3 ms·

I'm not threatening anything, these are actual human behaviors that your cost analysis has to take into account when you say things like WFH has no meaningful i

I'm not threatening anything, these are actual human behaviors that your cost analysis has to take into account when you say things like WFH has no meaningful impact on emissions. Running HVAC on every office in the US + daily commutes has a big impact, one that would completely vanish if office workers WFH.

credit_guy 4y ago
> has a big impact Big relative to what? Let's run the numbers. For a 2000 sqf home the AC consumes about 3-4 kW of electricity [1]. The vast majority of electricity in the US is produced with natural gas, where 1 kWh of electricity results in about 0.5 kg of CO2 [2]. Let's say 1 million people run the AC for 10 hours per day during the hot season, which is roughly 100 business days per year. That's 40 kWh per day, or 20 kg per person, or 20000 tons per one million people. Multiplying with 100 we get 2 MT of CO2. Heating is probably similar. Obviously heating does not happen at the same time as AC, and people in the Southern states use more AC, and those in the Northern ones use more heating. Anyway, let's say heating adds another 3 MT of CO2, so overall the commute and the AC and the heating come to 10 MT of CO2 or 0.2% of the emissions. [1] https://itlandes.com/how-many-watts-does-an-air-conditioner-use/ https://itlandes.com/how-many-watts-does-an-air-conditioner-... [2] https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=74&t=11 https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=74&t=11
- mshake2 4y ago
  The savings would be on office heating and cooling, not home heating and cooling. You're calculating the wrong thing. Also, I thought of another thing you should factor in: restaurants. They're incredibly wasteful with food. With no office workers, many restaurants (especially around offices) have drastically fewer customers. You'll need to include the carbon savings from some percentage of the food that goes to waste.
  - credit_guy 4y ago
    > You're calculating the wrong thing. Yes, I was just being conservative. The savings on the office side would be much lower, because as I said, offices are more efficient than homes. Plus, most offices would not close if people work from home. As for restaurants, you are going into second and third order impacts. Why not calculate the savings from all the dry-cleaning that doesn't happen because people can work in their sweat pants at home?
    - mshake2 4y ago
      >As for restaurants, you are going into second and third order impacts. Yes, that's what systemic change is, and you appear to be presuming (with your mocking jab about sweat pants, give me a break) that it's irrelevant to study second and third order effects of large social changes. That's not a very credible perspective to have.

credit_guy 4y ago

> has a big impact Big relative to what? Let's run the numbers. For a 2000 sqf home the AC consumes about 3-4 kW of electricity [1]. The vast majority of electricity in the US is produced with natural gas, where 1 kWh of electricity results in about 0.5 kg of CO2 [2]. Let's say 1 million people run the AC for 10 hours per day during the hot season, which is roughly 100 business days per year. That's 40 kWh per day, or 20 kg per person, or 20000 tons per one million people. Multiplying with 100 we get 2 MT of CO2. Heating is probably similar. Obviously heating does not happen at the same time as AC, and people in the Southern states use more AC, and those in the Northern ones use more heating. Anyway, let's say heating adds another 3 MT of CO2, so overall the commute and the AC and the heating come to 10 MT of CO2 or 0.2% of the emissions. [1] https://itlandes.com/how-many-watts-does-an-air-conditioner-use/ https://itlandes.com/how-many-watts-does-an-air-conditioner-... [2] https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=74&t=11 https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=74&t=11

mshake2 4y ago
The savings would be on office heating and cooling, not home heating and cooling. You're calculating the wrong thing. Also, I thought of another thing you should factor in: restaurants. They're incredibly wasteful with food. With no office workers, many restaurants (especially around offices) have drastically fewer customers. You'll need to include the carbon savings from some percentage of the food that goes to waste.
- credit_guy 4y ago
  > You're calculating the wrong thing. Yes, I was just being conservative. The savings on the office side would be much lower, because as I said, offices are more efficient than homes. Plus, most offices would not close if people work from home. As for restaurants, you are going into second and third order impacts. Why not calculate the savings from all the dry-cleaning that doesn't happen because people can work in their sweat pants at home?
  - mshake2 4y ago
    >As for restaurants, you are going into second and third order impacts. Yes, that's what systemic change is, and you appear to be presuming (with your mocking jab about sweat pants, give me a break) that it's irrelevant to study second and third order effects of large social changes. That's not a very credible perspective to have.