
Saudi Attack Makes Electric Vehicles Even More Important - jseliger
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-09-18/saudi-drone-attack-is-another-reason-to-switch-from-oil-to-evs
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adrianN
Because the literal destruction of the ecosphere due to global warming is not
a sufficient motivation.

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iamsb
Curious - how much impact we would have on global warming if each and every
car currently running is electric? Given that most of the electricity is
provided by fossil fuels.

Dont want to come across as a denier, this is a genuine question.

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adrianN
Probably a rather small impact. On the other hand, replacing all energy
consumption _but_ transportation with carbon free alternatives isn't enough
either.

Global warming doesn't have a simple solution. We need to attack a large
number of problems simultaneously if we want a chance to prevent catastrophe.

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iamsb
I was hoping for a number, like say 1%. I wish there was a website which shows
you exactly what are the causes of global warming and how much they contribute
to it, preferably by industry and country. For example a small country like
Australia which has less than 1% of human population, contributes enormously
(15% of methane due to animal husbandry) but there is very little being done
in that country to control this.

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jplayer01
The significance of this attack is entirely overblown. DA isn't as crucial to
the world's oil supply as they used to be, and they're the only country that
might be at risk. It's probably also a one-off attack as SA and the US adjust
to the new threat model. The likelihood of another successful attack is going
down by the day.

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anm89
I know this is completely off topic but news on the internet is such a mess. I
wanted to read this but I'm going to pay for a bloomberg subscription. I would
happily pay some amount of money to read this but there are at least 10
publications in line in front of Bloomberg and because buying one individual
subscription get's me access to very little of want I end up willing to pay
money but still with no subscriptions and no access to online news.

Netflix for news is such an obvious unicorn and seems like it would be a
better situation for medium sized publications like Bloomberg. I don't
understand how it doesn't exist yet.

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spockz
In the Netherlands this exists as Blendle. It worked so well and “threatened”
news paper revenue that the news papers now starting their own alternative.
The interesting bit is that news papers also make some articles available for
free which are paid for on the Blendle platform.

Afaik, Blendle is also expanding to the US.

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anm89
I hope so! I would pay for that no question. And I have a feeling many other
people would as well.

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mukundmr
I don't see policy moving in that direction as a result of this incident. The
leaders are happy to find alternative sources to buy oil from.

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JumpCrisscross
> _I don 't see policy moving in that direction as a result of this incident_

No, but it would if hostilities escalated. Taking Saudi production offline
would spike oil prices. Dramatically.

That would prompt political change, in the same way the OPEC crisis in the 70s
did. At that point, the well-positioned ( _e.g._ cities with public transit
and electric car manufacturers) will prosper while those with their heads in
the sand ( _e.g._ communities dependent on cars for cheap transport and ICE-
only manufacturers) will face a quick reckoning.

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onetimemanytime
It's not this attack, it's the next one...and so on. Not sure how and when
they can defend their massive infrastructure. A small explosion can cause
interruption for days, weeks...

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lnsru
The same is valid for other countries. Destroying towers with electricity
transmission lines can cause serious blackouts. Especially in the middle of
cold winter. Grid map is online:
[https://www.entsoe.eu/data/map/](https://www.entsoe.eu/data/map/)

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systemtest
For my small country (NL) that would mean having to import gas from Russia to
power our gas-plants to generate electricity for cars. I'm not sure which
option is worse.

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adrianN
Or you could build more wind turbines and solar panels. The Netherlands are
famously windy.

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systemtest
That is correct. Wind energy is at 1.7 percent in our energy usage. But due to
the high density of people and the ageing population we have a high amount of
NIMBY.

