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Topic: Weather, Climate, Environment, and Energy

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MichiFan87

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Re: Weather, Climate, and Environment
« Reply #2002 on: January 03, 2020, 12:51:51 AM »
Several big European countries have already banned internal combustion engines. It may not be happening as fast as expected, but electric cars are still the future, and I think the same is still true for buses and small commercial vehicles. The biggest variable is when autonomous technology is deployed, after which car ownership will inevitably become obsolete, anyway. What happens for freight transportation is still certainly an open question, though.

2018 numbers of generation share is 63.6% fossil fuel, 19.4% nuclear, and 16.9 renewables (including hydro).... Renewables have probably gained another 1-2% over the past year. Of course, it varies by part of the country with higher levels of renewable generation in the West Coast, Great Plains, and Southwest compared to the Northeast and Southeast.

https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3

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Cincydawg

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Re: Weather, Climate, and Environment
« Reply #2003 on: January 03, 2020, 06:06:19 AM »
I don't think any have banned them as of now.  They have plans to move away from them in the future, but not today.  I'm headed to France later this month and I'm 100% sure to get a Diesel rental car.  Paris has some pretty bad air pollution at times and I know the city plans to ban Diesels in the future, they can't  ban them today except they are moving the cabs away from them, a lot of the cabs are Priuses.

Norway sales are over half EVs now because they pay much lower taxes and tolls.  That's an interesting way to promote EVs, you don't pay tolls.  The freeways intercity in Europe are largely toll roads and they get expensive in a hurry.  We spent nearly $100 on tolls driving from Lyon to Bordeaux if memory serves.  Might have been $70.

Cincydawg

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Re: Weather, Climate, and Environment
« Reply #2004 on: January 03, 2020, 06:11:41 AM »
Freight as in rail freight could be electrified over time.  The engines today are already electric, it's just that they use Diesels to provide the electricity.  Electric motors are an effective means to deliver torque to the wheels gradually and effectively, no wheel spin now.  One could modify these engines with pickups overhead to shut down the Diesel where power is available.

Airplanes of course are another story entirely.  The wife was checking how to get from Paris to Marseilles the other day and told me that flying our of Orly was cheaper than the TGV, and faster.  She later said we probably would not make that trip for other reasons.  Sometimes the airport of course is out of the city when the trains drop you off inside like Gare du Nord versus CDG.

The trains in France have been largely shut down by a general strike, we're hearing it is a real mess right now, and she wants to go into the city one night.  Yuck.  We're driving, traffic may be worse than normal.  I do not care for Paris.

FearlessF

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Re: Weather, Climate, and Environment
« Reply #2005 on: January 03, 2020, 10:32:08 AM »
not too many things happen as quickly as some folks would expect
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CWSooner

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Re: Weather, Climate, and Environment
« Reply #2006 on: January 03, 2020, 12:54:15 PM »
I don't think any have banned them as of now.  They have plans to move away from them in the future, but not today.  I'm headed to France later this month and I'm 100% sure to get a Diesel rental car.  Paris has some pretty bad air pollution at times and I know the city plans to ban Diesels in the future, they can't  ban them today except they are moving the cabs away from them, a lot of the cabs are Priuses.

Norway sales are over half EVs now because they pay much lower taxes and tolls.  That's an interesting way to promote EVs, you don't pay tolls.  The freeways intercity in Europe are largely toll roads and they get expensive in a hurry.  We spent nearly $100 on tolls driving from Lyon to Bordeaux if memory serves.  Might have been $70.
So, effectively, the Norwegian government is subsidizing EVs.  They are removing the burden of paying for road from the "good people" (EV owners) and transferring it to the "bad people" (IC-car owners).  And, as EVs are more expensive (otherwise there wouldn't be the need to subsidize them), this is effectively a regressive tax.
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Cincydawg

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Re: Weather, Climate, and Environment
« Reply #2007 on: January 03, 2020, 01:07:36 PM »
As far back as 1990, the government began to introduce incentives for EV owners. Big changes started to come at the turn of the millennium when road tax was lowered, charges for toll roads and public ferries were removed, and free parking offered in some municipal car parks.

Norway’s 25% sales tax was removed from new EV purchases in 2001, and drivers were permitted to use bus lanes from 2005. Although the country’s extensive charging infrastructure was kick-started by government money, private companies are now taking over operations and there has been a lot of interest from overseas.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidnikel/2019/06/18/electric-cars-why-little-norway-leads-the-world-in-ev-usage/#453494cf13e3


betarhoalphadelta

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Re: Weather, Climate, and Environment
« Reply #2008 on: January 03, 2020, 01:29:01 PM »
Several big European countries have already banned internal combustion engines. It may not be happening as fast as expected, but electric cars are still the future, and I think the same is still true for buses and small commercial vehicles. 
I don't think any have banned them as of now.  They have plans to move away from them in the future, but not today.  
Yeah, it's a common thing that I see... When a country puts in a policy that is long-dated, which allows them to claim to have done something today even though the requirement to make it happen is down the road and may get canceled if the economics don't line up. 

https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/denmark-eu-ban-gas-diesel-cars/


Quote
Norway will end the sale of new cars that use fossil fuels in 2025, while used cars will still be permitted. It assumes remaining cars with internal-combustion engines will gradually be phased out. The Netherlands will enact a similar plan, but with a 2030 timeline. France and the UK have called for total bans by 2040.
Norway, because of the dramatic incentives* they've already created for EVs, might actually hit that 2025 goal, but I won't be completely shocked if it gets extended a few years if it's not economically viable. 

But for France and the UK, making a policy with a 20 year timeline allows politicians to hog all the glory of their forward-thinkingness today, while pushing the actual potential pain of the policy out far into the future when nobody will remember who was responsible. 

* And by incentives for EVs, I basically mean that they've made it so ruinously expensive to buy an ICEV that simply not applying those taxes and penalties to EVs makes them cost-effective in comparison. They artificially make ICEVs so expensive that not applying the same policies looks like a dramatic subsidy to EVs. 

Cincydawg

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Re: Weather, Climate, and Environment
« Reply #2009 on: January 03, 2020, 02:21:26 PM »
Yeah, any goal that has a date of 2040 is pretty absurd, unless there are intermediate hard goals and some way to meet them.  My goal is to lose 30 pounds by 2040, which might be possible.  There also can be issues with supply as Norway has learned.

It's interesting, to me, that France has such a high percentage of nuclear on their grid (for obvious reasons).  There was some talk of cutting that back but I think someone did the math and it went away, I think.

FearlessF

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Re: Weather, Climate, and Environment
« Reply #2010 on: January 03, 2020, 02:46:21 PM »
by 2040 I probably won't give a damn
"Courage; Generosity; Fairness; Honor; In these are the true awards of manly sport."

Cincydawg

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Re: Weather, Climate, and Environment
« Reply #2011 on: January 03, 2020, 02:54:22 PM »
by 2040 I probably won't give a damn
By 2020, I don't already on most things that get people riled.  I get very mad at people who get very mad over trivial things.

betarhoalphadelta

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Re: Weather, Climate, and Environment
« Reply #2012 on: January 03, 2020, 03:55:17 PM »
The truth is that BEV won't make it until it's economically viable to make it. There are several things that need to happen:


  • Cost of batteries need to come down. Right now it might be true that it's cheaper to "fill up" using electricity than gas, but the cost of batteries mean that you have a much higher acquisition cost today of a BEV vs gasoline vehicle. Right now it's still a purchase almost entirely limited to upper-income purchasers.
  • City charging infrastructure needs to improve. The ideal, of course, is residential charging. But as a renter, I don't want to pony up ~$1000 to install a charger in my landlord's garage. A lot of apartment complexes don't have chargers or only have limited chargers today. So this is limited mostly to homeowners, or people who are by nature the BEV early-adopter types that would be willing to do this. 
  • Highway charging infrastructure is important as well. Tesla leads here, but on highly-traveled routes [particularly in places like California], you can still run into multi-hour wait times during busy travel times [such as the holidays]. Now, for a multi-vehicle family, or if you choose to rent an ICEV for a trip like that, you can get around it. But again that means that you need to have higher income than many families to make it viable.

This stuff is all going the direction of increasing BEV adoption. But it's going to take years, and until it gets there, it will be a plaything of upper-income and multi-vehicle households who can deal with the higher initial acquisition costs. Many of those households are also homeowners and the types that might use home solar and home battery energy storage to dramatically reduce their home electricity AND automotive "fueling" costs. But not yet mainstream.

I'll be really interested in how it progresses by about 2026-27 or so. At that point my eldest will be heading off to college and it might be right around time to replace the main family-hauler with something a little smaller. I may look into the jump to BEV around that time.


Cincydawg

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Re: Weather, Climate, and Environment
« Reply #2013 on: January 03, 2020, 04:24:55 PM »
The new apartment and condo buildings around here all advertise that they have charging stations.  My doctor wanted to buy in our building (we have zero for sale anyway) but told me he had a Tesla.  I talked with our HOA head about putting in 4 stations, the HOA owns four spaces apparently.  We might do that and rent them.

It is definitely a lot cheaper to "refuel" by recharging, but it takes a long time to recoup the initial investment.  I looked at a Bolt (which of course may not be the best choice) as compared with a Cruze Hatchback similarly equipped.  Even after the tax rebate, the Cruze was $10,000 cheaper.  The Cruze also needs oil changes and would go through brake pads faster.  The cars are "about the same", the Bolt accelerates faster.  

https://www.cargurus.com/Cars/compare/Chevrolet-Cruze-vs-Chevrolet-Bolt-EV_d2076_d2397

https://www.chargepoint.com/blog/charging-chevy-bolt-ev-everything-you-need-know/

They show a cost of $1.18 for 50 miles of range in a Level 2 charger.  In a Cruze, that would take 1.2 gallons of gas, about $3.  That takes 2 hours to charge for 50 miles.

I could manage now with a Bolt as nearly all our driving is city driving, and I'd rent something for out of town.



FearlessF

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Re: Weather, Climate, and Environment
« Reply #2014 on: January 03, 2020, 05:10:54 PM »
The truth is that BEV won't make it until it's economically viable to make it. There are several things that need to happen:


  • Highway charging infrastructure is important as well. Tesla leads here, but on highly-traveled routes [particularly in places like California], you can still run into multi-hour wait times during busy travel times
are these charging stations not standardized for all electric vehicles?
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MichiFan87

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Re: Weather, Climate, and Environment
« Reply #2015 on: January 03, 2020, 05:25:36 PM »
I coincidentally did some research about this recently, and my understanding is that in addition to Tesla's, there are two other technologies for fast-charging as explained here:

https://evsafecharge.com/dc-fast-charging-explained/

However, Level 1 and Level 2 charging technologies are standardized. At least initially, private charging stations are going to be the solution, which is why many utilities are offering rebates for them. Some utilities are also investing in public charging infrastructure along with non-utility companies like EVGo. Point being, the infrastructure will probably not be the problem as much as EV costs. Of course, once autonomous vehicles are available and car ownership declines, the companies that own those cars will just take over empty parking lots and garages and install charging infrastructure there.
“When your team is winning, be ready to be tough, because winning can make you soft. On the other hand, when your team is losing, stick by them. Keep believing”
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