[notdonspaulding]

> If you live somewhere that mostly burns coal to make electricity,

Which is almost everywhere in the world. Fossil fuels make up around 80% of energy production.

> But if they start building wind turbines and solar farms, because those are just cheaper and easier -

If they were "just cheaper and easier" they wouldn't need huge clean energy investments and subsidies.

I love solar, but don't let anyone sell you on the fiction that your EV is avoiding fossil fuels at any time in the near future unless you have installed enough solar on your personal residence to charge your car every day.

And if you ask the people who have done that "hey, was it cheap and easy to move your car's energy consumption to renewables?" and they reply "Yes!", please bring their story back here and share with the class.

https://www.iea.org/reports/world-energy-outlook-2023/execut...

[vel0city]

> don't let anyone sell you on the fiction that your EV is avoiding fossil fuels at any time in the near future unless you have installed enough solar on your personal residence to charge your car every day.

Let's say doing things one way uses 10 units of something, and doing something another way then uses 5 units of that same something. Didn't you then avoid using 5 units of that thing?

[tialaramex]

> Which is almost everywhere in the world

Yeah, no. If this was 1984 you'd be right on the money. In 2024 "We mostly burn coal to make electricity" either means you're subsidising coal or you have no infrastructure investment to move to a better generation.

> Fossil fuels make up around 80% of energy production.

Where are you still seeing 80%? Last I saw was closer to 60%. A lot of that isn't coal, and the gasoline is not electricity production†. Gasoline is what we're replacing in the discussion, so "Yeah, but what about gasoline?" is a total misfire. Which mostly leaves methane. And that's a very different comparison to coal. There are indeed new methane electricity plants in lots of places.

A methane power plant might emit half or even a third of the CO2 of the equivalent coal plant. It's still a fossil fuel, but in terms of the ratio we're talking about for break-even on an EV, that's a huge difference.

> If they were "just cheaper and easier" they wouldn't need huge clean energy investments and subsidies.

You're seeing huge investments because they're expensive and make money, that's what an investment is. They're not investing in coal plants because that's a money loser. Yes, it's often subsidised, in my country the renewable energy schemes are subsidised via "Contracts for Difference" which have the effect of insuring the price paid for energy, leaving the problem of delivering the energy very much in the hands of the bidders, the government is only the hook for the agreed price of energy when it's delivered, this has the effect of making investment less risky - if you can make 1000GWh of energy over the lifetime of the project and the subsidy says you're definitely getting £50 per MWh, that's £50M, without CfD you can't be sure if you get paid £80 per MWh (we're £30M richer) or £20 per MWh (we're bankrupt) until the power auctions years after you've constructed the plant.

† Yes there are a handful of power plants running on this fuel, but they're insignificant at a global scale.