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Comment by BurningPenguin | Hacker News Reader

It would be nice to live in a city and not be bothered with the smell, noise and health risks of thousands of engines. It would also be nice if our environment wouldn't be plastered with microplastics.

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ICEs have numerous inherent disadvantage over EVs, including more moving parts and higher and more frequent maintenance costs, and are inevitably going to be displaced by EVs, provided electricity is cheap enough (and probably some battery tech advances).

Right now, natural gas is dirt-cheap, plentiful, and relatively clean, and can provide the cheap electricity needed for EVs.

The trouble with natural gas is that it leaks, and once you account for the leaks, it isn't much better than using coal or oil because of the sheer GWP of methane. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/methane-leaks-era...

Yes, but many manufacturers didn't particularly care about that. Especially not those in my country. Without pressure from the people and the following laws that were implemented by the government, BMW & Co. would still be happily developing new ICEs.

Also, the most ideal solution in my book would be to do less work, not more. Geoengineering requires quite a lot of work on a permanent basis.

> It would also be nice if our environment wouldn't be plastered with microplastics.

Does burning fossil fuels distribute microplastics?

Idk, maybe indirectly due to wear and tear or whatever. What i'm trying to say, though, is that the dependency on oil should be reduced in general. Nobody needs tupperware to last for centuries. That might also be the point of most environmentalists.

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