Torygraph: electric cars will not save us...

[Lord Beria3]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/20 ... he-energy/

Electric vehicles barely scratch the surface of global energy demand and pious posturing by world elites does little to head off climate catastrophe, the International Energy Agency has warned.

Fatih Birol, head of the IEA, said there was a pervasive misunderstanding in opinion circles about the hard realities of keeping the global economy afloat while cutting CO2 emissions at the same time. “We don’t have the luxury of boosting our egos,� he said.

Coal dependence in Asia and the developing world can make a mockery of electric vehicles, especially in China where half of all green energy cars are now being built.

“If you have to choose between a 1990 diesel and a 2019 electric vehicle, you are better with a 1990 diesel if the energy generation comes from coal,� he told the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Electric vehicles would cut just 1pc of total CO2 emissions even if there were 300 million of them on the road under the current structure of world energy production.

Westerners are whistling in the wind if they think the rising nations of Asia are going to write off sunk costs and shut down coal plants with an average life of just 11 years. “How can we ask them to pay back so much investment?� he said.

Interesting. Always thought the same myself!

[emordnilap]

All the more reason to shut down fossil fuel industries.

[adam2]

Electric vehicles have their merits, but are IMHO, a very small part of the solution.

They are a bit pointless if most of the electricity used to charge them is from fossil fuel power plants.
They make more sense in the UK where a significant proportion of electricity is now low carbon.

I cant see many relatively new coal burning power stations being scrapped until the end of economic life.
Countries that burn a lot of coal could however make a start by not building any more coal capacity, at least they could try to meet any increase in demand from renewables.
In warmer climates, air conditioning is much in demand and grid tied PV sufficient to meet the A/C demand would be a start.

[vtsnowedin]

Perhaps we should require that every purchaser of an EV also purchase enough solar panels or wind turbine shares to power said car with renewable energy? Could write it off against the gas and gas tax not needed for the EV.

[fuzzy]

Or the gov could purchase the solar panels and sell the power, reducing our taxes.

[vtsnowedin]

Or the gov could purchase the solar panels and sell the power, reducing our taxes.

The government competing with an industry or the private sector is never a good thing.

[Little John]

Or the gov could purchase the solar panels and sell the power, reducing our taxes.

The government competing with an industry or the private sector is never a good thing.

why?

[PS_RalphW]

Perhaps we should require that every purchaser of an EV also purchase enough solar panels or wind turbine shares to power said car with renewable energy? Could write it off against the gas and gas tax not needed for the EV.

When I bought my (second hand) EV I spent the same amount on windfarm shares. My share generates electricity for 7 average households and the dividends pay my electricity bill (car and household) thanks to generous government subsidy

[vtsnowedin]

Or the gov could purchase the solar panels and sell the power, reducing our taxes.

The government competing with an industry or the private sector is never a good thing.

why?

The government uses it's power to drive out any competition and then the inefficiency of the government bureaucracy drives all productivity down to the point you end up like the soviet unions collective farms and tractor factories or Venezulia's oil industry.

[emordnilap]

Or you end up with electricity delivered to every home regardless of location; or postal services no matter where you are; or free health care at point of use; or roads; or integrated railways; or public transport; or free education; or safe secure prisons; or social safety nets; or blah blah blah.

None of the above would happen/would have happened in their entirety without the government 'competing' with the private sector.

A prime example: the Irish taxpayer installed electricity in every Irish home in the 1950s. The private sector would not have done this. The state company that did the work went on to become efficient, safe and one of the cheapest suppliers in Europe, with some of the best paid engineers in the industry.

When sold off the the private sector, Ireland's electricity became amongst the dearest in Europe, joined at the hip to a deliberately confusing 'choice' of suppliers.

[kenneal - lagger]

There are places for competition and places where there is not.

Manufacturing is a place for competition where you have a genuine choice of articles to buy and suppliers to supply them. Health care could also be said to be another place where competition could be a good place for competition between various suppliers but looking at health care in the US it doesn't seen to work too well there. I know that the NHS isn't working too well either but at least what we have is affordable to everyone apart from perhaps dentistry but then you can always get a cheap flight to Hungary and more affordable, high quality dentistry.

Power generation, especially modern power generation, is a different kettle of fish. There are many different suppliers using many different production methods in different areas and using one grid to supply to the customer. Among the suppliers they are not all required to supply at any one time and the choice of who is to supply at any one time is down to a central controller so the benefits of competition bringing down prices doesn't really apply.

With the requirement to have generators on standby to meet unexpected demands and outages from supplies on demand, producing a fair to the supplier and efficient for the controller/customer system with many different owners in the supply chain is very difficult. The case for a centrally controlled system is very strong is this case.

Water supply and sewage disposal are two other similar cases.

[vtsnowedin]

There are places for competition and places where there is not.

Yes I totally agree.
My electricity comes from the oldest CO-OP in the nation and my family have been voting members sense it's inception in 1945. The government extended low interest loans to get the grid built back then and regulates rates today but makes no day to day decisions or has any money at stake. The roads are maintained and managed by state and local government but construction projects are built by private contractors with competitive bidding. The schools which used to be a local concern start to finish have been usurped by State government and the results are in free fall. The problems with the American healthcare system began when medicare was passed and the government seized that part of the system. Still if you need a hip replacement your waiting time here is days not months. And 91 percent of Americans do have health insurance. the arguments are over the last nine percent many of which are young unemployed and don't want it at any price preferring to spend what money they do have elsewhere.

[kenneal - lagger]

Perhaps we only hear the bad cases of people whose insurance refuses to pay and the family go bankrupt. It's also a bit tough if you have a pre-diagnosed condition before you get insurance or are refused renewal.

[Little John]

It's not just "bad cases".

On just about any healthcare outcome measure you care to look at, the US comes out way down the list of industrially advanced countries for the average income citizen and way down at the very bottom for anyone below average income.

The only people for whom the US medical system proves to be superior to many other countries in terms of health outcomes is the top 10 or 20 percent.

So, the only pertinent question that any US citizen needs to ask themselves is how likely they are to be in that top 10 or 20 percent.

Finally, to add insult to injury, at the systemic level, the US healthcare system is just about the most expensive in the world per capita.

In short, apart from that top few percent, it's crap on any measure you care to use and this was just as true pre Medicare as it is post Medicare. Or, at least since the late 1970s. Pre 1970s, I should imagine there was enough growth in the US economy and sufficient manufacturing industry that the real incomes of ordinary people as compared to the cost of private medical care was sufficient to make it reasonable.

Those days are long gone.

[woodburner]

Jeremy Hunt wrote a book in 2005 about turning the NHS into the US system. It is no longer the NHS, the corporations providing the services are just using the “NHS England� (or Scotland if appropriiate) but they are running effectively a private service for most of the treatments where they can turn a profit.

Look at Lucy Reynolds work for details.