Quote (thundercock @ 7 Jul 2022 17:46)
I can't speak for Europe but that's been a pretty big thing here in America. Back in 2000, half of America's grid was powered by coal. Today, it's less than 25% because we've been subsidizing renewals, transitioning to natural gas (which burns cleaner than ICE vehicles btw), etc. In addition, the EPA put in regulations that effectively ban new dirty power plants. We recently had a SCOTUS case regarding EPA regulations on CURRENT power plants but those got tossed. We've successfully lowered our emissions substantially so I don't think you can call it "retarded" and "suicidal" when it's been working. In America, an ICE ban makes total sense.
In your case (EU), a quick glance shows that a little under half of your grid is powered by solid fossil fuels and petroleum based products. From what I'm seeing, new power plants will be cleaner than those two that I listed so ICE bans seem like perfectly reasonable policy.
I wasn't calling the transition to cleaner power plants retarded or suicidal! What is retarded and suicidal in my opinion is banning ICE cars and thus debasing one of the pillars of our wealth while it is still doubtful whether EVs, the replacement, will even have a significantly better carbon balance and whether we will be able to build the necessary charging infrastructure.
Regarding the power plants: replacing super-dirty coal with less-dirt natural gas was one of the key ideas of our (EU) energy policy for the past 15 years - but that plan is coming crashing down due to Russia's war in Ukraine and the gas embargos. Unlike North America, Europe is completely unable to self-sustain on natural gas once Russian gas is taken out of the equation. More renewables would still help, but without the corresponding storage technology, there is a hard upper limit to how much of our energy demands we can cover with it. Germany, for example, is producing roughly 40% of its electricity with renewables, and this number could rise to maybe 60% or so, but not any higher as long as renewables are unable to provide base load.
Here's a chart for the energy mix in Germany the last couple of days, the top two are wind (teal) and solar (yellow):
As you can see, solar power is already doing a good job matching demand peaks during the day (at least during summer) . However, if we look at the cross-seasonal track record, the problems with renewables become apparent:
Solar since 2020:
As you can see, the output from solar varies widely over the year, generation during winters is only a fraction of the summer output. Solar might be more reliable in the Southern U.S., say Arizona or SoCal, but in places like New York or Michigan, you'd have the same problem.
Wind since 2020:
This one is more subtle to see, but 2021 was a very wind-strapped year, wind output was 30% (sic!) lower than in 2020.
Simply put, you cannot run a modern, industrialized country on such an unsteady, unreliable power source. Which brings me back to my earlier point that - barring an imminent breakthrough on storage technology - there will be a hard upper limit to how much of a country's energy demand can come from renewables. Hence, chances are that all these EVs will still be charged, at least in part, with fossil energy in 2035. This, in turn, would drastically reduce the gap in carbon footprint between EVs and ICE cars and thus invalidate the main argument for banning ICE cars (and pissing away a significant chunk of our wealth in the process). As of today, it is just not realistic to assume a 100% green/renewable energy mix in 2035.
Hope this helps to clarify where I'm coming from and explain why I'm so agitated by all of this stuff!
