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michael sweet at 17:38 PM on 13 June 2025Sabin 33 #32 - Is range restriction a problem for EVs?
Riduna,
I own a Tesla. One of the main reasons I purchased it two years ago is that in the USA the Tesla charging system is way better than any other. When I drive a long way the car can plot when to stop to charge for the entire trip. It warns me if I am running low on power. At a charging station I pull in, plug in my car and it charges. The system recognizes my car and automatically charges my credit card. If I am going home I put in just enough to reach home.
Other manufacturers are buying into the Tesla system in the USA. I expect everyone to use the Tesla plug soon.
Two years ago I was making a trip with my girlfriend where we had to charge. As we got in the car she asked where we would stop to charge. The computer displayed 8 Tesla charging stations within 12 miles of her house. I generally look for chargers when I have 50 miles left. Most Tesla chargers are near highways.
My brother has a Kia and does more trips off highways than I do. He uses an app on his phone to plan charging. As more chargers are built less planning is needed
The key idea for me is most of the time you charge at home (renters not yet included). When is the last time you drove more than 250 miles in one day?
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Bob Loblaw at 23:14 PM on 12 June 2025Sabin 33 #32 - Is range restriction a problem for EVs?
Riduna @ 4:
Our EV has a built-in navigation system that provides information on charging stations. The map display includes plotting a circle that indicates current available range (based on current charge level), and known EV charging stations in your local area. It also has trip planning features that will select a route that includes where you can stop to recharge. It can differentiate between various charging station capabilities: AC, DC, fast charging etc.
You can also get phone apps that provide similar functions. I have one that will indicate charging stations nearby (or you can search by address, etc.), and it will indicate the type of charging station, how many charging ports are installed there (and what plug type they provide), and a real-time indication of how many are currently in use. It provides information on public vs. restricted access stations, stations under repair, and user-entered station scores. You can filter by charging station provider - different providers use individual payment schemes (usually via an app, not a credit card), and have different pricing structures (time plugged in, kWh used, etc.) The app I have lets you enter your car model, and it can then filter on stations with compatible plug types, etc.
I haven't needed to use charging stations away from home yet, so I can't vouch for the reliability of these apps, but they do exist.
The charging networks are much less standardized than a gasoline hose nozzle and credit card payment system, but hopefully time will improve this.
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Evan at 20:23 PM on 12 June 2025Sabin 33 #32 - Is range restriction a problem for EVs?
Our EV is now 8 years old, and I echo the experience of the others commenting here. Our realistic range is about 200 miles in the summer, 150 miles during "normal" cold winter days, and 100 miles at -20F. Sufficient for typical days. Range is just not an issue for commuting.
We just built a house and I hooked up Time of Day charging so that we get the electricity at half the normal rate. Hence, we pay 6.8 cents/kWh. The elctricity to run our car costs between 2-2.5 cents/mile. Essentially free.
I hooked the time of day meter up to a sub panel, from which I ran circuits to our wall charger, two outlets outside, and I ran conduit to other places in the garage. Different cars have the charging ports in different places (front, rear, left, right), so I felt it was good to plan ahead and put the conduit in the wall to allow us to install chargers at different places in the garage.
8 years and 160,000 miles in and we still love the car.
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Riduna at 12:18 PM on 12 June 2025Sabin 33 #32 - Is range restriction a problem for EVs?
Has technology been developed enabling public recharge stations nearest an EV to be identified when the car battery charge reaches a pre-set low level?
Such a facility would overcome the kind of 'range anxiety' experienced in Australia where driving to the State capital, a regional city, or an event, could be a drive of 500 km or more.
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Bob Loblaw at 00:35 AM on 12 June 2025Sabin 33 #32 - Is range restriction a problem for EVs?
Michael:
Our car came with a portable charger that can plug into a standard 120V 15A wall socket, but that only charges at 1.2 kW, which is a slow charge indeed. The charger itself can have 240V cables (extra cost) attached to it that plug into a variety of 240V outlets, but that still would have required us to install a 240V outlet in the garage.
As part of the negotiations, we got the car dealership to include a wall-mounted permanent charging box at reduced price. We then had our electrician install it. (I did the work of preparing the route for the cable run through our finished basement from the main panel to the garage.)
The 1.2 kW charger would still be able to easily handle the daily commute needs with only a few hours of plug-in time. Our electricity rates drop after 7pm, so we wait until evening to plug the car in. We do not need to plug it in every night, but we usually do. My wife's commute is about 40km round trip, but we're averaging about 60km between charges with extra short trips thrown in. On average, we put in about 12 kW each charge cycle, so just 10 hours if we used the slower 1.2 kW 120V charger.
...but as you say, the actual human resources time to do the charging is less than a minute in the evening to plug it in, and less than a minute in the morning to unplug it. With zero travel time.
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michael sweet at 21:42 PM on 11 June 2025Sabin 33 #32 - Is range restriction a problem for EVs?
Bob,
I find the same thing with my EV which I have had for two years.
If you own a home almost everyone Installs a home charger. I drive 100 miles a day so I plug in every night. If you drive less than 40 miles a day an extension cord to a regular outlet will work. My brother, who drives less than me, charges twice a week.
People often ask how long it takes to fill my battery. This is really a question about ICE cars. In a gas car it is a pain in the neck to fill with gas. With an electric car you charge overnight at home and the car is always full. I spend a few seconds a day charging . When more people have electric cars rental units will have chargers.
I have only used a public charger twice in the last 8 months.
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Bob Loblaw at 00:03 AM on 11 June 2025One big, beautiful, climate-killing bill
nigelj, OPOF:
Chris Mooney's 2005 book The Republican War on Science documents a long history of attacks on science. The Wikipedia link includes some criticism of the book, but I think the positive reviews are pretty strong. (Yes, I have read the book.) Climate, evolution, tobacco, medicine - many topics that go against either religious beliefs or industrial/economic special interests.
The current US administration seems determined to destroy the institutions that have fought to protect the environment, the consumer, the law-abiding citizens, etc. All to suit the ultra-wealthy oligarchs. Changing control of the legislative and executive branches away from the current power-hungry zealots will take a long time to rebuild an effective government system. That system has been decaying for a long time.
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Bob Loblaw at 23:49 PM on 10 June 2025Sabin 33 #32 - Is range restriction a problem for EVs?
We recently bought a full electric vehicle. It has an 80 kWh battery, and a nominal range of 300-400 km.
After about 4,000 km, we have seen the electricity consumption varying from roughly 25 kWh/100km (in colder weather) to 15 kWh/100km (warmer weather, less stop-and-go travel), averaging about 20 kWh/100km. This is consistent with the advertised range of 400 km.
We have not done any long trips yet - just daily commuting and local travel, and few nights out to visit friends or family an hour or so away. We normally only charge to 80% for daily use, and charge to 100% when we anticipate further distances.
To date, we've never seen the battery drop below 50% before charging. We have a level 2 10 kW charger at home that can fully charge the system from nearly empty to 100% overnight, but we usually limit it to 10A slower charge to take it easy on the batteries. This easily completes charging to 80% overnight.
In short, range has not been an issue for our normal city activities. We'll need to seek out fast charging locations if we plan a long trip, but for local use the home charger does just fine.
...and the cost of electricity to feed the beast has been less than 1/3 what I estimate it would have cost to feed gasoline to an Infernal Combustion Engine vehicle.
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One Planet Only Forever at 02:05 AM on 8 June 2025One big, beautiful, climate-killing bill
Building further on my comment @6,
The collection of harmful actions in the Big Beautiful Bill, and the fact that many supporters of the Bill and the Party that made-it-up claim to have been unaware of some of the harmful elements, indicates that a new way to evaluate and position political groups would be helpful.
The existing evaluations like, Right-Left, Liberal-Conservative, Capitalist-Socialist, Democratic-Authoritarian are useful ways to differentiate political groups. But I think a new scale would be Most Helpful. It would be a scale between the extremes of:
- Every action is governed by the pursuit of learning to be less harmful and more helpful to Others. Evidence-based pursuit of increased awareness and understanding of harm being done and the need to stop the harm and make amends for the harm done To Others. Totally Woke (on the left)
- Every action is a pursuit of short-term, unsustainable, increased potential benefit for some people to the detriment of Others, even to the detriment of people who hope they will benefit from it. This side fighhts against the increased awareness and pursuit of evidence and understanding that would contradict their desired pursuit of short-term unsustainable benefit for a sub-set of global humanity. They call themselves Us. All Others are Them (the enemy or the irrelevant). Totalitarian Anti-Woke (on the Right).
The Big Beautiful Bill contains more actions on the Right of that scale than the ‘anti-future of humanity actions’ that will undeniably increase the magnitude of global warming and climate change harm done (and other related pollution and environmental damage harms).
The Big Beautiful Bill is far from ‘Centrist (the middle of the scale)’. It is very close to the extreme of ‘anti-woke, anti-science, harmful to the future of humanity’.
Tragically, many people, especially young men (see Harmful masculinities among younger men in three countries: Psychometric study of the Man Box Scale - linked here), can be misled to hope to benefit from those unkind kinds of leadership action.
The following quote of the opening paragragh of the above linked article indicates how young men could still support leadership that causes increased climate change harm for other reasons even if they have a good understanding of the harm they will suffer due to human caused global warming and climate chnage.
There is strong evidence that young men who subscribe to inequitable gender norms (e.g., believe women are solely responsible for household chores and child-rearing) (Pulerwitz and Barker, 2008) and endorse dominant and hostile forms of masculinities (e.g., believe women are sexual conquests) (Pulerwitz and Barker, 2008) have higher rates of perpetrating psychological, physical, and sexual violence against women (Pulerwitz and Barker, 2008; Jewkes et al., 2011; Malamuth et al., 1995; Parrott and Zeichner, 2003; Good et al., 1995; Schwartz et al., 2005; Copenhaver et al., 2000; Eisler et al., 2000; Jakupcak et al., 2002; Barker et al., 2011). Violence against women is a global health epidemic in which one in three women are impacted during their lifetime, leading to adverse health outcomes, such as depression, sexually transmitted infections, and exacerbation of chronic health conditions (World Health Organization, 2013). Research also shows emerging evidence of an association between “harmful masculinities” and perpetrating verbal and physical abuse, cyber bullying, and aggression towards gay, lesbian, and transgender people or those who do not conform to hetero-normative gender norms (Leemis et al., 2018; Steinfeldt et al., 2012; Leone and Parrott, 2015; Parrot, 2009; Vincent et al., 2011; Kelley and Gruenewald, 2015; Reidy et al., 2009; Espelage et al., 2018). Furthermore, studies have explored the impact of “harmful masculinities” on the health of the individual who endorses them, including poor care-seeking behaviors, and mental and sexual health outcomes (Pulerwitz and Barker, 2008; Barker et al., 2011; Barker, 2000; Rivers and Aggleton, 1999; Addis, 2008; Barker and Ricardo, 2005; American Psychological Association, Boys and Men Guidelines Group, 2018; Jakupcak et al., 2017; Courtenay, 2000; Oliffe, 2009; Cho and Kogan, 2017). A recent study estimated that eliminating these hegemonic masculine norms could save the United States (U.S.) economy $15.7 billion (Heilman et al., 2019).
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One Planet Only Forever at 14:19 PM on 7 June 2025One big, beautiful, climate-killing bill
nigelj @5,
The Republican anti-science attitude is nothing new.
Al Gore made a detailed presentation of the Republican penchant for misunderstanding things in his 2007 book "The Assault on Reason".
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Jeff Cope at 14:16 PM on 7 June 2025Renewables allow us to pay less, not twice
The prisoner's dilemma
Pointing out that it makes sense to build slowly and wait for prices to fall calls to mind the prisoner's dilemma thought exercise. Everybody acting selfishly (in a very limited, short-term way), thinking (incorrectly) that this is a zero-sum contest (essentially the core conservative belief (GeorgeLakoff, Don't Think of an Elephant and other works)) and delaying implementing solutions such as efficiency, renewable energy, organic permaculture, EVs, heat pumps, etc. until the price is lower, makes it all turn out very badly for everyone, as we see playing out in the real world, as actors try to compete by NOT solving the greatest existential crisis in history. Because that delay is the strategy for most countries, even more corporations, and many people, climate catastrophe will destroy quadrillions of dollars worth of civilization and nature (by which I mean mostly ecosystem services, alone worth more than the entire human economy, since it's quite insane to try to put a price on extinction or ecological degradation).
Taking this to its logical conclusion, everybody would do nothing, ever, and civilization and most life on Earth would be doomed. We see that that is almost the case in reality, except some people and countries are
1) being deceitful, with lies like "net zero 2050", essentially an excuse for people in power now to do nothing, but to pretend they are or will, so others implement solutions now and bring the price down; or
2) acting more enlightened and altruistic. So we see that it's not even in anyone's short term interest to delay, as they are saving money on cheaper energy, or as China seems to be doing, reducing its burden of expensive energy and externalities to compete better and take over the world.
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One Planet Only Forever at 14:11 PM on 7 June 2025One big, beautiful, climate-killing bill
I offer this as building on the comments so far (and to intentionally properly use the term woke to try to counteract the destructive misleading marketing efforts of the anti-woke crowd).
I particularly want to build on Bob Loblaw’s point that there are “more than one representative that has admitted that they voted for this bill without reading all of it - and that they are surprised to find sections that they don't like.”
In addition, many voters may also claim they were not fully aware of all the intentions of the individuals and party they voted for - and they do not like many of the things those elected representatives are doing. (as noted in the article “42% of liberal or moderate Republicans, and 28% of conservative Republicans support tax rebates for electric vehicles.”)
In both cases, elected representatives and voters not being more aware, the problem is individuals being selective about their learning in pursuit of personal benefit. They do not care to be governed by the undeniably more important objective of having increased awareness and learning to be less harmful and more helpful to Others (being helpfully woke to harmful developments).
Of course, there is also the problem of liking/desiring a particular action so much that as long as that action is achieved any other actions that are ‘claimed to be disliked’ are considered to be acceptable political ‘collateral damage’. They like their ‘favourite actions’ so much that they would consider any harmful consequences understandably related to them getting what they want to be justified and excusable.
Too many people, voters and elected representatives, will believe that any harm done by their desire to benefit from increasing the total global climate change harm done, or any other understandably harmful desire, is justified and excusable.
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nigelj at 06:20 AM on 6 June 2025One big, beautiful, climate-killing bill
So what happens when / if theres a democratic president? Does it all swing back to support for Paris accords and climate mitigation? Its like a roller coaster of policy. The UK has tried to get around this problem. It created an independent non partisan committeec alled the climate change committe to advise governments on climate mitigation related decisions. The UK have also made quite good progress on some aspects of mitigation so the committe seems to have been a success even although it doesn't have the power to make decisions itself. Generally governmnets of all colours seem to have agreed to take its recommendations seriously. Refer:
Something related. Regarding the Republicans unfortunate anti science agenda.The Economist Journal has a excellent article on the anti science agenda in its May 24th - 30th editions titled "Americas assault on science". You can read it online in the link below. You need to sign up for an account, but they give you a couple of articles for free each month, or you can subscribe and pay for full access.
www.economist.com/leaders/2025/05/22/magas-assault-on-science-is-an-act-of-grievous-self-harm
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nigelj at 05:56 AM on 6 June 2025One big, beautiful, climate-killing bill
Regarding prove we are smarts very good link on why people are fooled by misinformation. Its known that is partly because they lack critical thinking skills. I think they lack such skills for the following reason: Our entire society is based on obedience to authority, so of course teachers never taught students how to think critically, because they didn't want students questioning the validity of what they say. This has left entire generations of people vulnerable to misinformation.
The situation is slowly improving with meaningful critical thinking skills creeping into curriculums, at least in the final years of schooling. Websites like this are invaluable because they help inform on such skills.
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Bob Loblaw at 23:37 PM on 5 June 2025One big, beautiful, climate-killing bill
Recent news reports have quoted more than one representative that has admitted that they voted for this bill without reading all of it - and that they are surprised to find sections that they don't like.
With a bill this large, it is obviously difficult to be familiar with everything in it - but isn't that their job?
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Eric (skeptic) at 21:21 PM on 5 June 2025One big, beautiful, climate-killing bill
There were two deficit hawks in the House willing to vote against the bill: Thomas Massie (KY) and Warren Davidison (OH). A couple others voted present. Massie earned the ire of Trump but Davidson curried favor by introducing a much-needed bill to study Trump Derangement Syndrome.
Massie is a very smart MIT EE grad who bought and repurposed a used Tesla battery to power his off-grid house. As with the bill, and unlike most other politicians, Massie walks the walk: www.leoweekly.com/news/a-conservative-environmentalist-us-rep-thomas-massie-finds-freedom-in-sustainability-15774583
There are a few more deficit hawks in the Senate, led (sort of) by Ron Johnson. Possibility 1 is the Senate kills the bill although there will be pressure to pass it. Possibility 2 is that the Senate alters it to reduce the deficit. In that case it goes back to the House where it will die a miserable death despite lots of yelling. That's because there are enough Republicans in the House who want more state and local tax deductions, who want to restore the Medicaid money, etc. They were only barely convinced to vote for the bill and will use any excuse to kill it.
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prove we are smart at 10:39 AM on 5 June 2025One big, beautiful, climate-killing bill
This is how it happens/feels theconversation.com/three-scientists-speak-about-what-its-like-to-have-research-funding-cut-by-the-trump-administration-255459
North America isn't the only country now slipping into the corruption of a right wing populous authoritarian government.
I don't know whether it is a moral failure of many of its people and its leaders or perhaps this phys.org/news/2025-02-easily-falls-misinformation.html . I guess its both and when I think of the existential climate crisis I think of this ( maybe not doing what is right for this planet could be called "profoundly corrupt") ? www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fxvhR98eEY
Moderator Response:[BL] When you are providing links to other sites, please make an effort to give a brief description of what people will find at those links and why you think they relate to the topic at hand. This is particularly true of video links, which are not easy to scan quickly to find relevant material.
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Bob Loblaw at 01:36 AM on 5 June 2025Fact brief - Was 'global warming' changed to 'climate change' because Earth stopped warming?
Greenhouse effect, global warming, and climate change do indeed have different technical meanings, but common simplified usage does tend to add obfuscation - er, sorry, make things more confusing.
The Greenhouse Effect, as lynnvinc mentions, exists as a natural phenomenon. It relates to the atmospheric influence, as discussed by Charlie Brown, that leads to warmer surface temperatures than we would observe if there was no atmosphere.
It is a somewhat unfortunate term, as "the label "greenhouse" implies a similarity with actual greenhouses - and that was based on a misunderstanding of what keeps greenhouses warm. (Trapping air is more important than trapping IR radiation.)
At times, people have suggested using "the atmospheric effect" instead, but that has never caught on. At times, the human-cause changes in greenhouse gases have been referred to as "the enhanced greenhouse effect", but that is rather cumbersome and the "enhanced" part gets dropped.
As for "global warming" - that is the key easily-observed result of an enhanced greenhouse effect, but also can be caused by other factors. (CO2 dominates the current trends). On a global mean basis, surface temperatures will rise. It is not the only effect of an enhanced greenhouse effect, though. Precipitation changes are also critical. And many other weather phenomena. Seasonal changes and timing. Extreme weather events. Etc. Hence "climate change" is a much broader, more encompassing term. In the Venn diagram of climate, "Global warming " is a subset of "climate change", and "global warming" overlaps both the greenhouse effect and other causes of climate change.
On the myth of "they changed the name...", I took undergraduate climate science in the 1970s. The textbook we used was Sellers, W.D., 1965, Physical Climatology, U Chicago Press. Changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide are discussed in that book, along with other factors, under the chapter titled "Paleoclimatology and Theories of Climatic Change". My copy of the book is the one that I bought in 1978, so if "they changed the name..." then someone must have taken my copy off my bookshelf, altered the printing, and replaced it without me noticing.
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One Planet Only Forever at 03:40 AM on 3 June 2025Climate change is making hurricanes more destructive
A very good presentation.
I would add:
Some Americans also believe that the only TCs that matter are the ones that make landfall on US territory. Pacific Cyclones are somebody else’s problem. And if that US territory is a place like Puerto Rico it also doesn’t really matter.
There is also more to say regarding Uncertainty:
Uncertainty, including a lack of awareness and understanding, can certainly be abused to unjustifiably claim that there is no reason to be concerned about any matter.
Uncertainty results in a range of expectations. And uncertainty understandably means that things could be better or worse than any expectation in the range of expectations (speculations). The reality can be outside of the likely range of possibilities.
In business and engineering uncertainty is reason to avoid doing something unless actions are taken that are certain to significantly reduce the potential for negative consequences.
The problem is leadership contenders, in business or politics, who think, correctly, that they can temporarily benefit from gambling that they will not personally face serious penalties when the uncertainty is reduced by future evidence and their misleading marketing efforts become undeniably understood to be harmfully incorrect.
And that understanding of the problem leads to understanding that the root of the problem is the ways that many people can be tempted to be willing to be less aware or misunderstand things.
The anti-woke, those who resist learning to be less harmful and more helpful to others, are certainly ‘The root of almost every serious problem’.
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Charlie_Brown at 06:57 AM on 2 June 2025Fact brief - Was 'global warming' changed to 'climate change' because Earth stopped warming?
There are, or at least there should be, technical differences between the terms. The greenhouse effect results from the presence of greenhouse gases and natural concentrations keep the Earth from being an ice rock planet. Global warming results from increasing the concentration of greenhouse gases. It upsets the global energy balance and results in accumulated energy. Climate change results from an uneven distribution of accumulated energy around the globe. Major atmospheric and oceanic circulation patterns are changed. There have been large climate changes in history from natural causes, but this time the cause is emissions from anthropogenic use of fossil fuels and fossil rock. Severe weather results from localized and sudden changes in the uneven distribution of energy.
Depending on the message, the terms global warming and climate change might be used interchangably, but I prefer being clear with the technical distinction. Sometimes it seems appropriate to use them together, as in increasing GHG concentrations cause global warming and climate change.
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lynnvinc at 01:28 AM on 2 June 2025Fact brief - Was 'global warming' changed to 'climate change' because Earth stopped warming?
It was also called "The Greenhouse Effect" earlier, but I think that was replaced with global warming because it might be confused with the natural greenhouse effect. But I sort of thought climate change was preferred by Bush and those skittish about global warming because it detracted from the warming aspect, made it easier for deniers to claim the climate has always changed, as if "no problem."
I still use the terms somewhat interchangeably, but opt for global warming when I want to stress the warming aspect, climate change when I want to bring in enhanced storms, hurricanes, wildfires, floods, droughts, etc.
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MA Rodger at 09:10 AM on 1 June 2025Electric vehicles have a net harmful effect on climate change
tder2012 @5 & Bob Loblaw @6,
Ah ha!!. That button "on the left side at the bottom" does allow you to see annual values. The 'All Years' option displays the seven annual values 2017-24 (and this 'All Years' option can be pre-set in the URL) with the 2024 value showing as 175g(CO2eq)/kWh. (And being a lucky smarty pants, I see 175 is what I reckoned it being @4.)
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Bob Loblaw at 06:37 AM on 1 June 2025Electric vehicles have a net harmful effect on climate change
tder2012 @ 5:
January 2024 to January 2025 is 13 months...
Assuming that the slider in your link selects the entire month chosen - i.e, choosing January 2025 includes all 31 days in January - then January 2025 selects a 12-month period from February 2024 to January 2025.
Selecting December 2024 would cover the 12-month period ending December 31. If I set the slider that way, then the balloon pop-up on the map gives a Great Britain value of 176 CO2eq/kWh. This agrees with the last value MA Rodger reports in his 12 individual months in his second paragraph. The same 176 value is also visible on the upper left of the page, under "Total electricity mix, December 2024".
The page does not appear to be displaying 12-month averages, even though it lets you make that selection. As I move the slider from May 2024 to December 2024, I see the monthly value changing in the upper left display with exactly the numbers MA Rodger reports for those individual months. (I did not sign up for an account to download the CSV file with the data.)
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tder2012 at 02:36 AM on 1 June 2025Electric vehicles have a net harmful effect on climate change
MA Rodger from electricitymap, on the left side at the bottom, you can change from a 72 hour period, to a 90 day period to a 12 month period, etc and then I slid the month over to January 2025, so the 12 month period would be January 2024 to January 2025, this is the worst case scenario, which needs to be dealt with. https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/GB/12mo/monthly
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MA Rodger at 05:47 AM on 31 May 2025Electric vehicles have a net harmful effect on climate change
tder2012 @3,
First point to make is my use of g(C)/kWh which is a lot different to g(CO2)/kWh. To convert the former to the latter you need add the weight of the O2 by multiplying by 3.664. (My working in C rather than CO2 is a climatology thing.)
At that ElectricityMaps webpage, the 226 g(CO2eq)/kWh figure you quote I read as being the carbon intensity for Jan 2025 alone. I read the webpage data showing the individual months of 2024 running Jan-to-Dec 227, 180, 172, 135, 172, 145, 164, 124, 169, 189, 227, 176. I was thinking you shouldn't really average these as the electric use (they average 173) with the summer-use being a lot different from the chilly winter months, but GridWatch graphs UK electric use through 2024 and a back-of-fag-packet adjustment doesn't make that much difference (average 175g(CO2eq)/kWh = 48g(C)/kWh).
My number was taken from a CarbonBrief article which sports this graphic which shows the same as the article says 2024 =124g(CO2)/kWh = 34g(C)/kWh.
The NESO does a monthly analysis of GB monthly electric stats (Apr25 & links) and there does seem to be a discrepancy between the numbers from NESO and that ElectricityMaps webpage with NESO giving Apr25 at 133g(CO2)/kWh and ElectricityMaps 174g(CO2eq)/kWh.
Why the difference?
Speculating, perhaps the imported electric is seen as zero carbon due to it being emitted abroad. Perhaps something else. -
Paul Pukite at 03:12 AM on 31 May 2025Fact brief - Is the climate as unpredictable as the weather?
The category of climate also includes the predictable seasonal changes and the daily swings. So in that sense, climate is much more predictable than the weather. I can guarentee the climate next winter will average below freezing in Minnesota, even though it is averaging room temperature now.
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tder2012 at 01:53 AM on 31 May 2025Electric vehicles have a net harmful effect on climate change
MA Rodger, I am curious what your source is for "In UK the carbon-intensity of electricity has dropped by 75% since 2010 (136g(C)/KWh to 32g(C)/kWh in 2024)". In the 12 month period January 2024 to January 2025, the UK emitted 226 grams of CO2 per kilowatt-hour, averaged on an annual basis, according to app.electricitymaps.com. In 2012, according to this link, the lowest CO2 grams emitted per kilowatt-hour was about 440. Good reductions for UK, for sure. However, Paris climate targets call for electricity grids to emit less than 100 grams of CO2 per kilowatt-hour, averaged on an annual basis.
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BaerbelW at 15:11 PM on 30 May 2025The Weather & Climate Livestream
Until Sunday June 1 when the livestream ends, the earlier parts can be watched via this playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDDEU7mKb6z0RD8V9eXw8TH_qJ1Jtb5u_
They also plan to create individual videos of talks where the scientists presenting them are okay with that. This could turn out to become a very valuable resource based on what I've been watching from the livestream.
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MA Rodger at 02:25 AM on 30 May 2025Electric vehicles have a net harmful effect on climate change
Charlie_Brown @1,
The brave new world of net zero brings with it many transformations which people appear to find difficult to normalise and set out rationally.
Be warned!! This is a subject I can drone-on about for hours. But picking up on a couple of things you address....Ⅰ Back in the day when I was still a car owner, I was rather vocal with the message on EVs - 'As the electric grid decarbonised, the emissions from an EV will diminish. For a petrol-engined vehicle it will be fixed until the day it is scrapped.'
And back then I was also vocal about the fuel-efficiency of petrol-engined vehicles which were (and are) continuing to spew that darned CO2 into the atmosphere. I reckoned efficiency (mpg) should be increasing far more quickly than was/is the case** yet nobody seemed to care. My last car (20 years ago - I'm now car-free) did 70mpg. Back then I was asking 'Where are the 100mpg cars? The 150mpg cars?" Such efficiencies are not beyond the wit of man***.
And the graphic comparison in the above OP (that seems to address your objections, "seems" because the links to sources cited by the OPs Ref4 are not working for me): the OPs graphic would be transformed by improving mpg. Given the numbers presented in the OPs graphic, the point where an efficient petrol-engined vehicle becomes less carbon-intensive than the compared EV is 85mpg. But importantly, and petrol-heads be warned, that assumes the carbon-intensity of the grid doesn't reduce, an assumption which is not the case. In UK the carbon-intensity of electricity has dropped by 75% since 2010 (136g(C)/KWh to 32g(C)/kWh in 2024).
(**Latest govt number (for 2020) show the UK's average new petrol car with 52.4mpg & diesel 56.1mpg. That was rising on average by a paltry 0.8mpg/yr back during in the 2000s. That annual increasing efficiency doubled 2010-15 but since then the growth of the SUV sees the average efficiency getting worse, hopefully a temperary phenomenon.)
(*** Apparently petrol or diesel car still doesn't do much more than 70mpg. A lot of the lost mpg is because many are aren't so small and today small cars require reinforcing so they don't get flattened by the bigly SUVs & 4x4s swarming around them.)
Ⅱ Your comment also reminds me of an enquiry I made about an EV a little more recently. I was trying to get the CO2/mile numbers (along with a lot more) from Nissan who were presenting their much-advertised & wondrous EV - the Leaf. It was evident they had no idea what I was on about. They could tell me how cheap it was to run (£/mile) but stuff like carbon intensity or energy intensity didn't register as something they understood.
Evidently, they just wanted to sell cars and for them the USP was the wonderful £/mile.
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BaerbelW at 05:17 AM on 29 May 2025The Weather & Climate Livestream
The livestream can be watched via this link:
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Charlie_Brown at 02:36 AM on 29 May 2025Electric vehicles have a net harmful effect on climate change
Unfortunately, a key phrase was dropped from the source reference footnote [4] which makes the sentence in the green box for “What the Science Says” misleading. The reference says “EVs convert over 77% of the electrical energy from the grid (underline added) to power at the wheels. Conventional gasoline vehicles only convert about 12%–30% of the energy stored in gasoline to power at the wheels.” The source of power for EVs is not included in Eisenson, et al. “Electric vehicles have lower lifecycle emissions than traditional gasoline-powered cars because they are between 2.5 to 5.8 times more efficient.” Larson, et al., Final Report, p. 40, also compares units of electricity to units of gasoline. Furthermore, the articles do not define efficiency, whether it is g CO2/mile, g CO2(eq)/mile, or BTU/mi. Where coal is the power source for the grid, CO2 g/mi is about the same for EV and ICE. Where natural gas is the source, CO2(eq)/mi is close to the same after accounting for methane leakage from production and transport. Most simplified analyses use the source power mix from the regional grid. When the incremental power source to meet added demand for EVs (and other demands such as AI and growth), the situation is much more complex.
I am a strong supporter of EVs and I love my new car. To meet greenhouse gas emission reduction goals, transition to EVs is needed. The electric power grid also needs to reduce fossil fuel generation.
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One Planet Only Forever at 08:59 AM on 26 May 2025Learning what's at stake with the Weather & Climate Livestream
Regarding: “It's not the place of Skeptical Science to tell anybody whether ignorance is strength or not, but we encourage you to learn that answer for yourself.”
Anyone wondering how ‘ignorance could be strength’ should check out the Wikipedia entry for Ignorance (linked here). It includes the following well-reasoned point:
“Ignorance can have negative effects on individuals and societies, but can also benefit them by creating within them the desire to know more. For example, ignorance within science opens the opportunity to seek knowledge and make discoveries by asking new questions. [2]”
A key requirement is for people to wonder what they are unaware of and be curious about changing their mind by becoming more aware of well-reasoned evidence-based understanding.
However, it can be challenging for people to change their mind, especially if they believe they will benefit from a misunderstanding.
Hopefully this event will cause some people who have been inclined to misunderstand things to learn that they need to stop allowing themselves to be manipulated and misled by Merchants of Misinformation (the larger group of harmful misleaders that includes the Merchants of Doubt (Wikipedia linked here) – Oreskes and Conway deserve credit for the name)
An internet search for Merchants of Misinformation will find many informative items.
Awakening from Ignorance and becoming interested in freedom from misunderstanding can be very powerful.
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prove we are smart at 00:26 AM on 25 May 2025Learning what's at stake with the Weather & Climate Livestream
Ignorance means you can be fooled,there is nothing accidental about climate denial-its always been about the politics. The far right tsunami sweeping through North Americas freedoms has caught its scientific agencies now. I wish "The Weather & Climate Livestream" a ground-swell of persuasion.
They say "when America sneezes,the world catches a cold", I certainly hope it is not contagious. We need science and scientists as a remedy to help the dire situation our world is facing. Just one current example, here along the southern coast of my Australia, a massive algae bloom has formed. www.youtube.com/watch?v=2os3AhY30IY Similar to other affected coastlines world-wide, it is a truly massive bloom phys.org/news/2025-05-toxic-algae-marine-life-australian.html We need climate scientists more than ever and so many other academics in specialized fields.
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michael sweet at 07:28 AM on 18 May 2025Sabin 33 #28 - How reliable is wind energy?
tder2012:
We agree that decarbonizing as rapidly as possible is the target.
Oil is primarily used for transportation. As cars are switched to electric oil use will start to go down. Trains are already switching to electric (except in the USA). Electric trucks are being tested on the road. The cost savings for trucks switching to electric are substantial.
I understand electric freighters are economic up to about 1500 miles and some are being manufactured in China. Google says that some river freighters and ferries are the largest currently in service. Additional batteries can be loaded as containers on the freight deck and connected to the ships power, then switched at the next port.
Small planes have been built that are electric.
The key is to build out carbon free electricity as rapidly as possible and tax carbon emissions. As cheap electricity becomes more widely available and carbon more expensive, more users will switch to electric.
Vote for politicians who support more carbon free electricity!!
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tder2012 at 11:03 AM on 17 May 2025Sabin 33 #28 - How reliable is wind energy?
I don't care how grids get decarbonized, just get it done NOW. France did it 40 years ago by accident, only because they wanted energy security and independence, no fossil fuels to extract in France. Australia wants to do it with wind, solar, batteries, synchronous condensors, etc. I say go for it, get 'er done! Here are a few sites you can watch AUS grid generation mix, import, export between states, prices, etc (you can find sites like this for many other countries, states, etc but I like electricitymaps best as I am very concerned about CO2 and ghg emissions and I find its the best for showing that data. Also, it is a "one stop shop"). https://aemo.com.au/energy-systems/electricity/national-electricity-market-nem/data-nem/data-dashboard-nem & https://explore.openelectricity.org.au/energy/nem/?range=7d&interval=30m&view=discrete-time&group=Detailed & https://www.nem-watch.info/widgets/RenewEconomy/
Clean energy hits many roadblocks, often people ideologically opposed to them, we see this with solar, wind and also with nuclear. The No Nukes in the USA in the 70's were successful at blocking the build of nuclear power plants, but look at this article from US Energy Information Administration and see how much coal was built after 1980, fortunately they haven't build much since 2013. https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=50658
We are only really talking about electricity here, which is 20-25 % of global energy production. Oil is barely a blip in global electricity production (mostly diesel generators in small remote communities and islands). New England in USA uses oil occasionally, they seem to encounter natural gas supply issues more than typical, this is an article on the New England Independent System Operator (NEISO) website. "Nuclear, oil, and coal generators are critical on the coldest winter days when natural gas supply is constrained (as shown below). Coal- and oil-fired resources also make valuable contributions on the hottest days of summer when demand is very high or major resources are unavailable".
Anyway, the point I want to make is that oil is barely a blip in global electricity generation, yet it is the number one source of energy generation in the world, as you can see on this Our World in Data website https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-energy-substitution?time=1970..latest Much decarbonization all over the world needs to be done in very short order.
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David-acct at 08:47 AM on 17 May 2025Sabin 33 #28 - How reliable is wind energy?
Quite a bit of useful information in the Electricmaps.com which you can dial in most every country .
Thanks for providing
I have previously used the EIA grid monitor for the US (also quite informative) along with the German version. The link provides the source data which helps understanding the stability and reliability issues.
For those countries that periodically achieve 100% or near 100% electric generation from wind and solar also have frequent periods of 10-30 days where fossil fuel electric generation comprises more than 50% of total electric generation. This points to the need for significant redundancy of renewable capacity and storage capacity necessary to achieve stability and reliability with wind and other renewables. -
One Planet Only Forever at 07:05 AM on 17 May 2025Sabin 33 #28 - How reliable is wind energy?
tder2012,
Reading this item and the comments I have learned and understand the following:
- There is no reason to doubt the ability to have reliable electricity grid operation with totally sustainable renewable energy generation that includes a significant amount of wind generation.
- There is reason to be concerned about the lack of progress by the supposedly most advanced nations towards reducing their electric system harmfulness to 100 grams of CO2 per kWh. Zero ghg emissions is the end objective for every nation. But getting down to 100 g per kWh is an important measure of advancement. Note: rich nations failing to reduce their harmfulness are incorrectly perceived to be more advanced/superior.
- People should be very concerned about the likely magnitude of harmful climate change consequences due to continuing failure of the most harmful to reduce how harmful they are (impeding the building of wind generation). The poorest who are negatively affected by the increased climate change harm, and people who try to sustainably improve living conditions for the poorest, should be angry about misunderstandings that impede the building of wind generation even if their anger is perceived as unnecessary panicking.
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tder2012 at 12:28 PM on 16 May 2025Sabin 33 #28 - How reliable is wind energy?
"Don't panic" good to know, I wasn't aware of anyone panicing, but spendid advice nonetheless. So also no need to panic about the Paris target for electricity grids to emit less than 100 grams of CO2 per kilowatt-hour, averaged on an annual basis, correct? See all electricity grids here https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/DE/12mo/monthly this link specifically highlights Germany at 344, China is at 489, India varies from 560 to 750, Indonesia is at 640.
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nigelj at 05:55 AM on 16 May 2025Sabin 33 #28 - How reliable is wind energy?
Drax in the United Kingdom use carbon neutral thermal turbines burning wood pellets to contribute to grid stability (voltage and frequency). Read something on it years ago. They have a great article in laypersons language on the whole issue of grid stability here:
www.drax.com/power-generation/great-balancing-act-takes-keep-power-grid-stable/
Blackouts attributable to renewables in places like the UK with considerable renewables in the mix are uncommon. This is quite impressive with new technology. So the doubters claims of disaster have consistently failed to materialise. Spain has just had a big blackout that might have something to do with renewables but its rather unclear what caused it. But its the first such event. These things are clearly very uncommon.
There are obvious known technologies that help renewables grids remain stable. They will be added as required as renewables expand. Grid operators are not actually complete idiots. The public wont tolerate significant numbers of blackouts and neither will politicians so there will also be lots of pressure to make the system work seamlessly. Dont panic.
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michael sweet at 04:07 AM on 16 May 2025Sabin 33 #28 - How reliable is wind energy?
tder2012 at 4:
Your linked presentation does not say that a renewable energy grid cannot be controlled. It says that the current grid models need to be adjusted to work with grid inverters. No-one is surprised that when they change the hardware the grid runs with you need to change the software you use to run the grid.
At one of your links I saw an article that said grid forming inverters stabilize a renewable grid while grid following inverters destabilize the grid as renewable percentages get high. Apparently in many grids they are currently required to use grid following inverters because of the legacy of fossil fuels. As the grid switches to renewable the hardware to support the grid will have to be changed.
My understanding is that the existing turbines of thermal energy plants can cheaply be converted into synchronous condensers. Doug Bostroms' post at 3 appears to suggest that in Australia they have converted closed thermal power plants into synchronous condensers. Googling "thermal power plants into synchronous condensers" gives many hits saying it is cheap to convert closed thermal power plants into synchronous condensers. You need to find another tree to bark up.
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lynnvinc at 00:14 AM on 16 May 2025Fact brief - Is the climate as unpredictable as the weather?
I'd also say "no," since I've used a geography map book from 70 years ago and their climate maps are still sort of valid even with climate change. I've seen elsewhere (like when to plant) that the zone lines have moved a bit with climate change, but not much.
Climate (which is an aggregate of a lot of data over many years) is what you expect, weather (a particular local, short-term configuration) is what you get. I live in what is known as a humid subtropical climate near the Rio Grande Valley, and it's been that way for a looooog time, and is quite different from a trundra climate. I did a calculation and we are getting a bit warmer over the past several decades, but not a huge amount.
In sociology over 100 yrs ago Durkheim noted that suicide rates (aggregate stats) were about the same year to year, and that while one cannot predict at the individual case level who will commit suicide (tho psychology can help), it is "social facts" (his term, which also includes "cultural facts") that determine suicide rates & whether they slightly go up or down.
I'm also thinking brownian motion — can't predict where each molecule will go, but on aggregate at a more macro level things become more predictable.
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tder2012 at 23:48 PM on 15 May 2025Sabin 33 #28 - How reliable is wind energy?
Yeah, those plans might be doable for South Australia, but SA is 7% of Australia's population, so hopefully they can do your plans on a much larger scale.
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Eclectic at 22:39 PM on 15 May 2025Sabin 33 #28 - How reliable is wind energy?
Tder2012 @5 :-
Thank you for the "electricitymaps.com".
That shows Tasmania State as leading the nearby states by a country mile, so to speak. But Tasmania uses a colossal amount of hydro + a bit of wind power. Almost totally "renewables".
The South Australia State is doing fairly well, without hydro ~ but I see from other sources that the State's renewable electricity is usually in the 20-90% renewables range. Though sometimes poor [mid-evening with low wind . . . and yet sometimes around 90% with wind, mid-evening]. Daytimes well carried by solar. That State also has several synchronous condensers. My impression is that they would do well by doubling solar capacity, and quadrupling battery storage. Which sounds quite feasible over 10-20 years ~ since we can reasonably expect sodium-type storage batteries to become much cheaper during that time. (And nuclear plants remaining quite unnecessary.)
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tder2012 at 21:25 PM on 15 May 2025Sabin 33 #28 - How reliable is wind energy?
I watch to see how electricity grids are meeting the Paris target of less than 100 grams of CO2 emitted per kilowatt-hour, averaged on an annual basis. I don't care how this target is met, South Australia is close (160), but you see BESS is barely a blip there and the rest of Australia is so far away from this target. So hopefully Australia can deploy much clean energy extremely quickly. They'll need copious quantities of synchronous condensers, flywheels, grid forming inertia, synchronous converter application, etc in very short order. See SA grid, along with the other grids in Australia, showing grams CO2 emitted per kilowatt-hour, averaged on an annual basis and the sources of electricity generation here https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/AU-SA/12mo/monthly
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tder2012 at 21:11 PM on 15 May 2025Sabin 33 #28 - How reliable is wind energy?
Have you read this report presented at the 2025 Georgia Tech Protective Relaying Conference "Assessing Inverter-Based Resources Modeling Gaps in Commonly Used Short-Circuit Programs". Cristian Paduraru P.E. (Experienced Transmission Relay Settings Engineer) provide this comment on LinkedIn "Just a heads up on what's coming if RE contribution will continue to increase: no ECHO logic will work as there will not be any strong source.
Also, the output will significantly be affected by load which is impossible to be properly captured in current short circuit programs.
Also, the simulaton in CAPE/Aspen may be irrelevant in absence of proper implementing the exact control algorithm in IBRs, generic models are a disaster, here's a paper just presented at Georgia Tech on this" here is the link to the paper https://www.ap-concepts.com/2025_PRC/modules/request.php?module=oc_proceedings&action=summary.php&id=73&a=Accept Do you have any comments on this?
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Doug Bostrom at 14:12 PM on 15 May 2025Sabin 33 #28 - How reliable is wind energy?
"I know synchronous condensors, flywheels, grid forming inertia were mentioned in references, but these are not currently available at scale."
Synchronous condenser deployment scaling is limited only by our hazy and insufficient impressions of energy economics, which have been warped and shaped by inexpensive but ephemeral and (we belatedly discovered) harmful fossil fuels. Leaving aside short-term thinking of this sort which precludes stable and sustainable civilization of the kind we'd like to imagine possible, synchronous condensers are a mature technology ready for use, and have been for decades.
Synchronous condensers are a potentially ideal marriage with modernized energy sources such as PV and wind, which each with appropriate control feedback are natively able to respond to fluctating demand more rapidly than primary generation needing a throttle of some kind, whether that's control rods or a steam or natural gas valve.
Meanwhile, the cost of upscaling synchronous converter application pales in comparison to the capital needed to substantially expand our nuclear generation fleet. On a bar chart the difference would be instantly and starkly apparent. As well and thanks to fossil fuel legacy we already have a leg up on this— if we're smart like Australia where generators formerly spun up by combustion are now being used as synchronous condensers, conjoined with modernized primary energy supplies.
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One Planet Only Forever at 05:50 AM on 15 May 2025Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?
tder2012,
michael sweet @418 provided a good response to your response @414 to my comment @413. I will add the following:
There may be some ‘new nuclear power systems’ built due to misguided leadership actions supporting bad bets. But they will almost certainly be expensive, or less safe, and be too late to help limit global warming impacts.
I understand that limiting the negative impacts of wasteful and harmful, but popular and profitable, developments in self-interest driven socioeconomic-political systems is a constant challenge for people who try to sustainably develop improvements, especially improvements for the poorest. Misleading marketing fuelled pursuits of popularity and profit in misguided competition for perceptions of superiority relative to others has a proven history of developing and excusing a diversity of unsustainable and harmful activities.
Some people have invested significantly in developing new nuclear power systems. They can be expected to try to profit from their investments. People invested in the belief that ‘new nuclear will be cheaper and built fast enough to help keep human global warming impacts significantly below 2.0 C have tragically misdirected their efforts.
The evidence is now clear that there are many better ways than new nuclear power to sustainably achieve that important objective. And most of the options that are more sustainable and less harmful than ‘new nuclear’ are also less expensive sources of energy.
It is understandable that people invested in a bad bet will try to argue against the reality that they have made a losing bet. Some of them will even try to claim that their investment (bets) ‘need to pay off to help the poor’ (a version of the non-sense theory of trickle-down economics).
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michael sweet at 03:47 AM on 15 May 2025Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?
tder2012:
Responding to post 424: so for you a higher capacity number is more important than the cost of production. New nuclear power currently costs ten times more than new solar power.
Nuclear power is not economic, takes too long to buid and there is not enough uranium.
You have still not provided any data to support your wild claim that a renewables plus nuclear grid can be built out faster than a renewables only grid.
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michael sweet at 03:40 AM on 15 May 2025Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?
tder2012:
Responding to post 423: linking a blog post in response to a National Academy of Science consensus report makes you look bad. Nuclear supporters have challenged the BIER VII report ever since it was released. When the National Academy of Science decides to write a new consensus report come back here and we can talk about it.
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tder2012 at 02:41 AM on 15 May 2025Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?
"[BL] You were wrong." Thank you for the explanation, I will strive to be more careful with my posts.
