Occasional Thoughts on Climate Change

[WolfStock1]

29 minutes ago, chubbs said:

The chart I posted has global numbers. The US is lagging. We have large import duties on solar, and EVs from China making our costs higher than the rest of the world.

Import duties on Chinese EVs are irrelevant - they are not legal to drive in the US.

Electricity prices in the US are amongst the lowest in the world, so it's not that.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/263492/electricity-prices-in-selected-countries/?srsltid=AfmBOoqfk-WgVGYRIpGDuUwvfazUcrDxpPwXNEyFvUDUiI8qOR-Dq7J8

China does indeed have lower electricity prices; with many factors including that allowing them to have continued growth in EV sales (though it appears to be slowing there some as well).   Amongst that is that they don't have as much low-hanging fruit of fossil as we do (oil), extremely low wages (about 1/3 of US), and a regime that generally doesn't care about environmental or social conditions; instead with a "build at all costs" policy.   Do we really want that in the US?

Germany is probably a good example of policy gone bad, with their aggressive push towards solar and wind.   This has resulted in extremely high electricity prices, and stalled EV sales (though there appears to be an uptick this year at least).

 

 

Gemany generally has about 2.8M car sales per year, so they've topped out at roughly 30% being electric.   They've picked the low-hanging fruit.

Keep in mind that these to-date numbers are in a policy regime where EV sales have been heavily subsidized.   (that includes China BTW)

 

[chubbs]

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9 minutes ago, WolfStock1 said:

Import duties on Chinese EVs are irrelevant - they are not legal to drive in the US.

Electricity prices in the US are amongst the lowest in the world, so it's not that.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/263492/electricity-prices-in-selected-countries/?srsltid=AfmBOoqfk-WgVGYRIpGDuUwvfazUcrDxpPwXNEyFvUDUiI8qOR-Dq7J8

China does indeed have lower electricity prices; with many factors including that allowing them to have continued growth in EV sales (though it appears to be slowing there some as well).   Amongst that is that they don't have as much low-hanging fruit of fossil as we do (oil), extremely low wages (about 1/3 of US), and a regime that generally doesn't care about environmental or social conditions; instead with a "build at all costs" policy.   Do we really want that in the US?

Germany is probably a good example of policy gone bad, with their aggressive push towards solar and wind.   This has resulted in extremely high electricity prices, and stalled EV sales (though there appears to be an uptick this year at least).

 

 

Gemany generally has about 2.8M car sales per year, so they've topped out at roughly 30% being electric.   They've picked the low-hanging fruit.

Keep in mind that these to-date numbers are in a policy regime where EV sales have been heavily subsidized.   (that includes China BTW)

 

Its not surprising that EV use is progressing unevenly. Transition costs for charging and other infrastructure is high. Subsidization varies. The key for EVs is battery technology which is proceeding rapidly: different lithium chemistries, sodium, and solid state. These new technologies have: lower cost, better safety, faster charging, longer battery life etc. EVs are getting better and cheaper. Now that EVs are becoming as cheap as combustion cars subsidies are becoming less important. The genie is out of the bottle. With the withdrawal of policy suppport, the US will lag; but, global penetration will continue to ramp quickly. EVs are very attractive to countries that import oil.

[WolfStock1]

A pretty devastating article in WSJ today on the negative effects of the renewable energy push on the European economy:

https://www.wsj.com/business/energy-oil/europes-green-energy-rush-slashed-emissionsand-crippled-the-economy-e65a1a07

While the existence of warming is undeniable (e.g. see new record low Arctic ice extent in other thread), this illustrates how hard of a problem this is to solve.