Autoblog: Report: EU working to ban gas and diesel-powered cars by 2050

[calvinhobbes]

But - too much government - no that is not the real issue; it is the quality of people who are making up the government. They are selfish, self seeking, line their pockets with the poor punter's cash bunch of crooks, with no real honest beliefs.

I'm afraid that's how the world works outside some remarkable biotopes full of optimistic and doe-eyed do-gooders. All is fair in love and war, and politics is the ultimate combination of both.

BBC take on the topic.

UK rejects EU call for city centre ban on petrol cars

Talk about a misleading headline... If every single idea ever floated in some government subcommittee was a "call for action", we'd never hear our own voices for all the noise. Auntie Beeb, I am disappoint.

 

[MadCat360]

Not really, there is such a thing as a plateau. Look at CPUs for a great example of this, there was a time where clock speeds were getting higher and higher with every generation. Lately however the speeds have not been changing because we pretty much reached the limit of the technology. Nowadays its all about the number of transistors you can put in a core and a number of cores you can cram into a CPU.

What do you mean "nowadays"? It's always been like that. Moore's law directly addresses the issue of transistor quantity, and was introduced in 1965. Transistor counts have been doubling every 2 years ever since. Part of that is natural tech advancement, part is self-fulfilling prophecy.

And please do not discount the work being done on quantum processors and other new types of processors. Recently there was a rather astounding breakthrough whereby large amounts of entangled particles can be produced fairly quickly and effectively for use in a qubit processor (I don't actually remember the details). Researchers in Berkeley were also recently able to grow tiny photon emitter towers on a wafer of silicone, drastically furthering the very real possibility for a photon processor that is easily integrated into existing silicone architecture sometime soon (ie, 2020, about the time when some say Moore's law will run out of steam for current processor architecture, though that is in dispute - some say it's more like hundreds of years). Frankly, CPUs are the worst example of a developmental "plateau". Computers are the fastest evolving pieces of tech on the planet.

That's just silly. Modern medicine can look inside of a person without opening one up, it knows a ton of different causes for different diseases and can treat a large number of them, it can give a man a power prosthetic instead of a lost limb. Same thing with our life, in the developed world life is about having information and ability to manipulate it, in a tribe somewhere in South America its about being the fastest to kill w/e it is they would eat. Granted the basics are still there but the mechanisms for surviving and thriving are hugely different.

Well I wasn't talking about our daily lives, I was talking about the function of our bodies specifically, but sure, that works too.

Yes, it is silly. That's my point. That's why looking at only the very simplest piece of an engine - the combustion chamber - is misleading. It's like observing the chemical interactions of a cellular system and saying an Amoeba is basically the same as a human, or that daily life is basically the same for a Neanderthal as it is for me - eat poop, sleep, fuck. But when you step back from the basics and look at the things that actually change the way we act or function, you do find where the innovation has actually come from, and it is not at a basic level. You're not doing that with engines. In 1900 no one would have predicted the ECU, for one, and the capabilities of engines these days is astronomical compared with the 19th century when you factor in all the advancements that have been made over the years. Engineering is not a fast moving development, but every now and then a large revolution happens that brings it up to speed. It is conceivable, and I think, rather likely, that a revolution will happen in the next 30 years, maybe hydrogen, maybe electric, maybe something else. As you said, it's about creative use of technology, not necessarily the new invention of it.

 

[prizrak]

What do you mean "nowadays"? It's always been like that. Moore's law directly addresses the issue of transistor quantity, and was introduced in 1965. Transistor counts have been doubling every 2 years ever since. Part of that is natural tech advancement, part is self-fulfilling prophecy.

There was a time when you could directly compare CPUs based on their clock speed, this has not been the case since about the time the Core series of CPU's was introduced. Reason being is that we got to the limit of the materials used as far as clock speeds go.

And please do not discount the work being done on quantum processors and other new types of processors. Recently there was a rather astounding breakthrough whereby large amounts of entangled particles can be produced fairly quickly and effectively for use in a qubit processor (I don't actually remember the details). Researchers in Berkeley were also recently able to grow tiny photon emitter towers on a wafer of silicone, drastically furthering the very real possibility for a photon processor that is easily integrated into existing silicone architecture sometime soon (ie, 2020, about the time when some say Moore's law will run out of steam for current processor architecture, though that is in dispute - some say it's more like hundreds of years). Frankly, CPUs are the worst example of a developmental "plateau". Computers are the fastest evolving pieces of tech on the planet.

Yep quite a bit of work is being put in there. I been hearing about quantum computing since last century and I am aware of all the things you said but we are still nowhere near market viability. Computers are the fastest evolving tech on the planet but you are saying it will take another decade or so for quantum computing to go commercial despite work being done on it for more than a decade already (not sure about actual time it started but I heard of them since the 90s for sure). This is the fastest evolving tech, do you really think one of the slowest evolving techs (cars) will need only 40 years to be drastically different?

Well I wasn't talking about our daily lives, I was talking about the function of our bodies specifically, but sure, that works too.

Yes, it is silly. That's my point. That's why looking at only the very simplest piece of an engine - the combustion chamber - is misleading. It's like observing the chemical interactions of a cellular system and saying an Amoeba is basically the same as a human, or that daily life is basically the same for a Neanderthal as it is for me - eat poop, sleep, fuck. But when you step back from the basics and look at the things that actually change the way we act or function, you do find where the innovation has actually come from, and it is not at a basic level. You're not doing that with engines. In 1900 no one would have predicted the ECU, for one, and the capabilities of engines these days is astronomical compared with the 19th century when you factor in all the advancements that have been made over the years. Engineering is not a fast moving development, but every now and then a large revolution happens that brings it up to speed. It is conceivable, and I think, rather likely, that a revolution will happen in the next 30 years, maybe hydrogen, maybe electric, maybe something else. As you said, it's about creative use of technology, not necessarily the new invention of it.

See but that's the thing, its not about the combustion chamber or the ECU or any of this. Look at the actual design of the engine, it has cylinders, pistons, valves, air and fuel intakes. We have come up with different ways of controlling them and we got better fitment between parts for less energy loss but at the end of the day there is very little difference between a carbeurated engine and an injected one.

 

[MadCat360]

See but that's the thing, its not about the combustion chamber or the ECU or any of this. Look at the actual design of the engine, it has cylinders, pistons, valves, air and fuel intakes. We have come up with different ways of controlling them and we got better fitment between parts for less energy loss but at the end of the day there is very little difference between a carbeurated engine and an injected one.

And at the end of the day there is very little difference between a chimp and a human. But we have space ships and they don't. Your idea of drastically different seems to be subjective and selective. Little things matter a lot in the development of existing technology. Big things are for new techs.

This is the fastest evolving tech, do you really think one of the slowest evolving techs (cars) will need only 40 years to be drastically different?

You're forgetting history. The internal combustion engine had similar infrastructure problems as electric motors are having now (in cars) during the 1800s. Not a whole lot of oil. It took about 25 years before the internal combustion car took off in the teens, after the first production car was introduced. Especially with the pace of civilization now, you might see a pretty good explosion of electric or hydrogen cars by 2040, yeah.

 

[katwalk]

kat, you don't really want to live in a world without a government, believe me. Criminal groups like the somalian pirates are one of the better possible results of the absence of a government, mass rape and slaughter like in Darfur or Rwanda are worse scenarios.

The question weather there's too much government (buerocratic/corrupt bloat, welfare state, health care, but also wiretapping and the taking of personal liberties), if there's too much regulation from a federal or supranational level, these are things one can debate about. But not even radical libertarian or anarcho-capitalist thinkers like Robert Nozick or Jan Narveson want to do away with government altogether.

EDIT: kat, if you just wanted to describe other people's anti-government stance, please read above as "kat, these people dont really want to live..."

Ok, let me reword this, every government currently in power I have heard of is corrupt and does not give a fuck about the people they are supposedly representing and need massive overhaul. Better?

 

[calvinhobbes]

Ok, let me reword this, every government currently in power I have heard of is corrupt and does not give a fuck about the people they are supposedly representing and need massive overhaul. Better?

And when they do give a fuck about one of the millions of interests they are supposed to represent, they are immediately labelled "populists".

 

[prizrak]

And at the end of the day there is very little difference between a chimp and a human. But we have space ships and they don't. Your idea of drastically different seems to be subjective and selective. Little things matter a lot in the development of existing technology. Big things are for new techs.

You seem to be missing what I am trying to say. There is a big difference between a vacuum tube and a transistor but there is a small difference between a transistor and a really small transistor. Similarly there is a pretty big difference between a steam engine and an ICE but an injector and a carb are not that different. Point is that from the 1970s to today (40 years) there haven't been any drastic improvement in the way cars are. We got more power and better efficiency out of the engines but they are still running on the same old dino juice they have been and someone who works on 70s cars could figure out how to work on something from 2011 (outside of ECU's maybe).

You're forgetting history. The internal combustion engine had similar infrastructure problems as electric motors are having now (in cars) during the 1800s. Not a whole lot of oil. It took about 25 years before the internal combustion car took off in the teens, after the first production car was introduced. Especially with the pace of civilization now, you might see a pretty good explosion of electric or hydrogen cars by 2040, yeah.

I am not forgetting history at all. You are getting hung up on infrastructure for "refueling", setting that up is only half the challenge, you also have an inherent limitation of technology. Like the fact that it takes 20-30 minutes to recharge a battery. For someone who lives in the city and doesn't have his own parking (a huge number of people) that's basically a deal breaker. Not to mention completely impossible to take long trips (300-400 miles) in. Hydrogen is a little more doable but for the time being fuel cells are just too expensive to be mainstream, there is also a bit of a question of where we are going to get H from are going to hydrocrack it or mine it?

The above has another major problem, the problem of power generation. We are currently barely meeting our demand and the only way to really do it with nuclear power. Nuclear power plants take a while to get built (in fact I believe there is one that supposed to go online in 2016 or with the ground being broken on it in the 70s).

My entire point is not necessarily that tech is stagnant and no one is working on anything new or innovative my point is that from inception to market viability some tech takes a very long time (over 2 milleniums for batteries) and in some cases while the tech could be useful already infrastructure is not there as you said yourself it took 25 years for ICE to become viable. With a lifespan of many modern cars measuring around 10 years 40 is entirely too short to expect us to stop powering our cars with dino juice.

 

[narf]

That is a valid point, and adds weight to my underlying argument that you can't just go around and start converting everything to be electricity powered, if you aren't making the electricity in a greener and/or more efficient way such as covernting oil/gas/coal power plants into nuclear.

Oh but there are greater ways of using fossil fuel than plain old electricity generation. Take the Kiel power station just across the fjord from here as an example. It burns coal and generates about 350MW of electricity at an efficiency of about 40%, ie for every kWh of burnt coal you get 400Wh of electricity. For that electricity you indeed are emitting a lot of CO2.
It also generates a lot of waste heat, roughly 60% of the energy burnt is wasted.
...except that the waste heat isn't wasted. Another 300MW of hot water is delivered by the plant, basically free energy in terms of emissions - on top of those 400Wh of electricity per kWh coal burnt you get another 300Wh free in heat. This hot water comes to my house and is used for heating rooms as well as fresh water heating for the tap.
On top of using the burnt coal twice you also get rid of lots of small oil furnaces in every home that inevitably are less clean than a large-scale plant.


Also, once you have electricity, you can "create" heat much more efficiently than by just frying the electricity for heat directly. You could for example power a heat pump that extracts much more heat energy from the ground than you have put in as electric energy. In the summer you could reverse that and use it as an A/C. This works with much greater efficiency compared to an air-to-air A/C because compared to the outside air the ground deep below is much cooler in the summer and much warmer in the winter. Trying to cool down your room if the air used to cool it is really hot is hard work, using cold soil from the ground is much easier. Basically, the temperature down there is constant all year round.

 

[MadCat360]

You seem to be missing what I am trying to say. There is a big difference between a vacuum tube and a transistor but there is a small difference between a transistor and a really small transistor. Similarly there is a pretty big difference between a steam engine and an ICE but an injector and a carb are not that different.

Still seems highly subjective to me. *Hypothetical* If the change from vacuum tubes to transistors results in a 30% increase in speed, but a large transistor to a small transistor results in a 70% increase in speed (assuming no change in power requirements), I'd say that's a larger difference than tubes < large transistor.

Many times refining an existing technology takes just as much as or more technological advancement than simply inventing a new way of doing things.

 

[prizrak]

Still seems highly subjective to me. *Hypothetical* If the change from vacuum tubes to transistors results in a 30% increase in speed, but a large transistor to a small transistor results in a 70% increase in speed (assuming no change in power requirements), I'd say that's a larger difference than tubes < large transistor.

Many times refining an existing technology takes just as much as or more technological advancement than simply inventing a new way of doing things.

You are talking an evolutionary change transistor>smaller transistor versus a revolutionary change vacuum tube>transistor. While it might require as much if not more to refine current technology the older the technology the more difficult it becomes because you approach the theoretical limit of said technology.

There is also the question of whether there is much of a point in refining the existing technology. As far as propulsion goes I don't see the point in further improving ICE or battery powered vehicles as we already have better tech available, namely fuel cells. The shortcomings of ICE are fairly well known and obvious, batteries have long "refueling" times and tend to add quite a bit of weight to the car (Top Gear test of Tesla Roadster was a pretty good illustration of it). Fuel cells act like ICE when it comes to refueling but come with benefits of having an electric motor (not too sure about weight in them), however they are costly for the time being and there is still an issue with where to get the fuel from and how much energy we will end up putting into it.

On the subject of "we don't know what will happen 40 years from now" while we might get some major improvements and break throughs it still will not be enough time to phase out ICE vehicles. For one it takes some time for any tech to get from inception to market viability. For two there is issue of infrastructure, not something that can be solved all that quickly. Another very important thing that is often overlooked is the familiarity factor. People are used to ICE they know how to deal with them they are used to the tech and they trust it. As an example my mother does not pay bills over the internet, as in not at all. Her reason? She thinks that a letter that can get lost in the mail or misplaced at the company or not processed or ripped is more reliable than a direct electronic funds transmission from one bank to another.

So yes we will still run on dino juice in 40 years and it will not be an epic fail it will be normal.

 

[MadCat360]

On the subject of "we don't know what will happen 40 years from now" while we might get some major improvements and break throughs it still will not be enough time to phase out ICE vehicles.

Maybe not in total, just like probably most cars on the road these days are pre-2000, but I bet most (being, more than half) new cars sold in 2040 will be electric or hydrogen or something else.

 

[Dr_Grip]

Ok, let me reword this, every government currently in power I have heard of is corrupt and does not give a fuck about the people they are supposedly representing and need massive overhaul. Better?

And still any of them is better than none. The current state of affairs in Afghanistan quite convincingly shows that even the Taliban were better than no government at all, let alone an elected government serving the interests of big business and lobby groups like in most western states.

 

[prizrak]

Maybe not in total, just like probably most cars on the road these days are pre-2000, but I bet most (being, more than half) new cars sold in 2040 will be electric or hydrogen or something else.

I would bet on around 40% or so being non ICE actually. Main reason is that I don't see the US being very fast to change to non ICE cars as we tend to love our big motors and usually pay quite a bit less for fuel. Then again in 40 years fuel might be too expensive for even the US to keep our big ass motors, I mean its up to around $4/gallon and people are already getting apprehensive.

And still any of them is better than none. The current state of affairs in Afghanistan quite convincingly shows that even the Taliban were better than no government at all, let alone an elected government serving the interests of big business and lobby groups like in most western states.

Human nature is always to look out for oneself. No matter the gov't they will always look out for themselves, whether it be a dictator/monarch who doesn't have to answer to anyone and might actually be an effective leader or an elected official that has to at least appear to appease the constituents.

Governments like to stay in power, in many cases a dictatorial/royal government is actually better than an elected one as a leader that is interested in his/her descendants to be in power in a strong country would inevitably take care of the citizens just to keep the future generations in power. Elected officials generally have to take care of those who makes campaign contributions.

 

[Cobol74]

Oh but there are greater ways of using fossil fuel than plain old electricity generation. Take the Kiel power station just across the fjord from here as an example. It burns coal and generates about 350MW of electricity at an efficiency of about 40%, ie for every kWh of burnt coal you get 400Wh of electricity. For that electricity you indeed are emitting a lot of CO2.
It also generates a lot of waste heat, roughly 60% of the energy burnt is wasted.
...except that the waste heat isn't wasted. Another 300MW of hot water is delivered by the plant, basically free energy in terms of emissions - on top of those 400Wh of electricity per kWh coal burnt you get another 300Wh free in heat. This hot water comes to my house and is used for heating rooms as well as fresh water heating for the tap.
On top of using the burnt coal twice you also get rid of lots of small oil furnaces in every home that inevitably are less clean than a large-scale plant.


Also, once you have electricity, you can "create" heat much more efficiently than by just frying the electricity for heat directly. You could for example power a heat pump that extracts much more heat energy from the ground than you have put in as electric energy. In the summer you could reverse that and use it as an A/C. This works with much greater efficiency compared to an air-to-air A/C because compared to the outside air the ground deep below is much cooler in the summer and much warmer in the winter. Trying to cool down your room if the air used to cool it is really hot is hard work, using cold soil from the ground is much easier. Basically, the temperature down there is constant all year round.

Would never happen in Ukania - it would need to be built near a population centre and that would mean NIMBYs moaning about it.

 

[narf]

Would never happen in Ukania - it would need to be built near a population centre and that would mean NIMBYs moaning about it.

Meh, their loss. I never have to worry about running out of oil for heating, never have to stomach an oil price hump when I need to order a tanker truck, ... combined electricity and heat plants FTMFEfficiency.
The coal comes by ship obviously, no need to clog up our roads or rails with that.


NIMBYism ruins a lot of things lately. As you might know we're trying to get rid of some of the fossil and nuclear plants and use wind for example. This means building wind turbines around here and the North Sea. Guess what, some people in Northern Frisia complained because the turbines are too loud for them and they would rather not have them around.
Additionally, you need to get the power to the southern half of Germany, lots of industry is in the Ruhr area for example. Hence you need power lines. Guess what, no matter where you want to build them tons of people complain.

 

[prizrak]

Maybe not in total, just like probably most cars on the road these days are pre-2000, but I bet most (being, more than half) new cars sold in 2040 will be electric or hydrogen or something else.

Thought of something on the train from work. I'm reading this book "God's War" it's a sci-fi book about space muslims (don't ask I'm weird) and their tech is mostly organic based, they use bugs and such with some mechanical parts. That made me remember that there is some research into bacteria that can produce ICE fuel from more or less anything. Now if they could get them to produce something clean burning and in industrial quantities there is a good chance we will keep ICE around for quite a bit longer. Although personally I think that electric is a much better in many ways as far as actual efficiency of the motors and packaging goes.

Meh, their loss. I never have to worry about running out of oil for heating, never have to stomach an oil price hump when I need to order a tanker truck, ... combined electricity and heat plants FTMFEfficiency.
The coal comes by ship obviously, no need to clog up our roads or rails with that.

That's actually quite terrible, former USSR has a similar set up, quite a bit of heat is lost in transit and a single failure can leave a very large number of people without heat. I understand a certain appeal of doing it this way but from experience it doesn't really work all that well.

 

[narf]

quite a bit of heat is lost in transit

Without this setup, all the heat is lost.

a single failure can leave a very large number of people without heat.

Statistically, the number of homes without heat is lower. A failure of a domestic oil furnace will only leave one home without heat, but it is much more likely to happen and does not get any priority for fixing.
Short plant downtime can be offset by using a district heating accumulator, for example for maintenance shutdowns. Combine that with better maintenance capabilities and you'll get a lower number of average homes without heat compared to distributed, potentially unattended furnaces.

I understand a certain appeal of doing it this way but from experience it doesn't really work all that well.

Works very well from my experience. Some facts about our setup, compared to running an oil furnace in your house:
CO2? To get one gross MWh of heat you need to burn about 102l of oil, emitting about 270kg of CO2 (actually you'll get less than one MWh because some heat is lost through the chimney). According to the T?V, one net MWh of heat through our coal-powered district heating emitted only 218kg of CO2. Much less CO2 for a bit more net heat.
Money? Those 102l of oil would cost you about 90? and get a bit less than one MWh of heat, one MWh of heat from the district heating system currently is about 37?. Less than half the moniez.
Space? With an oil furnace you lose a large room in the basement for the tank and furnace, with district heating you only need a small room for the heat exchanger.
Maintenance? No need for an operating chimney and no need to have it cleaned. Maintaining the heat exchanger is simple compared to the whole system of tank, pipes, furnace, chimney.
Convenience? No noise, during my last stay in a house with an oil furnace I could hear it firing up because the chimney shared a wall with my room.
Reliability? If something breaks with your own furnace (unlikely) you need to get it fixed, probably at a low-ish priority. If something breaks with the district heating (highly unlikely if maintained properly) the utilities company quickly sends out their people to fix it. Also saves you from paying the man to fix your furnace.


All in all, tons of advantages

 

[prizrak]

Some facts about our setup, compared to running an oil furnace in your house:

We got gas based burners in my building

Just like socialism, central heating may work just fine but no one from the former soviet block would ever want to try again

 

[MadCat360]

Thought of something on the train from work. I'm reading this book "God's War" it's a sci-fi book about space muslims (don't ask I'm weird) and their tech is mostly organic based, they use bugs and such with some mechanical parts. That made me remember that there is some research into bacteria that can produce ICE fuel from more or less anything. Now if they could get them to produce something clean burning and in industrial quantities there is a good chance we will keep ICE around for quite a bit longer. Although personally I think that electric is a much better in many ways as far as actual efficiency of the motors and packaging goes.

That's a good point. I had forgotten about that development. I was pretty excited when I read about it.

 

[narf]

We got gas based burners in my building

...and what if the gas supply stops working?

Just like socialism, central heating may work just fine but no one from the former soviet block would ever want to try again

No big surprise if you're going to run above-ground pipes with fibreglass insulation. Frozen lines FTL.