Some say that we will need a lot less energy when we go with renewables, but they are forgetting about Sadi Carnot. We will need the same amount of useful energy.
Thanks for covering this, Lloyd. “Rewiring Aotearoa” has just started and is beginning to pick up pace here in NZ so we’re getting similar arguments. And I find it a little odd since our buildings here are mainly all electric anyway and it’s transport, industry, and agriculture that use the bulk of fossil fuels. I’m still not sold on putting PV on terribly poor performing houses that are cold, damp, and draughty for over half the year. Efficiency and sufficiency still come before new generation when there is limited funding, I think.
"And I find it a little odd since our buildings here are mainly all electric anyway"
In the Rewiring Aotearoa report it shows that NZ space heating is a home's largest use of electricity. As you say this is strange given our weather. It is of course because of the truly terrible standard of insulation. (Lloyd would have a fit) I had a guy working for me from Siberia, he said he had never been as cold inside a house before he came to NZ.
As you correctly point out - waste of time perusing other options before that issue is fixed.
“Meeting this peak with renewables would require a 28× increase in January wind generation, or a 303× increase in January solar, with excess generation in other months.”
The elephant in the room. An amazing number of environmentalists ignore it.
“a good grid could move power from where the wind is blowing, and the sun is shining.”
And people who try that line ignore how staggeringly **expensive** that would be. Weather is regional which means if you don’t have any wind there is also good change that you neighbours don’t either, at least enough to share with you.
“we could interconnect the world with High Voltage Direct Current cables and heat Maine in winter with solar power from Arizona or Morocco”
Not at any reasonable affordable cost we can’t. *This is why cables from OZ to Singapore and Morocco to UK are not actually happening.*
“Our children will enjoy in their homes electrical energy too cheap to meter.” - note he did not mean free energy which many people think he meant. He meant that you would be on a fixed tariff rather than a metered one. This was common in the early days of power generation where you paid a fixed charge depending on how many light bulbs you had.
“We still have to build out a distribution system that runs around the world; we have to overbuild the system and build storage to deal with intermittency and winter peaks.”
**The costs the costs** - who is going to pay for all of this. Do the costing and suddenly Nuclear looks cheap and fast.
Don't forget this one: "Or we could super-insulate our homes and buildings and turn them into thermal batteries, with the utility controlling our heat pumps and dialling them back when loads must be reduced."
Other people controlling you or your environment is not good.
"However far too little "Who is going to pay for this""
Dang straight! Sure, smart people can think of all kinds of things to make things better. I, as a software engineer, am predisposed to think that way (e.g. what's my next tweak to make what already exists better - or to add a new function).
I, as a project manager, think (ALWAYS think) what is the cost? And will the proposed benefits of this project, as yelled out from the heights from the "idea guys", actually turn out to be true?
But always - at what cost??? Is it viable in the real world (as opposed to the "we're all gonna die if we don't!!!!" by the haven't-thought-this-out people.
Like in Hawaii where much PV has been put in to scrub fossil fuels out of their grid. Already, the cost of electricity has risen by a third - and the project isn't done to replace those assets. Nice if they do but what is the cost to consumers - and will they pay the resulting rates just to be able to say "Fully RE!".
And as in my India example, what happens when a typhoon dead-centers on top and puts those acres upon acres of PV out of commission?
Bob, keep on that "Who pays for it" kick and maybe, just maybe, the pie-in-the-sky folks might start to listen.
It will be interesting to watch Hawaii as they are in effect a large-scale experiment in this.
"And as in my India example, what happens when a typhoon dead-centers on top and puts those acres upon acres of PV out of commission?"
That's a resiliency issue - and to be fair there are a lot of power environmentalists who keep on shouting "don't forget we need resiliency" at every opportunity.
A lot of people how no interest in power systems until the power blackouts start and then strangly they all become experts.
Yeah, at the micro-level, there is no resiliency. There is no single backup for a small series of PV panels. Once gone, they are gone - there is no immediate longer-term backup source.
At the macro-level, Hawaii still has no backup for a longer term - their battery banks can only last a few hours. And there's not enough land mass for cross-connects like the contiguous states.
You have to be a little bit careful on the thermal insulation thing. Initial you get big wins for relatively little outlay but rapidly the equation swings the other way. But too many places don't yet meet minimum reasonable standards.
"dialling them back when loads must be reduced." I don't have a problem with this as long as the rules are clearly communicated and followed. You want the deal - sign up for it - you don't then don't but understand you will pay more.
Realistically if the power company turns your AC off for 15 mins in most places in the world you will not even notice. Similarly, if they turn down your heater in mid-winter by a couple of degrees for a while most people's houses are insulated enough so that again you would not notice.
But it must be optional with a reward for taking part and the rules must be clear, obeyed and reported on.
That's for a small gap between the supply and demand. Reward vs pain - where's the money for what kind of pain? If you sign up for it, well, it might suck for you.
Take the California summers when rolling blackouts were far longer than 15 minutes though - then what?
Now, the CA Legislature is thinking about taking MANDATORY control of your electrical supply. No ghostbusters to call at that point - invest in candles...
"where's the money for what kind of pain? If you sign up for it, well, it might suck for you."
If you don't notice where is the pain?
" If you sign up for it, well, it might suck for you." then you unsign........
"ake the California summers when rolling blackouts were far longer than 15 minutes though - then what?" We are talking about modulating loads to prevent blackouts. Modulating load has the possibility of major wins for both the power utilities and their customers. They are not suggesting turning anything off for significant amounts of time. That is a completely different ball game.
A modulate load and a power blackout are completly different.
"Now, the CA Legislature is thinking " California has issues they must address that are not even representative of other states in the USA let alone anywhere else.
"invest in candles" LED lanterns are a far better option.
I think the bigger question is whether or not the utility would turn off the A/C (or heater in winter) for just 15 minutes to even the load across all customers. What if they change it from 15 minutes to an hour or longer? I already set my home's A/C here in Phoenix to 78°F (25.5C) and don't want the utility to arbitrarily raise that to 80°F (26.6C) because even though "it's a DRY heat" it's uncomfortable when it gets to that point. If I'm paying for my comfort, I want to control it—not the utility.
You have a contract with you power utility right. Such a mode of operating would have to have a contract variation to allow it to happen. Such a contract variation would have to have clear terms of use in it.
If they turned your A/C off for an hour when they said max 15 mins then it would be very clear, and you would be entitled to some form of compensation which is already identified in most contracts.
Remember they can already turn the power off to your house if the network is in distress. Which would you preferer A/C turned down for an hour or no power for an hour.
"If I'm paying for my comfort, I want to control it—not the utility" And nobody is suggesting otherwise. Having an option to agree to this in exchange for a rate discount seems reasonable.
I too had fallen for the fantasy of the energy wasted up the smokestack so thanks for clarifying this for me. I suspect the unknown variables in the equation of the future energy needs are going to trip up any prediction. You're right that we are going to need much more AC. OTOH, winters will generally be warmer with the possible exception of Northern Europe if the AMOC shuts down. Here at latitude 35N the cord of wood that I laid in for last winter, still sits in the wood rack. I think I only fired up the woodstove 8 times. So I suspect the heating usage will decline substantially over time, while the cooling will probably surpass it.
Thanks for acknowledging the demands of intermittency and seasonality when discussing renewable energy generation, but it was more of a passing in kind and without the in-depth discussion it deserves. The takeaway is that if we want to go 100% renewable, we will have to rebuild our ENTIRE infrastructure—homes, transmission lines, generation farms, etc.—and do so at immense cost, when the world is currently hungover on sovereign debt and unfunded liabilities promised to current and future generations.
Simply put, we don't have the money, we don't have the resources, and we don't have the time to completely revamp our modern world to run on renewables. Which is why I don't believe the hype of climate change being an existential crisis, because the pundits who use the term don't understand what 'existential' means in this context.
Ah yes, yet again the use of re-definitions by a special interest group to "shade" nuances to get a political outcome (e.g., the use of euphemisms): Rejected Energy.
"I have never understood this; we need exactly the same useful energy, which is what they used to call it on the Sankey charts, or the exergy, not the amount of fossil fuels needed to make it."
Sorry, that's a real misnomer. NOBODY is rejecting that energy. Plus it IS, as you well put it, energy necessary to create even more energy given our current cost-effective energy generation and transmission. ALL of it is "useful energy" - your "rejected" is used as a pejorative in the push for a fossil fuel free future (yes, I liked writing that alliteration)
After all, if that "unuseful energy" didn't exist, you wouldn't be able to provide the consumer energy that you call "useful", would you? You're caught in a linguistic purgatory there...
"Renewables are different. Build a wind or solar farm, and there is a one-time burp of upfront carbon emissions, and then it produces almost zero-cost electricity for years."
ONE time, eh Lloyd? Now that massive solar PV farms are being built, have you seen the pictures of how a few of them (so far, anyways) are literally being ripped apart due to bad weather? We've had a few small instances have them happen to them here - wind and hail, tornadoes, hurricanes...
I'm betting that that more than just a few will suffer that "anomaly" and that after a while, insurance companies (like they are doing with EVs) will skyrocket the premiums.
I'm waiting for the news of a PV farm being "totaled" like a car...oh WAIT!
Whenever I see an interview on TV with somebody who works for a wind turbine/solar company talking about free energy I always want the interviewer to ask if they work for free. Is the truck they drove up in free? how about its fuel. They show a team traveling by chopper to a Wind turbine. Is that team working for free? how about the helicopter is it free??
As with so many other things it's the system total costs which are important rather than individual components. Oh yeah, my Solar invertor quit at 3 years its replacement deff was not free.
One of the issues I have with Martin's calculations is that he seems to think that when RE is not generating the firms that built it can "turn off" the interest on the loans they took out to build the think in the first place. (He might be assuming subsidies kick in to compensate but I am not clear yet - will read more)
I have always said that floating solar farms and wind turbines would require far more maintenance than proponents were talking about. You put something anything out on water like a large lake or the sea and all the rules' changes. Thats why water turbines and floating wind are going nowhere fast. (I am disappointed about the water turbines but not the wind)
Indeed! I am SO tired when folks get Federal government grants and declare "See free money!! It's not costing any local taxpayers a dime!".
Then they get defensive when I point out that when those OTHER local governments get Federal grants, we're being forced to pay for that.
TANSTAAFL - There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.
It is so unfortunate that not enough people understand the idea that someone IS going to pay the piper and that the piper is, too often, YOU. That's something that the old THers refused to acknowledge. I AM glad to see that Lloyd has started to incorporate that into his posts.
Then let the people voluntarily assemble to teams to solve their own problems (paraphrased from de Tocqueville as he was amazed at how little US govts did but the people willingly took on stuff).
Sadly, though, being a big Liberty / Rights guy, NZ sucks. Do you really think that NZ would willing accept all of my Second Amendment accouterments? My ability to stand on my soapbox and say pretty much anything I want?
I would never stand that female PM you had in ruling me.
"Then let the people voluntarily assemble to teams to solve their own problems" Because that does not work in real life, at scale and complexity.
We invented government because of that.
"Sadly, though, being a big Liberty / Rights guy, NZ sucks." how to tell me you don't know anything about NZ.
"Second Amendment accouterments" No we don't like school shootings. You can of course own guns in NZ, I know several people who do, it is however severely regulated. I went through the process of approval to own firearms and reached the stage of being cleared for a firearms license but never took it up for reasons.
"My ability to stand on my soapbox and say pretty much anything I want?"
You are just joking right; we rate as one of the freeiest countries in the world for that sort of thing. At least as high as USA if not higher.
Let's be clear, yes you can have a soap box, yes you can stand on it in public. Yes, you can say anything you like. However, be warned the locals will throw rotten fruit at you if they think you are talking S1**!
"I would never stand that female PM you had in ruling me."\
Probably because you have absolutely no idea of what actually went on. I frequently get USainians explaining to me what happen in NZ during lockdown which completely ignoring the fact that I was here the whole time. Myth after Myth some very inventive and entertaining.
Her goverment had a peak approval rate of over 80% which included a lot of big Liberty / Rights people.
Maybe in NZ. Certainly in Europe and other places. And then there is this saying (I can't find a verifiable attribution so I won't call it a quote):
"A government big enough to give you everything you want, is a government big enough to take away everything that you have."
The Purpose of Govt, according to our foundational document, made it quite clear. It was NOT "to take care of us" or "do stuff for us". It is far larger than that:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed..."
To secure these RIghts. That was the primary reason for forming a government - the rest was the philosophical reason for the dissolution of fealty to the King.
I disagree with your real life - it certainly works well here in NH where, compared to other States, govt is minimalist in nature (although, like all self-justifying entities, it claims more Power for itself).
Are you inferring that I like school shootings? Mostly, they are committed by mentally ill and deranged people (like that transgender that shot up that church school). However, a couple hundred million Americans own guns and most are less apt to commit a crime than those in law enforcement. We know that with our Right to keep and bear arms comes great Responsibility. And as to our infamous notoriety for gun crimes, if you eliminated the top 5-10 counties (a subdivision of a State here in the US), you'd find that our gun crime rate would be less than most of the OECD nations. AND those counties are generally in urban areas where gang/drug warfare (yes, I will admit to that word) is rife.
"Probably because you have absolutely no idea of what actually went on".
I can stand to be corrected - I only get to know what is going on elsewhere through the lens of the American mainstream press; they aren't accurate and have an approval ratings have plummeted over the decades (think averages of in the twenty percentage points) as they shifted from Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How to being Narrative/subjective/Partisan in nature. I am happy to listen in more detail!
The same-size thinking you have highlighted remains a significant problem here in New Zealand.
I have written about this and talk about it whenever I can with architecture clients to point out that in any discussion on energy conservation and efficiency, size does indeed matter, and Small IS Beautiful.
I live rurally in the South Island of NZ and am grateful I can harvest fire wood from our plantings of 20 years ago, light up the burner in the conservatory when the need arises and so avoid the flicking of a switch to keep warm and comfortable in our small self-built cottage.
Thank you again for the clear eyed explanation of energy limits. Essays like these make following you a pleasure.
Thanks for covering this, Lloyd. “Rewiring Aotearoa” has just started and is beginning to pick up pace here in NZ so we’re getting similar arguments. And I find it a little odd since our buildings here are mainly all electric anyway and it’s transport, industry, and agriculture that use the bulk of fossil fuels. I’m still not sold on putting PV on terribly poor performing houses that are cold, damp, and draughty for over half the year. Efficiency and sufficiency still come before new generation when there is limited funding, I think.
"And I find it a little odd since our buildings here are mainly all electric anyway"
In the Rewiring Aotearoa report it shows that NZ space heating is a home's largest use of electricity. As you say this is strange given our weather. It is of course because of the truly terrible standard of insulation. (Lloyd would have a fit) I had a guy working for me from Siberia, he said he had never been as cold inside a house before he came to NZ.
As you correctly point out - waste of time perusing other options before that issue is fixed.
“Meeting this peak with renewables would require a 28× increase in January wind generation, or a 303× increase in January solar, with excess generation in other months.”
The elephant in the room. An amazing number of environmentalists ignore it.
“a good grid could move power from where the wind is blowing, and the sun is shining.”
And people who try that line ignore how staggeringly **expensive** that would be. Weather is regional which means if you don’t have any wind there is also good change that you neighbours don’t either, at least enough to share with you.
“we could interconnect the world with High Voltage Direct Current cables and heat Maine in winter with solar power from Arizona or Morocco”
Not at any reasonable affordable cost we can’t. *This is why cables from OZ to Singapore and Morocco to UK are not actually happening.*
“Our children will enjoy in their homes electrical energy too cheap to meter.” - note he did not mean free energy which many people think he meant. He meant that you would be on a fixed tariff rather than a metered one. This was common in the early days of power generation where you paid a fixed charge depending on how many light bulbs you had.
“We still have to build out a distribution system that runs around the world; we have to overbuild the system and build storage to deal with intermittency and winter peaks.”
**The costs the costs** - who is going to pay for all of this. Do the costing and suddenly Nuclear looks cheap and fast.
Also why is Markdown not working??
Don't forget this one: "Or we could super-insulate our homes and buildings and turn them into thermal batteries, with the utility controlling our heat pumps and dialling them back when loads must be reduced."
Other people controlling you or your environment is not good.
And as Lloyd is FINALLY starting to note: The Cost! The Cost!
I am reading Paul Martins papers at the moment. Very well written and logically analysed. They are worth a read.
However far too little "Who is going to pay for this"
"However far too little "Who is going to pay for this""
Dang straight! Sure, smart people can think of all kinds of things to make things better. I, as a software engineer, am predisposed to think that way (e.g. what's my next tweak to make what already exists better - or to add a new function).
I, as a project manager, think (ALWAYS think) what is the cost? And will the proposed benefits of this project, as yelled out from the heights from the "idea guys", actually turn out to be true?
But always - at what cost??? Is it viable in the real world (as opposed to the "we're all gonna die if we don't!!!!" by the haven't-thought-this-out people.
Like in Hawaii where much PV has been put in to scrub fossil fuels out of their grid. Already, the cost of electricity has risen by a third - and the project isn't done to replace those assets. Nice if they do but what is the cost to consumers - and will they pay the resulting rates just to be able to say "Fully RE!".
And as in my India example, what happens when a typhoon dead-centers on top and puts those acres upon acres of PV out of commission?
Bob, keep on that "Who pays for it" kick and maybe, just maybe, the pie-in-the-sky folks might start to listen.
It will be interesting to watch Hawaii as they are in effect a large-scale experiment in this.
"And as in my India example, what happens when a typhoon dead-centers on top and puts those acres upon acres of PV out of commission?"
That's a resiliency issue - and to be fair there are a lot of power environmentalists who keep on shouting "don't forget we need resiliency" at every opportunity.
A lot of people how no interest in power systems until the power blackouts start and then strangly they all become experts.
""don't forget we need resiliency""
Yeah, at the micro-level, there is no resiliency. There is no single backup for a small series of PV panels. Once gone, they are gone - there is no immediate longer-term backup source.
At the macro-level, Hawaii still has no backup for a longer term - their battery banks can only last a few hours. And there's not enough land mass for cross-connects like the contiguous states.
You have to be a little bit careful on the thermal insulation thing. Initial you get big wins for relatively little outlay but rapidly the equation swings the other way. But too many places don't yet meet minimum reasonable standards.
"dialling them back when loads must be reduced." I don't have a problem with this as long as the rules are clearly communicated and followed. You want the deal - sign up for it - you don't then don't but understand you will pay more.
Realistically if the power company turns your AC off for 15 mins in most places in the world you will not even notice. Similarly, if they turn down your heater in mid-winter by a couple of degrees for a while most people's houses are insulated enough so that again you would not notice.
But it must be optional with a reward for taking part and the rules must be clear, obeyed and reported on.
That's for a small gap between the supply and demand. Reward vs pain - where's the money for what kind of pain? If you sign up for it, well, it might suck for you.
Take the California summers when rolling blackouts were far longer than 15 minutes though - then what?
Now, the CA Legislature is thinking about taking MANDATORY control of your electrical supply. No ghostbusters to call at that point - invest in candles...
"where's the money for what kind of pain? If you sign up for it, well, it might suck for you."
If you don't notice where is the pain?
" If you sign up for it, well, it might suck for you." then you unsign........
"ake the California summers when rolling blackouts were far longer than 15 minutes though - then what?" We are talking about modulating loads to prevent blackouts. Modulating load has the possibility of major wins for both the power utilities and their customers. They are not suggesting turning anything off for significant amounts of time. That is a completely different ball game.
A modulate load and a power blackout are completly different.
"Now, the CA Legislature is thinking " California has issues they must address that are not even representative of other states in the USA let alone anywhere else.
"invest in candles" LED lanterns are a far better option.
I think the bigger question is whether or not the utility would turn off the A/C (or heater in winter) for just 15 minutes to even the load across all customers. What if they change it from 15 minutes to an hour or longer? I already set my home's A/C here in Phoenix to 78°F (25.5C) and don't want the utility to arbitrarily raise that to 80°F (26.6C) because even though "it's a DRY heat" it's uncomfortable when it gets to that point. If I'm paying for my comfort, I want to control it—not the utility.
You have a contract with you power utility right. Such a mode of operating would have to have a contract variation to allow it to happen. Such a contract variation would have to have clear terms of use in it.
If they turned your A/C off for an hour when they said max 15 mins then it would be very clear, and you would be entitled to some form of compensation which is already identified in most contracts.
Remember they can already turn the power off to your house if the network is in distress. Which would you preferer A/C turned down for an hour or no power for an hour.
"If I'm paying for my comfort, I want to control it—not the utility" And nobody is suggesting otherwise. Having an option to agree to this in exchange for a rate discount seems reasonable.
I too had fallen for the fantasy of the energy wasted up the smokestack so thanks for clarifying this for me. I suspect the unknown variables in the equation of the future energy needs are going to trip up any prediction. You're right that we are going to need much more AC. OTOH, winters will generally be warmer with the possible exception of Northern Europe if the AMOC shuts down. Here at latitude 35N the cord of wood that I laid in for last winter, still sits in the wood rack. I think I only fired up the woodstove 8 times. So I suspect the heating usage will decline substantially over time, while the cooling will probably surpass it.
Thanks for acknowledging the demands of intermittency and seasonality when discussing renewable energy generation, but it was more of a passing in kind and without the in-depth discussion it deserves. The takeaway is that if we want to go 100% renewable, we will have to rebuild our ENTIRE infrastructure—homes, transmission lines, generation farms, etc.—and do so at immense cost, when the world is currently hungover on sovereign debt and unfunded liabilities promised to current and future generations.
Simply put, we don't have the money, we don't have the resources, and we don't have the time to completely revamp our modern world to run on renewables. Which is why I don't believe the hype of climate change being an existential crisis, because the pundits who use the term don't understand what 'existential' means in this context.
Ah yes, yet again the use of re-definitions by a special interest group to "shade" nuances to get a political outcome (e.g., the use of euphemisms): Rejected Energy.
"I have never understood this; we need exactly the same useful energy, which is what they used to call it on the Sankey charts, or the exergy, not the amount of fossil fuels needed to make it."
Sorry, that's a real misnomer. NOBODY is rejecting that energy. Plus it IS, as you well put it, energy necessary to create even more energy given our current cost-effective energy generation and transmission. ALL of it is "useful energy" - your "rejected" is used as a pejorative in the push for a fossil fuel free future (yes, I liked writing that alliteration)
After all, if that "unuseful energy" didn't exist, you wouldn't be able to provide the consumer energy that you call "useful", would you? You're caught in a linguistic purgatory there...
"Renewables are different. Build a wind or solar farm, and there is a one-time burp of upfront carbon emissions, and then it produces almost zero-cost electricity for years."
ONE time, eh Lloyd? Now that massive solar PV farms are being built, have you seen the pictures of how a few of them (so far, anyways) are literally being ripped apart due to bad weather? We've had a few small instances have them happen to them here - wind and hail, tornadoes, hurricanes...
I'm betting that that more than just a few will suffer that "anomaly" and that after a while, insurance companies (like they are doing with EVs) will skyrocket the premiums.
I'm waiting for the news of a PV farm being "totaled" like a car...oh WAIT!
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/worlds-largest-floating-solar-plant-220000440.html
Whenever I see an interview on TV with somebody who works for a wind turbine/solar company talking about free energy I always want the interviewer to ask if they work for free. Is the truck they drove up in free? how about its fuel. They show a team traveling by chopper to a Wind turbine. Is that team working for free? how about the helicopter is it free??
As with so many other things it's the system total costs which are important rather than individual components. Oh yeah, my Solar invertor quit at 3 years its replacement deff was not free.
One of the issues I have with Martin's calculations is that he seems to think that when RE is not generating the firms that built it can "turn off" the interest on the loans they took out to build the think in the first place. (He might be assuming subsidies kick in to compensate but I am not clear yet - will read more)
I have always said that floating solar farms and wind turbines would require far more maintenance than proponents were talking about. You put something anything out on water like a large lake or the sea and all the rules' changes. Thats why water turbines and floating wind are going nowhere fast. (I am disappointed about the water turbines but not the wind)
"to ask if they work for free"
Indeed! I am SO tired when folks get Federal government grants and declare "See free money!! It's not costing any local taxpayers a dime!".
Then they get defensive when I point out that when those OTHER local governments get Federal grants, we're being forced to pay for that.
TANSTAAFL - There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.
It is so unfortunate that not enough people understand the idea that someone IS going to pay the piper and that the piper is, too often, YOU. That's something that the old THers refused to acknowledge. I AM glad to see that Lloyd has started to incorporate that into his posts.
Move to New Zealand our government does not fund anything - even desperately needed stuff.
Then let the people voluntarily assemble to teams to solve their own problems (paraphrased from de Tocqueville as he was amazed at how little US govts did but the people willingly took on stuff).
Sadly, though, being a big Liberty / Rights guy, NZ sucks. Do you really think that NZ would willing accept all of my Second Amendment accouterments? My ability to stand on my soapbox and say pretty much anything I want?
I would never stand that female PM you had in ruling me.
"Then let the people voluntarily assemble to teams to solve their own problems" Because that does not work in real life, at scale and complexity.
We invented government because of that.
"Sadly, though, being a big Liberty / Rights guy, NZ sucks." how to tell me you don't know anything about NZ.
"Second Amendment accouterments" No we don't like school shootings. You can of course own guns in NZ, I know several people who do, it is however severely regulated. I went through the process of approval to own firearms and reached the stage of being cleared for a firearms license but never took it up for reasons.
"My ability to stand on my soapbox and say pretty much anything I want?"
You are just joking right; we rate as one of the freeiest countries in the world for that sort of thing. At least as high as USA if not higher.
Let's be clear, yes you can have a soap box, yes you can stand on it in public. Yes, you can say anything you like. However, be warned the locals will throw rotten fruit at you if they think you are talking S1**!
"I would never stand that female PM you had in ruling me."\
Probably because you have absolutely no idea of what actually went on. I frequently get USainians explaining to me what happen in NZ during lockdown which completely ignoring the fact that I was here the whole time. Myth after Myth some very inventive and entertaining.
Her goverment had a peak approval rate of over 80% which included a lot of big Liberty / Rights people.
"We invented government because of that."
Maybe in NZ. Certainly in Europe and other places. And then there is this saying (I can't find a verifiable attribution so I won't call it a quote):
"A government big enough to give you everything you want, is a government big enough to take away everything that you have."
The Purpose of Govt, according to our foundational document, made it quite clear. It was NOT "to take care of us" or "do stuff for us". It is far larger than that:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed..."
To secure these RIghts. That was the primary reason for forming a government - the rest was the philosophical reason for the dissolution of fealty to the King.
I disagree with your real life - it certainly works well here in NH where, compared to other States, govt is minimalist in nature (although, like all self-justifying entities, it claims more Power for itself).
Are you inferring that I like school shootings? Mostly, they are committed by mentally ill and deranged people (like that transgender that shot up that church school). However, a couple hundred million Americans own guns and most are less apt to commit a crime than those in law enforcement. We know that with our Right to keep and bear arms comes great Responsibility. And as to our infamous notoriety for gun crimes, if you eliminated the top 5-10 counties (a subdivision of a State here in the US), you'd find that our gun crime rate would be less than most of the OECD nations. AND those counties are generally in urban areas where gang/drug warfare (yes, I will admit to that word) is rife.
"Probably because you have absolutely no idea of what actually went on".
I can stand to be corrected - I only get to know what is going on elsewhere through the lens of the American mainstream press; they aren't accurate and have an approval ratings have plummeted over the decades (think averages of in the twenty percentage points) as they shifted from Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How to being Narrative/subjective/Partisan in nature. I am happy to listen in more detail!
Insurance companies are already exiting the renewable energy market.
https://www.greenbiz.com/article/could-insurers-pull-plug-renewable-energy
Thanks for an enjoyable read Lloyd,
The same-size thinking you have highlighted remains a significant problem here in New Zealand.
I have written about this and talk about it whenever I can with architecture clients to point out that in any discussion on energy conservation and efficiency, size does indeed matter, and Small IS Beautiful.
I live rurally in the South Island of NZ and am grateful I can harvest fire wood from our plantings of 20 years ago, light up the burner in the conservatory when the need arises and so avoid the flicking of a switch to keep warm and comfortable in our small self-built cottage.
Lloyd, are you still planning to do a Book Signing in Muskoka ?
I was just thinking about that this morning. I have to make a decision!