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posted by takyon on Monday August 03 2015, @07:32PM   Printer-friendly
from the it's-electric dept.

Who's forcing Marchionne and all the other major automakers to sell mostly money-losing electric vehicles? More than any other person, it's Mary Nichols. She's run the California Air Resources Board since 2007, championing the state's zero-emission-vehicle quotas and backing Pres­ident Barack Obama's national mandate to double average fuel economy to 55 miles per gallon by 2025. She was chairman of the state air regulator once before, a generation ago, and cleaning up the famously smoggy Los Angeles skies is just one accomplish­ment in a four-decade career.

Nichols really does intend to force au­tomakers to eventually sell nothing but electrics. In an interview in June at her agency's heavy-duty-truck laboratory in downtown Los Angeles, it becomes clear that Nichols, at age 70, is pushing regula­tions today that could by midcentury all but banish the internal combustion engine from California's famous highways. "If we're going to get our transportation system off petroleum," she says, "we've got to get people used to a zero-emissions world, not just a little-bit-better version of the world they have now."

We've seen campaigns to defend smoking and not wearing seatbelts and not getting vaccinated. Is this like that, or is there more to it?


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  • (Score: 1, Flamebait) by Alfred on Monday August 03 2015, @09:14PM

    by Alfred (4006) on Monday August 03 2015, @09:14PM (#217591) Journal

    we've got to get people used to a zero-emissions world

    Getting people used to something implies that it is painful and possibly unnatural. How is zero emissions even possible? As we operate now it is not possible. The greenies are perfectly content with an electric vehicle that all the smoke from diving it is pumped out in another state or wherever the electricity is generated. No smoke here by my car so life must be good. They act as if smoke is fine if you can't see it, hypocrites. Make up your mind which lies you want to believe is smoke/pollution/combustion/whatever bad or not?

    Now if we somehow went all solar, hydroelectric, wind and such then they would have something. (never mind the other greenies that are opposed to dams drowning trees, windmills killing birds or something) Going all solar or alternative power is not economically possible (yet) otherwise it would have already happened.

    Here is some math, because everyone loves math, especially greenines: In 2014, about 136.78 billion gallons of gasoline were consumed in the United States, a daily average of about 374.74 million gallons. (http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=23&t=10) Energy content of gasoline is 34.8 MJ/Liter. or ~36.6kW/hr per gallon (Wikipedia) (Therefore we would need 5 trillion more kw/hrs generated each year assuming cars are perfectly efficient) may 2015 the USA generated 321,906 megawatt hours (http://www.eia.gov/electricity/), if may is average, (which it is not, it is low) that 3.86 trillion megawatt hours a year, which is low so let's over generously round up to 5 trillion. I'm not about to say we would have to double our generation capacity, that isn't correct. just because gas has so much energy in it doesn't mean it get used. so say cars are 25% efficient at using gas and that batteries are 100% efficient and motors using electricity are 100% and there are no line losses and everything else in favor of electric cars...

    You still need to increase national electric generation by greater than 25%.

    This will not happen. Therefore electric cars cannot be viable without some major changes, innovations and inventions. The greenies have been forcing the issue and forcibly subsidizing it and it has not moved out of the pipe dream stage. It could be done in the future but the greenies need to start working on it and stop helping others make a fast buck. Moral of the story is "NOT YET, maybe someday, if you want it then go make it happen."

    If you actually want to save the earth, and not just be a green zombie/lemming/sheep, then go develop a better air conditioner that uses less power or advocate for better housing insulation to make things better, faster with existing inexpensive tech!

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @09:46PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2015, @09:46PM (#217607)

    So what you're saying is I can't see how we can do it, too hard.

    Hope you didn't waste your time by going to university. They do hard shit for a living.

  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday August 03 2015, @09:54PM

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 03 2015, @09:54PM (#217611) Journal

    You still need to increase national electric generation by greater than 25%.

    This will not happen.

    Rather than decree it, care to provide a reason why it will not happen?
    Input to feed your argumentation [cleantechnica.com] - and mind you, we are speaking of 10 years term.

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    • (Score: 2) by Alfred on Tuesday August 04 2015, @03:32PM

      by Alfred (4006) on Tuesday August 04 2015, @03:32PM (#217948) Journal
      I'm not sure if you provided the link to support me or not.

      Some things I saw.
      1) new solar is being built but not coal or nuke
      2) new built natural gas grew twice as fast as solar
      3) if you include non-utility solar natural gas still wins.
      4) green added 824 MW in nov

      My math: from the link above 1025070 installed / 824 a month added renewable = 104 years for green to catch up to existing non-renewable install base. This is actually slower than I expected. I assume that adoption will accelerate from that rate and it will take fewer years. Green needs to step it up since we are adding non-renewable natural gas faster than renewables.

      What I also see is that renewables cannot cover even the new generation capacity which means they will never catch up without accelerating the installation. However all is not grim, the install base is actually increasing and in 10 years renewable will have at least 13% of capacity. (I say at least because I didn't account for acceleration or tech improvement. But maybe that doesn't matter since everything else is improving also.)
  • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday August 04 2015, @11:23AM

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Tuesday August 04 2015, @11:23AM (#217863) Journal

    Building a lot of solar would also create a lot of jobs that can't be outsourced. In the United States they spend something like $360 billion per year on foreign oil. If that money were spent in the US it would be like a major economic stimulus package every year.

    --
    Washington DC delenda est.
    • (Score: 2) by Alfred on Tuesday August 04 2015, @02:31PM

      by Alfred (4006) on Tuesday August 04 2015, @02:31PM (#217925) Journal

      Building a lot of solar would also create a lot of jobs that can't be outsourced.

      That is not a real good point here. Ideally we would go all renewable and coal plants would go away. But a coal plant employs more people than a solar or wind so it would be a net loss of jobs. The jobs argument is used so much it becomes part of the go-to vernacular to the point it becomes cliché. I suspect you brought it up out of reflex. Don't take this any of this the wrong way but the jobs argument is ineffective if used in every argument but do use it in every argument where it cant be refuted.

      In the United States they spend something like $360 billion per year on foreign oil. If that money were spent in the US it would be like a major economic stimulus package every year.

      That would be huge but people will continue to spend that money because they have stuff to do and places to go. You will find very few people willing or prepared to stop spending that money and walk to work just so they can hope or invest in a solution with any progress showing up in years from now. That said anyone can do exactly that on a personal level, arrange job and home so you can walk to work, stop driving, take quick cold showers, get a cart to move groceries, buy stock in renewable energy companies, evangelize the lifestyle.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 04 2015, @01:19PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 04 2015, @01:19PM (#217898)

    How is zero emissions even possible?

    Fusion. It's only 20 years away. :-)