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Some economic gains we will see from adoption of EVs and clean energy: 1. Real estate prices in high traffic metros like Los Angeles and Houston will increase
by ipnon 6y ago
Some economic gains we will see from adoption of EVs and clean energy:
1. Real estate prices in high traffic metros like Los Angeles and Houston will increase further because the return to clear skies from smoggy days and fresh air will be a bonus.
2. People will suddenly start living much longer lives with more quality years at the tail end "for some strange reason."
3. Cancer rates will stabilize "for some strange reason."
- staplers 6y agoSomething to consider when discussing EV's is that they outsource energy production to industrial/rural areas. Sometimes to "sustainable" sources (hydro, wind, solar) but often to coal, nat gas, etc. I suspect the added electricity demand from everyone switching to EV's won't be easily supplied by renewables thus creating this problem elsewhere. Hopefully it's possible but the cynic in me disagrees.
- sokoloff 6y agoEven moving the combustion byproducts from where the people are to where the power plants are is a small win. That the plants can more easily install scrubbers for some pollutants is a further small win. That they are more efficient (even with 15% charging losses) is another small win. That the use of renewables can grow over time without car owners having to upgrade is another small win. Stack up enough small wins and you can get to sizeable gains.
- stefan_ 6y agoYou can literally take the oil we use right now to power cars and dump it in a generator to get electricity, and not only would you go farther but do it with less pollution at places where pollution matters less. "Where will the electricity come from" is unadulterated FUD.
- xnx 6y agoI mostly agree, but still laugh a little when people purchase cars to be "green" in a location where most of the electricity comes from coal. Without an EV they never wouldn't have been able to find a car that runs on coal.
- gambiting 6y agoEven in places which are pretty decent about green sources like the UK, most populated areas in the country have very dirty electricity - rated at about 250-300g/CO2 per kWh produced. In terms of emissions per mile driven, that's worse than some modern petrol and diesel cars. Yes, you can purchase green electricity from your supplier, but it doesn't change the fact that the electrons going into your car are not from a clean source at all.
- sjg007 6y agoThose power plants could implement stronger emission controls.
- danans 6y agoThat is flat out incorrect. Even in places that use only coal to generate electricity, EV CO2 emissions per mile are lower than gas vehicle emissions. See for yourself: https://afdc.energy.gov/vehicles/electric_emissions.html https://afdc.energy.gov/vehicles/electric_emissions.html
- gambiting 6y agoSo I don't know why you're linking a US study when I specifically said UK where the emissions are 300g/kWh in some areas, but ok, I mean I can do this too. Where I'm from(Poland) the biggest power plant is the Bełchatów power plant, which burns lignite for power - the CO2 emissions per kWh generated from that power plant are about 1kg/kWh produced[1]. At such an insane CO2 emissions rate even the most efficient EV - let's take a Model 3 - is worse than a modern petrol car. According to this site[0] Model 3 is incredibly efficient, using only 11.9kWh for every 100km travelled. So that's about 120Wh per km. If you're getting electricity from the Bełchatów power plant, that also means that Tesla is "emitting" 120g of CO2/km travelled. There are many modern cars that have their CO2/km emissions at less than 120g of CO2/km. But even if they are slightly above that, it doesn't change the fact that the emissions from driving an EV are not zero like some people say they are. Even if we go back to the UK and use that 300g of CO2/kWh figure, the Tesla is still emitting 40g of CO2/km travelled. That's not zero. [0] https://thedriven.io/2020/10/20/model-3-achieves-record-low-energy-consumption-in-driving-efficiency-test/ https://thedriven.io/2020/10/20/model-3-achieves-record-low-... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Be%C5%82chat%C3%B3w_Power_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Be%C5%82chat%C3%B3w_Power_Stat...
- nonethewiser 6y agoSo we can just use coal then? Of course it matters. Unless the goal is just out of sight out of mind.
- masonic 6y agoWhere will all the charging station access come from is the problem, not the electron count.
- staplers 6y agoEveryday this community outs itself more and more as a phony "smart guy club". I stated factual reality and am met with vitriol and attacks. I never said it wasn't slightly better.
- munk-a 6y agoWe've always got Nuclear energy and that will scale pretty much to the moon - old generation reactors have all sorts of fatal flaws including requiring a fuel that we have trouble acquiring, but that problems mostly been solved. Nah - I think your gut reaction is mostly just decades of propaganda painting fossil fuels as a necessary evil. On the topic of pure renewables - hydro definitely can't scale, we can get a lot more out of it then we currently are but it's comparatively not clean and most locations don't have unlimited options for power harnessing - wind and solar scale up pretty ridiculously and in most parts of the world one or the other is going to be quite accessible and, we've also got geothermal and some other options that we can look at. Beyond that we can look into demand reduction, the dead simplist of these is insulation/passive cooling requirements on housing and taxing private transportation to encourage ride-sharing especially in the commercial realm. We've got some great options to look at if only the coal barons would STFU and go away.
- p1necone 6y agoStationary power generation even with fossil fuels is still more efficient than ICEs. This is just FUD.
- p1necone 6y agoActually to clarify: its not so much stationary as it is constant speed. I'm sure not having to be able to move around is a factor too though.
- tzs 6y agoEven if a given EV uses electricity produced by as much fossil fuel as it would have taken to fuel an equivalent ICE car, it's a win because a fossil fuel burning electric plant on the grid is stationary. An ICE car moves. With the ICE car, any equipment you add to try to capture emissions adds to the weight of the car, in turn making it burn more fuel, and you are also limited in the total weight that the car can have and still drive safely (or at all). You've also got space limitations. With the stationary power plant, by picking a place with sufficient space there are no weight limits on how much emission capturing equipment you can add to the plant.
- mrtksn 6y agoEV's may not completely solve the pollution problems because, as I was pointed out, the particles from the asphalt and the tires are actually major pollutants. Apparently, the dark greasy stuff that you can see covering everything close to vehicle roads is not coming from the fumes but from the asphalt, tires and brakes.
- sokoloff 6y agoMostly true, but some is fluid leaks, of which there are fewer in a typical EV (fewer fluid systems, more constant pressures in them, and EVs are newer and less frequently in disrepair; that last point is a downside in some ways as almost no one will be driving a 2015 Tesla in 2070 while there are tens of thousands of 1960s era Mustangs still operating).
- jeffbee 6y agoEVs do nearly eliminate brake dust, which is a large component of vehicle particulate emissions.
- GordonS 6y agoI haven't heard this before - how does that work?
- gambiting 6y agoTha car slows down by using its electric motor to generate electricity instead. So actual brakes are only used for really heavy breaking. I see the same effect in my PHEV which uses its electric motor to regenerate power - after a year of ownership the brake pads are like new, there is no wear on them at all.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- WalterBright 6y agoRegenerative braking where the braking charges the battery, rather than just converting the speed into heat.
- scrose 6y agoAs an asthma sufferer, I went from needing my rescue inhaler several times a day to not touching it for several months during the pandemic. The only thing that changed was I was biking and walking through empty streets compared to navigating through a sea of exhausts for most of my trips. Infrastructure that doesn’t encourage driving everywhere, and a switch to EV’s in cases where you ‘just have to’, can’t come soon enough.
- marshmallow_12 6y agoNo such a thing as "have to". To walk everywhere you need to would take hours in a day it's impractical.
- TheAdamAndChe 6y agoOnly if where you work and purchase necessities is far from where you live. If you live close or work remote, then it would be easy and convenient to walk.
- marshmallow_12 6y agoNeither your comment, or the other 2 have any bearing on the reality in which i live and that i know many others also live. The cities we live in are hundreds, if not thousands of years old. The idea of that a 15 minute city has any bearing on real life is sadly laughable. I'm sorry to have to say so, but it's true.
- alistairSH 6y agoCars didn't exist hundreds or thousands of years ago, so your statement can't possibly be true. Well planned communities can be close to car-free, at least for day-to-day activities. The problem is we haven't prioritized being nearly car free, choosing instead of externalize the costs of car culture (pollution that generations will have to deal with, health impacts on some community members today, depletion of fossil fuels and the impact of digging them up, vast swaths of land dedicated to flat tarmac for car storage).
- marshmallow_12 6y agoNone of those are "economical benefits. Unquestionably social benefits, but increased longevity is hardly a boon to the economy.
- roughly 6y agoIncreased productive years are, though.
- anonAndOn 6y agoI would think healthier populations improves the economy. The people with the most disposable income are usually the ones who either never had kids or whose kids have all grown up.
- sp332 6y agoMore people alive spending money helps the economy.
- dwaltrip 6y agoOne possible second order effect: when people's parents are alive longer, they feel happier and more connected to society and are more productive. There could be many other potential second-order effects (and third-order, etc).
- mfer 6y agoWhen it comes to economics there are also downsides for many people. For example, there are many people who work on car parts today that don't have a corollary in electric cars. Electric cars have fewer parts. This is going to negatively hit the economics of people who design, build, and service car parts. Some things are a trade-off. I wonder how society will help them transition to other things well
- ipnon 6y agoJust like the automobile displaced all those employed in the horse and buggy businesses, which was apparently massive given pictures of 19th century cities.
- Tade0 6y agoThey'll be fine - EVs still have suspensions, brakes, and other serviceable parts. The other day a friend of mine bought his first car - a 2008 Honda Jazz. Stuff that needed to be replaced from the get go: -front stabilizer link rods. -front discs -brake pads -AC pump -12V battery -front lights Regarding combustion-related parts there's the muffler and oxygen sensor, but that's it. His case is fairly typical. Also there's a more immediate danger looming - newer diesels are so sophisticated that quite often repairing them is uneconomical. The same will happen sooner or later to gasoline, because usually it's the costly stuff like injectors and the flywheel that fails.
- megablast 6y agoThose poor buggy whip makers.
- ClumsyPilot 6y agoOne issue - real estate prices going up is not 'economic gain', its a drain on productive population. Nothing is actually produced in the real economy Imagine we talked about anything else like that: 'bread is getting more expensive by the minute in Germany" - thats not a sign of doing well. We all pay for this real estate not just in rent, every time we get a coffee a good chunk of that price is paying someone else's rent. In wages. Just because you are a homeowner does not mean its in your interest for realestate to go up, any more than if you own a fridge it would be in your interest for fridge prices to go up. Anyone who ever plans to trade up to a bigger home, has kids that will need to buy a house, or needs local economy to function does not benefit net from house prices going up. The only time you profit is if you are a massive landowner or real estate business. Its literally blood-sucking leech The economy is doing well when neccessities of life such as housing, food, etc. Are as cheap as possible and then you do not spend 90% of your effort and income just to keep wolf from the door. This disconnect between how we thing about housing and other goods is like a collective madness of oursociety
- db48x 6y agoThis is not quite true. The price of real estate is a function of demand. If more people want to acquire the same property (whether to live there, or to work there, or to grow something there), then the price of the property will go up. This is a good thing because over time it ensures that properties are used for the most desiriable and profitable purposes.
- freeone3000 6y agoThis is not a good thing, because people need to live somewhere, and this is likely not the most profitable thing to do with a given piece of land.
- db48x 6y agoOn the contrary. Businesses need employees, and if there are fewer people living in an area then the cost of the employees goes up and the profitability of the businesses go down.
- giantg2 6y agoI agree with number 1. I don't think number 2 is necessarily true. Lifestyle and diet are much bigger influences. My grandparents lived in a town with coal as a heat source and for the trains moving through town. That's a lot more pollution than cars today. This is also the generation that walked places (for miles) and worked hard because they had nothing. They were a healthy weight and ate fairly healthy diets. They lived into their nineties and never went into a care facility. I don't see how number 2 and 3 could be true together. One of the major theories on the increasing cancer rates is that people are living longer and this increases the chances of having cancer at some point. My grandfather had cancer, but didnt get it until he was 91 - then he beat it. The other theories tend to focus on environmental toxins not from car exhaust. Usually it's based on household chemicals and indoor air quality from items in the home.
- mperham 6y agoThe ever increasing wildfires will dramatically overwhelm any health improvement. When you are breathing ash for weeks on end every year, you’re taking years off your life.
- anu7df 6y agoI agree with point 2 and 3 you are making. As another commenter already pointed out real estate prices going up is not a net gain for the economy. Moreover, the direction of the price movement will (also) be decided by the state of the local economy which inturn drives the demand. Real estate prices in Houston, for example, may plummet because a major driver of the Houston economy is the oil and gas industry. Some companies and businesses may successfully transition to the low carbon economy, but it is unclear at this point how most may be affected.
- nonethewiser 6y ago"2. People will suddenly start living much longer lives with more quality years at the tail end "for some strange reason." While this is a good thing, it is an economic drain, not a boon.
- beckman466 6y ago> 1. Real estate prices in high traffic metros like Los Angeles and Houston will increase further because the return to clear skies from smoggy days and fresh air will be a bonus. Do you own real estate there or something? Are you aware that many people are homeless? Why is an increase in property values a good thing when it has never been more difficult and more expensive to buy a house than ever before? This increase is in large part due to the disgusting financialization of the housing market. A documentary called ‘Push’ (2019) does a great job at laying out all the facts, while at the same time showing the impacts of these changes on working class people the world over: https://youtube.com/watch?v=qWSVG9nsRa4 https://youtube.com/watch?v=qWSVG9nsRa4 For people in Europe or elsewhere you can use http://yt1s.com http://yt1s.com to download it if it’s region blocked. You can support the filmmakers and rent it too: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/pushthefilm https://vimeo.com/ondemand/pushthefilm
- itsoktocry 6y ago>This increase is in large part due to the disgusting financialization of the housing market. Greed, period. Owning an investment property is seen as easy money. When I was a kid it was essentially unheard of to own a second property for rent. Now a substantial number of people I work around own one (or more) rental properties. I know "just a guy" that owns 5 AirBNB condos he rents for $250-300 per night in the summer season, that sit vacant the rest of the year. I have no idea why we allowed this to happen.
- Pokepokalypse 6y ago> Owning an investment property is seen as easy money. Sure beats working for it.
- BMorearty 6y ago> When I was a kid it was essentially unheard of to own a second property for rent. Sorry but that’s flat-out wrong. Owning a second property for rent has always been a thing. How would you have known, you were a kid! Case in point: my family was middle class. My parents were a college professor (new grad from graduate school, not a big deal) and a stay-at-home mom, living in suburban America. They owned a second property for rent. I didn’t even know until 20 years later that they had owned it! Lest you think I’m some kid who grew up in the 00’s: no, I grew up in the 60s and 70s.
- ArkanExplorer 6y agoIt appears we have a trifecta of evil materials in our environment: 1. Diesel/Petrol/Thermal Coal - air pollution 2. Plastics and Phthalates - hormone disruption, land and sea pollution 3. Sugar - obesity If anyone has any surplus energy, money, or political power, we would strongly benefit from these ingredients being removed as much as possible from human environments.
- stjohnswarts 6y agoHaven't cancer rates been dropping for a while now?