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Goodbye climate deniers, hello climate bullshitters

theguardian.com

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Re: Goodbye climate deniers, hello climate bullshitters

#11

Post by js8 »

vanderZwan wrote: post #4

A guy from the village I grew up in became a millionaire with a business processing old EUR-pallets into wood chips. Now he's getting into "sustainable" energy based on burning those woodchips. Note that this isn't about electricity, it's about delivering heat or steam from a "sustainable" source. From what I gather (through village gossip, admittedly) is that the whole process is, and I know this will piss off some…

The truth is, when it comes to negative externalities (like CO2, for instance), government just loves to give out subsidies rather than to create taxes. In economic theory, taxes (which can be then refunded to citizens as dividends), not subsidies (which require to leave the decision on the government instead of free market), are the correct solution to the externality problem. But in practice, regulatory capture and the general hate of taxes cause this not to be implemented. (Although sometimes industrial subsidies can be useful, since markets can also fail and be too slow. Many industries were built faster on subsidies.)

Re: Goodbye climate deniers, hello climate bullshitters

#13

Post by jka »

sleavey wrote: post #3

I enjoyed hearing electric cars called "external combustion engines" given that in most countries (at least mine) the electricity used to charge the car still mostly comes from fossil fuel. In such cases all we're doing is adding an extra lossy conversion between chemical and kinetic energy, potentially making it worse. Yet people buy such cars and feel great about themselves. I am reminded of the South Park episode…

> Why are we incentivising electric cars at purchase rather than incentivising the use of green energy to charge them?

Shouldn't we be incentivising both?

(one of the largest incentives I can see at the moment generation-side is that the levelized-cost-of-energy (LCOE) for solar in particular has become cheaper than most alternatives, and continues to reduce. and that's operational cost, excluding the cost of externalities on nations and their populations)

Re: Goodbye climate deniers, hello climate bullshitters

#14

Post by jmkni »

vanderZwan wrote: post #4

A guy from the village I grew up in became a millionaire with a business processing old EUR-pallets into wood chips. Now he's getting into "sustainable" energy based on burning those woodchips. Note that this isn't about electricity, it's about delivering heat or steam from a "sustainable" source. From what I gather (through village gossip, admittedly) is that the whole process is, and I know this will piss off some…

We had a similar thing happen recently in Northern Ireland, people were getting paid to literally burn wood pellets to help the environment, the more pellets burned, the more money they made - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_Heat_Incentive_scand...

It was such a scandal it brought down our Government (although some days it feels like a light breeze would bring down our Government...)

Re: Goodbye climate deniers, hello climate bullshitters

#15

Post by Angostura »

exporectomy wrote: post #12

"The impacts of the climate emergency are now so obvious, only the truly deluded still deny them. Instead, we are at the point where everyone agrees something must be done" I guess The Guardian reporters don't venture far from their flock.

They just don’t live in the US

Re: Goodbye climate deniers, hello climate bullshitters

#16

Post by cycrutchfield »

sleavey wrote: post #10
bonzini wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't power plants have higher efficiency than ICEs anyway, even if combined with the efficiency of electric engines? Correct me if I am wrong.

That's a good question, I don't know the answer to that. One thing to include though is transmission loss to get the electricity to the place it's needed. And at the same time of course include the energy used to get petrol to a gas guzzling car. In other words, the comparison needs to be fair, and that doesn't sound like an easy analysis. I'd be interested to hear from anyone that knows more about this.

Transmission losses are not significant in most cases. Your assertion that electricity from fossil fuel power plants is somehow worse than inefficient ICE cars is completely wrong.

Re: Goodbye climate deniers, hello climate bullshitters

#17

Post by jsonne »

Angostura wrote: post #15
exporectomy wrote: post #12

"The impacts of the climate emergency are now so obvious, only the truly deluded still deny them. Instead, we are at the point where everyone agrees something must be done" I guess The Guardian reporters don't venture far from their flock.

They just don’t live in the US

There is plenty of anti science attitudes all over Europe. It simply doesn't manifest in the same way as it does in the US.

Re: Goodbye climate deniers, hello climate bullshitters

#18

Post by tigershark »

sleavey wrote: post #3

I enjoyed hearing electric cars called "external combustion engines" given that in most countries (at least mine) the electricity used to charge the car still mostly comes from fossil fuel. In such cases all we're doing is adding an extra lossy conversion between chemical and kinetic energy, potentially making it worse. Yet people buy such cars and feel great about themselves. I am reminded of the South Park episode…

No, EVs are still more efficient:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikescott/2020/03/30/yes-electr...

Re: Goodbye climate deniers, hello climate bullshitters

#19

Post by sleavey »

mepiethree wrote: post #8
sleavey wrote: post #3

I enjoyed hearing electric cars called "external combustion engines" given that in most countries (at least mine) the electricity used to charge the car still mostly comes from fossil fuel. In such cases all we're doing is adding an extra lossy conversion between chemical and kinetic energy, potentially making it worse. Yet people buy such cars and feel great about themselves. I am reminded of the South Park episode…

I’m not sure what country you live in, so this may not apply to you, but most countries, including mine (USA) do heavily incentivize the use of green energy. Globally, renewable energy growth is accelerating, now that costs have come down so far. It’s both/and, not either/or. One other thing is that EVs have huge potential for energy storage. Smart energy policy will effectively use EVs as both a source and sink. In…

I actually published a paper on your last point many years ago. To me it's obvious that we need to use electric car batteries as storage for the grid. The infrastructure is already there. The software in the car should allow the user to specify their preference for how full to keep the battery at all times, and when they next plan to drive far, and the car can decide how it gets its battery charge to the required level in the available time. Adding in price incentives to use electricity when it's cheapest (when there's most supply vs demand) makes it even more attractive.

Re: Goodbye climate deniers, hello climate bullshitters

#20

Post by wonnage »

sleavey wrote: post #10
bonzini wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't power plants have higher efficiency than ICEs anyway, even if combined with the efficiency of electric engines? Correct me if I am wrong.

That's a good question, I don't know the answer to that. One thing to include though is transmission loss to get the electricity to the place it's needed. And at the same time of course include the energy used to get petrol to a gas guzzling car. In other words, the comparison needs to be fair, and that doesn't sound like an easy analysis. I'd be interested to hear from anyone that knows more about this.

It's really hard to make these comparisons because environmental impacts aren't fungible. The emissions from building and running an electric car might be more CO2 overall but the CO2 is being emitted at a few large factories and could be more easily captured than from individual cars.

ICEs also emit lots of other pollution in the middle of cities, including noise pollution. Electrics would cut down on those or emit them around the factory instead of downtown.

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