U.K. Joins France, Says Goodbye to Fossil-Fuel Cars by 2040

[Thiel]

I don't about this. This could bring cause worse environmental damage than a combustion engine.



The U.K. became the latest European country to mark the end of the line for diesel and gasoline fueled cars as automakers such as Volvo race to build electric vehicles or face the consequences of getting left behind.



In London, the government said it will ban sales of the vehicles by 2040, two weeks after France announced a similar plan to reduce air pollution and become a carbon-neutral nation. For some in the auto industry, the plans are too much too soon while environmental campaigners say exactly the opposite.



"We could undermine the U.K.'s successful automotive sector if we don't allow enough time for the industry to adjust," said Mike Hawes, chief executive officer of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders. "Outright bans risk undermining the current market for new cars and our sector, which supports over 800,000 jobs across the U.K.," he said. "The industry instead wants a positive approach which gives consumers incentives to purchase these cars."



Daimler AG, the maker of Mercedes-Benz cars, is keen to shore up diesel, since it powers many of its lucrative sport utility vehicles and big sedans, but others are embracing the new reality. Sweden's Volvo Car Group said that by 2019 all of its cars will have an electric motor, while BMW AG will build an electric version of its iconic Mini compact car in Britain.



The global shift toward electric vehicles will create upheaval across a number of sectors, from oil majors harmed by reduced gasoline demand to spark plug and fuel injection makers whose products aren't needed by plug-in cars. In the U.K., the decision is partly brought on by stringent European Union emission rules that the country must follow even as it is set to leave the bloc.



Electric vehicles will likely grow in popularity in the second half of the next decade due to plunging battery prices, according to a report from Bloomberg New Energy Finance. The analysts see the proportion of fully electric cars sold in the U.K. rising to one in 12 by 2030, from one in 200 today.



"Our modelling shows that 79 percent of new cars could be electric by 2040 in the U.K. even under existing policies, thanks to rapidly falling battery costs," said Albert Cheung, analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance. "To close the gap to 100 percent, we'll need to see much greater investments in charging infrastructure, to make sure people have somewhere to plug in."



Not all countries are on the same page. With tens of thousands of jobs at stake, Germany is looking for ways to reduce automotive emissions without moving toward an outright ban on vehicles with combustion engines. State and federal officials are set to meet next week in Berlin with auto-industry executives to discuss possibly retrofitting cars currently on the street with new technology to reduce pollution from exhaust.



https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-25/u-k-to-ban-diesel-and-petrol-cars-from-2040-daily-telegraph">https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... -telegraph">https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-25/u-k-to-ban-diesel-and-petrol-cars-from-2040-daily-telegraph

[Anonymous]

The world will not be greener and more sustainable with electric vehicles. We'll just have different environmental challenges.

Electric cars cannot currently be charged on a wide scale with renewable resources such as solar. Even if they could, however:



Solar cells contain heavy metals, and their manufacturing releases greenhouse gases such as sulfur hexafluoride, which has 23,000 times as much global warming potential as CO2, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. What's more, fossil fuels are burned in the extraction of the raw materials needed to make solar cells and wind turbines — and for their fabrication, assembly, and maintenance. The same is true for the redundant backup power plants they require. And even more fossil fuel is burned when all this equipment is decommissioned.



• A more responsible electric-car analysis would consider not just charging the vehicle, but also "the environmental impacts over the vehicle's entire life cycle, from its construction through its operation and on to its eventual retirement at the junkyard."



• An electric car's battery pack is extremely heavy, which causes the manufacturer to compensate by constructing the remainder of the vehicle with "lightweight materials that are energy intensive to produce and process — carbon composites and aluminum in particular. Electric motors and batteries add to the energy of electric-car manufacture."



• The rare earth metals used in many magnets in electric cars are expensive and uneconomical to extract on a wide scale. And the "global mining of two rare earth metals, neodymium and dysprosium, would need to increase 700 percent and 2600 percent, respectively, over the next 25 years to keep pace with various green-tech plans." Alternatives do exist, but exploiting them would involve efficiency-and-cost trade-offs.



• The extraction and processing of materials found in batteries — such as lithium, copper, and nickel — "demand energy and can release toxic wastes." In addition, extracting them in poorly regulated areas imperils not only workers, but also "surrounding populations through air and groundwater contamination."



• A National Academies' study considered multiple dimensions of electric vehicles' associated effects — such as "vehicle construction, fuel extraction, refining, emissions, and other factors" — and "concluded that the vehicles' lifetime health and environmental damages (excluding long-term climatic effects) are actually greater than those of gasoline-powered cars"; in fact, "the study found that an electric car is likely worse than a car fueled exclusively by gasoline derived from Canadian tar sands."



• When electric cars' total effects are considered, the level of "greenhouse-gas" emissions associated with them is only marginally lower than that associated with gas or diesel vehicles. A Norwegian study and a University of Tennessee study of electric vehicles in China drew similar conclusions



• Combustion vehicles' emissions are concentrated in wealthier urban areas whereas the activities necessary to obtain the substances for the creation and operation of electric vehicles — such as nuclear-fuel, heavy-metal and mineral extraction, and energy generation — occur mainly in more depressed rural regions. This means that electric technology may just shift the pollution burden from the rich to the poor.



• Even when projecting technological advancements out to 2030, there still appears to be no advantage to embracing electric-vehicle technology.

https://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/item/23226-study-electric-vehicles-pollute-more-than-gas-powered-cars">https://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/ite ... wered-cars">https://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/item/23226-study-electric-vehicles-pollute-more-than-gas-powered-cars

[JOE]

Perhaps China should sign up for the program too:



http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/beijing/img/attachement/jpg/site1/20131008/00221917e13e13bd942104.jpg">



They have arguably the world's dirtiest air.



And they need to clean it up more than anyone else on the planet.

[Anonymous]

^^If they are building hundreds of coal fired power plants, than electric vehicles are the last thing they need.

[Anonymous]

If we had BC and Quebec's hydroelectric power capabilities, electric vehicles might make sense for Alberta.

[Anonymous]

There's too much of a rush to electric vehicles without considering all the consequences.

[Anonymous]

There's too much of a rush to electric vehicles without considering all the consequences.

Two of those consequences are extravagant taxpayer subsidies for certain industries and costly electricity.

[Anonymous]

Norway and the Netherlands are saying no fossil fuel vehicles by 2025. It won't happen.