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This seems very misguided. The problem isn't energy usage its the side effects of the energy production. If everyone was using a megawatt but this was in the fo

This seems very misguided. The problem isn't energy usage its the side effects of the energy production. If everyone was using a megawatt but this was in the form of some factory on the moon being incredibly inefficient as they make the new Must Have MoonRockTM that gets teleported to your living room this would actually be just fine.

Bud 4y ago
Not misguided. Because here in the real world, both now and for the foreseeable future, especially the near future in which we have to urgently deal with climate change impacts, energy production does indeed have those side effects.
- condour75 4y ago
  Solar is getting cheaper by the day, batteries are getting cheaper and more efficient by the day, and there's a ton of money pouring into research. Maybe I'm crazy, but I can see a future, maybe a few decades from now, when power is "too cheap to meter" because of renewables.
  - BanazirGalbasi 4y ago
    Electricity use is only one part of energy consumption. Transportation costs, production costs, and even food generation are all included in the umbrella. Also, "costs" aren't just referring to dollars spent, but also environmental impact. Having cheap electricity is only a small part of the equation, and barely a relevant one at that.
    - jjk166 4y ago
      Energy is roughly transferable - if you have cheap electricity you can use it to produce cheap process heat, synthetic fuels, food, environmental cleanup, etc. You get enough solar panels for a low enough price and all the other problems become trivial.
  - jl6 4y ago
    Electricity is already priced negatively in some markets at some times of the day because of the mismatch between demand and supply from intermittent wind and solar generation. The trick here is how to design an energy storage solution that can exploit that mismatch. It’s the ultimate buy-low sell-high opportunity.
    - tuatoru 4y ago
      The trick is to design energy-intensive industries so that they can use DC power for a few hours each day and to site them at the PV/wind farms. This is already happening with desalination and hydrogen production via electrolysis, and hydrocarbon production (for carbon-neutral transport fuel) is being piloted too. Future likely applications include electrolytic refining of iron ore to the metal. Cheap electricity is going to enable new industries we haven't thought of yet. "P2X" is the abbreviation to look out for. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-to-X https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-to-X
NegativeK 4y ago
I think that taking it outside of the context of today and adding in moon rock energy sources might be a bit more misguided.
anonporridge 4y ago
It's well guided as a goal from a social planning level. When thinking about what to incentivize and penalize with governmental regulations, it makes sense to drive out living environments and industry towards more efficiency. But I agree it's very misguided if it gets turned into strict quota system that everyone is locked into. We don't want to turn civilization a zero sum game.
probablypower 4y ago
As someone who works at a utility, I respectfully disagree. From the wholesale energy market perspective, demand must be met. Sure, you can slowly switch out old production for new cleaner sources of energy. The fastest way to reduce carbon footprints (and cheapest) is to reduce demand. Growing consumer awareness over their over-consumption, to change their behaviour, is one of the most powerful and direct solutions we have.
- hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
  > Growing consumer awareness over their over-consumption, to change their behaviour, is one of the most powerful and direct solutions we have. Actually, that has been shown time and time again to be false. Asking consumers to change their behavior to lower energy consumption is about as effective as telling people to diet and exercise to lose weight: it may work on an individual level, but it is a complete failure at a societal level, and when it comes to decarbonizing the economy, the societal level is all that matters. If we want to lower people's energy consumption, we need to make policy and economic changes, e.g. raising the cost of certain types of energy use so that it causes people to reconsider their use of it, or redesigning spaces so that less energy use is needed (e.g. making public transportation, or human-powered transportation, a more viable alternative to driving).
  - leach 4y ago
    Why not just use energy that actually is pretty clean? No reason we can’t use nuclear for the majority of energy, and it’s waste is far more manageable than C02 in the air.
lultimouomo 4y ago
If everyone in US and Europe were using only 2kw, we would probably be carbon negative today, as renewable + nuclear + storage might be enough for all our needs. Reducing consumption is a huge part of the solution, especially because it makes the extremely hard energy storage problem way more tractable.

Bud 4y ago

Not misguided. Because here in the real world, both now and for the foreseeable future, especially the near future in which we have to urgently deal with climate change impacts, energy production does indeed have those side effects.

condour75 4y ago
Solar is getting cheaper by the day, batteries are getting cheaper and more efficient by the day, and there's a ton of money pouring into research. Maybe I'm crazy, but I can see a future, maybe a few decades from now, when power is "too cheap to meter" because of renewables.
- BanazirGalbasi 4y ago
  Electricity use is only one part of energy consumption. Transportation costs, production costs, and even food generation are all included in the umbrella. Also, "costs" aren't just referring to dollars spent, but also environmental impact. Having cheap electricity is only a small part of the equation, and barely a relevant one at that.
  - jjk166 4y ago
    Energy is roughly transferable - if you have cheap electricity you can use it to produce cheap process heat, synthetic fuels, food, environmental cleanup, etc. You get enough solar panels for a low enough price and all the other problems become trivial.
- jl6 4y ago
  Electricity is already priced negatively in some markets at some times of the day because of the mismatch between demand and supply from intermittent wind and solar generation. The trick here is how to design an energy storage solution that can exploit that mismatch. It’s the ultimate buy-low sell-high opportunity.
  - tuatoru 4y ago
    The trick is to design energy-intensive industries so that they can use DC power for a few hours each day and to site them at the PV/wind farms. This is already happening with desalination and hydrogen production via electrolysis, and hydrocarbon production (for carbon-neutral transport fuel) is being piloted too. Future likely applications include electrolytic refining of iron ore to the metal. Cheap electricity is going to enable new industries we haven't thought of yet. "P2X" is the abbreviation to look out for. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-to-X https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-to-X

NegativeK 4y ago

I think that taking it outside of the context of today and adding in moon rock energy sources might be a bit more misguided.

anonporridge 4y ago

It's well guided as a goal from a social planning level. When thinking about what to incentivize and penalize with governmental regulations, it makes sense to drive out living environments and industry towards more efficiency. But I agree it's very misguided if it gets turned into strict quota system that everyone is locked into. We don't want to turn civilization a zero sum game.

probablypower 4y ago

As someone who works at a utility, I respectfully disagree. From the wholesale energy market perspective, demand must be met. Sure, you can slowly switch out old production for new cleaner sources of energy. The fastest way to reduce carbon footprints (and cheapest) is to reduce demand. Growing consumer awareness over their over-consumption, to change their behaviour, is one of the most powerful and direct solutions we have.

hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
> Growing consumer awareness over their over-consumption, to change their behaviour, is one of the most powerful and direct solutions we have. Actually, that has been shown time and time again to be false. Asking consumers to change their behavior to lower energy consumption is about as effective as telling people to diet and exercise to lose weight: it may work on an individual level, but it is a complete failure at a societal level, and when it comes to decarbonizing the economy, the societal level is all that matters. If we want to lower people's energy consumption, we need to make policy and economic changes, e.g. raising the cost of certain types of energy use so that it causes people to reconsider their use of it, or redesigning spaces so that less energy use is needed (e.g. making public transportation, or human-powered transportation, a more viable alternative to driving).
- leach 4y ago
  Why not just use energy that actually is pretty clean? No reason we can’t use nuclear for the majority of energy, and it’s waste is far more manageable than C02 in the air.

lultimouomo 4y ago

If everyone in US and Europe were using only 2kw, we would probably be carbon negative today, as renewable + nuclear + storage might be enough for all our needs. Reducing consumption is a huge part of the solution, especially because it makes the extremely hard energy storage problem way more tractable.