Scout Launch Delayed to 2028: Report [ADMIN WARNING: NO POLITICS]

[shamoo]

I think I commented on the first page. Now that we're up to 10 pages and the Scout forum also has a ton of posts on the same topic.....

It is my understanding that all this sparked from some translated German article. A day or so later, all the online media/AI scrapers started making their own articles based on that one.

Was there any confirmation from Scout themselves? The CEO (or the corp/marketing comm. team) does occasionally send update emails, but I don't think anything's come out yet, and if you were going to update anything, this is an important one.

It makes sense given all the happenings around the administration, credits, EV popularity, economy, harvester technical challenges, but what's the real story?

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[VandalSibs]

I think I commented on the first page. Now that we're up to 10 pages and the Scout forum also has a ton of posts on the same topic.....

It is my understanding that all this sparked from some translated German article. A day or so later, all the online media/AI scrapers started making their own articles based on that one.

Was there any confirmation from Scout themselves? The CEO (or the corp/marketing comm. team) does occasionally send update emails, but I don't think anything's come out yet, and if you were going to update anything, this is an important one.

It makes sense given all the happenings around the administration, credits, EV popularity, economy, harvester technical challenges, but what's the real story?

About a day or so after the non-German media started reporting on it, Scout put out a statement that was as close to a confirmation without actually confirming anything. There's a post on page five with a link.

 

[Thedude]

It always makes me happy to see people doing climate math. Understanding the scale of different aspects of emissions is intuitively hard for most people until the numbers come out.

I really like the IEA's tool for comparing ICE vs. EV. It's mostly designed for a non-US audience with everything in metric. But it seems to be pretty comprehensive.

At a high level, the IEA seems to have a lower production emissions than yours across both drive trains. That's probably just a difference in methodology.

The IEA also factors in upstream oil & gas emissions, which is a biggie. This is the emissions from getting the oil out of the ground, transported, refined, and to your vehicle. The scenario I just ran has these lifecycle emissions from ICE nearly as large as the entire operating emissions from an EV.

I've done some of the amateur math myself, just as a way to understand how important certain decisions are. How big is solar vs home electrification vs EV's?

A couple good tools I've found:

-The EIA will tell you how much emissions are related to the combustion of different fuels. Note that "tons" in climate math is always quoted in metric tons, so factor that into your conversions.

-You can get more accurate information on your emissions for electricity from the EPA. Look for the Output emissions rates for your state. The US average emissions/kWh was 0.947 in 2018, and down to 0.767 in 2023 (they've unfortunately stopped updating this data). However, different states range from ~2lbs/kWh for coal heavy states to 0.26lbs/kWh for Washington state (hydropower).

The math behind the numbers is interesting to compare. For shits ‘n giggles - burning fossil fuels I make about 320 tons of CO2 a year for work, about 10 tons driving per year and another 7 tons heating my house.

 

[narmstrong79]

Called it

Yup Same, Also they will not hit their price targets will be the next news (if they even make it to market)

 

[cjones1130]

It always makes me happy to see people doing climate math. Understanding the scale of different aspects of emissions is intuitively hard for most people until the numbers come out.

The IEA also factors in upstream oil & gas emissions, which is a biggie. This is the emissions from getting the oil out of the ground, transported, refined, and to your vehicle. The scenario I just ran has these lifecycle emissions from ICE nearly as large as the entire operating emissions from an EV.

I've done some of the amateur math myself, just as a way to understand how important certain decisions are. How big is solar vs home electrification vs EV's?

These are always things to think about but almost impossible to calculate. For instance where do you stop? To even digest things like rare earth habitation loss, transportation costs of said materials vs oil extraction, transportation and the eventual massive tanker spills every year (though fortunately that # has been consistently dropping since the 70's).

Then getting into solar, whether it is at home (same info applies) and the true cost along w/life cycle maintenance and replacements. If at a large scale that is where it is really tricky as these solar farms can easily underproduce and they aren't going out in the middle of a desert but "good" land. They destroy habitats and the soil; compacting the soil and reducing fertility, disrupting natural water absorption which increase erosion and can worsen local runoff. All while spraying toxic chemicals "maintain" whether it be the very little vegetation that can actually survive or cleaning the panels. Then in the winter they sit and do next to nothing all while the panels will prob last just 10 years. Very near to where I live they clear cut 100s of acres of timber and flat graded pasture to install a solar farm, it's pathetic. Sorry....rant over but I just drove by it the other day and still get disgusted.

 

[VandalSibs]

These are always things to think about but almost impossible to calculate. For instance where do you stop? To even digest things like rare earth habitation loss, transportation costs of said materials vs oil extraction, transportation and the eventual massive tanker spills every year (though fortunately that # has been consistently dropping since the 70's).

Then getting into solar, whether it is at home (same info applies) and the true cost along w/life cycle maintenance and replacements. If at a large scale that is where it is really tricky as these solar farms can easily underproduce and they aren't going out in the middle of a desert but "good" land. They destroy habitats and the soil; compacting the soil and reducing fertility, disrupting natural water absorption which increase erosion and can worsen local runoff. All while spraying toxic chemicals "maintain" whether it be the very little vegetation that can actually survive or cleaning the panels. Then in the winter they sit and do next to nothing all while the panels will prob last just 10 years. Very near to where I live they clear cut 100s of acres of timber and flat graded pasture to install a solar farm, it's pathetic. Sorry....rant over but I just drove by it the other day and still get disgusted.

Kinda sounds like you are in a spiral that I find myself in once in a while - letting perfect be the enemy of good/better.

In the end, I have to remind myself that while EVs, solar panels, wind turbines, etc. do have an environmental impact, they are still leaps and bounds better than sticking with the status quo.

Additionally, solar panels can be recycled, just like EV batteries. Waaaaaay better than one-use fossil fuels.

 

[Golfer04]

The life cycle analysis of renewables gets tricky. I was involved in financing a wind company when they first started (did not end well) 25 years or so ago (I'm old....it might have been longer). These were the first windmills so a little smaller than the ones going up today, but back then it took 72 years for a windmill to produce the energy it took to make, transport and erect it. There was initial concern about what happens when they need to be destroyed, but it was laughed off because they would never fall down or end up in a landfill. Bad assumptions.

 

[UnsungZero_OldTimeAdMan]

Kinda sounds like you are in a spiral that I find myself in once in a while - letting perfect be the enemy of good/better.

In the end, I have to remind myself that while EVs, solar panels, wind turbines, etc. do have an environmental impact, they are still leaps and bounds better than sticking with the status quo.

Additionally, solar panels can be recycled, just like EV batteries. Waaaaaay better than one-use fossil fuels.

Detractors use the “what about” argument and point to pollution produced by EV manufacturing to imply EVs aren’t cleaner—like diesel burned to mine Lithium or gasoline burned by local utilities to generate electricity to power EV assembly plants or to charge the cars. The fatal flaw in that argument is it’s cherry-picking rather than a full “well-to-wheel” audit of amount of pollution generated.

Both modes of transportation have a pollution penalty on the manufacturing side. But with EVs, there are fewer pollution emitting “tailpipes” once the cars are sold and put into service. And all automakers agree this is true, even the EV laggards do (with reluctance). What they can’t agree on is at which point it makes sense (for them) to participate—due to state of battery tech and cost to their profits.

Nothing is 100% pollution free. Not even nuclear fusion. The end-goal of EVs was never about being pollution free. Always about polluting less.

 

[cjones1130]

Kinda sounds like you are in a spiral that I find myself in once in a while - letting perfect be the enemy of good/better.

In the end, I have to remind myself that while EVs, solar panels, wind turbines, etc. do have an environmental impact, they are still leaps and bounds better than sticking with the status quo.

Additionally, solar panels can be recycled, just like EV batteries. Waaaaaay better than one-use fossil fuels.

I halfway agree though am not ignorant to the fact that fossil fuels will continue to serve a prominent purpose for the next century, there will be a technology leap before then (I hope) that will push towards something better.

The half I disagree with you is the leaps and bounds. At this stage incremental at best, EVs have been trying and failing since the 50's, maybe before then I'd have to fact check. I am completely opposed to wind turbines, they are economically and environmentally impractical.

 

[cjones1130]

Nothing is 100% pollution free. Not even nuclear fusion.

*fission

 

[Great Gatsby]

About a day or so after the non-German media started reporting on it, Scout put out a statement that was as close to a confirmation without actually confirming anything. There's a post on page five with a link.

Yeah and even that response got kind of buried. Now everyone is running with the "Scout is delayed until 2028". Scout not being louder about "guys, relax, we are on track" kind of confirms the rumor to be true. Honestly, quite a shame.

 

[UnsungZero_OldTimeAdMan]

*fission

No I meant fusion. Just to drive point home, everything has a cost.

 

[BigSkies]

These are always things to think about but almost impossible to calculate. For instance where do you stop? To even digest things like rare earth habitation loss, transportation costs of said materials vs oil extraction, transportation and the eventual massive tanker spills every year (though fortunately that # has been consistently dropping since the 70's).

Then getting into solar, whether it is at home (same info applies) and the true cost along w/life cycle maintenance and replacements. If at a large scale that is where it is really tricky as these solar farms can easily underproduce and they aren't going out in the middle of a desert but "good" land. They destroy habitats and the soil; compacting the soil and reducing fertility, disrupting natural water absorption which increase erosion and can worsen local runoff. All while spraying toxic chemicals "maintain" whether it be the very little vegetation that can actually survive or cleaning the panels. Then in the winter they sit and do next to nothing all while the panels will prob last just 10 years. Very near to where I live they clear cut 100s of acres of timber and flat graded pasture to install a solar farm, it's pathetic. Sorry....rant over but I just drove by it the other day and still get disgusted.

There are accounting standards for this. I briefly started down the path of getting certified in GHG accounting/reporting. I didn't go too far, as it'ss a fields that involves lots of work and very little pay. But I got a little background knowledge.

GHG Protocol is the most prominent organization setting these standards. They're still working on standard accounting for some of the trickier topics. For example, I occasionally get emails about their working group for land-use emissions standards.

These are standards designed for corporations.

When it comes to consumers, it's helpful to use a standardized calculator like Cool Climate. They all use somewhat different methodologies, but are good for comparing changes in life/lifestyle.

It's also useful to understand the different approaches used to measure things. At a high level, measurements are broken down into three categories:

Scope 1 emissions: These are direct emissions from things you own. For example, gasoline in your car or natural gas from your furnace.

Scope 2 emissions: This adds in emissions from your utility from electricity usage:

Scope 3 emissions: This adds in the upstream emissions from supply chain activities. This is the emissions embedded in the products you buy.

It's fairly easy to measure and reduce your Scope 1 & 2 emissions. This is where consumers have the most agency. There are almost no scenarios where reducing household Scope 1 & 2 emissions results in a measurable increase in Scope 3 emissions.

You can also use a rough rule-of-thumb that upstream emissions from any hydrocarbon is about a 10% increase to total emissions from that combustion.

Scope 3 emissions is nearly impossible for consumers to measure precisely. But it's useful to understand high-level emissions impacts. It can help with a decision on whether to fly vs drive for a trip, or whether to choose beef or chicken for your dinner. A rough understanding of the relative emissions of things is valuable even when they can't be precisely measured.

 

[shamoo]

About a day or so after the non-German media started reporting on it, Scout put out a statement that was as close to a confirmation without actually confirming anything. There's a post on page five with a link.

Thanks, I did see that one actually.

To me, that sounds like they are refuting the claim. Then again, if it was actually untrue, it would be a much more forceful statement.

 

[Dave Cundiff]

I'm proud that this forum is, by and large, fact-based and civil. At this time, I only have one thing to add:

From what I've seen, under-the-panels care at a solar farm tends to focus on grazing animals such as sheep.

As long as numbers are managed to avoid overgrazing, this maintains the land's fertility and productivity pretty well, while still being 100% compatible with solar power production.

Best to all!

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