
Ireland to ban new petrol and diesel vehicles from 2030 - clouddrover
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48668791
======
ToddBonzalez
The first thing which needs to change:

"Coal and peat continue to be used for power generation. In 2017 coal and peat
accounted for 49% of carbon emissions from electricity generation, despite
only accounting for 19% of electricity generated.The result of this is that
the carbon intensity of the Irish electricity was the fourth highest in the EU
in 2016, despite all our progress on using renewable energy."

[https://www.seai.ie/resources/seai-statistics/key-
statistics...](https://www.seai.ie/resources/seai-statistics/key-
statistics/electricity/)

~~~
Arbalest
Peat? Seriously? Peat in Tasmania (Australia) is protected, because it occurs
in national parks. This suggests it is a big deal for biodiversity. Yet
apparently people are burning it for energy...

~~~
MichaelMoser123
[https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braunkohlebergbau](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braunkohlebergbau)

In Germany they have relocated some 100.000 persons over the years, just to
mine and burn lignite (not peat - corrections) for electricity. I think that's
crazy. (The irony is that the Green party is currently the strongest political
party in Germany, but the energy sector seems to have a stronger influence, go
figure)

~~~
wumms
Peat == Torf

~~~
MichaelMoser123
Not a big difference to the environment, is there?

~~~
hannob
Peat is worse.

That's not to say lignite is in any way "good", it's still a horribly
inefficient way of getting energy. But peat stores large amounts of methane
and carbon which gets released when drying it. Mining lignite coal also
release some of that, but in much smaller amounts.

------
geff82
For Ireland this makes total sense. It is a small country on an island, so 99%
of the cars do not travel the distances we do in larger countries/continents.
Almost every electric car in production in 2019 can cover any city pair in
Ireland. Looks like a smart move to me.

~~~
douglasfshearer
> "The weighted average trip distance is 9.4 miles. Vehicles owned by urban
> households averaged 8.5 miles and rural vehicles averaged 12.1 miles." [0]

In the U.S, a considerably larger country than Ireland, greater-than-EV-range
journeys are outliers.

The same purchasing decisions that are applied to vehicle capacity will get
applied to range. People don't own large vans for the once-in-a-decade they
move house with all their furniture. Owning an EV that can do 200 miles might
be the norm, but the regular journeys are <10% of that.

[0]
[http://www.solarjourneyusa.com/EVdistanceAnalysis7.php](http://www.solarjourneyusa.com/EVdistanceAnalysis7.php)

~~~
wongarsu
Average journeys are incredibly short, but also not really relevant. If I get
a car that can only travel my mean trip distance, half of my trips can't be
traveled without refueling during the trip. Even the 95th percentile, as
analysed by the linked article, isn't very useful. A car covering 95% of trips
still can't make 1/20 trips. The car needs to cover _at least_ 99% of trips,
making me refuel only during 1 out of 100 trips. Some people will even demand
covering 99.9% of trips.

The borders of an island simply cutting off the long tail of trip distances
does a lot to reduce required range.

~~~
adrianN
You can always rent a car with a higher range for long distance trips. We
could build much more efficient cars if we optimized for normal usage, that
is, 1.1 people in the car, short trips, city speeds and moderate acceleration,
instead of building 250HP monsters that can tow a house and using them to sit
alone in traffic jams. If you have exceptional needs, rent something for the
day.

~~~
CapricornNoble
I just have to laugh at putting "250HP" and "monster" together....

I'm a gearhead, I daily drive a ~320HP car and am building a 600HP car, so I
realize I'm a statistical outlier when most people just wanna sit in their
appliance and commute to work as cheaply and safely as possible. A future of
nothing but minimum-range electric toasters on wheels is probably resource-
efficient, but definitely sounds depressing and boring to me.

~~~
throw0101a
I would think that a gearhead would love e-motors given their torque and
general performance.

Telsas generally trounce all other cars off the line. The (still vaporware)
Rivian has a 200hp e-motor at each wheel.

Most folks won't ever use this type of performance, and most folks won't buy
high-spec EVs, but to write them off as an entire class seems silly IMHO.

~~~
CapricornNoble
I have nothing negative to say about the raw performance of electric motors.
As you've said, the torque delivery is simply insane, there are very clever
applications of using them to cover the "low points" in the torque curves of
turbo-charged petrol engines and whatnot. Putting an electric motor in each
wheel gives independent torque vectoring with probably less complexity than a
traditional AWD system. From a competitive racing standpoint they have value
and very interesting applications.

But from a driver experience/driver engagement standpoint....they are lacking.
Same reason why car enthusiasts would rather have a manual transmission than
an objectively faster-shifting dual-clutch trans. It's about how your
interaction with the machine makes you FEEL.

------
NeedMoreTea
I wonder how much was driven by them missing all their 2020 EU targets, and
the prospect of ever bigger €??bn fines on the way to 2030 targets...

Still, the whole plan is reasonably well thought out. They have considered
that the need to retrofit most existing buildings to bring them to acceptable
standards, they are suddenly keen on community heat and power, and that
business will be reluctant participant and so on.

Going from 30% to 70% renewable, and closing all coal and peat in ten years
might be a challenge, but it's in the plan.

A couple of glaring holes around plastic and agriculture, but a bloody good
start.

------
boilsquid
This is only a proposed policy, it is not a law, it hasn't even been voted on
by parliament.

~~~
jesusthatsgreat
And with elected representatives like this, I wouldn't be putting money on
this becoming law any time soon:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2e-gOeN3DM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2e-gOeN3DM)
or if it does become law, expect it to become a rolling target that gets
kicked down the road rather than a fixed one.

~~~
rsynnott
That's Danny Haely-Rae; he's an idiot, yes, but not in the ruling party and
generally politically irrelevant. This agreement is government policy and will
very likely become law.

------
vr46
Good, and I'm also not sure that EVs are the answer anyway, because I don't
think cars are the answer.

------
ForHackernews
Good. Measures like this are finally starting to approach the level of urgency
required to have any realistic chance of averting the worst climate disasters.

Obviously Ireland is a small country and won't have much impact alone, but at
least it's dawning on some policymakers that this isn't a problem for "the
next generation".

~~~
fouronnes3
I agree this is good. But 11 years feels to long, I wish it were sooner.
Remember this is only the sale, not usage.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
Cars is but one small measure of their pretty comprehensive - and challenging
- 2030 plan. Not sure they could go much quicker.

------
Gravityloss
Ireland has some excellent wind resources. They already seem to have over 4
gigawatts of nameplate capacity.

------
oaiey
That is something Germany should have done years ago. They have an industry to
shift.

~~~
Mrdarknezz
Won't really make any environmental difference since they'll have to produce
more energy. Since germany utilizes gas and coal you will basically shift to
that from petrol since they shutdown their nuclear power plant

~~~
wongarsu
The climate impact would be limited in Germany because of the large amount of
electricity produced from coal. But it would still make an _environmental_
difference: German cities have a big problem with particulate matter, which
seems to be a major cause of lung cancer and other resparatory diseases.
Moving pollution out of the cities into electricity plants would be very
beneficial, even if there was no climate effect at all (which there will be
because the power mix is consistently changing for the better, with coal
becoming uneconomical).

~~~
StreamBright
There is still a problem with electric cars, the tires also produce particles
that are carcinogenic.

"Electric vehicles emit no NO2 but do produce small particle pollution from
the wear on brake discs and tyres and by throwing up dust from roads. A recent
European commission research paper found that about half of all particulate
matter comes from these sources."

~~~
wongarsu
EVs use their brakes less because of regenerative breaking. The particulate
matter of tires is for the most part comparatively big an heavy, so a larger
part of it stays near the ground and gets swept away by rain, and could be
cleared in problematic locations by wetting the street (also bigger particles
seem somewhat less problematic for health).

You're right that EVs don't fully solve the problem, but they are a giant step
in the right direction.

~~~
WorldMaker
EVs are also generally concerned about overall weight and have smaller tires
on average than non-EVs in their respective categories.

------
PebblesHD
While I absolutely agree with the goal of reducing our species carbon
production and associated impact on the environment, I have a more personal
and selfish concern with these proposals. The only way I’m able to have a
reasonably nice car with good handling and entertaining performance is by
buying a used car from probably 10-15 years ago. The sorts of cars that have
nice leather seats, a sunroof, maybe a v6 or smaller v8, think the 2004 Subaru
Legacy.

Given the rate of failure and failure modes inherent in current battery
technology in things like Teslas and such this market simply wont exist
leaving me with a choice between keeping a petrol powered nice car going with
whatever tax and fuel increases are decided, or buying the absolute cheapest
electric car available with whatever comforts, safety features and plain
enjoyment I lose in the process just being part of the deal. I’m sort of
disappointed that my personal hobby is going to disappear soon and what’s left
for people like me will be the Hyundai i10 of electric cars forever more.

I’d still prefer that to not having a planet to live on though...

~~~
sammorrowdrums
I think this is the thing - it will take some lifestyle and leisure changes to
make that happen, and individual freedom is simply not as important as fixing
this - given that not fixing this is equivalent to losing all individual
freedom via horrific means.

Where I live cars are already somewhat unwelcome - and everyone bicycles or
takes trams, metro, buses and trains. They are removing parking spaces by the
thousands. Cities are gradually ceasing to be built around cars.

The notion of high car ownership in the future seems questionable at this
point full stop.

~~~
cinnamon_bun
I envy you. It's the other way around in the third-world country where I
happen to live. As the people climb out of poverty they deem it necessary to
buy bigger and bigger cars. I think easily half of transport on the roads are
giant SUVs, which are built like tanks and take 1.5 lanes. Each car takes ten
times then space of one fat-ass behind the wheel.

Also, I personally know a guy who makes a decent living from knowing (and
applying) how to circumvent pollution controls on many car models. He has a
large wait list from locals who want to up their fuel consumption by 20-30% to
be able to make that 100 km/h one second faster.

Absolutely nobody I ever talked to gives one flying fuck about environment
pollution. They don't even care if it affects them personally (and it does,
judging from the constant cough you hear from everybody all day long, and my
sore throat, which has been sore every day for the last I don't know how many
years).

~~~
rwallace
That sounds pretty grim! Which country are you in?

------
mikorym
Is it just my misplaced optimism, or are many countries suddenly now 'aware'
of our climate change issues?

~~~
travisoneill1
They are aware that a shift in the car market is happening. Therefore they can
legislate that this thing that is already happening must happen and claim
credit when it does.

------
crististm
Bureaucratic mandate of technology is probably an important step in making
people think not just of themselves.

------
dev_north_east
Yeah, not buying it until I see the plans on how they're going to increase the
national grid to power this.

~~~
Reason077
I'm not familiar with Ireland's grid, but if it's anything like Britain, there
is already more than enough capacity to power a fully electric vehicle fleet,
provided a significant portion of charging happens at off-peak times.

This is something that has been studied in some depth in the UK:

[https://theenergyst.com/millions-electric-vehicles-sooner-
pr...](https://theenergyst.com/millions-electric-vehicles-sooner-predicted-no-
sweat-says-national-grid/)

[https://www.nationalgrid.com/group/case-studies/electric-
dre...](https://www.nationalgrid.com/group/case-studies/electric-dreams-
future-evs)

~~~
michaelt
That's not what your links say. The first link says nine million electric
vehicles might require 4GW or 8GW of extra generation capacity (depending on
smart technology)

But there are 38 million vehicles registered in the UK [1]; and even the
optimistic 4GW is greater than the power output of the proposed Hinkley Point
C nuclear reactor [2].

If 9 million vehicles need 4-8GW of generation capacity, 38 million would need
17-34GW, i.e. 6.5 to 13 nuclear power stations' worth (or the equivalent in
wind or solar)

[1] [https://www.racfoundation.org/motoring-
faqs/mobility#a1](https://www.racfoundation.org/motoring-faqs/mobility#a1) [2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_C_nuclear_power_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_C_nuclear_power_station)

~~~
Reason077
All of the National Grid forecast scenarios assume >30M electric vehicles in
2050. You might be confusing the peak power demand (in GW) with the total
energy consumption (measured in GWh/TWh).

Clearly if everyone charged their vehicles at peak times there'd be problems
meeting demand. But that's not the case: EV charging is a flexible demand, and
with "smart" chargers and incentives in place to encourage off-peak/overnight
charging, demand peaks can be managed.

Here's the link to the full _Future Energy Scenarios_ document where you can
dig in to the figures in great detail:

[http://fes.nationalgrid.com/fes-document/](http://fes.nationalgrid.com/fes-
document/)

~~~
michaelt
I'm reading the second paragraph of your first link which states "Nine million
electric vehicles on UK roads might require 8GW of extra power generation
capacity if people charge them when they like. But smart charging could cut
that to 4GW, potentially less, according to National Grid’s EV lead, Graeme
Cooper."

I don't think I'm confused about that - it seems pretty unambiguous to me.

~~~
Reason077
Right. That's a worst case scenario for _peak_ power demand if everybody was
charging their EVs at peak time. The solution is to install smart chargers,
and incentivise off-peak charging so that a high proportion of charging
happens at off-peak times, when there is plenty of surplus generation and grid
capacity available.

Or, to put it another way: It doesn't make sense to spend billions on building
new power plants just because everybody is plugging in their cars when they
get home at 6PM every night and causing a huge demand spike. Smart charging
and demand management is a much cheaper way to solve the problem.

~~~
michaelt
The 8GW figure is for everyone charging at peak time; the 4GW figure is for
smart chargers (i.e. dynamic internet-of-things off-peak charging)

So smart charging halves the need for new power stations - but doesn't
eliminate it.

------
badpun
I suspect a market for „used” imported cars with under 1000 miles will emerge
to circumvent this law.

~~~
Reason077
Most European countries will be working towards a ban around the same time, or
shortly after. So there won't be a ready supply of such vehicles for Ireland
to import.

Besides, given the economic advantages of electric (especially if petrol taxes
are gradually ramped up to discourage their use), there won't be much demand
for combustion technology past 2030 anyway, except amongst vintage
enthusiasts.

~~~
badpun
Don’t we need to like more than double our current level of power production
(+capacity of the power network) to be able to ditch ice cars? I wonder how
more than doubling of the number of power plants is supposed to get funded. Is
there some proposal that is grounded in technical and economical realities?

~~~
Reason077
No. In the UK it's around a 30% increase on current electricity demand by 2050
for a near-100% EV vehicle fleet. But as a significant portion of EV charging
can be done off-peak/overnight, in terms of new _generation capacity_ it's
even less.

This is something that has been studied in some depth by the UK's national
grid:

[https://www.nationalgrid.com/group/case-studies/electric-
dre...](https://www.nationalgrid.com/group/case-studies/electric-dreams-
future-evs)

[https://theenergyst.com/millions-electric-vehicles-sooner-
pr...](https://theenergyst.com/millions-electric-vehicles-sooner-predicted-no-
sweat-says-national-grid/)

------
m463
I can't help think Tesla instigated all this kind of stuff.

------
scirocco
How about veteran cars?

~~~
clouddrover
Do an electric conversion. Here are two examples:

[https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-16/vintage-rolls-
royce-c...](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-16/vintage-rolls-royce-
converted-to-electric-vehicle/9869888)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PREftlfZuXA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PREftlfZuXA)

~~~
scirocco
Rather not be alive to see air-cooled, rear-flat-engine Porsche 911's from the
70s go electric

~~~
clouddrover
It'll happen eventually. Allow the Porsche Taycan to make up for it:

[https://www.automobilemag.com/news/2020-porsche-taycan-
turbo...](https://www.automobilemag.com/news/2020-porsche-taycan-turbo-ev-
electric-ride-review-photos/)

------
crististm
So will China or India follow suite?

------
crististm
Bureaucratic banning of technology is the beginning of the downfall of
civilization.

~~~
a_paddy
I appreciated when they banned lead pipes for water.

~~~
crististm
I guess we have usable alternatives to lead pipes. For electric cars let's see
where is the externalization of emissions.

------
rottencupcakes
While I doubt this will go into effect, this is simply bad policy.

The economic shocks that will accompany a hard ban make no sense when compared
to the option of a gradual phase out (gradually increase fuel taxes? gradually
increase taxes on the sale of new petrol vehicles?)

~~~
Svip
Government investment in charging infrastructure, increasing fuel
prices/registration fees on ICE vehicles, etc., those are approachable and
realistic options, and things we can do _right now_.

I personally believe, that come 2026, car manufacturers will sound the alarm,
that they simply won't be able to produce enough EVs come 2030 to meet demand.
The policy will then likely get postponed till 2040, and so on for a couple of
decades.

~~~
vixen99
Yes. Some realism on the subject!

------
Paraesthetic
Yay so we can switch to batteries that produce more carbon emissions in their
production than the fuel the vehicle is spitting out. Ultimately just make the
problem worse if you think about it.

~~~
scandox
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_aspects_of_the_e...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_aspects_of_the_electric_car#Environmental_impact_of_manufacturing)

It appears to be quite a nuanced picture.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
That table is interesting, it looks like we get the same benefits from
switching to PHEV as going to full electric.

I've always been slightly sceptical about the claims, just because the costs
are so high. If you assume money is a reasonable proxy for energy then the
high acquisition costs imply more emissions.

~~~
wongarsu
> If you assume money is a reasonable proxy for energy

Everything points to money being a very poor proxy for energy. Part of our
problem with climate change is that energy is usually one of the smallest
contributors to cost, making incredibly wasteful supply chains economically
preferable.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
Yet GDP per capita is strongly correlated with energy consumption:

[https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-
maps/figures/correlation-...](https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-
maps/figures/correlation-of-per-capita-energy)

