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Comment by Brakenshire | Hacker News Reader

Very good point, the political power of coal seems to be as much about cultural concepts of masculinity as anything else. It already employs many fewer people than alternative technogies:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-16/solar-bea...

I also wonder whether the talk of coal being dirty and dangerous actually boosts its appeal to some voters. At the least solar and wind need to be seen as rugged. Maybe they should also play up scale, the latest offshore wind turbines, for instance, are absolutely massive.

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> I also wonder whether the talk of coal being dirty and dangerous actually boosts its appeal to some voters.

For example, see the attitudes around "Rollin' Coal". Practitioners cite "American freedom" and a stand against "rampant environmentalism" as reasons for coal rolling (aka "Prius repellent"). I'm not sure what argument one could make to change a coal roller's mind.

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

Appeal to masculinity. "Real men" maximize horsepower, and coal rolling reduces horsepower.

Someone who's gone to the trouble of modifying their vehicle in that manner may be beyond the point of reasonable discussion. On the other hand, that's likely to be a pretty small proportion of people, overall.

You could certainly appeal to their appreciation for reliability. Consider this, does an electric vehicle have ANY emissions reducing equipment at all that one must maintain?

The unreliability of the emissions gear is usually what comes up when I talk to diesel folks. Rolling coal is a fun extra for them.

Just musing now, but the diesel guys today seem to say a lot of the same things the gas guys said in the 80s with their EGRs and cats and vacuum lines galore under the hood destroying their reliability. Gas got variable timing and direct injection, and is no longer so fragile. Maybe there's some room left for innovation there, maybe not.

> Consider this, does an electric vehicle have ANY emissions reducing equipment at all that one must maintain?

Yes, you need to keep it clean, drag affects all things equally, and dirty anything means more drag.

Jail.

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