Will Electric Vehicles Be Viable? When?

[henry]

I would think that sunlight availability might come in to this as well. Bigger tree means bigger canopy which means to optimise growth they will need to be further apart. So whilst the individual tree may possibly have the potential for greater growth a forest of super trees may not gain as much productivity as the individual increase in individual tree growth would predict.

[Zynerji]

I would think that sunlight availability might come in to this as well. Bigger tree means bigger canopy which means to optimise growth they will need to be further apart. So whilst the individual tree may possibly have the potential for greater growth a forest of super trees may not gain as much productivity as the individual increase in individual tree growth would predict.

I would expect this would become a quick-harvest product (pine) more than something that would turn into an old-growth forest-type place.

If we could grow and harvest pine trees every 90 days, the canopy spacing can be managed.

[DChemTech]

I would think that sunlight availability might come in to this as well. Bigger tree means bigger canopy which means to optimise growth they will need to be further apart. So whilst the individual tree may possibly have the potential for greater growth a forest of super trees may not gain as much productivity as the individual increase in individual tree growth would predict.

It will, trees will always be obscuring eachothers sunlight to some degree, and also there will be competition for nutrients at some point that will start reducing individual growth. In addition, we know that most plants cannot fully extract all required nutrients from their surroundings, and they are reliant on symbiotic interactions with soil bacteria/fungi (just like we need our microbiome to digest our food). So there may be another limitation, again in transport of nutrients, and generally speaking requiring some level of biodiversity in order to make a forest 'work'... monocultures very easily lead to soil depletion, with all due consequences. In that light, there is a group at MIT that aims at engineering the soil microbiome to more efficiently fixate nitrogen components (and by that, reduce the need for artificial fertilizers for the plants that feed on this microbiome). It's a pretty cool and promising piece of work.

[Just_a_fan]

Wood formation in trees is a complex behaviour. There are over 100 genes involved in the formation of wood in Poplar, for example: https://academic.oup.com/view-large/56369610. And not all of the processes involved are fully understood yet.

So not quite as simple as flicking a genetic fast forward button and making the trees grow quicker.

Somewhat easier to just grow fast growing plants that lock up less carbon but do it quicker and then just harvest and regrow. Getting the resulting material in to a useable form would be the focus of research and development in that case and that's much more likely to be an easier process. Plants contain cellulose - it makes up the cell walls - and some plants produce a lot of it. Cellulose can be used in clothing - cotton is basically cellulose, packaging - paper/cardboard, building materials, and other things. It can even be burned as fuel - and it would be carbon neutral, of course.

[DChemTech]

Praised be cellulose, cursed be lignin. Many a researcher has devoted countless hours towards effectively breaking lignin. More frequently, lignin broke them.

[nzjrs]

Massively off-topic, but golden rice remains wildly unpopular in activist circles, despite its age and generally accepted health benefits, even by those that protest it.

I doubt there is any meaningful chance of GMO trees going into production any time soon - even granting for a minute that an order of magnitude or so of improvement is possible in plantation yield (I doubt it - looking over the history of acceptable GMO selective breeding of plantation forestry and the changes it has brought).

The longer this controversy goes on the more I believe that large-scale climate engineering is going to be the only solution that the human race every deploys that is at a scale to make meaningful change.

[DChemTech]

Massively off-topic, but golden rice remains wildly unpopular in activist circles, despite its age and generally accepted health benefits, even by those that protest it.

I doubt there is any meaningful chance of GMO trees going into production any time soon - even granting for a minute that an order of magnitude or so of improvement is possible in plantation yield (I doubt it - looking over the history of acceptable GMO selective breeding of plantation forestry and the changes it has brought).

The longer this controversy goes on the more I believe that large-scale climate engineering is going to be the only solution that the human race every deploys that is at a scale to make meaningful change.

Unfortunately, that is very true. Genetic engineering is an extremely valuable tool for mitigating (the impact of) climate change, and providing more sustainable as well as nutritional agriculture in the future. The fact that self-declared 'planet protection' charities strongly oppose it is an atrocity (as their opposition to CCS and nuclear is), and in case of golden rice one can quite convincingly claim that Greenpeace has blood on its hands. And not only is their opposition based on flawed reasoning, it's also to no avail - the initiatives most hurt by their opposition, are those with the most altruistic objectives.

[Andres125sx]

This discussion is as interesting as OT... Mods, can you split it into a new thread please?

[hollus]

I mean, with CAS9 and CRSPR tech, why not work on engineering trees/corn that consume 10x more CO2 during their life cycle? I can't believe that no one has thought of it, because there is no money to be made from it. Pine trees that grow 10x faster, and sequester 10x CO2 and then provide cheap building supplies would be a win/win/win.

Well, they are trying, many of them. Not for 10x, more like for 2x faster growth, but they are. And you might see it in about a decade.
The thing with plants is (other than them being complex and the regulatory landscape being worse than a minefield) is that they reproduce very slowly. So that any such effort is bound to take almost a decade just to proof of concept. Go to trees, and you are talking of more than a decade. Crispr is how old?

[hollus]

But this had degenerated into a climate change thread and is slowly devolving into personal attacks (so far coated with sugar cotton).
So I will be the party pooper. Based on experience from the last 10 climate change threads... not in this forum, please.
We came here to talk about cars, not to make enemies, that that is the only way this ever goes. Like it or not, climate change had devolved into politics in today's world. No politics in F1T, please!

Note: It actually hurts to shut down the debate, because I could talk about it for days without end (and of course, like every one else, I KNOW my side is the only right one).

But the evil mod brain wins this one.

No more climate change debate, please.

[Brake Horse Power]

Well to go back to the question. A liter of petrol costs close to 2€ now in the Netherlands. Making fuel cost almost €25.000 during the lifetime of the car. Electricity from the grid would cost €11.000. Tco wise bevs are cheaper now

[J.A.W.]

Well to go back to the question. A liter of petrol costs close to 2€ now in the Netherlands. Making fuel cost almost €25.000 during the lifetime of the car. Electricity from the grid would cost €11.000. Tco wise bevs are cheaper now

"A litre of petrol costs..." What % of this 'retail price' is disincentive manipulation?

Actually, a litre of petrol may be 'priced' so exorbitantly, in a form of tax-grab,
but what % of this extorted funding is used to subsidise vehicle electrification?

<Politics edited out>

[Just_a_fan]

<Politics edited out>

You may as well have just deleted the post as you left nothing in here other than your comment!

[J.A.W.]

Seems that certain nations def' heavily tax hydrocarbon fuels,
& some of these most certainly subsidise EV's as well...

https://www.globalpetrolprices.com/gasoline_prices/


Edit: "Politics" removed per moderator, re: voter input into Gov' policy.

[Andres125sx]

Well to go back to the question. A liter of petrol costs close to 2€ now in the Netherlands. Making fuel cost almost €25.000 during the lifetime of the car. Electricity from the grid would cost €11.000. Tco wise bevs are cheaper now

Then we´d have to analyse the cost difference of each car but, is economics the only aspect to analyse?

If that was the case, we should be using a lot of pesticides wich are banned. They lower the cost of food so if that´s the only aspect to analyse, what´s the reason they´re banned?

Economics are important, but they´re not the only important aspect, our health is another one, and environment health should be another. Luckily it´s becoming important too, with several decades delay but hey, better late than never