this post was submitted on 03 Jun 2024
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well for a start it produces 0 gas emissions at point of use. we still have to sort out tyre fragments and brake dust, and ensure the electricity grid is non-polluting too. but every hybrid car is burning petrol or diesel, just the same as we've been doing for the last 100 years or so. recent research in the uk has shown that plug-in hybrids are often not plugged in because it's too much bother.
Why not hybrid or plain ICE vehicles powered by biofuels? Even things like waste vegetable oil can be turned into viable fuel, and it can actually be less environmentally destructive than getting rid of it in other ways. ICE technology is very mature, and we currently produce more food than we need and waste much of it. Why not put it all to some use?
Pretty much any fat could be used in compression ignition engines with the right treatment, any carbohydrates turned into ethanol for spark ignition engines, and all waste wood burned for electric power and domestic heating.
Biofuels are even less efficient than making hydrogen for a fuel cell. It's the same as growing cattle for a burger. It's way less efficient an energy source because you have to grow up to 10 x more feed for the cow than you get out of the burger. You're better using that land to grow the actual food for you. Same for biofuel. You get relatively little out for the shit tonne of land you need. Still use chemicals which all need energy to make and transport and use. Then you've got to cut, transport, process, refine, transport and then use the fuel. Much better to use the land for food or hell, just leave it to be wild and soak up carbon. Then all that energy you were going to use to make the bio fuel, stick it in a battery.
You're forgetting things like used vegetable oil which is waste that would be thrown away otherwise. Same for the stuff wood pellets are made from, they are typically mostly saw dust and other waste products. This should hopefully cover airplanes and maybe diesel trains and some cars for when electric isn't practical.
Even if you were to start planting crops for biofuels, how much less efficient than solar plus batteries would it be? The problem with solar and especially battery storage is that the materials used to make them are not renewable, and cause all kinds of issues in their mining and manufacturing. We've grown plants sustainably for thousands of years now. I've yet to see anyone make a solar panel from sustainable or recycled materials.
Right, let's start with old oil. How much do you think is generated world wide? It's about 1/20th of the amount of oil we use currently and that created not recycled so that number is far lower so really that's a niche. Likewise wood pellets. Unless you're actively chopping trees down to make into pellets you're not going to have any real volume there. Plus as I said previously, all of that takes energy to be made into usable fuel. Where does that energy come from and also why not just use that energy directly?
As for the last paragraph, no, sorry you're just misunderstanding that whole arena. Batteries are more than 90% recyclable and that number is going up as we design them to be easier to recycle. Plus that's most likely 20 years from now on average. As for solar panels they're aluminium (easily recycled) glass (easily recycled) metals (easily recycled) and silicon (mostly recyclable) and again they're being designed to be recycled better than they were. Ontop of that they now last up to 40 years with greater than 90% of their original capacity left so basically they'll outlive most of us on here.
We've grown plants sustainable for thousands of years except for in the last 150 where we have systematically wrecked the ecology at the same time as massively increasing our population. The average westerner uses 32 times more resources than the average Kenyan. Do you want to have the same lifestyle as they have? Because they want what westerners have so that means we can't keep going as we are and have to change.
5% of our current oil demand is still a big improvement. That's probably enough to move a significant portion or even all of aviation to sustainable fuels. Aviation is one of the places where batteries don't work yet, and probably not anytime soon either.
Can you give me some evidence?
So you're saying sustainable agriculture is impossible? If so then climate change is inevitable and there is nothing we can do.
Aviation is likely to be serviced by batteries or hydrogen for short to medium flights. Long haul and cargo is likely to remain fossil fuel based for quite a while due to the nature of the fuel caution uses. If you had said shipping you might have had a point, they can burn near enough anything but they seem to be trending towards something like ammonia.
What do you want me to say other than Google it for recycling? It's widely known and has been for quite a while now. Unless you're actively looking for the opposite you should have no trouble finding independent information rather than trusting some random on social medium. But here's a few to set you off:
https://www.allenergysolar.com/resources/solar-waste-myth-debunked/#:~:text=The%20truth%20is%2C%20solar%20panels%20are%20already%20highly,developing%20around%20the%20recovery%20of%20materials%20for%20reuse.
https://solarfast.co.uk/blog/solar-energy-myths-debunked/
This one is from the energy saving trust, a non-profit government organisation and had a good round up of typical myths:
https://energysavingtrust.org.uk/myths-about-solar/
And here's an excellent talk by a Dr who's a specialist in the battery and energy storage arena:
https://youtu.be/tcJrUrp_Ygs
Incidentally if you actually want to learn more about this then Everything Electric is a good start.
Sustainable agriculture for food is one thing, to make fuel is something completely different and I think you know that but are being obstuse on purpose.
Look, I get it. You don't like what you're seeing, that doesn't mean it's wrong and it's OK to change and adapt when presented with new information. The future is a mixture of technology that we have, are developing and haven't even thought of. Biofuels may even have a small niche but that's all it will be, a niche. Fully electric will be the dominant source of transport in the near future and batteries are going to make up the majority of that.
We already have sustainable aviation fuel that is being used in commercial air travel. It's not certain that Hydrogen will ever be safe enough for air travel. Current battery technology isn't good enough in terms of energy density to be used here.
Lots of people are very dismissive about hydrogen technology anyway, based on it being difficult to store and inefficient. Do you have evidence counter to this?
That's not it at all. Lots of people here on Lemmy like to talk the talk about climate change without actually understanding practical or engineering considerations. It's the same as the socialists and communists who rarely have an economic plan to implement after a revolution.
That's precisely why I don't like you dismissing biofuels out of hand. There are certain applications where batteries just don't work like aviation. I still am not convinced about lithium batteries as lithium is a fairly limited resource, sodium ion seems like the future of batteries for cars and trains, but sodium ion has lower energy density.
I am not saying biofuels will replace electric vehicles or solutions for grid power like nuclear, wind, solar, and so on. Just that they have a place in the larger strategy. People talk about electric vehicles making sense for most situations especially for city dwellers, I am talking about the 20% or whoever remain. This includes car enthusiasts as well as people who travel large distances on a day to day basis, and of course aviation where energy density, safety and performance are critical.
I will take a look at those sources though. If it's easy to recycle solar panels that's a huge boon. When it comes to batteries I think technologies like sodium ion or iron oxide batteries are likely to win out anyway, and those are materials we have in abundance, it's just a shame about the energy density limitations.
To be honest I didn't even think about shipping as it only accounts for a small amount of emissions. Vegetable oil makes perfect sense here. Though I would remind you that compression ignition engines in cars can also be designed to run pretty much any fuel you like.
No I am not being obtuse. You talk about agriculture as if it's impossible to make sustainable. How much extra agriculture would it require compared to what's needed to feed the world? It's not something I have looked at, and I would be interested to see if you have statistics on this.
What foods do we eat Vs make into fuel? Hint, they're not the same. Sorry, there's plenty of info on all of this out there you just need to actually look with an open mind. I've given you the resources to start but I don't have the time nor inclination to continually fight these fights with people who make clearly outlandish claims and then just come back with "well prove it".
I hope you do follow the links and go and learn more but ultimately that's up to you.
Enjoy your day.