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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: April 6th, 2024

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  • It’s not a “feel good statement”, it’s reality. Gas is terrible. It’s responsible for a significant portion of climate change and gas stoves cause myriad health issues. This is basic stuff. Of course the transition isn’t all sunshine and rainbows but electrification is far from some insurmountable ideal, and it can be quite cost effective.

    The vast majority of HVAC equipment will be replaced on burnout, and when you do the economics of a new gas furnace (and almost certainly AC these days) vs an ASHP, it’s simply not $30-50k extra. There are state and local incentives, the federal tax credits, utility incentives etc., but I agree the IRA programs are on thin ice (even though Biden awarded funds before leaving). I bought a high end cold climate heat pump for just a few grand more than my neighbor who bought a furnace/AC with similar operating costs. You can get a cheaper ASHP and furnace for something in between cost wise. My state has tripled cold climate heat pump incentives and they are now very competitive with gas systems. I work in the industry and live this every day, it’s not some boondoggle, the grid updates necessary aren’t as dramatic as headlines imply and are already well underway to support vehicle electrification and load growth/resiliency. The PNW is quite mild and people are willing to pay for AC anyway due to heat waves (and wildfire smoke), so going straight to heat pumps is a very cost effective solution. Folks are cancelling gas service left and right and the remaining users will be left with rising fixed costs. Plus as I led with, gas is terrible for your family and the climate (and locally where the wells are).










  • The original post I responded to was someone talking about how starlink lets them game in a rural RV. What about carbon emissions from thousands of rocket launches? What about atmospheric damage? What about astronomy? I’m saying the downsides don’t appear to be worth the upsides for these niche scenarios. Humanity survived just fine for quite some time before ultra remote Internet became a thing.


  • I’m not trying to alienate anyone, I’m trying to understand why low latency gaming needs for digital nomads is worth the real downsides of providing such a service (scientific, GHG, atmospheric tinkering, etc). I also believe that we should leave a lot more of the earth alone and that nature matters. I’m not trying to put people anywhere, just recognizing there are pros and cons to different living schemes, humans are social creatures, and population of 2 areas don’t warrant large societal investments. I’m similarly against a hypothetical drone sushi delivery service for rural Canadadian boreal forests if that happens to have real downsides too.



  • The answer to what? If everyone does this, there won’t be a single remote place on earth that isn’t crawling with sprinter vans. It can’t scale, and it doesn’t need to be specifically catered to. You want the wilderness, you get the wilderness. You want low latency Internet, then get to a fiber connection. We don’t need every first world amenity everywhere.