4 ms·

> I'm not sure how to calculate my total embodied energy It's probably dominated by your vehicle if you have one (decent rule of thumb is abkut equal to the fu

> I'm not sure how to calculate my total embodied energy It's probably dominated by your vehicle if you have one (decent rule of thumb is abkut equal to the fuel you'd put through an ICE of the same size in a given time)

lotsofpulp 4y ago
It is dominated by the infrastructure around the vehicle. Personal vehicle means space to park it. Space to park it means things are further spread out. This leads to a few inevitabilities: Things being further spread out means walking and public transit are less feasible. Individual vehicles means insufficient political support for infrastructure for walking, cycling, and public transit. The mass required for living (water, food, energy, trash, sewage) has to travel further, and energy = force * distance. Of course, people’s desire to have backyards and space in general contributes to even more spreading out, but individual cars go hand in hand since they enable being able to consume more space. In other words, there is no getting around the fact that energy and distance scale with each other, so anything that allows one to consume more space, and hence cause mass to travel more distance, has a multiplier effect on energy consumption.
- Schroedingersat 4y ago
  This is very much true of high density areas. Although there is somewhat of a counter point to your energy and distance scaling. Without infrastructure and laws forcing the worst possible vehicles, it's quite possible to build a comfortable vehicle which will hang on your wall in a bedroom that does 40-80km/h for several hours a day with the only energy input being the sunlight that falls on it and human effort equivent to a brisk walk. Similarly a self sufficient homestead doesn't need those utilities and can sustain a person in surpriaingly little area. We don't have to force the minority who want an actually rural lifestyle to give it up. We just have to apply the same rules and changes that would fix suburbia. A low-input, no-beef, mostly vegetarian homestead with a 2 story cottage that manages its own utilities and has a 2m wide LEV path 10km to the train station is no more unsustainable than arranging those ingredients into some large farms and a large city. It could be a large mostly-native food forest, or an acre of high yield closed system. It would be vastly less labour efficient, but if a household wants to dedicate one member's time to agriculture and domestic labour that's fine.

lotsofpulp 4y ago

It is dominated by the infrastructure around the vehicle. Personal vehicle means space to park it. Space to park it means things are further spread out. This leads to a few inevitabilities: Things being further spread out means walking and public transit are less feasible. Individual vehicles means insufficient political support for infrastructure for walking, cycling, and public transit. The mass required for living (water, food, energy, trash, sewage) has to travel further, and energy = force * distance. Of course, people’s desire to have backyards and space in general contributes to even more spreading out, but individual cars go hand in hand since they enable being able to consume more space. In other words, there is no getting around the fact that energy and distance scale with each other, so anything that allows one to consume more space, and hence cause mass to travel more distance, has a multiplier effect on energy consumption.

Schroedingersat 4y ago
This is very much true of high density areas. Although there is somewhat of a counter point to your energy and distance scaling. Without infrastructure and laws forcing the worst possible vehicles, it's quite possible to build a comfortable vehicle which will hang on your wall in a bedroom that does 40-80km/h for several hours a day with the only energy input being the sunlight that falls on it and human effort equivent to a brisk walk. Similarly a self sufficient homestead doesn't need those utilities and can sustain a person in surpriaingly little area. We don't have to force the minority who want an actually rural lifestyle to give it up. We just have to apply the same rules and changes that would fix suburbia. A low-input, no-beef, mostly vegetarian homestead with a 2 story cottage that manages its own utilities and has a 2m wide LEV path 10km to the train station is no more unsustainable than arranging those ingredients into some large farms and a large city. It could be a large mostly-native food forest, or an acre of high yield closed system. It would be vastly less labour efficient, but if a household wants to dedicate one member's time to agriculture and domestic labour that's fine.