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posted by Fnord666 on Saturday September 30 2017, @12:18PM   Printer-friendly
from the ban-gas-instead-of-passing-it dept.

France and the United Kingdom are doing it. So is India. And now one lawmaker would like California to follow their lead in phasing out gasoline- and diesel-powered vehicles.

When the Legislature returns in January, Assemblyman Phil Ting plans to introduce a bill that would ban the sale of new cars fueled by internal-combustion engines after 2040. The San Francisco Democrat said it's essential to get California drivers into an electric fleet if the state is going to meet its greenhouse gas reduction targets, since the transportation sector accounts for more than a third of all emissions.

"The market is moving this way. The entire world is moving this way," Ting said. "At some point you need to set a goal and put a line in the sand."

California already committed five years ago to putting 1.5 million "zero-emission vehicles," such as electric cars and plug-in hybrids, on the road by 2025. By that time, the state wants these cleaner models to account for 15 percent of all new car sales.

Could the hills surrounding Los Angeles one day become visible?


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  • (Score: 2) by Unixnut on Sunday October 01 2017, @01:32AM

    by Unixnut (5779) on Sunday October 01 2017, @01:32AM (#575441)

    This is a good point. It isn't the CO2 that is the problem, it is the open carbon cycle, where we are digging up locked in carbon and releasing it to the atmosphere.

    If we then locked up the carbon and burned it again in a closed cycle, there would be no net increase in CO2. The fuel would just be an ultra dense energy storage medium, that can be used in EVs or ICE without problems. Using something like BioEthanol would work, and would have the benefit of decentralising fuel production (because humans have been making Ethanol for millennia.

    This whole "Ban ICE" and force battery EVs just goes to show the distinct lack of knowledge on the part of the proponents and politicians about how this works. It is treating the symptom, not the cause. Assuming it it ignorance, and not just corruption with a side of authoritarian power grab (which I suspect it is, but the motives don't really matter to the results).

    The irony is all this energy put into researching batteries, which never will be able to store the same energy density as chemical fuel (as that energy is stored in chemical bonds), where they could be working on improving the efficiency of production/conversion of said fuels and fuel cells.

    Imagine an EV with an ethanol fuel cell. All the benefits of current cars (long range, using existing infrastructure and quick refill time), but with the benefits of EV. Not to mention giving a way for a transition from old tech, and a way to keep ICE cars on the road for those who want them, while no longer dumping excess CO2 into the atmosphere. Seems like a win all round to me.

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