Comment by photochemsyn | Hacker News Reader

Comment by photochemsyn | Hacker News Reader

Over the long term, well-designed ICE is not much of a problem. In this context, well-designed means that the only emissions are CO2 and water, which is achievable with proper engineering of the exhaust system (feeding incompletely combusted gases back into the engine, and eliminating NOx and ozone production).

The real issue is the fossil fuel sourcing of the hydrocarbons that go into the cars, trucks, jets, rockets and ships, as well as into industrial production of ammonia, steel, and various materials. Ultimately all the hydrocarbon feedstocks will have to come from capture and reduction of atmospheric CO2 to methane, RP1 jet fuel, etc.

It's really inevitable - even if climate wasn't a concern, eventually fossil fuel reserves will be depleted and even before then, the costs for new tech will be lower than for old tech (witness the end of the steam engine).

However, for most transportation needs, electric vehicles will be the preferable option, with exceptions for international jet travel, long-distance bulk shipping, and rockets for space launches (due to the much higher energy density of chemical fuels relative to battery storage).

The fuel concerns in Ukraine right now and the precariousness of the EV in crisis situations has made me rethink an all-ev future. Fuel cells and hybrids using the type of hydrocarbons you mention, are starting to make much more long-term sense to me. Alternatively, we should basically force houses to be able to sustain themselves and charge at least the inhabitants' cars, while decoupled from the grid for indefinite periods.

Why do hybrids make more sense than pure EV's? Any polity with solar panels and EV's can be completely independent.

I am talking about resiliency, so the point is the grid does not become a single point of failure for residential, industrial, commercial, and transportation. If you get trapped in a disaster zone because you can't charge, and the hybrid can add a couple gallons of hydrocarbons to move to safer ground, that matters. The best of all worlds would be plug-in hybrids which still have 100+ mile ev range, so that the hybrid part is mainly for emergencies.

If every single house and business had solar, then yes. But that is much less likely to happen than just upping the ev range on hybrids and using them very close to a backup solution, like a gas generator on a house.

Gas stations run on electricity, and in my personal experience none the of the ones in my area have generators.

I've got both an EV and a gasoline car. My EV is almost guaranteed to have 250 miles of range on the day of an emergency because it gets plugged in every night. OTOH my gasoline car might have 400 miles of range if I filled it up the day before, but it's just as likely to have 50 miles because it's sitting at an eighth of a tank.

An emergency evacuation also likely means traffic jams. An electric car goes further in low speed stop and go traffic than it does at highway speed. OTOH, a gasoline car can halve its range in stop and go traffic.

People with EVs in Ukraine have had big problems. One generator per 5k vehicles is not hard to do. It's not just about that one trip, but surviving long enough to actually be able to extricate yourself from a difficult situation. Traffic as you mentioned, and other very real dangers that mean you can't sit in traffic even if you wanted to. Sometimes you need to be able to move after waiting for an extended period of time in an isolated situation. etc.

>It's really inevitable - even if climate wasn't a concern, eventually fossil fuel reserves will be depleted and even before then, the costs for new tech will be lower than for old tech (witness the end of the steam engine).

If it is inevitable, it doesn't need to be forced by legislation. Forcing a change before the replacement tech is cost competitive will set us back and price people out.

The serious disadvantages for Germany of relying on fossil fuel imports should need no more explanations at this point, and part of the government's job is to pass legislation that improves the economic conditions for the German population, isn't it? It's no different from passing legislation on safety standards for automobiles, or regulations on banking that prevent criminal frauds and so on.

> Forcing a change before the replacement tech is cost competitive will set us back and price people out.

Except it will never be cost competitive if we keep subsidising fossil fuels (jet fuel for example is heavily subsidised to make air travel cheaper) and continue ignoring the indirect costs of the CO2 emitted when combusting said fossil fuels.

I am against subsidies too. That just illustrates why subsidies are bad.

This will come a surprise to many but we’re a lot closer to peak oil than most people believe. Some of the latest research from scientists like Nate havens shows it’s happening within the next few years. Even she’ll has said their production peaked and will decrease 1 to 2 % per year

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