[TeMPOraL]

> The way to the future is to convince people that new technology is better for them. If the message instead is "you need to give up things you like for the greater good," people will oppose you at every move, and rightly so;

While I agree in principle, ...

> do you really want to live in a world where computer screens are just barely bright enough to see, where buildings are sweltering on hot days, freezing on cold days, showers are cold, and the speed limit is never higher than 55mph?

Alternative is unfortunately having no computers, no air conditioning and no cars at all. Current energy consumption is too high to sustain even if we go all electric and switch to nuclear + renewables[1]. We need to think about energy efficiency at least a little bit more than we do now.

[1] - this book works out all the numbers: http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/

[yew]

Reading their analysis of nuclear power (which is, by the by, about as renewable as solar power; we'll run out of fissionables around the time the Sun goes out), I'm not seeing any reason you couldn't run things just on that if you solved the political problems.

Unless I'm missing something (always a possibility, of course) their later comparisons are all to a "green stack" that doesn't include nuclear.

[TeMPOraL]

Yes, you're right, my mistake. I expressed myself wrong (thought one think, wrote another...). We can live on renewables + nuclear (if we get there, which would be a monumental task - both politically and in terms of building necessary infrastructure, not to mention electrifying pretty much everything that now burns fuel), but definitely not on renewables alone. And this transition needs to be started ASAP.

The final comparisons of stacks were against electrified and reduced consumption (author started by pointing out how to reduce overall energy use to little more than 50% of the base value). There are many easy tricks that can help with this reduction - like better home insulation, keeping heating few degrees lower, using heat pumps for air conditioning, etc. - that don't mean one has to live without hot water & computers. But people need to start implementing those measures if we are to have any chance in transitioning to a sustainable energy economy.

[yew]

Sure. Efficiency is important, not to mention cheaper in the long run. And if nothing else, we should at least be saving the hydrocarbons for industrial chemistry where they're actually hard to replace.

Convincing people to pay for the switchover is going to be a long, slow process though. And in most cases it boils down to major building renovation; people are famously reluctant to try that sort of thing.

[rue]

I might have to read that at some point. Offhand, it would seem that carpeting Sahara and comparable areas would give quite sufficient yields of solar energy, especially combined with nuclear. Feasibility is another matter, naturally.

[TeMPOraL]

The book suggests it might, but in general getting sufficient quantities of energy from renewables would require country-sized facilities.

[rue]

There's a lot of unused land around, if circumstances ever get that dire.