Global Warming/Climate Change Super Thread

[c_canuk]

rebuttals to comments, for those that are inclined:

1)  Energy Return on Investment (EROI) to run a modern industrial society is at least 7 (that is, an input of 1 "unit" of energy to mine, make and use an energy source must yield at least 7 units of energy to make it worthwhile). Solar is nowhere close to 7.

They're made of glass, copper, aluminum and food dye. 100 dollars of cells will pump out 100 watts per hour. that's 1 KW hours a day averaged over the year's insolation of 10 hours (that's averaged over the whole year for north America including night and overcast) you'll have an ROI (@$0.10/KW) of 2.5 years. 

Are you seriously claiming that the EROI is worse than the customer ROI? Cause if you are, I have no idea what to tell you. Yes I know installers will soak you for 10s of thousands for a turnkey system, however, have you priced any other alternative turnkey system? DIYs are not paying those prices.  Life span of a Solar panel is 25 years for no less that 90% output and 50 years at 50% output iirc. This source seems a bit bullshitty for me.

It states quite clearly that an EROI of greater than 1 is required for a system to work (duh) then arbitrarily determines 7 is the magic number. Why is 700% return reasonable? on top of that, solar looks to me like it's vastly superior than the 3.5 in the article.

I can invest 2 years worth of power bills (avg $2136 for average use of 15KW/H per day, could buy and install this system  https://www.amazon.ca/RENOGY-Monocrystalline-Grid-Tied-Listed-Panels/dp/B00DJF8J4M/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1503342344&sr=8-1&keywords=2+kw+solar which will exceed my needs by 5KW/h per day. If I then spend a 3rd years power bills I can buy a 20KW power wall and go off the grid. that's a financial ROI of 3 years. There is no way the panels will be dead in 21 years. They should still be providing 90% their output by then, exceeding the EROI of 7 the article requires, and on top of that, they should go another 29, providing a EROI of at least 1-15. This is assuming the manufacture is making them at cost, which would be ludicrous. Therefore the EROI is more like 20.




2) What if I only buy a Nissan leaf and ignore the vastly superior custom made EVs or the Tesla that's just hit showroom floors that is cheaper than a Leaf, and want to drive to Kamloops? 

No one said you wouldn't have a gas car too, I just get sick of hearing how inefficient EVs are compared to ICE, I didn't say DOWN WITH ICE LONG LIVE EVs! Besides, if you did need to go to Kamloops, you'd plan your trip accordingly just as you would with an ICE. I've been stranded waiting for gas stations to open on the northern ON TransCanada route many times. The Tesla cars can be recharged in 30 minutes for about 5 bucks, and have hyper-miled for over 1000km before. this is a non issue shortly. Especially if the glass based batteries pan out. People will be like (well what if I want to drive across the continent non stop twice, I couldn't do that in an ICE!!)




3) Our what happens if you try this in Edmonton, in Jan, at -30c? Not only is battery storage affected, but you have to heat the interior of the car. And I believe that you glossed over conversion losses inherent in any battery charging system.

In under zero conditions, a heater draws 5 watt/hour from the 80 000 watt battery pack(about a year to draw the battery down to half), and keeps the insulated battery compartment warm. When you start the car, your heat comes from the computer and motors. There is no additional load to the system while engaged, anymore than a conventional car. Non of the Tesla drivers in Edmonton are having any problems. And no I didn't, it's in there as heat loss in the electrical to chemical battery conversion.




4) C_Canuk, do you have any references for your efficiency (or lack thereof) figures?
I've looked them up many times. they are rounded to easy to chew on numbers. 25% is a car running on the highway, city driving without an assist like hybrids drops to 10%. Diesels are more efficient due to their method of combustion and fuel being more stable. Again 40% is max efficiencies on the highway. Either way, when you have people crowing about how total energy costs of an EV are as bad or worse than ICE, I get irritated that the best numbers possible are still half the numbers of an EV when including the distribution network, before you count the distribution network for ICE.

Quick throttle Nat Gas plants are about 75-80% efficient, high efficiency are 90+%. Nuclear is 90+, and Coleson Cove in NB was at 65% converted from coal to bunker crude, so I assumed most coal was around there and better since they've been cleaning up their act. Hydro is like 99% efficient. Etc. If you're going to take issue with them, you can look them up. I'm confident they're well within the ball park. they're all more efficient that ICE including line loss and charging, regardless.




5) Oh, wait...I see you may have forgotten to add the electrical charge/discharge losses of the lithium-ion batteries as used in EVs. Don't forget to add that into your calculations too for EV efficiency.

Nope they are there as heat loss in the conversion from electrical to chemical and back, and included in heat loss in electrical to kinetic.

If you want to get all nit picky, I can start looking up the losses in transporting crude to refineries, refining, and the distribution network. I'm sure my numbers will be vastly improved and you'll look really silly.




6) When a car's electricity tank can be refilled as quickly as another car's gasoline tank, I might become a little more interested - but still not enough.

Well, the majority of people's commute is well within most EV's range, so it actually saves you having to find a place to fill up. Tesla's can use the super chargers that will top you up in 30 minutes. which is pretty close to the 10-15 most stops would take. The next gen of glass batteries should, if they pan out, be extremely fast. This is assuming this would be the only car you'd own. I'm not arguing that, I'm just arguing that the numbers people keep regurgitating from biased sources are wrong, and the technical efficiency of EVs is way better than ICE. individual practicalities not withstanding.




7) Has anyone seen the ecological and environmental damage they do digging out the components of these batteries. The oil sands look like my grandmother's garden compared to the huge open pit mines for lithium. The oil patch returns their property back to nature. These huge open pit mines are there forever.

you do realize, most of the materials for EVs come from the same mines as everything else right? there aren't special mines for EV production. They will exist regardless of the existence of EV. Many of the materials are used in traditional cars as well. Mining is Mining. you can't compare it to Oil extraction.




8) Any possible carbon footprint reduction for your electric car is offset by the huge carbon footprint required to make your battery.

This argument again....

Ok, difference between and EV and ICEV is one has an electric motor, and a battery, the other has a gas tank, oil tank, radiator, engine, pumps, transmission, clutch or torque converter.

The batteries are belts of thin stainless, with an electrolyte, dielectric and another electrolyte smeared on it, rolled up, capped and insulated, the motor is a crude iron casting with light machining wound with copper. You're going to claim making those is a bigger carbon footprint than the other components for an ICE? It's no contest.

You want to know why you're hearing all this BS about EVs? there isn't a spare parts supply chain for them like an ICE cause they're too simple. Simple = more efficient production chain.




9 ) The whole thing is a farce. Everything used by green energy is manufactured using petroleum. They will never recover the cost of their complete inefficiency. We are actually increasing the amount of petroleum required for today's world due to manufacturing. If you wish to move back to the 1700's. Stop drilling and processing world wide. Everything will come to a total stop in a matter of weeks. I'm not saying to trash green energy, but turbines and panels have to drop exceedingly in price (I'll throw a figure of 75% less than now, in order to make people change over to make it worth it).

in my original post, this is why I said it's barbaric that we're burning our best feedstock for advanced materials for crude heat. I never said I wanted to go back to the 1700s. You're making incorrect assumptions. I said EVs are the way of the future and we need to stop burning petroleum cause we need it for manufacturing. That said, turbines and panels in the mass consumer market are luxury items with about 10 000% markup right now. DIY people have been doing it themselves for quite some time with ROI of under 5 years.




10) Very few people consider an all-aspect, "cradle-to-grave" cost to the environment of particular means of transportation.  EV types it seems, however, have a particular ability to believe that they are far purer than others in the "my [poop] doesn't smell" category

Oh please, did you not notice I included the entire chain for EVs but left out the distribution and refining for ICE and EVs still came out looking better, purely efficiency wise?

I never said EVs are the be all end all, I just said I cringe every time I hear you guys go on about how they're less efficient than ICE which is bullocks.

 

[Loachman]

http://www.torontosun.com/2017/08/19/electric-cars-why-you-cant-get-there-from-here

Electric cars: Why you can’t get there from here 

By Lorne Gunter , Edmonton Sun 

First posted:  Saturday, August 19, 2017 05:21 PM EDT  | Updated:  Saturday, August 19, 2017 05:39 PM EDT 

Excited for the coming electric car revolution?

Well then, get ready for a lot of “staycations”.

And I don’t mean the kind where you stay in Canada rather than driving to the States.

I mean vacations where you stay home. In your hometown. Your own home, even.

Not even the newest, fully electric cars have ranges of more than about 400 kms – and that’s the expensive models in ideal conditions.

Cheaper models will have shorter ranges, still, as will all models in winter.

Want to ski and drive electric? Get ready to take the bus.

Fat chance you’ll be able to drive your e-car to the hill and back in many cases.

In case you haven’t noticed, there are few recharging stations around.

The feds, and several provinces and municipalities, are pumping hundreds of millions of tax dollars into erecting charging stations, as are a few commercial landlords.

Frankly, I resent having my tax dollars pay to subsidize electricity stations over gas stations.

But think about this: If anyone truly believed electric cars were going to be viable soon, don’t you think entrepreneurs and private companies would be jumping into the charging market?

Yes, retailers such as IKEA and Canadian Tire have announced plans to build stations at some of their stores, but that’s mostly because one level of government is paying for them. By and large the retailers aren’t.

Let’s say Ottawa and Ontario come up with the $120 million or more needed to pay for a string of charging stations every 200 km from Winnipeg to Toronto. (They’re in the works.)

Chances are the chargers will be the cheaper ones that can accommodate only one or two cars at a time and take six to eight hours to fully top up a battery.

Even assuming you never have to wait in line for one of these plug-ins, stopping every 200 km over the entire 2,300-km route, a one-way trip would take a full work week, or longer.

And then consider the chances we can all have electric cars if we want them.

The cultish leader of the e-car hysteria, Tesla, has nearly 400,000 orders for its latest, cheapest Model 3.

But this month it will manufacture just 100 of them.

Maybe – maybe – by December it will be churning out 20,000 a month. Maybe.

Then there’s the fact e-cars still cost substantially more than comparable gas or diesel models and are only attractive to buyers where there are big, fat tax-funded subsidies for buying one.

This spring, Hong Kong stopped paying citizens subsidies to buy electrics and, suddenly, sales all but stopped.

There is growing recognition that most Western countries are near their electrical generating capacity, as well.

To produce the electricity needed to recharge millions of new electric cars might require some jurisdictions to reopen coal-fired power plants.

If that happens, the environmental benefits would disappear.

And it’s hard to imagine politicians or environmentalists getting enthusiastic about building more dams or nuclear plants.

There is also increasing evidence that mining the lithium and building the batteries needed to run all these electrics vehicles would produce just as much greenhouse gas as building and running gasoline cars.

Is it possible that over the next 10 to 15 years as much as 15% of the North American vehicle fleet will be electric? Sure, that’s possible.

However, unless there are huge (and as yet unforeseen) improvements in e-car technology and e-driving infrastructure, the predicted “revolution” will be a long time coming.

For the time being, it will be mostly confined to well-to-do couples and families that can afford a second car, one of the electric kinds, to use mainly in town for commuting and running errands.

 

[ModlrMike]

My wife and I had talked about going electric. We decided that it might make sense to have one as a "town" car, but that we would still need a petrol driven vehicle for anything over two hours drive.

 

[c_canuk]

These right here are what get my goat... This is a perfect example of myths and ignorance masquerading as "debunking"

http://www.torontosun.com/2017/08/19/electric-cars-why-you-cant-get-there-from-here

Electric cars: Why you can’t get there from here 

By Lorne Gunter , Edmonton Sun 

...

I mean vacations where you stay home. In your hometown. Your own home, even.
...

Not even the newest, fully electric cars have ranges of more than about 400 kms – and that’s the expensive models in ideal conditions.

only if you intend to not plug in anywhere or do even the simplest bit of trip planning, and ignore that most families own 2 vehicles. usually a small in town commuter and a larger travel vehicle/grocery getter.

Cheaper models will have shorter ranges, still, as will all models in winter.

myth, the car will be plugged in at your house, drawing an extra 5 watts, or the power of a childs night light to keep the pack warm, and waste heat from operation will do when driving, instead of being vented to atmosphere. This is moronic idea. While parked on the street away from charging, even if you only have a 20 KW/h pack it would take 83 days to drain half your battery. This is a non issue that biased ninnies keep bringing up.

Want to ski and drive electric? Get ready to take the bus.
Fat chance you’ll be able to drive your e-car to the hill and back in many cases.
In case you haven’t noticed, there are few recharging stations around.

if you don't look, you won't find any. https://www.plugshare.com/ it is now possible to drive a tesla coast to cost on just tesla super chargers. it's only going to get better as more and more charging stations come online. This is the same argument for the horse when the model T came out. Hows that buggy whip business doing you?

The feds, and several provinces and municipalities, are pumping hundreds of millions of tax dollars into erecting charging stations, as are a few commercial landlords.

hundreds of millions eh? got a citation for that?

...

But think about this: If anyone truly believed electric cars were going to be viable soon, don’t you think entrepreneurs and private companies would be jumping into the charging market?

... they are... as market penetration increases so will their participation... are you new to capitalism? Unlike communism where a central controller decides where it makes sense to build things, in a capitalist society, things are done when the demand is there. That the numbers of charging stations by private businesses are slowly increasing shows that market share is growing, therefore, despite your winging about how electric cars suck, people are expressing demand for them

Yes, retailers such as IKEA and Canadian Tire have announced plans to build stations at some of their stores, but that’s mostly because one level of government is paying for them. By and large the retailers aren’t.

citation needed, and if there are paying the lion's share, why wouldn't there be a toll like the privately owned ones? If this takes off this could be a significant revenue generator for the government

Let’s say Ottawa and Ontario come up with the $120 million or more needed to pay for a string of charging stations every 200 km from Winnipeg to Toronto. (They’re in the works.)
Chances are the chargers will be the cheaper ones that can accommodate only one or two cars at a time and take six to eight hours to fully top up a battery.

lets say my backside passes nothing but Hersey's kisses and assume they will be full of vitamins.
1) tesla has already built superchargers
2) the cheapest charging station that takes 8 hours is a 120 power outlet that you plug the onboard 15 A charger into = =14.4 KW/H for the cheapest cars. a 240/40A volt standard stove or dryer plug, about 40 bucks at any home depot will charge 76KW/H in 8 hours. If they're spending millions on basic electrical connectors, someone is embezzling 90% of the funds.
3) the main cost of a charging station is the structure, not the electrical ports.

Even assuming you never have to wait in line for one of these plug-ins, stopping every 200 km over the entire 2,300-km route, a one-way trip would take a full work week, or longer.

or for that one trip a year, you could rent an ICE Car, take the train, fly or bus. IF you have one of the bigger capacity vehicles, you could sleep while your car is charging using a normal 120 volt outlet to charge your car while you'd be staying at your hotel/motel. (if the hotel wants to bill you for your charging, the could charge 40 cents KW/H so the biggest pack out (100KW) there would cost  40 dollars or about 2/3s the cost of a tank of gas.

And then consider the chances we can all have electric cars if we want them.
The cultish leader of the e-car hysteria, Tesla, has nearly 400,000 orders for its latest, cheapest Model 3.
But this month it will manufacture just 100 of them.
Maybe – maybe – by December it will be churning out 20,000 a month. Maybe.

yeah... it's called production run up.... keep in mind this is the same guy who from concept to completion built the worlds largest factory to double the worlds supply of lithium ion batteries in 3 years. This is the same guy who built a space agency from the ground up that is able to launch satellites with a statistical success rate greater than any other agency ever, at 1/10th the cost. This is a guy who's already met and exceeded the numbers for every other wave of electric cars he built. He's built a factory capable of generating 20 000 a month, he has the pre orders for 400 000, what possible obstacle might he have? You could replace the model 3 in this with any other production car

Then there’s the fact e-cars still cost substantially more than comparable gas or diesel models and are only attractive to buyers where there are big, fat tax-funded subsidies for buying one.

This spring, Hong Kong stopped paying citizens subsidies to buy electrics and, suddenly, sales all but stopped.

lets see what happens when a normally priced electric car hits the streets. The big traditional manufactures have been selling 20K cars with electric drive trains for 60K as a luxury item. Claiming that the battery and the electric motor are what drives up the cost. They are priced like that because batteries and electric motors don't need the sort of parts infrastructure they rely on for their business model. Tesla isn't relying on that business model and will soon compete one on one with ICE, with the benefit of much lower cost of ownership. The reason you see more of these garbage articles as the model 3 gets closer to being mass produced. The traditional car manufactures are about to have their lunch ate because they can't compete.

There is growing recognition that most Western countries are near their electrical generating capacity, as well.
To produce the electricity needed to recharge millions of new electric cars might require some jurisdictions to reopen coal-fired power plants.
If that happens, the environmental benefits would disappear.

this is bullshit. the biggest problem with electricity producers right now, is they can't sell their surplus power because there is an extreme glut. Manitoba Hydro is about to go insolvent because it banked on demand in the US that isn't there, same with Ontario. This is causing rate hikes to stay solvent because they almost have to pay to give it to the grid during off peak, you know, at night, when your car would be plugged in recharging...

There is also increasing evidence that mining the lithium and building the batteries needed to run all these electrics vehicles would produce just as much greenhouse gas as building and running gasoline cars.

no there isn't, there's biased ass hats running around claiming this with no proof

Is it possible that over the next 10 to 15 years as much as 15% of the North American vehicle fleet will be electric? Sure, that’s possible.

However, unless there are huge (and as yet unforeseen) improvements in e-car technology and e-driving infrastructure, the predicted “revolution” will be a long time coming.

For the time being, it will be mostly confined to well-to-do couples and families that can afford a second car, one of the electric kinds, to use mainly in town for commuting and running errands.

yeah, until next year when there are 400 000 cars that look like European luxury cars on the inside, priced at the ford focus price point, that have 50% the cost of ownership of regular cars.

Right now a Nissan leaf gets 172 KM per charge, and costs $33 000. Before any subsidies. That's the price of the average ICE car in it's class. If it's your second in town commuter car, it's cost of ownership will be less than half of an ICE.

Chevy Bolt gets 383 KM per charge, and costs $43 000. Before any Subsidies. While it's smaller and costs twice what a sub compact will cost, it's lifetime costs compared to any other sub compact will be lower. This is what I'm talking about, with them trying to make up for the lack of revenue from periodic maintenance.

Ford Focus Electric gets 160km per charge and costs $28 000, the ICE version costs about 15K. However it's lifetime Cost of Ownership will be lower again.

the Model 3 gets 352 km and costs $42000, and can use the network of superchargers. it's equivalent ICE goes for at least $35000 and will have a much higher cost of ownership, and will be a much less refined vehicle.

The only thing IMO holding back Tesla at this point is total number of their products on the road. I'm looking forward to the shakeup in the industry over the next couple of years as they start to flood the market.

 

[YZT580]

I need 7 minutes to pull into the gas pump, insert my card, select and dispense fuel, clean the windshield and leave.  So a single pump can service 8 cars per hour.  The On Route at Port Hope has 8 double pumps accommodating 128 cars per hour at maximum capacity.  To facilitate the same number of electric vehicles will require 64 outlets and since electrics have only half the range of a most gas guzzlers you will require twice the number of service centres on the highway since each car even at maximum re-charge rate is going to sit there for close on 30 minutes.  Every parking spot at every on route will need to be converted to handle a charger and it will not be your half amp trickle charger either. The power requirements will be equivalent to a small town.  And that is only on the major highways.  What about highway 8 or 37 or 7 (in Ontario).  How about the mountain roads in BC where loading will increase significantly and thus decrease the range?  Find another form of fuel, electricity doesn't cut it.  It requires another form of power to supply it, batteries are not environmentally friendly at all and much of the payload goes to cart those batteries around.

 

[Baz]

Find another form of fuel, electricity doesn't cut it.  It requires another form of power to supply it, batteries are not environmentally friendly at all and much of the payload goes to cart those batteries around.

Everything you said is correct... now.

As I said I drive a hybrid and I understand the price I pay to cart those batteries around.  And I also understand that I have to drive differently in order to get the benefits: I'm amazed when I see people driving hybrids breaking and accelerating hard (although I have enough power to do it reasonably well, it just runs any mileage benefit.

But I hope you are not implying that we should stop working on new battery, control and motor technologies, or that there is no chance they can solve the problems you allude to?

 

[Kat Stevens]

I'll go green when they get the hydrogen fuel cell technology sorted. Something about riding around on a bomb like Maj King Kong from Dr Strangelove appeals to me.

 

[ModlrMike]

The average gasoline family auto gets approximately 600km to the tank, and requires about 10-15 minutes to fuel (not counting bathroom break). Until EVs can match those numbers, they will continue to struggle for acceptance. In addition, it appears that there is no standardized model for the car charging port. Some are 3 pin, 4 pin, even 5 pin. Until that issue is also sorted, folks just won't take the chance.

 

[jmt18325]

In reality, you can have an EV if you live in a city, and rent a car if you leave occasionally.  For some people, like me, it just wouldn't work, because I live too far from anywhere and travel too often.

 

[cld617]

The average gasoline family auto gets approximately 600km to the tank, and requires about 10-15 minutes to fuel (not counting bathroom break). Until EVs can match those numbers, they will continue to struggle for acceptance. In addition, it appears that there is no standardized model for the car charging port. Some are 3 pin, 4 pin, even 5 pin. Until that issue is also sorted, folks just won't take the chance.

In the last several years, I can count the numbers of trips I've done where I needed to refuel halfway just to carry on, on one hand. 99.9% of my driving, and likely a significant portion of almost everyone else's is done well within the range of a tank of fuel. Yes there are people who regularly travel at extended ranges, they are a minority. The stats from American surveys show 95% of trips occur within a 50 mile radius, that is a statistically significant enough portion of the population that it's reasonable to manufacture the majority of vehicles with them in mind. For the other 5%, adding 15 minutes to their infrequent halfway pit-stops is an acceptable price to pay for the benefits of an EV.

 

[SeaKingTacco]

In the last several years, I can count the numbers of trips I've done where I needed to refuel halfway just to carry on, on one hand. 99.9% of my driving, and likely a significant portion of almost everyone else's is done well within the range of a tank of fuel. Yes there are people who regularly travel at extended ranges, they are a minority. The stats from American surveys show 95% of trips occur within a 50 mile radius, that is a statistically significant enough portion of the population that it's reasonable to manufacture the majority of vehicles with them in mind. For the other 5%, adding 15 minutes to their infrequent halfway pit-stops is an acceptable price to pay for the benefits of an EV.

You know what I really enjoy? It is when other people decide for me what "an acceptable price to pay is".

How about I decide?

I will adopt electric when it is as cheap and convenient in all respects as ICE.

 

[Brad Sallows]

>... you could rent an ICE Car, take the train, fly or bus. IF you have one of the bigger capacity vehicles, you could sleep while your car is charging using a normal 120 volt outlet to charge your car while you'd be staying at your hotel/motel.

You could, you could, you could.

What people could do is yours to imagine; what people want to do or will do is mostly beyond anyone's power to control.

Look here.  See the challenge with moving from oil-based transportation to electricity?

 

[SeaKingTacco]

That is a seriously cool link, Brad. Thanks!

 

[SeaKingTacco]

C Canuk, if you read the link I gave you, EROI is explained in the first two paragraphs along with why 7 is important.

Simplified, you cannot have a complex, industrial society on anything less than an EROI of 7. This has to do with both thermodynamics. Solar ain't going to get you to 7, ever. The sun has to set sometime, even if you have most kick ass PV system known to mankind.

Germany is apparently discovering that solar and nuclear are a bad mix, having recently damaged one of their power plants trying to load balance. Hydro and solar are probably a reasonble mix, but not everyone likes dams. In my mind, the worst possibly combo is wind and solar: both are intermittent; low density and expensive to install.

 

[Sub_Guy]

The average gasoline family auto gets approximately 600km to the tank, and requires about 10-15 minutes to fuel

I've seen this number thrown out there quite often lately.  My gas stops are always between 4-6 mins.
If you are using a Turkey baster to fill your car it might take 15 minutes. 

 

[cld617]

You know what I really enjoy? It is when other people decide for me what "an acceptable price to pay is".

How about I decide?

I will adopt electric when it is as cheap and convenient in all respects as ICE.

You already live a life where someone else decides what is acceptable. The cost of goods, safety standards, taxes, how companies do business is all decided by someone else. Getting frustrated that something else may be put into motion that could inconvenience you is futile, 5% of any demographic is irrelevant when it comes to deciding what is most appropriate to see put into place, if you're part of that 5% too bad.

 

[YZT580]

An electric car is not the best solution.  They are more harmful to the environment than any 57 chevy ever was.  One of the principal reasons for our current energy surplus is the requirement to have sufficient reserve power to replace all of the output from our windmills (when the wind doesn't blow) and our solar panels (when the sun doesn't shine).  In addition, the cost of power has ensured that we now have a surplus because many of our power burning industries have left for cheaper climes.

 

[jmt18325]

An electric car is not the best solution.  They are more harmful to the environment than any 57 chevy ever was.

Certainly not in terms of carbon pollution.  You also have to factor in modern recycling techniques when you're talking about total pollution:

http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/electric-cars-green

 

[QV]

"I just decided that if you want to leave town you must rent an ICE car."

Gee, thanks... what's next mandatory public transport every Mon Wed and Fri?

I'm sure the group that will come up with this have multiple mansions and private jets...

 

[George Wallace]

Certainly not in terms of carbon pollution.  You also have to factor in modern recycling techniques when you're talking about total pollution:

http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/electric-cars-green

What is the word on the manufacture of rechargeable batteries used in electric vehicles; which include lead–acid ("flooded", deep-cycle, and VRLA), NiCd, nickel–metal hydride, lithium-ion, Li-ion polymer, and, less commonly, zinc–air and molten-salt batteries?  Some of those actually fit nicely into the "Hazardous Materials" category.