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Comment by bit_logic | Hacker News Reader

For coal, maybe the focus on climate change and CO2 is the wrong way to fight this. Tell people to reduce coal to reduce CO2 for climate change and you will get a strong split along D and R lines. Tell people we need to reduce coal to reduce NOX, SO2, particulates, smog, things that people can see, breathe, and has universal agreement that it hurts lungs and health and suddenly D and R doesn't matter. Everyone can get behind that, who can argue against pollution you can see in the sky? Especially if there's a clean alternative that's cheaper. Why not focus on this point more? By winning the fight on these grounds, you also indirectly win the CO2 fight for climate change.

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I think you overestimate the sanity of the current political climate on the right in the US. There is absolutely not going to be anything close to everyone getting behind cutting back on coal or any pollutant, regardless of how you sell it. There's morons out there specifically making their trucks spew black sludge into the air and bragging about it. The current president won with a large part of his message being bringing back coal. I don't think the details of the message are the problem, rationality is leagues away.

Democrats are just as irrational. By giving tax breaks to renewable energy, letting Priuses use the diamond lane, the whole solyndra scandal. They talk a good game, but strangely their utopian plans never quite work out, but their big government and tax hikes always stay. Both parties are the same.

Uh, no.

Why do you say that tax breaks to renewable energy or letting greener vehicles use the diamond lane is irrational?

I'll note two things, by the way

1. O&G companies also get tax subsidies.

2. The Republican led government of Texas approved giving electric cars the right to use the HOV lane with one person in the car, so you must thus acknowledge that they are at least as irrational

Subsidies? Not really.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/drillinginfo/2016/02/22/debunki...

When you open that argument with “what about the widows and orphans depending on MLP dividends”, I stop reading.

Are hybrids greener? They emit less NOx so I am in favour but is their total lifetime carbon lower than a pure ICE?

H ybrids "sort of" appear to be ahead in lower lifetime CO2. They key thing is that they higher GHG emmisions from the eletric grid, regionally, the less good hybrids look. But considering the trend of how fast wind, solar are lowering in cost, where coal isn't, I think the picture is getting better re: GHG emmisions for hybrids and electric, where gas IC engines are not, at least not as fast.

https://science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/everyday-m...

Original paper referenced above. https://afdc.energy.gov/files/pdfs/argonne_phev_evaluation_r...

In the conclusion: "The primary conclusion is that electrification of transportation significantly reduces petroleum energy use, but GHG emissions strongly depend on the electricity generation mix for battery recharging. "

If you place more load on a grid that's purposefully transitioning away from fossil fuels, the entirety of the extra load should properly be accounted under the carbon emissions of the dirty plants you're shutting down, because that will be delayed.

In other words, the marginal emissions caused by the extra load is the actual consequence, not the emissions proportional to that load.

But PHEVs in my opinion have an overlooked utility for demand dispatch and battery to grid transfers, even when compared to BEVs.

The entirety of a PHEVs battery can be used for either task.

A long range BEV that you use to commute may be put in a mode where the power company is free to decide when to charge the battery once it's above a user set minimum. This allows off demand to be shifted to follow renewable production.

But for a PHEV, that minimum is zero. While the battery isn't as big as a BEV, the portion set aside for this purpose may be as large. During a heat wave, they don't have to pull anything from the grid, and can in fact contribute. Dirty power, but much less impactful than building power stations for a few days a year.

The net result is a vehicle that acts as a BEV for commuting, is able to travel long distances without a supercharger, and allows the grid to tolerate higher renewable mixes.

I think it makes a ton of sense today. But the market is shifting so quickly, it may only for a short window.

>Hybrids "sort of" appear to be ahead in lower lifetime CO2...

I think that this is unnecessarily cautious, to the point of being misleading.

The right answer is "Hybrids ARE lower than ICEs when it comes to GHG emissions" - this is true in general and of all hybrids collectively. It may not be true in some rare individual cases, where the hybrid is not particularly efficient and the electricity is generated from coal (see figure ES1 in the Argonne paper you linked above).

I can get a tax rebate for purchasing an Oil-powered vehicle, or are you deliberately misreading what I posted?

Tax rebates for "going green" is irrational because it defies its own purpose! If EV's are great, they're great because they emit less NOx, and that should be the impetus to switch. If Democrats are the Superior party, and they know best, they won't need financial incentives (read: bribery) to promote the Superior Choice. But really by "incentivizing" various things, they are proving what they're actually about: pay-for-play.

People do not make choices based on all global facts. If everyone in the country bought a car that pollutes less, we're all better off. If only I buy a car that pollutes less, and everyone else does whatever, I am poorer but not healthier. Thus it makes sense to incentivize individual choices that benefit society.

Additionally, entrenched markets can be difficult to enter. If solar would win a fair race against petroleum, but it's starting centuries later, it may have no chance without initial subsidies.

> Tax rebates for "going green" is irrational because it defies its own purpose! If EV's are great, they're great because they emit less NOx, and that should be the impetus to switch.

"Impetus" is an issue of opinion, not rationality. Some people are incentivized by different things. But if the government as a whole wants less gas used, it can use money as a carrot.

I mean, if you want to call that "irrational" then basically all government spending or credits are irrational. Sales tax is irrational. Farm subsidies are irrational. The mortgage interest rate deduction is irrational. Military spending is irrational. Parks are irrational. Sports stadiums are irrational. Public universities are irrational. The term loses its meaning.

Everything is "pay for play" (as you put it) in a real economy. We, as represented by our elected government, pool our resources to get things that we can't get by individual action. This is like government 101, dude.

> Democrats are just as irrational. By giving tax breaks to renewable energy, letting Priuses use the diamond lane, the whole solyndra scandal.

Sorry, how exactly do you balance that? On one side, you have government encouragement of renewable energy, low emmission vehicles, and solar power (though on that one they got scammed). I can see arguments that the first two are bad policy, and the third is a straight up mistake (and fraud on the part of a few individuals). None seem "irrational".

On the other, you have a whole political party that has simply "decided" to reject long-settled consensus science on the basis of what they "want" to be true philosophically.

Really?

> giving tax breaks to renewable energy

Fossil fuels are subsidized by almost 5 trillion USD a year. How do you expect anything else to be able to compete?

http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=42940.0

For coal, maybe the focus on climate change and CO2 is the wrong way to fight this.

If an ideology forces people to deny established facts, that ideology is pernicious and pathological. I don't think such problems can be sidestepped. If it's come to "don't mention CO2 pollution or you'll offend" when it's literally threatening the planet, well, offending becomes necessary.

> Tell people to reduce coal to reduce CO2 for climate change and you will get a strong split along D and R lines.

Why? Seriously, for someone outside the US, why in the name of anything that is holy to anyone, would people actively try to destroy the planet and justify it with their ideology?

I mean, I get that you can have shares in a fossil fuel company, and you don't care if your children and grandchildren will have a place to live on. But I honestly do not understand why the split is "along D and R lines" — how does this have anything to do with political affiliation?

I think a lot of it comes down to the fact that a long time ago Al Gore being a major advocate for legislative change, and of course, if the other side of the aisle says something, it has to be wrong and bad. Simple partisanship.

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