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> your data imply that wind turbines pay for themselves in ~3 months. No, it doesn't imply that - the data just imply that the energy needed to build the wind

by jsrn 17y ago

> your data imply that wind turbines pay for themselves in ~3 months. No, it doesn't imply that - the data just imply that the energy needed to build the wind turbine is recouped after 3 months. Energy cost to build something != Cost to build something. In the case of the wind turbine, consider: R&D costs, material costs, marketing costs, etc.

ars 17y ago
Not correct. Energy is exactly equal to the cost. Material costs: why does stuff cost? Because it takes energy to make it, and to transport it. R&D, marketing: You have pay someone. Why does he need money? Because he spends it on things that cost energy to make. Follow it all the way down and energy is exactly equal to cost. (Note that energy is not equal to environmental harm, which also needs to take into account pollution, which is not reflected in the cost.)
- jsrn 17y ago
  > Energy is exactly equal to the cost. Ok, what does that mean? In physics, if something is exactly equal to an amount of energy, it has to be measured in the same unit as energy (joule). But cost is measured in dollars (or some other currency). So the above statement makes no sense. > why does stuff cost? Because it takes energy to make it, and to transport it. That is a factor for cost, but not the only factor. > R&D, marketing: You have pay someone. Why does he need money? Because he spends it on things that cost energy to make. By this argument, a product takes more energy to produce if the workers negotiate a better wage - because after work, they spend their extra money on something that costs energy to make. I'm not convinced that this makes sense. Taken to the extreme this would mean: A product made by unpaid volunteers takes far less energy to produce than an equivalent product made by paid workers.
  - ars 17y ago
    Energy is measured in dollars, not just in joules, so yes, energy and cost are equivalent. > That is a factor for cost, but not the only factor. Actually, yes it is. It's the only factor. Name any other factors, and I'll show you how each one actually boils down the to the energy used for it. > By this argument, a product takes more energy to produce if the workers negotiate a better wage - because after work, they spend their extra money on something that costs energy to make. Correct. Real world example: Americans use a lot more energy per capita then Chinese. Americans earn a lot more per hour then Chinese. Check if you like, in every area $/h = energy/capita > A product made by unpaid volunteers takes far less energy to produce than an equivalent product made by paid workers. Also correct. Think of a dorm with lots of volunteers. It costs far less energy to house and feed them than 10 separate houses. Since they have no money, they buy nothing. Since they buy nothing, no one spends energy making things for them. An important note: Just because it uses less energy doesn't mean it's better! A slave uses very little energy, but is obviously bad.
    - ars 17y ago
      If someone has time, perhaps they could take the data from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_energy_consumption_per_capita http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_energy_con... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GNI_(PPP)_per_capita http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GNI_(PPP)_... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomin... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GNI_(nominal)_per_capita http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GNI_(nomin... And see how well they correlate.
    - jsrn 17y ago
      > Check if you like, in every area $/h = energy/capita Even if one does as you do (i.e., measure energy in dollars) I smell a unit mismatch: left side of your "equation": dollars per hour right side of your "equation": dollars per human which would only make sense if you also show that 1 human = 1 hour... perhaps I should stop now. But: > Think of a dorm with lots of volunteers. It costs far less energy to house and feed them than 10 separate houses. yeah, but consider 10 volunteers who live in their own separate houses, eat lots of high caloric food and write a free software program that I use. Cost for me to get the free software program: ca. 0$. Energy used by our 10 independently housed volunteer programmers to create it? I say: Far more than zero. I guess we should just agree to disagree here: I think it makes sense to look at the energy used to produce a product without looking at how much the product costs - the measure "energy yield" for products like wind turbines makes sense in my understanding. Your model says that we don't need an energy yield measure for wind turbines - because energy yield is the same as return on investment.
      - ars 17y ago
        > Even if one does as you do (i.e., measure energy in dollars) I smell a unit mismatch: left side of your "equation": dollars per hour right side of your "equation": dollars per human > which would only make sense if you also show that 1 human = 1 hour... perhaps I should stop now. Come on, I thought you would do that yourself. Fine: capita := person/year person/year * 260(work days/year) * 8(hours/day) = person/hour energy/capita = energy/person/hour $/hour := $/person/hour energy/person/hour = $/person/hour energy = $ Seriously, you could not do that yourself? As to your second paragraph - someone is paying for those people. You are basically shifting the energy cost of your free software program onto the energy cost of whatever they are doing for money. Which is exactly right. People will do _something_ with their free time, and the energy cost of that item, should be, and is 0. Since if they did not do one thing, they would do another. But if they got paid less, they would do less. So whoever pays them is the one responsible for their energy usage. > I think it makes sense to look at the energy used to produce a product without looking at how much the product costs" Except that they are the same thing. Let me shift a question to you: Which energy costs of manufacturing will you include, and which will you exclude? On a previous post you excluded materials and wages. I can sort of understand wages, but why exclude energy cost of materials? > Your model says that we don't need an energy yield measure for wind turbines - because energy yield is the same as return on investment. Correct. You keep coming up with these points that are totally correct. So I think you understand me very well (despite the silly thing about capita and $/hour).
- FooBarWidget 17y ago
  Economics doesn't work like that. By your reasoning, a good programmer who can finish the job in half the time of a bad programmer's, is also 50% cheaper. People are willing to pay $10000 for a flock of Britney Spears's hair. You don't seriously believe that that 10k represents the amount of energy required to make the hair, right?
  - ars 17y ago
    > By your reasoning, a good programmer who can finish the job in half the time of a bad programmer's, is also 50% cheaper. Sorry, I don't understand what you mean. I said energy not time. Perhaps you could clarify. > People are willing to pay $10000 for a flock of Britney Spears's hair. You don't seriously believe that that 10k represents the amount of energy required to make the hair, right? How much energy does Britney Spears use compared to an average person? So yes, that hair cost a lot of energy to make. And if someone stole that hair, then they earned a profit of $10,000, which they will then spend, and consume products/energy equal to $10,000 (which they would not have done if they didn't have that money). Price = cost + profit. Cost is easy to correlate to energy usage. Profit goes in someones pocket, and works just like wages. The more you have, the more you spend, and therefor the more energy you use.
    - FooBarWidget 17y ago
      > Sorry, I don't understand what you mean. I said energy not > time. Perhaps you could clarify. Energy is correlated to time. Powering a computer for 2 hours requires more energy than powering a computer for 1 hour. Ditto for humans. A good programmer can finish the job in 1 week and eat just as much food as the bad programmer in the same amount of time. The programmer needs 2 weeks to get the job done. Therefore, in the time needed for to finish the job, the bad programmer has eaten twice as much food as the good programmer, and has powered on his work station for twice the amount of time. Therefore a good programmer should be twice as cheap as a bad programmer, according to your reasoning. I can guarantee you, good programmers are usually twice as expensive as bad programmers. > How much energy does Britney Spears use compared to an > average person? So yes, that hair cost a lot of energy to > make. Since an average human's hair costs practically nothing, Britney Spears's hair is infinitely more expensive. Therefore, Britney Spears has used infinite more energy to generate her hair. Since human energy comes from food, Britney Spears has eaten an infinite amount of food. Riiiight.
- easp 17y ago
  You are oversimplifying. The cost of energy is an important limit to the cost of materials, but it is far from the only factor.
- easp 17y ago
  You are oversimplifying. The cost of energy is an important limit to the cost of materials, but it is far from the only factor.
- abalashov 17y ago
  AKA the Labour Theory of Value.

by jsrn 17y ago

ars 17y ago

Not correct. Energy is exactly equal to the cost. Material costs: why does stuff cost? Because it takes energy to make it, and to transport it. R&D, marketing: You have pay someone. Why does he need money? Because he spends it on things that cost energy to make. Follow it all the way down and energy is exactly equal to cost. (Note that energy is not equal to environmental harm, which also needs to take into account pollution, which is not reflected in the cost.)

jsrn 17y ago
> Energy is exactly equal to the cost. Ok, what does that mean? In physics, if something is exactly equal to an amount of energy, it has to be measured in the same unit as energy (joule). But cost is measured in dollars (or some other currency). So the above statement makes no sense. > why does stuff cost? Because it takes energy to make it, and to transport it. That is a factor for cost, but not the only factor. > R&D, marketing: You have pay someone. Why does he need money? Because he spends it on things that cost energy to make. By this argument, a product takes more energy to produce if the workers negotiate a better wage - because after work, they spend their extra money on something that costs energy to make. I'm not convinced that this makes sense. Taken to the extreme this would mean: A product made by unpaid volunteers takes far less energy to produce than an equivalent product made by paid workers.
- ars 17y ago
  Energy is measured in dollars, not just in joules, so yes, energy and cost are equivalent. > That is a factor for cost, but not the only factor. Actually, yes it is. It's the only factor. Name any other factors, and I'll show you how each one actually boils down the to the energy used for it. > By this argument, a product takes more energy to produce if the workers negotiate a better wage - because after work, they spend their extra money on something that costs energy to make. Correct. Real world example: Americans use a lot more energy per capita then Chinese. Americans earn a lot more per hour then Chinese. Check if you like, in every area $/h = energy/capita > A product made by unpaid volunteers takes far less energy to produce than an equivalent product made by paid workers. Also correct. Think of a dorm with lots of volunteers. It costs far less energy to house and feed them than 10 separate houses. Since they have no money, they buy nothing. Since they buy nothing, no one spends energy making things for them. An important note: Just because it uses less energy doesn't mean it's better! A slave uses very little energy, but is obviously bad.
  - ars 17y ago
    If someone has time, perhaps they could take the data from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_energy_consumption_per_capita http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_energy_con... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GNI_(PPP)_per_capita http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GNI_(PPP)_... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomin... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GNI_(nominal)_per_capita http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GNI_(nomin... And see how well they correlate.
  - jsrn 17y ago
    > Check if you like, in every area $/h = energy/capita Even if one does as you do (i.e., measure energy in dollars) I smell a unit mismatch: left side of your "equation": dollars per hour right side of your "equation": dollars per human which would only make sense if you also show that 1 human = 1 hour... perhaps I should stop now. But: > Think of a dorm with lots of volunteers. It costs far less energy to house and feed them than 10 separate houses. yeah, but consider 10 volunteers who live in their own separate houses, eat lots of high caloric food and write a free software program that I use. Cost for me to get the free software program: ca. 0$. Energy used by our 10 independently housed volunteer programmers to create it? I say: Far more than zero. I guess we should just agree to disagree here: I think it makes sense to look at the energy used to produce a product without looking at how much the product costs - the measure "energy yield" for products like wind turbines makes sense in my understanding. Your model says that we don't need an energy yield measure for wind turbines - because energy yield is the same as return on investment.
    - ars 17y ago
      > Even if one does as you do (i.e., measure energy in dollars) I smell a unit mismatch: left side of your "equation": dollars per hour right side of your "equation": dollars per human > which would only make sense if you also show that 1 human = 1 hour... perhaps I should stop now. Come on, I thought you would do that yourself. Fine: capita := person/year person/year * 260(work days/year) * 8(hours/day) = person/hour energy/capita = energy/person/hour $/hour := $/person/hour energy/person/hour = $/person/hour energy = $ Seriously, you could not do that yourself? As to your second paragraph - someone is paying for those people. You are basically shifting the energy cost of your free software program onto the energy cost of whatever they are doing for money. Which is exactly right. People will do _something_ with their free time, and the energy cost of that item, should be, and is 0. Since if they did not do one thing, they would do another. But if they got paid less, they would do less. So whoever pays them is the one responsible for their energy usage. > I think it makes sense to look at the energy used to produce a product without looking at how much the product costs" Except that they are the same thing. Let me shift a question to you: Which energy costs of manufacturing will you include, and which will you exclude? On a previous post you excluded materials and wages. I can sort of understand wages, but why exclude energy cost of materials? > Your model says that we don't need an energy yield measure for wind turbines - because energy yield is the same as return on investment. Correct. You keep coming up with these points that are totally correct. So I think you understand me very well (despite the silly thing about capita and $/hour).
FooBarWidget 17y ago
Economics doesn't work like that. By your reasoning, a good programmer who can finish the job in half the time of a bad programmer's, is also 50% cheaper. People are willing to pay $10000 for a flock of Britney Spears's hair. You don't seriously believe that that 10k represents the amount of energy required to make the hair, right?
- ars 17y ago
  > By your reasoning, a good programmer who can finish the job in half the time of a bad programmer's, is also 50% cheaper. Sorry, I don't understand what you mean. I said energy not time. Perhaps you could clarify. > People are willing to pay $10000 for a flock of Britney Spears's hair. You don't seriously believe that that 10k represents the amount of energy required to make the hair, right? How much energy does Britney Spears use compared to an average person? So yes, that hair cost a lot of energy to make. And if someone stole that hair, then they earned a profit of $10,000, which they will then spend, and consume products/energy equal to $10,000 (which they would not have done if they didn't have that money). Price = cost + profit. Cost is easy to correlate to energy usage. Profit goes in someones pocket, and works just like wages. The more you have, the more you spend, and therefor the more energy you use.
  - FooBarWidget 17y ago
    > Sorry, I don't understand what you mean. I said energy not > time. Perhaps you could clarify. Energy is correlated to time. Powering a computer for 2 hours requires more energy than powering a computer for 1 hour. Ditto for humans. A good programmer can finish the job in 1 week and eat just as much food as the bad programmer in the same amount of time. The programmer needs 2 weeks to get the job done. Therefore, in the time needed for to finish the job, the bad programmer has eaten twice as much food as the good programmer, and has powered on his work station for twice the amount of time. Therefore a good programmer should be twice as cheap as a bad programmer, according to your reasoning. I can guarantee you, good programmers are usually twice as expensive as bad programmers. > How much energy does Britney Spears use compared to an > average person? So yes, that hair cost a lot of energy to > make. Since an average human's hair costs practically nothing, Britney Spears's hair is infinitely more expensive. Therefore, Britney Spears has used infinite more energy to generate her hair. Since human energy comes from food, Britney Spears has eaten an infinite amount of food. Riiiight.
easp 17y ago
You are oversimplifying. The cost of energy is an important limit to the cost of materials, but it is far from the only factor.
easp 17y ago
You are oversimplifying. The cost of energy is an important limit to the cost of materials, but it is far from the only factor.
abalashov 17y ago
AKA the Labour Theory of Value.