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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

#141

Post by Gwypaas »

davidhbolton wrote: post #91
conjectures wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

China has levelled of since 2011 while still maintaining their incredible economic growth. Quite remarkable actually. On the other hand it's quite easy to spot the outliers.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita?t...

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

#142

Post by CraigJPerry »

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…

>> Firstly - any response to climate change that does not include China and really India

Are these not mostly proxy emissions for western countries? E.g. is it the case that people in these countries are emitting pollution due to their lifestyles, or is the pollution mostly from energy, transport and manufacturing in the pursuit of selling products to western countries?

>> During the covid19 situation we've seen the impact of shutting down parts of the economy on GDP. That naturally always translates into deaths

Is there any evidence of deaths attributable to shut downs so far? There’s over a million deaths worldwide due to covid, how many attributable to non-covid causes? E.g. suicide etc.

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

#143

Post by AlphaSite »

danielrpa wrote: post #101
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…

Agreed. If the government was serious about starting a program for reducing emissions from internal combustion engines, it could start by gradually increasing the gasoline tax until it became prohibitively expensive to buy an internal combustion engine car in 2030. In your analogy, the diet would start on day 1 with an objective reduction in sweets, even if not 100% quite yet. BTW, I'm not saying that the government…

This has the side effect of punishing those too poor to afford a petrol car, instead they can increase the cost of purchasing a petrol car, which directly taxes the more wealthy (new car buyers).

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

#144

Post by Ekaros »

davidhbolton wrote: post #91
conjectures wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

I find it entirely reasonable that largest country by the population in the world is also largest miner of coal. That is exactly how it should be. Now the bigger issue is with countries that don't rank similarly to their population size...

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

#145

Post by barnacled »

perfunctory wrote: post #93
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.

I think you've missed the point here. At none of those could I have charged from the house with a cable, as they either had off-street parking, or I was in an upper storey flat, or there was no parking available at all, etc.

I think that kind of dismissive comment is entirely the problem here. You do realise that the entire electrical substation infrastructure needs substantial upgrading for it to even be possible? And that's not an easy problem? And that every single residential street in all of the UK needs to be dug up and have chargers installed? In 9 years' time (or maybe 19 if we say 10 years lifetime of 2nd hand cars)?

The whole issue is the govt acts as if all they need to do is ban petrol cars + our CO2 issues are solved, and do not address these serious practical issues.

Also on a personal note - this comment came across as somewhat snide and ridiculing, I respectfully refer you to the HN guidelines:

"Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community."

By all means, disagree with me but you could have made this comment less unkindly.

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

#146

Post by acallaghan »

turing_complete wrote: post #123

I am not sure if that is good idea. With carbon-free energy and carbon-capture you can have the efficiency and energy density carbon fuels and net zero emissions at the same time.

You can't keep burning fossil fuels and expect to deal with climate change

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

#147

Post by kjksf »

DrBazza wrote: post #98

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 a…

A few counterpoints.

You don't need 350 miles of range, especially in England, which is 200 miles coast-to-coast. Average yearly mileage in UK is 9.2 k miles, which is 766 miles per month which is 2.1 full charges at 350 miles.

Current estimates are that electric cars will achieve cost parity with ICE cars by 2025. Possibly much sooner given than Tesla is planning $25k car in 2022. Model 3's Total Cost of Ownership is already at par with Honda Civic if you consider cost of gas vs. cost of electricity.

While charging is slower than pumping gas and deprives you the pleasure of inhaling oil fumes, most charging happens at home.

And finally the bogus "massive investment" argument.

Starbucks is truly heart broken every time they need to "massively invest" in opening new store.

Oil execs are driven to the brink of suicide every time oil demand spike and they have invest into drilling more holes in the ground.

Finally, solar energy producers and grid operators cry themselves to sleep in order to forget how much more money they'll make by selling more energy.

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

#149

Post by barnacled »

kjksf wrote: post #122
barnacled wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 parkin…

And yet we manage to build skyscrapers. Almost as if in the last 100 years we mastered the art of generating more electricity, laying out high voltage cables and constructing enough electrical substations to meet the demand, whatever that demand might be. See for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Grid_(Great_Britain)#...

The problem is breadth not depth. In the case of a skyscraper that requires more power you then have only to upgrade a localised substation. In order for the entire country to consume considerably more _current_ that requires a global upgrade everywhere. There are 400,000 substations in the UK.

I'm also not saying it's impossible, it's just something that the govt has to do first for this to even be feasible. It also makes the timeframe very impractical. The govt doesn't appear to ever address this or even begin the work required.

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

#150

Post by barnacled »

crispyporkbites wrote: post #131
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…

> I personally think the appropriate compromise is to move forward with very efficient hybrid vehicles. which is exactly what this legislation allows for

Thanks, I actually missed that.

However:

>The sale of hybrid cars and vans would be banned from 2035 under the new plan.

This is still a ridiculously tight timeframe.

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