Japan Times: There's a better answer than electric cars

[tonybelding]

Found this → https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinio...ommentary/theres-better-answer-electric-cars/

Important points made by this article (with elaboration by me):

1. Electric cars don't go very far. (We all know it's not possible to make a BEV with enough range to be acceptable to Joe Sixpack.)

2. Electric cars take too long to charge. (Hours and hours and HOURS!)

3. Electric cars require a huge investment in charging infrastructure. (Obviously it would be impractical to ever deploy some kind of widespread charging network?)

4. Electric cars are not the most effective way to reduce CO2 emissions. (And CO2 emission is the only thing in the world that matters. Not smog. Not over-dependence on certain oil-rich countries. Not efficiency. Only CO2 is worthy of consideration.)

5. Some electricity comes from sources that produce CO2. (And the electrical grid will never become cleaner, because what are you some sort of pie-in-the-sky dreamer??)

Well, it's The Japan Times. I'm sure they love hydrogen. In fact, the article argues that instead of building hydrogen cars, maybe we should use industrial processes to pull carbon out of the air, combine it with hydrogen (which comes from where??) to produce synthetic hydrocarbon fuels, and burn that in our conventional ICEs. So, effectively the carbon becomes a carrier for hydrogen, and the hydrogen car lives on, in a sense, without the need for that pesky HFC technology, fueling stations, etc. (But we still have smog.)

 

[dhrivnak]

Except that Tesla has shown EVs can go far and recharge in minutes as we found out in our Model 3 with a 650 mile journey in a day.

And I forgot to mention we have clean solar to charge our cars.

 

[jelloslug]

Was this an article that they forgot to publish five years ago?

 

[DrizztVD]

Found this → There's a better answer than electric cars | The Japan Times

Important points made by this article (with elaboration by me):

1. Electric cars don't go very far. (We all know it's not possible to make a BEV with enough range to be acceptable to Joe Sixpack.)

2. Electric cars take too long to charge. (Hours and hours and HOURS!)

3. Electric cars require a huge investment in charging infrastructure. (Obviously it would be impractical to ever deploy some kind of widespread charging network?)

4. Electric cars are not the most effective way to reduce CO2 emissions. (And CO2 emission is the only thing in the world that matters. Not smog. Not over-dependence on certain oil-rich countries. Not efficiency. Only CO2 is worthy of consideration.)

5. Some electricity comes from sources that produce CO2. (And the electrical grid will never become cleaner, because what are you some sort of pie-in-the-sky dreamer??)

Well, it's The Japan Times. I'm sure they love hydrogen. In fact, the article argues that instead of building hydrogen cars, maybe we should use industrial processes to pull carbon out of the air, combine it with hydrogen (which comes from where??) to produce synthetic hydrocarbon fuels, and burn that in our conventional ICEs. So, effectively the carbon becomes a carrier for hydrogen, and the hydrogen car lives on, in a sense, without the need for that pesky HFC technology, fueling stations, etc. (But we still have smog.)

Question: what is the average wait-while-charging time for a Tesla vehicle? Meaning that, if you plug the vehicle in at home, then you do not wait for the vehicle to charge, hence the wait time is perhaps 10 seconds to put the plug in the car. If you happen to use supercharging, then the wait time could be 40 mins or more since you need to abide time waiting for the charge. So, how much time does the average EV user 'waste' waiting for the charge? This is significant because the entire 5 minutes spent refuelling is wasted given that constant supervision is required. Apart from that, time spent finding and driving to the fueling station should be included as wasted time, because charging at home has no such overhead.

 

[RDoc]

Speaking to the Carbon Engineering process, there are lots of ways to capture CO2. Directly capturing it at power plants, cement factories, etc. probably is a lot easier than extracting it from the air, although I'm convinced that air extraction will be necessary in the near future.

The issue still is: now you've got CO2, then what? They talk rather glibly about just adding H2 to create fuel, however, H2 by electrolysis in any quantity is very inefficient and the processes actually used for separating Hydrogen is very carbon intensive.

 

[mblakele]

the article argues that instead of building hydrogen cars, maybe we should use industrial processes to pull carbon out of the air, combine it with hydrogen (which comes from where??) to produce synthetic hydrocarbon fuels

Not "instead of", but we should do that as well. If we power the process with excess renewable energy, the result should be carbon-neutral methane: pretty much identical to natural gas. We can use it with existing natural gas infrastructure. I doubt much will be burned in ICE engines, but maybe some. Mostly it'll be useful for longer-term storage than batteries: summer to winter for example. Liquefied, it should be able to replace aviation fuel until batteries have enough energy density for flight. Also rocket fuel.

There are a few companies working on this. One of them has a familiar name:

Elon Musk on Twitter

SpaceX is already developing high efficiency CO2 capture with H2O to form liquid CH4 (methane) & O2. Critical for propellant production at Mars Base​

 

[Nuclear Fusion]

Found this → There's a better answer than electric cars | The Japan Times

Important points made by this article (with elaboration by me):

1. Electric cars don't go very far. (We all know it's not possible to make a BEV with enough range to be acceptable to Joe Sixpack.)

2. Electric cars take too long to charge. (Hours and hours and HOURS!)

3. Electric cars require a huge investment in charging infrastructure. (Obviously it would be impractical to ever deploy some kind of widespread charging network?)

4. Electric cars are not the most effective way to reduce CO2 emissions. (And CO2 emission is the only thing in the world that matters. Not smog. Not over-dependence on certain oil-rich countries. Not efficiency. Only CO2 is worthy of consideration.)

5. Some electricity comes from sources that produce CO2. (And the electrical grid will never become cleaner, because what are you some sort of pie-in-the-sky dreamer??)

Well, it's The Japan Times. I'm sure they love hydrogen. In fact, the article argues that instead of building hydrogen cars, maybe we should use industrial processes to pull carbon out of the air, combine it with hydrogen (which comes from where??) to produce synthetic hydrocarbon fuels, and burn that in our conventional ICEs. So, effectively the carbon becomes a carrier for hydrogen, and the hydrogen car lives on, in a sense, without the need for that pesky HFC technology, fueling stations, etc. (But we still have smog.)

Is this their equivalent of the Wall Street Journal?
You know full of alternative facts (where business people comment on science, the field which research subsequently allowed them the opportunity to have a business in)

 

[Nuclear Fusion]

Except that Tesla has shown EVs can go far and recharge in minutes as we found out in our Model 3 with a 650 mile journey in a day.

And I forgot to mention we have clean solar to charge our cars.

That’s pretty awesome.
How many charging stops did you make?

 

[S'toon]

Speaking to the Carbon Engineering process, there are lots of ways to capture CO2. Directly capturing it at power plants, cement factories, etc. probably is a lot easier than extracting it from the air, although I'm convinced that air extraction will be necessary in the near future.

The issue still is: now you've got CO2, then what? They talk rather glibly about just adding H2 to create fuel, however, H2 by electrolysis in any quantity is very inefficient and the processes actually used for separating Hydrogen is very carbon intensive.

Yes, we spent $1.5 BILLION here to build a CCS facility to capture the CO2 from one stack of a power plant of a coal powered plant here. It doesn't work. The little CO2 slurry it produces goes to infill marginal oil wells, to increase production of oil. So, our CO2 CCS facility increases our CO2 production.

Please don't follow our mistakes.

 

[dhrivnak]

Except that Tesla has shown EVs can go far and recharge in minutes as we found out in our Model 3 with a 650 mile journey in a day.

That’s pretty awesome.
How many charging stops did you make?

three stops. 10 minute bathroom a 45 minute lunch and a 50 minute dinner. Really no different than a gas car.

 

[McRat]

California must be run by the Japanese. We are spending far more on H2 development than EV development.

 

[Nuclear Fusion]

three stops. 10 minute bathroom a 45 minute lunch and a 50 minute dinner. Really no different than a gas car.

Great to hear & spot on. Plenty of ICE car drivers would have stopped for cumulatively longer time than that.

 

[Ampster]

three stops. 10 minute bathroom a 45 minute lunch and a 50 minute dinner. Really no different than a gas car.

I am 74 years old and when people ask me how far I can go in my Tesla I tell them, "As far as I want." Of course the explanation is that every 150 miles I have to stop to pee. LOL

 

[hiroshiy]

As a Japanese it's a shame to see such a non factual article (or garbage) on the Internet. In fact Japan Times is now owned by a Tokyo based PR company (!!).
The Japan Times sold to Tokyo-based PR company

And the author seems to have written numerous strange articles on tech. He seems to be a more politics and economics guy.
Articles by Leonid Bershidsky - Bloomberg View

 

[Ludalicious]

Redirect Notice.

Canada is already at the forefront on this technology. It's being done allot cheaper than originally thought too.

"Carbon capture economics"
It costs Climeworks about $600 US a tonne to remove carbon from the atmosphere. Carbon Engineering says it can do the job for between $94 US and $232 US a tonne because it uses technology and components that are well understood and commercially available.

Unfortunately it still costs about 25% more than traditional oil. I don't see anyone paying 20% more in fuel though. Unless there are strict government mandates. I know locally we have a Carbon tax on all our gas. That could replace our local carbon tax

Redirect Notice

"B.C.’s carbon tax is $35 per tonne, which works out to 7.78 cents per litre and will continue to increase annually until it hits $50 per tonne in 2021. Residents in the Metro Vancouver area also pay an additional fuel tax of 25.5 cents per litre of gas."

Our local government would neve see this as off setting, because it's less money in their pockets.

 

[miimura]

California must be run by the Japanese. We are spending far more on H2 development than EV development.

The State of California is spending more on H2 development than EV development because they know the free market won't do it. Electrify America will probably bring critical mass to the intercity fast charging network for non-Tesla vehicles. That will remove the long distance charging infrastructure objection to buying upcoming EVs from traditional automakers like Jag, Porsche, Audi and M-B. Of course, the apartment and condo charging problem still needs to be addressed.

The fundamental question is why the State feels that H2 is a worthy alternative to EV such that they should spend public funds for it to reach critical mass. Personally, I don't see why an individual with the faculties of logic would choose a Mirai over a Model 3 without imbalanced incentives. After the Tesla Semi comes to market in volume, I don't think a logical fleet operator would choose a hydrogen powered semi tractor over a Tesla Semi tractor either.