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All poverty is energy poverty

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Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#401

Post by snapplebobapple »

neilwilson wrote: post #400

"Every time money changes hands, GDP goes up. And every time money changes hands, that's usually becomes someone is doing something. As we've seen, that takes energy. So it shouldn't come as a surprise that GDP and energy are highly correlated." Which is where economics goes wrong. The working units are incorrect. You'll note that economics likes to use currency as its working denomination, when the actual underlying…

You are giving way too much credit to moving money = doing stuff as the cause of failure of macro economics. There's so much wrong with macro. Check out Steve Keens' The New Econmics: A manifesto for some of the major things wrong with macro.

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#402

Post by jokoon »

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…

That's what carbon pricing is about. Of course it must be high enough.

But at least carbon pricing allows us to visualize the problem.

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#403

Post by snovv_crash »

generalizations wrote: post #121
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.

Or, more likely, Europe capitulates some time this winter and part of Ukraine goes to Russia. It seems pretty likely that Russia is betting they can survive sanctions longer than Europe can survive without gas. They don't have to actually win in Ukraine; they just have to insert chaos long enough for Europe to freeze.

There is plenty of gas in Europe, it is just mostly used for industrial purposes not residential heating. Somehow people assume that houses will go cold before factories will slow production.

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#404

Post by rglullis »

analognoise wrote: post #386
rglullis wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is not in absolute isolation, but trading away some optimization in global economic output for increased self-resiliency. Yes, overall we would be poorer on average, but we would a lot less likely to see catastrophic events and a bit more equity among members of the same community.

"Yes, overall we would be poorer on average" You first.

Already did it, twice. First time by leaving my (relatively rich and comfortable) upper-middle class life in Brazil and moving to the US. Also have absolutely zero regrets about leaving the US and coming to Europe. Salaries are lower, the tax burden is greater and I'm losing the opportunity of "wealth" generation, but the amount of money I left on the table will never be enough to buy the quality of life my family and I have here.

Now, your turn.

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#405

Post by rglullis »

ericd wrote: post #384
rglullis wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First: yes, it is healthier for those living inside the park, compared to the alternative. Second: the point is not to build "a larger scale" version of those societies, but actually to replicate the idea of localism in many different places. Less EU and one-world government and more independent nation-states, if you will. Third: you can oppose the lifestyle and philosophy all you want, but it still is not slavery.

Can it survive against a larger-scale opponent that wants to take its resources, though? Without a friendly superpower enforcing peace with an extraordinarily powerful military, that is.

Switzerland managed to do it for centuries already.

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#406

Post by Arn_Thor »

CompelTechnic wrote: post #323

One thing I find troubling about environmentalism is that the tendency to try to make everything more energy efficient/ optimized for the environment risks throwing the baby out with the bathwater in a few ways: -More expensive energy directly leads to less energy-intensive activity, and a lot of this energy-intensive activity is the sort of activity that helps human flourishing. -A tendency to regulate activity such…

Regulation is short-sighted? You say this in a world that's burning up because no one imposed on emitters the cost of the externalities of those emissions... Now that is short-sighted.

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#407

Post by CraigJPerry »

WalterBright wrote: post #376
CraigJPerry wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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?

Is asthma affected by CO2? > You’re saying that if demand for electricity goes up, it won’t be met? Yes. > Why? Because government does not price things based on supply&demand. Therefore, you get shortages (rolling blackouts).

Tailpipe emissions are far more harmful than only CO2 - which i suspect you know. I’m beginning to think you’re arguing in bad faith here

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#408

Post by CraigJPerry »

WalterBright wrote: post #377
CraigJPerry wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> around 80% from your EV after round trip through a battery I didn't follow this part, there’s an energy loss in the process of charging the battery and there’s a loss in the process of converting from dc battery to ac traction motor, but it’s well shy of 20%. The high amperage involved in both charging and discharging mean losses are low (because if they were high, you’d generate so much heat as to make the system…

It is not a 40-50% process. Coal plants run around 33%.

Power supplied is a blend of coal, oil, gas, nuclear, renewables and some other smaller sources.

40-50% is a conservatively low number.

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#409

Post by the_gipsy »

hedora wrote: post #353
the_gipsy wrote: post #175

> the renewables we currently have will hit a ceiling. Every square meter of land with a solar panel on it is a spot that can't be agriculture, housing, forest, or wetland. There are only so many places you can put a windmill, and only so many rivers to dam. Is this true? I have never seen this argument against renewables, is there any math? I can't imagine running out of space, with panels on roofs and windmills bet…

No, it isn't close to true; there are more than enough roofs and unfarmable plots of land. Anyway, if it were true, fission is clean enough and unlimited enough for all practical purposes. Fusion is even better (in theory).

Thanks, I thought so. The article proposes an interesting relationship between energy and basic humanitarian needs, but takes a sudden sharp turn on renewables and nuclear.

Re: All poverty is energy poverty

#410

Post by dredmorbius »

EdTsft wrote: post #52
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?

"A total of 173,000 terawatts (trillions of watts) of solar energy strikes the Earth continuously. That's more than 10,000 times the world's total energy use." [1] We have a long way to go before humanity's heat output is anywhere rivalling the heat the Sun dumps on us. Most of our power generation (except nuclear) is just repurposing the Sun's energy anyways, delaying its conversion into heat so that we can extract…

Yes and no.

If GDP is as tightly-coupled to energy use as data suggest, and we presume, say, 4% annual growth rate, then we have a slight issue.

10,000 times is just over 13 doubling periods' worth of growth. And 4% annual growth rate means doubling every 13.3 years, roughly.

In which case, humans would cut into that 10,000-fold margin in slightly over 230 years.

Which suggests that there are in fact limits to growth.

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