For the EV mafioso

[TEAMSLO]

Seems like I'm sitting on both sides of the fence and even up top.
'24 Q8 Etron - Super comfy, enjoying the savings between free charging and home charging but not the waiting at the EV charge stations. Even tried 0300 one morning and still had a short line.
'25 Camry Hybrid - boring but gets me from A --> B with 50mpg
'23 Wrangler 392 - we all know this one, pure smiles per gallon(s) but wish they had frequent flyer miles at the gas pump.

Sponsored

 

[Pig-Pen]

Chicago converted their diesel public transportation buses and garbage trucks to CNG for a fraction of the cost. They are more reliable, environmentally cleaner, AND they work in cold weather. The infrastructure for refueling was pretty much already there.

Yet our government makes it difficult for the public to use CNG. They are putting their thumb down on the scale in favor of other more controllable technologies.

we had a CNG civic. my wife's commuter car. it worked great for that purpose but that's in. there was one station close by our house to fill up at. often times they would be malfunctioning or you'd have to wait for other people filling up (two pumps). she worked in long beach so there were multiple stations but there was always a line of trash trucks filling up and you could get stuck waiting 30 minutes for your turn. she had a co-worker who also had a cng civic and ran out of gas on the way to work. he had to have it flat bedded to a cng station lol. they cant bring you cng (maybe for commercial vehicles).

the tank is HUGE. it took most of the trunk. i cant imagine what a jeep would need and where to put it.

on a positive note, when gas hit about $5 a gallon cng was about $1.85 for gallon equivalent.
the car burned soooo clean. oil changes were rare as the oil always looked new.
we sold the car for $500 less than we paid for it. after she put about 100k on it lol. it was nearing time to replace the fuel tank which is $$.

we bought the car in SF. there are like 3 stations in SF, all spread out (at least then). drove to the one by the presidio and it wasnt working. called the hotline and they said a tech will be there in a few hours. drove allllll the way across SF to get to the next one to fill up, for the long drive home. almost NO stations on the way home. i was coasting in neutral downhill trying to make it do the next station. we baaarely made it, on EMPTY.

the car said CNG on the side real big. she got pulled over in the carpool lane by chp for driving alone (had carpool stickers). the cop wouldnt believe it was a real cng car and wanted to see proof. and my wife was in uniform too.... (LEO). moron lol.

 

[m3reno]

Volvo made a video that had two vehicles, one being ice and the other a EV. To make an ice vehicle it would give off 45 thousand metric tons of green house gasses and the EV vehicle would give off 90,000 metric tons of gasses. You would have to drive the ice vehicle 90,000 miles before being equal with the EV, then from that point forward the EV would start to have the advantage. This kinda reminds me of the regular household bulb vs led's. I changed out all my bulbs in my house including the spot light I had outside to led's thinking my bill would be reduced to mere pennies since they are using less currency to power them. My bill came in a few dollars cheaper than average but not to the point that manufacturers claim.

 

[BXFXJeep]

Volvo made a video that had two vehicles, one being ice and the other a EV. To make an ice vehicle it would give off 45 thousand metric tons of green house gasses and the EV vehicle would give off 90,000 metric tons of gasses. You would have to drive the ice vehicle 90,000 miles before being equal with the EV, then from that point forward the EV would start to have the advantage. This kinda reminds me of the regular household bulb vs led's. I changed out all my bulbs in my house including the spot light I had outside to led's thinking my bill would be reduced to mere pennies since they are using less currency to power them. My bill came in a few dollars cheaper than average but not to the point that manufacturers claim.

The EV is not really going to start having an advantage, the electricity is still coming from fossil

 

[rforbes]

The EV is not really going to start having an advantage, the electricity is still coming from fossil

Depends on where you are located. Where I am it majority comes from hydro.

 

[autotragic]

It is a difficult comparison to make.

The government is not providing direct subsidies to the consumer for ICE vehicles, but it has been for EVs.

Gas and Diesel are heavily taxed at the pump. This is like an anti-subsidy for ICE vehicles. When EVs pay their fair share for the roads (assuming that is where this gas tax money actually goes), then this will be a wash.

The oil and gas "depletion" subsidy also applies to mining, such as for lithium and cadmium and nickel.

Some of the "fossil fuel" subsidies are for coal production but get lumped in anyway if the point is to trash gas and oil.

Some "subsidies" are just normal business expenses like all other businesses get to deduct, except they are written specific to things required to be done for oil and gas production.

Oil and gas are used for a lot of things other than ICE vehicles, including home heating and cooking, plastics, and the list goes on and on and on (including in the parts and production of EVs). The entire amount should not be counted against gas and diesel for automobiles.

Electrical power generation companies (where EVs get their juice) receive subsidies. Solar panels and installation are subsidized for consumers, some of whom sell their electricity to the grid for others to use (such as for charging their EVs) and others who use it to charge their own EVs.

The point I am trying to make is that it is difficult to get a completely true and accurate answer when it is this complex.

Also,

"Government subsidy" is usually a misnomer. A subsidy is "monetary assistance". Usually the government is not giving "monetary assistance", they are just taxing you less. Taking less from you is not the same as giving you something. The fossil fuel "subsidies" are mostly tax deductions/credits but a lot of what has been spent propping up the alternate energy markets has been actual monetary assistance, and a whole lot of it.

In the distant past (350 million years ago or so), trees came into existence. They captured carbon, just as they do now, except that when they died there was no bacteria or fungi that could break them down and release the carbon back to the atmosphere. Life nearly died from lack of CO2. We are currently at a historically very low point in CO2 now. If it gets much lower, the plants die then we die. It is quite possible we have been saving the world by burning fossil fuels and other fuels, releasing CO2 back into the atmosphere. Who is to say that today's climate is the ideal one for the Earth as a whole or for people? It is not ideal for plants. We need plants for food and oxygen so maybe what is best for them is best for us as well. Just something to consider.

One of the best things to do is ask some green weenie how much CO2 is in the atmosphere...almost universally they can't actually tell you. They have no idea what the PPM is and how much we can tolerate.

Right now CO2 makes up about 0.03% of our atmosphere...about 420 PPM. Mind you this is after burning fossil fuels for decades and decades without any filtering at all. We can literally double the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere and still be perfectly fine. The general consensus is 1,000 PPM is the break point for our own health. With how clean we (humans as a whole) burn fossil fuels now days we have hundreds of years to go without any worries at all. This whole CO2 "problem" isn't actually a problem at all.

But then if people knew it wasn't really a problem Governments couldn't do things like force carbon taxes down our throats to extract more money from the peasantry now could they?

 

[Oilburner]

 

[Dusty Dude]

we had a CNG civic. my wife's commuter car. it worked great for that purpose but that's in. there was one station close by our house to fill up at. often times they would be malfunctioning or you'd have to wait for other people filling up (two pumps). she worked in long beach so there were multiple stations but there was always a line of trash trucks filling up and you could get stuck waiting 30 minutes for your turn. she had a co-worker who also had a cng civic and ran out of gas on the way to work. he had to have it flat bedded to a cng station lol. they cant bring you cng (maybe for commercial vehicles).

the tank is HUGE. it took most of the trunk. i cant imagine what a jeep would need and where to put it.

on a positive note, when gas hit about $5 a gallon cng was about $1.85 for gallon equivalent.
the car burned soooo clean. oil changes were rare as the oil always looked new.
we sold the car for $500 less than we paid for it. after she put about 100k on it lol. it was nearing time to replace the fuel tank which is $$.

we bought the car in SF. there are like 3 stations in SF, all spread out (at least then). drove to the one by the presidio and it wasnt working. called the hotline and they said a tech will be there in a few hours. drove allllll the way across SF to get to the next one to fill up, for the long drive home. almost NO stations on the way home. i was coasting in neutral downhill trying to make it do the next station. we baaarely made it, on EMPTY.

the car said CNG on the side real big. she got pulled over in the carpool lane by chp for driving alone (had carpool stickers). the cop wouldnt believe it was a real cng car and wanted to see proof. and my wife was in uniform too.... (LEO). moron lol.

There were a lot more stations in Chicago. I remember reading back then that the Civic was available new, but only in California. I found a Dodge CNG/gas V8 utility truck for sale in Illinois, but they wouldn’t sell it to me because I wasn’t a municipality. I couldn’t even buy a used one. The only way I could run CNG was if I had a conversion done.

There was a startup company that was going to make a home refueling unit called the “Phill”. The government set so many roadblocks up that it never came to market.

A conversion kit and a used pump installed next to my garbage would have taken just under 4 years to pay for itself when gas was $4.

 

[driventoadventure]

One of the best things to do is ask some green weenie how much CO2 is in the atmosphere...almost universally they can't actually tell you. They have no idea what the PPM is and how much we can tolerate.

Right now CO2 makes up about 0.03% of our atmosphere...about 420 PPM. Mind you this is after burning fossil fuels for decades and decades without any filtering at all. We can literally double the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere and still be perfectly fine. The general consensus is 1,000 PPM is the break point for our own health. With how clean we (humans as a whole) burn fossil fuels now days we have hundreds of years to go without any worries at all. This whole CO2 "problem" isn't actually a problem at all.

But then if people knew it wasn't really a problem Governments couldn't do things like force carbon taxes down our throats to extract more money from the peasantry now could they?

You miss the point to the concerns. So what that it's only 420ppm and people begin to suffer noticeable long term effects once it reaches 1000ppm. It is idiotic to think that means it's okay to get up to that level, because once we get there the ONLY way to escape it is to stay inside totally sealed enclosures with air scrubbers. At that point, there will be no more going outside unless you want to suffer consequences. Also, at the current level of change (keep in mind it was 100ppm less only 80 years ago, and the change is only accelerating) those of us with young children (or grandchildren for some of you) could potentially leave exactly that legacy for their elder years.

You should watch this Savine Hossenfelder video to try an help you understand the problem:

Also, the whole "It's only 0.03% (if you want to go for this argument, it's actually 0.04%) of the atmopsphere" is a nonsensical argument. The atmosphere is ENORMOUS. It surrounds the entire spheroid that is our planet, and extends for about 62 miles or 100km beyond the mean surface of the planet. That small concentration means there are roughly 894.6 gigatons, that is 894,600,000,000 TONS of carbon. That's about 210,692,416 two-door JLs... Using this argument is like saying that you could inject a 100ml syringe full of air into your veins and survive because at 0.12grams versus the average male weight of 79000 grams it's only 0.00015% of your body weight. It will still kill you dead almost immediately...

 

[driventoadventure]

Power Plants, at least coal or natural gas powered ones, are being closed and more will be closed down in the future. In my state, Illinois, the far left legislature and governor (who plans to run for POTUS in 4 yrs) have legislated away any fossil and nuclear fuel powered power plants and the state will become green power only in the near future. Without out of state power being brought in, the state won't even be able to keep up with normal power requirements, let alone all the electric only products that are being either forced upon us or eliminating any alternatives, with green energy only. Imagine what the increased cost of electricity will be as this green energy stuff moves forward.

Until EV's become far better in range, battery life, speed and ease of charging and more affordable, they are not ready for prime time in my estimation. I like them, especially the hybrid type like the 4xE, but not with all the drawbacks and costs for only 22 miles range.

For the most part, the only natural gas plants that are being closed are the old ones which fire boilers with natural gas to generate steam. They're being replaced with natural gas fired turbines because going combined cycle is a significantly more efficient and cost effective use of the same fuel to make more energy with fewer personnel. All of the manufacturers are years or even a decade out with backlog of work because GTs are being build/commissioned/upgraded at such a large rate. As bad as it is for us, Fossil fuels aren't going away from power gen within our children's lifetimes, mainly because all of the LM GTs out there are so quick to respond to power needs, and the next closest thing - hydro - is is very difficult to build from any perspective.

You're not wrong that distribution and storage are the biggest problems with the power grid RIGHT NOW, but the answer isn't to say "oh well, we can't get rid of it without shooting ourselves in the foot" like your argument seems to imply and like those who poopoo renewables and electrification of transportation want - it's to use that 3 pound mass of intellect we have in our skulls to engineer a solution.

 

[JesseT]

...
We can literally double the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere and still be perfectly fine. The general consensus is 1,000 PPM is the break point for our own health.
...

I think you're confused about the significance of that number. 1,000 PPM is considered the upper limit for chronic exposure beyond which adverse human health effects may be seen (like if the air inside your house was 1,000 PPM CO2). This isn't what the "green weenies" are worried about. If we do ever get to the point where we're worried about atmospheric CO2 levels reaching 1,000 PPM we'll already have been in deep doo doo for a good long while.

The issue is the effect that atmospheric CO2 has on global average temperatures. Over the past 12,000-ish years (which you may recognize as being the entire history of agriculture) global average temps have been relatively stable, essentially fluctuating within a 2°C range. We're sitting at the upper end of that range today, and temperature lags CO2 levels so you should expect that to continue increasing for a while even if we as a species were to stop dumping CO2 into the atmosphere today. This means we're entering uncharted territory.

Most of why the human population is as high as it is today and is distributed the way that it is today is related to the locations of consistent freshwater sources, arable land, and high/low temperatures that are favorable to human life. Increasing global temperatures have the potential to change those variables fairly significantly.

So what's going to happen? Well, like I said this is uncharted territory so really it's all about making the best educated guesses we can. Famine with resultant political instability and wars? We're already seeing some of that (take a look at what's been happening in Lebanon over the last decade-ish). Increases in severe weather events/weather-driven natural disasters with all the associated costs in human life and the effects on commerce and trade? We're probably already seeing the beginnings of that too. Mass migrations? Not clearly so yet, but certainly a possibility also. New diseases as microorganisms that have been trapped in the permafrost for millennia get released into a population with immune systems naive to their existence? Good luck with that one.

We'll be lucky if we as a species survive to reach the point where 1,000 PPM of CO2 making the air unsafe to breathe is our problem.

 

[autotragic]

I think you're confused about the significance of that number. 1,000 PPM is considered the upper limit for chronic exposure beyond which adverse human health effects may be seen (like if the air inside your house was 1,000 PPM CO2). This isn't what the "green weenies" are worried about. If we do ever get to the point where we're worried about atmospheric CO2 levels reaching 1,000 PPM we'll already have been in deep doo doo for a good long while.

The issue is the effect that atmospheric CO2 has on global average temperatures. Over the past 12,000-ish years (which you may recognize as being the entire history of agriculture) global average temps have been relatively stable, essentially fluctuating within a 2°C range. We're sitting at the upper end of that range today, and temperature lags CO2 levels so you should expect that to continue increasing for a while even if we as a species were to stop dumping CO2 into the atmosphere today. This means we're entering uncharted territory.

Most of why the human population is as high as it is today and is distributed the way that it is today is related to the locations of consistent freshwater sources, arable land, and high/low temperatures that are favorable to human life. Increasing global temperatures have the potential to change those variables fairly significantly.

So what's going to happen? Well, like I said this is uncharted territory so really it's all about making the best educated guesses we can. Famine with resultant political instability and wars? We're already seeing some of that (take a look at what's been happening in Lebanon over the last decade-ish). Increases in severe weather events/weather-driven natural disasters with all the associated costs in human life and the effects on commerce and trade? We're probably already seeing the beginnings of that too. Mass migrations? Not clearly so yet, but certainly a possibility also. New diseases as microorganisms that have been trapped in the permafrost for millennia get released into a population with immune systems naive to their existence? Good luck with that one.

We'll be lucky if we as a species survive to reach the point where 1,000 PPM of CO2 making the air unsafe to breathe is our problem.

Oh no the world is going to end...except it won't. Cry more. The world is going to change, even if humans didn't exist at all. It just doesn't matter no matter how much green weenies say it does.

 

[driventoadventure]

Oh no the world is going to end...except it won't. Cry more. The world is going to change, even if humans didn't exist at all. It just doesn't matter no matter how much green weenies say it does.

You're not wrong. The world won't end. Just our species. And many more. Maybe that is for the better though.

 

[autotragic]

You're not wrong. The world won't end. Just our species. And many more. Maybe that is for the better though.

Humans will live, not just the current numbers. Without nitrogen fertilizer we wouldn't have half the world population we do now though. We simply couldn't support the rapid population growth of the last 100 years without it. Nor can we sustain current levels without it.

The fact is Earth has had higher CO2 levels than we do now and yet we still came along and so did all the other species. It's a bullshit argument.

 

[JesseT]

Humans will live, not just the current numbers. Without nitrogen fertilizer we wouldn't have half the world population we do now though. We simply couldn't support the rapid population growth of the last 100 years without it. Nor can we sustain current levels without it.

The fact is Earth has had higher CO2 levels than we do now and yet we still came along and so did all the other species. It's a bullshit argument.

That argument is like saying that smoking isn't actually bad for your health because everyone dies eventually anyway.

Sponsored