Electric cars first, then the rest? It doesn’t seem reasonable to me

The approach to decarbonisation is wrong: before electric cars can be considered, the use of fossil fuels in power plants, homes and businesses should be eliminated. Massimo thinks so and asks us two questions. Send your questions to [email protected].

“sKnowing that I am a long-time electrician (I am 65 years old and graduated in 1977) and I am familiar with electrical calculations and I have nothing againstElectric car By itself, while I don’t consider it Minimum, in the current state of its development from a technical and cost perspective, Possible alternative to the “thermal” car. I would like to ask you two questions:

Why do you identify yourself as “zero emissions”? It’s fake

1) Why do you call yourselves Society A? Zero emissions? Currently, 67% of Italy’s electricity production comes from thermal power plants with an efficiency of about 40%, from which approximately 7% of transmission losses and another 2 or 3 percentage points between distribution and recharging must be subtracted, which brings us to the final efficiency For internal combustion engine. How are zero emissions proven? Do you not emit anything because others emit you?

2) Given that we are rightfully trying to move towards zero emissions/carbon neutrality, and given that of the 330,000 GWh of electricity that Italy will absorb in 2022, at least 220,000 GWh will come from fossil sources, how can we hope to get Help from electric cars by 2035? I don’t think I see them there It plans to be carbon neutral by producing 100% electricity in 2035.

You’re mad at thermal cars and ignore the rest

To all this, what can we say about the at least 600 thousand gigawatt-hours of heat produced by our homes for heating and hot water, to which we must add the heating of factories, hospitals, schools, public bodies, railway stations and supermarkets?

The question arises spontaneously, considering that if we converted 100% of the thermal cars in circulation today to electric cars, we would remove approximately 300 thousand thermal gigawatt-hours of emissions and we would need at least 120 thousand additional electrical gigawatt-hours if we did not reduce 100%. of thermal electricity production energy and added 120 thousand gigawatt hours of new electricity Where will the success of the operation be? Electric car?

Considering that the worst place to put batteries, at least the ones we have today, is in a car, a vehicle that requires great capacity at low weight and super-fast charging times, which is the opposite of how a battery works, Why get stuck with the car? And not with eliminating the thermal production of electricity and trying to eliminate the consumption of fossil fuels to heat homes, factories, schools, etc….?

We are focusing on the 300,000 GWh of thermal energy needed by cars and do not see that TWh of thermal energy will be eliminated from thermal and heating power plants.
This doesn’t seem like a reasonable approach to me.” Massimo Marsaglia

It’s not just cars in the EU’s ‘net zero’ strategy for 2050

Answer- If what you write is true, i.e. we (not us, the whole of Europe) are “just getting stuck in the car”, then you would be right. But this is not true. The European Parliament has chosen this democratically Decarbonize the continent by 2050This also follows the commitments made by 197 member states of the United Nations with l“Paris Agreement”..

He did so by agreeing to the plan.”Green deal“And the gradual approval of the package measures”Fit for 55“Staring at Middle school goals 2035 (Reducing emissions by 55%) and the tools to achieve it. Among these is already stopping the sale of gasoline and diesel cars, but there are measures Equally strict Regarding emissions Residential buildingsl‘industrythe follower Services And fromagriculture.

But the car is the black sheep of decarbonisation

Keep in mind that all of these sectors have already introduced efficiency measures, reducing their emissions by 20% to 25% from 1990 to today. Transportation only And keep increasing them.

On the generation level, there is a commitment to closing coal-fired power plants, reducing natural gas power plants, and developing generation from them. Renewable sources up to 60-70% From the condition. So, every year, an electric car bought today will emit less, and by 2035 these emissions will be halved.

to It will take another 15 to 20 years to completely renew the European car fleet; Meanwhile, new gasoline and diesel cars produced and sold will continue until December 31, 2034. This explains whyOne strategy The ability to achieve zero emissions in 2050 assumes an early cessation of registration of new combustion cars.

Be careful, there is something to review in your accounts

We will not go into the merits of his statements regardingElectric traction efficiency Compared to the heat that scientific studies of undisputed level have denied countless times. In fact, the energy efficiency of an electric car is Three times higher Compared to heat and Total emissions Throughout their entire lifespan About half. Here are the references For some scientific documents.

But you are yourself He contradicts himself, where he wrote that the hypothetical 300,000 GWh of energy produced by thermal cars would correspond to the 120,000 GWh consumed by a hypothetical fleet of 100% electric cars. Thus energy use is reduced by 2.5 times.

the Total electricity consumption in 2022 It was 295 TWh. Production of 283.9 TWh was covered Thermal energy accounts for 63.9% and the remaining 36.1% comes from renewable sources. In the first months of 2023, consumption continued to decline (150 TWh -5.3% over the same period in 2022) and coverage from The percentage of renewable sources increased to 44.3% (Terna source).

– Subscribe to our newsletter and our channel Youtube–