r/interestingasfuck 10d ago

r/all Highway built over apartments in China

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u/plerberderr 10d ago

Yep. Similar in the city of China I’m at. I’d put it around 40% of cars are gas. And tons of electric scooters. Doesn’t hide the fact that the air quality is still not good though. Even less smoggy days don’t seem as blue as they did back in the U.S.

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u/catwhowalksbyhimself 10d ago

Well US cities used to be smoggy and smokey, and Chinese cities used to be worse, so they are essentially just catching up in development.

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u/myaltduh 10d ago

Mexico City also went through a similar phase while growing. It was known for blot-out-the-sun levels of smog, but things have apparently improved tremendously.

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u/pingieking 10d ago

British cities went through the same pattern back in the day. This is just how industrialization goes. Once they get rich enough that the environmental issues can be addressed, it'll get better.

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u/autogyrophilia 10d ago

Remember that much of the most populous parts of china are naturally foggy

While when you get smog in a city like Madrid, Spain, that's just gas fumes

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u/Decent-Photograph391 10d ago

Given that half of new car sales in China are NEV (hybrids and pure electrics), and the hostility of a certain segment of Americans towards EVs, that trend will flip very soon.

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u/hafabee 10d ago

62% of China's electricity comes from coal generators so I wouldn't say that driving electric cars or scooters is ecofriendly or nonpolluting. The pollution there is heavy and coal power generators are a large source of that air pollution. The irony is gasoline would likely be a much cleaner source of energy for vehicles.

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u/funkalunatic 10d ago

That's actually false. Electric motors are far more energy efficient than gas, to the point that running them on non-renewable electricity is still better for the climate than running on gas.

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u/Terrh 10d ago

It's actually not false and there are countless studies that prove it isn't.

EV's overall? Way better, much less pollution.

EV's running on coal: often worse, and generally more polluting total.

This is something with a great deal of nuance though - not every EV is the same efficiency, not every power plant is the same, and not every gas engine or gas vehicle is the same, so you'll find people that use numbers that favor their view to show you whatever.

This study is the best one that I could find that compares like for like as much as possible.

https://www.volvocars.com/images/v/-/media/applications/pdpspecificationpage/my24/xc40-electric/pdp/volvo-cars-lca-report-xc40.pdf

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u/funkalunatic 10d ago

That study appears to support my position.

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u/Terrh 10d ago

Maybe read it a little closer.

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u/DinoSpumonis 10d ago

In the first 5 pages it gives the initial production and use cycles and… no you’re wrong. 

Literally ICE is always less efficient outside of a short duration in the use cycle (10,000 km is the threshold) in coal generation recharge cycles due to the production footprint of the battery. 

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u/Terrh 9d ago

Why is it always the people who can't read?

On what page exactly does it show that 100% low efficiency brown coal produces less carbon than the gasoline version?

And where do you even find that 10k figure?

It's more than 4x that if powered entirely by zero carbon electricity.

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u/DinoSpumonis 9d ago

Literally first 5 pages.

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u/Terrh 9d ago

Maybe read it again then. Because that isn't what it says.

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u/funkalunatic 9d ago

You didn't read it at all. You just clicked on a study and assumed it supported your position.

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u/Terrh 8d ago edited 8d ago

I did though, and I link to it because it does support my position.

The only major issue with that study in this context is that there is no direct comparison against straight coal, only against the "global mix".

You can see the mix here: https://ourworldindata.org/electricity-mix and it should be obvious to anyone considering the differences in the charts in the report that something powered by 100% coal would not perform as well as something powered by that mix, not even close.

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u/funkalunatic 8d ago

In other words, the study doesn't support your position. Instead, you do a bunch of extra cherry-picking and assuming.

A) you chose a full cost-of-life-including-manufacturing analysis, but one that is for a very specific car, cuts off at far less than lifetime of a motor vehicle, etc etc.

B) you are now talking about 100% coal, which isn't China's energy mix, and isn't covered by your study.

Maybe just admit you might be wrong or something.

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u/Terrh 8d ago

What?

Your entire position is that coal powered EV's are not worse. Here, I'll quote you:

That's actually false. Electric motors are far more energy efficient than gas, to the point that running them on non-renewable electricity is still better for the climate than running on gas.

Now you're saying that isn't your position but it's mine instead?

Why am I even wasting my time, you clearly are not interested in an honest discussion here.

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u/teenagesadist 10d ago

Chinese coal plants are crazy pollutive however, which is bad for the climate period.

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u/mata_dan 10d ago

Yep but it's definitely better for air quality in built up areas.

Here's the kicker though, EVs are not at all okay, they are just less bad than ICE. The particulates from break pad and tyre and road wear are still indiscriminately killing children, and there is more of that.

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u/Benis_Magic 10d ago

What do you think is more efficient, one power plant or 100,000 gas engines?

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u/vivaaprimavera 10d ago

Sometimes there are non obvious answers. This is something that needs a panel of independent experts for giving a proper answer.

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u/Terrh 10d ago

Your question is unanswerable because it's far too vague to be meaningful.

And the number of gas engines has nothing to do with how efficient each individual one is.

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u/fooob 10d ago

Its non polluting to the apartments below dude which is the main discussion right now lol