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Bowing to the demands of the green gods, the Biden Administration has proposed new regulations regarding the vehicles “We the People” choose to drive.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) wants to require that 60 percent of new car sales be battery-powered by 2030, growing to 67 percent by 2032.
Currently fewer than 6 percent are electric (the largest percentage being found in the Silicon Valley).
The green rhetoric claims these vehicles produce fewer carbon emissions than those with internal combustion engines powered by fossil fuels. Carbon emissions contribute to global warming, they say, and global warming poses a threat to the planet and mankind.
The crazy thing is, the lion’s share of electricity for battery-powered vehicles is coming from natural gas and coal instead of renewables like solar and wind. The big problem with solar and wind is simple: solar only works when the sun is overhead and not obscured by clouds, and wind turbines need just the right amount of wind to generate energy.
That’s why every solar and wind plant has a fossil fuel backup.
As the federal government moves to further erode our liberty by reducing our choices in property ownership (cars and trucks) the added demand for electricity resulting from the rapid adoption of more electric vehicles will strain the grid and—just like we experience here in California due to the insane green energy policies—rolling blackouts will occur, and bold message boards over the freeways will state: “Flex Alert! Do not charge your plug-in vehicle between 4 and 9pm.”
I’m not kidding.
And then, there are the batteries.
Seventy percent of the world’s electric battery components are produced in the slave state known as China. 83 percent of China’s energy comes from fossil fuels. The longer the range of the battery, the more carbon is used in the production process. Senecal has calculated that carbon emissions to produce a battery for a Nissan Leaf were equivalent to driving a gasoline-powered BMW 320D for 24,000 miles. For a larger Tesla Model S battery, carbon emissions used in production are equivalent to driving the BMW 320D for 60,000 miles.
The Tesla S is the electric vehicle of choice in the Silicon Valley—they cost about $145,000 (from my experience, most of them are driven by dim-witted drivers who don’t seem to feel a need to wash their super luxury vehicles).
It is also curious how those who think they are doing their share in saving the planet by driving an electric car are not concerned about the horrid environmental impact associated with mining the essential mineral required for the batteries. And, of course, the mining creates its own greenhouse gases.
Oh, and then there is this ugly fact: those batteries are not recycled. Quite a few companies are trying to get into that game, but so far no one is able to do it efficiently (don’t tell anyone, but I have a friend who works at the Tesla battery assembly plant in Nevada—there hundreds of rail cars chock full of used Tesla automobiles that previous owners traded in; no one wants to replace the batteries after they are spent).
The bottom line is, until electricity can be generated by emissions-free energy, battery-powered vehicles will generally increase, rather than reduce, emissions. The EPA’s new rules to put more electric vehicles on the roads will take away choices for consumers without reducing emissions.
Finally, I invite you to listen to my daily podcast, the Brian Sussman Show, heard on all the popular podcasting platforms, as well as at my website, briansussman.com
About the proposed takeover of PG&E: