11 ms·

EVs are far cleaner than gas-powered cars even if batteries require more mining

94 points by DemiGuru 4y ago

wortelefant 4y ago
I was more optimistic about EVs until I learned about the amount of CO2 produced by electricity generation in countris like Germany. nuclear energy has been largely phased down for political reasons and CO2 emissions are still on a level where EVs might not be much cleaner in comparison, see https://app.electricitymaps.com/map https://app.electricitymaps.com/map
- olivermuty 4y ago
  The EV will be better even if the energy mix was 100% brown coal? Just takes longer to offset the climate effects of making the battery. It’s just so wildly more efficient in operation.
  - sshine 4y ago
    > It’s just so wildly more efficient in operation. Can you elaborate?
    - parker_mountain 4y ago
      ICE cars have a few key deficiencies - lots of energy lost to heat - aggregate efficiency lost to going to refueling stations - decreased efficiency over the life span of the vehicle EV cars have a few key efficiencies - able to regenerate power on braking (a HUGE amount, and also why hybrid cars last so long) - longer lifespan of vehicle and drive train (EVs are significantly more reliable, and the lack of moving parts means that wear takes quite a lot longer). an example of this in practice is the significantly better reliability of hybrid cars, which reduce hours on the ICE engine with batteries to great benefit and we haven't even unlocked all of the benefits, battery density, and recycling stories available for EVs that will propel them further. The key deficiencies for EVs right now are - cost - this has been going down over time, EVs are still firmly in the luxury segment, although we will likely see a new sub-$25k EV with reasonable mileage by the end of the decade - battery pollution - mining the batteries is bad, there is no way around it. battery recycling is a new technology and will be crucial for EVs in the future, both for cost reasons, but also pollution - tire pollution - the heavy weight of EVs leads to high particulate matter of rubber, but this is also something that is being actively worked on. It also increases load wear, but new battery tech will help mitigate this. - power grid - high ev saturation will overload the powergrid, although this is greatly mitigated by solar banking and low peak charging. This might be one of the hardest things to overcome, as it requires significant public spending, but it's not hopeless at all. No matter which way you look at it, EVs are the future, but there are still lots of issues to be worked on.
      - zamnos 4y ago
        Not just regenerate power on braking, but regenerative braking also means fewer consumables in the form of brake pads. Which, interestingly, the dust from pads is third after tires which is second to the ICE engine. The other thing we've still haven't had enough time to fully discover is how much individual cells wear out and the big picture of the economics of swapping out only the individual cell that's bad. There's already been some practical work doing that, I'm just not aware of any longitudinal studies about it.
      - reducesuffering 4y ago
        > we will likely see a new sub-$25k EV with reasonable mileage by the end of the decade Right now, 2023 Chevy Bolt are being sold in the US for $26.5k msrp, with $7.5k off EV credit, and a 259 mile range.
      - m463 4y ago
        > power grid Isn't the power grid a bunch of wires in the air or on the ground that can span thousands of miles? Compare that to oil wells, supertankers, refineries, fuel trucks and gas stations, it seems to be relatively benign infrastructure. also, I think with distributed pv solar and wind, the power grid will become more distributed. And I think fair time-of-use might solve problems too.
- polytely 4y ago
  Yes, but it is still a better situation to be in because then when you do start to moving toward renewables (which seems almost inevitable with the lowering costs of solar and batteries (battery improvements largely coming from EV development(?))) it will have more impact. EV's also have some other side benefits, like less noise (noise pollution is a real thing) and less air pollution (tires and asphalt are also a large part of car related air pollution).
  - ehnto 4y ago
    Less air polution in cities will be an amazing change, I think people underestimate it since they either don't live in it or they are used to it. Countless studies regale the impact of local car polution on citizens. That EVs produce none while stopped in traffic, and significantly less overall is amazing, especially in the denser parts of a city. Anecdotally whenever I return home from time out in rural Australia, it takes me a while to adjust to the air pollution while near roads, and we have some of the cleanest air of any city.
- bryanlarsen 4y ago
  Your map shows that today Germany got about 35% of its power from coal, 15% from natgas and 50% from zero-carbon sources (nuclear & wind primarily). A coal powered EV has roughly equivalent emissions to a gasoline car, and a natgas powered EV has roughly 2/3 the emissions of a gasoline car. So a German EV would have roughly 0.35 + 0.15x2/3 + 0.5x0 = 0.45 the emissions of an EV. And you cherry picked one of the higher polluting countries.
  - abdullahkhalids 4y ago
    > A coal powered EV has roughly equivalent emissions to a gasoline car, Can you cite this? Thank you
    - bryanlarsen 4y ago
      Let's do the math the other way. Germany is showing 543 gCO₂eq/kWh. A gallon of gasoline is 8887 grams/gallon. Add 40% to account for refining & transporting the gas to the gas station. A Tesla at 5 miles/kWh emits 109 g/mile. A Camry at 30 mpg emits 415 g/mile.
      - niloc132 4y ago
        > A gallon of gas is 8887 grams/gallon. That doesn’t seem right, gas is 20-30% lighter than water and water is only 8lbs~=3600 grams.
        Symbiote 4y ago
        The additional mass comes from oxygen from the air used to burn the fuel. Burn 1g of coal, to make it easy: C + O₂ → CO₂ Carbon has molecular mass 12g/mole (carbon has atomic weight ~12), carbon dioxide 44g/mole (12 + 2×16). So burning 1g of carbon produces 3.67g of CO₂.
        niloc132 4y ago
        Ah thanks, that does indeed line up the numbers I had misunderstood.
- melling 4y ago
  Have you considered that replacing a billion cars will take a couple decades, and it’s really not important that the grid is ready at the beginning. I’ve been having this discussion for a decade. The “do you know where the electricity comes from” group gets a little quieter every year. What’s really critical is getting the EV market jumpstarted. Controlling the emissions at several thousand power plants vs a billion cars is orders of magnitude easier.
- ehnto 4y ago
  That is just one part of the same legacy technology problem. As part of moving away from fossil fuels in general, we want to electrify transport and transform the grid to renewables or greener alternatives to fossil fuels. Not everywhere is doing well at the second part of the problem, but Germany's grid is already at 30% renewables, and has time to transform toward renewables while we attempt to electrify the vehicles. You can also shortcut the process if you own a house, by putting solar on your roof and charging from that. Places like California and South Australia have immense deployments of rooftop solar generation that have rocketed the states toward their renewables goals. South Australia generates over 70% of it's power from renewables. It went from 1% renewable to 70%+ in just 15 years.
whyfor_butToBe 4y ago
for this article to reference the EPA is laughable. The EPA is run by former lobbyists of the world’s major polluters and producers of pesticides/herbicides/fungicides.
- jesterson 4y ago
  "Climate change" scam is run by corrupted politicians who do scaremongering over decades just because people have short memory. We need listen to rational arguments and statistically verifiable concepts if we are seeking the truth instead of focusing on personalities.
  - mcv 4y ago
    This is bullshit and you know it. Politicians have been incredibly slow to accept the reality of climate change because they depend on oil dollars. Oil companies have spent 40 years spreading misinformation to mislead people on this issue because they knew very well that a fixing this problem would lead to reduced profits for them. They bought politicians to block proposals, pushed the least effective solutions when blocking it became infeasible. Politicians with any meaningful power have been squarely on the side of the oil companies in this, and that's why so little has been done these past 40 years. The rational arguments warning us about global warming and climate change go back more than 100 years. Alexander Graham Bell (inventor of the telephone) wrote an article in 1908 where he explained why burning oil would eventually lead to global warming. Because scientists already knew how this worked over 100 years ago. Politicians have only very recently been coming to grips with this, and even then extremely reluctantly, because they know it will hurt their powerful oil buddies.
    - jesterson 4y ago
      > This is bullshit and you know it. Statements like that are not leading to fruitful discussions and signals of you as not very intelligent person. I suggest to stay away from it. > Politicians have been incredibly slow to accept the reality of climate change because they depend on oil dollars. That's very primitive state of facts. While it is certainly true in many cases, industry changes imposed by "climate change" lobby are resulting in huge redistribution of wealth. Companies and countries who benefit from that certainly incentivise the process and lobbyists. So you are right - but that's only part of the picture. > The rational arguments warning us about global warming and climate change go back more than 100 years To the best of our knowledge, climate change happens on this planet for all time of its existence. How much human activity contributes to that is something extremely difficult to measure and understand.
kolanos 4y ago
In my state, more than two thirds of the electricity is produced by natural gas fired power plants. Does this claim hold up in that case?
- bitshiftfaced 4y ago
  Isn't the usual answer to this something about how those power plants have to adhere to pollution control regulations as well as there being regenerative braking?
- SigmundA 4y ago
  Yes natural gas has less Co2 emissions per BTU than oil and natural gas can be burned very efficiently in a power plant at nearly 60% vs say 40% for diesel or 30% for gasoline in an ICE.
- toomuchtodo 4y ago
  An EV gets cleaner as the grid it charges from gets cleaner over time. A petroleum powered vehicle remains dirty for its entire lifetime. EVs allow you to electrify mobility and transition to renewables in parallel. (Global renewables investment is hovering around $1.5T/year)
- zamalek 4y ago
  Larger stationary engines are typically far more efficient than the engines that we find in our cars. Natgas is up to 55% efficient, where cars are 35% at the top-end. On top of that, the fuel you use in your car has to be transported to your gas station by another car. Natgas and coal are transported over pipes and rails.
  - DoingIsLearning 4y ago
    Also you are not breathing high concentrations of NO2 in city centres as is the case today.
- throwayyy479087 4y ago
  Natural gas burned at scale is incredibly efficient. It's one of the reasons Obama was such a big proponent - that and we have an ocean of it in Texas. People have forgotten that you used to have to power wash buildings yearly in the Northeast from all the coal pollution. Natgas is NOT perfect, but it's about as good as fossil fuels can be - no tailings, no ash piles, easy to transport via pipeline. I still think Offshore Wind is going to get us to the finish line though. It acts a lot more like baseload generation than onshore.
jdmg94 4y ago
the US doesn't have the energy infrastructure to have everyone jump on EVs anytime soon
- polytely 4y ago
  But everyone jumping to EV would increase pressure to upgrade infrastructure, which is probably a good thing.
  - fwungy 4y ago
    Only if the majority populations of the world in developing countries follow along. The major oil producing nations are not going to stop selling oil though, they depend on it to survive, and likewise developing nations depend on petroleum products to feed themselves and operate their businesses. They can't afford to transition in any timespan that matters for a critical climate change scenario. What we're on course to do in the West is destroy our economies for no reason as carbon usage will just move elsewhere. In the process we will lose our ability to lead to cleaner technologies by destroying our financial base.
    - breakyerself 4y ago
      Lmao our economy will not be destroyed. It won't even be hampered. This is nonsense.
      - fwungy 4y ago
        Have you noticed how much things cost lately? Have you noticed the decline in the stock market? The US made a hard turn towards green energy the day Biden got into office. He shut down the Keystone Pipeline on day 1, and has been running an aggressively anti-oil energy policy, which the EU is following as well. This has caused inflation to spread across the supply chain as input costs have drastically increased. Oil products are vital for food production too, so it's affecting that as well. This isn't just an update to a basically disposable cell phone, these policy changes have huge impacts, such that we can't even fully know ahead of time the unintended consequences.
__multiplex__ 4y ago
[flagged]
- SigmundA 4y ago
  Not exactly true, you can burn natural gas very efficiently at a power plant and coal can be made relatively efficient compared to say gasoline. Power plants can have very extensive emissions controls maintained by dedicated staff as well. Going electric decouples fuel use from power use allowing your vehicle to run off whatever fuel source is available even garbage [1]. Power generation can transition to renewables without replacing existing vehicles. With enough batteries in circulation recycling turns into a circular economy with batteries being high grade ore. Electric vehicles allow energy independence because of fuel agility even if emissions are no better, but because of the agility allows less painful transitions to better energy sources. [1] https://pinellas.gov/waste-to-energy-facility/ https://pinellas.gov/waste-to-energy-facility/
  - __multiplex__ 4y ago
    Thanks for the clarification!
- drekipus 4y ago
  > have a solar panel installation on your property and have your EV charging port running from that. anecdotally, in Australia, every EV user (that I know of) have exactly that. Solar panels are often considered the first step in getting an EV
- Tagbert 4y ago
  Even burning 100% coal, EVs produce significantly less CO2 than ICEVs. Most of the US has a mix of power sources that is much cleaner than the all coal or all gas grid you imagine. and the percentage of renewables is growing and coal, in particular is dropping. Take a look at this map showing the equivalent mpg for an EV in various us locales. https://blog.ucsusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/MicrosoftTeams-image-2-1125x900.png https://blog.ucsusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Microsoft...
orwin 4y ago
I agree, and it will stay true for a long time. Two issues, the first one small and improving : the smelting is energy expensive and does polute a lot. We're improving fast though, now that material scientific research got more credits. The big one: as we use more and more minerals, it's harder to find ore as easely accessible or as concentrated. If in the next decade we manage to build tidal/solar mining rigs, I'll be more optimistic about the future.
- jxidjhdhdhdhfhf 4y ago
  There's also recycling. It's possible to recycle the lithium in batteries for example but not possible to recycle all of the oil that is pulled out of the ground to produce gasoline.
jnmandal 4y ago
They're cleaner, no doubt. But are they clean enough that a 1-1 replacement could avert massive ecological destruction à la global warming? No they are not. They are a bridge towards lowering emissions but they cannot get us to zero or negative emissions. For as long as they are in use cars will simply remain "part of the problem". Acutely, personal vehicles used for quotidian trips are a large part of the contribution towards carbon emissions and can easily be phased out with improved urban and residential design patterns, public/collective transport infrastructure, and low-tech solutions like bikes, draft animals, etc .
- AtlasBarfed 4y ago
  IMO the BEV is a far more flexible platform for transporation than the ICE. Batteries are still made as cells. Need one for a car? Put 10,000 together. Need one for an e-bike? Put 10-20 together. Need one for a scooter? Put 5-10 together. Cell economics are generally the same. Furthermore, you can make the battery in an ebike or scooter removable and recharge it at work or at a friend's house. No gasoline stink. Or you can make the scooter/blade foldable and haul it in. Again, no gasoline stink. For urban transport, BEV scaling provides the opportunity to affordably enable these energy efficient modes better than stinky dirty two stroke crap. I think what can also happen is that you buy a city car with a 100 mile range, but if you need to go far, you rent an "extension battery", maybe a very energy efficient trailer, or even an ICE range extender. Or maybe it just attaches to the back of the vehicle, or if the battery is swappable, you swap in a rentable long range one. And remember, don't concentrate on current battery economics. Between higher density sodium ion + LFP, sulfur chemistries, solid state, and maybe lithium air batteries, densities will go up by 2-3x in the next ten years. That means less materials, lighter vehicles / battery "rocket equation" for more range from a lighter battery with the same power storage, etc. Zero or negative emissions is perfect being the enemy of bad. BEVs are an enormous opportunity to mitigate massive amounts of emissions AND be a better product that is cheaper for people. There does not exist a practical political path to zero emissions right now, as much as it pains me to say so. What we do need (and there is some political opportunity to do so) is massive funding of BEV transporation at all levels / form factors. There should be a 300-500$ price credit (phasing out 10% per year) for scooters and ebikes to get them prevalent. Make them stupid cheap to adopt. Fund the hell out of battery development. Double down on all the national lab work on batteries (that lithium air paper recently was nice, we should see stuff like that out of every single national lab).
aseerdbnarng 4y ago
I read through one of the papers and a key assumption that the energy mix powering the grid will more halve its co2 output over the next 10 years and cites Germany as the baseline trend. This is a crazy optimistic assumption to make
- willio58 4y ago
  I don’t think that year figure changing really matters though. Let’s say Germany halves its CO2 output in 25 years instead. What does that mean? Does it mean we should all stop buying EVs now and just buy combustion engine vehicles for eternity? Nope.
  - bartislartfast 4y ago
    The biggest environmental concern always cited for EVs is the source of electricity, which has a decent chance of being renewable, going forward. Fossil fuel ICEs have zero chance. They will always be dirty. The second biggest concern is mining for the lithium used in EVs, which hopefully soon will be a much smaller concern as Sodium batteries become the norm. Again, there is a risk we could still be mining lithium in 20 years, but it's a risk rather than a certainty.
  - nine_k 4y ago
    Germany halving its CO2 output would be commendable, but likely not enough to offset even a moderate increase of CO2 production by China, India, and the growing economies of Africa and Asia. They just can't afford switching to electric processes unless solar / wind plus storage, or nuclear, is a clearly and significantly cheaper option. (Which it is not yet.)
  - aseerdbnarng 4y ago
    It might mean the switch to EVs are insufficient if it bakes in unrealistic expectations of future benefits. The cost and subsidies to EVs might be better spent elsewhere. I’m not making a comment on pro/against EVs only that the cited paper makes an assumption I believe to be overly optimistic
cashsterling 4y ago
This article and information cited doesn't seem realistic to me. I don't have time to do a deep dive into their calculations but the claim that EV's are 10x more energy efficient over their lifetime just doesn't hold water to me or is based on invalid assumptions, e.g. all EV electricity comes from a "clean power source" such as nuclear power, wind, hydroelectric. Excess power for more EV's largely does not come from clean power sources. Most "excess power" for EV's comes from fossil fuel -- that is, given our current power infrastructure and supply of clean energy, when add power demand from more EV's... that supply is mostly coming from natural gas (maybe some coal too, yikes). EV energy lifecycle is roughly: (0) recover/frack/process natural gas out of ground and transport to power station (1) Burn natural gas to make electrical energy, (2) transmit electricity to charging station... which has transmission loss, (3) charge EV... which has loss, (4) discharge energy from battery to motors...which has loss, (5) convert electrical power to mechanical power to the wheels in the motor... which has loss. Internal combustion engine (ICE) energy lifecycle is: (0) recover crude oil and refine crude to fuel, transport to gas station (1) fill car... very low energy loss, much lower than charge dishcarge of EV's (2) burn fuel in ICE Thermodynamic efficiency of burning natural gas is about 45-55% depending upon plant design. There are transmission and charge/discharge/conversion losses associated with getting the electricity to EV's and using it. Burning petrol fuels in an ICE is about 30-35% efficient in modern engines. There are higher carbon associated with recovering and processing crude oil relative to natural gas. When discussing fossil fuel power plants: natural gas plants are about 2x to 2.5x more carbon efficient than coal or other fossil fuel plants on mass of CO2 per kWh generated. I'm not going to run detailed numbers but more than 10x carbon operating efficiency for EV's over ICE's is high. I think the operational efficiency benefit is only 2-3x, which is still a lot. I also think these studies are probably under reporting energy requirements for EV battery production because so much of the supply chain is in the developing world or China and it is hard to get accurate data. That all being said, EV's are a big part of our future and part of the solution toward building a more energy efficient world.

94 points by DemiGuru 4y ago

I was more optimistic about EVs until I learned about the amount of CO2 produced by electricity generation in countris like Germany. nuclear energy has been largely phased down for political reasons and CO2 emissions are still on a level where EVs might not be much cleaner in comparison, see https://app.electricitymaps.com/map https://app.electricitymaps.com/map

olivermuty 4y ago
The EV will be better even if the energy mix was 100% brown coal? Just takes longer to offset the climate effects of making the battery. It’s just so wildly more efficient in operation.
- sshine 4y ago
  > It’s just so wildly more efficient in operation. Can you elaborate?
  - parker_mountain 4y ago
    ICE cars have a few key deficiencies - lots of energy lost to heat - aggregate efficiency lost to going to refueling stations - decreased efficiency over the life span of the vehicle EV cars have a few key efficiencies - able to regenerate power on braking (a HUGE amount, and also why hybrid cars last so long) - longer lifespan of vehicle and drive train (EVs are significantly more reliable, and the lack of moving parts means that wear takes quite a lot longer). an example of this in practice is the significantly better reliability of hybrid cars, which reduce hours on the ICE engine with batteries to great benefit and we haven't even unlocked all of the benefits, battery density, and recycling stories available for EVs that will propel them further. The key deficiencies for EVs right now are - cost - this has been going down over time, EVs are still firmly in the luxury segment, although we will likely see a new sub-$25k EV with reasonable mileage by the end of the decade - battery pollution - mining the batteries is bad, there is no way around it. battery recycling is a new technology and will be crucial for EVs in the future, both for cost reasons, but also pollution - tire pollution - the heavy weight of EVs leads to high particulate matter of rubber, but this is also something that is being actively worked on. It also increases load wear, but new battery tech will help mitigate this. - power grid - high ev saturation will overload the powergrid, although this is greatly mitigated by solar banking and low peak charging. This might be one of the hardest things to overcome, as it requires significant public spending, but it's not hopeless at all. No matter which way you look at it, EVs are the future, but there are still lots of issues to be worked on.
    - zamnos 4y ago
      Not just regenerate power on braking, but regenerative braking also means fewer consumables in the form of brake pads. Which, interestingly, the dust from pads is third after tires which is second to the ICE engine. The other thing we've still haven't had enough time to fully discover is how much individual cells wear out and the big picture of the economics of swapping out only the individual cell that's bad. There's already been some practical work doing that, I'm just not aware of any longitudinal studies about it.
    - reducesuffering 4y ago
      > we will likely see a new sub-$25k EV with reasonable mileage by the end of the decade Right now, 2023 Chevy Bolt are being sold in the US for $26.5k msrp, with $7.5k off EV credit, and a 259 mile range.
    - m463 4y ago
      > power grid Isn't the power grid a bunch of wires in the air or on the ground that can span thousands of miles? Compare that to oil wells, supertankers, refineries, fuel trucks and gas stations, it seems to be relatively benign infrastructure. also, I think with distributed pv solar and wind, the power grid will become more distributed. And I think fair time-of-use might solve problems too.
polytely 4y ago
Yes, but it is still a better situation to be in because then when you do start to moving toward renewables (which seems almost inevitable with the lowering costs of solar and batteries (battery improvements largely coming from EV development(?))) it will have more impact. EV's also have some other side benefits, like less noise (noise pollution is a real thing) and less air pollution (tires and asphalt are also a large part of car related air pollution).
- ehnto 4y ago
  Less air polution in cities will be an amazing change, I think people underestimate it since they either don't live in it or they are used to it. Countless studies regale the impact of local car polution on citizens. That EVs produce none while stopped in traffic, and significantly less overall is amazing, especially in the denser parts of a city. Anecdotally whenever I return home from time out in rural Australia, it takes me a while to adjust to the air pollution while near roads, and we have some of the cleanest air of any city.
bryanlarsen 4y ago
Your map shows that today Germany got about 35% of its power from coal, 15% from natgas and 50% from zero-carbon sources (nuclear & wind primarily). A coal powered EV has roughly equivalent emissions to a gasoline car, and a natgas powered EV has roughly 2/3 the emissions of a gasoline car. So a German EV would have roughly 0.35 + 0.15x2/3 + 0.5x0 = 0.45 the emissions of an EV. And you cherry picked one of the higher polluting countries.
- abdullahkhalids 4y ago
  > A coal powered EV has roughly equivalent emissions to a gasoline car, Can you cite this? Thank you
  - bryanlarsen 4y ago
    Let's do the math the other way. Germany is showing 543 gCO₂eq/kWh. A gallon of gasoline is 8887 grams/gallon. Add 40% to account for refining & transporting the gas to the gas station. A Tesla at 5 miles/kWh emits 109 g/mile. A Camry at 30 mpg emits 415 g/mile.
    - niloc132 4y ago
      > A gallon of gas is 8887 grams/gallon. That doesn’t seem right, gas is 20-30% lighter than water and water is only 8lbs~=3600 grams.
      - Symbiote 4y ago
        The additional mass comes from oxygen from the air used to burn the fuel. Burn 1g of coal, to make it easy: C + O₂ → CO₂ Carbon has molecular mass 12g/mole (carbon has atomic weight ~12), carbon dioxide 44g/mole (12 + 2×16). So burning 1g of carbon produces 3.67g of CO₂.
        niloc132 4y ago
        Ah thanks, that does indeed line up the numbers I had misunderstood.
melling 4y ago
Have you considered that replacing a billion cars will take a couple decades, and it’s really not important that the grid is ready at the beginning. I’ve been having this discussion for a decade. The “do you know where the electricity comes from” group gets a little quieter every year. What’s really critical is getting the EV market jumpstarted. Controlling the emissions at several thousand power plants vs a billion cars is orders of magnitude easier.
ehnto 4y ago
That is just one part of the same legacy technology problem. As part of moving away from fossil fuels in general, we want to electrify transport and transform the grid to renewables or greener alternatives to fossil fuels. Not everywhere is doing well at the second part of the problem, but Germany's grid is already at 30% renewables, and has time to transform toward renewables while we attempt to electrify the vehicles. You can also shortcut the process if you own a house, by putting solar on your roof and charging from that. Places like California and South Australia have immense deployments of rooftop solar generation that have rocketed the states toward their renewables goals. South Australia generates over 70% of it's power from renewables. It went from 1% renewable to 70%+ in just 15 years.

whyfor_butToBe 4y ago

for this article to reference the EPA is laughable. The EPA is run by former lobbyists of the world’s major polluters and producers of pesticides/herbicides/fungicides.

jesterson 4y ago
"Climate change" scam is run by corrupted politicians who do scaremongering over decades just because people have short memory. We need listen to rational arguments and statistically verifiable concepts if we are seeking the truth instead of focusing on personalities.
- mcv 4y ago
  This is bullshit and you know it. Politicians have been incredibly slow to accept the reality of climate change because they depend on oil dollars. Oil companies have spent 40 years spreading misinformation to mislead people on this issue because they knew very well that a fixing this problem would lead to reduced profits for them. They bought politicians to block proposals, pushed the least effective solutions when blocking it became infeasible. Politicians with any meaningful power have been squarely on the side of the oil companies in this, and that's why so little has been done these past 40 years. The rational arguments warning us about global warming and climate change go back more than 100 years. Alexander Graham Bell (inventor of the telephone) wrote an article in 1908 where he explained why burning oil would eventually lead to global warming. Because scientists already knew how this worked over 100 years ago. Politicians have only very recently been coming to grips with this, and even then extremely reluctantly, because they know it will hurt their powerful oil buddies.
  - jesterson 4y ago
    > This is bullshit and you know it. Statements like that are not leading to fruitful discussions and signals of you as not very intelligent person. I suggest to stay away from it. > Politicians have been incredibly slow to accept the reality of climate change because they depend on oil dollars. That's very primitive state of facts. While it is certainly true in many cases, industry changes imposed by "climate change" lobby are resulting in huge redistribution of wealth. Companies and countries who benefit from that certainly incentivise the process and lobbyists. So you are right - but that's only part of the picture. > The rational arguments warning us about global warming and climate change go back more than 100 years To the best of our knowledge, climate change happens on this planet for all time of its existence. How much human activity contributes to that is something extremely difficult to measure and understand.

kolanos 4y ago

In my state, more than two thirds of the electricity is produced by natural gas fired power plants. Does this claim hold up in that case?

bitshiftfaced 4y ago
Isn't the usual answer to this something about how those power plants have to adhere to pollution control regulations as well as there being regenerative braking?
SigmundA 4y ago
Yes natural gas has less Co2 emissions per BTU than oil and natural gas can be burned very efficiently in a power plant at nearly 60% vs say 40% for diesel or 30% for gasoline in an ICE.
toomuchtodo 4y ago
An EV gets cleaner as the grid it charges from gets cleaner over time. A petroleum powered vehicle remains dirty for its entire lifetime. EVs allow you to electrify mobility and transition to renewables in parallel. (Global renewables investment is hovering around $1.5T/year)
zamalek 4y ago
Larger stationary engines are typically far more efficient than the engines that we find in our cars. Natgas is up to 55% efficient, where cars are 35% at the top-end. On top of that, the fuel you use in your car has to be transported to your gas station by another car. Natgas and coal are transported over pipes and rails.
- DoingIsLearning 4y ago
  Also you are not breathing high concentrations of NO2 in city centres as is the case today.
throwayyy479087 4y ago
Natural gas burned at scale is incredibly efficient. It's one of the reasons Obama was such a big proponent - that and we have an ocean of it in Texas. People have forgotten that you used to have to power wash buildings yearly in the Northeast from all the coal pollution. Natgas is NOT perfect, but it's about as good as fossil fuels can be - no tailings, no ash piles, easy to transport via pipeline. I still think Offshore Wind is going to get us to the finish line though. It acts a lot more like baseload generation than onshore.

jdmg94 4y ago

the US doesn't have the energy infrastructure to have everyone jump on EVs anytime soon

polytely 4y ago
But everyone jumping to EV would increase pressure to upgrade infrastructure, which is probably a good thing.
- fwungy 4y ago
  Only if the majority populations of the world in developing countries follow along. The major oil producing nations are not going to stop selling oil though, they depend on it to survive, and likewise developing nations depend on petroleum products to feed themselves and operate their businesses. They can't afford to transition in any timespan that matters for a critical climate change scenario. What we're on course to do in the West is destroy our economies for no reason as carbon usage will just move elsewhere. In the process we will lose our ability to lead to cleaner technologies by destroying our financial base.
  - breakyerself 4y ago
    Lmao our economy will not be destroyed. It won't even be hampered. This is nonsense.
    - fwungy 4y ago
      Have you noticed how much things cost lately? Have you noticed the decline in the stock market? The US made a hard turn towards green energy the day Biden got into office. He shut down the Keystone Pipeline on day 1, and has been running an aggressively anti-oil energy policy, which the EU is following as well. This has caused inflation to spread across the supply chain as input costs have drastically increased. Oil products are vital for food production too, so it's affecting that as well. This isn't just an update to a basically disposable cell phone, these policy changes have huge impacts, such that we can't even fully know ahead of time the unintended consequences.

__multiplex__ 4y ago

[flagged]

SigmundA 4y ago
Not exactly true, you can burn natural gas very efficiently at a power plant and coal can be made relatively efficient compared to say gasoline. Power plants can have very extensive emissions controls maintained by dedicated staff as well. Going electric decouples fuel use from power use allowing your vehicle to run off whatever fuel source is available even garbage [1]. Power generation can transition to renewables without replacing existing vehicles. With enough batteries in circulation recycling turns into a circular economy with batteries being high grade ore. Electric vehicles allow energy independence because of fuel agility even if emissions are no better, but because of the agility allows less painful transitions to better energy sources. [1] https://pinellas.gov/waste-to-energy-facility/ https://pinellas.gov/waste-to-energy-facility/
- __multiplex__ 4y ago
  Thanks for the clarification!
drekipus 4y ago
> have a solar panel installation on your property and have your EV charging port running from that. anecdotally, in Australia, every EV user (that I know of) have exactly that. Solar panels are often considered the first step in getting an EV
Tagbert 4y ago
Even burning 100% coal, EVs produce significantly less CO2 than ICEVs. Most of the US has a mix of power sources that is much cleaner than the all coal or all gas grid you imagine. and the percentage of renewables is growing and coal, in particular is dropping. Take a look at this map showing the equivalent mpg for an EV in various us locales. https://blog.ucsusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/MicrosoftTeams-image-2-1125x900.png https://blog.ucsusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Microsoft...

orwin 4y ago

I agree, and it will stay true for a long time. Two issues, the first one small and improving : the smelting is energy expensive and does polute a lot. We're improving fast though, now that material scientific research got more credits. The big one: as we use more and more minerals, it's harder to find ore as easely accessible or as concentrated. If in the next decade we manage to build tidal/solar mining rigs, I'll be more optimistic about the future.

jxidjhdhdhdhfhf 4y ago
There's also recycling. It's possible to recycle the lithium in batteries for example but not possible to recycle all of the oil that is pulled out of the ground to produce gasoline.

jnmandal 4y ago

They're cleaner, no doubt. But are they clean enough that a 1-1 replacement could avert massive ecological destruction à la global warming? No they are not. They are a bridge towards lowering emissions but they cannot get us to zero or negative emissions. For as long as they are in use cars will simply remain "part of the problem". Acutely, personal vehicles used for quotidian trips are a large part of the contribution towards carbon emissions and can easily be phased out with improved urban and residential design patterns, public/collective transport infrastructure, and low-tech solutions like bikes, draft animals, etc .

AtlasBarfed 4y ago
IMO the BEV is a far more flexible platform for transporation than the ICE. Batteries are still made as cells. Need one for a car? Put 10,000 together. Need one for an e-bike? Put 10-20 together. Need one for a scooter? Put 5-10 together. Cell economics are generally the same. Furthermore, you can make the battery in an ebike or scooter removable and recharge it at work or at a friend's house. No gasoline stink. Or you can make the scooter/blade foldable and haul it in. Again, no gasoline stink. For urban transport, BEV scaling provides the opportunity to affordably enable these energy efficient modes better than stinky dirty two stroke crap. I think what can also happen is that you buy a city car with a 100 mile range, but if you need to go far, you rent an "extension battery", maybe a very energy efficient trailer, or even an ICE range extender. Or maybe it just attaches to the back of the vehicle, or if the battery is swappable, you swap in a rentable long range one. And remember, don't concentrate on current battery economics. Between higher density sodium ion + LFP, sulfur chemistries, solid state, and maybe lithium air batteries, densities will go up by 2-3x in the next ten years. That means less materials, lighter vehicles / battery "rocket equation" for more range from a lighter battery with the same power storage, etc. Zero or negative emissions is perfect being the enemy of bad. BEVs are an enormous opportunity to mitigate massive amounts of emissions AND be a better product that is cheaper for people. There does not exist a practical political path to zero emissions right now, as much as it pains me to say so. What we do need (and there is some political opportunity to do so) is massive funding of BEV transporation at all levels / form factors. There should be a 300-500$ price credit (phasing out 10% per year) for scooters and ebikes to get them prevalent. Make them stupid cheap to adopt. Fund the hell out of battery development. Double down on all the national lab work on batteries (that lithium air paper recently was nice, we should see stuff like that out of every single national lab).

aseerdbnarng 4y ago

I read through one of the papers and a key assumption that the energy mix powering the grid will more halve its co2 output over the next 10 years and cites Germany as the baseline trend. This is a crazy optimistic assumption to make

willio58 4y ago
I don’t think that year figure changing really matters though. Let’s say Germany halves its CO2 output in 25 years instead. What does that mean? Does it mean we should all stop buying EVs now and just buy combustion engine vehicles for eternity? Nope.
- bartislartfast 4y ago
  The biggest environmental concern always cited for EVs is the source of electricity, which has a decent chance of being renewable, going forward. Fossil fuel ICEs have zero chance. They will always be dirty. The second biggest concern is mining for the lithium used in EVs, which hopefully soon will be a much smaller concern as Sodium batteries become the norm. Again, there is a risk we could still be mining lithium in 20 years, but it's a risk rather than a certainty.
- nine_k 4y ago
  Germany halving its CO2 output would be commendable, but likely not enough to offset even a moderate increase of CO2 production by China, India, and the growing economies of Africa and Asia. They just can't afford switching to electric processes unless solar / wind plus storage, or nuclear, is a clearly and significantly cheaper option. (Which it is not yet.)
- aseerdbnarng 4y ago
  It might mean the switch to EVs are insufficient if it bakes in unrealistic expectations of future benefits. The cost and subsidies to EVs might be better spent elsewhere. I’m not making a comment on pro/against EVs only that the cited paper makes an assumption I believe to be overly optimistic

cashsterling 4y ago

This article and information cited doesn't seem realistic to me. I don't have time to do a deep dive into their calculations but the claim that EV's are 10x more energy efficient over their lifetime just doesn't hold water to me or is based on invalid assumptions, e.g. all EV electricity comes from a "clean power source" such as nuclear power, wind, hydroelectric. Excess power for more EV's largely does not come from clean power sources. Most "excess power" for EV's comes from fossil fuel -- that is, given our current power infrastructure and supply of clean energy, when add power demand from more EV's... that supply is mostly coming from natural gas (maybe some coal too, yikes). EV energy lifecycle is roughly: (0) recover/frack/process natural gas out of ground and transport to power station (1) Burn natural gas to make electrical energy, (2) transmit electricity to charging station... which has transmission loss, (3) charge EV... which has loss, (4) discharge energy from battery to motors...which has loss, (5) convert electrical power to mechanical power to the wheels in the motor... which has loss. Internal combustion engine (ICE) energy lifecycle is: (0) recover crude oil and refine crude to fuel, transport to gas station (1) fill car... very low energy loss, much lower than charge dishcarge of EV's (2) burn fuel in ICE Thermodynamic efficiency of burning natural gas is about 45-55% depending upon plant design. There are transmission and charge/discharge/conversion losses associated with getting the electricity to EV's and using it. Burning petrol fuels in an ICE is about 30-35% efficient in modern engines. There are higher carbon associated with recovering and processing crude oil relative to natural gas. When discussing fossil fuel power plants: natural gas plants are about 2x to 2.5x more carbon efficient than coal or other fossil fuel plants on mass of CO2 per kWh generated. I'm not going to run detailed numbers but more than 10x carbon operating efficiency for EV's over ICE's is high. I think the operational efficiency benefit is only 2-3x, which is still a lot. I also think these studies are probably under reporting energy requirements for EV battery production because so much of the supply chain is in the developing world or China and it is hard to get accurate data. That all being said, EV's are a big part of our future and part of the solution toward building a more energy efficient world.