After rising for 100 years, electricity demand is flat - <AUTHOR> https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/2/27/17052488/electricity-demand-utilities?utm_campaign=drvox&utm_content=chorus&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter <comment><USER2> "TVA will sell less electricity in 10 years than it did 10 years ago. That is bonkers."

Why is this so crazy to imagine? There are so many drivers to increased energy efficiency. LED lightbulbs, LCD TVs instead of monitors, vastly improved efficiency standards/technologies for various appliances, fact you can do loads of stuff with a smartphone instead of watching a giant TV, etc etc, huge fall in heavy industry, small scale solar/wind generation actually appearing as a reduction in demand on the grid instead of 'increase of supply and corresponding increase in demand'.

I'd actually say it was more crazy if we expected it to continue increasing thinking about current trends, and I've heard this story of the utility death spiral for about 5 years so I don't think it is a sudden problem.

<comment><USER3> But energy efficiency has been increasing at a fairly steady rate for much longer than the last 10 years.

Jevons paradox(1) has previously ensured that increased efficiency resulted in increased demand. What has changed now?

1: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox)

<comment><USER4> I would guess that Jevon's paradox doesn't exist for many domestic applications. Most people have all the lights, washing machines, etc that they need. Making lights more efficient won't make people buy more of them.

<comment><USER5> I would argue LED lighting does increase the demand for all sorts of lights rather a lot. It is due to increased efficiency, but that is not directly what creates the demand. The increased efficiency means light bulbs are no longer a fire hazard, allowing lights to be strewn just about anywhere and left on indefinitely.

<comment><USER6> Electricity is not the only cost -- LED light bulbs are quite expensive, which puts a natural limit on how many I want to fit in my house.

<comment><USER7> I'm gonna have to call you on that one. Even high-end brand LED bulbs are so much more cost efficient than incandescent bulbs, it's the rational act to immediately replace nearly every single incandescent.

Whether you're interested in saving energy or saving money, you should remove and smash your incandescents.

Here's a blog entry I wrote with some of the simple math: [https://blog.sense.com/articles/smash-incandescent-bulb- swit...](https://blog.sense.com/articles/smash-incandescent-bulb-switch-led/)

<comment><USER8> Where do you find 100 watt equivalent LED bulbs in 2700K for $1/bulb?

<comment><USER9> You won't find LED's for $1/bulb, but the total cost of ownership over X years is massively in favor of the LED.

Also I simply find it convenient that LED's just. don't. die. I haven't had to change a single bulb since I upgraded ~4 years ago.

<comment><USER10> I had one out of around 50 die over ~3 years, which I'm sure is much better than I experienced with incandescents and CFLs.

Smart bulbs are so cheap now that I've obsoleted nearly all of my "dumb" LEDs.

<comment><USER11> Note that the lifetime of a bulb is quadratic, if not exponential, with its wattage.

The 100W bulb always lit in the living room will last 6 months but a 30W will do a decade.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Is it just me or is the obvious biggest problem in capitalism that you always need to have growth? It looks to me that in a naive approach I would like to build a constant profitable company that pays me rent like money that is predictable. I don't need investments that constantly grow in profits. Therefore flat demand is imo not a problem but the desired state. Finally a stable system is found.

<comment><USER13> Capitalism does not require fractional reserve banking. Fractional reserve banking is what causes the need for exponential growth, in general.

<comment><USER14> How does the fact that banks hold a fraction of their assets in a central bank put pressure on companies to grow exponentially? I'm curious, I don't understand the connection.

<comment><USER15> > How does the fact that banks hold a fraction of their assets in a central > bank put pressure on companies to grow exponentially?

That is not what I would understand by the term "fractional reserve banking". Rather, fractional reserve banking refers to a system where banks do not hold enough liquid assets to cover their obligations. Central banks are completely irrelevant to the concept. The location of a bank's assets are also completely irrelevant to the concept.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> What seemed absent from the article is the effect of flat revenue on both their ability to make bond interest payments (pay down debt used for legacy transmission infrastructure), and the potential of higher interest rates on rolling debt (like utility bonds.)

Debt could make utilities catastrophically vulnerable to disruption from sustainable players and battery makers, whose business models do not need to factor in those same debt/infrastructure costs into their energy prices.

Not only would it be cheaper than grid power, the utilities will have a structural pricing disadvantage because they need to incorporate their debt and increasing interest rates on older debt into their cost model.

Question is, what is the "it," that forces this change? Graphene capacitors?

Interesting how uber exploited a similar dynamic with taxis, where medallion debt was a significant factor in cab ride prices. It suggest debt markets might be a place to hunt for disruption opportunity, where carrying costs create a structural price disadvantage for incumbents.

<comment><USER17> One problem is that it is hard to capture the quality of debt: Did a company buy up competitors that turned out not to be worth the price? Did they invest in infrastructure, which seems like good debt, but nuclear reactors have turned out to be albatrosses. You see much of the same thing in telecom. In both cases the customer is at least semi-captive, and can be fleeced to pay for mistakes.

<comment><USER16> So straight shorting debt play, you would need that level of resolution. If you are looking to fund disruptive startups to leverage a structural pricing disadvantage that results from incumbents costing model, which has exposure to multiplying interest rates and flat revenues, the quality of the debt doesn't so much matter.

I'm imagining things like, "3d print me a small refinery," or "blimp-drop me a sawmill in shipping containers," or "rent me a seed mill on a flatbed," "build me a foldable certified meat processing plant," or "create a new tractor platform with an open multi-tool interface." etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The conversion to LED based lighting really is the only thing that crushed Jevon's paradox. Other energy efficiency standards were incremental improvements.

LED and its mass adoption was an 80% drop in energy consumption if you kept using the same amount of lighting.

It's really, really hard to spend 4-5 more on lighting. Instead of the usual 4 hours of lights, you'd have to keep them on for 16-20 just to break even. So even if you kept lights a little longer, it was still a small blip in total energy.

So really, the LED really is the game changer that it was touted to be.

<comment><USER19> Another thing that breaks Jevon's paradox are technologies that automate conservation. My company moved to a newly-constructed office building, and all the lights in conference rooms turn off automatically if there is no-one there. A neighbor is installing the same type of tech in his house (he's admittedly an early adopter/gadget lover, so he isn't as concerned with the payback period). I can only see this trend accelerating as the tech cost falls.

<comment><USER20> >A neighbor is installing the same type of tech in his house (he's admittedly an early adopter/gadget lover, so he isn't as concerned with the payback period).

My parents used to apply a same kind of solution for our own house. It's called 'turn of the lights when you leave a room'.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm surprised this article doesn't mention General Electric, which has taken a series of financial hits lately due in large part to sagging demand for its power generation equipment.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/07/business/general- electric...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/07/business/general-electric- power-jobs.html)

</comment><comment><USER22> I was wondering why this decline in demand was so apparently devastating, since it normally wouldn't be unless a company had a very large debt load. And here's the reason: _" They can't make money selling electricity; monopoly regulations forbid it. Instead, they make money by earning a rate of return on investments in electrical power plants and infrastructure."_ Ah, so their entire business model is structured on ever-expanding capital investments, not the sale of the actual product. That sounds curiously like the description of a Ponzi scheme, especially considering you can't have perpetual, uninterrupted growth forever - at minimum the country has a finite amount of resources.

<comment><USER23> It was tied to GDP, and GDP can grow _close enough to_ forever. Nobody is investing in power plants based on what might happen in 500 years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Don't worry about the utility companies - they're already looking for ways to monitize you even more.

At ReInvent, there was actually a utility mouthpiece touting how they were interfacing with Salesforce to make more money out of you by running deep learning on everything they know about you to create proactive and individualized "sales opportunities".

"Your refrigerator/TV/hot water heater seems to be inefficient. We're offering a sale on those right now..."

"You appear to have a water leak. Want us to send out a technician to do a full workup?"

"Hey, you seem to really like American Football. Want to buy these three premium channels that offers even more?"

<comment><USER25> Lol, I'll believe it when I see them execute on this strategy. Utility companies are not known for employing talented innovative thinkers, those people tend to flock to opportunities in other industries.

It sounds to me like Salesforce was able to sell this utility on an a vision that the utility is unlikely to execute on.

<comment><USER26> > Lol, I'll believe it when I see them execute on this strategy.

Some are, already, executing on some form of this strategy.

My residential electricity supplier sent around letters last year to every account offering what amounted to "water pipe insurance". Mind you, this was the "electric company", offering "water pipe insurance" but the deal was that for some "low monthly payment" amount (I forget now how much) they would cover the costs of fixing a leak between the locality water meter (installed street- side) and the pipe that entered through the wall into my basement to supply the house.

The letter was full of scary sounding things that /might/ happen, and of the huge sums of money a leak might cost to repair, should one occur (this figure I have some recollection of, their claim was that it was on the order of $3,000-$4,000 to repair).

I read it over, scoffed at most of their scare tactics, and recycle binned the letter. But I did wonder just how many folks would ultimately sign up for the "insurance".

<comment><USER27> The reason that pipe is particularly dangerous is because it is before your house pressure regulator (so it is at mains pressure) but you are still responsible for it. In addition, it is the most prone to failure as your house settles independently of the mains. But yea, like any insurance, if you can afford the $3-4k of repairs without having to skip meals, you probably don't need it.

Edit to add: my source is that this happened to me, it was enormously expensive to repair. I still wouldn't get this insurance though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I think demand is far greater than what is currently visible, but the price is still way to high.

I'd move to electric heat in a heartbeat, but it's 2-3 times more expensive than coal, natural gas or oil (those are the most popular choices in Poland). If the price was 1/3rd of current, tens of percent of all citizens would move to a different heat source, using a lot more energy than they do now.

So it's just a price problem. Make it cheaper (maybe renewables will) and the demand will come quickly.

<comment><USER29> Electric heat in the form of heat pumps is fairly competitive (certainly not 2-3x). You are correct that running an electric current through a resistive wire is not an economical solution.

<comment><USER30> Look for the most efficient heat pump. As I understand, the co-efficient of our heat pump is 2. (Geo-thermal is 4.) Electric heat is 100% efficient, wood up to 75%, gas heat up to 70%.

<comment><USER29> Right, a coefficient of performance (COP) of 1 is equal to 100% efficiency. A heat pump typically exceeds that, so your COP 2 heat pump is 200% efficient (useful heat divided by work required). If an electrical joule cost the same as a natural gas joule, the heat pump would definitely be more economical; but in real life it's not so straightforward.

<comment><USER31> If you're running your electric heating from a natural gas-fuelled power station, which has an efficiency somewhere along the lines of 40% (if you're lucky), then using a heat pump with a COP of 2 means you are heating your home with 80% efficiency. Modern gas central heating systems can be >90% efficient.

Alternatively, if you go by the relative price of electricity compared to natural gas, typically electricity has three times the price for the same amount of energy. In that case, you would need a heat pump with a COP of >2.7 to make heating cheaper than using a gas burner.

Such heat pumps do exist now. The benefit is that if/when the electricity grid transitions to renewables, you are sorted.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Bad for the power companies, but good for humanity? The earth does not need more CO2 pumped into the atmosphere.

<comment><USER33> Is it a global trend, though? Or is the energy consumption just being moved abroad?

<comment><USER34> It's a good question, but household consumption is also dropping, and it's not clear how would that be outsourced.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Cryptocurrency mining is about to consume more electricity than home usage in Iceland.[1] I assume it's similar in other places that have cheaper electricity.

Seems that power companies should encourage consumers to mine Bitcoin. Problem solved.

[1] [https://qz.com/1204840/iceland-will-use-more-electricity- min...](https://qz.com/1204840/iceland-will-use-more-electricity-mining- bitcoins-than-powering-homes/)

<comment><USER36> Iceland is a nation of ~300k people, so in the grand scheme of things that's a minuscule amount.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Don't worry utilities, electric demand is going to double once we switch to electric cars.

<comment><USER38> We can be a bit more precise than that. In the US, each 1% shift in Vehicle Miles Travelled will increase electricity demand by 0.25%. This is a BFD, but even a 100% conversion to EVs would only increase demand by 25%, not 100% ("double"). I haven't done calculations for other countries.

[https://twitter.com/sampenrose/status/909532338647842818](https://twitter.com/sampenrose/status/909532338647842818)

<comment><USER39> There's a DoE paper from about 5-7 years ago that shows ~80% of light vehicles could move over to electrification, and if charged at night during off-peak, no additional generation capacity would be required.

<comment><USER38> 1) The key word there is "capacity." The energy still needs to be _generated_.

2) Coordinating EV charging with grid dynamics is a hot topic, but getting 100M vehicles to charge largely at night is not on anyone's roadmap for the next decade.

<comment><USER40> What has to be coordinated? People drive to work, park, drive home, plug in, and the car minimizes charging fees. I assume there are already APIs in place to get spot prices.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Lighting alone is about 19-20% of US load on a historical basis.

The internet has clearly had an impact - given the timeframe of 1998 of decoupling from GDP, that almost has to be a big driver.

But the unexpectedly quick move to LED lighting also has had a big impact.

Just a decade ago, people were predicting much higher prices for LED bulbs. Now you can buy the bulb and the payback period is less than a year.

<comment><USER42> My firm's factory switched to LED lighting in 20016 and, as projected, we're already in the black. Provided MTBF rates are as expected, we'll be in the black permanently. We're saving up to 60% of our lighting costs (including capital expenses).

<comment><USER43> Approximately how much were you spending on traditional versus LED lighting? Also, what's your electricity cost?

Here in the Bay Area my costs are approximately 30c kWh so energy saving are quickly and easily net positive.

<comment><USER42> I don't think I can disclose that, but I'm in Italy so it's probably not very comparable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> This will hurt the poor terribly. As those utility companies keep making less profits, the service they _do_ provide will get worse and worse, and the only people who will be relying on those services will be people who can't afford their own solar panels and batteries.

The utility companies are already calling this out as an issue. As their rich (and more consuming) customers go solar, they are having a harder time providing service for their poor customers. Their fixed costs are getting split amongst an ever shrinking group of people, meaning the rates for those who can least afford it will keep going up.

This is why most utilities push for laws that force people with solar to continue paying into the utility system.

<comment><USER45> As electricity usage falls they can just mothball old plants that require more maintenance. This should lower their fixed costs.

<comment><USER44> But if the overall usage trend is downward, how do they justify building new plants to replace the ones that fail?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> And no mention of electric cars, which by themselves could more than double demand...

<comment><USER47> I don't think it's as straightforward as more demand. One generation provider offers free EV charging on weekends[1], which shifts some charging to an offpeak time.

Another confounder is that EV's can be used as storage devices dumping power back to the grid[2].

1\. [https://www.chargepoint.com/products/home-station- incentives](https://www.chargepoint.com/products/home-station-incentives)

2\. [https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/how-ev- chargers...](https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/how-ev-chargers-and- energy-storage-can-make-good-grid-partners)

<comment><USER48> That evens out demand, but doesn't eliminate it. That's like evening out a 20ft wave down to a tiny wide swell vs the sea itself rising 10ft. We'll still need to double base generation.

<comment><USER49> Solar energy that never ends up on the grid at all could end up doing that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Maybe they could mine Bitcoin with their spare capacity.

<comment><USER51> I'm pretty sure that you're joking, but it reminds me of the story of Microsoft (I think) running heaters in a datacenter to meet one of the technicalities of a power purchase agreement. I cant find a link right now (PR people have probably worked hard to obliterate it from the internet), but from what I recall, MS had a long-term power purchase agreement with a local utility that had both a minimum and maximum energy usage threshold for some time period. Facing contractual penalties if they did not reach the minimum, they essentially ran heaters outside the data center to use some extra energy. This was 10 years ago or so. I'd like to think that if this were today, someone would be willing to swoop in and use all that power to mine some bitcoins.

<comment><USER50> It was tongue-in-cheek, but I wouldn't be at all surprised to see someone do it. It's a pretty obvious way to cash in on cheap power if you can get access to it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> The term of art people in these HN comments are looking for is "Energy Intensity" \-- the amount of energy required per dollar of GDP. Like many factors, it has been dropping. Here's a quick intro:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_intensity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_intensity)

</comment><comment> Paul-ish > The die was cast around 1998, when GDP growth and electricity demand growth > became "decoupled"

Rather than evidence of energy efficiency, couldn't this be seen as evidence the GDP is going awry?

</comment><comment><USER53> As I've argued here previously ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16209310](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16209310)) the plunging prices of photovoltaic panels will result in plunging energy prices, starting in the early 2020s. (They're already exerting some downward pressure, but so far it's only in limited areas and for marginal capacity.) Perhaps in Tennessee these plunging prices will not result in increased demand, due to poor planning and institutional inflexibility, but in many places in the world they will.

So the statement, "TVA will sell less electricity in 10 years than it did 10 years ago," seems very dubious. It's predicated on electricity generation continuing to cost the same as it has for the last half-century or so, modulo minor improvements. But at this moment we are seeing the beginning of a dramatic disruption in those prices. So this is a pretty bad way to make that prediction.

It seems a lot more likely that the plateau in electrical energy demand in the US from 2005–2025 or so will turn out to be temporary, not a "new normal".

<comment><USER54> The article doesn't go into details about the causes of the drop in demand, but it does say that ...

> "Thanks to a combination of greater energy efficiency, outsourcing of heavy > industry, and customers generating their own power on site, demand for > utility power has been flat for 10 years, and most forecasts expect it to > stay that way."

So the drop in demand may be being driven by things other than cost, meaning that a continued decrease in cost may not result in increased demand.

<comment><USER53> The drop in demand is certainly driven by things other than the cost of energy, because energy has gotten mildly cheaper over the last ten years, during which time the demand has stayed the same.

You could argue that those factors, whether they're outsourcing of heavy industry or whatever, will prove stronger than the dramatic decreases in energy prices brought by photovoltaics. But that doesn't seem very likely, because photovoltaics are dropping in price about 30% per year, while whatever forces are limiting demand for electrical energy seem to have been just sufficient to keep energy demand increase down to 1% during 2006-2016 (the last ten years on the graph), almost exactly counterbalancing a 14% increase in GDP over the same period. That is, they're pushing down electrical energy demand by about 1.3% per year. So if the long-term price elasticity of energy demand is somewhere in the neighborhood of -0.8, which seems like a reasonable guess based on a cursory glance at the econometrics research, we would expect energy demand to grow by about 25% per year once photovoltaics are the marginal source of energy — or 24% if whatever mysterious anti-growth figures this article is about continue to operate in the same way.

Now, you could argue that maybe the elasticity isn't -0.8. Maybe it's -0.2 or -1.2. But to suppose that a sudden and sustained 30% yearly drop in the price of energy would be wholly counterbalanced by whatever has held energy consumption constant over the last ten years requires the wholly implausible assumption that the absolute value of the elasticity is smaller than about 0.05.

You might argue that photovoltaic modules aren't really dropping in prices 30% per year. The old page at [https://www.solarserver.com/service/pvx-spot- market-price-in...](https://www.solarserver.com/service/pvx-spot-market-price- index-solar-pv-modules.html) shows the historical price history from PVXchange from May 2009 (€2.62/Wp in Europe) to May 2017 (€0.45/Wp in Europe), and PVXchange's current prices [http://www.pvxchange.com/priceindex/default.aspx?template_id...](http://www.pvxchange.com/priceindex/default.aspx?template_id=1&langTag=de- DE) are €0.37/Wp in Europe in the "mainstream" division. Averaged over 8 years and 7 months, that's a 1.88% price drop per month, which works out to 20% per year (not 23%, as you might think). But much of that 20% was in the 2013–2015 price plateau, during which time the prices remained almost unchanged, and which seems to be over. Now, shipping volumes are way up, and so we should move much more rapidly down the learning curve. So 30% is, if not an open-and- shut prediction, at least a plausible one.

We aren't seeing these demand-stimulation effects yet because, although photovoltaics' growth and price reduction is exponential and rapid, they're still only a tiny percentage of the overall marketed energy supply, and we don't have grid-scale storage online yet. That's why it will take until the early 2020s for these effects to become dominant — maybe even later in the US.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> Related - we seem to have passed peak stuff \- "Britons, too, have reached Peak Stuff, having reduced the annual use of material from 15.1 metric tons per person in 2001 to 10.3 metric tons in 2013." It's all quite good for the environment and the like.

</comment><comment><USER56> Electricity prices, and the cost share of the economy, are also finally flat to declining. Competition can be a beautiful thing.

"Less than four cents of every dollar of U.S. consumer spending went to gasoline, electricity and natural gas last year" [it was 50% higher in 1960; 100% higher in 1980; it's essentially the lowest cost levels in 60 plus years]

[https://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2018-02-22/energy-...](https://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2018-02-22/energy- costs-big-oil-and-power-face-new-competition)

</comment><comment><USER57> Some demand may be levelling off. We've had energy efficiency pressures for a while, and we knew there are all sorts of low hanging fruits. This is a good thing.

That said, I don't like the efficiency/austerity focused approaches to carbon reduction. Subsequently, I don't like a lot of price-based approaches to reductions like cap & trade or carbon taxes, particularly in the EU where I live.

I don't like them for a few reasons: protectionism & other hijackings, price flexibility of demand, the regressive burden on poor people... But for here, I'll stick to the implications of reduced power consumption.

The link between GDP & energy use is very long term. Efficiency can be an effective equivalent of volume but that can only take us so far. With lots of caveats, political perspectives and such.... I am still in favour of economic growth, technological progress... I think without exponentially increasing energy consumption we are contrained. I want a future with more transport, more computing, floating buildings, exotic new materials, space travel. These will require energy.

To take an analogy from cars... The EU has put a lot of effort into energy efficient cars. Light cars with small efficient motors. Hybrids, less driving.... This can get you some reduction, lets call it 50% for the sake of argument. Once you reach that point, there are no more gains to be made. Most "experience points" we've accumulated on the way are not very useful past this point and you need to pretty much start fresh.

Electric cars OTOH...These bottom out at 0. IE, when we get to the point where ICEs can be banned, we're at 0-emissions directly from car motors. Still need to deal with grid and manufacturing (probably the same ways), but vehicle emmisions is solved.

Said another way, electric cars are en route to the finish line. 700cc hatchbacks are a detour. I think it's smarter to invest in the path that leads where we want to go, at least now that it has become obvious.

I think most of us, particulalry those of a radical bent, are naturally dicotomous thinkers. My greeney college friends 15 years ago took the problem to be "too many people, too rich." That wasn't crazy, but I think it was essimistic.

TLDR. The old equation was

      People X Wealth = energy consumption = emissions:

I'm skeptical about disentangling wealth/gdp from energy in the long term. I'm optimistic about disentangling energy use from emmissions. I want to see the equation become become:

      People X Wealth = energy consumption <> emissions

<comment><USER34> I don't get your objections. Cap&trade and carbon taxes are specifically about emissions, not about energy consumption. They seem to match exactly what your want.

I don't see any movements in the EU against energy usage per se; I see a movement against pollution, and against _waste_ of energy (which is essentially a form of pollution).

<comment><USER58> I'm not sure I understand the OP exactly, but I think I feel similarly. The issue for me is that by improving efficiency without changing the long-term growth curve, you're only buying a few years of reprieve. The fear is that this reprieve that feels effective in the short term might actually be delaying development of a proper solution.

Consider an immediate 50% improvement in fuel efficiency, but with a 10% increase in usage per year. In less than a decade, you are back to where you started, but now the chances of another 50% improvement in efficiency are very low. Worse, the lower cost due to the efficiency improvement may have actually accelerated consumption.

The question is whether the "kick the can" approach will eventually leave you in a position where you can't recover, and whether your efforts would have been better spent on solving the underlying problem of system that depends on limitless growth and the externalization of environmental damage. Unfortunately, it's hard to come up with a "real" solution that doesn't involve massive cutbacks in consumption and/or hard caps on human population.

<comment><USER34> Ah, thanks, re-reading the previous post in light of yours makes sense (hence the "detour"). I guess I hadn't understood before because I don't see carbon taxes as fitting with that complaint against efficiency - people are free to become more efficient _or_ to keep consuming as much energy, as long as its from non-emitting sources.

It's true that in some areas the EU does mandate efficiency, such as in ICE vehicles. But even there, it's not like they say "you must build N efficient diesel cars", what they're saying is "if you're going to sell diesel cars, they must be efficient".

In summary, I think the sale of efficient cars and such is still a market process. If the EU didn't mandate efficiency, all we would get is inefficient gas guzzlers, not EVs.

 _Worse, the lower cost due to the efficiency improvement may have actually accelerated consumption._

I don't think so, because the efficiency requirements are accompanied by higher taxes in fossil fuels. At least in my country, the amounts spent on gas monthly hasn't really been dropping, even as cars become more efficient.

<comment><USER58> _At least in my country, the amounts spent on gas monthly hasn 't really been dropping, even as cars become more efficient._

I'm not familiar with this area, but I think that in the US retail gasoline prices (that is, including all taxes) have been historically flat. This means that efficiency gains fairly directly to lower operating costs, and hence result in greater demand: "In constant dollar terms, the price of gasoline in 2015 was only seven cents higher than in 1929."

[https://energy.gov/eere/vehicles/fact-915-march-7-2016-avera...](https://energy.gov/eere/vehicles/fact-915-march-7-2016-average- historical-annual-gasoline-pump-price-1929-2015)

I don't think that fuel taxes have increased much on a constant-dollar per- gallon basis. Considering inflation, the federal rate has in fact dropped significantly: "Since 1993, the US federal gasoline tax has been 18.4¢/gal (4.86¢/L)."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_taxes_in_the_United_State...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_taxes_in_the_United_States)

I don't know how the state rates have changed (they are of the same magnitude as the federal rate, ranging from 20-40¢/gal) but my guess would be that they too are historically fairly constant per gallon over the recent decades of efficiency improvements, resulting in an inflation adjusted decrease in the proportion of tax being paid.

<comment><USER34> Fair enough, but the parent poster was talking about the EU. Has the US enforced the same levels of efficiency by law?

<comment><USER58> It's hard to for me to compare directly because the US standards are expressed as miles/gallon while the EU standards are g CO2/km, but I think the US has about the same standards as the EU, although historically trailing by 5 years or so: [http://www.rff.org/files/document/file/RFF- PB-16-03.pdf](http://www.rff.org/files/document/file/RFF-PB-16-03.pdf)

But answering the implied general question, yes, the US does have legally mandated efficiency standards for vehicles, and the total number of miles driven is about 3 times what it was in 1970: [https://www.afdc.energy.gov/data/10315](https://www.afdc.energy.gov/data/10315).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> >But investor-owned utilities (IOUs), which administer electricity for well over half of Americans, face another imperative: to make money for investors. They can't make money selling electricity; monopoly regulations forbid it. Instead, they make money by earning a rate of return on investments in electrical power plants and infrastructure.

Wouldn't the next logical course be for IOUs to convince legislators of outdated/inefficient infrastructure, thus paving the way for infrastructure plans that provide tax benefits as well as real dollars to replace existing infrastructure. This would let the IOUs 'skim off the top' to provide profits on this upheaval for investors?

Where municipalities are unconvinced that they need new infrastructure either through insufficient budget or other reasons, IOUs could convince regulators that stricter environmental limits are required, forcing municipalities to pay for the new infrastructure, usually by allowing utilities to pass that cost on to consumers by tacking on additional charges to subscribers bills.

Seems like a prime environment for this to happen -- if the proper cogs were greased in this direction.

</comment><comment><USER17> Appetites are sated and efficiency isn't driving (or, rather, enabling) demand. Populations in highly developed nations, with the most supply, are stabilizing. Materials science, telecommunication, and software are replacing part of energy as a component of GDP. Though it is hard to get around the prediction that electrifying transportation will create significant additional electricity demand.

</comment><comment><USER60> As someone who works for an investor-owned utility it is more than clear that IOUs are entering riskier markets such as solar, energy storage, EV charging stations, and wind. Utilities will either be pipes and wires companies or new- age energy solution providers to businesses and residents. Many already have the new sexy solutions making up 20%+ of their business, which just 5 years ago would of been unbelievable for the industry. This trend will continue and thus long-term winners (imo) will be the ones looking for new energy revenue models to make up the majority of their revenue. Vector (New Zealand) is a great example of this and they've done so in a short amount of time...

P.S. Utilities don't necessarily make more money by providing more electricity, they often ask customers to lower consumption so the utility assets don't blow up. Utilities try to sweat assets as long as possible and that cost deferral across multiple towns, states, etc adds up to millions or billions saved per year.

<comment><USER61> What are these "new sexy solutions"?

<comment><USER62> I assume renewables and nuclear.

In my case, in an oft-forgot part of the country, 13% of my power is generated by solar and wind, 20%+ when you count in nuclear, too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> So when Rio Tinto Kennecott (copper mine near slc utah) had to suspend operations a few years back following a slide, the pollution reduction and the power consumption of the whole area was impacted (positively, in my mind).

TVA provides power to a huge number of industrial operations like kennecott and with a reduction of strip mining operations (We don't mine coal anything like we did even twenty years ago) and the increase in renewables, insulation and smarter construction, I don't see why the TVA considers it bonkers, and that was really the article editorializing. If anything, we (computer industry) should be building more data centers in TVA serviced areas.

Not speaking for google here, but if you search for "TVA and Google" there's some interesting links..

</comment><comment><USER64> It always baffles me to see how the rest of the world seems oblivious to modern heat pumps. They come in a variety of medium (air-air, air-water, geothermal-water). Seeing how heating a house is the biggest energy expenditure it should be a no-brained to heat homes with heat pumps.

To give a concrete example, In Northern Sweden, above the Arctic line, a modern geothermal heat pump an warm a 200 m2 (~2000 sq feet) house for a year, including warm water, for 15000kWh. Using gas, the need would be 4x higher. Even if you use electricy made from coal, you're still coming out ahead.

</comment><comment><USER65> Electric vehicles will change this quite a bit.

<comment><USER43> This is true in my experience, but the load is spread a lot by good infrastructure. I rarely charge at home, for example. And many people here with EVs have at least a small solar installation that offsets a lot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> "Instead, utilities find themselves constantly surprised, caught flat-footed again and again by a trend they desperately want to believe is temporary."

Electricity demand will go back up, especially as renewables drive the price down. In MA, when you own your own solar panels, running a space heater costs about as much as using a natural gas heater.

Furthermore, because renewable energy is primarily electric, I suspect that a lot of energy usage from fossil fuels will switch to grid electric.

So yeah, IMO, demand will come back. It's just that electricity will need to be extremely cheap, about 10-30% of current prices.

</comment><comment><USER67> "...we want overall demand to decline. It saves money, reduces pollution, and avoids the need for expensive infrastructure. But the way we've set up utilities, they must fight that trend. Every time they are forced to invest in energy efficiency...demand for their product declines, and with it their justification to make new investments."

Isn't this true for any government activity? Government builds institutions around solving some problem. But since when does an institution want to sunset itself because the problem is solved.

</comment><comment><USER68> Isn't flatting electricity demand and actually reversing it what we have all been pushing for? Utilities should have been preparing for this to happen eventually.

<comment><USER69> "I'll believe it when I see it" is a very hard mindset to overcome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> Of course local electricity usage is falling. We import more than ever. Electricity (and other forms of energy) are being consumed elsewhere and then shipped to us.

</comment><comment><USER71> It will be interesting to watch this in light of the increase in electric transportation. If we were 100% electric, our energy grid in its current state would not be able to handle the load. If electric transportation sees exponential growth, I question whether current trends in renewable will be able to scale sufficiently to meet the demand, and suspect that an expansion of centralized production will be inevitable.

<comment><USER72> Nothing is ever going to jump from 1% to 100% in the scale we're talking about aside from being just talking points. What's likely going to happen is the production will change slowly to meet the demand. But it's not clear if other areas will use even less electricity than now. All you've pointed out is take the current situation and swap all gas card to electric. Of course things won't work that way.

<comment><USER71> No, that is not "all I've pointed out." I specifically addressed the change in production. My point is that I doubt renewable will scale sufficiently, and that tradition modes of production will likely see an expansion.

That there will be an expansion (renewable or otherwise) to meet the coming demand is beyond question. The current power excess is a temporary situation. The eventual (and IMO inevitable) conversion of petroleum-based transportation to electric will require more capacity than our grid can presently provide.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> Flat demand? In the UK, electricity demand has been _falling_ for more than a decade, despite significant population growth and GDP growth.

</comment><comment><USER74> What will happen is that electricity prices will RISE, because these bloated utility companies need to maintain their revenues. This will hasten people to move to solar, etc, and then cause electricity usage to drop even further. It's a spiral downwards, and they don't have the means to disrupt themselves.

</comment><comment><USER75> It's disheartening that this article is painted as a disaster. This is fantastic news!

</comment><comment><USER76> Funny when you hear this and then you hear all the complaints from people who think cryptocurrencies waste energy. It's almost as if there's always someone who will look at one half of the picture that is pessimistic for him.

</comment><comment><USER77> The graph has no units. How has demand for electrical energy (kilowatt hours) changed?

</comment><comment><USER78> Do you know how utilities can ride the wave of lower demand from homes and businesses due to more people installing their own solar roofs? They could try and get ahead of EV revolution and install and own EV chargers everywhere.

<comment><USER79> They do this in some countries; the bulk of public electric car chargers in Ireland are owned by the old state monopoly generator, for instance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER80> That is why it will be better to be a transmission line owner (or vertically integrated) instead of just a generation owner/operator, since everything will be going to an energy market anyway.

</comment><comment><USER81> Electricity demand in the US, that is. Where is the global perspective?

<comment><USER79> Globally, demand is going up, dramatically. It's generally falling in advanced industrialised countries, though.

<comment><USER38> I don't think of < 10% / year as "dramatic", but YMMV:

[https://yearbook.enerdata.net/electricity/electricity- domest...](https://yearbook.enerdata.net/electricity/electricity-domestic- consumption-data.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER82> This is how to achieve sustainability: increased productivity, decoupled from an increase in resource consumption. We need this for other resources as well (e.g. transportation).

</comment><comment><USER83> LED lights and electric furnaces going out of vogue.

Electric vehicles, end of Moore's law means CPU racks giving off waste heat will hold value long enough to invest in them.

</comment><comment><USER84> The delivery, regulatory and other charges on my monthly bill are typically higher than the actual electricity charges ...

</comment><comment><USER85> Hooray! Let's release another batch of cryptocurrencies and start mining the shit out of those!

<comment><USER59> Even better if the investors who own the utilities do this -- they'll be potentially profiting on cryptocurrency while profiting on the infrastructure improvements needed to power the cryptocurrency mining.

</comment></comment><comment><USER86> Why would they freak-out when an increasing number of cars are going to be on the grid?

<comment><USER69> Future hypothetical increased demand, no matter how likely, is still future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER87> Strange article. It's been flat for over 10 years, per the first graph they show.

</comment><comment><USER88> Not for long... Electric vehicles are coming. This is the calm before the storm

</comment><comment><USER89> Don't worry, cryptocurrency will pick up wasting energy for no purpose.

</comment><comment><USER90> How is it that the Jevons paradox ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox)) hasn't been mentioned even once in this thread.

<comment><USER91> it has

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16474076](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16474076)

</comment></comment><comment><USER92> Anyone here running off the grid systems entirely?

</comment><comment><USER93> Was this measured before the Bitcoin surge?

</comment><comment><USER94> > freaking out

[citation needed]

</comment><comment><USER95> Will prices fall?

<comment><USER96> I expect the opposite. As everyone moves to efficient light bulbs for instance, the utilities still want to make X% profit on Y revenue for Z customers, roughly, and will adjust numbers upwards until they stay at least at the same place.

<comment><USER97> I suspect you're right on the money here as we've seen this before, most notably with the dying cable TV model. Declining viewership, increasing viewer age (younger viewers are more highly valued by advertisers as a general rule) and the abundance of cord-cutting streaming options (ie Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, HBO, etc) are all trending in the wrong direction (for cable companies and traditional broadcast outlets). The result? Rising prices to make up for the revenue shortfalls from selling less bundles.

With TV this will end badly unless something drastically changes because the rising prices will drive more and more people to cut-the-cord. I suspect as soon as you can get major sporting events in a convenient form outside of having a cable subscription it'll be game over.

Utilities have significant fixed costs. These are the capex costs of building plants and power infrastructure. These don't get any cheaper if consumers consume less power. The most likely response is simply to raise prices.

Solar in particular has been on a rapid decline in recent years. Utility price increases will only hasten adoption.

Here's another thing to consider: electricity tends to be more expensive during the day and cheaper at night. This is because industrial and commercial usage tends to be at peak during the day. Utilities typically need to maintain a base load on their infrastructure to cover peak usage so any usage at night is "free" for them essentially, hence the subsidized cost.

But consider this: in addition to residential usage of solar another response you'll see with increased utility prices is people installing batteries. This will not only store excess solar power but will allow customers to store power at night. Batteries too continue to get cheaper. I imagine that net this won't be good news for utilites either.

<comment><USER98> > With TV this will end badly unless something drastically changes because the > rising prices will drive more and more people to cut-the-cord. I suspect as > soon as you can get major sporting events in a convenient form outside of > having a cable subscription it'll be game over.

In the US, SlingTV offers the ability to get local Fox (NFC) and local NBC (Sunday night games) in their "Blue" package for $25/mo. You can jump up to "Orange" and get ESPN (Monday-night games) for $35/mo (but this package only allows you to run one stream to one device at a time). You do have the option to get both packages for the obvious cost, but at that point, you are coming up on the price of standard cable. SlingTV does have NFL Network, but Amazon got the rights to stream Thursday night games last season. Local CBS is still missing from Sling, so too bad if your team is in the AFC I guess.

MLB (MLB.tv), NHL (NHL.tv), NBA (NBA TV) all have their "out of network" streaming services that can be purchased without a cable TV sub, but watching in-network games can typically be done with a $10/mo VPN service.

In-network games for NHL/NBA/MLB are really what is left for disruption for the "big 4" US sports. But with Comcast tied NBC Sports and all of the regional channels, I suspect they will be holding on to those rights with a death grip.

<comment><USER99> The death knell for the cable companies will be when something challenges their virtual monopoly in high speed Internet.

Considering that younger people tend to watch sports in a different manner than previous generations (more smartphone / social media oriented, according to this study -- [https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/media-and- entertainment/...](https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/media-and- entertainment/our-insights/we-are-wrong-about-millennial-sports-fans)) I suspect that even sports is not going to be a saving grace for traditional cable.

With 5G coming up and the possible promise of WISPs, fiber, satellite, or other technologies people are exploring to bring fast broadband outside cable, that death knell might be sooner than later.

For power, utilities are heavily regulated by the state, which might mitigate some of this "death spiral" to some extent. But, yeah, they do have that same issue of cable companies of being heavily invested in a legacy hardware network.

That being said, one counter example that comes to mind is the old copper-wire analog phone systems. In the US, most of the old Ma Bell monopoly transitioned to a more mobile oriented business (Verizon or AT&T) over time. Landlines have been on the decline for the last couple decades, but my impression is that the telephone companies were able to adapt instead of getting caught out for the most part, or trying to play legislative-bully against mobile.

In contrast, the cable companies (my impression again) seem to be resisting technological trends and trying to use legislative strong-arming to sustain their business model, rather than reforming (their legal fights against muni broadband being a good example here). I do not see this as working long-term, at all.

Unfortunately my impression is that the power companies are more comfortable emulating the cable companies (fighting to make solar power less viable to consumers for instance) instead of transitioning business models gracefully...

<comment><USER97> This is a debate in the industry with wide-ranging implications. It basically boils down to will we have a wireless future as the primary means of Internet delivery or will we not?

And there's no clear answer. Sure 5G (even 4G) is fast but could it handle, say, all of Manhattan using it with no fixed line Internet? I have my doubts even with the 5G focus on concurrent connections. Or if it could it may just suck a lot of the time.

Wired (particularly fiber) has many distinct advantages:

1\. The lifespan of the infrastructure is like 30-40+ years, possibly much longer;

2\. Once you have the fiber in place it's pretty easy to change the lasers at either end and boost the speed, likely to 10Gbps+ if required;

3\. Fiber unlike wireless doesn't suffer from interference and the amount of data you can get down a conduit with all the fiber strands you can fit is simply gigantic.

But of course wireless doesn't have the massive upfront capex cost that a fixed-line network does. As much as people (reasonably) deride the US cable industry, high speed Internet pretty much exists in the US because of riding the coattails of the infrastructure that was built in the latter part of the 20th century. Who knows where we'd be without it?

If you had to build that infrastructure from scratch today the cost would be astronomical. This isn't unique to cable or telecommunications either. It seems like in virtually every Western country the cost of infrastructure has ballooned to the point where many things that exist now would just be uneconomical to create now (eg rail and subways in major US cities) and that's going to be a huge problem going forward.

Of course this isn't a binary problem. The future may be a hybrid (eg wireless last-mile).

As for your point about cable companies fighting competition at the regulatory level, absolutely true. It's not a simple issue however. As much as cable companies are desperately fighting commoditization (they don't want to be the provider of dumb Internet pipes), an overbuild with a fixed-line network doesn't make much sense either economically.

It's why we only have one water network, one gas network and one electrical grid (per region; many in the US have this deluded view that regional monopolies are somehow "competition"). It's also why utilities are highly regulated as they are monopolies. It's also why ISPs need to be regulated as a monopoly. Internet is the so-called 4th utility.

But this regulation will prevent naked price gouging. It will however impact the cost per kWh and ultimately regulators will have to relent to let them raise prices to cover costs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER100> Maybe efficiency is catching up with demand

</comment><comment><USER101> This is great news

</comment><comment><USER102> This should be a kick to the shrinking heavy industry.

</comment><comment><USER103> The pricing structure that is currently baked into power bills assumes that the cost of generation is paramount, and that the cost of distribution is nothing.

As distributed generation increases, regulations will have to change to reflect the fact that the cost of the distribution does not go away. I wonder what the best pricing structure is for the future.

<comment><USER104> Literally half my bill is distribution charges.

<comment><USER2> Yes, not sure what GP is meaning here. My bill is about 30% 'standing charge' which is a daily rate you pay regardless of energy consumption, which would be for distribution costs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER105> Generation is cheap. It's the distribution where the overhead is. Most of the electricity is lost in transmission. We must get wireless transmission working.

<comment><USER106> Wireless is not going to solve anything. The lowest loss method for long distance transmission is high voltage DC.

<comment><USER107> DC or AC?

<comment><USER106> DC, but the equipment to convert from AC to DC and vice-versa is expensive so it doesn't get used as much.

<comment><USER108> We convert a lot of AC back to DC to use modern appliances: Computers, Phone Chargers and LED lighting. Although I am guessing down stepping DC voltage is also expensive to do efficiently.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


UPenn Math Professor: Fractions should be scrapped - <AUTHOR> http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/mathscience/2008-01-23-fractions_N.htm?se=yahoorefer

<comment><USER2> Fractions vs Decimals was a big debate in my 5th grade classroom. The teacher asked us, after showing us each way, which one we preferred. The class was split.

At the time, I thought the debate was just about convenience in hand calculations - a mistaken notion that seems to be at the core of the link. I didn't realize how conceptual fractions were until college, though, when I saw a proof in number theory that the square root of two can't be represented as the ratio of two integers.

It wasn't until real analysis that I started to understand why "natural" numbers like pi and euler's constant can't be represented through fractions (and why this is what you should expect), why factions can be counted but real numbers can't, and so forth.

Personally, I think kids need to learn fractions to get mentally ready for this sort of realization... but maybe that's just because that was my path toward understanding it. On a purely computational level... the symbolic reasoning needed for algebra and calculus (which isn't just math theory, but almost everything mathematical) is probably more related to mentally managing fractions than decimals (the quadratic equation, for example, uses the dividing line. A decimal representation wouldn't be useful here, would it?)

All in all, kids probably need to understand that most numbers can only be approximated with fractions and decimals.

</comment><comment><USER3> If students spend less time on fractions, long division and so on then presumably they will have more time for something else. If I had to offer a suggestion it would be something that still involves fractions in an applied setting, like basic ideas of probability and statistics.

</comment><comment><USER4> Its hard if not impossible to describe decimals to a new math student without using any fraction terminology.

But ya, maybe fraction arithmetic by hand is a little outdated.</comment>


Ask HN: Trying to recollect the name of a 20th century philosopher - <AUTHOR> <comment><AUTHOR> He wrote a treatise on the nature of space and time and I believe his surname was Bergman.

<comment><USER2> Henri Bergson? [https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/bergson/](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/bergson/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Bergson it is thank you!</comment></comment></comment>


Japan's working population drops further - and the number of foreigners rise - <AUTHOR> https://japantoday.com/category/national/Japan%27s-working-population-drops-further <comment><USER2> Can we stop pretending birth rate decline couldn't self-stabilize? I don't see populations organically shrinking to 0 as a realistic scenario.

I for one am tired of extremely misguided and unjustified attempts at engineering everything on the planet.

<comment><USER3> How do you propose to sustainably support 7.5 Billion people on this "tiny" planet without engineering?

<comment><USER4> Perhaps there is a middle ground between "engineering everything" and "without engineering".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I see this as a good thing. We need less people in the world, it will be better for the planet, and civilization will be more sustainable. Better to have a highly automated more empty world than a hot crowded one with too many mouths to feed and not enough food to go around.

<comment><USER6> EXACTLY ^^. If population worldwide were to drop 90%, global warming and mass extinctions would end. In the 1970s we all worried about world overpopulation. ZPG - Zero Population Growth was desirable. Today that disaster is here! 90% of the world's population is not changing anything about mankind's future they are just hanging out ... we should focus on a smaller world by population and more productivity for the future of humanity...

I'll tell you why you see these alarmist articles! Greedy business interests! They are programming our minds to think this is a crisis! To these misers it is a crisis because 1% of business growth every year in places like the USA comes from business sitting on its ass - just from population growth!

<comment><USER7> I honestly cannot tell if Poe's law is applicable here or not.

<comment><USER6> Your response is testament to how thoroughly your thoughts are programmed to serve the needs of others...

To clarify, fully 1% of GDP growth which is 16% of real (inflation adjusted) business growth, is from population growth. This is why our business-owned media wants us to think this is a crisis ...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> If automation is the future, isn't a decline in the working population a good thing? The robots can just take over the vacant jobs. What am I missing?

<comment><USER9> A nugget of cycling wisdom says when you get fitter, cycling doesn't become any easier, you just go faster.

Similarly with automation, we are just ending up with more efficient means of production but not less work overall.

<comment><USER10> >but not less work overall

I think we do have less work overall and need to accept the liberation.

A lot of jobs have popped up through things like regulatory capture or monopolistic competition(1) which have debatable benefit to society.

1-[https://www.athenahealth.com/insight/expert-forum-rise- and-r...](https://www.athenahealth.com/insight/expert-forum-rise-and-rise- healthcare-administrator)

<comment><USER4> > A lot of jobs have popped up through things like regulatory capture or > monopolistic competition(1) which have debatable benefit to society.

A more concise term is 'parasites'.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> As a bit of a side tract, this is happening to all modernized nations, only Japan is one of the few modern countries that isn't allowing enough legal immigrants to make up for the decline. The US also has a negative native population growth, but because the doom and disaster a negative growth rate would cause upon our current economic models we allow shit tons of legal immigration to maintain growth.

<comment><USER12> Japan just passed a radical (for Japan) change to their immigration rules, to allow in more foreign workers in a number of low-skill categories. It's also comparatively easy for skilled workers to get visas. (The bigger problem is making Japanese companies treat these workers as equals...but they're coming around.)

Now, contrast to the current reactionary government of the United States, and their attitude toward immigration. The two countries are clearly moving in opposite directions.

<comment><USER13> Japan doesn't really need complex or quota-based immigration laws because foreigners are not super happy to live there forever once they've tried it. More so than legal barriers, there are cultural ones. And there are borders in our minds just as much as on maps (e.g. preconceptions that we're stubborn to let go of).

The US is different, of course. People like it here once they've arrived. I can't say why, nor do I buy the stereotype that US culture is more open or individualistic. But the US arguable needs laws quota-based and micro-managey, since they are managing a huge amount of people from more diverse backgrounds. Japan is managing fewer potential immigrants and guests, and most of their immigrants are geographically close to Japan.

Despite the immigration laws being easier to grok and less authoritarian on paper, Japan is pretty strict in its enforcement of those laws. Put all I've said together and I don't know if one country is more reactionary than the other, but I think both countries are moving toward a more balanced, less eccentric immigration system at the moment.

(why you should listen to me: I'm an American and lived in Japan for four years and had to go through the process of getting my wife a spouse visa 2 years into my stay. I dealt with immigration a few times. I went to many different cities and vacations and such, and talked to people that don't speak English and don't have a passport, so I have a representative sample set.)

<comment><USER12> _"Japan doesn 't really need complex or quota-based immigration laws because foreigners are not super happy to live there forever once they've tried it."_

You're just making things up now. People are clamoring to get into Japan. It's one of the safest countries on earth, with one of the highest standards of living. Not to mention inexpensive health care and a surplus of good jobs. I lived there too, and personally saw the people trying to emigrate, from all over the world. And arguing that it _used_ to be different misses the point: they're becoming more open, and we're closing off. It's an indisputable fact.

 _"The US is different, of course. People like it here once they 've arrived. I can't say why, nor do I buy the stereotype that US culture is more open or individualistic."_

If you think US culture is any less difficult to adapt to for an immigrant, you're incredibly naive. It's always hard. There's nothing special about the US, except that we've been traditionally willing to accept immigrants. That, itself, is changing, and reactionary douchebags are making it a damned sight more scary and less welcoming by trying to protect the "different" way of life from the scary, scary foreigners.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It would be nice to see more in-depth root cause analyses of the fertility issues that many nations like Japan are facing. It's obvious there are a lot of causal factors of various weights, but it's difficult to see which ones have the greatest effect as well as which ones we would be able to improve the easiest. Too often all of these issues seem to just be hand-waved as "something that just happens", with few groups actually working to apply the scientific method in order to improve the situation.

<comment><USER15> I think some of it is economics - having children is more K-strategy, more expenses and attention called for - and people don't need children for social security. Compare to say third world farm families where the marginal cost of children is low and there are more gains.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is also an example where the larger story is about emptying out the rural areas while the cities grow. Most of Japan's large cities have increased in population (or are flat) over the past 20 years. So, yes a smaller "working age" population but one that is centered around white-collar rather than agricultural work.

</comment><comment><USER17> There is no stabilization of the Japanese ethnic population in sight. With these trends I wonder how the island will change culturally in 100 or 200 years. I suspect we'll see them continue to open more and more to the west.

<comment><USER18> The rest of the West isn't far behind. Only in Africa and a country or two in the Middle East is the birth rate above replacement rate.

<comment><USER19> Just a cursory Google search shows that countries like Mexico and the Philippines are way above the replacement rate as well so I don't think your comment is accurate.

<comment><USER18> Admittedly my comment was a result of a quick glance at the ourworldindata.org fertility map on a mobile device. I may have missed a country or two depending on the shading of the country.

[https://ourworldindata.org/fertility- rate](https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


What's the best way to die? - <AUTHOR> http://wilsonquarterly.com/quarterly/transitions/whats-the-best-way-to-die/ <comment><USER2> Abruptly. People sometimes think they want time to wrap up their affairs but as someone who has done some grief counseling in the past o e of the saddest things I have seen repeatedly is long drawn out terminal illnesses and their effect on friends and families. Invariably your loved ones after seeing you in pain for months on end will have the thought "maybe it would be better if you just died instead of continuing to suffer". And then you do, and even though it is absurd they then feel immense guilt for wishing you would hurry up and die. Or after the first month of shock is over and they have visited you every day, they start to get back to their normal lives, not able to miss another day of school or work, then when they have t seen you for a week or two, you die, leaving them again filled with guilt. It just tears people apart.

I wish for a quick and somewhat unexpected death. I would rather leave people wishing they had a chance to say goodbye than have them feel guilty that they had the chance but decided to go to work or school instead.

</comment><comment><USER3> As someone who was bothered by a fear of death from a young age, I always thought I would want to die in a blaze of glory - skiing off a huge cliff, skydiving, etc... But as I aged (still young, only 34) I found, what I think, is the perfect summation of how I want to die (I forget the author, in a hurry and google is failing me. Probably Neruda):

"I want to die at the end of the day // in the high seas // with my face towards the sky // when it seems like agony is just a dream // and the soul, a bird ascending in flight // Let there be no sad tears as I draw my last breath, // At one and alone with the sky and the sea, // No sobbing, nor prayer, nor laments of death // I only would hear the deep waves cover me // To die when the bright glow of twilight is fading, // and catches the waves in its last net of light // to be like that sun as its luminous shading // expires and is lost in the arms of the night // To die, and die young, before time has destroyed // the delicate fabric illusion has spun // when life can still say: "I am yours" but the void // Of a final echo tells us death has won!"

How exactly to attain that feeling, I am unsure...

<comment><USER4> You are thinking of Manuel Gutiérrez Nájera. Here's an alternate translation:

[https://gist.github.com/simonsarris/9980a385af4f4c4d3967](https://gist.github.com/simonsarris/9980a385af4f4c4d3967)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> My grandfather died a couple years ago. He was 95. He was up at his lake cabin fishing with some family and friends. He woke up one morning not feeling well and was dead by evening with his wife and a son at his side.

I think that's the way to go - quickly after having lived a long and full life.

</comment><comment><USER6> Disclaimer: information might not be 100% accurate from memory, it comes close though.

In meditation retreat I was told that meditation (Vipassana in this case) is actually practicing in being prepared to die. According to this idea by doing this you can live fully. For me this seems a bit vague, but it did plant a seed in my head.

The thing is, meditation teaches you equanimity, which from my understanding means being able to feel but without judgement. When I was in deep meditation I experienced equanimity a couple of times. At one point my muscles were aching so much by sitting perfectly still that I walked like a cripple after that meditation session. My body just could not perform normally, which I found odd in a sense. Yet, I never felt any pain, I noticed my body was having a hard time sitting perfectly upright in a still position, that was it. Or perhaps better said: I did feel a form of pain (aka that something is wrong with my body), but I never experienced any suffering from it. The converse is also true with regards to pleasure (e.g. small forms of non-clinical addiction).

What I learned from practicing equanimity is that I prefer to die while using this skill. Because to me it means I won't die by suffering from pain or pleasure, I just die and experience how it feels. It could be pain, it might be pleasure, either way I just experience it and nothing more.

Note: while equanimity has to be explained through language, it's not an intellectual concept in the sense that riding a bike isn't an intellectual concept. It's something you do. Intellectualising about riding a bike won't get you anywhere, same goes for equanimity in the way that I've been taught.

</comment><comment><USER7> Oh, I have recently written a (very) short story on the subject:

[https://medium.com/@rayalez/the-best-way-to- die-b6118acb34c7](https://medium.com/@rayalez/the-best-way-to- die-b6118acb34c7)

Seriously, though, I don't want to die at all, I hate death, but if I had to choose it would be morphine overdose. Also I hope I'll have the balls to commit suicide before I'm a bed-ridden piece of meat. Once my body and brain are bad enough to prevent me form writing/programming/creating things - it's time to go. I don't understand people who spend years suffering for no reason just to let random mindless natural causes to decide when it's over.

Also, there's a horrifying article on how people actually end up dying in modern medical system:

[http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/07/17/who-by-very-slow- decay/](http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/07/17/who-by-very-slow-decay/)

(I strongly suggest you read it, is amazing)

</comment><comment><USER8> The best way to die? With awareness of the time, in a mixture of gases - 90% nitrogen and 8% oxygen or less.

<comment><USER9> This is my understanding as well, hypoxia induced in this manner is a painless way to go. It even numbs your ability to think about your death.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I have always wondered about Aldous Huxley's death. He asked his wife to inject him with 100ug of LSD while on his deathbed. I believe that he died some hours later.

Maybe dying this way is not pleasant, who knows, but at least sounds interesting.

Maybe both effects combine into something that is much more?

</comment><comment><USER11> A bit morbid, but interesting reading. Apparently death by Opium is a great way to go, if not slightly illegal

</comment><comment><USER12> When I die, I would like to be immediately resuscitated and be told I had just died.

I just do not want to wake up dead. The shock of realizing I was dead would kill me.

</comment><comment><USER13> I want to die quietly, in my sleep

Like my grandfather

Not screaming

Like his passengers.

<comment><USER14> I used to tell this joke frequently, until a few years ago - my father turned out to have a major sleep apnea problem and almost drove into a wall while the rest of my family were frantically trying to wake him up. HE got it fixed but I had no idea that sort of thing could even happen.

Sorry :-/

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> No mention of Albert Hoffmann taking LSD on his deathbead?

[https://thedreamatists.wordpress.com/2007/08/06/aldous- huxle...](https://thedreamatists.wordpress.com/2007/08/06/aldous-huxley-takes- lsd-on-deathbed/)

No mention of anxiety relief during end of life with psychedelics?

[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/magazine/how- psychedelic-d...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/magazine/how-psychedelic- drugs-can-help-patients-face-death.html)

Maybe that's under "..many of the other drugs used to soothe patients.. "

Maybe it's just my own wheelhouse and hobby horse.

</comment><comment><USER16> Pretty sure Monty Python answered this question definitively... [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLctf4o6feQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLctf4o6feQ)

</comment><comment><USER17> Not very likely, but I've always wondered what the feeling would be like when your head is suddenly detached from the body (e.g. beheading by guillotine[0]). A more down to earth way I'd prefer is hallucinogen overdose - should be hell of a trip.

0\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillotine#Living_heads](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillotine#Living_heads)

</comment><comment><USER18> I am by no means obsessed with death but for as long as I can remember thinking about dying I've fantasized about going out like this:

After reaching a point where I feel like the end is nigh, and/or my quality of life has sufficiently deteriorated, I skydive from 20,000 feet into the mouth of a live volcano. No parachute (obviously).

Not sure why I see this as romantically as I do but I can't think of a better way to go.

</comment><comment><USER19> Thank you for submitting this. An interesting post in the same vein is _Who by Very Slow Decay_ [1]. It's a freshly-minted doctor's view of death.

1\. [http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/07/17/who-by-very-slow- decay/](http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/07/17/who-by-very-slow-decay/)

</comment><comment><USER20> "The classical man's worst fear was inglorious death; the modern man's worst fear is just death." -Nassim Nicholas Taleb

<comment><USER21> Ugh. The winners write the history books, and their glorifiers write the epilogues. "The classical man's worst fear was inglorious death"? Really? Based on... what exactly? Who is this "classical man"? Define inglorious. Ugh, just terrible, terrible trite attempt at aphorisms. (Not you justinsingh, Taleb.)

I don't doubt that "modern humanity" in "the west" seems to deal badly with the process of dying. But Taleb... just no. At best he's a writer of highly variable quality.

Try reading Atul Gawande's Being Mortal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> A quick and painless death by trying to save children, loved ones, puppies, or kittens from morbid danger.

<comment><USER23> Imagine all the puppies you'll save if you start now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I have a strong fear of flying, which is unfortunate since I have to fly to my company's HQ once a month or so. One of my coping mechanisms is that, at worst, my death would be swift and with enough luck, painless. Above all else, it better be quick.

</comment><comment><USER25> I always thought an overdose of sleeping pills would be the way to go.

</comment><comment><USER26> A parachute not opening... that's a way to die. Getting caught in the gears of a combine... having your nuts bit off by a Laplander, that's the way I wanna go!

<comment><USER23> I've had to use my reserve twice. I think it was the most focused and hardworking I'd ever been, before or since.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLctf4o6feQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLctf4o6feQ)

</comment><comment><USER28> Orbiting a star in a space suit as it goes nova.

</comment><comment><USER29> Probably hypothermia. You just sort of wink out.

<comment><USER30> Ugh, being _really_ cold sucks.

I live in the Yukon, and get out and about in -40 regularly. I've had hypothermia a couple of times, and it's not particularly nice. I imagine at some point you stop feeling, but everything before that isn't nice.

<comment><USER31> I've talked to someone that claimed to have had severe hypothermia, and he said that there was a sense of euphoria (after a certain point).

Also, I know that after a certain point people suffering from hypothermia start feeling _hot_ and start stripping off clothes (and promptly freeze to death).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I was expecting a numbered list with a GIF for every point. I'm disappointed, and should probably stop reading BuzzFeed

</comment><comment><USER33> Sudden cardiac death is not a bad way to go.

</comment><comment><USER34> I know I want to die. Not now. But later on. And then I want to be reborn soon there after to continue my works.

The body will grow old, frail. It will slowly deteriorate, whereas my mental faculties will still be tied to this body. So let it.

When I leave, I'll tell those around me, "See you soon". Because I will meet them again.

I am a reincarnationalist; not by belief, but by personal proof. I can't prove it scientifically. So there's that.

<comment><USER35> Woah, HN, let's not get on the downvote fairy bandwagon here. There is nothing wrong with believing in reincarnation, no more than any other religious belief.

<comment><USER34> But my understanding isn't linked to religion. Its derived from knowledge I, frankly, shouldn't know.

There's really no other good answer to it. And I'd be game to hear any hypothesis, or tests.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I've mentioned this elsewhere, but some here may enjoy reading Atul Gawande's Being Mortal.

</comment><comment><USER36> Per the old joke, "I want to be shot by a jealous husband".

</comment><comment><USER37> I don't know. Surprise me.

</comment><comment><USER38> Unafraid.

</comment><comment><USER39> Jim died just as he had lived: in a darkly lit room waiting for a deploy script to finish running while through tears of exhaustion he tried to focus on a screen crawling with log entries he could make nothing of. Tabbing back and forth to sterile commentless code, that did everything except the one thing it was obviously supposed to do, ignoring, for just a little while longer, the ringing in his head and the faint scent of springtime morning urging him to sleep, and that other, stronger scent, exhorting him to do some laundry.

He passed away peaceably at his keyboard, the deploy failed, and eventually the team had to roll back the changes.

Jim died in the best possible way: working on staging. He would have wanted it that way.

<comment><USER40> I really hope this is a joke. because its hilarious.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> He died just as he lived.

In his Jeep.

</comment><comment><USER42> Dying is for fools.

<comment><USER43> "Death is a mugs game" \- [http://i.imgur.com/FYU2AYt.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/FYU2AYt.jpg)

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> The best way to die is when you have a guaranteed that your next destination is heaven. Otherwise you should at least know that you have prepared for it.</comment>


Ravel Open Sources GoldenOrb, Big Data Graph Processing for Everyone - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/ravel_open_sources_goldenorb_big_data_graph_proces.php#.TglWFz_sw78.hackernews <comment><USER2> GitHub is working now: <https://github.com/raveldata/goldenorb>

</comment><comment><USER3> Uh clicking the link to the github repository returns a 404 ?

<comment><AUTHOR> Back up now: <https://github.com/raveldata/goldenorb>

<comment><USER4> It now says "Nothing to see here yet. Move along." :-)

Sounds like a very interesting project, though.

<comment><USER5> It's out now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> i think author is PR/social media for Ravel/GoldenOrb...

<comment><AUTHOR> I am PR for Ravel, but not the author of the post, obvs</comment></comment>


Inaugural SF Stupid Hackathon – Presentations Today - <AUTHOR>

This weekend, hundreds of hapless hackers converged in San Francisco, ripe with terrible ideas. After twenty-four hours, some "hacks" have rotted (literally), while others have burst into glorious fruition. Come witness the dawn of despair: the technological eschaton nears.
Satisfaction is transient. Regret is forever. How do you want to be remembered?
TL;DR: Stupid Hackathon presentations are today, 3-5pm at the Roxie theater (3117 16th St, San Francisco). We'd love to see you there.
Bewildered, confused, and excited, The Organizers
http://stupidhackathon.github.io <comment><USER2> This hackathon is a good example of the hypocrisy of the progressive movement. Because the hackathon is clearly motivated by progressive politics (making fun of what is considered to be a White cishet male dominated startup scene), they get to break all their own rules regarding appropriateness or decency. Note that the hackathon is sponsored by Mozilla SF, so it can't be claimed this is not an industry event.

Here are some examples from the previous New York hackathon [0]:

Sexual content (ordinary nerds would be told that any sexual content is inappropriate during work/industry related events):

Golden Bitcoin Pasties, Focus Tools, Collaborative Fuck Bike, E.T. Strapon, Sado-Masochistic Macrame Planter, Tinder For Babies, "ok glass, vomit"

Making fun of mental health/development issues:

Stupid Font,

Body shaming and objectification:

Intellectual Babes Calendar

And here are some prize categories in the current hackathon that are similarly offensive:

Peter Thiel, Scatological APIs, Targetting The "Hikikomori" Space

[0] [http://www.stupidhackathon.com/](http://www.stupidhackathon.com/)

<comment><USER3> That is a separate event with a similar name.

Also you are whining.</comment></comment>


Atlas: End-to-End 3D Scene Reconstruction from Posed Images - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/magicleap/atlas <comment><USER2> From the folks at Magic Leap. It looks remarkably good to me.

The video at [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NOPcOGV6nU&feature=youtu.be](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NOPcOGV6nU&feature=youtu.be) is worth watching, especially the parts showing how the model gradually constructs and improves a labeled 3D mesh of a live room as it is fed more visual data by walking around the room.

\--

On a related note, Magic Leap has been trying to find a buyer for the business for several months now:

[https://www.roadtovr.com/report-magic-leap-buyer- sale/](https://www.roadtovr.com/report-magic-leap-buyer-sale/)

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-11/augmented...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-11/augmented- reality-startup-magic-leap-is-said-to-explore-a-sale)

<comment><USER3> I have no experience in this field at all and they note on the video that the sequence shown was not realtime but I wonder how far we're from having something like this running in realtime or how "realtime" it could be given fancy hardware to be used in the wild?

<comment><AUTHOR> Without much optimization, it can run at ~14fps on a NVidia TiTan RTX

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> On a tangential thought, it's interesting to me that a company (magicleap) that has raised several billion dollars generates so little value compared to other companies its size that this is the most notable output from them in a year and I thought it was a phd project until I looked at the project owner. Anyways, it's a very interesting project and thanks for sharing.

<comment><USER5> Yeah I have to agree. If this were a PhD thesis it would certainly deserve some praise, but given that this is the most exciting thing to come out of magic leap in years just barely puts them on par with SOTA...well I would be pretty pissed if I was an investor in them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Here's a challenge question to folks reading this and learned with the tools of the trade (my apologies in advance for somewhat hijacking the thread): consider this video of an endoscopy: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUVDKoKSEkU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUVDKoKSEkU) \-- say, from 3:00 to 5:00. And I have a bunch of movies (i.e., a series of images!) and I want to do a 3d reconstruction of this.

It seems super, super difficult... there are free-flowing liquids, and since this is an esophagus/upper lining of the stomach which is changing in form quite drastically so often. How would you guys approach this problem?

<comment><USER7> Even more hijacking, I remember thinking medical applications were going to be the killer apps for VR. I was blown away by these demos almost half a decade ago [https://youtu.be/MWGBRsV9omw?t=251](https://youtu.be/MWGBRsV9omw?t=251)

Did they ever make it into real life practice?

<comment><USER8> Thanks for linking to Doc Ok's youtube channel!

[https://www.youtube.com/c/okreylos/videos](https://www.youtube.com/c/okreylos/videos)

5 years ago he was active in the Vive VR world

[http://doc-ok.org/](http://doc-ok.org/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I wonder how long it's going to be before we're able to run a significant portion of Youtube video (tourist videos, etc) through something like this, and generate a huge 3d mesh of the world. Combined with Street View data, you'd really have a ton of spaces covered.

<comment><USER10> I believe random videos are too low of a quality. Like this, most of the stuff I've seen uses constrained videos.

I have seen random still images used for this kind of thing: [https://nerf-w.github.io/](https://nerf-w.github.io/)

I haven't heard of any equivalent of EXIF for video. That goes a long way when trying to make sense of random video both for camera settings as well as GPS location if you're trying to correlate multiple videos.

<comment><USER11> GoPro has a proprietary format that stores live metadata in the videos if I recall. Maybe it's called GPX? About 6 months ago I extracted GPS coordinates from a video using an open source tool.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Looks awesome. Given it takes position data along with images, how accurate must the position data be? Could it handle something like sensor drift in the position data over time?

</comment><comment><USER13> For anyone with domain knowledge, how applicable is Google's NeRF work here in comparison? Is there any overlap?

[https://nerf-w.github.io/](https://nerf-w.github.io/)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24071787](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24071787)

EDIT: @bitl: Tremendous, thanks for the reply. Would be amazing to be able to build these scenes just by walking around scanning a room with your mobile phone while it records video for processing the frames into scenes (especially considering mobile platforms with a depth sensor for enrichment of the collected data).

<comment><USER14> By default NeRF does not produce a mesh (but one could use marching cubes as does Atlas) and it requires training a neural network for each scene whereas Atlas (as far as I understand it) uses pretrained network to process new scenes.

NeRF would probably produce a much better final result but the Atlas approach (no need to train something from scratch) is the only one that can hope to be run in real time which is vital for some application.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Is there anything that would prevent this approach working on 360 video?

<comment><USER16> i imagine a lot of unfortunate artefacts come out of stitching together the camera views that form a 360 or "spherical" image.

<comment><USER17> Well on a camera with dual fish eye lenses for 360 vision there's some blurring at the edge where the images are merged together. But actually each camera separately just has normal fish eye effects, and if both images are used without blending them together you'd have minimal artifacts. Biggest issue is low visual acuity imo.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Ladies and gentlemen you are looking at the pinnacle of mankind's technological achievements. The proof?

We can now make tiny virtual cars do stunts off object in the real world: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NOPcOGV6nU&feature=youtu.be](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NOPcOGV6nU&feature=youtu.be)</comment>