Comment by meat_machine | Hacker News Reader

Comment by meat_machine | Hacker News Reader

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In economics there's supposedly something called "induced demand" that also applies to a lot of human behavior in general. Basically, give more resources and capacity to someone, and they'll just fill the space, and not necessarily more efficiently.

AI-assisted answer:

Busy roads, so we build more roads, right? Except no, it just makes more traffic.

Give more time for people to complete a project, and they'll still just end up with a crunch time at the end anyways. "Work expands to fill the time available."

People make more money, then they just spend more money. Buy a bigger house, and it gets filled with more dubious value stuff (conversely, move into a smaller home and realize how much pointless junk you bought) "lifestyle inflation" or "consumption smoothing"

Project behind schedule? Throw more money and people at it, right? But does it help much?

A lot of modern software is arguably suffering from major inefficiency bloat, both in file size and hardware requirements.

So it's probably not quite as "obvious" of a solution to just build more power -- there has to be some incentives to encourage efficient usage instead of just throwing more resources at a problem, otherwise it encourages a long-term build-up of inefficiency.

Here's the other side of that, which is equally as somewhat counter-intuitive:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand#Reduced_demand_...

There's also the matter of the potential inefficiencies of a plant that produces way more than is actually being produced, in which case it's a very expensive waste -- afaik most power plants can't just dial up/down their output to a large degree. Then there are environmental, social, and civic problems, which I guess are easier to bulldoze over in countries that might give less consideration to its citizens. I'm sure there are plenty of other considerations, which you can probably get a good critique on from your favorite AI service.

This assumes we've already achieved, or can achieve through efficiency gains that can be developed faster than generating capacity can be built, an optimal amount and cost for electricity. I'd like to see anyone argue that.

If electricity were more abundant and cheaper we could achieve some incredible things that would drastically improve everyone's lives.

If you're concerned about CO2 then cheap carbon free energy can pull it out of the air or recycle chemical compounds that can. Same for steel and concrete production which are big carbon producers, cheap electricity means no more coal burning to melt steel or produce cement. If it's cheap enough then the price of those commodities would drop making construction less expensive and stainless steel an even better replacement for many plastic products.

Concerned about agricultural pollution, land use, water use or cost of food? Cheap power means cheap glass, aluminum, lighting and heating allowing for expanded use of very large greenhouses to grow commercial crops with near zero wasted water and fertilizer while massively increasing yields by removing seasonal limits, supplementing daylight hours and drastically reducing the need for pesticides and herbicides and they could be built almost anywhere.

The largest cost of desalinization is energy, drive the cost down and anywhere with a coastline has an infinite supply of water for people, industry and agriculture.

The list goes on but even things that now would seem excessively wasteful like using embedded nichrome wire or hydronic pipes or even plain radiant heat to melt ice and snow on roads and sidewalks could have huge benefits by reducing injuries, car accidents, and just generally improving quality of life for everyone in cold climates. Similarly, AC could be even more widely employed than it is now. No one would have to risk their health due to concerns about the electricity bill.

Everything uses electricity or heat produced by fossil fuels in some way. Manufacturing obviously but also construction materials like wood which must be dried in kilns or fresh food that is transported in refrigerated trailers and stored in climate controlled warehouses and supermarket freezers. Everything would be less expensive and that would mean everyone would be richer for it both in cash and in the availability of those goods.

Life without or with too little electricity is miserable, cold, exhausting and dangerous. You might feel comfortable with what you have now but there are many people who do not have access to that comfort or even to the basics. We would all be better off with more.

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