From their 'what not to do' section:
> Argue about what led up to this energy situation. Yes, Germany shut down nuclear plants; yes, green energy targets pushed the USA and others to reduce domestic oil and coal production.
If you actually want to do something to help, how about following the "Electrify everything in your house guide":
Maybe someday when we can generate 100% of what we need from renewable sources - but we aren't even close to being there yet, and in the meantime, people still need energy.
Furthermore, if you live in a country where electricity produces very low amounts of carbon ( like France or the Nordics), it already makes sense.
IMO, money and effort would be much better spent modernizing and insulating homes and replacing really old appliances (including furnaces and boilers) and thus reducing the overall demand for energy - regardless of the source of the fuel. Reducing the need is hard to argue with - changing where it comes from - when very little comes from renewables doesn't even move the needle.
Yes.
The precise details will vary by location, but for example this was a very common argument used against EVs, they're just coal powered cars! So the Union of Concerned Scientists did reports on exactly how bad an EV in specific locations would be, and even in highly coal dependant areas, it was still better, today, and would only get better as the grid gets greener.
https://blog.ucsusa.org/dave-reichmuth/are-electric-vehicles...
Lots of people seem unaware that heat pumps are about 4x the efficiency of even modern gas heaters, so just burning the gas in electricity generators would be enough for us to cut out all Russian imports and more.
You are right that insulation, and efficiency are important (e.g. it makes sense to insulate your house properly when planning a heat pump install, and the oldest and least efficient boilers should be targetted first for upgrade) that was part of my point, see the link to the Energy Saving Trust who have in depth details on exactly which things help the most and cost the least, and look up your local equivalent.
Increasing demand for electricity is absolutely essential to convince politicians to back the scale up of the grid that will be needed as more people have electric cars and home heating systems.
Buying electric everything today creates demand that forces the hand of people debating installing new natural gas infrastructure that will be used for 80 years, or finally saying that it isn't worth it because a high percentage of people switched to electric and we can't justify the cost anymore for a few holdouts on gas, we just force the last few to switch to electric at that point.
All that being said, today people are dying, and Europe is afraid to do much about it because everyone has been increasing natural gas use to offset coal, it was a cheap solution to part of the problem.
We might not agree that resisting Russian expansionism is an important short term objective, but I believe we need to start acting like Russia rewrote the world order a few days ago and we can either fight that or roll over.
If anything, your comment sounds like a Russian troll by derailing and deflecting the conversation off topic
Because they know people won't like that message. Whereas, buy an EV or an induction hub, or underfloor heating with a heat pump, insulate your home and your life will get better at the same time as fighting climate change and fossil-fueled dictactorships?
I'm happy to take suggestions on edits for the website.
I do support green energy targets, but I believe this situation proves the world did some math wrong. Russia is much more aggressive than we were willing to accept even a few weeks ago. The west has been increasing its purchasing of Russian gas and oil despite the fact they had annexed Crimea and supported the separatists.
I think we need to talk about what needs to happen in the short term right now. Most of the discussion I am seeing everywhere is people on the right taking shots at Biden and Germany for shutting down domestic production and caring about green energy targets.
Part of what I'm trying to get everyone to realize is that the left and right are on the same side. Conservatives that are taking a second to stop mocking the green energy movement are also shouting "this is why energy independence is national security".
I'm trying to bridge 2 sides of the debate, I think us lefties need to accept that energy independence in any means possible might be more strategically important in the short run.
As I shared recently, most countries will have the equivalent of
https://energysavingtrust.org.uk/energy-at-home/
Which will tell you ways to save money, and keep your house warmer while also reducing fossil fuel usage. Find and disseminate that, the wider knowledge of fossil fuels being an expensive con will do more to destabilize Putin than anything I've read on your page currently.
If you want people to tie it closer to Ukraine, point out that these sites will often tell you how much money you will save by making these choices, get people to donate that money to Ukraine or an organisation that is helping us to move off fossil fuels.
I'm trying to mobilize a wartime effort of massive reductions to increase western soft power. If just 2-5% of the buildings currently being heated in the world could have their thermostats effectively off that would change the calculus that pretty much all of Europe is struggling with. It is the exact reason we were slow to cut off SWIFT, and we are still holding back on anything like a proactive oil or gas embargo from our side.
Those options are totally off the table if we cannot rally widespread support for righting Russian aggression, maybe even going further than lighting up buildings with colors and sending money to a out-manned nation that is under siege.
The "so called green tech" can be theoretically cheap, but it's not really cheap on the market for various reasons, and while can work very well in certain sites can't do the same everywhere. For instance being in French south p.v. is effective, if it became legal here a hyper-small Pelton in the creek can push me toward real self-sufficiency for the MTBF of such system at least, but elsewhere?
In EU most people live in dense cities, no chance for effective and substantial energy improvement of buildings, their are tight and not "well oriented", there is not much room for renewable in general there. People living north if they do not have options for combined hydro+wind do not have much choices either, and they need far more energy to heat for a much bigger time period.
That's JUST to talk about private housing. Now if we also put on the table industry needs and EVs... We can't even with all nuclear, coal, oil, ... combined produce enough electricity for all. Not only: so far lithium tech is good enough for certain appliance BUT is not really recyclable (yes, experiments, startup do exists but they are experiments and startup not well established tech and developed industry at scale) and batteries does not last longer. If only they can last 20 years buying lithium storage, not just as a very expensive home-wide UPS, can be interesting for full autonomy, but that's not the case so far, and even if prices have fallen much in "historical terms" it's still too expensive for its lifespan. Even to stabilize the net it's then not an option, and that's a big problem if we really push renewable. Most people ignore the fact that to keep AC systems alive supply and demand MUST match, at a certain scale demand tend to be constant enough to offer network stability, below and above that it's extremely hard to keep the power on-line.
Long story short: I like much the idea, but I still have to see a fully working implementation for the masses or anything that can scale for industrial needs everywhere. Even at residential, individual home level, the sole practically usable at a certain scale today the balance is not really green: hot water is made with a heat-pump + classic resistance (and that's the best for solar since it's load remain almost flat, no phasing effects) it's not really complex but have a 10 years life expectancy and it's not much recyclable. Solar panels theoretically last longer, BUT practically if evolution continue it's not much interesting keep them more than 10 years, batteries last 5-8 years for EV, perhaps 8-10 for p.v. usage if not much stressed. Again really hard to recycle, mining what's needed for them is not cleaner than digging for oil and so on. Essentially we do not have anything really circular at actual population scale. We can be "long enough and recyclable enough" only for a far smaller population that being smaller can use certain resources on scale at a renewable level. If you do not propose a big genocide... There is no real "solutions", only different paths toward the unknown.