Comment by jordanb
14 hours ago
While I'm concerned about the environmental challenges of reversing the trend and increasing energy consumption, I'm happy that people are living in more comfortable homes, that the Amercian industrial base is being restored, that more and better services are being provided (better healthcare, inexpensive and healthy food, comfortable, efficient and inexpensive transportation).
That is what we're using this electricity for, right?
> That is what we're using this electricity for, right?
Yes, amongst others.
> increasing energy consumption, I'm happy that people are living in more comfortable homes, that the Amercian industrial base is being restored, that more and better services are being provided (better healthcare, inexpensive and healthy food, comfortable, efficient and inexpensive transportation).
Over the last 25 years, we've the seen the following change across the dimensions you picked:
Energy consumption: +15%
Population: +21%
Hospitals (hospital sector size as a function using employment as proxy): +45-50%
Homes: +27-30%
Food production: +23-25%
Transportation (vehicle miles travelled): +14-16%
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Some take-aways:
Population grew faster than energy and transportation, implying major efficiency gains.
Housing stock outpaced population, reflecting smaller household sizes and more single-person households.
Healthcare expanded far faster than population, a structural shift rather than demographic necessity.
Food production grew roughly in line with population, but without proportional land expansion productivity gains.
Transportation growth lagged housing growth, suggesting more remote work, urbanization, and efficiency.
You have a lot of assumptions in your takeaways.
> Housing stock outpaced population, reflecting smaller household sizes and more single-person households.
Or rich people owning more vacation homes.
> Healthcare expanded far faster than population, a structural shift rather than demographic necessity.
What? It could easily be the population getting older and/or sicker. Even if it was a structural shift, it could be in the negative direction ie less efficiency.
> Food production grew roughly in line with population, but without proportional land expansion productivity gains.
What land expansion? You didn't include that in your stats. And no source to verify.
> Or rich people owning more vacation homes.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RSAHORUSQ156S
Home ownership rates have a 6 percent variance over the last ~50 years.
We dont have a housing problem in America, we have a utilization problem:
https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2023/06/more-than-a-q... as an example.
There is a conversation that needs to be had about housing, but no one is going to LIKE the medicine that comes with that.
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There is a push to switch from fossil fuel to electricity across the board, and that’s a good thing.
Cars are the big one. However even heating is going electric (heat pumps, not resistive). Induction stovetops outperform residential gas cooktops. Some cities are even experimenting with phasing out natural gas hookups for new construction.
It all adds up, and it a good thing. It doesn’t explain 100% of the growth but it’s a lot of it.
> Amercian industrial base is being restored, that more and better services are being provided (better healthcare, inexpensive and healthy food, comfortable, efficient and inexpensive transportation).
Trying to put concepts like “better healthcare” on to the growth of electricity demand is unrealistic but generally speaking we’re putting electricity to good use. It’s not being wasted.
In Vancouver, Canada natural gas was completely phased out as of the beginning of 2025 in most new construction.
What is NG good for? Induction cook tops perform better than gas ones, heat pumps do better than gas heaters. The only gap I can think of are just in time hot water heaters.
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We are indeed living in more comfortable homes. Americans are migrating to the sunbelt because of ample AC in the summer and the winters are pleasant. that’s a big part of why we have many fewer heat deaths per capita than Europe: https://www.thetimes-tribune.com/2025/08/02/opinion-us-heat-...
You don’t realize how nice it is to live and work in air conditioned spaces until visiting a part of Europe where AC is viewed with disdain for reasons I still don’t understand.
Also the move to electric heat pumps is increasing electricity rates but reducing natural gas usage and improving overall efficient.
The GP comment was trying to do snarky doomerism but accidentally hit upon a lot of truths. It’s amazing how many things are getting better but some people are hell bent on being cynical about it anyway.
I’m not from Europe but those sentiments I think are changing with the recent intensity and frequency of heat waves.
> You don’t realize how nice it is to live and work in air conditioned spaces until visiting a part of Europe where AC is viewed with disdain for reasons I still don’t understand.
Most of Europe is poor. AC is expensive. It's actually that simple.
There's AC in Switzerland.
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Europe is so backwards when it comes to annual heat deaths that they manage to have more heat deaths per year than the US has gun deaths + heat deaths combined. You won't hear about that from Europeans though, it'd make them seem barbaric. 175,000 heat deaths per year in Europe according to the WHO. It's a staggering genocide of technological primitiveness. Imagine having millions of people die because you can't be bothered to adopt 1950s technology (and of course I'm aware of the things the US is backwards on).
I think it is simply because in most of Europe air conditioning is unnecessary for comfort 95% of the year. Here in San Francisco most homes don't have air conditioning either, but there might be a week or two where it gets very hot and we just put up with the barbaric technological primitiveness.
Much of the US is extremely unpleasant without air-conditioning for a substantial portion of the year so of course everyone living in those parts installs it.
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You sent me to the books because this is such a fascinating stat. It's true! Heat deaths in the US: 5 per million people. Italy: 500+ per million people. I had no idea.
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The temperature a few metres below ground level is consistently cool (approx. 15 celcius) year round.
Could this be made the basis of an efficient cooling system?
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I think there wasn't a culture of buying ACs, because in most of Europe the climate was much more moderate. The summers are much hotter now than when I was a kid and heat waves are more regular. Many more people are buying air conditioning now.
Much of the US already had warmer summers than Europe when the impact of climate change was smaller, so AC is far more common.
Can their pension system afford A/C?
I spoke with two working class people last week who are facing power shutoffs because they got an unexpected $700 power bill. Not sure if it were a sneaky electricity supplier change or if costs have simply gone up.
But the problem of consumer rates just always ratcheting up needs addressed.
Electricity prices are heavily regulated. The largest increase I can find from a short search is around 20% for some customers in New Jersey. The average year over year increase is closer to 6%
Unexpectedly high electricity bills are almost always from actual usage. Unexpectedly high winter electricity bills are usually from resistive electric heating in one way or another.
You didn’t mention their normal December bill in this exact house, which is an important piece of information.
You are part of the PJM. Read into what the "Fuel Adjustment" actually is. Yes, prices are regulated, but if your area is short of power, they can buy it from the PJM, usually from other sources they own, at "market" rate not regulated rate.
The Fuel Adjustment is the legal loophole difference in the regulated rate vs the market rate. A few scheduled maintenance windows and oh look, we are short power.
Texas is really different, it could be from there.
One of the families mentioned heats their home with natural gas.
I suspect they got slammed with an alternative energy supplier that charges abusively high rates.
With that said, the total cost to the consumer of electricity is 3X what it was 20 years ago, and I am in one of the cheapest markets.
Can I interject regarding resistive heating? I’ve recently added one for my bedroom using home assistant and PID control, 22.5c during day, 18c at night, shuts off when nobody home (radar presence detector should be next step and likely save another 30%). It cost me 150kwh per month in NZ winter (single glazing, but got decent ceiling insulation).
That happens when people are on variable rate or TOU plans, it's very common. "sneaky" may or not be part of it, since ostensibly there's a contract that defines the terms of the electrical service, so it shouldn't be a surprise. But for a lot of folks it's a lot to keep track of, there can be confusing terminology, and yes, some energy retailers are predatory in their plan marketing or contract terms. It's a double edged sword of free market choice in deregulated markets. People that have choices for their energy supply don't always have the time and knowledge to optimize their plan choices and electricity use to get "optimum" pricing. This is why there's pushback in some areas that have had deregulated energy markets to go back to regulated pricing, the "average consumer" isn't seeing the payoff of the free market (even if that is technically "their fault").
I kind of doubt a single surprise bill that happened to arrive in the winter is a TOU plan change.
If someone changes to a TOU plan and their bill shoots up, they’re smart enough to blame the plan change and cite that
Most surprise winter time bills are just excess electric heater usage, such as after the purchase of a couple space heaters without thinking about the overall cost.
> This is why there's pushback in some areas that have had deregulated energy markets
What areas have deregulated residential electricity?
The “optimum” pricing is one that rips off the customer the most. A deregulated free market for utilities doesn’t work because bad actors will find ways to do so through complex contracts.
Prices only go one way. Without inflation, debt has to be repaid in more expensive $'s than it was created in and the whole system goes boom.
Why are you against increasing energy consumption? Increasing energy consumption is what pulled the world out of the feudal, warlord misery of the past. Maybe switch the focus of this feeling towards being against pollution or something that is a negative. Just being against energy consumption is quite regressive and anti-human.
And slavery is what pushed certain empires and colonies to riches, that doesn't mean we keep doing it forever expecting positive returns
Moving electrons around isn't inherently immoral like slavery is. It's odd to compare the two!
the US is not a planned economy. if it was, computers would exist only to guide missiles and operate industrial machinery, and you would be mining coal, farming wheat, or manning an assembly line for a living.
> China is not a planned economy. If it was, recent electric vehicles and battery technology would exist only to guide missiles and operate industrial machinery...
It is now, haven't you heard? Computers are reserved for LLMs only.
The US was a planned economy during wwii fwiw
Some of the economy should be encouraged with heavy subsidy or though DoD purchases.
It's worked out well for us in the past.
Wind and solar, nuclear, EVs, manufacturing, robots, chips, and drones should be helped along by the state.
We would be stupid not to spend in these categories.
We should also build out chemical inputs manufacture, rare earths refining, pharmaceutical manufacture, etc. to support the work that happens downstream and to be less fragile to supply chain disruption.
A multi-polar world is inherently less stable and demands more self-sufficiency.
Its not a planned economy by the government, because the US is an oligarchy. The billionaires are deciding how the government should plan investments in infrastructure and social policies.
They have been able to lower the taxes that affect the richest (big beautiful bill) and cut spending on social programs (Medicaid).
So it surely looks to me like the US economy is following a plan, just not the one that's in the best interest of the population -- which is OP's original criticism.
>Its not a planned economy by the government
This just seems like a quibble over wording, given that "planned economy" is generally assumed to refer to economic planning by some governmental authority. Nobody thinks the opposite of a "planned economy" is everyone just going based off vibes, for instance.
The available selection of automobiles available for sale feels like a good example of huge distortion caused by regulatory capture and tariffs imposed for same industries.
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…and I wouldn’t have to read this kind of drivel. Sounds like a blessing.
It’s a political imperative to get rid of everybody who thinks increasing energy consumption is a bad thing.
I’m guessing there’s a strong “/S” after this post..
Better: advertising!
> That is what we're using this electricity for, right?
Ok, I'll say it: it's for AI datacenters to train chat bots.
You know, we don't have any choice! We need more power. It's getting so tough to get something to tell Trump he isn't totally fucking up America.
Is that sarcastic? I'm not sure. Healthcare, food, transportation, and housing are becoming much more expensive and less affordable.
Forgot /s
That’s what I was thinking, clearly sarcasm because none of that is true.