I am sick and tired of of people who proclaim anti-renewable nonsense as fact and get away with it.
I think @mattwridley misunderstands @borisjohnson's green agenda on all 10 points but allow me to focus on the points regarding electric vehicles that are my academic specialty.
Matt Ridley is a journalist, biologist and viscount who owns coal mines on his family estate. He's (unsurprisingly) pro fossil fuels.
In this piece he gives ten things that are wrong with Johnsons green plans that I think mostly show how wrong he is himself.
I want to focus on my academic specialty: in his tweet and in his column in the @Telegraph he claims that the electric car emits more CO2 over its lifetime than a diesel car because of the battery production.
Let's look at the facts.
First the claim that the battery lasts less than 100k miles.
Here's the blog from my good friend @M_Steinbuch showing what hundreds of @Tesla drivers measure. And to the right what Tesla reports. Over 300k miles is closer to the truth. No idea where he gets this 100k nonsense.
Then he refers to Gautam Kalghatgi of Oxford University for production.
Oxford! Then it must be true, doesn't it?
Well, maybe it's relevant Kalghatgi is from the 'Clean Combustion Research Center', is paid by Saudi Aramco, and that he (like Ridley) is related to @thegwpfcom.
And before you say: your report was for a left wing political party so you are just as biased as this combustion engine professor: here is a shorter and earlier scientific article I wrote about it with the same outcome: sciencedirect.com/science/articl…
The graph shows the reality that Ridley wants to bamboozle us/himself away from. (I even chose battery production in China.)
I could go into how most batteries sold in Europe are not made in China and other implicit misunderstandings but I think by now you get the drift: only non-experts without good scientific sources and/or a good conscience conclude a combustion engine in the UK emits more.
Also this hilarious tid-bit "smart meters that drain your electric car's battery".
Firstly, smart meters are only in use when you car is connected to a charger so they don't drain your car battery AT ALL.
Secondly, smart meters are not separate devices but use meters already in your car or charge point and their energy use is truly negligible. (I have designed such charge points.)
So I hope you don't believe this article just because it pretends to report facts. Regarding my specialty I can say all its opinions are actually at odds with the facts.
And if I had time I could show you the same for the other anti-renewable nonsense presented as fact.
The reality is that solar, wind and electric vehicles not only help to reduce global warming but are also becoming cheaper than fossil fuels, and coal barons, oil companies and combustion engine researchers don't like it one bit. That's all there's to this I think.
/end rant
PS A tweep pointed out the "smart meter draining your car battery" might refer to vehicle to grid or V2G. My students have done multiple simulations on this future tech. and it's awesome: stable grids with 100% solar and wind while you make extra money with your battery.
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There's a study financed by EV sceptics Bosch, Honda, McLaren and Aston Martin doing the round, partly based on a study saying a Polestar takes 50k miles to emit less CO2.
Will debunk it this evening but could people maybe add links to places where it pops up?
@MLiebreich@Joost57437492 Everybody (well maybe 12 people so far) is asking me to debunk this article in the times. The problem: I don't know which study they are talking about. Can twitter help thetimes.co.uk/article/electr…
Polestar published some numbers on it's study in september polestar.com/dato-assets/11…
and if I look at the @thetimes article they copy the numbers from that study. I briefly talk about that comparison here:
Allow me to debunk a nonsensical scare story in the @spectator yesterday, claiming electric cars are impossible because they would lead to a complete replacement of the electricity grid. spectator.co.uk/article/boris-…
We have another winner. Another retired professor (this time a physicist) who thinks he understands the green industrial revolution better than these young kids that come up with crazy ideas that are more inventive than insulation and driving less.
Prof Kelly laments that Boris Johnsons 'green industrial revolution' is doomed to fail.
Specifically:
'Nowhere is the flaw in the government's plan more clearly exposed than in the announcement that sales of new petrol, diesel and hybrid cars will be banned by 2030.'
I will use Haidt's research into the moral roots of liberals and conservatives and Pinker's into progress.
I think the first step is letting go of the hatred of progress that many 'progressive' intellectuals display. Here @sapinker (whose presentation I will use in the following tweets) says it eloquently.
This rejection of progress hampers our effort to address climate change. Instead of working on solutions people become numb and hopeless. Doom prophets should replace their smug negativity with some actual research and test their doom and gloom hypotheses.
Pretty incredible story that I completely missed: after Chevron was ordered to pay $9.5 billion to clean up willful contamination of the Amazon in Equador, they moved all their assets out of Ecuador and started to demonize the NY lawyer Donziger. makechevroncleanup.com
This human rights lawyer Donziger was found to be a fraud that payed off a corrupt judge in Ecuador. He's also in contempt of court and is disbarred. He's awaiting a trial at home with an ankle bracelet for over a year now. BUT...
This is all based on the findings of ONE pro Chevron judge called Kaplan and the pro Chevron prosecutor and judge that he appointed.
Dozens of judges, 200 lawyers, 37 disbarment organisations, 55 Nobel laureates and an increasing number of celebrities disagree.