Tesla plant [image credit: Steve Jurvetson @ Wikipedia]
H/T TechXplore
But Plan B includes putting heavy batteries in already heavy trucks, making them too heavy for hauling goods — or reducing their payloads. But at least the fact that there aren’t going to be anywhere near enough batteries to replace all fuel-powered vehicles with expensive EVs is out in the open, leaving climate obsessives with yet another headache. Wade through the usual paranoid propaganda to see how big the problem is.
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We need to change our transportation system, and we need to do it quickly, claims The Conversation.
Road transportation is a major consumer of fossil fuels, contributing 16 percent of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, which warm up the Earth’s atmosphere and cause changes to the climate.
It also pollutes the air, threatening health and costing taxpayers billions of dollars annually.
At the same time, electric vehicles are getting cheaper, and vehicle range and the availability of charging stations are improving.
This is exciting for many because it seems to suggest an easy and convenient answer to the problem of transportation emissions: if everyone swapped their fossil-fuelled vehicle for an electric equivalent, we could all keep driving, safe in the knowledge that we are no longer killing the planet by doing so—and all while enjoying a new car that is quiet, cheap to power and fun to drive.
Everybody wins, right? Unfortunately, it’s unlikely to be that simple.
The battery supply crunch
Electric vehicles still produce air pollution and greenhouse gasses from their brakes, tires, the electricity that powers them and the factories that build them.
Even if we can address (or ignore) these problems, there is a much larger stumbling block facing personal electric vehicles as a solution for climate change.
In 2019, the world produced about 160 gigawatt hours (GWh) of lithium-ion batteries. That’s enough for a little more than three million standard-range Tesla Model 3s—and only if we use those batteries for cars, and don’t build any smart-phones, laptops or grid storage facilities.
Continued here.
Tallbloke's Talkshop 
Reblogged this on Utopia, you are standing in it!.
‘We need to change our transportation system, and we need to do it quickly, claims The Conversation.’
Who is this ‘we,’ kemo sabe?
‘Road transportation is a major consumer of fossil fuels, contributing 16 percent of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, which warm up the Earth’s atmosphere [citation needed] and cause changes to the climate [citation needed].
It also pollutes the air [citation needed], threatening health [citation needed] and costing taxpayers billions of dollars annually [citation needed].’
Wow! Lot’s of empty assertions.
‘At the same time, electric vehicles are getting cheaper’
Cheaper than what? $47,000 for a Renault Zoe? 50% MORE than a LEAF.
‘And vehicle range and the availability of charging stations are improving.’
From awful to terrible.
Who is their audience? This stuff is awful.
I read the whole article and noticed that when talking about trucks, they did a neat switch from ‘carbon emissions’ to ‘particulates’ and even ‘noise’. Why would they do this?
Gamecock – to my unending embarrassment, The Conversation was founded in Australia by a left-wing UK/Australian journo Andrew Jaspan. To quote Wikipedia:
Jaspan first discussed the concept of The Conversation between 2004 and 2008 with Glyn Davis, vice-chancellor at The University of Melbourne. Jaspan wrote a report on the university’s engagement with the public, envisioning the university as “a giant newsroom”, with the academics and researchers collectively providing authoritative and informed content that engaged with the news cycle and major current affairs issues.
Jaspan cleverly assumed that if the articles were all sourced from a ‘University’ and attributed to an ‘Academic’ or ‘Researcher’ then the readership would assume that they were ‘authoritative’ and ‘informed’. The Conversation has now spread to several countries. The Long March though the Institutions continues, Comrades.
We need to consider all options in detail, including doing nothing. Where will it end? Oh,,I don’t know. 🙂
Re the Renault Zoe:
In France the Zoe pricing starts at €20,700 (US$27,250) before applying the existing €6,300 (US$8,300) tax incentive, plus a monthly fee for the battery. The cost of leasing the battery for 36 months starts from €79/month (US$104/month) for an annual distance travelled of 12,500 km (7,800 mi) and includes comprehensive breakdown assistance.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_Zoe#Production_versions
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The $47,000 figure quoted in recent reports is Australian dollars.
Update: within minutes of running a ‘Renault Zoe’ search I had an advert for it in my inbox.
We can now see why they keep talking about using EV batteries as auxiliary storage for national electricity grids, despite the obvious inefficiency and absurdity of the idea.
Doesn’t everybody now know that green batteries are remarkably efficient and can produce electricity at the flick of a switch? And they are getting cheaper all the time.
“Update: within minutes of running a ‘Renault Zoe’ search I had an advert for it in my inbox.”
Ewwww . . . now you have to clean your inbox.
“And they are getting cheaper all the time.”
Yep, pretty soon, they’ll be paying us to take the batteries.
“The $47,000 figure quoted in recent reports is Australian dollars.”
I had looked for Zoe pricing in the U.S. – they aren’t sold here. But then no Renault is sold here.
The cost of leasing the battery for 36 months starts from €79/month (US$104/month)…..
I can have a long term rent of a Twingo for exactly this price.
Reprise:
– can’t make enough batteries
– can’t make wind blow on demand
– can’t make solar work without sunlight
– can’t capture CO2 at viable cost, if at all
– can’t claim burning trees makes sense
– can’t accept nuclear power
– can’t make electricity grids work without gas and/or coal
– can’t store electricity at grid scale
Not going well for climate obsessives.
Add to the list: can’t make planes electric.
World Champions In Climate Hypocrisy: German Govt Employees Took 265,000 Flights Last Year
Date: 02/08/20 Deutsche Welle
The bulk of air travel was 200,000 short-haul domestic trips from Berlin — a revelation that runs contrary to Angela Merkel’s call on Germans to curb CO2 emissions.
In total, people employed by the German state traveled just under 386 million kilometers (240 million miles) by air in 2019, up from 350 million done the year before.
http://www.thegwpf.com/world-champions-in-green-hypocrisy-german-govt-employees-took-265000-flights-last-year/
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Do as we say, not as we do.
It’s really not necessary for the planners to create a gigantic boondoggle. But that’s the way it seems to work.
Repeat after me ‘Solar power is just nuclear energy from a safe distance.’ 🙂
Since the average car life in the USA is about 12 years, we can’t replace them all before 2030 even IF all new cars sold from this day forward were EVs. And they are not.
Trucks, ships, and trains have longer working lives. Tractors and bull dozers even longer.
Electric cars also pollute through tyre and brake dust. A modern ICE really does NOT pollute the air.
“Tractors and bull dozers even longer”
It might be nice (or maybe not?) to be able to rise from my grave in say, 50 years time, and see how all these lunatic ideas have panned out. I’ll bet there won’t be any “Electric” equivalents to the famous “Little Grey Fergie” – the Ferguson TE20 tractor – many of which are still in daily use around the world…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferguson_TE20
And the level of CO2 in the atmosphere doesn’t matter, don’t forget (ever).
@David Ward:
About 55 years ago, I helped my Dad restore an old John Deer 2 cylinder tractor that was non-op in a field. About 25 years later it was still running. I expect it still is.
I don’t kniw the exact model (I was a kid, after all…) but it was rusty and needed paint in 1960, so likely a 1930s or earlier build. Dad remembered it ftom when he was a kid in Iowa. IIRC, it was a D Spoker with metal wheels. First made in 1923.
At my alma mater, an Ag School, the annual tractor parade includes some steam from the 1800s….
It was fun hearing the 2 cylynder tractors run, with their distinctive Chuff Chuff, chuf , Chuf Chuf sound. Maybe 60 RPM? But very big cylinders slung fore and aft. You knew when one was working a field. Were I working a small plot today, I’d want one. Saw one for sale in good condition, roadside, about a decade back, so some are still out there!
Hmmm… looks like about $3k to $5k and I can get one…. now I just need some dirt 🙂
https://www.tractorspot.com/antique/john-deere
Yeah, a lot longer working life…
We must always remember that the eco-loons will never have a plan B or C or D – they don’t have enough brain power to think that far ahead. A pity but they haven’t been taught to think since the 70s.