Reply to post: Re: D'oh!

Re: D'oh!

The point is less about Musk and more about trying to prevent a climate catastrophe...

Isn't Musk behind Tesla, who make "performance cars"? Not exactly a bastion of "clean and green" there!

Oh, I hear they're doing electric cars now.

Well, if electric cars used perhaps some home-based generation or were only charged in places away from homes they might be cleaner to some extent (if they're more efficient c/w diesel) they might be better, but here's the thing they don't tell you. Electric cars require electricity. That electricity is generally made in very dirty coal power plants. More electric cars means more power plants. Given the greeny fear-mongering about Nuclear power plants, new plants will still be coal or other stuff (or even worse, wind - requiring both wind and even more coal plants).

But it gets worse.

People will want to re-charge their cars when they get home each night. This will be somewhere in the range of a new oven per car per house, except it'll be running for a few more hours (per car) than your average oven, and probably needing a higher amperage for the charging port as well. That will mean the transmission lines will need to be upgraded. Streets like mine and so many others around the world have them underground, so not just the resources in making the wires but HUGE resources in digging up the old wires and burying the new ones. All the transformers will need to be replaced. Small substations will take on the dimensions of larger ones, while large substations could become much much larger (though there will probably be some in-fill of new kit before they need more room).

An influx of electric cars will require a significant upgrade of our generating and transmission systems, otherwise they will lead to a lot of blackouts, which will lead to people having to use alternatives while their electric cars sit idle. New suburbs might be OK as they can be built from the ground-up with the appropriate hardware in place.

Here's a free tip though that Mr Musk could be doing with his cars if he really was interested in cutting pollution - cover every surface of his cars with solar panels. True, they would not be able to charge the car up inside a day and would largely be useless in parking buildings (though lit buildings would give a little energy), but they would provide an extra boost to those cars that can get sunlight, and that would require less charging at the end of the day (though I have yet to see the math on a) whether the panels could pay for themselves or b) the resource cost of manufacture/added weight would wipe out their energy gain).

Hybrids on the other hand, they have a few things going for them from what I know.

I would love for electric cars to succeed. I'd love for something to replace the oil we burn by the tonne every second on this planet, and the non-carbon¹ pollutants that get pumped into the air. But electric cars as things are now? No. Not till we can recharge them without the massive resource sink that would be needed with today's technology.

¹ Carbon of course is not the big baddie that it is often made out to be. There's a lot more to worry about coming out of tail pipes. But either way, reducing our oil use (and other resources that pollute heavily either when extracted or burnt) would take care of the supposed carbon problem. Don't use bullshit that only adds to the pollution (eg wind farms), use stuff that can actually help our planet by reducing pollution and mining, and de-forestation. I'm sure if Mr Musk was really keen on it, he could dump a bit more of his money into appropriate research? If he matched me on a % of income donated basis, well... Course like so many wealthy people there'll be excuses as to why he cannot actually do that.