USCE 2023: Please let them shove a camera up your butt

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > USCE 2023: Please let them shove a camera up your butt

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Leon Sumbitches: Mar 27, 2010; Dr. Leon Adoso Sumbitches (prounounced soom-'beh-cheh) (born January 21, 1935) is heir to the legendary Adoso family oil fortune.

Gyges posted:

Water rights and farming decisions made in the past. It takes 5-12 years for an Almond tree to start producing almonds, then that tree is productive for about 25 more years. So an entire cycle for a grove, assuming you planted everything at the same time, is 30 to 37 years. Almonds were first brought by monks from the Mediterranean in like 1850 or so and commercial farming started late in the 1800s, but didn't actually take off until the 1900s due to issues with the climate and planted varieties.

Basically people started growing Almonds during one of California's wet period, and largely possess water rights dating back over a century or more. Since only need about 4-5 commercial life cycles of an almond tree to get back to the first farms, they were largely an already established crop by the time the real water wars due to climate change began to pick up. I have no idea how many new Almond groves are suddenly sprouting up, but I have a feeling that the water requirements and the long gestation time mean that the newest farms are probably 60 or so years old.

In the future, Almond farming is almost certainly going to migrate to a more reasonable location. However there's a long rear end turn around from when it starts to when it's fully established. At the same time even if nobody planted a new tree in California from now on, we'd be getting shitloads of California Almonds through 2055.

This is fascinating, thanks.

you said migrate, which got me thinking about tree transplantation. Generally, it's best when the trees are younger and less established. It's almost impossible to conceive moving an entire industrial grove, but is there any merit to the idea of transplanting trees closer to the beginning of their 37 year lifecycle? That cuts water usage immediately while not having to wait 5-12 years for new nuts. I know it's an extreme suggestion and full of unexamined assumptions, but humans do dumb half-thought poo poo all the time so why not get the great almond tree migration started early?

# ? Apr 12, 2023 12:03

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# ? May 25, 2024 00:30

the_steve: Nov 9, 2005; We're always hiring!

Wheeljack posted:

There are all sorts of strategic reasons to run for president besides "I am mostly sure I can win this time." Positioning yourself for a future run, getting your ideas out there in hopes of getting them adopted in the platform or picked up by the other candidates or eventual nominee, becoming prominent enough to get a cabinet post, and, as mentioned, raising your profile for punditry.

Yeah, running as a protest candidate was Bernie's whole thing there, the whole "I know I have a snowballs chance in hell, but there are issues I want to address and ideas I want to push forward, and running in the primary is the best way to do it."

The fact that young people latched onto him as hard as they did in 2016 was a fluke that literally no one saw coming.

# ? Apr 12, 2023 12:19

Triskelli: Sep 27, 2011; I AM A SKELETON
WITH VERY HIGH
STANDARDS

Craig K posted:

cost, and also "what do you do with the leftover goop that used to be the salt and assorted nasties in the water"

People� eat salt though? It�s a product you can sell

# ? Apr 12, 2023 12:34

Tiny Timbs: Sep 6, 2008

You'll get menaced by salt baron goons if you start dumping a billion tons more on the market to cheapen the price.

# ? Apr 12, 2023 12:39

Clarste: Apr 15, 2013; Just how many mistakes have you suffered on the way here?

An uncountable number, to be sure.

Does the desalination process produce edible salt though?

# ? Apr 12, 2023 12:53

Cheesus: Oct 17, 2002; Let us retract the foreskin of ignorance and apply the wirebrush of enlightenment.; Yam Slacker

Triskelli posted:

People� eat salt though? It�s a product you can sell

So you're saying we're thinking about desalination in the wrong way?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sD_8O5pAyes&t=111s

# ? Apr 12, 2023 12:57

Gyges: Aug 4, 2004; NOW NO ONE
RECOGNIZE HULK

Leon Sumbitches posted:

This is fascinating, thanks.

you said migrate, which got me thinking about tree transplantation. Generally, it's best when the trees are younger and less established. It's almost impossible to conceive moving an entire industrial grove, but is there any merit to the idea of transplanting trees closer to the beginning of their 37 year lifecycle? That cuts water usage immediately while not having to wait 5-12 years for new nuts. I know it's an extreme suggestion and full of unexamined assumptions, but humans do dumb half-thought poo poo all the time so why not get the great almond tree migration started early?

Transplanting fruit/nut trees is, at best, going to cause a shock to the tree that will extend how long it takes before it starts to yield. At worst something goes wrong and the tree dies or, even more scandalously, something goes wrong and the motherfucker never bears fruit despite you pouring resources into it. The most big brain business way of doing things is going to be Big Almond running what they have into the ground, while at some point starting new groves in a better place. It's almost certainly not going to happen in the very near term, because they still own the level of water rights that lets them run a hose to the ocean with impunity. The only current pressure on them is water cost and theoretical future scarcity.

Currently the most likely scenario is new almond entrepreneurs realizing they can't plant a new grove in California so they go somewhere else. Of course there's going to be extra costs involved because they're going to have to do expensive testing to find out which grafts and species of almond work best in the new location.

Triskelli posted:

People� eat salt though? It�s a product you can sell

We've made very sure that salt and water aren't the only two byproducts of ocean desalination. Mother nature ads in some extra biomass too, but we're putting that hydrocarbon and heavy metal good good in the mix.

# ? Apr 12, 2023 12:57

Leon Sumbitches: Mar 27, 2010; Dr. Leon Adoso Sumbitches (prounounced soom-'beh-cheh) (born January 21, 1935) is heir to the legendary Adoso family oil fortune.

Gyges posted:

Transplanting fruit/nut trees is, at best, going to cause a shock to the tree that will extend how long it takes before it starts to yield. At worst something goes wrong and the tree dies or, even more scandalously, something goes wrong and the motherfucker never bears fruit despite you pouring resources into it. The most big brain business way of doing things is going to be Big Almond running what they have into the ground, while at some point starting new groves in a better place. It's almost certainly not going to happen in the very near term, because they still own the level of water rights that lets them run a hose to the ocean with impunity. The only current pressure on them is water cost and theoretical future scarcity.

Currently the most likely scenario is new almond entrepreneurs realizing they can't plant a new grove in California so they go somewhere else. Of course there's going to be extra costs involved because they're going to have to do expensive testing to find out which grafts and species of almond work best in the new location.

We've made very sure that salt and water aren't the only two byproducts of ocean desalination. Mother nature ads in some extra biomass too, but we're putting that hydrocarbon and heavy metal good good in the mix.

Having worked with plants but never agribusiness, this is really interesting. I don't think I can contribute anything except more questions, so I'll ask how could to press them further than just water costs?

# ? Apr 12, 2023 13:11

Rappaport: Oct 2, 2013

Clarste posted:

Does the desalination process produce edible salt though?

I adore the article title on the US government of all places on this subject, why ocean salty. That said, they report that

the United States Government posted:

The two ions that are present most often in seawater are chloride and sodium. These two make up over 90% of all dissolved ions in seawater. The concentration of salt in seawater (its salinity) is about 35 parts per thousand; in other words, about 3.5% of the weight of seawater comes from the dissolved salts. In a cubic mile of seawater, the weight of the salt (as sodium chloride) would be about 120 million tons.

Sodium chloride is a fancy, chemical term for saying table salt.

# ? Apr 12, 2023 13:17

Kalit: Nov 6, 2006; The great thing about the thousands of slaughtered Palestinian children is that they can't pull away when you fondle them or sniff their hair.

That's a Biden success story.

I still wonder how the meat/dairy industry pulled off getting almonds to be the biggest focus on CA water usage instead of alfalfa. Congrats to them, I guess it worked :sigh:

*I don�t want to single out a single post, but I�m talking about how a lot of posts in the past page or two talking about water usage are overwhelmingly focused on almonds without mentioning alfalfa

Kalit fucked around with this message at 13:23 on Apr 12, 2023

# ? Apr 12, 2023 13:18

Clarste: Apr 15, 2013; Just how many mistakes have you suffered on the way here?

An uncountable number, to be sure.

Rappaport posted:

I adore the article title on the US government of all places on this subject, why ocean salty. That said, they report that

Sodium chloride is a fancy, chemical term for saying table salt.

The fact that the ocean contains salt doesn't mean the desalination process produces salt. I mean, the traditional process of getting edible salt out of the ocean certainly doesn't produce drinkable water. We are not magically separating it into its component parts. There is a specific process which creates specific byproducts.

Clarste fucked around with this message at 13:26 on Apr 12, 2023

# ? Apr 12, 2023 13:24

bird food bathtub: Aug 9, 2003; College Slice

Desalination produces brine, not dried salt ready to be used in other processes. It's a somewhat minor problem with desalination plants. If the waste brine is dumped in a bay or behind barrier reefs or something it can end up concentrating high enough to kill stuff off, but it's still just really really salty water. Not dried crystals of table salt ready to be put on the market for other uses.

# ? Apr 12, 2023 13:30

Gyges: Aug 4, 2004; NOW NO ONE
RECOGNIZE HULK

Leon Sumbitches posted:

Having worked with plants but never agribusiness, this is really interesting. I don't think I can contribute anything except more questions, so I'll ask how could to press them further than just water costs?

We wait until the water dries up, overhaul water rights to something sane, or destroy the precious freedoms of the almond growers via dastardly legislation.

Kalit posted:

I still wonder how the meat/dairy industry pulled off getting almonds to be the biggest focus on CA water usage instead of alfalfa. Congrats to them, I guess it worked

*I don�t want to single out a single post, but I�m talking about how a lot of posts in the past page or two talking about water usage are overwhelmingly focused on almonds without mentioning alfalfa

It's most likely less the meat industry, more conservatives trying to own almond milk loving liberals. The topline numbers are always going to make almonds look worse than alfalfa just because nuts are a ridiculously inefficient crop from a water usage perspective. So everyone agrees to throw all the shade on almonds while everyone else continues to guzzle the rivers dry.

It's the usual thing where it's way easier for the lay person to identify the various composite parts of the problem than it is to identify the overall foundation of the problem itself. Almonds aren't single-handedly draining the river, the F-23 isn't why the Military budget is FUBAR, 6-pack rings aren't the foundation of ocean pollution, and earmarks aren't the true bane of wasteful government spending.

bird food bathtub posted:

Desalination produces brine, not dried salt ready to be used in other processes. It's a somewhat minor problem with desalination plants. If the waste brine is dumped in a bay or behind barrier reefs or something it can end up concentrating high enough to kill stuff off, but it's still just really really salty water. Not dried crystals of table salt ready to be put on the market for other uses.

Maybe we could dump it in the salt lake, or blast it into the sun with all our nuclear waste.

Gyges fucked around with this message at 13:40 on Apr 12, 2023

# ? Apr 12, 2023 13:37

Rappaport: Oct 2, 2013

Clarste posted:

The fact that the ocean contains salt doesn't mean the desalination process produces salt. I mean, the traditional process of getting edible salt out of the ocean certainly doesn't produce drinkable water. We are not magically separating it into its component parts. There is a specific process which creates specific byproducts.

Right, but that wasn't the question originally posed. The salts you get out of desalinization are "edible", as you put it, as the chemicals themselves. That the process doesn't produce table salt per se is a question left for the markets, or socialism, to solve.

edit: I flubbed, and I'm sorry. I read your question more as "are they bringing plutonium salts out of sea water" type thing, when you were asking if these salts have commercial uses already.

Rappaport fucked around with this message at 13:46 on Apr 12, 2023

# ? Apr 12, 2023 13:38

bird food bathtub: Aug 9, 2003; College Slice

Gyges posted:

Maybe we could dump it in the salt lake, or blast it into the sun with all our nuclear waste.

Generally unnecessary, I specifically mentioned bays and stuff because it turns out we have a few really, REALLY big bodies of salt water around the globe to dilute brine in to. Usually the same sources that the salt water is coming from in the first place. Just have to put in a little bit of extra effort to pump it out in to the ocean a moderate distance instead of dumping it in some place that's going to be cut off and let the concentration build up. It's a minor problem that just a little bit of preparation can easily solve.

# ? Apr 12, 2023 13:54

silence_kit: Jul 14, 2011; by the sex ghost

Gyges posted:

nuts are a ridiculously inefficient crop from a water usage perspective.

Are they? I calculated corn vs. almonds once, and I got only 3x water usage per kg of crop produced. If you change the figure of merit to water used/kcal of crop, then almonds don�t meaningfully use more water than corn since almonds are much more energy dense.

I get the feeling that this not a real problem�it is just a manufactured culture warfare thing.

# ? Apr 12, 2023 13:58

Clarste: Apr 15, 2013; Just how many mistakes have you suffered on the way here?

An uncountable number, to be sure.

As I understand it, the real problem is mostly the water rights thing: farmers have no incentive to save water and in fact an incentive to WASTE more water since they get a set amount of water for free and any they don't use is effectively leaving money on the table. So they will specifically plant crops that will use up all that extra water. Focusing on almonds or alfafa is missing the point entirely; even if we made them both illegal tomorrow they'd find another way to waste all that water because that's what their economic incentive is.

# ? Apr 12, 2023 14:14

the_steve: Nov 9, 2005; We're always hiring!

Clarste posted:

As I understand it, the real problem is mostly the water rights thing: farmers have no incentive to save water and in fact an incentive to WASTE more water since they get a set amount of water for free and any they don't use is effectively leaving money on the table. So they will specifically plant crops that will use up all that extra water. Focusing on almonds or alfafa is missing the point entirely; even if we made them both illegal tomorrow they'd find another way to waste all that water because that's what their economic incentive is.

Yeah, I remember an episode of Last Week Tonight where they talked about that, and it's very literally a Use it or Lose it system, which is why they grow so much thirsty poo poo like alfalfa.

# ? Apr 12, 2023 14:20

Kalit: Nov 6, 2006; The great thing about the thousands of slaughtered Palestinian children is that they can't pull away when you fondle them or sniff their hair.

That's a Biden success story.

Gyges posted:

It's most likely less the meat industry, more conservatives trying to own almond milk loving liberals. The topline numbers are always going to make almonds look worse than alfalfa just because nuts are a ridiculously inefficient crop from a water usage perspective. So everyone agrees to throw all the shade on almonds while everyone else continues to guzzle the rivers dry.

It's the usual thing where it's way easier for the lay person to identify the various composite parts of the problem than it is to identify the overall foundation of the problem itself. Almonds aren't single-handedly draining the river, the F-23 isn't why the Military budget is FUBAR, 6-pack rings aren't the foundation of ocean pollution, and earmarks aren't the true bane of wasteful government spending.

TBH, I don't think generic conservatives are smart enough, or care enough, to do it. For a while it seemed like all of the media outlets were heavily focused on things along the lines of "CA drought is being heavily exasperated by all of these almonds!!!!". If conservatives wanted to own the libs, they would do what they always do, which is to blame minorities for the problem.

E: And as silence_kit alluded to, the story changes a lot when you look at it from a calorie perspective. At a quick glance of https://www.watercalculator.org/water-footprint-of-food-guide/, almonds use only slightly more water than, for example, milk. Per thousand calories, it's ~737 gallons of water for almonds and ~644 gallons of water for milk. Once you start looking at things like cheese/meat/etc, it's a higher water usage.

Kalit fucked around with this message at 14:46 on Apr 12, 2023

# ? Apr 12, 2023 14:24

eeenmachine: Feb 2, 2004; BUY MORE CRABS

I might be googling wrong but it is saying a pound of beef requires 1,847 gallons of water to produce while a pound of almonds takes 405 gallons? Maybe we could all eat almond burgers to save water.

# ? Apr 12, 2023 14:34

Clarste: Apr 15, 2013; Just how many mistakes have you suffered on the way here?

An uncountable number, to be sure.

Meat is just generally extremely inefficient because you waste a bunch of energy keeping a cow warm and alive until you kill it. Moving to veganism is politically even more impossible than usual though.

# ? Apr 12, 2023 14:39

Gyges: Aug 4, 2004; NOW NO ONE
RECOGNIZE HULK

All livestock rearing is an the inefficient process where we

spend a bunch of resources to raise a bunch of perfectly good plants
stuff all those plants into an animal who then wastes a bunch of plant energy by living and not being eaten for a few years
dumping a bunch more water into the animal
throwing out 40% or so of the end result animal because it isn't meat

It's going to be rather hard to find a plant that is less resource intensive than whatever dumb herbivore we're eating. Omnivore livestock are even worse since they're sometimes eating something that ate something else first.

# ? Apr 12, 2023 14:52

AtomikKrab: Jul 17, 2010; Keep on GOP rolling rolling rolling rolling.

Clarste posted:

As I understand it, the real problem is mostly the water rights thing: farmers have no incentive to save water and in fact an incentive to WASTE more water since they get a set amount of water for free and any they don't use is effectively leaving money on the table. So they will specifically plant crops that will use up all that extra water. Focusing on almonds or alfafa is missing the point entirely; even if we made them both illegal tomorrow they'd find another way to waste all that water because that's what their economic incentive is.

Yep, and the states really don't want to get into a fight with the farmers and be the bad guy, so they have been waiting for the federal government to do so, thus the state lawmakers can blame the "nasty" federal government for "making" them do what they should have done decades ago.

# ? Apr 12, 2023 14:54

Nelson Mandingo: Mar 27, 2005

Clarste posted:

Meat is just generally extremely inefficient because you waste a bunch of energy keeping a cow warm and alive until you kill it. Moving to veganism is politically even more impossible than usual though.

And this is exactly why lab-ground meat is going to eventually overtake and replace animal husbandry in my opinion. It'll just be significantly more efficient and cost-effective. The problem right now is simple production pipeline issues.

# ? Apr 12, 2023 15:12

Kalit: Nov 6, 2006; The great thing about the thousands of slaughtered Palestinian children is that they can't pull away when you fondle them or sniff their hair.

That's a Biden success story.

Nelson Mandingo posted:

And this is exactly why lab-ground meat is going to eventually overtake and replace animal husbandry in my opinion. It'll just be significantly more efficient and cost-effective. The problem right now is simple production pipeline issues.

TBH, humanity will probably be dead from climate change before lab grown is the default meat source on a global level

E: To add more context, I would love for lab-grown meat to take off like crazy, it would be so much better for everything climate related. However, it's such a slow development process and will take forever for it to even have a decent market share in the US. And then having that spread from the US (and/or wherever else) to the rest of the world that won't be able to afford to manufacture it

And that's not even taking people's attitudes/skepticism into account

Kalit fucked around with this message at 15:26 on Apr 12, 2023

# ? Apr 12, 2023 15:15

lil poopendorfer: Nov 13, 2014; by the sex ghost

^^^^^can we not, with the doomerism?

Nelson Mandingo posted:

And this is exactly why lab-ground meat is going to eventually overtake and replace animal husbandry in my opinion. It'll just be significantly more efficient and cost-effective. The problem right now is simple production pipeline issues.

It�ll be insect-based protein, actually. Cultured meat simply isn�t viable at scale. Producing a small sample of meat to drum up venture funding is a far cry from producing it at scale.

# ? Apr 12, 2023 15:18

Pleasant Friend: Dec 30, 2008

Asking people to eat bugs is probably the one way you'd get a french style peasant revolution in the modern age.

# ? Apr 12, 2023 15:21

Automata 10 Pack: Jun 21, 2007; Ten games published by Automata, on one cassette

Pleasant Friend posted:

Asking people to eat bugs is probably the one way you'd get a french style peasant revolution in the modern age.

The best pro-bug argument you can make.

# ? Apr 12, 2023 15:31

nerox: May 20, 2001

Kalit posted:

I still wonder how the meat/dairy industry pulled off getting almonds to be the biggest focus on CA water usage instead of alfalfa. Congrats to them, I guess it worked

*I don�t want to single out a single post, but I�m talking about how a lot of posts in the past page or two talking about water usage are overwhelmingly focused on almonds without mentioning alfalfa

Another thing a lot of people don't know about almonds is that the require bees to pollinate the trees to produce the almonds. There are not enough bees for them to do it locally and bees hives literally get trucked in every year to do the pollination from across the country. I live in Georgia and personally know beekeepers that do this and they make a ton of money to truck bees from Georgia to California and back every year.

# ? Apr 12, 2023 15:40

DeadlyMuffin: Jul 3, 2007

silence_kit posted:

Coastal Californians love almonds/almond milk, and all that stuff. They are partially the ones driving the production of the crop but at the same time, they complain about it.

I suspect that the fraction of agriculture in the Central Valley which is almonds vs. other crops is not that huge, and if you quantify the water use to grow 1 kcal of almonds vs. 1 kcal of other crops, it is not that much more. I get the feeling that this is just a manufactured issue which gives coastal Californians an excuse to moralize about how the low class farmers are ruining their state.

Almonds consume 17% of CA's water. https://www.c-win.org/cwin-water-blog/2022/7/11/california-almond-water-usage

Agriculture uses 80% of CA's water. https://water.ca.gov/Programs/Water-Use-And-Efficiency/Agricultural-Water-Use-Efficiency

21% of agricultural use is pretty significant, and 17% of the total is 85% of CA's non-agg water use.

You're posting on vibes, not actual data, and almond farmers aren't poor low class farmers being picked on by the mean coastal Californians.

Alfalfa takes even more water.

But why bother to look anything up if you can "suspect?"

# ? Apr 12, 2023 15:51

cat botherer: Jan 6, 2022; I am interested in most phases of data processing.

lil poopendorfer posted:

^^^^^can we not, with the doomerism?

It�ll be insect-based protein, actually. Cultured meat simply isn�t viable at scale. Producing a small sample of meat to drum up venture funding is a far cry from producing it at scale.

There's no good reason to do insect protein. It's still more resource-intensive than plant protein. Veg proteins in the form of even cheaper stuff like TVP or vital wheat gluten are already closer to "meat" than cricket flour is. They also only have limited amounts of bugs in them.

# ? Apr 12, 2023 16:12

PT6A: Jan 5, 2006; Public school teachers are callous dictators who won't lift a finger to stop children from peeing in my plane

I�m open-minded, but after trying fried crickets, gently caress eating bugs. I will simply go vegan before that happens.

# ? Apr 12, 2023 16:22

Ghost Leviathan: Mar 2, 2017; Exploration is ill-advised.

'Farmers' haven't been 'low-class' in our lifetimes. They're landowners, and business owners, and with all that implies. The workers are mostly migrant labour which both parties ignore.

# ? Apr 12, 2023 16:40

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

The EPA just rolled out the strictest emissions standards for vehicles in history with requirements that would effectively ban the sale of most current models of gas-powered cars by 2032.

The rules require automakers to reduce the emissions on their cars by over 50% in 6 years. The EPA estimates the proposals are large enough to avert the equivalent of two full years of nationwide carbon-dioxide emissions. These emission rules would be the strictest in the world (although the E.U. standards eventually have a higher cap, they have a much longer phase-in time).

Some members of the auto industry are upset and claim that those figures can only be met with the subsidies from the IRA, but the sourcing requirements for EV components in the bill will force them to redo their entire supply chain to meet them and it will be difficult to meet the deadlines if they have to start their sourcing and manufacturing process from scratch.

https://twitter.com/washingtonpost/status/1646117154599649284

quote:

Biden to remake U.S. auto industry with toughest emissions limits ever

Proposed rules could lead to 67% of all car and truck sales being EVs by 2032, EPA says, but some automakers are wary of the timeline

As part of his fight against climate change, President Biden is attempting to transform the U.S. auto industry from Washington � first with carrots, now with sticks.

On Tuesday, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed two sets of new rules limiting emissions for all vehicles, ranging from passenger cars to tractor-trailers. The most aggressive of several options the EPA will consider could lead to 67 percent of all new passenger car and light-duty truck sales being electric by 2032, the agency said.

Such rules would be the most aggressive emissions restrictions on the auto industry in U.S. history, aimed at helping Biden meet his climate commitments. The EPA estimates the proposals are large enough to avert the equivalent of two full years of nationwide carbon-dioxide emissions. Under the most aggressive proposal, automakers would have to cut emissions for the passenger cars and pickups they sell in model year 2032 by more than half from 2026, the last model year governed under current rules.

�The stakes cannot be higher,� EPA Administrator Michael Regan said ahead of a public announcement coming Wednesday. �We must continue to act with haste and ambition to confront the climate crisis and to leave all our children � a healthier and safer world.�

The move comes after Biden has spearheaded major investments in car and truck manufacturing. He came into office pledging to help automakers shift to sell more electric vehicles � which produce no tailpipe emissions � as a way to shrink the industry�s pollution. Congress responded with tens of billions of dollars in subsidies � through grants and tax credits � to help build new factories and charging stations in the coming years, and reduce hefty upfront prices for consumers.

But there are questions about whether Biden�s plans are too ambitious and could conflict with a quick and affordable transition to EV purchases. The cost of rare minerals needed for EV batteries is one factor. The availability of charging stations and affordable car models are others.

Automakers have been selling a lot more EVs � fully electric cars made up 7 percent of new vehicle registrations in the United States in January, compared with 4.1 percent just a year earlier. But Biden officials, supported by major environmental groups, say the industry must move faster still to help avert the worst outcomes of climate change.

Some automakers are already cheerleading the effort. But others that have been slower to move away from conventional, gasoline-burning cars and trucks are expected to be more hesitant.

�America�s transition to an electric and low-carbon transportation future is well underway,� John Bozzella, leader of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, the largest auto industry trade group in Washington, said in a statement. �It�s also true that EPA�s proposed emissions plan is aggressive by any measure.�

The Biden administration�s announcement is a culmination � the first long-term requirements the president has placed on an industry central to his climate message. As a candidate, Biden promised to dramatically toughen climate rules for cars and trucks, along with power plants and oil and gas operations. He touted a future of electric Corvettes in a campaign ad, and as president had his photo taken in an electrified Hummer and Jeep.

A major goal was to frame his climate message in an economic vision. Biden promised that by cleaning up U.S. industry, he could spur its growth and ensure good-paying, often union jobs for the working class. And transportation is the country�s top source of planet-warming emissions, so it was a natural move for Biden to put himself at the center of an iconic U.S. business such as automobiles, said Jessica Caldwell, lead analyst at Edmunds, a car-shopping support company.

�This seems like a perfect industry to push a lot of change,� she said. �The auto industry is kind of the figurehead of it all. It�s easily relatable to most people and touches the lives of most Americans.�

At Biden�s encouragement, Congress used its climate and infrastructure spending bills of the past two years to boost EVs with more than $31 billion in subsidies. That includes tax credits for EV manufacturers, and separate tax credits to encourage consumers to buy the vehicles. About $7.5 billion of that money is going to construction of EV charging stations.

Biden also used his first year in office to propose ratcheting up new near-term standards for cars, SUVs and pickup trucks through model year 2026. Automakers, being pushed by investors and improving technology, had already been moving toward EVs, and, as part of that 2021 announcement, they agreed with the White House to set voluntary targets so that electric vehicles, hydrogen-fuel cell and plug-in hybrid vehicles would make up 50 percent of U.S. sales by 2030.

The proposal Wednesday � for model years 2027 to 2032 � is seen as a major escalation on top of that. It could, in the months to come, codify many of those voluntary agreements into regulatory requirements and set standards even higher than what Biden had told the industry to plan for. Instead of 50 percent of the market being electric by 2030, the new standards would effectively push U.S. automakers to have as much as 60 percent of their sales as EVs by 2030, according to the EPA.

About 50 percent of �vocational vehicles,� which include buses and garbage trucks, could be electric by 2032, as would 35 percent of short-haul freight tractors and 25 percent of long-haulers, the EPA said.

If enacted, the EPA�s toughest standards would initially surpass those already in place in the European Union. The E.U. law, approved in March, would result in EVs accounting for 58 percent of new vehicles sold in the bloc by 2030, according to an analysis by Transport & Environment, a Brussels-based advocacy group. By 2035, Europe�s standards would be more stringent than those in the United States.

Over many administrations, the federal government has intervened to prop up the U.S. auto industry or bend it to the priorities of the day. But analysts and lobbyists say this level of intervention by Washington goes beyond what has come before, could anger industry partners and possibly backfire.

The transition automakers are perusing requires building totally new factories, assembly lines and supply chains, a years-long process. A major re-engineering of one car model usually takes anywhere from three to five years, and automakers could be overhauling dozens of them, said Larry Burns, a former GM executive and now industry technology adviser.

Such aggressive mandates could prompt automakers to make bigger bets on a narrower set of options for complying, which might limit innovation and progress because technology now is changing so rapidly, analysts said.

�I don�t think we�re ready for it. I think we need one more learning cycle, with the consumer, with the infrastructure, with the technology and the supply base,� Burns said. �Maybe we need to go a little slower now, to go faster later with better technology.�

EPA officials say their rules won�t mandate any particular technology, with Regan saying he wants to find flexible ways for the industry to comply. These rules are limits on the emissions each auto company�s fleet of sold vehicles will produce. So while the rule changes wouldn�t order or require auto companies to sell a certain number of electric vehicles, it would set emissions limits so tightly that the only way to comply would be to sell large percentages of EVs � or some other type of zero-emissions vehicle.

One of the major dividing lines in the coming months as the EPA analyzes and crafts its final rule will be about how to factor in the influence of all of the subsidies. In 2021, the auto industry�s representatives said the targets set with the White House were only possible if the government came through with help Biden had promised. Now, the Biden administration and climate advocates say the subsidies Congress approved should make it easier for the industry to comply with tougher standards.

White House national climate adviser Ali Zaidi called it an �inevitable� conclusion. �What you see over the last two years � is that President Biden�s leadership has reshaped the trend lines,� he said.

Margo Oge, who directed the EPA�s office of transportation and air quality from 1994 to 2012 and is now an adviser on zero-emissions cars, said it is unfair to say Washington is dictating how the industry should develop. It has provided heavy subsidies to help a transition that was already underway as automakers responded to new technologies and demand from investors, she said.

�The 50 percent the president suggested in 2021 is old news in my view,� she said. �There is so much innovation across the board and so many investments made.�

But there are strings attached to last year�s climate law. The federal government next week begins enforcing Inflation Reduction Act rules that will require automakers to show that their batteries contain certain levels of materials originating in North America or in countries with which the United States has a free-trade agreement.

Those rules, designed to reduce reliance on materials from China, will lead to a shorter list of EVs qualifying for consumer tax credits of up to $7,500, the Biden administration has acknowledged. That has further irritated industry leaders, who say it limits how quickly they can get consumers to adopt EVs.

The vehicles are still on average more expensive than gas-powered options. And with the United States trying to pull back supply chains from China and other countries since the pandemic, cost has become a bigger concern, said Michelle Krebs, a Detroit-based analyst for Cox Automotive, an industry services and technology provider. A lack of charging infrastructure and the risks of road-testing new technology are further barriers to consumer acceptance.

�Ultimately this has to do with the consumers� willingness to buy something,� Krebs said. �You can mandate something all day long, but if it�s not accessible to the consumer, it won�t work.�

Administration officials dismissed some of these concerns, saying they have at times proved irrelevant in the past and that positive signs abound. Some recent signs of price-cutting by Tesla and Ford suggest that competition could help bring down EV prices. And charging-station construction is slowly ramping up as federal subsidies are distributed to the states.

Last week, Walmart announced it will add electric-vehicle charging to thousands of its U.S. stores by 2030, on the belief that EV adoption is reaching a tipping point.

# ? Apr 12, 2023 16:53

Sub Par: Jul 18, 2001; Dinosaur Gum

The doomerism on cultured meats (and things with technological solutions and viable proofs-of-concept already existing, generally) strikes me as really weird and shortsighted. If the past 200 years has taught us anything about humanity's capacity for invention, it is that we routinely develop and scale things that were thought just one generation before to be impossible or unworkably complex.

How will we possibly have computers in our pockets? Where will all the vacuum tubes go? Where will the power come from? How will they be useful if they can't talk to any other machines?
How could we ever cross vast distances without horses? Even if we invent a machine to do that, how do we safely do it over varied terrain? How do we scale small solutions like local paths and trails?
Yeah I mean ok but now we're just burning oil to get everywhere which is terrible. It's too bad making batteries that drive cars is hard/impossible and will never scale.
Yeah these Wright Brothers seem like they're onto something but I mean it's just one small prototype that goes like 100 yards and it's made of wood and paper. How are we ever going to cross a time zone, let alone a continent or an ocean?

It just seems really weird to be like "ok yeah well they have made this thing but let's see them scale it! <hrumph>". Time and time again people have solved problems like this, and I don't think cultured meats pose particularly unique challenges. And even if they do, I have no reason to believe those challenges are insurmountable.

I'm picking on the meat thing partly for selfish reasons (I love meat but I am a vegetarian for reasons that lab cultured meats could potentially solve/alleviate to the degree that I'd be comfortable) so maybe it's just wishcasting. But I don't get the kneejerk "well yeah but I mean we can't do it right now so maybe in 200 years it will be possible". Look around the room you're in and make a list of poo poo that is in there that would have been hard or impossible to produce when your parents were your age. It's going to be a really long list.

# ? Apr 12, 2023 16:58

Staluigi: Jun 22, 2021

Kith posted:

my commentary about them loving up is not about immediate consequences for the GOP, it's about how they made a massive unforced error and gave their opponents an enormous PR win for zero gain.

That's what loving gets me about it, they did the bad thing for obviously bad reasons and there's not a single part of how it played out that didn't undercut their own position and make their attempted victims out to be heroes, inspiringly thwarting the 80s movie villains

Usually there's some ground trading even in profoundly one sided outcomes, but here it's like spaceman sideshow bob visits Rake Planet

# ? Apr 12, 2023 16:59

Kalit: Nov 6, 2006; The great thing about the thousands of slaughtered Palestinian children is that they can't pull away when you fondle them or sniff their hair.

That's a Biden success story.

Sub Par posted:

The doomerism on cultured meats (and things with technological solutions and viable proofs-of-concept already existing, generally) strikes me as really weird and shortsighted. If the past 200 years has taught us anything about humanity's capacity for invention, it is that we routinely develop and scale things that were thought just one generation before to be impossible or unworkably complex

My doomerism is because when it comes to human invention, including all of the items you listed, it always prioritizes convenience over everything, especially environmental impact. Now hey, maybe we�re finally focusing on the environment enough. But that�s not a bet I�d be willing to make.

On top of that, IRL I mostly hear about lab grown meat from people who resist eating less meat*. Which I feel like is a deflection mechanism in those people. So I�m admittedly biased in that regard

*This is absolutely not directed at you, as you already clearly stated you are veg

Kalit fucked around with this message at 17:12 on Apr 12, 2023

# ? Apr 12, 2023 17:10

Pleasant Friend: Dec 30, 2008

Who is going to be the first person to volunteer to make cultured meat out of their own butt and then eat their own butt?

# ? Apr 12, 2023 17:13

haveblue: Aug 15, 2005; Toilet Rascal

Pleasant Friend posted:

Who is going to be the first person to volunteer to make cultured meat out of their own butt and then eat their own butt?

Think bigger. Who will be the first person to eat a celebrity or historical figure's butt

# ? Apr 12, 2023 17:15

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# ? May 25, 2024 00:30

cat botherer: Jan 6, 2022; I am interested in most phases of data processing.

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# ? Apr 12, 2023 17:18

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > USCE 2023: Please let them shove a camera up your butt

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