Are We Reaching the Electric Car Tipping Point?

[rsilvers]

That is our goal, to get to zero? By "our," is that all humans, or the US, or who?

Are we going to tell Africa, India, South America, and China that they are not allowed to have air conditioning?

My prediction: The US will spend 10 trillion dollars to reduce emissions, only to have it drafted by the developing world starting to get a middle-class lifestyle and having stuff like cars and AC.

 

[dmwahl]

Yeah, I know I left Nukes off the power list. It's a viable alternative to coal, but a dangerous one. It's like Lipo; Powerful, but too dangerous except in specific uses. I think we have enough other options that we can forget nukes in our future power plans.

Nuclear power is only more dangerous in people's minds. The statistics tell a different story, that nuclear power is by far the safest per GW of capacity. I think it's similar to all the media coverage around the Tesla fires recently. Sure there are dangers to driving an EV, but how many gasoline cars have started on fire and not made the news?
http://www.oecd-nea.org/ndd/reports/2010/nea6862-comparing-risks.pdf is a bit old, but an interesting read on the safety of different forms of power generation.

 

[Punx0r]

That is our goal, to get to zero? By "our," is that all humans, or the US, or who?

Are we going to tell Africa, India, South America, and China that they are not allowed to have air conditioning?

My prediction: The US will spend 10 trillion dollars to reduce emissions, only to have it drafted by the developing world starting to get a middle-class lifestyle and having stuff like cars and AC.

Step No. 9 on the Climate Change Denial Ladder

9.Global warming is happening, it is caused by humanity, it is a bad thing, but China and India aren't doing anything — so we don’t have to do anything.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Global_warming_denialism

 

[rsilvers]

#9 is the closest to how I feel, but not exactly. I am not saying we should do nothing, but I think we are too quick to spend big money. Look at cash-for-clunkers. All it did was force me to pay taxes to buy someone else a new car. And then lots of people got free golf carts. And rich people get discounted $110,000 luxury cars.

I also remember being told in 1979 that the Earth was going to run out of oil in 25 years. And I know that there are lots of people trying very hard to keep us from finding more oil and natural gas, and trying to make energy as expensive as possible.

I don't like how electricity is so expensive, and I blame it on people killing nuclear power, banning fracking, and not approving natural-gas pipelines.

 

[wineboyrider]

Good points rsilvers and punxor. Back on topic I think electric cars will actually lower the price of oil and gasoline as they reach a competitive crux. It's the old economic alternative theory thing.

 

[Punx0r]

You may be right there: it depends how the suppliers manage to artificially limit supply to keep up the price against the reduced demand for oil. To some extent the supply will naturally decrease as price decreases as many wells will become uneconomical. There will likely remain a reasonable demand for oil for petrochemicals (fertiliser, plastics etc).

I do wonder whether the current low oil prices are the beginning of a permanent reduction due to possibly impending government commitments to heavily limit future CO2 production, meaning many oil reserves have to be left in the ground.