United States of Americanas wrote:Jebslund wrote:
Ban personal cars that get less than 40mpg? Reasonable*.
Ban gasoline engines in all vehicles? Not so much. At least not until we can safely and cheaply put nuclear reactors into motor vehicles or make solar panels efficient enough that we can get a significant (in terms of charging a car battery) amount of power out of what would fit on a car's roof. The problem with banning gasoline engines is large vehicles (semis, tanks, construction equipment, mining equipment, etc) that need to be able to draw a lot of power from a comparatively small source. Tanks and semis need the space for crew/ammo and cargo, respectively. Construction equipment and mining equipment are built as large as they need to be for the jobs they do, and the amount of batteries needed to supply power tot he latter especially would nearly double the size, and charging those batteries with solar energy would mean quite a lot more space than we have room for. Hydrogen cells are nice, but still on the expensive side, and then there's the fact that we still need to find green ways of making and recycling the batteries for any non-gasoline vehicle in the first place. 2030 is a bit... ambitious. The issues that are within the realm of physically possible will take much longer to solve.
*Once they're cheap enough to be a viable replacement for equivalent gas-powered cars, that is.
Let me edit that 2030 electric vehicle requirement.
By 2030 all personal vehicles shall be electric and commercial / heavy vehicles shall use the highest efficiency engines available on the market. No commercial vehicle that does not meet (insert a strict but realistic emissions standard here) shall be deemed roadworthy after the 2035 grace period expires. 15 years is more than enough for the commercial industry to buy newer and more efficient engines.
General Electric makes diesel electric hybrid systems which I am sure could be scaled down for a 18 wheeler.
What about the vintage car community? Loads of automobile history could be LOST because of liberalism!
Plus, Electric Cars need batteries. Batteries are expensive, more so than gasoline. This is MUCH easier said than done, especially because Electric cars are obsolete (they haven't been popular since the invention of Gas) and Gas Cars might end up on the black market where they can be made dangerous. Drugs are banned, yet they still get sold anyways. CFCs are banned, but somebody likely sells them on the Darknet. What makes you think that Gas cars will be any different?!