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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

#241

Post by xenocratus »

twelve40 wrote: post #193
LatteLazy wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

how bad will it get for the UK specifically? honest question, I'm not a climate scientist. Brief googling, floods, more extreme temps (like the rest of Europe now?), maybe they did the math and decided that simply shutting down the Thames Barrier and a few other measures would be cheaper than drastic hard ICE bans etc? Not to cast any doubt on the horrible terrible disasters that the global warming will surely bring,…

No, it's not Florida, so it won't be that bad, but in my short time here (about 8 years) it does seem like winter storms are more frequent, I'm sure the Western (and Southern?) coasts have seen a lot of rain and flooding. Some recent summers have had some pretty intense heatwaves (35+ C around the county). It's definitely not a catastrophe, but there are changes

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

#242

Post by DoingIsLearning »

feralimal wrote: post #203
jonp888 wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to expect that rising Carbon Dioxide means people will suffocate, and if they haven't, then "Gotcha! It's all made up", but it doesn't work like that. You will never, ever see the water level rise in a way that is directly visible. The effect is more frequent flooding. I personally, have noticed a change in the climate. When I was a child, the river used to freeze in the winter and there would be metres of s…

No I don't think it means people will suffocate. I'm saying that carbon dioxide should help trees grow. That we have a natural buffer against too much. Did you know that some farms, pump carbon dioxide into their greenhouses to improve their crop. It seems self-evident that any extra would be mopped up by trees, bushes etc in the wild. I hear what you are saying about snow and your experience. But you should also ask…

> It seems self-evident that any extra would be mopped up by trees, bushes etc in the wild.

This is factually incorrect. Please stop spreading lies. [0] You are absolutely failing to realise the rate at which we are pumping CO2, NO2 and SO2 and other gases into the atmosphere.

> Did you know that some farms, pump carbon dioxide into their greenhouses to improve their crop.

Did you know that humans are going to get cognitively impaired with the increasing CO2 concentrations? [1]

[0] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/05/plant...

[1] https://www.colorado.edu/mechanical/2020/04/21/continued-co2...

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

#243

Post by hokkos »

ppf wrote: post #195
asenk wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The overall lifecycle CO2 benefit of EVs and hybrids as they stand is minimal. That's simply not true. >Net emission reductions from electric cars and heat pumps in 59 world regions over time >..We show that already under current carbon intensities of electricity generation, electric cars and heat pumps are less emission intensive than fossil-fuel-based alternatives in 53 world regions, representing 95% of the globa…

Some simple back-of-the-envelope maths shows that, due to the massively increased amount of energy needed to manufacture an EV, it takes somwhere near half the life of the car (assuming 100k miles) to pay back that "CO2 debt". And even then, you are still limited by the net CO2 emissions of your electricity source. This is why I claim that the CO2 benefits are minimal (not none, or negative). The abstract of the arti…

Check this site https://climobil.connecting-project.lu

It has better back-of-the-envelope maths than you could do, it use peer reviewed lifecycle data, take into account real world tank-to-weel CO2 emission from cars where NEDC and WLTP underestimate them massively, well-to-tank emission to make and transport petrol, lifecycle batteries, glider, engine and also the future decarbonation of the electric grid. It shows way better estimates than you claim.

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

#244

Post by djmobley »

barnacled wrote: post #134
djmobley wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is where autonomous vehicles come in. Why pay to own and store your own vehicle, which you might use 5% of the time, when you could hail an autonomous vehicle on demand, for less than the cost of current ride-hailing services? Owning your own vehicle will become an unnecessary luxury, reserved for the kind of people who have the space to store them.

Except that autonomous cars vastly far away despite all the hype by silicon valley. They still cannot deal with edge case scenarios at all well and are far from being proven to be safe. Relying on this being in place by 2030 + lifetime of 2nd hand cars is a huge gamble. See https://blog.piekniewski.info/2020/03/01/av-safety-myths-and... and his blog in general for a more in-depth analysis of the situation. It's likel…

I don’t disagree, but I wouldn’t describe it as a “huge gamble.”

People would just need to continue owning electric/second-hand ICE vehicles and, in the case of electric vehicles, find ways of charging them away from their homes.

When autonomous vehicles become widely available (2030, 2040, or whenever), I think many would decide owning an expensive, depreciating asset they only use sparingly is more hassle than it’s worth.

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

#245

Post by barnacled »

CraigJPerry wrote: post #207
barnacled wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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? Good point but I think much of it could also be attributed to countries going through their own industrialisation processes and generat…

>> but I think much of it could also be attributed to countries going through their own industrialisation processes Is that not just a misconception about how countries develop though? See Andrew McAfee - More from Less. E.g. we know that as a country’s manufacturing capability matures, it produces more product with less raw material and energy inputs. It’s somewhat counter intuitive though but the end result is the…

RE: Chinese GDP Chinese GDP is probably not a great measure as a large % of the population are still very poor and have therefore very low consumption. In order for a larger amount of people to transition into the middle class would start matching and likely exceeding other country's GDP CO2 emissions.

RE: economic impact People have in fact quantified it but it's a big topic as you can imagine. I don't think it's hugely controversial to suggest that poverty results in poor health and the data is clear that poor countries tend to have significantly lower life expectancy and higher poor health outcomes.

I'm not going to digress into covid as that's a whole other conversation :)

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

#246

Post by arethuza »

robhu wrote: post #214
arethuza wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect most people from the UK when asked their nationality will answer English, Scottish etc.

I'm from the UK (England in particular) - I think most people from England would say they are British (sometimes depending on context / person / non-requirement for brevity: 'from the UK' instead). Perhaps a higher proportion of non-English UK people would answer otherwise.

I think this is the survey that I vaguely remembered: "How British is Britain?":

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24302914

If I read that correctly, London seems to be the only place where a majority of people see themselves primarily as "British"?

It's nearly 10 years old, but I don't think things are going to have changed to make people feel substantially more "British", certainly not here in Scotland!

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

#247

Post by hokkos »

ppf wrote: post #239
asenk wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actual research vs. "back-of-the-envelope maths". I'll go with the research.

Unless you have paid for the article and read it, we are only discussing an abstract. That isn't enough information to bring to a discussion, as we have absolutely no figures, initial assumptions, or methadologies to explore. There's nothing wrong with back-of-the-envelope maths. It's not refutable that lithium battery packs take a lot of energy to manufacture (as well as all of the control electronics, which is also…

There is already dozens of studies about kgCO2e/kwh for batteries, thanks for linking to a studies where it is shown that electricity use is actually lower than older studies and in line with the most recent, and all the most recent studies agreed is that the kgCO2e/kwh is decreasing fast with industrialisation making EV better than fossil cars in about 16000 km.

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

#248

Post by barnacled »

djmobley wrote: post #244
barnacled wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that autonomous cars vastly far away despite all the hype by silicon valley. They still cannot deal with edge case scenarios at all well and are far from being proven to be safe. Relying on this being in place by 2030 + lifetime of 2nd hand cars is a huge gamble. See https://blog.piekniewski.info/2020/03/01/av-safety-myths-and... and his blog in general for a more in-depth analysis of the situation. It's likel…

I don’t disagree, but I wouldn’t describe it as a “huge gamble.” People would just need to continue owning electric/second-hand ICE vehicles and, in the case of electric vehicles, find ways of charging them away from their homes. When autonomous vehicles become widely available (2030, 2040, or whenever), I think many would decide owning an expensive, depreciating asset they only use sparingly is more hassle than it’s…

I agree that once it becomes feasible many would prefer autonomous (hell yeah, a cheap ride home when I'm drunk? Or a sleep on the way to work? Ideal) but given the timelines we should look elsewhere for the time being.

I think "find ways of charging them away from their homes" does not scale given how long a charge takes and the numbers involved. If you've ever seen a petrol station at peak time you tend to get an idea of just how impractical that is.

I don't see any way round a truly colossal investment in infrastructure in order to move to fully electric in the UK (or any country), which maybe is necessary - but govts need to openly say this and then start actually taking action on it, not haughtily act as if it's not the case.

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

#249

Post by djmobley »

crispyporkbites wrote: post #107
Normal_gaussian wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a perfect example. Talked about by the forces that enacted it as early as 2010, the Brexit referendum happens in 2016, and leaving the EU has been gradually happening since then.

No, there’s 6 weeks to go and there’s still no trade agreement in place, nothing material has happened in the last 4 years. Any business that imports/exports has no clue what will happen on 1st Jan. But yea I can get a blue passport now. What a great thing to waste years on.

> nothing material has happened in the last 4 years

The UK left the EU on 31 January 2020.

It happened and the world didn’t fall apart.

Negotiations are taking place in the way they always do, and a deal with the EU will be reached at the last minute as everyone expected it to.

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

#250

Post by dalbasal »

My thoughts on this are a mixed bag.

First, naturally, is skepticism at far off dates. OOH, these things do really need time to work. OOH, the zero-emissions date is 2050, post-singularity

Second is coordination. If the plan is "Once there are electric cars, we'll buy some." The industry's response will be "once it's cheap enough, we'll make some." That days seems to be coming anyway, but that really makes this a weak policy.

My third thought is "industrial policy." That is, a policy that actually affects the availability and price performance of electric cars. If the policy is agreed, but doesn't meaningfully change what engineers are doing now, then it's not really affecting much.

An actual industrial policy probably needs to act across a bigger market than UK only in order to actually affect timelines.

All that said, I like it. A ban bootstrapped by cross subsidies is a far better way to go than carbon consumption taxes.

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