Who ever said electric cars were the solution?
this post was submitted on 09 Dec 2024
505 points (98.8% liked)
Climate - truthful information about climate, related activism and politics.
5397 readers
128 users here now
Discussion of climate, how it is changing, activism around that, the politics, and the energy systems change we need in order to stabilize things.
As a starting point, the burning of fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent deforestation and release of methane are responsible for the warming in recent decades:
How much each change to the atmosphere has warmed the world:
Recommended actions to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the near future:
Anti-science, inactivism, and unsupported conspiracy theories are not ok here.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
A lot of people think that. The solution to car pollution is less cars and more forms of transport. It's trains. I like trains.
Binary view is a poor one. EVs have a lot of benefits and also some drawbacks. As everything in the world, they are not perfect. The trick is that they have much more benefits than drawbacks.
load more comments
(1 replies)
Is it technically micro plastics? Vulcanized rubber particulates?
Its not only rubber for car tires. There's a lot of extras to add longevity, and change performance in certain conditions.
Plastic is mostly made from hydrocarbon chains. So are rubber polymers it seems.
Not sure if it matters if the plastic is from a tree or pumped from a really old tree.
load more comments
(1 replies)
We need a clever solution to this problem, because our govts are unlikely to solve this through new infrastructure or policy changes.
I’ve been reading about this topic for a while now, and I always thought the tech these guys invented was worth further investment: https://smarttirecompany.com/
Less rubber is good but we really need a rubber replacement that is biodegradable.
Nickel alloys are expensive and require some nasty mining so shape memory tires are a stopgap solution at best.
Material sciences is a difficult field. People spend years researching one small area just to shelve their research as not viable, too cost prohibitive, or impractical for large scale manufacturing.
I haven't seen any research into durable biodegradable materials that could hold the weight of vehicles unfortunately, so I think investment will be hard to come by. Though I don't disagree with the premise that something that can degrade over time, but also not harm the environment would be an ideal solution to the problem. I imagine if such a thing were created it would be able to be applied to many other industries, not just transportation.
load more comments
(1 replies)
We need miracle battery technology. And we need miracle wheel technology.
How can you not own a car while living in a city with >1m population, are you mad? /s