In theory, there is such an option. In practice, no one will take it, because why should they? It's both a coordination problem and a short/long-term values problem. How do you convince an average Joe to reduce his quality of life now in order to secure some abstract better future later; a future, that will come to pass if and only if every other average Joe and Jane does the same? You can't, unless you're a god.
And that point itself is irrelevant anyway. I too recommend watching that TED video[0] 'pdkl95 linked. The first world can try and reduce their energy consumption all they want, while there's the remaining 2/3 of the population that is industrializing itself right now, who will need more energy for things like transportation and healthcare and washing machines and food production and entertainment, and that need will offset whatever we can save.
And while we the first worlders have privilege of worrying about climate change - after a hot meal and a hot shower, dressed up in clean clothes that were washed and dried by machines - most of the world won't care. They want their hot food and hot showers and washing machines now, to have time to go to school and to read books to their children. They will seek power sources they can get.
All this makes current anti-nuclear advocacy outright dangerous to survival of technological civilization[1]. We should be pushing nuclear for baseline and renewables on top for peak loads, and slowly phasing-out coal altogether (and maybe pouring some more money into fusion research as well). We should be doing it right now, gaining more experience with building and maintaining safe nuclear plants, so that maybe developing countries could even skip coal altogether and go straight for nuclear+solar. But instead, we got a lot of people irrationally afraid of nuclear power, thus endangering their own survival.
RE going to another country - I live in Poland, so I do have a perspective on how to live on less energy than an average American, though we still use a lot of power here.
[1] I initially wanted to write 'mankind', but humans are a resilient species and will no doubt survive even total civilizational collapse. Yes, there will be a world of humans. But it won't be a world any of us would like to live in. I like my pizza, showers, Emacs and an air-conditioned office, thank you very much.
Presumably then controlling population growth is another way to save energy. I took that "how many earths does your life style require" - the evil half of my brain thought "if my lifestyle requires 1,5 earths, then it would be sustainable with one third less people than we have not"...
Afaik China for example is trying to actively manage the population growth/consumption problem, and sometimes they managed to introduce some environment friendly things that took other countries decades (like making filters in car exhausts mandatory, making plastic bags illegal, and so on). Not that China is a model of environmentalism, just saying that it's not a given that third world countries have to take the same route to modern living as US+Europe.
As for why would anybody save energy: it doesn't always have to equate less convenience. For example, even if you gave me the biggest possible car, with some magic CO2-neutral power source and what not, I would still not like commuting. So a solution that involves less commuting could both save energy and be more convenient (for example cool new houses could be build that make it more attractive to live in the city - in fact less cars would make living in the city a lot more attractive).
In general it seems to me that if "convenience X" involves a lot of energy, it will also involve a lot of nuisance (machines that make noises or need a lot of attention - lots of energy passing through it means likely it will break down sooner).
Or better insulating your house could simply be cheaper than paying for the energy to heat it - why wouldn't you then choose to insulate the house?
I take it you still haven't seen that TED talk. A key point Hans Rosling makes (which he expands upon in greater detail in several of his other talks). In this talk, he explains
... there are two things that can increase the energy use. First, population
growth. Second, economic growth. Population growth will mainly occur among the
poorest people here because they have high child mortality and they have many
children per woman. ...
You may not have noticed, but China hasn't been very successful at legislating population growth. Meanwhile, some areas have slowed their population growth. Japan is actually concerned that they are losing population.
The way you control population is \to bring people up to a standard of living that no longer requires having large families (i.e. for farm work, etc). China knows this. They aren't stupid - they certainly understand the costs of allowing terrible ("equivalent to a pack/day cigarette habit") smog. China also understands that if they can stabilize their population by raising their lifestyle. Hence they are using incredible amount of coal as a short-term workaround while they work on the largest public-works infrastructure projects in the world (e.g. Three Gorges, their current breeder reactor project).
> some magic CO2-neutral power source
A nuclear power generator is not magic.
> save energy
You say this as if engineers aren't constantly creating new ways to make energy usage more efficient. Of course they have - engineers hate energy waste. We have been slowly improving efficiency. Obviously we should continue this process, but it will never be enough to significantly impact the the total energy used in the world.
> it seems to me that if "convenience X" involves a lot of energy, it will also involve a lot of nuisance
This is absolutely not true in general. Many things oonly become possible when you reach a minimum of energy.
> You may not have noticed, but China hasn't been very successful at legislating population growth.
The one-child policy was a targeted a population of around 1.2 billion in 2000. Actually population in 2000 was about 1.262 billion. I may not like the methods used by China, but calling it not very successful seems somewhat questionable.
> Meanwhile, some areas have slowed their population growth.
Like, say, China, which had a natural growth rate around 25 per 1000 when the one-child policy was adopted, dropped down to 11 and back up to around 16 in the mid 80s, then pretty consistently down since, to 7.58 in 2000, and around 5 for about the last decade.
I probably should have stated it more precisely, but that's more or less my point. China has made some impressive changes in the last few decades, with a lot more people having access to energy and the lifestyle improvements that it brings.
Without the ability to utilize energy, the China's population would be a lot further off from the 1.2B target. We still see this in some regions, as the one-child policy is harder to enforce the further you get from the metropolitan areas.
It's still a huge country with a lot of variation, of course, and I'm generalizing a lot.
I don't understand what you are trying to say. My point was that energy can be saved. I guess I tend to think more abstract than you. For example, population could be reduced by dropping a nuclear bomb - boom, energy saved. (I'm too lazy to go into details of population control here...).
That's of course not the solution I propose, it just abstractly proves the point that energy can be saved. In fact, as you mention with the washing machines example, the majority of people seem to get by on very little energy (even less than is required to power a washing machine).
All I said is that saving energy is another option, besides building more nuclear power plants or burning more coal.
And you seem to have missed that washing machines are not the major factor in power consumption that you make it out to be.
"it will never be enough to significantly impact the the total energy used in the world"
People will simply use all the energy they can get (even if you build lots and lots of nuclear power plants). That doesn't imply that they couldn't get by with less.
> population could be reduced by dropping a nuclear bomb
Some of us are trying to discuss solutions, not fantasies of genocide.
> All I said is that saving energy is another option
And I'm saying the only reason you say that is because you're living an incredibly privileged life. For most of the world, "less energy usage" means hard decisions like if they have enough food to eat. For someone who claims to think abstractly, you seem to have a serious problem thinking about energy from any other point of view than what is presumably your own ethnocentric perspective.
> And you seem to have missed that washing machines are not the major factor in power consumption that you make it out to be.
Do you know how I can tell you still haven't watched Hans Rosling's explanation of this problem?
Washing machines (and related basic-standard-of-living technology) is probably going to account for about 1/3 or 1/2 of the increase in energy usage of the world in the next several decades. Energy expensive technologies (e.g. airplanes) are not relevant, because only a small number of people will gain access to the necessary wealth in the same time period.
To be very explicit, the energy saving that are possible - which should still be done - form the tiny number of people with enough privilege to regularly pay to waste energy is tiny.
> they couldn't get by with less
Go watch that video. Look really hard at what it's like to waste your days washing your cloths instead of, say, getting an education.
What specific energy use is being wasted? What "optional" thing should they stop doing?
What, exactly, should most of the women in the world (who are currently in this situation) do to reduce their energy use?
Assuming you are not a terrible personj that says they should have to stay living in poverty or simply be bombed (your other "option"), where specifically should these people - that is, the 3-4 billion people currently living under these conditions get their energy? (there are only 3 options: nuclear, coal/gas, or "they don't get to enjoy an industrialized lifestyle")
Hopefully, answering these questions should reveal to you why "lower energy use" is not an alternative.
> People will simply use all the energy they can get
That may be true for you, but you shouldn't project your beliefs onto others.
So I finally watched that talk to the end (had only watched the beginning). I generally like Rosling, but that talk seems a bit low on details. Your interpretation seems wrong - washing machine people only use 2 units of energy, the rich use 6 units. So there seems to be a lot of potential to save right there. While more people will move up to washing machine level, at the same time things could get more efficient and more green energy could become available (it's not clear where Rosling gets his projections from...).
Rosling seems to be angry at some economics students who he claims wanted to deny the world washing machines. You adopted his anger and now you think everybody who says "save energy" wants to deny people washing machines. There is simply no basis for that (and I wonder if those selfish economic students actually exist - Rosling is a cool guy, but also a show man, perhaps he invented them for a good story).
Washing machines are actually not that sophisticated, by the way. I think the first ones even operated without electricity. It's basically a drum spinning in a bowl of water, with some fancy chemicals added to the mix. Perhaps somebody should invent a "3rd world washing machine" to help all those women out.
And that point itself is irrelevant anyway. I too recommend watching that TED video[0] 'pdkl95 linked. The first world can try and reduce their energy consumption all they want, while there's the remaining 2/3 of the population that is industrializing itself right now, who will need more energy for things like transportation and healthcare and washing machines and food production and entertainment, and that need will offset whatever we can save.
And while we the first worlders have privilege of worrying about climate change - after a hot meal and a hot shower, dressed up in clean clothes that were washed and dried by machines - most of the world won't care. They want their hot food and hot showers and washing machines now, to have time to go to school and to read books to their children. They will seek power sources they can get.
All this makes current anti-nuclear advocacy outright dangerous to survival of technological civilization[1]. We should be pushing nuclear for baseline and renewables on top for peak loads, and slowly phasing-out coal altogether (and maybe pouring some more money into fusion research as well). We should be doing it right now, gaining more experience with building and maintaining safe nuclear plants, so that maybe developing countries could even skip coal altogether and go straight for nuclear+solar. But instead, we got a lot of people irrationally afraid of nuclear power, thus endangering their own survival.
RE going to another country - I live in Poland, so I do have a perspective on how to live on less energy than an average American, though we still use a lot of power here.
[0] https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_and_the_magic_washing...
[1] I initially wanted to write 'mankind', but humans are a resilient species and will no doubt survive even total civilizational collapse. Yes, there will be a world of humans. But it won't be a world any of us would like to live in. I like my pizza, showers, Emacs and an air-conditioned office, thank you very much.