The Issue with going all Electric

What people need to understand is America has poor people; plenty of them. Poverty in rural America is common. These people eek out a survival, have no health insurance, get food stamps and heat assistance. The idea Americans are resource hogs has a quotient of truth, but suggesting punitive measures is the radical position and only hurts the poor....just like high property taxes. Taxation done as a punitive measure because some are financially capable of buying 200 gallons of gas for the weekend is really perverse.

 

I never suggested any punitive measures and put great emphasis on how we should highlight the positive aspects of many resource saving possibilities. In hopes more people change to these alternatives out of their own free will.

How do you propose we make more energy friendly options available to poor people that own a house? And what should be done about poor people that rent but have to pay a high energy bill because their landlord has no incentive at all to invest in energy saving measures? And if these measures cost money, where should that money come from?

 

That was you with a proposed huge increase of fuel prices. I pointed out that the grid is already at its limits. That is a fact. As an engineer I look at constraints. They are the facts that limit designs. You propose laws that will create magical solutions.

 

There have been lotsa programs, but you can lead a horse to water...

If someone has an old house with uninsulated walls or birdsmouth rafters that are 2" thick at the wall; the best thing is for those houses to age and eventually fail. Natural phase out when they find out their energy bill is 3x the neighbor.

 

I am building a new house that will be at least three times more energy efficient than the one I own now. My existing house was built in 1899. It had no insulation at all, which was common at the time. People wore winter clothes inside when it was cold, and open window or sleep out in the porch when it was hot. In the mid 20th century the comfort expectation increased and more people started to be able to afford better heating. AC also became common. However, things change whether we like it or not. Europeans, at least until the late 1800's, acquired land by taking from the "savages" that according to them didn't value it. The free for the taking land method came to an end. If you want land now, you pay for it. Lifestyles had to change, and will go on changing as long as humans exist. Wishful thinking is not going to change the laws of physics or make resources magically appear. I have sailed a fair amount of the world. In my youth there were many places where fishing was plentiful, and now are lifeless. Things change. On the other hand, some species that were almost extinct have been brought back.

 

I think you have me confused with someone else, seandepagnier perhaps.

As an engineer you should know possibilities exist to increase grid capacity. Like it almost continuously has been expanding since the first powerline was put into service.


And it was you who said things like:

Whether we like it or not, a change is world lifestyle will be forced upon us.

Yes, our standard of living is no longer sustainable. The population will have to move from suburbia back into cities and allow the farmland that has been paved over back to food production. Random travelling in cars, etc. will be restricted or banned. Resources are limited.

While ignoring the options engineers have to offer.

 

For the poor people you worry about that rent and for which there are no energy efficient rentals available because landlords have no incentive to improve their property that might take a very very long time. The housing market doesn't leave many choices at the moment.

 

Even a person who owns a home, inherited from parents, may spend 300 a month to heat it versus building a new home and paying $1500 a month mortgage. My main point is people don't understand geographic variables well. Winters here are severe.

 

From post 197 "And if these measures cost money, where should that money come from?"

Here's one of many possible ideas,

"While the poor and middle class fight for us in Afghanistan and while most Americans struggle to make ends meet, we Mega- Rich continue to get our extraordinary tax breaks... To those who argue that higher rates hurt job creation, I would note that a net of nearly 40 million jobs were added between 1980 and 2000. You know what's happened since then, lower tax rates and far lower job creation.. My friends and I have been coddled long enough by a billionaire friendly Congress. It's time for our government to get serious about shared sacrifice." -Warren Buffett

Also many other similar quotes from the billionaire Buffett quotes page, and are his quotes, not mine! And, as I recall, Jeff Bezos' taxes were based on around $80K last year, while just the publicly known lifestyle he enjoys is definitely not in line with those ordinary citizens- that have that same tax rate.

One of many Energy crisis ideas,

Ground Temperatures as a Function of Location, Season, and Depth https://builditsolar.com/Projects/Cooling/EarthTemperatures.htm

Pretty good below ground temperatures for an underground house or geothermal heat pump system in my area anyway, haha!

Of course these are just a few of my ideas, and will not be 100% green cradle to grave, please feel free to bring your own helpful ideas forward..

 

I've been following the energy debate for quite some time. These are some examples, not necessarily only from this forum:

• Rich people have their own airplanes, why should i do anything?
• Suggesting to tax the rich literally makes you Pol Pot even the poorest people really hate Pol Pot
• Middle class people always have to foot the bill, do you really expect them to do so again?
  
• Suggesting middle class people to invest in energy saving measures that do not pay for themselves within 3 years results in endless debates. Making proposals like those results in rants on how you have no clue about how markets work
• The really really rich companies spend billions on disinformation: Problems do not even exist. The blame for problems that are too obvious already is shifted to something else. Depending on where you live about 17 to 72 percent of the population fall in the trap of the sophisticated campaign
  
• Suggesting the government invests in energy saving measures with the cheap money they can get results in rants on how government only is capable of wasting money
  
• We can't build new railway lines, land they need is occupied by housing already
• America is so big we need gas 4x cheaper than other civilized countries to get from the one occupied place to the next
• My nephew lives on the other coast, suggesting i should pay more than $200 to visit him is immoral
  
• I live in a rural county and only have time to buy groceries once a month, i need a huge truck
• I live in the city, no place to charge a car next to my house, electric cars are stupid
• Public transport equals poo everywhere
• Bicyclists are the most selfish people on the road by far and at least induce 27x times more rage than a BMW driver unaware of turn signals
• It is my God given right to get to that bass i want to catch at 60 knots. I'm not making this up. The the debate went from fishing to communism and Christianity within a few comments
  
• We put a man on the moon outside solutions opinions are irrelevant
  
• We are the richest country the world has ever seen
• We are the country of personal responsibility
• We chose to ignore that per capita we contributed more to the climate problem than almost any other country

Suggesting solutions that make our lives more comfortable and at the same time save energy and even save money on slightly longer terms gets you ridiculed. Even on a forum full of engineers from all over the world, trained to find solutions that make our lives better.

 

• My square wheel is better than your round one.

 

Sadly, radicals on the ends of the square wheel prove that the profit motive is the best way. When electric boats are attractive for quiet and for convenience and affordability; they will catch on..as of now, installing Tesla batteries and regen drive systems takes deep pockets, SDs solution is that we all stay home..

 

Sadly...i see this thread deviating significantly from its original MO.

Looks like it'll end up like that climate change thread!

 

We can't do anything overnight. This is a misunderstanding on this forum that I expect $40 gallon fuel overnight... its not likely and would be disruptive and have negative consequences (no time to adapt) similarly to the rate of change of CO2 causing extinctions.

The idea is to start with the end solution: zero carbon economy. This is where we will end up one way or another regardless since oil is not infinite. Consider what liquid fuel would then need to cost. It has to be bio-fuel (ethanol, canola oil etc) but to produce these fuels with zero emissions would significantly increase the price over what they are today. To consider the cost of land use (instead of forest or something else) and the increased demand (if fossil fuels are unavailable) there is no way around a higher price even with technology improvements. I believe if we are clever the price could be about $40 (in today's dollars) per gallon.

So this is not some cruel joke as some suggest, but simply an optimistic goal for the future. Sometimes it is easier to find a solution working backwards, so gradual increases in fuel taxes do make sense to reach this end. Delaying to do so will result in a discontinuity (one day fuel is cheap, next day there is not fuel) This actually has started to happen here and there around the world: consider haiti right now where some people are dependent on a small amount of fuel for a motorbike and can't get it and are going crazy. Cuba is in a much better position as they have many ebikes there.

ICE boat can use hydrofoils too: so this really has nothing to do with if it is electric. They have active hydrofoils using a sonar-based control loop which may be improved over previous hydrofoils, but has nothing to do with the boat being electric.

I traveled for a few years in philippines and indonesia on my boat. america really doesn't have poor people at all. They dont even have food stamps, and I saw malnourished people everywhere. I just dont see people working that hard in america and still struggling like that with their bones sticking out like that while they are working 12 hours a day. In america you dont have to be malnourished even if you do no work unless you are a child with evil parents.

I have never bought _any_ gas. It is a poor lifestyle choice to depend on gas when our ancestors did not. taxation on luxuries is not perverse: it is a requirement in this case (see above) to reach net zero because unfortunately people will not willingly stop using it.

Maybe you think people starved to death from no income when transistors took their job making vacuum tubes: they just had to adapt. Maybe it would be better to tax fuel for boats (fuel docks) and to offer tax breaks to food delivery trucks.. I dont know, but whatever happens, it is either tax now (help ween people off) or pay a bigger price in the future. The disturbing thing is so many people wasting the fuel now on things like powerboats pulling inner tubes when it really should be conserved for the coming decades.

consider alcohol (our world repeats the same concepts in many ways) "severe alcohol withdrawal symptoms can lead to death during the recovery process" This is similarly to gasoline withdrawal for americans because their use level is so high. As mentioned people literally dont know how to survive without gas and could die if it were shut off overnight. This fact should be recognized and rectified quickly to make a recovery from addiction possible. electric vehicles could be for example like drinking beer instead of whiskey (internal combustion). Much safer, and if moderated could be workable but still have associated risks, and can be abused as well.

A very common excuse that somehow only the richest person in the world should do anything.

This is a fun one. I asked someone why people in europe can use half the energy, the response: "america is bigger so people need more fuel to get between places"

So I then ask why russian use half the fuel as americans (please forget about their corrupt government for a moment the people are not much different) yet the country is twice as big...

The response is, russia is so big that people can't travel as much because its too far, so they dont need as much energy despite the winters being more severe there as well.

This american then continued to try to explain how america is just the size that requires more fuel than anywhere else and if it were any bigger or smaller we would need less fuel.

This is the sad one but its not always true. Solutions like solar ovens actually cook food that tastes better with less effort than any other method that exists. The thing literally self-cleans since it turns any residue into dust. Do people want to adopt it... well actually I convinced a few. I convinced a few people to remove their diesel engines (3 and counting...)

Keep the more comfortable energy saving solutions coming. The alternative is uncomfortable energy saving solutions (in the long run)

I have an electric motor on my boat and it uses a bicycle hub motor, and similar size battery to ebike. This is very affordable. I also see more and more dinghy with electric motors. My solution to stay home?? I travel all over the world, and I never suggested anyone stay home, in fact I suggest people have functioning sail boats to sail south for winter to save energy and so forth (another more comfortable energy saving solution)

 

Allow me to remind you of the very first lines at the start of this topic:

The sad truth is our energy and pollution problems are inherently political.

My very first reply in this thread pointed to three studies that show a path towards an affordable 100% renewable energy based future. The response received to this reply proofs the roadblock towards the implementation of solutions like these is indeed a political one.