Renewable Revolution

CleanTechnica

January 21, 2022 By Steve Hanley


SNIPPETS:

According to Volvo, its battery electric cars may need to drive 100,000 kilometers or more to offset the emissions associated with building its battery!


Well, that is scary news, isn’t it? A major manufacturer is admitting that it may take years of driving before its battery electric vehicles reach the break-even point when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions. The answer, of course, is that a person needs to read and understand the entire 50-page report before drawing any conclusions. That someone would be me. Here’s what I found. 👍 ... ...

Volvo does say one thing that is curious. It claims part of the reason its electric cars create more emissions in the production phase is because they use more aluminum, yet the charts that accompany the report show the 🦕gasoline-powered XC40 has an aluminum content of 34%, while the XC40 Recharge uses 30% aluminum and the C40 Recharge 29%. ... ...

All this talk about carbon emissions overlooks one important point. In addition to the carbon dioxide that pours out of the tailpipes of conventional cars, they also spew a cloud of fine particulate matter into the atmosphere. Whether its coal, oil, gasoline, or diesel, fossil fuels create FPM pollution when they are burned. Fine particulates are so small they pass directly into the bloodstream in the lungs and travel to every part of our bodies, from our brains to our livers to our toes. They are found in breast milk and human placentas. They impair cognitive function, make us ill, and make us die sooner than we should. And for this the  fossil fuel advocates want to bash electric cars? What is wrong with you people?

The EV revolution has many pieces. It involves better battery technology, more efficient manufacturing, and an expansion of the supply of renewable energy. People who seize on one sentence of a 50-page report to flog their agenda are dishonest idiots. Ignore them. They will soon be irrelevant.


Full article: 

https://cleantechnica.com/2022/01/21/unpacking-the-electric-cars-arent-as-green-as-you-think-claims/

agelbert
Well said and well written! Thank you, Steve. 👍

Perhaps, at some level, corporations and governments have always had an issue with telling the truth when sticking to the unvarnished truth is, in the short term, "unprofitable".

However, I am sick to death of the endless BOLD FACED avoidance of ACCOUNTABILITY (by BOTH Greedy Corporations and Governments) for all the damage to the environment that we-the-people have been forced to endure so some ethically challenged crooks and their bought and paid for politicians could continue to profit over planet fleece us 24/7.


John Donovan
Did they include the carbon footprint of producing (exploration, drilling, pumping, transport, shipping, refining, distribution) gasoline for their ICE vehicles?

Steve Hanley > John Donovan
They says they dd a "well to tank" analysis, John, but I am skeptical it included every factor, such as the ugly truth Bill McKibben revealed recently that 40% of all shipping emissions are attributable to moving fossil fuels in one form or another from place to place before they ever get burned by the end user.

agelbert > Steve Hanley
Exactly.
And there is more. If the cherry picking bean counters bothered to look at how much electricity is just THROWN AWAY (SEE: power plant "shunting") every second of every day of every year, for the past 70 plus years, they might come to the realization that the reason this tremendous amount of wasted electricity was NOT used, instead, to make hydrogen for peaker plants that used hydrogen instead of fossil fuels is that the "business model" of electricity in the USA has NEVER BEEN focused on efficiency, but on using MORE hydrocarbon based fuels wherever they could.

The "approach" used by certain 🦖😈 gas guzzler manufacturers today, where "payback" time is figured for EVs versus "energy" costs to make gas guzzlers, completely IGNORES the BIAS designed into the grid of finding more excuses to use hydrocarbons.

Now that power plants are (SLOWLY 🥺) transitioning to renewable energy, which opens up the very practical possiblity of using shunting, something they can never get away from to smooth the frequency and voltage in an electricty grid, to make green hydrogen with electrolysis (i.e. it is FREE, regardless of the how "inefficient" this process is alleged to be), they want us looking at the cars, not the power plants. How convenient.

I'm not buying that misdirection. EVs use energy. Gas Guzzlers use MUCH more energy, and pollute as long as they run. It is mind bogglingly ignorant to ignore that basic irrefutable reality. Pollution mobiles have to be eliminated BECAUSE, unlike EVs, they pollute, PERIOD.

I'll bet you dollars to donuts that every "natural" gas peaker plant in the USA could be replaced with hydrogen gas powered peaker plants using hydrogen produced from shunted electricity which is now sent to a dead end resistance = totally thrown away.

In a sane world, the goal is to get as much efficiency out of our power plants as possible. The world of hydrocarbons was NEVER about efficiency or sanity, it was about using more and more hydrocarbons. 👎😠

Parked EVs can help smooth the grid when there isn't much demand, but, in addition to that, making hydrogen gas when demand is low, to use in peaker plants when demand is high, would make the overall system much more efficient, as well as reducing pollution.

Jan 20 2022
GlobalFoundries plans to pilot ‘green hydrogen’ system 👍