I have a new column this week on OnlySky. It’s about some unexpectedly hopeful news that shows progress fighting climate change.
The war with Iran has supercharged the world’s drive toward renewable energy. As oil and gas prices soar, people everywhere are looking for alternatives, like electric vehicles and plug-in solar panels. But is there enough renewable energy to displace fossil fuels in time to make a difference?
The answer is yes. Green energy is still a fraction of the world’s energy portfolio, but its share is climbing exponentially. It took almost seventy years to deploy the first terawatt of solar power, and only two years after that to deploy the second. We now have the industrial capacity to build an additional terawatt each and every year, which at a sustained pace would completely decarbonize the economy in less than twenty years. A future is in sight, not too distant, where we dispense with fossil fuels entirely.
Read the excerpt below, then click through to see the full piece. This column is free to read, but members of OnlySky also get special benefits, like member-only posts and a subscriber newsletter:
When gasoline is cheap, consumers flock to buy huge, wasteful trucks and SUVs. But Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz has caused prices to spike. As the price of gas climbs, more and more people are starting to see these fuel-guzzling vehicles as a painful financial burden.
According to surveys, $4 a gallon is the threshold at which a majority of Americans start cutting back on driving or looking at more fuel-efficient vehicles. The data bears that out: since the war started, there’s been a sharp upsurge of interest in EVs.
Gas-burning cars will always be at the mercy of the global oil market. Prices swing dramatically and unpredictably. A war half a world away brings instant pain in the pocketbook.
Meanwhile, electric vehicles are cheaper to recharge. They’re powered by the cheapest electricity in history, and they get the equivalent of 100 to 140 miles per gallon. Perhaps even more important, they’re dependably cheaper, especially if they’re powered by electricity generated by local renewables. No dictatorial regime or warmongering theocracy can shut off the sun or the wind.
I saw a statement recently that the UK’s carbon emissions are down to 50% of their peak, while in the same period the economy has doubled, so a fourfold reduction in the amount of carbon emissions for a unit of economic output.
True. But assuming there’s ANY petrol to be had, my ten-year-old ICE car will start whether the government wants it to or not. Short of physically sending some big lads round to my house and disabling it, obviously.
But your EV is at the mercy of over-the-air software updates that can turn it, in seconds and without your knowledge, into a rather uninspiring and unoriginal sculpture on your driveway. (Note: it’s a not unreasonable assumption that if you’re already an EV owner, you have the privilege of somewhere you own, off the road, to park (and charge) your car cheaply – unlike the majority of ICE car owners). And if you’re going to tell me that the manufacturers haven’t built in a backdoor that allows that, or if they have that they wouldn’t roll over the second the government asks to use it… I have a bridge you might be interested in buying.
The interesting thing is they wouldn’t have to bother coming to your house, and they wouldn’t necessarily do it to your neighbour’s car… if that fella voted Trump. Alternatively, once the move to EVs is complete (or nearly so), they could at the flick of a switch immobilise ALL unauthorised vehicles in any area they choose, even the ones already in motion.
They can’t shut off the sun or the wind, but they absolutely can shut off the software that controls the gadgets that turn those resources into usable energy – especially kinetic energy. Is all solar tech and wind turbine tech open-source and entirely free of backdoors? Are all EVs?
Ten years ago suggesting the US government would do something like this would have marked one out as a likely customer for the aluminium milliners. But how long is it now since a federally authorised masked force of thugs murdered two American citizens on the street in broad daylight in front of multiple video cameras without any repercussions?
In other news, the FCC this week made the first moves to ban US citizens from accessing the internet using equipment that wasn’t manufactured in the US. https://www.techradar.com/computing/wi-fi-broadband/the-us-just-banned-new-routers-that-arent-made-in-america-heres-what-it-means-for-your-wi-fi-network
Just the sort of thing a government would do as the first step to making it possible to just… switch off the internet for anyone it didn’t like. Or just everyone, come to that. All the articles I’ve read make it clear that this only applies to future sales, and that the government isn’t coming for the router you already have. NONE of the articles I’ve read include what I would have thought was the obvious word to append to that statement: YET.
Deeply sinister shit is afoot in the US, and worldwide, and forcing people out of cars that just… work and into machines that are iPhones on wheels is just a part of it.
Alternatively, once the move to EVs is complete (or nearly so), they could at the flick of a switch immobilise ALL unauthorised vehicles in any area they choose, even the ones already in motion.
Don’t car dealers already do that to any sort of new car when the buyer falls behind on payments?
@2 sonofrojblake
You are conflating the power source of a car with the software within a car. A modern gasoline car will also have software in it (automatic transmission? GPS?), which are potentially at risk of glitchy software updates. In theory, a battery is just another power source, just like your gas tank. It does not *need* software, it’s just that people who like modern battery powered cars also like other modern stuff like some AI telling you to “turn left now!”.
According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_electric_vehicle electric vehicles have existed for nearly 200 years now. No computers needed.