Quote:
Originally Posted by sendler
That is ridiculous. Built out infrastructure doesn't change with the stroke of a pen. Data does not lie. Denying it does nothing to suggest wise and pragmatic actions that can lead us to change. Energy load is dependant upon many considerations. Even with an institution of worldwide Marshal Law and extreme imposed authoritarian austerity. Mainly at this point being, the infrastructure that uses it. Which must be totally rebuilt to change from liquid fuel and natural gas, to electricity. Of which many industrial processes, mining and refining, and agriculture have no practical electrical possibility in sight at this scale for 7.6 billion people. This will take hundreds of trillions of dollars and several decades. It has taken us 70 years of the Great Acceleration to grow this big and it will take just as long to build it into something else all over again with a controlled degrowth at a rate that does not seem so much like a total collapse.
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If I take an uninsulated smudge-pot heated country and convert it to a xeroscaped,reduced footprint,passive-solar,superinsulated envelope,using state-of-the-art HVAC,appliances,and lighting,synchronize all traffic,end congestion and gridlock,and put every driver in a car with a BSFC of 0.14-lbs/Bhp-hr,and do the same with container ships,cruise ships,railroads,trucks,and buses,and go after aircraft,and keep going,I'm pretty certain that the US can enjoy a higher standard of living on less energy.I've watched my own friends cut their carbon footprint by 80% already.And they didn't suffer the loss of any standard of living.It's scalable on a global level.
Again.Get to know a mechanical engineer.