Goebbels would be gobsmacked

[old man emu]

If Josef Goebbels was resurrected today and saw the propaganda that is being published in support of "net zero" he'd cry out, "Ich wünschte, ich hätte meine Arbeit so gut gemacht". (I wish I had done so well with my work.)

 

The idea of totally replacing combustion of carbon-based chemicals with non- CO2 producing sources of power is Utopian as it is being presently proposed. The proponents of "net zero" can't be criticised for thinking about the concept, but I doubt very few of them have delved into real problems that trying to attain that goal cannot overcome.

 

The very first is obtaining the raw materials needed to transmit electricity from the generator to the motor that will use it. However far that length of transmission is - kilometres from a power station, or millimetres from input point to motor - copper wire is needed. It has been estimated by a study conducted by the University of Michigan that for the world to go full electric by 2050, more copper ore needs to be mined between now and then than has been mined in all of mankind's history. Currently the average ICE vehicle requires about 20 kg of copper for all its wiring. However, an EV requires about 90 kg. 

 

Being a country with a small, widely dispersed population, Australians don't have much of a concept of the meaning of "mass" in "mass production". Production figures for things of all sorts made in the rest of the world are quoted in the millions - millions of motor vehicles (ICE and E). As of January 2024, the reported number of road registered motor vehicles in Australia was 21.5 million. In the USA alone the number is close to 297 million. The number of cars in the world is estimated to be around 1.47 billion. The number of EVs worldwide is around 40 million.

 

Think about the amount of copper in all those vehicles. Then think about all the copper involved in the generation and transmission of electricity worldwide. After that, think about the amount of copper used in buildings and public lighting. In ancient times alchemists tried to find a way of converting base metals into gold. I think the modern day alchemist should work on turning gold into copper and the other elements needed for electrification.

 

And all the while, the major political powers power their battle fleets with steam generated using the heat of controlled uranium fission. One wonders how small a pellet of uranium would be needed to create steam for a turbine to drive a motor vehicle. Maybe not much bigger than a headache tablet.

 

[facthunter]

How do you distribute the Power from the nuclear power stations?. Solar, wind and batteries can be widely dispersed . Copper is easily recycled. 90 kgs of copper in an EV seems excessive given the short distances of the circuitry in the vehicle. It's hard to trust so called information on this subject. Too many "vested" interests in the status quo.   Nev

[octave]

Oil is a finite resource. It can be burnt or used to create useful chemicals and products. The oil that makes the fuel we burn in our cars is a once-only product and can not be recycled.   The problems of getting to so-called net zero is considered and studied. OME I would suggest exploring Google Scholar for high-quality information.   

[facthunter]

There will be wars over coal, gas and oil but the sun tides and wind is free. WATER is our most precious resource.. Clean and unpolluted.   Nev

[old man emu]

29 minutes ago, facthunter said:

How do you distribute the Power from the nuclear power stations?

Along the same power lines that you transmit power from all other generations sources.

 

24 minutes ago, octave said:

used to create useful chemicals and products.

Like all the plastic that is uneconomical to recycle so we refill the holes that have been dug to remove ores with it.

 

31 minutes ago, facthunter said:

It's hard to trust so called information on this subject.

Yep. Can't trust either side. But it's amazing how when anyone dares to suggest that all the consequences be examined, they are howled down and labelled a moronic Luddite. 

 

During the 2008 Global Financial Crisis General Motors was bailed out because "What's good for GM is good for the USA". Now all the US car manufacturers are suffering because of manufacturing mandates imposed by people who don't seem to have any business acumen. The car companies are losing money hand over fist with every EV they build. Can you imagine what would happen to the world economy of these major manufacturers simply shut their doors because consumers didn't want to buy their products? 

 

I agree that EVs can effectively provide for the transport needs of a percentage of the population and in certain localities. But that percentage is not 100. In fact it seems to be plateauing around 20. 

 

It seems that it would be easier to have a vegan hoe into a lamb roast than have a net zero-er stop and consider the concept from first principles.

[facthunter]

A nuclear Power station is going to feed power into the grid in big lumps and is slow to crank up and down. It would be unsuitable for the outback. due to long distances involved and  likelihood of storm damage and cost. Solar/batteries could be localised..   Sorry, OME, but a lot of your views sound like opinion, the way you present it.   Look how many power tools are electric by battery.  Have you driven an electric car yet?  Nev

[pmccarthy]

Nuclear would be distributed in exactly the same way as coal and gas fired electricity. The infrastructure exists already.

[spacesailor]

Net Zero .

The " snowball Earth " , they say was the result of zero carbon . Cooling the 

ground untill it became " permafrost " .

Hopefully not in my lifetime. 

spacesailor 

[willedoo]

Oil certainly is finite; the specific and rare set of circumstances that created our reserves happened millions of years ago. Possibly there might be some in the making now, but I doubt the human species will survive the timeline required for new oil to be made. The theory of peak oil turned out to be a fizzer, at least in the dates predicted. There's quite a lot still there but the problem is the low hanging fruit is running out and what's left undiscovered or is being discovered will be harder to extract and correspondingly more expensive. The ocean regions are very promising except for the logistical side of getting to it. It's not only depth for drilling and extraction, but distance that holds back a lot of deeper ocean development. At present it's not practical for platforms more than 200klm out due to the limitations on servicing by helicopter. With a big price rise in oil, companies would  be more inclined to find a work-around to that problem.

 

With land based reserves there's still promise in some parts of the world, but the day could come when demand outpaces supply. A lot of oil is being found in previously worked out areas or areas that showed low prospect in the past. This is due to the rapid increase in technology of seismic data processing. The pace of change is hard to keep up with at times and previously overlooked areas can be a much better bet only 12 or 18 months later due to better data processing. Most of our exploration data was (and probably still is) processed in Texas and at times it's been like keeping the motor running waiting for their next new trick. I guess that's the way advances in computing are affecting lots of industries around the world.

[old man emu]

2 hours ago, facthunter said:

A nuclear Power station is going to feed power into the grid in big lumps and is slow to crank up and down.

Aren't nuclear power stations operated in exactly the same was as fuel-fired, and to an extent, hydro ones? The sole purpose of the nuclear matter is to heat water to produce steam to drive turbines. There has long been the practical knowledge required to keep a 'head of steam' at a constant level. Why should the steam pressure derived from heating water with nuclear fission be any different?

 

2 hours ago, facthunter said:

It would be unsuitable for the outback.

Are way out back properties connected to the grid? They are special cases and would in fact be great beneficiaries financially from solar generation. Where I see nuclear as the clean fuel for generation electricity is where 90% of our population lives. I'm all for refurbishing coal-fired sites with nuclear.

 

2 hours ago, facthunter said:

Sorry, OME, but a lot of your views sound like opinion

Of course they are my opinions. They are formed from looking at other material in a skeptical way. I do believe that engineers and scientists will one day solve the problem of generating sufficient electricity from a combination of sources to supply the needs of an insatiably energy-hungry society. What I am angry about is those who have no scientific/engineering knowledge making decisions about a subject of which they are grossly ignorant, when their ultimate aim is to maintain power over the rest of society. It's all bread an circuses.

 

5 hours ago, octave said:

OME I would suggest exploring Google Scholar for high-quality information

No doubt using that facility would provided me with a multitude of peer-reviewed papers and other trustworthy material. However, I ask if you have examined the trade and financial media? That is where you will find reports on how Society is actually responding to the pro-net zero propaganda. The motor trade media in many cases is reporting on the economic failure of the rush to EVs.

 

On the good side, people are going gangbusters installing solar panels, which is something I support. Oddly enough, solar hot water heating appears to gone the way of the dodo. I know that uranium is a non-renewable, but at least it is only required in small quantities compared to fuels that are burned. It does have its end-of-life problems, but during its life it hasn't spewed gaseous pollutants into the air, nor left lifeless ash in the grate. 

 

 

[facthunter]

Wouldn't just getting the FACTS from a reliable source be the way to go? On cost alone it doesn't stack up.. It's not a great situation JUST giving various opinions.    The existing grid is not in great shape. due to  neglect and A lot of it Being sold off and control of it being lost.  Dutton trying to rubbish the CSIRO  is a bit rich. Nev

[octave]

2 minutes ago, old man emu said:

The motor trade media in many cases is reporting on the economic failure of the rush to EVs.

No trade or profession has an inherent right to exist forever. IC cars displaced horse-related businesses and diesel electric displaced the steam industry. Having said that it will be a long time until internal combustion engines disappear.    You often say that there is this headlong rush into 100% EV adoption however the change is actually slow.

 

In the case of Hybrids, I think the Toyota Prius first went onto the market in 1997 in Japan. This was 27 years ago. The Nissan Leaf went on sale in 2010,  14 years ago.  

Globally 14% of sales are EVs and only 4% in Australia.  This is hardly a cataclysmic change and surely should not induce anxiety.

[octave]

 

[spacesailor]

octave

The ' Electric ' vehicle was produced ' before ' the very first ' Ford production line ' car hit the road .

spacesailor

[old man emu]

2 hours ago, octave said:

You often say that there is this headlong rush into 100% EV adoption however the change is actually slow.

It is slow simply because EVs do not do better what ICEs do. 

 

Look, I'm not poo-pooing EVs. All I am saying is that conversion to them being pushed from the top is not the way to make people part with their money to buy one. And haven't we reached a stage now where politicians have bullshitted to us so much that we don't accept most of what they spruik?

 

My approach  is festina lente - make haste slowly : proceed expeditiously but prudently.

[octave]

1 minute ago, spacesailor said:

octave

The ' Electric ' vehicle was produced ' before ' the very first ' Ford production line ' car hit the road .

spacesailor

.

Yep I am aware of that. The dates I used were modern era and mass-produced and still around today.   I am not including the EVs such as the one in the video below.

 

 

[octave]

1 minute ago, old man emu said:

My approach  is festina lente - make haste slowly : proceed expeditiously but prudently.

 

Sure and you are perfectly at liberty to do that.  I would argue that progress IS slow.  I have often heard the argument that there are not enough EVs to warrant building infrastructure and also that EVs are unviable because there is insufficient infrastructure.   During the early years of aviation, governments subsidized aviation and built airports etc. and I think perhaps people may have argued that they shouldn't because it was not developed enough.   I would also suggest that pushing forward carefully but purposefully was the hallmark of things like the Apollo program.

 

If car companies are willing to build EVs and people are willing to buy them then what is the problem?

 

 

 

 

 

1 minute ago, old man emu said:

It is slow simply because EVs do not do better what ICEs do.

 mmm not sure about that, they have many pros and some cons.   Have you ever driven one?     There are targets for ending IC production by the 2030s however this will more than likely happen anyway.  There is no reason to believe that EVs have reached their peak technology-wise.  The sticker price of the average EV will likely fall below that of internal combustion.  Charging times likewise are improving.   The infrastructure also continues to improve.  I don't actually think that banning IC cars will be necessary anyway.  I don't have any problem with anyone saying they don't want to buy one but often the rhetoric amongst many EV haters is they don't want anyone else to buy one either.  I am not ready to buy an EV yet either, but this is mainly because I have never bought a new vehicle and at this stage in life I do so few KMs anyway.  Having driven many of them though, it is like chalk and cheese.   Don't want to buy one? then don't buy one.

[old man emu]

2 hours ago, octave said:

If car companies are willing to build EVs and people are willing to buy them then what is the problem?

The problem AT THE MOMENT is that companies are being compelled by governments to build many, many more than the market is willing to accept. The market is swamped. If the take-up of EVs was permitted to operate under free market conditions, as the market for ICEs in the first third of the 20th Century, then I would agree that it would be most likely that EVs would be the norm maybe by the start of the third quarter of this century.

 

 

At the moment, car manufacturers are losing money hand over fist on the EVs they are producing and not selling. Can you imagine if the big car companies decided that they had had enough of losing money and decided to close up shop? The Great Depression would be redefined as a minor market hiccough. 

2 hours ago, octave said:

the rhetoric amongst many EV haters is they don't want anyone else to buy one either. 

I'm not an EV hater. Would I buy one? Apart from not even being in the financial position to purchase a ten-year-old second hand car, because of the distances I have to travel, present EVs cannot match the time between episodes of energy supply restoration of my nearly 20 year-old ICE. Would I like to have a go at driving an EV? Bloody oath I would, simply because I'd like to examine how different a driving style from my ICE it would be. I'm not talking about simply pointing the vehicle down the road to get from A to B, but handling performance including braking and acceleration. However, I wouldn't like having to deal with the iPad in the centre of the dash. in order to control ancillary systems. But that's just me being an old fart.

[octave]

9 hours ago, old man emu said:

At the moment, car manufacturers are losing money hand over fist on the EVs they are producing and not selling.

 

Car companies are making profits, although not all of them. Some legacy car companies are struggling.  One of the problems for a company like Ford is that they are often selling an EV to an existing customer.  People who may have bought Ford utility/pickup vehicles who decide to go EV means that they lose an IC sale but gain a less profitable EV sale.   Companies that only make EVs are generally doing much better.

 

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Tesla-vs-Toyota-BYD-VW-and-Ford-profit-margins-get-visualized-as-GM-trails-it-four-to-one.691126.0.html 

 

Just a few car companies that make profits are Tesla, BYD Stellantis, Volkswagen and quite a few more. Many traditional car manufacturers are struggling and some are not getting into EVs which I think will be a problem for them in the future.  Nokia used to be the leader in mobile phone technology but was resistant to the smartphone.  

 

The headlines about overproduction and a collapse in sales are wildly exaggerated if you actually look at the figures.

 

 

[octave]

Once upon a time, GM was a leader in EVs

 

 

 

[old man emu]

Without be accused of spitting the dummy and taking my bat and ball home, I think this is an appropriate time to take a break from hypothesising on the success or failure of the uptake of EVs and let the experiment run for a while.

 

Would you agree to standing back until the end of the 2024/25 financial year to see what has happened, with maybe a peek at the end of the calendar year?

[octave]

7 minutes ago, old man emu said:

Would you agree to standing back until the end of the 2024/25 financial year to see what has happened, with maybe a peek at the end of the calendar year?

Yes indeed.  

[old man emu]

13 minutes ago, octave said:

Yes indeed.  

[facthunter]

Just for the fun of it why don't you test drive one, OME? The maintenance on them is miniscule, also.   Nev

[old man emu]

56 minutes ago, facthunter said:

Just for the fun of it why don't you test drive one, OME?

While I agree that it might be fun for me to have a drive of one of these, it would be cruel to the salesperson who might be thinking that there was a sale in the offing.  My conscience wouldn't let me do that to someone.