Sanity check

[Fred Smith]

Sanity check warns EVs and heat pumps deliver “no proven carbon savings” ahead of 2030 clean power target

Has this academic study been discussed? I tried to search but couldn't find anything.

https://www.qmul.ac.uk/media/news/2026/science-and...

[Mahalo]

Your search capability is as lacking as your usual diatribe posts about EVs. There was a long thread where another antiEV diatribe poster brought up this study to give you a clue think of a poster with a name associated with a famous children’s bear character.

[TheDrownedApe]

Misleading

Here we go again, can the mods delete it; it has been covered?

[samoht]

The linked study appears to be making claims about the situation between now and 2030, i.e. over the next four years.

However if you buy a new car, gas boiler or heat pump today, it'll typically still be in use in 15-20 years, i.e. until 2040-45.

Therefore obviously the choices we make as a society today about new EVs and heat pumps need to consider the situation in 2040, which this paper doesn't.

If we get to 2040 and suddenly start demanding people now scrap perfectly working nearly-new petrol cars and gas boilers, no-one will be very happy!


ETA the other clearly wrong assumption is that it's equally efficient to burn fuel in car engines as gas in power stations (they assume one-third for each) - in fact our gas power stations are 50% efficient, so even if all EV charging corresponds to additional gas-fired generation, there is still a significant saving in CO2.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/548943/thermal...

Edited by samoht on Wednesday 18th March 21:59