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All poverty is energy poverty

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Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#281

Post by II2II »

ptsneves wrote: post #207
bluetomcat wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I guess the world you want your son to live in is one of planned economies and great leaps forward. I for one do not. I would rather that innovation and competitive forces lead into the future of societies. As Stalin used to say: no people no problem.

The options are not as pure as you make it sound. There is a considerable amount of planning in the free market economies. This ranges from developing transportation networks to deciding upon funding for scientific research. Businesses that control a disproportionate amount of the market also make planning decisions to shape the market. When they make the wrong decisions, there are negative consequences. Arguably, that is what we are seeing at the moment with the supply chain problems. The question is how do you ensure that no single actor gains too much control over a segment of the economy? In many cases, the fallback is central planning. For example: one of the greatest reasons for public highway networks was to diminish the role of railway barons. In other words, centrally planned infrastructure supported a less centralized economy.

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#282

Post by trasz »

arunnanda wrote: post #259
trasz wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Of course not - it’s Russia who invaded the West. It would be merely a defense and peacekeeping.

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#283

Post by nine_k »

avgcorrection wrote: post #264
nine_k wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

If we were smarter we would just exploit each other/“the Earth” harder because we use our intelligence for selfish and short-term gain. So yes we lack kindness to put it mildly.

The whole problem is exactly selfish short-term gain that eclipses longer-term common gain. Lack of understanding it, and lack of the ability to create a social system that works better towards it, to my mind, is directly related to our (limited) intelligence as a species.

Lack of kindness does play a serious role, can't disagree.

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#284

Post by inciampati »

contravariant wrote: post #16
bowsamic wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you read Marx?

Kind of interesting to note that 'work' (as in physical energy) and 'labour' use the same word in German.

And English.

clarification: those words are 100% exact synonyms. (Native speaker, of American at least.)

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#285

Post by mrshadowgoose »

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…

Yes and no. Given a specific definition of "not impoverished", there is a threshold of energy availability below which energy is fundamentally limiting towards achieving that definition.

Above that though, there are other factors, and IMO, there are only two other fundamental ones: cognition (the capacity/time to perceive and manipulate the world by directing energy towards goals) and social capital (society allowing you to direct energy towards your goals, and/or supporting your goals through application of their energy and cognition).

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#286

Post by ZeroGravitas »

bequanna wrote: post #276
mrtksn wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's unbelievably naive how some believe humanity should somehow start using _less_ energy. Nothing naive about it, there are costs associated with production of energy and spending less energy is simply about lowering the associated costs. Europe being big on energy savings and efficiency is now better off compared to what would have had happened if they lost the Russian energy without the achieved efficiencies.

Efficiency is not the same as negative growth. There are actual, real-life proponents of policies that would have us shrink our economies and decrease the standard of living.

Yes, those that would rather subsidize fossil fuels than efficiency and cheap renewables. They're suprisingly prominent and running many major economies.

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#287

Post by joe_the_user »

theptip wrote: post #236
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 an…

Right. Don’t confuse “poor”, ie relative poverty, with absolute levels of wealth ($ per household) and downstream claims about absolute levels of, say, child mortality. In 1800, almost everyone was destitute by current standards, even prosperous merchants. Child mortality rates were appalling. And at the same time, there was a spectrum between relatively rich and poor, and merchants appeared “rich”. The article is so…

In 1800, almost everyone was destitute by current standards, even prosperous merchants.

If you measure wealth by dollars or iPhone access, this tautologically true but it's not a good measure of how life was. A wealthy person had enough food, access to leisure, a large house with luxurious possessions and probably servants. Sure, health care might have been bad and they might have died of various epidemics. Their lives would have been far more appealing than the life of, say, someone working 60 hours per week in a factory (who has some health care but risks on the job injury and is worn down by the stress and routine - even if their cheap Android would have worth a trillion dollar in 1800).

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#288

Post by CraigJPerry »

WalterBright wrote: post #269
CraigJPerry wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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…

> Even if you never used wind, solar, nuclear, hydro, etc. then you’d still be ahead in the BEV case. Yes, but not by much. A coal power plant averages 33% efficiency. Gas is 42%. Source: google > Neither of which have tailpipe emissions in populated areas unlike ICE. CO2 doesn't care where it's emitted. > But we do also use wind, solar, nuclear etc as power sources for BEV. And nowhere near the power needed if every…

>> CO2 doesn't care where it's emitted

Disease rates (e.g. asthma) in the population do though

>> And nowhere near the power needed if everyone switched to EVs

You’re saying that if demand for electricity goes up, it won’t be met? Why?

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#289

Post by WalterBright »

CraigJPerry wrote: post #235
WalterBright wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But only around 30% of the refined fuel’s energy transfers into useful work done with the ICE vehicle. Right. Now factor in the losses in thermodynamic electric power generation to fuel the EV. > We’re still at around 3x more efficient in the BEV vs the ICE. Don't neglect the losses from generating that electricity, which is about 70%.

>> Don't neglect the losses from generating that electricity, which is about 70% What? There’s 70% loss in the process of generating electricity? Where does that occur?

Thermodynamic efficiency. Google says coal electric power generation is 33% efficient.

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#290

Post by cryptonector »

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…

Have you spent much time in an energy-poor country?
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