EVs
This week Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland cried during congressional testimony when discussing her department’s failure to grant various mining and drilling permits necessary to enhance the Nation’s energy needs. Calling climate change the existential crisis of our time. Her mindless adherence to the religion of climate change was truly astonishing.
She said, “All of this is because climate change is the crisis of our lifetime!” while claiming weather events were responsible for changes in temperature. “We can’t continue to be a one-industry country, referring to oil, gas, and coal.” The former congresswoman from New Mexico has no known scientific background regarding the matter.
This attitude is emblematic of the Regime’s recently proposed Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) regulations regarding tail pipe emissions on fossil fueled cars. The EPA requirements are expected to ensure that electric vehicles constitute between 54 and 60 percent of all new cars sold in the United States by 2030, with that number rising to 64 to 67 percent of new car sales by 2032. Currently only 5.8 percent of vehicles sold last year were all electric. The Biden regime mandate would fundamentally change the entire domestic auto industry.
Senator Joe Manchin, (D-WVA) who is chairman of the Senate Energy Committee, denounced the EPA’s vehicle emissions standards, which will try to push Americans toward purchasing electric vehicles. He made the following statement on the matter.
“The EPA is lying to Americans with false claims about how their manipulation of the market to boost EVs will help American energy security. In reality, this is a Trojan horse. To meet these timelines will mean strengthening our reliance on minerals and technologies controlled by the Chinese. Taken in concert with the clear violation of the IRA (Inflation Reduction Act) to undermine provisions that would actually secure these supply chains, this Administration is taking steps that will only result in a more energy secure and powerful China. I don’t believe that making progress on climate change should come at the expense of our national and energy security. I fully support Congress overturning these dangerous EPA regulations.”
The Senator is spot on. Why would we make our Nation more dependent on the Chinese? Does anyone actually think that the ChiComs give a wit about climate change? Based on their behavior worldwide, Chinese President Xi and his gang seek world dominance not parity. The materials needed to produce the batteries for these “climate saving” cars are not in abundance here. Those elements are abundant in some of the most hostile, America hating countries in the world. For example, 68 percent of the cobalt needed comes from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a corrupt country that uses child labor to mine it for the Chinese.
Bloomberg ranked China as the number one metal refiner manufacturing EV batteries. 80 percent of the world capacity is controlled by them, the United States ranks 15th. To power those refineries, China continues to build coal fired power plants that spew un-scrubbed smoke into the atmosphere. The air is so bad in Beijing that it makes the worst air quality city in the United States look pristine.
Then there’s the weight of these climate saving cars. Electric models from Ford, Volvo and Toyota are all roughly 33 percent heavier than the gas-powered versions of the same vehicles. General Motors electric Hummer, which Joe Biden famously gushed over, weighs 8,800 pounds. (Nearly four and half tons) Its battery pack weighs the same as a Honda Civic. What do you suppose all these heavy vehicles will do to road and bridge infrastructure after years of use? Finally, these batteries don’t last forever, they have to be replaced and safely disposed of. To date, no one in the EPA has offered a solution to the toxic waste contained in these batteries or what to do about it.
If consumers want electric vehicles that’s great, but let it be a function of the free market, not a government mandate. The religion of climate change is driven by a lot of goody two shoe loons who know as much about climate change as a pig knows about Sunday. The Greta Thunberg’s of the world live in a smug bubble of self-righteous indignation when it comes to the use of fossil fuel or nuclear energy. They all must believe that the Energy Fairy powers their computers and refrigerators.
The cold hard facts are there isn’t enough power in the current electric grid to charge all these pipe dream cars envisioned by Joe and his pals. Ask any reputable energy expert and you will be told that there is no way solar, wind and geothermal is adequate for proposed future power needs.
Interior Secretary Deb Haaland might want to consult the experts before tearing up during congressional testimony.