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Extremely poor air quality in major cities has spurred the Chinese government to adopt clean-air policies. Cars are a major source of air pollution.
[1] http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/china-s-climate-change-pla...
California Has a Plan to End the Auto Industry as We Know It
61–70 of 218 posts
Re: California Has a Plan to End the Auto Industry as We Know It
#62[deleted]
I think they would, since they're killing their citizens through pollution. First world ignorance at it's finest. Since she's talking with several cities, I think has a shot of exporting something. China is far below our current environmental standards, so raising the standard isn't something 'environmental', it's more like self preserving pragmatism in the short run.
Re: California Has a Plan to End the Auto Industry as We Know It
#63[deleted]
I agree, but perhaps they may realize quite soon that things might not be sustainable the way they do them. Beijing is a mess smog-wise.
Re: California Has a Plan to End the Auto Industry as We Know It
#64Well battery tech will be a roadblock for some time but deadlines as far out as these make it look like something is being accomplished but provide enough time to not actually be a deadline. Converting off peak electrical power into hydrogen is getting more and more viable and frankly, I don't mind storing and transporting hydrogen versus stuffing the planet with li-ion batteries replete with their hazards. GM should…
I don't mind storing and transporting hydrogen Spoken like someone who has never tried to store or transport hydrogen. It's much less convenient than li-ion and has its own hazards.
Think of all the people that light up smokes, etc at the gas station. Then, think about this with a fuel that's invisible when it's leaking. Guy that worked at a hydrogen plant made that point to me when talking about the safety precautions they took.
Re: California Has a Plan to End the Auto Industry as We Know It
#65[deleted]
I think they would, since they're killing their citizens through pollution. First world ignorance at it's finest. Since she's talking with several cities, I think has a shot of exporting something. China is far below our current environmental standards, so raising the standard isn't something 'environmental', it's more like self preserving pragmatism in the short run.
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Re: California Has a Plan to End the Auto Industry as We Know It
#66California also has the worst electrical infrastructure in the nation, and is not doing something like "requiring the EV people who will stress it" to pay a tax for improvements, or if they wanted to be punitive, a tax on gas cars to pay for it, or anything other than saying what a great idea this would be and pushing for it on the environmental side. Given that converting all cars in CA to electric would seriously s…
It's odd that you think private companies who own and operate the Grid need public support to expand it. If demand increases they make more money which can pay for upgrades directly or in the case of large shifts pay down loans. PS: A 2% change per year is actually well within normal variations.
California decouples utility profits from demand/quantity supplied, and has done so since about 1980. If they didn't, then as you point out, the utilities would be trying to get people to consume more.
Here is a two page CPUC brochure (PDF) about it: http://www.fishnick.com/pge/Decoupling_Explained.pdf
Re: California Has a Plan to End the Auto Industry as We Know It
#67What is the comparison between using energy to generate liquid fuels from atmospheric CO2 (which would be carbon neutral) and trying to electrify the entire transportation sector? Those Los Alamos guys [1] said in 2007 they could get it down to $3.40 a gallon. Okay, maybe they were wrong and/or optimistic. But, still, there is some price point at which it is break-even. What is it? Five dollars? Ten? The advantages o…
Where's the electricity coming from? If your answer is natural gas, or oil powered generators, then no, there isn't a price point where it will break even. Now if you can answer that question with nuclear reactors or renewables of any kind, then your logic probably applies. Yet, I doubt it will ever be the main fuel powering our transportation.
From the linked pdf:
"We have limited our studies to nuclear power because its capital costs are lower than wind and solar-electric power, and it has significant environmental advantages over fossil energy sources, which are not carbon-neutral."
Re: California Has a Plan to End the Auto Industry as We Know It
#68That she pushes hydrogen so much is disturbing to me. The source we need will either be water or polluting processes. Water is something we should be protecting and conserving with battles going on for it all over. Definitely don't need to be putting Niagara Falls worth of it into cars. The alternative is commercial production which is anything but ecofriendly. That it contains less energy than gasoline for same volume will impact efficiency, logistics, and safety in some setups. Overall, hydrogen fuel is a very bad idea. That she pushes that undermines her credibility to me.
The reason I like electric, on other hand, is that makes the power-source neutral and could spur investment into our strained grid + battery tech. Yet, it has its own environmental consequences that should be carefully considered by anyone claiming the moral high ground. The environmental impact of manufacturing has a nice summary:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_car#Environmental_asp...
Or, we can just look at a picture of Nichols' "green" and "clean" vision...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1350811/In-C...
...then guess what a 2000+% increase of that would entail.
Re: California Has a Plan to End the Auto Industry as We Know It
#69Re: California Has a Plan to End the Auto Industry as We Know It
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's also that you have to burn fuel in the tank trucks to get the fuel to the consumer. Centralized generation is vaguely like dependency injection, or loosely coupled modularity in general, you can put what you want into it. My only concern with electric vehicles is battery end of life. What do I the consumer do? Will I be able to sell my 25 year old EV? Have we gotten far enough to see what that end looks like?
You use/lose some of the energy in transport, either way. I forget exactly, but high voltage power lines lose something like 1% of their energy every...100 miles? Another way to look at it would be: How much electricity would it take an electric truck to deliver that gasoline?
By that argument, you lose energy when gasoline evaporates during transportation. In both cases (electricity and gasoline) loss is marginal and can be mitigated by striking a balance between centralization and transport/power line distance.