Could the US go Carbon Neutral?

[Me2005]

How did the early car industry deal with the time before the common gas station?

They carried much of their fuel with them.

...Which you absolutely cannot do with electrics. Nearly every production car today has a 300+ mile range. Batteries to just double the range you can travel would be several hundred pounds at least, and most electrics can't travel even 300 miles. Continuing to use the Leaf, you'd need 4-5x the battery power to equal the range of the Versa - the existing battery weighing 480 lbs already makes that 1,920-2,400 lbs extra! Edmunds gives the GVW as 4,135 lbs - 805 lbs more than the regular Versa - already. Conversely, another 15 gallons of gas to travel 300-400 more miles in the Versa fits nicely in a container in the trunk, and would barely affect the use of the vehicle at all.

The best way to deal with that problem might be putting up wires, like what buses and trollies use, for cars to draw from. Unless some kind of nuclear battery works very well for cars...

I'd argue most of us are more held hostage by the car culture. I can drive to school in 15 minutes, or take mass transit for 90 minutes (assuming no delays).

That's not so much an issue with car culture as it is with the city planning being unsuited for mass transit.

Exactly. I think this is difficult to convey to people who don't experience it - you need a car to get anywhere around here. Not having one means a few-hour trip instead of a few-minute trip.

[Darth Tanner]

Exactly. I think this is difficult to convey to people who don't experience it - you need a car to get anywhere around here. Not having one means a few-hour trip instead of a few-minute trip.

I live on the outskirts of a major European city and public transport is still insufficient for anything other than getting to the city centre. Despite there being trains and buses galore I still rely heavily on a car. Even a doubling or tripling of fuel costs would do little to detract from the major advantages that a car offers you, even on a £ basis.

When I don't walk/cycle the entire journey to work for me to drive to work is around £1 in petrol, the bus is £3.20 and the train is £2.80 and a twenty five minute walk. Not a difficult decision, especially when its raining.

Doubtlessly though electric vehicles are the future but there are still major disadvantages to them at present. Out of interest does anyone on this board own an electric vehicle? It would be interesting to know if you own it as a second vehicle to supplement a normal car or have it as your primary transport option.

[Borgholio]

...Which you absolutely cannot do with electrics. Nearly every production car today has a 300+ mile range. Batteries to just double the range you can travel would be several hundred pounds at least, and most electrics can't travel even 300 miles. Continuing to use the Leaf, you'd need 4-5x the battery power to equal the range of the Versa - the existing battery weighing 480 lbs already makes that 1,920-2,400 lbs extra! Edmunds gives the GVW as 4,135 lbs - 805 lbs more than the regular Versa - already. Conversely, another 15 gallons of gas to travel 300-400 more miles in the Versa fits nicely in a container in the trunk, and would barely affect the use of the vehicle at all.

That's why I mentioned the charging station issue rather than the range. Even the Teslas are limited to around 250 miles, so it would make more sense to have a large network of fast charging stations rather than simply packing in more batteries...even more so given how commercial battery power density is pretty much at it's limit until they can come up with a new chemistry or new ways to engineer existing ones.

The best way to deal with that problem might be putting up wires, like what buses and trollies use, for cars to draw from. Unless some kind of nuclear battery works very well for cars...

Wires low enough to charge vehicles that in some cases are shorter than the average driver? Yeah...bit of a shock hazard there. I've heard ideas of embedding magnetic charging coils in the road beds of freeways and major streets so that your car can be wirelessly topped up while you drive. That makes a bit more sense than exposed wires or radioactive batteries.

[Purple]

Wires low enough to charge vehicles that in some cases are shorter than the average driver? Yeah...bit of a shock hazard there. I've heard ideas of embedding magnetic charging coils in the road beds of freeways and major streets so that your car can be wirelessly topped up while you drive. That makes a bit more sense than exposed wires or radioactive batteries.

Wouldn't having a powerful magnetic field present under and by virtue of that over and around each roadway have some rather potent side effects?

[Borgholio]

Wires low enough to charge vehicles that in some cases are shorter than the average driver? Yeah...bit of a shock hazard there. I've heard ideas of embedding magnetic charging coils in the road beds of freeways and major streets so that your car can be wirelessly topped up while you drive. That makes a bit more sense than exposed wires or radioactive batteries.

Wouldn't having a powerful magnetic field present under and by virtue of that over and around each roadway have some rather potent side effects?

Not necessarily. It just has to be enough to induce a current in a copper coil underneath the vehicle. The passenger compartment can be insulated from this.

[Darth Tanner]

If cars are going to need to be insulated against it then only brand new cars will be able to safely drive on those roads... not to mention cyclists. Seems a major hurdle to rolling it out... not to mention how long till someone who lives nearby figures out how to hook their house up for free electricity.

[Me2005]

The best way to deal with that problem might be putting up wires, like what buses and trollies use, for cars to draw from. Unless some kind of nuclear battery works very well for cars...

Wires low enough to charge vehicles that in some cases are shorter than the average driver? Yeah...bit of a shock hazard there.

They have these things already for buses, lightrail, and trollies in many downtown areas - the problem you mention is easily solved by a flexible 10' pole. Also, if the cars still had batteries, it might be reasonable to build 'charging lanes' where they drive for a few miles out of however many to recharge. That'd prevent needing continuous wires and keep the hazards down, while also allowing the lanes to be lower if it's better for trucks/etc. to just not use them (though wired power is about the only way freight trucks are going to get it any time soon).

[Borgholio]

They have these things already for buses, lightrail, and trollies in many downtown areas - the problem you mention is easily solved by a flexible 10' pole.

Not really. You're expecting these flexible poles to automatically extend and find the wire once they're on the road, then collapse to fit into a driveway or parking garage. But what then? Are there going to be wires over every single major street and highway? That's going to be ugly as hell...

Also, if the cars still had batteries, it might be reasonable to build 'charging lanes' where they drive for a few miles out of however many to recharge.

It would probably be safer and less unsightly to have something like a third rail built into the middle of the freeway lanes and the car has a small brush contact on the bottom. That would work well with auto-driving car technology.

[Channel72]

Impossible. American car culture isn't just all-pervasive and full of derison towards anything non-car (rail, electromobile), it's also toxic, demanding nothing less but love towards a few tons of steel meant to move you around. Automobile is a great invention. It is also why the US won't go carbon neutral, and even if politicians were dead set on it, that would not help.

Sexiness of the electromobile is overhyped. People will enjoy riding a few as toys, but faced with the necessity to go pure electro they simply won't do it. Even 'pure hybrid' will remain a dream too distant to achieve.

Unlike Europe where Eurobureaucrats can make life intolerable for 'car enthusiasts', if they so desire, and they have a super-dense passenger rail network, or China, where the government can go ahead and burn as much cash to go 'pure electro' as they see fit, the US can't be reformed in that aspect. Just as in many others.

The East Coast "megalopolis", i.e. the NY Metro area down to Washington DC, is heavily dependent on railways and public transportation. The LIRR (Long Island Railroad) is actually the most widely used rail network in terms of ridership numbers in the entire Western Hemisphere, and the New Jersey transit is probably the second.

The problem with the US is that for the most part, outside of major metro areas, there is no viable public transportation. Plus, outside of the inner core of metro areas, people live mostly in sprawling suburban commuter towns. It's not that the majority of people have some kind of auto-mobile fetish that prevents them from using public transportation, it's that for most people, public transportation is simply not an option. In areas where public transportation is available, millions of people use it everyday.

Naturally, NYC has one of the lowest carbon footprints in the country. And rural America is not much of an issue. It's the suburbs that are the real problem. And at least on the East Coast, I can pretty much guarantee that if public transportation was more widely available, people would use it. In places where it is available (Long Island and parts of Jersey), people use it very heavily.

[Channel72]

I should also mention that it's been widely reported that the current generation (millenials) is far less interested in "car culture" for some reason. I'm not entirely sure how accurate this is, because I haven't seen numbers, but I'd speculate that rising gas prices is at least part of the issue.

So I think you're really exaggerating the problem of US car culture. The US could significantly reduce it's carbon footprint by simply expanding the existing rail networks. Most cities have rail networks, it's just that every city except NYC has pretty shitty coverage. (Don't know about Chicago.) The San Francisco BART system is pretty good, but it's also frustratingly limited to a few lines.

[madd0ct0r]

We've touched on Power Generation and waffled a lot about transport.

How about the 3rd elephant? Industry:

[Borgholio]

Coal power plants? Easy. Go Nuclear.

[Channel72]

He's talking about the 17% from Industrial

[Borgholio]

I see no reason why CO2 scrubbers used by fossil fuel powerplants can't be used for industrial smokestacks and exhausts. Or alternatively, a carbon tax that is then directly used to fund carbon removal from other sources and balance out the industrial emissions.

[Darth Tanner]

Or alternatively, a carbon tax that is then directly used to fund carbon removal from other sources and balance out the industrial emissions.

Or how to deport your carbon emitting industry to China.

[Borgholio]

Or how to deport your carbon emitting industry to China.

Well from a corporate standpoint that works best, yes. But that's only shifting the pollution elsewhere. Ideally, a company doing business or headquartered in the US should not be able to get around that carbon tax just by shifting their factory overseas. I mean as a very simple example, if a company emits CO2, charge them a tax which is then used to plant enough trees to absorb that amount of CO2. Or help fund new nuclear plants and shut down coal plants to help balance out the load. There are many creative ways to reduce overall CO2 output even if the factory is halfway around the world.

[madd0ct0r]

there's some efficiency gains to be made in industry through CHP - helpful anywhere you need electricity AND heat energy.

as well as CO2 scrubbers, there's also using biomass wood pellets. Roll containers of it down the rail from the north. Hell, use pyrolisis plants if you want and bury the char as a CO2 sink. Something like that'd be needed for concrete production, since the CO2 coming off is unavoidable (about half a tonne CO2 per tonne concrete, if I recall)
Of course, heat energy can also be supplemented by concentrated solar thermal, but that's a little harder to work into full schedule. Storage is marginally easier short term then elec, and much much harder long term.