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Comment by Ekaros | Hacker News Reader

And all that means drastically lowering our standards of living and forwarding much of our economic output towards it. Not very palatable choice.

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How is a heat pump and an electric car a lower standard of living than heating with oil and burning gasoline in a car?

Is that really enough? To truly reach levels where we spend efforts of capturing carbon means forgoing electric cars for private transport. And heat pumps true, valid choice. In much much denser accommodations.

To reach carbon neutrality you essentially have to decarbonize transportation, heating and cooling, industry, agriculture, and electricity. Electric vehicles don't lower quality of live, heat pumps don't lower quality of life either. Changes in how we power industry and agriculture also don't change quality of life. Electricity is the same no matter how it's produced. Once we reached this state we can start worrying about capturing excess carbon.

So the only argument for "this will lower quality of life" is that things might become more expensive. But renewable energy in fairly cheap, so I'm not convinced that on average quality of life will suffer. Some things will get more expensive, others will get cheaper.

They will become more expensive. I have no idea how much, but my initial guess is too much. At least for those already struggling. The rich might manage it, but for poor it might be too much to ask for.

What is your reason for believing this? Renewable power is not that expensive. The expensive part is replacing all the power plants the we already paid for.

Taxing the rich is also a wonderful solution to inequality.

> carbon neutrality you essentially have to decarbonize transportation, heating and cooling, industry, agriculture, and electricity.

You're missing one of the biggest contributors: construction. Cement and steel are both huge sources of carbon emissions. There are potential solutions to this, but it's another very difficult area to transition.

I kinda counted them under "industry", but you're right that it might make sense to have them separate. Steel is a smaller problem than cement though, since steel can be made with hydrogen, you only need a little carbon.

Indeed. Cement is a big problem. In the meantime, we can do the things we know how while we figure out what do we do with cement.

For denser condos, gas water heating is easier choice because heat pump warmer equipment is bigger.

Most people can't afford those options

The promise has always been that electric cars will get cheaper once we're through the early adopters. I'm a little nervous about long-term battery life, but I guess we'll see.

They aren't that much more expensive when new. Someone who buys a 10 year old car will buy an electric one 15 years from now.

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