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Comment by brownbat | Hacker News Reader

EVs in China produce two to five times the amount of smog as gas vehicles, because the supporting energy mix is so dirty.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/in-coal-powered-c...

Should be good long term, if China realizes other energy sourcing goals, just... EVs alone don't fix everything.

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Yet somehow this study leaves out how much China is adding solar and wind energy to it's supply.

Infact China is closing down it's worse coal plants.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_China http://www.bbc.com/news/business-40341833 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-19/china-add... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_China https://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/13/china-and-us-lead-way-with-w...

> Yet somehow this study leaves out how much China is adding solar and wind energy to it's supply.

Ahem...

> The good news is that China has shown a firm commit- ment to prompt renewable energy use, improving energy efficiency and reducing pollutant emissions from power plants. Great efforts have been, and will continue to be, made by the Chinese government to reduce the emissions of power plants, such as setting an aggressive target to reduce national SO2 emissions by 10% from 2005 to 2010 by installing FGD and closing a large number of small generating units.

They project out to 2030 and examine different international assumptions about realistic future energy mixes.

But yeah, it's still an optimistic story long term. They'll also need things like low rolling resistance tires and new braking tech to reduce pm 2.5, and reforms in ag, industry, and home heating. But every step is part of it.

http://www.tsinghua.edu.cn/publish/ess/7778/2012071915174608...

Is the headline really substantiated in the article? The key part is:

> A series of studies by Tsinghua University, whose alumni includes the incumbent president, showed electric vehicles charged in China produce two to five times as much particulate matter and chemicals that contribute to smog versus gas-engine cars. Hybrid vehicles fare little better.

Producing particulate matter 50 miles away from a city is not remotely the same as producing it 2ft from a pavement. I'm not sure about smog, though, is the effect regional or local?

China has 20 nuclear plants under construction:

http://www.scmp.com/business/companies/article/2107354/china...

The new AP1000s are almost done. Hopefully they get the costs under control so they can build 100 of them. Bill Gates’ Terrapower is developing the next gen plants in China:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2015/10/02/bill-gate...

And after those 20 plants are built, it'll increase their nuclear capacity to 58 GWe.... out of 1245 GWe total energy capacity, of which 73% is from coal. For comparison, they produce 34 GWe from two dams: Three Gorges and Yellow River.

Nuclear is kind of a drop in the bucket.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-pro...

Nuclear power in China will pass the United States within 10 years:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-31/china-s-n...

Coal is expected to drop to 54%.

How old is the linked article? China appears to doubling its solar power capacity every year:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_China

also:

https://youtu.be/T4LheD1l2c4?t=723

It is only the last year or two that coal consumption has fallen, it is still at a very high level, and high penetration of the market. Although you're right in the medium to long term.

But they can upgrade those plants to capture some of the pollution or replace them with renewables.. which they'll eventually do.

That's a lot easier than replacing everyones cars. The article talks about ending sales... it's going to take another 10-15 years before they're off the road.

That will be fixed long before fossil fuel cars are banned.

EVs could well be their strategy for distributed storage of their planned renewable energy revolution. A 20-30kwh battery can easily supply a home for a full day, supporting the grid at peak times and charging in the sunny hours.

The amount of renewable like solar they are adding I expect it to be a good thing plus from what I gather this ban will be in the future maybe 10 years down the road. By then their energy mix will be quite different.

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