Sustainable Fuels

[acbytesla]

The elephant in the room here is - why do you have such a big yard that needs so much attention?

One of the reasons I moved house back in 2016 was because I had a small house on a large section and maintaining it was a pain. I removed the hedge and trees, but even just mowing the grass had to be done in two sessions because the bin wasn't big enough to take all the grass clippings. Now I have a small section and a little electric mower that does it in 10 minutes. Last week I chopped out one tree that was becoming a pain, and the bottlebrush might follow if it doesn't behave.

My friends who live on a rural property have 3 electric mowers - a robot mower for the hilly part, a self-propelled rotary mower for around the house, and a ride-on mower for the paddock (they used to have sheep, but got bored with having to look after them). You might ask why when gas powered mowers would do the job? I drove their ride-on gas mower a few times and it was horrible. The electric mower is so much nicer to drive that you actually enjoy it, rather than putting the job off. I find the same with my little mower.

This! I I use to have a half acre lawn. I got rid of the lawn and planted a garden. It is not only much prettier. It is easier to take care of. Lawns are one of the biggest and most common US landscaping mistake. It beats spending hours each week mowing and trimming the lawn.

 

[Rolfe]

I'm a bit disturbed by all the "I just want to go on doing it the way I've always done it and any other way won't suit me, sod the planet," from posters in a so-called sceptics forum .

 

[jeremyp]

Because we're at the tail end of the "early adopter" phase and there are both economic and attitudinal issues to overcome.

Many EVs are currently more expensive to buy than their ICE counterparts largely due to the expense of the battery array. I did however read that one manufacturer (it may have been Renault) were marketing their EV at a few pounds less than the ICE equivalent, so maybe that corner has been turned. EVs are considerably cheaper to run than ICE vehicles but it's the initial purchase price that people are focusing on at the moment*.

So contrary to the assertion, they are not competitive.

I'm not saying this is going to remain the same. Far from it, and I think it is probably a good thing that governments are subsidising the change.

Anyway, talking about sustainable fuels and concentrating on cars and other transport slightly misses the mark - or only partially hits it. The biggest contributors to carbon dioxide emissions are still electricity and heating by quite some distance (twice as much as all transport). My apartment has a gas boiler for hot water and heating but nobody ever seems to talk about boilers (or gas hobs for that matter). Maybe it's because they are unglamorous and out of sight most of the time.

The carbon dioxide emissions of a single fossil fuel power station are probably the equivalent to several million lawn mowers. The emissions of excavators out in the sticks are a tiny drop in the ocean. We expend far too much mental energy arguing about how to make them electric.

 

[Rolfe]

I don't know where you live, but people are talking about all these things round here. There have been strenuous attempts, to the point of over-reach, to get people to replace gas and oil-fired boilers with heat pumps. Fossil fuelled power stations are being phased out. Our last remaining coal-fired power station closed a year ago. Replacing fossil fuels in the grid with wind and solar is being done as much as possible.

However, the imperative is to do what is possible. Not doing the easy things because there's something that is making more impact but is harder to address is frankly idiotic. It's pure, unadulterated whatabootery.

And EVs are, objectively, extremely competitive. I'm saving a bloody fortune on mine, not to mention that it drives like an absolute dream. The three main hurdles to adoption now are sheer conservative intransigence, don't tell me about something better, change frightens me; massive misinformation in the media (including social media) telling outright lies about EVs to try to dissuade people from changing, and a higher purchase price.

The last is the only real issue here. Once you have the car you can save a fortune in running costs, but you have to buy the car first. Fortunately that is being addressed very rapidly as many good used EVs are now coming on the market as a result of salary sacrifice leasing agreements coming to an end and people choosing to change their car at that point. There are some fantastic bargains out there now. (Of course, the massive misinformation kicks in here, in the form of lies about how used EVs are a bad buy because "you'll have to pay thousands for a new battery in a couple of years. Stuff and nonsense. Poppycock.)

The people who are still sidelined are those who can only afford a real clunker. Decent EVs haven't been around long enough for real clunkers to be a thing. It's the Vimes' boots thing. If all you can afford to buy a car is £1,000, then you'll be pouring money at it in maintenance until it finally dies the death. But some people can't do anything else. Fortunately time is fixing this in the EV sector as well, or will in the next few years. And since EVs are more reliable than ICE cars, need less maintenance and last longer, win-win.

Governments want to get this process rolling faster, but they're up against a crap-ton of misinformation and resistance to change.

 

[8enotto]

The elephant in the room here is - why do you have such a big yard that needs so much attention?

It's not my choice. It is a family commmunal lawn. It gets cut every two weeks, half the year. It's not that much work really and I take pride in it not looking bad.

It's no putting green quality, just kept up.

My business is catering to others ideas of how thier lawn should look. Or even a bare lot they might build on or sell one day. A job is a job tto me.

Papi keeps a soccer field as his business. It gets watered year round and mowed every week. Also a rental area for parties in his palapa. Both have to look good to be rented.

He takes care of all that. I do the front lawn.

Odd part is I also advise people who won't keep up a yard they have to make changes.

Within a ten minute walk of my home I can get to multistory apartments, little postage stamp lots in a HOA setting, sugar cane fields or McMansions on bigger lots.
I need to be flexible to keep up.

 

[ahhell]

Sound alone is enough reason to use electric tools instead of gas whenever feasible. Then there's the air pollution thing as well. The gas-powered backpack blowers should probably be banned just for worker health.

 

[Rolfe]

There's an old Nissan advert (for the early Leaf) where everything in the house - hairdryer, toothbrush, toaster and so on - is powered by an ICE. It's quite funny. I mean, you wouldn't even consider that bag of compromises and workrounds if you had an electric alterative, unless you had already grown so accustomed to the ICE that changing scares you.

 

[theprestige]

I'm a bit disturbed by all the "I just want to go on doing it the way I've always done it and any other way won't suit me, sod the planet," from posters in a so-called sceptics forum .

As a skeptic, I'm interested in reducing pollution, working efficiently, and conserving resources. I'm also interested in using resources, and in generally maintaining my current lifestyle and quality of life.

As far as I can tell, the "solution" to the problem of global climate change is currently held to be an immediate drastic, across-the-board reduction in overall industrial activity, worldwide. This is not a measure I'm interested in. Further, it's not a measure any world leaders seem to be interested in. It's certainly not a measure I can conceivably get to work on, on my own - even if I were interested in doing so.

So the global climate change argument is a dead letter, as far as I'm concerned. If you come to me with a proposal for reducing pollution, improving efficient energy use, or more effectively husbanding our available resources, in my region, that would have my interest. If you come to me with a proposal to switch to a wildly suboptimal, grossly more expensive fuel, "for the planet", that wouldn't - doesn't - have my interest.

 

[theprestige]

There's an old Nissan advert (for the early Leaf) where everything in the house - hairdryer, toothbrush, toaster and so on - is powered by an ICE. It's quite funny. I mean, you wouldn't even consider that bag of compromises and workrounds if you had an electric alterative, unless you had already grown so accustomed to the ICE that changing scares you.

Bit of a strawman, isn't it? There's lots of electronics in an ICE car that are powered by the ICE. Even the battery is being charged by an ICE. And there's lots of EVs out there that are being charged by ICEs. Very few people are on an entirely non-fossil-fueled grid.

Further, just like the advert doesn't rip out the ICE auto's dashboard and install a mini-ICE behind the radio, the windshield wipers, etc., so too do we not install mini-ICEs in our ICE-powered home electrics and electronics. Even homes that literally draw power from an ICE generator right there on the property, still connect the ICE to an electrical bus, to get that power into the home.

So not only have we considered that bag of compromises and workarounds, we've even arrived at a convenient and functional solution.

As a general rule, advertising copy does not make a good basis for rational discussion or intelligent decision-making.

 

[ahhell]

There is an opposite reaction too, the tendency of some folks on the green side to ignore trade-offs required to make the change. The guy with the big yard or the landscaping company still has good reason to stick with ICE other than just, it's the way we've always done it.

 

[The Don]

So contrary to the assertion, they are not competitive.

It very much depends. If the EV is the same price, or cheaper, than the comparable ICE - as is starting to be the case with some models - then the EV will be significantly cheaper to run.

If it's more expensive to buy then it comes down to how much cheaper it is to run. A friend has owned a 2021 Jaguar iPace from new. He does around 20,000 miles a year on a mixture of free (from his 12kw PV array and wind turbine), low cost overnight rates and occasional fast charging on the go. It costs around 2p a mile or around £400 a year in fuel. His previous petrol Jaguar XF estate cost around 25p a mile or £5,000 a year in fuel so over the four years of ownership it's saved him over £18k in fuel costs alone. He's also saved over £2,000 in vehicle excise duty (annual car tax) and a fair amount on servicing.

The difference in price between an iPace and an equivalent F-Pace is less than that. The lower the annual mileage however, and the more economical the cars, the smaller the savings

I only drive around 5,000 miles a year in a pretty economical vehicle, my petrol costs are probably around £600 a year and I'd only save around £450 a year in fuel costs. That makes the case less compelling (my vehicle excise duty is very low as well).

 

[The Don]

There is an opposite reaction too, the tendency of some folks on the green side to ignore trade-offs required to make the change. The guy with the big yard or the landscaping company still has good reason to stick with ICE other than just, it's the way we've always done it.

Yes, there may be a handful of edge cases where ICE will provide the best solution for the immediate future - unless of course you rethink the problem.

An ICE ride on mower may be the solution for a one hectare lawn, but an alternative may be to not have a lawn that large.

The suburban mum or dad who drives Toby and Fiona the two miles to prep school in their V8 Chelsea Tractor might just be able to make do with an EV alternative - or better yet use public transport, bike or walk.

One of the reasons why ICE transport is relatively cheap is that there are a lot of hidden subsidies in the price. Remove those and the cost equation changes. At the moment in the UK it's politically tricky to do this but as and when alternatives to ICE personal transport increase in use then it becomes politically less difficult. When smoking was far more prevalent then any restrictions on it, on increases in tobacco tax were met with howls of protest. Now those howls are barely audible and the rest of us can enjoy the benefits of a smoke free environment and less of a burden on the NHS.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Just like the ICE needed a full coverage to work, EVs will need the same level of infrastructure to replace the previous system.
And that is going to be hard, given that recharging is slower than refuelling.

I think its not possible to have the same number or vehicles as today in EV and achieve the same level of mobility. We need a significant shift to public transport to reduce the total millage and thus the need for fuelling.

 

[theprestige]

Yes, there may be a handful of edge cases where ICE will provide the best solution for the immediate future - unless of course you rethink the problem.

An ICE ride on mower may be the solution for a one hectare lawn, but an alternative may be to not have a lawn that large.

The suburban mum or dad who drives Toby and Fiona the two miles to prep school in their V8 Chelsea Tractor might just be able to make do with an EV alternative - or better yet use public transport, bike or walk.

One of the reasons why ICE transport is relatively cheap is that there are a lot of hidden subsidies in the price. Remove those and the cost equation changes. At the moment in the UK it's politically tricky to do this but as and when alternatives to ICE personal transport increase in use then it becomes politically less difficult. When smoking was far more prevalent then any restrictions on it, on increases in tobacco tax were met with howls of protest. Now those howls are barely audible and the rest of us can enjoy the benefits of a smoke free environment and less of a burden on the NHS.

There's a lot of hidden subsidies - and even overt subsidies - in the price of EVs, too. One that I hadn't learned about until recently is that EVs are much heavier than their ICE counterparts. Realistically, there should probably be an additional road-maintenance tax on EVs, to address the extra wear and tear on infrastructure. It might even cancel out whatever rebates, tax breaks, or other subsidies designed to encourage EV use.

There's also a less obvious cost there: Most of our current roads weren't built with a faster maintenance and repair cadence in mind. Having to replace a given stretch of tarmac every ten years instead of every twenty is bound to have knock-on costs over time. Anyone who's serious about getting more EVs on the road needs to take that seriously, too.

 

[theprestige]

Just like the ICE needed a full coverage to work, EVs will need the same level of infrastructure to replace the previous system.
And that is going to be hard, given that recharging is slower than refuelling.

I think its not possible to have the same number or vehicles as today in EV and achieve the same level of mobility. We need a significant shift to public transport to reduce the total millage and thus the need for fuelling.

This is probably the way.

 

[The Don]

Just like the ICE needed a full coverage to work, EVs will need the same level of infrastructure to replace the previous system.
And that is going to be hard, given that recharging is slower than refuelling.

I think its not possible to have the same number or vehicles as today in EV and achieve the same level of mobility. We need a significant shift to public transport to reduce the total millage and thus the need for fuelling.

I our experience, running an EV is different to running an ICE. I fill up my ICE tank and almost always drive it until the fuel warning light comes on at which point I fill it up again.

Our EV on the other hand we fuel on an opportunistic basis. Sun out and house battery full ? Stick the excess in the EV. EV battery low ? Charge it at 4kw (due to the power supply to our garage) for the four hours we get cheap electricity overnight. Find a cheap or free charger in the wild ? Use it to top up the EV.

As a result the state of charge is usually between 20% and 80% which is fine given that the vast majority of our journeys are less than a 20 mile round trip. For the handful of times where we're going further afield we'll likely top it up over a few nights to ensure that it's at 100% before departure.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

You are in the highly unusual situation of having a private place to recharge - most people don't even have a fixed parking place

 

[The Don]

There's a lot of hidden subsidies - and even overt subsidies - in the price of EVs, too. One that I hadn't learned about until recently is that EVs are much heavier than their ICE counterparts. Realistically, there should probably be an additional road-maintenance tax on EVs, to address the extra wear and tear on infrastructure. It might even cancel out whatever rebates, tax breaks, or other subsidies designed to encourage EV use.

There's also a less obvious cost there: Most of our current roads weren't built with a faster maintenance and repair cadence in mind. Having to replace a given stretch of tarmac every ten years instead of every twenty is bound to have knock-on costs over time. Anyone who's serious about getting more EVs on the road needs to take that seriously, too.

I think the "EVs are much heavier" message is a little overdone. Most are maybe a couple of hundred kilos heavier than the corresponding ICE and the additional road wear and tear is trivial compared to a heavy goods vehicle. Roads aren't going to have to be repaired at twice the frequency as a result of the switch to EVs

An eGolf is a little heavier than a current model ICE Golf. A current model ICE Golf is much heavier than its 70s, 80s or 90s counterpart.

 

[Rolfe]

There's a lot of hidden subsidies - and even overt subsidies - in the price of EVs, too. One that I hadn't learned about until recently is that EVs are much heavier than their ICE counterparts. Realistically, there should probably be an additional road-maintenance tax on EVs, to address the extra wear and tear on infrastructure. It might even cancel out whatever rebates, tax breaks, or other subsidies designed to encourage EV use.

There's also a less obvious cost there: Most of our current roads weren't built with a faster maintenance and repair cadence in mind. Having to replace a given stretch of tarmac every ten years instead of every twenty is bound to have knock-on costs over time. Anyone who's serious about getting more EVs on the road needs to take that seriously, too.

They're not "much" heavier than ICE cars. The equivalent car is a bit heavier but not that much. Big ICE SUVs are still the heaviest things on the road. Start complaining about the Chelsea Tractors if you're worried about kerb weight. In actual fact the effect on road wear is minimal-to-negligible. The roads are being worn out by HGVs, buses, tractors and so on - and petrol tankers.

 

[8enotto]

Setting up a solar array, battery bank and wiring it all in is a significant investment to make your EV a savings over anything else.
Sure, it could also be a home system for off grid also. Let's focus on the EV.

Now you have to pay off the solar system, the house you put it in before savings begin.

Not a bad deal if you already own a home and have savings or good income. To the average citizen this probably means reliance on charging stations and maybe a home charger on the grid. If the person has a place to park at home.

To the rest, for the moment, this means an EV isn't a great option.

Still a lot of work to be done before it's the replacement for ICE vehicles.