[HN Gopher] Ferrari installed a 1MW fuel cell unit to expedite c...
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Ferrari installed a 1MW fuel cell unit to expedite carbon
neutrality
Author : pheyisayor
Score : 8 points
Date : 2022-06-23 21:26 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (newsotg.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (newsotg.com)
| blacksqr wrote:
| That's a hell of a powerful car.
| CodeWriter23 wrote:
| This is about facility not vehicle supply.
| https://www.ferrari.com/en-EN/corporate/articles/a-1-mw-fuel...
| KindAndFriendly wrote:
| Volvo released a study [1] which states that an electric Volvo
| C40 needs to be driven for 68,300 miles before it reaches a CO2
| break-even compared to an ICE XC40. This assumes no replacement
| of any battery cells before reaching the ~68k miles.
|
| Can someone explain to me why there is so little public
| discussion to what extent electric and hybrid vehicles actually
| help to reduce our global carbon footprint?
|
| [1] https://www.carscoops.com/2021/11/volvo-says-
| manufacturing-a...
| j_walter wrote:
| Because that would make people not feel as good about "doing
| their part". No one likes to think about where all that Lithium
| came from and the not so great humanitarian practices
| surrounding those mines.
|
| Many people just like to think they are "being green" and
| "battling climate change" with a purchase of a Tesla or
| Rivian...when really it takes a LOT more than that.
| ncmncm wrote:
| There is little individuals can do, short of adopting better
| habits and investing in funds that finance renewable build-
| out. The amount they can invest is typically very limited. We
| are at the mercy of the people who influence investment of
| multi-billion-dollar funds, in industry and in government.
|
| Supporting candidates who can direct subsidies to actually
| useful renewable build out could have outsized impact.
|
| Each dollar diverted from building out renewables to almost
| anything else, nukes particularly included, brings climate
| catastrophe nearer.
| j_walter wrote:
| The problem is we need to listen to people who understand
| how to make things actually happen. Politicians push
| electric cars without understanding the strain that will
| put on the grid as it currently sits. They push banning
| coal and NG power plans without making sure there are
| alternatives available (just wind and/or solar is not
| sufficient by themselves). All we hear is "we need electric
| cars to avoid climate change"...without addressing the huge
| amounts of other changes that are needed.
| swatcoder wrote:
| > All we hear is "we need electric cars to avoid climate
| change"...without addressing the huge amounts of other
| changes that are needed.
|
| That's not something I've experienced. It might be a sign
| that you're not looking at the same sources of
| information as the rest of us.
| ncmncm wrote:
| Increased demand for power to charge cars will drive
| demand for build-out of clean generating capacity.
| sueders101 wrote:
| Your article states 68,300 figure is using average global
| energy supply at the time. As grid decarbonization happens that
| break even point can be reduced to as little as 30,000
| according to the article(pure renewable scenario). It's not an
| overnight fix, but it's a clear improvement.
| ncmncm wrote:
| The more renewable generation capacity gets built, the smaller
| the CO2 footprint of things made in factories served by it. At
| some point, almost everything will have no carbon footprint.
|
| So, if you want to reduce your carbon footprint, invest in
| building out renewables. Everything downstream of it will
| automatically contribute less to the terrifyingly fast
| approaching climate catastrophe.
|
| It seems just barely possible that the catastrophe can be
| averted before global civilization collapses. Humans would
| survive that, but not solar panel, chip, or car factories.
| kzrdude wrote:
| Why would civilization collapse? Do you mean that major
| countries will collapse?
| ncmncm wrote:
| Global civilization is intimately interconnected. Any
| serious upset would wipe out the industries most dependent
| upon it. The first to go would be everything high-tech --
| chips, aircraft, cars. New car manufacturies like in the
| 20th century might be got up from the scraps. But mass
| starvation would ensue, leading to huge wars that probably
| would quickly turn nuclear.
|
| The most likely proximate causes of collapse would be ocean
| ecosystem collapse caused by acidification, eliminating the
| current protein source billions of people depend on, or
| mass migration from newly uninhabitable areas. We see hints
| of both already.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| Presumably the calculation would be similar for Teslas. In
| which case my 2015 Model S reached break-even three years ago.
| It has done 108 thousand miles and the battery seems to have as
| much capacity as when it was new.
|
| What discussion does there need to be? Your own example
| demonstrates that the EV version is better than the ICE version
| as far as total CO2 emissions are concerned. Or are you
| implying that the average life span of modern cars is less than
| 68k miles?
|
| "According to a report from Consumer Reports, the common
| lifespan of a car is still estimated to be about eight years or
| 150,000 miles" https://cascadecollision.com/blog/what-is-the-
| average-life-o...
| Bubble_Pop_22 wrote:
| > Your own example demonstrates that the EV version is better
| than the ICE version
|
| Better doesn't make it worth it.
|
| There are all sorts of tradeoffs involved . Governments are
| asking their citizens a lot in terms of sacrifice. If it
| doesn't move the needle significantly it means tons of
| quality of life lost given the scale of this experiment.
|
| Exactly like COVID lockdowns. Were they worth it? It's still
| contentious. Given the scale of the costs of lockdowns
| "contentious" won't cut it. It should be more like "thank God
| we did it". The feeling should be at the equivalent of when
| the Cuban Missile Crisis ended. I don't know about you but I
| most certanely don't feel that.
|
| I feel the contentious nature of lockdowns but endured the
| certain and ample consequences of all of that.
| ncmncm wrote:
| Civilization not collapsing would be a big benefit, but one
| hard to count. It would be worth a very great deal of
| present inconvenience and discomfort, but that would only
| be perceptible much later.
|
| But like "Y2K", all the work that went into averting
| catastrophe looks wasted afterward. With plenty of people
| available to insist no catastrophe looms, it is hard to get
| people to do anything. About the only lever we have access
| to, pre-catastrophe, is that renewables are _vastly_
| cheaper than everything else we are using to generate
| power. We can only pray it will prove enough.
| ace2358 wrote:
| Pretty silly issue no? What's the carbon break even point of an
| ICE car? If our energy generation and manufacturing technology
| matures for 50 years, how long would it take to break even
| then?
|
| Do you have any idea how far ICE cars have come over the past
| 50 years on efficiency and pollution?
|
| If we give up at the start of any new technology because it
| doesn't instantly solve problems we wouldn't have anything to
| show for ourselves.
|
| Progress starts with making things somewhat worse first, then
| iterating.
|
| If it's between 70k miles to break even or and infinite amount
| for an ICE I'd still take the electric Volvo.
|
| Also, I expect my cars to last 300k - 500k KM.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| Yup. Volvo is pointing out that the car breaks even within
| roughly the first lease period of 2-3 years.
|
| The _average_ age of a car on the roads in the US is
| currently four times that. Electric vehicles tend to be more
| reliable, because of their dramatically simpler powertrains.
|
| Plus, every year, more and more energy comes from lower
| carbon sources.
|
| It's really frustrating that dialog on improvements in
| drivetrain systems is still regularly hampered by the same
| arguments we saw back when the first generation prius came
| out.
|
| Same with solar. There's always someone shouting about how
| they "take forever to pay back." Reality: one to three years,
| and their "lifetime" is 20-30. And "lifetime" means "time
| until they are producing less than 80% of their nameplate
| rating", not "time until they are useless."
| abc_lisper wrote:
| https://www.wsj.com/graphics/are-electric-cars-really-better...
| askafriend wrote:
| Zoom out.
|
| The idea is that if you can get all vehicles onto the
| electrical grid, then you can transition these vehicles almost
| instantly to use better and better sources of energy as
| technology evolves. This is because you can change the
| composition of the electrical grid (it can be powered by wind,
| water, solar, nuclear, etc). It makes the energy source
| fungible as the grid becomes the delivery mechanism.
|
| Once vehicles are hooked up to this electrical infrastructure,
| we gain a lot of leverage as a society to move collectively in
| a better direction.
|
| With ICE, there is only 1 viable fuel source - gasoline. Once
| an ICE car is built, you cannot transition it to be powered by
| anything else.
|
| Squabbling about carbon break-even points of individual car
| purchases is missing the forest for the trees IMO.
| Vvector wrote:
| That's a big distortion of the article. You left out the first
| line of the paragraph "When using the average global energy
| supply...". That is calculating the CO2 from coal and gas
| plants to generate the electricity.
|
| The very next paragraph says that when recharging on
| renewables, "the breakeven is just over 30,000 miles (48,280
| km)". That's under three years for most people. We are not
| there yet, but great progress is being made.
| spoonjim wrote:
| ... and? A car lasts a hell of a lot longer than 68,300 miles.
| anonygler wrote:
| It's worth noting that this likely assumes the batteries are
| newly manufactured. Lithium batteries can be recycled and
| reused many times.
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