“Electrifying vehicles adds yet more weight. Combustible, energy-dense petroleum is replaced by bulky batteries. And the rest of the vehicle must get heavier to provide the necessary structural support….. Why does this matter? First and foremost is safety.
“Heavier vehicles also generate more particulate pollution from tyre [tire] wear. They require more materials and energy to build and propel them, adding to emissions and energy use.”
An article in Nature from several years ago, underappreciated in today’s climate/energy debate, was recently emphasized in a social media post by Nick Molden, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Emissions Analytics, and Honorary Research Fellow, Imperial College London.
Molden commented:
…A certain level of CO2 reduction is required just to offset the extra accident death risk from heavier BEV vehicles. Some major countries already reach this level, although the US and Germany do not.
“The IPCC reports have become ‘bumper sticker’ climate science—making a political statement while using the overall reputation of science to give authority to a politically manufactured consensus. With such explicit political advocacy, combined with misleading information, the IPCC risks losing its privileged position in international policy debates.” (- Doug Sheridan)
Doug Sheridan speaks truth to power on energy and climate issues. In a recent social media post, he brings attention to an article by Judith Curry in The Australian, “UN’s Climate Panic Is More Politics than Science,” that emphasized how the IPCC markets a warming extremism that is three times the size of its medium-case scenario. [1]
Sheridan’s summary follows:
Judith Curry writes in the Australian, all but few holdouts now recognize that the IPCC‘s worst-case RCP8.5 climate scenario never really deserved the attention it was given.…
“Flush with your cash, utilities tried to build plants with unproven technology; they launched projects with unfinished designs and unrealistic budgets; they misled regulators and the public with schedules that promised bogus completion dates; they hid damning reports from investors and the public; they tried to silence critics and whistleblowers.”
“In the mid-2000s, power companies across the South, including SCANA, NextEra, Duke Energy and Southern Company, had their robust lobbying machines running at full throttle. An energy gold rush had begun…. (- Tony Bartelme, below)
Tony Bartelme, senior projects reporter for the Charleston, South Carolina Post and Courier wrote an interesting exposé that should be revisited for its relevancy to the problem of utility ratebase economics: “Power Failure: How utilities across the U.S. changed the rules to make big bets with your money” (December 10, 2017; updated December 28, 2022).…