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447 points Brajeshwar | 2 comments | 03 Sep 23 14:53 UTC | HN request time: 0.215s | source
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alexchamberlain ◴[03 Sep 23 17:11 UTC] No.37372056[source]▶
I'm starting to wonder whether the conventional wisdom of reducing carbon emissions in favour of more electricalisation is really solving the actual problem. As is often pointed out on HN, electrical cars are substantially heavier than their fossil fueled alternatives, and generate other pollution along the way. Furthermore, we're digging our lithium brines from the environment, without really understanding what all this lithium will do once it's leached out into the environment or what impact the mines themselves will have.

With the recent advances of turning CO2 into other substances, such as propane, should we be focusing more on closing the carbon cycle and simply be producing fossil fuels from the waste products of yesteryear?

Naively, it feels like we understand C, O and H, better than we understand some of the rare metals we're now introducing in the name of climate change.

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1. bwanab ◴[03 Sep 23 17:40 UTC] No.37372344[source]▶
There's a good chance EVs aren't the best long run solution. But, right now, we don't need long run, we need immediate, short term solutions to the problem that we've got right now which is the need to keep people employed during the transition which, since people in many countries tend to live outside of transportation hubs, means keeping them in cars for the time being. EVs allow the use of non-fossil fuels to power that auto transport.

But, where you're definitely right is that we need to be exploring every avenue. No one can really predict what technologies are going to work best.

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2. nextos ◴[03 Sep 23 17:45 UTC] No.37372418[source]▶
Pluggable hybrids (PHEVs) have never been taken seriously by politicians, here in EU, and I think it is absurd.

Most Europeans make short commutes, so these cars have a sufficient range for the vast majority of drives. They are cheaper, much lighter, and building them uses a lot less energy.

Plus, existing designs and assembly lines can be easily adapted to PHEVs. And in case of long commutes, there is always a gas engine to fall back to and therefore no range anxiety.