[SnaggyJoker]

You could also switch to a water conserving mist shower and reduce the amount of heated water used for the shower.

You could also reclaim the water from the shower for use in the toilet by turning the supply to the toilet off and manually transferring it to the toilet tank.

There are lots of things you could do to save resources but most things are not done and are not going to be done because it is inconvenient and takes time, and time is money.

Edit: now that you have me thinking about this idea, it would be possible to have a container in the bathroom attached to a plug that has a hand pump and a tube going to the drain that could be used to reclaim and hold the water that could be higher than the toilet supply and the pressure from it could be used to have it self fill the toilet tank. The container could be highly conductive material like stainless steel and it could be relatively sealed to avoid humidity issues. This would of course be a vector for illness in some cases.

[roenxi]

> There are lots of things you could do to save resources but most things are not done and are not going to be done because it is inconvenient and takes time, and time is money.

This is radically underselling how much most people are willing to do for 50 pounds. If people are being squeezed out of their lifestyle due to energy costs (which seems quite likely, looking at the aggregate stats) they'd spend the time to conserve energy. Assuming someone shows them how to do it.

It remains a mystery why everyone was so calm walking in to this while tightening the screws on fossil fuel industries to stop them investing int he future. The globe needed a supportive regulatory environment for more nuclear power 20 years ago. Now there appears to be a global crisis in progress.

[vkou]

> It remains a mystery why everyone was so calm walking in to this while tightening the screws on fossil fuel industries to stop them investing int he future.

Because the only half-solutions we got for mitigating climate change were drafted by people who are largely free market types, and they can only envision free market solutions - which require end users figuring out how they are going to deal with more expensive energy on their own.

That does, of course, result in quite a bit of pain along the way.

[roenxi]

The German situation is pretty illustrative of what would have happened to anyone stupid enough to try and build more power plants in Western Europe - nuclear stations would have been shut down, fossil fuels have been staring down the barrel of the burgeoning Green movement for at least 20 years and are somewhere close to being hit with legislation designed to make them unprofitable.

Renewable haven't been cost-effective (or technically feasible in some cases, renewabled seem to have been a warning sign for incoming grid instability so far) and all the alternatives have been blocked by politics. I don't know about Europe's environmental legislation but it would be no surprise to discover even most renewable plays were facing legislative challenges too due to the area they take up.

For a market solution to work somebody has to be allowed build something and let it run for 20-50 years to reclaim the capital costs and make a profit. Speaking as someone who would quite have liked to be investing in energy plays about 5-8 years ago when the problem started to become apparent, the legislative environment in the west is too fraught to risk it. We weren't going to start doing anything useful until a crisis happened to get some political cover for the unpopular energy sources. Here we are, so now maybe something will get done.

[oezi]

On the contrary: everyone who invested in Europe in building any sort of capacity was handsomely rewarded (incl. nuclear).

Energy prices are so high because too many guarantees were given to too many parties to entince investment.

[roenxi]

They aren't building new capacity in most forms of energy generation. Eg, in the UK they've basically only building renewables [0], and not in sufficient quantities to maintain their electricity production. The story is similar in most EU countries last I checked. Compare to, say, India to see a healthy approach [1].

Sure the market is signalling that anyone who can bring energy to the table will be rewarded, and trying desperately to keep people in the game who are already playing. But there'd be capacity built and the aggregate numbers wouldn't look so bad if new construction hadn't been politically blocked for years now.

They're choosing de-industrialisation rather than letting people use nuclear or fossil fuels. People really should be panicking about that, they are going to take a massive lifestyle hit. There will be trouble.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:UK_electricity_generation...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:India_electricity_product...

[oezi]

It is a bit weird to call building of fossil plants "healthy" when it is leading us down to environmental destruction.

Nuclear on the other hand is game over everywhere except China. It won't come back within the next 20 years. After this renewables and power grids optimized for renewables (across countries and with lots of decentralized storage based on electric cars) will make any type of energy generation which isn't wind and solar infeasible.

Nobody is choosing de-industrialization. Cheap gas from Russia has been keeping energy cheap in Europe. People are choosing solidarity with Ukraine even if this means some harder years.

[adrianN]

The global crisis is not because we under invested in the future of fossil fuels. They must have no future. The current crisis is because we relied on Putin.

[TrueSlacker0]

Combo that with toilet sinks and a lot of water would/could be saved per year/person.

[SnaggyJoker]

The same tank could be connected to the sink too, turning any toilet into a toilet sink.

[anigbrowl]

Britain is not suffering a water shortage, nor is it likely to in any foreseeable future. Not that I'm encouraging people to waste water, but conserving water doesn't address the unfavorable economics of energy.

[SnaggyJoker]

If they used less hot water they would use less energy heating the water.

That was the original thought until I went off on the tangent about saving the hot water in a separate tank from the bathtub after it is "used" for the bath allowing the heat to be harvested and the water to be re-used.

The original post is about leaving the hot water in the bath to use the energy to heat the house or help heat incoming water. The idea of an external tank made out of conductive material would eliminate some of the problems and also allow the water to be re-used for the toilet.

[anigbrowl]

I see your point but I am not sure about this. I suspect a lot of people use just as much water but spread it out longer. In California there are a lot of devices mandated to reduce consumer use (flow restrictors and so on), but interior water use often demands fixed quantities. For example if you want to have a bath rather than a shower then people will use the capacity of the tub, likewise if you boil water for cooking a flow restrictor just means it takes longer to fill the pot to the required level. So people use just as much but just suffer lower pressure.

Toilet cisterns arguably do reduce usage but then many people complain about less effective flushing which requires additional water; I don't have data to know if these objections are just a cliche or reflect an actual problem. My understanding is that lawn-watering is the biggest waste of water by consumers, to the point that some local authorities will subsidize people reorganizing their gardens to be more suitable for a dry climate.

[Baeocystin]

What California really needs to do is ban alfalfa farming for export. It is infuriating how much water goes to that crop alone for absolutely trivial amounts of return, compared to what the water consumed could have been used for. Water rights in the American West are an absolute cluster.

[briHass]

As for the issues flushing large, ahem, amounts of waste with the low-water toilets, it's mostly just cliche now. When the restrictions were first added, the toilet manufacturers weren't ready. Probably a lot of the complaints were from experiences with these early models.

Now, low-flow toilets have an amazing amount of research and design put into how to meet the guidelines while still performing as well as, and often better than, old 4+ gallon flushes.

A few (ill-informed) complainers aside, this actually seems like a win all around. Toilets don't cost more than they used to, they use less water, and perform better than ever.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

Saw this a couple of years ago in the Grauniad:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/mar/18/england-...

[anigbrowl]

[redacted for cynicism]

[nly]

Hosepipe bans are pretty common in the UK due to water shortages

[anigbrowl]

I think that has more to do with under-investment in infrastructure. Britain does have recurring droughts but they're pretty shallow.

[zimpenfish]

> I think that has more to do with under-investment in infrastructure.

We have a lot of leaky pipes. I don't get around as much as I used to but it's not uncommon for me to see a different leak every time I go for a walk around SE London.

[smileysteve]

Interesting thought on graywater. It really does seem easy enough for shower/washer/non-kitchen sinks to drain to toilets.

[zarzavat]

The problem is how to keep such a system clean, as then there will be a bunch of foreign gunk floating around in your cistern.

[SnaggyJoker]

Yeah and bacteria would build up in the reserve tank.

An inline filter of some sort could be used for particles but that would require maintenance.

There would also be soap scum build up and hair conditioner products would gunk up the works I'm sure.

[netsharc]

In Japan they don't seem to have a problem to put a sink (for handwashing) that drains to the reserve tank:

https://imgcp.aacdn.jp/img-a/1200/auto/global-aaj-front/arti...

[spike021]

On one of my visits to japan my hotel had a toilet with a sink on top of the tank. Really loved the idea of flushing and washing my hands at the same time. The water used to wash your hands ends up being used for toilet water anyway. So you're not really wasting water at a completely separate sink.

[throwaway742]

I've noticed that when I put my shower on mist I have to turn the water temperature up quite a bit to have the same felt temperature. The small water droplets seem to cool a lot faster. I'm not sure that it is actually more energy efficient.