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I won't argue about how we live in a terribly consumer-fixated culture - totally agree with you. Ironically, at this exact moment, I'm writing a review on Amazon, about how much I like my 15 year old Kaito KA007 hand-cranked radio. It's never seen a single battery, yet I've had it with me on camping, business trips, burning man - everywhere. 60 seconds on the crank gets me 20 minutes of radio. I hope to have it with me another 15 years. Likewise, my Mountain Equipment Co-Op Backpack that I've had for 18 years - I've had that with me every single day for 19 years, it's my laptop case, my tool case, my document holder - In the Amazon Jungle, Luxembourg, and with Network Engineers in London, Dubai and Singapore. I've used the heck out of it - and it's still going strong. So, I'm totally on board with having a very few things, that you take good care of, and last a long time. But - this is a separate conversation (somewhat) from energy usage. Heat, Pumping/Processing water, cooling - they all have some physical minimum amounts of power. And even if you are living a hyper-efficient 40 gallons/day life style (Northern California, see http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/04/01/us/water-use-i... ) versus the rest of the world (See: http://www.data360.org/dsg.aspx?Data_Set_Group_Id=757) - there are some physical limits as to how little energy you can use and still maintain a comfortable lifestyle. We can only be efficient so far - eventually we're going to have to find a way to provide lots, and lots, and lots of power to everyone in the world, if they want to live a comfortable lifestyle. Thankfully, much of that comes from having warm homes, and hot water - something that Solar does an admirable job of providing (bringing it all back to the original thread). |