YouTube: Two Giants - Podcaster Joe Rogan interviewing Geopolitical Analyst Peter Zeihan . Zeihan explains thinks it's climate change not climate disaster.
Zeihan comments that EV's (electric vehicles) are a disaster that won't be with us for much longer. They are not nearly as good on Carbon as people believe. Also
- Most of material that goes in to making EV's is processed in some way in China and is coal driven
- Most grids that EV's run on are majority fossil fuel driven.
This extends the break even time for carbon from about 1year to as much as 10years (depends on model of EV). Cybertucks are even worse than EV's.
An even bigger problem
If the world wants to electrify everything then this doesn't just mean the EV's themselves it means the whole system that feeds in to EV's. So we would need twice as much copper, and x4 amount of chromium , and x4 Nickel, and x10 Lithium. That amount of increase of ANY material has never been produced in a decade in human history and Zeihan says that it is not technically possible.
It is easy to find websites that share Peter Zeihans's view like this one on Lithium which shows that there is not even enough to supply the UK alone .
California example of EV policy
Zeihan says that California sets goalposts so that industry and commerce has a framework of ideas and a timescale to work on . So when they set a goal of no ICE vehicles (internal combustion engine) by 2035 they know that technology and supply chains do not exist. As we approach the target they will review it and if necessary they move the goalposts.
Climate change not climate disaster.
Germany and California both have strong Green movements that think alike. They have realised that California does better than Germany due mostly to geography. So it's not as good to have solar panels in Germany because there is not enough solar energy to pay down the carbon debt that it took to build the stuff in the first place. Governments will need to marry up the correct raw materials and technology with the correct geography.
Zeihan says that there is climate change and global warming due to human activity. But it is change rather than climate disaster. So upper mid west USA has extended growing seasons and fewer frosts, whilst Australia it's led to wildfires and breakdown of agricultural system.