As Elk said the pollution is just moved to a different part of the globe. It did not magically disappear as some seem to think. Even with water, solar, or wind you need to build turbines, generators, infrastructure, and batteries. None of which come without huge amounts of pollution both primary (construction) and secondary (end of usable life).
Electric / Lithium batteries isnât the final answer and the chemistry already says why. The best we can get is described in the periodic table of the elements. It isnât science fiction. We can get closer to the optimum voltaic cell properties of a chosen elemental battery, about where we are now with lithium batteries, but the best case chemical properties are set by nature. Weâve done well with the tech but it isnât near what is being sold to the unfortunately, naive public. Thatâs the part that REALLY gets to me, how the tech is totally misrepresented through clouds of subsidies to hide the inefficiencyâŚor why do subsidies exist?
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Charging at âoff hoursâ will be reversed if everyone had electric. Common sense as EVERYONE will be doing it! The low rate of electric generation idea goes away immediately with theoretical fuller niche adoption.
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We need to shore-up the power grid to handle the demands of a MASSIVE amount of energy, no it isnât magically moved around, as this demand builds and it wonât be easy or cheap. We have brown outs with a few AC units on in the summer now and right where electric car range (250 miles on average) and demand will increase!
-Again, no real truth telling with expansion of electric. 3% usage penetration? Fine. 50% is major, major problems with thousands of wind turbines chopping up every bird trying to migrate. They have to negotiate MILES of wind turbines and are already killed by the tens of thousands now. Worse, the blades on the wind turbines are failing at accelerated rates and no solution is available at a profitable cost, the business models are all wrong. Oh hell, we have to not lose money doing this! Off shore energy wave machines and wind turbines damaging the very small percentage of the ocean that supports life, and covering every inch of so called âwaste landsâ with solar panels with terrible service life isnât going to provide the âfreeâ electric we think it is. All the ignored subsystems count in the math.
-Remember, the Ocean IS OUR LIFE and when it goes we go. NOTHING can exist without the the health ocean. Please go back to biology class.
- Lithium batteries are a big problem at low temperatures or high temperatures above 20C. They need to be parasitically heated or cooled to 20C in order to deliver the proper current on demand or charged âfastâ.
-Lithium battery RANGE is cut 40% from 20C at 10C, a common temp in the winter across much of the world. Most carâs donât have sufficient range to cover 150 miles safely at those common winter temps. The chemistry is the reality, Lithium wonât deliver a current too cold, and it charges VERY slowly cold as well so those so called fast charges arenât fast in the winter unless ENERGY is expended to keep the battery at 20C. The very stuff we want to save we waste to get going again. No mention of this to the public.
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Fast charging damages the Lithium metal and quickly decreases the batteries life. It is already very short in real terms at just eight years. What will the used market for a model 3 be with a $17,500 dollar battery bill due on the product? All that CO2 used to make the car and battery goes into a landfill as the residual of the car is less than the battery replacement costs. I sense no takes on that âoldâ (not really) car. The recycle of the lithium battery is also VERY energy intensive. Howâs that saving the air again?
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Current Lithium carâs, when ignoring their short service interval do have about a 30% lower CO2 footprint. But when the full use cycle arrives and thousands and thousands of cars at the end of their battery life are input into the equations we erase most of that CO2 gain. Not all of it. Paradise isnât here yet.
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Sure, we can force more subsidies onto a failed economic model, the feds do it all the time. Electric has to be and stay supported on itâs own with no fake prices, and fill a niche that allows that to happen or it is not an advantage going forward. The market has to pick the winners. Picking wibbers wonât change the periodic table of the elements for electric. Letting the MARKET do it will maximize efficiency and in-use patterns such that it meets proper demands.
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Subsidies that redistribute the wealth, what it actually is, isnât going to work long term. At some point the PRICE and COST of the carâs and all the associated infrastructure has to be paid for by the user, not by everyone not using that said infrastructure and products. Socialism fails once all the money is stolen from those that have it and this will be no different. Eventually we ALL will pay the FULL price one way or another.
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Iâm all for narrow case use of electric, but the union of the set on actual cost, ranger and efficiency are still too narrow for most real world use. We have a short time where people can get more than they pay for and brag about it. That wonât last and canât.
Lithium electric, unfortunately, is a governmentally forced tech on an unsuspecting public that wonât end where it is supposed to. We will have local use efficiencies, true, and about where we see it now. Narrow scope serviceability is OK but ONLY because it is SUBSIDIZED massively. When you REALLY have to pay the true rates then what?
I see hydrogen and solid cell tech as promising to expand the use set of variables but suffer the same poor environmental demands to service the tech with the expanded grid for electricity. Hydrogen still uses electricity in itâs production even if it is electric free in itâs end use as direct IC fuel or electric generator systems.
No, electric isnât any where near the future at this point. It is sad that the government wonât level with the public on the capability and to allow the free market system to work it out until it is really sustainable, THAT is the needed future we donât have today. The data is out there, but few will read to even the end of this short message to find and understand it.
I HATE dishonest technology and that describes the current lithium electric car. The current lithium electric cradle to grave untruths hurt us all and worse, it hurts the current lithium technology and will sour the in use efficiency it can properly fulfill.
3 Likes
I couldnât agree more!
I am not anti-EV at all⌠the tech is simpler, has nearly instant-torque, and there are packaging benefits. No question itâs the future.
But to deceive and misrepresent the facts, and to call it âsustainableâ and âgreenâ, is an incredible injustice to the public.
The UK experience is that the energy sector is by far the easiest sector to reduce emissions, which has mostly been achieved by an 80% reduction in coal. A lot has been replaced by green energy. Lower consumption also helps a lot. Electricity is not subsidised, but home insulation is. The chart below is a few years old and emissions from energy supply have been reduced further.
Data shows that in the UK the average Co2 output from cars has actually increased slightly in recent years, as people move from the typical small cars to SUVs. Any gains from better engines are marginal. This chart makes clear that further significant reductions must come from transport (petrol to electric) and residential (gas heating to electric).
The irony of listening to Americans complain about solutions is that the USA is by far the largest problem, per-capita producing more than three times the CO2 emissions as the UK and more than twice the EU. I quote:
âThe UKâs per-capita CO2 emissions in 2019, at 5.3tCO2, are above the global average (4.8 in 2018) and India (2.0), but below the EU average (7.0) and the figure for China (7.2) or the US (16.6).â
This is old news and incorrect. It ignores the cradle to grave cycle for lithium electric and acts like the car just âexistsâ as is forever. You canât do that.
When the short battery life cycle and cost to make and reclaim the car and battery are absorbed, the CO2 emissions is reduced 30% in best case models. THAT is the truth as the ENTIRE cycle has to be realized as the earth ignores nothing. 30% CO2 reduction isnât bad so why the obfuscation of the truth?
The full truth is that that 30% reduction is ONLY available at 20C. Above and below that we lose that margin as the chemical reaction speed drops off and needs to be parasitically heated or cooled to get proper performance and that wastes what we need to move foreward.
The 70% electric reduction isnât true, either, long term. It uses a temporary model that reclaims current emissions that are volatile (methane, natural gas and such) that isnât sustainable. The efficiencies will fall off as those fossil sources are removed from the available low cost sources and we go back to far higher cost, and environmentally damaging, solar and wind. Limited geothermal and hydro are rare and we all groan with neclear.
In God we trust all else bring the data. Nothing is more telling than where we are right now. Put up or shut-up was the saying as a kid. It rings true today.
We are agenda driven animals to the point we will lie to ourselves about something as important as this such that we miss the target in poorly represented science. This has to stop.
One model 3 battery uses as much energy as an 35 MPG IC engine running eight years. So no, batteries arenât CO2 free but ALL the data needs to be correlated to in-use patterns to see the facts on CO2 emissions (we need to use CO2 to cast metal IC engine blocks and all that too!).
The feds canât even get COVID right;
- A vaccine makes you more able to SUPRESS, not eliminate, infection severity such that you are more than likely asymtomatic.
- If we ALL had a vaccine day one, COVID can still move through the ENTIRE populationâŚbut we wonât see it spread as fast with asymptomatic carriers (less viral load) and thus far fewer same time hospitalization cases.
- The number severely effected is reduced with the vaccine but never eliminbated. You can still die from COVID to a percentage of cases.
- A vaccine does not mean you are COVID âproofâ at all and never ever did. You have no impermeable bubble surrounding you.
- There will be negative vaccine reactions but weigh that against the positive ones and the risk is small but yes, people will be impacted to a real percentage if even small. Same as those that die in car crashes. The risk is small relative to the advantage.
Best,
Galen
1 Like
That is simply not true. The largest battery plant is Teslaâs in the USA (Nevada?) and will probably be the most efficient. The batteries are made at a vastly lower emissions cost compared to Chinese coal-powered production. It really is the key to its business because the cars themselves are otherwise very poorly made.
Steven, read the World Economic forum article above.
The battery production dumps about 7X more CO2 into the air in a given year than a diesel car produces. Because you need to drive about 7 years or reach the 125,000 km break-even mileage. And by that point, you have likely replaced the battery (have you kept an iPhone battery for 7 years?), and that starts the CO2 emissions cycle again.
It is true. Stop hiding behind the claims and look at the data including mining, manufacturing, and recycling costs.
Yes, but better production is not why air quality in your city has improved dramatically. It has improved because fossil fuel consumption has been moved out of your city to other regions of your country.
I am not against electric vehicles. I do not however see them as magical. They did not make the pollution disappear; they just used sleight-of-hand to hide it from you and your fellow denizens.
We however need to collectively continue to work on alternate energy sources, as well make the burning of fossil fuel much more efficient and carbon controlled.
I stopped buying iPhones because the battery died after 2 years. Our Nissan LEAF battery remains as good as new, the vehicle was registered in January 2019. The pollution making it was not exported as it was made in the UK.
The German data you refer to from the WEF report is misleading as, besides being 4 years old, states that it is based on German energy production which at the time was 40% coal, the most polluting fuel, whereas in the UK we burn almost no coal at all.
I quote: " For example, in Germany - where about 40% of the energy mix is produced by coal and 30% by renewables - a mid-sized electric car must be driven for [125,000 km] on average, to break even with a diesel car, and 60,000 km compared to a petrol car. It takes nine years for an electric car ⌠The case is similar in the US but less pronounced in nuclear-powered France."
The Industrial Revolution started in the UK and the industrial heartland was known as the Black Country, because of the open face mines and everything was covered in a layer of coal dust. Coal mining was the UKâs largest industry. We now burn so little coal that we actually have to import it - from the USA.
Green technology has a long way to go, but it is the technology of the future. Itâs not even an issue in most places. The USA seemed to ignore it for a long time and then went backwards under Trump. The irony is that although Trump championed coal, from 2016 to 2020 energy from coal fell by almost 40%, I suspect more because it is expensive rather than because of its high emissions.
Correct and thus batteries need to extend service life and in use temperature performance to extend the range across a wider temperature gradient to hang onto the 20C ideal âgainsâ in CO2 efficiency. Solid state batteries may do it and are a step in the right directionâŚ,.but they arenât cheap. Few want to pay the true cost of saving the planet. Hydrogen can MASSIVELY extend the service life of cars by removing batteries (not so much hydrogen generators and electric motors) with modified IC engines (think trucks). But it too is expensive. Managing hydrogen embrittlement is costly to do as a new infrastructure needs to be in place past a 15% or so mix of hydrogen with other fuels in existing pipes. Old pipes canât take hydrogen in large amounts or they break.
The big issue is that a best case 20C is used over and over and is not a realistic amortized efficiency over a year of use in say, Ohio! Yep, it isnât 20C here very often toto.
It is also easy to claim CO2 reductions with coal removal. Much, much harder after that. Methane and the like is not sustainable from garbage as it decomposes ONCE and the big pile we have of garbage today won;t stay BIG forever as we use that up. Please do, but it is a sliding scale that needs to be replaced with something else down the road. We start out great and slowly slide from there.
We also ignore the impact on CO2 reduction to the environment, but is. We can reach zero CO2 and still destroy the planet another way. Weâve lost the trees and ocean ecosystems through the reduction CO2.
In a free market, several technologies can compete and even coexist based on use. The feds in the states are breaking this model. One that America âwasâ famous for. It exists in other areas in the USA but not transportation. Follow the money as they say. With the feds behind a broken lithium model, and the science already shows itâs asymptotic performance increases are small, it slows innovation elsewhere. Iâm glad lithium tech is now at least partially useful in places for sure, but it is NOT anywhere near a replacement for what we had or even a stopping point to that end. We act like it is a finished product up high in the government but it canât be as good as it gets. Germany, Japan and others are more open to alternative tech than the USA right now.
For the feds and the industry to say grandma needs to go zero to sixty in 3 seconds with instant torque is missing the point. No one uses that and it is relative to what everyone else is doing. You are no faster tha anyone else thus no advantage. So once zero to sixty is passed what do you bring to the table?
PS, the most productive nation, the USA, reduced CO2 six million metric tones from the peak referenced to 2020. See chart.
If your GDP is many times that of anyone else and you do it with a smaller ratio of GDP to CO2 to supply the world with what it needs THAT is a performance model everyone needs to strive for. USA has nearly twice the GDP of Chine a distant second place. Yet China has far more CO2 output by almost 3X than the USA!! See data below.
According to the International Monetary Fund, these are the highest ranking countries in the world in nominal GDP: United States (GDP: 20.49 trillion) China (GDP: 13.4 trillion) Japan: (GDP: 4.97 trillion)
Chinaâs greenhouse gas emissions in 2019 exceeded those of the U.S. and other developed nations combined, according to research published Thursday by Rhodium Group. China is now responsible for more than 27% of total global emissions . The U.S., the worldâs second-highest emitter, accounts for 11% of the global total.
Saying that the USA isnât aware of the need for clean production is again, lying to oneself to miss the point of the problem. The blame game fixes nothing. We do far, far more with the least CO2 than any country on the planet. That helps. Still, the global reduction in CO2 includes ALL reductions and should be encouraged. We need a total GDP on less CO2.
Best,
Galen
Only 26% of UK energy production was renewable in 2019 according to this source, so itâs less than Germanyâs 40%, making your CO2 release worse, not better.
But, you havenât read the WE Forum article. It has nothing to do with energy production - they are talking about the CO2 released to make the EV.
I âloveâ how they call Biomass ârenewableâ! You know what biomass is, I hope? Thatâs where they burn wood, garbage, tires, etc. Can you believe it?! Hmmm⌠âletâs burn a TREEâ, to release more CO2 and remove something that actually converts it to O2. How F. stupid!
You mention your LEAF battery being as good as new; but the battery is exactly the same as in an iPhone. Thereâs no magic here. The LiOn batteries degrade with each charge/discharge cycle. There is no way they are maintaining anywhere near their range over 125,000 km.
Steven,
50 MPG that all? Are you sure? My 2021 GTI gets 40 MPG on the expressway and 35 MPG in town. It will run 200,000 miles before the CO2 cost to make it expires and we make a new one and start over.
True, most wonât drive a car like a GOLF with more than ample room and great MPG performance (my wifeâs regular GOLF gets 43 MPG). I agree with your USA and SUV nonesense. We all have a commanding view of the road right into the back of an SUV in front of us!
Even the Large Panamera gets 33-35 MPG highway and far eclipses most SUVâs MPG. Itâs a hatchback too, as is the GTI, so packaging is good.
I would think a light small car like the leaf would exceed 50 MPG is all. Thatâs not where we need to be on efficiency just yet. The leaf isnât really designed for RANGE, though as much as it is a city errand car so you are getting the most out of it!
Best,
Galen
Thereâs no question that to reduce negative effects on the environment, we should be buying fewer items, not more; driving our current cars and not buying the latest flashy EV.
I can keep my 2019 G550 for 25 years, and it will have a lower carbon footprint than leasing a new EV every 4 years.
Thatâs the worst performance model imaginable. Itâs also contrary to global climate policy. The USA is a largely service based economy, but produces little. Manufacturing and agriculture is 12% of USA GDP but 40% in China.
So just because the USA has a load of over-paid lawyers, bankers and politicians, that should be the basis of measuring relative CO2 omissions?
Quoting from one of the Paris policy documents:
âEgalitarian: each human being has an equal right to use the atmosphere; this translates into schemes based on per capita entitlement.â
https://ec.europa.eu/clima/sites/clima/files/strategies/2020/docs/pm_summary2025_en.pdf
Norway has always had such a policy, with high import taxes, so average car ownership is 17 years (it was 20 years 15 years ago). People tend to drive small cheap cars and change the tyres in winter. It doesnât reduce fuel consumption.
Perhaps not, but the point is to reduce the massive environmental hit from manufacturing the car, and from manufacturing the battery.
The UK is doing well in coal consumption, but still burns coalâs sibling, natural gas, for 40% of its energy consumption (2020 number).
Here is the 2019 CO2 per segment. Notice that electricity is always going to be an effort to reduce as it is a DIRECT efficiency problem. No matter what you do, it requires something to be made used, recycled, remade, to make electricity.
If you take the industrial CO@ and how much is made with that as total GDP, the USA kills China. China was 30.8% industrialâŚnot the slaughter you suggest as the USA is ~13% manufacturing GDP.
China
10.6 billion metric tons CO2 / 30.8% manufacturing GDP, a 2.9 GDP/metric ton CO2
USA
4.57 million metric tones CO2 / 12.5% manufacturing
There is the data, the USA makes more with less CO2 in MANUFACTURING than the next leading country and as a country. THAT is indeed what we need to improve.
Worse, few in China are actual USERS of CO2 (more rural) showing the effects of the fuel inefficiencies.
Chinaâs greenhouse gas emissions in 2019 exceeded those of the U.S. and other developed nations combined, according to research published Thursday by Rhodium Group. China is now responsible for more than 27% of total global emissions. The U.S., the worldâs second-highest emitter, accounts for 11% of the global total.May 6, 2021
The USA supplies the largest percentage of the WORLDS grain every year and yes, it is so efficient it is just 10% of total (chart above)
the U.S. produced 38.7% of the worldâs corn in 2011 with almost 12.5 billion bushels of production. The next closest single country in terms of corn production was China, with 20.6% of the worldâs corn.
Making ANY product with as efficient a system as possible is paramount to reducing total CO2 and is also more competitive long term. Unless you simply reduce the amount you NEED and also REDUCE the CO2 to make it.
Last I checked, the population isnât going DOWN and global consumption isnât either. Weâd better get good at making what the market demands with low energy usage and the USA has to a significant degree.
The equation is actually simple. It is how many of us exist and how much we use. 100 beavers in a 10 beaver pond is not going to work no matter how efficient they are with the trees within reach. Sooner or later the pond will collapse and take all the beavers with it. We have that equation that is seldom discussed. Mother nature will sort that one out for us.
Iâll ignore your âsocial meritâ comnparison assumption that the government should limit what people buy. If and when a country gets there, using a USA efficiency model will give you either more product at the same CO2 or the same products at less CO2. Look for the best there is and apply it.
You can use the improvements any way you want under your so called, âglobal climate policyâ. A pure socialist play to leverage those doing the best (USA) to allow those doing the least to remain as they are. If you believe this, than you have to force equal PARTICIPATION from everyoneâŚyou know, the utopian idea everyone in the hippie commune work to the max of their ability? Nope, doesnât happen. Ask Berni, he was kicked out of his for lagging and not contributing.
The lawyers have nothing to do with manufacturing except to mostly screw it up, I agree. But to say the USA isnât a HUGE benefit to the current WORLD rate of consumption is wrong and that benefit would not be achieved if ALL countries were as efficient (not quantity made but efficient making that quantity) during production. When you can eclipse the USAâs manufacturing efficiency ratio we need to all know how you did it, it will benefit us all. The data is above, so letâs improve that 3.37 GDP/metric ton CO2. We can address CONSUMPTION concurrent to that. Like how to make electric cars last more than ten years service life (really an estimate of charge/discharge cycles, not time) before no one will buy it or pay to replace the batteries at true market cost.
You have an objection to how âmuchâ is needed verses the efficiency to make it. Not the same argument at all. I agree that the poor life cycle (electric cars are included in that) of products and how many we use is not ideal. To say the USA isnât efficient in pure manufacturing is wrong. The data is shown. Not the best we should be, but we are measurably doing our part for everyone who, Egalitarian: each human being has an equal right to use the atmosphere; in a safe and liveable manner.
Best,
Galen
2 Likes
If a US lawyer bills $500,000 per annum as their contribution to GDP and a Chinese farmer grows and sells $5,000 of rice, should by your theory the bankerâs contribution be worth 100 times more CO2 consumption than the farmerâs?
For reasons I do not know, the USA generates two or three times more C02 per capita than most people and 8 times as much as India, with 1billion plus people. The USA even left the Paris Agreement, but Biden rejoined and promised to be a world leader in something most countries have been working on for at least the last decade.
In the last 20 years the USA GDP has just over doubled. Chinaâs GDP has increased 13 times. This was literally fuelled by coal, that provides over half their energy, and a lot of it is dirty coal. Even though they produce less than half the CO2 per capita than the USA, they are being aggressive in alternative energy sources, such as hydro (the Three Rivers Dam is by far the largest in the world) and, for example, they make most of the worldâs solar panels. They invest around $100 billion annually in green tech. They are the world leaders and have been for a while. China has some 400,000 electric buses.
Electric car sales are booming in the UK, Europe and China, but are pretty minimal in the USA. Last year 75% of all passenger vehicles sold in Norway were electric (which is cold, so in theory they should not work).
Americans just love their cars whilst their public transport systems rot. The USA has 82 cars per 100 people. In the EU 50 is typical and the UK is 47.
The USA has educed emissions, but they are still twice as high as the EU, UK and China.
