Dark side of "green" energy

Navigating Chile
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These people bought an EV in 2014. Now it has stopped working entirely. Why?

The battery needs to be replaced. But the battery costs more than they paid for the car in 2014

Then there are the rapidly accumulating waste solar panels.

Now I myself am a solar user. We waited and entered the solar market with 400w panels with the highest efficiency and quality we could. But we know people that entered much earlier with zillions of sub 100 watt panels that admittedly are easier to handle but far less efficient. With the 400w ones man they are heavy! I mean seriously heavy!! Just moving them requires logistical planning let alone proper disposal (if proper really counts as proper since we use words that dont really mean what we think they mean all the time now)

Honestly calling all this green just seems like a scam as all we brilliant humans can do with this solar/battery waste is pile it up or fuss with it by spending more time and money than the actual benefit to fussing with it. It certainly wont decompose and aint noone got the time to carefully disassemble each illconcieved panel to painstaklingly claw back the minority percentage of the panel that is perhaps recyclable at an overall loss to the processor! Thats just to sort the reusable from non reusable parts. Still the actual recycling must be done. Use robots? Well robots need a power source which will probably be more batteries destined for the landfill or toxic waste segregation. It can cost 20x+just to transport and recycle and even then there is perma toxic waste versus the cheaper easier lazy dump it in a landfill that you and I both know the majority of humans will opt for versus virtue signalling at an overall loss to their pocket book.

Really think about this. Such a lack of foresight and forethought with PV and batteries.

Im tired of appreciating stupid things like this that are exactly not what they claim to be. Green

Is there any hope? Yes

Meanwhile there is this old technology that doesnt have any of this dark side of modern “green” energy baggage attached to it

But we can’t have nice things that are actually green!!!

Watch this:

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The reason solar panels and batteries and electric vehicles are green is because in practice they replace fossil fuels which are much worse. Fossil fuels kill millions of people annually from pollution and climate change. Some pollution in a desert or landfill somewhere because of batteries and solar panels is not important compared to that. We need to focus on saving people’s lives.

Having a dead battery on an 8 year old car is very bad luck and quite unusual. Electric car batteries very rarely go wrong in the first 100,000 miles and they are probably pretty good for 200,000 miles. Broadly speaking it’s long since been conclusively proven that batteries last the life time of the car. Notice this report cherry picks ONE example.

Also, if main dealer quotes you $14,000 for the car that might mean there is another option available. That is high for a battery replacement. About $8,000-$10,000 is more normal. They could also spend $6,000 on a very small battery and then accept that the car after that would have a very small range and could only be used around town, but at least prolong the life of the car for a few years.

When you get an EV do your research as some are known to be better than others.

Hydrogen is not the solution because in practice there are very few hydrogen cars on sale (in Chile, none at all) and they are very expensive while being just as expensive to run as petrol and diesel cars and few filling stations available.

Hydrogen cars are also less green than battery electric vehicles because of a) a much lower efficiency and b) the fact that the % of electricity that is green source is higher than the % of hydrogen that is green. Almost all of the hydrogen is produced from dirty processes burning coal and gas for now.

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Lazar is a con artist! Anyone with half a brain knows that his car is powered with alien nuclear fusion tech. Don’t be taken in with that hydrogen fuel cell nonsense! Just cos they both use hydrogen as a fuel source doesn’t mean they’re the same! It’s just a cover.

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When you put it in terms like this we are miles apart on the definition/motivation for green energy/tech.

If as you say we need to focus on saving peoples lives then we can save more lives annually by merely banning tobacco and alcohol consumption worldwide 100%.
Millions more human lives would be saved annually by doing that than banning fossil fuels worldwide 100%
According to the most generous fossil fuel annual deaths it is 8-9 million globally. Tobacco smoke both(both first and second hand) is the same as fossil fuels, 8-9 milliom. Alcohol is over 3 million. Not even talking about illicit drugs and foods that are sold that kill people but are rubberstamped by government and companies that dont care.
So if it is just about making sure we have more humans running around then fossil fuels is not a sensible place to start.

Green energy in my experience has been typically associated with being prudent stewards of the earth and it’s natural resources. Not damaging the earth. Not poisoning the earth. Not injuring the ecosystems of the earth mindlessly or frivolously or lazily or myopically or greedily.

That is or at least it was the heart and impetus of the Green energy movement and why it is so tragic/ironic that the waste of panels and batteries has gone parabolic with most not even caring or even realizing the earth continues to be poisoned but now in different and even more permanent ways

Meanwhile humans cant poison themselves fast enough with tobacco and alcohol…

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Fair points for the limited and primitive commercially available hydrogen based cars. I think you are referring to the steam reformer method to produce hydrogen. However the same argument can be used to disparage lithium batteries by saying that 1) most are made in China with coal plants powering the factories 2) fossil fuel is generally used to charge the lithium batteries…but if using solar/wind to charge them and/or build them then it offsets that.

The same could similarly be true for hydrogen energy. It can be produced through solar/wind based electricity electrolyzing water to seperate the hydrogen and store it with metal hydride sponge versus trying to store it in more challenginf ways

Regarding efficiency…again fair points, however consider a system that is less overall efficient in energy conversion, but the source of energy is itself is essentially without practical limit.

So consider system A that is using solar PV panels with lithium batteries. Efficiency is high day to day, but the batteries themselves are a blight on the envionrment (like our chinese pylontechs) and once they are disposed of they are permanent waste that never goes away.

Now systen B that is also using solar PV panels but instead or lithium batteries it is using a hydride sponge or something like Lavo’s home hydrogen power units. We cant get around the perma waste of Solar PV yet, but with this we can get ride of the massibe amounts of lithium batteries required in a system A setup. The efficiency becomes less important when the reduction of earth perma waste is prioritized instead of ignored.

You are right in that hydrogen itself is no unicorn panacea and there are different sets of factors and risks to consider and yes the FCEV’s cars of today are like solar PV and batteries of decades ago. But the technology (hydrogen in general…not FCEV’s) has real promise I think in at least removing ever increasing quantities of permawaste lithium batteries that are required today for anyone wanting to increase their energy security while also not ignoring the perma waste aspect that is usually rationalized away where earth gets a backseat to some human centric concern ( like my own selfish desire for energy security)

Here is the Lavo home hydrogen system:

A commenter on that above article mentioned that the efficiency could be increased further by using the heat generated by the Lavo electrolysis process to heat the same home’s hot water supply. It already has a water main input for the hydrogen production. Love that possibility to increase efficiency. It is something that this System B would have as a benefit over a traditional System A that is Solar PV/lithium based…there is no “waste heat” to capture and repurpose for hot water in a System A unless you use the actual energy itself to heat the water. Of course I would usually just advocate for using Solar radiant to heat and store that in roof water tanks and skip the solar PV for hot water, but again with Sys B Hydrogen it makes perfect sense to increase efficiency

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If you ban natural substance (alcohol, tobacco, marijuana), natural medicines and herbs, natural analgesics (like morphine) – people will use synthetic toxins and there will be much more poisonings. A good governor could provide people with access to proper education, and increase their own interest in cultivating their body and mind in the right way. But this will never happen, unfortunately (at least until the end of this cosmic cycle).

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Well, the fact that there are also lives to be saved in one area shouldn´t stop us saving lives in another area. These are separate issues.

Banning alcohol and cigarettes is also a significant infringement on personal liberty whereas phasing out fossil fuels is probably not as much.

With fossil fuels, we are mostly damaging others, whereas with alcohol and cigarettes we are mostly damaging ourselves. So if it´s our own bodies at stake we should have more personal freedom to choose.

Banning cigarettes and alcohol would just lead to a black market as happened in the past whereas banning/taxing new petrol and diesel cars would not lead to a black market.

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The world´s population will inevitably keep growing for several decades because there are currently more young people alive than old. This is bad from a climate change perspective because it means that to achieve say a 50% cut in emissions we need to achieve a >50% cut per person.

However, by the middle and second half of this century, we are going to see quite the change. It is an open question where the world´s population in 2050 and beyond will be growing or declining. Europe, Japan and even China are seeing big reductions in birth rates, while Africa and India are expected to see strong growth for a long time.

It is true that the transition to green energy curtails people´s freedom, but only very slightly for the benefit of justice and equality and the planet as a whole. So you have to stop at a charging station every 1.5 - 2 hours on a longer trip for 30 minutes. Big deal. Easily worth it if that´s the price to pay for a world in which we still have coral reefs, an Amazon rainforest, and avoid mass death events in heatwaves.

There is often a tendency to focus on the negatives here. It´s true that EVs are less practical on long road trips, but that´s 10% of most people´s driving at most. 90% of the time you are going back and forth within 50-100 miles of your house. If you can charge from home, it´s easier and better and more practical than going to the gas station. Also, whenever you get these mad situations where a country is running out of petrol - that is curtailing your freedom for sure!

Also, EV chargers will become better and more common, this is already happening. 100kW chargers are starting to grow up, and it looks like in the future the stops will be more like 20 minutes as a result. Eventually (in many years) it will be almost as fast and easy as petrol.

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Here is a different perspective on what could be considered a dark side to “green energy”. Totally different tangent than what has already been discussed on this thread in terms of waste, efficiency, toxicity, etc

This side is about capacity for freedom. This was a comment I read on another site that I will paraphrase here:

The part that stuck with me is the tradeoff in autonomy for travel. Fossil fuels are incredibly powerful in terms of the amount of sheer energy that can be stored and carried with you. Whether its an oceanliner, a tractor trailer, etc. To compare it to housing…lets say that instead of wanting people to buy and use EV passenger vehicles which many countries are wanting to mandate in the next 8-10+ years by making ICE based vehicles illegal.

Suppose that countries were mandating tiny houses for all in the next 8-10 years making anything over 100sqft or 10m2 illegal.
Here is a video of a nice 10m2 A frame so you have an idea of the size

Even if it was twice that. Many people would say that is a serious affront to personal freedom.
Likewise when vehiclea are imposed with dramatically lower range with dramatically increased real net fueling overhead times, the argument could be made that people are getting crippled in their freedom or autonomy of movement.
For me a primary driver (no pun intended) is energy security where I myself have autonomy over my energy…albeit I am thinking in context of home energy, but it also can be applied to travel vehicles.

Yet another paralell are the mandates/bonos/limits with the Temuco/Osorno pellet stoves. They essentially outlaw the wood stoves and subsidize people getting peller stoves. Making the people themselves less energy autonomous.

Whereas before they could just go outside and pick up sticks and toss em into the woodstove. Now they must be enslaved to industrial production of pellets. Also they are also dependent on grid electricity to run the fan and feeder in the pellet stove. Add winter and subzero temps and these people have dramatically reduced their energy security for just the keeping warm part. They have become dependent on multiple supply lines entirely outside of their control! Both grid electricity and the production and delievey of pellets. Whereas before all they needed was some flint or matches and some wood laying around.

The cynic inside of me makes me question…are people being walked down the primrose path? Could there be a desire to dramatically increase peoples dependence on faltering supply lines to make them more vulnerable or less likely to standup and rebel?

All of these examples create some concern.

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True. But the same goes for any aspect of life. Modern societies run in a highly interdependent way that need a stable operational environment, something thats becoming increasingly incompatible with the individual “freedoms” so aggressively demanded these days.

As a local example, the pellet solution was adopted to provide the greatest good for the greatest number of people, and was implemented during a period of political stability when the Supply Chain was working normally.

The “freedom” to heat homes using anything that burns caused filthy air and widespread respiratory health problems, exactly the same situation that led to the prohibition of domestic coal fires in the UK in the 1950s.

Some political thinkers, viewing the increased radicalization of the West, fear that stability will only be maintained by increasing state control in private lives, in the way the Chinese already dominate their huge population. Of course, in a Communist system like theirs, the concept of individual freedom doesn’t exist…

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Certainly valid points. There are all manner of dependencies that modern urban/suburban density requires to be viable

Perhaps I am wrong to zero in on pellet stove mandates for dense cities full of people. I am missing the forest for one tree.

You are right for places like London as mentioned and any/all other dense sardine packed city there is a real “nature of the beast” going on that I forgot for a moment. One must accept the dramatic restriction of liberties, at the proverbial door, in exchange for the greater good of the rest that have already accepted them as well as the bonos that come with urbanization…such as those bonos are (centralized sewer, employment, etc).

Your comments on the “freedom” to heat homes with any filthy thing. It is so true. Is that really freedom? I can see the compelling argument, particularly in dense areas where people are making unwise decisions left and right that restriction or private freedom to make unwise decisions seems to be the only solution. That of course leads on a spectrum to Chinese style extreme centralization and extreme control that of course leads to more extreme forms of monitoring and sensors to determine the level of compliance

Honestly, I am left realizing that it is not the 1 tree I was wrong to focus on…it is the whole accursed wall-e forest of never ending urbanization. I do not seriously believe that all of this can scale up to anything but what China has become. We could say well maybe India is a better model? China just shows a micromanaged Type A centralized approach, while India just shows a different less micromanaged approach…but neither would be considered “healthy” or “scalable”. 80 million in India are considered impoverished with less than $1.25 a day to spend.
China, tried to limit their population, perhaps realzing how unhealthy and not scaleable the approach was and is, but of course that only resulted in different types of injustice and atrocity.

It really does seem destined for failure and if its all on a spectrum then increasing human density without density limits will eventually produce what we see in India and China. It is easy to criticize China but I wonder if its really China that is to blame. I have a hard time believing that if we could magically swap out the Chinese government and Chinese people 1 for 1 but on the same land mass would it be much different no matter what the ideology or lack thereof was? When you still have over 1.3 billion on the same land mass I doubt the results would be much different with a western style government. The western governments look out from their ivory towers and shake a stick at China while they have a fraction of the population to contend with. Point being it may just come entirely down to human density.

It is depressing, but it seems freedom is itself a dependent provincial notion inextricably linked to the density of human population. The “greater subjective good” whatever that means to who is saying it and whoever has the power to force it on others will always win out eventually. Ignorance of people will always be undermining their very capacity to excersie freedom wisely or even understand the difference between freedom and just destroying yourself and others.

10m2 houses were supposed to be a hyperbolic crazy example. Now they seem merely inevitable

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I read an article stating that energy consumption per capita in China was only 20% that of more “advanced” countries. Perhaps this is their pragmatic response.

Overpopulation is the proverbial “elephant in the room”, and the current Western environmental hysteria reflects a dawning awareness that our present way of life is becoming unsustainable, with no solution in sight. There is no technological magic cure that will allow us to continue on as we do at present.

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“All these passenger car leafs and tesla’s are truly a drop in the bucket in the grand scheme of vehicle transport and the associated GHG’s output.
It is unlikely we will ever see EV oceanliners, jumbo jets, or serious longhaul 24/6 duty cycle tractor trailers”

The less fossil fuels, the less suffering and death. Just because we can´t do jets now doesn´t mean we shouldn´t do cars now. That´s like saying we shouldn´t save that woman who´s being raped over there since we can´t stop all rapes immediately.

And cars are NOT a drop in the ocean. They are around 40% of all the transport emissions. Cars and trucks are most of it.

Ocean liners and jumbo jets are very hard to electrify and will likely use sustainable fuel, offsetting or green hydrogen. Will continue to use fossil fuels in the short term.

Heavy-duty long haul trucks are also hard to electrify because of the very heavy and expensive battery but it looks like it´s going to happen but more 2030s than 2020s as it´s hard but the industry is already preparing for it. Hydrogen even though it lost for cars can compete in this segment because the energy density advantage is more significant over longer distances. So there is a hydrogen vs battery electric debate amongst industry experts.

ps a comment I made an hour ago has somehow ended up being posted as it was posted yesterday, you can scroll back about 5 comments or so…starts “the world´s population will…”

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According to latest world stats of 2016 “passenger vehicles” which include cars, motorcycles, and buses" are a mere 7.14% of world green house gas emissions. That includes buses and it includes EVERY kind of passenger car in the entire world. (See citation before and how i calc’d that)

The point about the drop in the bucket is about commuter vehicles that just drive 2-3 dozen miles a day. The current most sensible use of EV vehicles…however the real actual relevant subsection of truly personal owned passenger commuter vehicles is far far less than 7.14%.
If we walk throughtl this we start right at the jump…the best case scenario if all of earth cars/motos/buses were EV now…there would be just 7.14% less GHG.
Small but still worth it right?

Guess what most of that 7.14% is?

Cars buses and motos/tuktuk/autorikshaw serving more than half maybe as high as 80% of 8 billion of earths humans in India, China, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Brazil, and Africa. Those are perhaps the least likely to actually be able to afford EV or have the infrastructure to support it.

Now also take away all the cars and buses that are infact long haul used or 24/6 duty cycle vehicles from whatever remains of that 7.14% at this point

Now we are talking about the subsection of the subsection of the subsection that are actual possibilities for EV…the commuter vehicles. Now remove from that the percentage of owners that CANNOT afford EV or will never be willing to do what is necessary to get EV because of their ideology or illusions or whatever makes it dead on arrival for them (people that just dont care, etc)

At this point I think you will agree that when factoring all this in we are talking about a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of that 7.14% which is quite accurately should qualify as a drop in the bucket.

The other comment about not preventing one rape since all cant be prevented I kant support as valid unless you would also say that you and I should take the time breath less. To be totally clear absolutley anyone should try to stop a rape, but its not a valid comparison because its direct instant versus indirect theoretical.

I have to admit…I am a careless frivolous breather.
I mean I dont even care at all how many breaths i take. I could actually reduce my breathing by 20-40% if I just paid attention and was constantly mindful of it. I am outputing more Co2 than i need to by not paying attention.

There is a real spectrum and just as we would not spend our effort to breath less there has to be a cut off that is realistic.
Leafs, teslas, EVs which make the most sense for commuter vehicles but for them to be EV do seem to be a poor use of time money and effort because they come with reduced capability…like lets say someone lived in chile and it went crazy town with an estallido but then it went hypercritical and you think you will be killed/attacked and you needed to flee by car to Argentina. But you only have the leaf? Some would highly value that capability with more storage and stunning range.(thousands of miles without a refill with 200 liters in the trunk).

7.14% is derived from is 60% of 11.4% world road transport. Detail below in Citation

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That is 7% of all greenhouse emissions. When I said 40% I meant 40% of total transport emissions. So figures agree.

EVs are already on a par in total cost (including fuel, maintenance) with conventional vehicles so changing from conventional to EV does not use any money really.

7% of something really bad is still pretty bad. Climate change is divided into lots of things that are 7% of 3% or 10%. We have to address them all. If we ignore things that are 7% we´ll ignore most of it.

Transport is actually one of the easier sectors to decarbonize. Makes more sense to start there than with aviation, heating, or persuading people to eat less meat!

It´s true that a Leaf is a poor choice of car to flee to Argentina with but the good news that this is unlikely to ever happen.

Don´t focus on the negative worst case scenario so much. Look at the positives.

Clean air, smooth acceleration, less maintenance, preheat and cool your car, never queue for gas again…

I think people are resistance to change.

Imagine if we already lived in an EV world and I was trying to sell you a brand new thing called a petrol car and I said.

“We won´t have the means to power these cars in our own country and we´ll have to take over a few Middle Eastern countries to get fuel for this causing the death of thousands or millions, and some of them will send terrorists to kill us for years after as a result, but don´t worry, we´ll deal with it. And the car has 100 moving parts any one of which can break but don´t worry there´ll be 20 different types of mechanics you just have to find the one for every issue, and yes the cars stink but you get used to it. And yes cities will now be noisy instead of quiet but you can stay inside. And we are going to power the car with an explosive fuel and of course the cars will set on fire sometimes but don´t worry you will often be able to get out and survive!”

You´d think I was mad if the situation was reversed.

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I did say that 7.14% of annual planetwide GHG emissions is small but still would be worth it…but then went on to show that the realistic relevant percentage when properly factored was more likely a fraction of 1% of total annual planetwide GHG emissions and more likely it is <.01% of total GHG (even .05% or .09% point still valid) would be reduced if 100% of commuters who have actual means, motive, opportunity, and capability (thats the key) to replace their gas/diesel commuter with an EV actually did it. I arrive at that fraction of a fraction of fraction of percent by the walk through of subsectioning the 7.14% (for example excluding bangkok tuktuks and subsaharan african commuters, and India/china) to zoom way in as entirely unrealistic and irrelevant…will never see any significant amount of them with EVs ) That was where the spectrum comes into play. At a certain point it becomes symbolic rather than substantively beneficial to slashing real annual GHG emissions. I still see, if given a choice of how to spend brain power and money and focus and the goal is to reduce GHG then we need to focus on what is realistic and relevant and that is potentially the other 99%+ or 92.9% of GHG emissions.
I am not necessarily saying “make no change for passenger vehicles” rather I think the hybrids make more sense since we are in symbolic territory anyway and we can have more flexibility with hybrids. I would liken passenger cars to chainsaws. Fossil fueled chain saws or even hybrid chainsaws that can somehow use less FF make more sense than banning FF chainsaws and mandating EV chainsaws.

All that said I can appreciate the smooth acceleration of EVs and the cool factors. But that is a different motivation for getting them. I am trying to focus on the realistic, relevant and substantive reduction of actual GHGs annually.

There was one more point I was going to make but forgot. That 7.14% that is more likely <.01%'sh when filtered as described above, I would add further demerits…and that would be the increased permawaste for the earth that I do not consider a just tradeoff…it is a showstopper. The lithium batteries that are disposed of. Consider a well maintained traditional gas/diesel vehicle. They really can last 20+ years. No leasing bs…no forced obsolescence nonsense, no renovation for personal vanity bs, etc. I routinely see 1995-1999 nissan pathfinders rolling around where I live…a 25+ year old car that still passes revision technica. But the lithium batteries in the EVs need replacement way too often. Leafs have a warranty for 8 years or 100k miles on the lithium battery. Teslas are also 8 year warranty on the lithium battery. Further every 50k miles the battery loses 5% capacity! That alone will make people want to replace the battery even sooner and certainly before the end of the warranty all resulting in a filthy and careless amount of lithium batteries poisoning the earth. And if compared to the example of a single 25+ year old pathfinder that would be replaced by likely more than at least 3 used and discarded/totalled EV’s and/or their giant lithium batteries…and I hope you are seeing my point. Humanity is merely trading 1 form of pollution for another and it is a trade for pollution which lasts for millenia, while thinking they are helping the earth. It makes me sad

For me that is just the repulsive and senseless cherry on top to make EVs for passenger commuter cars something to not seriously consider and maybe actually avoid for the sake of the Earth. There are just too many negatives that outweigh what little symbolic positives there are by my estimation.

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Cars are most of the 7%, so I don’t accept the fraction of a fraction argument, but we’ve both made our points and I don’t think will be any benefit to keep debating it.

Hybrids can only ever reduce emissions by about half which is never going to be good enough long term since CO2 stays in the atmosphere for hundreds of years. Hybrid are just a way of using fossil fuels more efficiently which carries with it the risk that people use their cars more and end up using almost the same amount.

You are making the classic mistake to think that something with an 8 year warranty lasts 8 (or 9) years. They give an 8 year warranty because they know it lasts 15 or 20 years and they will hardly ever have to pay out. Think about…your cell phone has a 1 year warranty because it last 3-5 years. Your fridge has a 2 year warranty because it last 10 years. Things can be expected to last 2-3x the warranty. And petrol and diesel cars also only have 5 or 8 year warranties even though they last 20 years. No part of those cars is warranted beyond 8 years either, that doesn´t mean they all die in year 9 either.

EVs have been sold in significant quantities since about 2010 or 2015. Almost all of the 2010 Leafs are still going. There is plenty of data out there. Battery replacement is rare. Many Teslas have been driven 200k and 300k. Your argument about EV and battery lifetime has long since been conclusively proven wrong. There is plenty of data and stats out there on this. I can tell from your comment that you have not searched for them. You´ve just formed your opinions on a few isolated cherry picked examples.

I bet there are occasional stories of Pathfinders that blew up 1 week after the warranty ended as well, that doesn´t mean that all such cars are unreliable.

5% capacity (and hence range) loss after 50k miles is about right however. It may even be slightly higher. If you plan to keep a car for 10 years buy 20% more range than needed.

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Overpopulation, of course. And the NO (in the no solution) is the key.

Anything “green” of whatever other color they select is just a nice decoration for selected few (and we all know who they are) who are becoming richer by means of dishonest business practices and extensive [mis]information, so that the general public is perfectly hypnotized by this:

As it was with the “pandemic”, as it is with the “climate”, and as it will repeat, again and again, with a number of yet unknown inventions… that will cause more and more suffering and death.

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Just 2 points:

  1. Buses - The 7.14% is composed of all of the planet’s passenger vehicles which according to the cited link are cars, motorcycles, and buses. I didnt even get into the bus part. The buses in India and China and Africa that just bellow thick black smoke all day long as 24/6 duty vehicles…are recklessly maintained if at all…have Zero emission standards…and will never be EV (because it is India, China, and Africa) and make 25+ year old revision technica pathfinders look like pillars of green energy prudence. Id like to be able to dig into and break down the numbers into even more detail, but at some point these calculations just cant go much further due to unavailability of data. I have enjoyed engaging with you and your posts have challenged me to look deeper at these issues than I would have.

  2. India, Africa, and China are over 80% of the population of the world (at least) and so they are the largest contributor to that already small 7.14% with all of their passenger cars, motos, and nasty unregulated buses. If you have travelled to those places you would see stunningly horrific air pollution coming from those motos and buses that would truly shock you to your core. It is totally irresponsible.
    Put a different way. Id say the only continents that really even have a shot at EVs for passenger commuter cars are North America, Europe and Australia (they alone have means, motive, opportunity, and capability for EV). The combined population of those three is a paltry 17% of the planet (1.3 billion). No matter what those 3 continents do…it sorta feels like polishing the decks on the titanic. Just see commuter transportation efforts for EV as too little to matter in places that actually are EV capable or ever will be.

At any rate, message received, wont belabor these points any further.

This is a good example of how reasonable people can look at the same data and draw different conclusions.

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