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China Joins the Growing Movement To Ban Gasoline, Diesel Cars (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: China has become the latest country to publicly discuss plans to ban the production and sale of gasoline- or diesel-powered vehicles. In July, both France and the UK published plans to phase out sales of conventionally powered vehicles by 2040. China will now add another nail to the coffin of the internal combustion engine. However, unlike the French or British plans, in this case there's no target date -- yet. The news comes from an automotive policy forum in Tianjin. China's vice minister of industry and information technology, Xin Guobin, said that his ministry has begun work on a timetable to phase out fossil fueled vehicles. The Xinhua news agency also reports that Xin told automakers they need to begin to "readjust their strategies" accordingly. For foreign car companies hoping to sell EVs in China, that will mean investing in the country, as imported vehicles come with stiff import duties attached.
Their oil dependent Allie will be happy to hear about that
This is why we should all be moving off oil. Let the Arab princes fight in their crappy sandpit. They can do it without our money and without our support. We can go back to working on more worthwhile pursuits like space travel.
The US is currently more or less self dependent for Oil, having larger reserves than most of the ME countries ... combined. We don't control the world like people think, OPEC does.
And it makes sense to cut resources you have to import (in China's and Europe's case) and not give money to people who want to blow you up for being an Infidel.I honestly wish them well.
The US will get there, when it is economically reasonable to do so. But unlike China, and some of the European countries, we do not have a centrally planned economy.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
That's a nice, far-away target date that lets people feel good about themselves without actually having to do anything. Plus there's plenty of time to extend the deadline when it eventually approaches (or just quietly ignore it at that point, given there are likely no enforceable deadlines or penalties associated with the plan).
#DeleteChrome
The Saudis seem to have seen the writing on the wall, hence their recent moves (under their younger princes) to diversify their economy. More education, research, and (gasp) the levying of taxes.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
I honestly wish them well.
For clarification sake only ... "them" refers to those that want to cut resource usage (China and Europe), not the people wanting to blow you up. ;) :-D
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Correct!
Using methane as a hydrogen donor you can reform coal into gasoline.
love is just extroverted narcissism
And I thought education was the answer to every problem. Sending coal to Reform School must be the answer. - See what I did there. - Never mind.
Hey. In 20-30 years electric vehicles will make gasoline vehicles obsolete. No one in the US, or anyplace else, will be buying ICE cars if electric is cheaper and better. This is a feel good law. It makes the fools feel like governments are "doing something."
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
Even if my own federal government is sticking it's head in the ground, it's good to see that some nations are beginning to take our global situation seriously. A shift in the structure of power will occur when nations actually take our situation seriously.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Long-term, light electrically powered vehicles are probably the best choice from both the manufacturing cost perspective and the operating cost perspective. Both financially and environmentally. But chances are that in a future where all faster and heavier vehicles are obligatorily automated, even "traditional" larger vehicles could probably enjoy diminished resource expenditure by omitting safety features unnecessary in an environment without drunkards and tired people behind the steering wheel etc.
Ezekiel 23:20
But the coal has to want to reform.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Yep. Also note if the trends don't bear out, they will extend the life of IC engines as long as they need to.
Meaningless propaganda.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
In the Earth's crust there is about 65 thousand tons of lithium per person now living. That seems like enough to me.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Fortunately if electric makes serious inroads on ICE engines I should be able to get gas for 1$ a gallon and extend the usefulness of my current car another couple of decades.
love is just extroverted narcissism
What if they get it wrong? I mean if electric vehicles are the future then just let it happen, no need to force it along with bans and subsidies.
We saw this with the CFL bulb subsidies. The government would give large rebates for people to buy CFL lighting but the bulbs are crap. They take 20 minutes to "warm up", interfere with IR remotes (that nearly drove me batty until I figured out that the lamp was what kept the TV remote from working), can't handle the heat of being in a closed fixture (who lights their house entirely with floor lamps and chandeliers?), and contain toxic mercury (broken bulbs happen, and in places like where our children sleep and where we prepare their food). Not long after LED lights came out and they are awesome. They light up immediately, don't interfere with remote controls, and don't burn themselves out if in a common light fixture. They aren't perfect, for example they still have a "funny" color to them, but they are getting better. Does anyone even buy CFLs anymore now that LEDs are just as cheap?
If not electric vehicles then what? I don't know, but as I recall few people saw LEDs coming to market as quickly as they did. What if the claims of algae based diesel fuel becomes a reality? Are we still going to ban internal combustion engines? Maybe ethanol gets real cheap because we found a new way to make it. Maybe we get synthesized hydrocarbons from wind and wave powered factories.
As inefficient as an internal combustion engine might be that inefficiency becomes largely irrelevant if the means to produce, store, and transport the fuels becomes "green", cheap, and plentiful. If algal fuels become viable then we aren't using electricity to produce it, it comes from the sun. If we can convert sun power to motive power by algae more efficiently than through photovoltaic panels and batteries then banning internal combustion engines is a problem.
Let's not repeat past mistakes.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
I also believe that in 100 years the Arabian peninsula will be covered in sheets of silicon, but for a different reason. They won't be photovoltaic but they'll still be forged with intense heat. The rest of the world will be better off though, living a life free from carbon dug from the ground. Also free from the energy superpowers in Saudi Arabia.
How would the people on the Arabian peninsula export this energy? Are they going to turn the sun into liquid hydrogen and ship that out or something? Arizona is just as big as the Arabian peninsula, closer to the people in the USA, Canada, and Mexico, and free from the endless wars in the region. I can make similar arguments for India, China, Russia, Brazil, or most any nation large and small.
Whatever energy source comes to replace oil is not likely to come from the Middle East. Whatever they have, except oil, the rest of the world also has plenty of access to. No one is going to have to go to the Middle East to get more of whatever that might be.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Very little oil from the Arabian Peninsula makes it into the US. The United States produces mostly all the oil it needs internally now.
Does anyone even buy CFLs anymore now that LEDs are just as cheap?
I predict that the same jackasses who demanded that we switch to CFL lamps will become the loudest proponents of banning them, and not just banning them, setting up hazardous disposal teams to remove them.
They, of course, have a certified Hazardous Waste Disposal company they could suggest.
...and the United States is ruled by attorneys whose sole purpose in this world is to pollute it with paper.
From: http://www.ranken-energy.com/p...
I remember seeing some CFL bulbs on the shelf that advertise "reduced mercury content". Hmm, so you're saying they still contain mercury? Isn't mercury bad for you? Even in "reduced" amounts? No thanks.
I'll use the CFL bulbs I have until they burn out because that's a sunk cost but I won't buy more. This is especially true now that I've seen the real life lifespan of these bulbs, I have incandescent bulbs that lasted many times longer.
Also, wouldn't be just as "green" if we used LED (or even incandescent) lights powered from wind or solar?
Dear Senator,
Fix the problem at the source, don't mandate that I buy a lower quality bulb. Let people build some nuclear power plants already. Don't mandate nuclear power. Don't subsidize it. Just let people do it.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
As inefficient as an internal combustion engine might be that inefficiency becomes largely irrelevant if the means to produce, store, and transport the fuels becomes "green", cheap, and plentiful. If algal fuels become viable then we aren't using electricity to produce it, it comes from the sun. If we can convert sun power to motive power by algae more efficiently than through photovoltaic panels and batteries then banning internal combustion engines is a problem.
Let's not repeat past mistakes.
The combustion engine, no matter what fuel it runs on, isn't going anywhere. There will always be instances where people need to go places or do things that require fast refueling using a portable energy dense substance in the middle of nowhere. That just isn't solar or batteries. For example, there is no way that anyone is going to own a boat that requires a week to charge using solar just to go from one side of a lake to another. And, yes, I'm talking about the 30% or so of things that we do that occurs nowhere near charging stations or even where they would be feasible. It could be that we end up using a renewable fuel source for these ICE engines, it just won't be electric.
..so, more rickshaws and fewer cars?
Electric rickshaws have been common in China for decades. There are dozens of models to choose from.
Arizona is just as big as the Arabian peninsula
You should learn to read a map. AP is more than 10 times the size of Arizona.
Very little oil from the Arabian Peninsula makes it into the US.
More or less true. In 2016 6.8% of all U.S. oil consumption was supplied by the Arabian Peninsula. Not a lot, but hardly nothing - it is 1/8 of U.S. imports.
The United States produces mostly all the oil it needs internally now.
In 2016 the U.S. produced 45% of the petroleum that it consumed, less than half. This is down slightly from 2015 (48%) when Saudi Arabia ramped up production, cut oil prices, and shut down U.S. exploitation of high priced tight oil.
A bit over half of our imports come from Canada and Mexico, and the rest mostly comes from OPEC.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
Wood gas vehicles when? I hear they are pretty popular in Best Korea. Perhaps there is an opportunity for some technology interchange there.
Have gnu, will travel.
The US is currently more or less self dependent for Oil, having larger reserves than most of the ME countries ... combined.
Rydberg Energy's most recent estimate has (using the estimate type most favorable to the U.S., which is the most speculative) finds the U.S. to have slightly less oil than Saudi Arabia alone. Throw in other Middle Eastern countries and it is well more than 2-to-1 to the U.S. disadvantage.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
Dammit, I missed a decimal place!
So what if it takes the area of India to get as much sun. (Did I get that right? Within 10% at least?) That solar energy is worthless if they can't ship it out somehow. Less than worthless if the rest of the world can get it from a closer and friendlier nation, connected by land. Mexico comes to mind for the Americas. (Yes, Mexico is like half the area of the Arabian peninsula but it's also not halfway around the world.)
It's not like there is a lack of land area between 30 degrees north and south on Earth. Middle East nations have a near monopoly on oil due to having a fairly unique access to this natural resource. If solar power replaces oil then they lose that monopoly. Europe (which has a voracious appetite for energy) might be connected by land to the Middle East which would make shipment of solar energy pretty trivial, no matter what form they ship it in, but Africa and Asia are just as close. (Yes, I can read a map. Africa is separated by water from Europe, so drop some wires and pipes in the water for that relatively short distance. It's been done before.)
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
A 2011 study found 39 million tons of economically recoverable lithium (at current prices). Allowing for an 80 kWH battery (Tesla's have 70, IIRC) EVs would use about 20 kg of lithium (this costs about $180). So this will build 2 billion EV cars (there are only one billion cars on Earth right now), or twice that if we go with 40 kWH batteries. So there enough lithium for a lot of vehicles.
The "lithium reserve" estimate is very soft (on the upper end). Unlike oil it is not intensively exploited so many worldwide resources are likely undiscovered or underestimated. And as is true of many resources, modest increases in price will likely greatly expand the reserves. We can afford to spend more for that 20 kg of lithium.
BTW, there is also enough platinum for about 2 billion Mirai type hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
Fortunately if electric makes serious inroads on ICE engines I should be able to get gas for 1$
Not necessarily. What will end up happening is that they'll just pump less oil and make less gasoline so that they can keep the price up.
No, I would think the price of gasoline will go up, not down, because there will be fewer customers, eliminating some of the "economy of scale."
While the case is quite clear about manufacturing and operating costs, I doubt that 1 million EV's could have escaped from Miami last week. They all would have gone 200 miles and needed a recharge. One million extension cords plugged into Disneyland would be quite the sight.
I mean if electric vehicles are the future then just let it happen, no need to force it along with bans and subsidies.
So your argument is that subsidies don't work, despite every major boost in human progress being funded in someway by subsidies?
Funny how one extreme use case is held up as an excuse for not changing things. Using the "200 miles" as a distance limit is telling, as it assumes that the technology will not improve at all, when it has already improved a great deal in the last decade.Charging technology is also improving greatly, it's ridiculous to assume that there won't be sufficient charging capacity installed as the number of electrics on the road increases.
Consider this - auto driving cars would be able to convoy to reduce energy usage, and smoother traffic flow from auto-driving vehicles would reduce slowdowns and jams. That alone will greatly improve evacuation efficiency. This technology is rapidly approaching market, any electric car produced in 10 years should be capable of this functionality.
So, instead of 10 hours on the road to go 200 miles, we have the scenario of 4 hours on the road, followed by an hour to charge, and then back on the road to go another 200 miles before the old-style cars would have made it to the first stop. (Though realistically we should see 300-400 miles between charges)
More gas for the USA!
Trumps's plan is working, America will be back in the 1950's again before we know it!
No sig today...
Works wonders on independent 3rd world air pollution sources, such as poorly maintained cars, and for authoritarian governments...
Ships will do fine with LNG. If ocean harvesting of methane hydrate works out, huge supplies.
So the other 7 billion people can wait to thumb a ride...
The US is somewhat tired of computer wanker waving for 50+ years. We solved the practical problems of life, and a lot of made up ones...
If you have half a brain, you now own a supercomputer to solve problems that would be illegal to export 20 or 30 years ago.
Simple. Get two mirrors, and place them *exactly* parallel. Do I have to do all the thinking around here?
P.S. They go shiny sides *in*.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
The reason you can't say that now might be due to the fact that once you burn the oil, it's gone. CMIIR, but I think lithium batteries can be used more than once.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Batteries get recharged numerous times. Oil gets burnt. Not the right comparison.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
What if they get it wrong? I mean if electric vehicles are the future then just let it happen, no need to force it along with bans and subsidies.
If you remove all government intervention and let the free market decide anything you end up with anarchy. Remember the present situation is not a result of any free market.
What will happen if you don't force it along? The same thing that happens when a company which doesn't care about anything but profit produces the cheapest thing for people who don't care about the environment, and who then go crying when they can't see the end of the street through the smog.
We saw this with the CFL bulb subsidies.
Yes we did. People the world over reduced their energy consumption. The introduction of a product with obvious downside caused a big shift in R&D and as a result we now have excellent LED bulbs to thank for it. LEDs wouldn't have replaced the incandescent in the USA without any government intervention, but they had a lot of incentives to beat out CFLs.
and contain toxic mercury (broken bulbs happen, and in places like where our children sleep and where we prepare their food).
I'd be more worried about getting hit by a meteorite, no..... having my children get hit by a meteorite while they sleep. That is really scary. If on the other hand you do fear 2.5mg of mercury breaking ... lets say once per year in the vicinity of your children, I suggest you never ever eat fish, and certainly not in the recommended weekly levels recommended for healthy people.
What if the claims of algae based diesel fuel becomes a reality? Are we still going to ban internal combustion engines? Maybe ethanol gets real cheap because we found a new way to make it. Maybe we get synthesized hydrocarbons from wind and wave powered factories.
Aside that you're failing to see the problem of burning things with carbon in the name, algae won't become a reality as there is little need or incentive to increase R&D. ... Unlike say LEDs when the incandescent ban was announced and CFL still showed many ugly downsides.
Maybe this ban will actually spur some R&D for alternatives.
For example, there is no way that anyone is going to own a boat that requires a week to charge using solar just to go from one side of a lake to another.
Check out the Greenline hybrid -- supposedly it can make about 4 knots solely off the solar panels covering the salon and somewhat faster (9 knots?) for a number of hours off battery alone. It also has a single diesel which uses some kind of clutch mechanism to run as a generator, turn the prop shaft or both. I'm guessing they run the generator as a motor when running off electric power.
I boat on an inland lake (as do millions of other Americans) and most of the time we don't go that far -- maybe 10 miles in a day, usually with a long period spent at anchor swimming and lounging, and our use pattern is really common. I think an electric setup or probably some kind of hybrid setup would totally be practical. The distances we have to travel don't make running at planing speeds very useful, it's like 4-5 times the fuel consumption for 2 times the speed improvement.
So I think for this category of boating, an all-electric boat would almost be practical. We have 30A shore power for charging and if the range on batteries was only 20 miles at about 9 knots (roughly hull speed without planing) it would be more than adequate. It'd probably make sense to have a generator option for battery charging or running in ICE-electric mode. Plus electric motors would make propulsion simpler, we could eliminate the need for a transmission to step down shaft speeds or provide reverse gearing.
Our boat has twin gasoline 350s, so there's a lot of space and weight bearing, probably more than enough to have a 10kw generator and batteries.
Hmm, so you're saying they still contain mercury? Isn't mercury bad for you? Even in "reduced" amounts? No thanks.
Sure is. Oxygen is bad for you in reduced amounts or increased amounts too. You know how to get more mercury in your body than inhaling the paltry 2.5mg that is in a CFL? Eating fish. Don't eat fish if you're afraid of mercury, unless you understand science, doses, and concentrations.
You know as I type this I am sitting in an enclosed room with 40 fluor tubes each with roughly 20x the concentration of mercury in them as that scary CFL in your house. We have been doing this since the 70s. ... actually maybe it is bad, it would certainly explain the low level of critical reasoning people are capable of nowadays.
It will be a long time before it becomes economically responsible for the US to move away from oil. It generates a lot of profit and tax revenue, and most of the costs are externalized to other people who don't matter and are easily fooled into thinking that it's good for them.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
"We". You're not controlling this.
Look at IKEA. For all their faults, they manage to make cheap but good furniture out of materials like wood and cotton, which don't create landfill problems and which are sustainable. When they use plastic, they try to use as much recycled material as possible.
Just saying "we need oil to make model cars, curtains, yarn, pillows and folding doors" and therefore must consume all that is available is not even trying. No surprise from the Ranken Energy Corporation of course, but it's not like you can't make a lot of that stuff either out of other things or out of recycled plastic.
Is there really no way to manufacture a drinking cup without oil? How did people consume beverages before plastics were available?
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Are the 167,000 charging stations they built also "meaningless propaganda"?
https://tech.slashdot.org/stor...
This is just a small part of their massive push towards EVs. A push that is not only cleaning up their environment, but allowing their manufacturers to become the world leaders in EV technology. They are getting the patents, selling the busses and cars while western manufacturers dick around with hybrids and compliance cars.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
They have a real problem with pollution, which is why it's a ban on sale of ICE vehicles. Algae based diesel fuel, while possibly being carbon-neutral, still pumps out crap into your cities, which is what they seem to be most concerned about.
Also, they may well be trying to get their EV industry jumpstarted while the big Western automakers are still dithering.
Calculus was funded by subsidies?
Telescopes were funded by subsidies?
Determining Longitude was found by a government prize.
The steam engine was funded by subsidies?
How about the cotton gin?
No. Somethings, at sometimes were aided by subsidies.
how about all those companies and ideas that were subsidized that didn't pan out.
How about all the government corruption that occurs as a DIRECT RESULT of subsidies.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
How would the people on the Arabian peninsula export this energy? Are they going to turn the sun into liquid hydrogen and ship that out or something?
Electricity is actually quite easy to move through cables.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
I'm a human caused climate change skeptic, but I welcome new fuels and power sources. Sorry, your stereotypes are not universally true. However, the range IS a reasonable concern. I live 50 miles from the nearest supermarket and fuel station. It's quite easy to keep fuel in cans with stabilizer. Huge batteries for charging cars aren't yet an option when there's no power - a fairly common happening where I live. If we had batteries with really high energy density I'd welcome leaving internal combustion behind - maybe in another 20 years (It'll come when fusion does!).
Yep, can't have those pesky citizens having a method to travel around that doesn't require fourteen kinds of permission. Just ignore the fact that electric vehicles just mean more emissions somewhere else.
NRRPT/RCT
That's good, because digging through that glass might be long term hazardous due to the radiation.
Nuclear remains the second cheapest form of electrical power generation but requires a huge capital outlay to build. Nuclear generated electrical power is dying off in the U.S. because the standards changed over a hundred time from proposal to operation making the initial capital outlay way too high. Other countries license and approved design then come in and do an inspection before starting up.
NRRPT/RCT
You do realize that electric motors are, at best, 28% efficient. And, the same for electric generators. Burning the fuel to create mechanical energy close to the end use is always more efficient.
And, there were LED lightbulbs on the market a decade before U.S. retailers had a clue about them. CFL lightbulbs were a real non starter because they wouldn't fit in older light fixtures. Add in the annoying 60hz flicker and they are fully reviled by a huge plurality. Even with the CFL rebates, who wants to replace every light fixture in the house with a skewed spectrum flickering CFL?
NRRPT/RCT
http://oilprice.com/Energy/Ene...
That is the report I was looking at.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
You do realize that oil gets burnt to recharge those batteries - and to manufacture them??
Probably not - most people don't think very deep - just parrot the PC stuff.
Anyway - batteries have this thing called a cycle life - you can with a bit of math -- or rather just simple arithmetic - calculate the cost of delivering the total power of the battery over it's life time -- it is twice that of ICE power... and that assumes the cost of the electricity to charge them is zero - which it isn't - and assumes one can't figure out that most of the electricity used to charge them comes from carbon based fuel.
The cost of the batteries is kept down by not noticing the use of slave labor to mine it.
So this is irrational.
Anyway - here is the real answer you are looking for:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Calculus was funded by subsidies?
Newton was funded externally so yes.
Telescopes were funded by subsidies?
As was Galileo
Determining Longitude was found by a government prize.
As were the global explorers
The steam engine was funded by subsidies?
A lot of it yes...
How about the cotton gin?
Probably. I don;t know anything about it, but I highly doubt it was completely void of external financial and government assistance
No. Somethings, at sometimes were aided by subsidies.
Maybe, but to get any major piece of technology mainstream some external public assistance was required.
how about all those companies and ideas that were subsidized that didn't pan out.
Nothing is life is free, but the concept of subsidies generally produces a net benefit to society.
How about all the government corruption that occurs as a DIRECT RESULT of subsidies.
As above. Like Venture Capital, there's all sorts of sins associated with it but the practice still produces a net gain overall.
Newton was most definitely not subsidized. Having a job is not (necessarily) a government subsidy and in his case it most definitely was not.
Didn't even read the rest.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
Newton's government job was intended as a sinecure, a way of paying him money without imposing responsibility on him. People were surprised when he took the job seriously.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
He got that job (head of the mint) long after the development of calculus and the laws of thermodynamics. He was already about 60 and his work on optics, thermodynamics, calculus was done while in his 20s and 30s.
There was no government subsidy for the development of optics, calculus or any of his work.
At the end of his life he was given well paid positions to honour him and hopefully that a man of his intellect could solve the counterfeiting problem.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond