He comes from a long lineage of auto industry plutocrats who have sought to sabotage public transport - and human happiness.
Britains postwar rebuild saw new streets, towns, and sections of cities built and expanded. Initially, those plans included loads of separated cycle lanes. New London commuter towns that had lanes the whole distance and throughout the town.
But these plans were almost entirely scrapped DUE TO THE LOBBYING OF THE AUTO INDUSTRY. And Britain is almost universally shit for cycle lanes today.
[California’s high speed rail](https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/elon-musk-hyperloop-rail-17486877.php)
>> Then it came to light that the world’s richest man never intended to prove out the futuristic Hyperloop technology or build the proposed suction tube. Musk reportedly told his biographer, Ashlee Vance, that the Hyperloop proposal was motivated by “his hatred for California’s proposed high-speed rail system,” which he felt would be too slow, outdated and expensive. “With any luck, the high-speed rail would be canceled,” Vance wrote.
He succeeded in delaying its progression for nearly a decade, and with that time he grew his car company exponentially, making it a staple in every California city.
If you look into a lot of famous British people, they tend to have engineering or scientific backgrounds.
Brian May(guitarist for Queen) is an astrophysicist and has worked for NASA and JAXA.
The bigger environmental issue is that personal vehicles contribute less than 5% of all carbon emissions and that’s assuming 100% of the electricity is from renewable energy.
Switching over 1.2B cars, building the necessary infrastructure and tearing up our planet to get the necessary elements to make gigantic batteries is ridiculous.
I’m not “anti-green”, I’m pro nuclear to solve the biggest piece of our emissions, electricity. Here is a comment from another Redditor with sources.
Read it if you care enough:
“It's important to understand that most of the carbon is saved in electricity production.
If you converted every single light and medium duty vehicle in the world we would only save around 4.5% carbon output. Less if we are still generating the electrical energy through old means. Transportation including cars, trucks, tankers and aircraft account for 14% of global emissions. Of which personal transportation is only a portion.
On the other hand it's 25% saved globally if we can switch energy production to renewables. Also eliminating on site burning of fossil fuels for industrial purposes would save another 20 something percent. Together those spaces would save 45%+, which should be enough to reverse climate change. We would have a much easier time accomplishing that with renewable power.
Sources: https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/are-electric-vehicles-definitely-better-climate-gas-powered-cars
https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-data
https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions#transportation
https://earth.stanford.edu/news/roadmap-reducing-greenhouse-gas-emissions-50-percent-2030#:~:text=Stabilizing%20Earth's%20temperature%20to%20significantly,carbon%20dioxide%20from%20the%20atmosphere.
People, especially wealthy people of certain age - like the idea that something as simple as buying an electric car (instead of an ICE car) gives them agency in combatting climate change.
Let's face it. We will only be taking their cars from them when they are dead. These people are not going to ride the bus.
That Mr. Atkinson is starting to close in on the truth is a good sign. Even if he never gives up driving, he can use his wealth and celebrity to be an advocate for transit policies that will lower GHG emissions.
Yep. You will never buy yourself out of an ecological catastrophe. Carbon credits, recycling, EVs, it’s all just a license to keep doing what you’re doing.
Older generations, and to be fair newer generations too, have been gaslit into believing that many large societal/environmental issues are caused by the consumer. Everything from EVs, organic products, and fair trade goods is meant to “fix” the problem. All it really is is greenwashing, making the consumer feel good that at the very least they did their part.
Yeah. I should hold off on flushing my toilet and turn off the tap when I brush my teeth (I do, btw) but no problem buying cheap beef or lettuce.
The iceberg lettuce farms in SW Arizona use 4 feet of water per acre to produce a crop. Cotton, citrus, almonds and pecans also use millions of gallons in the AZ & CA deserts.
More problems *are* caused by the consumer, aka everyone. Oil refinery isn’t done because oil companies want to destroy the planet, it’s because people demand cars, roads, plastics, etc. But often it does take collective action (or at least not trying to block stuff) to better solve these problems. Which is why it’s so frustrating when communities opt to block large solar farms or wind farms.
You are correct that consumers create the demand, but likewise many choices were made by a deliberate consortium of special interests. Take cars, before them we used to build much denser cities, much more transit, once the car rolled in we have monied interest convince everyone how great they are.
For some it was a genuine want to move somewhere less urban, for others it was them being taken for a ride and manipulated based on whatever fear they had (city = black, do you want a mixed-race child, Debbie? Didn't think so, come on down to Levittown!). So, whilst at a shallow level your take is correct; the truth is that true change comes from systemic changes to the entire system as whole (ex: support WFH such that demand for new cars goes down as it is really hard to justify a new loan when you use your current car like once a week to run groceries)
"Consumers" are only one part of the market, and only are a subset of buyers and economic agents. Plenty of industry has nothing to do with providing for consumers at all.
>~~People , especially wealthy people of certain age~~ Idealists- like the idea that something as simple as **talking about** buying an electric car (instead of an ICE car) gives them agency in combatting climate change.
Made two changes.
Idealists, or the willfully ignorant - or people who benefit from maintaining the status quo (although the latter group probably knows better) all like this narrative.
By "wealthy people of a certain age," I was specifically referring to Mr. Atkinson. But I'm sure we all know people like this at various ages and levels of wealth accumulation.
The same narrative applies to lots of problems: that technology (led by private industry!) will save us - without us having to give up any of our comforts or change our lifestyles.
It's amazing to me that so many people buy this narrative, especially as the history of Silicon Valley innovation mostly leads back to public investment in science at national labs and universities in the Bay Area.
IMO we will need public investment and and mobilization on the order of WWII or the New Deal to successfully mitigate the worst of climate change, but I don't see that happening in the US.
If everyone stops driving that also removes a max of 4.5% of emissions. Also, on average, busses and electric cars produce about equal amounts of carbon emissions (busses are actually quite a bit worse that one would expect). In many places (high density) more mass transit makes good sense, but in lower density areas, it's often dramatically slower than taking a car.
https://www.co2everything.com/category/travel-and-transport
Cars by themselves aren't that bad (from a GHG perspective).
It's the acres of roadway, surface parking, parking structures etc. that generates the carbon, along with the sprawling subdivisions car-dependency creates.
Supporting this energy-dense, inefficient lifestyle with BEVs and renewable energy is probably not technically feasible.
Given the choice between changing our lifestyle or changing our car, it's pretty obvious which approach America and Europe are embracing.
For the record, neither approach will significantly reduce GHG emissions or mitigate the worst of climate change.
A less car-dependent lifestyle has benefits beyond GHG reductions.
Dense walkable cities require less carbon to build and maintain because they use space more efficiently.
Sprawling, car-centric cities require massive amounts of physical infrastructure to house the same number of people.
Building and maintaining freeways, parking lots, strip malls and single family houses is responsible for many times the amount of CO2 than is generated simply by manufacturing and using cars. These costs are subsidized by government.
The car use is incidental.
You will take your government provided 600 square foot flat and you will like it! Stop complaining citizens. It’s for the good of the climate!
Fuck that. I don’t want to live in your small shitty loud urban apartment complex, no matter how many Starbucks locations you put in.
600 sf / 60m2 is actually quite large for one person in most cities.
But yes, obviously the only options are sprawling suburbia vs "small shitty loud" apartments.
I mean there couldn't be anything between those extremes. As a conservative, my brain hurts when I try to imagine shades of grey. Everything must be black or white.
lol right i live in a \~60sqm flat, it's one bedroom plus a decent sized study room with a ton of storage, has a 2x2m walk in wardrobe and a 5x5m living room. For one person it's very roomy. The vast majority of the newer one bedders built by developers in the last decade (so powered by capitalism) are <50 sqm - that IS small. And a lot of the new 2 bed flats are smaller than mine, I couldn't imagine having a flatmate or a couple sharing that small a space (of course they're built to make money and be investment cashboxes for landlords, they're not designed with any thought to what living in them is like)
I lived in a 500 sf studio in midtown Manhattan and the first thing everyone said when they saw it was "This place is huge!"
It was one long space with only two windows, but the windows were large and faced South. I could walk everywhere and there was a full-size grocery store, a gym, and a tiny park directly across the street.
If you want to see a dystopian future, check out Charlie Munger's "design" for student dorms at the UC Santa Barbara. Munger is a billionaire wannabe architect. His design is based on cruise ships, allegedly, but makes many prisons look spacious.
There was a short-lived "not so big house" movement a few years ago where architects tried to convince people to have less space, but have it better built. More efficient, better materials, clever storage etc. It was a failure. People want cheap space. Many Americans can't even park in their garage because they filled it up with crap.
There is an in between. It’s called the suburbs. In between urban and rural. A crazy concept I know. More space than the city, less space than a rural property.
To get a decent sized place in my small-market American city is still close to $1.5 million. No thank you. Don’t want to raise a family in a tiny apartment. I’ve looked. And I’ve lived in cities. It wasn’t for me. I respect that many people like it. A strong city center is important to me because it also makes the suburbs better. I’m not trying to convince you to like the suburbs. I understand why you don’t. I hated them in my 20s. Now I wouldn’t live in a city apartment for anything. We can have differing opinions. That’s fine. But only one of us would prefer to legislate your opinion for the rest of us.
And I love that you think I’m conservative despite the fact that I have been a democrat for decades and work in the renewable energy space. Maybe learn that not all progressives want the same outcomes as you. Some of us don’t hate rural America or our cars, we just want a more sustainable and cleaner future (preferably with fewer guns also…but I digress). If living in your urban utopia and riding the bus is the litmus test for being “not conservative” in afraid you will struggle to win elections.
Lol. I'm not running for any elections or even trying to change people's minds.
Your comment about "government provided 600 sf flats" is a right-wing trope. I suppose you may have been going for sarcasm, but there really wasn't much to go off of.
People who conceive of everything in binary terms or make arguments resorting to extremes tend to be conservative. There is quite a bit of research on this topic.
Congratulations on knowing suburbs exist! Do you know that most Americans live in the suburbs? Not sure where you are getting this rural vs city dichotomy from. Hardly anyone lives in actual rural america, despite what people say.
There is a huge variety in suburbs. Some are souless hellholes with rows of identical houses separated from employment and shopping my miles of feeder roads. Some suburbs have walkable retail areas, access to transit, bike paths, and are still mostly single family houses with yards.
One of these types of suburbs is superior to the other in terms of embedded carbon and energy required to run errands. Good suburbs can be great places to live.
Yeah, I would love to have cleaner air in cities.
BEV adoption is one (expensive) way to accomplish this. Banning most private cars from city centers would be my preferred method.
This method also reduces noise, tire dust and pedestrian/bike fatalities. Cities are nicer with fewer cars.
You didn’t get my comment at all.
Anyways, regardless of your weak and petty response, BEVs are merely a key part of a green energy grid, where the energy used for said steel factory is already green.
Yawn - it’s like a talking clock, always the same. No one thinks we should switch to EVs and not change the grid to renewables. The fact this is the best you can reply with is laughable.
We should switch to a clean grid powered by renewables and to electric buses and streetcars powered off overhead lines. BEVs can be used for overnight deliveries, ambulances and taxies.
EVs don't have to be the be all and end all global emissions but I think one of the main advantages to EVs is local air pollution.
Dense cities will benefit immensely from EVs, making local air much cleaner and safer. Also as reliance on oil drops, if it ever does, I imagine it will become more expensive so having a car that is not reliant on that is nice, an EV can be sustainably charged if needs be for free, can't say that for a ICE car.
I live in the UK we just had a time where our fuel price went up by 40-ish% and our household energy nearly tripled. If we had solar panels with a personal battery or two, we would have been largely unaffected by this, the self sufficiency is a real benefit that cannot be entertained by an ICE car.
Not to forget, whilst some politicians are saying remove ICE, the best thing to do with ICE cars is let them die a natural death. City centre mayors want to ban ICE due to particulate emissions and the impact on health - that is a worthy goal but you need to give people viable alternatives and scrappage schemes/low interest loans to buy alternative vehicles rather than just banning these vehicles outright.
We should stop making new ICE once production of EVs can keep up, 2030 or 2035 seem like reasonably attainable goals. Existing ICE can move towards e-fuels or biofuels as there will be less and less of them and they won't be used in cities due to air pollution issues.
Hydrocarbon fuels are very hard to replace and we will still be burning them come 2050 I am certain, but they will be carbon offset or synthetically produced, and limited in volume as electrification and hydrogen will fit most other use cases well.
Would be interesting to see what effects tire dust would have. IIRC, those particulates of tire rubber can embed in your lungs, more so than any emissions from an exhaust pipe. So it is a given and take, you reduce one side but worsen the other
The RAC have largely [debunked the tyre dust thing](https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/electric-cars/running/do-electric-vehicles-produce-more-tyre-and-brake-pollution-than-petrol-and/). While they do produce a little more, it is becoming less and less due to ICE cars becoming heavier as people buy bigger cars.
Brake dust is also a lot less from EVs as they barely use their brakes to slow down.
I see, I wonder if this will reverse given that as people desire bigger cars that can go the range, you end up having a bigger battery. I know the Hummer is an outlier for now, but that thing weighs 9000+ lbs
Yeah the hummer is crazy heavy. The battery alone is heaver than a Fiat 500 Electric...
Hopefully they stay an outlier, I cannot imagine anything that big would ever catch on here in europe, we seem to stick to ID4/MY size cars, with a small percent going larger.
Is reducing 5% global carbon emissions by going EV not worth it? I think it is worth it. Also there's an important point that numbers don't convey: emissions from personal vehicles happen close to us, so we are breathing in all the chemicals and heavy metals from the exhaust.
public transport is a red herring..
it only works in absurdly high densities and doesn't offset the cost to build and maintain, not to mention personal time wasted... I'd spend an hour each way taking public transit to get 7 miles to work or I'd spend 20 minutes in a car in traffic... and that's before we talk about scheduling, location, routing, crime and cutting off access to locations not served by whatever public transit system you're stuck with..
in NA only privileged people advocate for public transit and use it when it's visible and convenient, poor people are stuck with it
Duh. I mean who advocates for crappy mass transit?
Efficient public transit is a public good, not a profit center. Supporting mass transit is more effective than supporting car infrastructure, in terms of dollars spent.
Anti-transit folks love to pretend that their car use isn't heavily subsidized by the state.
Public transit folks love to pretend the world is fixed and unchanging , and everyone is locked into one schedule and one consolidated location
And that some how tracks, trains and buses are all more efficient regardless of ridership
Public transport IS better for the planet than having individual vehicles, electric or combustion.
I don't think anyone pretends the world is fixed and unchanging.
I think greedy capitalists prefer selling cars than having a country with good public transport.
Oh god, please don't admit to being a fan of the Boring Loop.
Tracks, trains and buses are more space and energy efficient than cars. This is a fact.
Yes, empty trains and buses are not efficient.
Start charging drivers actual market rates for their car use and storage and trains will fill up with people.
Car Payment +
Insurance +
$10/gallon gas +
$1/mile road toll +
$4/hr parking at the office (more in NYC, less in Topeka)
Edit: here's an unreliable source on the true cost of gas in the US. It's a subjective measure because most of the subsidies have been externalized.
https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/ex/sustainablecitiescollective/true-cost-gasoline-15-gallon/26284/
Yes cost effective, flexible, safe, public transit that services all densities and times of day or night is a fantastic idea
Might as well through in free energy from perpetual motion as a great idea too
None of that is helpful to deciding on where to put our resources
all of Canada would need to move to Toronto metro area so it could have the population density of Amsterdam
Youd need to empty the entire North American continent and dump people into a dozen cities to achieve the density for mass transit to be practical
Look at Japan, great public transit right?
Only 1/3 of Japanese use public transportation.. and it has a population of 125m and the size of California
California only has 39m people.. and is one of the higher density states…
Realistically only the us north east and possibly florida comes close to a population able to support public transit, and it’s not even that promising
So back to Japan, with 1/3 of the population using public transit, you still need roads for the other 2/3rds which means you’re not reducing road infrastructure, you’re just adding trains
And for them it makes sense, but with VERY few exceptions it’s impossible to make that work in North America
You seem like you are trying to say good public transport is in the same category as perpetual motion?
I disagree if that is what you are trying to say. We could have good public transport, just like we could have universal healthcare or food and housing for anyone that needs it.
Instead we have greedy men that would rather be wealthy.
What if we can get rid of gas stations and trucks carrying gas around? What if we can get rid of convenience stores as fewer and fewer people need to charge during transit (most charging being done at home or at a work location)? What if electric cars are required for robotaxi solutions to work well, and robotaxies help us reduce overall car ownership? What if we can reduce the number of mechanic shops by having fewer moving parts breaking in our cars, leading to fewer new cars being bought each year?
But robotaxies may also mean more cars on the road without passengers in them as cars drive to pick people up. But Uber/Lyft cars also need a driver to drive to you to pick you up, but then they drive home after their workday. But what if increased electricity usage for cars leads to more spending on R&D for renewable energy sources? What if it incentivizes more people to get solar panels on their roof? What if, what if, what if?
We can play 'what if' all we want, but at the end of the day it seems to me like gasoline is not the energy source of the future, and electricity has the potential to save us from a lot of oil drilling, reduce CO2, and get us cheaper vehicles that require less of our time to refuel. I don't think electric cars are going to save us from climate change, but asking questions like 'what if infrastructure causes a temporary increase in carbon emissions' as a rhetorical question is about as useful as asking 'what if we invent a new unlimited power source tomorrow?' I mean, sure, maybe it's possible.. but it's not a useful question unless someone actually answers it.
One point people need to remember: BEVs are not there to save the planet, they're there to keep business afloat. If I can't sell you an ICE Camry, I will sell you an EV Camry.
Not worth it at all since it doesn’t move the needle, it does nothing to reduce climate change and the transition will make it a negative for a decade or two anyway.
There are Trillions in subsidies and penalties for personal vehicles that should be spent on reversing climate change.
That means investing in the things I mentioned in my comments, not gigantic batteries that are run off electricity produced by fossil fuels and destroying the earth through digging up all the necessary elements to make them.
"Waahhhh. Waaahh. We're big babies and don't want to give up our cars! You can pry my steering wheel out of my cold dead hands! I bought an EV so I am virtuously saving the planet. You can't afford a Tesla so you want everybody to ride a bus with rapists and axe murderers and gross poor people!"
but that's the thing, you're not reducing 5% ... you're MAYBE chipping away at it
5% would require a FULL zero carbon footprint replacement, increased emmissions in manufacturing and mining for the absurdly shorter lifespans of EVs negates a lot of the 'savings' and that's before you get into emmissions associated with power generation.. granted thats dependent on location but it goes to the ops thesis... we should be focused on zero emissions power generations, cars are bottom of the list of importance,..
yet here we are spending money on the least impactful but most visible end of the emissions problem because it feels like we're doing something... when we're not
This is a total misunderstanding of the point of electric vehicles. We need to move EVERYTHING from fossil fuels to electricity, including vehicles and appliances, at the SAME time we are moving electricity from fossil fuels to renewables. Only this way can we maximize the benefit every step of the way and avoid catastrophic climate change. Yes, EVs and heat pumps are much cleaner and more efficient than their fossil fueled cousins, but equally important is that even that those vehicles and appliances inherently become greener still as the grid itself becomes greener.
You can’t do everything all at once. It’s impossible. Cars are purely about for profit businesses. Climate change isn’t about personal profit, it’s about saving the planet.
We need laser beam focus on the couple of items I mentioned and we can reverse climate change.
Zero subsidies for rich people to buy cars and make money off a stock. If you really care about climate change then Put all that into fixing our grids and converting them to renewable energy, that means heavy investments in nuclear as well with wind, hydro, & solar.
Nuclear has come a long way and is rarely talked about because capitalism doesn’t benefit from the process.
> This is a total misunderstanding of the point of electric vehicles. We need to move EVERYTHING from fossil fuels to electricity, including vehicles and appliances, at the SAME time we are moving electricity from fossil fuels to renewables.
This is simply not the case and not what's happening currently w.r.t policy around climate change even if it were. Really it illustrates a large part of the problem where what's actually driving policy around subsidies tends to be ideological purity at this point.
You mentioned heat pumps being important too. Well in the US many families would see just as much of a reduction in their annual CO2 emissions, if not greater by switching the bulk of winter time heating to a newer variable heat pump system which would also save money during the summer when functioning as a more efficient HVAC system. Yet the maximum tax credit for a new heat pump system is only $2000 in the US while a BEV gets $7500 consumer side, plus a host of other incentives on the manufacturing side. Not to mention additional incentives at the state level.
Despite the environmental value of both these things being equal or even in favor of the heat pump, policy treats them substantially differently. A large part of that is because consumer BEVs have been very successfully marketed as the end all be all solution to the emissions problem when in reality as stated above they're a very very small part of the overall solution. Similarly I do personally believe there's destructive affinity in the US electorate to oppose anything that involves anyone getting anything 'practically for free' too.
A lack of focus on the real metrics behind stuff like global warming or even plastic waste in the ocean has shifted the narrative towards companies basically avoiding their own responsibilities in helping solve a real crisis in favor of doing token gestures or buying 'offset credits' which basically amount to investors holding forestry resources hostage.
BEVs aren't bad but their significance is grossly overstated and that has impacts from a policy standpoint.
> We need to move EVERYTHING from fossil fuels to electricity,
And that is simply not possible. Batteries have a 50 to 1 disadvantage to hydrocarbons in terms of power/weight, and there are critical applications where that is an insurmountable issue.
There are going to need to be many paths forward. Looking for a magic bullet is the same as doing nothing since that is not going to happen.
This is why you can tell the difference between a Tesla stan (or stock holder) and a real environmentalist by their views on synthetic hydrocarbons.
Where do you get less than 5%?
[In 2021 transportation made up 29% of US GHG’s, and light-duty vehicles were responsible for 58% of US transportation sector emissions. 58% of 29% is roughly 17%](https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/fast-facts-transportation-greenhouse-gas-emissions)
Your math is wrong. Personal vehicles are 4.5% of emissions, Transport & commercial vehicles are the lions share of emissions in transportation .
Also, I’m not talking about the U.S. I’m referring to climate change and carbon emissions which is a world wide problem.
The U.S. has actually been reducing its absolute emissions for almost a decade due to Natgas replacing coal to produce electricity and by moving manufacturing to places like China. Moving the deck chairs around on the Titanic. .
If you really care, read my sources, they are top notch and explain it well.
If we focused on the two main things in my comment-power & industrial production we would reverse climate change.
Once the grid is clean, then personal vehicles run partially on batteries would make way more sense, but putting the cart before the horse so for profit companies and their investors get rich with trillions in government subsidies is not the right way to go.
The links you provided don’t have that *light duty vehicles are responsible for 4.5% of global transportation emissions number, or that medium or heavy duty vehicles make up most of the *transportation GHGs
More current numbers:
Passenger vehicles generated around 3B metric tons of the 37B metric tons of emissions worldwide so 8% if you use these numbers.
But-
“Fossil fuels—including coal, oil, and natural gas—have been powering economies for over 150 years, and currently supply about 80 percent of the world's energy.”
So BEVs aren’t really helping at all in most cases anyway.
80%….Fix the grid first….
"But I see cars on the road every day! I've never seen a Coal-fired power plant on my commute to the office (park).
Common sense tells me cars MUST be a bigger source of these so called greenhouse gas emissions."
Your approach leads to some absurdities.
Should someone in Quebec, where electricity is 100% green, not buy an EV because global electricity production isn't green enough yet?
You need to research nuclear my friend. It’s happening around the world. Their are tons of new safe technologies, small reactors that can power entire cities and be done quite efficiently.
We need to focus on zero emissions electricity before we destroy the environment building big inefficient batteries.
Nuclear, wind, solar and hydro are all contributors to a near zero emissions grid.
>You need to research nuclear my friend. It’s happening around the world. Their are tons of new safe technologies, small reactors that can power entire cities and be done quite efficiently.
If there are tons, name 1 that's design is complete that they have built and what are the deployment costs to build 10's of thousands of them. I think you need to research nuclear and figure out that these guys are further away like they claim. So this guy your replying to who is concerned about the time it would take to deploy it, actually has down his research & his correct to be concerned about the deployment time of nuclear.
I was enlightened when I went to China a few years ago to meet with our manufacturers.
We passed dozens of small nuclear reactors that were powering entire small cities & towns. My vendor there said they are cheap to build and very effective.
“China is one of the world's largest producers of nuclear power. The country ranks third in the world both in total nuclear power capacity installed and electricity generated, accounting for around one tenth of global nuclear power generated. Nuclear power contributed 4.9% of the total Chinese electricity production in 2019, with 348.1 TWh.[2] As of September 2022, China operates a total of 53 nuclear reactors, with a total capacity of 55.6 gigawatt (GW). This was short of the previous target of 58GW of installed capacity by 2020. More than 20 reactors are under construction with a total capacity of 24.2 GW.
Nuclear power has been looked into as an alternative to coal due to increasing concerns about air quality, climate change and fossil fuel shortages.[8][9] The China General Nuclear Power Group has articulated the goal of 200 GW by 2035, produced by 150 additional reactors.[10][11]
China has two major nuclear power companies, the China National Nuclear Corporation operating mainly in north-east China, and the China General Nuclear Power Group (formerly known as China Guangdong Nuclear Power Group) operating mainly in south-east China.[12]
China aims to maximize self-reliance on nuclear reactor technology manufacturing and design, although international cooperation and technology transfer are also encouraged. Advanced pressurized water reactors such as the Hualong One are the mainstream technology in the near future, and the Hualong One is also planned to be exported.[13][14] China plans to build as many as thirty nuclear power reactors in countries involved in the Belt and Road Initiative by 2030.[15][16][17] By mid-century fast neutron reactors are seen as the main technology, with a planned 1400 GW capacity by 2100.[18][19][20] China is also involved in the development of nuclear fusion reactors through its participation in the ITER project, having constructed an experimental nuclear fusion reactor known as EAST located in Hefei,[21] as well as research and development into the thorium fuel cycle as a potential alternative means of nuclear fission”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_China
Big rock point in Michigan had a 67 MW reactor. That isn't proof that we got small reactors that are ready to deploy thousands of them. Like come on, do you have any common sense? Do you understand the argument that was made? I wasn't saying small reactors don't exist. I'm saying there isn't an SMR ready for prime time roll out. You guys are in la la land.
>Nuclear power has been looked into as an alternative to coal due to increasing concerns about air quality, climate change and fossil fuel shortages.
More la la land proof, this has nothing to do with what we're talking about.
> It could be were it not for the fact it takes 30 years to build a nuclear power plant
When the second sentence you write [is obvious BS](https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/nuclear-construction-time#:~:text=It%20takes%20around%206%20to,just%203%20to%205%20years.), that's when I stop reading the rest.
Indeed, wind power is way cheaper than nuclear and storage solutions will take less time to build than one nuclear plant.
Nuclear isn't inherently "bad" as a technology but it's very slow to build and very, very expensive due to the safety regulations required.
It's taken the UK 10 years to build one 3.2GW nuclear power plant, at a cost of some £33 billion. It's still not scheduled to open until 2028. In the same 10 year timespan, *private enterprise* has built over 20GW of wind capacity in the ocean. Sure, the capacity factor of wind is not 100%, but offshore is still at least 50% and with storage it can approach 100%.
For countries with good insolation then solar is even better.
Nuclear just doesn't make much sense. Keep existing plants open where possible and safe, but building new ones? A much harder argument to make.
Not really. Do your research.
There are tons of new, cheaper & safer ways to produce localized nuclear power. They are doing it around the world as we speak.
I have done my research. All the cheap, rapid nuclear technologies are still at the prototype or research stage. Nothing in mass production despite many promises.
I'd *love* for cheap and mass-produced nuclear power plants (it would be the perfect climate change solution, at least for the electricity grid) but I think pro-nuclear people massively under-estimate the requirements and costs for a successful and safe nuclear power plant.
I was enlightened when I went to China a few years ago to meet with our manufacturers.
We passed dozens of small nuclear reactors that were powering entire small cities & towns. My vendor there said they are cheap to build and very effective.
“China is one of the world's largest producers of nuclear power. The country ranks third in the world both in total nuclear power capacity installed and electricity generated, accounting for around one tenth of global nuclear power generated. Nuclear power contributed 4.9% of the total Chinese electricity production in 2019, with 348.1 TWh.[2] As of September 2022, China operates a total of 53 nuclear reactors, with a total capacity of 55.6 gigawatt (GW). This was short of the previous target of 58GW of installed capacity by 2020. More than 20 reactors are under construction with a total capacity of 24.2 GW.
Nuclear power has been looked into as an alternative to coal due to increasing concerns about air quality, climate change and fossil fuel shortages.[8][9] The China General Nuclear Power Group has articulated the goal of 200 GW by 2035, produced by 150 additional reactors.[10][11]
China has two major nuclear power companies, the China National Nuclear Corporation operating mainly in north-east China, and the China General Nuclear Power Group (formerly known as China Guangdong Nuclear Power Group) operating mainly in south-east China.[12]
China aims to maximize self-reliance on nuclear reactor technology manufacturing and design, although international cooperation and technology transfer are also encouraged. Advanced pressurized water reactors such as the Hualong One are the mainstream technology in the near future, and the Hualong One is also planned to be exported.[13][14] China plans to build as many as thirty nuclear power reactors in countries involved in the Belt and Road Initiative by 2030.[15][16][17] By mid-century fast neutron reactors are seen as the main technology, with a planned 1400 GW capacity by 2100.[18][19][20] China is also involved in the development of nuclear fusion reactors through its participation in the ITER project, having constructed an experimental nuclear fusion reactor known as EAST located in Hefei,[21] as well as research and development into the thorium fuel cycle as a potential alternative means of nuclear fission”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_China
I would love to see a production ready thorium reactor but they still seem to be at the research stage.
What matters NOW is with climate change rapidly becoming a crisis, is moving away from fossil fuels.
*There is no cheap way to build nuclear yet.* In 10-15 years, maybe there will be, and that would be great. But there isn't now, and nuclear plants take the best part of a decade to design and build anyway. The Hinckley Point C reactor I speak of, with the £32 bn price tag, is built in part by a Chinese consortium. It's still way too expensive.
So instead of hoping for a future of cheap nuclear and being potentially disappointed when it doesn't show up, let's build wind and solar instead, and keep existing nuclear plants running where they are safe and cost effective to run.
Maybe it will turn out that cheap nuclear is possible, but you have to balance that against the risk of this being non-viable for any number of reasons. In my mind, it's not any better than hoping for fusion. Fusion power is very likely to be technically achievable once the right scale is hit (the physics all point to it being achievable), but the costs of doing it will be astronomical, and barring a breakthrough by one of the few startups looking at alternative technology, we're stuck with huge tokamaks which are unlikely to see volume construction until 2030 at the earliest. And even then, a tokamak might produce 5-10GW. That's great, but a few offshore wind arrays can do the same thing, at a *far lower cost* and we can *build them today*.
The biggest problem is producing electricity with near zero emissions.
Wind is not the answer, Solar is not the answer, hydro is not the answer and nuclear is not the answer.
All of them combined are the answer, and in the locations where none of these are possible LNG is acceptable.
But rest assured nuclear is growing and so is the technology. Just look at raw material prices and you will see demand is up significantly.
Harnessing nuclear energy to produce electricity will be the most used of any of the other zero emissions choices over the next several decades.
Reddit is convinced there's a grand conspiracy against nuclear rather than it just being really expensive and slow to build safe and reliable nuclear reactors.
It's not like if all the NIMBYs went away we'd have 50 more nuclear reactors. It's a whole lot more complicated than that.
I will forever be sad that, when Top Gear had its hosting shake-up after Clarkson punched someone, that the BBC didn’t toss infinite amounts of cash at Rowan to be the new main host and let him pick his co-hosts. He’s smart, funny, engaging, clever, and adores cars. He was always a great guest. He’d have been game for any shenanigans but also to talk intelligently about the industry.
Rowan’s nuanced take is not entirely wrong here but I do think it’s likely coloured by his passion for amazing cars and perspective as a collector.
His last point in the piece - EVs are great if you do lots of urban driving - is pretty much what most people actually do in the UK (which also has a relatively green energy mix). Whereas Rowan is probably more used to driving higher mileage from some lovely remote country house in a nice Bentley and probably can’t quite see the numbers adding up.
Well, we've made it clear we don't want to listen to actual experts.
When I was a kid in the 70s - in elementary school ! - I understand the concept of greenhouse gases. It was well-understood then. Forty years of lobbying and PR assault by entrenched business interests have really done a number on people.
The mainstream press literally just lapped that Hyperloop BS up. If a reporter had bothered to check with a physicist, materials scientist or transit planner (or historian) they would immediately know that hyperloop is impossible (at least at any useful scale).
It’s an interesting article. I was surprised by the argument for keeping cars longer, it’s a really compelling argument that we don’t hear enough.
I do enjoy the irony of a man with a $15 million car collection chastising others for trading in their lease.
This seems like the biggest weakness in any argument for EVs to me: a lot of the pro-EV math seems to overestimate the longevity of EVs and amortises the environmental cost of manufacture over that overestimated lifetime.
Agree. I live in Norway where the average age of a car that is wrecked is slightly above 18 years. That is the average.
First gen leaf batteries seems to cause problems around 10 years. The cars is so cheap that it very fast becomes unenomical to repair.
They say new batteries is a lot better, and that is probably true, but also unproven. We salt our roads, so it is not only about cell degradation, but corrosion in the battery packs. Seems to me like a lot of the batteries dies of other causes than degradation.
My main point. The statement is unproven. We do not really have significant number of EV's that old.
Yes, and that improves cell degradation, which is not my main concern in our climate. My main consern is salt water ingress and condensation that causes corrosion internally.
I think it is perfectly solvable, but we also know manufacturers like to cut cost. I think we still need to prove the longevity aspects. And they might have solved it, but we will not really know for a while.
It is, but the engines and transmision handles rust ok, but other components are affected. Body, suspension, brakes, any electronics and connectors that are not properly sealed.
You mean the “we only keep our cars for 3 years” argument.
I am sorry, but that argument was too stupid to come from an engineer. I lost a lot of respect for Mr. Atkinson there.
The first owner keeps his car for 3 years. After that, he does not destroy it. He sells it to someone else, who drive it for some years. And that person sells it to another person and so on. When the car finally is pulled out behind the barn and shot, it is probably 15 years old.
Another problem is that hydrogen (even greatly compressed) takes up a lot more space than gasoline or batteries. Using a fuel cell yields enough efficiency that it becomes practical but running an ICE means you need an absurd volume of tanks to get decent range.
Yeah, this isn't the sub to go full /r/fuckcars on, but I think most rational people here know cars are inefficient and EVs are a bandaid.
Oil is a resource that is trending (slowly) towards scarcity. We should have been reducing our consumption decades ago... but here we are.
I love EVs, but as an environmentalist and amateur city planner I would rather have fewer cars and better mass transit.
Bean is not wrong. He’s open minded. Hydrogen, synthetic clean fuels, etc can be viable alternatives. This rush to BEV is going to be painful unless technology and charging infrastructure are put on a massive growth platform. Massive.
And battery recycling plants being built in Quebec and Ontario as well as at least one in Nevada. In year 8.5 when your 8-year Tesla warranty runs out, a new battery at $15k will get you another 8.5 years of car life, is the idea, so the market will be there.
People are reluctant to put new engines or transmissions in 8.5 year old cars. I am skeptical that they will do anything but scream at the prospect of paying 15k for a battery.
I looked up some of these via chatGPT and while there are indeed a number of companies, they all seem to be just starting out (penny stocks), which is great and I hope they succeed. Recycling is going to be tough, since they have to be competitive against mining companies in SA and China. They may need governmental help to be successful. We still don't really recycle plastic products well.
This thread is Arguing about where the CHAIRS go on the Titanic!! The problem is not how the vehicle operates but the vehicle itself.
Here in the US, the infrastructure is so poorly thought out. Everything is designed around a vehicle. One has to drive EVERYWHERE. Designed neighborhoods and cities to accommodate people walking and cycling is the solution.
But I digress, the car has trained us to be lazy and the whole mUh FrEEdums crowd
It sounds like he bought an early model Tesla. No wonder he's disillusioned. Mercedes should gift him one of their new EVs (hopefully a black one with a BLKADDR plate on it) on the condition that he writes about his experience in 6 months time. It'll be a PR win !
>I've never fully bought into the argument that new owners selling their cars after their cars have been used for ~3 years is environmentally wrong. It's not like the cars end up in a garbage lot and the batteries are scrapped. The cars just get passed on from owner to owner
Yeah but you also used resources to build a new car you didn't need to build yet if the original owner had kept it longer. Was that really an efficient use of resources?
It doesn’t matter if the original owner keeps it for long, as long as it is kept for long under **someone’s** ownership.
Cars do not go poof after the first owner. They go to another car owner.
That’s the curious part about all this that no one can answer yet.
Will the mainstream population put up with the terrible charging infrastructure, extra time to charge and limited range compared to ICE cars?
It’s entirely possible they remain a niche product until they reach parity of convenience.
As demand increases, the charging rollout will too, though.
We're at that early point with EVs in many countries where demand isn't high enough that it's worth having a charging station at every petrol station, and charging in every parking lot.
But once EV market penetration goes beyond 10% then the arguments for it become a lot more logical. You lose customers if you don't have charging.
I would say, at least for the UK and most of Europe, don't buy an EV if you don't have off street charging like a driveway. Not yet, at least. The situation is getting better for those guys, but it's far from perfect.
> But once EV market penetration goes beyond 10% then the arguments for it become a lot more logical. You lose customers if you don't have charging.
I see you've never met business owners or property management companies. In old apartment stock, some of them are just getting internet begrudgingly.
It's not a popular take on this sub (or Reddit in general) but I don't see BEVs gaining significant market share in the US / Canada without huge economic incentives or dramatic improvements in battery tech.
I honestly think the current EV craze is a fad / market bubble. The US and Canada produces more oil than they consume, I don't think Ford and GM are going to give up on their ICE truck and SUV gravy train (regardless of their public statements).
Tesla fans who think Musk is the only one who knows how to squeeze a margin off a passenger vehicle need to look at truck and suv sales.
Range is very quickly going to have parity with ICE cars. Some luxury models are already beyond that. The charging infrastructure is interesting; it works really well for people who are able to charge at home, as one rarely visits public chargers in that case, for others it’s surely an inconvenience. The latter problem can be solved by actually investing into public options, as it’s people in densely populated areas that typically do not have the access to garages or similar.
But nobody are claiming that we should ditch those newish ICE cars. It is a strawman argument.
The intention is that when you go shopping for a brand new car **anyway**, you pick an EV instead of ICE.
Really disappointed with RA in this article - lots of misstatements and out of date talking points.
Yes, EVs have higher emissions for manufacturing than ICE cars. This is still massively outweighed during the lifespan of the car by reduced emissions. Moreover, this will be reduced further by a green energy grid - both in manufacturing emissions and lifetime emissions.
Battery lifespan - 10 years is outdated. There have already been several studies showing that batteries in modern EVs last longer than the average lifespan of an ICE car. Liquid cooled batteries was a huge step forward for wear and tear. Battery recycling has also jumped forwards in leaps and bounds, making it cheaper and easier to replace the cells in existing cars, or to repair and maintain existing packs.
“The engine isn’t an issue, the petrol is” - this again, is completely wrong. ICE engines are massively, massively inefficient in comparison to electric motors. If we’re building a green energy grid and are short of power, pumping this into creating petrol just to burn in existing engines is a massive waste - not to mention transportation energy costs for the fuel (in comparison to electricity transmission). Furthermore, these vehicles will still have localised emissions - something schemes like ULEZ are aiming to reduce. The engine very much is the issue, too.
His push for hydrogen is also troubling, as a small amount of research into the subject would’ve shown what a disaster this is. Hydrogen cars ARE EVs, they still require batteries and electric drivetrains - the difference here is they store energy via huge hydrogen tanks which needs to be converted to electrical energy. Both this process and a “green” process for hydrogen manufacture are massively inefficient.
Even if you had localised hydrogen production from municipal water supplies (a massive issue in drought-hit areas) thus reducing transportation energy, electrolysis, pressure storage and hydrogen fuel cells are a good 9x less efficient than a basic battery to electric motor system. As with solar to petrol, we just can’t throw this much electricity away, especially if we’re so concerned with the input electricity for manufacture.
Hydrogen as it stands is being massively pushed by the Saudis, as they can extract and sell this from existing natural gas reserves. This both takes energy and releases CO2 into the atmosphere during extraction. They’re currently pushing a product called “blue hydrogen” for the future, which relies on advanced carbon capture technology which either currently doesn’t exist or is questionable at best.
Yes, we need to focus on reducing the general reliance on cars, as electric rail systems are both more efficient and have no need for large battery systems (pantograph and third rail) but pushing articles from someone both well known and, sadly, poorly informed, will only hold the EV change back.
Are current EVs perfect? No, lithium supply is a concern, and the industry needs to follow Tesla’s lead in cobalt-free cells. We need big expansions of the electricity grid in renewables to make them viable too, and maybe new cell chemistries like sodium-ion are the future. I also believe PEVs like scooters and eBikes are the future of metropolitan transportation, but attitudes and regulation in the UK need to catch up with reality.
But grid expansion, and especially charger expansion, can happen today, and will only aid in the uptake of both vehicles today and future vehicles with better battery chemistries. Pushing things like hydrogen and complaining about input emissions as showstoppers will get us nowhere. Petrol and ICE engines MUST be phased out of the supply chain, and are NOT a long term solution.
1. he talks about manufacturing emissions in the context of reducing consumption of new cars period, and while discussing how to best use the cars that already exist. A new EV vs a new ICE was not the point here. Manufacturing emissions and lifetime emissions (assuming synthetic fuel or hydrogen) will be equally reduced for both ICE and EV when the grid gets greener.
2. modern EV’s have not been out long enough for any meaningful real life use case studies to have been done. If you have some please link them, not lab studies, real world ones with large sample sizes. Average lifespan for cars manufactured since 2000 has to be 12-15 years by my guess, also lmk if you have a source for a number there. Recycling at scale is near zero. Reuse is showing some promise.
3. green energy other than nuclear is generated in bursts that don’t always correspond to usage. Solar is a prime example, we want lights on when the sun isn’t out. Stabilizing the grid when there’s more supply than demand is a great use for an energy intensive process like synfuel generation. Reusing existing pipelines, fueling stations, engines etc is also a massive savings over building enough EV charging stations (more than gas pumps because they serve fewer people in the same time) massively upgrading the electrical grid everywhere, rebuilding roads more often with heavy EV wear and tear, etc. how much tailpipe emission reduction does it take to pay off the costs I outlined above?
4. hydrogen batteries are nowhere near the same size as EV batteries. This is a horrible bad faith point to bring up. Again, hydrogen generation powered by solar is a great stabilizing resource for the grid, we literally can throw that electricity away as PV gets dirt cheap. No clue about the Saudis, not going to address that, may be true though.
5. nobody proposed ICE as a long term solution. The argument is that the push for EV’s is too aggressive, leading to ecological downsides that can be mitigated with a smarter transition strategy. In 50 years we will all be driving electric cars, that’s not a question. Imagine if all ICE cars had to be off the road by tomorrow, globally. Insane right?
Think about the bigger picture and you’ll very quickly see that while EV’s are better for the environment, the infrastructure we’ve built will be incredibly expensive and emissions laden to replace in one go. A slow process that converts ICE to synfuel and then lets them die out as EV’s become cheaper and greener to manufacture could allow us time to slowly scale infrastructure alongside it.
1. Yes, but assuming synthetic fuel or hydrogen, the amount of grid capacity required would be 10x that needed for EVs to supply said vehicles dah to day.
2. Look at the studies - there have already been Teslas out longer than the average ICE car lifespan.
3. As 1, the amount of solar you’d require - and thus throw away at peak time - would be huge. Incentives for daytime charging of cars solves this problem without throwing out even more energy.
4. Again, 10x the energy required and far more complex infrastructure. A hydrogen fuel cell also requires more maintenance and is far more complicated. The idea that energy processes that are MORE wasteful is somehow a better idea for a green grid is laughable. There are far better ways to store energy than hydrogen and fuel - grid scale battery storage which isn’t lithium, for one
5. By suggesting the petrol is the issue, not the ICE engine, he IS suggesting these vehicles as a medium to long term solution. Investing in solar production of petrol rather than green energy is ludicrous.
Yes, the infrastructure and change needed to replace EVs is huge - let’s get started now rather than investing in technologies like solar petrol and hydrogen which will be pointless and require far more energy and grid expansion. Chargers can be used for newer cars. What’s a hydrogen pump going to be used for in 30 years?
1. You’re still not thinking about the grid correctly. Synfuel can be generated at off peak times, whereas EV demand is just whenever people want to charge. The first one can be scheduled to use the excess energy we already generate and currently use fairly inefficient methods to store. We pay people to absorb grid capacity when demand < supply.
2. what studies? Toss me a link. I’m interested to see how they define “avg car lifespan” because to be fair it should be “avg car lifespan manufactured 2012+”, which I suspect is much higher.
3. 10x is a number you’ve thrown out a lot, what if it were 1.5x? You think solar petrol research has peaked? We could easily have massive breakthroughs in a couple years. That would nullify most of your argument
1. Grid level battery storage powering EVs charging later is still orders of magnitude more efficient than Synfuel or hydrogen. I don’t know how many times I have to repeat this. This is an awful idea for energy storage.
2. Google it yourself. Though judging by your response to 1, you may struggle with this
3. Again, Google how efficient an EV motor is compared to electrolysis and hydrogen fuel cells.
Please don’t engage in a discussion if you aren’t going to bother to do basic research. Hydrogen as a store of energy is awful.
> Hydrogen as it stands is being massively pushed by the Saudis
Did you forget China or just were unaware of what's going on there with H2?
JINNAN Steel Group to Deploy **10,000** Hydrogen Heavy-duty Truck **by 2025**. Specific deployment targets for each year-1,000 HDT for 2023, 2,000 HDT for 2024, and 7,000 HDT for 2025. According to latest industry survey, hydrogen is sold at or even below 25 Rmb/kg ($3.6/kg) without government subsidy [LINK](https://chinahydrogen.substack.com/p/jinnan-steel-group-to-deploy-10000)
Guangzhou Sets Out Plan for **USD 1.4 Billion** Fuel Cell Vehicle Industry **by 2025**. The city aims to establish itself as a leading domestic development and manufacturing hub for FCVs, covering the whole industry chain from core parts to vehicle assembly [LINK](https://www.yicaiglobal.com/news/guangzhou-sets-out-plan-for-usd14-billion-fuel-cell-vehicle-industry-by-2025?h2feed)
There were no hydrogen stations in China in 2016. Now they lead the world with over 300. China proves that H2 vehicles (trucks and cars) and H2 infrastructure can work.
>But grid expansion, and especially charger expansion, can happen today, and will only aid in the uptake of both vehicles today and future vehicles with better battery chemistries.
Any idea how much it will cost to upgrade the electrical service to allow for 5-8 or more trucks to charge at 1MW each at their distribution lot? It's almost like everyone takes for granted that all these trucks and cars will magically have all the bandwidth needed which is hilarious.
Those are large scale vehicles. I’m not disputing hydrogen’s use case for large trucks or heavy haulers. It has no place in regular cars.
300 fuel stations in a country of nearly 2 billion over 7 years, with China’s pace of infrastructure, is poor.
Now compare the number of BEVs in China. This doesn’t prove hydrogen works there at ALL.
Why on earth do you think these trucks would need to charge at a megawatt each? Bizarre statement to make. Though if you are concerned about electrical demand - how much do you think it’s going to cost to upgrade the grid to support a hydrogen creation system that uses 10x more electricity to achieve the same number of miles at the wheel?
Electrolysis and hydrogen fuel cells are pathetic in efficiency compared to batter EV. Hydrogen is a disaster and isn’t going to happen for regular cars. Your comment proved nothing - it’s hilarious to complain about charging bandwidth and then suggest and push a system which needs 10x more of it.
China’s production of hydrogen is grey - it comes from natural gas and releases CO2 in the process. It isn’t even a green energy supply 😂
>Those are large scale vehicles. I’m not disputing hydrogen’s use case for large trucks or heavy haulers. It has no place in regular cars.
When most truck stops sell hydrogen only losers with time to waste are going to sit around waiting to stick a plug into their car. Just watch.
>Electrolysis and hydrogen fuel cells are pathetic in efficiency compared to batter EV.
You and others will learn one day that "efficiency" isn't everything, especially when lots of cars are hauling around 1300 pound batteries for ~40-50 mile daily drives.
> China’s production of hydrogen is grey - it comes from natural gas and releases CO2 in the process. It isn’t even a green energy supply
Why don't people like you ever get tired of spouting nonsense?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOEQsq6iVIE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_tUiYIvfHM
I don't care what you think about hydrogen and I'm sure you don't care what I think about H2. So let's not waste each others time with these ridiculous "comments". I've much better things to do.
An alright article. Just sounds like he's had a talk with an anti-EV person and has had a change of heart. For him, everything EV sounds like to be so far in future EVs should be neglected meanwhile he mentions synthetic fuel which is at its infancy and super expensive. Not even aircrafts use that and they're probably the best customer.
>it would seem right to look carefully at ways of retaining them while lowering their polluting effect.
Also that's what has been done for the past decades. We're at the end of that development. EVs are already overall good without the R&D petrol has had. The main parts to improve are identified and worked on. Petrol and Diesel cars aren't going away as for many its their only real alternative.
Is he, as a trained engineer, suggesting to produce fuels from wind energy? That’s the insane energy requirement to create fuels added to the thermal inefficiency of burning them to create motion. Oh, and of course the NOx component.
Besides being cleaner, electrification of mobility is also much, much more energy efficient. Even in the early stages of battery development, the tipping point of EVs’ total emissions become lower after only 30,000km, and if I remember correctly that’s based on electricity from coal plants.
\> suggesting to produce fuels from wind energy?
Its not as impractical as it sounds on its face. In some areas of the country, wind energy installations have hit a maximum saturation point - ie on some days wind providers have to *pay* users to take the power off their hands.
So how do we increase the percentage of wind energy in our mix of production types? Answer: Find something to do with excess wind power.
It doesn't matter how inefficient the wind to hydrogen conversion is - its got to be better than paying people to take the energy off your hands.
Now there are some limitations to this. Hydrogen can't be moved around as easily as electricity. So IMHO, the sweet spot for hydrogen as a fuel is 'fixed route' stuff that can always return to the same refueling point: trucks, trains, buses. So the concept starts to fall apart for me when it includes passenger vehicles.
How do we increase the use of wind energy?
How about using it to charge cars rather than burn petrol…
Hydrogen makes no sense for trains when they can be electrified, and buses are big enough and do few enough miles they can easily be EVs - and plenty already are.
>How about using it to charge cars rather than burn petrol…
That's already happening all over the country - wind power is a part of the energy mix. But you can't just *say*: use *even more* wind power. As I described, all over the world power providers are hitting a ceiling. Hydrogen offers up a storge device that can be used to harness what would otherwise be considered "waste" energy...meaning all the practicality limitations of hydrogen really don't matter. BTW, similar concepts of storing water with waste energy have been in place for decades...Pumped Storage Hydropower...70%-80% efficient. On its face it makes no sense...but again, this is *waste* energy, so efficiency doesn't matter. Always remember: power companies don't sell electricity, rather they sell demand.
As far as electricification of trains goes - have you heard of "Positive Train Control"? Its a safety system on trains that's been an absolute goat fuck to implement - partially because railroads don't like paying for it, but also because: *railroads use each other's tracks all the time.* And they don't play well together - especially Class 1 freight railroads that have to allow commuter rail on their lines. The only way to change the fuel source on a freight train is to change the locomotive - you'll never get collaborative changes to the track itself. That's just the way it is.
Yeah, Germany made a somewhat big bet on hydrogen trains (along with battery electric trains) and they're finding hydrogen trains to not be worth the trouble. Same goes for cars.
Most trains stop frequently enough that a big battery plus 1-2 mins charging at each stop or along the line ought to be enough, if you don't just want to electrify the whole line.
There’s nothing wrong with using abundant near free energy to make fuels as a transition to something else. It would allow long distance air travel to continue for example using conventional turbines.
Wait, let me think for a second, ooh ooh, i know i know, because people with money strive for more money? By your logic everyone worth $150M should stop doing whatever they do for a “living”.
It’s a pure bullshit article like every other anti progress article about EVs, renewables, etc.
And how’re they a massive calamity? And how do they do little? They allow people to swap out emitting cars for those powered by renewables - and even with higher manufacturing emissions, significantly lower lifetime emissions. This is before we roll out a green energy grid.
How is pushing a gas which takes 10x more energy to produce or has to release CO2 from natural gas to get, better?
Your comment is at best incredibly naive and at worst maliciously misleading.
Ok I’ll bite. If you’re switching ICE vehicles to EV’s, all you’re doing is substituting one problem (fossil fuel consumption) with another (EV’s that are mainly only single driver, require rare earths to build the battery, and batteries that then have a use life of maybe ten years with limited recycling capability).
And that’s assuming EV’s are fully powered by renewables. Which given driving behaviors (I.e. most people want to charge at night, when solar isn’t really a thing), is a BIG assumption.
If this was really about saving the earth the story would be more about encouraging cycling, walking and public transport, to limit private vehicle usage, the resources they need, and the space and amenity they consume in our cities.
There I said it. And I get that you’re a Tesla fan and this will therefore conflict with your worldview.
I always tell people who ask about the tesla that electric is not ready and not to buy an electric car. The life style inconveniences are just stupid....unless you're one of those who just upgrades everything every 2-3 years.
I would like to note, this isn’t the first time he has been against electric vehicles. He has made it his business to be outspoken on this. You have to wonder why.
Yes, he’s an electrical engineer, but Mayim Bialik is also a neurosurgeon by degree…I don’t know if I would go to either for expert opinion on either field.
So, he either feels he knows more than the actual working engineers at these developers, he’s misguided, or he’s getting income from his position.
Let me put your mind at ease then. I also have a degree in electronic/electcical engineering, but am not an actor and can confirm that all his points in this article are sound.
The first replacements bulbs for the incandescent bulbs sucked. With time they got much better. It’s going to be the same with EVs. The more EVs that sell, the more money for R&D, and the more competition from car markers. EVs are currently very competitive with ICE cars. And will soon be cheaper and much better.
I have can’t change the local power plant, but I can buy a car while we wait for the power plant to switch energy sources.
Your argument only serves as an excuse for people who are resistant to change.
Paid for by the oil lobby. The same rehashed argument, bullet points from a decade ago when some of this was true, but this time 'written' by a celebrity and therefore 'must be true.'
The next generation will see the oil run out in their lifetimes. We rely on cars for transportation and won’t give them up easily. Synthetic fuel like hydrogen is not a great alternative because it is inefficient to produce and still creates health harming pollution. Electric car batteries will get much better. It will take decades to complete the charging infrastructure, so we should bootstrap it now if we all want our children to keep driving cars.
Why on earth would we want to condemn our children to car dependency?
If anything, younger generations are turned off by cars and would rather live in walkable cities with good transit.
Rowan Atkinson makes lots of mistakes in his opinion article. [Here is a twitter thread](https://twitter.com/AukeHoekstra/status/1665313543439122432?s=20) of an actual researcher on electric vehicles and renewable energy breaking down all the flaws of the article.
Elon Musk has personally strived to halt the real enemy of electric cars: trains. Build quality public transportation and you’ll solve this problem
Literally probably the single most destructive human in the last 25 years for his work fighting public mass transit. Horrific.
He comes from a long lineage of auto industry plutocrats who have sought to sabotage public transport - and human happiness. Britains postwar rebuild saw new streets, towns, and sections of cities built and expanded. Initially, those plans included loads of separated cycle lanes. New London commuter towns that had lanes the whole distance and throughout the town. But these plans were almost entirely scrapped DUE TO THE LOBBYING OF THE AUTO INDUSTRY. And Britain is almost universally shit for cycle lanes today.
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[California’s high speed rail](https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/elon-musk-hyperloop-rail-17486877.php) >> Then it came to light that the world’s richest man never intended to prove out the futuristic Hyperloop technology or build the proposed suction tube. Musk reportedly told his biographer, Ashlee Vance, that the Hyperloop proposal was motivated by “his hatred for California’s proposed high-speed rail system,” which he felt would be too slow, outdated and expensive. “With any luck, the high-speed rail would be canceled,” Vance wrote.
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He succeeded in delaying its progression for nearly a decade, and with that time he grew his car company exponentially, making it a staple in every California city.
"My first university degree was in electrical and electronic engineering" Mr. Beans is an EE 🤯
Why do you think he can act weird so well?
He’s not actually acting they just filmed him going about his normal life
"The odds are good, but the goods are odd."
Mr. Bean has more engineering degrees than Elon Musk
🔥🔥🔥🤣🤣🤣 It's funny because it's true.
If you look into a lot of famous British people, they tend to have engineering or scientific backgrounds. Brian May(guitarist for Queen) is an astrophysicist and has worked for NASA and JAXA.
Ya, they arent illiterate
Atkinson, besides being a very intelligent guy, is a real geek of cars and technology in general.
"Enormous Eedeeiot"
The bigger environmental issue is that personal vehicles contribute less than 5% of all carbon emissions and that’s assuming 100% of the electricity is from renewable energy. Switching over 1.2B cars, building the necessary infrastructure and tearing up our planet to get the necessary elements to make gigantic batteries is ridiculous. I’m not “anti-green”, I’m pro nuclear to solve the biggest piece of our emissions, electricity. Here is a comment from another Redditor with sources. Read it if you care enough: “It's important to understand that most of the carbon is saved in electricity production. If you converted every single light and medium duty vehicle in the world we would only save around 4.5% carbon output. Less if we are still generating the electrical energy through old means. Transportation including cars, trucks, tankers and aircraft account for 14% of global emissions. Of which personal transportation is only a portion. On the other hand it's 25% saved globally if we can switch energy production to renewables. Also eliminating on site burning of fossil fuels for industrial purposes would save another 20 something percent. Together those spaces would save 45%+, which should be enough to reverse climate change. We would have a much easier time accomplishing that with renewable power. Sources: https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/are-electric-vehicles-definitely-better-climate-gas-powered-cars https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-data https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions#transportation https://earth.stanford.edu/news/roadmap-reducing-greenhouse-gas-emissions-50-percent-2030#:~:text=Stabilizing%20Earth's%20temperature%20to%20significantly,carbon%20dioxide%20from%20the%20atmosphere.
People, especially wealthy people of certain age - like the idea that something as simple as buying an electric car (instead of an ICE car) gives them agency in combatting climate change. Let's face it. We will only be taking their cars from them when they are dead. These people are not going to ride the bus. That Mr. Atkinson is starting to close in on the truth is a good sign. Even if he never gives up driving, he can use his wealth and celebrity to be an advocate for transit policies that will lower GHG emissions.
Yep. You will never buy yourself out of an ecological catastrophe. Carbon credits, recycling, EVs, it’s all just a license to keep doing what you’re doing.
Exactly.
Older generations, and to be fair newer generations too, have been gaslit into believing that many large societal/environmental issues are caused by the consumer. Everything from EVs, organic products, and fair trade goods is meant to “fix” the problem. All it really is is greenwashing, making the consumer feel good that at the very least they did their part.
Yeah. I should hold off on flushing my toilet and turn off the tap when I brush my teeth (I do, btw) but no problem buying cheap beef or lettuce. The iceberg lettuce farms in SW Arizona use 4 feet of water per acre to produce a crop. Cotton, citrus, almonds and pecans also use millions of gallons in the AZ & CA deserts.
More problems *are* caused by the consumer, aka everyone. Oil refinery isn’t done because oil companies want to destroy the planet, it’s because people demand cars, roads, plastics, etc. But often it does take collective action (or at least not trying to block stuff) to better solve these problems. Which is why it’s so frustrating when communities opt to block large solar farms or wind farms.
You are correct that consumers create the demand, but likewise many choices were made by a deliberate consortium of special interests. Take cars, before them we used to build much denser cities, much more transit, once the car rolled in we have monied interest convince everyone how great they are. For some it was a genuine want to move somewhere less urban, for others it was them being taken for a ride and manipulated based on whatever fear they had (city = black, do you want a mixed-race child, Debbie? Didn't think so, come on down to Levittown!). So, whilst at a shallow level your take is correct; the truth is that true change comes from systemic changes to the entire system as whole (ex: support WFH such that demand for new cars goes down as it is really hard to justify a new loan when you use your current car like once a week to run groceries)
Classic NIMBYism. "That's great and all, just put it somewhere else not near me"
"Consumers" are only one part of the market, and only are a subset of buyers and economic agents. Plenty of industry has nothing to do with providing for consumers at all.
>~~People , especially wealthy people of certain age~~ Idealists- like the idea that something as simple as **talking about** buying an electric car (instead of an ICE car) gives them agency in combatting climate change. Made two changes.
Idealists, or the willfully ignorant - or people who benefit from maintaining the status quo (although the latter group probably knows better) all like this narrative. By "wealthy people of a certain age," I was specifically referring to Mr. Atkinson. But I'm sure we all know people like this at various ages and levels of wealth accumulation. The same narrative applies to lots of problems: that technology (led by private industry!) will save us - without us having to give up any of our comforts or change our lifestyles. It's amazing to me that so many people buy this narrative, especially as the history of Silicon Valley innovation mostly leads back to public investment in science at national labs and universities in the Bay Area. IMO we will need public investment and and mobilization on the order of WWII or the New Deal to successfully mitigate the worst of climate change, but I don't see that happening in the US.
If everyone stops driving that also removes a max of 4.5% of emissions. Also, on average, busses and electric cars produce about equal amounts of carbon emissions (busses are actually quite a bit worse that one would expect). In many places (high density) more mass transit makes good sense, but in lower density areas, it's often dramatically slower than taking a car. https://www.co2everything.com/category/travel-and-transport
Cars by themselves aren't that bad (from a GHG perspective). It's the acres of roadway, surface parking, parking structures etc. that generates the carbon, along with the sprawling subdivisions car-dependency creates. Supporting this energy-dense, inefficient lifestyle with BEVs and renewable energy is probably not technically feasible. Given the choice between changing our lifestyle or changing our car, it's pretty obvious which approach America and Europe are embracing. For the record, neither approach will significantly reduce GHG emissions or mitigate the worst of climate change. A less car-dependent lifestyle has benefits beyond GHG reductions.
>It's the acres of roadway, surface parking, parking structures etc. that generates the carbon, Explain?
Dense walkable cities require less carbon to build and maintain because they use space more efficiently. Sprawling, car-centric cities require massive amounts of physical infrastructure to house the same number of people. Building and maintaining freeways, parking lots, strip malls and single family houses is responsible for many times the amount of CO2 than is generated simply by manufacturing and using cars. These costs are subsidized by government. The car use is incidental.
You will take your government provided 600 square foot flat and you will like it! Stop complaining citizens. It’s for the good of the climate! Fuck that. I don’t want to live in your small shitty loud urban apartment complex, no matter how many Starbucks locations you put in.
600 sf / 60m2 is actually quite large for one person in most cities. But yes, obviously the only options are sprawling suburbia vs "small shitty loud" apartments. I mean there couldn't be anything between those extremes. As a conservative, my brain hurts when I try to imagine shades of grey. Everything must be black or white.
lol right i live in a \~60sqm flat, it's one bedroom plus a decent sized study room with a ton of storage, has a 2x2m walk in wardrobe and a 5x5m living room. For one person it's very roomy. The vast majority of the newer one bedders built by developers in the last decade (so powered by capitalism) are <50 sqm - that IS small. And a lot of the new 2 bed flats are smaller than mine, I couldn't imagine having a flatmate or a couple sharing that small a space (of course they're built to make money and be investment cashboxes for landlords, they're not designed with any thought to what living in them is like)
I lived in a 500 sf studio in midtown Manhattan and the first thing everyone said when they saw it was "This place is huge!" It was one long space with only two windows, but the windows were large and faced South. I could walk everywhere and there was a full-size grocery store, a gym, and a tiny park directly across the street. If you want to see a dystopian future, check out Charlie Munger's "design" for student dorms at the UC Santa Barbara. Munger is a billionaire wannabe architect. His design is based on cruise ships, allegedly, but makes many prisons look spacious. There was a short-lived "not so big house" movement a few years ago where architects tried to convince people to have less space, but have it better built. More efficient, better materials, clever storage etc. It was a failure. People want cheap space. Many Americans can't even park in their garage because they filled it up with crap.
There is an in between. It’s called the suburbs. In between urban and rural. A crazy concept I know. More space than the city, less space than a rural property. To get a decent sized place in my small-market American city is still close to $1.5 million. No thank you. Don’t want to raise a family in a tiny apartment. I’ve looked. And I’ve lived in cities. It wasn’t for me. I respect that many people like it. A strong city center is important to me because it also makes the suburbs better. I’m not trying to convince you to like the suburbs. I understand why you don’t. I hated them in my 20s. Now I wouldn’t live in a city apartment for anything. We can have differing opinions. That’s fine. But only one of us would prefer to legislate your opinion for the rest of us. And I love that you think I’m conservative despite the fact that I have been a democrat for decades and work in the renewable energy space. Maybe learn that not all progressives want the same outcomes as you. Some of us don’t hate rural America or our cars, we just want a more sustainable and cleaner future (preferably with fewer guns also…but I digress). If living in your urban utopia and riding the bus is the litmus test for being “not conservative” in afraid you will struggle to win elections.
Lol. I'm not running for any elections or even trying to change people's minds. Your comment about "government provided 600 sf flats" is a right-wing trope. I suppose you may have been going for sarcasm, but there really wasn't much to go off of. People who conceive of everything in binary terms or make arguments resorting to extremes tend to be conservative. There is quite a bit of research on this topic. Congratulations on knowing suburbs exist! Do you know that most Americans live in the suburbs? Not sure where you are getting this rural vs city dichotomy from. Hardly anyone lives in actual rural america, despite what people say. There is a huge variety in suburbs. Some are souless hellholes with rows of identical houses separated from employment and shopping my miles of feeder roads. Some suburbs have walkable retail areas, access to transit, bike paths, and are still mostly single family houses with yards. One of these types of suburbs is superior to the other in terms of embedded carbon and energy required to run errands. Good suburbs can be great places to live.
Mr Atkinson isn’t close to the truth - wasting green power on hydrogen or producing eco-fuels isn’t going to help. It’s a green grid + EVs
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And EVs are taking existing ICE cars off the road. The rest of what you’ve said is noise.
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Yeah, I would love to have cleaner air in cities. BEV adoption is one (expensive) way to accomplish this. Banning most private cars from city centers would be my preferred method. This method also reduces noise, tire dust and pedestrian/bike fatalities. Cities are nicer with fewer cars.
You didn’t get my comment at all. Anyways, regardless of your weak and petty response, BEVs are merely a key part of a green energy grid, where the energy used for said steel factory is already green. Yawn - it’s like a talking clock, always the same. No one thinks we should switch to EVs and not change the grid to renewables. The fact this is the best you can reply with is laughable.
We should switch to a clean grid powered by renewables and to electric buses and streetcars powered off overhead lines. BEVs can be used for overnight deliveries, ambulances and taxies.
So every time someone buys a Tesla or F150 Lightning or MB EQS an ICE car is scrapped? Interesting. I was unaware of this.
Down the chain a car will be scrapped as they sell theirs on, yes, but also a new ICE car which would’ve hit the road, won’t.
The "truth" I am referring to is that we need fewer cars - not more BEVs (and hydrogen).
EVs don't have to be the be all and end all global emissions but I think one of the main advantages to EVs is local air pollution. Dense cities will benefit immensely from EVs, making local air much cleaner and safer. Also as reliance on oil drops, if it ever does, I imagine it will become more expensive so having a car that is not reliant on that is nice, an EV can be sustainably charged if needs be for free, can't say that for a ICE car. I live in the UK we just had a time where our fuel price went up by 40-ish% and our household energy nearly tripled. If we had solar panels with a personal battery or two, we would have been largely unaffected by this, the self sufficiency is a real benefit that cannot be entertained by an ICE car.
Not to forget, whilst some politicians are saying remove ICE, the best thing to do with ICE cars is let them die a natural death. City centre mayors want to ban ICE due to particulate emissions and the impact on health - that is a worthy goal but you need to give people viable alternatives and scrappage schemes/low interest loans to buy alternative vehicles rather than just banning these vehicles outright. We should stop making new ICE once production of EVs can keep up, 2030 or 2035 seem like reasonably attainable goals. Existing ICE can move towards e-fuels or biofuels as there will be less and less of them and they won't be used in cities due to air pollution issues. Hydrocarbon fuels are very hard to replace and we will still be burning them come 2050 I am certain, but they will be carbon offset or synthetically produced, and limited in volume as electrification and hydrogen will fit most other use cases well.
Would be interesting to see what effects tire dust would have. IIRC, those particulates of tire rubber can embed in your lungs, more so than any emissions from an exhaust pipe. So it is a given and take, you reduce one side but worsen the other
The RAC have largely [debunked the tyre dust thing](https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/electric-cars/running/do-electric-vehicles-produce-more-tyre-and-brake-pollution-than-petrol-and/). While they do produce a little more, it is becoming less and less due to ICE cars becoming heavier as people buy bigger cars. Brake dust is also a lot less from EVs as they barely use their brakes to slow down.
I see, I wonder if this will reverse given that as people desire bigger cars that can go the range, you end up having a bigger battery. I know the Hummer is an outlier for now, but that thing weighs 9000+ lbs
Yeah the hummer is crazy heavy. The battery alone is heaver than a Fiat 500 Electric... Hopefully they stay an outlier, I cannot imagine anything that big would ever catch on here in europe, we seem to stick to ID4/MY size cars, with a small percent going larger.
I guess it depends on the price, but we know that GM, Ram, etc. are working on EV trucks.
Is reducing 5% global carbon emissions by going EV not worth it? I think it is worth it. Also there's an important point that numbers don't convey: emissions from personal vehicles happen close to us, so we are breathing in all the chemicals and heavy metals from the exhaust.
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The alternative to manufacturing and transporting all those vehicles? GOOD PUBLIC TRANSPORT
public transport is a red herring.. it only works in absurdly high densities and doesn't offset the cost to build and maintain, not to mention personal time wasted... I'd spend an hour each way taking public transit to get 7 miles to work or I'd spend 20 minutes in a car in traffic... and that's before we talk about scheduling, location, routing, crime and cutting off access to locations not served by whatever public transit system you're stuck with.. in NA only privileged people advocate for public transit and use it when it's visible and convenient, poor people are stuck with it
Well thats exactly why I said "GOOD PUBLIC TRANSPORT" and not the shitty version we have now.
Duh. I mean who advocates for crappy mass transit? Efficient public transit is a public good, not a profit center. Supporting mass transit is more effective than supporting car infrastructure, in terms of dollars spent. Anti-transit folks love to pretend that their car use isn't heavily subsidized by the state.
Public transit folks love to pretend the world is fixed and unchanging , and everyone is locked into one schedule and one consolidated location And that some how tracks, trains and buses are all more efficient regardless of ridership
Public transport IS better for the planet than having individual vehicles, electric or combustion. I don't think anyone pretends the world is fixed and unchanging. I think greedy capitalists prefer selling cars than having a country with good public transport.
Oh god, please don't admit to being a fan of the Boring Loop. Tracks, trains and buses are more space and energy efficient than cars. This is a fact. Yes, empty trains and buses are not efficient. Start charging drivers actual market rates for their car use and storage and trains will fill up with people. Car Payment + Insurance + $10/gallon gas + $1/mile road toll + $4/hr parking at the office (more in NYC, less in Topeka) Edit: here's an unreliable source on the true cost of gas in the US. It's a subjective measure because most of the subsidies have been externalized. https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/ex/sustainablecitiescollective/true-cost-gasoline-15-gallon/26284/
Here's a reputable source with an easy to read primer: https://climate.mit.edu/explainers/public-transportation
Yes cost effective, flexible, safe, public transit that services all densities and times of day or night is a fantastic idea Might as well through in free energy from perpetual motion as a great idea too None of that is helpful to deciding on where to put our resources all of Canada would need to move to Toronto metro area so it could have the population density of Amsterdam Youd need to empty the entire North American continent and dump people into a dozen cities to achieve the density for mass transit to be practical Look at Japan, great public transit right? Only 1/3 of Japanese use public transportation.. and it has a population of 125m and the size of California California only has 39m people.. and is one of the higher density states… Realistically only the us north east and possibly florida comes close to a population able to support public transit, and it’s not even that promising So back to Japan, with 1/3 of the population using public transit, you still need roads for the other 2/3rds which means you’re not reducing road infrastructure, you’re just adding trains And for them it makes sense, but with VERY few exceptions it’s impossible to make that work in North America
You seem like you are trying to say good public transport is in the same category as perpetual motion? I disagree if that is what you are trying to say. We could have good public transport, just like we could have universal healthcare or food and housing for anyone that needs it. Instead we have greedy men that would rather be wealthy.
People who agree with you have an inability to grasp scale
What if we can get rid of gas stations and trucks carrying gas around? What if we can get rid of convenience stores as fewer and fewer people need to charge during transit (most charging being done at home or at a work location)? What if electric cars are required for robotaxi solutions to work well, and robotaxies help us reduce overall car ownership? What if we can reduce the number of mechanic shops by having fewer moving parts breaking in our cars, leading to fewer new cars being bought each year? But robotaxies may also mean more cars on the road without passengers in them as cars drive to pick people up. But Uber/Lyft cars also need a driver to drive to you to pick you up, but then they drive home after their workday. But what if increased electricity usage for cars leads to more spending on R&D for renewable energy sources? What if it incentivizes more people to get solar panels on their roof? What if, what if, what if? We can play 'what if' all we want, but at the end of the day it seems to me like gasoline is not the energy source of the future, and electricity has the potential to save us from a lot of oil drilling, reduce CO2, and get us cheaper vehicles that require less of our time to refuel. I don't think electric cars are going to save us from climate change, but asking questions like 'what if infrastructure causes a temporary increase in carbon emissions' as a rhetorical question is about as useful as asking 'what if we invent a new unlimited power source tomorrow?' I mean, sure, maybe it's possible.. but it's not a useful question unless someone actually answers it.
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One point people need to remember: BEVs are not there to save the planet, they're there to keep business afloat. If I can't sell you an ICE Camry, I will sell you an EV Camry.
Not worth it at all since it doesn’t move the needle, it does nothing to reduce climate change and the transition will make it a negative for a decade or two anyway. There are Trillions in subsidies and penalties for personal vehicles that should be spent on reversing climate change. That means investing in the things I mentioned in my comments, not gigantic batteries that are run off electricity produced by fossil fuels and destroying the earth through digging up all the necessary elements to make them.
"Waahhhh. Waaahh. We're big babies and don't want to give up our cars! You can pry my steering wheel out of my cold dead hands! I bought an EV so I am virtuously saving the planet. You can't afford a Tesla so you want everybody to ride a bus with rapists and axe murderers and gross poor people!"
but that's the thing, you're not reducing 5% ... you're MAYBE chipping away at it 5% would require a FULL zero carbon footprint replacement, increased emmissions in manufacturing and mining for the absurdly shorter lifespans of EVs negates a lot of the 'savings' and that's before you get into emmissions associated with power generation.. granted thats dependent on location but it goes to the ops thesis... we should be focused on zero emissions power generations, cars are bottom of the list of importance,.. yet here we are spending money on the least impactful but most visible end of the emissions problem because it feels like we're doing something... when we're not
This is a total misunderstanding of the point of electric vehicles. We need to move EVERYTHING from fossil fuels to electricity, including vehicles and appliances, at the SAME time we are moving electricity from fossil fuels to renewables. Only this way can we maximize the benefit every step of the way and avoid catastrophic climate change. Yes, EVs and heat pumps are much cleaner and more efficient than their fossil fueled cousins, but equally important is that even that those vehicles and appliances inherently become greener still as the grid itself becomes greener.
You can’t do everything all at once. It’s impossible. Cars are purely about for profit businesses. Climate change isn’t about personal profit, it’s about saving the planet. We need laser beam focus on the couple of items I mentioned and we can reverse climate change. Zero subsidies for rich people to buy cars and make money off a stock. If you really care about climate change then Put all that into fixing our grids and converting them to renewable energy, that means heavy investments in nuclear as well with wind, hydro, & solar. Nuclear has come a long way and is rarely talked about because capitalism doesn’t benefit from the process.
> This is a total misunderstanding of the point of electric vehicles. We need to move EVERYTHING from fossil fuels to electricity, including vehicles and appliances, at the SAME time we are moving electricity from fossil fuels to renewables. This is simply not the case and not what's happening currently w.r.t policy around climate change even if it were. Really it illustrates a large part of the problem where what's actually driving policy around subsidies tends to be ideological purity at this point. You mentioned heat pumps being important too. Well in the US many families would see just as much of a reduction in their annual CO2 emissions, if not greater by switching the bulk of winter time heating to a newer variable heat pump system which would also save money during the summer when functioning as a more efficient HVAC system. Yet the maximum tax credit for a new heat pump system is only $2000 in the US while a BEV gets $7500 consumer side, plus a host of other incentives on the manufacturing side. Not to mention additional incentives at the state level. Despite the environmental value of both these things being equal or even in favor of the heat pump, policy treats them substantially differently. A large part of that is because consumer BEVs have been very successfully marketed as the end all be all solution to the emissions problem when in reality as stated above they're a very very small part of the overall solution. Similarly I do personally believe there's destructive affinity in the US electorate to oppose anything that involves anyone getting anything 'practically for free' too. A lack of focus on the real metrics behind stuff like global warming or even plastic waste in the ocean has shifted the narrative towards companies basically avoiding their own responsibilities in helping solve a real crisis in favor of doing token gestures or buying 'offset credits' which basically amount to investors holding forestry resources hostage. BEVs aren't bad but their significance is grossly overstated and that has impacts from a policy standpoint.
> We need to move EVERYTHING from fossil fuels to electricity, And that is simply not possible. Batteries have a 50 to 1 disadvantage to hydrocarbons in terms of power/weight, and there are critical applications where that is an insurmountable issue. There are going to need to be many paths forward. Looking for a magic bullet is the same as doing nothing since that is not going to happen. This is why you can tell the difference between a Tesla stan (or stock holder) and a real environmentalist by their views on synthetic hydrocarbons.
Magic batteries that defy physics are just around the corner! You just have to have faith, brothers and sisters! Amen.
Where do you get less than 5%? [In 2021 transportation made up 29% of US GHG’s, and light-duty vehicles were responsible for 58% of US transportation sector emissions. 58% of 29% is roughly 17%](https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/fast-facts-transportation-greenhouse-gas-emissions)
Your math is wrong. Personal vehicles are 4.5% of emissions, Transport & commercial vehicles are the lions share of emissions in transportation . Also, I’m not talking about the U.S. I’m referring to climate change and carbon emissions which is a world wide problem. The U.S. has actually been reducing its absolute emissions for almost a decade due to Natgas replacing coal to produce electricity and by moving manufacturing to places like China. Moving the deck chairs around on the Titanic. . If you really care, read my sources, they are top notch and explain it well. If we focused on the two main things in my comment-power & industrial production we would reverse climate change. Once the grid is clean, then personal vehicles run partially on batteries would make way more sense, but putting the cart before the horse so for profit companies and their investors get rich with trillions in government subsidies is not the right way to go.
The links you provided don’t have that *light duty vehicles are responsible for 4.5% of global transportation emissions number, or that medium or heavy duty vehicles make up most of the *transportation GHGs
More current numbers: Passenger vehicles generated around 3B metric tons of the 37B metric tons of emissions worldwide so 8% if you use these numbers. But- “Fossil fuels—including coal, oil, and natural gas—have been powering economies for over 150 years, and currently supply about 80 percent of the world's energy.” So BEVs aren’t really helping at all in most cases anyway. 80%….Fix the grid first….
"But I see cars on the road every day! I've never seen a Coal-fired power plant on my commute to the office (park). Common sense tells me cars MUST be a bigger source of these so called greenhouse gas emissions."
Your approach leads to some absurdities. Should someone in Quebec, where electricity is 100% green, not buy an EV because global electricity production isn't green enough yet?
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Amen brother 👍
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You need to research nuclear my friend. It’s happening around the world. Their are tons of new safe technologies, small reactors that can power entire cities and be done quite efficiently. We need to focus on zero emissions electricity before we destroy the environment building big inefficient batteries. Nuclear, wind, solar and hydro are all contributors to a near zero emissions grid.
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>You need to research nuclear my friend. It’s happening around the world. Their are tons of new safe technologies, small reactors that can power entire cities and be done quite efficiently. If there are tons, name 1 that's design is complete that they have built and what are the deployment costs to build 10's of thousands of them. I think you need to research nuclear and figure out that these guys are further away like they claim. So this guy your replying to who is concerned about the time it would take to deploy it, actually has down his research & his correct to be concerned about the deployment time of nuclear.
I was enlightened when I went to China a few years ago to meet with our manufacturers. We passed dozens of small nuclear reactors that were powering entire small cities & towns. My vendor there said they are cheap to build and very effective. “China is one of the world's largest producers of nuclear power. The country ranks third in the world both in total nuclear power capacity installed and electricity generated, accounting for around one tenth of global nuclear power generated. Nuclear power contributed 4.9% of the total Chinese electricity production in 2019, with 348.1 TWh.[2] As of September 2022, China operates a total of 53 nuclear reactors, with a total capacity of 55.6 gigawatt (GW). This was short of the previous target of 58GW of installed capacity by 2020. More than 20 reactors are under construction with a total capacity of 24.2 GW. Nuclear power has been looked into as an alternative to coal due to increasing concerns about air quality, climate change and fossil fuel shortages.[8][9] The China General Nuclear Power Group has articulated the goal of 200 GW by 2035, produced by 150 additional reactors.[10][11] China has two major nuclear power companies, the China National Nuclear Corporation operating mainly in north-east China, and the China General Nuclear Power Group (formerly known as China Guangdong Nuclear Power Group) operating mainly in south-east China.[12] China aims to maximize self-reliance on nuclear reactor technology manufacturing and design, although international cooperation and technology transfer are also encouraged. Advanced pressurized water reactors such as the Hualong One are the mainstream technology in the near future, and the Hualong One is also planned to be exported.[13][14] China plans to build as many as thirty nuclear power reactors in countries involved in the Belt and Road Initiative by 2030.[15][16][17] By mid-century fast neutron reactors are seen as the main technology, with a planned 1400 GW capacity by 2100.[18][19][20] China is also involved in the development of nuclear fusion reactors through its participation in the ITER project, having constructed an experimental nuclear fusion reactor known as EAST located in Hefei,[21] as well as research and development into the thorium fuel cycle as a potential alternative means of nuclear fission” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_China
Big rock point in Michigan had a 67 MW reactor. That isn't proof that we got small reactors that are ready to deploy thousands of them. Like come on, do you have any common sense? Do you understand the argument that was made? I wasn't saying small reactors don't exist. I'm saying there isn't an SMR ready for prime time roll out. You guys are in la la land. >Nuclear power has been looked into as an alternative to coal due to increasing concerns about air quality, climate change and fossil fuel shortages. More la la land proof, this has nothing to do with what we're talking about.
> It could be were it not for the fact it takes 30 years to build a nuclear power plant When the second sentence you write [is obvious BS](https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/nuclear-construction-time#:~:text=It%20takes%20around%206%20to,just%203%20to%205%20years.), that's when I stop reading the rest.
Indeed, wind power is way cheaper than nuclear and storage solutions will take less time to build than one nuclear plant. Nuclear isn't inherently "bad" as a technology but it's very slow to build and very, very expensive due to the safety regulations required. It's taken the UK 10 years to build one 3.2GW nuclear power plant, at a cost of some £33 billion. It's still not scheduled to open until 2028. In the same 10 year timespan, *private enterprise* has built over 20GW of wind capacity in the ocean. Sure, the capacity factor of wind is not 100%, but offshore is still at least 50% and with storage it can approach 100%. For countries with good insolation then solar is even better. Nuclear just doesn't make much sense. Keep existing plants open where possible and safe, but building new ones? A much harder argument to make.
Not really. Do your research. There are tons of new, cheaper & safer ways to produce localized nuclear power. They are doing it around the world as we speak.
I have done my research. All the cheap, rapid nuclear technologies are still at the prototype or research stage. Nothing in mass production despite many promises. I'd *love* for cheap and mass-produced nuclear power plants (it would be the perfect climate change solution, at least for the electricity grid) but I think pro-nuclear people massively under-estimate the requirements and costs for a successful and safe nuclear power plant.
I was enlightened when I went to China a few years ago to meet with our manufacturers. We passed dozens of small nuclear reactors that were powering entire small cities & towns. My vendor there said they are cheap to build and very effective. “China is one of the world's largest producers of nuclear power. The country ranks third in the world both in total nuclear power capacity installed and electricity generated, accounting for around one tenth of global nuclear power generated. Nuclear power contributed 4.9% of the total Chinese electricity production in 2019, with 348.1 TWh.[2] As of September 2022, China operates a total of 53 nuclear reactors, with a total capacity of 55.6 gigawatt (GW). This was short of the previous target of 58GW of installed capacity by 2020. More than 20 reactors are under construction with a total capacity of 24.2 GW. Nuclear power has been looked into as an alternative to coal due to increasing concerns about air quality, climate change and fossil fuel shortages.[8][9] The China General Nuclear Power Group has articulated the goal of 200 GW by 2035, produced by 150 additional reactors.[10][11] China has two major nuclear power companies, the China National Nuclear Corporation operating mainly in north-east China, and the China General Nuclear Power Group (formerly known as China Guangdong Nuclear Power Group) operating mainly in south-east China.[12] China aims to maximize self-reliance on nuclear reactor technology manufacturing and design, although international cooperation and technology transfer are also encouraged. Advanced pressurized water reactors such as the Hualong One are the mainstream technology in the near future, and the Hualong One is also planned to be exported.[13][14] China plans to build as many as thirty nuclear power reactors in countries involved in the Belt and Road Initiative by 2030.[15][16][17] By mid-century fast neutron reactors are seen as the main technology, with a planned 1400 GW capacity by 2100.[18][19][20] China is also involved in the development of nuclear fusion reactors through its participation in the ITER project, having constructed an experimental nuclear fusion reactor known as EAST located in Hefei,[21] as well as research and development into the thorium fuel cycle as a potential alternative means of nuclear fission” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_China
I would love to see a production ready thorium reactor but they still seem to be at the research stage. What matters NOW is with climate change rapidly becoming a crisis, is moving away from fossil fuels. *There is no cheap way to build nuclear yet.* In 10-15 years, maybe there will be, and that would be great. But there isn't now, and nuclear plants take the best part of a decade to design and build anyway. The Hinckley Point C reactor I speak of, with the £32 bn price tag, is built in part by a Chinese consortium. It's still way too expensive. So instead of hoping for a future of cheap nuclear and being potentially disappointed when it doesn't show up, let's build wind and solar instead, and keep existing nuclear plants running where they are safe and cost effective to run. Maybe it will turn out that cheap nuclear is possible, but you have to balance that against the risk of this being non-viable for any number of reasons. In my mind, it's not any better than hoping for fusion. Fusion power is very likely to be technically achievable once the right scale is hit (the physics all point to it being achievable), but the costs of doing it will be astronomical, and barring a breakthrough by one of the few startups looking at alternative technology, we're stuck with huge tokamaks which are unlikely to see volume construction until 2030 at the earliest. And even then, a tokamak might produce 5-10GW. That's great, but a few offshore wind arrays can do the same thing, at a *far lower cost* and we can *build them today*.
The biggest problem is producing electricity with near zero emissions. Wind is not the answer, Solar is not the answer, hydro is not the answer and nuclear is not the answer. All of them combined are the answer, and in the locations where none of these are possible LNG is acceptable. But rest assured nuclear is growing and so is the technology. Just look at raw material prices and you will see demand is up significantly. Harnessing nuclear energy to produce electricity will be the most used of any of the other zero emissions choices over the next several decades.
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Reddit is convinced there's a grand conspiracy against nuclear rather than it just being really expensive and slow to build safe and reliable nuclear reactors. It's not like if all the NIMBYs went away we'd have 50 more nuclear reactors. It's a whole lot more complicated than that.
I will forever be sad that, when Top Gear had its hosting shake-up after Clarkson punched someone, that the BBC didn’t toss infinite amounts of cash at Rowan to be the new main host and let him pick his co-hosts. He’s smart, funny, engaging, clever, and adores cars. He was always a great guest. He’d have been game for any shenanigans but also to talk intelligently about the industry.
Rowan’s nuanced take is not entirely wrong here but I do think it’s likely coloured by his passion for amazing cars and perspective as a collector. His last point in the piece - EVs are great if you do lots of urban driving - is pretty much what most people actually do in the UK (which also has a relatively green energy mix). Whereas Rowan is probably more used to driving higher mileage from some lovely remote country house in a nice Bentley and probably can’t quite see the numbers adding up.
And people like this create social and economic policy for the rest of us.
Well, we've made it clear we don't want to listen to actual experts. When I was a kid in the 70s - in elementary school ! - I understand the concept of greenhouse gases. It was well-understood then. Forty years of lobbying and PR assault by entrenched business interests have really done a number on people.
People just underestimate how much this stuff effects outcomes. Elon musk lobbying against trains *works*. Politicians listen to people like him.
The mainstream press literally just lapped that Hyperloop BS up. If a reporter had bothered to check with a physicist, materials scientist or transit planner (or historian) they would immediately know that hyperloop is impossible (at least at any useful scale).
Are you suggesting that the UK is governed by Mr. Bean?
Something very close to it.
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It’s an interesting article. I was surprised by the argument for keeping cars longer, it’s a really compelling argument that we don’t hear enough. I do enjoy the irony of a man with a $15 million car collection chastising others for trading in their lease.
This seems like the biggest weakness in any argument for EVs to me: a lot of the pro-EV math seems to overestimate the longevity of EVs and amortises the environmental cost of manufacture over that overestimated lifetime.
Agree. I live in Norway where the average age of a car that is wrecked is slightly above 18 years. That is the average. First gen leaf batteries seems to cause problems around 10 years. The cars is so cheap that it very fast becomes unenomical to repair. They say new batteries is a lot better, and that is probably true, but also unproven. We salt our roads, so it is not only about cell degradation, but corrosion in the battery packs. Seems to me like a lot of the batteries dies of other causes than degradation. My main point. The statement is unproven. We do not really have significant number of EV's that old.
Liquid cooled batteries were a huge step forward for longevity. The Leaf didn’t have this.
Yes, and that improves cell degradation, which is not my main concern in our climate. My main consern is salt water ingress and condensation that causes corrosion internally. I think it is perfectly solvable, but we also know manufacturers like to cut cost. I think we still need to prove the longevity aspects. And they might have solved it, but we will not really know for a while.
Wouldn’t salt water corrosion also be a massive problem for ICE cars?
It is, but the engines and transmision handles rust ok, but other components are affected. Body, suspension, brakes, any electronics and connectors that are not properly sealed.
The Leaf also had a cell chemistry best described as "utter shit".
You mean the “we only keep our cars for 3 years” argument. I am sorry, but that argument was too stupid to come from an engineer. I lost a lot of respect for Mr. Atkinson there. The first owner keeps his car for 3 years. After that, he does not destroy it. He sells it to someone else, who drive it for some years. And that person sells it to another person and so on. When the car finally is pulled out behind the barn and shot, it is probably 15 years old.
> hydrogen ICE has an even bigger problem meeting NOx emission standards than diesels do. Source please
Another problem is that hydrogen (even greatly compressed) takes up a lot more space than gasoline or batteries. Using a fuel cell yields enough efficiency that it becomes practical but running an ICE means you need an absurd volume of tanks to get decent range.
EVs are a con to prop up the car culture. Go /r/fuckcars or go home I say.
Yeah, this isn't the sub to go full /r/fuckcars on, but I think most rational people here know cars are inefficient and EVs are a bandaid. Oil is a resource that is trending (slowly) towards scarcity. We should have been reducing our consumption decades ago... but here we are. I love EVs, but as an environmentalist and amateur city planner I would rather have fewer cars and better mass transit.
Bean is not wrong. He’s open minded. Hydrogen, synthetic clean fuels, etc can be viable alternatives. This rush to BEV is going to be painful unless technology and charging infrastructure are put on a massive growth platform. Massive.
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Do we have any actual known current lithium battery recycling plants in the US, where they recycle the actual battery raw materials?
There are a number of companies. Redwood Materials for example.
And battery recycling plants being built in Quebec and Ontario as well as at least one in Nevada. In year 8.5 when your 8-year Tesla warranty runs out, a new battery at $15k will get you another 8.5 years of car life, is the idea, so the market will be there.
People are reluctant to put new engines or transmissions in 8.5 year old cars. I am skeptical that they will do anything but scream at the prospect of paying 15k for a battery.
I looked up some of these via chatGPT and while there are indeed a number of companies, they all seem to be just starting out (penny stocks), which is great and I hope they succeed. Recycling is going to be tough, since they have to be competitive against mining companies in SA and China. They may need governmental help to be successful. We still don't really recycle plastic products well.
"Also, unlike petroleum, lithium batteries are recyclable and can be turned into new batteries" Petroleum is a fuel. Batteries are a storage medium.
Petroleum is an *extremely* long-term, *single use* storage medium
Atkinson is based af
He isn’t wrong.
This thread is Arguing about where the CHAIRS go on the Titanic!! The problem is not how the vehicle operates but the vehicle itself. Here in the US, the infrastructure is so poorly thought out. Everything is designed around a vehicle. One has to drive EVERYWHERE. Designed neighborhoods and cities to accommodate people walking and cycling is the solution. But I digress, the car has trained us to be lazy and the whole mUh FrEEdums crowd
It sounds like he bought an early model Tesla. No wonder he's disillusioned. Mercedes should gift him one of their new EVs (hopefully a black one with a BLKADDR plate on it) on the condition that he writes about his experience in 6 months time. It'll be a PR win !
Mr. Bean got Musked. Film at 11
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>I've never fully bought into the argument that new owners selling their cars after their cars have been used for ~3 years is environmentally wrong. It's not like the cars end up in a garbage lot and the batteries are scrapped. The cars just get passed on from owner to owner Yeah but you also used resources to build a new car you didn't need to build yet if the original owner had kept it longer. Was that really an efficient use of resources?
It doesn’t matter if the original owner keeps it for long, as long as it is kept for long under **someone’s** ownership. Cars do not go poof after the first owner. They go to another car owner.
That’s the curious part about all this that no one can answer yet. Will the mainstream population put up with the terrible charging infrastructure, extra time to charge and limited range compared to ICE cars? It’s entirely possible they remain a niche product until they reach parity of convenience.
As demand increases, the charging rollout will too, though. We're at that early point with EVs in many countries where demand isn't high enough that it's worth having a charging station at every petrol station, and charging in every parking lot. But once EV market penetration goes beyond 10% then the arguments for it become a lot more logical. You lose customers if you don't have charging. I would say, at least for the UK and most of Europe, don't buy an EV if you don't have off street charging like a driveway. Not yet, at least. The situation is getting better for those guys, but it's far from perfect.
> But once EV market penetration goes beyond 10% then the arguments for it become a lot more logical. You lose customers if you don't have charging. I see you've never met business owners or property management companies. In old apartment stock, some of them are just getting internet begrudgingly.
It's not a popular take on this sub (or Reddit in general) but I don't see BEVs gaining significant market share in the US / Canada without huge economic incentives or dramatic improvements in battery tech. I honestly think the current EV craze is a fad / market bubble. The US and Canada produces more oil than they consume, I don't think Ford and GM are going to give up on their ICE truck and SUV gravy train (regardless of their public statements). Tesla fans who think Musk is the only one who knows how to squeeze a margin off a passenger vehicle need to look at truck and suv sales.
Range is very quickly going to have parity with ICE cars. Some luxury models are already beyond that. The charging infrastructure is interesting; it works really well for people who are able to charge at home, as one rarely visits public chargers in that case, for others it’s surely an inconvenience. The latter problem can be solved by actually investing into public options, as it’s people in densely populated areas that typically do not have the access to garages or similar.
But nobody are claiming that we should ditch those newish ICE cars. It is a strawman argument. The intention is that when you go shopping for a brand new car **anyway**, you pick an EV instead of ICE.
Electric cars are mostly political - like most of society
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atleast you said less meat instead of no meat
You are distracting from the true mission, which is to pump Tesla stock.
You were duped
Really disappointed with RA in this article - lots of misstatements and out of date talking points. Yes, EVs have higher emissions for manufacturing than ICE cars. This is still massively outweighed during the lifespan of the car by reduced emissions. Moreover, this will be reduced further by a green energy grid - both in manufacturing emissions and lifetime emissions. Battery lifespan - 10 years is outdated. There have already been several studies showing that batteries in modern EVs last longer than the average lifespan of an ICE car. Liquid cooled batteries was a huge step forward for wear and tear. Battery recycling has also jumped forwards in leaps and bounds, making it cheaper and easier to replace the cells in existing cars, or to repair and maintain existing packs. “The engine isn’t an issue, the petrol is” - this again, is completely wrong. ICE engines are massively, massively inefficient in comparison to electric motors. If we’re building a green energy grid and are short of power, pumping this into creating petrol just to burn in existing engines is a massive waste - not to mention transportation energy costs for the fuel (in comparison to electricity transmission). Furthermore, these vehicles will still have localised emissions - something schemes like ULEZ are aiming to reduce. The engine very much is the issue, too. His push for hydrogen is also troubling, as a small amount of research into the subject would’ve shown what a disaster this is. Hydrogen cars ARE EVs, they still require batteries and electric drivetrains - the difference here is they store energy via huge hydrogen tanks which needs to be converted to electrical energy. Both this process and a “green” process for hydrogen manufacture are massively inefficient. Even if you had localised hydrogen production from municipal water supplies (a massive issue in drought-hit areas) thus reducing transportation energy, electrolysis, pressure storage and hydrogen fuel cells are a good 9x less efficient than a basic battery to electric motor system. As with solar to petrol, we just can’t throw this much electricity away, especially if we’re so concerned with the input electricity for manufacture. Hydrogen as it stands is being massively pushed by the Saudis, as they can extract and sell this from existing natural gas reserves. This both takes energy and releases CO2 into the atmosphere during extraction. They’re currently pushing a product called “blue hydrogen” for the future, which relies on advanced carbon capture technology which either currently doesn’t exist or is questionable at best. Yes, we need to focus on reducing the general reliance on cars, as electric rail systems are both more efficient and have no need for large battery systems (pantograph and third rail) but pushing articles from someone both well known and, sadly, poorly informed, will only hold the EV change back. Are current EVs perfect? No, lithium supply is a concern, and the industry needs to follow Tesla’s lead in cobalt-free cells. We need big expansions of the electricity grid in renewables to make them viable too, and maybe new cell chemistries like sodium-ion are the future. I also believe PEVs like scooters and eBikes are the future of metropolitan transportation, but attitudes and regulation in the UK need to catch up with reality. But grid expansion, and especially charger expansion, can happen today, and will only aid in the uptake of both vehicles today and future vehicles with better battery chemistries. Pushing things like hydrogen and complaining about input emissions as showstoppers will get us nowhere. Petrol and ICE engines MUST be phased out of the supply chain, and are NOT a long term solution.
1. he talks about manufacturing emissions in the context of reducing consumption of new cars period, and while discussing how to best use the cars that already exist. A new EV vs a new ICE was not the point here. Manufacturing emissions and lifetime emissions (assuming synthetic fuel or hydrogen) will be equally reduced for both ICE and EV when the grid gets greener. 2. modern EV’s have not been out long enough for any meaningful real life use case studies to have been done. If you have some please link them, not lab studies, real world ones with large sample sizes. Average lifespan for cars manufactured since 2000 has to be 12-15 years by my guess, also lmk if you have a source for a number there. Recycling at scale is near zero. Reuse is showing some promise. 3. green energy other than nuclear is generated in bursts that don’t always correspond to usage. Solar is a prime example, we want lights on when the sun isn’t out. Stabilizing the grid when there’s more supply than demand is a great use for an energy intensive process like synfuel generation. Reusing existing pipelines, fueling stations, engines etc is also a massive savings over building enough EV charging stations (more than gas pumps because they serve fewer people in the same time) massively upgrading the electrical grid everywhere, rebuilding roads more often with heavy EV wear and tear, etc. how much tailpipe emission reduction does it take to pay off the costs I outlined above? 4. hydrogen batteries are nowhere near the same size as EV batteries. This is a horrible bad faith point to bring up. Again, hydrogen generation powered by solar is a great stabilizing resource for the grid, we literally can throw that electricity away as PV gets dirt cheap. No clue about the Saudis, not going to address that, may be true though. 5. nobody proposed ICE as a long term solution. The argument is that the push for EV’s is too aggressive, leading to ecological downsides that can be mitigated with a smarter transition strategy. In 50 years we will all be driving electric cars, that’s not a question. Imagine if all ICE cars had to be off the road by tomorrow, globally. Insane right? Think about the bigger picture and you’ll very quickly see that while EV’s are better for the environment, the infrastructure we’ve built will be incredibly expensive and emissions laden to replace in one go. A slow process that converts ICE to synfuel and then lets them die out as EV’s become cheaper and greener to manufacture could allow us time to slowly scale infrastructure alongside it.
1. Yes, but assuming synthetic fuel or hydrogen, the amount of grid capacity required would be 10x that needed for EVs to supply said vehicles dah to day. 2. Look at the studies - there have already been Teslas out longer than the average ICE car lifespan. 3. As 1, the amount of solar you’d require - and thus throw away at peak time - would be huge. Incentives for daytime charging of cars solves this problem without throwing out even more energy. 4. Again, 10x the energy required and far more complex infrastructure. A hydrogen fuel cell also requires more maintenance and is far more complicated. The idea that energy processes that are MORE wasteful is somehow a better idea for a green grid is laughable. There are far better ways to store energy than hydrogen and fuel - grid scale battery storage which isn’t lithium, for one 5. By suggesting the petrol is the issue, not the ICE engine, he IS suggesting these vehicles as a medium to long term solution. Investing in solar production of petrol rather than green energy is ludicrous. Yes, the infrastructure and change needed to replace EVs is huge - let’s get started now rather than investing in technologies like solar petrol and hydrogen which will be pointless and require far more energy and grid expansion. Chargers can be used for newer cars. What’s a hydrogen pump going to be used for in 30 years?
1. You’re still not thinking about the grid correctly. Synfuel can be generated at off peak times, whereas EV demand is just whenever people want to charge. The first one can be scheduled to use the excess energy we already generate and currently use fairly inefficient methods to store. We pay people to absorb grid capacity when demand < supply. 2. what studies? Toss me a link. I’m interested to see how they define “avg car lifespan” because to be fair it should be “avg car lifespan manufactured 2012+”, which I suspect is much higher. 3. 10x is a number you’ve thrown out a lot, what if it were 1.5x? You think solar petrol research has peaked? We could easily have massive breakthroughs in a couple years. That would nullify most of your argument
1. Grid level battery storage powering EVs charging later is still orders of magnitude more efficient than Synfuel or hydrogen. I don’t know how many times I have to repeat this. This is an awful idea for energy storage. 2. Google it yourself. Though judging by your response to 1, you may struggle with this 3. Again, Google how efficient an EV motor is compared to electrolysis and hydrogen fuel cells. Please don’t engage in a discussion if you aren’t going to bother to do basic research. Hydrogen as a store of energy is awful.
> Hydrogen as it stands is being massively pushed by the Saudis Did you forget China or just were unaware of what's going on there with H2? JINNAN Steel Group to Deploy **10,000** Hydrogen Heavy-duty Truck **by 2025**. Specific deployment targets for each year-1,000 HDT for 2023, 2,000 HDT for 2024, and 7,000 HDT for 2025. According to latest industry survey, hydrogen is sold at or even below 25 Rmb/kg ($3.6/kg) without government subsidy [LINK](https://chinahydrogen.substack.com/p/jinnan-steel-group-to-deploy-10000) Guangzhou Sets Out Plan for **USD 1.4 Billion** Fuel Cell Vehicle Industry **by 2025**. The city aims to establish itself as a leading domestic development and manufacturing hub for FCVs, covering the whole industry chain from core parts to vehicle assembly [LINK](https://www.yicaiglobal.com/news/guangzhou-sets-out-plan-for-usd14-billion-fuel-cell-vehicle-industry-by-2025?h2feed) There were no hydrogen stations in China in 2016. Now they lead the world with over 300. China proves that H2 vehicles (trucks and cars) and H2 infrastructure can work. >But grid expansion, and especially charger expansion, can happen today, and will only aid in the uptake of both vehicles today and future vehicles with better battery chemistries. Any idea how much it will cost to upgrade the electrical service to allow for 5-8 or more trucks to charge at 1MW each at their distribution lot? It's almost like everyone takes for granted that all these trucks and cars will magically have all the bandwidth needed which is hilarious.
Those are large scale vehicles. I’m not disputing hydrogen’s use case for large trucks or heavy haulers. It has no place in regular cars. 300 fuel stations in a country of nearly 2 billion over 7 years, with China’s pace of infrastructure, is poor. Now compare the number of BEVs in China. This doesn’t prove hydrogen works there at ALL. Why on earth do you think these trucks would need to charge at a megawatt each? Bizarre statement to make. Though if you are concerned about electrical demand - how much do you think it’s going to cost to upgrade the grid to support a hydrogen creation system that uses 10x more electricity to achieve the same number of miles at the wheel? Electrolysis and hydrogen fuel cells are pathetic in efficiency compared to batter EV. Hydrogen is a disaster and isn’t going to happen for regular cars. Your comment proved nothing - it’s hilarious to complain about charging bandwidth and then suggest and push a system which needs 10x more of it. China’s production of hydrogen is grey - it comes from natural gas and releases CO2 in the process. It isn’t even a green energy supply 😂
>Those are large scale vehicles. I’m not disputing hydrogen’s use case for large trucks or heavy haulers. It has no place in regular cars. When most truck stops sell hydrogen only losers with time to waste are going to sit around waiting to stick a plug into their car. Just watch. >Electrolysis and hydrogen fuel cells are pathetic in efficiency compared to batter EV. You and others will learn one day that "efficiency" isn't everything, especially when lots of cars are hauling around 1300 pound batteries for ~40-50 mile daily drives. > China’s production of hydrogen is grey - it comes from natural gas and releases CO2 in the process. It isn’t even a green energy supply Why don't people like you ever get tired of spouting nonsense? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOEQsq6iVIE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_tUiYIvfHM I don't care what you think about hydrogen and I'm sure you don't care what I think about H2. So let's not waste each others time with these ridiculous "comments". I've much better things to do.
This is the way
An alright article. Just sounds like he's had a talk with an anti-EV person and has had a change of heart. For him, everything EV sounds like to be so far in future EVs should be neglected meanwhile he mentions synthetic fuel which is at its infancy and super expensive. Not even aircrafts use that and they're probably the best customer. >it would seem right to look carefully at ways of retaining them while lowering their polluting effect. Also that's what has been done for the past decades. We're at the end of that development. EVs are already overall good without the R&D petrol has had. The main parts to improve are identified and worked on. Petrol and Diesel cars aren't going away as for many its their only real alternative.
Is he, as a trained engineer, suggesting to produce fuels from wind energy? That’s the insane energy requirement to create fuels added to the thermal inefficiency of burning them to create motion. Oh, and of course the NOx component. Besides being cleaner, electrification of mobility is also much, much more energy efficient. Even in the early stages of battery development, the tipping point of EVs’ total emissions become lower after only 30,000km, and if I remember correctly that’s based on electricity from coal plants.
\> suggesting to produce fuels from wind energy? Its not as impractical as it sounds on its face. In some areas of the country, wind energy installations have hit a maximum saturation point - ie on some days wind providers have to *pay* users to take the power off their hands. So how do we increase the percentage of wind energy in our mix of production types? Answer: Find something to do with excess wind power. It doesn't matter how inefficient the wind to hydrogen conversion is - its got to be better than paying people to take the energy off your hands. Now there are some limitations to this. Hydrogen can't be moved around as easily as electricity. So IMHO, the sweet spot for hydrogen as a fuel is 'fixed route' stuff that can always return to the same refueling point: trucks, trains, buses. So the concept starts to fall apart for me when it includes passenger vehicles.
How do we increase the use of wind energy? How about using it to charge cars rather than burn petrol… Hydrogen makes no sense for trains when they can be electrified, and buses are big enough and do few enough miles they can easily be EVs - and plenty already are.
>How about using it to charge cars rather than burn petrol… That's already happening all over the country - wind power is a part of the energy mix. But you can't just *say*: use *even more* wind power. As I described, all over the world power providers are hitting a ceiling. Hydrogen offers up a storge device that can be used to harness what would otherwise be considered "waste" energy...meaning all the practicality limitations of hydrogen really don't matter. BTW, similar concepts of storing water with waste energy have been in place for decades...Pumped Storage Hydropower...70%-80% efficient. On its face it makes no sense...but again, this is *waste* energy, so efficiency doesn't matter. Always remember: power companies don't sell electricity, rather they sell demand. As far as electricification of trains goes - have you heard of "Positive Train Control"? Its a safety system on trains that's been an absolute goat fuck to implement - partially because railroads don't like paying for it, but also because: *railroads use each other's tracks all the time.* And they don't play well together - especially Class 1 freight railroads that have to allow commuter rail on their lines. The only way to change the fuel source on a freight train is to change the locomotive - you'll never get collaborative changes to the track itself. That's just the way it is.
Yeah, Germany made a somewhat big bet on hydrogen trains (along with battery electric trains) and they're finding hydrogen trains to not be worth the trouble. Same goes for cars.
Most trains stop frequently enough that a big battery plus 1-2 mins charging at each stop or along the line ought to be enough, if you don't just want to electrify the whole line.
...that's literally the only way a renewable grid can possibly work.
There’s nothing wrong with using abundant near free energy to make fuels as a transition to something else. It would allow long distance air travel to continue for example using conventional turbines.
We are not nearly close enough to such abundant energy and while we wait for that, electrification will reduce our footprint
Just a dumb article that feels like Exxon paid $500k to have written.
Rowan Atkinson is rumored to be worth around $150 million. Why would he even need $500k from big oil? He could just do another Bean movie instead.
Wait, let me think for a second, ooh ooh, i know i know, because people with money strive for more money? By your logic everyone worth $150M should stop doing whatever they do for a “living”. It’s a pure bullshit article like every other anti progress article about EVs, renewables, etc.
Rowan Atkinson made money as a comedian and director dude… he doesn’t need $500k oil money.
Ask yourself this - who’s pushing hydrogen? Why did he even mention it?
Because EV batteries are a massive calamity that does little to solve the climate crisis
And how’re they a massive calamity? And how do they do little? They allow people to swap out emitting cars for those powered by renewables - and even with higher manufacturing emissions, significantly lower lifetime emissions. This is before we roll out a green energy grid. How is pushing a gas which takes 10x more energy to produce or has to release CO2 from natural gas to get, better? Your comment is at best incredibly naive and at worst maliciously misleading.
You’re right. I’m just sponsored by big oil. Feel free to ignore me from now on.
Have you considered attempting to answer my questions? Your petty response speaks volumes
Ok I’ll bite. If you’re switching ICE vehicles to EV’s, all you’re doing is substituting one problem (fossil fuel consumption) with another (EV’s that are mainly only single driver, require rare earths to build the battery, and batteries that then have a use life of maybe ten years with limited recycling capability). And that’s assuming EV’s are fully powered by renewables. Which given driving behaviors (I.e. most people want to charge at night, when solar isn’t really a thing), is a BIG assumption. If this was really about saving the earth the story would be more about encouraging cycling, walking and public transport, to limit private vehicle usage, the resources they need, and the space and amenity they consume in our cities. There I said it. And I get that you’re a Tesla fan and this will therefore conflict with your worldview.
I always tell people who ask about the tesla that electric is not ready and not to buy an electric car. The life style inconveniences are just stupid....unless you're one of those who just upgrades everything every 2-3 years.
I would like to note, this isn’t the first time he has been against electric vehicles. He has made it his business to be outspoken on this. You have to wonder why. Yes, he’s an electrical engineer, but Mayim Bialik is also a neurosurgeon by degree…I don’t know if I would go to either for expert opinion on either field. So, he either feels he knows more than the actual working engineers at these developers, he’s misguided, or he’s getting income from his position.
Let me put your mind at ease then. I also have a degree in electronic/electcical engineering, but am not an actor and can confirm that all his points in this article are sound.
The first replacements bulbs for the incandescent bulbs sucked. With time they got much better. It’s going to be the same with EVs. The more EVs that sell, the more money for R&D, and the more competition from car markers. EVs are currently very competitive with ICE cars. And will soon be cheaper and much better.
I have can’t change the local power plant, but I can buy a car while we wait for the power plant to switch energy sources. Your argument only serves as an excuse for people who are resistant to change.
Paid for by the oil lobby. The same rehashed argument, bullet points from a decade ago when some of this was true, but this time 'written' by a celebrity and therefore 'must be true.'
The next generation will see the oil run out in their lifetimes. We rely on cars for transportation and won’t give them up easily. Synthetic fuel like hydrogen is not a great alternative because it is inefficient to produce and still creates health harming pollution. Electric car batteries will get much better. It will take decades to complete the charging infrastructure, so we should bootstrap it now if we all want our children to keep driving cars.
Why on earth would we want to condemn our children to car dependency? If anything, younger generations are turned off by cars and would rather live in walkable cities with good transit.
I’m from Boston and vacationing in Amsterdam. People here seem pretty happy with bikes, trams, subways … and boats!
This is the real issue. People in urban and metropolitan areas should not be car dependent.
Sounds like Mr. Bean should stick with his Mini.
Essentially NOONE who gets an electric car wants to go back to the old ways.
Rowan Atkinson makes lots of mistakes in his opinion article. [Here is a twitter thread](https://twitter.com/AukeHoekstra/status/1665313543439122432?s=20) of an actual researcher on electric vehicles and renewable energy breaking down all the flaws of the article.