this post was submitted on 27 Aug 2023
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This is an interesting article, in places with hydro or wind based electricity I think it's fine to have the expectation of forever available electricity.
Even in those cases it does make sense to limit our use of appliances and such to locally produced solar electricity. I wish we had standards for neighborhood solar farms for cases where some houses have minimal sun exposure.
And what happens when there's a drought or change in weather patterns?
I think expecting 24-7 electricity, whether it's available or not, is part of the issue with modern consumption. We expect electricity on demand, so any energy solution has to have backups and grid connections and batteries and all that expensive ecologically damaging infrastructure the article discusses.
The point isn't that some electricity production is reliable 24/7. The point is, if we want an ethos of reduced consumption, we need to give up the idea that we have the right to power on demand 24-7. We adjust our power consumption to nature's rhythms and circumstances rather than spending billions extra to guarantee we can consume power whenever we want. And that would have a much bigger impact than adjusting our thermostats or wearing sweaters.
Uh yes, we need energy on demand 24/7 lol. We're not going to regress to the stone age, and it will always be a requirement.