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All poverty is energy poverty

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Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#251

Post by goodpoint »

ciconia wrote: post #83
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…

> 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…

> The western way of life is totally dependent on an abundance of cheap energy.

Western?! What about cities like Tokyo, Dubai, Beijing, Johannesburg, Singapore?

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#252

Post by nickpp »

bluetomcat wrote: post #250
goatlover wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the better alternative?

A better alternative would be to have localised production and localised consumption of food and most basic goods. Stuff like not having foreign-cuisine restaurants and not buying salmon from thousands of kilometers away. Cloth production should follow the same idea. People should feel more attached to their birthplace and the goal should be to develop their skills locally with one company preferably. Strong bonds wi…

You are describing a world of slaves. How many people are you willing to sacrifice to achieve you vision?

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#253

Post by aidenn0 »

bombcar wrote: post #131
aeternum wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All life is dependent on cheap energy. It's the currency of the universe.

The Warlock series had this as the intergalactic currency - the kwaher or kilowatt/hour.

The one by Stasheff? I didn't remember that detail, but haven't read it in a while.

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#254

Post by nine_k »

avgcorrection wrote: post #218
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.

What's your take on the capacity the deficiency of which prevents us, as a species, from making right choices that are going to improve the well-being of everyone? E.g. from harvesting abundant energy our star rains on our planet, when we already have the technologies to capture it?

Are we lacking kindness? Virtue? Faith? Strength?

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#255

Post by pertymcpert »

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 does liberalism mean in concrete terms and why is it bad?

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#256

Post by aidenn0 »

CraigJPerry wrote: post #240
WalterBright wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solar and wind have so far not been nearly adequate to charge existing EVs, let alone what would be necessary if we all converted to EVs. Given the reluctance to expand nuclear power, we're going to be charging EVs with fossil fuels for a long time.

>> we're going to be charging EVs with fossil fuels for a long time Even if you never used wind, solar, nuclear, hydro, etc. then you’d still be ahead in the BEV case. An oil power plant has around 42% thermal efficiency. A gas one 50%+ an ICE is only up to 35% but in the US it’s significantly lower on average. Neither of which have tailpipe emissions in populated areas unlike ICE. But we do also use wind, solar, nuc…

And you're going to get around 80% from your EV after round trip through a battery. EVs powered by oil power plants is not a good use of energy.

Fortunately, that's not what we are doing. I just wish EV proponents would stop pretending it is.

Is there a term for a self-inflicted straw-man?

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#257

Post by ttarabula »

gambiting wrote: post #171
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.

that's an amazing stat, so I went looking for a primary source - what I found so far was a blurb in this Guardian article that links to another Guardian article: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/oct/26/how-amer...

"US statistics are bracing. A nation with 318 million people accounting for just 4.5% of world population consumes more energy for air conditioning than the rest of the world combined. It uses more electricity for cooling than Africa, population 1.1 billion, uses for everything."

I'd love to see some charts that break this down visually (energy consumption by region/type).

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#258

Post by ZeroGravitas »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #247
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right now, we have enough energy. If every home was insulated and had a heat pump, we'd all be richer. Why havent we done that? Why, when the initial Ukraine invasion in 2014 caused a gas price spike, did Bjorn Lomborg and other climate change deniers write an article very much like this one, in which he advocated against more renewables, and instead said we needed to invest in research to find the real solution. So…

>If every home was insulated and had a heat pump, we'd all be richer. I live in an insulated house and am getting a heat pump, but of course, I can already afford my bills. My saving on my energy bill doesn't redistribute the energy to someone else.

Yes it does?

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#259

Post by arunnanda »

trasz wrote: post #106
golemotron wrote: post #69

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 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.

> forcibly take the gas from Russia

Surely, you're not suggesting invading a nuclear power to seize their natural assets.

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#260

Post by visarga »

MicolashKyoka wrote: post #111

I hope that the advent of better solar energy extraction and automation (things like Tesla's robot) will usher us into an era of abundance. Self-sustaining robot factories would give us the means of almost unlimited labor that we could task with building out all the infrastructure we'd need to lift humanity away from the reaches of nature's tyranny.

I love the idea of self-sustaining AI driven automation. But unless the system is capable of 100% recycling, it needs raw materials. Some of those are going to become contested.
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