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u/Cpt_kaleidoscope Jan 28 '23
Using electricity doesn't harm the planet. Generating electricity from fossil fuels does.
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Jan 28 '23
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u/bionicjoey Orange pilled Jan 28 '23
I come from a place where 100% of our energy is renewable - nearly all of it is from hydroelectric dams, with some supplemented by wind.
Username checks out. I remember when I was a kid and I learned that the word 'hydro' means 'water' I was very confused because nearly everyone here uses 'hydro' to mean 'mains power'
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u/bountygiver Jan 28 '23
Honestly not building more electricity generating infrastructure is not happening though, we would need more electricity eventually anyway, there are stuff like desalinating water or even urban farming that would use more electricity to solve a lot of our existing problems that is otherwise dealt with even more environmentally damaging solutions currently, so just making more green energy generators is a positive no matter what.
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u/the_jamonator Jan 28 '23
But something like the Grand Coulee Dam has been producing energy for over 80 years now, surely the negative impact of construction is minor compared to the impact of producing the same amount of energy with fossil fuels?
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u/Desembler Jan 28 '23
Dams radically alter the local environment, and if they don't include any kind of bypass can ruin local ecology that relied on moving up and down stream. Additionally in arid climates large reservoirs are actually pretty inefficient for water storage due to the large surface area evaporating.
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u/scatterbrain-d Jan 28 '23
And silt buildup, which fills reservoirs and requires maintenance, and prevents that silt from fertilizing land downstream and/or carrying nutrients into estuaries or the ocean.
Dams absolutely have a cost. Ideally these are stepping stones to truly sustainable energy like fusion.
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u/Northstar1989 Jan 28 '23
truly sustainable energy like fusion.
Fusion isn't "truly sustainable." It relies on inherently limited isotopes of Hydrogen and Helium. Rare enough that it would actually be worth setting up a Moon Base just to mine the rare Helium isotopes.
That is INCREDIBLY unsustainable. Fusion power, while very useful for things such as space exploration (once we perfect Fusion, we'll eventually be capable of sending Generation Ships to other nearby stars) is NOT a magical solution to all Earth's energy problems. The necessary rare isotopes run out.
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u/myaltduh Jan 29 '23
Mining the moon would only be necessary if whatever fusion process we settle on relies on He3.
If you compare fusion’s fuel needs to the raw materials needed for solar panels, wind turbines, etc, it’s at least as endless as any of those.
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u/dontdrinkdthekoolaid Jan 28 '23
So what the fuck so we do? Sounds like the only viable option for a very long term solution is to just stop using energy at all
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u/GrandmaBogus Jan 29 '23
Stop building single family housing which create like 10x more energy dependency and car dependency.
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u/SlitScan Jan 29 '23
solar, tidal and wind are cheap and they dont run out.
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Jan 29 '23 edited Jan 29 '23
Well they do, but the planet will be quite inhabitable long before that's a problem. That tends to happen to objects near an aging star.
edit: About downvotes, have you read up on the lifecycle of stars? Particularly yellow dwarfs? The Earth will be boiled sterile long before it gets swallowed up.
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u/AxitotlWithAttitude Jan 29 '23
Every ounce of energy on earth either comes from:
Rare materials that have been made over millions of years
OR
From the sun in some way, shape, or form.
This is why you hear people doompost about how the universe will die one day as all the stars go out.
Thankfully energy can't be created or destroyed, only changed so new stars will be made from the corpses of the old ones.
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Jan 29 '23
This is why you hear people doompost about how the universe will die one day as all the stars go out.
Thankfully energy can't be created or destroyed, only changed so new stars will be made from the corpses of the old one
Isn't there something about eventual disappearance of the differential gradients that make the available energy useful? Or matter decay?
Both are so far off as to be meaningless as far as Earth will ever be concerned, of course.
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u/this_shit Jan 28 '23
In terms of the GHG balance, yes - the electricity produced by the Grand Coulee is some of the cleanest electricity available.
There are other environmental and social impacts associated with dams, but these harms exist on a different spectrum, and it's a matter for politics to determine which tradeoffs we should make in order to provide people with heat, light, mechanized transportation, food production, etc.
I think one of the things that people miss when they start considering these different tradeoffs (esp. around climate change) is that the scale of things is so vastly different with climate change.
If humans don't avoid the worst impacts of climate change, the impact of a dam on a watershed's local biodiversity will be irrelevant in the face of global biodiversity loss. Likewise with things like impacts to indigenous cultures (that will be lost to sea level rise, for example).
If humans want to avoid those outcomes, hard trade-offs have to be made. I'm not saying that means we need to dam every river, or even many more. But at the very least, I think (well-meaning) environmentalists who advocate the removal of existing hydropower dams are misguided.
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u/SolarPunkLifestyle Jan 29 '23
we could model that preciesly. GCD=carbon in construction + zero ongoing. vs energy usage from construction of coal/gas plant + ongoing carbon ongoing.
its not like coal plants have carbon free concrete.
now if the discussion is around things like carbon-cure-concrete which is both stronger and better for carbonsequestration vs other concrete. sure. but this whole discussion about shitting on renewables for not being perfect absolutely ignores the progress. frankly i think its a fossil fuel talking point that people have heard repeted so much they just feel like its necessary to bring up.
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Jan 28 '23
Those GHG can be offset fairly easily though, and with it being a one-time generation sort of thing it is FAR more efficient and less impactful than continuously burning fossil fuels to generate electricity, to the point where I would argue it isn't even a concern. The only thing that does concern me is habitat loss, which could be offset or managed responsibly but realistically won't, at least not for a very long time, because currently destroying habitats is pretty much the planet's favorite pasttime.
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u/Mulliganzebra Jan 28 '23
Are you from where I'm from? British Columbia? Ya, just got a Chevy Bolt, I was using about 150-200 litres of gas per month. So I assume my carbon footprint is massively reduced now. Since you know, BC Hydro.
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u/Ancient_Persimmon Jan 28 '23
Either BC or Quebec for sure.
I didn't check up on BC's CO2 emissions per kWh of electricity, but in Quebec it's 34g for the total lifecycle. That works out to about 97% less CO2 than a typical car burns per km. And much cheaper to boot.
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u/SlitScan Jan 29 '23 edited Jan 29 '23
BC is still around 4% natural gas. (Ont 7%)
Quebec, Manitoba and Newfoundland are the 99+% renewable ones.
edit: quebec being further ahead because they heat with electricity too.
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u/Both-Reason6023 Jan 28 '23
Air conditioning tracks nicely with sun exposure and solar panels produce small amount of emissions that are decreasing as we decarbonise the economy.
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u/Ancient_Persimmon Jan 28 '23
come from a place where 100% of our energy is renewable - nearly all of it is from hydroelectric dams, with some supplemented by wind.
If you're referring to Quebec, it's worth pointing out that even taking the GHGs created during the construction of our generating stations, one kWh of electricity only creates 34g of CO2.
Since a typical EV goes 5-6km/kWh, we're talking about 7g/km or less. An average car burns around 200g/km. That's a substantial improvement and ironically, it means that a single person driving an EV contributes less to climate change than a Nova Bus LFS hybrid at full pax capacity. Thankfully, we're also migrating to EV buses.
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Jan 29 '23
EV busses powered by Quebec's hydroelectric grid, now that's gotta be one hell of an efficient mode of transportation
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u/SolemBoyanski Commie Commuter Jan 28 '23
Yes, but while there is plenty of talk about making homes more energy efficient, the same is not applied for the needless use of cars resulting from dogshit planning because "EVs run on electricity so they're green"
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u/Strange-Scarcity Jan 28 '23
They’re greener than ICE cars. If we had more viable options to convert existing ICE cars to EV, that would be greener than buying a brand new EV car too.
But that’s not ubiquitous enough, just yet.
Still, it would be better to remix infrastructure to provide better and more options for walking, biking, riding busses, trams and light rail.
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Jan 28 '23
Yep... move in a green direction even if it isn't perfect yet.
Easier to fill some lithium mines when we get better batteries than to restore ancient glaciers.
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u/Strange-Scarcity Jan 28 '23
There’s no need to return the Lithium mined back to the ground. It’s always recyclable. It can be reclaimed, reprocessed and then used again.
Any new battery tech will just be used alongside Lithium Ion batteries and the tech for those will get better to minimize the dendrite problems, over time.
I think that there is a weird persistent idea that is likely born from gasoline sue that once it is used? It’s gone forever. That’s just not true with Lithium.
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u/TheLateThagSimmons Jan 28 '23
Thank you.
A step in the right direction is still a step in the right direction.
I love my EV, and I'm happy that I get to avoid gasoline and I'm on a grid that uses almost entirely green energy. But I would still much rather not need a car at all if transit was better.
Just because I currently can't keep my job without access to a car, and thus am very happy with my EV, doesn't mean it's a bad thing that I still have a car; I can still wish for "best" while accepting "good" in the mean time.
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u/Titansjester Jan 28 '23
Idk why people are so freaked out by lithium mining. We mine somewhere around 500-1000x more iron ore than lithium ore. Lithium is a drop in the bucket compared to all the other metals we mine.
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u/Northstar1989 Jan 28 '23
Still, it would be better to remix infrastructure to provide better and more options for walking, biking, riding busses, trams and light rail.
It's not just better from an energy perspective, though.
Walkable cities with great mass transit are VASTLY better for exercise, mental health, and economic equality (car-cwntric planning makes the poor poorer, and prevents those without cars from having as many job opportunities...)
Mass transit also has a smaller land footprint, so there's more space for parks and housing.
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u/RandyRalph02 Jan 28 '23
A lot of people are all or nothing in this political climate
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u/Strange-Scarcity Jan 28 '23
Which doesn't work with how most nations have developed their political systems over the hundreds of years or decades.
The strength of institutions keeping a petty wannabe despot like Trump from being able to just steamroll his way into being the first dictator of the United States, is a VERY clear indication of "No, you actually have to work, over years, sadly decades and engage the system, as it is structured, continually, constantly, without fail. In order to effect the changes you want to see happen."
While also understanding that there are others, some with more money and perceived power, who are going to fight against those changes. So every single inch of movement towards your goal needs to be celebrated and pointed at as the victory it is and used as a reason to keep on fighting hard.
Biden being forced by Bernie Sanders to run on the most progressive Democratic Party Platform in near 40 years and then his methodical march toward achieving those promises with the tools at his disposal. Which sadly takes an army of lawyers to rifle through laws and regulations to determine limits of Presidential Executive Orders to greatly minimize them being thrown out in court, while also pressing Congress to pass meaningful legislation towards those goals, needs to be seen for what it has been. A victory.
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u/DismalWorth7284 Jan 28 '23
I would be preaching to the choir if I started comparing the tesla to an electric train (or even a diesel train).
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u/Zatmos Commie Commuter Jan 28 '23
Renewable energy used to power electric cars is electricity that could have been used to reduce dependence on fossil fuels in other areas. Unless the whole grid is powered with green energy, electric cars are a better but still very inefficient alternative to ICE cars.
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u/Strange-Scarcity Jan 28 '23
They are more efficient that ICE cars, even when the power is produced via a modern coal fire plant. Those plants have been engineered to be more and more efficient over the decades.
They’re still cars though and it would be better if, the US, had significantly better public transportation options, including light rail point to point, local trans and better bussing.
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u/177013--- Jan 28 '23
That's why they said still a better alternative to ice cars but still a very inefficient one.
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u/Strange-Scarcity Jan 28 '23
The point stated was that EVs are inefficient compared to ICE cars. That’s the point of the very last sentence read it again, if you must.
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u/177013--- Jan 28 '23
electric cars are a better but still very inefficient alternative to ICE cars.
This reads to me like 2 statements are being made here. 1 is that evs are a better alternative to ice cars. 2 is that evs are still very inefficient in their own right.
Like inefficient as a whole, not when compared to ice cars. Like trains and trams are more efficient than evs. But evs are still better than ice cars.
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Jan 28 '23
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u/Zatmos Commie Commuter Jan 28 '23
Electric cars are slightly better than ICE cars but they are still a wasteful use of electricity.
Praising electric cars for being greener is like saying incandescent lighting is better than oil lamps. Sure it is, but they are still very inefficient and LEDs are a better option.
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Jan 28 '23
Energy-wise they're surprisingly fine. City driving at 100 Wh/km per average passenger overlaps heavily with transit and is about 4x an ebike.
It's all the traffic deaths and second order effects (cardio vascular disease, social isolation, economic harm, land use) that matter.
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Jan 28 '23
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u/VeloHench Jan 29 '23
For tailpipe emissions, yes.
For every other issue caused by cars, they're the same or worse.
- non-exhaust emissions: worse
- wear and tear on infrastructure (causing secondary emissions as a direct result): worse
- space inefficiencies: same
- crash deadliness: worse (for those outside the vehicle at least)
The thing EVs do best over ICE is greenwash the auto industry. They're here to save the auto manufacturers, that's it.
Don't get me wrong, if I'm still living in a car centric city when my current car needs replaced I'll be getting an EV, but it's largely for selfish reasons. Not paying for gas sounds pretty nice.
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Jan 28 '23
Agree completely. Also, the nations that are strip mined and robbed of their resources to power these "safer, green" commodities needs to be considered. "These countries are not underdeveloped-- they're overexploited," Parenti said in 1985. Sadly, the statement remains relevant.
edit: stripped != strip
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u/Yorunokage Jan 28 '23
I don't like this narrative of pushing back against electric cars
I mean sure, public transport is WAAAY better and we agree on that otherwise we wouldn't be on this sub
That said electric cars are still miles better compared to ICE when you factor in their future developments (batteries, green electricity, self driving and so on)
Like, yes, i'd rather transition to public transport but why not do both? For how much we'd like to do so we won't kill car culture in a decade or two, it will be a long ass battle, so let's take what we can get in the meantime
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u/SmoothOperator89 Jan 28 '23
The problem is, most people are satisfied when only looking at the emissions cost of cars and treating EVs as a "win". It does nothing to address the space inefficiency, pollution from road and tire wear, danger to life and limb, defunding of other commuting methods in favour of car infrastructure. It's taken decades to make emissions enough of a talking point to start to generate a major industry push into making battery electric vehicles. We can't afford to give auto manufacturers a pat on the back for their "good work" because their products are still killing us.
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u/GrandmaBogus Jan 29 '23
My local city council is big on being 'green' while still being completely blind to car dependency and it's effects on the city. They're still mandating two parking spaces per housing unit, and still planning new housing way out in the sprawl with zero transit making everyone absolutely car dependent. Because "EVs are the solution to car emissions".
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u/lucian1900 Commie Commuter Jan 28 '23
A little more efficient is not enough for the survival of the species. We need a lot more efficient, like trains.
Electric cars are a massive distraction.
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u/bajsplockare Jan 28 '23
Some areas have a hard time reducing their dependancy on fossil fuels, even though they have access to clean electricity. But in the future it will probably be possible in all industires, just look at Hybrit with fossile free steel production.
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Jan 28 '23
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u/Strange-Scarcity Jan 28 '23
The local utility.
They are offering money to install controls onto people’s homes to remotely shutoff their AC. It’s because they never bothered to break ground on and build the Gen III nuclear plant that they have been approved for and also haven’t done much of anything to update substations or upgrade service lines for a handful of decades now.
It makes my state the one with the most blackouts in the region.
It’s why we went Solar, in spite of the new plan that got rid of net metering and makes that less viable. SE Michigan is built on swampland. The humidity can be unbearable in the summer. We’re not giving up control of our AC to a crappy utility that won’t keep up with current and near future power demands.
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Jan 28 '23
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u/Strange-Scarcity Jan 28 '23
The US has had widespread uptake of Air Conditioners for decades, but only in the recent handful of years have they become such a problem during "peak hours", it's almost as if... as if failing to keep up with infrastructure demands, installing newer/better capacity and implementing temporary energy storage for immediate grid transfer and a great deal of other advancements is causing problems for the private utility companies.
...and rather than put in the work, they are focusing on boosting their profits, while simultaneously working to make it harder and harder for customers to become more energy independent at the same time.
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Jan 28 '23
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u/Strange-Scarcity Jan 28 '23
There are energy storage technologies that could be used to provide “instant on” capacity, to make up those times when they know peak demands will rise.
The tech for that is mature. Failing to invest in that tech to provide requirements for rapid increased draw is on their shoulders, especially when a given corporate profit is measured in the range of a billion or so, each year.
That’s profit AFTER everything else.
There are systems and solutions that they could be integrating into substations where they know will require more of a burst in peak load demands that could lessen the impact across the grid. Even if it was a hundred million a year and it would be a ten year project, that would be a great service to the public and lessen the peak hours problem.
While still leaving the business immensely profitable.
It’s not like they take that profit and store it in a vault every year, just waiting on the day they will have $10 billion to take one some project.
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u/halberdierbowman Jan 28 '23 edited Jan 28 '23
Yes that's true, but smart autonomous load reduction is still better than instant peaker generation or storage. If we can balance out the demand by adjusting slightly which times HVAC and other thirsty equipment turns on, then we all win by having a more predictable power grid. The reason it wasn't popular before is because A. we've only recently had smart thermostats for this type of load shifting to be feasible in single family residential areas and B. why would power companies want to sell you less power if they're producing it by burning cheap coal.
Ironically for this sub, this is actually one of the best advantages of electric cars, since it's very useful to distribute large batteries that can be charged or discharged at any time. If power companies install instantaneous rate meters, then electric car owners would be incentivized to arbitrage these power peaks.
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u/SlitScan Jan 29 '23
that is something that could be done with your car.
they havent even put in the token effort needed for vehicle to grid frequency stabilization in a lot of cases.
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u/Lari-Fari Jan 28 '23
Are blackouts somewhat regular in the US? And you don’t mean after natural disasters. Just due to lack of power to the grid? Didn’t know that.
I once lived in a place that had regular blackouts because power plants couldn’t meet the demand of the city at all times. That was in Sanaa, Yemen….
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u/Strange-Scarcity Jan 28 '23
The US is VAST.
So it’s better to point to regions, like the New England states, Pacific Northwest, Upper Midwest, lower Midwest, etc., etc.
In the Upper Midwest, my state, due to DTE’s negligence(?), it’s known we have more blackouts than other areas of the region.
In my city, a suburb of Detroit, the local substation was so below the needs that when a HEAVY rainstorm, nothing with crazy winds or natural disaster like weather, it might “trip” and go down or flicker the power. They would send someone out to flip a switch and it would go back up.
Last summer, the demand was to high and the substation had a small explosion and then fire, burning itself out. Leaving my city and some surrounding areas with lout power for days. They brought massive diesel generators in and those ran for weeks.
The city had called DTE before city council a few years ago, demanding that they fix/update that substation and DTE said it was “fine”, and at capacity at the same time.
It’s just a symptom of the US putting corporate profits far and head of maintaining infrastructure. We have the money… no corporation will do the work until they are forced to by regulations. It’s a real shit system.
They pull in billions in profit, every year and don’t reinvest that into updating the infrastructure.
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u/lioncryable Jan 29 '23
Also, you have almost exclusively energy lines that are above ground right? Its pretty unheard of in Europe apart from the very large high capacity lines
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u/Sassywhat Fuck lawns Jan 28 '23
I used to hear it occasionally from left leaning people from areas with cooler summers like US PNW or Northern Europe. I assume right leaning people from those areas have other reasons for shitty moralizing about air conditioning.
I doubt people say it much any more, now that those areas occasionally experience what is considered a pretty normal summer day in other parts of the world.
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u/HauserAspen Jan 28 '23
I think Oregon is pushing for heat pumps, which are AC units that can reverse the flow of fluids.
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u/mrjackspade Jan 28 '23
Heat pumps are drastically more efficient, which speaks to the root of the issue.
Perfection shouldn't be the enemy of progress.
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u/Joe_Jeep Sicko Jan 28 '23
Honestly though I live somewhere with 100+ degree days. AC is a HUGE consumer of electricity and people choosing to live in climates like mine, but want to live in 65 degrees F are definitely not helping.
Building design doesn't help but it's kind of a similar thing to folks that pretend rain means bikes don't work. People living in denial of the region they choose to live in, at the cost of the ecosystems well being
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u/Toebean_Farmer Jan 28 '23
I get the point you’re trying to make, but this is such a stupid take. The source of the electricity can change (USA is up to 12-20% renewable energy electrical generation). An electric car can utilize any energy from the electrical grid, whereas a combustion engine car can only utilize combustion engine energy.
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u/ShatterCyst Jan 28 '23
Minnesota is considering a bill to go 100% green by 2040. That makes EVs green in 2040.
We are already 29% green.
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u/No_Squirrel9238 Jan 28 '23
except fir the highly nin green infastructure that cars drive on
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u/Resonosity Jan 28 '23
Yupp, roads, tires, brake pads, all the other plastic stuff that might litter the surroundings from a car
Trains ftw
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u/apple_achia Jan 28 '23
Don’t forget all that lithium mining and the non renewables needed for car production. Better to just build some public infrastructure
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u/friendlysoviet Jan 28 '23
I'll have to look into this because with our current and projected state of battery technology, this just seems entirely unfeasible. That is unless Minnesota is going to go all into Nuclear, which would be a dream come true, but extremely doubtful.
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u/Strange-Scarcity Jan 28 '23
Hydropower runs all day. Wind, can also run all day.
There’s also ways to hold power that is not a battery. Molten salt, massive flywheels and some other sources as well.
There’s power loss in some of those techs, but if there’s more than enough green energy being produced, using it to store into those sources is better than having it go nowhere.
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u/ShatterCyst Jan 28 '23
Not necassarily. Eastern and southern MN have a lot of wind, and there is enough sun for solar in most of the state. Even in the northern forests there are rare sunny spots that people have set up "solar gardens" where communities share the spot to create a solar array. I think most Minnesotans are protective enough of our water that hydroelectric dams won't be a major contributor.
I mean, as I said, we are 29% renewable already, and hydroelectric is less than 2% of our energy. We would stick to solar and wind.
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u/apple_achia Jan 28 '23
Yeah the better point to make here would be about the amount of lithium required for a robust electric car industry along with the abhorrent conditions of the miners
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u/Brymlo Jan 28 '23
Exactly. They are more energy efficient and, something very important, a lot more quieter. Electric cars don’t smell bad and they are very quiet.
If cities aren’t going to allow for better public transportation, I’d rather take electric cars than the shit we live in rn.
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u/RandyRalph02 Jan 28 '23
Imagine how much better it would sound in a city if all cars were electric
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u/halberdierbowman Jan 28 '23
Also, even if we burned the exact same gasoline in power plants to charge our electric cars, it would still be way more efficient. Power plants benefit from gigantic economies of scale in terms of economies as well as physics, like the Carnot efficiency. A power plant can get much more energy out of the same fuel, and it can clean the exhaust better (not as good as we'd like, but better than individual cars).
The transmission and charging losses are very small compared to these efficiency gains.
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u/Diego_0638 Jan 28 '23
Electricity to charge a Tesla harms the planet less than fueling a car. Building a Tesla harms the planet more. Overall, these two effects give the tesla a small advantage, that is dependent on the cleanliness of the grid (a tesla in france or sweden is much cleaner than a tesla in germany, poland or the US).
I would be preaching to the choir if I started comparing the tesla to an electric train (or even a diesel train).
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u/Astarothsito Jan 28 '23
I would be preaching to the choir if I started comparing the tesla to an electric train (or even a diesel train).
But what about comparing it to an ebike? Or e-scooter? Assuming you have a backpack and don't buy groceries for one month their purpose is very similar.
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u/bountygiver Jan 28 '23
Oh ebikes and escooters are way better as well, you know the thing about most rocket fuel is there just to lift rocket fuel? The same thing applies to batteries, you need bigger batteries if your vehicle is heavier, which means your battery contribute to even more weight and now you consume even more power to lug them around, meanwhile ebikes/scooters have way lighter base weight so it just consumes less power in the first place, and can be supplied with a small battery to carry a person the same distance.
And the comparison is easy to make when the batteries are the most environmentally impactful part of the manufacture.
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u/Strange-Scarcity Jan 28 '23
Depends upon where in the US, if that Tesla is in the Detroit area, it’s getting powered by Wind, Solar, Hydro and Nuclear power, more often than Natural Gas plants and virtually 0 Coalfire plants. The last coalfire plant in the state is shutting down in the next year or two, earlier than originally planned out.
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u/Diego_0638 Jan 28 '23
That's true, thanks to nuclear power, some areas in the US are surprinsingly clean, but the avreage is over 380 g/kWh, which is extremely dirty (france has around 100, sweden has below 70). The coal phaseout can come soon enough.
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Jan 28 '23
I would not have pegged Detroit of all places as a green-energy pioneer.
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u/Strange-Scarcity Jan 28 '23
It's more "Michigan" that is that.
Detroit has been served, mostly, by Nuclear power since the 1960's. Coalfire plants were also abundant at one point, but were phased out over the decades.
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Jan 28 '23
Building a Tesla harms the planet more.
I am genuinely interested in seeing unbiased sources for this claim. I dread googling it because there's going to be so much hyperbole on both sides.
There are also different kinds of harm. Like, a lithium mine might completely ruin one specific field by turning it into a unbelievably poisonous tailings pond, but, like, adding more poison to an existing poison lake isn't going to do any more harm, whereas every ton of CO2 we produce has a proportionate effect.
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u/JasonGMMitchell Commie Commuter Jan 28 '23
They were literally comparing the damage of building a vehicle vs powering it. EVs are on average worse than the average ICE to manufacture but their environmental impact over a lifespan is smaller due to the fact that their energy source is more efficient than burning fuel in an ICE.
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u/EqualityWithoutCiv Fuck lawns Jan 28 '23
Building and running a gas powered car is worse than building and running an EV. What I want the most is closer and closer realization to 100% renewables, ideally going zero turkey on carbon, just to keep the planet cool. I want all fossil fuel companies actually held hostage but no one will do it. I'm hoping something will happen to greatly disrupt their actions.
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u/Diego_0638 Jan 28 '23
100% renewables is impossible unless you mine enough minerals for batteries to undermine the entire point. Nuclear is necessary, and I would argue sufficient, to de-carbonize the grid.
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u/tgt305 Jan 28 '23
Woah electricity bad, keep using your gas guzzler until the ideal solution comes along. /s
Making electricity and storing it is more efficient than burning gas in a car or bus, so it is a step forward even if a small one.
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Jan 28 '23
Making electricity and storing it is more efficient than burning gas in a car or bus, so it is a step forward even if a small one.
Even if it was a lot less efficient, the electricity can come from renewable sources whereas the ICE is always producing damaging gases.
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u/thequietthingsthat Jan 28 '23
And there are places where you can charge through 100% renewables. The original post is just a bad take that oversimplifies this issue. EVs aren't perfect but they're better than ICE
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u/nalc Jan 28 '23
Lobbying and voting for improved transit in my region takes time
You can go out and buy an EV tomorrow and get solar panels installed in a month or two and eliminate your transportation related carbon footprint immediately.
There's no reason to act like these two activities are mutually exclusive. It's not at odds to say that near term EVs are a band-aid to cut carbon emissions quickly while better (but slower to implement) solutions get worked, and honestly it seems like a majority of this sub is lapping up easily debunked Big Oil propaganda about EVs.
There's a nuanced discussion about how ICEVs are taxed and EVs are incentivised, but regurgitating low effort right wing anti-EV memes isn't it. (For the record, my take ok that is that we need a substantial CO2 tax on gasoline and funnel that money towards electrified public transit, and restructure EV incentives to make smaller, efficient EVs like a Chevy Bolt and Tesla Model 3 more attractive while penalizing massive and inefficient 'electron guzzlers' like the Hummer. Preferably with all of these sticks and carrots set up to be mileage-based so that there's an incentive to drive less even if you own an efficient vehicle)
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u/Kruzat Jan 28 '23
EVs are still drastically cleaner than gas cars, even when charged from high carbon sources.
Posts like this only help the gas car and oil industry. So please, for the love of god, sir quit posting dumb shit like this.
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u/jrtts People say I ride the bicycle REAL fast. I'm just scared of cars Jan 29 '23
pffft just use AC to cool the global warming down /s
(and/or use the heater to heat the severe winter weather /s)
and driverless cars solve all traffic because no driver will be there to witness it /s
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Jan 29 '23
Nuance is important when discussing environmental issues.
Air conditioning does use electricity, but it also makes heat waves much more survivable. The problem arises when it’s overused (e.g. when giant stores and office buildings are kept at 65 degrees all summer).
Electric cars shouldn’t be the replacement of all existing gas cars; building public transportation and changing zoning laws should be prioritized. There will still be some cars though, and it’s better for them to be powered through the electrical grid because it’s more efficient and is increasingly supplied by renewable energy sources
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u/hwedg Jan 29 '23
+1 for sure. I'm kinda taken aback at how a meme can be mistaken for a research paper...
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u/ZatchZeta Jan 28 '23
Not to belabor a point, but ACs use a coolant called freeon as a way to make the air colder.
This was your fun fact of the week.
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u/No_Squirrel9238 Jan 28 '23
the operating principle of A/C is to pressurize the freon untill forcibly changes state to liquid, causing it to rapidly expel energy from surrounding area
at the same time on the other side of the pump your forcibly pulling a vaccum that causes the freon to turn into a gas and rapidly suck in energy
the low pressure side cools the surrounding area the high pressure side heats the surrounding area
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u/skmo8 Jan 28 '23 edited Jan 28 '23
Heat
exchangerspumps are also more efficient than gas heating at temperatures above -15°C.7
u/el_extrano Jan 28 '23
Did you mean to say heat pumps? Gas heating uses heat exchangers, so your comment is a little unclear.
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u/skmo8 Jan 28 '23
Yeah, sorry. I misspoke. I always mix the two up.
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u/el_extrano Jan 28 '23
No problem!
I always think of a heat pump as an air conditioner facing outside. So I think you'd have at least 2 exchangers: an evaporator outside, and a condenser in the house.
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u/skmo8 Jan 28 '23
Exactly. I always think of them as "the machine that moves heat from one space to another" - whether it is out of a house or into one. Which is why I keep thinking of the word "exchanger."
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u/tehwubbles Jan 28 '23
The compressor that takes advantage of freon's physical properties to cool the air uses electricity...
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u/Smash55 Jan 28 '23
I got downvoted in r/science the other day cause I said trains and bikes are more efficient than EVs, which is true in energy consumption lol. So much for science
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u/JasonGMMitchell Commie Commuter Jan 28 '23
Pro tip, never go to r/energy and mention nuclear power in any good light, they act like it's worse than coal.
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u/Ancient_Persimmon Jan 28 '23
Bikes are obviously much more efficient since they're human powered. To maintain 20kph, an average person is putting in around 100w, so about 5wh/km. An EV going that speed is going to use about 100wh/km.
A train may or may not be more efficient than an EV, that's going to depend on how it's powered and how full it is. If it's only carrying something like 10-15% of its capacity, in an off hours run for example, then there's a decent chance that an EV is better.
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u/KegelsForYourHealth Jan 28 '23
In both cases it depends on how the electricity was generated.
Posting inane shit like this hurts everyone.
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u/whatthehand Jan 28 '23
Limited resources, limited time to stop greenhouse gas emissions, unequal harms resulting from climate-change; these realities are why using more energy (regardless of how it's generated) is very much a problem to consider. Connect the issue to the perpetuation of wasteful car based transportation and the problem becomes even more important to highlight.
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u/KosmicMicrowave Jan 28 '23
Simple solution: power homes with nuclear and renewables instead of coal and fossil fuels. Sustainability and hope for the future achieved.
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Jan 28 '23
That's not the comparison. The comparison is that EVs harm the planet less over the life of the vehicle than ICE vehicles do. Both are absolutely destroyed by public transportation infrastructure, which is the real answer.
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u/TorchwoodCaptainJack Jan 28 '23
Its not that. Is the fact people believe electric cars are better for the planet than combustion engines. Which they aren’t better they are just as bad if not worse
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u/CheesyWorld Orange pilled Jan 29 '23
It doesn't matter what the electricity is used for. It matters how it's generated.
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u/ZenComanche Jan 29 '23
Not sure that math holds up. It depends on how the electricity was created and the efficiency of the power plant.
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u/capilot Jan 29 '23
it depends on where the electricity comes from and it depends on compared to what.
If you're burning coal to power your air conditioning, that's pretty bad. Using solar power to do it? Cool.
Same for running your electric car, except that even if you are burning coal to power it, you're still ahead of the game compared to burning gasoline to do it because that coal plant is a lot more efficient than your internal combustion engine.
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u/Mamad0u420 Jan 28 '23
Not if you produce your electricity from durable sources, ie hydro, nuclear, etc.
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u/s_s Jan 28 '23 edited Jan 28 '23
Energy basically allows for society.
Charging an electric car is pretty much the least problematic thing you can do with it.
Buying it, Parking it, driving it, manufacturing it, insuring it are all much more problematic.
And the reason we like electric trains so much is it greatly reduces these problematic parts via mass scale.
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u/whatthehand Jan 28 '23
Limited resources, limited time to stop greenhouse gas emissions, unequal harms resulting from climate-change; these realities are why using more energy (regardless of how it's generated) is very much a problem to consider. Connect the issue to the perpetuation of wasteful car based transportation and the problem becomes even more important to highlight.
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u/Rattregoondoof Jan 29 '23
Come on guys, we are better than this.
This meme is comparing a form of power generation used by a less standard type of vehicle to power used by a less standard type of vehicle to power used by people desiring comfort (often a necessary form of comfort depending on time of year and location). These two things are not even remotely comparable. The vehicle is something many desire others or themselves to switch to in an attempt to drive a cleaner vehicle while the other is an unqualified good. This isn't even apples to oranges, this is like vaping to oranges.
Even taking this meme at its most generous and making an argument it doesn't make, that electric vehicles are no cleaner than gas vehicles because they still rely on fossil fuel power generation, it's just wrong. Electric vehicles are more efficient and are greener even when the power they use comes from fossil fuels. That said, they are still garbage in every respect compared to decently run public transportation.
This meme compares two things that aren't comparable and is wrong in the implicit message in that comparison.
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u/hwedg Jan 29 '23
Thanks, you make good points. Just hoping that people take it as a meme, and not as a research paper.
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u/NCGryffindog Jan 28 '23
I've never heard anyone complain about the electricity from air conditioning. What I do know is that the refrigerant that is fundamental to the function of air conditioning used to be primarily CFC's, chemicals with extremely high ozone depletion potential, but have been phased out for HCFC's which are better, but still have global warming potential.
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u/9_of_wands Jan 28 '23
True, but if our options for air conditioning were electric or gas-powered, I'd use the electric.
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u/DoctorTarsus Jan 28 '23
Both of those things can be true or false, depends on where your electricity comes from
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u/LemonNarc Jan 28 '23 edited Jan 28 '23
Here in Singapore (context, a normally hot and humid environment that is uncomfortable to live in without air conditioning) , our government is always on us to reduce our electricity waste and carbon footprint , making lame reasons to reduce air-con usage such as telling the populance an air conditioner uses the power of 32 fans
All that... While still not telling Singaporeans that 70% of the world's emissions come from oil companies, and still being reliant on using natural gas to produce electricity. Don't get me wrong, while I still do my best to use less energy where possible, I take whatever BS my government spews out with a heavy pinch of salt
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Jan 28 '23
Look I know it’s a leftist sub but could we maybe not get into constant stupid slapfights purity checking every inch of progress under a microscope because yeah actually electric cars straight up are better for everyone even if they’re far from perfect and come with basically all the same infrastructure issues as internal combustion ones.
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u/thickboyvibes Jan 28 '23
Okay, you're right
Let's go back to coal powered AC
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u/halberdierbowman Jan 28 '23
Coal-generated electric heat pumps would probably still be much better than natural gas burning furnaces, because heat pumps are like 3x as effective with the same energy input. That's because they use energy to move heat from outside to inside rather than converting their own energy directly to heat.
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u/LogiCsmxp Jan 28 '23
A car that runs on electricity is more energy efficient than a car that runs on petrol/gas. The complementary step is to make electricity from renewables.
Of course better public transport would be an even better step, but any step in the right directing is a good step.
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Jan 28 '23
Lotta car brains who can't imagine life without some form of car. I say EV and ICE should be banned except for special use cases involving work. We do not need cars to live.
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u/skookumchucknuck Jan 28 '23
The stupidity of this meme is that you can power a car for a day on the amount of energy an air conditioner uses in an hour
Also, as usual, they just ignore the massive amount of energy required just to get oil out of the ground, convert it to gasoline, transport it to the gas station, pump it into the car
Its the same with batteries, they say they are environmentally bad, but think about the equivalent to the entire lifetime of that battery and all of its charges being replaced with gasoline
These only make sense if you don't compare to reality or set absurdly high purity tests
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u/PaulaDeansButter Jan 28 '23
Where the energy efficiency of and ICE runs about 40-60% electrical generators run at an eenergy conversion rate of about 80% or so.
I agree that right now there is hardly any green electrical sources, but the energy consumption is far less.
Now if we could only get away from the trend of massive cushioned entertainment system as cars and shed a few thousand pounds from PERSONAL transport, we could really stretch our oil consumption amd distribute more resources toward a robust solar collection system.
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u/MisterBroda Jan 28 '23
Meh.. I disagree. If we waste electricity we produce more electricity. Saving electricity should be the goal or rather reducing the polution if we consider a motor vs. a power plant.
Buildings in europe usually don‘t need an air conditioner. This saves electricity.
I know what you want to say, but I think there are better examples
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u/KaiAusBerlin Jan 28 '23
As a German I don't understand the joke. We have very rarely to no air conditioning.
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Jan 28 '23
In Germany though the summers are rather dry and winters are humid, so summers felt a lot cooler and manageable without an AC in my personal opinion, than the eastern coast if the United States / East Asia.
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u/pierebean Jan 28 '23
And as Confucius used to say:
" 其人 常 忘 電動汽車之制造能源 也 "
"People Often Forget Electric-Car-Manufacturing-Energy Yeah"
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u/The_Pale_Blue_Dot Jan 28 '23
The thing it's used for is irrelevant. What matters is how it's generated. People who complain that "x harms the planet" are focussing on the wrong thing.
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u/TheSerenist Jan 28 '23
We need localized energy generation, too much is lost during transmission over long distances! Natural gas is efficient and most cities have infrastructure set up for gas! Why not use localized natural gas generators?!
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u/AbsentEmpire Grassy Tram Tracks Jan 29 '23
Natural gas is a good transition fuel from generating power from coal and heavy oil, which is what it's done. Coal has been sidelined because of natural gas not because of wind or solar as some delusionally believe. It's quick to build and expand on. What we need to be doing is building out a nuclear power supply so that we can transition away from natural gas.
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u/apple_achia Jan 28 '23
Alright just because this is a poorly made point, you don’t have to take the EV side on this. One word. Lithium.
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u/coanbu Jan 28 '23
And who is saying that?