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Comment by hooo | Hacker News Reader

We need more energy. We should be doing this, gas, nuclear, solar. Not either or.

̶W̶e̶i̶r̶d̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶n̶o̶t̶ ̶m̶e̶n̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ ̶w̶i̶n̶d̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶r̶ ̶l̶i̶s̶t̶ ̶(̶e̶v̶e̶n̶ ̶o̶u̶t̶s̶i̶d̶e̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶c̶o̶n̶t̶e̶x̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶e̶n̶t̶i̶r̶e̶ ̶a̶r̶t̶i̶c̶l̶e̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶a̶b̶o̶u̶t̶ ̶w̶i̶n̶d̶)̶.̶ (Edit: apparently I can't read today)

In most locations, unless you have extremely stable weather, it's ideal to have a nearly even mix of wind and solar capacity, since wind is rather strongly anticorrelated with sunshine.

> We should be doing this

It'd be very reasonable to assume "this" means wind here.

I somehow missed the "this", that makes way more sense, thank you for pointing it out.

We also need to use less total energy, regardless of source. That number doesn't have to always go up.

That number directly correlates with life quality in almost every country on earth. More energy per capita means higher life quality, without a doubt in every high quality place.

You say that like it’s an infinitely scalable proposition? It really isn’t.

What about quality of life per watt and just making having a certain standard of living more energy efficient?

Simple examples: energy efficient lights seem to have no downsides, better insulation helps my apartment building retain heat, more efficient electronics mean that my homelab servers pull like 100 W total and public transport probably removes a bunch of cars from the road and increases air quality and decreases traffic jams (I can get everywhere I need that way, there’s literally train, tram and bus stops like 5-15 minutes away).

> energy efficient lights seem to have no downsides

Efficiency is good, but this isn't true. Decades into LED-ification we still suffer shit-tier PWM strobing, poor dimming, disruption to wildlife and human life, and streetlights turning purple en masse.

(The last two are installation and quality issues, but when driven by lowest-bidder compliance with simplistic "efficiency" mandates that's what you get).

Lower color rendering index than incandescent lights too. High CRI LEDs are available, but they're still worse than incandescents and less efficient than the conventional LEDs.

OK some people should use less energy

There must be a cap where quality of life is good enough though, right? Or do you propose it should go up indefinitely?

Air conditioning is quite nice if you find yourself living in a hot environment, for example. But do we really all need smart watches? Or cameras everywhere? Or LLMs, for that matter?

Do smart watches and cameras and llms increase quality of life?

That depends entirely on how you measure quality of life. Though I'd argue that if quality of life measures didn't noticeably increase after those products were released, then I'd say no.

I'd argue quality of life is down since the invention of smartphones

> There must be a cap where quality of life is good enough though, right?

Maybe in some hypothetical future, but even the fantastical world Star Trek TNG has improvements on quality of life that could be made.

I think part of the problem of today lands on the post-cold war and certainly post-911 media landscape. There just aren't optimistic future. Distopia is more popular and certainly more numerous than Utopia.

I'd argue that we have to find some level of "enough" when it comes to quality of life, likely a balance between incremental improvements vs the costs to get there.

Effectively all history of life was focused entirely on finding food, water, maybe shelter and safety, and breeding. Where do we draw the line and stop making new things just because we can?

I have nothing to base this on so its just a hunch, but I'd expect quality of life would increase for many people today by removing, rather than adding. Work a little less, buy a little less, have fewer distractions, etc.

You can do more with less energy, if you use it more efficiently, which sometimes may be more cost effective compared to producing more. Electricity consumption peaked in Germany in 2007 and is down 15% since then while GDP grew by 50%.

Also energy consumption per capita is more than 2x higher in the US compared to Germany, while quality of life should be roughly similar. (In my personal opionion quality of life is better in Germany).

In rich countries, energy usage for a middle-class lifestyle isn't really rising anymore, and in some places is falling significantly (homes are _way_ more thermally efficient than they used to be, all appliances are more efficient, cars are more efficient, and so on).

Energy use per capita will continue to rise in the medium term globally, but it's stable to slightly down over the last few decades in the US, say.

You're not wrong, but it simply isn't politically viable, which has been illustrated quite obviously by now. The "use less" strategy is a complete (and predictable) failure.

Oh it shouldn't be a political issue at all. We don't need the government forcing us to reduce energy use, we need people to do it for themselves.

I wish. Look up "coal rolling".

Coal rolling is done to spite the holier-than-thou sanctamonious bullshit that people who say "we need to eat lentils and live in a cave" come out with. It's an illogical reaction, but it's human.

We need answers, not revert to a world of catholic sin

Change your car to run off electric, great

Change your city to transport 1000 people by train rahter than 1000 separate cars, great

Power your AC from your off-grid rooftop solar, great

Whine that people need to stop using AC, stop eating meat, stop watching TV, it's just harmful.

I haven't seen any whining in the thread, though maybe you're referring to me since I started the thread here?

I didn't say people need to stop using AC, I don't even agree that eating less meat would help, and my only mention of TV above was in reference to people deciding to turn it off when they leave the house, not to watch less of it.

My main point, though, was that moving around how we use energy, and of what type, will do a lot less good than finding ways to use less.

Personally, I'm ok with all of those things. But I draw the line at whining about whining.

It is absolutely the government's job to regulate externalities. Otherwise, personal virtue is just subsidizing third party vice. Energy is fungible. Every joule you save lowers the cost for people who don't care.

Regulate externalities sounds like a nice way of phrasing what would amount to authoritarianism.

It seems reasonable to want a government to help ensure externalities aren't being ignored in prices, but not to regulate them by saying how much and what types of things people can use. I don't want my government allocated a set amount of energy I use, for example, but I would be fine with them ensuring prices accurately reflect the true cost.

Ironically they often do the opposite, subsidizing energy and food costs which make things cheaper and hide externalities.

There are only two routes to preventing the climate disaster we've already set in motion:

Risky geoengineering projects like stratospheric aerosol injection.

Direct atmospheric capture of CO2.

The latter is the safer option because it's just restoring the atmosphere to a known good state. Direct atmospheric capture of billions of tons of CO2 per year will take enormous amounts of energy. We're going to need a lot more nuclear power plants if there's any hope of pulling this off.

Alternative is World War Three when large parts of the planet become uninhabitable.

Atmospheric capture of CO2 seems to me to be one of the things pushed by the fossil fuel industry.

It is clearly not really feasable (at least not now). To me it just seems like the fossil fuel industry is doing the tobacco industry playbook of pushing stuff that doesn't actually work so people don't even try the stuff that does work: using less energy, and using less carbon intensive energy.

We really can move to less carbon intensive energy, there's lots of options all around us. Yes it means a systemic change - which is exactly what the fossil fuel industry doesn't want.

I've never been particularly intrigued by the climate disaster angle. Not that it isn't an issue, but that it shouldn't be a prerequisite for a person to consume less by choice.

If I have to convince someone that 1) the climate is changing beyond historical patterns 2) I know the chemical/mechanical processes at play and 3) we caused it just so they turn off the TV when they leave the house or enjoy their current car a few years longer, its a situation that will never be resolved.

In medieval times we used tiny amounts of energy on lighting and everyone sat around in the dark, however the energy used per lumen and indeed the carbon impact per lumen was far higher than it is today

Do you think we should return to medieval heat and light?

Electrification roughly halves total energy use in an economy.

Fossil fuels are very inefficient compared with alternatives like EVs and heat pumps and renewables.

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