State of Washington goes woke

[Poor King]

Woke for the sake of capitalist gains... There is a proposal to remove all new/used ICE vehicles off the street. Exceptions to the ban are motorcycles and vehicles over 10,000 lbs. Hope this never happens and the virus is contained. You have a mere 8 yr 6 months to enjoy your ICE vehicles, forcing you to buy an electric vehicle in due time.

Washington State Prepares To Ban ICE Cars

California's plan to ban sales of new ICE-powered vehicles beginning in 2035 now seems a bit ancient. Washington state lawmakers last week passed a measure called the "Clean Cars 2030" initiative as an amendment to an existing bill requiring state utilities to properly prepare for an...

carbuzz.com

 

[jmodge]

The government has enough problems agreeing upon and carrying out a daily plan, I sure wouldn’t set my calendar for this

 

[Mongler98]

Lol. Anything for volts.... I mean votes lol
My sister is an analyst for GE and primarily works on he east to rocky mountain power grid.
This isnt possible. There isnt enough power production to male this happen especially with the BS denuclearization of our grid. Only way to go "green" is to homer simpson the crap out of earth with nuclear facilities.

 

[rocky raccoon]

Roger Mongler. "DeNuclearization" is a pipe dream and an un-necessary one at that. The U.S. Navy has had tens of thousands of sailors living within FEET of a nuc reactor for many years. Very few have children that grew an extra head or arm.

 

[IndigoBlueWagon]

First, it says you can't buy or register a new ICE vehicle in WA in 2030. Not that you can't keep driving the one you have. If this bill passes (which I think is doubtful), things may not look much different on Washington roads in 10 years.

Second, auto manufacturers are making similar noises, but if people don't start buying EVs in much larger numbers than they are now, it won't matter. GM won't put itself out of business if people buy ICE cars from other companies because GM no longer sells them. They'll capitulate.

And third, if EVs don't take hold with consumers, states will have to back off these mandates. So will Euro countries who are legislating ICE bans.

I'm not saying it can't happen, but I do think it's unlikely, at least in the time frames people are talking about now.

 

[Poor King]

It will happen because they are creating the marketplace for it whether we want EV's or not. Whether they succeed or not is a whole 'nother discussion--

There is a reported sum of $10B (by private investment/bankers/ceo's) tallied up into all aspects of EV manufacturing and God knows how much more into the pockets of politicians. There are many layers to the schematic that is geological capitalism, which always results in negative repercussions if not planned accordingly. With laws being laid down as such, they will gather quite a bit of change even if that means bodies have to fall.

The number one concern is sourcing lithium and other essential elements. We do not have the natural resources that China and Europe do and this is a matter of history repeating itself like the necessity of oil and creating countless wars for it.

Within in the last year the CIA has planned and failed in targeted coups against South American Countries abundant in these resources just like they did with Iran from 1953-80's. And may the failures of yesteryear wash away in a red tide of blatant lies, the staggering death toll remains at an astonishing 800K (at the least) Muslim lives lost. At least the CIA admitted to partaking in such devious acts of coups most recently; that makes things much better.

But still. Who knows where we go from here... We have people who think (and invest) on the fact that some day they will live on Mars regardless of the fact that planet the planet is unpredictable thus unhabitable by our species

 

[jlav0330]

The power grid could handle all cars turning to EVs, but that's going to take a lot of effort. And yes I fully agree that denuclearization is absolutely moronic and very short-sighted.

 

[Andyinchville1]

Hmmm .... if that is "woke" , they need to go back to bed to get well rested so they can start thinking straight. ;-)

 

[Poor King]

Oh yeah, the thread title is definitely clickbaity. To my defense a large demographic of EV consumers have the need to present themselves as part of the solution.

 

[nwdiver]

Only way to go "green" is to homer simpson the crap out of earth with nuclear facilities.

Spoken like someone that has either never actually taken the time to look at the numbers and/or doesn't understand them. CA alone is throwing out >100GWh/mo of carbon free electricity. The average EV uses ~300kWh/mo. So just the energy wasted because it has no where to go could power ~300,000 EVs in CA. Today.

The rate of renewable curtailment is increasing faster than energy consumption from EVs. So just using smarter charging we could add EVs to the grid while not increasing emissions at all since most of the energy would come from reduced curtailment.

Nuclear is going away because of economics. New nuclear is ~6x more expensive per MWh compared to solar or wind.

 

[rocky raccoon]

Nuclear is going away because of economics. New nuclear is ~6x more expensive per MWh compared to solar or wind.
[/QUOTE]

Doesn't have to be. High cost is mainly a function of over-regulation and a plethora of safety measures many of which are not needed. A large number of those safeties are in place because of "NUCLEAR" hysteria.

 

[nwdiver]

Doesn't have to be. High cost is mainly a function of over-regulation and a plethora of safety measures many of which are not needed. A large number of those safeties are in place because of "NUCLEAR" hysteria.

I worked in the nuclear industry for ~15 years. They make their own regulations. The NRC just asks them to show how they intent to keep XYZ from happening OR show that XYZ occurring is statistically improbable.

Which regulation(s) do you consider 'hysteria'? The requirement for a containment building to contain a failure? The requirement for QL1 materials to prevent a failure? Chemistry controls to prevent corrosion? Regular inspections to find problems before a failure? Can you cite a single regulation we should get rid of that would result in meaningful cost reductions?

The cost keeps going up because we keep finding things that can happen that we ignored or thought impossible. No one thought a RBMK reactor could detonate until 1986. No one thought boron could create an acid strong enough to eat through a pressure vessel until 2002. No one thought all the backup power supplies could fail to a nuclear plant until 2009. Should we just ignore all these lessons to keep the cost of nuclear down?

Beyond that.... it's simply far FAR cheaper to convert wind or photons into electricity than heat. Nuclear can't compete until we find a way to convert fission into electricity without using heat as an intermediate step.

 

[Poor King]

No one thought windmills would freeze over either. There is no single answer for every geographical scenario and population. Canada and California have the land mass that naturally promotes the use of EV's and the East coast not so much. Maybe offshore windmills will be the answer for the best coast

 

[nwdiver]

No one thought windmills would freeze over either.

Sure they did. That's why ~everyone except Texas invested in freeze protection for their wind turbines

Not that Texas SHOULD have. They were probably right to not invest in freeze protection. Spending $30M on more wind turbines is probably a smarter idea that to increase the output of the others by 1% since it's rare they would need it. The cost of not investing in freeze protection is ~5 days of lost production every 5 years. The cost of reducing regulations on nuclear plants could be >$400B. Comparing Apples to Chernobyl.

What DID need freeze protection were the gas and nuclear plants that are required to keep the lights on. Wind turbines reduce fuel use. Gas turbines keep the lights on. One needs to be 110% reliable. One just needs to work when it's cost effective.

 

[flashmayo]

Sure they did. That's why ~everyone except Texas invested in freeze protection for their wind turbines

Not that Texas SHOULD have. They were probably right to not invest in freeze protection. Spending $30M on more wind turbines is probably a smarter idea that to increase the output of the others by 1% since it's rare they would need it. The cost of not investing in freeze protection is ~5 days of lost production every 5 years. The cost of reducing regulations on nuclear plants could be >$400B. Comparing Apples to Chernobyl.

What DID need freeze protection were the gas and nuclear plants that are required to keep the lights on. Wind turbines reduce fuel use. Gas turbines keep the lights on. One needs to be 110% reliable. One just needs to work when it's cost effective.

I've heard a few talks about "Gen 4 Nuclear" that uses salt for cooling, individual reactors are much smaller, lower cost to bring up, etc. What's your feedback on this next gen technology?

 

[nwdiver]

I've heard a few talks about "Gen 4 Nuclear" that uses salt for cooling, individual reactors are much smaller, lower cost to bring up, etc. What's your feedback on this next gen technology?

Thermal generation in general is economically obsolete. The maximum efficiency of a thermal generator dictated by the laws of physics is < 40%. While solar is viable at ~20% 'efficiency' that's just 20% of available energy being harvested. You're not paying for the fuel and you're not paying to get rid of the heat. Any 1GW nuclear plant is producing ~3GW of heat. You're producing ~3GW worth of steam and finding a way to dump ~2GW of heat while only producing 1GW of electricity. None of that is cheap.

Until we find a way to convert fission or fusion directly into electricity without using heat as an intermediate step nuclear power simply cannot compete economically. It's that simple. Even if Gen 4 nuclear cost nothing wind and solar would STILL be cheaper because it's become cheaper and easier to convert wind or photons into electricity than heat.

 

[ticaf]

Thermal generation in general is economically obsolete.

Citation needed.

 

[nwdiver]

Citation needed.

If an existing plant that's already paid for can't make money what hope does a new one stand?

Utilities Running Uneconomic Coal Plants Cost Consumers $3.5 Billion From 2015-2017

BNEF: More than half of US nuclear plants losing money

 

[Poor King]

My whole "thing" pertaining to the thread title are the idiotic mandates that are being forced onto the general public/consumer. If the environment was the real concern and true agenda of debate, they would mandate fleet vehicles and public transportation first. But that is not the case. Lithium is big business right now and you'd be a fool to think these mandates have anything to do with going green.

 

[ticaf]

If an existing plant that's already paid for can't make money what hope does a new one stand?

Utilities Running Uneconomic Coal Plants Cost Consumers $3.5 Billion From 2015-2017

BNEF: More than half of US nuclear plants losing money

My comment "citation needed" was more directly related to your statement that it is 'economically obsolete ' to generate 1GW of electricity if 3GW of input power (heat from nuclear) is required. so what ? and who is saying we need 100% efficiency ? (hence citation needed).

 

[nwdiver]

My comment "citation needed" was more directly related to your statement that it is 'economically obsolete ' to generate 1GW of electricity if 3GW of input power (heat from nuclear) is required. so what ? and who is saying we need 100% efficiency ? (hence citation needed).

I never said we did need 100% efficiency. But the fact you have to pay to dispose of ~66% of the energy you paid to produce renders thermal generation economically obsolete. New wind farms are running <$20/MWh now. Just the cost to convert heat into electricity is >$40/MWh. Even if the heat source is free it's ~2x the cost of renewables and renewables are still getting cheaper. We flushed out all the tricks of converting heat into electricity decades ago... those costs are only rising with inflation now.

 

[oilhammer]

Every time you think nwdriver is butt hurt to the point of going away for good, he/she/they/it shows back up. Of course this thread title says it all. Like a moth to a flame. (or maybe to an LED, we don't want to upset anyone).

I just want to know what all the new age granola hippies in my Vanagon owners group who are highly concentrated in the Pacific NW will do if they allow their 15 MPG 35 year old home on wheels to be legislated out of legality. Hmmm... maybe I can buy some on the cheap!

 

[Poor King]

So that is a thing! The majority of pacific northwesterner's come off as excruciatingly liberal tree smokers in my head.

 

[oilhammer]

There seems to be a lot of them in that general area, that's for sure.

 

[jmodge]

I think I will start a fire and roast some hotdogs and drink a beer. As soon as my coffee is finished

 

[JELLOWSUBMARINE]

Oh yeah, the thread title is definitely clickbaity. To my defense a large demographic of EV consumers have the need to present themselves as part of the solution.

LOL thats true. The reality is most greener than thous, have limited critical thinking skills. the EV "footprint" is worse/bigger than the resources it took to build, run and maintain my last forever 83' dirty diesel. Start to finish most NON EV's, past or present will never require the resources 1 prius will. The rare earth battery components alone are now unobtainium and can be blamed for the wars oil used to (Ukraine), power grid on and on. Anyway...

Funny thing is I also have a hybrid prius. Not for "signaling, ...ha" a phony I'm savin' the world. But for the 60 mpg (of fossil fuel... hello greenies). It's Simple cost saving economics. The prius has got to be the most boring, soul killing vehicle I have ever owned.

 

[Abacus]

The rare earth battery components alone are now unobtainium and can be blamed for the wars oil used to (Ukraine), power grid on and on.

While lithium may be the most economical battery medium currently, I think it’s a pause point for when a real viable solution becomes available. I think the current medium, while more efficient than current technology, is just forced evolution by agenda driven individuals. And those agenda driven individuals consistently shoot themselves in the foot by being so narrow minded, and the current times are no different. Case in point is the new lithium deposit found in Maine, which is reported to be the largest in the world. The issue is the ones that want the lithium to continue the electric car agenda are the same ones that passed laws that prevent mining it. Oops. In their effort to ‘save’ the planet they never considered the ramifications of what they’re doing. Oh well…no lithium for you.

Western Maine Lithium Discovery

Funny thing is I also have a hybrid prius. Not for "signaling, ...ha" a phony I'm savin' the world. But for the 60 mpg (of fossil fuel... hello greenies). It's Simple cost saving economics. The prius has got to be the most boring, soul killing vehicle I have ever owned.

While we don’t have a Prius, we did just put solar on the house (not for signaling either), but we didn’t do it for so noble a reason as to save the world, we did it to reduce and stabilize OUR electricity costs. It only makes sense living in the sun state of Arizona but it wasn’t cheap. No offense to any of you, or the world, but I am looking out for my best interests and not anyone else’s. I still drive my smoky old B4V and love it, it’s much better to drive than either of our Kias, although her new SUV does have some nice features. It also helps reduce the costs of the new heated pool we just installed so we can enjoy life more. We sacrificed enough and decided now was the time and place for such an item.

So force evolution all you want, you can’t force science or physics, and both of those say this agenda driven utopia is nothing but a pipe dream.

 

[IndigoBlueWagon]

Mark, you should get a cover for the pool. Works wonders for keeping heat in on those cold nights.

 

[Abacus]

A solar cover came with it but I need to devise a mechanism for rolling it up when we’re using the pool.

 

[IndigoBlueWagon]

you can buy those.