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All poverty is energy poverty

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Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#191

Post by PeterisP »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #149
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…

> especially if look at the market share of renewables in total energy which includes not only electricity but also heating and transportation. You missed my point. If that existing non-renewable energy was used efficiently, like a Germany and UK that used heat pumps for domestic heating powered by the exact same gas they squander now in poorly insulated homes with a COP 1/5th what they otherwise could have, the ener…

I see your point, however, I've seen a lot of local renovation projects for energy efficiency and my conclusion is that while they should be done (because they're cost effective), that is the slow, long-term solution since that effectively requires reconstructing much of the housing stock, which is going to take decades - so that's not a plausible solution for any short term problems, filling the energy gap with more generation is faster.

I think our shared point there is that all these things require years of infrastructure buildup - there is some blame on why earlier it hasn't been done as much as it could be (while it definitely has been done a lot over the last decade!), and a good argument that it must be increased.

But as soon as we're talking about "energy right now" (let's be generous and say within a year or two) then we need rapid solutions, and "becoming energy efficient" is not one of these, that's for a 5-10 year scale even if we're optimistic.

A second point is that effective heating and insulation is a big factor for the relatively northern parts of first world, however, it's not really relevant for the huge "energy poverty" of the third world, where most of the population is in warmer climates. For them, avoiding energy waste is not sufficient, they simply need more energy (much of it "embedded" in consumer goods that they would like to get) to go beyond their current standard of living, which they rightfully consider insufficient.

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#192

Post by abetusk »

This article is exceptional. It may be reductive or even wrong but at least it's trying to quantify these issues and it uses actual data. Not only does this allow for analysis, it also makes it, in theory, falsifiable.

If the article is right and all it takes is around a doubling of the current global energy, at 1.1% population growth and a global annual increase in energy usage of 2.5%, this gives around 50 years before we start producing enough energy to push poverty levels below 1%.

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#193

Post by adrianN »

WalterBright wrote: post #95
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ~…

> BEV vehicles are 5x more efficient than ICE vehicles. I've seen this figure before. It ignores the efficiency of the generation of electric power to charge the EV. A much more realistic figure is 2x.

You can either pump a kWh of oil out of the ground, or you can collect a kWh of solar energy with a PV panel.

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#194

Post by izend »

bluetomcat wrote: post #163
ciconia wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?) Hear hear. The point is, for those of us living in developed countries, is that all wealth is energy wealth. The western way of life is totally dependent on an abundance of cheap energy. When energy runs out, or becomes significantly more expensive, it's game…

> When energy runs out, or becomes significantly more expensive, it's game over for developed countries. Western society is inefficient at a macro level, even though it may seem efficient from the financial perspective of a single company or an individual. People cover huge distances to work. Companies are moving goods, components and people from all over the world. People change jobs (losing focus) and their residen…

Europe has the resources to produce cheap energy they just decided to not exploit it and import their energy from Russia and others.

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#195

Post by klabb3 »

geysersam wrote: post #184
klabb3 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The energy must be spent within the region to count. Those countries export it.

Why do they export it then? Because abundance of energy is not the only kind of poverty there is.

Because of corruption and foreign interference, same as with any other form of asset. I don't see any conflict with the thesis of the article.

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#196

Post by haltingproblem »

Quibble with the numbers all you want, but there is a fundamental truth in this visible to anyone who grew up in the third world amidst poverty.

One of the biggest (hidden) revolution in healthcare for poor rural Indian women is availability of LPG cylinders to replace fossil fuels - wood and cow dung - for cooking. Fossil fuels cause lung deaths [1] due to indoor pollution. The green agenda cuts against it.

The biggest enabler to education is electrification. I vividly remember growing up 20 years ago that only the middle class with electrification could afford to compete in schools as you needed to power light bulbs to study at night. No electrification and reliable supply then you cannot study. The situation is worse in villages with no electrification. Forget computers and internet, this is just about having enough to power a 40 W equivalent light bulb to read a book.

Many times, the agenda of the liberal west seems like class warfare against the poor of the third world: "we will not give up our heated/cooled mansions and our SUVs and our extravagant vacations across the globe but will make energy so expensive that you are crowded out of the market". A British business can afford a 20-50% power bill hike or even go out of business, a third world poor citizen is pushed over the edge into grinding poverty.

[1] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1178622119874314

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#197

Post by jusssi »

jules wrote: post #132
nordsieck wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Energy-efficient refrigerators are available at ~1.1 kwH/day. This reduces the needed energy estimate by about half. There's a number of people experimenting with converting chest freezers to chest fridges using an external thermostat. Apparently, these can be extremely efficient - people are reporting 10-20% of your 1.1kwH/day number. Of course, the typical downsides of a chest freezer apply to a chest fridge - th…

What explains the big difference?

Cold air likes to go down. When you open a fridge door, the cold air pours out at the bottom. When you open a chest, it stays in the chest.

Also, a freezer probably has better insulation than a fridge to begin with, since it's designed to hold bigger temperature differential.

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#198

Post by olivermarks »

rglover wrote: post #142
olivermarks wrote: post #92

I can't help thinking of the 'Milton Friedman' quote 'If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand' expanded out to the giant unelected global bureaucracies some people would appear to want to give permission to run energy supplies.

This is the ultimate truth that, for whatever reason (emotional/egoic as far as I can tell), gets conveniently ignored. Truly sad to see humanity limit/destroy itself over and over when there are perfectly viable options available.

The reality is that politicians and large businesses always want to centralize everyone around their single core to control the market/services etc, whether 'left' or 'right', and their propaganda/pr is always subtly pushing problem/reaction/solution to further those goals...

The panopticon controls enabled by AI & IoT can easily be used to meter/control energy (and separately water) to individuals. This is of huge concern around 'smart meters'

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#199

Post by missedthecue »

geysersam wrote: post #184
klabb3 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The energy must be spent within the region to count. Those countries export it.

Why do they export it then? Because abundance of energy is not the only kind of poverty there is.

In Venezuela's case it's because they don't have refineries that can process their heavy crude. What else would they possibly do other than export it?

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#200

Post by bluetomcat »

izend wrote: post #194
bluetomcat wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When energy runs out, or becomes significantly more expensive, it's game over for developed countries. Western society is inefficient at a macro level, even though it may seem efficient from the financial perspective of a single company or an individual. People cover huge distances to work. Companies are moving goods, components and people from all over the world. People change jobs (losing focus) and their residen…

Europe has the resources to produce cheap energy they just decided to not exploit it and import their energy from Russia and others.

The conflict between Russia and the west is deeply rooted on the hegemony of rampant worldwide liberalism which creates the problems I described. It's a meat grinder which consumes not only excessive energy but people's livelihoods, too. It is certainly not a world I would want my son to live in.
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