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I wonder how much households can really save here. Most "luxury" items using electricity don't really use much e.g. a modern laptop or modern smartphone. The st
by asdff 1y ago
I wonder how much households can really save here. Most "luxury" items using electricity don't really use much e.g. a modern laptop or modern smartphone. The stuff that does use a lot of electricity are things like your AC unit or your electric heater and electric stove. Seems there is little wiggle room there to me, people might end up just getting saddled with higher bills especially if slightly more efficient home appliances are out of reach (or not purchased by the renter at all). And for people who might get strongly affected out of their budget by these things for lack of income there are usually subsidies to help pay for their energy usage, which might further stymie market forces from changing behavior. Seems most high energy use consumers are high enough income where they won't be much affected by increased power costs like how we see them unaffected by water restrictions and higher fees for high water usage already.
Maybe that says the fees aren't yet high enough for high income people to change behavior, but I'm willing to bet they never truly will be due to the influence this subset of the population holds over politics.
- _aavaa_ 1y agoSome of these would benefit from changes (e.g. electric heating -> heat pump). Others would be better off with other changes. E.g. too much cooling? Consider better awnings, stronger blinds, or even IR rejecting films. As for the stove, how much it uses is directly related to the kind of cooking you do, and for how long.
- wmf 1y agoIt's not about households anyway, it's about transportation and industrial usage. Larger companies have enough scale that they can afford to invest in efficiency.
- bee_rider 1y agoCarbon taxes could be phased in over time, to give people a chance to make that decision over the course of natural appliances update lifecycles. Even if rich people don’t consume much more energy than poor people (I have no idea, just engaging with your idea as stated), they must be buying something with their money… carbon taxes should raise the price of goods with lots of embodied carbon. If they aren’t consuming much energy and am they aren’t buying stuff with much embodied carbon… I dunno, I guess that’s the goal, right?
- ZeroGravitas 1y agoAll the big wins at a household level involve electrification (EV, heat pumps, induction stoves) so involve using more electricity and less fossil fuel.