I have a new column this week on OnlySky. It’s about some unexpectedly hopeful news that shows progress fighting climate change.
The war with Iran has supercharged the world’s drive toward renewable energy. As oil and gas prices soar, people everywhere are looking for alternatives, like electric vehicles and plug-in solar panels. But is there enough renewable energy to displace fossil fuels in time to make a difference?
The answer is yes. Green energy is still a fraction of the world’s energy portfolio, but its share is climbing exponentially. It took almost seventy years to deploy the first terawatt of solar power, and only two years after that to deploy the second. We now have the industrial capacity to build an additional terawatt each and every year, which at a sustained pace would completely decarbonize the economy in less than twenty years. A future is in sight, not too distant, where we dispense with fossil fuels entirely.
Read the excerpt below, then click through to see the full piece. This column is free to read, but members of OnlySky also get special benefits, like member-only posts and a subscriber newsletter:
When gasoline is cheap, consumers flock to buy huge, wasteful trucks and SUVs. But Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz has caused prices to spike. As the price of gas climbs, more and more people are starting to see these fuel-guzzling vehicles as a painful financial burden.
According to surveys, $4 a gallon is the threshold at which a majority of Americans start cutting back on driving or looking at more fuel-efficient vehicles. The data bears that out: since the war started, there’s been a sharp upsurge of interest in EVs.
Gas-burning cars will always be at the mercy of the global oil market. Prices swing dramatically and unpredictably. A war half a world away brings instant pain in the pocketbook.
Meanwhile, electric vehicles are cheaper to recharge. They’re powered by the cheapest electricity in history, and they get the equivalent of 100 to 140 miles per gallon. Perhaps even more important, they’re dependably cheaper, especially if they’re powered by electricity generated by local renewables. No dictatorial regime or warmongering theocracy can shut off the sun or the wind.
I saw a statement recently that the UK’s carbon emissions are down to 50% of their peak, while in the same period the economy has doubled, so a fourfold reduction in the amount of carbon emissions for a unit of economic output.
True. But assuming there’s ANY petrol to be had, my ten-year-old ICE car will start whether the government wants it to or not. Short of physically sending some big lads round to my house and disabling it, obviously.
But your EV is at the mercy of over-the-air software updates that can turn it, in seconds and without your knowledge, into a rather uninspiring and unoriginal sculpture on your driveway. (Note: it’s a not unreasonable assumption that if you’re already an EV owner, you have the privilege of somewhere you own, off the road, to park (and charge) your car cheaply – unlike the majority of ICE car owners). And if you’re going to tell me that the manufacturers haven’t built in a backdoor that allows that, or if they have that they wouldn’t roll over the second the government asks to use it… I have a bridge you might be interested in buying.
The interesting thing is they wouldn’t have to bother coming to your house, and they wouldn’t necessarily do it to your neighbour’s car… if that fella voted Trump. Alternatively, once the move to EVs is complete (or nearly so), they could at the flick of a switch immobilise ALL unauthorised vehicles in any area they choose, even the ones already in motion.
They can’t shut off the sun or the wind, but they absolutely can shut off the software that controls the gadgets that turn those resources into usable energy – especially kinetic energy. Is all solar tech and wind turbine tech open-source and entirely free of backdoors? Are all EVs?
Ten years ago suggesting the US government would do something like this would have marked one out as a likely customer for the aluminium milliners. But how long is it now since a federally authorised masked force of thugs murdered two American citizens on the street in broad daylight in front of multiple video cameras without any repercussions?
In other news, the FCC this week made the first moves to ban US citizens from accessing the internet using equipment that wasn’t manufactured in the US. https://www.techradar.com/computing/wi-fi-broadband/the-us-just-banned-new-routers-that-arent-made-in-america-heres-what-it-means-for-your-wi-fi-network
Just the sort of thing a government would do as the first step to making it possible to just… switch off the internet for anyone it didn’t like. Or just everyone, come to that. All the articles I’ve read make it clear that this only applies to future sales, and that the government isn’t coming for the router you already have. NONE of the articles I’ve read include what I would have thought was the obvious word to append to that statement: YET.
Deeply sinister shit is afoot in the US, and worldwide, and forcing people out of cars that just… work and into machines that are iPhones on wheels is just a part of it.
Alternatively, once the move to EVs is complete (or nearly so), they could at the flick of a switch immobilise ALL unauthorised vehicles in any area they choose, even the ones already in motion.
Don’t car dealers already do that to any sort of new car when the buyer falls behind on payments?
Yes. But as I said in literally the first paragraph, in order to do that they have to go the effort of:
(a) finding your car and
(b) sending someone out with a tow truck or boot or other kind of external immobiliser to prevent you from moving it.
The difference is that modern cars can be immobilised remotely, individually (which is sinister enough) or (much worse) en masse, according to any criteria set by the people behind the immobilising. Want to stop black people getting around? Done. Every single civilian in a particular city? Flick of a switch. All registered Democrats? Ten seconds of work. If that idea doesn’t make your skin crawl I don’t know what to tell you.
The problem you are stating is a problem for all recent cars, not just EVs, and it is also not required for EVs to be this way. Further, you need access to gasoline, which is much harder to have a consistent access to then electricity. The idea that an ICE car is more free from government interference is laughable. Do you have a DIY oil processing setup? There’s nothing magic about the technology of EVs. They are actually much simpler than ICE cars. It’s the same basic setup as how an electric screwdriver works. And you can plug them into a solar panel.
You’re right, of course. These online immobilisation system are increasingly being fitted even to ICE and hybrid cars. We’re sleepwalking into a dystopia.
@2 sonofrojblake
You are conflating the power source of a car with the software within a car. A modern gasoline car will also have software in it (automatic transmission? GPS?), which are potentially at risk of glitchy software updates. In theory, a battery is just another power source, just like your gas tank. It does not *need* software, it’s just that people who like modern battery powered cars also like other modern stuff like some AI telling you to “turn left now!”.
According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_electric_vehicle electric vehicles have existed for nearly 200 years now. No computers needed.
Though I imagine that malicious lockouts might become an issue with self-driving cars, assuming they can crack the AI issue well enough. Those cars are going to be heavily computer-dependent, whether internally or externally, and will likely need at least occasional updates.
I’m not conflating the power source at all. I’m observing the holistic product, and if you choose an EV you are far more likely to be choosing something that can be shut down remotely than if you chose an ICE. This is not CAUSED by the fact it’s an EV, but it does CORRELATE – it’s a choice made by EV manufacturers and ICE manufacturers.
Automatic transmissions do not require computer control. GPS requires a computer of course but it doesn’t require ANY connection to the rest of the car’s electronics, just a power source. Not even that, in fact – the GPS I used every day in my car is the one on my phone, which doesn’t even connect to power but uses its own battery.
Well, yes, indeed, that’s rather my point. We’re sleepwalking into a situation where we’ll happily sign up for the chains that will bind us. And here I am going “Look! CHAINS!” and here’s everyone else saying “but you don’t NEED chains!” or “chain-free life is crimethink!”.
Here’s a tale that should give you pause:
https://doctorow.medium.com/https-pluralistic-net-2024-10-10-software-based-car-based-37fff5c043c3
That’s by the guy who literally invented the word “enshittification”.
The concluding paragraph says it:
So far, I’m convinced. Fisker is a bad example, perhaps – but try searching “EV bricked”. There are a plethora of stories out there all about how these things can just… stop. It’s not (usually) deliberate… yet. But even when it’s not, you can’t even tow these things to your local garage to get them fixed, not least because fitting them with non-OEM parts could cause more damage and invalidate any warranty there might be, your local garage probably aren’t qualified to work on it anyway, and even the very act of towing the fucking thing could damage it further.
https://www.which.co.uk/news/article/what-happens-when-an-ev-goes-wrong-aa5Vt3f2Ge7E
(most entertaining part of that article is the first boxout, where an unsuspecting customer conned into buying an EV has to wait nine MONTHS for it to be repaired. In fairness they did give him a vehicle to use in the meantime, but in a wonderful demonstration of the faith they have in their product, for the first three months it was an ICE alternative. )