the winter properly. The claim that deflation is largely accepted is wrong and in conflict with EU leadership statement and goals. A segment of the EU is cheering on the decision due to the war first and foremost. The environmental benefits are laughable because they have already turned to restarting coal plants that were previously shut down. No, the youth are great but this is a deluded view.
eastbound 4y ago
Kids today don’t understand why I call Java a posh language because of the Garbage Collector. At the time of C++, memory was scarce, and cumbersome to clean up. Well, now they don’t have to touch garbage, with posh languages, the GC does it… at the price of 2x RAM. Then they invented NPM. And they don’t see a problem. Feels like we should reduce data centers by a factor of 7x if we removed NPM from Earth.
jacquesm 4y ago
Part of this is driven by the end of net metering in lots of places. People are getting 10% or even 5% of the price for their energy that they themselves have to pay, which is why they'd rather consume it themselves.
- Ekaros 4y ago
  And that is fair. They get the fair value at the moment they provide something. Net metering was exploitative model that stole from others.
  - ekidd 4y ago
    Depending on when your local grid hits peak demand, and how much solar is already present, the excess electricity provided to the grid by solar power might be extremely valuable. In particular, if your local grid's annual peak demand occurs on summer afternoons, when air conditioning is at peak use, then solar provides extra capacity exactly when it's most valuable. This, in turn, means that your power company can avoid building extra peaker plants that are only run for a few hours a day during a few weeks per year. In this case, net metering is an extremely good deal for the power company and for other rate payers, and it may actually be a bad deal for the people with the solar panels. How often does a scenario like this occur? Apparently, peak annual demand in many markets occurs during either summer afternoon cooling, or during winter morning heating. In the latter case, obviously, solar is not helping with peak demand. Similarly, this effect is only true until a region reaches a certain level of installed solar, and a few regions may already be well beyond that point. Even if solar provides extremely valuable peak capacity, this doesn't guarantee that a residential solar owner will have any negotiating leverage. Most residential solar is unable to detach from the grid or to store significant amounts of power locally without US$7,000 to 20,000 worth of upgrades. So the utility could say, "Yes, the solar power that you're providing might be extremely valuable at market rates, even more valuable than the rate provided by net metering. But we've decided to pay you far below market rates, and there's nothing you can do about it." This is one reason why major power plants often have signed Power Purchase Agreements in place before they can even be financed. This obligates the power company to pay a guaranteed rate. So, the end of net metering might represent a blatant rip-off of the people generating solar power. Or it might accurately represent the fact that a local grid already has a surplus of solar power, and further capacity is fairly worthless.
anigbrowl 4y ago
It's important to point out that this applies to the infrastructure needed for green energy itself, which is not green. Solar panels, batteries, concrete, steel, rare earths, the downside of that green energy the author blasts so abundantly through is some toxic mining pit in Africa. This is a bullshit argument because all power generation has to be constructed. If you want to say that solar is especially bad compared to the construction and fuel of a coal or nuclear plant over its lifetime, have at it. But simply pointing out that deployment has an environmental cost isn't meaningful, it's just downerism.
- kmonsen 4y ago
  The argument is that due to the paradox new solar capacity only increases demand, and so will be an additional burden. I don't think this is true, if solar is truly cheaper than it will drive out the more expensive power plants, but I can see this not always being true.
  - Melting_Harps 4y ago
    > The argument is that due to the paradox new solar capacity only increases demand, and so will be an additional burden. Is it it a paradox? I've personally reduced a great deal of my consumption over 12 years now, mainly because the CURRENT situation doesn't warrant it when we are seeing the enormous adverse effects to the environment; but my real goal, whether it be in regenerative Ag/energy etc... was to eventually arrive to a post-scarcity World. One in which clean energy has become so abundant that it comprises the majority of the Earth's total use (I still think fossil fuels will always have some presence, how much is uncertain) and thus we can stop laboring under the tired notion that energy use itself is a net-negative to the World. The only real analysis is to what end is the energy being used to and we can allow energy intensive business models thought to be not viable another visit. The energy alarmists that are arguing for the opposite are also the same people who are oblivious to the fact that the Bitcoin network, while energy intensive, is making energy re-capturing technology viable and advancing what was thought to be untenable or not economically feasible and that is the long-term goal: to incentivize the building of the infrastructure Humans must have some economic incentive to do so, no amount or finger-wagging or virtue signalling works long term. This article underscores how quickly a lifetime of habits can easily be undone when the economics change, and that is the crux of the issue. I think it's hard to argue that energy usage alone is always negative as portrayed in this article, I (subjectively) think it almost always is if the energy usage is derived from fossil fuels with no net-benefit: like running the AC or lights in a building where no ones is in it (like many commercial buildings) and justify it and amortize the costs as a means to an end when WFH is a far better way for a majority of businesses to operate and localizes the costs of energy use to the individual who in turn can be more discerning where and how much they are willing to pay. In short, I think this underscores the real issue and that the technology is closer to help solving this issue but short-sighted Human emotion is still a major hurdle that is holding us back (mainly political): Given all the political barriers that renewables face, it might seem weird to talk about their emotional impact. But emotion drives politics. This is why some renewable advocates are now trying to tout—as loudly as possible—that a world powered wholly by renewables would be an overflowing horn of plenty, with fast, sporty cars and comfortable homes... The price barriers in the US aren’t labor or materials: “It’s all about regulations,” he says. “It could change quickly if people wanted it to.”
TheLoafOfBread 4y ago
Similar to office - Computers were invented, no paper needed. Then printers come along and we are using more paper in office than ever.
MattPalmer1086 4y ago
Jevons paradox has nothing to do with what the article is about. It only says that technological efficiency improvements in the production of something creates additional demand for it, leading to an overall increase in usage of the thing. Nothing was made more efficient. He is not using energy from coal or other fossil fuels, so his usage displaces that usage.
bergenty 4y ago
What are you talking about? If the energy is from clean sources use away, there’s no downside. The means of generating may not be produced completely cleanly but it’s something we can bear and causes a fraction of the damage fossil fuels did.
PeterisP 4y ago
> It's important to point out that this applies to the infrastructure needed for green energy itself, which is not green. IMHO this is an indication that the adjective "green" is too vague and contradictory that it's counterproductive to use it in current discussions. Different types of "non-green" have very different properties, different types of pollution are not interchangeable and we have to be specific about which we're talking about. If global warming is a serious crisis, then it implies that trading off some greenhouse gases for a toxic mining pit might be a good deal, a net win from the environmental perspective, as the environmental damage to these few mining locations are far outweighed by the decrease in environmental damage throughout the planet. The same applies for nuclear waste - their environmental issues must always be considered not in absolute risk, but in comparison to the environmental cost of the generation of an equivalent (immense) quantity of fossil fuel or the environmental production costs of the immense scale battery+solar equipment to replace gigawatts of nuclear power. Anyone who actually wants to effectively advance environmental goals has to consider possible tradeoffs of one "not green" thing versus another, and be willing to accept compromises that trade off a small harm to reduce a much bigger one; and anyone who insists that anything with an environmental cost is taboo is effectively advocating for even greater harm to the environment.
_8j50 4y ago
That's a macroeconomic persoective. For individuals it varies wildly. Some people are content living in a cabin with basic heating and internet.
epistasis 4y ago
Jevon's paradox isn't a law, and it's been really clear that it hasn't applied to electricity. We care about cold beer and hot showers, and only want them so cold and so hot respectively. Jevon's paradox does not apply to most consumption that we are trying to modify. One place where Jevon's paradox really does apply is driving. Which is why we need a stronger movement to at least legalize planning that allows people to live without cars. Note that I'm not even saying we must force carlessness, simply make a careless life legal. Allow people to choose to build housing and businesses such that one doesn't have to use a car. Things like removing parking minimums, etc.
- wizofaus 4y ago
  I don't think that's what makes carless existence unrealistic for most people - the fact is our cities have evolved on the assumption we all have cars, hence we think nothing of making decisions that force us to travel significant distances for shopping, work, dining out, visiting family/friends. That's not going to change by removing laws requiring parking minimums (though I certainly agree doing so is low hanging fruit).

gwicks56 4y ago

Are you making the argument that we should be striving for a decrease in consumption? Because I can see no compelling argument that that should be so. In fact, we should be using way more energy. It should be green, but trying to tell people to use less is a guaranteed way for any kind of climate action to fail. Cheaper, cleaner, more abundant, is the only way we are going to move forward, people are just not going to sign up to a future we're we use less than our parents generation.

tjoff 4y ago
> [...] people are just not going to sign up to a future we're we use less than our parents generation. This is why we are doomed and why a sizeable and increasing portion of our society has no hope.
- v-erne 4y ago
  My thoughts also. Greed has no limits. I have lots of absurdly rich family members and friends and all they do is talk and think how to have more (I once witnessed a coversation where someone was complaining that he have to drive 2 hours to his favorite golf course while his brother takes his private helicopter and is there in 15 munutes - I kid You not!)
- thomasmg 4y ago
  The problem isn't the amount of usage of electricity, the problem is CO2.
  - tjoff 4y ago
    They are for the most part interlinked. Even with solar. Also, we have more problems than CO2. Buying an AC isn't climate-neutral even if electricity is free (and that is also without taking into account that "free electricity" doesn't come for free, and additionally, in time needs maintenance and replacing as well). Producing a billion electric vehicles and enough solar to sustain them isn't either.
    - freemint 4y ago
      Yeah but earth overshoot day would be way later if we ran solar powered electric cars. So that's a good thing.
      - tjoff 4y ago
        The point was that it's not good enough.
        freemint 4y ago
        I'd like to see your math on that.
        tjoff 4y ago
        You said it yourself that it would just delay it... But you think that solar panels and electric vehicles would be enough?
        freemint 4y ago
        If it is delayed past the years end we are good, are we not?
Barrin92 4y ago
>Are you making the argument that we should be striving for a decrease in consumption? Because I can see no compelling argument Yes. The compelling argument is that we're late on the clock when it comes to even fulfilling the modest measures we've set ourselves and that if we don't act faster we're going to destroy our ecology for both future generations and countless of other species on this planet. That's not compelling or clear enough? You want to sit in 50°C degree summer heat and ration your food because crops aren't sustainable rather than ration some energy now? Because you don't get to 'sign up' for anything, you'll have to pick one.
- internet_user 4y ago
  Could you argue how nuclear energy will cause 50 degree summers? Because I cannot.
  - discreteevent 4y ago
    This is a race against time. We need to put out the fire right now with whatever we have to prevent damage to this building and spread to other buildings. This might buy us some time to work on better fire prevention in future.
    - bergenty 4y ago
      Using renewable energy is putting out the fire. There’s no reason to advocate for reduced consumption of it. It doesn’t add to the fire.
- gwicks56 4y ago
  If the energy is clean, what difference does it make how much we use? Should a break through happen in fusion tonight, and clean limitless green energy became available cheaply, would you still argue we should use less? The fact remains that what people say they care about, and what they are prepared to sacrifice for, are two totally separate things. What you are suggesting is essentially an enforced recession ( drop in consumption and quality of life). Politicians are never rewarded for having a recession on their watch. It's just never going to fly. It's as realistic as we can end war if everyone would just be nicer to one another.
eastbound 4y ago
Aren’t they? I see swathes of young voters in UE, everywhere I go, who claim that we should consume less, and who align their actions with their beliefs with: - Not having travelled more than 200km from home for the last 10 years, - A friend who is CEO of renewable startup in Paris and is worth 60m€ today (the company is ~300m€), spent his wedding trip in France instead of Maldives, - Not eating meat, - Using blankets instead of heating at home, - Suffer through 40°C rather than use A/C, - Buy organic at the local market. It’s enough voters that the entirety of Europe cheers Macron & Merkel’s decision to cut off our gas supplies from Russia in 6 months. Sure it’s about the war, but people’s mindset is that we’d have to do it anyway for ecology, so why not now. And when you do speak with partisans, they acknowledge that we’ll half-replace with other sources, but they also tell you that the goal is to consume less in absolute numbers. At least this (majority) of people in Europe is mentally prepared to use much less energy than their parent’s generation, and the little remainder should be renewable. They accept the deflation that it represents. They’d be happy to be poor for those political ideals of leaving a healed earth to the next generation. Whether or not you believe in their vision, their vision is certainly not to replace-and-increase energy consumption.
- jacquesm 4y ago
  > It’s enough voters that the entirety of Europe cheers Macron & Merkel’s decision to cut off our gas supplies from Russia in 6 months. Merkel?
- vasco 4y ago
  > At least this (majority) of people in Europe is mentally prepared to use much less energy than their parent’s generation Do you have a source for this because I've lived here all my life and in 3 different European countries and this is not really something I've seen, other than some young people caring about green energy, it's definitely not the majority and definitely varies a lot country to country. Your average Pole has a very different stance to your average Dutch.
- cyberlurker 4y ago
  This observation is detached from reality in so many ways it should be a copypasta. Merkel is not even in office anymore and you can be sure Macron wouldn’t be either if it wasn’t for French nuclear power and that he just won an election before these decisions. Germany doesn't even know if they will make it through the winter properly. The claim that deflation is largely accepted is wrong and in conflict with EU leadership statement and goals. A segment of the EU is cheering on the decision due to the war first and foremost. The environmental benefits are laughable because they have already turned to restarting coal plants that were previously shut down. No, the youth are great but this is a deluded view.

eastbound 4y ago

Kids today don’t understand why I call Java a posh language because of the Garbage Collector. At the time of C++, memory was scarce, and cumbersome to clean up. Well, now they don’t have to touch garbage, with posh languages, the GC does it… at the price of 2x RAM. Then they invented NPM. And they don’t see a problem. Feels like we should reduce data centers by a factor of 7x if we removed NPM from Earth.

jacquesm 4y ago

Part of this is driven by the end of net metering in lots of places. People are getting 10% or even 5% of the price for their energy that they themselves have to pay, which is why they'd rather consume it themselves.

Ekaros 4y ago
And that is fair. They get the fair value at the moment they provide something. Net metering was exploitative model that stole from others.
- ekidd 4y ago
  Depending on when your local grid hits peak demand, and how much solar is already present, the excess electricity provided to the grid by solar power might be extremely valuable. In particular, if your local grid's annual peak demand occurs on summer afternoons, when air conditioning is at peak use, then solar provides extra capacity exactly when it's most valuable. This, in turn, means that your power company can avoid building extra peaker plants that are only run for a few hours a day during a few weeks per year. In this case, net metering is an extremely good deal for the power company and for other rate payers, and it may actually be a bad deal for the people with the solar panels. How often does a scenario like this occur? Apparently, peak annual demand in many markets occurs during either summer afternoon cooling, or during winter morning heating. In the latter case, obviously, solar is not helping with peak demand. Similarly, this effect is only true until a region reaches a certain level of installed solar, and a few regions may already be well beyond that point. Even if solar provides extremely valuable peak capacity, this doesn't guarantee that a residential solar owner will have any negotiating leverage. Most residential solar is unable to detach from the grid or to store significant amounts of power locally without US$7,000 to 20,000 worth of upgrades. So the utility could say, "Yes, the solar power that you're providing might be extremely valuable at market rates, even more valuable than the rate provided by net metering. But we've decided to pay you far below market rates, and there's nothing you can do about it." This is one reason why major power plants often have signed Power Purchase Agreements in place before they can even be financed. This obligates the power company to pay a guaranteed rate. So, the end of net metering might represent a blatant rip-off of the people generating solar power. Or it might accurately represent the fact that a local grid already has a surplus of solar power, and further capacity is fairly worthless.

anigbrowl 4y ago

It's important to point out that this applies to the infrastructure needed for green energy itself, which is not green. Solar panels, batteries, concrete, steel, rare earths, the downside of that green energy the author blasts so abundantly through is some toxic mining pit in Africa. This is a bullshit argument because all power generation has to be constructed. If you want to say that solar is especially bad compared to the construction and fuel of a coal or nuclear plant over its lifetime, have at it. But simply pointing out that deployment has an environmental cost isn't meaningful, it's just downerism.

kmonsen 4y ago
The argument is that due to the paradox new solar capacity only increases demand, and so will be an additional burden. I don't think this is true, if solar is truly cheaper than it will drive out the more expensive power plants, but I can see this not always being true.
- Melting_Harps 4y ago
  > The argument is that due to the paradox new solar capacity only increases demand, and so will be an additional burden. Is it it a paradox? I've personally reduced a great deal of my consumption over 12 years now, mainly because the CURRENT situation doesn't warrant it when we are seeing the enormous adverse effects to the environment; but my real goal, whether it be in regenerative Ag/energy etc... was to eventually arrive to a post-scarcity World. One in which clean energy has become so abundant that it comprises the majority of the Earth's total use (I still think fossil fuels will always have some presence, how much is uncertain) and thus we can stop laboring under the tired notion that energy use itself is a net-negative to the World. The only real analysis is to what end is the energy being used to and we can allow energy intensive business models thought to be not viable another visit. The energy alarmists that are arguing for the opposite are also the same people who are oblivious to the fact that the Bitcoin network, while energy intensive, is making energy re-capturing technology viable and advancing what was thought to be untenable or not economically feasible and that is the long-term goal: to incentivize the building of the infrastructure Humans must have some economic incentive to do so, no amount or finger-wagging or virtue signalling works long term. This article underscores how quickly a lifetime of habits can easily be undone when the economics change, and that is the crux of the issue. I think it's hard to argue that energy usage alone is always negative as portrayed in this article, I (subjectively) think it almost always is if the energy usage is derived from fossil fuels with no net-benefit: like running the AC or lights in a building where no ones is in it (like many commercial buildings) and justify it and amortize the costs as a means to an end when WFH is a far better way for a majority of businesses to operate and localizes the costs of energy use to the individual who in turn can be more discerning where and how much they are willing to pay. In short, I think this underscores the real issue and that the technology is closer to help solving this issue but short-sighted Human emotion is still a major hurdle that is holding us back (mainly political): Given all the political barriers that renewables face, it might seem weird to talk about their emotional impact. But emotion drives politics. This is why some renewable advocates are now trying to tout—as loudly as possible—that a world powered wholly by renewables would be an overflowing horn of plenty, with fast, sporty cars and comfortable homes... The price barriers in the US aren’t labor or materials: “It’s all about regulations,” he says. “It could change quickly if people wanted it to.”

TheLoafOfBread 4y ago

Similar to office - Computers were invented, no paper needed. Then printers come along and we are using more paper in office than ever.

MattPalmer1086 4y ago

Jevons paradox has nothing to do with what the article is about. It only says that technological efficiency improvements in the production of something creates additional demand for it, leading to an overall increase in usage of the thing. Nothing was made more efficient. He is not using energy from coal or other fossil fuels, so his usage displaces that usage.

bergenty 4y ago

What are you talking about? If the energy is from clean sources use away, there’s no downside. The means of generating may not be produced completely cleanly but it’s something we can bear and causes a fraction of the damage fossil fuels did.

PeterisP 4y ago

> It's important to point out that this applies to the infrastructure needed for green energy itself, which is not green. IMHO this is an indication that the adjective "green" is too vague and contradictory that it's counterproductive to use it in current discussions. Different types of "non-green" have very different properties, different types of pollution are not interchangeable and we have to be specific about which we're talking about. If global warming is a serious crisis, then it implies that trading off some greenhouse gases for a toxic mining pit might be a good deal, a net win from the environmental perspective, as the environmental damage to these few mining locations are far outweighed by the decrease in environmental damage throughout the planet. The same applies for nuclear waste - their environmental issues must always be considered not in absolute risk, but in comparison to the environmental cost of the generation of an equivalent (immense) quantity of fossil fuel or the environmental production costs of the immense scale battery+solar equipment to replace gigawatts of nuclear power. Anyone who actually wants to effectively advance environmental goals has to consider possible tradeoffs of one "not green" thing versus another, and be willing to accept compromises that trade off a small harm to reduce a much bigger one; and anyone who insists that anything with an environmental cost is taboo is effectively advocating for even greater harm to the environment.

_8j50 4y ago

That's a macroeconomic persoective. For individuals it varies wildly. Some people are content living in a cabin with basic heating and internet.

epistasis 4y ago

Jevon's paradox isn't a law, and it's been really clear that it hasn't applied to electricity. We care about cold beer and hot showers, and only want them so cold and so hot respectively. Jevon's paradox does not apply to most consumption that we are trying to modify. One place where Jevon's paradox really does apply is driving. Which is why we need a stronger movement to at least legalize planning that allows people to live without cars. Note that I'm not even saying we must force carlessness, simply make a careless life legal. Allow people to choose to build housing and businesses such that one doesn't have to use a car. Things like removing parking minimums, etc.

wizofaus 4y ago
I don't think that's what makes carless existence unrealistic for most people - the fact is our cities have evolved on the assumption we all have cars, hence we think nothing of making decisions that force us to travel significant distances for shopping, work, dining out, visiting family/friends. That's not going to change by removing laws requiring parking minimums (though I certainly agree doing so is low hanging fruit).