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> For one, the electric car market markets itself as green and while they are running on renewable energy, the costs and sources of power for building them are

by varjag 10y ago

> For one, the electric car market markets itself as green and while they are running on renewable energy, the costs and sources of power for building them are reportedly a lot less environmentally friendly. This is the kind of made up on spot arguments you hear from ICE vehicle owners. Until they switch to EV :) "Manufacturing a mid-sized EV with an 84-mile range results in about 15 percent more emissions than manufacturing an equivalent gasoline vehicle." http://www.ucsusa.org/clean-vehicles/electric-vehicles/life-cycle-ev-emissions#.WG9fXZ7NRkp http://www.ucsusa.org/clean-vehicles/electric-vehicles/life-... 15pct is not anywhere enough to offset the lifetime footprint of a fossils-driven vehicle, especially in case of Norway where effectively all electricity is hydro.

kagamine 10y ago
Sort of just what I said. I did state "reportedly" and not provide any sources. I don't think I was being unfair to the EV market. However, buying a new car and junking the old one has to be less energy efficient than owning an old car and trying to use it less while utilizing public transport. Public transport is something I could have mentioned in my original post as it is not prioritized enough here in Norway and car culture is. If the govt were serious, really serious about the environment then public transport would be much better than it is currently. Edit: I just remembered another reason why I think EV is about money and not only about the environment: diesel engines could easily(ish) be adapted to run on renewable plant based fuel[1], but no govt is interested in promoting this. In fact they do the opposite, they tax the end user quite highly for pouring vegetable oil into cars even though a diesel engine run on veg oil is emissions free. The conversions wouldn't be very much more than when leaded fuel was phased out and we all put new heads on our petrol engines (in the Land Rover community at least we did this). New diesel motors could be manufactured to specs able to cope with plant based fuel (especially with a bit of engineering enterprise). If some one can give a good answer as to why this has never been a viable option except for hobbyists I would be interested to read it. edit 2: without govt. or trade backing this company doing said conversions folded 3 years ago. But what a future we might have seen. http://www.dieselveg.com/ http://www.dieselveg.com/ 1. http://www.reedx.net/landrover/mods/vegoil/p2.php http://www.reedx.net/landrover/mods/vegoil/p2.php
- varjag 10y ago
  I actually agree that it's all about money. An average citizen cares for environment in abstract, but not enough to pay premium for it. What we have in Norway with EVs is government incentives for adoption at work. With biodiesel I remember there used to be some debate how much it can harm the food crops supply if the prices are competitive. So at least that is a concern. And specifically in Norway diesel is penalized for a while now, ironically after being promoted by the government for years before that.
  - digi_owl 10y ago
    The whole EV thing is a mess. There was some old regulations on the books that allowed EVs to drive toll free and use buss lanes during rush hour. Hardly anyone cared when it was introduced, because the major EV available were Think compacts. But when Tesla introduced their sports car, suddenly everyone monied individual in the cities took interest. Because it was still a EV according to regulations, so now they could drive something that looked and performed just like the gas guzzler the neighbor had, get around tolls and rush hour traffic, and pretend to care about the environment.
- JLK_121416 10y ago
  One could - from a narrow perspective[1] - argue that diesel engines on plant oil would be carbon-neutral but not that they are emission free. In fact: (older) diesel engines are being banned from cities (e.g. Antwerp, Belgium) not because of CO2-emissions but due to emissions of particulates (and NOx). CO2 is a global problem, but particulates and NOx are local problems (and hence more likely to trigger local political action). [1] it is often argued that biomass/biofuel is not entirely carbon-neutral due to several reasons: the inherent lifecycle means some CO2 is in the atmosphere at any point; production is often based on CO2-emitting processes ... Secondly some other issues pop up as well: (indirect) land use change, competition with food ...
- ZeroGravitas 10y ago
  Anti-environmental conspiracy theories (the evil electric car lobby are ruining the business of the nice oil providers for no good reason) aren't really any more useful than environmental conspiracy theories and biases ("chemicals" are bad, "natural" means good etc). EVs are better for the environment, both local and global, than ICE cars. That's true on average and even truer for Norway with its cleaner grid. Biodiesals etc. should really be saved for the things that can't be easily electrified, like flying craft. But, at this very moment I believe various places including the US mandate that the diesel is mixed with these fuels to a certain percentage, so there's no big conspiracy here against this type of fuel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_biofuel_policies#Renewable_Fuel_Standard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_biofuel_policies... If someone buys a brand new EV then a) presumably they would have bought a brand new ICE instead, b) they do not set their older car on fire and push it over a cliff, but rather sell it to someone, who in turn sells their car to somoene else. In the end, particularly with punitive tax incentives in place, the oldest, least-safe, least-efficient, most polluting cars in the system are scrapped.
tropo 10y ago
It's not 15% when you already have a gasoline vehicle that you propose to discard. It's 115%, because the alternative is to keep what you have. You can't unproduce what you have. Keep old car: 0% the emissions of producing it Buy new gasoline car: 100% the emissions to produce it Buy new electric car: 115% the emissions to produce a gasoline car

by varjag 10y ago

kagamine 10y ago

Sort of just what I said. I did state "reportedly" and not provide any sources. I don't think I was being unfair to the EV market. However, buying a new car and junking the old one has to be less energy efficient than owning an old car and trying to use it less while utilizing public transport. Public transport is something I could have mentioned in my original post as it is not prioritized enough here in Norway and car culture is. If the govt were serious, really serious about the environment then public transport would be much better than it is currently. Edit: I just remembered another reason why I think EV is about money and not only about the environment: diesel engines could easily(ish) be adapted to run on renewable plant based fuel[1], but no govt is interested in promoting this. In fact they do the opposite, they tax the end user quite highly for pouring vegetable oil into cars even though a diesel engine run on veg oil is emissions free. The conversions wouldn't be very much more than when leaded fuel was phased out and we all put new heads on our petrol engines (in the Land Rover community at least we did this). New diesel motors could be manufactured to specs able to cope with plant based fuel (especially with a bit of engineering enterprise). If some one can give a good answer as to why this has never been a viable option except for hobbyists I would be interested to read it. edit 2: without govt. or trade backing this company doing said conversions folded 3 years ago. But what a future we might have seen. http://www.dieselveg.com/ http://www.dieselveg.com/ 1. http://www.reedx.net/landrover/mods/vegoil/p2.php http://www.reedx.net/landrover/mods/vegoil/p2.php

varjag 10y ago
I actually agree that it's all about money. An average citizen cares for environment in abstract, but not enough to pay premium for it. What we have in Norway with EVs is government incentives for adoption at work. With biodiesel I remember there used to be some debate how much it can harm the food crops supply if the prices are competitive. So at least that is a concern. And specifically in Norway diesel is penalized for a while now, ironically after being promoted by the government for years before that.
- digi_owl 10y ago
  The whole EV thing is a mess. There was some old regulations on the books that allowed EVs to drive toll free and use buss lanes during rush hour. Hardly anyone cared when it was introduced, because the major EV available were Think compacts. But when Tesla introduced their sports car, suddenly everyone monied individual in the cities took interest. Because it was still a EV according to regulations, so now they could drive something that looked and performed just like the gas guzzler the neighbor had, get around tolls and rush hour traffic, and pretend to care about the environment.
JLK_121416 10y ago
One could - from a narrow perspective[1] - argue that diesel engines on plant oil would be carbon-neutral but not that they are emission free. In fact: (older) diesel engines are being banned from cities (e.g. Antwerp, Belgium) not because of CO2-emissions but due to emissions of particulates (and NOx). CO2 is a global problem, but particulates and NOx are local problems (and hence more likely to trigger local political action). [1] it is often argued that biomass/biofuel is not entirely carbon-neutral due to several reasons: the inherent lifecycle means some CO2 is in the atmosphere at any point; production is often based on CO2-emitting processes ... Secondly some other issues pop up as well: (indirect) land use change, competition with food ...
ZeroGravitas 10y ago
Anti-environmental conspiracy theories (the evil electric car lobby are ruining the business of the nice oil providers for no good reason) aren't really any more useful than environmental conspiracy theories and biases ("chemicals" are bad, "natural" means good etc). EVs are better for the environment, both local and global, than ICE cars. That's true on average and even truer for Norway with its cleaner grid. Biodiesals etc. should really be saved for the things that can't be easily electrified, like flying craft. But, at this very moment I believe various places including the US mandate that the diesel is mixed with these fuels to a certain percentage, so there's no big conspiracy here against this type of fuel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_biofuel_policies#Renewable_Fuel_Standard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_biofuel_policies... If someone buys a brand new EV then a) presumably they would have bought a brand new ICE instead, b) they do not set their older car on fire and push it over a cliff, but rather sell it to someone, who in turn sells their car to somoene else. In the end, particularly with punitive tax incentives in place, the oldest, least-safe, least-efficient, most polluting cars in the system are scrapped.

tropo 10y ago

It's not 15% when you already have a gasoline vehicle that you propose to discard. It's 115%, because the alternative is to keep what you have. You can't unproduce what you have. Keep old car: 0% the emissions of producing it Buy new gasoline car: 100% the emissions to produce it Buy new electric car: 115% the emissions to produce a gasoline car