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The climate benefits of retiring an operational combustion engine vehicle

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Re: The climate benefits of retiring an operational combustion engine vehicle

#71

Post by unnamed76ri »

anonymars wrote: post #50
unnamed76ri wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Almost all diseases/cancers linked to pollution” is such a bizarre claim.

I don't think it's an unreasonable claim for fossil fuels to account for the vast majority of air pollution deaths But apparently it is: I certainly didn't peg desert dust to be top spot. Anakin was right https://ourworldindata.org/data-review-air-pollution-deaths

The comment I was replying to saying that almost all diseases and cancers are caused by it isn’t the same thing though. Disease and cancer has been around for a long long time before the use of fossil fuels.

Re: The climate benefits of retiring an operational combustion engine vehicle

#72

Post by coderenegade »

tpm wrote: post #69
coderenegade wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue with ICEs is the fossil fuel part, not the engine part. Synthetic hydrocarbons and alcohols don't contribute to climate change at all. And alcohol fuels are both easy to make and about as good as hydrocarbons.

> Synthetic hydrocarbons and alcohols don't contribute to climate change at all. If you are able to manufacture them in a completely emissionless way. That requires huge energy input though. Certainly has its uses, but too expensive for personal cars I'd think. What I think would make sense is to use methanol as a seasonal energy store in temperate climates. Manufacture from PV in summer, burn in winter.

Methanol is the obvious choice, because there are so many ways to make it. Shipping certainly looks to be moving in that direction, though ammonia is also being trialled. Ethanol via fermentation is also doable at scale, but most effective pathways rely on using arable land.

Re: The climate benefits of retiring an operational combustion engine vehicle

#73

Post by belorn »

thelastgallon wrote: post #44
SoftTalker wrote: post #26

The fact of the matter is that the only thing that matters to most people is what makes economic sense to them. As for me, no way am I trading my 20 year old, fully paid for, cheap to insure, cheap to register ICE vehicle for a new EV with payments, higher insurance, and higher registration fees.

> The fact of the matter is that the only thing that matters to most people is what makes economic sense to them. This is what I used to think for decades, people are rational and they make purchases based on costs/efficiency. I learnt thats not how the world works. Humans don't work that way, they buy for emotional reasons, status, what they've bought before (the power of defaults, familiarity), signaling identity (…

Looking at how Norway basically reached 100% EV for new cars, it is not that complicated to get people to make rational decision. The government subsidized new purchases by 50%, they removed bridge tolls and city taxes for EV users, reduced car taxes, and even reduced costs for people to use car ferries if they owned an EV. The only people who still bought an ICE car was those who had a hobby in owning ICE cars.

Re: The climate benefits of retiring an operational combustion engine vehicle

#74

Post by rsynnott »

PlunderBunny wrote: post #51

We replaced our 2010 Ford Transit (diesel) with a 2022 Ssangyong (LDV) eDeliver 9 (battery electric), and one of the benefits I didn’t expect was just how much quieter it is in the cab - a conversation with my partner when we’re driving is much easier/more pleasant. (It’s not due to better insulation - both these vehicles are basically steel frames on wheels) - I don’t see this mentioned much in articles comparing EV…

This is _very_ noticeable with buses. My local transport system uses a mixture of modern-ish (last 10 years) diesels, heavy/plugin serial-hybrid, BEV, and a small number of ancient (20 year old) diesels, all double decker. The BEVs are a shockingly different experience from the old diesels, noise and vibration-wise.

(The most disconcerting are the hybrids, which go from near-silent to very noisy and back periodically.)

Re: The climate benefits of retiring an operational combustion engine vehicle

#75

Post by rsynnott »

SoftTalker wrote: post #26

The fact of the matter is that the only thing that matters to most people is what makes economic sense to them. As for me, no way am I trading my 20 year old, fully paid for, cheap to insure, cheap to register ICE vehicle for a new EV with payments, higher insurance, and higher registration fees.

Eh, for cars _in particular_, people are quite resistant to doing the maths. If they weren't, then low-mpg cars would be almost unsellable. But people make decisions on cars quite weirdly.

Re: The climate benefits of retiring an operational combustion engine vehicle

#76

Post by rsynnott »

twobitshifter wrote: post #3

It looks like they have the BEV lasting just as long as ICE car without any battery replacement. Has it turned out that way? Seems like owning an electric car for 18 years really hasn’t been a thing since the model s was released in 2012, but is it projected to last that long.

Nissan Leaf went production-scale in 2010. There are still a surprising number of the very old ones around, even though the Leaf had a particularly _problematic_ battery by EV standards.

Re: The climate benefits of retiring an operational combustion engine vehicle

#77

Post by rsynnott »

trollbridge wrote: post #10
twobitshifter wrote: post #3

It looks like they have the BEV lasting just as long as ICE car without any battery replacement. Has it turned out that way? Seems like owning an electric car for 18 years really hasn’t been a thing since the model s was released in 2012, but is it projected to last that long.

Certainly not the case for hybrids like Priuses. The battery system lasts 10-15 years and 150k-200k miles. Any ICE car on the market now should be expected to last a lot longer than that; I drive cars that are 25+ years old and really don't need much significant in the way of repairs.

Hybrid batteries get much more of a work-out than BEV batteries, particularly light hybrids; they're tiny, and get a lot more discharge cycles.

Re: The climate benefits of retiring an operational combustion engine vehicle

#78

Post by joak »

There is an element I haven't seen in this conversation: as the number of combustion engine cars goes down the number of gas stations also goes down. At some point, combustion engine drivers will start feeling range anxiety. So when you get rid of your fossil-fuel-burner vehicle, you are pushing others to do so.

The full calculus of CO2 emissions reduction should also include the reduction induced in others.

Re: The climate benefits of retiring an operational combustion engine vehicle

#79

Post by roryirvine »

joak wrote: post #78

There is an element I haven't seen in this conversation: as the number of combustion engine cars goes down the number of gas stations also goes down. At some point, combustion engine drivers will start feeling range anxiety. So when you get rid of your fossil-fuel-burner vehicle, you are pushing others to do so. The full calculus of CO2 emissions reduction should also include the reduction induced in others.

That process has likely already started, with the long term trend towards consolidation having accelerated over the past five years.

In the UK, for example, the number of petrol stations has fallen by around 75% in the past 50 years and drivers now have to travel twice as far on average to fill up.

I'd expect the remaining sites in city centres to have entirely vanished by 2035. Out of town, they'll last a little longer but the distribution component of petrol prices will rise as the fixed costs are born by dwindling numbers of ICE drivers.

By the mid 2040s, there'll only be a tiny market driven largely by enthusiasts who don't care much about price. Perhaps we'll see delivery services springing up, similar to those for home heating oil, but the traditional large petrol station will be all but dead.

Re: The climate benefits of retiring an operational combustion engine vehicle

#80

Post by FabCH »

tpm wrote: post #69
coderenegade wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue with ICEs is the fossil fuel part, not the engine part. Synthetic hydrocarbons and alcohols don't contribute to climate change at all. And alcohol fuels are both easy to make and about as good as hydrocarbons.

> Synthetic hydrocarbons and alcohols don't contribute to climate change at all. If you are able to manufacture them in a completely emissionless way. That requires huge energy input though. Certainly has its uses, but too expensive for personal cars I'd think. What I think would make sense is to use methanol as a seasonal energy store in temperate climates. Manufacture from PV in summer, burn in winter.

To be fair, DIY natural gas production from kitchen waste is a thing some people have done. It’s surprisingly doable and produces surprisingly large amount of usable energy.

It can be scaled up.

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