Reposted from the Fabius Maximus Website
Larry Kummer, Editor Geopolitical News 1 July 2019
Summary: An oddity of US political debates is that both Left and Right lie like rugs. See three fun but telling falsehoods from a comment yesterday. They express widely held beliefs about energy use in America. They hide some good news.
The first falsehood
“Nonsense. …Your claim – that we are advancing into a low emissions future – is false.”
This is breathtakingly wrong, but easy to believe based on what we read in the news. Let’s look at it in steps, by the numbers.
Energy intensity is energy use per unit of GDP, a measure of the efficiency with which we use energy. It has been improving (decreasing intensity) in the US since 1950 (see the EIA). It has been improving globally since 1990: down 40% in the US, down 1/3 in the world. See this interactive graph showing the trend for nations and the world.
Carbon intensity is the amount of CO2 emitted per unit of energy used. It has been dropping since 1970 (per the EIA). The power sector’s carbon intensity was stable at 60 kg CO2/MMBtu for decades, then began to decline after 2006. By 2016 it had fallen to 48 kg CO2/MMBtu (down 20%). the carbon intensity of transportation has also begun to slowly decline. The electrification of vehicles in the next few decades will accelerate that decline.
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As a result of these two trends, America’s CO2 emissions peaked in 2007, and they have fallen since then (see VOX, and see Wikipedia). The other developed nations are following us at various speeds. For more about these trends, see McKinsey’s April 2019 report: “The decoupling of GDP and energy growth.”
A second fun falsehood
“Electric cars are inferior to gasoline cars, and can only be rammed down our throats by force.”
Electricity is a far cheaper source of energy than gasoline. And electric vehicles (EVs) are much more efficient: combustion-powered motors max out at 40% efficiency while electric motors can run at 90%. As for storage, EVs will work just fine for many people. My wife has never driven 200 miles in a day. Many commercial vehicles that work in urban areas can function with today’s battery loads.
The speed with EVs replace gas/diesel vehicles depends on how quickly they drop in price, which depends on the volume sold (which depends on their price). Most new technology rides down the price-volume curve. Raytheon sold the first commercial microwave oven in 1947; it cost $28 thousand in 2019 dollars. In 1967 Litton sold the first countertop microwave oven; it cost $3800 in 2019 dollars. (See this history.) Now they are $50+ and everybody has them.
EVs will not drop in price as drastically as did microwave ovens. But they could eventually become as cheap to buy as gas/diesel cars, and perhaps cheaper over their full operating lifetime.
A third fun falsehood
“James Hansen said wind and solar are ‘fairy tales and Easter bunnies.’”
This is a popular Right-wing story, a misstatement of what climate scientist Hansen said in a 2011 essay.
“Can renewable energies provide all of society’s energy needs in the foreseeable future? It is conceivable in a few places, such as New Zealand and Norway. But suggesting that renewables will let us phase rapidly off fossil fuels in the United States, China, India, or the world as a whole is almost the equivalent of believing in the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy.”
Hansen tells us what should be obvious. Today we rely on a diverse array of energy sources. The components will change over time, but there is no magic bullet existing or under development that will provide “all” or even most of our energy. Certainly not solar and wind.
First, both are in use without subsidies in many areas. We have and always have had diverse systems of energy production. These are just new additions. They are not magic bullets – because there are no magic bullets. Second, Hansen did not say anything like that. He said in his essay that they could not replace fossil fuels.
Be skeptical of forecasts
The energy and climate policy debates are driven by predictions. Sometimes about immensely complex and poorly understood dynamics. Hansen’s essay gives an example of why we should be skeptical of forecasts. Energy use is a relatively simple thing to predict compared to climate change. Yet even top experts have a terrible record at predicting prices and quantities, even over modest time horizons. See Hansen’s update through 2009 of a graph in his entry to the growing genre of climate doomster lit: Storms of My Grandchildren: The Truth About the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity
Conclusions
Despite the screams of climate doomsters, having little basis in science, we are not on the fast track to climate armageddon. We are making progress and will continue to do so. Depending on as yet unknown factors, we may or may not face extreme climate change in the mid- to late 21st C.
Falsehoods by both sides are chaff in the public policy debate, preventing agreement on common-sense measures to accelerate the shift to high efficiency and less pollution energy use, and lower carbon sources of energy. There is insufficient evidence at present for the drastic measure of the Green New Deal, and far better uses for the money. Our schools are a mess, especially where they are most needed (e.g., in inner cities and rural areas). The oceans are being destroyed. You can list other urgent needs for funds.
Clear sight of the facts. Open debate, without the poisonous smears used (successfully) today by climate activists. These tools will work for us, if we have the will and wit to use them.
For More Information
Ideas! See my recommended books and films at Amazon.
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- About RCP8.5: Is our certain fate a coal-burning climate apocalypse? No!
- How climate scientists can re-start the public policy debate about climate change – test the models!
- Follow-up: more about why scientists should test the models.
- Let’s prepare for past climate instead of bickering about predictions of climate change – Doing something is better than nothing.
- Focusing on worst case climate futures doesn’t work. It shouldn’t work.
- Updating the RCPs: The IPCC gives us good news about climate change, but we don’t listen.
- The Extinction Rebellion’s hysteria vs. climate science.
- Daily stories of climate death build a Green New Deal!
- Why we do nothing to prepare for climate change.
- Listening to climate doomsters makes our situation worse.
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Pretty lame Larry.
In your opinion these things are true/untrue..
So some one else is “Lying like a rug”.?
Of course you are right,just as sure of the future as the fellows who predicted the flying Car and jetpack.
We already have reliable electric vehicles,Golf Carts.Regulation limits their use,not their practicality.
There is nothing “revolutionary” about EVs and market forces will rule.
Cities can mandate EV inside their boundaries, they might be surprised by the results.
That magic battery has been coming for over 200 years..any day now for sure.
Carbon intensity? sure it is dropping per litre burnt, but millions more people are about to start enjoying burning those litres.
End result?
More emissions.
As for the Hansen canard?
Never heard it and hardly significant ,your opinion differs from those you quote, Larry says “They are lying”.
Hansen has run off at the mouth for decades, sensible people have ignored him ,as the activist he revealed himself to be.
.
Where do you dream up this rubbish?
And how did you become the arbiter of truthiness?
you are very certain of a future that is yet to unfold.
A trait you have in common with our comrades from the Cult of Calamitous Climate.
Larry seems to me to be an intelligent person who wants to somehow thread the needle between two sides.
I wonder if the hope is to be seen as a moderate by all, someone who has found a sensible middle ground.
It seems more like he has decided on a tack which is guaranteed to endear himself to neither side.
Buying into the climate change malarkey.
Buying into the warmer world is bad malarkey.
Picking random facts and trying to use them as indicative of larger truths (Example 1: Wife never drove 200 miles, but I wonder, is that because on longer trips you do the driving? Example 2: Electric motors are more efficient that ICEs, but what amount the efficiency of the power plant, and the transmission, and conversion to stored battery power and then back out again to the electric motor?).
And ignoring that warmistas are not behaving rationally, not arguing in good faith, not doing proper science, refusing to back ideas that might actually replace FF with abundant, reliable, and inexpensive alternatives, and now transparently trying to piggyback onto the whole CAGW grab bag of wrongness’s a socialist takeover of virtually every aspect of our lives, tack on every SJW wet dream, and roll our industrial society back to the stone age.
There is no middle ground to walk.
Warmistas are arguing a bad theory in bad faith.
Their goals have nothing to do with CO2 or the weather.
None of the things they predict have come true.
None of the harms they imagine are realities.
And their “solutions” are not solving anything.
They personify the concept of a cure worse than the disease.
And there aint no disease.
Meanwhile real and solvable problems go wanting, orphaned by a shocking and widespread case of what can only rightly be called mass hysteria.
Warmistas reject anyone who attempts a more moderate view of the fears they champion.
And skeptics have little tolerance for anyone who will not identify, understand, and completely reject warmista shenanigans.
He seems to take the position that in order to prove himself a moderate, he has to criticize both sides. Even if he has to invent his criticisms of one side.
Look at the above article. He starts off with the claim that both left and right lie, but the only “lie” he can come up with from the right, isn’t even an argument that those on the right make. His only defense to the claim that it is a “common” argument is that there are a lot of hits for it in Google.
With 7 billion people in the world, maybe a third of them self identify as conservative, a few thousand hits from people nobody outside their family and friends have ever heard of, is not “a lot”.
Good Lord, what a mishmash of metric/imperial units.
Why not just stick with metric?
If we are going to have fun units that require weird conversions to be useful, I vote we go with stones/calorie or drams/horsepower-hour.
“Why not just stick with metric?”
Normally, that’s a fine idea. But Joules are kind of small for most day-to-day engineering calculations. So a lot of folks use BTUs instead for routine calculations. FWIW, a BTU is about 1000 joules (1055 actually).
This seems to be an amount of heat generated by burning stuff. It has nothing to do with any efficiency. If it changes at all, it is because coal is being replaced by natural gas and oil.
Once driverless cars are commonplace, we’ll be able to use electric for around town and gas buggies for long distance, and order either by cell phone.
I doubt it. People like the convenience of being able to hop into their own car whenever they want, not having to wait 15 to 30 minutes (worse when traffic is heavy) for the cab to arrive. When shopping, they like to be able to leave some of their purchases in the car while they continue to shop.
Most people shop at several stores. Having to wait 15 to 30 minutes each time they need to change stores will make a one day shopping trip into a multi-day shopping trip.
“Depending on as yet unknown factors, we may or may not face extreme climate change in the mid- to late 21st C.”
What is extreme climate change?
Did we have extreme climate change in last 100 years?
We had the Dust Bowl was that an extreme climate change?
It seems possible we might get plagues caused by bad public policy.
Considering incompetence of politicians:
US is has huge Debt.
Bad forest management causing massive loss of life and property damage in California
People defecating on the streets.
Thugs wearing masks beating up people while police officers do nothing.
Etc, etc.
Is possible we get something like dust bowl due incompetent of politicans and unaccountable
and ignorant bureaucracies, rather due to “climate change”.
So climate change is a trillion dollar “industry”, the public has been forced to pay trillions dollars
for this cause.
And the dollars spent have done nothing in terms having any effect upon “climate change”.
And I think it’s worsen the environment- the landscapes have cluttered wind mills, and it seems very obvious that only real solution is to use more nuclear power, but climate change policies have been opposed to nuclear power.
But again the question is what is this extreme climate change, and btw are wind mills and solar farms going to be able to withstand, whatever one is imagining the extreme climate change that is going to be?
Driverless cars will also solve the LA traffic problems.
They might make it less severe, but they won’t solve it.
Sure they will. By wrecking most of the other cars.
All other (multiple and serious) problems with electric vehicles aside, as long as electricity is produced by burning fossil fuels, any question of electric vehicles’ efficiency or “eco-friendliness” is moot.
When all electricity will be generated by nuclear power, discussion of electric vehicles would make sense. Maybe.
“An oddity of US political debates is that both Left and Right lie like rugs.”
No, the oddity of US political debates is that both Right and Far Right lie like rugs. There is no Left in the US.
In the rest of the world, we assume that the Left, the Centre, the Right, the Up, the Down, the Inside-Out, and the Round The Corner At The Back are all lying.
They are politicians.
“In the rest of the world, we assume that the Left, the Centre, the Right, the Up, the Down, the Inside-Out, and the Round The Corner At The Back are all lying.”
There may be a few honest politicians, but to be prudent we should assume they are all lying until proven otherwise. Same with the Leftwing News Media. 🙂
The right is libertarian. The far right or left-right nexus is totalitarian-anarchist.
There is no “left” in the US? That has got to be the most ignorant statement that I have read this decade.
you are apparently one of those people who believes that the political spectrum goes like this
Communist -> Socialist -> Far right.
Anyone who believes that there are no leftists in the US is playing so deep in left field that he has to dodge the cars in the parking lot.
Larry Kumar, July 1. Regarding all of the Hun Ha about just how good
Micro wave ovens were. I can recall all of the numerous cook books
saying what wonderful meals that could be cooked using them. And I can
also recall the Horror when surveys came out that 97 % of microwaves were just used to reheat things, or to make a hot drink or cup of soup. So they ended
up as a very useful addition to the conventiaal cooker.
In regard to the electric car. Here in Gawler a local taxi company has a few, the drivers seem to like them, saying that fuel consumption is way down. They
are of course a battery plus a small I/C motor. Now winter in S.A is mild,
but how they will go in our very hot summers is another story.
The life time and cost of the batteries will be the key to their acceptance
MJE VK5ELL
One of my children, an engineer, does not believe that the electricity grid in Ireland would allow for a large number of electric cars to be charging their batteries at the same time. This would require rationing or limiting when the charging was permitted – both would undermine the usefulness of having an electric car. I wonder if hydrogen, if it could be produced efficiently and cheaply, would not offer a far better and more cost effective alternative?
Doubtful. Generating hydrogen via electrolysis is 50 percent efficient, and making electricity in a fuel cell costs another 50 percent efficiency. Batteries are better, but of course batteries have their own problems. And hydrogen loves to leak out and explode.
My two cents: the hydrogen atom is so small it will gradually leak out of any container. Perhaps some dense material may be created (Buckyballs?), but until then, leakage will be a big problem. Of course, the emission will be a greater GHG than CO2.
Containers for Hydrogen aren’t a good solution.
There are aqueous solutions that can stably bind H2 and readily release it on demand using a catalyst.
https://www.electriq.com
Currently according to my calculations, the amount solution mentioned in this Electriq Global website would have to be over 100 gallons to achieve the mileage ranges claimed. That’s a bit bulky and heavy…but there is no Internal Combustion Engine or Transmission or heavy Drive Train to haul around…so the volume and mass come out about the same.
Actually, we have. It called petroleum. One liter of liquid hydrogen contains 71 grams of hydrogen. One liter of gasoline contains 118 grams of hydrogen, and one liter of diesel, 130 grams.
Larry you don’t mention that the reason that the US and many other countries reduced their CO2 per energy unit footprint was because of an increase in natural gas usage versus a decline in coal and oil.
And First world countries offshored a lot of their manufacturing and subsequent energy use to Third world countries.
An important factor often overlooked.
It is no coincidence that the destinations of that offshoring are the places seeing explosive growth in CO2 production.
If I am correct the graph fig. 7 “United Stated Energy Consumption” hides some good news. While the total energy consumption for 1975 and 2015 is nearly the same, the US population increased by 50% during these years. This means that the average citizen uses considerably less, despite having more devices using energy, than forty years ago.
I believe that efficiency will improve through the natural maturing of technology during the next forty years. This will happen without having to spend vast sums of money on the futile exercise of reducing the total carbon dioxide output and hope of significantly reducing the average temperature.
Larry: “An oddity of US political debates is that both Left and Right lie like rugs.”
Thank you for that. An occasional injection of sanity is refreshing.
It’s a terrific article.
But, I do think there is a future for EVs in the US — pure EVs in the South, hybrids in the North where the “waste heat” from the hybrid’s ICE is useful. But I suspect that US EVs will not be high priced luxury vehicles. They’ll likely be slightly glorified Golf Carts purchased as second or third cars for local shopping, commuting, or getting the kids to and from the local college. Since the profit margins on GGCs probably won’t be high and they probably won’t sell with a lot of high margin extras, my guess is that they’ll originate some place where there is a huge demand for wheels, but incomes are not that high — China or India.
I was wondering about the 90% claim. Most electricity is generated by burning fossil fuel which is 40% at best, then there are losses getting it to the recharging point. So for fossil fuel generated electricity used in an EV efficiency can’t be more than 25%, how you measure renewable efficiency I do not know* but whatever it is the ICE will be a better better.
* As renewable electricity is expensive efficiency can’t be that great.
Larry’s use of the tried-and-true methods of the straw man, coupled with some well-crafted sleight-of-hand is pretty typical of his offerings here along with a sprinkling of lies for good measure, though this particular pile of crap is a bit more obvious than usual. Also typical are his complaints that no one here “gets it”, or that we criticize the wrong thing. The main thing that Larry just doesn’t seem to grasp is that our technological advancements (which do NOT include so-called renewables) are made because of the free market system, and despite government interference, not because of it. Larry here wants MORE government interference, not less. His belief in the value of heavily-subsidized EVs is symptomatic of that, which is why it has been so heavily weighed in on.
Lots of ignorance in this article. “Hansen tells us what should be obvious. Today we rely on a diverse array of energy sources. The components will change over time, but there is no magic bullet existing or under development that will provide “all” or even most of our energy. Certainly not solar and wind.”
Molten salt small modular reactors are a magic bullet and anyone expert in future energy technologies knows this. They can provide both electrical and thermal energy.
Electric cars will NOT become significantly cheaper thru mass production – they are already in mass production – the Tesla Model 3 is being produced at over 400,000 per year and yet their “cheaper” models ($35,000 to $42,000) are not making a profit – this with non-union labor and massive robotics.
It is the BATTERY COSTS that prevent EVs from competing on a cost basis. However, VW will produce a low priced EV around $20,000 over the next several years.
Fabius Maximus; Larry Kummer, Editor Geopolitical News 1 July 2019 promoting religion again.
e.g.: 11) “Energy intensity is energy use per unit of GDP, a measure of the efficiency with which we use energy.”
A distraction graph that fails to identify sources and reasons.
A) it show clearly that natural gas is cleaner and more efficient.
B) It also shows that Obama drove industry away from America, result; heavy energy production declined.
e.g.: 2) “Electricity is a far cheaper source of energy than gasoline. And electric vehicles (EVs) are much more efficient: combustion-powered motors max out at 40% efficiency while electric motors can run at 90%. As for storage, EVs will work just fine for many people. My wife has never driven 200 miles in a day.”</b?
A) Isn't average nonsense wonderful? Especially when coupled with personal analogies?
On a personal basis, my wife just attended a conference trip, where she drove more than 200 miles, to and from the conference; with several 100 mile plus side excursions daily.
B) This past 2018-2019 winter's cold generated news stories about how electric cars failed to deal with the cold; performing with abysmal short range capability.
C) N.B. Fabius' emphasis on efficiency without addressing all of the inefficiencies of generating electricity, charging short lived batteries, draining batteries, etc. etc. etc. This is before identifying generating sources of electricity, including fossil fuels.
D) Fabius avoids the topic of energy density and all of the convenience that energy dense power sources provide to users; e.g. a simple spare container of a few gallons of gas immediately extends the range of fossil fuel vehicles by most EV's ranges. Battery powered EVs gain additional range by getting towed.
E) Fabius uses bafflegab to disguise his EV claims. Combustion vehicles are 40% efficiency versus an alleged electric motor's 90%.
Fabius ignores that electricity generators operate at 90%, Electricity grids reduce that efficiency, charging batteries loses another 25 plus%, before the EV vehicle's motors achieving a maximum 90% efficiency. Unlike large generating plants that gain efficiency through monitoring, maintenance, adjustments, a person's EV motors are subject to drivers and driving conditions including ambient temperature.
F) EVs are heavily subsidized. EV owners should pay their vehicles full price and all EV subsidies, including additional taxes upon fossil fuels should be cancelled.
Summary; a classic shell game set of claims where the pea is hidden,while doctrine and beliefs are carefully couched.
I love his claim that something bad might happen if we continue using fossil fuels. He seems to feel that what this bad thing is doesn’t have to be spelled out.
Apparantly, making up futures in one’s head and trying to sell it as some kind of realistic future is not just limited to people with taro cards and crystal balls…..
Mr. Kummer, I generally like your articles, but this one not so much. A gallon of gasoline is about 33kWhr of combustion energy (lower heating value). I pay around $2.80 a gallon for it. I also pay something above $0.10 per kWhr for electric energy. They are not much different. The relationship of the two fuel prices varies of course, but electricity is not far cheaper than gasoline. The difficulty with comparing various fuels is that most fuels do very specialized tasks–gasoline for ICE engines and electricity to run the vacuum cleaner. One has to consider that the utility of each fuel, independent of price, makes each fuel cheaper in their relative roles. I can’t even imagine a gasoline powered vacuum cleaner.
Second, fueling a car with electric charge consists of a loss of energy both in discharging and charging that amounts to perhaps 80% of the fuel availability–an equal spillage of gasoline would be intolerable. The efficiency of the entire supply chain of gasoline from exploring for an oil field to gasoline at the pump is about 80%. The equivalent supply chain from coal mine to electric energy at the wall outlet is far lower, so that by the time one uses a vehicle efficiency of even 25%, the over all effectiveness of the two isn’t much different.
Now, I will agree that if some technical issues with batteries were overcome, and we would start using nuclear energy for baseload generation, that EVs would be great–but where will the political will (courage) to do this come from?
Larry Kummer ==> Re: EVs . how are we going to adapt rapidly to the need of EV Rapid Chargers (average household will need two) each requiring 60-90 amps of household current. That is an increase per household of 120-180 amp, while most American homes have only 100 amp service drops and distribution boxes. It means upgrading every home (suburban homes, not sure what will be done in urban settings) to at least 200 amp service.
Most Americans have 100 amp service?
I would be surprised if that was true.
Electric dryer, range, water heater, dishwasher…
Many people no doubt have 100 amp service.
But many people have wells. Pools.
Large AC units, electric heat, all manner of appliances.
And start up transient loads must be considered.
100 amps is minimum allowed.
But considering the difference in cost of installed 200 amps to begin with, versus a retrofit to higher amp service, it would have to be seen as inadvisable.
Too limiting.
I doubt any home builders have installed 100 amp service in many, if any, new homes in decades.
Nicholas ==> Only homes built since the turn of the century regularly have 200 amp service — and not all of them (townhouses, houses with heating/cooking/water-heating by natural gas). Most US homes are far older than 20 years. Our current house, bought in the 1980s, had 60 amp service, which we upgraded to 100 amps. Our house before that had 60 amp service (which was an upgrade in the 1950s) and still had extensive post-and-tube wiring.
“For more than 20 years now, 200 Amp/240 Volt service has been standard for the average single family home, although sometimes a 100 Amp/240 Volt service may be adequate for some townhouses or homes with mostly natural gas appliances. Most insurance companies will no longer insure a home with less than 100 Amp/240 Volt service, yet I still occasionally find 60 Amp electrical systems in homes.”
http://www.workingre.com/electrical-systems-older-homes/
The US Census Bureau produced a map of how old homes are across the US: see https://www.census.gov/population/www/cen2000/censusatlas/pdf/14_Housing.pdf
The progressive elites live in new homes — with all the mod cons — including 200 to 300 amp electrical service. No so the rest of Americans.
It’s very simple, by the time the majority of new cars are EVs, most people won’t own their cars anyway. They’ll order autonomous cars like Uber/Lyft-without-the-driver. So the owners of the EVs will be big fleet owners, who will have charging capabilities for the thousands of vehicles in their fleets.
It doesn’t make sense for people to own cars if computers are driving the cars. It’s crazy to own a car and have it parked for 20+ hours per day, as most people do. And owning a rapid charger just adds to the craziness.
You keep saying this as if it’s a proven fact.
It goes against human nature and I’ll believe only when I see it happening.
“It goes against human nature and I’ll believe only when I see it happening.”
No, it goes with human nature. If the average vehicle drives 13,500 miles per year, and the average cost is approximately 60 cents per mile, that’s more than $8,000 per year.
Autonomous EVs operating in transportation-as-a-service mode could easily cut that annual cost in half for the same number of miles traveled. In fact, the Rocky Mountain Institute estimates that the cost will be cut by three-quarters…from 60 cents per mile to 15 cents per mile:
https://rmi.org/u-s-transportation-system-can-save-1-trillion-2-billion-barrels-oil-1-gigaton-carbon-emissions-annually/
It’s wasting money that goes against human nature.
People do not plan lives around economizing every nickel.
One thing people do is minimize inconvenience.
Another is take into account occasional needs and unusual events.
And still another is preventing Very Bad Things from happening.
Most people will never have a house fire, or total a car.
But we still buy insurance.
But only at a level that makes sense.
People of limited means do not get $1,000,000 umbrella policies.
Many people only need the huge capacity of the vans, pickups, and SUVs they drive occasionally.
People in large metro areas aften pay enough in insurance that they could save money by getting rid of the car, taking cabs and Ubers, and renting a vehicle for road trips.
But, millions and millions never do this, and never will, even though it is economically and practically irrational, at least from a strict dollars and cents perspective.
But it is not at all irrational from a real life, we are busy, inconvenience sucks, and we cannot take our money with us when we die, outlook.
We know what the real goal, the actual warmista/socialist game plan is though: Make energy so expensive that people will be forced to live the way hypocritical virtue signaling miscreants wish us to, and dictate we should.
The tide is turning.
People will not be fooled for long, and will not submit to being controlled by lying liars and their ridiculous lies.
Life is about a lot more than just money.
Convenience is a big deal for most people.
PS: That study has about as much relevance as do the computer models used to prove global warming. They set out to prove a point, then torture the numbers until they have done so.
“Another is take into account occasional needs and unusual events.”
Yes, and a fleet of autonomous vehicles providing transportation as a service is almost infinitely more able to account for “occasional needs and unusual events.”
Take, for example, a hurricane that might either hit Manhattan/Brooklyn or Long Island. It’s going to be a monster, and large portions of either Manhattan/Brooklyn or Long Island would ideally be evacuated. Right now, everyone has a car, and try to evacuate as individual families. It’s a mess.
With a fleet of autonomous vehicles providing transportation as a service, essentially all the movement on main roads headed out of the area (e.g., 495, 295, 95, 87) is with fully loaded buses. Further, the buses may have come from as far as Philadelphia or Boston.
Let’s take an even more unusual situation. It’s going to be so bad and there’s so little warning, that it’s a “Titanic” situation…women and children are evacuated first. Right now, that’s simply not possible, because men would typically be driving their families out. In a autonomous transportation-as-a-service situation, it’s a piece of cake. The men know where their families are (on what bus, headed where). The women don’t need to worry about driving, and can look after their children.
P.S. Fleets of autonomous vehicles performing transportation as a service also don’t end up with flooded vehicles after a storm, the way we do now:
Flooded vehicles will be a thing of the past
The mains leading to each subdivision are sized based on the expected draw from that subdivision. If every home has to be upgraded with a larger service drop, then the utility lines running to that subdivision are going to have to be upgraded as well.
MarkW ==> Yes, exactly. The energy equivalent of all the gasoline burned by America’s private automobiles will have to be produced and transported and delivered to individual cars in their workplace or home garages. A massive change in our energy system.
If we are lucky, we might eventually win the Climate War simply due to the indifference of the general population…but we WON’T win just by persistant dissemination of the truth. The enemy owns the MSM and BIG DATA and Academia and Entertainment…and thet apparently have millions of ignorant online Climate Trolls. They hold almost all the propaganda guns. We don’t have much propaganda ammunition. And the Climate is too complicated for ANYONE to understand currently…let alone the average Joe. Possessing the truth won’t pay big dividends in the coming Climate battles.
What I’m proposing below is only for the preservation of Individual freedoms and preservation of the US Constitution. I’m not worried about the Climate. My proposal below is just a gut feeling of the best approach for holding off the Climate Fraudsters long enough to reach the next inevitable cooling trend…which should take most of the wind out of their sails.
Strategically, the best way to fight this battle is to support TECHNICAL CO2 emission reductions in ways that we should be doing anyway…like actively advancing the next generations of nuclear power (which we will need anyway to power the next US ECONOMIC GOLDEN AGE)…and we need to quit fighting hybrid vehicles.
My favorite crystal ball scenario prominently features Millions of Hybrid Vehicles and thousands of Thorium MSR’s (Molten Salt Nuclear Reactors). These combine to demonstrate effective ways to reduce emissions (and I am not worried about emissions).
Long Thesis short:
• Non-Thorium MSR’s will be more efficient and quicker to get onto the grid.
•A “Closed-Cycle” Thorium MSR being the ultimate goal down the road (Long story).
• MSR’s can operate at much higher temperatures than Light Water Reactors (big deal for efficiency and for capabilities).
•Higher Temperature Large Scale Energy Production make lots of things economically possible like:
□ Large Scale Desalination
□ Lower cost synthetic liquid fuels to run Hybrid Vehicles AS WELL AS LEGACY INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINED of which there will still be hundreds of millions well past 2050.
□ Massively increased Fertilizer Production
• MSR’s use an nearly inexhaustible fuel source.
• MSR can’t melt down
• Thorium MSR’s down the road produce radioactive waste that only lasts 300 years.
• EV’s are expensive “lithium-battery-resource-hogs” and still have “tank mileage” limitations (I’m not against EV’s…buy one if you want). But Hybrids are a safer bet strategically.
Long Strategy short:
• Demonstrate that technical ways to reduce CO2 are far more effective and far less expensive than Renewables.
• This confuses the issue long enough so that…
• The Climate will begin a normal cooling phase.
• Then we prosecute and incarcerate the whole fraudulent Climate Industrial Academia Complex Mob.
• We celebrate our sacred US Constitution another 100 years…or at least until the next effective Socialist International onslaught.
Because of the lead times involved, serious MSR development needs to happen now. The most prominent Thorium MSR advocate, Kirk Sorensen, estimates that a demonstration closed cycle Thorium MSR reactor could be developed in 15 years with a $75 Million investment. That is a fraction of the $500+ Million wasted in Obama’s Solyndra fraudulent scheme…where taxpayers got nothing and learned nothing.
Apparently we have been gradually incorporating “green” energy sources here in the US anyway to the point where now they slightly outpace coal based energy sources. everyone talks like America is the big bad in this carbon emission situation but it’s actually Asia. So to the extent there is a debate to be had about behaviors that need to be changed or curtailed, it isn’t about our behavior at all anymore.
It is obvious from the comments here that Mr. Kummer is right about his general observation that people on both sides of such conversations (to put it politely) say stuff which simply is not so.
Some are wrong, some somewhat irrational, and some seem driven by a sheer hatred of certain things.
Why be irrational about EVs?
The actual matter of fact unexaggerated reasons for everyone not being about to run out and get one are numerous.
From the article: “combustion engines max out at 40 percent efficiency.”
But:
“Mercedes-AMG says that in Dyno testing at its Brixworth, UK engine factory this power unit [AMG’s F1] can achieve over 50-percent thermal efficiency.”
https://www.roadandtrack.com/motorsports/a12443313/mercedes-amgs-f1-engine-is-amazingly-efficient/
“If Mazda can increase the thermal efficiency of its third-generation Skyactiv engine by about 27 percent, to 56 percent, it can achieve emissions on a par with an EV, Hitomi said.”
https://www.autonews.com/article/20180128/OEM06/180129795/mazda-pitches-skyactiv-3-engine-tech-to-rival-evs
Automotive News January 28, 2018 12:00 AM
Mr Kumer: Your purported refutation of the second “falsehood” is itself shot through with fallacies. Allow me to explain the problems.
I will quote your text and I will place my comments under it.
“Electricity is a far cheaper source of energy than gasoline.”
First problem: Electricity is not a source of energy. You can’t drill for it or dig it up. You can’t store it either. A battery converts electricity into chemical reactants. Electricity is simply a method of transmitting energy you derived from some other source.
Second problem: The energy content of a gallon of gasoline is ~132,000 Btu, which is 139 MJ or 38.68 KWh. Where I live in flyover country, electricity costs $0.11/KWh, and that much would cost $4.25. YMMV. Retail gasoline hereabouts cost about $2.75/gal. after a $0.10 tax increase on Monday.
“And electric vehicles (EVs) are much more efficient: combustion-powered motors max out at 40% efficiency while electric motors can run at 90%.”
This is a classic comparison of oranges and baboons. Once again we must start with the basic problem that electricity is not a source of energy. An electric motor may convert its direct input into work very efficiently, but the electricity only gets to the motors input leads by a series of steps. Step one is using a source of energy to run a generator. Step 2 is taking the out put of the generator from its location to the user’s location. Step 3 is charging the car batteries. Step 4 is discharging the car batteries. All of the processes are subject to the second law of thermodynamics and create entropy as well as work. Step 1 is most often a heat engine subject, as all heat engines are, to the Carnot limits. In this they are the same as the engine in the gasoline powered vehicle. Steps 2, 3, and 4 may be 90% efficient, but chained together they would be 73% efficient. Add in the losses at step 1, and I doubt that there is much difference.
“As for storage, EVs will work just fine for many people.”
That may be true depending on the value of many. I don’t think I would be happy with it. And my attitude is allow me to be the judge of what works for me. I know that leftists like Bernie and AOC don’t agree, but I think most Americans agree with me. In the immortal words of Judge Dredd: “I’ll be the judge of that”.
“My wife has never driven 200 miles in a day.”
So what. My daughter who lives in NYC rarely drives at all. But, she is not representative of a large class of Americans. Further, mileage is just one variable. Weather is another. You may live in southern California, but where I live it gets very and very cold. Both extremes affect batteries very strongly, as does the need for heat and cooling inside the car. Load is another factor.
“Many commercial vehicles that work in urban areas can function with today’s battery loads.”
Even less persuasive. I haven’t seen UPS, Fed EX, or USPS electrify their fleets, despite, the no doubt, considerable political pressure. My guess is that they are being held back by the capital costs. Delivery Vehicles will need much larger battery packs than compact sedans. I have seen a quote that a regular city bus costs 500K$ and that a battery powered bus costs 300K$ more. Also, down time is a big problem. I doubt that they want to have vehicles sit for the 10 or 12 hours that a full charge would take. Vehicles sitting at a charging station are not producing revenue.
“The speed with EVs replace gas/diesel vehicles depends on how quickly they drop in price, which depends on the volume sold (which depends on their price).”
Sorry the price is not that close, even with massive government subsidies.
Why we should expect the price of BEVs to decline at all is not clear to me.
An automobile consists of a glider and a drive train. Whatever the drive train is, the gliders are pretty much the same and there is no reason to believe that they will become cheaper in any event. The drive train of a BEV has batteries, control circuits, and electric motors. I suspect the control circuits are already pretty cheap as digital technology is fairly mature. Electric motors have been a staple of industrial production for a century and I doubt that there is much room for their price to decline.
That leaves batteries. Batteries were invented in 1800 by Volta. They became commercial items early in the last century. The LiIon batteries have been commercially produced for more than 25 years. Might prices go down because of advances in production? Sure. But, were are not at unit one right now. Millions of these things are made every day. Prices could also go up because raw materials producers like Congo and China could decide to squeeze us. What happens to battery prices when Congo decides that only adults with proper safety equipment are allowed to mine cobalt?
“Most new technology rides down the price-volume curve.”
This would be more relevant if BEVs were new technology. They aren’t. Before WWI, my great-grandmother drove a Baker Electric. Mrs. Henry Ford I drove a Detroit Electric. Those cars are not that different than the newest Tesla. A glider, control circuits, batteries, and an electric motor. Voilà.
“Raytheon sold the first commercial microwave oven in 1947”
Not at all relevant. Item 1 of the BEV was more than a century ago. The latest Tesla has lots of late 20th and early 21st century technology, but the basic block diagram is the same as Grandma’s Baker Electric.
“EVs will not drop in price as drastically as did microwave ovens.”
Finally a non-fallacious statement.
“But they could eventually become as cheap to buy as gas/diesel cars, and perhaps cheaper over their full operating lifetime.”
I sincerely doubt it. And cheaper operation depends on the price of electricity. If the GND is put into effect, that will soar.
While greater volume does impact price, volumes of EV sales is already high enough to capture most of the volume savings.
Re. Charles the moderator, yes if we were to add the CO2 used in making
all of the goods that the West imports from the likes of China and S/E
Asian countries, the CO2 figures of these Western countries would
go through the roof. Its a big fiddle on our part to try and claim that t our
CO2 figures are going down.
MJE VK5ELL
Can you quote double blind peer reviewed scientific publications that support your claims?
Oh wait, you are just making “smart” guesses.
There, you are debunked.