This is a bit dramatic. There are plenty of sanely sized cars available, and its not like everyone yearns for them but is forced into a suburban. Last time I checked you could still buy a corolla, an H-RV, a leaf, crosstrek, civic, Prius, several minis, a Mazda 3, BMW 1, etc. If people literally just bought rav4s instead of giant SUVs the average vehicle size would be significantly smaller, even though the rest of world thinks those are huge too.
It’s something. I’d like to see something more comprehensive, like also public transit for the islands and dramatically higher gas/car costs. Maui has like two roads, it can’t be that hard to add a train and kill all the tourist parking. Blows my mind that this isn’t a thing already.
Suing oil companies is great too but why not actually eliminate oil from the state entirely and make tourists pay for it? Hell I’d price out carbon for their flights and find a way to charge for that too, and spend the money on decarbonizing the entire state and climate adaptation.
That all being said, this is a start so let’s build from here and force the wealthiest tourists to be carbon neutral and take care of these places.
Appreciate the conversation, and I definitely bat an eye at the overpriced mall crawlers people blow absurd amounts of money on to get groceries. I actually do think a $50k car is generally a bit nicer than a 20k car, so in my analogy that could maybe be justified, but $120k is getting a bit silly with marginal gains that are not meaningful (to me at least).
But back to bikes, curious of you’re actually able to compare these bikes you mentioned apples to apples. Same geometry, saddle, tires, grip tape, etc? If it’s frame compliance you’re after, I’m curious for your thoughts on some of the higher end steel frames out there. I ride mostly gravel and am large, so e.g long setback seatposts and 45mm tires soak up everything to the point that frame compliance matters less (but still some of course). I could see that being a bigger deal for smaller/lighter riders though. On the other end of the spectrum for trail bikes the frame just needs to be stiff, so I see zero benefit to carbon there (outside weight of course, but thankfully people learned to care less about weight in the MTB world finally). Back to road I’d also argue aero matters more than those last few grams for just about everything outside of massive climbs. I recall hearing that on any road below 7-8%, aero is still “more important” than weight, meaning you should spend your money there instead. Who knows though, every few years there’s a new trend and every few years I find I value comfort over speed even more.
I just love riding bikes and I spend way too much time learning about tech I have very little desire to actually buy. I’m glad you found a bike you’re super stoked to ride, that’s what that matters at the end of the day!
Maybe. Tire rubber compounds continue to improve, along with construction and tread design. So newer tires might be just as grippy and more efficient. Or way less grippy and way more efficient. Or way grippier and just as efficient. It just depends on the tradeoffs the manufacturer decided to make.
Look I get it, I love cycling and own a few nice bikes ($1-4k) but let’s not pretend that the value is there at $11k. Outside of world tour riders, there’s no way you’re actually faster or more comfortable at $11k than about $5k. You already get carbon frame/wheels and near top of the line components for $5k-ish. So to OPs question, to me that’s the upper limit for what fancy bikes should cost for actual normal humans. Realistically 2k for road/gravel, maybe 3k for MTB is jusy barely slower and almost imperceptively less nice than 5k bikes. “High end” is only meaningful if there are actual tangible benefits that come along with the price tag. I support anyone out there on bikes, i just think $11k is a bit silly in a world with this much wealth inequality. I’m sure some folks think the exact same thing about me and my bikes tbf. Have fun and be safe out there.
What a mess. It seems like the fundamental issue here is allowing the grandfathering of old NEM rate structures, much like CA allows folks to grandfather in their old property taxes while screwing over new purchasers. Nobody should expect rate certainty for 20 years into the future, that’s just an absurdly long time period to expect guaranteed rate structures.
It’s not that complicated at a high level really - when nobody has solar, full net metering is reasonably fair. When everyone has solar, the whole scheme collapses because production doesn’t align with usage exactly. So every few years during a rate case, they should all work together and shift the value of solar generation accordingly (likely downward). Folks need to take on a little risk with their major purchases because anything else is even more unfair to early and later adopters. The time value of solar production varies year to year and solar owners should be compensated accordingly. Batteries will bring value back to solar by allowing for load shifting, and much like solar, can be done by individuals or utilities.
Obviously the specific details are muddy as hell and will be contentious, but that’s normal and reasonable compromises usually prevail.
The reality is some east facing panels in LA aren’t that valuable these days. And the person with east facing panels from 5 years ago shouldn’t get massive long term benefits locked in because they did the install earlier.
I live in Colorado, have solar, and fully expect the value of my generation to reduce over time. Expecting full retail value of my excess June production to offset power I badly need in Jan to run my heat pump simply isn’t fair.
Honda is reliable too. I get it, I have an older Outback and I’m trying to keep that thing going until EV prices come down more. Subaru will be adding hybrid crosstreks and foresters soon (Toyota tech). Get the most efficient and reliable car you can and don’t worry about it too much (except don’t buy a Tesla of course). Best thing we can do is advocate for walkable/bikeable/transit oriented development but I’m veering off topic so I’ll stop.
Toyota has significant ownership of Subaru…
Toyota has pushed against efficiency standards for years because their cash cows are their trucks/SUVs with abysmal efficiency. Nothing new here.
It’s not a “feel good statement”, it’s reality. Gas is terrible. It’s responsible for a significant portion of climate change and gas stoves cause myriad health issues. This is basic stuff. Of course the transition isn’t all sunshine and rainbows but electrification is far from some insurmountable ideal, and it can be quite cost effective.
The vast majority of HVAC equipment will be replaced on burnout, and when you do the economics of a new gas furnace (and almost certainly AC these days) vs an ASHP, it’s simply not $30-50k extra. There are state and local incentives, the federal tax credits, utility incentives etc., but I agree the IRA programs are on thin ice (even though Biden awarded funds before leaving). I bought a high end cold climate heat pump for just a few grand more than my neighbor who bought a furnace/AC with similar operating costs. You can get a cheaper ASHP and furnace for something in between cost wise. My state has tripled cold climate heat pump incentives and they are now very competitive with gas systems. I work in the industry and live this every day, it’s not some boondoggle, the grid updates necessary aren’t as dramatic as headlines imply and are already well underway to support vehicle electrification and load growth/resiliency. The PNW is quite mild and people are willing to pay for AC anyway due to heat waves (and wildfire smoke), so going straight to heat pumps is a very cost effective solution. Folks are cancelling gas service left and right and the remaining users will be left with rising fixed costs. Plus as I led with, gas is terrible for your family and the climate (and locally where the wells are).
It’s always the right time to switch to heat pumps and induction stoves. Gas is terrible.
Maybe I’m too stupid, but how was the baseline actually set? The article implies the 2024 consumption sets the baseline, but we probably don’t know that value yet and they just talk about how the baseline is higher than 2023 (and “current”) usage. Obviously Kigali timelines are slower than we all want, but at the same time having global agreement (mostly, US will probably reneg) and achievable targets may be better than everyone failing (cough Paris). Remember the Montreal protocol is an incredible success story in international cooperation, even if in hindsight it seems like the most basic bare minimum to us today. The problem is the chemical industry is pushing HFOs as HFC replacements, but these are also dogshit because they break down into PFAS.
We need to go straight to natural refrigeratonts. There are many passionate individuals, companies, and policies driving us towarda this and we’ll get there. For anyone buying refrigerant containing things, look for R290, R744, R600a if you have a choice when you buy refrigerators, heat pump dryers, heat pumps, cars, etc. This is a big deal!
These are some really great points. This to me is a reflection of our (in particular US) view that energy is something unlimited and cheap. The idea that we might simply do less or optimize to anything other than profit is laughable to most folks, so efficiency barely enters the conversation except as a means to profit further in some niche cases after the fact. The organizational changes required to correct the issues you identified seem truly insurmountable, unfortunately, but you’re absolutely right.
It’s both. Electrified transport and electrified heat are displacing fossil use directly. Global ICE sales peaked in 2017 and appear to be in permanent decline.
What matters is total carbon, and unfortunately 2024 appears to have been another record year. Hopefully 2024 was peak and 2025 is the start of declining carbon. Every other metric is just an interesting part of the overall story.
That’s fair, I was more referring to the casual internet use so many folks enjoy (YouTube, maps, search for literally everything, all the apps and updates, etc). Denying them revenue through ad blockers and avoiding their direct services gets you pretty close though.
How many times did you ping Google servers today? AI bullshit aside, this is still on us for using all of their services. Yes they need to find a way to deliver their services sustainably but it’s our job to regulate them and force the issue and not just hope corpos do the right thing (they won’t).
Plus there’s always the backup plan, which is using a sharpie to draw a new hurricane trajectory on a poster.
Gas is not a simple global market like oil is and there isn’t a single methane price everyone pays. That would require significantly more LNG terminals around the world and policy changes. This is precisely why gas companies want to build more LNG terminals - this would increase volume while raising domestic prices (and likely lowering foreign prices). It’s not a simple econ 101 global free market though.
Let’s pack it up then, if there’s a cooling tower in a picture we can’t use it, even if it’s actually a picture of a sprawling petrochemical plant with a massive smokestack emitting CO2 that also happens to include the cooling towers that are part of the facility.
Didn’t he die just today trying to suck on his own penis? Hard to keep up with the news these days.
Maybe the study was more robust that this article suggests, but this doesn’t tell me anything. Humans are amazing at regulating our remperature via sweat, so I have zero doubt that normal healthy people will have the same internal and even skin temps wearing different color clothing in different conditions. If the group wearing e.g. dark codlors just sweat X% more to compensate, we can’t draw any conclusions at all. Clothing is complicated, since airflow and moisture retention matter significantly, but we know for a fact that lighter colors reflect more energy than darker colors.