Energy prices are extremely high everywhere in the
world. There are probably a lot of reasons for that
but the most recent one is probably Russia's invasion
of Ukraine. But this is gopher land and we get enough
of geopolitics across the traditional SNS.
I'm currently paying about $0.17 USD per KWh for my
electricity. In the full texas heat of august and late
july with temperatures reaching average daily highs
of greater than 95F (35C for my metric readers), my
house consumes about an average of 50KWh a day.
It is literally so hot that even a few hours of cloud
cover will immediately drop my daily electricity usage
by a more than a dollar! that is definitely noticeable.
Of course my fellow SDFers will know that the overwhelming
majority of the energy cost is climate control. Running
centralized air conditioning is extremely expensive and
essentially makes up about 90% of my own personal electricity
costs. The southeast part of Texas where I live would
just not be habitable without air conditioning since
we average greater than 90F temperatures and 80+% humidity
for multiple months of the year.
Over the past few months, there have been massive heatwaves
in Europe, Canada, and Asia which have reached my home city's
average temperature.
Sadly, that type of climate is completely extreme
for those parts of the world and people have died due
to the extremely high heat. The reality is that they did
not have enough air conditioning to survive those temperatures.
Hundreds of years of human created climate change is rearing
its ugly head and people are noticeably dying because of it.
Decarbonization is the only path for survival if we want
to maintain our civilization's standard of living.
A lot of people pin their hopes on technology to save the
day. Technology will of course enable us on our path
but our entire society's mindset will need to change as
well. How to decarbonize in a fair and ethical way will
be the ultimate challenge of future generations.
