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Comment by slashdev | Hacker News Reader

The power plants are a lot more efficient, but it does require converting the electric grid over to renewables and nuclear. Natural gas is cleaner, but it’s a stop on the way to the destination, not the destination. We will also achieve that, because quite frankly, we have no choice in the matter.

Walkways, bike paths, and public transit are great things. I wish they did more of that where I live. I’d rather not use cars when I have the option. But they will never be the solution. They should be a part of the solution.

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Modern Thermal power plants reached Thermal efficenies of 45-50% for coal and closed cycle gas turbines. ICE cars have a hard time reaching 25% under normal conditions. Additionally burning methane has lower CO2 emissions than gasoline and a third of the US grid is produced from carbon free sources anyway.

Electricity transportation is not efficient Recycling EV stuff is also terrible

Funny fact: here in france, in 2019 (so pre-covid), automobile were responsible for 10% of the petroleum consumption on the main land

10%, yes, just 10% (source: https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/2119673)

The project to replace all cars by EV cars is a fraud. I'm sure not everybody will lose in that project. But don't worry : in the best case (which we know will never be anything but theory and dream), we will resolve 10% of the initial problem. Awesome!

  >10%, yes, just 10%

You forgot to include diesel (Gazole), which makes up a whopping 46% of all petroleum use in France.

As for your "scam," it doesn't exist. Nobody's claiming EVs can solve the entire sustainability problem all by themselves. That would be oversimplified, "Silver Bullet" thinking.

EVs are great, but they're just one part of a complete sustainable economy. "Necessary but not sufficient."

[edit: removed a faulty statistic in a tangent]

19% from renewables and 78% from nuclear from what i read, so you're off by an order of magnitude here.

I don't understand where you get those number from.

In the first paragraph of your link :

> In 2020, nuclear power made up the largest portion of electricity generation, at around 78%.[2] Renewables accounted for 19.1% of energy consumption.

So for people that can't read French or statistics:

"Carburants pour automobile¹" mean unleaded, and yes, 8.5/72.7 is .11 of the total petroleum consumption.

"Gazole" however mean diesel, and is 32.8/72.7 so .45 of the total petroleum consumption. Including buses, tractors and trucks btw.

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