[bwood]

While on the topic of green energy, I recently started reading Electrify by Saul Griffith [0] which outlines a pretty comprehensive plan for addressing climate change with a broad shift to "electric everything". The summary is that by investing massively in renewables and electrification NOW, it we can solve climate change and also reduce the cost of living for everyone everywhere (not to mention the bonus of not irreversibly altering the climate).

If you are at all concerned about the future of our planet, IMO this is required reading!

[0] https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/electrify

[zbrozek]

I would dearly love to electrify everything, but electricity around here (California) has price growth strongly exceeding inflation while simultaneously getting less reliable. You're economically better off converting electric loads to gas, even if that means using gas to generate electricity.

[deelowe]

How much of that is because the approach to power generation has been to try and squeeze more out of the existing infrastructure (gas, nuclear, and hydro) instead of transformation to green alternatives (solar and wind)?

Just as an example, it seems that the Pacific DC and AC Intertie's go through some pretty remote places that could be prime candidates for solar installations.

[throwaway894345]

Presumably the solution is to scale up the supply of renewable energy. Another solution is to start making things more energy efficient. There's a lot of untapped efficiency out there.

[BurningFrog]

California's "never build anything anywhere" policy makes many things difficult.

[beaconstudios]

That seems like just a different way of saying to stop using fossil fuels, which is true but hard to achieve when the vast majority of our transport is done using them. Electrified public transport taking precedence over cars would accelerate the process but so many people are opposed to public transit.

[onion2k]

which is true but hard to achieve when the vast majority of our transport is done using them

Many countries have passed laws to make selling new fossil fuel powered cars illegal within the next couple of decades. You might argue that's too slow, or even not possible, but the intent to reduce reliance on ICE transport and move to electric vehicles is definitely there.

[Retric]

Most fossil fuel use is outside of transportation, and within transportation cars and trains are a fairly easy transition. Electrified highways solve the issue for Trucks.

Boats and aircraft are more difficult, but there are a range of viable options for each. For example the US uses a little over 18 billion gallons of aviation fuel a year and produces 17 billion gallons of ethanol per year. It’s not a drop in replacement, but it is much easier than hydrogen or batteries.

[martythemaniak]

It'll play out in the opposite manner. The shift to EVs is going to happen first, followed by public transit. This is because EVs don't have a consensus / coordination problem. Electrifying a line or building a new line takes a minimum of a decade of planning, consultation, design and study, construction. But cars need replacement all the time and you can just go to a website and get an EV. Prices for batteries fall about 30% for every doubling of production. The spread of EVs is exponential, not linear. Sales roughly double every three years and many OEMs have stopped ICE development altogether. Once new car sales are close to 100% EV, existing stock will naturally die off.

Cars will electrify far faster than busses and trains in North America.

[bwood]

Yeah, that's basically the point of the book. Acknowledging that our dependence on fossil fuels is hard to break, but outlining an actually realistic plan for doing so.

[keyKeeper]

I haven't read it and I'm curios what is the gist of the electrification approach. Is it that it's more efficient?

Wouldn't heating and cooling be more efficient if done through architectural approaches?

For example, for cooling Persians use "cooling towers" called Windcatcher[0]. I know that there's a lot that can be done through design both for cooling and heating.

Also, organising the public spaces and infrastructure must be much more productive than aiming for changing the energy conversion systems(i.e. switching away from combustion propellers to electric ones). I' m very sceptical of the idea that electric cars will solve our problems. Just recently Elon Musk demonstrated that electrification of cars and taking the traffic underground simply creates underground traffic congestion[1].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windcatcher [1] https://twitter.com/parismarx/status/1479153917749600257

[stephen_g]

Obviously passive is better, but the point is that you need active heating or cooling or cooking or moving, electric is better. For example, a heat pump space heater or hot water heater is 3 - 5 times more efficient than gas heating.

Electric cars, of course, do share the same issues cars have (extremely space inefficient meaning the throughput of people through over a distance is lower than most other transit options). But the roundtrip efficiency is about three to four times better than a regular ICE (most of the energy goes into producing heat, not locomotion). So they're generally better than ICE cars. You are right that the Boring company seems to have basically solved no problems, and the Vegas system could have hundreds of times more throughput just using light rail (either underground or overground). But the rolling stock of the light rail would be electric - so that better solution would be electrification too!

[bwood]

It's not really that electricity is more efficient (is IS more efficient in most cases, but a key point of the book is that we can't "efficiency" our way out of the climate crisis). It's that as long as the generation of electricity is clean, the use of it is also clean. We already have clean ways of generating electricity that are cost-competitive with fossil fuels, and by scaling up production it will actually end up massively cheaper than fossil fuels. But there is a high upfront cost to switching, so financing the switch is one of the biggest challenges.

The book is quite thorough in laying out all the challenges (eg, handling variable production from renewables, how to get buy-in from existing fossil fuel stakeholders, etc) and presents realistic solutions for each. I recommend you pick up a copy and read it!

[audunw]

I don't understand why so many make a big deal of the Las Vegas loop congestion. I don't have the impression that it's supposed to demonstrate anything other than that Boring Co could actually dig a tunnel. Presumably they could fix the problem by building a vehicle actually designed for the purpose of a "loop" transportation system, but that's obviously still some ways out. So it's basically a demo, a playground and a marketing gimmick for Boring Co/Tesla.

[vondur]

Sure there are many ways to design housing to be more energy efficient, but what about all of the existing housing?

[Cthulhu_]

I mean that doesn't sound like a revolutionary hot take to me, I guess I'm glad you're inspired?

The problem we on this side of the pond are facing now is that the electrification is going too fast; people installing solar panels on their roofs, getting an electric car, companies putting solar panels on every building and unused patch of land, people electrifying their house by replacing their gas boilers and stoves with pure electric alternatives is all well and good, but the infrastructure can't handle it, and they need YEARS to upgrade said infrastructure, to the point where they are forced to refuse to connect new businesses (that produce or consume a lot of electricity).

It's great, but it needs big investment in the electricity infrastructure.

And of course, better guarantees for energy production. We're facing an energy crisis over here, due to fuckery with Russia, the gas supplies are running out and prices of gas have gone way up, which is causing electricity prices to go up as well. As a country, you need to be able to give guarantees about the stability, availability and cost of electricity. It's not something fixed overnight.

[bwood]

On the face of it, no, it doesn't sound revolutionary. "Just switch to renewables" is something I've been hearing for 20 years and I never believed it could work until I read this book.

The book is quite thorough in laying out all the challenges (eg, handling variable production from renewables, how to get buy-in from existing fossil fuel stakeholders, how to rearchitect the grid from hub-and-spoke to something more like the internet, how to finance the massive upfront cost in a way that will actually save money, etc) and presents realistic solutions for each.

Please don't take my word for it, just pick up a copy and read it.

[alex_duf]

Which side of the pound is that?

Because I haven't heard of too many solar panels or electric cars causing any issue anywhere in europe just yet.