The big question from the article for me: The almighty dollar trumps even the survival of the very human race that invented it. I think all we can really do is hope that something changes and it...
The big question from the article for me:
"If you're going to solve the problem, you're going to have to make an investment, so the question is, who's going to pay for that?" Silveira asks.
The almighty dollar trumps even the survival of the very human race that invented it. I think all we can really do is hope that something changes and it becomes more profitable to protect the earth than destroy it before it's too late.
Blaming the cost on capitalism is blaming the messenger. Costs are just an abstraction. It's going to take a lot of labor and materials and energy to do the retrofitting. It would be wrong to ask...
Blaming the cost on capitalism is blaming the messenger. Costs are just an abstraction. It's going to take a lot of labor and materials and energy to do the retrofitting. It would be wrong to ask people to work for free. The environmental costs of the materials and energy need to be considered.
One answer could be that governments pay for it, but then the people need to decide to support that.
It might also be the case that it's not worth doing compared to other worthy environmental initiatives, and you can't figure that out without comparing costs.
It's more difficult than just getting people to support it, though. You've also got to contend with the corporations who would lobby and try to generate all kinds of FUD campaigns against it if...
One answer could be that governments pay for it, but then the people need to decide to support that.
It's more difficult than just getting people to support it, though. You've also got to contend with the corporations who would lobby and try to generate all kinds of FUD campaigns against it if the final product threatens their bottom line (for example if the competing source of energy/heat would reduce the amount of energy they can sell to customers).
Exactly. Corporations generally do not oppose energy efficiency. It helps their bottom line too. Not even energy companies tend to oppose efficiency, as Jevon's paradox is in play. Most gains in...
Exactly. Corporations generally do not oppose energy efficiency. It helps their bottom line too. Not even energy companies tend to oppose efficiency, as Jevon's paradox is in play. Most gains in efficiency are consumed by increases in use. If your home becomes far more energy efficient, you'll feel less need to moderate your use. Why not turn the thermostat up a few degrees in winter?
That's why capitalism can't work in a world trying to save itself. We have to toss aside profitability in order to prioritize sustainability and function many times, even decades ago. It's true of...
That's why capitalism can't work in a world trying to save itself.
We have to toss aside profitability in order to prioritize sustainability and function many times, even decades ago. It's true of most infrastructure projects, building and maintenance of roads is an obscene cost....hence why they tend to be owned by the government. Heck, rural communication infrastructure would have never been built if not for laws mandating that everyone has access to a phone line.
I suppose some degree of it could still work...but the expectation needs to shift that providing societal benefit trumps profitability.
It would be relatively simple to make this profitable in capitalist societies: You just need to regulate the shit out of it. Every municipality that doesn't capture waste water heat gets a fine,...
It would be relatively simple to make this profitable in capitalist societies: You just need to regulate the shit out of it. Every municipality that doesn't capture waste water heat gets a fine, and every municipality that implements such a system gets subsidies according to their financal situation. This is already happening everywhere. If you're rich, you pay more taxes, and if you're poor, you get more financial support. The only issue is that we don't do this enough.
This would even be economically sound because those are investments that return a profit. Every unwasted unit of energy reduces the burning of fossils. If we don't do it, we're going to pay much, much more on the long run.
But what you've described is not a profitable enterprise. It's public funding of the enterprise via taxes. Best case for it being a profitable enterprise then is that the public is channeling tax...
But what you've described is not a profitable enterprise. It's public funding of the enterprise via taxes.
Best case for it being a profitable enterprise then is that the public is channeling tax dollars into owners of companies.
There's no reason to not have it owned and operated by the government then....where the cost doesn't really matter.
Well, yes, the same thing can be done with the government running things, but the statement was that it's impossible to do it under capitalism and I disagreed. Every enterprise is funded by taxes....
Well, yes, the same thing can be done with the government running things, but the statement was that it's impossible to do it under capitalism and I disagreed.
Every enterprise is funded by taxes. Imagine running whatever your business is without roads, educated workers, a justice system, regulators, etc.
The reason burning coal is more profitable than capturing heat from waste water is not because the former is inherently more profitable than the latter. It's because much of the costs of burning coal are socialized while the profits are privatized. Forcing coal plants to pay the external costs (e.g. via carbon tax) would level the playing field.
If we had started with this strategy decades ago, we could've done this without much fuss. But because we didn't, businesses and municipalities have to make gigantic investments now, and that's only possible if they raise their income (prices and municipal taxes would go through the roof) or they get subsidies (which could be paid back over long periods of time).
My point is: If the government would incentivize good behaviour and disincentivize bad behaviour, I don't see why a capitalist system wouldn't be sustainable.
So the thing is, recapture of heat does not equal generation of heat. The only way it will be economical to recapture wasted heat is to make all electrical consumption more expensive...not just...
So the thing is, recapture of heat does not equal generation of heat. The only way it will be economical to recapture wasted heat is to make all electrical consumption more expensive...not just carbon-based. While adding a carbon tax will make it even more expensive than coal, it won't increase the cost of green electricity.
So if you're not willing to also make green electrical generation more expensive, that means subsidizing heat recapture infrastructure. At the individual level home level that can kind of make sense, the same way subsidizing insulation does. But if you're talking "municipality has to deploy heat recapture infrastructure," then the only thing that happens when you inject private enterprise into the equation is that they also add a profit margin on top of the recoup of costs and operation, making it even more expensive.
And again....you (and others) keep saying "capitalist society," but really there is no such thing. Capitalism is all about where the profits of providing goods or services end up. If the profits are distributed based on ownership of the organization, it's capitalist. If the profits are distributed fairly amongst all the workers, like a co-op, it's more communist than anything. If there are no profits, it's not capitalist. A waste-water treatment facility owned by a municipality is not a capitalist enterprise...it's a socialist service. A privately-owned water company with a government-sanctioned monopoly is a capitalist enterprise, but doesn't really offer any benefit over a non-profit public water company, except for the owner of the water company.
I guess what I'm saying is, yes it would be technically possible to create a capitalist enterprise that does these things. It's just that it would provide less benefit than it being a non-capitalist enterprise. Which is true for most everything.
If we can heat the world with green electricity, sure, we don't need to capture heat from waste water. But we won't be anywhere close to such a situation for decades. Also, I'm not really arguing...
If we can heat the world with green electricity, sure, we don't need to capture heat from waste water. But we won't be anywhere close to such a situation for decades.
Also, I'm not really arguing for capturing waste water heat everywhere. All I'm saying is that it would be possible to incentivize it in a capitalist system, even if the alternative is cheaper in the current regulatory environment, because we can just change regulations.
You are preaching to the choir about co-ops and companies that are owned by their employees. I'm all for that. But a) that's not going to happen for generations, and b) it's not what I'm talking about.
In theory it is economically profitable to have efficient forms of energy generation and minimize heat waste. Governments are theoretically incentivized to run efficient operations because it...
In theory it is economically profitable to have efficient forms of energy generation and minimize heat waste. Governments are theoretically incentivized to run efficient operations because it allows them to spend money elsewhere or can reduce the tax burden on constituents. In theory, government investments generate more social profit than they cost in taxes. Constituent opinion informs government policy.
Since this technology appears to be functional and cost-effective, just with a decently long payback time (not unlike other infrastructure), I think many cities would voluntarily invest in it. State and federal governments would absolutely need to be involved. In the US, I assume that some aspect of the Inflation Reduction Act (2022) in particular or maybe the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (2021) would cover grants for this infrastructure. States and local municipalities would have to provide matching funds (not necessarily 1:1, but not zero either). In Europe, I'm certain that the EU would be open to funding these projects, but national funding would be country-dependent. (Norway? Definitely. Hungary? Ehh.)
If local municipalities pitched this to constituents as an opportunity to lower their taxes via more efficient operation of wastewater treatment plants, which it could do, I feel like it wouldn't be hard to get support. But cities don't really ask for public input about sewage operations because the public probably shouldn't be deeply involved in technical discussions. This is why local governments employ career professionals. It would be a better use of resources to simply apply for federal grant money and then ask the state legislature to approve matching funds. The state may have a period for public input, but more for implementation feedback and to resolve ambiguities for stakeholders, not to question the validity of the project.
I wish more technical details were online though. We are asked to vote in local elections on these things and it should be easier to be well-informed, rather than throwing a dart on people who...
But cities don't really ask for public input about sewage operations because the public probably shouldn't be deeply involved in technical discussions.
I wish more technical details were online though. We are asked to vote in local elections on these things and it should be easier to be well-informed, rather than throwing a dart on people who don't know.
The residents of False Creek, a recently redeveloped neighbourhood of Vancouver, on the west coast of Canada, get their energy from a rather unusual renewable source – their sewage wastewater. Increasingly, municipalities around the globe are harnessing this underground form of excess heat as they decarbonise their energy networks.
...
Heat in water is relatively easy to harness once it's in the sewage system because it's contained – and no, any heat recovered isn't going to smell. By comparison, heat in the air quickly escapes out of windows, doors, and roofs. In addition, there's plenty of hot wastewater to work with. In 2020, experts at the London South Bank University estimated that energy from the UK's daily 16 billion litres of sewage wastewater could, in theory, provide more than 20TWh of heat energy annually – enough to provide space heating and hot water to 1.6 million homes. Over in the US, Americans flush an estimated 350TWh of energy down the drain each year – the equivalent of heating 30 million homes a year.
I was aware of sewage heat recovery as a concept but I didn’t realize households wasted quite this much heat. That’s a potential ~25% reduction of household energy generation needs in the US....
I was aware of sewage heat recovery as a concept but I didn’t realize households wasted quite this much heat. That’s a potential ~25% reduction of household energy generation needs in the US. Quite significant! Thanks for sharing this article.
Hot water generation is one of the biggest consumers of energy, right behind home heating/cooling. I've definitely been doing things like capturing boiling water after making pasta (dump into...
Hot water generation is one of the biggest consumers of energy, right behind home heating/cooling.
I've definitely been doing things like capturing boiling water after making pasta (dump into another pot with colandar), then moving said pot to a room that needs a bit of warmth and humidification.
I've been thinking about working in a greywater system somehow anyway to feed into the toilets...feeding warm greywater into the toilet tank seems a great option in the winter, serves as a free radiator. Ideally one that is switchable so the hot gets flushed with the blackwater in the summertime. Switch it to the taps in cooler months.
Thank you for sharing these ideas, they're great. I have a very difficult time staying warm in winter; my hands especially get cold very easily. While that gives me the great power of making flaky...
Thank you for sharing these ideas, they're great.
I have a very difficult time staying warm in winter; my hands especially get cold very easily. While that gives me the great power of making flaky pastry, I also find I have to use hot water for a lot of tasks where it's not strictly necessary simply because my hands would otherwise become too cold and stiff to move well.
This has given me some ideas about how I might retain some heated water, even the sink or a pot, until the heat dissipates.
A rubber hot water bottle, strapped to your back. It'll warm you up, and let you run your home cooler. The periodic two quarts of hot water is offset by being able to run your thermostat at 67...
A rubber hot water bottle, strapped to your back. It'll warm you up, and let you run your home cooler. The periodic two quarts of hot water is offset by being able to run your thermostat at 67 instead of something higher.
Yesss! I love slipping into bed that I've prewarmed with a hot water bottle. I also have a small 1x2 ft massage heat pad i use periodically. I figure it's the same rationale, it does use energy,...
Yesss! I love slipping into bed that I've prewarmed with a hot water bottle.
I also have a small 1x2 ft massage heat pad i use periodically. I figure it's the same rationale, it does use energy, but we keep the home thermostat quite cool otherwise.
I'd been thinking about using the toilet reservoir this way too, but I'm concerned about warm water being an environment conducive to bacteria. And if the warm water makes its way into the bowl,...
I'd been thinking about using the toilet reservoir this way too, but I'm concerned about warm water being an environment conducive to bacteria. And if the warm water makes its way into the bowl, will that just mean I have to clean the toilet bowl more often? It seems to me that using harsh bathroom cleaners more often must be less environmentally friendly than using other methods to marginally heat the home that don't require as much cleaning.
I do hold onto boiling water after cooking. And I hold onto my shower water[1] until it's released more warmth into the air (you can get flat rubber stoppers for shower drains). Though like with grey water in the toilet, retaining the shower water means I have to clean it more often.
[1] Neither my shower water nor bath water is for sale, thank you. Haha.
If it's a major concern, get one of those slow-release bleach things for the tank. Bleach is about one of the eco-friendliest cleaners/sanitizers around, provided its adequately diluted/broken...
If it's a major concern, get one of those slow-release bleach things for the tank. Bleach is about one of the eco-friendliest cleaners/sanitizers around, provided its adequately diluted/broken down before re-entering the environment, which any septic or sewer system will do. Your water treatment facility probably uses the active ingredient (sodium hypochlorite) as part of the water treatment process.
There are so many creative ways to improve our energy efficiency, unfortunately usually the barrier is "is it economical to bother installing all this infrastructure to recover that energy" and...
There are so many creative ways to improve our energy efficiency, unfortunately usually the barrier is "is it economical to bother installing all this infrastructure to recover that energy" and the answer is almost always no. Maybe as energy concerns become more important in the future our governments will start to incentivize more energy recovery programs like this.
The big question from the article for me:
The almighty dollar trumps even the survival of the very human race that invented it. I think all we can really do is hope that something changes and it becomes more profitable to protect the earth than destroy it before it's too late.
Blaming the cost on capitalism is blaming the messenger. Costs are just an abstraction. It's going to take a lot of labor and materials and energy to do the retrofitting. It would be wrong to ask people to work for free. The environmental costs of the materials and energy need to be considered.
One answer could be that governments pay for it, but then the people need to decide to support that.
It might also be the case that it's not worth doing compared to other worthy environmental initiatives, and you can't figure that out without comparing costs.
It's more difficult than just getting people to support it, though. You've also got to contend with the corporations who would lobby and try to generate all kinds of FUD campaigns against it if the final product threatens their bottom line (for example if the competing source of energy/heat would reduce the amount of energy they can sell to customers).
I'm skeptical because I haven't seen a lot of corporate opposition to conservation measures or green energy lately. Lots of companies join in.
Exactly. Corporations generally do not oppose energy efficiency. It helps their bottom line too. Not even energy companies tend to oppose efficiency, as Jevon's paradox is in play. Most gains in efficiency are consumed by increases in use. If your home becomes far more energy efficient, you'll feel less need to moderate your use. Why not turn the thermostat up a few degrees in winter?
That's why capitalism can't work in a world trying to save itself.
We have to toss aside profitability in order to prioritize sustainability and function many times, even decades ago. It's true of most infrastructure projects, building and maintenance of roads is an obscene cost....hence why they tend to be owned by the government. Heck, rural communication infrastructure would have never been built if not for laws mandating that everyone has access to a phone line.
I suppose some degree of it could still work...but the expectation needs to shift that providing societal benefit trumps profitability.
It would be relatively simple to make this profitable in capitalist societies: You just need to regulate the shit out of it. Every municipality that doesn't capture waste water heat gets a fine, and every municipality that implements such a system gets subsidies according to their financal situation. This is already happening everywhere. If you're rich, you pay more taxes, and if you're poor, you get more financial support. The only issue is that we don't do this enough.
This would even be economically sound because those are investments that return a profit. Every unwasted unit of energy reduces the burning of fossils. If we don't do it, we're going to pay much, much more on the long run.
But what you've described is not a profitable enterprise. It's public funding of the enterprise via taxes.
Best case for it being a profitable enterprise then is that the public is channeling tax dollars into owners of companies.
There's no reason to not have it owned and operated by the government then....where the cost doesn't really matter.
Well, yes, the same thing can be done with the government running things, but the statement was that it's impossible to do it under capitalism and I disagreed.
Every enterprise is funded by taxes. Imagine running whatever your business is without roads, educated workers, a justice system, regulators, etc.
The reason burning coal is more profitable than capturing heat from waste water is not because the former is inherently more profitable than the latter. It's because much of the costs of burning coal are socialized while the profits are privatized. Forcing coal plants to pay the external costs (e.g. via carbon tax) would level the playing field.
If we had started with this strategy decades ago, we could've done this without much fuss. But because we didn't, businesses and municipalities have to make gigantic investments now, and that's only possible if they raise their income (prices and municipal taxes would go through the roof) or they get subsidies (which could be paid back over long periods of time).
My point is: If the government would incentivize good behaviour and disincentivize bad behaviour, I don't see why a capitalist system wouldn't be sustainable.
So the thing is, recapture of heat does not equal generation of heat. The only way it will be economical to recapture wasted heat is to make all electrical consumption more expensive...not just carbon-based. While adding a carbon tax will make it even more expensive than coal, it won't increase the cost of green electricity.
So if you're not willing to also make green electrical generation more expensive, that means subsidizing heat recapture infrastructure. At the individual level home level that can kind of make sense, the same way subsidizing insulation does. But if you're talking "municipality has to deploy heat recapture infrastructure," then the only thing that happens when you inject private enterprise into the equation is that they also add a profit margin on top of the recoup of costs and operation, making it even more expensive.
And again....you (and others) keep saying "capitalist society," but really there is no such thing. Capitalism is all about where the profits of providing goods or services end up. If the profits are distributed based on ownership of the organization, it's capitalist. If the profits are distributed fairly amongst all the workers, like a co-op, it's more communist than anything. If there are no profits, it's not capitalist. A waste-water treatment facility owned by a municipality is not a capitalist enterprise...it's a socialist service. A privately-owned water company with a government-sanctioned monopoly is a capitalist enterprise, but doesn't really offer any benefit over a non-profit public water company, except for the owner of the water company.
I guess what I'm saying is, yes it would be technically possible to create a capitalist enterprise that does these things. It's just that it would provide less benefit than it being a non-capitalist enterprise. Which is true for most everything.
If we can heat the world with green electricity, sure, we don't need to capture heat from waste water. But we won't be anywhere close to such a situation for decades.
Also, I'm not really arguing for capturing waste water heat everywhere. All I'm saying is that it would be possible to incentivize it in a capitalist system, even if the alternative is cheaper in the current regulatory environment, because we can just change regulations.
You are preaching to the choir about co-ops and companies that are owned by their employees. I'm all for that. But a) that's not going to happen for generations, and b) it's not what I'm talking about.
In theory it is economically profitable to have efficient forms of energy generation and minimize heat waste. Governments are theoretically incentivized to run efficient operations because it allows them to spend money elsewhere or can reduce the tax burden on constituents. In theory, government investments generate more social profit than they cost in taxes. Constituent opinion informs government policy.
Since this technology appears to be functional and cost-effective, just with a decently long payback time (not unlike other infrastructure), I think many cities would voluntarily invest in it. State and federal governments would absolutely need to be involved. In the US, I assume that some aspect of the Inflation Reduction Act (2022) in particular or maybe the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (2021) would cover grants for this infrastructure. States and local municipalities would have to provide matching funds (not necessarily 1:1, but not zero either). In Europe, I'm certain that the EU would be open to funding these projects, but national funding would be country-dependent. (Norway? Definitely. Hungary? Ehh.)
If local municipalities pitched this to constituents as an opportunity to lower their taxes via more efficient operation of wastewater treatment plants, which it could do, I feel like it wouldn't be hard to get support. But cities don't really ask for public input about sewage operations because the public probably shouldn't be deeply involved in technical discussions. This is why local governments employ career professionals. It would be a better use of resources to simply apply for federal grant money and then ask the state legislature to approve matching funds. The state may have a period for public input, but more for implementation feedback and to resolve ambiguities for stakeholders, not to question the validity of the project.
I wish more technical details were online though. We are asked to vote in local elections on these things and it should be easier to be well-informed, rather than throwing a dart on people who don't know.
From the article:
...
I was aware of sewage heat recovery as a concept but I didn’t realize households wasted quite this much heat. That’s a potential ~25% reduction of household energy generation needs in the US. Quite significant! Thanks for sharing this article.
Hot water generation is one of the biggest consumers of energy, right behind home heating/cooling.
I've definitely been doing things like capturing boiling water after making pasta (dump into another pot with colandar), then moving said pot to a room that needs a bit of warmth and humidification.
I've been thinking about working in a greywater system somehow anyway to feed into the toilets...feeding warm greywater into the toilet tank seems a great option in the winter, serves as a free radiator. Ideally one that is switchable so the hot gets flushed with the blackwater in the summertime. Switch it to the taps in cooler months.
Thank you for sharing these ideas, they're great.
I have a very difficult time staying warm in winter; my hands especially get cold very easily. While that gives me the great power of making flaky pastry, I also find I have to use hot water for a lot of tasks where it's not strictly necessary simply because my hands would otherwise become too cold and stiff to move well.
This has given me some ideas about how I might retain some heated water, even the sink or a pot, until the heat dissipates.
A rubber hot water bottle, strapped to your back. It'll warm you up, and let you run your home cooler. The periodic two quarts of hot water is offset by being able to run your thermostat at 67 instead of something higher.
Yesss! I love slipping into bed that I've prewarmed with a hot water bottle.
I also have a small 1x2 ft massage heat pad i use periodically. I figure it's the same rationale, it does use energy, but we keep the home thermostat quite cool otherwise.
We happen to have this exact model, what are the odds. Haven't used one in while, maybe I should.
I'd been thinking about using the toilet reservoir this way too, but I'm concerned about warm water being an environment conducive to bacteria. And if the warm water makes its way into the bowl, will that just mean I have to clean the toilet bowl more often? It seems to me that using harsh bathroom cleaners more often must be less environmentally friendly than using other methods to marginally heat the home that don't require as much cleaning.
I do hold onto boiling water after cooking. And I hold onto my shower water[1] until it's released more warmth into the air (you can get flat rubber stoppers for shower drains). Though like with grey water in the toilet, retaining the shower water means I have to clean it more often.
[1] Neither my shower water nor bath water is for sale, thank you. Haha.
If it's a major concern, get one of those slow-release bleach things for the tank. Bleach is about one of the eco-friendliest cleaners/sanitizers around, provided its adequately diluted/broken down before re-entering the environment, which any septic or sewer system will do. Your water treatment facility probably uses the active ingredient (sodium hypochlorite) as part of the water treatment process.
There are so many creative ways to improve our energy efficiency, unfortunately usually the barrier is "is it economical to bother installing all this infrastructure to recover that energy" and the answer is almost always no. Maybe as energy concerns become more important in the future our governments will start to incentivize more energy recovery programs like this.