Enough with The "Electric Cars Pollute More" Bullshit Already

"And while yes of course, Germany’s energy policy is “ruinously” expensive, as anyone who has waded through the decrepit ruins of the once-proud city of Stuttgart can attest, that makes total definite sense and is true, the entire argument falls flat on its face in a bizarre pratfall just as soon as an ounce of thought is put into it. Electrical grids powered by wind and solar do not just completely collapse as soon as the wind stops blowing or the sun stops shining. Not only are there stacks of traditional batteries to store excess energy for those low times, humanity has devised ingenious ways to store massive amounts of power in ways you might not think, just to get around this notion"

The author of this article doesn't know what they're talking about. The amount of energy we can store just isn't enough to supply the grid when wind and solar stop, and probably won't be for quite a long time if ever. (The "ingenious ways" they're referring to is pumped hydroelectric, which suffers from a severe lack of suitable sites, most of which are already in use. It's also probably one of the first things people think of as a solution.)

While the WSJ take may have presented a somewhat one-sided take on the findings, those findings do exist and his presentation is just as one-sided. For example, his comparison to his Tesla is a vehicle with 384 grams of CO2/mile.

Well, that's probably a gasoline powered SUV or truck in the US.

In Germany, you typically have smaller cars, much smaller engines and, well, Diesels, which these days easily manage around 5l / 100km, and that's in the range of 120 g of CO2/100km. So definitely competitive with the Tesla and with those small differences, differences in production become more relevant.

The studies I saw indicated that when driven long distances, Diesels are (still?) somewhat more efficient than EVs. Over short distances, EVs are better, but then you typically aren't driving a lot, so the extra production costs may not be amortised over the life of the vehicle.

The best case for EVs are vehicles that are constantly moving, but only small distances with lots of stop-and-go. So public transit, taxis, etc.

That said, I'd still prefer an EV if possible: quieter, fewer/no emissions at point of use (so less concentration of emissions in the cities), amazing torque, fewer parts, etc. And once we go fully nuclear/fusion it becomes a real no-brainer.

And electric propulsion for airplanes is also really interesting: short power bursts possible without much weight penalty for cruise, cost, reliability, noise (big issue in Germany, the only country in the world where people can see airplane "noise")

It’s a mistake to engage in debate with, or even to read, the editorial pages of the WSJ. It is a propaganda operation.

This article made me wonder, if overnight everyone switched to electric vehicles what would happen to the coal industry? I'm not advocating for either, but would we see a significant resurgence? I'm unsure if electric vehicle use is factored into the daily requirements for places that are ramping up renewable energy...and if not I can only assume the requirement for every household charging their cars is massive.