France Set To Ban Sale of Petrol and Diesel Vehicles By 2040 (bbc.com) 375
France is planning to ban the sale of any car that uses petrol or diesel fuel by 2040. The planned ban on fossil fuel vehicles is part of a renewed commitment to the Paris climate deal, reports BBC. From the report: Hybrid cars make up about 3.5% of the French market, with pure electric vehicles accounting for just 1.2%. It is not yet clear what will happen to existing fossil fuel vehicles still in use in 2040. President Trump's decision to withdraw from the Paris climate change agreement in June was explicitly named as a factor in France's new vehicle plan. "France has decided to become carbon neutral by 2050 following the U.S. decision," Nicolas Hulot, France's ecology minister, said, adding that the government would have to make investments to meet that target. Poorer households would receive financial assistance to replace older, more polluting vehicles with cleaner ones, he said. Other targets set in the French environmental plan include ending coal power plants by 2022, reducing nuclear power to 50% of total output by 2025, and ending the issuance of new oil and gas exploration licenses.
I wonder what's going to happen to the mid east (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I wonder what's going to happen to the mid east (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder what's going to happen to the mid east when the only thing they have that's of any value is suddenly without value?
No need to wonder. Just have a look at what is going on in Venezuela right now.
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much larger pile of by-then aging modern weapons that has a used-by date
Which we are arranging for them to deplete by having them use on each other.
Re:I wonder what's going to happen to the mid east (Score:5, Insightful)
What are you talking about? The crisis in Venezuela barely has something to do with oil. Besides, Venezuela is full of natural resources and food, the Middle East is basically a desert.
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That's why middle eastern countries are investing so much in developing their other resources and alternate economies such as tourism.
Re:I wonder what's going to happen to the mid east (Score:5, Insightful)
What are you talking about? The crisis in Venezuela barely has something to do with oil.
Excuse me, but an economy where roughly 50% of GDP is based on oil as are 95% of it is not at all diversified and is bound to fluctuate a bit like the oil price. Source: http://www.economicshelp.org/b... [economicshelp.org]
While it is true that Venezuela has also a lot of political and historical problems, a lot of the current crisis seems to come from lack of economic diversity and large dependence on oil price.
There's a nice podcast about the current crisis in Venezuela (about 30 min) which I recommend:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programme... [bbc.co.uk]
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Re:I wonder what's going to happen to the mid east (Score:5, Insightful)
Hydrocarbons and oil are still an extremely valuable resource, even if we aren't burning it for its BTUs. It's an integral part of the feed stocks for many chemical processes, and we'd be hard pressed to change those out. As someone once said "Crude oil is really too valuable to be burning."
Re:I wonder what's going to happen to the mid east (Score:4, Interesting)
Creating plastics then recycling most of them seems like it won't require us to collect as much oil and that the quality of the oil may matter less. Plus if we're making LEGO bricks out of it instead of burning it, then it isn't going into the atmosphere.
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Over half of all petroleum products end up as fuel of one sort or another (for transportation or energy). When demand for oil for transportation falls, it's going to cut into that significantly.
Re:I wonder what's going to happen to the mid east (Score:4, Informative)
As someone once said
Kenneth S. Deffeyes. A top R&D person at Shell. That adds some extra weight to that quote.
We'll be using oil long after every car, bus, and motorbike in the world has gone electric.
Re:I wonder what's going to happen to the mid east (Score:4, Informative)
Re:I wonder what's going to happen to the mid east (Score:4, Insightful)
You're right but you left out a crucial factor - the same one that makes biofuels a bad idea. Using vegetable oils for industrial processes directly competes with using agricultural resources for food. Lets forget that food is just about the only truly unavoidable requirement for life we actually buy (we get water for free in most of the world, and nobody has yet managed to pollute enough of the atmosphere that they can make money selling air - though I'm sure quite a lot of CEOs get wet dreams about one day making the atmosphere unbreathable and cashing in on sales of a product nobody can live without for more than 3 minutes).
Any competing use of agricultural output drives up food prices, and ends up killing people - that makes it a politically hard sell to begin with. Secondly it also means that the price at which you can buy it for industrial processes is driven up by the fact that other people are willing to pay good money for that same source - because they'll starve without it.
In a world where we do NOT burn crude oil and remove the single biggest competitor for the resource, it's quite likely that the price of crude for plastics will end up significantly lower than vegetable oils - because unlike vegetables, nobody else is clamoring to buy crude oil for dinner.
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Plus, of course, they do have at leas one more natural resource in abundance: sunshine. They could export electricity, especially when we finally work out how to store excess power efficiently. BTW - it isn't as if the Arabic Peninsula has no other, natural resources, such as minerals, but oil is just very abundant, very easy to extract and in huge demand.
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Expect war and strife in the Middle East. In other words: same shit, different decade.
Re:I wonder what's going to happen to the mid east (Score:4, Insightful)
The difference being that the major powers will have far less incentive to get involved - which has pretty consistently gone badly for them. They had been doing a pretty good job of getting their act together, with long-warring tribal kingdoms consolidating into peaceful democracies before the US and allies overthrew their governments rather than have them ally with the Russians during WWI/II.
Heck, just stop propping up Israel's militant government to maintain a loyal foothold in the region, and regional tensions would likely ease quite rapidly, though perhaps rather bloodily.
Re:I wonder what's going to happen to the mid east (Score:5, Insightful)
That's why you have Iraq trying to get Sunni and Shia, Kurds and Arabs trying to stay in the same room long enough without killing each other to form something resembling a "national" government. There is no socio-political reason for "Iraq" to exist as a country - it's borders are an artificial construct created by some ignorant Europeans drawing lines on a map for land whose people they knew next to nothing about. The U.S. and Soviet Union may have played off this chaos, but they didn't cause it. Europe did.
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Re:I wonder what's going to happen to the mid east (Score:5, Interesting)
Read up on a little history. The chaos in the modern Middle East stems from the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire [weebly.com] after its defeat in the first World War. The European victors carved up its territory into colonies along the modern borders we see today, with little to no regard for the cultural, religious, and socio-political boundaries of the indigenous people [slashdot.org]. Culturally, it would've made more sense to divide it into Turkey, Kurdistan, and Arabia, and maybe a few other countries to reflect local Sunni/Shia enclaves. That's why you have Iraq trying to get Sunni and Shia, Kurds and Arabs trying to stay in the same room long enough without killing each other to form something resembling a "national" government. There is no socio-political reason for "Iraq" to exist as a country - it's borders are an artificial construct created by some ignorant Europeans drawing lines on a map for land whose people they knew next to nothing about. The U.S. and Soviet Union may have played off this chaos, but they didn't cause it. Europe did.
Actually it was mostly Britain and France that carved up the Ottoman Empire with Italy coming along for some scraps. Additionally the British hoped to scoop up a good chunk of Turkey proper consisting of Istanbul and the region around the sea of Marmara and the narrows by sponsoring a Greek invasion in 1919 but the Greeks got their ass kicked by Mustafa Kemal who to surprise of everybody involved turned out to be a really good military commander (read: to the surprise of the British, French and Italians, the Germans already knew his qualities as a commander) so that plan went down the tubes. The Italians quickly concluded that this was a mess not worth getting into, pulled out and started selling weapons to Kemal. I suppose you can trust the Italians to recognise a triple decker shit-sandwich with a side of bullshit when they see one. So in the end it was Britain and France who carved up the Ottoman Empire and the only reason Russia wasn't on the list is that Russia was busy tearing itself apart at the time. One of the big reasons the Ottomans allied them selves with Germany in the first place was precisely that Germany's ambitions mostly revolved around economic considerations and trade with the Ottoman Empire rather than annexing territory, kind of like American policy later became, so the Germans prior to WWI had no real ambitions to annex huge swathes of Ottoman territory whatever private fantasies Wilhelm II may have had about an oriental empire. The whole mess was then taken over by the US Government on behalf of US oil companies in the 1940s, the Russians finally made their belated appearance and that adds a third and fourth player to the list of actors responsible for the Middle East mess which in it's complete form reads: Britain, France, The United States of America and Russia. You can try to lay the mess that is the Middle East at the feet of the Europeans but it is really only Britain and France that are to blame and even they have little or no role in shaping the Middle East since October 1956, everything that happened after the Suez crisis goes to the account of the USA and Russia.
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Actually the Hutu and Tutsi one is worse - since no such ethnicities existed prior to colonization. The French literally just went and declared the taller people a different (and less inferior) race and treated them that way so long that it got ingrained in the local culture.
Mind you - that same thing about drawing borders without any consideration for the local population happened in Africa, and a great deal of the problems post-colonial Africa has had have stemmed from the fact that borders cut through e
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For a short time, until they run out of money. Without oil, the rest of the world isn't going to care about their internal strife.
I guess bullets for AK47s are cheap, but they still need to eat.
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Even if they run out of money for cheap bullets they'll just hack at each other with swords.
This is a religious war that's been going on for a thousand years or so, certainly hundreds of years. This will not end soon unless they succeed in killing themselves. If they just kill one faction off then they'll just export their warring ways.
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Oil may be their chief export, but it's not their only thing of value. They see the writing on the wall, and are already making efforts to diversify - the UAE and Qatar especially are seeking to become major financial centers. There's also potential for expansion in the tourism sector - great weather and a lot of major historical sites through the entire region. The oil boom may be coming to a slow and inevitable end, but there is time to prepare.
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Saudi Arabia and a number of the small gulf states have been liberalising their economies for exactly this reason, and that means easing up the laws restricting women, creating education and entrepreneurial funds with their oil money, and so on and so forth.
There's a realisation for example in Saudi that whilst it'll be slow and hard due to religious resistance that when the oil stops flowing, they can't afford to have 50% (women) of their potential workforce not being productive by being forced not to work
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Is the production of new vehicles accounted for? (Score:2)
Poorer households would receive financial assistance to replace older, more polluting vehicles with cleaner ones, he said.
I am curious if the energy/environmental impact of producing the new vehicle is part of the estimated/calculated beneficial environmental impact. That is, if I replace a vehicle that gets 20 MPG with one that gets 40 MPG the 100% improvement in fuel economy is partially offset by the energy that went into producing the vehicle and possibly transport (especially for imports). I know that vehicles have to be replaced eventually but this makes it seem like the idea is to replace the vehicles before the norma
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Not only that, but because it's cheaper to drive, you'll drive it more, offsetting the fuel economy even more. Which isn't to say better fuel economy isn't worth it, just that you won't get as much out of it as you think.
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I agree that the travel time has an upper limit, but the regularity one might travel can change. I remember in college I'd avoid visiting my parents if I didn't have gas money. With a round trip of about 300 miles that meant roughly a tank of gas in my Oldsmobile. I don't recall what gas was then but in recent years I've seen a tank of gas be as low as $30 and as high as $70.
If you have a set sum of money per month to spend on visiting someone/something, then that can mean doing it once, twice, or even t
Re:Is the production of new vehicles accounted for (Score:4, Insightful)
It doesn't take more energy to produce a more efficient vehicle.
The target date is 2040. Since there are no road vehicles with a "normal service life" over 20 years, it shouldn't be a big issue.
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Of course they will, and if France is like elsewhere, it's likely as 2040 approaches, more and more people will be buying electric cars.
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Quite. It's not like petrol vehicles will suddenly disappear in 2040, they'll just stop being sold. It'll likely take another 10-20 years beyond that before petrol vehicles become an uncommon sight on the road, but you have to start somewhere.
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Dummy, they're already producing new vehicles. Every year...new vehicles. Like clockwork. When that Detroit Auto Show comes around, there are new vehicles all over the place. Every single manufacturer comes out with new vehicles every year.
All this means is that the percentage of these new vehicles that are not
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Do cars really get scrapped under 150k miles now adays?
Unlikely. They tend to get exported to “poorer” countries. For example, I drive a 15yo car with 300Gm on the road and I gather I could easily sell it for 3000 euros.
Correct (Score:2)
Fleet average age in the USA is 11.6 years. So 8 years life is bullshit.
Re: Correct (Score:2)
What does the fleet average age in the USA have to do with France? It is only 9 years there. Older vehicles are generally sold to Eastern Europe where fewer people can afford to buy new.
Re:Is the production of new vehicles accounted for (Score:5, Insightful)
Less than 5% of the vehicles on the road are over 20 years old.
France's plan is to stop the SALE of petrol and diesel cars by 2040. Not to force them all off the road. If Toyota is still building gasoline cars in 2039, and you buy one, you'll still be able to drive it 500,000 in France. But your next car will have to be different.
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That's cute to think that they can just ban them. They'll have to boil this frog or there will be riots. Phase in taxes or something. Or, they simply think that the markets will make electric cars more attractive by then, in which case this proclamation is just virtue signalling.
(I just realized the hilarity of using a frog joke when discussing France. Anyone else find that funny or is my insomnia making everything seem funny?)
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My neighbour just got rid of his Corolla. It had 620000km on it. He got rid of it because he's not allowed to drive it in the city anymore due to emission regulations.
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There's no way they'd force people to take existing cars off the road.
Sure, they’ll do it by taxing gas up the wazoo. And where are you going to buy it when there are no longer service stations? You’ll have to buy it by the tin
Re:Is the production of new vehicles accounted for (Score:4, Informative)
Not completely meaningless - it establishes momentum, and serves notice to industry that they should get more serious about focusing investment in the relevant technologies.
And once the automotive and surrounding industries are significantly invested, then even if the ban is delayed or abandoned they still have incentive to recoup those costs by actually producing the new classes of vehicle that have been designed and tooled for.
I know schadenfreude is wrong (Score:2)
but I'm going to enjoy watching this.
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I'll enjoy watching this too.
Can someone tell me something? Will an electric car burn like a gasoline car? I'm sure I'll find out eventually but it's something I'd like to know.
Google tells me lithium burns with a red flame, copper with a blue or green flame. I'll keep that in mind as I watch the news.
Surprisingly Distant (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm a little surprised the date they've chosen is 20+ years in the future, though its fairly typical for governments to make grandiose decisions that they will be in no way accountable for.
I'd be much more impressed if there were interim dates requiring all vehicles be hybrids, then plugin hybrids before eliminating combustion engines.
Re:Surprisingly Distant (Score:5, Insightful)
Distant. but a realistic date. First, it sends a signal to the auto industry that they better start planning for a petrol/diesel phase out. Second, it gives time to build the infrastructure to support whatever new fueling method ends up winning out.
Now one thing to point out, they're not talking about eliminating ICEs. You very well could have an ICE running on methane, propane or alcohol for example and those would be allowed. So a interim mandate of hybrids or some particular technology is shortsighted too.
I do admit though, this is a lot more hope than action.
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The technology already exists and is for sale so if they were really interested in climate change they could of set the date to three to five years and then really sent the signal to the auto industry.
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I'm sure this is what people said when Kennedy made his famous speech about going to the moon in 1961. "Oh, he will be out of office, it will be someone else's problem, it's just posturing and bravado". I mean, come on, putting a man on the moon at a time when the US couldn't even get one into low earth orbit. The cost would be astronomical and that's if it's even possible, I mean what if the surface of the moon isn't even solid or humans can't survive the radiation belts?
The main issue is not the technolog
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I'm a little surprised the date they've chosen is 20+ years in the future, though its fairly typical for governments to make grandiose decisions that they will be in no way accountable for.
I would have been shocked if they made such a progressive decision for themselves, in their own time. They're damned well going to keep burning gas for their own purposes.
Nuclear hate? (Score:2, Informative)
I've never fully understood the huge hate and 'we need to go carbon neutral, so we'll back off one of the biggest carbon neutral power sources we have' thing..
Nuclear power is safe, efficient, clean and very well regulated. There are better tech, like Thorium medium term and Fusion long term that need to take over from it, but for the next 100 years or so, it would be a brilliant way to get lots of power, very cleanly.
This isn't the 60's.. Reactor tech has improved a /lot/. All the big disasters have been
Re:Nuclear hate? (Score:5, Interesting)
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That's about right. France, or any nation, cannot be "carbon neutral" without nuclear power. I don't care if you got 23 years to plan that out, unless they are sitting on some leap in technology that no one is telling me about then this is bullshit.
Replacing all the cars with electric, while also reducing use of coal and nuclear? That's not happening.
Barring some leap in technology we have three choices:
- Keep burning coal and oil
- Switch to nuclear
- Partying like it's 1799
Sure, you can keep the lights o
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Gasoline engines are so inefficient, that even if you use coal to generate electricity for your electric vehicle, it's still likely to result in less emission of carbon.
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I'm not disputing that. I'm only pointing out that switching from cheap and reliable coal to expensive and unreliable wind and solar will prove problematic in keeping millions of cars moving.
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Not having a good day are you. France has a LOT of nuclear power already and unlike the USA, Japan etc they are not just sitting on what they have but are planning to add significant amounts more.
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From the article:
Other targets set in the French environmental plan include ending coal power plants by 2022, reducing nuclear power to 50% of total output by 2025, and ending the issuance of new oil and gas exploration licences.
They just said they were going to reduce their reliance on nuclear.
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Well spotted.
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They just said they were going to reduce their reliance on nuclear.
Going from a huge percentage nuclear to 50% nuclear still means a shitload of nuclear plants. Far more than pretty much every other country on Earth.
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Combined wind, solar, and hydro produce nearly 15% of France's electricity. They plan to cut their nuclear output nearly in half (from over 80% to less than 50%) while also tripling the renewable output, and on top of that account for growth in demand from electric vehicles.
I agree, it is impressive to have 50% of a nation's electricity from nuclear power. It's just mind boggling that they think they can replace nuclear power with windmills and solar collectors.
Germany tried that already and they had to r
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Get some land ready. Bring in the workers and build that new plant. Weld the reactor vessel. Get all the electronics and computers in.
Start selling power to pay back all that debt. But coal, oil, solar, wind, gas, hydro exists and wants that same access to profit too.
Years later that nuclear power plant is radioactive, cracking and falling apart.
Time for cutting it all up and securing all the radioactive parts or give it paper work pass so the locals can keep
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Others have made some good points - I'll just add that while fission *could* provide relatively safe and clean power for at least several centuries, the evidence to date suggests that short-sightedness, corruption, corner-cutting, and the difficulty in properly weighing the danger of *extremely* high risk, low-probability events on a large scale are all going to be major problems undermining the theoretical safety for a long time to come. And those are human problems that have proven far more intractable t
Re:Nuclear hate? (Score:4, Informative)
A better bet by far is to figure ways of improving energy storage.
Or, we can do more than one thing at a time.
You think that a battery cares where the energy used to charge it comes from? Sure, we can build up 3GW of solar, build out massive battery banks to last through the night. We can also build a 1GW nuclear power plant, a much smaller battery bank to last through the day, and let that nuclear reactor just putt-putt along at a nice even pace. Nuclear would mean less land needed, less labor, less material dug from the ground, just generally cheaper in the end really.
Strictly speaking nuclear power is non-renewable, so it fails on that front.
In long enough time scales neither is the sun and wind. There's enough nuclear fuel, easily accessible, on the surface of the Earth to last until the sun burns out. If "renewable" means "until the sun consumes the atmosphere" then nuclear is renewable.
If France thinks that it is possible to make electric cars more attractive than petroleum burning ones in 20 years then it should be possible to make nuclear power more attractive than coal in 20 years. Oh, and we can likely solve that problem of recycling the nuclear waste by then too. We solved the problem of coal ash, they call it "coal combustion products" and sell it as industrial feedstock. We could do something similar with spent nuclear fuel too.
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and nuclear plants never meet their projected costs
That's actually not that hard to remedy, at least partially. One of the big costs is in delays from nuisance lawsuits. Every delay between project approval and acquisition of funds, and when the plant actually begins producing electricity, is a huge cost. So we could just.. end those lawsuits.
And we have waste just lying around, and you can't calculate the cost until that's been dealt with for once and for all
All the nuclear waste ever produced takes up a very tiny volume. There's actually nothing wrong with letting it just lie around for however long it takes, and absolutely no need to calculate (or collect) the cost up fr
Alcohol fueled vehicles (Score:2)
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excess wine.
.....I don't think this is something that can exist.
Thank You President Trump (Score:5, Funny)
Not only did President Trump get us out of an expensive yet worthless non-binding global agreement, he also got a commitment from nearly 350 local mayors to keep their carbon reduction goals and has made France step up their reduction in emissions. Liberals will refuse to admit it but President Trump has been one of the most effective leaders of reduced global fossil fuel emissions.
Thank you President Trump!
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I'm sure Trump's support of increased natural gas production, simplifying the nuclear power licensing, and competition from cheap coal, will drive CO2 emissions down.
Some might think I'm crazy for thinking increased coal production can lower CO2 output in the future. I've heard people in the battery business complain about the costs of electricity to run their labs. You can claim they need to be more efficient but if you are testing your batteries to be able to take a 120kW charge then you need 120kW to d
2040 huh (Score:2)
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Electric transport will not be freedom of movement.
To own, register and be allowed to drive will become a lengthy process. Is it a classic car that can be taken to a show? That might get some special paperwork to drive around on private land for a day.
Want a battery car? Start saving, get ready to pay new taxes. Have a real reason why ready and wait to be approved.
Select professions like doctors, politician
2040 (Score:5, Interesting)
Plans for something 20+ years ahead are retarded, there's no way to know the circumstances or predict what will be going on in 2040.
More probably trying to score political points with stupid people.
Some other guy in 2038 will say "yeah.. we'll postpone this 20 more years, we're not ready".
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Ten years ago, Ethanol was going to be the future. Now it is batteries.
In 2040 robots will be everywhere. The world will change beyond recognition.
Interesting that nobody tries to make films set in the realistic future. For example, there were no films in the 1980/90ss showing social media and smart phones, even though these were very much on the Moore's law horizon at the time.
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So we shouldn't plan for the future because technological change might disrupt the plans? That's just stupid, there's nothing wrong with setting long term goals.
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Plans for something 20+ years ahead are retarded, there's no way to know the circumstances or predict what will be going on in 2040.
The fact that they're not removing roads and replacing them with optical fibers says a lot about what they think the future will be like. Politicians have no imagination.
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This kind of short sightedness is what got us into this mess in the first place.
Presumably you also oppose nuclear power since that's a 60+ year commitment to do stuff in the future.
Why wait (Score:2)
Fortune favors the bold.
America's Answer (Score:2, Funny)
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Re:Vehicle Ban? (Score:5, Insightful)
Set to take effect in 24 years. It's just posing.
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banning things are what politicians do so they can pat themselves on the back. It's a top-down approach to solving problems. It's not wrong, but I prefer that society collectively takes actions for improving the future rather than someone standing above us and telling us all how to behave. Maybe the second way would work if reason and persuasive arguments were an effective way to broadly collaborate. (doesn't seem to be)
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Why is it that so many governments and people are so hot on just outright "BANNING" things?
They are not banning vehicles that use petrol/diesel, they are banning the sale of vehicles that use petrol/diesel.
You're entire premise of being outraged is incorrect but don't let that stop you from being upset about NOT YOUR COUNTRY doing things they way they see fit.
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When you can run your gas car without contributing to the pollution and catastrophic warming of my planet, then you drive whatever you want without regard for my desires.
Since that's not possible, society (in the form of government) has to negotiate limits that everyone can hopefully live with.
Re:Vehicle Ban? (Score:4, Insightful)
What if I get 50% + 1 people to vote that we get to keep our petrol burning cars? Let me guess, you like democracy so long as the majority agrees with you.
I've seen the polls of what people in the USA are concerned about and (in no particular order here) it's their job, terrorism, clean air and water, your job, fuel prices, food prices. Global warming was at or near the bottom of the list, right next to their ability to get a good cell phone signal while they drive.
A lot of these issues currently have solutions in opposition to global warming solutions. If people want to fight global warming AND have low prices on food and fuel, jobs for everyone, clean air and water, then they need to get over their irrational fear of nuclear power.
There must be a lot of insanity in France if they think that they can both reduce nuclear power use while reducing their reliance on coal and oil. I've seen the math and the only way to do that now is with a bunch of solar collectors in Africa and wires run under the sea to France. Right now Africa is not a stable place and if they expect to meet this goal then they need to start building solar panels now.
Do they plan to invade Northern Africa to get their sun? That would be an interesting turn of events, would it not?
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Yes, I realize that. They are banning the CHOICE of consumers and manufacturers to make or buy certain products, indiscriminately, and for all cases, outright.
The same thing happened when they outright banned leaded gasoline. We could have taxed it more or some shit but we banned it because it was for the good of general welfare. I think the same applies in this situation despite any reservations you may have on the topic.
Re:Vehicle Ban? (Score:4, Insightful)
There are a million things you're not allowed to buy. Your freedom of choice is basically an illusion. For instance, you're not allowed to buy a car that violates all kinds of safety rules. You can't buy many dangerous chemicals. You can't buy a bazooka.
Also, that's a great story. I'm so happy for you. I have no idea what you're trying to prove with it. yard power tools are not a significant source of pollution, so they haven't been targeted. If the point is that the market sometimes eventually selects products that are better for everyone's well being, uh, okay. But it doesn't say anything with respect to if it selects quickly enough, nor consistently enough. Your faith in the market is just that - faith that it solves problems that it demonstrably doesn't always solve.
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Reply to self with a personal example I should have mentioned:
This year, the last of my yard power tools bit the dust. I decided it was time to replace them and went to Lowe's and started research. Was it time for electric/battery? Lots of reading, playing, thinking, and I went back and bought a set of Greenworks Pro (3 tools- weed trimmer, bush trimmer, blower- 3 batteries, and a rebate for 3 more batteries, free). I could not be more happy with them! No more gas, no more smell, no more trying over an
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Try the Fiskars reel mower. No electric, no gas. Very quiet. But you have to mow twice as often and you get a good workout doing it.
Re: Vehicle Ban? (Score:2)
Why not a scythe?
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Why not a scythe?
I put it away because when I used it to cut the grass one of my neighbors called the cops on me. Try it sometime, people will give you funny looks for using one.
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I have a reel mower. I bought it when I had a smaller and flatter lawn. I never figured out how to sharpen the blades. I've moved since and got a push gas mower. Still a relatively small lawn but with a couple really steep places to mow. I just got a self propelled walk behind mower, and now mowing takes half the time it used to. My feet don't hurt nearly as much either when I'm done.
I liked that reel mower, nearly 20 years ago. Now my physician says I need to stay off my feet because of arthritis.
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In an ideal world, that would work wonderfully. And if we had started seriously shifting away from fossil energy 50 years ago once we were certain we had a problem it might have worked in practice. But we didn't.
So now we do things like announcing a ban on destructive technologies 20 years in the future, to give industry added incentive to seriously invest in the shift.
Because let's not mince words - if we don't break our addiction to fossil energy post-haste then millions, possibly billions of people wil
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We were shifting from fossil fuels more than 50 years ago. Alcohol prohibition put a wrench in those works. Now if you want to run something on ethanol you have ATF breathing down your neck just looking for a reason to shut you down. Sure, you can find 85% ethanol and no ATF around. That's because the big companies with a bunch of lawyers got the licenses and such from the ATF and nothing leaves the property until it's mixed with enough gasoline, methanol, or whatever to make it poisonous for human cons
Re:Vehicle Ban? (Score:5, Informative)
Why not let things unfold naturally if possible?
Because experience shows that the free market **NEVER** finds the most ecologically-sound solution.
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Why not let things unfold naturally if possible?
Great idea! We should have done that with leaded gas so we could all enjoy a nice, natural, high crime rate. Or asbestos. Or that accidentally poisonous isomer of some vitamin or the other that caused all those miscarriages many decades ago. Or hell, why limit this to bans? Let's go all natural on everything. Bring back the polio and measles and mange. Ah those were the good old days.
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Why not let things unfold naturally
What major game changer in history has unfolded naturally?
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>"I have no idea what marketing bullshit you've been reading to make you believe that electric cars will ever be *more* convenient than gas cars in any of our lifetimes"
Use your imagination. Not everyone drives just like you. In my case, I very rarely travel over 200 miles. For me, it would be far more convenient to plug in my car in my garage and have it always ready and "full", instead of going out and waiting in a line at Costco to get gas.
>"Yeah, no government planning, just massive government
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Why are you replying to me?