What about the gas guzzlers?
What about the gas guzzlers?
Posted Jun 3, 2024 9:10 UTC (Mon) by khim (subscriber, #9252)In reply to: What about the gas guzzlers? by intelfx
Parent article: Opt Green: KDE Eco's New Sustainable Software Project
Since you, unlike your opponents, seems to think, I'll point out the obvious: problem with “green energy” and EV are not with electric motors or solar panels, per se.
Electric motors are suprior, if you look on even larger creations, ships, you would find them there. They are cheaper, they don't need transmission, etc.
Solar panels and wind turbines are less efficient than other ways to make electricity, but price of electricity they make is not the Achilles heel of the whole thing, no.
The whole thing becomes a scam when you count for the need to have an accumulator in your system.
Older types of batteries (like NiFe batteries, e.g.) are heavy and don't hold as much charge, but they last… they don't hold enouh energy to make pure EV vehicles or solar/wind plants viable! Yet they can be used to combine diesel with electric motor.
But all these grandiose EU plans? They rely on breakthrough in battery chemistry to be viable. That haven't happened and would probably not happen during our life (please don't send me articles which promise breakthrough in accumulators, I saw them since I was little boy, it's mostly scientist rapes reporter articles, tell me when you would have something to sell me).
Or, alternatively, you can make someone else make them for you and give them for you for free. Make Chineese, Bolivian and so on people suffer and swindle the goods from them for free, somehow. Then the whole thing may work, too.
That even works on micro-level: solar panels on a roof on south countries are viable… as long as you don't cut connection from grid and someone else pays for intermittency of your power generation. Try to “cut the cord”, add battery to the mix… and prices skyrocket.
The only thing that may readily compensate damage that solar and wind power do to the power grind is hydro. Which makes Norway unique place in the world where it may actually work, ironically enough.
But EV are not viable even in Norway, I wonder what it plans to do after EU collapse.
As I have said: the whole plan was to play “ecology, ecology, save the planet” and make “Global South” pay for the whole excercise.
But “Global South” (why the heck it's called “Global South”, BTW? the leader of that group, Russia, is one of the northern countries in the world, for crying out loud!), increasingly, doesn't want to play that game — and it does't look like “West” (again: why is it “West” if few of most important countries in the group, South Korea and Japan are on the far east?) have the military means to make them play that game by force.
But whether EU would be able to make others pay for they “ego-friendly” madness or not… this whole crazyness increases human impact upon planet, it doesn't reduce it! That was my point.
Posted Jun 3, 2024 13:04 UTC (Mon)
by corbet (editor, #1)
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Posted Jun 3, 2024 16:00 UTC (Mon)
by malmedal (subscriber, #56172)
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Posted Jun 3, 2024 15:54 UTC (Mon)
by malmedal (subscriber, #56172)
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No breakthrough needed, they are already good enough for many applications such as cars and overnight grid-storage. There are still many applications they can't do, yet, e.g. seasonal grid-storage and large airplanes. But for the applications they *can* do they are much cheaper and
It has been obvious for a long time that this is what would happen, but a sceptic could always dismiss it by saying "speculative" and also dismiss the batteries and solar panels installed by California by saying they were politically motivated.
However the politics in Texas is in the other direction, and what is new this year is that companies in Texas are installing both more solar panels and more batteries than California is.
This really should be enough to convince every reasonable person.
> But EV are not viable even in Norway,
Yes they are. They have proven themselves already and are very popular.
Some of the more extreme environmentalists are moving the goalposts and saying that people should not have a car at all, but cycle or take the bus, but they can be safely ignored. That's not going to happen.
> Make Chineese, Bolivian and so on people suffer and swindle the goods from them for free, somehow.
China is not being swindled, whatever they are doing it is on purpose.
> and make “Global South” pay
This is going to be extremely beneficial for most of the Global South, that actually are in the south, they can stop importing expensive fuel for their cars.
> the leader of that group, Russia, is one of the northern countries in the world,
That's indeed correct, this is not good for Russia's relative standing in particular, but most of the rest of world will benefit enormously.
Posted Jun 14, 2024 10:01 UTC (Fri)
by mrugiero (guest, #153040)
[Link] (1 responses)
The global south would need more than electric cars to be anywhere near benefited by this. I live in one of those countries.
Posted Jun 14, 2024 12:10 UTC (Fri)
by malmedal (subscriber, #56172)
[Link]
The price of solar plus batteries is so low that you will save money running the grid off that.
I can't think of a possible country where this wouldn't be true, countries with land in the far north, US, Canada, Norway, Russia are all oil-exporters.
Let's see, Greenland? No apparently they export oil. Sweden, Finland? Still not Global South, and they run their grids mostly on renewables and nuclear.
Argentina? Even in Ushuaia solar is still feasible, but I recall it being rather windy, so wind-power might very well be the best option.
So this has been off-topic for a while, and the snide comment at the top is not particularly respectful. This is turning into exactly the sort of back-and-forth that we discussed last week. Please, stop this here, and try not to do this again?
Off-topic
Off-topic
What about the gas guzzlers?
will relegate other technologies to small niches.
And for countries with arid land and a coastline, desalination is going to be cheap enough to use for agriculture.
What about the gas guzzlers?
We import fossil fuels for the energy grid, in part because of self-inflicted problems, in part because nuclear treaties put a cap on Uranium purity unless you are one of the few countries that actually used it for weapons, which means our plants are more expensive to run and less efficient. We also use gas for heating because our electricity production is no match to just burning gas. Last but not least, you need wealth to buy new vehicles, and we lack that.
What about the gas guzzlers?
Also except for Russia not considered part of the Global South.