I don't have access to read the full article, but how is this a bad thing?
It seems, from the first couple of paragraphs I read, that China is flooding the market with lower cost products that are better for the environment than status quo.
Why does it matter where the come from? Is this not a net positive? Is the USA so afraid of China that they would rather have everyone spending more money, and using traditional ICE vehicles?
Again, I don't have the full article but I don't see this as a worry.
I think it's because with Capitalism every venture must have a ROI. Innovations in the US came with the assumption that the money invested by rich people will someday be worth more money.
Like most of my posts to paywalled content, it's a gift link, so you have full access to it. (When I don't have a gift link, I try to post a link to an archived copy as well as the main link)
And yes, a competition to produce the machinery of decarbonization is a good thing.
Thanks, I see it now; it was user error as I had not enabled JavaScript for that site.
Thanks for sharing. So the US is not competitive on price and scale when it comes to EVs and solar panels, and therefore the powers that be argue that we need to actively harm US consumers through protectionist measures in order to protect business. How is that even remotely responsible?
Also, the article is critical of Chinese factories for mass producing solar panels in large quantities all the time instead of laying off employees when demand is low. I mean, this helps deliver a solution to a problem that the US fails to acknowledge. If only the US had that kind of ambition....
global reliance on one market leads to supply bottlenecks and anti-competitive practices
a loss of domestic industry leads to less overall innovation, a loss of high-paying jobs and a reduction in the diversity of the industrial base
given the current American economy is tied to fossil fuel or adjacent industries, a failure to transition to clean industry may mean all those jobs, families, communities etc are at risk
development of solar in China has led to a host of quality and environmental issues in manufacturing; reversing that trend is much harder now that it is entranced than it would have been to stop at the outset.
As an indigenous Canadian that grew up poor, in about December, dad would transfer a large stock of our frozen food to the large capacity refrigerator next to wood pile outside our house. It wasn't powered by anything, the cold winter weather was enough to keep everything frozen for months.
I live in northern Ontario and when I think about that, I find it so strange that I live in a house that is kept warm to protect me from freezing temperatures outside while at the same time I spend a good amount of energy to have an appliance inside my warm house to keep my food frozen. You'd think in Canada someone would have figured out a way to harness that cold from outside for part of the year.
You’d think in Canada someone would have figured out a way to harness that cold from outside for part of the year.
Look into the "cool cupboard" associated with David Holmgren, who talks about it in his book Retrosuburbia. IIRC it uses simple geothermal and natural convection to keep certain foods cool.
I live in a cold place and lately I've been taking water jugs outside to freeze, then bring them in once I go out in the morning. With them, the fridge hardly runs any more. I'd prefer something automatic like a cool cupboard for certain things and a well insulated fridge running straight on DC solar.
Quick answer to your question: I'm using about 12 liters.
But a good answer depends greatly on some variables specific to your own circumstances:
air temperature of your kitchen
what's inside your fridge (empty space vs. thermal mass)
the size of your fridge
how well insulated it is
how well maintained it is
how often the door is opened
how long the door stays open
whether the door opens out, or up
whether it has both refrigerator and freezer units
how cold the ice/water jugs are
I've noticed the fridge consumes more electricity in summer, as we don't have AC, and I keep the house between roughly 54-60F (12C to 15C) in winter. In summer the kitchen ranges from 16C in the morning to up to 33C, although with shading improvements it's now more often 26-27C in summer.
I've also noticed a big difference in the jugs when the overnight low is -26C vs. -6C. At the coldest level, the jugs don't thaw in the fridge for 2 days at least, while a minor freeze gives at most a day of free cooling.
Our fridge is of the style with a refrigerator section above and a freezer drawer below. They are in separate, insulated compartments with their own access doors. I assume that with the ice in the fridge, almost all if not all of the electricity used is to keep the freezer cool.
I'm guessing at the usage based on a couple observations: 1) our LFP battery that we use for the fridge etc. during peak pricing times drains much slower with the ice and 2) the fridge is noticeably quieter with the ice jugs. It would be better to measure for a month with a kill-a-watt tool.
After grocery shopping, sometimes my parents would just toss some groceries in the snow by our front door. I used to be confused about it then but it made sense once I understood the concept. There's snow. It's as cold as the freezer anyways.
Pretty sure they are referring to average annual temperature. The winters may get colder in some areas, but the summers are getting hotter everywhere, and to a bigger degree. So the average temperature will continue to trend up.
It's just not accurate though. Again, most scientists have parts of the world getting INSANELY cold and some parts getting INSANELY hot. But it will not be an even distribution.
Overall heat going up? I agree. But the wording of the article isn't theoretically correct.
I currently have snow, but unfortunately it mixes so much with freezing rain now I'm just getting a crunchy mess. We used to get light fluffy snow that you could shovel with a push broom and now everything becomes a sheet of ice with snow on top, followed by more ice.
The differences within the EU are incredible. Spain at $97 and Italy at -$44. I would have thought that ETS-1 would have created relatively equal prices over all EU countries.
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