In Europe, we're already degrowing since 2008, even more so if you only look at the real, physical economy because we have to import our fossil energy. We won't be able to power the same lifestyle with nuclear and renewables either, the math doesn't add up. Jean-Marc Jancovici is a french engineer explaining this in great detail, see for example https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/84-jean-marc-... if you don't speak french.
It won't work. You can absolutely trim a lot of fat from the modern lifestyle, but then you'll be left with a residual. Meanwhile the developing world will keep developing and we have no right to order them to stop.
The idea that it's not possible is bullshit too, and it's still bullshit even if you ignore nuclear power.
Back in the 2000s there was a ton of discourse around peak oil. As part of that, I recall reading very detailed breakdowns written by actual engineers and scientists arguing why you would never have a mass-market EV with the range of a gasoline car and you would never be able to power more than 10-20% of a modern economy with solar power. I own two EVs, one with gas-comparable range, and California currently gets almost 40% of its total electricity (averaged across day and night) from solar, and climbing. There were whole books on this. I think one was called Power Down. It was all 100% wrong.
I also recall reading detailed analyses by aerospace engineers about how you would never have a reusable rocket, that it was simply impossible or would cost so much it wouldn't be practical. First stage reusability is now routine, and second stage reusability is coming.
Detailed breakdowns of why X is impossible have an incredibly poor track record unless they reduce directly to the laws of physics. Will faster than light travel ever be possible? No, and I believe that, because if it was it would mean a huge part of modern physics (not just relativity) is wrong in very bonkers ways.
There is no first principles physics argument for the limits this guy is arguing.
Of course if you imagine infinite growth on a finite planet, that fails. That's a trivial argument. But that's not happening, probably due to birth rates declining. The question I'm addressing is: can this civilization and its near-future extrapolation be powered without fossil fuels? The answer is yes, and again even without nukes. Throw nukes in there and it just gets easier.
IMO this is 100% ideology and is an example of what I call "problemism." A "problemist" is someone who uses a problem as a stalking horse for one and only one solution that turns out to smuggle in some kind of ideological or social agenda.
I see problemism as a dishonest propaganda technique. It's a way to sell the idea without directly selling the idea, instead using concern over some other thing to smuggle it in.
So you know I'm not just picking on the left: right now there's a big freak-out on the right about birth rates. The problemists there argue that it's why we need to get back to ultra-traditional family structures and take rights away from women. They're not interested in any solution that doesn't do that, because they don't actually care about the problem. They only care about taking rights from women.
This guy and those like him only care about degrowth as part of what is probably some kind of anti-industrial political ideology. If the problem could be solved without it, that would be bad as far as they're concerned, just like how the far right doesn't care about solutions to birth rate decline issues that don't involve reactionary social agendas.
Most of these people are anti-capitalists. Thing is, I don't mind that. I don't think capitalism is the ordained perfect system. But if you want to sell me on an alternative to capitalism, argue for it directly on its merits. The test is: if climate change and fossil fuel depletion did not exist, could you still make your argument for abandoning capitalism in favor of your system? If not, then you're engaging in "problemism" to sell bullshit. Because there is no physical reason that you could not drastically cut CO2 emissions without abandoning capitalism. A simple progressive carbon tax combined with cheap renewables could do it. We just lack the political will.
I wasn't taking about ideology, I was talking about what is already happening. Here's a graph of total freight volume (a proxy for the real physical economy) in the EU 15 countries since 2000, notice the peak around 2008:
> Here's a graph of total freight volume (a proxy for the real physical economy)
In 2008, people and businesses were still buying new computers every year or two, printing everything on paper, buying physical media. I don't know anyone that does this anymore. I don't think that is a good proxy.
In the US there was a slight drop around that time, but not close to 25% in the eu. If it was due to businesses buying less physical media wouldn't it be sth seen in the US data in some year too?
I would note that the population increase 2008-present in the EU (340M to 350M) is much lower than the US (305M to 345M), which could account for a rather significant difference too. I don't think either of these is a "smoking gun" but they both seem pretty significant confounding factors.
The ones up for sale in a general classifieds site are likely to be the higher-used ones. Many private collected Ferraris are driven under 100 miles per year, but won’t show up in general classifieds. (If they change hands, it’s more likely via word of mouth or marque-specific forums like f-chat.)
This seems like an easy fix if they're not actually being driven, just don't make these supercars street legal. Have the exemption be "if you're driving the car on a racetrack then it can be ICE."
EVs are more expensive initially, but cheaper in the long run. I bought a 20k EUR EV last year (VW e-up, great car). After ~8 years it will be cheaper overall than a 10k EUR ICE car. Petrol prices will probably go up faster than electricity as well, so likely even less.
So apart from subsidizing the purchase price which already happens widely, perhaps the government should provide cheap loans for people who don't have the initial capital to buy an EV.
Also, There are signs we've already hit the peak for conventional oil. This report [1] claims that by the 2030s Europe will see its access to oil reduced by 10-20%. So running an ICE car will only go up from here. There's good reasons to assume the costs of EVs will only go down.
Wrt to the grid, the french grid operator RTE published a study [2] saying that they estimate that by 2035 there will be 15.6 million EVs on the road, a bit half of the 38m total cars on french roads today. The study says this would represent 8-10% of today's electricity consumption and would pose no danger to the stability of the grid. About 2 million new cars are sold here every year, so after 2035 the percentage would go up by 1% every year to 20% or so. A challenge but definitely feasible.
From my experience taking charge on Ionity for 0,79EUR/kWh means that it is more expensive than gas. And because I just moved to another country, and live in apartment, I don't have place to charge.
Thing is that there is more than 50% people in EU who has no place to charge at home, because they are living in apartments. SO they will be charging on expensive Fast DC chargers. It will be more expensive than owning an ICE and also massively less comfortable because you will be waiting on car to get charged, thus wasting your time.
I think they'd consider that out of scope, which for me is a feature rather than a bug.
The project is really about providing the runtime, rather than batteries-included application framework as many mobile platforms provide. Perhaps they are targeting web/rust developers more than native mobile developers?
All the things you would like to see in an example have well-established ways of doing in a web application. Camera access is a good example, where the javascript way of doing is through navigator.getUserMedia(). I imagine it would be supported by Tauri where the underlying browser engine supports it. Tauri provides filesystem access as well, as you don't have that in a web page.
Isn't (battery) weight a proxy for what we really care about, energy consumption per covered distance? Seems like if you'd tax the latter, manufacturers would have more options to innovate around efficiency rather than just battery weight and provide lower-taxed vehicles. Battery weight will of course still be important to get consumption down, but perhaps there are other ways as well to make cars more efficient.
One example: a thing often overlooked is the efficiency of the onboard charger, which can incur a loss of up to 32% on for example the Renault Zoe [1].
In the US at least, the gas tax (in concept, not really in reality) what we care about is wear on roads. Therefore a tax on gasoline was actually just a proxy for what we cared about, which was wear on roads.
Taxing battery weight is a better method in this instance, because wear is directly proportional to vehicle weight.
If the idea is to replace gas taxes as a means of funding roads then the tax should be based on a combination of damage done by the vehicle (which is basically a tax on weight) and some efficiency multiplier. I’ve seen it mentioned in the past that governments can just check your odometer reading on a yearly basis and charge a tax on that but it’s probably just easier to tax the electricity at the point of charge (specifically for charging purposes).
Ideally this would encourage lighter vehicles to cut down on the initial “weight” tax as well as increase efficiency of the vehicle overall (more miles per kilowatt hour).
There’s obviously going to be a lot of headaches for farm use vehicles and people generating their own power and paying a tax on it but how else do you pay for roads and incentivize people to stop driving gigantic vehicles?
Pretty much the only vehicles that matter from an infrastructure wear and tear perspective are the heaviest traffic (which on every road that isn't a private driveway means commercial trucks).
If you want to tax that just tax based on the max GVW.
