It sounds like there's one assumption and one subtly mentioned here; that all manufacturer's are going to use that credit toward their non-EV lineup, and that this stresses short-term. Long-term is more important. And even if the credit is entirely used on non-EV products, they still need to produce some EV products to get it - which is far better than none at all.

I'm sorry but the logic of this article makes no sense... and with no counter-suggestions on ways to improve it's simply a bunch of whining.

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It sounds like there's one assumption and one subtly mentioned here; that all manufacturer's are going to use that credit toward their non-EV lineup

That is a reasonable assumption. Energy efficiency in regular cars comes at a cost of performance, safety, size and price, since engines cannot be made significantly more fuel-efficient as such without incurring unreasonable costs. People simply don't want to buy these cars, so the manufacturers basically shift the CO2 credits into selling people more SUVs.

they still need to produce some EV products to get it - which is far better than none at all.

The article points out that it isn't, because of the credit multiplier. The EVs sold aren't forever - they expire in half the time compared to their conventional counterparts, and they are largely charged from fossil fuel sources anyways, so they're already at a balance whether they make any sense in the short or long term as they were.

As usual the deniers miss the headline, "Scientists Follow the Data as You Don't". When was the last time they published anything contrary? It's down to one simple thing. Intellectual integrity. They'll never have a clue what that is.

There's also a great misconception that spending money on buying electric vehicles somehow advances the technology and makes it better faster, so that buying electric cars now would somehow still be better than not.

It doesn't. Spending your money on something like a Tesla does nothing to advance electric vehicles, because the singular issue of electric cars is the battery, and Tesla as a company does not develop batteries - they buy them off the market, or as it happens they manufacture them with technology bought from Panasonic.

Batteries are already sold to million other uses and the technology would advance as it does - slowly - with or without you buying an EV, so purchasing the cars now is just a waste of money.

The EV subsidies focus on the wrong part of the energy market. Putting the money currently going into these subsidies into building a (new) prototype Molten Salt Breeder Reactor (also known as a LFTR) would give power companies a new alternative to combined cycle natural gas or coal fired power plants. There are companies in the US and Canada working on this, and also in Norway, India, and China. With adequate funding the time to convert all US power production away from coal would be reduced.

Don't talk to me about unicorn farts and other fantasies. Electric power plants come in three flavors: peak power, base load, and undependable. There is nothing wrong with collecting undependable power and converting it into peaking power through storage. But you still need base load, and that is primarily coal, hydroelectric, or nuclear.

Since the molten salt does not need high-pressure vessels and containment buildings, the cost is much lower than current nuclear plants.

that all manufacturer's are going to use that credit toward their non-EV lineup, and that this stresses short-term

I don't think that that is going to happen. Some countries already tax car insurance based on emissions. It makes little sense for a manufacture to produce two lines of cars with one being engineered to be as clean as possible and leaving that tech out of the other line.
Consumers will be looking for MPG values no matter what. Higher MPG means less emissions. I can't see consumers suddenly going for the low MPG cars where the previous generation had higher MPG.

In any case the article stresses the important part: If anything this is a short term effect. It's an investment in a cleaner future. And, of course, lawmakers can easily remedy this by forcing automakers to not include EVs in their fleet emission calculations.

Taxes, whether corporate or personal, are a blunt instrument with which to shape behaviour. The law of unintended consequences definitely applies to EVs and Carbon regulations.

Solar and wind can supply base load.

Environuts should be compelled to use solar panels/windmills instead of diesel/gasoline generators to recharge the batteries of their electric vehicles.
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Concordia economics professor Ian Irvine's study's conclusion is wrong. He says that incentives for EVs cause EV manufacturers to make more EVs, which count as zero-emissions vehicles, which reduce the overall emissions from all that manufacturers vehicles. OK so far.

He then says those EVs compete with non-zero but low emissions vehicles from the same manufacturer which are made to get different incentives. Also OK. So some incented ICE vehicles won't be sold, instead losing to EVs.So the ICEs and their incentives are undermined by the EVs. OK - but so what?

That's not increasing CO2 emissions, just because those incented low-emissions ICEs aren't being sold or driven instead of high-emissions ICEs. The low-emissions ICEs are replaced by zero-emissions EVs. That's *lower* CO2 as a result.

Sure, it undermines the ICE incentives. So what? The incentives are designed to lower emissions, which the winning EVs do better. Lower CO2, victory for the policy goal.

Solar and wind can supply base load.

That's an oxymoron, as baseload is steady 24/7 output that attempts to utilize the maximum output of a generator (thereby minimizing its cost), and renewables are not.

If you dig into the baseload portion of your supply with renewables, you will displace things like highly efficient co-generation plants with a combination of load following gas turbines along with the renewables, in proportion to their capacity factors, which in practice means roughly 3 parts fossil fuels to 1 part renewables, and the CO2 output and cost of production rises.

s. The low-emissions ICEs are replaced by zero-emissions EVs.

Except the EVs are not zero emission, because they get their power from the grid, which is not CO2 free. In the current energy mix, EVs are actually very close in emissions to regular cars - sometimes less, sometimes more.

By the time the grid CO2 emissions have dropped significantly to make the case, the current crop of EVs has been long since scrapped, having served no purpose.

Eikka

Except the EVs are not zero emission...

By the time the grid CO2 emissions have dropped significantly to make the case..., having served no purpose.

That depends where you live and what alternative infrastructure you have in place; for example, Tesla has been building solar-charging stations in the US and Canada. Many provinces/states also have a large amount of solar or wind currently in place and always increasing.

There is definitely a purpose to this generation of EVs; emissions-free infrastructure wouldn't be growing so quickly without motivation, and contrary to this article, they help to reduce overall emissions created by vehicles. You have to start somewhere and it's very political.

Eikka:

Except the EVs are not zero emission

My post is talking about the logic in the paper that is the subject of the article. The source (at the grid generators) emissions of EVs are not part of that logic, so your point is irrelevant to my debunking the paper's logic.

But even if you include the EV source emissions they're still lower than the low-emissions ICEs, so the point still stands.

If you want to start a debate about EV emission go ahead, but trying to do so in the context of my comment is a nonstarter.

Greentards cognitive dissonance is ever worse, they are doing a complete disservice in the fight against Climate Change.
"It takes a lot of carbon to build and power an electric vehicle"
"including the extraction and processing of raw materials, and shipping parts and vehicles across oceans in filthy bunker-fuel burning cargo ships."
"In fact, the U.S. Union of Concerned Scientists estimates that it takes about 15 percent more embodied carbon to produce an electric vehicle (EV) ... largely because of the materials and fabrication processes used to make the battery packs."
"Sorry, Tesla owners, but your electric car isn't as green as you think it is"
http://www.salon....ric-car/

WillieWard:

Greentards

Trolls use insults because their troll posts are designed not to discuss, but only to disrupt, typically to incite flame responses. Then they "teach the controversy". Also they're used to talking that way about their targets with fellow trolls in their troll echo chambers, where they'll never hear a contrary fact or logical process.

Even in articles they cite to appear honest: The Salon article says:
"However, Reichmuth is quick to point out that while an electric car is modestly more polluting to manufacture, it more than makes up for the difference over the life of the vehicle."

Besides, EVs are just coming within sight of scale economies that radically cut embodied carbon. Indeed the large majority of innovation and development is for cheaper, lower impact batteries.

The ramp to lower embodied carbon is necessary, as is burning fuel to get us out of the pollution industry rather than spinning in circles polluting with petrofuels.

"Why electric cars are crap : at 1.5 MJ/Kg, a ham sandwich has a higher energy density than a Li-battery"
https://uploads.d...e03c.jpg

greenonions1:

Willie's numbers as always are behind the times.

Of course WillieWard's troll posts are just stupid. They posted a quote that isn't from the link they posted, while the link is to some chart image without its own citations (or even a date). It's just mindless propaganda.

Besides, who cares whether a ham sandwich has higher energy density than a battery. If we had engines that consume ham sandwich without emitting pollution we'd run on the sandwiches. It's a purely arbitrary red herring fallacy. Trolls provide only fallacies.

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and to call cars like the Bolt, and Tesla "crap" - is just stupid.

Recently had the (unfortunate) experience of riding in a tow car twice in one day. So I took the opportunity to ask the drivers what their experience with Tesla cars was. Turns out they have none. From posts of their their germany-wide facebook group -where they discuss issues with different cars- they know that these break down extremely rarely. Most run-ins with a tow truck happen due to someone driving theirs until it's empty.

Dingbone:

His claims are still factually correct

The energy density of Li batteries vs ham sandwiches is irrelevant, a red herring fallacy. Red herring. "Some people say the cucumbers taste better pickled." - Dave Chapelle

EVs are already more pollution efficient than ICEs, as other comments here have detailed, including the quote from the troll's disconnected and demonstrably misrepresented citations. That means there's also quite a lot of improvement coming as battery production scales up and innovates, beyond mere superiority over ICEs.

Those are their fallacies I ID'd I've also detailed how they post designed to disrupt, not to discuss, which is the definition of a troll. They ignore the facts about their fallacies even when it's shoved in their face, post uncited Twitter graph images they misrepresent. I posted those arguments, in this article's threads and elsewhere.

Mine was no red herring, nor any other fallacy. Now retract your lost points.

Dingbone:

Sorry, Tesla owners, but your electric car isn't as green as you think it is

Tesla car still utilize the energy, which comes from fossil fuel sources (by 86%) and they also have much higher material source demands (neodymium, copper, lithium) which reflects the facts

Are you reading this discussion you're posting in, or the articles you're citing for your arguments? I already posted the other sentence from that Salon article:

"However, Reichmuth is quick to point out that while an electric car is modestly more polluting to manufacture, it more than makes up for the difference over the life of the vehicle."

Dingbone:

If your car is more expensive, than the average gasoline car and its fuel consumed during its lifetime together, it also means, it's environmentally more demanding, because the price is just the expression of environmental load.

The prices are not simply proportional to environmental load. If only that were the case we'd have dropped these filthy industrial systems years ago. Or rather never have gotten into them, but we did because of a myriad subsidies. How much subsidy do you think the global petroleum reserves system costs to keep gas and manufacturing prices stable and low? Maintaining the USGS and many other agencies to do so? All kinds of government subsidized R&D and other industrial policy expenses, including national labs? Practically free drilling licenses from public real estate?
$TRILLIONS in Greenhouse damage from the pollution? $4B in direct cash handouts?

Dingbone:

This technology in similar way like most others only increases energy consumption of the civilization and the share of fossil fuel sources http://data.world...MM.FO.ZS because of it.

Of course EVs reduce energy consumption of civilization, they're extremely more efficient in consumption, centralized generation, direct consumption of solar/wind electric even avoiding transmission losses when charged under onsite solar panels. Of course that decreases the fossil fuel sources share total energy consumption, shifting transit energy from fossil fuels to other sources.

That graph doesn's show EVs increase the energy consuption of civilization and the share of fossil fuel sources. It shows what it's titled: "Fossil fuel energy consumption (% of total)" per year. Again, are you reading this discussion you're posting in, or the articles you're citing for your arguments? You're defending the troll's posts while indulging in some of their defects.

Or rather never have gotten into them, but we did because of a myriad subsidies.

Not to forget military expenditures. Or does anyone still think that having such a huge military isn't (at least partially) a subsidy for keeping oil flowing? Particularly after the Gulf wars?

Now imagine how much military you need to safeguard PV panels and wind turbines so that other countries don't steal your wind and sunlight. (Try as I might, I cannot come to an estimate above zero dollars)

antialias_physorg:

a myriad subsidies.

[...] huge military is[n't] (at least partially) a subsidy for keeping oil flowing?

Indeed the huge US military, especially the Navy, is the global security force for oil extraction, delivery and consumption. By itself US domestic military operations represent over 1% of US Greenhouse pollution, excluding all foreign bases and operations including wars, so likely 3-5%+ of US petrofuel consumption. The military/petrofuel complex is a perpetual money/pollution machine, helping guarantee both baseload and multiplied demand pressure when supply pressures start to increase prices during crises. Then consider all the damage done by the military and the fuel consumed to rebuild. And all the other costs along those lines spent through the petrofuel industry. Guaranteed business especially during maximum profit phases is a vast subsidy.

"New Study: Large CO2 Emissions From Batteries Of Electric Cars"
"The report shows that battery manufacturing leads to high CO2 emissions. For each kilowatt-hour storage capacity in the battery, emissions of 150 to 200 kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent are generated, already in the factory."
https://www.thegw...ic-cars/
Naturally occurring, abundant, high density energy storage: uranium
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WillieWard:

"New Study: Large CO2 Emissions From Batteries Of Electric Cars"

Why would anyone bother to read what you link? You always quote something you're asserting, with a link (if any) to something that doesn't say what you're quoting. You often link to an article that completely rejects whatever BS you're asserting.

greenonions1:

Makes your numbers look pretty stupid - troll.

A troll is someone who posts designed to disrupt, not to discuss. They want predictable responses, preferably flames. There is no chance of them learning anything, however wrong they might easily be proved, because they're not there to discuss. This is WillieWard, among other trolls who infest these boards.

stupid - troll

The "ad hominem argument" and personal attacks are the last refuge and tool of impotent intellects that already have lost the reason. Lamentable!

WillieWard:

Lamentable!

It's the troll behavior I'm talking about which is all that matters. The troll dishes the fallacies then projects the fallacizing onto the messengers of their trollery.

Given that Hinkley Point is going to rake the British tax payers for 18 cents Kwh - it is a pretty good bet that as we go forward - the falling costs of wind and solar (currently at around 3 cents Kwh) will squeeze nukes out of the market - based on cost.

First, you missed that I was not arguing for (conventional) PWR nuclear power, but for MSR aka LFTR technology. Using molten salt as a heat transfer medium can occur at near atmospheric pressure. This among other factors reduces the cost relative to nuclear--or any other available technology.

Let's wait and see.

BTW part of paying attention is that the cost of a power plant needs to be multiplied by its capacity factor. This is above 80% for current nuclear (and coal), closer to 20% for new solar and wind today. (Most of the best locations are already taken. In the US wind is moving offshore to get high power factors. Even if it doubles the cost per peak Megawatt, it is less expensive in the long run.)

Intermittent renewables: waste of money, destruction of untouched wildlife habitats.
"Still not competitive: Solar PV & wind need $125 billion in subsidies this year Total: $3.2 trillion (2016-2040)"
https://www.faceb...6303968/
http://www.worlde...eo-2016/
"Paris agreement will cause devastating economic costs trillions of $ and keeps poor nations poor."
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"Only nuclear power can lift all humans out of poverty while saving the natural environment."

Unlike intermittent wind/solar(trillion-dollar fiascos in curbing CO2 emissions), carbon-free nuclear power deserves all subsidies as the only source of clean energy that really decarbonize modern grids in a safe and fast way.

WillieWard:

nuclear power deserves all subsidies as the only source of clean energy that really decarbonize modern grids in a safe and fast way.

Here we see the true reveal of the nuke fetishist troll: Nukes are always "the only way" to do this or that, in their fevered imagination. Fetishists require their object to "get off". Nukes fetishists aren't posting to get nukes built, they're just engaging in their porn fetish. It's pure fantasy, obsession. Hence they're fact proof.

They don't read for the articles, but for the hot imagery.

WillieWard:

nuclear power deserves all subsidies as the only source of clean energy that really decarbonize modern grids in a safe and fast way.

Nukes are far from clean: making their fuel, storing their waste, leaks from their operations are among the filthiest ways of doing anything ever.

Nukes aren't safe either: apart from the radioactive poison in their normal operations, they're one of the worst security risks of all time. They're uninsurable, which is one of the hugest subsidies they get - incomparable to any sustainable generation.

Nukes aren't fast to do anything to the grid: it takes a decade or more to build them really badly, and longer to build them with all the systems and quality that's still dirty and dangerous.

Everyone knows all this for generations. Nuke fetishist trolls are fact proof.

Wind and solar can also decarbonize the modern grid - in a safe and fast way.

It is almost impossible because wind and solar have poor energy density and are inherently intermittent, it takes almost all their lifetime to pay back the fossil fuel energy employed to mine, manufacture, transport, and to install them, and even worse yet taking in mind the tons of fossil fuels used to compensate intermittencies, with capacity factor around 30% it means 70% of energy is provided by fossil fuels.
Moreover, real data already confirms that intermittent renewables are a complete fiasco in terms of CO2 reduction, while carbon-free nuclear power is a success.

Nukes aren't safe either

Carbon-free nuclear power is statistically recognized as the safest per unit of energy produced, fewer fatalities and ecological impacts than renewables. No one has ever been killed from used fuel from a commercial nuclear power plant. Fukushima and Three Mile Island resulted in zero deaths from radiation exposure.
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"In truth, nuclear power is the best energy source, in all respects. That's why greens are forced to use lies to fight nuclear power."

WillieWard:

Carbon-free nuclear power

Here we see the troll proving they're fact-proof. Of course nukes emit carbon pollution throughout their lifecycle. Especially during the several generations it takes to decommission their filthy sites after finally even huge subsidies can't prop up their profitability anymore.

Trolls don't care. They're not interested in discussion. They're interested only in disruption, so legitimate people interested in facts and logic don't count to them.

EmceeSquared said:

Trolls don't care. They're not interested in discussion. They're interested only in disruption, so legitimate people interested in facts and logic don't count to them.

Speak for yourself. If however you are interested in facts, the state of the art is building nuclear power plants fifty years ago is not the state of the art today. The same thing has happened in roads, automobiles, aircraft, and rockets.

The consensus today is that LFTRs are the reactor for the future. The fuel is literally as cheap as dirt (thorium not enriched uranium), they can run at much higher temperatures with much smaller turbines using supercritical CO2! as a working fluid. And oh yes, they can burn up current nuclear wastes. Molten salt reactors were first built in the late 1950s and were 50 years ahead of their time. There are projects now to build all of the needed pieces for a thorium nuclear economy, but some government regulations need to be changed in the US.

No

EmceeSquared said:

Trolls don't care. They're not interested in discussion. They're interested only in disruption, so legitimate people interested in facts and logic don't count to them.

Speak for yourself.

I speak objectively of trolls. You think trolls are interested in actual discussion?

Are you saying that LFTRs will not generate carbon pollution at all during their entire lifecycle, from construction through fuel production, consumption and waste management, then eventual decommissioning?

Hydro and geothermal have geographical limitations.
Low-carbon nuclear power is the only proven scalable way to deeply decarbonize modern grids, e.g. France and Sweden; while wind and solar have failed miserably even after trillions of dollars spent, e.g. Germany and California.
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Nuclear Power is the quickest, cheapest, only legitimate path to solve both Climate & Poverty.

Are you saying that LFTRs will not generate carbon pollution at all during their entire lifecycle...?

Depends on how you count certain costs and benefits. In particular LFTRs are much more efficient when using supercritical CO2 to operate turbines instead of steam. (But the turbines and heat exchangers are much smaller.) Waste fuel rods from PWRs can be burned up in LFTRs along with most other high-level nuclear waste, and degraded Plutonium from nuclear weapons or reactors with highly enriched fuel can be used to start the thorium breeding cycle. LFTRs convert Th232 to U233, along with some U232 which makes it useless for bombs.

LFTRs are hot enough to replace oil in producing ammonia, and for that matter alcohols from CO2 to be used in transportation fuels. There is a lot of engineering and scaling up from when MSRs were dropped in the sixties. That is underway, but what is most needed now is to change the laws in the US.

What is wrong with the laws? Back when the battle between MSRs (molten salt reactors) and LMFBRs (liquid metal fast breeder reactors) was going on as to which would be the future of nuclear energy, politicians in favor of building LMFBRs wanted to drive a stake through the MSR program. Part of how that was done was to treat mined thorium as highly radioactive and dangerous, and (depleted) uranium as perfectly safe. In practice thorium, natural uranium and depleted uranium give off about the same amount of radiation, and living in NH I can tell you that the radon from uranium in the granite is a real problem.

Anyway, the uranium or plutonium (if added for startup) in an MSR are the more dangerous--but not really--part of the salt mix. The real important part is that the salt is chemically processed during operation. When necessary, the salt can be dumped out of one core, moved to another and pick up where you left off, adding Th from time to time.

eachus:

Are you saying that LFTRs will not generate carbon pollution at all during their entire lifecycle...?

Depends on how you count certain costs and benefits.

No it doesn't. It depends entirely on the purely objective fact that of course LFTRs will generate carbon pollution during their entire lifecycle. Yet you answered a completely different question.

Since you are not discussing that with me, I am not discussing it with you.

WillieWard, are you ever ashamed of using your own rbrtwjohnson sockpuppet to upvote your comments?

I guess you have not looked at the economics ... How about 18 cents Kwh for Hinkley Point

It is worth the price if climate change is a serious issue.
Hinkley Point is a specific case controversial even among supporters,
but the general case is that renewables are neither cheap nor clean(completely dependent on fossil fuels to mine/manufacture/transport/install and to keep lights on) and are failing miserably to curb CO2 emissions everywhere even after trillions of dollars spent.
Economics do not matter so much if Climate Change is an urgent question, even though most of nuclear power plants are economically affordable.

Faux-greens and environuts should be ashamed of promoting wind/solar(bird-choppers/landscape-destroyers) that are ruining natural landscapes, annihilating millions of birds and other endangered species, disrupting wildlife habitats, while failing miserably to reduce carbon emissions at cost of trillions of dollars from poor taxpayers.

WillieWard: Still with the birds? You hate birds!

No it doesn't. It depends entirely on the purely objective fact that of course LFTRs will generate carbon pollution during their entire lifecycle. Yet you answered a completely different question.

The answer I gave you looks like this: A nominal LFTR will use some concrete during construction, less than a tenth of other nuclear plants. (Most LFTR designs have the reactor underground with concrete just used to seal the hole against ground water. The plant does use steel, but less than coal, gas cogeneration, or wind. Once the facility is build, you start putting carbon IN. The core of the reactor is graphite, and the coolant in the secondary loop is carbon dioxide. Now run the plant for 50 years. There is already enough mined Thorium as a by-product of rare earth mining, and a plant will use less than one truckload. Every five years or so the graphite (carbon) in the core needs to be replaced. How do YOU count that in your carbon accounting?

Now look at the fact that many industrial processes that use high heat can use heat directly from the (secondary) molten salt coolant loop. Such industrial plants would probably be set up for dual-use. Some process heat, and electricity for running the industrial plant.

Some of these industrial processes would replace natural gas or oil. Other processes would use CO2 as a feedstock. A single LFTR could not consume enough CO2 to be significant. But if enough LFTRs are built, companies that currently release CO2 into the atmosphere would start collecting it for sale.

Once as a chemist, or any kind of engineer, you understand how a LFTR works, you are amazed that any other kind of nuclear power was ever developed.

If you actually want to understand what is going on, start here: http://energyfrom...verview/ Note that from a state power commission perspective, the alternative to nuclear is natural gas.

What should matter is the overall CO2 avoided per trillion-dollar invested: renewables are an expensive fiasco; nuclear is a success, worth the price.
"despite building a large amount of wind and solar capacity there has been no meaningful reduction in emissions."
"significant drop in the numbers of songbird species in Germany, and several species of birds of prey have now become endangered."
"German Energiewende: a billion euro mistake?" - 30 January 2017
http://watt-logic...iewende/
"Study Reveals Solar Panels Contribute to Global Warming"
http://conservati...ronment/