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All poverty is energy poverty

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Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#171

Post by gambiting »

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…

The most interesting statistic I've heard recently is that the United States uses more energy just for its AC than the entire African continent does for literally everything combined.

The gap is incredible.

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#172

Post by beefman »

_vdpp wrote: post #10

I’ve long suspected that currencies are really just units of measurement convertible to the joule (or calorie).

There's excellent theoretical and empirical support for this idea

How persistent is civilization growth? (2011) https://arxiv.org/abs/1101.5635

Can we predict long-run economic growth? (2012) https://arxiv.org/abs/1211.3102

Modes of growth in dynamic systems (2012) https://doi.org/10.1098/rspa.2012.0039

Thermodynamics of long-run economic innovation and growth (2013) https://arxiv.org/abs/1306.3554

Long-run evolution of the global economy: 1. Physical basis (2014) https://doi.org/10.1002/2013EF000171

Long-run evolution of the global economy: 2. Hindcasts of innovation and growth (2015) https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-6-673-2015

Global wealth n years after 1801 (2015) https://twitter.com/clumma/status/593890418028253185

See also:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoeconomics

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1441993975

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#174

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

WalterBright wrote: post #152
CraigJPerry wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> A much more realistic figure is 2x That sounds well off. How much energy is required to refine fuel suitable for use in an ICE vehicle? Gas and oil fired power plants use a far less refined fuel. How much energy is required to get the fuel to the vehicle? Gas and oil plants are usually connected via high efficiency transport mechanisms like pipelines rather than ships or road transport. Vehicle engines are only in…

See my other reply.

What other reply? You talk about refining. There's 10% lost in refining. X% lost in extraction and Y% lost in transmission (shipping, pipes, etc).

Solar => Grid => Car Battery is less than 10% lost usually. Obviously it can vary a lot - so can oil extraction, shipping and refining...

This means Solar => Grid => Car battery is >5x as efficient as Oil in ground => Pipes => Refinery => Pipes => Gas Station => Car.

Once the energy is in the car, we know the BEV is 5x more efficient.

We also know Solar => Car is SUBSTANTIALLY more efficient at transferring BTUs into the car than the gasoline infrastructure.

In reality, it's probably closer to 10x as efficient than 2x.

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#175

Post by the_gipsy »

> the renewables we currently have will hit a ceiling. Every square meter of land with a solar panel on it is a spot that can't be agriculture, housing, forest, or wetland. There are only so many places you can put a windmill, and only so many rivers to dam.

Is this true? I have never seen this argument against renewables, is there any math? I can't imagine running out of space, with panels on roofs and windmills between fields.

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#176

Post by superkuh »

geysersam wrote: post #64

This is not a good take. Look at Iraq or Venezuela. No lack of energy, but plenty of poverty nonetheless.

If a country in a temperate climate has valuble natural resources to drive it's economy and doesn't depend on mass skilled labor then governments that don't care about citizens are more easily established and last longer. The number of interest groups that any leader has to keep satisfied to stay in power is much smaller.

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#177

Post by kwhitefoot »

westurner wrote: post #116

"The Limits to Growth" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth Carrying capacity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrying_capacity > The carrying capacity of an environment is the maximum population size of a biological species that can be sustained by that specific environment, given the food, habitat, water, and other resources available. The carrying capacity is defined as the environment's maximal load,…

100°C will sterilise water but it won't purify it if there are inorganic pollutants in it.

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#178

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

mellavora wrote: post #68
coldtea wrote: post #22

Not really. A lot of poverty is societal poverty (of order, collaboration, help, education, distribution, and so on) and is worse, even all other things (like relative cost of energy to average salary) being equal. You can be a slum-living destitute poor in a country even though you have financial access personally to several times the energy expenditure of someone in another country (or area of same country) with a…

Thank you. I was going to make the same post. I'm a huge fan of all of the mod-cons, but for most of human history people lived with pre-industrial-revolution levels of tech. And we still had rich and poor. Poverty is when you don't have a good place in society, lack of respect by your fellows, and no security for your physical safety or property.

I think this misses the point of the article. Yes, the world has had, and will always have, rich and poor. But to raise the poor up, what you fundamentally need is more energy.

I think this article also does a good job in emphasizing country-level poverty is what's really important to think about. That is, in the US, since we already have the infrastructure of a rich country, even poor people can afford safe food and refrigeration (but even then it's not evenly distributed, e.g. much has been written about "food deserts" in the US).

But, in say, Nigeria, they are so undersupplied with refrigeration trucks that making it possible for the poor to get reliable access to safe food would take a massive investment, which would mean a lot more energy.

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#179

Post by bottlepalm »

xyzzyz wrote: post #65
bottlepalm wrote: post #17

In order to build systems to extract and use energy requires an educated society - that is the root deficiency. And it’s a lot more than just dropping books from airplanes.

18th and 19th century Brits who first built these systems were not very educated by our standards. Many of them, in fact, were uneducated tinkerers.

That time period in Britain didn't just see big advancements in industrialization, but in engineering, medicine, finance, and legal systems. You have to see the difference between individuals and the the society itself.

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#180

Post by ohgodplsno »

bequanna wrote: post #120
ohgodplsno wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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 This is defeatist bullshit. No one is arguing that the whole world needs to immediately live exactly like the richest citizens. Your attitude really disappoints and actually enrages me. Luckily, I can take comfort in knowing how counter to human nature it is…

Thankfully, I don't really give a crap about your opinion of me, but thanks for the info.

I am not calling for declining standards of living, or saying that, fuck it, let poor people be poor. I'm the first person to push for more nuclear power plants, more renewables. Simply reminding people that the whole technobabble bullshit about how new things are going to save us is wrong. We're not going to save ourselves. We're going to raise our standards of living, and kill ourselves in the process. Good luck with your human nature.

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