Utilities have a problem: the public wants 100% renewable energy, and quick

RegGuheert said:

GRA said:

RegGuheert said:

The general public has no idea what converting the grid to renewable energy will cost mainly because they have been lied to repeatedly by pundits who claim that it will cost them next to nothing to accomplish. In Germany, they even told that renewable energy would be cheaper than what was there before. Now, after being heavily taxed and having their rates increased to be some of the highest on the planet, they are starting to find out how badly they have been swindled

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Yet the German public still supports it overwhelmingly, because they consider it worth doing: https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/polls-reveal-citizens-support-energiewende

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The German public has been lied to to decades about Energiewende. It is only within the last couple of weeks that German federal auditors started telling the truth about what is actually going on:

GWPF said:

The expenditure for the ecological restructuring of the energy supply is in a “blatant disproportion to the hitherto poor yield”, said President of the Court of Audit Kay Scheller in Berlin: “The Federal Government is at risk to fail with its once in a generation project of the Energiewende”.

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Has that report changed the public's support of the Energiewende?

RegGuheert said:

GRA said:

Reg, where have I ever advocated lying to the public, or that going 100% renewables would be easy?

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In fact, in the very next paragraph, you say this:

GRA said:

The facts don't matter in this case, because the public isn't willing to hear them.

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If that's not advocating for lying to the public, then YOU don't know what is. No where is there anything in EPRI's survey that says the public does not want to hear the facts. You made that up completely in your mind as part of your misguided advocacy. The EPRI survey just says that different percentages of the public support moving to renewables IF it only raises electricity prices by various amounts. Nowhere does it say that people do not want to know what the actual costs will be.

Put simply, the EPRI survey says what is says. It doesn't say what you or Vox are saying that it says.

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No, Reg, what I said was that the public wasn't willing to listen to the message, so the facts aren't going to matter. What's needed is to find a message that they will listen to, so that the facts can be presented to them. Searching for the right way to present your message is what focus groups do. When a MNL newbie recently asked which arguments he could use to convince more people of the benefits of EVs, most of us who answered him said something like "depends on the audience," i.e. different arguments will resonate more depending on the audience's priorities. What the Vox article pointed out is that "Utilities say 100% renewables can't be done, or will be too expensive" is a message that the public simply isn't willing to listen to, at least at this time, so a different message is necessary if the utilities are to convince the public of the facts. In short, some version of "Yes, but" is needed.

RegGuheert said:

GRA said:

The fact that we can do the first 2/3rds using today's tech with relatively little disruption or extra cost...

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What you claim to be a "fact" is merely a fantasy of yours which is disproved by actual experience. It may be possible to do that in Texas, but the idea that you can apply such analyses to the rest of the U.S., particularly in the Northeast, is extremely naive.

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Not naive at all, Reg. It will take a great deal of new transmission lines and interconnections to get low-cost VRE power from where it's generated to the consumers, which will be expensive as well as time-consuming due to Nimbyism and environmental regs, but it involves relatively little disruption of the existing grid (relatively small storage can help with stability). Mass storage will be the real issue to get from 67% to 100%, and that will be a lot more expensive.

In the NE, IIRR PV on rooftops is, relative to Germany, a better deal, because they've got more insolation - Berlin's average year round is about 110W/m^2, or about a 11% capacity factor; IIRC the NE is somewhat higher but I forget the figure, and they've still got nukes in any case, which hopefully they can be persuaded to keep for now and eliminate coal and reduce NG, instead of going down Germany's route of ditching the nukes first while keeping the coal plants in operation. Germany's rooftop PV deployment was dependent on heavy feed-in tariffs guaranteed for 20 years, and I don't see that level of support likely happening here. Anyway, rooftop PV may or may not be more expensive than building all those long-distance transmission lines (PV in the desert southwest has capacity factors in the mid-20% range), but can be done locally. However, on and especially offshore wind (the NE resources are good to excellent) is slowly coming along (see Nimbyism); emphasizing the latter rather than rooftop PV seems to me likely to be a lower-cost approach than rooftop PV there, but the latter will be faster. We'll see whether or not the public's willing to pay for it.

GRA said:

Has that report changed the public's support of the Energiewende?

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In the last two weeks with the German mainstream media not reporting it? Did I mention that the German people have been lied to for decades?

GRA said:

No, Reg, what I said was that the public wasn't willing to listen to the message, so the facts aren't going to matter. What's needed is to find a message that they will listen to, so that the facts can be presented to them. Searching for the right way to present your message is what focus groups do. When a MNL newbie recently asked which arguments he could use to convince more people of the benefits of EVs, most of us who answered him said something like "depends on the audience," i.e. different arguments will resonate more depending on the audience's priorities. What the Vox article pointed out is that "Utilities say 100% renewables can't be done, or will be too expensive" is a message that the public simply isn't willing to listen to, at least at this time, so a different message is necessary if the utilities are to convince the public of the facts. In short, some version of "Yes, but" is needed.

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And then you recommended the following for utility messaging:

GRA said:

The fact that in the 100% renewables case it almost certainly will be impossible at a reasonable price (until the advent of cheap mass storage) is too bad for the utilities, but they'll just have to deal with that unrealistic expectation by pitching the right message - the article gives examples of the approaches that won't work as well as those which the public's more receptive to, and it's the latter that will get the public to accept a more realistic approach, e.g. something like option #2 aka the California method.

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In other words, you recommend lying to the public.

The issue with messaging does not lie with the utilities. The utilities are the experts in this area, NOT the public. The problem with messaging lies with Vox and with you and with WetEV and many others who are constantly telling (or implying to) the public that this transition will be cheap and easy when all the facts tell us that it will be extremely costly, that it will not achieve the stated goals and that it will do MORE damage to the environment than the status quo.

Fortunately, some are starting to come around. After one of the states in Australia decimated their power grid, the leaders of that country have finally realized that their power grid needs to meet the needs of Australians.

GRA said:

RegGuheert said:

GRA said:

The fact that we can do the first 2/3rds using today's tech with relatively little disruption or extra cost...

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What you claim to be a "fact" is merely a fantasy of yours which is disproved by actual experience. It may be possible to do that in Texas, but the idea that you can apply such analyses to the rest of the U.S., particularly in the Northeast, is extremely naive.

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Not naive at all, Reg. It will take a great deal of new transmission lines and interconnections to get low-cost VRE power from where it's generated to the consumers, which will be expensive as well as time-consuming due to Nimbyism and environmental regs, but it involves relatively little disruption of the existing grid (relatively small storage can help with stability). Mass storage will be the real issue to get from 67% to 100%, and that will be a lot more expensive.

In the NE, IIRR PV on rooftops is, relative to Germany, a better deal, because they've got more insolation - Berlin's average year round is about 110W/m^2, or about a 11% capacity factor; IIRC the NE is somewhat higher but I forget the figure, and they've still got nukes in any case, which hopefully they can be persuaded to keep for now and eliminate coal and reduce NG, instead of going down Germany's route of ditching the nukes first while keeping the coal plants in operation. Germany's rooftop PV deployment was dependent on heavy feed-in tariffs guaranteed for 20 years, and I don't see that level of support likely happening here. Anyway, rooftop PV may or may not be more expensive than building all those long-distance transmission lines (PV in the desert southwest has capacity factors in the mid-20% range), but can be done locally. However, on and especially offshore wind (the NE resources are good to excellent) is slowly coming along (see Nimbyism); emphasizing the latter rather than rooftop PV seems to me likely to be a lower-cost approach than rooftop PV there, but the latter will be faster. We'll see whether or not the public's willing to pay for it.

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You completely missed my point, so I'll state it succinctly: We CANNOT " do the first 2/3rds using today's tech with relatively little disruption or extra cost" in the U.S. That is a lie that you are spreading. If you want to address the issue of messaging, address your own first.

Again, the ends do not justify the means. We need to educate the public about BOTH the promise AND the drawbacks of renewable energy on the grid. We need to teach them that, with the exception of the use of hydropower, where it has been tried in large, modern economies, it has neither been cheap nor particularly successful and the damage to the environment has been significant. In some cases, the deployment of "renewable" energy results in the use of MORE fossil fuels than does sticking with the status quo. (The best example of this is the installation of wind generators in the North Sea, where the fossil-fuel consumption by diesel-powered ships required for servicing of those units should outstrip the energy production by well over an order of magnitude.)

There are plenty of places where we can substitute renewables for fossil-fueled generators TODAY and get a very good result. But 100% mandates trump common sense and result in stranded assets and massive waste. No thanks.

RegGuheert said:

There are plenty of places where we can substitute renewables for fossil-fueled generators TODAY and get a very good result. But 100% mandates trump common sense and result in stranded assets .

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Looking after your portfolio, Reg ?
If you want to see **really** big costs to society, add up the cost of burning those fossil fool assets.

100% renewables is a straw-man argument that lets each side play the "you first" card. The smart way to handle this is a progressive carbon tax on a 2040 timeline to global net-zero. Then market efficiencies can play their role.

RegGuheert said:

The issue with messaging does not lie with the utilities. The utilities are the experts in this area, NOT the public. The problem with messaging lies with Vox and with you and with WetEV and many others who are constantly telling (or implying to) the public that this transition will be cheap and easy when all the facts tell us that it will be extremely costly, that it will not achieve the stated goals and that it will do MORE damage to the environment than the status quo.

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Oh someone mentioned my name? How special. Ah gee, thanks.

The very first part of this transition has been expensive. See this link to find out why:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swanson%27s_law

Someone had to buy the very expensive first solar cells. Sure, some can be put into remote places for isolated power, and solar powered street signs; but there are a lot that are competing directly against fossil fuels (and would lose without subsidies). If you project yesterday's cost into future and beyond, then it will be costly indeed. Like prediction of the cost of a cell phone based on 1960 transistor costs.

I was a solar skeptic, and to an extent still am. Not on the first 1%, which was due to manufacturing learning costs, but on the last 1%, due to storage costs. To a large extent, the first 1% can be looked at as an investment. Made by the taxpayers and ratepayers for the benefit of getting the next 20% or whatever the final solar percentage is at a reasonable cost. Note that solar in places with high air conditioning loads has a fairly high correlation. This means that solar is to an extent replacing high cost peaking power plants, which are often old, inefficient and unreliable. Even without any subsidies, solar will be installed, especially in sunny, hot places.

I fail to see how the last 1% or even the last 20% of power can be supplied by solar/wind/hydro/geothermal/wave/tidal/biofuels. I think we need something else non-fossil, and there are not many choices:

Fusion needs a lot of spending to find out if it is viable. We should continue to invest.

Fission is the way we can do this today. Germany shutting down the fission plants was counterproductive.

RegGuheert said:

We CANNOT " do the first 2/3rds using today's tech with relatively little disruption or extra cost" in the U.S. That is a lie that you are spreading. If you want to address the issue of messaging, address your own first.

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France managed to do this with nuclear power. Are we less advanced than the French?


(Comparing Emmanuel Macron and Donald Trump, I fear the answer is probably yes)

WetEV said:

I was a solar skeptic, and to an extent still am. Not on the first 1%, which was due to manufacturing learning costs, but on the last 1%, due to storage costs. To a large extent, the first 1% can be looked at as an investment. Made by the taxpayers and ratepayers for the benefit of getting the next 20% or whatever the final solar percentage is at a reasonable cost. Note that solar in places with high air conditioning loads has a fairly high correlation. This means that solar is to an extent replacing high cost peaking power plants, which are often old, inefficient and unreliable. Even without any subsidies, solar will be installed, especially in sunny, hot places.

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As big a fan of solar as I am, I recognize that it becomes less of an option the farther one gets from the equator.

WetEV said:

I fail to see how the last 1% or even the last 20% of power can be supplied by solar/wind/hydro/geothermal/wave/tidal/biofuels. I think we need something else non-fossil, and there are not many choices:

Fusion needs a lot of spending to find out if it is viable. We should continue to invest.

Fission is the way we can do this today. Germany shutting down the fission plants was counterproductive.

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I think we are in full agreement here. I know you do not accept cold fusion/LENR, but after nearly three decades of research there are thousands of papers published on the topic and the science is very solid, if incomplete. It is the only type of man-made fusion which has ever shown greater-than-unity EROEI, and the numbers are quite good.

Since I am also not a fan of the current wind-based energy-generation technologies, I am eyeing technologies like KiteGen as possible replacements for the current approach.

WetEV said:

RegGuheert said:

We CANNOT " do the first 2/3rds using today's tech with relatively little disruption or extra cost" in the U.S. That is a lie that you are spreading. If you want to address the issue of messaging, address your own first.

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France managed to do this with nuclear power. Are we less advanced than the French?

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I should not have discounted fission power. (BTW, didn't France make the boneheaded decision a couple of years ago to abandon nuclear in favor of renewables? At the risk of sounding like a broken record, while the addition of some renewable generation, particularly PV, likely makes very good sense in France, a wholesale changeover makes virtually none.)

Unfortunately, that is an option that CA has decided it does not want in its mix. Frankly, that MAY be OK for CA, since they are mostly in sunnier climes.

But even if that is the case, the idea that GRA promotes that says that what CA does is good for the entire country is total nonsense, particularly when it comes to energy generation. Every region of the country has their own mix of resources and needs that they must balance and one size simply does not fit all.

I think that the definition of renewable energy needs to be refined, AND agree upon. To me, the road to renewable energy MUST first be initiated by a worldwide reduction of the consumption of oil...

Oil is not renewable, and finite. When it is gone, the world will suddenly be a very different place, and most governments and consumers STILL have not come to realize... Use of renewable fuels, bio oil, etoh, and wood IS renewable, and can be increased. Without these change first, all the talk in the world is worthless. You are pissing in the ocean...

RegGuheert said:

GRA said:

Has that report changed the public's support of the Energiewende?

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In the last two weeks with the German mainstream media not reporting it? Did I mention that the German people have been lied to for decades?

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Assuming that they are willing to pay attention to what I gather is an anti-AGCC source, do you think that they will decide that the Energiewende was a stupid idea and go back to what they were doing before, or that it's a good idea they wish to continue, but that they want to be smarter about how they go about it?

RegGuheert said:

GRA said:

No, Reg, what I said was that the public wasn't willing to listen to the message, so the facts aren't going to matter. What's needed is to find a message that they will listen to, so that the facts can be presented to them. Searching for the right way to present your message is what focus groups do. When a MNL newbie recently asked which arguments he could use to convince more people of the benefits of EVs, most of us who answered him said something like "depends on the audience," i.e. different arguments will resonate more depending on the audience's priorities. What the Vox article pointed out is that "Utilities say 100% renewables can't be done, or will be too expensive" is a message that the public simply isn't willing to listen to, at least at this time, so a different message is necessary if the utilities are to convince the public of the facts. In short, some version of "Yes, but" is needed.

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And then you recommended the following for utility messaging:

GRA said:

The fact that in the 100% renewables case it almost certainly will be impossible at a reasonable price (until the advent of cheap mass storage) is too bad for the utilities, but they'll just have to deal with that unrealistic expectation by pitching the right message - the article gives examples of the approaches that won't work as well as those which the public's more receptive to, and it's the latter that will get the public to accept a more realistic approach, e.g. something like option #2 aka the California method.

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In other words, you recommend lying to the public.

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No, I don't, Reg. If I'm going to pitch the advantages of BEVs to a bunch of oil roughnecks who drive big, powerful dually diesel pickups with Nascar and American flag decals on them, which message is the one they're most likely to listen to and be persuaded by: that everything they are doing is bad for the environment and the country, they should be ashamed of themselves, and they all should be driving iMiEVs?

Or, that EVs will allow us to give OPEC the finger, we won't have to send troops to fight for oil, that we lead the world in this tech, and anyone who thinks they have a fast car can meet me in the parking lot and drag race the Tesla Model S/X P100D and Workhorse W-15 I've brought with me?

To a group of overbooked soccer moms, I'm going to emphasize the convenience/time savings of at-home charging, the reduced noise and air pollution, and energy/national security issues (what mom wants her kids to have to fight for access to Mideast oil?).

To a group of CPAs I'm going to emphasize life cycle costs. And so on.

The same goes for choosing the best way to get the message across that 100% renewables will be a very expensive and difficult goal, but that something short of that (I've suggested 2/3rds, but pick your number for whatever amount of extra cost you're comfortable with) is doable with no more than 10% (or 30% or whatever) price increase the public is willing to bear. In short, it's not about ignoring the facts, it's about presenting the facts in a way that the public won't simply stop listening to while giving people options, and then the public can debate which of those options they prefer. That is the "Yes, But" message, as opposed to the "No" message that the survey says the public isn't willing to listen to.

RegGuheert said:

The issue with messaging does not lie with the utilities. The utilities are the experts in this area, NOT the public. The problem with messaging lies with Vox and with you and with WetEV and many others who are constantly telling (or implying to) the public that this transition will be cheap and easy when all the facts tell us that it will be extremely costly, that it will not achieve the stated goals and that it will do MORE damage to the environment than the status quo.

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Reg, if you really think that I'm doing all this for some nefarious purpose or that I am unwilling to tell the public that the transition will be expensive, have environmental costs and take years, then there's really nothing more to say, and I won't waste any more energy on trying to correct your misinterpretations.

GRA said:

Assuming that they are willing to pay attention to what I gather is an anti-AGCC source, do you think that they will decide that the Energiewende was a stupid idea and go back to what they were doing before, or that it's a good idea they wish to continue, but that they want to be smarter about how they go about it?

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:?: :?: Regardless of what you think of this source, they are reporting the findings of Germany's top federal auditors. The alarmist media is unwilling to report on this fact, thus continuing their deceptive campaign about Energiewende.

The German people have been deceived for decades and they need to learn the following truths (in case they are not already obvious already):
1) Rather than reducing their electricity prices, Energiewende is increasing them massively, both through taxation and subsidies and through higher rates.
2) Installing windmills in the North Sea does the exact opposite of what it was puported to do: Instead of providing cheap, reliable electricity while reducing the consumption of fossil fuels, these installations provide expensive, unreliable electricity while increasing the consumption of fossil fuels.
3) Leveling the forests in Germany to erect windmills is bad for the environment, not good for the environment.
4) While the USA is reducing emissions rapidly, Germany is holding their emissions virtually flat.
5) The EU as a whole is increasing emissions by roughly the same amount as the US has been reducing them and that the EU is growing their emissons about 1/3 as fast as China:



Perhaps the best thing to tell them is that all their virtue signalling is actually bad for the environment. If they want to improve the environment on this planet, they should only make the changes that REDUCE environmental damage, not those that increase it.

GRA said:

No, I don't, Reg. If I'm going to pitch the advantages of BEVs to a bunch of oil roughnecks who drive big, powerful dually diesel pickups with Nascar and American flag decals on them, which message is the one they're most likely to listen to and be persuaded by: that everything they are doing is bad for the environment and the country, they should be ashamed of themselves, and they all should be driving iMiEVs?

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It's probably best if you don't tell them that you hate the USA.

GRA said:

Or, that EVs will allow us to give OPEC the finger, we won't have to send troops to fight for oil, that we lead the world in this tech, and anyone who thinks they have a fast car can meet me in the parking lot and drag race the Tesla Model S/X P100D and Workhorse W-15 I've brought with me?

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When did you purchase your Tesla Model S, X, and Workhorse W-15? Or are you still driving a gasoline-powered 4WD CUV?

GRA said:

To a group of overbooked soccer moms, I'm going to emphasize the convenience/time savings of at-home charging, the reduced noise and air pollution, and energy/national security issues (what mom wants her kids to have to fight for access to Mideast oil?).

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While I agree that is an excellent message supporting BEVs, don't you think that is a bit off-topic in this thread you created pushing 100% renewable energy on the electricity grid?

GRA said:

To a group of CPAs I'm going to emphasize life cycle costs. And so on.

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Interesting. So you will tell those CPAs what you come here and tell us frequently: That EVs are too expensive for the public, but that H2 FCVs are a great thing to spend money on?

GRA said:

That is the "Yes, But" message, as opposed to the "No" message that the survey says the public isn't willing to listen to.

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Again, there is no evidence given in the survey referenced that the public is unwilling to listen to any particular message. Keep imagining that the public is not willing to listen, but know that they cannot listen to the message that is never given

RegGuheert said:

Perhaps the best thing to tell them is that all their virtue signalling is actually bad for the environment. If they want to improve the environment on this planet, they should only make the changes that REDUCE environmental damage, not those that increase it.

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You didn't mention closing of nuclear plants, the largest example.

WetEV said:

You didn't mention closing of nuclear plants, the largest example.

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Agreed. Thanks again for pointing that out.

RegGuheert said:

2) Installing windmills in the North Sea does the exact opposite of what it was puported to do: Instead of providing cheap, reliable electricity while reducing the consumption of fossil fuels, these installations provide expensive, unreliable electricity while increasing the consumption of fossil fuels.

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I fail to see how this can be so, longer term.

a “typical German North Sea site,” GE says, each Haliade-X will produce about 67GWh annually, “enough clean power for up to 16,000 households per turbine"

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https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/3/8/17084158/wind-turbine-power-energy-blades

So just how can building and maintaining one of these provide a long term net increase in consumption of fossil fuels?

I can see how the first year might be negative, counting install and manufacturing... And how design issues might doom some designs of wind turbines, which has happened and likely will happen.

But excluding a horrid design failure... Why?

WetEV said:

So just how can building and maintaining one of these provide a long term net increase in consumption of fossil fuels?

I can see how the first year might be negative, counting install and manufacturing... And how design issues might doom some designs of wind turbines, which has happened and likely will happen.

But excluding a horrid design failure... Why?

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It's a fair question, especially since I provided no reference with my post. I had posted about this back in May of 2016. Here is some of the text from the link provided in that post:

A press release by Germany’s Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft reports how offshore North and Baltic Sea wind turbines need to be in operation for 25 years before they become profitable, but that they are prone to shortened lifespans due to rust from the harsh sea environment.

As a result the wind turbine installations need extra and very costly maintenance to ensure that they survive long enough. It’s turning out to be an insurmountable challenge.

Maintenance to turbines cannot be done at a dry dock, rather, because they are permanently fixed out to sea, repair work and maintenance have to be done offshore in raw and windy conditions. Not only is this expensive, but it also puts the lives and limbs of repair personnel at risk.

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The figure that is especially astonishing about offshore wind power turbines is that the “maintenance and repair costs of offshore wind turbines over the years add up to be a hundred times the cost of the new turbine itself,” says Peter Plagemann of the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology and Applied Material Science (IFAM) in Bremen.

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RegGuheert said:

GRA said:

Assuming that they are willing to pay attention to what I gather is an anti-AGCC source, do you think that they will decide that the Energiewende was a stupid idea and go back to what they were doing before, or that it's a good idea they wish to continue, but that they want to be smarter about how they go about it?

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:?: :?: Regardless of what you think of this source, they are reporting the findings of Germany's top federal auditors. The alarmist media is unwilling to report on this fact, thus continuing their deceptive campaign about Energiewende.

The German people have been deceived for decades and they need to learn the following truths (in case they are not already obvious already):
1) Rather than reducing their electricity prices, Energiewende is increasing them massively, both through taxation and subsidies and through higher rates.
2) Installing windmills in the North Sea does the exact opposite of what it was puported to do: Instead of providing cheap, reliable electricity while reducing the consumption of fossil fuels, these installations provide expensive, unreliable electricity while increasing the consumption of fossil fuels.
3) Leveling the forests in Germany to erect windmills is bad for the environment, not good for the environment.
4) While the USA is reducing emissions rapidly, Germany is holding their emissions virtually flat.
5) The EU as a whole is increasing emissions by roughly the same amount as the US has been reducing them and that the EU is growing their emissons about 1/3 as fast as China:

<snip>

Perhaps the best thing to tell them is that all their virtue signalling is actually bad for the environment. If they want to improve the environment on this planet, they should only make the changes that REDUCE environmental damage, not those that increase it.

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Reg, the fact that you or I may think they are doing the wrong thing in one way or another (like my opinion that they should have got rid of coal before the nukes in order to reduce emissions) is beside the point; they believe they are doing the right thing in the right way, and since neither you or I hold German citizenship, live or can vote there, our opinions carry little weight. They have made the decisions they've made for what they believe are the right reasons. I ask again, do you believe that if they were presented with the information you cite above, they will decide that the Energiewende was a stupid idea and go back to what they were doing before, or that it's a good idea they wish to continue, but that they want to be smarter about how they go about it?

Similarly, California is going for 100% zero carbon (not 100% renewables) by 2045. Whether or not you think this is a good idea, the public here supports it, and since you aren't paying higher taxes and electric bills here to bring that about but we are, your opinion is irrelevant until you can convince people here that your values are right and theirs are wrong. There may come a time when we say, okay, this is too expensive, let's slow things down or change the goal, but so far that's not the case, and given that we're actually ahead of schedule on our VRE % goals and costs have been dropping continuously, that seems unlikely to happen anytime soon.

RegGuheert said:

GRA said:

No, I don't, Reg. If I'm going to pitch the advantages of BEVs to a bunch of oil roughnecks who drive big, powerful dually diesel pickups with Nascar and American flag decals on them, which message is the one they're most likely to listen to and be persuaded by: that everything they are doing is bad for the environment and the country, they should be ashamed of themselves, and they all should be driving iMiEVs?

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It's probably best if you don't tell them that you hate the USA.

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Huh? Where did you drag that up from? And you didn't answer my question.

RegGuheert said:

GRA said:

Or, that EVs will allow us to give OPEC the finger, we won't have to send troops to fight for oil, that we lead the world in this tech, and anyone who thinks they have a fast car can meet me in the parking lot and drag race the Tesla Model S/X P100D and Workhorse W-15 I've brought with me?

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When did you purchase your Tesla Model S, X, and Workhorse W-15? Or are you still driving a gasoline-powered 4WD CUV?

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Obviously, 'I' referred to someone doing this professionally as a lecture/demo tour, as I'm sure you were aware. Why pretend to be obtuse, when you obviously aren't?

RegGuheert said:

GRA said:

To a group of overbooked soccer moms, I'm going to emphasize the convenience/time savings of at-home charging, the reduced noise and air pollution, and energy/national security issues (what mom wants her kids to have to fight for access to Mideast oil?).

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While I agree that is an excellent message supporting BEVs, don't you think that is a bit off-topic in this thread you created pushing 100% renewable energy on the electricity grid?

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Just giving examples of how you alter the emphasis of the message for the audience, while presenting the same info. My personal approach when presenting a product/tech is to list all the possible advantages (and disadvantages) and let the audience decide which ones they care about and which they don't or chose to ignore. I may alter the sequence in which I present those advantages, depending on the audience's demographics.

RegGuheert said:

GRA said:

To a group of CPAs I'm going to emphasize life cycle costs. And so on.

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Interesting. So you will tell those CPAs what you come here and tell us frequently: That EVs are too expensive for the public, but that H2 FCVs are a great thing to spend money on?

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Reg, since you love to troll through my past posts, please feel free to to provide a post from me where I've claimed that FCEVs make any economic sense (without large subsidies) at this time? I've never said any such thing, and you know it. And speaking of OT. . .

RegGuheert said:

GRA said:

That is the "Yes, But" message, as opposed to the "No" message that the survey says the public isn't willing to listen to.

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Again, there is no evidence given in the survey referenced that the public is unwilling to listen to any particular message. Keep imagining that the public is not willing to listen, but know that they cannot listen to the message that is never given

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I'm happy to give the public as much info as they can handle, but if they simply stop listening because what I'm telling them conflicts with one or more of their most strongly held opinions, the message will never get across. I mean, If I go into a church and tell everyone there that there is no god and now here's some other information, are most of them going to pay attention to what I say from that point on?

Directly related to the above discussion:

McKinsey: Less carbon means more flexibility: Recognizing the rise of new resources in the electricity mix

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https://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=26692#p538653

I'd have worded the title differently, to something like "Less carbon requires more flexibility", as the article is about things that are being or may need to be done to bring that about.

https://abc7.com/society/french-protesters-angry-over-fuel-taxes-clash-with-police/4753619/

"last week's protest comprised more than 120,000 protesters across the country.. Taxes on diesel fuel have gone up seven euro cents (nearly eight U.S. cents) and are to keep climbing in the coming years... Macron has so far held strong and insisted the fuel tax rises are a necessary pain to reduce France's dependence on fossil fuels and fund renewable energy investments..."

But, but, but... the survey said people want clean energy and are willing to pay 30% more for it...

Folks - Surveys aren't always accurate in terms of assessing how people will react to higher costs in the real world. If my math is right, this is about a 5% increase in price and this is the real world reaction. Yet the study authors suggest that 30% higher cost for cleaner energy would be welcomed. Two people have already been killed. Yeah, that's a warm welcome.

DarthPuppy said:

https://abc7.com/society/french-protesters-angry-over-fuel-taxes-clash-with-police/4753619/

"last week's protest comprised more than 120,000 protesters across the country.. Taxes on diesel fuel have gone up seven euro cents (nearly eight U.S. cents) and are to keep climbing in the coming years... Macron has so far held strong and insisted the fuel tax rises are a necessary pain to reduce France's dependence on fossil fuels and fund renewable energy investments..."

But, but, but... the survey said people want clean energy and are willing to pay 30% more for it...

Folks - Surveys aren't always accurate in terms of assessing how people will react to higher costs in the real world. If my math is right, this is about a 5% increase in price and this is the real world reaction. Yet the study authors suggest that 30% higher cost for cleaner energy would be welcomed. Two people have already been killed. Yeah, that's a warm welcome.

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I''m not quite sure what relevance a poll of U.S. public opinion has to do with French public opinion, where they already pay far higher fuel taxes than we do here, but sure, it will affect some people heavily, and some will have strong opinions against it, and there's always people who show up just to bust things up (see extremist Occupy Wallstreet protesters). But will the French public as a whole vote that way? It should be noted that France already has the lowest GHGs/capita of any heavily industrialized country, thanks to the decision several decades back to build lots of standardized nukes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_greenhouse_gas_emissions_per_capita

These people are the idiots that bought diesel cars.
I love Karma

SageBrush said:

These people are the idiots that bought diesel cars.
I love Karma

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Seeing as how many EU governments encouraged them to do so by imposing lower taxes on diesel fuel for environmental reasons, it's hardly their fault:

Policies favouring the uptake of diesel fuel have succeeded in increasing diesel consumption over petrol for use in road transport. Largely, these policies were put in place in Europe because of the improved fuel efficiency (and reduced CO2 emissions) that are attributed to diesel fuels. Unfortunately the environmental disadvantages associated with diesel fuels were not fully realised until long after the policies were put in place. As recognised in ‘Tax Reforms in EU Member States 2014’ (EC, 2014), specific measures could be introduced adjusting the level and structure of fossil fuel excise duties so as to reflect the carbon and energy content of the fuels, and indexing environmental taxes to inflation.

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https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/fuel-prices-and-taxes