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So I guess anyone out anywhere beyond the lower mainland is screwed after 2040? There's a lot of BC that's far away from sources of power. But then again, the
by grawprog 8y ago
So I guess anyone out anywhere beyond the lower mainland is screwed after 2040?
There's a lot of BC that's far away from sources of power.
But then again, the BC government might as well be the Metro Vancouver government. They really give such a small amount of shits about anybody living outside the lower mainland.
- ForHackernews 8y agoIf the IPCC is right, we're all screwed unless we cut global CO2 emissions in half by 2030. So...yes?
- ed_balls 8y agoPoliticians like to create laws and make promises about the distant future which they cannot be held accountable for. If they would really care they would tax all vehicles except electric and hybrids starting from 2025 and increase the tax every year, so be 2030 no one would buy pure ICE car unless they absolutely have to.
- switchbak 8y agoI think the market will take care of that soon enough. At least this legislation makes the long term infrastructure investment a no-brainer. There's also car industry Jobs to think about, no politician wants to put that at undue risk.
- maxsilver 8y ago> There's a lot of BC that's far away from sources of power. How do they get power now? Anywhere that has electricity today could be charging electric cars today. And fuel cells exist, for the limited use cases where electricity isn't ideal
- grawprog 8y agoIt's more the hundreds of kilometers of wilderness between many communities in BC.
- maxsilver 8y agoToday's zero emission Fuel Cell cars already have average range of over 560km. (See the 2019 Honda Clarity, for example). And this law doesn't take effect for another 20 years. We can probably get these communities some hydrogen refueling stations by then.
- justaman 8y ago560km in -20F weather? Not sure about that. Also that Honda wouldn't take a snow drift without falling apart. People who live in cities take their public services fore granted. If you're out in the country you NEED a truck and almost certainly a plow to attach to it.
- DoubleCribble 8y agoI bet you can stick a snow plow on one of these: https://products.rivian.com/ https://products.rivian.com/
- justaman 8y agoI'm sure you could but this truck seems marketed towards people who haven't owned a truck. "Adventure Vehicle" sounds like its built for those soccer moms who would have otherwise gotten a Ford "Explorer". At best, its unproven. At worst, its every other eco-suv this time with a bed. The video preview doesn't even have a basic hitch ball on the back.
- endorphone 8y agoI'm sure if you try hard and use all of your creative juices you can imagine that it's just the beginning of a flood of projects that will have completely changed things by 2040. But even then, that truck you dismiss has an 11,000 lb towing capacity, some 800ft lbs of torque, etc. Sure sounds like a "soccer mom" vehicle...
- giarc 8y agoI think what OP is saying is currently you can drive between communities and not have to worry about filling up (600km to a tank). If your EV only gets 400km, how are you going to get between those locations. As another commentor pointed out, there is a lot of time for charging stations to be built.
- icebraining 8y ago400km is the current range, not the range in 2040.
- cgh 8y agoI grew up in a very small, isolated place in northern BC. Power was produced by a diesel locomotive engine up on blocks that ran 24/7. Except when it didn't, normally in the dead of the very long winter.
- stcredzero 8y agoI briefly worked for a boss in Alaska who normally didn't have electric power at all. Everything was done by burning some fuel, including bathing. To check the mail, he had to take his boat downriver into town.
- sametmax 8y ago2040 is pretty far away, plenty of time for the techs, markets and infrastructures to mature. Besides, it's only about new ones. You'll still have 10 good years of second hand cars, probably 20 since anticipation will make people stock on models they think they'll sell well. And of course you'll have the obvious delay that is exceptionally given at the end of every single of those big shifts. So 2040-60 seems a reasonable target given how important it is for humanity. And a deadline will give incentive to find solutions.
- TheCoelacanth 8y agoIt's more of a rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic target. That is far too late to accomplish anything useful.
- ghshephard 8y agoI can't imagine there won't be exception for Northern BC, Farm/Industrial Vehicles, etc...
- dugditches 8y agoLiterally the first line "All light-duty cars and trucks sold in British Columbia would have to be zero-emission by 2040 under legislation tabled Wednesday."
- labster 8y agoDo Canadians use the British sense of the word tabled (begin debate) or the American sense (halt debate)? The way a word means its opposite in different countries is literally a pain in the neck.
- winthrowe 8y agoThinking on it, I usually see it used in the British sense in politics, but often the American sense in business. I try to avoid it; it's even more ambiguous than most Canadian compromises between British and American English.
- switchbak 8y agoI'm used to the latter, but I've heard both. Definitely confusing, I try to avoid it now and say "punt" instead. Probably confusing those that aren't familiar with (American) football.
- jimpick 8y agoDefinitely the former in this case. British Columbia uses a British parliamentary system.
- TheRealPomax 8y agoWe're a weird bunch. Just because we use the concept of houses doesn't mean that we use the same words in the same way as Britain at all. Especially not if we need to work with Washington state a lot.
- robbrit 8y agoSure, if you take today's technology and apply it to 2040 then it doesn't paint a pretty picture. However if you assume that technology will advance over 20 years, then things do look better. Battery technology, cost of solar and other off-the-grid energy sources, and electric vehicle supply chains have changed significantly since 2000, and will likely continue to do so by 2040. It's very difficult to predict what things will look like by then. And yep, in places like BC where most of the population lives in cities, you tend to get laws much more oriented towards what city dwellers want.
- Mirioron 8y agoHow significantly has battery technology really changed? As far as I can tell, batteries haven't become that much better. I don't see how they'll become that much better in the future either.
- bryanlarsen 8y ago20 years ago the EV-1 was the state of the art, with 26 KWh of NiMH batteries. And that was a massive advancement over the lead acid batteries the EV-1 used when introduced a couple of years prior.
- randomfinn 8y agoThere's also hydrogen in addition to battery electric.
- VBprogrammer 8y agoFor most of B.C wood-gasification would be a great solution! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_gas https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_gas
- bdamm 8y agoIn the '80's kids RC toys were powered by a fat yellow battery the size of a hot dog bun that basically everyone from that era will recognize. Today, a single rechargeable AA battery can hold twice the power as that '80's hot-dog battery. That's a big improvement, over 10x more dense, with more improvements in the pipeline.
- johnwyles 8y agoI'm sure there will be provisions in place for exceptions
- dsfyu404ed 8y agoToday's compromise is tomorrow's loophole.
- temp-dude-87844 8y agoThere will a big market for used trucks unless they make further changes to the emissions and inspection laws. Also, AirCare was cancelled, so older vehicles aren't currently under as much scrutiny as a few years ago.
- dbingham 8y agoYeah, and how are people in the rural areas of BC going to be doing if we don't hit zero emissions by 2050? We need to be treating that as a hard limit. And yes, that means sacrifices, behavioral changes, and - probably - a drop in standard of living. Or at the very least, life that looks pretty different than it does now. But the alternative is the natural world collapsing out from under us and society coming apart at the seams as a result.
- soperj 8y agoYou realize the BC Government isn't even based in Metro Vancouver right?
- dsfyu404ed 8y agoThe NY state government isn't based in NYC either. That doesn't mean their wealth doesn't buy them outsize influence.
- grawprog 8y agoYeah...tell them that. You'd think they were.
- dsfyu404ed 8y agoLook at it through their eyes. Screwing "those filthy hicks that hold us back" is a fringe benefit. They'd never admit it but they don't feel bad for making everyone else suffer, after all thats's what you get for voting for the "wrong" party.
- Tiktaalik 8y agoMaybe the Greens who only hold three seats in urban/suburban Vancouver Island, but the NDP hold several seats in rural, interior BC and they're more supportive of BC's traditional resource economy.
- switchbak 8y agoI think you're ascribing an intent that's just not there. Certainly I've never met anyone whose prime motivation was trying to screw rural folks. Certainly there are some people that are quite out of touch, but I think their heart is mostly in the right place. In actual fact I've met many farmers, loggers, and even a friend in the petroleum industry that all take climate change very seriously. Once you move away from partisanship, I think you'll find there's a lot of support for this even in places you wouldn't expect it.
- refurb 8y agoI was going to say the same thing. Lower Mainland? That could work. Price George, BC? Yeah, no.
- bdamm 8y agoYeah, how would an electric car even carry enough energy to heat the cabin long enough to make it to McBride, Chetwynd, or Kitimat? Seems like a major stretch.
- switchbak 8y agoI learned recently that the Leaf doesn't have any thermal management - we'll certainly need vehicles that are designed for Northern climates. But given how popular the Teslas are in Norway, I think there's probably hope. Even if we're just talking about the little cars at first. Once the batteries have sufficient capacity, you can just devote some of the spare capacity to heating during a trip. In theory you could also have a dedicated heater than ran on LNG or similar. Might be a "less bad" compromise to enable EVs in such situations until the technology evolves to go full electric.
- shereadsthenews 8y agoBeing far from everything is going to be a niche activity in the future. Most people will gather into settlements that are compact enough and large enough and few enough to be interconnected by electric rail. That said, I prefer a carbon tax which allows each individual to make their own choices of how to spend their carbon budget. Perhaps you'd like to spend your carbon budget on driving all over BC, while I'd like to spend mine on eating beef or whatever.
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- TheRealPomax 8y agoSure. But then again, if 20 years isn't enough time to build charge stations... actually, I'm not finishing that sentence: 20 years is more than enough to build charge stations where they're needed. I mean, come on: if even Terrace already has three charge point, I'm pretty sure the rest of our province isn't some lame duck unable to build what is needed to meet the needs of the people who live where they live.