Comment by irthomasthomas | Hacker News Reader

Comment by irthomasthomas | Hacker News Reader

A car requires about as much, or even more CO2 for its manufacturing, than a lifetime of driving. And EV manufacturing uses 40% more CO2 than ICE cars [0]. Naturally, that difference comes from the batteries and the extra weight needed to accommodate them. Batteries are dense and heavy, carbon intensive in mining and manufacturing. In addition, batteries are also ecologically harmful at every stage of their lifecycle.

So, EV cars take a long time before CO2 savings are seen, and they may not be seen at all. Accounting for the current mix of clean Vs dirty energy in our electricity supply, nations would need to invest many $trillions in building a clean energy network, before EV cars become a net negative CO2 force. But that would also require intense mining and manufacturing, which, if not revolutionised, first, will necessarily cause a dramatic surge in CO2 production. There is no way around this problem, except to clean up manufacturing and supply chain, first.

Selling people EVs is trying to solve the problem from the wrong end. But it perpetuates the myth that CO2 levels, and/or climate change are a simple function of consumer choice.

[0] "The emissions from Materials production and refining of the ICE are roughly 40 per cent less than for the BEV" https://www.volvocars.com/images/v/-/media/project/contentpl...

Internal combustion engines put plenty of actual pollutants into the air, not just CO2, and moreover, they do that directly where everyone lives, not off in some remote manufacturing site. While I'm not sure how to quantify the health impact of the resulting air quality issues, it isn't nothing. This has been most of the past impetus for why California has such stringent emissions standards compared to other regulating bodies. The effect is especially pronounced in Los Angeles and Orange Counties because of the unique geography being totally surrounded by mountains and ocean. I mentioned it yesterday when this same bill passing was posted about then, but we used to have fairly regular "smog days" when I was a kid in the 80s. Outdoor activity just totally shut down. Kids weren't even allowed to play outside. It's not nearly that bad any more because of decades of strong emissions standards, but it's still bad for an American city.

Of course, a lot of the problem isn't even from family passenger vehicles. It's all the trucking taking place because of the ports. If mitigation measures don't include switching all of those onto non-combustion engines as well, it won't be nearly as effective.

The link from UCS supplied below by @ZeroGravitas seems superior to the one from Volvo that you give, and your summary of the link you give is not evenhanded.

In particular: The EV/ICE comparison in both documents relies heavily on the energy mix that goes into grid electricity, ad this is somewhat a free parameter. California will have a lot of wind and solar, and this will tend to tip the balance toward EVs. Your summary has emphasized a more fossil-intense scenario in the Volvo report.

I also feel like your argument of “don’t do this, do this other thing first” is not sane regarding climate change. We need to be pursuing all effective strategies, and setting EV roadmap expectations is one area where California can show leadership. This has been necessary before, e.g. with mileage and emissions.

Based on how @ZeroGravitas quoted me, he must have replied about 30 seconds after I posted, and 30 seconds before I edited my opening line to "A car requires about as much, or even more CO2 for its manufacturing, than a lifetime of driving". So, we are in agreement on that. But, it is clear that he did not skim the report from Volvo before replying and insulting me. I think Volvos report is more relevant, here, because it's actually realistic. Volvo is dedicated to transitioning their busines to EVs, and they are in a unique position, as they manufacture an identical EV and ICE car on the same manufacturing line. They can, therefore, compare like for like.

Nothing else he mentioned seems relevant to the central issue. That manufacturing to support this ICE ban will result in a surge of CO2, that you believe will be offset in the future, when we have improved the energy mix of our grid.

For clarity, most of the world is not as progressive as California; globally, clean energy is about 5% of the grid. Nuclear is another 5%, and they plan on reducing this. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-energy-substitutio...

Switching to new EV cars will dump vast quantities of CO2 into the atmosphere. And it is hard to see how that does not accelerate climate change? Front loading a 60% CO2 fee and hoping to offset it over, what, 20 years? The batteries won't last that long. Plus, you need to manufacture the solar panels and wind turbines, and that also is CO2 intensive and missing from your calculations.

> Switching to new EV cars will dump vast quantities of CO2 into the atmosphere. And it is hard to see how that does not accelerate climate change? Front loading a 60% CO2 fee and hoping to offset it over, what, 20 years?

My link, and every sensible discussion of this over the last decade has answered your rhetorical question.

The EV pays itself back in CO2 after a year. Every year after that it offsets enough CO2 to build another EV, which then can do the same.

We had this whole conversation about solar panels and wind turbines too. They also have short and shrinking CO2 paybacks. Weve passed the point where we were in carbon "debt" for these techs and are in the payback phase.

First, this is a California law so the grid source mix in California rather than the “world” scenario in the Volvo report seems relevant. (That report gives 3 scenarios, but your commments seem derived from their “world” fuel scenario which is not representative of California.)

The link you just supplied repeats this error on your part. Here is a California-relevant link:

https://www.energy.ca.gov/news/2022-02/new-data-indicates-ca...

Note especially that the state is working hard to simultaneously move the grid mix to renewables.

Second, I think your notion of a “switch” is getting it wrong. This is a transition over the next 13 years, of new car sales. It’s not front loading, it’s a gradual replacement. The UCS link shows a 1-2 year break even point on CO2, not 20 years.

I really think your analysis here is on the wrong track, and that California is doing some solid work, both with promoting renewables, and on signposting a transition to electric power, in the absence of good Federal leadership.

See also, the recent moves to curtail natural gas hookups (fought by the gas industry) and to monitor and limit excessive methane emissions.

For almost all cases, this is far from true. For a typical ICE car, the manufacturing emissions tends to be around 10%-20% of the lifetime emissions the vehicle. You can see the exact breakdown for a variety of cars, and comparison to EVs at https://climobil.connecting-project.lu

And, other than that one Volvo study, the other studies show that while it does take more CO2 to produce an EV, the improved efficiency allows the EV to payoff that extra CO2 within about 12,000 miles of driving which is about a year for for the typical American driver.

I agree. The problem EV’s are trying to solve is to save car culture.

I wonder how drastically this calculus will change once solid state batteries are a thing. From everything I read, the Achilles heel of EV adoption are the current state of battery tech. Seems that this will either be a very good or very bad move, all depends on how quickly SSB's reach the market.

It's actually worse for EVs. Any gas powered car has a range of 400+ miles. Only one or two EVs have a range even close to that. When you look the comparison between a gas car and an EV car having equivalent range, the CO2 payback is 200K miles+.

Ponder this a moment. How many batteries will last 200,000 miles? What is the average mileage put on a car per year? 10,000 to 15,000? That is a payback in 13 to 20 years per EV. The expected EV battery life is 8 to 10 years.

"Something is rotten in the state of Denmark …" Marcellus, Shakespeare’s Hamlet

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