6 ms·

Saudi Attack Makes Electric Vehicles Even More Important

37 points by jseliger 7y ago

adrianN 7y ago
Because the literal destruction of the ecosphere due to global warming is not a sufficient motivation.
- rr-geil-j 7y ago
  If there's something I've had to accept is that at the end of the day, societal changes are realized either because the alternative causes financial losses or the "new thing" will bring in higher profit. For example, "pink money"[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_money https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_money
  - rowan647 7y ago
    Who owns the supply of minerals required to make electric car batteries? Does anyone know?
    - adrianN 7y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium#Terrestrial https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium#Terrestrial
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
  - benj111 7y ago
    I'm not sure you've established cause and effect here. Theres plenty of dirty money around, that hasn't made it socially more acceptable.
    - rr-geil-j 7y ago
      I'm not saying that involving money with any X will make X socially acceptable. My comment is specific to most social causes which only gain traction not because of goodwill but because there is a threat of financial/economic losses and/or promise of financial/economic gains. Primary example of 'threats' would be business disruption through protests and boycotts, while the opposite will be promotion and recommendation. Or in the case of this article, people might be convinced of using EVs because there is threat of higher oil prices, not because the environment is being destroyed.
- stunt 7y ago
  > Because the literal destruction of the ecosphere due to global warming is not a sufficient motivation. Events like this can't shake it. Sadly so much money and power involved in the oil business. And looking into what giant energy companies are doing for more money and power, you realize the last thing they care is ecosphere.
- chrisco255 7y ago
  Except the CO2 is acting as plant fertilizer: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide-fertilization-greening-earth https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide-fer... And it's not surprising since plants evolved on an earth with CO2 in the thousands of PPM.
  - masklinn 7y ago
    > Except the CO2 is acting as plant fertilizer: That's not actually helpful to existing ecosystems, let alone to us. > And it's not surprising since plants evolved on an earth with CO2 in the thousands of PPM. None of the current ecosystems (to say nothing of humanity, let alone human civilisations) did. The last time CO2 was above 1000ppm was some time before the E-Og extinction event, 34Ma.
    - chrisco255 7y ago
      I fail to follow your first argument. How would something that is good for plant life be bad for life on the planet? Plants form the base of the food chain. Virtually all modern plants grow at higher rates right up to 1200PPM. I'm not sure how taller trees and taller grasslands would affect us negatively. Presumably, more plant life means more animal life. As there is more food to support ecosystems.
      - adrianN 7y ago
        If you keep temperature and humidity controlled, like in a greenhouse, more CO2 is better for plants. It's completely unclear whether the dramatic changes that global climate change will bring will be similarly beneficial to the plants we have today.
      - masklinn 7y ago
        > How would something that is good for plant life be bad for life on the planet? Because it's only "good for plant life" in the very long (geological) term. In the short and medium (again, geological) terms it's a significant upheaval which is good for pretty much nothing. > Virtually all modern plants grow at higher rates right up to 1200PPM. I'm not sure how taller trees and taller grasslands would affect us negatively. The 1200 PPM CO2 and associated effects would do that, especially in the short-term, it would take tens of thousands of years[0] for new ecological equilibriums to be reached during which the entire web would be broken. > Presumably, more plant life means more animal life It would mean very different animal life. The intermediary period would be mass deaths across the board. [0] at the very least, could be millions depending on the scale of disruption, it took ~2My for the ecosphere to stabilise after K–Pg, and a further ~8My for it to recover pre-K-Pg levels of diversity. Local disruptions are easily resolved as species can migrate from neighbouring non-disrupted ecosystems but global disruptions (of the entire ecosphere or of a very isolated ecosystem) not so.
- duckfruit 7y ago
  You are being sarcastic, but this is literally true. Sadly loads of people don't even believe the truth of global warming (as if science is subject to the whims of people's beliefs). What would these people find more compelling? A slow, systemic process like global warming, which involves incremental changes taking place over decades - or the spectacle of exploding oil refineries, armed drones, and the drama of conflict. Probably the latter, even if the first is far more catastrophic.
  - wallace_f 7y ago
    For something to be Science, it requires the ability to stand up to the scrutiny of the scientific method. Edit: Imagine what kind of thinking could get this idea downvoted. It is not a good thing.
    - benj111 7y ago
      Your comment reads like climate change denialism, reading the parents comment on yours I'm not entirely sure that's what you meant, so I invite you to clarify your position.
      - wallace_f 7y ago
        >Your comment reads like climate change denialism I think this is religious thinking. You are attacking my idea for being somehow a kind of Wrongthink, and your implication is that expressinf Wrongthink is the reason for the disagreement. But then when you read the comment, it is a statement about what Science is. That being said, I don't feel my personal opinion matters, what is true is my statement. So I think for any further clarification, my comment should be applied to the subject. Can you scientifically prove CO2 is a greenhouse gas? Yea. Can you scientifically prove the world is going to end? No. This latter expression of alarmism is an opinion. This kind of consensus is wrong all the time. Remember Morton's skulls? Look up the history of some of the most embarassing Nobel Prizes. You might think I am a non-believer, heathen by now. Actually, I do try to reduce my carbon footprint, in stark contrast to my observations of most eco-holier-than-thou's behaviors. But I don't buy into the extreme alarmism, nor am I dumb enough to consider this apocalypse a fact. If you're buying this you're just regurgitating ideas that people more powerful than you want you to believe. Probably because they want more authority over the global economy and our lives, and to stop Russia from getting its massive windfall in economic resources that it would get from a significant increase in temperatures.
- iamsb 7y ago
  Curious - how much impact we would have on global warming if each and every car currently running is electric? Given that most of the electricity is provided by fossil fuels. Dont want to come across as a denier, this is a genuine question.
  - adrianN 7y ago
    Probably a rather small impact. On the other hand, replacing all energy consumption but transportation with carbon free alternatives isn't enough either. Global warming doesn't have a simple solution. We need to attack a large number of problems simultaneously if we want a chance to prevent catastrophe.
    - iamsb 7y ago
      I was hoping for a number, like say 1%. I wish there was a website which shows you exactly what are the causes of global warming and how much they contribute to it, preferably by industry and country. For example a small country like Australia which has less than 1% of human population, contributes enormously (15% of methane due to animal husbandry) but there is very little being done in that country to control this.
    - pinkfoot 7y ago
      ipcc.ch From the proverbial horse's mouth.
  - dagw 7y ago
    Could only find numbers from the EU, but there passenger cars account for ~18% of total CO2 emissions. Everybody else seems to report cars and trucks as one group so it's hard to estimate how much of that impact is cars.
  - reacweb 7y ago
    The overall losses between the power plant and consumers is in the range between 8 and 15%. An electric motor typically is between 85% and 90% efficient. Conventional gasoline vehicles only convert about 17%–21% of the energy stored in gasoline to power at the wheels. State-of-the-art fossil fuel plants at 46% efficiency. Using average values gives a ratio of 46x0.885x0.875/19=1.87 (electric almost twice as efficient). This calculus has not taken into account transport and filling the tank and older fossil fuel plants (maybe they compensate each others).
anm89 7y ago
I know this is completely off topic but news on the internet is such a mess. I wanted to read this but I'm going to pay for a bloomberg subscription. I would happily pay some amount of money to read this but there are at least 10 publications in line in front of Bloomberg and because buying one individual subscription get's me access to very little of want I end up willing to pay money but still with no subscriptions and no access to online news. Netflix for news is such an obvious unicorn and seems like it would be a better situation for medium sized publications like Bloomberg. I don't understand how it doesn't exist yet.
- spockz 7y ago
  In the Netherlands this exists as Blendle. It worked so well and “threatened” news paper revenue that the news papers now starting their own alternative. The interesting bit is that news papers also make some articles available for free which are paid for on the Blendle platform. Afaik, Blendle is also expanding to the US.
  - icebraining 7y ago
    There's also Inkl, but the selection is somewhat limited.
  - anm89 7y ago
    I hope so! I would pay for that no question. And I have a feeling many other people would as well.
- usrusr 7y ago
  I believe that a literal "Netflix for news" would never be accepted by news sites ("newspapers") due to how much it would take away control and ownership of the customer relation. In an earlier post to hn [0] I have described what I believe might work instead, a payment and co-subscription service offered to news outlets that isn't exposing any own branding to end users. Once you hand over your subscriptions to an aggregator brand, there is no turning back. Three key assumptions are that #1 consumers are unwilling to forget the "luniversal availability of the decades of ad-financed web #2 consumers are unwilling to have more subscriptions than they had in the age of paper (exactly one, almost universally) #3 the discrepancy between #1 and #2 makes consumers not pay at all unless "Netflix for news" or something equivalent is available #4 news sites understand and accept the implications, particularly that giving away content to someone who already had a subscriptions elsewhere isn't a lossy sale, due to #2 Main challenges are defining and enforcing the content availability delta between "home" subscription and co-subscription and dealing with price differentials (perhaps by defining the co-subscription availability as a freely scalable ramp?) [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19736903 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19736903
onetimemanytime 7y ago
It's not this attack, it's the next one...and so on. Not sure how and when they can defend their massive infrastructure. A small explosion can cause interruption for days, weeks...
- lnsru 7y ago
  The same is valid for other countries. Destroying towers with electricity transmission lines can cause serious blackouts. Especially in the middle of cold winter. Grid map is online: https://www.entsoe.eu/data/map/ https://www.entsoe.eu/data/map/
- anigbrowl 7y ago
  Indeed. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/09/yemen-houthi-rebels-release-saudi-attack-video-190929130644121.html https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/09/yemen-houthi-rebels-r...
kegal 7y ago
This attack was carried out by Saudis and Americans for the following reasons. 1. For a long time USA was looking for a reason to send more troops in Saudi Arabia 2. They are looking for a solid reason to strike on Iran 3. Saudi Arabia wants a reason to keep the war going in Yamen. 4. Saudis Also want to increase oil prices. 5. Also, Saudis want to decrease oil production so that the reserves remains for long time.
- anigbrowl 7y ago
  Those are all credible motivations but it seems like you've overlooked the need for evidence and also the fact that the Houthi have already taken credit for it.
- icebraining 7y ago
  (4) goes against the common claim that SA needs to keep oil prices down to prevent shale and other competitors with higher extraction costs from coming online.
mukundmr 7y ago
I don't see policy moving in that direction as a result of this incident. The leaders are happy to find alternative sources to buy oil from.
- JumpCrisscross 7y ago
  > I don't see policy moving in that direction as a result of this incident No, but it would if hostilities escalated. Taking Saudi production offline would spike oil prices. Dramatically. That would prompt political change, in the same way the OPEC crisis in the 70s did. At that point, the well-positioned (e.g. cities with public transit and electric car manufacturers) will prosper while those with their heads in the sand (e.g. communities dependent on cars for cheap transport and ICE-only manufacturers) will face a quick reckoning.
jplayer01 7y ago
The significance of this attack is entirely overblown. DA isn't as crucial to the world's oil supply as they used to be, and they're the only country that might be at risk. It's probably also a one-off attack as SA and the US adjust to the new threat model. The likelihood of another successful attack is going down by the day.
systemtest 7y ago
For my small country (NL) that would mean having to import gas from Russia to power our gas-plants to generate electricity for cars. I'm not sure which option is worse.
- adrianN 7y ago
  Or you could build more wind turbines and solar panels. The Netherlands are famously windy.
  - systemtest 7y ago
    That is correct. Wind energy is at 1.7 percent in our energy usage. But due to the high density of people and the ageing population we have a high amount of NIMBY.
- wallace_f 7y ago
  Yes, but electric cars can improve your social status. And if you're too entitled to drive a vehicle which respects your opinion that the world is going to end, try a hybrid SUV.

37 points by jseliger 7y ago

adrianN 7y ago

Because the literal destruction of the ecosphere due to global warming is not a sufficient motivation.

rr-geil-j 7y ago
If there's something I've had to accept is that at the end of the day, societal changes are realized either because the alternative causes financial losses or the "new thing" will bring in higher profit. For example, "pink money"[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_money https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_money
- rowan647 7y ago
  Who owns the supply of minerals required to make electric car batteries? Does anyone know?
  - adrianN 7y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium#Terrestrial https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium#Terrestrial
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
- benj111 7y ago
  I'm not sure you've established cause and effect here. Theres plenty of dirty money around, that hasn't made it socially more acceptable.
  - rr-geil-j 7y ago
    I'm not saying that involving money with any X will make X socially acceptable. My comment is specific to most social causes which only gain traction not because of goodwill but because there is a threat of financial/economic losses and/or promise of financial/economic gains. Primary example of 'threats' would be business disruption through protests and boycotts, while the opposite will be promotion and recommendation. Or in the case of this article, people might be convinced of using EVs because there is threat of higher oil prices, not because the environment is being destroyed.
stunt 7y ago
> Because the literal destruction of the ecosphere due to global warming is not a sufficient motivation. Events like this can't shake it. Sadly so much money and power involved in the oil business. And looking into what giant energy companies are doing for more money and power, you realize the last thing they care is ecosphere.
chrisco255 7y ago
Except the CO2 is acting as plant fertilizer: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide-fertilization-greening-earth https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide-fer... And it's not surprising since plants evolved on an earth with CO2 in the thousands of PPM.
- masklinn 7y ago
  > Except the CO2 is acting as plant fertilizer: That's not actually helpful to existing ecosystems, let alone to us. > And it's not surprising since plants evolved on an earth with CO2 in the thousands of PPM. None of the current ecosystems (to say nothing of humanity, let alone human civilisations) did. The last time CO2 was above 1000ppm was some time before the E-Og extinction event, 34Ma.
  - chrisco255 7y ago
    I fail to follow your first argument. How would something that is good for plant life be bad for life on the planet? Plants form the base of the food chain. Virtually all modern plants grow at higher rates right up to 1200PPM. I'm not sure how taller trees and taller grasslands would affect us negatively. Presumably, more plant life means more animal life. As there is more food to support ecosystems.
    - adrianN 7y ago
      If you keep temperature and humidity controlled, like in a greenhouse, more CO2 is better for plants. It's completely unclear whether the dramatic changes that global climate change will bring will be similarly beneficial to the plants we have today.
    - masklinn 7y ago
      > How would something that is good for plant life be bad for life on the planet? Because it's only "good for plant life" in the very long (geological) term. In the short and medium (again, geological) terms it's a significant upheaval which is good for pretty much nothing. > Virtually all modern plants grow at higher rates right up to 1200PPM. I'm not sure how taller trees and taller grasslands would affect us negatively. The 1200 PPM CO2 and associated effects would do that, especially in the short-term, it would take tens of thousands of years[0] for new ecological equilibriums to be reached during which the entire web would be broken. > Presumably, more plant life means more animal life It would mean very different animal life. The intermediary period would be mass deaths across the board. [0] at the very least, could be millions depending on the scale of disruption, it took ~2My for the ecosphere to stabilise after K–Pg, and a further ~8My for it to recover pre-K-Pg levels of diversity. Local disruptions are easily resolved as species can migrate from neighbouring non-disrupted ecosystems but global disruptions (of the entire ecosphere or of a very isolated ecosystem) not so.
duckfruit 7y ago
You are being sarcastic, but this is literally true. Sadly loads of people don't even believe the truth of global warming (as if science is subject to the whims of people's beliefs). What would these people find more compelling? A slow, systemic process like global warming, which involves incremental changes taking place over decades - or the spectacle of exploding oil refineries, armed drones, and the drama of conflict. Probably the latter, even if the first is far more catastrophic.
- wallace_f 7y ago
  For something to be Science, it requires the ability to stand up to the scrutiny of the scientific method. Edit: Imagine what kind of thinking could get this idea downvoted. It is not a good thing.
  - benj111 7y ago
    Your comment reads like climate change denialism, reading the parents comment on yours I'm not entirely sure that's what you meant, so I invite you to clarify your position.
    - wallace_f 7y ago
      >Your comment reads like climate change denialism I think this is religious thinking. You are attacking my idea for being somehow a kind of Wrongthink, and your implication is that expressinf Wrongthink is the reason for the disagreement. But then when you read the comment, it is a statement about what Science is. That being said, I don't feel my personal opinion matters, what is true is my statement. So I think for any further clarification, my comment should be applied to the subject. Can you scientifically prove CO2 is a greenhouse gas? Yea. Can you scientifically prove the world is going to end? No. This latter expression of alarmism is an opinion. This kind of consensus is wrong all the time. Remember Morton's skulls? Look up the history of some of the most embarassing Nobel Prizes. You might think I am a non-believer, heathen by now. Actually, I do try to reduce my carbon footprint, in stark contrast to my observations of most eco-holier-than-thou's behaviors. But I don't buy into the extreme alarmism, nor am I dumb enough to consider this apocalypse a fact. If you're buying this you're just regurgitating ideas that people more powerful than you want you to believe. Probably because they want more authority over the global economy and our lives, and to stop Russia from getting its massive windfall in economic resources that it would get from a significant increase in temperatures.
iamsb 7y ago
Curious - how much impact we would have on global warming if each and every car currently running is electric? Given that most of the electricity is provided by fossil fuels. Dont want to come across as a denier, this is a genuine question.
- adrianN 7y ago
  Probably a rather small impact. On the other hand, replacing all energy consumption but transportation with carbon free alternatives isn't enough either. Global warming doesn't have a simple solution. We need to attack a large number of problems simultaneously if we want a chance to prevent catastrophe.
  - iamsb 7y ago
    I was hoping for a number, like say 1%. I wish there was a website which shows you exactly what are the causes of global warming and how much they contribute to it, preferably by industry and country. For example a small country like Australia which has less than 1% of human population, contributes enormously (15% of methane due to animal husbandry) but there is very little being done in that country to control this.
  - pinkfoot 7y ago
    ipcc.ch From the proverbial horse's mouth.
- dagw 7y ago
  Could only find numbers from the EU, but there passenger cars account for ~18% of total CO2 emissions. Everybody else seems to report cars and trucks as one group so it's hard to estimate how much of that impact is cars.
- reacweb 7y ago
  The overall losses between the power plant and consumers is in the range between 8 and 15%. An electric motor typically is between 85% and 90% efficient. Conventional gasoline vehicles only convert about 17%–21% of the energy stored in gasoline to power at the wheels. State-of-the-art fossil fuel plants at 46% efficiency. Using average values gives a ratio of 46x0.885x0.875/19=1.87 (electric almost twice as efficient). This calculus has not taken into account transport and filling the tank and older fossil fuel plants (maybe they compensate each others).

anm89 7y ago

I know this is completely off topic but news on the internet is such a mess. I wanted to read this but I'm going to pay for a bloomberg subscription. I would happily pay some amount of money to read this but there are at least 10 publications in line in front of Bloomberg and because buying one individual subscription get's me access to very little of want I end up willing to pay money but still with no subscriptions and no access to online news. Netflix for news is such an obvious unicorn and seems like it would be a better situation for medium sized publications like Bloomberg. I don't understand how it doesn't exist yet.

spockz 7y ago
In the Netherlands this exists as Blendle. It worked so well and “threatened” news paper revenue that the news papers now starting their own alternative. The interesting bit is that news papers also make some articles available for free which are paid for on the Blendle platform. Afaik, Blendle is also expanding to the US.
- icebraining 7y ago
  There's also Inkl, but the selection is somewhat limited.
- anm89 7y ago
  I hope so! I would pay for that no question. And I have a feeling many other people would as well.
usrusr 7y ago
I believe that a literal "Netflix for news" would never be accepted by news sites ("newspapers") due to how much it would take away control and ownership of the customer relation. In an earlier post to hn [0] I have described what I believe might work instead, a payment and co-subscription service offered to news outlets that isn't exposing any own branding to end users. Once you hand over your subscriptions to an aggregator brand, there is no turning back. Three key assumptions are that #1 consumers are unwilling to forget the "luniversal availability of the decades of ad-financed web #2 consumers are unwilling to have more subscriptions than they had in the age of paper (exactly one, almost universally) #3 the discrepancy between #1 and #2 makes consumers not pay at all unless "Netflix for news" or something equivalent is available #4 news sites understand and accept the implications, particularly that giving away content to someone who already had a subscriptions elsewhere isn't a lossy sale, due to #2 Main challenges are defining and enforcing the content availability delta between "home" subscription and co-subscription and dealing with price differentials (perhaps by defining the co-subscription availability as a freely scalable ramp?) [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19736903 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19736903

onetimemanytime 7y ago

It's not this attack, it's the next one...and so on. Not sure how and when they can defend their massive infrastructure. A small explosion can cause interruption for days, weeks...

lnsru 7y ago
The same is valid for other countries. Destroying towers with electricity transmission lines can cause serious blackouts. Especially in the middle of cold winter. Grid map is online: https://www.entsoe.eu/data/map/ https://www.entsoe.eu/data/map/
anigbrowl 7y ago
Indeed. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/09/yemen-houthi-rebels-release-saudi-attack-video-190929130644121.html https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/09/yemen-houthi-rebels-r...

kegal 7y ago

This attack was carried out by Saudis and Americans for the following reasons. 1. For a long time USA was looking for a reason to send more troops in Saudi Arabia 2. They are looking for a solid reason to strike on Iran 3. Saudi Arabia wants a reason to keep the war going in Yamen. 4. Saudis Also want to increase oil prices. 5. Also, Saudis want to decrease oil production so that the reserves remains for long time.

anigbrowl 7y ago
Those are all credible motivations but it seems like you've overlooked the need for evidence and also the fact that the Houthi have already taken credit for it.
icebraining 7y ago
(4) goes against the common claim that SA needs to keep oil prices down to prevent shale and other competitors with higher extraction costs from coming online.

mukundmr 7y ago

I don't see policy moving in that direction as a result of this incident. The leaders are happy to find alternative sources to buy oil from.

JumpCrisscross 7y ago
> I don't see policy moving in that direction as a result of this incident No, but it would if hostilities escalated. Taking Saudi production offline would spike oil prices. Dramatically. That would prompt political change, in the same way the OPEC crisis in the 70s did. At that point, the well-positioned (e.g. cities with public transit and electric car manufacturers) will prosper while those with their heads in the sand (e.g. communities dependent on cars for cheap transport and ICE-only manufacturers) will face a quick reckoning.

jplayer01 7y ago

The significance of this attack is entirely overblown. DA isn't as crucial to the world's oil supply as they used to be, and they're the only country that might be at risk. It's probably also a one-off attack as SA and the US adjust to the new threat model. The likelihood of another successful attack is going down by the day.

systemtest 7y ago

For my small country (NL) that would mean having to import gas from Russia to power our gas-plants to generate electricity for cars. I'm not sure which option is worse.

adrianN 7y ago
Or you could build more wind turbines and solar panels. The Netherlands are famously windy.
- systemtest 7y ago
  That is correct. Wind energy is at 1.7 percent in our energy usage. But due to the high density of people and the ageing population we have a high amount of NIMBY.
wallace_f 7y ago
Yes, but electric cars can improve your social status. And if you're too entitled to drive a vehicle which respects your opinion that the world is going to end, try a hybrid SUV.