zlacker

The idea that we should somehow just follow what nature dictates and revert to less is never going to work. We'll go mine asteroids if there's not enough material on Earth to make the batteries we need to run our industries 24/7, lights out. We want everything faster, in more comfort, to last longer, to be cheaper, to be more automated, to me more grandiose, to be more precise, to be more convenient.

If humans wanted to live by nature's vagaries, they would have remained chimps.

>>AYBABT+(OP)
> We want everything faster, in more comfort, to last longer, to be cheaper, to be more automated, to me more grandiose, to be more precise, to be more convenient.

Perhaps some of these should be reevaluated since it appear clear that their cost means less duration as a species.

>>voisin+W
Loss aversion suggests we'll get out of our way to find a maximalist solution where we get to have our cake and eat it too, instead of reneging on anything.

Like EV cars: they had to become better than ICE cars for the switch to happen.

>>AYBABT+(OP)
There's many smart solutions that don't reduce our comfort in any way. One example:

I've worked in a cold store way back. Like, a big warehouse filled with frozen items.

Say products needs to be maintained between -20 and -28C. That 8C is a massive amount of thermal energy. If you'd just cut power, say temperature in the cold store goes from -26 to -21C in a day (for a large cold store, probably less. Volume vs. surface area!). That means as long as you observe the outer ranges, and know how fast the store warms up (when not cooled) you can pick any time of the day to run the cooling systems. The mass of frozen product inside is your battery.

Connect to a bunch of solar panels on roof or nearby solar/wind farm, and you simply run cooling systems when that power comes up.

Versus: add battery storage & run cooling 24/7 to remain as-close-as-possible to optimal temp.

Similar things can be done with many factories, logistics, storage of thermal energy, charging EV batteries & more. Battery storage just gives more flexibility.

It's just using power in a smarter way. Not ditching modern comforts.

>>RetroT+F81
I'm with you on what you're saying. But that's different because this is a hands off system that doesn't really change anything to humans' experience, unlike one where you're asking someone to not cook after sunset or some such.

In the case of your freezer example, the freezer is a form of energy storage. Similarly a battery, or a phase change heat battery, are other forms of energy storage. Energy storage is important for the obvious reasons of being able to decouple time of production from time of consumption.

Modern humans built all of civilization on their ability to decouple time of production from consumption.