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this post was submitted on 29 Jan 2025
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Efficiency should not lead to more usage but to often it does. The example above shows that at a time we should have seen massive dips in usage as you say it just sorta leveled off which would indicate quite and increase in use. Lighting after all is one of the bigger eletric usages. Or I know it was in the time of filament bulbs.
Efficiency lowers demand, which lowers prices, which should create opportunity for expansion and higher demand. Except prices have been rising, profits have been rising, and real energy investment has been flat. And you can see it across the entire western economy, not just the US. It's great that we've been moving to clean energy, the problem is that we're doing less over all as a civilization.
Think of it this way, fusion power is about to be an actual thing, making cheap clean energy on tap for the planet. And we're just going to sit and watch it glow, because no one can figure out what to do with limitless energy.
oh man. firstly using energy for energy usage sake is again a pattern but its generally due to waste and human nature. Laziness and indulgence. Secondly fusion is not about to be an actual thing. Thirdly when fusion becomes an actual thing it is not limitless energy. There are a whole bunch of limitations around the technology the will have cost. Very much the way fission was not limitless energy and its not because fissionable material is scarce its due to all the associated costs around fission. Even block hole energy won't be free limitless energy.
Ok, try aluminum. Used to be super rare, rarely used. Now you can't throw a cat without hitting some. Production efficiency went through the roof, price dropped like a rock, and suddenly there's aluminum things everywhere. Efficiency created far greater demand due to the drop in cost. Energy is even more useful than aluminum, it literally makes aluminum. And yet, we're using less, as we get more efficient at making it.
aluminum replaces other materials in its use. energy is its own thing. using more aluminum for no real reason would not be good but we replaced things we made with other materials with aluminum once it was common but we don't use it for things aluminum would not be a better material to use it for.
Energy is a base commodity, no different than aluminum, plywood, orange juice, oil or eggs. All of which increase as the population, thus demand and production, increase. And aluminum is used in a lot of structural applications where other materials would be far superior, but aluminum is a hell of a lot more affordable. It's not that it's the best material, it's the best material at that price, due to cheap efficient production.
Exactly. Its a fungible item that can replace or be replaced by other things which energy is not. And your right that increased population will increase demand but we don't want to be increasing demand of anything as all the fungible commodities while being fungible are not inexhaustable.
Lowering demand while increasing population means a lowering standard of living. That's how wars start, and we end up with extremist idiots in charge. If you want lower demand, lower, or stop growing the population. And also realize that most attempts to lower population growth will be massively unpopular. But again, the alternative is war and extremism.
Well the problem there is the increasing population which should not be happening as long as we are using more than a years worth of planetary resources each year.
Agreed, but try telling people not to breed or worse do something to stop them. That's going to end almost as badly as over breeding in the first place. The difference being it would happen right then, rather than some inevitable future date.
I don't believe underbreeding will end very badly. It means we have to handle things differently and getting back to growth is not incredibly tough. When it comes down to it we need to lower the wealth gap which will largely take care of the rest.
It's not that population decline has to end badly, it's that causing it will end badly. It's eugenics and religious and class wars all rolled into a ball of angry fun.
Knowing the solution to the problem isn't the problem, it's that billions of people don't like the solution.
nonsense. education and birth control is all that is needed.
Have you met humanity?
What's this, a voice with common sense I hear? Incredible. Upvoting before the mass downvotes arrive
People be down voting like I'm calling for rolling coal in their front yards.