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The infrastructure isn’t there. We need to flood our system with fossil fuels as that’s the existing infra and it makes for cheaper food, shipping, consumer goo

The infrastructure isn’t there. We need to flood our system with fossil fuels as that’s the existing infra and it makes for cheaper food, shipping, consumer goods, etc. The input might be cheaper but the infrastructure to support it needs to be built. Solve that problem first.

chneu 2y ago
Fossil fuels carry an environmental debt that you won't be repaying. Perpetuating the use of fossil fuels is basically saying "fuck you" to the next generation. Same goes for beef consumption, plastic consumption, etc. We pay artificially reduced prices now while saddling the next generation with the debt of our selfishness. Pay now or they pay later.
epistasis 2y ago
The infrastructure is being built right now. It's there and growing. Flooding our system with fossil fuels is not going to lower prices, we are already an energy exporter. China built them both at the same time, and so should we. Enough delaying with BS excuses, we need to get out of the way of building the infrastructure by saying "there's not enough infrastructure".
- nemo44x 2y ago
  Here’s a piece of reality to show you how far away we are. There are 10s of millions of homes in the USA with < 100 amps and in many cases < 75 or 50 amps of service. The transformers that route this power into these homes are often 40+ years old. In order to discontinue gas (many still run on oil!) these homes need service upgrades. If every electrician in the country was dedicated to this task it would take over 30 years to do. There are a lot of problems like this. The scale of the infrastructure is massive. I’m not saying it can’t be done or shouldn’t be done. In fact it is getting done. But it’s at least 40-50 years away. In the meantime it makes sense to make energy inputs as cheap as possible.
  - epistasis 2y ago
    Oh come on, the free market is far more creative than that. You have a view of a part of the country with high winter energy needs and are basing the entire transition on that. If we were to get out of the way and let innovation rip, these things would get solved soooo quickly. The problem is that HVAC and grid folks are not used to adopting new tech and tend to be about 20-30 years behind what's available. We have had a massive, multi-year shortage of transformers in this country because the entire industry is so conservative that nobody on the supply side is willing to build out a tiny bit extra of capacity, and nobody on the buy side is willing to guarantee their demand enough to make the supply side invest in capacity. Just a bunch of absolute cowards in the industry. So please don't be so condescending about how far away from reality I am when you are not even giving me an accurate view of the situation. You're also treating it as an "all or nothing" when all of it is incremental. When EVs are in everybody's home, they suddenly have 50+ kWh of storage when they are home, which solves all sorts of other problems.

chneu 2y ago

Fossil fuels carry an environmental debt that you won't be repaying. Perpetuating the use of fossil fuels is basically saying "fuck you" to the next generation. Same goes for beef consumption, plastic consumption, etc. We pay artificially reduced prices now while saddling the next generation with the debt of our selfishness. Pay now or they pay later.

epistasis 2y ago

The infrastructure is being built right now. It's there and growing. Flooding our system with fossil fuels is not going to lower prices, we are already an energy exporter. China built them both at the same time, and so should we. Enough delaying with BS excuses, we need to get out of the way of building the infrastructure by saying "there's not enough infrastructure".

nemo44x 2y ago
Here’s a piece of reality to show you how far away we are. There are 10s of millions of homes in the USA with < 100 amps and in many cases < 75 or 50 amps of service. The transformers that route this power into these homes are often 40+ years old. In order to discontinue gas (many still run on oil!) these homes need service upgrades. If every electrician in the country was dedicated to this task it would take over 30 years to do. There are a lot of problems like this. The scale of the infrastructure is massive. I’m not saying it can’t be done or shouldn’t be done. In fact it is getting done. But it’s at least 40-50 years away. In the meantime it makes sense to make energy inputs as cheap as possible.
- epistasis 2y ago
  Oh come on, the free market is far more creative than that. You have a view of a part of the country with high winter energy needs and are basing the entire transition on that. If we were to get out of the way and let innovation rip, these things would get solved soooo quickly. The problem is that HVAC and grid folks are not used to adopting new tech and tend to be about 20-30 years behind what's available. We have had a massive, multi-year shortage of transformers in this country because the entire industry is so conservative that nobody on the supply side is willing to build out a tiny bit extra of capacity, and nobody on the buy side is willing to guarantee their demand enough to make the supply side invest in capacity. Just a bunch of absolute cowards in the industry. So please don't be so condescending about how far away from reality I am when you are not even giving me an accurate view of the situation. You're also treating it as an "all or nothing" when all of it is incremental. When EVs are in everybody's home, they suddenly have 50+ kWh of storage when they are home, which solves all sorts of other problems.