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All poverty is energy poverty

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Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#101

Post by izend »

photochemsyn wrote: post #2

On this: > "There's probably about 3 million households in Rwanda, and a vanishingly small number have a fridge. A refrigerator uses about 2 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of energy per day, so if we were able to get one into every household, that would add about 2 billion kWh (2 terawatt-hours, or tWh) to Rwanda's annual energy usage. That's about as much energy as there is contained in 1 million barrels of oil — and fully on…

For a 2.5 kW solar system would cost somewhere around $2-5K USD and the 5kWH battery would also cost $2-5K USD. I don’t think the average Rwanda citizen has $5-10K available to install just enough power to run their fridge.

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#102

Post by verisimi »

Well, let's remove taxes on oil, etc! Let's stop putting governmental barriers in place such as when recently Canada refused permission to build natural gas plants. Governance needs to step out of the way, and let the free market do what it needs to!

(for the avoidance of doubt, not being sarcastic)

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#103

Post by ohgodplsno »

bequanna wrote: post #89
space_fountain wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author seems to advocate for renewables and while we have plenty of energy available capturing it still needs work done. Some of the energy we could use now needs to go mining an manufacturing then we need physically build the infrastructure. The author is saying we should do all those things, that they need done, that the total amount of energy humanity uses should grow not shrink

> The author is saying we should do all those things, that they need done, that the total amount of energy humanity uses should grow not shrink Well...yea. It's unbelievably naive how some believe humanity should somehow start using _less_ energy. If they actually got their way, we would see a recession/depression that would be the most painful of our lifetime. We should be focused on raising the standard of living f…

As it stands, we do not have the ability to both raise living standards and solve climate change. We just are using too many resources for it to be sustainable. Having all of India's population reaching a European level of CO2 expenditure (about 4 tons / person / year) kills us. And renewables would only account for a very small reduction of that.

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#104

Post by WalterBright »

oulipo wrote: post #70

I would claim that poverty also comes from impoverished ecosystems, and lack of civil rights, so it's really wealth = access to energy + clean environment + civil rights

I'd say more human rights than civil rights. Human rights are the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#105

Post by bequanna »

danhor wrote: post #94
bequanna wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See Europe now for an example of how over-reliance on intermittent generation with no storage yields incredible energy instability. Who wants a grid where your refrigerator can't run when the wind isn't blowing or the sun isn't shining?

That's not the case? The big issue in europe is that electricity is expensive, not unreliable. With more renewables the current price spikes in fossil energy wouldn't hurt so much (or, admittedly, more local production capability of fossil energy).

You sure about that?

You can't replace base load with intermittent generation sources and expect fewer price spikes.

Ya'll better get busy building those nuke plants like NOW.

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#106

Post by trasz »

golemotron wrote: post #69
PeterisP wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're on track on a big part of Europe being energy-restricted this winter, so at least right now there's not an abundance of energy even for the current needs of the first world, much less for those who cannot pay much and would need not the same amount but growth. In the long term many things are possible, but right now we don't have enough energy, and "if we deployed new renewables" is not an argument - we already…

> We're on track on a big part of Europe being energy-restricted this winter, so at least right now there's not an abundance of energy even for the current needs of the first world That's self-inflected and the result of poor choices. In a just world, Merkel would get more blame for cozying up to Russia, and the rest of Europe would as well for choosing austerity. As world events have shown, austerity is not robust i…

Another way to fix the problem would be to help Ukraine a bit more and forcibly take the gas from Russia as reparations. At this point it’s obvious their military was all bluff.

This doesn’t even change the final outcome, it just speeds it up - USA won’t allow Russia to become China’s asset, and there aren’t that many options to guarantee that.

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#107

Post by pxmpxm »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #88
Ozzie_osman wrote: post #15

Interesting to see the comment thread digging into all sorts of criticism of the article (is it 2 kWh / fridge? Or 1.1? Should the author discuss renewable earlier or more seriously?) The main point I got from the article was a helpful reminder that a large part of the world doesn't have basic things that I take for granted (not just refrigeration, but you might also include air conditioning, transportation, etc). An…

We do have the energy. The US spends enough energy on transportation that the entire world could have refrigeration. The US spends 28% of total energy consumption on transportation. 93.33 Quadrillion BTUs x .28 / 3142 (BTUs per kWh) / 365 (days per year) = 22.8B kWh per day. BEV vehicles are 5x more efficient than ICE vehicles. We could have the same standard of living and just not use gas-powered vehicles and save ~…

There is about no way what you wrote can possibly be true; with 5x efficiency gain we wouldn't need a mountain of EV subsidies to get companies to manufacture them and people to buy them.

If there was a net energy gain going to EV, the adoption rates would be through the roof rather than ~1% we are seeing currently.

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#109

Post by issa »

burlesona wrote: post #29
Ozzie_osman wrote: post #15

Interesting to see the comment thread digging into all sorts of criticism of the article (is it 2 kWh / fridge? Or 1.1? Should the author discuss renewable earlier or more seriously?) The main point I got from the article was a helpful reminder that a large part of the world doesn't have basic things that I take for granted (not just refrigeration, but you might also include air conditioning, transportation, etc). An…

One thing I’ve learned over time is that it’s just really, really difficult for most people (including me!) to reason about things that they haven’t directly experienced. Even harder to have empathy. So it’s very hard to engage with an argument or discussion that’s about the world as a whole, because all of us have such difficulty properly weighting and evaluating the things we have no experience with (which by defin…

My father grew up in a small village in western Africa. Visiting there as a child, with no running water or electricity, was such an impactful experience for me. It is very hard to imagine if you haven't experienced it, but it is certainly possible.

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#110

Post by WalterBright »

photochemsyn wrote: post #2

On this: > "There's probably about 3 million households in Rwanda, and a vanishingly small number have a fridge. A refrigerator uses about 2 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of energy per day, so if we were able to get one into every household, that would add about 2 billion kWh (2 terawatt-hours, or tWh) to Rwanda's annual energy usage. That's about as much energy as there is contained in 1 million barrels of oil — and fully on…

> As you probably want to run the refrigerator at night

My experience with power failures is that the refrigerator will keep the food cold enough overnight if you don't open the door.

Even so, the refrigerator could make ice during the day and be an ice chest at night. No need at all for a battery.

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