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Britain to ban new petrol cars and vans by 2030 on road to net zero emissions

reuters.com

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Re: Britain to ban new petrol cars and vans by 2030 on road to net zero emissions

#91

Post by davidhbolton »

conjectures wrote: post #65
LatteLazy wrote: post #30

This perfectly epitomises the uk (and the rest of the worlds) attitude to global warming: * it's a non binding commitment to do something but not for at least a decade * it's not enough even if it does happen * it will be too late by then (it probably already is for anything but drastic action) * it's totally at the whim of future governments who will be no more willing to spend the money/time/popularity than the cur…

On this specific issue, what more could be done, really? Bring the ban to 2025? 2022? One can't simply expect mass production to switch that fast. UK has already tightened emissions rules on vehicles and VED taxes more polluting cars more heavily. They could, and probably will, ratchet things more. The right response on this policy is to say: great thanks Boris, you can clearly see the potential in green tech, now co…

Why does China get a free pass? It's the worlds largest miner of coal and is building many new coal fired power stations. For instance. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-28/riozim-se... and https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-will-china-build-hundre...

Re: Britain to ban new petrol cars and vans by 2030 on road to net zero emissions

#92

Post by barnacled »

throwaway69123 wrote: post #76
barnacled wrote: post #68

This is utterly ridiculous. I live in the UK and have been renting for many years, I've lived at 15+ addresses and not at a single one could I have powered the car from home. Not one. The UK is small, cars are squeezed onto tiny roads and most people do on-street parking, i.e. you park where you can. When I last had a car I could only park around the corner from my flat (which was set far back from the road). Having…

Doesn’t the power come from the street? Seems like adding metered street parking wouldn’t be a big deal and a great source of revenue for gov to replace fuel tax that is lost

There is a limited amount of current available from the electrical substations that serve any given area (and thus any given street), you can't just magic up enough current to be able to charge vastly more electric cars, it requires massive infrastructural change.

All the existing street chargers I've seen (there's a couple up the road from me) are like 1 or 2 here + there. Probably no more than 1 per thousand parking spot (might even be being generous there).

You'd have to install these chargers (which appear to require a fair bit of work to install) at every single parking spot in the UK to make it practical. Which is not really practical even if we had the money to do it...

Re: Britain to ban new petrol cars and vans by 2030 on road to net zero emissions

#93

Post by perfunctory »

barnacled wrote: post #68

This is utterly ridiculous. I live in the UK and have been renting for many years, I've lived at 15+ addresses and not at a single one could I have powered the car from home. Not one. The UK is small, cars are squeezed onto tiny roads and most people do on-street parking, i.e. you park where you can. When I last had a car I could only park around the corner from my flat (which was set far back from the road). Having…

> This is utterly ridiculous. I live in the UK and have been renting for many years, I've lived at 15+ addresses and not at a single one could I have powered the car from home. Not one.

Oh boy. I just picture someone from the early 20th century riding a horse and complaining about not being able to tank a car for the lack of gas stations.

Re: Britain to ban new petrol cars and vans by 2030 on road to net zero emissions

#94

Post by bvcvbuiy »

ainiriand wrote: post #66
djmobley wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you’ve completely missed the point of what is a very reasonable and forward-thinking signalling exercise. You cannot have sudden cliff-edges in policies (like banning the sale of new ICE vehicles) that would put thousands, if not millions of people out of jobs. You need to send signals like this to the market well in advance so they can invest and plan ahead.

There are many things that can be done, in this very same moment. The problem is the high cost in political resources that no one is willing to pay. Some examples: - Start by implementing a odd/even rule for license plates in big cities, even full bans on weekends. - Tax and/or de-subsidize the meat industry. - Incentivize the installation of wind or other renewable energies. Energies with no CO2 emissions, like nucl…

This is your own agenda and I am pretty sure implementing these solutions does not cost you much personally.

What cost have you chosen to bear ? Do you exclusively use public transport ? Have you banned planes from your life ? Home delivery (the last mile is the one that creates the more pollution) ? What share of your revenue do you give to plant trees ?

> You need to send signals like this to the market well in advance so they can invest and plan ahead.

We are talking about billion dollars of investment at stake. You need years to train engineers, develop new technologies, ...

The role of politics is not only to implement policies but also to signal where we are heading so that a decentralized solution can be achieved.

Re: Britain to ban new petrol cars and vans by 2030 on road to net zero emissions

#95

Post by arnoooooo »

echelon wrote: post #86
ainiriand wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many things that can be done, in this very same moment. The problem is the high cost in political resources that no one is willing to pay. Some examples: - Start by implementing a odd/even rule for license plates in big cities, even full bans on weekends. - Tax and/or de-subsidize the meat industry. - Incentivize the installation of wind or other renewable energies. Energies with no CO2 emissions, like nucl…

> - Start by implementing a odd/even rule for license plates in big cities, even full bans on weekends. > - Tax and/or de-subsidize the meat industry. And just like that, you've been voted straight out of office. Better luck next life connecting to the electorate. You can't do those things. Humanity is a distributed consensus problem. Climate change presents an interesting change in the fitness landscape topology ahe…

What are leaders for if they can't lead ? Should their job not be to convince people of what needs to be done ? They do a very good job by the way when it comes to pushing for liberalism.

Re: Britain to ban new petrol cars and vans by 2030 on road to net zero emissions

#96

Post by ako »

barnacled wrote: post #83
LatteLazy wrote: post #30

This perfectly epitomises the uk (and the rest of the worlds) attitude to global warming: * it's a non binding commitment to do something but not for at least a decade * it's not enough even if it does happen * it will be too late by then (it probably already is for anything but drastic action) * it's totally at the whim of future governments who will be no more willing to spend the money/time/popularity than the cur…

This comment perfectly epitomises the 'climate crisis' extinction rebellion Greta Thunberg school of response to climate issues. Firstly - any response to climate change that does not include China and really India and other emerging economies too is more or less useless. Why should we deny such countries the benefits of full industrialisation? Secondly - while in some respects you are correct, looking at CO2 numbers…

Not dealing with global warming will also lead to "the kind of economic impact such drastic action would entail would likely run into millions of deaths, many of them far away in poorer nations"

Re: Britain to ban new petrol cars and vans by 2030 on road to net zero emissions

#97

Post by terryf »

adrianN wrote: post #53
physicsguy wrote: post #31

Many, many houses do not have anything other than on-street parking here. Since 2012 I've lived in 5 houses, and three of them had no driveway. I'm currently buying a house which has no drive way, with no way of fitting one. Apparently 1/3 houses have only on street parking. Unless they also provide huge, huge grants to rapidly implement dense onstreet charging, and fast, this is a pipedream and will end up getting p…

It's not that hard to build curbside chargers. You don't need high current chargers when most parking spots have a charger. A kilowatt or two will be plenty. Cars spend 23h a day parked. EVs use 15-25kWh/100km. Most people drive less than 50km a day. Sprinkle some fast charging along highways for longer road trips and charging is no longer an issue.

As someone that works on software that includes functions to try to figure out where you can place electric car chargers - it absolutely is very hard. The grid just isn't ready for it.

It can be done, but will require massive investment in infrastructure.

There are also problems such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_curve and other things that can be mitigated with ADR to an extent, but it's absolutely not easy

Re: Britain to ban new petrol cars and vans by 2030 on road to net zero emissions

#98

Post by DrBazza »

At least this is only banning new cars at the moment. But electric cars don't have a guaranteed real-world range of over 350 miles, the same as a tank of fuel, cost the same as petrol models, and charge as quickly as you can fill it with petrol. If the latter was solved petrol stations could be converted to charging points in cities, reducing the need for on-street charging points.

And the charging requirements for all those cars, requires a massive investment in the national grid, practically doubling capacity if we ever get all 25 million registered vehicles electric. Twice as many power stations than we currently have, twice as many wind turbines and so on.

Re: Britain to ban new petrol cars and vans by 2030 on road to net zero emissions

#99

Post by black_puppydog »

echelon wrote: post #86
ainiriand wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many things that can be done, in this very same moment. The problem is the high cost in political resources that no one is willing to pay. Some examples: - Start by implementing a odd/even rule for license plates in big cities, even full bans on weekends. - Tax and/or de-subsidize the meat industry. - Incentivize the installation of wind or other renewable energies. Energies with no CO2 emissions, like nucl…

> - Start by implementing a odd/even rule for license plates in big cities, even full bans on weekends. > - Tax and/or de-subsidize the meat industry. And just like that, you've been voted straight out of office. Better luck next life connecting to the electorate. You can't do those things. Humanity is a distributed consensus problem. Climate change presents an interesting change in the fitness landscape topology ahe…

Then humanity is clearly headed off a cliff in that landscape.

Which, by the way, has been signaled to everyone for decades now. Just our political processes have not allowed those signals to reach "the economy" and we seem to be unable to act on anything that isn't felt by the economy. Which, I might add, is not a god-given fact, but rather a political choice.

Anyway, we will have a cliff. And it will have been announced. And people will suffer when our consensus finding process drives us all over this cliff.

Re: Britain to ban new petrol cars and vans by 2030 on road to net zero emissions

#100

Post by mavhc »

LatteLazy wrote: post #89
djmobley wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you’ve completely missed the point of what is a very reasonable and forward-thinking signalling exercise. You cannot have sudden cliff-edges in policies (like banning the sale of new ICE vehicles) that would put thousands, if not millions of people out of jobs. You need to send signals like this to the market well in advance so they can invest and plan ahead.

The first time a government announced they would take action but not for a decade, it signalled action would be taken. This is the 1000th time a government has said "no action today but maybe in a decade". That signals no action. That's the same signal markets have been given for several decades now. I am happy to admit this is a complex issue, one that needs a global solution, an expensive one, maybe an unsolvable o…

1990: do you want to fix global warming, it'll take 1% of gdp. -- nah 2000: It's now 3% -- nah 2010: It's now 5% -- nah 2020: It's now 7% -- it's too expensive to fix now

We need to tax pollution the amount it costs to clean up that pollution, that's all. You can fly as much as you want if you pay the costs.

I suggest a £1 tax on non EV cars, that doubles each month

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