Global Warming

[Ingram85]

I think all that relies more on what Limpid said, advancement of the secondary market for electric vehicles. People always forgot that a lot of this country can’t afford new things. A new car right now even at £7-£10k is still a pipe dream for lots of people. 

It’s also unrealistic to talk about ‘new homes’ having more greener technology put in at building stage. That’s great but people and families like me/mine can’t afford new homes. New affordable homes simply aren’t a thing. They are all £200k+ for even a shed sized one. 

I don’t think a lot of people realise just how much families on a joint income of sub £25k a year have to do to keep going. I dread to think how people on less do. An £2k+ car is a dream let alone a brand new one for some. 

The days of buying cheap £500 banger cars and struggling to maintain houses didn’t stop. We recycle where we can, we do what we can but asking the poor to do all they can is a bit rich and the trick of those in control. Anything the general populace do is a drop in the ocean to what huge factories, industrial complexes and mega rich conglomerates pumping all manner of shite into the environment can do.

Im not trying to sound all woe is me but I work for the nhs as I keep saying, as does my partner and we are fed up of just existing and not living. We work hard and always seem to face an avalanche of shite sent towards us by not even those in Ivory towers, it’s from those just a few societal rungs above us. 

[limpid]

9 minutes ago, Ingram85 said:

Im not trying to sound all woe is me but I work for the nhs as I keep saying, as does my partner and we are fed up of just existing and not living. We work hard and always seem to face an avalanche of shite sent towards us by not even those in Ivory towers, it’s from those just a few societal rungs above us. 

If I could make one cultural change, it would be get get people kicking upwards and not downwards. It's not the poor / foreigners / refugees who are the problem. It's the people who are already more wealthy than anyone should be that cause the problems.

[sidcow]

30 minutes ago, limpid said:

Quick google later and:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/21/electric-cars-as-cheap-to-manufacture-as-regular-models-by-2024#:~:text=Electric cars will cost the,imminent%2C according to new research.

 

I'm sure, the main problem seems to be the desire of the big car companies to actually make the blinking things.  They currently don't seem to look at anything less than £20,000 and even the £20,000 - £30,000 market is pretty sparse. 

I kind of understand it because there is masses of R&D involved so probably they pay for that out of the bigger margins on the more expensive cars, they can then roll it out to cheaper cars. 

It's the way they've always done it.  Things like power steering, electric windows, air conditioning, central locking, traction control in fact you name it, all stuff that starts out on expensive luxury models then eventually rolls out to cheaper models. 

The big revolution will be as batteries drop in price as they do year after year after year.  We're on the cusp now of them being cheaper than the cost of making an internal combustion engine, that's when it will finally be available to cheaper cars. 

I stand by the Chinese brands taking over.  Who looked at a Hyundai 10 year's ago? Suddenly make a load of really good, cheap small cars and you've gone mainstream.  Traditional car brands best not rest on their laurels. There is ready a major player at the top end who came from nowhere. 

Edited May 2, 2021 by sidcow

[villakram]

All those green electric cars. Not so simple at all, e.g., what to do with the power packs, recycling?

Great write up on the current state of affairs via Science.

"To extract those needles, recyclers rely on two techniques, known as pyrometallurgy and hydrometallurgy. The more common is pyrometallurgy, in which recyclers first mechanically shred the cell and then burn it, leaving a charred mass of plastic, metals, and glues. At that point, they can use several methods to extract the metals, including further burning. “Pyromet is essentially treating the battery as if it were an ore” straight from a mine, Gaines says. Hydrometallurgy, in contrast, involves dunking battery materials in pools of acid, producing a metal-laden soup. Sometimes the two methods are combined."

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/05/millions-electric-cars-are-coming-what-happens-all-dead-batteries

[limpid]

1 hour ago, villakram said:

All those green electric cars. Not so simple at all, e.g., what to do with the power packs, recycling?

What does this have to do with global warming?

[villakram]

10 minutes ago, limpid said:

What does this have to do with global warming?

One of the prime reasons for moving to EVs is stated to be the "climate crisis". Ditto with things like solar panels and turbines. Each of these have massive sourcing and disposal challenges that have been largely ignored. As these are now being deployed on scale, these problems need to be taken more seriously. Given the solution to all sorts of things is supposed to be batteries, more and more batteries, some meeting with reality is required. This article does a good job of presenting the state of the art w.r.t. to the EV power pack end of life issue.

 

[limpid]

3 minutes ago, villakram said:

One of the prime reasons for moving to EVs is stated to be the "climate crisis". Ditto with things like solar panels and turbines. Each of these have massive sourcing and disposal challenges that have been largely ignored. As these are now being deployed on scale, these problems need to be taken more seriously. Given the solution to all sorts of things is supposed to be batteries, more and more batteries, some meeting with reality is required. This article does a good job of presenting the state of the art w.r.t. to the EV power pack end of life issue.

It's a piece about the science of recycling. Maybe better in the science thread or possibly a new electric vehicles thread then. It's not relevant to global warming.

[villakram]

1 hour ago, limpid said:

It's a piece about the science of recycling. Maybe better in the science thread or possibly a new electric vehicles thread then. It's not relevant to global warming.

Errr, maybe, but there's been a lot of that here lately. So, it seemed like a good place to continue this discussion. If placed in science, it lives on an island somewhat, whereas the macro scale importance is appropriate to the topic at hand. As society continues to pretend to care about these things, more and more practical things will occur and the venn diagram includes climate crisis or whatever it will have been rebranded as at that time.

 

 

[limpid]

1 minute ago, villakram said:

Errr, maybe, but there's been a lot of that here lately. So, it seemed like a good place to continue this discussion. If placed in science, it lives on an island somewhat, whereas the macro scale importance is appropriate to the topic at hand. As society continues to pretend to care about these things, more and more practical things will occur and the venn diagram includes climate crisis or whatever it will have been rebranded as at that time.

It doesn't. Battery recycling is unrelated to global warming.

Just like clearing up the years of petrol / diesel emissions around all the roads is unrelated to global warming.

[villakram]

17 hours ago, limpid said:

It doesn't. Battery recycling is unrelated to global warming.

Just like clearing up the years of petrol / diesel emissions around all the roads is unrelated to global warming.

Maybe they are more appropriately termed environmental concerns or quality of life issues, but they have all been subsumed into the climate debate (regardless of how sensible that is). I think most people would think of fossil fuel emissions clean up as intimately related to global warming even if the details are far more nuanced and hence, they could easily be argued to have less to do with global warming. Interestingly, your statement above would have climate crisis protesters virtually outside your house these days!

The issue here is maybe how far deep down the rabbit hole one goes and hence makes the subject purely science vs sociology-esque.

[limpid]

2 hours ago, villakram said:

The issue here is maybe how far deep down the rabbit hole one goes and hence makes the subject purely science vs sociology-esque.

No. The issue here is whether your post was about global warming. It wasn't.

[KenjiOgiwara]

One thing I can say after working a decade in environmental engineering, going to conferences and trying to assist researchers on the most bizarre things. Whether it's recycling, ICE or not, energy, pollution, toxins...

The only thing that helps hands down with no flip side so to speak, is using less. Less consumption, less travel, less less less. That's the big cultural change that's needed. The idea we can move around consumption by being smart, well I'm yet to see it work.

Ofc. some things are not quite as bad as others, but talking about them as solutions to the pickle we're in, that's unwise.

 

[limpid]

9 hours ago, KenjiOgiwara said:

One thing I can say after working a decade in environmental engineering, going to conferences and trying to assist researchers on the most bizarre things. Whether it's recycling, ICE or not, energy, pollution, toxins...

The only thing that helps hands down with no flip side so to speak, is using less. Less consumption, less travel, less less less. That's the big cultural change that's needed. The idea we can move around consumption by being smart, well I'm yet to see it work.

Ofc. some things are not quite as bad as others, but talking about them as solutions to the pickle we're in, that's unwise.

Less travel, less plastic, less power, less meat. Seems about right.

The only "more" that springs to mind reuse / recycling, but that won't get better until there is a meaningful carbon tax.

[foreveryoung]

Global warming, bring it on, it's been pissing down for 2 weeks non stop now, it's so depressing, where's the sun

[KenjiOgiwara]

Reuse is pretty much less though. Recycling is not what people think it is, by some distance. I'd go as far as saying recycling is one of the biggest bullshit stories people ever have been told. Especially household recycling.

[OutByEaster?]

Is there still an issue with electric cars of how long the batteries will maintain their performance and hold charge?

It could be completely out of date, but I'm sure I remember reading something that suggested that the batteries lost half of their efficiency for retaining charge after around three or four years and that the cost of replacing the batteries comes out at more than half of the cost of the car.and that's preventing a second hand market from growing.

[OutByEaster?]

2 minutes ago, KenjiOgiwara said:

Reuse is pretty much less though. Recycling is not what people think it is, by some distance. I'd go as far as saying recycling is one of the biggest bullshit stories people ever have been told. Especially household recycling.

Starbucks use cups that have a recycling symbol on them. They can be recycled.

The assumption is that they are all recycled. 

Less than 1 in 400 are.

 

[HanoiVillan]

 

[KenjiOgiwara]

The thing about technology changes or paradigm shifts or whatever you fancy calling it, is that sometimes there needs to be incentives to work as a catalyst in the process.

Norway is pretty much a EV country now I reckon. Almost everyone I know buying a car at this point is buying electric. The last 5 years the electric cars have increased by 400% and the last 12 months by 30%. The ICE vehicles have declined.

But this wouldn't have happened without financial incentives I think. It's been massively favourable to have an electric car over an ICE one in terms of expenditure. With the increased interest came the infrastructure, and tbh that went very quick. After that it just snowballed.

They will tighten up on the incentives the coming years I think, but the trend won't change methinks.

So for you guys you need to figure out where the incentives will come from. I know the UK have more people, more cars, less space, maybe less money in some aspects, but there's always alternatives. Maybe you should establish city zones where you have to use electric vehicles? I dunno. But I don't think you'll see much change until there's a good reason for people to do so. Environmental arguments will never be enough cause it's too abstract for people to respect.

[Seat68]

37 minutes ago, KenjiOgiwara said:

The thing about technology changes or paradigm shifts or whatever you fancy calling it, is that sometimes there needs to be incentives to work as a catalyst in the process.

Norway is pretty much a EV country now I reckon. Almost everyone I know buying a car at this point is buying electric. The last 5 years the electric cars have increased by 400% and the last 12 months by 30%. The ICE vehicles have declined.

But this wouldn't have happened without financial incentives I think. It's been massively favourable to have an electric car over an ICE one in terms of expenditure. With the increased interest came the infrastructure, and tbh that went very quick. After that it just snowballed.

They will tighten up on the incentives the coming years I think, but the trend won't change methinks.

So for you guys you need to figure out where the incentives will come from. I know the UK have more people, more cars, less space, maybe less money in some aspects, but there's always alternatives. Maybe you should establish city zones where you have to use electric vehicles? I dunno. But I don't think you'll see much change until there's a good reason for people to do so. Environmental arguments will never be enough cause it's too abstract for people to respect.

Is off road parking the norm in Norway. One of the issues that I think the UK has, one of the many. We have terraced atreets without off road parking. Cars parallel parked bumper to bumper. Unsure how the government will incentivise the installation of charging points for all of those.