The fallacy of electric vehicles – Bing video
You have to remember that the deep state is trying to destroy our economy to usher in CBDCs and the one world government under UN control. If they renewed oil leases and drilled more, bringing down the cost of gas, they wouldn’t be able to crush the economy as fast. Trump already laid out how to beat Putin. Produce Oil. This Ukraine shit is just their chance to line their own pockets. There will be hell to pay when actual MAGA rides in on the pale horse come November. No conservative in their right mind thinks Ukraine needs another damn dime.
SACRAMENTO, CA — With skyrocketing costs and grid failures across California:
the Californian government is recommending everyone purchase a giant human-sized hamster wheel to generate electricity to charge their electric cars.
“Electric cars are admittedly a bit less functional without electricity,” Governor Gavin Newsom in a statement. “So, the other day I had this great idea. You peasants can just generate your own electricity on massive spinning wheels, just like hamsters! You all don’t have anything important to do anyway, I assume.”
The new wheel, currently being developed by top engineers working for the State of California, will stand eight feet tall and look incredibly stupid. Early users report that a full charge requires the equivalent of a 38-mile sprint.
“As soon as little Timmy gets home from daycare, I just put him on the wheel,” said local dad Jon Bennett. “It’s too much for one person, so we get the whole family involved. I even put my mother-in-law in there, but it’s mostly just to watch. She’s so slow with her bad hip.”
The wheel will also be employed in Europe where certain areas project the cost of electricity for a single car charge to reach one hundred euros.
At publishing time, California announced a high-end luxury wheel, with a lower-friction wheel and a feed trough to keep people going.
As the Romans were fond of saying, beware politicians offering panaceas.
The latest meta-trend to catch hold of the collective consciousness is the electric vehicle revolution. Unless you’ve been living under a rock or in a proper nuclear quarantine bunker, the age of the internal combustion engine (ICE) or more broadly the age of combustion, is rapidly drawing to a close. Age of Combustion (1775-2020) R.I.P.
The world of tomorrow is here today, so they say. Gone are the noisy internal combustion engines of yesteryear, replaced by the silent effortless humming of the electric fuel cell and battery. Gone are the greenhouse-gas-causing fossil fuels (namely, coal, oil and natural gas) of our forebears, replaced by a limitless supply of clean electricity.
Look no further then the current stock market for evidence supporting the above statements. Tesla, the most recognized electric car company, is now the second largest car company in the world, trailing only Toyota (which makes a mix of electric, hybrid and
ICE vehicles), and boasts a market capitalization (stock price multiplied by total shares outstanding) of one hundred fifty-five billion U.S. dollars. Based on this measure, Tesla is larger than Volkswagen, Daimler Chrysler, GM and Ford Motor Company combined.
The broad-scale endorsement of a global transition from ICE vehicle transportation to electric vehicle (EV) transportation is being accelerated by a diverse collection of political and social trends, typically involving some combination of the following:
- Almost universal endorsement of “green” initiatives or mindset by the Hollywood and media elite. This includes the celebratizing of a new generation of climate warriors and the painting of fossil fuels as toxic or dirty. I personally take umbrage with this slandering, as “dirty” is a relative term. As compared to what? Combustion practices of the 1800s and 1900s? Or in comparison to the primary form of work energy prior to the Age of Combustion. . . forced human labor (living in smoky cottages heated by wood or coal)? I and many others respectfully disagree.
- Tax and fiduciary initiatives that subsidize purchase and ownership of electric vehicles or the production of electricityfrom solar or wind technologies.
- Legislative efforts that either ban ICE vehicles in certain congested urban areas (such as Paris) or ban the sale of ICE vehicles outright at some point in the distant future. All of these initiatives have the commonality of taking effect at some point between 2030 and 2050. Call these political procrastination policies, never mind the ethics of passing policies for a future generation where a portion of expected future voters is not old enough to pay taxes or vote in publicly held elections.
- Applying social pressure on quasi-public investment funds to divest from hydrocarbon-related businesses and the sustaining investments to support them. An example of this would be sovereign, pension and retirement wealth funds pulling their money from equities and funds involved in hydrocarbon extraction or processing—for example, the Harvard University Endowment selling all of its ExxonMobil holdings.
- All of the above serve the purpose of re-leveling the playing field in favor of “green” or “clean” energy in place of “dirty” hydrocarbon energy. In other words, accelerating the clean green revolution. . . that is already here according to Wall Street
FIGURE 1: Global Energy Mix Source: XOM 2019 Annual Energy Report
INCONVENIENT DETAIL: MORE POLLUTION, NOT LESS
However—and there is always a however—there are a few inconvenient details that politicians and other celebrity types frequently fail to include when heralding our new energy future. The largest of these inconvenient details is the fact that oil, coal and natural gas still supply an overwhelming amount of the useable energy that we consume today. Around 80 percent of the energy used globally is fossil fuel-based and the majority of non-fossil fuel energy is either in the form of nuclear or hydroelectric, both of which come with their own special set of drawbacks.
For reference and understanding see Figure 1, which shows annual energy consumption by source type in both percentage and absolute terms. Absolute energy is measured in quads, short for quadrillion BTUs (a one with fifteen zeros). (A BTU or British Thermal Unit is the amount of energy or heat required to raise one pound of water one degree Fahrenheit.) Coronavirus slowdown aside, total energy consumption globally stands at around 550-575 quads per year, and the average annual energy consumption per person is 0.000000000125 quads per person.
Today, oil remains the largest primary source of energy used globally and deserves special attention as oil’s use is almost exclusively dedicated to transportation and the production of building materials (petrochemicals). Roughly 80-85 percent of oil’s use is in the form of transportation fuels for vehicles (gasoline and diesel engines), trains, tractors, airplanes and marine vessels.
In order to displace oil for electricity in passenger vehicles, the world would need to increase the amount of electricity generated by just over 150 quads per year. Or to put this gargantuan effort in perspective, the world would need to roughly triple its electricity production in order to switch from ICEVs to EVs. This need for a massive increase in electricity generation results in one of the green energy revolution’s true paradoxes: the electricity supply of last resort is overwhelmingly coal, particularly in China and India. Both countries are at the forefront of the vehicle electrification movement, but doing it primarily with coal-produced electricity, which has the net environmental impact of producing more greenhouse gases, not less.
To generate one million BTUs from coal produces about 225 pounds of carbon dioxide.
By comparison, generating one million BTUs from gasoline or diesel produces only 160 pounds of carbon dioxide (about 30 percent less) and natural gas generates only 110 pounds of carbon dioxide or about 45 percent less CO2 emissions. As EVs become more widespread, we can expect more pollution, not less.
INCONVENIENT DETAIL: THE COST
Electric vehicles are expensive. They cost 25-40 percent more to manufacture, primarily because the engine of an electric vehicle requires different materials than an internal combustion engine. Those materials are subject to their own laws of supply and demand and the natural constraints of supply and demand. Any large-scale increase in EV production will eventually slam into this economic reality.
First the numbers: although estimates can be a bit fuzzy given the source material, particularly from the developing world, the estimate for the total size of the global vehicle fleet stands at an estimated 1.4 billion vehicles or one vehicle per every 5.5 inhabitants. The U.S., by comparison, is roughly one vehicle per every 1.8 inhabitants. By comparison, the total number of pure electric and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles on the road today stands at just over 8.5 million or about 0.6 percent of the vehicle fleet population. If you used media attention and stories as your only source for estimating the size of the global electric vehicle fleet, most people would logically assume that EVs comprise at least half of the global vehicle fleet—just look at Tesla’s stock market valuation!
Aside from the relative size of the vehicle populations (ICE versus EV), the next inconvenient reality is the vehicle-to-vehicle cost comparison. The ICE vehicle is typically 20-30 percent cheaper in the initial purchase but does cost 5-10 percent more in terms of annual maintenance and fuel costs (depending on the price of oil). See Figure 2 for a 2015 comparison by the consulting firm Arthur Little.
With tax incentives and rebates, the cost of electric vehicles has fallen substantially in the past five years, with the average cost difference between an ICE vehicle and EV closer to 15-20 percent over a ten- to twenty-year life of the vehicle in net present value terms, using a standard discount rate. For the time being, however, the fact remains that EVs cost more to purchase and run.
INCONVENIENT FACT: COBALT
The next inconvenient reality has to do with the material composition of an EV engine versus an internal combustion (IC) engine. An electric vehicle uses about three times more copper than an IC engine and substantially more nickel and cobalt than a traditional internal combustion engine forged of machine steel.
Nickel and cobalt are the key elements used in the cathode chemistry of most electric vehicle batteries today. The typical electric vehicle uses about five kilograms of cobalt (ten to eleven pounds). (Ironically, the other major industrial use for cobalt is in the production of catalysts to remove sulfur from crude oil during the oil refining process.)
Total annual consumption of cobalt today is roughly 265 million metric tonnes, with batteries making up about half the total global cobalt demand. Each 10 percent conversion of the global vehicle fleet will require 700 million metric tonnes of cobalt or a tripling of total global cobalt production. Converting half of the global vehicle fleet to EV would require the globe to produce fifteen times more cobalt than it does today.
FIGURE 2: Total Cost of Ownership over a 20-year lifetime for a 2015 ICEV versus an equivalent BEV (battery electric vehicles) Source: Arthur D. Little, 2015
Therein lies the real problem: a massive increase in the production of electric vehicles is going to run into a major supply crunch, both in terms of the type of electricity produced and the amount of cobalt mined. We’ll need to burn a lot more fossil fuel to produce all the electricity we’ll need for the “clean” electric car.
Cobalt mining is particularly worrisome in that some 65 percent or two-thirds of the world’s mined cobalt supply comes from one place, the Democratic Republic of Congo in sub-Saharan Africa. Most of the cobalt for electric cars comes from what are euphemistically referred to as artisanal mines. Don’t kid yourself—this is code for a child in a mud pit guarded by an overseer (usually a teenager) with an automatic rifle.
Here is the reality for politicians and celebrities who have already decided that the age of the green clean electric vehicle is here. The global supply chain and energy infrastructure are nowhere ready or prepared to handle the paper electric revolution.
LITHIUM TO THE RESCUE?
That being said, it doesn’t mean that the noble vision of a cleaner and healthier planet. The most exciting development is new technologies that shift the battery chemistry away from nickel and cobalt to more abundant lithium. But many of these emerging technologies are five to ten years away from being fully commercial.
The type of technological and energy infrastructure revolution required to support the much-touted green energy revolution is unfortunately twenty-five to thirty years away. Even that is probably a bit on the optimistic side as it assumes a relatively stable political and financial environment. As the last three months taught us, despite an extended period of peace and prosperity, uncertainty is always lurking around every corner, door knob or hand rail, as the case may be.
Like so many other issues, electric vehicles are an emotional one.
Many people think that electric vehicles are the transportation of the future. However, as we will see this is nothing short of fantasy, and unachievable.
The first thing we will look at is the demand side, where we will examine the feasibility of recharging electric vehicles as compared to the gasoline car. In part two, we will look at the supply side to see what would be involved in recharging electric vehicles in volume and what the electric grid can handle.
In part three, we will review materials involved in both green energy and electric vehicles, and finally the physical aspects of electric vehicles in daily transportation in different climates.
How long does it take to recharge an average electric car, and what are the energy requirements?
According to Motor Biscuit, it takes about 30 KW hours to travel 100 miles in an electric vehicle. That gives us a starting point for our discussion. About 3.3 million Americans have a commute of greater than 50 miles one way each day. The average commute is 30 minutes per day.
We can now calculate the kilowatt hours required for an average electric vehicle. Take a 10-mile commute one way, 5 days per week. That means 20 miles per day, or 30 KW hours for a 5-day work week. So how many miles per day do Americans drive per day? According to US government statistics, about 11 billion miles per day. Now we will divide that number by 100 and multiply by 30 KW hours. The answer is an astonishing 3.3 billion KW hours per day that would be required. It can take up to 40 hours to recharge an electric car on standard house current.
This implies that you may have to leave your electric vehicle on charge over the weekend. New technology may reduce the wait to a relatively short 5 minutes, but until that happens it takes hours on average to recharge an electric vehicle. If we averaged 6 hours at a charging station per vehicle, just 100 vehicles would take 600 hours, or more than 3 1/2 weeks to recharge 100 vehicles. Clearly, without new technology to quickly recharge electric vehicles, this is not feasible.
Now we will look at the supply side. Using our calculated daily amount of 3.3 billion KW hours, we will multiply that number by 365 days in a year. The answer is an approximate 1.204 trillion KW hours required by electric vehicles if everyone drove electric vehicles. In 2020, approximately 4.009 trillion KW hours were generated. (6) In order to supply all these hypothetical vehicles, we would have to increase the electricity supply by more than 25%. Can solar and wind do this? It takes about 10% more land for a “green” solar farm producing 100 megawatts than it does for a thermal energy plant. (7). Then we have the problem that “green” energy is intermittent and unreliable. Even if it wasn’t, one of the greatest construction projects in history, perhaps rivaling that of the pyramids, would be necessary to switch to solar and wind, though nuclear could take up some of the slack.
One quick glance at the materials needed tells a person that mass production, which depends on international sources, will be plagued with difficulties. The batteries are the primary issue, as they require materials such as rare earths that have to be imported. (8) Electric vehicles will also substantially impact supplies of copper, used in electric motors. (9)
Finally, there is the issue of cold weather. All vehicles are affected by climate; it’s a fact. However, while the gasoline car’s range is relatively unaffected by running the heater, you can’t say the same for an electric vehicle. Either a heat pump (to remove heat from the engine) or a resistance coil heater will be required in cold climates. Either will require a convection fan which further drains the battery. (10) Of course, getting stuck somewhere and having to use extra energy to get out of a snowbank is a terrifying prospect with such a vehicle.
To wrap up, electric vehicles stand as a monument to the failure of thinking and planning. They recharge too slowly, and would require greatly increased electric capacity. Building them, and then operating them in severe climates, is simply not feasible for most people.
- https://www.motorbiscuit.com/how-many-kilowatt-hours-does-electric-car-use/
- https://itstillruns.com/far-americans-drive-work-average-7446397.html
- https://www.bts.gov/statistical-products/surveys/national-household-travel-survey-daily-travel-quick-facts#:~:text
- https://www.kbb.com/car-advice/how-long-does-take-charge-electric-car/
- https://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2021/Q4/electric-vehicles-could-fully-recharge-in-under-5-minutes-with-new-charging-station-cable-design.html
- https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/electricity-in-the-us-generation-capacity-and-sales.php
- https://greencoast.org/solar-farm-land-requirements/
- https://www.usitc.gov/ the_supply_chain_for_electric_vehicle_batteries.pdf
- https://copperalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/2017.06-E-Mobility-Factsheet-1.pdf
- https://www.consumerreports.org/hybrids-evs/buying-an-electric-car-for-a-cold-climate-double-down-on-range/
Obama Legacy: List of Failed Obama Green Energy & Solar Companies: Losses in the Billions for Taxpayers. None Succeeded.
The ridiculous All Electric Car Policy of the Biden Administration will go down as the greatest gift that our Country has ever given to China. They have, or control, 100% of the material necessary to make the BATTERY – We have nothing, but we have the “gasoline,” & they don’t. Electric cars are much more expensive, both to buy and to run, will NEVER go nearly as far, & will have very little overall impact on the environment. This is almost as “dumb” as the U.S. Border Policy. LET MARKET DECIDE! @realDonaldTrump
“There is no market, or not much of one, for vehicles that are less convenient and cost thousands of dollars more than similar-sized gas-powered alternatives – but do not save enough fuel to compensate. The basic theory of the Obama push for electric vehicles –
If you build them, customers will come – was a myth. And an expensive one, at that.”
“The president’s new $2.3 trillion infrastructure proposal includes the same kinds of “green energy” provisions that cost taxpayers billions following the 2009 stimulus bill – The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).”
“The main problem with the government getting involved in subsidizing and mandating particular energy sources is that these policies try to prevent winners from winning and keep losers from losing. In the case of the Crescent Dunes solar array, even nearly $1 billion in taxpayer money wasn’t enough to keep it afloat.”
The One Billion Dollar Solar Failure in Nevada
A solar thermal plant in Nevada is the latest in the long list of Obama administration energy failures. The Crescent Dunes solar facility remains on the hook to repay $737 million in loan guarantees from the federal government, according to Bloomberg.
Unlike solar facilities in Minnesota, which use photovoltaic (PV) panels to turn sunlight into electricity, the Crescent Dunes plant used an array of mirrors to heat a tank filled with molten salt that would then heat water to generate steam and electricity.
The difference between solar PV and thermal solar plants like Crescent Dunes is important because PV panels have seen a reduction in cost of about 80 percent since 2010, causing solar thermal plants to fall out of favor with developers. As a result, solar thermal projects like Crescents Dunes are going belly up. But according to the Obama administration, it wasn’t supposed to be this way.
According to Bloomberg:
In 2011 the $1 billion project was to be the biggest solar plant of its kind, and it looked like the future of renewable power. Citigroup Inc. and other financiers invested $140 million with its developer, SolarReserve Inc. Steven Chu, the U.S. The Department of Energy secretary at the time, offered the company government loan guarantees, and Harry Reid, then the Senate majority leader and senior senator from Nevada, cleared the way for the company to build on public land. At a Washington celebration of SolarReserve’s public funding, Chief Executive Officer Kevin Smith told the assembled politicians, “We’re proud to be doing our part to win the future.”
It appears the future was lost, as the facility has been shut down since last April after the facility lost its last customer because the solar installation was too unreliable. According to the Bloomberg article, the cost of generating electricity from Crescent Dunes was $135 per megawatt hour, which is about 4.2 times more than the electricity generated at the Sherburne County coal plant in Becker, Minnesota.
Solar advocates will argue that the declining cost of solar PV is reason to continue building it, but they are missing the point. It is true that solar PV costs have fallen about 80 percent since 2010, according to Lawrence Berkeley Labs data, but solar panels are still more expensive (and less useful) than new natural gas plants.
The main problem with the government getting involved in subsidizing and mandating particular energy sources is that these policies try to prevent winners from winning and keep losers from losing. In the case of the Crescent Dunes solar array, even nearly $1 billion in taxpayer money wasn’t enough to keep it afloat. “The Department of Energy on Thursday announced that it had recovered some $200 million in taxpayer dollars loaned to a failed solar energy startup by the Obama administration.”
“That money represents just part of the $737 million that the Department of Energy previously issued to Tonopah Solar Energy in 2011; $424 million was still outstanding at the time the settlement was reached…” Trump Admin Recovers $200 Million From Obama-Era Solar Boondoggle (freebeacon.com) OK Trump recovered it so let’s see it handed out again. Oh wait I bet Ukraine’s gonna get that.  Big guy probably going to give Ukraine 5% the rest is going to Hunter Biden and special interest
These people are fools. What’s worse is some Americans are bigger fools to believe them.
You Know You’re Dating a Texan Woman When… – YouTube