OT: Electric Vehicles--anyone driving them or seriously looked at them?

[paredown]

Originally Posted by Mr. Pink

Then, seriously, live in a city with energy efficient multi unit buildings, and use public transport. To start. Why are we still insisting on this expansion of exurbia filled with energy wasting macmansions and all the infrastructure that supports it? All this money can improve our public transit ten times over, but, nope, where's the profit in that?

Yep. Reminds me of why I quit reading Dwell Magazine. I couldn't read one more article about how "energy efficient" the 8000sf house for two people was...

[MikeD]

Originally Posted by Mr. Pink

As California goes, so does the nation.

https://www.reuters.com/business/aut...an-2024-02-28/

It doesn't end there. There's a pending ban on natural gas appliances (water heaters and furnaces), gasoline powered lawn mowers and leaf blowers too. Electric rates are the second highest in the country.

[Mr. Pink]

Originally Posted by MikeD

It doesn't end there. There's a pending ban on natural gas appliances (water heaters and furnaces), gasoline powered lawn mowers and leaf blowers too. Electric rates are the second highest in the country.

And for that you can count on the fallen wires burning your town down to the ground.

How is the Asian restaurant industry going to survive cooking on electric? And, I know that the electric home yard tools have advanced a lot, but no way you're clearing a five foot dump of Sierra cement off the driveway and walks with one of them.

[MikeD]

Originally Posted by Mr. Pink

And for that you can count on the fallen wires burning your town down to the ground.

How is the Asian restaurant industry going to survive cooking on electric? And, I know that the electric home yard tools have advanced a lot, but no way you're clearing a five foot dump of Sierra cement off the driveway and walks with one of them.

I asked my gardener how he's going to manage. He says his "buddies" use a gasoline powered generator in the back of their trucks to keep things charged. Ha ha.

[BdaGhisallo]

Originally Posted by MikeD

I asked my gardener how he's going to manage. He says his "buddies" use a gasoline powered generator in the back of their trucks to keep things charged. Ha ha.

It's almost as if there's a war on things that work.

[AngryScientist]

Originally Posted by BdaGhisallo

It's almost as if there's a war on things that work.

Sometimes, that's the way necessary forward progress works. Let me give an example:

I work in the Marine Transportation/Power industry. Back in "the good old days" asbestos was used in literally everything. Piping insulation, brake pads, clutch packs, exterior siding, floor tile and everything in between.

As far as I'm concerned in the last 50+ years we have come up with alternatives, but never found a material as good as asbestos at the various applications it excelled at. Asbestos really was good stuff and a very versatile material.

Of course, hundreds of thousands of people have suffered and died from asbestos exposure related illnesses. They continue to do so because this legacy stuff is still present in a lot of places (I have asbestos siding tiles on my garage for example).

Today, we are happy to accept technically inferior materials in our piping insulation and brake pads in a trade off for a healthier world.

[BdaGhisallo]

Originally Posted by AngryScientist

Sometimes, that's the way necessary forward progress works. Let me give an example:

I work in the Marine Transportation/Power industry. Back in "the good old days" asbestos was used in literally everything. Piping insulation, brake pads, clutch packs, exterior siding, floor tile and everything in between.

As far as I'm concerned in the last 50+ years we have come up with alternatives, but never found a material as good as asbestos at the various applications it excelled at. Asbestos really was good stuff and a very versatile material.

Of course, hundreds of thousands of people have suffered and died from asbestos exposure related illnesses. They continue to do so because this legacy stuff is still present in a lot of places (I have asbestos siding tiles on my garage for example).

Today, we are happy to accept technically inferior materials in our piping insulation and brake pads in a trade off for a healthier world.

Is it clear that we are getting a healthier world by trading ICE vehicles and other appliances for the greener options? Are EVs better, or do they simply trade one set of downsides for a different set of downsides that just happen to occur elsewhere? Their construction and fueling is not free of pollution as many people seem to believe.

A few utilities in Europe, most especially in the UK and Germany, are now burning wood (a lot of it shipped from the southern US) instead of natural gas or coal to generate electricity. Wood releases far more pollutants when it's burned than coal or any other hydrocarbon, but it's been classified as a 'green' energy source by Euro regulators because it's a renewable resource, so we're better off, right?

[jm714]

There is a meme going around facebook right now talking about the cost in diesel to extract all the materials to construct a EV battery. The meme claims you’re not carbon neutral till like year seven of ownership. I found this article with a google search:

https://www.reuters.com/business/aut...rs-2021-06-29/

[jm714]

Originally Posted by MikeD

It doesn't end there. There's a pending ban on natural gas appliances (water heaters and furnaces), gasoline powered lawn mowers and leaf blowers too. Electric rates are the second highest in the country.

I worked for a city in California that had its own electric utility, I think there are only 12 cities in California that own their own electric utility out of 400 cities. Our rates were consistently 15-20% cheaper than the local investor owned utility SCE.

A group of these electric cities built a natural gas fired steam electric generating plant in NorCal that used waste water from the adjacent sewer plant for steam generation. Upon its ribbon cutting Gov Brown came out and celebrated what a cutting edge project it was.

Now the state is legislating out natural gas and I heard the plant no long operates at capacity due to new regulations.

[bfd]

Originally Posted by BdaGhisallo

Is it clear that we are getting a healthier world by trading ICE vehicles and other appliances for the greener options? Are EVs better, or do they simply trade one set of downsides for a different set of downsides that just happen to occur elsewhere? Their construction and fueling is not free of pollution as many people seem to believe.

According to this article, at least one UC Berkeley study shows that EVs are reducing emissions and having a positive effect in the San Francisco Bay Area:

https://www.sfchronicle.com/climate/...e-19381860.php

Of course, there are probably as many Teslas in SF as there are Camry and Accords. lol

With regard to construction, if you are looking for a new car, then its a good time to look at EVs. Yes, you can get a used car that is already built and have less impact. Needless to say, there are a lot of used Teslas and other EVs on the market now.

I should warn I may be bias as I'm a Tesla owner and loving it....

Good Luck!

[BdaGhisallo]

Originally Posted by bfd

According to this article, at least one UC Berkeley study shows that EVs are reducing emissions and having a positive effect in the San Francisco Bay Area:

https://www.sfchronicle.com/climate/...e-19381860.php

I can't access the article. Does it make any mention of the effects on emissions or other pollution of the production of the inputs that go into constructing an EV, and where those effects occur?

[sipmeister]

Originally Posted by BdaGhisallo

A few utilities in Europe, most especially in the UK and Germany, are now burning wood (a lot of it shipped from the southern US) instead of natural gas or coal to generate electricity. Wood releases far more pollutants when it's burned than coal or any other hydrocarbon, but it's been classified as a 'green' energy source by Euro regulators because it's a renewable resource, so we're better off, right?

Wood is certainly not a dense source of energy, so more wood would be required to burn to equal the same amount of energy derived from coal or nat gas.

But of course it’s a green option because we are selling the wood.

[verticaldoug]

Originally Posted by BdaGhisallo

A few utilities in Europe, most especially in the UK and Germany, are now burning wood (a lot of it shipped from the southern US) instead of natural gas or coal to generate electricity. Wood releases far more pollutants when it's burned than coal or any other hydrocarbon, but it's been classified as a 'green' energy source by Euro regulators because it's a renewable resource, so we're better off, right?

In their infinite wisdom, the greens in Germany hate nuclear power. So they closed all the nuclear power plants. Germany was burning a lot of coal, so their solution was to co-burn wood pellets.

The same idea was behind Drax which is the biggest CO2 emitter in UK. It was an original coal plant from the 1970's (actually the last one built in the UK to use local coal and support the miners). Since the plant was 'privatized' in 1990, it has become the queen of subsidies. First it was going to do carbon capture in early 2000's, then switched to co-firing with biomass from 2010 when the subsidy stream for Carbon Capture was curtailed and subsidies for co-firing could be obtained. They actually stopped burning coal in 2022 and it is now completely biomass (wood pellets, sunflower, peanut, rapeseed husks etc). Drax consumes 60% of US wood pellet exports and plants have been built in Mississippi and Louisiana to supply it.

The amazing thing is Drax has manage to get the carbon capture boondoggle going again. The UK looks more and more like a failed state.

https://bylinetimes.com/2024/05/02/d...iomass-energy/

[Clean39T]

I want a Kia EV9 because it fits bikes, can tow a trailer, is quiet, has a great sound system, drives well, and can easily recharge in the time it takes me to get groceries or eat lunch. I have zero interest in a hyper-turbo’d 4-cyl SUV that is dangerously underpowered for its size - but also am a bit tired of the maintenance on my 2012 Range Rover NA V8 (and the MPG ain’t great). It’s probably a push between the two when it comes to embedded energy costs - one is just a lot easier to live with and cheaper to run, and that’s probably the direction I’m headed at this point..

There’s my 0.02-kWh.

[peanutgallery]

EVs are interesting...so are their drivers

https://nypost.com/2024/05/05/us-new...n-tony-island/

Classic tesla user