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Comment by digdigdag | Hacker News Reader

How about we continue using something more convenient like a standalone dryer and focus our energy usage reduction on the largest target -- which is manufacturing by a whopping 76% of the total electricity consumption in the United States (https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/use-of-energy/industry.p...) as well as transportation. Nothing else comes close.

Quirky Japanese technology is not the solution.

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Residential energy use (excluding transportation) is a bit over 20% of total US energy use [1]. Industrial use is about 32%.

Of the transportation sector, about 25% is "cars and motorcycles" and 32% is light trucks; however, a lot of that light truck usage includes pickup trucks for private use. [2]

I can't prove it without more Googling but when you put the two of those together energy use of the direct control of consumers likely exceeds that in the industrial sector.

So while this is small beer, switching out your gas heating and hot water for electric heat pumps, insulating your house better, and switching to EVs are a big deal in terms of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, not to mention the almost forgotten but huge benefits of reducing local and especially indoor air pollution.

[1] https://css.umich.edu/publications/factsheets/energy/us-ener... [2] https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/use-of-energy/transporta...

Agreed. Even better, live in a small house (or, better yet, apartment!) close to work to minimize commuting.

> which is manufacturing by a whopping 76% of the total electricity consumption in the United States

According to that link, manufacturing represents 76% of industrial energy consumption, not total energy consumption.

Why fight an uphill battle for reduction in manufacturing when you can get rich by being the first to offer cost competitive on-site carbon free power production? Forget marketing rooftop solar to households, you should be selling micro-nuclear to steel and cement plants.

A lot of American steel mills have houses literally right next door to them, in part because many of them were built before the widespread availability of cars.

There's no way in the world you're putting a nuclear plant on site.

Why not? Nuclear is far safer than a coal or gas plant and that's using the older model reactors as a stats source. Newer small reactor designs are even safer. Anxiety and fear of nuclear power is a purely media and activist driven phenomenon not supported by any evidence. The chances of you dying as a result of radiation released from a nuclear power plant are incredibly small even if you were to live right next door to one your entire life. You're much more likely to die in a car accident and yet you'll use those every day without a second thought.

As a society, it makes more sense to figure out how to generate more clean energy (rather than to try to reduce our energy usage).

But as an individual who wants to do something, and in principle has an incentive to reduce their energy bill, reducing consumption is the main thing under their control.

Perhaps it feels that turning down the thermostat or skipping the dryer helps, but the vast majority of your energy use is baked in by the manufacturing and transport of everything you use and eat.

If you live far from the temperate zones, just keeping yourself alive costs a ton of energy.

The best thing you can do is making nuclear and solar an issue with your local politics and then voting for it.

I would say the best thing you can do is "making nuclear and solar an issue with your local politics and then voting for it" and then also trying to reduce your energy consumption

"Quirky" Japanese technology? Buddy, it's a dehumidifier. That thing you can buy at any big-box store in the US? Except they put it out of the way in the ceiling of the room that is the most humid. In Europe there are "drying cabinets" that are the same idea. Some only have fans/heaters, others have dehumidifiers.

I exclusively dry my clothes on a ~$30 folding clothes frame that will take a full washer load. If I'm in a rush, I point a fan at it.

In the winter, the humidity is welcome and the fan alone dries the clothing really quick. In the summer, I set it up outside. If there's a good breeze, my laundry is dry in no time. If I set it up indoors, the central AC takes care of the humidity.

My electric bill is tiny and my clothes last forever because they're not getting beat to shit for half an hour every week...

> ~$30 folding clothes frame

Hopefully not wooden - otherwise, I can smell this comment.

They are almost exclusively metal and in the more expensive (e.g. https://www.lidl.de/p/leifheit-standtrockner-pegasus-180-sol...) models some plastics. They are 3-4cm thick when folded together and big enough to hang an entire load from a regular sized washing machine.

> My electric bill is tiny and my clothes last forever because they're not getting beat to shit for half an hour every week

They still are though, in the spin dry part of the wash cycle? Or do you not use it?

Are dryers really more convenient? Maybe I'm just lucky to live someplace dry, but I find skipping the dryer is the less-work route. It's a whole separate phase to deal with. I only use mine now if I'm in a hurry for something to be dry, which is pretty much never.

A combo washer/dryer can wash and dry a small load of clothes (think workout clothes) in 1 hour. Maybe faster if it's vented.

Eh, it's still a second phase. If you have enough empty space in our closet for air to circulate around each item, you can just hang them straight from the washer into your closet. They're dry by the next morning.

You don't have to move the clothes though. It dries them automatically after it's done washing. Some washing machines take 45-60 minutes anyway.

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