Modern Vespa

https://www.openculture.com/2022/03/m-i-t-computer-program-predicts-in-1973-that-civilization-will-end-by-2040.html

"Time after time … you'll find people are reacting to a problem, they think they know what to do, and they don't realize that what they're doing is making a problem. This is a vicious [cycle], because as things get worse, there is more incentive to do things, and it gets worse and worse."

Human achievements have always impressed me but now I believe, we don't know what we don't know.

That has always been true. And, for that matter, simply adopting more EV's won't "save the world" any more than simply recycling paper, glass, and metal will "save the world". That does not, however, mean that such actions are not good ideas. The human population continues to explode and we use more and more resources causing more and more degradation to the world around us. Will that ultimately "destroy the world" if we don't reverse the trend? Well, it is already leading to catastrophic consequences for other living things on the Earth, and it is hard to imagine that it will NOT catch up with us and have drastic impacts on the lives and survival of humans. Seems to me we should be carefully evaluating what we do know and implementing a whole suite of actions to slow and reverse the impacts we are having on the natural resources, water, air, and climatic conditions of the Earth. Would that not be the wise thing to do?

Good insight.
How long before we find out that sitting atop a huge battery is destroying our cells, etc?

While I was a designer/prototype machinist, my boss decided to solve a problem with our animal anesthesia machines. Against my recommendations he decided to go ahead without testing.
After animals were dying while on the modified machines, we had to scramble to return more than 100 machines to normal. I solved the problem with a safe modification and he payed more attention all of my future concerns.
Our most used phrase from then on was, "cause and affect".

I would worry more about cell phones and microwave ovens if I were trying to better understand the possible health effects of devices which we use. And, for what it's worth, electrical power transmission lines can generate substantial electrical and magnetic fields. Often easier to ask questions than to evaluate the possible answers.

As a single humans it's hard to imagine that the air, water & land are not infinite

Humans are the
Apex Invasive Species
Determined to consume until we choke on our own effluent
Micro plastics could be the effluent
Ice Nine

Batteries being DC are probably less dangerous than the high frequency electronics being driven
The rare metals of the anode/cathode concentrated to levels much higher than the trace levels naturally occurring, will require careful handling

Any of these house keeping issues can be mitigated, just add resources
Resources that reduce efficiency & profit
We've privatized the profits & socialized the costs in many ways for always
Can we do collective action at a high enough level to the break the addiction to excess consumption/greed?

All that aside electrics are less complicated mechanically, the output systems lighter
The energy storage is heavier, it's hard to beat liquid fuels for energy density
Ideally all these transportation batteries sitting around, could act as a buffer for the grid

I'm pretty sure the best computers think the world will end Jan 19 2038.

now that is something that I reckon will be a big mess. being a professional programmer for 30 years makes me very aware of how embedded that problem is (pun intended).

Y2K was never going to be a big issue.

Well said and that is very much the question of the hour. Our generation was programed from a young age to be excessive consumers. They refined the science of getting us to buy stuff we didn't rally need or want as they went and they got really good at it. I still want a pair of PF Flyers so I can run faster and jump higher, programmed by the commercials.

Every once in awhile I realize my thinking is because of the programming I was exposed to and I need to check myself, the scary part is some people never do this, they never realize that their thinking is off or why.

I can remember hearing that one of the main reasons the automobile took off the way it did stinking primitive contraptions that they were was it solved the crowded urban area pollution problem, they were up to their ears in horse manure...

Natural gas power generation is better than coal for the environment but only slightly because stuff is still burning.

You have to remember that 2/3rds of the power generated nationwide is wasted, rejected energy. If we can reduce that number to 1/3 rejected we will have twice the capacity as we do now with the same amount of carbon footprint, with energy storage their is hope for the future.

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-americas-energy-use-in-one-giant-chart/

You're bumping up against theoretical efficiencies unfortunately.

suspect true while we stay with archaic infrastructure ie a few power stations (slow to respond to demand fluctuations) and gazillions of miles of cables.

scattering large scale batteries across the network and other such modernisation would probably help a lot ...

I understand that there is a power drop with lengthy transmission lines but what if every fourth power pole had a solar panel and battery pack? How tough would it be to calculate power loss over length of transmission line and make that up with solar boosting and storage along the way? Small scale solar farms with the proper storage and switchgear?

I know that many power plants now have small solar farms right beside the plant and they somehow manage to integrate that into the grid right?

What if we just had battery storage in centralized locations of power usage?

Two thirds of what is generated is just wasted. The reason for this is because it is cheaper to waste than to save yeah?

When it becomes cheaper to save than to waste we will do it.

I am not an electrical engineer but I grasp that we can't be 100% efficient. But it must be possible to do better than 33% efficient

Does this thread ignore aviation and shipping? Cement production?

Eco people and politicians pick on automobiles because the average Joe doesn't know about ships and planes.

Who Cares Most Of You On Here are Over 60. Not your Problem any more. Let the kids deal with their problems. Enjoy your ride.

There are several tesla's & other electric cars here in the parking garage
It's $20 a month to plug in to a standard outlet
They have wall warts
Why aren't they built into the car?
Super handy to search out a proprietary bit should you happen to leave it behind somewhere away from home

I notice a of lack details about these sort of practicalities

I've been saying this for quite a while now.

Well, kind of

Coming back to the original question: "Can EV's save civilization?"

It is a funny question. It smells like "the end is near".

Anyway, whether "civilization" is in jeopardy or not, EV's will not save "civilization".

I think the question refers to greenhouse gas emission. Well the point is the share of cars in CO2-emissions is only some 10% (in the EU cars + small trucks < 3,5 ton is 12%). I expect the share in the US will not be much different.

So the effect is limited and is further reduced because most of the electricity these EV's will consume comes from fossil fueled power plants. At max one can expect a reduction of a few percents, negligable.

Electrification of cars is not a priority at all today. There is in fact only one priority today and that is: where the hell will we get this fossil fuel free energy from.

Nope. It's about resources and how long they last and when the human virus consumes all of it. We have to consume resources to make EV's.
We are so close to 1/3 of the population in floaty chairs with VR headsets, 1/3 eating soylent green and 1/3 controlling/causing it. That would bring up nuclear war, the decline of male fertility and a global killing virus. My prediction would be a major volcanic winter creating another ice age.

"Batteries, they do not make electricity – they store electricity produced elsewhere, primarily by coal, uranium, natural gas-powered plants, or diesel-fueled generators. So, to say an EV is a zero-emission vehicle is not at all valid."

Above quote is not mine, it's from a guy named Brett Alexander. But it sums it up perfectly.

and if the "produced elsewhere" is renewable as a rapidly increasing amount is then ... 🤦

in Australia in 2021 renewables was %31.4 and growing rapidly https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/resources/record-year-renewables-provided-5x-more-power-than-gas-2021/

84% renewable here in the Hermit Kingdom.

I'd be interested to see what the system efficiency of an EV whose electricity comes from petroleum power plants is compared to using that same petroleum to power an ICE vehicle (including extra refining, transport and infrastructure, as well as the relatively poor ICE efficiency).

It takes as much C02 to produce an EV as is produced by an ICE vehicle in 7 or 8 years at which point the EV battery may well need replacing and the process starts again.

Yes, you can recycle batteries but first you need a replacement battery before your old one gets recycled.

Unless you're plugged into a Nuclear Grid the chances are you're getting your Electricity from Gas or Coal, both which produce carbon so your EV isn't emission free.

Solar panels are pretty toxic and can't be recycled and neither can wind turbines, which use a lot of concrete in their construction.

Carry on.

Wrong, Solar PV Panels are primarily composed of glass, plastic, and aluminum: three materials that are recycled in mass quantities.

And

Wind turbine components are essentially 100% recyclable. Their different parts are dismantled, sorted and then sent through specialised recovery channels. The concrete used for their foundations is reused on other sites, steel and aluminium are sent to foundries or steelworks, and fibreglass from turbine blades is reused for other products, such as fire hydrants


Carry on

This -

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-02-05/wind-turbine-blades-can-t-be-recycled-so-they-re-piling-up-in-landfills

And this

https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2018/05/23/if-solar-panels-are-so-clean-why-do-they-produce-so-much-toxic-waste/?sh=236b2bb5121c

You've said this before. I'll offer the same response that I have before. Depends on where you are located. Where I am in the NW US, most of our electricity comes from hydropower and wind. The remainder primarily from solar, nuclear, and peaking with natural gas. Oil fired generation was phased out long ago in our area and most coal fired plants have been shut down. The last one in Oregon/Washington is now in the process of being closed.

I know I've said it before.

Where I live when the wind doesn't spin the turbines we have to buy power from the French.

The utter humiliation of it.

Didn't you just say above that "chances are you're getting your Electricity from Gas or Coal"? I'd say that is less true all the time as energy generation strategies evolve. And while I obviously don't live in Britain, it is my understanding that your area is reconfiguring to mostly a mix of wind and nuclear as you indicate here. (I know, everybody is a critic - and in my case, a critic who drives an EV)

Yup right now it's 53% Fossil Fuels, 32% Renewables and 15% Nuclear but I believe that new Nuclear Stations are being built.

We have 1 remaining Coal Powered Station that gets fired up every time each time we get desperate, which if I recall was last September.

We also have Solar Farms here which is hilarious when you consider just how much it can rain.

It's sort of embarrassing just how close to the wind we operate. Pun intended.

You know what else is piling up in landfills because they can't be recycled?

Yoghurt containers.

We have a real problem with our culture.

I hope that use of the word "culture" was an unintentional pun and not an attempted Dad Joke

I think that was very much an intentional pun, almost tipping (landfill ) over into a bad one-liner

And where can I find this Hermit Kingdom?

New Zealand, not North Korea...

https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/24/why-were-happy-hobbits-in-jacindas-mysterious-socialist-hermit-kingdom

I guess the grid is linked over the whole US, not only in the NW.

I don't know the US data well so I base myself now on these data from https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3

60,8% is fossil fuel
18,9% is nuclear
20,1% is renewables

It is not much different here in the EU. Fossil is a bit lower and nuclear a bit higher but renewables is comparable.

So if you add extra consumption of electricity, such as a bunch of new EV's, where in the end the electricity is going to come from, what power plants have spare capacity?

Not the renewables, they run at whatever they can, not the nuclear, they run at their maximum, so the only power plants that can feed the new consumers are the fossil fuel power plants. That is the reality.

This is true to a degree (though the grids are mostly regional), but the NW US is a net exporter of electricity because of its hydropower resources. It would be a very unusual situation where we would import energy from the SW or the MidWest. There is some swapping of coal fired energy from Montana. Our biggest issue is that we are awash in hydropower in the late Spring and early Summer, so we ship quite a bit of surplus to the SW. When that is the case, some of our wind generated power can not find a market.

Is there a finite amount of materials to make EV's? Renewable energy sources?

https://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/business/shortage-raw-materials-hit-ev-battery-production-2022-01/

There's a finite supplied of all materials not just for EVs.

Recycling helps somewhat.

Improvements in efficiency helps somewhat.