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Interesting to see the comment thread digging into all sorts of criticism of the article (is it 2 kWh / fridge? Or 1.1? Should the author discuss renewable earl

Interesting to see the comment thread digging into all sorts of criticism of the article (is it 2 kWh / fridge? Or 1.1? Should the author discuss renewable earlier or more seriously?) The main point I got from the article was a helpful reminder that a large part of the world doesn't have basic things that I take for granted (not just refrigeration, but you might also include air conditioning, transportation, etc). And that if we did want the entire world to live a life that includes things like that, we just don't have the energy right now. EDIT: I kept thinking about this and it doesn't stop at just basics. It's also things like living in a comfortable, well-manufactured home. Being able to buy toys for your kids. Taking airplanes to visit family or to vacation. Enjoying the consumption of meat, or food delicacies. The list goes on as you expand the threshold from basic necessities, to comfort, to luxuries, and you can decide where you want to draw the line.

ZeroGravitas 4y ago
We do have the energy right now, though. And we'd have more, cheaper energy if we deployed new renewables. But the author seems to lose his interest in helping the poor if it didn't involve fossil fuels being used inefficiently.
- naavis 4y ago
  Building renewables requires mining for precious metals and rare earths though, which is very energy-intensive. So to deploy these non-polluting renewable energy sources, you first have to pollute a lot. And it's not even clear if there are enough resources on Earth to do this. Solar panels, batteries, wind mills and such do not appear out of thin air.
- PeterisP 4y ago
  We're on track on a big part of Europe being energy-restricted this winter, so at least right now there's not an abundance of energy even for the current needs of the first world, much less for those who cannot pay much and would need not the same amount but growth. In the long term many things are possible, but right now we don't have enough energy, and "if we deployed new renewables" is not an argument - we already are deploying new renewables pretty much as fast as we can, and even if we would deploy them twice as fast, it will still take quite some time to get to where renewables can create all the energy we need - especially if look at the market share of renewables in total energy which includes not only electricity but also heating and transportation.
  - anovikov 4y ago
    RePowerEU plan is precisely for addressing this situation.
  - Bud 4y ago
    We're not deploying new renewables "pretty much as fast as we can". We're not even close to doing that. In actuality, we have ludicrously-rich power centers which are actively subsidizing fossil fuels and warring against renewables. Imagine if all that effort were redirected.
    - PeterisP 4y ago
      > Imagine if all that effort were redirected. Well, we'd get there faster, of course. But that's still not right now, that would be still many years, especially for the third world which can't afford the investment.
      - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
        Right now, we have enough energy. If every home was insulated and had a heat pump, we'd all be richer. Why havent we done that? Why, when the initial Ukraine invasion in 2014 caused a gas price spike, did Bjorn Lomborg and other climate change deniers write an article very much like this one, in which he advocated against more renewables, and instead said we needed to invest in research to find the real solution. So here we are again, 8 years later, and we're doing the exact same thing? Fool me once...
        tasuki 4y ago
        > If every home was insulated and had a heat pump, we'd all be richer. Yes of course. If every person had a flying car we'd all be richer too. > Why havent we done that? Perhaps because the (energy, work) cost of digging heat pumps for every home is too high for us to afford? How much energy is necessary to create a heat pump and how long does it take for it to pay off?
        PeterisP 4y ago
- space_fountain 4y ago
  The author seems to advocate for renewables and while we have plenty of energy available capturing it still needs work done. Some of the energy we could use now needs to go mining an manufacturing then we need physically build the infrastructure. The author is saying we should do all those things, that they need done, that the total amount of energy humanity uses should grow not shrink
  - bequanna 4y ago
    > The author is saying we should do all those things, that they need done, that the total amount of energy humanity uses should grow not shrink Well...yea. It's unbelievably naive how some believe humanity should somehow start using _less_ energy. If they actually got their way, we would see a recession/depression that would be the most painful of our lifetime. We should be focused on raising the standard of living for ALL people. We can work towards that goal by generating as much energy as possible with the caveat of doing so intelligently and responsibly.
    - ohgodplsno 4y ago
      As it stands, we do not have the ability to both raise living standards and solve climate change. We just are using too many resources for it to be sustainable. Having all of India's population reaching a European level of CO2 expenditure (about 4 tons / person / year) kills us. And renewables would only account for a very small reduction of that.
      - weberer 4y ago
        Well we have enough uranium reserves to increase the world's energy output by several orders of magnitude and still last hundreds of years.
        bequanna 4y ago
        Right. And we could actually create a reliable grid vs. a shitty patchwork of unreliable power sources that require us to massively overbuild generation capacity. I guess we don't do this because too few bureaucrats can grift if we build nuke plants?
- echelon 4y ago
  Renewables are great and are absolutely the future, but energy security and current needs demand fossil fuels as well. We cannot simply shut off these sources and hope to make it. The transition includes keeping lots of legacy capacity before we wind anything down.
- bequanna 4y ago
  See Europe now for an example of how over-reliance on intermittent generation with no storage yields incredible energy instability. Who wants a grid where your refrigerator can't run when the wind isn't blowing or the sun isn't shining?
  - gizmo686 4y ago
    That is not Europe's energy problem today. Their current problem is that a significant amount of their energy infrastructure relies on continuous imports; but a major exported has decided to stop selling to them for reasons that have nothing to do with technology. This dynamic has been a defining feature of geopolitics for the past half century or so. Whenever you hear talk about "energy independence" you are hearing talk about mitigating a problem that is almost exclusive to fossil fuels.
  - danhor 4y ago
    That's not the case? The big issue in europe is that electricity is expensive, not unreliable. With more renewables the current price spikes in fossil energy wouldn't hurt so much (or, admittedly, more local production capability of fossil energy).
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - bequanna 4y ago
      You sure about that? You can't replace base load with intermittent generation sources and expect fewer price spikes. Ya'll better get busy building those nuke plants like NOW.
      - danhor 4y ago
        > expect fewer price spikes. No. But depending on what you're replacing with how much capacity, you can get cheaper electricity on average (for example removing coal). And the nuclear exit in europe, apart from germany, happened (and is happening) more to the lack of replacement capacity than expectation of direct replacement by renewables. In germany, the exit was more-or-less driven by fear. New NPPs are really (and I mean really) expensive and there is little expectation that with conventional NPP that can significantly change. And stability & price are not the same. > Ya'll better get busy building those nuke plants like NOW. Have you looked at construction times in Western Countries, even pro-nuclear ones like france? That's like the worst idea. It'd take at least 20 years with conventional technology. Modular reactors aren't ready right now (and I'd be surprised if they solved the issues that are leading to the reduction in nuclear generation we're seeing around the world, but that question doesn't have a firm answer yet). The solution is building out renewables and investing in storage. Hydrogen and P2G both don't have any fundamental difficulties, the will to implement them on a large scale just isn't there right now. Even regular electrochemical cells should be doable if needed. Due to wind turbines producing more in winter, you only have to bridge the normal day-night cycle and low-wind periods in winter across the EU. We'd already be in a better position if we'd have invested more in electrifying stuff, since that usually improves the efficiency (even end-to-end when looking at gas power plants).
burlesona 4y ago
One thing I’ve learned over time is that it’s just really, really difficult for most people (including me!) to reason about things that they haven’t directly experienced. Even harder to have empathy. So it’s very hard to engage with an argument or discussion that’s about the world as a whole, because all of us have such difficulty properly weighting and evaluating the things we have no experience with (which by definition, for everyone, is most of the world).
- yboris 4y ago
  While difficult, it's I think within the reach of just about every individual in the developed world to empathize with and extend a helping hand to those who were merely unlucky to be born into poverty. Giving What We Can is a community of thousands of people giving at least 10% of their pre-tax income to the most cost-effective charities they can find (consider GiveWell.org for research). I'm a proud member and hope more people join. I'm happy to share thoughts on how to cultivate the empathy and gather motivation to act to help others as well.
  - telotortium 4y ago
    Does Giving What We Can have a pledge to continue spending money on humans in extreme poverty? No animal welfare, no AI risk, etc.? Unfortunately the effective altruism branding has become toxic for me in the past few years due to the fact that they are deciding not to focus just on poverty.
    - Knufferlbert 4y ago
      From what I can tell you can choose where your donations go, so you can focus on poverty and let skynet exterminate us humans if you'd want. https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/donate/organizations https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/donate/organizations
    - yboris 4y ago
      I'm sorry to hear effective altruism (EA) rubs you the wrong way. Giving What We Can predates EA and does not insist on where you give your money, only that you do it in good faith, focusing on "improv[ing] the lives of others". https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/pledge https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/pledge Just because some EA people give to causes you don't agree with, why should it detract from or discourage you from joining the general mission: "focus[ing] on maximising the good you can do through your career, projects, and donations." You don't have to call yourself an effective altruist, but I hope you too recognize that focusing your efforts on what you have the most ability to control (informed by evidence you seek with an open mind) is a good thing to do. I'm happy to chat more about this - it's one of my favorite topics.
ciconia 4y ago
> Interesting to see the comment thread digging into all sorts of criticism of the article (is it 2 kWh / fridge? Or 1.1? Should the author discuss renewable?) Hear hear. The point is, for those of us living in developed countries, is that all wealth is energy wealth. The western way of life is totally dependent on an abundance of cheap energy. When energy runs out, or becomes significantly more expensive, it's game over for developed countries. That's why Europeans are currently terrified. For those wishing to go a bit further than nitpicking the article, look up the following two concepts: - Peak oil [1] - Energy returned on energy invested [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_return_on_investment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_return_on_investment
- weberer 4y ago
  >The western way of life is totally dependent on an abundance of cheap energy Eastern too https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/15/World_fossil_carbon_dioxide_emissions_six_top_countries_and_confederations.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/15/World_fo...
  - aeternum 4y ago
    All life is dependent on cheap energy. It's the currency of the universe.
    - bombcar 4y ago
      The Warlock series had this as the intergalactic currency - the kwaher or kilowatt/hour.
      - HorizonXP 4y ago
        Recommended read?
      - aidenn0 4y ago
        The one by Stasheff? I didn't remember that detail, but haven't read it in a while.
onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
We do have the energy. The US spends enough energy on transportation that the entire world could have refrigeration. The US spends 28% of total energy consumption on transportation. 93.33 Quadrillion BTUs x .28 / 3142 (BTUs per kWh) / 365 (days per year) = 22.8B kWh per day. BEV vehicles are 5x more efficient than ICE vehicles. We could have the same standard of living and just not use gas-powered vehicles and save ~22.8B kWh per day. If I'm doing my math right, that's more than enough energy for 3B households to have refrigeration. The problem isn't that we don't have enough energy. The problem is that most of the world is really poor. In the simplest of terms - you can't get much cheaper energy at scale than $0.10 per kWh. A lot of households are living on $2 per day. They can maybe afford 5% for refrigeration - but a refrigerator only lasts 7 years or so and costs $200+. That's another $0.08 per day. That's pushing 10% for refrigeration. I don't think they can afford it. And when you're that poor - you're probably not going to be able to get electricity reliably for $0.10 per kWh... When you're that poor, $0.18 = close to half the calories you need for the day. I don't think you can just shift that to refrigeration. What are you going to refrigerate anyway?
- WalterBright 4y ago
  > BEV vehicles are 5x more efficient than ICE vehicles. I've seen this figure before. It ignores the efficiency of the generation of electric power to charge the EV. A much more realistic figure is 2x.
  - stefan_ 4y ago
    Which then ignores the efficiency of the generation of gasoline, which takes lots of energy input to refine it into the form useful for ICE vehicles.. You can play this game all day long, depending on which figure you want to land on. Efficiency is nice but the reason it hasn't mattered at all is that it is more about what is readily available and cheaply exploited.
    - WalterBright 4y ago
      My google doctorate says that energy efficiency of refining is 90%. And you ignored the energy efficiency of mining coal. > You can play this game all day long And you should, to be serious about CO2 emissions reduction. Otherwise, we're all just fooling ourselves.
gambiting 4y ago
The most interesting statistic I've heard recently is that the United States uses more energy just for its AC than the entire African continent does for literally everything combined. The gap is incredible.
- ttarabula 4y ago
  that's an amazing stat, so I went looking for a primary source - what I found so far was a blurb in this Guardian article that links to another Guardian article: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/oct/26/how-america-became-addicted-to-air-conditioning https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/oct/26/how-amer... "US statistics are bracing. A nation with 318 million people accounting for just 4.5% of world population consumes more energy for air conditioning than the rest of the world combined. It uses more electricity for cooling than Africa, population 1.1 billion, uses for everything." I'd love to see some charts that break this down visually (energy consumption by region/type).
lrwilke 4y ago
Vaclav Smil has written extensively and extremely well about this subject. His latest "How the World Really Works" goes into great detail regarding the importance of energy (and especially fossil fuel) in everything that keeps things going.
joe_the_user 4y ago
It's good to remember how starved for resources some places are. It's bad to take that resource starvation as the only/primary cause of poverty. The example I like using is that the life expectancy in counties in Alabama has been less than that in Bangladesh for a while. Here, individual's lack of access to resources which exist in the area is more the issue. One of many articles on this: "Life Expectancy in Some U.S. Counties Is No Better Than in the Third World" https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/07/life-expectancy-in-some-us-counties-is-no-better-than-in-the-third-world/454566/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/07/life-ex...
soulofmischief 4y ago
The American dream was never sustainable.
moistly 4y ago
> The main point I got from the article was a helpful reminder that a large part of the world doesn't have basic things that I take for granted Heck, within our own nation. [uncomfortable silence]
jokoon 4y ago
That's what carbon pricing is about. Of course it must be high enough. But at least carbon pricing allows us to visualize the problem.

ZeroGravitas 4y ago

We do have the energy right now, though. And we'd have more, cheaper energy if we deployed new renewables. But the author seems to lose his interest in helping the poor if it didn't involve fossil fuels being used inefficiently.

naavis 4y ago
Building renewables requires mining for precious metals and rare earths though, which is very energy-intensive. So to deploy these non-polluting renewable energy sources, you first have to pollute a lot. And it's not even clear if there are enough resources on Earth to do this. Solar panels, batteries, wind mills and such do not appear out of thin air.
PeterisP 4y ago
We're on track on a big part of Europe being energy-restricted this winter, so at least right now there's not an abundance of energy even for the current needs of the first world, much less for those who cannot pay much and would need not the same amount but growth. In the long term many things are possible, but right now we don't have enough energy, and "if we deployed new renewables" is not an argument - we already are deploying new renewables pretty much as fast as we can, and even if we would deploy them twice as fast, it will still take quite some time to get to where renewables can create all the energy we need - especially if look at the market share of renewables in total energy which includes not only electricity but also heating and transportation.
- anovikov 4y ago
  RePowerEU plan is precisely for addressing this situation.
- Bud 4y ago
  We're not deploying new renewables "pretty much as fast as we can". We're not even close to doing that. In actuality, we have ludicrously-rich power centers which are actively subsidizing fossil fuels and warring against renewables. Imagine if all that effort were redirected.
  - PeterisP 4y ago
    > Imagine if all that effort were redirected. Well, we'd get there faster, of course. But that's still not right now, that would be still many years, especially for the third world which can't afford the investment.
    - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
      Right now, we have enough energy. If every home was insulated and had a heat pump, we'd all be richer. Why havent we done that? Why, when the initial Ukraine invasion in 2014 caused a gas price spike, did Bjorn Lomborg and other climate change deniers write an article very much like this one, in which he advocated against more renewables, and instead said we needed to invest in research to find the real solution. So here we are again, 8 years later, and we're doing the exact same thing? Fool me once...
      - tasuki 4y ago
        > If every home was insulated and had a heat pump, we'd all be richer. Yes of course. If every person had a flying car we'd all be richer too. > Why havent we done that? Perhaps because the (energy, work) cost of digging heat pumps for every home is too high for us to afford? How much energy is necessary to create a heat pump and how long does it take for it to pay off?
      - PeterisP 4y ago
space_fountain 4y ago
The author seems to advocate for renewables and while we have plenty of energy available capturing it still needs work done. Some of the energy we could use now needs to go mining an manufacturing then we need physically build the infrastructure. The author is saying we should do all those things, that they need done, that the total amount of energy humanity uses should grow not shrink
- bequanna 4y ago
  > The author is saying we should do all those things, that they need done, that the total amount of energy humanity uses should grow not shrink Well...yea. It's unbelievably naive how some believe humanity should somehow start using _less_ energy. If they actually got their way, we would see a recession/depression that would be the most painful of our lifetime. We should be focused on raising the standard of living for ALL people. We can work towards that goal by generating as much energy as possible with the caveat of doing so intelligently and responsibly.
  - ohgodplsno 4y ago
    As it stands, we do not have the ability to both raise living standards and solve climate change. We just are using too many resources for it to be sustainable. Having all of India's population reaching a European level of CO2 expenditure (about 4 tons / person / year) kills us. And renewables would only account for a very small reduction of that.
    - weberer 4y ago
      Well we have enough uranium reserves to increase the world's energy output by several orders of magnitude and still last hundreds of years.
      - bequanna 4y ago
        Right. And we could actually create a reliable grid vs. a shitty patchwork of unreliable power sources that require us to massively overbuild generation capacity. I guess we don't do this because too few bureaucrats can grift if we build nuke plants?
echelon 4y ago
Renewables are great and are absolutely the future, but energy security and current needs demand fossil fuels as well. We cannot simply shut off these sources and hope to make it. The transition includes keeping lots of legacy capacity before we wind anything down.
bequanna 4y ago
See Europe now for an example of how over-reliance on intermittent generation with no storage yields incredible energy instability. Who wants a grid where your refrigerator can't run when the wind isn't blowing or the sun isn't shining?
- gizmo686 4y ago
  That is not Europe's energy problem today. Their current problem is that a significant amount of their energy infrastructure relies on continuous imports; but a major exported has decided to stop selling to them for reasons that have nothing to do with technology. This dynamic has been a defining feature of geopolitics for the past half century or so. Whenever you hear talk about "energy independence" you are hearing talk about mitigating a problem that is almost exclusive to fossil fuels.
- danhor 4y ago
  That's not the case? The big issue in europe is that electricity is expensive, not unreliable. With more renewables the current price spikes in fossil energy wouldn't hurt so much (or, admittedly, more local production capability of fossil energy).
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - bequanna 4y ago
    You sure about that? You can't replace base load with intermittent generation sources and expect fewer price spikes. Ya'll better get busy building those nuke plants like NOW.
    - danhor 4y ago
      > expect fewer price spikes. No. But depending on what you're replacing with how much capacity, you can get cheaper electricity on average (for example removing coal). And the nuclear exit in europe, apart from germany, happened (and is happening) more to the lack of replacement capacity than expectation of direct replacement by renewables. In germany, the exit was more-or-less driven by fear. New NPPs are really (and I mean really) expensive and there is little expectation that with conventional NPP that can significantly change. And stability & price are not the same. > Ya'll better get busy building those nuke plants like NOW. Have you looked at construction times in Western Countries, even pro-nuclear ones like france? That's like the worst idea. It'd take at least 20 years with conventional technology. Modular reactors aren't ready right now (and I'd be surprised if they solved the issues that are leading to the reduction in nuclear generation we're seeing around the world, but that question doesn't have a firm answer yet). The solution is building out renewables and investing in storage. Hydrogen and P2G both don't have any fundamental difficulties, the will to implement them on a large scale just isn't there right now. Even regular electrochemical cells should be doable if needed. Due to wind turbines producing more in winter, you only have to bridge the normal day-night cycle and low-wind periods in winter across the EU. We'd already be in a better position if we'd have invested more in electrifying stuff, since that usually improves the efficiency (even end-to-end when looking at gas power plants).

burlesona 4y ago

One thing I’ve learned over time is that it’s just really, really difficult for most people (including me!) to reason about things that they haven’t directly experienced. Even harder to have empathy. So it’s very hard to engage with an argument or discussion that’s about the world as a whole, because all of us have such difficulty properly weighting and evaluating the things we have no experience with (which by definition, for everyone, is most of the world).

yboris 4y ago
While difficult, it's I think within the reach of just about every individual in the developed world to empathize with and extend a helping hand to those who were merely unlucky to be born into poverty. Giving What We Can is a community of thousands of people giving at least 10% of their pre-tax income to the most cost-effective charities they can find (consider GiveWell.org for research). I'm a proud member and hope more people join. I'm happy to share thoughts on how to cultivate the empathy and gather motivation to act to help others as well.
- telotortium 4y ago
  Does Giving What We Can have a pledge to continue spending money on humans in extreme poverty? No animal welfare, no AI risk, etc.? Unfortunately the effective altruism branding has become toxic for me in the past few years due to the fact that they are deciding not to focus just on poverty.
  - Knufferlbert 4y ago
    From what I can tell you can choose where your donations go, so you can focus on poverty and let skynet exterminate us humans if you'd want. https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/donate/organizations https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/donate/organizations
  - yboris 4y ago
    I'm sorry to hear effective altruism (EA) rubs you the wrong way. Giving What We Can predates EA and does not insist on where you give your money, only that you do it in good faith, focusing on "improv[ing] the lives of others". https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/pledge https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/pledge Just because some EA people give to causes you don't agree with, why should it detract from or discourage you from joining the general mission: "focus[ing] on maximising the good you can do through your career, projects, and donations." You don't have to call yourself an effective altruist, but I hope you too recognize that focusing your efforts on what you have the most ability to control (informed by evidence you seek with an open mind) is a good thing to do. I'm happy to chat more about this - it's one of my favorite topics.

ciconia 4y ago

> Interesting to see the comment thread digging into all sorts of criticism of the article (is it 2 kWh / fridge? Or 1.1? Should the author discuss renewable?) Hear hear. The point is, for those of us living in developed countries, is that all wealth is energy wealth. The western way of life is totally dependent on an abundance of cheap energy. When energy runs out, or becomes significantly more expensive, it's game over for developed countries. That's why Europeans are currently terrified. For those wishing to go a bit further than nitpicking the article, look up the following two concepts: - Peak oil [1] - Energy returned on energy invested [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_return_on_investment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_return_on_investment

weberer 4y ago
>The western way of life is totally dependent on an abundance of cheap energy Eastern too https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/15/World_fossil_carbon_dioxide_emissions_six_top_countries_and_confederations.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/15/World_fo...
- aeternum 4y ago
  All life is dependent on cheap energy. It's the currency of the universe.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    The Warlock series had this as the intergalactic currency - the kwaher or kilowatt/hour.
    - HorizonXP 4y ago
      Recommended read?
    - aidenn0 4y ago
      The one by Stasheff? I didn't remember that detail, but haven't read it in a while.

onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago

We do have the energy. The US spends enough energy on transportation that the entire world could have refrigeration. The US spends 28% of total energy consumption on transportation. 93.33 Quadrillion BTUs x .28 / 3142 (BTUs per kWh) / 365 (days per year) = 22.8B kWh per day. BEV vehicles are 5x more efficient than ICE vehicles. We could have the same standard of living and just not use gas-powered vehicles and save ~22.8B kWh per day. If I'm doing my math right, that's more than enough energy for 3B households to have refrigeration. The problem isn't that we don't have enough energy. The problem is that most of the world is really poor. In the simplest of terms - you can't get much cheaper energy at scale than $0.10 per kWh. A lot of households are living on $2 per day. They can maybe afford 5% for refrigeration - but a refrigerator only lasts 7 years or so and costs $200+. That's another $0.08 per day. That's pushing 10% for refrigeration. I don't think they can afford it. And when you're that poor - you're probably not going to be able to get electricity reliably for $0.10 per kWh... When you're that poor, $0.18 = close to half the calories you need for the day. I don't think you can just shift that to refrigeration. What are you going to refrigerate anyway?

WalterBright 4y ago
> BEV vehicles are 5x more efficient than ICE vehicles. I've seen this figure before. It ignores the efficiency of the generation of electric power to charge the EV. A much more realistic figure is 2x.
- stefan_ 4y ago
  Which then ignores the efficiency of the generation of gasoline, which takes lots of energy input to refine it into the form useful for ICE vehicles.. You can play this game all day long, depending on which figure you want to land on. Efficiency is nice but the reason it hasn't mattered at all is that it is more about what is readily available and cheaply exploited.
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    My google doctorate says that energy efficiency of refining is 90%. And you ignored the energy efficiency of mining coal. > You can play this game all day long And you should, to be serious about CO2 emissions reduction. Otherwise, we're all just fooling ourselves.

gambiting 4y ago

The most interesting statistic I've heard recently is that the United States uses more energy just for its AC than the entire African continent does for literally everything combined. The gap is incredible.

ttarabula 4y ago
that's an amazing stat, so I went looking for a primary source - what I found so far was a blurb in this Guardian article that links to another Guardian article: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/oct/26/how-america-became-addicted-to-air-conditioning https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/oct/26/how-amer... "US statistics are bracing. A nation with 318 million people accounting for just 4.5% of world population consumes more energy for air conditioning than the rest of the world combined. It uses more electricity for cooling than Africa, population 1.1 billion, uses for everything." I'd love to see some charts that break this down visually (energy consumption by region/type).

lrwilke 4y ago

Vaclav Smil has written extensively and extremely well about this subject. His latest "How the World Really Works" goes into great detail regarding the importance of energy (and especially fossil fuel) in everything that keeps things going.

joe_the_user 4y ago

It's good to remember how starved for resources some places are. It's bad to take that resource starvation as the only/primary cause of poverty. The example I like using is that the life expectancy in counties in Alabama has been less than that in Bangladesh for a while. Here, individual's lack of access to resources which exist in the area is more the issue. One of many articles on this: "Life Expectancy in Some U.S. Counties Is No Better Than in the Third World" https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/07/life-expectancy-in-some-us-counties-is-no-better-than-in-the-third-world/454566/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/07/life-ex...

soulofmischief 4y ago

The American dream was never sustainable.

moistly 4y ago

> The main point I got from the article was a helpful reminder that a large part of the world doesn't have basic things that I take for granted Heck, within our own nation. [uncomfortable silence]

jokoon 4y ago

That's what carbon pricing is about. Of course it must be high enough. But at least carbon pricing allows us to visualize the problem.