Comment by 🚀 lars_the_bear
@stack : "...you still burn hydrocarbons in a power plant in a poor neighborhood"
We don't do that round my way. We find the greenest, most unspoiled part of the countryside, and burn hydrocarbons there.
I would imagine that the long-term environmental benefits of electric transportation will only come when we have non-polluting, sustainable energy sources for everything else. Burning oil to charge your car's lithium batteries doesn't seem to make much sense by itself, and that's what we're doing now.
Mar 05 · 2 months ago
5 Later Comments ↓
🚀 stack [OP] · Mar 05 at 14:40:
in the US about 20% of electricity is from burning coal [EPA], 60% from all hydrocarbons...
Driving around in electric cars here is like running a hose from your tailpipe to your underprivileged neighbor's house. All while being all smug about environmentalism.
At least my car burns gas. not coal.
👻 darkghost · Mar 05 at 15:59:
I think about efficiency. A small mobile engine must run over a large rpm as dictated by the driving needs. The efficiency of the engine is full of compromises on size, weight, power, and operating range. A power plant can and has be engineered and fine tuned to run at peak efficiency all the time. Rather than heat being a waste product, it is used to boil water to produce the power.
The electric motor itself is very efficient in converting energy to motion without wasting as much energy as heat. This is why you see efficiencies reported as being >100 mpg equivalent. (Equivalency is calculated as the amount of chemical energy in a gallon of gas, about 33 kWh.)
It's such an energy loss in an engine that it's more energy efficient to burn gasoline in a power plant and use that to charge an EV (accepting all transmission losses and electrical charging/discharging inefficiencies) than it is to burn in an engine.
🚀 stack [OP] · Mar 05 at 16:07:
True. But just to argue a bit more I would guess that gain is largely offset by battery inefficiency. And if replacing a working vehicle any comparison is not good.
👻 darkghost · Mar 05 at 16:14:
Batteries are pretty good if they're actually managed (unlike the Leaf). But you're 100% right. Don't get rid of a working vehicle just because there's something else out there. That's the most wasteful thing you can do.
🚀 stack [OP] · Mar 05 at 16:18:
I was surprised to see 90%+ theoretical efficiency! Things are improving. But enough optimism.
Original Post
The Evil of Action — I was reminded by none.rip to think about stuff, and am still working it out. At some point I am afraid I will have written a manifesto, but here I am just spitballing. I am a crappy anarchist. I don't appreciate governments for the mass-scale murder and suffering (and to a lesser but tangible degree, corruption and lies) they cause and participate in. But I also don't feel a strong need to fight the State, as another and possibly worse State will take its place. As bad...