You mean like happened with oil until we moved on to newer extraction methods and newer tech, and supply started outstripping demand again? At least with lithium batteries, the waste products can be reprocessed.
The government should rather use high taxes on fossil-fuels so the market can efficiently work, instead of trying to micromanage with all these subsidies, special rules, outright bans, and other "incentive programs".
Wouldn't applying high taxes also be 'micromanaging'? And why do you think the market, guided by tax changes or not, should decide on how long we keep building combustion engine cars?
If the market wanted to keep them around for a hundred years, until the oil runs out, would that be ok, given what we know about how damaging the emissions from cars are?
That answers the first question, "Wouldn't applying high taxes also be 'micromanaging'?"
For the second question "And why do you think the market, guided by tax changes or not, should decide on how long we keep building combustion engine cars?" I would say because the market under a fossil-fuel tax will do a better job at optimizing for what ought to be the desired ultimate goal of fewer fossil-fuel emissions overall instead of simply meeting what is an unnecessary side-goal of no fossil-fuel-burning cars.
For the third question, "If the market wanted to keep them around for a hundred years, until the oil runs out, would that be ok, given what we know about how damaging the emissions from cars are?", I would say a large-enough fossil-fuel tax would cause humans to not use up the remaining oil as fast as these other schemes.
Don't necessarily have to punish poor people in net. The revenue from such a fossil-fuel tax could be either redistributed directly to everyone (the so-called "revenue-neutral" carbon tax) or the revenue could be used by the government to provide services to the poor.
The more important question you comment skips over is: should people (poor or not) be commuting significant distances using fossil fuels in the first place? Such a tax on fossil-fuels will naturally cause employees & employers to be physically closer.
How much cleaner is electricity that comes from fossil fuels compared to direct burning of fossil fuels?
EDIT 1: Thanks for all the enthusiastic replies telling me that power generation is better optimized. Yes, I already understand power plants are much more likely to be better optimized than car engines. That's why I asked "how much" instead of "whether". I'm wondering if the difference ends up being something like 10% (by whatever the suitable metric is) or 30% or 60%. Numbers and/or references from actual data would be appreciated.
EDIT 2: Note that we also need to consider the energy loss in transferring the electric power and charging up the battery; it's not just about power generation efficiency. I don't know if this is significant or not.
Great! This is the kind of number I was hoping for; thanks!
The remaining part is how much efficiency is lost in between (charging, transformers, etc.)... hopefully it's not a significant fraction of the difference?
It is my understanding that once efficiencies are factored in, electric cars powered by fossil fuel power plants are still cleaner than gasoline for the simple reason that internal combustion engines are rarely running at peak efficiency (efficiency is 0% when idling to use the extreme case), and even peak efficiency is lower than you can get from the power plant. That said, China is also investing heavily in alternative energy, so the situation would only improve over time.
It is cleaner, as the power plants always run at peak efficiency while combustion engines in cars only achieve about 50% of that. So even in the worst case, the electric car is not bad. Of course, an electric car does not have any noxious exhausts inside the cities, nor does it make as much noise as a combustion engine.
But few grids are 100% fossil, and most importantly, most if not all grids are going to get significantly cleaner during the lifetime of the electric car. So electric cars are picking up any enhancements to the electricity production.
Not only are car engines run at sometimes-inefficient RPMs - they also have to optimize for weight, volume, and convenient torques/speeds for a car transmission, all of which come at the expense of efficiency.
If we're comparing with ICE vehicles, an easy way to think about this is how driving style alone can affect mileage. A power plant can be designed and run most efficiently to produce power all the time.
That aside, the fuels used in power plants aren't generally the same as those used in vehicles, are they?
The power for electric cars need not, of course, come from fossil fuels at all. Nuclear, solar, geothermic - the car doesn't care. As ever, naturally, workable fusion fixes much...
Well, one of the benefits of centralization is economies of scale to do R&D. And thus the power generation can move to wind, solar, geothermal, nuclear and so forth.
And it can be supplemented by solar panels which is decentralized.
"2) Energy production is more efficient in a power plant than it is in a car engine. To use an example with an identical source fuel, burning natural gas in a power plant is about 60% efficient, meaning 40% of the energy of the fuel is lost in the energy production process. In a car, burning gas is less than 25% efficient, with the vast majority of the energy lost to heat. The larger more complex system at a power plant will always be far better at capturing waste heat than a tiny car engine. The increased efficiency means that even a car running purely on coal-generated electricity will emit carbon at the same rate as a gas car that gets 30 miles per gallon—which would be a significantly cleaner-than-average gas car."
Thanks! Yeah, this is the kind of number I was looking for. The remaining part is how much efficiency is lost in the transfer of energy from the power plant to your car (transmission, charging, etc.).
Re: Edit 2: Note that we also need to consider the energy loss in transferring the electric power and charging up the battery; it's not just about power generation efficiency
Do we then also need to consider then the energy cost of transporting gasoline from refineries to gas stations?
This is an interesting move not only from the environmental perspective, but also the industrial. Depending on how they do this, they could be creating a captive market that pushes demand for EVs to the point Chineese automakers get a real head start on affordable electric car design and manufacturing.
I am pretty sure that electric cars are going to take over the car market. Tesla has shown that electric cars can be more desirable than combustion engined ones. They are also the best way to reduce the environmental impact of cars. Currently, the market share is limited by the higher price and more so even by the small number of different electrical models offered. The price does not matter if you cannot get the car model you want in the first place.
So any threats of fossil car sales is about accelerating the switch and push car makers into quickly offering a wider variety of electric cars. As soon as electric cars cross 50% market share, combustion engine cars probably will become less desirable and difficult to sell. So a total ban should not matter too much then, the trick is getting to 50%.
As much as I would like this to happen soon, I see the 30 minute charge as main ux impediment that needs to be overcome before they can really go mainstream. People simply aren't going to want to wait that long. It needs to be comparable to getting gas or it's a dealbreaker imo.
The key to that is to have the car charge, when it parks. Then even modest charge speeds are sufficient to keep your car charged all the time. You would only have to wait for a recharge when going long distance>300 miles in one drive. There electric cars would be slower than combustion engined ones - unless you take breaks anyway, which would make the charge time mostly vanish. But yes, electric cars have tradeoffs too. As a plus you never have to refuel in day-to-day driving and there are all the other benefits of electric propulsion (comfort and environmental impact).
That's a good point--requires quite a big infrastructure push though to get there. Seems like a bit of a chicken and egg problem, as it will be hard to justify the spending required to make charge-while-parking sufficiently ubiquitous until electric cars have a big market share, but I'm not sure they can get that market share without a good charging story like the one you describe. Tough problem.
It is happening. Here in Germany, you often will find at least one or two charging spots at malls, and a lot of supermarkets have set up charging spots too - as soon as they are regularly occupied, more can be added easily. Also, about 50% of all car owners could addd electricity to their garage or parking lot without a large investment. Some cities are experimenting with adding plugs to street lights.
> They are also the best way to reduce the environmental impact of cars.
From an individual perspective, maybe. From a city-planner perspective, the best way to reduce the environmental impact of cars is to deploy public transit. (And the Chinese know that: https://twitter.com/yicaichina/status/867494851511672832 )
I stand to my sentence: they are the best way to reduce the environmental impact of cars, as you have cars. If you get rid of cars, that is of course even less environmental impact. I am a big supporter of public transit - personally I always use public transit to go to downtown (Munich, Germany), as it is much more convenient and even cheaper.
Is there any other rational explanation of why China was granted "Most Favored Nation" status and entrance into the WTO other than short sightedness and the willing to sell out the western workers for a quick buck? No company can manufacture in China without transferring their technology and know-how to a local company. I can understand why China does this. Seems to be working well. Why does the west support this undemocratic, closed system, internet firewall, rising economy; soon to be superpower? Cheap iphones?
The west had quite a bit of leverage over China at one point. No longer.
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[ 104 ms ] story [ 1271 ms ] threadIf the market wanted to keep them around for a hundred years, until the oil runs out, would that be ok, given what we know about how damaging the emissions from cars are?
For the second question "And why do you think the market, guided by tax changes or not, should decide on how long we keep building combustion engine cars?" I would say because the market under a fossil-fuel tax will do a better job at optimizing for what ought to be the desired ultimate goal of fewer fossil-fuel emissions overall instead of simply meeting what is an unnecessary side-goal of no fossil-fuel-burning cars.
For the third question, "If the market wanted to keep them around for a hundred years, until the oil runs out, would that be ok, given what we know about how damaging the emissions from cars are?", I would say a large-enough fossil-fuel tax would cause humans to not use up the remaining oil as fast as these other schemes.
The more important question you comment skips over is: should people (poor or not) be commuting significant distances using fossil fuels in the first place? Such a tax on fossil-fuels will naturally cause employees & employers to be physically closer.
EDIT 1: Thanks for all the enthusiastic replies telling me that power generation is better optimized. Yes, I already understand power plants are much more likely to be better optimized than car engines. That's why I asked "how much" instead of "whether". I'm wondering if the difference ends up being something like 10% (by whatever the suitable metric is) or 30% or 60%. Numbers and/or references from actual data would be appreciated.
EDIT 2: Note that we also need to consider the energy loss in transferring the electric power and charging up the battery; it's not just about power generation efficiency. I don't know if this is significant or not.
The remaining part is how much efficiency is lost in between (charging, transformers, etc.)... hopefully it's not a significant fraction of the difference?
Further, a few large plants can better filter particulates and other exhaust more efficiently than millions of smaller engines in every car.
But few grids are 100% fossil, and most importantly, most if not all grids are going to get significantly cleaner during the lifetime of the electric car. So electric cars are picking up any enhancements to the electricity production.
That aside, the fuels used in power plants aren't generally the same as those used in vehicles, are they?
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jan/05/china-inves...
And it can be supplemented by solar panels which is decentralized.
https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/06/how-tesla-will-change-your-li...
Here's the money quote:
"2) Energy production is more efficient in a power plant than it is in a car engine. To use an example with an identical source fuel, burning natural gas in a power plant is about 60% efficient, meaning 40% of the energy of the fuel is lost in the energy production process. In a car, burning gas is less than 25% efficient, with the vast majority of the energy lost to heat. The larger more complex system at a power plant will always be far better at capturing waste heat than a tiny car engine. The increased efficiency means that even a car running purely on coal-generated electricity will emit carbon at the same rate as a gas car that gets 30 miles per gallon—which would be a significantly cleaner-than-average gas car."
Do we then also need to consider then the energy cost of transporting gasoline from refineries to gas stations?
So any threats of fossil car sales is about accelerating the switch and push car makers into quickly offering a wider variety of electric cars. As soon as electric cars cross 50% market share, combustion engine cars probably will become less desirable and difficult to sell. So a total ban should not matter too much then, the trick is getting to 50%.
From an individual perspective, maybe. From a city-planner perspective, the best way to reduce the environmental impact of cars is to deploy public transit. (And the Chinese know that: https://twitter.com/yicaichina/status/867494851511672832 )
They're also ramping up nuclear power for similar reasons (http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-pro...)
The west had quite a bit of leverage over China at one point. No longer.