Exactly! It is a total strawman that if we criticize the fossil fuel industry we are attacking energy as a concept or what it powers in a modern society or are just being mean to "experts" on their side. No we criticize them because they are fundamentally lying about fossil fuels just to prolong their usage to profit off them, despite the harm to society and the presence of alternatives.
Speaking personally, I do respect a lot of the engineering that goes into fossil fuels. If you look at a modern coal plant in Germany, it rivals nuclear in engineering complexity. Liquifying methane gas for transfer at the scale we use it, was a massive engineering challenge. I respect it not just because I respect people solving very complex problems, but because I think it is important to apply solved problems to our solutions. Replacing methane with hydrogen and using the same process for transfer as an example.
What I don't respect is is the lying for the sole purpose of profit, not for the benefit of society but in fact a massive harm to society, just for the benefit of the relative handful that own fossil fuel companies. And trying to imply we are attacking energy as a concept is just another tactic in that lying.
As always thank you so much for cutting through the bullshit, and have an awesome vacation Emily!
I've spent the last 5 years increasingly desirous of owning an EV, and most of that time has been spent lusting over a new Tesla: American made, easy to purchase online, stylish, comfortable, etc. Now, not so much. I still want an EV, just not a Tesla. (Mustang Mach E comes immediately to mind, but there are many options.) I suspect there are plenty of folks like me out there who feel the same way - and I'd be very surprised if Tesla's market share doesn't steadily decrease as the result of this interview.
But then Musk could lose 99.999% of his current net worth and still have more money than just about anyone on the planet today, so I'm guessing he doesn't care if Tesla loses sales because of his overt, universally proclaimed stupidity. Or, perhaps he's attempting to expand the market for EVs to include fossils like DT and his ilk. Who knows? But refusing to call a lying asshole a lying asshole doesn't appear to me to be a solid basis for shaping public policy.
So, yeah - vilification is not only justifiable, but essential for setting future policy. In fact, given the number of innocent humans who have died and will die as a direct result of global warming, I'm thinking a few hundred or so current and former executives ought to stand trial for mass murder, although obviously that's a bit too much to hope for.
At the very least, the same companies that have created the problem ought to be levied a large enough fine to bring some relief to those who suffer the most - much like other industries have been fined to pay for the effects of their policies, especially the tobacco industry. There is a solid legal precedent for industries who deceive the public to suffer the consequences of their deceit, and to pay for the effects of their policies.
Musk has been a bit frantic lately with pricing as serious competition is now chasing him. His recent abrupt price changes have made all EV prices pretty volatile, especially with used EVs.
But that makes it a buyer's market for at least a while, so it is not a bad time to shop around.
You can check used EV battery condition (perhaps the biggest question for used EVs) for many EVs at https://www.recurrentauto.com/ or through a mechanic who works on EVs.
And, despite Musk setting an expectation of EVs with high prices and almost silly high performance, there are more and more EVs coming out at lower prices and more normal features, and in some cases better platforms. Some, like Kia/Hyundai/Genesis for example are challenging Tesla with high voltage, fast charging, fun to drive EVs.
A suggestion after owning an EV for a year and a half: look past the estimated range and check out the maximum DC fast charging rate (aka DC charging "acceptance rate"). FYI dealers may not be a reliable source for this - find some web sites or a local EV owners group instead.
If you charge at home it makes little difference, but if you can't, or are out on a road trip, a 15 minute charge is a lot different than 45 minutes or over and hour. If your EV can charge fast, you may find that range is just not much of a concern any more. And be gleeful about how much less you spend than on gas.
A few days after Elon's comments I dumped my beloved Model 3. Like the oil and gas industry, Elon has done great things but at a cost that I find intolerable. So, I say vilify Musk and oil and gas. Birds of a feather!
Time to have a class action suit against petroleum industry based on the clear prior knowledge of the serious side effects of burning fossil fuels.
The eventual settlement should include removing two gas pumps from each filling station and replacing them with two EV charging stations with two cables each (total of four) with at least 250kW output capacity each and maximum of 25% markup on utility electricity rates. And in the same pull-through spots under the canopy as the original gas pumps.
There are a couple more things to add, but this one would be a great step forward, since charging infrastructure is IMHO the single biggest headwind EV sales have in the US (since EV prices are finally starting to come down).
As good as EV sales are getting to be around the world, the US is still a laggard, but more chargers (and of course lower priced models) will change that.
Then you can puzzle over when nobody will want an ICE car anymore and ICE owners will puzzle over what to do with their cars - since who will want to buy them? Who will want a car with the most expensive fuel anymore (to say nothing of the gas and exhaust fumes)?
"Thus, under the present geopolitical approach to GHG emissions, global warming will exceed 1.5°C in the 2020s and 2°C before 2050. " This is from James Hansen's research global warming in the pipeline.
Villify? We should be suing them all, even though it's too late for the trillions of dollars of misery, death and displacement which is only starting to occur.
I'd love to peak into the diaries of those that resided in the upper echelons of these corporations in the past decades (50 years even). Since they're not ignorant of the impact, are they coping with guilt?
Fossil fuels will likely be in our mix 100+ years from now. Despite the emissions and the pollution, the products have several great qualities. Of the many industries dependent on fossils, it seems only Energy will definitely 'break free' towards low carbon alternatives in relatively short time (1-2 decades). A lot of transportation, manufacturing and other industries will see minor changes towards their dependency of fossils. With a growing world population and world economy there's plenty of room for traditional growth by these companies.
It baffles me that a human being can have a 'capital allocation strategy' meeting and decides to invest last years profit in 'fighting' their own clientele instead of innovation and adoption of new products (low-carbon) to continue to create value for said clientele.
Certified villain talking to a certified villain, asking people not to vilify companies guilty of certified villainy. Pardon me if I don't sound convinced, Elon.
But, "Live by the sword, die by the sword." Vilification of solar, wind, batteries, EVs, time-of-use rates, etc. is being used against the energy transition. And seemingly more successfully than vilification of O&G, because all the tech for the transition seems optional to most folks, while continuing to burn O&G for transport and heat seems essential to their "standard of living" and is the default condition, not a change.
The paradox is that the fossil fuel corporations and businesses are guilty in terms of trying to distract and minimize climate change and their role in it but to what extend are the people who work for these fecks drilling for oil and gas, refining, etc guilty of the same? They want to rightly protect their jobs as a means of living. But they are as equally mislead as the rest of us, perhaps even more so, by their own wretched employers. How do we do right by the coal miners who now need to be out of a job and not make climate change and fossil fuel lies about it their fault while holding their employers responsible? It is a paradox. At least to me. And it is a paradox that the politics want to exploit.
Exactly! It is a total strawman that if we criticize the fossil fuel industry we are attacking energy as a concept or what it powers in a modern society or are just being mean to "experts" on their side. No we criticize them because they are fundamentally lying about fossil fuels just to prolong their usage to profit off them, despite the harm to society and the presence of alternatives.
Speaking personally, I do respect a lot of the engineering that goes into fossil fuels. If you look at a modern coal plant in Germany, it rivals nuclear in engineering complexity. Liquifying methane gas for transfer at the scale we use it, was a massive engineering challenge. I respect it not just because I respect people solving very complex problems, but because I think it is important to apply solved problems to our solutions. Replacing methane with hydrogen and using the same process for transfer as an example.
What I don't respect is is the lying for the sole purpose of profit, not for the benefit of society but in fact a massive harm to society, just for the benefit of the relative handful that own fossil fuel companies. And trying to imply we are attacking energy as a concept is just another tactic in that lying.
As always thank you so much for cutting through the bullshit, and have an awesome vacation Emily!
Enjoy your 3 weeks off!
Thank you!!
I've spent the last 5 years increasingly desirous of owning an EV, and most of that time has been spent lusting over a new Tesla: American made, easy to purchase online, stylish, comfortable, etc. Now, not so much. I still want an EV, just not a Tesla. (Mustang Mach E comes immediately to mind, but there are many options.) I suspect there are plenty of folks like me out there who feel the same way - and I'd be very surprised if Tesla's market share doesn't steadily decrease as the result of this interview.
But then Musk could lose 99.999% of his current net worth and still have more money than just about anyone on the planet today, so I'm guessing he doesn't care if Tesla loses sales because of his overt, universally proclaimed stupidity. Or, perhaps he's attempting to expand the market for EVs to include fossils like DT and his ilk. Who knows? But refusing to call a lying asshole a lying asshole doesn't appear to me to be a solid basis for shaping public policy.
So, yeah - vilification is not only justifiable, but essential for setting future policy. In fact, given the number of innocent humans who have died and will die as a direct result of global warming, I'm thinking a few hundred or so current and former executives ought to stand trial for mass murder, although obviously that's a bit too much to hope for.
At the very least, the same companies that have created the problem ought to be levied a large enough fine to bring some relief to those who suffer the most - much like other industries have been fined to pay for the effects of their policies, especially the tobacco industry. There is a solid legal precedent for industries who deceive the public to suffer the consequences of their deceit, and to pay for the effects of their policies.
Musk has been a bit frantic lately with pricing as serious competition is now chasing him. His recent abrupt price changes have made all EV prices pretty volatile, especially with used EVs.
But that makes it a buyer's market for at least a while, so it is not a bad time to shop around.
You can check used EV battery condition (perhaps the biggest question for used EVs) for many EVs at https://www.recurrentauto.com/ or through a mechanic who works on EVs.
And, despite Musk setting an expectation of EVs with high prices and almost silly high performance, there are more and more EVs coming out at lower prices and more normal features, and in some cases better platforms. Some, like Kia/Hyundai/Genesis for example are challenging Tesla with high voltage, fast charging, fun to drive EVs.
A suggestion after owning an EV for a year and a half: look past the estimated range and check out the maximum DC fast charging rate (aka DC charging "acceptance rate"). FYI dealers may not be a reliable source for this - find some web sites or a local EV owners group instead.
If you charge at home it makes little difference, but if you can't, or are out on a road trip, a 15 minute charge is a lot different than 45 minutes or over and hour. If your EV can charge fast, you may find that range is just not much of a concern any more. And be gleeful about how much less you spend than on gas.
A few days after Elon's comments I dumped my beloved Model 3. Like the oil and gas industry, Elon has done great things but at a cost that I find intolerable. So, I say vilify Musk and oil and gas. Birds of a feather!
Hope you replaced your Model 3 with another worthy EV.
Went back to an i3 which is more efficient :)
Time to have a class action suit against petroleum industry based on the clear prior knowledge of the serious side effects of burning fossil fuels.
The eventual settlement should include removing two gas pumps from each filling station and replacing them with two EV charging stations with two cables each (total of four) with at least 250kW output capacity each and maximum of 25% markup on utility electricity rates. And in the same pull-through spots under the canopy as the original gas pumps.
There are a couple more things to add, but this one would be a great step forward, since charging infrastructure is IMHO the single biggest headwind EV sales have in the US (since EV prices are finally starting to come down).
As good as EV sales are getting to be around the world, the US is still a laggard, but more chargers (and of course lower priced models) will change that.
Then you can puzzle over when nobody will want an ICE car anymore and ICE owners will puzzle over what to do with their cars - since who will want to buy them? Who will want a car with the most expensive fuel anymore (to say nothing of the gas and exhaust fumes)?
"Thus, under the present geopolitical approach to GHG emissions, global warming will exceed 1.5°C in the 2020s and 2°C before 2050. " This is from James Hansen's research global warming in the pipeline.
Villify? We should be suing them all, even though it's too late for the trillions of dollars of misery, death and displacement which is only starting to occur.
I say vilify them. They certainly deserve it.
Spot on.
I'd love to peak into the diaries of those that resided in the upper echelons of these corporations in the past decades (50 years even). Since they're not ignorant of the impact, are they coping with guilt?
Fossil fuels will likely be in our mix 100+ years from now. Despite the emissions and the pollution, the products have several great qualities. Of the many industries dependent on fossils, it seems only Energy will definitely 'break free' towards low carbon alternatives in relatively short time (1-2 decades). A lot of transportation, manufacturing and other industries will see minor changes towards their dependency of fossils. With a growing world population and world economy there's plenty of room for traditional growth by these companies.
It baffles me that a human being can have a 'capital allocation strategy' meeting and decides to invest last years profit in 'fighting' their own clientele instead of innovation and adoption of new products (low-carbon) to continue to create value for said clientele.
Certified villain talking to a certified villain, asking people not to vilify companies guilty of certified villainy. Pardon me if I don't sound convinced, Elon.
Yeah, vilify away.
But, "Live by the sword, die by the sword." Vilification of solar, wind, batteries, EVs, time-of-use rates, etc. is being used against the energy transition. And seemingly more successfully than vilification of O&G, because all the tech for the transition seems optional to most folks, while continuing to burn O&G for transport and heat seems essential to their "standard of living" and is the default condition, not a change.
The paradox is that the fossil fuel corporations and businesses are guilty in terms of trying to distract and minimize climate change and their role in it but to what extend are the people who work for these fecks drilling for oil and gas, refining, etc guilty of the same? They want to rightly protect their jobs as a means of living. But they are as equally mislead as the rest of us, perhaps even more so, by their own wretched employers. How do we do right by the coal miners who now need to be out of a job and not make climate change and fossil fuel lies about it their fault while holding their employers responsible? It is a paradox. At least to me. And it is a paradox that the politics want to exploit.
It is an interesting time to observe human behavior. We seem to have so many things going on the tug on our foibles.
Who wants/demands a car that uses the most expensive fuel and costs the most to maintain?
Who wants/demands a job that will inevitably cause silicosis and/or black lung (yes, its now silica dust too, not just coal dust)?
Who wants/demands to but the most expensive electricity?
Who wants/demands to buy light bulbs that cost the most to use?
Who wants/demands appliances that spew toxic chemicals into the air you and your children breath?
Who wants/demands tariffs even though they usually ripple through to retail prices?
And who thinks freedom means the freedom to tell other people what to do?
"I know you are smart and I know that you think
You are doing what is best for me.
But if freedom is handled just your way
Then it's not my freedom or free."
-- Toni Morrison, from the story "The Big Box"