Ireland To Ban New Petrol, Diesel Vehicles By 2030 (bbc.com) 378
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: The Irish government plans to ban the sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles by 2030, as part of a major strategy to protect the environment. The aim is to ensure that all new cars and vans on Irish roads in 11 years' time are electric vehicles. The proposed legislation was among 180 measures in the government's Climate Action Plan, published on Monday. The document also includes a target to implement an EU-wide ban on non-recyclable plastic by 2030.
Unveiling the plan on Monday, the Environment Minister Richard Bruton said Ireland was "currently 85% dependent on fossil fuels." Mr Bruton said the plan was a roadmap to achieving existing 2030 emissions targets and would put Ireland "on a trajectory to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050." The hope is that by the time the petrol and diesel vehicle ban is introduced in 2030 there will be 950,000 electric vehicles on Irish roads. The government is set to invest in a "nationwide" charging network to power the new vehicles. By 2025, at least one recharging point will be required at new non-residential buildings with more than 10 parking spaces. The government also said it would stop granting National Car Test (NCT) certificates to fossil fuel cars by 2045. "The compulsory inspection program is carried out every year on vehicles that are more than 10 years old," reports the BBC.
Unveiling the plan on Monday, the Environment Minister Richard Bruton said Ireland was "currently 85% dependent on fossil fuels." Mr Bruton said the plan was a roadmap to achieving existing 2030 emissions targets and would put Ireland "on a trajectory to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050." The hope is that by the time the petrol and diesel vehicle ban is introduced in 2030 there will be 950,000 electric vehicles on Irish roads. The government is set to invest in a "nationwide" charging network to power the new vehicles. By 2025, at least one recharging point will be required at new non-residential buildings with more than 10 parking spaces. The government also said it would stop granting National Car Test (NCT) certificates to fossil fuel cars by 2045. "The compulsory inspection program is carried out every year on vehicles that are more than 10 years old," reports the BBC.
Range anxiety probably isn't a big deal in Ireland (Score:5, Funny)
Good for them, but it's not exactly an earth shattering sacrifice. Since Ireland is 180 miles tall and about 300 miles wide and is about the size of the state of Indiana, a modern electric car can easily drive from the east Irish coast to the west (and possibly north to south if there's a straight enough highway) across the entire country without needing a recharge.
That's a much easier sell than it is in bigger countries.
(If the US government tried to do that today, they'd be drawn and quartered by an angry mob - of oil lobbyists. Then the citizens would get a hold of their remains and do unspeakable things to their entrails.
Re:Range anxiety probably isn't a big deal in Irel (Score:5, Insightful)
The bigger issue is still charging, especially in older European cities and towns - the vast majority of people in these places do not have off-street parking, nor do they have a guaranteed spot of on-street parking, so charging an EV vehicle overnight is going to be a nightmare - unless governments install on-street charging facilities, or in-road charging or something that does not bind the driver to hunting for a charging spot.
Charging while at work etc is a nice-to-have, but it doesn't solve the issue for when you are not working - you have to start planning your day around visiting places which do have charging spots, and hoping they aren't taken.
I also hope that the Irish government are going to do the right thing and give generous subsidies for vehicles they refuse NCT certificates for that would otherwise have passed - a 15 year old car these days is not particular old or past it, and suddenly taking them off the road for no other reason than "we want to" will leave a lot of lower income people in the lurch...
Re:Range anxiety probably isn't a big deal in Irel (Score:5, Interesting)
so charging an EV vehicle overnight is going to be a nightmare - unless governments install on-street charging facilities
Driving chariots in the mud is going to be a nightmare, unless the Romans create some roads.
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so charging an EV vehicle overnight is going to be a nightmare - unless governments install on-street charging facilities
Driving chariots in the mud is going to be a nightmare, unless the Romans create some roads.
You ever been to Ireland? The Romans never made it that far and you can tell by the roads. Or lack of proper ones anyway.
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Ireland is lucky in that it has an unusually high proportion of dwellings with driveways and parking spaces where charging can be installed.
In other European countries they are just getting on with installing those on-street chargers. Rows and rows of them down residential streets.
Re:Range anxiety probably isn't a big deal in Irel (Score:5, Insightful)
As opposed to gasoline, which just requires massive trucks carrying it around and dumping it into big (often slowly leaking) expensive storage tanks buried underground. Yet somehow we managed that, despite the deferred environmental costs.
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Though
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No, they won't. When a vehicle has become old enough that it's no longer cost effective to purchase a replacement battery, the vehicle will simply be scrapped.
Or they'll just have to drive it with reduced range and possibly speed, too, depending on the specific condition of the battery.
Re: Range anxiety probably isn't a big deal in Ire (Score:2)
Stupid question. If there is no parking where do they keep their petrol powered Cars now?
Because that is where electric cars will get parked too.
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Stupid question. If there is no parking where do they keep their petrol powered Cars now?
Because that is where electric cars will get parked too.
And are they going to run charging strips along both sides of every road? Because that's where people park.
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Currently anything built before 1980 is already exempt. But that does raise an interesting point for interesting and collectable cars built between that date and 2030.
If the goal is to get the ICE cars (mostly) off the road, probably the easiest way would be just keep raising the gas tax until it's uneconomical to drive one as your daily driver.
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This is not a serious plan (Score:5, Insightful)
Any plant to get a nation off of coal and oil that does not mention nuclear power as part of the plan cannot be taken seriously. What they are saying is that global warming is a serious and existential threat that everything and anything must be done to avert this coming apocalypse... except nuclear power.
If they fail to even mention nuclear power, as this document has done, then they are saying that nuclear power is in some way a greater threat to them than global warming. Any serious look at nuclear power will reveal that it is exceedingly safe, with CO2 output lower than any other energy source we know of, plentiful, reliable, and can be deployed most anywhere.
They will do anything to save themselves from utter devastation, but they won't do THAT.
I'll take this as a serious plan when they can at least describe why nuclear power was not part of the plan.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:This is not a serious plan (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is not a serious plan (Score:4, Insightful)
Ireland has plenty of available wind power right off its shores. The cable to France will be pumping energy into mainland Europe.
Ireland has realized that it has a massive resource just waiting to be exploited, the new oil if you will.
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The report doesn't mention nuclear because Ireland has never had any nuclear power, there is no appetite or demand for it, and everyone acknowledges that setting up the infrastructure to handle it would be cost prohibitive anyway.
Think about it. To start from zero they would need to first develop the institutions, the regulator and the energy suppliers willing to operate such a plant. They would need to secure a supply of fuel, and a way to handle waste. "Worry about it later" isn't going to fly these days.
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The report doesn't mention nuclear because Ireland has never had any nuclear power, there is no appetite or demand for it, and everyone acknowledges that setting up the infrastructure to handle it would be cost prohibitive anyway.
Could not the same be said for electric cars? There's no infrastructure for them. They are very expensive. There's little or no real demand for them. Etc. They seem to think that they can find the money in spite of the expense, and that people will go along with this transition in spite of their opposition.
Think about it. To start from zero they would need to first develop the institutions, the regulator and the energy suppliers willing to operate such a plant. They would need to secure a supply of fuel, and a way to handle waste. "Worry about it later" isn't going to fly these days. They would need to set up security apparatus to protect it all.
It's just not a realistic proposition for Ireland.
If that's the reasons why they aren't considering nuclear power then they should have put that in their policy document. How hard would that have been? If they can't be bothered to consider nuclear
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Could not the same be said for electric cars? There's no infrastructure for them. They are very expensive. There's little or no real demand for them.
No, because there is infrastructure for them (everywhere has electricity and most dwellings in Ireland have driveways), the cost is rapidly approaching the point where it's cheaper over its lifetime than ICE, and there is currently a massive shortage of vehicles due to the high demand.
If that's the reasons why they aren't considering nuclear power then they should have put that in their policy document.
It was stated in the request to produce the report. No need to repeat it for the benefit for internet commentators who can't be bothered to do research.
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It costs too much. Even outside of Chernobyl fears, people would rather use geothermal, solar, etc.
Assuming that is true then why was that not in the report?
I'm sure that lots of reasons could be brought up on why nuclear power would not be a good choice for Ireland. What I find quite telling is that rather than bring them up in the report they tried to avoid the topic by not even mentioning it. This tells me that they failed to do a complete analysis of all options. If they are leaving an option that is so obvious unmentioned then I must wonder why. I must also wonder what other options they failed
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Ireland doesn't have, and has never had, any nuclear power. Even assuming the government wanted to pick that fight with the population, and could find somewhere acceptable to put it, going from nothing, no regulatory body, no regulatory laws, no infrastructure, no experience operating nuclear power, to building even one plant is going to be extremely time consuming and expensive.
It's not like a game of Sim City where you just plop down a nuke plant and it works, it's a large scale industry that has to be de
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Ireland doesn't have, and has never had, any nuclear power.
Until about 2014 they didn't have any electric cars either, unless Google is lying to me. Even so they intend to replace every internal combustion vehicle on the road today, in a decade or two. That's going to be expensive and inconvenient.
It's not like Ireland would be starting from nothing, there's plenty of experienced nuclear engineers and technicians in the world to draw from. If they can't build a nuclear reactor in Ireland because it would be inconvenient then I wonder just how seriously they take
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Pick any source you fucking want DIPSHIT.
Okay, I pick this one -> https://static.rasset.ie/docum... [rasset.ie]
No where does it state that nuclear power is more expensive than wind or solar. In fact the word "nuclear" is not mentioned once.
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If that's true then why was it not in this document? Why is this a recurring trend to not even mention nuclear power in documents like this? If nuclear power costs too much then state such in the document. By failing to even mention nuclear power they destroyed their credibility as having considered all options.
All of you anonymous cowards can keep bringing up reports that show nuclear power costs more than everything else is not the issue. If these documents on the cost of nuclear power are so definiti
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Oh, I see, we can't use nuclear power to lower our CO2 output because it costs too much. Solar power used to cost a lot as well. Seems that we were able to lower the costs considerably with some government funded research. What is even more telling is that after decades of government funding, regulations supporting the deployment of solar power collectors in numerous nations around the world, we see that solar power still only produces a fraction of a percent of total electricity production. On the othe
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The French government just announced a plan to power 95 percent of the country with solar and wind energy by 2060.
In other words they plan to reach this goal long after everyone involved will be long retired or dead.
Had they made a plan for the next 5 or 10 years I might have believed them. A goal set this far in the future is meaningless. If they want to set a plan for the next 40 to 50 years then I expect to see milestones set for every year in between. Let's assume a nation currently outputs 20 tonnes of CO per capita per year and gets 80% of their energy from fossil fuels. If they want me to take them seriously
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My opinion does matter, and in a small way I do influence the decisions. I vote. If the politicians want to save the world from global warming then they will need my vote, among many others, to do so.
And don't call me "sweetheart", asshole.
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A goal set this far in the future is meaningless.
People like you are why we are in this mess. The inability to plan more than a few years ahead leads to short term thinking.
Of course we only have to look at France to see that you are wrong. Nuclear was a century or more commitment. Pushing diesel cars was a decades long project, even though it turned out to be a bad idea. Back in the day Concorde took over a decade to develop.
Re:This is not a serious plan (Score:4, Insightful)
Blindseer is spot on. If they are serious about addressing Climate Change by dropping CO2 output then Nuclear has to be in the discussion and should be getting pushed and built on a massive scale globally. But it isn't, it's all Solar and Wind, Solar and Wind.
Ireland will end up changing these timelines because they are not realistic. And they are pushing for this very significant change in only 11 years without including a very significant source of the electricity they will require if they do actually manage to go all electric.
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It only costs too much because the environmentalists file suit after suit after suit
Doesn't work that way in Europe. Generally speaking the government picks a site, does all the checks to make sure it's suitable and then there is no real basis for anyone to object.
For example, there were no lawsuits over the new Hinkley Point C plant. As the name suggests, it's not even the first one at that site. Yet it's still insanely expensive. Arguably the most expensive object on Earth. Guaranteed ultra high prices (£96/MWh) for energy generated, plus all the usual incentives and subsidie
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Presumably you can provide us with some references to the times when these projects got sued. For example, Hinkley C in the UK, when was that sued?
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Assuming that is true then it is totally worth it given nuclear power can provide considerable reductions in CO2 emissions, improvements in air quality, and in effectively infinite supply on Earth.
We simply cannot shutdown all of our nuclear power plants and still retain our current standard of living. Japan tried and failed. I expect every other nation that tries to also fail. They've been able to nibble around the edges at replacing nuclear with wind and solar for 40 or 50 years now. After all this ti
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Of course they would rather use geothermal or solar. They could also power the country with Leprechaun magic. I have an idea. Since you are obviously an experienced engineer, why don't you go there and implement it for them since you are so smart?
Show the Irish and the world how you can implement a geothermal + solar power grid that works more than 4-6 hours a day and that doesn't bring everything to a halt if it snows or is too cloudy. Show them the battery technology you invented to solve the problem. I a
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Are you an engineer or scientist? Geothermal is pretty location specific. It's basically free energy where it exists. If it were as easy as 'let's just use geothermal!' well guess what, smart guy. We'd all be using it everywhere to power the whole world. In reality it isn't that easy unless you live in Iceland.
Tidal Power and wave energy power are highly experimental and have not been shown to really work especially not at such a large scale. Burning biogas still makes CO2. Burning anything makes CO2. Energ
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Wow. Did not know about that. 24 sqkm and 950 megawatts and 4 million solar panels and it took less than a year to build? Wtf? Well maybe solar farms are easier than they seem. Maybe they will scale. How are they dealing with the energy storage problem?
I also noticed this:
The solar park was damaged by a gale and thunderstorm in Kurnool district on 7 May 2017. Strong winds uprooted some solar panels installed by Softbank and Greenko, and also damaged staff quarters and workers facilities. The damage to the solar park caused by the extreme weather was estimated at â2 crore (US$290,000).
It was damaged by gale force winds before they were even finished building it. I think that speaks to some of the potential durability problems with solar. Still if solar farms are really that easy to build...it would only take about 10 su
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If all you say is true then why fail to mention that in the plan?
Is it perhaps because they didn't do their homework? Are they so ignorant of the sources of energy available that they were not even aware that nuclear power is an option? If it is government policy that they cannot utilize nuclear power then that alone should deserve mention. But then if that was mentioned someone might question the need to keep this policy in place.
Nuclear power is obviously an option, because that is where 10% of the wor
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If nuclear power does catch on then the bogeyman of global warming is gone and it cannot ever be brought up again.
You're delusional if you think solving the global warming problem is considered bad. Go to the infirmary.
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You're delusional if you think solving the global warming problem is considered bad. Go to the infirmary.
I didn't say solving global warming is bad. I said that leaving out nuclear power as a solution is bad. Nuclear power is so plentiful and low in CO2 output that if deployed widely would, as many others have discovered, solve the problems of man made global warming.
These people don't want to solve the problem of global warming. If they were actually serious about the problem then they'd at least be able to mention nuclear power and why it is not a part of the solution. Since they failed to mention nuclea
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These people don't want to solve the problem of global warming
Or maybe they just don't like nuclear.
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Or maybe they just don't like nuclear.
They should then be able to articulate clearly why they don't like nuclear. Failure to mention this, in a document on national energy policy, is a major oversight. An oversight so blatant that it leaves me to wonder why it was not mentioned even once.
10% of the world's electricity comes from nuclear power, more than all non-hydro renewable energy sources combined. They can't pretend they don't know about it. They can't pretend nuclear power is not an option. It is an option, and they failed to mention
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Nuclear has big, scary disasters like Chernobyl and Fukushima that the public tends to remember.
Other sources of power tends to kill people far more discretely, and in smaller numbers. Coal is a horrible health disaster, but the effects aren't easily linked to coal power plants. Stuff like solar, wind, or natural gas can kill people in news worthy ways, but are more understandable - a gas explosion or falling off a windmill may
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Well there's really nothing to like or not like. It's just a modern, scientific way to heat water in order to make copper electrons go zoom-zoom without burning anything. As an electrical engineer I am highly skeptical that they will be able to power their whole island with solar and get it to work 24 hours a day even in winter with so few hours of sunshine and with the 150-200 rainy days per year they get and 40 days per year of frost. Do they even have enough land for all those panels? Who will keep the g
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Ireland mate... they won't be able to power half a hour's worth of demand from solar. Now if they could harness the power from rain....
but I imagine they'll be going with wind farms, they are less variable than solar, but still do not generate what it required 24/7,. you need massive overcapacity and that makes the whole thing unviable. (ie building 3 wind turbines and leaving 2 of them off most of the time just for those days when you need all 3 turning because its not that windy).
They could invest in stor
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As an electrical engineer I am highly skeptical that they will be able to power their whole island with solar and get it to work 24 hours a day
Shame your engineering skillz didn't enable you to read TFReport that is linked to in the summary, where it clearly states that the majority of that energy will be from wind. 11.7GW from wind, 0.4GW from solar, page 52.
Note also on the same page that only 70% of electricity will be from renewable sources. Coal and peat powered stations will be phased out. The remaining 30% will be via interconnects with other European countries, including France which is mostly nuclear.
Re:Blindseer is not a serious student. (Score:4, Insightful)
Is coastal Ireland really windy enough?
It's the Atlantic, it never stops blowing. There are no "non windy" times.
go nuclear
How many wind turbines do you think they could build for what it would cost to set up a regulatory body, secure a supply of fuel, get energy companies prepared to run the plant, build it, secure it and deal with the waste? And do you think they could do all that by 2030, only a decade away?
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FACT : NUCLEAR POWER IS MORE EXPENSIVE PER WATT ANYWHERE THAN RENEWABLES.
Then why was that not stated in the energy policy document?
I suspect because someone would come forward to dispute this "fact" and show otherwise.
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Isn't socialism supposed to be a good thing? That's what AOC and Sanders keep telling us.
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Have you considered that it's just because they didn't want to pick winners?
That's bullshit. They mention many times the benefits of solar and wind power. If they were honest about not wanting to pick winners then they'd be honest about what options were available in reducing CO2 output. Those options do include nuclear power.
The proposed plan cites the need for dispatchable power alongside intermittent renewable sources, and deliberately makes no determination about what form that should take. Nowhere does it forbid or recommend against nuclear.
You are correct that they do not explicitly forbid or recommend against nuclear power, because they failed to mention it all. What if they failed to mention offshore wind as a possibility? Would not that be considered an oversight? Or, an implied recomme
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I doubt the 400+ dead from multiple crashes of the De Haviland Comet would call air travel safe. I doubt the dozens dead in Ford Pinto fires would call cars safe. I doubt the thousands dead from the Banqiao Dam collapse would call hydroelectricity safe.
Here's the thing. Not all airplanes are the Comet. Not all cars are the Pinto. Not all dams are Banqiao. And not all nuclear reactors are Chernobyl. Additionally, all these deaths happened decades ago and no one would even consider making any thing lik
By 2030 Farage will be running the UK (Score:2)
By 2030 Farage will be running the UK, and he will switch everything to baby seal tallow. It cracks me up when politicians make these bold proclamations beyond their own time in office, with no intent to ever deliver anything. If you want to do something, do something now, face the consequences.
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You do realize Ireland is not part of the UK right? Farage, the asshole that he is, will have no power over it.
Unless his solution for the Brexit border issue is to annex Ireland and get rid of the border altogether...
The Real Problem. (Score:5, Insightful)
People are afraid to address the Real Problem.
Population Growth [wikipedia.org]!!!
Africa and Middle East are the Big Problem areas.
Ireland not driving around in petrol & diesel cars ain't gonna do shit.
And this "ageing population" meme is just bullshit.
Less people is the only thing that will save this planet.
Another problem is that way too many people believe that the "markets & economy" can grow indefinitely. Wrong!!!
The current direction of this planet is un-sustainable.
Which politician / government has the courage to actually say out loud that current population growth is un-sustainable and do something about it???
To say it more bluntly - stop fucking like rabbits!!!
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To say it more bluntly - stop fucking like rabbits!!!
So, you want people to take things into their own hands, eh?
Re:The Real Problem. (Score:4, Insightful)
IC vehicle now a poor investment (Score:2)
Re:Socialism doesn't work (Score:5, Insightful)
A friendly reminder: Just because you don't like something, it's not necessarily Socialism.
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Selling state secrets to the enemy is banned too, and I really miss your 'socialism' alert here.
Darn'd state controlling the market for information!
No, you're uneducated. Socialism is not Fascism. (Score:5, Informative)
No, you are uneducated and you need to be corrected, being a dumbass.
Capitalism
In common usage, the word capitalism means an economic system in which all or most of the means of production are privately owned and operated, and the investment of capital and the production, distribution and prices of commodities (goods and services) are determined mainly in a free market, rather than by the state. In capitalism, the means of production are generally operated for profit.
In a purely capitalist economy, there would be no public schools, no state owned or maintained roads and highways, public works, welfare, unemployment insurance, workers compensation, Social Security benefits etc.
Socialism
Most generally, socialism refers to state ownership of common property, or state ownership of the means of production. A purely socialist state would be one in which the state owns and operates the means of production. However, nearly all modern capitalist countries combine socialism and capitalism.
The University of Idaho, and any other public school or university, is a “socialist” institutions, and those who attend it or work for it are partaking in socialism, because it is owned and operated by the state of Idaho. The same is true of federal and state highways, federal and state parks, harbors etc.
Communism
Most generally, communism refers to community ownership of property, with the end goal being complete social equality via economic equality. Communism is generally seen by communist countries as an idealized utopian economic and social state that the country as a whole is working toward; that is to say that pure communism is the ideal that the People’s Republic of China is (was?) working toward. Such an ideal often justifies means (such as authoritarianism or totalitariansim) that are not themselves communist ideals.
Fundamentally, communism argues that all labor belongs to the individual laborer; no man can own another man's body, and therefore each man owns his own labor. In this model all "profit" actually belongs in part to the laborer, not, or not just, those who control the means of production, such as the business or factory owner. Profit that is not shared with the laborer, therefore, is considered inherently exploitive.
Fascism
The word descends from the Latin ‘fasces’, the bundle of sticks used by the Romans to symbolize their empire. This should clue you in that Fascism attempts to recapture both the glory and social organization of Rome.
Most generally, “a governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, etc., and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism and often racism.”
Unlike communism, fascism is opposed to state ownership of capital and economic equality is not a principle or goal. During the 1930s and WWII, communism and fascism represented the extreme left and right, respectively, in European politics. Hitler justified both Nazi anti-Semitism and dictatorship largely on the basis of his working to fight-off communism.
Again, you are uneducated.
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Anon coward is the person we have been talking about, he/s is buried in confirmation bias, screams about fake news whilst being into conspiracies and fake news and even with mountainous irrefutable amounts of evidence and science that CO2 is a green house gas which causes global warming - man-made global warming and can't accept the fact either that global warming is happening or that it will be extremely detrimental to our way of life.
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"The problem in Venezuela is not that socialism has been poorly implemented, but that socialism has been faithfully implemented. From the Soviet Union to Cuba to Venezuela, wherever true socialism or Communism has been adopted it has delivered anguish and devastation and failure. Those who preach the tenants of these discredited ideologies only contribute to the continued suffering of the people living under these cruel systems.â
- Donald J. Trump. POTUS 2016-2024
Wind turbine noises cause cancer - Also Trump
Covfefe - Also, also Trump.
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America is the laughing stock of the world.
Then why are millions of people every year risking their one and only life to enter the USA?
Geography, look it up. (Score:3)
Then why are millions of people every year risking their one and only life to enter the USA?
Because they can't swim to Europe.
It's the same reason all those refugees flood into Europe, they can't swim to America either.
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America is the laughing stock of the world.
Then why are millions of people every year risking their one and only life to enter the USA?
Because they are unaware at how much you've fucked it up?
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A bad joke may be better than a dark alley.
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America is the laughing stock of the world.
Then why are millions of people every year risking their one and only life to enter the USA?
That doesn't mean the US isn't a laughing stock, it just means you're less of a laughing stock than Honduras.
I live in the UK and an Australian citizen, US citizens are practically cutting off their left arms to come to either of those countries.
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Because we bomb their countries, or back coups there, and make their lives worse when most of them are already struggling with the results of our trade policy. Only a spectacular idiot would fail to expect that to produce refugees.
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I know that you are stupid, but this is a stupid question even for your standards.
Millions of people are also risking their lives to enter Russia illegally. Doesn't mean that Russia is a nice place to live. Being better than an actual shithole is often sufficient to attract immigrants.
Re:There is no Twitter in prison... (Score:5, Insightful)
If that were true then we'd see just as many boats full of immigrants going from Florida to Cuba as those coming from Cuba to Florida. What we do in fact see is 100% of the boats going in one direction.
Also, nobody is risking their lives to escape South Korea to North Korea. It's all going the other way.
This isn't perception, delusion, or silliness. It's happening, we can measure this, and we should all understand why.
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Why would they have to upgrade the *apartments* wiring? Just run new cable to the charging spot in the car park, give each spot its own smart meter and link that as a second unit to the apartments account. Job done. No rewiring of old buildings needed.
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I think they're talking more about buildings with indoor parking, which would be the case. If they're going full electric and banning vehicles and whatnot, then they have to upgrade the service into the building. On top of that, the transformers outside have to be upgraded, they may also have to drop new lines(to carry a heavier load), or drop dedicated main lines in just for the charging bays. If however your'e talking about a large number of vehicles in lots? That's easier. But it still means a bunch
Street parking, not wiring (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Street parking, not wiring (Score:5, Interesting)
As one living in a European city, I have to say I know approximately 0 people who live downtown and have a car. Most of my friends live in the suburbs as I do myself, and the great majority of those do have cars, but the people living downtown, no, they would never want that kind of nightmare.
And it's getting worse/better. more and more roads are getting closed to car traffic, and only buses and service vehicles are allowed, in the center. You have to be some kind of masochist to cling on to a car when living in a European city center.
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I live in an European city, close to downtown, and I do have a car, it's useful for weekends and vacations and shopping.
What I don't have is the second car in the family, it's not worth it since subway commute is faster and parking is expensive.
I like electric vehicles but as of today I find I replace my car and drive electric, because the charging infrastructure is not there yet. It's ok in the city itself - I can go once a week shopping in my favorite supermarket, spend there an hour or two and charge the
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Just because your hipster friends don't own a car doesn't mean nobody does. Parking might be a pain in the ass and/or expensive depending on the specific location but if you're not driving in rush hours it can be a very fast and effective way of getting around a city.
Berlin
https://www.google.com/maps/@5... [google.com]
Paris
https://www.google.com/maps/@4... [google.com]
Rome
https://www.google.com/maps/@4... [google.com]
Prague
https://www.google.com/maps/@5... [google.com]
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As one living in a European city, I have to say I know approximately 0 people who live downtown and have a car. Most of my friends live in the suburbs as I do myself, and the great majority of those do have cars, but the people living downtown, no, they would never want that kind of nightmare.
And it's getting worse/better. more and more roads are getting closed to car traffic, and only buses and service vehicles are allowed, in the center. You have to be some kind of masochist to cling on to a car when living in a European city center.
Europe is kind of the odd man out here. In most of the world if you live in the city centre you can still have a car. Especially in a place like the US where cites are relatively new. This situation is only in Europe due to the city centres being built centuries if not millenia before the advent of the car, barring a few notable exceptions like New York, San Francisco, Tokyo, et al.
Also it is a bit of a bathtub curve. If you live in the centre of Manchester or Newcastle, you wouldn't own a car but if you
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The wiring is not going to be the issue. If your flat has a parking space it will be on the ground and you only need to wire a charging point there, not in the flat/apartment itself so the cost should be manageable. However, in Europe, many city centre flats have no parking space and you have to park on the street hopefully not too far away. Unless the government is going to install charging stations in ALL street parking spaces this is going to be a bigger issue since you have no idea exactly where you may end up parking.
Yeah, and if it's installed in public like that, it will probably be some third party company that owns them, meaning they'll be free to absolutely rape the apartment dwellers that have no other option for charging.
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Re:Street parking, not wiring (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah actually hydrogen is a pretty good option, but they will need actual vehicle options in 10 years. I'd suggest putting overhead charging wires on most of the main roads to charge or even power electric vehicles while they drive or sit in traffic. The power could either be funded by taxes as the roads likely are or with e-toll transponder surcharges or some other scheme.
They still won't be The Emerald Isle though when 70% of their electric power comes from burning methane. All this will really do is burn more methane and that won't reduce CO2 emission significantly. What they need are some pebble bed nukes or other ridiculously safe and modern nuclear power plants to complete the picture of the green island that could, would, and was crazy enough to actually do something that actually makes a difference. They do get some energy from a nuclear plant in Wales [wikipedia.org], but they actually have laws against local nuclear energy. Better change those laws. Turns out that it was the Green Party of all people who pushed to pass that law. This is why I don't like greenies. They fail at both engineering and logic. They want to force everyone to live in their anti-technology caveman dystopia even when there are easy tech solutions available. I wonder how long any of them have actually lived without electric power. I am betting not very long and boy would they miss the internet.
I am picturing pretty Irish girls in tartan skirts riding single speed bicycles with a basket and a bell. Suits me fine since I don't have to live there. The rich will all buy Teslas probably and the people with mid-range jobs can probably buy a used electric vehicle with old batteries and reduced range, but the rest will probably be stuck with short range electric motorbikes and electric bus lines that don't go everywhere. I have never been to Ireland and have no idea how good their public transportation system is. A lot depends on that. On the plus side if only the rich elite can afford their own motorcar and everyone else is stuck with public transportation and motorbikes it may help mitigate any traffic problems they may have now. If they pass a law against burning fossil fuels too they might end up looking a bit like the England in Gregory Benford's famous novel Timescape where electricity is only available for certain hours of the day and most people are stuck riding bicycles to go anywhere. Will they be happy taking cold showers? For me that's the second worst part of living without electricity.
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and was crazy enough to actually do something that actually makes a difference.
Even if Ireland were to completely stop all carbon emissions, their paltry 40 MtCO2 per year pales in comparison to the global 36154 MtCO2 per year the world in entirety emits.
Without China, the US and India actually doing something, we won't see a large difference. Especially with China being so aggressive in developping a Carbon rich economy.
Re:Street parking, not wiring (Score:4, Interesting)
Hydrogen cars are already a dead concept. A hydrogen fuel-cell car has to have a small lithium-ion battery to support the high power demands from high acceleration. In other words, the hydrogen fuel-cell car is a hybrid car that charges the battery to drive the electric motor(s). The battery also supports regenerative braking.
Lithium-ion batteries for cars are improving each year. Tesla can now support 375 miles (real world) on a single charge and they expect to have 400 miles range next year will new technology. This is approaching the 500 mile to 600 mile range of a hydrogen fuel-cell car so the hydrogen fuel-cell car becomes less attractive each year.
When you consider that a hydrogen fuel-cell car is a hybrid car, then the car is a hydrogen extended battery electric car. If such a car comes with the power socket such as a PHEV configuration then you will know that the game is over as the hydrogen fuel-cell would be redundant for short journeys.
A pure battery electric car is agnostic to the actual electricity generating fuel source or renewables which makes this car very flexible. A fossil car needed fossil fuel, a hydrogen car needs hydrogen.
Hydrogen fuel-cells would be helpful on an industrial scale for energy storage on electricity grids. The hydrogen would be generated using excess renewable energy via electrolysis of sea water. The fuel-cell would generate pure water which could be used by humans. In other words, sea water converted to drinking water.
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This is Ireland we're talking about though. There's almost no reason for any vehicle to need to be quickly charged, its not like they're going a thousand miles in a day - 99.99% of them will be just fine being topped up overnight and starting every day will full power, or likely even just charged weekly.
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The wiring is already in place - you convert streetlights to include a charger, the power cabling is all there ready to go, they're often right next to the road, they already have a pole in the ground to bolt a charging station to.
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What's infeasible?
The electrical supply to the building would have to be upgraded. That's done all the time.
Then the distribution panel(s) would have to be upgraded. That's also done all of the time.
Then new lines would have to be done for the parking area. Again, don
Re:So it'll suck to live in an older apartment (Score:4, Insightful)
Since when did the right decide that the market does not work? Surely if we all have electric cars the market will provide? Perhaps we could vote someone into power to encourage charging points. Right wing propaganda is mostly wrong or lies, take your pick.
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There aren't enough charging points in Norway,
Even if there were, it's a bit far to go to charge your vehicle
Re:So it'll suck to live in an older apartment (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, cities are crisscrossed with conduits already. The wiring is frequently inappropropriate (for example, street light wiring is often controlled in series, and is too low current), but pulling new wires through a conduit is not some sort of huge challenge.
The greater cost is the need to trench, lay conduit, and resurface parking spaces to add charging pedestals, where they're not within reach of existing conduits. But when you're talking about multidecadal timescales for this transition, it's not a huge imposition.
(BTW, it's really disappointing how far you have to scroll down to even get to discussion of EVs in this article)
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I will however add that I do think charging station manufacturers need to work more on mass deployment solutions. Stations are usually designed as independent boxes on a pedestal, which at best communicate with a central distribution box to lower power outputs when there's too much demand on the circuit. I'd like to see charging pedestals become more like "dumb terminals", which simply feed into charging stations that serve a dozen or more spaces, which in turn may communicate with a central distribution bo
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This is true. North Sea oil production is down to about 1/3 of peak now [wikipedia.org] with natural gas production similarly tailing off. UK is a net importer of oil and natural gas now. 50% of electricity production is via natural gas currently [iamkate.com].
Re:And what a natural gas?? (Score:4, Insightful)
To all of the people who say we 'need' natural gas, I ask - so what are we going to do when it inevitably runs out?
We'll make more.
Methane is a very nice rocket fuel as demonstrated by Everyday Astronaut.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
The utility of hydrocarbon fuels, both in getting around on Earth and in escaping it's gravity well, cannot be matched by any other fuel. There are exceptions of course but those are very rare. We will not run out of naturally existing hydrocarbons any time soon, and when we do then we will make more.
We should not be focused on replacing hydrocarbons as fuel. Instead we should focus on means to obtain it that does not add CO2 to the air. We know how to do this and with a bit more research it can be done in a way that's competitive with the naturally occurring sources. The US Navy has been working on this for years now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Don't ban fossil fuels, make the consumer of hydrocarbons an offer they cannot refuse in a fuel that is cleaner than petroleum, cheaper than petroleum, and does not add to the global warming problem.
People don't burn petroleum because we want global warming and air pollution. We burn it because no one has yet offered a better alternative.
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https://www.iihs.org/topics/fa... [iihs.org]
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I'm really interested in your alternative plans for ensuring that every vehicle on the road has properly functioning safety features, like... you know... brakes n stuff.
Would you knowingly drive a car without working brakes? And, "stuff"? I assume not. Why would you assume that others would knowingly do so? I trust people to keep their vehicle in proper working order because that's what people generally do.
That's my alternative to keep people safe besides licenses to drive, license plates on cars, inspections, and "stuff". People don't generally knowingly drive unsafe vehicles, because people are not generally suicidal.
Here's another twist on this. I'd check if a per
Re:That CH4 and H2 (or better batteries) (Score:4, Interesting)
All of them - and methane and hydrogen too for that matter - have pros and cons, and ALL of them have a much more complicated supply chain "efficiency" consideration than just "what % of the available energy in this fuel is converted into movement by the vehicle". Some very relevant initial reading on these topics can be had simply by visiting Wikipedia and looking up 'methanol economy' 'hydrogen economy' et al. Hydrogen produced by using wind/water/whatever power to electrolyze water is significantly less "efficient" - considered end to end - than using the same green power to charge batteries. But of course that efficiency isn't the full story either because batteries cost resources to manufacture, and they are consumable parts.
One of the more interesting considerations here is "are batteries a sustainable approach or are they a temporary bridging technology?". They require large quantities of (in some cases) strategic materials, they're quite dirty and energy-expensive to manufacture, they have a limited lifespan. There are rumblings that China is considering a change of focus towards fuel cell vehicles ( https://www.bloomberg.com/opin... [bloomberg.com] ) , and fuel cells _CAN_ be extremely long-lived devices, sharing many of the fueling and other advantages of ICE vehicles.
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and Ireland is making good progress implementing fossil free power generation
Uh yeah...about that. I read on wikipedia that you guys are mostly burning something you call 'fossil gas' (mostly methane) to generate electricity. So how are you implementing fossil free power generation? This measure sounds soo progressive and modern and everything but in reality all of those electric vehicles will be powered by burning methane and burning methane creates CO2. Nuclear was outlawed by your Green Party. So unless you can import all of your electricity from undersea cables from countries wi
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All very noble. The problem with the Irish plan is where is all that scrap metal going to go? Most people won't dump their cars until the last minute, so all of a sudden you will have thousands of tons of scrap metal cars to store, crush and do something with. You can't leave them to rust somewhere in some giant parking lot, that will release polutents into the ground, all that oil and rusting metal. Who's going to pay to store all this scrap before it's processed? You're not going to be able to crush it and ship to a third-world nation to deal with, they've had enough of the first world dumping crap on them. So that means the Irish Gov will need to pay for destruction and recycling services.
That's exactly why they say they are going to ban new petrol and diesel cars from 2030. If they had said that that you would have to get rid of your old car by that date you'd have a good point