I really struggle to understand the direction of today’s society.
For years, we’ve been saying we need to reduce emissions and consumption, removing chargers from smartphone boxes “to pollute less,” then the “AI” comes along and we reopen fossil fuel power plants, increasing consumption and emissions for… well, who knows why!
We make people feel guilty for not switching to an electric car (or one with high energy efficiency), yet we fly for pure leisure, just to get “a few more likes” on YouTube.
We create increasingly efficient electronic devices, focus on the consumption and emissions of data centers (local or remote), and then stop optimizing code and dependencies because “there’s autoscaling” and “resources are cheap.”
To me, these are ideological short circuits.
#Sustainability
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For cars, what’s best should be aware of “Well to wheel”, including manufacturing processes. If electricity is generated with 100% carbon free way, and batteries, magnets, and so on (excluding common parts with ICE cars) are manufactured with lower carbon way than ICEs, BEV is clearly the only way to go.
But how are the “real world?”
Something alike should be applicable to other areas. What’s most efficient throughout “total life cycle” is most important to judge the way to go. This is quite often forgotten.
I’ve been saying this forever.
We have to look at end-to-end. This includes keeping what’s currently being used going as long as makes sense given the embedded energy.
This requires a lot of deep analysis, and people don’t like to think that hard. We want easy solutions: “just do this and you’re a better person than the next”.
It’s hard to convince people something is a better approach using hyperbole and assumptions. When questioned about how much less energy/carbon/oil a hybrid or electric vehicle uses over its lifespan, and all you have is “it’s better”, people stop listening.