The Energy Transition and technologies

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

Interesting quote from the CEO of Ford.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1808113593763738038

I mean, he's not wrong

[Fuzz]

That they are losing money on large vehicles because the battery is so expensive, and a small battery will mean they might maybe be able to make a profit?

[edslunch]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

Interesting quote from the CEO of Ford.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1808113593763738038

People were addicted to big cars in the sixties, then new regs after the first oil crisis brought us the k-car and other marvels of economy. Regulations are the only thing that will change building and buying habits.

[Ozy_Flame]

Great episode this morning on The Big Story that is related to this issue, including the challenge of the market when North Americans are being told they need larger and larger vehicles. The Chinese EV market is absolutely terrifying the US (100% tariff) and Canada.

The Big Story (on Spotify): Why is Canada so Afraid of Chinese EVs?

[Muta]

Never understood why someone who doesn't need a huge pickup for work would drive one as a recreational vehicle, especially in the city. Not only is gas more expensive, they're obnoxiously large on the road and can be more susceptible to minor accidents (dings and dents) when used daily in an urban context.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

Great episode this morning on The Big Story that is related to this issue, including the challenge of the market when North Americans are being told they need larger and larger vehicles. The Chinese EV market is absolutely terrifying the US (100% tariff) and Canada.

The Big Story (on Spotify): Why is Canada so Afraid of Chinese EVs?

They barely touch on the main reasons why China can do this, which is baffling for a 20 minute podcast on the topic. Cheap coal based electricity for manufacturing, low wages, long hours and minimal worker rights(and probably slave labour, to boot), weak environmental standards and a government without worry of morals or corruption pushing the whole thing. If we want to compete with that, we'll have to do the same. How many Canadians want to work like that? One party rule to cut through red tape?

manufacturing plant of BYD, China's fourth largest plug-in electric-vehicle (EV) maker, over allegations of toxic emission with a pungent smell, which residents believe to be the unknown cause of nosebleeds for over 100 children living in proximity. The team is bringing third-party testing agencies to the factory to look into the alleged nighttime ‘covert’ emission by BYD's overstretched production line. Month-long complaints about strong odour of paint and plastic burning downwind of the plant saw protests at factory gates, and an online eruption of anger and cries for help on social media.

https://cast.asiapacific.ca/map/event/543


Mmm, ya I don't care gimme those cheap cheap cars!

[Ozy_Flame]

That's a different argument. No one's questioning how China is managing to produce this overproduction in EVs, what the issue being discussed in the podcast, is the gap between EV production in North America (particularly Canada) and the type of vehicle that they're making. The price point is related to the size of the vehicle, which for some reason North Americans feel they need to keep getting bigger, which was a trajectory that ICE vehicles were going down anyways.

To me, it brings up a larger question of how can we reset expectations of what a vehicle should be in North America to accommodate a growing competitive market. Because at the end of the day, North Americans are going to see the price of cheaper EVS in both China and Europe and wonder why we're not getting that on our side of the oceans.

[Table 5]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

https://twitter.com/user/status/1808113593763738038

I'm all for reducing car bloat, but this is pretty rich coming from the company that killed their entire car lineup (outside of the Mustang) to focus solely on SUV's and Trucks, because that's where the chunky profit margins are. Was that super important for society too, Jimbo?

[Ozy_Flame]

That decision was made before Farley came on as CEO in 2020.

[Table 5]

He's been with the company for almost two decades now. But I'm not blaming Farley alone...these decisions are not made by one person, and take years. Ford is the company that took away all the smaller cars they made (Fiesta, Focus, Fusion etc) and put all their focus into big trucks and expensive EVs. You can't just blame the consumer when all you offer them is something big, or something expensive (and often also big).

And I'm not saying what they did was bad from a business perspective. Big cars are much easier to make money with...especially with US CAFE regulations incentivizing their production over all small cars. If you want people to drive smaller cars, you gotta start with changing those CAFE standards. And repeal the chicken tax while you're at it (a 25% tariff on light trucks, which incentivizes big trucks).

[Fuzz]

Ya, the CAFE standards really backfired and incentivized larger vehicles.

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

Because at the end of the day, North Americans are going to see the price of cheaper EVS in both China and Europe and wonder why we're not getting that on our side of the oceans.

Europe is also adding tariffs on Chinese EV imports. And I doubt that any North American is going to look at car prices in China and especially Europe and do anything but laugh at how expensive they are.

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

That decision was made before Farley came on as CEO in 2020.

The Mondeo ended production in Europe in 2022, the Fiesta in 2023 and the Focus will end in 2025. Just like in North America, the European sedan/hatchback market will probably end up being consolidated to just the segment leaders as crossovers continue to grow at the expense of everything else.

[Faust]

Federal minister announces $11M in funding for clean energy projects, mostly in Alberta:

https://globalnews.ca/news/10602452/...nding-alberta/

[Azure]

I mean the CEO of Ford, which basically made the 'truck' popular with the F150, and makes a ridiculous amount of F150s each day is telling people they should buy less trucks?

Hilarious.

[Street Pharmacist]

It's easy to blame Ford for cutting their smaller vehicle offerings in North America, but it's more a symptom than a cause IMO

[Faust]

Originally Posted by Faust

Federal minister announces $11M in funding for clean energy projects, mostly in Alberta:

https://globalnews.ca/news/10602452/...nding-alberta/

Minister Vandal announces federal investments to support clean technology advancements across Alberta:


https://www.canada.ca/en/prairies-ec...-alberta.html#

[photon]

ITER has pushed back their timeline for first plasma for their tokamak. They're going to target 2033 with a more complete machine for starting research and 2039 for deuterium-tritium operation.

https://www.theregister.com/2024/07/...project_delays
https://www.iter.org/newsline/-/4056

Kinda hard to believe 2033 is only 8 1/2 years away.

[Fuzz]

That 8.5 years is dangerously within the "10 years to fusion" window, so I can see why they pushed it back.

[Street Pharmacist]

For those wanting to look at the transition through a scorecard lens, the growth in EVs, solar, and batteries have been well ahead of targets for a while and have been the good news stories. The "hard to abate" industries have been viewed as the bad news parts, but there's starting to be some really good news there too!

One big one is steel making. We are going to continue to need steel and steel making with fossil fuel contributes to 11% of CO2 emissions. That's more than all of the cars and vans on the road today, so this is a giant sector for emission reduction. Just 5 years ago, Electric Arc Furnaces (EAF) were viewed as far too expensive to compete but now account for 94% of new steel plant capacity! For context, in 2023 EAF was celebrated when they hit 36% of new capacity in 2020. The key for this to be successful will be electricity prices and hydrogen production costs. The Arc furnaces can melt scrap steel very efficiently and that consists of most of the load of these new plants. However, with direct reduction of iron with hydrogen, these furnaces can make steel from ore as well. As this takes additional electricity to produce hydrogen, the costs of that hydrogen will be a key cost driver of the ore to steel process.

https://www.carbonbrief.org/signific...-now-electric/

Exciting nonetheless as steel making was looked at for a long time as impossible to decarbonize. The next big "hard to abate" one is concrete and I'm curious how some new technologies may steer this industry through decarbonization. About 40% of concrete emissions are from burning fossil fuels to heat calcium carbonates (limestone) and the other 60% is from the calcium carbonates reducing to calcium oxide and carbon dioxide and going into the air. There are companies using different input rocks to get the calcium oxide, avoiding this step. The key here will be scale and cost. Can we get the materials as cheaply, and can we scale production enough to lower production costs? One thing to consider is that concrete is so cheap that it consists of such a small percentage of total construction cost that an increase in concrete costs would not alter total building construction cost by much at all.

[Monahammer]

Several companies I cannot name are even Piloting decarbonized steel pathways in Alberta right now. It wont be virgin because we don't have a good ore input, but there's plenty of reuse steel for pipe that can be done here.