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I live in an apartment complex in Berlin. We have a parking garage that belongs to the complex. Unfortunately the housing company does not allow installation of a wallbox in the garage, even if I paid for it myself. The housing company is owned by the municipality. Large-scale adoption of electric cars is unrealistic when the majority of people have nowhere to charge it.
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Germany is a very densely populated country (go take a look at map). Even a relatively minor accident at a nuclear facility would trigger a huge evacuation (I've seen the disaster control plans), causing major economic harm. Germany also does not have any viable means to store nuclear waste responsibly. Currently, nuclear does not look like the sane option for Germany.
How is France any different?
As France is no longer building many reacteors - I think they have one in construction, quite over budget - they will face the same decisions as Germany did.
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Anecdotally, around 40% of the electricity in Germany was generated from coal in 2018, but in january 2019, a group of federal and state leaders as well as industry representatives, environmentalists, and scientists made an agreement to close all 84 coal plants in the country by 2038.[1] Just as in many other parts of the world, expanding electrical consumption through electric vehicles does not make sense if we also…
At 40% coal provided electricity, electric cars are already way less poluting than combustion engines. Actually even just being powered by an efficient diesel generator would put them on a roughly equal level. So only 40% coal is already a benefit. But of course, we should get rid of our coal plants as quickly as possible. That is the one rather low hanging fruit in reducing the carbon footprint. And I think the 2038…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Anecdotally, around 40% of the electricity in Germany was generated from coal in 2018, but in january 2019, a group of federal and state leaders as well as industry representatives, environmentalists, and scientists made an agreement to close all 84 coal plants in the country by 2038.[1] Just as in many other parts of the world, expanding electrical consumption through electric vehicles does not make sense if we also…
Germany is not building new coal plants so they are not going to burn more coal because of EVs. EVs indeed create more demand for electricity, which is met by deploying more clean energy. Coal plants stopped being a good option economically decades ago and we are now getting to the point where keeping the existing plants going is also no longer economical. Gas plants are following pretty soon as well.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Anecdotally, around 40% of the electricity in Germany was generated from coal in 2018, but in january 2019, a group of federal and state leaders as well as industry representatives, environmentalists, and scientists made an agreement to close all 84 coal plants in the country by 2038.[1] Just as in many other parts of the world, expanding electrical consumption through electric vehicles does not make sense if we also…
At 40% coal provided electricity, electric cars are already way less poluting than combustion engines. Actually even just being powered by an efficient diesel generator would put them on a roughly equal level. So only 40% coal is already a benefit. But of course, we should get rid of our coal plants as quickly as possible. That is the one rather low hanging fruit in reducing the carbon footprint. And I think the 2038…
* per amount of energy, batteries are heavier than gasoline tanks so accelerating needs more energy
* charging batteries is not 100% efficient
Is that all balanced by the generator operating at optimal conditions?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Anecdotally, around 40% of the electricity in Germany was generated from coal in 2018, but in january 2019, a group of federal and state leaders as well as industry representatives, environmentalists, and scientists made an agreement to close all 84 coal plants in the country by 2038.[1] Just as in many other parts of the world, expanding electrical consumption through electric vehicles does not make sense if we also…
In Germany - as well as in some other countries - the problem is not only generation of electricity, but the capacity to transfer it. There may be lots of renewables, but not way to transfer it to consumers because of not enough capacity in the grid. There is lots of public resistance to expanding the grid (mostly along the lines of "not in my backyard").
What would be the reason for people to oppose developing the grid, especially as NIMBY? Other than the obvious cost issue, is it the disruption caused by works?
As someone who lived in Amsterdam for one year (I'm originally from Israel) I was extremely impressed by how the government create a solid infrastructure for electric car owners to charge their car batteries.
Hmm, how does this work? I imagine the government isn't in the business of operating charging stations, so it is some combination of subsidies and regulatory easing, or something more? Do they benefit Tesla Superchargers or have other EV charging standards capitalized on it as well?
The Netherlands is one of the most densely populated countries in the world so any kind of construction work generally involves permits and negotiations with governments about how and what. Permits come with strings attached and this is how governments can nudge the private sector the way it wants to go. EVs and clean energy are popular topics for planning bodies. It makes everybody look good.
When something new gets planned, questions need to be answered about this (and a lot of other topics) and having solutions in your plan generally helps getting those plans approved and probably also unlocks some nice subsidies. So, a real estate developer planning some new housing, roadwork, industrial estate, or whatever is going to have a big incentive to have some charging infrastructure built into the plans from day one.
For the same reasons the Netherlands is one of the safest places to ride a bike because any roadworks in the last 50 years had some explicit planning for improving bike safety. There's not a single road that gets built without that being a topic of attention and scrutiny.
I live in an apartment complex in Berlin. We have a parking garage that belongs to the complex. Unfortunately the housing company does not allow installation of a wallbox in the garage, even if I paid for it myself. The housing company is owned by the municipality. Large-scale adoption of electric cars is unrealistic when the majority of people have nowhere to charge it.
And that's having a parking garage at all. Electrified street parking is nigh on non-existent.
There is also plenty of street charging stations in Oslo, I have many friends there without a garage that has electric cars. It's just a matter of putting up the infrastructure. It's a policy issue not a practical one.
[1] https://www.electrive.com/2019/08/18/on-street-chargers-to-p...
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I wouldn't trust Germany's management to make any rational decisions about energy. They've been shutting down nuclear power plants for the past few years... What are they going to do in 2038, spends the nights in cold and darkness when the sun isn't shining, or be Putin's puppets dependent on Russian gas?
Germany is a very densely populated country (go take a look at map). Even a relatively minor accident at a nuclear facility would trigger a huge evacuation (I've seen the disaster control plans), causing major economic harm. Germany also does not have any viable means to store nuclear waste responsibly. Currently, nuclear does not look like the sane option for Germany.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
At 40% coal provided electricity, electric cars are already way less poluting than combustion engines. Actually even just being powered by an efficient diesel generator would put them on a roughly equal level. So only 40% coal is already a benefit. But of course, we should get rid of our coal plants as quickly as possible. That is the one rather low hanging fruit in reducing the carbon footprint. And I think the 2038…
Why would a diesel generator put them on equal levels? Even if you assume that an electric engine has 100% efficiency, you lose energy because * per amount of energy, batteries are heavier than gasoline tanks so accelerating needs more energy * charging batteries is not 100% efficient Is that all balanced by the generator operating at optimal conditions?
The weight of an electric car usually is a minor component in the consumption, most is the aerodynamic drag. On top of that, electric cars can get about 60% of their kinetic energy back by using their motor as a generator.