[HN Gopher] The Electrification of Everything
___________________________________________________________________
The Electrification of Everything
Author : elorant
Score : 53 points
Date : 2021-06-12 19:40 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wsj.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wsj.com)
| Maximus9000 wrote:
| I need to update my home hot water heater. I'd like a tankless
| instant hot water heater. Despite wanting to do my part for
| climate change, all indications point me towards getting as
| natural gas unit instead of electric.
| lastofthemojito wrote:
| I went from a traditional (tank) gas water heater to a tankless
| gas water heater in my townhouse. I don't have any complaints
| about the performance of the water heater itself, but the
| process was a pain and I have had complaints from my neighbors
| about the gas smell when the water heater kicks on.
|
| Your mileage will almost certainly vary, but in my case the
| upgrade to a tankless water heater meant that the max gas draw
| for my house (if the water heater, furnace, stove and gas
| fireplace were all firing at once) would exceed the existing
| gas service to my house. So I had to get the gas company out to
| upgrade my service, which meant having the existing utility
| lines located multiple times (as the first markings washed away
| by the time the gas company came out), and I had bits of my
| yard dug up, etc. I also had to have county inspection folks
| come visit, and coordinate that with the plumber, etc.
|
| The exhaust for my water heater is right next to the border
| with my neighbor's townhouse, and they've got a deck at right
| about that level. And it turns out when a tankless water heater
| kicks on, the gas comes on for a second and then it ignites,
| pushing a small amount of unburned gas out the exhaust. My
| neighbors occasionally catch a whiff of that, and I've had to
| have the installer visit and get on the phone with the water
| heater manufacturer (Rinnai) to reassure them that everything
| is safe and working correctly.
|
| All told, if I knew then what I know now, I would have just
| gotten a new tank water heater - and I'm sure the entire
| process would have been over and done in a day, with no damage
| to the lawn or skittish neighbors. The guy who installed my
| water heater was a nice guy but I would have been happier
| meeting him once rather than a half dozen times.
|
| But if you wouldn't have to have upgrade your gas service or
| aren't worried about the exhaust location - by all means, join
| me in having infinite hot water!
| jhallenworld wrote:
| Interesting, some of those older tank-less systems only
| kicked in if the flow rate was high enough. I used to have a
| really old tank-less system from the 1940s, it was just a
| heat exchanger in my oil heating steam boiler. This was
| massively inefficient, but it did provide infinite hot
| water..
|
| My only complaint with my new (2013) tank gas hot water, is
| that the tank already cracked and had to be replaced. It was
| not cheap: $2200. This is a rip-off, but contractors are
| expensive. I think the new tank-less systems are supposed to
| be more reliable than traditional tank heaters.
| conk wrote:
| I'm curious why your preference is for tankless?
| Maximus9000 wrote:
| * Saves space in utility room
|
| * uses less energy
|
| * never run out of hot water
|
| * units are longer lasting
| conk wrote:
| I've had tankless and now have a rheem heat pump water
| heater. The rheem uses far less energy (~60 kWh/mo) then
| the instant water heater. Lifespan I'm not so sure about. I
| know depending on the water quality they can have issues.
| I've seen many tank water heaters still working after 30
| years with little to no service.
|
| Tankless are smaller and it's true they won't run out of
| hot water so they do have that going for them.
| ip26 wrote:
| An idea for you - consider an electric tanked with a drain
| water heat recovery unit. Even lower energy usage than a
| tankless, and while you can still run out of hot water the
| DWHR significantly accelerates the re-heating. The DWHR
| unit should last basically forever.
|
| This is what I did, been very happy. Total cost wasn't more
| than $1,600 (DIY). Tankless is a nice idea but was just too
| complicated to ever pay for itself as a retrofit.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| I propose that you're improving things with tankless,
| regardless of heating technology.
|
| We just did the same on our 2014 house, which had a builder
| supplied 50gallon natural gas water heater. Those continually
| burn natural gas in varying amounts to keep the tank's water
| heated.
|
| In contrast, the tankless natural gas is a massive win just wrt
| natural gas, as it's only running when hot water flow is
| required.
| djrogers wrote:
| > Those continually burn natural gas
|
| Not really - they're very well insulated, so they do a
| burn/coast/burn cycle where they are off far more than they
| are on.
|
| That said - I'm a big fan of tankless, however in a big
| family with typical loads, the savings in gas alone aren't as
| much as you'd think.
| analyte123 wrote:
| I know that authors don't write headlines, but this article
| should be headlined, "Touted for Climate Change Benefits, Energy
| Electrification Has Stalled and Poses New Risks and Costs". Most
| of their electric energy ratio graphs are flat for a twenty year
| period. While there have been major improvements in batteries and
| some improvements in efficiency, real electricity prices have not
| decreased in the same twenty years. The author correctly points
| out that electrification makes homes far more vulnerable to
| service disruption unless everybody shells out $10k+ for solar
| and batteries. Even then, you're going to need more Powerwalls
| than most people will ever buy to have hot water, transportation,
| and unspoiled food after a hurricane.
| stuaxo wrote:
| Every election in UK the last few years labour say they will
| electrify the rest of our railways, the Tories say they will too.
| The Tories get in and then don't do it.
| Xophmeister wrote:
| This is probably not an HN-approved comment, but if we can find
| a party donor or friend of a cabinet minister who also happens
| to be in the railway industry, I'm sure we'd see a new golden
| age of rail in the UK!
| eyelovewe wrote:
| We should note that the WSJ is owned by Rupert Murdoch.
| 11235813213455 wrote:
| I don't really understand electric bikes, on a flat surface,
| riding a bike is effortless for me (I don't really try to go
| fast, 20km/h is good enough), if it goes slightly uphill then
| it's a good opportunity to do a bit of exercise, but really, you
| can ride bikes with very little (own) energy, and that's super
| healthy, no engines, thanks
|
| I think bicyles will become a primary transport in the next
| decades, electric or not
| samatman wrote:
| If I were inclined to use the modern 'gotchas' rhetorically, I
| would call this comment ableist.
|
| Instead I'll just point out that being young(ish), (reasonably)
| healthy, and having only _slightly_ uphill to worry about, are
| all luxuries.
|
| Electric bikes make bicycling accessible to many more people,
| and their embodied and operating energies are quite modest.
|
| Best of all, they don't take away your ability to ride a
| pushbike! Or brag about it on the Internet.
| globular-toast wrote:
| I've been a cyclist almost my entire life. It's been my main
| method of transport for several years and I do it as a sport. I
| don't plan to own an electric bike because I take pride in
| being able to move my own weight around but I'll take anything
| that gets more people on bikes. Cars are a scourge and need to
| be severely limited. Electric bikes lower the barriers to entry
| for many people and I'd much rather be overtaken by an electric
| bike than a monstrous car.
| psgibbs wrote:
| Range goes way up - electrification can turn a 10+ mile commute
| from something intense (where you need a shower when you
| arrive) into something manageable.
|
| It allows bikes to be a substitute for far more things that
| you'd otherwise use a different mode of transportation for.
| plorg wrote:
| Put slightly differently, electric bikes (and scooters for
| that matter) make those transportation forms accessible to a
| much larger number of people.
| [deleted]
| mikestew wrote:
| Former Cat 2 bicycle racer here, "Cat 2" meaning I was in
| damned good shape, and I still am even if old age has slowed me
| a bit. That climb up next to highway 520 from downtown Redmond
| to the Microsoft campus? Yeah, if I had a hankering to do so,
| I'd drop most folks going up that hill.
|
| And yet I own an electric bike, and love the thing. Because I
| can go up that hill in my work clothes, and not show up a
| dripping, sweating, stinking mess. I can go down the hill from
| the house and get supper without having to don the clown outfit
| and the special shoes. Just wheel the bike out the garage and
| go with whatever I have on. Back up the hill to get home, give
| that electric motor an extra kick if I'm feeling lazy, sorted.
| And that's for an old ex-racer who is in probably better shape
| than 90% of his peers. Imagine the worlds that open for the
| elderly, overweight, or other "differently abled".
|
| Bicycles have had over 100 years to "become primary transport"
| and unless one lives in the Netherlands, it obviously isn't
| going to happen. Stick a battery and electric motor on one,
| though, and suddenly one's practical range and power band is
| extended enough to make it a viable transportation alternative
| for not just the fully-abled and in-shape, but for nearly
| everyone.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| I own a road bike and an e-bike. On level ground I'm much
| faster on my road bike (there's a 20mph(32km/h) governor on the
| e-bike, and it's heavier and has much more wind resistance.
|
| However, I can haul over 100lbs of cargo and/or kids on the
| back of my e-bike, and can show up to work ready to go. Given
| that the ride to work includes climbs, and I would need to
| shower, the e-bike gets me there substantially faster. If I
| need to pick up a kid from an afternoon activity that is
| downtown, I can do so on my e-bike (I live about 13km from
| downtown, which my teenagers can do, but is a rather long ride
| for my younger kids to do).
| acdha wrote:
| e-bikes dramatically increase the number of people who can bike
| commute: you go faster for the same effort so the range is
| _much_ better, especially if you have hills; more people can
| avoid needing to take a shower when they arrive, which is great
| since so many employers do not provide facilities; and it means
| that people who need to carry kids and/or cargo can do so
| without sweating it. It also opens up quality of life
| improvements: you can trade a little extra weight for durable
| tires, more comfortable rides, BIG lights for night safety,
| etc.
|
| According to my logs, I go about the same speed and heart rate
| on my cargo e-bike with my son and our gear commuting. The
| difference is that it saves enough time and helps with one
| notorious hill enough that I do it every day year round except
| for the worst weather whereas before I used to skip a few days
| a week -- and I say that as a fairly fit cyclist who has ridden
| centuries at gun-timed speeds in the low 20s, so we're leaving
| out a LOT of bike commuters if we're saying that's inadequate.
|
| I see e-bikes as a transformative technology for cities. If we
| want to stop the death, pollution, and quality-of-life impact
| of cars we should be rolling out bike infrastructure as quickly
| as possible -- it's the cheapest, most flexible option we have.
| (Buses are second: more accessible, all-weather capable, but
| less flexible)
|
| Since we got ebikes, we've averaged 2,000-2,500 miles per year
| on bike and sometimes go a couple months without using our car,
| which we are likely not going to replace when it dies.
| neonate wrote:
| https://archive.is/hdCjz
| esturk wrote:
| I think the stove is the only appliance that I will refuse to
| electrify. Cooking on a electric stove is just not the same,
| especially if you love to cook.
| Mediterraneo10 wrote:
| Some jurisdictions forbid new installations of gas stoves, so
| over time society might not have much of a choice.
| batrat wrote:
| Same. I have gas central heating and a gas stove. During the
| winter electricity is not 100% and is nice to have heating
| (with ups) or to make a hot tea.
| 0xffff2 wrote:
| I love to cook (even did it professionally for a while), and I
| just don't get this complaint. If you have good (i.e. thick)
| pans, response times aren't instant no matter what your heat
| source. I find the difference between gas and electric to be
| basically unnoticeable.
| renewiltord wrote:
| What do you use for cooking traditionally done on curved
| cookware?
| 0xffff2 wrote:
| The only thing that comes to mind when you say curved
| cookware is a wok. I've never owned a home stove, electric
| or gas, that got hot enough for proper wok stir frying so I
| have a standalone 14,000 BTU propane burner for that.
| samatman wrote:
| The contrary of this is that, for any given pan, pan + coil
| latency will be worse than pan + instant response, be that
| gas or induction.
|
| I find the difference between instant responding heat sources
| and radiant coils to be very noticeable, particularly with
| thin pans and delicate cooking, so: eggs, in particular.
| 0xffff2 wrote:
| Of course that's technically true. My point is that the
| difference in latency is completely unnoticeable for me.
| The adjustment is so minor if you have good technique and
| good pans it's not worth mentioning.
| hannob wrote:
| It is hardly plausible that a gas grid will be kept operating
| just for cooking. Generating the gas probably would even be
| feasible, as the amounts are likely small enough that they
| could be met with biomethane generated from waste, but
| operating the grid is unlikely.
| innocenat wrote:
| There are gas tanks.
| hannob wrote:
| Ok I guess I underestimated the amount of effort people are
| willing to put into nostalgia while cooking...
| chihuahua wrote:
| Many houses in remote locations (in the U.S.) have large
| propane tanks outside the house, which are refilled
| periodically by a truck. So people are already doing this
| for reasons other than nostalgia.
| handrous wrote:
| Everyone with a propane grill--which is, like, every
| other house around here--already has a propane tank. You
| can go swap them out with full tanks at many grocery
| stores, when they're empty. It's pretty cheap--I'm not
| sure, but I wouldn't _bet_ on electric being cheaper to
| cook with than propane. There are conversion kits for gas
| stoves. And yes, you 're right, that's exactly what
| anyone out in the country with a gas stove already does
| (as you note, they've got those big propane tanks outside
| the house that get refilled every so often).
|
| [EDIT] natural gas (not propane) is _definitely_ cheaper
| to heat with, here, than electric. All the HVAC guys don
| 't even recommend heat pumps to supplement the furnace.
| They recommend putting the money toward higher-efficiency
| AC and gas furnace instead. They say they're good on
| paper but more expensive in practice, in our climate
| (Midwest). Outright electric heating is _crazy_ expensive
| (I 've had it, with a very new furnace even, and it was
| terrible, was paying a high premium for mediocre
| heating).
| mikestew wrote:
| Effort? How about necessity? You think they were going to
| run gas lines to our house in Bumphuck, Indiana that sat
| 200m off the road (the road which, I guarantee you, did
| not have a gas line buried next to it)?
|
| Of course no one would be running gas lines, that's why
| we had a big LP tank to play on when I was a kid:
|
| https://www.homeimprovementbase.com/3-easy-steps-to-
| prepping...
| turbinerneiter wrote:
| I never used a gas stove, so I can't compare, but I moved from
| a regular electric to an induction stove and it's a billion
| times better. I think it's quite close to a gas stove. Maybe
| someone who actually used both can chime in.
| z2 wrote:
| I mostly use gas. I loved my induction cooktop and its
| precise and fast heat control when I had it, but the only
| thing I didn't like was that it required all pots to be flat
| (I have round woks with only a tiny flat area) and everything
| had to be compatible with induction, so no clay or aluminum.
|
| Even on the traditional gas vs electric debate, the heating
| power of a gas cooktop isn't guaranteed -- smaller BTU rated
| stoves take forever to heat with their dinky flames. I once
| had one that maxed out at around 350F when using a big pan.
| odiroot wrote:
| I find making nice and runny scrambled eggs on electricity
| really hard to do. Actually induction is even harder with the
| pulses of energy dissipating so quickly.
| pat2man wrote:
| You just need a thicker pan.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Kenji's method for creamy scrambled eggs works great on
| induction:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXTnq7srJRs
| WalterBright wrote:
| I love gas, too, but there's a problem. I installed a CO2
| meter in my office. It goes off whenever the stove is used.
| Going from 600ppm to over a 1000ppm, if I forget to turn on
| the exhaust fan.
| gxqoz wrote:
| I've seen several articles recently highlighting problems
| with gas stoves. Some of these are environmental critiques--
| gas needs to be retired to deal with climate change. Another
| critique is around indoor air quality:
|
| "On the air-quality front, at least, the evidence against gas
| stoves is damning. Although cooking food on any stove
| produces particulate pollutants, burning gas produces
| nitrogen dioxide, or NO2,, and sometimes also carbon
| monoxide, according to Brett Singer, a scientist at the
| Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory who studies indoor air
| quality. Brief exposures to air with high concentrations of
| NO2 can lead to coughing and wheezing for people with asthma
| or other respiratory issues, and prolonged exposure to the
| gas can contribute to the development of those conditions,
| according to the EPA. Homes with gas stoves can contain
| approximately 50 to 400 percent higher concentrations of NO2
| than homes with electric stoves, often resulting in levels of
| indoor air pollution that would be illegal outdoors,
| according to a recent report by the Rocky Mountain Institute,
| a sustainability think tank. "NO2 is invisible and odorless,
| which is one of the reasons it's gone so unnoticed," Brady
| Seals, a lead author on the report, says."
|
| https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/10/gas-
| stov...
| analyte123 wrote:
| Indoor air pollution is only a serious problem for unvented
| gas stoves. Current building codes require venting for gas
| stoves and any gas stove installed in the 21st century will
| have a vent.
| kingnothing wrote:
| Many (most?) vents do not vent outdoors; they are
| attached to the microwave and simply move hot air from
| below the microwave to above it. It's still a major
| problem.
| andiareso wrote:
| Source? In Minnesota at least, I've lived in 5 houses
| between the years 80s to 2010s that all had external
| venting with gas stove tops (no remodels). Our new house
| we are building also is required to have external venting
| due to code. I know states have individual requirements,
| but in Minnesota it is required to exhaust to external
| air.
|
| https://up.codes/viewer/minnesota/mn-mechanical-
| code-2015/ch...
|
| [EDIT] Code is from 2015 so at least since then.
| lozenge wrote:
| People don't always use the vent.
| cwkoss wrote:
| Vents should turn on automatically while the burner is
| ignited and for some amount of time after.
| eigenhombre wrote:
| I personally have never seen this happen on any gas stove
| I've been around (US Midwest mostly).
| majormajor wrote:
| That would be nice, and maybe brand-new places are doing
| that, but across 10+ apartments with gas stoves I've
| rented in the past 15-odd years, none of them have done
| that.
| pat2man wrote:
| People don't even know they are supposed to use the vent.
| underbluewaters wrote:
| All indoor cooking requires venting outdoors to be safe.
|
| The air quality concerns over gas stoves are a disingenuous
| argument to push for change for climate mitigation reasons.
| Most pollution from cooking is related to burning food not
| fuel, and electric burners make it far easier to burn food.
|
| Rather than pushing think tank pieces environmental groups
| should push the industry to create induction ranges that
| are 1) cheaper and 2) don't create high frequency noise
| pollution. Current technology has a lot of positive aspects
| but the high-pitch buzzing is a deal breaker.
| sparrc wrote:
| Are you sure about that? If I boil water in my kitchen on
| my gas stove the CO2 and VOC levels in our living area
| nearly triple within 15 minutes of using the stove
| without burning any food.
|
| If I use the electric kettle there's obviously zero
| change in air quality.
| handrous wrote:
| I've looked into induction, but:
|
| 1) It seems like you have to spend a lot to approach even a
| cheap gas stove, as far as cooking quality; and
|
| 2) Even on (say) Reddit threads full of people posting about
| how great they are, the same people comment a lot about how
| careful they have to be with the cooktop or how many times
| they've cracked and ruined(!!!) theirs and had to replace it.
| KineticLensman wrote:
| I've also used gas, electric (briefly, years ago) and now
| induction. Induction is superb: very precisely controllable
| for everything from long slow simmer to nuking. The flat
| surfaces are much easier to keep extremely clean and also
| serve as extra space for putting stuff down when a given ring
| isn't in use. The only sense in which I preferred the old gas
| system was the controls themselves which were rotary dials
| rather than long-press surfaces. But I'm used to that now.
| kian wrote:
| I've used both. Induction stoves are magical, and I also love
| gas. If you were going to electrify, go induction and you
| might even enjoy the fact that many things get to temperature
| faster.
| Frenchgeek wrote:
| You have more fine control over the heat with gas, but the
| timer in my cheap induction plate did save my bacon a few
| times...
| mustafa_pasi wrote:
| Yes that is true. I wish my induction stove allowed more
| fine tuning of the temperature as well.
| dependsontheq wrote:
| That's the difference between cheap and expensive
| induction... I don't need a Bain Marie because I can
| control the temperature that fine.
| chihuahua wrote:
| That could be useful for tempering chocolate. Have you
| tried this?
| dependsontheq wrote:
| Yes and it works fine, here is a weird Electrolux
| marketing photo https://www.reviewed.com/ovens/features/i
| nduction-101-better...
|
| As weird as that looks I'm quite sure I could do that at
| home.
| mountainboy wrote:
| Induction stoves are the highest EMF polluting device in a
| typical household. In particular they emit a large magnetic
| field.
|
| source: https://emfcaution.com/home-appliances-emf-
| readings/#1_Induc...
|
| You can do what you want, but I'll stick with gas and a vent
| fan, thanks.
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _Induction stoves are the highest EMF polluting device in
| a typical household. In particular they emit a large
| magnetic field._
|
| And? You say this like the problem with this is obvious /
| self-evident.
|
| (Feel free to get technical: I have an EE.)
|
| The author of your source:
|
| > _My interest in the topic of EMF radiation is two-fold:_
|
| > _I have studied Information Science and worked with
| router communication, Wi-Fi network, and fiber optics
| communication during the last 5 years. So I consider myself
| well-educated on parts of the technical aspects of the
| problem._
|
| > _I am married to a wonderful girl who is hyper-sensitive.
| She can literally feel high levels of EMF radiation on her
| skin when she is near strong Wi-Fi signals or other sources
| of electromagnetic fields like induction stoves._
|
| * https://emfcaution.com/about-us/
| IkmoIkmo wrote:
| And to note, no evidence in double blind tests: https://e
| n.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_hypersensitivi...
| Swizec wrote:
| I have used gas, fire, electric, and modern electric (the
| glass kind). No induction yet.
|
| Modern electric is best for consistency and control. Gas is
| best for fast heat. (wood) Fire is amazing for smores, great
| for grilling if you have the time to turn it into a radiant
| heat source.
|
| Old electric (metal plates) sucks and is terrible.
| globular-toast wrote:
| It's not close to a gas stove. Not by a long shot. It's just
| slightly better than normal electric because it doesn't have
| as much residual heat in the ring. The best thing induction
| hobs do is boil water, but it's still about half as quick as
| my kettle.
| djrogers wrote:
| I hope you live someplace that doesn't plan on eliminating
| them. My town is currently planning to change the permitting
| laws so that every kitchen/home remodel will require the
| removal of gas cooktops and ovens. There's a big outcry from
| those aware of it, but most people don't even know it's
| happening.
| [deleted]
| yongjik wrote:
| We have a new gas cooktop - we also looked up about the
| electric ones, but since the existing one was gas, we didn't
| know how much more it would cost to add wires across the house.
| It's pretty good and there are a few things you can't do with
| electric (like roasting a sheet of seaweed), but in general I
| think they're more or less comparable.
|
| One problem with gas is that so much heat is lost to the rising
| hot air - in addition to inefficiency, it makes all the pot
| handles burning hot, so I always need to have mittens ready.
| Never had the problem when I had electric.
| Symbiote wrote:
| Are you using small pans on the larger burners?
| globular-toast wrote:
| > it makes all the pot handles burning hot
|
| Never had that problem with gas. Not once.
| anonporridge wrote:
| Hydrogen might be an option. Also for heating as a near drop in
| replacement for natural gas, although not without problems.
| jhallenworld wrote:
| Electric stove is also safer around kids and elderly..
|
| I have gas stove, hot water, dryers and heating. The hot water
| and heating were upgraded to gas fairly recently, from oil (I
| live in New England, there are a lot of legacy heating systems-
| oil was actually an upgrade in the 1940s from the original coal
| heat). There is strong incentive to do this because oil was
| costing me $3800 / year back when oil hit $5 a gallon, whereas
| gas costs $700 / year. This upgrade costs $14000 (includeing
| installation of forced air vents, central A/C and gas water
| heat tank). The previous upgrade from coal to oil was about
| reducing waste and increasing convenience. With coal, you had
| to deal with ash waste and stoking.
|
| A dual-stage electric heat pump would in theory work and have
| comparable operating cost, but the install cost was like
| $30000, had questionable reliability and few contractors even
| knew about it. Geothermal would also work, but my land is tiny
| and the cost would have been something like $60000. There was
| even a Honda generator home co-generation plant option
| available, but again, expensive and no contractors.
|
| What would you do? BTW, my largest utility bill now is actually
| water, because we are paying for the Boston harbor clean-up in
| my sewage bill. I'm tempted to illegally use rain water for the
| toilets... A rooftop solar system is popular around here, but
| it's not worth it based on my tiny electric bill.
|
| We have to get off of fossil fuels, but it's definitely going
| to take a government mandate backed with financial incentives
| to get people to switch.
| ip26 wrote:
| It seems like induction could happen by itself in the next
| decade or two - the experience is really good now - but I
| agree, it seems like government action may be needed to get
| things like air source heat pumps rolling. As you note, many
| contractors don't even know anything about them - there's a
| vicious cycle where they are expensive so they are uncommon &
| unfamiliar, which makes them expensive.
| justaguy88 wrote:
| > use rain water for the toilets
|
| I'm curious about why that's not allowed
| jhallenworld wrote:
| They meter the sewage by the amount of water you use, so
| using an un-metered water source would short-change them.
| You do have the option of getting a separate water meter
| for water you use for gardening, to avoid the sewage bill
| for water you don't send down the drain.
| globular-toast wrote:
| I've used all types of electric hob (that I'm aware of)
| hotplates, ceramic and induction, and they are all awful.
| Honestly I think the only people who can deal with them do
| nothing more than heat up tins of soup on them.
| innocenat wrote:
| Or you cook Chinese. Cooking Chinese food on induction is so
| painful.
| pat2man wrote:
| You could get a separate induction wok burner.
| mustafa_pasi wrote:
| I grew up cooking on a gas stove, and have since gotten used to
| electric and induction as I started renting. Electric (with a
| heating element) is truly horrible. You have to constantly move
| the pan off the heating element when you want to reduce the
| heat. Induction, is however, very responsive and I don't really
| notice a difference between it and gas.
| Animats wrote:
| We'll probably still need natural gas for heating for a few more
| decades. But it's pretty clear that everything that moves on
| wheels is going electric.
| acdha wrote:
| This very much depends on where you live. We just did an all-
| electric conversion in the DC area and the cost works out to be
| ~$50/month more in the coldest winter months for our single-
| family home (also paying $0.01/KWh more for wind/solar than
| coal power). That's obviously not free but it's completely
| manageable in terms of home expenses, and the variable heat
| pump's efficiency saves on cooling as well as being notably
| better for humidity and temperature swings because it'll run
| more frequently at the lower levels rather than the cool-to-
| full-blast cycle of our old gas heater. Obviously, this
| approach is less viable the further north you go as you spend
| more time in the lower end of the efficiency curves but there
| are a _lot_ of people living in areas where it's basically
| trivial to do now.
|
| If I set policy, I'd have subsidies for the upfront costs
| (maybe a base credit with 0% loans?) and especially consider
| things to push geothermal installs which are expensive up front
| but might be worth it long-term. We didn't want to deal with
| the extra hassle but I have been wondering whether we should
| have done that since it'd save in the summer, too.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| Nah. It's pretty easy to electrify heating, too. A ground
| source heat pump or even a _good_ (not mediocre) air source
| heat pump can reduce the energy cost of heating with
| electricity to the same as gas.
| boulos wrote:
| Yeah, depending on your climate, a heat pump can have a
| Coefficient of Performance [1] of like 3.5. If you don't take
| this into account and just take "natural gas in therms =>
| kWh" it often seems like a heat pump would be a large
| increase. Divide by 3 and it's suddenly much better :).
|
| [1]
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coefficient_of_performance
| sbradford26 wrote:
| Also ground source heat pumps can have COPs in the 4-4.5
| range and also keep that performance through a wide
| temperature range unlike air source heat pumps. Sadly air
| source heat pumps COP really start to drop around 0F even
| with the new hyper heat models. Given that I would still
| probably prefer an air source heat pump over using heating
| oil or propane.
| pitaj wrote:
| Yeah the reason they stay in the higher range is because
| they're pumping from a source of higher temperature in
| the first place. They're also more effective at air
| conditioning because they're pumping into a cooler
| medium.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| As someone who lives in a climate that pretty reliably sees
| -40C and a week of the mid -30's ever year I think that the
| only option is a ground source heat pump - I can't see an air
| heat pump putting out 80,000 BTUs when it is at its least
| efficient.
|
| I wonder how that works for a city - is the idea that
| everyone drills their own 15 foot hole? Our frost can reach
| down to ~8 feet.
| sbradford26 wrote:
| The solutions I have seen for cities would be
| community/public ground loops. Piping would run similar to
| potable water but would return to a centralized location
| where they would have large wells. This would be
| impractical for suburban/rural environments but denser
| cities it would most likely work.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Pretty standard in Nordic countries. The source of heat
| is real question, but there are some options like burning
| garbage, or waste heat from factories, data centres and
| so on.
| sbradford26 wrote:
| The source could also simply be the ground. With a heat
| pump the water doesn't have to be hot to provide heat to
| a building. The difference with the system Nordic
| countries have is that they provide hot water to
| residences which is directly used for heating.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| > * More of the energy we use will come from the electric socket.
| And we aren't ready.*
|
| I don't get this argument that increasing electricity generation
| is going to be particularly hard. From 1950 to 1959, the US more
| than doubled electricity generation.
|
| The article says by 2050 we'll need about double current
| electricity production. That's three times as long! From 1950 to
| 1973, just 23 years, electricity production increased by over
| 450%.
|
| People trying to make it sound like this will be unprecedentedly
| hard either forgot about the time when America used to grow
| electricity quickly, or they're pessimistic about modern
| America's ability to build anything big any more.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > modern America's ability to build anything big any more.
|
| The first transcontinental railroad took 6 years to 1,900
| miles. All the grading, track laying, and bridge construction
| was done _by muscle_. Black powder was used for the tunnels,
| but the holes to put the power in were bored by hand.
|
| In contrast, Seattle Transit will take 30 years to build 22
| miles of track, with modern construction equipment, and that's
| in the remote possibility they'll be on schedule.
|
| Seattle used to have rail networks. The right-of-ways are still
| there, but Sound Transit very carefully avoids using them.
| Nobody is ever able to explain why. Some even still have
| rusting rail on them, while the ST crews are blasting new right
| of way a block over.
| IkmoIkmo wrote:
| Which Seattle transit of 22 miles? The Line T took 3 years to
| construct, Line 1 is 22 miles but it's already built, it took
| 6 years of construction. Indeed it took longer to plan, but
| we're talking building in a major metropolitan area, not
| empty land.
|
| > All the grading, track laying, and bridge construction was
| done by muscle.
|
| It's both an argument to applaud efforts of the past, as well
| as criticise the nature of the past. I certainly wouldn't
| want to be a labourer in 1865, when life expectancy in the US
| was less than half (37) of today's 78 or so. It's not all
| labour standards of course, but it certainly must have played
| a role.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > empty land
|
| Boring through two mountain ranges, crossing many rivers
| (including the Mississippi). Endless bridges for ravines,
| creeks, and rivers. Lots of snow sheds, the longest was 29
| miles, using 29,000,000 board feet of lumber.
|
| Done with muscle.
| coryrc wrote:
| Because they had a government mandate. ST continually must
| renegotiate with every level of local government. This could
| all be sidestepped by a state law, but this is just another
| cost of FPTP voting.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > Because they had a government mandate.
|
| It wasn't quite that simple. It was a giant project, and
| there was the usual squirrel fire drill one sees with any
| large government project where everyone has their hand out
| for bribes and corruption.
| Hypx_ wrote:
| You should be aware of the death toll for the construction of
| the first transcontinental railroad. It's not something we
| can legally replicate.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Life was generally more dangerous and harder those days,
| and medical practice was terrible. Horses, for example,
| regularly killed people in those days (more than cars do),
| and their use is not the romantic image we have of them
| today.
|
| If you can show that the railroad was built on blood, I'd
| be interested.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| Exactly. It was a high dollar construction project. If
| anything it was safer than a mundane bottom dollar "cut
| whatever corners we need to be the lowest bidder"
| project. Everything was just that much more dangerous
| then.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Workers also flocked to those railway jobs, because they
| were better than their other options.
| weaksauce wrote:
| yeah i'm sure we could have those breakneck speed railway
| construction in the middle of the open, unihabited plain for
| the majority of it and then for the incredibly dangerous
| stuff we could send in the marginalized at the time
| chinese/irish workers to handle unstable dynamite paid half
| that of other workers and ignoring any and all safety
| regulations and building codes of today.
| WalterBright wrote:
| They used black powder, dynamite only became available
| towards the end.
|
| You have good points, but consider it ran TWO THOUSAND
| MILES, not 22, and still took only 10% of the time. You say
| "open plain", but try driving it some time. It had to go
| through two mountain ranges, for example.
|
| The workers came because they got better pay than anywhere
| else. This includes the Chinese and Irish. It was not built
| by conscripts.
| bullfightonmars wrote:
| The build out of the Sound Transit light rail is taking 30
| years for the following reasons:
|
| 1. ST only has the funds to build out a small % of the
| project at any one time. The work has to be staged because
| they can't take out all the $ at once.
|
| 2. Project managing the build out of the whole thing at once
| would require a much larger organization, which would be more
| expensive
|
| 3. Building the whole thing at once would require a much
| large workforce and much more equipment, which would be more
| expensive.
|
| 4. Staging construction gives them the time to work out the
| details of the next phase while working on the current phase.
| WalterBright wrote:
| The railroad wasn't built all at once, either. It was two
| teams, one going east, the other west. The companies were
| paid as work progressed, they did not have access to all
| the funds in advance. They didn't even know the route to be
| taken, they had survey crews working ahead of the
| construction, marking the best route.
|
| If you don't think they had a much larger logistics
| problem, consider the problems with supplying the crews
| with food, water, clothing, rails, ties, horses, wagons,
| _everything_ they need, from a thousand miles away.
|
| The most important thing, though, was the companies were
| paid by the mile. The faster they built, the more money
| they made, because that would push the meeting point
| further away. They had _ENORMOUS_ incentive to move fast.
| And it worked.
|
| ST, however, has no incentive whatsoever to move things
| along. They have every incentive to delay, invent problems,
| all so they can go back and demand more money.
|
| At a company I used to work for, they hired a team of old
| software engineers to write a piece of software for a good
| customer. It took them 3 months, and arrived on time and
| under budget. Want to know the secret? They had a huge
| bonus for being on time (I think it was ten grand apiece),
| which would shrink away for every day late.
|
| I asked if that was what motivated them to be on time, and
| they all denied it with "we're professionals". I openly
| laughed at that.
|
| It's amazing what happens when the incentives are aligned
| with the desired results. We saw that last year when
| vaccine developers wanted 18 months to develop a vaccine,
| and Trump gave them a big financial incentive to get it
| done before the end of the year. Later came the usual
| denials that these incentives motivated them in any way :-)
| WalterBright wrote:
| P.S. That small group of old programmers put to bed the
| notion that old programmers aren't any good. These guys
| did their work competently, with no drama, no
| complaining, none of the usual sideshows you see with
| younger workers. They knew their goal, and quietly and
| professionally set about achieving it. They delivered it
| on time, the customer was happy. And got paid very well.
| xenocyon wrote:
| It's important to remember that electricity isn't an energy
| source, it's an energy medium. This seems trivial, but seems to
| be a blind spot for people who, for instance, try to set up
| comparison between electricity and fossil fuels. The comparison
| doesn't make sense when one is an energy source and the other
| merely a medium.
|
| Generating electricity is a bit of a misnomer, because it's
| more about repackaging energy than creating it. Again, this is
| trivial but easy to lose sight of. The important question is:
| what's the energy _source_?
| dheera wrote:
| Install solar on everyone's roofs. Subsidize it with money
| from property taxes. Make it mandatory for owners of rented
| buildings, and mandatory for businesses. That alone will
| easily meet all our projected energy requirements for quite a
| while.
| djrogers wrote:
| > Make it mandatory for owners of rented buildings, and
| mandatory for businesses.
|
| So my grandmother, who gets a large part of her retirement
| income from a couple of $5-600/mo rental homes she owns
| will have to shell out 10-20k each to keep doing that? On
| what planet does that make sense?
| dheera wrote:
| Subsidize it 100% for her and low income rental owners
| then.
|
| For the high income armchair landlords, impose a solar
| tax and fund solar installations for everyone else.
|
| I want to think about how to make stuff possible, not
| excuses about why we can't do it. This kind of excuse-
| making attitude is why the US is falling behind in
| climate efforts.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Shouldn't need to subsidize it. The idea is that your $x
| PV install will generate enough income to make it a
| worthwhile investment.
| baremetal wrote:
| they have to use the whole climate change narrative as a
| reason to push renewables, because it doesn't make
| economic sense.
| only_as_i_fall wrote:
| Then we have a huge surplus of energy during the day and a
| huge deficit at night. What then?
| dheera wrote:
| Send it back into the grid. Charge cars. Feed industries
| that need daytime power. Pay the owners back for it, or
| give them free night-time electricity in returns. Heat up
| some high heat capacity goo, or hell even water, and use
| that to heat your apartment during cold nights in desert
| weather.
|
| If you still have surplus after all that, mine bitcoin
| and use it to fund battery research, environmental
| initiatives, fund education, fund healthcare.
|
| Surpluses are never a problem.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Free night-time electricity from where? You need to
| generate it from somewhere or store it. It just doesn't
| magically appear...
|
| Solar in large scale will be fun. Essentially at peak
| production it will have zero price or potentially
| negative price... And then during night you need to
| generate it from somewhere and pay premium... I wonder
| would it be actually cheaper soon not to have solar and
| just get it for free during day and then pay same during
| dark times...
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| How much energy do you think would be required to air
| source sequester all of carbon we've emitted into the
| atmosphere over the last 100 years? I don't believe we
| have any shortage of demand for electricity, and loads
| will be structured to accommodate variable generation
| (this is typically referred to as demand response).
| robbrown451 wrote:
| "If you still have surplus after all that, mine bitcoin
| and use it to fund"
|
| Or maybe use it to power factories that make hundred
| dollar bills?
|
| Sorry, but Bitcoin does not create a net increase in
| value for all the energy dumped into it. As you described
| it, it is simply an elaborate way to waste resources.
| dheera wrote:
| Don't mine Bitcoin then, run GPU farms and rent them out
| to AI researchers.
|
| Point is, surplus isn't really an issue.
| only_as_i_fall wrote:
| This is basically a pipe dream unless people radically
| change the way they consume power.
|
| Peak energy consumption is typically around dusk, so
| driven primarily by home consumption not industry.
| Convince people not to use air conditioners after 4pm and
| maybe we would be able to match supply to demand.
|
| Moreover, even if we all started sitting in our hot dark
| houses after work we'd still have an extremely variable
| supply which would mean more robust infrastructure to
| transmit less overall power.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Hence solar, which generates until sunset, paired with ~4
| hours of storage, which carries the grid through peak
| evening load until most folks are off to bed and grid
| load declines rapidly.
|
| https://www.energy.gov/eere/articles/confronting-duck-
| curve-... (https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/sty
| les/full_artic... for this illustrated; batteries replace
| the natural gas ramp)
|
| https://youtu.be/P_d0x8uG6kE
| only_as_i_fall wrote:
| And then it's a rainy day and everybody stays home from
| work because there's no power? Or we spin up a bunch of
| dirty natural gas?
|
| This also doesn't address the seasonal changes in supply.
| We're realistically talking about creating energy
| infrastructure (and then maintaining it) that ulaverages
| maybe 20% capacity.
|
| I just feel like solar proponents like to completely
| ignore the very real unsolved issues because
| solar+batteries is tidy if you don't think too much about
| it.
| [deleted]
| robbrown451 wrote:
| Lower the price of electricity when there is a surplus,
| and people and industry will figure out a way to use it,
| including charging batteries.
| nemosaltat wrote:
| As of Jan 1, 2020 California has come very close to these
| requirements. Most new construction residences (with a few
| exceptions) must have enough solar generation equipment to
| meet 100% of the buildings electrical needs.
| eldaisfish wrote:
| lol no it won't. This is a horrible oversimplification.
| Solar panels can only offset some energy requirements for a
| limited time in certain climates. Even if you were to
| install batteries in every home, the cost is monumental,
| battery supply is limited and you lose the economy of
| scale.
| jsight wrote:
| I don't think the person you are replying to had a good
| plan, but solar definitely could offset the energy
| consumed by cars. The average car will only consume
| ~12KWh per day. Even a small 3-4KW system can do that.
|
| Yes, its an oversimplification, but in a world where the
| problem is all the electric cars, you also have rolling
| battery buffers available whenever you want them.
|
| We already use hot water heaters and air conditioners in
| a similar way. Peak shaving with people's home charging
| setups wouldn't be hard to add.
| sokoloff wrote:
| In normal times, my electric car is almost never at home
| when the sun is shining on my solar panels.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| It's the future actually.
|
| https://www.tesla.com/en_au/support/energy/savpp-faqs
| (South Australia Virtual Power Plant FAQs)
|
| https://www.utilitydive.com/news/teslas-australian-
| virtual-p... (Tesla's Australian virtual power plant
| propped up grid during coal outage)
|
| > Once complete, the VPP will include 50,000 houses
| fitted with 5 kW rooftop solar systems and 13.5 kWh Tesla
| batteries. Together, they will be capable of delivering
| up to 250 MW of solar power and 650 MWh of energy
| storage.
|
| > So far, less than 1,000 homes have been completed.
| Still, the aggregated storage was able to make a
| difference.
|
| With regards to Australian rooftop solar potential, it's
| estimated at almost 179GW, roughly a bit more than 3.5x
| total current Australian generation capacity.
| sokoloff wrote:
| What's the ratio on a GWhr/year basis? 3.5x the peak
| power seems like it could easily be less on a total
| energy basis.
|
| Looking here, it seems like 1 GWp in Australia can yield
| around 1500GWh/year. A conventional plant running just 20
| hours per day yields 7300 Wh/Wp.
|
| https://www.solarchoice.net.au/blog/how-much-energy-will-
| my-...
| dheera wrote:
| If they had controlled COVID early enough the economic
| losses could have quite possibly allowed for everyone to
| have solar already.
| gregshap wrote:
| Will it? Certainly in my part of the country most
| structures cannot go off-grid on solar alone, even with
| significant storage. Hard to make it up on volume.
| hannob wrote:
| Well, we will need to increase electricity generation while at
| the same time replacing existing fossil fuel generation. So
| that adds to the challenge.
|
| Not saying this is impossible, but it surely is a challenge.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| 40% of our electricity is clean. So even if we need to more
| that double electricity while making all the existing
| electricity clean, the growth rate is still only a factor of
| 5 over 29 years compared to the factor of 5.5 we grew from
| 1950 to 1973.
| endymi0n wrote:
| After all, it's not even that hard or costly in comparison.
|
| Total expected lifetime cost of the F-35 program [1]: 1.5T$
|
| Expected cost of shifting the US to 100% renewables [2]: 4.5T$
| (note these estimates are probably at least double that of the
| real costs in light of the rapidly dropping deployment costs
| since)
|
| Environmental cost of not doing it: Projected at 1.5T$ for the
| US by 2050, so it's almost self financing.
|
| This is not even about serious economic restraint, it's
| literally just about having a frickin' fighter or not.
|
| Note the Apollo program was a bargain compared to both at just
| 280B$...
|
| "We choose to go to the Moon...We choose to go to the Moon in
| this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy,
| but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to
| organize and measure the best of our energies and skills,
| because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept,
| one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win, and
| the others, too."
|
| [1] https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/f35-fighter-jet-
| pe... [2] https://e360.yale.edu/digest/shifting-u-s-
| to-100-percent-ren...
| eldaisfish wrote:
| Generating electrical energy isn't difficult. Distributing it
| is. Balancing variable generation against variable demand is
| even more difficult.
|
| What you've forgotten here is that doubling or tripling the
| carrying capacity of electrical infrastructure isn't a trivial
| task. Remember that in the 50s, electrical energy was generated
| at large sites like the Hoover dam or the James Bay project in
| Quebec. It was then distributed out to houses that didn't have
| many high capacity electrical appliances.
|
| Today, all that has changed with dishwashers, electric dryers
| and now EVs slowly becoming standard. You are making it seem
| like these infrastructure upgrades can be magicked into
| existence without decades of investment, planning and effort.
|
| The article is right - no country is ready for the sudden
| change. Watch as EVs go from a rich person's toy to the
| mainstream and the electrical infrastructure keeps collapsing
| dealing with the sustained surge in demand.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Infrastructure is sized for peak power usage, so for those
| early evening times when somebody might have their air
| conditioner, range and clothes dryer running simultaneously.
|
| Electrification will significantly increase energy usage
| (kWh), but it has a much smaller impact on peak power (kW).
| Electric cars charge at night, electric heat pumps replace
| air conditioners, et cetera.
|
| Also, infrastructure was designed for rising demand. For
| infrastructure was built in the 60s the planners would say
| "demand is doubling every decade, so if we want our
| infrastructure to last 100 years..."
|
| Sure, there will be some places that don't have adequate
| infrastructure, but it will be a small fraction.
| eldaisfish wrote:
| I don't think you have a good handle on how the
| distribution system is sized. Single, large loads like EVs
| at 10-30 kW were on nobody's radar even as recently as the
| 2010s. yes, infrastructure was designed for rising demand
| but not the sudden addition of 7 kW+ of capacity in
| multiple homes.
|
| A typical EV charger draws anywhere from 7 kW to 25 kW.
| That is the total connected load of more than one typical
| North American house. And typical pole-mounted transformers
| are around 50 -200 kVA. Two EVs added to the regular mix is
| all it takes to upset the balance.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| And just like the internet, the 'generation' is getting
| closer and closer to the customer. As netflix installs
| appliances in my region, we're also generating electricity
| at the rooftop or regional cogen systems.
|
| That parked electric car may very well back-feed into the
| grid to shave the peaks of demand.
|
| That clothes dryer might run 'slow' until it's peak pricing
| time, same with EV charging.
|
| My 'smart' thermostat already does it for HVAC. Everything
| else will too.
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _What you 've forgotten here is that doubling or tripling
| the carrying capacity of electrical infrastructure isn't a
| trivial task._
|
| This has been studied recently, and the supposedly numbers
| aren't crazy:
|
| > _The increase in transmission needs as renewable
| electricity supply grows, for all 80%-by-2050 renewable
| electricity scenarios, result in an average annual projected
| transmission and interconnection investment that is within
| the recent historical range for total investor-owned utility
| transmission expenditures in the United States (i.e., $2
| billion /yr to $9 billion/yr from 1995 through 2008)
| (Pfeifenberger et al. 2009)._
|
| > _New transmission in the high renewable electricity
| scenarios was found to be concentrated in the middle and
| southwestern regions of the United States, mainly to access
| the high-quality wind and solar resources in those regions
| and to deliver generation from those resources to load
| centers._
|
| * https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy13osti/52409-ES.pdf
|
| * https://www.nrel.gov/analysis/re-futures.html
|
| See "Volume 4: Bulk Electric Power Systems: Operations and
| Transmission Planning":
|
| * https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy12osti/52409-4.pdf
|
| December 2020 study from Princeton, "Net-Zero America" by
| 2050:
|
| * https://www.princeton.edu/news/2020/12/15/big-affordable-
| eff...
|
| * https://environmenthalfcentury.princeton.edu/
|
| There are cost estimates for various scenarios: some or zero
| natgas, some or zero nuclear, mostly or all renewable.
|
| Summary news report of the study:
|
| * https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/15/race-to-
| zero...
| eldaisfish wrote:
| The NREL report and most of what you posted focuses on
| transmission.
|
| What i'm referring to is the expansion capacity of
| distribution grids to suddenly accommodate large amounts of
| power from EVs.
|
| Simply posting a lot of links isn't usually a good
| strategy.
| davedx wrote:
| Pure unsubstantiated FUD.
|
| The national grid in the UK has done tons of preparation -
| read about their Dynamic Containment program for example -
| but it's much easier to just wave your hands and claim "we
| aren't ready, it's too hard".
|
| This is such a typical FUD article from the climate change
| denying WSJ. Boring and predictable
| anonporridge wrote:
| > or they're pessimistic about modern America's ability to
| build anything big any more.
|
| This wouldn't be an entirely unfounded concern.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| Yeah, I was throwing the author a bone, there. Unfortunately,
| with scare articles like this, it's somewhat of a self
| fulfilling prophecy. We need articles talking about how it's
| relatively easy given historical capabilities, but we need
| actual action.
| asdff wrote:
| Too bad the nature of politics has changed. We need another
| FDR and WPA. Too many politicans favor crafting lucrative
| public contracts to their cabal of friends than crafting a
| productive public works project. There is no job security
| in that.
|
| Another big issue is the cost to run. In order to be a
| decent candidate, you need to buy national advertising,
| which is owned by a handful of companies, which would
| prefer certain candidates who would provide them with
| profitable legislation.
|
| The current crop is rotten and the mechanisms we have to
| get a new one are coopted by these entrenched private
| interest groups who actively fight to ensure their
| profitable status quo doesn't change, and only does if a
| profitable angle has been already conceived. Maybe this is
| the American Way.
| simplicio wrote:
| I disagree. The FDR era featured a lot _more_ public
| corruption and cronyism then currently exists. Indeed, I
| suspect there 's some trade-off between anti-corruption
| and the ability to get things built, as layers of checks,
| hearings, certifications, etc. end up making it much
| harder and more time consuming to build anything.
| anonporridge wrote:
| True that. Setting expectations and believing something is
| possible is an underrated part of the process to get there.
|
| Pessimism leads to inaction.
| ant6n wrote:
| > The idea is being pushed by several groups with a vested
| interest in seeing it happen--most notably, environmentalists and
| the tech industry.
|
| Those environmentalists are just waiting to collect those
| dividends on a saved planet, while everybody else gets shafted.
|
| > But in some sense, consumers have already made the choice to
| move toward at least the "electrification of a lot more things,"
| if not everything. That's because our smartphones and computers
| and all the other devices that attach to them require electric
| power. So electrification is happening, whether we've made a
| conscious decision to electrify or not.
|
| Yeah, let's go back to the good old times of gas-powered
| computers and smartphones!
| asdff wrote:
| Moving to an apartment with a gas stove and gas heat has probably
| saved me thousands of dollars in utility bills. Electric heat is
| so expensive and seems so wasteful, especially when my winter gas
| bill is like $18 a month (gets into the 40s-50s so not terribly
| cold, but used daily in winter).
| hoppyhoppy2 wrote:
| Electric heat pumps use less electricity than electric
| resistance heating, especially in a climate like yours that
| does not get truly frigid temps. As a side benefit they also
| offer efficient cooling during hot weather.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| Yeah, I live in a mild climate and my previous house was in-
| ceiling electric resistance heating. We mostly just bundled
| up, but just for a lark, I set all the thermostats to 65 for
| the month of January to see how much it would cost. It was a
| bit over $1000.
|
| We had the warmest attic on the block though, I'm sure.
| ip26 wrote:
| In the case of your parent comment, where winter temps don't
| go below 40-50, they don't even need a fancy heat pump, just
| a regular A/C with a reversing valve, which are not much more
| expensive.
| djrogers wrote:
| They still cost more in many places than gas heaters.
| throw0101a wrote:
| Yes, there's a ROI period. It's a matter of pay now or pay
| later (over time).
|
| Obligatory _Technology Connections_ video:
|
| * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7J52mDjZzto
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