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All poverty is energy poverty

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Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#361

Post by dredmorbius »

WalterBright wrote: post #110
photochemsyn wrote: post #2

On this: > "There's probably about 3 million households in Rwanda, and a vanishingly small number have a fridge. A refrigerator uses about 2 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of energy per day, so if we were able to get one into every household, that would add about 2 billion kWh (2 terawatt-hours, or tWh) to Rwanda's annual energy usage. That's about as much energy as there is contained in 1 million barrels of oil — and fully on…

> As you probably want to run the refrigerator at night My experience with power failures is that the refrigerator will keep the food cold enough overnight if you don't open the door. Even so, the refrigerator could make ice during the day and be an ice chest at night. No need at all for a battery.

This.

There are numerous heating/cooling applications in which excess capacity at peak capabilities is banked for later use. Thermal energy storage for thermal energy applications is exceedingly efficient as there are no further conversion losses.

Solar power refrigeration which chills an ice block to an arbitrarily low temperature then relies on that to maintain the chilled-compartment temperature during periods of low or no power would be the obvious option.

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#362

Post by dredmorbius »

SilverBirch wrote: post #45
woeh wrote: post #14

> At its core, however, the math here is very simple. In the US, the average person uses 77,000 kWh per year. The average Finn uses only about 58,000 kWh. The Brits, good global citizens, use only about 30,000 kWh on average. Does anyone understand how the article arrives at these figures? I might have missed something, but these numbers seem to me as a lot. According to my energy provider my 2 person household uses…

I think that basically what it's doing is saying "Here's all the energy that Britain consumes, divided by their total population". So sure, your electricity might only be 2100kWh, but did the government resurface a road nearby? Did you think about the fuel burned to transport the food you bought in the supermarket etc.

This.

Similar to measures of mean national income (GDP/population) or other such aggregate measures.

Note that direct consumption is often a small fraction of total consumption, and household measures of consumption of one form of energy (e.g., MWh of annual electrical use) neglect not only the shares of commercial, industrial, and governmental usage, but of other forms such as natural gas and vehicle fuel.

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#363

Post by dredmorbius »

rootbear wrote: post #170

I just sat through a talk at Worldcon by Henry Spencer that addressed some of these issues. He presented the case that to provide the energy we need to address future needs, including raising the standard of living in Third World countries, we’ll need space based solar power.

Any sort of link or title that you can recall or find?

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#364

Post by dredmorbius »

nine_k wrote: post #254
avgcorrection wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Much of it boils down to coordination problems, local optima, game-theoretic outcomes, and the like. Politics, in a broad sense.

These are not solveable through popular rhubrics such as "market mechanisms", as those markets are quite often what have produced the conflicts or underlying frictions in the first place.

The work of William Ophuls has largely been dedicated to describing these problems and attempting to find ways out (as well as pointing out approaches doomed to failure). See especially Ecology and the Politics of Scarcity (1977, 1992) https://www.worldcat.org/title/25026105> and Plato's Revenge (2011) https://www.worldcat.org/title/753684198>.

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#365

Post by hedora »

mcculley wrote: post #90
mcculley wrote: post #20

If we had energy cheap enough for every human to live at the highest current levels of consumption, wouldn’t we have to do something with the waste heat? Radiator fins on space elevators? Or can we send it out into space from the ground?

I am amused by the optimism of these responses. Nobody is concerned that if we end up with cheap nuclear fusion that humanity won’t use a lot more of it? Would humans stop building resorts in deserts?

Deserts are a wonderful place for resorts, assuming it is man made desert (like the Sahara) and infinite energy to desalinate and recycle water in an ecologically sound way.

We just aren't to that point yet.

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#366

Post by dredmorbius »

NavinF wrote: post #40
gizmo686 wrote: post #26

Energy is not sufficient to do stuff. You still need a thing to convert that energy into something useful, and those things cost money as well. Taking refrigeration as an example; using my local home improvement store as an example (which isn't the most representative for the costs applicable to national development, but should be good enough for napkin math): A refrigerator/freezer running at 1.17 KwH/day goes for a…

You ignored inverter, battery, battery replacement, and installation costs. All that has to be amortized along with the interest rate or opportunity cost of tying up your capital. There a lot of refrigerators cheaper than $800 and just about all of them cost more to power than to buy.

The elements ignored in OP only further amplify the point that capital in addition to energy is required.

This makes gizmo686's argument stronger, not weaker.

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#367

Post by imtringued »

6figurelenins wrote: post #298
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…

> wasted resources and duplication This is 19th century zeitgeist. It failed to recognize fulfillment of human needs as an evolutionary process. "Waste and duplication" -- trial and error -- is necessary. You can't design for what you haven't discovered. Here's a picture that always humbles me, representing one infinitesimal aspect of human thriving. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Linux_distributions#/m... > Y…

>Does it involve telling people what constitutes "quality of life?" Why does this "new" political (in fact: economic) philosophy so often devastate so many lives?

No it doesn't. It involves abolishing inflation and unemployment, inequality and endless runaway debt growth while simultaneously increasing wages, lowering the cost of living, discouraging corruption and rewarding long term thinking and human effort.

>Even if you presume to run human civilization as an ant colony (How dare you?), even with honest intentions, centralization is a bad idea

Well, good thing the solution doesn't require more centralisation but rather the opposite, extreme decentralization of power and decision making in the hands of everyone rather than the privileged and special interests groups.

> It lets you pretend you're making informed decisions based on a complete model, and not just running an experiment with global risk.

We've been running the same failed experiment over and over again and it has always resulted in the same predictable outcome. We should instead face reality instead of sticking our heads into the sand.

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#368

Post by hedora »

lossolo wrote: post #346
csense wrote: post #333

If climate change is an existential threat, we should be engineering a rise in gas prices, and cheering when peoples' lifestyles take a hit. If you truly believe climate change is super serious, then logically government ought to put its thumb on the scale to ensure a lot of people get priced out of energy intensive products like air conditioning, leaving their computers on at night, meat, aluminum, and so on. If you…

> we should be engineering a rise in gas prices, and cheering when peoples' lifestyles take a hit. Gas prices are so high right now in EU that my fathers sister is closing her restaurant and letting go her employees. If they go even higher then what you will see is blood on the streets and right wing governments in power, then you can forger about your plans to save the planet. You think we are so slow with fighting…

Hypothetically, assume gas prices doubled again via a tax increase, but the government used the proceeds to give everyone a free heatpump + induction range and built out so much nuclear / solar that electric bills halved.

I'd argue that would be a good outcome. However, it can't happen over night. The frustrating thing is that the necessary technology has been available for 50 years, but the right wing governments you allude to are exactly the reason they haven't been deployed at adequate scale. (Well, them and the anti-nuclear greens.)

Sorry to hear about the restaurant. That really sucks.

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#369

Post by dredmorbius »

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…

Was Man of the Hole poor?

Was that a social poverty?

And if not that specific instance, consider a theoretical lone hermit or tribes (say, the Sentinelese), not subject to any social pressures or constraints, but lacking in the necessities of a thriving life. Or similarly isolated peoples in preindustrial times.

I'll allow that much poverty is socially imposed, particularly since the Industrial Revolution. I balk at the claim that all poverty is.

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#370

Post by dredmorbius »

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.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32731338
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