Matt Ridley is a journalist, biologist and viscount who owns coal mines on his family estate. He's (unsurprisingly) pro fossil fuels.
In this piece he gives ten things that are wrong with Johnsons green plans that I think mostly show how wrong he is himself.
I want to focus on my academic specialty: in his tweet and in his column in the
@Telegraph he claims that the electric car emits more CO2 over its lifetime than a diesel car because of the battery production.
Let's look at the facts.
First the claim that the battery lasts less than 100k miles.
Here's the blog from my good friend
@M_Steinbuch showing what hundreds of
@Tesla drivers measure. And to the right what Tesla reports. Over 300k miles is closer to the truth. No idea where he gets this 100k nonsense.
Then he refers to Gautam Kalghatgi of Oxford University for production.
Oxford! Then it must be true, doesn't it?
Well, maybe it's relevant Kalghatgi is from the 'Clean Combustion Research Center', is paid by Saudi Aramco, and that he (like Ridley) is related to
@thegwpfcom.
I had a dust-up with Kalghatgi (organised by
@thegwpfcom) that was captured in this PDF (
https://t.co/C5qe38Iflx).
Bottom line: Gautam knows a lot about combustion engines and oil, but very little about batteries or the electricity grid.
As I say in the dust-up: regarding battery production he only mentions one questionable source that he provably misprepresends.
For a list of and debate about 17 recent sources see my publication here:
https://t.co/sgu1FooeJo
And before you say: your report was for a left wing political party so you are just as biased as this combustion engine professor: here is a shorter and earlier scientific article I wrote about it with the same outcome:
https://t.co/GxVQDj1G0E
And here is a tool that I gave input to that you can use to see for yourself what happens under realistic assumptions.
https://t.co/WgICL1C21v The graph shows the reality that Ridley wants to bamboozle us/himself away from. (I even chose battery production in China.)
I could go into how most batteries sold in Europe are not made in China and other implicit misunderstandings but I think by now you get the drift: only non-experts without good scientific sources and/or a good conscience conclude a combustion engine in the UK emits more.
Also this hilarious tid-bit "smart meters that drain your electric car's battery".
Firstly, smart meters are only in use when you car is connected to a charger so they don't drain your car battery AT ALL.
Secondly, smart meters are not separate devices but use meters already in your car or charge point and their energy use is truly negligible. (I have designed such charge points.)
For a primer on the joys of smart charging see here:
https://t.co/HCkPFRh271
So I hope you don't believe this article just because it pretends to report facts. Regarding my specialty I can say all its opinions are actually at odds with the facts.
And if I had time I could show you the same for the other anti-renewable nonsense presented as fact.
The reality is that solar, wind and electric vehicles not only help to reduce global warming but are also becoming cheaper than fossil fuels, and coal barons, oil companies and combustion engine researchers don't like it one bit. That's all there's to this I think.
/end rant
PS A tweep pointed out the "smart meter draining your car battery" might refer to vehicle to grid or V2G. My students have done multiple simulations on this future tech. and it's awesome: stable grids with 100% solar and wind while you make extra money with your battery.
