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All poverty is energy poverty

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Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#211

Post by lrwilke »

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…

Vaclav Smil has written extensively and extremely well about this subject. His latest "How the World Really Works" goes into great detail regarding the importance of energy (and especially fossil fuel) in everything that keeps things going.

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#212

Post by brnt »

_vdpp wrote: post #10

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

Always thought that currency should equal J/K, the unit of entropy. It's the one thing we 'use up'.

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#213

Post by goatlover »

bluetomcat wrote: post #200
izend wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What's the better alternative?

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#214

Post by bombcar »

bottlepalm wrote: post #185
MrsPeaches wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Access to electricity is a major driver of educational attainment. 1. Access to lighting at night means students can actually do their homework. 2. Access to internet also boosts students attainment. 3. Having access to electricity means you are able to retain the best teachers as they won’t stay for long without all the mod cons. We’re trying solve both problems at the same by teaching kids electronics by building a…

Number 3 is your strongest point, but the bottleneck there is really teachers not energy. On a scale needed to pull a society out of poverty you need not just a massive amount of imported teachers, but collegiate level teachers as well, and for decades.

And if the people educated can leave for better lands, they often will. There aren’t easy ways to prevent that.

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#215

Post by manholio »

WalterBright wrote: post #119
manholio wrote: post #71

All poverty is institutional and societal poverty. People are poor not because of lack of energy, but because the societies they live in lack the inclusive institutions that can create those patterns for energy use, education, healthcare and anything else. When you put those institutions in place, the effect manifests itself as economic growth, energy use, increased education etc., which in turn strengthen those poli…

It's not inclusive institutions, it's the people don't have the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I.e. free markets.

Markets are just an abstraction that's built on strong institutions: property rights, an inclusive justice system that can settle commercial disputes and punish the antisocial, a state that can tax that commercial activity and reinvest the proceeds into infrastructure.

Without those institutions, markets cannot exist, you are just at the whim of a connected competitor, local gang leader, extractive and corrupt government official or unavoidable private monopoly that will fleece everything you create. Therefore you don't waste energy investing and creating for the market, and focus on extracting from someone else.

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#217

Post by pbhjpbhj »

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…

Who had outlawed wind-farms and where? There are offshore installations and I see wind turbines everywhere in the UK.

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#218

Post by avgcorrection »

nine_k wrote: post #145

One of the most insightful quotes I ever found of HN: «The limiting factor for [civilizations] is collective intelligence, not energy. We already have access to far more energy than we could possibly use on earth for any technology that's actually buildable. But we're not using it because we don't have the species IQ to make the right choices.» https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28232083

It all being about IQ is truley the archetypical HN comment.

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#219

Post by selimthegrim »

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,…

https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2021/10/how-to-build-a-low...

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#220

Post by KptMarchewa »

bluetomcat wrote: post #200
izend wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The interesting thing isn't even your assesment of "west", but what values you assign to russia. They are absolutely wrong. It's (for someone, paradoxically) extremely individualistic slave nation with very deep hierarchies of power.
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