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Electrify Everything
- Thread starter ItsNotAboutTheMoney
- Start date
Not a sob story. People sitting around a campfire are polluting the air. The device we are using to make these posts are polluting the air. Our Teslas are polluting the air.
Indeed, there are environmental costs to our way of life. We can reduce the environmental impact, but it's typically an economic sacrifice for an individual. Some people can afford to make that sacrifice, but most can't.
Additionally, the greatest improvements are outside of an individual's control... for instance one person can reduce their consumption, but they can't change their energy provider from coal powered to wind turbines.
Also, I would guess that many of us that can afford a Tesla are some of the biggest polluters. RVs, boats, air travel, food waste, huge homes, TVs and devices and phantom power galore.
These changes need to be regulated federally. Until our federal government regulates the change or redirects the subsidies, it won't happen.
I think we need to look at things a bit differently. Every creature on earth looks to meet it's most immediate need first. A drowning person isn't thinking about their next meal, and a starving person isn't worried about getting an education. People who are just scraping by financially aren't going to spend 3 times the price for a less polluting car, or replace working natural gas appliances for the environment's sake.
I don't think us arguing about it (I'm not actually arguing) is helpful.
How about we just shut down the internet? I bet that would significantly reduce our environmental impact.
You know the vast majority of reducing environmental impact does not cost money. Not buying a boat saves a lot of money. Ditto on the RV. New Tahoe? You get the picture.
Shutting off a light, turning down the heat - amazing, this all saves money.
Combining car trips, walking or biking instead of driving - again all saves money.
So, I call total BS on the economic argument for the easiest 50%. People just don't care. The fact is that the rich do the most damage. These aren't drowning people not worried about a meal. These are people deciding to take the Tahoe or the Porsche to the store to buy a lemon.
Silly arguments about shutting down the internet are just that, silly. Lets first do everything reasonable like not having to decide to take the Tahoe or the Porsche to the store. Like not driving a big truck because we think it looks cool and makes us feel powerful. Oh yeah, that would save money too...
Disclosure. 2 Teslas (one per driver). Top 1% income. Solar meet 90% of all electric house and car use. No boat, RV. Minimize food waste, mostly vegan. Total cheap skate (Netflix et al 1 month out of 6, DIY house cleaning, landscaping etc). Shocking how I am fulfilled and don't spend much money getting there (and maybe bottom 1% of US in terms of carbon - certainly bottom 1% in terms of direct energy costs).
Shutting off a light, turning down the heat - amazing, this all saves money.
Combining car trips, walking or biking instead of driving - again all saves money.
So, I call total BS on the economic argument for the easiest 50%. People just don't care. The fact is that the rich do the most damage. These aren't drowning people not worried about a meal. These are people deciding to take the Tahoe or the Porsche to the store to buy a lemon.
Silly arguments about shutting down the internet are just that, silly. Lets first do everything reasonable like not having to decide to take the Tahoe or the Porsche to the store. Like not driving a big truck because we think it looks cool and makes us feel powerful. Oh yeah, that would save money too...
Disclosure. 2 Teslas (one per driver). Top 1% income. Solar meet 90% of all electric house and car use. No boat, RV. Minimize food waste, mostly vegan. Total cheap skate (Netflix et al 1 month out of 6, DIY house cleaning, landscaping etc). Shocking how I am fulfilled and don't spend much money getting there (and maybe bottom 1% of US in terms of carbon - certainly bottom 1% in terms of direct energy costs).
This thread gives you a clear example of where collective assistance should be given. An HOA with limited service, because a number of years ago they were built with the assumption that heating and cooking would be natural gas, because that's just how things were done.
It doesn't matter whether the homeowners are eager to electrify everything, they cannot realistically do it.
It's a barrier that needs to be overcome for those residences and is cheapest when done together. To me that's precisely the type of assistance that should be given.
Then you can tell them no new natural gas appliances.
Of course, first you need to stop _new_ builds from being hooked up with natural gas before tackling the backlog of legacy problems.
SageBrush
REJECT Fascism
That is spin. Through the years, infrastructure was built based on two things mostly: the cheapest for the contractor, the cheapest for the owner, and the cheapest fuel at the time. There are oodles of apartment complexes in my locale that are electric only because NG was more expensive for the contractor or building owner. If they put in NG, it was typically an owner decision based on fuel costs.
I don't feel at all obliged to subsidize their choices. The money they saved by installing NG can now be spent on electric upgrades
Clearly you can afford to "Electrify Everything". You know you're in the minority, right?
It's a personal choice. Higher now, but average family net worth in 2019 was $750k and median net worth was $122k.
Most of those folks choose nicer vacations, dining out, a higher spec smart phone, bigger screen TV, etc. over more personal electrification/decarbonization.
"Affordable" is an excuse here for the fortunate to not do a lot more to help internalize their negative externalities.
https://money.usnews.com/money/pers...hat-is-the-average-american-net-worth-by-age#
Net worth is not cash under the mattress to be spent, it's largely home/auto equity. $122k in home equity either means you have a fully paid off house in Alabama, or you're staring down another 30 years of mortgage payments in silicon valley.
The western worlds addiction to throwaway consumerism needs the brakes pumped, but asking people to divert all of their discretionary income into electrifying their life would be seen as a joke by 99% of people.
So you are saying these folks can not choose to fly less, less far, take fewer or closer vacations, dine out less, chose a lower spec smart phone, smaller screen screen TV, go to fewer sporting or other entertainment events, etc? Numbers say otherwise.
Because they choose not to do a bit more, regulation (public policy incentives/disincentives) are required to lessen the negative externalities.
There are some people on this planet that think 'god' created all this for them to personally consume every resource they can get their hands on. Short drop and a sudden stop for the lot of em.
For the rest of us with a more balanced approach, I see no reason to make life miserable (even more than it already is) by sitting in a dark room all day and not enjoying our fleeting existence in the universe as responsibly as possible.
People should be able to find a balance. Switch to an electric car? No problem, I was happy to do so (it blew away the ICE competition). Spend tens of thousands of dollars to convert my kitchen to electric appliances just to eliminate that very last 0.1% (or whatever) of my carbon footprint? Forget it. Air travel? Life is short. We should be allowed the occasional indulgence.
That's precisely the egocentric, grossly exaggerated straw-mannerism problem. Life is much better for the vast majority of these folks than it ever was in human history. That they are not willing to make small to moderate manageable sacrifices is the usual sad play.
Do you think I am an idiot? That is why it was a disclosure. Of course I am in the minority.
But that is also more of an access to finance question. I spent the average new car cost on one of the cars and now it is fueled for free. So about 80% of new car purchases spend more than me over time. Now my 8 year old Tesla cost way more than average but now it is 8 years old. Its value (by tax man) is $28k and I suspect the average on the street is like $15k which means that when you factor in fuel costs .... well you get the point.
My solar panels on a 30 year mortgage save money - right?
And my tight house had its tightness paid for mostly by the utility in the form of rebates.
So yes, I have more money than average (I think I literally said I was a 1% based on income which means that I make more than 99% of people - while I understand that you don't need to be smart to be rich, the majority of 1% income folks know what "minority" means).
But the vast majority of people at my income level and above do not do what they can to reduce emissions. And they are not starving - which was my point.
You can frame this as an elitist thing but the reality is people are generally too greedy or too dumb not too poor to make a difference (in the US of course - not worldwide - then they are too poor). Hence the fact that the majority of new passenger vehicles are SUVs.....
mspohr
Well-Known Member
An approach to the transition...
cleantechnica.com
The future of all energy is electricity and HVDC is the new pipeline, so the gas utilities won’t have anything to do except manage the withering of their organizations.
That means that as their revenues drop while their expenses remain the same, they can increase rates to their remaining customers without those customers having any recourse. For the bottom 40% of the socioeconomic ladder, that means that they get squeezed between capital costs for switching to better choices that they can’t afford and monthly utility bills that they can’t afford. Punishing the less affluent seems to be considered acceptable in the United States and possibly in the United Kingdom, but not in the rest of the developed world.
Where does the death spiral come in? Well, when better alternatives arise to the thing the utility provides, then customers will slowly peel away across its entire geographical service area, reducing its revenue, but it will still have to provide service everywhere, hook up new customers if they want it, and maintain the entire network of linear assets. Reduced revenue, no reduction in expenses. That means that it has no money to improve service or reduce price point, so the competitor takes more customers, and the problem gets worse. The death spiral leads to bankruptcies of regulated utilities.
All the buildings in a specific isolation sub-network of a city or suburb or county can be targeted. They can be given a schedule, they can be cajoled with carrots, and they can understand that the stick of no gas exists. Heat pump incentives. Induction cooking incentives. Industrial heat electrification incentives. Education programs. Mobilized contractors. A deadline.
Gas Utilities Are Facing The Heat Death Of Their Business Models, & We Need To Help Them - CleanTechnica
Entire isolation sub-networks can be decommissioned and made safe, and all the costs associated with them removed from the utility's books.
cleantechnica.com
The future of all energy is electricity and HVDC is the new pipeline, so the gas utilities won’t have anything to do except manage the withering of their organizations.
That means that as their revenues drop while their expenses remain the same, they can increase rates to their remaining customers without those customers having any recourse. For the bottom 40% of the socioeconomic ladder, that means that they get squeezed between capital costs for switching to better choices that they can’t afford and monthly utility bills that they can’t afford. Punishing the less affluent seems to be considered acceptable in the United States and possibly in the United Kingdom, but not in the rest of the developed world.
Where does the death spiral come in? Well, when better alternatives arise to the thing the utility provides, then customers will slowly peel away across its entire geographical service area, reducing its revenue, but it will still have to provide service everywhere, hook up new customers if they want it, and maintain the entire network of linear assets. Reduced revenue, no reduction in expenses. That means that it has no money to improve service or reduce price point, so the competitor takes more customers, and the problem gets worse. The death spiral leads to bankruptcies of regulated utilities.
All the buildings in a specific isolation sub-network of a city or suburb or county can be targeted. They can be given a schedule, they can be cajoled with carrots, and they can understand that the stick of no gas exists. Heat pump incentives. Induction cooking incentives. Industrial heat electrification incentives. Education programs. Mobilized contractors. A deadline.
Bankruptcies of regulated utilities?
Has that happened very often in history?
They keep charging more. The poor suffer. And their life goes on. At some point when/if NG is completely banned, they get a government buyout of their assets. I mean who do you think runs this country? How many states have banned their cities from banning NG?
NG will probably be seen as a backup for the grid for many many years. Resiliency. Maybe gradually ramp up connection charges to make up for lower usage. Maybe make connection mandatory for resiliency like many jurisdictions do for grid connection.
And, to be fair, resiliency is not a terrible idea. You will have a hard time convincing people that want resiliency - particularly upper middle class folks - to give it up.
Has that happened very often in history?
They keep charging more. The poor suffer. And their life goes on. At some point when/if NG is completely banned, they get a government buyout of their assets. I mean who do you think runs this country? How many states have banned their cities from banning NG?
NG will probably be seen as a backup for the grid for many many years. Resiliency. Maybe gradually ramp up connection charges to make up for lower usage. Maybe make connection mandatory for resiliency like many jurisdictions do for grid connection.
And, to be fair, resiliency is not a terrible idea. You will have a hard time convincing people that want resiliency - particularly upper middle class folks - to give it up.
The resiliency argument isn't a good one, as anything serious* that takes down the electrical grid is likely to take down the NG distribution system at the same time. You get resiliency by pairing a generator with on site fuel storage. If you have a NG-connected generator and expect it to provide resiliency you're going to be disappointed when the biggest outage in 50-100 years hits and you're sitting in the dark because you didn't properly prepare.
*I'm not talking storms/weather, I'm talking major geomagnetic storms and MMI VIII or higher earthquakes, etc.
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