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Yes, electric car manufacturing is still done largely with non-renewable sources. But it's happening nonetheless. Manufacturers like Porsche and Volvo expect to
by beat 7y ago
Yes, electric car manufacturing is still done largely with non-renewable sources. But it's happening nonetheless. Manufacturers like Porsche and Volvo expect to be over 50% EV by 2025. Even for fuel-based cars, plug-in hybrids are becoming more common. So the auto industry will be switching quickly.
Unfortunately, we will still have other pockets where fossil fuels are much harder to root out - heavy oil for shipping, jet fuel, and the existing base of coal plants that aren't financially viable to replace. But how many decades are left in those coal plants? Who will build a new coal plant to replace the old one?
And as gasoline and coal are phased out, they will become more expensive, as economies of scale drop out. Meanwhile, economies of scale in manufacturing are a key reason for the drop in the cost of renewables. Market forces are mostly on the side of renewables here, and trends even more so.
- ThomPete 7y ago"expecting" is the problem word here. That means absolutely nothing. Its marketing talk with no real foundation in reality. Gasoline and coal will be phased out but it's not because of wind and solar as they literally can't deliver what is needed and will need at a minimum nuclear or oil or coal as backup when the wind isn't blowing or the sun isn't shining. We are nowhere near fuel cells. One could even make a case for us being closer to fusion than fuel cells.
- beat 7y ago"When the sun isn't shining" shows that you really don't understand the field. Again... ever heard of batteries? There are any number of ways to temporarily store power. Collect wind/solar when the wind blows and the sun shines, and have some spare energy cached when demand exceeds supply. There's no "can't" anywhere in this. It's just a question of cost. And if wind/solar + sufficient storage is still cheaper than coal and gas peaker plants, it wins. That's the way the entire industry is betting, worldwide. The experts whose careers are on the line think this is the right path for a reason.
- ThomPete 7y agoI understand the field perfectly well, well enough to know a thing or two about capacity factors. It's not a question of cost but of simple physics. Batteries aren't going to solve anything what so ever. We would need fuel cells which is theoretically possible but as far out as fusion when it comes to actually have something that works in practice.
- beat 7y agoUntil we get fuel cells that don't need a platinum catalyst, they're irrelevant. Not enough platinum to scale.