Tangential: ranked choice voting seems to be gaining momentum in progressive states. Definitely keep pushing for that, too.

Hard disagree.

This week, I’m designing a circuit which would traditionally use relays, but I’m considering IGBTs instead. IGBTs weren’t designed for my industry, but they’re so cheap (thanks to quadcopters) that I can just overspec them and get the job done despite the lack of optimization.

Grid scale energy storage was already being researched before the EV boom – remember when people stopped talking about vanadium-flow? EV batteries undercut stationary-optimized batteries in $/kWh because EVs are lucrative enough to drive the research that much harder. Without the EV industry as the incubator for competing battery tech, stationary storage would still cost what it did in 2010.

In the USA, out of every economic sector, transportation creates the most GHG emissions [EPA1], and the majority of that is from passenger vehicles [EPA2]. Significant portions of the industrial sector’s emissions come from refining automotive fuel [EPA3]. US total GHG emissions are down around 20% from their peak in 2005, but almost all of that has come from the electrical power sector [CBO1][CBO2]. Vehicular pollution has dramatic direct health impact on top of GHG emissions [HSPH].

Transport emissions are the long pole in the tent for the US. Solutions to that will be the focal point of US climate strategy for the next decade. Barring the demolition of the majority of US housing to re-establish walkability, our two best solutions are EVs and public transit.

EVs cut lifecycle emissions by about 55-60%. [UCS][ANL][MIT][ICCT][BNEF][CB][MIT][IEA]

Public transit cuts lifecycle emissions by… about 55-60%. [IEA][AFDC][USDOT]

Neither is a magic bullet. Both get their asses kicked by bicyles (and to a lesser degree, microcars). Both get better with increased passengers per vehicle. Both can be fueled with renewable energy for additional reduction. Both can be manufactured with renewable energy for additional reduction. Both take surprisingly equivalent amounts of raw resources and energy. EVs need batteries that are carbon-intensive under current practices, but rail needs large quantities of steel which is equally carbon-intensive under current practices.

There are a ton of factors I can barely touch on here, so here’s a rapid-fire overview. Public transit offers unique advantages from an urbanist perspective and the liveability of cities [ST], but that’s objectively different from sustainability. The US has such low average ridership/occupancy that our busses have more emissions per passenger mile than our cars [AFDC1][AFDC2], and that was before the pandemic – it’s even worse now [NCBI]. Low ridership can be partly attributed to the incompatibility of American suburbs with public transit – which could be a major roadblock because 2/3rds of Americans own detatched homes [FRED], representing $52t [PRN] in middle-class wealth that they will likely defend with voting power. Climate solutions will need to maneuver around this voting bloc. I personally think individual EVs and intercity rail are complementary technologies – the more cheap (short-ranged) EVs are out there, the more people will lean on public transit for long trips. Heavy rail gets way better efficiency per vehicle mile than light rail or commuter rail and I have no clue why [APTA][ORNL], but I’m not as impressed by light rail as I expected to be. Since public transit and personal transport leverage different raw resources and face different challenges to adoption, we will achieve the most rapid decarbonization if we do both at the same time.

TL;DR

This is a huge, huge question, and anything short of a dissertation would fail to answer it objectively. My best answer is that the most effective solutions to climate change are diverse, engaging multiple technologies in parallel. EVs are a piece of the puzzle, but not a one-size-fits-all solution.

Huh. I had to google it, but you’re right – body wash isn’t technically soap, it’s detergent. So it’s less likely to leave a film, particularly in hard water.

You learn something new every day.

Fashion accessories. For most fashion (not workwear), the expensive stuff is made from the same material and in the same factories as the cheap stuff, they just market it harder.

Body wash. It’s watered-down soap. Just buy a bar of soap.

Amazon Prime. Amazon used to be space-age Sears. Now it’s just Aliexpress. Fake reviews and bribery are rampant, dangerously nonfunctional products get top recommendations, used and broken products get resold as new while untouched returns get thrown into landfills, Amazon Basics violates IP, and they’re putting ads in Prime Video now.

Microwaves and space heaters. The boxes may try to convince you otherwise, but the amount of heat these devices can deliver is bottlenecked by the power outlet. Every 1100W microwave is just as effective as the others. If you’re paying more, it’s for looks and for features you’ll never use like popcorn mode.

Electronics, for most people. Most people won’t get more use out of a new $1500 phone than a last-gen model from the same manufacturer for $500. Do you really want a $200 smart coffee maker, or a $20 dumb coffee maker with a $10 plug-in timer?

Software. Obligatory FOSS plug. I don’t blame people for sticking to what’s familiar, but if you have the time and energy to spare tinkering, most software out there has a good free or open-source equivalent these days. At least for personal use. In my use case, LibreOffice beats Microsoft Word, Photopea beats Photoshop, and Google Sheets beats Excel.

Mercedes is an outlier. Try comparing Toyota with Lexus, Nissan with Infiniti, Chevy with Cadillac, or Ford with Lincoln. In all of these instances, the luxury marques have equivalent or better reliability than their economy counterparts.

Of course, whether or not the reliability and features are worth the cost is a different question entirely. (I generally lean towards no.)

There’s progress being made on that front. According to the internet, there are already a lot of cougars in my area.

You’re not alone there. America’s fragile social safety nets and minimal workers’ rights mean we’re all one bad day away from being in your position.

• Chemo can cost $50k, and FMLA exists (somehow) but only covers 3 months. A cancer diagnosis could easily wipe out six figures of savings.
• Most employers require prompt attendance, so a car crash that leaves you dependent on America’s crumbling public transit systems will likely lead to losing your job.
• The GOP is trying to kill off Social Security, so if you ever want to retire, you might have to save twice as much as what’s traditionally advised.
• With climate change being what it is, losing your house to a hurricane or wildfire is a much bigger threat than it used to be.
• Economic swings, downsizing, and “k-shaped recoveries” can make jobs vanish or become unsustainable without warning.

Even for the top 10%, saving for these contingencies typically precludes a wealthy lifestyle, particularly for younger people with fewer savings. There’s now an entire demographic of (mostly millenial) Americans with traditionally high-paying jobs who still live at or below middle-class aspirations due to saving: HENRY, or High Earner, Not Rich Yet.

Tailpipe emissions? No. Round-trip emissions? Yes.

Biofuel sucks CO2 from the atmosphere while the plants or algae grow, then releases it again when the fuel is burned. It’s net-zero in the literal sense. They only have a GHG footprint if fossil fuels are used during the processing. In the US for example, during the processing of corn into ethanol, they burn natural gas for heat because it’s convenient and cheap. So the GHG footprint of American corn ethanol is approximately the same as gasoline.

Make no mistake, this is a publicity stunt and you shouldn’t expect Virgin Atlantic to follow through. But SAF is feasible.

Cost: Currently, according to Argus Media, SAF is around $6.69/gal compared to $2.85/gal for jet fuel. Jet fuel accounts for between 15% and 20% of airline operating costs per US BTS reports. So using SAF would increase operating costs by 22-35%. Given that airfare fluctuates around 20% depending on whether or not it’s a tuesday, that’s actually not bad at all. (Also, I think the airlines could fully absorb that price increase if it weren’t for the deadweight of shareholders, stock value manipulation, and executive bonuses.)

Scaling: Despite how hard America tries, there’s only so much used fry oil. Biofuel needs farmland, and there isn’t enough farmland to serve the automotive sector. Given typical yields, we would need about 373m acres of biofuel farmland, which is every last inch of unused farmable land the US has. But aviation is a different story. According to the EIA, the US uses 8.81 million barrels of gasoline a day, 2.98 mb/d of diesel, but only 1.5mb/d of jet fuel. That’s an order of magnitude less fuel, and an order of magnitude less farmland.

Sustainability: This one’s trickier. Biofuel doesn’t need to be produced using fossil fuels, but usually is. The US’s 893m acres of farmland produce only 10.6% of our GHG emissions. I think the biggest concerns would be increased water, pesticide, and herbicide usage. I am also not sure of the impacts on other nations with different geography or agricultural potential. I am not well-equipped to quantify those impacts.