Ain't That The Truth
(media.gab.com)
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Coal, natural gas, and nuclear powered. Solar and wind production is so minimal that they don't enter the conversation.
Most solar and wind generators haven't even offset the fossil fuels that were used to produce them.
A single 300W solar panel can provide enough energy to power a Tesla for 1000 miles over the course of a year. Ten 300W solar panels can provide enough energy to replace themselves and power a Tesla for 20,000 miles over the course of two years while continuing to provide energy for the next 23 years. With ten 300W solar panels the expected output would be enough to charge a Tesla for its entire life and produce another 100-120 solar panels. Coal is necessary as a main energy source for now, but it does not have to always be that way.
EDIT This is just math regarding the expected output of a 300W solar panel over the course of its expected lifetime using a Tesla for example. What solar panels power and them not be recycled because of cronyism are two separate discussions.
The bigger problem is that electric car batteries are one of the worst ways to power moving vehicles. As they discharge they remain a burdensome deadweight, their manufacturing process is absolutely abysmal from an environmental standpoint, and in accidents there is no way to stop an electric car battery fire; you can only wait for hours for it to burn itself out. Oil and hydrocarbons still remain the best "batteries" for vehicles. They are safer, cleaner and more efficient, and could be even more so if we used better tech like fuel cells or linear piston engines to generate the electricity. If solar energy absolutely must enter the energy equation somewhere, then it should be in the form of "solar farms" in barren desert areas that use glass chimney structures made from the local sand to process landfill waste into usable oil.
Can you elaborate on what you mean by "burdensome deadweight" and "absolutely abysmal". That is loaded language that does not provide any insight as to what your argument is. How often do electric car batteries ignite? I agree that oil and hydrocarbons are more efficient. I also agree on the solar farms point.
A half-tank of gas is lighter than a full tank of gas. As a gasoline vehicle burns its fuel, the total weight of the vehicle gets lighter and thus it can use its remaining gas more efficiently. Used gasoline doesn't weigh the vehicle down.
In contrast, there is no appreciable decrease in weight for an electric vehicle (EV) battery at half-charge compared to full charge. Thus, the vehicle's efficiency does not increase. It's not just a figure of speech, discharged batteries are literally burdensome deadweight for any moving vehicle.
Other people in this thread have already pointed out the sheer environmental destruction involved with the manufacturing process of EV batteries. Absolutely abysmal fits the situation to a T, especially since the whole point of EVs in the first place is to be enviornmentally friendly.
The rate of EV battery fires? Let's assume purely for the purpose of argument that the chance of an EV battery fire is less than the chance of a fire from gasoline cars. However, unlike a gas car fire, an EV battery fire CANNOT BE STOPPED. It is an entirely self-sustaining reaction. Every EV battery fire MUST and WILL burn to 100% completion, and spew ALL of its toxic heavy metal components into the environment for hours on end. A single EV battery fire is almost certainly guaranteed to be much, much more damaging than a single gas car fire, because (1) gasoline fires can actually be stopped long before they burn to completion, and (2) burning gas produces less toxins than burning EV batteries; combustion is literally the whole reason why we make gasoline in the first place! It is therefore not enough for the chance of EV battery fires to be just "less than" gas fires, they need to orders of magnitude lower to be in any way comparable to gas fire damage.
Every single EV battery fire matters a HELL of a lot more than a single gas car fire, because EV battery fires are uncontrollable, and also spread toxic waste in direct violation of their intended design purpose. It is such a colossal engineering failure that it would be funny, except that there are very powerful groups pushing to mandate the current state of EVs for widespread mass adoption over conventional gas vehicles. Madness.