Europe drastically cut its energy consumption this winter

Re:Europe drastically cut its energy consumption this winter by hgomersall on Friday April 07, 2023 @02:14PM (#35484906)

Clearly not. What's your total energy consumption? Unless your looking at something closer to passivhaus levels of 15kWh/(m^2.yr) your house is too hot (and frankly, however efficient your house is the temperature is absurd). That is a statement of ethics. The price you pay for your energy doesn't even begin to pay for the damage. That is a big part of the problem. Moreover, every kWh spent on overheating your house is a kWh we as a society need to find for all the other things that are less stupid.

Put on a jumper. Or even, let your body adjust. There's plenty of evidence that keeping your body working to stay warm when you are healthy is very good forblood sugar control, which has additional benefits.

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Re:Europe drastically cut its energy consumption this winter by pshirshov on Friday April 07, 2023 @03:10PM (#35485728)

About 1.2 mWh per month on average. In summer time I generate more than I consume. In winter time I generate about 15% of my consumption.

My house is extremely well insulated (BER A2), dunno if it qualifies as a passivhouse.

Also I'm exporting more than a megawatt per year back to grid for free, so you (as a society) may be happy.

So, I don't think I'm being unethical.

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Re:Europe drastically cut its energy consumption this winter by palata on Friday April 07, 2023 @07:08PM (#35488272)

> I'm exporting more than a megawatt per year back to grid for free

Do you take into account the energy needed to grow and transport the food you eat? To extract the material needed for objects you own? To build your car? To maintain the roads you use? I guess you obviously don't use fossil fuels at all and instead rely exclusively on the clean energy you produce?

Because if you don't, then you are still overall a consumer of energy.

But even if you were a net producer of clean energy, we as a society have a big problem of consuming too much overall. We will have to reduce that at some point (whether we want it or not). So it would be great if people started thinking about not eating meat for every meal, taking a plane every second week-end, and living in a sauna.

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Re:Europe drastically cut its energy consumption this winter by pshirshov on Friday April 07, 2023 @08:57PM (#35489241)

Again, I think that I'm doing better than the majority of the people and it makes zero sense for me personally to save several hundreds of kWt/hs per year (which I compensate through PV) while there are major industrial offenders around. Also I travel rarely but I can't work while on vegetarian diet.

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