Comment by oceanplexian | Hacker News Reader

Comment by oceanplexian | Hacker News Reader

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I'm not against energy efficiency, however, conservation is fundamentally the wrong approach. What is the future going to look like?

- Earth will have another 10,20,30 Billion people living on it

- These people, if we don't screw up and start another war, will want a house, air conditioning, a car, air travel, lots of kids, and more

- Human will inhabit more parts of the Earth that are uninhabitable (Antarctica, Siberia, Canada, Australia), which will require an order of magnitude increase in energy for heating/cooling

- Industry and manufacturing will need to provide for the leisure spending of billions of additional humans (iPhones, Televisions, etc)

- New technologies will require orders of magnitude more energy, such as flying cars, space travel, etc.

The solution to these things isn't to crawl in a hole and try to shave a few % efficiencies out of a washing machine or a pickup truck. Energy isn't a limited resource. It's one of the most abundant things in the universe. With today's technology (Nuclear Fission and one day, Fusion) you could make energy more cheaply and abundantly than the air we breathe.

People should expect to behave as if energy is free. And energy should be free. The problem is that society at large (and NIMBYs and Anti-Nuclear activists) don't have any imagination and therefore set back our civilization and post-scarcity society 50-100 years.

Earth will have another 10,20,30 Billion people living on it

Luckily, we're looking at a very real possibility that we peak at 9 billion and then start to shrink from there. Which creates a whole host of other social issues, but at least gross overpopulation isn't one of them.

Sudden population shifts are really bad for stability.

It's not sudden.

The shifts in the average age and ratio of workers to retirees in Japan and America are absolutely sudden on societal level. 10-20 years is very long for an individual, but it's lightning quick otherwise.

That's at least a 30-40 year trend that everyone who studies demographics was aware of, not a 10 or 20 year trend that suddenly came out of nowhere. Japan's population stopped increasing meaningfully 30 years ago. There's no surprise or sudden jolt to their population declining over the coming decades. They'll have had a half century warning on the problem by the time meaningful decline sets in.

As a recent example, by the time China's population begins flat-lining on growth and or declining in an estimated six years or so at the current trend, we'll have known for 35-40 years that China was set to age rapidly.

30-40 years is sudden for societies. Just because individuals can predict in advance doesn’t mean that the society at large will successfully absorb the enormity of a change and then adapt to it. Hence, sudden.

For what it’s worth I think we’re still dealing with the destabilizing shock of the baby boomers outnumbering other generations, and have been dealing with that since the late 1960s.

> - Earth will have another 10,20,30 Billion people living on it

Unlikely.

> - These people, ... lots of kids, and more

Also unlikely.

> - Human will inhabit more parts of the Earth that are uninhabitable

Unlikely

> spending of billions of additional humans (iPhones, Televisions, etc)

Unlikely

> - New technologies will require orders of magnitude more energy, such as flying cars, space travel, etc.

Yes, likely.

World population is set to decrease. Birth rates in the US, UK, Japan, South Korea, China are all below replacement. This seems to be a general trend that happens when countries reach a certain level of development.

I think most models should show world population peaking, and then declining.

I agree that nuclear is probably our best bet. The high profile screw ups (like Fukushima) are annoying and decrease public trust. But we need to get better at creating/regulating safe nuclear solutions.

You underestimate how much efficiency we've gained. Have you looked up what old fridges used to use? Or compared a 56% AFUE furnace against a 96% unit? Trucks used to get like 6-8mpg, now some get 30mpg.

Not sure if you realize it — using more energy means releasing more of it as heat into the environment. You are literally heating the planet. So even if your energy is produced cleanly (say, nuclear), you still don't want to use crazy amounts of it.

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