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Comment by _0w8t | Hacker News Reader

It is hard to expect a different answer from a person who works for a company heavily invested into hybrid cars.

What he does not mention and what the war in Ukraine has shown again is that dependence on foreign oil is just bad. Any engine that consumes petrol or natural gas products prolongs that. A purely electrical car can use electricity from coal that is abundant and much more evenly distributed on the planet than oil and gas. Moreover, when an electrical car use electricity from the modern coal power plant, the end result is less CO2 per distance driven than the corresponding petrol car.

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This is important. It's weird that there are very few discussion here in Japan that relying on oil producing country is bad. We import almost all oil from mid east countries. It's fragile.

> What he does not mention and what the war in Ukraine has shown again is that dependence on foreign oil is just bad.

Make your own carbon neutral synthetic fuel. You're going to need jet fuel at the very least:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-10/efuel-plant-proposed-...

Or we will have to travel less or more slowly using solar zeppelins.

Or battery powered plains with in the air charging using microwaved renewable battery.

Or we need better batteries the necessary energy densities are hypothetically possible with a theoretical limit of 2,700 Wh/kg of Li-S https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsenergylett.9b02574 . Chnages to mission profile with Aerotowing for take-off might also help a lot.

It's not "or", it's "and". You can pootle along in the zeppelin. I'll take the jet.

The olden zeppelins hardly “pootled” though. They were doing 120kmh at cruise speed. Im sure with modern technology you could up those numbers to 200kmh+. Considering how bad flying is for the environment, I would gladly make the trade to arrive a bit later for a more comfortable, environmentally friendly ride.

This coming from someone who flies 20+ times a year.

Here is the modern technology:

https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/airlander-10-air-nost...

https://www.aerospacetestinginternational.com/news/electric-...

See how you feel about it when crossing the pacific.

We will se whether my generation let you take a jet at all.

What a truly bizarre thing to say.

It’s not synthetic if it’s a biofuel

Read first, comment second. Works better that way.

Initially read the article and actually read it again just now - with what angle are you making this comment?

HIF Global's project is not a biofuel. Maybe try reading it a third time?

It's not quite so simple though is it? Electic cars require a lot more resource intensive mining to make, and I believe you are looking at around 50,000 miles before a Tesla is better for C02 ouput than a prius? And an electic Hummer is going to be worse for the environment than a Prius no matter how many miles it's driven?

Despite how hard it is to get the lithium and how easy it is to get the gasoline, replacing 50 tons of gasoline with 15 kg of lithium is almost guaranteed to be less resource intensive.

The 50,000 mile number is based on calculations based on when batteries cost > $300/kWh to make. A large part of the reduction to the current cost of $100/kWh is reducing the amount of energy needed to make the batteries. Current estimates are under 10,000 miles. But they compare like-for-like, and a Model 3 is bigger than a Prius, so it'd be over 10,000 miles.

Your last statement stands alone. Yes, if we convinced every pickup truck driver to drive plug in Prius's...

Not to be trumping anyone's horn here, but resource dependence seems like a very uninformed argument in favour of batteries. Check out where the resources for those come from.

A battery that needs replacing once every 15 years and can be charged with local resources is comparable to a stockpile of 15 years worth of gasoline.

Any place that has a stockpile of 15 years of gasoline can reasonably claim to be independent from the vagaries of the fossil fuel market.

Newer generations batteries in production right now are not using any cobalt

Finally (the end goal), EVs powered by solar are completely CO2 free. If own a house and have a solar installation that covers EV charging, you are CO2 free.

Only if the solar covers all your energy usage, the real issue is when the sun is shining, generally people are out and about and their EVs are not charging during that time.

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