Thumper Club Forum
Club House => Chatter => Topic started by: Ian on May 28, 2020, 11:24:45 PM
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https://www.visordown.com/news/general/emula-electric-motorcycle-disguises-itself-classic-2-stroke-sound
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Neither, I'd have a proper 2 or 4 stroke instead. If the recent article in MCN is to be believed, electric vehicles are actually a lot worse for the environment than petrol engined anyway!
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I cant see how they can be as Environmentally Friendly as they say.
The industry to mine and manufacture the batteries is horrendous.
Then the power stations burning various fuels to charge the said batteries.
Wind and Solar are not contributing a huge amount at the moment.
Jethro
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wind and solar are generating more power in the uk than coal by a country mile.
this argument comes up all the time from the modern day luddites, 'oh but the batterys need such dirty minerals' as though the oil and gas industry on the planet gets it product from tickling kittens. and however dirty the production of batterys is you need only do it once.
the argument over the generation of electricity to charge ev's being dirtier than oil has been made and discredited numerous times over the last few years, i think that the worse case scenario stated that if you only charged your ev from power generated by the worlds worst polluting dirtiest coal burning power plant, it would STILL be 4 times cleaner than running on fossil fuels. like it or not, battery driven EV's are the future eventually, and we can complain all we like, but the day will come when petrol and diesel burning motor vehicles will go the way of the steam train or the vhs video. nice technology whilst it lasted, but old hat now.
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why people still believe the myth that fossil fuel cars are cleaner than electric,
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/26/yes-electric-vehicles-really-are-better-than-fossil-fuel-burners
debunking the myth that evs arent green,
http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/electric-cars-green
uk renewables generate more power than oil coal and gas,
https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-uk-renewables-generate-more-electricity-than-fossil-fuels-for-first-time
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It's not the running of the things that's the problem, it's the fact that manufacturing an electric vehicle produces about 2 or 3 times as many greenhouse gas emissions as manufacturing an equivalent IC vehicle (according to MCN). Its also accepted AFAIK that an average IC engined car will produce as much greenhouse pollution by burning petrol as was caused by it's manufacture, over a typical ten year lifespan. If both of these statements are true it would appear that an EV is as bad for the environment as an IC vehicle before its even turned a wheel. And this is ignoring the fact that the batteries won't last ten years. Certainly, as far as I'm concerned the current (hahaha) generation of EV's just doesn't cut it on any level. I'm no luddite though, but just think it will take the perfection of solid state batteries or an infrastructure to support hydrogen fuel cells before EVs are a viable alternative.
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have you got a stat to back that up, its not one ive seen.
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having had a bit of a dig, i found this,
https://www.thegreenage.co.uk/tech/environmental-footprint-electric-cars/
it seems that you are right, though theres some journalistic licence in interpreting the stats. for example, if you run a newspaper dedicated to petrol burning motorcycles, its in your interest to rubbish anything that threatens the petrol motorbike market. so, if you produce an ev, and the plant you use to build it is powered by electricity generated using coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, then it will be a dirtier process than a plant building using renewable energy, though neither scenario takes into account the fact that the first time you plug it in, you start to row the vehicles 'environmental debt' backwards, whereas a fossil fuel vehicle might start with a lower environmental debt, but every fill up with petrol is just increasing that debt. some interesting info on that stat though.
i'll post th links, cos i found them interesting all though not everyone is as big an anorak as me!
https://www.thegreenage.co.uk/tech/environmental-footprint-electric-cars/
https://www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-how-electric-vehicles-help-to-tackle-climate-change
https://news.mongabay.com/2020/03/idea-that-electric-cars-might-produce-as-much-emissions-as-fossil-fueled-vehicles-essentially-a-myth-researchers-conclude/
https://theconversation.com/climate-explained-the-environmental-footprint-of-electric-versus-fossil-cars-124762
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Yes, absolutely, as the old saying goes - 'There's lies, damn lies and statistics'. I do think it's fair to say that current EVs are not the universal panacea to all environmental woes, as the greens would have you believe. However, once the boffins have perfected solid state batteries (no nasty chemicals, no combustion risk and a recharge time of potentially 5 to 10 mins) I'll be 1st in the queue to buy an electric motorbike.