Fossil fuel cars make 'hundreds of times' more waste than electric cars | Hacker News Reader

Fossil fuel cars make 'hundreds of times' more waste than electric cars

theguardian.com

53 pointshochmartinez71 comments

Not exactly a fair comparison as it doesn't appear to be counting the generation of the electricity for the EV.

However, EV's still win by a large margin. It's a lot easier to make one big powerplant clean, efficient, and cost effective rather than a million little engines that have to make tradeoffs for weight/size/performance etc...

Plus you can power an electric car with solar panels as long as it doesn't have to carry them around. Over time the grid will become more and more green, while gas cars will always have to burn their fuel.

In principle you can carry the panels with the car. How useful that is in practice will have to wait for this to actually be released, and this model in particular can’t even in principle serve anyone who drives even a little more than 89% of the miles per year of the mean US driver (12k/13.8k = 88.888…%), but in principle cars can take their PV with them: https://www.topgear.com/car-news/electric/lightyear-one-long...

But given the right size and efficiency for a panel, a big rollable panel could give you power anywhere in the world which fuel cars could never do.

Not really, as we know the max theoretical power output of solar on earth. Given we know that generally best sun can do is approximately 1kw/square meter, Assuming you had 100 percent efficient conversion (we aren't close to that even with best solar panels today), we know its never going to be great for charging cars who have large energy requirements.

Even in the best possible case, very few people are going to charge a car directly from their own private solar source unless no other choices, it's just not remotely time efficient and likely never will be. To charge an empty 75kwh car battery in roughly 1 hr today you would need approximately 225 square meters of solar panel, assuming a pretty good ~30 percent efficiency rate and strong sun. In reality it will likely need even more panels, and this is all before you contend with shade, weather, night storage and so forth. For a car, private solar will likely never work well enough to become mainstream due to aforementioned solar energy transmission limits.

If you have the solar cells with your car, you don't need to charge the whole battery in one hour. You have to recharge during one day what you are using in your daily driving. Which is of course much less. In Germany a car drives less than 50 kilometers per day on average, so that is less than 10 kWh per day.

12 hours of sun, the best you can hope for any time soon is about 3kwh put back into the car. In other words, a few miles of range can be restored.

There is a reason no car manufacturer is currently seriously pursuing solar roofs - it's just too small a surface area to generate meaningful energy in a car context. The math doesn't work.

We might see systems (as we've seen in past) where solar helps power accessories on the 12v system (AC/in car entertainment etc), but its not going to meaningfully affect range of the vehicle or help top up the traction battery.

> 12 hours of sun, the best you can hope for any time soon is about 3kwh put back into the car. In other words, a few miles of range can be restored.

Horizontal solar radiation is 3 kWh/m^2/day, in Germany. 5 m^2 of PV on the car in the article I linked to. 0.25-ish wH/mile is roughly what Teslas get. That works out as 60 miles times the cell efficiency per day, call it 12-24 miles in practice with 20-40% efficient cells. Matches the article pretty well, considering how far north Germany is.

> no car manufacturer is currently seriously pursuing solar roofs

I literally linked to a car manufacturer doing just that :P

> I literally linked to a car manufacturer doing just that :P

You literally linked to a car tech startup whose unproven prototype technology has shipped in exactly zero production cars, yes ;) There is no car manufacturer doing this meaningfully today, and again likely won't be soon.

> To charge an empty 75kwh car battery in roughly 1 hr today you would need approximately 225 square meters of solar panel

Yes, though most people don’t need to do that. Average miles driven in the USA per year is 13500, and this car (“in a desert”) would generate 12,000.

Yes shade, climate, etc. is relevant, but it’s also true that a significant minority of people just won’t drive the way you’re talking about. (Such people shouldn’t be spending 100k on a car, but that’s a separate issue).

Citing the time to charge an empty car is such a disingenuous argument; if you have ever lived with an EV you'd know that's very rarely what you do. Instead you top off what you consumed earlier, typically once daily. So unless you are counting the very atypical cross-county drive, you don't need nearly that much.

That said, I don't believe carrying panels around to be a very practical nor attractive option.

> Citing the time to charge an empty car is such a disingenuous argument; if you have ever lived with an EV you'd know that's very rarely what you do.

I've been very annoyed by online discourse that ignores that simple fact, but in this case the primary utility of a portable option would be on that cross-country drive. If you're just making small trips and topping it up, you're no better off than if you just charged overnight at home.

Fair point; still impractical for most situations.

I _have_ seen non-EV RVs with mounted panels (charging while driving) and more to be unfolded while parked for both shade and more power. They used the power for fridges etc, but not for locomotion. Seemed totally reasonable to me.

Some armchair math:

Energy required to fully charge a Tesla: 50kwh [1]

Average electricity output from solar: 200w/meter squared [2]

50000/200 = 250 square meters of solar for 1 hour 250/8 = 31.5 square meters of solar for 8 hours (typical day)

Number of cars on the planet: 1.42 billion [3]

1.42b * 31.5 = 44.375 billion square meters of solar needed to recharge all the cars on the planet, if they were all charging at the same time.

Total cost for just the solar panels: $177 billion [4]

Not to mention the land purchase and infrastructure investment to carry that much extra electricity every day.

1. https://www.motorbiscuit.com/how-much-does-it-cost-charge-te... 2. https://www.theecoexperts.co.uk/solar-panels/how-much-electr.... 3. https://www.rfidtires.com/how-many-cars-world.html#:~:text=P.... 4. https://www.solarpowerfam.com/cost-of-solar-panels-per-squar... $4 for best cost.

So that's an argument in favor of it then?

However most cars in the world do not drain a whole charge each day (i.e.) only a small percentage of the 1.42 billion cars will drive 300 miles each day ! Besides, home roof solar can easily charge small EV cars. Please see this story : https://restofworld.org/2021/tesla-vs-tiny-cars/

Funny that nobody even considers the health issues of always having these exaust pipes spewing out toxic fumes...

EVs are just better and more green, don't even know how's that a question.

I think re: power generation as such, that the important point with EVs is that they decouple the car from the particular details of how it's powered. Electricity is fungible, and power generation can become more green without needing to tinker with the inner workings of the cars that use it.

Sometimes science needs to prove water is wet, because someone else with deep pockets is trying to convince the world that contrary to the obvious, it's dry.

off-topic, but by definition, is water wet? "Covered or saturated with water or another liquid." Would one consider an object covered or saturated in itself?

From an environmental perspective, petrochemical industrial activity is certainly not trivially comparable “by weight” to the industrial activity for using lithium, cobalt, neodymium, etc.

That said, I still like this comparison because it is simple, and all that stuff itself needs to be transported all over the world, which makes a big difference.

There are enormous environmental and human rare earth mining costs to assumedly "clean" and "green" electric cars, and solar panels.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20150402-the-worst-place-....

I feel like that's only surprising with a very naive worldview that everything is either 'good' or 'bad' in all things. It's like people who act all shocked and betrayed that electric cars use grid power.

"Only about 30kg of raw material will be lost over the lifecycle of a lithium ion battery used in electric cars once recycling is taken into account, compared with 17,000 litres of oil, according to analysis by Transport & Environment (T&E) seen by the Guardian."

The key seems to be "once recycling is taken into account". Does anyone know if many batteries are currently being recycled? Is recycling economically viable without a technological leap?

The article is citing Transport & Environment[1] publication on the subject. However, they're only talking about recycling. They neglect to mention how much resources will be needed to generate that energy used to charge those vehicles.

1. https://www.transportenvironment.org/publications/batteries-...

Or the other materials which an EBV will use - ignoring that makes me think the original report is biased.

'hundreds of times' that's silly. Car industry once again luring people to buy new cars. Better solution would be making cars that can be repair & standardize easy to replace parts. But all what their doing is to prevent from car fixing on your own & making parts thats fits only to specific one model. Sometimes you can't even change your oil because you need to buy a special tool.

is it possible to have working EVs at say USD 4200 based on indian prices? https://www.renault.co.in/cars/renault-kwid/kwid-price.html select a random state and city. 400,000 INR.

think how the indian consumer sees this EV calculation. 400K via financing is say 10-25% upfront. Then the balance over say 4-6 years. a monthly fuel cost of 5-10K INR + maintenance is "Affordable" for car buyers in india. This is the lowest end of the spectrum. For these people, an EV with 100Km range is more than sufficient because fast chargers are starting to come up but the cars need to be cost competitive.

Right now the cheapest EV car in india is around 1.4 Mil INR or 19000 USD.

This is a huge jump from the entry barrier into ICE car and an EV.

A reasonable mid level car "hyundai i20" starts at ₹ 679,900 or USD 9000.

Please see 'Tiny' EV cars which could work in most small towns and cities in developing countries : https://restofworld.org/2021/tesla-vs-tiny-cars/

This seems superficial. Exotic materials going into batteries have their own 'waste' impact.

And the volumes are tiny compared the waste from oil production and combustion. There are a lot of efforts to get away from cobalt and some of the other problematic materials so their impact will probably not grow linearly with EV adoption.

hundreds of times more waste??? I suspect there's some number fudging going on here. Probably to the order of a few hundred. I can confidently state that a metal bookshelf uses 10 times less trees then a wooden one. I just ignore other pertinent facts. Shame on the Guardian.

How could we ensure EVs reduce global short term oil & gas drilling and consumption, instead of just just enabling additional car use on top of fossil powered cars?

Developing countries have car ownership numbers rising fast without western style EV subsidies, and it seems US gas guzzlers will stay in circulation for decades fed by cheap fuel there.

So by your analysis, the EU will be full electric within the next decade or so?

People drive much less and use much more fuel efficient cars in Europe. USA uses more gasoline pet capita than even Saudi Arabia, and 4-5 times what western europeans use: https://www.globalpetrolprices.com/articles/52/

Your source is inaccurate: https://www.worldometers.info/oil/oil-consumption-by-country

Europe uses less oil, but still uses a lot. Thinking that Europeans aren't guilty of carbon emissions is a flawed take. Why didn't you mention Europe in your comment? I'm assuming you live in Europe and think your people are infallible...

Gasoline vs oil overall, to zoom in to cars.

I think that short term oil and gas drilling is only going to decrease from increased green power, probably mostly solar in the current market. In the long run, ideally easily scaled green power drives the price of electricity down low enough that pretty much anything drawing from the grid is cheaper than burning fossil fuels.

Ideally through a carbon tax which, unfortunately, current politicians seem too cowardly to even propose.

Will people be taxed for exhaling CO2?

No. Actually, technically yes but very indirectly. The fossil fuels would be taxed which are agricultural inputs for the food which we eat and then exhale.

People who advocate for EVs should really opt for public transports if they actually want to make a difference.

Most EV owners do advocate for public transport, where feasible. But public transport isn't feasible everywhere. A bus or train filled with a single passenger is definitely more wasteful than a car with a single passenger. More so, when the car is electric, the bus not.

EV also has a long way to go to become feasible. It is currently only feasible in large metro areas, same as public transportation. However, EVs have a long way to go before it becomes affordable for every class of citizens.

You also cannot compare the public transportation occupancy in off-peak hours to EV occupancy. They haul orders of magnitude more people during peak hours. Also, they cost less to maintain when you look at the infrastructure (roads and highways etc.)

Choose your fighter wisely:

[ ] ELECTRIC CAR GOOD

[ ] ELECTRICITY BAD

This is a hot garbage of a take.

No one is saying "ELECTRICITY BAD", but futile uses of electricity (most of which is derived from extremely polluting fossil fuels[1]) is bad.

[1] https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/images/outle...

The vast majority of electrical generation coming online is renewables. The grid is rapidly becoming cleaner, something they does not occur with fossil burning machinery (which burns fossil fuels for its entire lifetime).

Electrify everything (EVs, heat pumps, water heating, etc), and we’ll arrive at 100% clean generation and consumption around the same time.

This is verifiably false - https://i.imgur.com/2M67mwx.png

Source: https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/us-energy-facts/

https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=46416 ("Renewables account for most new U.S. electricity generating capacity in 2021", January 2021)

https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/images/figure_6_01_c...

https://www.yahoo.com/now/renewables-dominate-u-power-capaci... ("Renewables To Dominate New U.S. Power Capacity In 2021")

https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights... ("US renewable pipeline poised to add 172.5 GW through 2024")

https://www.snl.com/articles/406456174.png

https://www.snl.com/articles/406456177.png

Perhaps you misinterpreted 'coming online'?

The statement refers to NEW energy generation, with the implication that renewable/green energy sources will eventually outpace fossil fuels as old plants are decommissioned and alternatives come online for baseload (batteries/other storage).

It's also worth noting that the share of energy generated by fossil fuels can continue growing without their respective share of capacity growing, because as power demand grows we don't just build new plants for every additional watt. Instead, the ones that already exist increase their output. So though most of the new capacity is renewable, even for a bit into the future the absolute amount of power generated by fossil fuels will likely increase.

Sorry to challenge your fossil fuels bad take.

The grid, and thus electric cars run on fossil fuel. Contrary to your belief, expensive unereliables such as solar, and wind cannot run the grid by definition. Solar and wind are great, when they are up.

Case in point: Germany. Shut down carbon free, emission free, reliable, cheap, safe nuclear. Subsidize, install solar, wind. Find out solar & wind are unreliable. Fire up new coal power plants. Increase emissions due to constant ramp up and ramp down of carbon plants (similar to stop and go traffic on the highway). Increase cost.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/02/10/is-germany-making-too-m...

> The grid, and thus electric cars run on fossil fuel. Contrary to your belief, expensive unereliables such as solar, and wind cannot run the grid by definition. Solar and wind are great, when they are up.

Solar and wind are the cheapest electrical generation technologies, even when backed by battery storage [1]. Not that Germany didn't misstep by shuttering nuclear for coal, but they also have transmission challenges between high renewable potential geographies and load centers [2].

[1] https://www.lazard.com/media/451419/lazards-levelized-cost-o...

[2] https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/germanys-stress...

>even when backed by battery storage We have seconds of grid battery storage in the US.

>Solar and wind are the cheapest electrical generation technologies What do you think happens 90% of the time when solar & wind are not available in sufficient capacity? People shut off their lights, laundry machine, and heater/air conditioning?

We absolutely do have far too little grid battery in the US, and we haven't installed enough solar to provide power for most of the day. How do you get from there to 'and therefore we should give up on making more'?

The person you replied to linked to something demonstrating that solar is cheap even when counting the cost of sufficient battery storage. Perhaps you disagree with that assessment? If so, the fact that sufficient green power hasn't been built isn't an argument against building more.

> The person you replied to linked to something demonstrating that solar is cheap even when counting the cost of sufficient battery storage

As far as I'm aware this is a purely theoretical analysis since the amount of batteries required is significantly more than current lithium battery production worldwide.

> the amount of batteries required is significantly more than current lithium battery production worldwide.

Indeed, hence why Tesla is building and consuming as many cells as possible. They are bootstrapping utility scale storage supply chains as part of their EV endeavors, and every cell they produce is sold. With that said, overbuilt renewables, renewable curtailment, and robust transmission infra (HVDC, interconnects, etc) will all be components of a clean energy grid.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/03/100-tesla-gigafactori... ("100 Tesla Gigafactories could power the entire world with sustainable energy")

https://www.utilitydive.com/news/tremendous-demand-for-stati... ("'Tremendous demand for stationary storage' outstrips Tesla's 2020 supply capability, Musk says")

"Clean" energy is a fallacy, and a greens marketing ploy.

Solar, wind, batteries all have environmental costs, as do all other sources of energy & energy storage.

Unfortunately, hit pieces like the OP's share from the Guardian do not objectively compare benefits vs costs & risks.

Absolutely, and that would have been an objection to the argument.

How do you get to we should base our system on the failed Germany model? Do you want to pay ~triple the avg US price for electricity? What do you think happens to the not small segment of the population struggling to make ends meet?

The Germans invented a new term in the context of this issue - energy poverty.

Do you want to pay more for your electricity, produce more emissions so we can virtue signal that our electric production is solar & wind?

This approach means that you are depriving a billion people on Earth of reliable access to electricity. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_a9RP0J7PA

>How do you get from there to 'and therefore we should give up on making more'? I do not claim this. I am stating facts in the face of unreliable energy dogma. Let the free market compete.

Germany completely botched their distribution and storage systems, dropping clean nuclear without a plan in place to ensure that its replacement would work. The nation of Germany, however, did not invent the concept of installing solar panels, nor do they have a monopoly. I propose building more solar panels, ideally by subsidizing clean energy. What works best for that is, of course, best left to the market to decide.

Beyond that, why would adding more generative capacity deprive a billion people of electricity? Are you imagining that I think that tomorrow should mark the end of fossil fuels? Regardless of the fact that yes, non-emitting generation could provide power to just about everyone on Earth with capture to balance out the rest, that is just not what I was suggesting.

Counterpoint: $40/MWh power including battery storage

https://www.energy-storage.news/news/developer-8minute-says-...

There is no grid scale storage in the US.

http://css.umich.edu/factsheets/us-grid-energy-storage-facts...

* In 2020, the U.S. had over 23.2 GW of capacity in energy storage compared to 1,100 GW of total installed generation capacity.

* Globally, installed energy storage capacity totaled 173.6 GW.

* 1,355 energy storage projects were operational globally in 2020, with 11 projects under construction. 40% of operational projects are located in the U.S.

* California leads the U.S. in energy storage with 215 operational projects (4.2 GW), followed by Hawaii, New York, and Texas.

https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/broad-reach-pow...

"Two of the planned 10 MW batteries are up and running already, with a total of 10 expected online by year's end, Vavrik said. That means that BRP and Key Capture are running neck and neck for operational capacity in Texas. The title of biggest battery operator in the state could change hands repeatedly based on the order in which those companies' projects wrap up.

The broader story is that multiple experienced energy investors are converging on Texas simultaneously. The interconnection queue contains more than two dozen batteries that are each larger than 100 megawatts; some go up to 300, 400, even 500 megawatts."

Thanks for sharing this info. One critical detail is missing. Context.

Take the US case. 23.2 GW "capacity". Over what period of time? A second? A minute? An hour? A day? A month? A year?

Let's take a case study of California, the "leader" in energy storage in the US. California removes reliable and cheap organic power plants, and is surprised to find at periods of peak demand when energy is needed most (heat waves, cold spells) the system falls apart. [By the way, removing reliable access to electricity is how you expose the most vulnerable segments of the population to danger of life and safety.]

"The state’s grid operator blamed the blackouts on “a perfect storm” of extreme heat and unusually high demand, as well as a drought that’s limiting hydropower resources and a decline in electricity imports from neighboring states also struggling to keep air conditioners humming. Compounding the problem, 1 gigawatt of wind unexpectedly went offline Saturday, along with a gas plant."....

"“In some cases, we have built a reliability plan that isn’t completely realistic.”"....

"The dearth of battery storage has long been a key barrier to transitioning to a green grid. Though the price of batteries has fallen significantly, they’re still not in widespread use. California only had enough to tackle about 1% of Monday’s peak load forecast, "

California storage cannot handle 1% of battery needs. Please keep in mind when reviewing assumptions, claims, and statements about solar & wind grid.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-17/californi...

You're free to your opinion.

Enjoy your religion.

I feel a disconnect between what you say and the article you linked:

> Fire up new coal power plants

"This whole calculation is changing dramatically, however, as Germany moves to shutter its coal-fired plants (the country’s last will close, at the latest, in 2038) and nuclear power stations (which will be disconnected from the grid in 2022). On Jan. 1, 11 coal-fired plants—nine in North Rhine-Westphalia and two near Hamburg—went dark, and others will soon follow."

> Increase emissions due to constant ramp up and ramp down of carbon plants

"And after a period of stagnation in the 2010s, the greenhouse emissions of the world’s fourth-largest economy have been dropping again, last year by around 80 million tons of carbon dioxide. That puts Germany 42 percent down from its 1990 emissions level, thus surpassing its decade target by 2 percentage points."

Unlikely, since their total costs of ownership are similar.

In what world does the cost of something correlate at all with it's environmental impact?

The claim here isn't environmental impact (though that is also strongly correlated with cost), it's mass of waste. Moving mass around costs money. Making a factor of "hundreds" disappear would be extremely unusual, and in fact does not occur in this case.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com