Comment by alentred | Hacker News Reader

Comment by alentred | Hacker News Reader

The issue will those CO2 estimations is always the same: what is counted it, and what is not. For example, are the CO2 emissions related to the maintenance of the railroad counted in? On the other hand, are the CO2 emissions related to the production of the imported parts of the electric cars are also counted in? And so on.

And the reason I propose this question is because the argument sounds like green-washing. For example, where I live it is often much cheaper to travel *by air* than by a train even on relatively short distances (<1000km). So if the final cost is correlated at least a bit with the CO2 emissions, which kind of makes sense in a general case (does it?), there is a problem with the CO2 emissions estimate there.

What I am saying is that the problem with CO2 emissions is real, but it is being abused (green washing, etc.) in the absence of a commonly accepted and well understood way of estimating them. And the worst thing about it is that it makes the entire topic more ambiguous for everyone, stirs the speculations (people even denying that the problem exists) and makes it harder to focus on working solutions.

We should work to convert every process that uses energy to green energy. Then the issue becomes moot. Make everything electric, make all electricity production renewable (or nuclear). For things that can't easily run off of batteries like intercontinental flights, use electricity to produce methane or ethanol, and accept that this is a lossy process, price it accordingly.

AFAIK, one of the things that produces the most CO2, and that we're not doing very much about (or even discussing) just yet, is the production of concrete.

thing is, you can't beat oil energy density. And its logistic. going 100% electric is really something big, maybe too big.

A good exemple is synthetic fuel: in Germany, they have really hard issues on biomass collect which is needed for "green fuel". As of today, synthesis come from coal. And we're talking about Germany,not France.

France, who would need to triple its production of electricity to replace its oil consumption from cars.

and I did not talked about the cropland needed for "biogas" and ethanol fuel. concrete, steel, agro-industry too...the list is long.

This is why I said we can use electricity to produce ethanol or methanol.

> France, who would need to triple its production of electricity to replace its oil consumption from cars.

That seems very doubtful. Do some napkin math. A Tesla Model 3 long range has a ~75KWh battery pack. That gives it an EPA range of ~550KM. If you assume that the average person drives 1/3 of that every day (generous), there's no way that you need to triple electric production to cover that.

> AFAIK, one of the things that produces the most CO2, and that we're not doing very much about (or even discussing) just yet, is the production of concrete.

I don't think that's true, I've seen it discussed quite a bit. It's just that there isn't an 'easy' fix, i.e. there isn't a replacement ready to go like there is with electricity production, discounting costs. Same goes for other industrial processes,

As more of a fun idea than an argument in either direction: to make it even more ambiguous and complex, what CO2 does one emit in attaining the money to use either option? In theory, the CO2 I produce to buy an EV is capped - not so for trains, as I'll always need to buy a ticket. My rough maths says I'll take a train ride every day for 20 years before they balance. Real hard to reconcile all the factors at play but definitely interesting.

"Electric cars produce twice as much CO2 as trains."

Perhaps the comparision being made in the submission is not between, e.g., air and rail, but between individual transport, i.e., automobile, and shared transport, i.e., public transportation, e.g., trains.

In the aggregate, does individual transport releases less CO2 than individual transport. Why does shared transport, and in particular, public transport, even exist. Perhaps the idea predates environmental concerns.

Valid point, when considering lifetime emissions (with rolling stock and tracks) CO2e for trains roughly doubles. But then you should also consider emissions for making and maintaining roads, charging stations (including their infrastructure),...

> (does it?)

I saw one analysis that explained the sometimes-higher cost of rail travel. It concluded that the problem was labor costs. A longer duration requires more hours of labor. This would go against the CO2 assumption.

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