The Camera Industry & The Environment

[Ted Striker]

I don’t think that statement is accurate. Have you ever traveled China? My son works for GE and lived in Shanghai for about a year. He speaks Mandarin. My wife and I visited him and much of the pollution is from cars and coal use.

I have traveled to China over 50 times in the past 15 years and lived in Shanghai for 7 of those years. I am well aware of the facts on the ground in China, having traveled and worked in over 25 cities in 15 or more Chinese provinces. Without question the vast majority of the pollution in the air in China is from industrial plants including power generation. When I moved to China in 2010 the International Expo (world's fair) was just starting up. To make China look good to the greater world community, the government shut down most industrial plants in the Jiangsu province area for 3 months. The skies cleared immediately and stayed that way for most of the summer. It was just like being in the US. Then, when the fair was over, the ban was lifted and industrial production resumed. The population choked on all the pollution almost immediately. Nobody stopped driving during the world's fair so auto pollution is only relevant at the ground level for the most part.

Again, it is impossible to understand without seeing how much manufacturing goes on in China. I have been to places in Zhejiang province where there are literally factories back to back to back for 50 plus miles. Factories that house thousands of workers. There is almost no place in the US with that level of industrial concentration. It takes all of 15 minutes to drive through Gary Indiana, one of the US's major industrial centers. You can drive for over an hour and not get to the end of just one of Zhejiang province's industrial areas.

When I lived in Long Beach, two major sources of pollution were cars and other vehicles and oil refinery's. Not much manufacturing. I believe the Midwest was noted for heavy industry and pollution. Back in the 60’s a river in Ohio caught on fire. Have you ever been to Gary Indiana? Back in the 60’s even in the 70’s you could see smoke from the steel plants from Chicago. Interesting thought, Minnesota supplied much of the iron ore to those plants. Could it be that Henry Ford had a little to do with the location of these plants? The Ford rouge plant would bring in raw materials and out of the facility came cars.

I know a little about animal pollution as in Minnesota we have two nice sized businesses, Cargill and Hormel which I have studied. Cargill is family owned while Hormel stock trades on the NYSE. Minneapolis has never been a heavy manufacturing community. What about where you live?

You are correct about other meat products and their sources of pollution with the environment. You seem to know about farming. Did you grow up or have experiences farming? My wife grew up on a farm in Wisconsin. I use to sell products to both CHS snd Midland COOP, farm cooperatives.

Info on CHS and Cargill and Hormel Foods:
https://www.chsinc.com/
https://www.cargill.com/
https://www.hormelfoods.com/

 

[Ted Striker]

I think the unpleasant fact is that to cut vehicle pollution requires us and all our products to travel far less, something which few people are willing to consider or talk about. Legislating to restrict travel freedoms and freedom to purchase what we want isn't going to win votes!

Well noted. No one is going to give up their ability to travel, and that's a luxury! Yet the developed west is going to preach to China, India, and other less developed countries to clean up their act by burning less energy. Energy that is not for travel but instead to deliver heat, light, and clean water for hundreds of millions of near destitute people.

If the west will continue to fly their airplanes for vacations, then they have no right whatsoever to tell the developing world how to use their energy.

 

[Corran]

Sorry to knock the shine off your figures but that's not quite correct. The *motors* in an EV might be 85% efficient (actually, they probably do better than that) but there are losses all the way down the chain to the motors. There are losses in power generation, losses in transmitting the power down the grid, losses in converting mains down to DC to charge the batteries, losses in the batteries themselves (not insignificant ones) and losses converting the battery power back to drive the motors - followed by mechanical losses in the power reaching the wheels.

Some losses apply to fossil-fuelled vehicles too but all the electrical inefficiencies do not and they add up to quite a bit. Like most things, 'it all depends' so I doubt there's a reliable figure to compare EVs with conventional vehicles, in terms of pollution from fuel source-to-wheel but I seriously doubt that there's as big a difference as the marketing for EVs and the politicians would have you think.

Add to this the fact that a huge proportion of a car's lifetime-pollution is in manufacturing it in the first place.

I think the unpleasant fact is that to cut vehicle pollution requires us and all our products to travel far less, something which few people are willing to consider or talk about. Legislating to restrict travel freedoms and freedom to purchase what we want isn't going to win votes!

All of that is irrelevant really - you can nitpick all of the steps that it takes to get gasoline to your local station too. Meanwhile the infrastructure for EV charging is basically already in place (electricity), you just need a hook-up. And if one is buying a new car anyway, it completely invalidates the production argument. I would agree that purchasing ANY car when one has a perfectly usable car with low mileage would be silly - I've never bought a new car, and in fact every car I have ever bought has had over 100k miles on it.

To imply that EV motors are even remotely similar to ICE vehicles, in terms of down-river efficiency, is simply incorrect. If you factor in all of the production, refinement, transport, etc., gasoline efficiency is really more in the neighborhood of 5%. There's plenty of research done into this and it's not really a debate. Again, I say this not as a bleeding-heart environmentalist, but simply a realist looking for better solutions that work for me and my pocketbook.

PS, regarding "travel less," that's simply impossible for a great majority of the USA due simply to the size of our nation. I drive 20k+ miles a year minimum, for my livelihood. A hybrid car would cut my gasoline costs almost in half, and an EV would make it nil, and so I'm looking at the bottom line. My wife needs a "new" car soon as hers is getting to that age, hence my interest in a hybrid (she'll get my current one, in much newer/better condition). EV's for me don't quite make the cut from a cost and range standpoint, at least for my situation and driving habits.

 

[Ted Striker]

Meanwhile the infrastructure for EV charging is basically already in place (electricity), you just need a hook-up.

A massive, gross simplification of the charging situation. There are tens of millions of people who do not live in areas where they can charge there cars at home. In fact, I'd say it is the vast majority of people. For 20 years I lived in an area where I had to street park my car, most of the time, nowhere near my house. It is impossible in such an area to just drive home and charge your EV. There are next to no charging stations in that area so even charging away from home is not an option. Maybe one could charge at work but that would be far too limiting. Battery powered cars have a huge hurdle still to overcome before they are mainstream. Many, if not most, simply gloss over these problems.

 

[Corran]

Tens of millions implies roughly 5-10% of the US population. Significant, yes, but hardly a majority, or even remotely close to it.

Regardless, you miss the point entirely. Adding a charging station to a house or apartment complex is as simple as running a line and adding an appropriately-spec'd breaker, or even just a plain outdoor plug for "slow" charging. Meanwhile, gas infrastructure requires a dedicated location, excavation to put a tank, and overall massive expenditures. EV charging stations at apartments will become big selling points - and a new revenue stream to boot.

Yes, gas infrastructure is already present in most areas, but nevertheless, time marches forward. If you want to bury your head in the sand, be my guest, but EV tech is maturing at a rapid pace and as soon as a major car manufacturer adopts it fully or Tesla gets a mass-market, more affordable car on the road at a middle-income price, gas cars will be over. Don't forget about Rivian either for your truck needs. If a solid-state battery or similar breakthrough is made, it'll make the transition even faster/easier. One should also not discount the mood and wants of the younger generations, especially Gen Z, who will be the main market for these cars moving forward - not that many on this forum have even the slightest idea or care about these young adults.

 

[tunalegs]

I have to be honest, the argument that electric cars are bad because they move the pollution from the car itself, to a power station somewhere else is as ridiculous as saying electric lights are bad because they move the pollution from the lamp itself to a power station somewhere else. Is it true? Technically yes, but are you really going to expect me to believe I should be using whale oil lamps instead?

Also as pointed out above, getting gasoline to the car requires quite a lot of infrastructure and transport, vs. getting electricity to my house. It is also generally a lot more efficient to produce a lot of energy at a time (eg. in a power plant) than a little at a time (eg. in a car's engine).

This is all beside the point of cameras though. FWIW, I'm ignorant on the issue, but I'll suggest that the same laws which govern the manufacture of other electronics likely apply to the manufacture of cameras, so it's unlikely camera production is any worse for the environment than production of any other electronic gadget. Beyond that, people definitely tend to buy fewer cameras, and use them longer, than they do with items like phones and computers.

 

[wolves3012]

All of that is irrelevant really - you can nitpick all of the steps that it takes to get gasoline to your local station too. Meanwhile the infrastructure for EV charging is basically already in place (electricity), you just need a hook-up. And if one is buying a new car anyway, it completely invalidates the production argument. I would agree that purchasing ANY car when one has a perfectly usable car with low mileage would be silly - I've never bought a new car, and in fact every car I have ever bought has had over 100k miles on it.

To imply that EV motors are even remotely similar to ICE vehicles, in terms of down-river efficiency, is simply ignorant. If you factor in all of the production, refinement, transport, etc., gasoline efficiency is really more in the neighborhood of 5%. There's plenty of research done into this and it's not really a debate. Again, I say this not as a bleeding-heart environmentalist, but simply a realist looking for better solutions that work for me and my pocketbook.

PS, regarding 'travel less', that's simply impossible for a great majority of the USA due simply to the size of our nation. I drive 20k+ miles a year minimum, for my livelihood. A hybrid car would cut my gasoline costs almost in half, and an EV would make it nil, and so I'm looking at the bottom line. My wife needs a 'new' car soon as hers is getting to that age, hence my interest in a hybrid (she'll get my current one, in much newer/better condition). EV's for me don't quite make the cut from a cost and range standpoint, at least for my situation and driving habits.

Can't speak for the US as I don't live there. Here in the UK we have around 22 million private cars. If each one is charged overnight at 3kW (which isn't actually enough) then there's a demand of 66GW to recharge them. Our generating capacity is about 50GW before it goes into meltdown, so the present infrastucture isn't adequate. Sorry, everyone thinks we'll just plug our cars in and there's not a problem because we already have electricity but actually there is. It's been estimated that we (i.e. the UK) need to quadruple our generating capacity to cope with all-electric transport so I'm guessing the US must be somewhat similar. That can't happen overnight and yes, I know it can be phased in with EV uptake but it's still a massive hike and no-one seems to talk about where it's all coming from, financially or resource-wise.

My point was that an EV is not anywhere near 85% efficient from energy source to wheels. I'm not trying to defend fossil-fuelled cars, they need to go, I agree, but simply swapping to EVs is not going to make the problem go away. Nor is hydrogen fuel or any of the alternatives, because they don't grow on trees either.

As for distances in the US, yes I know it's a big place. You missed the point completely, that the travelling we do (and our goods) is quite simply not sustainable. The problems that causes are a different matter but the root problem is excessive travel, which modern society has taken for granted and become accustomed to. Let me make it clear that I wouldn't be happy to have my freedom to travel taken away any more than others and I'm not offering a simple solution. I'm just pointing out what the marketeers and politicians try very hard to gloss over.

 

[Bill Clark]

There is a big uphill challenge to go from fossil fuels to some other method to power society.

I will mention three companies and their 2018 revenues:
BP (British Petroleum) 303.70 billion U.S. dollars
CVX (Chevron) 166.399 billion U.S. dollars
XOM 290.212 billion in U.S. dollars
Total 2018 revenues for these three:
760.311 revenues in 2018 just for these three companies.

Fossil fuels provide energy for society. I believe it’s going to be next to impossible to get off of using fossil fuels for society.

Info:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_consumption
There are 42 gallons in one barrel of oil.
Then there is natural gas consumption.
https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=50&t=8

 

[Corran]

I certainly don't have any clue about the power infrastructure of the UK. I do know that power draw curves slump to their lowest-levels late at night, so one simple possibility would be for EV charging to be on a timer starting at 1 or 2 in the morning. This would change the power draw curves obviously. I think the gradual adoption of EV vehicles would make this a non-issue. I don't know who is trying to gloss over anything - more accurately, I think proponents of EV cars are very aware of both real and potential issues, but still move forward because that is what makes progress (horse, buggy, etc.). And I've never heard any politician talk about EVs here. In fact I think the big debate over climate change and all that is hindered by the environmentalist rhetoric. Show the benefits, from a bottom-line cost perspective, and people will be faster to adopt. Scare tactics and appeals to emotion, not so much.

Bill, I hope you realize that big oil companies are investing in "green" energy left and right. They see the writing on the wall.

 

[tunalegs]

I have no doubt that if the IC engined automobie were invented today, it would not be allowed in our society. People don't really stop to think just how completely insane the automobile is at every level. We let people pump dozens of gallons of explosive materials, unsupervised, without education or training about what they're handling. There are spills, fires, accidents of every sort of description every day - and that's just on the consumer end. I manage at a grocery store with an adjacent gas station, and before having to oversee this insanity, I wouldn't have believed just how ridiculous the whole thing is. Most people really are far too stupid to be handling gasoline by themselves. Logically, it's very simple - you put the nozzle into the filler, pump the gas, stop the pump, hang up the nozzle and drive off. But no. You have idiots lighting cigarettes, or driving off with the nozzle still in their car, people spilling gasoline everywhere for no conceivable reason beyond pure idiocy. The gas station is I think the most ridiculously bizarre thing in our modern society, it absolutely would not be allowed had it not been invented when people were considerably more ignorant and cavalier, and simply been taken for granted as an acceptable risk. And it's gotten noticeably worse since smartphones have arrived. Used to be pretty rare for people snap the hoses driving off, or spill gas. Now it happens almost daily. 🙄


On the supply side? Idiots and greed have caused their fair share of disaster too. Sorry for the rant - but when you see this much stupidity involving a toxic flammable material on a daily basis, it's enough to drive you to rant. I'm not suggesting people aren't just as ignorant about electricity, but at least they're doing it at home where I don't have to deal with them.

 

[Keith]

Tens of millions implies roughly 5-10% of the US population. Significant, yes, but hardly a majority, or even remotely close to it.

Regardless, you miss the point entirely. Adding a charging station to a house or apartment complex is as simple as running a line and adding an appropriately-spec'd breaker, or even just a plain outdoor plug for "slow" charging. Meanwhile, gas infrastructure requires a dedicated location, excavation to put a tank, and overall massive expenditures. EV charging stations at apartments will become big selling points - and a new revenue stream to boot.

Yes, gas infrastructure is already present in most areas, but nevertheless, time marches forward. If you want to bury your head in the sand, be my guest, but EV tech is maturing at a rapid pace and as soon as a major car manufacturer adopts it fully or Tesla gets a mass-market, more affordable car on the road at a middle-income price, gas cars will be over. Don't forget about Rivian either for your truck needs. If a solid-state battery or similar breakthrough is made, it'll make the transition even faster/easier. One should also not discount the mood and wants of the younger generations, especially Gen Z, who will be the main market for these cars moving forward - not that many on this forum have even the slightest idea or care about these young adults.

It's not just this forum that has this problem. Our society in general appears to feel threatened by the younger generation judging by what you see on social media. Greta Thunberg comes to mind here ... the amount of hate aimed at a sixteen year Swedish girl with an 'opinion' has been extraordinary!

 

[Bill Clark]

Our daughter drives a Nissan Leaf every day, to and from work, plus other stops. I’ve driven it when visiting and it goes just like a gas vehicle.

In California they provide a sticker for the front and back bumpers which ids it as an all electric vehicle, which gets the opportunity to drive the car pool and express lanes in L.A. with just one person inside the car.

As I recall electric rates get lower after 10 PM. They had installed a timer for this as well as 220 which charges faster than 110.

As a side note I have to be careful while driving the freeways as motorcyclists can ride between the cars!

 

[peterm1]

I have no doubt that if the IC engined automobie were invented today, it would not be allowed in our society. People don't really stop to think just how completely insane the automobile is at every level. We let people pump dozens of gallons of explosive materials, unsupervised, without education or training about what they're handling. There are spills, fires, accidents of every sort of description every day - and that's just on the consumer end. I manage at a grocery store with an adjacent gas station, and before having to oversee this insanity, I wouldn't have believed just how ridiculous the whole thing is. Most people really are far too stupid to be handling gasoline by themselves. Logically, it's very simple - you put the nozzle into the filler, pump the gas, stop the pump, hang up the nozzle and drive off. But no. You have idiots lighting cigarettes, or driving off with the nozzle still in their car, people spilling gasoline everywhere for no conceivable reason beyond pure idiocy. The gas station is I think the most ridiculously bizarre thing in our modern society, it absolutely would not be allowed had it not been invented when people were considerably more ignorant and cavalier, and simply been taken for granted as an acceptable risk. And it's gotten noticeably worse since smartphones have arrived. Used to be pretty rare for people snap the hoses driving off, or spill gas. Now it happens almost daily. 🙄


On the supply side? Idiots and greed have caused their fair share of disaster too. Sorry for the rant - but when you see this much stupidity involving a toxic flammable material on a daily basis, it's enough to drive you to rant. I'm not suggesting people aren't just as ignorant about electricity, but at least they're doing it at home where I don't have to deal with them.

Sorry dude but I have no doubt this comment is overblown at every level. You can say internal combustion is a disaster but everything you rely upon for life is dependent on it from food to heating to housing to you name it. Everything.

Yes people are idiots and getting dumber. But the solution to that is not to ban stuff. The solution is to go back to first principles in both society generally - teaching people civics for example and in education generally by teaching people how to think - not what to think as presently is the case. Society in western democracies is getting dumber by the day but it looks as if this is more a deliberate strategy to keep them ignorant, stupid, ill informed and herded like sheep by people who want to control them.

 

[tunalegs]

Sorry dude but I have no doubt this comment is overblown at every level. You can say internal combustion is a disaster but everything you rely upon for life is dependent on it from food to heating to housing to you name it. Everything.

Yes people are idiots and getting dumber. But the solution to that is not to ban stuff. The solution is to go back to first principles in both society generally - teaching people civics for example and in education generally by teaching people how to think - not what to think as presently is the case. Society in western democracies is getting dumber by the day but it looks as if this is more a deliberate strategy to keep them ignorant, stupid, ill informed and herded like sheep by people who want to control them.

It's not the least bit overblown. I couldn't "overblow" this if I wanted to. Words don't exists for how ridiculous this is, when viewed from an entirely factual level. I have nothing against cars (far from it, I restore, and collect cars, and have dabbled in competitive driving now and again). But we take gasoline and the automobile for granted, to a degree that is patently dangerous. Gasoline is almost certainly the most toxic substance we (the general public) handle on a regular basis - but most people do not treat it with the least bit of care or thought. I watched in horror one day, when as we had a delivery, with the tanker and the hoses, and everything coned off - some complete moron ran over the cones, nearly ran over the truck driver, and was just inches away from knocking the feed hose out of the tank and spilling thousands of gallons of gasoline. Stuff like this happens - and worse.

If somebody said "hey I got an idea for a store, we're going to keep 12,000 gallons of highly flammable liquid on hand, and it's going to come out of a pump that puts out 10 gallons a minute, and we're just going to let just anybody come up and run the pump without any training, and they can even do it at night without any supervision whatsoever..." nobody would let you get away with it. And we don't think about it, because it's just sorta been the way things are, and we take that for granted.

 

[Out to Lunch]

You'll have to eat a lot of veggies to offset this toy....

 

[JeffS7444]

One should also not discount the mood and wants of the younger generations, especially Gen Z, who will be the main market for these cars moving forward - not that many on this forum have even the slightest idea or care about these young adults.

Because as a class, they're not the car-buyers that their parents and grandparents were?
https://www.cars.com/articles/forget-cars-millennials-dont-even-want-drivers-licenses-1420683202016/
Honda originally aimed Element at younger buyers before discovering that most of them weren't in the market for something so expensive. Toyota USA shuttered their youth-oriented Scion brand too. Today, car makers find it more productive to focus their efforts on older people who are now spending more and buying cars later in life than previously.

 

[tunalegs]

It's not that younger generations don't need cars, they just don't have the money to waste on conspicuous consumption and planned obsolescence. In the U.S. we've not exceed, yet alone reached 3% GDP growth since 2005. That means we've had two generations who've spent their whole working lives in an economy that has been worse than anything any older generation born after WWII grew up with. The recessions of the late fifties and the seventies were inconsequential blips compared to what those 30 and under have had to deal with. Younger generations, rightly, do not see car ownership as freedom, but as just another source of debt to drag them down. If the economy recovers, I think we can be sure to see renewed interest in cars from younger generations. We're also generally seeing people hang on to cars a lot longer - I guess decades of warnings about depreciation finally got through to some people.