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The electric car as a talisman of false hope

jussipasanen.com

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Re: The electric car as a talisman of false hope

#51

Post by endymi0n »

Denzel wrote: post #13

His argument distills to: solve it all-at-once, or don’t solve it at all. This is an uninteresting and uninspiring line of thinking that ignores the nature of socially dynamic systems which don’t exist in a world of instantaneous cause-and-effect. His conclusion states that electric cars make a difference, but they don’t make a real difference: “I do think they can slightly reduce unsustainability” but “by switching…

This comment hits the nail on the head. Plus, what the OP conveniently ignores, is that electric cars aren‘t a talisman, but a bridgehead. If electric cars succeed on a large scale, it means we solved making electricity storage fast, dense and cheap enough to put them on the road.

Putting that technology into the electric grid and combining it with renewables will enable dirt cheap, limitless energy, which will contribute in a major way towards solving all the other problems OP enumerated.

Re: The electric car as a talisman of false hope

#52

Post by seren »

Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #45
rebuilder wrote: post #3

Are there examples of societies radically changing their lifestyles in order to prevent a disaster?

Chinese one-child policy is the closest I can come to an example off the top of my head. A much milder change than the one required against global warming, and it required an authoritarian government, though...

Although if we somehow could apply a global one child policy, it would halve the population every generation, it would help tremendously with carbon emission (but not so much for our growth or financial system)

Re: The electric car as a talisman of false hope

#53

Post by reitzensteinm »

Denzel wrote: post #13

His argument distills to: solve it all-at-once, or don’t solve it at all. This is an uninteresting and uninspiring line of thinking that ignores the nature of socially dynamic systems which don’t exist in a world of instantaneous cause-and-effect. His conclusion states that electric cars make a difference, but they don’t make a real difference: “I do think they can slightly reduce unsustainability” but “by switching…

If you dump BEVs on a grid that's transitioning towards renewables, you'll delay that transition. It doesn't make sense to account for the emissions as being the average of the grid, because you're delaying shutting down your dirtiest power to deal with the marginal load.

BEVs are clearly the future, and offer opportunities for distributed storage and demand dispatch that will help us keep the grid stable even with high renewable mixes. They're going to be great in the future, and for that we need to build up a market for them. That's where the real difference will come from.

Re: The electric car as a talisman of false hope

#54

Post by bryanlarsen »

This is an extremely counter-productive line of thinking. Slowing climate change to manageable levels requires massive costs and sacrifice, but not insane levels. In terms of cost, single figure trillions.

IOW, similar to the Apollo project or the Iraq war. A heck of a lot cheaper than WWII.

Re: The electric car as a talisman of false hope

#55

Post by sgt101 »

seren wrote: post #52
Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chinese one-child policy is the closest I can come to an example off the top of my head. A much milder change than the one required against global warming, and it required an authoritarian government, though...

Although if we somehow could apply a global one child policy, it would halve the population every generation, it would help tremendously with carbon emission (but not so much for our growth or financial system)

The spread of contraception is making this a reality for a significant part of the world. Government campaigns to provide more contraceptives and get people to use them would be huge boons in the fight against long term AGW.

Re: The electric car as a talisman of false hope

#56

Post by bryanlarsen »

pif wrote: post #6

> To have any chance of slowing down climate breakdown rather than accelerating it further, we need to change our entire way of life... I agree with him. And that's why I keep saying that global warming is here to stay. We had better to learn to cope with it rather than hoping it can be reversed!

If we do nothing, then we get to learn to cope with an 8 degree rise in temperature. If we do something, maybe we can limit it to three degrees instead of our two degree target. Acknowledging we're going to miss our two degree target doesn't change the measures we have to take to mitigate climate change.

Re: The electric car as a talisman of false hope

#57

Post by ahje »

seren wrote: post #8
alexgmcm wrote: post #2

Honestly, I hope electric cars become commonplace just because of the reduction in noise pollution let alone PM and CO2 emissions. Furthermore, I'm not really sure what the author thinks we should do? How can we maintain modern civilisation without factories etc.? Reverting to some primitive state seems neither realistic nor desirable.

> Furthermore, I'm not really sure what the author thinks we should do? How can we maintain modern civilisation without factories etc.? Reverting to some primitive state seems neither realistic nor desirable. We could probably revert back to a 1920-1930 level of car without being in a "primitive" state. That means less individual car ownership, and more bicycles, public transportation and more local factories/shops.…

> We could probably revert back to a 1920-1930 level of car without being in a "primitive" state.

Reducing urban car ownership rates is a good thing, if nothing else it'll result in cleaner city air.

It becomes more complicated when it comes to the modern forestry and agricultural industries, not to mention mining and a lot of other raw material extraction, which are all completely dependant on fossil fuel for powering machinery, bulk transports, backup power and so on. Replacing all that equipment will take many decades no matter how it's done, and we need to start looking at stuff like ethanol/bio-fuels/E-diesel and such right away.

That would solve a large part of the problem the author describes as well -- it would be a nice interim solution while we renew the existing infrastructure.

Re: The electric car as a talisman of false hope

#58

Post by adamlett »

Denzel wrote: post #13

His argument distills to: solve it all-at-once, or don’t solve it at all. This is an uninteresting and uninspiring line of thinking that ignores the nature of socially dynamic systems which don’t exist in a world of instantaneous cause-and-effect. His conclusion states that electric cars make a difference, but they don’t make a real difference: “I do think they can slightly reduce unsustainability” but “by switching…

The way I read TFA, the argument is this: If you think electric cars is the solution or a meaningful part of the solution, you're wrong. It does not say electric cars are bad, and it certainly does not argue that we should not solve [the climate crisis] if we can't solve it all-at-once.

There are unfortunately still many, many people, who—even if they accept that human caused climate change is real—do not appreciate how urgent the crisis is.

Re: The electric car as a talisman of false hope

#59

Post by ecpottinger »

cowsandmilk wrote: post #50
alexgmcm wrote: post #2

Honestly, I hope electric cars become commonplace just because of the reduction in noise pollution let alone PM and CO2 emissions. Furthermore, I'm not really sure what the author thinks we should do? How can we maintain modern civilisation without factories etc.? Reverting to some primitive state seems neither realistic nor desirable.

> Reverting to some primitive state seems neither realistic nor desirable. You'll see plenty of complaining online about DC's transit system, but to me it is an example of what can be done. Vienna metro station is ~13 miles as the crow flies outside the city center. It gets trains every 8 minutes and 12 minutes during rush hour. Compare to Boston where train stations at the same distance out have service every half h…

Here in Toronto the GO Train used to be one hour apart. If you missed your train you had to wait an hour for the next one. Of-course people drove in to work.

Today the train is every twenty minutes, and every run is half to completely full.

Why? Because on average people have to wait 20 minutes if they just missed the train, and if they just randomly arrive they often do not have to wait more than 10 minutes for a train.

Result, people use the train more often and for more than just work since the train is available so often.

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